Phnom Penh, Cambodia was a bustling capital city with interesting markets and neighborhoods. On the first morning we went out to find some breakfast and came across this market just across the street. It was so packed with vendors and people on scooters that we could barely walk through - it was not what we had in mind for breakfast - a bit overwhelming to the senses at the beginning of the day, but fascinating still!
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| All of this is well underway by 7:30 am - impressive! |
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| Fresh chicken anyone? Maybe chicken feet soup tonight? |
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| Gorgeous fresh produce |
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| Meat market- fresh cuts warming in the sun - no food inspectors here! |
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Do these monks even know how cool they are? "Hey! Anybody seen Ringo?"
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The city was interesting but the main reason for our visit to Phnom Penh was to learn firsthand about what happened to the Cambodian people under the rule of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979. I had never even heard of the Cambodian Genocide before we started researching for this trip so I was glad to have the opportunity to understand it now. After looking into the history and talking to some people, Chris and I decided not to take the kids to the Tuol Sleng (S21) Genocide Museum and The Killing Fields since the information and images were likely too graphic for them. So, we booked into a nice, very safe hotel, stocked up on snacks for the kids, and left them with some school assignments for the day with strict orders not to emerge from the room unless the building was on fire!
We got in a tuk tuk and headed out for a day of learning about and acknowledging the Cambodian Genocide. Not exactly the stuff vacation dreams are made of, but important to know about in our opinion.
*A little warning that some of the details and photos here are disturbing, not for everyone, kind of graphic... continue only if you want to*
Our first stop was the Genocide Museum. This complex was a high school which the Khmer Rouge closed and converted into a prison. The Khmer Rouge first took power and marched into Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. There are photos of the Cambodian people celebrating because the civil war was finally over. The celebration didn't last long though, as the Khmer Rouge, under the rule of Pol Pot the despot, evacuated all 3 million inhabitants of Phnom Penh within 72 hours, forcing them into the countryside. People were told to evacuate the city because American bombs were coming, but in reality they were sent out to work in the fields. This happened in every major city in Cambodia, as cities were seen by the Khmer Rouge as too progressive and not aligned with the "roots" of the Cambodian people. The Khmer Rouge wanted to reset Cambodia to "year zero", and for the country to be comprised of people who are hardworking farmers so that the country could grow its own food and not have to rely on others. Education and religion were not desirable, seen as a threat, so anyone who had education or religious training was taken to prison right away. Their family members were taken too, because, as the Khmer Rouge said, "If you want to kill a weed, you have to take the roots". In taking the family members too, they could be sure that no one would come back seeking vengeance. Schools, temples, churches and banks were closed, money and bank records were burned, the goal being that everyone was equal in having nothing except the ability to work hard to provide for their country.
The prison/museum that we visited was one of many prisons across the country, housing "criminals" from every area of the country who were educated, religious, or non compliant. Later, it seemed, that after any obvious "criminals" and their families were taken to prison, other, regular people were taken too, and forced, through brutal torture, to admit to various crimes that they never committed but would be killed for. Another Khmer Rouge mantra was "It is better to kill an innocent than to let a guilty person live".
I can't help but wonder about the wisdom of cleansing your country of anyone with any intellectual ability, it doesn't seem to bode well for the future, but the kind of future Pol Pot wanted was one of a self sufficient, simple agriculture based society where no one questioned his authority.
At the prison we learned that prisoners were chained in a small cell by themselves, or chained in larger rooms in rows of 9 prisoners laying down with their ankles all shackled together, leaving them unable to even roll over. They had to ask permission to even sit up, and were never allowed to speak to each other. It was disturbing to see the careful documentation that was recovered after the eventual defeat of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. When brought to the prison, each prisoner's photo was taken, height and weight recorded, as well as the details of their life story. Later the details of their death would be added to the record. Many of the records were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge when the Vietnamese Army invaded in 1979, so it is unclear how many people were held, but it is confirmed that at least 15000 prisoners were there and of those, as few as 7 survived.
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When the Vietnamese army were taking over Phnom Penh, the remaining prisoners were
quickly killed before the Khmer Rouge fled the scene - the photo on the wall shows how the
Vietnamese soldiers found the dead prisoner laying in this room. There were several of these rooms.
The ammunitions box on the bed was what the prisoners used for a toilet.
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Some of the photos from the recovered records - there were several walls full of photos
of prisoners of all ages
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Generally prisoners were held for a few months, tortured extensively until they confessed to the crime they were accused of, and forced to name other traitors - usually just giving the names of people they knew in desperation to end the torture. Those named would then be brought to prison because of the accusations. The confessions were all recorded and documented, sometimes thousands of words long, generally mostly untrue. Once the confession was given and other traitors were named, the prisoners would be taken to killing fields and killed.
We wandered through the museum wearing headphones, listening to the information at each stop and looking at the displays. It was a strange experience to hear about and see images of innocent people and the brutality they endured, and be surrounded by other people all wearing headphones and hearing the same information, but no one talking. The museum was hard to visit, obviously no one likes to know that these things happened, but I was really impressed by the sensitive and respectful way the information was presented, and the way the audio tour recording gave warnings about things that may be especially upsetting, offering you the choice to sit outside and listen instead of going in, or going to the "White Lotus Room" where they offered water and support. I felt that they did the best they could in presenting this very difficult material that needs to be known.
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| Chris listening to the audio guide on the headphones - heavy stuff. |
Over the course of 5-6 years, the Khmer Rouge was responsible for the deaths of up to 2 million Cambodian people - either through imprisonment, torture, and direct killing, or through starvation and overwork in the rice fields. One quarter of the 8 million Cambodian people died in those 5-6 years. Equally shocking is that the UN recognized the Khmer Rouge as a legitimate governing body in Cambodia the entire time, allowing them to hold a seat at the UN until 1982. There were some complex interactions at play involving the U.S, China, Vietnam, and the Soviet Union - which I still don't fully comprehend, but I was shocked that the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge were overlooked for so many years.
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The translated rules of the prison - I think their "crazy" is showing a little. How did the
UN support these guys?
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In one of the rooms near the end of the tour, there was an opportunity for people to write their thoughts, condolences, etc. after viewing the information. I got goosebumps when I read what had been written there earlier on the day that we visited, this was likely in response to the immigration ban on Muslims imposed by the Trump administration a few days before. Good advice in my opinion.
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"Keep your eyes open and voices loud. Never again."
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After the Genocide Museum we took some deep breaths, regrouped, and got back in the tuk-tuk to go to the Killing Fields. On the way we saw the usual piles of garbage that we had become accustomed to in Cambodia - it was and is appalling to me that people just toss their garbage wherever they are. I contemplated not including these photos because I don't want to paint Cambodia in a bad light, but for me the garbage was a huge part of the story there, it is hard to get past.
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| a fairly typical example of the roadside |
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| a more extreme example of the garbage situation on the side of the road- this is on the way to the Killing Fields, a road heavily used by tourists every day |
The Killing Fields near Phnom Penh are one of many sites around the country where mass graves have been found. Many remains have been recovered from here, but some are still buried "at rest" because they are underwater or in an area which doesn't allow them to be recovered in a way that is acceptable to Buddhist practices. Again we donned the headphones and walked through the area, led by the audioguide. Again, it was incredibly disturbing to learn about what happened here. Prisoners were brought to the Killing Fields by the truckload from the prisons, under the cover of night, and usually killed at the edge of large pits with blunt instruments to the head, then tossed into a pit while the songs of the regime blared over a loudspeaker - this was all done to keep the killings secret, efficient, and inexpensive. Chemicals like DDT were added to the pits to keep the smell down. All of this was detailed in the walk through the area, along with horrific details of how babies and young children were killed while their mothers may have watched. There were mass grave sites where women and children were found, and even one where soldiers of the Khmer Rogue were found - in the later years Pol Pot apparently became very paranoid and would order the deaths of his own men if he thought they were turning on him. We saw one young man there with a friend, throwing small money bills into the mass grave site and saying some sort of prayer, presumably for a friend or relative who was a deceased soldier. Woven bracelets hung from all of the mass grave sites honoring the dead.
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| A mass grave from which the remains have been recovered |
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The tears flowed freely here...
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At times we saw pieces of bone, teeth, or clothing that surfaced because of erosion by the rains, which apparently happens regularly as there are signs around asking you to not step on them or touch them. There are glass bins displaying bone fragments, teeth, and clothing have been collected over the years.
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this tooth was just laying there beside the path, it had not yet been collected by
the caretakers which gives an indication of the number of human remains that surface
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At the end of the tour was a huge memorial building full of skulls recovered from the area. They had been sorted by age and categorised according to method of killing - this could be determined by the type of damage done to the skull.
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| The design of the building is meant to bring peace |
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| this is the view from all 4 sides up close |
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| inside the building |
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an example of the categorization by age and each color of sticker means a different type of
murder weapon
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The whole experience was extremely disturbing and overwhelming, and we came out feeling completely numb and in awe of how this could have ever happened. What kind of leader orders these things? And what kind of people follow those orders? How did no one stop this, and how is it that this type of thing has been repeated several times in history?
We left Cambodia a day or two later - in total we only spent a week in the country. Between the dirty, unhygienic conditions and the feeling that we were being scammed or seen just as people to get money from most of the time, we had a hard time connecting with this country. Now that I reflect on it though, it makes some sense. In a country where, just a generation ago, much of what they had was taken and/or destroyed in a very short time, it makes sense that they would live for today, get what they can, when they can, and not give the future too much thought. I know I'll never forget what I felt and what I learned in Cambodia.
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