Dith Pran, Cambodian Photojournalist, Dies at Age 65
Sunday, March 30, 2008 @ 06:36
Pran was an amazing photojournalist best known for his work covering the war and eventual political collapse of Cambodia in the 1970s. He also labored for years as a captive of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.
Pran's amazing story was the inspiration behind the 1984 move, The Killing Fields, and in a video presentation on the New York Times' website recorded in early March, Pran reported that his mission with his work was to persuade people never to let a horror like the killing fields happen again. "One time is too many," he was quoted as saying in the video. "If they can do that for me, my spirit will be happy."
Pran was born in Cambodia and taught himself English. He also taught himself to take pictures, using them to cover Cambodia's civil war until 1975. It was at that time when all foreign journalists were expelled from the country. Pran was forced into a relocation program that required him to work in the countryside and subsist on a meager diet barely able to sustain life. He escaped execution by the government only by pretending to be poorly educated.
Pran escaped to Thailand only months after the 1978 invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam, and the eventual overthrow of the Khmer Rouge. He joined the staff of the New York Times as a staff photographer in 1980, and remained with that organization until 2007. Of special note is the fact that Pran became a citizen of the United States in 1986.
Mood : accomplished
