Phnom Penh

After learning a little bit about the Khmer Rouge, one of the main cities that came up was Phnom Penh. This was largely due to the huge evacuation of the city in 1975, right after America removed its presence from Cambodia. It was at this time that the Khmer Rouge began their uprising, forcing the citizens of Phnom Penh to leave under the pretence that America was due to bomb the city again in a few days time. From there the Cambodians had to make their way between villages and checkpoints, relieving their belongings and possessions under the new law of the Angkar state. The leader of the later named Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, had a new way of life he wanted to implement on his country; they must move back to a communist rule where there is no need for anything more than the agricultural labour that helped to build the country up in the first place. Thousands of Cambodians were forced to give up their money and clothes and were forced into labour. That was only if they hadn’t been in a government related job including being in the military, a teacher or doctor in which case they were likely tortured and killed.

We went to visit one of the largest killing fields in Cambodia, Choeung Ek, which provided a tour of the grounds along with an audio option. Due to the limited amount of information we found in Battambang, we were happy to get given headphones and a small device that would tell us everything in English. It was a great way to provide the tour, allowing everyone to walk in peace among the important landmarks related to the Khmer Rouge. We passed through what had once been a Chinese burial ground and orchard and became an execution ground where prisoners were transported to. We walked through areas that were used as mass graves and even one killing tree covered in bracelets as a tribute to the babies that had been literally beaten against it before being tossed into a pit with their deceased mothers.

We spent a good couple of hours learning all about the area and the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, even hearing translated excerpts of interviews with some of the men involved in the killing. There was also an eery moment when you could listen to a Khmer Rouge propaganda anthem that they would play over the speakers to mask the screaming of the victims being tortured and murdered.

We moved through the tour where we came to the final stop, a grand structure containing bones, skulls and weapons, all preserved to show the world the devastating effects of a countywide genocide. This is the largest monument in Cambodia and has noticeable features of birds and snakes around the top. We learned that the bird was in fact Garuda, a creature of Hindu and Buddhist mythology and above is Naga who symbolises Khmer culture, often represented as a seven headed serpent. Typically the creatures are enemies but when found together, they symbolise peace.

The remains give important information on how the victims had died and some of the torture they had gone through. Farming tools and even the serrated leaves of sugar palm trees were used as weapons to kill prisoners to conserve bullets and keep a lower profile and the trauma of these remain on the skulls. Though lots of the victims have been exhumed, many are still resurfacing on the grounds that they were buried in, brought to light by the changing weather. We stayed for a while reflecting on the horrors that these Cambodians had been through before moving on to another key location that we were informed of during the tour: Tuol Sleng, better known as the S-21 prison, located back in the city.

Initially a high school, S-21 became a prison run by the Khmer Rouge once the city was evacuated. We were dropped just outside it and noticed that some of the fences had barbed wire on the top. It was a chilling sight and only the beginning of what was to come. We picked up new headphones and audio commentary devices and made our way into the large square courtyard. The whole site looked derelict, even with the visitors going in and out of the surrounding buildings. We moved through building A and saw rooms with single bed frames in them, all with shackles attached. Accompanying the rusted frames were photos of the last victims of S-21, killed and left chained up before the Khmer Rouge were driven out by the Vietnamese.

We moved through to the second building but not before seeing how school equipment such as a bar for climbing was used for torture. The second building had further information of the atrocities that occurred in the school along with hundreds of photos of the known victims, who had been profiled when being sent to the prison. Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade or Brother Duch, was the director of the prison and had been precise in capturing details such as height and weight. These were the characteristics of a man whose loyalty saw him move from being a teacher in old Cambodia to one of the highest roles in the Khmer Rouge.

The third building contained more cells, the first floor contained wooden-made areas and the upper floors were made of brick. With about the same space as a utility cupboard, these cells used to keep two prisoners at a time, both of which were responsible of each other. They had to ask permission to even sit up and if one had accidentally made a noise, they would both be beaten. Doorways were created through the walls of the building to allow guards to keep an eye on all the cells at once and along the front of the third building was a barbed wire netting, draped across the windows after prisoners had tried to jump out and commit suicide to escape the tortures they received.

This was another reason for the barbed wire topped fences enclosing the site. It gave you a slice of the real sense of isolation that the prisoners would have suffered for the rest of their lives after being captured by the Khmer Rouge. It’s no surprise that prisoners chose a self-inflicted death when the alternative was to be tortured into confessing to false charges that the Khmer Rouge put to them, such as working with the CIA. Several non-Cambodians had also been caught, tortured and killed including New Zealander Kerry Hamill who as a testimony to his own sense of humour and resilience, gave variations of pop culture references as false names such as “Colonel Sanders” when tortured to confession. He used his home telephone number as his CIA operative number and his brother said in Duch’s future trial that he believed Kerry had “given up” a fictional speaker with the code name “S Tarr” as a way to try and get a message of hope and love to their mother Esther.

He and all of the other prisoners died at the hands of their captors and the tour doesn’t hold back on any of the details of their actions which were finally brought to a halt in 1979 after the Vietnamese stormed the city and discovered the prison, bringing all the suffering to light. Comrade Duch had escaped and fled to a small village in Thailand but was later discovered in the late 90s and brought to court willingly before being sentenced to life imprisonment for his unspeakably heinous crimes. The same couldn’t be said of Pol Pot, who remained alive and well until his early 70s, escaping justice for the remainder of his life.

We moved through the final building to find some devices used for torture including waterboarding and releasing venomous bugs and creatures to bite and sting victims. There was more detail of the fall of the Khmer Rouge and we finally got to a monument that had been partly funded and unveiled by the Germans in 2015, a country who of course had experienced such a similar experience themselves. A German ambassador had spoken of the importance of talking and learning about the Khmer Rouge, something Germany benefitted from after a surge of curiosity from the younger generations of the 1970s who challenged their parent’s fear of the subject by asking the uncomfortable questions.

Though it was a difficult tour to attend, it was a necessary one. We learned all about a part of history that I hadn’t been aware of in the UK, including a little bit about the famous Vietnam War that had led up to it. But at the end of the tour we were told by the narrator about the importance of the museum and our visit today. Along with the awareness of how genocide can happen right under the noses of the world, it helps to keep the memory of those that suffered alive, and prompts us to talk about the past rather than ignore it.

We finished off our time in Phnom Penh by enjoying the local restaurants and walking up and down the river most nights, watching all the locals getting by and selling a variety of goods. It was after visiting a particular cafe called Daughters of Cambodia that we realised there were still huge and current issues within the country. This particular cause, for example, helps to give those in sex work or victims in sex trafficking a new means of work, a small but important part of the help that the country receives, all trying to push people above the poverty line and away from the devastation that their recent history caused.

It’s something visitors of Cambodia can help with; it can be as big a contribution as building schools (as Angelina Jolie did in recent years after falling in love with the country over a decade before) or it can be as small as buying a cheesecake in a cafe and making paper in a workshop. We felt like our time in Cambodia made an impact, if not just to witness what has happened and is happening in the world, things that we were previously unaware of over in the UK. We enjoyed our time in such a kind and humble country and were more than ready to visit our next destination, Vietnam.