Word: seng
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Such perseverance is the theme of Cloud's account of Hout Seng, TIME's driver in Phnom Penh during the war. After an arduous escape from Cambodia, Seng and some of his family were confined in refugee camps in Thailand. With TIME's help, they were eventually able to settle in Washington, where Seng's son Neang, 28, is a photographer. He accompanied Cloud on his recent journey...
...first time Hout Seng saw the Khmer Rouge up close, they were running past his ground-floor apartment on the southern outskirts of Phnom Penh. They wore black pajamas and sandals made of tires, and had branches tied to their backs as camouflage. All carried AK-47s. It was the morning of April 17, 1975. % After five years of war, the Communist rebels were on the brink of victory. As the government's remaining defenses collapsed, more and more guerrillas poured past Seng's residence into the capital. By midafternoon the war was over, and people were celebrating...
...thousands, that celebration may have been the last happy moment of their lives. For millions, including Seng and his family, it marked the beginning of a nightmare of death and suffering. Before nightfall on that first day, the Khmer Rouge were rounding up "traitors" (those who had served in the previous government) and "collaborators" (professionals, people who spoke foreign languages, teachers and the like). Most were summarily executed or tortured to death. By the next morning, the Communist government had begun the complete evacuation of the cities, which Cambodia's new rulers regarded as cesspools of bourgeois corruption. Nearly...