After arriving in Phnom Penh Airport and going through customs, the first thing that struck me as
odd and really quite sad was the sign that read: “please don't
touch our children”. If you weren't aware before you entered the
country, this polite request informs you that Cambodia has a problem with child abuse. It's not long until you realise that Cambodia has
other problems too. Exploring Phnom Penh, particularly away from the
more tourist friendly areas, along with the obvious problem of
poverty, you notice that a higher than normal proportion of the Khmer
people have disabilities. To be more precise, you notice many of the
local Khmer are missing limbs, usually a leg, sometimes both. Whether
or not you came to Phnom Penh to learn about Cambodia's horrific not
so distant past, it's hard not to be touched and intrigued by the
struggles that the Cambodia people have endured and still endure, as
is clearly visible. For me personally, a visit to the Tuol Sleng
Genocide Museum (S21tourture prison) and Choeung Ek (the Killing
Fields) were essential. As Sombre as visiting these sites would
surely be, I wanted to further understand what and why happened in
Cambodia at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.
So on my first full day, I found a taxi, arranged a price for the
day, and set off a little later than planned due to the previous late
night and customary hangover. First stop Tuol Sleng. Making our way
through Phnom Penh's traffic I noticed how disjointed and unruly
motorists seemed to be. I was given a taster of the city's road
etiquette as I walked through the city the evening before. I had
tried crossing the road and failed on several attempts as motorists
not only drove on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic,
they actually came at you from all angles, forcing you to scan an
area of 180 degrees before crossing. This is a lot harder than it
sounds as the roads were packed with motorists, mainly motorbikes,
who liked nothing more than to change direction at the last moment
with no prior warning. From my view out of the back of the taxi, I
tried to assess the roads from a motorists perspective, but still
couldn't work out why I had not yet seen an accident. I was later
told by a French National who now resides in the city, that although
it looks extremely chaotic and disorganised, there is an understood
system that works, for the most part anyway. That said, traffic accidents are apparently extremely common.
We arrive at Tuol Sleng and I enter. Originally a school, it was used
by the Khmer Rouge during their time in power from 1975 to 1979, as a
prison, torture chamber and interrogation centre. Once you've paid at
the entrance you walk through into a courtyard which consists of
three dirty and drab looking concrete buildings, positioned towards
the back and sides. Centrally is a well maintained garden area,
adding a little colour and an air of serenity to an otherwise dreary
and depressing scene. Laid out to the side of the garden was a small
graveyard. My day grew ever more sombre and reflective from this
point on.
For the most part the multi storey buildings contained two types of
rooms. The larger rooms were capable of holding several prisoners and
were used for interrogation and torture, while other rooms were
holding cells and were divided into many much smaller cells, some
probably able to accommodate only a single person. I started with the
larger rooms in the building to my left. Each room was dirty, dark
and depressing. Some were completely empty while others contained
metal beds, torture equipment and had photos of blood stained floors
and lifeless victims shackled to beds. Going from room to room I
slowly began to immerse myself in my surroundings, trying to imagine
the horror and dread the victims would have felt, knowing the only
thing they had to look forward to after the pain and humiliation, was
death. A strange mood enveloped me, one that was new and alien, and
one that is very hard to explain. I think it stemmed from the
realisation of just how sick and heartless a human being must be in
order to carry out such atrocities. To watch someone suffer in that
way would be unbearable, but to be the cause of that suffering, well,
it takes someone either inhuman or someone who is so afraid of
succumbing to the same fate that they dare not disobey their orders.
For humanity's sake, I truly hope that for the majority of Khmer
Rouge who committed these heinous and horrific acts of barbarism,
they did so out of an innate sense of self-preservation, and not
because they in anyway wanted to. It allows for much more hope if one
believes that a few unhinged, cold and heartless individuals some how
forced or coerced the majority through threats, intimidation and indoctrination.
Having pushed such grim thoughts to the back of my mind I moved on to
a part of the museum that exhibited photos; lined up were rows and
rows of pictures of both the victims and the perpetrators. That
strange mood quickly came back, even more intense than before. The
cold emotionless expressions of the young looking jailers were quite
chilling. What were they really thinking? Did they really believe
that what they were doing was for the greater good? The ages of the
victims varied more, ranging from young boys right up to middle-aged
adults. Some were photos of them as new arrivals, others showed the
bodies of the dead having already been through hell. The photos that
have been permanently welded to my consciousness are that of a young
mother and baby. After these photos were taken, the mother would have
suffered unimaginably through interrogation and torture, probably
already aware that no matter how she responded, execution would be
the outcome. What would have happened to the baby I'm not quite sure,
but I suspect as torture would have been useless, death would have
come quicker. The Khmer Rouge did a thorough job of documenting
every prisoner who came through S21; of the 14,000 who were sent herefor interrogation, there are only 7 known survivors.
I continued on to the building situated at the back of the courtyard
where inmates were kept in small holding cells. While some cells were
wooden with peep-holes in the doors, others were simple door-less
brick structures with no other features except a single metal
shackle. Both were dank and would have been extremely uncomfortable
places to stay.
Time was getting away a little, plus I felt I had seen enough, so I
walked through the courtyard and exited out the other side where I
found my amiable little taxi man. “Choeung Ek we go” my taxi man
informed me. So the Killing Fields we went.
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