The Khmer Rouge Ghosts

Choueung Ek Genocidal Center is a monument to the barbaric murders commited by the monstrous Khmer Rouge regime during 1975 to 1979.  Over 20,000 people were executed here, their remains callously discarded in 129 mass graves.  8,000 skulls have been unearthed to date.

The first thing to strike you is teh natural beauty of the place.  Lush green trees overhanging pathways and the river slowly meandering by.  It is hard to imagine scores of families queueing up awaiting their fate.  Some of their fates were sealed as peasants sent to work in the countryside whilst others were condemned to death with no rhyme nor reason for that decision.  Families were separated, babies snatched from their mothers arms.

Immediately upon entering the site you stand face to face with a huge 15 storey memorial stupa containing thousands of skulls and remnants of clothing.  Holes in the skulls depict the heavy blows which ended that individuals life.  I was unable to speak as I tried to absorb the chilling evidence of the massacres that occured here.  I walked through 'The truck stop' where on a daily basis prisoners were left to stand and wait their inevitable premature deaths.  An average of 300 executions a day took place here.  Some were beaten to death, some beheaded and the lucky ones suffered a quicker exit from this earth at the end of a gun barrel.

The unlucky ones were tied up and buried alive.  A handwritten sign details some of the atrocities ending with the declaration that the killings turned Cambodia into a "desert of great destruction that overturned the Kampuchean society and drove it back into the Stone Age".

There is a school adjoining the site and the sound of the childrens laughter pealing across the graves is a stark contrast to the ghostly screams that seemed to haunt my ears.  I can only pray that the souls of the innocent men, women and children who met their end here and all over Cambodia during that dark age are now at peace with the young ones able to play carefree once more.

On the verge of tears I took a Tuk-Tuk to Tuol Sleng, the former Khmer Rouge S-21 museum located in the heart of Phnom Penh.

Formerly the Tuol Svay Prey High Scool covering an area of 600 x 400 metres, in the newly deserted Cambodian capital, the site became a prison covered with electrified barbed wire.  The classrooms were used as prison cells whilst the surrounding buildings served as administration, interrogation and torture offices.  The tiny individual cells were only 0.8 x 2 metres in size.

The numbere of workers totalled 1,720 and within each unit were children from 10 - 15 years of age who were trained and selected by the Khmer Rouge to work as prison guards.  These children were brainwashed and forced to conform to the ideals of the party and grew increasingly evil with time, often crueller than their adult counterparts.

The reason for imprisonment of the Cambodians was simply due to any kind of opposition of 'Angkar' and the party beliefs and most inmates served sentences of between 2 and 7 months before meeting their maker.  They were shackled 24/7 and had to obtain permission to toilet or even more position on the floor.  Failure to do so would result in 20 - 60 lashes with a whip.

The regulations by which they had to adhere were as follows:

1) You must answer accordingly to my questions.  Do not turn them away.
2) Do not try to hide the facts by making pretexts of this and that.  You are strictly  prohibited to contest me.
3) Do not be a fool for you are a chap who dares to thwart the revolution.
4) You must immediately answer my questions without wasting any time to reflect.
5) Do not tell me either about your immoralities or the revolution.
6) While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all
7) Do nothing.  Sit still and wait for orders.  If there is no order, keep quiet.  When I ask you to do something you must do it straight away without protesting.
8) Do not make pretexts about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor.
9) If you do not follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire
10) If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

And us Brits moaned about life under Thatcher and rising interest rates.....

The liberating Vietnames forces found, upon their arrival at the prison, 14 hideously disfigured corpses who were photographed as found before being buried in the former playground.  The cells in which they lay still contain the wrought iron beds that they died upon and the photographs now hang on the wall.  They are harrowing images as are the still present blood stains on the floors.

There are about 10 rooms in the school containing row upon row of prisoner mugshots which were taken by guards when these innocents passed through the gates of hell.  They depict the young, the elderly, men, women, children and babies.  Some are so frightened that their downcast eyes cannot meet the camera whilst others stare straight ahead in defiance.  I will never forget the gazes of those poor people which seemed to follow me around from room to room.

After walking around the buildings I sat out in the playground surrounded by streams of other visitors.  Nobody spoke to each other and barely any eyecontact was made.  Everyone was evidently in their own personal world of reflection and horror and the blanket of silence over the whole site made the smell of death almost real.  I am not a religious person which can often make dealing with death rather difficult but I did find myself praying to some form of God for confirmation that all of those who perished are now at peace.  None of them deserved to be there and suffer such a cruel end and the hands of your kinsmen must surely the most degrading and unjust way to end your time on earth.