Remembering the Past

While visiting Cambodia, it is easy to get caught up in the sight-seeing bustle: temple touring, exquisite eating, and night-market souvenir shopping. But reality for the older generation is not a Cambodia prospering from tourism or educating its young for a multi-cultural, multi-lingual world. It is a Cambodia with a painful past.

Pol Pot and his Khmer Rogue regime came to power in 1975. The transfer of political leadership was welcomed by most as the country sought an end to the looming civil war. Marching through Phnom Penh in victory, the black-clad Khmer Rogue soldiers were greeted at first with cheers. Within the week, however, the regime evacuated the entire city warning of impending American attacks to the city. They would return after 3 days when the city was safe, the soldiers told them. But most never saw their beloved home again. During the 4 years of Pol Pot's reign more than 2 million Cambodians (about 1/5 of the country's population) died...half by execution and half by disease or starvation.

As I visited the capitol city 30 year later, I looked into the eyes of many Cambodian locals and wondered what those eyes had seen. Were their parents executed? Were their children killed? How many bodies did they bury because of starvation? How close did they come to death themselves? For the younger generation, I wondered what they knew of their country's riddled past. Do they believe the accounts of those who lived through it? Or to them are they just stories?

When we tell our children what happened they don't believe us, our tour guide said. Only when they come to see (the Killing Fields, S-21) and learn it in school do they start to believe. And those who lived through it still wonder how fellow Cambodians could commit such acts against their own people. Of our tour guide's 50 relatives retained by Angkor (Pol Pot's ruling body), only 3 survived.

How quickly the world forgets, and forgetting begets repeating. That is why one survivor visits S-21 whenever time permits to tell his stories and show people the tragic history of his country. We were lucky enough to speak with him during our museum visit.

One of only 7* to survive the brutal torture of the notorious S-21 security prison, Chum Mey managed to avoid suspicion and accusation because of his mechanical prowess, fixing cars and other items for Angkor. But when friends were arrested, they falsely accused him as a mere matter of survival. CIA, was what his friend told Angkor, and our survivor was tortured until he admitted it, too. Electric shocks, hanging by hands tied from behind, and head dunking into pots of dung were common methods used for "persuading" accusations and confessions. Pol Pot's regime ended before our survivor met the fate of the 16,000 other prisoners held within S-21's walls.

Throughout the year, Chum Mey walks back into the same rooms and faces the brutal memories of those 2 years spent in S-21. If for no other reason than to acknowledge his experience, his nightmare, his pain, we must remember the past.

*According to Wikipedia, there were 12 known survivors of S-21. We were told 7 during our visit to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh.