FUGITIVES AND FOREIGN MISFITS

Beach in Sihanoukville. Many misfit expats live here, some are hiding from the law.

Chris is a twenty-something from England, with beard stubble, and a dark t-shirt. I met this friendly Brit one night at a no-name bar in Sihanoukville, where he worked as a bartender. 

He doesn't earn much, Chris only gets six dollars a day for eight hours of night time work. “Slave labor,” he tells me. But he does get a free meal every night, and free drinks. “I’m a bit of an alcoholic,” he admits to me.

Like many young folk I've met in Asia, Chris has been traveling around for months, and stopped to work in Cambodia for a while. I asked him if he had ever been to the states during his travels. His response wasn't what I was expecting. 

“They won’t give me a visa,” Chris said, “since I was convicted of production of cannabis.” Apparently Chris has a hippie side to him, which got him in trouble with the UK police a few years back. 

While we're chatting in this beach side hang out, a grungy, older Aussie that Chris knows walks into the bar. I’d seen this shabby guy yesterday on the street. He’d asked me for a cigarette, but I don't smoke. 

The Australian asks Chris, “You want to buy some weed? Two dollars a bag? I have to pay my hotel bill,” he explains. Chris declines, since he doesn’t do drug transactions while he's working. I also decline, since I stick to beer. Obviously the Aussie was in dire straits; he looked like a transient. He probably won’t sell marijuana for long here either, since local pushers won’t like him competing for their business.

Checking out the Aussie, I notice a large infected cut on the back of his hand. It was so infected, that his whole hand was swelled up. I figured he must have injured it in a motorbike accident, the usual way that foreigners get injured in Cambodia. But I was wrong. 

“A whore cut him”, Chris told me, after the Aussie walked away. Apparently since the Aussie didn’t have money for rent, he didn't have money to pay a prostitute that he took home either. 

Chris and the old Aussie are just two of the down-and-out examples, that make up the soap opera scene of foreigners living in Sihanoukville. Long time expatriates call the town ‘Snookville’ or just ‘Snook’, for short. During my days checking out the beach, I learn that there are many expats hanging out here with skeletons in their closets. 

One night out at a restaurant with a group of foreigners, I was introduced to a German lawyer. I don’t recall his name, but it was probably an alias. That's likely, since I was told that this tall Aryan looking guy, was wanted for murder back in Germany! 

I already met a Swede in Phnom Penh who was hiding out from the law, but he was a peaceful guy, wanted only for media piracy. 

Could it be that this tall German with thinning hair, was really a killer? I noticed the German had a scar to one side of his forehead; an intimidating looking fellow. 

I wonder, just how did he got that scar??

* * * * *

The strange 'Airport' disco.

I’m sitting at the controls of a Russian aircraft. It's an older two engine, Antonov 24 airplane. I reach for a gauge on the control panel, and the knob comes off in my hand! 

Obviously, this plane has seen better days and fortunately, I'm not airborne. In fact, I'm not even in a real airport. But I am in a disco in Sihanoukville that is named 'Airport', and this plane is parked right over the middle of the dance floor below me! How weird. 

I peer out the cockpit windows, where the building housing this night spot resembles an old airport hanger. Adding to the odd ambiance, old photos with advertisements from long gone airlines line the walls. I can see the need to stand out in Sihanoukville's night life, but this is just unreal. 

I leave the cockpit to go aft inside the plane, and find the passenger compartment in total disarray. The seats have been removed; it's dusty and grubby. Apparently this old plane is still being renovated for the club. I imagine they'll add more tables and chairs before it’s finished. 

It's fitting that an old Soviet plane is parked in here, because this strange disco is owned by Russians. Of course that helps the disco to attract a Russia clientele, but not tonight. I exit the plane and descend down to the dance floor, into a disco that's nearly empty. It's the off season, so fewer Russians are flying down from Siberia to Cambodia while I'm staying here. 

With the house music blaring, I finish my beer, and head for the door. This plane is yet another foreign misfit in Cambodia. 

HIDDEN WEAPONS AND LAST AMERICAN PIRATES

Lion Circle in beach town of Sihanoukville

Two giant golden lions, stand atop a great red pedestal, looking to the horizon. They are rather unique looking cats, with oblong shapes. Strangely, the male lion has a ball in his mouth, and wears large eyelashes, while the female lion next to him has none.

This is Lion Circle, a main traffic roundabout in Sihanoukville on Cambodia's south coast. A drunk Canadian recently crashed his scooter into this roundabout. He suffered serious head injuries, and lost a toes. Like other foreign tourists, he came here to enjoy the beaches, as Cambodia has few other beach town options. 

An odd thing about Sihanoukville is that it isn’t one town, it’s really four or five villages on a peninsula that have grown together. Too distant to visit on foot, I decide to rent a motorbike, strap on a helmet, and rev off to cruise the streets and beaches. 

Motoring around town, I notice there are few of the decaying French colonial homes like I'd seen in Phnom Penh. As Sihanoukville isn't an old town, most buildings were built recently. It wasn't always called Sihanoukville either; before the 1950's it was known as Kompong Som, then renamed after their beloved King Sihanouk. After he was kicked out of power in a coup, it was changed back to to Kompong Som. Then in the 1990’s, it was re-re-named Sihanoukville again. That's Cambodia.

Why does the male lion have eyelashes, and not the female?

Cruising the west end of town, I head along the coast. Passing a few small restaurants, I slow as I come to the port. Sihanoukville is Cambodia's only deep water port, first built in 1960 with French aid. Since the wars the port has gone through modernization. In the distance I can see large orange cargo cranes on the docks, though only two ships are docked today. This little port isn't much by global shipping standards, but Sihanoukville gave the US government major headaches during the Vietnam War era.

It was not well known at the time, but back in the 1960's, Sihanoukville played a key role in the communist war effort. Although publicly claiming neutrality, Sihanouk made a secret deal with North Vietnam. Starting in 1966, he allowed cargoes of communist weapons into this port. The weapons were then sent overland across the border to the Viet Cong, for use against American troops in South Vietnam. This route became known as the Sihanouk Trail, and by 1970 about 80% of the weapons for communist rebels in South Vietnam were passing through here. So much for Sihanouk's claim of neutrality. 

Aside from communist bribes, I wondered why Sihanouk agreed to allow this weapons pipeline. An accusation I heard from a bitter old Cambodian fighter that I met may explain it. He told me that Sihanouk cut a secret deal with Ho Chi Minh. Sihanouk agreed to allow North Vietnam to send troops and weapons across Cambodian soil, to infiltrate South Vietnam. In return, Ho Chi Minh promised Sihanouk that after North Vietnam had won the war in South Vietnam, he would give the Mekong Delta back to Cambodia. Years later, when Uncle Ho was on his deathbed, he told his comrades that after Vietnam was reunited, no matter what happened, they should never follow through on his promise. 

Port of Sihanoukville, former center of weapons smuggling (photo: Wikipedia)

This sleepy port of Sihanoukville was the scene of a rare 20th century act of piracy, and this also involved the USA. Today we tend to think of modern pirates as being from Somalia, but in this case, it was two American pirates! Even more surprising, is that the two hijacked an American ship!

March 14th of 1970 may have been the date for the world’s first known act of protest piracy. Two leftist American protesters who were against the Vietnam War, hijacked a 7,500 ton US freighter called the Columbia Eagle. The ship's cargo was $10 million in aircraft bombs, headed to a Thailand port. These bombs would later be sent onward to US bases, to be dropped on communist targets in Southeast Asia.

The Columbia Eagle, once hijacked by 2 American protest pirates. (Viet Arch photo)

The two hijackers were crewmen on the ship; Clyde McKay and Alvin Glatkowski, a pair of radicals from California. Using a bogus bomb threat to trick most of the crew onto lifeboats in the Gulf of Thailand (they were picked up later), they forced the captain at gunpoint to sail for Sihanoukville. On arrival, they asked for political asylum.

The plan of the pirate pair was quickly foiled, and the two radicals were jailed. Cambodian authorities allowed the ship to disembark soon after, with its lethal cargo intact. Later that year McKay, and a US Army deserter jailed with him named Larry Humphrey, managed to escape confinement in Phnom Penh. Then they disappeared. Some said that McKay ran away to join the Khmer Rouge, while others said that he settled as a farmer in eastern Cambodia.

Alvin Glatkowski's mugshot (photo: SDPD)

It would be many years before the outside world found out what happened to the ex-pirate and the deserter. Nearly two decades later, some of their buried teeth and fillings were recovered, by a mission team that was searching for the remains of missing US journalist Sean Flynn. Both McKay and Humphrey had been executed in 1971 by the Khmer Rouge, in the town of Boi Met. Given the violence of the Khmer Rouge era, their fate was predictable.

For Glatkowski’s part, he had his own ordeal to survive. He spent time in a Cambodian mental institution. He asked the Soviet Union for political asylum, but was denied. With nowhere else to go, he turned himself in to the US Embassy. He was flown back to the US, where he spent five years in prison. 

His story was no 'Pirates of the Caribbean' fable, but at least he lived to tell the tale.

SWEDISH PIRATE IN CAMBODIA

Media pirate Gotfrid (photo:Wikipedia)

I’m having lunch in a riverside restaurant bar; one of the more expensive places that caters to foreigners in Phnom Penh. Despite the pricey menu and atmosphere, a small cockroach runs across my table. 

Well, they don’t have regular health inspections in Cambodian restaurants, so it’s no surprise really. Rather than kill it, I take a deep breath, and blow it off the table onto the floor. Maybe these peaceful Buddhists here are starting to rub off on me. 

As I eat my sandwich, in walks a very white European, with a long, uneven red beard. A young guy, he looks like he’s still in his 20’s. Taking a seat at the bar, the American bartender and owner walks up to greet him. 

“I saw you on CNN,” he says shaking the bearded one's hand. Upon hearing that my ears perk up; I figure he must have an interesting story to tell. I’m not disappointed.  

This fair skinned young man is Gotfrid Svartholm, and he had just flown in from Sweden this morning. He also happens to be one of the founders of an infamous internet website, by the name of ‘The Pirate Bay’. Following in the tradition of Napster, Gotfrid and his friends had created a file sharing site for exchanging and downloading movies and music, for free. 

Their website became so popular providing free digital entertainment, that it was soon targeted by American media companies. Since his website brought no royalties for the movie and music companies, it violated the copyright laws of numerous countries. Their offices were eventually raided by Swedish police, and shut down. 

“They filed a $15 million dollar lawsuit,” Gotfrid told me. Their case had been all over the news. 

I'd heard Cambodia was one of the few countries in the world, where fugitives from the law had come to hide out, and now I'd met one! But I wasn't expecting a fugitive to be as personable as Gotfrid. He’s a friendly, pleasant guy. Except for his teeth, he certainly doesn’t seem like a pirate, 

He's not living life under the radar either, he opened an IT company here in Phnom Penh, “I’m glad that copyright laws are not enforced in Cambodia,” he tells me. 

Finishing his lunch, he says goodbye to me. He has to go get some sleep after his long flight. I think I would have a hard time sleeping, if I was facing a $15 million dollar lawsuit. 

Sometime later, I learned that Gotfrid was arrested, and extradited back to Sweden. He and three others were found guilty of collaborating to violate copyright law. They were sentenced to one year in prison, and collectively fined $3.6 million. 

Apparently foreign fugitives are no longer welcome in Cambodia.