Peeking into the darkness of Phnom Penh (Part 1 of 2)
By scott.poniewaz | August 22, 2006
Cambodia is like nowhere I’ve been before. Somewhere in the deep history of the Khmer rule, there were about 5 years of horrid genocide. The bone-chilling effects of Cambodia’s history will be forever engrained into my mind.
I am going to start at the end of my trip with this two-part entry, only because it is the one that is also the most impacting. The history of Cambodia runs deep, from the ruins of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap to the people who roam the streets on crutches or are missing limbs from the land mines that still manage to kill about 30 people on average each month. The history of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot and the genocide is still fresh in the minds of the Cambodian people. In the 1970’s it is estimated that about 1.7 million people were systematically killed in over two dozen mass grave sites throughout the country, but if you ask the Cambodians, that figure is estimated around three million. The truth is, nobody really knows the death toll yet.
The last day that I spent in Cambodia involved a trip to Tuol Sleng also known as “S-21.” The approximate translation is, “a place on a mound to keep those who bear or supply guilt.” The drive to the high school that was converted into a detention and torture center in the 1970’s was a fairly regular drive through the city. When you pull up to the school, it still looks fairly normal, despite the barbed wire fence that lines the top of the corrugated steel walls surrounding the area. Food vendors line the sides of the streets with their carts of Khmer food, children ride their bikes with smiles on their faces and a hip café known as the Boddhi Tree sits across the street. Within the compound is a dark reminder of the atrocities Pol Pot and his comrades committed against the country and its people.
The school has four separate buildings, each of which are three levels tall and have walls that could tell stories that few could probably imagine. The government decided to keep the buildings as they were found in an effort to preserve and remind the people of what is said to be a genocide that is worse than Hitler in World War II. Within the walls of the school stories are told without the words of those people that experienced it. Instead their pictures, which were taken when they entered the school, fill several rooms. Much like the Vietnam memorial in Washington, people come to find their loved ones like needles in a haystack, but in this case, the desperate eyes are staring back at you. Images of torture and those being contained blown up to poster size make the Abu Ghraib images look like playtime dress-up. The metal beds still sit in the middle of some of the rooms with metal chains to keep them attached to the bed. Some rooms you can see bloodstains on the ceilings, floors, or the occasional stains with fingerprints on the doorframe that you can only assume were from a prisoner’s last struggle as he was pulled out to be put in a truck and taken to the killing fields of Choeng Ek about 15 kilometers from Phnom Penh in the countryside. In the smaller cells, which are classrooms converted into ten brick cells that are about 1 meter wide by about 2 or 3 meters deep, you see markings on the walls that are almost like scoreboards (I still don’t know what they mean), and streaks of blood that come out of the cells as if someone was dragged out with their heels digging onto the cold tile.
When you go up the stairs in one of the buildings, you see written in the Khmer language with blood on the dirty, floor, “Blood of the people.”
Outside in the schoolyard, physical fitness stations have been converted into torture devices, including a large wooden frame that was used to hang prisoners upside down until they went unconscious. When this happened, they would dunk their heads into a large ceramic pot of water filled with fertilizers used on the surrounding gardens to quickly wake them up and get the answers they were looking for. Many found themselves giving false statements only because of the horrible techniques. After spending a couple hours there, it was time to head out, which meant avoiding a man who moved alongside me with one leg, his hat held out and his crutches clicking along as I walked away. I felt guilty as I sped back to the bus, but I had refused to give money to these people on my whole trip and felt fine with it. As this guy kept pace with me while I reflected and stared at the ground. I almost became upset and wanted to say to the man, “How could you chase after me and bank on my sympathy after looking into the eyes of these people that were on their way to be killed?”
Then it impacted me pretty hard that he had been affected as well and maybe even lost family, then would probably want to respond to my thoughts, “Do you think it was my choice to have my leg blown off by a land mine thirty years later?”
I couldn’t just hand out money like that and truly expect it to get to where it should be going and he eventually turned back to prey on another tourist that was walking out with a dark cloud looming above their head. I sound a little cold, but throughout Asia, there are too many people that need help along the way and it is difficult to really put money in a child’s hand, expecting that child to eat. He will probably just give it to a parent who uses it to drink. You also cannot give them packaged food or they will also sell that food to someone else for profit. The best you can do for some of these kids is give them fresh street food and that is when you figure out which kids really need it and which kids get angry with you when you put a warm bowl of rice in their begging hand.
It was time to move on to the killing fields of Choeng Ek, which meant a bus ride down dirt roads into the countryside past small bungalow villages and rice fields. By the time I got out there, the rain was in full swing and the fields were getting muddy. I had heard that the fields were pretty much in the same conditions as they were found, so it was not uncommon to find bones or clothing coming out of the ground. I did not see any bones, but there was plenty of clothing that protruded from the muddy ground. I was kind of glad that the rain was pouring down on me as I walked through the fields, for some reason I just don’t think it would have given me the feelings it did if the sun had been shining and blue skies were above. They have yet to complete excavating the graves so far, but have built a stupa containing thousands of skulls to commemorate those who were so violently killed. As I drove out there comfortably listening to my iPod I thought to myself how I would be able to jump back in the bus and go home. These people, who were brought out in groups of about 30 in the back of a truck, went silently and may not have known what was about to happen to them. They would never leave those fields and were instead beaten to their death, because the Khmer Rouge did not want to waste the ammunition on the people.
It got to the point as well that the cadres, as they referred to themselves as (soldiers was a term used only for their enemies), were unable to keep up with the truckloads of people coming to be killed and had to build a small detainment shed which kept the prisoners in tight, dark quarters. This was when they were killing approximately 300 people each day and this also meant that some of their extensive paperwork and record keeping system began to slide. Each person wrote, or was assisted in writing, a biography and confession of themselves, then a mug shot was taken and the dates of detainment and death were recorded. This is how so many of the people can be remembered.
The killing fields are not padded, what you see is what you get and if the Khmer Rouge got rid of something, there was a sign to say what was there. Rough signs are constructed to signify where mass grave sites were, how many people were found, whether heads were with the bodies and whether it was men, women or children buried. In many instances they still have some of the bones and teeth caked with dirt sitting next to them. The clothing is everywhere, including beneath a tree that held a microphone hanging from a tree to amplify other noises to cover the screams of those people being killed.
The rain that tapped away at the hood of my rain jacket was like the sound of each person knocking on my head. Despite the rain, it was eerie nonetheless.
I should have the next installment up in a few days, so keep checking back. I’ll have a couple more things to post as well, when my ability to catch up on the summer increases. Thanks for reading!
Topics: Uncategorized, Travel, Photo Galleries, General, Cambodia |
5 Responses to “Peeking into the darkness of Phnom Penh (Part 1 of 2)”
Comments
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6:52 am on August 23rd, 2006
Amazing stuff, Scott. Simply amazing. I’m glad you are able to share it.
-g.
11:05 am on August 31st, 2006
Pony, you’re doing fine work, my friend. You should be proud. Really, it’s great stuff.
8:09 pm on August 31st, 2006
[…] This is part two of a two-part installment on my journey’s through Cambodia. To read more please check out: Peeking into the Darkness of Phnom Penh (Part 1 of 2) […]
7:15 am on September 1st, 2006
Scott - great read. you should see (if you haven’t already) the movie “The Killing Fields”, which is based on a true story about a New York Times (i think) reporter and his Cambodian interpreter who decided to stay in the country after the khmer rouge took power. Very interesting stuff - it’s amazing what goes on around the world that we in the U.S. like to avoid thinking about (darfur, rwanda, etc.).
6:13 pm on September 1st, 2006
John, I have gotten a chance to see that movie. I also picked up a documentary called S-21 that is supposed to be pretty compelling, but with work I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet. I definitely would recommend seeing “The Killing Fields” to anyone interested in this or genocide situations similar to this. Thanks everyone for reading and leaving comments!