Cambodia war survivors turn to music

Phun Ouern, landmine victim, and a member of a traditional orchestra, smokes while waiting for the next performance by the group, Friday, March 6, 2009, near Bantay Srey temple on the outskirts of Siem Reap, Cambodia.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Nov Rey, 50, an acid attack victim, looks on as she waits to sing during a performance by traditional Cambodian musicians, Friday, March 6, 2009, near Bantay Srey temple on the outskirts of Siem Reap, Cambodia.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Phun Ath, blinded by a B-40 rocket attack, pauses between songs, Friday, March 6, 2009, near Bantay Srey temple on the outskirts of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Phun is part of an orchestra, many who have lost limbs or have been injured by landmines , that plays daily for tourists who visit the temple at Bantay Srey.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Kham Ny, a traditional Cambodian musician looks on as he plays the 'tro' which is similar to a violin, Friday, March 6, 2009, near Bantay Srey temple on the outskirts of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Kham is part of an orchestra, many who have lost limbs or have been injured by landmines, that plays daily for tourists who visit the temple at Bantay Srey.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

A traditional Cambodian musician plays the 'tro' similar to a violin, for tourists, Friday, March 6, 2009, near Bantay Srey temple on the outskirts of Siem Reap, Cambodia.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Traditional Cambodian musicians, many amputees from landmines, gather to play for tourists, Friday, March 6, 2009, near Bantay Srey temple on the outskirts of Siem Reap, Cambodia.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Khan Ny, 55, plays the 'tro' a traditional Cambodian musical instrument similar to a violin, Friday, March 6, 2009, near Bantay Srey temple on the outskirts of Siem Reap, Cambodia.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Cambodia traditional orchestra leader and landmine victim Khieu Sarath prepares to lead this band near Ta Prohm temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia, Saturday, March 7, 2009.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Cambodia traditional orchestra leader and landmine victim Khieu Sarath leads this band near Ta Prohm temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia, Saturday, March 7, 2009.(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

David Longstreath
AP Photo - Kong Sam Ath, 51, lights incense and offers prayers as he and other traditional Cambodian musicians prepare to perform for tourists, Friday, March 6, 2009, near Bantay Srey temple on the outskirts of Siem Reap, Cambodia.

fresnobee.com
Sunday, Apr. 12, 2009
By DENIS D. GRAY - Associated Press Writer

SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- By the walls of ancient temples, just as the morning sun dapples the jungle floor and birds sing, survivors of Cambodia's killing fields and minefields drop their crutches, put aside their artificial limbs or blindly grope for their instruments - and then play music that can break the heart.

A tentative, mournful melody floats from a two-stringed "tro" bowed by Kak Vy, whose right leg is gone. He is joined by a zither plucked by Khieu Sarath, who lost his parents and sisters to Khmer Rouge murderers and whose mine-shattered leg was amputated without morphine. Phun Ath, blinded by a rocket, taps a drum softly.

Now, the first tourists arrive at the wondrous temples of Angkor, and the 20 musicians - amputees, blind, scarred, all destitute - hope that by dusk their playing will have earned them enough to sustain their families for another day. Together, they support more than 100 children and wives.

The musicians' lives mirror Cambodia's agony: 3 million dead in three decades of a savage war, American bombing, the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, a civil conflict and now coping in a country where a third of the people earn less than one dollar a day.

Several members of Ankor's two orchestras say they teetered on the verge of suicide before finding hope by banding together to play the music of their ancestors.

"When I lost my leg, I didn't want to live on this earth anymore," says Khieu Sarath. "Before I lost my leg my friends called me 'friend,' but when I became a disabled man even my close friends would call out, "One legged-man, where are you going?'"

Like almost all the musicians, Khieu Sarath describes his trials beginning during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror in the mid-1970s when some 2 million of his fellow Cambodians perished.

The fanatic communists executed his father because he allowed cows he was tending to stray into a cornfield, and his starving mother because she stole a cup of porridge from the communal kitchen. His two sisters were killed for taking a nap after grueling hours building a dam.

In the civil war that followed the Khmer Rouge fall in 1979, Khieu Sarath set off a land mine during a firefight, writhing in pain for 16 days in a remote jungle until help arrived. Then they tied his hands to a tree.

"My leg was cut like raw meat with a hack saw, without any injections," says the 48-year-old former soldier.

"Life was difficult for a disabled man. At the beginning I did not particularly want to be a musician. But I had no choice. I had to find something that was not difficult for a disabled man and this job fits a lot of people like me," he says.

Khieu Sarath gathered some of the disabled in 1997 and now seven of them play at Angkor's much-visited Ta Phrom, a monastic complex where gnarled roots and soaring trunks of ancient banyan and silk cotton trees intertwine with crumbling, dusky temples - a scene out of Hollywood's "Tomb Raider," which indeed was partially filmed here.

"Victims of Landmines," reads a sign in five languages. If every passing tourist who clicked a camera donated, the group would be rolling in cash, but as it is they're very lucky to earn several dollars apiece, plus $4 daily saved in a communal pot for any among them in distress.

This help is also extended to the second orchestra, which plays at Banteay Srei, the "jewel of Khmer art," a 10th century temple of pinkish sandstone famed for its delicate wall carvings.

Here, the 13 musicians sit at the temple's edge on a blue plastic sheet spread over a forest floor strewn with winter's withered leaves. The buzz of cicadas and the wind's rustle accompany their sometimes bouncy, sometimes elegiac melodies played on instruments very like those depicted on the centuries-old friezes of Angkor.