November 15, 2001
Loung Ung Lecture

Co-sponsored with the Office of the President, the Office of the Dean, Anthropology Department, ASiA Club, Asian Studies, Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, Political Science Department, The Theological School, University Program Board (UPB) Women's Studies, and Womyn's Concerns

Ms. Ung's presentation will take us from her early years as a middle-class daughter of a high-ranking government official, living in Phnom Penh, through the horrific years of "the killing fields," to her stay in a refugee camp in Thailand, and finally to her new life in the United States.
Loung, next to the youngest of eight children, was five years old in 1975, the year the Khmer Rouge began their systematic murder of an estimated two million Cambodians, almost one-fourth of the country's population. At age ten, she arrived in the United States, accompanied by her oldest brother, Meng, and his wife. In addition, to Loung and Meng, three older siblings survived, all of whom returned to their mother''s village to live with their aunts and uncles: both parents had perished in the genocide.
Still a child when she settled in Vermont, she tried to make herself a "normal American girl": playing soccer, joining the cheerleading squad, hanging out with friends at the local pizzeria. Yet, as in the case of Holocaust survivors, memories haunted her at night, emerging with starkness and terror in her dreams. Buoyed by the support of her brother and sister-in-law, she eventually earned an undergraduate degree in political science from St. Michael's College in Vermont. She later began working in a domestic violence shelter in Maine, and ultimately moved to Washington, D.C. after she was asked to work for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World, work she continues to this day.
Today, as national spokesperson for the Campaign, Loung travels extensively to let the world know about landmines and to give an eyewitness account of what it was like in Cambodia. Again, similar to the way Holocaust survivors find speaking about their experiences therapeutic, speaking about the Cambodian genocide gives Loung a purpose and direction to her life. "As I tell people about genocide," she explains "I get the opportunity to redeem myself. I've had the chance to do something that's worth my being alive. It's empowering; it feels right. The more I tell people, the less the nightmares haunt me. The more people listen to me, the less I hate. I [have] talked so much I [forget] to be afraid."
For many of us who know about the Cambodian genocide only through Dith Pran's story, depicted in the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," Loung Ung's story brings a new perspective on genocide-a woman's perspective. As we know from the Holocaust, gender shaped people's experiences from the moment they arrived at the various ghettos and concentration camps. Similarly, Loung speaks about the way gender shaped the Khmer (Cambodian) experience during the genocide: she tells of the rape of teenage girls and the abduction of fathers; also of how girls were given less food than boys even though they were expected to work just as hard. In her talk, she will further address the way gender continues to impact differently on men and women. Living in a country seeded with land-mines, men who step on these mines have been maimed and irreparably injured, leaving the women to carry the burden of earning a living, keeping their families together, and trying to rebuild their communities and culture. Also living in a country that values the physical beauty of women means that women who are scarred and disfigured will be shunned and made to feel ashamed. It is understandable then that Loung Ung has taken on the role of national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World, a program of the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, which received the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for having co-founded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. As part of her talk, Loung will show a short video illustrating the devastation that landmines continue to reek upon her country.
We think that although you will find Loung Ung's story horrifying, you will also find it inspiring and re-affirming of the imperative to work for peace and justice. As United States Senator Patrick Leahy, congressional leader on human rights and the banning of landmines has said, Loung Ung's story is a "tour de force that strengthens our resolve to prevent and punish crimes against humanity."