Cambodia's Killing Fields

For some reason the bus from the Laos/Cambodia border to Phnom Penh was cheaper and took less time than the bus to Siem Reap which on a map looks a lot closer. Thats not really that important, but what is, is that although a lot of people telling us through Laos that Phnom Penh was a horrible city, we had to go to visit the infamous Killing Fields and learn about the outright attrocities that were commited by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. Strange that in a region of the world famed amongst travellers more for its beaches and parties, that so many would recommend a visit to the site of mass genocide. I had wanted to pay a visit to the fields for a few years now, in fact since I was still in Uni and so it was decided that we would all go to Phnom Penh together.

As for an introduction to Phnom Penh, it really is nowhere near as nasty a city as some would have you believe. There is a district of the city where the wide boulevards are lined with French styled mansions and the area along the river is well supplied with a number of upmarket bars and restaurants. On the streets begind the riverfront there are bars more suited to a backpackers budget, there are karaoke bars, go-go bars and the city is quite a good night out I thought. We hired a tuk tuk for the day and much like in Bangkok, it had the flashing lights but our driver also had a cable to connect our phones to. Let the tuk tuk party commence. We had the music blaring and the people that we passed on our tour round the streets of Phnom Penh would quite literally down tools, messages, anything they might have been carrying and would either wave to us, or better yet, would have a little dance on the side of the road. That was cool. Cant imagine many other cities in the world where the locals would allow themselves to boogie spontaneously. Also and Luciano will back me on this, there can be no other city, perhaps country, in the world that has more Range Rovers than Phnom Penh. It was ridiculous, almost every third car was a Range Rover. I don't know what the deal is between the people and the Land Rover garage but it must be a good one.

But onto the reason for coming to Phnom Penh in the first place, the Killing Fields. Before heading out to see this area where so many Cambodians met their end we had been advised that it was perhaps better to visit Tuol Sleng prison, otherwise known as S-21, first and that way have a better understanding of what the country was experiencing before going to the Killing Fields. I think this was the right thing to do and if any of you go to Phnom Penh in the future I would recommend doing it this way too.

There is quite a lot of information surrounding the horrible attrocities committed throughout Cambodia in the 1970s, after all it wasn't that long ago and there are of course people alive today who managed to survive or escape or were the ones committing the crimes. There are also some good books about the time as well, 'First they killed my Father' is one. A brief history though; The Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot and other Cambodian intellectuals, many of whom had studied in France in the 50s and 60s, came to power in 1975 and controlled Cambodia until '79 when the Vienamese army liberated the country. The Khmer Rouge's ideology was to virtually take the country back to beginning of time by enforcing an agrarian system on the entire population. All citizens of Cambodia were to return to farmwork and produce rice en masse. Schools, hospitals, banks and other institutes were closed and both religion and the traditional social class structure in Cambodia were banned. Coupled with this, the regime put in place a systematic "clean up" of society, removing anyone with anti-party or capitalist feelings. Ethnic minorities and those found practising religion were removed as were many people from the cities merely for being unskilled in agricultural work. It is estimated that in the 4 years the Khmer Rouge were in power, 3million Cambodians were executed. Thats more than 1/4 of the entire population at the time. Many of these people were imprisoned, tortured and eventually executed based purely on suspicion with very few being guilty of any crime or injustice what-so-ever.

Tuol Sleng, S-21, was a truly terrible place. It was actually a school before the Khmer Rouge moved in and the classrooms were simply converted directly into holding cells for the large numbers of prisoners it would hold. Upon walking through the iron gate and past the barbed wire the first sight you are confronted with in the courtyard are the 14 tombstones of the bodies found executed and left in the cells as the prison guards fled the jail from the approaching Vietnamese army. Its a pretty strong opening image particularly as once inside the buildings you are then presented with photograps of the prisoners lying dead next to the beds upon which they were being tortured not long before. Most of the rooms have been emptied save for the beds upon which the prisoners would be chained to during interrogations. They would often die upon these iron frames during the process and the blood stains are still visible on many of the floors. One of the buildings, C-Block, has been left with the brick and wooden chambers in which prisoners were kept in isolation. The chambers were tiny, barely enough room to lie down in. In truth, this was no real prison, more like a death camp. Of the 20,000 prisoners who entered S-21, only three survived and this was due to Brother Duch, the leader of the prison, feeling that they had skills that were worthwhile keeping them alive for. The regime was meticulous and every man, woman and child who entered S-21 was sized and photographed. The names and records were mostly destroyed meaning that even now the people in the photos are still being identified by family members. Its very eery walking past the thousands of photos of the prisoners, many with the look of knowing on their face. Many are proud and strong, some have been beaten to the last breaths of life, almost all though seem have to have a look in their eyes which knows this was the end. There are artists impressions of the torture methods along with the tools that were used to carry them out. There are first hand accounts from the guards, cooks and other prison staff. Many seem to say the same, that they knew what they were doing was wrong but it was either me or them and that scared a lot of people. Some were merely brainwashed by what the Khmer Rouge were telling them. It was a very hard place to visit but very informative at the same time.

After the prison we made our way to the Killing fields, another hard place to visit. The audio guide that walks you round the fields is very good and well narrated. It guides you round this small area of land where thousands of people were executed for often no reason at all. The audio explains how truck loads of people would be brought to this area outside the city and the brutal methods used by the regime in their executions. No bullets were used. Only hammers, machetes, axes, knives, mallets, pikes, hanging, farming and other heavy tools. That was hard to take in. No bullets. Its almost like killing a person with your bare hands. I cant believe that humas would have the capacity to do this repeatedly. Perhaps the hardest to accept was the execution of babies. Infants would be held by the leg and swung against a large tree, splitting their young skulls open. The bark still bears the scar marks and blood. To block out the screams, loudhailers would blare out party propaganda messages. After the executions had taken place and the bodies placed in shallow ditches, they would be sprayed with pesticide to finish off any who had perhaps not been dealt a fatal blow. On the last days of the regime trucks were bringing 100s of prisoners to the fields daily. So many were executed here that it has not been possible to recover all the bodies. Each rainy season, the waters wash more bones and teeth to the surface. Many just have to be left as there is no place to contain them all.

I think I now have some appreciation for how a trip to Auschwitz must feel to people. I understand that Cambodia shut itself off to the world during this period and even western journalists caught were executed but it is still difficult to understand why 30years, one generation, after the west had experienced a mass genocide, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were able to conduct one of their own. Also hard to understand, regardless of political gains or whatever, how many of the world, UK included, still accepted Pol Pot as the righful leader of Cambodia and he was able to escape without punishment until his death in '98. Somebody has written on a wall in S-21 "Will we ever learn". No I think is the answer.