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14 June: Phnom Penh

We had bargained the day before that a Tuk Tuk driver would take us to the Killing fields and S21 for all 5 of us at $8. After handing in our washing we met up with the others, only to have a huge quarrel with the driver. Our initial one had not arrived and he had sent a friend, who was very aggressive in his dealing with us, also wanting us to use a smaller Tuk Tuk. After 10 minutes we left and walked down the street looking for another. We found one, who was more than willing to take us and would also include a visit to the Russian market, famed for being a place where anything could be bought.

We headed for S21, which was the Security (S) prison for the two groups of the population, peasant's and workers (2) of Brother number 1 (1), Pol Pot. The year was year zero, the Khmer Rouge, the ruling communist party, had overthrown the previous government and their American allies in 1975 and taken control of the country. They preceded to evacuate all cities to the rural areas, at that time the population was 6 million people in the country. Their plan was to achieve what no communist country had ever achieved in a fraction of the time. Their aim was to have only one class of citizens divided into groups, those who worked in factories and the other in rice paddy fields.

Men, woman and children were separated from each other, married couples were not allowed to stay together. Children were "re-educated" into becoming totally loyal to the party and acknowledging that they no longer belonged to their parents but were the property of the party. The idea was that nothing was above the party and total allegiance was paramount, no longer were you allowed to think, talk to others or sing everyone was a spy for the party. The children were taught that they had to report anything contradictory to party policies. Very often children reported their own parents or relatives. Those used at the killing fields were often required to execute their own relatives.

The S21 prison was in actual fact a high school before 1975, only to be barricaded with separation walls built in to keep prisoners in solitary confinement. The prison was used as an interrogation facility, more than 17 000 people were sent to this specific prison and of them only 7 survived in the 3 year rule of the Khmer Rouge. The first floor was used as an one on one interrogation room, while the top two floors were used either for group interrogation or resting places. There were in fact many such prisons in every city of Cambodia and in 3 years in excess of 2 million people were murdered.

Every room in the building is filled with photos, that would be more at home in the Holocaust museum of Washington or extermination camps of Germany, than in any other country. Prisoners would often confess to anything or made up accusations, denouncing anyone they knew, in an attempt to not be tortured, knowing they would be executed. The second building is filled with the pictures of the 17 000 prisoners who were housed for the last days of their lives in the prison. Men and women would have their hair cut, all in the same style. The theory around this was that their interrogators would not become emotionally affected when torturing/interrogating them, as everyone would look the same and they would then only be killing one person.....

There were just as many women in the pictures as men, that we saw. The amazing thing was women were often taken prisoner with infant babies and the interrogators would use this to their advantage during the process. Small boys and girls, young men and women, old men and women; no distinction was made between them. If they were deemed to have betrayed the party, they were forced to denounce others who had committed no crimes, but who's fate would be the same - extermination.

The third floor of the second building showed propaganda used to convince delegations, mostly pro-communist, that their theory was working. Many of the delegations were in fact from Sweden. The photos would portray ordinary life, advancements in science and agriculture, the happiness of the people and their over zealousness for the Khmer Rouge. The picture contained the opinions of the delegations at that stage, very much pro communism, praising them for their advancement. While an afterthought was displayed once they had learnt of the atrocities, mass genocide. Many pro communists would however only downplay the event, stating that it was not a Ideological error but rather a misdirection on the part of the Khmer Rouge.

We entered the third building to watch the hour long video on what had occurred at S21, some people could not even watch the whole document and left. After this we went to the second floor which contained the personal accounts of people who had worked in S21 as well as families who's relatives had been taken there. Level one was filled with paintings of a survivor displaying acts of torture. One of them how the prisoners were made to sleep all lying next to each other, their fee chained, if they spoke a word they would be beaten.

After we had completed S21, the five of us sat outside for a few minutes, not knowing exactly what to say to the other. Then we headed off to the killing fields, with hundreds of motorcycles whizzing past. The killing fields were where the prisoners would be taken to be executed. In the initial fazes of year zero, many prisoners were killed with bullets to the head. This became a waste after a while with 300 prisoners a day just at that one camp. The technique changed to making them kneel at the edge of the pit which had been dug for their mass grave, bashing them on the back of the head or neck. They would then fall into the pit where another would cut their throat ensuring they were dead. One of the mass graves was no larger than 3m by 4m and contained in excess of 450 people. Details of other ways in which people were killed are to gruesome to state.

Our Tuk Tuk headed back, but first it was the Russian market which we visited, here silk scarves and a wooden box caught our attention and we added it to our growing collection of Asian arts. We were there only for 40 minutes before we were dropped off at the mall where all of us enjoyed an ice cream before heading to the central market. At least we found the pants Leanne had been looking for, there were only two shops in the whole complex of hundreds and we had literally scrutinized the majority of them.

We headed home and stopped off at the restaurant of the previous day for lunch, where the owner offered us a luxury bus with business seats for only $8.50 for the trip, they usually cost $10. An ordinary bus would have cost us $8. Almost sure it was a scheme we discussed it further, but once he assured us and guaranteed us a room with free food if it was not the case, we decided we would risk it. We headed home were we enjoyed a jug of beer between the two of us while watching the stunning sunset from the deck.

Later we met up with Shahar, Eline and Mike and decided to have dinner at our guest house. I helped Shahar copy some photos onto his SD card, fetched the tickets and laundry and met up with them again just in time for dinner. After dinner we greeted them as this was most probably the last time we would see them and went to pack our bags for the early morning start.