Word: phnom
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More than two years after the Soviet-backed Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia (Kampuchea), Hanoi's puppet regime, led by Heng Samrin, is firmly installed in Phnom-Penh and has restored a measure of order to the wartorn, famine-stricken country. Even so, stubborn resistance continues in the countryside, spearheaded by the Khmer Rouge, the fighting force of the ousted Pol Pot regime. An estimated 40,000 strong, the Khmer guerrillas have managed to hang on to crucial sanctuaries with the help of substantial political and military aid from Viet Nam's hostile neighbor to the north, the People...
...march of the mendicants still begins at dawn as the hollow clap of the temple bell calls Phnom-Penh's faithful to alms. But the city through which the saffron-robed monks walk is now littered with rubble. There is far less food. The silver bowls have been replaced by plastic ones, bought on the black market. Yet the ritual is more important than ever. "People have asked to revive this dawn rite so they can share the little they have in order to make merit," explains Tep Vong, the senior Buddhist monk in Kampuchea. "We are rebuilding...
...Muslim mosques destroyed. The greatest indignities, however, were reserved for Buddhists, who constituted 90% of Kampuchea's population. Insurgents fresh from the jungle looted the country's 2,800 temples. "Buddhas were thrown into rivers or used as firewood," recalls Oum Soum, 62, deputy director of Phnom-Penh's Buddhist Institute. "Wats not destroyed became fertilizer warehouses." Bonzes were denounced as "parasites." The lucky ones were merely driven from their temples and into the fields. Of 80,000 Cambodian monks, 50,000 were murdered-often beaten to death-during the three years...
Ironically, despite the previous violence, religious tolerance is greatest today in Kampuchea. At the Royal Palace in Phnom-Penh, joss sticks are on sale again, and on Sundays, swarms of worshipers file through the ornate silver pagoda. Outside the capital, United Nations trucks that haul rice during the week are busy on Sunday transporting Buddhists and their gifts of food and flowers to rural temples...
...government of Heng Samrin has spent no money rebuilding temples. For now, Kampuchea's impoverished peasants seem prepared to accept the financial burden of maintaining Buddhism by themselves. The 100 families in the tiny hamlet of Damrak Ampil, 12½ miles west of Phnom-Penh, recently contributed enough money to cast a new bronze Buddha and begin restoring their roofless temple. "Lord Buddha sustained us during our darkest hours," explains Village Committeeman Chea Non. "Our village is poor, but our faith is strong...