PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Thousands of mourners accompanied a gilded
chariot carrying the body of former King Norodom Sihanouk — the dominant figure
of modern Cambodia — in a funeral procession Friday to a cremation ground next
to the palace where he was crowned more than 70 years ago.
His body had been lying in state
at the Royal Palace after being flown from Beijing where he died Oct. 15 of a
heart attack at the age of 89. The cremation, the climax of seven days of
mourning, will take place Monday.
Many wept as the kilometer-long
(0.6-mile) procession slowly proceeded, watched by more than half a million people,
according to a preliminary estimate by city spokesman Long Dimanche. Reflecting
the respect Sihanouk still commands in Cambodia, especially among the older
generation, most knelt and clasped their hands in prayer as the cortege passed
while Buddhist monks chanted.
“Since I was born, I have seen
him doing everything for the country and people,” said Un Veth, 74, “Today is
the last day. In the future I can only see him in photographs.”
Chan Virak, a 24-year-old student
called the former king, “a great leader, the symbol of peace and prosperity for
Cambodia.”
In a turbulent lifetime, Sihanouk
wrested independence from the French colonials and managed to initially keep
his small country out the Vietnam War by adroitly playing off the United States
against the Communist world. But a 1970 coup engulfed Cambodia in the conflict
and precipitated the Khmer Rouge reign of terror.
A consummate survivor and
political opportunist, Sihanouk was imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge, and after
their fall in 1979 went on to lead an insurgency against the
Vietnamese-installed government in Cambodia. After a peace deal he helped
broker, Sihanouk returned to Phnom Penh but abdicated in 2004 in favor of his
son King Norodom Sihamoni, a ballet dancer educated in Europe who by all
accounts ascended the throne reluctantly.
Sihamoni and his mother, Norodom
Monineath, followed the seven-foot-high casket with Sihanouk’s body as it was
moved from the palace past a line of bemedaled officials. The former queen wept
quietly.
The casket was laid beneath a
temple-like structure on one of several funeral chariots and accompanied by
court Brahmins and women dressed as Apsaras, the celestial dancers of Cambodian
mythology. Marching with the procession were courtiers dressed in pantaloons
and spiked helmets, bearing five-tiered umbrellas and other royal regalia.
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