ABSTRACT
As I ate lunch one day in the market-place at one of Thailand’s largest camps for Khmers seeking asylum, a little boy went from table to table asking for food. An old woman scolded him and smiled at me in embarrassment. Beside us sacks of rice stamped UNBRO (United Nations Border Relief Organisation) were being sold to Thai traders. Far from UN conferences and relief agency brochures, corruption and its consequences stood side by side in broad daylight. With the consent, or at least the indifference of the UN, those who had escaped famine and war in Cambodia found asylum at the price of exploitation. The Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea uses the hundreds of thousands of Khmers fleeing danger as a power base for their war against the Phnom Penh government.
