Genocide, Cambodia

Skulls arranged by age and sex, Killing Fields, Choeung Ek, Cambodia — March 18, 2004

Murdered victims of the Khmer Rouge, Tuol Sleng, Cambodia — March 18, 2004

Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot’s leadership, systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians (21% of the country’s population) in a brutal bid to turn Cambodia into a Maoist, peasant-dominated agrarian cooperative. The educated and wealthy in particular were targeted. Currency was abolished, postal services were halted, the population became a work force of slave labourers and the country was almost entirely cut off from the outside world.

These photos show remnants of these brutals years. What were you doing in 1978?

Murdered victims of the Khmer Rouge, Tuol Sleng, Cambodia — March 18, 2004

Cells, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia — March 18, 2004

Mass graves, Killing Fields, Choeung Ek, Cambodia — March 18, 2004

I wrote a song about this experience