The day of silence and oppressive feelings

"Hatred ever kills, love never dies. Such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred."
- Mohandas K. Gandhi

A thousand cranes to bring hope,
Hope for peace to come,
Hope for peace for all their souls.

Origami cranes at the Choeung Ek Memorial, otherwise known as the Killing Fields, Phnom Penh. More than 5 000 human skulls that were found there filled the Buddhist stupa from the 8 895 that were exhumed and the unknown numbers of remains left undisturbed in their final resting place.

[The rest of the post may contain disturbing images (more to certain readers than others). Readers discretion is advised.]

After more than half a year, i still cant view all the photos i took from there, the feelings of utter loss still linger in me as it did when i walked the grounds of the field, sidestepping pieces of broken bones and rotting cloth still on the ground. in silence i walked, in silence i prayed.

I dont think i want to go there again. To the Killing Fields and to Tuol Sleng (S-21) touture prison. Once was enough. Not to say you shouldn't ever go there, but it is not a place where you want to go repeatedly. There are too much negative emotions that radiate from the ground. The evil surrounds you. The fears and the suffering could be felt, seeping through the walls and grounds at those two sites. You can feel it, you can almost hear it, the moans, the screams , the insanity emanating , burdening your soul, draining any positive thoughts left in you. All you can think, feel, smell and hear was the suffering. Walking through the grounds and through each room, you can see it.

One should go to Phnom Penh and visit Choeung Ek Memorial and Tuol Sleng Genocide Memorial (S-21) , once in their lifetime to fully appreciate what we currently have in Malaysia. It doesn't help that we went there on 31 August 2007, 50th Anniversary for Malaysia's Independence. Immediately, we or rather I finally comprehend the fear, the anger and the suffering our forefathers, our grandparents and parents went through during the Japanese occupation in Malaya. But we didn't experience a genocide. We didnt go through what the Cambodian did during Pol Pot's regime. Estimates of the number of dead range from 1.7 to 2.3 million out of a population of around 7 million. Malayan's were killed and toutured by an outsider, wanting to conquer our land but we didnt kill our own brother and sisters, children killing our own parents and relatives wholeheartedly, and without remorse because of a set of different ideologies. We didn't, but that happened in Cambodia in April 1975 to January 1979.

Chhon, our ever smiling driver in Siem Reap once told the story of his family. His grandmother had/have a house in a middle of a paddy field. Chhon recalls when he was 4-5 years old at the grandmother's house when he saw his two uncles met. According to his grandmother's stories , they were close to each other as they were growing up. He remembers that day, his uncles, two brothers shoot each other. Two brothers who shared everything together while growing up shoot and killed each other in front of their own mother's house. All because one was fighting for Vietnam Liberation Front and another was with Khmer Rouge.

He told the story as if it was just another day in his life, not like the reality where two brothers, his uncles killed each other just because they had different views. Different ideologies. In moments after the story when he thinks we're not paying attention, his ever smiling face changed. You can see, deep within his eyes, there were sadness and regret as he recalled what he saw. The stories of horrors are everywhere in Cambodia. If you choose to listen carefully to the stories softly told by shop keepers, drivers and hotel workers around Cambodia, you will understand that the horrors they are telling you came from personal experiences, not from a documentary or words of others. They lived through it but their parents, siblings, husbands and wives, and children did not.

"in Cambodia, there was no dominant ethnic group oppressing a minority, no country wiping out its neighbor in the name of nationalism. In Cambodia, Khmers killed other Khmers, first over political struggle, then over social ideology, and finally over bloodlust and paranoia as ends in themselves."

- Andy Carvin

"Newspapers and television stations were shut down, radios and bicycles confiscated, and mail and telephone usage curtailed. Money was forbidden. All businesses were shuttered, religion banned, education halted, health care eliminated, and parental authority revoked. "

"Workdays in the fields began around 4 a.m. and lasted until 10 p.m., with only two rest periods allowed during the 18 hour day, all under the armed supervision of young Khmer Rouge soldiers eager to kill anyone for the slightest infraction."

"Anyone suspected of disloyalty to Pol Pot, including eventually many Khmer Rouge leaders, was shot or bludgeoned with an ax. "What is rotten must be removed," a Khmer Rouge slogan proclaimed."

"Ethnic groups were attacked including the three largest minorities; the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cham Muslims, along with twenty other smaller groups. Fifty percent of the estimated 425,000 Chinese living in Cambodia in 1975 perished. Khmer Rouge also forced Muslims to eat pork and shot those who refused."

- United Human Rights Organisation

I prayed on 31 August 2007, that Malaysians will never experience the level of horror and suffering that the Cambodians did.


Photos from Phnom Penh.

On 31 August 2007, Tech and I took a 3 hours taxi ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. Our one and only objective was to visit 2 infamous genocide memorials of Cambodia. We actually visited Choeung Ek first before Tuol Sleng but to understand the story of Khmer Rouge, we must begin with Tuol Sleng prison.

Tuol Sleng Prison, was once just like any other Phnom Penh High School. Then in 1975, the Khmer Rouge regime converted the high school into one of its interrogation center, codenamed S-21, "Security Prison 21". Ironically, Tuol Sleng means "Hill of the poisonous tree" and indeed it became the site for the most famous and atrocious interrogation center of the Khmer Rouge regime.

The sole purpose of S-21 was to extract confessions through extreme torture from political prisoners and others suspected of disloyalty to the Khmer Rouge. Those that survived the torture were then taken for execution in the middle of a night so that no one outside the centers would suspect to the village of Choeung Ek, more known as the Killing Field.

Nearly 20,000 people are known to have entered S-21 during Khmer Rouge ruling, only 6 are known to have survived.

As soon as we entered the previous high school compound, we felt its negative aura. You know that atrocious horrors have been committed in this place. The place is evil. S-21 compound was mostly left as they were when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979 and contains four main building; A, B, C and D.

That's me in "Special Treatment" room in Building A where the high ranking opposition political prisoners or later, high ranking Khmer Rouge own men and women were placed in identical rooms. On a wall of each room there is a photo of the rotting body of the prisoner found in the room by a Vietnamese photographer. The bodies were left as they were after Khmer Rouge regime flee Phnom Penh. All that are left in the rooms are the single photo of the last occupants, the iron bedframe, an iron shackle and an instrument of torture of sort.



The Security Regulations of Tuol Sleng Prison that were posted in every cell

1. You must answer accordingly to my questions - Do not turn them away.
2. Do not try to hide the facts by making pretexts of this and that.
You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Do not be a fool for you are a chap who dares to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Do not tell me either about your immoralities or 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. Do not make pretexts about Kampuchea Krom [the Cambodian term for ethnic Cambodians living in the south of Vietnam] in order to hide your jaw of traitor.
9. If you do not 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 ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

A flower left by visitor(s) to ease the soul of those that were tortured in these rooms and cells.
Tech took a photo of me taking a photo of the flower on the iron bed frame. Next to the flower is an iron shackle for the hands. The items found in the room are just like they were.

Among the instrument of torture for the specific detainee. The square box is an ammo case, used as a toilet. But prisoners cannot simply relief themselves whenever they need, they MUST ask for permission from the guard. And most likely than not, permission is not given and they must hold it or suffer the consequences. And if the box is full, it is hardly emptied.

More than 5,000 photographs of prisoners lined the walls. Photos of the living dead. Some seem to know what would befall them, their eyes scream for sympathy. some looked happy even, most was the look of hopelessness. They were meticulous in their records, those Khmer Rouge, thats for sure. They took photos of prisoners when they arrive, photos of those that died in detention and photos of those executed. All are displayed, most have no names. Only their photos are left prove their existence in that hell.

A high ranking opposition officials wife and his newborn baby.
Soon after this mug shot was taken, the baby was taken away from the mother and killed in front of her. You can see in her eyes, the sadness, the hopelessness of the situation, the tears that gathered by the edge. Her gaze were unnerving. as most of the photographs are.



Children were not spared.

Khmer Rouge cadres that became prisoners as paranoia increased within Khmer Rouge regime. They knew what will happen to them, because they once made it happen.



Perhaps he didnt know, perhaps he still had hope he will survive.

How old do you think they were?
How much do you think they will hesitate to kill you if you merely looked at them?

After seeing thousands and thousands of photos with unspoken word from their eyes and thousand other photographs of faces of the dead. I couldnt take it much longer.

Building C is preserved as it was in 1975-1979. All other buildings were previously covered with sharp barb fences. The fences would encase the whole building, from ground floor to third floor. It is done so not to prevent prisoners from escaping, but from desperate prisoners wanting to commit suicide.

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Inside building C, small cells made out of brick (ground floor) and wood (1st floor) were constructed to hold prisoners. Their foot was shackled to the ground or wall. Here, the evil radiates even more strongly. You cannot help but to feel what happened here, even worse, when you begin to hear them.

I wanted to move forward. But i didnt dare to move from where i was. So instead i turned and walked to the other end instead, where more brick cells awaited. Tech later told me why.

Second floor of Building C a large mass cell where around 20 prisoners had their foot alternatively shackled to a long piece of iron bar. Now it is an exhibition room to exhibit photos of the family that were imprisoned in Tuol Sleng. I didnt venture far from this spot. The emotions were at its edge. And feeling of uneasiness was strong in this room.

A moment to reflect once we stepped outside Building C.

"There are too much negative emotions that radiate from the ground. The evil surrounds you. The fears and the suffering could be felt, seeping through the walls and grounds at those two sites. You can feel it, you can almost hear it, the moans, the screams , the insanity emanating , burdening your soul, draining any positive thoughts left in you. All you can think, feel, smell and hear was the suffering. Walking through the grounds and through each room, you can see it."

I ran down the stairs from second floor to step outside. And i just had to sit down and have a moment to think. And yet, i could feel it is worse in building D. and i decided not to venture in it. and i merely waited for Tech there at Building C steps.

It looks just like any other schools. Except for the barb wires.

No one outside Khmer Rouge knew what was going on inside. And after the surviving prisoners were done being interrogated and tortured, they were sent to Choeung Ek, an orchard and an old chinese cemetery a short drive from Phnom Penh to be killed and buried. How? they do not care. But in the dead middle of the night, so others inside the prison and outside will not know what is happening, prisoners would be hauled up into a truck and sent there.

Choeung Ek Extermination Center, the Killing Field. One of Khmer Rouge extermination center and the most populated mass grave sites. An estimated 17, 000 were brought from Tuol Sleng to Choeung Ek to be killed and buried.

A beggar outside Choeung Ek recall the day he lost his leg when he stepped on landmine. He was straight forward about it, probably looking for my sympathy so i would give him a dollar. I did, but i said i needed a photo so it would be fair.

In that buddhist stupa, it is filled top to bottom with human skulls. A mere 5,ooo from the 8,000 found and unknown numbers from undisturbed graves.



Prisoners would be blindfolded and be lined up on their knees. One by one they would be shot or beat on their head with an unknown object from behind, or get their throat slashed. One by one they would be pushed and fall head first into a hole dug by them earlier in the week. It would be merciful is they were shot from the back, but bullets were precious commodities and reserved for special prisoners. Some prisoners were buried alive to save time and energy.

"Magic Tree...The tree was used as a tool to hang a loudspeaker which make sound louder to avoid the moan of victims while they were being executed"

Our guide further explained that the loudspeaker would play loud music or Khmer Rouge propaganda so that the people surrounding Choeung Ek would not hear the moans, cries, screams and gunshots coming from the place and thus, would not suspect their own people being killed everyday by "the Liberators".

The iron shackles that would alternately hold a foot of 20 prisoners.



Knifes are often dull but they dont care about that.
In fact, they kill with anything they can get their hands on, including this jagged edge. The imagination that evil can stem is magnanimous.



"Killing tree against which executioners beat children"

The executioner would take a knife (or anything sharp) and stab children against the tree and leave their bodies hanging. More specifically, they would grab a child leg, swing the child towards the tree and thus, breaking the child's bones and skull. Easier for babies as they would immediately die as they are more fragile.



Pieces of rotting clothes that still litter the ground of Choeung Ek.

Choeung Ek is suprisingly quiet and green. There is a sense of calm to it yet you know what have happened here. If you were to be ignorant, you could imagine you at some park, or your grandfather's orchard. But once you look down on the ground, you can see the remains of dead. Rising up and reminding you, "we were here once, and our story will be told. Until evil is gone from this world, we will not stop rising from the ground to remind you of what human are capable of"

I didnt want to take photos when i was there. But if i didnt, would i remember? would i remember the feelings, the smell, the sound of the tortured? would i let others know that this shouldnt have happened but yet it did? only 28 years ago. how would i let others know that this should not happen again!?

So i took photos. Silently clicking the shutters. Silently looking around with Al-Fatihah constantly being silently uttered from my lips. And i hope i will remember from these photos. And i hope you will understand too.