REMEMBERING our Indochina days THE NATION SET ITS FOOTPRINT IN THE REGION LONG BEFORE OTHER MEDIA HO

The three-storey building was all mine for US$150 a month back in 1987. The owner said I could do whatever I wanted. He thought that would do the trick, as the building had been vacant for nearly a decade; no need to sign any contract, just handed over the cash. I turned No 33 of the empty building into a small news bureau of The Nation, its first foreign reporting base.
From Phnom Penh, the main responsibility was to report on a historic turning point in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. It was an extraordinary time, as there were indications that the Cambodian conflict would end soon. All the conflicting parties were engaged in both concerted and open talks along the Thai-Cambodian border and other locations. At the time, solidarity among Indochinese countries was strong and access to information and general reporting extremely difficult. So, it was a correspondent’s dream to cover and travel in this region, which a decade later joined Asean.
The Nation was the only regional newspaper that had a correspondent in Indochina. From the Phnom Penh bureau, one could travel by road or air to Vietnam. The famous Highway 1 from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City via Moc Bai was popular but also memorable for its moon surface-like road conditions and the daunting river crossing. To get to Vientiane, meanwhile, one could take a thrice-weekly flight from Phnom Penh. I recall vividly that during one of those flights, I encountered a strange group of passengers hiding in the plane’s rear compartment. Ten hens were occupying the toilet. The route was apparently popular with livestock smugglers.
At the time, only three news bureaux were active in Phnom Penh: the Viet Nam News Agency, Pravda, and Agence France-Presse. All the others used Bangkok-based correspondents to report on the fighting in eastern Cambodia. Khmer Rouge forces were still active at the time along the Thai-Cambodian border. Fighting inside Cambodia was confined to certain localities outside Phnom Penh and the nearby provinces.
Operating a bureau in Phnom Penh while the Cambodian conflict continued was considered a non-Asean thing to do because of the grouping’s support for the exiled and Khmer Rouge-backed Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. It held the country’s UN seat, which the six-member Asean protected by using its diplomatic credibility. The Nation was constantly criticised by conservative newspapers in Asean as a lackey of Phnom Penh at the time. They thought having a correspondent on the opponent’s side would confer legitimacy on Hun Sen’s Phnom Penh-based government that Asean was fighting against.
It was not until 1989-1990 that foreign correspondents both from the region and other countries started to travel to Phnom Penh to report firsthand, as conflicting parties began showing “fatigue” in their long drawn-out war. Previously, only correspondents from veteran international dailies such as Le Monde, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times could afford to pay the $200-a-day service fee charged by the local authorities to report in Cambodia. Both Vietnam and Laos also adopted the same fee-charging practice.
The Nation’s bureau in Cambodia had a short life. It met its end due to an exclusive report The Nation published in February 1988 about the corruption problem in Cambodia. In early 1988, Prime Minister Hun Sen launched an anti-corruption campaign that received wide media attention. 
But no one was able to report on it. The Nation came out with a long report about a conversation Hun Sen had had with his family, warning them of the downfall of the Marcos family in the Philippines. 
On the very day it was published, the Voice of America picked up the headline and translated it into its Khmer-language broadcast, which was aired at 9pm. After the news broadcast ended, seven soldiers along with a senior Foreign Ministry official rushed to The Nation bureau. The office was shut down after the daily refused to reveal the source of its information.
In retrospect, the informed source from the inner circle of Hun Sen’s Cabinet certainly had good intentions. He thought The Nation’s piece would portray Hun Sen as a caring prime minister who had warned his family members not to behave like the Marcos family. A week later, in Ho Chi Minh, I was able to catch up with Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach, who invited The Nation to open a bureau in Hanoi. Towards the end of 1988, four news outlets – Reuters, Kyodo, Far Eastern Economic Review and The Nation – were given permission to open offices in Vietnam’s capital, a strong signal that Vietnam was opening up and moving forward with its Doi Moi policies. As it turned out, The Nation was able to open its bureau in Hanoi, inside the office building of the Viet Nam News Agency.
The Nation’s bureau in Vietnam opened at the most exciting time as Thailand was under the leadership of PM Chatichai Choonha-van, who pursued a policy of “turning battlefields into marketplaces”. The policy opened up the Thai media. Beginning in 1990, four Thai newspapers sent corespondents to Hanoi. Under the Chatichai government, there was intensive reporting on Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos as peace looked imminent. Vietnam was the most happening place, with its economy picking up.
The Nation was also a pioneer in reporting developments in Laos. Before the Thai-Lao war over three villages back in 1986, very few news outlets reported on our eastern-flank neighbour. However, The Nation had its first batch of correspondents cover Laos in 1984 when Vientiane began its reform process, known as “chintanakan may” (New Economic Mechanism), which provided the impetus for further reform in Indochina.

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The author was The Nation’s bureau chief in Phnom Penh and Hanoi from 1987 to 1991.