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THE COST OF GAINING FREEDOM: FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

BY KHATH OURNG

An old Cambodian proverb states: “Cool water, fishes gathering;

but hot water drives them away.”

Freedom from confinement or capture is worth risking one’s life. Cambodians escaping from dictatorship, running through war zones, proves this worthy freedom. There is no freedom without sacrifices, just as the phrase in English states: “No pain, no gain.” The pain my people and I have been through is so dear to me that I will never forget it.  But I want to share this story with the world to illustrate that there is no freedom without risking lives, and freedom is worth the risk.

In 1978 when I was fifteen years old, Vietnamese soldiers helped the Khmer Emerging Power to fight the Khmer Rouge and free our people from the bonds of Communism. The war started in Battambang, Cambodia, and it involved two main places: Veay Charb Mountain and the fighting zones.

With Vietnamese soldiers fighting alongside, the Khmer Emerging Power had the upper hand. This combined powerful army defeated and chased the Khmer Rouge out of villages from the Southern border of Cambodia and Vietnam to the Northwest border of Cambodia and Thailand.

Generally speaking, the news of the war was not good, but the fighting gave Cambodian peasants a fresh hope for freedom. For three years, we had been yearning for freedom, life and food. Now was our chance to escape the Communist bonds and grasp onto these deserved and yearned-for elements.

While the Khmer Rouge’s power was shaken by the bullets of the new emerging power, it gave some of us courage to escape from Phnom Cheay Parng village to hide on Veay Charb Mountain, which was about 12 kilometers away. There we joined thousands of other people who had run from their villages.