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THE TRUTH THAT I REMEMBER
Aun Long
Around 7:30 on the
morning of 17 April 1975, I was standing at the side of the road on
the southeast side of Beoung Keng Kang School in Phnom Penh.
I and many others bore faces of happiness intermingled with fear and
trepidation. Hundreds of thousands
of eyes stared towards the western direction as if waiting for something to
happen. The sound of bullets could
sometimes be heard firing loudly and sometimes only faintly from the
distance. On the street above Mao
Tse Tung, I could sometimes hear the sound of bullets fired near and sometimes
fired from the distance. Once in a
while a shelling fell on the roof of the school which was not very far from
where I was. This made my body
tremble. A little while later I heard the sound of crowds of people cheering
mixed with the sound of bullets.
Guarding both sides of the road, the people of Phnom Penh mixed with the
Lon Nol soldiers that broke from their armies, wore colored clothing. In each of their hands were white cloths
waving in the air welcoming the new Liberation Army that was walking in rows
with solid and angry expressions on their faces. All of their people dressed in black,
rubber tire shoes, red checkered scarves wrapped around their necks, and some
had one pant leg rolled up. Their
bodies were covered with dirt and on their heads they wore a Chinese cap. Some wiped their heads with their
scarves. On their chests and around
their waists were ammunitions and bullets.
They pointed their guns up and down prepared to fire at any time. They marched towards the crowds of
people that were standing along the road.
Their bodies demonstrated they were soldiers who endured incredible pain
and sacrifice for their work. I
heard them chanting: “Bravo to the
revolution! Bravo to the Liberation
Army that gained victory over the U.S. imperialists! The war is over!”
At that time I was only ten years old. I don’t really remember very much. My father and I walked near six men
dressed in black with a gun belt wrapped around their waists. In their hands they held a piece of
paper or a booklet. They yelled out
an announcement into the microphone: Angkar will not punish the people or the
people who worked under the Lon Nol regime! Angkar will only punish the
traitors!”
I traveled towards Beoung Keng Kang Market with my father and walked all
around the market. At that time, I
saw a crowd of people with cyclos, carts, and Peta cars parked outside and
inside the market fence. They
clogged up the entire street. Many
people, old and young, men and women knocked against each other in front of the
rice granaries and in the market.
At that time, eight or nine liberation soldiers carrying Chinese AK-47s
were trying to prevent people from entering the market. Since they could not
prevent them and people would not listen, the army dressed in black raised their
Chinese AK-47s and shot it in the air above everyone’s heads and ordered them to
move back, but still without success.
The crowds of people continued to swarm towards the front in search of
the rice granary. After they shot
the gun in the air, the army of soldiers dressed in black shot their guns at the
walls of the rice granary.
Afterwards, they also shot their guns at the ground and toward the crowd
of people at the front. The sound
of guns brought about utter chaos and confusion. There was so much disorder it was like a
dam had broke. When the guns had
silenced, in front of me, many people were killed and injured. I still remember my father saying, “This
is from hunger. In a country that
was just at war, prices are rising and the desires of people are trembling
because of their stomachs and the screams of hunger.” My father continued and said, “War
within our country is still not yet over if the people are still hungry like
this.” Afterwards he breathed a long sigh and said, “The misery and suffering of
Cambodia is still not yet over.”
At 6:00 in the evening my family finished our dinner. A little later my grandmother told my
father, “Soldiers from the Liberation Army told us that our family and everyone
living in Beoung Keng Kang must leave the city immediately, because inside the
city there are still enemies and the Americans will bomb the city at any
time. If any families or person
remain stubborn, the soldiers dressed in black will shoot and kill them
immediately. They must accept their
own responsibilities.
After we talked and discussed the situation, my family agreed that we
needed to travel along National Road #1 so that we could return to my father’s
native village. Around 8:00 in the
evening, because of the immediate orders from the Liberation Army, my family had
to travel towards the eastern direction along Preah Norodom Street, past the
intersection at the head of the street, and we had to cross the Monivong
Bridge. Along the streets of Phnom
Penh there were crowds of people who were making their journey. One sight that made me tremble with fear
was when I saw many Lon Nol soldiers bloated and scattered along the national
road. Some of the soldiers were run
over flat by Khmer Rouge tanks while some were bloated and were floating along
the Mekong River. Many people had
packed enough food for at least three days. But some families had filled their
pillowcases and rice sacks with money.
When they discovered that the Khmer Rouge had abolished money and no
longer allowed it to be spent and they had realized their money had lost all
value, they became disappointed and even crazy.
Four days later
when we did not hear the bombings of the Americans, my father knew that we were
cheated and tricked into evacuating and leaving our homes for a period of two
weeks. My father said, “I knew they
would be like this. I began to
forget everything and then everyone encountered an unfortunate destiny. In front of us there is one question:
Will we live or will we die?”
Ten days later I arrived in my father’s native village and they called us
the “new people” or the “17 April people.” |
