Cambodia Home Heart & Soul: March 2005

Sdech Moha Vireak Koun Krork Chen

That person is yet to be born

Unity for our Victory

The Murderous Revolution
Bun Heang Ung's Life with Death in Pol Pot's Kampuchea

'The Murderous Revolution' is the real-life story of Bun Heang Ung and his daily struggle to survive the constant danger, fear, forced labour, disease and starvation, mass executions and the disappearance of family and friends, during the horrific reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. What separates Bun from the majority of his fellow survivors is his ability to recall those indelible and vivid images from his memory and record them onto paper. Bun is an accomplished artist and his drawings provide a unique window and invaluable testimony into those tragic times.

Forced to flee Phnom Penh with his family in 1975, Bun, then a 23 year old university student studying art, headed for his home village, Maesor Prachan, 40 kilometres northeast of the capital in Prey Veng province. Assigned to work units repairing paddies, planting and harvesting rice or building dams, Bun was hospitalised, he witnessed atrocities and executions, purges of Khmer Rouge cadre and the massacre of more than thirty of his own relatives. In 1977 he married Phiny and they survived together until the arrival of the Vietnamese liberators two years later. They returned to Phnom Penh and Bun found work as an animator but wasn't happy. In December 1979, they headed for the Thai border and stayed in the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp before accepted for resettlement in Australia, arriving six months later. Miraculously, all of Bun's immediate family had survived an ordeal lasting nearly four years from which few families emerged unscathed. Phiny wasn't so fortunate. She lost her father, three brothers, two sisters and more than fifty other relatives.

Today, Bun and Phiny are settled in Sydney. They have four children, the eldest at university. He now draws cartoons for feature films and is the political cartoonist for the Far Eastern Economic Review, while Phiny is an ethnic communities liaison officer. They have both returned briefly to Cambodia, where Phiny was the subject of a TV documentary, but they intend to remain in Australia, where they have made new lives for themselves. However, the spectre of those harrowing days is never far away. On a Sydney street one day, they came face to face with the former Khmer Rouge chief of their home village, now a 'respectable' businessman in the same community.

'The Murderous Revolution : Life and Death in Pol Pot's Kampuchea' is available through Orchid Press in Bangkok. Martin Stuart-Fox has written the text, weaving Bun's personal testimony into the national perspective as the Khmer Rouge reign unfolded. Bun produced over 90 black and white drawings for the project, of which 60 were used in the book. It was first published in 1985 and was reprinted in 1986 and again in 1998. Some pictures from the book can be found here, along with other political and caricature drawings from this very talented artist.

- Text quoted from Andy Brouver's Cambodia Tale -

KR - Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - Drawings by Bun Heang Ung

KR - 17th April 1975: The dark stone age of Angkar Loeu

KR - No. 1 The war is over

KR - No. 2 Khmer Republic troops surrender

KR - No. 3 Ordering to leave the city

KR - No. 4 The Evacuation of Phnom Penh

KR - No. 5 On the road from Phnom Penh

Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - (6) Khmer Rouge Check Point

Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - (6a) Map of Democratric Kampuchea

Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - (7) Arrival at Maesar Prachan

Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - (7b) Building a new life

Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - (7a) Map of Maesar Prachan

Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - (7c) The Graves of Khmer Rouge troops

Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - (7d) The Old and The New People

Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - (8) Learning new skills

Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - (8a) Fishing

KR - No. 9 Even eye-contact between borther and sister is forbidden

KR - No. 10 Thumb-printing a marriage certificate

KR - No. 11 The community creche

KR - No. 12 Inside Bun's family quarters

KR - No. 13 September 1976 - all private possessions are confiscated

KR - No. 14 Establishing a new village

KR - No. 15 Communal dining is introduced

KR - No .16 Communal dining first established

KR - No 17 At school in Maesar Prachan

KR - No. 18 After school

KR - No. 19 A new phase of revolutionary development is announced

KR - No 20 The demolition of the Phum Andong pagoda

KR - No 21 Elections in Democratic Kampuchea

KR - No. 22 The third anniversary celebrations in Maesar Prachan

Khmer Rouge and its Evil Revolution - (23) The productibity of day's work

KR - No. 23 Section leaders criticize productivity of the day's work

KR - No. 24 Threshing rice at night

KR - No 26 The mobile brigade builds new living quarters

KR - No. 25 Harvesting at night, in leech-infested paddies

March 18th 1970....to 2003

Cartoon on the Wall, 1970 Phnom Penh By Bun Heang Ung

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Thursday, March 03, 2005

BUN HEANG UNG

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