Saturday, 6 March 2010

Cambodia makes Khmer Rouge bastion tourist site: cabinet

Cambodian boys walk by the grave of Khmer Rouge supremo Pol Pot in Anlong Veng district, Oddar Meanchey province, some 454 kilometers northwest of Phnom Penh in 2006. Cambodia's government said on Friday it was designating the final Khmer Rouge rebel stronghold a historic site for international and domestic tourists.(AFP/File/Tang Chhin Sothy)

via CAAI News Media

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Cambodia's government said on Friday it was designating the final Khmer Rouge rebel stronghold a historic site for international and domestic tourists.

The cabinet approved a sub-decree to "preserve and develop" Anlong Veng in northern Cambodia, the final centre for the Khmer Rouge before the movement was defeated in 1998, a statement by the government said.

Anlong Veng will be made a "historic tourism site for national and international guests to visit and understand the last political leadership of the genocidal regime."

Among the anticipated attractions is the spot where late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was unceremoniously cremated under a pile of garbage and rubber tires in 1998, after he was purged from the movement.

Other attractions are a munitions warehouse, homes belonging to former Khmer Rouge cadres, and the fenced-off area where Pol Pot spent his last months under house arrest.

Officials have been planning since 2000 to transform Anlong Veng into a showcase of the communist regime?s final days. The tourism ministry has picked out some three dozen sites of interest in the isolated hilly area.

Prime Minister Hun Sen also asked cabinet officials to compile a guidebook to the area and his "win-win policy" to defeat the Khmer Rouge, the statement said.

Tourism is one of the only sources of foreign exchange for impoverished Cambodia, which is recovering from nearly three decades of conflict that ended in 1998.

The kingdom aims to lure three million tourists annually by next year, and in 2009 attracted more than two million foreign visitors.

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