Khmer Rouge stronghold gets markets lesson By Andrew Nette
PAILIN - The last decade has been a crash course in market economics for
ex-Maoist guerrillas in the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin, close to
the Cambodian border with Thailand.
The town of approximately 22,000 went from playing a key role in the country's
long-running civil war to being feted by Phnom Penh after its defection to the
government in 1996. Now it has been reduced to a neglected rural backwater.
Pailin has been hit hard by the political instability in Thailand and a
long-running standoff between Thailand and Cambodia over the ancient Preah
Vihear temple. The once flourishing border trade
has been reduced to a trickle and so has the tourist traffic.
"It's been a tough decade," says Koma, a taxi driver who makes a living plying
the 83 kilometer road between Pailin and Battambang, Cambodia's second-biggest
city. "First the gem stones went, then the timber dried up, now there's very
little business left at all. There are no clubs and not a lot of hotels. It is
very quiet."
"For me it is hard to find customers who want to go to from Battambang to
Pailin," says Koma gesturing at his empty taxi. "Most of them want to bypass
Pailin and go straight to the Thai border."
"Things are very slow," agrees one of several motorcycle taxi drivers waiting
for fares outside the entrance of a Pailin temple. "There are far fewer
tourists around now because of the problems in Thailand."
Pailin was a major base in the Khmer Rouge's nearly 20-year civil war against
the Phnom Penh government.
Under the direction of former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary, the town
was the center of an enormously profitable border trade in gems and timber to
Thailand, used by the guerrillas to finance their war.
It was also a key entry point for Chinese military and financial assistance to
the rebels. The road between Battambang and Pailin was once one of the
country's most hotly contested battle zones, the scene of repeated offensives
and counter offensives by the two sides.
Circled by heavily forested hills, a natural barrier against government
attacks, Pailin achieved a near mythical status. This was furthered in May 1992
when the Japanese head of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Cambodia and
his Australian senior military commander were prevented from visiting the town
by a bamboo pole across the road manned by several young Khmer Rouge soldiers.
The "bamboo pole incident", as it was referred to in the media, revealed the
UN's impotence in the face of the Khmer Rouge's refusal to disarm.
Government forces took Pailin briefly in 1994, only to lose it again when the
Khmer Rouge counter-attacked. Government soldiers were said to have been too
busy looting to strengthen their position. The town finally fell in 1996 when
Sary defected to the government along with some 3,000 Khmer Rouge soldiers. The
move isolated the movement's hardliners and proved to be the beginning of the
end of the civil war.
Sary cut a deal with the authorities pledging to remain neutral in the
political in-fighting between feuding coalition parties in return for a free
hand to continue to exploit the area's gem and timber wealth. The government
feted Cambodia's newest citizens. Schools and hospitals were built in Pailin,
the town hooked up to the national power grid, and promises of generous
financial aid were made.
Pailin prospered in the late 1990s as Thai gem traders flocked to it and a
number of casinos were opened to attract Thai gamblers.
However, things turned out to be not as rosy as many of its citizens hoped.
Today, it takes four hours to get to Pailin from the Thai capital of Bangkok,
around one hour more than it takes to complete the bone-jarring journey along
the pot-holed road from Battambang.
Residents say the gemstones, once so plentiful, began to run out in the early
part of the decade.
"We still find some gem stones but not as many as before," says Meas, who
occasionally pans for stones by hand in a nearby river. "Most of them are gone,
especially rubies and sapphires. There are some gems left but most of the
fields are controlled by the government."
Khmer Rouge logging in the 1990s largely denuded the area's timber reserves,
reducing one of the town's other sources of income, the manufacture of hardwood
furniture. Large areas surrounding the town have been cleared by agribusinesses
to plant crops such as cashews, cassava and fruits.
The casinos have shut up shop and moved to the Thai border. With them have
closed many of the hotels built to cater to the gamblers.
Some residents maintain that the smuggling of fuel and cars from Thailand are
now major economic activities. The only new building work underway seems to be
on several large villas. "The houses of former members of the Khmer Rouge with
money," according to one local who did not want to be named.
"Obviously life is better now that there is no fighting,'' says Chun Chheonn, a
former soldier in the Khmer Rouge. "But things are difficult, especially for
people who used to be in the old Khmer Rouge army. The government does not
provide them with much assistance."
No one from Pailin's local government was available to talk about the town's
economic prospects.
When Prime Minister Hun Sen visited this year, media reports claimed one of the
businesses he proposed for the development of the area was a golf course. There
are also plans to establish a special economic zone on the outskirts of the
town to lure Thai business.
For the large number of former soldiers whose only marketable skill is
fighting, tensions with Thailand over the Preah Vihear temple have resulted in
an opportunity of sorts.
According to Chheonn, the military are keen to recruit troops from among the
former Maoist guerrillas to send to the disputed temple area. "If they ask me
to go to Preah Vihear I will. I'm happy to fight the Thais ... as long as
Khmers do not fight Khmers."
Meanwhile, the town's residents are keeping a wary eye on the international
criminal tribunal into the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge and the
possibility that more individuals may be arrested to join the five awaiting
trial in Phnom Penh.
The tribunal has been a sensitive subject ever since police swooped down in
helicopters and arrested four of the town's most famous residents, former Khmer
Rouge leaders Ieng Sary, his wife Ieng Tirith, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea.
"Everyone here in Pailin is paying very close attention to the trial, even if
they are nervous to talk about it,'' says Chheonn.
Neul, who runs a small shop next to Khieu Samphan's modest single-story house,
remembers when the police took away took their elderly neighbor. "His wife
bought things at my shop but he never came out," she says.
Her husband, Savy, says, "I want him in jail for what he's done. No one around
here was angry when he was arrested."
Not everyone agrees. The Khmer Rouge "fought to stop the Vietnamese from taking
our country", said Lat Lina, a local businessman. "You can print that the UN
trial will not bring justice for Cambodia."
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