by Chileng Pa
Hopelessness came over me. I considered killing as many of the guerrillas as I could before they killed me. Then, I recalled Devi’s ethereal plea to me to be strong, to live, and to tell our story. I could hear her near me, whispering, “Bong, stay strong. Don’t lose hope.”
The mosquitoes feasted on my face and arms and I had to fight the instinct to slap them, thus revealing my hiding place. “Stay strong. Don’t lose hope.” I almost said the words out loud!
“Hey, Mit!” shouted one of the guerrillas. “Stop fooling around! Look up there!”
The soldier came running up to the leader, and said, “Respected Mit! I saw someone walking on the trail just a second ago! Maybe it’s Thy. Let’s chase him down before he can cross the border. Let’s not let him get away this time!”
“Eh! Mit, don’t get too excited. You know enemy Thy has a weapon. We must be careful this time looking for him,” said one of the leaders.
The idiots took off running. I waited a few minutes before slowly climbing out of the fetid pit, my eyes and ears searching in the gloomy moonlight for any sign of them. I saw and heard nothing and sighed with relief. No longer frightened, I went back in the house.
When I thought it was safe, I took a bamboo chair and sat out on the porch, deep in thought. I felt the cool dampness of the night, which calmed me, but unfamiliar sounds in the darkness began to disturb me. Occasionally, a nighthawk’s cry echoed in the distance and the humming and buzzing of insects in the bushes around the house distracted me. I had trouble thinking clearly and finally went back into the house to sleep.
I was awakened near morning by mortar and heavy machine gun fire. I went outside and stood looking toward the noise. I saw flashes in the sky and guessed the sounds and vibrations were coming from the border area. I assumed the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge were fighting. The sounds of combat lasted two or three hours, interspersed with several periods of quiet.
I took some comfort in hearing the sounds of battle so close because it meant the border was near and my journey was almost over. But I worried about the guerrilla discussion, that Vietnam had agreed to return escapees to the Democratic Kampuchea. I wanted desperately to have a chance for a new life and I suspected I was only a few hours from the border and possible freedom. I decided it was worth the risk and went back into the house to wait for daylight.
Shortly before dawn, I ate rice and bananas with the dried beef and fish I’d found in the house. As I set out for the border the sun rose red and huge. I trudged through the muddy water of a wide swamp fed by the untended dikes in the rice fields. After a time, the huge red sun became a small yellow ball. I spotted a canal and walked toward it. When I reached the bank of the canal, I sat under a shade tree to rest a bit. I knew I was now very close to the border for I could see a small Vietnamese village in the distance.
It was a moment of peace and relaxation for I knew the Khmer Rouge would avoid an area so close to the border, and Vietnamese villagers were careful to stay out of Cambodia. Birds were singing on the tree branches overhead. In the water, fish were leaping at insects flitting over the water. But, as I stared into the muddy water, I recalled the rumors I’d heard about this canal. In 1976, the Angkar of Svay Rieng territory drafted large numbers of young New People, both men and women, to dig this canal and levee before the Vietnamese invaded. If I hadn’t been assigned to work elsewhere I’d have been one of them.
The Khmer Rouge forbade the workers from returning to their villages for family visits until the canal was completed. Working conditions were deplorable. Foremen set quotas that were impossible for the workers to meet, worked them twelve or more hours a day, and provided little or no food. Many sections of the canal required abnormally steep slopes, and hauling the dirt baskets to the top of the levee took more effort than most workers were capable of giving. Many workers failed under the strain, collapsed, and rolled back down the bank to the bottom of the canal.
With no regard to whether people were dead or alive, the Khmer Rouge yothea then just buried the bodies at the bottom of the canal. Twenty or more workers died each day. Workers who attempted to escape were captured, tortured, and killed as enemies of Angkar.
These peaceful waters covered such horror. It seemed the Khmer Rouge were never really interested in building canals. Their interest was in killing as many of us as they could, as cheaply as they could, out of hatred and revenge.
I began walking again, moving steadily through the wetlands and reeds. By mid-afternoon, I had reached the Vietnamese border, marked by tangled strands of barbed wire hidden in the reeds. As I came up on solid ground, I searched carefully for landmines. I carried my rifle in both hands, uncertain what to do. How should I make contact with the Vietnamese? How should I declare myself a refugee?
Suddenly, I heard bullets whizzing over my head and, immediately after, the report from the rifles firing them. I stopped short and turned to look. Two Vietnamese soldiers appeared from the reeds behind me. They rushed toward me, both of them pointing their rifles at me. I dodged to the left, leapt over a small hill, and crouched down. I must have passed right by them in the reeds! How could they have remained hidden so well?
They began shouting at me in Vietnamese. I continued crouching on the ground and they kept shouting at me, but I couldn’t understand them. They sounded frightened but, unlike the Khmer Rouge bullies who were strong only with the weak, these were well trained soldiers who had experienced fighting other armed men. The two Vietnamese took turns pinning me down, alternately firing their weapons as they advanced on my position. Some bullets flew over my head, others hit the dirt on the hill causing clouds of dirt and pebbles to rain on me.
In a few minutes, they were within meters of me, yelling constantly. I peered over the hillock and swallowed hard as they approached, gesturing for me to throw my weapon away and stand up. Although I didn’t understand their language, I thought that by throwing out my rifle, I’d be safe. I tossed it over the mound, but was too scared to stand and surrender to them. I was afraid they’d shoot me despite the fact that I’d given up my rifle.
A moment later, they appeared on either side of me. One of them yelled at me to raise my hands.
“Don’t shoot me, please!” I pleaded. “I’m just an innocent Cambodian seeking refuge in your country!”
“You’re lying!” said one of them in Cambodian. They held me at gun point, mumbling to one another and laughing at me. Soon, more soldiers appeared. One spoke enough Cambodian to act as interpreter.
“Hey, come here!” he ordered. “Who are you? Are you a Khmer Rouge spy?”
“I am neither a spy nor your enemy,” I told him apprehensively. “I’m a Cambodian civilian. I escaped from the Khmer Rouge. They killed my whole family! I came here to stay alive.”
I looked each of them in the eye. They wore baggy olive green uniforms and pith helmets with a red patch and gold star in front. All wore tire sandals, like the Khmer Rouge guerrillas. None knew what to make of me.
One of them suddenly kicked me from behind. He clawed and scratched at my clothing, ripping my shirt off. He balled up his fist and punched me in the stomach so hard it knocked the breath from me. As I bent over in pain, he brought his other fist around in an upper cut that caught me square in the mouth. I fell to the ground spitting blood, trying to catch my breath. He reached down and pulled me by the hair to a standing position, then slapped my face back and forth with his other hand. I tried to tuck in my chin and raised my arm to block his blows, but he continued hitting me. One of his fellows joined in, whacking me in the back with a bamboo branch.
I tried to move away from the blows but something hard smashed against the back of my neck and I pitched forward, hitting the ground. Another soldier stepped forward and kicked me repeatedly in the back. He then slammed the butt of his rifle into me.
I begged them to stop, saying, “No, no, I’m not your enemy!” Then, all I knew was darkness. I drifted in and out, thinking of the bad blood between Cambodians and Vietna
mese. Since I was a child, I’d heard tales about how, long ago after a battle they’d won, the Vietnamese took the surviving Cambodians, including their monks, to an island penitentiary where they tortured them to death. One method of torture was to bury three prisoners up to their necks in dirt so that their heads formed a triangle on the ground. The Vietnamese then placed one leg of an iron kettle on top of each head. A fire was lit in the middle to heat the tea in the kettle. When a prisoner’s head moved as he shrank away from the heat, and the tea spilled, he was killed for his carelessness.
I regained consciousness when they splashed water over me. Every part of my body was in pain but the Vietnamese soldiers continued beating me. When one tired, another took his place. When they had finally had enough fun with me, the questions began. I tried to get up but all I could do was kneel in front of the cruel soldiers. I couldn’t focus. Everything was blurry. When I tried to answer their questions, I found I couldn’t say a word because my face and jaw were so swollen.
All I could do was grunt. They knocked me to the ground once again. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. I didn’t want to die, after having been fortunate enough to escape the Khmer Rouge. I knew these Vietnamese soldiers would kill me if I didn’t obey them but there was nothing I could do to stop them from torturing me.
Again, I struggled to a kneeling position, until the soldier who spoke Khmer told me to stay still. He held a pistol to my head, and said, “If you move a muscle I’ll blow your head off!” I felt bayonets poking me, as one soldier grabbed my wrists and jerked my arms behind my back. He tied my hands together and two other soldiers grabbed me under my arms, picked me up, and began dragging me. Cursing in Vietnamese, yelling at me to hurry, calling me a bastard, they dragged me across reed fields and rice fields and, finally, to a path along which I was allowed to walk. The soldiers behind me kept their rifles pointed at my back.
The sun was unbearably hot and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We forded a shallow stream and I intentionally fell in the water to get a drink. Swearing at me, the soldiers picked me up and dragged me to the far bank, shouting orders I couldn’t understand. I staggered along the path trying to loosen the ropes that bound my hands, but one of the soldiers noticed and rewarded my efforts by jabbing the butt of his rifle into my back. He jerked at the ropes to ensure that they were still tight and smacked me on the side of the head repeatedly, swearing at me.
I continued walking, constantly prodded by a rifle butt in my back. I wanted desperately to communicate with these brutes to tell them I wasn’t their opponent, that I was a victim of their enemy, that I would gladly join them in battle, and that I had escaped the black clothed demons. I used all the polite words I knew to draw some compassion from them, but in vain. They didn’t know what I was saying and they didn’t care. My attempts at conversation just irritated them. They kept pulling on the ropes from the front, prodding me from the back, all the while shouting at me.
We finally arrived at the Vietnamese patrol headquarters as the sun dropped in the west. I could barely stand. They took me to an area with several bamboo cages. I leaned against one, trying to keep my balance, but it was no use. I fell to the ground, too weak to get up, closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and waited for the next blow. As I inhaled the hot, humid air, someone suddenly threw a bucket of water over me. I could hear an older soldier barking orders and, soon, a soldier lifted me up by my armpits. I have never been as battered and weak as in that moment. They untied my hands and threw me into one of the cages, two meters to a side. The cage itself was reinforced with tightly woven barbed wire and escape was not going to be an option.
My body was so bruised and swollen that I couldn’t lie still or move without pain. I didn’t know how seriously I’d been injured, but I didn’t think any bones were broken. After dark and after I’d fallen to sleep, I was again awakened when a bucket of water was thrown on me. I woke temporarily disoriented, but pain instantly refreshed my memory of where I was and how I’d gotten there. A Vietnamese soldier thrust a bowl of thick gruel and a coconut shell filled with muddy water into my cage. I ate and drank quickly, still hungry, still thirsty.
“Be strong. Don’t lose hope. Stay alive,” I told myself.
The cage was my bathroom as well as my bedroom. I slept on the wet, dirty ground without a mat, like an animal. I had nothing to protect me from the cool night wind or the mosquitoes and other insects that feasted on my body. I was in such pain that I couldn’t think clearly. My eyes were nearly swollen shut but, as I lay on the bottom of the cage, I could look up through the bamboo bars and strands of barbed wire and see the moon and stars.
I contemplated my uncertain future. I was alive, but for how long? I knew two things I could count on: first, the earth still turned on its axis and, second, the Khmer Rouge regime would eventually be defeated. My thoughts were interrupted frequently by the need to slap at the mosquitoes munching on me. I strained to open my eyes enough to survey the compound. The only light other than the moon and stars came from a single lantern hanging on a pole of the block house where the troops slept. One guard was on watch, standing near the lantern. He leaned his left shoulder against the building holding a cigarette while his right hand rested on the rifle hanging from his other shoulder.
I slept fitfully that night. It was difficult to find a position in which the pain didn’t keep me awake and, when I did drift off, my movements during sleep again wakened me, sending pain shooting through me. At dawn, I was dowsed again with a bucket of water and given another bowl of gruel and a half coconut shell of water. There was considerable activity in the compound during the day but no one paid the least attention to me. Shortly after nightfall, the bucket routine was repeated.
As the days passed, my injuries became less painful. I learned that rolling on the ground coated my body in mud and protected me from the daylong exposure to the brutal sun. I learned to anticipate the bucket dowsing by listening for the sound of water sloshing in the pail when the guard carried it to my cage. Then, as he threw the water on me, I tried to catch as big a gulp as possible.
By the eleventh morning in the cage I was feeling much better. Although the rations I received were meager, they weren’t any worse than I’d received under the Khmer Rouge. I was fed and I didn’t have to dig up and transport fifteen cubic meters of earth every day. On this morning, a guard woke me by raking the muzzle of his rifle along the bamboo bars and barbed wire. In broken Khmer, he said, “Get up!” He unlocked the door of the cage and opened it.
“What’s going on, sir?” I asked.
“Come with me. You’ll find out soon enough!” he said.
I rose slowly, because it was still painful to move. He bound my hands behind my back and motioned me with his rifle to walk toward a building in the compound. When we got there, he jerked the ropes binding my hands, forcing me to stop in front of the door. This was the only building with a sign on it, probably indicating it was the office of a high-ranking military officer. The door was open so the soldier pushed me inside. Several Vietnamese soldiers were standing behind a large wooden table. A Vietnamese flag hung on the wall behind the table. The soldiers grinned at one another as they looked at me. They were the same soldiers who’d beaten me and they found my obvious discomfort amusing.
I assumed I was going to be interrogated and I winced at the thought of more torture. I was just beginning to recover from the last beating and I didn’t want to endure another. One of the guards smiled at me. I recognized him as the soldier who’d smashed my body with his rifle butt. I remembered the tip of his bayonet in my side and envisioned his finger slowing squeezing the trigger of his rifle. I felt perspiration forming on my forehead.
“Be careful, you! Don’t be a liar. If you lie, you will be sent to hell!” he said, still smirking.
They sat me on a wooden chair and wrapped the ropes binding my arms around the back of it. Sitting directly in front of the table, they made me wait several minutes. Then a short squat officer ente
red and, in flawless Khmer, introduced himself as the troop commander. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties, and had gray hair and glasses. He wore a uniform with a single red patch and two gold stars on his collar. As he began speaking, I noticed a slight Vietnamese accent and figured he was from the region of Vietnam known by Cambodians as the Khmer lowlands because my country had once ruled the area and many Cambodians still lived there.
He began. “What’s your name?”
It took me a few moments to search for a name I could use. I didn’t want to continue using the name, Thy, because the Vietnamese might have heard from the Khmer Rouge of my escape and they might send me back across the border. That would be certain death. So, I chose a name from the Vietnamese district where Lon Nol had sent Cambodian Special Forces to train with American troops stationed in South Vietnam, known as Lam Suong.
“Yes, sir, my name is Lam,” I answered politely.
“Why have you escaped here with a weapon, Lam?” Before I could answer, he shouted, “Lam! Tell me the truth! You came here as a Khmer Rouge spy, didn’t you?”
“No, sir. The reason I’m here is that I escaped. The Khmer Rouge slaughtered my entire family. They are blood hungry savages. They forced us to work under impossible conditions and starved us. They accused us of being Vietnamese sympathizers, of being enemies of the Angkar revolution. Then, they tortured us and killed us. I am the only one who survived out of my whole family.”
“You’re quite right about the Khmer Rouge, Lam,” he said.
I tried to nod in agreement but the pain in my neck caused me to wince.
“Lam, do you plan to stay here for the rest of your life?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. I plan to live here, if your government will permit me to stay as a refugee,” I told him.
“How can I be sure you are being truthful, Lam? You could be an escaped convict for all we know,” he said.