At the Killing Fields Gifts for Monks, Memories for Others
The skulls piled neatly inside the stupa at Cheung Ek seemed to be staring down on tables loaded with food.
To be sure, many victims of the Khmer Rouge suffered from starvation before being taken to the “killing fields.” So it was hard to ignore the symbolism of 50 monks receiving gifts of food Wednesday morning from worshippers marking Pchum Ben, the Festival of the Dead.
The ceremonies were simple. A handful of dignitaries approached the stupa and left flowers at the base. Next they made food offerings to five senior monks, followed by a prayer chanting.
Dozens of tables had been lined up on three sides of the stupa and filled with bowls of cooked rice, boxes of packaged noodles, fruit and baked goods.
The 50 monks began walking single-file past the tables, holding out bowls to be filled with rice. Following each monk was a server, most of them carrying an empty 50-kg rice or sugar sack for the monk. It took 20 minutes for the expressionless monks to finish the walk. Their rice bowls and sacks were nearly full.
The “killing fields” are wet now. Water from the flooded rice paddy behind the stupa has crept a few meters onto the rear of the site, and several of the pits, including the one with the sign reading “Mass Grave of 166 Victims Without Heads,” are full of water.
Kang Sean was a 27-year-old village official in Banteay Meanchey province in 1975 when he fled Cambodia. He spent the next 17 years in the US, working in refugee resettlement and mental health programs. As part of his work, he teaches child refugees about what happened here. He came back in 1992 and now works in the Ministry of the Interior.
This, he said, was his first trip to the “killing fields.” He shook his head as he looked up at the skulls stacked in the stupa.
“It is so stupid,” he sighed. “Khmers killing Khmers for nothing but power….We have to learn to talk. If we’re going to fight, we need to do it with our mouths, not our guns.”
