The Jewel of IndoChina

Foreign Correspondents Club, Phnom Penh, Cambodia – This city, often dubbed the “jewel”, seems a bit of an enigma on first look. It’s clearly complex and hides many stories; it had a rich history with strong French influence, was wiped out, and is now trying to re-create and rebuild a culture that was “de-programmed”. I find I have not immediately warmed to it in two days here, but sense that it’s a place that could grow into you and that its tendrils could easily enchant given time.

It’s impossible to be here without exploring the contemporary history. Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge on April 17th 1975, weeks before the fall of Saigon. It heralded in a Communist “revolution” the likes of which no-one anticipated or foresaw, but which Pol Pot had clearly planned over the previous decade. Phnom Penh, a city of 2m+ people was evacuated, the population moved to the remote countryside to create a new “utopia” based on a agrarian economic ideal. Pol Pot was in power for only four years, 1975-79, before Cambodia was liberated by the Vietnamese, then ruled by them for a further decade. It wasn’t until 1993, when the monarchy was re-established and free elections were held under the sponsorship of the UN (which perversely elected communists), that Cambodia started to re-embark on peace, but even then Pol Pot was at large, living in the hills to the north with a small army and cadre of weapons to protect him. That he never came to justice is likely an indictment that we all bear. He died in 1998, likely from Malaria, and finally a country and its people were able to start to move on.

The recent history of IndoChina is one that all of us of an age likely remember snippets of. I remember well moving to California a mere decade after Vietnam; it was a few months before I put my finger on the gap, the realisation that many of the people I was spending time with had been involved in the Vietnam conflict, yet were unable to acknowledge or talk about it. America had “failed” in their eyes, and a relatively young and supremely successful society was trying to come to terms with that, initially with denial. Being here in Cambodia, shows a far more raw expression of that. The “Killing Fields” saw a massive “re-education” program which removed all opposition… intellectuals, teachers, doctors, officials; 3m Cambodians died in under 4 years, leaving a population of 4m, now 14m some 30 years later. So it’s a young “country” rediscovering its culture and heritage. Yet look around and chat to people (everyone seems remarkably open), they all have a story; everyone was affected.

When travelling, one of my indulgences is to read a book about the country I am in. I have been reading “River of Time” by Jon Swain, which is beautifully written and “part love letter to the land he so adores”. He was a journalist during the Vietnam conflict and was one of four depicted in the film “The Killing Fields” during the fall of Phnom Penh. He provides real insights, but has helped to add colour and an additional dimension to our experience here; it seems to underline that the Hollywood depiction we all saw is likely slightly glossy, but my surprise is, in truth, it seems a remarkably accurate depiction. We all saw the young testosterone filled child soldiers in their black pyjamas, flip flops, red & white checked headbands, & the obligatory AK47. I’d assumed this was a cinematic trick, but I was wrong. And you realise that the boy soldiers of the Khmer Rouge would now be entering their 50’s; who and where are they, and what legacy do they bring… is it a constructive one, or do the scars and indoctrination of those years still blind?

We visited the “Killing Fields” memorial at Choeung Ek. It is a deeply humbling & poignant place. A central Stupa (“burial ground”) provides a fitting memorial, rising 17 levels, each filled with skulls, exhumed from the nearby mass graves, & their clothes… all visible behind acrylic glass. A quiet and profound silence as people wandered around dazed, often in tears. I visited Belsen in Germany as a teenager, but somehow this was more… likely because of the detail (the Khmer Rouge were vociferous record keepers) and the starkly assaulting visual pictures. Visiting S-21 (Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum) in Phnom Penh, the prison & torture centre, provided even starker reminders. Row upon row of black and white photos, each of a victim. Graphic pictures of life inside… It’s all a bit too much to take in, and we scarcely needed a guide to helpfully point out the details of the atrocities; it was there, tangible.

I’m struck by the enormity of Man’s cruelty to Man – I’m overwhelmed by it & can’t comprehend it, but in this place I can touch and smell it.