Oni Vitandham
Progressive United Action Association, Inc.
3199 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Suite#203
Signal Hill, CA 90755
Phone: (562) 498 - 3266
Book Title: On the Wings of a White Horse
Synopsis
Introduction
On the Wings of a White Horse is remarkable account of personal courage and survival, revelation and renewal that begins with the traumatic events that overtook the people of Cambodia almost thirty years ago. It is the story of one small child, Oni Vitandham, whose strength of spirit, inner vision and moral courage allowed her to survive in two very different worlds the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge and the city streets of America and enabled her to fight for justice, peace and human rights for all people around the world.
Oni tells her story on behalf of the millions of Cambodian men, women and children who did not live to tell their tale, and for the many others who survived the genocide, but remain too traumatized to speak about their experiences. It serves as a timely warning to all humankind about the dangers of war and the disastrous consequences when geopolitical manipulations go astray and the ambitions of larger nations crush small countries, like Cambodia, as delicate flowers in a steel vice.
However, Oni's story is also an inspiring account of revival and renewal; showing us how the human spirit can survive even the most tragic abuse and still look forward to the future with hope in the heart.
Part I: Survival in Two Worlds
The first part of this novel is Oni's personal story. For the first three years of her life, Oni Vitandham lived in a cave hidden deep within the jungles of the Kompong Speu province in central Cambodia, unaware of the violent conflict brewing around her, as the forces of Pol Pot overtook Cambodia and began a systematic campaign of genocide against their own people. She was born into one of Cambodia's ruling class families, a fact that immediately put her life in danger. Her mother died giving birth and her father was a leader of the forces fighting to free Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge. Early on, Oni's father left his beloved daughter in the care of friends while he was out in the jungles fighting; they hid her in the isolated jungle cave. Although her father occasionally came to visit her, she was never aware of his identity.
They shared the cave with a Buddhist holy man (Lok Ta Sar), who spent his days worshipping a huge statue of Lord Buddha that dominated the central cavern. Lok Ta Sar played an important role in Oni's life, teaching her while they lived together in the cave and helping her realize her destiny as she grew older; even inspiring her to leave Cambodia.
Life in the cave was simple and happy; the violence and killing had yet to reach Oni's life, but in early 1975 this peaceful existence was shattered when the Khmer Rouge captured Oni's godmother, while she was out seeking food. For safety, Oni's godfather forced her to give up her only remaining link to her parents, in order to leave the cave in search of her godmother. Oni and her godfather searched all night and, in the early morning, they found her bound hand and foot in a bamboo grove on the outskirts of a nearby village, awaiting execution. The soldiers spotted her godfather and violently arrested him. While the violent arrest distracted the soldiers, Oni went to her godmother and chewed through the hemp ropes that bound her, permanently disfiguring her jaw in the process. Before they could make their escape, the Khmer Rouge soldiers realized what was happening. Her godmother was shot and beaten to death before her eyes. Fortunately, in the confusion and mass murder that followed, Oni and her godfather managed to escape into the jungle. They learned to survive in the jungle, climbing trees to hide from the soldiers, wearing banana leaves as clothing, traveling only in the darkness and sleeping in flooded rice paddies during the day. They ate whatever they could find, but it was never enough.
Finally, they made their way to Battambang, where they stayed in an abandoned hut outside of town until a Khmer Rouge patrol caught them and took them to a concentration camp. Their treatment in the camp was horrific. People died and disappeared daily, being sick meant death or torture. One-day Oni's godfather left for his usual work assignment and did not return. At the time, Oni was very sick; she suffered from malaria and could not leave the hut. A woman named Mrs. Vida rescued her and her new guardian, Father Sam, nursed her back to health.
Oni and the other Cambodian's in the camp had to steal and beg in order to survive. Eventually, the soldiers caught Father Sam stealing and they arrested them both, blindfolding them and leading them away from the camp. Once they arrived the soldiers removed the blindfolds and told them they would have to choose how they wanted to die: the soldiers would shoot them in the head, burn them alive with gasoline or they would dig their own graves and be buried alive. They were among the last to arrive and had to wait in a long line, watching the mass murder. The worst deaths were the murders of four pregnant Cambodian women. The nightmares of these killings still haunt Oni's dreams. The Khmer Rouge soldiers beat their round bellies with bamboo sticks to kill the babies, then used hammers to knock nails or sharpened bamboo sticks through the women's heads.
When her turn to face the executioner came, her new godfather held her in his arms and begged for her release. A soldier attempted to stab her to death and succeeded in stabbing her stomach and thigh as her godfather swung her around, doing all he could to keep her from harm. Suddenly, the soldiers relented. They must have been tired from all the murders they had already committed that day. They ordered her to return to her hut. Oni and her godfather realized the soldiers would simply kill them the next day, so they escaped and headed toward Laos that night. Oni's injuries became seriously infected, because they had no medical supplies. Somehow, she survived it and recovered to a certain degree.
Oni faced death daily: from violence, from malnutrition and from infection. She escaped execution several times, in ways too miraculous to be coincidence. It was obvious that there was divine intervention on her behalf. Violence and murder were so prevalent during her early life, that Oni believed the slaughter of human beings was normal. She repeatedly lost her guardians to starvation and execution. However, she always found someone to look after her, or rather, they found her. Throughout this time, it always seemed to Oni that her guardians knew more about her than she did and many people took her in and protected her. She survived in the jungles by eating rats, snakes and roots, in addition to drinking polluted water.
Living in Cambodia held other dangers as well, while on the run, Oni stepped on a trigger for a land mine. The mine exploded, killing the man in front of her; Oni, once again by divine intervention, suffered only from the shrapnel, which sliced open her foot. She and her new godfather were smuggled across the border into Laos, where they lived for over a year, hiding out in the jungle, away from the village. To get to Laos, they had to walk through fields littered with corpses, victims of the Khmer Rouge. During their time in Laos, the Vietnamese government took control of the country and began to kill its citizens in order to weaken the people and make them easier to control. Oni and her godfather lived safely hidden away in the mountains for about a year and half.
During this time, Oni's godfather met a local woman and fell in love. They married secretly, but she remained in her village. Oni only saw her briefly, when she brought food to them, but her godfather often went to the village to spend time with his wife. Unfortunately, the woman was a spy; she used Oni's godfather to get information about people like Oni's father. He never gave away Oni's identity; insisting she was his real daughter, but she condemned them both anyway.
In 1978, the Vietnamese soldiers captured Oni and her godfather and took them to a prison in Hanoi. Oni was detained in a concentration camp; they imprisoned her godfather in an underground dungeon. They interrogated him regularly and poisoned him to force him to talk. Fortunately, with the help of a Vietnamese woman, they escaped by sea and returned to Cambodia. Eight prisoners set out in four boats; they battled monsoon storms and made the long journey to the Southern Cambodian port of Kompong Som. Oni was the only one to survive; her godfather lived just long enough to take his last breath in his home country. He died within minutes of them reaching the shore; the other six prisoners disappeared in the storms and she never saw them again.
Alone, Oni made her way to Phnom Penh, now liberated from the grip of the Khmer Rouge, by the combined force of Cambodian and Vietnamese soldiers. While there, she was struck by the sudden impulse to visit the revered temple city of Angkor Wat, the ancestral capital of the Khmer emperors, which, for several hundred years, remained lost in the jungle before being rediscovered by a French explorer in 1860. At the age of seven, completely alone, Oni walked barefoot and hitched rides on bullock carts for the 200-mile journey to Angkor Wat from Phnom Penh. In the spiritually charged atmosphere of the great temple city, a powerful sense of peace overcame her and for the first time since she left the cave in Kompong Speu, she felt completely at home.
For weeks, Oni wandered among the ancient ruins and experienced a strange feeling of union with the temples' holy statues and the ruins themselves. Every night, she slept on a stone slab in one of the temple courtyards and every morning, when she awoke, there would be food and water next to her. It was a magical place and Oni never discovered who provided her with food. One day, as she wandered the temple grounds, Oni felt herself drawn to a particularly large tree; its huge roots overgrew the corner of the temple courtyard Sitting beneath the old tree, Oni felt a strong, bright light descend upon her and a clear thought entered her mind. Suddenly she knew that the ancient wisdom of Angkor Wat was vitally important to the future of Cambodia; she understood that she herself would have a role in restoring that wisdom to her country. At her tender age, she had no idea how this might happen or where she should begin; she just knew that it was so. The sudden appearance of Lok Ta Sar, the hold man from the cave of her childhood, verified the importance of her vision. He told her that, at the time of her birth, astrologers predicted that she would play major part in the future of Cambodia. He told her that her hardships were far from over; a long, hard road still lay ahead and he urged her to leave Cambodia immediately, for as long as she remained, her life was in danger. He advised her to go to America and predicted that she would return to Cambodia, at the age of thirty, bringing peace with her.
Cambodians place a great deal of important on the validity of dreams, visions and predictions, so, heeding the old man's advice, Oni found her way to the international refugee camps, across the border in Thailand, intent on escaping to the United States. She did not realize then, that four years would pass before she reached her destination. Only families were permitted to emigrate, so she attached herself to the Touch family, a single mother and her nine children; initially they were unwilling to allow her to join them, however, they soon adopted her as a daughter, though, in reality, she was merely a servant. Mrs. Touch put Oni to work, selling food on the streets of the refugee camp to help support the large family, while the other children attended school. In November 1983, the Touch family, along with Oni, boarded a plane to Hong Kong en route to San Francisco and from there to the ultimate destination, Houston, Texas.
For Oni, the excitement of reaching America was short-lived. Life in her new country proved to be almost as difficult and dangerous as Cambodia. Not only was she a new immigrant in a strange culture, she still had no formal education and, apart from the difficulty of learning English, she struggled to keep up with her fellow students in almost every subject. Mrs. Touch forced her to work late into the night, collecting soda cans and sewing clothes to earn additional income for the family, and subjected Oni to frequent beatings from herself, as well as her sons.
In 1985, the Touch family relocated to Long Beach, California, where they moved into a small apartment with two other Cambodian families. The oppressive living conditions, the exhaustion from working late nights after school and the complete lack of affection and love from her adopted family, plunged Oni into a deep depression. Shortly after their move to Long Beach, she attempted suicide by swallowing an overdose of pills in the bathroom at school. Fortunately, one of the teachers intervened and saved her life, however, Oni continued on a downward spiral of deepening depression. At the age of fourteen, after refusing to agree to marriage arranged by Mrs. Touch, to a much older man, Oni found herself thrown out of the apartment and onto the streets. For almost a year, she lived in a parking garage under the Touch family's apartment. During this time, she never dropped out of school, making a strong commitment towards bettering herself. She spent her nights sleeping on the hard concrete floor, wrapped only in her old coat and washing only in the ice-cold water from a faucet set in the wall. She worked a series of odd jobs, in order to feed herself, but spent many nights hungry and alone. From there, she moved to the local Buddhist temple for a few months, then she ran out of places to stay and found herself in the Huntington Beach homeless shelter. Social services took her in and placed her in many unloving foster homes, until those too ran dry. Eventually, they sent her to live in a group home for problem children in La Verne.
Oni's life continued to pass by in a haze of depression and loneliness, from which she was desperate to escape, but the tough love practiced in the group home, was just what she needed. With hard work and help from the woman who ran the home, she moved from the school in the home, to Bennett High School and from there to Long Beach Polytechnic. With encouragement and support from her teachers, Oni's life began to take on new meaning and her studies showed signs of improving, and at the age of sixteen, she officially won her independence from Mrs. Touch. She supported herself throughout the remainder of high school by working after school and on weekends, and in 1991, she graduated and moved on to Long Beach City College, where she studied communications and drama. Around this time, Oni began her philanthropic work for the local Cambodian community.
One day, near the end of 1991, a man walked into the doughnut store on Long Beach Boulevard, where Oni worked part-time, and her life changed once again. His name was Robert Lewis Simpson, and, Oni believed, he closely resembled former president Ronald Reagan. In fact, Mr. Simpson was also an active Republican in California politics and served the party for many years in Sacramento. Ironically, he was a former friend and political ally of the late president Richard Nixon, the man responsible for initiating the secret bombing campaign in Cambodia, during the Vietnam War, which was, in large part, responsible for creating the political and economic chaos that led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge.
Due to an acrimonious divorce and recent financial difficulties, Mr. Simpson was in Long Beach, attempting to re-launch his career as a lawyer. Through his daily visits to the doughnut store, which was convenient for him, being next door to his office, Mr. Simpson and Oni became close friends. He recognized in her untapped potential for leadership and an intelligence, which he sought to develop. In Mr. Simpson, Oni found a mentor and advisor, who became like a father to her. Mr. Simpson instructed Oni in the skills required for social and political activism, while encouraging her to expand her work for the community. He had a theory that all great change in a nation's fortunes, comes from the focused actions of a small group of dedicated individuals, such as the founding fathers of the United States of America. He believed that such an approach could help Cambodia find again the peace and strength they held in the time that Angkor Wat was built and saw in Oni, the potential to create such a group. This came as a great surprise to Oni, who was still very much the street-wise kid, more used to dealing with gangs than politicians. Gradually, she began to remember the words and predictions of the old holy man in Cambodia; they had temporarily slipped from her mind as she struggled to survive in America. Now that Mr. Simpson revived them, Oni found that her life suddenly had stronger direction and meaning.
In 1993, Oni followed a new job opportunity to a different part of Long Beach and lost contact with Mr. Simpson for the next two years. During this time, her life took yet another dramatic turns. In April of that year, the monks at the local Buddhist temple asked Oni to help a young student named Phal Kam. He had recently traveled from Cambodia to America, in pursuit of education, and needed a place to stay and someone to show him around, by this time, Oni often volunteered in the community and was more than happy to oblige. Unfortunately, Phal Kam wanted more than friendship and his constant attentions became a serious problem for Oni. She tried telling him that she was not interested, but one evening he came to her apartment, physically overpowered her and forced her to have sex with him. For Oni, this was a deeply shameful experience, completely at odds with her traditional Cambodian values. Three months later, Oni discovered that she was pregnant; she was young and naïve, so she had not recognized the signs at first.
The fear of being an unwed mother in a culture that strongly condemns pregnancy outside of marriage, along with the realization that she would raise her child in poverty, pushed Oni into another cycle of depression. She attempted to abort the child by drinking large quantities of alcohol. One evening, after she downed one bottle of wine and set out to drink another, Oni had a strange and startling experience. A voice entered her mind, telling that she must keep her child; that the child inside her was her mother, reborn as a daughter to protect her. When she ignored the voice and attempted to resume her drinking, both bottles simultaneously cracked apart and spilled their contents onto the floor. Oni fainted and while she was unconscious, she dreamt that she returned to Angkor Wat, where the holy man waited for her. Lok Ta Sar directed Oni to take a baby and calf, and floating on a large white silk scarve in the moat around the temple, she climbed with them up a ladder to the top of the temple. As she climbed, the child slipped from her grasp and fell back into the water; unable to save her, Oni continued to the top with only the calf.
The dream was powerful and convinced Oni to keep her child. Sonograms at the hospital showed that Oni carried twins, however, when she gave birth only one child survived. She gave birth to a little girl, born with a birthmark on her lower back, in the shape of a cow's tail. She named the baby Reachiny, which means 'queen' in the Khmer (Cambodian) language. The arrival of her daughter was a great blessing; she is a bright and intelligent child, wise beyond her years and able to speak Khmer fluently, although she never received instruction. When seeing Oni and Reachiny together, it can be difficult to tell which is the mother and which is the daughter; the truth is, they take care of each other.
For the sake of her child, and in accordance with Cambodian children, Oni allowed Phal Kam to move in and they attempted to live together as a family. Although they achieved some financial success, opening a series of small doughnut stores, their personal relationship was a disaster. Phal Kam continued to be physically abusive and had a violent temper; he became increasingly jealous of Oni's growing success as a leader in the Cambodian community and was never a faithful partner. It was several years before Oni finally separated from him completely; the final straw came only after he attempted to drive a wedge between her and her daughter. In the end, Oni had to take him to court to protect her and Reachiny; Phal Kam spent time in jail on charges of assault.
A chance encounter in line at the Bank of America in the Long Beach mall brought Mr. Simpson back into Oni's life and this time they resolved never to allow their friendship to lapse again. Mr. Simpson paid for an apartment, for her and her family in the Alamitos Avenue building, in which he lived. Soon, Oni's political education resumed under the gentle, but often-firm guidance of Mr. Simpson. With his assistance, she began a letter writing campaign to national and international political leaders, in an attempt to bring attention to the continuing plight of the Cambodian people; who struggled to recover from the years of war, while remaining subject to a repressive government with a record of human rights abuses.
In 1995, with the encouragement and support of Mr. Simpson, Oni founded the Progressive United Action Association, Inc. (PUAAI), with the intention to bring all of the disparate parts of the Cambodian community together under one umbrella, in order to fight for human rights and social justice for Cambodia, and in particular to defend the rights of children worldwide. On April 12, 1997, armed with determination and only enough money for a one-way ticket on the Greyhound bus, she traveled to Fresno, to give her first public presentation to the Cambodian community there. Only five people showed up that day, however the brave spirit and fierce determination of the young Cambodian woman impressed them. They continually invited Oni to return to speak to ever-increasing audiences.
One poignant day in January 1999, Mr. Simpson passed away. With his death, Oni not only lost a dear friend and mentor, but also a surrogate father for her self and the only grandfather her daughter had ever known. His death affected her deeply; at the time she was in the midst of a long and bitter court battle with Phal Kam over custody of their daughter. Fortunately, Mr. Simpson had trained Oni well and she refused to give up on her dream to help create a better Cambodia. She and Reachiny moved in with a friend named, Marin Has, where Oni discovered a warm and loving environment for her daughter; Oni began her work with renewed vigor, carrying the fighting spirit of Mr. Simpson with her in her heart. In August of 1998, PUAAI officially registered as a non-profit corporation in the state of California.
A great deal difficult work lies ahead; Cambodia is among the poorest countries in the world and a large percentage of the population lives in desperate poverty. It leadership and government are riddled with corruption and are completely ineffective. The Cambodian community in America remains weak and divided by ancient rivalries and mistrust; it is constantly struggling to gain any sense of unity. Oni continues to fight for the rights of all Cambodians and has received invitations to Washington DC several times, in order to present her case. She continues to write numerous weekly letters to members of congress, as well as the United Nations, and raises funds for both social and educational programs in Cambodia.
In February 2002, shortly after her thirtieth birthday, PUAAI received a license to operate children's center in Phnom Penh. Oni, along with her co-workers at PUAAI, is currently working to furnish it with teaching staff and computer equipment. Although she did not return to Cambodia in person in her thirtieth year, as the holy man predicted, she feels that opening the new center is the beginning of the fulfillment of his prediction that she would bring peace to her country. She plans to visit Cambodia soon, hopefully to attend the formal opening ceremony for the PUAAI center. She is understandably nervous about her return, many of the Khmer Rouge leaders, who threatened her father's life, are still present and influential in the new government. It is possible, that if they discover who her father was, she might be a prime target and her life will be in danger. Oni has not used her own name since she gained US citizenship in 1992; she created the name Oninasavady Vitandham, out of syllables taken from the names of all the people who looked after her as a child. Yet, she feels that it is her destiny to return soon; fortunately, when she does, she will not be alone. At her side will be her daughter, Reachiny, and the full support of the dedicated staff of volunteers at PUAAI.
Part II: A Vision of Renewal
Oni feels that there was a divine purpose behind her difficult life, both in Cambodia and in the United States. She believes that the intention behind it, was to provide her with the ability to appreciate first-hand, the suffering of all Cambodians; thus enabling her to better understand what is required in order to heal the damage. When she petitions the United States government or the United Nations about human rights abuses in Cambodia, or when she calls for better education and social welfare for its children, she is able to draw from her vast personal experience. When she calls for the need of justice against those Khmer Rouge leaders who committed war crimes on the Cambodian people, it is because she saw, with her own eyes, the consequences of their genocidal policies. Amazingly, Oni turned her personal suffering into a positive, driving force for good in Cambodia.
Rather than seek recrimination or revenge for the crimes of the past, she seeks justice as a necessary part of the healing her country is struggling to complete; a recognition of past mistakes and a lesson learned, in order to avoid a repetition of those mistakes in the future. For example, it is not for the sake of punishment that Oni seeks to bring Khmer Rouge leaders, still free from prosecution almost thirty years after their crimes, before an international court of human rights. Rather, it is for the sake of forgiveness and rehabilitation, that she wants their actions examined, in the same manner that the government of Nelson Mandela effectively used to heal the wounds of years of apartheid in South Africa. Gaining international recognition of what happened in Cambodia and the part the Khmer Rouge leaders held in that, is only the first step, but it is an important one. Furthermore, Oni believes that it is vital for those nations, whose political policies were largely responsible for Cambodia's fall into chaos in the 1970's, including the United States, China, Thailand and Vietnam, to recognize their role in the problem and actively seek to remedy the situation. They can do this by assisting Cambodia in returning to its former strength and glory, not through further political interference, but in the form of financial and material aid, in addition to, support for human rights and equality in justice in the county.
Only after we have taken these initial steps, can the true process of reconciliation and rehabilitation can begin. The challenges that Cambodia faces in every aspect of society are immense - politics, the economy, education, human rights and social welfare, all need a complete overhaul. Cambodia will need help from the international community to rebuild it's social and political infrastructure, reform its corrupt government, re-establish a fair legal system, protect human rights, build a new economy, create educational opportunities and establish health-care coverage for all of its citizens.
Economic and material poverty are not the only troubles Cambodia faces; it will require more than just money and good will for its people to recover. These are the more simple problems to fix. The violent war, along with the years of colonial occupation by the French that preceded it, destroyed the spiritual and cultural health of the nation. For this reason, Oni believes that a two-tiered approach to rehabilitation is required; in order for Cambodians to recover completely we must provide them with material and spiritual support. More specifically, she believes that, in addition to seeking the infusion of modern technology and ideas, Cambodia must also look to its past and allow its own rich cultural and spiritual heritage guide it in building a bright and prosperous future.
The mighty Khmer Emperors, who dominated the Southeast Asian sub-continent in the twelfth century, built their empire on spiritual and cultural strength, in addition to economic and military might. The temple-city at Angkor Wat, served as both the political and spiritual capital; the Khmer King Suryavarman II built the temple and at its height, it housed a population of nearly one million - the population of Paris at this time was only thirty thousand. Angkor Wat was so much more than a geopolitical capital; it was a magnificent monument to the gods and a literal representation of heaven on earth. Our ancestors built this magnificent edifice according to the Vedic and Buddhist traditions that lay at the heart of Khmer cultural and spiritual life. They performed elaborate ceremonies annually to establish harmony with nature and gain the blessings of the gods. The abandonment of Angkor Wat coincided with the decline in power of the Khmer Empire and for many years, its beauty lay lost from memory, hidden in the jungle. Oni believes that the restoration of Angkor Wat to its former glory and the resumption of its place at the center of Cambodian life are essential to the revival of the culture. We should regard and respect it as the beating heart of the Cambodian spirit, not merely a potential tourist attraction.
The main key to making all of these changes in Cambodia lies in the restoration of family values and the rebuilding of the social and economic infrastructure; especially in rural villages, which house the majority of the Cambodian people. The most crucial factor to the success of this renewal is education. It is through teaching the right values to the children that a complete transformation of the future society can begin. This education must take place in family life, as well as in schools. If we successfully raise today's children in an atmosphere rich with love, understanding and tolerance, in addition to providing them with the right moral and spiritual training, then the leaders of tomorrow can be created and they will guide their people with care and compassion, not selfish greed and brutality.
Oni believes that it is important for the education system to offer the proper vocational and technical training, required to give young Cambodians the skills they need to earn a living in the modern world, as well as to allow for the rebuilding of the technical and economic infrastructure of the country. Yet, she believes that it is also crucial for students have the chance to grow as human beings and develop their full spiritual potential. This will enable them to make decisions for the right reasons, and consequently do no harm to themselves or to their fellow citizens. In addition to instructing students in a wide range of useful vocational and language skills, the new PUAAI center in Phnom Penh will focus on creating a secure and loving atmosphere for the children, as well as setting a high standard of moral behavior for both students and staff. As part of their education, the center will require students to participate in local community activities and study leadership skills.
Oni also highlights the example set by the MVU School, established in 1993, in rural Western Cambodia, by an Australian charitable foundation, the Australian Aid for Cambodia Foundation (AACF) and supported by PUAAI. Included in the school's curriculum, which cover's a wide range of agricultural and community health care courses, is the opportunity to practice meditation. Allowing and encouraging the students to take time, every day, to find peace within them, has a positive effect, not only on their studies, but also on their personal growth. The Chief Patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism even credited the peaceful nature of the MVU students with the noticeable lack of violence in that part of the country.
With the right combination of modern technology and ancient wisdom, Oni believes that we can reverse the fortunes of the Cambodian people and she believes that the Cambodian community in America will play a major role in this reconstruction, as the Indian community in American has with their homeland. The people in this community take advantage of the educational and commercial opportunities available here, to generate a wealth of financial and technical resources for their country. It is time for the Cambodian community to come together, forgetting and letting go of the differences that divided them, and sharing the goal of creating a better future for Cambodia. With the right spirit of cooperation, energy and harmony, Oni believes that Cambodia can rise from the ashes of the past to become an example to the rest of the world. Showing them how out of tragedy and suffering, we can create something positive.
First Serial Copy Rights ( 2004 Oni Vitandham)