Tk: first stop on our tough days itinerary was the tuol sleng genocide museum. This building was a school until the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, when it was used as a prison to detain anyone who was suspected not to be fully supportive of the regime. I want to put this place into context first with an explanation of my understanding of the events that took place within my own life time.

Up until 1953 Cambodia was a French colony when it gained independence led by its own king Sihanouk. He then renounced the throne to set up his own political party that was allied more towards communist china and Vietnam, alienating the USA and the intellectual elite. He was eventually overthrown by a military leader called lon nol in 1970, who in turn was overthrown in 1975 by pol pot and the Khmer Rouge. Pol pot was a radical communist who wanted to establish Cambodia as a self sufficient agricultural super power. He also believed in a classless society where everything was shared, there was no need for intellectuals, religion, or arts. His model was slightly based on the Chinese 'great leap forward' movement of the 1950s, which sought to use industrial farming methods in a largely subsistence based peasant rural economy. So everything that followed, was a means to achieving these goals.

In 1975 the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh and the country and declared year zero. The Capitol city was evacuated in three days and everyone sent to the countryside to work on the land. Anyone suspected of dissent was sent to the tuol sleng prison. They were tortured into confessions, by Khmer Rouge soldiers who were all young illiterate peasants who had been recruited as they were strong, would follow orders and didn't know any better. The classrooms were turned into cells and the playground was turned into torture equipment. Many of the cells have barely changed, and you can still see dried blood on the floor. Some of the other buildings have exhibitions in them. The most moving for me were the accounts of the people who were imprisoned and tortured, but survived to tell the tale. Also interesting were the letters from the senior Khmer Rouge leaders to their families at the time, telling them how much they were missing them and that they should tow the party line. it made them seem human even though they were involved in something quite the opposite. The most shocking room contained skulls of those who died at the prison, with a coroners description of the cracks and holes in the skulls where they had been tortured.

It is so hard to imagine how these atrocities could come about, this is was I was trying to understand. It seemed that at the time the whole of south east Asia was gripped with fear and paranoia, it was the Cold War and the Vietnamese communists had just defeated the Americans through armed conflict. The Cambodians wanted a strong leader, but they weren't expecting that pol pot would declare war on his own people.