Cambodian Diary

.During my time as the chief photographer for The Associated Press in Southeast Asia, I spent a lot of time working in Cambodia.  Back then, Cambodia struggled with 20 years of civil war and genocide waged by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge.  
My first assignment was to illustrate a story about police officers assigned to stop smugglers from stealing art treasures.  Zooming around the temples on dirt bikes, the officers were known as "Angkor's Angels." 
There was not much I could do with the story.  In the end, I did some individual portraits and left it at that.  But I was in Cambodia, and it was something to see back in 1997.  In Siem Reap, just a couple of kilometers from one of the world's largest religious complexes, the roads were mostly dirt, and mingled with the average citizens were former Khmer Rouge soldiers.
There were some significant moments for me as a photojournalist in Cambodia.  I photographed Pol Pot's death scene in 1998 and was at the Phnom Penh airport on my way back to Bangkok when a Vietnam  Air flight crashed on landing, killing 68 passengers.  Only a baby survived.  I watched it as it happened from a departure lounge window.  I dashed out of the terminal building, threw myself and cameras in the back of an emergency truck, and stood in a dry rice paddy within three minutes—all around me, the dead, the dying and debris.  The scenes of death and destruction were something I have never forgotten. 


My life changed forever on that day,

Near the Thai-Cambodian border March of 1998 a young Khmer Rouge soldiers peers out from a barbed wire enclosure.

Contrasted against the deforested jungle near Pailin, A young disabled Cambodian girl is seen near her home.

Three Cambodians ride near a destroyed tank along the Thai-Cambodian border.

A landmine victim is brought to an emergency clinic near the Thai-Cambodian border in March of 1998.

Street children gather outside a market in Phnom Penh in February of 1997,

Author

David Lee Longstreath is a retired wire service photographer with more than 40 years experience on assignments around the world. He currently lives in upcountry Thailand.