Tuol Sleng

So, we're keeping a group journal for this trip...and, although no one who knows me will believe this, I HAPPENED, and I repeat happened, to be passed the thing on the day of our journey to The Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng (S-21, the detention/torture facility within Pnomh Penh).

There's not so much to say actually - again, the horror of the situation defies not only words, but emotion. When such egregious crimes have been committed - how can someone have a proper reaction? What is the proper reaction when confronted with utter and compete horror...the Khmer Rouge (like the Soviets) were all for the niceties of imprisonment and execution, keeping detailed records on the most minute details - before and after photos of victims. These are displayed at S-21, alongside the original instruments of torture; the tiny cells in which inmates were housed - replete with scratched doors, still oily from so many grasping hands. Every tour guide emphasized, with amazement, the fact that Pol Pot was Cambodian - killing, starving, torturing other Cambodians. Work/Death were the only two ingredients acceptable for a life under Ankar.

There is a great Philip Short biography of Pol Pot that came out last year, should anyone be interested in a factual historical look at the relevant forces that not only brought his regime to power, but that shaped him as a young student in Paris.

For a more fraught and frankly emotional account, look for First they Killed My Father' - a first person account of the atrocities.