Funeral for Cambodia "butcher"
1.7 million died in the Killing Fields of Cambodia
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Friday, 21, Jul 2006 03:52
Hundreds of Cambodians today attended the funeral of Ta Mok, the former leader of radical community party Khmer Rouge, who died in hospital on Friday at 04:45 local time (20:45 BST Thursday).
Mok, known as "the butcher" for his role in hundreds of thousands of brutally violent deaths during the Khmer Rouge's four-year period of government in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, passed away in a military hospital in Phnom Penh, apparently of natural causes.
The funeral was performed in a traditional Buddhist manner, despite Khmer Rouge banning all religion when it came to power, in his old stronghold of Anlong Veng, in the north of the south-east Asian country.
His death meant he will escape trial for war crimes in Cambodia, which had been set to begin next year.
"We are saddened by his death," Morm Mol, Mok's 33-year-old nephew, said.
Mok was born in 1926 in Cambodia's Takeo province, where he became a Buddhist monk before resisting the Japanese occupation during the second world war.
He became caught up in the wave of nationalism which overtook most of southeast Asia following the fall of Japan, joining the Cambodian communist party in 1964. By the 1960s he was the Khmer Rouge's military chief of staff, before allegedly directing the massive purges during the 1975-9 Democratic Kampuchea.
After the regime's fall he maintained power over the north of the country until 1997, when the development of a schism enabled him to seize control of one wing of the Khmer Rouge. His supremacy was shortlived, however, for a series of betrayals resulted in his capture two years later.
At least 1.7 million people are thought to have died during the communist party's four-year regime, making it one of the most deadly genocides in the 20th century's history.