Letters to the Editor
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Dith Pran, 1942-2008
(Part 3 of 3)
The New York Times Magazine, Sunday, September 24, 1989
Return to the Killing Fields
By DITH PRAN[...]
AFTER MEETING with Hun Sen, we go to the village of Tuol Sleng, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, to the Museum of the Genocidal Crimes of Pol Pot. The museum is in a former high school, which the Khmer Rouge surrounded with barbed wire and turned into a prison. Here, they tortured 20,000 people during interrogations; almost all of them were killed.
The barbed wire is still in place and on view are some of the police snapshots of the interrogated. The faces of the young and the elderly are painful to see. Some are children no older than 13. They knew nothing about politics. But many of the Khmer Rouge were very young: it was the young killing the young. That is why they could kill my youngest brother, who was 17 and a student and had committed no crime.
Samnang Siv, a member of the delegation, suddenly sees a photograph of her father. Like me, she survived Pol Pot's labor camps and escaped to the Thai border and then to America. Her parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge but, until this moment, she didn't know where they were killed or when. She starts to cry uncontrollably. I go over and try to comfort her. ''We are not the only ones who suffered,'' I say. ''Millions of people were victimized by the Khmer Rouge. That is why we are here. We are working hard to find justice.''
Another delegate on the trip is Dr. Haing S. Ngor, who portrayed me in the movie ''The Killing Fields.'' He, too, suffered terribly under the Khmer Rouge. The day before we leave Cambodia, he and I hold a memorial service for the unknown victims of the Pol Pot regime at a monument built in their memory in Cheung Ek, a village near the edge of the capital. The narrow, two-story monument, with the traditional peaked roofs, has glassed-in shelves holding the skulls of some of the 9,000 who were buried in the surrounding killing fields.
At the 60-minute ceremony, arranged with the help of local officials, Haing Ngor and I lay a wreath in front of the monument. Four monks recite the prayers for the dead. Then, assisted by the monks, we release 200 pigeons. We are both sad and angry to see the skulls and know that Cambodia may soon be engulfed in another civil war. By letting the birds go, we believe we will free them to carry to the rest of the world the message that we Khmer want peace.
As the monks prayed, one held in his hands two turtles. After the ceremony, Samnang Siv takes the turtles to the nearby rice field and frees them in memory of her parents. Freeing turtles is also part of an old tradition. By giving freedom to another living creature we gain merit and release from suffering, for ourselves or for the people we love, in the life to come.
[...]
- - Dith Pran
(Part 3 of 3)
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Charles Ellis "Chuck" Schumer and Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein have given us
Charles Ellis "Chuck" Schumer and Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein have given us the "cover up" we deserve don't you think?
When we have do nothing Democrats, they need to cover up this fact. So from bad to worse goes the administration and so goes the Congress.
Torture logic, torture people the war parties drain our blood and our wallets at once.
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On April 1st eve.... a desire for rest.
Ardently, sweetly praising, the self-right, the know everything?
A blokes gloat, strokes, and whisper how wonderful they sure are/is....
Gentle, gentle? Then a lash-out with a inner loath-hate outward, and to hurt.
*Untoward, oblivious, preoccupied, and endorsing how "great" only they are?
Acting like a rejected mentor, and all the rest of the world is wrong, o, wayward?
'I don't want to understand you' is implied.... and madly they take off... a wild cat.
Always chased by a two-legged, "lesser" in the warped mentality, a lowly other 'dog' beast.
Oh Afraid. Countless times in fear, and on a gallop.... exhausted.... the same-same defense.
Oh. Grab a nose, a forehead, a earlobe, and withhold fear and anger.... Listen, for just one time?
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A General Question:
The fact that our president is subverting the Constitution that he’s sworn to protect, and that he’s being abetted by a hireling who is supposed to be the nation’s highest law enforcement officer should, by any sane measure, be headline news. Why isn’t it?
The fact that the outrage over these incredible crimes is marginalized to the “fringes” of the “blogosphere” is the result of the total corruption of our mass media (in my opinion: note that I put “fringes” and “blogosphere” in quotes, because I also believe that the mass media have done their utmost to marginalize their competition).
This leaves me with a question that I do not have the wherewithal to answer, namely: How will the masses ever know that they are being screwed (and thus be motivated to act), if the only source of their reality (the mass media) is a participant in the gang-rape?
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sysprog. I know I've been extra 'chatty'.... okay. It is temporary.
I have local friends who are Cambodian, and younger than I am.... I know via good fate, an extended South Asian community.
I share greens, and enjoy Mr Lucky, his wife Sue, and 11-year old daughter, Sonya.
I tell her Sonya Leo T. had a wife named Sonya ( I think I'm correct). I share greens.
Daffodils.
They share sweet cake treats, or any item available at the moment, as a friendship gesture.
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BaruchOlam
How will the masses ever know that they are being screwed (and thus be motivated to act), if the only source of their reality (the mass media) is a participant in the gang-rape?
They won't.
Unless those who know get it out by word of mouth.
Have you tried that method?
If so, what were the results? (I'm genuinely interested since all it seems to do is get me shunned)
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Aycharaych:
I don't get shunned, but (perhaps worse) I get a lot of apathy - as in - "I'm no terrorist; what do I have to worry about?"
I did get someone's attention when I made up a hypothetical story, related to the recent flap about contractors accessing the Presidential candidates' passport records. I said: "So, your wife has a friend who's a contractor for the FBI, and she's a little suspicious about your late evenings at the office... "