Inhumanity

While many people around my age might be aware of the devastating period of Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia, most of us are not well-informed about it.  This is most likely because it occurred while we were very young and/or they never got to that part in history classes.  For me, it is a combination of both.  My trip to S-21 and The Killing Fields proved that I know very little about what happened in SE Asia during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and though I learned quite a bit during my trip, I remain poorly educated on the subject.  But I'll share what I've learned all the same.

The brief background story goes like this:

Aside from period of power and prosperity from around 1000-1200AD (when the Siem Reap temples were built), Cambodia has always struggled for independence and stability.  After French occupation in the early 1900s, Cambodia finally began to stand on it's own again and enjoyed a period of relative peace and prosperity from the 1940s to early 60s.  Meanwhile, in the mid 1940s, one Mr. Saloth Sar won a scholarship to study at University in France.  There, he was introduced to and became obsessed with the ideas of Karl Marx.  Twenty years later, Mr. Sar will warp those ideas into a radical form of agrarian communism, develop a loyal communist following named the Khmer Rouge, and change his name to Pol Pot.

Civil war broke out in the late 1960s, and General Lon Nol deposed King Sihanouk and with tacit US consent, took over Cambodia.  Soon after, the US began carpet bombing the borders of Cambodia in an effort to get to the Viet Cong who had fled to Cambodia.  These bombings gradually moved inland, as the US targeted anything it considered to be a communist base camp.  These bombings killed several thousands of Cambodian civilians.

Try as they might, Cambodia couldn't keep the Vietnam War out.  It was during these years of conflict that Pol Pot gained power and finally overthrew Lon Nol.  The Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975 - two weeks before the fall of Saigon.  Troops forced everyone out of the city, and they immediately imprisoned anyone who worked for the previous government as well as numerous others, mostly college professors, lawyers, and other highly educated people.  For the next 4 years, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge starved, tortured, and killed nearly 2 million of their own Cambodian people.  It was the second worse case of genocide in the 20th century, next to the Nazi Holocaust.

If you were to visit Phnom Penh today, two places any responsible adult would have to go are the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and The Killing Fields.  Tuol Sleng is the sight of former office S-21.  Once a local high school, Pol Pot used this facility for detention, interrogation, inhuman torture, and killing after confession.  A few kilometers outside of the city are The Killing Fields, where the people from S-21, as well as others, were brought to be buried in mass graves. Both are horrifying.

Below are pictures from my very quick visit to them.  Due to a late arrival, we were under a bit of a time crunch, and I am still not sure if I was fortunate or unfortunate to have had very little time to explore these places.  I was fortunate in the sense that, since I had to rush, I was unable to study any of it in depth, and therefore the potential impact was lessened.  This was a bit of a relief because it was heart wrenching enough as it was.  At the same time, I think it is important to face things like S-21 and The Killing Fields; if people had to actually experience such inhumane torture, I feel it is my responsibility to see and understand what was done to them, no matter how difficult it is for me.  Somehow I feel I am less of a person if I do not face it.  I feel there is something I am supposed to do with that experience, something important, but I don't know what it is yet.  I am already planning my next visit to these museums - a trip I am both anticipating and dreading.

Previously part of the high school P.E. program, these were The Gallows at S-21.

I debated whether or not to put this picture here.  There are numerous pictures like this at S-21, and all are equally disturbing - if not more so.  The Khmer Rouge carefully documented everyone who went through S-21.  They often photographed them being tortured, and took pictures of their mutilated bodies when they were dead.  I decided to keep the picture because it was the least graphic of the ones they have up at the museum. 

Shackles

One of the hundreds of rows of jail cells

A jail cell

Torture device.  The picture below shows how it was used.

Another torture device, with depiction below

Skulls at The Killing Fields

I found The Killing Fields to be both creepy and peaceful at the same time.  There were beautiful trees and flowers surrounding the rolling pits.  But each pit was a mass grave filled with hundreds of bodies.  There were countless pits.

 

Sometimes you'd be walking and just see a random bone half buried in the ground. 

The most tragic and horrifying part of all.

I am having an extremely difficult time putting into words my latest revelation that understanding man's inhumanity to man is crucial to figuring out how to stop it.  The same words keep coming up - important, horrifying, ignorance, devastating, humanity - and I don't know how to put them together.  If I were my student, I would tell me that, if I cannot put it into writing without being redundant, then I don't truly understand my topic yet.  And if this were the case, which certainly it is, then I would tell me that the only way to figure it out is to keep reading and writing about it.  And because I'm a good student who knows I have a good teacher, I would listen to me.  I'll try again tomorrow.