THE DC-CAM'S PROMOTING ACCOUNTABILITY FIELD TRIP REPORT
Malai District -- A Former Khmer Rouge Stronghold
Banteay Meanchey Province
By Dany Long
Summary and Context within Large Project
The interviews summarized above are part of an ongoing project being conducted by the Promoting Accountability (PA) team at Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam). This project involves conducting interviews with former Khmer Rouge cadres who live in the areas of Cambodia that were Khmer Rouge strongholds until the mid-1990s. In each of these areas the PA team interviews between 100 and 150 former Khmer Rouge cadres. To date, the PA team has found that these communities remain insular groups made up of individuals with markedly different viewpoints than other former Khmer Rouge cadres who have spent the past 30 plus years living side by side with victims of the Khmer Rouge regime throughout the rest of Cambodia. It is also become clear that these communities have not been integrated with the rest of Cambodian society.
The PA team’s work focuses on determining whether individuals within these insular, former Khmer Rouge communities can be humanized after being such staunch supporters of the bloody Khmer Rouge regime.
The team is currently drafting a book and photo exhibition of portraits of the individuals interviewed as part of this project entitled “Humanizing Perpetrators: Is It Possible?” Additionally, an international exhibition tour of photographs of family life in these communities, contrasting past and present portraits of former Khmer Rouge cadres and their families, is currently being developed.
See a report (PDF) attached herewith.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Thursday, December 16, 2010
‘Those who have suffered want speedier justice’
Published: Saturday, Dec 11, 2010, 2:05 IST
By Yogesh Pawar | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
International prosecutor at the United Nations Assistance to Khmer Rouge Trials, Andrew Cayley is an English barrister and writer who has spent 16 years as counsel for major international criminal trials since World War II.
He is currently based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, at an UN-assisted court charged with prosecuting those responsible for the deaths of over two million during the Khmer Rouge reign. A former British army officer, University College, London graduate and Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst pass-out, Cayley has prosecuted those responsible for the murder of over 10,000 in Srebrenica in Bosnia Herzegovina in July 1995.
In the Srebrenica case, the prosecuting team secured the first conviction for genocide in Europe since the Nuremberg trials. Cayley also led the International Criminal Court’s investigation and first prosecution case for events in Darfur between 2002 and 2004. DNA caught up with Cayley when he was in Mumbai.
Aren’t UN-backed initiatives like the Khmer Rouge Trials past their ‘use-by-date’? Do they really make a difference?
I can completely understand this question. People who have suffered and are dealing with trauma want to see speedier justice and when that does not happen, cynicism and scepticism can creep in. But, if anything, the importance of these processes has only been heightened, especially after the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1995. While there is a case to build on that and do better, it may not be correct to write it off completely.
From the Nazi pogroms against Jews to the horrific genocides in Cambodia and Bosnia just a decade ago, why are initiatives like tribunals not acting as deterrent enough? Is mere shaming of regimes the right intervention strategy, since bringing the actual perpetrators to book cannot be possible?
You are right that the initiatives do not always have the mandate to prosecute the actual perpetrators. This is more in the way of maintaining pressure on the administrations that this issue will go to the International Criminal Court. The impending embarrassment can work as an advantage as the regimes accept that there has been genocide or gross violation of human rights. Take the case of the Cambodia where, between 1975 and 1999, as many as two million people were killed. While a million of them were actually killed, the others died after being sentenced to hard labour. Or Srebrenica in Bosnia Herzegovina in July 1995 — as many as 10,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in a span of five days. It was deeply disturbing to see this happen in the Europe of the 90s. Yet the prosecuting team secured the first conviction for genocide in Europe since the Nuremberg trials. When British soldiers were found to have been involved in the human rights violations in Iraq, the government had to ensure the guilty were punished.
We know 114 countries have joined the International Criminal Court, including nearly all of Europe and South America, and roughly half the countries in Africa Yet, how can we expect this to have an effect when many of the big nations on both sides of the development-divide have still not ratified the treaty for various reasons?
Yes, it is a stumbling block that we do not have some really big players like China, India, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and the USas part of this process but we are working towards it. In most cases like Darfur, when we are told that the intervention is a case of too little, too late; there does not seem to be enough appreciation that in such matters the complaint comes to us only when the UN Security Council refers it to us. Since one permanent member wanted to veto the move for this case to be handed to us, it dragged on. But yes, precious time and many more lives were lost.
But isn’t that a problem then, as narratives in foreign policy, commerce and human rights contradict each other? How does this play out?
I agree with you. Sometimes, when commercial consideration are overriding, some regimes will try to curb the criticism or avoid it for the fear that this will affect the trade ties. Look at David Cameron’s statements about China. Right now, the economy of the West is not in the best of health and those countries are all out to woo India and China whose economies are booming; a lot of care is taken to ensure that nothing affects trade ties. While Cameron’s praise for the Chinese enterprise was up there (pointing at ceiling), his criticism of that country’s human rights record was quite feeble (pointing at floor).
India, as you mentioned, is not part of the International Criminal Court? What according to you are some of the concerns that prevent India from coming on board? What efforts are being made to address these concerns?
India has often voiced its concerns over sovereignty issues. It fears that Kashmir — the continued military presence in the Valley, the human rights violations, the extent of displacement for ‘development’ projects and the state’s strategy to quell the alienation and dissent — could be taken up at the international level. There have been attempts at both appreciating where India comes from and assuaging some of its concerns. We would like India to be on board and know that it eventually will.
How soon do you think that could happen?
Well, it will take time… another fifty years at least but we know India will come around.
Which are some of the bigger events in India that are disturbing, given their human rights ramifications?
India witnessed its first genocide at the time of Partition, the aftermath of which is witnessed even today. The country has witnessed innumerable cases of genocide, right from the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 to Gujarat in 2003. Mass killings and destruction of property have left behind devastating consequences for the victims, leaving them with lasting wounds and a feeling of hurt. These are events which the international community is concerned about.
There is a feeling, even among the human rights lobbies in the world, that the International Criminal Court has a skewed way of determining what construes as a problem needing intervention. Issues which the West thinks are important are the only ones that get highlighted.
We’ve heard that criticism too, along with voices that Judeo-Christian values are being foisted upon cultures which have their own understanding of these issues. One can only say that we want to see a liberal and democratic world free of persecution. That cannot be a bad thing universally.
©2010 Diligent Media Corporation Ltd.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
By Yogesh Pawar | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
International prosecutor at the United Nations Assistance to Khmer Rouge Trials, Andrew Cayley is an English barrister and writer who has spent 16 years as counsel for major international criminal trials since World War II.
He is currently based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, at an UN-assisted court charged with prosecuting those responsible for the deaths of over two million during the Khmer Rouge reign. A former British army officer, University College, London graduate and Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst pass-out, Cayley has prosecuted those responsible for the murder of over 10,000 in Srebrenica in Bosnia Herzegovina in July 1995.
In the Srebrenica case, the prosecuting team secured the first conviction for genocide in Europe since the Nuremberg trials. Cayley also led the International Criminal Court’s investigation and first prosecution case for events in Darfur between 2002 and 2004. DNA caught up with Cayley when he was in Mumbai.
Aren’t UN-backed initiatives like the Khmer Rouge Trials past their ‘use-by-date’? Do they really make a difference?
I can completely understand this question. People who have suffered and are dealing with trauma want to see speedier justice and when that does not happen, cynicism and scepticism can creep in. But, if anything, the importance of these processes has only been heightened, especially after the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1995. While there is a case to build on that and do better, it may not be correct to write it off completely.
From the Nazi pogroms against Jews to the horrific genocides in Cambodia and Bosnia just a decade ago, why are initiatives like tribunals not acting as deterrent enough? Is mere shaming of regimes the right intervention strategy, since bringing the actual perpetrators to book cannot be possible?
You are right that the initiatives do not always have the mandate to prosecute the actual perpetrators. This is more in the way of maintaining pressure on the administrations that this issue will go to the International Criminal Court. The impending embarrassment can work as an advantage as the regimes accept that there has been genocide or gross violation of human rights. Take the case of the Cambodia where, between 1975 and 1999, as many as two million people were killed. While a million of them were actually killed, the others died after being sentenced to hard labour. Or Srebrenica in Bosnia Herzegovina in July 1995 — as many as 10,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in a span of five days. It was deeply disturbing to see this happen in the Europe of the 90s. Yet the prosecuting team secured the first conviction for genocide in Europe since the Nuremberg trials. When British soldiers were found to have been involved in the human rights violations in Iraq, the government had to ensure the guilty were punished.
We know 114 countries have joined the International Criminal Court, including nearly all of Europe and South America, and roughly half the countries in Africa Yet, how can we expect this to have an effect when many of the big nations on both sides of the development-divide have still not ratified the treaty for various reasons?
Yes, it is a stumbling block that we do not have some really big players like China, India, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and the USas part of this process but we are working towards it. In most cases like Darfur, when we are told that the intervention is a case of too little, too late; there does not seem to be enough appreciation that in such matters the complaint comes to us only when the UN Security Council refers it to us. Since one permanent member wanted to veto the move for this case to be handed to us, it dragged on. But yes, precious time and many more lives were lost.
But isn’t that a problem then, as narratives in foreign policy, commerce and human rights contradict each other? How does this play out?
I agree with you. Sometimes, when commercial consideration are overriding, some regimes will try to curb the criticism or avoid it for the fear that this will affect the trade ties. Look at David Cameron’s statements about China. Right now, the economy of the West is not in the best of health and those countries are all out to woo India and China whose economies are booming; a lot of care is taken to ensure that nothing affects trade ties. While Cameron’s praise for the Chinese enterprise was up there (pointing at ceiling), his criticism of that country’s human rights record was quite feeble (pointing at floor).
India, as you mentioned, is not part of the International Criminal Court? What according to you are some of the concerns that prevent India from coming on board? What efforts are being made to address these concerns?
India has often voiced its concerns over sovereignty issues. It fears that Kashmir — the continued military presence in the Valley, the human rights violations, the extent of displacement for ‘development’ projects and the state’s strategy to quell the alienation and dissent — could be taken up at the international level. There have been attempts at both appreciating where India comes from and assuaging some of its concerns. We would like India to be on board and know that it eventually will.
How soon do you think that could happen?
Well, it will take time… another fifty years at least but we know India will come around.
Which are some of the bigger events in India that are disturbing, given their human rights ramifications?
India witnessed its first genocide at the time of Partition, the aftermath of which is witnessed even today. The country has witnessed innumerable cases of genocide, right from the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 to Gujarat in 2003. Mass killings and destruction of property have left behind devastating consequences for the victims, leaving them with lasting wounds and a feeling of hurt. These are events which the international community is concerned about.
There is a feeling, even among the human rights lobbies in the world, that the International Criminal Court has a skewed way of determining what construes as a problem needing intervention. Issues which the West thinks are important are the only ones that get highlighted.
We’ve heard that criticism too, along with voices that Judeo-Christian values are being foisted upon cultures which have their own understanding of these issues. One can only say that we want to see a liberal and democratic world free of persecution. That cannot be a bad thing universally.
©2010 Diligent Media Corporation Ltd.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Former Khmer Rouge stronghold struggles with history
Cambodia's new national curriculum requires students to learn about the brutal regime. Former cadres who are now parents would rather not talk about it.
By Brendan Brady, Los Angeles Times
December 9, 2010, 4:33 p.m.
Reporting from Pailin, Cambodia — Twelfth-grade teacher Sam Borath recently asked her students in Svay, a town in northwestern Cambodia, to write down the names of five leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime that killed an estimated 1.7 million people during its reign in the late 1970s.
Simply identifying top figures, however, can be an awkward exercise. Many communities would rather not stir up memories of the war-torn past, particularly in this region. Svay is part of a thin belt along the northwestern border that remained under the control of ultra-communist Khmer Rouge leaders and their militias for two decades after 1979, when the regime was ousted from power in Phnom Penh. Many residents still defend the regime's legacy, contending that it had rural interests at heart.
But a new national curriculum requires schools to tackle the controversial topic as a way to confront and reconcile the past.
"Some did it," Sam Borath said of the writing exercise. "But some just wrote down one name. Others didn't even hand it in because their parents told them not to."
Naming specific cadres and their past deeds is sensitive, now that a United Nations-backed war crimes court is prosecuting a few former high-ranking officials and is considering taking on five others.
Students in Svay were introduced to the new lessons in November.
"A lot of the students are curious to know what happened," Sam Borath said. "But many parents are former Khmer Rouge, so they discourage their kids from learning about it. They think we are teaching their children to be angry at them."
Researchers estimate that nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population died under the extremist regime, and most survivors had been pushed to the edge of death by hard labor, starvation and medical neglect.
After the Khmer Rouge was ousted in 1979, Pailin became the base of its insurgency before morphing in the late 1990s into an autonomous zone for former regime leaders who agreed to leave the movement. A decade later, the province has been reincorporated into the country.
In July, a U.N.-backed court handed former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kang Kek Ieu, known as Comrade Duch, what amounted to a 30-year sentence. Two months later, it indicted four former senior leaders on charges that include genocide and crimes against humanity.
The desire in some areas to frustrate such prosecutions, though, was apparent during a recent trip by court officials to Pailin, the provincial capital, to meet with dozens of former Khmer Rouge figures now serving as police officers, soldiers and politicians.
"We want them to realize that we are doing this work for everyone," said Reach Sambath, a court spokesman.
Convincing former Khmer Rouge cadres that they'll benefit under a society that prosecutes the regime's top officials remains a hard sell here, however, even as angry residents in other parts of Cambodia wonder why so few of those leaders have been held accountable.
Mey Meakk, a deputy governor in Pailin province and former secretary to top Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, contended that his old boss deserves all the blame and everyone else should be left alone.
The four senior leaders awaiting trial are victims of Pol Pot, he said, "like me, like everyone else."
Back in the classroom, Pailin's high school teachers were trying to raise awareness one lesson at a time. Most of them grew up elsewhere and don't share local sentiments.
"We talk about the torture, how people were evicted from the cities, the endless hard labor," said Long Vannak, a 12th-grade history teacher who had moved here. "Many of the students are interested in this history."
Sat Sorya, 20, one of Long Vannak's students, struggled to make sense of the many disturbing snippets she'd heard over the years from relatives, classmates and the media.
"I want to know why they killed so many of their own people," she said. "I want to know why they left their own country in such terrible condition."
Brady is a special correspondent.
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
By Brendan Brady, Los Angeles Times
December 9, 2010, 4:33 p.m.
Reporting from Pailin, Cambodia — Twelfth-grade teacher Sam Borath recently asked her students in Svay, a town in northwestern Cambodia, to write down the names of five leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime that killed an estimated 1.7 million people during its reign in the late 1970s.
Simply identifying top figures, however, can be an awkward exercise. Many communities would rather not stir up memories of the war-torn past, particularly in this region. Svay is part of a thin belt along the northwestern border that remained under the control of ultra-communist Khmer Rouge leaders and their militias for two decades after 1979, when the regime was ousted from power in Phnom Penh. Many residents still defend the regime's legacy, contending that it had rural interests at heart.
But a new national curriculum requires schools to tackle the controversial topic as a way to confront and reconcile the past.
"Some did it," Sam Borath said of the writing exercise. "But some just wrote down one name. Others didn't even hand it in because their parents told them not to."
Naming specific cadres and their past deeds is sensitive, now that a United Nations-backed war crimes court is prosecuting a few former high-ranking officials and is considering taking on five others.
Students in Svay were introduced to the new lessons in November.
"A lot of the students are curious to know what happened," Sam Borath said. "But many parents are former Khmer Rouge, so they discourage their kids from learning about it. They think we are teaching their children to be angry at them."
Researchers estimate that nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population died under the extremist regime, and most survivors had been pushed to the edge of death by hard labor, starvation and medical neglect.
After the Khmer Rouge was ousted in 1979, Pailin became the base of its insurgency before morphing in the late 1990s into an autonomous zone for former regime leaders who agreed to leave the movement. A decade later, the province has been reincorporated into the country.
In July, a U.N.-backed court handed former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kang Kek Ieu, known as Comrade Duch, what amounted to a 30-year sentence. Two months later, it indicted four former senior leaders on charges that include genocide and crimes against humanity.
The desire in some areas to frustrate such prosecutions, though, was apparent during a recent trip by court officials to Pailin, the provincial capital, to meet with dozens of former Khmer Rouge figures now serving as police officers, soldiers and politicians.
"We want them to realize that we are doing this work for everyone," said Reach Sambath, a court spokesman.
Convincing former Khmer Rouge cadres that they'll benefit under a society that prosecutes the regime's top officials remains a hard sell here, however, even as angry residents in other parts of Cambodia wonder why so few of those leaders have been held accountable.
Mey Meakk, a deputy governor in Pailin province and former secretary to top Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, contended that his old boss deserves all the blame and everyone else should be left alone.
The four senior leaders awaiting trial are victims of Pol Pot, he said, "like me, like everyone else."
Back in the classroom, Pailin's high school teachers were trying to raise awareness one lesson at a time. Most of them grew up elsewhere and don't share local sentiments.
"We talk about the torture, how people were evicted from the cities, the endless hard labor," said Long Vannak, a 12th-grade history teacher who had moved here. "Many of the students are interested in this history."
Sat Sorya, 20, one of Long Vannak's students, struggled to make sense of the many disturbing snippets she'd heard over the years from relatives, classmates and the media.
"I want to know why they killed so many of their own people," she said. "I want to know why they left their own country in such terrible condition."
Brady is a special correspondent.
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Anti-genocide memorial inaugurated
Thursday, 09 December 2010 19:36 Thomas Miller .
Photo by: Sovan Philong
School children examine a new anti-genocide monument unveiled at Preah Sisowath High School in Phnom Penh yesterday.Preah Sisowath High School in Phnom Penh unveiled a new anti-genocide memorial at a ceremony today hosted by the Documentation Centre of Cambodia.
“It’s a daily remembrance to those who have died, and I think that it’s so meaningful to us as Khmers who have lost so many lives at that time,” said DC-Cam director Youk Chhang.
“I think [the youth] are the best healing medicine, having the kids knowing this [history], learning this in school in a scientific way,” Youk Chhang said.
Two statements were emblazoned in gold in Khmer and English on the monument. One side reads: “Talking about experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime is to promote reconciliation and to educate children about forgiveness and tolerance.” The other side reads: “Learning about the history of Democratic Kampuchea is to prevent genocide.”
Chumteav Tun Sa-Im, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, and Chea Cheat joined hundreds of students in attendance at this morning’s event.
Vithy, 15, said she thinks the new monument will have a positive impact on her peers.
“It’s good because I think some students in Sisowath High School, some of them didn’t know about the Pol Pot regime. When they see it they will remember about it,” she said.
Sisowath High School opened in 1935, the first secondary educational institution in Phnom Penh, DC-Cam said. A number of Khmer Rouge leaders were schooled there, including Pol Pot and his first wife Khieu Ponnary, as well as Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, both now facing charges at the Khmer Rouge tribunal that include crimes against humanity and genocide....read the full story in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or see the updated story online from 3PM UTC/GMT +7 hours.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010120945278/National-news/anti-genocide-memorial-inaugurated.html
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Photo by: Sovan Philong
School children examine a new anti-genocide monument unveiled at Preah Sisowath High School in Phnom Penh yesterday.Preah Sisowath High School in Phnom Penh unveiled a new anti-genocide memorial at a ceremony today hosted by the Documentation Centre of Cambodia.
“It’s a daily remembrance to those who have died, and I think that it’s so meaningful to us as Khmers who have lost so many lives at that time,” said DC-Cam director Youk Chhang.
“I think [the youth] are the best healing medicine, having the kids knowing this [history], learning this in school in a scientific way,” Youk Chhang said.
Two statements were emblazoned in gold in Khmer and English on the monument. One side reads: “Talking about experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime is to promote reconciliation and to educate children about forgiveness and tolerance.” The other side reads: “Learning about the history of Democratic Kampuchea is to prevent genocide.”
Chumteav Tun Sa-Im, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, and Chea Cheat joined hundreds of students in attendance at this morning’s event.
Vithy, 15, said she thinks the new monument will have a positive impact on her peers.
“It’s good because I think some students in Sisowath High School, some of them didn’t know about the Pol Pot regime. When they see it they will remember about it,” she said.
Sisowath High School opened in 1935, the first secondary educational institution in Phnom Penh, DC-Cam said. A number of Khmer Rouge leaders were schooled there, including Pol Pot and his first wife Khieu Ponnary, as well as Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, both now facing charges at the Khmer Rouge tribunal that include crimes against humanity and genocide....read the full story in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or see the updated story online from 3PM UTC/GMT +7 hours.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2010120945278/National-news/anti-genocide-memorial-inaugurated.html
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
FACT SHEET on “S-21” Tuol Sleng Prison
Written by: Dacil Keo; Compiled by: Nean Yin
December 6, 2010
Following the odor of decayed flesh, on January 10, 1979 Vietnamese soldiers drove towards a barbed wired compound that served as the Khmer Rouge regime’s highest level security center. At the security center, coded named S-21 (“S” for Santebal, the Khmer word meaning “state security organization” and “21” for the walky-talky number of former prison chief Nath), prisoners were brought in often handcuffed to be photographed, interrogated, tortured, and executed.
The interrogators based their technique on a list of 10 security regulations which included, “While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.” Although prisoners often had no idea why they had been arrested, interrogators forced them to confess their crimes. If they did not confess, they would be tortured. However after confessing, they were marked for execution. Initially, prisoners were killed on the grounds of the prison, but as the mass and stench of the corpses rapidly increased and became unbearable, prisoners were then transported en mass to a nearby open field known as Boeung Choeung Ek (“Crow’s Feet Pond”) to be killed. Often, they were made to dig their own graves or the graves of other prisoners and then killed using rudimentary weapons.
The Tuol Sleng prison, S-21, located in Phnom Penh, Cambodia was a microcosm of the terror, paranoia, and brutality that took place across the country under the reign of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from April 17, 1975 to January 7, 1979. The shocking numbers commonly associated with the prison- 14,000 killed and 7 survivors- rank the prison as one of the most lethal in the 20th century. These numbers however have been disputed by scholars and experts; and recently the hybrid Khmer Rouge Tribunal offered their figures based on its criminal case involving Kaing Geuk Eva, alias Duch, the head of S-21.
The number of prisoners taken to S-21 ranges from the Tribunal’s conservative estimate of at least 12,272 to some expert’s figure of approximately 20,000. The number of survivors has received less scrutiny however with most of Western media generally accepting the figure of 7 survivors. This figure of 7 has been repeated for over thirty years now, giving S-21 its notoriously brutal image. The origin of this numbers comes from a 1981 film titled, Die Angkar (“The Angkar”), produced by Studio H&S of the former East Germany. In this film, the photograph of 7 survivors of S-21 was shown. There is some speculation that 7 survivors were shown to parallel the 7th day of January, the “day of victory” in which Vietnamese forces overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime.
After several years of research however, DC-Cam estimates that at least 179 prisoners were released from 1975-1978 and approximately 23 survived after Vietnam ousted the Khmer Rouge regime on January 7, 1979. The release status of the 179 prisoners (of which 100 were soldiers) is based on numerous Khmer Rouge documents and interviews compiled primarily by Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum senior archivist Mr. Nean Yin. Most of the 179 who were released have disappeared and only a few are known to have survived after 1979. Of the 23 who survived after 1979, more than half have disappeared or have died since. Several of the survivors who are alive today have recently made the news: Norng Chanphal for being a witness for Case 001 of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Vann Nath and Chum Mei for being featured in documentary films, and Bou Meng for having a published about him.
The names below (surname first) provides the most up-to-date record of survivors of S-21, both those released before 1979 and those who survived after Vietnam entered the country. If known, a person’s alternate name or nickname is also given in parenthesis.
Child Survivors who were found by Vietnamese soldiers on January 10, 1979.[1]
1. Makara (full name unknown)[2]
2. Name unknown[3]
3. Norng Chanly
4. Norng Chanphal[4]
5. Socheat (full name unknown)
Survivors who are alive today
6. Bou Meng[5]
7. Chum Manh (Chum Mei)[6]
8. Heng Nath (Vann Nath)[7]
9. Nhem Sal[8]
10. Touch Tem[9]
Survivors who died after 1979
11. Eam Chann
12. Phann Than Chann
13. Ruy Nea Kung
14. Ung Pech
Survivors who disappeared (witnesses reported that these men were alive after 1979, but since disappeared)[10]
15. Dy Phon[11]
16. Eng (full name unknown)[12]
17. Leng (full name unknown)[13]
18. Mok Sun Khun
19. Pol Touch
20. Tuon (full name unknown)
Survivors who are thought to be alive, but status uncertain
21. Name unknown[14]
22. Pheach Yoeun
23. Sok Sophat
Prisoners (from Khmer Rouge army division 420) released between 1975-1978 before Vietnam entered Cambodia[15] (they have since disappeared)
24. Bo Boeun (Phal)
25. Chan Chan
26. Chan Chhoeun (Than)
27. Chea Va (Tva)
28. Chhay Sei
29. Chhim Hin (Sei)
30. Chhoeung Soeung
31. Chhum Bun
32. Chhum Than (Cheat)
33. Chin Seng Eam (Voar)
34. Chum Chan (Khem)
35. Chum Mey (Vorn)[16]
36. Chuob Meng Uor (Chev)
37. Chuon Srei
38. Di Don (Vy)
39. Dib Thau (Rin)
40. Dieb Phan
41. Duong Chheng Pat (Rit)
42. Duong Sambat (Chum)
43. Ean Hun (Hak)
44. Hai Run (Rin)
45. Ham Cheum (Khom)
46. Hang Han (Huon)
47. Hang Lay
48. Hem Muon (Muon)
49. Heng Ruon
50. Heng (Nea)
51. Hing Muon (Vuth)
52. Ho Phan (Phat)
53. Hun Uy (Chhoeun)
54. Huon Samphai (Muon)
55. Huot Sok (Sokha)
56. Im Boeun (Ly)
57. It Aun
58. Keo Lonh Ret
59. Khem Siem Muoy (Peou)
60. Khuon Tai Eng (Lan)
61. Khut Krauch
62. Kim Leng (Heng)
63. Lach Saom
64. Lach Sarun (Van)
65. Lim Uong (Vin)
66. Lom Lon
67. Mak Thoeun (Thon)
68. Mam Vin (Bol)
69. Meas Lan (Loeun)
70. Meas Noeun (Theng)
71. Meas Set
72. Meun Chin
73. Miech Phon (Phal)
74. Neou Nan (Ol)
75. Nhem Chhon
76. Noem Nem (Sim)
77. Nok Nan (Nem)
78. Nou Chhoeun (Sit)
79. Nouv Samneang (Van)
80. Oeur Phat (Roeun)
81. Pak Thiev (Thon)
82. Pan Kung
83. Pat Fy (Yang)
84. Pech Soam
85. Pen Tak (Van)
86. Phal Nhoeun (Khan)
87. Phauk Sam (Sim)
88. Phon Sun (Srun)
89. Poan Pin
90. Prak Samnang (Tep)
91. Prik Chhon (Rung)
92. Prum An (Rai)
93. Prum Leap (Yan)
94. Sam Mak (Rin)
95. Sam Rith (Hang)
96. San Mab (Ma)
97. Seng Hun (Hat)
98. Seng Yan (Oeun)
99. Siek En (Kren)
100. Soam Phon (Nan)
101. Soeng Tha (Vorn)
102. Srei Yun (Sdaeng)
103. Suon Oeun (Der)
104. Suos Ram (Pheap)
105. Suy At
106. Suy Kim Sat (San)
107. Suy Than (Sim)
108. Svay Kenh (La)
109. Te Na (Thy)
110. Tep Sary (Ran)
111. Thab Ruon
112. Thi Than
113. Thlang Rin (Rum)
114. Uk Van
115. Um Voar (Yi)
116. Un Sao (Sen)
117. Van Ngauv (Pan)
118. Ven Chamroeun (Yen)
119. Yan Yeun
120. Yang Khe (Seang)
121. Yem Yoeun
122. You Han (Phal)
123. Yu Mon
Prisoners released from 1975-1978 before Vietnam entered Cambodia[17] (only a few are known to have survived while the vast majority has disappeared)
124. Beng Pum
125. Bou Ngorn Ly
126. Cheng Srorn
127. Chhean Vik
128. Chheang Pech
129. Chheang Praing
130. Chhem Chan
131. Chhiev Sun Heng
132. Chhim Pauch
133. Chou Pin
134. Dai Peng
135. Ea Chhai Pauv
136. Ea Ho[18]
137. Ea Kok
138. Han Nhauv
139. Hem Sambath
140. Hin Chi
141. Hong Chin
142. Ik Chheng Eang
143. Im Phal
144. Im Saom
145. Khiev Eng
146. Khlauk Sran
147. Khon Kuoy
148. Kim Sruo
149. Kong Van Tha
150. Kong Van Than
151. Kruy Cheat
152. Kry Sok Heng
153. Lao Seng Kim
154. Long Neng
155. Men Ol
156. Meun Yeng
157. Mi Sri
158. Min Kan
159. Muo Pech
160. Muong Ny
161. Muy Ruos
162. Ngin Hon
163. Nhem Man
164. Noeu Pheap
165. Pa Chhun Try
166. Pao Chheng
167. Pech Muom
168. Pech Phuong
169. Phai Yim
170. Phan Yoeun
171. Pheng Oeun
172. Pong Pan
173. Prach Torn
174. Proeung Si leang
175. Ring An
176. Roeun Leng
177. Sa Ke
178. Sa Sam Ang
179. Sam Sas
180. San Khmao
181. San Song
182. Sao Voeun
183. Saom Song Heang
184. Saut Chhorn
185. Seang Kry
186. Seth Kalkhann[19]
187. Sim Yeng
188. Sin In Ny
189. Sla Dek
190. Ta Chi Veng
191. Tao Kim Huy
192. Thong Nget
193. Tim Kim Eang
194. Tim Sy
195. Ting Hai
196. Tit Chuon
197. Tit Kan
198. Try Chak
199. Try Chea
200. Van Yeng
201. Ven Sovan Ny
202. Yun Loeun
[1] The discovery of these five child survivors was captured on video footage by Ho Chi Min City Television (HTV). Two of the five child survivors, brothers Norng Chanphal and Norng Chanly, publically confirmed their S-21 imprisonment status.
[2] Makara was named by a Vietnamese soldier after the Khmer word for January, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia.
[3] This prisoner, a baby, died upon discovery by Vietnamese soldiers on January 10, 1979.
[4] Norng Chanphal was a witness for Case 001 of the Khmer Rouge tribunal involving head of S-21, Duch.
[5]Bou Meng is the topic of Huy Vannak’s book titled, “Bou Meng: A Survivor from Khmer Rouge Prison S-21, Justice for the Future, Not Just for the Victims,” published by Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2010.
[6] Chum Mei was featured in DC-Cam’s documentary film, “Behind the Walls of S-21: Oral Stories from Tuol Sleng Prison” (2007) and Rithy Pan’s documentary film, “S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine.”
[7] Vann Nath was featured in Rithy Pan’s documentary film, “S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine.”
[8] Person claims S-21 prisoner status, but there are no supporting documents
[9] Person claims S-21 prisoner status, but there are no supporting documents
[10] Interview with Heng Nath aka Vann Nath
[11] Dy Phon’s confession at S-21, cited in Irene Sokha’s article in Searching for the Truth (Jan. 2000).
[12] It is possible that this is the same person as #60 (Khuon Tai Eng) or #145 (Khiev Eng) on the list.
[13] It is possible that this is the same person as #62 (Kim Leng) and #176 (Roeun Leng) on the list.
[14] DC-Cam was informed of a former S-21 prisoner currently living in Ratanak Kiri province but there are no supporting documents
[15] The status of these prisoners has been confirmed through DC-Cam’s archives
[16] Not to be confused with Chum Mei #7 on the list)
[17] The status of these prisoners has been confirmed through DC-Cam’s archives
[18] Ea Ho filed a civil party complaint to the Khmer Rouge tribunal through DC-Cam.
[19] Seth Kalkhann, who has an Arab father and Lao mother, was sent to S-21 with his family and an Indian family on April 11, 1976. The published report, “People’s Revolutionary Tribunal Held in Phnom Penh for the Trial of Genocide Crime of The Pol-Pot-Ieng Sary Clique (August 1979)” (Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1990), gives an arrest date for Seth (April 11, 1976) but not an execution date. DC-Cam’s senior researcher Dany Long discovered and interviewed him on August 27, 2008. In the interview, Seth states that he was imprisoned for a month, made to write an autobiography, and beaten. His family was kept in a separate room. After a fou hour meeting with Khmer Rouge cadres, Seth and his family were sent back to Prek Dach commune, where they had been evacuated to on July, 1975.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
December 6, 2010
Following the odor of decayed flesh, on January 10, 1979 Vietnamese soldiers drove towards a barbed wired compound that served as the Khmer Rouge regime’s highest level security center. At the security center, coded named S-21 (“S” for Santebal, the Khmer word meaning “state security organization” and “21” for the walky-talky number of former prison chief Nath), prisoners were brought in often handcuffed to be photographed, interrogated, tortured, and executed.
The interrogators based their technique on a list of 10 security regulations which included, “While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.” Although prisoners often had no idea why they had been arrested, interrogators forced them to confess their crimes. If they did not confess, they would be tortured. However after confessing, they were marked for execution. Initially, prisoners were killed on the grounds of the prison, but as the mass and stench of the corpses rapidly increased and became unbearable, prisoners were then transported en mass to a nearby open field known as Boeung Choeung Ek (“Crow’s Feet Pond”) to be killed. Often, they were made to dig their own graves or the graves of other prisoners and then killed using rudimentary weapons.
The Tuol Sleng prison, S-21, located in Phnom Penh, Cambodia was a microcosm of the terror, paranoia, and brutality that took place across the country under the reign of the Communist Party of Kampuchea from April 17, 1975 to January 7, 1979. The shocking numbers commonly associated with the prison- 14,000 killed and 7 survivors- rank the prison as one of the most lethal in the 20th century. These numbers however have been disputed by scholars and experts; and recently the hybrid Khmer Rouge Tribunal offered their figures based on its criminal case involving Kaing Geuk Eva, alias Duch, the head of S-21.
The number of prisoners taken to S-21 ranges from the Tribunal’s conservative estimate of at least 12,272 to some expert’s figure of approximately 20,000. The number of survivors has received less scrutiny however with most of Western media generally accepting the figure of 7 survivors. This figure of 7 has been repeated for over thirty years now, giving S-21 its notoriously brutal image. The origin of this numbers comes from a 1981 film titled, Die Angkar (“The Angkar”), produced by Studio H&S of the former East Germany. In this film, the photograph of 7 survivors of S-21 was shown. There is some speculation that 7 survivors were shown to parallel the 7th day of January, the “day of victory” in which Vietnamese forces overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime.
After several years of research however, DC-Cam estimates that at least 179 prisoners were released from 1975-1978 and approximately 23 survived after Vietnam ousted the Khmer Rouge regime on January 7, 1979. The release status of the 179 prisoners (of which 100 were soldiers) is based on numerous Khmer Rouge documents and interviews compiled primarily by Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum senior archivist Mr. Nean Yin. Most of the 179 who were released have disappeared and only a few are known to have survived after 1979. Of the 23 who survived after 1979, more than half have disappeared or have died since. Several of the survivors who are alive today have recently made the news: Norng Chanphal for being a witness for Case 001 of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Vann Nath and Chum Mei for being featured in documentary films, and Bou Meng for having a published about him.
The names below (surname first) provides the most up-to-date record of survivors of S-21, both those released before 1979 and those who survived after Vietnam entered the country. If known, a person’s alternate name or nickname is also given in parenthesis.
Child Survivors who were found by Vietnamese soldiers on January 10, 1979.[1]
1. Makara (full name unknown)[2]
2. Name unknown[3]
3. Norng Chanly
4. Norng Chanphal[4]
5. Socheat (full name unknown)
Survivors who are alive today
6. Bou Meng[5]
7. Chum Manh (Chum Mei)[6]
8. Heng Nath (Vann Nath)[7]
9. Nhem Sal[8]
10. Touch Tem[9]
Survivors who died after 1979
11. Eam Chann
12. Phann Than Chann
13. Ruy Nea Kung
14. Ung Pech
Survivors who disappeared (witnesses reported that these men were alive after 1979, but since disappeared)[10]
15. Dy Phon[11]
16. Eng (full name unknown)[12]
17. Leng (full name unknown)[13]
18. Mok Sun Khun
19. Pol Touch
20. Tuon (full name unknown)
Survivors who are thought to be alive, but status uncertain
21. Name unknown[14]
22. Pheach Yoeun
23. Sok Sophat
Prisoners (from Khmer Rouge army division 420) released between 1975-1978 before Vietnam entered Cambodia[15] (they have since disappeared)
24. Bo Boeun (Phal)
25. Chan Chan
26. Chan Chhoeun (Than)
27. Chea Va (Tva)
28. Chhay Sei
29. Chhim Hin (Sei)
30. Chhoeung Soeung
31. Chhum Bun
32. Chhum Than (Cheat)
33. Chin Seng Eam (Voar)
34. Chum Chan (Khem)
35. Chum Mey (Vorn)[16]
36. Chuob Meng Uor (Chev)
37. Chuon Srei
38. Di Don (Vy)
39. Dib Thau (Rin)
40. Dieb Phan
41. Duong Chheng Pat (Rit)
42. Duong Sambat (Chum)
43. Ean Hun (Hak)
44. Hai Run (Rin)
45. Ham Cheum (Khom)
46. Hang Han (Huon)
47. Hang Lay
48. Hem Muon (Muon)
49. Heng Ruon
50. Heng (Nea)
51. Hing Muon (Vuth)
52. Ho Phan (Phat)
53. Hun Uy (Chhoeun)
54. Huon Samphai (Muon)
55. Huot Sok (Sokha)
56. Im Boeun (Ly)
57. It Aun
58. Keo Lonh Ret
59. Khem Siem Muoy (Peou)
60. Khuon Tai Eng (Lan)
61. Khut Krauch
62. Kim Leng (Heng)
63. Lach Saom
64. Lach Sarun (Van)
65. Lim Uong (Vin)
66. Lom Lon
67. Mak Thoeun (Thon)
68. Mam Vin (Bol)
69. Meas Lan (Loeun)
70. Meas Noeun (Theng)
71. Meas Set
72. Meun Chin
73. Miech Phon (Phal)
74. Neou Nan (Ol)
75. Nhem Chhon
76. Noem Nem (Sim)
77. Nok Nan (Nem)
78. Nou Chhoeun (Sit)
79. Nouv Samneang (Van)
80. Oeur Phat (Roeun)
81. Pak Thiev (Thon)
82. Pan Kung
83. Pat Fy (Yang)
84. Pech Soam
85. Pen Tak (Van)
86. Phal Nhoeun (Khan)
87. Phauk Sam (Sim)
88. Phon Sun (Srun)
89. Poan Pin
90. Prak Samnang (Tep)
91. Prik Chhon (Rung)
92. Prum An (Rai)
93. Prum Leap (Yan)
94. Sam Mak (Rin)
95. Sam Rith (Hang)
96. San Mab (Ma)
97. Seng Hun (Hat)
98. Seng Yan (Oeun)
99. Siek En (Kren)
100. Soam Phon (Nan)
101. Soeng Tha (Vorn)
102. Srei Yun (Sdaeng)
103. Suon Oeun (Der)
104. Suos Ram (Pheap)
105. Suy At
106. Suy Kim Sat (San)
107. Suy Than (Sim)
108. Svay Kenh (La)
109. Te Na (Thy)
110. Tep Sary (Ran)
111. Thab Ruon
112. Thi Than
113. Thlang Rin (Rum)
114. Uk Van
115. Um Voar (Yi)
116. Un Sao (Sen)
117. Van Ngauv (Pan)
118. Ven Chamroeun (Yen)
119. Yan Yeun
120. Yang Khe (Seang)
121. Yem Yoeun
122. You Han (Phal)
123. Yu Mon
Prisoners released from 1975-1978 before Vietnam entered Cambodia[17] (only a few are known to have survived while the vast majority has disappeared)
124. Beng Pum
125. Bou Ngorn Ly
126. Cheng Srorn
127. Chhean Vik
128. Chheang Pech
129. Chheang Praing
130. Chhem Chan
131. Chhiev Sun Heng
132. Chhim Pauch
133. Chou Pin
134. Dai Peng
135. Ea Chhai Pauv
136. Ea Ho[18]
137. Ea Kok
138. Han Nhauv
139. Hem Sambath
140. Hin Chi
141. Hong Chin
142. Ik Chheng Eang
143. Im Phal
144. Im Saom
145. Khiev Eng
146. Khlauk Sran
147. Khon Kuoy
148. Kim Sruo
149. Kong Van Tha
150. Kong Van Than
151. Kruy Cheat
152. Kry Sok Heng
153. Lao Seng Kim
154. Long Neng
155. Men Ol
156. Meun Yeng
157. Mi Sri
158. Min Kan
159. Muo Pech
160. Muong Ny
161. Muy Ruos
162. Ngin Hon
163. Nhem Man
164. Noeu Pheap
165. Pa Chhun Try
166. Pao Chheng
167. Pech Muom
168. Pech Phuong
169. Phai Yim
170. Phan Yoeun
171. Pheng Oeun
172. Pong Pan
173. Prach Torn
174. Proeung Si leang
175. Ring An
176. Roeun Leng
177. Sa Ke
178. Sa Sam Ang
179. Sam Sas
180. San Khmao
181. San Song
182. Sao Voeun
183. Saom Song Heang
184. Saut Chhorn
185. Seang Kry
186. Seth Kalkhann[19]
187. Sim Yeng
188. Sin In Ny
189. Sla Dek
190. Ta Chi Veng
191. Tao Kim Huy
192. Thong Nget
193. Tim Kim Eang
194. Tim Sy
195. Ting Hai
196. Tit Chuon
197. Tit Kan
198. Try Chak
199. Try Chea
200. Van Yeng
201. Ven Sovan Ny
202. Yun Loeun
[1] The discovery of these five child survivors was captured on video footage by Ho Chi Min City Television (HTV). Two of the five child survivors, brothers Norng Chanphal and Norng Chanly, publically confirmed their S-21 imprisonment status.
[2] Makara was named by a Vietnamese soldier after the Khmer word for January, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia.
[3] This prisoner, a baby, died upon discovery by Vietnamese soldiers on January 10, 1979.
[4] Norng Chanphal was a witness for Case 001 of the Khmer Rouge tribunal involving head of S-21, Duch.
[5]Bou Meng is the topic of Huy Vannak’s book titled, “Bou Meng: A Survivor from Khmer Rouge Prison S-21, Justice for the Future, Not Just for the Victims,” published by Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2010.
[6] Chum Mei was featured in DC-Cam’s documentary film, “Behind the Walls of S-21: Oral Stories from Tuol Sleng Prison” (2007) and Rithy Pan’s documentary film, “S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine.”
[7] Vann Nath was featured in Rithy Pan’s documentary film, “S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine.”
[8] Person claims S-21 prisoner status, but there are no supporting documents
[9] Person claims S-21 prisoner status, but there are no supporting documents
[10] Interview with Heng Nath aka Vann Nath
[11] Dy Phon’s confession at S-21, cited in Irene Sokha’s article in Searching for the Truth (Jan. 2000).
[12] It is possible that this is the same person as #60 (Khuon Tai Eng) or #145 (Khiev Eng) on the list.
[13] It is possible that this is the same person as #62 (Kim Leng) and #176 (Roeun Leng) on the list.
[14] DC-Cam was informed of a former S-21 prisoner currently living in Ratanak Kiri province but there are no supporting documents
[15] The status of these prisoners has been confirmed through DC-Cam’s archives
[16] Not to be confused with Chum Mei #7 on the list)
[17] The status of these prisoners has been confirmed through DC-Cam’s archives
[18] Ea Ho filed a civil party complaint to the Khmer Rouge tribunal through DC-Cam.
[19] Seth Kalkhann, who has an Arab father and Lao mother, was sent to S-21 with his family and an Indian family on April 11, 1976. The published report, “People’s Revolutionary Tribunal Held in Phnom Penh for the Trial of Genocide Crime of The Pol-Pot-Ieng Sary Clique (August 1979)” (Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1990), gives an arrest date for Seth (April 11, 1976) but not an execution date. DC-Cam’s senior researcher Dany Long discovered and interviewed him on August 27, 2008. In the interview, Seth states that he was imprisoned for a month, made to write an autobiography, and beaten. His family was kept in a separate room. After a fou hour meeting with Khmer Rouge cadres, Seth and his family were sent back to Prek Dach commune, where they had been evacuated to on July, 1975.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Cambodian refugee goes home as US Navy commander
By MIKE ECKEL 1:04 AM 12/05/2010
SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia (AP) — The distant thuds of gunfire and bombs weren’t nearly as memorable for Michael Misiewicz as fishing barehanded with his older brother in Cambodia’s Mekong River.
In 1973, as a 6-year-old then called Vannak Khem, he was more concerned with boys’ games than the deepening war — unaware, like most Cambodians, of the trauma that the Khmer Rouge would soon inflict on the country. He had no idea that after his adoption by an American woman that same year, it would take him 37 years to go home.
Misiewicz finally returned home Friday as commander of the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Mustin — reuniting with the relatives who wondered whether they would ever see him alive, and the aunt who helped arrange his adoption. His ship departs Monday.
“Chumreap suor, Om,” he greeted 72-year-old Samrith Sokha in the Khmer language, clutching her in a sobbing embrace on the Mustin’s sea-swept walkway. “Greetings, Auntie.”
The warship has a larger mission: to help the United States as it deepens ties with Cambodia and other nearby nations in a region overshadowed by China’s economic and military clout.
But the ship’s arrival in the port of Sihanoukville also ends an odyssey that took Misiewicz, now 43, from the poverty of Cambodian rice fields to the farmlands of the midwestern United States to the helm of a U.S. destroyer.
The process of returning has been intensely emotional, he said: sadness for the more than 1.7 million who died or were killed by the communist Khmer Rouge when they held power in 1975-1979, combined with guilt at his escape from it and joy at seeing the relatives who helped him leave it behind.
“This isn’t going to wash the guilt away but I am looking to provide some sense of closure, going back to my birth country, going back to where my family suffered, and where my dad was executed, seeing it firsthand,” he said in a phone interview before his ship arrived.
Born south of the capital, Phnom Penh, Misiewicz and his family were uprooted in 1969 as Khmer Rouge fighters forced villagers to join the radical communist movement. His father didn’t sympathize with it, unlike many of his mother’s family, and many considered him a traitor for not joining up, Misiewicz said.
They fled north, living on the streets as beggars for a time and scraping by until settling in Phnom Penh. They lived in a stilt house over mosquito-infested waters, subsisting mainly on his father’s work as an herbal medicine pharmacist. His father’s oldest sister, Sokha, worked for Maryna Lee Misiewicz, a U.S. Army administrative assistant with the defense attache’s office at the U.S. Embassy.
Misiewicz remembers eating popcorn and watching cartoons while his aunt cooked and cleaned Maryna’s home. Eventually, he said, his father decided they should ask Maryna to adopt him and Maryna and the boy left for the United States in April 1973.
“They were concerned about the Khmer Rouge. No one had any idea what would happen, but they hoped for a better life for Mike,” Maryna Misiewicz said in an interview from her home in Freeport, Illinois. “We had no idea how long it would be before they would ever see each other again.”
He grew up in Lanark, a town of 1,500 people just south of Freeport, most of whom had never seen an Asian before, and he said he cried frequently, thinking about his family.
Gradually, the letters to his relatives went unanswered as Cambodia spiraled into chaos. He forgot what little Khmer he knew, graduated from local high school and enlisted in the Navy. Like most Americans, he only later realized how many had died and suffered because of the Khmer Rouge’s nightmarish efforts to create an agricultural utopia. Maryna Misiewicz said she initially tried to shield her adopted son from the few reports about the Khmer Rouge’s brutal actions.
“You didn’t have any idea it would end up like that,” Maryna said. “I felt badly for Mike and his family and I wondered what was going on, what they were going through.”
“As I got older it was less painful to not think about it,” Misiewicz said.
It was in 1989 when he was at the U.S. Naval Academy when he was finally located by his family — and he learned of their own odyssey through refugee camps on the Thai border and in the Philippines and finally to Austin, Texas.
His birth mother, two brothers and a sister had survived but two other sisters died, most likely of disease or malnutrition. All of his mother’s relatives, except for a brother, died or were killed by the Khmer Rouge, he said.
“We never knew what was going to happen,” said Misiewicz’s younger brother, Rithy Khem. “Thank God we were able … to be reconnected with each other finally.”
Misiewicz learned that his father, who was drafted as a medic for the U.S.-backed government that collapsed in 1975, was summoned to a meeting with Khmer Rouge officials on the anniversary of their takeover and never returned.
Misiewicz said his reunion with relatives in Cambodia would go a long way toward easing his qualms about the opportunity he had — and that his relatives did not.
“A lot of who I am is small-town America, you know, work hard trying your best at whatever you do … but certainly the genetic thing, so many of the blessings that I’ve had come from my birth family,” he said.
“I feel a lot of sadness for my own family, but also for so many Cambodian families,” he said. “It’s been a long, long time of war, genocide, civil war; my birth country and my fellow Cambodians just need a break.”
Copyright © 2009 Daily Caller. All rights reserved.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia (AP) — The distant thuds of gunfire and bombs weren’t nearly as memorable for Michael Misiewicz as fishing barehanded with his older brother in Cambodia’s Mekong River.
In 1973, as a 6-year-old then called Vannak Khem, he was more concerned with boys’ games than the deepening war — unaware, like most Cambodians, of the trauma that the Khmer Rouge would soon inflict on the country. He had no idea that after his adoption by an American woman that same year, it would take him 37 years to go home.
Misiewicz finally returned home Friday as commander of the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Mustin — reuniting with the relatives who wondered whether they would ever see him alive, and the aunt who helped arrange his adoption. His ship departs Monday.
“Chumreap suor, Om,” he greeted 72-year-old Samrith Sokha in the Khmer language, clutching her in a sobbing embrace on the Mustin’s sea-swept walkway. “Greetings, Auntie.”
The warship has a larger mission: to help the United States as it deepens ties with Cambodia and other nearby nations in a region overshadowed by China’s economic and military clout.
But the ship’s arrival in the port of Sihanoukville also ends an odyssey that took Misiewicz, now 43, from the poverty of Cambodian rice fields to the farmlands of the midwestern United States to the helm of a U.S. destroyer.
The process of returning has been intensely emotional, he said: sadness for the more than 1.7 million who died or were killed by the communist Khmer Rouge when they held power in 1975-1979, combined with guilt at his escape from it and joy at seeing the relatives who helped him leave it behind.
“This isn’t going to wash the guilt away but I am looking to provide some sense of closure, going back to my birth country, going back to where my family suffered, and where my dad was executed, seeing it firsthand,” he said in a phone interview before his ship arrived.
Born south of the capital, Phnom Penh, Misiewicz and his family were uprooted in 1969 as Khmer Rouge fighters forced villagers to join the radical communist movement. His father didn’t sympathize with it, unlike many of his mother’s family, and many considered him a traitor for not joining up, Misiewicz said.
They fled north, living on the streets as beggars for a time and scraping by until settling in Phnom Penh. They lived in a stilt house over mosquito-infested waters, subsisting mainly on his father’s work as an herbal medicine pharmacist. His father’s oldest sister, Sokha, worked for Maryna Lee Misiewicz, a U.S. Army administrative assistant with the defense attache’s office at the U.S. Embassy.
Misiewicz remembers eating popcorn and watching cartoons while his aunt cooked and cleaned Maryna’s home. Eventually, he said, his father decided they should ask Maryna to adopt him and Maryna and the boy left for the United States in April 1973.
“They were concerned about the Khmer Rouge. No one had any idea what would happen, but they hoped for a better life for Mike,” Maryna Misiewicz said in an interview from her home in Freeport, Illinois. “We had no idea how long it would be before they would ever see each other again.”
He grew up in Lanark, a town of 1,500 people just south of Freeport, most of whom had never seen an Asian before, and he said he cried frequently, thinking about his family.
Gradually, the letters to his relatives went unanswered as Cambodia spiraled into chaos. He forgot what little Khmer he knew, graduated from local high school and enlisted in the Navy. Like most Americans, he only later realized how many had died and suffered because of the Khmer Rouge’s nightmarish efforts to create an agricultural utopia. Maryna Misiewicz said she initially tried to shield her adopted son from the few reports about the Khmer Rouge’s brutal actions.
“You didn’t have any idea it would end up like that,” Maryna said. “I felt badly for Mike and his family and I wondered what was going on, what they were going through.”
“As I got older it was less painful to not think about it,” Misiewicz said.
It was in 1989 when he was at the U.S. Naval Academy when he was finally located by his family — and he learned of their own odyssey through refugee camps on the Thai border and in the Philippines and finally to Austin, Texas.
His birth mother, two brothers and a sister had survived but two other sisters died, most likely of disease or malnutrition. All of his mother’s relatives, except for a brother, died or were killed by the Khmer Rouge, he said.
“We never knew what was going to happen,” said Misiewicz’s younger brother, Rithy Khem. “Thank God we were able … to be reconnected with each other finally.”
Misiewicz learned that his father, who was drafted as a medic for the U.S.-backed government that collapsed in 1975, was summoned to a meeting with Khmer Rouge officials on the anniversary of their takeover and never returned.
Misiewicz said his reunion with relatives in Cambodia would go a long way toward easing his qualms about the opportunity he had — and that his relatives did not.
“A lot of who I am is small-town America, you know, work hard trying your best at whatever you do … but certainly the genetic thing, so many of the blessings that I’ve had come from my birth family,” he said.
“I feel a lot of sadness for my own family, but also for so many Cambodian families,” he said. “It’s been a long, long time of war, genocide, civil war; my birth country and my fellow Cambodians just need a break.”
Copyright © 2009 Daily Caller. All rights reserved.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Thai Play Unwilling Hosts to Refugees
Louisville Courtier-Journal
Tuesday Dec. 4, 1979
by Joel Brinkley
Courier-Journal Staff Writer
ARANYAPRATHET, Thailand – To many here, it is known as the day the missionaries cried.
“It was a massacre, simply a massacre,” said Marjorie Rasmussen, a medical missionary from Louisville who has heard the tale from eyewitnesses time and time again.
The problem started in January when Thai officials refused to accept any more Cambodian refugees, saying their poor country already had too many mouths of its own to feed.
Cambodians came anyway, slipping over the border into Thailand by the thousand. They hid among their countrymen who had legally emigrated before the border was closed.
One day orders came from Bangkok that all the newcomers had to go. Right now. Thai solders combed the refugee camps and picked out Cambodians who didn’t have proper papers. About 850 in all.
When the refugees were corralled, buses moved them to the top of a slope just north of Aranyaprathet. Cambodia was down below. Thai soldiers prodded the refugees from their seats at gunpoint. The soldiers urged them forward with shouts.
Missionaries watched silently.
The 850 men, women and children obediently began trudging down the hill. Looking back, they saw M16 rifle barrels pointing at them.
Nobody knew about the problem ahead.
This hill, down which the refugees trod toward Cambodia, had earlier been a favorite for others who climbed up it to sanctuary in Thailand. Sanctuary from the hated Khmer Rouge soldiers. So to prevent Cambodians from escaping their country, the hillside had been mined, probably by the Khmer Rouge.
“They just blew up, hundreds of them,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, shaking her head. Others turned around to run back up the hill.”
But the Thai soldiers had their orders. No more Cambodian refugees in Thailand.
They opened fire.
Caught between mines and bullets, “half of them were killed,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Missionaries who have seen all sorts of horrible things, all over the world, they cry when the talk about that day.”
For months, the Thai themselves have face a terrible dilemma. Governments worldwide pressure Thailand to give Cambodians a temporary home. Meanwhile, Thai citizens grumble that refugees be kept out.
In early October, Thailand’s prime minister, Kriangsak Chomanan, officially opened the country to Cambodian refugees. But by then, so many Cambodians lay huddled at the border that it seemed almost like granting a tidal wave permission to crash over the beach.
Thailand plainly doesn’t want the 200,000 Cambodian refugees now on its soil, or the half-million others who are expected to cross the border soon.
“We are a poor country, and we have enough trouble feeding our own,” said Sae Taang, a Thai college student serving as a refugee-camp relief worker. “In the countryside, where I worked, people are upset because they think the government takes good care of the Cambodians but not of them. But my prime minister, he just says he has to.”
Some relief workers complain that the Thai government isn’t doing enough. They say that if everything were left to the Thai, refugee camps would be flat plots of ground, barbed wire fencing, guards – and not much else. International relief agencies provide nearly all of the essentials.
“We have to channel all our food and supplies through the Thai Red Cross just so it looks like the Thais are involved,” said one American relief official. “But really, the Thai are contributing barely a dime.”
At the Aranyaprathet Khmer Refugee center, for example, a Norwegian relief agency built the hospital, the New York based International Rescue Committee staffs it and the International Red Cross supplies the drugs. The YWCA runs the school, Christian Outreach, a group started to help Vietnamese refugees, distributes clothing and other supplies.
Thai soldiers man the guard shacks.
In the refugee camps, foreign relief workers are constantly aware of the Thai feelings about Cambodian refugees. “We had a fellow in here from Norway who looked at our wooden hospital cots and wanted to rush in dozens of beds with sheets,” said Kenneth Rasmussen, Marjorie Rasmussen’s husband and the only doctor at the Aranyaprathet refugee camp.
“But we had to say no because we absolutely can’t make the people in here more privileged than the Thai people outside. Outside they don’t have beds with sheets.”
Thai resentment of Cambodians runs deeper than concern about bed sheets. They fear the refugees presence might prompt the Vietnamese to invade Thailand, which has largely remained neutral throughout the years of Asian conflict – although it did allow the U.S. to operate air bases on its land during the Vietnam War.
Between 100,000 and 200,000 Vietnamese are now gathering in Western Cambodia, along 210 miles of brush and forest on the Thai border. They are there to wipe out the last forces of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime, which they overthrew last January.
When the drives against the Khmer Rouge begin, Khmer Rouge soldiers are expected to flee into Thailand, and the Thai fear that the attacking Vietnamese troops will follow, right over the border.
Some of Thailand’s top commanders are assigned to lead their troops along the border. And already there have been skirmishes with “foreign forces,” as Thai military officials describe those they fought.
In the south, Khmer Rouge soldiers often cross into Thailand to rest and regroup. “A few weeks ago, several thousand of them came over, right here, and rested for awhile,” said Thai Lt. Sitti Piyasonti, who mans a border outpost south of Aranyaprathet. “The Vietnamese did not follow them this time, and we just sat and watched until they went back. But sometimes we hear the big guns shelling only 50 meters from here.”
Hanoi has sternly warned Thailand that it is “playing with fire” by allowing Khmer Rouge soldiers on its soil.
Many in Thailand wonder what their government will do when all the refugees have finally crossed the border. Government officials hope many will eventually go back home when the fighting subsides. But many refugees insist they will never return to Cambodia.
When Cambodians began streaming onto their land, the Thai viewed the camps that sprung up as temporary homes for the homeless. Now, facing reality, they talk about building a huge, permanent camp in southeastern Thailand. It would probably be the largest refugeee camp in the world.
“We hear one rumor all the time,” said Bob Beck, an American relief worker at the Sa Kaeo refugee camp. “And that is that they’ll build the new camp on a strip of land right on the southern border. Since the border there isn’t well-defined, the Thai will put the refugees on the strip of land and then just say that they’re actually in Cambodia.”
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Tuesday Dec. 4, 1979
by Joel Brinkley
Courier-Journal Staff Writer
ARANYAPRATHET, Thailand – To many here, it is known as the day the missionaries cried.
“It was a massacre, simply a massacre,” said Marjorie Rasmussen, a medical missionary from Louisville who has heard the tale from eyewitnesses time and time again.
The problem started in January when Thai officials refused to accept any more Cambodian refugees, saying their poor country already had too many mouths of its own to feed.
Cambodians came anyway, slipping over the border into Thailand by the thousand. They hid among their countrymen who had legally emigrated before the border was closed.
One day orders came from Bangkok that all the newcomers had to go. Right now. Thai solders combed the refugee camps and picked out Cambodians who didn’t have proper papers. About 850 in all.
When the refugees were corralled, buses moved them to the top of a slope just north of Aranyaprathet. Cambodia was down below. Thai soldiers prodded the refugees from their seats at gunpoint. The soldiers urged them forward with shouts.
Missionaries watched silently.
The 850 men, women and children obediently began trudging down the hill. Looking back, they saw M16 rifle barrels pointing at them.
Nobody knew about the problem ahead.
This hill, down which the refugees trod toward Cambodia, had earlier been a favorite for others who climbed up it to sanctuary in Thailand. Sanctuary from the hated Khmer Rouge soldiers. So to prevent Cambodians from escaping their country, the hillside had been mined, probably by the Khmer Rouge.
“They just blew up, hundreds of them,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, shaking her head. Others turned around to run back up the hill.”
But the Thai soldiers had their orders. No more Cambodian refugees in Thailand.
They opened fire.
Caught between mines and bullets, “half of them were killed,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Missionaries who have seen all sorts of horrible things, all over the world, they cry when the talk about that day.”
For months, the Thai themselves have face a terrible dilemma. Governments worldwide pressure Thailand to give Cambodians a temporary home. Meanwhile, Thai citizens grumble that refugees be kept out.
In early October, Thailand’s prime minister, Kriangsak Chomanan, officially opened the country to Cambodian refugees. But by then, so many Cambodians lay huddled at the border that it seemed almost like granting a tidal wave permission to crash over the beach.
Thailand plainly doesn’t want the 200,000 Cambodian refugees now on its soil, or the half-million others who are expected to cross the border soon.
“We are a poor country, and we have enough trouble feeding our own,” said Sae Taang, a Thai college student serving as a refugee-camp relief worker. “In the countryside, where I worked, people are upset because they think the government takes good care of the Cambodians but not of them. But my prime minister, he just says he has to.”
Some relief workers complain that the Thai government isn’t doing enough. They say that if everything were left to the Thai, refugee camps would be flat plots of ground, barbed wire fencing, guards – and not much else. International relief agencies provide nearly all of the essentials.
“We have to channel all our food and supplies through the Thai Red Cross just so it looks like the Thais are involved,” said one American relief official. “But really, the Thai are contributing barely a dime.”
At the Aranyaprathet Khmer Refugee center, for example, a Norwegian relief agency built the hospital, the New York based International Rescue Committee staffs it and the International Red Cross supplies the drugs. The YWCA runs the school, Christian Outreach, a group started to help Vietnamese refugees, distributes clothing and other supplies.
Thai soldiers man the guard shacks.
In the refugee camps, foreign relief workers are constantly aware of the Thai feelings about Cambodian refugees. “We had a fellow in here from Norway who looked at our wooden hospital cots and wanted to rush in dozens of beds with sheets,” said Kenneth Rasmussen, Marjorie Rasmussen’s husband and the only doctor at the Aranyaprathet refugee camp.
“But we had to say no because we absolutely can’t make the people in here more privileged than the Thai people outside. Outside they don’t have beds with sheets.”
Thai resentment of Cambodians runs deeper than concern about bed sheets. They fear the refugees presence might prompt the Vietnamese to invade Thailand, which has largely remained neutral throughout the years of Asian conflict – although it did allow the U.S. to operate air bases on its land during the Vietnam War.
Between 100,000 and 200,000 Vietnamese are now gathering in Western Cambodia, along 210 miles of brush and forest on the Thai border. They are there to wipe out the last forces of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime, which they overthrew last January.
When the drives against the Khmer Rouge begin, Khmer Rouge soldiers are expected to flee into Thailand, and the Thai fear that the attacking Vietnamese troops will follow, right over the border.
Some of Thailand’s top commanders are assigned to lead their troops along the border. And already there have been skirmishes with “foreign forces,” as Thai military officials describe those they fought.
In the south, Khmer Rouge soldiers often cross into Thailand to rest and regroup. “A few weeks ago, several thousand of them came over, right here, and rested for awhile,” said Thai Lt. Sitti Piyasonti, who mans a border outpost south of Aranyaprathet. “The Vietnamese did not follow them this time, and we just sat and watched until they went back. But sometimes we hear the big guns shelling only 50 meters from here.”
Hanoi has sternly warned Thailand that it is “playing with fire” by allowing Khmer Rouge soldiers on its soil.
Many in Thailand wonder what their government will do when all the refugees have finally crossed the border. Government officials hope many will eventually go back home when the fighting subsides. But many refugees insist they will never return to Cambodia.
When Cambodians began streaming onto their land, the Thai viewed the camps that sprung up as temporary homes for the homeless. Now, facing reality, they talk about building a huge, permanent camp in southeastern Thailand. It would probably be the largest refugeee camp in the world.
“We hear one rumor all the time,” said Bob Beck, an American relief worker at the Sa Kaeo refugee camp. “And that is that they’ll build the new camp on a strip of land right on the southern border. Since the border there isn’t well-defined, the Thai will put the refugees on the strip of land and then just say that they’re actually in Cambodia.”
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Cambodian reconciliation efforts force Khmer Rouge veterans to confront the past
By Dustin Roasa
Wednesday, December 1, 2010; 12:41 PM
ANLONG VENG, CAMBODIA - In a dimly lighted concrete classroom with smudged and peeling walls, the principal of Anlong Veng High School recalled the man who had built it, the late Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok.
"Everyone here loves Ta Mok. He was a good leader, and he cared about his people," 42-year-old Sreng Kor Ma said. Known as "the Butcher" for his brutality during Khmer Rouge rule, the commander remains popular in this remote former Khmer Rouge stronghold in northwestern Cambodia, where he built hospitals, bridges and other infrastructure and where thousands of the organization's former soldiers still live.
But this year, 12 years after the Khmer Rouge surrendered, long-held loyalties are finally being challenged in Anlong Veng. In April, a local truth and reconciliation forum allowed victims to publicly confront people who had participated in the regime. In June, the government distributed a high school textbook here that for the first time teaches the history of the Khmer Rouge to the children of its former soldiers.
And in July, a joint U.N. and Cambodian tribunal handed down its first conviction of a former Khmer Rouge member, sentencing the onetime chief of the notorious Tuol Sleng torture center, Kaing Khek Iev, better known as Duch, to 35 years in prison. With each of those developments, anxiety has grown among Anlong Veng's Khmer Rouge veterans, complicating efforts at reconciliation and their attempts to reintegrate into Cambodian society.
"There is resentment and fear among the former Khmer Rouge, but they are powerless to do anything," said Chhang Youk, head of the independent Documentation Center of Cambodia. "For them, life under the Khmer Rouge was glorious, but the regime has become symbolic of evil. It is creating divisions within families."
Life after the Khmer Rouge
During the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia from 1975 until 1979, an estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died from starvation, disease or overwork. When the Vietnamese invaded and toppled the Pol Pot-led government in 1979, remnants of the regime and its military fled to Cambodia's border with Thailand. There they launched an insurgency that endured until the last of the movement surrendered in December 1998.
As Pol Pot, Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary directed the guerrilla war from their bases in western Cambodia's mountains and jungles, Ta Mok cultivated a following in Anlong Veng. But in the mid-1990s, after a U.N.-sponsored peace agreement led to the country's first democratic elections in 1993, Khmer Rouge fighters began defecting to the government, culminating in the surrenders of Ieng Sary in 1996 and Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan in 1998. Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998, and Ta Mok, who had held out, was captured in 1999 in the nearby Dangrek Mountains. He died in prison in 2006 while awaiting trial.
Most former Khmer Rouge fighters have since descended into the grinding poverty common in rural Cambodia, and many remain nostalgic for the movement. Although a few elite Khmer Rouge officials kept their local government posts in exchange for laying down their arms, the rank and file remain poor, unskilled farmers.
"These people have benefited very little following the surrender," said Sok Leang of the Center for Justice and Reconciliation, which holds public forums throughout Cambodia, including in Anlong Veng. "They are embedded with the utopian agrarian ideology of the regime. They were brought up with no concept of doing business."
Sor Lim, 55, who joined the Khmer Rouge as a teenager in 1974, settled down to life as a poor rice farmer in 1998. "Life under the Khmer Rouge was good. Ta Mok fed everyone, but now life is difficult because we have to provide for ourselves," he said.
The ongoing Khmer Rouge tribunal has also provoked worries here. Early next year, the court is expected to begin trying Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, another former Khmer Rouge minister. The court's mandate is to prosecute senior leaders and those most responsible for crimes, but it has not said whether it will pursue cases beyond those four. This has done little to calm fears in Anlong Veng.
Recent media speculation has centered on Im Chaem, 64, who was a provincial district chief during Khmer Rouge rule in the late 1970s. In 2007, she told researchers from the Documentation Center of Cambodia that she had supervised construction of the Trapeang Thma dam, a project in which thousands of forced laborers are thought to have died.
On a sweltering recent evening, Im Chaem returned from working in the fields to her wooden stilt house outside Anlong Veng. As the sun cast long shadows across the parched grass, Im Chaem declined to discuss her past in the Khmer Rouge. If the court summoned her, she said, she would refuse to go. "Cambodia is at peace and stable," she said. "If there are more prosecutions, there will be war."
Prime Minister Hun Sen, who defected from the Khmer Rouge in 1978, has also repeatedly warned of instability if the court pursues more suspects. "Cambodia must dig a hole and bury the past," he has said.
But confronting the past is just what Cambodia must do to move forward, said Chhang Youk, of the documentation center. "Reconciliation in Khmer terms is reconnecting the broken pieces," he said. "It's our obligation to put these broken pieces together, so that we can understand."
The center produced the first government-approved textbook about the Khmer Rouge, the 75-page "A History of Democratic Kampuchea," which it distributed in Anlong Veng in June as a supplement to the Education Ministry's high school history textbook, which contains less than four pages on the Khmer Rouge.
As in much of Cambodia, Anlong Veng's young people know few details about the Khmer Rouge, despite the town's connection to the regime. Touch Valeak, 19, a student at Anlong Veng High School, said the new textbook was helping students understand a key part of their history, though his parents remain skeptical of both the book and the tribunal. "They are suspicious," he said.
This resistance has hindered reconciliation, Sok Leang said. But the public forums, the textbook and the tribunal are beginning to have an impact, he said. Still, the Khmer Rouge retains a powerful allure here. Up in the Dangrek Mountains, an overgrown path leads to a rectangle of black soot under a rusted tin roof. Pol Pot's body was burned here on a pile of tires after his death in 1998.
Nuom Sothea, 31, a roadside cellphone vendor, said she didn't know much about the man. "But he has a strong spirit, and many local people go there to pray to him," she said. It was Nuom Sothea's birthday, and later that day she planned to walk to Pol Pot's final resting place, where she would leave a bunch of ripe bananas in hopes of bringing good luck.
Roasa is a special correspondent.
© 1996-2010 The Washington Post
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Wednesday, December 1, 2010; 12:41 PM
ANLONG VENG, CAMBODIA - In a dimly lighted concrete classroom with smudged and peeling walls, the principal of Anlong Veng High School recalled the man who had built it, the late Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok.
"Everyone here loves Ta Mok. He was a good leader, and he cared about his people," 42-year-old Sreng Kor Ma said. Known as "the Butcher" for his brutality during Khmer Rouge rule, the commander remains popular in this remote former Khmer Rouge stronghold in northwestern Cambodia, where he built hospitals, bridges and other infrastructure and where thousands of the organization's former soldiers still live.
But this year, 12 years after the Khmer Rouge surrendered, long-held loyalties are finally being challenged in Anlong Veng. In April, a local truth and reconciliation forum allowed victims to publicly confront people who had participated in the regime. In June, the government distributed a high school textbook here that for the first time teaches the history of the Khmer Rouge to the children of its former soldiers.
And in July, a joint U.N. and Cambodian tribunal handed down its first conviction of a former Khmer Rouge member, sentencing the onetime chief of the notorious Tuol Sleng torture center, Kaing Khek Iev, better known as Duch, to 35 years in prison. With each of those developments, anxiety has grown among Anlong Veng's Khmer Rouge veterans, complicating efforts at reconciliation and their attempts to reintegrate into Cambodian society.
"There is resentment and fear among the former Khmer Rouge, but they are powerless to do anything," said Chhang Youk, head of the independent Documentation Center of Cambodia. "For them, life under the Khmer Rouge was glorious, but the regime has become symbolic of evil. It is creating divisions within families."
Life after the Khmer Rouge
During the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia from 1975 until 1979, an estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died from starvation, disease or overwork. When the Vietnamese invaded and toppled the Pol Pot-led government in 1979, remnants of the regime and its military fled to Cambodia's border with Thailand. There they launched an insurgency that endured until the last of the movement surrendered in December 1998.
As Pol Pot, Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary directed the guerrilla war from their bases in western Cambodia's mountains and jungles, Ta Mok cultivated a following in Anlong Veng. But in the mid-1990s, after a U.N.-sponsored peace agreement led to the country's first democratic elections in 1993, Khmer Rouge fighters began defecting to the government, culminating in the surrenders of Ieng Sary in 1996 and Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan in 1998. Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998, and Ta Mok, who had held out, was captured in 1999 in the nearby Dangrek Mountains. He died in prison in 2006 while awaiting trial.
Most former Khmer Rouge fighters have since descended into the grinding poverty common in rural Cambodia, and many remain nostalgic for the movement. Although a few elite Khmer Rouge officials kept their local government posts in exchange for laying down their arms, the rank and file remain poor, unskilled farmers.
"These people have benefited very little following the surrender," said Sok Leang of the Center for Justice and Reconciliation, which holds public forums throughout Cambodia, including in Anlong Veng. "They are embedded with the utopian agrarian ideology of the regime. They were brought up with no concept of doing business."
Sor Lim, 55, who joined the Khmer Rouge as a teenager in 1974, settled down to life as a poor rice farmer in 1998. "Life under the Khmer Rouge was good. Ta Mok fed everyone, but now life is difficult because we have to provide for ourselves," he said.
The ongoing Khmer Rouge tribunal has also provoked worries here. Early next year, the court is expected to begin trying Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, another former Khmer Rouge minister. The court's mandate is to prosecute senior leaders and those most responsible for crimes, but it has not said whether it will pursue cases beyond those four. This has done little to calm fears in Anlong Veng.
Recent media speculation has centered on Im Chaem, 64, who was a provincial district chief during Khmer Rouge rule in the late 1970s. In 2007, she told researchers from the Documentation Center of Cambodia that she had supervised construction of the Trapeang Thma dam, a project in which thousands of forced laborers are thought to have died.
On a sweltering recent evening, Im Chaem returned from working in the fields to her wooden stilt house outside Anlong Veng. As the sun cast long shadows across the parched grass, Im Chaem declined to discuss her past in the Khmer Rouge. If the court summoned her, she said, she would refuse to go. "Cambodia is at peace and stable," she said. "If there are more prosecutions, there will be war."
Prime Minister Hun Sen, who defected from the Khmer Rouge in 1978, has also repeatedly warned of instability if the court pursues more suspects. "Cambodia must dig a hole and bury the past," he has said.
But confronting the past is just what Cambodia must do to move forward, said Chhang Youk, of the documentation center. "Reconciliation in Khmer terms is reconnecting the broken pieces," he said. "It's our obligation to put these broken pieces together, so that we can understand."
The center produced the first government-approved textbook about the Khmer Rouge, the 75-page "A History of Democratic Kampuchea," which it distributed in Anlong Veng in June as a supplement to the Education Ministry's high school history textbook, which contains less than four pages on the Khmer Rouge.
As in much of Cambodia, Anlong Veng's young people know few details about the Khmer Rouge, despite the town's connection to the regime. Touch Valeak, 19, a student at Anlong Veng High School, said the new textbook was helping students understand a key part of their history, though his parents remain skeptical of both the book and the tribunal. "They are suspicious," he said.
This resistance has hindered reconciliation, Sok Leang said. But the public forums, the textbook and the tribunal are beginning to have an impact, he said. Still, the Khmer Rouge retains a powerful allure here. Up in the Dangrek Mountains, an overgrown path leads to a rectangle of black soot under a rusted tin roof. Pol Pot's body was burned here on a pile of tires after his death in 1998.
Nuom Sothea, 31, a roadside cellphone vendor, said she didn't know much about the man. "But he has a strong spirit, and many local people go there to pray to him," she said. It was Nuom Sothea's birthday, and later that day she planned to walk to Pol Pot's final resting place, where she would leave a bunch of ripe bananas in hopes of bringing good luck.
Roasa is a special correspondent.
© 1996-2010 The Washington Post
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
World Cinema: Cambodians take hard self-look
Two new movies in the nation's inaugural film fest deal with the Khmer Rouge horror.
By Dustin Roasa, Special to the Los Angeles Times
November 28, 2010
Reporting from Phnom Penh, Cambodia —
On an unseasonably cool evening last month, nearly 700 people filed into the Chenla Theater for the final night of the inaugural Cambodia International Film Festival. The four-day event had drawn sizable audiences to films from more than 30 countries, but it was the premiere on this night of a Cambodian film called "Lost Loves" that attracted the festival's largest crowd. As TV crews angled for shots of the well-coifed cast members stepping onto the red carpet, inside the theater multigenerational families chatted excitedly and students snapped cellphone photos and waved to friends.
"Lost Loves" tells the true story of a woman who lost most of her family during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, which oversaw the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Although the brutal communist regime has proved fertile ground for many foreign productions, most notably "The Killing Fields," which won three Academy Awards in 1984, "Lost Loves," by 45-year-old Chhay Bora, is the first feature film about the Khmer Rouge by an all-Cambodian cast and crew in nearly 25 years. It is only the second such movie made since the regime's demise (the first, a mid-1980s action movie called "Shadow of Darkness," did not make much of an impression here).
Together with another landmark Cambodian-made film released this year, "Enemies of the People," a documentary co-directed by and starring 42-year-old journalist Thet Sambath that examines the motives behind the mass slaughter, the movies are a sign that Cambodian filmmakers are finally ready to grapple with the traumas of the past.
"The Khmer Rouge has been a complex and political issue for a long time. But after 30 years, Cambodia is ready to cope with this," said Chhang Youk, a survivor and the country's foremost researcher of the regime. "You will begin to see more films about this subject now."
Both directors, who are self-taught and were boys during the Khmer Rouge, said their goal in making the films was to spur discussion about a topic that many people here would prefer to forget. "Helping people understand history is the most important thing I can do," Thet Sambath said. "I want Cambodians to know the truth about what happened. Then we can move forward as a country."
The films are generating a level of discussion about the Khmer Rouge that is rare in Cambodia. During many harrowing scenes in "Lost Loves," there were gasps from the audience, and many cried. "I'm no longer angry about the Khmer Rouge," Chhay Bora, who lost two brothers to the regime, told the crowd. "I just want to share with the nation, and with the world, Cambodia's untold story."
"When our parents tell us about their experiences during the Khmer Rouge, we have a hard time believing them," Lim Seang Heng, a 22-year-old university graduate, said after the premiere, echoing a common sentiment. "Telling stories is not enough, because we can't see. Film allows us to see."
Although "Lost Loves" and "Enemies of the People" are very different movies — the former focuses on the nightmarish experiences of one family, while the latter investigates larger issues such as motives and reconciliation — they are complementary.
"Lost Loves," co-written by and starring Chhay Bora's wife, actress Kauv Sotheary, follows Phnom Penh resident Amara, a character based on the actress' mother, as she is shipped with her family into a forced labor camp in the countryside. She endures overwork, near starvation and the death of family members before emerging from her nightmare shellshocked, yet defiantly hopeful, after the Vietnamese invasion in 1979.
Shot in the Cambodian countryside, "Lost Loves" is at times strikingly beautiful, featuring wide-angle shots of shimmering rice paddies and skies smeared purple with the setting sun. But these scenes are punctuated by acts of brutality, turning the landscape into a "prison of torture and killing," as Amara says in the film.
As Amara adapts to this alien world, the familiar structures of Cambodian life crumble around her: She is separated from her family, cruel and uneducated children take positions of authority over adults, and unending, grinding labor under the hot sun becomes the central fact of her life. The mysterious Angkar ("organization" in English), the Khmer Rouge's name for itself, is omnipresent yet somehow always hidden. "The village chiefs endlessly talked about Angkar, Angkar, Angkar, but I didn't know what Angkar was," Amara says in the film.
"Enemies of the People," which was just named as one of 15 contenders for the Academy Award for best documentary feature, attempts to answer some of Amara's questions. Director Thet Sambath, a reporter
at the English-language Phnom Penh Post, spent 10 years traveling alone with a camera into the countryside to interview Nuon Chea, second in command to the late leader Pol Pot and the regime's highest-ranking surviving leader, and foot soldiers who carried out the regime's murderous policies.
English director Rob Lemkin worked with Thet Sambath to craft this raw footage into a finished film. The director was driven by a need to understand the killers' motives (his parents and brother died under the Khmer Rouge) and to share what he found with other Cambodians.
"No one has confessed to killing during the regime," he said. "I felt that maybe I could talk to the killers and understand why they killed."
In "Enemies of the People," Nuon Chea admits for the first time on record that the leadership ordered executions, about which he expresses remorse. But it is the director's interviews with two low-level killers, Soun and Khoun, that are most haunting. They speak matter-of-factly about killing their victims by slashing their throats, dumping their bodies in mass graves and, in one scene, drinking bile from a human gall bladder.
Although it was men like Soun and Khoun who killed Thet Sambath's brother, the director was able to forgive them, an act of reconciliation that he hopes can be repeated throughout Cambodia. "I pity them. They don't understand how they ended up becoming killers," he said. In the film, Soun says he's haunted by shame and regret. "But I want to tell the truth exactly as it happened," he says onscreen. "Otherwise we will be gone soon and the next generation won't know the story."
The directors could not turn for help to the country's few film studios, which invest mostly in low-budget horror movies, the only reliable way to draw audiences to the two remaining cinemas in Phnom Penh. "People told me I was crazy to make this kind of film," Chhay Bora said. Regardless, the films have drawn capacity audiences at screenings in Phnom Penh, and there are plans to show them in rural Cambodia through unconventional means, such as at community forums held by nongovernmental organizations.
calendar@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
By Dustin Roasa, Special to the Los Angeles Times
November 28, 2010
Reporting from Phnom Penh, Cambodia —
On an unseasonably cool evening last month, nearly 700 people filed into the Chenla Theater for the final night of the inaugural Cambodia International Film Festival. The four-day event had drawn sizable audiences to films from more than 30 countries, but it was the premiere on this night of a Cambodian film called "Lost Loves" that attracted the festival's largest crowd. As TV crews angled for shots of the well-coifed cast members stepping onto the red carpet, inside the theater multigenerational families chatted excitedly and students snapped cellphone photos and waved to friends.
"Lost Loves" tells the true story of a woman who lost most of her family during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, which oversaw the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Although the brutal communist regime has proved fertile ground for many foreign productions, most notably "The Killing Fields," which won three Academy Awards in 1984, "Lost Loves," by 45-year-old Chhay Bora, is the first feature film about the Khmer Rouge by an all-Cambodian cast and crew in nearly 25 years. It is only the second such movie made since the regime's demise (the first, a mid-1980s action movie called "Shadow of Darkness," did not make much of an impression here).
Together with another landmark Cambodian-made film released this year, "Enemies of the People," a documentary co-directed by and starring 42-year-old journalist Thet Sambath that examines the motives behind the mass slaughter, the movies are a sign that Cambodian filmmakers are finally ready to grapple with the traumas of the past.
"The Khmer Rouge has been a complex and political issue for a long time. But after 30 years, Cambodia is ready to cope with this," said Chhang Youk, a survivor and the country's foremost researcher of the regime. "You will begin to see more films about this subject now."
Both directors, who are self-taught and were boys during the Khmer Rouge, said their goal in making the films was to spur discussion about a topic that many people here would prefer to forget. "Helping people understand history is the most important thing I can do," Thet Sambath said. "I want Cambodians to know the truth about what happened. Then we can move forward as a country."
The films are generating a level of discussion about the Khmer Rouge that is rare in Cambodia. During many harrowing scenes in "Lost Loves," there were gasps from the audience, and many cried. "I'm no longer angry about the Khmer Rouge," Chhay Bora, who lost two brothers to the regime, told the crowd. "I just want to share with the nation, and with the world, Cambodia's untold story."
"When our parents tell us about their experiences during the Khmer Rouge, we have a hard time believing them," Lim Seang Heng, a 22-year-old university graduate, said after the premiere, echoing a common sentiment. "Telling stories is not enough, because we can't see. Film allows us to see."
Although "Lost Loves" and "Enemies of the People" are very different movies — the former focuses on the nightmarish experiences of one family, while the latter investigates larger issues such as motives and reconciliation — they are complementary.
"Lost Loves," co-written by and starring Chhay Bora's wife, actress Kauv Sotheary, follows Phnom Penh resident Amara, a character based on the actress' mother, as she is shipped with her family into a forced labor camp in the countryside. She endures overwork, near starvation and the death of family members before emerging from her nightmare shellshocked, yet defiantly hopeful, after the Vietnamese invasion in 1979.
Shot in the Cambodian countryside, "Lost Loves" is at times strikingly beautiful, featuring wide-angle shots of shimmering rice paddies and skies smeared purple with the setting sun. But these scenes are punctuated by acts of brutality, turning the landscape into a "prison of torture and killing," as Amara says in the film.
As Amara adapts to this alien world, the familiar structures of Cambodian life crumble around her: She is separated from her family, cruel and uneducated children take positions of authority over adults, and unending, grinding labor under the hot sun becomes the central fact of her life. The mysterious Angkar ("organization" in English), the Khmer Rouge's name for itself, is omnipresent yet somehow always hidden. "The village chiefs endlessly talked about Angkar, Angkar, Angkar, but I didn't know what Angkar was," Amara says in the film.
"Enemies of the People," which was just named as one of 15 contenders for the Academy Award for best documentary feature, attempts to answer some of Amara's questions. Director Thet Sambath, a reporter
at the English-language Phnom Penh Post, spent 10 years traveling alone with a camera into the countryside to interview Nuon Chea, second in command to the late leader Pol Pot and the regime's highest-ranking surviving leader, and foot soldiers who carried out the regime's murderous policies.
English director Rob Lemkin worked with Thet Sambath to craft this raw footage into a finished film. The director was driven by a need to understand the killers' motives (his parents and brother died under the Khmer Rouge) and to share what he found with other Cambodians.
"No one has confessed to killing during the regime," he said. "I felt that maybe I could talk to the killers and understand why they killed."
In "Enemies of the People," Nuon Chea admits for the first time on record that the leadership ordered executions, about which he expresses remorse. But it is the director's interviews with two low-level killers, Soun and Khoun, that are most haunting. They speak matter-of-factly about killing their victims by slashing their throats, dumping their bodies in mass graves and, in one scene, drinking bile from a human gall bladder.
Although it was men like Soun and Khoun who killed Thet Sambath's brother, the director was able to forgive them, an act of reconciliation that he hopes can be repeated throughout Cambodia. "I pity them. They don't understand how they ended up becoming killers," he said. In the film, Soun says he's haunted by shame and regret. "But I want to tell the truth exactly as it happened," he says onscreen. "Otherwise we will be gone soon and the next generation won't know the story."
The directors could not turn for help to the country's few film studios, which invest mostly in low-budget horror movies, the only reliable way to draw audiences to the two remaining cinemas in Phnom Penh. "People told me I was crazy to make this kind of film," Chhay Bora said. Regardless, the films have drawn capacity audiences at screenings in Phnom Penh, and there are plans to show them in rural Cambodia through unconventional means, such as at community forums held by nongovernmental organizations.
calendar@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Minorities Gather to Discuss Tribunal Genocide Charges
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh Thursday, 25 November 2010
“Our minority was forced to eat what we cannot, forced to abandoned our religion.”
More than 300 victims of the Khmer Rouge, many of them Cham Muslim, gathered at the Documentation Center of Cambodia on Wednesday to learn more about genocide charges for the upcoming trial of four regime leaders.
Chams suffered to a great degree under the Khmer Rouge, and their plight in part makes up the charges of genocide against the four leaders.
Those leaders, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, will face charges they contributed to the targeted killings of Chams, Vietnamese and the Khmer Krom, the Khmer ethnic minority in today’s southern Vietnam.
Other groups represented at Wednesday’s meeting were those from the Kuoy, Phnong and Mil ethnic groups, as well as Cham and Khmer Krom. They came from as far as Banteay Meanchey province in the north and Takeo in the south.
“We want them to understand widely what genocide is,” said Vannthan Peou Dara, deputy director of the Documentation Center. A better understanding of genocidal acts of the Khmer Rouge could help prevent such acts in the future, he said.
As many as half a million Chams died under the Khmer Rouge, which is thought to have killed up to 2 million Cambodians altogether. Hundreds of Vietnamese were killed while the regime was in power, along with thousands of Khmer Krom.
Cham Muslims were especially targeted, forbidden to undertake their religious practices and forced to eat pork, among other violations.
“Our minority was forced to eat what we cannot, forced to abandoned our religion,” said Ron Sem, a 62-year-old Cham from Takeo province. “They wanted us to die quietly.”
The Chams participated in several revolts against the rule of the Khmer Rouge, which led to massacres, execution of religious leaders and the destruction of mosques and religious schools. How the treatments of the Chams and other groups will play out in the upcoming case remains to be seen.
“We want to know what is going on with the trial,” said Thin Theam, a ethnic minority Mil from Kratie province.
READ MORE HERE: http://www.dccam.org/Projects/Public_Info/Conference_with_the_Minority_Groups_in_Cambodia.htm
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
“Our minority was forced to eat what we cannot, forced to abandoned our religion.”
More than 300 victims of the Khmer Rouge, many of them Cham Muslim, gathered at the Documentation Center of Cambodia on Wednesday to learn more about genocide charges for the upcoming trial of four regime leaders.
Chams suffered to a great degree under the Khmer Rouge, and their plight in part makes up the charges of genocide against the four leaders.
Those leaders, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, will face charges they contributed to the targeted killings of Chams, Vietnamese and the Khmer Krom, the Khmer ethnic minority in today’s southern Vietnam.
Other groups represented at Wednesday’s meeting were those from the Kuoy, Phnong and Mil ethnic groups, as well as Cham and Khmer Krom. They came from as far as Banteay Meanchey province in the north and Takeo in the south.
“We want them to understand widely what genocide is,” said Vannthan Peou Dara, deputy director of the Documentation Center. A better understanding of genocidal acts of the Khmer Rouge could help prevent such acts in the future, he said.
As many as half a million Chams died under the Khmer Rouge, which is thought to have killed up to 2 million Cambodians altogether. Hundreds of Vietnamese were killed while the regime was in power, along with thousands of Khmer Krom.
Cham Muslims were especially targeted, forbidden to undertake their religious practices and forced to eat pork, among other violations.
“Our minority was forced to eat what we cannot, forced to abandoned our religion,” said Ron Sem, a 62-year-old Cham from Takeo province. “They wanted us to die quietly.”
The Chams participated in several revolts against the rule of the Khmer Rouge, which led to massacres, execution of religious leaders and the destruction of mosques and religious schools. How the treatments of the Chams and other groups will play out in the upcoming case remains to be seen.
“We want to know what is going on with the trial,” said Thin Theam, a ethnic minority Mil from Kratie province.
READ MORE HERE: http://www.dccam.org/Projects/Public_Info/Conference_with_the_Minority_Groups_in_Cambodia.htm
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Questions Remain in Cambodia Crush
Justin Mott for The New York Times
People visited the site of the bridge stampede in Phnom Penh on Thursday, paying their respect by offering flowers and prayers and burning incense.
By SETH MYDANS
Published: November 25, 2010
Mourners offered prayers for the victims of the bridge stampede in Phnom Penh on Thursday.
Most of the victims were caught in a crush on a small bridge. Rather than being trampled, the victims suffocated or were crushed to death by a dense, immobile crowd in which some people were trapped for hours.
Various officials gave different counts of the death toll, which may not include victims who drowned or were taken from the scene.
On Wednesday, the government said that at least 350 people had died and that 400 had been injured. But among other tallies on Thursday, a newspaper, The Phnom Penh Post, citing government sources, said the death toll had climbed to 456.
As grief and shock turned to demands for explanations, questions continued to grow over the cause of the crush, over the response by the police and over the city’s readiness to handle an influx of as many as three million people for the festival.
A preliminary government investigation reported that the mostly rural festival-goers panicked when the suspension bridge began to sway slightly under the weight of the crowd.
This conformed to a report by a military police investigator, Sawannara Chendamirie, who said on the morning after the disaster that survivors told him there had been shouts that the bridge was collapsing.
There were also questions about whether some people had been electrocuted, possibly by strings of lights on the fretwork of the bridge. Reports to that effect began immediately after the disaster, with some saying the police fired water hoses at the crowd that might have contributed to the problem.
Doctors at the city’s main hospital, Calmette, did not rule out that possibility, but said they had seen no sign of electrocution among either the injured or the dead. But they said most of the injured had suffered from the squeezing of the packed crowd. Some patients at the hospital said they had been unable to breathe and had passed out.
The police came under criticism for a failure of crowd management and for an inadequate and incompetent response to the disaster. One officer said only half the officially reported number of police officers were actually deployed. Seriously injured survivors reported being dumped into vehicles together with the dead.
The government did quickly mobilize help for relatives of victims, many of whom traveled from distant provinces to claim the dead. Tables were set up near a makeshift morgue to confirm identities. Military trucks offered transportation home for coffins and family members. The morgue was all but cleared within a day, although some people wandered the hospital grounds holding snapshots of missing relatives.
The Asian Human Rights Commission, based in Hong Kong, issued a report that documented the questions and criticisms.
“While the exact cause of the stampede last night remains unclear, with contradictory reports indicating it may have been instigated by either crowd antics or poor construction of the bridge to Koh Pich Island, the failure of the state to control the crowd and limit the damage from the stampede is clear,” the report said.
“It is clear, too, that Phnom Penh was unprepared for any large-scale disaster,” the report said. “Responses by police and military were lacking and may even have contributed to the stampede while hospitals were overwhelmed. Emergency and medical personnel resorted to piling bodies together, covering them with mats or sheets.”
www.AstonBali.com
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
People visited the site of the bridge stampede in Phnom Penh on Thursday, paying their respect by offering flowers and prayers and burning incense.
By SETH MYDANS
Published: November 25, 2010
Mourners offered prayers for the victims of the bridge stampede in Phnom Penh on Thursday.
Most of the victims were caught in a crush on a small bridge. Rather than being trampled, the victims suffocated or were crushed to death by a dense, immobile crowd in which some people were trapped for hours.
Various officials gave different counts of the death toll, which may not include victims who drowned or were taken from the scene.
On Wednesday, the government said that at least 350 people had died and that 400 had been injured. But among other tallies on Thursday, a newspaper, The Phnom Penh Post, citing government sources, said the death toll had climbed to 456.
As grief and shock turned to demands for explanations, questions continued to grow over the cause of the crush, over the response by the police and over the city’s readiness to handle an influx of as many as three million people for the festival.
A preliminary government investigation reported that the mostly rural festival-goers panicked when the suspension bridge began to sway slightly under the weight of the crowd.
This conformed to a report by a military police investigator, Sawannara Chendamirie, who said on the morning after the disaster that survivors told him there had been shouts that the bridge was collapsing.
There were also questions about whether some people had been electrocuted, possibly by strings of lights on the fretwork of the bridge. Reports to that effect began immediately after the disaster, with some saying the police fired water hoses at the crowd that might have contributed to the problem.
Doctors at the city’s main hospital, Calmette, did not rule out that possibility, but said they had seen no sign of electrocution among either the injured or the dead. But they said most of the injured had suffered from the squeezing of the packed crowd. Some patients at the hospital said they had been unable to breathe and had passed out.
The police came under criticism for a failure of crowd management and for an inadequate and incompetent response to the disaster. One officer said only half the officially reported number of police officers were actually deployed. Seriously injured survivors reported being dumped into vehicles together with the dead.
The government did quickly mobilize help for relatives of victims, many of whom traveled from distant provinces to claim the dead. Tables were set up near a makeshift morgue to confirm identities. Military trucks offered transportation home for coffins and family members. The morgue was all but cleared within a day, although some people wandered the hospital grounds holding snapshots of missing relatives.
The Asian Human Rights Commission, based in Hong Kong, issued a report that documented the questions and criticisms.
“While the exact cause of the stampede last night remains unclear, with contradictory reports indicating it may have been instigated by either crowd antics or poor construction of the bridge to Koh Pich Island, the failure of the state to control the crowd and limit the damage from the stampede is clear,” the report said.
“It is clear, too, that Phnom Penh was unprepared for any large-scale disaster,” the report said. “Responses by police and military were lacking and may even have contributed to the stampede while hospitals were overwhelmed. Emergency and medical personnel resorted to piling bodies together, covering them with mats or sheets.”
www.AstonBali.com
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Cambodia is familiar with ghosts
By Terry McCoy — Special to GlobalPost
Published: November 23, 2010 12:07 ET in Asia
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia is a country of ghosts and superstition. Don’t go out at night, they say in the countryside — ghosts. Always live with other people, others say — ghosts. Did you hear the crying last night in the quiet? Ghosts.
Every year in my high school classes in provincial Cambodia I ask my students to rank their greatest fears, and ghosts, despite nagging concerns for HIV, cancer and leeches, always creeps to the top of the list. At first I found this amusing. Now, I get it.
Every single person in this country has been touched by the egalitarian-driven genocide that killed 2 million people between 1975 and 1979. Every single person you see here lost someone during the Khmer Rouge and the apparitions linger and linger. Ghosts.
Now, more wraiths have come for one of Cambodia’s last remaining havens safe from the past: celebration. On Monday night, during the country’s raucous Water Festival in Phnom Penh, which swelled the city’s population from 2 million people to 5 million, nearly 400 people were crushed to death while trying to cross a narrow bridge connecting a small island in the Bassac River.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has called it the worst disaster to beset the country since the Khmer Rouge, personally pledging 5 million riel ($1,250) to the families of the dead.
It’s rumored this country has the most holidays in the world and a glance at the calendar — Constitution Day, Coronation Day, Royal Ploughing Ceremony Day — gives some weight to that claim. They are a time for Cambodians to live it up and forget the past, the poverty, the days slogging behind a water buffalo or inside a garment factory. There’s a sense among most Khmer that says: We lived through hell and so what if we want our holidays long, loud and plentiful?
Monday night’s disaster, however, is a sober reminder that nothing in this genocide-ravaged, impoverished country is safe from tragedy. Cast its lot with the Haitis of the world. A vibrant people ridden by terrible luck yet again.
“This will be a shadow over every boat festival, and it will happen during the water festival next year,” said Youk Chhang, Director of Cambodia’s Documentation Center, which tracks the country’s history. “What happened [Monday] night will have people more cautious. ... This was unexpected. Everyone thought this holiday would be safe.”
I didn’t see the stampede Monday night, though I was in the capital for Water Festival. Phnom Penh is a city that definitely sleeps, but at 10 p.m. Monday night when I finally chose my way home, the streets still teemed with open-shirted Khmer, teeny-bop stands and motorcycles.
Around that time, right when I was deciding I had better get off the streets, a nervous energy began to emerge out of the chaos. All day, everyone had smiled. But as the night dragged itself deeper, the smiles disappeared. By 10 p.m., everyone looked as though they had the same thought as I did. There were too many people. Far too many people.
It’s still unclear what started the stampede that crushed hundreds to death and sent hundreds more to the hospital. But almost all reports agree that something sparked a massive panic on Diamond Island that propelled thousands of people to try and cross a two-lane bridge at the same time. They were scared of something.
All day Tuesday, images of the dead and dying bombarded anyone watching Khmer television, and even international attention has turned its eye to this often-forgotten country sandwiched between a pair of famous neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam. But soon, despite the tragedy of Monday night, the international community will become bored and the ghosts will be left to the Khmer alone.
And if there’s anything Cambodia has become familiar with, it’s ghosts.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Published: November 23, 2010 12:07 ET in Asia
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia is a country of ghosts and superstition. Don’t go out at night, they say in the countryside — ghosts. Always live with other people, others say — ghosts. Did you hear the crying last night in the quiet? Ghosts.
Every year in my high school classes in provincial Cambodia I ask my students to rank their greatest fears, and ghosts, despite nagging concerns for HIV, cancer and leeches, always creeps to the top of the list. At first I found this amusing. Now, I get it.
Every single person in this country has been touched by the egalitarian-driven genocide that killed 2 million people between 1975 and 1979. Every single person you see here lost someone during the Khmer Rouge and the apparitions linger and linger. Ghosts.
Now, more wraiths have come for one of Cambodia’s last remaining havens safe from the past: celebration. On Monday night, during the country’s raucous Water Festival in Phnom Penh, which swelled the city’s population from 2 million people to 5 million, nearly 400 people were crushed to death while trying to cross a narrow bridge connecting a small island in the Bassac River.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has called it the worst disaster to beset the country since the Khmer Rouge, personally pledging 5 million riel ($1,250) to the families of the dead.
It’s rumored this country has the most holidays in the world and a glance at the calendar — Constitution Day, Coronation Day, Royal Ploughing Ceremony Day — gives some weight to that claim. They are a time for Cambodians to live it up and forget the past, the poverty, the days slogging behind a water buffalo or inside a garment factory. There’s a sense among most Khmer that says: We lived through hell and so what if we want our holidays long, loud and plentiful?
Monday night’s disaster, however, is a sober reminder that nothing in this genocide-ravaged, impoverished country is safe from tragedy. Cast its lot with the Haitis of the world. A vibrant people ridden by terrible luck yet again.
“This will be a shadow over every boat festival, and it will happen during the water festival next year,” said Youk Chhang, Director of Cambodia’s Documentation Center, which tracks the country’s history. “What happened [Monday] night will have people more cautious. ... This was unexpected. Everyone thought this holiday would be safe.”
I didn’t see the stampede Monday night, though I was in the capital for Water Festival. Phnom Penh is a city that definitely sleeps, but at 10 p.m. Monday night when I finally chose my way home, the streets still teemed with open-shirted Khmer, teeny-bop stands and motorcycles.
Around that time, right when I was deciding I had better get off the streets, a nervous energy began to emerge out of the chaos. All day, everyone had smiled. But as the night dragged itself deeper, the smiles disappeared. By 10 p.m., everyone looked as though they had the same thought as I did. There were too many people. Far too many people.
It’s still unclear what started the stampede that crushed hundreds to death and sent hundreds more to the hospital. But almost all reports agree that something sparked a massive panic on Diamond Island that propelled thousands of people to try and cross a two-lane bridge at the same time. They were scared of something.
All day Tuesday, images of the dead and dying bombarded anyone watching Khmer television, and even international attention has turned its eye to this often-forgotten country sandwiched between a pair of famous neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam. But soon, despite the tragedy of Monday night, the international community will become bored and the ghosts will be left to the Khmer alone.
And if there’s anything Cambodia has become familiar with, it’s ghosts.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Festival stampede worst tragedy since Khmer Rouge, says PM
A woman next to the body of a stampede victim at a Phnom Penh hospital
Reuters/Chor SokuntheaBy RFI
More than 330 festival-goers were killed in a stampede Monday on a bridge in
Phnom Penh. The Prime Minister called it the country’s worst tragedy since
the Khmer Rouge.
"This is the biggest tragedy since the Pol Pot regime," said Prime Minister
Hun Sen in a live television broadcast early Tuesday morning.
Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia between
1975 and 1979, leaving up to a quarter of the population dead.
At least 339 people died in the stampede, and more than 300 were injured.
The circumstances that triggered the stampede remain unclear.
Millions of people were in the streets for the third, and final, day of the
Water Festival, which marks the reversal of the flow between the Tonle Sap
and Mekong rivers.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/over-300-dead-in-cambodia-festival-stampede-1.326165
22:34 22.11.10
Latest update 22:34 22.11.10
Over 300 dead in Cambodia festival stampede
Prime Minister describes chaos in Phnom Penh water festival as the biggest
tragedy to strike his country since the communist Khmer Rouge.
By The Associated Press
Tags: Israel news Cambodia
Thousands of Cambodians celebrating a water festival on an island in a river
in the capital stampeded Monday night, leaving more than 300 people dead and
hundreds injured. Some in the panicky crowd who tried to flee over a bridge
were crushed underfoot or fell over its sides into the water.
An injured visitor being carried by Cambodian police and another visitor
after a stampede onto a bridge at an accident site during the last day of
celebrations of the water festival in Phnom Penh, Cam
Ambulances raced back and forth between the river and the hospitals for
several hours after the stampede. Calmette Hospital, the capital's main
medical facility, was filled to capacity with bodies as well as patients,
some of whom had to be treated in hallways. Many of the injured appeared to
be badly hurt, raising the prospect that the death toll could rise as local
hospitals became overwhelmed.
Hours after the chaos, the dead and injured were still being taken away from
the scene, while searchers looked for bodies of anyone who might have
drowned.
An Associated Press reporter saw one body floating in the river, and
hundreds of shoes left behind on and around the bridge.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, in the third of three post-midnight live television
broadcasts, said that 339 people had been killed and 329 injured. He
described the chaos as the biggest tragedy to strike his country since the
communist Khmer Rouge ruled in a reign of terror in the 1970s, and ordered
an investigation.
Hun Sen declared Thursday would be a national day of mourning, and ordered
all government ministries to fly the flag at half-staff.
Authorities had estimated that upward of 2 million people would descend on
Phnom Penh for the three-day water festival, which marks the end of the
rainy season and whose main attraction is traditional boat races along the
river.
The last race ended early Monday evening, the last night of the holiday, and
the panic started later on Koh Pich - Diamond Island - a long spit of land
wedged in a fork in the river where a concert was being held. It was unclear
how many people were on the island to celebrate the holiday, though the area
appeared to be packed with people, as were the banks.
Soft drink vendor So Cheata said the trouble began when about 10 people fell
unconscious in the press of the crowd. She said that set off a panic, which
then turned into a stampede, with many people caught underfoot.
Information Minister Khieu Kanharith gave a similar account of the cause.
Seeking to escape the island, part of the crowd pushed onto a bridge, which
also jammed up, with people falling under others and into the water. So
Cheata said hundreds of hurt people lay on the ground afterward. Many
appeared to be unconscious.
Cambodia is one of the region's poorer countries, and has an underdeveloped
health system, with hospitals barely able to cope with daily medical
demands.
Koh Pich used to host a slum community, but in recent years the poor have
been evicted to make way for high-rise and commercial development, most yet
to be realized.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Reuters/Chor SokuntheaBy RFI
More than 330 festival-goers were killed in a stampede Monday on a bridge in
Phnom Penh. The Prime Minister called it the country’s worst tragedy since
the Khmer Rouge.
"This is the biggest tragedy since the Pol Pot regime," said Prime Minister
Hun Sen in a live television broadcast early Tuesday morning.
Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia between
1975 and 1979, leaving up to a quarter of the population dead.
At least 339 people died in the stampede, and more than 300 were injured.
The circumstances that triggered the stampede remain unclear.
Millions of people were in the streets for the third, and final, day of the
Water Festival, which marks the reversal of the flow between the Tonle Sap
and Mekong rivers.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/over-300-dead-in-cambodia-festival-stampede-1.326165
22:34 22.11.10
Latest update 22:34 22.11.10
Over 300 dead in Cambodia festival stampede
Prime Minister describes chaos in Phnom Penh water festival as the biggest
tragedy to strike his country since the communist Khmer Rouge.
By The Associated Press
Tags: Israel news Cambodia
Thousands of Cambodians celebrating a water festival on an island in a river
in the capital stampeded Monday night, leaving more than 300 people dead and
hundreds injured. Some in the panicky crowd who tried to flee over a bridge
were crushed underfoot or fell over its sides into the water.
An injured visitor being carried by Cambodian police and another visitor
after a stampede onto a bridge at an accident site during the last day of
celebrations of the water festival in Phnom Penh, Cam
Ambulances raced back and forth between the river and the hospitals for
several hours after the stampede. Calmette Hospital, the capital's main
medical facility, was filled to capacity with bodies as well as patients,
some of whom had to be treated in hallways. Many of the injured appeared to
be badly hurt, raising the prospect that the death toll could rise as local
hospitals became overwhelmed.
Hours after the chaos, the dead and injured were still being taken away from
the scene, while searchers looked for bodies of anyone who might have
drowned.
An Associated Press reporter saw one body floating in the river, and
hundreds of shoes left behind on and around the bridge.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, in the third of three post-midnight live television
broadcasts, said that 339 people had been killed and 329 injured. He
described the chaos as the biggest tragedy to strike his country since the
communist Khmer Rouge ruled in a reign of terror in the 1970s, and ordered
an investigation.
Hun Sen declared Thursday would be a national day of mourning, and ordered
all government ministries to fly the flag at half-staff.
Authorities had estimated that upward of 2 million people would descend on
Phnom Penh for the three-day water festival, which marks the end of the
rainy season and whose main attraction is traditional boat races along the
river.
The last race ended early Monday evening, the last night of the holiday, and
the panic started later on Koh Pich - Diamond Island - a long spit of land
wedged in a fork in the river where a concert was being held. It was unclear
how many people were on the island to celebrate the holiday, though the area
appeared to be packed with people, as were the banks.
Soft drink vendor So Cheata said the trouble began when about 10 people fell
unconscious in the press of the crowd. She said that set off a panic, which
then turned into a stampede, with many people caught underfoot.
Information Minister Khieu Kanharith gave a similar account of the cause.
Seeking to escape the island, part of the crowd pushed onto a bridge, which
also jammed up, with people falling under others and into the water. So
Cheata said hundreds of hurt people lay on the ground afterward. Many
appeared to be unconscious.
Cambodia is one of the region's poorer countries, and has an underdeveloped
health system, with hospitals barely able to cope with daily medical
demands.
Koh Pich used to host a slum community, but in recent years the poor have
been evicted to make way for high-rise and commercial development, most yet
to be realized.
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
China's billions reap rewards in Cambodia
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 20, 2010; 11:40 PM
IN KOH KONG, CAMBODIA Down a blood-red dirt track deep in the jungles of
southwestern Cambodia, the roar begins. Turn a corner and there is the
source - scores of dump trucks, bulldozers and backhoes hacking away at the
earth. Above a massive hole, a flag flaps in the hot, dusty breeze. The flag
of the People's Republic of China.
Here in the depths of the Cardamom Mountains, where the Chinese-backed Khmer
Rouge communists made their last stand in the late 1970s, China is asserting
its rights as a resurgent imperial power in Asia. Instead of exporting
revolution and bloodshed to its neighbors, China is now sending its cash and
its people.
At this clangorous hydropower dam site hard along Cambodia's border with
Thailand, and in Burma, Laos and even Vietnam, China is engaged in a massive
push to extend its economic and political influence into Southeast Asia.
Spreading investment and aid along with political pressure, China is
transforming a huge swath of territory along its southern border. Call it
the Monroe Doctrine, Chinese style.
Ignored by successive U.S. administrations, China's rise in this region is
now causing alarm in Washington, which is aggressively courting the
countries of Southeast Asia. The Obama administration has cultivated closer
ties with its old foe Vietnam. It has tried to open doors to Burma, also
known as Myanmar, which U.S. officials believe is in danger of becoming a
Chinese vassal state. Relations have been renewed with Laos, whose northern
half is dominated by Chinese businesses. In a speech about U.S. policy in
Asia on Oct. 28, before she embarked on her sixth trip to Asia in two years,
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used military terminology to refer
to U.S. efforts: "forward-deployed diplomacy."
During a recent trip to Phnom Penh - the first of a U.S. secretary of state
since 2002 - Clinton, while speaking to Cambodian students, was asked about
Cambodia's ties to Beijing. "You don't want to get too dependent on any one
country," she told them.
Still, China powers ahead.
China has concluded a free-trade deal with all 10 countries of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, while a similar U.S. pact is only in
its infancy. It is cementing ties with Thailand - a U.S. ally - despite
recent political unrest there.
In Cambodia, Chinese firms have turned mining and agricultural concessions
in Mondulkiri province in the eastern part of the country into no-go zones
for Cambodian police. Guards at the gates to two of them - a gold mine and a
hemp plantation - shoo travelers away unless they are able to pay a toll.
"It's like a country within a country," quipped Cambodia's minister of
interior, Sar Kheng, at a law enforcement conference earlier this year,
according to participants at the meeting.
China's real estate development firms have barged into Cambodia with all the
ambition, bumptiousness and verve that American fruit and tire firms
employed in Latin America or Africa in decades past. One company, Union
Development Group, of Tianjin in northern China, won a 99-year concession
for 120 square miles - twice the size of Washington - of beachfront property
on the Gulf of Thailand. There Chinese work teams are cutting a road and
mapping out plans for hotels, villas and golf courses. The estimated
investment? $3.8 billion. The target market? The nouveau riche from Beijing,
Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Last month, China pledged to support the construction of a $600 million
stretch of railway between Phnom Penh and Vietnam that will bring China a
major step closer to incorporating all of Southeast Asia, as far south as
Singapore, into its rail network.
Across Cambodia, dozens of state-run Chinese companies are building eight
hydropower dams, including the 246-megawatt behemoth on the Tatay River in
Koh Kong. The total price tag for those dams will exceed $1 billion.
Altogether, Cambodia owes China $4 billion, said Cheam Yeap, a member of the
central committee of the ruling Cambodia People's Party.
"This takeover is inevitable," said Lak Chee Meng, the senior reporter on
the Cambodia Sin Chew Daily, one of the country's four Chinese-language
dailies, serving a population of 300,000 Chinese-speaking Khmer-Chinese and
an additional quarter-million immigrants and businessmen from mainland
China. "Cambodia is approaching China with open arms. It's how the United
States took over its neighborhood. It's geopolitics."
The perennial question about China's rise is when will Beijing be able to
translate its cash into power. In Cambodia, it already has.
Cambodia has avoided criticizing Beijing over the dams China is building
along China's stretch of the Mekong River - installations that experts
predict will upend the lives of millions of Cambodians who live off the
fishing economy around the great inland waterway, Tonle Sap.
Cambodia so strictly follows Beijing's "one China" policy that it has
refused Taiwan's request to open up an economic office here despite the many
millions of dollars' worth of Taiwanese investment in Cambodia.
China's heft was also clearly on display in December when Chinese and
American diplomats went toe-to-toe over the fate of 20 Uighur Chinese who
had fled to Cambodia and were seeking asylum. China said that some of the
men, members of a Chinese Turkic minority, were wanted for having
participated in anti-Han Chinese riots in Xinjiang in July 2009. The United
States said don't send them back.
China threatened to cancel a trip by its vice president, Xi Junping, who was
coming to Cambodia with deals and loans worth $1.2 billion in his briefcase.
So Cambodia returned the Uighurs to China. Two days later Xi, who is on
track to be China's next leader, arrived in Phnom Penh.
In April of this year, the U.S. State Department announced that to punish
Cambodia, it was canceling a shipment of 200 U.S. surplus military trucks
and trailers. Less than three weeks later, China donated 257 military
trucks.
Cambodia has also followed China's lead when it comes to the South China
Sea, a 1 million-square-mile waterway that China asserts belongs to Beijing.
In July, Clinton, speaking in Hanoi, challenged China's claims to the open
seas and advocated a multilateral approach to divvying up the fishing rights
and offshore oil and gas that the sea is believed to contain. China opposes
multilateral negotiations, preferring to divide and conquer with bilateral
talks. Last month, Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, backed China's
approach.
China's one-upmanship with the United States continued earlier this month. A
day after Clinton left Cambodia, Wu Bangguo, one of China's top Communist
Party officials, arrived in Phnom Penh. During her visit, Clinton had raised
the possibility that the United States might forgive a portion of Cambodia's
debt to the United States; it owes $445 million. Wu was more forthright. He
struck $4.5 million off Cambodia's tab; Chinese officials are considering
forgiving an additional $200 million.
Only a few obstacles
China's road to domination here hasn't been without potholes. Vietnam, which
ousted the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 and installed Hun Sen, has woken up to
the threat of increased Chinese influence and has directed Vietnamese
state-owned companies to pour money into Cambodia. From $28 million in 2008,
Vietnamese investment jumped to $268 million in 2009 and to $1.2 billion
this year, according to Cambodian government statistics.
The Vietnamese military runs Cambodia's No. 2 - and soon to be No. 1 -
telecommunications company. Most government officials use its services
because it gives them SIM cards loaded with free minutes.
But China is quick to counter Vietnam. Chinese and Cambodian officials this
month signed a $591 million loan package - Cambodia's biggest ever - from
the Bank of China for Cambodia's other main telecommunications company. The
only catch is that $500 million was earmarked to buy Chinese equipment from
the Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
Even Cambodia's ruler, Hun Sen, has sometimes chafed at the bearhug from
Beijing. In December 2009, Chinese workers finished a massive $30 million
government building where the prime minister was supposed to house his
offices. But Hun Sen didn't like the place, complained about its squat
toilets and the fact that "it didn't even have a proper chandelier,"
according to a Western diplomat. There were also concerns that China had
bugged the premises. So Hun Sen built new offices next door and opened both
buildings last month.
Historical influence
China has exercised imperial sway over Cambodia for centuries. Eight hundred
years ago, Chinese troops bailed out Khmer kings; friendly Chinese warriors
are carved on the side of the famed 12th-century Bayon temple near Angkor
Wat. In the 1950s and 1960s, Communist China embraced the regime of King
Norodom Sihanouk and provided the Khmer Rouge with inspiration, security and
economic assistance throughout their bloody rule from 1975 to 1979.
Sihanouk, now 88 and the king father, resides in Beijing.
Huo Zhaoguo, a Chinese manager of Union Development's massive project along
the Cambodian coast, is typical of the new Chinese coming to this country.
In the 1980s in Lanzhou in northwestern China, Huo struck it rich selling
beans but then lost his fortune. He washed up in Cambodia in the 1990s,
chasing a Vietnamese dealer who owed him money. Huo returned to Lanzhou
penniless but couldn't stay. "I'd been rich there once and so everybody
laughed at me," he said. "A man needs self-respect."
Huo moved back to Cambodia and opened a noodle stand. He moved up to a
noodle restaurant and then met the boss of Union Development, who came to
his shop searching for northern Chinese food. The boss gave Huo a chance at
Union, and now Huo is overseeing road construction. Union got the land
because it had the cash and the connections, Huo said.
"This country is too poor and the corruption is the same as China," he
observed. "If you have power here, you have a great future."
"Cambodians feel no pressure to succeed. They even take weekends off. Not
us," he said, with the air of colonial supremacy you hear from many Chinese
in Cambodia. "We work."
© 2010 The Washington Post Company
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 20, 2010; 11:40 PM
IN KOH KONG, CAMBODIA Down a blood-red dirt track deep in the jungles of
southwestern Cambodia, the roar begins. Turn a corner and there is the
source - scores of dump trucks, bulldozers and backhoes hacking away at the
earth. Above a massive hole, a flag flaps in the hot, dusty breeze. The flag
of the People's Republic of China.
Here in the depths of the Cardamom Mountains, where the Chinese-backed Khmer
Rouge communists made their last stand in the late 1970s, China is asserting
its rights as a resurgent imperial power in Asia. Instead of exporting
revolution and bloodshed to its neighbors, China is now sending its cash and
its people.
At this clangorous hydropower dam site hard along Cambodia's border with
Thailand, and in Burma, Laos and even Vietnam, China is engaged in a massive
push to extend its economic and political influence into Southeast Asia.
Spreading investment and aid along with political pressure, China is
transforming a huge swath of territory along its southern border. Call it
the Monroe Doctrine, Chinese style.
Ignored by successive U.S. administrations, China's rise in this region is
now causing alarm in Washington, which is aggressively courting the
countries of Southeast Asia. The Obama administration has cultivated closer
ties with its old foe Vietnam. It has tried to open doors to Burma, also
known as Myanmar, which U.S. officials believe is in danger of becoming a
Chinese vassal state. Relations have been renewed with Laos, whose northern
half is dominated by Chinese businesses. In a speech about U.S. policy in
Asia on Oct. 28, before she embarked on her sixth trip to Asia in two years,
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used military terminology to refer
to U.S. efforts: "forward-deployed diplomacy."
During a recent trip to Phnom Penh - the first of a U.S. secretary of state
since 2002 - Clinton, while speaking to Cambodian students, was asked about
Cambodia's ties to Beijing. "You don't want to get too dependent on any one
country," she told them.
Still, China powers ahead.
China has concluded a free-trade deal with all 10 countries of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, while a similar U.S. pact is only in
its infancy. It is cementing ties with Thailand - a U.S. ally - despite
recent political unrest there.
In Cambodia, Chinese firms have turned mining and agricultural concessions
in Mondulkiri province in the eastern part of the country into no-go zones
for Cambodian police. Guards at the gates to two of them - a gold mine and a
hemp plantation - shoo travelers away unless they are able to pay a toll.
"It's like a country within a country," quipped Cambodia's minister of
interior, Sar Kheng, at a law enforcement conference earlier this year,
according to participants at the meeting.
China's real estate development firms have barged into Cambodia with all the
ambition, bumptiousness and verve that American fruit and tire firms
employed in Latin America or Africa in decades past. One company, Union
Development Group, of Tianjin in northern China, won a 99-year concession
for 120 square miles - twice the size of Washington - of beachfront property
on the Gulf of Thailand. There Chinese work teams are cutting a road and
mapping out plans for hotels, villas and golf courses. The estimated
investment? $3.8 billion. The target market? The nouveau riche from Beijing,
Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Last month, China pledged to support the construction of a $600 million
stretch of railway between Phnom Penh and Vietnam that will bring China a
major step closer to incorporating all of Southeast Asia, as far south as
Singapore, into its rail network.
Across Cambodia, dozens of state-run Chinese companies are building eight
hydropower dams, including the 246-megawatt behemoth on the Tatay River in
Koh Kong. The total price tag for those dams will exceed $1 billion.
Altogether, Cambodia owes China $4 billion, said Cheam Yeap, a member of the
central committee of the ruling Cambodia People's Party.
"This takeover is inevitable," said Lak Chee Meng, the senior reporter on
the Cambodia Sin Chew Daily, one of the country's four Chinese-language
dailies, serving a population of 300,000 Chinese-speaking Khmer-Chinese and
an additional quarter-million immigrants and businessmen from mainland
China. "Cambodia is approaching China with open arms. It's how the United
States took over its neighborhood. It's geopolitics."
The perennial question about China's rise is when will Beijing be able to
translate its cash into power. In Cambodia, it already has.
Cambodia has avoided criticizing Beijing over the dams China is building
along China's stretch of the Mekong River - installations that experts
predict will upend the lives of millions of Cambodians who live off the
fishing economy around the great inland waterway, Tonle Sap.
Cambodia so strictly follows Beijing's "one China" policy that it has
refused Taiwan's request to open up an economic office here despite the many
millions of dollars' worth of Taiwanese investment in Cambodia.
China's heft was also clearly on display in December when Chinese and
American diplomats went toe-to-toe over the fate of 20 Uighur Chinese who
had fled to Cambodia and were seeking asylum. China said that some of the
men, members of a Chinese Turkic minority, were wanted for having
participated in anti-Han Chinese riots in Xinjiang in July 2009. The United
States said don't send them back.
China threatened to cancel a trip by its vice president, Xi Junping, who was
coming to Cambodia with deals and loans worth $1.2 billion in his briefcase.
So Cambodia returned the Uighurs to China. Two days later Xi, who is on
track to be China's next leader, arrived in Phnom Penh.
In April of this year, the U.S. State Department announced that to punish
Cambodia, it was canceling a shipment of 200 U.S. surplus military trucks
and trailers. Less than three weeks later, China donated 257 military
trucks.
Cambodia has also followed China's lead when it comes to the South China
Sea, a 1 million-square-mile waterway that China asserts belongs to Beijing.
In July, Clinton, speaking in Hanoi, challenged China's claims to the open
seas and advocated a multilateral approach to divvying up the fishing rights
and offshore oil and gas that the sea is believed to contain. China opposes
multilateral negotiations, preferring to divide and conquer with bilateral
talks. Last month, Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, backed China's
approach.
China's one-upmanship with the United States continued earlier this month. A
day after Clinton left Cambodia, Wu Bangguo, one of China's top Communist
Party officials, arrived in Phnom Penh. During her visit, Clinton had raised
the possibility that the United States might forgive a portion of Cambodia's
debt to the United States; it owes $445 million. Wu was more forthright. He
struck $4.5 million off Cambodia's tab; Chinese officials are considering
forgiving an additional $200 million.
Only a few obstacles
China's road to domination here hasn't been without potholes. Vietnam, which
ousted the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 and installed Hun Sen, has woken up to
the threat of increased Chinese influence and has directed Vietnamese
state-owned companies to pour money into Cambodia. From $28 million in 2008,
Vietnamese investment jumped to $268 million in 2009 and to $1.2 billion
this year, according to Cambodian government statistics.
The Vietnamese military runs Cambodia's No. 2 - and soon to be No. 1 -
telecommunications company. Most government officials use its services
because it gives them SIM cards loaded with free minutes.
But China is quick to counter Vietnam. Chinese and Cambodian officials this
month signed a $591 million loan package - Cambodia's biggest ever - from
the Bank of China for Cambodia's other main telecommunications company. The
only catch is that $500 million was earmarked to buy Chinese equipment from
the Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
Even Cambodia's ruler, Hun Sen, has sometimes chafed at the bearhug from
Beijing. In December 2009, Chinese workers finished a massive $30 million
government building where the prime minister was supposed to house his
offices. But Hun Sen didn't like the place, complained about its squat
toilets and the fact that "it didn't even have a proper chandelier,"
according to a Western diplomat. There were also concerns that China had
bugged the premises. So Hun Sen built new offices next door and opened both
buildings last month.
Historical influence
China has exercised imperial sway over Cambodia for centuries. Eight hundred
years ago, Chinese troops bailed out Khmer kings; friendly Chinese warriors
are carved on the side of the famed 12th-century Bayon temple near Angkor
Wat. In the 1950s and 1960s, Communist China embraced the regime of King
Norodom Sihanouk and provided the Khmer Rouge with inspiration, security and
economic assistance throughout their bloody rule from 1975 to 1979.
Sihanouk, now 88 and the king father, resides in Beijing.
Huo Zhaoguo, a Chinese manager of Union Development's massive project along
the Cambodian coast, is typical of the new Chinese coming to this country.
In the 1980s in Lanzhou in northwestern China, Huo struck it rich selling
beans but then lost his fortune. He washed up in Cambodia in the 1990s,
chasing a Vietnamese dealer who owed him money. Huo returned to Lanzhou
penniless but couldn't stay. "I'd been rich there once and so everybody
laughed at me," he said. "A man needs self-respect."
Huo moved back to Cambodia and opened a noodle stand. He moved up to a
noodle restaurant and then met the boss of Union Development, who came to
his shop searching for northern Chinese food. The boss gave Huo a chance at
Union, and now Huo is overseeing road construction. Union got the land
because it had the cash and the connections, Huo said.
"This country is too poor and the corruption is the same as China," he
observed. "If you have power here, you have a great future."
"Cambodians feel no pressure to succeed. They even take weekends off. Not
us," he said, with the air of colonial supremacy you hear from many Chinese
in Cambodia. "We work."
© 2010 The Washington Post Company
Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE
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About Me
- Duong Dara
- Dara Duong was born in 1971 in Battambang province, Cambodia. His life changed forever at age four, when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. During the regime that controlled Cambodia from 1975-1979, Dara’s father, grandparents, uncle and aunt were executed, along with almost 3 million other Cambodians. Dara’s mother managed to keep him and his brothers and sisters together and survive the years of the Khmer Rouge regime. However, when the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia, she did not want to live under Communist rule. She fled with her family to a refugee camp on the Cambodian-Thai border, where they lived for more than ten years. Since arriving in the United States, Dara’s goal has been to educate people about the rich Cambodian culture that the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy and about the genocide, so that the world will not stand by and allow such atrocities to occur again. Toward that end, he has created the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, which began in his garage and is now in White Center, Washington. Dara’s story is one of survival against enormous odds, one of perseverance, one of courage and hope.