The Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia to year zero. They banned all institutions, including stores, banks, hospitals, schools, religion, and the family. Everyone was forced to work 12 - 14 hours a day, every day. Children were separated from their parents to work in mobile groups or as soldiers. People were fed one watery bowl of soup with a few grains of rice thrown in. Babies, children, adults and the elderly were killed everywhere. The Khmer Rouge killed people if they didn’t like them, if didn’t work hard enough, if they were educated, if they came from different ethnic groups, or if they showed sympathy when their family members were taken away to be killed. All were killed without reason. Everyone had to pledge total allegiance to Angka, the Khmer Rouge government. It was a campaign based on instilling constant fear and keeping their victims off balance.
After the Vietnamese invaded and liberated the Cambodian people from the Khmer Rouge, 600,000 Cambodians fled to Thai border camps. Ten million landmines were left in the ground, one for every person in Cambodia. The United Nations installed the largest peacekeeping mission in the world in Cambodia in 1991 to ensure free and fair elections after the withdrawal of the Vietnamese troops. Cambodia was turned upside down during the Khmer Rouge years and the country has the daunting task of healing physically, mentally and economically.
i am going to be visiting The Tuo Sleng Museum which was a school that Pol Pot's forces converted into a security prison called S-21. This was where more than 20,000 people were imprisoned and tortured in barbaric ways.. most people were killed in an extermination camp at Choeng Ek, just outside of Phnom Penh. Each prisoner was photographed before or after their torture. The images above are some I found online of victims from S-21.
please check out this website to learn more.
http://www.killingfieldsmuseum.com
on this trip i have seen faith in action. i have felt culture shock. i have witnessed poverty in depths unknown. even the idea of seeing the killing fields in cambodia changes my ideas of humanity. i am looking foward to that change. constant change is something i strive for. although i fear this change could be negative. i am cynical and hard already...seeing this can only develop that more.
i know one thing. i will come home with a whole heart.
