The last Turkish border camp, at Cukura, was closed on June 3.
About 2,000 survivors remain in border camps, and another thousand are hiding inside Thailand.
I remember a similar ceremony for my father in early 1979, a few months before I secretly made my way to a border camp.
The Thai Army allows journalists access to most border camps, where they are free to circulate.
The border camps were used as forward bases from which militants infiltrate into Turkey.
In the border camps, the ideology of the Khmer Rouge was gradually developed.
Ground cavalry troops on the border operated out of border camps close to the frontier.
Honduran officials wanted to keep a low profile on the contras and officially denied their presence, even when thousands of them operated from border camps.
A Thai official said that Cambodians continue arriving in the border camps at a rate of about 700 a month.
By December 1982 the population had dropped to 40,134 as refugees were forcibly repatriated, sent to third countries, or sent back to the border camps.