Looking Toward Tomorrow

By Kay Kimsong
The cambodia daily

My fear nearly paralyzed me, narrowing my vision to see only his large, flared nostrils. I had wanted to show my anger, but it was all I could do to tell his story. That night we joined the wedding party of a Khmer Rouge family, and as I drank and danced with the offspring of murderers, I realized we all were of the same grain.

I spun records faster than news stories in 1996. My introduction to Phnom Penh’s corruption and greed began not as a Cambodia Daily reporter but as a manager of the Hong Kong Center nightclub.

By night, I smoked cartons of Mild Seven cigarettes and watched Ecstasy transform hardened gangsters into rag dolls swaying to fast music in slow motion. I was thin then, and my hair—thick, curly and big—was a statement as loud as the records I spun.

With three hours’ sleep, I woke to serve food at the Chiang Mai restaurant where a man named James Kanter often took lunch. I didn’t realize until later that he was a Cambodia Daily reporter, the man that would change the course of my life.

James watched as I unfolded the opposition newspapers and imbibed the daily news. He quizzed me about the players—Hun Sen, Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy—and realized I knew more than how to mix a good drink.

He drew me from the restaurant to The Cambodia Daily, where I was given a pen, notebook and instructions to find news. I scribbled notes at a news conference and returned to the office feeling good about the assignment. But when James asked me to find a quote, I was at a loss and went searching through office drawers looking for one.

My English improved and, with it, my assignments. I joined the Daily because I wanted to meet the face of the Khmer Rouge leaders who killed my father.

Two months into the job in March 1997, associate editor Robert Bingham offered me the chance. We waited in a hotel room in Pailin for Ieng Sary to arrive. Ieng Sary, the former Khmer Rouge foreign minister who had defected a year before, rumbled up to the hotel in a land cruiser and sat down for questioning.

My fear nearly paralyzed me, narrowing my vision to see only his large, flared nostrils. I had wanted to show my anger, but it was all I could do to tell his story. That night we joined the wedding party of a Khmer Rouge family, and as I drank and danced with the offspring of murderers, I realized we all were of the same grain.

The conditions journalists worked in between 1993 and 2000 were difficult and, at times, dangerous. Several journalists were jailed, exiled or threatened. At least five lost their lives. I have been lucky, and only faced a court suit in 2001.

But, in that case, I never doubted my rendition of reality and became only more determined to report the truth. In 2002, my associate editor Brian Calvert and I uncovered 30-year-old documents detailing the crimes of Khmer Rouge soldiers in Svay Rieng province.

The yellowed papers showed the signs of war, embedded in the landscape and its people. Following the lead of our story, the US Embassy transferred the documents to Hawaii, where they were saved on a CD-ROM for use as evidence in a future Khmer Rouge tribunal. I can only hope our recording of history may change Cambodia’s future for the better.

Knowing the future of the country lies not in Khmer Rouge communism but in capitalist economics, I changed my beat to business reporting. Now, tucked in a small office near the newsroom, I write stories about Cambodia’s fight to pass investment laws and join the World Trade Organization.

The Cambodia Daily has changed me. I have my own secretary and assistant, known better as a wife and son. My hair is short but my foresight long. And now, at the end of a workday, I return home to my family to spin tales of tomorrow’s news.