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p True enough, there was no fighting in Pnom Penh itself, but on Monivong Avenue, formerly Mao Zedong Avenue, the boulevard recently renamed Soviet Union Boulevard, as it was before, and on some sidestreets there are houses with charred, empty window frames and with bullet-dented walls. The agents left behind by the Pol Pot regime fought back till January 11, setting fire to houses and sniping at men of the revolutionary army. Yet this failed to provide any grounds for the propaganda ballyhoo about some mythical “resistance”. It is absolutely quiet today in Pnom Penh, which has no greater number of patrols than any city, even where life is peaceful. True, it is impossible to get used to the desolation, to the heart-rending silence, the absence of sparrows and other town birds.

p Empty, too, is the palace of audiences, as well as the royal palace with its traditional Khmer 60-metre tower above the throne room. Also deserted is the area near the Buddhist temple, which towers 27 metres on top of Mount Penh where, legend has it, the city began and where children loved to play amidst the old trees and ancient monuments. In the shopping rows, fallen leaves, bank notes “abolished” in 1975 and innumerable pictures of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary are whirled by the wind amidst the counters, chairs, fridges and cardboard boxes cluttering the roadway. Here and there in the gardens one sees women clad in black sarongs cooking food over fires, using these “pictures” for fuel.

p The people who began to return to Pnom Penh after January 20 wear a small paper badge to say they are locals. 155 Three emaciated men from a place near Battambang explained that, to begin with, they hoped to find some shirts and trousers, as they had nothing to wear but makeshift garments of burlap.

p “What are you going to do then?" I asked.

p “Then we’ll live here,” one said. “My name is Prek Sia. Just take a look at the name of the street. It’s the same as mine. In our neighbourhood streets used to be named after the person who gave the money to have it asphalted.”

p “Where are your families?”

p “Who in Kampuchea today can answer such a question?" Prek Sia said. He smiled but his eyes were full of tears.

p At the Pnom Hotel, where only a month ago the British scholar and newsman Caldwell was murdered for knowing too much about the bosses of the old regime, we conversed with Keo Chanda, a member of the People’s Revolutionary Council of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, who is also the minister for information, press and culture. He said that what the new authorities now had to do was to gauge the scale of all the political, economic, social and cultural problems facing them. Not only Pnom Penh, Battambang, Siern Reap, Kompong Som and other cities, but also many smaller communities and villages were deserted. The first thing to be done was to get transport and the post operating again. It would take intensive efforts, funds and time to reunite families, bring hundreds of thousands of people back home and then set about restoring industry, agriculture and the health service.

p “In our efforts to build a new life,” the Minister said, “we shall follow the socialist road. We are going to organise a public sector in industry. Gradually, step by step, with an eye to the specific conditions and possibilities, we shall launch co-operative agriculture, to make it a highly productive, well-developed branch of the national economy. It stands to reason that we desperately need help from all our friends, and we are sure we will get it.”

The foreign newsmen spent only a few days in liberated Pnom Penh, but in that short time they covered considerable ground, met and talked with many people. Flying back to 156 Hanoi, we tried to sort out our impressions. The consensus of opinion was that the people of Kampuchea were optimistic, convinced that the read along which their ancient land was taking its first steps towards renewal was the right one.