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TechnoratiThe Cambodian photographer whose life story under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime was recreated in the film The Killing Fields has died in New Jersey. Dith Pran, 65, had been ill with pancreatic cancer.
His death was announced yesterday by Sydney Schanberg, a former New York Times correspondent who worked with Pran in the early 1970s covering the rise of Pol Pot and Cambodia's civil war.
"Pran was a true reporter, a fighter for the truth and for his people," Schanberg told the Associated Press.
Schanberg has credited Pran with coming up with the term the killing fields to describe the carnage exacted by Pol Pot, who tried to erase all western influence from Cambodia after he took control of the country in 1975. About 2 million Cambodians were killed in four years. The term became the title of the 1984 film.
The two men met in 1972 when Schanberg was posted to Cambodia. Pran served as a translator and fixer and at one point saved Schanberg's life from trigger-happy Khmer Rouge fighters.
Schanberg's coverage of Cambodia won him a Pulitzer prize in 1976, which he insisted on sharing with Pran.
By that point, it was unclear whether Pran was still alive. While Schanberg had managed to get Pran's wife and four children on to one of the last US helicopters out of Phnom Penh before the capital fell to Pol Pot he was unable to save his colleague.
Pran was captured by the Khmer Rouge and sent to a forced labour camp. For several years there was no word of his fate. But Pran survived by passing himself off as an uneducated peasant. He eventually escaped on foot to Thailand in 1979, where he sent a message to Schanberg. He arrived in New York a year later to become a photographer for the New York Times and a powerful advocate for the Cambodian people and their suffering under Pol Pot and later Vietnamese occupation.
© 2008 The Guardian
5 Comments so far
Show AllI give Dith Pran and the millions of unnamed Cambodian victims of the US backed Pol Pot butchers props for their courage. May the US get the Karma it deserves for putting the events in motion (US invasion of Cambodia, overthrowing their King, the relentless bombing, etc. etc.) that led to that despicable regime. Rest in Peace Dith Pran and to all those innocent Cambodians.
I first saw The Killing Fields about ten years ago, it being a film on a class list i was assigned while a student at Cal State Northridge. The film had a very powerful effect on both myself and my dad, who had fought in Vietnam, and had a difficult time watching the horror on the screen. One of the lines i clearly remember was S. Shanberg saying (i'm paraphrasing)this is the kind of insanity that is unleashed when a country is hit with a million pounds of American bombs. I also remember that Haing S. Ngor likewise survived the Cambodian genocide, only to be murdered in Los Angeles in 1996. (He portrayed Pran in the film) I guess we live in a violent world, eh?
His car looked as if it had survived a war, for it was battered, scratched, dented, wheezing and ooozing fluids. Taped inside the front windshield was the single word, PRESS. When the misaligned trunk lid opened, it revealed cameras, lights, tripods, and other serious equipment. The NYT photographer was dispatched to photograph me, but spent more time taking pictures of our flowering garden.
As he worked taking pictures for an upcoming feature, he told my wife and I his amazing story from atop his little stool, making "Ahhrrrrrrrt" as he called it. He took dozens of pictures. Then he posed with me while my wife snapped our picture.
Since his escape from Cambodia, he had been very much involved in nonprofit work, helping children of Cambodia become clothed, fed, and educated.
His name was Dith Pran. We went out that day and rented The Killing Fields, which was based on his story.
Dith emailed me about a month or six weeks ago to ask how I was doing. He didn't mention his health's downturn.
Good Bye, Dith. You are finally free.
I frist saw "the Killing Fields" 22 years ago when it was shown at my community college free of an admissions charge. My reaction was simply, "Wow!" People like Dith Pran and Raoul Wallenberg, who exemplify the best while living amongst the worst, continue to be candles in a demon-haunted world, to misquote Carl Sagan. I'll say my Buddhist prayers with him in mind tonight.
Anyone who has seen the movie will realize how gutsy and tenacious this guy was. It's a shame he was felled so young, but I'm glad he had a chance to live a decent life with his family.