Today was quite an eye-opening, yet sad day in Phnom Penh. We began the morning with breakfast at our hotel before setting out to learn about the Cambodian genocide through a visit to the Cheung Ek Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng museum.
In 1975 the government in Cambodia was quite corrupt and there was a lot of discontent. A communist ruler by the name of Pol Pot took advantage of the situation to take control of the government and instilled a communist regime by the name of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge was built on the communist ideals that all people should be equal. However, to get to that point, Pol Pot believed it was essential to wipe out much of the upper classes and educated individuals so that the "Bas people" or "old people", aka the day laborers who worked the fields, could become the main (and only) class of citizens. Pol Pot first made it illegal for people to have their own possessions, grow their own food, or have any sort of individuality whatsoever. He then forced all of the individuals living in the capital, Phnom Penh, to move out of the city to work in the fields. All food was rationed and everyone began receiving only a handful of rice water a day to survive. People began starving and dying in the fields. While this was happening, Pol Pot's regime started collecting members of the upper classes and educated individuals and gathering them at detention and torture centers, demanding they give him and his regime information on others who were planning to overthrow the government or working with the American CIA to gather intelligence on his party. Most citizens didn't know anything about these demands. They had no connection to other government's intelligence or even knew of anything going on in their own country. The problem was, that if they didn't answer the regime's questions, they were killed. Many people lied just to stay alive. However, they would be questioned and tortured each and every day. So the options were: 1. tell the truth and die. or 2. tell lies and stay alive while being tortured until you can no longer think of enough lies and then are killed.
When all of this began on April 17, 1975 the population of Cambodia was roughly 8 million. It is estimated that, from the time the Khmer Rouge took power until they were finally overthrown in 1979 (with the help of Vietnam), between 1.7 and 3 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge.
That's about 25% of the population of Cambodia. Wiped out. In 4 years.
It's hard to imagine such atrocity happening at a time not so far in the distant past. When I first heard the timeline my thoughts were:
My parents were married in 1975. They were 22 and 23.
My brother, Dave, was born in 1979.
If my parents had lived in Cambodia at that time, what would have happened to them? They were young, educated, middle-class citizens. Chances are they (as well as myself and my brothers) would not be here today. It is a terrifying, sobering idea that quickly reminds you of the evil that exists and the fortune of being born in some places in the world over others.
Jon and I started today at the Cheung Ek Killing Fields. Now it is a large field with a stupa (memorial monument) in the middle, dedicated to the 20,000 or so individuals who were killed there. In 1975, it was a place of mass murder.
The killing fields are a group of over 200 specific areas of the country where "traitors" were brought and killed. It is estimated that 30 people each week were brought to each killing field in trucks or buses. They were shackled together, and then separated out, one by one, and killed immediately the night they were brought to the killing field. The regime were told to use as few bullets as possible since they were expensive. Instead, nearly every single individual brought to the killing field was individually bludgeoned to death with some sort of sharp object: knives, axes, hatchets, bamboo rods, cleaning rods, sticks, and sometimes leaves from specific trees with razor sharp edges. In order to cover the screams of the victims, the regime would blast loud music, propoganda for the regime. Bodies were then buried in mass graves, which are still visible today. Now, the bones and clothing of the dead have been removed and placed in memorial areas around the field, with most of the bones and skulls displayed in the Stupa. The grave sites are large indentations in the grass, where our audio guides told us that, in high rains, bones and clothing continue to be unearthed to this day.
The worst part for me of the entire killing field was the "murder tree". Women who ended up at Cheung Ek with their young children would be separated from them. The officers would then take their children and smash their skulls against the tree, killing them in front of their mothers before killing the mothers themselves. Unfathomable.
The 14-story burial stupa at Cheung Ek where the bones of thousands of victims are housed and honored.
We left the killing field with so much to think about and headed for Tuol Sleng museum, also known as S-21. S-21 was a torture and detention center/prison for "conspirators" and "traitors" to the regime. Some people were brought to the prison and killed immediately for failure to comply. Others were kept in 1m x 2m cells, tortured for weeks, months, or even years before being killed at S-21 or brought to a nearby killing field.
One quite fascinating thing about the Khmer Rouge is that, like the Nazis, they kept excellent records of their victims. In fact, each and every man, woman, and child who were brought to S-21 were photographed and given an identification number. When the Khmer Rouge was overthrown in 1979, they didn't have time to destroy all the documentation for each of their victims. As such, there are THOUSANDS of pictures of victims that still exist and are on display throughout the museum. It is heartbreaking walking through the prison, viewing their faces, and knowing the fate that awaited them.
Of the thousands that came through the doors of S-21, there are only 12 known survivors, 3 of whom are still living.
Victims ranged from babies to people in their 60s and 70s. One of the ideals of the regime was that "if you pluck a blade of grass, you must make sure you pull it out from the root", meaning, if you kill someone, you must also kill every member of their family so that no one will be around to seek revenge on their behalf later in life, including children.
One of the other difficult things about wandering through the museum was in seeing how Cambodians viewed Americans and our actions during the Vietnam War. Apparently, the US dropped MANY bombs on Cambodia in the early 70's, killing ordinary citizens and also paving the way for Pol Pot's government takeover. Many Cambodians at that time were grateful that a new regime was coming to power that would be able to stop the atrocities created in their country by the US, not fully understanding the later atrocities by the Khmer Rouge that would occur. (NOTE: This is not something I have fact checked, but rather something that was discussed and displayed throughout the S-21 museum.)
As we were leaving the museum, there was a long line at a table by the exit. There, two of the survivors of S-21, Chum Mey and Chim Math (I believe this was her name), were smiling and signing books. They, along with the other survivors during their lifetimes, made it their missions to continue to educate visitors on the atrocities that were committed at S-21 in order to help ensure that the next generation knows about what happened and it hopefully will not happen again.
I think it goes without saying that the morning was rather difficult. We left the museum and headed for a rather somber lunch where we contemplated what we had learned throughout the morning and what it meant to us.
In the afternoon, we headed for the Royal Palace where the current king of Cambodia resides.
I wasn't feeling all that well given: the heat (it was about 100 degrees), most likely dehydration, being exhausted from waking up so early, and our recent change in diet to nearly only Asian food. As such, we did a quick walk through of the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda (large Stupas where the former kings of Cambodia are buried) before grabbing a tuk tuk back to our hotel.
As soon as we got to our room I fell asleep. I think sheer exhaustion had weighed me down, making me feel quite ill. I had been hoping to catch the sunrise over the Royal Palace. Jon woke me up at 5 pm so that we could walk over there, but I was way too exhausted. Instead, I slept for another hour, waking up just as the sun was setting.
We got up and decided it was time for dinner.
Frustrated with the cash advance fees on our Barclaycard Credit Card, we had tried our Wells Fargo cards again several times only to discover they no longer worked. We looked up the number to call Wells Fargo but they don't have an international toll free number to call from Cambodia...we were going to have to wait until we got to Thailand. UGHHH. SO! That said, we didn't want to take out more money. We counted our money to make sure we had enough for dinner and realized we only had about $28 on us AND that our $20 bill and $5 were too old for anyone in Cambodia to accept them as currency (they need to be less than 10 years old)! Oy!
So it was decided we had to go to a restaurant that accepted our Mastercard so we wouldn't incur international fees. Jon had seen a Mexican restaurant kind of far from our hotel that he wanted to try. The only problem was, we didn't have enough cash to get a tuk tuk there AND back, even if we were able to use our old bills or our credit card. We decided to walk there, the whole time HOPING that they took MasterCard (as most places didn't...).
We arrived after about 25 minutes and were VERY pleasantly surprised to find that they DID in fact take MasterCard! Hooray! We got our Mexican food (which was honestly better than some Mexican food I've had in the states) and then were able to take a tuk tuk back to our hotel.
We arrived at the hotel, did some quick trip planning (we are now booked through February 14 with stops in Langkawi, Malaysia from February 9-12 and Singapore from February 12-14) before climbing into bed. TIME FOR SLEEP.
Jess' highlight of the day: the Tuol Sleng Museum, Mexican food, and starting to feel better
Jon's highlight of the day: Tuol Sleng Museum
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