The Cambodian Genocide
A genocide I didn’t know existed until I got to Cambodia. The other day I had the opportunity to visit and tour:
This is just one of 300 killing fields in Cambodia. Here thousands were tortured and killed.
Here’s a little background on how this started…
The Cambodian Genocide refers to the attempt of Khmer Rouge party leader “Pol Pot” to nationalize and centralize the peasant farming society of Cambodia virtually overnight. This resulted in killing over 25% of the country’s population in just three years.
On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge army marched into Phnom Penh, evacuating the capitol and forcing everyone to leave behind all their belongings and march towards the countryside. Within days of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Phen, the government confiscated and took control of all property including schools, hospitals, various other societal institutions, and communal labor.
They killed the educated; doctors, nurses, lawyers, judges, teachers, students, engineers, policemen, Buddhist monks, ministers, government officials,
anybody who wore glasses or spoke a different language, the young and old.
Once one person was killed in a family the rest of the family died too.
On the tour we started where the buses would drop people off to be slaughtered, at first the buses would stop once or twice a week to drop people off but over the few years they started stopping multiple times a day.
Families were forced to separate from the start. Women stayed with women and men with men.
If it wasn’t starvation or torture that killed a person it was loneliness, not knowing if a family member is okay.
A few parts of the tour informed us on how they tortured and killed these people.
Here’s the “killing tree”
Here’s where woman and children were executed. Soldiers smashed babies heads against the tree and threw them into a pit right in front of their mothers. Brain matter, hair, bloodstains and bone were found on the tree.
They also used farm tools to torture and kill. They used knives to slice skulls, baronets, iron tools and cleaning rods to pierce holes in skulls. They cut off their ears and tied them up in hand ties and foot shackles. They also used water suffocation (in many ways), scorpion cages, bats, saws, whips and shovels as instruments of torture.
The last part of the tour was a temple filled with 9,000 skulls. Forensic scientists went through the remains they found on the property and analyzed them to predict the death of that person. In some parts of the tour you could see bones and clothing from victims.
The soldiers who did all of this were usually teenagers, poor and afraid of the government because if they didn’t kill, they would be killed and so would their family. I couldn’t help but think, that could have been my brother.
This place tore me apart. How could a human do that to another human, all the innocent people lead to slaughter. To think that this only happened a little over 40 years ago. 1/4th of this population was wiped out.
Yesterday, we proclaimed that He has risen. Today I’m reminded that the Lord loves ALL equally. He loves the soldiers, the murderers, the innocent victims and me and you the same. I’m reminded of his love, grace, forgiveness and hope that is ALWAYS so much greater than anything on this earth. People can be pretty cruel but he can always bring redemption to any story.
