1. I would like to apologize to all my blog readers for my unfortunate spelling error in the previous blog. It has now been changed so if you didn't see it before THANK GOD!
However, on to other topics. I wanted to show you why Cambodia is in the state its in. Why it is still consider a developing nation. Under the rule of the Khmer Rouge the country hit a downward spiral. Pol Pot from the years 75-79 destroyed the country and its people. Pol Pot desired to return Cambodia to a pure race and eliminate all foreign influences. He created hundreds of killing sites all over the nation, basically choosing at his own free will who should die and who should live. He forced everyone out the cities hoping to restore the country to a purely farming economy. The lucky Cambodians lived in these relocation camps and nearly starved to death, food was everywhere, but it was illegal to eat it. The educated were told to identify themselves so that they could be taken to reeducation camps, the ones that did, where soon taken to death camps instead, where they may be forced into slave labor or just killed. In these "reeducation" camps the victims were tortured, brutally tortured until they admitted to being a spy, then they were marched out to the local killing field. If they admitted to being a spy most likely there family would be eliminated as well, in order to prevent retaliation . This includes babies. The khmer rouge didn't want to waste money on bullets for their victims, so they beat them with shovels and other blunt objects. They were buried in mass graves, bodies on top of bodies, mothers holding their headless children, naked women piled on top of each other. I think pictures will speak louder than words so I will walk you through a few that moved me.
(The skulls of female victims, the breaking of the skull is evidence to how she died, blunt force to the head)
(The school, once a place for children, was converted to a torture chamber, victims were place in individual cells, tortured with beatings, electrocution, and acid until they admitted that they were a "spy")
(This is how Cambodians were found, tortured to the point of death, usually stripped naked, with acid and electricity burns, these mangled bodies are what family members found when looking for their loved ones who were getting "reeducated.")
(Labeled the gallows because this is where many victims were hung and killed on public display to enlist fear in the remaining camp)
(A holding cell with remaining blood)
(victim number 1 this young boy is clearly out to destroy state, each victim was given a number and a picture upon entry. There pictures create ghostly reminders on the walls of the genocide museum).
(The killing tree, where babies were killed, most were swung by the leg at a specific knot on the tree, their heads were bashed in on impact. There is still a black knot on the upper part of this tree, the tree was wounded by the impact of infants skulls.)
(As we were touring the killing fields walking from mass grave to mass grave. On the path you start to trip across strips of cloth and white stones. This cloth however, is human clothes. Human clothes that become a little bit more uncovered the more it rains. As you walk along the paths your scandals get caught on pieces of shirts and shorts, the white stones are bones. Human bones that have yet to be excavated. You can find human teeth along the path with greater exploration. This I believe was the most moving part of my entire trip, I walked on human clothes, the clothes worn by children as they faced their last days, terrifing reminders of years past. I rubbed my scandals on human bones, bones of children, mothers, fathers. The paths were covered with the remains of a lost generation, this generation is begging to be reminder, each new rain storm uncovers more and more of the story.)
As I took all this in I was reminded of a conversation I had with a Barnabas staffer. He said satan is not omnipresent. He can only be in one place at one time. When I walk on death clothes of children I simply must think Satan was here. Satan ruled here for a period of time, He took delight in this evil. He choose this place to demonstrate his evil, in the rain of Pol Pot I simply must think that Satan walked the country with delight. )
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