Tx has arrived, so the tourism has begun. Its been a good time and really helped me to understand the 'background (but really very prevalent today) attitudes of the Khmer (Cambodian) people. Having finally made it to the temples of Angkor Wat (see previous entry) we then moved on to Phenom Pheng. There is not much to do in the capital but see the torture prison and the killing fields left over from the Khmer Rouge days (1975-79).
This has been completely different to everything else we have seen on our travels. Firstly S21 or Tuol Sleng was a high school until the 17th April 1975. The following day the Khmer Rouge took it over and turned each classroom into a torture chamber or holding cell. The people were all meticulously evacuated from the city under the false claims that the Americans were going to bomb the place and within three days the whole city was empty with everyone being escorted by soldier's to the countryside to become farmers. It was perfectly executed and organised. Our guide was a young girl at the time and had walked 3 months to Battamburg (in the North West) with her family. They then worked as farmers until the Khmer Rouge was over thrown and she then walked back. She found her mother but her brother and father had been shot dead and her grandfather died of starvation.
The Khmer Rouge remained in power until the Vietnamese arrived in 1979, by which stage they had tortured and killed all the academics, teachers, lawyers etc in S21 and thus the country needed the Vietnamese to fill all these jobs for them. (it was suspected that all these professions worked for the CIA and Pol Pot wanted to start a new country from scratch, even declaring the year Year 0) The Khmer seem very patient and almost too laid back. During their times working in the fields with limited food supplies they continued to hope that someone might realise what was going on and help them. You never hear any stories of radicals, and still many Khmer are hungry today.
In s21 over 19,000 people were tortured for between 3-6 months each and then taken to the killing fields to be killed. This lead to mass graves. The crimes of the Khmer Rouge were massive and it was most shocking to learn that 1) most of the tortures at S21 were 13-19 years old and 2) very little in the way of legal justice has been served.
After the overthrowing, the Khmer Rouge leaders 'hid' in towns on the boarder with Thailand. Most of them remaining loyal to the Khmer Rouge and living normal lives for about 20 years. So far 4 people are awaiting trial (awaiting what?) for these crimes, and one leader has been given a 35 year sentence.
The mass graves have not been exhumed and every rain more clothes and bones appear at the surface. Its like the dead refuse to remain in the ground but insist on making themselves known.
On a brighter note, through our travels Xss and i are trying to be nicer to beggars and poor people, as giving someone $1 here seems much more effective than giving $1 to charity at home and it passing through all that bureaucracy. Although some people might misuse our dollar here, maybe it is the giving that counts. Anyway, one lunchtime a particularly dirty young man, without shoes (surely an international sign of poverty) approached us for money, we said no as we don't encourage kids to beg. But them he asked for food. Yep. This is fine with us, what do you want? and he turns and points to K-BURGER, the newest, shiniest and glass boxiest place on the street. Fine. So i brought him a k-burger meal, and he trotted off the proudest K-burger owner ever.
Now, it might not be true, but i like to think that he had been staring into that shop for a long time, dreaming of a k-burger, with a tear in the corner of his eye, thinking he'd never have one. We can make that dream come true, just because we were born in a different country.
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