Phantoms Rule in Former Khmer Stronghold

NLONG VENG, Cambodia -- The writing here is on the walls, in a cement schoolhouse abandoned when the Communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas fled a government attack two weeks ago.

Large blackboards list the rules of behavior that were enforced in this village during the years when it was the core of a stark, self-contained Communist society -- along with the penalty for disobedience: death.

No stealing. No drunkenness. No prostitution. No marriage outside the commune. No commerce without permission. No contact with outsiders. No listening to any radio station other than that of the Khmer Rouge.

"Anyone who disobeys the Angkar will be killed," reads the blackboard. The Angkar -- meaning "the organization" -- was the anonymous leadership that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and caused the deaths of more than one million people.

For years the Khmer Rouge leadership held out here -- apart from a short-lived government occupation in 1994 -- even as the bulk of their forces, in other strongholds, gave up the fight.

But Cambodian government soldiers and Khmer Rouge defectors now control Anlong Veng, which stands empty and silent in the hot sun, and they, too, have made their mark on the schoolhouse walls.

One of them has written, in careful but flawed English: "This is a place of Khmer Red, now the solyers got. They run untill to stay at Thailand. Signature: Solyers of Gavamente."

The bang of a tank cannon echoed off the cement walls Monday, and a young soldier jumped. The war is not yet over. The last several hundred guerrillas have retreated to the Dangrek Mountains on the border with Thailand, a hazy blue ridge nine miles away.

Seven artillery rounds fired by the Khmer Rouge landed Monday morning near the abandoned home of the guerrillas' leader, Ta Mok.

On a visit here Monday, Gen. Meas Sophea, the deputy chief of staff of the Cambodian army, asserted that the guerrillas' mountain stronghold, known as Hill 200, could fall within a few days.

But the Khmer Rouge have already retaken Anlong Veng once since it fell two weeks ago, and the progress of the battle is unclear. Several thousand villagers who fled two weeks ago have not been allowed to return.

Meas Sophea also asserted that Ta Mok had crossed the border into Thailand, presumably taking with him the founder of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, who is now ailing and demoted from his leadership post.

"Ta Mok is in Thai territory," the general said. "As far as we know, Pol Pot is with him. Ta Mok is in Ban Sa-Ngam, three kilometers inside Thai territory."

He said he based this statement on "information from people who have come from that area."

Thailand has vigorously denied that the Khmer Rouge have taken sanctuary on its territory, although for years the guerrillas have moved easily back and forth across the border at Ban Sa-Ngam.

That village, at a heavily patrolled crossing point, is within a 10-mile Thai border zone that cannot be entered by outsiders without permission. Foreign reporters outside the zone said Monday that there was no indication whether any Khmer Rouge soldiers or leaders had crossed the border.

The United States is eager to capture Pol Pot, 73, who has led the Khmer Rouge for more than 30 years, and to bring him to trial before an international tribunal for crimes against humanity. Maintaining Thailand's cooperation is a delicate diplomatic challenge for the Americans.

There is evidence of the Khmer Rouge's close relationship with Thailand in Ta Mok's empty house here: two calendars issued by Thai Bank hang on his walls.

But apart from the calendars, Ta Mok's house in Anlong Veng has been stripped of almost all its furnishings. A large conference table stands on a veranda in front of a brightly painted mural of the centuries-old Angkor Wat complex. The gray metal tail section of a Russian-made bomb serves as a flower pot for a well-watered ficus plant.

Government soldiers have chalked a skull and crossbones on the door to his bedroom -- a small, stuffy room with a tile floor, unfinished wood walls and one small window with a broken screen.

Like the condition of the house, the surrounding village is barren, bare, hot and not beautiful. Widely spaced thatched huts stand empty, surrounded by parched, broken earth. There are few trees. Nobody seems to have planted gardens here.

Ta Mok, though, built himself a two-story cement house with a tile roof, a large underground bunker and a tall radio tower. His basement is filled with hundreds of empty Thai beer cans. But there are few signs that he was a man drawn to elegant surroundings.

His veranda, if he ever used it for quiet contemplation, looks out over a swamp filled with dead, leafless trees.

A little spark of life lies in the debris of an open-sided garage beside the house: A copybook in which someone, perhaps a grandchild, has written out sentences from English language lessons.

The sentences hint at the special privileges, outside the stark life of the commune, that have been available to members of the leader's inner circle.

"How do you like Bangkok?" the copybook reads.

"Yes, very much."

"How long were you there?"

"I stay about two months."

And on a final page, the copybook's owner -- now, perhaps, somewhere in the Dangrek Mountains -- has made a private list of favorite songs that could have been written by a teen-ager anywhere. It includes:

"Tina Turner: 'What's Love Got to Do With It.' "

"Cyndi Lauper: 'Time After Time.' "

"Diana Ross: 'When You Tell Me That You Love Me. "