Between 1975 and 1979 the dictator Pol Pot ruled Cambodia.
He had a twisted Marxist ideology that sought the creation of an agrarian society completely controlled by the state. Many urban dwellers were relocated and forced to work on collective farms. Anyone who opposed him, who he saw as too educated, a city dweller, anyone with soft hands, anyone who might oppose his goals was subject to arrest and execution. The foot soldiers of his Khmer Rouge army were ruthless in their extermination campaign.
They lived by slogans. Better to kill one innocent person by mistake than allow one enemy to live by mistake. If you want to kill the grass you must pull up the roots as well. The second slogan justified the murder of children and babies.
While the Khmer Rouge set up death camps around the country none was more notoriously efficient than the combination of the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh and nearby Choeung Ek - the site that came to be known as the Killing Fields about a half hour outside of town.
At S-21 prisoners were not only held they were interrogated and tortured. When they were eventually loaded onto trucks for Choeung Ek most of them knew their fate. They would be killed that evening - the victims of the most brutal kinds of murder.
Slide Show: 1. Barbed wire was used to keep prisoners who were going to be executed from jumping to their deaths or attempting escape. 2. A giant cross bar was used to hang prisoners upside down and then dunk them head first into vats of water when they lost consciousness. 3. A view of one leg of the school converted into a prison in downtown Phnom Penh.
What strikes many who visit these two locations is how normal they seem. The prison is in the middle of a Phnom Penh neighborhood. You can see taller buildings over the walls that are strung with several layers of barbed wire.
The execution site is near a lake in the Cambodian countryside. It is remote. It is a place no one would likely look for an execution mill. Even so, the Khmer Rouge played music over loud speakers as they murdered their victims so their cries and moans could not be heard outside the gates of the facility.
Except toward the end of the Pol Pot regime, when the pace and number of executions increased, most prisoners were led immediately to their death upon arrival. Those who were not dead when tossed into ditches were finished off with chemical agents like DDT.
Slide Show: 1. Almost immediately on arrival prisoners were killed in what today (2). looks like an empty field on the edge of town. 3. Remarkably, bullets were considered too expensive so most of the murders (1.5 million at this location alone) were committed using blunt or sharp instruments and brute force.
Several mass grave sites are marked off at the Killing Fields, but none stirs more emotion than one where the bodies of mothers and their children were found.
What is especially offensive is how a large tree next to the grave was used to kill children. They were swung by their feet and their bodies broken against the tree. It's why this particular tree and grave are covered with bracelets, other memorial markers, and in some cases money.
People are so moved they want to do something, but of course there is little they can do except express their deep sorrow.
The purpose of preserving this site and the remains of the dead - here and at the prison back in the city - is to remind all humanity what happened in the hope it will never happen again.
In most cultures in the world you would be expected to pay reverence to the dead at a location like this by remaining silent and refraining from taking pictures. Not here. The only request is that you remove your shoes before entering and hearing directly from the victims by viewing their remains. Cambodia wants the world to see this place.
The remains are categorized according to approximate age and cause of death. The memorial Buddhist stupa contains over 5,000 human skulls.
Pol Pot was deposed in 1979, but he lived under house arrest until he was 75. In a mind numbing fact of international politics countries like the United States and Great Britain refused to immediately recognize the new leadership of Cambodia because of its ties to Vietnamese communists. The Khmer regime even continued to hold a seat in the United Nations despite the genocide it carried out against its own people.
Credits:
© Dean Pagani 2019