Majic.iE

GENOCIDE MUSEUM

A bumpy 15km moto ride to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum brings me to the menacing metal gates of the former Khmer rouge security prison. Beggars with mutilated limbs and faces greet me at the entrance. Tragic casualties of remaining landmines in Cambodian fields left over from the Khmer Rouge regime. The museum itself was originally a high school before the Khmer rouge converted it into a prison and interrogation centre in 1975.

 The buildings at Tuol Sleng (which is a Khmer name meaning “hill of the poisonous trees”) are preserved as they were left when the Khmer rouge were driven out in 1979 by Vietnamese troops. A gallows stands to attention in the courtyard. The classrooms inside have been converted into tiny prison cells and torture chambers and all the windows have been covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent prisoner escapes. The stench of death in the air is intoxicating. I can almost hear the hopeless cries and pleas for mercy from the long gone captives.

S21

From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned at S-21. The prisoners were selected from all around the country, and usually were former Khmer Rouge members and soldiers, accused of treason. Prisoners’ families were often brought en masse to be interrogated and later murdered at the Choeung Ek extermination centre.
 

The torture system was designed to make prisoners confess to whatever crimes their captors charged them with. Tools of torture lie in tact for the viewing public. Confessions were needed at all costs. After extensive torture sessions and sleep deprivation, they were always received. The majority being works of complete fiction but the end result always the same. To sign an admission of treason was to sign ones own death warrant.

KILLING FIELDS

An even bumpier 15km moto ride takes me to the infamous “killing fields”, depicted in the 1984 British film drama of the same name. In these fields lay the remains of almost two million Cambodians. At this particular “killing field” in Choeng Ek, excavated mass graves that once held up to 40,000 bodies pepper the land like craters on a scorched battlefield. To set foot on the same soil as those who were violently dragged to a shallow grave is a horrifying and humbling experience. A large Sutra has been erected in the centre of the site to honour the fallen. It is filled with the clothing of the dead and their remaining skulls. It is a frightening sight but one that needs to be witnessed to fully understand the horror that these poor souls endured. The skulls are punctured from severe blows to the head. In order to save ammunition, executions were often carried out using hammers, axe handles, spades or sharpened bamboo sticks. Life is cheap in Cambodia.

As I begin my long journey home from the “killing Fields”, I take one last look at the gates of hell that I have just walked free from and I notice a large group of Cambodian children racing toward the next convoy of tourists. All begging, all hoping … all smiling.