THE RISING EAST
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By Richard Halloran
SIEM REAP, Cambodia — Down a hard-packed dirt road on the edge of town, in a bare three-room house, several women squat on the floor to sort and fold cloth that they will sew into western-style clothing for sale either here or in the export market.
The women work in a fledgling cooperative venture called Samatoa intended to give them a new livelihood. The manager, Duk Phirum, explains: "The women know how to sew shirts and dresses, but they don't know how to set prices or to keep accounts or how to market what they make. That's what the cooperative is for."
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In the center of this town of 200,000, site of the magnificent temples, palaces and walled cities of Angkor, young people from rural areas toil in the Artisans d'Angkor workshop, where they are trained to carve wood and stone, to produce lacquer ware, and to weave silk skirts and shawls, all rooted in the nation's Khmer heritage.
Cambodia's Angkor temples have become a world-class tourist attraction. But with the country's textile industry threatened by cheap Chinese labor, Cambodia remains mired in poverty.
On the other side of town, the Cambodia Handicraft Association's shop displays leath-
er wallets and bags and silk scarves and purses made by some of the 40,000 people disabled by land mines during the protracted wars that devastated this country for nearly four decades.
The war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s spilled into Cambodia as the communist North Vietnamese used it as a route from North Vietnam into the south and the Americans and South Vietnamese attacked them.
Then the communist Khmer Rouge killed or caused the deaths of 1.5 million people, or 10 percent of Cambodia's population, in its murderous purge of the 1970s. That was followed by North Vietnam's invasion and years of civil war. Not until 2000 did an uneasy peace return. The Asian economic crisis that began in 1997 further damaged the fragile Cambodian economy.
Today, the Cambodians, many of whom earn a dollar a day, are desperately struggling to escape from abject poverty, especially in the rural areas where they live in grass huts built on stilts to escape from floods while thin cattle graze in fallow fields and scrawny chickens scratch in dirt yards. There is no guarantee the Cambodians will succeed.
Why should the rest of Asia, America, or anyone else care what happens to a small nation of 13 million people that apparently has little strategic importance?
First is the humanitarian imperative. More than 700 U.N., government and private aid agencies work here, ranging from the Australian Center for Education to the World Food Program and Zoa Refugee Care.
In addition, a dozen American, Japanese and European agencies are engaged in saving the treasures of Angkor that were built between the eighth and 13th centuries, during part of which a Khmer empire ruled Southeast Asia.
On the upside, Angkor has become a world-class tourist attraction and earner of foreign exchange. On the road from Siem Reap to the airport, a half-dozen large hotels are under construction; they provide building jobs now and will provide service jobs later.
A second reason for concern is that poverty is a basic cause of international crime and terror. Human and illicit drug smuggling, prostitution and the spreading of AIDS here affect other nations in Asia now and will ultimately impinge on those in Europe and North America.
Moreover, desperate people are likely candidates for terrorist recruiters.
Most Cambodians are Theravada Buddhists, not Muslim extremists from whose ranks many terrorists have been drawn. Even so, Hambali, a leader of the Jemaah Islamiya, which is affiliated with al-Qaida, was arrested last year after operating in Cambodia for several months.
A former news correspondent who has turned to building schools and hospitals in Cambodia, Bernard Krisher, assesses Cambodia's chances: "Many are pessimistic about the future here because of corruption, mediocre leadership, and most immediately, changes required by the World Trade Organization." When Cambodia joins the WTO in January, it will lose its favored-nation treatment in the United States. Cambodia fears China will grab the textile markets because it can produce cheaper goods.
On the other hand, Krisher says: "I have faith in the country's future, as I have witnessed the intelligence and potential of the students at the 240 rural schools we have helped to build. There is a passion for learning here, and the Cambodians have an ancient culture of achievement. I am betting on these kids."
Krisher, an American who lives in Tokyo and travels often to Cambodia, concludes: "But it will take another dozen years, however, to experience some change."
Richard Halloran is a former New York Times correspondent in Asia.
