Cambodia celebrates its 50th anniversary of the collapse of its capital, Phnom Penh, and its 50th anniversary to Khmer Rouge, the final edition of a groundbreaking book that chronicles the rise of one of the most brutal regimes of the 20th century.
First published in 1997, Don Cormack’s Killing Fields, Living Fields, returned to this week’s 8th and final edition, coinciding with the anniversary of April 17th, 1975. The moment marked the beginning of nearly four years of fear under the Polpot administration. During that time, up to 2 million Cambodians have been killed by executions, hunger and forced labor.
Cormack, a British missionary at OMF International, arrived in Cambodia just before the regime came to power and later worked in a refugee camp on the Thai border for five years. Flavored in the Khmer, he recorded direct accounts of survival, escape and loss, becoming one of the earliest and most important chroniclers of the West of atrocities.
His book not only speaks of the horrors of what has become known as a “slaying ground,” but also traces the resilient growth of Cambodia’s Protestant churches. This is a move the Khmer Rouge attempted to erase, but today it has grown to over 300,000 followers nationwide.
A system based on atrocities
The collapse of Phnom Penh led to what Khmer Rouge declared “zero year” and what Polpot and his Marxist cadre set out to create an agricultural utopia. The city was empty, hospitals were evacuated, and intellectuals, civic leaders and experts were targeting initial enforcement. Even Cambodians studying abroad were seduced under the false promise of a role in the new government, but were executed only upon arrival.
Among the early chroniclers of this dark chapter was New York Times correspondent Sidney Schamberg, who witnessed patients being dragged from hospital beds while evacuating the capital, with saline still in place.
Cormack entered Cambodia in 1974 to help train Christian leaders, and was forced to flee, but later returned to Southeast Asia to work in a refugee camp. There he collected stories from survivors whose trauma and faith shaped the content of his future writing.
Red in the ruins
One of the book’s most memorable stories is Koomack’s unexpected encounter at the Koomack camp, a refugee camp with comrade Ducci, the chief executive of Khmer Rouge and the infamous Tuolsleen (S-21) prison superintendent. Duch coordinated the torture and death of thousands, and personally signed hundreds of execution orders. Unconscious of Ducci’s identity at the time, Cormack is summoned to serve Duches, a Christian, dying mother.
Decades later, in 1999, journalist Nick Dunlop identified Duch, who lives in a new name as a humanitarian worker. It was revealed in 1996 that Duch was converted to Christianity, baptized, confessed his crimes and became the only Khmer Rouge leader who publicly seeks forgiveness. He died in prison in 2020 at his bedside in a Bible and a hymn.
In contrast, Khue Sanfang, the founder of the last living Khmer Rouge, remains in an unrepentant prison at age 93.
Current book
The final edition of Killing Fields, published April 15 by Dictum Press, combines Cormack’s fascinating historical tales with powerful personal testimony. It sets the spiritual durability of Cambodian Christians against the ideological cruelty of the Khmer Rouge.
The book begins with the lesser-known beginnings of Cambodia’s Protestant Church, and spans the decades of growth, oppression and ultimate revival of the country’s Christianity. In addition to the full-length version, there is also a short volume of Killing Fields’ 10-storey titles released.
While Cambodia today is linked to the temple complex and rising tourism in Angkor Wat, the final version of Cormak serves as a calm reminder of the not-so-distant past and the resilience of those who have endured it.
