A crowd of about 100 Central Kitsap High School students gathered in the school’s library Oct. 30 to hear a piece of the story of Daran Kravanh, a survivor of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.

Kravanh, who is currently campaigning for Prime Minister of Cambodia, and his wife Bree, who wrote a book called “Music Through the Dark” which tells Kravanh’s story, held two sessions at the school last Friday in an effort to spread the word about the problems facing Cambodia even today.

“Poverty is still a huge problem for Cambodia,” Kravanh said.

After taking power in 1975, Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea. Their goal was to create a purely agrarian-based Communist society. People who lived in cities were deported to the countryside where they had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. Even after losing power following a Vietnamese military intervention in December 1978, the Khmer Rouge still maintained control in some regions of Cambodia. Between 1.5 and 3 million Cambodians are estimated to have died by murder and starvation, especially the intellectual elite, during these years. The United Nations later declared what happened in Cambodia the largest per capita loss of life in the twentieth century.

“Music was a way to escape,” Kravanh said. “It helped keep our spirits up.”

In 1992, Bree was working in the Refugee Assistance Program in Tacoma when she met Daran, who was a refugee from Cambodia at the time. He told her how he had lost his parents and seven siblings to the Khmer Rouge and though his stories were tragic, Bree said she “was captivated by their power and beauty and set out to explore them.” Bree learned quickly Daran used music, specifically accordion music, to survive his ordeal. It was like a sign to Kravanh when he found his accordion on a stump in the forest considering the rarity of such an instrument in the Asian country.

“There are not many accordions in Cambodia,” Kravanh said.

Bree’s book has been used as a textbook in colleges and universities including the Evergreen State College, Northwestern University, California State University, UCLA, Pacific Lutheran University, South Seattle Community College and the University of California at Irvine and tells a story of hope for a country wrought with suffering.

Now, as the leader of the Khmer Anti-Poverty Party, a group founded by Cambodians and American supporters, Kravanh hopes to help his native country rise above its brutal past into an age of prosperity and independence by running as a candidate for the position of Prime Minister of Cambodia.

“We have to stop the corruption,” he said. “Cambodians deserve their dignity. They deserve peace.”

For more information about Kravanh or the Khmer Anti-Poverty Party, visit www.khmerantipovertyparty.com.