28.06.2008
S21 - Security Prison 21 We tried to steel ourselves for this visit to what is also referred to as “The Killing Machine” of the Khmer Rouges. This school turned into prison was Cambodia’s largest security institution, especially designed for the interrogation, torture and extermination of anti “Angkar” element, or what a paranoid clique of Khmer Rouge leaders thought was such. We strongly recommend taking a guide, who can provide more intimate details. The lady who took us around was 14 years old when she was made to leave Phnom Penh and labor in the rice fields. Only one cousin of her extended family survived. Building A is probably the most horrifying section, were the political prisoners, often Khmer Rouge cadres, were kept in single cells, shackled, and tortured. There is one photo in each cell showing the gruesome image of a dead person tortured to death. Those were taken by the Vietnamese who liberated Cambodia of the Khmer Rouges in 1979. The other buildings contain equally horrifying evidence of this terrible suffering. There, the family members of the prisoners confined in Building A were imprisoned. Either they were kept in miniature cells with chains shackled to the floor or held in large mass cells where their legs were shackled to a piece of iron bar. They were regularly tortured. The rules were rigid and inhuman. Anyone breaking them was tortured. The guards were teenagers taken from remote villages, uneducated and eventually trained to kill. There are many rooms full of hundreds of photos of prisoners, as prisoners were photographed when they arrived at the prison. For us, a captivating photo was that of the wife of a top official of the Khmer Rouge holding her baby. Her eyes and resigned facial expression tells that she knew exactly what was going to happen to her and her family. People would confess to imaginary crimes under torture. Then, those who did not die under torture were sent to the Killing Fields and exterminated. Everything was held for the record, filling thousands of pages. Approximately 20.000 people were killed in S21. There were only seven (!!!) survivors amongst the inmates. One of them, a painter, later painted what he saw, was told by other prisoners or assumed what was happening by what he was hearing. The only other witnesses are the prison guards, who were of course the first ones the fingers were pointed after the end of the Khmer Rouge regime. The leaders of the Khmer Rouges denied any knowledge of the existence of these death camps. Since it was impossible to determine who was supporting simply the Khmer Rouges and who was pressured to commit these atrocious crimes, a general amnesty was granted in 1991, also letting of the hook the big fish. Pol Pot or Brother Number 1 as he was called, died of Malaria in 1997. Other top Khmer Rouges leaders and criminals lived in Cambodia unharmed until 2007. Then finally Brother Number 2 & Brother Number 3 were arrested and brought to justice by an International Court under the supervision of the United Nations. |