_Tom Morris, assistant. editor
of the Canadian Tribune, re-
Ports first-hand what he found
on a recent extensive tour of
Indochina. He spoke to and
photographed
many walks of life on the back
roads and big cities as he
travelled to the northern border
of Vietnam (Lang Son, de-
stroyed by the Chinese); south
to Ho Chi Minh City and envi-

puchea, including the capital
Phnom Penh, were he found
the deep scars of the inhuman
Pol Pot regime. He looked at
the horror, but also at the hope
expressed by the people.
based on their own abilities

‘TOM MORRIS VISITS _
A DEVASTATED LAND
_ STRUGGLING TO REBUILD

people from.

rons; to- Laos; and to Kam-.

the first of Tom Morris’ reports

and the help of their friends. _- about the reality of Kampuchea
. Here, in words and photos, is today. yi
Former Cambodian dictator Pol rectly or by implication, they have
~ Pot appeared on television footage _ accused the new government of re-
_ from ‘‘somewhere in Cambodia” _ sponsibility for the situation there.
just two days afterIreturnedfrom_ - soi aad
that country. The film showed him From April, 1975 until January,
smiling and reports him saying 1979 Kampuchea endured a .
that “‘only a few thousand persons —_ holocaust — a Maoist experiment
were killed by mistake” under his conducted with such brutality, -
regime. such precision that three million
Other Western press beforeand humans were butchered, a
during my visitto Phnom Penh re- _ centuries-old culture smashed

ported that Kampuchean officials
have denied access to relief sup-
plies, are driving thousands of per-
sons to Thailand. Rosalynn Carter
was photographed with a Kam-
puchean baby and various other
Western leaders have come from
refugee camps in neighboring
Thailand with horrendous stories
of death and starvation. Either di-

and an economy dismantled. Pol
Pot, Ieng Sary and the Khmer
Rouge were the instrument. But
the ideological and material bac-
Kers were the Maoist leaders in
Peking.

Phnom Penh might well be one
of the most beautiful cities in
Asia. Its broad streets, the
Mekong riverside, its parks and

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NO ASSES RMB pts

A street in downtown Phnom Penh.
Utilities are resumed, the marketplace

pagodas are a blend of lightness
and efficiency.

It has been a ghost city for 48
months and today, at best esti-
mates, some 20-30,000 people
have returmed, a mere trickle, but
giving the streets once again a
sense of life. Of Kampuchea’s
former 7.5 million inhabitants,
some 4.5 million remain, the rest
dead and scattered. There are 50
professors left; 207 high school
teachers, 69 medical doctors, 121
artists, 30 persons who speak a
foreign language.

A kilo of rice, the currency of
the land, will buy a kilo of fish.

The country’s constitution is
being written, thousands of or-
phans fed and placed in schools
just starting to function. Aid is ar-
riving from many quarters
particularly from the socialist
community. Cargo ships and
barges ply the Mekong from Ho
Chi Minh City -in neighboring
Vietnam to Phnom Penh off.
loading food, medicines, machin-
ery and other needed supplies.
The USSR has sent 159,000 tons
of food so far, Vietnam 120,000
tons.

Newly acquired trucks are dis-
tributing supplies (the Maoists

Life slowly returns to the once-

deserted city of 1.5-million people
restored after four years of terr : aaa

smashed the transport sat
right down to bicycles). Med!
centres are opening, as
schools. We spoke to the DU
Red Cross, unloading supplies
Pochentong airport, who tolé ¥
100,000 tons of food a week W&
coming in and being moved
We spoke to Kampucheé
thorities who said the remné
Pol Pot’s troops are being pus!
north and are being aided by 14
land and China in the vain BOE
they may again take power. —
When asked about charges #
Kampuchea was hindering relie
efforts from outside these official!

PHNOM PENH — It is swel-

tering as we bump.over the back _

road toward the former high
school. Along the way, through
the residential area of fine old
houses now deserted, each of us
is lost in his own thoughts.

Our group is composed of
about 15 journalists from as many
countries. We are only minutes
away from what we dreaded, but
knew we had to see. Stories about
the Toul Sleng extermination
camp discovered after the fall of
Pol Pot were familiar news, but
seeing it in all its horror would be
a painful and sobering morning.

The three buildings are marked
“A”, “B” and “‘C’’. Today, al-
most a year later, a sign hangs
over the barbed wire and metal
gate. It was not there before, the
school having been turned into a

prison in August, 1975 by Pol
Pot’s Ministry of the Interior and
National Security.

More than 20,000 people were
brutally murdered here between
August, 1975 and January, 1979.
At liberation, only eight
emaciated and battered persons
were found alive among the de-
bris, the dead and the shocking
sights in every room.

Social standing,-sex, profession
or beliefs were no barrier to the
agents, guards and torturers.
They died in their thousands,
many illiterate, bewildered and
not understanding why. Patriots

of the liberation struggle saa

persons without any politi
ideas as victims. Age meant no-
thing — the old and young killed
as one.

Buildings ‘‘B’’ and ‘‘C’’ were

FOR SLEKa exe

i

-
pascts
a

lron and barbed wire gates

lead you inside Pol Pot’s extermination

camp on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

prisons housing people in tiny,
hastilly-built cells. Building ‘‘C’’
is strung with wire mesh to pre-
vent prisoners committing
suicide. The three together form a
large courtyard.

We begin at building ‘‘B’’,

. walking under the shadow of a

noose hanging from a makeshift
crossbar where victims were
hanged in sight of other prisoners.
Moving along a connected bal-
cony we glance through iron bars
into cells barely large enough fora
person to lie in. These were
former classrooms which had
been roughly divided into 10-12
cells each. Iron shackles are
screwed into the floors; each
hovel contains a small mat, tin
box for a toilet and nothing else.

Prisoners were forbidden to
speak or make any noise, despite

The cells are just big enough to
lie down in.

They died in their thousands

intense suffering. One room in the
large building with a single cold
water tap served as a shower. No
one was untied even for this pur-
pose.

I step inside one cell and stoop
to examine someone’s name
scratched into the brick wall. It

. Must have taken days, and I won-

der who this-person was, what he
or she looked like, what happened
to them...
The group files through
numbed. We barely hear the
voice of our guide. It is as if the
mind is automatically shutting out
his words. ‘‘On May 27, 1978 they
killed 582 ... a diplomat was
housed in this cell ... six Ameri-
can and two Australians died here
--."’ We plod on. Each of the
three floors is the same.
, Out now into the blinding sun-

witho it

shine, past the scaffold and int
building ‘‘A’’. And if the §

were not enough, this place !S
nightmare. Every room here Wa
used for interrogation. Each has®
iron frame bed, no mattress
where people were questioned
Torture instruments lay around
the air is foul. Someone vomits

The group is silent. It seem
wrong to be here where peopl
died in such agony. We feel liki
voyeurs, like we are stepping
graves. ‘‘Someone important Wa
killed here,’’ the guide’s volt
says, ‘‘look, there’s a tent wher
guard lay all night in case the p'
oner revealled something in
sleep ...””

Another room, another bed.
This one with a shovel used te
batter the victim to death. A Te

\

Torture beds and instruments. Each
is scribbled instructions for the victims.

room is a nightmare. On the wall

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