Seda Douglas posing for a photo at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), in Melbourne. Seda, a survivor of the murderous Khmer Rouge in her native Cambodia, has endured starvation, torture, forced labor and the anguish of losing most of her family in one of the worst genocides of the 20th century.(AFP/File/William West) MELBOURNE (AFP) - Death can't seem to touch Seda Douglas, no matter how hard it tries.
Seda, a survivor of the murderous Khmer Rouge in her native Cambodia, has endured starvation, torture, forced labor and the anguish of losing most of her family in one of the worst genocides of the 20th century.
She succeeded in crossing landmine fields which stood between her and certain freedom at a Thai refugee camp. But even after she started a new life with a husband and career in Melbourne, Australia, she escaped death yet again following her son's difficult birth.
Guilt, however, seems to touch Seda every day of her life.
"I carry guilt all my life," she says, leaning her head gently against the wall of a Japanese restaurant in Melbourne, her long black hair falling over her shoulders.
Her eyes are cast downward as she remembers her father and her five younger siblings who perished under the ultra-Maoist regime during the late 1970s.
"So many of them died. I'm happy here, but sometimes I just want to go back to Cambodia," she says quietly. "I don't believe Australia needs me. If I could do more to help others, I would be happy to do it."
She pauses. Her brown eyes, which have seen too much horror in her 46 years, mist over and tears fall into her lap. "Why did I go to Australia?" she asks, her voice cracking. "Why didn't I stay in Cambodia?"
This guilt helps drive Seda, and many other refugees lucky enough to escape the Khmer Rouge, to dedicate their lives to Khmer communities both in Cambodia and abroad.
As executive radio producer for the Khmer Service at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and as founder of the Save the Cambodian Children Fund, which fights exploitation of Khmer children, Seda does what she can to rebuild the country she left over 20 years ago.
"I've been given a chance to help people who are rotting there," she says. "I wouldn't expect anyone who hasn't been through it to understand what suffering means."
Seda does, and she tries to help others understand it. She has channeled her personal trauma into positive energy, not only in her work at the station and the charity, but also in giving speeches to university students around Australia about her experience.
But by pledging herself to Khmer causes, Seda can't forget the memories that still haunt her after all these years.
"It's something that will never disappear," she says."You have to carry it with you until your last day."
-- 'I decided must survive' --
The nightmare began when the Khmer Rouge toppled the pro-American regime and rolled into Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. Until that point, Seda's family lived comfortably, with her father as a military officer and her mother as a housewife taking care of seven children. Seda, at age 15, was the eldest.
With an extremist vision of an agrarian utopia, the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities and started executing military officers, professionals and educated people.
They ordered people to the countryside, claiming the United States was about to bomb Phnom Penh. Millions spilled into the streets.
"They looked at us like we were their enemies," Seda recalls.
As the dust choked their lungs and the sun burned their skin, the family walked east toward her father's birthplace. The move was a mistake. Seda's father had lied about his background, saying that he was a taxi driver and his children were illiterate.
But the ruse was harder to pull off in his hometown, where people knew who he was.
The family trekked to another village in the west, where Seda, who had just turned 16, was taken from her family and forced to work in a mobile labor camp.
Conditions in the camp were inhumane, as the Khmer Rouge starved their countrymen, giving them only watery gruel. People caught stealing food or catching game for themselves were punished or killed.
"Food became an obsession," Seda says. "You would trade a diamond for a ball of rice."
As she toiled in the rice paddies, each of her younger siblings fell ill.
Five of Seda's siblings died from starvation, and her father disappeared, while her mother struggled to keep herself and her only remaining son alive. Her father, she later learned, died in prison, a victim of the Khmer Rouge's medical experimentation program.
The news reached Seda through other people. She was not allowed to visit her family in the village, and was forced to work without a moment to grieve.
One day, she heard her mother had been injured. Thinking it would be the last time she'd see her mother alive, Seda took a risk -- sneaking away from her unit at night. She was caught and tied to a tree all night so the Khmer Rouge could make an example of her in the morning.
"They tortured me in front of everyone," says Seda, wincing at the memory. "They started beating me and kicking me."
Although she was bruised, bleeding and covered in insect bites, she was left tied up for another night before being cut down. Seda begged for water, but her request fell on deaf ears.
She dragged herself to a rice paddy and heard her father's voice in her head, urging her to stay strong. As she drank the muddy water, her energy returned.
"The agony disappeared," Seda says. "I decided I must survive."
-- 'Everything was like paradise' --
As tragic as Seda's story is, her experiences are shared by millions who fought for survival. While nearly two million lost the battle under the Khmer Rouge, Seda, her mother and her brother got a second chance at life when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979.
"When the Vietnamese came, I decided to return to the village to reunite with my mother and brother," Seda recalls.
"I pretended to be sick as (the Khmer Rouge) mobilized to move toward the Thai border. I knew they would leave anyone who couldn't keep up."
As the unit moved away from the Vietnamese shelling, Seda started walking towards it to get to the village.
"When we were reunited, we cried, and laughed," she says, smiling. "It was the happiest moment for all of us."
Happiness was short-lived, as it gave way to depression whenever they thought of their dead family members. "We felt guilty," Seda says. "So we left that haunted place and made our way to the refugee camp."
To get to the camp, the family had to walk through minefields dotting the Thai-Cambodia border. The trio traced the footprints left by others who managed to cross -- and passed by the remains of those who failed.
When they finally reached the Khao-I-Dang camp in Sakeo province, Thailand, they were given sanctuary by the United Nations. After four long years, they were finally accepted into Australia. The family arrived in Melbourne on May 19, 1983. Seda was 23.
"The smell of the fresh air, the smell of freedom ... everything was so great" she remembers. "We slept on a good mattress for the first time in years, and we had clean water. Everything was like paradise."
Seda and her family settled into the comfort and safety of their new home, but the language barrier and difficulties fitting into Australian culture caught up to them.
To make the best of it, Seda enrolled in a high-school program for adults and learned English. She went on to earn a bachelor's degree in multicultural studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, then became a community healthcare worker.
She got a job in radio at ABC in 1992 and still works there as executive producer of the Khmer service, broadcast throughout Southeast Asia. Seda also made time to receive a master's degree in development studies at Melbourne's Monash University in 2000.
"Time is so precious," Seda says. "I missed so many years I needed to catch up."
-- 'I was given a chance to restart my life' --
Seda leans back in her seat, tired from telling her story.
"There are a lot of people who were left behind," Seda says. "I was given a chance to restart my life. I can use this to do whatever I can to stop this from occurring in the world."
She founded the Save the Cambodian Children Fund in 2003, which serves as the fundraising arm of Cambodia's Health Care Center for Children, which protects and supports sex trafficking victims and children orphaned by AIDS.
Because she lost so many years of her youth in poverty, starvation and despair, she identifies with the people she tries to help by raising money through organizing charity concerts in Australia featuring Cambodian musicians every year.
Her wartime experience, she says, gave her the compassion to reach out to the helpless.
Though her speeches at universities can be emotionally draining, "in a way, it's good therapy," Seda explains. "If I keep telling people and people understand, I feel so much more fulfilled."
She is married to an Australian and has an 18-year-old son, but her work often keeps her out of the house. And although she knows her efforts are meaningful, she still chides herself for being "selfish" in wanting to relax at home.
"I hardly spend time with my family," Seda says. "I have this chance to help other people, and here I am, wanting to be with my family."
Seda has planted roots in Melbourne, but she feels her heart reaching out to her homeland. Even with the upcoming war crimes tribunal to persecute the aging Khmer Rouge leaders, she believes that the money for the trial would be better spent on restoring the country.
"They're spending millions to bring a few people to trial," she explains. "Is it worth it, while other people are starving for food and education?"
She doesn't know yet if she will return to Cambodia, but one thing is certain: she wouldn't be who she is today without the Khmer Rouge.
"If I didn't go through all that, would I achieve this much? I doubt it," Seda says. "I don't want pity. I want to you understand this horrible thing so you can stop the next one from happening."
Seda, a survivor of the murderous Khmer Rouge in her native Cambodia, has endured starvation, torture, forced labor and the anguish of losing most of her family in one of the worst genocides of the 20th century.
She succeeded in crossing landmine fields which stood between her and certain freedom at a Thai refugee camp. But even after she started a new life with a husband and career in Melbourne, Australia, she escaped death yet again following her son's difficult birth.
Guilt, however, seems to touch Seda every day of her life.
"I carry guilt all my life," she says, leaning her head gently against the wall of a Japanese restaurant in Melbourne, her long black hair falling over her shoulders.
Her eyes are cast downward as she remembers her father and her five younger siblings who perished under the ultra-Maoist regime during the late 1970s.
"So many of them died. I'm happy here, but sometimes I just want to go back to Cambodia," she says quietly. "I don't believe Australia needs me. If I could do more to help others, I would be happy to do it."
She pauses. Her brown eyes, which have seen too much horror in her 46 years, mist over and tears fall into her lap. "Why did I go to Australia?" she asks, her voice cracking. "Why didn't I stay in Cambodia?"
This guilt helps drive Seda, and many other refugees lucky enough to escape the Khmer Rouge, to dedicate their lives to Khmer communities both in Cambodia and abroad.
As executive radio producer for the Khmer Service at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and as founder of the Save the Cambodian Children Fund, which fights exploitation of Khmer children, Seda does what she can to rebuild the country she left over 20 years ago.
"I've been given a chance to help people who are rotting there," she says. "I wouldn't expect anyone who hasn't been through it to understand what suffering means."
Seda does, and she tries to help others understand it. She has channeled her personal trauma into positive energy, not only in her work at the station and the charity, but also in giving speeches to university students around Australia about her experience.
But by pledging herself to Khmer causes, Seda can't forget the memories that still haunt her after all these years.
"It's something that will never disappear," she says."You have to carry it with you until your last day."
-- 'I decided must survive' --
The nightmare began when the Khmer Rouge toppled the pro-American regime and rolled into Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. Until that point, Seda's family lived comfortably, with her father as a military officer and her mother as a housewife taking care of seven children. Seda, at age 15, was the eldest.
With an extremist vision of an agrarian utopia, the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities and started executing military officers, professionals and educated people.
They ordered people to the countryside, claiming the United States was about to bomb Phnom Penh. Millions spilled into the streets.
"They looked at us like we were their enemies," Seda recalls.
As the dust choked their lungs and the sun burned their skin, the family walked east toward her father's birthplace. The move was a mistake. Seda's father had lied about his background, saying that he was a taxi driver and his children were illiterate.
But the ruse was harder to pull off in his hometown, where people knew who he was.
The family trekked to another village in the west, where Seda, who had just turned 16, was taken from her family and forced to work in a mobile labor camp.
Conditions in the camp were inhumane, as the Khmer Rouge starved their countrymen, giving them only watery gruel. People caught stealing food or catching game for themselves were punished or killed.
"Food became an obsession," Seda says. "You would trade a diamond for a ball of rice."
As she toiled in the rice paddies, each of her younger siblings fell ill.
Five of Seda's siblings died from starvation, and her father disappeared, while her mother struggled to keep herself and her only remaining son alive. Her father, she later learned, died in prison, a victim of the Khmer Rouge's medical experimentation program.
The news reached Seda through other people. She was not allowed to visit her family in the village, and was forced to work without a moment to grieve.
One day, she heard her mother had been injured. Thinking it would be the last time she'd see her mother alive, Seda took a risk -- sneaking away from her unit at night. She was caught and tied to a tree all night so the Khmer Rouge could make an example of her in the morning.
"They tortured me in front of everyone," says Seda, wincing at the memory. "They started beating me and kicking me."
Although she was bruised, bleeding and covered in insect bites, she was left tied up for another night before being cut down. Seda begged for water, but her request fell on deaf ears.
She dragged herself to a rice paddy and heard her father's voice in her head, urging her to stay strong. As she drank the muddy water, her energy returned.
"The agony disappeared," Seda says. "I decided I must survive."
-- 'Everything was like paradise' --
As tragic as Seda's story is, her experiences are shared by millions who fought for survival. While nearly two million lost the battle under the Khmer Rouge, Seda, her mother and her brother got a second chance at life when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979.
"When the Vietnamese came, I decided to return to the village to reunite with my mother and brother," Seda recalls.
"I pretended to be sick as (the Khmer Rouge) mobilized to move toward the Thai border. I knew they would leave anyone who couldn't keep up."
As the unit moved away from the Vietnamese shelling, Seda started walking towards it to get to the village.
"When we were reunited, we cried, and laughed," she says, smiling. "It was the happiest moment for all of us."
Happiness was short-lived, as it gave way to depression whenever they thought of their dead family members. "We felt guilty," Seda says. "So we left that haunted place and made our way to the refugee camp."
To get to the camp, the family had to walk through minefields dotting the Thai-Cambodia border. The trio traced the footprints left by others who managed to cross -- and passed by the remains of those who failed.
When they finally reached the Khao-I-Dang camp in Sakeo province, Thailand, they were given sanctuary by the United Nations. After four long years, they were finally accepted into Australia. The family arrived in Melbourne on May 19, 1983. Seda was 23.
"The smell of the fresh air, the smell of freedom ... everything was so great" she remembers. "We slept on a good mattress for the first time in years, and we had clean water. Everything was like paradise."
Seda and her family settled into the comfort and safety of their new home, but the language barrier and difficulties fitting into Australian culture caught up to them.
To make the best of it, Seda enrolled in a high-school program for adults and learned English. She went on to earn a bachelor's degree in multicultural studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, then became a community healthcare worker.
She got a job in radio at ABC in 1992 and still works there as executive producer of the Khmer service, broadcast throughout Southeast Asia. Seda also made time to receive a master's degree in development studies at Melbourne's Monash University in 2000.
"Time is so precious," Seda says. "I missed so many years I needed to catch up."
-- 'I was given a chance to restart my life' --
Seda leans back in her seat, tired from telling her story.
"There are a lot of people who were left behind," Seda says. "I was given a chance to restart my life. I can use this to do whatever I can to stop this from occurring in the world."
She founded the Save the Cambodian Children Fund in 2003, which serves as the fundraising arm of Cambodia's Health Care Center for Children, which protects and supports sex trafficking victims and children orphaned by AIDS.
Because she lost so many years of her youth in poverty, starvation and despair, she identifies with the people she tries to help by raising money through organizing charity concerts in Australia featuring Cambodian musicians every year.
Her wartime experience, she says, gave her the compassion to reach out to the helpless.
Though her speeches at universities can be emotionally draining, "in a way, it's good therapy," Seda explains. "If I keep telling people and people understand, I feel so much more fulfilled."
She is married to an Australian and has an 18-year-old son, but her work often keeps her out of the house. And although she knows her efforts are meaningful, she still chides herself for being "selfish" in wanting to relax at home.
"I hardly spend time with my family," Seda says. "I have this chance to help other people, and here I am, wanting to be with my family."
Seda has planted roots in Melbourne, but she feels her heart reaching out to her homeland. Even with the upcoming war crimes tribunal to persecute the aging Khmer Rouge leaders, she believes that the money for the trial would be better spent on restoring the country.
"They're spending millions to bring a few people to trial," she explains. "Is it worth it, while other people are starving for food and education?"
She doesn't know yet if she will return to Cambodia, but one thing is certain: she wouldn't be who she is today without the Khmer Rouge.
"If I didn't go through all that, would I achieve this much? I doubt it," Seda says. "I don't want pity. I want to you understand this horrible thing so you can stop the next one from happening."
3 comments:
It is a fallacy to use the legacy of the Khmer Rouge to justify and abuse it for personal and politcal purposes. Hun Sen uses it as a barometre for anything he has achieved including asking Khmers to pay him in votes for life. It is just absurd !!! When will we be able to lay the so-called Khmer Rough issue to rest and move further? !!!
Only you can disgrace your family.Not easily to forget the trauma and injustice.
Imbecile, if you have no gut to stand up then go upyours in the kitchen and leave those victims alone,you hear!
How dare you!
Go kick some ass Ong Sang SuChhy. And when you get there don't be an ass.
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