Spare Them? No Profit.
Remove Them? No Loss.
by Chhalith Ou and R. Z. Halleson
Chhalith Ou was twelve years old when he and his family became part of the forced migration of millions of people out of the cities and towns of Cambodia in 1975 into the countryside to fend for themselves. In the months that followed, tens of thousands died of starvation and illness.
After a year, those that survived were moved into newly built
villages controlled by the Khmer Rouge Communists who were attempting to create a new society where everyone was equal, and it was in one of these that the Ou family stayed and worked for the next three years, all except Chhalith the oldest son.
Then thirteen, Chhalith was considered a man so he was assigned to the infamous Khmer Rouge work groups that traveled throughout Battambang Province in northwest Cambodia building roads, dikes, dams, planting and harvesting rice, and uprooting trees to create 
farmland. After an incident one night in a rice field, Chhalith knew he was being targeted by another teen who had begun to enjoy killing, so he volunteered to go with a jungle workgroup to collect rocks, bamboo, and resin to get away from this killer.
Almost half of his time during the four years living under the Khmer Rouge regime was spent in deep jungle learning to test plants to see
which were edible when their allotment of rice ran out and trying to avoid being killed by tigers, warthogs, poisonous snakes, and other wild animals. Forced to become a leader of men much older than himself, he learned to control them so that he and the members of his workgroup would not be killed.
The escape of the Ou family from Cambodia has to be one of the most hazardous ever recorded. Chhalith, now deathly ill from a spreading foot infection and from Malaria was reunited with his family to begin an escape that took months through mountains, rivers, and minefields.
You will want to read this account of the strength of family, the reliance of a son upon the teachings of his father and his courage to persevere in the task of just staying alive.
Why did they kill?
Scholars and journalists have spent years analyzing the implosion of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. One of the most murderous regimes in all history came to an end when the Vietnamese invaded, subsequently occupying the country for ten years before withdrawing.
This is the extraordinary memoir of a man who spent his teen years traveling throughout Cambodia’s Battambang Province as part of the brutal Khmer Rouge workgroups.
Chhalith Ou’s portrait of Angkar, the mysterious organization controlling the Khmer Rouge and the people of Cambodia has never before been told from inside Battambang Province where it reached the height of its organization
and control. The Communist mantra was well understood by all the people: There was no profit in sparing those who offended Angkar; there was no loss in killing people who were a threat to the established order.
This is a story that won't be forgotten for a long long time, a true descent into hell on earth for a young boy, but redeemed through his own intelligence and courage and by the relationships within his remarkable family from whom he was separated for most of those four years.