Tuol Sleng

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Tuol Sleng

• Torture Museum

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• Today, S-21 Prison is known as the Tuol Sleng
  Museum of Genocide. Inside the gates, it looks
  like any high school five buildings face a grass
  courtyard with pull-up bars, green lawns and
  lawn-bowling pitches

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• Tuol Svay Pray High School sits on a dusty road
  on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In
  1976, the Khmer Rouge renamed the high school
  S-21 and turned it into a torture, interrogation
  and execution center. Of the 14,000 people known
  to have entered, only seven survived

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• The four-year reign of the Khmer Rouge (1975-9)
  took more than a million lives-10 percent of the
  Cambodian population, dead from disease,
  starvation and murder. There was overwhelming
  evidence that the Khmer Rouge violated the
  Nuremberg Principles, the United Nations Charter,
  the laws of war, and possibly the UN Genocide
  Convention, yet no individuals have ever been
  tried in legitimate courts, much less punished.

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• The Khmer Rouge controlled most the Cambodian
  countryside and surrounded and isolated the
  capital Phnom Penh, which was swollen with
  refugees. On April 17, 1975 Phnom Penh fell. The
  next day the city's entire population of over 2
  million is marched into the countryside at
  gunpoint.

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• Pol Pot declared 'Year Zero' and directed a
  ruthless program to "purify" Cambodian society of
  capitalism, Western culture, religion and all
  foreign influences in favour of an isolated and
  totally self-sufficient Maoist agrarian state. No
  opposition was tolerated.
• Foreigners were expelled, embassies closed, and
  the currency abolished. Public servants, police,
  military officers, teachers, ethnic Vietnamese,
  Christian clergy, Muslim leaders, members of the
  Cham Muslim minority, members of the middle class
  and the educated were identified and executed.

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• Cities were emptied and their former inhabitants
  deemed "new people". The country's entire
  population was forced to relocate to agricultural
  collectives, the so-called "killing fields".
  Inmates existed in primitive conditions. Families
  were separated. Buddhist monks were defrocked and
  forced into labour brigades. Former city
  residents were subjected to unending political
  indoctrination. Children were encouraged to spy
  on adults.

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• Thousands were worked or starved to death, died
  of disease or exposure, or were summarily
  executed for minor infractions of camp
  discipline. Infringements punishable by death
  include not working hard enough, wearing
  jewellery, engaging in sexual relations,
  complaining about living conditions, collecting
  or stealing food for personal consumption,
  grieving over the loss of relatives or friends
  and expressing religious sentiments

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• Khmer Rouge records from the Tuol Sleng
  interrogation and detention centre in Phnom Penh
  show that 2,404 "antiparty elements" were
  tortured and executed from 1975 to 1976.
• In 1977 6,330 were killed at the centre. The
  records show that 5,765 die in the first six
  months of 1978.
• At least 20 other similar centres operate
  throughout the country.

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• In 1977, almost the entire population was
  involved in agricultural production, yet Cambodia
  experienced food shortages, resulting in many
  more deaths. Conflicts along the Thai, Laotian
  and Vietnamese borders escalated. Relations with
  Vietnam broke in December of that year.

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• On 25 December, 1978 the Vietnamese launched a
  full-scale military invasion of Cambodia, rapidly
  pushing aside the Khmer Rouge. Phnom Penh was
  captured on 7 January 1979.
• Pol Pot and the defeated Khmer Rouge retreated
  to the country's remote western regions from
  where they staged a guerilla war destined to
  last a further 20 years.

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• Not only did the Khmer Rouge carefully transcribe
  the prisoners' interrogations they also
  carefully photographed the vast majority of the
  inmates and created an astonishing photographic
  archive.
• Each of the almost 6,000 S-21 portraits that have
  been recovered tells a story shock, resignation,
  confusion, defiance and horror.

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• In another building the walls are papered with
  thousands of S-21 portraits. A mother with her
  baby in her arms stares into the camera with a
  look of indignant resignation. The photographs
  and confessions were collected in order to prove
  to the Khmer Rouge leaders that their orders had
  been carried out.

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• The three story building contains various types
  of cells from individual brick cells to rooms
  where masses of people would be piled together

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• When the Vietnamese arrived at Tuol Sleng they
  vowed to leave it as they found it to show the
  world the evils which had taken place under the
  rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge
• As a result, there are still blood stains on the
  floors.
• Barbed wire enmeshes the top floor to stop
  inmates from committing suicide and there are
  many implements of torture remaining .

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• The seven people who survived were all regarded
  as being useful by their captors.
• One of the survivors was an artist who the Khmer
  Rouge used to record their deeds. He has since
  painted many images of life in the place of
  genocide.
• These paintings remain as a part of the museums
  exhibits.

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• Resourses/acknowledgements
• www.moreorless.au.com/killers/pot.htm
• www.fathom.com/feature/35706