No trip to Cambodia is complete without a visit to the horrors of Pol Pot and his horrendous torture chambers. The homicidal maniac killed millions in his killing fields and ran a regime of terror, murder and torture.
Security Prison 21 was just one of these terrible places.
Walking around looking at the shackles, implements of torture and painting and photographs one is left with a bewildering set of emotions – horror, disgust, disbelief, sadness, fury. It’s not a nice cocktail.
Walking past the photographs of stacks of skulls leaves one wondering how. How did this regime adopt such horrendous policies? How did everyone join in to carry out such atrocities? What is wrong with people? How did this start? How did a political philosophy become corrupted to become a tyranny? How could human beings do such horrendous things? How could anyone believe that this was OK?
At the end of our tour we met a guy who was a survivor of the camp and bought a small book that was his memoir. He’d witnessed the depravity. All such a short while before.
People are capable of such madness. How can these triggers be initiated?
We see it around the world today – the victims often become the perpetrators. It starts with a group regarding another group as subhuman.
