JalanJalan

Late morning, April 5, 2008

Leaving Choeung Ek, we are soon cruising along the edge of the southern suburbs of Phnom Penh. Waterlogged vegie plots make a soothing sight, but nothing soothing about our next destination, another Khmer Rouge masterpiece.

This is Tuol Sleng (which means ‘Poisonous Hill’), the most feared interrogation (read: torture) centre of the most dreaded secret service of the Khmer Rouge regime, the S-21. Operational Aug 1975 - Jan 1979.

This is no ordinary place, not for the weak-hearted, so we enter the compound with a degree of trepidation.

We duly pay our entrance fees and next to the ticket counter, a sordid intro. This is the place which supplied the bulk of the victims to Choeung Ek’s Killing Field.

To the left of the notice, a yard where wickedly bad things have happened.

It looks just like any high school compound, but even those harmless gymnastic bars near the coconut tree were instruments of torture. We head for the leftmost building - Block A.

Next to the building, a small cemetery for the 14 tortured bodies found in the rooms of Block A by the Vietnamese army when they arrived Jan 7, 1979, to end the whole thing.

This is the much-dreaded Block A which housed the torture rooms.

People died in these rooms in horrible circumstances.

Aina dares not enter the rooms. Her mom just walks past briskly.

I enter the rooms one by one, left exactly the way they were found by the Vietnamese army in January 1979. The poor inmate was shackled to the bed (minus mattress), and tortured to extract ‘information’ against the ‘angkar’, the organisation. The metal can on the bed is used as a latrine by the prisoner.

Each room has a black & white picture of the bed as when it was first discovered by the Vietnamese in Jan 1979. Note the black, bloated mutilated corpse chained to the bed-frame. On the bed, see the latrine box and the shackle used to lock the prisoner.

Some say you can still spot blood stains on the floor. Dare to spend a night in this room?

I cross to Block B, and notice a bunch of visitors engrossed …

… reading the life-and-torture-and-death rules for the inmates of Tuol Sleng.

From Block B, I glance back at Block A, where the torture rooms were. Reminds me of my own boarding school (of the 70s too), but that’s another story.

Even the gymnastic poles next to the block have been creatively used by the Khmer Rouge guards.

In Block B, the former classrooms were used as interrogation chambers, but now house exhibits, including mugshots of some of the 16,000 people believed to have been sent here 1975-79, including about 2,000 kids. See more photos HERE.

Only 7 lucky people survived Tuol Sleng, everybody else murdered, including the innocent children in the pic above. Read the story of survivor Vann Nath, a painter, HERE.

When the museum was first opened in 1980, Cambodians thronged to look for missing relatives and friends, and many found mugshots of their beloved ones here. Even now they still come looking.

Steel shackles to immobilise inmates.

Most prisoners spent their time like this, ankles fixed to the steel shackles shown above. To relieve oneself, the guard would pass a metal can (used for storing bullets), seen stacked below the blackboard. Most of the guards were teenagers, kids!

This is definitely not your typical museum.

Description of Block C.

These small cells are just big enough for one person.

Imagine spending your days in these small stinking cubicles, unless you are being interrogated and tortured. Many tried to commit suicide.

Eyewitness Vann Nath’s rendition of life in the cell. Note the containers for relieving oneself. Prisoners were slowly being starved - each day, everyone was fed just 4 spoonfuls of porridge and some watery soup.

Corridor outside the terror cells.

We leave Block C and head for the last building, Block D.

More exhibits in Block D, such as pics of jubilant Phnom Penh folks welcoming the Khmer Rouge ‘liberators’ on Apr 17, 1975. Little did they know that several hours later, they’d be chased out of the city on foot, to start their living nightmares.

Pics of Khmer Rouge leaders are also on display, but vandalised by enraged visitors.

Looking down towards detention Block C, I wonder how it was like during the dark times.

In the last room of Block D, there are displays of skulls, such as this bullet-ridden one.

Looks like a high-calibre bullet.

Prayers are offered to the victims of Tuol Sleng. Many were murdered and buried here, but the bulk of the inmates were sent to Choeung Ek for execution. Rest-in-Peace, all.

Vann Nath (one of the 7 survivors of Tuol Sleng), in his book “A Cambodian Prison Portrait: One Year in the Khmer Rouge’s S-21″, writes about the brutality of Comrade Duch, the Chief Executioner of Tuol Sleng.

More on Comrade Duch’s atrocities HERE.

Comrade Duch in Feb 2008.

For the latest news on the Khmer Rouge leaders on trial, click HERE.