The Cambodia Daily
On what would normally have been a bustling day in Phnom Penh ahead of the first day of the annual Water Festival—which usually sees millions of revelers travel to the capital for the festivities—the city was mostly silent yesterday.
Last month, the government canceled the yearly three-day celebration and boat races—meant to start today—in honor of the late King Father Norodom Sihanouk, who died October 15.
Though people still have the three days off work, this is the second year in a row the Water Festival has not been celebrated. Last year, it was canceled due to severe flooding in the provinces. The festival has not been held since 2010 when 353 people were killed during a bridge stampede at Koh Pich.
Outside the Royal Palace on Sisowath Quay yesterday, traffic flowed normally and there was no sign of vendors setting up to cater to the millions of residents and visitors who usually descend upon the city. Instead, about 20 people kneeled and prayed in front of the palace, while others waited at roadblocks as Prime Minister Hun Sen inspected the King Father’s funeral pyre—which is being constructed in front of the National Museum.
“This year, once again, we postponed the festival because of the passing of the King Father. When his majesty’s body is lying in mourning, it is not appropriate to have millions of people flocking into Phnom Penh in front of the Royal Palace, where the body is, and celebrating,” Mr. Hun Sen said during a groundbreaking ceremony for a new overpass in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district yesterday.
On Koh Pich, about a dozen vendors said that they had already paid for booths before the King Father’s death, and had begun setting up their shops to sell goods over the next three days in spite of the cancellation of the events.
“I think it’s appropriate that we’re not celebrating the festival because the King Father passed away. But next year, we should celebrate it because we’ve already missed it for two years,” said Ly Sokuok, 35, a clothing vendor.
3 comments:
http://kfunpic.blogspot.com/2012/11/sromoul-kbach-kun-komkom_27.html
7:10 PM is the Vietnamese dog eater who speaks and write Khmer language. One of the Vietnamese thieves stole Cambodian land, property, island to enrich themselves. The world knows that they are Vietnamese thieves who speak and write Cambodian/Khmer languages. Chinese people know them who are thieves of Cambodian land and property as well. Go figure, the Vietnamese dog eaters.
Perspective:
Was the Koh Pich Bridge incident accidental or planned?
Any autocratic regime in the world is so afraid of the mass gathering because it will give them trouble, which they cannot contain.
Every year in Cambodia, during the water festival - Bonn Om Touk – millions of people were gathering to see the racing boats. That made the puppet government and its master Vietnam very nervous. They might have thought that what will happen if those people use that occasion and turn against them?
To disrupt that annual gathering, they might have created that disastrous event in Koh Pich. The absence of the water festival in the following year might underscore this assumption – the Koh Pich Bridge’s incident was planned.
Therefore, Khmer people must wait and see for this year. If there is no water festival in Cambodia, there is a strong possibility that the deadly event in Koh Pich was premeditated. The international community, the CNRP, and Khmer people must find the mastermind who created that horrible event. They killed people to scare them from gathering, and that is a giant crime.
Bun Thoeun
Note: I wrote this comment and posted in KI a couple of months ago. Now, this year, there is no water festival either, citing that Sihanouk’s death is the cause. of the cancellation.
So, next year, when Hun Sen dies from constipation (Ach Min Chenh), will the water festival be canceled too?
Historically, how many times in the past that Cambodia did not celebrate the water festival?
Bun Thoeun
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