The Killing Fields of Phnom Penh
It's taken me a few days to write this because I wanted to make sure I did this right. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm doing it right now but it has to be shared. Before I got to Cambodia I didn't know much about its histo1,386,734 y, I know that something had happened here but I had no idea that it was to this extent and that it in fact was a genocide. But during one powerful and emotional day I learned more about this country and its tragic background.
We started our day at the S-21 prison or as it is now called the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. We learned that this was a secret center of a network of nearly 200 prisons where people were tortured by the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge came in to power on 17 April 1975 when armed men marched in to Phnom Penh and took control of the city. The photos displayed showed people smiling as this was seen as the Cambodian revolution and their way to independence from the US and the countless of bombs that they had dropped on them during the Secret War. But soon the people of Cambodia realised that it was not the revolution they had waited for. Pol Pot, the leader, believed that Cambodia needed to be purified and return to its former glory. He ordered people to leave the cities and return to the country side villages so that they could focus on farm work with the idea that they should triple the production of rice.
The S-21 prison and many of the other prisons around the country was designed for torture of "soft hands" and "intellectuals" until they confessed of their "sins" such as that they had been spying for the CIA or in any other way been involved in political involvement, all of the accusations were fabricated and the confessions written and signed because they couldn't stand the torture anymore. In S-21 alone between 12 000-20 000 were imprisoned and only twelve survived.
As I mentioned at first it was intellectuals, doctors, teachers and artists that were sentenced together with their families. Even their children and babies were sent here as the Lhmer Rouge believed that they needed to ensure that no one was alive to revenge the death of their family member (so they clearly knew how sick and wrong this entire thing was since they knew people would want revenge.) But after some time Pol Pots got paranoid and started sending Khmer Rouge soldiers and interrogators to the prison as well. The soldiers were often recruited at a young age, from small rural villages, therefore easy to manipulate.
We spent an hour at S-21 and it simply wasn't enough, especially if you take the audio tour, at least two hours for this. It was so informative and powerful with stories from relatives of the victims. In one of the buildings they had hundreds of photos of soldiers and prisoners staring back at you and I remember this one story told by the daughter of one of the S-21 victims. This man had emigrated to Africa where he had started a family but as the revolution took place all Cambodians around the world were asked to come back to help Cambodia back on its feet. So this man went with pride back to his home country with the promise to his wife and two kids that he would send for them as he had settled. That was the last they ever heard from it. When the prison opened years later the walls were covered with pictures of the inmates, thousands and thousands of faces staring back at you. The daughter told the story of how she had come there with her mother and brother staring at the photographs trying to find their dad. Staring at every single photo searching for their loved one when I thought it was overwhelming to see only a fraction of the photos. I can never imagine how that must have felt.
At one point I ended up hiding in the corner, shielding myself as I felt the tears coming. I was listening to a brother's testimony of what had happened to his brother based on the "confession" he had been forced to write. It was a story about an Australian that had wanted to fulfil his dream by sailing around the world and had by accident sailed in to Cambodian waters where he had been arrested. In his brother's testimony he said that his brother had showed the Western world how absurd it all was and how he had kept his humour to the very end when he named Coronol Sanders of Kentucky as his superior, used his friends names as fellow spies and used their home telephone number as his CIA operative code number. As his voice started to crack and he struggled through his tears at reading his brother's last words I struggled with him.
Outside the three main prison blocks were shaded areas under the trees where you could see people sitting listening to their audio guide, having their very own one to one experience with the stories told and with stern faces and what I can only imagine was tear filled eyes behind their sunglasses.
As we finished the tour we all took a deep breath and relaxed for a bit as we headed to the next stop: the Killing Fields or the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center. Once again we received an audio guide and as we started off the tour we soon realised that the route we had taken between S-21 and the Killing Fields was most likely the same route as the prisoners were travelling after they had confessed their "sins" and were sentenced to death.
One of the interesting things about the audio tour was that there was not only survivors that spoke but alsi guards and executioners spoke about their experiences and their duties. It is strange to think that many of the people working as executioners are still alive today, living a "normal" life or however normal a life can be with the knowledge of your actions on your conscience.
There were areas where mass graves had been found, one with over 450 bodies in and there were specific paths that we were requested to stick to as remains of bodies and clothing were still being found as the rain washed away the soil.
But without a doubt the most horrific and powerful place was what was referred to as the Killing Tree. This is a tree located next to a mass grave. On 7 January 1979 the Khmer Rouge regime was overthrown and as people were walking home they walked past Choeung Ek where they first came across this tree which was covered in blood and brain remains. Next to it they found the mass grave and the blood and brain remains were suddenly explained. What they did was to take young children and babies by their legs and swing them in to the tree before tossing them in the mass grave next to their mothers.
A memorial stupa has been raised in which the remains of the victims of the Choeung Ek Killing Fields has been preserved. Unfortunately this is only one of over 300 Killing Fields around Cambodia totalling in an estimated 1 386 734 executions alone. It is estimated that the total number of deaths, including starvation and death, was between 1.7 - 2.5 million out of the 8 million population at the time.
The audio tour at the Killing Fields ended in reminding us that this is not the first time a genocide has occured and unfortunately it is not the last but he asked that we share our knowledge of the Cambodian history and learn from it in the hope that genocides will be something of the past and not part of our future. So I am sharing this emotional experience with you in the hope that you will want to learn from it, maybe even find out more about it and continue to share it so that we will not be ruled by fanatics again. Though looking at the state of the world right now that might just be a naive dream...
We started our day at the S-21 prison or as it is now called the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. We learned that this was a secret center of a network of nearly 200 prisons where people were tortured by the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge came in to power on 17 April 1975 when armed men marched in to Phnom Penh and took control of the city. The photos displayed showed people smiling as this was seen as the Cambodian revolution and their way to independence from the US and the countless of bombs that they had dropped on them during the Secret War. But soon the people of Cambodia realised that it was not the revolution they had waited for. Pol Pot, the leader, believed that Cambodia needed to be purified and return to its former glory. He ordered people to leave the cities and return to the country side villages so that they could focus on farm work with the idea that they should triple the production of rice.
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| The S-21 memorial |
The S-21 prison and many of the other prisons around the country was designed for torture of "soft hands" and "intellectuals" until they confessed of their "sins" such as that they had been spying for the CIA or in any other way been involved in political involvement, all of the accusations were fabricated and the confessions written and signed because they couldn't stand the torture anymore. In S-21 alone between 12 000-20 000 were imprisoned and only twelve survived.
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| One of the torture methods tool |
As I mentioned at first it was intellectuals, doctors, teachers and artists that were sentenced together with their families. Even their children and babies were sent here as the Lhmer Rouge believed that they needed to ensure that no one was alive to revenge the death of their family member (so they clearly knew how sick and wrong this entire thing was since they knew people would want revenge.) But after some time Pol Pots got paranoid and started sending Khmer Rouge soldiers and interrogators to the prison as well. The soldiers were often recruited at a young age, from small rural villages, therefore easy to manipulate.
We spent an hour at S-21 and it simply wasn't enough, especially if you take the audio tour, at least two hours for this. It was so informative and powerful with stories from relatives of the victims. In one of the buildings they had hundreds of photos of soldiers and prisoners staring back at you and I remember this one story told by the daughter of one of the S-21 victims. This man had emigrated to Africa where he had started a family but as the revolution took place all Cambodians around the world were asked to come back to help Cambodia back on its feet. So this man went with pride back to his home country with the promise to his wife and two kids that he would send for them as he had settled. That was the last they ever heard from it. When the prison opened years later the walls were covered with pictures of the inmates, thousands and thousands of faces staring back at you. The daughter told the story of how she had come there with her mother and brother staring at the photographs trying to find their dad. Staring at every single photo searching for their loved one when I thought it was overwhelming to see only a fraction of the photos. I can never imagine how that must have felt.
At one point I ended up hiding in the corner, shielding myself as I felt the tears coming. I was listening to a brother's testimony of what had happened to his brother based on the "confession" he had been forced to write. It was a story about an Australian that had wanted to fulfil his dream by sailing around the world and had by accident sailed in to Cambodian waters where he had been arrested. In his brother's testimony he said that his brother had showed the Western world how absurd it all was and how he had kept his humour to the very end when he named Coronol Sanders of Kentucky as his superior, used his friends names as fellow spies and used their home telephone number as his CIA operative code number. As his voice started to crack and he struggled through his tears at reading his brother's last words I struggled with him.
Outside the three main prison blocks were shaded areas under the trees where you could see people sitting listening to their audio guide, having their very own one to one experience with the stories told and with stern faces and what I can only imagine was tear filled eyes behind their sunglasses.
As we finished the tour we all took a deep breath and relaxed for a bit as we headed to the next stop: the Killing Fields or the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center. Once again we received an audio guide and as we started off the tour we soon realised that the route we had taken between S-21 and the Killing Fields was most likely the same route as the prisoners were travelling after they had confessed their "sins" and were sentenced to death.
One of the interesting things about the audio tour was that there was not only survivors that spoke but alsi guards and executioners spoke about their experiences and their duties. It is strange to think that many of the people working as executioners are still alive today, living a "normal" life or however normal a life can be with the knowledge of your actions on your conscience.
There were areas where mass graves had been found, one with over 450 bodies in and there were specific paths that we were requested to stick to as remains of bodies and clothing were still being found as the rain washed away the soil.
But without a doubt the most horrific and powerful place was what was referred to as the Killing Tree. This is a tree located next to a mass grave. On 7 January 1979 the Khmer Rouge regime was overthrown and as people were walking home they walked past Choeung Ek where they first came across this tree which was covered in blood and brain remains. Next to it they found the mass grave and the blood and brain remains were suddenly explained. What they did was to take young children and babies by their legs and swing them in to the tree before tossing them in the mass grave next to their mothers.
A memorial stupa has been raised in which the remains of the victims of the Choeung Ek Killing Fields has been preserved. Unfortunately this is only one of over 300 Killing Fields around Cambodia totalling in an estimated 1 386 734 executions alone. It is estimated that the total number of deaths, including starvation and death, was between 1.7 - 2.5 million out of the 8 million population at the time.
The audio tour at the Killing Fields ended in reminding us that this is not the first time a genocide has occured and unfortunately it is not the last but he asked that we share our knowledge of the Cambodian history and learn from it in the hope that genocides will be something of the past and not part of our future. So I am sharing this emotional experience with you in the hope that you will want to learn from it, maybe even find out more about it and continue to share it so that we will not be ruled by fanatics again. Though looking at the state of the world right now that might just be a naive dream...
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