There is a story that I cannot put on the web with names attached. You will understand as you read it. For safety I will tell it using only he or him.
It is 1989. On my first working day in Site 2 I meet him. He is a medic and battlefield surgeon, but he talks of a greater need. In this camp on the Thai Cambodia border, where asylum seekers are restrained by barbed wire and armed guards, he has a dream. He wants to create a professional health clinic incorporating Cambodian healers where the spirit of these people can become strong again. He is 31 years old when we meet. It is intended that I mentor him. He mentors me.
He is taking me through rain and slush to the edge of the barbed wire fence. In a makeshift tent an emaciated woman is lying on a broken bamboo platform just above the mud. Her eyes ooze with puss; she looks ancient, all skeleton. He squats in the mud, talks gently, and waits for her little daughter to return from begging for food. He tells them both that something better could happen. He pushes the mother in a wheel-cart; I hold the child’s hand. I think of Buddhist reverence for all life.
It is 1990 Human Rights Day. With his staff he has prepared a makeshift screen mounted on a ute. In a strong statement of dissent, they show Samsara, depicting the opposing side of the ongoing civil war. He shows this movie again and again. People flock to see; children are lifted shoulder high. ‘Look. This is our country’. Near sunset the audience is dense. I am hassled to the edge of it and taken to stand before the army commander. ‘Tell him there could be a fatal grenade attack’ he says. This is a threat. I push back through the crowd to warn him. He shakes his head. ‘People need joy, this is their country. They are ready for another showing.’
In 1993 Site 2 closes. I volunteer for a further four years in Battambang, a province where many from the border hope to forge a new life.
There comes a Peace Keeping Force, a Federal Election, a compromise, then a coup. There is torture and bloodshed.
He lives and works and listens and acts among the poorest out in the villages. He writes and speaks his dissent. He is frequently contacted by the Washington Post, ABC Australia, El Jazeera and many more. He believes that hatred unleashed in thirty years of killing is a monster hard to control. This is no time for hate speech. He speaks truth without vilifying anyone. Prime Minister Hun Sen publicly threatens him again, and again. ‘Many will have to die before we have peace and you are the top of the list’.
From time to time I return to work in Cambodia. We have an encrypted phone connection. I know when he is in hiding, fleeing for safety or crossing a dangerous border.
It is 2016. He and Kem Ley, a younger colleague, are filmed in an El Jazeera panel discussion; they plan to de-brief next day. Kem Ley goes early to have a coffee at the Caltex while waiting. Kem Ley is shot through the head at close range. Hun Sen’s regime rarely imprisons those who write opinions and talk to the world media. They are denounced, warned and if necessary, killed.
He tells me: ‘Each time I have to flee my hair falls out, just as it did in Pol Pot time. When I was young, my father, while caged and starved to death by the Khmer Rouge, told me that our country would need healers. When Hun Sen was young somebody put an AK47 into his hands and told him that we need to kill many people before there is peace’.
When I was in Cambodia in March/April this year we knew that Hun Manet was groomed to become Prime Minister in place of his father. I heard some concern that Manet would not be strong enough to control war lords in the army.
Hun Sen was Prime Minister for 37+ years. Some wondered whether his inner circle of army veterans might resign too. Since they were young, they have been side by side with Hun Sen. They deserted from the Khmer Rouge army, took refuge in Vietnam, then returned with the Vietnamese army that pushed back the Khmer Rouge. Now it seems that most of them will step down; they will hand on their parliamentary roles to their sons and daughters. Nothing surprises me any longer!
On August 22nd Manet became Prime Minister. His father continues to hold key roles: Leader of the Cambodian Peoples Party: Leader of the Senate; Chairperson of the group which will choose the next King of Cambodia.
I am cautiously hopeful that a new generation of leaders will make some change, but I am definitely not ready to publicly name those who still risk their lives to speak of truth and justice for all.
Khmer New Year
Stories and Musings 