Phnom Penh

A cell
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After arriving in Phnom Penh we did a quick city tour and took in the sights of the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda and Victory monument – then headed to the riverside for a beer – we found a better place to stay for the next evening and arranged a tuk-tuk to take us out of the city to the killing fields of Choeung Ek and then to the Genocide Museum back in town.

The recent history of Cambodia has been horrific. Three years, eight months and 20 days from April 1975 until 7^th Jan 1979 Pol Pot was leading the Khmer Rouge with the vision to create a new beginning – banned people from doing everything but work to produce rice, he created two classes of people – those that were already farmers, working the land were deemed pure and labelled ‘The Old People’ and the deeply despised educated city dwellers were labelled ‘The New People’. Phnom Penh and other cities were evacuated, all technology and machines no longer required and people were sent to produce rice – everything being done by hand, currency, travel and even loyalty to family abolished – he even turned back the clock and started the calendar at year zero.

Room of cells
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The new people were in a very tricky situation – they were told that to keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss – consequently almost 2 million people out or a population of 7 million were slaughtered during this time.

The Killing Fields is a memorial on the site of the execution centre for those prisoners detained in the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh – A huge Stupa has been built that contains the skulls, bones and clothing of over 8000 bodies exhumed, they are visible behind a glass wall – just over half of the mass graves have been emptied, the rest not touched. We watched a documentary about the methods used to ‘liquidate’ people and walked through the mass graves, even today able to see teeth and bones poking up through the soil. Probably the most disturbing sight is a tree next to a mass grave where only women and their children were buried – the tree was used beat babies to death, them being held by their ankles and heads smashed against the trunk while their mothers watched before being killed themselves.

Mass Grave
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The Genocide Museum is in fact the site of the S-21 prison which was previously Tuol Sbay Prey High school. The classrooms were turned in to cells and torture chambers, the tools used on show and the cells there to walk in – most only 0.8m x 2m. There is a wing of larger cells with glass windows – these reserved for military people deemed to be plotting against the regime (Pol Pot being more than a little paranoid) – the glass windows stopped some of the noise while those people were tortured, the standard in-mates just got barbed wire to stop them from jumping out and committing suicide.

Teeth and Bones
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The material of the day was pretty hard to take – especially as it happened so recently and you feel so close to it having lived during this time and because what you see hasn’t been changed or weathered over a long time.

However – we’re glad to have visited and to have learned without feeling voyeuristic – in fact the Cambodians actively encourage people to visit so that the same mistakes aren’t made again.