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Our sprint through Cambodia continued with our second and final stop, Phnom Penh. The praises of this country have been sung to us by many travellers but the main attractions of the country’s capital are rather more sombre and concern the genocidal years of the Khmer Rouge regime when almost a quarter of the country’s population was killed. To better understand the atrocities that occurred, we were to visit the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, better known as S21, and Choeung Ek – the famous Killing Fields. How did this sinister regime come to power? Why did the world’s leading nations allow it to continue, and even hold a seat on the UN for a further ten years after it was deposed? This particular post is not very cheerful, but it was an education for us and hopefully of interest to you.
 Not sure whether this is no talking or no laughing, not much risk of either here!
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In the shadows of the Vietnam war, the Cambodia and Chinese governments secretly signed an agreement allowing their Vietnemese allies to shelter troops in the frontal regions of Cambodia. The US responded with their own covert campaign, resulting in a half a million ton bombing campaign in Cambodia’s rural regions, and the insertion (and later removal) of ground troops, to flush out the Vietnamese. To the Cambodians, this left a decimated region, huge civil unrest, and a country vehemently opposed to Western influences. In 1971 Pol Pot’s regime, then known as the CPK, committed their first act of genocide by killing all the villagers that had sheltered Vietnamese communist soldiers in the last few years, poignantly expressing his belief in Vietnam as the enemy with the death of thousands.
 The translated rules of the Khmer Rouge that should be adhered to during interrogation.
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In the growing confusion and civil unrest, over the next few years villages are forced into agrarian collectivism, the primary focus of the coming Khmer Rouge regime. These will later become the ‘base people’ of the new Cambodia. On April 17th 1975, the Khmer Rouge storm Phnom Penh and evacuate the city, under the guise of advancing US troops. While the Khmer Rouge was initially welcomed as the country’s saviour, the city dwelling populace were quickly added to the country wide collectives by forced march and the unnecessary deaths began. The urban populace, recognised mainly as an intellectual risk, were potential subversives of the new regime and even in an ‘equal’ communist government were openly targeted by the Khmer Rouge.
 This more horrific collage depicts various states of death inflicted by the Khmer Rouge inside S-21.
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By 1979, when various parties rearmed and taught by the constantly provoked Vietnamese retook the country, nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s populace would be dead through starvation and execution. The country would have lost years of progression through the loss of a skilled and knowledgeable segment of the population (knowing a foreign language or wearing glasses was a sign of intellectualism, punishable by torture and execution). Families would have been broken up into different collectives across the country with no knowledge of the other’s whereabouts or health. Yet it still took another ten years for the UN to remove the Khmer Rouge from their seat on the council, and only in the last few years have members of the Khmer Rouge been brought to trial.
To think that all of this happened only thirty years ago is absolutely terrifying which is something that Cambodia agrees on, and why they have gone against Buddhist beliefs in cremation so that the skulls and bones of the million dead serve as a horrifyingly physical reminder of what can occur when national unrest and international ignorance go unchecked.
 Building A of S-21, where each classroom has been converted to a cell.
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Our first stop was Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, or Security Office 21 (S-21). Before the Khmer Rouge came to power it had been a school, by the end of 1978 over six thousand inmates had been through its doors, tortured and then executed. Classrooms were turned into cells, and glass put into the windows to help mask the screams. In building A, these cells remain largely unchanged and there aren’t many smiles among the visitors. In building B, larger classrooms have been divided into smaller cells of wood and brick where prisoners were chained to the floor, and barbed wire surrounded the front of the building to prevent detainees from committing suicide. In the remaining buildings, the floors now show photographs of both the living and dead, instruments of torture are openly displayed, and lastly a room of skulls gives the day’s thoughts an uncomfortable grounding.
 Lynette looking at the photo galleries of Gunnar Bergstrom.
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One of the more interesting photography exhibitions is from a Swiss photographer who was part of a group allowed to visit Cambodia in 1978 (some of the only foreigners ever allowed to enter the country during the regime’s control). Gunnar Bergstrom was sympathetic to the cause, and as an outsider was under the impression that the Khmer Rouge had the potential to implement a true communist structure that would implement beliefs correctly where other communist countries (Russia, China and Vietnam) had failed. He (and others) had been fascinated by the quick removal of currency, the agrarian collectivism and no oppression. A true egalitarian state. Their visit, a carefully orchestrated exercise in propaganda for the Khmer Rouge regime, documented Gunnar’s thoughts on each photo both at the time in 1978, and now looking back thirty years later. The man is sincerely sorry for his part in the nightmare, and his overall belief in social structure has gone from socialist political activism to complete disillusionment with all practised and theoretical forms of group organisation.
We left S-21 feeling very sombre, knowing that our visit wasn’t yet over. A bit like sticking a pin into your arm to remind yourself it still exists, while the other was still to go. Our next stop was the famous Killing Fields themselves, Choueng Ek Genocidal Centre.
 Entering Choueng Ek, otherwise known as The Killing Fields.
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Choueng Ek is one of over three hundred Killing Fields across Cambodia, where the mass graves of tortured and executed Cambodians have largely been exhumed and displayed in a large Stupa where they can be remembered and prayed to. The Stupa itself holds the skeletal remains of eight thousand bodies – mostly skulls, including men, women, children and babies. Squash court sized shallows in the ground with wooden signs announcing ‘166 victims without heads’ or a spot where babies were held by the legs and bashed against a tree under the Khmer Rouge belief of ‘No loss; no gain’. If the related family was extinguished, there would be no revenge for their actions.
 Seventeen shelves contain the skeletal remains of over eight thousand dead.
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Even now the signs of the Khmer Rouge regime are evident, as they were removed from power by the Vietnamese they retreated to the jungle leaving a trail of mines that still explode innocents to this day. Due to the relative secrecy of the inner workings of the country during the Khmer Rouge’s reign, the international community proclaimed ignorance of what had been going on, and even the regime’s leaders attempted to deny their knowledge of facilities such as S-21 and Choueng Ek. The new party that Vietnam helped put in place, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, remained unrecognised for ten years as a result. Even though internal trials held the guilty responsible, these were not recognised internationally, and it is only as of 2006 that the ECCC (or Khmer Rouge trial) is finally bringing the guilty leaders to justice. It is too late for some, Bother Number One or Pol Pot died in 1998 before he could be held accountable for his actions.
 There were well over three hundred Killing Fields in Cambodia; Choueng Ek is just one.
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One of the hardest elements for us to understand has not been necessarily the genocide itself, or another failed attempt at the utopia of communism, but the relative ease at which the international community allowed the Khmer Rouge regime to rise to power, and the lack of retribution that has to date been applied to their horrific acts. It is sad when one relates to the oil motivated war of Iraq and the relatively quick assassination of Saddam Hussein, when facts remain largely obscured, that such blatant nightmares as Cambodia experienced happened so recently and were so ignored. Looking even more recently, events such as those currently occurring in Zimbabwe on the surface appear to parallel many injustices mentioned here. More reading for us to understand, but sometimes it is important to remind yourself that the world is certainly not all rosy, and that propaganda and ignorance are the greatest enemies that a free society can face.
 The Khmer Rouge uniform, black, with officers wearing the red scarves.
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Note: Last point to say that we watched the famous film based on a true story, The Killing Fields, before our visit, and it was definitely worth it. There is great attention to detail, it certainly is not a straight documentary and gives a good portrayal of the different types of pain that people went through.
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