Auschwitz in Cambodia

A peaceful pond... with still many corpses inside

My second day in Phnom Penh was very disturbing.  I visited one of the Killing Fields (the ones in Chhoeung Ek), where the Khmer Rouge killed about a quarter of the Cambodian population between 1975 and 1979.  Before describing what I saw there, I would like to introduce my readers a little bit into the history of Cambodia, starting at their independence in 1953.  Before 1953 Cambodia was a French protectorate within the Union of Indochina (together with Laos and Vietnam).  From that year on, King Norodom Sihanouk became the head of the independent state.  When in 1955 the Vietnam war broke loose, Cambodia decided to stay neutral, but North-Vietnamese Vietcong troops settled on Cambodian territory so they could attack South-Vietnam more easily from there.  King Sihanouk didn’t really respond to that as he preferred to stay neutral and thus effectively allowed vietcong troops to operate on Cambodian soil.  He also allowed them to use the port of Sihanoukville for their logistical support.  The United States became quite annoyed with this situation and started bombing Vietcong bases in Cambodia.  King Sihanouk opposed to these US bombings, but at the same time complained to the US about the Vietcong bases on Cambodian territory.  Because of this contradictory message, the US didn’t want to overthrow king Sihanouk (as they considered him loyal to them), but just kept on bombing the Vietcong bases in Cambodia.  In 1960 internal opposition against king Sihanouk began to grow and the Khmer Rouge under leadership of Pol Pot started a guerrilla war and slowly got more and more support from the local communities.  During the elections of 1966 though, right-wing parties won and General Lon Nol formed a government.  This government was rather against the monarchy and as King Sihanouk was tilting away from the US and towards China, the general got a good reason for a coup d’état.

Clothes of the victims

In 1970, when the King was in China, the general did his coup and overthrew the king, thus creating the Khmer Republic. He immediately allied Cambodia with the US and demanded that all North-Vietnamese troops would leave the country immediately.   Hanoi refused and the Americans sent military support and material to help the new Cambodian government.  At the same time North-Vietnamese troops launched armed attacks on Cambodia and handed the territory they won to the Khmer Rouge.  The Khmer Rouge received military support from North-Vietnam and at a certain moment the army of the Khmer Rouge grew stronger than the Vietnamese army.  Also, around that time King Sihanouk declared his support for the Khmer Rouge and that caused many more Cambodians to support the Khmer Rouge as well.  By 1973 the Khmer Rouge was fighting without any foreign support and controlled 60% of Cambodian territory and 25% of its population.  At that time North-Vietnamese troops were winning more and more territory in South-Vietnam and were not focussed on Cambodia anymore.  The US continued its bombing campaign on Cambodia until they completely withdrew from Cambodia in 1975 (after a decision of Congress).  5 days later, on 17 april 1975, Khmer Rouge troops entered the capital of Phnom Penh and the government of the Khmer Republic surrendered.  Democratic Kampuchea was declared as the new country.  Initially there was much support for the Khmer Rouge troops and they were received as heros freeing the capital of the US bombings.  But then, only 5 hours (!) after entering Phnom Penh, things changed radically as they evacuated the entire city and sent all population to villages on the country side to start working on the fields.  The ones that refused to leave the city were killed instantaneously.

Killing tree against which executioners beat children

The Khmer Rouge were supported by the Chinese, whereas the Vietnamese communists were supported by the Russians.  This started to create tensions and the Khmer Rouge began attacking the south of Vietnam.  In all territories they controlled (Vietnamese as well as Cambodian), they created detention centres for all political opponents.  And this was a very large group, to them everybody who was educated (doctors, teachers, or even people wearing glasses, …) was an opponent.  Pol Pot once said that it was better to accidentally kill a friend than to keep an enemy alive.  People were kept in detention centres and tortured until they would admit to crimes they didn’t commit.  They then signed their declaration and were sent off to one of the killing fields, where they would be executed.  Of course they were told that they would now be reaccomodated to a new house to make sure they wouldn’t refuse to go on the transport towards their death.  An estimate of 25% of the Cambodian population (including men, women, children) found its death during this period.  Nobody was trusted by the Khmer Rouge, not even their own members or army men, everybody could finally end up in a detention centre.  When there was the slightest doubt of you not being allegiant to them, they would send you to a detention centre to be tortured and executed.  During this entire period King Sihanouk was placed under house arrest in Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge.

Graves were dug open after the discovery of the killing fields

In 1979 Vietnamese troops stroke back and captured Phnom Penh, declaring the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, driving the Khmer Rouge regime back towards the Thai border.  King Sihanouk fled to China in a self-declared exile.  The Vietnamese army installed a puppet-government which was faithful to Russia and Vietnam (not to China as the Khmer Rouge was).  This started the Cambodian civil war, where communist Khmer Rouge troops would fight the communist Vietnam-backed troops of the government in Phnom Penh.  As at this time the Cold War was at its ‘coldest’ point, Western governments and the UN recognised the Khmer Rouge and its allies as the official government of Cambodia, though they didn’t control much of its territory anymore, but at least they were opposed to Russia…  This situation lasted until 1993.  In that year the UN finally intervened in Cambodia and created a new democratic state, organised elections and effectively transformed Cambodia into a democracy (with King Sihanouk reinstated as its head of state).  It would take until 1999 before the Khmer Rouge disarmed and completely surrendered so peace would come back to Cambodia after more than 35 years of war and hostilities.  An international UN-Cambodian tribunal was created in 2004 and the Khmer Rouge leadership was put on trial as from 2008 for the genocide of 1975-1979.  Pol Pot died in peaceful exile in Thailand in 1998, so he was never put on trial and some of the other leaders were already too old to be able to complete their entire trial for health reasons.  Until today Cambodia is still infested with landmines dating from that long period of war (tourist zones are safe though).

Skulls found on the premises

So back to me visiting Phnom Penh.  The killing fields of Chhoeung Ek (actually a former Chinese graveyard) are a very, very cold, macabre place, you can feel death there.  It feels just like a visit to Auschwitz in Poland.  Mass graves were discovered here, as well as in many other parts of Cambodia.  Millions have found their death during the reign of the Khmer Rouge.  The bones have now been dug up and placed in a stupa, but until today, during raining season, bones, teeth, skulls and clothes come floating up out of the ground and are collected by the ground keepers to be placed into the stupa as well.  Many of these bodies will never be identified, though mostly they can identify the way they died by examining their skulls.  The killing fields were no detention centre as Auschwitz was, the killing fields were places were people would be sent to be executed brutally.  As bullets were too expensive and made too much noise, prisoners were killed by a stump on the back of their heads, by decapitation with a machete, …  and all this with loud propaganda or music on the background.

My tuk-tuk driver

This used to be a school: detention centre S-21

After my visit to Chhoeng Ek, my tuk-tuk driver drove me back to Phnom Penh, to an old school, known as detention centre S-21 (Tuol Sleng).  This former school became a detention centre right after the Khmer Rouge evacuated the city of Phnom Penh.  If there was a minor doubt on your allegiance to the Khmer Rouge, they would lock you up here, torture you (but keep you alive) until you admitted to crimes you didn’t commit.  You then had to sign a document to declare your crimes, so they would have a valid reason to execute you.  Cells in this complex didn’t have doors, but you would be cuffed to the ground with your feet so you wouldn’t be able to move, nor to even turn around in your sleep (if you would be able to sleep at all).  In the current museum huge boards with pictures of victims can be seen.  These pictures were made by prison staff, mostly young uneducated boys from the country side.  As with most dictatorial regimes, everything was very-well documented.  This was a very impressive day for me and in the evening I didn’t feel like doing anything anymore, I had the same bad, empty feeling again as I had after visiting Auschwitz.  Things like this should never ever happen again and all human beings should visit a place like this at least once in their life.

The throne hall of the Cambodian King

For the next day I booked a bus that was bound to leave for Siem Reap at 13.30, so that gave me some time to visit the one place in Phnom Penh I hadn’t visited yet: the Royal Palace.  This is a magnificent place and reminded me a lot of the Royal Palace in Bangkok.  During my visit I saw the beautiful throne hall as well as the Royal “Wat” (a wat is a temple complex).  There was even a miniature version of the big temple of Angkor Wat, which actually wasn’t a temple but also a royal palace.  As in Theravada Buddhism the king is revered as a god-like being, calling the king’s palace a temple wouldn’t really be very wrong.  Considering your king as a god-like being is actually not a real Buddhist principle, but is inherited from Hinduism, where kings are considered as beings send by the gods to control peace on earth.  In Thailand this is still a basic principle in the royal reverence, which became very clear when the very popular King Bhumibol died last year and was cremated this week after a full year of mourning.

Detail of the roof of the throne hall

I spent about an hour and a half at the Royal Palace and then returned to my hotel to pack, have a last drink at the bar and wait for my pick-up to the bus station.  The ride to Siem Reap went quite well, a large part of the road was highway.  It took 6h to finish the 320km from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap.  I safely arrived at Siem Reap after dark and met my friend Mark at the bus station.

The royal temple

Busticket to Siem Reap

Bus to Siem Reap