[Photo: Skulls at the Killing Fields, Cambodia]
From Wikipedia:
The Killing Fields (Khmer: វាលពិឃាត viel
pi-kʰiet) are a number of
sites in Cambodia where large Numbers of people were killed and buried by the
Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from
1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War (1969–1975).
Analysis of 20,002 mass grave sites by the
DC-Cam Mapping Program and Yale University indicate at least 1,386,734 victims
of execution. Estimates of the total number of deaths resulting from Khmer
Rouge policies, including disease and starvation, range from 1.7 to 2.5 million
out of a 1975 population of roughly 8 million. In 1979, communist Vietnam
invaded Democratic Kampuchea and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime.
Cambodian journalist Dith Pran coined the
term "killing fields" after his escape from the regime. A 1984 film,
The Killing Fields, tells the story of Dith Pran, played by another Cambodian
survivor Haing S. Ngor, and his journey to escape the death camps.
The Killing Fields is outside Phnom Penh. There was a
stupa that towered over the site. Inside
were skulls, clothes and leg irons. There were skulls of young people. Around
the stupa were mass graves. Some had an enclosure and roof.
[Photo: Photographs of children at Tuol Sleng
(Cambodia), a school turned into a prison where the Khmer tortured and killed
their own people]
[Photo: Instruments of torture and murder at
Tuol Sleng (Cambodia), a school turned into a prison where the Khmer tortured
and killed their own people]
From Wikipedia:
The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (Khmer: សារមន្ទីរឧក្រិដ្ឋកម្មប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ទួលស្លែង) is a museum in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The site is a
former high school which was used as the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21) by
the Khmer Rouge regime from its rise to power in 1975 to its fall in 1979. Tuol
Sleng (Khmer [tuəl slaeŋ]) means
"Hill of the Poisonous Trees" or "Strychnine Hill". Tuol
Sleng was only one of at least 150 execution centers in
the country,[1] and as many as 20,000 prisoners there were killed.
The first “tourist” spot we went to was
Tuol Sleng. It was a depressing experience. It was a school turned into a
security prison of the S21, something like the SS of Hitler. The enemies of the
regime were tortured and killed there. Children and even babies were imprisoned
together with their mothers.
Homo, lupus homini. Man’s inhumanity to
man. How can any human being be so cruel! Evil is real and many times, it is
enough for good men to do nothing for evil to create a horror story such as the
Killing Fields.
