Laurie Ishii

Unfortunately, the photos I took at the Genocide Museum are pretty lame. They were taken with my camera phone, and you can see the reflection from behind me on most. But just looking at the pictures, you get the idea. Honestly, you probably wouldn’t want to see some of the pictures clearly, in detail. Like the one with a guys face blown off. Or some of the ones with the fried bodies after being electrocuted and killed on these metal beds.

I felt so ignorant when we visited the museum. When I was a student, I hated history… but now I kind of wish I would have paid better attention in school. This stuff is definitely something that we should never forget, like the Holocaust.

The way they people were tortured and executed – it’s hard to believe that human beings could do these kind of things to one another…and the pictures of the children…it was difficult not to break down and cry seeing their faces… I read one of the signs at the museum and it said that the children started out ‘normal’ but ended up being some of the worst killers… I wanted to quote some other things off the pamphlet I got from the museum but I lent it to a friend. I’m watching the movie “The Killing Fields” right now.

I think that out of the whole trip, to Bangkok, going to the bars, seeing prostitutes, lepers on the street, beggars with missing limbs, etc. – I was most affected by Cambodia, and visiting the Genocide Museum, and seeing and meeting people who are still affected by what Pol Pot and the Khmer Communtist Party did to all the people.

We were visiting Hagar, one of the four different ministries we visited while we were in Cambodia, and the man who was showing us around asked me, “You are handicapped?” I had to laugh, but honestly it wasn’t all that funny because I walked trailing behind the group the whole time we went anywhere, and by this time, our 15th day – I was probably limping a bit…I was WIPED, and this guy noticed. His name is Sitha.

We had been so busy visiting different ministries and doing all kinds of group activities (which was awesome, by the way – we saw more in ten days than many see in a lifetime) but I was tired, and just wanted to spend time with, and even, if possible – speak with (if they spoke English) some of the people. I just LOVE people, I love watching, talking to and just hanging out with new people – I don’t have to know them – just making a new friend is the best.

So talking with Sitha was great. I shared with him some of my testimony (why I had so many aches and pains!) and he shared how he used to be suicidal, tried 3 times – because he was so depressed, his brothers and dad wer killed by the Khmer Rouge except he and his mom. It was a bit difficult because his English wasn’t the greatest, but I understood enough to understand that after his suicide attempts he gave his life to Jesus and was now serving God.

We only had a moment to talk because we had to go to another place, but speaking with Sitha was such a blessing to me.

Anyway, as far as I am feeling now – my Pastor said that I was suffering from PMD (Post Ministry Depression) and other people have shared that they went through similar feeling as I have since I got home and it was somewhat comforting to know that I wasn’t a freak. Yesterday I started feeling better and today I feel even better. Thanks for the prayers, I know the condemning thoughts were from the enemy, but the depression was really tripping me out. But thanks to everyone who wrote to encourage me (I don’t have time to write to all of you individually) I really appreciate you a LOT!!!

Khmer Rouge
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Flag of Democratic Kampuchea
The Khmer Rouge (Khmer: Kmae Krɑhɑɑm) was the ruling political party of Cambodia—which it renamed the Democratic Kampuchea—from 1975 to 1979.
The term “Khmer Rouge,” meaning “Red Khmer” in French, was coined by Cambodian head of state Norodom Sihanouk and was later adopted by English speakers. It was used to refer to a succession of Communist parties in Cambodia which evolved into the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and later the Party of Democratic Kampuchea. The organization was also known as the Khmer Communist Party and the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea.
The Khmer Rouge is remembered mainly for the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million people (estimates range from 850,000 to 2 million) under its regime, through execution, starvation and forced labor. Following their leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society—a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. In terms of the number of people killed as a proportion of the population (est. 7.5 million people, as of 1975), it was one of the most lethal regimes of the 20th century. One of their mottos, in reference to the New People, was: “To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss.”
The ideology of the Khmer Rouge evolved over time. In the early days, it was an orthodox communist party and looked to the Vietnamese Communists for guidance. It became more Stalinist and anti-intellectual when groups of students who had been studying in France returned to Cambodia. The students, including future party leader Pol Pot, had been heavily influenced by the example of the French Communist Party (PCF). After 1960, the Khmer Rouge developed its own unique political ideas. For example, contrary to most Marxist doctrine, the Khmer Rouge considered the farmers in the countryside to be the proletariat and the true representatives of the working class. By the 1970s, the ideology of the Khmer Rouge combined its own ideas with the anti-colonialist ideas of the PFC, which its leaders had acquired during their education in French universities in the 1950s. The Khmer Rouge leaders were also privately very resentful of what they saw as the arrogant attitude of the Vietnamese, and were determined to establish a form of communism very different from the Vietnamese model.
After four years of rule, the Khmer Rouge regime was removed from power in 1979 as a result of an invasion by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. It survived into the 1990s as a resistance movement operating in western Cambodia from bases in Thailand. In 1996, following a peace agreement, their leader Pol Pot formally dissolved the organization. Pol Pot died April 15, 1998, having never been put on trial.[1]