Paris Peace Accords 23 Oct. 1991

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

[Vietnamization: K5 Genocide, PRK, Military] The Widow Population in Cambodia "at the end of Cambodia's war" -- commentary by Theary C. Seng

This Sunday’s message is from Mark 12:44 about the widow’s offering.

https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fapp.box.com%2Fs%2F08unwwzq63uyt3joizbt

The message on screen is misleading even if unintentional on the part of the man giving the message today, a missionary who has been here since the early 1990s: "At the end of Cambodia’s war..." meant to him, I think, the years of the Khmer Rouge, April 1975-January 1979.

The deaths caused by the KR were generally gender-neutral.

The noticeable widow population was caused by the TEN VERY, VERY DARK YEARS immediately after the KR—Vietnamese military occupation (January 1979-1989)—when the country was completely sealed off and when the Vietnamese military occupiers systematically targeted Cambodian men who just barely survived the KR only to be invisible victims to an unnamed, now forgotten GENOCIDE (intention + act) that took cover under the mass crimes of the KR and darkness of occupation and fatigue of American engagement, when Khmer men between the ages of 16-55 years were hunted down in the hundreds of thousands and trucked to the mine-infested, malaria-ridden border with Thailand to build the "bamboo wall" the whole length of the two countries’ shared border.

The missionaries came and witnessed the men-less villages after the 10 years of the military occupation of a Cambodia completely sealed off of K5 Genocide, ethnocide, and demographic Vietnamization.

The very gentle man who spoke this morning—whom I observed from afar on the sporadic occasions I see him seemed to be in constant deep emotions over Cambodia, I am assuming broken-hearted over the social ills he is witnessing regularly—he is not the only one to make this mistake.

Secular foreign journalists whose job it is to be critical and ask questions have done worse in WRITING CAMBODIA’s HISTORY by absorbing the occupier’s narrative uncritically, unquestionably. And this history has congealed into hard history that gets passed down, a "history" that is really a first draft without the rigorous process that the West associates with the writing of "history".

Moreover, it is a history that is usually one account of that particular reporting and perspective that gets repeated. And it is by a non-Cambodian, through translation, and the quality and accuracy of that translation is often in question, particularly on a sensitive issue when fear, economic or social considerations, and political correctness dictate.



សេង ធារី / Theary C. Seng

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous8:27 AM

    I was told that Khmer women just loved to marry Vietnamese soldiers for protection and food. Further more, Vietnamese soldiers were actually a lot nicer, gentler than Khmer men.

    More importantly, Vietnamese soldiers had lighter skin which were a big bonus and Khmer women passed rumors around that Vietnamese men's thingies were about half an inch to a full inch longer than the Khmer men's thingies. LOL...

    ReplyDelete