The worship to the God is one of the five main
pillars in Islam, and every single Muslim has to pray five times a day.
However, Cham Muslim could not fulfill this obligatory properly during the
Khmer Rouge regime, since every religion was prohibited to practice. Cham
Muslim in Khpob II village in now Tboung Khmum province struggled to pray despite
the prohibition.
Before the dawn break about 4:45 a.m., the sound of
calling people for Morning Prayer can be heard in an ethnic Cham Muslim village
called Khpob II village. This village is about an hour far away from Soung city
by riding motorbike.
As the Mu'adhin, the caller to prayer finished the
calling, many people start walking to pray in the mosque together. They gather
to pray peacefully without any distraction in the mosque called Shahidan
mosque. Unlike nowadays, Cham Muslim people living under Khmer Rouge regime could
not go to pray in the mosque, where they have to worship to the God.
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| Ke Tiveou, a victim in Khmer Rouge regime. |
Ke Tiveou could not fulfill her praying obligatory properly,
and she had to pretend to be sleeping in order to pray. When she was in the
field, she had to tell a liar and make an excuse in order to pray.
She said “First we could pray openly but it
became harder and harder later on. They (the Pot Pot spy) did not allow to pray,
but I was pretending to sleep in order to pray. When there was quiet, I sat
down to pray, but when they came, I broke the pray and spoke with them.”
She sometimes had nothing to eat and felt exhausted,
but she rarely stopped worshipping to the God. In a painful expression on her
face, she said she was afraid of The Khmer Rouge spy seeing her too, but saying
she feared God the most.
"In this world, I was afraid of their mistreatment, but in the hereafter I fear the God only, not them.”
Looking up to the roof, Tiveou continued recalling
her memories in the Khmer Rouge regime. She said even though she could not fulfill
the praying on time, she tried to make it for another time.
“I secretly prayed with my mother when the time
of praying came. When I could not pray the noon prayer, I made and combined it to
with the next prayer. I did these things because I lived under their (Khmer
Rouge) control. I was quite scared that if I found praying, I would result in
death. Luckily, they never found me in praying.”
During Khmer Rouge regime, every religion was
prohibited to practice, since the Pol Pot considered all religion to be
reactionary.
A witness of Khmer Rouge regime Sos Mohammad Nour said
Khmer Rouge forbad him as well as other people in his village since 1973.
“Pray! We
could not pray at all. We hid to pray, pray in a sleeping manner, pray in the
water.”
Mohammad Nour claimed Khmer Rouge put more
restrictions on Cham Muslims because of Koh Phal and Svay Klaing villages’
rebillions.
A former rebellion in Koh Phal village, Sos Sles who
is 67 years of age recalled what had happened in his village back in Khmer
Rouge regime. He said in Ramadan, the holy fasting month of Muslims, Khmer
Rouge cadres called the villagers to gather in a meeting. It started in the
afternoon and lasted until about 8 p.m. The villagers became angry, as they
could not have the iftar, the breaking of fasting on time.
“The commotion started around 7 or 8
p.m. because they (the Pol Pot) caused us to have no iftar, and then we clashed
with them. They ran away because it was a night time already.”
A research at Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) Ms. Farina
So said prior to Khmer Rouge took the power from Khmer Republic’s Lon Nol, about
60% of the country was already controlled by Khmer Rouge since 1973. The areas
controlled by Khmer Rouge were named liberated areas. Koh Phal village was in
the liberated areas too, and Khmer Rouge started to implement their policies to
smash the religion and the customs. And the protest also started.
“Before the
mass protest started, Khmer Rouge started to smash Koh Phal village until 1975.”
Isa Osman, a former research at DC-cam, stated in his book Oukoubah
that “Khmer Rouge’s goal was to kill Cham, to have Cham erase their customs and
tradition, shut down the mosque and forbad worship.
Mr. Osman said Khmer Rouge prohibited ethnic Cham not to speak
their language, and forced them to consumed pork. Khmer Rouge also killed
hakim, religious leaders, and Taun, religious teachers.
Those who faced arresting in Khpob II village were
mostly educated people. Village chiefs or hakims were all arrested, as they
were considered educated persons.
After hearing the arrest of her brother, Tiveou felt
painful and thought that her brother would be tortured and executed to death.
She could barely cry in pain of the arrest of her brother.
“Even
nowadays, I always want to cry when I think of my brother. I don’t know where
he was killed, and where he was buried. I had not seen my brother, as he was
escorted at nighttime. I could not do anything but cried at the home. They
arrested him as he was hakim and village chief.”
According to Mr. Kienan Ben, a historian, saying
that only 20 out of 113 ethnic Cham hakim survived in 1979.
