Nawuth Keat - Alive in the Killing Fields: Surviving the Khmer Rouge Genocide

Nawuth (NAH-wooth) Keat was a student in my World Literature course at San Jose City College. He seldom spoke in class. So I was surprised on the last day when he said, Id like to share my story with you.

Nawuth described his childhood in war-torn Cambodia, his familys tragedies, the constant hunger, and his dangerous escape. I looked around the classroom and saw that I was not the only listener who had been moved to tears.

Nawuth, would you like me to write your story down for you? I asked.

Yes, he answered simply.

Since then Nawuth and I have spent many hours working together. His English is rough. My role is to gather his memories and write them down clearly in English. The words are mine, but the story is his.

Sometimes the going got tough. As Nawuth reviewed the manuscript, he was taken back to his painful past.

I asked, Are you sure you want to continue with this project?

I want people to know the truth about what happened, he said.

Here is Nawuths truth.

MARTHA E. KENDALL

Gunshots!

I bolted awake. My parents yelled, and we all jumped from our beds. The dogs barked.

We have to get out of here! my parents said.

Still in our pajamas, we darted outside.

Run to my mothers, my father said. She lived next door, and we hurried to her house. We heard gunfire close by, right in the neighborhood.

We got our grandmother, and together all ran toward an old rice barn across the street. But the gunshots came so close to us that we couldnt make it to the barn. Instead, we dove into a ditchmy mother, the baby, my grandmother, my younger brothers, my aunt and uncle, our babysitter, and me. I was nine years old.

The ditch was too shallow to hide us, but in the darkness, I hoped wed be overlooked. My father ducked behind some bamboo about a hundred feet away.

My heart pounded. I heard screams, explosions, howling animals, and the fiery roar of grass-roofed houses burning.

My mother had always told us, The Khmer Rouge (Kuh-mair Roozh) might come at any time to raid our village. Their leader, a man named Pol Pot, says he and the Communists want to make everyone in Cambodia equal, but thats just talk. It is an excuse they use to help them gain power. Banding together in big gangs, they kill people and steal money, gold jewelry, and guns.

Now they had come: the Khmer Rouge, the Red People. They were mostly poor and uneducated peasants, thieves, drunks, and fugitives.

My mother was so afraid of them; she rarely let us sleep at home. Most nights my father took us to the home of my mothers parents, about five miles away. To get there, they drove motorcycles, pulling us kids in trailers behind them. My mother said, Its safer there, because its a larger town. But on this night we had stayed home to prepare food for the next days holiday feast, the Cambodian Thanksgiving.

Our town had no electricity, so the Khmer Rouge tried to light up the street by starting fires anywhere they could. They threw burning matches into our house, but it did not ignite. Then they used a trick to fool anyone who was hiding in the shadows. They yelled in no particular direction, Hey, you, stand still! If you move, well shoot!

My grandmother fell for it. Terrified, afraid the family had been seen, she cried out, Please dont shoot. We have done nothing. These are innocent children.

A Khmer Rouge ran to the ditch where we huddled. My grandmother begged, Take our gold and money. Please just leave us alone.

Then my uncle stood up. The Khmer Rouge demanded, Wheres the gun you bought last week?

My uncle told him the truth, I didnt buy any gun.

The Khmer Rouge raised his M-16 rifle and shot my uncle in the chest. Fired from that close range, the bullet careened through my uncles body, and blood spewed out behind him. He fell dead on the ground.

My grandmother screamed. Dont kill us, she begged. The killer sprayed her with bullets, and the rest of my family, too.

An M-16 bullet makes a small hole when it enters a human body. After it tears its way through the flesh, it exits, leaving a gaping hole the size of a fist.

I was shot three times. I lay limp in the ditch. It was filled with my familys blood. When a Khmer Rouge kicked my head one way, I let my head flop. He kicked it the opposite way, and I let it flop again. If he knows Im still alive, I thought, hell shoot me. Another Khmer Rouge kicked me again. They must have thought I was dead, so they didnt waste another bullet on me. A few minutes later, they were gone.

My youngest brother, barely five years old, was crying, and I tried to calm him. Hackly said nothing. He looked like he was in shock. My mother had held my little sister to her breast, hoping to keep her quiet as we squatted in the ditch. Now they were both silent. A single bullet pierced my little sister and then my mothers heart. With my right hand, I felt my baby sisters face. I found only a hole where her cheek should have been.

My mother was dead. My baby sister was dead. My grandmother was dead. My aunt and uncle were dead. My babysitter was dead.

I tried to get up, but my legs wouldnt work. I kept falling down into the bloody ditch. My left arm was so swollen I couldnt bend it. Two bullets had hit my elbow. Another had torn through my left hip.

My father heard the slaughter from his hiding place. Helpless, he stood in the dark, unable to see where to aim his gun or throw a grenade without killing us. He never told me what went through his mind that night. I never asked.

When the Khmer Rouge ran through the village, they had tossed grenades and burning matches at the houses. One of the grenades exploded inside a house near ours, killing all but one young boy, whose body was covered with shrapnel. Someone with a trailer behind his motorcycle took that boy and me to get medical help. Dad stayed at the scene of the massacre, trying to deal with the chaos that had just struck. On the way to the hospital, the boy next to me died.