Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Jul 28, 2006
Phnom Penh - A series of coincidences, conspiracy theories and traditional superstitions were combining to create a flourishing cult of personality around former Khmer Rouge commander Ta Mok just a week after his death, officials said Friday.
In the remote northern district of Anlong Veng, one of the final Khmer Rouge strongholds and now Ta Mok's final resting place, villagers are crediting his spirit with a freakish catch of fish.
'Many locals here love him,' Anlong Veng police chief Keo Thun said by telephone. 'They don't think about politics. A few days ago, people began catching huge amounts of fish in a dam Ta Mok built ... a place there were no fish before. Simple Khmer people say this is a gift from Ta Mok.'
Some are also thanking him for the ceaseless monsoon rains which have poured down in areas loyal to him since his death last Friday.
But even in the capital, Phnom Penh, worst hit by the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge reign, thanks are being offered to the spirit of Ta Mok after two lotteries in one week paid out big for those who gambled on the number 82 - his age at death.
'A lot of people won the lottery betting on his age when he died. They said they were betting for that reason, and they have won,' lottery agent Chan Dara at Phnom Penh's Psar Moeun Ang market said. 'They often bet on the death age of the powerful.'
Even in the capital's coffee shops, traditional hotbeds of political gossip, debate rages over Ta Mok's powers in death. Some local newspapers are lapping up the conjecture as front page news.
The hubbub has prompted former king, Norodom Sihanouk, to post a reminder on his website that Ta Mok, nicknamed The Butcher, was no saint. Sihanouk sarcastically compared him to Joan of Arc.
Ta Mok was widely held to be responsible for much of the bloodiest purges of the Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea regime - a reign of terror under which up to 2 million Cambodians perished between 1975 to 1979.
He was the only prominent Khmer Rouge leader never to surrender, but was instead captured on the Thai border by Cambodian government troops in 1999 and spent the next seven years in virtual isolation in a military prison in the capital awaiting trial.
Even the movement's infamous former leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998 while in Ta Mok's custody, but his bloody past has not detered loyal supporters, who remember him instead as a generous man who brought public works such as dams, and therefore water and fish, to places otherwise bereft of development.
As thousands of ordinary Cambodians greeted news of his death with dismay and anger that he had, in effect, cheated justice, thousands more - mainly from still-impoverished former Khmer Rouge strongholds - went to pay their respects at his three-day Buddhist funeral ceremony in Anlong Veng.
Ta Mok's death came just days after the long-awaited joint UN-Cambodian government 56.3 million dollar Extraordinary Chambers to indict and try the aging and ailing remaining leaders began its preliminary prosecution stage.
With his death many secrets of the shadowy Khmer Rouge leadership also went to the grave, frustrating trial advocates who had long urged haste in bringing leaders such as Ta Mok to justice.
Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia and a survivor of the regime, has spent the past decade of his life compiling hundreds of thousands of documents to tender to the trial of former leaders.
The cult of personality growing around a man widely believed to be one of the most systematic and prolific killers of the last century frustrates Chhang, but makes him even more determined that the trial must go ahead.
'I am not surprised. It is hard to explain to ordinary people,' Youk Chhang said by telephone. 'Ordinary Cambodians are brought up to believe in the strong. They do not think about how they became strong. This is why a trial is very important and we are still progressing towards that. A trial will help people to understand Ta Mok's mistakes. It just hasn't come yet.'
Until then, Ta Mok, once the most feared warrior of one of the most brutal movements in recent history, has already become in death, for some, a demigod of fishermen and winning lottery numbers.
In the remote northern district of Anlong Veng, one of the final Khmer Rouge strongholds and now Ta Mok's final resting place, villagers are crediting his spirit with a freakish catch of fish.
'Many locals here love him,' Anlong Veng police chief Keo Thun said by telephone. 'They don't think about politics. A few days ago, people began catching huge amounts of fish in a dam Ta Mok built ... a place there were no fish before. Simple Khmer people say this is a gift from Ta Mok.'
Some are also thanking him for the ceaseless monsoon rains which have poured down in areas loyal to him since his death last Friday.
But even in the capital, Phnom Penh, worst hit by the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge reign, thanks are being offered to the spirit of Ta Mok after two lotteries in one week paid out big for those who gambled on the number 82 - his age at death.
'A lot of people won the lottery betting on his age when he died. They said they were betting for that reason, and they have won,' lottery agent Chan Dara at Phnom Penh's Psar Moeun Ang market said. 'They often bet on the death age of the powerful.'
Even in the capital's coffee shops, traditional hotbeds of political gossip, debate rages over Ta Mok's powers in death. Some local newspapers are lapping up the conjecture as front page news.
The hubbub has prompted former king, Norodom Sihanouk, to post a reminder on his website that Ta Mok, nicknamed The Butcher, was no saint. Sihanouk sarcastically compared him to Joan of Arc.
Ta Mok was widely held to be responsible for much of the bloodiest purges of the Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea regime - a reign of terror under which up to 2 million Cambodians perished between 1975 to 1979.
He was the only prominent Khmer Rouge leader never to surrender, but was instead captured on the Thai border by Cambodian government troops in 1999 and spent the next seven years in virtual isolation in a military prison in the capital awaiting trial.
Even the movement's infamous former leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998 while in Ta Mok's custody, but his bloody past has not detered loyal supporters, who remember him instead as a generous man who brought public works such as dams, and therefore water and fish, to places otherwise bereft of development.
As thousands of ordinary Cambodians greeted news of his death with dismay and anger that he had, in effect, cheated justice, thousands more - mainly from still-impoverished former Khmer Rouge strongholds - went to pay their respects at his three-day Buddhist funeral ceremony in Anlong Veng.
Ta Mok's death came just days after the long-awaited joint UN-Cambodian government 56.3 million dollar Extraordinary Chambers to indict and try the aging and ailing remaining leaders began its preliminary prosecution stage.
With his death many secrets of the shadowy Khmer Rouge leadership also went to the grave, frustrating trial advocates who had long urged haste in bringing leaders such as Ta Mok to justice.
Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia and a survivor of the regime, has spent the past decade of his life compiling hundreds of thousands of documents to tender to the trial of former leaders.
The cult of personality growing around a man widely believed to be one of the most systematic and prolific killers of the last century frustrates Chhang, but makes him even more determined that the trial must go ahead.
'I am not surprised. It is hard to explain to ordinary people,' Youk Chhang said by telephone. 'Ordinary Cambodians are brought up to believe in the strong. They do not think about how they became strong. This is why a trial is very important and we are still progressing towards that. A trial will help people to understand Ta Mok's mistakes. It just hasn't come yet.'
Until then, Ta Mok, once the most feared warrior of one of the most brutal movements in recent history, has already become in death, for some, a demigod of fishermen and winning lottery numbers.
4 comments:
Wait until Sihanouk died,Koulen water falls will be filled with crocs and gold bullions.
I hope Sihanouk will die soon because he wants to be leader of pol Pot and Tamok again in another world.
Sihanouk is going to star in a broke-back mountain with those two guys down there.
Stupid Khmer rouge.
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