I am Survivor
I am a survivor from Cambodia, a country less than half the size of California located in Asia between Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. I lived through the genocide killing by its own people led by the communist party Khmer Rouge. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge overthrew the government and everyone was forced to the rice field. My mom, brother and I were in the midst of this. The sick, elderly and those refused to leave were killed on the spot. Their goal was to cleanse the country and set it back to a primitive "Year Zero" of peasant farming society. Children were taken from their parents and placed in separate forced labor camps. My brother and I were infant and survived because our mother served as a cook. Most infants and children died from starvation, diseases or just killed. We were the few that survived among the many prison camps. Khmer Rouge did not want any resistance and tortured and kill anyone that looked intelligent. Those that wear glasses, pretty sounding names, speak another language were also killed. One Khmer Rouge slogan was "To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss." The Khmer Rouge reign lasted from 1975 to 1979 resulted in the deaths of 25 percent or more than 3 millions people. The mass graves of bones and skulls unearthed revealed the extent of deaths which were known as the "killing fields". The Khmer Rouge had a torture centre in capital city of Phnom Penh, where they display on the walls of skulls and photographs of victims before torturing and killing them. 8 9 10 Esphesian 2:8 (NIV) "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God." Our journey out of Cambodia, CSUF's article- A Man of Faith and Courage.
