The prisoners at S-21 were ordered to sit and observe in silence the impending torment. Uncertain what tactic ‘Dutch’ would adopt, captives were duty-bound to forcefully fixate on the victim. The muddied white and brown floor tiles were already stained with the gore and discharge from previous violent endeavours, and the brown walls were sullied and tainted with viscera. Features that were a reminder of the brutality that was poised to commence.
These spectators were fortunate. They were the onlookers in the spectacle of torture. They would spill no blood today and another sunset and sunrise they would cherish.
Some witnesses could audibly observe the disorder from another room in the prison.
“’Every night I looked out at the moon’, Mr. Bou Meng recalled in a long talk. ‘I heard people crying and sighing around the building. I heard people calling out, mother, help me! Mother, help me! This was the time of death…” (1)
Slitting the skin until a chasm leaked blood, the torturer, afore his audience would trickle acid into the wound. The prisoner would often convulse, shriek and faint. A guard would be ready to revive the prisoner with water.
The onlookers, a group of selected prisoners, (also detainees of prison S-21) were ravished with terror. Curiosity would temper their minds, when would they themselves be subjected to similar procedures?
Dutch showcased the full magnitude of his depravity and wickedness as he instructed a victim to be hanged by a hook that was speared through her mouth. Petrified, the onlookers were quivering and shuddering with dismay and revulsion. The hanged victim – while still alive – suffered the indignity of being butchered. Her heart, gall bladder and liver were haphazardly chopped from her eviscerated torso; a mangled and gory demise.
Prison S-21 and Year Zero …
Some of the onlookers would attempt to shun the torture with either an aversion of their gaze or a more elaborate scheme (albeit undeliberate) of losing consciousness. They were all were forcibly compelled to scrutinise the bloodbath. The guards would insist the entire incident be witnessed. (2)
The communist Khmer Rouge took extremities from the Chinese communist regime headed by Chairman Mao whose own acute cruelty was renown in many Chinese provinces. The Cambodian Revolution in 1975 had infested the country with communist fervour. Pol Pot, the architect of Khmer communist dogma was malicious, paranoid and ambitious. His theory of re-setting Cambodia to ‘Year Zero’ was a blueprint for malevolence.
Based on a zealous version of Maoism and a racial superiority creed which articulated Khmer people (who were the predominant ethnic community in Cambodia) to be superior to other people, citizens and communities were to be transformed into visionaries of communist utopias. The doctrine stipulated two varieties of people; “Old People” and “New People”. The former being rural peasants while the later were urban workers and ‘elites’. These so-called elites were superfluous and unnecessary. They represented the intelligentsia and educated, and were surplus to the vision of Year Zero.
“Money, free markets, normal schooling, private property, foreign clothing styles, religious practices, and traditional Khmer culture” were all abolished. People were confined to their cooperative farms, and forced to wear traditional black outfits. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, intellectuals, and minorities were imprisoned or killed. Of the 14,000 who entered one prison, a former high school renamed S-21, only seven were believed to have survived.” (3)
Survivors of S-21
Bou Meng (whom I quoted above) and Chum Mey were two such prisoners at S-21. They are also survivors! Although privileged to have lived they have carried the burden of loss. In memory, brutalised friends and family members have haunted both men, wives and children victims of the prison and the nearby killing fields. I was blessed to have met them both in the grounds of the infamous S-21 prison where in the 1970’s they endured torture, both physical and emotional.
The adage ‘time heals all wounds’ is simply inaccurate. Both Meng and Mey have amassed emotions that have accompanied them on a life journey filled with grief, revulsion and fury, love and rage and forgiveness. Emotionally they are damaged but not broken. Contrarily they are strong and gritty.
Mey articulates:
“…my complete story, the story of a village boy whose only ambition was to be a mechanic and to fix cars and trucks, but who became one of millions of victims of the Khmer Rouge. I survived, but I can’t say I was lucky. My wife and children are dead and the torture I endured was horrible. At that time, it would have been better to die than survive.” (4)
Similarly Bou Meng recalls when:
“…he and his wife were thrown into S-21 without explanation. Bou survived only because of his skill as a portraiture; he was forced to paint pictures of Pol Pot and other Communist leaders. But he could not save his wife, Ma Yoeun, or his children. Ma was tortured, and died at the killing site, Choeung Ek. Bou’s children starved to death at a Khmer Rouge Child Center.” (5)
Legacy of the Prison
Both men, now elderly often sit in the grounds of the S-21 prison and share their experiences with locals and tourists. The prison, now an educational centre in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh showcases the atrocities that have stained modern Cambodia. An irredeemable link exists that connects this remarkable country to suffering and bloodshed. Sadly this tarnished reputation detracts from modern reality; the concreteness of a country rich in Khmer culture and ancient history cannot cleanse itself of a past mired in butchery.
Meng and Mey strive to enlighten and simultaneously alter perception. In their respective words they convey a struggle, their individual struggles. Both struggle for emancipation; emancipation from evil and release from hatred, often their own hatred. Objectively and patiently they relay their experiences in a venue where devastation and sadness enveloped their physical being and where their spiritual fortitude was dampened and diminished.
Both yield courage. But their struggle for emancipation is unending. During United Nations trials of some of the Khmer leaders in Phnom Penh, ‘Dutch’ the director of the S-21 prison was finally detained and faced trial. “…just over 30 years after his prison ordeal ended, Chum Mey confronted Dutch in court in emotional testimony that mixed tears with anger. ‘I cry every night’ he told the court. ‘I am like a mentally ill person now’.” (6)
Similar to other prisoners at S-21 Bou Meng was enveloped by hatred in the years after he was tortured. Initially he sought retribution. He wanted the same misery and suffering to be extended to Khmer Rouge perpetrators. Many Khmer Rouge leaders were indeed the victim of mob justice. The loathing that seethed within Bou Meng has now somewhat subsided.
Meng and Mey have embarked on a renewed journey; a voyage toward peace, a congruous excursion that ebbs and flows, progresses and recedes. The past tugging and wrenching them into the abyss of time’s past. Then the liberated sensation of closure envelops the soul before once again the unhealed emotional baggage yanks them back toward the abyss.
The Healing Process
Healing never fully completes its mission. Both men will never entirely exit the turmoil and misery of the past. As former prisoners of S-21, healing may never fully be reconciled.
There has been joint United Nations and Cambodian trials in Phnom Penn. These have sought to secure some justice for the victims so grief can be somewhat soothed if not fully healed.
As mentioned, the most notorious and high ranking Khmer Rouge cadre to be placed on trial was Kang Kek Iew (nickname Dutch*). He converted to God and confessed his role in murder and torture. “My unique fault is that I did not serve God, I served men, I served communism. I feel very sorry about the killing and the past. I wanted to be a good communist.” (7)
S-21 Will Forever be With Them!
Unlike his comrades Dutch did display remorse during the trials. It wasn’t enough! Chum Mey and Bou Meng are simultaneously victims and survivors of the communist Khmer Rouge. Their physical scars and their emotional agitation cannot be restored. Retribution or apology doesn’t have the capacity to return their dead wives, children, friends or acquaintances. Likewise, vengeance or redemption cannot mend a damaged society troubled with a grizzly past that smoulders and oozes in the present.
For both men justice has always been a distant accomplishment that has demonstrated itself to be too remote to obtain. But Mey and Meng yield a spirit and resilience that propels them through life. They are altruistic.
As the humidity and foggy sunshine of Phnom Penn enwraps the crowds of S-21, Mey and Meng sit patiently in the grounds of the complex. Tearful visitors of multitudes of nationalities exit the prison, (now museum), and embrace an opportunity to interact (via interpreter) with both men. Every day the tingle and ache of discomfort is awoken within both men as they convey their physical agony and emotional woe to visitors interested in hearing a first-hand perspective of S-21.
As I sit here pondering with what words to convey my conclusion I think it wise to leave it to one of the former prisoners at S-21, Chum Mey:
“Over the years many journalists and visitors have talked to me here at Tuol Sleng, and many people cry when they hear my story and see the tiny cell I was kept in. When I see them cry I cannot stop my own tears from falling. One time a group of more than 15 French visitors came with guides. They could not believe Khmer could kill Khmer and they cried. Dutch’s defence lawyer Kar Savuth was there and said ‘just tell them what happened to you,’ and the guide was translating to those French students and then broke into tears and ran into another room. Not only here in Cambodia but around the world people cannot believe that Khmer could kill Khmer”. (8)
Photo Gallery of S-21 prison, the killing fields and the books I purchased from Chum Mey & Bou Meng:
Selected Reading and references:
1. Bou Meng, A Survivor from Khmer Rouge Prison, 2010, P.1
2. See Keo Chandara, https://time.com/3693242/cambodia-khmer-rouge-genocide-un-trial/
4. Chum Mey, The Triumph of an Ordinary Man in the Khmer Rouge Genocide, 2012, p.7
5. Bou Meng, A Survivor from Khmer Rouge Prison, 2010, P.11
6 Chum Mey, The Triumph of an Ordinary Man in the Khmer Rouge Genocide, 2012, P.47
7. Bou Meng, A Survivor from Khmer Rouge Prison, 2010, quoting Dutch, p.64
8. Chum Mey, The Triumph of an Ordinary Man in the Khmer Rouge Genocide, 2012, P. 46
* ‘Dutch’ was known by several names: Kang Kek Iew or Kaing Kek Iev, also Kaing Guek Eav