S21 and die Killing Fields

Four years of trauma with consequences right up to today

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Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge

Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge

From 1975 onwards,in their delusion of a communist state of farmers in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge under their leader Pol Pot, murdered between two and three million of their fellow-countrymen. Immediately after their victory in 1975 they forced the entire population of the big cities into the countryside, even bedridden patients from the hospitals as well as children and the elderly. After the end of their time in power, there were hardly any teachers anywhere in the country, no medical services and as many of the intelligentsia that could be caught had been murdered.

In 1979 the Khmer Rouge attacked Vietnam in order to expand their area in the Mekong delta and in doing so they killed a few hundred Vietnamese. Thereupon the Vietnamese army marched in and toppled the Pol Pot regime within two weeks. When, following this, the General Assembly of the United Nation condemned the Vietnamese intervention, the Khmer Rouge won international support. Consequently the murderers, after their defeat, were still regarded as the legitimate representatives of the people of Cambodia at the UN, and they played a role in internal affairs right into the 1990s.

Source and further information: www.mimpiindah.de/kambodscha/khmerrouge.htm

Tuol-Sleng Genocide Museum

The Tuol Seng Genocide Museum is the former prison “S-21” of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

This is in fact the former building of a grammar school which was used by the Khmer Rouge after the conquest of Phnom Penh for the systematic torture of its inmates. Barbed wire at the exits of each building was meant to prevent prisoners committing suicide out of despair. From 1975 to 1979 between14,000 and 20,000 people from all parts of Cambodia were imprisoned here, as well as, amongst others, members of the Khmer Rouge deemed to be traitors by the Khmer Rouge leadership. About 1,700 people operated this centre of torture.

Killing Fields

Between 1975 and 1978, 17,000 people were beaten to death or killed in other ways in Choeung Ek, 20 km from Phnom Penh. They were then buried in a total of 129 shallow mass graves. The mortal remains of 9,000 victims were exhumed in 1980. The bones were stacked in a memorial stupa. But many graves remain untouched to this day.

Source and further information: www.mimpiindah.de/kambodscha/khmerrouge.htm