By plastik.noise
Tuel Sleng, also known as S-21, was the largest interrogation centre and prison during the years of the Cambodian genocide. To me, Tuel Sleng is a reflection of a horrific string of concepts that is accepted in our minds today: it is a clear example of how effective the Khmer Rouge was at decimating mass numbers of people. Of the estimated 20,000 people that went in, only 7 came out.
There are survivors of the Gulag that huddled together in the warmth and persisted through the agony of the biting cold, there are survivors of the Holocaust who lived because of their sheer will to not be defeated, and there are survivors of POW camps who preserved their spirits, and in doing so, their lives. But none of these played a factor if you were one of the imminent dead at Tuel Sleng: each victim was tortured until they blurted out false confessions of being traitors to the regime, then taken away and executed. The ones who lived through it were pardoned by the commander because of their talents.
All the gory torture instruments can be seen today if one visits the site. It has been turned into a museum to display the atrocities of genocide and of the Khmer Rouge. Pictures can also be seen of the victims- thousands of photographs taken of prisoners before interrogation, and sometimes, after. These images are plastered to the walls of the former high school. They are the most humanizing thing about Tuel Sleng to me.
75% of the Cambodian population is too young to remember the brutal killings. But anyone in the world can enter the rooms adorned with photographs of small children, women, infants, and men and see the horror. Some victims manage a bleak smile, some are wincing, but most have a penetrating gaze that expresses their fear.
The crimes of the Khmer Rouge become all too real to me when I see the photographs online. These are real people with souls and worries who did absolutely nothing wrong. I want to scream when I see the small children with confused expressions. How can a five-year-old be an agent of the KGB? Furthermore, how can anyone torture a fellow human being to the extent of the Khmer Rouge based not even on a bias against race or skin color, but because of blind political conviction?
And how could have others sat there and watched, accepting it as the reality of the world because it was happening "over there?" We let similar acts continue today in the Sudan and Iraq(among other places), world leaders sit idly by musing, and criminals who have commited true crimes against humanity are granted amnesty.
Meanwhile, the victims of the Khmer Rouge are not only the estimated 1.5-3.5 million dead, but the modern day citizens of Cambodia. They are left with a country that was scorched and is filled with mass graves that are uncovered each day. Although they have improved their economy and social stability greatly, problems are still seeping in from those years that are shrouded in veils of violence. And the neighbors who lost neighbors, the brothers who lost sisters, and the mothers who lost children because they were executed or worked to death wonder where their justice is.
And you know what? This didn't happen in my country, but I wonder the same thing.
There are survivors of the Gulag that huddled together in the warmth and persisted through the agony of the biting cold, there are survivors of the Holocaust who lived because of their sheer will to not be defeated, and there are survivors of POW camps who preserved their spirits, and in doing so, their lives. But none of these played a factor if you were one of the imminent dead at Tuel Sleng: each victim was tortured until they blurted out false confessions of being traitors to the regime, then taken away and executed. The ones who lived through it were pardoned by the commander because of their talents.
All the gory torture instruments can be seen today if one visits the site. It has been turned into a museum to display the atrocities of genocide and of the Khmer Rouge. Pictures can also be seen of the victims- thousands of photographs taken of prisoners before interrogation, and sometimes, after. These images are plastered to the walls of the former high school. They are the most humanizing thing about Tuel Sleng to me.
75% of the Cambodian population is too young to remember the brutal killings. But anyone in the world can enter the rooms adorned with photographs of small children, women, infants, and men and see the horror. Some victims manage a bleak smile, some are wincing, but most have a penetrating gaze that expresses their fear.
The crimes of the Khmer Rouge become all too real to me when I see the photographs online. These are real people with souls and worries who did absolutely nothing wrong. I want to scream when I see the small children with confused expressions. How can a five-year-old be an agent of the KGB? Furthermore, how can anyone torture a fellow human being to the extent of the Khmer Rouge based not even on a bias against race or skin color, but because of blind political conviction?
And how could have others sat there and watched, accepting it as the reality of the world because it was happening "over there?" We let similar acts continue today in the Sudan and Iraq(among other places), world leaders sit idly by musing, and criminals who have commited true crimes against humanity are granted amnesty.
Meanwhile, the victims of the Khmer Rouge are not only the estimated 1.5-3.5 million dead, but the modern day citizens of Cambodia. They are left with a country that was scorched and is filled with mass graves that are uncovered each day. Although they have improved their economy and social stability greatly, problems are still seeping in from those years that are shrouded in veils of violence. And the neighbors who lost neighbors, the brothers who lost sisters, and the mothers who lost children because they were executed or worked to death wonder where their justice is.
And you know what? This didn't happen in my country, but I wonder the same thing.
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