Khmer Rouge Dictator Pol Pot Still Revered Among Some in Cambodia

June 28, 2011
Daniel Schearf, VOA | Anlong Veng, Cambodia

It has been more than three decades since the Khmer Rouge began a violent campaign that laid waste to Cambodia, killing up to a quarter of the population in pursuit of a communist utopia. As the four most senior surviving Khmer Rouge leaders go on trial in Phnom Penh, the man most responsible, Pol Pot will never see justice. He died in 1998 just as the extremist communist group was disintegrating. But, one of the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge, some Cambodians still consider Pol Pot a powerful figure to be worshipped.

Sek Navuoch kneels in front of a simple-looking grave covered by a tin roof and bordered by glass bottles that have been pushed upside down into the dirt.

The 32-year-old lights incense and presents bananas and then puts his hands together and prays.

Some visit Pol Pot's grave looking for luck

Pol Pot grave (Photo: AP)

03/28/2009
AP

ANLONG VENG, Cambodia — He was one of the greatest mass killers of the 20th century, but that doesn't stop the hopeful from praying at Pol Pot's hillside grave for lucky lottery numbers, job promotions and beautiful brides.

Nor does it stop tourists from picking clean the bones and ashes from the Khmer Rouge leader's burial ground in this remote town in northwestern Cambodia.

The grave is among a slew of Khmer Rouge landmarks in Anlong Veng, where the movement's guerrillas made their last stand in 1998 just as Pol Pot lay dying. A $1 million tourism master plan is being finalized to preserve and protect 15 of the sites, and charge admission.

Included on the tour will be the houses and hideouts of the Khmer Rouge leaders, an execution site and places associated with Ta Mok, a brutal commander and Anlong Veng's last boss.

"People want to see the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge and places where they committed atrocities," says Seang Sokheng, who heads the district tourism office and himself an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier.

Anlong Veng, he says, now receives about 2,000 Cambodian and 60 foreign tourists each month — a number that should jump when a casino is built by tycoons from nearby Thailand. A museum is also in the works, spearheaded by Nhem En, the chief photographer of the Khmer Rouge's S-21 torture center in Phnom Penh, a major tourist attraction for years.

"There are museums about World War II in Europe and people are still interested in Hitler. Why not about one of the world's most infamous leaders?" says Nhem En, now the deputy chief of Anlong Veng district. The museum will include his extensive photo collection and even a rice field to show visitors how people slaved under Khmer Rouge guns during their mid-1970s reign of terror.

Like virtually everyone here, he says he took no part in the atrocities but blames the top leaders.

"Pol Pot was cremated here. Please help to preserve this historical site," reads a sign next to a mound demarcated by bottles stuck into the ground and protected by a rusting, corrugated iron roof. A few wilting flowers sprout around the unguarded grave site, which officials complain has been virtually stripped of Pol Pot's cremated remains by foreign tourists.

"People come here, especially on holy days, because they believe Pol Pot's spirit is powerful," says Tith Ponlok, who served as the leader's bodyguard and lives near the burial ground.

Cambodians in the area, he says, have won an unusual number of lotteries, prompting Thais to come across the border and beseech Pol Pot to reveal winning numbers in their dreams. Government officials from Phnom Penh and others also make the pilgrimage, asking his spirit to make assorted wishes come true.

Offerings to Cambodian tyrant Pol Pot [-Even his KR followers are still in power in Cambodia]

Khmers have placed offerings at Pol Pot's cremation site.
The view of the river around Ta Mok's house, now used by locals to bathe and for their cattle.
The mural of Angkor Wat inside Ta Mok's house, near Anlong Veng.

Friday, February 13, 2009
Illawarra Mercury (Australia)

He is responsible for the death of at least one million Cambodians during one of the most brutal revolutions in history.

So when I visited the cremation site of Pol Pot, the leader of the radical Khmer Rouge, I was shocked when I saw a freshly cut mandarin placed at the site as an offering to his spirit.

The fruit had not even begun to dry out in the fierce Cambodian heat.

"They ask him for good luck,'' my moto driver, Dan, explained.

"Do they still like Pol Pot?" I asked, not quite believing that I had reason to ask such a question.

"Yes, they still like (him).''

Pol Pot's ashes are buried on the site where he lived leading up to the election of the Khmer Rouge on April 17, 1975, and until 1979, when it was defeated by the Vietnamese.

It is just outside Anlong Ven, a small town about three hours north of Siem Reap and the ancient temple of Angkor Wat.

His house was destroyed by those who suffered during his torturous reign over the country, but his cremation site has since been beautified from the pile of rubble and old tyres that once marked it. It is now sheltered by a wooden hut and a statue of Buddha has been erected.

His second house, used to meet with his comrades (Pol Pot only called the opposition soldiers), is a few kilometres away and we returned to our motorbikes to take the remote path that leads there.

Along the way, we passed Cambodian soldiers waiting in the forest in anticipation of an invasion from Thailand, which is less than 1km away. The Thais have made a recent attempt to claim one of the country's ancient temples, Preah Vihear, about 200km from Anlong Ven, and the nation is now on full alert.

Landmine warning signs also dot the side of the path - a bush toilet stop could become deadly.

Dan told me when he first visited Pol Pot's cremation site in 2003 it was surrounded by landmines, which have now been cleared by an NGO project.

We arrived safely at Pol Pot's second house, a single cement room now covered in the names of tourists and the dates that they visited.

It is nowhere near as lavish as the house of Ta Mok, the regime's military leader. My friend Jill and I visited Ta Mok's house when we arrived in Anlong Ven two days earlier.

His residence included three two-storey wooden buildings with decorated floor tiles and beautiful murals depicting the ancient temples of Angkor Wat and Preah Vihear. The wreck of an old truck used by the men to transport prisoners still lies in the garden and the tower communications system also remains.

The river that Ta Mok built for protection around his home still holds water, although all the trees have drowned. From the window of one of the buildings, I watched a local family bathe in the water and two farmers herd their cattle along its bank.

Khmer also come here to pray in front of a Buddha statue. I cannot comprehend how they can pray in such a haunting place - or how they find peace at the home of one of the men who is responsible for the deaths of so many of their own. Perhaps it is for that reason that they come here. Are they seeking peace from the past?

A steady flow of tourists visit the Pol Pot and Ta Mok (he died in jail in 2006) sites almost thirty years after the fall of the regime. Most are Cambodians or Thais, Dan said. Jill and I are the only Western foreigners in Anlong Ven at the moment, he claimed.

Dan and our other moto driver, Jacky, who has just moved to the town from Phnom Penh in an attempt to benefit from the growing number of tourists heading here, were more than happy to share their stories with us.

Both men lost family members during the Khmer Rouge regime. Dan was just three years old when the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh and he and his family fled west to Battambang.

Jacky does not know what happened to his parents. I didn't ask him whether that is because no one can tell him or because he doesn't want to know.