Cambodia's Fortunes Ebb And Flow Along The Mekong
Woman in floating village on Tonle Sap Lake near Siem Reap, Cambodia (Christopher Brown for NPR)
Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Asia. But it hasn't always been that way. The Khmer once ruled a vast kingdom that covered not just Cambodia but parts of Vietnam, Thailand and Laos, too.
The empire had its capital at Angkor, near the present-day city of Siem Reap in northwest Cambodia. At its peak, nearly 1 million people lived in the city of Angkor — at a time when London was still a town of 20,000 or so.
(Christopher Brown for NPR)
The empire's crowning architectural achievement was the magnificent temple of Angkor Wat, one of several dozen temples built by the Angkorian kings, the ruins of which now draw tourists from all over the globe.
Water was key to the Khmer kingdom's prosperity: for irrigation, for drinking and for food from the fish that swam up the Mekong into the Tonle Sap River and the lake of the same name.
"No river, no life. No water, no life in Cambodia," says Pyyoak, my guide.
Invading armies also came up the Mekong in an effort to conquer the Khmer kingdom in the 12th century, a story told in the bas reliefs at Angkor's Bayon temple.
(Christopher Brown for NPR)
Pyyoak says the Champa, or Cham, came up the Mekong from the south, from what is now Vietnam, and occupied Angkor for four years, from 1177 until 1181.
The stone carvings depict the battle in vivid detail, right down to the uniforms worn by the competing armies.
Pyyoak points to another set of carvings on the wall that depict better times in the kingdom: floating villages, bountiful harvests and an abundance of fish in the river and the lake.
"From here, you can see the daily life of the people; they live on the Mekong River. You can see the floating village and some business people, they are selling on the Mekong River," he explains.
"And life was very good for the people of Angkor then — better than for Cambodians today?" I ask Pyyoak.
"Yes, I think that is right," he replies.
Floating Worlds Under Threat
The floating villages still exist today — the closest on the Tonle Sap Lake, just 20 minutes south of the Angkor ruins by car, then a half-hour more by boat. The Tonle Sap is the largest lake in Southeast Asia and, scientists say, the key to the biodiversity of the entire Mekong basin, thanks to the seasonal flooding of the Mekong and the lake.
Many of the floating villages are populated by ethnic Vietnamese, who just might be distant relatives of the Cham warriors who came up the Mekong to fight more than 800 years ago.
These villages are almost completely self-contained — with floating sawmills, metal shops and grocery boats — a water world where children are born, raised and sometimes die without ever having set foot on land. Batteries power their houseboats, complete with TVs, DVD players and karaoke machines. There are even floating bars to help slake the thirst of day-tripping tourists from nearby Angkor Wat.
But it's a hard life, says fisherman Do Van Thanh, 47, one made even more difficult by a dwindling catch — half what it used to be just a few years ago, he says.
His friend, Tran Van Loi, also 47, is no biologist, but he understands very well the relationship between the river, the lake and the fish, and he smells trouble.
There are more people fishing, he says, and that means fewer fish.
In the past, adult fish would lay their eggs in the Mekong. After hatching, the small fish would find their way to the Tonle Sap, grow up here, and then return to the Mekong, he says. But with so many people fishing, more fish are being caught younger, before they can lay their eggs, he says, and he knows that's not good.
Tran says if he could quit fishing now, he would — but there's no other way to make money.
Making enough money to survive is still a challenge for the majority in Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in Asia. It's a country that would probably be far better off had its recent history not included the four-year-long terror of the Maoist Khmer Rouge. From 1975 to 1979, the regime led by Pol Pot controlled the country, a time when an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians — a quarter of the country's population — died.
Dark Chapter
More than 30 years later, the country experienced a reckoning of sorts last November at the joint U.N. Cambodian Tribunal in the capital, Phnom Penh, where the Mekong and the Tonle Sap rivers converge. The man on trial was Kaing Guek Eav, known by the alias Comrade Duch, an aging Khmer Rouge commander who ran the infamous S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng.
The first senior Khmer Rouge leader to be tried, Duch was charged with crimes against humanity — which included savage beatings, extraction of fingernails and toenails with pliers, and electrocution. The torture ended for almost all of the prisoners at the killing field of Choeung Ek. An estimated 16,000 people were imprisoned at Tuol Sleng; fewer than a dozen are known to have survived.
In court, Duch admitted his guilt and begged for forgiveness.
"I still and forever wish to most respectfully and humbly apologize to the dead souls," he said through an interpreter. "To the survivors, I stand by my acknowledgment of all crimes inflicted on you at S-21. I acknowledge them in both the moral and legal context."
It was an extraordinary moment for many who have waited more than 30 years for some sort of justice and closure. Duch has yet to be sentenced. He claimed, just a few days after this dramatic testimony, that he was a "cog in the machine" who was "just following orders."
Living In And For The Present
But many Cambodians haven't paid much attention to the tribunal, the majority of the population having been born after that dark period in the country's history.
And Phnom Penh — the city the Khmer Rouge leaders once emptied of people in their bid to create an agrarian, utopian state — now has more people than ever.
The capital is attracting more foreign investment and more rural Cambodians looking for work, most of it in construction. The streets of the city are now choked with motorcycles and the Lexuses and Cadillac Escalades of the nouveau riche. The vehicles jockey for position as they pass the construction site of the Gold Tower 42, soon to be the city's newest and tallest skyscraper.
On the riverfront, giant vacuums suck sand from the bottom of the Mekong, which will be used to fill the city's famous Boeung Kak Lake, the site of a new high-end business and residential complex.
It is a controversial project, and a sensitive one, too, which explains why hard men with guns object to my visit to the site. Land grabs such as this one are the scourge of Southeast Asia, not just Cambodia: ordinary citizens displaced by rapacious developers and corrupt government officials.
Too Many People, Too Few Fish
Heading downriver from Phnom Penh, the scenery changes quickly. The new skyscrapers and casinos of the capital quickly give way to banana trees, rice and corn. The vast majority of Cambodia's 15 million people live in the countryside, where there is not much choice when it comes to earning a living: farming or fishing.
On this stretch of the Mekong, about 20 miles south of the capital, those who fish have the same complaints as the fishermen on the Tonle Sap.
Nguyen Quynh Thi and her husband haul in their second set of nets for the day, and it's the same as the first: nothing. It's nearly noon, but they will stay out a bit longer, they say, though Nguyen isn't quite sure why.
"Last year was better. The big fish would come down from the Tonle Sap and we could catch enough, and sell enough, to pay for fuel with a little left over for food. But every year it seems to get a little worse," she says.
Too many people chasing too few fish. Farther downstream, just short of where the Mekong flows into neighboring Vietnam, I stop to talk to one last fisherman.
Kong Hout, 48, says he and his family eat fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He catches it himself and says there is still enough to go around — for now, if you know where to look.
But what would happen, I ask, if there are no more fish. He doesn't hesitate.
"It would be an age of darkness," he says, with no trace of irony. Then, he thinks about it some more and comes up with something that, for him, is an even more horrible thought:
"Maybe, we'll have to start eating fish from cans."
Producer Tung Ngo contributed to this report.
Next, the journey down the Mekong ends in Vietnam.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
And I'm Melissa Block.
Now, the fourth part in our series on the Mekong River.
NPR's Michael Sullivan has been following the river from its source, high on the Tibetan Plateau, to where it empties into the South China Sea. Today, Michael heads to Cambodia.
As with other countries along the lower Mekong, Cambodia has seen more than its share of conflict and crushing poverty. But in good times and bad, the Mekong has always provided, until now.
MICHAEL SULLIVAN: Cambodia hasn't always been among Southeast Asia's poorest nations. In fact, there was a time when the Khmer once ruled a vast and wealthy kingdom, one that covered not just Cambodia but parts of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand too.
Their crowning achievement: The magnificent temple of Angkor Wat, though this tour guide's estimate of the number workers involved in its construction does seem a bit high.
Unidentified Man #1: The Angkor Wat temple, how many people to build? 385,000 and 40,000 elephants and 24,000 boats. Yeah.
SULLIVAN: But this much is true, at its peak, Angkor was a city of close to a million people at a time when London was a town of just 20,000.
And water was key to the Khmer Kingdom's prosperity; water for irrigation, for drinking and for food, from the fish that swam up the Mekong into the Tonle Sap River and the lake. No Mekong, says my guide Pyyoak, no life.
PYYOAK (Tour Guide): There was no river, no life. And no water, no life in Cambodia.
SULLIVAN: Invading armies also came up the Mekong in an effort to conquer the Khmer Kingdom in the 12th century, a story carved in stone on the walls of Angkor's Bayon Temple.
PYYOAK: This one about the real fighting between the Champa army and Cambodia army on the Mekong River.
SULLIVAN: Pyyoak says the Champa, or Cham, came up the Mekong from the south, from what's now Vietnam, and occupied Angkor for four years, from 1177 to 1181. The stone carvings depict the battle in vivid detail, right down to the uniforms worn by the competing armies.
He points to another set of carvings on the wall that depict better times in the kingdom: floating villages, bountiful harvests and an abundance of fish in the river and the lake.
PYYOAK: From here, you can see the daily life of the people, yeah. They live on the Mekong River. Yeah, you can see the floating village and some businesspeople; they're selling on the Mekong River.
SULLIVAN: And life was very good for the people of Angkor then.
Mr. PYYOAK: It was.
SULLIVAN: Better than for the people of Cambodia now Kampuchea now?
Mr. PYYOAK: Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think maybe.
SULLIVAN: The floating villages still exist today, the closest on the Tonle Sap Lake, just 20 minutes from the ruins of Angkor by car, then another half hour by boat. The Tonle Sap is the largest lake in Southeast Asia and, scientists say, the key to the biodiversity of the entire Mekong Basin, thanks to the seasonal flooding of the Mekong and the lake.
Many of the floating villages are populated by ethnic Vietnamese, who just might be distant relatives of those Cham warriors who came up the Mekong to fight more than 800 years ago.
(Soundbite of an electric saw and a barking dog)
SULLIVAN: These villages are almost completely self-contained - with floating sawmills, metal shops and grocery boats; a water world where children are born, raised and sometimes die without ever having set foot on land. Their houseboats complete with TVs, DVD players and karaoke machines, powered by car batteries. There are even floating bars to help slake the thirst of day-tripping tourists from nearby Angkor Wat.
Mr. DO VAN THANH (Fisherman): (Foreign language spoken)
SULLIVAN: But it's a hard life, says fisherman Do Van Thanh, one made even more difficult by a dwindling catch. Half, he says, what it used to be just a few years ago.
His friend Tran Van Loi is no biologist. But he understands very well the relationship between the river, the lake and the fish, and he smells trouble.
Mr. TRAN VAN LOI (Fisherman): (Foreign language spoken)
SULLIVAN: There's more people fishing, he says, and that means fewer fish. In the past, he says, the big fish would lay their eggs in the Mekong. Then the smaller fish, the fry, would find their way here, grow up here, then return to the Mekong. But with so many people fishing, he says, more fish are being caught younger, before they can lay their eggs. And he knows that's not good.
If I could quit fishing now, he says, I would, but there's no other way to make money.
Making enough money to survive is still a challenge for the majority in Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in Asia. A country that would probably be far better off had its recent history not included the four-year-long terror of the Maoist Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.
Unidentified Man #2: The court is now in session.
SULLIVAN: More than 30 years later, a reckoning of sorts in the capital Phnom Penh, where the Mekong and the Tonle Sap rivers converge. Closing arguments in November in the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, the chief jailer at the infamous S-21 Prison, charged with crimes against humanity.
The first senior Khmer Rouge leader to be tried, Kaing Guek Eav admitted his guilt and, through an interpreter, begged for forgiveness.
Mr. KAING GUEK EAV (Former Chief Jailer, S-21 Prison): (Through translator) I still and forever wish to most respectfully and humbly apologize to the dead souls, to the survivors...
SULLIVAN: But many Cambodians haven't paid much attention to the tribunal - the majority of the population born after that dark period in the country's history.
And the capital Phnom Penh, the city the Khmer Rouge leaders once emptied of people in their bid to create an agrarian utopian state, now has more people than ever.
Phnom Penh is now attracting more foreign investment and more rural Cambodians looking for work, most of it in construction. The streets of the city choked with motorcycles and the Lexuses and Cadillac Escalades of the nouveau riche, all jockeying for position as they pass the construction site of the Gold 42 Tower, soon to be the city's tallest.
On the riverfront, giant vacuums suck sand from the bottom of the Mekong; sand being used to fill in the city's famous Boeung Kak Lake, the site of a new high-end business and residential complex.
(Soundbite of conversation)
SULLIVAN: It's a controversial project, and a sensitive one, too, which explains why hired men with guns object to my visit to the site. Land grabs like this one are the scourge of Southeast Asia, not just Cambodia: ordinary citizens displaced by rapacious developers and corrupt government officials.
Heading down river from Phnom Penh, the scenery changes quickly - the new skyscrapers and casinos of the capital, quickly giving way to banana trees, rice and corn. The vast majority of Cambodia's 15 million people live in the countryside, and there's not much choice when it comes to earning a living: There's farming or fishing.
And here, about 20 miles south of the capital, those who do fish have the same complaints as the fishermen on the Tonle Sap.
Twenty-two-year-old Nguyen Quynh Thi and her husband are hauling in their second set of the day. And this one, she says, is the same as the last.
Ms. NGUYEN QUYNH THI: (Foreign language spoken)
SULLIVAN: Nothing, she says giggling. It's going on noontime, but she says they'll stay out just a little bit longer, though she's not quite sure why.
Ms. THI: (Through translator) Last year was better. The big fish would come down from the Tonle Sap and we could catch enough and sell enough to pay for fuel with a little left over for food. But every year, it seems to get a little worse.
SULLIVAN: Too many people, not enough fish. Farther downstream, just short of where the Mekong flows into neighboring Vietnam, I stop to talk to one last fisherman.
Mr. KONG HOUT (Fisherman): (Foreign language spoken)
SULLIVAN: 48-year-old Kong Hout says he and his family eat fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He catches it himself and says there is still enough to go around for now, if you know where to look.
But what would happen, I ask, if there are no more fish? He doesn't hesitate.
Mr. HOUT: (Foreign language spoken)
SULLIVAN: It'd be an age of darkness, he says, with no trace of irony. And then, he thinks about it some more and comes up with something that, for him, is clearly an even more horrible thought.
Mr. HOUT: (Foreign language spoken)
(Soundbite of laughter)
SULLIVAN: Maybe, he says, we'll have to start eating fish from cans.
Michael Sullivan, NPR News.
BLOCK: Tomorrow, Michael finishes his journey along the Mekong. He'll report from the last country the river runs through before it hits the South China Sea, Vietnam. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
