The Killing Fields

18 March

One can't visit Cambodia without reflecting on the genocide during the Pol Pot regime when the Khmer Rouge attempted a radical reform to create a  communist classless peasant society. The reform included removal of the educated middle class by "re education" which for most meant execution. Along with brutal forced work regimes the result was a reduction in the population of around 2 million out of a total of about 8 million at the time. This included those who escaped from Cambodia to other countries so no one really knows how many were killed by the Khmer Rouge - somewhere between 1.7 and 2 million we were told. This took place between 1975 and 1979. In 1979 a Vietnamese invasion threw Pol Pot out of Phnom Penh, although the Khmer Rouge continued to exist in remote areas and violence continued until the late 1990's.

Read a survivors harrowing first hand account in "Survival in the Killing Fields" by Haing Ngor. 

We visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in downtown Phnom Penh, once a high school, then Security Prison S21 an interrogation and torture centre for the Khmer Rouge, and now a museum commemorating the horror of it all. An estimated 20,000 people passed through S21 where they were forced to "confess" and then executed or shipped off for execution. We met Chum Mey, one of the few who survived being incarcerated in S21. He comes to the museum often to tell his story to help make sure the atrocities and those who suffered are not forgotten. He was a  mechanic and able to fix his captors typewriters hence was allowed to live. Sadly, he could not save his wife and son who were executed in front of him. 

S21 regulations.

The high schools gymnastics frame, converted for torturing prisoners.

Chum Mey, a survivor of S21.

High school converted to prison.

With Chum Mey.

To follow that grim experience we went to Cheung Ek, a village 15 km or so outside of Phnom Penh which had been the site of one of the mass graves used by the Khmer Rouge. Today it is a commemorative site with confronting reminders like a stupa (monument) containing the remains of nearly 9,000 people which have been exhumed. It's estimated that about 17,000 in total were killed and buried here. As well there is a walkway amongst the grave sites where you can see remains such as scraps of clothing and small bones which wash to the surface each rainy season. It definitely not a polished memorial such as we might see in western countries. It is basic and confronting, but at least it's there. Not long ago it was almost closed down as the Cambodian government couldn't afford to keep it going. Fortunately some private and international funders stepped in to help. And Cheung Ek is just one of an estimated 800 Khmer Rouge mass graves scattered around Cambodia.

Mass grave.

The stupa, containing skulls and remains of about 9,000 people.