BrightPhnomPenhlives withshadowsofpast

• Published date: 10 October 2023
• Publication title: Ensign, The

I recently visited Cambodia’s capital as part a magnificent float along the Mekong from Ho Chi Minh City

There’s no sugar-coating the horrors of history — the Cambodian capital’s shine was egregiously scarred by the ravages of the Khmer Rouge regime. Forty years on, Phnom Penh aspires to be as electric as Bangkok, with swanky new developments and the hip, edgy design boom revving up the city centre’s allure. Eye-catching skyscrapers extravagantly reframe the skyline in all directions.

Come nightfall, Phnom Penh is one of the most illuminated cities in Asia, radiantly aglow in the city’s insatiable obsession with playful, escapist light shows.

But the shameful shadow of Pol Pot and his abominable regime is a stain that cannot be airbrushed away — or joyfully dressed up in fairy lights. The past bastardry is still central to the city narrative. Remarkably, when the Khmer Rouge grabbed power, it forced most of its three million residents into the countryside, a part of its grand vision for a classless agrarian society. Today, Phnom Penh resembles a city of startling contrasts, from extreme poverty to ostentatious wealth.

It’s a city gripped by entrenched state corruption and the reaffirming kindness of locals you meet. Virtually everyone I chatted to was scathing of Cambodia’s slavish dependence on China. Nearly 50% of their public debt is owed to China and more ‘‘debt trap’’ loans are in the works.

Phnom Penh is a city where the streets have no name — merely numbers. The legacy of the Khmer Rouge looms large as one of the central reasons to visit the city and to reflect on history’s epic horrors, dipping into the darkest corners of the country’s traumatised past. It’s an unvarnished, gut-wrenching experience.

I visited one of Cambodia’s biggest Killing Fields. Under Pol Pot’s maniacal rule from 1975 to 1979, roughly a quarter of Cambodia’s population was murdered, the genocide of roughly two million people. Tens of thousands of Khmer Rouge prisoners who had been tortured at the infamous S-21 prison were then taken just out of town to the Choeung Ek extermination camp, which was previously a Chinese cemetery and longan orchard. Prisoners would arrive blindfolded, unaware of the brutality that was about to unfold.

Our guide pointed out the tree named the Killing Tree, which is where children would be beaten to death. Another tree has been named the Music Tree. The Khmer Rouge executioners would hang speakers from the tree and blast out loud music to drown out...