For the Sake of All Living Things

by John M. Del Vecchio

  Thiounn nudged him. “What would her uncle say if he knew you were a socialist?”

  “I’m not,” Teck answered.

  “No!?” Louis shooed Teck’s answer away with a flick of his hand. “Your father thinks you still study your painting, but we know.”

  “I’ve been to a few rallies. That’s all.”

  “You should be more serious,” Sakun said. “Truly. Marriage is a sacred rite and the Wheel of Life...”

  “God! You sound like my father,” Teck said.

  “Truly,” Sakun repeated. “When you’re married, you will have to change.”

  Teck slapped his fingertips on the table. “I will still come here,” he said. “Just as always.”

  The conscripts were reunited. They were told they would move en masse to a far section of the camp. Guards from the old section herded them into one end of a long, narrow, covered, meandering bamboo maze, then closed the gate. They had been instructed to run. Nang led the group. Fear made him obey. In obedience there was security. Ur hung back. Nang had not seen him since the night he brought the water. He was horrified. Without treatment Ur’s thigh wound had reinfected. He was ill, feverish. His nose had been broken. Bruises discolored his hands and feet. He had the look of being beyond fear. From the original wheel, only seven remained.

  “Run with me.” Nang came back, prodded Ur. He had moved just past the first turn and stopped. The others had run until the second turn, then fear overcame them and they halted, hesitated, virtually running in place, afraid not to run, afraid to proceed into the tunnel. Slowly, they began to advance, disoriented, feeling the sides, afraid of their own disorientation, not even sure after the fourth or fifth turn if they indeed were continuing in the right direction or if they had accidentally reversed themselves and were headed back to their old tormentors.

  “Samnang,” Y Bhur said. “We must escape.”

  Samnang, Nang thought. He turned, looked behind himself. The others were no longer in sight. Samnang, he thought again. It sounded very strange. He knew that once he had been...“Run!” The order roiled up out of him from somewhere he did not know, pushed by something he did not recognize, could not question. Nang grabbed Ur’s shoulder and pulled, ran and pulled with all his strength, a reserve he did not know existed. In seconds they were at the back of the cluster of cringing conscripts. “Run!” Nang growled horribly, growled like a guard, with contorted face. The mob spurted, hesitated. Nang dragged Ur crazily through, over the others, seething mad, pulled as if pulling the entire band until they burst forth from the tube.

  Nang froze. Others cringed. A contingent of neary, girl soldiers, welcomed them with half coconut shells of water. Pah crept forward. Met Sar stepped before the ranks. To one side a double rank of green-clad cadets stood smartly at attention.

  “Welcome.” Met Sar’s voice was so comforting Nang felt fear melt, flow from his face, through his shoulders, down his abdomen, felt it piss from his groin, trickle down his legs and seep into the earth. He hunched there like an animal, humiliated.

  “From today on,” Met Sar said loudly enough for all to hear, “you shall be known as ‘student.’ ” To the seven he said quietly, “Stand up straight.” He motioned them erect with both hands, palms rising. “In a line, please.” The conscripts formed into a row. “You shall be Student Pah. You, Student Eng. You, Student Ur. The Movement will heal your wound. You, Student Nang.” He continued down the line, then directed them to a dining area.

  Training was rigidly structured and compartmentalized. Varying tasks were accomplished at dispersed locations in or around the compound. Their days began at first light with vigorous calisthenics, then breakfast, followed by classes from seven o’clock to eleven o’clock. More physical exercise, lunch, chores, then classes from two to four-thirty. The new conscripts were added to a group of thirty-nine to make a class of forty-six. Nang found this camp delightful compared to the reception area. Had he recalled his home he would have found it pathetic, an ensnaring wretched quagmire of pitiful shacks, poor-quality rice and vile living conditions where only the elite were allowed any material comforts. But he did not compare it to Phum Sath Din. He compared it to the Mountaineer village aflame, to the coffin, the wheel, the beatings. Each day he grew stronger, more sure, slyer. Each day he understood more. Each day he received instructions in the new revolutionary mentality, the politics of enlightenment, the necessity for obedience. He was taught jungle living, hygiene and survival; he learned which plants were edible, which toxic. He was sent to collect a week’s food—leaves, roots, bark—set to prepare it, to exist on it. There was no time to think of earlier life. Each day the desire to earn a yothea’s krama, a soldier’s scarf, increased.

  In religion class Nang sat mesmerized as the instructor said, “I bet you’ve been stuffed with Buddhist teachings, that you’ve heard your fathers talk of the evils of the upper classes and of Norodom Sihanouk.”

  Yes, yes, Nang thought. How did you know? He sat perfectly still, though wishing to turn and speak to Student Eng beside him and tell him the teacher was right.

  “The real Buddha is the People,” the instructor continued. “The People are invincible. They can accomplish any task. But they have been told since birth to give their spirit to this Buddha. Habit in youth becomes nature in age. For generations babies have had heaped upon them Buddha, Buddha, Buddha! Habit became nature. But it is not true. Henceforth, anyone who meddles with the People will be eliminated. Buddha! Augh! He was not even Kampuchean. Five hundred years ago some crazed monk from Sri Lanka tricked a frightened feudal monarch into exchanging the wealth of our nation for a promise of salvation. The monarchy forced the People to become Buddhist and this false foreign doctrine has passed from generation to generation as Kampuchea has been bled from great empire to poverty.

  “Dumb king. Not even in India do people worship this Buddha. Kings are dumb. Two centuries ago a king was tricked into giving a quarter of our land to an Annamite family as dowry for their daughter. Driven by sins of the flesh he gave them Prey Nokor. The yuons named it Sai Con; the French, Saigon. But it is Khmer. The Mekong Delta is Khmer. We will regain these lands.”

  Yes, Nang thought. I know this to be true. He sat, stunned, seized by the words, the thoughts.

  “Not once, in two thousand years, has the monarchy been able to defend Kampuchea’s territorial integrity. Again and again”—the instructor slammed his fists angrily on his small lectern—“the monarch has sold out Kampuchea.”

  “Yes,” Nang jumped up, shouted. “That’s true,” he yelled. The class stared at him. The lecturer smiled inwardly, took note, stared Nang back into his rigid seated posture.

  “Two years ago,” the lecturer continued, “Sihanouk obtained statements from the government of North Viet Nam and the provisional government of the South expressing recognition and acceptance of Kampuchea’s present territorial boundaries including the coastal islands off Kep and Kampot. What good is writing. No matter how fine the paper, no matter how elaborate the words, the yuons still have thousands of troops inhabiting our territory. It’s collusion. Buddha and the monarchy. We shall rid the land of both and the yuons will flee.”

  Nang left the lecture elated. To Ur he said, “My father said those same things. We can avenge our families.”

  Ur stared into his eyes. “Your father said similar things. Not the same.”

  Nang turned to Pah and Eng. “We’ll be soldiers.”

  “Yeah,” Eng answered. “Real soldiers.”

  Pah looked at Eng and Nang. Then at Ur. He said nothing but he walked behind Ur.

  In the new compound the beatings did not stop but now they were meted out for specific infractions. As often as not punishment was delivered, not immediately, but during self-criticism sessions. Immediate punishments were light. Nang had been slapped twice during the day following the lecture on Buddhism and the monarchy for humming without permission. Eng had been roughed up for singing. Ur had been beaten for showing disrespect.


  Punishments in self-criticism sessions were harsh. On the seventh night the class was separated into four cells for kosangs, Khmer for construction, a ritual similar to “struggles” in China, to kiem thao in Viet Nam. Three guards sat behind a narrow split-bamboo table set in a small open-sided hut. A dozen students sat on the earth in proper posture before the table. The guard at the center, Met Din, spoke seriously, not loudly, not angrily, just harshly. “Student Ur will rise, come forward and kneel.” Ur immediately obeyed. He did not know his offense or who had reported him. He knew only he would be punished for his infractions and the punishment would hurt. He did not understand why they had not allowed the infection to consume him, why they had treated him, tended his wound with powders, cleansed it daily, even given him extra rations, since, he was certain, had been certain since they marched from Plei Srepok, he was destined to be killed.

  “The Movement wishes you to learn proper revolutionary attitudes,” Met Din rasped in Khmer.

  “I wish to learn also,” Ur responded. In his nervousness before the panel he spoke in Jarai. Immediately a guard from the end of the table leaped at him, swinging full arm, slapping his face, knocking Ur to the earth. The students cursed him in Khmer. Ur scrambled to recover his posture. Met Din repeated his statement. Ur responded in Khmer.

  “Last night you were heard committing a sin of the flesh.” Ur stared at Met Din. “Answer.”

  He did not know what to answer. “In rain, in wind, in health...” he began.

  “Damn savage,” Met Din shouted. “You must confess. You will confess and promise to rebuild yourself a better person. You must promise loyalty to the Movement. You must learn to tremble. Masturbation is a sin against the People. Confess.”

  “Confess,” screamed a student.

  “Last night—” Ur began.

  “Turn,” a side guard shouted. “To the students. Not to me.”

  “Last night I—” Ur began again.

  “You are scum,” Met Din interrupted.

  “Scum,” Nang shouted. The word came out before his thought congealed.

  “I will not do it again,” Ur said.

  “You are buffalo shit,” Met Din screamed.

  “He steals,” Pah shouted. “Tell all. Tell them how you steal water.”

  “I am shit,” Student Ur said. “I promise to rebuild myself a good and pure person.”

  “You are despicable.”

  “I am despicable. I will try to rebuild myself...”

  “Try?! Try?!” Met Din screamed. “You may die trying.”

  “I will rebuild myself for the good of the Brotherhood of the Pure and the good of all Kampuchea.”

  Met Din shouted, “And the water...”

  As the kosang progressed the students, boys ten to thirteen, became more and more aggressive, swearing angrily, spitting on Ur, jumping up and poking or shoving him. Two, three at a time they surrounded him, screaming insults and abusing him.

  “The Movement wishes the offender to be punished,” Din said. The students sat. “Those of you who wish to receive the great honor of becoming yotheas of the Movement will decide the appropriate punishment.”

  A silence fell over the kosang hut. Met Din sat motionless, unblinking, eyes fixed on the seated. No one spoke. No one moved. They had never gone this far and they were unsure how to proceed. Nang stared at Ur. He felt horrified. How, he thought, how could Ur have done such a disgusting thing? Behind Nang, Eng stood. He bowed, stood at attention, said, “Place him in the stocks for one night.” Eng sat. The guards remained motionless. Student Kun in the first row stood. “No water or food for one day.” Silence continued. Little Pah arose, “Ten lashes with the split bamboo club.” He sat. There was silence. A pang of guilt flooded Nang’s mind. Still silence. Then Kun stood again. “Two days in stocks without food or water.” The quiet pauses between suggested punishments shortened. “Hang him by his feet.” “Let us each flail him with the bamboo.” “Slice his fingertips.” “Club him.” Nang had not spoken. Met Din stared into Nang’s eyes. The guards converged their ghastly glowers. Nang’s breath shortened. A quivering rolled up from his abdomen, up through his shoulders, out the nape of his neck. He stood. Words came out. He sat. He had not heard his own words: “Tear his genitals from his body.”

  Met Din stood slowly. He shook his head. “Savages.” He smiled. “Student Ur.” Ur stood, turned and knelt facing the table. He had heard. He expected the worst. “The Movement is just, lenient, kind. Do you hate imperialists?”

  “I hate imperialists.”

  “Do you hate the monarchy?”

  “I loathe the monarchy.”

  “Do you hate yuons.”

  “I despise yuons.”

  “Should your genitals be ripped from your body?” Ur looked at Din. He could not answer. Sweat broke from his brow, trickled from his temples. “Yes?”

  “No,” Ur said weakly.

  Din smiled. “Of course not,” he said. He glared at Nang.

  Nang’s eyes met his, darted to the others. He felt humiliated, not by the punishment he’d suggested, but because Din had singled him out with his stare and rejected his demand.

  “Not,” Din smiled again, “at the first infraction. The Movement yet has use for you.”

  Once fear had become permanent it took only mild guidance and the threat of punishment to lead the students to true cruelty, to the total enjoyment of seeing others in pain. Political-ideological indoctrination and military training served to direct their cruelty, to give them efficient means of performance. From the fourth week of school, under the guise of jungle survival, the students practiced capturing, torturing and killing various kinds of animals. “Those who hesitate go hungry,” Met Din announced.

  The fifth week their rations were suspended. “Eat from the forest,” Din told them. The sixth week they received bayonets and were turned loose on Pong Pay Mountain. Nang became so proficient at catching mice he could have fed his entire class. Instead, he ate his fill and systematically tortured those left. He built small kindling piles and tethered the animals to branches at the center. Then he lit the piles and watched the desperate creatures leap, trying to stay above the flames, screech, then frantically try to dig below, finally, in agony, expire and sizzle. Every day he developed new variations to tell the guards about. Kindling circles with six, eight, ten mice tethered to a stake at the center. The mice would push and bite one another trying to escape from the heat. Nang found their cruelty to one another fascinating.

  The school had a deep narrow crocodile pit into which monkeys could be thrown. The elation, the applause, was tremendously fulfilling if one could catch a monkey for all to watch. In their seventh week Nang and Eng captured a large monkey and presented it to Met Din.

  “This is a fine animal,” Met Din congratulated the students. “Today, you be the instructors. I’ll watch with the class.” Eng tied the monkey’s arms behind its back. Nang hooked his rope about the animal’s neck, hooked it exactly as he himself had been hooked in the dark the night he was brought to the school. The monkey shrieked, lunged, struggled against the restraints. “Make him run with you,” a cadreman called, and Nang took off at a sprint. The monkey ran but soon stumbled facedown and screamed. Nang jerked it up, ran again. Again the animal fell and shrieked. The students laughed, the cadres applauded. The teasing continued, transformed to torture. At this point in their training, the only time students were permitted to smile or laugh was during torture. Many became addicted to sadism. The animal, expressing so much anguish, so uncomprehending, displaying such human traits, made the crowd guffaw.

  “Hack off his tail,” Kun yelled, and Nang immediately flourished his honed bayonet. For weeks their physical training had focused on hand-to-hand combat, jujitsu, karate and bayonet. Nang leaped, kicked the animal. As it sprawled Nang whisked off its tail and flung it to the crowd. Again the animal screamed.

  “The pit! The pit!” the mob chanted. Everyone pushed in. Nang and Eng untied the animal to keep their
cords. They held it head down over the crocodiles below. The monkey shook spasmodically, lurched to no avail. Then it let out an eerie low moaning the likes of which Nang had never heard. It disgusted and horrified him. It sounded like prayer. Nang’s nostril’s flared. He reared up whipping the monkey overhead, then snapped his arms forward, down, flinging the animal toward the crocodiles. About him giggles, laughs, titters, hoorahs. And from below the moan, the moan apparently unperceived by all except Nang.

  Indoctrination never ceased. From the very highest levels of Khmer Krahom policymaking came this understanding and direction—the greater one’s belief in a cause, the greater one’s effort and sacrifice. Classes began with the chant: In wind, in rain, in health, in sickness, day or night, we will obey, correctly and without complaint, that which the Movement orders. Again and again, repeated endlessly for months. Classes closed with the call, “Victory to the Revolution!”

  Lectures delivered by information cadremen were highly informative—usually ending in militant zealousness. “During the colonial period,” they were told, “Cambodian money went to France for the purchase of manufactured goods neither desired nor needed by Kampucheans. Money which should have been used to develop the nation was diverted to the colonialists and imperialists. When the rubber plantations brought in French currency, even though the Khmer laborers were paid well, it was all to serve France. Those who tended the plantations were paid more than all other Kampucheans but they were charged more to live and their living conditions were poorer than those of any others in the nation. And their money forced prices up throughout the land and made all Kampucheans poorer.”

  As Nang listened he felt as if in his mind there existed an impervious bubble in which someone had told him these things before. Who the someone had been, he did not attempt to recall.

  “During the nineteen-twenties, thirties, and forties, landownership was taken from the peasants by the banks. Ownership concentrated in the hands of the capitalists.”