MEET AN EX-KHMER ROUGE SOLDIER

My driver Non is an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier!

When I’m traveling overseas and need a taxi or motorbike taxi, I always look for the oldest driver I can find. Old men usually drive safer than younger men, and they are less likely to cheat you. 

My Cambodian driver today is Non. He's 65 years old and short, with salt and pepper hair. When he smiles I see a blackened socket where one of his teeth should be. Despite his need for dental work, I chose well today, he's been a good driver. But it’s a good thing that he only has a 120cc motorbike. Non is so short, that he’s not tall enough to handle anything bigger. 

He's bringing me and my translator back from the former rebel village of Svay Samsep. Since it's a hot day, we stop at a highway cafe for a cold drink on our way back to Neak Luong. While we enjoy our drinks and chat, that's when I learn the truth about Non. 

He's an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier! 

Non was originally from a village called Snoul, about 10 miles away. He was from a farming family, and after his father died, he moved to Neak Luong. At the age of 20, he became a Buddhist monk. 

When the Prime Minister, King Sihanouk,  was removed in a coup, he decided to fight. He wasn't drafted, or forced to pick up a gun. He chose to go to war on his own, a surprising choice for a Buddhist monk.

“I go by myself,” he says. “Sihanouk called me. To go to the forest, to the hills.” Sihanouk's radio broadcasts urged young men like him to join up with the communist Khmer Rouge. Like thousands of other rural folk, he blindly followed the king. 

Non tells me he was a Khmer Rouge soldier for 2 1/2 years, although he refers to that time as when he was 'fighting for King Sihanouk'. He once saw the old king, back in Mondulkiri during the war. Sihanouk had not yet been betrayed by the Khmer Rouge, and he was rallying the troops. “He said every soldier must try and try again, to take the country back,” Non recalled. “We must make peace for the people.” 

Making peace by going to war doesn’t make sense now, but it did to his loyal subjects back then. Sadly, neither Non nor Sihanouk knew that the group that they had joined would turn genocidal and kill over a million Cambodian civilians, including some of the king's own family. Just like Sihanouk, young Non was duped.

Sihanouk (center) regretted joining the communists

Non's Khmer Rouge unit fought in the same area where we had traveled through earlier in the day, around Phnom Cheu Kach. Fighting there was so intense, that those hills are still full of landmines and unexploded munitions today. I ask Non if he was scared when they used to get bombed by B-52 bombers. 

“Scared or not scared, no problem,” he says. “I love my country. If I die, that’s ok. I’m very happy to die for Cambodia.”

He admits to killing just one person during his time as a Khmer Rouge. The man he killed was a government soldier.“I killed one in battle, but I didn’t want to, because he was another Khmer,” he says. “I had to fight. I had to shoot, but I didn’t want to.” Given the massive number of civilians killed by the Khmer Rouge, I don't know if I believe him. 

Non left the Khmer Rouge when their first war ended in 1975, and like everyone else in the country, he became a farmer on a forced labor commune. As he was of marrying age, the Khmer Rouge leader of his commune later selected his wife for him. He was in his 30’s, his wife in her 20’s. For a blind marriage that was arranged by cult-like communist radicals, this one worked. Non and his wife are still together today, with six sons and two daughters. 

Non's wife also came from a poor family, which made her a good fit for the Khmer Rouge. “My wife is illiterate, she didn't go to school,” Non tells me. “Pol Pot Regime made her a nurse.” She’s still a nurse now, and even delivers babies. With so many illiterate nurses, it’s no wonder that the health care system in Cambodia is still a disaster. 

I ask Non when life was better in Cambodia, before the Khmer Rouge, or after their era. He angles his answer back to his beloved king again.  

“I love the family life during the Sihanouk Regime,” he says. “Now it’s bad for living. There's government corruption. The poor have problems; the rich and the foreign companies have so much.” 

These complaints sound exactly like those used by the Khmer Rouge to attract recruits back in the 1970’s. So I ask him, “If the king asked you to go to the hills now, to go fight again, would you go?”

His answer is chilling, and there's no hesitation on his part. “Yes. Sihanouk is a very good leader. He take care of the people.” It seems that Non didn't learn anything from the genocide of the Khmer Rouge years. Much like the Nazi's, he's content to just follow orders. 

So I've been sitting here, having a chat with an Ex-Khmer Rouge, one of the most murderous regimes in history, and he has no regrets. And I bought him a soy bean milk too. 

I head back to Neak Luong, and then on to Phnom Penh. On the way, I think about this ex-Khmer Rouge soldier, and his lack of remorse for joining them. I guess for some people, ignorance is bliss. 


*Added Note* The above discussion with the Ex-Khmer Rouge soldier, took place before King Sihanouk's death.

REBEL VILLAGE RECOVERS

***This post is dedicated to James R. Vallandingham. He enjoyed reading this blog.***

3 bridges right to left: 1 bombed out bridge, 1 under construction, and 1 temporary bridge

I'm heading out of the town of Neak Luong, cruising east down Highway 1. With no auto taxis in this part of Cambodia, I'm riding on the back of a motorbike taxi. It's not my preference, but there's no other option in this rural locale. With hot tropical air blowing in my face, we turn north, onto a bumpy dirt road. Out here in the countryside, away from the highways there are few paved roads.

Passing by rice paddies, we slow down to arrive at three bridges, all parallel to each other. The oldest bridge on this river is only ruined foundations; it was destroyed during the war years. We make a noisy crossing over metal planks, on a temporary one lane military style bridge. Just next to it, bare steel reaches up from the concrete supports of a third larger bridge under construction. Infrastructure like the new bridge is sorely needed in this poverty stricken province.

Before continuing on, I'm startled by a Russian made helicopter from Vietnam. It swoops low overhead as it flies eastward towards home. Young Khmer boys run up to the road, yelling at the chopper in threatening tones. Even though the war between the Khmers and Vietnam ended years ago, there's still a great deal of hatred directed at the Vietnamese.

We continue down the remote rural road, until minutes later arriving at our destination, the village of Svay Samsep.

Nakri at right, with her cousin

It's here that my guide introduces me to Nakri. Her name translates as a type of flower, which is fitting, since she's wearing a red flowered skirt. She's somewhere in her 50's, but she looks younger than her years. Her hair is styled in an old fashioned 1960's bob. Through her smile, I can see three gold teeth.

Nakri invites us to have a seat in the shade outside her village home. Over the next hour, her story unfolds. Like all Khmers who survived the war years, both Nakri and her village went through quite an ordeal.  

Back in the 1960's before the war, Svay Samsep was a quiet farming community. Nakri's family owned a lot of land, and her father was the village headman. As village leader, he was also loyal to King Sihanouk. When war came in 1970, and Sihanouk joined the Khmer Rouge, that meant that her little village joined the Khmer Rouge side too. Simple country people like Nakri knew nothing about communism. But just like their king, they were suckered into joining the Khmer Rouge. They had no idea that the genocidal communists would later destroy Cambodia.

As more Cambodians loyal to the king went to the countryside to join the fight, the nearby hills of Phnom Cheu Kach became a Khmer Rouge stronghold. I can see those hills today, and since they're close to the village, the war came to this quiet farming community. Nakri was in her 20’s, when her village was bombed for the first time.

“Afternoon bombing,” she tells me, “some people died.”

Over time, Svay Samsep and the surrounding landscape were hit with many B-52 strikes from the US  Air Force. The village didn't have many direct hits like the bombing that had hit Neak Luong, but there were many near misses. After one bombing close call, Nakri said that, “every building in the village had cracked walls.”

Some of the attacks lasted for hours, and this wasn’t just from aerial bombing, but from artillery attacks as well. Nakri recalls, “Sometimes  bombings were from 3pm, all the way until the next morning.”

Rusted tailfin from a 500 pound bomb dropped by a B-52 during the war

Walking towards her house, Nakri shows me a rusty, twisted tailfin lying on the ground. This is a tailfin from an American 500 pound bomb, dropped from a B-52 sortie during those dangerous days. There were so many B-52 air raids, that when the bombings finally ceased in 1973,  numerous large bomb craters remained surrounding the village. Later, Khmer Rouge executioners used some of these massive craters to bury corpses of those they murdered.

Even though Nakri's village had sided with the Khmer Rouge, that wasn't enough to save all of her family when the radicals took over. Nakri was sent to a neighboring province to work on a forced labor commune, and three of her seven siblings died during the Pol Pot years. They learned too late how the Khmer Rouge really were. 

Nakri's cousin, who is sitting with us, chimes in, “Pol Pot Regime, didn’t give us enough food.” Many who died during the Khmer Rouge years weren't just executed, others died from starvation.

Fortunately for Nakri, she had a skill the Khmer Rouge needed. “I know about weaving and sewing,” she tells me. 

That skill may have saved her life, as she no longer had to work slave labor in the fields. “Pol Pot people stop me farming, have me make krama,” Nakri says. The krama is the traditional red and white Khmer scarf, worn by all Khmer Rouge cadres. Today she's wearing a krama of a different style. It's checkered blue and white; she also wove it herself.

When the Khmer Rouge were forced from power, Nakri and her father returned  to their village. “When people come back, every village so quiet,” she recalled, “you could choose anywhere to live.” Many villages were virtual ghost towns then. But during that time it was also chaos. With no rule of law to protect them, Nakri's family lost most of their land. 

Hills where Khmer Rouge guerrillas once hid, are now used to supply construction sand.

Later Nakri's life took a turn for the better. After the Khmer Rouge were ousted, she married. Her new husband was a former student. Since he didn’t have any ties to the Khmer Rouge, he was able to become a police officer in 1980. He is now the village police chief.

In recent years, Nakri started her own business. As construction has picked up, she began selling sand to builders. I look over at the nearby hills of Phnom Cheu Kach. Even from here, I can see the yellowish scars of bare earth, where large sections of the hills were cut away. This is where Nakri gets sand for her business; her workers dig it out of the ground in that former Khmer Rouge stronghold.

Most of the massive bomb craters around the village are filled in now, as local farmers use the land for agriculture again. But her village still has a lot of unexploded munitions. Just last week, Nakri called up a demining group, asking them to come remove the bombs that still threaten their safety.

I notice Nakri still has short hair, rare for ethnic Khmer women these days. She wears the same bob hairstyle that the Khmer Rouge forced all women to wear back during their era of terror. Another remnant of those years, is her dislike for the Vietnamese, much like the kids I saw earlier.  

But overall, life has improved here for Nakri and her family. “My family is ‘normal’ now,” Nakri says. “With my husband as policeman, I don’t worry about anything.”

Hmmm... I wonder...  where did she get the money to buy those gold teeth? From her sand business, or from her husband the policeman??

FERRY TOWN BOMBED BY MISTAKE

Onboard a ferryboat crossing the Mekong River at Neak Luong

Neak Luong is a river town, a stopover for those seeking to cross the Mekong River. For travelers like me coming up Highway 1 from Saigon, this ferry town is a stopping point on my way to Phnom Penh.

The vehicle I'm riding in approaches Neak Luong, and as we cross the countryside outside town, I spot three large ponds from the roadway. The ponds are in a staggered line, surrounded by farming fields. These perfectly round ponds are much larger than similar depressions in the earth that I’ve seen before. That's because these ponds were formed years ago as bomb craters! They were formed by American B-52s.

The B-52 Stratofortress was one of the deadliest weapons of the Cold War era, a heavy bomber originally designed to carry nuclear weapons. A single jet could carry more than 100 massive 500 pound bombs. This high flying jet dropped its deadly cargo from 40,000 feet up, far too high for a pilot or bombardier to distinguish between friend or foe on the ground. This devastating weapon was built to fight World War III against cities in the Soviet Union. But here, it was unleashed on the bamboo villages and rice paddies of Cambodia.

Something that has been forgotten, after the US war in Vietnam ended in 1973, was that US bombing of Cambodia continued for months afterward. The total amount of bombs dropped here is almost beyond belief. From March of 1969 to August 15, 1973 when aerial bombing finally ended, 539,129 tons of bombs were dropped on Cambodia. This was 350% of the total tonnage dropped on Japan during all of World War II. For all of that tonnage, not all those bombs hit their intended targets, and these three bomb crater ponds are examples.

On August 6, 1973 the Cambodian government was fighting for its life against the Khmer Rouge. Neak Luong was an embattled garrison and ferry town, controlled by government forces. On that day, three B-52s mistakenly dropped their bomb loads directly on this government held town. 20 tons were dropped, leaving 137 people dead and 300 wounded. Most were government soldiers and their families. This deadly military blunder was exposed by New York Times reporter Sidney Shanberg, and depicted in the movie The Killing Fields. The tragic debacle that hit this town was one reason why the US bombing of Cambodia was finally halted for good only nine days later.

* * * * *

Swift boats like these reached Neak Luong during the US invasion of Cambodia (Photo: Wikipedia)

I return later to Neak Luong on a hot day, and sit down with my translator for lunch. This river town has few traces of the war years visible today; the downtown that was devastated by B-52s years ago has since been rebuilt. As I look around at the locals, I notice there are many Vietnamese here. Some have migrated up from Vietnam, to open shops and businesses in town.

I'm leery of unsanitary roadside food stands, so we step into a restaurant for a rice luncheon. As it turns out, it's not very sanitary in here either. While I'm eating my meal, some kind of animal dung falls from the ceiling, and lands on my wrist. Wiping it away, I look up at the darkened, cobweb covered rafters high above. I’m not sure if that was from a rat, a bat, or a lizard. Well, at least it didn’t fall into my food.

Paying our bill, we step out into the center of town fronting the river. As Highway 1 crosses the Mekong River here, there is no bridge to bring us across. Just like during the war, the only crossing today is by ferry boat. Now and then, that makes Neak Luong a very strategic place.

Khmer travelers wait for the ferryboat

Back in 1970, as the US military invaded eastern Cambodia, US forces came all the way here to Neak Luong. Since Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces had found safe haven in Cambodia for years, the US military sought to destroy the communist bases and drive them out. American swift boats, and many other water craft (over 100 in all) reached all the way here to Neak Luong. Cruising up the Mekong River from Chau Doc in Vietnam, it took the first swift boats only an hour and a half to get here.

Once they arrived here in Neak Luong, they met little resistance. They went looking for the only ferry boat operating here then, as they suspected it of smuggling arms for the NVA. But the ferry was gone. Asking locals where it was, they revealed that the communists had scuttled the ferry in the river, trying to hide it from the Americans. They hoped to refloat it later after the US departed. The  submerged ferry boat was spotted by an airborne patrol; somehow they were able to see it through the Mekong’s dirty waters. The ferry was refloated, and then taken back to South Vietnam to deny the communists future use of it.

Decades after the war ended, there is still no bridge here. I'll be held up here in town for an extra half hour, waiting to cross by ferry. Just steps from the ferry landing, I spot an all grey stone monument made of two soldier's statues, from during the war years. But there is no plaque to explain its purpose. My translator explains, “Vietnam-Cambodia Armed Force military. They join together to kill Khmer Rouge.”

These two somber statues are facing towards Phnom Penh, as though they march there to oust the Khmer Rouge in 1978. The Khmer Rouge radicals battled the Vietnamese Army here in Neak Luong, but they didn’t hold them for long, and Khmer Rouge resistance collapsed. Maybe the Vietnamese would have captured Phnom Penh even sooner, if there had been a bridge here then to cross the Mekong. Then again, maybe the Khmer Rouge would have already blown the bridge, as had happened in the capital. 

Monument to fighters that ousted the Khmer Rouge

Oddly enough, high on a billboard overlooking this stone monument, is a picture of current dictator/Prime Minister Hun Sen, and some other 'Cambodia People's Party' leaders. 

After first fighting as a dedicated Khmer Rouge commander, he deserted them in fear, fleeing to Vietnam. 

Hun Sen later joined this Vietnamese invasion to oust his former comrades, and as a reward the Vietnamese government later helped elevate him to power.

“Hun Sen was installed by Vietnam,” a local vendor once told me. I'm not surprised by her view. Many Khmers still see Hun Sen as a Vietnamese puppet.

Finally, it's our turn to board the ferryboat. There are two running today, and ours is named “Vishnu”, after the Hindu deity. Each ferryboat is quite large; ours holds three buses, a couple of trucks, ten cars, many motorcycles, and pedestrians. Beggars and street vendors crowd the ferryboats too. When a bridge is finally built, the hordes of vendors and beggars will be the biggest losers. They mob all the buses and cars that line up waiting for the ferry, and then accompany them back forth across the river.

As we cast off and begin the crossing, I look upriver. Many businesses line the Mekong's banks, but one section is made up of flimsy shacks, built on stilts over the river. Since this is the rainy season, the river is rising. Already the water is dangerously close to the floorboards of some of these poor homes. If the river rises much higher, they could be swept away by the strong current.

Stilt houses of poor families are nearly flooded by the rising Mekong River

I ponder the future of this crossing. Having a sturdy bridge here over the Mekong is long overdue, it would increase the traffic flow from Saigon to Phnom Penh. There have been proposals floating around for years, from donors and businesses looking to build a bridge in Neak Luong.  

A recent proposal came from the Japanese government, to build a new bridge with foreign aid. But due to problems over purchasing the necessary land on the shorelines, and due to corruption problems, it didn't happen.

There will be a bridge built here someday. How long it will take before it finally becomes a reality?




(**POST STORY NOTE** - Sometime after I visited this river crossing, agreements were signed, and a bridge finally was built. I wonder how many bribes it took to pay off government officials to finally build it.)