BAHA'IS will be holding their first national convention in Cambodia in 20 years

this weekend (April 23-4) and will elect nine members to sit on Cambodia's

newly-inaugurated Baha'i National Spiritual Assembly.

Convention

delegates will then return to their communities to organize local elections in

nine provinces next week, among what leaders claim to be the 2-3,000 Cambodians

who follow the religion.

Baha'ism, which is an independent faith not a

sect, arrived in Cambodia in the '50s but went underground during the war and

revolution in the '70s and '80s.

Now, with the assistance of foreign

Baha'is, a center has been opened on 51 St in the capital.

Without a

priesthood or ritual, the Baha'is rely on a pattern of local, national, and

international administration. Each locality having nine or more adult Baha'is

elects a council.