"Pol Pot: Anatomy of A Nightmare"
by Marsha Dubrow, DC Arts & Travel Examiner
Monks will chant at the Genocide Museum and “killing fields” throughout Cambodia on January 7 to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of Pol Pot’s horrific regime – one of history’s worst.
Dictator Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime killed an estimated 1.7 million people – more than one-fifth of Cambodia’s population -- in the late 1970’s. They were either murdered outright, or died from forced labor and starvation.
Dictator Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime killed an estimated 1.7 million people – more than one-fifth of Cambodia’s population -- in the late 1970’s. They were either murdered outright, or died from forced labor and starvation.
At the most notorious killing field, Choeung Ek , 8,000 skulls are stacked up in the former orchard just a few miles from Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. Even the glorious Angkor Wat temple was used as a killing field.
Cambodia’s deadliest prison, then called S-21, is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The 290 skulls on display there used to be arranged in the shape of Cambodia. The walls of the former high school are papered with head shots of the 14,000 prisoners tortured there daily by the Khmer Rouge. These photos can be ordered, if you really want, as wallpaper for your computer.
Although one of history’s worst mass killers, Pol Pot never faced trial and died peacefully in his sleep at age 73. “Pol Pot” was one of 10 aliases for Saloth Sar, a former schoolteacher . “The more often you change your name the better. It confuses the enemy,” he once said, according to “Pol Pot: Anatomy of A Nightmare” by Philip Short ((Henry Holt and Company).
Five former Khmer Rouge leaders are languishing in a Cambodian-United Nations detention center -- whose food they’ve complained about. Their long-planned trial is still not in sight, and the detainees, in their 70s and 80s, may well die peacefully before facing justice.
Recently, I realized a life-long dream to visit Cambodia. I asked my extraordinarily knowledgeable guide, Phalla Chan, how he had managed to survive those years. “I guess I’m strong,” he replied. “Today is for today, not for thinking about yesterday.”
I immersed myself in Cambodia’s tragedies of yesterday, converted into today’s tourist attractions described above. The killing fields and museums affected me as deeply as Holocaust museums in Washington and in my hometown of Houston; Robben Island prison off Cape Town, South Africa where Nelson Mandela was held for 27 years in a three-square-yard cell; the Spanish Inquisition Museum in Lima, Peru; among many others.
“Cultivate a heart of love that knows no anger” – Cambodian proverb.
Five former Khmer Rouge leaders are languishing in a Cambodian-United Nations detention center -- whose food they’ve complained about. Their long-planned trial is still not in sight, and the detainees, in their 70s and 80s, may well die peacefully before facing justice.
Recently, I realized a life-long dream to visit Cambodia. I asked my extraordinarily knowledgeable guide, Phalla Chan, how he had managed to survive those years. “I guess I’m strong,” he replied. “Today is for today, not for thinking about yesterday.”
I immersed myself in Cambodia’s tragedies of yesterday, converted into today’s tourist attractions described above. The killing fields and museums affected me as deeply as Holocaust museums in Washington and in my hometown of Houston; Robben Island prison off Cape Town, South Africa where Nelson Mandela was held for 27 years in a three-square-yard cell; the Spanish Inquisition Museum in Lima, Peru; among many others.
“Cultivate a heart of love that knows no anger” – Cambodian proverb.
For more information:
“Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare” by Philip Short (Henry Holt and Company)
“The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79” by Ben Kiernan (Yale University Press)
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