Friday, March 30, 2007By Stéphanie Gée
Cambodge Soir
Unofficial Translation from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read Cambodge Soir’s original article in French
Ung Daravichet Chai found herself separated from her daughter with the arrival of the Khmer Rouge. In France, she waited with anguish and powerlessness. The reunion took place eventually, but since then, she chases after an impossible redemption.
Ung Daravichet Chai was not able to remain with her loved ones –her compatriots, and most of all, Soma, her daughter – during Pol Pot’s dark era. However, she was able to shout to let the whole world know about the tragedy which took place in her kingdom. It was thus that she presented herself at the start of the interview, it was as if she had to start with an apology. All her actions seem to be directed by a desire to rid herself of a feeling of guilt which she knows that she could never rid herself off. To appease her conscience, she wrote a book, published by the Éditions du Rocher (France) last November: Soma, Angkar’s child – in the Khmer Rouge apocalypse. People will say that this is nothing more than another testimonial of these dark years, however to her, it was a duty she must fulfill for the younger Cambodian generations, and more precisely for her daughter whom she left behind with the family of her in-law before leaving to France, to join her husband, then studying there through a scholarship, and their two sons. In 1975, they were supposed to be all reunited again, the parents, the two sons and the youngest daughter. But, the reunification trip never took place, Cambodia’s entrance doors were brutally closed.
In Soma, Angkar’s child, the 58-year-old mother, narrates the story of her loved ones through notes and testimonials she recorded from the survivors. She offers a story with held back emotion – in stark contrast to the passionate woman which was revealed during this interview – using words she jotted down some twenty years back. “At that time, so many things were written on this topic that I preferred waiting. And two years ago, I pull out the manuscript from the drawer, I felt the urge to do that.” Using a fluid style, she described the Cambodian people’s ordeal through the daily life of her relatives, and through the pages, she provides an account filled with numerous and precise details on the Khmer culture.
In a refugee camp in Thailand, Ung Daravichet Chai found the trace of Soma, her daughter, to whom, by-then, the birthmother was just a stranger. To avoid Soma the fate of those whom the Angkar felt are “useless mouths” to feed, her family kept quiet about her real parents in France, instead they made the child, as well as the Khmer Rouge, believe that her young aunt was her mother. Following moving reunions, Soma along with her long silence of a traumatized little girl, slowly integrated into her new home in France. Although she was surrounded by family love, the mother-daughter bonding was never wholesome between the two. Now an adult, Soma accepted that her mother publish this testimonial. “When she read the first few lines, she couldn’t hold back her tears. She couldn’t go any further, it was her friend who had to read it instead. Even after the book was published, she couldn’t open it. She tries to escape too painful memories…,” Soma’s bruised-heart mother said. Unlike her daughter, Ung Daravichet Chai could speak with an open heart, never concealing any painful or sensitive subject, while she excused herself when her emotion took the best of her.
During the separation years, Ung Daravichet Chai and her husband lived in anguish, they carried with them the feeling of powerlessness, and they were reduced to live like robots. Their two sons prevented them from becoming caught by madness. During that time, the couple was involved with and sent money to the freedom fighters of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front.
“I couldn’t talk in my book about the cruelties inflicted by the Khmer Rouge, and I apologize to the victims…,” she busted suddenly – again that urge to apologize. “Several of the victims said that it was their karma (fate)… It was because of that also that they could survive.” Even though words came out her mouth, her feelings are all mixed up as the memories flood back, all jumbled up. “I remember that in 1954, my mother told me not to go outside because I risk being kidnapped by strangers. That’s how the Khmer Rouge were recruiting… Ignorance is a disease that leads to everything … How can all this happen? We must seek for the truth, we must understand why so that history does not repeat itself again.”
With her eyes fixed on the future, Ung Daravichet Chai pounded: “the Cambodian people need at least a recognition of the crimes which they were the victims of.” “Without a trial, the spirit of the deceased will never find peace,” she added while assuring that “100% of Cambodian people in France want more than anything else this tribunal, for the sake of national reconciliation, and to have a disciplined society.” “When someone kills, that person must be judged, otherwise, we are not worth more than animals, otherwise, impunity becomes the norm!” She explains that with her book, she wanted to show how far a totalitarian illusion could lead to, but that she also insisted in praising a civilization which must be preserved. “Without education and moral, what’s the use of the infrastructures in a society? In Phnom Penh, I saw progress coming down too fast, buildings are growing like mushrooms, but on the human side, it’s decadence,” she deplores before confiding that her dearest wish was to see her book translated into Khmer. “Hatred must not be transmitted from one generation to the next,” deplored the former under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Education between 1997 and 1998.
Ung Dravichet Chai, whose father was an architect and several times former minister under the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, could not cut all her links with Cambodia to which she claims that she is ready to wholeheartedly serve, but she could not decide to return back to live definitively. “It’s no longer the country I knew, but I am still attached to this land.” She asked her children not to forget this homeland. Her veterinary son formed the Yaboum Ba NGO which is dedicated to the protection of biodiversity, and Ung Daravichet Chai is the NGO representative in Asia. “The profits from the book sale are handed entirely to the association (NGO),” she felt compelled to say, as if to underscore her total indifference to financial issues. It is as if to say that whatever she is doing would go to benefit Cambodia in one way or another.
Ung Daravichet Chai was not able to remain with her loved ones –her compatriots, and most of all, Soma, her daughter – during Pol Pot’s dark era. However, she was able to shout to let the whole world know about the tragedy which took place in her kingdom. It was thus that she presented herself at the start of the interview, it was as if she had to start with an apology. All her actions seem to be directed by a desire to rid herself of a feeling of guilt which she knows that she could never rid herself off. To appease her conscience, she wrote a book, published by the Éditions du Rocher (France) last November: Soma, Angkar’s child – in the Khmer Rouge apocalypse. People will say that this is nothing more than another testimonial of these dark years, however to her, it was a duty she must fulfill for the younger Cambodian generations, and more precisely for her daughter whom she left behind with the family of her in-law before leaving to France, to join her husband, then studying there through a scholarship, and their two sons. In 1975, they were supposed to be all reunited again, the parents, the two sons and the youngest daughter. But, the reunification trip never took place, Cambodia’s entrance doors were brutally closed.
In Soma, Angkar’s child, the 58-year-old mother, narrates the story of her loved ones through notes and testimonials she recorded from the survivors. She offers a story with held back emotion – in stark contrast to the passionate woman which was revealed during this interview – using words she jotted down some twenty years back. “At that time, so many things were written on this topic that I preferred waiting. And two years ago, I pull out the manuscript from the drawer, I felt the urge to do that.” Using a fluid style, she described the Cambodian people’s ordeal through the daily life of her relatives, and through the pages, she provides an account filled with numerous and precise details on the Khmer culture.
In a refugee camp in Thailand, Ung Daravichet Chai found the trace of Soma, her daughter, to whom, by-then, the birthmother was just a stranger. To avoid Soma the fate of those whom the Angkar felt are “useless mouths” to feed, her family kept quiet about her real parents in France, instead they made the child, as well as the Khmer Rouge, believe that her young aunt was her mother. Following moving reunions, Soma along with her long silence of a traumatized little girl, slowly integrated into her new home in France. Although she was surrounded by family love, the mother-daughter bonding was never wholesome between the two. Now an adult, Soma accepted that her mother publish this testimonial. “When she read the first few lines, she couldn’t hold back her tears. She couldn’t go any further, it was her friend who had to read it instead. Even after the book was published, she couldn’t open it. She tries to escape too painful memories…,” Soma’s bruised-heart mother said. Unlike her daughter, Ung Daravichet Chai could speak with an open heart, never concealing any painful or sensitive subject, while she excused herself when her emotion took the best of her.
During the separation years, Ung Daravichet Chai and her husband lived in anguish, they carried with them the feeling of powerlessness, and they were reduced to live like robots. Their two sons prevented them from becoming caught by madness. During that time, the couple was involved with and sent money to the freedom fighters of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front.
“I couldn’t talk in my book about the cruelties inflicted by the Khmer Rouge, and I apologize to the victims…,” she busted suddenly – again that urge to apologize. “Several of the victims said that it was their karma (fate)… It was because of that also that they could survive.” Even though words came out her mouth, her feelings are all mixed up as the memories flood back, all jumbled up. “I remember that in 1954, my mother told me not to go outside because I risk being kidnapped by strangers. That’s how the Khmer Rouge were recruiting… Ignorance is a disease that leads to everything … How can all this happen? We must seek for the truth, we must understand why so that history does not repeat itself again.”
With her eyes fixed on the future, Ung Daravichet Chai pounded: “the Cambodian people need at least a recognition of the crimes which they were the victims of.” “Without a trial, the spirit of the deceased will never find peace,” she added while assuring that “100% of Cambodian people in France want more than anything else this tribunal, for the sake of national reconciliation, and to have a disciplined society.” “When someone kills, that person must be judged, otherwise, we are not worth more than animals, otherwise, impunity becomes the norm!” She explains that with her book, she wanted to show how far a totalitarian illusion could lead to, but that she also insisted in praising a civilization which must be preserved. “Without education and moral, what’s the use of the infrastructures in a society? In Phnom Penh, I saw progress coming down too fast, buildings are growing like mushrooms, but on the human side, it’s decadence,” she deplores before confiding that her dearest wish was to see her book translated into Khmer. “Hatred must not be transmitted from one generation to the next,” deplored the former under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Education between 1997 and 1998.
Ung Dravichet Chai, whose father was an architect and several times former minister under the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, could not cut all her links with Cambodia to which she claims that she is ready to wholeheartedly serve, but she could not decide to return back to live definitively. “It’s no longer the country I knew, but I am still attached to this land.” She asked her children not to forget this homeland. Her veterinary son formed the Yaboum Ba NGO which is dedicated to the protection of biodiversity, and Ung Daravichet Chai is the NGO representative in Asia. “The profits from the book sale are handed entirely to the association (NGO),” she felt compelled to say, as if to underscore her total indifference to financial issues. It is as if to say that whatever she is doing would go to benefit Cambodia in one way or another.
2 comments:
There was no Khmer Rouge in 1954 , stupid bitch.
To 8:33AM
ahahahahahahha!
Have you done your research carefully? I wouldn't call her a stupid bitch if I were you!
Uncle Ho started his Indochina Communist Party since the 1920! Many of the old fart hardcore Khmer Rouge communists have a direction connection from Indochina Communist Party!!! Thank to the Vietcong that why AH HUN SEN Vietcong slave former Khmer Rouge is in power!!!!
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