POL POT'S FORMER DINNER GUEST ADMITS TO LAPSE IN JUDGMENT

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POL POT'S FORMER DINNER GUEST ADMITS TO LAPSE IN JUDGMENT

(PHNOM PEHN, Cambodia) - In 1979, Gunnar Bergstrom chang­ed his mind. Mere months before, the drug counselor from the hard, dark north of Sweden had eaten oysters with Pol Pot and Ieng Sary at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. This, depending on one’s perspective, makes Berg­strom something of a moral prodigy. “In Sweden, Communists in the 50s supported Stalin. It took them 30 years to realize they were wrong,” he said.

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Cambodia's Spirits Stir, Toe to Spine

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(PHNOM PENH, Cambodia) -  THE spirits came in February -- teachers, giants and angels. The first arrived on a windy Thursday, and they stayed, roiling on in succession through the small, supple body of Chao Socheata until her distraught mother dragged her to the local pagoda, where a monk pressed three broken sticks of incense to her head, beat her with the stems of a banana tree and wrapped a magical string around her waist. Protection enough, as it turned out, against the darker aspects of the spirit world.  Ms. Chao Socheata -- 

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U.N. REPORTS: KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL IS FLAWED

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The long overdue trials of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders now appear to be threatened by defects in the United Nations-backed tribunal set up last year in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The court, dubbed the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), suffers from leadership and management problems so severe that the UN should either take much firmer control or consider getting out entirely. 

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LAND DISPUTE UNEARTHS TENSION

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LAND DISPUTE UNEARTHS TENSION

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- His grandmother's bones went missing two years ago, not long after the rains stopped. "The grave is all rubber trees" now, said Sev Thveal, 23. Part of the Jarai minority, he can barely read and write and has worked the land so long that his toenails are a permanent shade of brown.

He and 11 villagers are alleging in court that a wealthy businesswoman named Keat Kolney, whose husband and brother are senior figures in the Cambodian government, has illegally taken land belonging to 70 rural families to make way for a rubber plantation.

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