Warning: This is a tough blog to write and read. Just giving you a heads up before you continue.
Since entering Cambodia, I’ve been learning a lot about their history and culture. You can’t escape it, really. The recent genocide has left a lasting impact on these people. Every day, I interact with people who have lived through the hell of the Khmer Rouge and continue to press on.
The Khmer Rouge was led by a man named Pol Pot and came to power in 1975. During this time, the United States was fighting alongside the southern Vietnamese to end communism in the north (Viet Cong). The Viet Cong crossed the Cambodian border in attempts to attack their enemies in the south. The US began bombing Viet Cong forces in Cambodia, often killing civilian farmers.
When the Khmer Rouge came to power, they flourished from the lies they told the Cambodian people. On April 17, 1975, they were able to evacuate the entire capitol city of Phenom Pehn by telling the people that the Americans were going to bomb the city. Families scrambled to pack their belongings and said goodbye to a life they would never see again.
The Khmer Rouge’s goal was to create a self-sufficient agrarian society; anyone that did not comply with this new society would be killed. As cities were evacuated, the educated city dwellers were forced to live and work with the uneducated farmers- two worlds were colliding. In today’s terms, it would be like a corporate executive leaving his office job to plant corn and milk cows.
In the eyes of the Khmer Rouge, the farmers were “pure” because they had never been tainted by Western ideas or had more than a 6th grade education. The city dwellers did everything they could to fit in, as they knew their fate if they did not.
It is estimated that a fourth of Cambodia’s population was killed during the Khmer Rouge’s four-year reign. People would be killed for any number of reasons- they were a government official before Pol Pot, they were conspiring against the “new government,” they wore glasses which meant they were educated, or they didn’t meet their work quota for the day.
“It is better to kill an innocent person than let a traitor live” was the slogan they lived by. Any suspicion that a person was opposed to the new government meant certain death.
We recently visited the Killing Fields located outside of the capitol city of Phenom Pehn. It’s disturbing. During the Khmer Rouge, people were brought to this location for one reason- to die. They were brought in by the truckload and killed the same day. Large pits were dug and victims were killed in a variety of ways; bullets were too expensive, so garden hoes, axes and clubs were the typical method of death. Victims would kneel before the pit, soon to be their grave, and be slaughtered; some were not even dead when they were buried.
The Khmer Rouge’s reign ended in 1979. In 1980, the mass graves were excavated and a memorial now houses the victims. Clothes and bones continue to surface, especially during the raining season; this was most disturbing to me. Thirty years later you can walk along the designated paths and pull up strips of clothes from the victims.
As I stated earlier, the recent genocide has had a lasting impact on the people of Cambodia. Every day we go to Bible studies and interact with people who lived through this hell. I’ve gotten to know one woman in particular this month that has shared her story with me. Through tears she recollected growing up during the Khmer Rouge and her life since then. Here is a glimpse:
I was born in 1970, the only child to my mother and father. I was six when the Khmer Rouge soldiers entered our village and took my father away. To this day we don’t know where they took him or what they did to him, only that they killed him.
They allowed my mother and I to stay together for a while but then separated us for a few months. My job during this time was to work in a children’s camp making fertilizer for the rice paddies. If we didn’t meet our requirement for the day, we would be beaten. I was very skinny during this time, they food ration was 1 fish for 10 children.
I was very scared and kept to myself. I was happy when I was reunited with my mom and we continued to survive together after the Khmer Rouge lost power. At 19, I became an orphan as my mother passed away. I wanted to die too.
In order to survive, I found work with a Vietnamese family cooking and cleaning. I worked for them for 10 years. You can imagine after 10 years doing the same thing, I was ready for a change and decided to try working with a friend in the city. So I quit my job and started working in the city. It was hard work and I realized I was better off working for the family. So I returned to them and asked for my job back.
I was in shock when the husband confessed he had developed feelings for me and wanted a second wife. I wanted nothing to do with him or his offer of marriage so I left in the night with only a small bag of belongings. I didn’t know where to go but decided to stay with my uncle and his wife in a nearby village.
This arrangement didn’t last long because my uncle was and alcoholic and physically abusive to everyone in his household. Once again, I left not knowing where to go or if my life was worth anything.
Through a friend, I found work cooking for a pastor’s family and began attending their Bible studies. I was skeptical of this new religion as I had been raised Buddhist. Over time, I started to believe this God they spoke of was real and I became a Christian.
Since this time, my friend has married and is raising three children. She and her husband serve the Lord full time and are having an lasting eternal impact on the community where they live.
*If you would like to know more about the Khmer Rouge and how it effected families during their reign, I recommend the book First the Killed my Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung.
