The Killing Fields

Since I found out that I would be going to live in Cambodia I have tried to educate myself on the atrocities which this country faced 30 years ago. I watched the film ‘The Killing Fields’, I read what numerous travel guidebooks had to say about it and have also read lots of books detailing first-hand accounts of the terror and unbelievably horrific events which swept over the country and affected every single person who lived here. I’m not the world’s greatest historian but I have just about managed to piece together the course of events which led up to Pol Pot’s reign over the country and what happened here as a result. I am not going to regurgitate a complete history lesson on my weblog, although I am going to add a list of the books I have read in case anyone wants to follow suit.

My last day in Phnom Penh was spent at one of the country’s Killing Fields – Choeung Ek. During the short reign of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979), about two million people died in Cambodia. Many of the dead ended up n various ‘killing fields’ that can be found scattered across the country. They were places of execution and dumping grounds for the dead bodies of men, women and children. Choeung Ek, just outside Phnom Penh is once such killing field where more than 17,000 were executed. I find it really hard to even imagine that number of people. Most of them will have suffered interrogation, torture and deprivation at the S-21 prison, Toul Sleng, which I visited about 6 weeks ago in Phnom Penh. Onno and I cycled about 8km from the centre of the city to visit what has now become a Memorial to the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime. A large stupor containing the skulls of the unearthed dead stands as a memorial, their clothes washed and displayed at the base. We walked round the site, reading the information boards and trying to take in the fact that this strangely beautiful spot in the Cambodian countryside could be the scene of such evil.

What I fail to get my head around is how this horror was able to happen. It continues to shock, fascinate, disgust and amaze me. It is interesting hearing some very different responses to the recent arrests of some of the Khmer Rouge leaders and the upcoming trials. I am gradually understanding the Cambodian people more and more but no matter how many books I read or sites I visit, I will never even come close to understanding what they have been subject to.