Continue reading here...The road to Kraang Leav village, branching off the main highway five minutes northwest of Kampong Chhnang town, leads to a moss-covered stupa boxed in by a stone fence. A plaque identifies it, though the words – “Bardez Stupa” – don’t convey the true weight of its history.
On this spot nearly 93 years ago, in April of 1925, the blood-soaked body of Felix Louis Bardez lay.
Bardez was a French administrator and the résident of Kampong Chhnang, who was killed by an angry mob while on a mission to collect delinquent taxes from villagers.
His death, the only known murder in the 20th century of a French colonial official in Cambodia, was staggeringly brutal; he was beaten nearly to his last breath before being stabbed repeatedly with daggers. An armed security officer and an interpreter, both Cambodian, were also killed for being the “barang’s dogs”.
A few hours before he was killed, Bardez had ordered Lach, his security officer and bodyguard, to shackle and beat anyone who couldn’t pay the tax, according to accounts of the incident collected by reporters Deuk Keam and Deak Om in the 1960s. It is said that he also hit villagers himself, unaware that there was already a plot on his life circulating among the crowd.
The killing brought major repercussions, with then-King Sisowath issuing a brand that still smarts to this day: He officially changed the name of the village to Derichhan, or “bestial” – an especially offensive word in the Khmer language. Now, even though nearly a century has passed and all of the participants in the revolt have died, the sting of that insult is still keenly felt, with the stupa a monument to the tiny enclave’s humiliation.
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