17th February: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
After two weeks in the country, it was time to confront the tragic relatively recent history of Cambodia. In the aftermath of 9 years of destructive American bombing of the country as part of their war in Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge defeated a pro-American puppet government in the Cambodian civil war. They seized on the turmoil within the country to capture Phnom Penh in 1975 and, within hours, the city’s populace was ‘evacuated’ due to a fabricated threat of further American bombing raids. Residents of other urban areas suffered the same fate. In reality, this was part of a plan to de-urbanise Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge as their forces took control of the entire country.
Simplifying matters somewhat, the goal was to make Cambodia self-sufficient in all areas of life whilst simultaneously doing away with modern technology. This, it was proposed, would lead to a stronger population. It was ill considered as many of the new farmers didn’t have the requisite skills for their new agrarian lifestyles and were worked to the edge of starvation in pursuit of often impossible quotas. Ultra-nationalism also played a part in this pursuit of a ‘stronger Khmer race’, and members of minority ethnic groups were often the first to suffer under what became the Cambodian genocide.
Close to where we are staying is the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The is the location of the former S21 prison, one of a secret network of 189 torture and extermination camps scattered across the country. Honestly, some of the details we learnt from our audio guide were so harrowing that I won’t repeat them here. You can seek them out online should you wish. Of approximately 20,000 people who passed through S21, only a dozen are known to have survived. Confessions were extracted through torture and, once an ‘adequate’ document was prepared, their deaths would be signed off. Mass murders were carried out using blunt weapons to save bullets for “more noble activities”.
The regime was always right and there was no escape. Arrest in itself was proof of guilt. Those held here came to include previous members of the regime and even staff from S21, as the finger of suspicion turned inward. Eventually, through murder and starvation, a quarter of Cambodia’s population lay dead after 4 years of Khmer Rouge control. A combined Vietnamese army and Cambodian resistance force eventually put an end to one of humanity’s most disgusting episodes.
Whether Auschwitz or Abu Ghraib, Tuol Sleng or Gaza, whenever people’s humanity is wilfully ignored we all suffer. Every single person deserves to be treated with dignity as a member of the human race. There are no other qualifying factors. As the world becomes ever more tumultuous once more, it must be never again for anyone and we must all mean every syllable of that.
My first impressions of this history, about which I wasn’t too informed, is that it combined the worst elements of Maoism – the debunked agrarian elements of the Great Leap Forward without any of the positives – with the Qutbist suspicion to murder those of the slightest difference. It seems highly possible to me that Pol Pot came across the works of Qutb whilst studying in Paris in the 1950s. I think the ideology of the Khmer Rouge, who’d long abandoned most of Marxism-Leninism, is vastly different from how most people would understand communism. This is another strand of history that I now feel a connection to and will endeavour to learn more about once we’re home.
It seems wrong to talk about food after such a sickening topic, however, it was well after lunchtime. Truth be told, we didn’t much feel like eating either but decided that sitting somewhere in the air-conditioned cool with healthy food would do us good. Lunch was a lovely mixture of fried rosemary potatoes, falafel, houmous, rice, tofu lok lak, salads, and fried banana and chocolate pancakes. It ticked off both major foods groups – fried and not fried!
We decided that we didn’t have it in us to visit the Killing Fields outside of Phnom Penh, which are usually combined with a visit to the S21 Genocide Museum. That was enough nauseating thoughts of torture and enough stifling heat for one day. We were fortunate to have such a choice.
With the rest of the day, we printed Kaja’s Vietnam visa, which is all of our bureaucracy hopefully complete for this trip. It was 35C again and much warmer than that in the city streets, so we headed back to the room to get cool. I shouldn’t really complain about the heat, given we’ve escaped the cold and damp back home, but it’s a bit much!
After dark, I took another walk. It was still hot and oppressive with the dust, rubbish, and traffic taking on a more sinister edge after dusk. As if a switch was flicked, mosquitoes suddenly buzzed in the air, rats danced out of bins and holes in the pavements, and street dogs became territorial. Dinner was delivered just as I arrived back. I just had a few spring rolls, but Kaja had a much more substantial broth with noodles and veggies.