Escaping the Khmer Rouge

by Chileng Pa

  “Mit Bong, the Angkar revolution is good for our people. Mit Sovong and I both came to the canal pool to take a bath, since we had some time after meeting our quota. We were discussing ways that Angkar might finish the canal and levee more quickly,” I said, as convincingly as I could.

  “That’s great, Mit Thy. Angkar needs people like you to help Angkar plan for the future.” He looked at me. “Please tell me what ideas you and Sovong were discussing!”

  Sovong elbowed me, signaling me to keep my mouth shut, but I ignored him.

  “Mit Bong, I think I speak for all the workers on this worksite. We have been working very hard digging the ground to make the canal and build up the levee, as Angkar has ordered. We haven’t forgotten that Angkar graciously helped us gain our freedom from the jaws of capitalism. We do not want to disappoint either Mit Brother or Angkar.”

  “Stop, Mit Thy. Can you tell me how we can finish this project more rapidly?” Huot asked.

  “Mit Bong,” I replied. “We were discussing the idea of increasing our food rations and receiving real medicine for our illnesses. With more food and some medication, we could work faster.”

  “Mit Thy, you’ve made a good point and you have a good idea. But I can’t do it. The supreme Angkar has set limits on rations and has divided the food equally among all the people in the country. If Angkar increases your worksite’s rations, there wouldn’t be enough food for our future needs. The supreme Angkar really cares for people and is smart enough to see that we must stockpile our food for a few years.”

  He went on. “By then, Angkar will be able to export unhusked rice and many other products from our country to our great trading partner, China. Remember Angkar’s slogan, ‘Our progress will be great and marvelous!’ Soon, we’ll have more food. We’ll eat three times a day. You’ll be able to be with your wives and families more often and you won’t have to get up so early to work on the canal and levee. You won’t have to work with your hands anymore. Everything will be done by machines!” This idiot, Huot, finally finished his recitation of communist propaganda we’d heard so often, and left.

  Sovong muttered to me, “What bullshit! He’s a damned liar! His damned yothea eat three times a day and do nothing!”

  “You’re right,” I said. “He’s a stupid, lying bastard. We’re nothing to him but animals to work to death.”

  Angrily I added, “It’s no secret why they kill people who are educated. The only way this regime can possibly work is to keep people starved and stupid.” The two of us walked back to the shelter and went to bed.

  What a day. What a long and terrible day.

  Like the shrill cry of a bird, the bell began ringing the next morning, signaling the time to go to the canal to begin digging. Everyone rushed to grab their tools and get started. The group leader walked briskly through the shelter, yelling, “Hurry up! Don’t delay! Let’s go! Faster! Don’t make Mit Huot angry!”

  I was the last one out of the shelter. The group leader glared at me. I said, “Mit Bong, don’t worry. I’m hurrying and I won’t disappoint Mit Huot.” I walked past him, but I remained under his watchful eye until I reached the top of the levee and passed the bamboo pole bearing the yellow and red flag of Angkar. When I reached Sovong, I said, “Look at that flag! Those are fitting colors, eh? Yellow because they are peasants and red for the blood of the people they’ve slaughtered.”

  A loudspeaker had been placed up on a bamboo pole along the path leading to the worksite. It played simple songs, repeated over and over, glorifying the revolution, the power and virtues of Angkar, and the bravery of its revolutionary troops. These songs focused always on the prosperity of the new society and the destruction of the old. Some songs exalted the Khmer Rouge soldiers, one describing one arm holding a weapon to fight the enemy, the other working the land to feed the people.

  On our way to the worksite, we also passed near the women’s shelter. On this morning, I heard shouting. So, over Sovong’s protests telling me to mind my own business, I paused to investigate.

  I saw a female yothea screaming at a girl who was obviously very ill, still lying on her pallet. “Mit Neary, hurry up! What are you waiting for? Didn’t you hear the bell ringing?” She became angrier, shouting even louder, “Don’t you know the revolutionary wheel of progress is constantly spinning forward? I don’t need people who complain or slack off!”

  The poor girl could hardly move. Her body was swollen and much of her skin was discolored with a rash that had become infected. She managed to get up and crawl out of the shelter, bowing to the soldier. “Mit Boss, I’m unable to dig at the canal. I’m very sick. Look at my body! Please, let me stay in the shelter for a couple of days.” She groaned in pain.

  The Khmer Rouge soldier grabbed the girl’s hand and dragged her toward the path leading to the worksite. “You’re not sick! I know you’ve eaten all sorts of bugs and leaves that Angkar has classified as contraband. That’s why you’re swollen. Besides, didn’t Angkar already give you medicine?”

  Growing angrier, she shouted, “What are you saying, Mit Neary? Do you dare insult the medicine of the revolution? I will beat you with a hoe for this!”

  The sick girl was sobbing, desperately trying to remain upright. She staggered off balance and fell into a muddy puddle. The soldier stood with her hands on her hips, approached the girl, and kicked her several times. The evil woman then leaned forward and pulled the girl to her feet by her hair. She continued yelling, “You’re not sick! You pretend to be sick so you can stay in your shelter. Then, when everyone else is working, you sneak out into the woods to search for food! You’re selfish, Mit Neary, but you don’t fool me. Now, get to work! The least you can do is stand and help your partner with the lighter dirt baskets.”

  The soldier glowered at the girl sobbing pitifully on the ground. The girl must have had no doubt that she would be killed if she couldn’t work. She gathered her strength to walk.

  The female yothea said, “If you’re going to fall down again, wait until you get to the canal site. It will be easier to bury you there.”

  As the girl slowly moved down the path, she continued to implore the woman soldier. “Please, Mit Boss, I cannot go on. If I could, I would. I know Angkar has done good deeds and has treated me with kindness. I know I’m not lazy.”

  The soldier’s patience was wearing thin and she finally called some of the other women workers to assist the sick girl. As two other workers walked toward the girl, the soldier spotted me.

  “Eh, Mit, why are you standing there? Do you know this lazy girl?” she asked angrily.

  Nodding to her respectfully, I said, “No, no, Mit Neary. I went to dig at the canal, but I forgot my hat and went back to get it. I was taking a shortcut when I saw this happening. I didn’t intend to watch. No, I don’t know that girl at all.”

  “If not, why don’t you go?” she asked. “Don’t you know this is a restricted area? No men are allowed in the area of the women’s shelters. If I report you to Mit Huot, you’ll be severely punished, no doubt about it!”

  “Yes, Mit Neary. I’m sorry. I’m going,” I said. Sovong knew I was in trouble, and called out, “Mit Thy, hurry up! Let’s get to work! This isn’t your problem.”

  Sovong said to the yothea, “Don’t worry, Mit Neary Boss. I will do my best to re-educate him.”

  “See that you do, Mit. Otherwise, I will send your friend to the center where memories are changed!” she warned. “Keep your eyes on your buddy and make sure he never wanders into this area again.”

  Sovong put on a good act of being embarrassed and being angry with me, telling her, “You can count on me, Mit Neary Boss!”

  We hurried down the path to the worksite, trying to keep from laughing. Sovong later chastised me for being so stupid.

  One evening after eating our pathetic rations, Sovong and I found a secluded spot to watch the sunset. We sat beneath a small tree and spoke softly about trying to escape to Vietnam. I didn’t seriously consider escape a possibil
ity, but I enjoyed the conversation as a way to occupy my mind with thoughts other than fatigue, hunger, and desperation. Escape was wishful thinking for both of us. We had no knowledge of the geography of our area, we didn’t know where the border was located, and we had family members we could never leave behind.

  Our conversation lasted well past sundown and, although we noticed how dark it had become, we continued our discussion about escaping. Suddenly, the clouds parted, allowing the light of the full moon to brighten the night. Sovong stared up at the moon.

  “Friend Thy, someday I will escape this damned regime,” he said determinedly. I saw that he was serious and told him, “Sovong, you’re crazy! Look around you. We’re living on a boat that is floating mid-river. There’s no way on or off. The guerrillas are on guard every night and they’re everywhere. If you’re caught, they’ll hang you upside down from a tree, strip off your clothes, and scrape off your flesh with their knives. Then, they’ll rub salt in your wounds until you’re dead. Do you recall Mit Khan from a few days ago?” I reminded him of just such an incident several days before.

  “That’s enough, friend Thy,” said Sovong curtly, then stood up and walked to the hut without another word.

  Sovong was unwilling to discuss the matter for the next few days. He spoke to no one and appeared to concentrate only on his work. Then, he was gone.

  The next day, guerrillas came to talk to our group, claiming they had captured Sovong and sent him to the regional center, feared by all of us as the worst of all torture locations.

  Two more days passed and the guerrillas returned to our worksite, demanding that our entire work group be sent to the interrogation center because none of us had reported to Angkar that Sovong was planning to escape. They were particularly angry with me because I was Sovong’s work partner. They bound our hands, and led us all to a center about seven kilometers from the worksite. Immediately on our arrival, they interrogated and tortured us, one at a time, making certain that we could hear but not see one another.

  The screams of each individual being tortured unnerved the rest of us. Each time one of my fellow workers cried out in pain, chills ran over me like a cold wind. I was the last to be interrogated and I was scared to death by the time the guerrillas came for me. As far as I could tell, none of my work group had been killed. I thought perhaps the yothea considered my group too valuable as canal and levee workers to discard us without good cause. Whatever the case, they sent us back to the worksite where the guerrillas watched us even more closely. I still shudder when I remember the horror of hearing others being beaten and awaiting my turn for the same to happen to me.

  It was four long months before the canal and levee project was finally completed. Each day, people died from torture and starvation. My single goal was to survive. During those months, Angkar wasted not a moment. We were given no more than ten minutes to eat our rations. The guerrillas were constantly chanting, “Angkar’s progress is great and marvelous!” Many times, I came close to giving up. I was able to survive by searching in the woods with my hoe at night, finding roots, rats, snakes, frogs, crickets, snails, and crabs, most of which I ate raw because there was no time for cooking. I learned that I would eat anything when I was hungry. But now, the canal project was over, and the workers returned to their villages. I walked back to Prayap.

  10

  The Worst Night of All

  When I returned to Prayap, I was again with my wife and son. The village leader assigned me to work in the fields away from my wife. Life was as before, but with more work and less food.

  Time passed ever so slowly during the black clothes regime. The monotony of work and the constant pain of hunger made time stand still. Stubbornly, however, the days became months. Now in 1977, about a year and a half after coming to Prayap, the Vietnamese attacked the ancient Cambodian town of Svay Rieng, located in the parrot’s beak region of Cambodia. The long struggle between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese turned to outright war.

  Prayap village was close enough to the border that we heard gunfire nearly every day for months. Over time, the Khmer Rouge became fractured as various groups struggled for control of the organization and the country. Now, Pol Pot’s faction was in the ascendancy and they began killing anyone they suspected of being a Vietnamese sympathizer: villagers, New People, and their own soldiers and party members. Village leaders throughout the district were called together to prepare contingency plans for the evacuation of their villagers in the event the Vietnamese attacked. The leaders were worried about an imminent Vietnamese attack, but they were also worried about villagers and New People escaping to Vietnam. They had reason for concern.

  On a muggy, dull morning a few weeks later, we heard the village bell ringing, signaling the evacuation of Prayap. Sean, the village chief, made an announcement to the people gathering about him. “Everyone! You are to leave the village immediately! No questions, no noise.”

  Since we were all aware that an evacuation might be called, the process was efficient and rapid. We simply grabbed our children and meager belongings and followed the guerrillas out of the village. All two hundred families moved out, heading northwest, away from the Vietnamese. The village leader assigned me to drive the oxcart loaded with cooking utensils for the communal kitchen. My wife, Devi, walked with our two-year-old son in her arms and a bundle of our belongings on her head.

  It was still morning when we left Prayap. We traveled on oxcart paths and across rice paddies until we reached the National Highway. We were forced to keep up with the guerrillas and, by mid-afternoon, had not yet stopped to rest. The sun baked us until we were sweaty, thirsty, and exhausted. Mit Sean riding on his pony finally gave permission for us to stop along the side of the National Highway. “Everyone, rest here in the shade. When the lunch meal is ready, I’ll call you.”

  I quickly released the oxen from their yoke, tied them to a shady tree, and put down some dry hay for them to eat. My family rested in the shade of the oxcart, a few palm tree leaves on the ground to serve as a floor mat. Devi nursed Sokhanarith while I helped cook the meal. Even before lunch was ready, people had formed a line. I chose to rest under the shade of a small tree when my work was done rather than stand in the hot sun.

  As I waited for my family’s rations, I couldn’t help but notice how thin the people of my village had become. Standing in the blazing sun, their hands clutching empty steel bowls provided by Angkar, they were a pathetic sight. They were physically weak and so skinny their ribs stuck out. They had heron necks and wrists like ladle handles. Their hollow cheeks and sunken eyes gave them monkey faces. Their teeth were blackened by the constant diet of soup made from banana tree stalks, the staple food of the Pol Pot regime. Their clothes were tattered, torn rags that barely hung on their bodies, and their shoes had long since disintegrated. Their hair looked like matted straw because Angkar considered items like soap and shampoo to be symbols of the old society and anyone using them was an enemy of the revolution.

  Lunch was finally served, and those of us not yet in line hurried up for the rations being doled out by a female yothea named Monida, the woman in charge of the communal kitchen. No one ever referred to her by name; we called her “the bitch.” She was about thirty years old, married to a guerrilla soldier, and she had the flat, round face and dark skin of her ancestors who’d lived in the remote forests of Cambodia. She always wore the black clothes of the revolution with a krama scarf wrapped around her head and rubber tire sandals on her feet. She was uneducated, unkind, and selfish, especially with our food. She intensely disliked New People because we were from urban areas, so she considered us worthless capitalists. The dislike was mutual and she knew it. But she seemed to enjoy being hated. Often, just to be spiteful, she required members of the same family to eat separately.

  The bitch’s trademark was yelling at everyone in line. Today was no exception. “You’re so slow! Hurry up!” she shouted. “We must finish quickly so we can continue our journey! If you are late, I won’t
give you any rations and I’ll report you. You’ll be sent away for re-education!”

  Each person stopped by the pot of gruel that was sitting on the ground. Next to the gruel pot was a large kettle of taro leaf soup with a few fish floating on top. It looked like foamy black mud. I watched my gaunt countrymen as they passed, the bitch serving up cruelty and threats with the meager rations. She glared at each person in line, as each held up his or her bowl with bony fingers.

  “Eh, Mit, Hurry up! Hurry up! Move! Hold your bowls closer. I don’t want to spend the energy reaching out to you!” True to her nature, she continued, “I’m tired of standing here in the hot sun handing out your rations. I’m the only one who must work while you eat! I’m the one being persecuted!”

  She pointed her ladle at the next person, and yelled, “Eh, Mit Neary, why are you so timid and hesitant? Why is your hand shaking? Are you so damned hungry that you can’t hold your bowl?” As the woman shrank back from her insults, the yothea continued, “Oh, now look at you! Are you angry with Angkar? Well then, I must reduce your ration to one ladle! That’s fair for you, Mit Neary!”

  She served the next man his gruel, spilling some of it on the ground. The man could do or say nothing in protest. He simply moved on. Anyone who argued with Bitch Monida would risk banishment to the re-education center for torture and execution.

  When my turn came, I walked up and handed her my bowl. She stared at me, then half smiled, as if she wanted to say something. Suddenly, Sean appeared and interrupted her. “Mit Neary Monida, increase Mit Thy’s rations, please. He and his wife have become good workers for Angkar. They have turned away from the old society and are now respectful, loyal, and intensely devoted to Angkar,” he said pleasantly.

  Bitch Monida turned to Sean and smiled. Then she gave me five ladles of taro leaf soup. I was thinking, “What an honor to have a larger portion of crap to eat. It contains no meat, only taro leaves, water, and salt.”