Cambodia – Phnom Penh (Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek)
I'm not really sure why, but I absolutely fell in love with Phnom Penh. It was dirty, polluted, full of garbage, dust and grit - and yet, there is something about it. Carly likened it to Bangkok, and on the surface I would totally agree - but there is just something about it that's - different.
Maybe it's that we ate some of the best food I've ever had in my life, or the people, or the history of torment that lingers to this day - I couldn't say for certain.
Carly and I went to both the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and the Genocidal Museum at Tuol Sleng prison (more commonly referred to by English speakers as S-21). I'm no expert on Cambodian history, but a brief rundown is that the Khmer Rouge (a communist group more or less led by a man named Pol Pot) took over Cambodia in 1975 and began a mass genocide of anyone who was educated (you were murdered if you had a high school education), anyone who wore glasses, anyone who was religious (Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist - didn't matter) or anyone who provided any opposition to the government whatsoever. If you were educated, but your young children weren't - they would kill your entire family anyways - wife, children and infants - they didn't want to risk the chance of anyone coming for revenge later on.
Tuol Sleng was formerly a high school that was transformed into a detention, interrogation and torture center by the Khmer Rouge in May of 1976 where people were detained, tortured, starved, raped, poisoned, hung, tortured in countless ways - prior to either dying - or being sent off in a pickup truck to Choeung Ek - or some other area where the Khmer Rouge created mass graves for all the murdered innocent. Because they were trying to preserve the limited ammunition supply - people weren't shot - but instead were beaten with hoes, shovels, tools, poisoned or burned with acid, stabbed or bludgeoned to death. People were often buried alive. Infants and small children were grabbed by the ankles and clubbed against a tree until they died.
I'm still in utter disbelief that all of this took place such a short time ago - and with all of the peace-keeping efforts that are supposed to be in effect to protect against this type of genocide (that still goes on today in many parts of the world) - it would seem that instead the world stood by and did nothing, until Vietnam came to Cambodia's rescue in December of 1978. You would think that crimes like this would be punished - but instead Pol Pot was rewarded for mass murder by receiving a seat in the United Nations as the "official" government of Cambodia during the rule of the Khmer Rouge. After Vietnam overthrew the Khmer Rouge - and because of rocky relations between Vietnam and "the West" - the UN thought it better to leave the seat in the hands of the Khmer Rouge rather than handing it over to Vietnam. Pol Pot continued as a leader of the Khmer Rouge for several more years, ordering more executions and causing more chaos. He died in 1998 without ever being put on trial for his crimes.
This is a photo of the Memorial House at Choeung Ek - it is filled from floor to roof with the skulls of those exhumed from the mass graves in the surrounding fields.
These are a few shots taken at Tuol Sleng prison
The lady who founded Tabitha (the group we built the houses with) told us a story of one of the Cambodians she has worked with for several years. This girl was forced to work at Tuol Sleng prison when she was just 4 years old. They placed her in charge of a room full of infants (I don't remember the exact number - 60? more?) and it was her responsibility to care for them and ensure that they didn't make any noise. If any of the babies would cry for too long, the guard would become furious. He would storm into the room, pick up the screaming child and throw him/her against the concrete wall. For three years that little girl had to live in that prison, and still has nitemares to this day- living with the guilt of those children dying in her care - even though it was no fault of her own.
