Hello all of you,
I decided to put up the pictures from the Tuolsleng Genocide Museum and The Killing Fields from when I was in Phnom Phen. There were about 1.5 million killed by the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979.
As stated in wikipedia.com
The Khmer Rouge
"The Khmer Rouge regime is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million people (estimates range from 850,000 to 3 million) under its regime, through execution, starvation and forced labor. Although directly responsible for the death of a large amount of that number, the policies of the Khmer Rouge led many others to die from starvation and displacement. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population of the country it ruled (est. 7.5 million people, as of 1975), it was one of the most lethal regimes of the 20th century. One of their mottos, in reference to the New People, was: "To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss." Because of its undeniable brutality, most people in the communist movement today deny that the Khmer Rouge in any way represented real communism."
The Killing Fields
"The Killing Fields were a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge communist regime which ruled the country, as Democratic Kampuchea, from 1975 to 1979. Estimates of the number of dead range from 1.7 to 2.3 million out of a population of around 7 million. The Khmer Rouge judicial process, for minor or political crimes, began with a warning from the Angkar, the government of Cambodia under the regime. People receiving more than two warnings were sent for "re-education", which meant near-certain death. People were often encouraged to confess to Angkar their "pre-revolutionary lifestyles and crimes" (which usually included some kind of free-market activity, or having had contact with a foreign source, such as a US missionary, or international relief or government agency, or contact with any foreigner or with the outside world at all), being told that Angkar would forgive them and "wipe the slate clean". This meant being taken away to a place such as Tuol Sleng or Choeung Ek for torture and/or execution.
The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, executions were often carried out using hammers, axe handles, spades or sharpened bamboo sticks. Some victims were required to dig their own graves; their weakness often meant that they were unable to dig very deep. The soldiers who carried out the executions were mostly young men or women from peasant families.The Khmer Rouge regime arrested and eventually executed almost everyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, as well as professionals and intellectuals. Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chams (who were and are Muslims), Cambodian Christians, and the Buddhist monkhood were the demographic targets of persecution. The best known of the Killing Fields is Choeung Ek. Today, it is the site of a Buddhist memorial to the terror, and Tuol Sleng has a museum commemorating the genocide. A 1984 motion picture, The Killing Fields, tells the story of Cambodian journalist Dith Pran, played by Cambodian actor Haing S. Ngor, and his journey to escape the death camps."
Tuol Sleng
"Formerly the Tuol Svay Prey High School, named after a Royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk, the five buildings of the complex were converted in 1975 into a prison and interrogation centre. The Khmer Rouge renamed the complex "Security Prison 21" (S-21) and construction began to adapt the prison to the inmates: the buildings were enclosed in electrified barbed wire, the classrooms converted into tiny prison and torture chambers and all the windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent prisoner escapes.
From 1975 to 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng (some estimates suggest a number as high as 20,000, though the real number is unknown). The prisoners were selected from all around the country, and usually were former Khmer Rouge members and soldiers, accused of treason. Those arrested included some of the highest ranking communist politicians such as Khoy Thoun, Vorn Vet and Hu Nim. Although the official reason for their arrest was "espionage," these men may have been viewed by Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot as potential leaders of a coup against him. Prisoners' families were often brought en masse to be interrogated and later murdered at the Choeung Ek extermination centre. It was sad to see the place where most of the genocide and torture occured; it was quite a depressing day. I hope that by viewing the pictures you will get a little bit of the sense of what happened during the time of the Khmer Rouge.
Click on the link and then click on the album.
Have a good day. You are free.
Jonathan
