Soc Sinan’s story of Khmer Rouge defiance

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Soc Sinan’s story of Khmer Rouge defiance

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Soc Sinan in 1970. Photo: Supplied

By JIM LAURIE
MAY 11, 2021


The following is adapted from Chapter 11: Angkar of The Last Helicopter: Two lives in Indochina, a book by US journalist Jim Laurie.

People still streamed down Monivong leaving town. I saw people on hospital trolleys with tubes of serum still clinging to their bedsides being pushed along.

At 3 p.m. on April 17th exactly, I saw a long procession of people, walking north to south. They carried their belongings on their backs and on their heads. Some had mopeds, some slowly moved push carts. Some had children in small trolleys. They pushed them slowly along.

“You must get out of the city. You will be gone for three days. Do not take many things. Take rice for yourself, some cooking pots, and mats to sleep at night. That’s all! Angkar commands it!” They repeated their warnings. “Everyone must leave. American airplanes are coming soon to bomb. Leave quickly before it is too late.” I listened. But I was confused.

At about 9:00, I could hear soldiers moving about in the big houses next to my apartment building. I could hear the soldiers, breaking things. Destroying, tearing things up. I heard a window shatter. Then I heard laughter. They burst into song – revolutionary songs. Occasionally I heard shots fired. I think into the air.

On Sunday, April 20, as she wrote later, Sinan’s situation suddenly changed. She had defied Angkar’s orders. Soldiers began conducting a house-to-house search. They broke locks and doors, wantonly destroyed property, and stole what they thought might be useful. They arrived at Sinan’s apartment building waving their AK-47 rifles around.

As the Khmer Rouge shot the bolt on the door and entered her apartment, Sinan cowered by her bedside and feared she would soon be dead. Two soldiers aimed their rifles at her head.

You must be a rich capitalist. Otherwise, your husband could not go abroad. The poor cannot afford to go anywhere. They only work. The capitalists just get rich.

I would begin a long walk, a very long walk, alone, eastward through an abandoned city. Before I left, I found in a drawer three incense sticks. I arranged my mother’s picture on the small table by my bed. I lit the joss sticks. The trace of smoke glided upward.

Full.https://southeastasiaglobe.com/evacuation-phnom-penh/
A second excerpt from Laurie’s book – Chapter 18: Giải Phóng (Liberated), documenting Laurie and photojournalist colleague Neil Davis in Saigon after the US Embassy led evacuation of April 29-30, 1975 – can be read here https://southeastasiaglobe.com/first-da ... st-saigon/
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