Phnom Pehn

Two posts in less than a week? I guess once you start you just can't stop...probably not, though, who knows when I will the urge and thoughts to post next. We have arrived in the largest and capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Pehn. It is bustling, loud, polluted, a bit dirty, but the people as nice as always. Behind the insistent tuk-tuk and motor bike drivers, the inviting restaurant staff and the bright, smiling faces of the children lingers a rather dark and heart-wrenching past. Recent past, actually. As many of you know, the Cambodians have suffered disgusting injustices from the hands of their own countrymen. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were a communist form of government that took power in 1975 by winning power through guerilla warfare in order to restore Cambodia and its people to a purer state. A purely agrarian society in which anything otherwise was deemed tainted, evil and to be destroyed. This included having anything from modern luxuries such as cars, watches, books to those who found themselves to be superior for being educated/professionals such as doctors, lawyers, teachers, government officials, soldiers serving in the past regime, basically anything other than poor/primitive peasant and farm laborers. It started in the capital. Everyone was forced to leave the city, mainly by walking. And according to what I have read, it has said EVERYONE other than the Khmer Rouge soldiers. They displaced an entire city. All wondered into the countryside to villages where they were forced into hard labor. Let me clarify quickly, the Khmer Rouge disguised themselves as being the saviors of the people. They forced everyone to leave the capital by lying to them and telling them that the United States was planning to bomb Phnom Pehn so everyone must leave to survive. The people quickly realized that wasn't the case and saw in store for themselves a very grim future. First the Khmer Rouge began to mass execute any and all people they could find of non-farming occupations. They tortured and killed thousands of teachers, students, professionals, politicians, soldiers, people who wore glasses (they were considered intellectuals) and all of their entire families. Some were able to disguise themselves as peasants when they realized what was happening. Obviously I cannot go into details about the tragedy because then I would be writing a book, and not a very good or probably accurate one at that. I will tell you that there are estimates of up to three million of the then eight million population was tortured, executed or starved to death during the four year reign of the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979. Here in Phnom Pehn, the largest "prison", basically a concentration camp, was housed. Not far out of the city is the "killing field". The prison was a high school where they took anyone who was "unpure" to question and torture, from babies to the elderly. They would be then transported about 14km to the killing field where they were executed and pushed into mass graves, some filled with up to 400 bodies. It is a disgusting and painful past that Cambodia has, and I urge you all to read up on it, just a bit, in order to understand what this nation is recovering from. We went to the prison and the killing fields today. It was the most difficult thing I have seen. It was impossible for me to the see the hundreds of mugshot-type pictures they have put up of the tortured and not be deeply pained. I saw a picture of a baby, probably not even the age of one yet and tears started streaming down. To know that they took this child away from her mother and tortured and killed both is too much for one to comprehend. Perhaps we don't actually, since thankfully, we were not there to bear witness. I saw one picture of a man who looked absolutely terrified, even from the photo taken at the beginning of it all, you could tell that this man knew of his fate, of the tortures that lay ahead of him. I'm sorry that this is not a cheerful post, but this is a part of my trip. These are the type of life-altering discoveries that this trip was supposed to hold for me. This is me seeing what is beyond my doorstep and beyond the pages of cnn.com. I am seeing the repairs that this nations is struggling to make. The thousands of people who don't really have enough to feed their children due to disabilities from the fight and landmines, displaced lives, a weak economy, poor to no wages because of no education and a very weak system that is still not re-built since the Khmer Rouge. I see the beggers and the street children differently, I don't blame the people for doing/having nothing with/for themselves; for some, it really is the circumstance. I thought to myself, after learning about the Khmer Rouge, that there is no way this could happen today. But I was wrong. I quickly remembered that a similar situation is happening in Darfur. I have been thinking how could the world not help the Cambodians? How could other countries have known what was happening and not do anything. It took Vietnam four years to finally invade Cambodia, dismantle the Khmer Rouge and save the people. But how come, today, we aren't doing more for the Sudanese? What can we do for them? How can we try to ease and better yet stop their suffering? Perhaps I feel zealous this way since only this morning I experienced the prisons and killing fields. I don't know, but I am sure that what I saw this morning are images that I will never forget. And hopefully urge me on enough to try and help the situations I can.