the smell of death in Phnom Penh

First morning at Okay Guesthouse, Miguelito was having breakfast when on the next table, Satvinda, a girl I met on the boat the day before, was planning a trip to a couple of important places in Phnom Penh with these 2 italian guys. Miguelito joined the conversation and the gang hired a tuk-tuk from one of the boys working at the guesthouse.

We all jumped into the tuk-tuk and off we went to the 'Killing Fields' and S21 prison to learn a little about Pol Pot's genocide campaign.

anyone else to join?

Choeung Ek, the killing fields

It was here in 1980 that the bodies of 8985 people, victims of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge comrades were exhumed from 86 mass graves. Afurther 43 graves have been left untouched. Many of those buried here had suffered prolonged torture at S21 prison in Phnom Penh before being led to their deaths at Choeung Ek. Men, women and children were beaten to death, shot, beheaded, or tied up and buried alive.

As the Khmer Rouge were starting their reign of terror, Toul Svay Prey Secondary School, in a quiet neighbourhood, was transformed into a primitive prison and interrogation centre. Corrugated iron and barbed wire were installed around the perimeter and classrooms were divided into cells. From 1975 to 1979 as estimated 20.000 victims were inprisioned in Security Prison 21, or S21 as it became known. Teachers, students, doctors, monks and peasents suspected of anti-revolutionary behaviour were brought here, often with their espouses and children. They were subjected to horrific tortures and then killed or taken to extermination camps outside the city.

The Choeung Ek 'killing fields' are a walled area within which one can find a little museum with pictures and bit of written history about the place and the Khmer Rouge; a monument raised to the victims where hundreds of skulls and clothes of the victims where piled in; and the mass graves from where they were unearthed.

hmmm...

victim's mandibulas

the mass graves today look more like a swamp

we spent some time around discussing the subject...

victims of cambodia's war mines. Check out the huge smile!!! Closer...

Introducing Paolo and Satvinda.
Paolo, 36, from Milaaaano(!!!), a natural born traveller, been to Thailand and SE Asia many times. His mother lived in Thailand for a few years long time ago and some friends live in the island of Koh Samui. He goes to Brazil for several months within the last 6 years so we could actually have fun speaking brazillian portuguese, including brasilian naughty dirty words... lol Good laugh! Dinamic strong minded italiano who takes no bullshit from the locals when it comes to bargain for prices. I though I was tough on that until I met this 'gentleman'...

Satvinda, a Londoner, indian roots, been travelling on her own for 4 months now. Well... as far as I gathered she hops from group to group: on the boat to Cambodia she had left a group of traveller friends behind, she was now 'forming' another group and when she left Phnom Penh she stuck to another group... Clever way to travel: own your own, but not on your own! A nice girl anyway... with personality... ;)

Introducing Domenico.
Domenico, 29, da Veneziiiiia(!!!), travelling for a few months too, met Paolo 2 months before in Thailand and they both been travelling together. Very laied back... Perhaps a little too laied back... but also good fun! Veramente Bee uh tee fuuul acc sente! Dai !

The city centre is crossed by splendours canals. The sewage waters running in them are so grey and thick that one can almost skate roll over...
Nice...

Introduction to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. To read and learn...

Many of who came under suspicion, especially those of high-rank, were eventually sent to Tuol Sleng prison located in Phnom Penh and known by the code name S21, which became the party centre's prison. Some, including their children, were executed fairly quickly. Others interrogated and tortured into making 'confessions'. These confessions would sometimes continue for months, before execution finally took place.
According to the Documentary Centre of Cambodia, there are about 189 prisons, 380 killing fields and 19.403 mass graves. In Cambodia, no family could escape from the genocidal policy of Democratic Kampuchea.

The school...






The classrooms...

The school's recreational patio. The wooden frame used for gymnastic rings before was now used to hang people by their arms, legs and neck... The clay pots underneath where filled with water and people hanged by their legs, up side down, and slowly tortured to 'confess', and drown in them...

I particularly like Rule no. 6 ...

Tough... We ain't messn about!!

the victims

Professor doctor of medicine

Torture pictures were available at the exhibition but were too shocking to be reproduced...

The Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot and his crew...

Born of radical communism and wartime opportunism, the Khmer Rouge defined the darkest period of Cambodia's history leaving a legacy that will last for years. Led by the French-educated Saloth Sar, who operated under the pseudonym of Pol Pot, the guerrillas gathered popular support during the american bombings of eastern Cambodia. After taking power the Khmer rouge set out to immediately revamp Cambodian society. The new agrarian economy was focused primarily on massive increases in rice production. Thousands of people died during the evacuations from the cities to the country side to work on the fields. The Khmer Rouge transformed Cambodia into a rural, classless society in which they abolished money, free markets, normal schooling, private properties, foreign clothing styles, religious practices, and traditional Khmer culture. A national bank was destroyed. Public schools, hospitals, pagoda, mosques, churches, universities and government buildings were shut or turned into prisons, stables, re-education camps and granaries. There was no public or private transportation, no private properties and non-revolution-related entertainment. The Khmer Rouge claimed that only pure people were qualified to build the revolution. Soon after seizing power, they arrested and killed thousands of soldiers, military officers and civil servants from the Khmer Republic led by Marshal Lon Nol, whom they did no regarded as pure. Over the next 3 years they executed thousands of intellectuals, city residents and minority people such as Cham, Chinese or Vietnamese.

Doctors, teachers, writers, educated people and their families were tortured and killed. Even wearing glasses was an indication of intelligence, a 'crime' punished by death.

victim's blood stains

When I visit places such this it is not with the intent of feeding some sort of a morbid pleasure within. Instead, by occasionally visiting such dramatic venues, one can only keep learning more about the human condition and its extreme behaviours so one can become a better person...

say what? Cambodia's Independence Monument!