[The following is an excerpt from Loung Ung’s amazing memoir about her experiences as a young girl who survived the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia during the late 70s.]
As always, no matter how plentiful the crops, there is never enough food for the new people [Cambodians forced from the cities to live in the countryside in communal work camps]. Stealing food is viewed as a heinous crime and, if caught, offenders risk either getting their fingers cut off in the public square or being forced to grow a vegetable garden in an area near identified minefields. The Khmer Rouge soldiers planted these landmines to protect the provinces they took over from the Lon Nol army during the revolution. Since the Khmer Rouge planted so many landmines and drew no maps of where these mines are, now many people are injured or killed traversing these areas. People who work in these areas do not come back to the village. If people step on one and their arms or legs [are] blown off, they are no longer of any value to the Angkar. The soldiers then shoot them to finish the job. In the new pure agrarian society, there is no place for disabled people.
Source:
Ung, Loung. “Ro Leap, November 1975.” First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. Harper Perennial, 2017. 66-7. Print.
Further Reading:
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