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Cambodia: People: Sok Hon Sok Hon is 53 years old. She runs a small market in Samrong Tong district. Here she tells her story. Independance Era I was born here in Samrong Tong. Since I was born, I have been through four regimes. The first regime is the Issarak soldier regime (Issarak time is the fight against the French). That is the regime where there were a lot of robbers and thieves, who came into the village of people to rob and to steal a lot of money and property from people and burn down people's houses. I can remember that time. I escaped from the house with my parents and we just kept a small bag of clothes and valuable things in the bag and went to hide ourselves in the rice field. When I was 18 years old I got married and I moved from Samrong Tong district to live with my husband in another district. Find out more about this time Civil War Time Before 1975, life in this other district was normal. Villagers went to the pagoda to offer food to monks, and at New Year the people could play traditional games and popular games, and children ran around this place happily. The farmers just went to the field to cultivate rice and many activities were normal. Find out more about this time Khmer Rouge Time But in 1975 and 1976, the country started to be in a chaotic situation and turmoil and everything had completely changed from normal to abnormal. No more monks lived in the pagoda. People didn't stay in their house. People had to move in separate camps. We had to have lunch together and have limited time to have lunch - at 12 o'clock. I can remember that the ration that the Khmer Rouge had divided was very limited for individual villagers, so we didn't have enough rice to eat, we just had a plate of rice. I can remember during the Khmer Rouge time that we were divided into groups: a men's group, a women's group and a children's group and also the youth group. I was in the women's group. We worked hard in the rice field from day to day. We started at 6am in the morning and we worked for the whole day. We worked in the rice field until 5pm and then came back. So we had short lunch at 12:00, when we came back from the rice field. From 5pm till midnight we went to get our ration. Basically we got porridge, more than rice, to eat. One of my friends in the women's group was taken by the Khmer Rouge for killing, but I didn't see with my own eyes where she was killed or tortured. What I know is that in the night she brought me two potatoes to share with me. Then a lady who was a cook tried to call her out from her house and told her she needed to move to another place because that was the order of the organisation. And in that night she went out and disappeared, forever. Her children waited for their mother but she never came back. I did not look after the children, I just gave the children to another family to look after them, because I wasn't sure if my life would be taken by the Khmer Rouge, like my friend. In my understanding, it seems that the Khmer Rouge wanted to kill all Cambodians and replace us with a new people, a new nationality, but I'm not sure what nationality. If they wanted to help Cambodian people, why didn't they give us enough food and enough rice to eat? We produced a lot of rice and I saw piles of rice after harvest. I think that all the rice was exported to China, or to other countries, but they did not allow us to eat enough. I think the Khmer Rouge are real killers, and real butchers. They're bad people actually. One thing, in that regime, if they didn't kill people I think it also was good, but still those people are bad. I can't talk about that regime. When I start saying it I can't help crying. This regime made me suffer so much because my relatives were killed during that time and I worked hard in the field. We were short of food to eat and we didn't have enough clothes to wear. I feel I suffered a lot in that regime, because my husband, my two children and my mother and other relatives uncountable were killed in that Pol Pot regime. I think the Khmer Rouge people or leader should be brought for trial, to bring justice for my family. Find out more about this time Vietnamese Control When I left this district, there were many wooden houses and good roads and many children and people play around. But when I came back to Samrong Tong in 1979, I just saw this village turned into forest, and some just small, small huts in this forest. Some houses were burned down. I just saw only ashes on the ground. I could see positive things when the Vietnamese came to help the Cambodian people in 1979. They tried to push the Khmer Rouge soldiers away from this village, and then tried to take back the people to live here. In fact they gave very good support and protection to our people. I don't find any big problem or trouble that Vietnamese soldiers have made. Just small things like the soldiers they got drunk and they played with Cambodian children and Cambodian women, but not a big problem. After the country liberation in 1979, in the whole village and the whole district there were only 10 cows left. So people worked in the rice fields in the community. They helped each other and they divided into different groups and they lent cows to one another because they were short of animal labour. Find out more about this time Democracy In 1987 the government started to divide the lands to different villagers and it depended on how many family members in each family. The people were divided in 3 groups: The first one is the strong labour group. They gave 24 hectares to families who had a very strong person working in the family. To the second labour group, the weaker families, not so strong as the first one, they gave 18 hectares. And to the third group they give 13 hectares. Then each family divided the land among themselves. So you can calculate how many members you have got and divide the land accordingly. That is the way they shared the land. I think it was fair and just because people owned land according to how many members they have in each family so the rice production is enough to support the family. The government did not have cows to share to villagers at all. So the people who had money, who had remaining gold, jewellery or diamonds from the Khmer Rouge period, they just bought cows or calves to raise. If we are talking about the organisation, the government structure right now seems like it is functioning well, much better than before. The people's living conditions, most of them are better, not worse like before. Just some families still are very poor and health is the major problem in this whole Samrong Tong district. Like Siep's family. She sold most of her property, like rice fields, cows and many other things for medical treatment for her husband but finally her husband still died. This is one example of the major problem in this community. Find out more about this time Development One help and good support is that the organisation World Vision is working here. It is a very important mechanism that can make this village much improved in the future. Like the roads you see in front of my house here. Last time it was very bad road, but World Vision has constructed and many people can walk through on a smooth road. I can say the most happiness that we have from generation to generation in this Hun Sen regime. We have a lot of freedom. We have a lot of choice. We can do whatever we want. 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