The discovery of a mass grave in Do Dontrei brings back terrible memories for a community

Khmer Rouge survivor Chea Nouen. Source: AP

Skulls and bones have been unearthed at a newly-discovered grave site in Do Dantrei village in Cambodia. Source: AP

August 26, 2012
AP

Cambodia's regime prefers to literally bury the past, especially since some of its current leaders, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, were once Khmer Rouge.

IT was four gray skulls resting on a bed of jumbled bones that again triggered Chea Nouen's memories.

Breast-feeding her baby with her hands and feet shackled; her husband thrown into a pit to be turned into human fertilizer, her own marches to the killing fields - where she was saved three times by an executioner.

The past came hurtling back earlier this month when a new mass grave was discovered in a village in northwestern Cambodia, one of the bloodiest killing grounds in the country. Like most of Cambodia's 300 known mass grave clusters, it is not being investigated or exhumed to find out what happened.

More than three decades after the Khmer Rouge ultra-revolutionaries orchestrated the deaths of nearly 2 million people, or one out of every four Cambodians, the country has not laid its ghosts to rest.

Cambodia's regime prefers to literally bury the past, especially since some of its current leaders, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, were once Khmer Rouge.

The Killing of Cambodia: Geography, Genocide and the Unmaking of Space

Prof. James A. Tyner
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY
Published by the Documentation Center of Cambodia
Translated into the Khmer language by Y Manoka, Keo Ratanatepy, Kouy Bun Rong, Veng Visal
2012

Between 1975 and 1978, the Khmer Rouge carried out genocide in Cambodia unparalleled in modern history. Approximately 2 million died – almost one quarter of the population. Taking an explicitly geographical approach, this book argues whether the Khmer Rouge's activities not only led to genocide, but also terracide – the erasure of space. In the Cambodia of 1975, the landscape would reveal vestiges of an indigenous pre-colonial Khmer society, a French colonialism and American intervention. The Khmer Rouge, however, were not content with retaining the past inscriptions of previous modes of production and spatial practices. Instead, they attempted to erase time and space to create their own utopian vision of a communal society. The Khmer Rouge's erasing and reshaping of space was thus part of a consistent sacrifice of Cambodia and its people – a brutal justification for the killing of a country and the birth of a new place, Democratic Kampuchea. While focusing on Cambodia, the book provides a clearer geographic understanding to genocide in general and insights into the importance of spatial factors in geopolitical conflict.

DC-Cam Translation:

http://www.d.dccam.org/Publication/Translations/Translations.htm

Exhibit on Cambodia’s killing fields focuses on local survivors

Dary Mien, Executive Director of the Cambodian Association of Illinois gives a tour. A small group of NIU students and faculty have spent five years recording oral histories of Killing Fields survivors in the Chicago area. The histories are now the centerpiece of an exhibit "Witnessing the Cambodian Killing Fields" at the small Cambodian American Heritage museum and Killing Fields Memorial, with an opening ceremony on Thursday, September 15, 2011 in Chicago. | Richard A. Chapman~Sun-Times

Period clothing is on display. A small group of NIU students and faculty have spent five years recording oral histories of Killing Fields survivors in the Chicago area. The histories are now the centerpiece of an exhibit "Witnessing the Cambodian Killing Fields" at the small Cambodian American Heritage museum and Killing Fields Memorial, with an opening ceremony on Thursday, September 15, 2011 in Chicago. | Richard A. Chapman~Sun-Times

September 19, 2011
BY KARA SPAK Staff Reporter/kspak@suntimes.com
Chicago Sun-Times

IF You Go ...

“Remembering the Killing Fields” is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and by appointment on weekends. Admission is free.

Advanced reservations are appreciated. To schedule a personal or group visit, call Anneth Houy at (773) 980-4654 or e-mail anneth@cambodian-association.org.

The Cambodian American Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial is located at 2831 W. Lawrence.

Dary Mien was about 6 years old in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took over her Cambodian homeland.

At least that’s what age her mother told her she was. The family was forced to burn all records like birth certificates as they were coerced into a cruel collective where people were murdered for any sign of holding onto an individual identity.

Children, including Mien, were separated from their families and forced to work picking up cow dung. Their parents dug ditches or worked in rice paddies. Torture, starvation and rampant disease were woven for nearly four years into the daily lives of those living under Pol Pot. An estimated 2 million died in what was later called the “Killing Fields.”

Phnom Penh Noodle House Owner Releases Memoir

Thu., May 5 2011
By Hanna Raskin
Seattle Weekly (Washington, USA)

​Every restaurant owner has a tale of the obstacles he overcame to become a small business owner. But Seng "Sam" Ung's story is far more harrowing than most.

Ung, owner of the tremendously popular Phnom Penh Noodle House in the International District, a few weeks ago released his memoir, I Survived the Killing Fields: The True Life Story of a Cambodian Refugee. With the help of writer Thomas McElroy, Ung shares his account of his Cambodian childhood and its upending by the relentlessly brutal Khmer Rouge regime.

Ung, an average motorcycle-riding, Westerns-loving teenager, grew up working in his parents' restaurant. He was 20 years old when his hometown fell to the Khmer Rouge, igniting a horrific era of suffering and death that enveloped Ung's family. Ung fills chapters with unspeakable memories of watching his relatives starve.

"Hunger compels a person to do anything to stop the pain of it," writes Ung, who remembers trying to trap field rats and coax snakes out of their holes.

Glimpses of heaven — and hell — in Cambodia

A Buddhist temple, or wat, in rural Cambodia near Phnom Penh (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

September 2, 2010
By Erik Tryggestad
The Christian Chronicle

Just after finishing our Global South feature on Cambodia, “Life, death and rebirth in The Killing Fields,” I left on an Africa reporting trip. So I didn’t get the chance to share some insights from my visit to Cambodia earlier this year.

I flew to Phnom Penh, the capital, from Singapore and stayed for a few days before traveling northwest to Siem Reap, where I made a brief visit to the Angkor of Faith 4 youth camp. While in Phnom Penh, I stayed at the home of Rich and Ronda Dolan. They moved to Cambodia a few years ago to work with the Cambodia Bible Institute, a satellite campus of Lubbock, Texas-based Sunset International Bible Institute. Rich is the former youth and family minister for the Broken Arrow, Okla., Church of Christ, so we spent some time talking about mutual friends in the Sooner state.

Dennis and Sharon Welch (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

I also met Dennis and Sharon Welch, who also help with the institute. Dennis was an air-traffic controller in Dallas for 20 years before enrolling in Sunset’s mission program in Lubbock. Joy and Lynn McMillon interviewed him in 2007 for a feature on Sunset. It was nice to see him and his wife at work in the mission field.

The Welches are transitioning into a new ministry role. They will oversee the rural nutrition program I wrote about in the Cambodia feature. The program, which provides nutrition and education for 1,600 children in 11 villages, formerly was overseen by Arkansas-based Partners in Progress.

Now the Central Church of Christ in Stockton, Calif., is taking over support of the ministry.

I got to see the nutrition program firsthand while I was in Cambodia. I took some photos and video of happy children lining up to get a nutritious snack from the Cambodian Christians who work with the program. My favorite part was watching the Cambodians hold up flash cards with words like “ear” and “nose” and teaching the children how to say and spell them in English.

Snacks in hand, girls in rural Cambodia are all smiles. (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

Troy Snowbarger took me from village to village as he showed me the program in action. He and his wife, Tabitha, have overseen the program for a few years, but plan to return to the States to pursue master’s degrees. They formerly worked with the Peace Corps in East Timor. (I’m guessing they were the first Church of Christ members to set foot in that tiny, impoverished nation, but I could be wrong about that.)

Troy Snowbarger watches as children line up for snacks in rural Cambodia. (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

The Central Church of Christ already has funds committed to oversight of the nutrition program, but more money is needed. If anyone is interested in helping out, please contact the church. (Check out Dennis and Sharon’s blog for more information.)

Church members also teach English using the Bible to Cambodian students in Phnom Penh.

I visited a ministry center where volunteers were doing just that, using the World English Institute curriculum. Partners in Progress had oversight of the program at the time, but in the months since that has changed.

Now the program is called Bible English Study and Training, or BEST. Julie Broyles oversees the program, and she’s looking for teachers to come to Cambodia on short-term mission trips. Contact World English Institute for more info. (Julie is Ronda Dolan’s sister, by the way. They both grew up in Thailand, where their father, Loren Hollingsworth, served as a missionary for 30-plus years.)

Cell block at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Memorial in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

In the Cambodia feature, I wrote about Sokhom Hun, the Cambodian-born minister who endured prison and torture at the hands of the brutal Khmer Rouge.

While I was in Phnom Penh I visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Memorial. It’s a former school that became the infamous S-21 prison during the Khmer Rouge years. Vietnamese troops discovered the prison when they ran the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh in 1979. They took photos of the dead bodies strapped to iron bed frames in former classrooms that had become torture chambers.

Those photos hang on the walls of the rooms in which they were taken. The bed frames and the torture implements are still there. The Khmer Rouge kept meticulous notes and photos of the people they imprisoned and murdered there. The photos are on display in the museum. You can see the terror behind the prisoners’ blank stares. An estimated 17,000 people entered those walls and never left.

I can barely put into words what walking through that museum was like. A Cambodian walked up to me while I was looking in one of the rooms.

“Where you from?” he asked, in broken English. I told him I was from Oklahoma.

“This my first time,” he said. Then he shuddered and pointed to his forearms.

I knew what he meant — goosebumps. I had them too.

An interrogation room at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Memorial in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (Photo by Erik Tryggestad)

While preparing the report on Cambodia, I was blessed to come across “Survival in the Killing Fields” by Haing Ngor with Roger Warner. Ngor won an Oscar for his portrayal of Cambodian journalist Dith Pran in the 1984 film “The Killing Fields.” Ngor himself was a physician in Cambodia who was tortured repeatedly by the Khmer Rouge. (In fact, what he endured during the regime makes Dith Pran’s experiences seem almost mild.) Ngor is a tragic figure (he was killed in 1996 in an apparent robbery) and his insights into the paranoid mentality of the Khmer Rouge really helped me to understand the regime — as much as it is possible to do so. The parts of the book that deal with torture are graphic, but it’s a compelling read. I highly recommend it.

Cambodians tackle tribunal's legacy after Khmer Rouge trial

Mon, 23 Aug 2010
By Robert Carmichael
DPA

Battambang, Cambodia - On the outskirts of the city of Battambang in western Cambodia stands a Buddhist pagoda called Wat Samroung Knong.

These days the pagoda is a tranquil place, but for four years from 1975 the Khmer Rouge turned it into a killing field as they sought to reshape Cambodian society.

It is a the community's religious leader, Acha Thun Sovath, remembers well. In the early 1970s he lived here as a young monk, but the Khmer Rouge forced him to leave the monkhood and work in the rice fields with everyone else.

Wat Samroung Knong became a torture and execution centre. The Khmer Rouge interrogated their prisoners - soldiers, teachers and others - demanding to know what positions they had held under the previous regime.

"When they finished questioning them, they took them to a piece of land behind this pagoda where they killed them," he said.

More then 10,000 people were executed here. It was a brutal time, but try telling that to some of the young people, many of whom simply do not believe Cambodians killed each other, said Acha Thun Sovath.

At the time, neither did he.

"I am now an old man, but in 1974 when I heard people talking about how the Khmer Rouge were killing monks and ordinary people, I didn't believe it either," he said softly.

Today, three decades after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, the pagoda is the venue for an effort to ensure this community learns about the brutal past.

Built on stilts over what was a mass grave - a deep pond around twice the length of an Olympic-sized swimming pool - a simple wooden structure is nearing completion.

It will be a community learning centre, and fits the concept of legacy projects. They are what is to remain once the international war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh closes.

Some of the money to build this centre came from the Australian embassy, but the community itself donated materials, time and money.

That gives them an important stake in ensuring it succeeds, said Daravuth Seng, recently executive director of the Center for Justice and Reconciliation, a local non-governmental organization that was also involved in the project.

Seng said the building would provide a gathering space for the community, and would hold information about the Khmer Rouge period.

"So there's opportunity to learn about their past, as well as plan for their future," he said.

The UN-backed tribunal can provide legal justice, which is essential, but that is only one facet of what is needed.

"So more than it being the end, the court is actually the beginning of a process called reconciliation," he said. "Projects like this are very important."

They are also not expensive. Seng reckons it will have cost around 10,000 dollars when it the project finished, which is less than some senior tribunal staff earn in a month.

Other projects are either underway or in the planning stage. One that has started is the virtual tribunal, a database that will hold a digital archive of all court records.

Michelle Staggs Kelsall heads the Khmer Rouge tribunal monitoring section at the East-West Center, a US-based research body.

Two legacy-type projects stand out for her at this tribunal. One is the court's aim to transfer its good judicial practice to Cambodia's domestic court system.

The other is that the tribunal leaves behind a record of what happened during the Khmer Rouge years.

Staggs Kelsall said discussion of the court's legacy has really just started following the completion of its first case, that of Comrade Duch, the former head of S-21, the Khmer Rouge's main torture and execution centre.

"If you look at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court, both have shown more of an interest [in the legacy aspect] the longer they have gone on," she said.

Back at Wat Samroung Knong, Acha Thun Sovath said the centre would prove vital in ensuring the young learn about their past. "We must tell them what happened here under the Khmer Rouge," he said.

Daravuth Seng said the tribunal has shown Cambodians the world is interested in their suffering, which has increased the desire among Cambodians to learn more.

"One reason we had the tribunal was to help people learn from their history and to provide a voice," he said. "And now, here's a permanent voice that will allow the community to teach itself."

Confronting Cambodia's past at the Killing Fields

Saturday, August 21, 2010
Story and photography by THOMAS HUANG
The Dallas Morning News
thuang@dallasnews.com

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – I wander the fields, tracing the gentle slopes where the mass graves were. I want to hear the voices of those who died here. I want to hear their stories; that might be a way of honoring them.

Instead, silence enshrouds me. Perhaps that's not a bad thing.

Silence allows me to pray.

Silence helps me hold back the tears.

I've come to the Killing Fields to pay respect to the dead. I've come to remember Dith Pran.

Pran was a wise soul. He had persevered through a great horror, but you wouldn't have known it from his quiet demeanor.

I met him through the Asian American Journalists Association about 15 years ago. Every year at our national convention, I taught and mentored college students on a newspaper project. Every year, Pran, a small man who always carried a camera with him, entered the room and offered words of encouragement.

"Do you know who this man is?" I would ask my students. No, they would say.

Dith Pran So I would tell them Pran's story. He'd been a photojournalist and translator working with a New York Times reporter in Cambodia in the mid-1970s. He stayed to cover the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge. He survived four years of hard labor under that regime, pretending to be uneducated and hiding his American ties. Finally, Pran escaped to Thailand. He eventually came to the United States and became a Times photographer.

In a way, I knew Pran even before I met him. His story was the subject of the film, The Killing Fields. I was in college when the movie came out, and when I learned about Pran's courage, something stirred inside me. I began to think about becoming a journalist.

I remove my shoes and walk up the steps to the Buddhist stupa, a towering shrine that was built two decades ago next to the fields. I pass an altar of figs, flowers and incense sticks. I'm joined by a few other tourists, but no one says a word.

The sign at the entrance says: "Would you please kindly show your respect to many million people who were killed under the genocidal Pol Pot regime."

From 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader, was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians. In these fields, known as Choeung Ek, the Khmer Rouge executed and disposed of several thousand people.

Many of them had been interrogated, tortured and brought to the fields from Tuol Sleng, known as S-21, an old school that's now a museum a few miles away. Many of them were killed with farm tools: hoes, knives, shovels and hatchets.

I enter the memorial. Before me, on several levels, lie piles of human skulls. They stare back at me, some discolored, others showing the damage inflicted upon them during the executions.

At first, I am overwhelmed with sorrow and revulsion.

Then I ask myself: How else should we remember the genocide and memorialize the dead?

The Cambodians are still struggling with the best way to bring those responsible to justice. (In July, a United Nations tribunal convicted the first Khmer Rouge official of war crimes and sentenced him to serve 19 years in prison. Four other former leaders await trial.)

But, at least at this memorial, the Cambodians have decided to confront the terrible past and resist erasing history.

Pran died in March 2008 after battling pancreatic cancer. He had worked hard to educate us about the Cambodian genocide. He had worked hard to encourage younger journalists like me.

As I leave the memorial, I say a prayer for Dith Pran, hoping he has finally found some measure of peace.

I say another prayer for his country. Despite Cambodia's beauty, I know it's one of the world's poorest countries, devastated by the killings.

As I leave the fields and walk out onto the city street, a girl approaches me. "Papa," she says in rehearsed English. "Give me one dollar, and I go away."

Then a man nudges his 2-year-old daughter, who is naked, toward me. She holds up her tiny hands in prayer, beseeching me. I turn away; I fear that if I give her money, more people will approach me.

She is silent, and in that silence, I hold back my tears. It isn't until I write these words a few months later that I begin to weep.

GETTING THERE

Access Phnom Penh on most major airlines, including Korean Air and Delta Air Lines with a connection through Seoul, South Korea. American Airlines has flights with connections through Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

THE KILLING FIELDS

The Killing Fields site, known as Choeung Ek, is about 10 miles south of Phnom Penh, so you'll need to hire a taxi or motorbike to get you there. To enter the memorial, you're asked to donate $3. With that donation, you can get a guide to show you around, but I didn't find that necessary. It's a small area and easily walkable. Steel yourself before you view the human skulls in the Buddhist stupa. In addition to the memorial, signs indicate where detention areas were located, and a visitors center provides historical information about the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide. Details: www.cekillingfield.com

Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21, is the former school where thousands of people were interrogated and tortured. It's now the Museum of Genocide. The most moving, and overwhelming, section contains hundreds of photos of the newly arrived. Details: www.tuolsleng.com

WHERE TO STAY, EAT

I enjoyed my stay at the colonial-style Raffles Hotel Le Royal (92 Rukhak Vithei Daun Penh; www.raffles.com). It was built in the late 1920s and has a lot of charm. I also received recommendations for Blue Lime, a more modern hotel with 14 rooms (42 Street 19Z; www.bluelime.asia).

The Foreign Correspondents' Club (363 Sisowath Quay) has become a bit of a tourist draw, a multilevel complex with a cafe, restaurant, bar and shops. I had a decent chicken sandwich for lunch and an Angkor beer while looking out upon the Tonlé Sap River, trying to do my best foreign correspondent impression.

WHERE TO SHOP

Phnom Penh was evacuated during the Khmer Rouge regime and became a ghost town. When people moved back, it became a city of drugs, prostitution and violence. Those problems have largely subsided in recent years – or at least are less than evident to the tourist. Still, it's odd to think there'd be good shopping here. Street 240 is known for its antique shops and boutiques. I liked Couleurs D'Asie (33 Street 240), which sells beautiful, traditional Khmer cotton scarves.

MORE TO DO

The National Museum (just north of the Royal Palace) is a gem. You'll find hundreds of artifacts and statuary from across Cambodia, as well as a courtyard with fountains full of koi. It's a good place to relax after viewing the horrors of the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng. Details: www.cambodiamuseum.info

Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Tribunal Legacy Found in Communities Around Country

A nearby stupa holds the skulls of some of more than 10,000 people who were murdered at Wat Samrong Knong. Around its base are a series of murals that show what happened here - in this mural, Khmer Rouge soldiers cut open their victims and cook body parts like their livers. (Photo: VOA – R. Carmichael)

Robert Carmichael, VOA
Battambang 19 August 2010

As an international tribunal in Cambodia prepares to charge four Khmer Rouge leaders with genocide, some people are looking ahead to what will be left behind when the court finally closes its doors.

On the outskirts of Battambang stands the Wat Samroung Knong. Today this Buddhist temple is tranquil, but when the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, it was anything but.

Crimes against humanity

Wat Samroung Knong was a killing site, one of hundreds scattered around the country. Then the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and tried to create a utopian, agrarian society. In the process, well over a million people died of starvation and disease, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge.

Acha Thun Sovath, the current leader of the temple, was a young monk at Wat Samrong Knong when the Khmer Rouge came in 1975. He says the learning centre is essential for the next generation to understand what happened. (VOA – R. Carmichael)

The temple's current leader, Acha Thun Sovath, was a young monk when the Khmer Rouge came in 1975. He was forced to quit the monkhood and work in the rice fields.

Many other monks were executed, as the Khmer Rouge banned religion in the effort to reshape Cambodian society.

Acha Thun Sovath says more than 10,000 people were tortured and executed at the temple, their bodies dumped in its ponds.

Stories of mass killings are commonplace across the country. Yet many young people do not believe Cambodians committed such horrific acts against each other.

Acha Thun Sovath says that does not surprise him.

He says now he is an old man, but back in 1974 when he heard people talking about how the Khmer Rouge were killing monks and ordinary people, he did not believe it either.

Concerns

Daravuth Seng is a Cambodian-American lawyer who until recently headed a group called the Center for Justice and Reconciliation, or CJR.

On a tour of the temple, Seng says Wat Samroung Knong's history makes it fitting as a location for what are known as legacy projects – something tangible that will be left behind once the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh finally closes its doors in a few years.

CJR worked with Acha Thun Sovath and the nearby community to build a learning center, which has taken shape over one of the pools that was used as a mass grave. The building – a wooden structure on stilts that stands over the large pond - is nearly finished.

Daravuth Seng explains its purpose.

"Our hope is a physical space for them to come together and also explore, and to have documentation available so that some of these accounts do correlate with what my parents, or aunts and uncles, or surviving relatives have actually mentioned," Seng said.

Seng says the center is unique, because the community was deeply involved in its planning, and also provided materials and time to build it.

The center is one of a number of legacy projects under way or being discussed.

Verdict

In Phnom Penh, the international tribunal this year has sentenced one senior member of the Khmer Rouge for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Four others are to face trial in the coming year. The tribunal's goal is to bring the few surviving Khmer Rouge leaders to justice, and to build a legacy helps Cambodia recover from its past.

Michelle Staggs Kelsall heads the tribunal monitoring project for the East-West Center, a research institute in the U.S. state of Hawaii, and has written about legacy projects at other international tribunals.

She says the most important legacy of the court is arguably the goal of improving Cambodia's judiciary by transferring the good legal practices being used at the court.

Documenting history

Another important area is ensuring the people have a historical account of what happened under Khmer Rouge rule.

The learning centre at Wat Samrong Knong. It is close to completion, and stands on stilts above a pool that was used as a mass grave. (VOA – R. Carmichael)

One court-sanctioned project is a so-called virtual tribunal – a database of all the court documents for future generations to view.

Staggs Kelsall says the Khmer Rouge tribunal's legacy program is in an embryonic stage, but that is not unusual: Legacy issues typically become more important the longer the tribunal is in existence.

Back at Wat Samroung Knong, Acha Thun Sovath says the learning center is a vital opportunity to educate the next generation.

He says they will never forget and they must always remember what happened at these buildings so they can tell the next generation and let them know about the people who died under the Khmer Rouge.

Daravuth Seng says the completed center will cost around $10,000. He wants to see this sort of low-cost, self-sustaining project replicated across the country.

He says the tribunal was set up to provide legal justice, and has proved an essential starting point for the process of national reconciliation.

But projects like this center will provide a permanent voice for the community to learn what happened.

And that, he says, very much fits one of the points of the tribunal: To help the Cambodian people learn from their own tragic history.

Cambodia to restore 'killing fields' memorial

Choeung Ek mass grave (AP)

Reach Sambath, spokesman for the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal, speaks to media about the printing of a book on the recent verdict of Khmer Rouge leader Kaing Guek Eav, as his colleague Lars Olsen, from the legal communications office, looks on, at a printing house in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010. The tribunal began Thursday to print some 22,000 copies of its landmark verdict of Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, the first Khmer Rouge leader to be sentenced to 35 years in prison on July 26 on war crimes and crimes against humanity. The book will be distributed to Cambodians, a court official said. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Thursday, August 05, 2010
AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia plans to renovate the skull-filled memorial on the site of the Khmer Rouge's former "killing fields" for the first time since it was built two decades ago.

Now a grim tourist attraction, Choeung Ek outside the capital Phnom Penh was where most of the prisoners who were tortured at the regime's main prison, S-21, were taken to be killed.

The remains of some 8,900 human skulls and bones are displayed in glass cases inside a Buddhist stupa-style structure, a religious monument, that was built in 1988 and has never been renovated, said Chour Sokty, the site's director.

He said experts will begin cleaning the stupa's roof, repainting the structure's white facade, cleaning an accumulation of cobwebs and repaving the area outside the building.

"We will be painting and cleaning its roof and the grounds. We will not move any of the skulls and bones inside the stupa," Chour Sokty said. "We want to beautify the stupa so it stays strong forever."

The Khmer Rouge were responsible for killing an estimated 1.7 million people during their 1975-79 rule.

A U.N.-backed tribunal last month convicted the regime's chief jailer, Kaing Guek Eav — also known as Duch — of war crimes and crimes against humanity, in the first verdict against a major Khmer Rouge figure 30 years after the regime's downfall.

Duch was ordered to serve 19 years in prison, a sentence that has been criticized in Cambodia as insufficient given the magnitude of his crimes.

Four other former senior leaders of the regime are in custody awaiting trial.

Back on the warpath in 'Killing Fields'

Sunday, June 20, 2010
Andrea Boyarsky SILive.com (Staten Island, New York, USA)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A native Staten Islander has collaborated with a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist to publish a new book featuring writings on war and its consequences.

Dr. Robert Miraldi, a former Advance reporter who grew up in Westerleigh, edited “Beyond the Killing Fields: War Writings” (Potomac Books), a collection of Sydney Schanberg’s reporting and commentary from wars he reported on in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia and Iraq.

“One reviewer called the book a ‘grim reminder’ of war. It really is; it just shows us what wars do and how inhuman we can be,” said Miraldi, who is also author of “The Pen Is Mightier: The Muckraking Life of Charles Edward Russell” (St. Martin’s Press).

The journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz continued, “It gives you pause for why it is we need to think long and hard before we enter into a war. Not only is it wonderful journalism and wonderful reportage, it’s right on the mark about how war repeats itself in grim and horrible ways.”

In 2001, Miraldi met Schanberg, who won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his New York Times coverage of the communist takeover of Cambodia. Schanberg was a visiting professor at SUNY New Paltz as the first James H. Ottaway Sr. Distinguished Professor of Journalism.

Several years back, Miraldi came up with the idea to do an anthology of Schanberg’s work and proposed it to his friend. At first, they wanted to do a “best of” collection but with so much to choose from decided to concentrate the book on his war reporting.

“It’s partly because we’re always at war and we’re still at war. It seemed the natural and logical thing,” explained Miraldi, who currently resides in Stone Ridge, N.Y. He pointed to some of Schanberg’s other works focusing on New York, noting, “we thought his war stories has a wider reach.”

Miraldi worked with Schanberg to edit copy, find articles to feature in the book and get it ready for publication. They were also aided by Miraldi’s wife, Mary Beth Pfeiffer, also a former Advance reporter, and Schanberg’s wife Jane Freiman.

The book’s centerpiece is Schanberg’s signature work, “The Death and Life of Dith Pran,” which was turned into the Academy Award winning movie “The Killing Fields” starring Sam Waterston as Schanberg.

Pran was a Cambodian photojournalist assigned to translate and help Schanberg navigate the country, which was being taken over by the communist Khmer Rouge who massacred millions of people. In 1975 when the capital fell, Schanberg was forced to leave the country and Pran was taken captive. For several years, Schanberg didn’t know what happened to his friend, who managed to survive the genocide.

The book is dedicated to Pran, who died in 2008 of pancreatic cancer, and Schanberg’s wife, Jane.

“One of the characteristics of a great reporter is constant passion and indignation,” Miraldi noted. “When you read Schanberg’s work, there’s always this passion for people who are the victims.... This book really speaks to that.”

For more information on “Beyond the Killing Fields,” visit www.beyondthekillingfields.com.

Long Beach's Cambodians to remember beginning of Killing Fields

04/15/2010
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

"Pol-Lim said she hopes community members will come forth and tell their stories and help continue to raise genocide awareness"

LONG BEACH - On April 17, it will be 35 years since Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and embarked on a genocidal reign that became known as the Killing Fields.

On Saturday, members of the Cambodian community will solemnly remember the anniversary. Some will do it privately with prayers and meditation. Others will gather at several events around town.

The Killing Fields Memorial Center, which has commemorated the date since 2005, is playing host to a daylong series of events at multiple sites and the United Cambodian Community will also recognize the date for the second time.

Although not all Cambodian groups attach particular significance to the April 17 date, for many it is a day of intense mourning for the upwards of 2 million victims of executions, starvation, disease and deprivation during the Khmer Rouge's 45-month reign.

Paline Soth, of the Killing Fields Memorial group, says the 35th anniversary as such doesn't hold particular significance.

"For us (every year) is still the same. For us, this generation of the Killing Fields, they still have the same pain and they still think of the loved ones lost and the tragedy. It never goes away."

In keeping with the tradition established in 2005, there will be a Killing Fields Buddhist requiem prayer at Wat Vipassanaram, 1239 E. 20th St. from 8:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., which will be followed by lunch.

The Memorial group will stage a slide show and documentary film at the Mark Twain Library, 1401 E. Anaheim St. between 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The group's events close with an interfaith ceremony and candlelight vigil at the proposed future home of the Killing Fields Memorial Garden, 1501 E. Anaheim St. from 5 p.m. until dark.

UCC is moving its event this year. Last year, the group held its first commemoration as a fund-raising dinner at New Paradise Restaurant. Executive director Sarah Pol-Lim also invited members of the Jewish community, because of the history of suffering the two cultures share.

This year, UCC is moving its event to its own offices at 2201 E. Anaheim St. between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Among special guests to the event will be U.S. 29th District Congressman Adam Schiff, who represents the Pasadena Area.

Schiff, who has spoken forcefully on genocide issues in Congress, most notably about the Armenian genocide, will speak at about 2:30 p.m.

Members of the community will also be invited to tell their stories about the Killing Fields and the documentary film "New Year Baby" by Socheata Poeuv will be shown in the UCC offices.

Pol-Lim said she hopes community members will come forth and tell their stories and help continue to raise genocide awareness. There will also be Census information available because, according to Pol-Lim, that provides another avenue for people's voices to be heard.

All the events are open to the public and free.

Shame keeps Cambodian village mum on Pol Pot

Prek Sbov was one of the 12 killing fields in Kampong Thom province during Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge era. Today, residents old enough to remember that period still feel much shame about their native son. They have gone to great lengths to keep those memories a secret from children and new villagers. (Terry McCoy | For the Tribune-Review)
Prek Sbov, a small community of about 300 families, is situated along the River Sen in Cambodia. It is the birthplace of Pol Pot, the dictator who ruled the country in the 1970s and orchestrated the mass killing of an estimated 2 million Cambodians. (Terry McCoy | For the Tribune-Review)

Sunday, March 14, 2010
By Terry McCoy
FOR THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

KAMPONG THOM PROVINCE, Cambodia -- The most striking thing about the village is that there's nothing striking about it.

There's nothing that belies the heavy history straddling this community of roughly 300 families set along the serpentine River Sen.

This farming village named Prek Sbov is the birthplace of Pol Pot, the dictator who ruled Cambodia in the 1970s and contributed to the deaths of perhaps 2 million Cambodians, or about one in five people at the time.

He lived here the first six years of his life, before moving to Phnom Penh and then to Paris, Vietnam and China. He returned to orchestrate a mass, egalitarian killing of his people between 1976 and 1979.

Up and down these dirt roads, anyone old enough to know this truth isn't telling. The history and shame that Pol Pot came from their community is too great, villagers in roughly 20 interviews said. The past is their secret: The children don't know; new villagers don't know. It's a village purposely ignorant of its own notoriety.

Then on Feb. 4, one of the last hints of the past disappeared when Pol Pot's younger brother, Saloth Nhep, 84, died. Some villagers breathed quiet relief.

"We were hoping for his death," said Ak Ourn, 72. "We were waiting for his death."

Now, an almost systematic erasing of the past is nearly complete. The village chief, area monks, respected elders and common villagers agree the name Pol Pot eventually will hold no relation to Prek Sbov, a community that doesn't yet have electricity.

"All the memories will run out," said Kit Choen, the village chief. "No one will remember."

It's the Khmer way.

Here, Pol Pot, the fourth of six children, is Saloth Sar -- his birth name, which means "white" in Khmer, given for his pale complexion. Pol Pot was his revolutionary name.

This community offers contrast to the birthplaces of other such infamous leaders: A statue of Stalin looms over his birthplace in Gori, Georgia. Mao's hometown is a tourist attraction. In Braunau am Inn, Austria, a plaque outside Hitler's birthplace reads: "For peace, freedom and democracy, never again fascism, millions of dead warn."

The few with remaining memories of Saloth Sar here describe an affable and precocious boy wearing white. These memories are hardest to rationalize, villagers said. How could little Sar become Pol Pot?

Another question villagers face: Why Prek Sbov? In an overwhelmingly rural nation, 783 villages exist in Kampong Thom province alone. Few possess distinguishing factors. Each village melts into the next.

"We're embarrassed," said Mom Pot, 74, her head shaven and teeth black. "We're ashamed. He came from here."

Others express dismay that while Pol Pot controlled Cambodia, he neglected Prek Sbov. The village was one of the 12 killing fields in Kampong Thom, according to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which documents crimes from the Khmer Rouge era. Two of Pol Pot's nephews from here were killed.

To this humiliation, most say, there seemed simple recourse: Forget. Even Pol Pot's dozens of extended relatives here say they don't think about the past and haven't experienced discrimination.

When the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979 after four years of agrarian slavery, Prek Sbov was awash in new villagers. No one told them Pol Pot came from the village.

"I don't want to know," said Suin Sokun, 48. "I don't know why I don't want to know."

Ask children if they recognize the name Pol Pot or Saloth Sar or the Khmer Rouge and unknowing eyes answer the question.

In Cambodia, Prek Sbov's relative anonymity embodies this culture, scholars say. Historically, Khmer have selective memories.

There aren't any Khmer-produced chronicles before World War II. Even the Angkor Empire and its decline was forgotten during France's colonization. Anything perceived as shameful people quickly erase.

"Pol Pot was Khmer Rouge," said Youk Chhaang, director of the documentation center. "There is no other word for it that can modify or clean it. It is black forever. No one wants to associate with that. They forget out of fear of being associated with the darkness. A selective memory will help them be restored. It becomes a denial of fact and history."

Among the simplicity of life in Prek Sbov, denial seems as natural as the river's flow. The day's work, tending to cattle or fishing, continues as it has for generations.

Still, for some, the four years this lifestyle was halted remain vivid. Mom Pot said she can't forget the murder of her husband and son.

"I have to remember," she said. "I will remember until I die. But I'm alone because I know this history. I'm alone because I live longer."

Center for Justice & Reconciliation holds Public Forum at KR Killing Site in Battambang

Dear Friends,

This Friday, February 12th, 2010 the Center for Justice & Reconciliation (CJR) will hold a public forum to aid Khmer Rouge survivors in Battambang, Cambodia. The forum, entitled “Moving Forward, Together: Transforming Killing Fields to Healing, Living Fields,” will convene in the courtyard of Samrong Khnong Pagoda in the Ek Phnom District, an authentic site included in the scope of investigation for Case 002 in the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). It is believed that over 10,000 people were detained and murdered here between 1975-1979.

One hundred and fifty participants from the community, including 30 students, will engage in open dialogue with one another, CJR staff, representatives of the Association of Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia, ECCC officials, and experts in psychology and trauma at the forum.

We hope that you will join us for this important event. Please see the attached public announcement, forum agenda and travel information.

Sincerely,

The CJR Team

--
Center for Justice & Reconciliation
"Moving Forward, Together"
#207 E1 St. 63, BKK I
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Tel: +855.23.213.442
Web: http://cjr-cambodia.org

Click on each page to zoom in

L'important, c'est de rester vivant - "The main thing is to stay alive": A film by French-Cambodian Roshane Saidnattar at the Montreal Film Festival

L’important c’est de rester vivant : Bande-annonce
by COMME-AU-CINEMA

L’important c’est de rester vivant : trailer (French)
by COMME-AU-CINEMA

Excerpt from The Gazette (Montreal, Canada)

L'important, c'est de rester vivant (four stars, France/Cambodia): One of 50 documentary features in the festival lineup, this very personal film by a survivor of the “killing fields” of Cambodia in the 1970s is deeply moving – a reminder of the real dramas out there in the world that haunt real people. Born in Phnom Penh and exiled in France, Roshane Saidnattar returns to her Cambodia to interview Khieu Samphan, an unrepentant Khmer Rouge leader who was Pol Pot’s successor (and who has since been arrested and put on trial for genocide). With her mother and daughter, the filmmaker then makes an emotional journey back to the hamlet where she’d been a child slave of the revolution. Archival footage and dialogue-free re-enactments with actors give depth to the nightmare.

In Khmer and French, with French subtitles. Screens at Quartier Latin today at 7 p.m., tomorrow at 5:10 p.m. and Sunday at 10:20 a.m.

Jeff Heinrich

For additional information about the film or about Roshane Saidnattar, please click here

An Old piece On Cambodia As Khmer Rouge Trial Goes On

Apr 01, 2009
By Andrew Lam
New America Media

In the summer of 1992, while staying at a friend’s home outside the town of Siem Reap, Cambodia, I woke in the middle of the night and saw fire outside my window—or rather, to be more accurate, several balls of fire moving in a slow dance at a distance. For half a minute, I stood transfixed, watching those balls of light flutter and flirt with each other before they abruptly disappeared.

To this day I do not know what I saw, though I reasoned that they were torches carried by very fast runners. When I talked about the fire to soldiers, servants, housewives, and even politicians, however, many simply nodded their heads knowingly and said, “ghosts.”

“So many ghosts here, you know,” one woman remarked in a matter-of-fact way, “their souls have not gone to heaven. They are still very angry.”

It is risky for a journalist to talk about ghosts—it has taken me almost five years to tell this story—but I suspect ghosts and spirits and myths provide a crucial window to the Cambodian psyche. After all, modernity has little sway in a country where nine out of ten people live in the countryside, without electricity, where 7 out of ten are essentially illiterate, and where there is only one true urban center—the capital, Phnom Penh.

To explain the cause of their country’s suffering, most Cambodians are more likely to provide a ghost story or a legend than political analysis.

From notebooks I wrote while traveling the Cambodian countryside—An old woman named Srong said this about the Khmer Rouge. “The old monks used to say, ‘One day there will be a war where the demons come and blood will rise to the elephant’s stomach,’ and it came true.” Srong is blind. Her face is strangely serene as she explains she had witnessed the Khmer Rouge murdering her own children and then found she could no longer see. She spoke of the years under the Khmer Rouge as “Cambodia’s Punishment Time.”

A man named Hott Nguong explained the Khmer Rouge. “The Khmer Rouge soldiers are possessed by demons who came from hell. They have no souls. You can tell by looking in their eyes. If you are a human being how can you torture children to death?”

Bonn Srey, a woman who cannot read or write, explains Cambodia’s tragedy by saying the country is cursed. “A long time ago, the Cambodian king was powerful and cruel to neighboring countries and those people curse Cambodia. Now Cambodia is full of demons and ghosts.”

Intellectuals are not immune. Reasay Poch, a Cambodian American with a graduate degree in Asian Studies from Cornell was doing research at Tuol Sleng, the infamous Khmer Rouge prison where some 20,000 people were incarcerated, tortured, then systematically killed. Poch was working on the second floor of the building, reading and photocopying written confessions left behind by Khmer Rouge victims when he heard screaming and the sound of clanking metal. He rushed out to the balcony overlooking the torture chambers on the first floor, but saw nothing. “I had to tell myself even if there were ghosts, they wouldn’t harm me,” he said. “After all, I am here to help tell their stories.”

The past—both the mythic and the immediate—has such a strong grip on Cambodian life, I suspect, because it is also the present. While neighboring countries—Vietnam, Thailand, even backward Laos—are now progressing technologically and economically, Cambodia remains an agrarian society whose people continue to lead a life not so different from that of their ancestors.

One need not look far to see the symbol of the past in contemporary Cambodian politics. All warring factions during the early 1990s had the image of the ancient capital, Angkor Wat, imprinted on their flags. Paintings of these stone ruins hang on the walls of every government office, every restaurant and every classroom. They are a testament to an ancient empire that once stretched westward across Thailand to Burma and eastward to include much of the Mekong Delta and South Vietnam. “Bangkok” and “Saigon” are both Cambodian words.

It was an empire that at one time understood intimately the power of war and destruction. Cambodia was once a Hindu nation that worshipped Shiva, the Destroyer God. When he danced, it is said, he set in motion both the creative and destructive forces in the world.

Those who know the story say Shiva remains a potent and angry God. One Cambodian guide at Angkor Wat explained, “We failed to worship Shiva and he punished us by sending his Monkey Army in the form of the Khmer Rouge. Shiva promised to protect those who worshipped him and destroy all unbelievers. And we were punished because we failed to worship him.”

Shiva’s four faces with their eerie half smiles can be seen all over the stone ruins. Each represents a different aspect: Creation, Preservation, Incarnation, and Destruction. As I write, I can still see in my mind’s eyes those stone faces, smiling their mysterious smiles.

And I think of Kall Kann, the doe-eyed teenager who stared at the stone faces, trying to decipher the past: “The stone faces belong to a King, maybe a God, but it’s too long ago,” he said. ” I don’t remember the name. My father knows the name for sure but, you know, my father is dead.”

Surviving the Killing Fields

Sony Lay with his family in Cambodia. He says he still lives in fear of men wearing black, and not having enough to eat. Photo / Chris Leather

Saturday Feb 21, 2009
Chris Leather
New Zealand Herald

We were so hungry we ate things we had never eaten before, like worms, grasshoppers, snakes and rotting plants. This was only one of my Khmer Rouge memories.

In 1975, I was an 11-year-old, living with my parents and four brothers and sisters, in Phnom Penh. I loved going to school and playing in the streets with my friends - although it wasn't quite so much fun anymore.

There were too many soldiers leaning against walls and waving guns around. Some buildings had barbed wire around them. Planes flew low overhead at night and disturbed my sleep. Some dropped flyers that said something about the Khmer Rouge but I didn't understand. I heard guns in the distance. I asked my parents what was happening. They told me not to worry.

On April 17, 1975, I was at home. I refused to go to school that morning because there were soldiers everywhere. I was frightened. My father stayed home from his government job too. We sat around the house quietly, waiting fearfully for something to happen. Every now and then, there was a burst of gunfire.

Then my father said, "They are coming". We peered out the window. A single file of black-clothed young men with guns, was marching along the street. I didn't know who "they" were and why they were coming. Trucks followed with people yelling through megaphones - "everyone must leave Phnom Penh".

No one believed the announcements. They locked their doors and stayed hidden. The black-clothed men banged on doors and fired guns in the air. They told people to come out of their houses or they would be killed.

My mother gathered some food and we all went out on to the street to join the hundreds of people emerging from their homes. Some were running, others crying. Soon we were walking with them. We had no idea where we were going; we just followed the others.

By the end of the first day, we reached the Intercontinental Hotel, a distance of 2km from home. Families shared food and water and lay on the footpath to sleep. The next day the masses of people seemed even bigger. People shuffled along and stopped for long periods. The children played chasing games. We thought it was like going on a picnic.

By the end of day two, we had moved only one more kilometre. On the third day, we reached the Vietnamese Embassy - another kilometre. All the time there were soldiers hitting people with sticks, telling us to hurry up and threatening to kill anyone who hadn't left the city within three days. I noticed the soldiers looked about the same age as my 14-year-old brother, but their eyes were cruel.

On the fourth day, we reached the bridge over the Tonle Bassac river, 6km from home. It was so jammed with people it took several hours to cross the 200m-long bridge. We continued walking, carrying our few meagre possessions, and sleeping on the roadside. The Khmer Rouge soldiers beat people who sat down to rest during the day, especially the old people.

After several days, dead bodies started to appear by the side of the road. Curious children took a closer look and poked the bodies. Some were puffed up, covered with flies and smelled bad.

The road followed the Mekong River. Children jumped into the water to swim and then ran out to catch up with their families. One day I leaped into the water and landed on something soft - it was a body floating in the water with no clothes on. I screamed. I didn't go in the river again. This was when I started to feel very scared.

We just kept on walking for days and nights. I heard someone tell my parents that many people had been kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge and had their heads cut off. My mother cried.

Soon we ran out of food. We had not been able to bring much because we could not carry it. We went into the forests and fields to get roots and small plants to eat.

It took 10 days to reach the Neak Louen ferry across the Mekong River where Khmer Rouge soldiers took people across in small boats. On the other side walking was more difficult because the road had been destroyed to stop tanks driving along it. Two weeks after leaving Phnom Penh we walked into the small village where my parents had been born. The family home had been taken over by Khmer Rouge soldiers. We were told to share a house with relatives.

Some people had to live in the fields because there weren't enough houses. Others tried to build them. They went into the forest and cut wood and bamboo and used leaves to cover the walls and roof. They were city people and didn't know how to build - sometimes the houses fell down or were washed away in the rain.

My father had worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He risked being killed if the soldiers found out. My parents dressed in clothes like the villagers so they wouldn't be noticed, but I knew they were scared.

For the first few months, families could live and eat together and have their own food. Adults were put into teams to work in the rice fields or dug canals, and a children's team looked after the animals and made compost from the animal dung.

After a while the soldiers made everyone eat communally and eat only food provided by the Khmer Rouge. I thought it would be fun to eat with others and share food, but it didn't work out that way. We got a small amount of rice porridge with watery soup once a day and had to make it last. We were hungry all the time.

Soon there was no rice left, no fish in the ponds and canals, no food anywhere. All the rice being farmed by the villagers was taken away by the soldiers. We didn't know where it went. One day my father helped some soldiers to push a wagon full of rice, hoping they would give him some but they gave him nothing.

Sometimes we went to the rice paddies to dig for crabs in the mud, even though we knew we might get bitten by poisonous snakes. If we were caught picking wild berries we would be killed but it was okay to eat weeds. Some people died from eating poisonous plants.

I cried because my mother was so thin.

I remember the leaflets distributed in the village, with photos of Khmer Rouge soldiers killing people. I was frightened all the time. The soldiers would ask us children questions about our parents.

People would disappear from the village. We all knew what happened to them but didn't talk about it. We would see people floating dead in the rice field. I worried that my parents would disappear.

One day all the children in the village were gathered up and taken to live in a camp together, about 10km from our parents. My father told me to work hard so that I would stay alive.

One year merged into the next. Twice in four years I got a pass to walk the 10km, with my brothers, to see our parents. They weren't allowed to visit us and risked death if they tried.

We were ordered to wear only black. We had no toothbrushes or soap to wash ourselves. When clothes became torn we wore them torn; when they were wet we wore them until they dried. When our shoes wore out our feet got cut from walking barefoot.

The work day started at 5am. Some children made compost and the older ones dug ditches. We didn't get any food until halfway through the morning, when we had watery porridge and cassava leaves. Then we carried on working until it got dark. Sometimes we found potato leaves and lotus roots for extra food to eat in the evenings.

We were tired and hungry but told not to cry because the soldiers would kill us. Some children just died because they were starving or sick. We had to bury their bodies.

Hunger one day drove me to a nearby mango orchard before daylight to steal fruit. I climbed a tree when I heard people shouting and walking towards me. Khmer Rouge soldiers walked past with a group of men and women tied together with their arms behind their backs. The group went to a clearing and I watched while the soldiers shot each person in the head. For a long time I was too frightened to move.

In 1979, news filtered through that the Khmer Rouge had been defeated by the Vietnamese. My father walked for several days to Phnom Penh to find out whether it was safe to return. He came back two years later to take our family back to Phnom Penh. In 1981, I went back to primary school at the age of 17.

I am now 40. I am still frightened by men wearing black clothes. I am terrified by loud noises. My soup has to have a strong flavour or it reminds me of Khmer Rouge porridge. I eat too much because I am afraid that food may run out.

* Chris Leather worked in Cambodia from 2004 to 2008, including two years with Sony Lay.

Angkor Wat observes 30th anniversary of end of Pol Pot's regime

January 6, 2009
By Marsha Dubrow
DC Arts & Travel Examiner

Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious structure, and one of the most spectacular architectural wonders, was used as a “killing field” by Cambodia’s genocidal dictator Pol Pot.

On January 7, monks chant at Angkor Wat and other “killing fields” throughout Cambodia to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of Pol Pot’s horrific regime – one of history’s worst.

Pol Pot's infamous Khmer Rouge regime killed an estimated 1.7 million people – more than one-fifth of Cambodia’s population -- in the late 1970’s. They were either murdered outright, or died from forced labor and starvation.

Recently, I finally realized a life-long dream to visit Angkor Wat. I asked my extraordinarily knowledgeable guide, Phalla Chan, how he had managed to survive those years. “I guess I’m strong,” he replied. “Today is for today, not for thinking about yesterday.”

Fortunately, the only violence we saw was in the bas-reliefs of epic Hindu tales covering Angkor Wat, the spectacular temple spread across more than four square miles. Truly a world wonder, Angkor Wat is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Not until 2004 was Angkor removed from UNESCO's endangered World Heritage sites. UNESCO called Cambodia's efforts a "success story" in clearing landmines, reducing pilfering and other crimes.

Angkor Wat and the four nearby temples I toured were the most spectacular I've ever seen. Yes, even more than the temples I've toured like those of the Kama Sutra at Khajuraho in northern India, Mahabalipuram and Kancheepuram in southern India, the Taj Mahal; pagodas along Burma's "Road to Mandalay" -- I refuse to use the dictator's terms like Myanmar; Mayan ruins in Mexico and Guatemala; Machu Piccu in the Peruvian Andes, etc., etc. Full disclosure: Okay, so I haven't -- yet -- seen the Pyramids and many other world wonders. But back to Angkor Wat...

The French explorer Henri Mouhot, who re-discovered Angkor Wat in the 1850’s described it as: “…a rival to the temple of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michaelangelo...It is grander than anything left to us by Greece and Rome.”

W. Somerset Maugham put it like this, “No one, no one should die before they see Angkor,” during his second visit to Cambodia in 1959.

I certainly agreed with "Of Human Bondage" author, but the Angkor area had been extremely dangerous thanks to remaining Khmer Rouge guerrillas, other armed bandits and kidnappers, and landmines. Two of my neighbors were shot there. My guide Phalla Chan said temple-goers used to hire armed guards.

Angkor Wat had been the center of the enormous Khmer empire that thrived from the 9th to the 15th century. About 40 other temples are in the Angkor area near Siem Reap. One of the most astounding is Banteay Srei “Fortress of Women” with numerous sculptures of celestial dancers called apsaras.

French author André Malraux (“Man’s Fate”) and his wife Clara found the sculptures so beguiling that the couple was convicted of stealing several Banteay Srei statues in 1923. However, the jail sentences were never enforced in what was then French Indochina.

Malraux described it like this in his novel “The Royal Way”, “…the two dancing girls were some of the purest work he had ever seen. Well, the next thing was to load them onto the carts.” Despite his art pilfering, Malraux’s fate was to serve as France’s Minister of Cultural Affairs in the 1960s. Mon dieux, Malraux.

These days, at several temple sites, musicians injured by landmines play hauntingly eerie Cambodian tunes on traditional instruments.

Country & western Musak was playing in the lobby of my hotel in Siem Reap, the jumping off place about 10 miles from Angkor. I couldn’t escape country & western alleged music even in Siem Reap? Hotels there have “sprung up like mushrooms after the rains”, Phalla Chan commented. There was no room at the inn I’d wanted, the elegant Amansara, formerly a guest villa of Cambodian Prince, later King Norodom Sihanouk.

Stay anywhere you need to in order to see Angkor Wat, as Maugham said. And experience the rest of this exquisite country decimated by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge before their regime ended 30 years ago.

Sadly, but understandably, yesteryear's tragedies are today's tourist attractions in Cambodia. "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it," as the philosopher George Santayana warned so memorably.

At the most notorious of hundreds of killing fields, Choeung Ek, 8,000 skulls are stacked up in the former orchard just a few miles from Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh.

Cambodia’s deadliest prison, then called S-21, is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. The 290 skulls on display there used to be arranged in the shape of Cambodia. The walls of the former high school are papered with head shots of the 14,000 prisoners tortured there daily by the Khmer Rouge. These photos can be ordered, if you really want, as wallpaper for your computer.

Although one of history’s worst mass killers, Pol Pot never faced trial and died peacefully in his sleep at age 73. “Pol Pot” and "Brother Number One" were two of 10 aliases for Saloth Sar, a former schoolteacher . “The more often you change your name the better. It confuses the enemy,” he once said, according to “Pol Pot: Anatomy of A Nightmare” by Philip Short ((Henry Holt and Company).

Five former Khmer Rouge leaders are languishing in a Cambodian-United Nations detention center -- whose food they’ve complained about. Their long-planned trial is still not in sight, and the detainees, in their 70s and 80s, may well die peacefully before facing justice.