Maung Tha Cho - Zero Years

Khmer greetings

( one)

Every politician in the world always explains that the political ideology, political ideology, and political path they believe in are right and correct, and that they are only aimed at the good of society and humanity. Then, they always implement and shape their society according to what they believe in.

In 1975, the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot rebuilt their country of Cambodia through a process of social purification, and that year 1975 is known as Year Zero. A year of starting over. After wiping out the old, impure society to the point where not even a speck of dust remained, the world was remade into a classless society, a society without class distinctions, a society without class distinctions. Year Zero was called the year in which the world would be remade .

Were the entire Khmer people, the entire nation of Cambodia, truly a classless, free society, able to start their world anew, as if it were a zero-sum game, jumping for joy?

When the final answer was given, the entire Khmer Empire was destroyed and fell to the zero point. From those zero years, there was no need to believe in any religion. Zero worship. Adults lived together without separation, white mother and black brother. Zero love. If you can add, subtract, multiply, eat, write, you get it. Zero education. No need for dancing, playing, painting, sculpture, or anything else. Zero art.

In other words, if there is rice and meat and fish, the citizens can survive, so the rest is extra. Waste for society. Intellectuals, doctors, teachers, city dwellers, employees, religious leaders, engineers. Extra. Waste.

Everyone was tried and convicted. In world-famous interrogation camps like S-21, teachers, doctors, movie stars, singers, artists, and marketers were forced to confess and then sent to the killing fields outside the city to be brutally killed. The teacher's son, the doctor's daughter, and the artist's wife were not spared, accused of being unclean and killed.

The Khmer Rouge proclaimed that society should be as pure as animals, with no music, no painting, no dancing, no schools, no hospitals, no banks, no markets, no love, nothing.

We will burn the old grass and the new will grow. When we burn the old grass, will new grass grow?

To Kill the grass, you must also remove the root . If you want to kill the grass, you must also remove the root.

Better to Kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake.

These were the words of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Following the guiding principles of the new state, the Khmer Rouge massacred its own people from 1975 to 1979, killing an estimated two million people. The system of mass deportations of city dwellers to the countryside overthrew society, leaving Cambodia in ruins after the Zero Era.

( 2 years)

We arrived in Cambodia in October 2014.

Literary figures such as Ju and Than Myint Aung, artists such as Myint Maung Kyaw and Phyu Ei Thein, and musicians such as Myint Moe Aung, Kyi, and Saw Pho Khwar. The leader is Nwe Kay Khaing.

The visit was made possible through a collaboration between the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies and environmentalist Ko Myint Zaw.

When we arrived, Cambodia began to value the zero years with numbers. They danced again, they played again, they sang again, they wrote again, they acted again.

A human being is not an animal, is he? A being who can feel, create, and cherish. It is not right to classify him as an animal by saying that if he has fulfilled the three sexual desires, it is enough.

( three)

Pol Pot, who had instilled the idea that poverty was due to impure people, armed the Khmer youth, who were lacking in intelligence and education, and entered Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. Sixty thousand Vietnamese soldiers and the Khmer Rouge rebels fought against Pol Pot in 1977, 1978, and 1979, and recaptured Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979.

Pol Pot, who fled to the jungle , was captured by the Khmer Rouge in 1997 and placed under house arrest until he died on April 15, 1998. He was 72 years old.

His aides, Khieu Samphan, now 86 years old (2018), and Nuon Chea , now 91 years old (2018), were sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court and are still appealing.

The 7 Day News chronicles the experiences of those who arrived in Cambodia, the Khmer region, when the year zero fell on the country . Hearing the cries of the helpless Khmer people, they felt compassion and prayed that such inhuman state-building would never happen again in the world.

We would like to thank 7 Day News, which originally published these works, and Iyup Cho Cho Bookstore, which created them into a book.

Maung Thar Cho | Yangon.