Jan 20, 2008, 8:16 GMT
Phnom Penh - Cambodian police locked down a former Khmer Rouge prison Sunday with barricades in a 300 metre radius after US actress Mia Farrow vowed to continued with a scheduled anti-China rally.
US actress Mia Farrow (R), holding a batch of lotus flowers walks with Theary C. Seng (L), Cambodian Executive Director of the Center for Social Development, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 20 January 2008. US actress Mia Farrow appeared on a collision course with Cambodian authorities after her supporters vowed she proceeds with an anti-China rally at a former Khmer Rouge jail (S-21 prison) despite Cambodian government objections. EPA/MAK REMISSA
More than 200 officers were posted to block the actress and entourage that had intended to light a torch at the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum.
Farrow's global Dream For Darfur rally draws attention to China's economic support of Sudan and the war in Darfur ahead of the August Olympics, but China is one of Cambodia's staunchest allies and authorities banned it and threatened arrests and deportations.
In the end, however, it was an anticlimax, with Farrow and friend Seng Theary, director of her Cambodian partner agency Center for Social Development, forced to stand forlornly on the wrong side of the barrier holding wilting white water lilies in scorching heat for an hour in a 70-strong crowd before giving up.
Farrow said little, letting the outspoken young US-Khmer rights activist Seng do all the talking as they pleaded fruitlessly for entry. But the pair suffered more jostling from journalists, who appeared to outnumber Dreamers, than they did from police.
Some Farrow supporters tried to threatened police with US embassy intervention, but were rebuffed. Phnom Penh security chief Police General Hy Pru turned up to supervise, and the rally ended quietly.
Police said there were no arrests.
Cambodian officials were vehement in denying permission to the organizers. Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith branded them ignorant foreigners attempting to use Cambodia's genocide as a fund-raising vehicle.
Museum director Chey Sopheara was among those who felt the ceremony would hijack the memories of the up to 16,000 people who were tortured or killed in former school.
At a press conference after the rally, Farrow, 62, and Seng expressed disappointment but no regrets. On Saturday, authorities allowed Farrow to tour the museum sans torch and Sunday said the problem was the torch and the agenda, not Farrow herself.
Up to 2 million Cambodians died in the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime.
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