Today I went to the Killing Fields and the infamous S-21 jail during the brutal Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-1979. I still can’t believe this was only 35-40 years ago. The regime wanted to eliminate the rich and make everyone equal so they enforced the population to be farmers and to work in the rice fields Mon-Sun often doing long hours and in poor conditions. They removed banks, markets, schools and all money. Intellectual people were targeted and often executed we were told by our guide for even just wearing glasses. They would often do the ‘fork test’ - they would drop a fork, if you knew how to use it then you were classed as literate and intellectual. Over the course of the regime, around 3 million people ‘disappeared’ or were executed, often by horrific means and through torture, including children. There was only around 7 million people in the population of Cambodia at the time so this meant a third of the population were killed. The regime was supported by China at the time and had similarities to the Chairman Mao regime.
We started the tour in the Killing Fields which is just outside the capital, Phnom Penh. Over 340 killing fields have been found and this one is the biggest one, with about 30,000 being killed here. As you walk in, it’s like a normal part forest/part field until you see what looks like a small temple in the distance. As you get closer, you can see this is actually some kind of shrine to those who were killed and is full of skulls piled high on top of each other. It’s a horrific sight to see up close. At the same time I was there, a couple of hundred monks of all ages walked into the complex and lined up in formation outside the shrine while listening to someone preaching. They all then started chanting which made the place feel even more eerie but very thought provoking at the same time. The mass of orange robes was quite a sight to see.
The fields themselves are spread out over a large area and as you walk around, you can see bone fragments, bits of clothing, teeth etc which is horrible. When it rains, these fragments are even more visible in the soil. One of the worst sights was a large tree where the Khmer Rouge soldiers used to throw children against and smash their skulls. They were also still excavating more bodies while I was there which was also pretty gruesome to see the bones.
After the Killing Fields, we were taken to S-21, the infamous prison that used to be a school in Central Phnom Penh. This was were people were kept before being transported to the Killing Fields to be executed. The first thing you see is the ‘rules’ sign, which is basically a list of rules that all prisoners must abide by, which in itself is pretty horrific. We had a look around the three main blocks which included tiny cells, torture rooms and a large gallery of people who had been murdered or were the soldiers themselves. the playground area was where they used to use it as a gallows and interrogate people from there as part of the torture process. We also got to meet briefly one of the only four survivors of the prison, who is now bizarrely the gardener there. Not sure why you would want to work there after the terrible past of this place! He was able to survive as he was a an artist who did the fine art portraits of Pol Pot, the infamous leader of the Khmer Rouge regime.
A very dark day and I think we all left feeling shell shocked and needing something to lighten the mood. Something I won't forget.
