AKP Kandal, February 15, 2021 --

The Cabinet of National Assembly President Samdech Akka Moha Ponhea Chakrei Heng Samrin donated supplies to a primary school in Kien Svay district in Kandal province on Monday.

At the Heng Samrin Chheuteal Primary School in Chheuteal commune on the Bassac River, the cabinet offered 290 sets of bags, water bottles, books, pens, dental supplies and footballs.  

In an address to teachers and students, Deputy Cabinet Chief H.E. Kim San noted that Samdech Heng Samrin had been helping the school since Liberation from the Pol Pot regime in 1979.

Local people had been “very helpful” to his regiment in toppling Lon Nol forces in 1975, he said, noting that the region was a “very hot area” in the early 1970s.

H.E. Kim San also stressed the importance of maintaining good hygiene and a clean environment around the school and to keep taking precautions against COVID-19.

The ceremony on Monday followed the cabinet’s recent donation of playground equipment to the Heng Samrin Serei Deidos Primary School in nearby Kampong Svay commune.

In his memoirs, Samdech Heng Samrin identified Chheuteal and Kampong Svay communes as sites of heavy fighting against the forces of Lon Nol, who overthrew Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970.

As commander of a regiment in the Khmer People’s Revolutionary Army, he recalled planning an attack against a Lon Nol garrison in Kampong Svay.

"Since Lon Nol’s troops were well fortified, it took us three nights to attack and take control,” he wrote.

In 1975, he said the area around Chheuteal was the scene of two major attacks before the final assault on Phnom Penh.

“Under orders from the Eastern Zone, my forces launched attacks on Kbal Koh and Koh Anlong Chen and then swam along the Bassac to attack another enemy base at Prek Pra,” the National Assembly president recalled.

“We then began an assault on an enemy position at Champuh Kaek Monastery, the last major garrison defending Phnom Penh. We destroyed the base, seizing many tanks and weapons.”

Local officials said Samdech Heng Samrin helped to  rehabilitate education and health facilities in the area in the 1980s when he served as president of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea.
 

(Photo: Lem Samean)

By Sao Da