Too Late for Revenge

By MARSHALL KIM
Published: July 15, 2009


I WAS 15 in 1975, when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge overtook Cambodia, enslaving my
people and turning our farmland into what the world now calls the Killing
Fields. During the next four years I lost my mother and father, my brothers,
aunts, uncles and friends to the cruel oppression that claimed 1.7 million
lives.


As a boy I prayed every day for someone to stop the slavery and the
killings. No one did. I saw soldiers force people to dig the holes in which
they would be buried alive. We ate mice, rats, lizards. My 8-year-old niece
starved before my eyes. I cried until I had no tears.

I survived by cutting our Khmer Rouge leader’s hair and making bamboo
baskets, which my elders used to carry away the dirt we were ordered to dig
from canals. In 1979, alone and desperate, I escaped to a Thai refugee camp.
Sponsors helped me gain passage to New York City in 1982. I spoke no
English, had no money and lived tormented by images of cruelty and death.

Today, I own a hair salon in Manhattan and live with my wife and two
children in Scarsdale. We have enough to eat, to call a doctor or buy
medicine when sick, and money left over for charity. I wonder why I am so
blessed.

Now I read about the United Nations trial of Kaing Guek Eav, known as
Comrade Duch, the Khmer Rouge commander of the Tuol Sleng prison. I read the
testimony of victims and witnesses, like me, of torture and murder.

And I find myself asking, what sort of justice is possible now? After
ignoring our suffering when action might have saved our country, what does
the United Nations expect to do for Cambodia now? Placing elderly Khmer
Rouge leaders on trial will not bring back those who lost their lives in the
Killing Fields, or bring peace to the survivors. It will only stir more
anger and misery and hate. Pol Pot, the chief criminal, is long dead. So are
many of the others who killed and tortured at his command.

For Cambodians, this should be a time of cooperation, peace and prosperity.
Around 70 percent of Cambodia’s population is under 30 years old. They didn’t
experience the Killing Fields, and they face enough challenges in their
daily struggle to make ends meet. We who were lucky enough to survive once
looked forward to trials, but it has been 30 years — too much time has gone
by for us to want to waste our energy seeking revenge.

I don’t mean to say we should forget. We can’t. Let the horrors be
documented in books and films and let the truth be recorded for the entire
world to learn. But by pursuing this trial instead of working to improve the
lives of young Cambodians, the United Nations demonstrates it still has not
learned the lesson of the Killing Fields: Act before it’s too late.

Marshall Kim, the owner of a hair salon, is the founder of the
Cambodian-American Foundation for Education, a charitable organization.