In the midst of life, childhood comes back to mind
ItÂs like sweet and bitter water.
I seek my childhood like a lost picture
To be more precised it is my childhood which demands me
Is it because IÂm 50 years oldÂ
or because I knew turbulent times during which fear and hope were alternating?
Memories are here, now
They bang my temples, I would like to drive them away
With soil and water, with the dead and rice fieldsÂ
with living hands, we can build a man
It doesnÂt take much, you just have to believe in it
His suit is white, his tie is dark
I would like to hold him against me: HeÂs my father
I remember the old days in Phnom Penh, the big parties in our house
I remember laughter and songs
There were smells of caramel, of fishes, of spices, of mango
We used to dance, to speak endlessly with our uncles and aunts
My cousins used to bring fruits - guava and jackfruit
At this time, we studied, we read books
In evenings, I enjoyed listening to my father reciting poetry
I especially remember the sweetness of things
Then the war came
Bombing came closer in the 70s
I remember the first casualties, our fear, my childÂs sadness
There are so many images in the world which play on a loop
We think we have assimilated them because we saw them
When we discover a frame on a screenÂ
which is not a board or a shroudÂ
the image is not missing.
Phnom Penh was surrounded by the Khmer RougeÂ
who came to stop injustice and exploitation
They entered the capital on April 17th, 1975
People did not shout for joy but waited silently
I was there
I remember the look of these young fighters: they looked as if we had not been there
An order has been given to them: never touch the enemy with your hands
I am the enemy, I am 13 years old
The central bank with its banknotes is blown
ThereÂs no way back
The city is impure, corrupted
The city was emptied in a few hours
2 million people leave the cityÂ
and abandon their house, their friends, their memoriesÂ
or to sum up: the old world
Long live the very glorious April 17, a day of overflowing joy
The revolution is so pure it doesnÂt want human beings
Now Phnom Penh can be filmedÂ
as in Puth TomnieyÂs prophecy
Houses will be without inhabitants, streets without passers-by
Nobody will go up staircases
Rivers of blood will pour
Very soon we were separated
We drove to the countryside in the dry season
We were hungry and thirsty
We were passed aroundÂ
as animals in cattle wagon and then we were transported by cart
The deportation of Phnom Penh is a missing image
At once the Khmer Rouge countedÂ
then separated women, men, adults and children
Any keepsakes or personal effects are forbidden
Suddenly there are no more individuals but just numbers
Our hair is cut
Watches, glasses, toys, books are seized
Our clothes are dyed in black, our first names changed
We are the New People:
middle-class persons, intellectuals, capitalists to be re-educated or destroyed
You have to embrace the proletarian condition
Here is the new country called Democratic Kampuchea
A factory with disturbing smokes
Concrete dikes and rice fields
No men
The whole society is organized in a collective and military wayÂ
in working units
Comrades, Angkar is taking care of all of you
Brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers
Angkar is the organization made of everybody:
the young Khmer Rouge, the village chief
the head of the torture center or Pol Pot
This people made of sand, of dust, these barefoot people must be monitored
Soon there will be no more faces, no more friends, no more loveÂ
No more father, no more mother, soon there will be no more emotion
Even words will be altered
Everybody will be a fighter of the revolution or just some fertilizer for rice fields
To resist, it is necessary to hide in oneself a strength, a memoryÂ
an idea that nobody can take from you
Because you can steal a image but not a thought
Angkar invites youÂ
for a session of studies to rebuild yourself
Comrades, we shall soon be masters of water, earth and elements
Every hectare will produce 3 tons of rice or 5 or 7
Then we will be 10 millions
It will be the end of hunger, of injustice no more exhausted people
Old men will be fed by a machine
Angkar is clear-sighted and full of cleverness
People are AngkarÂs brain
Long live the grand and extraordinary Kampuchean revolution
Long live the new society without rich nor poor people
We raise our fist, we repeat slogans
Angkar will establish a model society, quite unique, without class divide
In this perfect world, dams are made of concreteÂ
and are covered with tar Everything is in order
At the top of this utopia, thereÂs a red flagÂ
and of course : Truth
Comrades you are Âvery freeÂ
For now, you must obey, dig tirelesslyÂ
move earth, move stones
For months, I dug a pond in the middle of arid plains
I never saw any water
Long live the Democratic Kampuchea which made a quantum leap forward
A great leap forward An extraordinary and grand leap forward
LetÂs work with determination in the fields Things donÂt just come out of the blue
These slogans have never left me, I think I still hear them
My old society only thought about celebrating
Collectivism is the fertilizer and the food
Now a pan is individualistic
It is prohibited to own one
Then we share everything
Our only good is our spoon
With hunger we can control a man
We control all of them, dead or alive
The sick, those who do not obeyÂ
are not fed or they have only a half-ration
We are the only ones who experiment hunger
To make people hungry, itÂs like a weapon the new people are a parasitic plant
The people who watch us live in attics
They are never hungry
To re-educate starts with destroying
All the inhabitants in Phnom Penh had to be erased
ÂTo conquer by destroyingÂ is a perfect and simple metaphor
The Khmer Rouge want a people made of iron who become a pure instrument of the revolution
The Khmer Rouge leaders are the universal and homogeneous state
They never look at each other
There is of course Pol Pot, Brother Number One HeÂs easily recognizable with his fan
Pol Pot and his comrades, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Son Sen
Arise, wretched of the earth
We are the wretched ones: we work in the fields, in chainsÂ
...we wander like ghosts
In this empty capital for 4 years, there is only the Central CommitteeÂ
...and the Ponhea Yat high school which becomes the S21 center
Here people are whipped, electrocutedÂ
peopleÂs members are cut, people are eating feces, people admit
Everything starts with a pure ideal and finishes with hatred
I know that the Khmer Rouge took pictures of executions
WhyÂ ? Did they need a proof, had a file to be completed?
Which man who took pictures of this event would like that this picture is not missing?
IÂm looking for this picture
If I finally found it, I could not show it, of course
And what does a picture of death show?
I prefer showing the picture of a young unknown womanÂ
who challenges the camera - the eye of the executioner -Â
and still looks at us
Scarlet blood which covers cities and plains of Kampuchea - our homelandÂ
Sublime blood of workers, farmers
Sublime blood of men and women fighting for freedom
Blood which became implacable hatred and determined struggle
You freed us from slavery
Yet one cannot film with impunity
IÂm looking at these children with their hands, their faces and their body which are tired
The work of this vanguard young people means their own destruction
At night I used to tell old storiesÂ
with ghosts, witches, lost travelers, mischievous children
So they made me work in the kitchen where we eat well
I told the story of the rocket Apollo rushing towards the moon
to these revolutionaries who generally used figures and code to discuss
Scarlet blood which covers cities and plain, will you also cover the moonÂ ?
I dreamed walking on it as Neil Armstrong with a light and childish step
One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind
ÂBut who are these people?Â, a comrade asks
ÂThose who walk on the moon are Americans, I saw the video onceÂ
ÂAmericans? You are lying, itÂs impossibleÂ
The storyteller admits it, the storyteller is killed
The giant leap for mankind is not in the capitalist propaganda
It is for us who suffer from hunger
Long live the independent and full of control visionÂ
of the revolutionary Angkar of Democratric Kampuchea
Long live its extraordinary clear-sightedness
On our moon thereÂs nothing: this cracked and dusty earth buries all
It took me years to learn how to walk barefoot over thorns
Muddy water is flowing down my throat
IÂm disappearing little by little, I am nothing
ItÂs strange to drink mud
The buffaloes are looking at us: Âthese men are strange, they drink our waterÂ
The NestlÃ© tin becomes our measurement unit
It can contain 250g of rice
Famine spread quickly: Every day we have to share these 250g
It is divided into 7 parts, into 16, then into 25. We share hunger.
My mother fights for us:
She builds a hut with branches, leaves and vines
Every day she walks two hours so that we can drink clear water
She gets the right to give an extra half-ration to my father
But one night he says to us:
ÂI will stop eating food for animals. I am a man.Â
He stops eating
I cannot understand, I resent him
They found a steel sheetÂ
to carry his body up to the pit
My mother does not cry, not a single tear for the Khmers Rouge
That night, she told me how my father would have been buried by his relatives
by his colleagues in respect of tradition and peace
This Âburial with wordsÂ, I do not want to forget it: it was an act of resistance
My father came from a poor family, he was believing in education
He dreamed of sending to school his sisters and brothers, his children, his ancestors
So that we can become a free people
He did not abandon us: he taught us what freedom is
I still have the feeling that his soul returned to our house
Finally he can recite the PrÃ©vertÂs poem he loved so much
ÂBlack hair, black hair, Caressed by the waves
Black hair, black hair, Tousled by the windsÂ
Here, schools become centers of extermination
Here, pigs are readers because readers were pigs
Here, every soldier has a pen in his pocket
Sometimes a watch on his wrist
It is forbidden for us but it is a sign, a distinctionÂ
in a country which hates knowledge
The spade is you pen
The rice field is your paper
Here is the Âschool of electricity and real applicationÂ to train technicians
These students are selected among children of poor farmersÂ
from low classÂ
or fighters from the revolutionary army
The comrade Trang is 16 years old
He entered the revolution and the revolutionary army at the age of 9
He fought on several battlefields
He was also wounded
Children as Trang are plenty on the frontlines and in the rear
We cannot count them
They all had extraordinary lives
Today they work with all their strength and all their heartÂ
within their unity to defend and reconstruct the country
I spent my childhood in the movie studios with a neighbor who was a director
I loved this wonderful world full of jewels and caps, of colors and gold
The world of giants, of fairy tales
I loved the backstage where beautiful actresses seemed to dance just for me
I picked up small pieces of film
I looked at them in boxes with a small light
Then this world has been destroyed, the cinemas closed, the artists executedÂ
and the singers, the technicians, the directors sent to fields
In a Khmer RougeÂs movie thereÂs always a slogan
Practice worth any theories, so donÂt try to have any personal ideas
To cure the disease of the old society, take Lenin as a medicine
From now on only one actor remains: it is not the people, it is Pol Pot
He embodies the revolution, it is necessary to create his myth
A hut is built in the jungle - a wooden set -
Pol Pot is a revolutionary, He drinks only tea
He uses an oil lamp, washes himself in the wild
He lives like everybody in this country, with his books, his weapon, his comrades
He inhabits the ideology
Brother Number One was inspired by the young humanity
The original population: the JaraiÂ
the Cuoi, the Bunong
Some families, here or there, who shared everything
By observing them he understood. He thought of RousseauÂs good savage
In Paris, Pol Pot already signed his articles : Â«Khmer of originÂ»
The Khmer Rouge were inspired by Marx and Rousseau :
the complete communist ideology and the pure world of the origins
A perfect society
The radiant revolution shines with all its brightness
The frustrated and abandoned farmers join the struggle for justice
They will look beautiful on the banknotes of the New Country
But the banknotes will never be used
There are no more sales, no more trade
...no more complaints, no more thefts, no more lootingÂ
no more individual property, there are no more problems
The new people are re-educated in rice fields, They are part of the world of the origins
They can be pure again
They need to be rebuilt or destroyed
Pol Pot said: "those whom cannot re-educate, we shall fight them as if they were enemiesÂ
Angkar never uses anything from the imperialist or feudal society
Capitalist cars recognized their crime and are re-educated too
These cars work on the construction of a new country
When we return from the construction site, it is time for indoctrination
The words are altered, we only speak by using slogan
The comrade who has a lot of defects is the enemy
The one who protests is an enemy the one who opposes is a corpse
A 9 year old child denounces his mother who picked mangoes
The child shouts: Â«Â The comrade recognized her crimeÂ Â»
His mother is gently weeping
When you admit something, you agree to die for the righteousness of the revolution
When men will be so free and equal, will they still be men ?
The mother closes her eyes
Is it to keep an image of her child?
She keeps silent
Then she left towards the forest with soldiers and never returned
I would like to get away from the mud, from hunger, from my black clothes
To walk in the water is a torture: I fall of exhaustion
Sometimes a plane crosses the sky
Is it watching us?
Is it going to parachute me a camera so that the whole world knows our story?
We are the missing picture
This unreal aircraft saves me
I have no more name, no more family, no more hope
But I still have a human heart
I remember the old days, my brother who disappeared in Phnom Penh
April 17th, 1975
His guitar must not have pleased the Khmer RougeÂ
neither his look, nor his lock, nor his songs
There are no more Â«Â colorsÂ Â» in laughter, dances and songs
Our daily life became a fightÂ
a war against nature, against words, against the enemy
Children sent to the front line are still very young
But they are full of energy to do their duty
As for me, Ihave to repeat: ÂAngkar never makes any mistake, Angkar is everythingÂ
I wish no one to see a child dying
With her swollen feet, her swollen face as if just water remains
the little girl is shaking all over because of hunger. So she steals corn
The group leader sees her and walks her to our home. He says:Â Â«Â This is a crimeÂ Â»
Her grandmother forbids her to eat corn: we are not thieves, we are proud people
The little girl cries and I do not understand
In the night the child eats salt
His teeth grind We get hungry especially at night
She slept beside me with her swollen belly and her fixed eyes. She was sighing
She called her mother, she called her father and then she kept silence
And we buried her
The other two children died also very quickly
I donÂt want to see anymore this picture of hunger
So I show it to you
My mother is taken to the hospital
She learns there that her 16-year-old daughter died
Here, everybody dies
Without saying a single word, she stroked her childÂs forehead
She took off lice from her thin but still beautiful face
Then she laid down on the wooden boards
It is forbidden to fish yet fishes are plenty
In secret I took one
Two days later I brought it to my mother
But she was already dead
Then I understood that from now on I would be by myself
I saw again our house, our kitchen, our gardenÂ
my notebooks, the face of my parents
These pictures are not missing, they are in my brain
In 1977 we are determined to fulfill our political duty
with an extraordinary leap forward
I became one of those kids on construction sites
If we look closely, we can see people fall down
People are exhausted, their face is skinny We can see the cruelty of the scene
Some of them cannot work anymore
Yet there is a movie camera
Here is the school teacher - as we call her
She teaches us how to use a spade, a shovel She teaches us the ideology
We are all equal
This is the revolution of children
Of course, everybody should only rely on himself
But the Khmer Rouge leaders eat better than us
They are never hungry Are we equal?
The our own leaders make their self-criticism
The very next day my friends and I are sent to a very hard camp
On this site we had to dig 3 m3 of earth each morningÂ
and produce 25 to 30 kilos of fertilizer each afternoon
from leaves and cow dungs
There were so few cows, trees and leavesÂ
that these figures were impossible to reach
If we could not manage to extract these 3 m3
They became, by order, 5 m3
Work hard, donÂt be defeatist anymore in front of the enemy
You must love and respect the community
This camp was a grave guarded by a man with a fedora
His dog was staring at us as if we were a riddle
This man beat those who did not respect the rules
It was forbidden to dig to find roots and forbidden to speak
He was eating alone and had his own foodÂ like his dog
We shared our childÂs rations
In Paris or somewhere else, those who liked our slogansÂ
those who were reading books, did they see these images?
Or were they missingÂ ?
I think about my past, about all those who disappearedÂ
my sisters, my brothers, my cousins, my parents
Childhood is far and closeÂ
with its sweetness, its joyful shouts, its laughter, its voices
Childhood is always the same old story
I have not come back home since April 17th, 1975
Nevertheless I remember every detail:
Paintings, doors, jars, passageways
My home became a gambling house, a karaoke then a brothel
It has also been emptied, deprived of its destiny
There is no truth there are only movies
Revolution is just playacting
I remember the great flood in 1978
I was already in a labor camp, we were so hungry
Then a huge bunch of rice straw was put down by the river
We even found eggs so we ate
In movie theaters harvests are also glorious
There are cereal grains, People look quiet and determined
It looks like a painting, a poem
At last I see the promised revolution
It only exists in pictures
These bags full of rice were not for us
Were they reserved for the leadersÂ ?
Or sent abroad since they were all labeled in Arabic numerals?
Or were they movie props, bags full of sandÂ ?
Our every move was scrutinized
Our every breath and even our silence
But the famine was not perceived by the Khmer Rouge leaders
Did they know nothing, see nothing? Were they unable to do anything?
Is truth in the glorious slogansÂ
Or in these pictures which are not missing?
Here is what Pol Pot said:
Â«Â Currently our cooperatives are already solid units of collectivismÂ
politically and spiritually speakingÂ
able of achieving all the directives of Angkar
In the countrysideÂ
they successfully achieved all the revolutionary tasks
They changed our dull and dry regionsÂ
which were poor and without drinking water
Now there are large and small basinsÂ
canals which intersectÂ
lush rice fields and orchards
These cooperatives are the foundation of a new society
without corruption and thugs of all kinds
These cooperatives are the foundation of a new society
which is collectivist, uncorrupted, egalitarian, prosperous
These cooperatives are healthyÂ
in all these fields: food, health, hygiene
culture, education
Here is the truth:
Straw houses, drought, exhaustion, hungerÂ
neon lights for night workÂ
speakers howling slogans
The ideology was in the fields and rice paddiesÂ
The man who captured these slow and true images is called Ang Sarun
He was a Khmer Rouge cameraman
He also shooted this speech of Pol Pot
Why this fogÂ ? Is it a technical error?
Or does he want to show children in ragsÂ
to show to Brother Number One the condition of his country?
The cameraman is tortured and executed
His body disappears, his story disappears
But not this film
Commit ourselves to always wave higherÂ
the red banner of the revolution
It sounds like a sentence of Mao, it is a slogan of Angkar
Pol Pot personally goes to the airport and hosts two major Chinese leaders
Zhang Chunqiao and Geng Biao
The Chinese Comrades inspired the politicsÂ
and the ideology of Democratic Kampuchea
This image of fraternity is not missing
Is the great leap forward not wonderful?
Is every day not a festive dayÂ ?
Is Kampuchea not being successfulÂ
owing to its purity while the Chinese Revolution failedÂ ?
Is Kampuchea not an extraordinary ideological laboratory?
Is this visit not a lessonÂ ?
We chased rats, we ate them
We ate insects, roots, raw snails
Dehumanization starts in this way:
with hunger, sickness, physical decay.
Who shooted the sick people?
Who shooted pagodas changed into hospices?
Who shooted the person sharing my room and his knee eaten by worms?
Or this young woman who has problems to deliverÂ
shouts the whole night, alone, and strikes her belly until death?
Of course, there is a Khmer Rouge Hospital
I spent weeks in these halls of death
Drugs are inside Coke bottles
Patients were injected with coconut juice - it is so pure
I would have liked to stop hearing the groans, the hiccups, the shoutsÂ
to stop smelling the warm and rotting flesh
The dead leave at night
I used to look for them in the morning on their wooden boards - and I survived
This man sitting on the floor is too weak:
He does not eat and no longer moves.
I have thought about him for years I am offering a helping hand to him
The Khmer Rouge destroyed capitalist drugs
They chopped roots, made them boil
They experienced these traditional (and so revolutionary) medicines
Everywhere there are units to experiment them on human beings - in S21 for instance
There are not more diplomas, there are only Â«Â practicalÂ Â» diplomas
I used to wash the room, the sick
Every morning I carried the dead up to the pit
Sometimes I reach a point of desperation
There are hollow sounds, bones which bang, hands which are fumbling for someoneÂ
...and find the hand of a child
I am this child who thinks he is alive and tells this story
In the midst of life childhood comes back to mindÂ
in a bittersweet way with its images
A childhood which is drowning, a childhood which is wondering : How can I still be here?
Why was I not able to help my family more?
To think of my childhood is to think about death
We can understand the Khmers Rouge by observing their images
Pol Pol creates a reality according to his desire
Even nature has to comply with it
Sometimes leaders gathered several villages
and showed us a movieÂ
telling the struggle of the people with bare hands against the powerful colonizers
Of course we knew the actors and the movie were bad
and many people slept at the back, exhausted - myself included
For 4 years we have been moved from site to site
How to rebel when you own just a black garment and a spoonÂ ?
When you are lost, when you are hungry
Today some people say that Buddhism and its way to accept fate is responsible for that
What were these intellectuals doing at that time? Reading? Thinking?
Here, it is not karma or religion which kills but ideology
At the beginning of any form of totalitarism, there is something fake
You are afraid of enemies, you are afraid of tree stumps
I worked in vast forests
We had to prune to plant corn fields
It was hot and humid
There were snakes, spiders, monkeysÂ
and lizards that some of my classmates ate
Let us not be overcome by nature
Let us swear to attack and make a breakthrough
These slogans never woke me up
But the sounds of the forest did
We became tougher, getting used to fight against the cold, to control our body
After the thunderstorm, we slept in our wet clothes
I remember the central marketÂ
the bitter and flowery fragrance, the fragrance of jasmine
I remember lovers, their shy gestures and their looks
I remember a time of affluence
I remember silk, fish and meatÂ
and the smell of boiled chicken which has obsessed for 4 years
I remember cheerful meals
At the market of my childhood, people had mouths
They were laughing, kissing each other
ItÂs the same streetÂ full of people then empty
The same, indeed, in the outskirts of Phnom Penh
You just have to open your eyes
I remember this imperfect and human world
2000 years of slavery, Pol Pot said
HeÂs a human being like you and me
He simply made a choice, a choice of ideology not to say a criminal one
But itÂs still very difficult
This is maybe the reason why I really would like to make this film
Because nobody is born as an assassinÂ
Now, our son is good for blabbering
He is speaking, speaking, he knows how to make sentences
I wished he was a schoolteacher like you
He is shooting our own story
But there are poor people who are hungry, the rich ones expel them from their land
He thinks only about the Khmer Rouge
My father is right
Before the Khmer Rouge, poor people were already expelled from their land
They enlisted people because of this injustice
Then the Americans came
They dropped more than 500.000 tons of bombs on the country
So the poor joined the revolution, they raised their fist
The Khmer Rouge lied to them about the notions of justiceÂ
equality, happiness, progress They told lies on everything
And today, the same poor people are digging the earth
Sometimes I see a child, Well, I am this child
Everything was difficult for him
He did not know how to fish, to walk barefoot or to fight
Years later, he feels guiltyÂ
for not having helped more those who were poor
It is said that when we speak about things we can smooth the pain, understand, go through
I will never find wisdom
IÂm not in search of an image of my relatives I would like to touch them
Their voice is missing so I stop speaking
I would like to leave everything, my language, my country - but to no avail
Childhood comes back to mind
Now, it is my childhoog which is looking for me
I see it, it would like to speak to me
But it is difficult to do it with words
This black dog is the God of ÂtransitionÂ
He is leading me to his boat
Watching him, i think about the man with his fedoraÂ
and about the river on which corpses were floating
In the village where I lived
Families went on living after the departure of the Khmer Rouge
Young men left to work in Thailand
The former village leader who was cruel and terrified us on his horseÂ
was not arrested
I think he lived happily and had many children
d The Khmer Rouge mess disappear
Almost nothing remains:
pieces of jar, rusty pans, an earth stove
Everything disappeared like in a cruel movie
As for the pits near the hospital where I buried so many deadÂ
and my mother, my sistersÂ They became a manmade lakeÂ
made by an international organization
Bones were taken
Pumpkin and corn were planted
But the lake is so salty and so oddly greenÂ
...that nobody dares to use or drink it
Are the dead there? Yes, they are
Sometimes I have the feeling people walked on them so I pass my way
There are still souls which are wandering, seeking a place, a sweet and noble thought
Many people resisted, many of themÂ
silently, with a word, with a smile
Sometimes a single gesture is enough to say Â«Â noÂ Â»
I think about my father who told his choice to us
Sometime a silence worth a shout
Mourning is difficult, funeral is endless
There are no more cattle wagons
There are no more slogans nor young guards dressed in black
Just remains the ground full of blood
Their flesh is mine
So we are together
There are many things a man should not see or know
And if he saw them it would be better for him to die
But if one of us sees these things or knows them
Then he must live to tell about them
Every morning I used to work over the pit
My shovel bumped into bones and heads
Earth is never enough
IÂm the one who is going to get killed or itÂs already done
Of course I did not find the missing picture
I looked for it in vain
A political movie has to discover what it invented
So I create this picture, I watch it, I cherish it
I hold it in my hand as people do with a beloved face
This missing picture, now I give it to you
so that it doesnÂt stop looking for us