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Sunday,
May 8, 1994
Nine miles outside Phnom Penh there is a meadow, and in that meadow there are
ditches, once can see some trash, cow patties and the occasional bone.
Yes, bones. Welcome to the killing fields, the infamous mass graves
discovered after the Khmer Rouge reign from 1975 to 1979. A glass-encased
Buddhist shrine with 8,900 skulls of men, women, children and babies who were
murdered stands in memorial near the field (although less than half of the
graves have been excavated).
In four short years, over a million Cambodians, Vietnamese, Thais, Chinese and
indigenous minority groups died as direct or indirect result of the Khmer Rouge
attempt to transform a country into a Maoist
agrarian collective. Tens of thousands more were displaced from their
homes and lived in squalid refugee camps in Thailand or along the Thai
border. And while the North Vietnamese supported the Khmer Rouge
during the Vietnam War, fierce fighting began along the border which
ended in a full-scale invasion by the Vietnamese in 1978. This led to
years of famine followed by a savage civil war. No wonder Pol Pot
referred to 1975 as Year Zero.
After leaving the killing fields, I went to Tuol Sleng, or security
office 21, which was a torture compound for the Khmer Rouge located in
the heart of Phnom Penh. This secondary school turned death camp was
an interrogation center where 15,000 prisoners were tortured and then
executed - a grim reminder of man's capacity for unbridled evil. Only
seven of the prisoners survived; their technical skills proved useful
in running the death camp. All others were buried in the killing
fields.
As I walked through rooms with wall-to-wall pictures of the prisoners
recorded by the Khmer Rouge, I was reminded of the relish with which
the Nazis recorded their atrocities. Although the Holacaust has been
the subject of countless book, movies and visual art, there are few
who know about the suffering the Cambodians have endured. So much
time passed, I fear we will lapse into forgetfulness and indifference.
Cambodia has been in turmoil ever since 1967, when he beieagured
Prince Norodom Sihanouk opened a front in eastern Cambodia to the
North Vietnamese so they could establish base camps. The pro-American
prime minister Lon Noi, deposed the prince in 1970, and wide-scale
fighting moved into the heart of Cambodia.
Lon Noi's forces battled the Khmer Rouge and the Rhmer resistance
fighters who were backed by Hanoi, and the South Vietnamese joined Lon
Noi to help rout out the Viet Cong. Beginning on April 30, 1970, the
United States began massive aerial bombardments to destroy the Viet
Cong bases.
In over a decade of warfare and in the turmoil that followed, a deadly
legacy remains that if not cleared up immediately, will haunt the
Cambodians into the next millennium - land mines. With the death,
starvation and misery the Cambodians have already suffered, land mines
are still maiming 300 to 400 people a month. With a population of 8.5
million, there are 30,000amputees, which is the highest percentage in
the world. And the number of mines are estimated to be at least one
per person. Some say there are as many as 10 million mines.
Mines do not discriminate between retreating guerrillas and young boys
gathering firewood. And the statistics of the injured civilians do
not include those who dies from loss of blood or succumb to their
wounds because of inadequate transportation or medical equipment.
This number is thought to be close to the number of people who
survive.
On April 26, 1991, representatives of the Phnom Penh government and
the three major resistance groups signed a cease-fire agreement that
would begin on May 1. After two long years of negotiating between
these groups, the United Nations sponsored the first democratically
held elections. Even today, as the cease-fire perilously stays intact
and peaceful repatriation of thousands of Cambodians is taking place,
mines are being laid by the government and resistance fighters alike.
And while the government is still fighting the Khmer Rouge in the
northwestern part of Cambodia, mines pose the greatest threat to
rehabilitation and reconstruction of their country. Mines thwart the
construction of proper infrastructure, the expansion of agriculture
and the resettlement of refugees.
Furthermore, the innocent victims of the mines are usually between 20
and 30 years old. Members of the most active and productive segment
of the population become burdens of their families and outcasts within
their communities when maimed by land mines.
I visited a compound on the outskirts of Phnom Penh where amputees are
being trained to make wheelchairs for themselves and goods for market.
There is a school for the children of parents who had been maimed and
a building where prosthetic devices are made. There are only a
handful of similar support programs in the whole country.
Mines severely hamper the ability of this country to rehabilitate
itself, especially with such limited social welfare funds. The cost
of a mine is a cheap as books to distribute to schoolchildren about
the dangers and precautions to take with mines.
Americans who are so inclined may by contracting the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation at 2001 "S" St., NW, Suite 740, Washington, D.C. 20009, (202-483-9222). Or Human Rights Watch/Arms Project, 485 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017 (219-972-8400). David N. Meyerson of Dallas is a writer and translator who has recently translated a collection of Japanese comics entitled The Art of Laughing at Japan Inc. He recently traveled to Cambodia.
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