Khmer Rouge survivor Hun Sien was arrested for a handful of sweet potato leaves
In Trapeang Kak, in Takeo’s Tram Kak district, Hun Sien still works her rice field at 71. Under the Khmer Rouge, the wife of a Lon Nol soldier was moved from place to place. She was sent to punitive labour for eating in secret, then assigned to a brick kiln until 1979. Her testimony was collected by young volunteers as part of a memory project on the regime.
Before 1975, a soldier’s wife at home
Before Phnom Penh fell, Hun Sien did not work. Her husband, Kao Yong, served in Lon Nol’s army. He wanted her to stay home and keep the house. The couple lived in Prasat village, in Tram Kak district.
Kao Yong is now 82. He is blind. They had seven children, two sons and five daughters. Hun Sien still farms rice. Her back and lower back hurt, and her throat is often sore. For three months, her ears have been ringing without pause. A doctor diagnosed nerve pain. She buys medicine but only takes it when the pain flares up.
She has little doubt about where it comes from. “I think this illness comes from working too hard under the Khmer Rouge.”
Moved from pagoda to village
When the Khmer Rouge took power, the village chief emptied Prasat. Residents were taken to Wat Champa Loeuk, in Ta Phem commune. The family carried almost nothing: clothes and a few essentials.
They did not stay long. Next came Wat Ta Sou, where the unit leader put Hun Sien to work in the rice fields and cutting leaves. Then another move, to Prey Run village. There she pulled the sedge used to weave mats. She belonged to a mobile unit, one of the work brigades the regime shifted from site to site.
She became pregnant. Close to term, Angkar made her walk all the way to Takeo Provincial Hospital to give birth.
Sweet potato leaves and a little salt
One day, the hunger was too much. Hun Sien picked sweet potato leaves, boiled them, dipped them in salt and ate them alone. In Democratic Kampuchea, food belonged to the collective. Eating on your own was an offence. The village chief reported her.
Militiamen came for her. They took her to a punitive labour site to be “tempered”, lot dam in Khmer, the regime’s word for re-education through work. “Luckily, they did not kill me. They only gave me work beyond my strength.”
Angkar then sent her to a brick kiln. She dug earth and carried it to the teams loading the kiln. She stayed there until Vietnamese troops arrived in January 1979.
Tram Kak, the regime’s model district
The place matters. Tram Kak lay in the Southwest Zone, under Ta Mok’s authority. The regime held it up as a model district. The Tram Kak cooperatives and the Kraing Ta Chan security centre were examined by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in Case 002.
A younger sibling lost
One of her younger siblings worked in an economic unit. Hun Sien later learned that the sibling had been killed. She still does not know why.
After 1979, she went back to the same brick kiln, this time for wages. The family had to eat. After about a year, her health gave out. She handed the job to another younger sibling.
“So that it never happens again”
The fear has not left her. “Whenever I think back to the Khmer Rouge regime, I am afraid. Those memories stay etched in my heart.”
For her children and grandchildren, she wants one thing: that they go to school. “I do not want future generations to live through a regime like that. I want them to study and to know, so that it never happens again.”
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