Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

The traveler's conceit is that barbarism is something singular and foreign, to be encountered halfway around the world in some pinched and parochial backwater. The traveler journeys to this remote place and it seems to be so: he is offered a glimpse of the worst atrocities that can be served up by a sadistic government. And then, to his shame, he realizes that they are identical to ones advocated and diligently applied by his own government. As for the sanctimony of people who seem blind to the fact that mass murder is still an annual event, look at Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Tibet, Burma, and elsewhere—the truer shout is not "Never again" but "Again and again."

***

MUCH OF MY KNOWLEDGE of recent Cambodian history had come from books, so I decided to find an eyewitness in Phnom Penh.

Heng, a man of about forty-five, spoke English well. Before the Khmer Rouge took over, his father had been a lieutenant in the army and his mother had run a small business in Kampot, about sixty miles south of Phnom Penh, on the coast. They had a good life and a comfortable house. When the Khmer Rouge invaded Kampot in 1972, Heng, who was just a boy, and his parents moved to the capital. Two years later, Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge.

I asked him, "In the beginning, were the people afraid or did they think, 'This will only last a little while'?"

"My father said that he heard that the Khmer Rouge wanted all the people to be equal," Heng said. "Others said the Khmer Rouge soldiers were like wild animals. That frightened us. When the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh they told all the people to go away without taking any property, because it would just be a few days. My parents asked them where to go. Khmer Rouge soldiers said, 'Any direction. It's up to you.'"

"Were your parents threatened?"

"Yes. If people didn't leave, the soldiers would kill them. My parents decided go back home to Kampot. It took almost a whole day to travel only fifteen kilometers from Phnom Penh, and we saw corpses almost everywhere by the road. They smelled very bad. It is really difficult to find words to explain all this. When we arrived near Takeo, some thirty kilometers from Phnom Penh, a lady said to my mother, 'Please cut your hair.' My mother had very long hair. 'And throw out your money. If Khmer Rouge soldiers see your hair and money you will be dead.'"

"What did Cambodians think of the soldiers?"

"They were so afraid, because soldiers could kill them at any time, anywhere. Khmer Rouge soldiers thought of people as their enemy." He paused and said in a softer voice, "Even now, ninety percent of people are still afraid of soldiers—I mean, government soldiers."

"Did you or your parents know of what terrible things were happening in Tuol Sleng torture prison or at Choeung Ek killing fields?"

"No, we didn't know anything about that," Heng said. "We did not even know the day, the month, or the year. You know, there were hundreds of prisons like those throughout the country."

"What sort of a person was Pol Pot?"

"He had graduated from a French university. If he had been a weak student, he would not have got a scholarship, so it means that he was a smart person. It is very hard to judge Pol Pot. For me, I think the situation during that time is similar to the situation in Iraq. The situation in Iraq before the invasion of American troops was—well, some good things, some bad things. But after America invaded, the situation got much worse."

"You mean Bush is like Pol Pot?"

"Maybe. But I don't mean Bush is a bad person. The problem was that he did not understand what Iraq people wanted. He cannot govern those people. When Pol Pot took over the country, the situation became chaos. For me, there was almost no single person responsible for Cambodia during that nightmare."

"Do you think he was heartless, or cruel, or vengeful?"

"I do not think so. I think he was a big boss that had no influence on the staff. I mean, that his people could do anything that they wanted to."

"What is the best thing you remember from those years?"

"There was absolutely not any 'best thing' to remember."

"What is the worst thing you remember?"

"The worst thing was when the Kang Chhlorp [armed village militia] came to check our house. If they found any rice, sweet potato, sugar, or any vegetable, I and my parents would be arrested. That meant the death penalty."

"If you'd had food?" I asked.

"Yes. If you had food in those times you were an enemy," Heng said. "They killed you and took your food."

The more I knew about Cambodia's infernalities and acrimonies, the more haunted the country seemed and the sadder I got, until, like many fed-up and disillusioned Cambodians I'd met, I just wanted to go away.

THE MEKONG EXPRESS

TRAVEL IS AT ITS most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life.