Our Revenge will be the Laughter of our Children

"Our Revenge will be the Laughter of our Children" was first coined by an Irish republican however it could have almost been written by the Cambodians. Suddenly our simple travel updates have taken on a new edge and after what we have learnt in Phnom Penh, we feel a responsibility to the Cambodians who suffered at the hands of the Khmer Rouge - Pol Pot's regime from 1975-1979. If, like us, you are unaware of one of the biggest human tragedies of last century that actually happened within most of our lifetimes (if you are over 26), then you will be as stunned, disgusted and saddened as we were by the history.

After a long civil war fought between the (largely corrupt) Government of the time and the communist organisation, Khmer Rouge, the latter gained victory. It was the following day that their brutal intent became clear: create a purely agrarian society through 'purification' of the existing Cambodian population. Possessing an education, working as professionals, being handicapped, ill or even wearing glasses was considered a crime and a threat to a communist agrarian society, so out of fear from rebellion they murdered 2,000,000 people. Men, women and children. Many of the murdered were tortured, particularly ex-Government officials, and families were separated as they were forced to work from morning until night in hard labour camps. Mass extermination programmes existed against a backdrop of starvation, disease and malnutrition.

The displays at Tuol Sleng, a school turned into the S21 prison camp where of 17,000 inmates only 3 survived, showed the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. Original torture instruments still haunt the rooms with photographs of the people in pain during their use. Old blood patches that have stained the floor serve as a reminder that all this was horribly real. Photographs or 'mug shots' as the Khmer Rouge called them line the rooms, row after row and 1000's upon 1000's of people before they were taken to the killing fields, faces full of fear and defiance, hatred and resignation.

The killing fields 15km outside Phnom Penh still have the deep holes which were once the site of mass burials - 17,000 men, women and children died in total. The skulls piled five metres high are heart-wrenching and are all that is left of the broken bodies that once filled the fields. The beautiful rice paddies, water buffaloes and sparkling lake that today form the backdrop make it hard to ever imagine terrified people blindfolded, forced to kneel, bludgeoned to death and then buried, sometimes alive, under the next victims.

The Khmer Rouge were eventually overthrown by the Vietnamese but Pol Pot was never brought to justice, eventually cheating the Cambodian people of both answers and justice when he died in 1998. Every Cambodian has been effected by the period and even the young motorbike drivers who took us to the museum shared some horrific tales that their city-based family had suffered. Even now, some cannot speak of the experience.

Possessing the knowledge of the atrocity that occurred here is only compounded by the fact that it is happening again in Rwanda. Only with the awareness of these experiences can we learn from them and influence a world that closes it's ears to the cries of help. The knowledge gives us the chance to influence people in power to be motivated by humanitarian issues and not by political agenda.

Today, the Cambodian people are healing physically, mentally and economically: they smile and joke, work and play, but the sweetest sound is hearing the children laugh.

* For further information and to read accounts from people who survived the Khmer Rouge era, we can recommend 'First they killed my Father' written by Loung Ung and 'When broken glass floats' by Canrithy Him. Both are harrowing but well written and a page-turning read.