It was a bad sign. Not in the sense of omens of misfortune. Just a bad sign. It gave the name of the place I was looking for, but it was not at the correct location. Beside the sign, at a crossroads, was a shop and restaurant. The proprietor, used to giving directions before being asked, pointed 200 yards down the road to my destination … the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum.
At the entrance kiosk you pay the entrance fee of $10 and get an audio guide to explain, no wrong word, to present what took place in a former high school in Phnom Penh. On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia. Of the up to 20,000 detained here, there were 7, 12 or 14 confirmed survivors (depending on the sources). In 1979 the Vietnamese kicked out the Khmer Rouge from power though shamefully this murderous organisation was recognised by the US and the UK as the legitimate representatives of the Cambodian people (they controlled a tiny slither of land) until well in the first term of the Clinton presidency. Real politik trumped decency long before the Donald.
Under the Khmer Rouge about 2 million people from a population of just over 8 million died. They were slaughtered, starved or succumbed to disease as the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot told Cambodians it was Year Zero. Modernity was banned by decree. Reading glasses confirmed the wearer, even if a child, was an intellectual and therefore an enemy of the state. The ability to read or write, meaning the person was educated, was a life-threatening faculty.
Upon entering the complex 14 white painted slabs come into view. When the Khmer Rogue abandoned what is also known as S-21 there were 14 prisoners still alive. They were then killed and their bodies cremated. Their remains were found by the Vietnamese and they lie now underneath the white slabs.
A sign next to the slabs chillingly instructed prisoners how to behave.
- You must answer accordingly to my question. Don’t turn them away.
- Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
- Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
- You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
- Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
- While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
- Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
- Don’t make pretext about politics in order to hide your secret or traitor.
- If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
- If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
The jacaranda trees in the central garden offer a respite from this place of tears, as do the coconut palms. They were here when the Khmer Rouge took over and were maintained by them. They were willing and enthusiastic gardeners.
The former cells, about 1,500 were held here at any one time, have pictures of some of those detained. This was not a death camp though they were condemned as soon as they arrived. Some died, but the priority was to torture prisoners, get “information”, and then transport them to the killing fields around the country.
The photos on display haunt the viewer as scared, pleading or resigned eyes look out. You want to turn away but bearing witness, especially to those who committed abuses, is crucial.
About 80 per cent of those held here were Khmer Rouge cadres who had fallen foul of the leadership and had themselves committed atrocities. This was where the revolution, as all revolutions do, devoured itself.
US bombs were the recruiting officer for the Khmer Rouge. Up to August 1973, the US illegally dropped 2,756,941 bombs on an agrarian society to disrupt the supply route from Cambodia to the North Vietnamese. In the anger and mayhem, Khmer Rouge numbers swelled. Fifty years after the Khmer Rouge came to power, a shopkeeper, selling groceries and canned drinks, gives directions to a former school that is now a symbol of inhumanity.
[Photo by Tom Clifford]
Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist in Beijing. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
Read the full article here
