Killing Fields and Genocide museum

Still suffering a bit from the cold so I really feel I didn't get round enough and slept a lot but i'll be back at the end of this little detour so hopefully have some more time then. I'm intrigued by the city and its colonial past and clearly very poor present.

Did a morning of tourism and it was about the most harrowing of my life. Went to the killing fields site an area of mass graves with a Stupa in the middle which Pol Pot used in the late 70's to murder approximately 200,000 people. Its not the only site in Cambodia he had around 2 million people killed during the genocide.
The place itself doesn't have a whole lot of information so I hired a guide and got a lot of extra info and understanding out of the visit.
I didn't realise that the Khmer Rouge was funded by Chairman Mao and the Chinese. I was also unaware of the reasons for the murders. Pol Pot was simply scared of intellectuals whom he felt wouldn't agree with his communist ideals so all such people were killed along with there entire families so there could be no reprisals. This included children and babies who where killed in a special area of the field called the killing tree, apparently babies would be smashed against it the same way you might hit a tree with a baseball bat.
Amongst the paths there where still many clothes and even teeth still in the ground though when the graves where discovered in the 80's the majority of bodies where dug up and buried properly though there skulls form the centre of the stupa. These skulls also show that no bullets where used in the killings only farm tools and bamboo canes. Some prisoners where also thought to have been buried alive.

The soldiers performing these actions where often very young sometimes only 12 years old, they had simply been brain washed or scared into doing the commanders wishes. Those soldiers who tried to escape where also executed, usually beheaded using the leaf from a young palm tree (it has an edge like a saw blade) in front of the other soldiers to warn off any further desertion.
It was a truly upsetting experience simply because it all felt so recent and real sometimes when you see these things its so far in the past its hard to imagine but with all the skulls and cloths still there it really brought it home.

And i wasn't finished there I also visited the main genocide museum which was situated in the old prison . This building had previously been a school but had been modified into prison blocks and torture rooms.

Once Pol Pot had gotten control of the country he ordered the closure of all intellectual and religious establishments defrocking monks and forcing everyone to support the Khmer Rouge. Anyone who resisted was accused of collaboration with the CIA and taken to these prisons. He also closed the country to foreigners and any who failed to leave in time where also arrested. a number of french, american, Indian and Australian doctors, officials and journalists where taken here and then executed.
The base population where sent into forced labour camps in the coutryside leaving the towns and cities deserted for 3 years.

The museum contains a lot of information along with some pretty horrendous photographs from the original arrest photos to later stages of peoples time there. Only 7 people who ended up in this prison survived the war.

After that emotional morning I did little else other than have a nap and read War of the Worlds.

Next morning I took a bus north to Siam Reap the site of Angkor Watt an many other temples. Hopefully slightly more cheery posts to come

written by

Dan on September 18, 2008 from Phnom Penh, Cambodia

from the travel blog: Been there, Dan that!

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