Bou Meng
Bou Meng | |
---|---|
ប៊ូ ម៉េង | |
Kampong Cham Province, Cambodia, French Indochina | |
Nationality | Cambodian |
Occupation | Artist[1] |
Known for | Survivor of the Tuol Sleng prison camp |
Spouse | Ma Yoeun[3] |
Bou Meng (Khmer: ប៊ូ ម៉េង, Bu Méng [ɓuː meːŋ]; born 1941[2]) is one of only seven known adult survivors[4] of the Khmer Rouge imprisonment in the S-21 Tuol Sleng camp, where 20,000 Cambodians were tortured and executed.[5] He was arrested with his wife, Ma Yoeun, in 1976 and taken into S-21; they never met again after then. Bou Meng was tortured for weeks,[6] with many kinds of torture devices (electric shock, bamboo sticks, whips, rattans, cart axles, etc.) and he had to fabricate confessions. He was spared from being slaughtered only because he was a highly skilled painter.[7] His wife, according to the records of Tuol Sleng, was tortured and killed on August 16, 1977.[3] His children ended up in a children's center, where they eventually starved to death.[8]
In 2002, he was believed to be dead. In January 2002, Cambodian newspaper
Early life
Bou Meng was born in 1941 into a peasant family. His father's name was Bou Hak, while his mother's name was Lay Kat; the family lived along the
Bou Meng studied at Kor
In 1956, at the age of 15, Bou Meng became a monk. At that time, virtually every Cambodian family had at least a son who had become a monk, and it was a bad thing to not have a monk in one's family. In the meanwhile, he also used to visit a painting shop (named "Special Painting House") where he enjoyed seeing how pictures were made and, in the same shop, he met a few painters. A Chinese painter taught him to draw black and white pictures with a black powder made from petroleum, while another painter who had studied at the Fine Arts University in Phnom Penh taught him to paint "all kinds of pictures".[10]
In 1963, Bou Meng returned to his hometown -
Joining the revolution
On March 18, 1970
Shortly thereafter, an old friend of Bou Meng whose name was Nai and a man whose name was Chhon asked him to join the revolution/
On April 17, 1975 the Khmer Rouge successfully managed to take control of Phnom Penh and the whole country, and everybody celebrated inside the compound where Bou Meng was working. Short thereafter, they were told to travel to Phnom Penh and, on their way, they saw many city dwellers heading towards the opposite direction. Many were sad and some children were crying because they couldn't find their parents. Bou Meng "felt strange about these scenes" and since then he started to realize that he had been cheated by the revolution.[14]
Work in Phnom Penh and captivity in S-21
Every night I looked out at the moon. I heard people crying and sighing around the building.
I heard people calling out, 'Mother, help me! Mother, help me!'
— Bou Meng, Huy Vannak - Bou Meng (2010)[6]
Once in Phnom Penh, Bou Meng was assigned to work inside the State Commercial Office, while his wife Ma Yoeun was assigned to work at a hospital. In 1976, he and his wife were assigned to work at another place, i.e. Rassey Keo Technical School, while their children were sent to a children's center.[15]
Not long thereafter, Bou Meng and his wife were sent to the Ta-Lei cooperative, an agricultural working site where he had to work very hard "from dawn to dusk", the food wasn't enough and he was losing weight day by day. He also found out that Ta-Lei cooperative was a sort of detention center and this shocked him. They couldn't understand what mistake they had committed. He also noticed that people at Ta-Lei gradually disappeared and new people arrived every day. On August 16, 1977 two youths told Bou Meng that he was assigned to teach at the Fine Arts School of Phnom Penh and he was very happy about this, since he didn't have to work in that cooperative anymore. But after they departed, they noticed that it wasn't the right way to the Fine Arts School. They had been taken to a detention center, a building surrounded by
Torture
Bou Meng was interrogated and tortured for weeks with methods like electric shocks, bamboo sticks and whips. Bou Meng once recalled that "they tortured me like an animal" and "my life was so miserable".
Painting propaganda pictures inside S-21
A few weeks after his interrogation started, two youths visited the cells in order to find prisoners who could paint portraits and pictures. Bou Meng told them that he could do the job. But they also warned him that he would be killed if the picture was not lifelike.[20]
Then, Bou Meng was taken to the health clinic of the prison in order to heal his wounds, and he met
Escape from S-21
The Vietnamese were getting closer and closer and, on January 7, 1979 Bou Meng and others were told to line up and they were walked to the exit gate of S-21. Bou Meng was scared, as he thought that his last day had come. They had to walk westward without being given food or water. They also passed
In 1981, Ung Pech, an ex-prisoner of S-21 (and one of only seven known adult survivors) who had become director of the museum, asked Bou Meng to come back to S-21. Bou Meng had never thought about coming back, but he saw it as an opportunity to recount the pain and fear he had suffered, and let both Cambodians and the whole world know about his experiences.[24]
See also
- Cambodian genocide
- Cambodian genocide denial
- Democratic Kampuchea
- Chum Mey
- John Dawson Dewhirst
- Comrade Duch
References
- ^ a b "How two men survived a prison where 12,000 were killed". BBC News. 11 June 2015.
- ^ a b c Huy Vannak (2010), p. 16
- ^ a b "The day I met Bou Meng". 27 June 2011.
- ^ Voices From S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's Secret Prison David Chandler
- ^ "BBC – History – Into the Heart of Darkness: Extracts from a Film Diary". Archived from the original on 2008-05-06. Retrieved 2019-12-20.
- ^ a b Huy Vannak (2010), p. 1
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), pp. 37-43
- ^ a b c Huy Vannak (2010), p. 11
- ^ a b Huy Vannak (2010), p. 18
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), p. 20
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), p. 21
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), p. 22
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), pp. 24-25
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), pp. 29-30
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), pp. 30-32
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), pp. 32-35
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), p. 36
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), p. 41
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), p. 42
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), p. 43
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), p. 44
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), p. 51
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), pp. 50-51
- ^ Huy Vannak (2010), pp. 54-55
Bibliography
- Vannak, Huy (2010). Bou Meng: A Survivor From Khmer Rouge Prison S-21, Justice for the Future Not Just for the Victims. ISBN 978-9995060190.