Cambodia Newborn CambodiaAugust 1994

When I was at Narita Airport to go to Phnom Penn via Bangkok, I ran across a newspaper reporter, who was a friend of mine. He said that he was going to Shanghai, where he had been to study Chinese, to collect news materials. “China is now in the market for oil. It is not only the military that employs the southern expansion policy.” “China is rendering aid to the Khmer Rouge to gain over Vietnam to its side. China may think that it can use the Khmer Rouge as ‘pileup pressure’,” he remarked with a meaningful smile.

On the following day, the 9th, a Thai newspaper in English, which I got it on the airplane for Phnom Penn, said that the Pot Party condemned the West strongly, claiming that their military aid has increased the damage in Cambodia, and demanded reparations for the loss in writing.

After I got off the airplane at Pochentog International Airport, which was located in the suburb of Phnom Penn, I went to the Cham Chaw Military Technology Center of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces to see the state of the American military aid. In the center 45 American soldiers were teaching about 1,000 Cambodian soldiers how to drive heavy machines that are needed for construction of roads and bridges as well as how to remove mines with a mine detector.

Major General Kaban Shiamu, the chief of the center, said emphatically, “This military aid is not for war, but for recovery and development.” He stressed that they needed heavy machines to repair the 10,000 km road, and that in order to secure the workers’ safety they needed to remove 800 to 1,000 million mines buried in the ground all over the country. He also said that the workers should be engineers who could counterattack in self-defense when the Khmer Rouge attacked them at work. “We are annoyed at foreign pressmen who simply report this American army’s support as ‘military aid’,” he complained. So I proposed, “I’ll report with some evidential photos that the American army is helping the Cambodian army with the training of engineers.” He guided me to the maneuvering ground. But I was refused to cover the place by an American soldier. “I had a permission of the Defense Ministry to gather materials for an article,” I said, showing him the official documents. But, “You need a permission of the American Embassy,” said the American soldier, as if they had extraterritorial rights. “But this is Cambodia,” I retorted. Then he said, “Please understand where I stand.” Just then, his senior officer roared at us, “Get out! Now! Unless you get out of here, we will not do training. We will change it to sedentary work. There is no use in waiting. Don’t waste your time!” “The Cambodia side cannot help it,” Major General Kaban Shiam signaled to me with his eyes.

Of course, Cambodia is not a colony of the U.S. and there is no treaty between Cambodia and the U.S., such as the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. The first part of Article 53 of the new Constitution of Cambodia provides that the Kingdom of Cambodia shall employ a policy of permanent neutrality and nonalignment. (The middle part omitted) the Kingdom of Cambodia shall prohibit any foreign country from setting a military base within the territory (the latter part omitted), but the latter part of Article 53 provides that the Kingdom of Cambodia shall have a right to receive a military aid in military installations, weapons, ammunition and training the Cambodian soldiers from foreign countries. I think this and ‘being an independent sovereign nation’ in Article 1 cause different interpretations of the Constitution.

The U.S. worked out humanitarian aid as a nucleus of the diplomatic policy toward the Third World at the Population Conference in Cairo. Does the U.S. army concern about the opinion of the right-wing faction of the Republican Party, which insists in U.S. Congress that they should give such a military aid that they can show off their ‘American power’? Or, are they simply nervous, because the military aid of foreign countries provoked the Khmer Rouge to kidnap a foreigner in Kampot? Incidentally, besides the U.S., which is detailing 90 soldiers in total, France detailed 47 soldiers and Australia dispatched two military attaches to render military aid as of August 9th. These industrially advanced countries announced that they offered no arms but military training, perhaps for fear of being involved in a dispute or for reasons of international moral.

The U.S. worked out humanitarian aid as a nucleus of the diplomatic policy toward the Third World at the Population Conference in Cairo. Does the U.S. army concern about the opinion of the right-wing faction of the Republican Party, which insists in U.S. Congress that they should give such a military aid that they can show off their ‘American power’? Or, are they simply nervous, because the military aid of foreign countries provoked the Khmer Rouge to kidnap a foreigner in Kampot? Incidentally, besides the U.S., which is detailing 90 soldiers in total, France detailed 47 soldiers and Australia dispatched two military attaches to render military aid as of August 9th. These industrially advanced countries announced that they offered no arms but military training, perhaps for fear of being involved in a dispute or for reasons of international moral.

Indonesian ammunition aid is well known, but just as I arrived here, I heard the rumor that the vice-minister of the Defense Ministry, Tiah Ban, purchased 100 tanks from Czechoslovakia and new model weapons from North Korea and Asian countries.

Local newspapers

After covering the military affairs, I went to Phnom Penn City. At newsstands they sell newspapers in Chinese which are imported from Thailand or Singapore, to say nothing of those in English. Many of newspapers in Cambodian are published by foreign-owned companies and printed in Thailand. However, the Methea Phon (=homeland) is published by a Cambodian-owned company and going strong. The newspaper made its first appearance on March 18th last year. It is published weekly and numbers only four pages, but still it circulates to almost all the cities in the country. The newspaper boasts a circulation of 4,000. According to Ohm Chandra (34), a reporter, the newspaper gives high priority to 1) the relief of the sufferers in the days of Pot, 2) resistance to colonization and 3) the prevention of corruption in the government. Some newspapers in Cambodia such as Antarakum, Prume Bayon and Sakan, which had criticized the king and the coalition government and urged a line to talk with the Khmer Rouge, were ordered to close by the authorities, and some of their chief editors died a suspicious death.

I accompanied Ohm Chandra to see an example of the problem the newspaper posed. He said he was going to take me to the scene of colonization. But it was not a Singaporean-owned hotel or company, or a Japanese construction site of infrastructure. It was a “Vietnam town” with a barbershop, an electrical appliance store and the like standing side by side. The place was in the best district of the capital of Cambodia. Ohm Chandra was a government official before the election. He said that the former government had been a victim that had to be a puppet of Vietnam submissively, and that Cambodian workers were even now thrown out of work by Vietnamese in their own country. The new immigration law enacted on August 26th is so rigid that it is applied even to Cambodians of Vietnamese descendants who have lived in Cambodia from several generations ago.

If I take a perverse view, I’ll say that this Methea Phon is going strong because it is the establishment press. The Khmer Rouge is not the only one that criticizes the invasion of Vietnam explicitly. Cambodia always fears to be swallowed by its adjacent country so that its fast-growth may be another menace to this country. The immigration law, however, has just come into effect. The degree of the strictness of the regulation will reveal whether the law is just a pose to the Khmer Rouge or whether the government really means it. With such things in mind, I hurried to the Ministry of Finance, where I had an appointment of interview, pushing my way through the rapidly increasing cars and motorbikes.

The Finance Minister Sam Rainsy

I interviewed the Finance Minister Sam Rainsy on the second floor of the Finance Ministry building. There is a rumor that a French enterprise shouldered the burden of reconstruction expenses of the Finance Ministry building in return for the lease on an airplane. Sam Rainsy is a member of the third party, the Buddhist Liberal Party, and he was one of those who opposed the illegalization of the Pol Pot Party on the side of King Sihanouk. “If you oppress the people by force, there will be always repellence. That is, if a village becomes a battlefield, the villagers will be displaced persons, and there will be discontent among draftees.” He is still opposed to ruling by force of arms. He explained the reason. “If we compete with them peacefully, it is obvious which will win. And also the supporters of the Khmer Rouge are victims of corruption and poverty in this society. Sweeping away corruption as well as promoting the development of local areas is the shortest way to solve the problems.

Sam Rainsy continued, “Actually, our biggest enemy is not the Khmer Rouge, but the illness of the country Cambodia itself such as corruption and injustice. You cannot kill a patient to cure his illness. Too much support incurs corruption. So we want you to assist us in sending the experts of economic ethics or accounting to our country, not in the way of money.” Bureaucratic malfeasance is one of the main causes for public works and private investments not to be promoted and for the recovery of Cambodia not to be speeded up.

Sam Rainsy, looking back over the past, remarked on the rehabilitation of the country. “A lot of difficult problems piled up at the start. Since there was no money in the National Treasury, we couldn’t pay a salary to the government workers, and moreover, we couldn’t provide even minimum public services like water supply, electricity, health service and education.” But now, he continued, the big cities become safe and clean, and there is well-organized transportation system. “On top of that, we could curb once triple-digit inflation to 0% inflation. And also we can pay salaries to the policemen and soldiers,” he boasted. And he added, “What makes them possible is that we crack down injustice, increase the revenue by two-and-a-half times and keep the growth rate 3%, and that the people cooperatively restrain consumption.”

I asked him to give me the statistics to reinforce the splendid figures in his statement, but he said, “There are not so many …….” He didn’t give me the “evidence” after all. I understand that the survey of prices and wages is difficult in present Cambodia. I wonder 0% inflation he mentioned may be calculated only on the riel-dollar rate. The exchange rate of 2,400 riels to the dollar is certainly the same as on January this year when I came here. But what can I buy now for 2,400 riels? I went to Oruse Market in Phnom Penh. I could buy 8kg of regular-grade pork before the election, but now I can buy only a tenth of that, 750g. Lee Penh, who runs a noodle shop at the market, said, “The prices of ingredients increase but the customers decrease… I could sell 50 bowls of noodles a day before, but now I can sell only 30 bowls or so. Everyone has fallen hard times.” The salary of a government worker is 20,000 riels to 50,000 riels the same as before. Everyone is eking out his income with a side job. This is just devaluation. Naturally, the citizens have no alternative but to restrain consumption. “Sam Rainsy shores up the riel with U.S. dollars, which are given in aid, and makes the figures balanced,” angrily said a caucus of the People’s Party, the former government party.

Khiev Kanharith, A National Assembly Deputy

On the night of the 9th, I had a chance to talk with Khiev Kanharith, a National Assembly deputy, over our drink. He once was an intelligence minister of the stopgap government. I asked him about the true state of the coup on the night of July 2nd. “The 14 Thais under arrest were reported underground activists who interrupted the telephone service from 8:00 on the night of that day. I trust the Thai government that declared Thailand would recognize this government. I don’t think the Thai government was involved. Maybe they were only mercenary telephone technicians.” Kanharith sometimes cannot say what he wants to say because of his title. A high official, who belonged to the People’s Party as same as Kanharith did, told me his guess. “I think Prince Ranariddh, who cannot usurp the throne or inherit his father’s property, dared give a chance of coup to Prince Chakurapon to exile him from Cambodia. Chakurapon always felt ill at ease in the presence of Ranariddh, who has consolidated his status as the head of the leading party.” There is another guess that a group which insisted on continuing the talks with the Pot Party sought the downfall of the second premier Hun Sen, who tried to carry through the illegalization of the Pot Party.

Anyway, the coup failed in their attempt. The Pot Party was illegalized as Hun Sen had insisted before the election, so that Hun Sen is getting more power in the government. Now that the elimination of the Pot Party became a national policy, King Sihanouk has to side with Hun Sen in order to return home peacefully. So, it is no wonder that Prince Ranariddh, who is on bad terms with his father, suddenly tries to get on closer terms with Sam Rainsy, whose father, a former ambassador in England, was reportedly assassinated by order of Sihanouk. Actually, when I stayed in Phnom Pen, I heard that there might be another coup during Hun Sen’s next traveling abroad. In the middle of June, the two premiers and the Thai premier Chuan agreed that the concessions to export timber should be put in the charge of the Ministry of Defense in financial difficulties. Sam Rainsy ventilated “this secret agreement,” and as a result the backing of world opinion leaned toward Rainsy. The struggle for power among those three is inextricably tangled.

Kanharith revealed the People’s Party’s policy, “If the Pot Party doesn’t surrender in six months, we will set up a new military unit to stop their subversive activities completely. But we will not start a fight.” He added, “The government cannot excise control over trading arms as well as timber and gems on the Thai border. So our anti-Khmer Rouge measure is to squeeze them not only by military force but also legally and financially.” I think this measure is very practical, because the agreement the Cambodian Defense Ministry should export timber to the trader approved by Thai government will undoubtedly squeeze the Pot Party financially. Timber has been the financial resource of the Pot Party guerrillas.

On the other hand, that the premiers and the military alone manage timber of the nation’s natural resource will be an infringement of the New Cambodian Constitution, which prescribes the democratic process of the policies and the protection of the environment. And this became another cause of the delay in the rehabilitation of Cambodia, because the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund put pressure on Cambodia by announcing that they would withdraw the credit security of aid.

To the western front

Although the kidnapping of a foreigner weighed on my mind, I decided to go to the western front. For I knew through the last material-gathering that the Khmer Rouge lurking in Kampot and Kompong Speu counties were half isolated, because the bad road and hazardous jungle hindered the supply route of ammunition and foods from the headquarters on the Thai border. Although the royal government is sensitive to the relationship with foreign countries, they concluded the Khmer Rouge guerrillas there would make hit-and-run attacks or perform subversive activities sporadically, but they would not have a chain of command to expand their territory. In the west, however, the illegalized Khmer Rouge is reportedly stepping up the offensive, which is not reported because there is no foreign victim. In the early morning of the 10th, I headed straight for Battambang on Route 5.

The Khmer Rouge soldiers who surrendered

Passing Kompong Chhnang, I stopped by at the retraining center for the Khmer Rouge soldiers who surrendered. It opened only five days ago. In accordance with the policy of the Defense Ministry that all education centers in the country should be integrated, the center in Phnom Penh moved into here first.

A training building and a dormitory are under construction. Min Measu, a regimental commander, met me at the ruins of a building only whose roof remained. “Unlike before, the present government is democratic and human rights are protected, so they are coming to surrender. I think they have already repented when they surrendered. They are also victims of the Khmer Rouge. They were stirred up and inspired with wrong ideas by the Khmer Rouge,” he said quietly. In the center, they give lessons to the former Khmer Rouge soldiers on P.E., recreation, the human rights, military discipline and tactics, and also train these “enemy soldiers” for the Royal Amy soldiers in three weeks. The 55 soldiers who surrendered and 19 women and children of their families were moved here from Phnom Penh. They have already finished a three-month training course, and now they are on probation to ascertain their volition.

The highest of the soldiers in rank who surrendered, Cheep May (35), a former lieutenant colonel of the 277th Pot Party Independent Regiment, was wearing a uniform of the Royal Army with epaulets. He told me the reason for surrender in the following words. “I believe this government chosen by vote is the government for Cambodian people. If we continue the war, that is to say, Cambodians kill Cambodians, our living standard will never improved.” In April of this year he surrendered together with seven his men, his wife and children to the major general to whom he had written a letter to the effect that he would surrender. I asked about the inside of the Pot Party. “Since capitalism has been also introduced into the Khmer Rouge from 1981, there is disparity in wealth. Some leaders are still communists, but their systems vary depending on time and place.” When I implied that the morale of the Khmer Rouge is getting low because of disorder in their system, “Sure, it is. Same as the Royal Army,” he said candidly, though an instructor was secretly listening to our talk. But May wasn’t reproved.

Flood

For fear that anything should happen, we drove at full speed without a stop through Pouthisat　State where once in a week the Khmer Rouge attacked trains running on the railroad parallel to the road and villages by the roadside. Before long we saw some shabby huts standing side by side on the shoulder of the road in Battambang, where we were going to stay tonight.

In Ottock Village of Sonkai County, there was a flood rising by about two meters for the first time in three years, Prea Bett (47) evacuated his home to the national road on the raised ground, which was three kilometers away from his village. “Battambang State provided us with this vinyl sheets for the roof. They also rationed out 100kg of rice for four families,” she said with a smile all the time despite of being a flood victim. Reportedly, five states of Cambodia suffered from floods in this rainy season, and about 50,000 people fell victims to the floods. The Red Cross has given emergency aid to sufferers before, but the local administration never took a measure like this before the new government was born. The New Constitution stated the protection of local farmers at every turn, including “… shall propel the economic development of local places, especially, for farmers and handicraftsmen” in Article 61. If I take a shrewd view of it, I could say the policy was adopted to prevent poor farmers from going over to the Khmer Rouge.

Vice-Governor Nam Thun

On the 11th, Vice-Governor Nam Thun explained the present bitter situation contrary to the comfortable morning air. “The Khmer Rouge have altered their tactics after May this year. They set fire to the villages after they attack. In Ratana Mondol County, another about 40,000 people of 8,000 families fell victims to war. The damage got increased, because UNTAC reduced the strength of our army. So, we formed a local army and struck back. But still there are many farmers who cannot come home because mines are laid under the fields.”

Nam Thun gave me his reasons why the Khmer Rouge could continue to attack as follows. 1) The Khmer Rouge have still received aid from abroad even now (he could not mention the country’s name, though). 2) They earn money by the export of gem mined in Pailin that the Khmer Rouge control. 3) The munitions of the government army are in short supply. 4) They run into Thai territory when they are driven into a corner. He added with a chagrined expression, “If Thailand doesn’t sell ammunitions, I’m sure they pass through Thailand. But we cannot obtain proof. Unless Thailand blocks up the border cooperatively, the Royal Army cannot drive out the Khmer Rouge, no matter how strong the army is.”

According to the international news alone, two secret armories of the Khmer Rouge were exposed within the Thai territory at the end of December last year and at the beginning of July this year. Also, it is well known that the markets of gems and timber brought from the regions that are under the Khmer Rouge’s control are scattered along Route 317 in Thailand.

“98 % of the people are against the Khmer Rouge. The remaining 2 %, or supporters, are people who are discontented with their present lives and criminals who committed robbery or murder and ran to the Khmer side for fear of being under arrest. The Khmer Rouge has never taken our concessions in a favorable sense since the Paris Peace Accord. So, there is no alternative but to fight.” Num is a chief of the local government, not a member of armed forces, but still he advocates taking a hard-line policy like this.

To the front

After parting from Num, I headed for the front on Route 10 leading to Pailin. Worrying about financial difficulties and a decline in the military morale, the government laid a scheme of restructuring the military with the aim of reducing the number of soldiers in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces from current 160,000 to 64,000 within three years. On the other hand, the number of the Khmer Rouge soldiers is supposedly 25,000.

The Royal Amy took Pailin, the base of the Khmer Rouge, on March 21st this year. But the Pot Party took it back by storm at the end of April. When we passed the ruins of Ratana Mondol County Office, which was destroyed during the battle at the end of April, I heard the roar of guns fired by the Royal Amy breaking the silence of the rural district. At the artillery position of the Royal Amy, Soviet-made 152mm gun is placed, leveled at the sky with cumulonimbus clouds in the rainy season. “Don’t take a photo of surrounding mountains. Our enemy will find us,” I was warned. The gun ranges 17 kilometers. They fire at Chenan Village 14-15 kilometers to west-southwest of the position. In the village the Khmer Rouge set up the front. They fired 15 times in the past one-month, 4 to 30 shells at a time. They already fired four shells today.

From here, an armed car and a military truck led us. When we arrived at the frontline headquarters, after passing over many big puddles made by explosion of mines, Mat Chara (34), a major general with the 5th Division, met us. He said, “While we were held up in unifying three parties, the Khmer Rouge came at us. So we had to withdraw to Mt. Tumbot 13km away from Battambang.” He added that they had driven the Khmer Rouge back to where the line had been at the time of the election by May 1st. “We don’t have a large-scale operation now. But we can’t stay still. If we don’t do anything, the guerrillas will attack us again.”

The duty of this division is to defend the line. After May the villagers went back to their own villages, but they cannot work fully in their fields for fear of mines that the Khmer Rouge laid again when they withdrew. “Someone steps on a mine every tenth day. We are good at dealing with mines, but we don’t remove mines in the fields, because we are not ordered and also we are too busy to do that. But there are some retired soldiers in the villages and they teach how to remove the mines. So they do it by themselves.”

Ammunition is reportedly in short supply. The Soviet Union and Vietnam did provide it for the army before, but now there is no country to provide it. “If it becomes a long drawn-out war, we will surely be want of ammunition, but it’s the rainy season now, so that we have enough of it at least this year.”

Chara stated positively that there was a good chance for the Khmer Rouge to return to the country in the days of the UNTAC, but there is not better chance than that any more. “If the Royal Amy is organized well and introduces new model weapons, the Khmer Rouge soldiers in the front will dread and surrender. But I think their leaders will never surrender even if we wait for six months, ten years, and more. I can read their psychology,” he confidently predicted the prospect of the war situation. He has confronted the Khmer Rouge for 16 years after he returned in triumph with the Vietnamese army from Preah Vihear in 1979.

I asked him what Cambodia needed most for its recovery. He simply answered, “Peace.” Then, he added that for peace they needed to stop the war first, but to stop the war, they needed more arms. His logic goes that if the war ends, the country will be stable, then the foreign investors will come and lay out their money in Cambodian enterprises, finally Cambodia will become wealthy. When we parted, he added, “You are a journalist, aren’t you? Will you tell the public we don’t need a lot of aid? We rather want them to know who is right and who is wrong.” I think he realizes there is a contradiction in his argument that they fight more battles for peace, so he needs at least moral support of ‘justice.’

The soldiers

At 1:30 in the afternoon, when I was talking with Major General Mat Chara, the Khmer Rouge launched seven rocket bombs at Otakuray Bridge three kilometer ahead of the front headquarters. “It’s dangerous to go ahead of here,” said nonchalantly one of the Royal Army soldiers, who were amusing themselves by card gambling under a big tree, as if bombardment is an everyday affair. “If many, they shell three or four times a day. If few, they shell three times every 10th day.” He explained the frequency of attacks from the Khmer Rouge. He said he was in the noon recess now, but soon he had to go on patrol.

“Aren’t you tired from the war?” I asked the soldiers. The platoon commander Major Pen Nut (32) gave me an exemplary answer, “I am a soldier. My duty is to defend our country.” “He is the only man to think so,” one of his men cracked a joke. Incidentally, the salary for a common soldier is 35,000 riels (about 15 dollars) and that for a platoon commander is 57,000 riels. Military uniforms and meals are supplied, but they have to pay their medicine by themselves including medicine for malaria. Some condemned that the money paid for exported timber was diverted to the military, but to keep the morale of the army high this measure seems to be very practical in this country.

The war refugees

On the way from the front, I saw a bunch of huts in the field along Route 10. While women were getting an evening meal ready, one-legged men were making a coffin. “This morning my nephew died, so we are preparing for his funeral,” said Tetto Saboun (62). When they fled here from Bonanpil Village in Ratana Mondol County at the end of April, his nephew Mei Rai (36) was ill and his wife was in the eighth month of pregnancy. After finding shelter, Mei Rai was hospitalized in Battambang, but he left a week later, because the doctor said his illness was incurable and he didn’t have enough money to receive treatment. Saboun didn’t know the name of Mei’s disease. But according to his explanation about Mei’s symptoms such as yellow eyes and swelled abdomen, I presumed he had hepatitis. Although Article 72 of the new Constitution prescribed that the poor citizen shall get free medical care, there are still many ‘incurable diseases’ in this country where hospital, doctors and medical supplies are all scarce.

Since the Royal Amy pushed back the Khmer Rouge, two third of about 4,000 displaced families went back to their own villages. In the villages, they said, they could cultivate their fields and make charcoal, although there was a risk of stepping on a mine. But there are families who cannot go home and are forced to live a rough life, relying on the rations, such as the Rai family-Mei died and his wife has just given birth to the third child 20 days ago-and a family in which there is an old person. The International Red Cross and the Battambang State distributed 15kg of rice a person, canned fish and salt, but such provisions run out and the people eat only potatoes or greens boiled in a soup.

The Rai family wants to bury Mei’s body in their home village, but they don’t have money to bring his body home. So, tomorrow they will bury him in the grounds of the temple at the place of refuge. The temple kindly allowed them to bury Mei’s body.

The train is passing through the battlefield.

On the morning of the 12th, Battambang Station was enveloped in mist and crowded with people who were waiting for the once-a-day plying train bound for market in Paoy Pet on the Tai border.

Battambam Radio reported yesterday that the train was canceled because of explosion of mines at the several places, but the train is likely to run today.

The train with a Soviet-made diesel-electric engine is composed of ten cars-from the front, three boxcars, four passenger cars and three boxcars. Even in the boxcars there are full of people. Moreover, people are clinging on the roof, to the locomotive, not to mention, to the deck of the passenger cars. Besides those ten cars, there are two open freight cars in front of the locomotive. They are “sacrifice” to protect scanty locomotives from explosion of mines on the railroad laid by the Khmer Rouge. Even on such sacrificed cars there are a lot of people aboard.

The train left at seven sharp to time against “Cambodian schedule” where things were usually 30 minutes behind the appointed time. The train resumed normal service only a day after the railroad track was cut off by mines. I saw their eagerness for the country’s recovery in their attitudes of dealing with the matters. First I got on a rusty passenger car. The passengers in the crowded car welcomed a rare foreign passenger with a smile. One of the passengers, Tooch Pora (20) said, “I’m going to my mother’s house in Mongkol Borei to get rice.” The field where she helps with farm work was desperately damaged by flood. She and her husband have lived on rice produced last year, but the rice ran short. She can get rice from her mother free, but she has to pay 5,000 riels (about two dollars) in total for the transportation fee.

The bike-taxi fares both ways between home and the station are 4,000 riels, a round-trip ticket between Battambang and Mongkol Borei is 1,000 riels. “I like taking a train, because it’s cheap. But if I were rich, I prefer a car,” she said. Her husband works as a porter at Battambang Station to earn money in cash. Today she will get 10 kg of rice, on which she and her husband will live on for one month. Also she said she didn’t want a child because they didn’t have money. They seem to live at subsistence level.

The train clatters along slowly. It doesn’t speed up even after leaving the station. The track is bumpy with several centimeters’ unevenness. It looks as if such errors are acceptable. The locomotive engineer has to run the train very carefully within a speed of 20 kilometers an hour not to run it off the track. Although Pora said she preferred a car, I think a train is more comfortable because a car jolts along so tremendously that I hit my head against the ceiling. As for speed, the average velocity of a train is higher than that of a car, because a car has to stop many times to avoid big holes. A big bus cannot run on Cambodian bumpy roads. If it can run, it cannot carry as many passengers as this. To carry them all, at least 30 buses are needed. I admired this battered old train’s carrying so many people like this. Now I was convinced why the Khmer Rouge attacked it very often.

Ron Sleipo (14) put a big basket on the baggage rack. She said, “I’m going to Sisophon to buy in.” She buys 100kg of sweetsops at the price of 3.5 baht per kilogram and sells them at the price of 4 baht per kilogram. She gets a profit of 50 bahts (about 200 yen), but after deducting lunch expenses and 1,400 riels for the transportation fees to Sisophon and back, she nets only about 100 yen. Ron is a junior high school student and now she is on summer holidays. She wants to be a government worker not a merchant in the future. “Because we don’t have any seed money to start business, and in business we may lose money since prices are not stable. A government worker doesn’t have to worry about such things, ” she has a down-to-earth opinion.

In a compartment for four people, three adults and five children are sitting. The compartment is very lively as if it were a day-care center. The adults are trying to soothe a fretful baby or telling off moving-around naughty boys, but the compartment is always full of laughter. They are the families of Measu Samunan (25) and Soen Yohn (29). “We are going to Paoy Pet to work as a porter at the market. I have a sister there.” Measu is going to do a job of carrying goods of Thai and Cambodian merchants from the market to their trucks at the parking lot. He will earn 10-20 bahts (40～80 yen) a day. He’ll work there for 2 to 30 days. “Because all of my rice was damaged by a flood,” said Measu.

A man in military uniform is watching the families quietly. He is Second Lieutenant Ka Tetto. “My holiday is over and I’m going back to my unit in Sisophon.” He is in the sixth year of the army and he steers a T-54 model tank as a steersman of the17th regiment. On his last holiday in May he fled his house of Phnom Sompuro Village located along Route 10 with his wife to a village near Battambang on account of the aftermath of the battle in Pailin. Yesterday we passed that village on the way to the front. “I hope the war will end soon. If foreign countries give us new-model weapons, we can end this war quickly. I miss my wife,” the young man, who steers an antique tank, said bashfully.

Just then I felt a strong jolt, and I saw an overturned passenger car through the train window. The train jolted because of the warped track. There was a hole on the track made by explosion of a mine, but it was not filled completely, so that the track became warped. At the next station we transferred to the open freight car attached in front of the locomotive. But for worries about mines and attacks, this 360 degrees moving panoramic view would attract many tourists. Pitch Son (35) said, “I know this car is a protection against mines. But if you flinch from getting on this car, you will not be able to get on board this train.” Against his hemp bag, he was exposing himself composedly to the breeze blowing from the fields.

Another crisis