CAMBODIANS REMEMBER LOSS OF TERRITORY IN COLONIAL ERA Received Saturday, 4 June 2005 09:58:00 GMT
PHNOM PENH, June 4 (AFP) - More than 2,000 Cambodians marked the 56th anniversary of the loss of a large territory called Kampuchea Krom to Vietnam with a Buddhist ceremony Saturday. Princess Sisowath Pongneary Monipong presided over the ceremony near the royal palace, where people offered colourful flowers, fruit, noodles and rice to 1,949 saffron-robed monks -- the number representing the year of agreement signed by France. Kampuchea Krom, or Lower Cambodia, is home to about 12 million ethnic Khmers. The region was incorporated into what is now Vietnam during the French colonial era. "We celebrate this ceremony to remember our lost territory, which was handed to Vietnam, and we also remember the people dead in the cause of defending us," Senator Thach Sitha told AFP. Eng Voch Ly, a 49-year-old woman in traditional Khmer silk dress came to remember those who died fighting Vietnam. "I think this Buddhist ceremony is to pay tribute to the spirits of those who died defending the land.... I wanted to cry when I heard the voice of Kampuchea Krom," she said. The issue last made world headlines in the late 1970s when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge declared its aim to reclaim Kampuchea Krom and launched cross-border incursions. This led to the Christmas 1978 invasion of Cambodia by the Vietnamese and the ousting of the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge after nearly four brutal years in power. Former king Norodom Sihanouk, who abdicated in October last year, is chairing a new national border council which is supposed to advise the government on long-simmering border disputes.
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