AFP News – 02/07/2013
Cambodia
on Thursday wrapped up a week-long funeral for its revered former King
Norodom Sihanouk with a procession to return the cremated remains of the
colourful ex-monarch to the royal palace.
After chanting by 90 Buddhist monks, two diamond-studded gold urns and
one marble urn containing the remains were transported atop a golden
float shaped like a mythological bird from the crematorium to the
palace.
"This is to honour his majesty who is the greatest hero of Cambodia,"
Sihanouk's long-time personal assistant Prince Sisowath Thomico told
AFP.
The rest of the remains had been lowered into the confluence of the
Mekong, Tonle Sap and Tonle Bassac rivers in Phnom Penh on Tuesday.
Sihanouk's widow Monique and his son King Norodom Sihamoni travelled on
the float with the urns during a televised procession attended by senior
government officials, including Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The urns will be kept in a stupa inside the palace, where before his
death Sihanouk had asked to be placed with his favourite daughter,
Kantha Bopha, who died aged three.
Sihanouk died of a heart attack in Beijing in October, aged 89.
After lying in state for three months, his embalmed body was cremated on
Monday after several days of lavish ceremonies including an elaborate
procession through the streets of Phnom Penh that drew crowds of
mourners.
A father of 14 children over six marriages, Sihanouk abdicated in 2004
after steering Cambodia through six decades marked by independence from
France, civil war, the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, his own exile and
finally peace.
Many elderly Cambodians credit him with overseeing a rare period of
political stability in the 1950s and 1960s, following independence,
until the Khmer Rouge emerged in the 1970s.
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