What Remains

They're everywhere - in the walkways, in and outside the graves, near the trees and structures. Only about half of the people murdered in these killing fields had enough remains to be identified or counted. Children were literally smashed against a tree and other objects, making their remains very difficult to find.

That is reality. And that is truly the most horrifying part of this whole experience.

Most of the souls I encountered face-to-face through photos and evidence of their terrifying existence at S-21 Prison in Phnom Penh were murdered here at Choeung Ek - one of many execution fields across the Cambodian country side from 1975-79.

My guide and friend Makara, spent the better portion of his teens and 20s guiding foreigners through the S-21 prison directly across from his house, through this and other killing fields and the legendary Angkor Wat up north in Siem Reap.

He knows just about everything there is to be known about these places - unlike many of his peers and the generation of young people growing up behind him and me. Mak voiced his disappointment and disgust at his government's practice of ignoring the genocide and not talking about it in school. In other words, most young Cambodians don't have any idea about the Khmer Rouge and wouldn't believe you if you told them.

His tour was both enlightening and chilling. I've never felt so somber in my life - right behind sailing into Pearl Harbor, manning the rails at 19 years old and rendering honors to every single ship sunk there. That was somber and chilling, but this is nearly indescribable - mostly because no one in our country did a damn thing about it. Taking American lives is definitely a worse crime in the eyes of our government.

First thing you see as you walk in to Choung Ek is the large stupa, built as a memorial to the people killed here. It's beautiful from afar. The closer you get you realize it's literally filled with skulls excavated from the graves all over the campus here.

Rather than go here first, Mak brought me to the graves. The only changes to this place are the excavation of some of the graves and roping some areas off out of respect for the graves. Ironically this was a Chinese cemetery before the Khmer Rouge turned it into a mass-execution factory.

Many of the graves are different. This one in particular stands out. All the victims here were beheaded. Mak says they were probably prominent figures like monks, doctors, educators and the educated.

I remember hearing about how the Khmer Rouge killed children - especially. They threw the children, usually babies, into the air and caught them on bayonets. This was also true for women in labor who had children. They were immediately caught on knives and bayonets as they were born.

Most other children were smashed into this tree. Mak notes many people say the tree is possessed as you can see a face in the tree on the black spot - which is directly from the number of children beat against it.

Most adults were killed in one of about five ways. This palm tree was the most surprising tool of murder. As you can see, these trees have very sharp edges and create a blade of sorts. In order to make the killing most efficient - both effort and cost wise - Khmer Rouge used the blades of these trees to cut throats. They felt bullets were too costly to waste on these people's lives.

The other common methods were to hit victims in the head w/ a hammer. This would usually puncture the skull and kill a person w/in minutes. They also used pointed hammers and gardening tools like hoes and shovels. Each of the skulls tells a story about how its life was taken. Many holes show hoe hits to the face, holes in the side or pointed impact holes.

Mak demonstrates how the victims were blindfolded, gagged and restrained with cloth around their wrists. Each was with put on their knees or simply stood while a Khmer Rouge soldier attacked them and pushed them into a mass grave. Not all victims immediately died. Many screamed and moaned as they were cut or hit and as they lay in the graves dying.

In order to keep the young teenage soldiers from being affected by the screams and moans of their work, leaders played loud and often happy music from speakers in this tree. Today all you can hear are the playful screams of children at recess in the school right next to this killing field. As stated before, they are absolutely unaware of what happened here.

Lastly, we visited the memorial stupa. I don't even know how I feel about this. On second thought I feel a lot about this - too much to get into right now. Ask me sometime and I'll expound.

As for my friends and blog readers in Washington, please visit the Killing Fields Museum right in downtown Seattle. Don't feel bad if you didn't already know about it. I didn't either. But now that you do know about it, don't put off visiting. Failing to do so makes you just as ignorant and responsible for the next genocide as the Cambodians who ignore their own history.

 Seattle Killing Field Museum

Do your part to make sure this NEVER happens again.