Cambodians remember victims of 'Killing Fields'

[DonViejo]

Source: Reuters


Thu May 18, 2017 | 2:15pm EDT

Hundreds of people gathered at one of Cambodia's most notorious "Killing Fields" on Thursday to remember victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide of at least 1.8 million Cambodians in the 1970s.

Most of the victims died of starvation, torture, exhaustion or disease in labor camps or were bludgeoned to death during mass executions. At Choeung Ek, some 15 km (9 miles) from the Cambodian capital, heavy rains to this day wash fragments of bone and scraps of the victims' clothing from mass graves.

A tower of skulls and bones stands at the center of a memorial to an era in which hardly any Cambodian family was spared losses. "I offer this food through the monks to those who were killed and I ask them to wish us and the country good luck and that there will be no more fighting or killing in the future," said 59-year-old Keo Oun at the memorial.

The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The Day of Remembrance, once known as the "Day of Hatred", is usually held on May 20 but was brought forward this year due to local election campaigning.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-rouge-idUSKCN18E102?il=0

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[IronLionZion]

2. Khmer Rouge didn't like educated professionals, intellectuals, artists, minorities,

and anyone else who got too uppity and needed to be put in their place. Strong preference for rural people and belief that urban people were bad. Make Cambodia Great Again. Sounds very familiar throughout history...

[StevieM]

4. They even targeted people who wore glasses. (eom)

[IronLionZion]

5. Reading too many books ruins eyesight

[NotMyFuhrer]

3. International Court is feeble, stagnant, and seemingly powerless

We need to find better ways to embolden and put life into international justice. No?

Why does it take decades to bring to justice the evil warlords and brutal beasts that perpetrate these types of atrocities?

We have PICTURES of over 11,000 bodies (ie: corpses) that show torture at the hands of Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad and his henchmen! WHY NOT DO SOMETHING ABOUT BRINGING THEM to justice!?

Not to mention . . . as to what is going on . . . RIGHT NOW in other parts of the world!

Child soldiers being routinely used in some parts of Africa, Asian slave labor horrors, then find out what is really going on in Central and South America . . . for a start.

The more the likes of Idi Amin Dada get away with it . . . the more people in power will think like Stalin famously said . . . “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic”!




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[Stuart G]

6. I met someone who lost his father by the Khmer Rouge.

He and his mother jumped out the back window as they came in and killed his father..