Road to Cambodia
- Part 3 -

R.K. Shivachandra *

Cambodia offers many valuable things to us. I always wish leaders of Social organisations in Manipur also to visit the country once. After long years of civil wars where many innocent souls were sacrificed at the altar of the social chaos, today Cambodia has emerged like a calm sea free from turbulence that paves a smooth passage to many voyagers.

May be the two million haunted souls who have been put to death by the followers of Pol Pot are hovering above Cambodia only to protect the land and its people from further deterioration. The large scale wall posters campaign that shows breaking of AK 47 on one's knees was seen everywhere across Cambodia.

These heralds a striking message of how much the modern Cambodians hated the Arms and their ultimate ushering in a new era of peace and tranquillity which had been much needed in the land of the Khmers. Many NGOs and social organisations in Cambodia seemed busying themselves in the pursuit of campaigning the wall posters that is totally defying the concept of killing machine of the 70s.

During 1947 Avotmat Kalashniciova Obrazta of Russia was accorded a grand felicitation for his concept that led to invention of the most sophisticated assault rifle. Rather it was considered a blessing to humankind especially to the military organisations. Today in Cambodia AK 47 is but a fatal curse- simply a weapon with its barrel which had turned on 2 million elite Cambodian bloods.

Today the world had changed and 86 years old Avotmat Kalashniciova Obrazta in Russia laments before his television that AK 47 the rifle of his own invention has become the weapon of choice for terrorists, criminals and child soldiers — and, as such, the most prolific killing machine in history.

A shocking site inside the killing field

Somebody may also question if AK 47 is a blessing in Manipur. The answer remains- not a single day ever passed by without killing somebody's precious son. AK 47 roams amidst the thick crowd with its trigger happy owners. Bullets are being sprayed in the public place indiscriminately and senselessly helping to produce more young widows to trot down along the Manipur Sana Lambi and somebody called it 'Manipur is a war zone'.

But little did the people who engaged themselves with gun culture understand the victim is ultimately a true Manipuri blood. Means his own people. The mourning crowds that assembled around the crematorium later in the afternoon happened to be the same people of the microscopic population of Manipur that we often lament as to how we shall ever increase the numbers to claim our rightful existence on the big Indian chessboard.

What is this? For whom the bell tolls? In the 12 million populated Cambodia during 1970s, the Khmer Rouge had swallowed around 2 million of its population still 10 million Khmers lived to tell the stories of woes to the world today. In few lakhs populated Manipur the killing rate is simply miserable and if this trend continues unabated, in the next few decades this particular race would be no doubt swept out from the face of the Earth or rather another 'Dinosaur' only to be seen in a movie called 'Zoorasic Park' down the line of few centuries.

We are not to equate ourselves to that of Tripuris or Chakmas that we often refer to for they uphold their survival. They don't subscribe to the policy of killing among themselves. I brought some T shirts from Cambodia imprinted "I survived in Cambodia" that revealed the tale of woes of the Cambodians of the 70s.

One of my friends who received a T- shirt suggested to me "Why not we organise our own brand that imprints "I still survive in Manipur". He had suggested correctly. Yes I also understand this is a message to be flown down the wilderness without anybody to hear it. Go south go west; tell long stories or short but it all starts from the square one.

Much water had flown down the Imphal River, finding its own level than falls to the Ningthi River again to Irrawaddy and vast mighty ocean. Yet Manipur remains the same, living in perennial illusion. The same question again "Who will bell the cat"? You may not hear an ear bursting bomb few steps away from my house at Kwakeithel that just went off now while I am busy with this article.

I heard few shots from small arm before the bomb gives a slight tremor in the surrounding including my house. These kind of episodes are the order of the day in Manipur.

The people had suffered enough. The business section cried for the existence of the God. The demands of the undergrounds are increasing leaps and bounds. Hand grenades have been spread around as if it was quota of potatoes to every household. Gun shots from different barrels formed a new music that is thrilled and an inseparable vista for every modern Manipuris.

Commandoes become another TARTAR, that is told to have been existed somewhere in the Yunan range of China, who happened to be virulent and merciless killers ,that quits the prolonged cries of the nonnegotiable child.During our childhood often did we hear our elders to have said 'tapta lakley'. Commandoes are modern taptas in the 21st century Manipur. They seemed to have been acted above the law.

Cambodia Consulate Office at Arnyapatheth

Even the CM of Manipur expressed concern about the excesses of the state commandoes in one of his recent statements. When the symbol of protector left dumbfounded what shall we expect from a common citizen? Carrying cash along is more dangerous than carrying a small arm now-a -days. Modern day frisking of the commandoes directly comes to the wallet .The money in someone's possession invites his own death.

Government officials shifted their homes to the state Guest house next to the CM quarter. Small time officers who have been abandoned in their respective offices at the mercy of God are smaller fish to meet the need of aggressive elements when bigger ones escaped. 70 percent of the youths have been deported outside the state to pursue further studies by their parents. Many opined that Manipur is the best place for education, with best teachers and schools of course. Yet they are afraid of the environment.

Most of them are not economically sound but father's duty always comes first, is what they wanted to say. These concerned parents never wish their beloved son coming back home. Gone are the days where the parents wished their sons coming back home, settle properly with their beautiful wife and lovely grandchildren .The modern trend is "Go my son find a job elsewhere the globe but not in Manipur". He was bidding adieu to his beloved son like the kind of goodbye of Jor-EI, father of superman who sent his son to the Planet Earth when he knew his own planet would be broken into pieces soon.

Yet everybody prefers to be keeping mum. it is hard to understand. SILENCE is more than gold here. Charles Shobaraj the hero of crimes once said "Build up your house on the slope of Vesuvius". What he literally meant was life without problem is not life and building one's house on the slope of the volcanic mountain which may erupt any time makes the real meaning of life. We are simply to follow what he had instructed. The time calls for the messiah among the crowd emerged out with his shining armour to save the generation.

The generous souls in the control room who is omniscient and omnipresent to all the developments needs to have a serious thinking on what is taking place around. I humbly assumed somebody hear my pleas. Yes please listen the voice though it may not be able to mesmerize your heart. We all need to rise up as a body, as a single man need to gather courage just to say wrong is wrong and right is right. Somebody may say Manipur is ruled by a Government but in our view Manipur is in the zenith of her anarchism.

Memorable stupa at killing field some 15 kms from Phonm Phenh

Ministers seldom speak what is truth. They hardly practice what is genuine for the rational instinct buried in his brain keeps prompting him "Don't forget it is five years only". Yes his instinct says right after five years no one knows whether he would be whether in the hell or in the paradise. People in uniform salute representatives but the ego within says this is your chair I salute not you. After five years he is the same man. Than who will rule the nation?

We also ought to digest the hard fact that trial on the former Khmer Rouge top officials and many of its soldiers who were directly or indirectly indulged in the infamous genocide during the Pol Pot's regime is just about to be begun in Cambodia in the mid of February, 2009 under the nose of the UN. They will be dragged to the public court and they should confess their guilt and accept what the law had to say on them.

According to The Cambodia Tribunal Monitor it is said that the horrors and atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970's will be brought up again with the arrest of Khieu Samphan, former Prime Minister of Cambodia. This means wrong doers have no place in the society. The story has taught a morale lesson to the Manipuris. The lesson is directly pointing finger to the one who flexes their limbs in the revolving chair, who are brave in commanding "shoot ...kill them". Think once again ...never behave the Pol Pot way in Manipur.

During the height of his power he did it, swallowed 2 million people and when he lost power he was another mere prisoner who breathed his last not as a ruler but as a stupid criminal in a thatched house where nobody attended him. A UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia has said the trial of top 5 leaders namely Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, who is accused of murder, torture, rape and persecutions on political grounds, will appear at an initial hearing on February 17, a court document said on Monday. Duch, 65, headed the S-21 prison, the largest Khmer Rouge torture facility in the 1970s where up to 16,000 men, women and children perished after suffering gruesome torture.

He is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders awaiting trial, and with no death penalty in Cambodia, the five only face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. At least 1.7 million people died of disease, starvation or executions during the Khmer Rouge's reign between 1975 and 1979, with many survivors now fearing that some of the elderly defendants will die before they can be brought to justice.

The others awaiting trial are Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge's former head of state; Ieng Sary, its foreign minister; his wife Ieng Thirith, who was minister for social affairs; and Nuon Chea, the movement's chief ideologue.

To be continued....

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* R.K. Shivachandra, social worker based in Imphal, contributes regularly to e-pao.net. The writer can be reached at india_myanmar(at)yahoo(dot)com. This article was webcasted on January 28th, 2009.

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