Cambodia

Clothes unearthed form a mass grace at the killing fields near Phnom Penh

My abbreviated loop from Laos through Vietnam and back to Thailand has brought me necessarily through Cambodia. I am not here for long.

In the capital of Phnom Penh, my little backpacker ghetto du jour is situated along what I will call a “little lake,” for lack of a better term (though a better term might be swamp). It’s pretty laid-back, with wooden guesthouses hanging above the mosquito-laden waters. It’s not a Thai paradise beach, but it is far more relaxing than one would expect from an Asian capital.

In my little world on the lakeside, everyone I meet on the street has exactly three things to offer me - a room, a ride on their scooter, or drugs. The first two of these things are usually said out loud, the last one under their breath as I pass by. I walk to breakfast and someone from behind me hisses “you looking for something?” At nine in the morning, I assure my new ten-step escort that the most exotic thing I am searching for is a mango. As if the innuendo was not perfectly clear, he continues with me for some predetermined distance extolling the virtues of his (I’m sure) quality product and assuring me that his ‘stuff is the best one.’

I can’t blame Cambodia for its lack of economic sophistication. It endured probably the worst genocide in the last century, yet the atrocity is not well-known. For those of not up to speed on their Cambodian history, let me offer a quick primer:

First, the French colonize Southeast Asian country(s). Then the French split, and the American war in Vietnam spills over disastrously into Cambodia. Country is destabilized and group of psychotic whack jobs (Khmer Rouge) come to power and kill half the population for no reason. They get testy with Vietnam and attack its border. Vietnam responds by invading Cambodia and deposes the crazies. World learns of atrocities, but does nothing to help. Got it? Good.

'They have human form but their hearts are demon's hearts...' -Killing Fields Memorial

So this is how I find myself at a horrible place called Tuol Sleng. We are taught in schools that the worst, most inhumane people ever born were the Nazis. Having seen the activities of the Khmer Rouge, however, I am no longer so sure about that.

Skulls of two victims of the Khmer Rouge. There are 9000 at this pagoda alone.

Everything in the world was turned upside down under the rule of the Khmer Rouge (KR). Education, art and even eyeglasses were banished; these were seen as signs of the elite that must be eliminated. The KR was going to establish a ‘perfect’ egalitarian peasant state where everyone would work in the fields together in harmony. Phnom Penh was evacuated -- the ‘soft urban parasites’ were sent to the country to learn the virtues of hard work in the rice fields. Most were worked nearly to death. When they were too weak to produce one more grain of rice, they were taken to pits in the red, red earth and cracked on the head with a piece of iron. Tuol High School was covered in barbed wire and became Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison where the most horrible tortures were used to extract false confessions.

Chain, gruel pan and ammo-box toilet in a cell at Tuol Sleng

Being at the prison, I am struck by the immediacy of the place. I am walking in the very places that unimaginable atrocities took place. I feel like I am in a dream. The place is haunting, and probably haunted. Photos of tortured victims shackled to iron beds are displayed in the very rooms where the photos were taken. The beds and shackles are still there.

By starving, torturing or clubbing the inmates to death, the KR hoped to spare their precious bullets. One thing they did expend their time and resources on was documentation. Each man woman and child was photographed, usually in a chair with their hands bound behind them. They made exhaustive archives of the victims like twisted librarians.


My Visit to the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng

The other tourists and I don’t exchange greetings or smiles. We glide silently through building after building. It’s as if we are all ghosts moving through this torture-school. My eyes are down as others approach; the shame of this genocide belongs to the whole world.

In contrast to the propaganda-laden Vietnamese war museums, there is little interpretation here. There really is no need for it. A crazy group of ideologues ruthlessly and pointlessly murdered three million of their own innocent people. What must really be said about a mass grave or the bloody photo of a torture victim?

The Khmer Rouge often took photos after they had exterminated their victims through torture.

Being in Vietnam had been a jarring experience for the brutality and senselessness of a war with America. The paranoid and insane KR managed to kill just as many of their own people as were killed in Vietnam. But they did it unassisted, and in less than a third of the time.

Several floors are devoted to the photographs taken by the KR at the complex. The portraits show a surprising range of expressions. The photos have no names, just numbered tags pinned to their shirts to give me a clue to their identities. #401 has sad eyes. #349 leans forward as if inspecting the camera. #404, an older man, is simply terrified. Another one looks imploringly through 30 years of time. It could have been taken yesterday. They all could be in the other room.

Prisoner #404

There are rows upon rows of faces, the ghostly remnants of three insane years where the world stood by as an entire country was transformed into hell. I want to take pictures of all the photos of the prisoners. I want everyone to see these gentle, innocent faces. I want to believe that some of them escaped to survive and find something other than this.

But I know that it’s not true and after many rooms of pictures I can’t look anymore.

All of the people photographed in the Tuol Sleng prison were executed by the Khmer Rouge.

There are just too many faces silently staring at me.