exhilarating to do it. So after the Killing fields, we headed to the shooting range. It was well known so there was no problem going there. It was past the airport which I found looking deserted by the way and near a military base. I guess when we arrived, the people over the place were surprised to see three girls looking for guns to shoot and they keep on suggesting for me to use the M-16 which I refused since I already used it in Cu Chi Vietnam. I guess the guy wasn't convinced at all looking at me who doesn't look like I can shoot. So of course I got the same handgun that I used in Vientiane after being told that they don't have the guns that I wanted. And Mitch and ayEffa got their AK 47 and M-16. Well, it was more expensive than Laos and Vietnam but we shot anyway. They even have hand grenades and rocket launchers if you want but no we sticked to our guns.
After blasting away the paper target, we headed off to S-21 or Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The facade looks like my high school and it was actually a school before it was turned into a prison. There were three three floor buildings arranged in a U shaped form with a small building in the middle. The first building housed the offices and the rooms for the VIP prisoners and of course the torture rooms. The VIP prisoners are of course not given special treatment but I think they were the previous government officers and important intellectuals. The rooms were actually typical classrooms with some desks still preserved which were probably used for the reeducation lectures. They even have chalkboards up until today.
Near the next building are the gallows.
The next building had the classrooms divided into smaller cells to accommodate prisoners. The divisions were actually poorly done and a man can easily break through it. But when you are just given one meal a day with mostly water, I don't think anyone can have the strength to do anything at all.
And the last building housed the thousands of pictures of all those who died and there is one common thing. Everyone faced the camera expressionless and with hands bound behind their backs. It also shows pictures of tortured people dying or dead. You can see pictures with faces, staring eyes open, with froth coming out from the mouth and nose. A bloated body obviously dead for how many days, naked and twisted. And to read the biographies of the people who caused such things. They were all educated overseas in very good universities. Sometimes, we ask what could they be thinking to do the so called cleansing. Killing innocent people, children, common people. Had they ever thought of what good should it come from it. Had they ever thought that it could be possible or impossible in this world. We get a lot of these things in the news and it just leads to innocent people being involved and losing everything they have without knowing the reason. It is scary to think that brilliant minds can do such horrors too.
Probably, some of the lower rank officers who carried out the orders were just plain ignorant of things. But the question again is "Don't they have any conscience at all?" Probably fear. The questions are endless but I hope nothing like this will happen again because it ended up with neighbors and relatives against each other.
And how ironic it was that a bat landed in front of me at the last building in S-21.
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