Prayer to Pol Pot

The Star Online

Monday April 21, 2008

By KER MUNTHIT
A decade after Pol Pot’s death, some Cambodians seek blessings from the spirit of the once-feared despot.

TEN years after the death of brutal Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, his grave has become a symbol of spiritual comfort to some in the village where he died.

In Anlong Veng, Cambodia, villagers pray at the site, asking for blessings of luck, happiness and even protection from malaria – despite the mayhem he wrought upon their country. He died on April 15, 1998, apparently of heart failure.

Sieng Kim Chean, a 40-year-old Cambodian villager, pointing to the grave of the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in Anlong Veng, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold, about 305km north of Phnom Penh.

I know it is odd, but I just do as many people here do, asking for happiness from his spirit,” said Orn Pheap, a 37-year-old woman who lost a grandfather and two uncles during the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror from 1975 to 1979.

“I don’t know how long I can stay angry with him, since he is already dead,” said Orn whose house sits 100m from the grave.

Officials in Anlong Veng, 305km north of the capital Phnom Penh, say only a small minority of the area’s 35,000 residents pray at Pol Pot’s grave.

For most, Pol Pot is remembered as a murderous tyrant with fanatical communist beliefs. Under his leadership, the Khmer Rouge turned the country into a vast slave labour camp, causing the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, forced labour and execution.

His grave, a pile of dirt covered by a knee-high corrugated zinc roof, was cluttered with clay jars filled with half-burned incense sticks – a sign of prayer and worship.

Cambodians believe in the influence of spirits and superstitious forces on their daily lives and fortunes, which may be why some worship at the grave.

Many may still view their former tormentor as a powerful figure, said Philip Short, author of Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare – a biography of the former despot.

“Evil or good is not the issue,” Short said. “He has imposed himself on Cambodians’ imaginations, and in that sense he lives on” in the world of spirits.

Once a jungle war zone, Anlong Veng is now a sprawling border market town bustling with the kind of capitalist activities Pol Pot and his comrades sought to stamp out. Ramshackle shops are filled with pirated DVDs, clothing, house wares, and other goods from nearby Thailand.

Cambodian pop songs blare from a coffee shop near Pol Pot’s grave, which has been designated a tourist attraction. It is among the few remnants of Khmer Rouge history, which the government is trying to preserve.

Some Cambodians have travelled to Anlong Veng to spit on Pol Pot’s grave and curse him in anger, said 37-year-old Sat Narin, who owns a nearby clothing shop.

“Given his bad reputation, he should not be venerated,” he said. “But somehow he is popular with some people.”

Among the worshippers who seek blessings from Pol Pot’s ghost are ethnic Vietnamese who live in the community – a sharp irony given Pol Pot’s massacres of ethnic Vietnamese during his rule.
A 33-year-old Vietnamese resident, who goes by her adopted Cambodian name of Van Sothy, recalled a nightmare in which she saw a black-clad man sitting on a tree near her hut.

When she described the vision to her Cambodian neighbours, they advised her to bring offerings of fruit and boiled chicken to Pol Pot’s grave to ask his spirit for protection.

Incense stick holders stand at the grave of the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

“I have prayed at his grave ever since. I just want to show some respect to the spiritual master of the land,” she said.

If Pol Pot were alive, he would likely be facing war crimes charges along with five of his former comrades currently detained by Cambodia’s UN-backed genocide tribunal. The long-delayed trials are expected to start later this year. – AP