Documentary Seeks to Keep World Awake on Cambodia

LOS ANGELES —  Academy Award-winner Haing Ngor will appear Sunday in a half-hour documentary called “Beyond the Killing Fields” that he hopes will “wake up the world” to the plight of Cambodian refugees.

“The documentary shows the work I’m doing and is about the suffering of the people at the border,” he said. “We must wake up the world. Why has the world forgotten Cambodia and especially its children?

“Before ‘The Killing Fields,’ no one knew what happened in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge killed 4 million people. If Vietnam pulls out and the Khmer Rouge return, they may kill the rest of the people.”

Ngor, who won an Oscar as best supporting actor for “The Killing Fields” in 1984, appears in a segment of “National Geographic Explorer” on Sunday on SuperStation TBS.

He has been devoting most of his spare time and money from his acting career to helping the many thousands of Cambodian refugees driven from their country and forced by international policies to stay in the camps in Thailand. He works through two groups he has organized, Aid to Displaced Persons and Enfant d’Angkor.

“My main goal is to build a hospital to help the refugees,” he said. “Right now that’s hard, because of the Thailand government. They talk, but we haven’t seen a green light. The money is there from contributions raised in Europe.”

The Khmer Rouge is the Chinese-backed Communist faction that overthrew the republic in 1975. The Soviet-backed Vietnamese pushed the Khmer Rouge out in 1979, but now the Vietnamese are considering a pullout. Ngor estimates that the population was 7.5 million to 8 million in 1970. He believes that 700,000 to 1 million people died in 1970-75.

During the reign of the Khmer Rouge, Ngor said, his personal estimate is that 4 million Cambodians were killed. The International Red Cross estimates the number of deaths in 1975-79 at 2 million.

“The Communists never think of civil rights,” he said. “If they want to kill, they kill. The Khmer Rouge want to create a Utopian society. Mostly, they want power. All the power.

“ ‘The Killing Fields’ told the story of one family that got out. But what about the millions more who didn’t get out? Almost my whole family was killed by the Khmer Rouge.”

Ngor, a small, intense man, lost his parents, his brothers and sisters and his girlfriend to the Khmer Rouge. He had been a physician and suffered intense and crippling torture at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

“My life is like skin of teeth,” he said. “ ‘The Killing Fields’ just touched the tip of the iceberg. The real story is much worse.”

He won an Oscar for playing Dith Pran in “The Killing Fields.” He plays a North Vietnamese army captain in “The Iron Triangle,” which stars Beau Bridges. He recently began work in “Orange Curtain,” a movie about Vietnamese in this country.

He will also play himself in a movie based on his autobiography, “Free at Last,” and will star in another film called “The Other War.”

Ngor said he needs the world’s support to keep the Khmer Rouge from returning to power.

“I don’t want history to be repeated,” he said. “My people, innocent people, will pay the price. The Khmer Rouge have already killed 95% of the educated people of Cambodia. Most of those at the border are orphaned children. They are the next generation of Cambodians.

“I was happy when the National Geographic people came to me. I am happy that we can show the world what happened to my country. The war is not yet over. The killings are not over yet.”