Saturday, December 21, 2013

A Grim, Yet Satisfying, Return Visit to Cambodia



Murray Fromson
Huffingtonpost.com, Dec. 19, 2013

I returned to Cambodia a month ago, unsure that I wanted to be reminded once again of the haunted days in 1975 when I was a CBS News correspondent in Phnom Penh that was under siege and the Khmer Rouge was close to imposing its horror on the capital's citizens -- innocent victims of the Cold War. But there I was with my wife twenty years since our last visit, walking again among the barren walls of Tuol Sleng, a former high school converted into what came to be known as the Genocide Museum.

We were not alone. Tourist buses stopped at the intersection of Sihanouk and Mao Zedong Boulevards, bringing dozens of people: young and old, Muslims and Christians, as well as curious international visitors who had never before been to Cambodia. They walked silently from room to room where some of the prisoners were kept and tortured. I turned to a young couple from Australia and said, "Just think about this grim example of madness unleashed when Cambodians tortured and killed other Cambodians." The couple was not moved. They had nothing to say and just walked on. Read more click here