ad info




CNN.com
 MAIN PAGE
 WORLD
 U.S.
 LOCAL
 POLITICS
 WEATHER
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 TECHNOLOGY
 SPACE
 HEALTH
 ENTERTAINMENT
 BOOKS
 TRAVEL
 FOOD
 ARTS & STYLE
 NATURE
 IN-DEPTH
 ANALYSIS
 myCNN

 Headline News brief
 news quiz
 daily almanac

  MULTIMEDIA:
 video
 video archive
 audio
 multimedia showcase
 more services

  E-MAIL:
Subscribe to one of our news e-mail lists.
Enter your address:
Or:
Get a free e-mail account

 DISCUSSION:
 message boards
 chat
 feedback

  CNN WEB SITES:
CNN Websites
 AsiaNow
 En Español
 Em Português
 Svenska
 Norge
 Danmark
 Italian

 FASTER ACCESS:
 europe
 japan

 TIME INC. SITES:
 CNN NETWORKS:
Networks image
 more networks
 transcripts

 SITE INFO:
 help
 contents
 search
 ad info
 jobs

 WEB SERVICES:

  Transcripts

Sunday Morning News

Cambodian Author Discusses Living Under Khmer Rouge Regime

Aired February 20, 2000 - 8:40 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: During Cambodia's civil war, the Khmer Rouge killed one third of the population. Today, land mines are responsible for countless deaths.

Loung Ung is the national spokeswoman for the Campaign For a Land Mine Free World. Her father was killed by the Khmer Rouge for hiding his links to Cambodia's military and secret service, and she has written a book titled "First They Killed My Father." Ung, who eventually escaped from Cambodia, resettled as a refugee in Vermont, and she joins us this morning from Washington.

Good morning, Loung.

LOUNG UNG, AUTHOR, "FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER": Good morning, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Let's talk about what happened when you were 7 years old, let's begin there, when your father was killed and how your mother basically said, go.

UNG: Yes. My father at that point was -- excuse me -- my everything, and after my father was killed, my mother knew that if we stayed together, we would all be killed together, and so, I was 7, my sister was 9, and my other brother was 12, and my mother basically gathered us together and said, you have to leave and just go away -- walk away from me, I cannot handle you, once you get to a place tell them you're orphans. And a year later, I found out that I didn't have to pretend to be an orphan anymore, because a soldier did come for my mother and my 5-year-old sister.

PHILLIPS: Now, as an orphan you recount a lot of these simple and savage events that happened in your life. Of course, when we hear Khmer Rouge we know there will be a lot of savage accounts, but what about the simple things that you remember?

UNG: The simple things were, I think, just the living in fear as a child and not knowing what you would do or what you could do that would cause your family's death.

And for me, I remember being in the village and hearing the cow bells as they strolled through the fields and thinking to myself -- always thinking to myself, you must not mention how that reminds you of ice cream bells, because otherwise the Khmer Rouge would know that we were posing as peasants and they would somehow know our real identities and that would cause of all us to be in danger. And so, that constant living in fear as a 7-year-old and not knowing what you could say that would put your families in danger.

PHILLIPS: Now that fear caused you to survive, I mean, it helped you to survive. Tell me what you did -- I remember reading in your book a lot of the things you had to do in order to survive and some are very brutal. Will you share with us some of those?

UNG: Yes. After my family's -- my parents were killed I had to basically fend for myself. Every day was a conscious decision to be alive. Every day I'd get and I'd say to myself, I have to find food and I have to get that -- either I have to hurt somebody, or I have to steal it from somebody.

And also, because I was so vulnerable and I had so much hate inn me, and the Khmer Rouge rewarded that, they put me in a military training camp, where they feel that anger and every time I was violent with other children they would reward me with food, and I had to do a lot of that.

PHILLIPS: Now, your publisher wanted to promote this book as you being the Anne Frank of this generation, but you disagreed. Why is that?

UNG: I feel that Anne Frank, God bless her, has -- her family survived a very different situation in that our stories are similar in that we are people who basically fought so hard to survive and yet us Cambodian survivors, we need our own identities and our own space, and to lump everybody together, whether we're Bosnians or Cambodians or Kosovo or Rwanda, it denies us that recognition from the world that we're survivors, that we have our own identities and that we need to be recognized.

PHILLIPS: Well, the story is definitely more than a war story. It's very touching. Once again, it's "First They Killed My Father," that's the title of the book. Loung Ung, thank you so much for joining us.

UNG: Thank you for having me.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

  ArrowCLICK HERE FOR TODAY'S TOPICS AND GUESTS
ArrowCLICK HERE FOR CNN PROGRAM SCHEDULES
SEARCH CNN.com
Enter keyword(s)   go    help

Back to the top   © 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.