1. New Textbook Details Khmer Rouge Horrors
By KER MUNTHIT, Associated Press Writer
(Comments: Again and again, Hun Sen and his CPP are openly following Vietnamese order by rewriting the history of Cambodia to fit their own common interests, and to continue to betray Cambodia's national interests, with impunity. If Cambodia continues to produce only traitors, there is no way, Cambodians can get out of this deadly trap. This, in turn, will lead to a certain and complete disintegration of Cambodia, culturally and racially speaking. What did Sihanouk do while all this is going on? Silence! and only complete silence from the ex-flip flop king. Don't blame the Vietnamese alone, though. The Cambodians are a lot more to be blamed for this tragic history. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. June 18, 2007)
Monday, June 18, 2007
(06-18) 00:24 PDT PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) –
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/18/international/i000907D52.DTL
Cambodia offers plenty of Khmer Rouge "killing fields" attractions. There is a grisly genocide museum complete with torture instruments and former mass graves that draw camera-toting tourists.
But for the country's school children, the Khmer Rouge remain off the curriculum, leaving students virtually clueless about how the now-defunct communist group became a killing machine in late 1970s.
Now that knowledge gap may at least be partially filled through the newly released "A History of Democratic Kampuchea," a textbook about the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule by Khamboly Dy, a Cambodian genocide researcher.
It's a start in Cambodia's painful journey to seek healing, said Khamboly Dy, a 26-year-old staffer at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group collecting evidence of the Khmer Rouge atrocities.
"Nothing can compensate for the Cambodian people's sufferings during the Khmer Rouge," he said, adding that learning about the regime's history "is the best compensation for them."
The book comes at the right time, as Cambodia may finally put surviving Khmer Rouge leaders before an internationally-backed tribunal for genocide and crimes against humanity, Khamboly Dy said.
Still, the 100-page textbook isn't slated for general classroom use. Khamboly Dy said 3,000 copies in the Cambodian language will be given to libraries, students and teachers for free, and more will be printed once additional funds can be raised.
David Chandler, an American scholar and author of several books on Cambodia, says a straightforward account is long overdue since the government "seems unwilling to produce such a text, or at least does not share a sense of urgency about exposing this period of he past."
Some ex-Khmer Rouge continue to hold senior positions in the regime.
Most books about the Khmer Rouge era, when some 1.7 million perished through hunger, disease and executions, have to date been either written by foreigners or overseas Cambodians. Very few of these have been translated into the Cambodian language, and none are cheaply available.
Khmer Rouge history was briefly featured in a high school social study textbook in 2002 before the entire book was yanked off the curriculum because it provoked political tension between Prime Minister Hun Sen and his former ally, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
The book had only highlighted the victory of Hun Sen's ruling party in the 1998 national election and failed to mention Ranariddh's defeat of Hun Sen in the 1993 polls. Despite his party's defeat then, Hun Sen maneuvered to become a co-prime minister along with Ranariddh before toppling him to grab full power through a coup in 1997.
As a result of Ranariddh-Hun Sen rivalry, the entire modern history of Cambodia from the French colonial period to the present was expunged from schools, Khamboly Dy said.
In the new book, Khamboly Dy said he had to carefully select words to explain certain past events, including the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge by Vietnamese troops.
For Hun Sen's camp, the Vietnamese were not invaders, but to his opponents they always were.
So Khamboly Dy wrote the Vietnamese "fought their way into Cambodia" alongside Cambodian resistance forces including Hun Sen. "This is the fact. Whether they invaded or liberated (Cambodia) is only political interpretation," he said.
Before defecting, the prime minister earlier served as a military commander with the Khmer Rouge while ex-King Norodom Sihanouk forged an alliance with them against the U.S.-backed government of the early 1970s.
Researchers say there is no evidence linking Hun Sen and Sihanouk to the Khmer Rouge atrocities despite their past alliance with the now-defunct communist movement, making it unlikely for either of them to be indicted by the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal. Sihanouk himself was under house arrest, and many of his royal family members perished during the Khmer Rouge period.
The government has endorsed the book only as core reference material for writing future history textbooks, but not for use in general education, said Sorn Samnang, president of the government-run Royal Academy, who sat on a committee which scrutinized Khamboly Dy's book.
Although it contained useful information, he said the book could affect the many still living people involved with the Khmer Rouge mentioned in the work. He did not elaborate.
Such an attitude only "suggests that any excuse, however shameless, will be seized upon if it helps the Cambodian authorities avoid raking over the past," said Philip Short, who wrote "Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare," a political biography of the late Khmer Rouge leader.
He said the book is an accurate and objective account of a very complex period, and therefore "deserves to be not merely an approved textbook for Cambodian schools, but a compulsory text, which all Cambodian schoolchildren should be required to study."
Chey Vann Virak, an 11th grade student in Phnom Penh, said his history teacher would randomly mention "a little bit" about the killings under the Khmer Rouge.
At home, the 17-year-old said his parents occasionally recalled for him and his three siblings the sufferings they went through and say, "All of you are just lucky to have been born and grown up in this era."
That is all he knows about the Khmer Rouge.
4. Kal Man and his Family suffered a great deal under the Khmer Rouge rule, but they remain dignified and triumphant despite all adversities that occurred to them.
(This is the story of Kal Man and his family and how they went through the horror and horrible killings perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. This story was written by Martina, the daughter of Kal Man and his wife Senghuon, when she was in 8th grade.
It is a moving and very painful story, but real, and stripped of any special and hidden agenda or financial interest. But, unlike other stories written by other Cambodians, this one is not a published work. Kal man and his family gave me the permission to post it in this web site. Their story can be multiplied by the millions, to arrive at the extent and the magnitude of destruction of so many innocent families brought about by the Communist regime of the Khmer Rouge and their sponsors the Vietnamese Communists, to the Cambodian society, as a whole. The Khmer Rouge did not only kill more than a millions individuals, more devastatingly, they killed the whole Cambodian society and country, as they provided the basis for making the Vietnamese and Hun Sen CPP look less evils than they actually are; thus, providing Vietnam a perpetual pretext to invade Cambodia anytime when they so choose, in order to "protect" themselves against an imaginary "Cambodian aggression."
It is useful for all Cambodians and non-Cambodians alike, to read this moving and triumphant story of a very dignified Cambodian family now living in Portland, Oregon. They are the symbol of human resiliency, courage, hope, and dignity. They are a vibrant, productive, and full-fledged member of their adopted country, the United States of America. Naranhkiri Tith, Ph.D. Washington DC. May 22, 2007)
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DESTINY
Written by Martina Man in 8th grade
03-16-1998
My mother’s childhood was normal. She went to school, did chores, watched television, listened to the radio, and basically had fun with life as a teenager. Living in the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Senghuon, grew up living with her aunt and grandma. Toward the end of her high school years, things began to change.
Rockets began dropping in the suburban neighborhood that my grandfather lived in. My grandfather was terrified, so he sent his four other daughters to live with their aunt and grandma too. He thought the city would be safe, because they lived near most of the wealthy generals and commanders and that would be why the rockets hit there first. The two brothers stayed with their parents.
On April 17, 1975 outside, on the streets of Phnom Penh, the sound of commotion filled the city. The people in the city were not quiet sure of what all the noise was about; their city was usually not that. Moments later a loud knocking came upon the door of my great aunt’s house. Along with the knocking came a powerful voice yelling, “Get out of your house now; if you don’t I will blow up your house!”
My mother being the brave soul in the house went to open the door while everyone hides. When she opened the door, a man in the black uniform held an enormous missile aimed directly at her head. He repeated himself. He said he just needed to check the house for hiding enemies and they had to leave for a few hours. In addition, he told them they did not need to bring anything because they would be coming back that night. They all were terrified and did what he said and began to leave the house, except their grandma who refused to leave the house. She would not leave but convinced them all to leave. So they left the house with nothing except the clothes they were wearing.
As they walked out to the streets, soldiers with guns directed them in one direction to walk. Everyone was forced to move in one direction. They continued to walk for days only to realize that the soldiers in black had lied to them about returning home. For the past days they ate and drank whatever they could get from what people threw away and slept along the streets.
Somewhere along the way all seven of them were reunited with their grandma and aunt, but now they were no longer were forced to move in any direction as long as they didn’t go back to the city. Their grandma told them about the night they left. The soldiers had robbed the house while grandma was there. They didn’t do anything to her because she told them she was their servant. A few days later grandma escaped with the neighbors and then later found their aunt.
Now they all decided to journey to find my grandparents. They weren’t sure where they would be but had a thought that maybe they would be in my grandfather birth place, Dong Kdowng. Therefore, they all traveled to Dong Kdowng.
Along the way there, their grandmother died. She had been bitten by poisonous snake and died within a few days. They buried her in front of a tree, with her name carved in the tree. They never found her burial place ever again after they buried her.
They finally reached Dong Kdowng, but my grandparents were not there. However, they found my grandfathers older brother. Angka, the unknown power, would not allow them to travel anymore without consent, but they didn’t want them to stay in Dong Kdowng any longer. They were all forced to a small village full of disease.
The diseased village was the center of death. Almost all that were forced to stay there usually died within a few days. They even had a church there; when people died, church bells would ring. Everyday they heard the bell at least once, if not more. Everyone in my mom’s family got very sick and was all close to death. They managed by taking care of each other. When one got weak the other would help nurse them until they felt better and so on. If they weren’t felling that bad they worked on the rice fields to provide food. They all were very lucky to survive there so long. None are sure how long they stayed there, because it seemed like years to them.
One day while they were working a visitor came to the village. The visitor was my grandfather’s brother, and he came to take them back to Dong Kdowng. While there they worked very, very hard for Angka. Angka believed that if they keep you and they earn nothing from you then if they get rid of you they lose nothing. Although, no matter how hard you would work, they still found reasons to “get rid of you.” They never had enough to eat there, except when they celebrated victories. After these victories they would get a new group of people to take control, although everyone was still unknown. People were always being mysteriously moved, but once moved were never heard from again.
After spending an enormous amount of time being very famished, frightened, and ill, Angka decided to move everyone to the other village by boat. When they reached the village, they continued to push them all further. While they were taking a break, my mother and her uncle met a guy in common clothes, which asked them where they were going. My mother said that they go anywhere Angka tells them to go. The guy told them not to rush on getting there, because you’ll only find your graves. They were shocked to hear such things, but were still curious. They asked how he knew these things, he said that he knew because he was the one who killed, and now Angka has to kill him to shut his mouth. Then she asked him how he could kill so many people without anyone fighting back. He replied saying that before they reached the shore Angka told everyone to put away the axes, knives, and shovels. This was to prevent the people from fighting back. Also, before they get to the village Angka would tell them that the people there won’t trust them unless they tied their hands back and covered their eyes. The people were afraid of Angka so they did whatever Angka told them to do. Therefore they were able to herd the blindfolded people to a huge hole that was made earlier. The hole was made by forcing people to dig what was believed to be a dam, when in reality they were just digging a massive grave. To the men they would cut their necks and push them in. For women, they would uncover their eyes so they would faint and fall in. They would just throw children and babies in. They horrified when they heard what was going to happen to them; so after the guy left they decided to slow down. They didn’t want to tell to many people about this because they didn’t know who they could trust. When they were being watched they moved slowly forward, but when no one was watching they went to hide in the woods.
While they were hiding in the woods, my grandpa passed by looking for his daughters. Eventually they crossed paths and were reunited at last. My grandpa told them that my mother’s younger brother mysteriously disappeared after leaving to go take a bath in the river. They assumed he had drowned, but no one actually saw him and they never found his body. About a week before his disappearance, he had just been released from being in jail for three months for something that most would not consider a crime. He was put in jail for speaking a few French words with my father’s brother. While most people die in the jail from being tortured, he was fortunate to even be released. My grandpa then took them to the village to see my grandma and uncle. While there she met my father and later married him.
My dad, Kal, was an orphan at that time. He came from a wealthy upper class family. His father was a bank director when he was young. During the Angka time, his family shared the same grief, but unfortunately, his grief was worse. When he was about twenty-five, his entire family was put to work by Angka. Everyone worked in a different place. One day Angka told everyone in the family to go back home, this was usually unusual. However, they tried to enjoy the rare times they had together without realizing something bad was going to happen to them. My dad had already been home for six days so his father told him to just go back to work. The day after he left they took his family somewhere and murdered them. Later he found out what happened to his family from a friend of his. Angka plan was to bring the entire family together, but they didn’t know that my dad went back to work.
After they got married, they realized they had suffered enough and it was time to move on. They were in search of freedom and the only way they could do that was to escape the country. Although crossing the border wasn’t an easy task they thought it would be well worth if they made it. What made it more difficult was at the time my mom was pregnant.
They had to walk from where they lived to the border to get to Thailand. It took them one week to get to the refugee camp at the border of Thailand. They got by from kindhearted strangers. Some people gave them rides so they wouldn’t have to walk, some gave them shelter at night, and some also gave them food.
Although they had help, their journey became tougher the closer they got to the border. At one point they got stopped by a Vietnamese soldier. He told them to stop, because they didn’t pay to cross the border. The soldiers were speaking Vietnamese and my parents couldn’t understand what he wanted till this nice lady told them to stop walking or they’ll shoot. So at gun point behind my mom’s the soldier took my parents and put them in jail for a few hours to question them. Their translator, who they did not know, helped them out by lying to the soldier telling them that my parents went to sell books. The soldiers told them that if they tried to cross the border a gain they would kill them. After they let them out, they felt hopeless. While resting, they noticed groups of people walking by. They asked them where they were going and they said that they were crossing the border. It was the only way without being caught. They told my parents to walk along the path of someone else’s foot prints, because there were land mines everywhere. While moving through the forest, they could hear the sound of the rocket flying over their heads. Deeper in the forest they saw the belongings and blood of the people who got hit by the rockets. My parents were walking with them, but mom’s feet were swollen since she was pregnant, so she was slow and could not keep up.
A few hours later, they reached a camp and stayed there for a month. Then the United Nation High Committee for Refugees (UNHCR) opened a refugee camp and transported my parents there. While he was there, my father worked as a translator for the Red Cross. About a month later, my mom gave birth to my brother Kalviny. Six months later they were sponsored by a family through a Catholic church to come to America, their destiny.
The strangest thing is that my parents survived through miracles. Both of them have come so close to death, but somehow escaped it every time. It is almost as if they were destined to be here today.
6. Cambodia in mortal danger due to the treason of their leaders
(Please, click this link to read a recently written article by Professor Milton Osborne, an Australian historian specialized in South East Asian studies, and especially on Cambodian history. This article is not only an updated version of the Khmer Rouge trial, more importantly, it is a comprehensive perspective on the whole Cambodian contemporary history, and a closer look at the future of Cambodia as a nation and society. It is a must read for all concerned Cambodians, whose country is about to disappear, due not only to the Vietnamese longstanding onslaught on Khmer land and people (old and ongoing story), but, also due to the indifference of the majority of the Cambodian people, and especially due to the inept, corrupt, selfish, and soulless leaders of Cambodia, that include; Sihanouk, Hun Sen, Lon Nol, Pol Pot, Sam Rainsy, and now Kem Sokha.
It is almost too late for Cambodia to survive Vietnam's age-old colonialist and imperialist designed to obliterate the people and land of Cambodians, as they already did to another country in the area, Champa.
Cambodians may have to disappear first before it can fight its way back to life, as they did in 1835, when Cambodians disappeared from the map of the world. Only, under genocidal policy by Vietnam, which went beyond human limits suffering, did Cambodians revolt against the genocidal invaders under the leadership of some provincial leaders, and not by the kings, was Cambodia regain, temporarily its freedom, and to be again, put under the co-suzerainty of both Dai-Viet and Siam by the then king of Cambodia.
Wake up Cambodians. Don't sleep too long. It may be already too late. Having said that, don't use your rage but your reason to fight against Vietnam's colonialism and imperialism. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC August 30, 2007)
(/Documents/The Khmer Rouge Tribunal; an ambiguous good news stroy.doc)
7. Chaos and the Grave
(Comments: In this review of a book entitled 'True Biliever' by Eric Hoffer, is another proof to refute those authors such as Alex Hinton and Michael Vickery, who wrote that the Khmer Rouge phenomenon is typically Cambodian in character, and not a world phenomenon. The question is whether the Khmer rouge regime could have taken place without Communism. This review shows clearly that Mass movement which the basis of such autocratic regime as Germany's Hitlerism or China's Cultural Revolution, are not isolated incidents in history. They are anchored on what Eric Hoffer had said, on mass movements. As the review had pointed out that;
'Hoffer argues that nearly all mass movements have certain elements in common. At times these elements combine to form dynamic, sweeping changes that result in tremendous progress. At other times, however, those same elements come together in the service of evil. Think of Hitler's Germany. Think of China's Cultural Revolution. Think of the Ku Klux Klan. Think of Osama Bin Laden and the al Qaeda network. Think of Khmer Rouge Cambodia.'
This is in no way that I am trying to excuse the murderous regime of the Khmer Rouge. What I am trying to show is that those authors such as Alex Hinton and Michael Vickery, and the like, are trying to 'demonize the demons' to make Hun Sen and his CPP looks better. In other words, they are trying to give to Cambodians the choice among the lesser evils and not among the best as leaders. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC September 6, 2007)
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If the only lesson we learn from the Cambodian revolution is that the Khmer Rouge were evil, then we have learned nothing at all. It is only when we begin to understand the forces that create such evil that we have learned something of value. The best analysis of these forces may well be a book that was written more than 15 years before the Khmer Rouge existed: Eric Hoffer's The True Believer.
Hoffer argues that nearly all mass movements have certain elements in common. At times these elements combine to form dynamic, sweeping changes that result in tremendous progress. At other times, however, those same elements come together in the service of evil. Think of Hitler's Germany. Think of China's Cultural Revolution. Think of the Ku Klux Klan. Think of Osama Bin Laden and the al Qaeda network. Think of Khmer Rouge Cambodia.
The people who populate these movements are the true believers. They are fanatical, driven, immune to reason, convinced of their rightness, convinced of the infallibility and inevitability of their cause.
What factors give strength to these movements? According to Hoffer, the first is a dissatisfaction with the present. Such dissatsifaction breeds not only a desire for change, but a desire for a cause. Something must take the place of all that is missing: not merely the material wealth that is lacking, but spiritual fulfillment as well. The poor, misfits and outcasts, adolescents, the selfish, the bored, those seeking redemption... these are some of the groups who form the core of a movement's true believers.
The ultimate rewards promised by movements like communism, however, are not necessarily what motivates the devoted followers. As Hoffer notes, "A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring on them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves - and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole."
Peasants were not merely motivated to serve the Khmer Rouge because they believed they would be freed from the cycle of poverty that characterized their lives prior to the revolution. They were motivated because they, as a group, would become the masters. Mass movements derive much of their power from their followers' belief that they belong to something greater than themselves. It was the bond of this membership that strengthened their resolve and enabled them to achieve formidable feats. That the Khmer Rouge could triumph in the civil war against Lon Nol's forces was in part due to their indoctrination that they were part of a heroic tradition: they were the builders of Angkor. It did not matter that they were of the same stock as the soldiers who fought for the republic: they were armed with a belief and and a drive that their opponents did not have.
The glorification of past generations was only one of several factors that gave the movement its strength. Hoffer identies other significant "unifying agents," including hatred, imitation, leadership, persuasion and coercion, action, and suspicion. The Khmer Rouge understood and employed all of these factors to varying degrees. The role of leadership, however, was arguably different than that of most mass movements, which typically center on a single charismatic individual. The Khmer Rouge resorted to simple deception with regard to leadership: by adopting deposed head-of-state Prince Norodom Sihanouk as their figurehead, they were able to build support for their movement, without sacrificing any control over their organization. Sihanouk himself understood his true role; privately, he correctly predicted that he would be discarded once the Khmer Rouge had seized power. But many of the peasants who formed the core of the Khmer Rouge believed that they were fighting for the return of a rightful, beloved ruler.
Among the other unifying factors, hatred and coercion were clearly the dominant elements for the members of the Khmer Rouge. Coercion existed in the form of the Khmer Rouge's intolerance for dissent of any kind: Khmer Rouge executioners believed, probably correctly, that if they did not kill, they themselves would become their own movement's next victims. But coercion became a significant motivator only after the Khmer Rouge had already gained power. For the Khmer Rouge, the most vital unifying agent was always hatred. That hatred was directed at different targets at different phases of the Khmer Rouge's existence: at Lon Nol personally, at the Americans, at the urban elite, at the Vietnamese. The enemy changed; the hatred itself did not.
What creates these intense feelings of hatred? "They are an expression of a desperate effort to suppress an awareness of our inadequacy, worthlessness, guilt, and other shortcomings of the self. Self-contempt is here transmuted into hatred of others.... Even in the case of a just grievance, our hatred comes less from a wrong done to us than from the consciousness of our helplessness, inadequacy and cowardice - in other words from self-contempt. When we feel superior to our tormentors, we are likely to despise them, even pity them, but not hate them...there is no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice.... To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred." And, as Hoffer observes, "We do not look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us as rivals and trespassers. But we always look for allies when we hate." Members of the Khmer Rouge found, among their brethren, others who harbored the same hatred toward the priveleged classes.
There were no doubt many people who joined the Khmer Rouge because they believed in the nobility and rightness of their cause. But the hatred their movement preached ultimately insured the destruction of not only their enemies, but their dreams as well. Hatred, Hoffer notes, "... does not, in the long run, come cheap. We pay for it by losing all or many of the values we have set out to defend."
The price would become clear later, as the Khmer Rouge regime began to destroy its own ranks. The once fearless Khmer Rouge fighters became powerless and lost. Hoffer describes a similar transformation that took place in the Soviet Union: "The same Russians who cringe and crawl before Stalin's secret police displayed unsurpassed courage when facing - singly or in a group - the invading Nazis. The reason for this contrasting behavior is not that Stalin's police are more ruthless than Hitler's armies, but that when facing Stalin's police the Russian feels a mere individual while, when facing the Germans, he saw himself a member of a mighty race, possessed of a glorious past and an even more glorious future." Like the Soviets before them, the same Khmer Rouge who had withstood Lon Nol's superior firepower and massive American air support were helpless in places like Tuol Sleng prison. By the time they reached Tuol Sleng, they were no longer the heroic builders of Angkor: they were nothing but meek, frightened individuals who had suddenly been thrust outside the group that had become the very center of their lives.
For those who remained within the favored factions of the Khmer Rouge, the torment of the population was a source of dark satisfaction. "There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace of the righteous. They see in a general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality. Their burning conviction that there must be a new life and a new order is fueled by the realization that the old will have to be razed to the ground before the new can be built. Their clamor for a millennium is shot through with a hatred for all that exists, and a craving for the end of the world."
A hatred for all that exists. A craving for the end of the world: Hoffer's dispassionate essay describes the mindset of fanaticism, but this is as close as he comes to one terrifying truth: there is nothing on Earth more dangerous or deadly than the true believer. That danger is at its greatest among people who believe that they have nothing left to lose, and everything to gain.
In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge were indeed bent on destroying the world as they knew it. Their thirst for a new millenium was clear in their proclamation that the dawn of the revolution was "Year Zero."
Creating a new order, however, is far more difficult than destroying an existing one. Here again, Hoffer's analysis is prescient. Mass movements require three distinctly different types of personalities in order to succeed at different stages: men of words, the fanatics, and the practical men of action. The Khmer Rouge had men of words, in the likes of intellectuals like Khieu Samphan; they had fanatics, like the illiterate, enraged peasants who rose up against Lon Nol. But they did not have practical men of action. The ability to compromise, the ability to improvise: the Khmer Rouge lacked these traits. And as Hoffer notes, "When the same person (or the same type of person) leads a movement from its inception to maturity, it usually ends in disaster."
Indeed, "disaster" summarizes the history of Khmer Rouge Cambodia more perfectly than any other single word.
"The danger of the fanatic to the development of a movement," Hoffer wrote, "is that he cannot settle down.... He keeps groping for extremes.... Hatred has become a habit. With no more enemies to destroy, the fanatics make enemies of one another."
So it was with the Khmer Rouge: they became their own worst enemy, consuming their own ranks in purges and pogroms. Their egalitarian dream ended in chaos. Their legacy was a land strewn with graves.
The True Believer was written by Eric Hoffer in 1951. It is still in print as a Harper Perennial paperback. It can be purchased online from Amazon.com.
Click here to return to the Recommended Reading page.
9. Gazing into a Treacherous and an Uncertain Future for Cambodia
As the international has not kept up with its rhetorical slogan of supporting democracy and protection human rights, and the United States is the number one violator of these principles that it so loudly proclaim to defend and protect, such as open society, freedom, democracy, and human rights. Because of these imperfections, Cambodians should learn not to depend on outside patrons, and especially Vietnam, to defend their country. Cambodians should to settle their political difference in a civilized manner without recourse to foreign assistance. This link provides a general background of how the present and past leaders of Cambodia had always look for Vietnam for help, which in turn, Vietnam never failed to got land from Cambodia as a compensation, while claiming to protect the Cambodian people form all kind of foes from within and from outside.
(http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeof03b/id27.html)
10. Khmer Krom Associations ask to meet Hun Sen
29 April 2007
By Sophorn
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
(Comments: Vietnam is about to accomplish its long-held dream of Vietnamizing Cambodia. The final phase has arrived. The recent visit of Cambodia by National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong clearly shows that Hun Sen, Sihanouk, and Sihamoni are under Hanoi's order. They are willing to give all the rights to the Vietnamese Colonialists in Cambodia, but, they do not ask anything from the Vietnamese to protect the Khmers Krom.
So, the Vietnamization of Cambodia is not a question of "if" but "when" this will be completed. Wake up those who are still colluding or ignoring this naked aggression by tolerating and compromising with Hun/Sen/Sihanouk's surrender to the Vietnamese, and now with Sihamoni in the game plan as well. The Vietnamization of Cambodia is in full swing, again, even during the French protectorate.
The most baffling aspect of the Vietnamization of Cambodia is the fact that the Vietnamese never had to put up any fight. They just walked in and took over the land from the Cambodians, whose leaders never put up any resistance against these aggressors. On the contrary, they always accommodated with the wish of the Vietnamese. Sad but true!
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington, May 2, 2007)
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12 Khmer Krom Associations plan to meet with Prime Minister Hun Sen to report to him on the difficulties faced by Khmer Kampuchea-Krom both inside Cambodia properly and those in Vietnam.
Thach Sang, President of the Friends of Khmer Kampuchea-Krom, said that his association and a number of other Khmer Krom Associations will send a letter to Hun Sen to request a meeting so they can report to him about the actual living condition that the Khmer Kampuchea-Krom people are currently facing, as well as their bleak living condition and the violations they suffer.
Thach Sang said: “We want his advice because the situation of Khmer Krom people is so bleak. We face death, violations of our right. We want to meet him personally about a monk who was found dead. They wouldn’t even allow us to hold a religious ceremony for him, or do anything else for him. We are worried. The reason we want to meet him is to report to the prime minister about the problems of Khmer Krom people who are facing losses, fear, and threats.”
Monk Yoeung Sin, President the Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Association, told RFA on Sunday that the 12 Khmer Krom Associations will send a letter to Prime Minster Hun Sen on Monday, to request a meeting with Hun Sen.
Monk Yoeung Sin said: “Never before an association plans to meet him, even if they met him, it was a private meeting only.
We never planned on agreeing with each other like now, all our brothers and sisters have agreed to send Prime Minister
Hun Sen a letter to request for a meeting.”
There is no reaction from the Khmer Kampuchea-Krom Federation (KKF) on this plan to meet with Hun Sen.