The last Reunion In Cambodia

The last Reunion In Cambodia

By Sichan Siv

Cambodians and other Theravada Buddhists celebrate their New Year in
mid-April.

Cambodians and other Theravada Buddhists celebrate their New Year in
mid-April. They were not always able to do so. Under Khmer Rouge and
Vietnamese rule, those ancient traditions were forbidden, impossible.
But now Cambodia is free again and the festivities are in the open. As
I wander the country of my youth, I see people spending the long
holiday praying at temples and visiting relatives.

My family used to hold a reunion on April 13 to mark both the New Year
and my mother’s birthday. In 1975, we had no idea that it would be our
last. We were all apprehensive about the future, and my mother was
distraught because I had missed the American evacuation.

The day before, an officer of the US Agency for International
Development had told me that I had to be at the embassy within an hour
if I wanted to be airlifted out of Cambodia. Instead, I went to a
meeting to find a way to help 3,000 families stranded in an isolated
province.

As I returned to Phnom Penh, the traffic became heavily congested.
When I finally reached the American Embassy and gave my name to the
security officer, he looked puzzled.

“They are not coming back — they are gone!” The guard shouted his
answer to emphasize the hard truth. And he added: “The war is over. We
will have peace!” I was 30 minutes late. My life was going to change
forever.
Everyone in the city was in a very somber mood. We prayed that our
beloved country would return to the peaceful and stable life of the
1960s. What would happen to us now that the US had closed its embassy?
Two days earlier, President Gerald Ford had announced: “The situation
in South Vietnam and Cambodia has reached a critical phase requiring
immediate and positive decisions by this government. The options
before us are few, and the time is very short.”

I had read gruesome descriptions of the atrocities committed by the
Khmer Rouge against enemies of their revolution: babies thrown into
the air and caught with a bayonet, children smashed into trees,
villagers having their throats cut with the thorns of palm branches,
merchants clubbed to death with the back of a hoe. I did not believe
them.

The street was lined with city residents, a few still wearing the
kramas and sarongs they had slept in. One was brushing his teeth. But
all were looking north, waiting for something. They looked fearful.
I came out for fresh air and saw the Khmer Rouge being welcomed.
People seemed genuinely happy that the war had ended.

Later that day, the first day of “peace”, I and 15 of my family
members left our home after the Khmer Rouge had ordered all cities
immediately emptied, and walked to Pochentong, the village where my
siblings and I were born. Our house was occupied by strangers, so we
went to the temple. The monks were already gone and there were bodies
lying around. Mother was sobbing. The women and girls in our family
were choking back tears. The boys and men were all silent.

Shortly thereafter, I was separated from my family by the Khmer Rouge.
After a year in slave labour camps, where I survived two death
sentences, I escaped to Thailand. Following a few months in a Thai
jail, in a Buddhist temple and in a refugee camp, I arrived in
Wallingford, Connecticut, US, with $2 in my pocket. I later learned I
was the only survivor in my close family. The Khmer Rouge had killed
everyone else.

Cambodia today is not unlike the Cambodia of my youth — there is deep
poverty and enormous wealth, side-by-side. There is unrest beneath the
surface, the unrest that helped to make the horrors of the last
century possible. And so, as I walk from one memory-filled place to
another, I pray for a new year in which Cambodia’s leaders will find a
way to bring about peace and stability. And, of course, I pray for my
family.

(The writer is a former US ambassador to the UN)

The New York Times

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