(Blog Cred: Taylor Bug Lawson) - Your words said it best, I had to share, you guys had to know...
This blog is Rated R for Disturbing content. If you are easily offended or not ready to face the harsh reality that Genocide exists and actually happens, please turn a blind eye to this post and return to your happy shiny world.
I used to reside there too, I understand.
Can I take you to the place I’ve been living this month? I want to show you a glimpse of what these people have been through and risen back out of. In the early seventies Cambodia was on its way to being one of the most developed and wealthy countries of Southeast Asia. In 1975, ( literally less than 40 years ago) the Khmer Rouge took over and there was a mass evacuation, everyone was forced to the countryside to take on agricultural work. THOUSANDS died during this evacuation.
The Khmer Rouge wanted to transform Cambodia into a rural, classless society in which there were no rich people, no poor people, and no exploitation. To accomplish this, they abolished money, free markets, normal schooling, private property, foreign clothing styles, religious practices, and traditional Khmer culture.
Public schools, pagodas, mosques, churches, universities, shops and government buildings were shut down and turned into prisons & reeducation camps. There was no public or private transportation, no private property, and no non-revolutionary entertainment. Leisure activities were severely restricted. People throughout the country had to wear black traditional revolutionary clothes. In short, these people were completely stripped of basic rights.
Over the course of three years, they executed hundreds of thousands of intellectuals; city residents; minorities and many of their own soldiers and party members, who were accused of being traitors. On top of that - many were held in prisons, where they were detained, interrogated, tortured and executed. The most well known prison in Cambodia, known as S-21, held approximately 14,000 prisoners while in operation. There were only about 12 survivors.
ONLY 12. Out of 14,000. Only 12 survived. Would you be one of them? Would you want to be one of them? Your life has just been radically turned upside down. No one you know is ALIVE anymore. There is barely anyone even your age. 14,000 DEAD, 2000 were children. This number only includes the prisoners at S-21.This doesn't include the 300,000 that the US helped kill when they dropped a half a million bombs on the Cambodian country side.
Even 35 years later they still feel the effects. The Khmer Rouge stopped ALL progress. Cambodia now has the one of the worst health systems in the world. If you need anything serious you have to go to Vietnam or Thailand. The life expectancy here is 61 years. 80% of the population is 30 or younger. 50% are 20 or younger. Can you imagine? 65 yrs or Older make up 3% of the population. (4x less than the US)
That’s unfathomable to me.
God has placed it on my heart to share what I’ve seen. Before coming to Cambodia, I had no idea what had happened here. I get the feeling that maybe some of you are as ignorant as I was about it. Because our history books, somehow conveniently leave this story out. Genocide was just a word.
“To keep you is no gain, to lose you is no loss.”
(Khmer Rouge Slogan)
Tuesday Morning. Your life has been crazy the last couple months. After being evacuated to the countryside, you and your family are whisked away yet again in a large truck with about 100 other people. You arrive in Phnom Penh at a school. Well it used to be a school. There is something more sinister going on here now. Barbed Wire and wood fences everywhere, where children once played and ran around in this courtyard, there are now guards shouting things at you.
You take one look at this big post see that there is man strung up by his hands behind his back with guards poking him and terror seizes your body, you look around and realize your family is gone. The prisoners surrounding you are not your family, you don't dare make a sound because you are stricken with fear.
They place you in a cell that once was a classroom. There are no books, no pencils or students. Just a wrought iron bed with questionable stains underneath. After what feels like hours someone appears at the door and comes in to question you. You have absolutely no idea what he is talking about and you try to make out words but nothing comes and your esophagus is welling up and you can feel tears trying to form. No, you cannot cry. That's grounds for execution.
You use every ounce of strength you have to hold them back and compose yourself and by the grace of God the guard becomes bored with you and has you escorted to your permanent cell. A makeshift 4x2 cell. Not even enough room to lay flat. As soon as you no longer hear the guards foot steps the cries and moans fill the room. There is a tiny hole in the corner of your cell and you can see outside. It's dark. How long have you been here?
You wake up in the morning to a knock on the door and a hard roll is tossed in a tiny slot and then you notice a bowl on the floor that has dirty water, but you're too thirsty to care about the cleanliness of the water. It feels good on your dry throat. After a day or two you can no longer hold your bodily functions in, so you pick a corner. This cycle repeats itself for at least 23 days, you know this because you started keeping track. You have tally marked the wall, you don’t have paint or a pen.. you use the only thing you’ve got.
One day you’re awoken by a bustling outside your cell, everyone is in a frenzy but you don’t know why. You’re blindfolded and guided to what smells like outside and then you’re thrown into a vehicle onto what feels like another human. You are too afraid to speak, you’re too sick to move. Malnutrition and not seeing sunlight for almost a month you are haggard and scared. After about 40 minutes you arrive at a new home, at least that’s what they told you on the ride over.
Immediately you are escorted to an office looking building, where you are asked to admit to your supposed crimes. Such as supporting modern medicine i.e. wearing glasses or something equally non offensive but now illegal by Khmer rule. You were basically signing your death warrant. Those were the lucky ones. The not so lucky were taken to the overflow room where they listened to their most recent neighbors deafening screams through the never ending Campaign Anthem. By the time you are rushed out you know every note.
(the Magic Tree, where they concealed the speakers to play the Revolutionary Music)
Soon you meet the same fate as the ones who went before you. The last thing you see is a pile of dead bodies as you kneel before the mass grave you’re about to be tossed into. Where is God? Why has he let this happen to you? So many thoughts rush through your mind moments before you are mindlessly murdered, by a brainwashed soldier who can’t be older than your young son. Is he the enemy? It doesn’t matter. Your life ends and you disappear into the 15 foot hole in the ground.
(The watery grave that holds hundreds of unexcavated bodies, to this day.)
“Better to kill an innocent by mistake than to spare an enemy by mistake.”
Pol Pot; Khmer Rouge Leader
This event remains one of the worst human tragedies of the 20th century. Nearly two million Cambodians died from diseases due to a lack of medicines and medical services, starvation, execution, or exhaustion from overwork. Tens of thousands were made widows and orphans, and those who lived through the regime were severely traumatized by their experiences. Several hundred thousand fled and became refugees. Millions of mines were laid by the Khmer Rouge and government forces, which have led to thousands of deaths and disabilities since the 1980s. A large proportion of the Cambodian people have mental problems because their family members were lost and their spirits damaged. These factors are one of the major causes of the poverty that covers Cambodia today.
These people have every reason to be mad at the world and yet, we are invited in with open arms. There is something beautiful stirring here. It's hope. I feel it everytime I walk down the stairs into the school, outside on the streets, its there too. God is doing a mighty work here, I can't wait to see what comes of this place in the next 20 or so years.
Please join me in prayer for these greatly oppressed people who are fighting to regenerate years of progress destroyed in a mere three years of Khmer Rouge rule.
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