It was an easy flight from Bangkok to Phnom Penh. Just over an hour and I was met at the airport by a smiling tuk-tuk driver with my name on a piece of paper. La-di-da. That's what stepping up to the $10/night guesthouse will get you. That and a hot shower AND A/C... life is good. I got settled in and decided to check out the movie showing in the lobbby/restaurant downstairs. They alternate between various Cambodian films (or rather films about Cambodia). Last night's was "S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine", about the high school turned prison (and now museum) at Tuol Sleng here in PP, where political prisoners were held before being taken (almost without exception) to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. It's very well done, if you're interested in checking it out. The film doesn't offer much background into the Khmer Rouge regime, but is a glimpse into the experience the prisoners and guards who spent time at Tuol Sleng, with narratives and interviews from two surviving prisoners and several guards, along with some powerful interactions between the guards and one prisoner in particular, an artist, whose paintings are now featured at Tuol Sleng.
Today I spent half the day visiting Cheong Ek and then Tuol Sleng. Such a powerful, albeit utterly depressing experience. Cheong Ek is a peaceful place at first glance... grassy fields, butterflies flitting about, but there are also many terrible reminders of the horrors that took place there. I was sickened by the pits in the ground where mass graves have been uncovered and by the small piles of bones and teeth that littered the grounds. I heard a tour guide explain to a small group of tourists, that these awful artifacts "just keep coming up". The centerpiece of Cheong Ek is a stupa filled with human skulls; a memorial to those who died here and a reminder to those who live. There is a sign in front of this tower asking you to pause and respect the dead. As I placed a lit stick of incense in front of the memorial and offered up a prayer for peace, I started to think about why it is that we visit these kinds of sites; places so painful and awful and ugly.
At Tuol Sleng there is room after room filled with 8x10 mug shots of the prisoners detained. Of the 20,000 some prisoners held here, only 7 survived. I walked through row after row of photographs and started to cry. When I turned a corner and saw pictures of young children I had to just leave the room. How is it possible for people to become so indoctrinated, so desensitized, so heartless that they can treat each other with such brutality? The pictures are just haunting. So many faces... some young, some old, some beautiful, some grotesque, some bearing evidence of the interrogations they had just been through. And the eyes... some resolute, some furious, some frightened, some ashamed. I came to a picture of a young boy, probably about 14. There was a brightness in his eyes I hadn't seen in anyone elses; almost a sparkle. It made me so sad. How quickly was that light snuffed out? How long did it take to kill his spirit so evident in this photograph?
And again I wonder about why we come to these places of horror. Do we wish to remind ourselves of what we as humans are capable of? Or maybe we come to honor the dead? Or maybe it's a type of penance; a small plea for forgiveness for the actions (or inaction) of our governments that may have in some way contributed to the atrocities commited? I don't have a good answer. I don't know why I wanted to see what I saw today, but I do know that it's not something I'll soon forget.
The rest of the day I kept thinking about what the Khmer people must think about all of us foreigners come to gawk at this ugly chapter in their nation's history. Does it make them angry? Or do they feel comforted by the rest of the world getting a chance to glimpse what life was like here in Cambodia just thirty years ago? For some, I'm sure it comes down to the tourist dollars that come along with our curiosity. I hope I'll get a chance to talk to somebody about this while I'm here.
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