TORTURE ROOMS IN KHMER ROUGE PRISON

Cramped cells in the S-21 prison

I’m in a high school courtyard in Phnom Penh, but this is no ordinary school. With several three story high buildings, there is room here for over a thousand students.

Or prisoners.

After the communist Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh in 1975, they converted this school into a prison called 'S-21'. It is today known as Tuol Sleng. Once a place of youth and learning, this school was transformed into a place of unspeakable torture and inhumanity. I had already seen the down sides of ‘revolution’ in neighboring Vietnam and Laos, but nowhere were the communists more evil and murderous than here in Cambodia.

Of the more than 17,000 people who were imprisoned here at Tuol Sleng, only 7 prisoners survived. All the thousands of others who were brought here were executed, tortured to death, or died in their cells from disease or mistreatment. The only reason that those 7 inmates were allowed to live, was because they happened to possess skills that their captors could use. One was an artist, forced to carve busts of their maniac leader Pol Pot. Another was a photographer, who took mug shots of doomed prisoners. 

Dreading what I'm going to see here, I enter the former school, walking into what once was a classroom. But the desks are gone, replaced by several sets of poorly built prison cells. Some are made of wood, others made of brick. There's no electricity; the only light peeks in from windows and small vents, leaving dark shadows across the room. I step into one of the eerie cells to get the feel of the place. Claustrophobic isn't the word; I’ve been in closets bigger than this. This cell is so small, there isn't enough room to lie down. For the prisoners it was far worse, they had to share these cells with other inmates.

Inmates were inhumanely shackled together by their ankles, to these metal poles

Stepping back out, I find a door has been knocked out through the school room wall's center, revealing another room full of cells. No door frame was installed; jagged brick and mortar was left exposed. Looking through, I see another crude door cut into the next room's far wall, and the next. This crudely cut hallway made it easier for the Khmer Rouge to police their doomed prisoners.

Exiting this gloomy scene, I head upstairs to the main detention rooms. On this level there there are no cells. Prisoners' ankles were locked in leg shackles, attached directly to a long steel pole on the floor. This forced prisoners to lie on the tiled floor tightly together, side by side, all day and night. This kept them immobilized; a method of confinement learned from French colonials. To relieve themselves, they had to use a bucket where they lay. Hygiene was non-existent; this led to rampant diarrhea. Shackled to these poles, inmates sometimes couldn't get a bucket, leaving them to lie in their own feces. They were released from these shackles only for interrogation and torture.

Barbed wire on upper walkways was to prevent prisoner suicides

I leave the room for the walkway, which like most Asian schoolhouses, is open to the exterior. Here I find barbed wire, stretched from the railings to the ceiling. The barbed wire was installed to prevent the prisoners from jumping to their deaths. Some of the poor souls here chose suicide, rather than continuing to endure the torture and horrific conditions of S-21.

On average, the prisoners of Tuol Sleng survived here for 1 - 3 months, until their 'interrogation' was complete. By that time, repeated torture had forced them into confessing to crimes, real or imagined. Then they were taken away to be executed in the killing fields.

At times S-21 was packed with prisoners beyond capacity. There were occasions when truckloads of prisoners arrived, and the prison was already overfilled. So the trucks never unloaded. The prisoners were just sent off for immediate execution.

Entering an adjacent school building, I find another former class room. In happier times, eager students were questioned by their teachers here. But after the communists took over, there was questioning in this room of a different kind. The Khmer Rouge called it an interrogation room. What it really was used for, was torture.

Torture room used by Khmer Rouge, with cat sleeping under the bed

The horrors wroght by the Khmer Rouge finally came to light in 1979, when they fled Phnom Penh ahead of the advancing Vietnamese Army. When Vietnamese troops first captured this prison, they were appalled by what they saw. Entering this very room, they found the mutilated body of a man lying on a bed, his leg still shackled to the frame. On the floor beneath the bed was a pool of blood. In the next room, they found a similar gruesome scene. And the next room, and the next. In all, there were 14 corpses in this building, and all had been tortured to death. One of them was a woman. Each was left lying where they had died, as the torturers and guards had fled the city. Before the Vietnamese soldiers removed the bodies, they photographed each gory scene; a photo showing the gruesome scene found in this room is on the wall. The unnamed torture victims are buried in the school courtyard.

This sad room is now eerily quiet and calm. Except for the corpse, most of what was originally found in this room was left right where it was found. The bed is still here, with a bamboo mat stretched across it. There’s an ammunition case - prisoners used it as a toilet. There's a shovel, used as a torture implement. Looking closer on the floor, is another disturbing sight. Spots of blood stains, left from the room’s final victim.

This room may be the most evil place I've ever seen. Unspeakable acts took place here. It is truly unfathomable, that any man could do this to his fellow man. A sign posted outside lists the 10 rules that prisoners had to follow during interrogations. Presuming the prisoner's guilt, numbers 6, 9 and 10, are chillingly brutal.

Torture rooms seen at the left, the last victims were buried in the school courtyard

THE SECURITY OF REGULATION
1. you must answer accordingly to my questions – Don’t turn them away.
2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Don’t be fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
4. you must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification, you must not cry at all
7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. when I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting
8. Don’t make any pretext about Kampuchea Krom (Lower Cambodia) in order to hide your secret or traitor.
9. If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either 10 lashes or 5 shocks of electric discharge.

Of all 17,000 prisoners, only these 7 men survived (museum photo)

The windows of the interrogation rooms, are different from others in the prison. Unlike others that only had French shutters, the interrogation rooms all had glass windows. This was because when the prisoners were being tortured here, their screams of pain and agony could be heard throughout the prison. So they installed glass windows to make the screams less audible.

The other torture rooms, have similar scenes with similar furniture. Beds, chains, and primitive torture implements. Each has an enlarged photo on the wall, showing the graphic scene of how the prisoner's bloody corpse was found here on the final day. 

One room has a strange difference. For some reason, a stray cat is lying under the foot of the bed, sound asleep, at peace. 

The old school and former prison is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

NIGHTLIFE IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS

'Heart of Darkness' club in Phnom Penh (arch photo)

Going out tonight, I pass an unusual street scene by the corner of my hotel. The cyclo drivers and motorbike-taxi drivers are settled in for the night. Lined up together for safety, more than 30 are all sound asleep, lying on their bikes! I'm amazed they can sleep like this, especially the motorbike drivers. Their trick is parking their motorbikes level, up on their dual kickstands. Then they lie on their backs on the bike seat, their legs stretched out over the handlebars. Well, that's one way to make sure nobody steals your motorbike: sleep atop it. How do they sleep like that all night, without falling off?

As I'm learning, night life is decidedly different in Cambodia. When I was in Saigon, (Ho Chi Minh City) the hottest nightspot was 'Apocalypse Now'. Now I'm in Phnom Penh, and the hottest place in town has an equally forbidding name, 'Heart of Darkness'. The disco's name is taken from the dark Joseph Conrad novel, and it's fitting.

'Heart', as it's known by locals, is located across the street from what used to be a jail, that has since been torn down. (How's that for atmosphere.) As a disco it's small on size, but big on its bad reputation.

After security frisks me for weapons at the door, I enter this infamous place with reddened walls. The party's in full swing, so I step up to the bar, and order my usual draught beer. Unlike Vietnam and Laos, they actually have draught beer in Cambodia. The two brands of locally made lager are: 'Angkor', (named after the ancient Khmer kingdom), and another brand, so uniquely named, 'Anchor'.

Taking a sip from my mug, I survey the eclectic crowd. Tonight the usual suspects are here. Foreigners, locals, rich and poor. There are Khmer businessmen, trying to impress by reserving tables and buying full bottles of whiskey. There are pesky prostitutes, and a few foreign English teachers. There are working class Khmers; they came to dance, but can't afford to buy drinks on their meager salaries. Finally are the tourists, including shabbily dressed backpackers.

This sign is posted at the entrance of many Phnom Penh night spots. It's needed.

As I watch the night unfold, I'm approached by a white twenty-something with dark beard stubble, and poorly dyed blonde hair. His accent is something European, and he's already drunk. He walks straight up to me and asks, “Yoo arh Amercan?”

“Yes,” I reply, “and where are you from?”

“Eye yam Amercahn. Eye yam frome California.”

I stated the obvious, “You don’t sound like you’re from California.”

This brought forth a nearly spitting tirade of obscenities. He finished on an unintentionally humorous note, by tripping himself up with his own words. Pointing his finger at me, he says, “That’s thuh probelem with yoo Amercahns!”

He shuffles off, presumably to look for someone more gullible. I don’t know what was more pathetic: how stupidly drunk he was, or that he would try and pass himself off as American, when he obviously wasn’t. I once met a Liberian who tried to convince me that he was a black American, but this was the first time I'd seen a European try this ruse. Fortunately the drunken poseur didn't try to start a fight with me. Unlike Saigon, I don't see many bar fights here, but that hasn't always been the case. Heart of Darkness has not always been such a safe place to party.

One of my English teacher buddies named Ken, was partying here one night a few years before. Before his very eyes, he saw a young Khmer man walk in, raise a pistol to the head of another, and pull the trigger. The victim fell to the floor dead. The murderer calmly walked out with the pistol at his side, cooler than Michael Corleone. Sadly, the killer was never even arrested, as he was from a family of the rich elite. Who knows why he pulled the trigger, but in post-war Cambodia, scores were often settled this way.

Fortunately, this kind of violence has declined in Phnom Penh. That's why I was frisked for weapons tonight when I came in the front door; they don't need any more murders in this heart of darkness.

**POST STORY NOTE** - 2020 - In the years since I first visited the Heart of Darkness disco, its clientele has changed. Heart of Darkness became a gay club. Phnom Penh changes quickly. 

LITTLE LIVE MUSIC, TOO MUCH HUMAN TRAFFICKING

For popular western music, there are few live bands in Cambodia (photo: Wikipedia)

One hopping Saturday night in downtown Phnom Penh, I went to Touk Bar, a reputable upstairs venue with a view of the Tonle Sap River. For once they had live music; a four piece band playing cover tunes. Years back I was a drummer myself, and listening to this ensemble, I'm amused. The band's drummer was really screwing it up. He was so out of touch with the other musicians, he didn't know when to stop playing as each song ended. Obviously he’d never played with this band before.

I asked the Canadian bar manager what was going on. Her answer: “Their regular drummer is in hiding. The police are looking for him on a charge of human trafficking.”

It's not surprising that the state of live music performance in Southeast Asia, is far less developed than in western countries. An odd phenomenon of live music in the region, is that although western music is very popular, few local bands can play western music well. Where there is live music in the capital cities, the best bands are from the Philippines. With more English speakers and freedom to perform, Filipino bands have filled the gap.

A popular downtown place for expats is Huxley’s a straight-laced English Pub. Unlike many of their neighboring bars, Huxley’s doesn’t allow prostitutes inside. Again, I went in on a rare night with a live band. Their name: ‘Stiff Little Punks’. I’d seen flyers advertising this gig, they promoted themselves as “The Worst Punk band in Cambodia”. It's more accurate to call them the only punk band in Cambodia.  

Playing in a tight upstairs space, I saw they were also the smallest band in Cambodia, with only two members. They included a lead singer, and a guitarist who sang background, and added digital music through foot pedals. Of course these weren’t full time musicians. I knew the lead singer, and his main job is teaching English. After hearing them play, I had to agree. They were the worst punk band in Cambodia.

As far as Phnom Penh's night life went, this is a tame place. Another night I happened to walk past Huxley’s, when I saw a big crowd across the street in front of Iris Bar. This was a ‘hostess bar’; a euphemism for a girlie bar. Prostitution is illegal in Cambodia, but police still allow it. There were many policemen present, an unusual sight. Their presence drew an even larger crowd of Khmer onlookers.

Across Southeast Asia, visiting bands from the Philippines play the best rock and roll.

The police were in the process of shutting down the Iris Bar. Before I arrived, they had arrested the Korean owner, and all the Khmer women who worked there. Everyone was hauled away in a police truck. The police then loaded all the bar's furniture into another truck, and hauled that away too. When the bar was emptied of its contents, the police locked up the front doors for good. I asked around as to why this bar was raided. It turns out that the Korean owner was unpopular in the neighborhood. He had forced his hostess women to work as prostitutes.

Fortunately not all bars and discos are of ill repute. But unfortunately for the women that work them, there is a stigma. Since Cambodia is still traditional and conservative, a ‘good woman’ would never work in a bar. Of course not all bar hostesses work as prostitutes, but given the low hostess salaries, it's not surprising that many turn to prostitution to increase their income. Such work also exposes innocent women to exploitation, as in the case with this Korean owner.

Predictably, Khmer values also look down on other things culturally accepted by western women. “In Cambodia, ladies who smoke are prostitutes,” a local woman once told me.

“Only prostitutes have tattoos,” was another prejudiced comment I heard. With the growing influence of western culture in Cambodia, such untraditional behaviors and fashions are becoming more common for women in Phnom Penh.

A week later, I walked this street again. Across from the closed Iris Bar, the police raided another nightspot; ‘Cheerleaders Bar’. I'd never been inside here either, but the police tactics were the same. The Khmer ‘hostesses’ were all packed onto the back of a waiting police truck. The furniture was carted away, and the English owner arrested; jailed just like the Korean owner had been. They weren't alone; the police had raided five city girlie bars in the past two weeks.  One was owned by a Singaporean; he had been trafficking women in from the Philippines for forced prostitution. Additional bars were raided and shut down in the city of Siem Reap. All were owned by expatriates. This must have been a campaign to reduce the girlie bars, or so I thought.

I was only partly right. An American owner of a legal bar filled me in on what was really happening. The police had shown up at some of the expat owned bars known to have Khmer women dancing. Some had pole dancing. None had strippers, though most had hookers. It seems that the police didn’t want Phnom Penh to turn into the next Bangkok. So they told the owners: remove those dancing poles, give the police $6,000, and they could stay open. If they didn’t comply with both of those directives, they were shut down.

The police also shut down a couple of Khmer owned bars, but not many. The American owner said that there just wasn’t enough money in them for the police to bother. For the expat owned bars, he had this explanation for me. “Cambodians don’t like anyone pimping their women, except Cambodians.”

Another American I knew in town, who spent too much time with prostitutes, was upset at all of these arrests and closures. He complained, “This is the US embassy’s fault! It’s all because they gave Cambodia a poor rating on the human trafficking list.”

The American had his anger and blame pointed in the wrong direction. Besides closing a few bars, Cambodia still has major problems with human trafficking, even worse than human trafficking in Vietnam. Many thousands of Cambodians, mainly women and children, are still victims of human trafficking every year. In addition to prostitution, many are forced to work in sweatshops as slave labor. The Cambodian government does little to stop the human trafficking scourge.

BOMBING THE OPPOSITION

10,000 year 'Friendship' monument 

It’s a strange looking monument, full of contradictions. The top has snake-like 'nagas' at every corner; a tower of sharp angled rooftops and golden trim. In short, the top half looks like the upper reaches of a peaceful Buddhist temple.

The bottom half is the opposite, with military themes. It’s a stone, gray, communist sculpture, in the stern Soviet style. Two of the figures are soldiers, both carrying AK-47s. Close in front of them, a woman holds a baby.

For the pair of stern looking soldiers, one is Vietnamese. He’s easy to pick out; a pigeon sits atop his Vietnamese Army pith helmet. The other soldier at his side has a pigeon sitting on his collar, while his hand holds the baby’s arm aloft. He’s obviously a Khmer soldier. Meanwhile the woman holds her Khmer scarf, which is wrapped around his rifle.  

Between the two extremes a painted plaque shows this odd looking monument's theme: crossed Cambodian and Vietnamese flags. This is the '10,000 Year Cambodian-Vietnamese Friendship Monument' in downtown Phnom Penh.

When the radical Khmer Rouge decided to take on Vietnam in the mid 1970's, they finally bit off more than they could chew. The USA and the west had given up on their military campaigns in Cambodia years before; so it was finally the Vietnamese that drove out the murderous Khmer Rouge. This was a rare time in history, when a communist country, 'liberated' another communist country.

Many Cambodians today are grateful that the Vietnamese forced out the genocidal Khmer Rouge, that’s true. But it wasn't long after Vietnam took over Cambodia, that things turned sour.

Stone figures: 2 soldiers, woman and child

After Vietnam’s army forced the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh, their soldiers began looting. The city’s empty houses were still full of furniture and appliances, left behind from the violent exodus of 1975. Mattresses were cut open with bayonets, as troops searched for hidden money and jewelry. Soon after, an enormous convoy of trucks loaded with looted booty was seen on Highway 1, heading back to Vietnam with their spoils of war. Their image as ‘liberators’ was tarnished.

The Vietnamese have long been Cambodia’s traditional rival, and as the Khmer Rouge took to the countryside for another long guerrilla war, most citizens began to feel that the Vietnamese overstayed their welcome. Starting in 1978, Vietnam occupied Cambodia with over 180,000 troops, and they remained until 1989. More than 55,000 of them died. (A figure close to the number of US soldiers who had died in Vietnam.) Far more Khmers died during that same period. Every one of those years was full of unending conflict, and economic hardship.

There is still a great deal of resentment by Khmers against the Vietnamese. That bitterness is sometimes expressed through violent means, as happened on this very spot in 2007. Local English language news reported on the incident. “The officials were very much concerned, finding the bombs at the “Ten Thousand Year” Khmer-Yuon [Vietnamese] Friendship Statue, where early morning at 5:20 on 29 July one bomb had exploded. After the scare about the explosion of a locally made bomb, Khmer officials found two more locally made bombs; the second bomb exploded by itself at 11:15, and the third bomb was destroyed by Cambodian Mine Action Center experts, using their technical procedures, at 11:50 on the same 29 July 2007.”

Stupa for those that died in the massacre

It didn't end there. There were further bomb plots in 2009, culminating in an arrest: “Banteay Meanchey provincial police chief Hun Hean said that his officers working with the Ministry of Interior caught 46-year-old Ty To at his home on Wednesday and found 53 different bomb-making items there, including TNT and radio devices,” according to the Cambodia Daily.

"(Ty To) told the police that he was involved with the attempt to blow up the Cambodian-Vietnamese Friendship Monument and also with the TNT case on the Russian Boulevard (in Phnom Penh)," the paper said.

What the local news reports don’t say, is a major reasons for those bombings, is connected to problems in the Mekong Delta. Centuries ago the entire delta was Cambodian territory. This is lost land that they still wish to have back. Many thousands of ethnic Khmers still live there today, and many of them followed a well known Buddhist monk. He was arrested by the Vietnamese, for what the Khmers say were trumped up charges. The bombing of the monument was an act of retaliation. This Khmer-Vietnamese rivalry still continues to this day.

This is one of the larger public parks in Phnom Penh, and it has seen other violence. On the far side of the park, there is a wide stretch of red brick sidewalk; an open area with grass at the side. As I look, a few Khmers walk through. Nothing seems special about this sidewalk.

Sadly, violence has visited this downtown park more than once. I walk down to a corner of the park, where post-war democracy took a big hit in Cambodia. Near the sidewalk, is a golden stupa (Buddhist memorial tower). The rope fence around it has been cut or frayed in places, but I can clearly read the plaque on the side.

“TO THE HEROIC DEMONSTRATORS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES ON 30 MARCH 1997
FOR THE CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY
THE TRAGEDY OCCURRED 60 METERS FROM THIS MONUMENT
ON THE SIDEWALK OF THE PARK ACROSS FROM THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY”

Corner of the park where the massacre happened

Back on that Easter day in this park, a peaceful protest was led by opposition leader Sam Rainsy. Just after he finished his speech, four grenades were thrown into his crowd of supporters. 16 innocent people died, and more than 100 were injured.

Not surprisingly, nobody has ever been arrested or prosecuted for the massacre. That's because the protesters who were targeted, were in a political party that opposes the current Prime Minister (dictator) Hun Sen. As an American was injured by grenade shrapnel, the FBI launched an investigation. Some US officials blamed Hun Sen's bodyguard unit for the attack. His heavily armed bodyguards that were present for the demonstration, were also seen covering the escape of those responsible for the attack. 

Sadly, that hasn't been the end of political violence in Cambodia. Between 1999 and 2004, there were four politically motivated murders which also remain unsolved to this day. These have included a senior political adviser, a union leader, a judge, an actress, and a reporter. Most were well connected to opposition political parties.  There are widespread suspicions and accusations that the CPP (Hun Sen’s political party) was responsible for most of these murders. 

For all the advancements that Cambodia has made since the departure of the Khmer Rouge, democracy in this troubled country has a long, long way to go.