Remembering the Khmer Rouge

Skulls at Choeung Ek

It is pretty much impossible to visit Cambodia today and not find reminders of the Khmer Rouge genocide. The Cambodian people do not want to forget, and they want the world to know what happened in their country between 1975 and 1979.

The trajectory of Cambodia's history was largely downward from the middle of the 15th century when Siamese forces defeated the Khmer empire, the most powerful in Southeast Asia, and destroyed the capital at Angkor Wat. From then until the 1860s, Cambodia was continually subjected to invasions by Vietnamese from the east and Siamese from the west, until France agreed to protect the kingdom in exchange for pretty much total control over politics, economics and social life.

Cambodia gained independence in 1953 and enjoyed a relatively prosperous period until the late 1960s, when the war in neighboring Vietnam coupled with increasing corruption in Phnom Penh led to the overthrow of  King Norodom Sihanouk by Lon Nol, who may have had the secret backing of the U.S. Sihanouk had alienated the U.S. and many of his own military leaders by allowing North Vietnam to use bases and roads in eastern Cambodia to supply its army and Viet Cong allies fighting in South Vietnam.

The U.S. and South Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1970 gave new life to the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge guerillas. The next five years were a period of civil war that ended when the Khmer Rouge, backed by North Vietnam, marched triumphantly into Phnom Penh and were greeted as liberating heroes.

Within a matter of  days, the Khmer Rouge turned Phnom Penh and other cities into ghost towns, telling the people that the U.S. was about to bomb them and moving them to the countryside for their own protection. But little time passed before the real motives of the Khmer Rouge became clear: the eradication of everything modern and the establishment of an agricultural utopia.

Many of the evacuees were put to work in agricultural communes to grow rice for export. The result was that thousands of people with no rural life experience or agricultural knowledge were literally worked to death, many of them starving in the midst of  rice fields that yielded grain for export, not to feed the Cambodian people.

The agricultural communes also served as places to identify enemies, who were forced to "confess" and were then executed, usually by bludgeoning, and thrown into mass graves. To the Khmer Rouge, enemies were educated people, teachers, government workers, business people, foreigners, as well as ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese, Thais, Christians, Muslims and Buddhist monks. 

S-21 Prison

More than 150 execution centers were established around the country. One of those was the Chao Ponhea Yat High School in Phnom Penh. The school's five buildings were converted to a prison and interrogation center and renamed S-21 soon after the Khmer Rouge came to power. 

Over the next four years, an estimated 17,000 to 20,000 people were imprisoned at S-21. They were tortured and forced to confess to being enemies of the Khmer Rouge and to give up the names of family members and friends, who were then arrested and subjected to the same treatment. Nearly all were eventually executed either at the prison or at designated killing fields outside the city.

Condemned prisoner at S-21

Graves of the last 14 victims

Today, S-21 is a museum dedicated to exposing the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. Many of the tiny cells have been left as they were, as well as some larger cells that held high value prisoners, such as high ranking former government officials. Barbed wire still rings the compound and hangs as lattice nets outside the classroom buildings that became cell blocks. An exercise bar that became a gallows to hang prisoners upside down and dip them into large pots of fetid water stands at the end of a small cemetery where the last 14 victims were buried when their decaying bodies were found by the Vietnamese Army after the downfall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

Khmer Rouge photos of their victims

Like other genocidal regimes before them (the Nazis, for example) the Khmer Rouge were dedicated record keepers. They transcribed and filed the long confessions they coerced from their victims. They also photographed their victims, some of them both before and after they were executed. They also photographed each other. Those portraits make up some of the most haunting exhibits in the museum, eyes filled with fear and confusion staring back at us through the decades, begging not to be forgotten.

Also on display are leg irons, rusting springs that served as

Shackles at S-21

beds for high value prisoners and the ammo boxes they had to use as toilets in their cells.

Somehow 11  people managed to survive imprisonment at S-21. 

Chum Mey, Survivor

One of those is Chum Mey, who was destined for execution until someone found that he could repair a typewriter. Chum Mey's biography, "confession" and some of the facts about S-21 have been collected into a small book called "Survivor." Chum now spends his days sitting at a table within the former prison compound, selling and signing copies of his book and answering questions from visitors.

I wonder if he can answer the question, "Why?" 

Most of the prisoners from S-21 ended up being trucked about 17 kilometers out of the city to a former longan orchard now called Choeung Ek that the Khmer Rouge used as one of its infamous killing fields. Here there was no pretense of growing crops. The sole purpose of Choeung Ek was to dispose of the prisoners of S-21 and other interrogation centers.

The stupa at Choeung Ek

Most of them never even spent a night at Choeung Ek. They were taken from the trucks to the edge of pits, put on their knees and bludgeoned. If they did not die from the blow to the base of the skull, their throats were slit and they were pushed into the mass graves. Occasionally, near the end of the regime, the trucks brought so many prisoners that some had to be housed overnight in a windowless shed before being taken out to die.

Not even the smallest children were spared. They were usually swung head first into the trunk of a tree. And the executioners were not much older than children. Many of them were teenagers who had been coerced to hate and betray their own parents in the regime's effort to sever all ties to the past.

Victims of Khmer Rouge

It is estimated that more than 17,000 people were killed at Choeung Ek. Nearly 9,000 were later exhumed from 86 of the 129 mass graves. The other graves remain untouched. More than 8,000 skulls are displayed behind plexiglass in a 62 meter high stupa at the center of the site, and a sign in English reads: "Would you please kindly show your respect to many million people who were killed under the genocidal Pol Pot regime." No one know just how many people died of starvation, disease and brutal murder, but estimates range from 1.7 to more than 2 million.

Opened mass grave at Choeung Ek

At Choeung Ek, the exhumed graves are now small ponds. Quiet paths wind through the peaceful, wooded site. Visitors walk silently past signs describing the facilities that once supported the mass murders here. Life just outside the killing fields is almost disturbingly normal. Working rice paddies surround the site, and canoes are pulled up on the shore of a small adjacent lake. Egrets spear small fish in the pond.

When our group returned to Phnom Penh after our visit to Choeung Ek, we spent the afternoon and evening wandering around the bustling and festive waterfront park that overlooks the merger of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers.

Men played sei dak with remarkable agility. Women lit incense and left offerings of lotus blossoms and freed birds to carry their prayers. Street vendors hawked fruit, candy, lotus seeds, rice and balloons. Young men with cameras offered to take photos of tourists in front of the Royal Palace.

My photos from that afternoon do a fair job of capturing the vitality of the park. But one photo keeps jumping to the front of my mind. A woman squats on the ground, her arms around a small boy. His gaze is upward, toward some nearby men playing sei dak, curiosity in his eyes.  She is looking straight ahead, but does not seem to be looking at anything. I find it easy to imagine that she sees a past of cruelty, death and hopelessness, a past that is not that long ago. Her arms hold the boy between her knees, her body and her memory protecting him. He does not resist, but I think he sees himself one day playing sei dak like the men he is watching.

His chances are good, if Cambodia and the world never forget what happened there between 1975 and 1979.

Cambodia's Cottage Industry Economy

You don't have to travel far from Phnom Penh to find Cambodia's cottage industry economy. Perhaps the best example is Koh Dach Island, in the middle of the Mekong River, just upstream from the capital city. Koh Dach is also known as Silk Island for reasons that become obvious once you wander a kilometer up the dusty road from the ferry landing.

Most of Koh Dach's 30 square kilometers are fields of corn, soy beans and sesame stretching in both directions from the road to the shores of the island, along with groves of banana and mango trees. Nearly all the residences are right on the road, houses up to 10 feet above the ground on stilts to keep them dry when the Mekong floods in the wet season.

At the loom

In the space between the stilts you see why Koh Dach is known as Silk Island. Chances are, though, that you will have already encountered young girls on the road competing with each other to offer you the finest, most inexpensive silk scarves in the world, which just happen to be draped over their arms.

Silk weaver, Koh Dach

These girls are selling scarves, table cloths, runners and wall art woven by their mothers and sisters on hand looms set up in the shade under their houses. The weavers don't seem to mind visitors wandering into their work areas and photographing them as they select new threads and throw the shuttle to weave colorful patterns from simple geometrics to complex scenery.

A few of the weavers set aside space to display and sell their products, but most seem to send their daughters out on the dusty road to try to corner the few tourists who ride the ferry from Phnom Penh to visit the island. Most of their beautiful silks end up in the markets in Phnom Penh, where the price is noticeably higher than on the road through Koh Dach.

Carving Buddha

As you travel farther from Phnom Penh, on the roads to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat to the north and to Battambang to the south, you see that such cottage industries are the norm throughout Cambodia.

Some villages specialize, like one on the road to Siem Reap where every man seemed to be a stone carver, working on statues of the Buddha: Buddha meditating, blessing, reposing, always smiling. In another village a small blacksmith's shop kept half a dozen men busy shaping steel into machetes.

Many of the home-based businesses are food related. Under one small canopy near Battambang two women were making sticky rice by mixing
rice with beans and coconut milk, sealing it in bamboo cylinders, then roasting it slowly over hot coals. 

Making sticky rice

In another nearby village, several homes were engaged in making rice paper to wrap spring rolls. A young man milled rice flour, which was then boiled with water, salt and tapioca flour. One woman dipped a tool that looked like a rolling pin into the mixture and pulled it out with a thin film coating it, then unrolled it over a bamboo lattice to cool and dry. 

Drying rice paper

Drying bananas

Across the road from one of the rice paper shops was a home where the residents were busy drying bananas. The bananas were sliced very thin lengthwise,then laid on a bamboo frame (bamboo has more uses in Southeast Asia than duct tape has in America) to dry in the sun. Ripening bananas hung on a tree overlooking the drying frame. The dried banana strips had the chewy texture of a Fruit Roll-up and tasted exactly like a banana.

There are larger industries in Cambodia's villages as well. One day, heavy traffic and a street demonstration forced us to detour on our way to the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. As we made our way down the narrow winding streets of a small village, we spotted a fairly large building with a tin roof and steam drifting from its open sides. We asked to stop and see what it was. We found the owner, who was more than happy to let us wander through his salt refinery. 

Cleaning fish

Skimming salt

We first saw a woman cooking rice and cleaning fish for the workers inside. A young boy was spreading sea salt to dry in the sun. Some workers were stoking rice husk fires below large vats full of boiling salt water. The owner explained that the dried sea salt was then simmered in water and iodine to make iodized salt. More workers skimmed salt from the simmering vats and shoveled it into woven baskets. Meanwhile, the cooled ashes of the rice husks were loaded onto a truck to return to the fields to help fertilize the next crop of rice. 

Nothing is wasted.

In another village outside Battambang we visited what was probably our least anticipated scheduled stop -- a prahok factory. 

Drying fish at the prahok factory

Prahok is fermented fish paste used as a condiment in many Khmer recipes. Mixed with other ingredients, it's quite tolerable, but the processing of raw fish can be pretty unappetizing. Ralph had advised us to bring cheap flip flops that we could throw away after our visit, because the factory floor would be covered with fish waste. I had paid a dollar at the Battambang market for a pair of yellow flip flops for just that purpose.

Sorting fish

Outside the factory were bamboo racks covered with orange fish fillets drying in the sun. Inside, we found women cleaning and crushing piles of small fish with wooden mallets, but the floor around them was quite clean. I wouldn't want to eat off of it, but my new flip flops were fine after a quick rinse and drying in the sun. I still have them, and they fit better than any flip flops I've ever worn.

The growth of tourism in Cambodia has had its impact well beyond the night life of Phnom Penh and the ancient temples of Angkor Wat. 

Take the "floating village” of Kompong Phluk. This village is one of the many that ring the Tonle Sap, the Great Lake that is in many ways the heart of Cambodia. It would not be correct to say that the villages are on the shores of the Tonle Sap. During the rainy season, the villages are out in the lake. In the dry season, they are much closer to the edge.

Town Hall at Kompong Phluk

The Tonle Sap is about eight meters deeper in the wet season because the heavy flooding of the Mekong slows the tributary Tonle Sap River and backs its waters upstream. Of course, the greater depth in such relatively flat country means dramatically greater breadth as well, more than doubling the surface area. It makes no sense to build fishing villages miles from the shore, which is where they would be in the dry season. 

So homes in the villages of the Tonle Sap are built on stilts high enough to keep the floors above water in the wet season. In the dry season, a misstep from the entrance to one of these homes could be suicidal. 

At some point, enterprising people realized that these villages might be interesting to tourists. Kompong Phluk, being the nearest village to Siem Reap and the hordes of  visitors to Angkor Wat, became the most popular. 

Hot rodding in Kompong Phluk

We were there in the dry season, in December. The rains had stopped a month or so earlier, so the  lake was falling. We still had to ride in a noisy long-tail boat for about 30 minutes to reach the village, which was a sort of Southeast Asian version of Venice. With water for streets, boats are the only practical vehicles for getting around, so everyone gets around in boats. Even small children with no adult supervision poled, rowed, paddled and even motored through their village in boats. I saw only one group of three children wearing life jackets. 

The influx of tourists has led to the opening of a nice restaurant, a boardwalk through the flooded

Paddling through the flooded forest

forest and new jobs for women paddling tourists in canoes through that same forest, often with sleeping infants in their laps. Enterprising people with boats paddle out to the tourist boats to sell snacks and soda.

But life goes on normally for most of the village, so fishermen still fish, net menders repair nets, mechanics repair boat engines. On the ride back to dry land, we saw rice farmers working in paddies they had created by trapping the falling water, the silt at the bottom providing extremely fertile soil for Cambodia's staple crop.

Driving the bamboo train

One other quaint enterprise that has gained additional traction from tourism is the bamboo train. At one time, there was a network of narrow gage (one meter) rail around the country, but today there is just one stretch that runs from just south of Battambang to an old brick factory about 15 kilometers away.

Bamboo trains are flat bed cars sitting on two axles with steel wheels salvaged from old tanks. Passengers and cargo ride on the bamboo slatted bed at speeds up to 50 km/h. A motorcycle or small tractor engine provides power via belt drive directly to the rear axle.

Since there is just one track and the autonomous trains travel in both directions, there is a protocol to handle trains when they meet in the jungle.

Fishing beside the bamboo train

The drivers simply disassemble the train with the lighter load and move the parts off the track to let the heavier train pass. The lighter train is then reassembled and continues on its way. The railway passes through jungle and wetlands, and provides opportunities to stop and watch fishermen cast their nets into the muddy river.

Most of the narrow rail network was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. My next blog entry will deal with that terrible period in Cambodia's history.

Cambodia Part 2: Buddha and Markets in Phnom Penh

I got up before dawn on my second day in Phnom Penh and went out to explore the area around the hotel. The structured and guided part of our two-week tour would begin a few hours later, but I wanted to be a blank slate for first impressions.

The Villa Langka hotel is in a compound on a quiet street a couple blocks south of busy Sihanouk Boulevard. Following Sihanouk to the east brought me past a large monument and statue of King Norodom Sihanouk, the long time leader of Cambodia who is credited with liberating the country from France in 1953. The statue looks to the east over a long park that even at first light was filled with people walking, working and playing.

Sihanouk statue faces east

Peeling lotus buds

An old woman sat on the ground, wearing both a red and white krama and a floppy hat on her head. She was peeling the outer petals of lotus buds. People buy the peeled lotus buds to present as offerings when they visit temples to pray. The woman noticed my presence and my camera and just kept right on doing what she was doing.

The Cambodian people generally don't see anything remarkable about Caucasians pointing cameras at them. I didn't feel like anyone was any more curious or surprised by my being there than by anyone else. Other than not being able to speak their language, I felt like a part of the landscape. For a photographer, that's a good thing.

In another park, a couple dozen young men wearing white karate uniforms  practiced their martial art under the guidance of their instructors. Further along small groups of middle aged women performed guided aerobics.

All of that was interesting, but I think I learned more about Cambodian culture from observing the morning traffic.

Traffic in Phnom Penh is a miracle. I saw only 3 stop lights in this city of 2.2 million people, and no stop signs or yield signs. At first glance it appears to be total chaos. And yet cars, trucks, buses, motor scooters and bicycles co-exist and flow together like water, yielding without yelling, merging mildly. Even pedestrians manage to cross the street, stepping carefully but confidently into the stream, which flows around them easily. Eventually I learned to do that, too, although Phnom Penh would never be described as a pedestrian-friendly city!

It is impossible to imagine road-raged American drivers getting around Phnom Penh, and it is equally impossible to imagine the easy-going Cambodians surviving the insanity of American urban traffic. Maybe the average Cambodian driver is just a good Buddhist who accepts life on life's terms, on the street as in the rest of his life. Or maybe in the absence of traffic controls people rely on their good nature rather than the rules of the road. It probably also helps that the vast majority of the vehicles are relatively slow, highly maneuverable motor scooters.

Golden Buddha

I can only speculate, of course, about whether Phnom Penh traffic is a reflection of the city's collective Buddha nature, but there is no question about the role of religion in the general life of the city.

Temple stupas in Phnom Penh

Throughout the city, huge temple complexes, dominated by stupas (towers) beckon the faithful to prayer and meditation. A thriving free market sprawls inside and outside the temple walls, offering Buddha statues, prayer sticks (incense), lotus buds, live birds and various trinkets to present as offerings to larger Buddha statues within .

I had long had a perception of Buddhism as a philosophy of simplicity, humility and transcendent grace, and in those ways quite different from the way some of the more ostentatious Western religions are practiced. But the huge temples with their golden spires and prayer halls filled with likenesses of Buddha rival anything I have seen in Christianity's cathedrals, and both stand in stark contrast with the poverty of the people who live nearby.

I do not intend to diminish in any way the core message of the Buddha (or of Jesus, Moses, Mohammed or any other founding prophet). The dogmas and icons that have developed since those prophets passed on have done more to obscure their messages than anything I could do or say.

Buddha with offerings

Praying in the temple

In any case, it is clear that Buddhism plays a major role in the life of modern Cambodia, and perhaps even more so in light of the fact that less than 40 years ago, the Khmer Rouge destroyed or heavily damaged most of the country's temples. So the rebuilt magnificent structures one sees today are monuments to the peoples' need for spiritual centers, a resurrection, if you will, from the hell of the Khmer Rouge and their effort to eradicate all of Cambodia's cultural heritage.

While faith-based commerce thrives around the city's wats, secular commerce is centered in the markets, especially the Central Market and the Russian Market.

After spending that first morning traveling to the Royal Palace and its soaring pagodas and then to several temples, we rode in cyclos to the Central Market. Cyclos are sort of like rickshaws, but the driver pedals the vehicle from behind the passenger seat, which is decidedly safer for the driver than the passenger. It's a great way to experience Phnom Penh's traffic.

Shoe Store in the Central Market

The entrance to the Central Market is startlingly art deco, having been built by the French in 1935. Although lined with the typical stalls you'd find in most Asian markets, it offers some of the feel of a modern shopping mall until after you've passed through the large foyer. Then it becomes as narrow and claustrophobic as you could hope for. And fun.

Shops are tiny stalls offering fresh food, cooked food, live chickens, live fish, t-shirts, scarves, jewelry, electronics, shoes, Buddha statues, dresses, pants, socks, hats and spices, among other things. We went first to the food, since it was lunch time and we were hungry after a morning of temple exploration. We ordered from one of the vendors cooking to order. We found a counter some distance from the vendor, but they brought our food, and then let us come back to pay after we had eaten.

Lunch Counter at the Market

After lunch, we split up and wandered the aisles for photos and shopping. Most of the vendors are not aggressive, but as soon as you look at something more than casually, they will begin to negotiate. I looked at some green stone elephants in one stall and asked how much. The price was ridiculously low, so I asked, "Jade?"

"Yes?"

"Real jade?"

"No."

I got the  price down from $10 to $6 for the fake jade elephant and was satisfied. I might not have bought it at all, but the woman was honest, right? 

Typical Market Stall

The following day, we hit the Russian Market for lunch. The Russian Market is more of what you expect in Asia, definitely not Art Deco. On the inside were many dozens of the same kinds of shops. The biggest difference from the Central Market was a large array of tools, motor parts and other hardware, sort of the Home Depot of Phnom Penh. But unlike Home Depot, these items are sold by small vendors all competing with each other.  Some specialize. One guy might be selling nothing but wheels, and another nothing but engines. Others are doing repairs.

Pedicure at Russian Market

Shoppers can also get their hair washed or a pedicure when they need to take a break.

One of the great things about Ralph Velasco's photo tours is that he allows plenty of free time so we can explore on our own or in small groups. But we all somehow ended up spending a lot of our free

Praying by the river

time in a large public park between the walls of the Royal Palace and the Tonle Sap River -- actually, where the Tonle Sap merges with the mighty Mekong.

This place is ongoing carnival. Saffron-robed monks amble along serenely, while children beg their parents to buy sweets offered by wandering vendors carrying their goods on their heads. Other vendors carry cages with live sparrows that people buy and hold as they pray, then release, perhaps releasing their troubles at the same time.

Practicing sei dak

School children rest on their book bags as men practice sei dak, a popular form of volleyball played throughout Southeast Asia, and better known as takraw. Unlike volleyball, the small ball is made of woven rattan, and players can touch it with pretty much any body part except the hands. This results in amazingly athletic contortions and ball control that looks impossible.

In addition to lunches at the markets and included breakfast at our hotel, we ate dinner at some very nice Phnom Penh restaurants. There is a large enough foreign contingent of tourists, business people and NGO workers to support some very upscale restaurants, where prices are anything but upscale (except by Cambodian standards).  

Our other major visits in the Phnom Penh area were to Silk Island and two memorials dedicated to the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime. I'll cover all of those in subsequent blog posts about Cambodia.

Silver Pagoda at the Royal Palace