Visited two sites yesterday that are on the list of everyones "todo" when in the capital, both relate to the 5 years that the Khmer rouge controlled the country and both are deeply sad.
The first was a memorial at the scene where many thousands of Cambodians, men woman and children were executed for their "suspected" crimes against Angkar (the Khmer Rouge republic)
Like memorials anywhere the very ordinaryness (not the best word i guess) of the Killing fields of Choeung Ek belied the awful crimes that had occured there.
The memorial itself was half religious monument half memorial to the crimes commited and on a hot sunny day it was hard to walk around the fields without wondering how it had looked in 1978.
The next visit was to a school....... unfortuanately its use by the Khmer Rouge was as a prison.
Named S21 it looked like so many schools here in cambodia, simple two story concrete blocks, big open windows and some gym gear in what had been the playground.
What was inside each of the rooms made it very hard to not get angry at how people treat others.
Like despots and rulers anywhere the people in charge of S21 liked to know just who they had and kept track of each new arrival with a big A4 photo of each new prisoner (not unlike the Nazis use of tattooed numbers on the arms of concentration camp victims i guess)
Many rooms just had walls and walls of photos of Cambodian men woman and children looking into the camera, some looked frightened , some angry, some seemed numb. But each one had left here to be driven to the Killing Fields at Choeng ek, from which very few returned.
It was a reminder i guess that this country has had a very sad and brutal recent history (remembering that these crimes occured in my lifetime!)
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