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 | Loung Ung: Activist, Author, Lecturer
"Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."
~ Cheif Seattle |
Loung's Blog
Thoughts from day to day...
From time to time I will make updates to this page -- while I
travel, have a passing thought, or feel inspired to share with the
world something interesting I will post here.
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Update on KR tribunal |
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07/25/2007 @ 10:13 am |
CAMBODIA: Time for Answers Arrives at 'Killing Fields' Trial
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Jul 25 (IPS) - For nearly 30 years, the Khmer Rouge regime that unleashed a reign of terror during it rule of Cambodia in the 1970s has been accused of committing genocide. But was this so?
An answer to that troubling question is slated for scrutiny as the war-crimes tribunal gets under way. Jul. 18 marked a milestone in this long-delayed trial, when prosecutors in the United Nations-sponsored special court submitted the names of five Khmer Rouge leaders to stand trial.
''Describing the acts committed in Cambodia as genocide has always been controversial. It is not easily accepted by the legal community,'' Rupert Skilbeck, head of the Defence Support Section of the tribunal, said in a telephone interview from Phnom Penh. ''The court will have to consider this question.''
The accepted definition of genocide is an act of violence aimed to ''destroy an ethnic group because of their nationality, race, religion,'' added the lawyer from Britain, who has also served as the advisor for the defence during the special war-crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone. ''Killing a people for their political views as happened in Cambodia is different.''
There are other questions, too, that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), as this tribunal is officially called, is expected to answer. Foremost among them is how many people the Khmer Rouge killed between Apr. 17, 1975, and Jan. 6, 1979, the period of this brutal regime's rule and the period that the ECCC is examining.
''The number of people who died in Rwanda was not challenged, but the number of deaths in Cambodia has not been confirmed; it could be challenged,'' Skilbeck said earlier this month when he met journalists in Bangkok. In the African nation, there were an estimated 800,000 people from the ethnic Tutsi community who were slaughtered by Hutu extremists during the Rwandan civil war. That act of genocide occurred in 1994.
The Khmer Rouge has been accused of killing close to 1.7 million Cambodians, which was a quarter of the South-east Asian nation's population at the time. The victims were either executed or they died as a result of forced labour or starvation from famine as this Maoist group tried to turn the country into an agrarian utopia.
The tribunal's attempt to shed light on these mass deaths may also prove embarrassing to major powers that were involved during the years when Cambodia was dragged into the U.S. war in Vietnam, which raged through the 1960s and early 1970s, and after. The Washington-approved bombing raids over Cambodia have been documented, so has the role Beijing played to prop up the Khmer Rouge as it pursued its policy of slaughter.
''America's illegal bombing raids will come up in figuring out how many died in Cambodia,'' says Skilbeck. ''There will be lots of issues that will come up during the trial that will be embarrassing to many countries.''
The quest for justice to try those responsible for this country's ''Killing Fields'' got under way 10 years ago, when talks began between the UN and Phnom Penh to set up the ECCC. But this journey since 1997 faced many hurdles, including those placed by the Cambodian government, which has been under the firm grip of Prime Minister Hun Sen for decades.
Hun Sen has not only backtracked on financial commitments to the tribunal but has also heaped scorn on human rights groups who have challenged Phnom Penh's choice of judges for the war-crimes trial. The ECCC, unlike other tribunals, such as the one that investigated crimes against humanity committed in former Yugoslavia, is not completely international in nature. It combines local and foreign jurists.
In fact, the ECCC is also expected to bring to the fore a question related to these very Cambodian lawyers and judges. It stems from concerns by human rights groups about the Cambodian jurists' grasp and application of international law, which will be the basis of the tribunal's proceedings.
After all, the country's legal community was equally brutalised by the Khmer Rouge as other professional groups. The educated men and women became key targets of the extreme Maoists, who deemed intellectuals as enemies of the state after declaring its first phase of power as the ''Year Zero.'' Only nine lawyers and judges survived the years of terror, according to some estimates.
For the Cambodians who survived the brutality of the late 1970s or who are among the millions who lost relatives to the Khmer Rouge, there are equally relevant questions they hope the ECCC will help answer. ''Many people want to know why the Khmer Rouge killed their own people and how they were killed,'' says Im Sophea, a ranking member of the Centre for Social Development, a Phnom Penh-based non-governmental body. ''We expect the court to reveal answers for this. Public expectation is very high.''
The events over the past week have triggered new interest in the trial among people in the city and in rural areas, Im said in a telephone interview from the Cambodian capital. ''They feel the wait for answers is finally over.''
Of course the trial will not hear from Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, who died in 1998. Nor will Ta Mok, widely known in Cambodia as "The Butcher" for the atrocities he committed during the brutal regime's rule, take the stand; he died in June last year.
The five names submitted last week to stand trial at the ECCC were major figures in the Maoist group. According to reports in the Cambodian press, they include Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's deputy; Khieu Samphan, former head of state during the Khmer Rouge years; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister; and Kang Kech Eav, also known as Duch, who was the head of he infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. (END/2007)
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Unique Pol Pot survivor |
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07/24/2007 @ 14:36 am |
Bangkok Post
By Bronwyn Sloan, dpa in Phnom Penh
The only woman know to have survived Pol Pot's infamous Toul Sleng torture centre, Chim Math broke her silence Tuesday after nearly 30 years, saying she wants to testify at an impending trial of Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge leaders.
The 49-year-old becomes the first woman and among only eight known survivors entered the gates of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's S-21 secret prison, where an estimated 14,000 people perished.
She says now: "I can't describe what I saw there. I could look out of my cell through cracks in the wall and see the torture and the bodies being thrown away like rubbish. For two weeks, that was my television. The smell of pig excrement mixed with blood which was S-21 will never leave me."
"This is a real breakthrough," David Chandler, a historian and author of "Voices From S-21," replied in an email Tuesday.
Previously, only three men were believed to still be alive as the 56-million dollar joint UN-Cambodia trial of a handful of surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge's brutal Democratic Kampuchea regime looms.
Former commandant of S-21, Kang Kech Ieu, alias Duch, is the only person currently in jail awaiting a decision by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia on indictments.
Documentation Center of Cambodia director Youk Chhang confirmed that records had been recovered from Toul Sleng proving Math had been held at the former school that became one of the epicentres of Khmer Rouge atrocities.
Chhang said Math had previously denied she had been held at the prison, possibly out of fear. Math says she kept her story secret because it was too difficult to tell.
"I didn't tell anyone all these years. Not even my husband. It was too painful," Math said as she stared at her picture taken by her captors, among more than one thousand images documenting the victims of the slaughter that took place in S-21 between 1975 and 1979.
"Now the trial is coming, my family has persuaded me to come forward so I can be an eyewitness and help my country."
Known as Khem Math at the time of her October 10, 1978 arrest, she says she was held in S-21 for two weeks before being transferred to nearby Prey Sar prison, which she escaped from to run to the mountains of Kampong Speu province when Vietnamese-backed troops overthrew the Khmer Rouge on January 7, 1979.
Math thinks she may have been spared because she was from Stoeung district in Kampong Thom, prison chief Duch's place of birth.
She held a copy of a Khmer Rouge document showing she joined the movement in 1974 as a 16-year-old. Above her picture is a stamp from S-21 in Khmer script. At the bottom corner of the page, a blank space remains next to the column grimly titled "date of death".
Up to 2 million Cambodians are believed to have died during the four-year reign of the Khmer Rouge as the ultra-Maoists attempted to turn the country into an agrarian utopia, bereft of markets, money and social classes.
Math says two photos she kept with her of her father dressed in a Lon Nol-era police uniform had led to her arrest during a period when the south-western zone, led by former military commander Ta Mok, began conducting internal purges.
Court officials say they hope hearings will get underway by early next year. Pol Pot died at his home in 1998 without facing trial. Ta Mok died in hospital of age-related complications last year.
Researchers say Math's testimony will shed invaluable light on the conditions inside S-21 for female prisoners, about which little was previously known.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=120417
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Socheata Poeuv awarded Echoing Green Fellowship! |
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07/13/2007 @ 9:53 am |
This article is courtesy of my friend Andy Brouwer, http://andybrouwer.blogspot.com/
When I made my first trek to Cambodia in 1995 (have since made 30 trips and counting!), I felt so alone. It's so great to read everyday about so many people going to Cambodia and doing wonderful things to bring our stories out.
http://www.newyearbaby.net/site/c.grKNIWPHIsE/b.672275/k.CBF1/Home.htm
Thank you Socheata!
Filmmaker Socheata Poeuv has been awarded a 2007 Echoing Green Fellowship - the $90,000 award over three years will support her work to document 10,000 Khmer Rouge survivor stories as interviewed by their children. 20 fellows were selected out of more than 900 international applicants. Socheata is still touring the globe with her outstanding documentary, New Year Baby. The Echoing Green website explains it as follows:
Echoing Green Fellow
Socheata Poeuv - Khmer Legacies
The Bold Idea: Uncovering and documenting the Khmer Rouge genocide through survivor testimony as the first initiative to bridge the communication divide in Cambodian-American families.
Decades after the brutal genocide, the Khmer Rouge atrocities continue to have a strong and debilitating impact on Cambodian-Americans. For example, over 60 percent suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and 50 percent are affected by major depression. Yet, there has not been any large-scale effort to provide closure for this community. A significant generational divide has resulted from the silence of these first generation survivors, as well as the lack of knowledge about the genocide imparted to their children. Khmer Legacies will empower young Cambodians to interview their own parents about their survival and disseminate these stories to educate the public about the genocide. They will work to normalize and remove the stigma from issues that survivors have been keeping silent for a generation. Through this process, they hope to transform the culture of denial and avoidance in Cambodian communities to one of acknowledgment and honor. In 2004, Socheata Poeuv started interviewing her family on videotape about their story of survival. What has evolved from her own personal journey is the creation of New Year Baby, a documentary film that helped her family heal. New Year Baby has won several awards, including Amnesty International’s “Movies That Matter” Award. A graduate from Smith College, Socheata worked in network news for four years while co-founding Broken English Productions to direct the creation of her film.
Moment of Obligation: What experiences led to the desire to start your own organization?
In 2006, I visited Long Beach, CA, home to the largest population of Cambodian Americans. I was there to introduce my documentary film, New Year Baby, and host an open forum about the legacy of the Khmer Rouge genocide. At the event, I heard over and over again from young people that their parents rarely talked about their experience of surviving. I understand first hand what it's like to have parents who are reluctant to share their story. When I made my documentary film about my family, I began to understand at a profound level their sacrifice and love for me. This is the gift I want to give to the Cambodian families.
Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to dream big and take on deeply entrenched problems in the world?
Most people in life are stuck on the small problems like sitting in traffic or having a leaky roof. I love to take small problems and extrapolate them into big ones. Like transforming the problem “my parents and I don’t understand each other” into the problem “Cambodian families lack bonding and connection.” Small problems can leave you inert; big problems call you forward to create a solution.
New and Untested: What’s innovative about your new idea for social change?
No other organization exists with a mandate of videotaping stories of the Cambodian genocide by having their children interview their parents. Khmer Legacies is neither therapy nor self-help development, but is based the belief that storytelling can take a culture of denial and avoidance in Cambodian communities and transform into one of acknowledgement and honor.
Echoing Green - how they make a difference: • Identify Visionaries: Through a highly competitive selection process, Echoing Green identifies talented yet unproven social entrepreneurs who are dedicated to addressing the root causes of social problems. • Invest in Innovation: Each year, we invest at least $1 million to help Echoing Green Fellows transform innovative ideas into action. By applying entrepreneurial principles to social sector investment, we help launch cutting-edge organizations that transform communities.
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Angkor Style temple in Minn. |
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07/10/2007 @ 9:23 am |
This is such a beautiful story. Congratulations E. James, Lar Mundstock, and the rest of their team for this wonderful achievement!
Asian American Press.July 5, 2007
www.watmunisota.org
When E. James and Lar Mundstock approached the Cambodian Temple in Hampton, Minnesota, in June 2007, Lar pointed out toward Cambodian Temple and said, "The beautiful sanctuary on that hilltop is my diamond jewelry."
Lar remembered asking her husband to take the money for a diamond he intended to give her and give it to the temple.
James matched her contribution with another ten thousand dollars. Later, the two provided am additional fifty thousand dollar bridge loan to cover the time between the purchase of the new property and the sale of the old property.
The process to obtain the permit was a big job. The surrounding neighbors and communities strongly objected to the Buddhist temple plan on the property.
Lar, a former executive director of the United Cambodian Association of Minnesota, became an advocate and voice who could win over people with one meeting and could bring in needed resources. Recently returning from California, and her mission to help women in Cambodia, she put everything on hold to be available for the Minnesota Cambodian community.
James provided her with needed encouragement, moral, financial, and technical supports along the way.
"I accompanied her to many hearings in different level of authorities, city, county, and township at least twice for each level due to controversies," said James. "I was impressed with her ability to get supports from various important personnel including representative Governor' s office, the Asian Pacific Council (Dr. De Leon), Two professors on Buddhism (David Kop and David Burk), Steve Young, Dean of Law School and our volunteer lawyer to participate the supposed to be the final.
"As we had very strong support they cannot deny, but they did not want to give us permit, they scheduled the next hearing," he added. "All our supporters went again, which gave a strong weight for our pursuit. We won. That was her greatest accomplishment that she never forgets."
When their children were young, the Mundstock's spent one day a week at the temple. James voluneered his time working on a simple Cambodian word processing program and assisted Lar and Rev. San Chary Sidhy with English and State forms.
Lar worked on temple programs and made herself available on a weekly basis to oversee minor necessities, and supplied what she could.
A job change meant the couple had to leave Minnesota for California, which ended their participation with the temple. Upon their return, the sanctuary of Lar's dream had by then risen on the hill near her chosen location. She was thrilled. She appreciate the hard work of the Cambodian people in Minnesota in continuing he temple effort.
The temple board of directors and especially the Head Monk, the Reverend Moeng Sang sent a message to the Mundstock's and their associates that their work has created something good.
That there are people to step in to carry on until completion.
Meanwhile, the Mundstock's also donated twenty thousand dollars to the Maryland Temple, in the Washington, D.C. area. To help speed up the construction of the sanctuary, they provided a free interest bridge loan of seventy thousand dollars, which was paid off two years later.
In 2000, they donated ten thousand dollars to establish an endowment fund for the Khmer Women Alliance Foundation, now the Cambodian Development Foundation, which has increased to $15,300 in January 2007.
"As my grandparents immigrated from Germany and Sweden, I fully understand her motivation and pleased to go along with her initiatives for a healthy community," said James.
Since then, the couple has spent an average of ten thousand per year for her activities in Cambodia including drilling wells, buying looms for young girls, building temple in addition to a pilot program with two economic development sites that cost five thousand dollars each.
"The Smile of the people receiving the support is my beautiful garment," said Lar.
Now, her only wish is to have what needed to make Cambodia smiling again.
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Somaly Mam--Glamour Woman of the year. A Hero. |
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07/09/2007 @ 11:01 am |
I read about Somaly Mam on Andy Brouwer's site (http://andybrouwer.blogspot.com/2006/10/recognition-for-somaly-mam.html) a while ago. Courageous, strength, beauty, inspirational, mother, daughter, human, hero. So many words ran through my mind. At first I was awed, then intimidated, then inspired. She makes me want to be a better human being, a better activist. THank you.
"Somaly Mam is an inspiration to women around the world. She overcame horrific childhood abuse and has devoted her life to rescuing other girls from similar fates. She's bringing the issue of sexual slavery to the attention of the world, thus giving the hundreds of thousands of children who are currently enslaved in brothels a real shot at a better life." Deserved praise and a deserved award, which is given each year to 'gutsy female leaders in their field who inspire us all'. The story of Somaly's work is told in this Glamour article, though be warned, the story has a real sting in it.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article596932.ece
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Cambodia--a poverty alleviation model |
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06/30/2007 @ 11:18 am |
We still have a way to go...but this is a good start!
The New Age, Bangladesh - 30 Jun 07
Bangladesh selected as poverty alleviation model Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha . Dhaka
The Economic and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC) has selected Bangladesh and Cambodia, as models of poverty alleviation policies, to present their success stories at its ministerial-level meeting in Geneva on July 2-5.
‘We will present to ECOSOC ministers in Geneva a detailed report as to how we are well on track on the way towards achieving the UN set 1st MDG of poverty alleviation, through a mix of political stability, social awareness and sound policies,’ said Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, foreign adviser, while speaking to the media.
The adviser will lead the Bangladesh delegation to this high-level meeting of ECOSOC ministers. He will leave Dhaka on June 30 (Saturday) for a five-day visit to Geneva for this purpose. The team will include Dr Hamidur Rashid, director (UN) at the foreign ministry.
The ministry of foreign affairs, with the support from all relevant ministries and the UN country team in Dhaka, has produced a 111-page report, entitled ‘Meeting the Challenge: A Mid-term Review of Achieving MDG-1 in Bangladesh’.
This report will be formally presented by the foreign minister at the first annual ministerial review meeting of MDG-1 that will commence on July 2 and conclude on July 5. The first millennium development goal is to reduce poverty and hunger by half by 2015 for Bangladesh with the aim to reduce the poverty headcount rate from the level of 58.8 per cent in 1991 to 29.4 per cent in 2015. Already the rate has declined to 40 per cent.
‘Our is an achievement that has been much acclaimed. We would like to explain to the international community how we came about to achieve it and what kind of support would be required to fully meet all other development goals,’ the adviser added.
Other developing countries that would make similar presentations are Barbados from America and Cape Verde, Ethopia and Ghana from Africa. This key ECOSOC meeting will be inaugurated by the secretary general of the UN Ban Ki Moon.
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Tourism boom in SE Asia. |
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06/25/2007 @ 9:41 am |
Been gone for a bit..but am back.
SE Asian tourists soar on low-cost wings
BANGKOK (AFP) - Low-cost carriers are dramatically expanding their network of flights across the Mekong region, encouraging record numbers of Southeast Asian tourists to explore neighboring countries.
Thailand's top budget airline, Thai AirAsia, plans to double its flights from Bangkok to Hanoi and Phnom Penh next month, while adding Shenzhen as its third destination in China.
Air Bagan, Myanmar's largest private carrier, launched its first international flight in mid-May linking Bangkok with Yangon.
Deals are also in the works for direct flights between Cambodia's Angkor temple town of Siem Reap and Myanmar's top tourist spots Bagan and Mandalay.
"Low-cost carriers bring ever more city-pairs into the equation," aided by relaxed aviation rules among major Southeast Asian capitals, said John Koldowski, spokesman for the Pacific Asia Travel Association in Bangkok.
As people in the region see their disposable incomes grow steadily, many are proving willing to splash out on travel, especially for affordable destinations within the region, Koldowski said.
Thai visitors to Cambodia soared 38 percent in the first four months of the year, while the number of Vietnamese travellers jumped 70 percent, according to Cambodia's tourism ministry.
Cambodia's tourism minister Thong Khon said travellers from the two neighboring countries are helping to boost the nation's tourism industry.
Overall arrivals to Cambodia had grown by 20 percent year-on-year to more than 710,000 as of April.
PATA expects the trend to continue in the coming years.
The number of Thai tourists to Cambodia is expected to jump 34 percent over the next two years to 85,400, while visitors to Myanmar are seen rising by 13 percent to 48,400 over that period, PATA says.
Vietnam is also more popular, with arrivals from Thailand expected to jump 17 percent to 126,000 in two years.
In Myanmar, Thais are the top foreign visitors, but many use land crossings as well as flights.
"We hope more tourists will be coming this year as we extend flight connections to international destinations," an official from Myanmar's tourism official said.
For Thais, the increased desire to travel is all the more remarkable because of the economic slowdown at home.
Soraya Srimit, 31, from Bangkok is heading to Hanoi in July on holiday despite her concerns about the economy.
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A Mighty Heart, A Mighty Film by Ms. Jolie |
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06/25/2007 @ 9:53 pm |
Alright, I admit to being biased here because I respect and admire Angelina Jolie tremendously as an activist and as an actress. Add to that, I really like her as a person. Having met her in person, I found her to be caring, sincere, genuine and authentic.
With that said, I walked into the screening of A Mighty Heart with heavy heart. We all know the story of Daniel Pearl and the details of his tragic death. I braced myself in the dark theatre and got ready to cry buckets of tears. Which I did. I also laughed, screamed, and raised a fist in celebration of Daniel’s courageous life. Angelina Jolie was phenomenal as Marianne Pearl—a role tailor made for her—for both women are known for their compassion and strength.
I did not expect to be swept up by the love story of Daniel and Marianne, warmed by the protectiveness of The Captain for Marianne and her unborn child; or shocked to learn the ‘behind’ the scene work of all those involved in the search to find Daniel. The film surprised and moved me, much of it played at a breakneck speed, and at times, it felt like I was watching a thriller. But it was real life, real love, real people, real world politics—which made the film so relevant. If you haven’t seen it, do it now!
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Parrellel lives lived in Cambodia and California |
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05/15/2007 @ 5:23 pm |
Many thanks to Sophal Ear for emailing me the below link to The Washington Post's profiles of Cambodians living in Stockton, California. Although dated November 2005, I think their stories remain relevant in today's world.
Cambodian Profiles: Glimmers of parallel lives lived in Phnom Penh and in a low-income housing complex called Park Village in Stockton, California. More than 30 years after the Khmer Rouge plunged Cambodia into a spasm of brutality, disease and starvation, the survivors and their children are moving on. These 10 interactive news features look at ordinary people -- from a monk in California to a fisherman on the Mekong.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/11/23/CU2005112301484.html
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A Clash Over KR History |
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05/08/2007 @ 8:41 am |
A great article. That Khmer students do not study KR history is akin to American students not studying The Civil War.
The Washington Post
Tuesday, May 8 2007
Page A14
In Cambodia, a Clash Over History of the Khmer Rouge
By Erika Kinetz, Special to The Washington Post
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia, May 7 -- In a country where half the students who enter grammar school never finish, Cheak Socheata, 18, is among the most privileged of her generation: She made it to college.
But even Cheak, a first-year medical student at Phnom Penh's University of Health Sciences, has learned next to nothing in school about the Khmer Rouge, who in a little less than four years in power executed, tortured and starved to death an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians, about a quarter of the population.
"I just heard from my parents that there was mass killing," Cheak said. "It's hard to believe." Her high school history teacher told her the basics -- the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 -- and advised her to read about the rest on her own, she recalled.
Nearly three decades after the Khmer Rouge were overthrown, a battle over history is underway in Cambodia. On one side are forces eager to reckon with the past, both in school and at a special court set up to try the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge. Many teachers, students and activist groups say more should be taught about the Khmer Rouge years, which is virtually absent from school curriculums now.
Blunting these demands is a government whose top leaders were once associated with the now-defunct communist movement and who seem loath to cede control over such a politically sensitive chapter of Cambodian history.
"Suppose that ever since 1945, Germany had been ruled by former Nazis," said Philip Short, author of "Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare," a biography of the Khmer Rouge leader published in 2004. "Would the history of the Nazi regime be taught honestly in Germany today? This is now Cambodia's problem."
A new high school textbook about the era, the first written by a Cambodian, was recently published by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent institute in Phnom Penh that specializes in Khmer Rouge history. In "A History of Democratic Kampuchea," author Khamboly Dy, 26, spells out in 11 detailed chapters the rise, reign and fall of the Khmer Rouge, who called themselves the Communist Party of Kampuchea and the country, Democratic Kampuchea.
A Cambodian government review panel deemed the book unsuitable for use in the regular curriculum. Instead, the panel said the book could be used as supplementary reference material and as a basis for the Ministry of Education to write its own textbook.
"It's a start. The door is open," said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center, which has been pushing to get a textbook into classrooms since 1999.
Short said Khamboly's text is hard to fault on substantive historical grounds. "It deserves to be not merely an approved textbook for Cambodian schools but a compulsory text, which all Cambodian schoolchildren should be required to study," he said.
Its sidelining reflects the failure of the country's current leaders to move beyond their Khmer Rouge past, he said. Prime Minister Hun Sen, National Assembly President Heng Samrin and Senate President Chea Sim were all middle-ranking Khmer Rouge officials, he said.
The three men left Cambodia for Vietnam in the late 1970s and returned with Vietnamese army forces that overthrew Pol Pot in 1979. Today, their political legitimacy rests in part on their credentials as men who helped free Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge tyranny.
Heng Samrin said it was unfair to implicate him and other top officials of the ruling Cambodian People's Party in the crimes of the Khmer Rouge.
In an interview with a Cambodian journalist, he maintained that the term "Khmer Rouge" refers only to people who joined the National United Front of Kampuchea, which in the first half of the 1970s fought the U.S.-backed Lon Nol government but later betrayed the revolution and killed innocent people.
He and his colleagues only fought to liberate Cambodia from Lon Nol and his imperialist henchmen, he said. "We were not involved in the Khmer Rouge regime," he said, adding that he had been only a "simple soldier."
Khamboly said that picking his way through politically charged points was the most difficult aspect of writing the book, which was printed with $10,000 from the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy. By citing sources, focusing on survivor stories and seeking neutral language, Khamboly said, he hoped to avoid political tussles.
It wasn't enough. The committee that reviewed the text criticized it for giving too much attention to the years after 1979, when Cambodian factions fought a long civil war, and for tracing the roots of the Khmer Rouge back to the struggle against French colonization and to Ho Chi Minh's Indochinese Communist Party.
Committee members also said naming individuals associated with the Khmer Rouge government was "unnecessary" and a threat to their safety.
History "should be kept for at least 60 years before starting to discuss it," said committee member Sorn Samnang, president of the Royal Academy of Cambodia, a graduate school, according to the minutes of a Dec. 14 meeting of the review panel.
There is a long-standing political debate in Cambodia over whether Vietnam liberated or invaded the country when it ousted the Khmer Rouge.
Khamboly's book uses neither term, saying only that Vietnamese forces "fought their way into Cambodia."
"We use facts," Khamboly said. "Whether they invaded or liberated the country is an interpretation."
But in Cambodia, as in other post-conflict states, there are few facts that belong to everybody. In a Sept. 19 letter to Hun Sen, the premier, his education adviser, Sean Borat, generally praised the book but took issue with Khamboly's failure to characterize the Vietnamese action as a liberation.
He also objected to the book's characterization of Cambodians who returned with the Vietnamese in 1979 as "Khmer Rouge defectors." That phrase, Sean Borat wrote, must be deleted because "the Cambodian People's Party did not originate from Khmer Rouge soldiers but from a massive movement that emerged to oppose the brutal regime led by Pol Pot."
The offending phrase was removed from the final version of the book.
Young Cambodians haven't been formally taught much about the Khmer Rouge in school since propaganda texts of the 1980s, when Cambodia was ruled by the communist government that the Vietnamese installed. Those books depicted the Khmer Rouge with such graphic ferocity that some children grew up thinking they were actual monsters.
These books were taken out of use in 1991, when U.N.-brokered peace talks ended more than a decade of civil war and led to elections.
In 2002, a 12th-grade history textbook touching on the Pol Pot years was introduced but quickly recalled after controversy arose over the book's omission of the 1993 electoral victory of the royalist Funcinpec party. A new version of the text has yet to appear. Ministry of Education officials say they plan to publish a new book in 2009; they blame the delay on lack of funds.
In the meantime, Cambodia's youth are "a lost generation," said Chea Vannath, former president of the Center for Social Development, a local rights group. In the absence of a shared national story about the Khmer Rouge, a thousand conversations, fractured by politics, rumor, myth and the varieties of human experience are being passed down to a sometimes skeptical younger generation.
"When a kid doesn't eat all the rice on the plate, his mother tells him, 'If you were in the Pol Pot regime, you would die because you don't have enough food,' " said Nou Va, 27, a program officer at the Khmer Institute for Democracy, a nonprofit group that recently produced a documentary film about the generation gap. "The kid says, 'Oh, she's just saying that to blame us. I don't believe it.' "
The battle for history is also being waged at a former military headquarters on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, where a special tribunal set up by the United Nations and the Cambodian government is struggling to bring to justice those leaders of the Khmer Rouge who survive. (Pol Pot died in 1998.)
Efforts to establish the court go back a decade. Despite recent signs of progress toward convening trials, many observers have concluded that the Cambodian government is not ready for a truly independent inquiry into this chapter of the nation's past.
"Were Hun Sen and his colleagues to permit an honest appraisal of the past, it would be the best proof that they have finally broken with that past and moved out from under the shadow of their Khmer Rouge origins," Short said. "Unfortunately, all the signs continue to point in the opposite direction."
Cheak, the medical student, has a more immediate concern. It's about Khamboly's new book. "Where," she asked, "can I get a copy?"[End]
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Congratulations College Grads!! |
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05/03/2007 @ 8:25 am |
On this college graduations season, I wanted to send my congratulations to Nina D., Tori U., Pisei, Crystal, and all the Khmer-American college seniors.
You are all so much more than the one dimensional Asian-American characters portrayed on television and in films. You are strong, talented, powerful, empowered.
As a writer, I am interested in people and their stories, and you all have a unique history of being the first generation of Cambodians born after the Khmer Rouge genocide that took the lives of a quarter of the country’s population. Like all those of your generation, yours is a story of multilingual-multicultural households, and breaking molds and barriers. You've learned and succeeded in school and out, and made your parents and all of us proud. Cheers and bravo to you all!
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The funny and hard life of a writer. |
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04/30/2007 @ 11:28 am |
I found this funny Geoff Ryman piece on Andy Brouwer's website. http://andybrouwer.blogspot.com/
(If you haven't visited Andy's site, do. You'll be amazed by the breath and scope of all things Cambodia/Cambodians on it.)
(Below text are taken directly from Andy's site.)
Geoff Ryman is a first class storyteller, as we saw when he brought Jayarvarman VII to life in his 2006 novel, The King's Last Song. Now, in his latest piece of magical fantasy writing, a complete short story called Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter, he's been nominated for a prestigious Hugo Award, given annually for the best science fiction and fantasy story. It first appeared in the Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine last November. Past Hugo winners include Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke.
In an interview in June 2006 with Carolyn Hill for the Chronicles Network, Geoff Ryman gave this amusing answer to the question; What's your writing process?
"I stare at a wall in despair. Sometimes it's for years. Suddenly I get inspiration. I write the first chapter in blinding inspiration. Then I sit and wait in despair. IF something magic happens and the idea suddenly clicks I write the first draft as a sketch in a haring great hurry warts and all. I have first draft! I read it. I sit and stare at the wall in despair. Gradually ideas for new and better scenes or stories flow in. I start to revise. I think I can do it in three drafts. It takes 8. By the 8th draft I know it doesn't work. I sit and stare at the wall in despair and consider giving up writing. I grind out the revisions, reading the text aloud and polishing, polishing. If the text suddenly reads well, I'm getting there. If after all that revision, it still doesn't click, it means there is a plot problem. There is always a major plot problem. I re-imagine at least a third of the novel or simply cut 30,000 words. I sit in despair."
Here's a brief review of the short story by Janice Clark:
Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy) by Geoff Ryman takes a look at the life of a hypothetical heir to Pol Pot’s hypothetical fortune. A “poor little rich girl” with unlimited credit and no friends, Sith avoids reading and thinking, amusing herself with recreational shopping. She has only faint, repressed memories of living with her father in the jungle, memories which fill her with horror at the thought of anything that isn’t completely modern, civilized, and sanitized. She lives in isolated luxury, travels in a chauffeured limousine, and never goes anywhere but to an expensive, high-rise shopping center.Two things change her empty life forever. First, she falls in love with Dara, a young cell phone salesman. The other is that she is haunted by the ghosts of her father’s victims. These are modern ghosts who speak through cell phones and other electronic gadgets, and whose photographs are spewed out by printers and copying machines (even with the power turned off).
“There is no forgiveness in Cambodia. But there are continual miracles of compassion and acceptance.” Her love for Dara has opened Sith’s heart. She continues to grow as she goes through the motions of honoring the dead who have no families left to mourn for them. What began as appeasement becomes true caring as her formerly narrow life unfolds like a blossom. Acknowledge the past, says Ryman. Honor the memory of those who died, but move on to the future. Take off your blinders, and accept the world as it is.
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D.Y. Bechard--a new literary giant. |
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04/26/2007 @ 5:39 pm |
I love books. I'm especially happy when I get to read a really, really great book! Just finished one I cannot recommend highly enough.
D.Y. Bechard is a French-Canadian-American writer whose debut novel 'Vandal Love' has been compared to literary giants such as Kerouac, Faulkner, Rushdie, Garcia Marquez, Proulx, and Doctorow. One review describe Bechard as "...poised to walk among the giants..." of the literary world.
I just put it down. Am in awe, intimidated, but mostly am inspired.
If you're like me, and you like a good read that's a page turner (I read it in three sittings!), then pick up D.Y. Bechard's "Vandal Love". (Also, a very interesting premise for a book and extremely well written with lots of complex layers to the story.)
Here's the jacket-copy description of the book.
A spellbinding novel of epic ambition, Vandal Love follows a unique French-Canadian family across North America and through the twentieth century. A family curse-a genetic trick-causes the Herve children to be born either giants or runts. Book I follows the giants, beginning with the boxer Jude's escape from a brutal life with his baby daughter, Isa; Book II belongs to the runts, who discovered that their power lies in a kind of unifying love. But none of the Herves can abandon their longing for a place where they might find others like themselves.
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Sochua Mu to speak at conference with four women Nobel Laureates |
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04/24/2007 @ 9:01 am |
I can't wait for this conference. I spoke there last year and am going as a guest this year. It was one of the best conference I've ever attended! HOpe to see you there!
OmegPresented by The Women's Institute at Omega and V-Day in collaboration with the Nobel Women's Initiative.
September 14-16.
Join us to explore questions about women, power, and peace at this historic gathering. This is the 5th Women and Power conference organized by Omega and V-Day—conferences hailed for their courageous speakers and their uplifting, inclusive atmosphere.
Four of these remarkable Nobel laureates (in bold above) grace the Omega stage at this conference. Each of them started as an ordinary citizen, empowered by the conviction that peace is possible. Wangari Maathai, who spoke at the 2005 Women and Power conference, is unable to attend this conference because she is running for Parliament in Kenya, and will be winding down her campaign. In her stead, we have invited American environmentalist Majora Carter whose work involves linking social justice with the environment, much like Professor Maathai. Aung San Suu Kyi, still under house arrest in Burma for her civil rights work, is represented by a video in conversation with the other laureates. Mairead Corrigan is unable to attend the conference.
Other speakers include Cambodia's own Sochua Mu, one of only two female cabinet ministers of the 2nd Royal Government of Cambodia from 1998-2004, is a social activist, elected representative, and nation-builder who has dedicated her life to the advocacy of the rights of women in Cambodia and around the world. She is considered the principal founder of the women's movement in Cambodia. She led the march with thousands of nuns and monks to call for peace and non-violence during the UN sponsored election in 1993. She was co-nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
Sochua Mu grew up in Phnom Penh but was forced to flee for her life as a refugee in the early 1970s as the Vietnam War spilled over into Cambodia. Her parents were trapped in the country as it fell under the command of the murderous Khmer Rouge in 1975, and they vanished during the genocide that would claim the lives of roughly one quarter of Cambodia's population. Sochua Mu remained in exile for the next 18 years. She earned degrees in Psychology and Social Work from Berkeley before returning to South-East Asia to help rebuild a society shattered by war.
In 2005, she received the Leadership Award in Washington, DC, from the Vital Voices Foundation, co-founded by Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton. In 2002 she mobilized 12,000 women candidates to run for commune elections, with over 900 women winning and still actively promoting the women's agenda at the grass-roots level. In that same year she helped create and pass the Prevention of Domestic Violence Bill, which imposes severe penalties on marital rape and abuse of minors. Her work in Cambodia also includes campaigns with men to end domestic violence and the spread of HIV/Aids; working for the rights of female entrepreneurs; working for labor laws that provide fair wages and safe working conditions for female workers; and working for the development of communities for squatters with schools, health centers, sanitation, and employment.
Ms. Mu is the former Minister of Veterans and Women's Affairs in Cambodia where she worked to curtail human trafficking in Southeast Asia and is currently working for her new foundation, The Soul of Cambodia. Since 1989 Sochua Mu has been an active and tireless participant in the rebirth of Cambodia. She began by assisting refugees in the camps in Thailand, and joined FUNCINPEC, the royalist party of the current coalition government. She was elected to Cambodia's National Assembly in 1998 with a seat in Battambang, in the North-West of Cambodia, one of the most war-torn provinces and where her parents lost their lives. When it became clear that retaining her high position in the government would require playing a part in corruption and exploitation of the poor, Sochua Mu renounced the leadership and joined the primary opposition party to focus on rebuilding Cambodia from the bottom up. She has served in many different capacities in the Sam Rainsy Party and the nation, currently acting as a leader in many different organizations. She received an honorary Ph.D. in Law from the University of Guelph in 2006. She played a large role in the forthcoming documentary film on trafficking, Virgin Harvest.
text taken from:http://www.eomega.org/omega/workshops/cb4c32ab672ec2bb5b33cf660e22202e/
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Ung sisters reunited |
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04/24/2007 @ 13:31 am |
This article came out last month...
Two sisters. One fled the Killing Fields. Now they’re family again
ELEANOR COWIE March 08 2007 (The Herald)
THE past is a foreign country: they do things differently there," wrote LP Hartley in the opening paragraph of his acclaimed novel, The Go-Between. The unforgettable line set the tone for the fictional tale of Leo; a nostalgic elderly gentleman who reminiscences on the eventful summer in 1900 when, as a young boy, he dramatically lost his innocence.
Years on, the quotation's meaning still resonates with readers - particularly, it could be said, with those who have endured a traumatic loss of childhood and who continue to grapple with such memories.
When interviewing Loung Ung, a 36-year-old survivor of the Killing Fields of Cambodia, ahead of the launch of the second installment of her autobiography, entitled After They Killed Our Father: A Refugee from the Killing Fields Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind, I am immediately reminded Hartley's haunting words. So extraordinary and unimaginably brutal was Ung's childhood and introduction to adult life, that any existence must seem other-worldly.
In the first book, First They Killed My Father, Ung describes how until the age of five, she lived a stable, middle-class life in Phnom Penh, as one of seven children of a high-ranking government official and his wife.
Life was happy and comfortable until Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge stormed the Cambodian capital, forcing the family to leave virtually everything they had, assume different identities and latterly separate in order to survive. While Ung was trained as a child soldier (at only eight years old), the remaining members of her family were sent to work in labour camps. Her father, mother and two sisters, Keav and Geak, were eventually murdered by Khmer Rouge soldiers, while the other family members narrowly survived starvation and malnutrition.
In After They Killed Our Father, we rejoin Ung in 1980, then aged 10, as she leaves a Thai refugee camp, accompanied by Meng, her older brother, and Eang, his wife, for a new life in the US. In escaping the wreckage of Cambodia, they are also forced to say goodbye to Chou, their 12-year-old sister; their two brothers, Kim and Khouy; and members of their extended family. Settling in Vermont, the depleted family vow to return to their sister and brothers in five years.
Told in the first person, the book charts Ung's own Americanisation. This narrative interweaves with the recollections of Chou, who remained in Cambodia. Chou's life was initially hard; she missed her siblings and was living in a small, rural hut with her uncle and aunt and their five children. Much of her life was spent working the land, cooking, cleaning and looking after her nieces and nephews, although her aunt did allow her to go to school, providing she took her baby nephew, Nam, with her. In 1985, aged 18 years, she married Pheng, a local man, in an arranged marriage which, according to Ung, later "blossomed into love".
Ung's book makes for testing reading. It is at once moving and uncomfortable, but ultimately very hopeful. The catalyst for the second book came, says Ung, in her upbeat and friendly way, as she watched George Bush declare the end of the war in Iraq. "As I watched him declaring mission accomplished', I was so frustrated. Just because he said it war was over, it didn't really mean it was. For the victims of war, it never really ends. This second book is about trying to survive peace after war," she says.
I wonder what it takes to make sense of peace, and whether or not she has managed it. "It takes a lot to survive peace. Everyone has different journeys, but I think there are some commonalties. For one thing, it takes recognising the triggers, so you're not fighting the wars in your mind over and over again. For me, the war was physically over but it was ongoing in my mind.
"The slightest thing would trigger it off for me. The sound of a plane flying that bit too low; or the sound of fireworks, like bombs; or the cry of a child; or the rumbles in my stomach. I had no sense of what reality was for much of my early life, so I had trouble distinguishing what was war and what was real. Until I realised that these things just happen - like my stomach rumbling as a natural reaction - I would immediately think I was in the war situation again," she explains.
A difficulty in grasping reality, coupled with the horrific flashbacks of the war, continued to plague Ung throughout her teenage years. Some of the most moving parts of her work are when she describes the gravity of her depression and loneliness. She describes the unspoken rule which existed between her, Meng and Eang, prohibiting all talk "of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, Ma, Pa and especially Geak," and how enraged she was when people said how "lucky" she was for having gone through the revolution at such an early age. She writes: "They believe that my age means I'll heal faster, that I won't remember. They are wrong. I do remember, I just don't have the words to tell them about it. And that most of the time I'm silent about the war, it is never silent to me. It is always with me.
"As the chair rocks, I curl into the foetal position. It's Christmas. You should be happy. Everyone's happy on Christmas.' The sobs come faster now, pushing against my diaphragm and out of my throat. But I am so lonely.' I cover my hand over my mouth so Meng and Eang won't hear me. I don't want them to know. I miss my sisters,' I say out loud to the empty room. My chest heaves as I realise it's the first time I've said it, not just thought it. I miss Chou'."
Now we are reunited I can move on, as even though we lead different lives, I know my sister is happy.
Her family were not the only ones Ung hid her grief from. Recalling one visit to her school counsellor, Mrs Berringer, Ung writes: "I like Mrs Berringer. She possess a kind and maternal face. Still, I can't talk to her. The sadness is so unending, I fear it will swallow me up like a black hole. I'm afraid that if I let go and cry, I'll never stop. I want to tell Mrs Berringer there's so much pain inside me, that I'm lonely most of the time and scared a lot of the time. But I don't know how to make my mouth form the words I need to say. So I ramble about nothing."
Unsurprisingly, Ung's depression led to a suicide attempt. "I get out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. I'm just so sad,' I finally say out loud. And in forming the words something in me is released. In the bathroom mirror, the girl stares at me. Her eyelashes are wet, her face is haunting; she looks like the dead girl in my dreams. And the tears roll over me like waves in the ocean, they crash and pull me under," she writes. Later, Ung fills her tummy with painkillers. " I just wanna sleep,' I whisper. I miss them so much. The sadness is a black hole in my gut, a vacuum void that sucks all the light in," she writes.
In hindsight, did she really want to die? "I don't know if I was conscious of wanting to die, but I was very conscious of not wanting to live," she explains. "I just didn't want to feel that way any more. I wanted to sleep without nightmares for a very long time. I had held on to so many of the war memories because they were all the memories I really had. I felt I couldn't forget them until I made new ones. At the same time, I had a sense of wanting to hold on to them, painful and unpleasant as they were, because of the hopelessness I felt. I didn't know I was ever going to return to Cambodia or see Chou. It was a case of not forgetting my memories of my life in Phnom Penh until I had replenished them with new ones that I didn't want to forget.
"When I was reunited with Chou in 1995, I was able to move forward because I had created new memories and had found out that even though her life is so different to mine, she is happy. She is a mother and grandmother and I don't have have to feel guilty about what I have in life and what she doesn't have. She is where she is, and that's that. I don't have to try to make her life more like mine.
"It was such a joy to write the second book, and through it I learned to look at Chou not through the eyes of a Cambodian American, but a Cambodian woman," she says.
She aborted her suicide attempt, she says, for her nieces. "My mind went back to the scene in my first book where I imagined how my mother and youngest sister, Geak, were murdered by Khmer Rouge soldiers. Either one of them must have died seeing the other suffering or dead. I just couldn't do that to my nieces. I couldn't bear the thought of Maria trying to wake up my dead body. She was only five at the time, the same age Geak was when she was murdered in the Killing Fields."
TODAY, Ung, who is married and lives in Maine, travels to her native homeland at least twice a year in her capacity as a human rights worker. "Writing has been a way to exorcise the Khmer Rouge from my soul," she says. It is also her way of apologising to Chou. Chou wrote to me during college, but I never replied. I got caught up in leaving Cambodia behind and was busy living the American dream. I had built myself up to be a very successful woman, and had worked hard at doing so."
But on her first trip to Cambodia, that past finally caught up with her. On meeting her at the airport, a cousin remarked how her clothes resembled a Khmer Rouge soldier. "It froze me, and brought it all back. It showed me how I couldn't leave it behind as much as I wanted, or tried to. Since then, I have built new memories of life and joy. Now the old ones of death and suffering sit alongside the new ones, but that's OK. Right now, I'm pretty happy and stable," she smiles.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.1247257.0.0.php
After They Killed Our Father, Mainstream Publishing, £12.99.
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Cambodia Chivy Sok inspires students |
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04/23/2007 @ 5:00 pm |
There are many people I look up to in this world--and one such special person is Chivy Sok. At an age when most of us were struggling to find our identities, she was leading a charge to fight for justice and peace as the Director for Human Rights Advocates Training Program at Columbia University's Center for the Study of Human Rights. Kudos and Thank you, Chivy.
Here's an article about how Chivy continues to inspires many others!
Monday, April 16, 2007
Iowa City Press-Citizen by Rob Daniel
Spencer Lundquist had not heard a lot about the issue of child labor in the world before a talk by human rights advocate Chivy Sok while in sixth-grade at Lucas Elementary.The talk, he said, spurred him and others to action. Lundquist and others started a club that raised awareness about child labor at Lucas, passing out bookmarks and tying ribbons on cars.
"My friends and I were shocked we hadn't heard about this issue before,"
said Lundquist, now 15 and a City High freshman.
However, his raising awareness of world problems did not stop there. Last year, as an eighth-grader at South East Junior High, he noticed students did not recycle plastic bottles and other renewable materials and began an environmental club.
"We actually got recycling bins in the lunch rooms at South East,"
Lundquist said. "It tripled the recycling at South East."
He continued to be advocate of the issues while splitting his class time between City High and home-school work by volunteering with Rotary International in Xicotepec, Mexico, during spring break. While there, he helped build houses and taught the value of protecting the environment to children and adults alike. Much of his time was spent helping children who work in the coffee fields, spraying pesticides.
"They don't recognize it's poisonous, so they spray it everywhere and don't wear any protective gear at all," Lundquist said.
An active member of City High's gay-straight alliance, GLOW, Lundquist also is planning the Iowa City gay pride parade in June. He said advocating for gay rights along with ending child labor and helping the environment is a must for advancing human rights.
"It's just the want to see change and the want to change the world," he said. "I really want to help the world."
About Chivy Sok.
Chivy Sok, an advocate of international human rights, is dedicated to the advancement of peace and social justice. Currently, she is working on projects to advance understanding about child labor
through public education and training.
Most recently Sok served as the Deputy Director of the UI Center for Human Rights (UICHR) and Project Director of the $1.2 million Child Labor Research Initiative (CLRI) at the University of Iowa. She was responsible for all CLRI project implementation and reporting to the U.S. Department of Labor. The CLRI was a
three-year multi-faceted project that resulted in (1) construction
of an internet database of national legislation related to child
labor of 31 countries; (2) publication of an essay collection edited by Professor Burns Weston, an internationally renowned
scholar of human rights; (3) development of a series of public education curricula on child labor; (4) course development and
teaching of child labor for college students, and (5) workshops and training on child labor for K-12 teachers. Through her work, Sok also engaged local Iowa City youth activists to get involved in
child labor issues.
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Cambodian students to study Khmer Rouge history! |
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04/23/2007 @ 10:31 pm |
Bravo! Bravo!!
Thank you Khamboly Dy!
The Washington postMonday, April 23, 2007
Page A14
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The first history book written by a Cambodian about the Khmer Rouge is a step toward educating the nation about its murderous rule, a leading genocide expert said Sunday.
"Cambodians are at last beginning to investigate and record their country's past," said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group documenting the Khmer Rouge crimes.
Khamboly Dy's "A History of Democratic Kampuchea" is to be published Wednesday. Cambodia was called Democratic Kampuchea during the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge rule that led to the deaths of 1.7 million people.
Cambodian schools teach little about the Khmer Rouge, largely because the subject is sensitive among political groups and high-profile individuals once associated with the now-defunct communist movement.
The book, written for high school teachers and students, will be available to the public for free, Youk Chhang said. No Cambodian historian had written about the Khmer Rouge, fearing reprisal, he said.
The Education Ministry approved the book in January as a "core reference" material for history textbooks, but not as part of the core curriculum, Youk Chhang said.
Cambodia and the United Nations have created a tribunal expected to begin this year that is aimed at prosecuting the few surviving Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity.[End]
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Writing Life |
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04/20/2007 @ 8:58 am |
While going through my old emails I came across this article about Cambodian writers in The Guardian. It's a great piece. I hope you enjoy it.
Saturday April 8, 2006
The Guardian
This month it is 31 years since the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. A mix of rabid nationalism, misapplied liberation philosophy and Maoism, the movement tried to create a new culture. The result was a form of auto-genocide. Of an estimated 38,000 intellectuals, only 300 were left alive at the end of the Pol Pot era. Years of war, from 1970 to 1998, left a ruined infrastructure, and an illiteracy rate of about 60%. This spring, a welter of literary events shows the country's determination to support artists and create audiences.
Pal Vannarirak, the host of a new Cambodian TV show about books and authors, has written more than 100 short stories and 40 novels. Having survived the Khmer Rouge, Vannarirak found work for the Vietnamese-backed government - as a censor. She had to ban her own novels. "Because I knew the kinds of books I was hunting, I knew the kind of books I was not supposed to write. So I wrote them."
In those days there were no printing presses. Books were copied by hand and sold door to door. Vannarirak would take home copies of her own banned books and sell them again. But her husband became upset and burned many of her originals and copies. "In my life I rarely cry but when my husband burned my books, I sat down and cried a long, long time."
Cambodian literature matters. It matters because of the extremity of Cambodian lives. But at times it seems as though the only thing westerners know about Cambodia is the Khmer Rouge. For some Cambodian writers the time has come to write about something else.
Phin Santel was last year's winner of the Nou Hach literary award for short stories. He says of his fiction: "It's like an update. I want to put next to the books about the genocide, real-time stories from my country. That is my first mission in writing stories."
In his own translation of the story "Katuouch" he writes: "You are ashamed when you look on all libraries of the world you only find books of genocide, of blood and of survive. You want that the world finds a new book of Cambodia." In that story, an educated Khmer returns from Paris and meets a country woman. He is inspired to write the story of her life, but is killed by a reckless driver and the story is not written. This random death has deep resonances for Cambodians.
Phin says: "Sometimes one person wants to do something good, but he gets no chance because there are still many people who have no education and a bad attitude, who, even without intention, could block all these possibilities. I don't blame them. I just create images, events and tell the story.
"People only care about themselves or their families. No one cares about the country. I wish that one day each individual will start to think about sacrifice for the country again."
Malaise and malfunction - how to explain them without reference to the catastrophes of the past? For all its attempts at escape, much writing about Cambodia circles back to the havoc wreaked by recent years. As an expatriate director of an arts NGO said to me: "They still move through the dust of war."
For Theary Seng, author of Daughter of the Killing Fields: Asrei's Story, the devastation has reached into the language itself. "Most, if not all, of the writings on Cambodia are by foreigners, either French- or English-language writers/historians. The Khmer Rouge did a successful job in destroying the foundational infrastructure in so many different sectors. The Khmer language was no exception - the language has undergone a major transformation for the worse. The Khmer language pre-KR and post-KR is of a different quality in terms of spelling, uniformity, grammar, sentence structure, eloquence."
Yet Cambodian writers have a towering faith in the power of writing. Playwright Chhay Bora says: "Our pens can heal. Our pens can kill." Pal Vannarirak says, "A writer, with the tip of his pen, can make the earth flip." To be a writer in Cambodia is to be possessed by a sense of vocation.
The project coordinator of the Nou Hach literary journal, Professor Terry Shaffer Yamada, lists the issues for Khmer literature. "The first problem is venues to publish. Most newspapers and magazines will only publish your work if you pay them. Second, piracy. People will photocopy your book and sell it without your knowledge. There's no distribution system for books, no bookstore chains. Books are sold in outdoor stalls. We (Nou Hach) are the only literary journal for modern literature. Otherwise, you have to self-publish and try to figure out how to get it distributed."
In other words, samizdat. "It's samizdat all right," agrees John Weeks, who is researching Khmer literature. "But it's battling against indifference much more than censorship. At our Indonesia exchange, a comic artist tried to talk about the idea of a cultural movement and he just got blank looks. Movement equals politics and here people after many years are quite cautious."
Following elections, from 2003 into 2004 the country had no legitimate parliament. The Crown Prince forged an alliance with Hun Sen, so King Sihanouk resigned and made another one of his sons the new monarch. In 2005 the opposition politician Sam Rainsy and leaders of his party fled the country to avoid charges of defamation (he has since been pardoned).
Yet the courage and wit of Cam-bodians creates an insouciance that seems embedded in the landscape. A microlight aircraft runs out of fuel, so lands in a field next to Highway 6 and tanks up from a roadside stall selling petrol in old water bottles. Pickup trucks still throw cigarettes to motorboys driving on the wrong side of the road, but these days that motorboy will be setting himself up as a partner for foreigners buying Siem Reap real estate.
Cambodia has plenty of new stories to tell. The prizes, the subsidies and the fight to lay the past to rest could one day yield a fiction that has room for an Alexander McCall Smith as well as Kafka - a sure sign that the past has been overcome. Geoff Ryman's latest novel is The King's Last Song (HarperCollins).
To read more of Phin Santel's work visit khmerbird.apsara.org; Theary Seng's website is asrei.net. Visit nouhachjournal.net
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Condolences to Virginia Tech families |
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04/20/2007 @ 9:05 am |
My condolences to all the families and victims of the Virginia Tech shootings. I just want to send my good karma and peaceful thoughts their way.
Like many other Americans, I've been glued to my tv for the latest updates on the shootings. I loved all the wonderful 'life' pieces on the survivors. They were beautifully done.
I've heard or read many of the surrounding stories--from therapists, psycho-analysts, health officials, homeland security, body language experts...etc.. that profiled the Cho. But what I haven't read about, and isn't talked about is gun control. Would someone please do a story about how easy it was for Cho to buy his guns? Was there a background check?
The best book I've read about this issue is by Richard North Patterson, titled "Balance of Power". If you're at all interested in this issue, pick it up. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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A sompeah for Dith Pran |
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04/16/2007 @ 10:35 am |
Today I sompeah pou Dith Pran to show my respect and gratitude.
I met Dith Pran in person in 1993 when he came to speak at Bates College in Auburn, Maine. I was was 23, and working as an advocate against domestic violence in Auburn--a rural, predominantly white town. I was practically the only brown girl in a sea of white and pink people in that auditorium. And I'd never been more proud. Dith Pran spoke passionately, eloquently, and beautifully. After hearing him, I was inspired to do the same.
Years later, many of us Khmer-Americans activists, authors, writers, singers..etc.. are following in Dith Pran's footsteps. We work and spread our words all over the globe. And I, for one, am grateful for Dith Pran for being the first (that I knew of) to pave that path.
About Dith Pran (text taken from http://www.cambodian.com/dithpran/
Dith Pran's wartime life was portrayed in the award-winning movie, The Killing Fields. Pran and Sydney Schanberg, then a New York Times correspondent, covered the encroaching civil war in Cambodia from 1972 to 1975. While Americans and Cambodian dependents were evacuated from Phnom Penh on April 12, 1975, Pran and Sydney stayed to cover the fall of the capital to the communist Khmer Rouge.
Career(s)
Photojournalist for The New York Times since 1980
Appointed Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1985
Attended meeting of the International Red Cross in Geneva that promoted respect and
international safe passage for war victims
Testified several times before the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Senate and House of Representatives regarding the Cambodian situation
Member of the Asian American Journalist Association
Board member to many non-governmental organizations
Received four honorary doctorate degrees
1998 Ellis Island Medal of Honor recipient
Founder & President of The Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, Inc.
Compiler of Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors (Published by Yale, 1997)
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The sacred words of U Sam Oeur |
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04/14/2007 @ 5:24 pm |
A few years ago I had the honor of sitting on a panel with the wonderful Khmer poet U Sam Oeur. As he chanted his words, I was lifted out of my seat and transformed by its power and strength. I immediately went out and bought his book. I loved it. Then I bought copies and gave it to friends. I wished there was an audio version of Sacred Vows.
Here's what Ken Mcculough had to say about Khmer poetry. Text taken from: http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/introductions/2627/mccullough.htm
TRADITIONAL KHMER POETRY is usually chanted and invariably the poet accompanies himself on a two-stringed guitar as a drone instrument. For some types of poems, particularly laments, a wooden flute is used as accompaniment. U Sam Oeur's poetry adheres to the tradition in that most of his poems, in Khmer, are written in strict forms with intricate rhyme schemes, as well as in that he chants them in dramatic fashion. The narrative portions of poems are chanted in a flat manner similar to recitative, while the more emotionally-charged passages are delivered in the manner of aria. The longest section of the book-length Sacred Vows is entitled "In the Concentration Camps;" hence, as one might assume, the predominant emotions are grief and despair. Despite this, many of the poems are tinged with irony and even whimsy.
Thank you U Sam Oeur, thank you Ken McCullough.
Sacred Vows by U Sam Oeur
For Michael Dennis Browne
Text copied from: http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/introductions/2627/mccullough.htm
I. Kapok Plantation
May 1978
I was assigned, one among seven,
to clear the land, 500 acres worth;
to transform it into the site
for a kapok plantation: mid-May '78
One afternoon, on a scorching day,
the Red-Eyes sat in a circle in the shade.
Their leader proclaimed: "This season, Angkar
will start more intensive work
to finish ahead of schedule.
And after harvest, in the cold months,
Angkar will wipe out all useless people,
and leave the seed of fifteen families for each cooperative-
we will consider this the model."
I stared at the sky.
I murmured
"O, Almighty One!
Do you hear the proclamations of these monsters?"
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PraCH Ly for Peace |
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04/13/2007 @ 9:11 am |
praCh is phenomenal! praCh is a bi-lingual Khmer-American rapper. He's smart, raw, talented, inspired, and so so cool.
I saw him performed two years ago in DC and he blew me away! I don't normally listen to rap, but this man had me off my seat, bopping my head up and down, laughing, and eyes glued on him. When I turned to my neighbors, I saw elder Khmer men and women doing the same. praCh is a treasure to our community.
(from his site www.mujestic.com/p_r_a_c_h)
Born in Cambodia and raised in America, praCh's received international attention with his first album 'DALAMA..."the end'n is just the beginnin". His highly anticipated follow-up album 'DALAMA.."the lost chapter." catapults his status into raps elites. Through masterful lyrics of powerful rap music, his music educates young and old about the Cambodian genocide and the life in the Cambodian community. His music/lyrics has been publish by Manoa, for the book " In the shadow of Angkor"; which is being use for south east Asians studies in colleges and universities. He is also working on film documentary and has collaborated with many other movies productions such as; Fragile Hope, Nice Hat, Love Sick, Out of the Posion Tree, and many others. He even expland his wing and work on a Broadway play call 'Eyes of the Heart'. Newsweek proclaim him as the "pioneer of Khmer Rap" and "the first Cambodian rap star."
I highly encourage you to visit his website and listen to praCH!
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The extraordinary Daran Kravanh |
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04/11/2007 @ 13:48 am |
This past January I had the honor of sitting on a panel with the extraordinary Daran Kravanh in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It was a conference organized by CSD (Center for Social Development), and the panelists were there to share our stories of surviving the Khmer Rouge.
Sitting there with five other survivors, each with his or her unique story, each strong and brave, I felt unsure and awkward. I felt I had no right to be there. I wanted to leave. Then Mr. Daran Kravanh started to sing. His Khmer songs told stories of love, loss, and family. His beautiful voice filled the room, lifted my spirit, and healed my heart. Thank you Pou Daran.
http://musicsurvival.com/index.asp
(Below text is taken from Daran Kravanh's website.)
Music Through the Dark, a story in music and words, is the result of the exploration of Daran's survival and of those things that reveal our humanity to even the most brutal of men.
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Singapore Writers Festival |
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04/10/2007 @ 4:31 pm |
Hello Friends.
Wow, what a week. I'm currently in Ohio, and it's 29 degrees outside right now! We're also still buried under 2 feet of snow. Global Warming anyone?
On a warmer note, I've just accepted the invitation to attend The Singapore Writers Festival (SWF).
SWF will be held on December 1 – 9, 2007. It is co-organised by the National Arts Council (NAC) of Singapore and The Arts House. SWF is Singapore’s only national literary festival, celebrating of Singapore ’s diverse and distinctive literary heritage. For more information, visit www.theartshouse.com.sg.
I'm so excited! Other SWF featured writers are: David Mitchell (UK), Arnošt Lustig ( Czech Republic ) Rattawut Lapcharoensap ( Thailand ) Wei Hui ( China ), Yu Hua ( China ).
SWF is multi-lingual and multi disciplinary in nature. Its 2007 festival will not only feature regular literary programmes but it will also showcase graphic novels and multi-disciplinary programmes which will see writers (and their works) in collaboration with other artists (and their art forms) such as music, theatre and film.
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www.andybrouwer.co.uk is a fantastic website! |
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04/03/2007 @ 8:15 am |
OK. I was just on Andy's website, which is fantastic! I don't know how he does it, or where he finds the time to write, update, and get all these interviews. The latest updates are all about Khmer films. He's got some wonderful interviews with the film makers and actresses.
Www.andybrouwer.com.uk has beautiful pictures, and some of the best interviews and newsbits on everything Cambodia. I also send new travelors to Cambodia to visit Andy's Cambodia Tales, which is part adventure, part travelogue, and makes for a very interesting, fun, and informative read. Check it out at www.andybrouwer.co.uk.
And thanks, Andy, for compiling the AWSOME Khmer Film list.
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Part of my Soul showing at Harvard |
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04/03/2007 @ 12:33 am |
FYI.
Harvard Carr Center will be screening a documentary of my work on Monday, April 16th. Hope to see a few friends there!
Film: "Part of my Soul: The Odyssey of a Child of Genocide"
When: Mon Apr 16 6pm
Where: Harvard Carr Center, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Description:
Wiener Auditorium, Taubman BuildingWith Loung Ung.An award-winning documentary, Part of my Soul: The Odyssey of a Child of Genocide, chronicles the lives of author, Loung Ung, and her sister, Chou, who grew up in very different environments, the former in the United States and the later in Cambodia.
Part of Carr Center's Film Series.
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Awsome Khmer Films!!!!!!! |
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04/02/2007 @ 6:27 pm |
Thanks to Andy Brouwer (www.andybrouwer.co.uk), I just had myself a good cry. (FYI. Camnews is also a good place to go to for Khmer news. Cambodian News, a listserve that distributes hourly Cambodia news to us Cambodia addicts. To subscribe, go to www.camnews.com)
Anyway, back to what I was saying... Thanks to Perom Uch for forwarding the below list of all the new Khmer films/films about Cambodia. I knew about New Year Baby but didn't know about the others. I checked out every one of the site. They're AWSOME! I feel so proud! Thank You!!! After all these years of Cambodia being written as a "sideshow", these talented, brave, and wonderful artists have brought it back to The Mainstage!
Check them out!
The Golden Voice : "Samleng Meas" (Ros Sereisothea)
http://www.thegoldenvoicemovie.com/
- Last Seen at Angkor :
http://www.angkormovie.com/
- The Red Sense (VicNhean Krâhom) :
http://www.theredsensemovie.com/
- Out of the Poison Tree :
http://www.goodfilmworks.com/
- Rains Falls From Earth :
http://www.rainfallsfromearth.com/
- Don't think I've forgotten :
http://www.dontthinkiveforgotten.com/
- The K11 Journey
http://www.priorityfilms.com/journey.html
- New Year Baby :
http://www.newyearbaby.net/site/c.grKNIWPHIsE/b.672275/k.CBF1/Home.htm
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One Big Happy Family |
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03/29/2007 @ 4:05 pm |
Greetings Everyone!
I am in Connecticut to speak the students at Greens Farms Academy. In my spare time, I read. I just read this very interesting article by Bertil Lintner, written for Asia Times Online Ldt. Does "Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved" means I can't post it here? I seriously don't know. Until someone contact me to tell me to take it off the site, here it is. Be prepared to be amazed!
ONE HAPPY FAMILY
By Bertil Lintner
PHNOM PENH - Cambodia's rough-and-tumble politics have long been bloody, marred by frequent political assassinations and violence. Butnever before have they been quite so blood-linked.
The English-language fortnightly Phnom Penh Post published without comment in late February a family tree it had compiled, revealing how the top leaders of the ruling Cambodia People's Party (CPP) have become more intimate through an old-fashioned Cambodian custom: arranged marriage. And the growing family ties run all the way to the top of Cambodia's political pyramid, Prime Minister Hun Sen, Southeast
Asia's longest-serving leader.
For instance, there is Hun Sen's brother, Hun Neng, currently serving as governor of Kompong Cham, whose daughter, Hun Kimleng, is married to the deputy commissioner of Cambodia's National Police, Neth
Savoeun. Meanwhile, Hun Neng's son, Hun Seang Heng, is married to Sok Sopheak, the daughter of Sok Phal, another deputy commissioner of theNational Police. Hun Sen's 25-year-old son, Hun Manith, is married to Hok Chendavy, the daughter of Hok Lundy, the National Police commissioner.
Another of the premier's sons, Hun Many, 24, is married to Yim Chay Lin, the daughter of Yim Chay Li, secretary of state for rural development. One of Hun Sen's daughters, Hun Mali, 23, meanwhile, is
married to Sok Puthyvuth, the son of Sok An, Hun Sen's right-hand man and minister of the Council of Ministers. The friendship between Hun Sen and Sok An dates back to the early 1980s, when Hun Sen was foreign
minister and Sok An director of the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Now those personal ties run blood deep as in-laws.
And that's just a sampling of the connections at the highest echelons.
Heng Samrin, who was Cambodia's head of state from the Vietnamese invasion in January 1979 to the United Nations intervention in 1991,and now serves as president of the National Assembly and honorary CPPpresident, has a daughter named Heng Sam An, who is married to Pen Kosal, an adviser to Sar Kheng, deputy prime minister and minister of the interior - as well as brother-in-law of Senate and CPP president Chea Sim.
Heng Samrin's adviser, Cham Nimol, is the daughter of Cham Prasidh, minister of commerce. Another of Cham Pradish's daughters, Cham Krasna, is engaged to Sok Sokann, another of minister Sok An's sons.
Sar Kheng's son, Sar Sokha, meanwhile, is married to Ke Sunsophy, daughter of Ke Kim Yan, commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. And Hun Sen's wife, Bun Ramy, currently serves as president of the Cambodian Red Cross, while its second vice president,Theng Ay Anny, aka Sok An Anny, is Sok An's wife.
Family traditions
There has been no official reaction to the Phnom Penh Post's revealing study. Intermarriage among members of the ruling political and business elites is not uncommon in Asia.
In neighboring Thailand, Field Marshal Phin Choonhavan's son,Chatichai Choonhavan, became prime minister of Thailand, while his
daughter, Khun Ying Udomlak married Phao Sriyanond, director general of the Thai police. Another high-ranking Thai army officer, Thanom Kittikachorn, was the brother-in-law of fellow military dictator
Praphas Charusathien, while his son, Narong Kittikachorn, also became a military strongman, while his sister Songsuda married Suvit Yodmani, who has served with several Thai governments.
Sino-Thai tycoons are known to have rranged their children's marriages to members of other top business families to progress their commercial interests. But in Cambodia's case, where many of the
political elite were wiped out during Khmer Rouge-led purges between 1975 and 1979, the number of political marriages is extraordinary. And these new family ties between the children of ministers and top
officials potentially set the stage for the CPP's grip on power to continue for generations.
Significantly, the CPP's family connection is emerging simultaneously with a waning of the royal family's influence over national politics. Ever since Hun Sen and his inner circle of friends and advisers ousted
former prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh in a 1997 coup, the royalist Funcinpec party's political fortunes have waned.
Ranariddh was forced into exile after the bloody putsch that killed many of his party members, but later returned to Cambodia to become president of the National Assembly after inconclusive general elections in 2003, when the CPP was unable to garner enough votes to form a one-party government and after much squabbling joined with
Funcinpec in a wobbly coalition.
One of the sons of former king Norodom Sihanouk and half-brother of the present monarch, Sihamoni, Ranariddh resigned that post last March and subsequently left the country again. While he was away, he was
dismissed as co-chairman of the Council for the Development of Cambodia as well as the National Olympic Committee. He later returned to Cambodia - and was ousted as president of Funcinpec, the main opposition party, amid an internal power struggle in October that many political analysts believe Hun Sen had a hand in.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, several of Funcinpec's original leaders were also related. Ranariddh's uncle and former king Norodom Sihanouk's younger half-brother, Norodom Sirivudh, served as foreign
minister in a Funcinpec-led government in 1993. Ranariddh's half-brother, Norodom Chakrapong, meanwhile, helped found Funcinpec but later defected to the CPP. Their half-sister and Sihanouk's eldest
child, Norodom Bopha Devi, has served as minister of information and culture, while her latest consort, Khek Vandy, was elected to the National Assembly on a Funcinpec list in 1998.
But Funcinpec's family pride has waned considerably since it emerged as the biggest party in the UN-supervised elections in May 1993, when it captured 45% of the popular vote and outpaced the CPP, which came in a close second with 38%. Many political observers think Ranariddh's
recent ouster from Funcinpec may represent his last political gasp.
His former Funcinpec colleagues recently sued him on allegations that he embezzled US$3.6 million from the sale of the party's headquarters last August. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court found the prince guilty
and sentenced him - in absentia - to 18 years in prison. Ranariddh had recently set up a new party, aptly named the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP).
Funcinpec, the NRP and the opposition Sam Rainsy Party will be among 10 different political parties standing against the CPP juggernaut in upcoming commune council elections, which are scheduled for April 1
and widely viewed as a bellwether indicator for next year's general elections.
It may well be an April Fool's election, with the opposition fractured and vulnerable and the CPP allegedly pursuing a campaign of violence and intimidation against opposition candidates and their supporters in rural areas. Khieu Kanharith, CPP minister of information, predicted
on February 22 that his party would win about 97% or 98% of the positions in the commune councils, and 95% of the vote in the general elections next year. That may well be the case, as Cambodia is fast
morphing into a one-party state dominated by the CPP.
The Phnom Penh Post in its February 9 edition quoted a foreign diplomat as saying: "The CPP controls the government, the National Assembly, the Senate, 99% of the village chiefs, the provincial
governments. Their influence goes through the judiciary, through the police ... Practically everything is controlled by one party."
That assessment would appear to jibe with 55-year-old Hun Sen's January 9 pronouncement that he does not intend to stand down from the premiership until he is at least 90 years old. By then, a third
generation of CPP family-tied politicians and officials, if everything goes according to the apparent plan, will just be coming of political age.
Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review, where he reported frequently on Cambodian politics and economics. He is currently a writer with Asia-Pacific Media Services.
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New Year Baby |
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03/21/2007 @ 14:15 am |
New Year Baby, a documentary
Congratulations to Socheata Poeuv, whose documentary about her family's story of surviving the Khmer Rouge genocide and her own story of healing is heaping awards wherever it's screened. I can't wait to see it. If it's coming to your area, don't miss it. My friend Andy B. couldn't say enough fabulous things about it. I've only met Socheata on the phone but from her voice and words, I know she is one passionate, talented, and fantastic woman. I am so proud of her great work.
To read more about it, visit her website. http://www.newyearbaby.net/site/
c.grKNIWPHIsE/b.672275/k.CBF1/Home.htm
And oh, it's a great site, packed full of beautiful, moving pictures, and information about the film. Do check it out.
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I always knew I'd find my sister again |
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03/20/2007 @ 9:34 am |
Hello friends.
Earlier this month, I spent a week in London to promote the release of Lucky Child's publication in Europe. Here's a recent artcle by Jon Swain.
When Loung Ung fled the terror of Pol Pot’s Cambodia she had to leave part of her family behind. She tells Jon Swain how they were reunited after 15 years.
By the age of 10, Loung Ung had endured the killing of her mother and father and the deaths of two sisters at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. She had fought off a soldier who tried to rape her and had suffered starvation and forced labour.
In the cruel roulette of life the little Cambodian girl with beautiful sad eyes seemed to be an especially tragic loser. A child of the Killing Fields, she had been denied even laughter as she grew up. Last week, poised and beautiful, she was in London to talk about her life. “I should have been dead,” she said. “I was so lost I did not even know my birthday.”
Pol Pot had turned the clock back to Year Zero, telling the millions of Cambodians toiling in the giant labour camp their beautiful country had become, that “to spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss”. His genocidal regime killed an estimated 2m people through murder, disease, malnutrition and overwork.
In 1980, after the Khmer Rouge’s defeat, Loung’s older brother Meng resolved to escape from the hell of their once gentle home-land. There were only two ways out: walk through the minefields to the Thai border, or flee by boat. But that required him to raise enough gold to pay a smuggler and he was able to borrow enough for only three people.
He decided that they were to be him, his wife Eang and either Loung or her 12-year-old sister Chou. “It was like the toss of a coin between Chou and me,” Loung, now 36, said. Meng chose Loung because she was the youngest and also because he believed she was fearless. Her Khmer Rouge upbringing had made her aggressive, not a good thing for girls in Cambodia. But it might be all right in America.
Although they were children, the sisters’ war-torn hearts were bound by their tragic past. They were inseparable. As she left her village of Bat Deng, Loung caught a last glimpse of Chou, her lips quivering and her face crumpled as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Her face stayed with me all through the trip to my new world,” Loung said.
Meng, Eang and Loung made it to a refugee camp in Thailand where Meng decided he did not want Loung ever to forget Cambodia. So with a few strokes of a pen on her asylum papers he made April 17 her birthday. That was the date in 1975 when Pol Pot’s victorious Khmer Rouge had taken the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, forcing its 2m inhabitants at gunpoint out into the countryside to toil like ants in the fields.
The three refugees were eventually resettled in America, in the mountains of Vermont, through the sponsorship of a local church. Here, Loung went to school, started learning English and tried hard to be an American. She learnt to eat rice from a packet and marvelled at a country where strangers gave away sweets to children knocking on their doors at Hallowe’en.
Although she tried hard, she found it difficult to be accepted by other children who regarded her as a “party pooper”. Haunted by the images of her father’s death, she sat in the school counsellor’s office thinking she wanted to tell her that there was so much pain inside her that she was lonely and sad most of the time.
She never forgot Chou. When she left Cambodia she had vowed to herself that she would return in five years to see her beloved sister. But it was 15 years before she went back. In part that was because America had no diplomatic relations with then Vietnam-ese-dominated and communist Cambodia until 1993. In part it was because she could not face it.
“I had put all thoughts of seeing Chou out of my mind,” she said. “And through the years, as I became busy with school and life, I left Chou farther and farther behind until, in my mind, the oceans and 12,000 miles between us seemed impossible to cross.
“You see, I wanted to be normal. I wanted the American dream. I wanted more out of life than what war had given me. I wanted to have a good time. I wanted to be able to spend $20 on a meal and not feel guilty because it was my Cambodian brothers’ monthly income.”
Loung found that even her birthday was a huge weight to bear. Birthdays are about life; instead hers was connected with death. “I wanted to be frivolous on my birthday,” she said. “I wanted to get drunk. I wanted to dance on tables and I didn’t think you could do that being Cambodian. I wanted to be silly. I wanted to be sexy. But I could not do that.”
With hard work she distinguished herself at school and won a scholarship. But all this, she said, made her spend the next few years being “really selfish”.
“I bought expensive champagne and lived in the south of France for a while. It was not a bad thing because it taught me that like any other gratification it was not sustainable unless I shared it with loved ones.”
So in 1995 Loung went back to Cambodia for the first time and was reunited with Chou. “Before I went back I was so afraid. I was afraid that once I started crying I would not be able to stop,” she said. But Chou was waiting for her at the airport and even after all the time they had been apart it was like meeting an old friend.
Out of this poignant but uplifting story came Loung’s determination to tell the world about the Cambodian genocide. In 2000 she published an extraordinary book, First They Killed My Father. Initially rejected by 20 publishers, it went on to become a bestseller.
At the same time Loung became an activist, immersing herself in the campaign against landmines. Today she is a spokes-woman for the Cambodia Fund, a programme run by Veterans for America, helping disabled Cambodians and amputees.
She leads delegations to Cambodia several times a year. “I wanted to be a human being and if I didn’t speak out and live the life I wanted to live I might as well be still in the Khmer Rouge,” she said. “I felt I had been given a second opportunity of life and thought it would be a real shame, a real squander not to live it, not to grab it at the fullest, so that meant me being involved in the community and the world.” Her new book, After They Killed Our Father (Mainstream), deals with her tragic separation and eventual happy reunion with Chou and has just been published in Britain. She had to piece together Chou’s story from their numerous conversations and interviews with family members and neighbours.
While Loung was growing up in America, facing her own demons, Chou was living in a squalid village without electricity or running water and wishing she could have had an education. She had to endure many hardships, from a Khmer Rouge attack to the death of a young cousin who fell into a pot of boiling water. She, too, is a strong woman.
Since their reunion Loung has been back to Cambodia some 30 times. She said she likes nothing better than to travel on a motor-bike back to Bat Deng village and walk the paths of her childhood, sleep in a hammock in the great greenness of the countryside and play with her nephews and nieces.
Her books have made her a household name in Cambodia. But what impresses people most is her ability to eat the roughest peasant food — lizards, insects, crickets — without getting sick. “I have an iron stomach,” she said.
Recently, she has been looking at buying a property in Phnom Penh. “I have had great times in America. But the times I have spent with my family since we were united have been so much richer and have filled my heart with more spirit and feeling,” she said.
She adds that part of the inspiration to write another book stemmed from her disillusionment with the American invasion of Iraq and particularly President Bush’s aircraft carrier speech in 2003, after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, proclaiming victory before a banner declaring “Mission accomplished”.
“I had hoped it was true and the war was over. But I knew it was not over and it made me start thinking of the whole story of what it takes to survive wars. I had written about surviving war and I wanted to tell the story of what it takes to survive the peace.”
Three years ago she married and now lives in Cleveland with her husband Mark. She has chosen not to have children: “My relatives in Cambodia think it is crazy. They are all up there at the temple shaking the incense, praying I will have a child.
“There are a lot of reasons why not. But definitely there is a fear if something happened to the child. I haven’t had anybody I loved die in a long time, since I left Cambodia in fact. I think if it happened I would have a complete meltdown.”
From war-torn Cambodia to America and back again has been an extraordinary, often painful, but poignantly uplifting odyssey for her and Chou. The tearful goodbyes they said one hot morning on a dusty road in Cambodia 27 years ago are long in the past.
She vows to be in Phnom Penh when the few remaining top killers of the Khmer Rouge are judged by a UNsponsored war crimes tribunal for crimes against humanity. “There is not a single thing that can compensate me for my parents’ death and the deaths of 2m people,” she said. “But I want to hear from their mouths why it happened.”
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Khmer Rouge Tribunal Public Forum and Workshop in Oregon |
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03/19/2007 @ 8:24 am |
(Below text is taken directly from Cambodian American Community of Oregon website on the forum.)
Khmer Rouge Tribunal Public Forum and Workshop: A Peace and Reconciliation Project
An estimated 250,000 refugees from Cambodia currently reside in the United States, with approximately 10,000 currently living in Oregon and SW Washington. An estimated 30.3% of them are still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as a direct result from of genocide and the holocaust they have experienced. Their symptoms include: trouble sleeping or concentrating, depression, blackouts, headaches, vertigo, blindness, intestinal problems, upset stomach, nightmares, grinding teeth during sleep (TMJ), episodes of unexpected anger and violent behavior.
Many more suffer from anxiety and mood disorders as a direct result of their experience. The high rate of domestic violence, alcoholism, and poverty among the Cambodian-American population, can be attributed to the effects of such trauma, which has left many people unable to cope with stress in their daily lives. Few understand the causes of their problems when so many in their communities experienced similar horrors. Many people in this predominantly-Buddhist community simply attribute their sufferings to karma or are resigned to their fate. Very few are able to seek professional help due to a number of reasons, including lack of access to available resources, cultural barriers, strong traditional beliefs (such as one’s karma and fate), associated high costs, and others barriers.
The United Nations and Cambodian Government will hold trials of surviving senior Khmer Rouge leaders sometime in early 2007.
No one, including some experts in the field of psychology, is certain about the effect this will have on Cambodian victims of PTSD. If the trials are successful, people could gain new insight into their suffering and begin to heal. If not, the trials could open old wounds and re-traumatize people who have suppressed their memories of torture, fear, starvation, and death for over 25 years.
CACO believes it can help its community members in coping with our individual and collective past trauma by trying to understand it, by dealing with it openly, directly, and honestly. CACO plans to utilize this open public forum as a way to inform and educate the general public about the trauma of genocide and holocaust inflicted on human being, including its community members. CACO proposes the KRT Forum to give its community members a chance to voice their opinions and concerns freely and openly in front of expert panelists and the media. CACO is hoping, as a direct result of this public forum, that some sense of justice, peace, healing, and reconciliation process, through dialogue and open discussion, will prevail.
Moderator: Ronault (Polo) L.S. Catalani, JD, Civil Rights Attorney/Reporter/Author
Welcoming Speaker: Sam Adams, City of Portland Commissioner (http://www.commissionersam.com/)
Keynote Speaker: Sichan Siv, Khmer Rouge survivor, former U.S. Ambassador to U.N., Author of "Golden Bones"
Panelists:
Alex Hinton, PhD, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University and author of "Why did they kill? Cambodia in the shadow of Genocide." (http://www.rutgers-newark.rutgers.edu/socant/alex.htm)
Beth Van Schaack, JD, Assistant Professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and legal advisor to Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DCCAM) (http://www.scu.edu/law/faculty/fulltime/fcty_1251.html)
Daran Kravanh, Khmer Rouge survivor, Co-Author of "Music Through the Dark: A Tale of Survival in Cambodia", Activist, Musician (http://www.darankravanh.com)
Leakhena Nou, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at California State University, Researcher. (http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/
cla/departments/sociology/people/facNou.html)
Loung Ung, Khmer Rouge survivor, Author of "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers" and "Luck Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind" and spokesperson for Campaign for Landmine Free World (http://www.loungung.com)
Rath Ben, MSW, Program Manager, The Intercultural Psychiatric Program, Oregon Health & Science University (Clinical Treatment)
Possibly a representative from ECCC
For detailed information and current updates on the actual tribunal, please visit ECCC at (www.eccc.gov.kh) and UNAKRT (www.unakrt-online.org)
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Watch The Poison Tree film |
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03/19/2007 @ 8:43 am |
Wow, wish I was in LA because I would definitely support this. Although I haven't seen the film, I've heard great things about it. And PrachLy is a phenomenal rap/performance artist! I wouldn't miss him!! He's that good!!
(Below text taken from email blast for Poison Tree)
Please join us for the first community screening of Out of the Poison Tree with a special performance by Cambodian rap artist and composer, PraChly. Q&A to follow with Director Beth Pielert and Main Subject
Thida Buth Mam.
WHEN: Friday night April 6th, 2007 7 - 9 pm
WHERE: Berkeley University, 10 Evans Hall
DETAILED MAP:
http://math.berkeley.edu/~vazirani/Badmath/directions.html
Here's what people are saying about Out of the Poison Tree:
"Moving, amazing and important."
- Mark Achbar, Co-Director of The Corporation and Manufacturing Consent."
"A beautifully told story."
- Craig Harris, Independent Television Service
"Out of the Poison Tree makes a vital statement about the necessity of facing the past."
- Marc Skvirsky, Facing History and Ourselves
Tickets will be on a sliding scale and sold at the door. Proceeds are going to benefit the Landmine Relief Fund in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
We hope to see you there.
P.S. Headache saving suggestion: BART or carpool if
you can.
Basa Pielert, Producer / Director OUT OF THE POISON TREE
www.goodfilmworks.com
c) 415.310.6550
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Cambodian Nobel Peace Prize-Nominated Monk Dies |
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03/14/2007 @ 10:08 am |
Maha Ghosananda was our spiritual father. His presence made our world better. I pray his teachings of peace and love will carry on for eternity.
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 13, 2007; 7:42 PM
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. -- Maha Ghosananda, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated monk who rebuilt Buddhism in Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, has died.
Ghosananda, who lived in Leverett and Providence, R.I., was believed to be in his late 70s. He died Monday at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, said Christina Trinchero, a hospital spokeswoman. Trinchero did not know the cause of death or his age.
The Cambodian monk lived in exile between 1975 and 1979, when the Khmer Rouge denounced Buddhism and killed nearly two million people through starvation, disease, overwork and execution.
Ghosananda was one of the first monks to return to Cambodia and train new Buddhist leaders after Pol Pot's regime was toppled by the Vietnamese in 1979.
"He did everything he could to restore Buddhism to Cambodia," said Jim Perkins, pastor of the Leverett Congregational Church and a friend of the religious leader.
Ghosananda was elected a Supreme Cambodian Buddhist Patriarch by fellow Buddhist monks in 1988 for restoring Buddhism in the war-torn country.
During the 1990s, he lead the Dhamma Yatra movement to rebuild religious life in Cambodia.
He moved to western Massachusetts in the late 1980s at the invitation of the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist order in Leverett, which seeks a complete elimination of weapons, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times in the mid-1990s.[End]
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War & Dialogue: Peacemakers |
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03/14/2007 @ 10:14 am |
My friend Andy posted this article I contributed on blog www.andybrouwer.com.uk site. Thank you Andy. On this somber day, re-reading this article strengthens my resolve to work toward the changes I want to see in our world.
The article was published on the International Museum of Women website under War & Dialogue: Peacemakers. It was titled, Surviving the killing fields of Cambodia. (December 2006)
I’m a survivor of the Khmer genocide which took place in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979: four years in which Cambodia saw nearly 2 million people (of a population of 7 million) perish from starvation, disease, hard labor and execution. When I was 8 years old, other children in other parts of the world were playing with toy guns, or playing Cowboys and Indians. I was in a real war zone, running away from real bombs, stepping over real dead bodies. And I was so hungry that my body was eating itself from the inside out. It was a miracle that I survived. I arrived in America as a refugee of genocide when I was 10. It’s taken me many, many years to turn from being a victim to being a survivor - and an activist who advocates for peoples positive solutions to warfare. It was a very long transition. For many years, there was still a hunger that wouldn’t go away, even though I had a big plate of food in front of me. For many years, I was still startled from the sound of low flying planes, the explosion of fireworks, and the kick of a cars engine that brought me back to a time when I was victim. About the time I turned 16, I started asking myself: Why me? Why did I make it? Why am I not dead when my mother, father, sisters, twenty other relatives are? Why am I here? And about that same time, somebody put Viktor Frankl’s book 'Man’s Search for Meaning' in my hands and it really changed for me. The book, focused on the Holocaust, argues that those who search for meaning in their life have a higher percentage for survival and end up being stronger in the ups and downs of life than those who don’t. And I started to search for the meaning of why I survived, what I was put here to do.
So why me? Now I am 36 years old. It’s 26 years since I left Cambodia. To be honest, I don’t have an answer to why me. I don’t know why I survived and not others. And I’m getting to be okay with that. I’m getting to be okay with the fact that life is not fair. But I have also discovered our ability to make a difference out of precisely the things that are most unfair and unjust - our ability to speak out and use our voices to call for change. I started first, fresh out of college, working as an activist in a domestic violence agency. Then I worked on issues of child soldiers. And then I began working as a spokesperson for The Campaign for a Landmine Free World; which was part of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. I am proud our effort and our collective voices won us the Nobel Peace Prize. And I’ve also published two books on my personal experiences with genocide to help raise awareness and funds to help survivors of wars survive their peace time. I don’t know exactly how much power I do or don’t have to affect change. I don’t know if I have that big of a voice. But that doesn’t stop me because the fact that I have a voice at all is a phenomenal thing. I grew up as a girl child in a war zone, very aware that I had no voice. I had no power. I had no visibility. It’s just too easy to just get disillusioned, to feel that we need to take care of our own lives first and not worry about anything else. It’s so easy to look at the bigger world out there, and think, “If I worried about it, if I spoke out about it, it would just become too overwhelming, too painful. I’m powerless to make a difference.”
Perhaps the people who believe their voices will make no difference have never been to the killing fields of Cambodia - and looked down knowing 20,000 human beings had been dropped there, their words and thoughts and voices silenced. Perhaps they don’t know what it is like to live in a place where to speak out means death - not only for you but for your family and loved ones as well. Or perhaps they are discouraged by the fact that they don’t see direct evidence of how their actions make an impact. But I know small actions make a difference because it was small actions of others that got me to where I am today. It was the nurses in Cambodia who saved me, the teachers trying to teach me English, it was the refugee workers trying to teach me about America. It was the Red Cross and United Children’s efforts and people who brought over blankets and life medicines and food. Those people who helped me probably wouldn’t recognize me if I saw them today, but they changed my life. And the truth is, your inactions make a difference too - just as tangible, and in a negative direction. Your silence gives other people permission to be silent. Your inaction gives other people permission to be complacent. So my advice to those looking to make a change: just do the best you can. Work toward the changes you think are needed but do not get broken when those changes have not been made. Take care of yourself. And continue to do it. Somewhere along the line, changes are being made all the time, and sometimes those changes are made in places and are affecting lives of faces you will probably never see. And that’s the wonderful thing about change.
Reproduced courtesy of Loung Ung and IMOW.
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Two sisters. One fled the Killing Fields. Now they’re family again |
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03/14/2007 @ 15:39 pm |
Last week, I had the pleasure of spending a week in London on a publicity tour in anticipation of the release of my book "Lucky Child" (After They Killed Our Father is its UK's title). And I was lucky in deed, for the people were kind, the food was delicious, and the weather gorgeous!
Here is a link to Eleanor Cowie's article for The Glasgow Herald.
Enjoy. Loung
http://www.theherald.co.uk/
features/features/display.var.1247257.0.0.php
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Omega Institute |
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07/25/2006 @ 14:32 am |
It is an honor to be invited to speak at Omega Institute. I look forward to seeing everyone there soon.
Peace,
Loung
Below is a truncated message from the institute and its conference.
The Women’s Institute at Omega presents its Inaugural Conference in partnership with The Enlightened Power Project Enlightened Power How Women are Changing the Way We Live
OCTOBER 13-15, 2006
Register online at eomega.org or call 800.944.1001
About Omega
Omega is the nation’s premier center for
holistic studies offering workshops, retreats, and professional trainings in a world of subjects. Located in Rhinebeck,
New York, in the magnificent Hudson Valley,
Omega’s lakeside campus is set on 195
acres of rolling hills,beautiful fl ower and
vegetable gardens, and peaceful woodlands.
It is a car-free environment, a walker’s paradise.
As women gain increased power and authority in all walks of life, many are asking the question: Can women’s leadership create meaningful change in the world? The answer is a resounding Yes!
We know that gender alone doesn’t determine a person’s behavior and that the feminine side of the human psyche resides in both women and men. Yet, new data is revealing what many have always known: women across political, racial, class, and religious lines bring different and vitally important experience and perspective to life’s table.
Join us for a weekend conference of inspiring keynote talks, workshops, and a world-café conversation to celebrate and study how women are changing the way we live both at home and at work. By bringing
their authentic feminine voices into business, politics, environmental concerns, money matters, relationships,creativity, and spirituality, women are transforming the
very nature of power. This new kind of enlightened power balances personal fulfi llment with professional excellence and groundbreaking social change.
Throughout the weekend we address how to balance our inner spiritual work with our desire to make an engaged contribution to the world. We will come away from the conference emboldened, empowered, and
expanded by so many powerful like-minded women.
We invite women—and men—from different backgrounds, professions, races, ages, and nations to join us.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Yolanda King, the fi rst child of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, Ms. King is cocreator of a book of short stories and poems entitled, Open My Eyes, Open My Soul: Celebrating our Common Humanity.
Marcia Ann Gillespie, former editor-in-chief of Ms. and Essence magazines, and former president of Liberty Media for Women, a limited liability corporation comprised of women investors that
purchased Ms. magazine in 1998.
Celinda Lake is president of Lake Snell Perry Associates, a research-based strategy fi rm in Washington, D.C., and author of What Women Want: How American Women are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live.
Marianne Williamson is an internationally acclaimed author and lecturer. She has published nine books,including her latest book The Gift of Change, and founded the Peace Alliance to establish a U.S. Department of Peace.
Loung Ung is a survivor of the killing fields of Cambodia, national spokesperson for Campaign for a Landmine-Free World, and author of First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers and Lucky Child.
Gail Straub is a teacher, activist, writer, and pioneer in the field of empowerment. The author of The Rhythm of Compassion: Caring for Self, Connecting with Society and coauthor of Empowerment, she codirects the Empowerment Institute and will be
co-weaving the conference with Carla Goldstein.
Carla Goldstein, J.D., is an activist, teacher, and lawyer, with 20 years of public interest advocacy experience and is the director of the Women’s Institute at Omega. She will be co-weaving the conference with Gail Straub.
Rachel Bagby, works as a vocal artist and composer, and has earned acclaim from audiences and critics worldwide. As a member of Bobby McFerrin’s a cappella vocal group Voicestra, Rachel practiced the
art of dynamic singing and performed on numerous nationally syndicated television and radio programs.
Sharon Salzberg is one of the nation’s leading Buddhist teachers and authors, and has taught meditation retreats worldwide. A cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society, the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, and the newly developed Forest
Refuge, all in Barre, Massachusetts, she is the author of several books, including Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of
Happiness and Faith.
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Why I support Omega's mission. |
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07/25/2006 @ 14:51 am |
www.eomega.org or 800-944-1001
OCTOBER 13-15
My friend Ellen Wingard, (editor of Enlightened Power; How Women Are Transforming The Practice of Leadership--a book everyone should pick up!) has told me so much about the conference, her words described a journey of hope, pride,
wonderment and humanity for all attendees.
My life's path changed on such a journey many years ago when I attended the UN Fourth Conference on Women in China in
1995. That global journey directed my life toward activism and opened my eyes to our worth as women, survivors, nurturers, proctectors, daughters, mothers, sisters... After the conference, I traveled
through China, Thailand and Cambodia in another journey where my soul soared and wept as I witnessed the beauty and strenght of women's lives in worlds often ruled and dominated by men--and yet, the women
were there, making the best of it, raising daughters and sons.
After that experience, I began to see my and other women's survival (be in in State sponsored wars, domestic violence, or other traumas) not as an act of luck, but as acts courage and strenght. I realized then that our 'ways' of fighting back--often without guns and might, with less food and protection than our male counterparts,
were not valued or recognized, especially in cases of war. And yet 60% of survivors of the Khmer Rouge were women.
I look forward to attending the conference this year, and hope to meet many new friends and allies there. Peace.
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LUCKY CHILD to arrive in UK March 2007 |
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07/25/2006 @ 15:01 pm |
www.mainstreampublishing.com
I am a lucky girl indeed! My book Lucky Child has picked up by Mainstream Publishers and will arrive in UK 2007, albeit under a different name.
Here's the news flash from Mainstream Publishers' site.
News 13 July 2006
NEW ACQUISITION:
Mainstream is absolutely thrilled to have acquired UK and European rights to AFTER THEY KILLED OUR FATHER by Loung Ung. Her original memoir, FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER, in which she described how her parents and most of her family died under Pol Pot's genocidal regime, was an international bestseller and in this new book she describes her own experiences as a refugee who escaped to the West and those of her sister who stayed behind. The most poignant aspect of the book is summed up by the following review from the Washington Post:
'Ung helps us understand what happens when a family is torn apart by politics, adversity and war. Change the names of the characters, give them another country of origin, and this story of dislocation becomes a tragedy millions of immigrants have lived through but seldom talk about.'
It is a book which is relevant to everyone. Angelina Jolie recently chose it as her favourite book in a British magazine and said, 'I encourage everyone to read this deeply moving and very important book. Equal to the strength of the book, is the woman who wrote it.' Fiona Brownlee bought the book for Mainstream Publishing from Lydia Newhouse at Abner Stein. Mainstream will publish in March 2007.
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WHO BELONGS HERE--a great children's book! |
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07/25/2006 @ 15:09 pm |
The author, Margy Burns Knight sent me this book--and I absolutely loved it! I bought 24 of her books and gave them away to friends, and am about to order more. If you have children--especially Cambodian children, you shouldn't miss this book.
Here's a write-up on the book from the website http://www.tilburyhouse.com/Children%27s%20Frames/child_wbh_fr.html
WHO BELONGS HERE? An American Story
Margy Burns Knight
Who Belongs Here? tells the story of Nary, a young boy fleeing war-torn Cambodia for the safety of the United States. To some of his new classmates, however, he is a "chink" who should go back where he belongs. But what if everyone whose family came from another place was forced to return to his or her homeland? Who would be left? This story teaches compassion for recent immigrants while sharing the history of immigration in America and some of the important contributions made by past immigrants. It is used in schools everywhere for units on immigration and tolerance.
Given the nature of wars occurring around the world, students everywhere will benefit if they develop an understanding of the complicated issues faced by refugee families. Who Belongs Here? is a nationally acclaimed book which effectively introduces students to this important subject. The teacher's guide written to accompany the story offers a variety of thought provoking activities. Author Margy Burns Knight also encourages teachers to round out their depiction of the refugee experience by balancing the grim side of these children's lives with the joyous side. After all, kids everywhere do share the same basic needs for family and friends, and they thrive when given opportunities for education and the chance to participate in games, sports, or the arts.
Who Belongs Here? will help inspire classroom conversations about:
• The effects of war on children and families
• Refugees and relocation processes in the U.S.
• Cambodian culture
• U.S. History and attitudes towards immigration
• Bullying and intolerance
• Conflict-resolution skills
"Best Multicultural Book, 1993" —Publishers Weekly "Cuffie Award"
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Anne Hathaway loves Cambodia! |
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07/25/2006 @ 15:17 pm |
I just saw the movie The Devil Wears Prada and loved it.
I admit I am a big fan of Anne Hathaway. In addition to being a talented and wonderful actress (see Brokeback Mountain and her other movies), Anne is also a down to earth, sweet, and compassionate woman.
Anne and I met in Cambodia in 2004. She was there filming a documentary produced by Angelina Jolie called "A Moment in Time".
We traveled through Phnom Penh and SR together with her brother Michael and friend Josh. We all loved Cambodia!
After our trip, Anne called to tell me that she had been invited to appear at some corporate event, and if she shows up, the corporation would donate $10,000 US Dollars to a charity of her choice. She chose The Cambodia Fund, our organization to help victims of landmines and war in Cambodia.
Thank you, Anne. Your's a gift that changes and saves lives.
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Well Again! |
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07/25/2006 @ 15:33 pm |
Greetings!
Sorry I have been so silent lately. To make a long story short, I hurt my neck & shoulders skiing last winter.
It has been very frustrating and mind-numbing dealing with doctors, insurance, and the trekkings to and from appointments.
Anyway, after four months of agressive therapy, and taking very good care of myself (no writing, running, dancing), I am now doing much, much better. Life is good!
Thank you all for writing and asking.
Peace and good health to everyone.
Loung
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Why Is Everybody Going to Cambodia? |
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06/13/2006 @ 12:20 am |
Writer Matt Gross answered this question in a New York Times article published on January 22, 2006.
Why, indeed? Well,as someone who's made 25 plus trips there, I know the answer too. Cambodia is gorgeous! The food is just yummy! The people, history and culture are so will make you fall in love iwth the country and keep you coming back for more.
Check out this web lite to find other answers.
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/
travel/22cambodia.html
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Life |
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06/09/2006 @ 15:07 pm |
A friend's sister passed a way last week. To support, I attended my first ever wake. I didn't know what to expect and was rather nervous about it.
It turned out to be a hauntingly beautiful experience. I was touched by the number of people who showed up to support my friend and his family. I was even more touched by the love, life, and laugher in the room. I glad I was there for my friend and his family.
As I walked out I was also sadden that many us Cambodians never had the chance to say good byes to their loved ones.
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Help: The Original Human Dilemma |
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05/26/2006 @ 14:20 pm |
Friends, wherever you are, I wish you all peace and good karma.
Where I am, it is another rainy and dreary day—the eight in a row. Personally, rainy days are good for one thing—to curl up on the couch with a book. Last night, I finished Help: The Original Human Dilemma by Garret Keizer.
The book cover reads: “…Keizer raises the questions we ask every day and in every relation that matters to us. What does it means to help? When does our help amount to hindrance? When are we getting less help—or more—than we actually want? When are we kidding ourselves in the name of helping someone else? Drawing from history, literature, firsthand interviews, and personal anecdotes, Help invites us to ponder what is at stake whenever one human being tries to assist another…”
As someone who’s been given many helping hands, I remain grateful to many people for their assistance, without which, I would not be the person I am today. And yet, in my personal and professional life as an activist, I have also seen how too much help can turn assistance into charity, and charity into dependence. In a rich country like America, (as I type this, I cringe at the National Deficit of trillions of dollars!) dependence and charity has also lead to a sense of entitlement of what we should receive or expect in terms of help.
If you’re interested in this top, I highly recommend this book. My only critique is that Help’s slow pacing can be a bit hard to get through. But if you commit yourself to it, you will walk away with some very wonderful revelations.
Here is one of my favorite revelation from the book:
“…if we insist on regarding them (the helpers) as extraordinary human beings, then we have in effect reduced our own obligations. We cannot be expected to rise to their level.”
(page 31 in Help)
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Congratulations to Theary Seng |
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05/25/2006 @ 10:59 am |
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My belated congratulations to Theary Seng, friend, activist, author, lecturer and now the Executive Director of Cambodia's Center of Social Development. Theary's book "Daughter of the Killing Fields; asrei's story" is a great read, packed with information and inspiration, just like the author herself. http://www.asrei.net/
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Fan of Putsata Reang |
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05/25/2006 @ 11:05 am |
Yes, I am a big fan of Putsata Reang, veteran journalist and author of "Deadly Secrets; From High School to High Crime--The True Story of Two Teen Killers".
I'm an avid reader. I love to read with a passion! I read just about anything I can get my hands on, especially books written by fellow Cambodians. So it was a great gift when I was told about Putsata's book--the story of two teenage high school dropouts in Bellevue, Washington who committed murders.
The book backcovers reads: "A newspaper journalist who covered the crime, the investigation, the trial and its aftermath, Putsata Reang masterfully tells a disturbing and powerful true story of senseless multiple homicide. She illuminates some of the darkest corners where a shockingly increasing number of America's youth hides its rage, pain, and madness until it explodes in Bellevue, at Columbine...or anywhere across the nation."
I read it in two days. A gripping read, well written.
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/
obidos/ASIN/038080087X/702-6733309-9065634
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Inspiring words |
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05/16/2006 @ 4:35 pm |
A friend sent me this poem/inspiring words years ago. It was originally attributed to Nelson Mandela. Since then, I have heard rumours that another person authored it. Whoever authored it, thank you.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measures.
In is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine.
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
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Great website on Cambodia! |
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05/16/2006 @ 6:55 pm |
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Andy's a very cool guy and writer. We met way back in 2001 in England. Needless to say I dig that he's a compassionate and sensitive friend to many Cambodians and everything related to Cambodia. I log onto his site frequently. http://andybrouwer.co.uk/home.html
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What I love about Cambodia! |
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05/11/2006 @ 7:00 pm |
Greetings! I hope this message finds everyone well!
All is well with me. I am in between meetings in DC. Just came out of a most fascinating and encouraging meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli.
All this talking about our projects there
(http://www.vvaf.org/programs/
postconflict/cambodia/) is making me miss home.
Many people have asked me why I enjoy returning to Cambodia so much. There are so many reasons--the food, the place, family, scenery, history, a sense of purpose, work mission...
As a non-cooker, I love that I can buy cheap delicious food made by Khmers everywhere, and thus support the community with my few dollars a day. I don't like to drive (due to my lack of internal maps), in Cambodia I can hop on a rented bike (motodop) that will take me wherever I want to go in the city for twelve to twenty-five cents. I love the heat, humidity, and sun. The girl in me loves that my hair gets nice and curly in the humidity, and my skin is rarely ever cracked or dry. And yes, the heat makes me stink of BO a bit more but I always look glowing.
In Cambodia I rarely watched TV, or read tabloids magazines. Instead, I listened to more music, read a lot more books, spent more time with friends and family. There, I worried less about appearance because I was not bombarded on a daily basis by perfect, anorexic girls on TV, movies, magazines, and newspapers telling me how physically imperfect I am.
And on days I felt down, instead of going to Nordstrom to buy stuff I didn't need, I would visit one of the many orphanages, or rehabilitation centers. After an hour with beautiful children who wanted nothing more than my attention and love, life is instantly lighter, happier, and more blessed.
I love Cambodia also because I get to live in two wonderful worlds and cultures. In Phnom Penh, I can stay with friends in their comfortable pads with running water and electricity, eat out at fancy restaurants, frequent local bars and dance all night. But when I need a break from the international scene and city life, I head out to the village where time strolls forward, people are relaxed, and bugs are abundant! After a weekend with my sister Chou and family watching the sun sets over beautiful rice paddies, I am recharged and ready to return to the city to my often heartbreaking work.
Yes, I know I am blessed.
In Cambodia, my heart gets broken and re-heals many times in a span of one day. And at the end of each day, I am grateful that I am still here, still standing.
Loung
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I bought my first IPOD! |
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05/10/2006 @ 15:37 pm |
OK, I admit it. I suffer internet/technology phobia. It started in the 80s with the VCR. We were fresh off the boat, couldn't read the English instruction book very well, and so the VCR clock blinked until the day it died. Since then, I've been afraid. Very afraid.
So last week, I bought my first IPOD. I went for the nano one--and wow!!! That's all I need to say--WOW!!
Mostly, I haven't written because as a seasoned human rights activists, I wanted to share deep & serious thoughts about life, war, peace, etc. But when I sit down to write, my mind more often than not, can only come up with SNL Jack Handy type deep thoughts. My friends think I should just be authentic. So here I go.
My thoughts for the day--thank you. I am so appreciative of all the support I've been given in life. Twenty-five years ago, I was living on the streets of a Cambodian village, eating out of garbage cans, hating the world, and wondering why the world hated me. Had you told me that someday I would be a healthy, happy, and peaceful person-I would not have dared to dream it! But here I am! I cannot believe it sometimes, but here I am! I am exhileratingly happy to be here.
Loung
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Cambodia Now |
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09/12/2005 @ 8:25 am |
Hi Everyone,
Wow.. blogging is a little scary. I'm still getting used to text messages and IMs. Anyway, I guess I should just dive in.
Loung
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Hello Readers! |
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08/29/2005 @ 7:50 pm |
This is my very first blog post on my re-designed website! I will update these entries from time to time so be on the lookout for new updates.
~ Loung
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Loung Ung
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