Cambodia 1998
After twenty years, scattered bits of clothing and splintered bones still lay embedded in the paths between the graves. Pol Pot, who sowed the seeds of these desolate fields I was now standing in, continues to haunt this country despite his death over one year ago.
I flew into Phnom Penh at the end of the dry season in March. I had come to in large part because of him. Maybe I could gain some insight into the bitter hatred that continues to plague our century with genocidal warfare. But the more I saw, the less I understood. Perhaps genocide, the ultimate atrocity, remains unfathomable to those fortunate enough to have avoided its terror.
In spite of including torture prisons among its main tourist destinations and claiming a former Khmer Rouge cadre as its is now enjoying a resurgence in tourism. Since the death of Pol Pot and the recent capture of the Khmer Rouge militia in December, the country is succeeding in winning back the trust of the international community and visitors are returning.
Still, the brutal legacy of the Khmer Rouge remains and as I was soon to discover, more is demanded of the visitor to Cambodia than to Thailand or even Vietnam. Unable to believe that their fellow countrymen could inflict such suffering on their own people many deny that the Khmer Rouge committed any atrocities. Others still wrestle with the loss of loved ones. I found myself navigating a path between these two extremities as though I were walking through a minefield. One slip of the tongue could set off an explosion of contempt.
Phnom Pehn, once referred to as “the pearl of Indochine” is now a tattered but vibrant capital. Amidst its ragged facade barbers set up shop along the sidewalks where they shave and trim customers in mirrors propped up against rubble or discarded scooter parts. The dirt and cement roads, riddled with potholes, buzz with cyclos and scooters recklessly dodging one another amid the city’s guerrilla-like domesticity. Glimpses of rench colonial architecture poke out here and there dilapidated and ruined alongside the
modern-drabness of the later Soviet-era buildings.
The Tuol Sleng Genocide Prison, where thousands of prisoners wherebrought to begin their odyssey of death, is located near the center of Phnom Penh. Between April1975 and December 1978 over one third of Cambodia’s population, or two million people, were wiped out. This former high school was turned into one of the most brutal extermination camps outside of Nazi Germany. Within its walls over 17,000 people were tortured and murdered.
My English speaking guide was a twenty-eight year old woman who had lost her father to the Khmer Rouge. We went from classroom to classroom and saw the rusted chains, pliers, and barbed wire preserved as they were left on the day the prison was liberated by the Vietnamese in 1979.
The Khmer Rouge kept impeccable records of their victims. Each person was photographed and today a few hundred line the walls like a page from some macabre school yearbook. Looking into the photographs I could see, as the Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal wrote, that“they weren’t looking at the camera, but at death/ and the torture before death.”
Glancing at my ticket as I left the museum, I noticed it read, “The Kingdoom of Cambodia”. Although an attempt to white out one of the o’s had been made it could not hide the grim irony of the message.
The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek are a twenty-minute scooter ride south
from the city. After Tuol Sleng, the corpses were brought here to be
heaped into mass, unmarked graves. At the entrance, in the middle of a
gravel lot, stands the Memorial Stupa built in 1988 for the victims.
Inside are shelves upon shelves of dry, white skulls arranged in rows
behind plexi-glass panels. If someone arrived alive they were bludgeoned
to death with shovels to save bullets.
As I pulled in with my driver, children were playing around the fenced
in complex and families worked in the surrounding fields. The former
killing fields that had consumed over 8000 bodies had been, like much of
the Khmer Rouge’s legacy, absorbed by the locals but not forgotten.
Not all of Phnom Pehn is violence and horror. The Royal Palace, built by the French in the last century, houses the Silver Pagoda and other Khmer treasures that remarkably survived the Pol Pot years. It remains an exquisite example of traditional Khmer architecture.
Wat Phnom stands on the only hill in the city. Dating back to the fourteenth century, legend has it that a woman named Pehn discovered four Buddha statues on the shores of the Mekong River and brought them to the highest point in the city. Phnom Penh became the capital of the Khmer kingdom in the fifteenth century. Today you can follow the ocher staircase up to the bright yellow temple and enjoy one of the best views of the city.
The next day my trip took a dramatic turn. For $120 U.S. I flew to Siam Reap, the closest town to the ancient city of Angkor.
After checking into my hotel I found a driver to take me the 5km to the gates of the ancient city where I paid the $20 fee to enter. We drove on for another kilometer before the jungle receded and the towering pinnacles of Angkor Wat, the city’s famous temple, emerged.
There are few things in this world as unforgettable as a view of Angkor Wat. I stared in awe at the sublime symmetry of the sandstone structure as it appeared to float gracefully above the surrounding density of the jungle.
We continued north to the largest hill in the area, Phnom Bakheng, for a sunset view of Angkor. I arrived at the top for a view of the jungle spreading out in every direction. In the distance lay the huge temple now shimmering like burnished gold in early evening light.
Angkor Wat is one of the world’s cultural masterpieces. It ranks with the pyramids and Chartes Cathedral for architectural engineering and meticulous craftsmanship. Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, it follows Hindu cosmological proportions. The central tower represents Meru, the mythical mountain at the center of the universe. The outer wall corresponds to the mountains at the edgeof the universe, and the surrounding moat, the oceans beyond.
Dedicated to Vishnu, it is believed to be both a temple and a tomb. It
faces west, the direction of the setting sun, and its bas-reliefs are
meant to be read in a counter-clockwise direction, the direction
traditionally associated with death.
The
bas-reliefs surround the main hall and are remarkable for their attention
to detail and for the over one km area they encompass. The celestial
maidens, or Apsaras, are carved everywhere smiling invitingly or frozen in
a variety of dances.The Khmers believed that these consorts indulged the
righteous in an afterlife filled with sensual gratification. The main
themes of the reliefs come from the Indian mythological epics The Ramayana
and The Mahabharata.
Like Phnom Pehn, Angkor too bears scars from the Khmer Rouge. Angkor Wat was used to store arms during seventies and it has suffered some minor defacements. Today
children play among the ruins and recall the stories and characters from the bas-reliefs like they were remembering a good comic book or a Saturday morning cartoon.
Clashing with the glory of the Khmers is the multitude of legless or armless casualties from landmines begging for coins along the entrance walkway. Approximately 1 in 240 Cambodians are believed to be amputees from forgotten land mines planted during the deadly civil war of the past thirty years.
One evening I met two monks dressed in their traditional saffron robes. The older one, very thin with lucid eyes and a broad skull, clutched a burning cigarette butt in his hand. Motioning to me, they asked if I could join them in a photo and I happily obliged. When they did the same for me I bought them some cigarettes from a peddler to show my gratitude. They smiled warmly and waved goodbye.
About one km north of the Wat is Angkor Thom (Great City), the last capital of the Khmer empire. Each of the five entry gates into the city consists of a tower with four giant heads looking in all four cardinal directions.
In the middle of the city is the Bayon, the second most stunning structure among Angkor. Built one hundred years after Angkor Wat, it rivals its predecessor in majesty and beauty. Over two hundred large faces adorn the Bayon’s fifty-four towers, and the bas-reliefs, although very different stylistically, are ever bit as impressive as Angor Wat’s. The faces, with their serene, welcoming expressions, are probably the most photographed piece of South East Asian architecture.
As I relaxed and watched the sunlight fall between the ruins, I
realized that the expressions were the same ones I recognized
on the
living faces I saw all over Cambodia. Immortalized into stone is the
serene resilience and compassion of the Khmer people. I felt I had gained
a small kernel of knowledge about the horror that had consumed this
country for three short years. Still, I could not explain the root causes
or understand how Cambodia had survived. But like the great statues at
Angkor Thom, Cambodia looks forward while simultaneously looking
backwards. It is an expression that greets and sometimes bewilders the
visitor on his journey through the horror and glory of Cambodia.