Cambodia - The Killing Fields and the demise of the Pol Pot's regime

Memorial Stupa, Choeung Ek Killing Fields, Phnom Penh

Overall, some two million people are believed to have died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, from a combination of executions, starvation, overwork and diseases.

There were about 18 prisons and torture centres like Tuol Sleng, and in the region of 300 execution and mass grave sites. The most famous of these is Choeung Ek - or The Killing Fields, where around 20,000 people were murdered. This infamous place was previously agricultural, where the owners grew longan tress and watermelons, in a beautiful orchard setting. One area was used as a Chinese graveyard, and there are still a few of those graves there today. That peaceful place was shattered in the years from 1975-79.

Except in the case of very important prisoners, Tuol Sleng was not a place of execution, and in fact care was taken not to allow a prisoner to die during their torture if possible. When prisoners had made their confessions, they would be taken to Choeung Ek, with their numbers carefully recorded and accounted for.

Choeung Ek Killing Fields, Phnom Penh

The Killing Tree, Choeung Ek Killing Fields, Phnom Penh

To keep the devastating truth about the purpose of this place hidden from those nearby, the trucks would arrive at night. When they were ready to carry out the executions loud communist music would be played to hide the sounds of death. The prisoners would be taken to the edge of the mass graves, made to kneel. Occasionally the victims would be shot, but usually they would choose not to waste ammunition, and instead they would be beaten and hacked to death, with their bodies toppled into the pit.

There is a tree here, which is known as the Killing Tree, where babies and young children would be killed by swinging them against the tree trunk to smash their heads. Today, the tree is covered in ribbons to commemorate the victims.

Some of the mass graves were exhumed after the Khmer Rouge were ousted, but others remain as they were. Walking around the sites, you can see bits of clothing, and sometimes bits of bone emerging out of the ground. It is a chilling reminder of what this place was.

Memorial Stupa, Choeung Ek Killing Fields, Phnom Penh

The memorial stupa here, designed by Lim Ourk, houses many of the bones of the bodies exhumed. It is a strange place, but feels somehow fitting. The audio guide is not as good as the one at the prison, but it definitely worth listening to and includes a number of accounts from people who lived through the regime.

We visited here after having been to Tuol Sleng, and I think that is the right way around. Personally, I thought that Tuol Sleng gave the more informative and compelling experience, so if you only had time for one, I would suggest there as a priority, but I was glad that I went to both.

Memorial Stupa, Choeung Ek Killing Fields, Phnom Penh

Pol Pot's rule lasted until 1979. Khmer Rouge border incursions into Vietnam eventually gave the Vietnamese reason to invade Cambodia. They deposed Pol Pot, and brought an end to his regime. He continued to lead the Khmer Rouge from the jungles of Cambodia or bordering countries and, with still having the name of Prince Sihanouk on his side, the western world continued to support the Khmer Rouge - if not necessarily Pol Pot himself - as the legitimate leadership of what was now called Kampuchea.

I referred earlier to the Blue Peter interview with Margaret Thatcher, and even then, as late as 1988, she and the British Government was saying that for a new regime in Cambodia to be legitimate, it would have to involve the Khmer Rouge. Doubtless, this approach was partly justified by their link to the last official ruler in Prince Sihanouk, but sadly, the prime motivation was likely rather less honourably driven.

Memorial Stupa, Choeung Ek Killing Fields, Phnom Penh

With the aftermath of the Vietnam War, and the ongoing Cold War with Russia, the USA was never going to acknowledge Vietnamese leadership in the country. They also were keen to appease China, which was firmly on the side of the Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea Party. The UK followed suit.

Not that the Cambodian people wanted the Vietnamese in power either. Whilst the Vietnamese undoubtedly ended the brutal regime of Pol Pot, they were still an invading force. The Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK) was formed in 1982, made up of the Prince's party Funcinipec, the Khmer Rouge party and the Khmer People's National Liberation Front. It was this party that was unofficially recognised by the UN and the West.

A ten year civil war followed, until the Vietnamese finally left Cambodia in 1989, but in the absence of a clear and acceptable leadership, it was a further two years before a resolution could be achieved.

On 23 October 1991, the various factions finally signed the Paris Peace Treaty, and Cambodia could at last look forward to a peaceful future and start to rebuild their shattered country. Whilst of course the worst of the atrocities here was the work of fellow countrymen, given the actions and inaction of the West, it is a wonder to me that the people here are so welcoming to foreigners. But even today, we still saw evidence of a lot of resentment towards the Vietnamese.

Pol Pot himself was finally arrested in 1997, by his own followers, after he killed one of his advisers. He was placed under house arrest, dying a year later, never having been held to account for any of his crimes.

The UN eventually arrested and charged five other Khmer Rouge leaders, including 'Duch' , whose trial began in 2009 and in 2010 he was convicted and jailed for 30 years, later increased to a life sentence.

Nuon Chea, who was Brother Number Two to Pol Pot's leadership, (now aged 90), was originally pardoned in 1998 as part of a peace deal, but then arrested in 2007 and put on trial, which started in 2011. He and Khieu Sampan, who was the President during the Khmer Rouge rule, (now aged 85), were jailed for life in August 2014 for crimes against humanity.

The appeal against that conviction is due to be decided this November. A second trial, on charges of genocide also began in 2014 and is yet to be completed. Of the two others, Leng Sary died, and his wife Leng Thirith was ruled unfit to stand trial.

The legacy of 22 years of bombings, genocide, and war have left a huge toll on Cambodia. Around one third of its population was murdered in the genocide, including most of those who were educated. The country was left devastated economically, and the land itself remains littered with thousands of unexploded 'bombies', the small round explosives that were inside the US bombs. These cause devastating injuries, and sometimes death, to people working on the land and to children, who find them and play with them.  Added to this is the risk of the huge numbers of landmines that were planted by the CGDK fighters in the war against Vietnam.

Today, Cambodia is a wonderful country to visit, especially with the amazing attraction of the temples at Siem Reap, but I don't believe that it is possible to even start to appreciate the country or it's people, without knowing about this, still very recent, history.

Cambodia - the rise of the Khmer Rouge, and Tuol Sleng Genocide Centre

Tuol Sleng Genocide Centre, Phnom Penh

Cambodia is one of those countries where we felt that it would be impossible to understand the country and its people, without considering the still comparatively recent actions of the Khmer Rouge. However, as we soon discovered, it wasn't just Pol Pot that threw this country into the awful state it ended up in. As you can imagine - this isn't a particularly pleasant post, but I think it is important.

As a young child, I have vague recollections of a Blue Peter appeal for Cambodia, which was held in 1979. At that age, I can't say I really took in the full horror of what happened here, but I have ever since associated the country with something terrible. Over the years, I picked up more information, but it was only on coming here that I really learned the full story.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Centre, Phnom Penh

On the subject of Blue Peter, there was a further appeal in 1988, this time under the name of Kampuchea, where Margaret Thatcher gave an interview. I wasn't watching the programme then, but have since seen the interview; we'll come to that later.

The Khmer Rouge started out in the 1960s as a small communist guerrilla group, based in the jungles in the north east. It was here that Pol Pot, a former school teacher, saw the way the tribal population lived, without religion or other institutions, which would later form part of his Marxist philosophy for the country.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Centre, Phnom Penh

They gained power when they came to the aid of the Prince Norodom Sihanouk, when he was deposed by a military coup whilst on a trip to France in 1970. They allied with him in his exile in Beijing, and used his followers to gain legitimacy and support. What was to follow was diabolical, but might never have come to pass if the country was not already in a state of turmoil thanks to the USA's bombing campaign.

For eight years, from 1965 to 1973, the USA bombed significant areas of Cambodia, with over 230,000 flights dropping over 2.7 million tonnes of bombs. To put this into context, that is more bombs than the Allied Forces dropped in the entirety of WWII. And the USA was not even at war with Cambodia. They did the same with Laos too, but we'll talk about that when we get there.

The reason for all of this? The USA was in then midst of its war with bordering Vietnam; a war which is itself, with hindsight, generally accepted to have been an ill-conceived campaign borne out of fear of communism. Prince Sihanouk had felt that the wind was blowing towards communism, and had made agreements with the Vietnamese Communists and China, and the Vietnamese were infiltrating Cambodia as a place to hide, gain supplies, and further the communist agenda. Aware of this, the USA decided to bomb the areas where they felt their enemies might be.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Centre, Phnom Penh

Of course this bombing was largely indiscriminate, and caused unknown - but undoubtedly very high - numbers of casualties, and destroyed their land and homes. Unsurprisingly, this led to huge resentment and anger.

It was this anger that likely brought about the internal unrest and military coup, with the aim of forcing the Vietnamese out of Cambodia, that, after almost five years of civil war, saw Pol Pot and his communist Khmer Rouge come to take control in 1975.

The regime was brutal. Pol Pot's aim for the newly renamed Kampuchea, was to turn the clock back to 'Year Zero', expunging education, technology, foreign interaction, and Buddhism. He forced people out of the town and cities to work in the fields. He despised anyone who was of the middle classes, educated, artistic or religious, and they were singled out for the harshest of treatment - worked to death in the fields, or simply imprisoned and executed. It didn't take much to make you an 'enemy'; the wearing of spectacles, or being able to speak a foreign language, was enough to identify you as a hated 'intellectual' and have you carted off.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Centre, Phnom Penh

Carted off to places like Tuol Sleng, camp S-21, which was sited in what was previously a school, in the heart of Phnom Penh. Its prison chief for much of the time was Kaing Guek Eav, known as 'Duch'.

We visited Tuol Sleng, now a Genocide Museum, where you can see the cells and torture rooms used by the Khmer Rouge. There is an excellent audio tour, which includes a lot of information, some of which, as you would imagine, is quite harrowing. Some rooms are full of photos of those who are known to have been imprisoned here. They ask you not to take photos inside, which of course we respected.

Photos outside were permitted. The buildings have wire fencing across the walkways, to stop prisoners from jumping off in a bid to end their suffering. The original notices tell prisoners such things as they must answer questions, and must not cry during lashes or electrification. Much as the visit here is disturbing, I would highly recommend it.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Centre, Phnom Penh

From around 17,000 Cambodians, men, women and children, who were imprisoned and tortured here, only seven survived. We met one of those survivors. Chum Mey told his story at Duch's trial, and has written a book about it. In 1975, he was a mechanic, married, with three young children, one of whom died during the enforced march out from Phnom Penh to the countryside, where they were to labour in the fields.

Chum Mey was later returned to Phnom Penh to fix sewing machines, used to make the black uniforms of the Khmer Rouge. In 1978, he was taken to Tuol Sleng, where he was kept shackled in one of the tiny cells. He was tortured for twelve days to try to force a confession of spying. He was whipped, beaten his fingers broken, his toenails pulled out, and he was electrocuted. Eventually, like most prisoners, he signed a false confession, and gave the names of further innocent people. Doubtless they too were rounded up, tortured and eventually murdered.

with Chum Mey, survivor of Tuol Sleng Prison, Phnom Penh

After his confession, Chum Mey was put to work to repair the sewing machines and typewriters, which he believes - undoubtedly correctly - is what kept him alive. When the Vietnamese arrived Chum Mey was marched out to the countryside, where he was fortunate to meet up with his family in another group. Sadly, that happiness was shortlived, as he the guards took the whole group to an isolated place and shot them; Chum Mey was the only one who managed to escape.

I can't imagine ever wanting to return to Tuol Sleng if I were him, but he spends most of his days there, wanting to ensure that his story is told, to prevent such terrible events happening again.

I think that is enough for this post. I will finish the rest of the account tomorrow.