Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors

Abstract

"Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors" compiled by Dith Pran and edited by Kim DePaul is reviewed.

Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors. Compiled by DITH PRAN and edited by KIM DEPAUL. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997. xvii, 199 pp. $27.50 (cloth); $14.95 (paper).

April 17, 2000 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the seizure of power by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and in recent years a number of autobiographical accounts of this tragic period in modern Cambodian history have appeared. Among such works are those of Chanrithy Him, Luong Ung, Daran Kravanhm, and Dith Pran. What makes Dith Pran's contribution unique is that it brings together accounts by many Khmer who experienced as children the tragedy and trauma of the killing fields. Dith Pran is the perfect person to have compiled the volume because he himself lived under the Khmer Rouge and escaped the killing fields. He was the New York Times photojournalist made famous by the award-winning film, The Killing Fields, and portrayed so brilliantly by the late Haing S. Ngor. Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields also contains a valuable introduction by Ben Kiernan, director of the Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale University. Kiernan's insightful essay situates these important stories in the context of the Khmer Rouge politics and political culture, which resulted in what he terms "the mass kidnapping of a nation" (p. xiii).

This volume contains twenty-nine moving personal stories of children living under the Khmer Rouge, seventeen by men and twelve by women, whose ages during the period in question range from five to seventeen. Many of these writers were originally from urban Cambodia, though the stories unfortunately provide few details on their families' exact socioeconomic status under the old regime. Nearly all are now part of the Khmer diaspora living in various parts of the United States.

To survive the killing fields, these writers all showed enormous courage and the kind of Protean flexibility described by the scholar Robert J. Lifton. They are to be commended for their willingness to share deeply personal stories, which bring back tragic and often horrifying memories that can be extremely traumatic. As a collection, the stories vividly portray how incredibly cruel humans can be to each other and how so many died from overwork, exhaustion, illness (without adequate medical treatment), malnutrition, torture, and direct execution in the name of Angka (the revolutionary organization) governing Democratic Kampuchea (DK) under Pol Pot. Several of the stories also speak of the deaths caused by B-52 bombings of rural Cambodia during the civil war prior to the Khmer Rouge takeover. Several writers suggest that the serious food shortages, which affected all the volume's contributors, were due to wholesale export of food to China.

The resilience of traditional Khmer culture, despite the Khmer Rouge's attempt to destroy the traditional family structure by turning children against their parents and relatives, is inspiring. The frequent separation and death of family members is one of the more painful aspects of these stories. As these accounts reveal, even marriages were arranged by the Khmer Rouge. At times brave Cambodians even risked their lives to preserve their culture, especially the importance of family relations and ties. Many of these storytellers reflect back almost romantically and nostalgically on the period before the Khmer Rouge (i.e., before 1970), when life in Cambodia was largely peaceful and characterized for many by a kind of affluent subsistence and contentment.

While the stories are unanimous in condemning the brutality of the Khmer Rouge, a careful reading of them does give credence to the view articulated by the scholar Michael Vickery that actual conditions did vary from zone to zone and that the Khmer Rouge cadres were not necessarily monolithic in their actions and behavior. The stories also help to break down stereotypes about the Khmer Rouge.

Interestingly, many of the stories touch on the Vietnamese intervention (late 1978 to early 1979), which overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime and forced them into the remote countryside. In describing this key event, nearly all the writers refer to it as a "Vietnamese invasion," rather than liberation by the Vietnamese. Though all the writers in the volume personally benefited from the political changes brought about by Vietnamese intervention, it is perhaps their strong, persistent Khmer nationalism that leads causes the use of the term "invasion."

Prior to each account, biographical information is provided on each writer. It is noteworthy that overall these individuals have been remarkably successful in their subsequent professional lives. Seath K. Teng even invokes the Darwinian concept of the survival of the fittest to explain the subsequent success of the survivors. The volume would have been strengthened by including more accounts by survivors still living in Cambodia; only one account is by a survivor presently living in Cambodia.

Accounts by former refugees, such as those contained in this volume, provide an invaluable firsthand recollection of the brutality of the Khmer Rouge and its genocidal policies. Given the horrifying and traumatic experiences of such individuals, their views of the killing fields of Cambodia understandably will present a uniformly grotesque and grisly picture of Democratic Kampuchea and its political culture. To balance their perspectives, which have certainly been reinforced living in a diaspora that holds similar views, it is important to triangulate and use multiple sources of data and information to supplement volumes of this type. Such sources include the data of the Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale; the work of key scholars such as David Chandler, Ben Kiernan, Henri Locard, and Michael Vickery; data being gathered for the tribunal to try Khmer Rouge leaders; and regional Southeast Asian research (Cambodian, Thai, and Vietnamese) on DK and the Khmer Rouge.

By publishing this moving anthology of children's accounts of life under the Khmer Rouge, Dith Pran has made a valuable contribution both to Khmer Studies and the more universal study of human genocide. These stories also serve to raise the consciousness of the United States about the disastrous consequences of its role in contributing to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and supporting the regime politically and diplomatically. It is to be hoped that telling these stories will prevent future killing fields.