The Dark Side of the Khmer Rouge

It is estimated that some 2 million Cambodians died during the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.

Many died from malnutrition, disease and exhaustion working in slave-like conditions as part of the Khmer’s ruthless and sudden imposition of communism on the entire populace. Many were summarily executed for real or imagined offenses against the regime.

And over 17,000 men, women and children were sent to Security Office 21 (S-21), the secret Khmer Rouge detention and interrogation center of Tuol Sleng. Of those 17,000, only seven survived.

Visiting this former prison in Cambodia’s capital city of Phnom Penh is a sobering and altogether depressing experience. Housed in a former high school, each new arrival to Tuol Sleng was photographed before being stripped down and shackled into small, dark, dirty and stifling cells. Hundreds of those photographs are now on display, silently accusatory ghosts from the past.

Prisoners were guarded by exceptionally cruel 10 – 15-year olds, specially selected and trained by the Khmer Rouge regime for complete lack of empathy. Prisoners were regularly beaten and sadistically tortured, regardless of age, sex or guilt. Children too. The images on display showing the gruesome results of some of these practices were disturbing, haunting, and nauseating.

After 2 – 6 months at S-21, prisoners were bound, blindfolded, loaded onto trucks and driven several miles to the extermination camp of Choeung Ek. One by one, they were made to kneel in front of newly dug pits. To save ammunition, they were bludgeoned to death using sharp or blunt instruments such as shovels, pickaxes and crowbars, then tossed into a mass grave. Those that somehow survived the beating were buried alive.

Those were my visits today. I didn’t eat much.