ABSTRACT
Put simply the violence of the recent past is still too raw and the impact of the genocide too difficult a topic to broach in terms of public commemoration. is has resulted in an amnesia about the recent past in Anlong Veng and its hinterland communities. is is unsurprising given that the region has the dubious honour of being the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge. Furthermore, the Byzantine nature of Cambodian politics means that it is intensely difficult to contextualise these sites historically and to interpret them without causing offence to powerful lobbies within the region. Ultimately we argue that the current attempts to create a
tourism industry concentrating on a heritage strategy emphasising sites associated with the Khmer Rouge have come before this place of pain and shame has been historically contextualised and the necessary process of healing has occurred.
