Word: cambodia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week the first 527 refugees from camps in Thailand moved back to Cambodia to start a new life -- the first step in the repatriation of some 375,000 people driven from their country by a 13-year civil war. But the homecoming cannot go much further until U.N. peacekeeping troops, who will soon number 16,000, are able to defuse a battle in Kompong Thom province between ^ government forces and heavily armed Khmer Rouge units...
...more than 1 million deaths, spurned repeated U.N. mediation efforts, as did the Phnom Penh regime. A midweek parley seemed to break the ice -- for now -- and a U.N. squad was dispatched to the disputed turf. But the U.N. cannot impose peace in Kompong Thom -- or anyplace else in Cambodia. It can only make it possible for the Cambodians to do so themselves...
...save Cambodia's thousand-year-old treasures...
...most recent threat to Angkor arose during Cambodia's 20-year-long civil war, which began in the early 1970s. The Khmer Rouge, whose genocidal reign of terror killed an estimated 1 million Cambodians, did little direct damage to the monuments, but the fighting made maintenance impossible. Says B. Narasimhaiah, the head of an Indian archaeology team at Angkor Wat: "Wherever there is a small crack, dust will accumulate and soon a bush will spring up." All but a few of the major temples are covered in weeds, small bushes and even large trees...
Less obvious, but more insidious, is the water damage, according to archaeologist Richard Engelhardt, the director of UNESCO operations in Cambodia. The water system was neglected for centuries, and it totally collapsed following the construction of grandiose hydroprojects by the Khmer Rouge. They dammed the Siem Reap River, an integral part of the ancient system, in order to create their own baray farther north. As a result, the moats and canals surrounding the temples of Angkor turned into swamps...