Word: phnom
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sternly Communist Khmer Rouge killed anywhere from 1 million to 2 million Kampucheans in a genocidal resettlement program. Up to another million fled, swarming into refugee camps across the border in Thailand. In 1979 invading Vietnamese troops overthrew the murderous Pol Pot. Since then, the Hanoi-backed government in Phnom Penh has been at war with a coalition of three rebel factions that includes as many as 35,000 fighters of the ousted Khmer Rouge...
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...
...enough to 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...
Nonetheless, some restaurants have reopened and are well attended. In the early evening, lovers meet again in the shadows of the fabled temple Wat Phnom. Then, as the curfew approaches and the lights begin to dim to half power, fewer and fewer bikes and pedicabs pass one another, quietly, like phantoms in the night. Still ill at ease, not quite believing that their suffering may be coming to an end, Phnom Penh's citizens head home quickly and, as always, silently. Without a political settlement, there is still reason to fear...