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Ông
Leon de Riedmatten là người hăng hái và tích cực vận động
để đưa hơn
300 bộ nhân rời Nong Samet đến miền đất hứa NW9 giữa rừng già ngày
4/18/1980.
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Here we are in April again.
To most people it is just another month, but to some Vietnamese land refugees April 18th and April 20st, 1980 are the most memorable date in their life, besides the black April 30th, 1975 when the communist took over the South Vietnam and forced them to escape the country
On April 18th, 1980, about 300 Vietnamese land refugees were rescued from Nong Samet and moved to NW9 camp. Two days later, another 600 were rescued from Nong Chan in similar fashion, thus the first land refugee camp along the Thai border was established with about 1000 Vietnamese refugees.
One can remember that NW9 camp is no paradise, but a much safer place when both Nong Samet and Nong Chan were hell on earth, where the refugees were under the merci of the brutal Khmer paratrooper: every refugee was a prisoner, women were gang raped repeatedly, and anyone could be killed anytime, for any reason, or no reason.
The rescue of the Vietnamese land refugees were possible because of the work of two people: a Swiss nurse named Denyse Betchov and an ICRC delegate named Léon de
Riedmatten. They witnessed the plight of Vietnamese refugees first hand
and worked with ICRC and Thai government to allow the establishment of
NW9, and to bring refugees out of Khmer Para’s murderous grasp and
transfer them to NW9.
In Leon's own recollection of the event:
“…we had to act quickly in order to save those people in great danger. The solution we found was far from being the best, but the only one which could be feasible due to the urgency and the security and political situation at the border. This is how and why NW9 was setup. I remember the first night spent there with a Thai colonel, after having put the red cross flags at the top of the trees at each corner of the camp forest...I will never forget that time spent at the border and my duty which was to rescue and protect Vietnamese "land people"
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Cô y tá Denyse Betchov dẫn đoàn tỵ nạn Việt Nam thoát khỏi Nong Samet!
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To Denyse and Leon:
If you are reading this blog, we do not know what else is better than the rescuing of us from Nong Samet and Nong Chan.
It is the best gift in our life.
And for that we are forever thankful.
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ICRC flag at a corner of the Cambodian jungle
(photo capture from video "Question of Relief" from ICRC) |
HOW NW 9 WAS ESTABLISHED
Report on the Vietnamese land refugees
Kim Ha James Banerian
The Online Archive of California
All land refugees arriving at the Thailand border had to pass
through the hands of the Para “big men” for “processing”, search and
oppression. Afterwards, the refugees were given over to the ICRC at a
price of five hundred kg. rice per person.
On March 25, 1980, the
Thai border was closed since that country was no longer accepting
refugees. Consequently, the refugees had to stay temporarily in camps
inside Cambodia, such as Non Chan, Non Samet, Non Makmun, until they
were permitted in by the Thai government.
During that waiting
period, at Non Samet, each night the Para came to get the women and
girls, carrying them off like pigs to take them to their trucks for
sadistic rape, unmindful of their victims' pitiful cries. After one
night of abuse, one woman collapsed unconscious after suffering a
hemorrhage. Another was white as a sheet, with no emotion on her face as
she went into delirium at times, howling like a pig getting its throat
cut. One girl resisted and was shot; we did not see her return the next
day. Perhaps her corpse had been hastily buried somewhere along the
road. Another victim was brought back unable to walk, her face, arms and
legs bruised because of the treatment she had received. Some families
were able to hide their girls among the homes of local Khmer for a time.
If the Cambodians protected you, you were that fortunate. But usually
you had to pay for each day you stayed with them. If the Para found out,
they would have killed all of us. The Para were covered with amulets
they thought had magic and their faces were black and horrible looking. A
girl who was having her period when they carried her away would be left
alone while they cursed their talismans for losing their magic power.
When
the ICRC people came, the women and girls used to run up to them,
crying and begging to be rescued. One such morning, a Swiss woman named
Denyse Betchov came to visit them. Seeing the girls had been gang-raped
repeatedly and many were hemorrhaging, Denyse ordered them put on her
truck and sent immediately to Khao I Dang, about fifteen km. away, for
treatment. The Para protested and ordered the camp closed, refusing to
let her truck inside the fence. The driver of the ICRC truck felt there
was nothing he could do and watched the Para guarding both sides of the
gate, wielding their guns threateningly. Without hesitation, this
courageous woman leaped into the truck, shoved the driver aside and got
behind the wheel. Then, stepping hard on the gas, she rammed the truck
into the hedge surrounding Non Samet, knocking down one wall by the gate
so she could run inside. The Para were furious and on future nights
they took out their anger on the new refugees, treating them even more
brutally than before.
But on this particular day, Denyse got in
touch with her superiors in Bangkok, asking them to intercede with the
Thai Ministry of the Interior for a solution to bring the refugees out
of the grasp of the Para. Her courage and compassion brought new
enthusiasm to the refugees. As a result of her actions, on April 18 more
than three hundred refugees from Non Samet were transported by truck to
a spot closer to the Thai border. After half an hour of twisting and
turning through the jungle, they were dropped off in the middle of
nowhere, since the Thai government still refused to permit the refugees
inside the border.
At Non Chan, the oppression of refugees
continued. On the night of April 20, six hundred of these refugees
opposed the attack by the Para, raising their voices and causing a
commotion to prevent the Para from taking any woman away. The Board of
Camp Leaders tried to save the girls by having them stay in the
innermost circle of tents while the men slept on the outside. When the
Para came to the camp, their translator spoke to the refugees and
ordered them to lie still and not get involved with what was to happen.
One of the Camp Leaders, Mr. V., started a mock fight with another
refugee. They went at it, chasing each other around the camp, shouting
and waking everybody up. The whole camp was aroused. Mothers hid their
children. Sisters covered the faces of the young ones. The Para-some
twenty to thirty of them–waved their guns and shone flashlights into the
tents. There arose cries and shouts. “Mama! Save me!” “No! Please! I'm
married!” “Oh God! Let me go! What have I done that you treat me this
way?” “Mama! I'm too young! Don't make me go!” “Oh, God! Oh, Buddha!”
Heartrending
screams mixed with the bloodcurdling shouts of the Para to frighten us
all. Then all at once, everyone began to shout in one voice. The Para
became afraid and dropped the women, then went over to rough up the men.
They cocked their rifles and pointed them at the men. They said
something in their own language and had it translated into Vietnamese.
Again, everyone was made to lie still, as they threatened to shoot
anyone who moved. The men lay back down quietly, but kept watching from
the corners of their eyes. As soon as the Para returned to the girls'
tents, the camp jumped up again, screaming and crying. This went on a
few times. Several of the young men were beaten for supposedly having a
hand in the resistance.
Because we were united in opposing the
Para, they were defeated that time. They stomped off without taking away
a single girl. We were relieved. But how would they react the next
night?
The refugees were like prisoners in the camps–no more, no
less. They could be sent back across the border at any time and that was
the greatest fear of all. The Para took full advantage of this weakness
to act like animals. They got help, too, from the Chinese-Khmer.
The next day (April 21), two persons from the camp were sent to the ICRC
base to request help before the Para could retaliate the next night.
Around noontime, Denyse and Mr. Leon De Riedmatten came to visit us.
Following an hour or so of discussion with the camp leaders, these two
got on the radio and asked permission of their superiors to transfer the
six hundred from Non Chan closer to the border. Permission granted, the
order was announced. At once, everyone began to pack their meager
belongings. The men were mobilized to take down the huts and clean up
the area. Women and children were already lined up to go.
The
Para were incensed. They charged in to steal the refugees' food and
whatever else they could get their hands on. They vowed to kill any
Vietnamese refugee who came by later. (The next day, in fact, some fifty
refugees came out of the jungle. That night, all the girls–about
thirty–were the victims of violent revenge for what had happened the
previous day. Even a middle-aged woman was not spared, nor were those
who were pregnant. They were there just one night. The following day,
the Red Cross took them, too, to NW 9.)
But Denyse's efforts to
help the refugees came to an abrupt end in May 1980 when she was
suddenly transferred. We wept as we saw her off that last day with us.
We gave her letters and notes written in Vietnamese, French and English.
Even today we still recall the valiant and charitable actions of that
woman hardly thirty years old who tried to rescue us. Emotion-filled
songs were sung and someone gave her a pair of wooden shoes made at the
camp. And we embraced and thanked her profusely. Denyse could not help
but cry, too, as she went from hut to hut to say farewell and shake
hands and wave goodbye. She had to leave, but the refugees would never
forget her.
When the refugees were taken finally from Non Chan to
the new camp in the jungle, no one wanted to get off the truck, for we
were out in the middle of nowhere. We saw nothing but trees and the blue
from tents of the three hundred Non Samet refugees who had preceded us.
Our disappointment and anxiety grew. Wearily, we just sat where we
were. Our hopes of being taken to Thailand were dashed. But finally, we
did get out and joined NW 9, where the camp leader, “B”, instructed us
in the rules of the camp.
That night, we lay on the grass in the
tents we had just built, glad to be out of the hands of the Para, but
sorry to be abandoned in the jungle. All at once there was a scream. We
jumped, startled, and gave a shout. We had not forgotten the terrors we
had just left and hearing a scream made us all fearful again. After
checking it out, however, we discovered it was not the Para that caused
the screaming, but snakes. One had crawled up beside a girl and she had
been frightened. The snakes were everywhere in the jungle, coming out at
night and creeping into the tents. Therefore, we made hammocks out of
rice sacks so we could sleep above ground with greater security.
Families had anywhere from two to six hammocks, depending on what they
could afford. You might see a pair of bamboo posts from which hung two
or three swinging rice sacks and hammocks. As time went on, the lives of
the refugees became more and more associated with their hammocks. After
eating, where could you go? We lay in the hammocks and gossiped or
discussed matters important to us.
Each day after that, the ICRC
brought more refugees into NW 9, sometimes a few, sometimes a hundred.
They were all ragged and dirty, their feet bleeding from the walk, some
leaning on others to complete the journey. They were pale as ghosts. No
one escaped the net laid by the Para and Khmer Rouge. None the less,
each refugee's eyes were bright for having reached his/her destination.
.JPG)
Friday, March 31, 2023
