Khmer Rouge survivors recall horrors to young Cambodians

[geovalin]

For nearly five years in the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge conducted a reign of terror across Cambodia, killing at least 1.7 million people. Almost half a century later, as the trial of the regime’s last living leader concludes, traumatized survivors are trying to stem fading awareness about the horrors they endured.

Norng Chan Phal, a survivor of Cambodia’s notorious Tuol Sleng prison.

Norng Chan Phal, 53, is one of the few survivors of Cambodia’s notorious Tuol Sleng prison. He was just 9 years old when he and his family were locked up in the one-time school that served as a torture and execution center for those purged by the Khmer Rouge. More than 10,000 people died there.

Skulls left from Pol Pot’s regime.

"They started torturing my mother by kicking and punching her," he recalls. "She was kicked in the back and had her head slammed into a desk, which broke her teeth. Blood gushed from her mouth. I clung to my mother, but they beat her up again."

He and his mother were then placed in separate cells. One day he caught a glimpse of her from the courtyard. It was the last time he would ever see her. Both of his parents were executed.

The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

A final trial

For more than 13 years, Norng Chan Phal has been watching as those responsible for the Khmer Rouge’s crimes stood trial. A special tribunal, established with the backing of the United Nations, prosecuted former members for the genocide that wiped out a fifth of the country’s population.

 

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