Word: penh
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Kampuchea is quiet. Everywhere. In Kep, a small seaside resort near the Vietnamese border, the ruins of churches, schools and villas rise from encroaching jungle. The narrow road leading into the town, once a weekend retreat for Phnom Penh's well-off, is choked with underbrush. Here and there on the nearly deserted beach, small groups picnic -- families, a gathering of friends. A song of the '60s drifts from a tape recorder, bringing with it the memory of better times...
After nearly two decades of war, peace may be coming to Kampuchea at last. Officials of the Heng Samrin government met outside Jakarta last week with representatives of the three resistance groups that have been fighting the Phnom Penh regime and its Vietnamese supporters. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the former head of state who last month resigned as leader of the resistance coalition, declined to attend the talks but made plans to meet with Kampuchean Prime Minister Hun Sen in Paris in October. While the so-called cocktail party failed to produce immediate results, it was nonetheless considered a psychological breakthrough...
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...
...carry out effective military operations in many parts of the country. Soviet officials, who number in the hundreds, are not allowed, for fear of ambush, to travel by car in the countryside or to use the open, bicycle-driven pedicabs that provide most of the transportation in Phnom Penh...
...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 settled in empty villas and apartment houses. Says...