SOEUN Sovandy
Pseudonym: TCCP-145
Cases: Case 002/01
Category: Civil Party
Background and role
Soeun Sovandy lived in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge invaded the city on 17 April 1975.
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He testified as a Civil Party in Case 002/01 about his experience during the invasion and evacuation of Phnom Penh, his experience as a labourer at a work site, and the discrimination he and others faced during the Khmer Rouge period.
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Invasion of Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975
Soeun Sovandy was forced to leave his home when Khmer Rouge soldiers pointed guns at him and attacked his home with rocket-propelled grenades.
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His family was separated during the evacuation: he and his older sister were evacuated one week after his parents and other siblings.
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Khmer Rouge soldiers advised him that they would only have to leave Phnom Penh for a few days so that the city could be reorganised.
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Khmer Rouge soldiers also told him that civilians had to leave Phnom Penh because they expected the city to be bombed by the United States.
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March out of Phnom Penh
Soeun Sovandy was evacuated through Kbal Thnal to Chbar Ampov, finally arriving at S’ang Koah Touch.
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He looked for his parents on the march out of Phnom Penh but could not find them anywhere.
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He later learned that his parents and other family members disappeared and were likely executed.
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Soeun Sovandy also saw dead bodies along the street during the march and witnessed a bulldozer removing and burying bodies.
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He did not drink water from the river during the march because there were dead bodies in it.
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The Trial Chamber cited Soeun Sovandy’s evidence when describing how during the long march out of Phnom Penh, many Civil Witnesses witnessed harrowing events, such as walking past the bodies of the dead and dying.
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Conditions at the work site
Soeun Sovandy was eventually placed in a work site, which had horrendous living and working conditions.
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He described it as a “prison without [a] wall” where he was forced to work extremely hard and was given watery gruel for food.
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He and his fellow workers would be beat if they were seen with vegetables or fruit and the hunger was so severe that they “ate virtually everything at the that time, including insects.”
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Discrimination
Soeun Sovandy was discriminated against by those who accused him of being from a feudalist family and called him a city person and a capitalist.
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People from Kampuchea Krom were rounded up and executed on the accusation of being Vietnamese because they had Vietnamese surnames, spoke Vietnamese, had a Vietnamese accent, or followed Vietnamese traditions.
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Soeun Sovandy witnessed Khmer Kampuchea Krom being “indiscriminately killed during that time.”
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Statements of suffering
“As for the suffering I endured, it was beyond words can describe because it was like the suffering sustained by other victims. We ate virtually everything at that time, including insects.”
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“I was completely despaired at that time. I was around 17 or 18 years old. I did not have that - I was actually terrified when I saw the dead bodies along the way. And when I got to the worksite, I realized that the situation would be different. It was not as what they told me because we had to work very hard. And there was segregation among people in the worksite, too; those who were considered the 17 April People had to work very hard and had nothing to eat.”
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“Concerning the suffering, in the past, I had great suffering, but until todays it subsides gradually because of - because the time has lapsed. But when looking back to the past, of course, I had great suffering and I wanted justice immediately, at that times, and now it has been many years, but whatever it is, I am happy with what we are doing now. We are trying to find justice and I hope that if the justice is done, then my suffering will subside.”
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