It was this second day in Phnom Penh that gave us a real historical grounding and understanding of the events of Cambodia's terrible recent history. Our visits to the genocide museum and the Killing Fields were to inform the rest of our stay in Cambodia. Place after place, and person after person we met were severely impacted by the Khmer Rouge period of control over the Kingdom of Cambodia from 1975 to 1978, and we came to realise just how real were the awful events hitherto understood through some distant news reports and films.
Our sobering times at the museums were grim and graphic. We realise that the fallen nature of human kind is revealed time and time again in history, and the lengths that those with power will go to in order to achieve their ideology knows no bounds. This was a most horrific period in the history of Cambodia. Today, former Khmer Rouge soldiers live and work along side the people their party oppressed, and there is little interest in the on-going trials (Case 002 and Case 003) against the key perpetrators.
So whilst there were also visits to the busy Russian Market, and the Royal Palace to lighten our day, I have chosen this combination of images - barbed wire from the grounds of the school - now Museum of Genocidal Crimes and scene of the largest centre of detention and torture in the country during Pol Pot's reign; and skulls - more than 8000 of which are stacked along with other bones found at the Killing fields in a memorial stupa. The remains of 8985 people were exhumed in 1980 from mass graves amidst the orchard at Choeung Ek.
Tomorrow I will look for something a little more lightweight to share from the next day of our travels.
Excellent representation of a very dark time in our history. It must be so emotional to visit places like this. A grim but necessary reminder of the Killing Fields and hopefully a warning for it never to be repeated.
Your posting captures the poignant visit. It's important that they've preserved and shared information about this time so that there's hope that it would never repeat.
A very moving poignant image. For anyone who is interested in current affairs and history will remember how abhorrent these killings were. The greatest shame is humanity forgets and history repeats itself. Thank you for sharing this image!
December 17th, 2016
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