Kaing Guek Eav, a former Khmer Rouge prison commander in Cambodia is apologizing for war crimes committed at the infamous prison, Tuol Sleng aka S-21 today.
Today, the prison is a tourism hotspot, popular with many of our bloggers.
Here’s what some of them have to say about the atrocities that took place there:
Denzilandthedoc spent some time backpacking around Southeast Asia, their latest entry involves a stop in Phnom Penh.
Photo exhibition in Tuol Sleng
The highlight of Phnom Penh is the country’s lowlight – the genocide museum at Tuol Sleng. Moving, humbling and downright chilling it’s a reminder of what these people have had to endure not only during Pol Pots reign but ever since. International isolation, lack of aid and corrupt regimes. You really feel for these people who welcome you with open arms and never stop smiling.
-from “We’re tourers not tourists – Into Cambodia” – Battambang, Cambodia
Butterfills are currently in Cambodia on their ’round the world trip. Check out their entry from Cambodia:
Butterfills in Cambodia
“We visited the Royal Palace and also went to the Tuol Sleng Museum, the former school which was taken over by the Khmer Rouge in the Seventies and turned into Security Prison S-21. We wandered through the prison cells and viewed the instruments of torture used on thousands of innocent people. It was harrowing to look at the photographs of some of the men, women and children who had been incarcerated there.”
-from “Holiday in Cambodia” – Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Stephen.j.booth is traveling with his girlfriend from Africa to America via Asia. They also stopped at the prison in Phnom Penh for an afternoon.
Barbed wire in Tuol Sleng
Later that day we headed to the prison, S-21, where the Pol Pot regime housed victims before they were sent to the killing fields (Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum). Again, this was a rather reflectful trip. The cells, erected in an old school building were tiny, the guards subjected the visitors to horrible tortures using old PE bars from the school, they even erected a gallows. Reading about the regime is hard to take in. They banned speech! They even banned victims from crying when they were whipped.
-from “Phnom Penh – better than everyone says” – Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Tags: Battambang, Cambodia, genocide, Kaing Guek Eav, Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh, S-21, Tuol Sleng
April 2, 2009 at 5:12 am |
Ooh ! it is really terrible time of cambodia people
Now in Gad it was over !!