Golf course planned at former Khmer Rouge stronghold - Feature
Posted : Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:19:04 GMT
Author : DPA
Pailin, Cambodia - In a move that might make the late Cambodian despot
Pol spin in his grave - if he had one - former Khmer Rouge cadres in
their stronghold of Pailin have embraced a plan to cash in on the
country's tourism boom and build a golf course. Not that they know
much about the game. If football is the beautiful game, to the ultra-
Maoist former guerrillas, golf is the mysterious one.
Last week, golf fanatic Prime Minister Hun Sen visited the remote
area, more than 100 kilometres of rugged dirt road from the nearest
city of Battambang, and proposed a golf course for the municipality.
Pailin is perched on the nation's north-western border with Thailand
and is just four hours by road from Bangkok, but up to 10 hours from
the Cambodian capital.
Hun Sen is possibly the only country leader in the world to list his
golf scores on his website.
Cambodia is so serious about developing golf as an industry that it
has appointed a special representative to the Council of Ministers.
The former Khmer Rouge are ecstatic.
Once rich in gems and timber, these resources were all but stripped
bare by the Khmer Rouge as they tried to keep the remnants of the
rebel movement alive by selling them off before the rebels finally
conceded to join Hun Sen's government in 1996.
Even journalists don't bother to go there anymore since four of its
most infamous residents - former Khmer Rouge leaders Ieng Sary, his
wife Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea - were arrested on
orders from the court set up to try them. They are now langui****ng in
a Phnom Penh jail.
Pailin's biggest draw is currently its mainly Thai-owned casinos,
which operators say draw up to 10,000 Thais per month. But they lie
within a quick sprint of the border and more than 12 rough kilometres
from Pailin town, so most gamblers drop their money there and go no
further.
Nor does Pailin have the attractions of other former Khmer Rouge
border strongholds such as Anlong Veng, which at least boasts the
make****ft cremation site of the movement's leader Pol Pot and Khmer
Rouge military commander Ta Mok's home, complete with war room.
So the former hardline communists, who drove the country to
destruction in their 1975-79 failed bid to turn the nation into an
agrarian utopia bereft of social cl*****, which left up to 2 million
dead, have joyfully embraced a new ideology - golf.
"We don't understand this game and at the moment it is just a speech
by the prime minister, but it would be great for Pailin," says local
Information Chief Kong Duong, once a Khmer Rouge propaganda chief.
He says he has never seen a golf ball, except on television.
"We don't know where we will put (the course), or how big it should
be, but the idea is good."
Pailin Tourism Chief So Korng is candid. He freely admits that to him,
an iron is for pressing clothes, a wood is something you cut down to
make furniture, and Tiger Woods is a place you never go alone or
unarmed.
But he agrees that the concept of this strange foreign game (so
foreign that Cambodians don't have a word for it and use the English
word instead) is attractive.
"People will have more jobs, and many people inside Cambodia and from
overseas will come to visit Pailin and also see our natural
attractions like our waterfall, gem shops, mountains and our
agricultural programmes," he said.
Revenue from the golf course may even pay for a road to the
municipality's remote afore-mentioned waterfall, which currently
offers little more than precarious four-wheel drive access.
A former soldier who fought the Khmer Rouge in the early 1990's says
the now-tamed rebels should also make good caddies.
"I have seen them climb mountains with two B-40 rockets strapped to
their backs, so golf clubs should be no problem," he says. That would
be a whole new revolution for a movement better known for its infamous
black pajama uniform than plaid and plus fours.
But not everyone is convinced. A spokesman for local non-government
organization Buddhism for Development says golf is for the rich, and
he doubts there will be much trickle down for the impoverished former
Khmer Rouge farmers in the area.
"The former Khmer Rouge are poor. They are too busy farming to have
time to play golf," he said.
And then there is the image problem. In a 2006 interview, a senior
Pailin tourism official laughingly admitted that the very concept of
tourism remained somewhat alien.
"Before, our orders were to kill them, but now we invite them to visit
and please spend money," he said.
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