Place
Anlong Veng
Town in northern Cambodia, the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge
Anlong Veng is a small rural town in Oddar Meanchey (ឧត្តរមានជ័យ) Province, in the far north of Cambodia near the border with Thailand.[1][2][3] It was the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge (ខ្មែរក្រហម).[1][2] Since 2015 the Documentation Center of Cambodia has run the Anlong Veng Peace Center there.[1]
Early history
French mapmakers recorded the community by 1907.[2] From 1867 to 1907 the area lay in the Thai province of Siam Nakhon, and before that it was part of Cambodia.[2] In 1907, under pressure from the French, Siam gave the old territories of Battambang and Siem Reap back to Cambodia.[2] The region went to Thailand again in 1941, as part of the Thai province of Plaek Phibunsongkhram, and came back to Cambodia in 1946 under a border pact between France and Thailand.[2] Being remote, the area long drew bandits, and later communist infiltration.[2]
Khmer Rouge years
The Khmer Rouge took Anlong Veng in 1970, one of the first areas they conquered.[1][2] In 1977 its people were made to leave en masse, most of them for Kampong Thkov commune in Kralanh district, Siem Reap province. Until early 1979 the place held almost no one but Khmer Rouge soldiers.[2]
On January 7, 1979, Phnom Penh fell to Vietnamese troops. Khmer Rouge forces and their families then pulled back to bases close to the Thai border, or crossed into Thailand to live in camps.[1] Their two main bases in the region, Mountain 1001 and Mountain 1003, lay along the northern side of the Dangrek Mountain range.[2] Pol Pot and other senior leaders lived on in these mountains for years.[3] In late 1989 the forces of Mountain 1003, under the commander Ta Mok, took Anlong Veng back, and in December he began moving people from the base camps into the area.[2]
Ta Mok was the name used by Chhit Choeun.[2] He had a reputation for brutality, yet the community revered him as a patron for his support and his building projects.[2] He is still celebrated in the town, above all for irrigation works and for handing out money and favors.[3]
End of the movement
In 1997 the leaders at Anlong Veng turned on each other. On the evening of June 9, 1997, Pol Pot sent a commander to kill the Khmer Rouge leader Son Sen and his wife.[2] After five days of fighting, his forces surrendered. Ta Mok's faction arrested Pol Pot, tried him and sentenced him to life imprisonment.[2][3]
Yim Phanna, one of Ta Mok's senior generals and later district governor of Anlong Veng, led the commanders who negotiated to defect to the government. Fighting between the defectors and Ta Mok's loyal forces broke out in March 1998.[2] Pol Pot died during a retreat on April 15, 1998. Two days later he was cremated on car tires on a hillside above the town, close to the Thai border.[2][3]
On December 4, 1998, the two sides agreed on the final defection of the Khmer Rouge. On February 9, 1999, the town marked its return to government rule with a formal ceremony of integration.[2][1] Accounts differ on when Khmer Rouge rule ended: in 1998,[2][3] or with the surrender to the government in 1999.[1] With the fall of Anlong Veng, Cambodia's long civil war came to an end.[3]
Ta Mok died in prison on July 21, 2006, aged 80, while awaiting trial. His body was brought back to Anlong Veng for a large funeral, and a stupa for him was built at Srah Chhouk pagoda.[2]
Today
Former Khmer Rouge cadres and their families now live in Anlong Veng side by side with survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide.[1] The Peace Center, part of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, describes its work as recording the stories of former Khmer Rouge members and local survivors, and protecting historical sites and developing them for visitors.[1] A reconciliation program there brings students to meet former fighters.[3]
The sites include Pol Pot's grave and cremation site and the houses of Ta Mok.[1][3] In 2016 the town drew about 2,000 Cambodian and 30 foreign visitors a month, and many came to see Pol Pot's grave, which lies beside a large new casino.[3]
References 3
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Documentation Center of Cambodia, A History of Anlong Veng and Peace Center (undated)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 Documentation Center of Cambodia and Ministry of Tourism, A History of the Anlong Veng Community: The Final Stronghold of the Khmer Rouge Movement, Guidebook for Tour Guides (2016)
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 AFP, carried by Justice Info, Confronting darkness in Cambodia's Khmer Rouge stronghold (May 2, 2016)
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