M for Mature

A few days ago we were in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, and also one of the centres of the Khmer Rouge Genocide that took place in the mid 1970's. While we were there, I visited (Joanna wasn't up to come along, because she was feeling sick, and the experience is known to be extremely emotionally draining) the Tul Sleng museum, and the Killing Fields, . These two places were responsible for the deaths of some Twenty Thousand People. During about four years, the Khmer Rouge were responsible for the murders of around Three million completly innocent Khmer people."Khmer" is the Cambodian word for the Cambodian peoples. From what I've come to understand, the story goes as follows:

During the 1960's and early 1970's Cambodia was in a state of civil war. One of the parties was a communist party called the Khmer Rouge. This party was led by a man called Polpot, and his party's time in power will not be forgotten for a very generations to come. The Khmer Rouge ended up winning the civil war, and promptly "revolutionized" the state; Destroying almost every single factory and bank in Phnom Penh, and burning all of the money in the banks, turning the capital city into a ghost town. The Khmer Rouge wanted to get rid of the unwanted people ie: Intellectuals, athletes, elderly people, anyone affiliated with the previous government and anyone who was a "traitor"or a "spy". The party favoured the "Base peoples" which were the uneducated and simple farmers from rural towns. These people were apparently the future of the Khmer people, even though they had little or no education.

To eliminate the unwanted peoples, Polpot set up various prison camps for political prisoners, often converting schools, turning all of the classrooms into prison cells and torture chambers. The rest of the people, from elderly people to people that had ever been to school, women and babies, mothers and fathers and anyone else, often for being affiliated to wrongly accused political prisoners or wrongly accused spies or traitors of the state, were sent to fields outside of towns, and murdered them. No bullets were ever used, because bullets cost money, and the traitors weren't worth it. The people were killed with knives, hatchets, clubs and hammers. Their hand were bound behind their backs, and they were blind folded and they were beaten to death, in every case. Their throats were cut with the ragged edges of palm tree leaves. Women were often stripped naked, and people were ofter beheaded. The prisoners were forced to dig pits up to 8 meters deep, and then they were executed and thrown into the pits. At the Killing field I visited, Government workers who found the graves after the Khmer Rouge was thrown out, found the bodies of Four Hundred and fifty human beings. Completly innocent people from all over Phnom Penh and the surrounding communites were brought to the field by the truckload and murdered on the spot. I should mention that Polpot favoured young and teenaged boys to be his soldiers and guards. Only boys and teenagers were allowed to be guards. The boys were brainwashed into believing that killing was the only thing to do, and were responsible for all of the murders at the Prison and killing fields. These boys murdered everyone that came to those fields. They would even kill their own families if it came to that.

My guide told me that most of the time the people being executed had been falsly accused, or had been turned in by a relative or co worker on suspicion of being a traitor. Most of the time there was no basis to these accusations and thousands upon thousands of innocent people were murdered in the most barbaric and merciless way. It seems like anytime someone got into a position of power, even if they were promoted, they were watched, and often arrested for charges that had nothing to do with them. My guide just said "these men crazy, they kill people for no reason, they kill everyone".

The killing field I went to was only on two hecteres of land and you could walk around the whole thing in about 10 or fifteen minutes. The ground is covered in the shallow grass covered dents of what were once mass graves. About half of the park is covered by a pond now, preventing the further excavation of half of the bodies. But on that little piece of farm land outside of Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge managed to murder and bury 20 000 people. Arm and leg bones have been placed in little piles along with bits of rags which were prisoners clothing on top of important sites around the memorial park.

At the entrance of the park there is a very large pagoda like building that houses the 8,129 human skull that excavators found on the land that isn't covered by water. The inside of the hollow structure has 8 stories of skulls, with glass casing around square platforms all the way up to the top. Just below the first level of skulls is a collection of clothing that was found on prisoners. The first few levels of skulls have sliding windows that are left open during the day, so visitors can fully grasp the reality of what has taken place there. There is a little shrine outside to place incense and pray for those who lost there lives during the regime's reign. There were times that it was all too terrible to try and understand, and I just cried, sat and cried. It still makes me tear up and feel sick thinking about all of it. I think I'll go into more depth about my experience at the museum later, it's all very heavy to think about.

I feel very honored and fortunate that I was able to see and experience both the fields and the museum, and it makes me wish that more people from the west are able to experience the terrible realities of modern history.

I think it would make everyone realize what can't be allowed to be repeated and how extremely lucky we all are.

-Ben