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• Two Stops Along the Economic Corridor
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• HIV/AIDS is Far and Near

Read this report in: KHMER | THAI

Gambling kingpins in this frontier town can see their business fortunes restored now that the Thai-Cambodia border is open, but for many Thai workers and Cambodians here, their lives will still be mired in poverty.

Thailand and Cambodia agreed on Apr. 11 to resume full diplomatic relations, which were downgraded following anti-Thai rioting in Phnom Penh in January, Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said. This comes weeks after the two countries' border was actually opened.

"Normal relations will be resumed as a 'Songkran' (the Thai new year on Apr. 13) gift to Thais and Cambodians since Cambodia had 'shown sincerity' by paying compensation of 250 million Thai baht (6 million U.S. dollars) for damage to the Thai embassy during the riots," he told reporters.

Songkran is the most important of all Thai festivals, marking the beginning of a new astrological year. It is also celebrated in Cambodia.

Denied their addiction at home, as casinos are banned in Thailand, many Thais are quite happy to flock overseas to either blow away their petty cash or hard-earned savings at baccarat, blackjack, roulette and poker-tables or slot-machines.

A strange signboard in Thai, instead of the usual 'Welcome' sign, and dozens of skinny child beggars greet visitors at Poipet, in Cambodia's O'Chreuv district before they make their way to the border checkpoint manned by Cambodian guards.

The Thai characters on the signboard say: "Crossing the border for gambling purposes may not be safe for your personal life."

This is the Thai government's way of discouraging its citizens from gambling here and prevent a malaise that is frittering away close to two billion dollars at gaudy border casinos.

More than 1,000 Thais cross the border every day, say police officers in Aranyaprathet district of Sa Kaew province in Thailand, just across Poipet.

The one-kilometre long gambling strip in Poipet, with its well-watered and immaculately manicured lawns, luxury hotels, air-conditioned shopping centres, massage parlours and brothels, has seven casinos, with an eighth under construction.

This is in sharp contrast to the squalor outside the casino gates, with heaps of uncollected garbage along the dirt road and the numerous shanties all over.

But Thai authorities are becoming increasingly worried about the huge sums of money spent by their citizens at casinos in neighbouring countries as there are casinos in at least three other border regions in Cambodia and others in Burma and Laos too.

A study by Chulalongkorn University last year put that amount at between 71 and 84 billion baht (1.69 to 2 billion U.S. dollars) a year.

What's alarming meantime is that the lure of Poipet's casinos seems irresistible to low-income Thai workers in neighbouring Aranyaprathet district who appear trapped in a cycle of debt.

Knowing exactly how many Thai villagers squander their lives away at Poipet's casinos is not exactly easy, said Samay Kongchaman, a villager in Aranyaprathet. "It's all a question of honour and they will never tell how much money or properties they lost at the gambling tables," he said. "But they still keep destroying their lives.''

Poipet, during the Cambodian war, was a transit point for refugees and a smuggling route for Thai traders operating in the neighbouring Rong Kloeu market. In late 1998, the frontier town was accorded the status of an international border gate between Cambodia and Thailand.

In that year, too, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen embarked on a plan to promote foreign investment in the country by seeking overseas capital in casinos along the Thai-Cambodian border.

Poipet's first casino was opened in 1999 and the seventh began operating at the end of 2001.

The building of the casinos also caused a population boom in the frontier town. According to Poipet's new commune clerk San Seang Hou, appointed by the Ministry of Interior, the town's population has increased to over 100,000 from 9,244 families in 1998 census.

But a medical aide in a district hospital in O'Chreuv said many Cambodians came to Poipet with false expectations. "Many hope to find jobs in the casinos, but end up being trafficked to neighbouring Thailand as illegal workers on the construction sites or sex workers in the brothels," said the medical aide who did not want to be named.

Lots of children, too, have made their way to Poipet. "Most of these children have very poor education and don't have the support of family members. Glue-sniffing and amphetamine use is rampant to drown the hunger, loneliness and lack of family-love," said the medical aide.

Opposition politician Sam Rainsy has questioned the Hun Sen government's economic rationale of resorting to transnational gambling to spur economic growth. "One of the present engines of growth is gambling besides logging, drug trafficking, prostitution and cheap labor industries. This type of growth is not sound," he said.

"The social costs that are associated with this type of growth will translate into heavy economic costs in the coming years resulting in the rise and destruction of the nation's social fabric," he added.

Khan Sophirom wrote this article under the IPS/Rockefeller media fellowship programme 'Our Mekong: A Vision amid Globalisation'.