Day 308: Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

Another sad military history day, sorry folks. Today we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

To recap the same old Cold War Story communist domino effect story, Cambodia was under French and then Japanese occupation until WWII ended. The King of Cambodia wanted 100% neutrality in the Cold War, yet he allowed North Vietnamese and Chinese communist troops to use Cambodian land to attack South Vietnam. The US didn’t take too kindly and of course bombed Cambodia, leading to instability.

In 1970, a US led coup ousted this pro-Soviet/pro-communist government. However, Vietnamese and Cambodian communist rebels began to gain popularity and eventually overthrew the US installed government with a direct request to North Vietnam for help; the communist rebels would become the Khmer Rouge and run the Cambodian government from 1975 - 1978.

The Khmer Rouge committed horrible acts and genocide against the Cambodian people as well as foreigners. The estimate is 2 million people, mostly ethnic Khmer people as well as professionals like doctors, scientists, and teachers as well as Muslims. This group was so paranoid that they would imprison their own government members and people who participated in torture if they got suspicious. Ironically this government was ousted after Soviet Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978.

Cambodia would not recover until 1991 after several economic sanctions against Vietnam and UN involvement. After all that trouble, they re-instated the same King who worked with North Vietnam back in the 1960s…luckily, many of the Khmer Rouge war criminals were processed and held accountable in tribunals in Cambodia.

Our visit today focused on Security Prison 21 which was converted into a museum. It’s estimated 18,133 people were killed at the prison or were directly taken to the Killing Fields where 1.3 million Cambodians were killed and buried. Before it was a prison, it was a school and classroom; it was eerie how the black and white floor tiling and building structure mimicked any normal school.

This day was extremely impactful because this time in Cambodia is fresh in everyone’s mind and the anger is still felt today. Every local we spoke to for an extended time would eventually bring it up and we were 100% uneducated on the subject.

Some locals we spoke to are upset at the loss of doctors, teachers, and scientists and feel it put Cambodia behind economically. Others talked about how they lost direct family members or how their family would work within the Khmer Rouge to protect themselves. Apparently 95% of Khmer Buddhist temples were also destroyed, which makes Angkor Wat all the more special.

There was an option to visit the Killing Fields museum, but we had reached our limit because the content was extremely detailed, graphic, and direct. Spent several minutes crying in the memorial park, but also discussing more recent events like the War in Ukraine and Israel’s current genocide in Gaza.

It’s frustrating that humanity can’t seem to progress forward or that preparing for future wars / invasions takes precedent over stopping current human suffering today and now. How do you even stop a genocidal regime without more killing, invading, or directly bombing those civilian population centers? Japan and Germany committed atrocities in WWII and it did not stop until atrocities / invasion was enacted against them. Sad to say, we left the museum with a darker outlook towards humanity and progress.

However, will end with a quote that the museum used to close out the audio tour; this quote meant a lot to us. It was spoken by German ambassador Joachim Baron von Marschall at the Inauguration Ceremony of the Memorial in Remembrance of the Victims of the Khmer Rouge Regime. Speaking on the museum, he said:

“It reminds us to be wary of people and regimes which ignore human dignity. No political goal or ideology, no matter how promising, important or desirable it might appear, can ever justify a political system in which the dignity of the individual is not respected.”

Food:
Depression noodles
Depression dumplings

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