Rob and Anna's travel adventure

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Anna's entry:

In April 1975, screaming soldiers armed with AK47s entered government buildings, offices and homes in Phnom Penh, and ordered everybody out. They then marched them in a mass exodus to the countryside, where for the next four years they were forced into slave labor, torture, and death to meet Pol Pot's revolutionary "dream"...

The poor, uneducated and easily molded peasants of Cambodia became the 'old people', and their deeply despised city counterpart, the 'new people'. Under this regime, the new people had absolutely no human rights. Literacy, arts, music, education, and religion were all abolished. Any person deemed educated was instantly executed. It is believed that 1.7 million people died and were killed during this time...

We visited the locations where that actually happened.
Killing Fields of Choeung Ek is where detainees were held and executed - men, women, children, and even executioners who could not kill any more, or who knew too much. Khmer Rouge executioners did not want to waste the bullets on young children - they threw the young children against the tree trunk by holding their legs and crushing the skulls. Or, they would throw the kids up in the air so they would land on the sharp swords attached to the guns. While walking around the grounds, which now seem peaceful and filled with butterflies, I could still sense the presence of death and horror; the trees are still there, but the blood of victims has been washed by the rain... Mass graves are still being excavated, but there are just too many people still buried under the grass and a new lake... In the middle of the killing fields there is a glass tower in a shape of a temple - it displays 8000 skulls of victims and their discarded clothing, piled into a messy heap just like the bodies that once wore them.

I kept thinking to myself how could we, people, let such atrocities happen? I continue asking this question after visiting Tuol Sleng Museum, better known as S-21 Security Prison. Formerly the Tuol Svay Prey High School was taken over by Pol Pot's security forces and transformed into a prison and zone of unimaginable torment. The classrooms were turned into torture chambers and equipped with various instruments to inflict pain, suffering and death. A shocking 100 victims were killed a day.

We walked through the torture rooms and prisoners' cells, the chains and some instruments of torture are still here. I felt like I could still hear the screams, and see blood stains on the floor. Graphic photographs on the walls, and copies of interrogation notes are still here, on the tables. Thousands and thousands of innocent prisoners' photographs are staring at you from the walls - men, women, children. Remember - if you were deemed educated, you were instantly executed. The only delay was the torture prior to execution.

I am writing this entry almost two months later after visiting Phnom Penh. I still can not get the images out of my mind. I still can not accept that Pol Pot escaped, and I still can not accept that only a couple of former Pol Pot's officers are currently undergoing the tribunal trial. So many Khmer leaders, officers, guards, and executioners committed this genocide and murder. So many of the heartless villains are still alive and doing well. Who will ever speak on behalf of the innocent 1.7 millions victims? Will they too be forgotten and just become another history file?
Their eyes will forever stare at me... How can we prevent and not allow more "Pol Pots and Khmer Rouges"? Are YOU sure it is not happening at the moment somewhere in the world?

posted by Rob and Anna @ 6:25 AM