This photo journal features Tuol Sleng Prison (S-21), now the Museum of Genocide in Phnom Penh. This former high school was turned into a prison & interrogation center in 1975 by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime (red or communist Khmers). The museum is a ghastly reminder of the dark days of the Khmer Rouge regime.

From 1975 until 1979, an estimated 17,000 political prisoners, mostly just ordinary citizens, were imprisoned, interrogated & tortured here before they were taken to the Choeung Ek killing field, located about 16km (10 miles) from Phnom Penh, brutally killed & their bodies dumped into mass graves. The Documentation Center of Cambodia manages the museum as part of its mission to record the history of the Khmer Rouge, & gather evidence against Khmer Rouge leaders who, after 30 years, are finally facing a world tribunal for their ghastly crimes.

Why? The political ambition of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge movement was to create a classless agrarian society by moving all the city people into the countryside to work the rice paddies. In his twisted ideology, Pol Pot believed that anyone with an education was a threat & might rebel against him. So with the help of his lieutenants & an army of teenagers (average ages between 15-20), they scoured the entire country & arrested all educated citizens & their entire families. This included doctors, lawyers, & engineers, basically anyone who wasn't a farmer or field worker. Even people wearing glasses were considered educated. Simply being related to someone who went to university was suspect. They were arrested & ended up “screaming their lives out in Tuol Sleng”.

We visited both of these places on the same day. It was a hard hitting day of disturbing & deeply shocking history that testifies to worst side of humankind. “The enormity of the violence & degradation challenges the mind; seeing the evidence of it challenges the stomach.” Much like Mai Lai, it’s a horror I’ll never forget.

We had no idea that things had been that bad in Cambodia so we were ill prepared. Why didn’t we learn about this in school? Or the western press? We were well versed about the Holocaust, but not this event. Why aren’t our schools teaching about Pol Pot's history, or Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution in China which was responsible for the deaths of over 25 million people. Why haven’t we learned about these events? Was it because they were Asians? Vietnam was well covered because Americans were involved? The holocaust was well covered because westerners were involved?

Some history: After the Americans left Cambodia in 1975, the country was left in the throes of a civil war in which the Khmer Rouge prevailed. The American withdrawal was an inglorious end to five years of involvement in Cambodia's civil war. Its presence in the country was closely linked to the war it was conducting in neighboring Vietnam. Between 1970 and 1973 the US bombed Cambodia in order to stop its North Vietnamese enemies using the country as a base. When Phnom Penh fell, Cambodia became the first country since Cuba to pass into Communist hands.

What happened to those in charge? The government, the guards? Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998. He lived a free man until contracting malaria while living in peace on the western border. One of his right-hand-men "knew too much" and under Pol Pot's orders, he & his entire family were brutally murdered.. Many of the officials of the regime are still in power today in the corrupt government. The local guides have to be careful about revealing certain names because those people still have the power to arrest and execute those who speak against them and their history.

The current king of Cambodia was friends with Pol Pot and is now the head of government. (How disgusting is that?) The guards and army were never punished for their part in the atrocities. They just vanished back into society, living among the survivors as neighbors. Incredibly, Pol Pot was given a seat in the United Nations for 11 years from 1980-1991. Here’s a guy who wiped out a fifth of his country's population in disgusting & brutal ways, & then the West honors him by giving him a seat at the UN which allowed him to partake in decisions made around the world? Incredible.

Although a world tribunal has finally started, 30 years have passed and not one person has yet been punished. Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch, was the official in charge of S-21. He has been in jail awaiting trial since 2001. The trial is facing a lot of challenges but efforts are still underway to bring justice and closure to an ugly page in Khmer history. Cambodia is waiting, nervous and afraid to hope. Hopefully some sort of justice can be done so these people have some sense of closure.

The Khmer Rouge, in their mad quest for a society free of classes, tried to dehumanize the enemy in order to exterminate them and “cleanse” the population. But this is always a failed proposition as history bears out sooner or later: Those who work to dehumanize others, only end up dehumanizing themselves. The victims are mourned & remembered as heroes or martyrs. The perpetrators end up immortalized as monsters.

Excellent source for more information. It includes a copy of the infamous Concentration camp rules. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum

Judging-the-Khmer-Rouge-Tribunal portal http://www.krtrial.info/?language=english

Excellent source, with many photos: See more photos from the prison: http://www.tuolsleng.com

For further reading, try David Chandler's "Voices from S-21", or try to see the documentary movie "S-21" released in 2004. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368954/ You may also want to revisit the well-known movie “The Killing Fields” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields_(film)