All About Tuol Sleng & The Killing Fields
Cambodia has a history unlike any other country in South East Asia, one that is filled with atrocities, pain, and genocide. However, this is often forgotten about or overlooked, and whilst being so fascinating, so many people have not heard about what took place only 40 years ago. So why is that?
In 1975 the Khmer Rouge swept across the country, declaring their opposition towards Cambodia’s involvement in the Vietnam War, destroying much of what was in their wake. The Khmer Rouge, led by the now infamous Pol Pot, was essentially a communist regime, one that spread nothing but terror and chaos throughout Cambodia for four years, from their rise to power in April 1975 until they were overthrown in January 1979. It is estimated that during this time one third of the Cambodian population was wiped out by their own people, whether it was from exhaustion and malnourishment as they worked in the fields, killed in interrogations, or simply murdered for baring any kind of intelligence beyond what was deemed acceptable, such as wearing glasses, being a teacher or doctor, or speaking a foreign language.
Declaring that the nation would start again at "Year Zero", Pol Pot isolated his people from the rest of the world and set about emptying the cities, abolishing money, private property and religion, and setting up rural collectives.
In Phnom Penh stands two main monuments that proudly showcase the memory of what happened in Cambodia and those who’s lives were lost. Cambodia has not only been able to recover but has grown and developed since those years, but that development came at the price of the peaceful way of life that used to reign in Cambodia. Whilst this may be the case, and the rate of Cambodia’s growth has been exponential since the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by invading Vietnamese troupes, the memory of the atrocities that took place here are still fresh in the minds of many of the people that still live here.
Hundreds of thousands of the educated middle-classes were tortured and executed in special centers. The most notorious of these centers was Tuol Sleng in the capital city of Phnom Penh, often nicknamed S21 Prison, was once a school, but during the Khmer Rouge Regime this school was turned into a prison where ‘enemies’ of the Khmer Rouge were kept, tortured, interrogated and killed. It is estimated that over the four years of the Khmer Rouge Regime as many as 17,000 men, women, and children were kept imprisoned here.
To this day Tuol Sleng still stands, now no longer a prison, but a monument and dedication to those who lost their lives there, including a small amount of foreigners who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is rumored that during their stay at Tuol Sleng many prisoners were forced into confessing to crimes that they had not committed, including being international spies or selling information to governments outside of Cambodia, pushed to this point through torture and threats. The faces of those that were imprisoned at S21, some only children themselves, still hang on the walls, framed for guests and visitors to see, haunting the halls of the building that once kept them captive.
Due to a policy of guilt-by-association, at times whole families were detained at the center. Very few inmates were released out of the prison between the years of 1975 and 1979. Only 12 former inmates survived the opening of S-21 when Phnom Penh was liberated. Four of them were children. These are often referred to as ‘the lucky ones’.
Probably the most heartbreaking monument to the Khmer Rouge Regime stands in the form of the Killing Fields, located just outside of Phnom Penh Capital. Whilst only one of hundreds of Killing Fields across the country, Choeung Ek, which sits on the outskirts of the city, was by far the largest and most terrifying of them all. Today it serves as a memory to those that lost their lives there - and those that survived - and is used as an educational tool to ensure that history never repeats itself again.
Those sent to Choeung Ek made the 17km journey crammed into the back of trucks. Once there, many were blindfolded and, not wanting to waste bullets, soldiers smashed spades into their heads before pushing them into pits containing the dead bodies of thousands. It is thought that about 17,000 men, women, and children were executed at the site.
In 1980, the remains of almost 9,000 people were exhumed from the mass graves that litter the former orchard. Many of these skulls now sit in a memorial stupa that was created in 1988 and forms the centerpiece of the site, serving as a reminder of the bitter past and helping to ensure the lives lost are never forgotten.
Today, it’s hard to imagine the former orchard is a place that harbors such horror. Birdsong rises from the trees, the gentle breeze wafts through manicured fields, flowers bloom, shimmering paddies surround the site and life goes on. Threaded bracelets litter the site, from being hung on plants and posts that surround the locations that once marked mass-graves, to being strung through the trees where children were once killed - a small offering of remembrance and solidarity from visitors and guests who pass through to pay their respects.
It seems almost immoral that such suffering has been almost completely forgotten by the rest of the world. But in Cambodia life goes on, improving day by day, with the unspoken promise that such horrors and atrocities will never happen again in the Kingdom of Wonder.
