Saving Old Dhaka’s landmarks
Preservationists worry that in the rush to modernise Bangladesh’s capital, the city’s architectural legacy is being destroyed.
A mixed reaction to judgment day
KAMPONG THOM PROVINCE–IN the cafes of Stoung district, yesterday’s verdict in the case of Kaing Guek Eev, alias Duch, proved a hard sell. At one cavernous establishment on National Road 6, a broadcast of the proceedings vied for attention with a cheaply made Chinese action film.
Duch’s neighbours reflect on his life
KAMPONG THOM PROVINCE–THESE days, life in Chaoyot village, a collection of stilt houses nestled along the banks of the Stoung river, proceeds in much the same way it did 68 years ago, when Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was born to parents of Khmer-Chinese extraction. It was here, in a small concrete home shaded by...
From carpet-bombing to friendship-building
As Cambodia and the United States celebrate six decades of diplomatic ties, the Post looks back at a relationship that has moved from alliance to alienation and back. By Sebastian Strangio & Neth Pheaktra.
KRT judges divided on next cases
THE Khmer Rouge tribunal has released letters documenting a disagreement concerning the timing of investigations into five additional regime suspects, continuing a long-standing pattern of disputes between Cambodian and international officials over the issue. Documents made public Wednesday showed that Cambodian co-investigating judge You Bunleng reversed an earlier agreement with his international counterpart Marcel Lemonde...
War correspondents reminisce
Today marks 40 years since the Vietnamese communists rolled into Saigon, forcing the US to beat a hasy retreat from their embattled South Vietnamese client state. The occasion threw up its fair share of iconic images (see right), including the extraordinary sight of a North Vietnamese T-54 tank smashing open the gates of the city’s...
Father searches for truth
OFF a dusty track in Trapeang Chranieng village lies a half-finished Buddhist pagoda, its unpainted walls still exposed to the mid-afternoon sun. Like many across Cambodia, the new building – as well as a nearby shrine, built in 2007 – is dedicated to the spirits of those killed in the village while it was under...
Armed Forces Day
Occasionally, a copy of the New Light of Myanmar — the Burmese government’s official mouthpiece — winds up in our office and gets passed around for laughs. The paper on March 25, commemorating Armed Forces Day, which marks the start of the Burmese army’s resistance to the Japanese occupation in 1945, was particularly amusing. In...
Revisiting Lon Nol’s Cambodia
Forty years on, former participants reflect on the country’s star-crossed republican experiment
In the shadow of Vine Mountain
With an Australian inquest set to revisit the killing of three Western tourists by Khmer Rouge in 1994, former cadres in Kampot reflect on the events that led to the men’s capture and killing
Ancient language sits on the brink of extinction
ONE of Cambodia’s oldest known languages is teetering on the brink of extinction, according to language experts, who say its loss will erase the last vestiges of a culture stretching back far into Southeast Asia’s prehistory. The S’aoch tongue, a distant relation to modern Khmer, is now spoken by just a handful of villagers in...
Under the gaze of the Divine Eye
Phnom Penh’s small Caodai temple, the Cambodian outpost of a curious southern Vietnamese religious sect, continues to attract local converts, attracted by its all-inclusive religious doctrine
