And that shows just how much truth there is to be found in the newspapers here as for the reasons things happen.
Even more interesting perhaps is this article from 2001, which describes the black market in guns and ammunition etc.
If you had wanted a gun in those days, it was quite easy and cheap to get one. AK's were around $40 each and 500R per bullet according to the report.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/w ... tel-blasts
With some simple negotiating, an AK-47 assault rifle can be had for $40 plus 500
riel for each round of ammunition. Hand grenades cost between $5 and $10 each, while
estimates for a handgun range between $100 and $1000 depending on quality
Other estimates produced by the Working Group for Weapons Reduction in Cambodia (WGWR)
puts the cost of an average handgun at around $120. For the more ambitious, or completely
psychotic, a rocket launcher can be purchased for as little as $32 in Phnom Penh;
prices in the countryside are even lower.
More than 112,000 weapons have been removed from circulation since the Cambodian
government began a strategy of weapons reduction in 1998. However that is still believed
to be only between 10% and 20% of the number of weapons estimated to be in circulation
when the project began.
Of particular concern to WGWR is the fact that only half of those weapons collected
have so far been destroyed, while the rest remain stored in government warehouses.