Letters: Recalling Cambodia's killing fields

The Los Angeles Times
May 29, 2011

I read Susan Spano's "After the Killing Fields" [May 15] with much emotion. I am a survivor of the killing fields. I remember precisely the event that had me clinging to my grandmother's hand and my older brother holding steadfast to my mother's hand. Thunderous tanks passing by and Pol Pot's puppets, with rifles in their hands, ordering people to move quickly. My grandmother telling me to be quiet and to obey. This took place in the dark of night. Children's cries, footsteps moving about on the dusty road and parents telling their children to hush up were heard. "Move quickly" was the order.

My mother was taken away from me and placed with other women to work from dawn to dusk. At night she was interrogated and was ordered to remarry. My brother was taken to an all-boys' camp where each day he went foraging in the forest for food along with other boys. Each night the boys slept in a hut without any blankets. He missed his family so much that he escaped the camp in the night. My grandmother was picked to be a cook for our camp. Each night she came back to our hut with a pocket of peanuts. While we enjoyed the roasted peanuts in the dark, my grandmother's warning was "chew quietly."

I do not wish to relive or revisit my family's journey from this nightmare. I am glad to read that the country I was born in is slowly beginning to heal from this nightmare.

Ly Sok