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Oddar Meanchey - General Information
Area: 6,158sq km
Population: 148,540
Density: 24,17
District: 5
Commune: 24
Village: 231
Oddar Meanchey is one of the smallest provinces of Cambodia located in the far
Northwest bordering with Thailand. Its name means “Victory Province” and the
provincial capital is called Samraong. This area was formerly known as Phanomsok,
a province of Thailand, which was ceded to French Indochina in 1906, and now
remains a part of Cambodia. This province is also a recent creation that was
carved out of Siem Reap Province, which the government did not control for much
of the 1980s and 1990s.
The countryside is covered by the Dangrek Mountains (or escarpment, as they are
sometimes called), which was an optimal shelter for the Khmer Rouge to hide. It
is a very remote province that has been a notorious place, because this is where
he nastiest of the nasty Khmer Rouge made their last stand. The diabolical Pol
Pot and his seemingly bloodthirsty henchmen, Nuon Chea, Ta Mok, Son Sen and
Khieu Samphan holed up here for the last years of the Khmer Rouge’s existence
(another of the henchmen, Ieng Sary, already worked out a surrender and
defection deal with the government in 1996).
Pol Pot died mysteriously here, after a supposed power struggle within the power
elite (he had Son Sen and his family murdered) and after a controversial show
trial. The debate focused on whether it was real or just a sham staged for the
outside world to try to legitimize remaining Khmer Rouge figures. The trial took
place in the power centre of the Khmer Rouge, the village of Anlong Veng. Pol
Pot died mysteriously after he was sentenced to house arrest and the
international community began real efforts (for the first time ever) to capture
and put this butcher on trial. His henchmen had more than enough reasons to
believe that he wasn’t dead at that point, because a Pol Pot on trial, as the
ringleader most responsible for the genocide wrought upon his fellow countrymen,
would probably have tried to shift portions of the blame (rightfully in the case
of these guys) to the rest of the power elite.
The Khmer Rouge kept fragmenting after that and Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan
worked out a surrender-amnesty deal with the Cambodian government and Ta Mok
(also called “The Butcher”) was subsequently captured and is still awaiting a
trial in Phnom Penh. As of March 2000, the United Nations and the Cambodian
government finally seem set to come up with an agreement on putting the top
surviving members of the Khmer Rouge regime on trial in Cambodia, with
assistance from and in a partnership with the International Community. Stay
tuned though, as this has been a real political football with seemingly more
concern for one-upsmanship and personal gain than justice for the dead and
surviving victims of Khmer Rouge brutality.
The international border is 14.5 km from the circle in Anlong Veng (Anlong
Veng-Choam-Choam- Srawngam and O Smach-Chong Jom). There are plenty of tanks and
tank shells to look at along the way and also a strange site in the form of a
boulder that had Khmer Rouge soldiers carved out of the sides of it- they have
all been decapitated since government forces took control of Anlong Veng.
Anyway, it’s an interesting little ride to a low-lying part of the Dangkrek
Mountains. The road is in fairly good shape with the exception of the climb up a
rocky hillside near the border.
Source: Ministry of Tourism of the Kingdom of Cambodia |
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