ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ต.ค. 2013
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Choeung Ek is the most well-known of Cambodia's 'Killing Fields', mass graves where over a million were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge during its genocidal campaign of the late 1970s.
It is estimated that 2-3 million of Cambodia's population of 8 million died under the harsh Communist Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979, with some 1.3 million executed and dumped in over 20,000 'killing fields'. Many died of starvation, exhaustion and disease as people were forced to work long days in the fields with meagre rations, often separated from their families. Executions of 'enemies' and educated people were routine as the Pol Pot-led Khmer Rouge attempted to make Cambodia a self-sufficient entity, purging the nation of intellectuals, 'capitalists' and ethnic groups aside from Cambodians, who endured horrific conditions. The monetary system was abolished, schools and hospitals were closed, and religion was banned in the strongly Buddhist country, with estimates of only 800-1,000 monks surviving from the 40,000-60,000 pre-1975.
Choeung Ek's mass graves are now slightly sunken areas in the former Chinese graveyard and orchard, the verdant landscape belying its violent past. The lake-side site is lush with plants and wild flowers, with only the chirps of a mother hen and her chicks breaking the peaceful yet sombre silence. The 'killing tree' against which executioners swung children still stands, now with friendship bracelets hanging from it instead of hair, blood and scraps of brains as when the site was first discovered. Bullets were considered too valuable to be used for these executions so coarse agricultural tools were preferred; axes, bamboo sticks and the sharp ridged edge of a frond of the sugar palm tree - used to cut throats.
The remains of almost 9,000 bodies were uncovered at Choeung Ek, and the skulls of 5,000 of those who died at the site can be seen in a 62 meter (203 feet) high Buddhist stupa erected in their memory. The 40-odd other mass graves at Choeung Ek have remained undisturbed, but every couple of weeks after heavy rain, bones, teeth and fragments of clothing come to the surface, needless reminders of a violent past which cannot be forgotten.
Words by Sadhbh Connor
