Surviving My Country's Nightmare

Pol Pot and his militants belonged to a radical Communist movement known as the Khmer Rouge (kuh-MEHR roozh). The group rejected social classes and private property. They believed people should work for the good of the nation and that if all Cambodians farmed the land, everyone’s needs would be met.

Within days of taking over the capital, Pol Pot declared that April 17, 1975, had been Day One of Year Zero. All history, all traces of past life were to be wiped out, he said. There would be no banks, no money, no private property, no religion, no schools—and no individual rights.

In Phnom Penh, thousands of Khmer Rouge fighters fanned out to enforce the new rules. Waving machine guns, shouting, and sometimes shooting, they ordered the city’s 2 million residents out of their homes, schools, and offices—even their hospital beds.

“For your own safety, leave the city!” the enforcers shouted as they herded throngs of residents into the countryside. “Leave your possessions, you won’t need them. The glorious revolution is here!”

But in reality, nothing about it was glorious and nobody was safe. People who failed to obey the orders were shot without warning.

Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge leaders aimed to turn Cambodia into a farming society, with all citizens working together to plant and harvest crops. They didn’t think the nation’s people should want or need anything else.

As the Khmer Rouge forced the residents of Phnom Penh and other cities into the countryside, they imprisoned, tortured, and killed anyone they believed might pose a threat to their authority. People who had worked for the previous government were targeted, as were individuals with higher education, including doctors and teachers.

Citizens who survived the Khmer Rouge’s initial takeover of the country were divided into small, easy-to-control groups and forced into a life of slave labor, often in remote areas. Families were separated, and everyone had to look and dress the same. Cambodians were told that their first and only loyalty must be to the Khmer Rouge.

For four long years, citizens worked 10 or more hours a day, seven days a week, digging ditches, building roads, planting rice, and growing vegetables. But they weren’t allowed to eat what they grew—everything went to the leaders. A worker’s one meal a day might be a few grains of rice. People were often beaten, and anyone who protested or grew too weak to work was killed.

Finally, in late 1978, soldiers from neighboring Vietnam invaded Cambodia. In January 1979, they captured Phnom Penh and drove Pol Pot from power. By then, the Khmer Rouge had taken the lives of almost 2 million people—nearly one-fourth of the country’s population.

Shyla Rajavong: What was your life like before the Khmer Rouge?

Mike Lim: My family was poor. I was the third of six children. At first we lived in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. My father passed away when I was 7 years old; it was hard for my family.

The next year, my whole family moved to the countryside and lived with my grandmother. I helped out my mom so my older brother and sister could go out to work.

SR: What happened during the Khmer Rouge’s rule?

ML: They took away people’s homes and families. Kids who were more than 6 years old were taken away to work as slaves. People would be put into a camp and divided into groups. I was 15 years old by then and was put in one of those groups.

SR: What did your group do?

ML: We would wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning and do backbreaking jobs. I dug roads every single day.

Every night, our group would have a meeting with the group leader, and he would ask questions to everyone. He would ask, “What did you do today? Were you working?” You would have to tell the truth because if you did not, you would disappear in the morning.

SR: How did you survive?

ML: I did everything I was told. I was put to work digging out 7 meters [about 23 feet] of dirt to build roads. I remember working with an older guy and the leader of the group. Since I was smaller, I could work faster than the older guy. The leader knew this, so he gave the older guy a larger bucket of dirt to carry. But the guy refused, and they began to fight. During their struggle, a shovel hit my right foot and cut my ankle. There was no hospital to go to. I had to take care of my foot myself and prevent it from getting infected. I couldn’t walk for a month.

Later, I heard that the older man who had fought with the leader had been buried alive in the road we had built. Pol Pot would not allow anyone to live who didn’t want to work.

SR: What food did you eat in order to survive?

ML: I picked up things that were on the ground. I had to hide it in my pocket and not let anyone see it. If they knew I was hiding food, the Khmer Rouge would kill me. People were dying of starvation.

Sometimes, I would get to be in the jungle, where I could hunt rats and snakes. I would secretly eat these things I found, little by little.

SR: How was your family affected by the Khmer Rouge?

ML: It was very bad. Almost my entire family died because of Pol Pot. His followers killed my mother, grandmother, uncles, and aunts. My older brother and sister survived and left Cambodia in 1979. My brother went to the United States, and my sister went to China.

Editor’s Note: When Vietnamese forces ousted Pol Pot, millions of Cambodians were freed from slavery. But that didn’t bring peace to the nation. Pol Pot and many of his Khmer Rouge followers hid in the jungles near Thailand. For years they continued to fight against the new government. Finally, in 1991, the Khmer Rouge and other groups involved in the conflict signed a peace agreement to end the violence.

Seeking justice for victims of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s new government and the United Nations eventually formed a special court to hold the leaders of the Khmer Rouge accountable for their actions against the people of Cambodia. Yet the process took so long that most of the individuals accused, including Pol Pot, died of old age before they could be tried. So far, only three people have been found guilty.

In the meantime, many survivors of the Khmer Rouge’s rule remained in Cambodia, struggling to rebuild their shattered nation. But more than 200,000 others, including Mike Lim, fled to refugee camps and then other countries before starting new lives.

Lim arrived in the U.S. in 1987, taking the first job he could get—washing dishes in a restaurant. Today, he works as an electronic tech, is a proud U.S. citizen, and lives with his family in Pennsylvania.