Go back to menu

It is important to never forget the Khmers Rouges genocide that been lived in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. We are the voice and the memory of all these victims who died during this period. We must transmit this story to generation to be sure, than no body will never forgets this tragedy.

According to several statistics, between 2 and 3 millions peoples lost there life within this war in the name of the Communist under the régime of Pol Pot. The ideology of the party was to implant the Communist in Cambodia and restart to zero. In 1975, the red Khmers took the control of Phnom Phen and hunted the population toward the “countryside”in order to suppress the picture of the Capitalism because Phnom Phen was the capital. The enemy of the new political party regrouped professionals, journalists, intellectuals and monks. Most of these people are dead today. The population, who survived to this massacre, is those that forgot their pasts while keeping the silence. Its why, in Cambodia, the majority of the population doesn’t speak anymore French except a small minority. They have all voluntarily erased the language of their memory to be able to survive. It is incredible to imagine that those old people than we see every day have lived that. We have no idea what they past thru. The war with the red Khmers finally stopped in 1979 with the arrived of the Vietnamese.

During my stay in Phnom Phen, I went visited the museum of Tuol Sleng. In 1975, this place (school) has been taken in hostage by the Khmers Rouges to become the biggest jail of the Country. This jail regrouped between 1 200 and 1 500 peoples at any time. People were locked there, linked and tortured to death. Several times, I tried to hear and imagined all atrocities that are lived themselves in this macabre place. It is easy this to imagine, because the place is still intact and you can see some blood on the floor and see the gun shoot thru the wall. When I arrive, I already feel a funny sensation. I was felled uncomfortable and a little anguished to go on the traces of this slaughter that have just happened hardly around forty years ago. I should have taken several minutes before entering in the first room because I felt a lot of negative energies in the piece and I knew that several people died there. During the visit, you can also see the pictures of all the prisoners’. It is very disturbing to see these faces because you can easily imagine them suffered. I had the impression than I was going to close of them by been able to put a face on each of one. Finally, I have been shaken to learn than the Khmers Rouges area still alive and still living in Cambodia after all this genocide. Some lived in little retirement but some; occupy very important places within the Cambodia government. Imagine! The country is controlled by these own killers. Some were still active 10 years ago, but the government offered them the prestigious posts in the government in exchange to stop their criminal’s actions.

Finally, I think that is our duty to be informed on the subject and not doing like if the story had never existed. This place is probably very disturbing, but this feeling, is surely nothing compare what these people had to past thru less than 40 years ago. To inform you more on the topic I advise you to read "Cambodia years zero" and the see the movie "Killing Field".