The Kingdom of Cambodia

It’s sad to see the state that Cambodia is in today when it has the potential to be so much more. From one of the most advanced and complex ancient civilizations and a country full of natural beauty it is still struggling to get past its dark stain in its history, the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 until 1979 rejecting capitalism and social institutions with the idea of transforming it into an agrarian society independent from the outside world. Part of their ideology: “We don’t need to send our young people to school. Our school is the farm. The land is our port. The ploughing is our pen. We will write by ploughing.”

“We don’t need doctors anymore, they are not necessary. We don’t need professors telling us what to do. They were all corrupted. We just need people who want to work hard on the farm.”

They were a communist group that was slowly built up in the jungles of Eastern Cambodia with the help of the Viet Cong (the Vietnam war was going on at the time) and indirectly the United States. With the war going on the US bombed eastern Cambodia in an attempt to disrupt the Viet Cong supply chain, while at the same time providing ample recruitment propaganda for the Khmer Rouge. In 1975 they marched into the capital city of Phenom Penh overthrowing the US backed government. They told everyone they were being relocated outside the city because it was under threat of American bombing and they’d be allowed back in a few days. They weren’t, and maybe of them would never see their Capital city again. They were sent on a long marches into the countryside and put in collective labor camps. Thousands died on the march and millions would later die. The entire population was forced to become farmers, working 12-18 hours non-stop with nothing more than watery porridge with a few grains of rice. Money was abolished, books were burned, teachers, merchants, doctors, anyone with glasses, anyone deemed an intellectual was murdered on the spot. They killed people in mass graves now known as killing fields or killing caves. Many have still yet to be found because of the threat of land mines in the countryside. Religion was erased, the statues of heads were cut off and overnight their culture ceased to exist.

Pol Pot also known as Brother Number 1 is the man responsible for Cambodia’s suffering and lived until the age of 72 when he died in his house under house arrest.

An excerpt from the book Survival in the Killing Fields “By destroying our culture and by enslaving is, the Khmer Rouge changed millions of happy, normal beings into something like animals.”

Today Cambodia is still trying to overcome this four year period. It’s one of the poorest Asian countries with more the three quarters of the population living without electricity. Amputee and landmine victims are a constant sight as are kids begging for money or working on the streets. The average monthly salary is around $200 and 41 percent of the population live on less than $2 a day. Considering this, it’s amazing that you see any cars, but they are there. Because of this it makes easy to accept the prices they give and makes it hard to haggle over price differences of a couple dollars. The other day on my way to the airport I bought a small sandwich from a food cart girl that cost 75 cents, I let her keep the 25 cent change. Initially when I tried to give it back to her she had no idea what I was doing and when she finally understood she was extremely grateful and that was only 25 cents. I give this as an example not to represent any display of generosity on my part, but as a representation of the poverty of the people of Cambodia.  How what to us is a small amount of money is a lot more for them.

While in Phenom Penh I visited one of the most well known killing fields, Choeung Ek, right outside the city and the infamous S21 prison. Visiting the Choeung Ek was like visiting Auschwitz, except bone fragments and garments of the victims can still be seen in the ground. During the rainy season bones are constantly being unearthed.  One of the more gruesome sights is a tree known as the killing tree and was used to smash babies into before throwing them into the pits. In the center is a memorial stupa filled with more than 5,000 human skulls. The skulls represent only half of the amount of people that were murdered there. It’s a chilling and somber reminder of what people are capable of.

S21 prison is located in the heart of Phenom Penh and was a former high school; a place of education turned into a place of torture and death that now serves as a memorial to the atrocities. Of the 13,000 people sent to S21 only 12 survived. Two of them were there that day sitting within the walls selling their memoirs. During the audio tour you learn about both of them, their time in the prison and how they survived. To see them there was amazing. I wish I could have talked to them without having to be persuaded to buy their books.  Touring the Killing Fields and the S21 was emotionally draining, but necessary in understanding what happened to Cambodia.

Cambodia has a long and difficult road in realizing its full potential. It’s a beautiful country with, despite all that’s happened amazingly friendly and warm people.  However there are some problems.  For one, there’s a huge trash problem, literally no matter where you go or where you are, if you look down you will see trash. On multiple occasions I watched adults and children throw the wrappers to whatever they were eating and drinking on the ground. The country is so beautiful! Why do that!? Another problem is corruption, according to Transparency International they rank 156 out of 176 countries. Lastly, China is sneakily or not so sneakily economically imperializing the country. Since it has such poor infrastructure China is “helping” build roads to alleviate this problem. For example they are constructing a motorway from the capital Phenom Penh to the resort city of Sihanoukville. Sihanoukville is turning into China’s casino port city, dozens of concrete towers under construction dot the horizon, while cows still graze beneath them. Beach front land is zoned off with promises of future resorts, spas or casinos in Mandarin. Cash is flowing into the country, but it’s not going to the people and it’s not doing them any good. Chinese workers are brought in visa free to construct these blemishes and to work in them while the Cambodian tries to make a living in its shadow. For now the islands off the cost remain untouched by China, but that will soon change as they have bought land on them with promises of future casinos. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I don’t think the virgin Islands of Cambodia will be as natural and serene as they are now.

I hope the best for Cambodia and I had an amazing 18 days traveling around the country; the people are amazing, the sites are incredible and the country is beautiful, however there are some very real problems currently affecting the country.  More blog posts about my experiences there to come!