S-21 and the Killing Fields

 Yesterday was a fairly quiet day. The Aquarius Hotel is located close to the palace and embassies.  Carole and Anne arrived the night before and joined Brian and I for a cocktail and dinner.  

Nice.  My room was beautiful with views from two sides.  Unfortunately that also meant that two sides were exposed to the belting sun.  With the airconditioning running all day on 18 degrees, the coolest the room was able to get to overnight was 29.  Way too hot for me. Not to mention the glaring light from the bar fridge which I attempted to cover with the hand towels!  

Failed attempt

They moved me to a less posh room and last night the room was 25 at sleep time. I put the fan on too. 

Breakfast was a lovely Asian beef soup, tropical fruit, yoghurt and unlimited coffee. Lovely. I took my washing down to Sonny in the front desk, bought some postcards for the children and we headed out.

Our first stop was the National Museum. No photos allowed inside, but here are a couple, including one of a couple about to be or just married.  

No archival pics of the antiquities here, but they are many and profound.  National Museum of Cambodia. 

We walked to riverside, found a bar for a soft drink and a restaurant for Cambodian lunch. Delicious and inexpensive. It was way too hot to wander around after that, so we hired a ramok being driven by a woman, paid our $3 and went to our rooms for a rest.  

And later a swim in the infinity pool. Lovely. And a lychee margarita cocktail or two. Also lovely. 

We joined our group at 6pm, met our leader Channa and each other - Rhonda and Ken from Canada, Shiela and Cate from the USA and geologist Larry from Melbourne.

We dined at a restaurant called Mali I think.  Very nice. Too much food. Early night. 

I’ve titled this blog S-21 and the Killing Fields leaving out that we also visited the Palace on this day.  Having been to Auschwitz in 1985, I expected the Fields to be obliterating to all else today.

Our first stop was to the S-21 museum, a school which Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge turned into one of 197 places of internment, interrogation (largely by people aged between 13-17 who had instilled in them that these prisoners would be lying if they denied anything), extermination and experimentation.

Interrogation room - interrogation by teens. 

It was harrowing, extremely sad. How easy it is to intimidate people and make a place of unspeakable cruelty. So easy - intimidation works.  Here are a few pictures to give you a glimpse of the S-21 set up. 

I noticed that this man was from Hengh’s district. 

 

THE SURVIVORS OF S-21

Bou Meng

Chum Mey 

From there we drove to the Killing Fields. We were told that the villagers had no idea that the killing fields were right here and happening. I guess they just had to make themselves oblivious as the price for knowing would be way too high. 

We saw big ditches, sunken holes and mounds. We followed a track that wove between many mass graves. And then there was the terrible tree. 

During the rainy season, bones and fabric continue to rise to the surface.

And today at Ankor Wat I saw the undulating land surrounding the Wat, and wondered whether those undulations were also mass graves.  The killing fields were all over the country, afterall and about 25% of the population were killed.

What is also astounding is that Pol Pot and co were able to live freely after Vietnam brought the genocide to an end in1979. The psychopath died in 1998.