3,000,000

It has taken me a few days to process before writing about the following. We stayed in Phnom Penh for two days after Siem Reap. Our purpose for going there was to see the Choeung Ek and Toul Sleng monuments and museums. These words meant nothing to me until I understood the modifiers that went along with them; Choeung Ek killing fields and Toul Sleng Prison genocide museum. Here lay horrors of the past that should always be remembered and never repeated. Absolute horrors.

I will leave the the history for you to research on your own, though I think it is key to understanding, and focus on what we saw at these places. Thousands went through the Toul Sleng prisons. Originally a secondary school the Khmer Rouge turned it into the most secretive of their prisons. Thousands were interrogated for information and tortured for confession of crimes against the regime. Each person was catalogued both written and photograph. Chained and starved the prisoners would be sent to Choeung Ek.

Thirty to sixty people daily from 1975-1979 and in the latter years of the Khmer Rouges power around 300 per day were sent to Choeung Ek. Here they would be unloaded from a truck, catalogued to make sure none escaped, put in a holding cell, and one by one marched out to a shallow grave and bludgeoned or hacked to their death. Hatchets, machetes, garden hoes, bamboo poles, and other devices were used to kill saving precious bullets for fighting. After the murders the guards would spread DDT on the bodies and buried them. Twenty thousand people killed at one site and there were many more killing fields set up around Cambodia.

Walking into the killing fields the area was dominated by what looked to be a temple only it was too irregular. The roof looked similar to a temple but the structure was tall and narrow comparatively. As we walked closer I realized what it was; a monument to those who died at Choeung Ek. The skulls of victims are stored within its glass sides. Each one has been cleaned and preserved. The monument is the most gruesome and the most moving thing I have ever seen. Its terrible presence was impossible to ignore. I could not keep my eyes off of it during our visit and I have wept every time I think of it since.

Roughly three million Cambodian people died between 1975 and 1979; roughly one out of every four people. Celebrities, politicians, intellectuals, teachers, and even people with glasses were targeted for execution. Countless more died due to starvation, forced labor, and disease. The brutality of the Khmer Rouge is possibly the worst in history and the events leading up before and after it are regrettable at best, murder at worst, and shameful for other countries who continued to recognize the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government even after stories of its crimes started to surface. It is not only Cambodia but the world who needs to learn from these events.

Emotion still runs high concerning this time period. The population is still confused, angry, and grieved but their is a very strong movement for reconciliation instead of vengeance. There is a strong push to bury the victims with reverence and remember the events that took place in order to never allow it to happen again. Anger is still present but many people recognize it at a motivator for a violence that they do not want to see again.

And that is all I have to say about that.