About Dith Pran
Dith Pran (September 27, 1942 – March 30, 2008) was a Cambodian-American photojournalist. He was a refugee and survivor of the Cambodian genocide and one of the subjects of the Academy Award–winning film The Killing Fields (1984), in which he was portrayed by Haing S. Ngor, a fellow survivor. == Early life == Dith was born in Siem Reap, Cambodia. His father worked as a public works official. He learned French at school and taught himself English. The United States Army hired him as a translator but after his ties with the United States were severed, Dith worked with a British film crew for the film Lord Jim. == Cambodian genocide == In 1975, Dith and New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg stayed behind in Cambodia to cover the fall of the capital Phnom Penh to the Communist Khmer Rouge. Schanberg and other foreign reporters were allowed to leave the country, but Dith was not. Due to the persecution of intellectuals during the genocide, he hid the fact that he was educated or that he knew Americans, and pretended that he had been a taxi driver. When Cambodians were forced to work in labour camps, Dith had to endure four years of starvation and torture before Vietnam overthrew the Khmer Rouge on January 7, 1979.
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