Cambodians pray at Pol Pot's grave for lucky lottery numbers, jobs

**Ebusitanus** · March 31, 2009, 03:47 AM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20...rocity_tourism

Some visit Pol Pot's grave looking for luck

By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press Writer – Sat Mar 28

ANLONG VENG, Cambodia – He was one of the greatest mass killers of the 20th century, but that doesn't stop the hopeful from praying at Pol Pot's hillside grave for lucky lottery numbers, job promotions and beautiful brides.

Nor does it stop tourists from picking clean the bones and ashes from the Khmer Rouge leader's burial ground in this remote town in northwestern Cambodia.

The grave is among a slew of Khmer Rouge landmarks in Anlong Veng, where the movement's guerrillas made their last stand in 1998 just as Pol Pot lay dying. A $1 million tourism master plan is being finalized to preserve and protect 15 of the sites, and charge admission.

Included on the tour will be the houses and hideouts of the Khmer Rouge leaders, an execution site and places associated with Ta Mok, a brutal commander and Anlong Veng's last boss.

"People want to see the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge and places where they committed atrocities," says Seang Sokheng, who heads the district tourism office and himself an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier.

Anlong Veng, he says, now receives about 2,000 Cambodian and 60 foreign tourists each month — a number that should jump when a casino is built by tycoons from nearby Thailand. A museum is also in the works, spearheaded by Nhem En, the chief photographer of the Khmer Rouge's S-21 torture center in Phnom Penh, a major tourist attraction for years.

"There are museums about World War II in Europe and people are still interested in Hitler. Why not about one of the world's most infamous leaders?" says Nhem En, now the deputy chief of Anlong Veng district. The museum will include his extensive photo collection and even a rice field to show visitors how people slaved under Khmer Rouge guns during their mid-1970s reign of terror.

Like virtually everyone here, he says he took no part in the atrocities but blames the top leaders.

"Pol Pot was cremated here. Please help to preserve this historical site," reads a sign next to a mound demarcated by bottles stuck into the ground and protected by a rusting, corrugated iron roof. A few wilting flowers sprout around the unguarded grave site, which officials complain has been virtually stripped of Pol Pot's cremated remains by foreign tourists.

"People come here, especially on holy days, because they believe Pol Pot's spirit is powerful," says Tith Ponlok, who served as the leader's bodyguard and lives near the burial ground.

Cambodians in the area, he says, have won an unusual number of lotteries, prompting Thais to come across the border and beseech Pol Pot to reveal winning numbers in their dreams. Government officials from Phnom Penh and others also make the pilgrimage, asking his spirit to make assorted wishes come true.

**Ebusitanus** · March 31, 2009, 03:49 AM

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/08/1...gewanted=print

In a dream the other night, two snakes slithered out of Pol Pot’s grave and gave his neighbor, Loan Pheap, what she said was a winning lottery number.

This was not a surprise. The site of Pol Pot’s cremation on this barren mountainside eight years ago is collapsing from neglect, its small fence broken, its low metal roof rusting and curling. But Pol Pot, who as the Khmer Rouge leader was one of the most brutal mass murderers of the last century, has become a sort of bookie for those who pray to him for numbers.

For many here in this former Khmer Rouge stronghold, he is the guardian spirit of the Dangrek Mountains, curing ailments and dispensing lottery numbers. People who live here say visitors have plucked the last bits of bone from among the cinders over the years and carried them home for good luck. A casino is being built nearby to capitalize on this spiritual bounty.

...

It is hard to consider how a genocidal killer should properly be laid to rest. Pol Pot was cremated in April 1998 on top of a stack of old tires and furniture.

Perhaps that offhand dismissal is appropriate for leaders who ruled by the adage “To keep you is no gain, to kill you is no loss.”

Mourners who trek through a muddy field have left only paltry offerings at Ta Mok’s tomb: a clump of burned-out incense sticks, five plastic cups of water, a black oil lamp whose flame has died and a roll of toilet paper that people here say is to wipe his mouth when he has consumed any food that is left for his wandering soul.

But already, in what appears to be a Khmer Rouge tradition, people say his ghost has begun dispensing lottery numbers.

On the day of his funeral, Mr. Em Man said, a woman saw him in a dream, bet the number 783 in a local lottery and won a million riel, or about $250.

Mr. Em Man, squatting in the sand by the tomb, showed a scrap of paper with a list of numbers he said he had received from Ta Mok’s specter. He said he would keep playing these numbers until he, too, wins a million.