Cambodia's Killing Fields

While escaping the ruck of Tuk-Tuk drivers upon arrival at Phnom Penh, we managed to hook up with a driver named Sam who’s perfect English rang out like a beacon among the frantic touting for our dollars and we arranged for him to show us around the next day.

We started the day at a firing range, where we handled various light machine guns. Truth be told, we regretted being taken there as soon as soon the first round was fired. This is a country which suffered unspeakable horrors under the Khmer Rouge in the 70s and the act of playing with guns under this backdrop left us feeling a little uncomfortable.

That afternoon, we learnt more about the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge as Sam took us to the killing fields of Choeung Ek, 15km outside of Phnom Penh, where some 17,000 political prisoners were executed and buried in mass graves and the infamous Prison S-21, a former school ground where people were detained and tortured prior to being taken to the killing fields for execution.

It is estimated that somewhere between 1.5 and 3 million Cambodians perished under the regime from 1975 until 1979 when they were deposed by the Vietnamese Army, a quite staggering number for a population estimated at less than 10 million at the time. Approximately half of those were murdered by the Khmer Rouge and the rest died through starvation and disease. The people from the cities suffered particularly, as they were considered corrupted in the eyes of the extremist Marxist leaders and condemned to hard labour and execution. Sam had lost his own father and told of how virtually every household in Phnom Penh had a similar story to tell.

The Khmer Rouge photographed and recorded each prisoner. The rooms, once used for torture and incarceration now display the photo’s of the men, women and children who passed through S-21. Looking at their faces, it was pitiful to think that each one of them would have met their death within days, their memory and all that they could have been lost forever save for these black and white photo’s of them staring back from the past.