The Killing Fields ‘Choeung Ek’
A sobering walk through the brutal Khmer Rouge history of Phnom Penh.
More than thirty years since the end of the horrific Khmer regime, no trip to the remarkable city of Phnom Penh is complete without a visit to one of the most terrible testaments to human brutality on earth; the killing fields.
Lying over an hour away from Phnom Penh itself, a city contrasting gracious colonial architecture and horrific Khmer history, Choeung Ek is a must on every tourists’ to-do list. And until it has been checked off most people can feel its brooding presence on their itinerary. The harrowing site is the final resting place for some of the 200,000 people who died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and comprises more than 120 mass graves containing their remains.
The sheer scale of the genocide that occurred here sets it apart from any other experience: the horrors that happened here demand an awed respect, and there are very few places on earth where one can take a walk through the evidence of such a brutal bloody history.
During the period from 1975 to 1978 the Khmer Rouge executed more than 16,000 people at this, one of the largest burial grounds in Asia. That the carnage was so recent is hammered home by the rawness of the site, where visitors can still see bones in open graves, remnants of prisoners’ clothing and an eerie Buddhist monument filled with 5,000 skulls.
According to their policies, the Khmer Rouge systematically tortured and murdered men, women and children for a variety of crimes ranging from being university educated, to wearing glasses. Anyone who didn’t fit the template of Khmer culture, who was different in any way, was killed for their alleged crimes.
There is no escaping what happened here, and this is certainly no happy-go-lucky day trip, but it is a profound glimpse into the history of the Cambodian people and what they have endured. Taking the hot dusty journey out from the city, where fancy restaurants nowadays rub shoulders with high end hotels, visitors will see elements of simple Cambodian life and countryside. This makes arrival at the mass grave an even more sobering experience after seeing the families and descendents of those upon whom these atrocities were committed.
Choeung Ek is also, of course, an important source of income for locals in the area. The economy the site generates is evident from the outset, as ragged local children beg for change from the tourists who take their photos. Guides earning their living at the site are very often former prisoners of the Khmer regime, or survivors of the genocide. Often their firsthand descriptions of the murder of their entire families are some of the most powerful vocal histories most visitors will encounter in their lives.
Everywhere in Cambodia, the legacy of Pol Pot’s evil regime can be seen in those missing limbs, or hideously disfigured by landmines, but the killing fields are one of the few opportunities to understand the scale of the loss of life, and to pay respect to the incredible sacrifice of a generation of Cambodian people.
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