Thursday, April 22, 2004

By MONSY ALVARADO
STAFF WRITER

TENAFLY

Arn Chorn-Pond has seen and escaped death more times than he can bring himself to remember.

The native of Cambodia saw the good and evil of humanity while he fought for his life in his country when he was just a boy.

On Wednesday, the 37-year-old human rights leader shared his experiences with Tenafly Middle School students. In an emotional speech, he encouraged them to work for peace and to make a difference in the world. After his talk, Chorn-Pond, whose skill as a flutist helped him survive imprisonment as a child, performed a soothing lullaby.

"Everyone has good and bad within them. It's up to us to decide how to live,'' he told the students, many of whom hugged him at the end of the assembly. "You can literally change the world."

Chorn-Pond was brought to the school by the students of the Landmine Awareness Club as part of their spring symposium on Cambodia and the millions of landmines remaining there from years of war. The school also set up a black and white photograph exhibit by a local artist titled "To Plant Seeds; To Gather Wood. Landmines, the Rural Poor and the War Against Civilians in Cambodia."

Language arts teacher Mark Hyman, the club's adviser and founder, said that although the club wants to raise money for landmine causes, a more important goal of the symposium is to educate children and the community about the landmine problem worldwide.

"Any funds we raise is really an off-shoot of education,'' Hyman said.

In 1999, Hyman and the Landmine Awareness Club formed a non-profit organization, Global Care Unlimited Inc., to solicit funds for landmine causes. In 2001, students raised $15,000 and received matching funds from the U.S. State Department to get rid of landmines in a village in Bosnia.

The club's next goal is to raise $10,500 for Clear Path International, an organization that helps Cambodian landmine victims develop skills to enter the workforce and become self-sufficient.

"Survivors can support themselves ... and second of all they can feel integrated in their society,'' Hyman said.

That fund-raising project is set to begin next week with sixth-graders, who will write letters to the community about landmines and how they affect people worldwide.

Chorn-Pond said he is grateful for the children's efforts, noting that there are an estimated 6 million landmines in Cambodia, a country of 13 million people. He said landmines kill and maim thousands annually.

In 1975, when Chorn-Pond was a boy, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge took power. The Cambodian communist group forced men, women, and children into labor camps, where they were tortured, starved, and murdered.

Chorn-Pond was imprisoned in a labor camp where he said soldiers killed people four or five times a day. He said at times he was forced to remove the clothes of the dead. He recalled when he was scared for his life and all he could do was hold his friends' hands tightly.

"We knew if someone cried or showed emotion, they could be killed,'' he said. "We were children; it was too hard for us."

To survive, Chorn-Pond followed strict orders, even though it meant that he, too, would participate in killing others at the camps.

Later, as the Khmer Rouge fought the Vietnamese, they placed young children on the battlefield.

"The Khmer Rouge forced me to fight,'' he said. "Anybody who could carry a gun, fought in the war."

Chorn-Pond eventually escaped to the jungle and found his way into a Thai refugee camp. At the camp, weighing about 30 pounds, he was found by an American refugee worker who adopted him and brought him to the United States.

Chorn-Pond, who divides his time between living in Cambodia and the United States, has spent years talking to groups throughout America about his experiences. His latest project is to bring back the traditional music of Cambodia that was outlawed by the Communist regime, which killed an estimated 90 percent of Cambodia's musicians.

"I'm trying to keep our music alive, because so much of our culture has died," he said.

While imprisoned, Chorn-Pond played propaganda songs on the flute to entertain communist soldiers. He was the subject of a PBS documentary titled "The Flute Player." A portion of the film was shown to students.

Sixth-grader Katie Rodriguez, a member of the club, saw the documentary in its entirety before the assembly. She said she was surprised to learn of Chorn-Pond's suffering but said it made her more determined to continue to raise money and awareness for landmine causes.

"I'm helping get this problem out into the world so people could help,'' she said.

Emily Gallagher, 11, lauded Chorn-Pond for telling his story.

"It's great that he's trying to help and give back to his community," she said.

E-mail: alvarado@northjersey.com

The Record, April 22, 2004
Photo by Thomas E. Franklin.