“Murder! You deserve to die a slow, painful death” (205). One must think that whoever muttered these words must have been stripped of their sanity, but in First they Killed my Father, by Loung Ung, loss of sanity is anything but out of place. After, Loung Ung like many other Cambodians, and her family were forced to leave their homes to go work in the rice fields for little food, to support the war against the Youns. This memoir consists of the terrors she went through as a five year old, until she left for U.S.A as an eight-year old. However, many people question Loung on her credibility and reliability. In this paper we will examine the controversy of whether Loung is worthy of one's trust. There are those who believe that Loung has both reliability and credibility; for she has gone through the genocide and saw many of the horrors that the Khmer Rouge brought unto her people. After Loung had strangles a girl through anger, she was transferred to a child’s labor camp. In this camp, on her “First night at camp the two groups gather around a roaring bonfire and listen to the latest propaganda” (205). This is reliable because there are other stories similar to these. There other articles that back this up, this is verifiable. Then there is when Lounge Ung proves her credibility. One day, when she is living with the Youns,"I watch without emotion...as the old woman slowly walks to him up to him, hammer in hand...and brings it crashing down into the prisoners head" (206). It is to be thought credible for Loung was objective. She just stood there emotionless and watched and told how the execution went, without any sigh of pity or hatred. Just as there are those who do not question Loung's credibility or reliability, there are those who do.
The other side of the controversy is that Loung Ung was too emotionally involved or too young to recall many of the