The Silent Fields…..
I have never taken to a city so far but Phnom Penh has proven to be different. I like the vibe of the city, though I have been here only for a few days and am leaving tomorrow. Maybe its the friendly expats that I have met so far.Hummm…dangerous. I’m having some strange thoughts, I feel at home in this country or is it time to move on and continue on.
Sadly, I had to face reality and had to make my way see one of the famous “Killing Fields” of Cambodia. Also on my list was S-21, a former prison, whose victims were burried in the Killing Fields. It was very hard facing the recent past of this country. For me, I always felt that what happened during and before WW II was somehow a different time and place and my generation just read about it in history books. It was really way before our time and sometimes I made excuses about what was done about it. We would have never let the Holocaust happen…but we did again and am sure we still are. There is so much we do not know. Is there another Cambodia in Africa? Anybody?
Killing fields 
But, the Khmer Rouge atrocities were committed just 20 years ago, a time when some of us were in our playpens. Its surreal to walk in the killing fields, because of the rains you can actually see some exposed human bones.I realised I was walking over the dead. The memorial stupa houses some of the remains of the unfortunate. One can see clear forensic evidence of blows to the head, bullet wounds and skull fractures..there is no denying the cause of death. Hard reality of the past, surrounded by the future of Cambodia, its children.
They were everywhere with their rehearsed speel. Photo, Photo…1000R, okay Bhat, Dong. No okay candy, gum. No. Okay what’s your name? Where you from? You married? How old are you? After a couple of seconds I caught on as well.I made a promise to myself that I will not give into momentary guilt, we cannot solve issues of poverty by handing over a handful of mints! Please don’t. In the end a little boy asked me if I could have water. How can one refuse a bottle of water? I could’nt.
After a bumpy ride back to the city I went to visit the museum which houses the remains of the victims from S-21 prison. A former school was converted into a prison house and victims were tortured with unthinkable means. Its so strange to see a temple of education which was converted into a labour camp. Classrooms divided by wood and brick walls into 8×6 cells with chains. I cannot comprehend how a human being can do this to the other. Is this a form of Cannibalism? You eat away another’s soul, a revival of maybe our brutal origins. To top it all the perpetrators were KIDS! The Khmer Rouge wanted a clean slate to revive their glorious past and they recruited young boys and girls to commit there crimes. The victims were from all walks of life, especially the educated, foreigners, anybody who followed a different ideology or was even suspected of having one.
The photographic evidence is overwhelming. I wanted to turn back but I could not. I walked on dazed at the evidence, seemed to far away from our reality. How could we let this happen? Will be able to stop a manic like Pol Pot again? Have we succeeded in doing so with Iraq? What’s the verdict from Bosnia?
Captured souls still awaiting release View image
Doors are left agar so that the soul is not imprisioned like the body was.View image
Cambodia is definitely getting me, in a positive way. I hear good and bad and all I see so far is good people trying to overcome their terrible past. They seem to have a resilience that is so Buddhist in its roots. Is that the reason why one don’t see a society crumbling under the weight of its past. They seemed to have taken things as their Karma and are trying to put things right. Lately, in the news (here) I read about the tribunal to bring justice to the victims is going to convene soon. Its long over due. Will justice finally find its way into their present. Will it ever heal the wounds or is it too late.
A face that has seen the horror 
I thought I would feel horrible after my day but the feeling passed ( of course a bit of shopping helped). I did not want to be depressed, I was a half a day. I knew I had to move on, do my part to bring attention to the crimes committed in Cambodia to the few around me and hope that we all can stand up and stop anything which ever comes close to genocide again. You may ask what are we doing about Sudan, Tibet, and Sri Lanka. What are you doing about it and what am I? Yeah, what am I doing about it?
Tags: Cambodia
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Madhu