Khmer Rouge

Khmer Rouge is presented as the ruling force in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and as the source of atrocities that remained with survivors long after they escaped. The book’s account focuses not on the organization’s structure but on the violence its rule left in the memories and bodies of Cambodian refugee women.

Rule and Atrocities

The Khmer Rouge was in power in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The book describes the atrocities for which it was known through the experiences of women who witnessed them before fleeing their homeland. Many had endured severe violence, and most had seen family members murdered. The account establishes the regime’s historical presence through these survivors’ testimony rather than through an institutional or military history.

Refugees in California

During the 1980s, large numbers of Cambodian women sought medical care in California because they could not see or had blurred or partial vision. They were war refugees, and their reported symptoms emerged against the background of what they had witnessed under Khmer Rouge rule. One woman said she had lost her sight after crying every day for four years; she had not seen her husband or three children since soldiers took them away.

Medical Examinations

About 150 women were examined. Their eyes appeared normal, and further tests found no abnormality in their brains. Some observers doubted their accounts and suspected that the women might be feigning symptoms to attract attention or obtain disability payments. If the women were telling the truth, the account presents psychosomatic blindness as the explanation: overwhelming trauma had affected their sight despite the absence of detectable physical damage.

Narrative Significance

The Khmer Rouge enters the narrative through the lasting consequences of its atrocities, not through a detailed account of its policies or internal organization. The movement from Cambodia to California, and from remembered violence to unexplained blindness, connects political brutality with the survivors’ later medical crises. The passage treats their symptoms as an aftermath that cannot be understood by examining the eyes or brain alone.