After two days in Saigon I get another awful night bus across the border into Cambodia. I spend just one night in the capital, Phnom Penh (pronounced Nom Pen), where I visit it's two main 'attractions'.
The first is called Toul Sleng and is a school turned prision turned museum. In 1960s a Cambodian Communist going by the name of Pol Pot returned to his country after studying in Paris, with ideas of turning Cambodia into an agricultural commnist collective. In 1968 he became the dictator of a party called the Khmer Rouge.
His armies forced thoses who lived in cities to reloacte to rural villages and work on collective farms - around two million people all together. Thousands died due to the Khmer rouge's insistence that the country became self sufficient, leading to the lack of food and medicine. Because parents were 'tainted by capitalism', families were separated and children were trained as soilders. Anyone suspected of engaging in 'free market activities' was taken to Toul Sleng, a former school, to be tortured and coerced in to naming their families as traitors too. Intellectuals, city dwellers, anyone with glasses or who spoke a second language was targeted.
An estimated 17, 000 prisoners went through Toul Sleng, their pictures shown in the museum (the Khmer Rouge were meticulous record keepers), but there were only twelve known survivors. Pol Pot was known to say that it was better to kill an innocent person, than let a guilty person live. The rooms used as prisons in Toul Sleng still have chalk boards and the garden still has exercise equipment, which was later used by the Khmer Rouge in their torture of prisoners.
The second 'attraction' in Phnom Penh is called 'Choeung Ek'. After their (false) admissions of collaboration with the CIA, KGB or Vietnamese against the Khmer Rouge regime, prisoners were taken out of the city to 'the killing fields', where they were beaten to death due to a lack of bullets and burried in mass graves.
When I visit it is pouring with rain, which seems appropriate. The centre piece of the sight is a huge memorial stupa, containing skulls of the thousands of people killed here. When the rain stops the field is very calm and almost beautiful, which is very surreal whilst listening to the stories on the audio guide and walking past mass graves and former holding cells.
I don't want to go into too much detail because there is so much which is so horrible, although there is much more to tell - more informtion can, of course, be found online. I also haven't taken any pictures as neither site really felt like a photo opportunity. I put off writing this post for a while, in fact I thought about not writing it at all, but like walking around the graves and taking loads of photos that seemed insensitive. I wanted to at least briefly mention the two sites I visited in Phnom Penh, as, despite happening so recently, it is not taught in schools or remembered in the way in which other genocides are.
After four year of rule and the death of 25% of all Cambodians, the Khmer Rouge were removed from power by the invading Vietnamese, but survived into the 1990s as a resistance party, holding seats in the UN until 1982. Although some high up officals were tried some still live today, hiding in the countryside. Pol Pot died in 1998 with out ever having gone to trail. Today people on the streets on Phnom Penh sell books detailing personal stories from the time of the Khmer Rouge.
The first is called Toul Sleng and is a school turned prision turned museum. In 1960s a Cambodian Communist going by the name of Pol Pot returned to his country after studying in Paris, with ideas of turning Cambodia into an agricultural commnist collective. In 1968 he became the dictator of a party called the Khmer Rouge.
His armies forced thoses who lived in cities to reloacte to rural villages and work on collective farms - around two million people all together. Thousands died due to the Khmer rouge's insistence that the country became self sufficient, leading to the lack of food and medicine. Because parents were 'tainted by capitalism', families were separated and children were trained as soilders. Anyone suspected of engaging in 'free market activities' was taken to Toul Sleng, a former school, to be tortured and coerced in to naming their families as traitors too. Intellectuals, city dwellers, anyone with glasses or who spoke a second language was targeted.
An estimated 17, 000 prisoners went through Toul Sleng, their pictures shown in the museum (the Khmer Rouge were meticulous record keepers), but there were only twelve known survivors. Pol Pot was known to say that it was better to kill an innocent person, than let a guilty person live. The rooms used as prisons in Toul Sleng still have chalk boards and the garden still has exercise equipment, which was later used by the Khmer Rouge in their torture of prisoners.
The second 'attraction' in Phnom Penh is called 'Choeung Ek'. After their (false) admissions of collaboration with the CIA, KGB or Vietnamese against the Khmer Rouge regime, prisoners were taken out of the city to 'the killing fields', where they were beaten to death due to a lack of bullets and burried in mass graves.
When I visit it is pouring with rain, which seems appropriate. The centre piece of the sight is a huge memorial stupa, containing skulls of the thousands of people killed here. When the rain stops the field is very calm and almost beautiful, which is very surreal whilst listening to the stories on the audio guide and walking past mass graves and former holding cells.
I don't want to go into too much detail because there is so much which is so horrible, although there is much more to tell - more informtion can, of course, be found online. I also haven't taken any pictures as neither site really felt like a photo opportunity. I put off writing this post for a while, in fact I thought about not writing it at all, but like walking around the graves and taking loads of photos that seemed insensitive. I wanted to at least briefly mention the two sites I visited in Phnom Penh, as, despite happening so recently, it is not taught in schools or remembered in the way in which other genocides are.
After four year of rule and the death of 25% of all Cambodians, the Khmer Rouge were removed from power by the invading Vietnamese, but survived into the 1990s as a resistance party, holding seats in the UN until 1982. Although some high up officals were tried some still live today, hiding in the countryside. Pol Pot died in 1998 with out ever having gone to trail. Today people on the streets on Phnom Penh sell books detailing personal stories from the time of the Khmer Rouge.
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