Genocide

I visited Tuol Sleng (S-21) and Cheuol Ek (the Killing Fields) today. That was really tough. Tuol Sleng was a high school before the Khmer Rouge turned it into a torture and interrogation prison in 1976. Of more than 14,000 people that passed through those gates, only 7 survived. Many were killed and buried on the grounds, but most were transferred to the "extermination camp" at Cheuol Ek, about 15 km outside of Phnom Penh. Tuol Sleng is still relatively intact as it was when it was a prison - many of the school rooms were walled off into 0.8 X 2 meter rooms, several hundred of them. The Khmer Rouge photographed each person as they came in, took their biography, then tortured false confessions from them of how they had betrayed the organization and the revolution. The real sick thing is that the american government supported this (whether intentionally or not is debatable) by bombing the crap out of the eastern (bordering vietnam) side of the country and bringing about the end of the civil war between the khmer rouge and the government run by Lon Nol. That started a mass evacuation of the cities into the countryside and the formation of a communistic agrarian state where there was no individuality, no personal ownership of property, and all effort was focused on the "independence of the state of Democratic Kampuchea". The Khmer Rouge was anti Vietnam, Thailand, and China, therefore the US supported it, but ironically they were also anti western and executed all foreigners and all educated cambodians. Uneducated people are easier to control - as we're still seeing today. Ironically, it was the vietnamese invasion of cambodia in 1979 that brought about the end of the genocide, though the Khmer Rouge was still the UN recognized governing party of Cambodia until 1993 when they had their first free election. Alright, there's my political rant.

The most moving thing about the museum is the scores of photographs of all of those who were slaughtered. Then to go to the killing fields and see the giant stupa containing over 8,000 exhumed skulls and realize that those are all of the people whose faces you've just seen vacantly staring from photographs. In 86 mass graves, they've recovered the corpses of 8,985 victims, many naked and blindfolded, and many beaten to death to "save precious bullets". You know how you aren't supposed to step on a grave because it's disrespectful? Well it's hard to avoid it there. There are dirt paths skirting the holes in the ground where bodies were recovered from these mass graves, but even in the walkway are bones, fragments of clothing, and a few strewn teeth. It's a really disturbing place to visit. And to think that nearly 3 million people of a population of just over 7 million were wiped off the earth, it's even more amazing to see this country pick up the peices and try to rise from poverty - especially since the current government is so corrupt that it's taking 7 of every 10 dollars coming from the world donations, and all relief organizations or businesses that want to set up in Cambodia have to register with the government and pay huge fees.

The other thing that strikes me is, why did so many people let it happen? When we were in Anlong Veang (night 3 of the mototrip - last stand of the Khmer Rouge) the owner of our guesthouse was a former Khmer soldier. Heang had a really long chat with him about his time as a soldier, and he said that not all of the people involved in the KR were as heinous as the mass murderers. Many truly believed in the communistic ideal of sacrificing individuality for the good of all, and didn't use their power for personal gain and murder. But I wonder if that's really true, or if he also has done such horrible things in his past that the guilt has put him in denial. He seemed like such a kind man, that I'd love to believe the former, but you don't know. And no one has ever been brought to trial for this - 3 million dead and no one punished. Even Pol Pot died in his home in 1998 from malaria. Sickening.