April 2008
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Remembering the Killing Fields

I was scanning headlines in The New York Times this week when one caught my eye. Dith Pran, the Cambodian refugee on whose life the movie The Killing Fields was based, had died of cancer.

Pran was the assistant to reporter Sydney Schanberg, the Times correspondent assigned to Southeast Asia in the mid-1970s. When the revolutionary regime of the Khmer Rouge took over the country in April 1975, Schanberg could not save his friend.

Over the next four years, the Khmer Rouge killed more than 2 million Cambodians, a third of the country’s population. Millions more, including Pran, were sent into the countryside to work as virtual slaves.

Reading Pran’s story in the Times this week took me back to the time I spent in a refugee camp in Thailand, helping Cambodian and Laotian refugees who had been accepted to come to the United States.

One of my students, a young man in his late teens, spoke English very well. On the first day of class I complimented him, and asked if he had studied English in Cambodia. He looked at me in disbelief.

“In Cambodia, if you speak English, you are killed,” he said.

When the Khmer Rouge overthrew the government, leader Pol Pot declared that although in the rest of the world it was 1975, in Cambodia it was Year Zero. Technology and machinery – except those used to kill -- were thrown out. All Western influence was banned.

Anyone who was educated or spoke English was killed. Something as simple as wearing glasses was a sign of education and wealth, and could mean death.

Pran survived by hiding that he was educated or that he knew Americans. He dressed as a peasant and passed himself off as a taxi driver.

My student, Rin Vuth, was 12 years old when he and his family were forced to leave their home, joining a long stream of people walking out of the city.

In fragmented, but oddly poetic English, Vuth describes his family’s life after the evacuation. “We worked in the open air, exposed to the rain and wind. No rest. They used the men to yoke and plow as oxen.

“We worked hard, but ate very little. They only gave us a dipper of porridge each. In a day at least 10 people died. We lived in great misery.”

Vuth was separated from his family, and escaped to Thailand. He had almost made it to the border when he stepped on a land mine and lost his leg.

When I asked him what he wanted to do in America, he replied he wanted to be an artist. I gave him a sketch pad and pencils, and within a few days he brought it back and presented it as a gift to me. I opened it and saw page after page of amazing drawings, graphically showing the hell he had experienced.

In one drawing, the ground is littered with skulls and bones. It is strikingly similar to the unforgettable scene in The Killing Fields, where the field is covered with thousands upon thousands of human skulls and skeletons.

Dith Pran and Rin Vuth were the lucky ones. They somehow survived the killing fields and made it to America. I don’t know what happened to my former student, but Pran spent the rest of his life telling the story of his people, and campaigning against genocide everywhere.

One wonders how many campaigns it will take. The Holocaust of Jews in World War II, the killing fields of Cambodia, the bloody villages of Rwanda and the Sudan, death and slaughter throughout the Middle East and Africa and Asia, and in other places almost too numerous to count.

And yet, Pran knew we must continue to work for peace even when such efforts seem futile.

“One time is too many,” he said in an interview shortly before he died, and then he asked others to continue his work.

“If they can do that,” he said, “my spirit will be happy.”

May Pran’s dying wish be granted.

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Announcements

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For the Beauty of the Earth

We give you thanks, most gracious God,
for the beauty of earth and sky and sea; for
the richness of mountains, plains and rivers; for
the songs of birds and the loveliness of
flowers. We praise you for these good gifts,
and pray that we may safeguard them for
our posterity. Grant that we may continue
to grow in our grateful enjoyment of your
abundant creation, to the honor and glory
of your Name, now and for ever. Amen.

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Adult Christian Education

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Many Thanks

Christian Formation

Check out the Creation Window Slide Show on the St. Dunstan’s website. The project ‘Six Days to Create…Six Ways to Care’ done by middle school students Sophie Goldwasser, Andrew Young, Emma Hancock, Grace Hancock, and Piper Ruhmkorff, with the help of many others, has been set to music beautifully by our wonderful webmaster, Kieran Cannistra.

It’s not too late to get tickets to ‘Godspell’. A group of us are going to Theatrical Outfit’s production on Sunday, April 27 at 2:30 right after the Annual Meeting. If you would like a discounted ticket, please e-mail Ellen Gallow.

Looking ahead…some dates to keep in mind:  

*Pentecost is Sunday, May 11th. The Sunday school will celebrate
with birthday cake. (Happy Birthday, Church!)

*The following Sunday, May 18th, is our last day of Sunday school.
There will be a reception to honor our wonderful Sunday school teachers!

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From the Organist and Choirmaster