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Democratic Kampuchea’s Genocide of the Cham

Posted on December 15, 2010 | 18 Comments |

20 Votes

Young girl walks by the community center in Svay Khleang, Cambodia

The Cham are descendants of Champa, a longstanding kingdom that that once occupied most of today’s central
Vi!t Nam—roughly from Qu"ng Bình to #$ng Nai provinces. Beginning in the late fifteenth century, the Cham
fled Vietnamese incursions into northern Champa, finding refuge in southern Champa and in the successive
Buddhist kingdoms that emerged after the fall of Angkor. Some Cham territory in Vi!t Nam remained intact, in
gradually eroding parcels, until 1832. The Cham in Cambodia lived in relative peace until the 1970s, when they
were targeted by the Khmer Rouge. For five hundred years now, in both Vi!t Nam and Cambodia, only some
Cham have survived the most perilous conditions. However, international attention has never settled upon any
Cham community until now, in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, more casually known as
the Khmer Rouge tribunal. In Phnom Penh, the tribunal currently considers whether the well- documented
persecutions of the Cham in Cambodia do indeed provide sufficient evidence of the Khmer Rouge’s intent to
destroy them, in whole or in part.

To many observers and survivors, there is no doubt that this ethnic and religious minority was targeted with more
exacting brutality, with kill rates at double or triple the average population. Some historians claim that the Cham
had a higher rate of loss than any other ethnic group. Khmer Rouge documents from that era demand that this
distinct group be “broken up” because “their lives are not so difficult.” However, the Khmer Rouge disguised their
own genocidal intent in their only official statement on the Cham, when they announced, “The Cham race was
exterminated by the Vietnamese.” The Khmer Rouge claim that no Cham had survived the conquest of Champa
was certainly convenient, as noted by historian and genocide scholar Ben Kiernan. Because in the Khmer
Rouge’s plan for the Cham, “they were to ‘disappear’ as a people,” Kiernan remarked in The Pol Pot
Regime. Hence the regime set out to complete the disappearance of their Cham “enemies”—through deportation
and extermination, and by forbidding their Islamic worship, their use of Cham language, and their retention of
all distinctive cultural practices.

Women prepare food for Friday prayers in O Russei village in Kampong

Chhnang

Although all Cambodians suffered terribly during the Khmer Rouge, the killing of one’s own ethnic and religious
group cannot be prosecuted under genocide law, which was drafted in the wake of the Jewish Holocaust during
World War Two. So for the Khmer Rouge tribunal, the Cham case may provide the most legible evidence of
genocide, alongside the persecutions suffered by a smaller minority of ethnic Vietnamese. Four former high-
ranking Khmer Rouge cadre have now been individually and collectively indicted for crimes of war, for crimes
against humanity, and for genocide against the Cham and the Vietnamese in Cambodia—and these former cadre
are currently on trial in Phnom Penh. Genocide was the most recent addition to the expected charges,
representing the long-held notion but unproven conviction that the Khmer Rouge committed the crime of crimes.
However, we can’t dismiss that genocide also occurred during egregious war crimes against everyone—
extermination, murder, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, disappearance, and other
breaches of the Geneva Conventions. We cannot underestimate the brutality of the regime led by Saloth Sar, more
commonly known as Pol Pot.

Cham testimonies have long attested to their specific discriminations suffered under Pol Pot, as early as the
Renakse Petitions to the United Nations. From 1980 to 1983, Cham claimants added their signatures and
thumbprints to what became a 1,250-document petition submitted by 1,166,307 survivors of the Khmer Rouge.
Collectively the signatories petitioned to oust the Khmer Rouge from their seat at the UN General Assembly, while
requesting that the UN try Pol Pot and other cadre for their fresh crimes. In Koh Kong province in 1983, the
survivors recalled these incidents of brutality—

starvation; blindfolding and beating to death; tying legs with rope and dragging; tying up both
hands and legs and confining to a crucifix; tying people together and ordering them to walk in lines
and shooting them to death from behind and then throwing them into the sea; throwing young
children into the sea to drown; hitting young children against trees; and raping women before
taking them to be killed.

Despite such horrifying evidence of the widespread inhumanity of the Khmer Rouge regime, these signing
survivors were unsuccessful in their request. For various political reasons, the petition failed to move the UN or to
remove the Khmer Rouge from Cambodia’s seat in the UN General Assembly. And it would be nearly another
thirty years before the very crimes detailed in those early petitions would surface as evidence in court, as they are
now. As the Documentation Center of Cambodia attests, “All of these documents offer profound evidence of the
crimes committed, including that of genocide, during Democratic Kampuchea.”

Some much-needed rain during a drought, in O Russei village in Kampong

Chhnang

The 1980 to 1983 Renakse petitions and documents represent the first time that Cham testimonies of genocidal
acts—specifically targeting their ethnic and religious minority—surfaced in a political-legal protest against the
Khmer Rouge. According to attorney William J. Schulte, the Cham signatories in Siem Riep “described how the
Muslims were forced to eat pork and would be killed if they refused, how their mosques were converted into either
animal pens or waste storage facilities, and how Khmer Rouge cadres used pages of the Koran for toilet paper
and cigarette paper.” Similarly, Kiernan’s collected interviews from the early 1980s and his analysis of Cham
ethnic cleansing detail the “racist repression and forced dispersal of the Chams.” Kiernan evaluates, “In legal
terms, this constituted destruction of an ethnic group ‘as such’—genocide.” Since Kiernan also founded the Yale
Genocide Project, I’ve wondered if his early Cham research supplemented Yale’s archive, which was eventually
absorbed into the Documentation Center of Cambodia. Today, this center provides much evidence to the tribunal.
In 2007, this center also assisted 200 Cham religious leaders—tuan, mei tuan, and hakem from 369 mosques
across Cambodia—file complaints to the tribunal’s office of co-prosecutors. Numerous other Cham survivors have
also filed paperwork through the center’s victim participation unit. Reading some of this evidence, amassed over
thirty years, I suspected that a genocide charge would benefit from the range and depth of testimonies provided by
the Cham.

Before that very charge was announced in late 2009, I had long anticipated the indictment and possible verdict of
Khmer Rouge genocide against the Cham. Then in the wake of the indictment, in spring 2010, I was invited by
the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, Youk Chhang, to travel to Cambodia to learn more about
the forthcoming genocide charge and the Cham response. It was actually a joint invitation for me and my close
friend Asiroh Cham, another Cham-American living in California. In June and July, we met with the director,
staff, and interns at the Documentation Center of Cambodia—and they offered incredible insight into Cham
history and memory in Cambodia, into genocide awareness educational campaigns, and into the devastations
wrought by the Khmer Rouge. We also interviewed Andrew Cayley, international co-prosecutor for the tribunal,
to discuss the legal contours of the second case and the evidence of Cham genocide. And we visited two Cham
villages whose members have filed testimonies for the tribunal, to learn about Cham historical memory and
perceptions of justice. On the eve of the announcement of Duch’s verdict, our conversations anticipated the
second and most important trial, widely considered the genocide case. And although all Cambodian Cham are
Muslim, these two communities also represent differing ways that the Cambodian Cham practice Islam—the
unorthodox Cham Jahed and the more orthodox Sunni. No matter the nuances of their worship, however, all
Cham were persecuted by the Khmer Rouge, whose leaders intended to wipe out “the Islamic race” in Democratic
Kampuchea.
Ceremony evicting unwanted spirits from a house, Cham Jahed community
in O Russei

Cham Jahed copy of original kitab (holy book) brought from Champa, dated
1385
 Cham Jahed Imam Ly, the worship leader of the mosque, in O Russei

Asiroh and I first met with the Imam San, or Cham Jahed, in O Russei village in Kampong Chhnang province.
By maintaining the ancient language, script, and culture, the Cham Jahed are widely considered the bearers of
Champa customs and traditions. Sometimes referred to as “pure Cham,” this minority of 38,000 still follows
older Hinduised Islamic rites, preserved from their 1697 exodus from Champa, after the Vietnamese kingdom of
Dang Trong took over the last Cham port. Much of the Cham royalty joined the five thousand refugees who fled to
Cambodia. Today, their descendants’ unorthodox form of Islam still features syncretic influences of Hindu
cosmology and Sufi tradition, to some extent resembling the Cham Bani in central Vi!t Nam. The Cham Jahed
also honor the spirits of their royal ancestors in Champa, and celebrate old Champa ceremonies alongside
modern ones. They chant ancient Cham poetry, they recite Cham language during their once-weekly prayers, and
they use original Cham script for their religious literature. From the Cambodian royal family and the government,
they receive non-monetary support to preserve Cham history, yet still suffer from deep poverty and a sense of
isolation, to some extent. The Cham Jahed fear the loss of their unique culture, due to various domestic and
international pressures.

As proud descendants of Champa, the Cham Jahed in O Russei even hold a Cham holy book of literature from the
14th century, a kitab hand-copied through subsequent generations. Written in 1385, it describes an old Cham
myth about a centaur. This precious volume even survived underground burial during the village’s destruction by
the Khmer Rouge. Cham holy books—not to mention villages—were pursued and destroyed during those years.
Somehow the man who had buried the kitab for safekeeping also survived the Khmer Rouge, exhuming the
precious document after returning to his razed village. He died in 1989, as an old man, and the kitab got passed
onward to a new custodian. We held it with awe. I’ve never heard of any Cham document dating this far back, if
even in replica. According to Hindu Cham religious leaders in Vi!t Nam, many of those early manuscripts were
destroyed by enemy armies during incursions into Champa’s capitals. Yet apparently, some of these sacred texts
migrated to Cambodia in the late 1600s, with the royal refugees from Champa. Quite miraculously, at least one of
those early texts somehow survived the Khmer Rouge’s relentless campaign to wipe out all traces of the Cham.
As I expressed my amazement to the imam and other holy men who’d brought out the book, we discussed through
translation how the Cham Jahed had most likely migrated from old Panduranga, the southernmost Cham
principality which maintained some degree of sovereignty until 1832. I then shared my 1999 photographs and
2006 video footage of my Cham family in that same region, now called Phan Rang. ”I never thought I would be
able to understand Cham people there,” explained Husen, the school teacher, after listening to my family speak
conversationally. “Now if I go to Vi!t Nam, I can find people to talk with, and I won’t feel lonely.” We smiled at
one another. His observation was so full of joyful hope, I didn’t dare tell him how few of us remain in Vi!t Nam,
and that the difficulty might not be in speaking with but in finding the Cham. Instead I told him how excited I
was to share these documents of my family village with him, amidst our conversations about the Khmer Rouge. I
silently reflected upon the powers of representation and border-crossing, because even within contiguous
diasporas, there may be centuries of scarce awareness or nonexistent contact.

The oldest man in Svay Khleang lost children to the Khmer Rouge
In Svay Khleang, survivors recall the Khmer Rouge search and kill program
 Minaret built in the 19th century, in Svay Khleang, on the Mekong River

Next Asiroh and I met with the Cham in Svay Khleang, in Krauch Chhmar district, who are among 500,000
Cham adherents to a more orthodox form of Shafi‘i Sunni Islam. Influenced by Arabic and Malaysian practices,
most Cham in Cambodia follow this ‘modern’ version of Islam, praying five times a day, with Arabic script for
their sacred literature. Today the oldest seun (minaret) extant in Cambodia, built in the late 19th century, still
stands on the shore of the Mekong River in Svay Khleang. In its shadow, during the escalation of arrests of the
Cham in 1973, the Khmer Rouge had forbidden communal prayer and closed the mosques of this very pious
population. Against tradition, the Khmer Rouge had forced Cham women to uncover and cut their hair. They also
collected and burned copies of the Qur’an, and made the Cham raise pigs and eat pork. In some villages, to
protest, religious elders beat their drums at night. Yet in 1975 after the mass arrest of worshippers during the end
of Ramadan—when they’d all sought and received permission to pray—the Cham in Svay Khleang rebelled
against these rising religious repressions. However one elderly woman reflected, in 2006, that the villagers
would have been exterminated simply for being Cham, regardless the rebellion—it was only a matter of time.

However, to retaliate against this insurrection, the Khmer Rouge systematically killed nearly eighty percent of the
villagers in Svay Khleang, and massacred the neighboring Cham village of Koh Phal, who’d resisted eating pork.
We learned more about this history from Sos Pinyamin, a key member of the Svay Khleang rebellion in 1975.
Today he is the hakem of the village, responsible for education and proper religious observances in the
community. He revealed deep wisdom and critical observation about Svay Khleang’s history. We spoke for several
hours about the rebellion’s context, and the subsequent losses and repressions in Svay Khleang, including the
annihilation of nearly a thousand families. That afternoon, Sos Pinyamin also organized a discussion at the
mosque after his afternoon prayers, where numerous community members each told a story about surviving Pol
Pot time. Due to the enormity of their losses, their memories were very painful and their reflections profound. One
man who’d lost all his family said softly, “Every time I sit down to eat a bowl of rice, I ask, why isn’t my mother
eating here with me?” Others echoed his sentiment, nodding and looking down. “Tonight we will have
nightmares,” another man confirmed, “even as it is important to get some release, to tell the story, to those to care
to listen.”

That evening, I left the village wondering if victim testimonies for the tribunal created a similar effect, the
reopening and salting of wounds, no matter the intention. Even as I knew that the guilty verdict—once issued—
would honor the the Cham in Cambodia, I wondered if this form of visibility and recognition would truly heal
their memories and losses. Granted, to deny the verdict of guilt for these four senior Khmer Rouge leaders would
add unimaginable insult to injury, just as Duch’s remarkably paltry verdict has done, for all the people of
Cambodia. But can juridical justice, even when fully realized, ever be enough? Because the Svay Khleang man
eating his bowls of rice without his mother, wondering why he must go another meal without her, reminds us
how no such sentence, reparation, memorial, or campaign could compensate even a fraction for these abruptly
ended and deeply shattered lives. The man had gently confessed, “Sometimes I no longer wish to be alive, since
everyone else in my family is gone.” For those facing such a rupture in the aftermath of genocide, justice may
remain elusive, if only because their losses are incommensurable and irreparable.
 Woman in Svay Khleang, during conversation about the village's history

I find it particularly troubling and heartbreaking that the Cham who sought refuge in Cambodia during the
conquest of their kingdom were then targeted for extermination hundreds of years later, in such high
proportions, during the Khmer Rouge. For their ethnic and religious peculiarity, between fifty to eighty percent of
the Cambodian Cham population perished, with 130 mosques destroyed, in less than four years. Of more than
one thousand hajji who’d undertaken the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca, only thirty remained in 1979. The rest were
brutally murdered, alongside Cham religious leaders—hung upside down and smothered in buckets of boiling
water, for example. The number of Cham killed in the 1970s alone exceeds, by hundreds of thousands, the Cham
still alive today beyond Cambodia’s borders, in their original homeland in present-day Vi!t Nam, and in their
small diasporas in the United States, Malaysia, Australia, Hainan Island, France, and other countries. In the
eighth and ninth centuries, Champa had an estimated one to two million population. How many would be alive
today, had we been allowed to flourish, rather than perish?

The Cham we met in Cambodia resemble, in important ways, my family in Vi!t Nam. And that’s fitting, as I
perceive the deaths of the Cham in Cambodia as the loss of extended family. Although my maternal family is
Balamon (Hindu) Cham, I feel connected to all descendants of Champa, regardless of religion or region. Our
shared history and culture extend so far into the past. As Austronesian-speaking relatives of the Malays, our
seafaring ancestors arrived by ship to mainland Southeast Asia well over two thousand years ago. We
established a prosperous kingdom through maritime trade. Champa had the earliest written languages in
Southeast Asia, a third-century Sanskrit inscription and a fourth-century Cham inscription. Although our art and
architecture were influenced by India, we added stylistic innovations and content unseen in the works of all other
Indianized cultures. As a matrilineal people, we honored our mother goddess, Po Nagar, whose temple still
stands today in Nha Trang. After the 16th century, many Cham converted to Islam, a religion brought by
merchants and missionaries, as Hinduism had come before. Yet Islam was adapted while retaining many Cham
beliefs and practices, as demonstrated by the Cham Jahed in Cambodia and the Cham Bani in Vi!t Nam.

Throughout two thousand years, Cham conceptions of the world have been deeply shaped by our indigenous
traditions, our trade relations, and our cultural adaptations. Our approach to spirituality has been rather
syncretic, like other kingdoms of mainland and island Southeast Asia. In my family’s region of Phan Rang, the
Cham still practice what Rie Nakamura describes as cosmological dualism, which allows us to maintain
separate and complementary religious beliefs while perceiving our differences as integral to the whole. As a
Hindu Cham dignitary in Vi!t Nam described to me, in 2006, this dualism is a way of keeping peace between the
faiths. In Cambodia, the differing practices of Islam represent another cosmological dualism. Yet no matter how
we align ourselves spiritually—as Balamon, Bani, Jahed, Sunni Islam, or something else—we are still sometimes
erroneously regarded as extinct since the fifteenth century. I first found that grim description in an elementary
school encyclopedia in Texas, in the early 1980s. Afterwards I just couldn’t break the news of our extinction to
my mother, whose family back home could barely survive in postwar Vi!t Nam. And even today, as the Cham
communities around the world have scarce knowledge of one another, this geographical and conceptual
isolation can obscure not only our mutual struggles but also the deep historical and cultural continuities between
the Cham in Vi!t Nam, in Cambodia, and in the diaspora.
 Husen teaching English class in O Russei village, Kampong Chhnang
province

High school student with his mother, O Russei village, Kampong Chhnang
province
 During a devastating drought, the rain prayer ceremony has special
significance this year, in O Russei, Kampong Chhnang

- essay and photographs by Julie Thi Underhill, managing editor of diaCRITICS

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This entry was posted in Borders/boundaries, Cambodia, Cham, History, India, Literature, Memory,
Photography, Refugee experience, Translations, Transnationalism, Vietnam, War and tagged Ben Kiernan,
Cham Jahed, Champa, Democratic Kampuchea, Documentation Center of Cambodia, genocide, Imam Sann,
Julie Thi Underhill, justice, Kampong Cham, Khmer Rouge tribunal, Svay Khleang, war crimes, William J.
Schulte, Youk Chhang. Bookmark the permalink.

18 RESPONSES TO DEMOCRATIC KAMPUCHEA’S GENOCIDE OF THE CHAM

Richard Arant | December 15, 2010 at 4:32 am | Reply |

2 0 Rate This
Beautiful and thoughtful essay with photographs that make the content that much more powerful.

Julie Thi Underhill | December 15, 2010 at 12:40 pm | Reply |

0 0 Rate This
Hi Richard,

Thank you for your feedback, and for your appreciation of the photographs. For me, they are also
an important humanizing element of this story.
 Best wishes,
Julie

Gregory Stanton | December 15, 2010 at 4:42 am | Reply |

1 0 Rate This
Thank you for this thorough analysis of the genocide of Cham Muslims in Democratic Kampuchea.
In 1986 and 1987, Ben Kiernan and I collected over 60 hours of eyewitness testimony to this
genocide, available on videotape from the Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale University and on
videotape and DVD from the Cambodian Genocide Project, a division of Genocide Watch, Inc.

Dr. Gregory H. Stanton

Director, The Cambodian Genocide Project, Inc.

Julie Thi Underhill | December 15, 2010 at 12:41 pm | Reply |

0 0 Rate This
Hi Dr. Stanton,

Thanks very much for your positive feedback. I would love to have a look at that footage sometime,
as it sounds quite important and useful to me.

I appreciate all that you and Ben Kiernan have done to make explicit the crimes of the Pol Pot
regime. It really has been a collective effort, tireless and compassionate. I honor those who
compiled testimonies in the 1980s–I am sure these testimonies are in circulation today, as
evidence in the tribunal.

I do hope the four senior leaders are indeed brought to justice. Many consecutive life sentences for
each of them, this is my personal wish, which would be far more satisfying than Duch’s rather
light punishment for directing S-21 prison.

Best wishes and many thanks,

Julie

Yaphot Cham | December 15, 2010 at 8:04 pm | Reply |

1 0 Rate This
Very nice article!…makes u want to learn more

Julie Thi Underhill | December 16, 2010 at 12:13 pm | Reply |

0 0 Rate This
Thanks, Yaphot! Since not many people know about the Cham, anything that makes people want
to learn more is more than welcome. I appreciate this great feedback.

Don Wilson | December 17, 2010 at 8:49 pm | Reply |

 0 0 Rate This
Julie, This story you told was very bold , and brutally honest. Including your journeys, photos, and
commentary tied it all together nicely. I am so proud of your work, but most proud that you’re
my daughter. Love Dad

Julie Thi Underhill | December 18, 2010 at 10:47 am | Reply |

0 0 Rate This
Hi Dad,

I’m glad that you felt that the photos and commentaries worked well together. I tried to be honest
and bold, yet graceful and compassionate. I’m happy that it came across well, and that you are
able to enjoy the end result.

Thank you so much for reading and appreciating the article, and for appreciating me. That means
a lot to me.

Love,
Julie

Tina | December 18, 2010 at 10:35 am | Reply |

2 0 Rate This
I want to start out by saying, that I am Cham and have spent an ample amount of time during my
college years researching my ancestral heritage–nothing to the degree of what you laid out though…
wow. This is by far, one of the most concise and comprehensive pieces of Cham articles. You did a
remarkable job documenting, tracing and explaining the roots of the Cham people and culture. I also
appreciate your honesty in writing this essay, descriptions are brutal at times, but only then, can we
clearly visualize the after effects and the cultural trauma the Chams faced as a group of people. I am
also impressed by the beautiful photographs you used to document and incorporate into your essay.
Again, thank you for a well written and bold essay!

Julie Thi Underhill | December 18, 2010 at 11:04 am | Reply |

0 0 Rate This
Hi Tina,

I am so grateful to hear from Cham people. I know that it can be painful to consider the things
which have happened to our own extended family, as I consider it, so it is important for me that
other Cham feel that I have handled the task with the right degree of honesty and compassion. My
mother describes that it was impossible to know our history, in Vi!t Nam, when ‘we had to
struggle to survive during war.’ And before that, I am not sure many of our old documents survived
various destructions of our capital cities, as I mention in the article. Yet now that the wars are
over, we must create a comprehensive history of our people, where one does not currently exist
except in fragments. If my article came closer to alleviating the fragmentary nature of Cham
history and culture, I am grateful.
 Please share this essay with others in our extended community, who might be interested.

Best wishes and many thanks,

Julie

Tiffany Long | December 22, 2010 at 12:35 pm | Reply |

1 0 Rate This
Thank you for sharing such a personal and powerful narrative of memories and loss, and bringing
into question whether justice can ever be achieved for victims of wars and genocides whose “losses
are incommensurable and irreparable.” I believe that your work– your own rewounding– will help in
this process of healing.

Julie Thi Underhill | December 22, 2010 at 12:51 pm | Reply |

0 0 Rate This
Hi Tiffany,

It’s so perceptive of you to be aware of my own rewounding, in the process of writing this. It is also
ironic that at the close of the trip, while visiting Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison in Phnom Penh, I cut my
foot open on an iron bar sticking up from the floor, and I bled for a while. As I bled, I thought to
myself, and told Asiroh, how fitting to also lose blood in the very site where so many (including
Cham) were brutally tortured and murdered. This is also how I feel, on an emotional and spiritual
level, about the rewounding necessary to approach and portray such “incommensurable and
irreparable” losses experienced by others.

Thank you for your very kind words and deep insights.

Best wishes and much appreciation,

Julie

Jai | December 28, 2010 at 5:04 pm | Reply |

1 0 Rate This
I feel grateful to know you and to witness your work of holding up the bodies and stories of the Cham.
It’s insanely powerful and ridiculously inspiring to realize what could be possible. Thank you.

Julie Thi Underhill | January 2, 2011 at 5:56 pm | Reply |

0 0 Rate This
Thank YOU so much, Jai.

This means a lot coming from a brilliant poet with keen insight, such as yourself!

I appreciate your open heart and thoughtful comments.

 Best wishes,
Julie

Tee | December 31, 2010 at 12:16 am | Reply |

1 0 Rate This
Hi! I’m Khmer and the article you wrote really sent a powerful message to the world! I was told that
the Cham Muslims suffered the most and as a Khmer I felt sad that this happened! Cham Muslims are
one of the most important race in Cambodia! They are not a minority but a majority like us Khmers!
As of 2010, the population is between 1 million to 1.5 million. Heck! Even the Khmer King in the 17th
century was Muslim and married a Malaysian Princess! Islam is part of the Cambodian culture and it
must be embrace! The Cham race will live on!!!!

Julie Thi Underhill | January 2, 2011 at 6:31 pm | Reply |

0 0 Rate This
Hi Tee!

I really appreciate your compassionate comments and especially your historical memory of
longstanding Khmer-Cham relations. There were intermarriages and alliances, as well as
tensions and battles, as Champa and the Khmer Empire shared a border. Yet after the refugees
arrives from Champa, the Cham and the Khmer lived in peace, for the most part, until the Khmer
Rouge came to rule.

Thank you for your response to the article. It is very meaningful to me.

Best wishes,
Julie

Matt Wathen | January 2, 2011 at 11:58 am | Reply |

2 0 Rate This
Thanks Julie for enlightening me on the Cham history and culture. Sadly it reminds me of my visit to
Cambodia three years ago, seeing the photos of those killed in the prison museum, and the tree where
children were murdered by having their heads smashed at the killing fields. It also brings to mind the
Gypsies during the Holocaust; brutally exterminated by the Nazis, but their story overshadowed by the
larger history of the Jewish genocide.
Thanks again and keep in touch, Matt

Julie Thi Underhill | January 2, 2011 at 8:57 pm | Reply |

0 0 Rate This
Hi Matt,

Thanks for reading and appreciating the history and culture of the Cham.
You have made an apt analogy to the other genocidal acts committed by the Nazis. Sometimes the
experiences of ethnic minorities are forgotten within the larger atrocities–widespread crimes
against humanity, crimes of war, and other acts of genocide.

I also visited Choeung Ek in Cambodia, and saw that now-memorialized tree where the babies
were murdered through smashing. Then late last month a Cambodian-American student of mine
wrote me the same night she learned of this practice, for the first time, as she read about the
Khmer Rouge regime. I was honest about my own incomprehension.

It seems like such understatement to write ANYTHING about the brutality of this era–this was my
struggle while writing my article, on behalf of not only the Cham but also the ethnic Khmer,
Vietnamese, Chinese, and many others who died under Pol Pot’s rule.

Best wishes,
Julie

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