Meeting a Survivor of Tuol Sleng S-21 Prison.

"Pol Pot declared 'Year Zero' when Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. He immediately directed a ruthless program to "purify" Cambodian society of capitalism, Western culture, religion and all foreign influences. He wanted to create Cambodia into an isolated and totally self-sufficient state. Anyone who opposed were killed. Foreigners were expelled, embassies closed, and the currency abolished. Markets, schools, newspapers, religious practices and private property were forbidden. Members of the Lon Nol government, public servants, police, military officers, teachers, ethnic Vietnamese, Christian clergy, Muslim leaders, members of the Cham Muslim minority, members of the middle-class and the educated were identified and executed."

Pol Pot blew up banks, destroyed Temples, and turned schools into prison camps. Tuol Sleng was once a school full of students to become a tourture chamber for local people. Of the 14,000 people known to have entered, only seven survived. After our tour of the prison, now a genocide museum, we were lucky enough to actually meet one of the survivors, Bou Meng, who was there signing his book about his survival! He says he hated Pol Pots regime but ironically it was painting pictures of Pol Pot that ultimately saved his life. He was appointed to become one of his portrait artist. Previous artists had failed to impress and were also killed.