In order to rapidly contextualise the situation in Cambodia at the time of the rise of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge), it is necessary to understand the main axes of the Vietnam War and the general West-East confrontation of the Cold War. "Viet Cong" and communist countries are trying to expand their influence and they will find major allies in neighbouring Cambodia. They will therefore finance the development and weaponisation of a group of individuals carried by Maoist ideas developed during studies of Leninist, Stalinist and Marxist texts in France.
As the guerrilla organization became increasingly serious and spread across the border territories of northern Vietnam, its leaders decided to march to the capital Phnom Penh and impose their ideology on all Cambodian people, despite the official support of the US military for the political regime then in place.
After gaining power, Khmer Rouge leaders rushed to hunt down and eliminate anyone who might compromise their plans.
In this sense, government members, public servants, artists, and all urban dwellers are prime targets in the face of the economic and philosophical model advocated by the leaders of the movement who judge only by agriculture, equality, and the absence of any private good. The systematic arrest of these "intellectuals" seems inevitable. However, arrest goes hand in hand with incarceration. Having emptied the cities of its inhabitants by sending them to work the land, the Khmer Rouge have a wide choice of buildings to lock up these possible opponents. The best known prison today is Tuol Sleng (S-21) in Phnom Penh, the capital, which was used as a high school before the general deportation. This former high school is the only place where many traces of the genocide perpetrated by the regime could be found and provided information essential to the work of historians.
In this school, which is now open to visitors, we are first struck by the small size of the cells which have been erected with brick inside the classrooms. The presence of the material of the time provided to prisoners is also disturbing. These men, women or children were tied to the building by a chain around their feet and were prohibited from communicating with each other. American ammunition boxes were converted into a sort of chamber pot that the guards had to dispose of regularly in order to limit the pestilential odours.
However, the detention was only temporary. The prisoners were actually present for the purpose of creating personal files and proving their guilt and thus justifying their conviction. To do this, a team of interviewers was present and used very unconventional methods to achieve their ends. Various methods of torture have been practised, ranging from drowning in a bath sometimes filled with droppings to dismemberment or dismemberment. These techniques also allowed prison interrogators to retrieve names of accomplices or allies that could harm the regime. The prison was then able to receive new occupants, who were forcibly denounced, and practised the same punishments against them.
The short time between these crimes today is one of the most terrifying elements. Seven men were able to leave this prison alive when Vietnam liberated Cambodia on 7 January 1979, and three of them are still willing to talk about it. More than that, these men are even in this museum prison every day to share their experiences with visitors. The fact that they have never really left this place and that their current lives are financially dependent on it remains very disturbing.
Thousands of portraits such as these of young Khmer found in the files of the prison officer (Douch) strike both by their numbers and by the trivialisation of the "work" of murder carried out and the machination of the system orchestrated by Douch and his officers.
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