Ranachith "Ronnie" Yimsut

Note: The information below is circa 2011.

Born and reared in the famed Siem Reap "Angkor World Heritage Site," Ronnie Yimsut fled Cambodia after two decades of turmoil, where he witnessed the massacre of nearly his entire family under the Khmer Rouge regime. He is a genocide survivor, an orphan, and a "political" refugee at the age of fifteen. He is now a proud American of Khmer heritage.

Ronnie is currently a senior landscape architect for the USDA Forest Service where he plans and designs National Forest recreation and tourist sites, and conducts environmental impact studies on landscape ecologies and ecosystems.

Ronnie is also actively involved in various national and international NGOs dealing with social and environmental justice issues. As an activist, he is the subject of numerous documentary films and news reports, such as CBS News, NBC News, National Geographic Explorer, PBS, Europe ARNTE TV, and featured in several independence documentary films.

In 2009, he was selected as one of "Milwaukee Area's Most Influential People" by the Milwaukee Business Journal.

Mr. Yimsut contributed the following articles to this site:

• Cambodia Must Make Serious and Painful Reforms
  Twelve aspects of Cambodian culture and government that must be reformed if Cambodia is to continue development.
• Cambodia: Nationalism, Patriotism, Racism, and Fanaticism
  An essay on the elements of Khmer nationalism and ideology.
• Light at the End of the Tunnel
  Some thoughts on the future of Cambodia, excerpted from an upcoming book.
• Vietnam: Was it Liberation or Invasion?
  When the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979, some people saw them as saviors. Others saw them as oppressors. To some extent, both groups may be right.

Other Works by Ronnie Yimsut:

• Journey into Light (Scheduled for 2011 publication by Rutgers University Press)
• Journey to Freedom (2006, Documentation Center of Cambodia)
• "In the Shadow of Angkor" (2004, Manoa Journal, Hawaii University Press)
• "Life is a Poem" (2004, Awarded by American Poet Society)
• Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields (1997 Yale University Press)

Additional information about Ronnie's work is available from the links below:

• Dream World: A Reality Today
• www.aminefreeworld.org
• www.projectenlighten.org
• www.bakongtechcollege.org

He can be reached via email at ryimsut@gmail.com.