On the Thai beaches, Patrick and I both read Loung Ung’s memoir ‘First They Killed My Father’. Loung was only five when the Khmer Rouge took over in Cambodia, sending her and her family from Phnom Penh to the countryside. There, her family faced starvation, brutality, and as the title suggests, some even death. Not exactly beach reading, but I was completely hooked, horrified and heartbroken by her story. She also made me view modern day Phnom Penh in a different light- not as a chaotic city with a sweet garbage smell in the air (reminded me of India, though sadly, sans cows), but a city with something else in the air: restoration, resilience, with a hint of desperation. Every time we left our guesthouse, 6 tuk-tuk drivers would approach us in 20 seconds. Quite impressive.
Before I go on, I should summarize these atrocities I speak of. Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot and other members of a communist party called the Khmer Rouge lead Democratic Kampuchea, one of the least democratic societies in history. The Khmer Rouge had a vision to turn Cambodia into an ‘agrarian’ nation, self-reliant and independent of the corrupting Western World. In ‘First They Killed My Father’, Loung Ung describes how her family, one of millions, was forced to leave Phnom Penh and seek a new life in an agricultural village. No ‘urbanites’ allowed; Phnom Penh became a ghost-town. For four years, urbanites were treated as the lowest of the low in the villages, though even the more favoured ‘original’ villagers suffered from the widespread famine and disease. Soon after the upheaval, people began to disappear: intellectuals, former-government officials, foreigners, monks. Anybody who had the potential to see the regime for the vile massacre it was, vanished without trace. None of the villagers knew where these people went. Today, there is evidence that many were taken to prisons, and ultimately ‘killing fields’. Whilst in Phnom Penh, Patrick and I decided to visit the most infamous of these; Loung had made us emotionally involved with her memoir, and we now had to find out more.
As soon as you walk into S-21, or Tuol Sleng Prison, it is easy to see that this Khmer Rouge torture house used to be Tuol Sleng High School; it looks a lot like my old school. The only differences are the bars on the windows and the barb-wire on top of the fence. The moment you walk through the rooms on the ground floor of Building A, it is disturbingly clear that a different kind of ‘lesson’ was taught here 35 years ago. In each room was a metal bed frame, remnants of a plastic bottle, and a picture on the wall of a decomposed corpse shackled to the bed. There was no official explanation, but I can only assume that these pictures were taken in 1979, when the Khmer Rouge was defeated; when S-21 was taken over, fourteen corpses were found. These are all buried now in front of the exercise frame, used as a torture implement within the prison. Here are some photos explaining more; the first is a set of intimidating phrases given to prisoners to induce a ‘confession’, the second and third speak for themselves.
Into the next building- if the other rooms were a reality check on the brutality of the torture, these rooms brought home the sheer scale. Fifteen thousand people were brought into this prison throughout the four years; every single one of their photos was displayed. All but seven of these people were killed; these lucky seven were kept alive because of special skills they had, such as painting complementary pictures of Pol Pot. I took time to study the expression on every single face: some looked sad, some looked angry, some looked scared, some looked defeated. All knew they were innocent. Each prisoner had an individual number; what shocked me was the turnover: 20 people holding number ‘12’ within a year. I can’t even begin to imagine the fear. Some prisoners got their own tiny cubicles, 1m by 0.5m; you got a window, if you were lucky. Most were just shoved into a room with 30 other prisoners. The funny thing was, a lot of the latter rooms we visited still looked more like classrooms, with a blackboard on the wall. Maybe this is a message from up above: education and justice will prevail.
Before 1975, Cheung Ek was a peaceful orchard. Though today it retains its peace, it also has a sombre mood that makes you walk a little slower, stops you raising a smile. Upon entering, you come across a magnificent Memorial Stupa, built 20 years ago. Move a little closer and you see this building was not solely built to impress: 9,000 skulls are stored here, categorized by age and gender. ‘Senile Kampuchea Male, Over 60 Years’. ‘Aduit Kampuchea Woman, 20-40 years’. These are the skulls of innocent Cambodians: tortured at S-21, then executed at Cheung-Ek. The first of seventeen tiers held the clothes found in the graves; some of them were baby-size. As you walk around the grounds, you see dozens of giant pit-holes in the ground: ‘mass graves’ where prisoners were flung after they had been shot, bludgeoned, or slashed to death. Cracks found in skulls have determined that all these methods were used; they display the evidence in the museum. DDT was sprinkled on the bodies to lose the dead body stench, and to ensure there was nobody left alive. Every beautiful natural part of the surroundings was tainted with blood and brutality; I think the pictures below speak for themselves.
Even though we have learned about every graphic element to the Khmer Rouge regime, there is still one question that disturbs Patrick and I. How could those Khmer Rouge guards go through with what they were doing? Did some truly believe they were doing the right thing, supporting the insane 'Angkar' (the name of the regime's 'power')? In one room of S-21, an exhibition displayed interviews with former Khmer Rouge ‘cadres’. Most were remorseful, but the only ones that had come forward were the ‘lower’ soldiers, who probably were forced to join. But what about the executioners? How could they kill innocent people every day? What was going through their heads?....
The Executioner at Cheung-Ek
How do I cope
with screams inside my head?
They’re not real,
They’re not real,
How do I shoot
thousands of people dead?
Just don’t feel,
Just don’t feel,
How do I wash
blood from my hands, dark-red?
Scrub and peel,
Scrub and peel,
How do I stop
them killing me instead?
Bow and kneel;
Angkar’s real,
Angkar’s real.
It seems strange to be writing about such horror when sitting on a beach, listening to the lapping waves; forgive the inappropriateness. At the moment, we’re on Otres Beach, Sihanoukville, just relaxing and reflecting on our last week in Cambodia. We’ve truly seen the best and worst of Cambodia’s rich history: let’s just hope the future brings Cambodians the peace and prosperity that these kind people deserve.
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| R.I.P. |
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