Word: kampuchea
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Whatever the shape of an eventual accord, it will take years for Kampuchea to recover from its ordeal. Provincial centers like Kampot, a river town 70 miles south of Phnom Penh, seem half empty. The government says there are 20,000 people in Kampot province, which once had a population of 420,000. It is possible to stand on a main street now and not see a soul. The reduction of urban populations by the Khmer Rouge was so thorough that towns have been largely taken over by peasants and displaced persons. They squat in empty houses or in lean...
Fear lingers everywhere. Hardly anyone is eager to talk politics, or about the dreaded Khmer Rouge, during whose five-year reign an estimated 2 million of Kampuchea's 7 million people were killed. An exception is Bour-Chinell, 64, chief of the provincial public works department in Kampot, who says, "I want national reconciliation. It's a good idea to bring Prince Sihanouk back. The old people still love him, and the young people have all heard...
...largest of the three guerrilla groups (the others are Sihanouk's Nationalist Army and former Premier Son Sann's Khmer People's National Liberation Front), is in dispute. Soviet and Vietnamese military advisers insist that the Kampuchean armed forces can contain the threat, but Western analysts have their doubts. Kampuchea's 30,000-man regular army and the 100,000 irregulars assigned to defend their country are largely untested. Many Kampucheans fear that once the Vietnamese draw down their forces, the Khmer Rouge may succeed in grabbing power once more...
With Moscow trying to put its economic house in order, Soviet officials working in Kampuchea appear to be less than pleased with their country's commitment to the Heng Samrin government, which they estimate costs $58 million a year. Nonetheless, Kampuchea's vital signs are strengthening. An illegal import trade thrives, especially in motorbikes smuggled from Thailand. Phnom Penh, almost empty during the years of Khmer Rouge rule, is coming back to life: its population, which had never reached half a million, is now 650,000 to 800,000. City officials believe that more than half are refugees who have...
...longer willing to substitute quantity for quality, the Soviets update their army. -- Iran and Iraq brace themselves for peace. -- Inside Kampuchea, where fear still reigns...