The American administration has never apologized for its actions in Cambodia. The slaughtered Cambodian villagers, men, women and children, were not asked whether they wanted to be involved in America’s war with Vietnam. They were farmers and traders, living in rural isolation and posing no threat to America or its citizens. Like the 3,000 people who died in the recent World Trade Centre attack, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, the victims of a greater game being played out by people to whom human life means less than their own political agendas. The difference between the 3,000 who died in New York, and the hundreds of thousands killed by American bombs in Cambodia and Laos (not to even mention the three million Vietnamese who died in the Vietnam War- again, mainly civilians) is in the level of international outcry over their deaths.
In the south of Phnom Penh is S-21, the school turned into a prison by Pol Pot. Between 1975 and 1979, up to 100 people a day were brought here, tortured until they confessed to the crimes they were accused of, and then executed. Today, the scared faces of hundreds of men, women and children who died there stare back at you from behind glass cabinets; unlike the American Air Force, the Khmer Rouge were careful to document and photograph the people they killed. In their drive towards creating a socialist utopia, the Khmer Rouge rounded up Phnom Penh’s entire population and forced them out into the countryside. Here they worked as slave labour on work camps, producing food for the republic. Education and family ties were seen as a threat to the regime, so families were systematically broken up; husbands separated from wives and children separated from parents.
It is worth remembering that throughout the Khmer Rouge’s 5 year reign, it was recognized by the UN as a legitimate government, at the behest of Britain and the US. If the politicians of these great powers could plead ignorance at the time, they certainly could not do so after 1979, when the Khmer Rouge’s grip on power was destroyed and the work camps and mass graves were exposed to the world by the journalists allowed back in. Despite this, Britain and America continued to vote for recognition of Pol Pot’s “Democratic Kampuchea” government, now in exile.
Over the next ten years, despite its dire need, Cambodia was denied any development aid from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to help it rebuild. The problem for Cambodians was that they had been liberated by Vietnam, still persona non grata on the international scene for its refusal to bow to a US invasion. Without help from the international community, and with most of its own technicians and engineers slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge (who saw the educated classes as a threat to their rule), it is little wonder that Cambodia today remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with an average income of only $273 a year. By contrast, its next door neighbour, Thailand, has prospered under favoured-nation status of the West.
Cambodia is still one of the most heavily land-mined countries in the world, with thousands of munitions left over from the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent war with Vietnam littering the countryside. Again, Britain and America have played their part, such as by sending specialist forces to train rebel paramilitary groups in military techniques, including the use of landmines, in an effort to destabilize the Vietnamese-backed government during the 1980s.
With little or no resources available for landmine clearance, they remain until stumbled across by locals, often children who are not aware of the dangers. Before setting off on the bike, I was constantly warned not to stray from the main routes, and that if I got stuck anywhere overnight, I should certainly not go wandering off into the bush, even to take a leak.
While in Krache, we got talking to some English and American volunteers who were working at a local landmine rehabilitation clinic. According to one of the aid workers, it is not uncommon for them to receive 10 patients per week, and this is in a small town of a population of about 100,000. Most of these patients come from the surrounding countryside, and it is not hard to imagine that for every one who comes to the clinic, there will be more who do not make it either because they are too isolated, or have simply been killed outright. It is estimated that at least 40,000 Cambodians have suffered amputations because of landmines since 1979 - an average of 40 victims a week for 25 years. In a rural country like Cambodia where infrastructure and record keeping is basic, there is no way of knowing the true human cost.
In every country I visited on my travels through Asia there was the standard backpacker souvenir t-shirt. In India it was tribal or magic mushroom designs on t-shirts from Goa. In Thailand it was the Red Bull and Singha Beer vests. In Vietnam you bought a Ho Chi Minh t-shirt or a hat decorated with the Communist party star. In Cambodia there was a popular vest with a skull-and-cross-bones and “Danger! Landmines!” emblazoned on it. I decided early on that I didn’t want one.
