The Kingdom of Cambodia....... Pol Pot and the Killing Fields

I realized later that day that entering Cambodia was like crossing into the third world. Scrutinized by the Vietnamese officials to get out and the Cambodian officials to get in, this one horse border crossing town was a waste land with nothing to offer but dust and a hot wind blowing down the long road to Phnom Penh. Riding the local bus, we crossed a river by ferry and I was taken aback by the poverty of the local people. Beggars, handicapped, dirty children with hardly any clothes on their backs and adults so poor, trying to peddle sundried crickets, fried tarantulas, fried cockroaches, fried small birds and who knows what else. Everyone is begging for money but what is one person like me supposed to do?

I saw a poster on Facebook today which was so profound that I will remember it for a long time. A picture of Whitney Houston with the caption “One person dies and a hundred million cry” beside another picture of starving children with their hands outreached with the caption “One million children die and no one cries”.

Phnom Penh was a history lesson of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge led by their barbarous leader Pol Pot. We started out by visiting the infamous prison Tuol Sleng,  where over 20,000 people were tortured into false confessions for three or four months before being sent off to the Killing Fields for final disposal. It is estimated that over 3 million people were executed by bludgeoning, hammering a nail into their skulls or their throats were slit by a razor sharp cactus like leaf to avoid wasting bullets. The memorial itself is surreal with about 9000 skulls of adults and children laid out on 17 levels. Many of the burial pits were exhumed but many were left intact and the masses are still left buried in unmarked trenches. The Viet Nam war had just ended and the Americans and the rest of the world had no appetite for any further involvement in South East Asia so these barbarians were allowed to act unimpeded until Viet Nam took it upon itself to put an end to the genocide about four years later in 1979. To date there has only been one leader convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the crimes which started in 1975. Pol Pot himself died by a heart attack after he was finally captured and arrested in the jungle while in hiding back in 1998.

Phnom Penh itself is a tale of two cities. We did an overview of the city as a group by three wheel pedi-cab. (See Youtube video http://youtu.be/ttm7y6k_QOM ).The seat of the government with all the trappings that go along with it. A beautiful palace, the construction of large office buildings, the apparent overwhelming recovery of an economy rebounding from years of turmoil and a brand new esplanade which goes on forever following the river. Then you venture not too far from the city centre and the poverty slaps you in the face again. The smell and stench in some areas of the city and the constant begging of adults and children alike is enough to depress anyone if you haven’t already been affected by the killing fields. The main industry is garment manufacturing and the pay is $70 per month! You can work overtime and make up to $150 but by the time the employer deducts the food and lodging they are lucky enough to send $50 back to their families in the country. I’ve seen enough. Time to leave this place.