by Chileng Pa
“Mit Neary,” he said, addressing her as a female comrade. “Don’t be afraid. Our Angkar has never harmed an innocent person. Don’t believe the rumors you’ve heard. What is your name, Mit Neary?”
“Yes,” she timidly replied, showing her politeness by answering in the affirmative. “My name is Devi, Mit Bong.”
“Tell me, Mit Neary Devi, what was your occupation during the previous administration?” he asked softly. “Were you a student?”
Devi paused a few moments, glancing upward as if searching for a response that would satisfy this thug. From my own experience, I knew how she felt, and why she hesitated. I was holding my breath, fearful that the idiot interrogating her would lose patience, when my father-in-law came to her rescue.
He was standing behind her and, when he realized she was in trouble and her answer might jeopardize the family, he leaned out from the line and told the Khmer Rouge officer, “Mit Nephew, this is my daughter. She is very distraught, and frightened. She stayed at home to take care of the baby and do all the housekeeping. Sometimes, she went to market with her mother to help sell fish. That’s all she did, Mit Nephew.”
“Yes, Mit Bong,” said my wife shyly. “It is as my father has spoken.”
“Are you sure this is the truth, Mit Neary?” he shouted at her. “Don’t lie to me or to Angkar!”
“Yes, Mit Bong,” she responded. “It is indeed the truth.”
The Khmer Rouge officer continued with his questions. “Mit Neary, if you know anything about your husband’s profession, you can tell me now without fear. Angkar will reward you for telling the truth.”
When I heard him, I became so frightened I almost panicked, about to run up to answer for her. I began to perspire, and quickly wiped my forehead with my sleeve. I saw my death sentence approaching as I waited in terror for her answer. I feared her, because I didn’t trust her. My wife, I could not trust. After all, she was still angry with me for not being present at the birth of our son. Did she understand the consequences of a careless comment?
She glanced behind, and our eyes met for a moment. Would she betray me? Then, she turned to the Khmer Rouge officer and said, “Mit Bong, I don’t know much about what my husband did during the day. He left each morning on his bicycle carrying his tools, and he returned home each evening. I cannot tell you more.”
The young Khmer Rouge official looked at her for a moment and then, surprising us all, said, “It’s okay, Mit Neary. You can go now. But if Angkar later finds out you have lied, you will pay with your life.” The officer seemed to take great pleasure at making this threat to my wife, but she didn’t meet his gaze. She just abruptly turned, and left.
I was breathing a long sigh of relief as I watched Devi walk back to the cart, when Ba stepped up in front of the young official. Without waiting for the first question, Ba told him that he was a former military officer. I was stunned, dumbstruck at what he was saying. The only possible reason I could think of for why he was telling the truth was to make the falsehood he had told about Devi more believable. After several more minutes of questioning, I was standing, still in shock, when two soldiers were called in to escort Ba to a holding area for those being taken to the re-education center.
As they led him away, a soldier was telling him, “Angkar is proud of you, Mit Bu, for your honesty and courage. You will be rewarded, Mit Bu, for confessing your background. Angkar will forgive you. We are taking you to live at Wat Krol Ko to cure you of the brainwashing you suffered during the Lon Nol regime.”
He continued, “Don’t worry, Mit Bu, it will be only a short time until you return to your family.” He made a point of speaking loud so that all could hear what he was saying.
I suddenly realized it was my turn to be questioned. I was so dismayed to see Ba being taken away, I wanted to weep. I knew I would never see him again. After all the atrocities I’d witnessed and all the lies I’d heard from these barbarians, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to control my temper. I thought of the innocent victims I’d seen the past few weeks, slaughtered by these monsters. Nothing would ever be the same for me and my family. I’d never again know the life I’d had before. And now, I had to conceal my background not only from the Khmer Rouge but from my countrymen who would report me to earn favor with Angkar.
The Khmer Rouge began the interrogation, which by now had become familiar to me. “Mit, I warn you! Give true statements about your background. Don’t lie to me. Our Angkar informants live among the people so, if you lie, we’ll find out and you’ll be punished or put to death.” He stared at me. “What is your name? What were you doing in Phnom Penh? How old are you?”
The questions went on and on. The soldier kept going back over the same questions to confuse me and catch me lying to him, but the calm way I had been with previous interrogators during the past weeks now served me well. Several officials joined him, and stared at me as if they recognized me. My heart was thudding rapidly and, although I was terrified, I managed a faint smile. The soldiers began whispering among themselves, then began laughing.
“Mit Thy, are you sure the statements you have given are all true?” asked the officer. He asked the question as if he knew I had been lying.
“Of course, of course, Mit Bong,” I replied. It was much too late to stop lying now.
He glared at me for a moment, then said, “Mit Thy, you are free to go.” I was astounded to hear these words. I nodded my head repeatedly, trying to show respect to him. I thanked him, walked quickly away, and found my family sitting on the ground near the cart waiting patiently for me. They had been crying over Ba. As they looked up at me, I suddenly felt the heavy burden of responsibility for caring for them. With Papa gone, I was the one they would depend on.
We saw yothea escorting former military officers, government workers, and students to the Wat Krol Ko compound for re-education. We strained to find Ba among them, but we couldn’t locate him. I was saddened to think of Wat Krol Ko being desecrated in such a manner. The sanctuary was a beautiful building constructed in the classic Cambodian Buddhist architectural style, a holy place for Cambodian people to honor the Buddha and practice their religion. Now, it was a penitentiary for torturing and executing Angkar’s political prisoners. We heard people near us say that people taken for re-education at the temple seldom left alive.
My mother-in-law and wife were still crying as I began pulling the cart. It was much more difficult without Ba’s help. I knew I would tire more quickly and frequently, and would require many more rest stops along the way. Our progress, though slow, was steady. We continued to seek out paved or dirt roads along which to travel, but I often had to pull the cart through rice fields because of fallen trees or bomb craters blocking the roads. Most of our travel was along muddy paths or through fields beneath the blazing sun.
Three days later, we came to the banks of a small river where a group of our fellow travelers were waiting to cross the river to reach their village on the other side. There was a bridge across the river, but it was barricaded with a large sign forbidding anyone to cross it.
The river was actually a swamp, with water that came to my chest and mud that reached my knees. There was no way to cross without a boat. I was already exhausted and didn’t look forward to unloading the cart and ferrying my family and our supplies to the other side, floating the cart across, and then reloading everything on the cart. As I began searching for a boat to hire, a large group of young Communist villagers came floating down the river. They were dressed in the familiar black clothes of peasants, but they had no weapons and were quite friendly.
Without asking, they began taking things from our cart and loading them into their boats. At first, I thought they were stealing our supplies but surprisingly they assisted us in crossing the marsh.
We made the crossing quickly, and were directed to a village called Svay Cha Leu, in Svay Rieng Province. It was too late in the day to travel farther, so the village head told everyone to find a place to construct a shelter. He di
rected travelers without shelter materials to sleep in an old school building nearby.
The following morning, the village leader and district governor gathered the new arrivals together to make an announcement. They told us this was as far as we were going because this was the last village Angkar wanted people to occupy, since we were getting close to the Vietnamese border.
They also told us that the regional Angkar office was ordering a final investigation of each of us to determine if any Lon Nol military or educated people had slipped through undetected. We were subjected to another week of threats, lies, propaganda, and questions. I heard all the same words spoken that I had been hearing since these people brought freedom to us. They used all the same methods to convince us to declare ourselves former Lon Nol officials, teachers, or students, and to inform on our fellow countrymen if we knew of anyone trying to conceal his or her identity. At the end of the week, Angkar arrested more people and sent them to the re-education camp. Now, Angkar had classified all the New People who had come to the village to reside there as Svay Cha Leu villagers. In the end, my family and others were sent to a village about ten kilometers away called Prayap village. It was the village in which my father-in-law had been born.
7
Bamboo Grave
It took us three or four months to make the journey from Phnom Penh to our final destination, the village of Prayap in Svay Rieng Province. Prayap is located near the Vietnamese border in the area called the Parrot’s Beak, about fifteen kilometers from the city of Svay Rieng and approximately a hundred and twenty-five kilometers from Phnom Penh. Ninety days to go one hundred and twenty-five kilometers. That’s more than a kilometer a day but, in actuality, we sometimes stayed in one place for several or more days at time, and at other times, we traveled at an exhausting pace.
Our progress was much slower after the Khmer Rouge took my father-in-law away to re-education camp. I missed him, not only for his help with the cart but also for his companionship and late night talks and advice. I was sad that Papa was not there with us, but I was thankful the rest of the family had survived. When we entered the village, we immediately began looking for Papa’s cousin, Nep. Ba had told us that if we could reach Prayap, the place of his birth, Uncle Nep would shelter and protect us.
We had no trouble finding him because everyone in the village knew him. As I was to learn later, Uncle Nep had been part of the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the Lon Nol government. This was a fact well known by the supreme Angkar, the Khmer Rouge administration and, as a result, Uncle Nep was a trusted elder and leader in Prayap village. He was thus in a position to be of much greater assistance to us than Papa had thought. He also had enough influence to arrange for our immediate execution, if that is what he wanted. I counseled each member of my family to be careful about what he or she said to anyone in the village about our background, especially to Uncle Nep. We all agreed to continue telling the same lies that had kept us alive thus far.
Uncle Nep and his wife were kind and decent people and welcomed us into their home as part of their family. Although they had never met us, Uncle Nep told us he would gladly support us until we could find a place of our own. Nep told me he loved Papa like a brother, even though he’d gone to Phnom Penh to work for the Lon Nol government. Nep said he never discussed politics with my father-in-law, and never asked him what he was doing for the Lon Nol administration. Nor did he ever question me about my background.
Uncle Nep warned me, “Nephew Thy, your father-in-law has been detained by Angkar, and sent to be re-educated. You will likely never see him again. You must be very careful while you are here to follow all the rules and orders. The young men Angkar assigned as the military chief and group leader here in Prayap village are ruthless. They’ll show no mercy to any of your people.”
I had already witnessed the lack of mercy and I quickly agreed with Uncle Nep. “I’m certain you’re right, Uncle.”
Uncle Nep spoke further. “I don’t have to tell you what to do or not to do, Nephew Thy, but let Uncle remind you that, although I am a loyal revolutionary at heart, I am now also subject to Angkar. The saying you often hear that ‘Angkar has pineapple eyes’ is true.” Uncle continued. “You will never know if you are talking to Angkar or not. And, if you are stupid enough to enter into any discussion with anyone about the old administration, you will quickly disappear and so will your family.”
I thanked him for his advice and tried to act as if it was the first time I’d heard it. As we rejoined the others, Uncle Nep explained to us that we all needed to report to the village chief and register with an agricultural work group, and he directed us where to go. The next morning as we walked to the chief’s home, I told my family of the warnings Uncle Nep had given me.
The chief made no attempt to question us but quickly assigned us to work details in the rice fields and ordered us to report the following day. For the next week each of us worked all day, every day. We took our meals with Uncle Nep and his wife at sunrise, noon, and sunset. We ate well with them because they were Old People and had been part of the revolution. Aside from hard work, we had time only for eating and sleeping. We talked little. We were in shock, grief-stricken, afraid of stepping out of line, always tired and sore, and always frightened.
After three months of intensive labor, Uncle Nep announced at dinner that he was giving us a small plot of land where we could build our own shelters. That Nep could do this for us was an indication of how much power he had. I doubt he needed any approval from the village chief assigned by Angkar to govern the village. Nep was indeed a powerful man. Whether his motive for giving us the land was to reward us for our good work in the fields or just to get us out of his house, I wasted no time building two huts: one for my grandmother and sister, the other for my wife’s family and me. In less than a month, I had constructed both huts, and we said goodbye and thank you to Uncle Nep and his wife.
About two months later, the village chief intensified his power over the people who’d come to Prayap since the fall of Lon Nol’s government. He sent my wife’s mother, brothers, and sister to a small village called Prasac, about five kilometers away. We knew we couldn’t question this move. My wife’s brothers and sister occasionally came to visit us but our family had now shrunk to my wife and me, our son, my grandmother, and my sister, sharing one hut. With my father-in-law gone, certainly killed, the family that had left Phnom Penh was now less than half in size.
The next move taken by the young chief, whose name was Sean, was to summon all the Town People, or New People, for yet another session of inventorying our “biographical statistics.” Once again, we received the same threats and promises. Sean began, “Everyone! I have called you here to get a final account of your backgrounds. This is the last opportunity for anyone who wishes to live in Prayap under Angkar to correct any of the information I have concerning your involvement in the Lon Nol government. Remember, if you have information about any of your friends who were working in the old regime, please give that information to me. I assure you, I’ll reward you.”
As I waited patiently to be questioned once again by yet another of these idiot Angkar thugs, I realized more than ever that it might be helpful to appear mentally retarded in order to conceal my real identity. Lies and deceit had become a survival technique for me during the past months.
My turn came and Mit Sean began his questioning. “Mit, what’s your real name?”
“My name is Thy, Mit Bong,” I replied.
“Mit Thy, where were you born?” he asked.
“I was born in Section Five, in Phnom Penh,” I said.
“Tell me the truth about your background. What did you do during the Lon Nol regime?” He began to speak louder now.
“Mit Bong, I’ve been a street bicycle repairman since I was ten.” I paused for a moment, then continued my lie. “For about ten years, Mit Bong.”
“How many years did you go to school?” Sean asked.
“Mit Bong, I went to temple school
for two years, but I had to quit and go to work to help my parents.”
“Can you read and write?” He lowered his voice as he looked at me.
“I’m sorry, just a little, Mit Bong,” I lied.
“What’s your wife’s name, and what did she do during the Lon Nol regime?”
“Her name is Devi. She’s always just been a housewife,” I told him.
Then, as if he had been nice to me for the prescribed amount of time, he grew angry and leaned closer to me as he recited the question many others of his kind had asked me in the same angry manner. “Mit Thy, it seems to me that you aren’t stupid. You must have been at least a lieutenant for Lon Nol. Maybe you worked for the American CIA, eh?”
I tried to appear frightened by him—as indeed I was—and before I could respond, he continued. “Mit Thy, don’t lie to me. I was in Phnom Penh before the coup on March 18, 1970 when Lon Nol took over. I was a student at Preah Yukunthor Secondary School. I stayed on after the Khmer Republic changed the name of the school to March 18th High School. I know a lot about what happened in Phnom Penh over the years. I know the city like the back of my hand. So, are you sure there’s nothing more you have to tell me about your background?” He smiled slyly, then glowered at me.
I had underestimated Sean’s intelligence and interrogation skills. I knew there had been many professors and students at the schools in Phnom Penh and the provinces who had joined forces with the Khmer Rouge rebels. They’d gone into hiding amongst the population in the city, and created a terrorist organization whose trademark was tossing grenades into crowded marketplaces as they drove past on their motorbikes. As a policeman in Phnom Penh, I had tried many times to arrest them. Could Sean have recognized me as a former city policeman?
