The Killing Fields and S21

We spent the afternoon of 4 January at Choeung Ek Genocidal Center, which is one of many sites throughout Cambodia know as the Killing Fields, and at S21, a former prison under the Khmer Rouge.

Before coming to Cambodia, I knew next to nothing about the lengthy civil war that decimated the Cambodian people and the regime that wiped out millions of educated Cambodians during the '70s.

A day before Jenna and I joined Intrepid's Best of Cambodia Tour, I went to a small cinema near our guest house to watch The Killing Fields (1985) which is based on true events. This film was wonderfully made and though it focuses more on the relationship between an American journalist and a multilingual Cambodian journalist, it does hint at the brutality of the Khmer Rouge during the 1970s. After watching The Killing Fields, I was floored that I did know the extent of the atrocities that the Khmer Rouge committed while they were in power, especially because while in school I learned extensively about the Holocaust, which occurred about 40 years before the genocide in Cambodia. Anyway, I suggest anyone that wants to know more to watch The Killing Fields, the many documentaries on the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge, and to read a book or two written by the few that survived the massacre.

One our way to one of the sites, known as the Killing Fields, throughout Cambodia, we learned the background of the how the Khmer Rouge came to power. Pol pott was the notorious leader. As a young man he got a scholarship to study in France and once there joined a secret group of young intellectuals that called themselves the Marxist circle. He later joined the French Communists, who shared their anti-colonialism views and supported Vietnamese independence. From the mid 1960s through the early 1970s the Khmer Rouge slowly gained traction and popularity with the Cambodian people. Once King Norodom Sinhanouk permitted the North Vietnamese army to occupy the jungle within Cambodia along the border with Vietnam, the US secretly bombed these sites and many other Cambodian villages along the border region killing thousands. 

Following the bombings popular support for the Khmer Rouge grew exponentially. They marched into Phnom Penh to cheering crowds. Within a week they encouraged and coerced people to leave the city for what they claimed would only be for a short time. Instead Cambodians remained within the countryside to fulfill the goal that Pol Pott had to make Cambodia agrarian and self sufficient. The killings started right away. People that were educated, wore glasses, or knew of people that were educated were detained and either told that they would be given a special job at New House (the Killing Fields) or taken to the Reeducation Center (a prison). There were 343 Killing Fields throughout Cambodia and 167 prisons.

We arrived at the site of one of the many Killing Fields. It was a somber site.

Bone fragments can still be found throughout the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center.

People were taken to the Killing Fields alive and once they arrived were brutally killed. Bullets were too valuable to be used, so the stem of Palm fronds were used to slice throats. Sometimes people were thrown into the mass graves even though they were still alive, but they were too weak to move. Toxic chemicals were used to eliminate the smell of the decaying bodies and to kill those within the pit that were still alive. Horrifying is the only way to describe this hypocritical, systematic genocide.

Bracelets have been left as a token to the millions of people that lost their lives. The atrocities did not end with killing. Those with the potential to question the Khmer Rouge and their power were killed with thei skull departed from the body. In Buddhism, which is the predominant religion within Cambodia, this results with the soul forever roaming the earth and not being able to move on or continue the cycle of reincarnations. You are just stuck for eternity unless the head and body are reunited. These bracelets are also an offering to those wandering spirits.

The site of this particular Killing Field is also an old Chinese graveyard.

The sign in front of the tree says it all. "Magic tree.. The tree was used as a tool to hang a loudspeaker which make(s) (a) sound louder to avoid the moan of victims while they were being executed."

This tower is filled with the bones of the people that were killed, with their bodies left within the mass graves of this Killing Field.

Extensive work was started in the 1980s to determine the age, gender, and manner of death of the individuals whose bones were found at this site. It was difficult walking past the evidence of such cruelty.

Trees and nicely pruned bushes occupy the once secret, hidden place where so many Cambodians lost their freedom and their lives.

Another token to honor those that were killed here.

We next went to S21, which was a high school in Phnom Penh that was converted to a prison by the Khmer Rouge. It was also known as one of the Reeducation Centers. People were taken here that were suspected of being educated or knowing someone that was. While at the prison they were tortured to reveal this information and the torture would continue until they told the soldiers all of the people they knew that were educated. At this point, the prisoner was taken to the Killing Field. This 'cell' which is incredibly small, was the cell of Chum Mey, one of the few adult survivors of S21.

"Never will we forget the crimes committed during the Democratic Kampachea regime."

Here we are with Chum Mey after we bought his book.

The next few photos were taken throughout the S21 complex.

The photograph within the above shot, was taken the day the Vietnamese army came to liberate Phnom Penh in 1979. Four children were found hiding within S21 after the soldiers of the Khmer Rouge vacated the prison a few days before. Two of these kids were adopted by a German family and the other two grew up in Phnom Penh and one of those two works at S21.

In 1998, the Cambodian government issued a pardon to all former soldiers of the Khmer Rouge. These soldiers were mostly children, teenagers at the time. The reasoning for this pardon was (1) the soldiers would have been killed if they did not follow orders (2) revenge begets revenge and (3) the former soldiers were young and brainwashed.

Pol Pott died in 1998 hiding in the Cambodian jungle with some of his followers. Four of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge were held responsible for what happened during the 4+ years when the Khmer Rouge was in power. The trial is underway for two of these individuals. One has been sentenced to life imprisonment. The fourth person, died before the trials finished.

Remembering what happened to all of the people that were brutalized, tortured and killed is best way to honor the memory of these people and to prevent such atrocities from being committed in the future.