Asian Americans Encouraged To Vote

Sichan Siv

The US is home to some 17 million Asian Americans, but the group as a whole shows only a 50 percent voter turnout rate, according to 2008 figures.

19 September 2012

Reasey Poch, VOA Khmer

WASHINGTON DC - Sichan Siv, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, is encouraging Asian-Americans to vote in November’s presidential eleciton.

The US is home to some 17 million Asian Americans, but the group as a whole shows only a 50 percent voter turnout rate, according to 2008 figures. The overall voter turnout rate for Americans was 64 percent.

“You need to exercise that right,” Sichan Siv told VOA Khmer. “Many people fought war for us to have that freedom. Don’t just become a US citizen to have a US passport. Register to vote and go vote on Election Day.”

Meet Sichan Siv during the Cambodian New Year Celebration at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, USA

“For Communists and dictators, never trust, and always verify”: Sichan Siv

Sichan Siv
Would Mr. Sichan Siv's quote apply to Cambodia's dictator?

Remembering Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos

06/06/2010
By Sichan Siv
HumanEvents.com

Spring 2010 marks the 35th anniversary of the fall of Cambodia and South Vietnam to communism. In a recent speech at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Mich., to commemorate the sad anniversary, I mentioned a pivotal date: April 10, 1975.

While in Cambodia, I listened to President Ford’s address to the joint session of Congress through the Voice of America. My heart sank when I heard him say: “The situation in South Vietnam and Cambodia has reached a critical phase requiring immediate and positive decisions by this government. The options before us are few and the time is very short.” I quoted this in my memoir Golden Bones (HarperCollins, 2008).

In his recently published book An American Amnesia (Beaufort Press, 2010), Bruce Herschensohn speaks to this date more extensively, including President Ford’s request for “Congress to appropriate without delay $722 million for emergency military assistance and an initial sum of $250 million for economic and humanitarian aid for South Vietnam.” Herschensohn concludes his quotes with the following paragraphs from Ford’s speech:

“In Cambodia, the situation is tragic. And yet, for the past three months, the beleaguered people of Phnom Penh have fought on, hoping against hope that the United States would not desert them, but instead provide the arms and ammunition they so badly needed. In January, I requested food and ammunition for the brave Cambodians, and I regret to say that as of this evening, it may soon be too late… Let no potential adversary believe that our difficulties or our debates mean a slackening of our national will. We will stand by our friends, we will honor our commitments, and will uphold our country’s principle.” But we didn’t, adds Herschensohn.

Ford’s address was one of the most difficult he had ever delivered. On the copy of the speech that he read, he added his own hand-written words to begin the speech: “I stand before you tonight after many agonizing hours and solemn prayers for guidance by the Almighty.”

An American Amnesia starts on January 23, 1973 in the corridors of the White House, where Bruce Herschensohn was working for President Nixon. He describes the cheerful mood in the executive compound after the peace agreement had been signed in Paris by the United States, its ally South Vietnam, Communist North Vietnam, and the Vietcong, known as the Provisional Revolutionary Government.

It was more than a cease-fire, Herschensohn points out. It called for the United States and North Vietnam, a.k.a. the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, to respect the right of the South Vietnamese people to self-determination. Following articles urged all parties to settle issues through negotiations and avoid armed conflicts and acts of reprisal, to insure democratic liberties, including freedom of speech, etc.

Cambodia and Laos were barely mentioned in the Accords; not until chapter 20, article 20. (I was a high school teacher in Phnom Penh and working at a conference of Southeast Asian nations on January 23, 1973. In all naïveté, I was happy that Cambodia was mentioned at all).

Without referring to North Vietnam and the Vietcong, who had occupied Cambodia’s eastern parts since the mid sixties, the accords stated: “Foreign countries shall put an end to all military activities in Cambodia and Laos, totally withdraw from and refrain from reintroducing into these two countries troops, military advisers and military personnel, armaments, munitions and war material. The internal affairs of Cambodia and Laos shall be settled by the people of each of these countries without foreign interference.”

These all sounded idealistic and wishful. There was hardly any provision to penalize the offenders of these articles. If anything, it was like trying to give speeding tickets at the Indy 500.

Obviously, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong had no intention of respecting the accords. Two years later they ran their tanks through Saigon and took over South Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge went even farther by immediately turning Cambodia into a land of blood and tears, where some two million people died. It was said there were only two kinds of people: those who had died and those who would die.

After 12 Congresses and five Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford), Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam fell to the Communists. Who lost them?

An American Amnesia details the role of the 94th Congress which came to Washington after the November 5, 1974 post-Watergate landslide. It brought 291 Democrats and 144 Republicans to the House, 61 Democrats and 39 Republicans to the Senate. When it convened on January 3, 1975, President Ford became no more than a caretaker. The Democratically controlled Congress, along with the biased media, the anti-U.S. and pro-North Vietnam protesters (Jane Fonda, Ramsey Clark, and the like) made President Ford’s job at best challenging and at worst impossible.

Nixon probably said it best in 1969: “Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.”

Herschensohn’s chapter on “Hotel Journalism” is very telling about “cocktail reporting,” a tendency of anti-war journalists who filed stories from hotel bars based on propaganda fed by communist sympathizers. Incidentally, I was at one of those hotels, Le Royal in Phnom Penh, with my brother on April 17, 1975 when the Khmer Rouge came in and opened the darkest chapter of Cambodia’s history.

Bruce Herschensohn does an excellent job in painting the reality of this period, exposing the biased press and the overtly pro-Communist anti-war movement, and saluting the real heroes (Bud Day, John McCain, Jim Stockdale). He debunks many myths about the Vietnam War which he refers to as the Southeast Asian War.

President Reagan once quoted a Russian proverb: “Trust, but verify.” I would add, “For Communists and dictators, never trust, and always verify.”

Bruce Herschensohn’s American Amnesia is a must read for those interested in this critical period of history.
----------------------------
Sichan Siv (www.sichansiv.com) is a former United States ambassador to the United Nations and author of "Golden Bones: An Extraordinary Escape from Hell in Cambodia to a New Life in America."

The odissey of the Cambodian cowboy

Sichan Siv will tell his story in Long Beach this week. (Courtesy Sichan Siv)

Hennessy: An amazing story of an odyssey from the Killing Fields to the White House

05/16/2009
Tom Henessy
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

Life dangled from a precipice. Your best chance of survival was to pass yourself off as an illiterate peasant.

If you were educated, you might die. If you wore glasses, suggesting you were educated, you might die. If you were seen foraging for food, even grass or insects, you might die.

It was Cambodia, 1976. A year earlier, the Khmer Rouge had taken power. Now they were determined to establish a primitive society, one easily ruled. When the decade ended, they were gone. But up to 2 million people were dead.

Or so it is thought. No one can make an accurate count.

But Sichan Siv, 27 years old, resourceful and brave, had survived. He was especially vulnerable, having once worked for the humanitarian group CARE and having helped refugees from the Vietnam War, which, if revealed, would have meant certain death.

Siv escaped Cambodia by walking 500 harrowing miles past land mines, Khmer Rouge patrols, decomposed bodies, wild jungle animals and booby traps. It took him almost a year to reach neighboring Thailand.

Separated from his family by the Khmer Rouge, he never saw his loved ones again, but he survived in part by recalling his mother's words: "No matter what happens, never give up hope."

It was a message that would carry him to the United States, the White House and the United Nations.

Coming to Long Beach

Sichan Siv will tell his remarkable story Tuesday in Long Beach as a guest of the Long Beach Library Foundation.

Meanwhile, I have interviewed him from his home in San Antonio, Texas, where he now lives and has written his story in a book called "Golden Bones."

Q: What is meant by "Golden Bones?"

A: Cambodians call somebody who is extremely blessed and lucky a person of golden bones.

Q: And you were extremely lucky to have escaped Cambodia. Why did you leave?

A: The Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia into a land of blood and tears. It was an enormous slave labor camp where people toiled for 18 hours a day with only one meal. It was deepest hell. I was sentenced to death twice, for trying to escape and for damaging a truck.

Q: Your life under the Khmer Rouge and while trying to flee Cambodia was nightmarish. Do you still dream about those days?

A: Not anymore. I used to have nightmares for a long while. As I woke up, I felt very relieved when I realized that I was in America.

Q: How did you escape Cambodia?

A: On Feb. 13, 1976, I jumped off a logging truck in northwest Cambodia and ran across the jungle for three days having nothing to eat or drink. I fell into a booby trap and was severely wounded. In Thailand, I was jailed for illegal entry before being transferred to a refugee camp. I spent a few months teaching English to fellow refugees and being ordained a Buddhist monk. I arrived in Connecticut on June 4, one month before the Bicentennial.

To the White House

Q: After being sponsored by a Connecticut family, you assimilated very quickly. How did you manage that?

A: I felt I had to adapt to be adopted. So I did everything that came my way to the best of my ability, from picking apples to driving a taxi. I got a scholarship to graduate school at Columbia. I worked on Wall Street and other places until 1988 when I volunteered in the (George H. W.) Bush campaign. I was one of the lucky few to be asked to serve at the White House in 1989.

Q: That's a remarkable career.

A: I was at the right place at the right time. The Bush transition was looking for someone to handle the communications aspects of our national security. I was born in a poor country, spoke several languages, and was familiar with international relations. When President Bush left the White House in 1993, I returned to the private sector and continued to work on global issues. This experience also helped me when George W. Bush nominated me to be a U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in 2001. I was unanimously confirmed by the Senate.

Q: What do you consider the achievements of the Bush presidents?

A: It's hard to describe them in a few sentences. At the White House, first among equals was President George (H.W.) Bush's decision to extend Most Favored Nation trading status to China and to receive the Dalai Lama. Then you have to give high marks on his management of the post-Cold War world. At the U.N., George W. Bush was the first president to increase foreign assistance by 50 percent since JFK, and the first head of state to bring human trafficking to the world's attention. I feel very privileged to have served two presidents, and through them the American people.

Q: In 1992, you returned to Cambodia as a member of the highest-level mission to that country since 1975. Describe what it was like to go back.

A: It was an emotional return. I had left 16 years before, on foot through the jungle. I returned as a presidential assistant in a U.S. government aircraft. I did not recognize anything. For a few hours, I was numb.

Q: Soldiers returning to their old battlefields sometimes say it is therapeutic to see them at peace. Has that been the case for you in returning to Cambodia?

A: It is therapeutic. I try to take my wife there once a year to reconnect and to show her new places. (Siv's wife, Martha, is Texan.) In November 2008, we went to Ratanakiri (a province) in the Northeast, a remote wild and mountainous region. I was there with my older sister 40 years ago. It brought back fond memories, as well as sad ones.

Q: What does Cambodia need to do at this point in its history?

A: Cambodia needs to address domestic issues such as injustice, crime and corruption. When these are resolved, it can be a politically mature nation.

Q: You travel often to American cities with large Cambodian populations. Why?

A: It's part of carrying my mother's wisdom of never giving up hope, as I describe in "Golden Bones," and encouraging others to continue to work hard, do great things, and lead a good life. I also try to connect all these communities so that they can compare and build upon their experiences.

Cambodia to Texas

Q: You now live in Texas, a far cry from life in Cambodia. How is that working for you?

A: I love Texas. While growing up in Cambodia, I enjoyed watching Western movies in French and was amazed at the "can-do" attitude of Texans. As we usually say, "I was not born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could." I also love California. Each time I am here, I say to myself, "I'll be back."

Last month, Siv was honored for his service by being given the George H.W. Bush Asian/Pacific American Heritage Association's Award. The award came with a letter from the former president, who wrote, in part: "When we think of you, we think about an outstanding leader and public servant; we think about honor, decency, and integrity....Well done, my friend and well deserved."

Tom Hennessy's column appears on the first and third Sundays of the month. He can be reached at 562-499-1270 or by e-mail at scribe17@mac.com.

HEAR HIS STORY

Former Ambassador Sichan Siv will speak from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Long Beach's Main Library, 101 Pacific Ave.

Admission: $30 benefiting the Long Beach Library Foundation. For reservations, call 562-628-2441.

The book: Barnes & Noble will sell copies of "Golden Bones."

Cambodian cowboy receives Heritage Award

Sichan Siv, the Cambodian Cowboy (Photo: Pampa News)

Former Ambassador Given Heritage Award

By Poch Reasey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
15 May 2009

One of the most prominent Asian-American organizations in the US has honored a Cambodian-American from Texas who served in the administrations of both Bush presidents.

Sichan Siv was awarded the 2009 George HW Bush Heritage Award by the Asian Pacific American Heritage Association of Houston at a ceremony in Texas on May 8.

The president of the association, Alice Lee, told VOA Khmer by telephone from Houston that the award is typically given to “an individual who not only has served the community but also exemplified greatness to both the Asian culture and also the mainstream culture."

Sichan Siv told VOA Khmer by telephone from his home in Texas that he was honored to accept the award, not only for himself but for all Cambodian-Americans.

"Public service is the most important work,” he said. “As President George HW Bush has said, nothing is more important and more rewarding than public service."

The award comes with a personal letter from the 41st president and the former first lady, congratulating the former ambassador for his outstanding public service.

Sichan Siv served from 1989 to 1992 as deputy assistant to president George HW Bush from 1989 to 1992. He also served president George W Bush as the US ambassador to the United Nations’ Social and Economic Council from 2001 to 2006.

Sichan Siv Will Visit the Long Beach Public Library on May 19th

Cambodian "Killing Fields" Survivor, Ambassador Sichan Siv, Bestselling Author of Golden Bones, Will Visit the Long Beach Public Library May 19th

The Long Beach Public Library Foundation will present "killing fields" survivor's story of success at the Main Library in Long Beach, CA on Tuesday May 19th from 5:30.-7:30p.m. Ambassador Sichan Siv will tell his tale of endurance and triumph rising from Pol Pot prisoner to U.S. Ambassadorship to achieve the American Dream.

Long Beach, CA (PRWEB) May 14, 2009 -- Daring escapes from war horrors coupled with meteoric rises from tragedy's ashes are often thought to be only the stuff of Hollywood films. But the dramatic and courageous life of The Honorable Sichan Siv - a refugee from the Cambodian "killing fields" and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations - is a true story.

The Long Beach Public Library Foundation is pleased to present Ambassador Siv on Tuesday, May 19, to tell his amazing and inspiring story from his best-selling book, Golden Bones: An Extraordinary Journey from Hell in Cambodia to a New Life in America. This will be the Ambassador's first appearance in Southern California.

While war raged throughout Southeast Asia in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ambassador Siv was a young intellectual and graduate student in Cambodia. He was part of the target demographic that dictator Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge sought to eradicate, resulting in the infamous "killing fields" or rice paddies dotted with millions of skulls.

Siv was captured and placed in a slave labor camp, but made a daring escape though the jungle to Thailand. After months in a refuge camp, he entered the United States. Once here, through diligence and hard work, he rose to the heights of the U.S. government.

Tuesday, May 19 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Main Auditorium, Long Beach Public Library
101 Pacific Avenue, Long Beach

Tickets are available for $30 by calling (562) 628-2441 or purchasing online at www.lbplfoundation.org. The event will include a live reading by Ambassador Siv, book signing and refreshments. Books will be available to purchase.

The non-profit Long Beach Public Library Foundation supplements and supports the Long Beach Public Library. The Foundation's programs include Family Learning Centers at each of the city's 12 libraries, as well as the Raising A Reader program, which has graduated more than 5,700 parents and pre-schoolers from its reading readiness course. Among the Foundation's most prominent programs is the annual Long Beach Reads One Book, when the entire city spends a week celebrating a selected book and its author. Funds from Ambassador Siv's appearance will support these programs.

Long Beach Public Library Foundation
101 Pacific Avenue, Long Beach, CA
562/628-2441 - lbpl.foundation@charter.net
Contact: Sara Pillet

‘Golden’ Ambassador Returns With Memoir

Sichan Siv, as US ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council in 2004, discusses the US position before walking out to protest a vote giving Sudan a third term on the Human Rights Commission.

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
28 November 2008

Sichan Siv was a victim of the Khmer Rouge. Among the nearly 2 million killed under the regime were 15 members of his family. But Siv Sichan has, as they say in Khmer, floating bones: He not only escaped death under the regime but rose to a high-ranking position in the White House.

He arrived for a brief visit to Cambodia this week to discuss his memoir, “Golden Bones,” published earlier this year.

He was appointed in 2001 as US ambassador to United Nation’s Economic and Social Council, having served as deputy assistant to then-president George H.W. Bush in Public Liaison office and as deputy assistant secretary for South Asian affairs, from 1989 to 1993.

The former ambassador told VOA Khmer in Phnom Penh that his successes came from the struggles and hardships he encountered as soon as he set foot in America, in 1976.


“I arrived in Connecticut with $2 in my pocket, and I think I was successful because I had to work,” he said. “I didn’t think of the past; it was agonizing and terrifying. So I thought about the future. I just kept working. I picked apples in Connecticut. I was a taxi driver in New York. And then I received a scholarship and got a master’s in international affairs at Columbia University.”

His rise came from inauspicious beginnings.

Sichan Siv worked for the American relief agency CARE before the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, five days after he missed the last evacuation helicopter. He had attended a meeting in Kampong Speu province seeking a way to help 3,000 stranded families.

That missed evacuation changed his life. He and his family were moved to Bati district, Takeo province, the birthplace of his already deceased father, as the Khmer Rouge declared Year Zero and began implementing their vision of an agrarian communist utopia.

Sichan Siv had been the only son in his family to attend college, earning a bachelor’s degree at Phnom Penh University. He spoke both French and English, making him a target of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, who sought out intellectuals for execution. But it was not he who died.

“Among 16 of us, I was the only one who survived after we left Bati,” he said. He survived in silence. “I shut my mouth. I knew nothing, I heard nothing, I saw nothing, I said nothing. I just kept silent.”

The Khmer Rouge cadre would ask him about his background, he said, “but I kept telling them the same thing: I was a worker, worker, worker.”

He found himself working for the regime as a timber hauler in Sisophon, near the Thai border.

“On the 13th of February, 1976, I was sitting on the roof of a truck at the back of a truck. I jumped off and walked three days through the jungle to Thailand,” he said, falling into a pit of bamboo spikes along the way. “I was seriously injured, but I tried to limp to Thailand, where after I arrived, they put me in jail, because I had no documents.”

Once the Thais were convinced he was not a Khmer Rouge soldier, he was released to a refugee camp in Aragn, where he taught English to other refugees. By mid-1976, he was adopted by a family in the US. Thirteen years later, aged 41, he was working in the White House, becoming the 28th US ambassador to the United Nations.

The former ambassador said recently the success in his life was due to luck. He received his Columbia scholarship at a time when the university had announced it would admit people from poor countries. He entered the White House by chance, too, when the first Bush administration was looking for a foreign-language speakers and education in international affairs. (He had been among thousands of volunteer in Bush’s first election campaign, in 1988.)

Despite this seeming luck, some Cambodians view him as a man with golden bones—words that emerged as the title of his memoir, published in July by Harper Collins.

Siv Sichan presented a copy of “Golden Bones” to the National Library on Friday, following a lecture at Pannasastra University of Cambodia Thursday. The former ambassador will attend a book signing at Monument Books in Phnom Penh Saturday evening.

Impunity Hurting Political 'Maturity': Official [-Amb. Sichan Siv should tell these facts to the Hun Sen regime]

By Poch Reasey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
19 November 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

Cambodia has the potential to be an industrialized nation, but corruption and impunity have kept it politically immature, a former US ambassador said.

Sichan Siv, who serverd as US ambassador to the United Nations, said Cambodia has slowly overcome its problems since the early 1990s, but certain impediments remain.

“The problems of corruption, crime and impunity still exist in Cambodia,” he told VOA Khmer. “However, I believe that when the government and society can solve these problems, our country can achieve political maturity.”

The former ambassador was at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Texas last week, where he paid a call on former president George HW Bush and addressed 200 Boy Scouts on leadership and patriotism.

“I have hopes that Cambodia has the potential to become industrialized, because Cambodian people are hard working, have a strong culture and have a strong civilization,” he said. “Our ancestors built the Angkor temple. This is a symbol of our strong civilization.”

Sichan Siv also said Cambodia could industrialize thanks to the Cambodians’ love of study.

“Just look at the French language,” he said. “Everyone my generation speaks French. Now people speak English. Cambodians like to learn what’s new, to adapt to change.”

Cambodia had enjoyed the double-digit economic growth for the past several years, but the global economic slowdown has drastically reduced projections for 2009.

‘Hope’ Rings True for Cambodian Author [Sichan Siv]

Ambassador Sichan Siv with Denise Lew of VOA China Branch at the Heritage Foundation.

By Poch Reasey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
13 November 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

A former US ambassador to the United Nations, Sichan Siv, says he is very pleased by the positive reaction from Americans as he travels around the country to promote his autobiography.

"Since the book was published on July 1, I have traveled from the West Coast to the East Coast and to many places in between," the former ambassador told VOA Khmer in Washington last week. "And the reaction from the people has been very good."

Sichan Siv's "Golden Bones," an autobiography describing his life in Cambodia and journey to America. In the book, he describes his journey from the jungles of Cambodia to the halls of the White House.

Americans from all professions, waiters, doctors, politicians and others, not only understand the important message in his book, which is hope, but they also believe in it, he said.

"As human beings we must have hope," he said. "My mother used to tell me when I was younger that no matter what the situation you're in, you must not give up hope."

Sichan Siv said he wanted the world to know about his ordeal. A number of foreign publishers have already expressed interest in translating his book into foreign languages, he said.

Regime Survivor [Sichan Siv] Sees Himself in McCain

Former ambassador Sichan Siv with former White House colleagues at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minnesota. From left: Joe Watkins, Grace Gomez, Sichan Siv, Bobbie Kilberg, Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan, Joseph Samora.

By Poch Reasey, VOA Khmer
Original reports from Washington
08 September 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

Delegates of the Republican National Convention, held in Minnesota last week, were happy with the choice of Sarah Palin as the vice presidential choice for candidate Sen. John McCain, a former US ambassador told VOA Khmer.

The choice of Palin, which was announced last week, was a reflection of the party's plan to advance the national economy and military and to improve its security, said Sichan Siv, a Cambodian survivor of the Khmer Rouge who became a US ambassador to the United Nations.

The announcement of Palin as McCain's running mate in the presidential race surprised many observers, but Sichan Siv said the American people will have a chance to learn more about her and will realize John McCain is an experienced leader worth voting for.

McCain's experiences as a prisoner during the US war in Vietnam reminded Sichan Siv of his own experiences under the Khmer Rouge, he said.

"We had the same experience," he said. "He was in prison in North Vietnam. I was in prison under the Khmer Rouge regime."

With the convention over, Sichan Siv will now travel around the US to meet with Asian-Americans, including those of Cambodian descent, to help campaign for the Republican ticket, as the November election approaches.

The former ambassador urged Cambodians to follow US election coverage, saying the presidential election was "a good lesson in democracy, from which the Cambodian people can learn."

"There is progress in Cambodia, and I admire that," he added. "Democracy is an important base for Cambodia to advance its economy and security."

A Lot of Energy at [Republican] Convention: Observer

Former ambassador Sichan Siv

By Poch Reasey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
04 September 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

The Republican National Convention, underway in St. Paul, Minn., was back on track Wednesday, following the distraction of Hurrican Gustav, and participants were showing a lot of energy, a Cambodian former ambassador said.

Sichan Siv, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, is attending the convention, which officially named Sen. John McCain as the party's presidential candidate.

Sichan Siv told VOA Khmer by phone from the convention McCain made a good candidate because of his lifelong achievements in public office and the military.

McCain is a veteran pilot of the Vietnam War, and was held for years as a prisoner of war.

McCain's foreign policy experience in dealing with Asia also made him a good choice, Sichan Siv said, dismissing concerns of the candidate's age, 72.

With advancements in medicine, Sichan Siv said, people will soon live beyond 100 years of age.

US Cambodians Urged to Join Politics

By Poch Reasey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
23 July 2008

Cambodian-Americans should be more involved in the US political process, to better understand it, a former ambassador said.

"Volunteer and do anything that the senior people ask you to do, from giving out pamphlets, fliers, to mailing information, to raising funds, to grass-root politics, going door to door," said Sichan Siv, a former Cambodian ambassador who volunteered for the political campaign of George Bush 20 years ago.

Cambodians and other Asian-Americans will not have their voices heard if they don't get involved, he said.

"You have to register to vote," he said. "You have to express your opinion. You have to write letters to your congressman and your senator telling them about your positions, because they listen to you."

"You are the voters," he said. "You are the boss of everybody else, including the president of the United States.”

Sichan Siv also urged voters going to Cambodia's polls on Sunday "to elect candidates that they strongly believe would help Cambodia, that are clean and competent and who would be able to bring Cambodia into the 21st century."

Sichan Siv spoke to VOA Khmer in July at a bookstore in Washington where he was promoting his new work, "Golden Bones: an Extraordinary Journey From Hell in Cambodia to a New Life in America."

The book event attracted more than 60 people from friends and former colleagues to young people who wanted to meet the Ambassador in person.

Sophoan Holl, a Cambodian-American who came to the United States 24 years ago and now lives in Virginia, was among them.

"He's a very good role model for all Cambodians," she said of Sichan Siv. "They should have a dream, a desire like him…. Never give up. Especially for Cambodians who made it to the US. They have a lot of opportunities. The sky is the limit as far as what they wish to become."

Kirshore Thota, an Indian-American who is volunteering for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, said he was an admirer of Sichan Siv and wanted to meet the author and former ambassador in person.

"He has a great book about his struggles and how he came from nothing to becoming one of the top-ranking officials in the Bush administration as an ambassador," Thota said. "It's a very inspiring story. He's a great role model to have."

Sichan Siv's new book: Golden Bones

Former U.S. ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council Sichan Siv and his wife Martha
Sichan Siv with his mortocycle

Cambodian Killing Fields Survivor Tells His Story In New Book

By Greg Flakus, VOA
San Antonio, Texas
02 July 2008

Click here to listen to Flakus report in English

Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Economic and Social Council Sichan Siv has written a new book, called "Golden Bones," that tells how he survived the Khmer Rouge terror in his native land and came to prosper in the United States. As VOA's Greg Flakus reports from San Antonio, Texas, the author admits that luck had a lot to do with it.

Former U.S. ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council Sichan Siv and his wife Martha
On a patio outside his home, Sichan Siv shares a toast with friends who have come to celebrate the 32nd anniversary of his arrival in the United States. At that time he had only $2 in his pocket.

But Sichan Siv had something else on his side, as he explains in his book "Golden Bones."

"Cambodians believe that somebody who is very blessed and lucky is a person with golden bones," he said.

Luck and a lot of hard work helped Sichan Siv go in 13 years from being a poor refugee to being the first Asian-American deputy assistant to the president of the United States, under the first President George Bush. In 2001, the current President Bush appointed him U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Economic and Social Council.

But Sichan Siv's real luck started well before all that. He survived one of the most brutal periods of modern human history when the Khmer Rouge took over his country in 1975.

He was working with the relief agency CARE at the time and could have escaped had he made it to the U.S. embassy on time.

"I missed the last helicopter by 30 minutes because I decided to go to a meeting trying to help some 3,000 refugee families stranded in the province," Siv recalled. "Five days later, the Khmer Rouge came and they emptied the cities and all the urban centers and they put everybody to forced labor."

He lost his mother and all other members of his family in the killing fields, and nearly lost his own life as well.

"I survived 10 brutal months under the Khmer Rouge with countless brushes with death," said Siv. "Then I made it to Thailand after I spent three days walking across the jungle in northwest Cambodia. I fell in a booby trap and was severely wounded, but I arrived in Thailand completely exhausted."

Thai authorities arrested him for illegal entry and then took him to a refugee camp where he taught English to fellow refugees and intensified his devotion to Buddhism.

Although he avoids bitterness, Sichan Siv says he wants to see former Khmer Rouge leaders held accountable for their crimes.

"There is not one Cambodian who has not lost someone or something dear to them so everybody wants to see justice brought to these people," he said.

Five former Khmer Rouge officials are being prosecuted by a special genocide tribunal in Cambodia. Their cases are expected to be tried later this year.

Today, Sichan Siv enjoys going for rides around San Antonio on his motorcycle. He cannot forget the horrors of the past, but he seems determined to concentrate on his new life here. This self-styled "Cambodian cowboy" also enjoys horseback riding and has helped herd cattle on a ranch in west Texas where his wife, Martha, was born and raised. She says they chose to live in San Antonio partly because of its western atmosphere.

"Sichan says that when he was growing up in Cambodia he listened to all those John Wayne movies dubbed in French, so now he is living it out in San Antone!," she said.

As his book goes on the market, Sichan Siv hopes he can help readers understand what it has meant for him to have this new life in the United States.

"I hope that they will understand that in America everything is possible, that when you have dreams you can turn your dreams into reality," he said.

Sichan Siv has found his dream here, but he says he will never forget those in Cambodia who were unable to escape their nightmare.

'Golden Bones,' the Story on an Ambassador [Sichan Siv]

By Nuch Sarita, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
19 May 2008

Click here to listen to the program in Khmer

Sichan Siv, former US ambassador to the United Nations, is the only official in the US government who was born in Cambodia, and he has held a high ranking position at the White House, in the office of the 41st US president.

He has just released a memoir, “Golden Bones,” the tale of an extraordinary journey from the hell of Cambodia to a new American life. The book, written in English, is being published by a major New York house and is scheduled to be in bookstores in the US in July, and Sichan Siv gave a talk on it at the White House in Washington last week.

“I was at the White House last week to listen to Ambassador Sichan Siv about his new upcoming book ‘Golden Bones,’” Reaksmey Norin, a Cambodian woman, told VOA Khmer. “It make me so proud to be a Cambodian.”

She called him a “role model,” but others see him as golden.

The book’s title comes from the Cambodian adage for someone born very lucky, or who is blessed. Cambodians from the village of Sichan Siv’s father, who know the former ambassador was able to escape the Khmer Rouge and find a life abroad, call him “the man with the golden bones.”

Sichan Siv was working for the CARE organization in Phnom Penh when the country fell to the communists. He escaped in 1976, knowing he was in trouble because of his past.

“I hard worked for the Cambodian airlines and for the US, I had studied at a university, and I wore glasses,” he told VOA Khmer. “So I fled to Thailand.”

On his journey, he remembered the advice of his mother, who told him, “never give up hope.”

“Hope kept me alive for a year under the Khmer Rouge, and I did everything the best way I could,” he said. “It was my mother’s wisdom that helped me move on. The dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.”

Sichan Siv arrived in the US in 1976 and began a new life, picking apples at first in the state of Connecticut and driving a taxi in New York.

By 1989, he was the deputy assistant to the US president, George H.W. Bush, and in 2001 he was appointed by President George W. Bush as a delegate to the UN Commission on Human Rights.

What happened in between is a very good story.

Former King’s Film Plays to DC Crowd

Photos: http://norodomsihanouk.info

By Nuch Sarita, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
08 May 2008

“My Village at Sunset,” the first film produced by former king Norodom Sihanouk following his return from exile in 1991, was screened Tuesday at a Washington, DC, university.

The film, which stars the current king, Nordom Sihamoni, Sihanouk’s son, was screened at George Washington University and introduced by former ambassador to the UN Sichan Siv.

“‘My Village at Sunset’ is a love story about a well-educated young Khmer doctor who gives up a privileged life in France and returns to Cambodia,” the former ambassador told VOA Khmer.

The young surgeon spends his time working in a hospital, helping landmine victims, and slowly becomes entangled in a love triangle with a distant cousin and a nurse. He is eventually driven to join a mine-disposal team and dies in the countryside.

“The movie is terrific, and the scenery is beautiful,” said Joselynn Barber, a resident of nearby Arlington, Va. “I was fascinated to see the Cambodian sky [and] Angkor Wat, and the story itself was startling.”

Some Cambodian-Americans, unable to return to their home country, expressed admiration and adoration for the simple lives of the Cambodians and the beauty of the distant country.

“The movie revealed an inside perspective of Khmer culture, native music and traditional wedding,” said Narin Jameson, who lives in the state of Maryland.

The Cambodian Buddhist Association of Maryland plans to sponsor a showing of the film in Silver Spring, Md., for public viewing.

Last Breakfast in Cambodia

Sichan Siv (Photo: Pampa News)

Op-Ed Contributor
April 26, 2008
By SICHAN SIV
The New York Times (USA)

Angkor, Cambodia

Cambodia today is not unlike the Cambodia of my youth — there is deep poverty and enormous wealth, side-by-side. There is unrest beneath the surface, the unrest that helped to make the horrors of the last century possible.

CAMBODIANS and other Theravada Buddhists celebrate their New Year in mid-April. They were not always able to do so. Under Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese rule, those ancient traditions were forbidden, impossible. But now Cambodia is free again and the festivities are in the open. As I wander the country of my youth, I see people spending the long holiday praying at temples and visiting relatives.

And I remember. My family used to hold a reunion on April 13 to mark both the New Year and my mother’s birthday. In 1975, we had no idea that it would be our last. We were all apprehensive about the future, and my mother was distraught because I had missed the American evacuation.

The day before, an officer of the United States Agency for International Development had told me that I had to be at the embassy within an hour if I wanted to be airlifted out of Cambodia. (I was a manager for the American relief agency CARE and had been selected for the evacuation.) Instead, I went to a meeting to find a way to help 3,000 families stranded in an isolated province.

“Maybe I can make the meeting and get to the embassy in time,” I thought.

But as I returned to Phnom Penh, the traffic became heavily congested. Thousands of people on ox carts and overloaded bicycles were making their way to the capital to seek shelter and safety. When I finally reached the American Embassy and gave my name to the security officer, he looked puzzled.

“They are not coming back — they are gone!” The guard shouted his answer to emphasize the hard truth. And he added: “The war is over. We will have peace!”

Speechless, I went to the riverbank and looked at the horizon to see if I could spot the helicopters. The sky was blue and cloudless. I saw nothing. Years later, I learned that I had been looking in the wrong direction. The helicopters had flown westward toward the Gulf of Thailand. And I was looking east.

I was 30 minutes late. My life was going to change forever.

Everyone in the city was in a very somber mood. We prayed that our beloved country would return to the peaceful and stable life of the 1960s. What would happen to us now that the United States had closed its embassy? Two days earlier, President Gerald Ford had announced: “The situation in South Vietnam and Cambodia has reached a critical phase requiring immediate and positive decisions by this government. The options before us are few, and the time is very short.”

Five days later, on April 17, I stopped at a street-side restaurant to have a bowl of Phnom Penh noodles. A waiter took my order in Khmer and shouted in Cantonese loudly enough to be heard all the way to the kitchen: “One bowl of Kuytiev Phnom Penh, no MSG, no fat, blanched bean sprouts, hot tea for the skinny guy with glasses, white shirt, dark pants, table 13!” A different waiter brought my noodles in less than three minutes. Not once had they got the order wrong. It was going to be my last proper breakfast in Cambodia.

I had read gruesome descriptions of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge against enemies of their revolution: babies thrown into the air and caught with a bayonet, children smashed into trees, villagers having their throats cut with the thorns of palm branches, merchants clubbed to death with the back of a hoe. I did not believe them.

The street was lined with city residents, a few still wearing the kramas and sarongs they had slept in. One was brushing his teeth. But all were looking north, waiting for something. They looked fearful.

I spent all day in a temporary emergency room in the Hotel Le Royal doing what I could to help. I came out for fresh air and saw the Khmer Rouge being welcomed. People seemed genuinely happy that the war had ended.

Later that day, the first day of “peace,” I and 15 of my family members left our home after the Khmer Rouge had ordered all cities immediately emptied, and walked to Pochentong, the village where my siblings and I were born. Our house was occupied by strangers, so we went to the temple. The monks were already gone and there were bodies lying around. Mother was sobbing. The women and girls in our family were choking back tears. The boys and men were all silent.

Shortly thereafter, I was separated from my family by the Khmer Rouge. After a year in slave labor camps, where I survived two death sentences, I escaped to Thailand. Following a few months in a Thai jail, in a Buddhist temple and in a refugee camp, I arrived in Wallingford, Conn., with $2 in my pocket. I later learned I was the only survivor in my close family. The Khmer Rouge had killed everyone else.

Cambodia today is not unlike the Cambodia of my youth — there is deep poverty and enormous wealth, side-by-side. There is unrest beneath the surface, the unrest that helped to make the horrors of the last century possible. And so, as I walk from one memory-filled place to another, I pray for a new year in which Cambodia’s leaders will find a way to bring about peace and stability. And, of course, I pray for my family.

Sichan Siv, a former United States ambassador to the United Nations, is the author of the forthcoming “Golden Bones.”

‘Cambodian Cowboy' to visit Pampa on July 4

Pampa News photo by David Bower Sichan Siv having lunch at The Cattle Exchange in Canadian, 2003.

Saturday, Apr 19, 2008
By DAVID BOWSER
The Pampa News (Texas, USA)

The story starts in Cambodia and ends on the Fourth of July at the Canadian rodeo.

Sichan Siv, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and husband of Martha Pattillo, a Pampa native, is the author of a new book, “Golden Bones,” the story of his journey from the killing fields of Cambodia to the White House and the halls of the United Nations and his relation to the Texas Panhandle.

It was in 1970, when Prince Sihanouk was deposed in Cambodia and Lon Nol took power that the North Vietnamese Army broke out of their sanctuaries in eastern Cambodia and attacked Cambodian forces. While a 1973 agreement in Paris ended the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge began their battle to take over Cambodia.

By 1975, the Khmer Rouge had taken over the country and nearly two million people had died of exhaustion, starvation and summary execution.

Siv escaped Phnom Penh with his family in 1975, but he is the only survivor. His mother, brother, sister and their families were clubbed to death by the Khmer Rouge.

Siv made it to Thailand only to be held as an illegal alien. Eventually, he made his way to the U.S., arriving in Connecticut in June, 1976. He had two dollars in his pocket.

The name of his book comes from his return to his father's village in Cambodia in 1992.

“Cambodians call someone who is very blessed or lucky a ‘person with golden bones,'” Siv said.

The villagers knew he had survived the Khmer Rouge massacre, had gone to America and was working in the White House for the President of the United States.

“They called me the ‘man with golden bones,'” Siv said.

The book is due to be released in early July.

Siv is expected to be in Pampa and Canadian for the Fourth of July celebrations.

“For us, the most exotic thing in the world would be to go to Paris or to the pyramids or to Cambodia and Angkor Wat,” Siv's wife said.

For her husband, she said the most exotic experience of a lifetime is to come to the Texas Panhandle and ride on a real ranch.

“He just thinks the panhandle is THE place,” she said.

When Siv was growing up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, he used to watch John Wayne films in French at the movie theaters.

“Here, the heavens and earth hug each other,” Siv said on a visit to the Brainard Ranch in 2003.

Political Cartoon: La Forêt Enchantée

Click on the toon to zoom in

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Cambodia Town "power couple" jetsetting all over the world, makes a big splash on King-Father's BMD thanks to Sichan Siv's announcement

The "power couple": Sithea San, chairman of Cambodia Town, and Richer San, her husband, president of the Long Beach-Phnom Penh Sister Cities

Click on the letter to zoom in

Amb. Sichan Siv arranges for Dr. Kol Pheng to visit Troy, Alabama

Cambodian education minister to visit Troy

Tuesday October 2, 2007
By Matt Clower,
The Messenger (Troy, Alabama, USA)

A minister of education for the government of Cambodia will be meeting with officials at Troy University on campus Wednesday.

Dr. Kol Pheng is the Cambodian Senior Minister and Minister of Education, Youth and Sports. He also serves as chairman of the board of Trustees for Pannasastra University of Cambodia.

University officials report that Kol is the highest-ranking foreign education official to visit the Troy campus.

Dr. Jack Hawkins Jr., chancellor of Troy University, said the meeting with Kol was arranged through the university's relationship with former United Nations Ambassador Sichan Siv, who spoke at Troy's spring commencement in May.

Siv is a native of Cambodia who escaped forced labor camps in 1976.

"We have developed a close relationship with Ambassador Sichan Siv, who spoke at a recent commencement on our campus, and Ambassador Siv has strongly encouraged the Cambodian leadership to get to know us," Hawkins said. "We are encouraged by this visit from Dr. Kol and are encouraged by the outreach for Troy University."

While on the Troy Campus, Kol will meet with Hawkins, tour the campus and be briefed by senior academic leadership. He will also attend a luncheon with the faculty council.

In a statement released to the media on Monday, the University did not reveal what would be discussed with Kol during his meetings with school officials.

Following the luncheon, Kol will visit the Montgomery campus, where he will meet with Alabama Development Office Director Neal Wade, State Superintendent of Education Joe Morton, Sen. Wendell Mitchell and Rep. Alan Boothe.