The followiing is an excerpt from Brian's daily journal while in Cambodia in November of 2007. Brian was introduced to one of those responsible for the killing of Soreasksa's family. Soreaksa introduced them!

12 November 2007 is one of those days that is almost impossible to express. Today I was picked up at my hotel in Siem Reap by Reaksa at about 6:30am. We were delayed leaving by a certain gastro intestinal situation but I was soon able to progress on to the rest of my day. Reaksa, a dear Christian brother for whom I have the utmost respect, was taking me out to see the new school that we had helped fund at Kokpreach a village about two hours north west of Siem Reap. Walking around Kokpreach is no different from walking around any other village. I have visited many villages many times and this time would be no different –except I was going with Reaksa. For the first time after many years of visiting and working in this country I would have some access the to those unseen undercurrents that I have always known were there but have never been able to see.

Kokpreach is an ex Khmer Rouge village where, in 1976, Reaksa’s family had been marched for slave labor and where they ultimately were hacked to death before Reaksa’s eyes and where he too had been left for dead in a mass grave. His books (Tears of My Soul and After the Heavy Rain) recount the gut wrenching trauma of systematic torture, starvation and ultimately death at the hands of the indoctrinated young soldiers of this brutal regime.

Today Reaksa was to take me to meet the killers! After many years of wanting to kill them Reaksa has now hunted them down but not to kill them but rather to forgive them and to be a blessing to them and their families. It is Reaksa’s actions that are truly revolutionary not those of the Khmer Rouge.  Despite my supposed spiritual maturity, I am left bewildered by his actions. I know the theory of grace and forgiveness and I believe in its truth but its application in such a jarring and intensely personal way is, I’m sad to say, foreign to me. I spent the day trying to get my mind and heart around the implications of my own faith. Reaksa, by living his faith, so clearly demonstrated the glaring deficiencies of my own Christian experience.

Before we arrived in the village proper Reaksa set the tone by pointing several things out as we drove along. “Over there is where they killed my older brother” “that is where I would mind the water buffalo” “This stretch of road is where they killed another brother”.  Through his seemingly matter of fact observations I grew to feel what I had felt years before – in the days of the civil war. A profound sense of this being somehow holy ground impressed itself on me. This was a day when all things superficial would flee from my mind and I would fall silent, ill-equipped to offer any counsel, wisdom or comfort. Today I would simply observe and process.

We arrived at the new school building which was lovely and being well used, but I was distracted. When I first got out of the truck, Reaksa casually said “this is Mov, my foster father” and walked on. It took me a while for it to sink in. This was the Khmer Rouge man who had been tasked with killing Reaksa, after he survived the slaughter of his entire family, but who had instead hid him in the jungle. I was hardly out of the truck and was already playing catch up, trying to comprehend the deep issues of this relationship.  Off we went into the school to see the kids all in their nice uniforms recently paid for by Sue and Stew Mckertcher (the Ratanak reps from Saskatchewan) and to watch Reaksa distribute tooth brushes to the kids.

Following this we went for a walk around the village. We were saying hello to people who had known Reaksa and his entire family before their execution. We would exchange the usual “sompeah” greeting. (Sompeah is to place the hands together as if in prayer and bring the finger tips up roughly to the lips and do a slight bow or nod) I marveled at Reaksa’s calmness as he moved around. 

I had the privilege of meeting a lady who at the age of eight was evacuated from Phnom Penh by the communists. She was separated from her parents and been sent here for slave labour. She had survived and now this was her life. So here she still lives among those who so terrorized her. Her simple country life in a thatch house discussing the fact that she was once the daughter of a business woman in Phnom Phnom – in a previous life. It was like a strange time warp for me for here was one of the “new revolutionary” people still displaced – yet this was now her life. She had nothing to return to in the capitol.

Reaksa, in his usual playful way wrestled a man and then introduced me to his buddy when they were boys together in the killing fields. I contemplated my holiday to cottage country on Lake Simcoe in Ontario in 1976. I remember it well. While I was goofing off in the water Reaksa was in this place desperately trying to survive and his family had months to live.

We then walked in to an area at the front of a house. We were greeted by children. From around the side of the house came a man with a cow and calf. He smiled and started to chat with Reaksa. However he did not ‘Sompeah’ and I sensed a subtle tension.  I knew his face from the book. This was Mao the killer of Reaksa’s father and some of his siblings and the guy who had tried to kill Reaksa himself. Reaksa’s detailed description of the butchering of his family flooded my mind as I stared at the man’s hands. How could these hands have done such things to so many men, women, children and even babies? I have met many murderers in my day but none like this one and none in the presence of a Survivor.

Reaksa asked questions about the kids. He was concerned for them. Were they OK? Were they going to the school?  Mao chatted and laughed in Reaksa’s presence but was tentative in his responses for he knows that in this society Reaksa could and even should take revenge and kill him. I took Mao’s picture feeling uncomfortable but not knowing why.  Mao, while not understanding it, is growing to trust that Reaksa is sincere and means him no harm. However he has no understanding to the years of struggle, psychological, emotional, and spiritual that had brought Reaksa to this point.  Mao, by the grace of God, has been forgiven by Reaksa and today I simply had the privilege of witnessing spiritual strength and discipline way beyond anything in my own experience.

Next we wandered on to another property where a man was sitting below his house threshing his rice. It is very interesting to me that I had much more difficulty with this individual. As we walked up the driveway Reaksa mentioned that this was Syl the man who tortured his younger brother. For some strange reason this has always been the hardest part of the book for me. Perhaps the actual killings are so beyond my experience that they remain abstract. Perhaps the beating and torturing of a ten year old boy, to the point where he can no longer be recognized, hits home since I have a ten year old Khmer son of my own. Perhaps the description of helpless parents forced to watch such a spectacle, knowing they will all instantly be killed if they so much as say a word, is just too close to home for me. For whatever the reason I took an instant dislike to this man. He chatted with Reaksa and I took pictures all the while silently burning with anger against this man.

Every, probably innocent, mannerism I interpreted as arrogance. Every gesture seemed dismissive, every smile manipulative. It was truly easy to hate this man.  Yet these feelings existed with the full knowledge that I was likely misinterpreting his every move. But it felt good to hate. It felt satisfying to climb the self righteous podium and point the finger. All this and I wasn’t even there. It wasn’t my family – I was jumping around in Lake Simcoe!  Today I was a guest of Reaksa, my dear brother for whom I have such respect. I came in hopes of being a blessing and encouragement to him yet I, a non participant, was demonstrating the very hatred that he, the real victim, has given to Christ and had it replaced by love and compassion. I felt humbled and remained quiet!

We walked slowly back up the little dirt road towards where Reaksa and his family had lived. We past another house where another old Khmer torturer sat in ill health in his hammock looking decrepit and pathetic.  Reaksa described his struggle along this same path in his malnourished state as he carried the battered body of his little brother home. This little brother, and the rest of them, would only have months to live anyway.  I walked silent but inside overwhelmed. We said our goodbyes got in the truck and headed back to Siem Reap.

In a bizarre end to the day we drove out of Kokpreach with Mov (Reaksa’s foster father), now a Christian, to go to a local police station where Reaksa was to assist in negotiations with local police to allow the return of Mov’s son, who had recently been wrongfully accused of stealing cows. He was brutally tortured by soldiers and escaped to Thailand!

So what am I to take from today? It will be awhile before I fully process it. One thing is very clear – my understanding of forgiveness is infantile and I will have to deal with the challenge that Reaksa’s example provides. I confess to not even knowing how to do that.

For years now I have maintained that to understand and know the Khmer (as much as any western person can) we need to understand the Killing Fields. There are many supposedly experienced people who disagree.  We are told we must look forward and not be concerned with the past and what is rapidly becoming history.  I have always totally disagreed with this. Today confirmed and amplified my convictions on this matter. Cambodia is a nation of people who have known great trauma. They have had no process of healing, no national grieving, and no acknowledgement of the pain. The victims live among the perpetrators and all is swept under the carpet. How can a country re-build? How can a nation be whole under these circumstances? I don’t think it is possible.

I have walked through many picturesque villages in Cambodia. I have always known that there is a profound all pervasive grief here. I have always felt there were powerful and destructive social, spiritual forces at work. But I have never been able to see them. To the “barang” (westerner) such things are in the darkness we may know they exist but we can not see them.  Walking through the picturesque village of Kokpreach with Reaksa was like being handed night vision goggles. For the first time in 18 years of coming here I looked into the darkness and could see some detail. It was disturbing. My respect and admiration for Reaksa grows.
And As for me… I have learned to be silent!