1.
GV Train arriving PAN ALONG Train (2 shots)
0.30

2.
SV People carrying bags of sugar to train
0.37

3.
SV People loading sugar onto train (2 shots)
0.46

4.
SG INT Man attacking sugar under passenger seat
0.51

5.
GV Crowds surround train
0.54

6.
SV Sugar stack on bicycle and being wheeled away
1.09

7.
LV PAN FROM Soldiers TO people shopping in border market
1.18

8.
GV People with gifts and presents and also sugar in market area
1.25

9.
GV Border check-point PAN TO Customs post (2 shots)
1.39

10.
SV Troops patrolling border area
1.42

11.
SV Man buying black market sugar at border bridge
1.52

12.
GV People crossing border bridge
2.06



Initials ET/1955 ET/2028



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Sugar smuggling -- referred to politely as "peasant commerce" -- is booming in a little Thai town of Poipet on the north-west border of the country with the Khmer Republic.

It is reported that each day about 2,000 people travel from Battambang over the border in the Khmer Republic, to Poipet and return by train with bags of sugar, to sell them at a 60 percent profit in Phnom Penh, Khmer Republic's capital.

The Khmer authorities turn a blind eye to the smuggling as it provides work for people who would otherwise be unemployed.

Sugar, now constituting the biggest volume of smuggled goods, is a scarce commodity in the country where communist-led insurgents have now controlled its sugar-growing areas and refineries.