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Articles Tagged ‘S-21’

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Rules and Regulations

Friday, September 19th, 2008

1. You must answer accordingly to my questions. Do not turn them away.

2. Do not try to hide the facts by making pretexts of this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.

3. Do not be a fool for you are the chap who dares thwart the revolution.

4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to relfect.

5. DO no tell me either about your immoralities or the revolution.

6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.

7. Do nothing. Sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away with no protesting.

8. Do no make pretexts about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor

9. If you do not follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.

10/ If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

– The main list of rules adhered to at S-21

Posted in Cambodia, Travel | No Comments »

Having nightmares tonight

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

I have been playing around with the title to this post, trying to add some humor to temper it down, but theres really nothing I can do to change it. Today was as bone chilling as life as a spectator can get. I am talking of a place obvious to those who have visited Indochina, but practically unheard of to those back home, Teul Sleng, otherwise known as S-21.

A converted high school, the prison housed up to 20,000 men, women and children from 1975-1979.  The actual school is now a museum, this means that for $2, you can get the opportunity to walk into the torture rooms of the school. This is certainly not for the faint hearted.

The first block of the school is where the majority of actual torture took place. In each room there is simply a rusted metal bed, some chains and a single torture device, be it a shovel, a metal can used to contain bullets or  a meter long metal bar. Behind most of the beds, is a picture in gruesome black and white of one of the victims of the particular room. There was a lot of blood in every picture.

Even more horrific was the room that didn’t have a bed or picture in at all. At first I thought that it was a nothing room, used for storage maybe,  but just as I was about to leave I realized that the walls were covered in bloody hand prints, and dark brown splashes of blood on the ceiling and walls. I was left dumbstruck, as was Lauren.

We then headed into the documenting rooms, which held mug shot style photographs of as many people as could be discovered about. I still tremble slightly thinking about those terrified eyes. Some of the children didn’t look any older than two.

Then onto the tiny prison rooms which some prisoners were kept in solitary, these were small and cramped, with nothing to use as a toilet.

The final; building held the worst part of the entire tour, worse even than the torture rooms. A room full of skulls belonging to the people I had seen in the pictures ten minutes previously. Some had clean bullet holes in the tops of their heads, delivering a fast kill. Others were not so lucky and instead had large chunks taken out of the temples or back of the head, where bludgeons had been used to save on precious bullets. Surrounding the skulls were paintings (thankfully not photographs or I don’t think I’d ever be able to sleep again,) of some of the atrocities committed under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, including photographs (no mercy to the tourist of paintings this time,) of the corpses. I’ll spare you the descriptions of those.

Of the 20,000 (est.) people who came through the doors as prisoners of S-21, only 7 live. the rest spend their eternity in mass graves either within the prison’s grounds, or 15km south west, at the Killing Fields.

Posted in Cambodia, Travel | No Comments »