The Killing Fields

Before i watched Hotel Rwanda, people told me to prepare myself, that it'll be hair-raising and gory and stuff. true enough, it was. but i liked the movie, though very long, because it's the kind of movie where you say "shit" a lot of times. shit because it's too... uhm, disturbing to be true, shit because you realize IT IS reality, shit because of the many people who got killed and hurt by this... shit because you want to jump in the screen and save the people... shit because the movie got into me. yes, i like Hotel Rwanda.


but today in social psych class, we watched THE KILLING FIELDS.

it's a true story at one point in time in Cambodia. I didn't even know that Cambodia experienced Genocide. Under the regime of communist leader, Khmer Rouge (gar and i thought it was just the way maam pronounced it. comer or something. so it's true. haha) from 1975-1979, 200,000 lives were taken. i didn't understand the movie until maam intal gave us the facts, because we skipped a lot of parts (we didn't have time to finish the whole movie). It's about the story of a Dr. Dith Pran, survivor of the killing fields. The man in the photo above is Haing Ngor, the actor who played Dr. Dith Pran in the movie. He himself was a survivor too.

There's a website on the Killing Fields (no not the movie) : www.killingfieldsmuseum.com

What confused me at first was that those who were enslaving and killing the Cambodians were those who looked like Cambodians themselves. And according to the facts, yes, it's true that they were also Cambodians. Why would you want to kill your own race?! The Cambodian Genocide by the Cambodians. It's a one big FAIL. I cannot imagine Filipinos trying to hurt other Filipinos. Sorry if i sound too patriotic, but that's like hurting your own brothers and sisters. (wooh patriotic!) My logic is that in times of war, we come together as one Filipino nation and fight for our rights, RIGHT? i cannot believe that THAT has happened to Cambodia. and it's just really sad.

here's a video on The Killing Fields. a combination of some scenes from the movie. some of my favorites are in this video too. let the video load first, continue reading this entry, and then go back to the video. HEHE

TO ADD TO THAT, these Cambodian guerillas/terrorists were teaching the little kids to be terrorists too. Like there was a scene where the adult terrorist was teaching a class and he called a kid to the board. (of course, it was in their language so we didn't understand) the kid went up to the picture on the board, and drew an X over it. The picture was that of a family. and he cut off the line that looked like the parent and the child were holding hands. sad noh? there were some scenes where the children were hitting the adult slaves too. (i don't know what to call them) THAT'S JUST SAD. THAT'S AN AWFUL CHILDHOOD. imagine how many hitlers and khmer rouges you could raise.

there's also this scene where it was time to eat for the workers/slaves... the were lined up like prisoners asking for food (well they really were), and then rain started to pour. they weren't even in a sheltered place. they sat in the mud, and ate rained rice. WAH. i didn't want to eat after i saw that. check 0:43 in the video, that's the scene.

i couldn't find a video, but my favorite scene was when Dith Pran was escaping from the site... he trekked down a small pathway and fell into a pool of mud. Then he realized, the pool of mud was full of skulls, skeletons, decaying flesh of people and torn clothes and stuff. He looked around, and it was full of the same stuff. birds eating flesh... bodies that are still half in the flesh and half bony. creepyshit. update: OH OH I FOUND IT. CHECK OUT 1:56 in the same video.


a few blogs ago, i mentioned about me being a human rights advocate. HAHA. but seriously. i don't think violence is something human. i cannot think of any reason why people would be motivated to hurt innocent people. Power is just a selfish thing, Greed is plain evil, what else. Not unless you have an anti-social personality disorder (like most serial killers) i'd understand where you're coming from. But. HITLER was an educated man. he doesn't even drink or smoke, or gamble!

oh get this, as i was looking Khmer Rouge up, he didn't only execute and torture people, he starved them to death!!!! HOW CAN SOMEONE!!!!! ARGH. frustrated. Here's more: "In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, outlawing all religions, confiscating all private property and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labor was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into "Old People" through agricultural labor. These actions resulted in massive deaths through executions, work exhaustion, illness, and starvation."

even more frustrated. it's just tooooooooo stupid, too disturbing, too evil to be true. when they were children, weren't they taught that the devil would get them if they told lies and did bad things and stuff?!?! because when i was a child i was so afraid i'd burn in hell!!! didn't Stalin, Hitler, or Bush think of that?! if war and terrorism did not exist, we wouldn't really need soldiers you know. these soldiers won't have to leave their families and die in battle. we wouldn't waste hundreds and millions of money for weapons and stuff, and spend it to prevent poverty and illiteracy instead.

me being the optimist, i sometimes think that genocide is a way to solve overpopulation, that satisfaction of the IDs of our rulers will keep them psychollogically sane, that maybe poverty, corruption and war exists so that we'd know the difference and appreciate what's better, so that the world wouldn't be perfect and we'd all strive for this perfection.

but killing people, starving them to death, hitting them, separating them from their families or teaching their kids to be evil.

IS JUST PLAIN EVIL.

i can go on and on about human rights violation. but i will leave it here, for you, reader, to ponder on.

thinking of getting a job at unicef or something.
watch killing fields. SEND BUSH a copy!