(08-05-2005)

by Huu Ngoc

The world has just marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. From Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder declared: "What remains are relics of crime scenes... I express my shame to all those who were murdered."From Auschwitz, French President Jacques Chirac made an appeal "to build a society in which such a monstrous and criminal enterprise will be unthinkable."

These statements came to my mind as I mounted the steps leading to the Museum-Memorial for the crimes perpetrated by (Khmer Rouge) Pol Pot in Ba Chuc Commune in the province of An Giang (Land of the Quiet River) on the south-western border. In the centre of the building stood a huge hexagonal glass case containing the skulls and bones of 1,159 people. Anthropologists, among them Professor M Pietrsewsky of the University of Hawaii, had identified among this formless mass 29 new-borns, 88 girls aged between 16 and 20, 155 women aged between 21 and 44, 103 others between the ages of 41 and 60, still 86 other women over 60 years old, 23 youths aged between 16 and 20, 79 men aged between 21 and 40, 162 other men aged between 41 and 60 and 38 men over 60 years old.

On April 30, 1977, Pol Pot’s troops launched a surprise attack on 13 villages in eight Vietnamese border provinces. Ba Chuc was the hardest hit. The massacre was at its fiercest during the 12 days of occupation, April 18-30, 1978, during which the intruders killed 3,157 villagers. The survivors fled and took refuge in the pagodas of Tam Buu and Phi Lai or in caves on Mount Tuong, but they were soon discovered. The raiders shot them, slit their throats or beat them to death with sticks. Babies were flung into the air and pierced with bayonets. Women were raped and left to die with stakes planted in their genitals.

This unjustifiable holocaust was conducted against a rural, pious population. In fact, Ba Chuc is the sanctuary of a Confucianised Buddhist sect called Tu An Hieu Nghia (Four Obligations Fulfilled by Filial Piety and Justice)*. The prophet and founder of this sect, the son of a carpenter, lived from 1831 to 1890. Following his enlightenment, he took his followers to Mount Tuong to reclaim the land and practice religion, and their pagodas might have harboured members of the Can Vuong (Save the King) movement in the early days of the French conquest.

From the sombre museum, we emerged into the warm spring sunshine to mingle with the throngs of pilgrims at the nearby shrine of Ba Chua Xu (The Lady of the Region). Legend has it that when Royal Delegate Count Thoai Ngoc Hau was supervising the opening-up of this region, villagers discovered a stone statue on Mount Sam. They tried to move it down the slope but were not successful. A medium then went into a trance and declared: "I am the Lady of the Region. It will take nine virgins to carry me." This was done, and a shrine was set up at the foot of the mountain, probably by Thoai Ngoc Hau’s wife to thank the goddess for having protected her husband who was fighting at the border.

The cult of Ba Chua Xu is probably related to Tho Mau, the worship of the Mother Goddess among various Southeast Asian peoples, and which originates from the fertility cult. The festival dedicated to Ba Chua Xu, for instance, takes place in the fourth lunar month, when a new farming season begins and people look forward to a good crop.

Another interesting fact is that the statue of Ba Chua Xu, placed next to a linga, was originally masculine in form and was related to the Hindu worship of Shiva and the linga. In the 1960s, it was modified to take the form of a woman. Like the Buddhist goddess Quan Am (Avalokiteshvara), the masculine genius in India was transformed into a goddess in the Far East.

An Giang, the province of the Quiet River, is where the Mekong River enters Viet Nam’s territory and divides into two branches, the Bassac and the Transbassac. Its population of two million is made up of the Kinh, the Hoa, the Cham and the Khmer. It has two major urban centres, Long Xuyen and Chau Doc, and is distinguished by a big mountain range called That Son (Seven Mountains) as well as a maze of rivers and canals. Archaeologists have discovered vestiges of an Indianised culture called Oc Eo that existed from the first to the seventh centuries of the Christian era. — VNS