KHMERS ROUGES SURVIVOR
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Days go by and we are still living that life of “liberty”. But one morning, the entire Khmers Rouge chief gets us together. That gathering don’t please me because it look the same as in the concentration camp where I was always force to go at those boring and stupid reunions. Everybody is there and the chief speak to us: “today we will get you in a place where you will never lack food. No need to bring with you your luggage. There, you will need nothing. You will be happy. It will be like heaven”. Being naïve I believe everything the chief said and I am looking forward to leave to go there: “heaven”, like he said. I am so excited. My brother seeing me so excited tells me: - You understand nothing. You are that stupid. - Understand what? - You are too young to get it. - If you explain it to me maybe I will understand? He doesn’t answer me. It is clear that I don’t understand what he is telling me. I don’t know why my brother is mad. Everyone seems so happy. Why not him? Now the Khmers Rouge are promising to us a better life and I don’t think we can ask for more. That is what I think but it’s not the case with my brother. One morning, while we are eating, I see several trucks arriving. I am more excited. I say to my brother: “brother, I want to get in those trucks.” He looks at me with ferocious eyes. I would have like to be able to read his mind. He doesn’t speak to me and he think that I will understand; his ferocious eyes make me sick. Suddenly I see the man, the woman and the children jostle to get in the trucks. I am so excited; me too I want to get in these trucks; I never had the chance before to get in a truck so big. It looks so nice to be with those already in the trucks. I look at my brother for him to tell me it’s “O.K.”, but he refuses. For the first time he keeps me beside him, afraid that I will run away without his authorisation. I believe myself so invincible that I can’t think of what might happen to me. During all day the trucks leave full with people. There is only one left, the last one. Where are we going? “To heaven” the Khmers Rouge are telling us. My brother is in doubt; he is suspicious and radically refuses to get in the truck. Then the red Savages get mad and tells us: “you will all get in the truck.” My brother let the others get first into the truck and wait until the last minute. I am impatient. When I see him getting in the truck I slowly follow him to make sure that he will not become furious. I am in a hurry for the truck to move; I want to know how it feels. We are around fifty persons in the truck. Finally we are leaving. I am all smiles and my innocent look makes my brother sick. The longer the truck goes on, the more we get into a big forest. Infinity of trees. I ask myself how come “heaven” the Khmers Rouge were talking about, is so far away. It is a strange heaven! Naturally, I would like to ask my brother to explain to me what heaven is, but I don’t dare ask him questions and I am scare of him. He is too authoritarian, moralist. In the forest the trees are so high and so tight that even the sun has a problem to go through. It is dark and I don’t like that. I see in my head snakes in the trees and I am afraid that they will fall on us; but Gabu is there, he never leaves me, he is always ready to protect me. I think about my mother. I miss her so much! “Mother, where are you? I miss you so much. I can’t forget you, but as time go it become more difficult to remember your face. That’s why I am sad, mother. Do not blame me, mother. You know, I will always remember what you did promise to me: Mother will come back to get you. Mother will come back to get you!” Suddenly the truck stops. The driver gets out and my brother asks him: - Sir, why do you stop here in the middle of the forest? - I have to look at something. Farther we hear people wailing but, in this big forest, we can’t see a thing. I turn to look at my brother and I notice that my brother is crying like others in the truck. I feel that something bad will happen but right now I don’t know what. In don’t understand what. Those wails, are they from people who have been buried alive like adults were talking about earlier? This time, we are nearer death more than I thought. It is the first time that I see my brother crying and it’s not normal. People into the trucks are nervous. Since the truck driver got out of the truck, distress appeared in a clear and scary way. Crying becomes louder. I am panicking without knowing why. I stay near my brother. I don’t want to die alone. I start crying too. I hear that some people want to get away from the truck but then a soldier with a gun in his hand appear. With a grave and bad voice he tells our truck driver who just came back: “all the holes are full here. Drive them somewhere else!” Intrigued I look at my brother who is crying more and more and finally decide to ask him: - Why are you crying, big brother? - We are all going to die. We will be buried alive in a hole. In the ground we won’t be able to breathe. It is terrible to die that way! No air! Do you understand little sister? We are going to DIE! My brother is crying in a so lamentable way that I have the feeling that the entire world is in mourning. Seeing him suffering, my anger grow in me. That anger makes me forget that I am scare. Often I use my anger to hide my sadness and my fear, if not to survive. I need anger to face my life and to feel “strong” and why not, “almighty”. Without knowing it, with my anger, I am protecting my inside world. My brother is sad and pale. I understand now why he did not want to get in the truck. I also understand why the Khmers Rouge told us that we were not going to need anything; where we were going, there will be no starvation, no distress. It is true, death will put an end to all our needs. Heaven, that the Khmers Rouge were talking about, is death. It was easier for the Khmers Rouge to convince us with their kindness and in letting us free to go and free to eat everything we want to. That way we did believe that life was going to be easier. They are smarter than I thought, those killing Savages, but not enough to fool my brother who knew what was going to happen. As for me, I still refuse to believe that we are going to die. I trust Gabu: I will not die, he will protect me. I must survive for my mother. I don’t want to hurt her by dying. Our truck goes from one place to another one and every, time the truck driver is told that all the holes are full. We are “saved”, we will not be buried for now. Suddenly a see relief in my brother face. All the holes are full and the truck driver gets us to a strange place. It looks like a desert, only land everywhere. We have to wait. It is almost dark, I am afraid of snakes and wild animals. While thinking, I admire by brother: he is so bright. He understands everything before it’s happen. If we had gotten into the trucks earlier, we would not be alive. Thinking about it, it becomes difficult for me to breath, I could have been buried in the hole alive.
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About the Book
En 1975, du jour au lendemain j’ai été arrachée de ma chère mère à cause de la guerre des Khmers rouges. Cette perte de l’être cher m’a plongée dans une telle souffrance, un tel vide que je me croyais morte vivante. Ce qui me conservait en vie était l’espoir de revoir pour une dernière fois ma mère, vœu qui ne s’est jamais réalisé. Cela m’a pris des années avant de pouvoir lui dire adieu. Le 17 avril 1975, la punition des habitants de Phnom-Penh fut la fin de cette ville telle que nous l’avions connue, par les Khmers rouges, ville que j’aurais aimé connaître davantage. Cette troupe de jeunes paysans armés jusqu’aux dents, des garçons à peine sortis de l’adolescence, a répandu la terreur à travers la ville de Phnom-Penh, avec leur air arrogant et prétentieux, tout comme si le monde entier leur appartenait. Vêtus de leurs habit, ressemblant à des corbeaux, ont fait en sorte que je ne peux voir ces animaux sans aussitôt penses à ces Khmers rouges qui me terrifient encore. Leur bandeau rouge sang sur le front avait de quoi faire frémir jusqu’aux os et leurs yeux affichant leur identité de monstre, de tueur, sans aucune pitié pour leurs semblables. Leurs camps de concentration furent une des épisodes les plus sanglantes du XXe siècle. Ces jeunes Khmers rouges, formés pour mépriser les gens de la ville comme si nous étions des criminels dangereux. Ils nous détestaient, nous qui vivions dans les villes, car nous étions la raison de leur pauvreté; nous méprisants, nous devions donc être éliminés. Ce fut à leur tour de nous maltraiter afin de se venger de nous. Ces idées fausses, implantées dans leurs esprits par les chefs Khmers rouges, leur ont permis de nous torturer et de tuer dans aucune pitié et remord. Le 17 avril 1975, les Khmers rouges prennent le pouvoir et entrent à Phnom-Penh. La capitale fut vidée de tous des habitants en moins de 48 heures. Les soldats rouges passèrent de porte en porte pour faire sortir les gens en disant : « Vous ne partez que pour quelques minutes, inutile d’apporter des bagages » Ma famille et moi furent déplacés, tout comme la population Khmer, vers la campagne. À ce moment le Cambodge sombre dans une guerre terrible où les Khmers rouges ont transformé le pays en un vaste camp de concentration, un camp de la mort. Les Khmers rouges ont anéantis les élites en les exterminant. Cet immense génocide a fait disparaître le plus grande partie de la population Cambodgienne. Dans cette foule de déportés j’étais là, impuissante face à cette guerre dans pitié. Le quotidien du camp de la mort était fait de torture, d’humiliation, d’exécutions sommaires, de famine provoquée et de terreur…. Longue liste pour mes quatre années passées sous le régime de Pol Pot. J’étais perdue dans cet enfer, dans un face à face constant avec la mort; mais mon heure n’était pas au rendez-vous. Mais plusieurs d’autres n’ont pas eu cette chance car des millions de Khmers ont perdus la vie en moins de quatre années sous ce régime de Pol Pot qui voulait instaurer le communisme rural et la terreur. « Il faut respecter l’anghar…. » (sorte de dieu), sinon c’est la mort qui nous attendait et elle était très proche : à notre porte et parfois même attendait avec impatience. Pol Pot : ce nom seul terrifie le peuple khmer. Il vole le pouvoir de Dieu sur la vie et la mort de millions de khmers. Avoir un langage trop « correcte » ou porter des lunettes, font de ces personnes des criminelles qu’il faut éliminer. Ces gens instruits, il vaut mieux les éliminer : vaut mieux éliminer un innocent que de garder un ennemi. Des vrais psychopathes qui prenaient plaisir à torturer les gens afin de se donner de l’importance ou pour se sentir plus vivants. Les slogans des Khmers rouges étaient : « Vous devez vous épier les uns les autres » « Vous garder ne rapporte rien; vous détruire n’est pas une perte! » « Celui qui proteste est un ennemi. S’il s’oppose, il devient un cadavre » « Mieux vaut tuer un innocent que de garder en vie un ennemi » Ces slogans constituaient les lignes de conduite des Khmers rouges et c’est à partir de cela qu’ils nous traitaient.
About the Author
1) When I started writing my book I barely knew how to write in French. But because of my suffering caused by the Khmer Rouge war that I went through in my country, during my youth, I needed to write it down to free me from my nightmares. I was real hell. When I started writing every war event came back to me and I had breathing problem remembering these terrifying memories. Nevertheless, I manage to write and during those two weeks I started to feel free from that war who was keeping prisoner inside me. I do acknowledge that it is easy for me to simply tell what I am feeling. It is a child who is speaking and the words express how a child can witness the war of others. I have a lot of memories of these significant events because they affectively touched me. I am good at writing the course of my life. I have the ability to describe my emotions with simplicity to a point that the reader can feel these same emotions. My writing style sometime takes the readers in a hellish world and in other times into in a fairy and poetic world leaving nobody indifferent. Consequently, for those who want to be stirred deep into them, from a child suffering in front of a daily death, I am the one to write about it.