The Battambang Killing Cave

Battambang Hill

I recently visited Battambang on a tour with the other volunteers. There is a hill nearby which gives a good view over the countryside which generally is very flat. We were conveyed up the hill to a temple on 19 motorcycles - 1 each. The view from these few, isolated hills was great. 

Battambang

The Killing Cave

Near the top of the hill is a cave into which we walked a short distance. It is called The Killing Cave. There are still an unknown number, possibly thousands, of bodies from the Pol Pot era in it. These people were taken to the cave so that the locals wouldn't hear their screams as they were killed, their bodies dumped at the bottom of the cave so that they couldn't be smelled. 

Entrance to Killing Cave

Apparently, the authorities are slowly trying to identify the bodies but there is no oxygen down there and the stench is unbearable. According to Wikipedia, during the reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (17 April 1975 to 7 January 1979) an unknown number of people were killed. Pol Pot’s government forced urban dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labour projects. The combined effects of executions, forced labour, malnutrition, and poor medical care caused the deaths of approximately 25 percent of the Cambodian population of about 8 million in 3 years and 8 months. Modern research has located 20,000 mass graves from the Khmer Rouge era all over Cambodia. Various studies have estimated the death toll at between 740,000 and 3,000,000, most commonly between 1.4 million and 2.2 million, with perhaps half of those deaths being due to executions, and the rest from starvation and disease. 

Into the Killing Cave

A day or two later a Khmer colleague sitting at the next desk said to me that before Deb, who also works in the same office, and I arrived he thought he was clever and knowledgeable. He told me the Managing Director, Kemsour had picked him to be his assistant because of these attributes. He said he now he realises that he doesn’t know as much as he thought - certainly in comparison to Deb and me. That's what he said, honest. I said to him that he is a victim of the Khmer Rouge - all the Khmer people like me, who perhaps could be considered experienced and knowledgeable, were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Therefore, there is nobody to teach, coach and mentor, nobody to act as a role model and nobody to guide and counsel the younger generation. I was lucky to come from a relatively affluent family in a stable, advanced country, was able to travel widely from a young age, I went to a private school and had a privileged upbringing. At the end of the Khmer Rouge regime there were 6 doctors and 24 teachers in the whole of Cambodia. My family would have been wiped out because Pol Pot believed to kill grass one had to kill the roots which meant killing grandparents, parents, children and babies. I also told him that I am double his age which also gives me an advantage in the experience area!