Walking for Peace and Reconciliation in Cambodia
The Third Dhammayietra

"Our journey for peace begins today and every day.  Slowly, slowly, each step
is a prayer, each step is a meditation, each step will build a bridge."

In this spirit, Dhammayietra three, the third walk for peace and
reconciliation led by Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda, began from Battambang
town in northwestern Cambodia just after Cambodian new year in April. 
Despite an upsurge in fighting in the area through which the walk was
supposed to travel, participants began arriving as much as one week in
advance from all over the country.  Most had heard of the Walk via the radio,
others via the informal "temple information network".  By April 23 about 450
monks, 250 nuns and 100 lay people had gathered at Wat Bo Viel in Battambang.
The walkers represented various religions (Buddhist, Christian and Muslim),
backgrounds and ages, the youngest aged thirteen and the oldest, a veteran of
two previous walks, an eighty-nine year old nun.  "People think I'm too old
to walk, but I tell them we've all got to struggle if we want peace."

Throughout the pre-walk training, which included nonviolence, mine awareness
and first aid, shelling remained audible from the town.  Fighting had
intensified with the Khmer Rouge having retaken Pailin, which the government
had briefly taken, and looted, four weeks earlier.  During these three days
the Dhammayietra issued several statements appealing for an immediate
ceasefire and negotiations without preconditions.  "Every day the bloodshed
continues, lives are lost, children are orphaned, women widowed, innocent
farmers are maimed by landmines and families are displaced by fighting ... 
We urge all sides to cease fighting immediately and begin negotiations within
the next two weeks," stated one.  During one of the daily walks around
Battambang during the training the statements were also delivered to the
vice-governor of Battambang.  In addition, a delegation of the Dhammayietra
visited the wounded, most victims of the recent fighting, in the local
hospital.

The Dhammayietra began from Wat Bo Viel early in the morning on 24 April with
over 800 pilgrims accompanied by 1000 well-wishers joining the first steps of
the journey, seven kilometres to Omal village, the lunch stop.  "We can't
walk the whole way but we want to walk for peace too.  We send our spirits in
solidarity, so we walk a few kilometres to send you off with our blessings," 
said a fifty-four year old Battambang resident.  Thousands of villagers lined
the roads with buckets of water and incense to receive the blessing of the
walk, dousing incense sticks in the water as a symbol of extinguishing the
flames of war.

The walk proceeded along Route 10, as planned, for the next three days. 
Shelling could be heard from further down the road, yet the villagers
enthusiastically welcomed the Walk.  Everywhere thousands of villagers lined
the roads, palms joined together in a greeting of respect.  They awaited the
water blessing and brought offerings of food to the local temples which
housed the walkers.  At each village Maha Ghosananda gave a dhamma talk,
spreading the message of the walk to the thousands who attended carnival-like
events in the temples.

On the morning of April 27 as the walk left Bung Ampil, villagers were tense
as the fighting intensified, and approached, and they were debating whether
to flee their homes.  As the walk continued south travelling through Sdau,
eight kilometres further, it was obvious that most villagers had already left
this village.  Most of those kneeling on the side of the road were soldiers,
their guns laid on the ground next to them, awaiting the water blessing.  One
lone elderly man, crouched down after a row of soldiers, with an offering of
rice in one hand, held aloft a piece of metal in the other. On it he had
written in chalk "Nanti santi param sokham" "There is no greater happiness
than peace".

The walk continued to Kilo 38, previously a bustling village, now a ghost
town, as all the villagers had fled.  Here the walkers stopped for prayer,
chanting and meditation as occasional rockets whizzed overhead.  Fired out by
government troops, the deafening thud of discharge rocking the silence.  "May
all beings be free from suffering, may all beings be free from fear, may all
beings live in peace", was chanted in Pali, the ancient language of Buddhism
and in Cambodian.  Soldiers careened by on tanks and trucks, barely slowing
down for the hundreds of monks and nuns meditating in silence.

Soon afterwards the walk leaders announced that the Dhammayietra would return
to Bung Ampil, that the government troops had said the fighting up ahead was
too heavy for the walk to continue.  The walkers were then told to turn
around, and return to Bung Ampil.  Confusion ensued, as some retreated,
catching rides on motorbikes and trucks another sixteen kilometres to Wat
Andaak.  "What? Run away? No way! I, for one came to WALK with Samdech and I
will continue to walk with him wherever he leads us", insisted one elderly
nun.  That evening she and about 200 remaining walkers continued the retreat
back to Snung, another eight kilometres at dusk, alongside thousands of
fleeing families, now also evacuating Bung Ampil.  The pilgrims walked
alongside the file of oxcarts, motorbikes and bicycles laden with water
buckets, rice sacks, chickens, pots and pans, children.  The ubiquitous blue
plastic bags signalled a once more hopeful move, the recent UNHCR
repatriation, only to be thrust into the road once again.  The eerie silence
was only broken by the rhythmic beat of the Japanese monk's drum and the
creak of the oxcart wheels.  One woman, struggling with four children, told a
nun, "We were waiting to see if the monks went forward to Pailin, thinking if
they did we could stay.  When we saw them coming back from Kilo 38, we
decided we'd better run too...but it's so late in the day.  Where will we
sleep tonight?"

At Wat Andaak the walk leadership decided to seek a 'quieter' route to
Pailin.  This detour would take the walkers west to Komping Poey, north of
Bavel.  On 30 April, as the walk prepared to traverse single file a 'forest'
on the way from Komping Poey reservoir to Bavel, one of the walk leaders
asked a government soldier to indicate the mine-free path.  Unarmed, but in
uniform, he accompanied the walk.  Later as the line filed past another
military outpost several other soldiers, armed, wove in and out of the line
of walkers, claiming "We're on our own patrol."  Suddenly the walkers
encountered a group of Democratic Kampuchea (DK or Khmer Rouge) soldiers and
a fire fight ensued.  Bullets and rockets flew as the walkers lay on the
ground.  After a few minutes many got up and began to run back to a big tree.
As they did so bullets rang out once again, which is when most of the
injuries occurred.  Venerable Kol Saroth, a monk who was shot in the leg at
that moment later recounted, "I was running back next to a soldier and then I
felt pang! in my leg and fell down.  Maybe they were aiming at the soldier,
not me...if only I'd stayed lying down..."

As the walkers slowly did begin to move forward again, the DK soldiers came
upon the foreigners.  Three Americans, two Australians, a Thai and three
Cambodians were pulled over to the side.  After looking through our bags,
they told us to follow them into the forest.  One of the younger soldiers
said several times, "Oh no, a monk died. It's so sad a monk died."  He told
me he was 27 from Prey Veng province, and had been fighting for ten years,
hadn't seen his mother in fifteen.  "Where are you from? U.S.? Oh I have a
brother in California.  What's it like there?  Do you think I could ever go
visit him?"

After walking for an hour we met another group of soldiers and their
commander who had come to meet us.  The commander called us for a 'meeting'
and started, "First of all I want to thank you all, especially our Thai
friend, for coming to help Cambodia.  But I just want to ask that you remain
neutral and nonpartisan.  My appeal to you is that you remind all foreigners
working in Cambodia that all Cambodians, including those of the DK want
peace. We want development too... Secondly I want to apologise for the death
of the monk. If there had not been any soldiers we would not have shot at the
monks."  He then asked about the Dhammayietra and Maha Ghosananda, whom he
knew had helped start temples in their refugee camps in Thailand. "We want to
meet the monks. We want to find another way. We too are tired of fighting for
twenty years."

After talking for over an hour he then told us we were free to go back to
join the group. Yet he warned, "Don't go to Bavel. Tonight we are going to
shell Bavel." After several hours walk we arrived in Sang Kae Vea village,
two kilometres east of Bavel. Upon meeting up with the Walk we learned that a
monk and a nun had been killed and five people wounded. They had been
transported by oxcart to the local hospital and then transferred to
Battambang. At dawn the next morning the village of Bavel was shelled.

Later that morning a funeral ceremony was held at which the monks reiterated
their commitment to continue the walk. "We will continue the Dhammayietra.
This violence id indeed why we are walking. We remain committed to nonviolent
means to create peace, reconciliation and unity."

A few frightened walkers then left, but others, who had heard of the violence
came to join the Dhammayietra.  The walk continued north towards Sisophon,
along a road which followed a river, tree-lined and lush, with continuous
villages. People continued to greet the walk wholeheartedly.  In Mongkol
Borei, a village tense with rumours of impending attacks, seventy local monks
held their own "town Dhammayietra" before joining the walk.

Meanwhile on May 4th Ponleu Khmer, the federation of Cambodian NGO's,
organised a Dhammayietra walk in Phnom Penh to express support for the
Dhammayietra.  They walked in memory of those who had died and in support of
the round table talks which King Sihanouk had called for in North Korea.
About one thousand people joined the walk around the city which stopped at
the DK headquarters as well as in front of the palace. There King Sihanouk
met the group and reiterated his support for the walk. Earlier, after the
violence which resulted in the two deaths he had written a letter of
condolence asking Maha Ghosananda to postpone the walk. Maha Ghosananda, upon
reading it, had replied, "He asks us to stop out of love. It is however,
egotistical love, not universal love. We must go on."

Back in Sisophon, there were 2000 refugees at the temple where the Walk was
staying.  They had been displaced from their villages by fighting along the
Thai border.  After a rest day the Dhammayietra continued, walking one day
north of Sisophon towards Thma Pouk, an area formerly controlled by Son
Sann's faction. Here the villagers' faces were serious and weathered,
indicating the harder life in the war weary area, as they lined up to greet
the walkers with an air of austere respect. "We just rebuilt this temple last
year. We had put up a temple building two years before that, but as soon as
it was finished it was shelled. We have never seen so many monks," said the
caretaker of one tiny temple in an open field.

The next morning the walk 'deviated' from its direction for the final time.
As people were lining the roads with buckets of water and food offerings to
the north, the walk turned away from them and headed back south. Worried lest
the walk encounter further violence, particularly after King Sihanouk's call
to postpone it, the leaders had suddenly decided to head back to route six
taking the 'safer' national highway to Angkor Wat. The walk then arrived in
Siem Reap one week ahead of schedule.

After walking from Siem Reap to the ancient temple complex, the group spent
the night there. Venerable Yos Hut said in his final address at Angkor Wat,
"Along the route we saw and heard the everyday living conditions of our
fellow Cambodians. We witnessed how our fellow compatriots live in constant
fear and anxiety due to the endless flames of war, banditry, threats,
extortion, rape and other violations so often occurring in the villages. We
also witnessed many displaced persons once again forced to flee their homes
without time to gather their belongings. All of this suffering we witnessed
encourages us to seek any and all means to end the violence and suffering of
our compatriots... Cambodians in every village, in every Wat, received the
Dhammayietra warmly and wholeheartedly. We believe that many Cambodians all
over the country join together in support of the Dhammayietra and our call
for a nonviolent resolution to the conflict through metta-karuna
(loving-kindness and compassion) for true lasting peace and reconciliation."

In his last talk Maha Ghosananda, comparing Cambodia to a boat, reminded all
Cambodians, including the leaders, that "We are all in it together. If
Cambodia sinks through war, violence, greed, hatred, everyone sinks as
well... We all live in Cambodia together."

Afterwards some of the marchers returned to Battambang province to visit the
displaced people whom we had walked alongside as they fled their homes. There
were now about 50,000 displaced, including the entire district of Rattanak
Mondol. They were sleeping in the mud in rice fields under sheets of blue
plastic, again, as the seasonal rains began. One woman said, "I have run my
whole life. I can't count the number of times. Five times in five years, at
least. Are we Cambodians born to spend our lives fleeing?"

When one of the monks asked a 35 year old woman refugee from Kilo 38 village
what message she wanted him to send to the leaders in Phnom Penh, she
answered "Just tell the leaders one thing, tell them to stop fighting. To
make peace. Then we don't need any assistance or anything, we'll plant rice
and farm and make our own living, but let us live in our village in peace..."
As Maha Ghosananda and the other supreme patriarchs travelled to North Korea
to attend peace talks with all of the leaders May 27-28, those in Phnom Penh
organised a public prayer and meditation for peace each day throughout the
talks. They began a "Tie a saffron ribbon for peace" campaign and hung
banners and ribbons throughout the city. When they later learned that the
talks had not led to any agreements, they reminded one another of Maha
Ghosananda's teaching, "Peace is always a point of arrival and a point of
departure. That is why we must always begin again, step by step and never get
discouraged."

Sour Sreng, the 57 year old layman from Phnom Penh who had been shot in the
leg instructed us from his hospital bed, "We were wrong to have had soldiers
with us. We could have just asked them about the mine-free path. Both sides
shot. It is not the DK's fault. I do believe they are sorry. I am not angry.
I forgive them. If we go on seeking revenge each time it will never end. We
are tired of the war and violence. That's why we are walking. We are walking
to cultivate peace and nonviolence in our hearts and country so we must
continue the walk. The alternative is accepting the bloodshed and then the
violence and destruction will never stop. I say I am a Buddhist and practise
dhamma. Well if that is so then I couldn't think any other way or I wouldn't
be a true Buddhist... If I am injured, even if I died, if it is for peace, so
much the better. If my leg were healed, I'd walk again tomorrow!"

Postscript
Six weeks after the walk the steering committee conducted a full evaluation
of Dhammayietra 3 so that important lessons could be learned for future
actions. We acknowledge that despite our continuously repeated blessing as we
sprinkled water on those kneeling by the side of the road "May peace be in
your heart; may peace prevail in our country." Our hearts were not always
peaceful. Many times we were more guided by fear than compassion. We strayed
from our principles of nonviolent and neutrality. Though perhaps our public
words were reconciling, not all of our actions were. Often we did not remain
mindful, balancing wisdom and compassion. At the evaluation we systematically
examined strengths and weaknesses, making concrete recommendations for the
next Dhammayietra. All agreed that serious training in nonviolent was
imperative, as was prior agreement by the committee on the practical
application of nonviolence when crossing a war zone. Suggestions were also
made for improved communication, clearer delegation of responsibilities and
decision-making processes, particularly in times of crisis.
Liz Bernstein