A skull fest

There isn’t a great deal to do in Phnom Penh, where the greatest tourism draw is the Killing Fields. Beneath the surface though, the city is alive.

The Choeng Ek “Killing Fields” memorial on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

Saturday April 5, 2008

BY ROSE YASMIN KARIM
yasmin@thestar.com.my

Had the world known more about Phnom Penh than its tragic past, riddled as it were with savage, ethnic-cleansing programmes and fat old Pol Pot, it would’ve become a real swinging singles’ destination.

Everyone I see looks to be in the flush of youth – the Khmer Rouge had taken it upon themselves to rid the country of old folks and intellectuals in their Year Zero quest for the ultimate peasant-based, Utopian society.

Despite the city not having anything tangible going for it, there is an air of optimism slicing through the place. Boeng Kak Area, a backpackers’ haunt, is swarming with travellers of every description – young and old, stoners and drunkards and the sober ones too – a quarter of whom are in grubby Tin Tin shirts.

It is also quite clear that many of them have been in Cambodia for a long time and are hell-bent on letting everyone know it. Over copies of the English language Cambodian Daily, guys who cultivate the anthropologist look (scruffy beard, headband, faded destination T-shirt) strive to out-yell each other in discussing Cambodian politics.

Having had nothing of substance since the night before, my belly feels like a shrivelled balloon. I peer at a faded menu outside a café – “Samwiches, $1” it says. Moments later, I join the throbbing masses at the plastic table outside, smacking my chops.

You’ve got to love the French. Well, at least the glory of their gastronomic tradition. Instead of getting two soggy slices of white bread with processed cheese sheets and runny tomatoes chucked at us, our lunch arrives in the form of crusty baguette, two triangles of camembert and fresh tomatoes.

Booting the French out of their country was understandable but deciding to keep their cuisine was a stroke of genius on the Cambodians’ part.

After I complete the demolition, I feel duty-bound to make a pilgrimage to the Killing Fields, a place no doubt haunted by the souls of 40,000 unfortunates murdered by Pol Pot and his cronies.

“Of course,” says a tuk-tuk driver in clear, intelligent English, “I will take you.”

With his distinctive latte-coloured skin, almond-shaped eyes and devastating smile, Nimol is utterly divine. And with the plain gold ring on his left hand, he is also utterly married.

“Before we go straight there, you should go first to the Security Prison,” he says.

I gawk at him dumbstruck, wondering if I had done something wrong.

“The Security Prison is actually the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. It was once a high school before Pol Pot turned it into a torture cell during his regime,” Nimol explains. “Out of over 20,000 people that went through there, only seven came out alive.”

I am not altogether sure I want to make a habit of loitering around this kind of scene, but Nimol starts up his bike and insists, “Believe me, it is necessary. It will help you understand what happened to our country.”

By the time we pull up outside Tuol Sleng, I already have a better idea of the horrors that had ravaged this small nation. As we puttered down muddy back streets en route, Nimol had filled me in on how the Khmer Rouge had killed or kidnapped nearly every member of his family – part of the despised intellectual class.

He escaped execution solely through luck and had witnessed dozens of terrifying murders.

“You must be extremely bitter,” I had said, mentally kicking myself for the understatement.

Jamu must be bitter. He must have been psychologically butchered. Amazingly, he wasn’t.

“It was an awful nightmare but it’s over. This country has grieved and suffered enough. Now we believe it’s time to look to the future.”

I was awestruck by his attitude towards life. I could imagine going insane if I were put through that kind of hell. I still hold a grudge against people who pissed me off in primary three.

I stop at the gate and take in the surroundings. If you took away the barbed wire and barred windows, the complex could have been any high school, with its nondescript building and central courtyard. But there is a terrible feeling about the place, and I find myself breathing through my hand, which is clamped across my mouth.

Tuol Sleng is the “deathliest” place in the world.

I shell out the US$2 (RM6) entry fee to a woman at the door and am told to wander about as I choose.

“You can go inside anywhere you want and take many pictures,” she says. ‘We want the world to know of this evil.”

I guess the world already has a fair idea about it. I just wish I’d known more. Maybe then I wouldn’t be bordering on nausea like I am now.

No matter how many times you read the word “blood-smeared wall”, the reality doesn’t truly hit home until you’ve accidentally leaned against one. And all those bland historical statistics mean nothing until you’ve tripped over Genocide Victim No 3651’s iron foot shackle.

Due to either shoddy housekeeping or a desire to prove how repellent humans can be to one another, the cells at Tuol Sleng have been left untouched since 1976. Dark stains cling like ghosts to the walls, the floors, and, in one particularly frightening room, the ceiling. The original barbed wire still weaves a menacing tapestry around many of the cell doorways.

I am filled with rage when I read a sign – “The Security Regulations” – which spell out all the do’s and don’ts, otherwise the inmates would be subjected to “many shocks with the electrical wire”. Everything from crying to being “a fool” was out of bounds. I can only thank God that I wasn’t anywhere near Cambodia circa 1979. I would’ve been toast.

Another building bears testament to the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. Wallpapered with thousands of black and white photos of the victims of Tuol Sleng – many of them women and children – the hall here is full of torture devices and the personal effects of those who had died there. An entire wall is taken up with a map of Cambodia, created wholly from human skull.

After immersing myself in the ghastly realism of Tuol Sleng, I am not super-keen to get to the Killing Fields or Choeng Ek. But Nimol is dead set on getting me there.

While I understand showing foreigners around these places might in some way contribute to the healing process, I also have a vague inkling that Nimol thinks that a journalist like me could bring the plight of the Cambodian people to the world.

What he probably doesn’t understand is that the world already knows, but doesn’t really give a toss. If the Cambodians want international exposure, they are going to have to start playing cricket and play it well. But with up to 10 million landmines still lurking in the countryside, this isn’t the best of ideas, is it?

Choeng Ek could almost have been mistaken for a picnic area. But the minute I stroll across the grass towards it, I can tell this is no place for a family outing.

The Killing Fields are a major skull fest. It was here, among tired shrubs and thin earth that Khmer Rouge killed and disposed 40,000 countrymen, women and children.

Like Tuol Sleng, the Killing Fields have a nasty, unmistakable aura of death. But just in case anyone fails to pick up on this or the grisly shrine that contains a skull skyscraper at the entrance, they are brought up to date, thanks to grim signs pointing to things like the “MASS GRAVE OF 166 VICTIMS WITHOUT HEADS”.

I tread along obvious mine-free paths. The impending sunset adds an extra touch of melancholy to the place.

Although I had pulled up at Choeng Ek determined to give it the respectful attention it deserves, all I can manage is a quick lap before traipsing back to the bike. I have an idea now of the brutal past of the country, and it is none to pretty.

Most importantly, I have grasped that because there are people like Nimol who dream of a better world, this brutal past will eventually be trampled beneath a stampede towards a brighter future.