Cambodian

Now that the war with former friend Iraq is over, I got to wondering whether President Bush would ride the momentum and take our troops directly to Cambodia to wipe out yet another embarrassment.I speak of the Khmer Rouge, like Iraq a foul regime to which the United States has given aid and comfort. And think of the certain moral high ground to be gained, for Pol Pot's genocidal atrocities make Saddam Hussein look like a wimp.It was only a thought. I know Mr. Bush isn't going after the Khmer Rouge.

During her childhood in Atlantic Highlands, N.J., Patricia Klindienst would go from yard to yard with her friends, eating fruit from the trees. The idea of neighborhood and community came to mean, for her, the sharing of food. For her first published book, Klindienst returned to the garden. Her doctorate from Stanford is in modern thought and literature, and she taught in the English and humanities departments at Yale, but Klindienst spent three years studying the cultural and historic traditions embedded in gardens for her new book, The Earth Knows My Name (Beacon Press, $26.95)

London. -- By common consent, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, under their leader, Pol Pot, are the most ruthless and genocidally obsessed killers to have stalked the planet since Hitler's Gestapo. Every landowner, every dissident, every Muslim and Buddhist, was hunted down and murdered. The cities were emptied and their inhabitants forced to flee to the countryside. One million people were slaughtered.Amazingly, it looks as if the world has decided to give these mass murderers another chance. The peace agreement negotiated under the umbrella of the United Nations by the ''Big Five,'' (the U.S., Britain, France, China and the Soviet Union)

Dance Cambodian Stories The work of the Japanese-born dance duo Eiko and Koma has been described as "enacting mysterious rituals, set in desolate dreamscapes." The couple, who met while studying the ancient Japanese movement art called butoh, seem to create works about time, or silence, or nature, or the struggle to survive. Often their dances are so gradual that the performers seem to be not moving at all. Many works are performed in the nude. While their work may not be to everyone's taste, it has been acclaimed by reviewers and audiences across the United States and Europe.

High risks are at stake in trying to implement the peace settlement in Cambodia hatched by the Cambodian government, three guerrilla factions and 18 nations. But none higher than those of the first 600 Cambodians moved back to their homeland by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from camps in Thailand, where they have been living for as long as 18 years. They are prey to bandits, to millions of land mines, to murderous Khmer Rouge guerrillas who opposed this movement and to the ongoing war between the government and the Khmer Rouge.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Throngs of Cambodians -- fewer and less enthusiastic than expected -- welcomed yesterday the return of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the former god-king whose ouster in 1970 marked the beginning of two decades of war and suffering for his people.But while Cambodians were excited to see the prince, who remains a virtual icon of Khmer nationalism and is thought to be the only figure capable of reconciling four warring factions that have torn this nation apart, the crowds that greeted him were markedly restrained.

In his search for meaning in life, Woodstock violin-maker Michael Kosman turned to the ancient religion and moral philosophy of Buddhism."It gave me the tools to find those answers in myself," says Mr. Kosman, who was raised in a liberal Jewish family and became a Buddhist in 1974. "At that time in my life I was struggling to understand what's up and what's down what's right and what's wrong."It is a path that a number of Howard County converts have followed, joining immigrants from Myanmar (formerly Burma)

Rick Long Khem will be allowed to share in the graduation ceremoniesthat will honor approximately 1,900 seniors from Howard County's eight high schools next week.School officials initially barred Khem from graduation because he will not receive a diploma. But they but agreed last week to allow the 21-year-old Cambodian student to take part in the ceremony and receive a Maryland High School Certificate, Khem's adopted mother, Ellen Long, said.The certificate is given to special education students at the endof their school careers.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- With a threat by Khmer Rouge guerrillas to disrupt the election largely unrealized, Cambodians thronged to the polls yesterday amid initial signs of an unexpectedly heavy and enthusiastic turnout."

SIEM REAP, Cambodia -- Chen Rath was twice cursed: First, a nationwide drought spoiled his autumn rice harvest; then, the Khmer Rouge torched his village as part of their renewed scorched-earth policy.Even so, Chen Rath was lucky. In recent weeks village elders, teachers and government workers have been kidnapped and executed by the Maoist guerrillas. Five foreign tourists were snatched for ransom, then shot dead. Fifty-one village bamboo cutters and 17 loggers were massacred at work last month.