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Page 4
Street Roots • June 2-8, 2017
Forgiving the unforgivable
Kilong Ung survived fo u r years o f hell before coming to Portland where he turned his anger into hope
BY EMILY GREEN
S T A F F W R IT E R
hen Kilong Ung strides past
hundreds of thousands of Grand
Floral and Starlight parade
spectators this June, most onlookers won’t
realize he survived one of the most horrific
atrocities in human history.
Marching ceremoniously alongside
members of Portland’s distinguished Royal
Rosarians, Kilong’s glistening $2,000 uniform
is the antithesis of the tattered long-sleeved
shirt and dirty pair of shorts he wore for four
years as a slave laborer during the Cambodian
genocide.
For more than a century, the Royal
Rosarians have been a hallmark of the Rose
Festival and served as Portland’s official
goodwill ambassadors. They greet politicians
and dignitaries at the airport, represent the
city at festivals around the Pacific Northwest
and raise money for children’s programs
through their foundation.
Members are accomplished; many are
business owners and managers or hold high-
ranking positions in local government.
Kilong was a young refugee, new to
America and living with a foster family, when
he first saw the Royal Rosarians marching in
the Grand Floral parade.
Glowing brightly in their double-breasted,
cream-colored suits, white-banded straw
W
boater hats, white gloves, white shoes and red
ties, the Rosarians captivated Kilong, and for
years he would dream of one day joining their
ranks.
Kilong had been struck with a similar
sense of wonderment several years earlier
and halfway around the globe when he first
saw Khmer Rouge soldiers march past him in
a parade of a different sort.
In their dusty black guerilla fighter
uniforms, red-checkered scarves and AK-47s,
their impressiveness was exciting to Kilong,
who was just a boy.
It was April of 1975, and these soldiers had
just emerged victorious from Cambodia’s long
civil war.
At the time, Kilong lived in a wood and
straw house perched high above the ground
on stilts in the city of Battambang with his
parents and five of his seven sisters. An
in-law and his nephew also lived under the
same roof.
He was especially close to his only younger
sister, Sivly Ung, nicknamed “Ali.” Even at a
young age, he had taken on a guardian role
for Ali, enrolling her in school when he was
only in fourth grade himself.
While Kilong doesn’t know exactly when he
was born, he estimates he was 15 years old
when the war ended, but he had the
appearance of a 10-year-old.
He remembers residents of Battambang
celebrating the end of the war, with many
believing the Khmer Rouge would be good for
Cambodia.
Unlike his long-held infatuation with the
Royal Rosarians later in life, Kilong’s
adoration for the Khmer Rouge soldiers
would quickly fade.
Soon after the war’s end celebration, he
saw a group of the soldiers humiliate a man
in the street near his home. After berating
and threatening the half-naked man to the
point of urinating on himself, they shot him in
the head, killing him instantly right before
Kilong’s eyes.
The Khmer Rouge regime and its Marxist
leader, Pol Pot, are notorious for what
followed.
They transformed the entire country of
See FORGIVING, page 5