From left, Hongly Khuy, Patrick Keo, Cambo Khem and Than Neuov are some of the survivors of Khmer Rouge killing fields who fled Cambodia and settled in Hawai'i. Many lost numerous family members. (Photo: JEFF WIDENER | The Honolulu Advertiser)Sunday, October 21, 2007
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Honolulu Advertiser (Hawaii)
Click here to view the photo gallery: Cambodia's Trials
Click here to view the video: Remembering Cambodia's killing fields
Click here to view the video: Remembering Cambodia's killing fields
There was no hope in the killing fields of Cambodia, no protein to eat and — to Patrick Keo — certainly no God.
But there was killing and dying all around and the constant fear that anyone could be next.
"You would lie awake at night and wonder when you would be killed," said Keo, who is now a 49-year-old accountant in Kane'ohe.
"No way there was a God."
The nightmares and flashbacks have long passed for survivors from the bloody, four-year reign of the Khmer Rouge.
But three decades later, a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia is bringing renewed attention to the atrocities inflicted on people like Keo, whose father and a sister died at the hands of the Communist-backed Khmer Rouge.
Just after the United States evacuated Vietnam in defeat in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge began exterminating at least 1.7 million of its own people — more than the entire 1.2 million population of Hawai'i.
In 2000, Hawai'i was home to 330 people who claimed at least partial Cambodian ancestry — 235 of them on O'ahu, according to state population records.
They found new lives and new hope in Hawai'i, raised families and have become part of the backdrop of Island society.
But even after the 1984 Academy Award-winning movie "The Killing Fields" awakened the Western world to the deaths and murders, Americans for the most part remain unaware of the greatest genocide since the Nazi Holocaust, said Paul Rausch, associate director of the University of Hawai'i's Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
"Most people have no clue what these people went through," Rausch said. "Nobody knows how many Cambodians died. Was it 1 million people? Was it 2 million? It's hard to say. But most Americans have never lived through something like that. Even with the movie, 'The Killing Fields,' I think most people don't know much about Cambodia."
'WE WANT TO TALK'
Cambo Khem, a 63-year-old truck driver who lives in Kunia, is willing to remember those years of fear and hopelessness in the rice fields of Cambodia if it means educating a new generation.
"We want to talk about what happened," Khem said. "I lost 59 relatives in all: father, mother, sister, brother, uncles, nephews. They were all killed."
Hongly Khuy, now 54, was in business school in Phnom Penh in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge surrounded the city and began shelling it, forcing the evacuation of U.S. interests.
"All morning until noon, I saw American helicopters coming in and out," Khuy said. "Then they never come back.
"We were poor, typical Cambodians. We were surrounded and couldn't go back to the country. You don't know what's going to happen next. We were like a fish caught in the net."
Khuy hopped on a scooter looking for a way out of the city and followed another scooter rider, who ignored directions from soldiers and was shot dead on the spot.
"You learn fast to do what you're told to do," Khuy said.
On the forced evacuation to a work camp in Battambang Province in northwest Cambodia, Khuy saw two prisoners arguing by the side of the road. Khmer Rouge soldiers picked out the loudest one and beat him to death with a hoe in front of everyone.
"They don't even want to waste one bullet," Khuy said. "Everybody got silent after that. No more complaining."
The work camps and communal farms set up by the Khmer Rouge had no equivalent in the American experience.
Thousands of prisoners were guarded by far fewer fellow Cambodians who chose to side with the Khmer Rouge.
"People say, 'Why Cambodians kill Cambodians?' " said Than Neuov, 67, who now works at Hardware Hawaii. "We don't know, either."
Many of the camps had no buildings or fences. Discipline was enforced through fear, intimidation and the ever-present paranoia that any prisoner could be an informant.
"They had a saying, 'Communist Party has many eyes, like pineapple,' " Keo said. "Your wife, your children, your best friend — you don't know who to trust. They didn't need physical guards because your brain became your prison.
"They also had another slogan, 'It's no gain to keep you and it's no loss to take you away.' "
WALKING SKELETONS
Eventually, families were separated and sent to different parts of Cambodia according to gender and age.
People with glasses, fair skin or soft hands were suspected of being intellectuals and often were taken away, never to be seen again, Neuov said. Prisoners with previous military experience were a particular threat.
Khuy was working in a muddy rice field when a prisoner dug up a live grenade and threw it safely away, where it exploded. That night, Khuy was lined up with about 400 other men, including the one who found the grenade.
For safely detonating the grenade, the man was taken away and shot.
"They suspected he was a former soldier," Khuy said.
Many of the prisoners ended up in jungles or open fields and were forced to cultivate the land using tree branches as tools.
With only the occasional bowl of water and a few grains of rice, the prisoners would go for weeks without nourishment and became weak and emaciated, often suffering from malaria at the same time.
"A walking skeleton — that's how you would describe most of us," Khuy said. "Sometimes you don't eat for weeks. At some point, you just don't have any meat on your bones. I was almost dead."
People lucky enough to find a root or a wild potato had to turn it into the authorities or risk getting beaten or killed, he said.
CONFUSION SETS IN
For those who survived the torture and starvation, the end came when Vietnamese soldiers pushed deeper into Cambodia, sending the work camp system into disarray.
Khuy suffered from malaria and was working in a field when he saw thousands of Vietnamese soldiers suddenly appear and begin shooting at the Khmer Rouge.
"The Vietnamese moved in a line right past us and just let us go," Khuy said. "They wanted to fight the Khmer Rouge. So I just walked away."
He headed west toward Thailand and it would take him two months to make it to the border, where thousands of Cambodian refugees were being detained before makeshift camps could be set up by Western aid workers.
"There was no food and there were so many of us," Khuy said. "I didn't know what to expect."
Keo also escaped during the confusion as Vietnamese forces progressed.
He stole a boat along the Mekong Delta and went back to his village looking for family members, with no luck. He then walked back to Phnom Penh, where he also found no word on the fate of his family.
So he took a bike and rode and walked for another two months to get to the Thai border where he received fresh water, rice and much-needed protein in the form of dried fish and canned meats.
In 1986, Keo finally found out that his mother, two brothers and a sister were alive. It took another six years before he learned for certain that another sister had been killed by the Khmer Rouge and his father had died in a camp.
Like other Cambodian refugees, Keo eventually settled in Hawai'i, where people didn't know about the Khmer Rouge and weren't interested in hearing about what happened in Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War.
But as the years passed, greater awareness of the Cambodian genocide gave Keo and others the opportunity to open up about what they had endured.
"It's healing to talk about it," Keo said. "It's helpful to relieve some of the bitterness."
And in coming to Hawai'i, Keo realized there must be a God after all.
"How I survived, I have no clue," Keo said. "To me, it's a miracle. It's a miracle. There must be a God. And he's trying to teach me something."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.
But there was killing and dying all around and the constant fear that anyone could be next.
"You would lie awake at night and wonder when you would be killed," said Keo, who is now a 49-year-old accountant in Kane'ohe.
"No way there was a God."
The nightmares and flashbacks have long passed for survivors from the bloody, four-year reign of the Khmer Rouge.
But three decades later, a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia is bringing renewed attention to the atrocities inflicted on people like Keo, whose father and a sister died at the hands of the Communist-backed Khmer Rouge.
Just after the United States evacuated Vietnam in defeat in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge began exterminating at least 1.7 million of its own people — more than the entire 1.2 million population of Hawai'i.
In 2000, Hawai'i was home to 330 people who claimed at least partial Cambodian ancestry — 235 of them on O'ahu, according to state population records.
They found new lives and new hope in Hawai'i, raised families and have become part of the backdrop of Island society.
But even after the 1984 Academy Award-winning movie "The Killing Fields" awakened the Western world to the deaths and murders, Americans for the most part remain unaware of the greatest genocide since the Nazi Holocaust, said Paul Rausch, associate director of the University of Hawai'i's Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
"Most people have no clue what these people went through," Rausch said. "Nobody knows how many Cambodians died. Was it 1 million people? Was it 2 million? It's hard to say. But most Americans have never lived through something like that. Even with the movie, 'The Killing Fields,' I think most people don't know much about Cambodia."
'WE WANT TO TALK'
Cambo Khem, a 63-year-old truck driver who lives in Kunia, is willing to remember those years of fear and hopelessness in the rice fields of Cambodia if it means educating a new generation.
"We want to talk about what happened," Khem said. "I lost 59 relatives in all: father, mother, sister, brother, uncles, nephews. They were all killed."
Hongly Khuy, now 54, was in business school in Phnom Penh in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge surrounded the city and began shelling it, forcing the evacuation of U.S. interests.
"All morning until noon, I saw American helicopters coming in and out," Khuy said. "Then they never come back.
"We were poor, typical Cambodians. We were surrounded and couldn't go back to the country. You don't know what's going to happen next. We were like a fish caught in the net."
Khuy hopped on a scooter looking for a way out of the city and followed another scooter rider, who ignored directions from soldiers and was shot dead on the spot.
"You learn fast to do what you're told to do," Khuy said.
On the forced evacuation to a work camp in Battambang Province in northwest Cambodia, Khuy saw two prisoners arguing by the side of the road. Khmer Rouge soldiers picked out the loudest one and beat him to death with a hoe in front of everyone.
"They don't even want to waste one bullet," Khuy said. "Everybody got silent after that. No more complaining."
The work camps and communal farms set up by the Khmer Rouge had no equivalent in the American experience.
Thousands of prisoners were guarded by far fewer fellow Cambodians who chose to side with the Khmer Rouge.
"People say, 'Why Cambodians kill Cambodians?' " said Than Neuov, 67, who now works at Hardware Hawaii. "We don't know, either."
Many of the camps had no buildings or fences. Discipline was enforced through fear, intimidation and the ever-present paranoia that any prisoner could be an informant.
"They had a saying, 'Communist Party has many eyes, like pineapple,' " Keo said. "Your wife, your children, your best friend — you don't know who to trust. They didn't need physical guards because your brain became your prison.
"They also had another slogan, 'It's no gain to keep you and it's no loss to take you away.' "
WALKING SKELETONS
Eventually, families were separated and sent to different parts of Cambodia according to gender and age.
People with glasses, fair skin or soft hands were suspected of being intellectuals and often were taken away, never to be seen again, Neuov said. Prisoners with previous military experience were a particular threat.
Khuy was working in a muddy rice field when a prisoner dug up a live grenade and threw it safely away, where it exploded. That night, Khuy was lined up with about 400 other men, including the one who found the grenade.
For safely detonating the grenade, the man was taken away and shot.
"They suspected he was a former soldier," Khuy said.
Many of the prisoners ended up in jungles or open fields and were forced to cultivate the land using tree branches as tools.
With only the occasional bowl of water and a few grains of rice, the prisoners would go for weeks without nourishment and became weak and emaciated, often suffering from malaria at the same time.
"A walking skeleton — that's how you would describe most of us," Khuy said. "Sometimes you don't eat for weeks. At some point, you just don't have any meat on your bones. I was almost dead."
People lucky enough to find a root or a wild potato had to turn it into the authorities or risk getting beaten or killed, he said.
CONFUSION SETS IN
For those who survived the torture and starvation, the end came when Vietnamese soldiers pushed deeper into Cambodia, sending the work camp system into disarray.
Khuy suffered from malaria and was working in a field when he saw thousands of Vietnamese soldiers suddenly appear and begin shooting at the Khmer Rouge.
"The Vietnamese moved in a line right past us and just let us go," Khuy said. "They wanted to fight the Khmer Rouge. So I just walked away."
He headed west toward Thailand and it would take him two months to make it to the border, where thousands of Cambodian refugees were being detained before makeshift camps could be set up by Western aid workers.
"There was no food and there were so many of us," Khuy said. "I didn't know what to expect."
Keo also escaped during the confusion as Vietnamese forces progressed.
He stole a boat along the Mekong Delta and went back to his village looking for family members, with no luck. He then walked back to Phnom Penh, where he also found no word on the fate of his family.
So he took a bike and rode and walked for another two months to get to the Thai border where he received fresh water, rice and much-needed protein in the form of dried fish and canned meats.
In 1986, Keo finally found out that his mother, two brothers and a sister were alive. It took another six years before he learned for certain that another sister had been killed by the Khmer Rouge and his father had died in a camp.
Like other Cambodian refugees, Keo eventually settled in Hawai'i, where people didn't know about the Khmer Rouge and weren't interested in hearing about what happened in Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War.
But as the years passed, greater awareness of the Cambodian genocide gave Keo and others the opportunity to open up about what they had endured.
"It's healing to talk about it," Keo said. "It's helpful to relieve some of the bitterness."
And in coming to Hawai'i, Keo realized there must be a God after all.
"How I survived, I have no clue," Keo said. "To me, it's a miracle. It's a miracle. There must be a God. And he's trying to teach me something."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.
18 comments:
Why these guys are truly believing in their mind that god help and save them from KR...?
They might be brainwashed terribly...
My whole family was selected the next morning, but we were saved afterall. Why? I have to believe in the higher porwer GOD that we survived.
Why am I not dead? Is God have something in store for me? Believing in something is not equate to "brainwashed".
7:45am.
...selected to be executed...
7:45, you just said the reason you survived, that is you believed in God, despite you might not believed then, but God know you will believed in him soon or later.
As for what in store for you, you will find out, soon or later.
And yes, believe in something is indeed brainwashed, especially in faith. What actually get washed is the logic and reasoning. There is no proof for God. Don't waste time trying to prove it.
When something good happens, which has no readily explanation, God usually takes the credit for it. If something bad happens, it usually means that the karma from the previous life catches up with you in this life.
The Taliban and Al Qaeda justify suicide bombings to God's war on the infidels, and their suicide bombers are believed to go to heaven after their mission even though their targets are innocent civilians.
God's name has been used or misused for all kinds of purposes by dubious politicians and religious leaders. Whether God does or does not exist is a matter of academic debate. But, rest assured that these dubious politicians and religious leaders actually have little faith in God themselves. These people have the power over their followers in God's name, so God is their ticket to fame, power and fortune.
Few people give themselves credit for the miracle that happens to them. Most have given up hope even before the fight starts, so they fail. I repeatedly prayed that I would survive through the Khmer Rouge regime no matter what, and I did while others did not make it. Perhaps, it was me who actually saved myself by sheer determination alone, but we have always been educated to believe in a higher power.
When Moses asked God, who appeared as a bright light in the cave, "who are you?", the answer was "I am that I am". So, you are that you are. You think, therefore, you are. Don't underestimate the power of your mind and will to survive. Perhaps, God is your mind and your will that are of the cosmic creation. At the quantum level, everyone is an extension of you regardless of your race, colour and religion, all of which may have been dreamed up by some people to divide humanity. By division, we conquer. By deception, we make war. And, thanks to God, we succeed!
08:00AM=Tmil=no religion=no believing=yieckong=khmer rouge.
7:45AM
god is a term being used to be legitimized for power of those deceptive leaders or being used by a group to gain benefit for themselves.
It is not logical and useful at all that you believe that you and your family survived from KR because you believe in god, because those who were not survived are explicitly condemned by your claims.
In your statement, god term or supper being who you believe, always take for grant; and it is explicitly used to brainwash human beings especially children who still have limited understanding of the nature and world.
Believing in something irrational is "brainwashed" and "dangerous".
I hope you guys are not too extreme to believe in god as you claim; and sometime insult Khmer culture that basically structured by Buddhism.
Best
I Agreed with you, 10:12, that God name has been abuse beyond any repair. However, it is up to you to decide whether or not he exist. But I tell you right now, there is only one way to accept God, and that is through faith without a single drop of proof.
One way to accept god as a blinded who has one way to depend on walking-stick.
You can accept God in any form you like, as long you don't lost your faith.
Anyhow, through my faith, I can tell you that God lives in a perfect universe and you cannot bring anything with you, when you expire from the imperfect universe because nothing it perfect there, and that include your logic and your reasoning. It is a bit like trying to stuff and elephant in a small bottle. It's just impossible. I hope you got some idea.
Your idea of believing in god is unquestionable It is not different from the Muslim world.
Especially, those suicided-bombers who share the same belief like you.
Now, you accept that "a blinded always depend on walking-stick". So it is good for you.
Did I said I reject it?
Hi everyone, I would like to share some of my knowldge about God with you here; We all are free to choose to believe in God or not it's up to each one of us there is no obligation- God created the world that way. God gave us freedom of choices. We can choose to follow God or to follow the Devil.
God is living, loving and almighty. God is holy perfect and full of mercy.
When a person committed sins soon or later he will receive bad consequences.
What is sin? Sin is doing against God's laws. What are God's laws?
No killing - No stealing - No commit adulteries - love and care for your neighbours and honor your parents ... still more in the ten commandments of the Bible.
A person cannot say that he believes in God when he committed one of those sins; that means he worship the Devil(Mear)
Preh # Mear
No one can sit on the fence very long, he has to be with Preh or with Mear. When he has Preh his heart and mind are kind, peaceful and holy. When he has Mear his heart and mind greedy, violent and morality corrupted.
God gives us freedom of choices but the Devil always want to keep us as his slave, slave to sins.
Hope you've got some idea about The true God.
Dear 7:45a.m
believe in God, if you want to. Ta hell with those sinners. You belong to you! Tell them to tought shit!
Cambodia was blessed because many of us are faithful to the heaven. They just do it by following their heritage. Many don't know why, nor do they care to know why. I hope we can preserved this faith for eternity.
7:51PM
Your comment is viciously insulting those who don't believe in god...I think your comment truly reflects the extreme belief in god and create conflict in everywhere...
Why you stereotype those who don't believe in god are devil? it is from your bible?
12:33, I am just stating fact about khmer people, and how they have been from day1. If that offensed you, then move west. That is where God is losing ground day after day.
Those are my family friends and my dad you guys are saying are brainwashed. We believe in God because he has helped us over the years to be where we are now. My parents came here with nothing and now they are sending their daughter to one of the top high schools in the Nation. I believe that you guys can voice your opinions but I take this as insulting to all survivors.
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