A Change of Guard

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Saturday 1 May 2010

Prince Sirik Matak's letter to US Ambassador


Dear Readers, The following is a letter Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, a cousin of Prince Sihanouk, wrote to U.S Ambassador John Gunther Dean a few days before Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge on 17th April 1975. He refused to flee to the U.S but took refuge in the French Embassy when the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge forced the French Embassy to hand him over and he was executed shortly.
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Dear Excellency and friend,

I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion.

As for you and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection and we can do nothing about it. You leave us and it is my wish that you and your country will find happiness under the sky.

But mark it well that, if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is too bad because we are all born and must die one day. I have only committed the mistake of believing in you, the Americans.

Please accept, Excellency, my dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments.
Sirik Matak.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

My tears dropped uncontrolable, when I read this letter. I wished we can turn back the time.

He was True Khmer heroe. All Khmer should learn to live and die like him.

This is a simbol of great Khmer warior.

May God bless his soul.

True Khmer

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it is a real emotional letter. The wording of the letter is really powerful and sad. He was brave but I don't think he knew what was going to happen- I mean he didn't know that he was going to be executed. if he knew he would not have stayed back. But he was a brave man indeed.

Anonymous said...

11:05 PM "I have only committed the mistake of trusting in you, the Americans."

This letter was about the broken trust from the American side. The US got us into deep mire of war, to the very broken point--the US pull out and let us hung by the thin thread of hope. It seem that was the US intention. Tho they promised to stick with us to the end. After all, it was the American idea and not our Khmer leaders to engage in the Vietnam conflict.

This was why our Sirak Matak refused his personal deliverance offered by the United States gesture and chose to die in the country he was born, among his own people because of that broken trust.

Anonymous said...

Uncle Prince Sirik Matak SISOWATH was a real hero of Cambodia. I always remember his word: " Learn how to help Khmer poor people,help srok Khmer to be modern,we born in Cambodia,we should never sell our Khmer Land to any foreign country, if some foreigner help us ,they always think of their interest first. " and so and so.
A present, no real khmer hero is there.First they think of their interest than our Khmer Land,Khmer people.
Hope one day,a road,a school,a city have his name in Cambodia.

S K MONOHA of Cambodia.France