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.

AIRBORNE ELEPHANTS LEAVING LAOS

Old domestic terminal of Vientiane's Wattay Airport

I’ve left the far north of this lovely land of Laos, and made my way to Wattay Airport, in the capital Vientiane. I’m not here for long though, I’m waiting for a flight. Soon, I’ll be departing. Leaving Laos. 

Overall it’s been an enlightening visit, and I regret that I’m leaving. I only had one close call in Laos. That was the unfortunate encounter between my trousers and a knife, which happened while I was riding on the back of an elephant!  

Walking around the shops and restaurants of the international departure terminal, I find it more modern than expected. The domestic terminal is a relic, (more like a bus station) but the air conditioned international terminal is an oddity of advanced development for such a poor country. Foreign diplomats always fly in and out of here, and just like in other third world capital airports, diplomats hate to be uncomfortable. So they were more than happy to provide foreign aid money to build this new international terminal, to make their own airport experiences smooth and comfy. 

Before I bid adieu to Laos, I stare out the departure gate window across the tarmac. Once again, Laos surprises me!

Will an elephant from Laos survive in North Korea?

Farther down to my left, I see a Russian built cargo jet. What surprises me, is the large starred flag painted across the tail. My eyes widen. There’s no mistaking that flag, this bulky jet is from another communist country. It’s flown all the way here, from North Korea! 

Straining my eyes to see what’s going on, I can see that the rear cargo doors are swung open, and a large truck has been backed up to the tail end. 

What could they be loading? This wasn’t any secret cargo. If there was, they would have loaded the jet over in the military area of the airport, out of sight from foreigners like me. What were they loading exactly? 

TWO ELEPHANTS !

Reported in the media, this pair of departing pachyderms were a gift from the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, to their communist brothers in the People’s Democratic Republic of North Korea. (Those are strange titles for both, since neither country has any real democracy.)

Never mind that Laos isn’t really communist anymore, as capitalism abounds. There is still oppression here, but it’s nowhere near as bad as in North Korea today. But since the cold war is over and the reds lost, the North Koreans will take all the friends that they can get, even a poor landlocked friend like Laos.

It makes sense that they have to fly the elephants there on a cargo jet; they might not survive an overland trip in trucks, followed by a long sea voyage in a cargo ship. 

Leaving Laos. I'll miss this place.

Then again, I  wonder about the wisdom of sending Asian elephants to North Korea at all. Elephants have enormous appetites, and North Korea is prone to food shortages. I don’t expect that those Laotian elephants will be eating very well after they arrive. And how well will these elephants survive those cold North Korean winters, when they come from a tropical climate?

I’ll miss the simple charms of this warm locale, but now I have to leave this lovely country. My visa has already been extended, and it runs out tomorrow. My time in Laos is up. I will have to cross borders to avoid fines, or risk trouble with the authorities. 

Today I fly back to Saigon in Vietnam, but I won’t be there long either. Traveling on, I will make my way to the final country on my Southeast Asian odyssey.

Cambodia.


**NOTE** The old international airport for Vientiane has been closed. The new airport has opened, across the street.

HO CHI MINH'S HOUSE

Hanoi's humble Ho Chi Minh house

I'm in downtown Hanoi, and I enter what looks like a neighborhood park. Walking round a scenic, tree lined pond, I enter a small elevated house. It’s just a simple green home with few rooms, built on top of wooden stilts. This seems like a scene that I would see out in the Vietnamese countryside, not in the downtown's capital.

This humble little dwelling, was the house of Ho Chi Minh. 

Ho's conference room. Did he use the phones in the back to call Kruschev in the USSR, and Mao in China?

The official government brochure says this is: “The house-on-stilts where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked from May of 1958 to August of 1969.” But I doubt Ho lived here all that time, especially during the war years when Hanoi endured heavy American bombing from the air. Made only of wood, this stilt house could have easily been destroyed by the US Air Force, if they had so desired. I suspect that Ho slept and hid elsewhere during Hanoi’s frequent air raids.

Among the stilts underneath the house, tables and chairs remain from Ho’s official meetings. Three old style rotary telephones here were used to report to him on the war’s progress. Did Ho use these old phones to speak with Mao Tse Tung in Beijing, or with Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow? Who could have predicted then, that only a few decades after these three old powerful communists were dead, that global communism would be dead too.

Upstairs is a simple office, and a small bedroom. The official brochure goes on to say that Ho’s home on stilts, “symbolizes his living way of simplicity, modesty, gentleness and dedication for the nation and the people.” A more accurate description would be to say that as the top communist in a mostly agrarian country, Ho wanted to always look like he was just another everyday guy.

With this stilt house so humble and basic, I wonder if Ho spent much time in the mansion nearby. Through the trees on these same grounds, is a grand yellow colonial building, that used to be the former Palace of Indochina's General Governor.  It’s also empty now, except for occasional official functions. Now known as the Presidential Palace, even the current President doesn’t live there.

Ho's home office

Nguyen Minh Triet, a recent Vietnam President until 2011, was the first post-war president to hail from southern Vietnam. Since Ho’s death Vietnam’s top government posts have been mainly held by northerners, although that's been slowly changing. Nguyen also became the first Vietnamese President since the war ended to visit the USA, meeting President George Bush at the White House in 2007. This changing of the guard, has brought a change and improvement in diplomatic relations with Hanoi's former enemy.

These days, Ho’s dreams of equality for the working class are gone, and he probably wouldn’t approve of Vietnam’s return to what he regarded as decadent capitalism. He didn’t live to see his dream of a reunited Vietnam, but Ho would be pleased that there are no longer foreign soldiers on Vietnamese soil. 

He may be forever hated by many French and Americans, but he will be forever loved here in Hanoi.

WHERE CAPITALISM BEAT COMMUNISM

An old Soviet made tank in Saigon. Folks today are more interested in Toyotas.

“The Ho Chi Minh Campaign” is the Vietnamese name for the last offensive that finally ended the war in 1975. Located down the street from the old Presidential Palace, the Ho Chi Minh Campaign Museum is today almost an afterthought. As I walked around this museum, I was the only visitor! Besides old weapons and usual photo displays, the biggest exhibit and centerpiece of this museum is a large model of Saigon and surrounding provinces. The exhibit shows troop movements from the war’s final days, ending with the communist victory. With flashing LED lights, it’s a very impressive display. Or at least it was. After flipping a few switches, I found it doesn’t work anymore.

Outside the museum are more captured American made weapons, plus a lot of Soviet built weapons used in the final offensive. I find that what’s most telling about being here, is not what’s inside the museum, but what surrounds the place.

Near the entrance, an old North Vietnamese Army tank sits out front. Soviet made, it is the very image of communist power. As I stand and look at it, I can’t help but notice that behind and above it, is a big sign from the Toyota dealership next door. Toyotas are much more relevant to Vietnamese today, than this rusting Russian tank.

Also on the museum grounds, a Soviet built surface to air missile points skyward. These missiles were once the terror of the skies, shooting down American made fighter jets and heavy bombers. Towering beyond the missile in the background, is the massive Prudential Insurance building, one of the taller skyscrapers in Saigon. Also across the street from the museum, is a Mercedes Benz dealership. I recall the two Mercedes I recently saw with the Prime Minister’s motorcade, along with other American made vehicles.

A Russian built surface to air missile, points skyward over the Prudential Building.

These days the car dealerships are getting much more attention than this museum, and the power of commerce is evident throughout the city. With the rise of business, and the decline of communist dogma, one thing is clear. The Communists may have won the war, but the capitalists have won the post-war.