Tuol Sleng as a Prison
In English, the word "Tuol Sleng" is recognized as the location where the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime, more commonly known as the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime, set up a prison to detain individuals accused of opposing Angkar. However, in the Khmer language, the word "Tuol Sleng" connotes a terrible meaning in itself. It is perhaps only a strange coincidence that the KR regime used this specific location as a prison.
According to the Khmer dictionary published by the Khmer Buddhist Institute in 1967, the word "Tuol" is a noun. It means the ground that is higher in level than that around it. The world "Sleng" can be a noun and also an adjective. When the world "Sleng" functions as an adjective, it means, "supplying guilt" (del aoy tos) or "bearing poison" (del noam aoy mean toas) or "enemy of disease" (del chea sat-trov ning rok). As a noun, "Sleng" means the two kinds of indigenous Khmer poisonous trees. The first kind is "Sleng Thom" or Big Sleng that has a big trunk, leaves, and fruit. The second type is "Sleng Vour" or Sleng Vine which is shaped almost like a vine with small fruit. They are both poisonous. Therefore, from the above translation we can see that Toul Sleng literally means a poisonous hill or a place on a mound to keep those who bear or supply guilt (toward Angkar).
According to documents discovered by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, S-21 was established at Tuol Sleng in May 1976.
S-21 or Tuol Sleng was the most secret organ of the KR regime. S-21 stands for "Security Office 21." S-21 was Angkar's premier security institution, specifically designed for the interrogation and extermination of anti-Angkar elements.
In 1962, S-21 was a high school called "Ponhea Yet" High School, named after a royal ancestor of King Norodom Sihanouk. During the Lon Nol regime, a republican regime backed by the US government in the 1970s, the name was changed to Tuol Svay Prey High School. Behind the school fence, there were two wooden buildings with thatched roofs. These buildings were constructed before 1970 as a primary school. Today all of these buildings are called "Tuol Sleng" and form part of the museum of genocidal crimes.
S-21, located in Tuol Svay Prey sub-district, south of Phnom Penh, covers an area of 600 x 400 meters. During the KR regime it was enclosed by two folds of corrugated iron sheets, all covered with dense, electrified barbed wire, to prevent anyone from escaping the prison. Houses around the four school buildings were used as administration, interrogation and torture offices.
Other branches of S-21 were located elsewhere. One was S-21 (kor), which was located in Ta Khmao provincial town in Kandal province south of Phnom Pehn; another was S-21 (khor) located at Prey Sar (a colonial era prison), west of Phnom Penh, in Dang Kore District, Kandal province. S-21 (khor) was also known as Office 24 and was used as a re-education camp not only for KR military Division 170, but also for all kinds of people including staff members of S-21, who were accused of minor crimes. S-21 (khor) was responsible for producing agricultural supplies for the S-21 complex.
All the classrooms of Tuol Sleng high school were converted into prison cells. All the windows were enclosed by iron bars, and covered with tangled barbed wire to prevent possible escape by prisoners. The classrooms on the ground floor were divided into small cells, 0.8 x 2 meters each, designed for single prisoners. The rooms on the top floors of the four buildings, each measuring 8 x 6 meters, were used as mass prison cells. On the middle floors of these buildings, cells were built to hold female prisoners.
At first, the interrogations were conducted in the houses around the prison. However, because women taken to the interrogation rooms were often raped by the interrogators, in 1978 the chief of the S-21, a former teacher named Kang Kek Ieu alias Comrade Duch, decided to convert Building B for use as an interrogation office, as this made it easier to control the interrogation process.
The Security office and its branches were under the authority of the Central Committee and the KR Minister of Defense, Comrade Son Sen alias Khieu, who appointed Comrade Duch to head the S-21 system. Comrade Duch was born as Kang Kek Ieu in Sho Yok village, Chine Thbong sub-district, Kampong Thom province. He was a mathematics teacher before he joined the Khmer Rouge.
According to Cambodia Scholar, David Chandler, Kang Kek Ieu won a scholarship to Lycee Sisowath in the late 1950s, and taught briefly in his specialty: mathematics in Kampong Thom province with Comrade Mom Nay alias Chan before going to Pedagogique, where he fell under the spell of some Chinese students sent from China to learn Khmer. Kang Kek Ieu also taught his speciality in Kampong Cham province briefly before being arrested as a Communist in 1965. After being released, he seemed to have disappeared into the woods.
The Research Committee on Genocide of the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) reported in 1983 that in order to maintain security and to manage all the activities in S-21 prison and its branches, in 1976 the KR regime employed a large staff divided into 4 units responsible for S-21, S-21 (ka), S-21 (kor) and S-21 (khor). The units were:
A. Internal workforce ..........141
B. Office personnel ..........1,148
C. Interrogation units ............54
D. General workers ..........1,377
The number of workers in the S-21 complex totaled 1,720. Most of the "general workers" were under confinement at Prey Sar.
Within each unit, there were several sub-units composed of male and female children ranging from 10-15 years of age. These young children were trained and selected by the KR regime to work as guards at S-21. Most of them started out as normal before growing increasingly evil. They were exceptionally cruel and disrespectful toward the prisoners and their elders.
There were two management offices. One was Duch's office and the other was his office for interrogation, documentation and general administration. Ill or injured prisoners were treated by paramedics in their respective cells. Treatment was available three times per day. There were no hospital services inside the prison. The medical personnel were untrained and mostly children.
The victims in the prion were taken from all parts of the country and from all walks of life. They were of different nationalities and included Vietnamese, Laotians, Thai, Indians, Pakistanis, British, Americans, Canadians, new Zealanders, and Australians, but the vast majority were Cambodians. The civilian prisoners composed of workers, farmers, engineers, technicians, intellectuals, professors, teachers, students, and even ministers and diplomats. Moreover, whole families of the prisoners, from the bottom on up, including their newly born babies, were taken there en masse to be exterminated.
According to the KR reports found at Tuol Sleng Archive, the influx and outflux of prisoners from 1975 - June 1978 were recorded on lists. Some documents have disappeared. One report estimated the number of prisons as follows:
1975 .........................154 prisoners
1976 ......................2,250 prisoners
1977 ......................2,330 prisoners
1978 ......................5,765 prisoners
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| The guide, a baby of 3 when the Khmer first rolled into the capitol, points to a board of the Khmer Rouge youth who were responsible for carrying out the torture in Tuol Sleng S-21. |
The reports show that in 1977 and 1978, the prison on average held between 1,200 and 1,500 prisoners at any time. The duration of imprisonment ranged from 2-4 months, although some important political prisoners were held between 6-7 months.
The prisoners were kept in their respective small cells and shackled with chains fixed to the walls or the concrete floors. Prisoners held in the large mass cells had one or both of their legs shackled to short or long pieces of iron bar. The short iron bar was about 0.8 meters up to 1 meter long and was designed for 4 prisoners. Prisoners were fixed to the iron bar on alternative sides, so they had to sleep with their heads in opposite directions.
Before the prisoners were placed in the cells they were photographed, and detailed biographies of their childhood up to the dates of their arrests were recorded. Then they were stripped to their underwear. Everything was taken away from them. The prisoners slept directly on the floors without any mats, mosquito nets or blankets.
Every morning at 4:30am, all prisoners were told to removed their shorts, down to the ankles, for inspection by prison staff. Then they were told to do some physical exercise just by moving their hands and legs up and down for half an hour, even though their legs remained restrained by the iron bars. The prison staff inspected the prisoners 4 times per day; sometimes the inspection unit from the security office made a special check over the prisoners. During each inspection, the prisoners had to put their arms behind their backs and at the same time raise their legs so that the guards could check wither or not the shackles were loose. If loose, the shackles were replaced. The prisoners had to defecate into small iron buckets and urinate into small plastic buckets kept in their cells. They were required to ask for permission from the prison guards in advance of relieving themselves; otherwise, they were beaten or they received 20-60 strokes with a whip as punishment. In each cell, the regulations were posted on small pieces of black board. The regulations read as follows"
1. You must answer accordingly to my questions. Do not turn them away.
2. Do not try to hide the facts by making pretexts of this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Do not be a fool for you are a chap who dares to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Do not tell me either about your immoralities or the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification, you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing. Sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
8. Do not make pretexts about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor [sic].
9. If you do not follow all the above rules, you shall get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations, you shall get ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
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| When I heard my camera click on this picture, I suddenly felt sick and wondered what kind of a person I am to take such a picture of horror. In the commemorative stupa is a large collection of skulls - from the victims of Tuol Sleng. In the barbed-wire enclosed compound, people walking around will see bones jutting from the ground from mass burials. The museum curators do not collect the bones that people find but leave them there, and when a very large number has washed up, they are collected and interred somewhere. The bones keep washing up ... and it's eery to know that you are walking on bones that you're not seeing ... |
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| ... or to see chickens scratching among the sufacing bones .... |
The prisoners were required to abide by all the regulations. To do anything, even to alter their positions while trying to sleep, the inmates had first to ask permission from the prison guards. Anyone breaching these rules was severely beaten. Prisoners were bathed by being rounded up into a collective room where a tube of running water was placed through the window to splash water on them for a short time. Bathing was irregular, allowed only once very two or three days, and sometimes once a fortnight. Unhygienic living conditions caused the prisoners to become infected with diseases like skin rashes and various other diseases. There was no medicine for treatment.
Tuol Sleng as a Museum
In the wake of the renovation following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, Tuol Sleng, opened as a museum of the atrocities of the genocide. In the 1980s, most visitors were local people, whereas foreign visitors were principally from certain socialist countries like Vietnam, the Soviet Union, Laos, Hungary, Poland and others from the Eastern bloc. Since the 1993 election and the establishment of the Kingdom of Cambodia, most of the visitors to Tuol Sleng Museum have come mainly from Taiwan, Japan, Germany, Korea, the United States, and other non-communist countries. About 50 people (statistics from the early 2000s) visit the museum a day to witness the horrors or a regime without humanism or conscience.
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