Phnom Pen and the Killing Fields

Palace at Phnom Penh

Palace at Phnom Penh

Cheung Ek Genocide Museum

FRIDAY 5 AUGUST 2011

I had arranged with Po, the Tuk Tuk driver from last night, to pick me up at 8.30 a.m. to drive me around for the day. We went to the Palace first, which was magnificent. The traffic in Cambodia seems a lot calmer, with the drivers only hooting when necessary as opposed to every time they see another vehicle!

We drove the 15 kilometres to the Cheung Ek Genocide Museum, known as the ‘killing fields’, where thousands of people were taken from S-21 Prison to be killed. Over 8,000 bodies have so far been discovered in the large pits where they were killed. There is a Pagoda style memorial to the people who died here which is full of some of their bones, arranged in seven layers with the skulls at the bottom, and other bones further up in layers.

The next stop was the Tuol Sleng Museum – S-21 Prison. Tuol Sleng used to be a secondary school but on 17th April 1975 Pol Pot’s men changed it into prison S-21, the biggest in Cambodia. The classrooms were converted into cells and mass detention rooms, where thousands of people of all classes – peasants, workers, engineers, doctors, students, Buddhist monks, soldiers and foreigners were tortured and then killed, along with their wives and children. Seven Europeans, an Australian and an American were also killed.

14 dead prisoners were found when the prison was finally liberated on 7 January 1979, and these people are buried in S-21. The cells where they were found are left as they were, with the metal beds and a photo of how the victims were found.

The exhibition was very well done, showing the horror without glorifying in it. Photos of the victims were on display in several rooms and in another room information about the chief people responsible for the genocide, and about the on-going trial of those who are still alive.

During Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge’s 3 year time in power, from 1975 to 1979, over 3,000,000 men, women and children were murdered. It seems unbelievable that this could have happened in a predominantly Buddhist country.