The orchard of longans, the becalmed water in the reservoir, the seasonally-neglected rice paddies, shaggy tamarinds and midday bleat of insects belie the burden of grief that lies below the soil at Choeung Ek Killing Fields. Like so many visitors to Cambodia I’ve been drawn to this site, 20 kilometres south of Phnom Penh, by a desire to wrap my credulity around the facts of genocide.
On this day of hot placid magnitude I cannot fathom what the audio guide tells me: that fragments of bone and teeth rise from the earth here from time to time, testifying to the presence of mass graves – lives ended in terror: children, mothers, civil servants, students, professors, farmers, diplomats, party cadres. Gone. Whole families. Gone. The systematic extermination of life.
Voices of survivors and ex-Khmer Rouge cadres lisp plaintively from the black box around my neck. The audio tour is a forceful document: Khmer Rouge propaganda songs; an epic lament in strings (‘A Memory of Darkness’ by Him Sophy); tales of rape, hard labour, and the abandonment of hope.
permaculture traveller 