… I am very pleased to return to the district of Kang Meas once again after my frequent visits in times of floods, presiding over the groundbreaking of the Angkor Baan Bailey Bridge, and building various roads in the district. I wish to take this opportunity to thank our people for their generous offer for me to preside over the ribbon cutting ceremony and to rebuild from scratch the pagoda destroyed by Pol Pot regime. In the period between 1970 and 1975, and especially between 1975 and 1979, the whole country practiced no Buddhism and no other religions. But we were very lucky that January 07, 1979 gave us an opportunity to survive the genocide and to be able to rebuild our nation.
… Under the Pol Pot’s regime each family faces with various difficulties, loss of ownerships on their land and other properties. Pol Pot confiscated our people of even their soup pots. After the liberation, we have to on one part build the living condition of our society which includes infrastructural facilities but on another we also contribute to the Buddhist development as well. By 1998, our nation succeeded in attaining a complete peace putting an end to the war that was left since 1979. With our efforts we have survived our country from the economic embargoes, while the UN did not recognize us but the Pol Pot’s representative for ten years. As we now have peace we could fully devote our strength and resources for development of our country. Take for instance today we have this beautiful pagoda in front of us and we are celebrating the inauguration ceremony without fear or anxiety. We could say it is the fruit of peace that we have gained with great hardship.
… With our peace-making efforts, we have now transformed the noise of gunfire into the Buddhist preaching, into sound music and the joyous voice of children. Take for instance in Kang Meas district, it should remind us all of fastest race boats in the whole country. The district has also absorbed lots of investments in forms of bridge, road and more is coming for the sake of reducing our people’s poverty. I wish to take this time to thank the CPP work team for the efforts they made in creating an effective mechanism for helping our people in a timely manner.
… Taking the floor here I wish to make an appeal to our people not only in the district of Kang Meas of Kompong Cham, but our people throughout the province and country on the fact that advance rain in the dry season has arrived. I have noticed on my flight here some dry-season rice is nearly ripe for harvest and some needs to be administered with irrigation. My order today is that in any dry-season rice cultivation areas with sufficient water and the rice is good for harvesting, the Cambodian armed forces should be mobilized to help in the harvest. This is a common concern that the Ministry of Agriculture and the Council for Agricultural Restoration and Development should pay common attention on. Some people grow dry season rice at the lowest land in the lake, and with so big rains like in the past few days, the lake could be subjected to increasing of surface water, the result of which would choke our people’s rice. In the past weeks we have problem of water shortages in many places and we need intervention of irrigation from various agricultural sectors, including my bodyguard unit’s irrigation intervention team.
Samdech Hun Sen on that occasion offered an electric generator and 27 million Riel to the pagoda of Kang Chak Boeung Trav, a school building of six classrooms to the Primary School of Beoung Trav, and a school building of five classrooms to the Hun Sen-Khchao College. Samdech also offers in principle to build a rural road of 7200 meters, three bridges of 150 meters and 12 water outlets in the So Korng commune and a rural road of 3500 meters in the commune of Prek Koy.
EndItem