The Killing Fields
Trip Start
Jun 17, 2005
1
9
21
Trip End
May 15, 2006
Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
The city of Phnom Penh (PP) is quite different in contrast to Vietnam and Thailand. Plagued by a culture of corruption, Cambodia is clearly a country in need of development. Along with a plethora of potholes that line the streets, beggars and homeless families (usually a mother and her child) are quite a common sight here.
The Killing Fields
In 1975 Cambodia was controlled by leftist guerillas known as the Khmer Rouge. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the regime systematically killed an estimated 2 million of their citizens converting Cambodia in to a peasant-dominated society based on Mao Tse Tung ideology. Over the next four years, currency was banned and the country was forced in to slave labor, as Cambodia would almost entirely be closed off to the outside world.
In Phnom Penh, I spent the first half of my day at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The building used to be a high school but was converted into a prison during the Khmer Rouge uprising. In this complex, many intellectuals, professors, students, farmers, engineers, and whole families would be beaten, interrogated, tortured and exterminated.
The actual complex is quite disturbing. As I entered each corridor I passed through the torture chambers, sleeping barracks, and interrogation rooms, as cold barren walls peered over my shoulder watching my every move. Haunting images of death and destruction cloud the mind leaving an eerie feeling of lifelessness.
Again, Cambodia is a walking museum. Nearly everyone I came in to contact with had a parent or loved one killed during Pol Pot’s reign. One person told his story of being separated from his parents as a child and was committed to an orphanage. What do you say to this? How do you feel? I don’t know.
