Rents Soaring as Foreigners Arrive to Help Cambodia : Southeast Asia: Peacekeepers, envoys and others scramble for space. High government officials control most of the property.

My Samedi is chairman of the Cambodian Red Cross and dean of the country’s only medical school. But in addition to his service in humanitarian causes, he is fast becoming one of Cambodia’s richest men by renting five private houses to foreign relief agencies.

With the arrival of a United Nations peacekeeping force in Phnom Penh, and embassies from the United States, Britain and Australia scrambling for office and residential space, the war-wrecked capital of Cambodia is enjoying an unprecedented real estate boom. Prices for “villas”--multistory houses surrounded by a fence--have skyrocketed since the signing of the Paris peace agreement Oct. 23.

The World Health Organization, which was paying $1,000 a month for a house, is now being asked for $4,000 by the owner. A Bangkok-based tourist company, Indo-Swiss, reportedly paid $200,000 for the house it uses as an office--double the price it would have paid six months ago.

“You can’t find a place for less than $2,000 a month, and it will probably be $3,000 in a couple of weeks,” a Western aid official said.

Some foreign aid workers, who survive on virtually honorary salaries, are scandalized by the steep increases, especially since most private homes in Phnom Penh are owned or controlled by members of the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen.

“The social contract in the country is collapsing,” said one aid worker. “People look out for themselves first. Everybody is out to get what they can during this unstable period. You’d have to be a saint not to get involved.”

Most of the property was left abandoned in 1975 when Khmer Rouge guerrillas seized power and forced city dwellers into the countryside. When the Vietnamese army drove the Khmer Rouge out four years later, homes were taken over by squatters, then allocated to new owners by the present regime, which charged no money for the transactions.

Kom Som Ol, a deputy premier in charge of coordinating international assistance to Cambodia, profits handsomely from his houses, which are rented to non-governmental relief groups. The U.N. World Food Program rents from the vice director of the Cambodian news agency; a Hun Sen deputy is also a big landlord, according to Western diplomats who have been looking at housing.

An international aid agency spent half a year and thousands of dollars renovating the former home of the U.S. ambassador in Phnom Penh, which it had leased from the Foreign Ministry. When the renovation was complete, the government demanded the house back and offered another dilapidated home in its place.

“What bothers so many people is that the foreign agencies are here to help Cambodia’s poor people and, rather than helping them, government people are getting rich by charging big rents,” said one Western aid official.

It remains unclear what will happen when overseas Cambodians return home to reclaim property they left behind when the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975. The government has said that former owners can reclaim property only if they have a valid deed; that, however, is a rare situation.

Chea Sim, leader of the country’s ruling People’s Party, now lives in the home once owned by Son Sann, head of an opposition faction that is returning to participate in Cambodia’s four-party coalition government. The Soviet ambassador is renting from the government a house that once belonged to Prince Norodom Ranariddh, son of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and the leader of another opposition faction.

China and France are the only two countries to have received back their former embassy complexes from the Hun Sen government. But both buildings are in need of vast repairs. The former U.S. Embassy is being used by the Ministry of Fisheries.

The United States, which has leased two buildings as offices, is frantically seeking eight houses to use as residences. Meanwhile, embassy officials are conducting business and living in the Cambodiana, a Singapore-managed hotel.

Foreign aid officials are also expressing concerns about the fragility of the Cambodian government, once foreign embassies and aid agencies set up in Phnom Penh and start competing for personnel fluent in English. Most government officials are paid a token salary of $8 or $9 a month. But with U.N. agencies already offering salaries in excess of $250 a month, an exodus has begun from government ministries.

“The government is being weakened just as demands . . . are increasing with the peace agreement,” said one diplomat. “When U.S. agencies start offering secretaries $1,000 a month, who will stay behind in the ministry?”

U.N. organizations have proposed to the government that it bring in English-speaking Cambodians now stuck in refugee camps on the Thai border to help fill the gaps. But the government, apparently worried that the refugees would politicize the U.N. agencies in an unfavorable way, has opposed the idea.