នៅ​ពេល​ដែល​រូប​គំនូរ​ចាប់​និយាយ​ពី​វីរជន​កម្ពុជា - Pictures about Cambodian Heroes

Attorney and rights activist Theary C. Seng

រូប​គំនូរ​លោក​ស៊ីន ស៊ីសាមុត ដោយ វិចិត្រករ​ខ្មែរ​នៅ​អាមេរិក

Slained Union leader Chea Vichea

Champion of women's rights opposition parliamentarian Mu Sochua

Inspiration for and co-founder of Cambodian Living Arts, Arn Chorn-Pond

សុក្រ 03 សីហា 2012
ដោយ ចាន់ លីដា
Radio France Internationale

តើអ្នកណា​ខ្លះ​ជា​វីរជន​នៅក្នុង​ក្រសែ​ភ្នែក​របស់​អ្នក?

ជាការ​ពិតណាស់ នៅក្នុង​ប្រទេស​កម្ពុជា​ មាន​វីរជន​មួយ​ចំនួន​បាន​នឹង​កំពុងធ្វើ​ការ​ប្រកប​ទៅ​ដោយ​ការ​តស៊ូ ​និង​ភាព​​គ្រោះ​ថ្នាក់​ ប៉ុន្តែពេល​ខ្លះ សង្គមខ្មែរពុំ​បាន​មើល​ឃើញ​លើ​ស្នាដៃ​នៃ​ការ​​​ខិត​ខំប្រឹងប្រែង​របស់​ពួកគេ​​ដើម្បី​ប្រទេស​ជាតិឡើយ។ សម្រាប់​ក្រសែ​ភ្នែក​របស់​សិល្បករ​ខ្មែរ​​សញ្ជាតិ​អាមេរិ​កាំង រួម​ជាមួយ​អ្នក​ថត​រូបអាមេរិកាំង​​មួយ​រូបទៀត ពួក​គេ​បាន​​ធ្វើអោយ​​សាធារណជន​ជាពិសេស​ជន​បរទេស​ ​បានក្រលេក​មើល​ស្នាដៃ​របស់​វីរជន​ខ្មែរ​ចំនួន​១១រូប។ តើវីរជន​ទាំង​១១រូប​នោះ ពួកគេ​ជា​អ្នក​ណាខ្លះ?
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03 August 2012
By Chan Lyda
Radio France Internationale


Who do Cambodians consider as their heroes?

It’s true that in Cambodia, there are a number of heroes who are working and struggling. These heroes have to face danger, but sometimes, the Cambodian society cannot see their achievements and their efforts for the nation and the country. A Cambodian artist, Chantha Kong, and an American photographer, Tim Robertson, are trying to pull the public attention – especially foreigners – towards the achievements by 11 Cambodian heroes. Who are these 11 heroes?

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Khmer Rouge Labor Camp Survivor Learns to Cry

Arn Chorn-Pond, a Khmer Rouge survivor and co-founder of Cambodian Living Arts (VOA/Irwin Loy)

May 29, 2012
Irwin Loy
Voice of America

PHNOM PENH - Arn Chorn-Pond sits with his eyes closed, exhaling as his fingers dart along his bamboo flute. There was a time when playing the flute was, to him, a matter of survival.

Arn was only a child when the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. Sent to the labor camps, he survived by learning how to play revolutionary songs on his flute. He watched as those around him were murdered or starved to death. Sometimes, he says, the music was used to cover up the screams of people being executed.

“They would put a loud microphone so I can play into it, so that people in the countryside will hear music instead of hearing the screaming," Arn recalled. "The Khmer Rouge, made a special axe, they hit people in the back of the head, and you can hear miles away, I’m telling you. You can literally hear miles away. Like an axe hitting a coconut shell, but only human skulls. I can hear it even today, in my head.”

Never Fall Down

"Never Fall Down" by Patricia McCormick (HarperCollins Children's Books / April 20, 2012)

April 29, 2012
By Susan Carpenter
Los Angeles Times

Never Fall Down

• A Novel
• Patricia McCormick
• Balzer + Bray: 224 pp., $17.99, ages 14 and up

When it comes to genocide, Hitler is obviously well covered. There are countless titles for young readers about the atrocities he inspired. The Khmer Rouge, which seized control of Cambodia in 1975 and, in its attempts to create an agrarian form of communism, killed millions of its own people, is less familiar territory, especially for young readers.

"Never Fall Down" offers a detailed look at what it was like to live under such a cruel government from the perspective of one of its best-known survivors, Arn Chorn Pond.

Pond was 11 when his village was invaded by the Khmer Rouge and his family was forced to march toward an uncertain future. Pond thought it was exciting at first, but after walking for days, passing babies left crying in the middle of the road and ditches filling with dead bodies, he began to realize: He wouldn't be returning home in three days as his captors had said.

The will to live is inspirational

Arn Chorn-Pond

Chorn-Pond a national hero in Cambodia

Monday, April 18, 2011
Manan M. Desai
The Daily Evergreen (Washington State, USA)

Growing up and experiencing the evolution of life is a very dynamic, and sometimes sore, process. To soften this blow and to look for personal inspiration, everyone goes through some form of hero worship at one point of time in their lives. For most, these heroes are your regular folk from every aspect of life who have, after considerable amounts of personal sacrifice, managed to achieve something extraordinary. I had the pleasure recently to shake hands with someone like that.

Arn Chorn-Pond, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocides from Cambodia, gave a moving speech this week in the CUB Senior Ballroom. He is nothing short of a living legend and walking hero for the people of Cambodia and for many others around the world. There is something strikingly different about people who have gone through traumatic times and survived to tell the tale. There is a sense of hope and respect for life which is very unique. Chorn-Pond is no different.

At a tender age of nine, Chorn-Pond lost his parents and 11 of his siblings in the mid-70’s after Khmer Rouge came to power and systematically started to wipe out the native population. Along with Chorn-Pond’s family, 1.7 million Cambodians were slaughtered – a humanitarian crisis similar to that of the Holocaust during World War II. Khmer Rouge specially took a liking toward the artist community. Ninety percent of Cambodia’s performing artists were mercilessly wiped off the face of the Earth.

Former Child Soldier Describes Khmer Rouge

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
28 September 2009

A former child soldier of the Khmer Rouge described on Monday being forced to kill innocent people, saying he still has nightmares about the past.

Arn Chorn Pond, who is now 42, told reporters at a press conference in Phnom Penh he was pressed into service in Battamabang province when he was 11 or 12 years old, a few days after the Vietnamese ousted the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh, in January 1979.

Arn Chorn Pond’s testimony was sponsored by Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst, under the German Development Service in Cambodia, which gathered former child soldiers from Cambodia and Liberia to tell their stories.

“They armed us,” he said. “If we hadn’t carried the weapons, we would have been shot.”

Arn Chorn Pond, who now lives in America, said he soldiered for the Khmer Rouge for a year, as it battled Vietnamese-backed soldiers. He was injured, as well, he said. The Khmer Rouge also ordered children to bring the dead to their graves.

The experience made him sad and lonely, he said, and he felt he as not a good person and is plagued by nightmares.

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, said at least 200 children between the ages of 12 and 17 were forced to fight the Vietnamese. Around 20 girls were also pressed into service, carrying food and supplies.

“A number of Khmer Rouge soldiers were children,” he said.

Arn Chorn Pond was willing to tell his story, but he said he was not very interested in the current trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders under a UN-backed tribunal. He did not know enough about Cambodia’s political situation, he said.

Saving Cambodia's musical heritage

12/24/2008
NOAH GRIFFIN, Staff Report
Marin Independent Journal (California, USA)

IN 1994, young Scott Stafford, was awarded special honors from the University of Chicago Music and Composition Theory Department. His honors thesis developed group theory to analyze traditional Balinese polyrhythm, drawing new parallels with Western Harmony.

Stafford, a San Rafael resident, most recently composed music and produced additional recordings for Pixar's critically acclaimed 2008 "Presto." At the time of his graduation, he had no idea his thesis would lead him down the path to helping rescue and preserve the Cambodian musical legacy.

The story of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, graphically depicted in the poignant portrayal in the book and 1984 film, "The Killing Fields," not only left an estimated 1.7 million dead, but nearly decimated the Cambodian musical legacy of thousands of years by systematically eliminating the music teachers who could pass on the country's musical heritage.

Stafford, on a family trip to the area, traveled to Siem Rep City. There, he heard a performance of the moribund music played from an ancient instrument he had seen carved in bas relief on the walls of Bayon, one of the main temples of Angkor Wat. The instrument is called the Kse Diev, meaning one string.

You pluck harmonics on it, moving it on and off one's chest.

Some of the last generation of surviving players were nearly all wiped out by the Khmer Rouge. Stafford's fascination with the music, along with his training, impelled him to quench his curiosity as to the music's current status, leading him to the discovery of the fragile nature of its existence.
He quickly found that precious little of it had ever been recorded.

Stafford raised funds to found Studio CLA (Cambodia Living Arts), a nonprofit ethnographic audio visual production studio with the goal of archiving Cambodia's endangered musical traditions, training local engineers in audio and visual production arts, and providing a laboratory for new creative and collaborative works.

CLA has now has four self-produced CD's for sale in Cambodia. The recent underground documentary, "Sleepwalking through the Mekong," is based on a Los Angeles and Long Beach band's pilgrimage to Cambodia to record in Stafford's studio and to collaborate with traditional CLA artists.

Stafford has plenty of in-country support for the collaborative project.

Most noteworthy are Arn Chorn-Pond and Sophy Him, whom he met in February 2002, during his first trip to Cambodia.

Arn Chorn, by playing revolutionary songs on the flute, survived the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime that turned him into a child soldier.

Today, he is an internationally recognized human rights leader, a recipient among other honors, of the Anne Frank Memorial Award and is the subject of the award winning documentary: "The Flute Player."

Sophy Him, a composer, is a professor of music and fine arts at the Royal Academy of Cambodia in Phnom Penh.

Stafford, in support of Him's work, has been part of the creative team supplying additional music and direction for "Where Elephants Weep," the first-known contemporary Cambodian rock opera with a mission to stir young Cambodians to honor their heritage within the context of the changing global society and to inspire them to learn more about Cambodia's performing living arts.

The opera had its world premiere in Cambodia this year. To learn more about the music and CLA's mission, visit www.whereelephantsweep.net.

Noah Griffin of Tiburon is a public affairs consultant and a former citizen member of the IJ's editorial board.

Chorn-Pond recounts genocide survival, plays flute

Thursday November 06 2008
Donald M. Hoegg
Assistant Online Editor
The Etownian Online (Pennsylvania, USA)

Internationally-renowned peace activist and Cambodia native Arn Chorn-Pond returned to Elizabethtown Wednesday to address an audience of over 500 in Leffler Chapel. Chorn-Pond, of the critically-acclaimed documentary “The Flute Player,” is best known for his humanitarian work in Cambodia.

Before the Communist Khmer Rouge overthrew the Cambodian government in 1975, Chorn-Pond lived with his large family in the city of Battambang. Although the family was poor, the children were able to live a marginally normal life, blissfully unaware of the horrors of war.

“I knew there was a war going on, but I didn’t care. I was just a little kid,” Chorn-Pond recalled. “I remember seeing a movie about the World War II, and I thought it was cool.”

That would all change, however, once the Khmer Rouge took power. Soldiers forced the family from their home, and eventually put Chorn-Pond in a work camp with hundreds of other children, aged six to 14. They were forced to work 20 hours per day and suffered through beatings, disease and starvation. Chorn-Pond pointed out that, from a group of 500 prisoners, only 50 survived.

Coming from a long line of musicians and performers, Chorn-Pond survived the 1975 Khmer Rouge genocide by playing the Communists’ propaganda music. Of the five musicians chosen by the guards, three were killed after a week.

In addition to playing for officers, soldiers forced him to aid with the executions of his countrymen.

“Doctors, teachers, anyone connected to the west … they killed them,” Chorn-Pond said. “I thought I was going to be killed because of my light skin.”

As the genocide continued, Chorn-Pond was charged with disrobing the corpses before moving them to mass graves. For those still clinging to life, soldiers forced him to use a small axe to kill them with a blow to the back of the head. Had he shown any emotion, he would have suffered the same fate.

“I knew it was the wrong thing to do,” Chorn-Pond said, “but it was life or death.”

When Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1975, the Khmer Rouge forced Chorn-Pond and thousands of other children into service on the front lines. Fighting the Vietnamese (who were hardened by a decade of combat with American forces) meant almost certain death. Though Chorn-Pond survived, many of his comrades were not as fortunate.

“The worst feeling is holding your friend as he dies,” he said with a faltering voice. “There’s not much you can do.”

Weakened by malaria and years of malnutrition, he fled into the jungle to escape death on the battlefield.

“I went crazy,” Chorn-Pond said, referring to the weeks he spent walking through the jungle. “All I could hear was my family’s screams … I just kept walking.”

Eventually, he reached a refugee camp in Thailand, where he met his American father, Peter Pond. He returned with Pond to New Hampshire, along with two other Cambodian boys. Chorn-Pond struggled to adapt to American culture, and explained that he acted out against his American parents out of frustration and emotional anguish.

However, Chorn-Pond was able to find his calling in helping others. He returned to Cambodia to help troubled youths by teaching them to play traditional Cambodian music, which was all but forgotten after years of war and genocide. He urges students to learn about the injustices of the past so that they are not repeated. He has dedicated his life to helping Cambodian children escape the lifestyle he suffered.

“The money I got today I use tomorrow to help 100 kids for a month … girls who would have to prostitute themselves,” Chorn-Pond said.

He concluded his presentation by playing his flute for the audience to resounding applause.

Documentary Chronicles Role of Suvivor, Musician

Arn Chorn-Pond at Cheung Ek Killing Fields Memorial.

By Nuch Sarita, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
13 November 2007

Arn Chorn Pond survived a brutal child labor camp under the Khmer Rouge by retreating into music, playing when he could his flute, despite working from 5 am to midnight each day.

A new documentary, "The Flute Player," which showed recently in Maryland, is a look into Arn Chorn Pond's music as well as his childhood and adult worlds.

Born into a Battambang family of performers and musicians, Arn Chorn Pond told VOA Khmer he was one of 500 children working at the Wat Aik labor camp following the Khmer Rouge takeover.

The children were separated from their parents and worked miserable hours, but Arn Chorn Pond said he found a way to cope: playing the flute.

"Even in these horrible conditions, I found a way to survive," he said. "I played the flute. I escaped death by execution and starvation by playing my flute for camp guards, and after Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia in 1979, I managed to reach a refugee camp in Thailand."

Arn Chorn Pond has since established a number of projects and organizations that help victims of war, including the Master Performers Program to preserve Cambodia's musical heritage.

Arn Chorn Pond will now continue on a global tour, promoting the film, and peace, in Japan, England, Australia and India.

Killing fields survivor tells his harrowing tale

Speaks to students at Elizabethtown College

Oct 04, 2007
By MADELYN PENNINO, Staff
Intelligencer Journal (Lancaster, PA, USA)

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. - Arn Chorn-Pond saw more of the dark side of human life by age 13 than most people ever will.

In his youth, he escaped from the Cambodian "killing fields" only to be forced into military service. He fled into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where he languished, suffering from malaria and malnutrition. He weighed a mere 30 pounds when several women found him and took him to a refugee camp in Thailand.

There, Chorn-Pond's physical wounds began to heal. But his emotional wounds remained raw for years.

Chorn-Pond, now 37, is an internationally recognized human-rights leader. He told his story Wednesday at Elizabethtown College as part of the school's "World in Focus" colloquium for first-year students.

The killing fields were sites throughout Cambodia (modern Kampuchea) where the communist regime of Pol Pot herded its citizens in the late 1970s and worked or starved them to death, or killed them outright. An estimated 2 million perished, amounting to more than a quarter of the country's population.

In 1975, when Chorn-Pond was 9, the communist Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. He said Khmer Rouge soldiers told his village Americans were going to bomb the country and ordered everyone to leave their homes and go to the countryside.

"I heard the word 'American' but I didn't know what an American was, because I had never seen one," Chorn-Pond said. "My 12 brothers and sisters went into the country and held hands. We didn't want to get lost."

But Chorn-Pond and his siblings were separated, and he was captured and sent to a work camp.

While imprisoned at the camp along with 700 other children, Chorn-Pond spent 20-hour days working in the rice fields. Sometimes they went weeks without food.

Born into a family of performers and musicians, Chorn-Pond avoided execution by playing the flute for camp guards.

"I played propaganda songs for them while they ate or before they went to bed," Chorn-Pond said.

Still, Chorn-Pond believed it was just a matter of time before he would die.

"They had turned a Buddhist temple into a prison," Chorn-Pond said. "Many children starved to death. I was forced to participate in executions. If I hadn't, I would have been killed."

In a 2003 documentary about his life called "The Flute Player," Chorn-Pond described his hell on earth.

"Every day I killed my own heart in order to survive it," Chorn-Pond said. "It was worse than a nightmare."

When Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979, Chorn-Pond fled his captors but was forced to join the Cambodian Army. Soon after he escaped to the jungle.

Chorn-Pond spent many months in the jungle until he was taken to a refugee camp, where he met Peter Pond, a Lutheran minister and aid worker.

Pond brought Chorn-Pond to New Hampshire and eventually adopted him, but Chorn-Pond could not escape the horror of his childhood.

His father, sensing he was near suicide, implored Chorn-Pond to talk about his experience.

Chorn-Pond first spoke to Amnesty International in 1984 and has since traveled the world speaking about his ordeal.

A graduate of Providence College in Rhode Island, Chorn-Pond has started several community rebuilding projects and founded organizations such as Children of War, Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development and Peace Makers, a U.S.-based gang-intervention project for Southeast Asian Youth.

In the mid-1990s, Chorn-Pond started Cambodian Masters Performers Programs, now known as Cambodian Living Arts, to help save his country's musical heritage.

"I knew traditional Cambodian music was dying out," Chorn-Pond said. "I wanted to do something."

Chorn-Pond has received a number of awards, including the Reebok Human Rights Award, the Anne Frank Memorial Award and the Kohl Foundation International Peace Prize.

E-mail: mpennino@lnpnews.com