Monday, 31 March 2008

Cambodia Remembers Dith Pran

Monday, March 31, 2008
By KER MUNTHIT, Associated Press Writer

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Dith Pran, the Cambodian journalist whose harrowing tale of survival was told in the movie "The Killing Fields," helped awaken the world to the Khmer Rouge's atrocities, people in his homeland said Monday.

Dith Pran, 65, died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at a New Jersey hospital, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times whose intertwined story was also told in the 1984 film.

Dith Pran was working as an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, when the Khmer Rouge took power in April 1975. One of the movie's most tense scenes shows him risking his life to help save the Times reporter.

Schanberg was later evacuated from Cambodia with other Westerners, while Dith Pran stayed behind and struggled to survive under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.

The communist group's radical policies while in power in 1975-79 led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people from hunger, disease, overwork and execution. The sites where their bodies were unceremoniously disposed of became known as "killing fields."

While Dith Pran was just one of the millions of people who suffered under the Khmer Rouge, he was "the pioneer" in exposing the group's atrocities, said Chea Vannath, the former director of the nonprofit Center for Social Development.

"What was special about him is that he brought the Khmer Rouge's "killing fields" to the world," she said.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith agreed that Dith Pran "was the one who played a key role for the world to become conscious about the killing fields."

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent center researching the Khmer Rouge's crimes, said it was "a very sad thing" that Dith Pran had died before Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal begins trying detained former Khmer Rouge leaders for their alleged roles in the atrocities.

But Dith Pran "continues to be with us now and in the future for the cause of genocide justice," he said.

Dith Pran managed to escape to Thailand in 1979 after Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia to oust the Khmer Rouge. He was later reunited with his family in the United States, where they had settled as refugees, and he became a photographer for the Times.

Joint panel for disputed temple urged

The Bangkok Post
Monday March 31, 2008

ANUCHA CHAROENPO

VIENTIANE : A joint committee could be set up to manage the area surrounding Preah Vihear temple on the Thai-Cambodian border after the prime ministers of both countries reaffirmed their commitment to solving disagreements regarding contested claims to the temple ruins.

Cambodian is set to propose Preah Vihear as a Unesco World Heritage Site.

Speaking after bilateral talks with Cambodian Premier Hun Sen on the sidelines of the Third Greater Mekong Subregion summit yesterday, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said a joint panel would be set up to try and work out issues surrounding the ancient site.

To speed up the efforts, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An will visit Thailand soon, Mr Samak said.

''We (Thailand and Cambodia) want an easy way out because we have had a good relationship. Why do we have to make the matter more complicated?'' he asked.

Mr Samak stressed that Thailand would not block Cambodia's attempt to list Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site. The area around the temple compound remains on an overlapping zone between the two countries.

The dispute over the temple was discussed by the two countries when Mr Samak paid an official visit to Cambodia.

After his visit, Bangkok agreed not to contest Cambodia's bid to propose the Preah Vihear temple _ but not the surrounding land _ as a World Heritage Site, as some of the surrounding area has not been demarcated yet.

Preah Vihear is on the Cambodian side but the main access to the temple is from the Thai side of the border.

Tributes flow for 'killing field' hero Dith Pran

New York Times photographer Dith Pran, who survived the Cambodian 'killing fields', on assignment in 2006 (file photo) (AFP/Getty Images: Michael Nagle)

Audio: Cambodian photojournalist Dith Pran dies (The World Today)

By Paula Kruger
New York Times
ABC News

His life's story was brought to the world in the award-winning film The Killing Fields, about the brutal Cambodian regime of the Khmer Rouge.

Today, friends and colleagues are paying tribute to photojournalist Dith Pran, who died last night in a New Jersey hospital.

Among those praising his courage and integrity is the former New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg, who still describes Mr Pran as his brother and credits him with saving his life during the Cambodian civil war.

Mr Schanberg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, was driving from New York to New Jersey to be with the family of Mr Pran when he spoke to The World Today.

It was Mr Schanberg's New York Times article "The Death and Life of Dith Pran" that inspired the award-winning film The Killing Fields.

Theirs has been a gripping relationship in both film and real life.

Mr Schanberg says he hired Dith Pran in 1972 as a translator and journalist during the confusion of Cambodia's civil strife.

"He was maybe the smartest reporter that I ever met. He was terrific guy. I mean, he was very, very special and he was also very playful and funny when we were at our free times, and he had this smile," Mr Schanberg said.

"You've probably seen some pictures with his smile. He had a smile that would light up a skyscraper."

But Mr Schanberg said it did not surprise him that Mr Pran was a happy person, despite the scars.

"It seemed appropriate with him because he was taking everything seriously," he said.

"He was just showing that you had to live and move on and do ordinary things in the middle of chaos and insanity - which was the war - and it was a good lesson."

Surviving the Khmer Rouge

Mr Schanberg says his strongest memory of Mr Pran will be the day he saved the lives of three journalists with quick-thinking, fast-talking and a lot of bravado.

Mr Pran managed to get them into the safety of the French embassy in Phnom Penh.

But when the foreign journalists were ordered to leave the country, Mr Pran was exiled to the 'killing fields', the forced labour camps in the Cambodian countryside where he endured four years of starvation and torture.

He eventually managed to escape and made his way to a refugee camp on the border with Thailand. It was there that Mr Schanberg was finally reunited with his friend.

"Pran came around the corner from the long-house and he was wobbling because his legs were weakened," Mr Schanberg said.

"He had suffered from malnutrition and everything. And he had a gap in his teeth. He was really wobbling and he saw me and then he started to run on those wobbly feet.

"Finally, I started to run and he threw himself - just as you saw in the movie - they did that just exactly as it happened.

"He threw his legs around me and we just held each other for what seemed like many minutes and we had a - I asked him if he could forgive me and that's in the film too.

"He just said right away, he said, 'nothing to forgive, nothing to forgive'. We were brothers in Cambodia and we were now brothers again out and that's the way we will stay.

Mr Pran moved to the United States and began working with the New York Times as a photojournalist in 1980.

He was still working with them last year when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

In an interview with the newspaper recorded earlier this month, Mr Pran describes how he wants to be remembered.

"My job want to remember that please, everybody must stop the killing field," he said.

"One time is too many. If they can do that for me, my spirit will be happy."

Mr Pran will be cremated at a Buddhist ceremony in New Jersey later this week.

Vietnam to boost economic cooperation with Cambodia

chinaview.cn
2008-03-31

VIENTIANE, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam and Cambodia have agreed to beef up their cooperation, especially in the fields of oil and gas, electricity, mining, cash crop cultivation, and construction material production.

During the meeting between Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen here Sunday, on the occasion of their attention to the 3rd Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Summit, they have agreed to accelerate Vietnamese-backed projects in Cambodia.

Trade between Vietnam and Cambodia should reach 2 billion U.S. dollars in 2010, said the two prime ministers.

The two sides have also agreed to finish their land border demarcation in 2012 as scheduled, and closely cooperate in dealing with some other issues, including those on using Mekong water resource.

Starting on Sunday, the two-day summit with the theme of "Enhancement of Competitiveness via Greater Connectivity" will focus its discussion on strengthening transport connectivity, boosting cooperation between public and private sectors, implementing sustainable environment management and enhancing cooperation for GMS developments. GMS members include Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and China.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

Regional summit builds connections

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung (left) and other leaders of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) attend the GMS Business and Investment Dialogue yesterday in Laos. — VNA/VNS Photo Duc Tam

31-03-2008


Ha Noi — Leaders from nations of the Greater Mekong Sub-region gathered in the Lao capital of Vientiane yesterday to discuss ways to improve co-operation and develop trade and investment in the region.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung led the Vietnamese delegation to the two-day GMS Summit, entitled Enhancing Competitiveness through Greater Connectivity, which opens today.

The six member nations were expected to discuss and approve the Vientiane Action Plan for 2008-12 while also further discussing ways to boost connectivity in transportation and co-operation between State-owned and private sectors to develop trade and investment in the region.

Upon arriving in Vientiane, Dung first met with Lao President and General Secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party Choumaly Saynhasone, as well as the the Prime Minister of Laos, Bouasone Bouphavanh.

Each expressed satisfaction at the fast-growing development of effective and practical relations in commerce, trade and investment between Laos and Viet Nam, and they pledged to bring two-way trade to US$1 billion by 2010, $2 billion by 2015 and US$5 billion by 2020.

They also agreed to speed up co-operation and investment in hydroelectric projects, mining, cultivation of cash crops and international transportation.

Dung also expressed confidence in the great success of the GMS summit.

"The success will prove the increasing prestige of Laos in the regional and international arena," emphasised Dung.

In reply, Lao leaders reiterated the nation’s policy of great respect in its relations with Viet Nam, considering it a strategic relationship in their path towards socialism.

After their talks, Dung and Bouphavanh witnessed the signing of accords on the construction of hydroelectric projects and insurance.

Hastening Cambodian projects

Dung and his Cambodian counterpart, Hun Sen, have agreed to speed up projects Viet Nam has been carrying out in Cambodia.

At their meeting in Vientiane yesterday on the eve of the GMS Summit, the government leaders agreed to intensify the two countries’ co-operation in order to tap their potentials in such fields as oil and gas, electricity, mining, agriculture and construction materials.

The two leaders said they were determined to bring bilateral trade between Viet Nam and Cambodia to US$2 billion by 2010.

They also noted the work of border demarcation and marker planting, pledging to make efforts to complete the work by 2012, as scheduled.

Dung and Hun Sen agreed to tighten co-ordination with other regional countries in dealing with related issues, including the use of Mekong River water resources, with the aim of ensuring the harmony of interests of related countries and preventing negative effects on the environment and downstream countries.

Hun Sen accepted Dung’s invitation to pay an official visit to Viet Nam in the near future.

ADB support

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is willing to assist Viet Nam in implementing infrastructure projects, build its institutional capacity and create a more favourable investment and business environment.

ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda made the affirmation at a meeting with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in Vientiane yesterday prior to the GMS Summit.

He added that a series of ADB-financed transportation and infrastructure projects in Viet Nam would be launched in the near future, raising the bank’s total funding for Vietnamese projects to billions of US dollars.

Dung said he highly valued ADB assistance to Viet Nam through bilateral development co-operation programmes as well as within the framework of GMS cooperation.

He affirmed that Viet Nam would continue to strengthen its co-operation with the ADB in speeding up the disbursement of funds on projects in Viet Nam and improving their effectiveness.

Dung also asked the ADB to provide Viet Nam with more loans to carry out infrastructure projects, including an expressway from HCM City to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.

GMS plan

Viet Nam supports the drafting of an action plan to accelerate the liberalisation and facilitation of trade and investment among countries of the Greater Mekong Sub-region, Dung told a forum on GMS business and investment held yesterday in Vientiane on the threshold of the GMS Summit opening today.

Dung appreciated the business circle’s recommendations regarding the harmonisation of policies and simplification of trade and investment procedures in order to reduce time and cost for business and trade in the region, thus facilitating regional investment co-operation and improving the region’s competitiveness.

He suggested that regional countries take advantage of the regional road system and work to boost investment, trade, tourism and cultural exchange.

He also stressed the need for a policy to support and boost the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the region.

Dung attended a youth forum yesterday, where he applauded youth suggestions on regional integration process. He especially appreciated their proposals that the leaders of the regional countries help young people contribute more to the development of the region through job creation and the preservation of the region’s cultural diversity.

Transport MoU with China

China and Viet Nam signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) yesterday to include the Nanning-Ha Noi corridor and Youyiguan-Huu Nghi Border Crossing Point in the scope of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Cross – Border Transport Agreement.

The MoU, signed by Chinese Deputy Minister of Communications Weng Mengyong and Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Transport Le Manh Hung, was a bilateral manifestation of the GMS Cross-Border Transport Agreement, ADB vice president Lawrence Greenwood said at the signing ceremony.

The agreement, a multilateral instrument for the facilitation of cross-border transport of goods and people in six countries sharing the Mekong River – Laos, China, Viet Nam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand – formulated under the auspices of the bank’s technical assistance, was aimed to help speed the movement of cargo and passengers in the sub-region by streamlining regulations and eliminationg non-physical barriers, Greenwood said, noting that trade and tourism in China’s southern region and Viet Nam’s northern region had been growing considerably in recent years.

The agreement covers all relevant aspects of cross-border transportation, including one-stop and single-window customs inspections; cross-border movement of people, including visas for persons engaged in transport operations; transit traffic regimes, including exemptions from physical customs inspection, bond deposit, escort, and phytosanitary and veterinary inspection; requirements that road vehicles will have to meet to be eligible for cross-border traffic; exchange of commercial traffic rights; and infrastructure, including road and bridge design standards, and road signs and signals.

The agreement applies to selected and mutually agreed-upon routes and points of entry and exit among the signatory countries.

The GMS summit opening today was expected to accelerate implementation of the East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC) agreement on cross-border transportation in the sub-region.

— VNS

Chinese premier calls on GMS nations to enhance competitiveness

Leaders attend a closed-door meeting of the third summit meeting of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) in Vientiane, captial of Laos, on March 31, 2008. (Xinhua Photo)
March 31, 2008

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Monday that to enhance competitiveness through greater connectivity should be the focus of the future cooperation among countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).

Wen made the remarks when addressing the Third GMS Summit in the Lao capital of Vientiane.

"The theme of this Summit, 'Enhancing Competitiveness through Greater Connectivity,' captures the underlying theme of subregional cooperation and reflects the common desire of the GMS countries," he said.

"It is in keeping with the development trend of the times," Wen added.

He called on the GMS countries, including Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, to make the following efforts to achieve this goal:

-- Treat each other with sincerity and enhance consultation and mutual trust. GMS countries shall forge close ties, increase mutual understanding, and form synergy so as to maintain a stable, harmonious and win-win cooperation environment in the subregion;

-- Step up development of transport, power and communications and make infrastructure in various countries connected to give strong support to efforts to upgrade cooperation in the subregion;

-- Promote both subregional cooperation and domestic development of individual countries, meet demands for human resources, preferential policies, industrial development and financing in a balanced way, and fully exploit the resources both in and outside the subregion, so as to advance cooperation in a well-coordinated manner;

-- Strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection, develop resources in a rational way, and place high priority on environmental protection and energy conservation and pollution control, so as to ensure sustainable development of GMS countries' cooperation.


"I am confident that so long as we are guided by the principle of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, deepen cooperation across the board and at multiple levels, step up coordination and are result-oriented, we will surely advance the subregional cooperation to a higher level and bring more benefits to our peoples," Wen said.

Invited as the guest of Lao Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh, Wen arrived here Saturday evening for a working visit to Laos and participating in the Third GMS Summit.

The GMS, established in 1992, promotes economic and social development, irrigation and cooperation within the six Mekong countries.

The first GMS Summit was held in Cambodia's Phnom Penh in 2002, and the second in southwest China's Kunming in 2005.

Source:Xinhua

Martin aids rape victims

Associated Press
Monday, March 31, 2008

Siem Reap, Cambodia Ricky Martin met with victims of sexual exploitation Saturday during a visit to Cambodia to promote the fight against human trafficking.

Martin held infants and listened to a 14-year-old rape victim's song during his visit to a shelter in the northwestern city of Siem Reap, home of the famed Angkor temples.

"She sings like an angel," Martin said after the girl finished a song she composed about the plight of trafficking victims.

The girl was among 65 victims sheltered at the rescue center of Afesip, a French non-governmental group working to combat human trafficking in Cambodia.

The pop star also held the 3-month-old daughter of a 22-year-old woman who was sold by her father to a brothel and is now HIV-positive. The woman broke down in tears as she urged Martin to keep fighting against human trafficking.

"I'm not going to stop," Martin said, pounding his fist on his knee as he sat on a tiled floor. "All of you are my heroes. You are a gift of my life."

Martin, who arrived in the country Wednesday, met with Interior Minister Sar Kheng and visited various projects run by non-governmental organizations fighting child trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Martin learned of Cambodia's child trafficking problems in February during a three-day U.N. conference in Vienna. He joined Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson, Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak and other dignitaries in calling for action.

In its annual human rights report released recently, the U.S. State Department called Cambodia "a source, destination and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for sexual exploitation and labor."

Still, Martin praised Cambodia as an example of some "solid and concrete" efforts against human trafficking.

"The fact that you have 200 non-governmental groups working in the country working on human trafficking is unheard of," he said.

Dith Pran; Activist Brought Attention to Cambodian Genocide

Dith Pran, center, embraces some of his relatives he has not seen since 1979 at the Site 2 refugee camp in Thailand seen in this Aug. 16, 1989, file photo. Dith Pran's death from pancreatic cancer was confirmed Sunday, March 30, 2008, by journalist Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Pran was 65. (Gray - AP)

By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 31, 2008

Dith Pran, 65, a journalist and human rights advocate who became a public face of the horrors in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and whose life was portrayed in the influential movie "The Killing Fields," died March 30 of pancreatic cancer at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J. He was a resident of Woodbridge, N.J.

For much of the early 1970s, Mr. Dith was a resourceful guide and interpreter in Cambodia for Sydney H. Schanberg of the New York Times, whose reporting on the country's civil war and the rise of the Khmer Rouge won a Pulitzer Prize. Schanberg accepted the award on behalf of himself and Mr. Dith, whom he credited with saving his life.

Schanberg's partnership with Mr. Dith became the basis for "The Killing Fields" (1984), which conveyed in personal terms the brutality of the Khmer Rouge under the despot Pol Pot from 1975 to 1979. Nearly 2 million Cambodians died during those years.

"The Killing Fields" had a major effect on public opinion, said Ben Kiernan, who directs Yale University's Genocide Studies Program. "A mass audience saw the story of what happened in a way that had never been done before, a dramatic and accurate depiction of a horrifying experience for millions of people," he said.

"Pran was one of the major figures in the United States in bringing the issue of justice for Cambodian genocide to public attention, and in pushing the U.S. government to support the accountability of the Khmer Rouge," Kiernan said.

In speeches and lectures, Mr. Dith gave vivid and compelling accounts of the genocide, including the death of more than 50 members of his family. During a famine, he said, he was nearly beaten to death for stealing more than the daily ration of a spoonful of rice. He was told that one of his brothers, who served in the Cambodian army, was thrown to crocodiles.

The Khmer Rouge, which followed a radical communist path of social engineering, tried to remake the country by killing anyone who had political opinions or seemed educated. Mr. Dith spent four years disguising his middle-class background by dressing as a peasant and working in rice fields.

Of the killing fields, or mass graves in the countryside, he once told Schanberg: "In the water wells, the bodies were like soup bones in broth. And you could always tell the killing grounds because the grass grew taller and greener where the bodies were buried."

Peter Cleveland, a foreign affairs expert then working for Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-Va.), said Mr. Dith worked to help influence passage of the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act of 1994.

The act, which Robb sponsored, created the State Department's Office of Cambodian Genocide Investigations, which gathered evidence against Pol Pot and his deputies for crimes against humanity.

Pol Pot died in Thailand in 1998 without answering to an international tribunal. U.N.-backed trials began last year, after years of resistance from Khmer Rouge supporters in China, Thailand and the United States.

The United States had supported the Khmer Rouge because it fought the communist Vietnamese, who invaded Cambodia and occupied it in the 1980s. The Khmer Rouge held Cambodia's seat at the United Nations until the early 1990s.

Mr. Dith founded an organization to collect personal stories about Khmer Rouge crimes and compiled a book of survivors' memories, "Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields" (1997).

"There is no doctor who can heal me," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1991, when Pol Pot was protected in Thailand. "But I know that a man like Pol Pot, he is even sicker than I am. He is crazy in the head, because he believed in killing people. He believed in starving children. We both have the horror in our heads."

Mr. Dith, whose father was a public works official, was born in 1942 in Siem Reap, in northern Cambodia near the ancient temples at Angkor Wat.

He learned French and English, and his language skills brought him work as a translator of Khmer, the Cambodian language, for the U.S. military and visiting film crews. He was a receptionist at a hotel near Angkor Wat when the escalation of the Vietnam War dried up tourism.

The subsequent U.S. bombing of Cambodia, the militarist coup led by Western-backed Cambodian Gen. Lon Nol and an erupting civil war led Mr. Dith, his wife, Meoun Ser, and their four children to flee to the capital city of Phnom Penh.

There, Mr. Dith became a favorite of the visiting press corps. He gained a reputation for adeptness at obtaining hotel rooms and bribing teletype operators to get stories out. He also knew how to bribe officials to win access to parts of the country otherwise closed to reporters.

He formed his closest working relationship with Schanberg, who said he came to regard Mr. Dith as his brother. "He got hooked on this story in the same way I did," Schanberg said. "Cambodia was ignored. The Western press corps was in Saigon. People only came in when things heated up. . . .

"He wanted the story of what was happening to get out," Schanberg said. "People in such a Third World country who are suffering did not know if anyone in the outside world understood what they were going through -- crude Chinese-made rockets landing in hospitals, schoolyards, people's back yards."

Mr. Dith's wife and children were able to leave Cambodia through Schanberg's connections at the U.S. Embassy. At great peril, the two men remained in the capital after the Khmer Rouge entered the city in April 1975.

At one point, bullying Khmer Rouge soldiers robbed Schanberg and two English-speaking colleagues of their equipment and forced them aboard a truck likely bound for their execution.

Schanberg credited Mr. Dith with their survival: Mr. Dith pleaded to board the truck and persuaded the driver that the reporters were French and were there to cover the Khmer Rouge victory with sympathy.

In Phnom Penh, Schanberg was able to obtain safe passage to Thailand through the French Embassy, but Mr. Dith was among the many Cambodians turned away after the Khmer Rouge threatened embassy officials about awarding passports to help locals escape.

He found work in rice fields near his home village. Like others, he was reduced to daily rations of a spoonful of rice plus whatever snails, rats, insects and tree bark he could find. Any excuse was used to beat or execute people, including unauthorized work breaks.

After months of extreme malnourishment, Mr. Dith said, he took a risk one night by sneaking into a rice paddy to steal rice kernels. Two guards caught him and ordered villagers to beat him. He was left bleeding in the rain.

After the Vietnamese invasion, Mr. Dith began searching for his family. Only his mother and one sister had survived. The rest had starved or had been executed.

Seeking refuge in Thailand, he traveled a circuitous route of 60 miles, careful to avoid bands of Khmer Rouge soldiers, unmarked mine fields and other dangers. He was accepted into a refugee camp and was treated for malaria.

The New York Times arranged for his safe passage to New York and trained him to work as a staff photographer, a position he held since 1980,while also assuming a greater role as an activist.

"The Killing Fields," starring Sam Waterston as Schanberg and Haing S. Ngor as Mr. Dith, elevated his name recognition. Ngor, a Cambodian doctor-turned-actor, won an Academy Award for his supporting role. Ngor was killed in a robbery in 1996.

Soon after the film's release, Mr. Dith became a U.S. citizen and goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

"I'm not a politician. I'm not a hero. I'm a messenger," he said. "It's very important that we study genocide because it has happened again and again. We made a mistake because we didn't believe Cambodians would kill Cambodians.

"We didn't believe that one human being would kill another human being. I want you to know that genocide can happen anywhere on this planet. . . . Like one of my heroes, Elie Wiesel, who alerts the world to the horrors of the Jewish holocaust, I try to awaken the world to the holocaust of Cambodia, for all tragedies have universal implications."

His marriages to Meoun Ser Dith and Kim DePaul ended in divorce.

Survivors include four children from the first marriage, Titony Dith of Herndon, Hemkarey Tan of Silver Spring and Titonath Dith and Titonel Dith, both of Lynwood, Wash.; a sister; and eight grandchildren (including one named Sydney).

Rhode Island Cambodians recall Dith Pran

This photo provided by Jane Freiman Schanberg, shows New York Times photographer Dith Pran, left, in his room at Roosevelt Care Center in Edison, N.J., during a visit with Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Friday, March 13, 2008. Dith Pran's death from pancreatic cancer was confirmed Sunday, March 30, 2008, by Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Pran was 65.(AP Photo/Jane Freiman Schanberg) * NO SALES
This photo provided by Jane Freiman Schanberg, shows New York Times photographer Dith Pran in his room at Roosevelt Care Center in Edison, NJ, Friday march 13, 2008. Dith Pran's death from pancreatic cancer was confirmed Sunday, March 30, 2008, by Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Pran was 65.(AP Photo/Jane Freiman Schanberg)

Monday, March 31, 2008
By Karen Lee Ziner and DAVID SCHARFENBERGJournal Staff Writers

PROVIDENCE — Dith Pran’s story, immortalized in the 1984 film The Killing Fields, symbolized that of thousands of Cambodian refugees who now call Rhode Island home. His death from cancer yesterday touched the hearts of people here who believe that if not for Dith, the world might not have recognized their suffering.

Dith, 65, a photographer for The New York Times, was the assistant to Times reporter Sydney Schanberg when Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975.

Schanberg helped Dith’s family escape, but Dith was captured by the Khmer Rouge and disappeared into the Cambodian holocaust. He was not heard from until he fled Cambodia and made his way to a Thai refugee camp four years later.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, thousands of Cambodian refugees were resettled in Providence, Fall River and Lowell, Mass., whose Cambodian communities are among the largest in the country.

Pich Chhoeun, former president of the Cambodian Society of Rhode Island who spent nearly six years in Cambodian refugee camps, said he was delighted when Dith agreed to speak at the society’s New Year celebration several years ago.

“My impression of Dith Pran was that he was a person who was very passionate about the Cambodian community, and he was very committed to share the story of the Cambodian agony and suffering with the rest of the world, as well as the generations after the war,” Chhoeun said.

“Without Dith Pran, I don’t think people would be aware of the Cambodian struggle as much as they have for the last 30 years or so. His life, his story — certainly the movie — I think contributed to allowing people internationally to know what happened in Cambodia.”

Chhoeun said Dith advised him to use his leadership role to both serve and advocate for his community. That included encouraging Cambodians to become citizens and to get involved in the political process by casting their votes.

“I think it’s understandable why he stressed that,” said Chhoeun, “because back home in our country, before and after the war, this whole idea of being able to voice your opinion was not something that you could do without retribution.”

Sovan Chhouk, current president of the Cambodian Society of Rhode Island, said he was “very, very upset” to hear of Pran’s death and described an entire community in mourning.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, The Journal began reporting on the Cambodian refugees’ struggles to assimilate, even as they remained gripped by trauma of war. Many refugees derived spiritual sustenance at a Buddhist temple on Hanover Street in the city’s West End, founded by The Venerable Maha Ghosanada, a monk who was nominated six times for a Nobel Peace prize before his death one year ago.

Dith made numerous visits to Rhode Island to speak on the Cambodian holocaust. In 1990, he received an honorary degree from Rhode Island College. In 2002, he spoke at a cultural event, “The Spirit of Cambodia, a Tribute,” cosponsored by the Rhode Island Foundation, the Rhode Island School of Design and Providence College.

Sina Bieu, a social worker for the Providence School Department, recalled meeting Dith when he came to speak at Butler Hospital in the late 1980s.

“When he came to Rhode Island, he met us and asked, ‘Why don’t you dress up in the Cambodian outfit?’ He wanted us to keep our tradition alive.”

In 1987, Dith expressed his hope that neither the Cambodian holocaust, nor any other, be forgotten, including by pushing to bring the Khmer Rouge before the World Court to find justice for the Cambodian people. He wanted a peaceful solution to his country’s problems.

“Let them help by diplomatic mission, not by gun,” Dith said. “I believe that if something is burning, you have to use water, not gasoline.”

Theanvy Kuoch, executive director of the Khmer Health Advocates, in West Hartford, Conn., in 1992 accompanied a Journal reporter to Cambodia for a series of stories on Cambodians’ return from Thai refugee camps to their homeland.

Kuoch said, “Perhaps what we will remember most about Pran is that despite his great suffering, he never wanted revenge. He understood that violence and war steals man’s ability to understand the suffering of others and that this disconnection can create monsters. He used his story to reach out to the compassion of others and to desperately try to melt the pain of the young generation of Cambodians who are the true victims of events for which they have no memories.”

Sokvann Sam, a longtime advocate for the Cambodian community, said, “Many of us feel he was a big part of that process for justice for all of us who were the victims of the Khmer Rouge. He was one of the strong advocates to try to bring the Khmer Rouge to justice.” To date, that has not happened.

“Many of us who have known him, we just kind of prayed for his health and hoping he would survive, but the disease was too profound and he could not be saved.” Sam added, “Without his story, the world would not know who we are.”

Sacravatoons : " Dith Pran "

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Dith Pran: The Last Word



New York Times photographer Dith Pran survived the Cambodian killing fields. He dedicated his life to telling the story of the Khmer Rouge's genocide.

Dith Pran Was Witness To Holocaust In Cambodia

By RICHARD PYLE
The Associated Press
Published: March 31, 2008

NEW YORK - Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died Sunday. He was 65.

Dith died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times.

Dith was working as an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, when the Vietnam War reached its chaotic end in April 1975 and both countries were taken over by communist forces.

Schanberg helped Dith's family get out, but was forced to leave his friend behind after the capital fell; they were not reunited until Dith escaped 4 1/2 years later. Eventually, Dith resettled in the United States and went to work as a photographer for the Times.

It was Dith who coined the term "killing fields" for the horrifying clusters of corpses and skeletal remains of victims he encountered on his desperate journey to freedom.

The regime of Pol Pot and his communist zealots was blamed for the deaths of nearly 2 million of Cambodia's 7 million people.

After Dith moved to the United States, he worked for The New York Times, and became a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and founded the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, dedicated to educating people on the history of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Dith Pran was born Sept. 27, 1942, at Siem Reap. Educated in French and English, he worked as an interpreter for U.S. officials in Phnom Penh.

After Cambodia's leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, broke off relations with the United States in 1965, Dith worked at other jobs. When Cambodian troops went to war with the Khmer Rouge in 1970, Dith returned to Phnom Penh and worked as an interpreter for Times reporters. He and Schanberg met in 1972.

After Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia in 1979 and seized control of territory, Dith escaped from a commune near Siem Reap and trekked 40 miles, dodging both Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces, to reach a border refugee camp in Thailand.

From the Thai camp he sent a message to Schanberg, who rushed from the United States for an emotional reunion with the friend he felt he had abandoned.

'THE KILLING FIELDS'

•Sydney Schanberg, a New York Times reporter who worked with Dith Pran in Cambodia, described Dith's ordeal and salvation in a 1980 magazine article titled "The Death and Life of Dith Pran."

•Later a book, the magazine article became the basis for "The Killing Fields," the highly successful 1984 British film starring Sam Waterston as the Times correspondent and Haing S. Ngor, another Cambodian escapee from the Khmer Rouge, as Dith Pran.

•The film won three Oscars, including the best supporting actor award to Ngor.

•Schanberg's reporting from Phnom Penh had earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

Source: The Associated Press

Vietnam supports GMS plan on trade-investment facilitation

March 31, 2008

Vietnam supports the building of a plan of action to accelerate the liberalisation and facilitation of trade and investment among countries of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung made the statement at a forum on GMS business and investment, which was held on March 30 on the threshold of the third GMS Summit slated to open in Vientiane on March 31.

PM Dung appreciated the business circle’s recommendations regarding the harmonisation of policies and simplification of trade and investment procedures in order to reduce time and cost for business and trade activities in the region, thus facilitating the regional investment co-operation and improving the region’s competitiveness.

He suggested that regional countries take advantage of the regional road system and work to boost investment, trade, tourism and cultural exchange.

He also stressed the need of a policy to support and boost the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in the region.

The same day, PM Dung attended a forum of GMS youth.

At the forum, PM Dung applauded the youth’s suggestions on the regional integration process. He especially appreciated their proposals that the leaders of the regional countries help young people contribute more to the development of the region through job creation and the preservation of the region’s cultural diversity.

PM Dung and his delegation arrived in Vientiane on March 30 for the third GMS Summit.
(VNA)

Prime Minister meets Lao leaders in Vientiane

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung met with President and the Prime Minister of Laos on March 30, after arriving in Vientiane to attend the third Greater Mekong Sub-region summit.

During their meetings, PM Dung and President Choumaly Saynhasone who is also General Secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party and Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh all expressed satisfaction at the recent fast-growing development of effective and practical relations in economy, trade and investment between the two nations.

They pledged to bring two-way trade revenues to US $1 billion by 2010, US $2 billion by 2015 and US $5 billion by 2020.

They agreed to speed up co-operation and investment projects in hydro-electricity, mining, industrial crops cultivation and trans-national transport.

PM Dung expressed strong belief in the great success of the GMS summit.

“The success will prove the increasing prestige of Laos in the regional and international arena,” emphasised the Vietnamese Government leader.

In reply, Lao leaders reiterated the nation’s policy of high respect to relations with Vietnam , considering it a strategic relationship on their path towards Socialism.

After their talks, PM Dung and his Lao counterpart, Bouasone Bouphavanh, witnessed the signing of several accords on hydro-power plant construction and insurance.

(VNA)

Vietnam agrees to speed up projects in Cambodia

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen have agreed to speed up the projects Vietnam has been carrying out in Cambodia .

At their meeting in Vientiane on March 30 on the eve of the third Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Summit, the two government leaders agreed to enhance the two countries’ co-operation to tap their potentials, particularly in the fields of oil and gas, electricity, mining, industrial crops and construction material in Cambodia.

The two PMs said they were determined to bring bilateral trade to US $2 billion by 2010.

They also appreciated the work of border demarcation and landmark plantation, pledging to make efforts to complete the work by 2012 as scheduled.

Regarding the co-operation between GMS countries, the two PMs agreed to tighten the co-ordination between the two countries and with other regional countries in dealing with related issues, including the use of the Mekong ’s water resource, with the aim of ensuring the harmony in interests of related countries and preventing negative effects on the general environment and the downstream countries.

PM Hun Sen accepted PM Dung’s invitation to pay an official visit to Vietnam in the near future.

(VNA)

Vietnam and China sign cross-border transport deal

Vietnam and China have agreed to include the Hanoi-Naning corridor and the Huu Nghi Quan border gate into the framework of a Greater Mekong Sub-Region (GMS) agreement on cross-border transport.

The Memorandum of Understanding to this effect was signed in Vientiane, Laos, on March 30, in the presence of Vice President Lawrence Greenwood of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The GMS deal, which received technical support from the ADB, aims to facilitate the transport of cargos and passengers across the borders of six countries along the Mekong river, including Cambodia, China, Laos , Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

(VNA)

THE KILLING FIELDS

In the Memory of Doctor Hang Ngor and Dith Pran

'Killing Fields' survivor dies of cancer"

Radio New Zealand news
31 Mar 2008

Photojournalist Dith Pran, whose harrowing survival of genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge was dramatised in the film "The Killing Fields," died on Sunday. He was 65.

He died of pancreatic cancer at a hospital in New Jersey in the United States.

Dith, who used his fame to draw attention to his country's plight, spent the last weeks of his life in the hospital surrounded by family and friends.

Among them was Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sydney Schanberg, who worked with him for The New York Times during the Cambodian civil war and recalled him as a dogged journalist who was "always doing good deeds for people in the Buddhist tradition."

Best known for his depiction in the 1984 film The Killing Fields, Dith worked in Cambodia as a translator and journalist assisting Schanberg, who credits Dith with saving his life when they were arrested by the Khmer Rouge.

Dith was portrayed in The Killing Fields by Dr Haing Ngor, another survivor of Cambodia's genocide, who won an Academy Award for his role.

Forced into a labor camp when the radical Communists seized control of his homeland in 1975, Dith endured four years of starvation and torture. He lost more than 50 relatives to the Khmer Rouge, including his father, three brothers, a sister and their families.

They were among 1.7 million people who were executed or died of torture, disease or starvation under Pol Pot's 1975-1979 reign of terror as his dream of creating an agrarian peasant utopia turned into the Killing Fields nightmare.

After fleeing to Thailand in 1979, Dith moved to the US and worked as a photojournalist for The New York Times.

He also dedicated himself to speaking out against the Cambodian genocide and ran the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project to educate American students about Cambodia's dark period. He was appointed a goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 1985.

Dith campaigned to bring the Khmer Rouge to trial for genocide. After nearly a decade of delays and drawn-out talks with the UN, trials began in earnest last year with charges against senior members of Pol Pot's regime.

"Part of my life is saving life," Dith said on a website devoted to raising awareness about the genocide in Cambodia. "I don't consider myself a politician or a hero. I'm a messenger. If Cambodia is to survive, she needs many voices."

Dith is survived by his companion, Bette Parslow, a daughter and three sons.

`Killing Fields' Survivor Dith Pran Dies

New York Times photographer Dith Pran, sits with his wife Ser Moeun on the lawn outside the Beverly Hills Hotel, in this Tuesday, March 26, 1985, file photo in Beverly Hills, Calif. Dith Pran's death from pancreatic cancer was confirmed Sunday, March 30, 2008, by journalist Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Pran was 65. (AP Photo/Lennox McLendon) (AP)


Cambodian `Killing Fields' Survivor Dith Pran, Former New York Times Photographer, Dies

By RICHARD PYLE
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK Mar 30, 2008 (AP)

Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died Sunday, his former colleague said.

Dith, 65, died at a New Jersey hospital Sunday morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Dith had been diagnosed almost three months ago.

Dith was working as an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, when the Vietnam War reached its chaotic end in April 1975 and both countries were taken over by Communist forces.

Schanberg helped Dith's family get out but was forced to leave his friend behind after the capital fell; they were not reunited until Dith escaped four and a half years later. Eventually, Dith resettled in the United States and went to work as a photographer for the Times.

It was Dith himself who coined the term "killing fields" for the horrifying clusters of corpses and skeletal remains of victims he encountered on his desperate journey to freedom.

The regime of Pol Pot, bent on turning Cambodia back into a strictly agrarian society, and his Communist zealots were blamed for the deaths of nearly 2 million of Cambodia's 7 million people.
"That was the phrase he used from the very first day, during our wondrous reunion in the refugee camp," Schanberg said later.

With thousands being executed simply for manifesting signs of intellect or Western influence — even wearing glasses or wristwatches — Dith survived by masquerading as an uneducated peasant, toiling in the fields and subsisting on as little as a mouthful of rice a day, and whatever small animals he could catch.

After Dith moved to the U.S., he became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and founded the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, dedicated to educating people on the history of the Khmer Rouge regime.

He was "the most patriotic American photographer I've ever met, always talking about how he loves America," said AP photographer Paul Sakuma, who knew Dith through their work with the Asian American Journalists Association

Schanberg described Dith's ordeal and salvation in a 1980 magazine article titled "The Death and Life of Dith Pran." Schanberg's reporting from Phnom Penh had earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

Later a book, the magazine article became the basis for "The Killing Fields," the highly successful 1984 British film starring Sam Waterston as the Times correspondent and Haing S. Ngor, another Cambodian escapee from the Khmer Rouge, as Dith Pran.

The film won three Oscars, including the best supporting actor award to Ngor. Ngor, a physician, was shot to death in 1996 during a robbery outside his Los Angeles home. Three Asian gang members were convicted of the crime.

"Pran was a true reporter, a fighter for the truth and for his people," Schanberg said. "When cancer struck, he fought for his life again. And he did it with the same Buddhist calm and courage and positive spirit that made my brother so special."

Dith spoke of his illness in a March interview with The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., saying he was determined to fight against the odds and urging others to get tested for cancer.

"I want to save lives, including my own, but Cambodians believe we just rent this body," he said. "It is just a house for the spirit, and if the house is full of termites, it is time to leave."

Dith Pran was born Sept. 27, 1942 at Siem Reap, site of the famed 12th century ruins of Angkor Wat. Educated in French and English, he worked as an interpreter for U.S. officials in Phnom Penh. As with many Asians, the family name, Dith, came first, but he was known by his given name, Pran.

After Cambodia's leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, broke off relations with the United States in 1965, Dith worked at other jobs. When Sihanouk was deposed in a 1970 coup and Cambodian troops went to war with the Khmer Rouge, Dith returned to Phom Penh and worked as an interpreter for Times reporters.

In 1972, he and Schanberg, then newly arrived, were the first journalists to discover the devastation of a U.S. bombing attack on Neak Leung, a vital river crossing on the highway linking Phnom Penh with eastern Cambodia.

Dith recalled in a 2003 article for the Times what it was like to watch U.S. planes attacking enemy targets.

"If you didn't think about the danger, it looked like a performance," he said. "It was beautiful, like fireworks. War is beautiful if you don't get killed. But because you know it's going to kill, it's no longer beautiful."

After Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia in 1979 and seized control of territory, Dith escaped from a commune near Siem Reap and trekked 40 miles, dodging both Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces, to reach a border refugee camp in Thailand.

From the Thai camp he sent a message to Schanberg, who rushed from the United States for an emotional reunion with the trusted friend he felt he had abandoned four years earlier.

"I had searched for four years for any scrap of information about Pran," Schanberg said. "I was losing hope. His emergence in October 1979 felt like an actual miracle for me. It restored my life."

After Dith moved to the U.S., the Times hired him and put him in the photo department as a trainee. The veteran staffers "took him under their wing and taught him how to survive on the streets of New York as a photographer, how to see things," said Times photographer Marilynn Yee.

Yee recalled an incident early in Dith's new career as a photojournalist when, after working the 4 p.m. to midnight shift, he was robbed at gunpoint of all his camera equipment at the back door of his apartment.

"He survived everything in Cambodia and he survived that too," she said, adding, "He never had to work the night shift again."

Dith spoke and wrote often about his wartime experience and remained an outspoken critic of the Khmer Rouge regime.

When Pol Pot died in 1998, Dith said he was saddened that the dictator was never held accountable for the genocide.

"The Jewish people's search for justice did not end with the death of Hitler and the Cambodian people's search for justice doesn't end with Pol Pot," he said.

Dith's survivors include his companion, Bette Parslow; his former wife, Meoun Ser Dith; a sister, Samproeuth Dith Nop; sons Titony, Titonath and Titonel; daughter Hemkarey Dith Tan; six grandchildren including a boy named Sydney; and two step-grandchildren.
Dith's three brothers were killed by the Khmer Rouge.
———
AP News Research Center contributed to this report.

Dith Pran, Killing Fields survivor, dead at 65

by Frank James

One of the most haunting movies many of us have ever watched was "The Killing Fields," the story of the Cambodian genocide as witnessed by photojournalist Dith Pran who survived those hellish years to work for the New York Times.

That movie was so powerful and painful it stayed with many of us for nearly a quarter of a century.

And that meant that in an almost mystical way, Dith was with us too, even with those of us who never had the opportunity to meet him.

Word comes today that Dith has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 65. So he no longer walks among the living.

It is sad that he is gone. But at least we are comforted by knowing that his death came not at the hands of the murderous Khmer Rouge but of nature's killing field.

There is some satisfaction that in surviving some of the worst human evil imaginable, he was able to continue his career as a journalist and to raise awareness about genocide.

Over the years, there was always a special fascination for many of us when we saw a photo in the NYT that Dith had taken. It could be a picture of something relatively run of the mill, of a person in a Times profile, or of some everyday event.

But the fact that it was a Dith photo, that you were seeing something through Dith's eyes, a man who once walked among the dead, was once given up for dead himself, always made any photo of his something noteworthy, at least to me.

Dith may be gone now, but he is still with us. We have his photos. And we will always carry with us his remarkable story, as told by "The Killing Fields."

Dith Pran, who survived torture in Cambodia, is dead

Actor Sam Waterston , Dith Pran and Sydney Schanberg. Waterson portrayed Sydney Schanberg in "The Killing Fields"


Matt Rainey/The Star-LedgerDith Pran in his room at Roosevelt Care Center in Edison NJ on 3/14/08


by Judy Peet/The Star-Ledger
Sunday March 30, 2008, 8:31 AM

Humanitarian and photojournalist Dith Pran, whose story was the basis for the Academy-Award-winning movie, "The Killing Fields," died early this morning at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick. He was 65.

Former New York Times reporter and colleague Sydney Schanberg, who insisted on sharing his 1976 Pulitzer Prize for covering the war in Cambodia with Mr. Pran, confirmed the death.

Once called a survivor "in the Darwinian sense," Mr. Pran spent 30 years educating the world about the holocaust in Cambodia under communist dictator Pol Pot. In recent weeks, however -- since he was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer, he used his celebrity to warn about the necessity of early cancer detection.

"This is a sneaky disease and I didn't pay attention to the symptoms until it was too late," said Mr. Pran in a recent Star-Ledger interview. "Learn from me. I am not afraid to die, but I hate to see a life wasted."

Born near the religious center of Cambodia at Angkor Wat on Sept. 27, 1942, Mr. Pran grew up to see his country destroyed by genocide.

His father was a senior public-works official. Mr. Pran, his three brothers and two sisters were raised in a comfortable, middle-class environment, speaking English and Khmer, the Cambodian language, at home and French in school.

He became an interpreter, first for U.S. military advisers, then film crews and foreign journalists. In 1975, he was assistant to Schanberg, a Times correspondent, when the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, the China-supported communist insurgents.

Mr. Pran managed to get his wife and four children on the last helicopter out of the country, but stayed behind to help Schanberg, who refused to leave. According to Schanberg's 1980 account, Mr. Pran saved the lives of Schanberg and two other journalists when they were arrested by the Khmer Rouge and held for execution.

Schanberg and the other foreigners were eventually granted safe conduct to Thailand. Mr. Pran was exiled to a labor camp. He spent more than four years in conditions that killed more than 1.5 million people -- nearly a third of his country inhabitants, including Mr. Pran's father, brothers, sister and 30 other close relatives.

He finally escaped by walking to Thailand in October 1979.

DIth Pran is one of Khmer heroes and may he Rest in Peace.

New York Times photographer Dith Pran relaxes in his room at Roosevelt Care Center, in Edison, N.J., Friday, March 14, 2008. Dith Pran's death from pancreatic cancer was confirmed Sunday, March 30, 2008, by Sideny Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Pran was 65.(AP Photo/The Star-Ledger, Matt Rainey)


The New York Times photographer Dith Pran is shown in this handout photo taken on March 29, 2004. Dith, whose harrowing experiences in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge were dramatized in the film "the Killing Fields", died on March 30, 2008 at the age of 65. REUTERS/The New York Times/Handout (UNITED STATES). NO SALES. NO ARCHIVES. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.


This undated file photo shows Haing Ngor in a scene from the Academy Award winning movie "The Killing Fields," playing Dith Pran. Dith, a survivor of the Cambodian genocide whose experiences were adapted into the award-winning movie, has died at the age of 65.(AFP/File)

Photojournalist Dith Pran (R), embraces Wathana Sarun, nephew of slain academy award-winning actor Dr. Haing S. Ngor, following a funeral servcice for Ngor in Los Angeles, California, in 1996. Dith, a survivor of the Cambodian genocide whose experiences were adapted into the award-winning movie "The Killing Fields," has died at the age of 65.(AFP/File/Kim Kulish)

New York Times photographer Dith Pran, poses for a photo with his wife Ser Moeun at the Beverly Hills Hotel, in this Tuesday, March 26, 1985, file photo in Beverly Hills, Calif. Dith Pran's death from pancreatic cancer was confirmed Sunday, March 30, 2008, by Sideny Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Pran was 65.(AP Photo/Lennox McLendon, File)

Photojournalist Dith Pran, smiles during his assignment in New York in this file photo taken in 1980. Pran, whose harrowing experiences in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge were dramatized in the film "The Killing Fields," died on Sunday at the age of 65. He died of pancreatic cancer at a New Brunswick, New Jersey, hospital, The New York Times said on its Web site. REUTERS/The New York Times/Handout (UNITED STATES). NO SALES. NO ARCHIVES. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS.

Photojournalist Dith Pran, speaks at a meeting of the National Cambodia Crisis Committee at the White House as First Lady Rosalynn Carter (3rd R), wife of President Jimmy Carter, looks on in this January 29, 1980 file photo. Pran, whose harrowing experiences in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge were dramatized in the film 'The Killing Fields,' died on Sunday at the age of 65. He died of pancreatic cancer at a New Brunswick, New Jersey, hospital, The New York Times said on its Web site.(The New York Times/Handout/Reuters)


First lady Rosalynn Carter introduces Dith Pran at a meeting of the National Cambodia Crisis Committee, in this Tuesday, Jan. 29, 1980 file photo, at the White House. Dith Pran's death from pancreatic cancer was confirmed Sunday, March 30, 2008, by journalist Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at The New York Times. Pran was 65.(AP Photo/Barry Thumma)



Vietnam to boost economic cooperation with Cambodia

chinaview.cn
2008-03-30

VIENTIANE, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam and Cambodia have agreed to beef up their cooperation, especially in the fields of oil and gas, electricity, mining, cash crop cultivation, and construction material production.

During the meeting between Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen here Sunday, on the occasion of their attention to the 3rd Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Summit, they have agreed to accelerate Vietnamese-backed projects in Cambodia.

Trade between Vietnam and Cambodia should reach 2 billion U.S. dollars in 2010, said the two prime ministers.

The two sides have also agreed to finish their land border demarcation in 2012 as scheduled, and closely cooperate in dealing with some other issues, including those on using Mekong water resource.

Starting on Sunday, the two-day summit with the theme of "Enhancement of Competitiveness via Greater Connectivity" will focus its discussion on strengthening transport connectivity, boosting cooperation between public and private sectors, implementing sustainable environment management and enhancing cooperation for GMS developments. GMS members include Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and China.

Editor: Mu Xuequan

Sacravatoons : " Inflation "

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Politiktoons : " Meditation in Tibet ,2008 "

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The commemoration ceremony for the victims of the 30 March 1997 grenade attack

Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy addresses people at a stupa during the 11th anniversary of the March 30,1997 grenade attacks, in Phnom Penh March 30, 2008. Rainsy called for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to renew its probe into a grenade attack that killed at least 16 people more than a decade ago. The former finance minister addressed supporters outside Cambodia's parliament, where 11 years ago four grenades were hurled into a crowd of anti-government protesters, wounding at least 120 people.REUTERS/Khem Sovandara (CAMBODIA)


Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy addresses people in front of portraits of the March 30,1997 grenade attack victims at a stupa during the 11th anniversary of the attacks, in Phnom Penh March 30, 2008. Rainsy called for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to renew its probe into a grenade attack that killed at least 16 people more than a decade ago. The former finance minister addressed supporters outside Cambodia's parliament, where 11 years ago four grenades were hurled into a crowd of anti-government protesters, wounding at least 120 people.REUTERS/Khem Sovandara (CAMBODIA)


Beautiful of Angkor Wat at sunrise

Tourists talk as they wait to take pictures of sunrise in front of the famed Angkor Wat temple in Siem Reap province in northwestern Cambodia, Sunday, March 30, 2008.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Tourists wait to take picture of sunrise in front of the famed Angkor Wat temple in Siem Reap province in northwestern Cambodia, Sunday, March 30, 2008.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Sunday, 30 March 2008

Mekong youths show vivid ideas, strong responsibility

chinaview.cn
2008-03-30

By Huang Haimin Bui Minhlong

VIENTIANE, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of simple paintings mostly featuring water, trees and wild animals, and colorful photos glorifying landscapes and daily life by children were luring viewers outside, while 37 youths from six Mekong countries were making recommendations for their countries' experienced leaders inside the conference room.

The 37 boys and girls, including six from Laos, China, Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand each and seven from Cambodia, are especially chosen for the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Youth Forum in the capital city to put forth practical and feasible solutions to the prime ministers of the six nations in the form of a collective message.

"We're discussing a 3-C approach, namely connectivity, competitiveness and community for better future of the GMS. We're asking our nations' leaders to center on such issues as fostering the sub-region's physical connectivity, expanding access to modern information and communications technology and healthcare services, especially for youths in rural and remote areas, and empowering young people by creating more education, training and employment opportunities," a Chinese girl named Fang Min told Xinhua.

"We're also asking our leaders to consider more policies to better protect our environment, support and promote traditional cultural values and identities, as well as maintain and protect cultural diversities," said the 27-year-old girl, who is studying laws in Shanghai after four years of working as a reporter in the Chinese biggest city.

Another forum delegate, Nguyen Ngoc Quynh from Vietnam, echoed Fang's statement, saying that she wants the leaders to pay more attention to youths' aspirations, giving them more assistance in various spheres.

"Youths are not only the future, but also the present, because they have already played an important role in both public and private sectors", said the 25-year-old girl, who is working for the State Bank of Vietnam.

The 37 youths started on March 22 their five-day journeys on three caravan trips along the GMS's North-South, East-West, and Southern economic corridors, experiencing firsthand "the 3 Cs" of connectivity, competitiveness, and community, before their Sundaymeeting with GMS leaders in Vientiane.

The leaders walked past the painting and photo exhibitions christened "My World, My Home" and "My Mekong", beautified with cleverly-connected bunches of fresh flowers to meet the 37, who and their peers in the sub-region are expected to become policy-makers or law-makers.

"The youth of the sub-region are the well-spring of our future leaders, decision-makers and workers. They will carry on the responsibility of nurturing to greater heights the sense of unity, shared interests, and common destiny that we have painstakingly built block by block over the past years. We are looking forward to see these young people become future leaders and productive citizens with a strong sense of sub-regional community," Lao Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh said at the meeting of the GMS leaders and Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Haruhiko Kurodawith the GMS youths.

During the two-day 3rd GMS Summit in Vientiane from March 30-31,GMS leaders and representatives from international organizations like the ADB are to touch upon connectivity and competitiveness issues such as the establishment of transport corridors, power interconnection systems and telecommunications networks, improvement of infrastructure links, and measures to facilitate the cross-border movement of goods and services.

The six countries sharing the Mekong River in 1992 kicked off their GMS Program which involves planning and implementing sub-regional projects in nine areas: transport, energy, telecommunications, tourism, environment, human resource development, agriculture, trade facilitation, and private investment.

Editor: An Lu

Panel discusses Cambodian genocide

ASSOCIATED PRESS
03/30/2008

LONG BEACH -- The Cambodian genocide that claimed 1.7 million lives a generation ago continues to cast a shadow on both survivors and their American-born children, panelists said Saturday.

About 100 people attended a day-long workshop at Cal State Long Beach that aimed to discuss the effects of the 1975-79 slaughter under the Khmer Rouge. Nearly a quarter of the population died from disease, overwork, starvation and execution in the notorious "killing fields."

The workshop was one of the first U.S. events to target Cambodian-Americans and solicit their participation in an international war crimes tribunal under way in their homeland.

Panels of experts discussed psychological and other aspects of the genocide.

Lakhena Nget, 24, was on a youth panel. A child of Cambodian refugees, the Cal State Long Beach junior said she only learned of her parents' past in high school, when she interviewed them as part of a history project.

Nget said she grew up in an American culture and didn't understand her parents. Cambodian culture had called for them not to express their emotions over their experiences, she said.

She learned that her grandparents starved to death, several uncles with government ties were executed, and her father was imprisoned for suspicion of being in the despised educated class.
Her mother walked to a refugee camp, carrying her children.

"It broke my heart," Nget said.

Nget said the genocide can affect generations of Cambodian-Americans who know nothing about it, Nget said.

Parents haunted by their experiences may drink or find other ways of dulling their pain, or their perceived coldness may leave their children disaffected.

"I see how the pain and the struggles are still perpetuated in the community," Nget said.

"There's a lot of young people that do not do well in school. They join gangs. ... I believe that a lot of it comes from broken communication in the home."

One of the workshop organizers was Leakhena Nou, a Cambodian-American and sociology professor at Cal State Long Beach.

Before the workshop, she said many survivors are still afraid to get involved in the tribunal by sharing their stories. Organizers urged attendees to apply for formal victim and civil party status and volunteer as translators or witnesses.

Life on the Lake exhibit part of Eyes Wide Open Worldwide project

By Samantha Sommer
Staff Writer

Sunday, March 30, 2008

SPRINGFIELD — Living on a lake is unlike anything most Americans will ever experience but it's daily life for some Cambodians.

"It was like nothing I've ever seen ... It's hard to actually put into words," said Ty Fischer, executive director of Eyes Wide Open Worldwide.

Fischer and his children's photography program went to Cambodia for the second time last fall for a photo festival and to work with nine children there.

He went to the Tonle Sap region, where more than 170 villages float on a large lake.

The children aged 6 to 17 photographed their daily lives on the water and their work will be exhibited at Wittenberg University.

The multimedia Life on the Lake exhibit will be from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. April 11 and 12 at the Shouvlin Center.

Most of the children had never seen a camera.

"Their images, they're simple but there's so much detail inside of them," Fischer said.

Prints also are available for tax-deductible donations online at eyeswideopenworldwide.org.

The money raised likely will go to two Cambodian charities, Green Gecko and Gecko Environmental.

Last year's exhibit raised about $1,300, which Fischer said is about four years income in Cambodia.

He hopes the project gave the children an opportunity to learn what they are capable of and the chance to have fun.

The exhibit is the first time Eyes Wide Open has worked with Wittenberg University.

Fischer wanted to try a new venue, and offer an activity to bring the students and community together.

Eyes Wide Open has a full plate this year. A Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit will be at the Contact Photography Festival in Toronto in May and at the Westcott House here in June,

Projects with Casa Amiga and the Yellow Springs Kids Playhouse also are in the works.

"I want them to see that children have the capability to express and create," he said.

A HAPPY HEART

Patient care service aid Maribeth Santos takes a look at Davik Teng's scar with her mother, Sin Chhon, four days after open-heart surgery to repair a VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect).Check out 'Davik's Heart' A Multimedia Presentation click here (Jeff Gritchen / Press-Telegram)


Davik leaves hospital to start new life

By Greg Mellen Staff Writer
03/29/2008

LOS ANGELES - The ear-to-ear smile on the face of Davik Teng nearly matched one etched deep in her newly repaired heart.

As Davik was being wheeled Friday from the hospital where she had surgery four days earlier, patient aide Maribeth Santos cheerily chanted, "Say, bye bye, Childrens Hospital, bye bye."

Unseen was a small Dacron patch with a good luck symbol sewn into the 9-year-old's heart to seal a defect she had struggled with since birth.

After Dr. Vaughn Starnes, the world-class surgeon who performed the open heart surgery, cut out the patch for the heart, he sketched a little smiley face with a bit of blood from his scalpel.

Starnes said it was something he always does in such operations.

Just a day after being patched up, literally, Davik could barely contain her giddiness. Davik and her mother, Sin Chhon, smiled and bowed repeatedly to Santos.

Then they piled into the back seat of a friend's car for the drive to Long Beach and the start of a new life.

Davik will recuperate in Long Beach and undergo further checkups before she is pronounced completely fit. For the moment, doctors are optimistic.

"Honestly, Davik has done better than any of us expected," said Dr. Mark Sklansky, the lead cardiologist in Davik's case.

In just over a month, Davik has gone from a girl with little hope but to die young in a remote village in Cambodia, to a child with a surgically repaired heart and the support of an entire community far from home.

Davik was born with a hole in her heart, known as a ventricular septal defect. For nine years she suffered from fatigue, shortness of breath and other maladies.

At night she would moan and cry while her forlorn mother sat helplessly and hopelessly by. Sin had tried over the years to get doctors to help her daughter but had failed. She had resigned herself to a lifetime of watching her child suffer, never knowing when the last tortured breath would come.

When Davik met Chantha Bob and Peter Chhun, the founder of Long Beach nonprofit Hearts Without Boundaries, which he created to help children in Cambodia, she got a new lease on life.

Bob (Bobby) and Chhun, meanwhile, found a cause and someone who gave meaning to their efforts.

Hearts Without Boundaries paid to bring Davik and her mom to Long Beach and are paying their expenses while here. Childrens Hospital Los Angeles donated its facilities and surgical staff.

That Davik was released so soon after her surgery was something of a surprise. Doctors had initially considered letting her out a day earlier, then thought of keeping her through the weekend and finally arrived at the Friday date.

Getting better

Recovery is rarely a linear process. In the days following major surgery, a patient can alternately feel wonderful and terrible, healthy and feeble.

Doctors, too, may draw very different conclusions and weigh different factors while monitoring the same patient and data.

So it went in the days immediately after Davik's surgery. She was in good spirits the morning after her Monday surgery, but in misery that evening.

By Wednesday evening, she was much better and had been moved out of the intensive care unit. At that time, she was scheduled for a Thursday release.

However, pediatric cardiologist Sarah Badran, while reviewing echocardiogram results, suggested a more conservative approach.

Badran explained and Sklansky later confirmed that Davik's heart showed what they called "depressed function," meaning it was not pumping the blood out as strongly as they would like.

After nine years of shunting blood through the hole, the muscle was not accustomed to the effort needed to push all the blood out to the body, as a normal heart will do.

Doctors predict the muscle will strengthen as it adapts to the new requirements, but it is something they will continue to monitor.

Sklansky says heart function can improve markedly overnight or within days, or it may take several weeks.

The setback was not entirely unexpected.

"This was a very high-risk surgery so it was too good to be true," Badran said of a three-day recovery.

Whether leaving the hospital Thursday, Friday or Monday, doctors were thrilled at the success of the surgery and Davik's recovery.

"She's still doing very well," Sklansky said, adding that even in optimum circumstances, a three-day recovery would have been a minimum.

"That she's doing so well shows the inner strength she brought with her," Sklansky said.

When he listened to Davik's heart through a stethoscope, what Sklansky heard, or didn't hear, thrilled him.

"Before surgery her heart was beating out of her chest," Sklansky said. "Now it's quiet and soft. There's not the murmur she had before."

It seemed hard to believe that in about 100 hours, the lives of Davik, Sin, Bobby and Peter could change so drastically.

Surgery day

On the day of her operation, Davik, her mother, Peter and Bobby left the small apartment on Lemon Avenue shortly before dawn.

A waning near-full moon hung in the southwestern sky as they made their way toward Childrens Hospital.

Davik and Sin were excited and animated.

Although Davik was grouchy when first awakened, when she was told this was the day she would get her "new heart" as Peter and the family are calling it, she suddenly became alert and happy, like a U.S. child at Christmas.

On the drive to the hospital, mother and daughter oohed and aahed at the lights of the highway and the city and the mountains emerging like a lunar landscape in the chilly dawn.

In a country that in some ways is as foreign as the moon, no one could begrudge the mother and child a sense of awe at the events of the past month.

Davik was not an ideal candidate for the surgery. Far from it. Ideally, the surgery would have been performed when she was a toddler. Instead, for years her heart had ineffectively labored away. Her lungs had been stressed, yet remained remarkably resilient. The hole in Davik's heart was perilously close to her heart's electrical system. Any mistake could require Davik needing a pacemaker inserted.

And yet, here she was getting closer all the time to her new life.

Davik and her mother called Davik's paternal grandparents and older sister Davin.

Davik, Sin, Bobby and Peter entered the hospital lobby where several public relations personnel, a reporter, two photographers, two producers and two film crews, including one from NBC, awaited.

The television producers and crews, being big on "capturing the moment," hustled the foursome back outside to film them re-entering.

Followed and sometimes led by the media train, Davik was taken to a pre-operative area where she traded in her winter jacket, jeans and favorite "Hello Kitty" boots for hospital garb.

Soon she was scrunching her face as she took a liquid sedative. As anesthesiologist Bryan Harris prepared to wheel her toward the operating room, Davik shared final hugs with Bobby, Peter and Sin. Then she hugged a stuffed bunny and was wheeled away.

In preparation for surgery an adhesive sheet, called a sterile drape, was laid over Davik's chest.

With a circular saw, doctors cut through her sternum and exposed the chest cavity. The rib cage was kept splayed by two large clamps.

Inside her chest, Davik's small heart beat with the same jackhammer rhythm she has known since birth.

Davik's heart ailment, a ventricular septal defect, is the most common of congenital heart defects and one of the easiest to repair. Unless you come from an impoverished country such as Cambodia, where even seemingly benign conditions can be fatal.

And for all its commonality, the hole in Davik's heart was large.

The ventricles are the two lower chambers of the heart and the wall between them is called the septum. The defect is the hole between the chambers.

In a properly working heart, unoxygenated blood from the body flows into the right half of the heart, through the right atrium into the right ventricle, which pumps the blood to the lungs to absorb oxygen. From the lungs, the oxygenated blood returns to the left half of the heart where it is pumped out to the body.

When there is a hole, oxygenated blood is shunted from the left ventricle, where pressures are higher, back to the right. The mixed blood then recirculates into the lungs. This means the heart is overworked, pumping a greater volume of blood than needed.

In Davik's case, Starnes said she was pumping four times more blood than needed. This meant her heart had to pump faster to get the blood to where it's needed. Also, Davik's lungs were wet from excess blood, which caused her fatigue and forced her body to expend calories to keep her breathing that could have otherwise helped her grow.

Eventually, the left ventricle can work so hard it fails. Blood returning to the heart can back up into the lungs, causing pulmonary congestion. Also pressure can build in the lungs, called pulmonary hypertension.

During an echocardiogram several weeks before surgery the whoosh of blood through the hole in Davik's heart was audible and Sklansky pointed to the defect on a machine that displayed the heart's functions and blood flow.

The left side of the heart was dilated, or expanded, from the extra work it had to perform.
Overlapping the hole in the heart was a flap of tissue, like a small pressure relief valve.

Normally, that tissue would have bonded over the hole and Davik's heart would have worked perfectly. In about 25 percent of children born with the defect Davik has, the heart repairs itself.
`Rolled their eyes'

There was considerable concern about attempting the heart surgery on Davik. There was just no way a 9-year-old with such a large hole in her heart could not have escaped without significant and irreversible lung damage. That was the popular theory.

"People rolled their eyes, thinking she'd have lung disease," Sklansky said of a common reaction among colleagues he told about the planned procedure.

However, the flap of tissue that was the cause of Davik's heart ailments was also the thing that saved her. That fluttering piece of tissue prevented even more blood from shunting between the chambers.

In the operating room, Davik's heart registers strong and steady on the monitor.

Sklansky and Harris exchange small talk as they check the machines.

Sklansky tells Harris part of Davik's story.

"She's from a village with no electricity and no running water," Sklansky says.
"No kidding," Harris says.

"Her mom makes a dollar a day. When she was turned down (for surgery in Cambodia), I knew Starnes was the first person I needed to ask."

"Fantastic."

Almost on cue, Starnes enters the room.

After the surgery, Starnes would say he found Davik and her mom's story compelling and felt happy to do the surgery.

The chair of cardiothoracic surgery and a distinguished professor at USC's Keck School of Medicine and the director of the Heart Institute at Childrens Hospital, Starnes is at the top of his field.

The conversation dies as Starnes steps up to Davik's right side. Her head and lower torso are covered with blankets and all that's visible is the "field of surgery" in which her large heart pumps, seeming almost too big for the tiny chest.

The only sound is the heart monitor beeping steadily in the background. An array of tubes seems to sprout from the chest as several sets of hands work with thread, clamps and tweezers in the small chest cavity.

"We're going to cool the body to help preserve the body," Starnes says.

The two film crews are taping the surgery.

The tubes have been inserted in preparation to stop the heart and transfer functions to the heart-lung machine.

"It's a big heart, isn't it?" Starnes says, "All that blood flow through the years ... ."

A producer asks Starnes, "What are you doing now?"

"Nothing but heart surgery," Starnes says with laughs all around.

The heart has been chilled and the beeping of the heart monitor has been replaced by a swishing sound from the heart-lung machine.

"Now we're going to operate on the heart and look for the hole," Starnes says.

Soon he pauses.

"You can see the hole now. It's about the size of a quarter, or what's the currency in Cambodia?" Starnes says as he allows the cameras to get a bit closer.

A sheet of Dacron is passed and the patch is quickly cut out and decorated.

"Now we'll just sew the patch in place," Starnes says.

His hands move with quick, practiced precision. Within several minutes, it's done.

As the heart begins to beat on its own again, the beeping of the heart monitor becomes uneven.

Sklansky would later admit this worried him.

"It is in arrhythmia," Starnes explains calmly.

Quickly the heart defibrillator is brought out and Starnes shocks the heart back into rhythm and the monitor returns to its steady beat.

Starnes returns to the heart and probes for any residual leaks. The echocardiogram confirms the hole is closed.

At about 9:15 a.m., about an hour after Davik went into surgery, Starnes says Davik is ready to have her chest closed.

Where is everyone?

There is a brief flurry of panic. Sin, Bobby and Peter, believing the operation would take two or three hours are not in the hospital.

A producer chastises Peter for leaving the premises. The TV crews apparently won't be getting their "moment" when Starnes tells Sin, Bobby and Peter the good news.

Starnes moves on to his next case.

Eventually, Peter, Bobby and Sin arrive. It will still be awhile before Davik's chest is closed and she leaves the ER.

Then the tears begin.

"I never thought we'd get this far," Sin says through translation. "I never thought we'd get this second chance.

"Every day I'd hear (Davik) moan and groan in her sleep. I wanted to tell her, but there was nothing I could do to make her better. I never had hope until today."

When Sklansky comes to deliver the good news, Sin steeples her fingers and bows.

"Ah, kun. Ah, kun," (Cambodian for thank you) she says over and over.

"You saved my daughter's life, I'm so happy," she says through translation. "Today is the best day in our lives."

When Davik is wheeled out of the operating room, her mother is allowed to spend a moment with the unconscious child.

With tears streaming down her face, Sin cups the small child's face. There are no words. There is no need.

Bobby and Peter stand at her side. They too are crying.

A little later, the three sit in a waiting room waiting to join Davik in the intensive care unit.

"It's like a dream," Peter says. "It feels like I just met (Davik) yesterday. Today, it's real. I just don't know what to say. I'm just so happy for her."

Sin starts to talk rapidly. Bobby says, "She's thanking us for giving her daughter a second chance."

Then he stops and tries to compose his thoughts.

"Maybe I'm the one who owes her daughter something," Bobby says.

He knits his eyebrows still working on the thought.

"I never thought of getting something back in payment," Bobby says. "In Buddhism, we believe in reincarnation. We, Peter and I, we feel like we owed Davik something in a past life. This was our chance to give it back."

Then there are hugs and ah kuns all around.