From Ireland with Love

The Cambodian tragedy has also stirred a number of individual relief efforts. Two Irish partners, Wicklow County Farmer Tim Philips, 41, and Dublin Sportswriter John O'Shea, 35, recruited a five-man flight crew and this month took a four-engine cargo plane loaded with 26 tons of food and medical supplies worth $200,000 from Dublin to Bangkok, and then into Phnom-Penh. The Irish dairy and sugar industries, a supermarket chain and a tobacco company donated the supplies, and the Irish government provided $80,000 for flight costs. That mercy mission, as Philips told his brother-in-law, TIME Staff Writer David Aikman, afforded a rare glimpse of the grim reality inside Cambodia.

As their plane neared Phnom-Penh, Philips and O'Shea observed that there was practically no cultivated land. "I've been flying light aircraft for a long time," Philips said, "and I've never seen a countryside more devoid of people." There were few signs of life at Phnom-Penh's airport; landing instructions had come from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), 130 miles away. The plane was met by representatives of the International Red Cross and of UNICEF. At first it was not clear how the unloading was to be done. Then emerged a ragged line of Cambodian men, scarves around their heads, guarded by two soldiers.

They were desperately hungry. When a bag of sugar accidentally burst in the plane's hold, the workers descended on the sugar from all sides, scooping it up into their pockets and even licking it directly off the floor.

Philips and O'Shea soon talked their way into a guided tour of Phnom-Penh.

Their driver was Cambodian, but one of the two escorting soldiers was Vietnamese. "The place seemed completely deserted and ruined," Philips recalled. "There were a few people squatting on the sidewalks heating food or water in tin cans over a wood fire. Others, many in rags, were pecking about in the gutted interiors of houses. Everyone seemed to be completely aimless, moving with no sense of purpose. The only sign of transportation we saw was two donkey carts."

There were several soldiers; Philips and O'Shea could not tell from their uniforms whether they were Vietnamese or from Heng Samrin's Cambodian units. They showed their visitors the Independence Monument and seemed eager for them to have a look at Sihanouk's palace. Later some of the plane's crew approached a group of Cambodian soldiers. "How are things compared with a year ago?" one was asked.

"Much better," he replied.

"Is it good under the Vietnamese?"

"No, but it's better than it was."

"What would you prefer?"

"We would like to be free. The Vietnamese don't care what happens to us."

After his return to Bangkok, Philips spent a day at one of the huge refugee camps. "It was the nearest thing to Dachau I have ever seen," he recalled. During the few hours that Philips was there, an official told him, 546 people in the camp died of starvation or disease.

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