After decades of war, political unrest, and the atrocious genocide committed by the communist Pol Pot regime, a peace treaty between the government and the remaining Khmer Rouge forces have again opened up this beautiful country to travelers. The history of Kampuchea or Cambodia dates back to the 3rd century when Indianised states of Funan and Chenla coalesced. Their collapse was followed by the rise of the Khmer Empire, which ruled until the 15th century, with Angkor as its center of power. After a long series of wars with neighboring kingdoms, Angkor was ultimately defeated and abandoned by the Thai forces in 1432. During the following centuries, the Khmer empire vacillated between independence and states of Vietnam and Thailand.
Modern day Cambodia was born in 1863 when King Norodom sought protection from France against the Thai and Vietnamese forces. Until 1953, Cambodia was administered as a French colony of Indochina. After gaining its independence on November 9th, Cambodia became a constitutional monarchy under King Norodom Sihanouk. While on a trip overseas in 1970, Prince Sihanouk and the Norodom monarchy were overthrown by a military coup led by Prime Minister General Lon Nol and Prince Sirik Matak. From Beijing, Prince Sihanouk realigned himself with the communist Khmer Rouge rebels inciting a civil war. Operation Menu, a series of secret B-52 air strikes on neutral Cambodia by the US in an effort to disrupt suspected Viet Cong supply routes, ultimately aided the rising Khmer Rouge. The rebels reached Phnom Penh and took power under Pol Pot in 1975.
Born Saloth Sar on May 19, 1925, to a wealthy family in the Kamong Thum Province, he renamed himself Pol Pot, short for “Politique Potentielle”. After attending a catholic school in Phnom Penh. After failing his studies, he eventually qualified for a technical scholarship at EFR (Ecole Francaise de Radioelectricite) in France. After the Soviet Union recognized Viet Minh as the government of Vietnam in 1950, French Communists (PCF) took up the cause of Vietnam’s independence. The PCF’s anti-colonialism attracted many young Cambodians, including Pol Pot. In 1951, he joined the secret communist cell Cercle Marxiste and soon after the PCF. Forced to return to Cambodia in 1953 after failing his exams three years in a row, he was given the task of evaluating the rebel groups by Cercle Marxiste. After returning to Phnom Penh, Pol Pot became the liaison between the democratic parties and the underground communists. In 1962, Ton Samouth, the underground communist party secretary was arrested and later killed while in custody, making Pol Pot the de facto deputy leader. In March 1963, he was forced into hiding and fled to the Vietnamese border. It was here in these border camps that the ideology of the Khmer Rouge was developed to purify Cambodia, declaring the rural peasant farmers as the true working class proletarian and lifeblood of the revolution. A national uprising was launched in 1968 giving way to his absolutist leadership of the Khmer Rouge. In 1969, the anti-Sihanouk propaganda was replaced by anti- American attitudes. The Cambodian government was overthrown as anti-Vietnamese protests in Phnom Penh got out of control. As Vietnam established its own fight against the Cambodian government and the US bombings of the eastern Cambodian crippled the country further, Pol Pot rose to his greatest power calling for an independent Cambodia and establishing Angkar, the government under the regime.
In 1973, as Vietnam began to withdraw its forces Pol Pot began its attack and finally took Phnom Penh in April 1975, where he purged the city of former government officials, Buddhist monks, ethnic minorities, and educated people marking the beginning of the practice of interrogation, torture, and genocide. He also instituted his policy of evacuating urban areas to the countryside. To carry out his “purification” scheme, a set of new prisons were constructed, including the infamous S-21 camp Tuol Sleng. Political prisoners were sent to these prisons for “re-education” and encouraged to “confess” their crimes against Angkar. Those that survived the torture and interrogation were then taken to the killing fields and mass graves at Choeung Ek, where they were either beaten to death or buried alive. “Bullets were not to be wasted.” While cities became ghost towns, people in the countryside were dying of starvation and disease. The Khmer Rouge government came to an end in 1979 when Pol Pot led Cambodia into a disastrous war with Vietnam, but not before the death of nearly 1.5 million Cambodians. Pol Pot died before he was brought to trial for the crimes he committed against humanity.
Built as a high school, the classrooms at Tuol Sleng were converted into prison cells. Windows were covered with iron bars and dense barbed wire to prevent prisoners from escaping. Only 12 of the 12,500 prisoners, including more than 2,000 children, survived S-21. Imprisonment ranged from 2 to 4 months, but was longer for important political prisoners. Before being placed in their cell, prisoners were photographed, and detailed biographies of their childhood up to their arrest were recorded. In each cell, the following regulations were posted:
1. You must answer accordingly to my questions. Do not turn them away.
2. Do not try to hide the facts by making pretexts of this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Do not be a fool for you are a chap who dares to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Do not tell me either about your immoralities or the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
7. 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.
8. Do not make pretexts about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor.
9. If you do not follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
Tuol Sleng was established as a historical museum of genocide in 1980 in honor of those that lost their lives under the Pol Pot regime. In Building A, prison cells have been preserved and display some of the iron shackles, beds, and torture devices used by the guards. Memorial boards in Building B display photographs of many of S-21's victim's. All of the pictures are haunting. In most you see fear. In others defiance. And in some, acceptance of their fate.
Choeung Ek, a former orchard and Chinese graveyard, was situated 18 kilometers south of Phnom Penh. It became the best known of sites referred to as the Killing Fields. Many of its 17,000 victims came from Tuol Sleng, but victims from prisons all over Cambodia walked "the death march" to Choeung Ek's mass graves. Over 8,900 bodies were discovered here after the fall of hte Khmer regime. Today the site is a memorial marked with a Buddhist stupa filled with more than 5,000 of the victims skulls. Most of the equipment has since been removed, but pieces of clothing and bone along with the dug out forms of the mass graves remain.
