Phnom Penh - the genocide museum

Thurs 21 Jan: Phnom Penh

Walked around; decided that PP is a city - and that's that. It has a wat - temple - on a hill (like Luang Prabang's but smaller) & a silver palace (Like Bangkok's but smaller), lots of motorbikes and tuktuks, lots of noise - it's a city. Am I getting jaded wih travel?

I walked around without any great joy and decided that - yes, I'm moving on. But before then - it has to be done - I decided that I had to visit the Genocide Museum, Tuol Sleng where thousands of innocent people were tortured until they admitted to anything, everything, then killed.

It all happened in 2 ex-primary and 2 ex-secondary school buildings. What an irony, as Pol Pot rejected education completely, torturing & executing anyone who didn't have the sense to throw away specs, books and suits, put on ordinary labouring overalls and toughen up their hands. Even that wasn't enough. the KR soon turned cannibal, devouring its own party members who weren't thought to be working with enough enthusiasm.

Over 17,000 men, women and children entered the 'Security Prison'. They ended up in the Killing Fields, made to dig their own mass grave, then, blindfolded, made to kneel in front of it and simply bludgeoned to death. The Khmer Rouge didn't want to waste bullets.

From the outside the buildings looked quite ordinary and - well - schoolish, with grass in front and verandahs running the length of each floor. I went into the worst area first; the ground floor 'classrooms' had teaching displays with a difference - row upon row of black-and-white photos. Men, women and children stared at me, their eyes following me. some attempted a smile, as few looked angry, most looked slightly puzzled, or totally blank as if unsure why they were there in the first place. It must be a mistake...

But all of them met the same horrible fate - forced by torture to confess to some crime then killed. Perhaps they had been doctors, nurses or teachers; perhaps they were caught wearing glasses, perhaps they didn't wave and cheer with enough enthusiasm, perhaps one of their neighbours, anxious to divert scrutiny, had accused them of something. It didn't really matter; whatever the 'crime' they were guilty. And they were made to confess.

Senior officers weren't exempt from accusation, torture and death - but they had special treatment. They were in large, individual rooms, with a bed. But they were manacled to their beds and graphic photos on the walls showed their broken bodies and contorted postures. Apparently their rooms had glass windows simply to prevent their screams being heard too loudly.

Ordinary prisoners had tiny individual cells, the classrooms divided by rough brick or wood partitions. Or they were crammed into upstairs rooms, taken out to be tortured then to the cells on stretchers as they could no longer walk. Most of the cells still had their manacles - not that their prisoners would be capable of escape. In places there were piles of leg-irons; a display cabinet showed torture instruments and a couple of huge jars that people would be dropped into, upside-down, until they (almost) drowned. The instruments weren't particularly sophisticated - pain is easy to inflict. Some walls had photos or pictures showing what went on; others contained people's stories, of loved ones who disappeared in the night or simply never returned. No-one came back.

The intense suffering left its mark on the inside of buildings. Walking over the same tiles that had once been covered in blood, looking at the walls that had once eachoed with screams or moans, was not pleasant. People walked slowly around, expressionless and silent, reading inscriptions carefully. I watched an old Cambodian woman with some teenagers, her family, I suppose. she was explaining to them. gesturing and talking fast. They watched her every move, large-eyed. I wonder what she had had to do to survive. Or perhaps she was just lucky.

Some people left fragrant, waxy hibiscus flowers on the torture beds; I left mine perched on some manacles.I also wrote in several of the 'Comment' books: Join Amnesty International. This sort of torture is still a daily event in many countries. And we ignore it.

History repeats itself because nobody listens.

Let's listen.