Filmmaker Socheata Poeuv's documentary to be shown at CSULB genocide forum
By Phillip Zonkel, Staff writer
02/09/2008
Socheata Poeuv's family was living in Dallas, but in some ways, her parents never left Cambodia.
"My father pruned our trees in a sarong with a kitchen cleaver, and my mother stored stinky fermented fish under the sink," says Poeuv, 27, who migrated with her family to Texas in 1982.
"I thought everything about my parents was 'old country,' but in fact, they were desperately trying to forget their past," she says.
Poeuv's parents - in fact, her whole family - are survivors of the genocide of the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and orchestrated the death of 1.7 million people through starvation, disease or execution.
Poeuv is called "the lucky one" - she was born on the Cambodian New Year in a Thai refugee camp.
But her parents never told her how she got there.
"New Year Baby" is Poeuv's personal documentary, a search for the truth about how her family survived the Khmer Rouge genocide and why they buried the truth for so long.
The film will be screened Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Cal State Long Beach in the University Student Ballroom. The film is part of CSULB's "The President's Forum on International Human Rights: Modern Genocides and Global Responsibilities," a three-day event beginning Monday that consists of a series of lectures, art exhibits, panel discussions and film screenings exploring topics such as the meaning of genocide and the role of governments in preventing it.
Monday's schedule looks at the magnitude of genocide and Tuesday focuses on talking with survivors and the horrific impact genocide has had on them. The final day on Wednesday explores what responsibility the global community has to cooperate and eradicate racial and ethnic intolerance, which are some of the catalysts to genocide.
All events are free and open to public. Registration is not required, but seating is on a first-come basis.
Francis Deng, the United Nation Secretary General's Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide to the Secretary General of the United Nations, will deliver the keynote address on Monday night at 7 p.m.
"So much time and resources go into debating, 'Is it genocide or isn't it?' My job is to stop these atrocities before they reach the 'g' word," Deng says. "If we get involved in the beginning, before letting situations escalate to the point of accusing people of genocide and then people get defensive and aggressive, we can do enormous amounts to help people."
Genocide defined
In 1944, lawyer Raphael Lemkin published a comprehensive account of Nazi actions and defined them with a new word - genocide, formed from the Greek "geno," meaning race or tribe, and from the Latin "cide," meaning killing. The United Nations adopted the term in 1948 at the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide," establishing genocide as an international crime.
Taking that definition into account, in the last 108 years, 36 examples of genocide have taken place around the globe (Pakistan, El Salvador, Guatemala, Rwanda, Nigeria, etc.) resulting in the mass killings of more than 87 million men, women and children, according to a 2006 National Geographic magazine report.
Mariana Xuncax Francisco, from the Maya Kanjobal tribe, is a survivor of genocide in Guatemala. She will be part of a survivors' panel discussion at 11 a.m. Wednesday in the University Student Union Ballroom.
Since the Spanish Conquest, the Maya have been subjected to discrimination and repression at the hands of the fair-skinned Spanish and ladinos (people of mixed heritage), which often has resulted in great poverty for the Maya and great wealth for the ladinos.
In 1960, a genocide campaign was initiated to exterminate the Maya. The war lasted 36 years and killed 200,000 and displaced 25 percent of the country's population. In addition, more than 45,000 people "disappeared," according to the United Nations' Historical Clarification Commission.
In 1999, the commission released an explosive report, accusing the Guatemalan government of genocide against the Maya and also implicated the United States, CIA and subsidiaries of several American businesses of being accomplices to the genocide.
Witness to killings
During the early 1980s, at the height of the government's genocide, Francisco was a nurse administering inoculations in the town of San Marcos Barranca de Galvez. Once, she arrived at the vaccination center, but government soldiers prevented her from entering. She heard gunshots and watched waiting patients flee as the soldiers left.
Inside, Francisco saw three dead people, two adult men and a 5- or 6-year-old boy. They had been strangled. Their necks - with dark purple scars - showed signs of torture, and they had been shot.
"Things like that happened every week," says Francisco, 50, who recounts another incident at another clinic where 22 patients were shot and killed.
Francisco says the violence, murder and torture subsided for a short time in the mid-1980s, but then escalated in the late 1980s.
In 1990, Francisco migrated to Los Angeles and was granted political asylum five years later.
Gabriel Estrada, assistant professor in the American Indian Studies program, selected Francisco for the panel not only because of her testimonials but also her Maya heritage.
"The history books in the U.S. and Latin America don't teach about contemporary indigenous people," Estrada says. "They leave them in the past, like something that disappeared 500 years ago. But they're still living with us today. The majority of the Guatemalan population is Maya."
Startling revelation
Poeuv's parents also are genocide survivors, but they almost never talked about it. Almost never.
On Dec. 25, 2002, Poeuv's parents called a family meeting and revealed 25 years of secrets to Poeuv and her siblings.
Poeuv's two sisters are her nieces, orphaned when the Khmer Rouge killed their parents. Her older brother is her half-brother, the surviving child from Poeuv's mother's first marriage.
In November 2003, Poeuv's parents took Poeuv and her brother to Cambodia for the first time. The revelations from Poeuv's parents raised more questions than they answered, which motivated Poeuv to document the family story.
In Cambodia, Poeuv learned her family's struggle and sacrifice and how they survived hideous acts of human cruelty.
Says Poeuv: "My parents are inspirations for me of what humans can endure."
By Phillip Zonkel, Staff writer
02/09/2008
Socheata Poeuv's family was living in Dallas, but in some ways, her parents never left Cambodia.
"My father pruned our trees in a sarong with a kitchen cleaver, and my mother stored stinky fermented fish under the sink," says Poeuv, 27, who migrated with her family to Texas in 1982.
"I thought everything about my parents was 'old country,' but in fact, they were desperately trying to forget their past," she says.
Poeuv's parents - in fact, her whole family - are survivors of the genocide of the Khmer Rouge, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and orchestrated the death of 1.7 million people through starvation, disease or execution.
Poeuv is called "the lucky one" - she was born on the Cambodian New Year in a Thai refugee camp.
But her parents never told her how she got there.
"New Year Baby" is Poeuv's personal documentary, a search for the truth about how her family survived the Khmer Rouge genocide and why they buried the truth for so long.
The film will be screened Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at Cal State Long Beach in the University Student Ballroom. The film is part of CSULB's "The President's Forum on International Human Rights: Modern Genocides and Global Responsibilities," a three-day event beginning Monday that consists of a series of lectures, art exhibits, panel discussions and film screenings exploring topics such as the meaning of genocide and the role of governments in preventing it.
Monday's schedule looks at the magnitude of genocide and Tuesday focuses on talking with survivors and the horrific impact genocide has had on them. The final day on Wednesday explores what responsibility the global community has to cooperate and eradicate racial and ethnic intolerance, which are some of the catalysts to genocide.
All events are free and open to public. Registration is not required, but seating is on a first-come basis.
Francis Deng, the United Nation Secretary General's Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide to the Secretary General of the United Nations, will deliver the keynote address on Monday night at 7 p.m.
"So much time and resources go into debating, 'Is it genocide or isn't it?' My job is to stop these atrocities before they reach the 'g' word," Deng says. "If we get involved in the beginning, before letting situations escalate to the point of accusing people of genocide and then people get defensive and aggressive, we can do enormous amounts to help people."
Genocide defined
In 1944, lawyer Raphael Lemkin published a comprehensive account of Nazi actions and defined them with a new word - genocide, formed from the Greek "geno," meaning race or tribe, and from the Latin "cide," meaning killing. The United Nations adopted the term in 1948 at the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide," establishing genocide as an international crime.
Taking that definition into account, in the last 108 years, 36 examples of genocide have taken place around the globe (Pakistan, El Salvador, Guatemala, Rwanda, Nigeria, etc.) resulting in the mass killings of more than 87 million men, women and children, according to a 2006 National Geographic magazine report.
Mariana Xuncax Francisco, from the Maya Kanjobal tribe, is a survivor of genocide in Guatemala. She will be part of a survivors' panel discussion at 11 a.m. Wednesday in the University Student Union Ballroom.
Since the Spanish Conquest, the Maya have been subjected to discrimination and repression at the hands of the fair-skinned Spanish and ladinos (people of mixed heritage), which often has resulted in great poverty for the Maya and great wealth for the ladinos.
In 1960, a genocide campaign was initiated to exterminate the Maya. The war lasted 36 years and killed 200,000 and displaced 25 percent of the country's population. In addition, more than 45,000 people "disappeared," according to the United Nations' Historical Clarification Commission.
In 1999, the commission released an explosive report, accusing the Guatemalan government of genocide against the Maya and also implicated the United States, CIA and subsidiaries of several American businesses of being accomplices to the genocide.
Witness to killings
During the early 1980s, at the height of the government's genocide, Francisco was a nurse administering inoculations in the town of San Marcos Barranca de Galvez. Once, she arrived at the vaccination center, but government soldiers prevented her from entering. She heard gunshots and watched waiting patients flee as the soldiers left.
Inside, Francisco saw three dead people, two adult men and a 5- or 6-year-old boy. They had been strangled. Their necks - with dark purple scars - showed signs of torture, and they had been shot.
"Things like that happened every week," says Francisco, 50, who recounts another incident at another clinic where 22 patients were shot and killed.
Francisco says the violence, murder and torture subsided for a short time in the mid-1980s, but then escalated in the late 1980s.
In 1990, Francisco migrated to Los Angeles and was granted political asylum five years later.
Gabriel Estrada, assistant professor in the American Indian Studies program, selected Francisco for the panel not only because of her testimonials but also her Maya heritage.
"The history books in the U.S. and Latin America don't teach about contemporary indigenous people," Estrada says. "They leave them in the past, like something that disappeared 500 years ago. But they're still living with us today. The majority of the Guatemalan population is Maya."
Startling revelation
Poeuv's parents also are genocide survivors, but they almost never talked about it. Almost never.
On Dec. 25, 2002, Poeuv's parents called a family meeting and revealed 25 years of secrets to Poeuv and her siblings.
Poeuv's two sisters are her nieces, orphaned when the Khmer Rouge killed their parents. Her older brother is her half-brother, the surviving child from Poeuv's mother's first marriage.
In November 2003, Poeuv's parents took Poeuv and her brother to Cambodia for the first time. The revelations from Poeuv's parents raised more questions than they answered, which motivated Poeuv to document the family story.
In Cambodia, Poeuv learned her family's struggle and sacrifice and how they survived hideous acts of human cruelty.
Says Poeuv: "My parents are inspirations for me of what humans can endure."
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