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Taking in Cambodia's 'Killing Fields' museum
Dark remnant: In this former high school converted into a concentration camp and now a museum, Cambodians were systematically tortured, sometimes on metal beds, after which they were executed at the notorious 'killing fields' of Choeung Ek. Picture: Liz Price
Liz Price
PHNOM PENH
Sunday, May 25, 2008
THE Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh was one of the most moving places I visited in Cambodia. The museum used to be a high school but was converted into a concentration camp by the Khmer Rouge regime during their reign from 1975 to 1979. It became the country's largest torture and detention centre.
Walking around the museum I noticed that all visitors were quiet, lost in their emotions as they took in the atrocities that took place here.
Prior to 1975 Tuol Sleng was a peaceful school, consisting of five buildings. When the Khmer Rouge came to power under Pol Pot, the Chao Ponhea Yat High School was converted into the S-21 Security Prison and interrogation facility. People were systematically tortured, sometimes over a period of months, to extract confessions, after which they were executed at the "killing fields" of Choeung Ek.
S-21 processed over 17,000 people, seven of whom survived. Detainees who died whilst being tortured were buried in mass graves with the prison grounds. Each detainee was meticulously photographed and the photos cover the museum walls from floor to ceiling. A wall map of Cambodia made up of skulls was once on display, but has since been removed.
The Khmer Rouge regime was a time of terror for Cambodia, when an estimated 1.5-2 million people perished. The museum is a reminder of that dark period, and Cambodia is still recovering from it.
Civilians were dragged from their homes all over the country to S-21. Many were former Khmer Rouge members and soldiers, accused of betraying the party or revolution. Intellectuals were particularly targeted, and anyone wearing a pair of glasses was deemed one.
The buildings were enclosed in electrified barbed wire, the classrooms converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, and all windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent escapes. The buildings now serve as a museum, a memorial and a testament to the madness of the Khmer Rouge. Much has been left in the state of when the Khmer Rouge abandoned it in January 1979.
I paid the US$2 ($2.70) entry fee and walked to the first building. The ground floor was divided into bare cells. Some were used as torture rooms. The only item on display was a rusting single iron bed frame. Prisoners were shackled to these beds. When the prison was abandoned by Pol Pot, prisoners were left chained to the beds and their mutilated remains were later found.
Some of the torture equipment is on display; these include feet shackles, wooden spears, knotted ropes, pipes, iron squeezers, a cobra box, a scorpion box, drills used to pierce the prisoner's heads, and the gallows.
It was horrifying walking past these rooms imagining the torture the prisoners went through. The cell blocks were no better. The former classrooms were converted into tiny prison cells, some made of wood, others of brick. Each cubicle, measuring about 1m by 1.5m was built for one prisoner. A hole in the floor served as a toilet. Some cells had buckets for the waste matter, but the prisoners had to ask permission to use them.
The women's building was covered in barbed wire to prevent the inmates from throwing themselves off the top floors and killing themselves. Because there was so much raping, the women would prefer to jump from the three storey building.
Captors did their best to make life hell for the prisoners. Finger nails were pulled out and salt rubbed into wounds. Even to change position when trying to sleep, the prisoners had first to ask permission. If they did everything accordingly, they were still tortured three times a day just to show that it was useless to defy the Khmer Rouge.
A list of rules was pasted on the walls, reminding the inmates they had to obey orders, answer questions promptly etc. If they failed, they would get lashes with electric wire or be electrocuted, and they were not allowed to cry out during these punishments.
The prison kept extensive records, leaving thousands of photos of their victims, many of which are on display. There are thousands of haunting, black and white photographs of men, women and children who came to a grim end here. You could see the look of despair and sadness in their eyes. It was very moving looking at these photos, as some were truly awful.
There are also gruesome photos of dead and dying prisoners, most with eyes and mouths wide open. Paintings of torture at the prison by Vaan Nath, a survivor of Tuol Sleng, are also on display.
The captors killed babies like insects, and always in view of the parents, impaling them or braining them against a tree trunk.
The walls almost still echo the screams of pain and torture. It was a depressing experience walking around the museum, especially knowing the atrocities took places comparatively recently and that many Cambodian families are still badly affected by it all.The Brunei Times
