Heartbreak

In between the temples, we have had a steady stream of information and facts and figures about Cambodia. I did not know much about Cambodia, in fact, I'd say my knowledge base is about zero.  The French were also present in Cambodia for about 100 years, but the Cambodians did not really see them as oppressors and instead thought they saved them from being engulfed by Thailand and Vietnam. The French did all of the early research on the temples and they rebuilt some things with concrete and iron, which looks fairly awful.

At the same time as the civil war in Vietnam, the Cambodians were dividing themselves into colors: Khmer White (neutral), Khmer Blue (democratic), and Khmer Rouge (communist). We bombed western Cambodia during the war because we believed the Vietcong were hiding out there. This caused a lot of heartache for the Cambodians and created an opportunity to the Khmer Rouge to use the bombing to manipulate the people, eventually taking things over.  

The Khmer Rouge was into control and everyone had to do what they said - no cooking, eat in the communal kitchen; no color, everyone had the wear grey/beige; and no religion, the temples were closed and the monks were told to take off their robes or be killed. Sam lost two of his uncles this way.

While I was learning to blow bubbles and tie my shoes in Virginia, Cambodian children were being given AK47s and sacks full of mines to go and install. If they can back with extra mines, they were killed; so after a few examples, they installed those mines.

We heard a bit about Pol Pot, some said he was not person, but a political party. But Sam says he was a person and that most of the Khmer Rouge, like Pol Pot were educated in France and learned all about communism that way; his family had worked for the royal family, which is why he was sent away to be educated. Pol Pot was a Maoist, and he did not trust anyone.

During the mid 70s, the Khmer Rouge killed 1.7 million people in the killing fields. It was often entire families and the parents were tortured before they were killed. There were hundreds of prisons and 10s of these locations were people wee executed. They took picture of each person before they killed them and these are displayed one after another. 1.7 million is a huge number by any standard, but in a country the size if Cambodia; it is beyond devastation.

As a result, over 70% of the country in under the age of 30; 95% are under the age of 40 and only 3% are over 60. This very young country with this very difficult history and is being put back together by children.

The killing field that we went to was primarily used for Khmer Rouge officers as there would occasionally be a cleared out because they did not trust each other. Sam remembers them digging up the mass graves as this happened when he first moved to Siam Reap and many of the bones were put in stupas.

We also went to a land mine museum that was founded by one of those child soldiers. His story was quite unbelievable and was told by a retired guy who came to work for him for 6 months and has not left. In addition, the clearing mines the organization takes care of orphans, runs a school, and sends kids to college.

The drive out to these places was beautiful with rice fields and forests. There were skinny cows and chubby cows and water buffalo working in the field. I saw a large white egret sitting on a white cow in a golden colored rice field. I also saw a small boy who had made a kite with two sticks and some black plastic wrapping with a tail fashioned from bits of shiny paper. He was running along the earthen bank holding in a rice field. His kite was flying and he was smiling.