The vast ‘secret’ military airfield at Kampong Chhnang in central Cambodia, built with slave labor by Pol Pot‘s forces, may become a key element in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
Khmer Rouge Airport Kampong Chnang
The base itself was constructed with slave labor, with Chinese advisers supervising, during 1977-78. It was never fully completed before the invading Vietnamese ‘liberated’ Cambodians from the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields.
Whatever the Chinese, whose advisers oversaw the construction of the base, and a deep tunnel complex two miles away, were going to do with it, is not known. The Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh now denies all knowledge of it.
In the last years, there has been some commercial interest expressed by foreign investors in this pristine airfield, but none seem to have reached fruition.
Other commentators point to the strategic situation of the airbase here, at the heart of Southeast Asia, and wonder if the Chinese, whose long arm reached this far, even then had designs for a more lasting presence in a region vital to it. China was, after all, Democratic Kampuchea‘s patron.
Kampong Chnang Airport built during Khmer Rouge Time.
Source:
- http://khmerization.blogspot.com/2011/12/pol-pots-abandoned-airport.html
- http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4077&Itemid=207