phnom penh

It’s seven years since I was in Cambodia’s capital and it still feels very poor compared with Thailand.  Whether this is due to the after effects of the Khmer Rouge days – there is a distinct absence of people in the 40s to 50s age range – or its current kleptocratic government, it’s hard to tell.  Ian and I visited the Tuol Sleng genocide museum.  This was a school, which was converted after the evacuation of Phnom Penh to a prison cum torture facility cum execution centre.  Pol Pot had members of his own party taken there when they fell foul of his paranoid regime – not just the party officials but their whole families.  Almost none survived, after ‘confessions’ were wrung out of them.  It’s been kept just as it was when the city was eventually liberated.  It’s almost unbearable to see the photos of frightened people including small children, all carefully documented by the regime as they passed through.  It’s an important thing to see though: a reminder of how easily a population can be taken over and cowed by a few maniacs.  It’s happened in Europe within the last hundred years and it’s happening today in several parts of the world.