One of the things you quickly learn in Cambodia is that everyone has a story. Everyone. And it’s not just a “story”—often, it is a devastating rendition of human suffering, of someone truly being a victim of their circumstances, the kind of story where you just have to stare into oblivion for a few minutes after hearing it, shaking your head. In a country where anyone over the age of 35 experienced and remembers the unfathomable horrors of the Khmer Rouge, these stories often sneak up on you.
Here are three such stories.
I went with my work out to the village of Svay Kleang in Kampong Cham province, about 5 hours drive northeast from Phnom Pehn. Svay Kleang is a Cham Muslim village nestled on the banks of the Mekong River. It was the center of Muslim scholarship in Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge and has a long history as the cultural heart of Cambodia’s Cham community. During the Khmer Rouge, the area was under KR control by 1973, about two years earlier than the rest of the country. By October 1975, the Khmer Rouge controlled the whole country and had already force-evacuated Phnom Penh. People were just beginning to understand the horrors that they would face for the next three years.
The Cham, however, already well knew the utter depravity and devastation wrought by the Khmer Rouge. Already, most Muslim leaders had been taken from the villages, with little explanation. They never returned. This was part of a systematic assault upon the Muslim religion in Cambodia. Cham Muslims were prohibited from prayer, forced to eat pork, and women were made to uncover and cut their hair. The Khmer Rouge viewed any institution—be it the monarchy, the family, or religion—as a threat to their absolute power, and they worked to eviscerate all such institutions. By October 1975, the Cham had had enough and rose up against the Khmer Rouge, with one of the largest rebellions taking place in Svay Kleang village. It is one of the few open rebellions against the Khmer Rouge during their 3 years, 8 months and 20 days in power.
Despite their bravery, the Cham rebels were massacred. And retribution was swift. Persecution increased, plans for extermination were quickened. Prior to 1975, approximately 2,000 Cham families (6,200 people) lived in Svay Kleang. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in January 1979, only 100 Cham families (600 people) remained.
My work went there to conduct outreach about the activities relating to the Khmer Rouge tribunal that is currently underway, assist villagers interested in signing up as civil parties to the proceedings, and conduct interviews with villagers about their experiences during the Khmer Rouge so as to preserve their stories as part of our Living Documents Project.
It was this work that led to the first two of the stories I will recount, stories that indeed helped me understand that everyone in Cambodia has a story to tell.
We first conducted a targeted outreach session with the village and Muslim leaders. At this meeting, an old man with a back shaped like candy cane appeared. Age is a very difficult thing to gauge, but there was no doubt about it: this guy was old. He took a seat on a crude wooden bench next to our interview team. When the 
rest of the village elders went inside the mosque for the meeting, he stayed behind. Our interview team—Fatily and Bon—took this opportunity to ask him if he was interested in being interviewed. He agreed and they set up their camera and microphone. He began to tell his story but at some point he began to talk to Fatily, the interviewer. Wearing a headscarf that identified her as Cham, he asked her where her family was from. Coincidentally, her family was from a village not 5 kilometers from where we were. The old man said that he too was originally from that village.
He then asked for her father’s name. She told him. He asked for the name again. She repeated it. I know your father, the old man said. ‘He’s my cousin, but everyone in my family thought he died during the Khmer Rouge.’ After the Khmer Rouge fell, Fatily’s father moved to the capital, Phnom Penh, while the old man moved from his birth village to Svay Kleang, where we were now standing. Given the staggering number of people who died from 1975-1979, each assumed that the other had died.
Fatily quickly pulled out 
her cellphone and dialed a number. After a few quick words, she put the phone up to the ear of the old man. The old man then spoke with his cousin for the first time in over 30 years. Fatily kept the phone to the old man’s ear, tears slowly running down her face. The old man told her father that he would tell the rest of the family that he was alive.
As my friend Randle said, Cambodia is really big small country. Thirty years later, people are still discovering long lost relatives. The magazine published by my NGO, Searching for the Truth, still publishes notices of people looking for family members lost during the Khmer Rouge. People refuse to give up hope because of stories like this.
Shortly after this, I heard a second story, one with no happy ending. We were inside the mosque, holding an information session with the local Muslim and village elders regarding the ongoing Khmer Rouge trial. During this discussion, Terith, the staff member leading the discussion, asked if any of the elders wanted to share their personal story during the Khmer Rouge. A few people volunteered, describing the disappearances, the suffering, the fear. One elderly man remained silent but then leaned forward, close to Terith and said, ‘I would like to tell you my story, but I cannot do it in front of all these people. I am still too emotional.’
After the formal s
ession ended, people broke into small groups. Terith and the elderly man retreated to a quiet corner of the mosque and with a
tape recorder in front of him, the man began to recant his story. His story was similar to many others—the forced labor, the loss of religious freedom, the hunger—but one thing struck me as different: his continued rage. Many people just want to forget everything that happened during the Khmer Rouge; others want justice. This man wanted revenge.
After telling his story, his voice raised and said that if he saw someone right now that he knew to be responsible for his suffering and that of his family, he would kill them right there. He said that in front of everyone, he would drink their blood. You see, this man lost eight children to the Khmer Rouge.
After returning to Phnom Penh, I mentioned this story to a tenant in my apartment building. Shaking his head, he asked if I knew Sophip, our landlord. Of course I did. Had I noticed how she walks kind of funny? No, actually, I had not, but I knew that it took her a long time to get up from sitting down. I assumed it was from old age, but he told me it was because the Khmer Rouge cut out her kneecaps. Her kneecaps.
