Killing Fields - Day 11

Today I woke up and we had breakfast at our hotels little restaurant outside on the sidewalk near the street. Our hotel is very simple and right downtown Phnom Penh. The sounds, sights, and smells of the city surround us even in our rooms. 

After breakfast we traveled out to S-21, or better known as "The Killing Station".  Our tour guide was a lady who as a child escaped from the Khemer Rouge into Vietnam. Her father, sister, and brother were all killed before she and her mother escaped. Very powerful personal testimony. 

Touring the rooms where people were tortured and held for months on end was very heavy. Blood stains were still seen, pictures from when the prison was captured by Vietnamese soldiers that found bodies dead. It is almost too much to type out. There were many survivors from S-21, most of the time they escaped when taken to the killing fields to be executed - but most did not come forward to tell their stories, or simply did not live very long after.

7 reported survivors were rescued and 2 of them are still living. The two men were actually at S-21 selling their books, paintings, and conducting special Q/A. Both men had smiling faces, so impressive that they can return, their mission - to tell the stories for the future generations. 

On the third floor of one of the buildings was an exhibit from Japan, Okinawa has a similar tragic story. Near the end of World War II the Japanese held out and would not surrender. Even after bombing so heavily the landscape was changed, the Japanese soldiers would rather commit suicide than surrender. The soldiers also forced the villagers to remain hidden, starving them to death, and in many instances "eliminating them" before the Americans came. If people tried to run out to surrender the Japanese imperial soldiers would fire on their own people. This resembles the tragic actions of the Khemer rouge, who rounded up people, not based on race but on class or education. Even later they made trumped up charges and would execute mindlessly. The brutality is now on record in both the S-21 museum and a special World Peace and Human Rights center in Okinawa, Japan. The point is that we cannot forget the horrendous crimes committed, we must remember so as to not allow this to happen again!

Lunch was a good break from the intensity. We went to a great Mexican restaurant, and it actually was real Mexican taste. The chips were made from hand made flour tortillas and it was air conditioned in the restaurant! They even had fritos pie!!!

After lunch we drove out to the killing fields. There we saw depressions in the ground where the mass graves had been and were uncovered. In the center of the area was a tower full of skulls that were found there. Around the building was a pathway to walk and read about the killing fields. At several spots there was a sign about the clothing that was collected. It said "the victims clothes have been cleaned and stored here to keep on." This powerful phrase, "to keep on", means so much! I think they might mean to translate it "keep on remembering" the loss, but I actually think the simple "keep on" means that we have our memory of what happened, and we have to "keep on" living. Tragedy may come but we must push on and remember who we are and who we belong to.

Seeing what the Khemer Rouge did to its people and seeing also what the current government allows makes me remember a Psalm I memorized part of:

Psalm 58:1-11 NIV

Do you rulers indeed speak justly? Do you judge people with equity? [2] No, in your heart you devise injustice, and your hands mete out violence on the earth. [3] Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward, spreading lies. [4] Their venom is like the venom of a snake, like that of a cobra that has stopped its ears, [5] that will not heed the tune of the charmer, however skillful the enchanter may be. [6] Break the teeth in their mouths, O God; Lord, tear out the fangs of those lions! [7] Let them vanish like water that flows away; when they draw the bow, let their arrows fall short. [8] May they be like a slug that melts away as it moves along, like a stillborn child that never sees the sun. [9] Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns---whether they be green or dry---the wicked will be swept away. [10] The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they dip their feet in the blood of the wicked. [11] Then people will say, “Surely the righteous still are rewarded; surely there is a God who judges the earth.”

May the God of peace bring you peace through the Name of Jesus and the in dwelling of the Holy Spirit!