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Change Your Life! |
Cambodia still haunted by Khmer Rouge's brutal reign |
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News
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April 11, 2000
PHNOM PENH, APR 10 (AP) - Rocking gently in a cheap cloth hammock, 3-month-old Kim Sean sleeps away a steamy Cambodian afternoon.
Close by, her grandmother, San Rin, keeps one eye on the baby and another on the legislature. The family from Kampong Chan province, 75 kilometers (45 miles) from Phnom Penh, have come to the capital to beg for their land back. Without it they will not survive.
"The military has taken our land," says the 60-year old Rin, her eyes welling with tears.
They are not alone camped out on a debris-strewn sidewalk across from the National Assembly. Many others from this impoverished nation, one of the world's poorest, have come to plead their land cases.
Millions of Cambodians were uprooted from their homes during the Khmer Rouge's brutal social reorganization of the late 1970s. The following years of civil war and communist rule left most with no proof of land ownership, and the property market has become a free-for-all in several regions, with those in power winning rights to contested tracts of land.
"We complain, but no one has come back to tell us what things will be," Rin says.
Nearby, directly across from the National Assembly, another group lays out a different grievance.
Standing at the spot where 16 people died in a grenade attack during a 1997 political rally, garment workers in bright blue uniforms chant slogans and wave banners demanding improvements in labor conditions. The garment sector is Cambodia's fastest growing industry, and union leaders say labor laws are routinely ignored.
Bolstered by recent democratic elections and a new found sense of freedom, Cambodians of all ages are slowly beginning to speak out about the problems of today - and the crimes of the past.
At the Juliana hotel, people gather to publicly debate whether, and how, former Khmer Rouge leaders should be tried for the hundreds of thousands of Cambodians who died during the group's harsh rule.
Surrounded by many others waiting patiently to express their views, Nut Kan grasps the microphone in one hand and exclaims, "The scope of the Khmer Rouge crimes is bigger than the planet!" The debate continues throughout the morning.
Not far from the hotel, Och Chan shuffles to avoid motorbikes and pedestrians who pay her no mind as she slowly makes her way along Sisowath Quay Boulevard. The lines in her face are deeply etched. A sprig of white hair peeks from her "kramar," a traditional red and white checkered scarf.
She is alone in the world. At 76 she has lived twice the national life expectancy, something that is especially unusual because nearly all her family were slain or worked to death by Khmer Rouge soldiers.
Chan is a beggar now. She depends on the charity of foreign tourists as well as the deeply rooted respect Cambodians have for their elders.
When asked about the Khmer Rouge, all Chan can say is, "I am afraid they will come back."
Ly Rotha and Khan Cheng are getting married at the Angkor Souvenir shop. Outside, a trio of giggling teens wraps Cheng's Toyota in Western-style red bunting. Inside, a traditional Khmer wedding is taking place.
The new couple is optimistic about what lies ahead. "I hope we have a baby soon," Rotha says as the ceremony begins.
With peace entrenched, Cambodians are beginning to think about the future again rather than just survival. Marriages are up. People are getting on with life.
But many also can't forget the past.
Smiling softly, Sonc's eyes turn upward searching for an answer to a question that countless others have asked, "Why did the Khmer Rouge take my son?" Sitting on a stone at the ancient temple of Bayon, near Siem Reap, Sonc munches a sandwich made from French bread and canned fish.
It is midday, the heat has risen sharply, and most people are lounging or in full sleep.
"The Khmer Rouge were bad to us," Sonc says. "I lost one of my sons to them as a soldier; he never came back." That was in 1974, while the Khmer Rouge were still battling a U.S.-supported government.
The rest of his family and other relatives survived, Sonc says. They were simple farmers. "Base people," Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot called them - the backbone of the revolution, uncorrupted by Western ideas and material goods.
"I feel lucky to have survived those years," Sonc adds, then finishes his lunch and heads back to work.
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