The Khmer Rouge followed a harsh brand of communism, killing nearly two million people in their bid to return Cambodia to Year Zero. Now they have a new faith: evangelical Christianity.
Hundreds of former fighters have been baptized in the past year. The Khmer Rouge's mountain stronghold, the town of Pailin in southwest Cambodia, has four churches, all with pastors and growing congregations. At least 2,000 of those who followed Pol Pot, the guerrillas' former leader who died six years ago, now worship Jesus. Many new converts were involved in the bloody battles, massacres and forced labor programs that led to the Killing Fields. Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge sought to eradicate religion, ripping down the country's biggest cathedral, killing Muslim clerics and turning Buddhist temples into pigsties. According to one pastor, 70 percent of the converts in Pailin are Khmer Rouge. For many, it offers a hope of salvation.
PHOTO: AFP
"When I was a soldier I did bad things. I don't know how many we killed. We were following orders and thought it was the right thing to do," said Thao Tanh, 52. "I read the Bible and I know it will free me from the weight of the sins I have committed."
The Khmer Rouge have been the focus of a drive by US-based religious groups. Lee Samith, a senior aide of Pailin's governor, was a military intelligence officer for the Khmer Rouge and one of the cadres to convert. He had been repeatedly visited by a missionary from a Colorado-based group, who showed films of the life of Christ.
"I opened my heart and Jesus came in," said Lee, 36. Like 90 percent of Cambodians, he was previously a Buddhist. Now he is involved in the New Life Presbyterian Church, on the outskirts of Pailin. Its wooden walls are covered with Christmas decorations and colorful posters portraying the life of Jesus.
But Lee has yet to shed all his former ideology. "Pol Pot had good ideas for Cambodia and for all people," he said. "Only foreigners talk about genocide. Deaths due to class conflict are inevitable."
After being ousted from Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, in 1979 by the Vietnamese, the Khmer Rouge withdrew to the mountains to fight a series of regimes.
But the Khmer Rouge has now largely been brought in from the cold. Pailin's governor is a member of the Cambodian Prime Minister's party, despite being a former bodyguard of Pol Pot. His deputy, Kuoet Sothea, a key aide of the genocidal leader, said that many of his former comrades-in-arms "feel sorry for what they did."
Several senior figures, such as "Duch" -- Kang Kek Ieu -- who ran the S21 complex in Phnom Penh where an estimated 16,000 people died, have converted to Christianity. Their new faith offers more than spiritual comfort. After years of negotiation with the UN, the Cambodian government has reluctantly agreed to put those responsible for the genocide of the late 1970s on trial. Several Khmer Rouge leaders live in villas in Pailin, profiting from large farms, logging of hardwood forests and gem mining. Though many are old, they now fear dying in prison. Christian repentance is likely to mitigate any sentence they might receive.
Kun Lung, 49, started as a bodyguard for the senior commanders and became the Khmer Rouge's best-known propagandist, responsible for bloodcurdling broadcasts on their infamous radio station. He was baptized recently and now organizes Pailin Radio, describing "God's work."
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
Outside Havana, a combine belonging to a private Vietnamese company is harvesting rice, directly farming Cuban land — in a first — to help address acute food shortages in the country. The Cuban government has granted Agri VAM, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s Fujinuco Group, 1,000 hectares of arable land in Los Palacios, 118km west of the capital. Vietnam has advised Cuba on rice cultivation in the past, but this is the first time a private firm has done the farming itself. The government approved the move after a 52 percent plunge in overall agricultural production between 2018 and 2023, according to data
RSS