Display of religious piety by … former atheist communist Khmer Rouge

Thursday, May 24, 2007
30 Gov’t officials will take religious vow to repay their answered prayers

Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

A high-ranking official from the Ministry of Interior (MoI) told Kampuchea Thmei newspaper that, on 22 June 2007, about 30 high-ranking government officials will take the vow and become monks in a huge ceremony to be celebrated in Koh Kong province. The MoI official also said that the 30 who will take their religious vows, will include the provincial governor, the deputy-provincial governor, the (provincial) police chief, the army (provincial) chief, the military (provincial) police commander, directors of various (provincial) departments, judges, etc… Yuth Puthang, the Koh Kong provincial governor, whose name appears on the list of the 30 who will take the vow, told Kampuchea Thmei, that he himself will take the vow and become a Buddhist monk to repay an answered prayer, for a 7-day period starting from 22 June. Yuth Puthang said that under the Khmer Rouge regime, scores of Cambodian people died in the hands of Pol Pot. Therefore, the vow taking ceremony is a commemoration of the spirits of those departed. At the end, Yuth Puthang stressed that the vow taking pageantry will be presided by Supreme Patriarch monk Tep Vong (a former politburo member of the communist People’s Republic of Kampuchea regime), and Tea Banh, the Vice-prime Minister and Minister of National Defense (a former Khmer Rouge).