Jolie helps Khmer Rouge cadres

2002-12-08 12:25

Samlot, Cambodia, - 7Hollywood starlet Angelina Jolie has stolen the hearts of Khmer Rouge veterans left maimed by war and mostly forgotten in a dusty and isolated corner of Cambodia.

"I now have a small house and a piece of land. Soon I will grow my own rice," says Kao Buon as he tirelessly manoeuvres his wheelchair between cut logs and thick brush. "I am very happy."

Kao Buon is in a paddock the size of a football field and is wielding a one-metre iron blade that tears through grass and thickets and leaves the 44-year-old drenched in sweat.

He is one of 13 soldiers left severely handicapped by war and who form the nucleus of a 100-strong village that relies on Jolie and Cambodian Vision in Development (CVD) for their existence.

The project is about to complete its first year and deputy governor and former Khmer Rouge soldier Pen Sovann said life in the district is at last showing signs of improvement after decades of being at the crossroads of war.

Samlot's plight began in 1967 when a young communist with a philosophy honed at the Sorbonne in Paris, Khieu Samphan, led the first successful rebellion by the then fledgling Khmer Rouge movement.

Heavily mined area

Isolated in Cambodia's west by twisting rivers and high mountains, access to Samlot is restricted by atrocious roads and the wet season.

That seclusion provided Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan, who would become head of state, with an ideal outpost for gun running from Thailand as the ultra-Maoists gained momentum and eventually seized power in April 1975.

Once the Khmer Rouge were ousted from power by the Vietnamese in 1979, cadre from across the country fled to Samlot and it became a haven under Khieu Samphan's grip until 1997 when a government offensive was launched.

Thousands of Khmer Rouge troops scurried across the nearby border into Thailand and the offensive was a government victory that spelled the end of Cambodia's brutal wars.

However, fearing a counter attack, government troops heavily mined the area.

Pen Sovann said between 3 000 and 5 000 mines were laid each day in the closing months of 1997, as gestures were made to negotiate a peace.

"Eventually about 4 000 Khmer Rouge soldiers came back," he said.

Including Khmer Rouge families, some 22 000 people live in Samlot. One in 27 people here have been maimed by landmines, around 10 times the national average in a country already with the highest rate of land mine victims in the world.

And like losers in any war, the spoils of victory went to the other side with Samlot now ranking at the bottom of Cambodia's social heap.

Jolie goodwill ambassador

CVD programme manager Leng Sothear said the dire straits facing Samlot drew international attention among non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the United Nations, which acted as go-between with Jolie, a UN goodwill ambassador, and CVD about one year ago.

"We had no money. They had nothing," Leng Sothear says.

He says the priority is to make Kao Buon's village self-sufficient within the next five years. Currently his group produces enough rice to last just five months a year, slightly more than in 2001.

For a comparison, Muslim Chams - considered Cambodia's poorest ethnic group - produce enough rice to last them nine months of the year.

"Everybody (in Samlot) has a disability," Leng Sothear says in despair.

Those with no legs receive a cow for breeding and hoeing soil for rice crops, under the charity programme.

Those with legs receive farming implements. Modest Cambodia-styled houses have been built, farm land acquired, and children are now going to school.

Dividing chores

Chores are divided by what their bodies are capable of.

Kao Buon has no legs, like 32-year-old Bay La, but can still swing an axe and clear land for future rice crops. Yorng Horn, 50, who commanded a battalion for 20 years, has two arms for land clearing and one leg, and can still push a wheelchair.

Sous Moen (44) has no arms from above the elbows and was blinded by shrapnel when attempting to disarm a landmine in 1984.

He is also the backbone of the village band as lead singer in classical Khmer music and is ably backed by Kao Buon who sets the beat with his Skoar, a local-styled bongo, in accompaniment with another landmine victim who strums a guitar-like Sadeav.

At nights, the pair are the chief source of entertainment, as the village children learn traditional Khmer dance amid watching adults.

Although Sous Moen has never seen her, he remembers Jolie well. She returned to Samlot, with her adopted Cambodian son Maddox, for his wedding last March which was described by Kao Buon as the biggest party of the year.

Asked whether he was aware of his sponsor's fame as an Oscar winning actress, Kao Buon shrugs his shoulders and looks as if he has missed a point.

"I don't know about that," he says. "This year has been better than last year, and she just made me happy." - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA