Word: phnom
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...morning of April 17, 1975, advance units of Cambodia's Communist insurgents, who had been actively fighting the defeated Western-backed government of Marshal Lon Nol for nearly five years, began entering the capital of Phnom Penh. The Khmer Rouge looted things, such as watches and cameras, but they did not go on a rampage. They seemed disciplined. And at first, there was general jubilation among the city's terrified, exhausted and bewildered inhabitants. After all, the civil war seemed finally over, the Americans had gone, and order, everyone seemed to assume, would soon be graciously restored...
Then came the shock. After a few hours, the black-uniformed troops began firing into the air. It was a signal for Phnom Penh's entire population, swollen by refugees to some 3 million, to abandon the city. Young and old, the well and the sick, businessmen and beggars, were all ordered at gunpoint onto the streets and highways leading into the countryside...
Among the first pitiful sights on the road, witnessed by several Westerners, were patients from Phnom Penh's grossly overcrowded hospitals, perhaps 20,000 people all told. Even the dying, the maimed and the pregnant were herded out stumbling onto the streets. Several pathetic cases were pushed along the road in their beds by relatives, the intravenous bottles still attached to the bedframes. In some hospitals, foreign doctors were ordered to abandon their patients in mid-operation. It took two days before the Bruegel-like multitude was fully under way, shuffling, limping and crawling to a designated appointment with...
Peking has tried to persuade Hanoi and Phnom-Penh to negotiate a ceasefire. Although each side accuses the other of aggression, the Chinese have been carefully ambiguous in apportioning blame. Teng Hsiao-p'ing's most recent remark on that subject was a masterpiece of inscrutability: "Whoever provoked the conflict will come to no good...
...widow, a Long March veteran and party heroine, was chosen to lead a high-level Chinese delegation to Cambodia because of her pervasive prestige. Her mission was to persuade Premier Pol Pot to negotiate a settlement with Hanoi, but she failed. Though received with due pomp in Phnom-Penh, she was soon whisked out to view the 12th century ruins at Angkor Wat and otherwise kept occupied. After four days she reportedly cut short her visit and went home. Though her hosts may not have been paying much attention to her, she had obviously been listening to them. Back...