WAT PO, Cambodia, April 22 (AP) - (Kyodo)—A group of over two dozen former war correspondents held a solemn ceremony Thursday to mourn the loss of their colleagues who were killed or went missing while covering the war in Cambodia more than three decades ago.
The "Old Hacks," as they call themselves, gathered at a remote spot 63 kilometers southwest of Phnom Penh where eight fellow journalists and a Cambodian driver were killed by the Khmer Rouge in May 1970 and where the bodies of four of them were dug up and recovered in 1992.
The slain media workers are among 37 who were killed or went missing in Cambodia between 1970 and 1975, including 10 Japanese, eight French, seven Americans and five Cambodians. Others were from Switzerland, West Germany, Austria, Netherlands, India, Laos and Australia.
Carl Robinson, 67, a former Associated Press correspondent who co- organized the first-ever reunion of war correspondents in Cambodia, said their visit to the remote site, located down a dirt track more than 2 km off the main road, was "like a day of pilgrimage."
"It was a very moving ceremony with a few tears shed," he said. "To use an overused word, it was like a 'closure' for a lot of people to actually be able to visit and to pay their respects here today."
The ceremony began with the chanting of Buddhists monks and local villagers amid the burning of incense, which was followed by the reading of the names of all 37 journalists.
They then held a moment of silence and planted a Bodhi, the tree under which Buddha found enlightenment, on the side of the road, which the monks of the local temple promised to take care of.
"The memorial as such is the Bodhi tree," said Robinson, who was based in Saigon from 1968 through 1975.
The Old Hacks, mostly former journalists in their late 60s or early 70s who had worked for Western major news organizations, arrived in Cambodia on Tuesday for a reunion which also involves a public open forum, a photo exhibition, a visit to the notorious "Killing Fields" and the installation of a more formal memorial in front of the Le Royal Hotel in Phnom Penh where many correspondents stayed and worked while covering the war in this country.
Among participants in Thursday's ceremony was the widow of Koki Ishiyama, a Kyodo News correspondent slain in Cambodia in 1970.
Kurt Volkert, 73, a former CBS cameraman who was instrumental in mapping where executed journalists were buried and who returned in 1992 to help a U.S. military team recover the remains of some of them from the bank of a river, said he regrets Ishiyama's body was never found despite the "heroic effort" put into the search by diggers, who had to dam up the river to dig.
"We were not close friends but I respected him and it's infinitely sad that he's still here somewhere, swept away by the waters," he said. "He just didn't get to go home."
Volkert said he visited Ishiyama's wife in Tokyo later that same year to deliver her a little silver box containing soil from the digging site where the bodies of two other Japanese, one Frenchman and one American were found.
Robinson said the number of journalists killed in Cambodia was much higher than in Vietnam during the Vietnam War because in the latter case, "journalists could count on the U.S. military to take them to wherever the fighting was" whereas in Cambodia journalists had to basically take a taxi ride to the war zone.
To make matters worse, he said the Khmer Rouge policy then was to "smash" or execute all perceived enemies, including journalists.
The Old Hacks have held three reunions in Vietnam for those who covered the Vietnam War and they are slated to hold their fourth next week.
"But this is the first time we've ever had one in Cambodia so it's been a wonderful experience, a really nice and wonderful feeling," Robinson said.
At the same time, he said, feelings are mixed. With some Old Hacks not having been back to Cambodia since the early 1970s, "it's been quite an emotional return for a lot of people."
"You enjoy it but you can't help remember the sadness as well."
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