What I remember

Cambodian-American Remembers Khmer Rouge
By SARAH MATHESON
Epoch Times Staff
Feb 19-25, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8JZ4U9gTI

In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge forced itself upon Cambodia, storming the capital city and forcing hundreds of thousands of citizens in to the countryside and deep jungle. American forces had just withdrawn from Saigon in Vietnam and parts of Cambodia.

Timothy Chhim was in Phnom Penh at the time. It was the Cambodian New Year. He remembers the chaos as the communists stormed the capital.

And now, more than 30 years later, a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia is putting one of the former Khmer Rouge leaders on trial. Kaing Guek Eav, or Duch as he is more commonly known, was head of the S-21 detention center in Phnom Penh where more than 12,000 Cambodians were executed. He is facing charges of crimes against humanity, torture, murder, and war crimes for his role in the genocide.

For Cambodians like Mr. Chhim, the trial is too little too late. He questioned whether justice is possible for the 1.5 million people who were executed. "For me I was a victim of communist rule … and for those [leaders] that are in their 70s how are you going to punish them? Put them in prison for a couple of years until they die?"

He said the trial was something of a joke to the Cambodian people because many members of the Khmer Rouge are members of the current Cambodian government. "Some of the killers are there [in the government] but the trial is only dealing with a bunch of people. But these people are not really the killers, they were the legislators."He said the communist rulers of China and the former Soviet Union also have a lot to answer for in terms of supplying the Khmer Rouge with funds and weapons. "Not too many people believe that the Chinese want this trial completed," he said.The Long Walk to Freedom

When Mr. Chhim arrived in Thailand he was very thin, his clothes were destroyed, and he looked more than twice his age. "When I got to Thailand my hair was to my shoulders. I was so thin I had crow’s feet around my face. I was maybe 19 or 20 years old and I looked like a 100-year-old man," he said.

He had been through a harrowing ordeal, starting with the forced exodus of people from the capital city, where he was living with his uncle’s family. "People got shot. People had to leave regardless of what condition they were in. Then after that we were forced to walk all the way from the city, hundreds of miles away from there," Mr. Chhim said.

"People got herded like animals. So their soldiers are guarding you before you are sent off to the killing field. The people were held temporarily in a monastery, before they can take you for execution. "Five at a time, sending you deep in to the jungle. Prior to the escape we spoke to some people who said, ‘You can’t stay here, because they will kill you.’ They were spraying machine guns," he said.

Mr. Chhim was being held with government officials, academics, and other members of the capitalist class. The soldiers had lied and told them they were going back to the capital to greet Prince Sihanouk when he returned from China.

He started to enlighten to the fact that they were going to kill them all after an old man said there was a strong smell coming from the mountains. Later some ladies told him to leave because the soldiers were taking people deeper in the jungle to kill them."I just took off and ran away from the camp. It was chaos. I walked about five miles and then I was out of it. I fainted. I woke up in the morning and I was by the highway, so I walked along with thousands of others who were trying to escape.

"Then I got captured two more times. The last time was the worst, because by then we knew that they would kill you. We were about two weeks walking from the border. Just talking to you gives me goose bumps. You know I go back there," he said.

Mr. Chhim and 11 others managed to escape this camp and were fleeing Cambodia for the safety of Thailand in the north. His companions were all recaptured, except for two. "The rest were executed. They knew they would be killed. They were being escorted deeper in to the jungle. … About a few hundred yards from the village, one of the escapees knew she was going to be killed, so she fainted, with a baby in her hands. So the soldiers said to her, ‘Sit here and have your last meal.’"

He said the escape route was arduous—fraught with land mines, wild animals, and no food or water. He estimates he walked about 300 miles in Cambodia’s jungles. "It took us four months to get to Thailand. Nine of my colleagues were killed," he said.

Timothy Chhim now lives in Nanuet, N.Y., and runs his own insurance agency. He is married with three children and is writing a book about his ordeal. ‘When I got to Thailand my hair was to my shoulders. I was so thin I had crow’s feet around my face. I was maybe 19 or 20 years old and I looked like a 100-year-old man.’—Timothy Chhim