Many foreigners are finding they can't flee soon enough

'I don't want to have the most successful business in Sodom and Gomorrah," declared Bert Hoak, an American, as he was shutting down his bookshop, guesthouse and restaurant, and leaving this dilapidated capital because of the recent violent change of government.

"I can't live under a dictatorship that places no value on human life," Mr Hoak said in an interview. "I hope all the foreign aid stops."

Thousands of Americans, Europeans, Asians and other nationalities are fleeing, and only a trickle continue to arrive, gingerly stepping across the broken glass of smashed, duty free liquor bottles strewn by looters alongside the international airport's runway.

Passport officials now gather outdoors, in front of the bomb-wrecked airport, crouching amid the rubble while stamping passengers' documents at a makeshift table.

A tropical breeze wafts discarded airline invoices and other abandoned records past Cambodian troops armed with assault rifles.

Mr Hoak, 46, has worked in Cambodia for five years, including a stint with the United Nations and as owner of the well-known Bert's Bookshop, Guest House and Restaurant, a popular meeting place for travellers and resident expats.

Clutching visa applications for himself, his Cambodian wife and their young son, Mr Hoak said they were going to his hometown of Buffalo, New York, after watching this nation go from bad to worse.

"I came here in 1992 as a United Nations volunteer to work in the election" which resulted in a seemingly absurd power-sharing arrangement between two prime ministers, Hun San and his now self-exiled rival, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

"I witnessed sexual excesses" by UN personnel during preparations for the 1993 poll, said Mr Hoak, referring to widespread complaints that some of the international "peace-keeping forces" harassed Cambodian women and enjoyed trysts with prostitutes.

Nevertheless, after the UN spent nearly $3 billion (90 billion baht) to stage the elections, Mr Hoak stayed on and opened his riverside "cerebral hostelry" three years ago, attracting backpackers, aid workers and professionals who strolled through the neighbourhood's squalor to munch cheap food, swap tales and search his stacks for fine literature.

Today, however, Bert's Bookshop attracts foreigners desperate for information about how to get air tickets to escape Cambodia.

Gesturing towards the three-storey building, which he remodeled to include several cheap hotel rooms, Mr Hoak said: "I'm leaving. They can turn this shop back into a whorehouse, which is what it was when we found it.

"Because that is what the major businesses of this country are –prostitution, money laundering, drug trafficking, weapons smuggling and gambling.

"Where do I fit in with a bookstore?"

A few minutes later, an American woman from New York City asked Mr Hoak how she, her husband and their three-year-old son could buy tickets on the next plane out.

She then pulled out $100 (3,000 baht) and bought a stack of 220 colour snapshots of the July 5-6 military battle in Phnom Penh, shot by a French photographer who was hawking them in the restaurant.

"My husband and I have been here for five years," explained the woman, leafing through the photos of tanks and soldiers. "Everybody I know is leaving. These photos are like a souvenir."

She said the US government suddenly cancelled her husband's international aid contract, which was helping Cambodia's electricity department provide desperately needed power.

Washington suspended its aid projects temporarily to protest Hun Sen's bloody grasp at total power.

Meanwhile, at a July 12 reception at the Australian ambassador's residence, some conversations focused on how foreigners were abandoning their household goods in the rush to fly out.

Aid workers and others who had automobiles appeared to be the most vulnerable. Many were simply handing over their car keys to someone who was remaining behind amid hopes that perhaps in a few months the owners could come back.

If a return trip wasn't possible, the new refugees planned to send word to sell the vehicles and transfer the money abroad.

Canadian Ambassador D. Gordon Longmuir said his 96-year-old mother was sitting at home in Canada worrying about Cambodia's situation after watching television news of the bloodshed and looting.

The diplomat's advice to his mother: "I told her, stop watching CNN."

One British UN official, who was not leaving, said the cancellation of some foreign aid projects would deprive the Cambodian government of easy money, which was often skimmed by corrupt officials and rarely reached many of the people most in need.

"Also, sometimes when foreign aid goes to a project, such as an educational institute for example, it allows the government to free up its own money which it can use for the military instead," said the official.

"Now they won't be able to do that because they won't have that aid money any more."

Cambodians, meanwhile, are being fed hours of televised broadcasts each day showing Hun Sen defending himself during news conferences with foreign correspondents and speeches to supporters.

Hun Sen stresses that ousted prime minister Prince Ranariddh was conspiring with Pol Pot's senior Khmer Rouge leadership to rehabilitate them under an amnesty, bring them into mainstream political life, and then seize power by force.

Hun Sen said: "I didn't see the fighting as between our two parties, or as fighting between Ranariddh and Hun Sen, but as a way to control the Khmer Rouge" and halt their dangerous advance.

Hun Sen added that his more practical attempt to woo low-level Khmer Rouge away from Pol Pot also could have collapsed because Prince Ranariddh had been making separate secret deals to gain amnesty for their guerrilla leaders.

"If the senior ranks of the Khmer Rouge can join the government, then the lower ranks of the Khmer Rouge become afraid they will suffer revenge" for defecting to the government, said Hun Sen.

Amid the push to leave Cambodia, one American who has lived here for many years said it was an over-reaction for so many foreigners to flee in fear.

"The Cambodians who live here look to us every day as a sign of their security," he said, vowing to stay on.

"When I go out for coffee in the morning, they see me and wave with their thumbs up."

The white-haired American said, however, a Cambodian family was suddenly asking him each day to marry their 20-something-year-old daughter so she could exit safely to America if need be, and also bring the family out later. The bachelor said he declined.

"Months ago, the mother used to mention it with just a twinkle in her eye," he said, pointing to the pretty daughter who was pushing her motor scooter out of the mud after a monsoon rain.

"Now the mother asks me with desperation in her voice. She's serious. I think I can also get a new car thrown in with the deal," he added, laughing.

In the back of most Cambodians' minds is the horrible memory of how political chaos allowed Pol Pot to seize power and empty Phnom Penh in 1975, allowing this city to rot, lifeless and bleak, for almost four years.

More than one million people perished under Pol Pot's 1975 to 1979 back-to-the-jungle regime.

Today, Phnom Penh is a bustling, albeit down at heels, town with some exquisite, yet decrepit, French colonial architecture adorned by mustard-coloured walls and decaying baroque flourishes.

A sprawling jumble of utilitarian narrow shops and cement hovels provide shelter for many urban dwellers, laced with streets offering mansions behind barbed wire and spiked fences.

At Bert's Bookshop, meanwhile, a departing foreign guest paid his hotel bill, bought a book, and said farewell to Mr Hoak.

Mr Hoak, his voice booming with anger after a heated debate about Cambodia, shouted: "Don't come back! I mean it. I hope they boycott this country like Iran and force a change.

"Don't come back to Cambodia!"

* Richard S. Ehrlich is a former UPI correspondent who has reported from Asia for the past 19 years.