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MAGIC TREE
The word ‘Magic Tree’ seems like be funny because
of the genocidal crimes that were committed with it. In fact, the tree itself is
called “Deum Jarey” (the Latin name is Ficus Bengalensis). But this term is
invented by Suon Sovann , advisor to the Center and the name implies a trick
played by the killers at Choeung Ek Killing Field.
Secrecy was central to the security
system of Democratic Kampuchea. At S-21, units were not permitted to
associate with each other and all subordinates who had spouses
working elsewhere in the city were sent to work in the prison to
avoid any leaks. It was possible that the prisoners had been brought
from all over the country, and they never know they were in the
capital. They arrived at night with blindfolded and that was how
they left. The prisoners trucked out to be killed in Choeung Ek were
carried out at night, about 7 to 8 o’clock. They all were
blindfolded and their hands were bound behind their backs to make
sure that no one know to where they had been taken and they get know
only that they would go to another place.
The Magic Tree (Chhrey
Tree)
There is one reference to an
incidence of a prisoner escaping from one of the prisons in the city
was found at the prison:” Secrecy was broken. The secrecy we had
maintained for the last three to four months has been pierced. If
there is no secrecy then there can be no Santebal (police), the term
has since lost its meaning...if they were to escape they would talk
about their confessions. The secrecy of the Santebal would be broken
at exactly the point where it must not be broken” (Chandler 1999:16)
At that time there was no people living at Choeung
Ek. There were only soldiers from 703 division growing rice to support S-21.
Kong San, an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier of 703 division, recalled that at the time
he has grown rice near Cheung Ek, when the wind blew strongly, sometime he smelt
a stench. But he thought that it was just the stench of decomposing dead pet.
After the Khmer Rouge regime was toppled, he found out that Choeung Ek as the
Killing Field (From winner to self- destruction 2000: 142).
To ensure that
the secrecy of killing people at Choeung Ek was kept, during
the execution process, the killers played revolutionary songs on a
recorder by two loudspeakers hung on the Jarey tree to drown out the
cries and moans of the prisoners being killed. This was the smart
trick played by the merciless killers to prevent the noise of
killing victims from leaking out to soldiers growing rice nearby the
Killing field.
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