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Friday, 27 March 2009
Ahead of the first trials of Khmer Rouge leaders starting on Monday, MAGGIE TAIT of NZPA talked to Cambodians who fled to New Zealand during the Pol Pot regime. This is Sambath Mey's story. Wellington, March 27 NZPA - Sometimes he felt he was about to be executed any minute.
"People sleeping next to me get picked up and disappeared," Wellington man Sambath Mey describes life under Cambodia's brutal Pol Pot regime.
Mr Mey came to New Zealand in 1980, married his sweetheart who he met in a refugee camp, and set about educating himself by working almost full-time while studying commerce at Victoria University. Now a public servant, the father of three young-adult children recalls nearly dying of starvation and the fear of execution when he was a young man.
The Mey family were fruit growers in Prey Khmeng village in Siemreap Province when the extreme communist Khmer Rouge gained power. Mr Mey was living in Phnom Penh studying at university in 1975 when the city fell to Khmer Rouge forces.
"I thought that's just impossible."
The fall of Phnom Penh marked Year Zero and the start of a new calendar under the Khmer Rouge. Their first act was to order the refugee-swollen population of about 2 million out of the city to work in rural communes.
The streets were thick with people and Mr Mey said it took a day to travel a kilometre.
On the way he lost what he calls his naivety.
A young soldier directed him to stand to the side of the road to make way for expected high ranking Khmer Rouge but after losing his spot a few times Mr Mey stepped back on the road after the soldier passed.
"This time I heard the cranking of the gun up to here (Mr Mey points at his head) and I think by the time he's finished talking I was probably no more.
"I thought these people meant business."
He took off his glasses at that point realising all the bizarre stories that the educated were considered part of an elite class and were first to die were true.
Bodies and other signs along the road made the reality of their situation sink in even more.
Mr Mey with his sister Chheng who was studying to be a teacher and some university friends broke away from the slow chain heading east out of the city to go north where a friend had family.
Eventually after being turned away from other villages along the Mekong River they were allowed to stay in the relatives' village called Taek in Kandal Province about 30km north of Phnom Penh.
From May 1975 that was their home for just over three years.
Life was hard. Digging in fields, manual pumping of the land, back-breaking labour. Free time involved sitting at meetings and avoiding saying anything that could have them singled out for punishment or death.
The lowest point for Mr Mey was when he was sent to work away from the village for the entire dry season. Camped by a rice field meant there was no way to boost food supplies by picking fallen fruit or other opportunities in the village and he nearly starved to death.
When offered food he couldn't take it.
But he had a lucky break, the rain came and the village wanted its workers back and he managed to pick up and start eating again.
Mr Mey said he nearly died several times and was lucky not to be one of those taken for "re-education" in the middle of the night.
His village was relatively moderate. Each village belonged to a commune, a few hundred metres away but in a different province's commune all the "new people", as city evacuees were known, were killed in a single night in 1978.
"If I were to go half a kilometre away I would've perished."
Vietnam liberated Cambodia in 1979 and Mr Mey eventually managed to get a bike and regain his health before travelling to his family village.
He discovered his parents and youngest brother were dead. The last time he saw them was in 1973. Mr Mey, chatting and detailed in his narrative until now, clams up.
"It was very cruel," is all he can say.
The other siblings -- scattered across the country with one brother Chhoeung Mey living in New Zealand since 1974 on a study scholarship -- all remarkably survived.
"A combination of good luck, some planning and I don't know."
Mr Mey spent about seven months in refugee camps on the Thai border before his New Zealand-based brother found him and organised to take him here.
"I was skinny to the bone, I was almost dead. It took me about six months to recover."
Chhoeung Mey lost his wife and children to the regime but managed to take a brother and sister back to New Zealand.
Mr Mey's fiancee was sponsored by a church group and was able to bring her family. They married in October 1981.
Mr Mey had worked hard and fast to learn English before emigrating.
He found the new country "quiet, unbelievably quiet. In the camp there was 100,000 people."
It took him a while to realise he was free to come and go.
Mr Mey's story from there is one of hard work -- he did manual labour jobs working up to 30 hours a week while he studied for his commerce degree. Since then Mr Mey has achieved an accounting qualification and worked in a variety of roles.
"I am doing reasonably well. I am not a person to complain a lot, I tend to be content with what's available."
Asked what he thought of the trials of Khmer Rouge before the joint Cambodian-international court that New Zealander Dame Silvia Cartwright is sitting on, he noted that only a few at the highest level Khmer Rouge are being held accountable.
"It's good that they do that but it seemed to take long and whether they are going to achieve anything I am not too sure. I just want to move on in a way.
"At some time we have to move on, forget the past."
* Maggie Tait is travelling to Cambodia with the assistance of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
Ahead of the first trials of Khmer Rouge leaders starting on Monday, MAGGIE TAIT of NZPA talked to Cambodians who fled to New Zealand during the Pol Pot regime. This is Sambath Mey's story. Wellington, March 27 NZPA - Sometimes he felt he was about to be executed any minute.
"People sleeping next to me get picked up and disappeared," Wellington man Sambath Mey describes life under Cambodia's brutal Pol Pot regime.
Mr Mey came to New Zealand in 1980, married his sweetheart who he met in a refugee camp, and set about educating himself by working almost full-time while studying commerce at Victoria University. Now a public servant, the father of three young-adult children recalls nearly dying of starvation and the fear of execution when he was a young man.
The Mey family were fruit growers in Prey Khmeng village in Siemreap Province when the extreme communist Khmer Rouge gained power. Mr Mey was living in Phnom Penh studying at university in 1975 when the city fell to Khmer Rouge forces.
"I thought that's just impossible."
The fall of Phnom Penh marked Year Zero and the start of a new calendar under the Khmer Rouge. Their first act was to order the refugee-swollen population of about 2 million out of the city to work in rural communes.
The streets were thick with people and Mr Mey said it took a day to travel a kilometre.
On the way he lost what he calls his naivety.
A young soldier directed him to stand to the side of the road to make way for expected high ranking Khmer Rouge but after losing his spot a few times Mr Mey stepped back on the road after the soldier passed.
"This time I heard the cranking of the gun up to here (Mr Mey points at his head) and I think by the time he's finished talking I was probably no more.
"I thought these people meant business."
He took off his glasses at that point realising all the bizarre stories that the educated were considered part of an elite class and were first to die were true.
Bodies and other signs along the road made the reality of their situation sink in even more.
Mr Mey with his sister Chheng who was studying to be a teacher and some university friends broke away from the slow chain heading east out of the city to go north where a friend had family.
Eventually after being turned away from other villages along the Mekong River they were allowed to stay in the relatives' village called Taek in Kandal Province about 30km north of Phnom Penh.
From May 1975 that was their home for just over three years.
Life was hard. Digging in fields, manual pumping of the land, back-breaking labour. Free time involved sitting at meetings and avoiding saying anything that could have them singled out for punishment or death.
The lowest point for Mr Mey was when he was sent to work away from the village for the entire dry season. Camped by a rice field meant there was no way to boost food supplies by picking fallen fruit or other opportunities in the village and he nearly starved to death.
When offered food he couldn't take it.
But he had a lucky break, the rain came and the village wanted its workers back and he managed to pick up and start eating again.
Mr Mey said he nearly died several times and was lucky not to be one of those taken for "re-education" in the middle of the night.
His village was relatively moderate. Each village belonged to a commune, a few hundred metres away but in a different province's commune all the "new people", as city evacuees were known, were killed in a single night in 1978.
"If I were to go half a kilometre away I would've perished."
Vietnam liberated Cambodia in 1979 and Mr Mey eventually managed to get a bike and regain his health before travelling to his family village.
He discovered his parents and youngest brother were dead. The last time he saw them was in 1973. Mr Mey, chatting and detailed in his narrative until now, clams up.
"It was very cruel," is all he can say.
The other siblings -- scattered across the country with one brother Chhoeung Mey living in New Zealand since 1974 on a study scholarship -- all remarkably survived.
"A combination of good luck, some planning and I don't know."
Mr Mey spent about seven months in refugee camps on the Thai border before his New Zealand-based brother found him and organised to take him here.
"I was skinny to the bone, I was almost dead. It took me about six months to recover."
Chhoeung Mey lost his wife and children to the regime but managed to take a brother and sister back to New Zealand.
Mr Mey's fiancee was sponsored by a church group and was able to bring her family. They married in October 1981.
Mr Mey had worked hard and fast to learn English before emigrating.
He found the new country "quiet, unbelievably quiet. In the camp there was 100,000 people."
It took him a while to realise he was free to come and go.
Mr Mey's story from there is one of hard work -- he did manual labour jobs working up to 30 hours a week while he studied for his commerce degree. Since then Mr Mey has achieved an accounting qualification and worked in a variety of roles.
"I am doing reasonably well. I am not a person to complain a lot, I tend to be content with what's available."
Asked what he thought of the trials of Khmer Rouge before the joint Cambodian-international court that New Zealander Dame Silvia Cartwright is sitting on, he noted that only a few at the highest level Khmer Rouge are being held accountable.
"It's good that they do that but it seemed to take long and whether they are going to achieve anything I am not too sure. I just want to move on in a way.
"At some time we have to move on, forget the past."
* Maggie Tait is travelling to Cambodia with the assistance of the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
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