Photographer Finishes ‘Hell’ Tour of Country
A photographer who returned to Cambodia for the first time in 30 years completes a tour and exhibit. (02 December 2008)
Q. First of all, how did you feel after having met andtalked with the Cambodian people in some provinces over the past two weeks? A. I feel relieved because I thought I was doing a goodthing now and a bad thing 30 years ago, so things change to the better. Q: You went to the provinces of Kampong Cham, Battambang,Siem Reap, and others. How did people react to you, as well as your photos? A: People [have] asked me before if I think people would bevery angry at me, but they were very forgiving. There were some reactions inBattambang about the photo exhibition. They thought it was too nice. I toldthem that we have texts with them to explain but some of them thought that itwas a little too nice, still looks like a Pol Pot propaganda. I think they wantan explanation that doesn’t exist. I think they want more. They cannot understand Maoist thinking, and I tried toexplain how I think and they want more explanation, but I don’t have any more.And at the end, I told them these are explanations, they are not excuses. Theseexplanations, I think I can understand them myself, but I still have the responsibilityto think, you know, and that’s why I have the guilt and have to say I am sorry. Maybe they find it hard to understand. Someone said, “Youtraveled for 14 days [in 1978], you must have seen something.” I said, “You canvery well see what I saw, but that’s what the pictures show; that’s what theKhmer Rouge showed us.” Q. You said you learned about some cruel things committed bythe Khmer Rouge before coming to Pol Pot’s Cambodia. And during your 14-daytour then, you were also suspicious of what was shown to you, but why did youstill think the Khmer Rouge was good? A. Because at that time, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, we sawthem as liberating fighters. They were winning the war, and they were buildinga new Cambodia,and we could never have imagined theywere building a new terror. And the rumor came that we could not believe, andwe have a vision of a country that was against the SovietUnion too. We loved that. They would be not only against theAmericans but they would be against the Soviet Uniontoo. We were pro-Chinese, and now China had a friend. And when they evacuated the city, that was rathercomplicated. We tried to understand it with Khieu Samphon’s theory. There wererumors that all the leaders, Ing Sary and Pol Pot were in the fields a fewhours now and then, [that] everything was equal. We believed that they weredoing something that they showed the third world, that you can grow your ownfood, you don’t need aid, aid will corrupt you, and that was very inspiring,that they could manage on their own. That’s what we believed first. Q. You met and had dinner with Pol Pot and Ing Sary. What didyou talk about? A. We gave Pol Pot the questions beforehand. We had to dothat. Many communist leaders do it like that. And he read his answers. Onequestion was about genocide, killing people, and of course he said no. We askedabout the war with Vietnam,about what [are] the next steps in the Cambodian revolution. And the things hesaid in our interview were nothing new really. I think it was talks about the internationalcampaign against Cambodia,as he called it; talks about relying on your own forces; there was no aid. But,I don’t recall any long conversation; lots of translations. Q. What made you change from pro-Pol Pot to anti-Pol Pot? A. The first change came reading the refugees’ storiesagain. I had read them before. But reading them again and thinking critically,I could see that can be true and my pictures can be true too. They took awaypeople at night and they did not openly kill them in the fields. The refugees’stories, most of them, were so many, and not only rich people, but I had torethink the whole thing in the beginning of 1979. But, the whole rethinking, Iclose it by saying I was wrong and than I started to work with other things. Ithink you have to go through it better and that took some more years. When I got the question, “How could you believe Pol Pot?”and then I had to rethink, Well how could I? And then I understood the old Mao’sthinking, that we wanted what we wanted, and we used blind eyes, and that wasthe third stage the third phase of understanding and changing. That was someyears ago, when a book came out in Sweden about this trip and thensuddenly I hear myself saying this trip should have been made. That was thefinal step in evaluating it. It took 30 years, but that was because I did otherthings in between. Q: Upon realizing the Khmer Rouge were not as good as youhad always believed, what did you do with it? A: The first phase, I wrote an article in a big Swedishpaper [saying] that we had been wrong but nothing was done for 10 to 15 years,except when I met people, I said, “I am sorry that I was wrong.” Q: Did you think that’s enough? A: When I wrote that article, I thought that was enough formany years, but when a journalist asked me, “How could you support the KhmerRouge?” and I reacted very strongly. Then, I realized, that’s not finished,there is more to do. Q: What else did you do? A: Keep on talking about and discuss it, realizing how wrongI’d been. But I didn’t do so much publicly because I honestly didn’t think thatpeople would be very interested in what we were thinking 10, 15, 20 years ago.But, I met a journalist, talked to them. When the book came out two years agoabout this trip, I wrote an article in the paper again. And this time, we didnot only say that we were wrong, I said we should have understood much earlier,we have a responsibility. I got them published and people invited me to do afew talks in Sweden.Now many years [later], I wanted to give all my information to someone here,and I gave it to DC-Cam and the next step was the question to go here. Q: Some people I talked to say they are angry at you forhaving taken fake photos. But they hoped that you would do something for them,to compensate for their suffering from the regime you used to support. Howwould you respond to that? A: If there is something I can do and if there is a goodidea, I will think and listen. The only thing I know right now is that I haveto go back to Sweden.I have to do my normal job. If I can contribute some more, I will do that. Ifthat’s testifying in the trial, I’ll do if they want me to. I’ll do what I cando. If there is any money from this trip, I will not keep it. I will give it tosome good things here. If someone else has some more good ideas, I’m open fornew ideas.