Heart of Darkness - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Cambodia is a country that was at war as recently as 30 years ago, having been dragged into the Vietnam War in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the Americans and the South Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia to root out the North Vietnamese and their communist allies. The country was plunged into a savage conflict which ended with the surrender of the Cambodian army and the fall of Phnom Penh to the Communist Party of Kampuchea (the Khmer Rouge) in April 1975. Saigon fell 2 weeks later.

What followed was one of the most shocking genocidal regimes in history. I first became aware of this regime when i watched the film 'The Killing fields' in my early twenties, which to this day remains one of my favourite and most moving films of all time :

The Killing Fields (1984)

If you haven't seen this film, i would recommend watching it....

The Khmer Rouge, headed by 'Pol Pot' called it 'Year Zero' and imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society. Cities were emptied of people and city dwellers were conscripted together with peasants in the country side in forced agricultural labour. The capital, Phnom Penh was deserted. Currency, hospitals,schools and religion were abolished. Intellectuals and those with higher education, business people, those who could speak foreign languages, Cambodian Goverment Army officers, artists, foreigners, Buddhist monks, ethnic groups and some of their own ranks (in later years) were systematically tortured and executed. Whole families linked to these victims including children and infants were also executed so there would be no future repercussions to the party. 'What is rotten must be removed' was one of their slogans.
It is estimated 2 - 3 million people (or a fifth of the population) died as a direct result of Khmer Rouge policies. It is also estimated (but less widely reported) that around 250,000 women were forced to marry Khmer Rouge soldiers and rape was widespread.

Finally in 1979, tired of border skirmishes, the North Vietnamese Army and the remnants of the Cambodian Army toppled the Khmer rouge and drove them into the western jungles near the Thai border. A rush of former city dwellers back to the cities from the country-side to see whether their relatives had survived led to a failed harvest and starvation which killed hundreds of thousands more. Despite the despicable nature of their genocidal policies they were supported by the Thais and US via the CIA for many years afterwards.

Apparently, there is no one in Phnom Penh who had not lost at least one relative during the Khmer Rouge's reign. The more and more I learnt about this period, the more i was amazed at how elements within such a warm and gentle society could commit such barbaric crimes.

Pol Pot's death from natural causes in 1988 robbed his victims of justice.

Perhaps the most famous night club in Phnom Penh is called the 'Heart of Darkness' (to which i later went). It takes its name from the book by Joseph Conrad and is the same book upon which the film 'Apocalypse Now' was based. It's about an ivory trader who travels into the depths of the Congo wilderness to seek out another trader called 'Kurtz'.
Among other things, 'Darkness' in the title refers to 'the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil'......