On April 17 1975 the city of Phnom Penh fell to the forces of the Khmer Rouge. Soon the brutality of the new administration became apparent. To mark the 22nd anniversary, OMF is publishing a new book by Don Cormack which chronicles the suffering of the Cambodian church. Here we print an extract.
A refugee report from a village in Siem Riep province tells of the death of Haim, a Christian teacher, and his family . . .
Unmistakably, through the tremulous glare of the early afternoon sun and his own light-headedness from the back-breaking labour, Haim knew that the youthful black-clad Khmer Rouge soldiers now heading across the field were coming this time for him. It was the hour when they always came, these brutish servants of Angka Loeu (The Organisation on High), dispatched to cull yet more of Cambodia's grovelling minions lingering in this particular twilight zone of the nationwide death camp.
Waiting in the fields
Leaning weakly against his hoe for support - itself ironically the primary instrument of execution - Haim watched their easy, menacing, unhurried pace along the paddy embankment. His throat felt dry, an uncontrollable fluttering gripped his bowels, and his knees threatened to buckle beneath him. But he remained still. Haim was determined that when his turn came, he would die with dignity and without complaint. Since 'Liberation' on April 17, 1975, what Cambodian had not considered this day? Suddenly a bloodcurdling, naked scream shattered the unearthly stillness of the worksite. Haim swung round to see that another group of soldiers had seized their first prey: some pitiful wretch was being bound and dragged away, blubbering uncontrollably.
Across the landscape, eerily, not a soul moved except for Angka's black reapers. The scene resembled some bizarre party game of 'statues' in which each hapless player strained every muscle to render himself immobile, invisible. Move even faintly out of line from Angka's ruthlessly exacting standard of life and being, and you would be picked off, obliterated, 'fertiliser for Angka's crops'.
Haim's entire family was rounded up that afternoon. They were 'the old dandruff!', 'bad blood!', 'enemies of the glorious revolution!', 'CIA agents!'. They were Christians.
Sleepless night
The family spent a sleepless night comforting one another and praying for each other as they lay bound together in the dewy grass beneath a stand of friendly trees. Next morning the teenage soldiers returned and led them from their Gethsemane to their place of execution, to the nearby viel somlap, 'the killing fields'.
The place was grim indeed and bore many gruesome signs of a place of execution. A sickly smell of death hung in the air. Curious villagers foraging in the wood nearby lingered, half hidden, watching the familiar routine as the family were ordered to dig a large grave for themselves. Then, consenting to Haim's request for a moment to prepare themselves for death, father, mother, and children, hands linked, knelt together around the gaping pit. With loud cries to God, Haim began exhorting both the Khmer Rouge and all those looking on from afar to repent and believe the gospel.
Then, in panic, one of Haim's young sons leapt to his feet, bolted into the surrounding scrub and disappeared. Haim jumped up and with amazing coolness and authority prevailed upon the Khmer Rouge not to pursue the lad, but to allow him to go and call the boy back. The knots of onlookers, peering around trees, the Khmer Rouge, and the stunned family still kneeling at the graveside, looked on in awe as Haim began calling his son, pleading with him to return and die together with his family.
Come die with us
'What comparison, my son,' he called out, 'stealing a few more days of life in that wilderness, a fugitive, wretched and alone, to joining your family here momentarily around this grave but soon around the throne of God, free forever in Paradise?' After a few tense minutes the bushes parted, and the lad, weeping, walked slowly back to his place with the kneeling family. 'Now we are ready to go,' Haim told the Khmer Rouge.
But by this time there was not a soldier standing there who had the heart to raise his hoe to deliver the death blow on the backs of these noble heads. Ultimately this had to be done by the Khmer Rouge commune chief, who had not witnessed these things. But few of those watching doubted that as each of these Christians' bodies toppled silently into the earthen pit which the victims themselves had prepared, their souls soared heavenward to a place prepared by their Lord.
The spread of news such as this, of certain Christians boldly bearing witness to their Lord in death, was gossiped about the countryside.
Eventually these reports were brought across to the refugee camps in Thailand; and not always by Christians, but by typical Cambodians who, until then, had despised the Puok Yesu.
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