Original report from Washington
07 July 2009
Ten years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Hei Han Khiang, who had survived the regime, found himself in Beijing, studying. He was shocked to find an embassy of the regime, formally known as Democratic Kampuchea, still operating. He was shocked further to be invited inside.
Hei Han Khiang had been sent by the State University of New York to study Chinese language, history, politics and art. An aspiring photographer, Hei Han Khiang would walk the streets of the Chinese capital, taking pictures and exploring. On one of these walks, he found a building flying the flag of Democratic Kampuchea.
“When I saw the flag, I was so surprised and shocked to see that they still exist, you know,” Hei Han Khiang said. “I was just curious about how this embassy functioned and what was the purpose of having the embassy, [while] the Khmer Rouge was not there anymore.”
Through the 1980s, in fact, the Khmer Rouge government retained a seat at the United Nations. The Chinese continued to support the regime, allowing it to operate in Beijing and rebuild, even while Vietnamese-backed forces continued to battle Khmer Rouge guerrillas across the Cambodian countryside.
In front of the embassy stood a man in Chinese garb, who Hei Han Khiang later identified as Kaing Hong, a secretary at the embassy. China had been a major backer of the Khmer Rouge, which enacted an ultra-Maoist agenda following its takeover of Cambodia.
Kaing Hong invited the young photographer inside. Hei Han Khiang, who had lived through the Khmer Rouge as a boy and had finally emigrated from refugee camps to America, was uncertain.
But he wanted also to contact then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk, whom he thought was in the capital, and so he agreed. He expected to find armed men inside, AK-47s perhaps, and security guards dressed in black, but instead the embassy personnel were in casual dress in a clean room adorned with the photographs of the regime’s leaders: ‘Brother No. 1’ Pol Pot, head of state Khieu Samphan, foreign minister Ieng Sary.
“And they say ‘well, the Khmer Rouge is still here, we still have a government and everything,’” said Hei Han Khiang, who is now a professional photographer in New York, recalled in a recent interview. “They were just trying to give me all kinds of propaganda, [saying] that Cambodia was under Vietnamese rule and so on, and that they didn’t do anything wrong. They just went on and on about Vietnam. It was shocking to me that they didn’t even talk about how many people had died, what they had done in Cambodia, as if nothing really happened. Really weird.”
The incongruity of the diplomats’ conditions, compared to those he had lived through in the fields of Cambodia, surprised him too.
“You know, they live in nice rooms, a nice space,” Khiang said. “They get salaries. I think I almost went blank just to see them there. It’s unbelievable, almost fiction, you know.”
He met with the ambassador of the regime, and in a hand-written note he still keeps, the man is identified as Chan Youran.
“They opened for me a bottle of Coca-Cola,” he said. “I was sitting there and drank, and the ambassador came in and he also drank a bottle of Coca Cola, which was really weird. The Khmer Rouge drank Coca-Cola. He sat there and introduced himself to me, shook my hand. We didn’t start with the Khmer greetings, two hands up, you know. And he said ‘Ok, it’s very nice to see you. I am glad you have come here to study, and it is good to know that Khmer students have come to study in Beijing.’”
Hei Han Khiang said the ambassador discussed what a good friend China had been to Democratic Kampuchea, saying China had helped a great deal.
Despite these greetings and overtures, Hei Han Khiang remained afraid. He dared not ask questions concerning the 1975 to 1979 rule of Democratic Kampuchea over Cambodia.
“I talked to that guy, and, remembering Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, it was just like so brutal, and so they just didn’t care about anyone and forced people to work and they would kill you if you don’t do it, and, you know, I was a little kid,” Hei Han Khiang said. “You remember back then, you don’t question Angkar, right? You don’t ask the Khmer Rouge about Angkar or anything they did, what happened, how horrible it was.”
Hei Han Khiang had been sent by the State University of New York to study Chinese language, history, politics and art. An aspiring photographer, Hei Han Khiang would walk the streets of the Chinese capital, taking pictures and exploring. On one of these walks, he found a building flying the flag of Democratic Kampuchea.
“When I saw the flag, I was so surprised and shocked to see that they still exist, you know,” Hei Han Khiang said. “I was just curious about how this embassy functioned and what was the purpose of having the embassy, [while] the Khmer Rouge was not there anymore.”
Through the 1980s, in fact, the Khmer Rouge government retained a seat at the United Nations. The Chinese continued to support the regime, allowing it to operate in Beijing and rebuild, even while Vietnamese-backed forces continued to battle Khmer Rouge guerrillas across the Cambodian countryside.
In front of the embassy stood a man in Chinese garb, who Hei Han Khiang later identified as Kaing Hong, a secretary at the embassy. China had been a major backer of the Khmer Rouge, which enacted an ultra-Maoist agenda following its takeover of Cambodia.
Kaing Hong invited the young photographer inside. Hei Han Khiang, who had lived through the Khmer Rouge as a boy and had finally emigrated from refugee camps to America, was uncertain.
But he wanted also to contact then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk, whom he thought was in the capital, and so he agreed. He expected to find armed men inside, AK-47s perhaps, and security guards dressed in black, but instead the embassy personnel were in casual dress in a clean room adorned with the photographs of the regime’s leaders: ‘Brother No. 1’ Pol Pot, head of state Khieu Samphan, foreign minister Ieng Sary.
“And they say ‘well, the Khmer Rouge is still here, we still have a government and everything,’” said Hei Han Khiang, who is now a professional photographer in New York, recalled in a recent interview. “They were just trying to give me all kinds of propaganda, [saying] that Cambodia was under Vietnamese rule and so on, and that they didn’t do anything wrong. They just went on and on about Vietnam. It was shocking to me that they didn’t even talk about how many people had died, what they had done in Cambodia, as if nothing really happened. Really weird.”
The incongruity of the diplomats’ conditions, compared to those he had lived through in the fields of Cambodia, surprised him too.
“You know, they live in nice rooms, a nice space,” Khiang said. “They get salaries. I think I almost went blank just to see them there. It’s unbelievable, almost fiction, you know.”
He met with the ambassador of the regime, and in a hand-written note he still keeps, the man is identified as Chan Youran.
“They opened for me a bottle of Coca-Cola,” he said. “I was sitting there and drank, and the ambassador came in and he also drank a bottle of Coca Cola, which was really weird. The Khmer Rouge drank Coca-Cola. He sat there and introduced himself to me, shook my hand. We didn’t start with the Khmer greetings, two hands up, you know. And he said ‘Ok, it’s very nice to see you. I am glad you have come here to study, and it is good to know that Khmer students have come to study in Beijing.’”
Hei Han Khiang said the ambassador discussed what a good friend China had been to Democratic Kampuchea, saying China had helped a great deal.
Despite these greetings and overtures, Hei Han Khiang remained afraid. He dared not ask questions concerning the 1975 to 1979 rule of Democratic Kampuchea over Cambodia.
“I talked to that guy, and, remembering Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, it was just like so brutal, and so they just didn’t care about anyone and forced people to work and they would kill you if you don’t do it, and, you know, I was a little kid,” Hei Han Khiang said. “You remember back then, you don’t question Angkar, right? You don’t ask the Khmer Rouge about Angkar or anything they did, what happened, how horrible it was.”
35 comments:
Dear Mr.Hei,
What do you expect? Under the king rouge Norodom Sihaknuk still alive ,the kampuchea democratic embassy' s door are opening because the heart ,the soul the head sometimes Sihaknuk himself from Chinese sperm period.
Camerad Hei,
USA and its allies supported KR who fought against Vietnam which was their (China) common enemy at that time. Please watch these Youtube that revealed the foxy clever of British and USA had done to suffer Cambodia. Without them there weren't Khmere Rouge. They and their friend Chinese government created them to serve their purposes.
The Betrayal (4 parts)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elF6dzjHqlI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUp_xASPKUU&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMkC3rs5Aak&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm8EJyNNOFk&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO8pzi3i31A&NR=1
Now you know why Robert Pepit quited his job. With America is depending on China more than ever before, how could khmer rouge trail able to see the light of bringing justice to the 2 millions death souls? How??????
Communist is a very secretive and deceptive government. It's close society and close country. Who is going to know? or dare going in there? They can do anything and hide anything.
If Japan also dreams of helping, Japan must also in deep despair. Very sad story.
Dear petit Camarad, Politically Khmer rouge regime was good overal for the sake of Khmer Nation, unfortunatly Khmer rouge administration was weakening, too weaks to control the Khmer Vietmin troopers within the regime, they had been alowed to do what they beleived, it means; (take the law to their own hands, just to kill more inocent Khmer famers uncontrolable throughout the country, that out of imagination you and I. Yes Khmer rouge regime was horible in this regard. Though you should read more to understand Cambodian chronicle problem strugling wisely, this why the embasy stil existing up to date in China. Only you and you children and many other Cabodians will be able to solve Khmer problem !
Take a picture and post it.
Also The United Nation recognized Khmer Rouge while denying Samdech Hun Sen regime who tried to save Cambodia from the killing field.
This is no supprise for the Pol Pot's good International Politic.
hello! give me a break! this is for real? i don't think so. KR regime was history already; that's the fact. now, if the former KR embassy in beijing is still there, it's perhaps is just there as a reminder or more likely a museum now, but to say cambodia still honor that embassy is just a joke, perhaps a cruel, political joke, really! cambodia is commy no more; understand the facts for whoever said cambodia is still a commy is perhaps from old school and hasn't been traveling much to see cambodia lately. and maybe too old and has alzeimher's disease and not think clearly, to say the least! hello, this is the 21st century, not the early 20th century any more, ok! cambodia and the world is more advance nowadays than say then. get with the program already, would ya! god bless cambodia.
I am not surprise at all. It will another revolution one day in Cambodia. China won't abandon Khmer Rouge regardless of what they had to Kampuchea and her people. Vietnam knew what China will do in Cambodia, but they want to get as much as they could from khmer. Remember China is a superpower in the region. Do you think they will let Vietnam swallow Cambodia? I don't think so.
11:49 its meaningless to believe in another khmer rouge revolution in cambodia. the khmer rouge regime has been extinguished and their leaders are being trialed for crimes they committed at the KR tribunal held in Phnom penh.
Can you feed some of picture to website, so we can see it too.
Thank for pass around.
Where is the Khmer Rouge embassy locate(stree) now in Beijing?
Hang Chakra was apprehended in Battambang and was taken to Prey Sar prison for his ignorance and stupidity.
PPU
yep, this is true, KR still existed in China, but not in VN.
current Cambodia government still ruled by VN. but being closely monitored by China...this is the reason Thais dont wanna give up Preah Vihear to VN....Horray! KR!
My name is Chan Keo. I work as a teacher aid at Highland High School.
Pi Anh: PPU
You must think that if Chan Youran came to Cambodia at that time, He will be sent to S21 prison like other Cambodians living abraod.
During the year 1980s It was right for Cambodia to have been represented at the UN by the DK. This way allowed US, china and other Countries to help Cambodia and the KR (I don't mean I like the KR)to Chase Vietname troops from Cambodia.
It was an ironic fate for Cambodia:
- Because of the KR who had destroyed Cambodia (the Chinese didn't care), Vietnam invaded and colonized Cambodia from 1979 to 1989.
-After 1979,Thank to the Chinese (who had helped the 3 anti-Vietnam factions led by Sihanouk especially the KR faction), the USA, the international community, Viettnam was forced to withdraw from Cambodia.
The so-called Ronakse of Hun Sen, Chea Sim ,Heng Samrin, was created by Vietnam to use as a pretext to invade and colonize Cambodia, already weakened by the Crasy Pol Pot and the KR.
The Trio of the Ronakse has not created the History. There were merely a product of the History, created by Vietnam.
tHE mONUMENT FOR THE VIETNAM IN FRONT OF WAT bOTUM MUST BE DESTROYED.It ;'s a symbol of Colonization of Cambodia by Vietnam.
China started giving aid to foreign countries in 1953. To begin with the beneficiaries were the three small neighboring countries of North Vietnam, North Korea, and Outer Mongolia, particularly the first two. In 1956, capitalizing on the spirit of Bandung, China began giving aid to some of the neutral countries of Asia, such as Ceylon, Nepal, and Cambodia. In time China’s aid program expanded to include more distant neutral countries such as Egypt, Yemen, Cuba, and Guinea. But the Communist countries of Asia have enjoyed the lion’s share of Chinese aid, in the form of equipment, factories, raw materials, manufactured goods, and technical assistance. North Korea and North Vietnam have also received substantial military equipment. During China’s first five-year plan, China provided aid amounting to approximately $647 million, of which $118 million were given in 1953-54, $166 million in 1955, $171 million in 1956, and $192 million in 1957. The amount of Chinese aid in 1958 was $116 million a lower figure than any of the previous three years, but in 1959 it rose to $253 million .
A close China-Cambodia relationship appears awkward on the surface because China was the devoted and dedicated patron of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge from its inception in the 1960s through insurgency, conquest, genocide, defeat, insurgency, and peace. Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen, by contrast, has dedicated his life since 1977 to destroying the Khmer Rouge movement in which he was once of battalion commander. Although it was the People’s Army of Vietnam that pushed the Khmer Rough into Thailand in January 1979, it was Hun Sen and his peers in the Cambodian People’s Party that assumed political leadership. Led Cambodia into the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, and arguably, earned a place in two coalition government following elections in 1993 and 1998. Hun Sen wrote in a 1988 essay that China was the root of all that was evil in Cambodia. But just as Cambodia and Cambodians are demonstrating an almost unfathomable capacity to let bygones be bygones with regards to the former Khmer Rouge. Hun Sen has now buried the past and is embracing China, which he sees as a means of bringing economic development to Cambodia. The biggest payoff for Cambodia thus far came in February 1999 when Hun Sen paid an official visit to Beijing. Hun Sen obtained $18.3 million in foreign assistance guarantees and $200 million in no-interest loans for infrastructure projects, and China summarized the visit as “a new high” in Cambodia-China relations. China acknowledges that the $218 million figure is one of the highest aid amounts they provide to any country in the world .
A sampling of type of Chinese enterprises active in Cambodia can be seen in a list of recipients of loans awarded in April 1999 by the China Import-Export Bank as part of the $220 million aid package described earlier. Unfortunately it is not possible to definitively determine whether each company is fully state-owned, partially owned, or private, but from the names it is fairly clear which have a government affiliation: A $2 million loan in support of a $4.9 million multi-product agriculture development program in Koh Kong province by China’s Guangxi province, Beihai City Overseas Development Corporation. A $2.5 million loan in support of a $4.4 million multi-product agriculture development program in Kampong Speu Province by China Overseas International Technical Economic Cooperation Company. A $2.4 million loan to China’s Qunken Group for a 7,500 hectare industrial park. A $975,000 loan in support of a $5 million joint venture between Tianjin Pharmaceuticals and Cambodia Medicines Limited. A $975,000 loan in support of a $1,97 million investment in plastic products by China Light Industrial Machine Corporation. A $500,000 loan in support of a $1 million investment by China Jilin Textiles Corporation. An unspecified portion of $18.3 million in low-interest loans for a joint-venture sugar refinery in Kampong Cham province between a Cambodian company and China Overseas Engineering Corporation. A $4.8 million grant aid for a Chinese well-digging team to dig an additional 500 wells . In April 1998, Guangxi Haining Company agreed to invest $40 million in agribusiness. In May 1999 Yuanwang Group signed a $50 million cement manufacturing joint venture.
In December 2000, Pheapimex signed a joint venture agreement with the Chinese Farm Cooperation Group to build a pulp and paper mill. The $70 million joint venture is to be financed with a loan to the Cambodian government from the Import-Export Bank of China. The loan forms part of a deal between the Chinese and Cambodian governments to boost trade and investment between the two countries. Under the terms of the loan, Pheapimex and the Chinese Farm Cooperation Group will pay 5% interest to the Cambodian Government. The government will in turn pay 3% interest to the Chinese import-export Bank . Pheapimex, a notorious Cambodian logging company, has benefited from many of Hun Sen’s handouts. Pheapimex controls a total of seven percent of the land area of Cambodia. The company is owned by Chheung Sopheap (Yeay Phou), a close friend of Hun Sen. Her husband, Lau Meng Khin is a director of Wuzhishan, which in 2004 started clearing forests in a 315,000 hectare plantation concession, originally awarded to Pheapimex .
China was Cambodia’s top foreign investor in 2004, with more than $80 million flowing into the country through private firms. Also keeping pace with Chinese investment has been the flow of senior officials from Beijing: President Jiang Zemin visited in 2000, Premier Zhu Rongji in 2002, Foreign Affairs Monister Li Zhaoxing in 2003, Deputy Prime Minister Wu Yi in 2004, and now Wen Jiabao visited Cambodia as well .
On Saturday 08 April 2006, China pledged $600 million in aid to Cambodia, the last day of Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to the impoverished Southeast Asian country. Wen and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen also help talks and presided over the signing of 11 bilateral agreements . Nearly half of the Chinese money will go towards financing a new hydropower plant. China’s state owned Sinohydro Corp won a contract to build a $280 million hydropower plant in Sout-western Cambodia last year. Another $200 millions will go towards building two new bridges across the Mekong and Tonle sap rivers, while the rest will go towards other project, including the construct of a grand new council of ministers building to replace the dilapidated structure now housing the main government offices.
Remembered:
Whitout Khmer Rouge not just you Mr. Hei, although other Khmers, Vietnameses and Laos never had a chance to come to the USA, Europe and Australia, etc...
100 % I am sure, all of you might still live somewhere in the jungle.
All of you hate the Khmer Rouge, but love to use the Khmer Rouge name for their own purposes.
Please stop talking about the past.
Western diplomats and aid officials in Phnom Penh said they believed that Cambodia had recently granted China the rights to one of five offshore oil fields that could yield as much as $700 million to $1 billion a year .
China is the biggest sources of military aid to Cambodia, contributing more than 5 million U.S dollars a year. Over the past three years, China had spent approximately 40 million yuon (or about 5 million dollars) a year. The projects have included building the High Command Headquarters on National Highway 4, developing the Combined Arms Officer School Thlok Tasek near the town of Pich Nil in Kampong Speu province and constructing a five-story building at Preah Ket Melea military hospital which was recently completed .
According to the Council for Development of Cambodia (CDC), China had become Cambodia’s largest investor in the first ten months this year with 400 million dollars in investment projects approved by the CDC (2005) .
Cambodian Investment Board data show that 9.18% of total approved investment from August 1994 to June 2006 originated from China, accounting for 243 different projects with a fixed-asset value of $925 million over a diverse cross-section of industries, including agriculture, mining, oil refining, metals production, vehicle manufacturing, garments, hotels and tourism. That evident in the brisk Cambodian trade of Chinese manufactured goods. In 2003, 11.3% of the country’s imports originated from China, which in turn bought just 1.1% of Cambodia’s meager merchandise exports, according to International Monetary Fund statistics. By 2004, 16.5% of Cambodia’s imports valued at $527 million came from China- a statistic that excludes the 19.9% of total imports that came from Hong Kong worth $615 million.
Cambodia is strategically vital to China because it overlooks crucial sea lanes and could conceivably share a maritime border if China’s military eventually enforces Beijing’s claims to disputed, energy-rich atolls in the South China Sea. Beijing currently gives more civil aid to Cambodia, more than $2 billion since the 1970s, than any other country, according to Sophie Richardson, author of a recent doctoral thesis on China’s relations with Cambodia at the University of Virginia .
China has maintained a high profile in Cambodia despite its previous strong backing of the Khmer Rouge regime that caused the deaths of some 1.7 million people in the late 1970s . Between 1975 and 1979, China supplied the Pol Pot regime with over 200 tanks, six Mig fighters, several naval gunboats, 30,000 tons of ammunition, and at least 15,000 advisors, according to Chung Khuang Weng, a former Chinese embassy official in Phnom Penh . One pro Beijing source put the level of Chinese aid to the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea at $1 million a month. Another source, although it did not give a breakdown, set the total level of Chinese assistance, to all the resistance factions, at somewhere between $60 million and $100 million a year .
2;41
You gave so much credit to your self
(khmer rouge) You mean you killed all your families member and your parent to get to live abroad in exchange? Keep this comment for your self ,or you might get summon from the khmer rouge court to clarify about your professional in that black era, cease your khmer rouge bullshit no one bite your stories.
God punish khmer rouge!
3:14 PM
You meant the US?
PPU
I mean ah koun mee kontorb youn PPU retarded spy hiding out to ruin khmer live.
May lightning strike on the center of PPU 's head .Ah ngoib PPU gay lord.
3:14 PM
I have nothing to do with the Khmer Rouge.
Before the Vietnamese invasion in Cambodia in 1978 no one in Europe heard about the boot people or refugees from Cambodia, Vietnam or Laos.
I did not use the Khmer Rouge name for my own purposes, as a lot of others have did until today.
Mr. Hei was in China in 1989 or earlier and the time had chanced a lot.
អា ភីភីយូ (PPU) មកបៀម ក្ដ ឪអាឯងលេងភ្លាម
មក អាកូនមីសំផឹងយួនអស់សាច់!
ឪអាភីភីយូ(PPU)...
[Translation of the above comment in Khmer:
Ah PPU, come and suck your Dad's dick ASAP, you cock sucker son of a Yuon's bitch.
PPU's Daddy]
«Où bien en francais - ah PPU, viens succer le “Dick“ de ton Papa tout de suite, fils de pute YUON de Hanoi... Ton Papa, PPU»
Khmers must smarten up to protecting their own interests. Dependency on foreign mediation tend to put Cambodia into the future of unknown consequence; for which, Cambodia tend to lose out because there is nothing as a 'free lunch'. It is over due that we look out for our own interests for the future of our children. Enough is enough...
What year was it that you visited the Embassy?
who cares? who in their right mind wanted the KR regime again. look what happened in cambodia; they killed everybody and there's no freedom, no market economy, no celebration, etc... only ignorant individuals dream of having the KR style of gov't again! hello, they are now only in the history textbook. god bless cambodia.
Dear all please not to pay much attention to the issue. It's just Chinese Gov't atrophy or souvenir. You have to understand that Communist regime don't wast money to destry what ever they already been built.
Crying baby!
PPU
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