Eve of Destruction | Swindle Magazine | Matthew Newton

On April 17, 1975, after five long years of civil war, the Khmer Rouge, a communist regime led by fanatical revolutionary Pol Pot, seized control of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city. This historic event, and the extreme abuse of power that followed, led to the eventual slaughter of 90% of Cambodia’s artistic and intellectual communities, and 25% of the country’s overall population—setting in motion one of the most brutal genocidal campaigns of the 20th century.

The cities and villages were evacuated first; a country of ghost towns created overnight. Official notices issued by the Khmer Rouge warned that an American bombing raid was imminent. Spreading like a virus, the propaganda instilled fear in the citizenry. Acting as pseudo-protectors of national security, and under a guise of deception, the regime convinced residents that safety could be found in the countryside—far from the destruction that seemingly awaited them if they were to remain in the cities. Two million people were uprooted from the routines of their daily lives, forced to march from their homes to rural farming lands where they were told they could survive on harvested vegetables, grains, and rice. It all seemed temporary. But the stakes changed almost immediately. During the exhaustive journey (which lasted more than a month for some), thousands of Cambodian men, women, and children died of starvation. Those who died during the exodus from the cities were the first casualties of Pol Pot’s overzealous desire to reshape the country into a Utopian society—a mission that would, by decade’s end, claim the lives of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians and dramatically alter the lives of all who survived.

Belly Of The Beast

In the days following the regime’s seizure of Phnom Penh, the roads leading from the city were thick with human traffic—fear running its course.

When would the bombing begin? What areas would the Americans target? Why was this happening?

The people were awash in confusion, struggling to make sense of this new reality. All the while, Khmer Rouge guerillas, dressed in black and armed with AK47s, emptied the cities. The soldiers, who promised to look after peoples’ homes while they were away, directed the crowds to the streets.

The evacuation was only temporary. That’s what the people were told. That’s what the people believed. Throngs of frightened Cambodians migrated to the countryside seeking safety, but upon their arrival discovered a situation that was horrifically different.

“During the Khmer Rouge reign,” says Arn Chorn-Pond, speaking by phone from his home in Cambodia, “they forced me and five other children [I knew] to learn music and play [the regime’s] revolutionary songs.” A former prisoner of the regime, Arn, now 39-years old, is an avid human rights activist, flute player, and fervent preservationist of traditional Cambodian music. “Three [of the] children did not succeed in playing [and] they killed them. I and one other kid were spared. Sometimes they allowed me to play for the Khmer Rouge leaders, and sometimes they forced me to play while they were killing people—so they would hear music instead of screaming.”

After the Khmer Rouge seized power and evacuated the cities, the rural farming lands they promised as refuge from the American bombing raids were quickly transformed to labor camps. U.S. fighter jets never arrived, and no bombs were ever dropped. In the camps, families were separated—mothers from their children, husbands from their wives. The disabled were left to die; the elderly left to starve. Communication with family members was prohibited and considered an offense worthy of execution. That’s when Pol Pot announced his four year plan, an idea that mimicked Soviet and Chinese communist theories, and was intended to modernize the country: Triple Cambodia’s agricultural output immediately; finance industrialization using the revenues culled from exports.

Idealistic in its conception, this four year plan was not grounded in reality. Among its primary flaws were the plan’s unattainable production goals. Before the Khmer Rouge came to power, Cambodians produced approximately one ton of rice per hectare (2.5 acres). However, under Pol Pot’s watchful and increasingly paranoid rule, workers were expected to produce three tons of rice per hectare. The workers, many of whom were either malnourished, half-starved, or simply too old, could not realistically meet the labor-intensive demands that this plan required. However, the regime either did not understand or refused to acknowledge the futility of the situation, and when production was not met, workers were singled out as examples and slaughtered.

“I was forced to live in a labor camp with 500 other children, where we worked day and night, and there were killings four times a day of [the] innocent people around us,” Arn says. “Sometimes, [we] children were forced to watch and also do some [of the] killing. I lived in that camp more than half of the [years the] Khmer Rouge [was in power]. Only about 50 children survived. I was one of the lucky ones.”

Daily executions, particularly the type that Arn lived through, became commonplace. Large portions of the countryside were transformed into mass graves to hold the dead. This is where the killings, most of which took place each day at sunset, were carried out. These areas quickly became infamous, later being referred to as “The Killing Fields”—a phrase that is now forever branded into the collective psyche of the Cambodian people. Tuol Sleng, now a genocide museum, and Choeung Ek, a Buddhist memorial, are the most haunting and well known execution sites from this time period.

In the killing fields, children were often forced to slaughter malnourished laborers too exhausted to work, suspected dissenters against the regime, and even their own family members. In the documentary film, The Flute Player, which recounts Arn’s experience during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and his subsequent return to Cambodia some 20 years later, accounts of incidents where regime soldiers forced children to urinate on the dead and even kill their own parents were common.

With paranoia spreading like a cancer within the regime, the Khmer Rouge began knuckling down on individuals and groups which they viewed as potential threats to power. The most highly-sought were professionals, intellectuals, artists, and musicians. These people were hunted down, arrested, tortured, and killed. At the request of Angkar, the government of Cambodia under the regime, those captured were urged to confess the details of their pre-Khmer Rouge lifestyles. Assured that the government would forgive their previous transgressions, detainees initially revealed the truth, only to be tortured and later killed. Extracting these confessions became a weeding out process for the regime—slaughter the free-thinkers, let the docile and weak live. But as word spread, people learned to lie about their past to avoid execution. Musicians claimed to be peasant farmers, professors acted as shoe cobblers, and artists masqueraded as cooks—all as last ditch means of survival. However, many of these people were still not fortunate enough to survive.

Alive, Together

“My father says [life] was very hard when the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia,” says Sambo Pich, speaking from his home in Long Beach, California. “He lost family members and close friends. His grandfather, Los Samol, who is my great grandfather, was murdered during the Khmer Rouge takeover. [My great grandfather] was an educator in the royal courts that taught music and performed [at] the royal palace. My father train[ed] in music with him before they were separated.”

Born in Srak Keo, a refugee camp along the border of Thailand and Cambodia, Sambo, along with his wife Chanthea Sok, and parents Sambath and Keo, now reside in Long Beach—an area which boasts the largest population of Cambodians (Lowell, Massachusetts places second) outside of Cambodia itself. Sambo’s father, Sambath Pich, is a traditional Cambodian musician and master of the roneat ek (Cambodian xylophone). Sambo, who is also a musician, has been studying traditional Khmer music with his father since he was twelve years old.

“My father left Cambodia in 1979 to escape to the border of Cambodia and Thailand when [the] South Vietnamese [army] invaded,” Sambo explains. “The invasion was to push out the Khmer Rouge army. The experience my father went through was very difficult. [He] escaped the killing fields with my mom. At the time of the escape my father was very ill. There was no time to rest, their only hope was to make it across the border to Thailand. My parents ran under bullets, escaping empty-handed. All they had was very little food and water. The journey took them four days and three nights from the countryside of Battam Bang where [my father] was a slave laborer.”

The Khmer Rouge and its heartless attempt to create Utopia, had a devastating impact on all aspects of Cambodian society. Pol Pot’s program for the country left it crippled indefinitely. Under the regime, schools, hospitals, and factories were closed. Banking, currency, and any form of finance was eradicated. The state confiscated all private property and outlawed religion. Western medicine was rejected by the Khmer Rouge and deaths as a result of starvation and malnutrition killed more than the executioners in the killing fields. The regime sought to break down the citizenry and create what they referred to as “new people.”

Cambodia Rocks

Paul Wheeler was working as an English teacher in Kyoto, Japan, when he was presented with the opportunity to travel more extensively throughout Asia. It was 1994 and Wheeler’s friend, Ken Foster, was in the midst of planning a trip that would take him and fellow Australian Peter Lovern to Thailand and Cambodia. Wheeler, who had already spent a good deal of time traveling in Japan, was enthusiastic about the idea.

“Cambodia was not a place I had ever thought of visiting before,” Wheeler explains, “but I asked [Ken] if I could join him and that’s what we did.”

Once in Cambodia, Wheeler was enthralled—taking in as much of the culture and raw beauty of the country as possible. However, what struck him the most was a style of music he heard while en route to Angkor to visit the ancient ruins of the Khmer empire.

“The best souvenir I brought back from my travels is the music on the cassette tapes I bought in Cambodia,” Wheeler says. “In a truck on our way to Angkor, the driver had one cassette that he played over and over. All of it was sung in Cambodian. There was pop, rock, soul and it sounded incredibly fresh. I was able to hum my favorite song well enough to get a copy of it later.”

Wheeler soon discovered, after purchasing the tapes at a street market and talking with the hosts at a guest house where he, Foster, and Lovern were staying, that this was “circle dance music.” Wildly popular in Cambodia, the music dated back to the late 1960s and early 1970s—just several years before the Khmer Rouge came to power.

“My understanding was that the majority of [this music] was recorded in the late '60s and early '70s. I believe at that time Cambodia was used as a rest spot for soldiers from the
Vietnamese war,” Wheeler explains. “This is largely an educated guess, but I believe that as more American soldiers came through Phnom Penh, the musicians in the dancehalls and clubs made a point of pleasing them by incorporating [American] music into their acts. Listening to the music coming out of the U.S. [at that time]—from the G.I.s themselves [and] Army radio stations—influenced the modern pop music of Cambodia in a much more direct way than it was influencing the music of other Asian countries."

Recordings by famous Cambodian performers like Sinn Sisamouth, Ros Sereysothea, Yol Aularong, and Meas Samoun were included on the cassettes Wheeler had purchased. These artists, most notably Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Sereysothea, were national stars admired by the Cambodian people. Sisamouth, who’s often referred to by Westerners as the “Elvis of Cambodian rock,” and by Cambodians as the “King of Khmer music,” still remains a household name in Cambodia. His interpretations of traditional Khmer music, as well as his own rock compositions, were extremely popular during his career. Ros Sereysothea, who often performed duets with Sisamouth, is viewed as Cambodia’s greatest female vocalist.

Shortly after the Khmer Rouge seized power and outlawed all traditional music, both Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Sereysothea disappeared shortly thereafter. The Cambodian people still speculate about their fate. It is rumored that Sinn Sisamouth, weakened by illness, attempted to return to Phnom Penh to find work after the Khmer Rouge takeover. Discovered by guerillas on the road between Wat Champa and Phnom Penh, Sisamouth is said to have pleaded with the soldiers, requesting that he be allowed to plead his case through song. The soldiers, humoring the singer, allowed him to proceed. However, the subsequent performance is said to have had little influence on the soldiers’ decision, and “the man with the golden voice” was killed shortly after.

Like thousands of other Cambodians, famed female vocalist Ros Sereysothea spent the final years of her life in a regime labor camp. However, she did not remain among the nameless masses for long. News of Sereysothea’s presence in the camp quickly came to the attention of regime leaders, and her role almost immediately changed from laborer to propagandist singer. Forced by Khmer Rouge leaders to perform songs that urged laborers to work harder for the betterment of the regime, Sereysothea was no longer singing her trademark songs of love and inspiration. When she wasn’t performing for the work-enslaved masses, she worked in the fields alongside those she was told to inspire. The situation worsened for Sereysothea when, in 1977, Pol Pot forced her into an arranged marriage with one of his assistants. It is rumored that this officer, often jealous of his new bride’s demand as a performer, became very abusive. The last Ros Sereysothea was seen, she was seated in the back of a cow wagon amidst a handful of workers bound for a neighboring labor camp.

Temporarily erased from Cambodian culture, the recordings of artists like Ros Sereysothea, Sinn Sisamouth, and others began to slowly resurface after the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. An eclectic mix of garage rock, soul, and sugary pop, this raw blend of Western-influenced music hinted at the potential future of Cambodian popular music. Attracted to the music for its fresh sound, individuals like Paul Wheeler and other dedicated enthusiasts helped to raise awareness of Cambodian rock in the mid- to late-1990s. During his travels, Wheeler continued to share with strangers and friends the music on the cassettes that he found.

“After some of the hosts [at the guest house] had expressed their delighted surprise at the music I had bought,” Wheeler says, “another guest at the house gave it a brief listen, and asked me what it was about the music that caught my ear. I can’t think of a better answer than what I told him then, and that’s if it’s got a good beat, and it sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before, then it’s got my interest.”

Upon returning to the states, Wheeler took his interest in the music one step further. After sharing the cassettes he purchased with friends Paul Major and Allan Rohde, owners of the Parallel World record label, their response was overwhelmingly positive.

“When I first visited my friend Paul Major I brought him the compilation tape I had made with [my favorite songs from] the Cambodian tapes I bought,” Wheeler says. “Allan Rohde was there at the time too, and they immediately decided they wanted to put it out. I was excited about the music, and excited about the idea of having a chance to get this music to a larger public.”

In 1997, the compilation, aptly titled Cambodian Rocks, was released through Parallel World records and distributed by Forced Exposure. Wheeler supplied the music and artwork for the compilation, but his involvement after the album’s release was minimal. No track listings were included with this initial release, as the artists’ identities were unknown to both Wheeler and the staff at Parallel World. However, several years later, a similar compilation bearing the same name (but released by an entirely different record label) sprouted up—complete with artist names and song titles. Still considered a cult classic in underground music circles, the Cambodian Rocks compilation introduced (and continues to introduce) a new generation of listeners to an important style of music from an era almost entirely eclipsed by violence and tragedy.

“The remains of the Khmer Rouge are still there. Nearly everywhere you go you see soldiers walking around with powerful rifles,” Wheeler says. “Then you hear that most of the guns are unloaded because bullets are too expensive. It’s some of the most beautiful, undeveloped land in the world, but people are living in poverty. One dollar a day was a good wage there when we were there in 1994. Young kids who should have been in school were hanging around the temples waiting to sell T-shirts, trinkets, Cokes, and musical instruments to the tourists; and according to the people I talked to, there weren’t nearly as many tourists as they were expecting, though there was a slow increase at that time.”

Today Cambodia is still rebuilding, struggling to reclaim the glory of its strong cultural heritage. Unfortunately, the shadow cast by the Khmer Rouge is tall and long—a sobering reminder of a violent and oppressive past. However, in 21st century Cambodia, the musicians, artists, and intellectuals who survived the genocide are playing a critical role in the country’s slow but steady cultural rebirth.

Life After Death

Plagued by a tragic past, the Cambodians who survived the oppressive reign of the Khmer Rouge—a violent time period which lasted from 1975 to 1979—have spent the last 25 years making peace with the past while trying to stay focused on the present.

After the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in January of 1979, war erupted and the Khmer Rouge’s chokehold on the country loosened. The power structure shifted, and thousands of imprisoned men, women, and children—desperate to escape yet another conflict—fled to Thailand to seek asylum.

“When the Vietnamese invaded, thousands of children again were forced to be soldiers [and] fight,” Arn Chorn-Pond explains. “[That’s when] I escaped to the border of Thailand where I met my adopted [parents]—Peter and Shirley Pond. They took me to New Hampshire a year later from that [refugee] camp."

More than 25 years have passed since Arn escaped the horrors of the Cambodian killing fields. In the film The Flute Player, Arn’s return to Cambodia to find surviving master musicians and performers, and help preserve the ancient culture, is documented in candid detail.

“Arn lives life in a very confrontational and raw way. He is not letting the past be forgotten,” says Jocelyn Glatzer, the film’s director. “By observing him and constantly thinking about what he and the Cambodian people went through, I was forced to think what I would have done in that situation. I like to think about these difficult subjects that we do not normally confront in our day-to-day lives, like: ‘What would I do if I lost everything?’ ‘What would I do if my only route to survival was to join the bad guys?’ ‘How could I find solace and hold onto my humanity in the midst of war?’”

As a survivor of war, Arn is plagued by the past. However, through his work with Amnesty International, the Reebok Human Rights Foundation, and Children of War, as well as Cambodian Living Arts and the Cambodian Master Performers Program, he works hard to spread a message of peace and cultural preservation.

“I’ve tried [to forget the past], but the more I try the more it [haunts] my dreams. So one way to [heal] is to keep doing good work, like helping others—especially children,” Arn says. “I hope at the end of my life I can have one good dream. I am really sure that is what many other children wish also. I don't think it is too much to ask from the world. I am just beginning to come to terms [with the fact] that suffering will continue for me in my life. At the same time, I am starting to do good work for the first time. I think I need the same amount, or [even] more, to balance the bad things I was forced to do during war.”

Approaching life with a renewed perspective, Arn spends almost every waking hour immersed in his work. As a musician himself, it is apparent that he derives great pleasure from connecting with master musicians who survived the genocide, as well as teaching young children about Cambodia’s rich traditional music. So far, Arn has discovered 20 master musicians in 10 provinces throughout Cambodia. He has also assembled a group of 300 to 400 students who are now learning to play traditional instruments like the sralai thom (Big Oboe), roneat ek (Cambodian xylophone), and samphor (two-sided barrel drums) to name only a few.

“With all genocides, war, and violence, I am constantly amazed at the cruelty that human beings can assert upon one another,” says Jocelyn Glatzer. “It also surprises me to see that people can go on after living through years of humanity at its worst. Music and the arts are truly a key element to rebuilding the dignity that is lost in war. Artists need their art, Cambodians are no exception. When the [surviving Cambodian] musicians were asked to be a part of Arn’s programs they lit up.”

Nurturing these causes has helped Arn to evolve as a person and put the past in perspective. Spending seven months a year in Cambodia, and the other five in the United States to raise funds for his projects, Arn maintains a hectic schedule. This is all part of a constant progression for a man determined to make good on a past plagued by violence.

“If I am not a man of peace, I’ll remain a child of war,” Arn says. This phrase is repeated several times throughout our discussion, like a mantra. It is evident that personal growth is crucial to Arn’s continued survival and well-being—he makes this fact clear in the tone of his words.

Cambodia shares a collective fate similar to that of Arn’s. Without progression, the country will be forever plagued by the atrocities of the genocide. The future of the Cambodian people is still very uncertain. It is a delicate time for the country. Seeking justice for the 1.7 million who perished at the hands of the regime would be one sign of progress. However, that solution is quickly dissolving as the surviving members of the Khmer Rouge dwindle in number and the international community continues to squabble over the creation of a tribunal council. Though the Khmer Rouge was officially deposed when the Vietnamese invaded in 1979, Pol Pot retained a strong number of followers until his death in April of 1998. The regime maintained a presence in Cambodia until the late 90s, staging guerilla battles and controlling remote areas of the country.

For further information about the Cambodian Holocaust as well as organizations working to preserve the culture, please visit the following online resources:

Documentation Center of Cambodia
The Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project
Yale University’s Cambodian Genocide Program
The Digital Archive of Cambodian Holocaust Survivors
Khmer Cultural Center
Cambodian Master Performers Program
The Flute Player