Facing the Khmer Rouge: A Cambodian Journey

Afterword: The Healing and Reconciling Process

220 It has been my good fortune to have worked with the Cambodian community since 1991, when I accepted my first job after training in psychiatry. My first position, as a volunteer psychiatrist at the Site II camp on the Thai-Cambodian border, opened my eyes to the plight of the Cambodian community. Though sometimes disturbing and stressful, this work taught me a lot about how people can survive, raise families, help others, and sometimes even thrive against all odds. During my time at Site II, I made some good friends among the refugees, some of whom I stay in touch with to this day. Massive trauma, such as that experienced by the Cambodian community, can fracture an entire society as well as individuals. During the Khmer Rouge time, neighbors were rewarded for informing on neighbors, friends for informing on friends, and children for informing on parents. Trust was sometimes lost between members of the same communities and families. The feeling of safety within the community was damaged—by war, other human rights violations, and forced migration. But today we see signs, in this book as in other accounts of that time, that the Cambodian community is in the process of repair. How is this repair happening? One necessary prerequisite for the restoration of trust and safety is a safe environment. A safe environment was not available for many Cambodians during the years following the Khmer Rouge regime. Cambodia itself was engaged in civil war until 1998, while the Cambodian Diaspora in the West struggled to cope with their memories and losses as they were building their new lives. The active presence of the Khmer Rouge during the civil war delayed healing in Cambodian society. After the death of Pol Pot in 1998, I saw a marked difference in Cambodian patients here in the United States as they began to feel safer talking more freely and openly about their bitter experiences during the Khmer Rouge years. Afterword The Healing and Reconciling Process DANIEL SAVIN, M.D. AFTERWORD 221 Still, even now, many former Khmer Rouge leaders live freely, with no requirement to reflect on their actions. Only when the past is fully examined, when leaders who commit atrocities are held responsible, can society begin to move forward with some assurance that the government and international community will not let such atrocities happen again. The U.N.-sponsored Khmer Rouge tribunal gives us a chance to move things forward. Perhaps the journey of the Cambodian community will mirror that of the post–World War II Jewish experience. For several years after that genocide, Jewish survivors were not yet ready to tell their stories, and the community was not yet ready to listen. This attitude changed in 1961, during the trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann, a man instrumental in the deportation of millions of Jews to their deaths. The trial caused a breakthrough, changing the attitude of Jewish society toward the Holocaust and toward Holocaust survivors. Jews became much more interested in learning what happened during that time, and survivors became more willing to tell their stories. The current trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders may have a similar effect in Cambodia. Once in a safe environment, people find many ways to overcome their traumatic past so they can thrive again. Religious faith, traditional healers, positive family and social relationships, pleasurable activities, and Western mental health care all have their place. One thing that is common to all of these treatments is that people are helping people. In fact, what seems to me to be the most important part of healing is when individuals have positive relationships with others, either by helping or in being helped. Ronnie Yimsut’s story demonstrates this trend. Experiencing painful memories, Ronnie Yimsut decides to travel back to the source of his dreams and nightmares both, to assist with the historic 1993 elections in his homeland, Cambodia. He sacrifices time with his new family to aid the United Nations and Cambodia in their joint democratic effort. This shift of energy into helping others brings healing to Yimsut, just as it has done and will do for Cambodians everywhere. Through his volunteer efforts, Ronnie Yimsut found inner peace and reconciled his past in a way that no court of law and certainly no killing of the Khmer Rouge in revenge could ever do. ...