Cambodia King Norodom Sihamoni waves during his rural visit in former Khmer Rouge stronghold Pailin town 377 km (234 miles) northwest of Phnom Penh near Cambodia-Thailand border on June 05, 2005. King Sihamoni is spending a week to touring four provinces in the northwestern of Cambodia. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Thousands welcome Cambodia's new monarch June 5, 2005
Thousands of former soldiers from Cambodia's ultra-communist Khmer Rouge turned out in their one-time stronghold to welcome the country's new king, who was under house arrest during the genocidal regime's rule.
Some ex-soldiers held up photos of King Norodom Sihamoni and waved Cambodia's flag in the northwestern town of Pailin to greet the new monarch, enthroned last October after his father's abdication.
The visit was one of several that Sihamoni is making to rural Cambodian towns. "The war is over and the government has built and rebuilt this city to have a new prestige," Sihamoni told the crowd, which included disabled former soldiers, women and children. The Khmer Rouge regime is implicated in the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians from disease, starvation and executions during their 1975-1979 rule. The Khmer Rouge's top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998 and the movement collapsed a year later, ending three decades of civil war. Cambodia's former King Norodom Sihanouk, Sihamoni's father, initially aligned himself with the movement after he was ousted in U.S.-backed coup in 1970 during the Vietnam War, but the Khmer Rouge later turned on him, holding him and his family, including Sihamoni, under house arrest at the Royal Palace. Many former Khmer Rouge soldiers, including top surviving leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, live in Pailin, a gem- mining town still littered with land mines. Neither Nuon Chea nor Khieu Samphan attended the ceremony. A number of the ex-Khmer Rouge are farmers, and many said they're suffering crop losses due to several years of drought. Um Moern, 35, who was a Khmer Rouge soldier for 20 years, said he was happy to join the ceremony -- which included singing and ethnic minority dances -- at Pailin city hall. "I come here to welcome the king because I have never seen the new king's face," he said.
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