Phnom Penh and the Killing Fields

Caution: this post explains some of the harsh truths of the Cambodia's past, some of which is quite violent and disturbing. If you are a younger reader, check with your parents before proceeding.

Disclaimer: This is what we learned at the killing field memorial, but like all history, not everyone agrees with this. As usual, there is more than one side to every story.

From cool but sunny Australia we made our way to our next destination: Cambodia. The weather, prices and people could not be more different and it was a bit of a shock to the system - especially the humidity! We arrived in Phnom Penh after an overnight flight, a 7 hour stop in China (with no Google or Facebook!), and then a lost bag and a tuk-tuk ride. We were pretty exhausted and I had no clean clothes after traveling for nearly 24 hours. Our first day/evening in Phnom Penh was sort of a bust as we were really feeling the jet lag from the last minute departure from Australia.

Day 2 we were up bright an early, a positive side effect of always traveling west. Today was the day we were going to see two of the most sad, but important places in Cambodia. If you're like me, you likely haven't learned about Cambodian history. Until I decided to come here, I didn't even know what language they spoke. Do you? (hint: It's not Cambodian). Cambodia's recent history is terrible, but no one talks about it. Do you know about the Khmer Rouge? I knew the name and that vaguely something horrifying happened here, but I didn't know what. And then our tour made its first stop at the killing fields.

Rain was thundering down from the ominous clouds overhead, which I found appropriate. We started our audio tour and followed each stop, listening to the horror unfold. The enormity of what happened all over Cambodia starting from April 17, 1975 and lasting until 1979 when the Vietnamese took Phnom Penh was just beginning to hit me. A man called Pol Pot, who had been educated in France and was fascinated with communism, came back home to Cambodia and 'freed' the people. He believed that people who were farmers and living in poverty were the 'old people' and to be respected. Everyone else was 'new people', who he believed worthless. He force evacuated EVERYONE living in the cities (nearly 2 million people), and told them to 'go home', back to the country. A plan was put in place to move everyone from the cities into the countryside, as Pol Pot dreamed of a fully agrarian society. He wanted the food production to triple and Cambodia to be completely self sufficient. Then, anyone who was educated (like teachers and bankers and the like), had soft hands, or wore glasses, was either put in prison or killed. Even though people were forced out of the city and into collective farms, there was no plan in place for them once they arrived at their destination. They had no homes, no food, and began starving. They worked sun-up to sun-down without rest and with only a bowl of watery rice soup to sustain them. Anyone who spoke out against the regime would disappear or be murdered on the spot. 

As we learned about the history of the Khmer Rouge, we also learned about the killing fields. People were brought to this once-upon-a-time cemetery, and either killed immediately or held overnight in a light-less shack to be killed the following day. They were lined up with propaganda music blaring to hide their screams, dragged to a pit (that they may have had to dig), then beaten to death with anything that could be found: rakes, hatchets, sticks, hammers, etc. Bullets were generally deemed to precious to waste. Then they were pushed into a pit, maybe on top of other corpses, and maybe still alive. They were covered with DDT (to kill them if they weren't dead and to hide the smell), then when the pit was full it was covered with dirt. I'm not talking a few hundred - I'm talking tens of thousands. And this wasn't the only killing field, just one of the most visited. All in all, it is estimated that between 2-3 million people died during the Khmer Rouge's regime. That's one in every 4 people in their country.

A lake for reflection as you learn about the horrors.

Some of the stops on this tour were areas that show bones and clothes still riding from the ground as the rain washes away the upper layers of soil. Others are pits protected by fences to stop people from waking over the dead. Pits filled with the bones of women and children, a tree that was called the killing tree as the murderers bashed babies' heads against them then threw them into the pit with their dead mothers. 

The final stop is a pagoda, filled with the bones that have appeared over the years. They have been studied to understand how many people, what age, and what condition they were in when they were killed. It is sobering to see the piles and piles and piles of skulls. Those were all people, some whose only crime was being related to a person with an education. By the end, the rain had stopped and we had paid our respects.

 

 

We were moving on to S-21, the schools turned prison used by the Khmer Rouge and now a genocide museum.

 

 This was the prison where people were kept and tortured until they 'confessed'. What were they confessing, you ask? Usually it was that they were part of the CIA or KGB, but sometimes it was about sabotaging the Khmer Rouge or their efforts. They tortured the prisoners in many ways, and only after they gave a written confession were they sent to the killing fields. If one person was found guilty, they would wipe out the entire family to get rid of the 'roots' of the problem.

A school room turned prison, with makeshift cells built in each room.

We learned that many of the people working in the prison were children who had been recruited from the countryside and then threatened with their lives and their families' lives if they didn't join and serve. It was a time of immense fear, for all the Cambodians. And even when it ended (and it didn't really end until 1998), the country was in chaos. Families destroyed, homes destroyed, careers destroyed, religion destroyed - everything was gone. They had to build it back up, without any of the educated citizens or leaders they had had before. Can you even imagine that? Even I just know a sliver more than I did before, but it's not enough, we keep letting this sort of thing happen again and again. When will we learn to stop killing everyone who holds a different viewpoint, opinion, idea, or merely stands in our way? And why isn't this better known and taught to all? So I urge you, learn as much as you can so that you can understand and help stop this in the future.

The rest of our day was spent quickly visiting the palace and a few other main places - but our hearts just weren't in it. We had much to brood about after the previous two visits and couldn't focus on much else.

It wasn't until we got to meet up with my lovely friend Becky that we got to relax a bit. We chose this beautiful roof-top bar to watch the sunset and catch up. I sure missed her, and our easy, open talks. Even though it's been years since we last saw each other, it feels like mere minutes. Becky is currently working in Laos and came all the way down to see me! The night passed far too quickly, and I wished we had another week together. Maybe in Scotland?

View from the rooftop bar after sunset