Searching for the truth Issues 28 - Documentation Center of Cambodia

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Number 28, April 2002
Peou Hong, 36, was
born in Angkor Yuos village,
Peou Hong
Prek Anteah, a town in Prey
Veng province. His father,
Ieng Peou, is Khmer and his
mother, Meng Sim, is of
Vietnamese origin (his great
grand-father is Chinese and
his great grandmother is
Vietnamese). Because of his
Vietnamese heritage, his siblings and his mother’s
relatives were taken away by the Khmer Rouge under
the pretense of reeducation and killed. Only two of his
relatives (Peou Hong and his mother) were lucky
enough to survive. Peou Hong survived because his
mother forced him to go home to look after his ill
father.
Late in 1975, the chiefs of Angkor Yuos village,
Ta Muon and Sin, told Vietnamese immigrants and
those who had Vietnamese blood that, “Angkar must
send them back to Vietnam.” Then Hong’s family - his
great-grandmother, great-grandfather, grandparents,
great aunts, great uncles, and aunts - along with other
Vietnamese in the village were accompanied by
Khmer Rouge cadres on a boat that went from Angkor
Yuos to Ka-am Samna, Loek Dek district, Region 25,
near the Vietnam border. Ka-am Samna was an area
where Cambodia sent Vietnamese people out of the
country and Vietnam came to pick up its people. After
Hong had been in Ka-am Samna for five days, the
Vietnamese announced that: “All these people are
Khmer and Vietnam cannot accept them.” Khmer
Rouge cadres told the people to return to their home
village. Hong’s family traveled back to Angkor Yuos.
After their arrival, Hong’s family made their living by
44
Searching for the Truth ⎯ FAMILY TRACING
Peou Hong: He Lost his Family
Because of his Vietnamese Origins
Dany Long
farming, as did most of the villagers.
Early in 1977 militiamen in Prek Anteah commune
summoned Hong’s great-grandparents, great uncle
and aunt, aunt and uncle to attend a reeducation course.
His mother was not sent for reeducation because she
had just given birth. Hong’s family suggested, “If they
come to take us we let them take only our mother and
we all should not go but escape.” Fifteen days later the
militiamen came to take his mother and other five
siblings for reeducation, but two of his younger brothers
hid themselves in a bamboo thicket. Muon, the village
chief, however, succeeded in finding them,
On the day the village chief took his mother away,
Hong was not at home. The chief of organization unit
had assigned him to take care of buffaloes at a dry
season rice field and he did not return until evening.
When he was eating rice at a cooperative dining hall
in Angkor Yuos village, Muon called Hong and grabbed
his hand: “You must go with your mother!” he said.
Hong did not know why Muon had come to find him.
At dusk two militiamen on bikes carried Hong and his
two younger siblings from Angkor Yuos village to
Prek Koam pagoda, a prison in Prek Anteah commune.
Hong’s mother and other Vietnamese residents were
also there.
Hong’s father had a disease that caused abdominal
distention. He had suffered from the disease since Yuos,
the chief of Prek Anteah commune, ordered him to dig
a canal called Prek Yuos. Every night he urinated about
two liters into a zinc palm juice container. He was unable
to move from his home. Hong’s mother whispered to
him, “You have to go home and look after your father.”
At Prek Koam, people had nothing to eat all day
until at 10:00 p.m. when the prison guards gave them
rice porridge. At that time, Hong slipped down the
Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)