It was attached to butane gas bottles and plastic bin-bags that had been filled with petrol. Had they worked, they would have destroyed the secret chapel, where 23 bodies were found. One device, at the farmhouse in the village of Chiery, which was the sect’s headquarters, failed.The device apparently failed because the village’s telephone lines were cut on the day of the murders. Swiss television reported that the body of Mr di Mambro had been found and, in a separate development, his passport had turned up in France, where it was delivered to the French Interior Ministry in a package addressed to Charles Pasqua, the minister.
However, the whereabouts of Mr Jouret are still unknown and police are no closer to unravelling the mystery behind the murders and the collective suicide of cult members in Switzerland and Quebec last week.Swiss investigators are now examining Mr Jouret’s dental records to see if he is among the dead, while, at the same time they are conducting an international search through Interpol.At each of the cult’s properties, sophisticated, delayed-action incendiary devices were set, with the intention of destroying evidence. But the Lord Buddha did not have to go out and buy an M-16 to protect his family.. THE BODY of the wanted cult leader, Joseph di Mambro, has been identified and the hunt for the killer of up to 51 members of the Order of the Solar Temple is now focused on his charismatic deputy, Luc Jouret.

There is nothing you can do about that.’ That is the Buddhist way of thinking. They demanded dollars 500, assuming the foreigner was giving money to his future in-laws.Saroeun just shook his head. Such is life for an ordinary Cambodian who lives outside the relative peace and affluence of the capital, Phnom Penh.’Yes, of course I am afraid But I think if I am injured or killed, it is God’s wish When you are born, the day you will die is fixed also. At about the same time, several miles outside the town, a family whose daughter was engaged to a foreigner was visited by three men with guns. Business is bad.On Saturday night, at an open- air disco across the road from Saroeun’s house, a fight over a woman ended with a grenade being thrown at the dance floor. Saroeun is not surprised at this.Saroeun bought a car from his earnings from the UN and he earns his living by driving tourists around the Angkor temples.

While technocrats in New York talk about the success of the Cambodian mission, the Cambodians themselves have not seen much improvement. The war continues, corruption is institutionalised and violence is everywhere. In Siem Reap the military commander has just been transferred – not arrested for treason – for selling ammunition which found its way into the hands of the enemy. But, as far back as he can remember, his country has been at war.The UN left after the elections.

He worked in the fields during the Khmer Rouge years from 1975 and then fled to the refugee camp ahead of the Vietnamese invasion in 1979. His mother was Cambodian but his father was French, an archaeologist working on the restoration of the ancient temples of Angkor, just outside Siem Reap He never met his father and grew up as a bit of an outsider. So if anyone tries to rob me again, I will shoot him in the back,’ he said, with a flash of anger in his eyes.It was the anger of a Cambodian who has felt put upon for years, the anger that suddenly wells up out of generations of oppression and exploitation, the anger that has never seen justice done, unless with a gun. Otherwise, a soldier can come and rob me or take my daughter and enjoy her. And with my first salary, you know what I did? I immediately bought an M-16 rifle, for dollars 100 My friend told me it is better if I have a gun.

He had learned English while in the refugee camp, and was employed by the UN as an interpreter for a year, for dollars 240 a month.’This was wonderful for me. Saroeun was then lucky enough to get a job with the UN in their mission to prepare the country for elections in May 1993. ‘After that I had nothing.’
For several months he fed his family with hand-outs from a distant relative. I told the men I would give them everything, but not to hurt my children.’ He gave them the necklace and ring made of gold that he was wearing The two pieces had cost him all the money he had saved. My wife and (four) children were sleeping, close together like fingers, on the ground. He and his family were sleeping under a plastic sheet, outside the northern town of Siem Reap

‘They came around midnight.