We have had the chance to visit some of the darkest places in Cambodia.
From 1975 until 1979, Cambodia was under a very strict Communist regime - the Khmer rouge. The Ankar (the "organisation", the only party) turned all the population into farmers: the cities were emptied, people were made to wear all the same clothes and obliged to work from dawn til dusk for a small bowl of rice. Religion was abolished, schools were closed and children put to work. If you did not agree with the regime (which sometimes could be proven simply by the fact you spoke more than one language, you wore glasses or you were fairer than the rest of the population), you were tortured and killed. Forced confessions, starvation, diseases and slave-like conditions were ordinary sights.
One in 4 Cambodians has died during those years, the intelligentsia has disappeared and the coutry will take decades to recover.
The Cambodians are a proud people and they are going on with their everyday lives, but that only happened a generation ago so the scars are still running deep.
The killing fields, or genocidal centre of Choeung Ek is one of the 300 fields were people were roughly executed. Bullets were expensive so the Khmer rouge used bamboos, baionettes and cooking rods. The place now holds a memorial stupa where more than 8000 skulls are collected (and yes, of course, some of children) but the earth keeps churning ragged clothes in the rainy season.
Before going to the fields, the prisoners were tortured and kept in a secret prison called Tuol Sleng. Previously a high school, now it is a place that speak of sadness and human brutality. Chains, rules and the original pictures of the prisoners are still kept in the place which makes it a very chilling place that needed to be visited, to pay our respect.
May it never happen again!
From 1975 until 1979, Cambodia was under a very strict Communist regime - the Khmer rouge. The Ankar (the "organisation", the only party) turned all the population into farmers: the cities were emptied, people were made to wear all the same clothes and obliged to work from dawn til dusk for a small bowl of rice. Religion was abolished, schools were closed and children put to work. If you did not agree with the regime (which sometimes could be proven simply by the fact you spoke more than one language, you wore glasses or you were fairer than the rest of the population), you were tortured and killed. Forced confessions, starvation, diseases and slave-like conditions were ordinary sights.
One in 4 Cambodians has died during those years, the intelligentsia has disappeared and the coutry will take decades to recover.
The Cambodians are a proud people and they are going on with their everyday lives, but that only happened a generation ago so the scars are still running deep.
The killing fields, or genocidal centre of Choeung Ek is one of the 300 fields were people were roughly executed. Bullets were expensive so the Khmer rouge used bamboos, baionettes and cooking rods. The place now holds a memorial stupa where more than 8000 skulls are collected (and yes, of course, some of children) but the earth keeps churning ragged clothes in the rainy season.
Before going to the fields, the prisoners were tortured and kept in a secret prison called Tuol Sleng. Previously a high school, now it is a place that speak of sadness and human brutality. Chains, rules and the original pictures of the prisoners are still kept in the place which makes it a very chilling place that needed to be visited, to pay our respect.
May it never happen again!
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