27.06.2008
The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek This is one of the sites where the unspeakable horror of the Pol Pot Regime reached its climax during the Cambodian Genocide. Just 15 kilometers outside of Phnom Penh, this is the place where between 1975 and 1979, an estimated 20,000 prisoners were executed. Here, the Khmer Rouge brought those prisoners who had survived the interrogation and torture at the central Security Prison 21, also called S21. The vision of Pol Pot’s ideal society required to erase all traces of civilization, money, markets, books, spectacles, property, anything linked to culture and education. The goal was to create a rural egalitarian society based on collective farming. Just anybody could end up there: former politicians, intellectuals, teachers, farmers, workers, women, children, monks, foreigners. It was random and soon the Khmer Rouge cadres was targeted and at last Pol Pot’s best friend, especially when it soon became obvious that the “project” was failing. Although most Cambodians were forced to work in the fields, a famine of unknown dimension hit the country. Scapegoats had to be found: “spies” working for the hated Vietnamese and Americans. Prisoners were tortured until they would confess to crimes they never committed and were then executed. The centerpiece of this memorial is a high tower divided in layers, filled with the 8.950 skulls removed from the 86 excavated mass graves (out of 129) there. It is a ghostly, horrid sight that becomes even more alive when the guide reveals some of the torment and cruelty these prisoners were subjected. The Khmer Rouge recruited very young, uneducated soldiers from rural areas, not older than 15 and systematically prepared them for their “task”. Once prisoners arrived at Choeung Ek, they had to line up kneeling or squatting in front of a very deep ditch, hands tied behind their back and blindfolded. They were hit over the head with a bamboo stick or an ax, often their throats were cut and they were then pushed into the ditch. The Khmer Rouge never used guns to kill their victims, because bullets were too expensive. It can be assumed that many victims were still alive when they were buried. This was one reason why DDT, a strong poison, was spread over the pile of bodies. The number of people found in those mass graves differs greatly, from a few to over 400 hundred. Often a grave contained a whole family, because the Khmer Rouge believed that “the evil” could only be made extinct by killing all the family members of the accused. The skulls and graves are the only evidence left. All buildings and torture instruments have disappeared or were destroyed. Nevertheless, there is the plan to reconstruct all these items in accordance with what it really looked like. |