I truly loved Cambodia from the second I entered. The people are warm, friendly, helpful, and ever-smiling. Many speak near perfect English and are eager to practice by engaging travelers in conversation. Cambodia, especially its capital Phnom Penh, is rapidly growing thanks dually to tourism and foreign investment. Compared to more burgeoning neighbors like Thailand, however, Cambodia still has dramatic income disparities, skyrocketing inflation, environmental degradation, and massive government corruption. Nevertheless, when contrasted to the genocide Cambodia experienced not long ago that brought the country to the brink of destruction, it is shocking to see the recovery the nation has made in three decades.
The mid-1950s, following its independence in 1953, were known as Cambodia's golden years -- a period of significant population and economic growth. But the heyday was brief: Cambodia's eastern border territories became a base for the Viet Cong during the Vietnamese War and were heavily bombed by American troops. In 1970s, as the country was recovering from the collateral damage of a war they were forced into due to proximity, Prime Minister Sihanouk was overthrown by a radical Cambodian revolutionary movement. By 1975, the faction, better known as the Khmer Rouge ("Red Cambodians"), seized control completely of Phnom Penh and renamed Cambodia to "Democratic Kampuchea." The goal of the radicals was to transform Cambodia into a "utopian" self-sufficient peasant-controlled agrarian society. Thus, intellectuals, doctors, students, writers, authors, filmmakers, musicians, and professors were immediately killed. Anyone with glasses or who spoke a foreign language was perceived as a threat. As were city dwellers who had no agricultural skills. Monks, Christians, and ethnic Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese were also victims. Any representations of modern, non-agrarian society were deemed threats are quickly destroyed, including hospitals, schools, and temples. Cities, including Phnom Pehn, were evacuated and tens of thousands were relocated to farms where they were forced to work as slaves. The four year exercise in social engineering was led by Saloth Sar, or Pol Pot, who actually was a prized scholar in Paris before become an extreme Maoist. Under his watch, Cambodia was transformed into a concentration camp, where thousands were worked to death, including women, children, and the elderly. As all doctors were killed and medicine was outlawed, disease such as malaria and dysentery were widespread and untreated. Arbitrary murder and torture, even of women, elderly, and children, were common practices of the Khmer Rouge. By the time, the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by the Vietnamese in January 1979, it is estimated that 1.7 - 2.5 million people died (out of a Cambodian population of 8 million at the time). Most of the party leaders retreated to the Thai border and were caught throughout the 1980s. Unfortunately, due to corruption and bureaucracy, most Khmer Rouge leaders have still yet to be tried in 2011, thirty years later. The worry among many Cambodians is that many of these villains will die of old age before receiving a proper trial. But even more surprising is the fact that the Khmer Rouge was allowed to occupy the Cambodian seat in the UN General Assembly until 1991, essentially "representing their victims for twelve years" (Lonely Planet).
Although Phnom Penh was nearly vacated from 1975 - 1979, the capital city served a significant purpose during the Khmer Rouge's reign. The capital city housed the notorious Security-21 Prison ("S-21") the largest Khmer Rouge prison. It became the torturous home of tens of thousands of Khmer Rouge enemies, which as aforementioned, was essentially anyone was who not a member of the fascist faction. The prison is also known as Tuol Sleng, which literally translates to "Hill of Poisonous Trees." The building, located in downtown Phnom Penh, was originally a high school prior to its conversion to a penitentiary in 1975. One carved poem on a cell wall declares, "when this was a prison, nobody learned. When this was a school, nobody died." The school was made up of two three-story cement buildings set on a vast green quad rife with palm trees. When renovated by the Khmer Rouge, the entire grounds were overhauled and buildings were encased in electrified barbed wire. The classrooms were gutted and converted to miniscule brick cells the size of stand showers while others became torture centers. The prison held around 1,500 at a time and during its four year existence approximately 17,000 people were detained. Only three prisoners survive today.
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| Bed and toilet |
Prisoners slept on metal beds with their feet and sometimes hands shackled. Drinking water was heavily rationed, meals were a food spoonfuls of rice porridge daily, and showers consisted of getting sprayed with a hose every four days. As such, disease was rampant in S-21 including malaria, lice, and ringworm. The rules of S-21 were quite strict and spelled out as follows [sic]:
- 1. You must answer accordingly to my question. Don’t turn them away.
- 2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
- 3. Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
- 4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
- 5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
- 6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
- 7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
- 8. Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your secret or traitor.
- 9. If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
- 10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
Disobedience towards the rules results in all sorts of barbaric torture including waterboarding, suffocation, sexual abuse, removal of fingernails, electric shock, whipping, contact with hot metal rods, and drowning.
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| Waterboarding apparatus |
The prison has been preserved in the same condition as when it was operational and now serves as a museum (Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum). Former cells are lined with black and white photos of all the detainees, most are visibly diseased, malnourished, and injured even in the still photos. Some rooms depict the child prisoners, as young as five years old, while others showcase the women and elderly. Larger rooms showcase all the original torture devices accompanied by vivid oil paintings showcasing how they were used in practice. Many of the rooms still have blood on the floors from thirty years ago.
The museum is absolutely horrific to walk through. Amit, Elaine, Louise, and I are speechless, eyes filled with water as we walk through the cells.
S-21 Prison was merely a temporary 2-3 month home for its prisoners before they were transported to Choeung Ek, the largest and best-known site of Cambodia's Killing Fields (there are 20,000 total across the country). Choeung Ek is located in the surburbs slightly outside Phnom Penh. When our tuk-tuk pulls up, I immediately notice the beauty of the area, like a lush apple orchard filled with beautiful entangled trees. Prior to 1975, the grounds were used for growing watermelons, longan fruits, rice, and corn. But its beauty belies a much crueler history as Choeung Ek was the largest execution area of the Khmer Rouge, resulting in 20,000 deaths. Daily executions range from a couple dozen to 300. After serving a 2-3 sentence of torture and brutality, victims were transported from S-21 to the Killing Fields. So they would cooperate, Khmer Rouge officials blindfolded the prisoners and informed them that they were being released to their families. When they arrived at Choeung Ek, victims were quickly killed using sharpened spades, axes, hoes, wooden clubs, knives, palm branches, bamboo or poison. Guns were not used as to save ammunition, mask the execution sounds, and keep other victims in an orderly fashion. Small children, even toddlers, were executed by having their heads bashed against the field's Chankiri trees (the scars have not washed away).
Like S-21, Choeung Ek today serves as a memorial and a museum. The focal point is a glass-sided ten-story stupa that holds the remains of the 9,000 bodies found at the execution site. There are over 5,000 skulls along with stray bones and shredded clothes.
We walk around the Killing Fields with our tourguide, passing by all the mass graves. There are 129 in total, 89 of which have been excavated. The largest mass grave held 450 bodies although it's not much bigger than a small swimming pool. Not all the mass graves have been excavated and when there is a heavy rain, bone fragments and rags of clothing are known to rise to the surface. We walk among the path, cautious not to hit the bones sticking out of the surface.
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| Chankiri tree, where children and toddlers were beaten to their deaths |
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| Execution weapons |
Note: Some photos from Elaine
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