Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison

During the reign of the Khmer Rouge S-21 was used as the prison, interrogation center, and finally, the place of execution for several thousand Cambodians who were suspected of counter revolutionary activity.

Chandler shows that the mania of the Khmer Rouge leadership could not differentiate between the truth and made up stories under torture. One example of this gross misconception of reality within in the minds of the Khmer Rouge leadership is the fact that people were thrown into S-21 and executed on grounds of counter revolutionary activity simply because they had broken farming equipment, thereby tried to hinder the outcome of the 4 year plan for the agricultural sector!

Chandler also manages to draw interesting parallells between the Nazi KZs and Stalin's terror in the 1930's, and the Chinese cultural revolution in the 60's. He shows that some ingredients of terror are always there, no matter if it happens in Treblinka, Moscow, the country side of China, or in the killing fields of Cambodia.

Chandler's book is more than just a story of an awful prison in Cambodia. It is about the mechanisms that make some humans commit unspeakable acts(apparently by their own free will) against their fellow human beings, simply because of a belief in a political ideology!

A must read for people interested in the thoughts and methods behind the slaughter of millions of people in communist and faschist countries in the 20th century!


Not what I expected from the title   January 27, 2001
David P Schick (Bloomington, IL United States)
29 out of 34 found this review helpful

The title "Voices from S-21" suggests that Chandler's book will contain interviews/narrative from the prisoners held at the infamous Cambodian santebal. There is very little in the book detailing any one individual's personal experience (understandably, since only a handful survived). The book is extremely well-researched (45 of the total pages are footnotes) and I found it a dry read. Gets into theory of the prison's existence and why the interrogators carried out their orders with such detachment. However there is very little by way of firsthand accounts of what went on, if that's what you're expecting from the book.


Superb work   January 14, 2000
Enigma (Washington area)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful

David Chandler, a well-known historian of Cambodia, has penned a superb work. As an historian of Southeast Asia, I am acutely aware that most works on the region only appeal to a specialized audience. This work, limpidly written, is different. It is a powerful witness to one of the great disasters of the twentieth century: the deaths of approximately 1.7 million Cambodians under Khmer Rouge rule. The work draws on a wide range of scholarship, ranging from studies of the Holocaust to those on Stalin's terror. But what makes this work compelling is that Chandler zeroes in on one place -- S-21, or the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, where the Khmer Rouge interrogated, tortured, then killed suspected enemies of the state. Drawing on the mass of forced confessions recorded by the prison interrogators, this book takes us into the terror of Khmer Rouge rule. A powerful, disquieting book that will "appeal," if that is the word, not simply to specialists on Cambodia but to a wide range of persons troubled by humankinds propensity to engage in acts of terror and brutality.


It haunts you long after you have finished reading   March 15, 2000
Walt Sunderman (Montgomery, AL)
12 out of 14 found this review helpful

An extraordinary view into the secret prison of the Democratic Kampuchean (DK) government of Cambodia (1975-79). This well researched book by a renowned historian provides the reader with an in-context look at the horrors of Pol Pot's regime and the consequences of his paranoia of "hidden enemies". Dr. Chandler's poignant use of confessions forced from unfortunate and often innocent victims paints a grizzly portrait of power without constraints. It mattered not that neither interrogators nor prisoners knew what crimes had been committed, it was merely enough they had been arrested and sent to S-21, therefore they were guilty. With their de facto "guilt" established, it was the interrogators job to obtain a proper confession of these unknown, but treasonous, crimes. With or without a confession, there was only one verdict-death. Dr. Chandler has woven extracts from these confessions, interviews from the hand full of S-21 survivors, prison workers, and senior DK cadre, including Pol Pot, and a comparative analysis of other similar atrocities from the 20th Century into a balanced, historically valid picture of the horrid activities that took place at S-21. This work will be useful text for any person interested in Southeast Asian history or human rights issues.


Terrified and terrifying   December 24, 2003
Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

Prof. Chandler gives us a remarkably deep analysis of Pol Pot's secret prison S-21, which within the autogenocide of the Cambodian people stands out as a haunting symbol. It reflected the unlimited paranoia of Angkar and its schizophrenic regime that 'was at once terrified and terrifying, omnipotent and continually under threat'.
All family members (women, children and BABIES) of the condemned were slaughtered. Only 7 of the 14000 inmates survived.

As prof. Chandler remarks chillingly: 'a reign of terror and continuous revolution requires a continuous supply of enemies.'
There were no limits. As one of the interrogators rightly asked: 'If Angkar arrests everybody, who will be left to make a revolution?'

The same subject has been treated by Ben Kiernan in his book 'The Pol Pot regime'. But whereas Ben Kiernan sees racism as the main motive behind the murderous regime, prof. Chandler digs far deeper and concludes clinically that 'the real truth behind S-21 is to be found in ourselves'!
Indeed, the S-21 experience is not unique in the 20th century with its Nazi camps, communist show trials, Indonesian, Rwandan and Bosnian mass killings, Argentinean tortures ...
He remarks also that the Cambodian regime was an imported phenomenon. The Khmer leaders were all recruited and educated by the Stalinist French PC in the 1950s.

This nearly unbearable book should be read as a reminder that 'ordinary people can commit demonic acts' (R. F. Lifton).
David Chandler is not afraid to say 'how things really are' (L. Betzig).

A terrifying book about a terrifying experience.