THESE PICTURES AND THIS STORY IS BASED ON TRUE EVENTS OF THE GENOCIDE IN CAMBODIA DURING 1975-1979. DURING THE REIGN OF THE KHMER REGIME.
Imagine, waking up one morning to find that our country has been taken over by a new type of "governing system."
You walk out side and on your street corner your neighbor Bill is handing out papers to show the newest "governing systems rules". All men and women with an education, skilled, and anyone with glasses(yes glasses) must report for an interview. In many cases you think maybe a re-positioning or possibly higher paying jobs? And all average people..You…must report back to your original city, small town or countryside to wait for orders given by this new "governing system."
Their is where it's announced this is now a Communist country taken over by non else but an American regime. What!?!?!? Americans took over America? Communism? What is going on!? How did this happen!? What does that mean for us!? These questions fill your head as you look around at your neighborhood and friends and family in panic and tears.
Now before your family could even think of fleeing the country, announcements come in saying all flights to other countries have been diminished for good. That all borders from Mexico and Canada have been shut down so you will not be able to cross ever again. And that all alliances with different countries have been cut off. There is no where you can go. All big cities all over America begin to get demolished. All "down towns" are flattened… More announcements come in saying that you will all now become farmers. Working on the farms for food and a place to live. Pretty much working to stay alive. Everything has been taken from your bank accounts, you have no home and there is nothing you can call your own anymore.
Remember those men and women "Educated, skilled, with Glasses" we talked about reporting for "interviews." You hear that they were all executed for a rebellion of some sort. EXECUTED!? What Rebellion!? They weren't doing anything! They weren't part of any rebellion! They were just reporting for duty as asked. This new "Governing System" was probably just threatened by their intelligence, so they just killed them. KILLED THEM? Those were your Aunts, Uncles, Brothers, Sisters, Cousins, Friends, Pastors, Teachers… You see people become enraged at the deaths of their closest family members and friends and start questioning angrily. So the leaders announce yet another rule "Whoever asks questions or breaks the rules given will be imprisoned and taken in for questioning."
You also hear about your nearest high school becoming a prison. Where they take people for questioning rules or breaking them. You also hear people speaking of how they torture people in everyway imaginable including starvation. There they also interrogate those whom they, because of paranoia, believe could be part of a rebellion. Why was this happening? Why are they killing innocent people like this? Their own people!? This is their own country that their ruining and their people their killing! WHY!?
The worst part is that there is no one that can help you. Everyone only looks out for themselves. Suspicious talk of another person could cost them their life. Parents that had been killed left their children abandoned. So the children would try and steal food for themselves or for their brothers and sisters to eat. But were caught and "taken to prison." The sad reality of it all is that they were actually taken to a place a little outside your city and were brutally murdered.
That 'place' is your hometown graveyard. A little outside the city it is quite and rural. The regime set up and blocked off a few acres of that land. There they dug 129 ditches about 16 ft. deep. On the property is a shack of tools for torture, there is also a chemical D.D.T. It's usually is used as an insecticide. But not here. Here it has a purpose of only evil. Here they use it as a torturing tool. They pour it in the ditches where some people lay on top of the dead slowly dying, yet still alive. And as a way to cover up the stench of rotting corpses.
On the property is a ditch by a tree where they throw the women and children bodies. The tree is a torturing tool as well. They rape the women, young and old; before they brutally murder them. They use the the tree to kill the small children. They use the sharp parts of the palm tree branches to cut body parts. This is where true Evil resides.
There is another shack on the property where they put people to wait in the darkness, not able to see each other or anything else. In the middle of the property is a huge tree, they call it the magic tree. This is where the regime blasts loud musical chants through loud speakers on the Magic Tree branches, they also ran a loud generator. They do this to cover up the screams and torture of the victims. This is what is heard while awaiting your death. Songs that were once played for good were now songs played to overpower the screams of the innocent.
(Notice the bodies behind this prisoner.)
Now imagine this lasting for four years. Men, Women and Children raped, brutally murdered and tortured for four years by their own people. Can you picture that? I sure can't. But that is exactly what Cambodia had to endure, Genocide. It was the reign of the Khmer Regime under the rule of Pol Pot.
All foreigners were thus expelled, embassies closed, and any foreign economic or medical assistance was refused. The use of foreign languages was banned. Newspapers and television stations were shut down, radios and bicycles confiscated, and mail and telephone usage curtailed. Money was forbidden. All businesses were shuttered, religion banned, education halted, health care eliminated, and parental authority revoked. Thus Cambodia was sealed off from the outside world.
Throughout Cambodia, deadly purges were conducted to eliminate remnants of the "old society" – the educated, the wealthy, Buddhist monks, police, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and former government officials. Ex-soldiers were killed along with their wives and children. Anyone suspected of disloyalty to Pol Pot, including eventually many Khmer Rouge leaders, was shot or bludgeoned with an ax. "What is rotten must be removed," a Khmer Rouge slogan.
On April 17, 1975 the Democratic Kampuchea was created. Office 21 was called Tuol Sleng "S-21" and was designed for detention, interrogation, inhuman torture and killing after confessions from the detainees were received and documented. Many of the confessions were forced, fake, and forged, in order to kill the detained. Before S-21 was a prison it was actually host to the primary school and high school. The building was covered in barbed wire preventing the prisoners from committing suicide. The regime reconstructed some of the buildings into small cells divided by brick walls. And after the men and women were just crowded together and thrown into big rooms together. There were rooms with one window made of glass to cover the screams of the tortured victims. The corpses along with other prisoners were taken to, Choeung Ek or as we call it now the Killing Fields, to be tortured some more or to be disposed of.
The reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Regime was overthrown on January 7, 1979. These are some of the numbers of prisoners in those 4yrs.
1975 > 154 Prisoners
1976 > 2,250 Prisoners
1977 > 2,350 Prisoners
1978 > 5,765 Prisoners
This research doesn't include children, which for a fact were held at the prison. The figures are estimated at 20,000 people including foreigners were executed and murdered. The imprisonment here at S-21 was 2-4 moths, and 6-7 months for political prisoners. There was a record of only 7 Survivors from Tuol Sleng "S-21".
The Figures for Choeung Ek "The killing fields" were, 169 mass graves and about 8,000 human skulls at the site bear testimony to this unspeakable crime. There are always more bones and fragments coming up (especially after raining season) that are found and documented.
In total there was 3 million victims throughout the country.
This indeed was one of the worse genocide in the world!
and unfortunately it wasn't the last.
Walking through the museums I viewed this and was filled with so much heartache and pain for these people. My dad and mom were 15 years old when this was going on! They were young high-schoolers so full of life, just like the innocent kids that were tragically taken victim here. That is all I could think of; that in other countries men, women and children just like the ones that were here suffering, who could do nothing to help or stop what was going on here, were living beautiful lives; not really knowing that other kids their age lives were being cut short. Maybe they heard it on the news? or radios? But probably never got the glimpse that I've gotten this evening. This will forever be engraved in my heart and mind. I will never forget the genocide that took place here in Cambodia and all the beautiful faces in the pictures whose souls lay to rest with our beautiful savior. Please Keep Cambodia's poverty and health in your prayers.
May God Bless Cambodia.
