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.
Last weekend, Siem Reap's vice governor, Nouv Som, admitted that 38 people from Kroch Kore and Sem Seb village, only 30 miles from this well-known tourist resort, were marched off by the guerrillas.
"Some of them are teachers," Chen Rath said. "Khmer Rouge radio broadcast the guerrillas will kill teachers and government workers. I am worried."
Khmer Rouge radio also is threatening to "lop off the heads" of all Australians because Canberra increased its non-lethal military aid to Cambodia. The United States and France also have sent military personnel -- the United States about 60 officers, officially engaged in road works and mine clearing.
The specter of escalating war clouds this small flatland nation of 10 million people, once a peaceful kingdom but now ravaged by 25 years of a civil war that won't go away. The kidnappings have spread panic through the remote hamlets. The United Nations' World Food Program (WFP) estimates 80,000 people have become homeless.
"It's the worst terror in years," said Christophe Goozer, a WFP representative.
Aid workers and survivors of massacres concur that the guerrillas, decimated by the desertion of their fringe troops, have launched another campaign reminiscent of Pol Pot's genocidal regime between 1975 and 1978, when at least 1 million Cambodians were exterminated or worked to death in labor camps.
The government has been loath to confirm the systematic torching of villages and the waves of kidnappings because it is afraid of jeopardizing $3 billion in investments pledged for next year.
Aid workers such as Mr. Goozer lament that many villagers are treated by the government as Khmer Rouge sympathizers and by the Khmer Rouge as government lackeys. Critics also complain that Cambodia's ill-trained and ill-disciplined army -- 130,000 soldiers and 2,000 generals -- remains ineffective against the highly motivated and disciplined guerrillas.
The government claims the number of generals has been reduced to 200 this year. Government opponents allege that at least a third of the fighting force are "phantom soldiers" who exist only on paper so their commanding officers can pocket the salaries.