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The Rev. Sam Om, 57, was sent to the Cambodian killing fields. (Photo: TODD SUMLIN - tsumlin@charlotteobserver.com)Sunday, Apr. 04, 2010
By Tim Funktfunk@charlotteobserver.com
Charlotte Observer
It was the mid-1970s. Sam Om had been sentenced to a slow death in a Cambodian work camp run by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge rebels.
As a soldier on the losing side of a civil war, he worked from sunrise until dark, digging ditches and planting rice. He had little to eat. And he slept in the fields wrapped in a rice sack.
The law of survival was to shut up and do what you were told. Those who violated it were forced to dig their own graves, then beaten to death with a bamboo stick.
One day, he refused to get up.
Why are you so lazy? the guard screamed. Others are working!
Sam cursed him, then said: Kill me now.
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