Meet opposition leader Sam Rainsy and Mr. Sean Pengse in the US West Coast

Friday 28 May in Seattle, Washington:
Saturday 29 May in Long Beach, California
Sunday 30 May in San Jose, California (mid-morning and afternoon)
Sunday 30 May in San Jose, California
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Labels: California | Sam Rainsy's visit to the USA and Canada | Sean Pengse | SRP | Vietnamese border encroachment | Washington State

Friday, May 28, 2010
Sam Rainsy faces arrest for not showing up in court to clarify for the Phnom Penh court

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy

28 May 2010
By Meas Mony
Free Press Magazine Online
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer

For not showing up to clarify the court as summoned in April in the lawsuit case regarding disinformation and falsifying public document, opposition leader Sam Rainsy now faces an arrest warrant issued against him.

The Phnom Penh municipal court issued this warrant to Sam Rainsy on Tuesday after he did not show up in court in April, however, the latter now lives overseas.

Nevertheless, Chuong Chou-ngy, Sam Rainsy’s defense lawyer, told reporters that he went to court instead of Sam Rainsy already on 20 April.

However, Ky Tech, the government lawyer, claimed that Sam Rainsy is involved in a criminal case, therefore his lawyer cannot show up in court for the suspect or the accused.

Yim Sovann, SRP spokesman, indicated that the court arrest warrant is meaningless in the lawsuit case brought up against Sam Rainsy. “I don’t pay attention about this court, this is a political hearing, therefore a political solution is needed,” Yim Sovann said.

Currently, opposition leader Sam Rainsy and Mr. Sean Pengse, a border expert under the Khmer Republic regime, are conducting their campaign in the US in order to explain to the Cambodian people, as well as the international community, about the border situation in Cambodia which is under encroachments from neighboring countries while the Cambodian government is turning a blind eye to this situation.

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Labels: Arrest warrant | CPP silencing the opposition voice | Hun Xen's travesty of justice | Sam Rainsy | Vietnamese encroachment

Sacrava's Thai Political Cartoon: Thai Terrorists

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

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Labels: Red Shirts | Thai army and politics | Thailand political unrest

GX Proud to Announce 2010 People's Choice Honoree from Cambodia


Global Exchange is pleased to announce the winner of our 2010 Human Rights Awards People's Choice, Mu Sochua, as chosen by YOU, supporters of Global Exchange and human rights around the world.

Mu Sochua joins our other award recipients, Raúl del Águila, International Honoree, and Van Jones, Domestic Honoree.

Mu Sochua has been a tireless advocate for human rights and the rights of women in Cambodia. In fact, her dedication to her work has meant that she is currently facing trial and prosecution for simply asserting her right to free speech.

Please join us, and the global community of human rights supporters, in extending our sincere thanks to Mu Sochua for her courage and dedication to those in need in her native land.

Accepting the People's Choice Award on Mu's behalf at our gala celebration in San Francisco on May 27 will be Sochua's daughter Devi Leiper, a resident of San Francisco.

If would like to learn more about Mu Sochua, Raúl del Águila, and Van Jones, please visit www.humanrightsaward.org.

Thank you all for nominating and voting for your human rights heroes during the 2010 Global Exchange Human Rights Awards!
------
Message from Mrs. Mu Sochua:

Thanking you all for your support.

Sochua

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Labels: Mu Sochua | Nomination for human rights awards

Cambodian 'jungle woman' back in forest

Rochom P'ngieng during her hospitalization in 2009 (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

May 28, 2010
AFP

Cambodia's "jungle woman," whose story gripped the country after she apparently spent 18 years living in a forest, has fled back to the jungle, her father and local police say.

Rochom P'ngieng, now 29, went missing as a little girl in 1989 while herding water buffalo in Ratanakkiri province, around 600 kilometres northeast of the capital, Phnom Penh.

In early 2007 the woman was brought from the jungle, naked and dirty, after being caught trying to steal food from a farmer. She was hunched over like a monkey, scavenging on the ground for pieces of dried rice.

Advertisement: Story continues below"She must have fled back to the forest on Tuesday evening while she was going to take a bath," Sal Lou, the man who says he is her father, told AFP by telephone on Friday.

"I and my son are looking for her in the middle forest now," he said, adding that he believed "forest spirits" guided her back to the dense jungle.

Local police chief Ma Vichet said the authorities had also begun a search but had found no sign of the woman.

"We also believe that she fled back to the jungle," Ma Vichet said.

Immediately after being taken from the jungle in 2007, Rochom P'ngieng could not utter a word of any intelligible language, instead making what her father calls "animal noises."

Cambodians described her as "jungle woman" and "half-animal girl" and since rejoining society she has battled bouts of illness after refusing food.

In December she began speaking normally, instead of making animal-type noises, and helping out around the house, according to her father.

The jungles of Ratanakkiri - some of Cambodia's wildest and most isolated - are known to have hidden groups of hill tribes in the recent past.

In November 2004, 34 people from four hill tribe families emerged from the dense forest where they had fled in 1979 after the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which they had supported.

Rochom P'ngieng has previously tried to flee back into the jungle but was stopped by her family.

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Labels: Cambodian Jungle girl | Rochom P'nieng

Cambodia's Khmer culture is displayed in 'Gods of Angkor' exhibit

A figure of Vishnu holds, clockwise from upper right, a conch, a mace, a ball representing Earth and a discus. (National Museum Of Cambodia, Phnom Penh - National Museum Of Cambodia, Phnom Penh)

Friday, May 28, 2010
Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post

It's hard to tell which celestial being is depicted in one of the bronze figures in "Gods of Angkor." After all, he has lost his head.

It could be the Hindu god Shiva. Or it could be Avalokiteshvara, a bodhisattva, or manifestation, of the Buddha. Both religions flourished, side by side, in Cambodia's Khmer culture.

Also missing: two of the figure's four hands, which might have once held clues to its identity. Another figure -- clearly identified because of what he's holding -- juggles Vishnu's trademark conch, mace, discus and ball, representing the Earth. Look behind him, and you'll notice what looks like a butterfly on his tush. A nearby statue of Shiva has one, too.

No, the butterfly doesn't stand for patience or some other virtue. It's probably just a palace fashion trend -- a fancy bow -- that found its way from the closets of the living to the closets of the gods. Which doesn't sound all that surprising when you consider that the face of one of the bronze Buddhas on view is said to bear a strange resemblance to the face of Jayavarman VII, the king of the Khmer empire under whose reign it was made.

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Labels: Art exhibition | Khmer artefacts | Washington DC

Sackler Gallery exhibits 'Gods of Angkor' bronzes from Cambodia

The Sackler's 36-piece exhibition includes bronzes of Shiva's elephant-headed son Ganesha and a crowned Buddha, above, from the 12th century. (Images From National Museum Of Cambodia, Phnom Penh)

Friday, May 28, 2010
By Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer

There are only 36 works on display in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's latest exhibition, "Gods of Angkor: Bronzes From the National Museum of Cambodia." Maybe twice that, if you count all the extra arms and heads.

Gods, you see, are not like us.

The show -- a jewel box of mostly smallish sculptures in three tiny galleries -- centers on devotional figures of Shiva, Vishnu and other Hindu deities, several of whom are depicted with anywhere from four to 10 arms, and as many as five heads. One, in the case of Shiva's son Ganesha, has the head of an elephant.

There are also several statues of the Buddha.

I know: Buddha is not technically a god. Still, he has often been revered as though he were one. And his various bodhisattvas -- the quasi-human, quasi-godlike embodiments of such virtues as wisdom and compassion -- are themselves considered to be deities. (In an interesting twist on certain Western stereotypes, wisdom, represented by the bodhisattva Prajnaparamita, is female; compassion, in the person of Avalokiteshvara, is a male.)

So Buddha makes the cut. The show, which also features two or three human figures, includes a number of rarely seen ritual objects from Buddhist and Hindu worship: a bell, a mirror, a lotus flower, a conch.

Yet despite its name, "Gods" isn't exactly a show about religion. Nor is it simply a celebration of the bronze-caster's art. Though it covers centuries' worth of art from the Khmer people -- from late prehistory through the Angkor period (802 to 1431 A.D.) -- there's precious little technical information about how the pieces were made.

Instead, the show is a tip of the hat from one museum to another. One favor in exchange for another.

In 2005, experts from the Sackler helped set up the National Museum of Cambodia's first metal conservation lab, with financial support from the Getty Foundation. Today, in conjunction with its ceramics and stone conservation shops, the Cambodian museum operates one of Southeast Asia's preeminent art conservation facilities.

The beautiful works in "Gods of Angkor" are evidence of that.

In other words, the National Museum of Cambodia got the gift, but here in Washington, we are the beneficiaries.

GODS OF ANGKOR: BRONZES FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CAMBODIA Through Jan. 23 at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1050 Independence Ave. SW (Metro: Smithsonian). 202-633-1000 (TDD: 202-633-5285). http://www.asia.si.edu. Hours: Open daily 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission: Free.

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Labels: Art exhibition | Khmer artefacts | Washington DC

"Today, it's not the state who owns the old properties, but the ruling party, the CPP": Vann Molyvann

Independence Monument; Vann Molyvann, architect (All photos: Luke Duggleby for The Wall Street Journal)
A lone figure walks the stands of Vann Molyvann's Olympic Stadium.
The Chaktomuk Conference Hall, one of Mr. Molyvann's earliest designs, was built in 1961.
The library at the Institute for Foreign Languages, now part of the Royal University of Phnom Penh
More of Mr. Molyvann's work at the Institute for Foreign Languages
Yet more of the institute

Modern Masterpieces

MAY 28, 2010
By TOM VATER
The Wall Street Journal

Vann Molyvann, Cambodia's greatest living architect, recalls that the night his Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh was completed, in 1964, "I took my wife to see the work." Sitting in the top tier of the stands, they listened to Dvorák's "New World Symphony" over the stadium's speaker system. "It was one of the great moments of my life."

In the years after Cambodia won independence from France in 1953, Mr. Molyvann—then scarcely in his 30s—set out under the tutelage of King Norodom Sihanouk to transform Phnom Penh from a colonial backwater into a modern city. But in the late 1960s the country was drawn into decades of war and terror, including years under the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, and Mr. Molyvann's vision was virtually forgotten. The architect himself had to flee the country.

And while he returned in triumph after more than 20 years abroad, it was to find that grand titles didn't translate into influence in today's Cambodia. His legacy—structures in a style dubbed New Khmer Architecture—lives on, contributing significantly to the flair of the city, but even that is in danger as Phnom Penh, like other Asian capitals, clears historic buildings to make room for skyscrapers.

Cambodia is best known for its magnificent temple ruins at Angkor, remnants of a great Southeast Asian empire that covered the country's current territory as well as parts of Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. After Angkor fell to the Siamese in the 15th century, a new Cambodian capital was founded on the banks of the Tonlé Sap River. That city, Phnom Penh, remained an unstable settlement, caught up in the geopolitical ambitions of Cambodia's more powerful neighbors, until the French arrived in the 1860s. The colonial administrators drained the neighboring swamps and created a grid street plan, dotted with sumptuous villas, Art Deco markets and impressive government structures.

Even then, Phnom Penh was modest, small-town colonial France—and when Mr. Molyvann received a scholarship from the colonial government and set off for the Sorbonne in Paris, it wasn't with the dream of returning to remake it. He was a law student. But as he pursued his degree, and struggled with the compulsory Greek and Latin, he had an encounter that changed his life.

"I met Henri Marchal, the curator of Angkor for the École Française d'Extrême-Orient [the French School of Asian Studies]," Mr. Molvyann remembers, "and suddenly I knew I wanted to be an architect, so I changed to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, where I studied until 1950 under Le Corbusier." He regards that modernist architect and designer as his greatest teacher.

After that, Mr. Molyvann stayed on in Paris for several more years, studying Khmer art. While he looks back fondly on the period, he is also keenly aware that some of Cambodia's later traumas had their origins in the Paris of that time.

"The Khmer Rouge was born in the Latin quarter of Paris," he says. As they debated their country's postcolonial future, Mr. Molyvann says, the city's 400 or so Cambodian students split between nationalists and Marxists. Khieu Samphan, whom he knew as a fellow Sorbonne student, would go on to become head of state in the Khmer Rouge government.

By 1956, Mr. Molyvann was back in Phnom Penh. Independence had broadened Cambodia's horizons, in part thanks to the efforts of King Sihanouk, who at various times officially dropped his title to serve as prime minister, head of state or president, though Cambodians continued to refer to him as king. With tremendous energy and not a little royal eccentricity, the young monarch—also politician, artist, filmmaker, womanizer and host to a series of foreign heads of state and celebrities—worked to create a modern nation with an eye on the past. The leading members of an emerging urban elite, many of whom, like Mr. Molyvann, had returned from Paris, sought to create architecture, music, films, literature and art that married Cambodian tradition with modernist thinking.

Nowhere was this more apparent than in new administrative, public and private building projects that sprang up all over the capital—transforming Phnom Penh, within little more than a decade, into one of Asia's most dynamic cities.

"It was difficult at the beginning, as Cambodians had never heard of architects," Mr. Molyvann remembers. "All they knew were engineers and builders. There was a real dearth of qualified Khmer experts, as the French had used Vietnamese to administer my country. But within 10 years of independence the management of the country and its capital was Khmer. It was incredible."

Mr. Molyvann was made chief architect for state buildings and director for urban planning and habitat in 1956 and given a number of ministerial posts in the following years. "I was designing the Independence Monument and was asked to present the king with a selection of marble," he recalls. "I was too afraid to speak to him personally, but he made some suggestions and we got on perfectly after that." Shaped like a lotus flower, the monument tower, completed in 1960, remains one of Phnom Penh's landmarks.

Mr. Molyvann had part of the floodplain south of the Royal Palace drained and filled, and on this "Front de Bassac" constructed the country's first high-rises, initially for visiting athletes for the 1966 Ganefo Games, a short-lived Asian alternative to the Olympics.

"We built the stadium for 60,000 people and surrounded it with a moat, so that the waters could run off in the rainy season," he says.

Stefanie Irmer, whose KA Tours focuses on New Khmer Architecture, sees the relation between water and city as crucial to the architect's vision for Phnom Penh. "Besides creating the 'Front de Bassac' area from wetlands," she says, "almost every building Vann Molyvann designed was surrounded by water—to keep the termites out, but also to integrate the buildings into the flood plain."

Many of Mr. Molyvann's buildings are traditional in one sense—they are shaped like familiar objects. Chaktomuk Conference Hall, one of his earliest designs, is like an open palm leaf. The library of the Institute of Foreign Languages (now part of the Royal University of Phnom Penh) was inspired by a traditional Khmer straw hat. The lecture halls of the institute rest on sharply angled concrete pillars that give them the appearance of animals, about to jump. They are still in use today, as is the library.

By the early 1960s, for the first time in almost 800 years, Cambodia was blooming. The Angkor ruins were the region's biggest tourist draw, and Phnom Penh had doubled in size and become a city others in the region admired.

But the politics were turning ugly. Norodom Sihanouk, serving as prime minister, began to suppress dissent. By the mid-1960s, the U.S. had combat troops in Vietnam; as American planes began bombing North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia, the country's policy of neutrality became a farce. The former king's repressive policies alienated the political left and some rural Cambodians, who began to join a shadowy communist movement, the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, the right and military had become fed up with his capriciousness and nepotism. When he left to visit China in 1970, a coup replaced him with army general Lon Nol. The Swinging '60s, the meteoric rise of a young nation, the building boom in the "Pearl of Asia"—it was all over.

Mr. Molyvann remembers days with hard choices. "Shortly after Lon Nol came to power, the Israeli ambassador advised me to take my family out of the country," he says; the ambassador, a friend of his, warned him about the crumbling security and the increasing persecution of those connected with the previous government. So when Mr. Molyvann left for a conference in Israel, with his wife, Trudy, and their six children, they didn't return. Instead they moved on to Switzerland, his wife's home country.

Five years later, the Khmer Rouge marched victoriously into Phnom Penh. The new rulers immediately emptied the cities, and for almost four years Phnom Penh was a ghost town. At least 1.5 million Cambodians, nearly a quarter of the population—Mr. Molyvann's father among them—lost their lives in the killing fields. The fledgling intellectual elite was snuffed out.

"I had no contact during those years," says Mr. Molyvann. "I had to give my children a new life, so we stayed in Lausanne." He continued to work as an architect in Switzerland, Africa and Laos, for the United Nations and the World Bank. The Vietnamese pushed out the Khmer Rouge in 1979, but Mr. Molyvann "could not think of going back." The new rulers "were still communists."

"It was not until 1993 that I returned—with the U.N.," he says. Initially, his homecoming was triumphant. He was appointed minister of state for culture and fine arts, territorial management and urban planning and contributed to the application for Angkor's successful recognition as a Unesco World Heritage site.

But he soon realized that the Cambodia he had left behind in 1970 no longer existed. Cambodian People's Party leader Hun Sen, who had been installed by the Vietnamese and who continued as prime minister after the U.N.-organized elections, gave Mr. Molyvann back his villa, but the architect's plans for Siem Reap—the province in which Angkor is located—were unappreciated. He had called for a "tourist village" set apart from both the temples and the old town of Siem Reap, integrated into the environment and with water conservation as a key goal.

"The government wanted to use the resources of Angkor to develop Siem Reap without the participation of the local people," Mr. Molyvann says. "In 1998, I became president executive director of Apsara (Authority for the Protection and Safeguard of Angkor), the government body created to look after the temples. Three years later, I was fired." Unchecked development in Siem Reap has led to a dramatic drop in groundwater levels, causing subsidence that has put the Bayon, one of the main temples in the Angkor area, in danger of collapse, according to experts from the Japanese Conservation Team for Safeguarding Angkor. Development has also driven up property prices and the cost of living, a hardship for the locals in a province that remains one of the poorest in the country.

But it was not just the government and developers standing against Mr. Molyvann and his vision. Bill Greaves, director of the Vann Molyvann Project, a nongovernmental organization engaged in recreating the lost plans of the remaining New Khmer Architecture sites, thinks postwar Cambodia is simply not aware of its past.

"Right now, Singapore and Shanghai are models for forward-looking cities, both for the government and the people," he says. "Hence Phnom Penh's different stages of history are likely to be discarded."

In the past decade, as investment has begun to pour into the Cambodian capital once more, colonial and 1960s buildings have been replaced by chrome-and-glass edifices, floodwater lakes have been drained, local media have reported almost daily evictions and ministers have gushed over the need to build skyscrapers in order to keep up with the neighbors.

The government frequently declares that preservation has to go hand in hand with development. In practice, it seems to walk well behind. Beng Khemro, deputy director general at the ministry for land management, urban planning and construction, says his department's hands are tied. "Many historical properties are in terrible condition," he says. "The people who own them don't understand the value of the past and would rather demolish them and build high-rises to make a profit. The past is not appreciated. Without a change in attitude amongst the population, we are fighting a losing battle."

Cambodia has preservation laws, and Dr. Khemro says he is trying to pass a regulation to get them applied in particular instances. He'd like to try a pilot preservation project away from Phnom Penh, he says, noting that Cambodia's second-largest city, Battambang, has many buildings from the French period.

"Also," he adds, "there's less pressure."

Molyvann advocate Mr. Greaves is skeptical about the survival of the architect's legacy. "The old buildings disappear at an alarming rate—even public edifices like the National Theatre, which was knocked down a couple of years ago, are not safe. We try and get there before the demolition crews arrive."

A drive around town with Mr. Molyvann illustrates his curious position in this free-for-all scramble for change. At the Independence Monument, guards at first refuse him entry. Only after his driver reveals the distinguished visitor's identity is the master architect, old and frail, allowed to climb the steps he designed half a century ago.

Passing the stadium, Mr. Molyvann looks at the haphazard development around his favorite creation. Appropriated by developers with government connections, the moat has been partly filled in to make space for shops and an underground car park; the result is annual flooding that threatens the entire sports complex.

With equal shades of sadness and anger in his voice, Mr. Molyvann says, "Today, it's not the state who owns the old properties, but the ruling party, the CPP."

—Tom Vater is a writer based in Bangkok.

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Labels: Khmer architectural work | Phnom Penh city | Vann Molyvann

Bail for sex tourist angers advocate

Thursday, May 27, 2010
CBC News (Canada)

A women's rights advocate is outraged that a Burnaby, B.C., man who pleaded guilty to sex tourism charges has been released from custody pending sentencing.

Kenneth Klassen pleaded guilty in B.C. Supreme Court May 21 to having sex with more than a dozen girls under the age of 14 in Cambodia and Colombia between 1998 and 2002.

"With all due respect to the defence attorney, it just seems like a joke," said Holly Dignard, of Caleb's Hope, an organization that works with female victims of sexual assault in developing countries.

Crown prosecutors and Klassen's lawyer discussed on Thursday the possibility of the convicted man wearing an electronic monitoring device while he remains out on bail, but the decision was deferred.

"If he was a serial murderer, I highly doubt they'd be releasing him with something around his ankle to make sure he doesn't go kill someone," Dignard said.

Under surveillance
The RCMP said that Klassen, 59, is under surveillance, and the Crown prosecutor in the case said the man had been told that police were watching him.

"He is aware of being followed," Brendan McCabe told the court.

As part of his bail conditions, Klassen had to surrender his passport to authorities, cannot be in the presence of children without permission, has to remain in B.C. and cannot be away from his residence for more than 24 hours.

Dignard said those conditions were insufficient. She has started an online petition urging the court to revoke Klassen's bail and "sentence this man to the full extent of the law."

"I find it goes back to the core issue of rape and violence against women. People don't take it seriously enough," she said.

Klassen also pleaded guilty to importing child pornography.

Arguments on Klassen's bail conditions resume on Tuesday. No date has been set for sentencing.

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Labels: Canada | Canadian citizen | Child molester | Child sex tourist

"Kamnap Snaeh Chass Pduol Prah Loeu Kamnap Thmei (Tumteav 1)" a Poem in Khmer by Yim Guechsè

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Cambodian Factories Seek Eco-Friendly Power Alternatives

May 27, 2010
By SIMON MARKS
International Herald Tribune (Paris, France)

PHNOM PENH — Almost every day for the past 15 years Cheang Vet, a roadside mechanic near Phnom Penh’s Cambodian-Japanese Friendship Bridge, has witnessed the constant flow of traffic making its way in and out of the capital by its main northeasterly access point.

But in the last decade, as the number of people employed in Cambodia’s garment sector has increased from about 25,000 in 2000 to around 300,000 today, he has noticed a steady increase in one particular type of vehicle entering Phnom Penh: heavy-load trucks carrying huge stacks of firewood.

“There are at least 10 trucks a day carrying about two and a half tons of firewood,” Mr. Vet estimated. “They tell me they are on their way to the garment factories on the other side of the city.”

The majority of the country’s garment factories — making clothes for brand names in the U.S. and European markets — use firewood to heat old-fashioned boilers that produce hot water for dying fabrics and steam for ironing.

Some factories depend on firewood to supply all of their energy needs, according to industry experts.

Indeed, the use of firewood for energy is widely considered better for the environment than fossil fuels, as trees can be replanted to offset carbon emissions released during combustion. But replanting plans are limited here, while demand for firewood is growing.

In the 1990s, large areas of Cambodia’s rubber plantations — planted by the French in the early 20th century — had aged to the point where their yields of latex, the sap from which natural rubber is made, had dropped considerably, requiring extensive replanting.

Felling old trees made large quantities of rubber wood available to the emerging garment and brick factories in the Phnom Penh region.

But, according to a report released last year by the French environmental organization Geres, this source of timber is running out.

The Geres report found that 69 of the 310 garment factories then registered with the manufacturers’ association said they were using rubber wood to produce steam for ironing and dyeing clothes. In total, Geres estimated that garment factories burned around 65,000 cubic meters, or about 2.3 million cubic feet, of wood every month.

But a “critical period” started in 2009, the report said, “where rubber wood will not be available in sufficient quantity to supply the industrial sector its energy requirements.”

Energy experts and environmentalists say that timber is now being obtained instead from the country’s remaining natural-growth forests.

Graeme Brown, a private consultant working on natural resource management issues, said that a heightened demand for new rubber plantation acreage was leading to forest clearance, creating a “ready supply of natural forest timber.”

With the costs of wood-fired heating far lower than the cost of electricity from the national grid — power prices in Cambodia are among the highest in the region because of poor infrastructure and the use of inefficient diesel generators — there are fears that demand for firewood will continue to grow.

Still, there are signs that Cambodia’s garment factories, after a decade of efforts to improve labor standards, are now starting to concern themselves with environmental issues, too.

Albert Tan, vice president of Suntex, a Singaporean-owned garment factory in Phnom Penh, said the company had brought in a team of engineers from Malaysia to assess ways the factory could use less energy.

Mr. Tan said that wasting less energy would allow the factory to burn less wood and would also reduce dependence on diesel-powered backup generators in the event of a power cut — a frequent occurrence in Cambodia.

“There are not many results yet, but some studies are going on to see how best we can be eco-friendly and take care of the environment,” he said.

The owners of the factory, which produces about 2.5 million pieces of clothing per month for export to client brands in the United States and Europe, are also considering installing a gasification unit that would convert biomass or organic waste into cleaner-burning, more efficient synthetic gas, he added.

Rin Seyha, managing director of SME Renewable Energy, in Phnom Penh, said his company had been approached by several garment factories looking to use gasification.

But the technology available in Cambodia is still insufficient for large energy users like clothing factories, he said, and potential clients are often put off by the cost of importing larger units.

A gasification plant with a one megawatt generating capacity, imported from India, costs $300,000. Mr. Seyha’s company sold just one plant to a garment factory last year and so far in 2010 has aroused interest in three more. After 70 factories shut down during the global financial crisis, there are now about 250 factories operating in Cambodia.

Cutting down on emissions from burning wood and protecting the forests would help the industry’s image with environmentally conscious consumer abroad. But profit-focused private investors often balk at the first hurdle when it comes to introducing more environmentally friendly technology, because they consider the costs involved to be too high, said Yohanes Iwan Baskoro, country director for Geres.

Investors need to be educated to understand that improved technology can achieve a profitable return for companies in the long run, he said, adding that as well as fiscal incentives from the government, the banking sector also needs more encouragement to provide loans for environmental improvement.

“If we can’t show that there is profits in it for them I don’t think they will participate,” Mr. Baskoro said.

Julia Brickell, resident representative in Phnom Penh for the World Bank’s private-sector lender, the International Finance Corp., also said lenders needed to be persuaded.

“Financial institutions may focus too much on the short-term costs of investing in energy-efficiency improvements and not immediately see the longer-term benefits for their potential clients in terms of cost savings,” Ms. Brickell said. “This may impact their willingness to provide financing for technological upgrades.”

Garment workshops often operate from leased premises and lack fixed assets to provide collateral for loans, she added. “This may also result in reluctance on the part of the financial institutions to extend financing for energy efficiency improvements.”

Still, some progress is being made. A factory in Kandal Province, near Phnom Penh, which supplies garments to Hennes & Mauritz of Sweden and Marks & Spencer of Britain, is a case in point.

Wood is still being used to heat the factory’s boilers, but the company is using its staff house to test energy saving technologies on a small scale.

“Every factory wants to save costs, and our biggest cost is electricity,” said a manager at the factory, who spoke on condition of anonymity because, she said, bosses in Hong Kong had asked her to keep a low profile.

The company, one of Cambodia’s largest with nearly 3,000 workers, has installed solar panels on the roof of its staff house, where 50 air-conditioned rooms accommodate the management. To discourage energy waste, anyone using more than 200 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month is charged 50 cents per extra kilowatt-hour used.

Marks & Spencer is advising the factory through its so-called Plan A corporate strategy, to focus on improving environmental standards. More efficient lighting, better insulation and improved temperature control are three measures that have been identified.

At another factory, in Phnom Penh, where roughly 1,000 workers make luxury menswear for export, a program to fit energy-saving light bulbs is under way. With 3,500 neon lights in operation throughout the day, a sizable reduction in electricity consumption is expected, the factory’s general manager said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

But balancing the need for increased productivity — Cambodia’s work force is among the least productive in the region, reflecting poor training levels — against the investments needed for better environmental standards is an almost impossible challenge, this manager said.

“The bottom line is this industry — in particular the garment sector — is the toughest sector in terms of competition,” he said. “Some people just can’t afford to make some of the changes that are being recommended.”

And according to several economic analysts and consultants here, who declined to be named because of the delicacy of the issue, it is not in the interests of manufacturers to show they can afford to install environmentally friendly technologies, because their brand-name clients may respond by putting pressure on them to lower their costs.

Still, Kanwarpreet Singh, chief representative for the H&M clothing brand in Cambodia, said that the industry as a whole was looking into newer and cleaner technologies to improve its image.

“If you use a lot of firewood, then it is not good for the environment,” he said. “As a company we try to encourage other sources of energy.”

Although Hennes & Mauritz factories use firewood as an energy source, Mr. Singh said, the company was evaluating alternatives.

For now, though, those are still unclear, and as Cambodia struggles to recover from a slump last year in exports to key U.S. and European markets, improving energy standards in factories is not a priority, he said.

Garment exports, accounting for 90 percent of Cambodia’s total exports, dropped almost 20 percent by value in 2009, to $2.38 billion.

“Nowadays one has to compete globally,” said Permod Kumar Gupta, chief technical adviser for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in Cambodia. “We have to think, in the coming years, if we are not able to compete economically, environmentally and socially then difficulties will remain in how to compete with countries like China.”

Regardless of environmental concerns, Cambodia’s garment sector desperately needs to improve energy efficiency, with some factories spending up to $1,700 to produce a ton of clothing — more than three times the amount in neighboring Vietnam.

“In terms of energy efficiency, the sectors that are using biomass are particularly wasteful,” said Mr. Gupta.

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Labels: Energy | Garment sector

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: The New Monkeys

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Click on the cartoon to zoom in

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Labels: Bloated Hun Sen government | Political Cartoon | Sacrava

Searching for Thaksin ... Thai police's style

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Labels: Thai political soap opera | Thaksin Shinawatra

Thai army fears red shadows?

Army fears outbreak of terrorism

CRES says it favours early end to curfew

28/05/2010
Wassana Nanuam
Bangkok Post

The army is stepping up its surveillance in fear armed men allied to hard-core protesters could launch terror attacks in Bangkok and other provinces in revenge for the May 19 crackdown, an army source says.

Intelligence reports and an assessment of the situation in the wake of the rally have concluded there is a real possibility of violent retaliation by groups who fled the protest site at Ratchaprasong intersection after the military operation, the source said yesterday.

The revenge could be in the form of car and motorcycle bombs, taking the lives of soldiers and government figures, and arson attacks at locations which are symbols of the government and armed forces. They could take place in the capital or the provinces.

Some red shirt politicians who have connections in the three southern border provinces could hire insurgents from the lower South to launch attacks in Bangkok, the source said.

The concerns have prompted intelligence authorities to monitor the movements of suspected insurgents, especially those who are already in Bangkok.

One incident which led the army to fear possible terror attacks was a car bomb at the Poseidon massage parlour car park on Ratchadaphisek Road in Bangkok on April 4, the source said.

While the army is preparing for the possibility of violence, the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation favours ending the curfew in Bangkok and other provinces tomorrow.

The government will decide today whether to extend the curfew.

Security agencies held talks yesterday to evaluate the situation, consulting with army leaders in other regions and provincial governors.

Many were of the view that the situation in the wake of the red shirt rally was improving and the curfew therefore should be lifted, CRES spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said.

But the armed forces needed to be deployed in some key places, while security duty in other areas of the capital should be returned to police if they were ready to take over, Col Sansern said.

Bangkok and 23 other provinces are under curfew from midnight tonight to 4am tomorrow.

Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon said earlier that although the curfew might end, the state of emergency law was still necessary to allow security authorities to arrest so-called terrorists.

"What can be lifted is the curfew but the executive decree will continue," Gen Prawit said after meeting the Defence Council yesterday which was attended by all armed forces leaders.

Defence Ministry spokesman Thanathip Sawangsaeng said Gen Prawit had ordered soldiers to secure their units and local government offices and to stay alert despite the end of the riots.

The minister ordered continuous surveillance and protection at arsenals and fuel yards of the armed forces, he said.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has plans to reconcile the country's political divisions but he has vowed there would be no compromise with terrorists, the defence minister said.

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Labels: Red Shirts | Thailand political unrest

No Clear Use Found for BHP ‘Social Fund’ [-It's all: Corruption! Corruption! Corruption!]

Ros Sothea, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Thursday, 27 May 2010

“We don’t know of a clear policy for granting concessions or licenses to those companies, and what we are facing now is the limited disclosure of related information.”

A year after it pulled out of Cambodia, the Australian mining giant BHP Billiton has found itself under a US Securities and Exchange Commission investigation for allegations related to bribery in a foreign country.

Officials have not said which country the alleged corruption took place in, but the company has said it gave $2.5 million to the government here in exchange for mining exploration rights, making Cambodia among the likely countries under the scope of the investigation.

It is not uncommon for companies to pay bonuses for concessions here, but what happened to that money remains unknown, with government and company officials sending conflicting statements and no apparent accounting for the funds.

The mystery underscores worries from environmental and development advocates who say money from Cambodia’s natural resources will be lost or squandered to corruption if and when gold, oil and other minerals and resources are explored in full.

BHP came to Cambodia under a 100,000-hectare exploration license for gold in 2006. After three years of exploration in Mondolkiri province, the company withdrew from the country, claiming it had not found enough to continue its investment. The company told the UK-based watchdog Global Witness that it had paid a $1 million signature bonus and $1.5 million for a social fund in 2006.

Global Witness now says there is no sign of that money.

Prime Minister Hun Sen told a private sector conference in April the $2.5 million had been put into a social fund for a hydropower project in Pursat Province.

Contacted by VOA Khmer in April, Pursat Governor Khuy Sokha said he was unaware of any hydropower projects other than one venture paid for by a $300-million Chinese investment.

“There is only one hydropower [project] in Pursat, and it belongs to the Chinese company, and for which the construction process began in December 2009,” he said. “That is called Atay Hydropower.”

BHP did not respond to queries related to the social fund. Officials have said they are looking into the company’s practices abroad in the wake of the US investigation.

The company published information on its website indicating it provided money to a handful of non-governmental organizations here, though the website does no say how much money the company offered each group.

VOA Khmer was able to identify four institutions that received BHP money for development projects between 2007 and 2010: the Cambodian Mine Action Center, the Danish Red Cross, Health Net International and Village Focus International.

The total amount of money given to these organizations was a little more than $615,000, according to individual representatives of the organizations, nearly three times less than the company told Global Witness it had paid.

Where the other $885,000 was spent remains unclear. Likewise, there is no record of the $1 million signature bonus the company claims to have made.

The lack of accounting for such large sums of money is cause for concern for development groups and donor countries, who warn Cambodia could face a “resource curse” when millions of dollars in oil and other resources begin to flow.

George Boden, a researcher for Global Witness, said the current complications in managing revenue from the extractive industries does not bode well for future, more lucrative ventures.

So far, 33 countries have been granted exploration licenses here. Thirteen of them have begun exploration for oil and gas and minerals.

“We don’t know of a clear policy for granting concessions or licenses to those companies, and what we are facing now is the limited disclosure of related information,” Mam Sambath, president of Cambodians for Resource Revenue Transparency, told VOA Khmer. “The information regarding the [BHP] case has never been revealed in public, so our research on the issue will also be limited.”

The outcome of the SEC investigation could affect investment in Cambodia, Mam Sambath said, because potential investors may shy away from a country implicated in a corruption scandal.

And BHP is not the only company to have put money into a social fund. In 2006, Indonesia’s MedcoEnergi provided $4.5 million for a license to explore blocks of onshore and offshore oil. The company withdrew in 2010, without citing a reason.

Meanwhile, the French oil and gas company Total, which has a license to explore oil and gas in the overlapping area near Thailand, has said it paid a $20 million signature bonus and another $8 for a social development fund.

A Total official told VOA Khmer from France the company had already provided $6 million of the social fund, which is to be used for a healthcare program under the joint control of a local Total representative and the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority. The official declined to elaborate.

Michael McWalter, an adviser to the CNPA, said signature money is properly deposited into an official account to “become a part of the revenue for the government,” and social funds are carefully watched by companies.

All companies are required to pay signature bonuses based on potential investment, and some are required to provide for a social fund, based on negotiations with the government, but neither should be a concern, he said. “So what one has to do is to trust the government to do the job properly.”

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Labels: BHP Billiton | Bribery scandal | Embezzlement of State funds | Hun Xen's corrupt regime

Hydrodam Plans Stir Ratanakkiri Unease

A woman with her children in a small boat pass a flooded house in Cambodia. (Photo: AP)

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Ratanakkiri, Cambodia Thursday, 27 May 2010

“If they build dams, it’s not certain we would have electricity for use here. And if we do have electricity, we are not sure if we can afford to pay for the power supply.”

Patt Paing has five hectares of land by the Sre Pok river. She has a small wooden house, and she raises pigs. The 55-year-old leads a quiet life here in Village Two, in Ratanakkiri’s Koun Mom district. But over the past three years, life has been more difficult.

That’s because of the floods.

“I don’t have enough rice to eat because of the floods for the past three years,” she told VOA Khmer in an interview last week. “In previous years, I could harvest more than 1,000 buckets or over 10 tons of rice per season.”

The floods were caused by water releases from dams upriver, she said.

“The consecutive floods caused by the dams have left me almost nothing to eat,” she said.

At least five more dams have been planned on the Sre Pok and its sister river, the Sesan, both of which run into the Mekong River. Those dams will follow the 2002 construction of a 720-megawatt dam at Yali Falls on the Sesan in Vietnam.

Villagers, who gathered for an annual celebration of the 3S Rivers Protection Network here last week, say they don’t want more dams, the flooding from which damage livestock and farmland.

“The existing dam in Vietnam has already severely affected our livelihoods, so what will it be like if more dams are to be built on these rivers on the Cambodian side?” asked Meas Samith, a representative of indigenous villagers on the Sre Pok.

“For generations, I have never heard that when a dam is built, an escalator is also set up for fish to travel on,” he said. “When a dam is built, there is no more fish migration.”

Villagers here say the dams and the power they generate are not worth the cost.

“Can the electricity be eaten?” asked Piev Chhin, a 65-year-old fisherman from the Brov ethnic minority. “We live along the river, so if our house gets flooded, what is the use of having electricity?”

“The electricity is of no importance for us,” added Dy Bopi, a 55-year-old farmer in Koun Mom district. “We would rather us batteries or paraffin lamps instead.”

However, officials say that if Cambodia is to grow its economy, it will need more than batteries and lamps. Only about 20 percent of the country’s homes have access to power, and most of those are in the capital. And electricity prices here remain high, while Cambodia purchases electricity from Vietnam and Thailand.

Ratanakirri Governor Pao Hamphan told reporters here last week the proposed dams were not confirmed and that villagers should not worry about them too much at the moment.

“It’s just the information, as no company has come to talk to us about them yet,” he said.

A vice governor of Koun Mom district, however, said the government would proceed with the dams if assessments showed more benefits than costs.

“We don’t build dams to kill people,” he said, addressing a crowd of villagers. “We build them for their benefit.”

If Cambodia does not build dams, other countries will, he said. “How can we alleviate people’s poverty if we just wait and buy electricity from other countries?”

Villagers said last week the government should consider methods other than dams if it needs electricity.

“If they build dams, it’s not certain we would have electricity for use here,” said Nen Sokei, an ethnic Tompuon villager. “And if we do have electricity, we are not sure if we can afford to pay for the power supply.”

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Labels: Ethnic minority complain | Negative impact of hydro-electric dams | Sesan River dams

Ung Chaniry Charms Washington Audience

Chinary Ung

Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Washington, D.C Thursday, 27 May 2010

“These are all related to Khmer culture and music. I sometimes use words from Pali, Sanskrit and Khmer to mix with musical rules I learned from the West. They mainly have mental movement to sooth the feelings and to inspire idealism and bliss.”

The thrilling sound of a flute mingled with piano, violin and guitar, all to the tune of Cambodian-American composer Ung Chinary, thrilling the audience who had come to hear for the first time a rare classical concert in Washington.

Held last week at the Sackler Gallery, the concert was performed by the Da Cap Chamber Players as part of the “Gods of Angkor” exhibit, which includes rare bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia.

Five of Ung Chinary’s songs were featured, including “Child Song,” “Luminous Spiral,” “Life After Death,” “Mother and Child,” and “Oracle.”

“These are all related to Khmer culture and music,” Ung Chinary told VOA Khmer later. “I sometimes use words from Pali, Sanskrit and Khmer to mix with musical rules I learned from the West. They mainly have mental movement to sooth the feelings and to inspire idealism and bliss.”

Ung Chinary has been widely recognized for bringing together material, concepts and sounds from the East and the West into works that appear wholly organic, despite disparate components.

“I sometimes felt sad, especially at the end, where he recited the dhama,” said concertgoer Chan Linda.

“This is definitely very new, new music,” said Beverly Hong Flincher, another member of the audience. “It’s unlike other so-called avant-garde music. So I would consider this as avant-garde.”

Voice of America music specialist Brian Silver, who also attended, said he was moved by what he discovered and that the music made his “hair stand on end” or nearly brought him to tears.

“I’ve never seen that kind of performance, of a musician functioning on two levels at once,” he said of the song “Mother and Child.” “That was just an extra-ordinary.”

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Labels: Chinary Ung | Khmer musical heritage

The rich and powerful continued to abuse the criminal justice system to silence people protesting against evictions and land grabs: Amnesty Int'l

Click here to read the entire report (PDF)

Forced evictions continued to affect thousands of families across the country, predominantly people living in poverty. Activists from communities affected by forced evictions and other land confiscations mobilized to join forces in protests and appeals to the authorities. A wave of legal actions against housing rights defenders, journalists and other critical voices stifled freedom of expression. The first trial to address past Khmer Rouge atrocities took place. The defendant, Duch, pleaded guilty, but later asked to be acquitted.

Background

At least 45,000 garment factory workers lost their jobs as a result of the global economic crisis and a number of companies reduced salaries. Surveys indicated growing mass youth unemployment as some 300,000 young people faced joblessness after completing their high school and bachelor degrees. For the first time, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights considered Cambodia’s state report, which the authorities had delayed submitting for 14 years. The Committee identified serious shortcomings in the implementation of a number of treaty obligations, including those relating to the judicial system, housing and gender inequalities. Cambodia’s human rights record was reviewed under the UN Universal Periodic Review in December.

Forced evictions

Forced evictions continued to affect the lives of thousands of Cambodians. At least 26 forced evictions displaced around 27,000 people, the vast majority from communities living in poverty. In July, a number of international donors called for an end to forced evictions “until a fair and transparent mechanism for resolving land disputes is in place and a comprehensive resettlement policy” is established.

- On 16/17 July, security forces forcibly evicted Group 78, a community group in Phnom Penh after a deeply flawed legal process. The last 60 families had no choice but to dismantle their houses and accept compensation that prevented them from living near their former homes and workplaces. Most of the families were relocated outside the city with few work prospects.

After civil society criticism, the World Bank attempted to strengthen safeguards in a multi-donor supported Land Management and Administration Project to protect security of tenure for people in urban slums and other vulnerable areas. In early September, the government responded by terminating its contract with the Bank.

Human rights defenders

The rich and powerful continued to abuse the criminal justice system to silence people protesting against evictions and land grabs. Police arrested at least 149 activists, for their peaceful defence of the right to housing.

- On 22 March, security forces shot at unarmed villagers in Siem Reap province, injuring at least four people. The villagers, from Chikreng district, were protesting against the loss of farmland that had come under dispute. By the end of the year, no authority had investigated the shooting, but police had arrested at least 12 of the villagers, two of whomwere subsequently convicted of robbery for attempting to harvest their rice on the disputed land. Seven were acquitted but remained in arbitrary detention pending a prosecutorial appeal.

Informal representatives from communities in most provinces increasingly formed grassroots networks, jointly voicing concerns over forced evictions and intimidation.

International justice

In March, the historic first hearing of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC, Khmer Rouge Tribunal) took place with the trial of Kaing Guek Eav (known as Duch). Duch was commander of notorious security prison S-21. During the 72-day hearing, survivors and victims of Khmer Rouge atrocities heard for the first time evidence against “those most responsible”. Duch admitted responsibility for crimes committed at S-21, including killing about 15,000 people.

The trial of four senior Khmer Rouge leaders was in preparation, and the International Co-Prosecutor submitted requests to open investigations into an additional five suspects. The Cambodian government spoke out against additional investigations saying they could lead to unrest, apparently in an attempt to exert influence over the tribunal.

In July, co-investigating judges decided to allow “confessions” obtained by torture as evidence in the case of Ieng Thirith. This breached the “exclusionary rule” in Article 15 of the UN Convention against Torture which binds the ECCC.

Freedom of expression

A series of prosecutions of people who criticized government policies had a stifling effect on freedom of expression.

- Courts sentenced newspaper editor Hang Chakra, and the director of an NGO, both affiliated to the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), to prison terms for peacefully expressing views.

- The Phnom Penh Court convicted Mu Sochua, Secretary-General of the SRP, of defamation for filing a complaint – also for defamation – against the Prime Minister. She had no legal counsel because her lawyer had withdrawn from the case after receiving threats of legal action for speaking about the case at a press conference. Mu Sochua received a non-custodial sentence.

On 10 July, one of the few remaining opposition-affiliated daily newspapers, Moneaksekar Khmer (Khmer Conscience), stopped publishing. The editor, Dam Sith, issued a public apology for articles, over which the government had requested a criminal investigation for “incitement”.

- By the end of the year, police had made no progress on the investigation into the murder of Moneaksekar Khmer reporter Khim Sambor. He had been killed by unknown assailants during the July 2008 elections.

Legal, constitutional or institutional developments

On 12 October, the National Assembly passed the new Penal Code. This retained defamation as a criminal offence.

Opposition parliamentarians and civil society groups criticized a new Law on non-violent demonstrations, passed by the National Assembly in October. Authorities routinely denied permission for demonstrations and the law, if adopted, risked codifying such restrictions.

Violence against women and girls

Prosecution of rapists remained rare, due to poor law enforcement, corruption in the courts and widespread use of out-of-court financial settlements. Settlements were typically arranged by law enforcement officials and stipulated that the victim withdraw any criminal complaint. Reports indicated that rapes of women and girls, including sex workers, continued to increase, with the age of victims falling.

Amnesty International visits/reports

Amnesty International delegates visited Cambodia in March/May, September and October/December.

* Cambodia: Urban development or relocating slums? (ASA 23/002/2009)
* Cambodia: After 30 years Khmer Rouge crimes on trial (ASA 23/003/2009)
* Cambodia: Briefing for the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: 42nd session, May 2009 (ASA 23/004/2009)
* Cambodia: Borei Keila – Lives at risk (ASA 23/008/2009)


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Labels: Amnesty International | CPP silencing critics | Forced evicitons in Cambodia | Human rights abuse in Cambodia | KR trials | Land-grabbing by the rich and powerful

SRP MPs request to delay the planting of border post no. 270 located in Anh-chanh village, Chey Chauk commune, Borey Chulsa district, Takeo province

Click on the letter in Khmer to zoom in

Unofficial translation from Khmer

Subject: Request to delay the planting of border post no. 270 located in Anh-chanh village, Chey Chauk commune, Borey Chulsa district, Takeo province

Based on the subject above, we, the undersigned members of Parliament, request that the Royal Government delays the planting of border post no. 270 located in Anh-chanh village, Chey Chauk commune, Borey Chulsa district, Takeo province, because this border post that is currently being built by the Cambodia-Vietnam border committee is located inside Cambodian territories and it leads to the loss of several tens of hectares of rice fields belonging to Cambodian farmers in Borey Chulsa district.

Farmers who own rice fields in Borey Chulsa have protested once already about the planting of stakes at border post no. 270, claiming that they were planted on their rice fields, however, there was no resolution.

In fact, the planting of border posts 270 is located on rice field lands belonging to Cambodian farmers, not along the borderline as stipulated in the official 1:100,000-scale 1952 maps which were internationally recognized between 1963 and 1969.

Therefore, we, the representatives of the people, request the government to delay the planting of border post no. 270 located in Anh-chanh village, Chey Chauk commune, Borey Chulsa district, Takeo provinc, and request for a new survey based on the correct coordinates to ensure that Cambodian farmers will not lose their rice fields – a heritage from their ancestors since long ago.

Done in Phnom Penh, 27 May 2010

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Labels: Borey Chulsa | SRP MP | Takeo province | Vietnamese encroachment

RFA's interview with SRP MP Son Chhay


Part 1 of 2
Interview by Chun Chanboth, Radio Free Asia
Video by Uon Chhin


Part 2 of 2

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Labels: Cambodia politics | RFA video | Son Chhay | SRP MP

"Facing genocide - Khieu Samphan and Pol Pot" at Norwegian and Montreal International Film Festivals (June-Sept. 2010)

Click here for a preview of the documentary

Source: http://www.story.se/films/-facing-genocide---khieu-samphan-and-pol-pot/?category=&page=

A film by David Aronowitsch and Staffan Lindberg

The film is a search into the personality of Khieu Samphan. He was the Head of state of one of the most brutal regimes ever, the Khmer Rouge-regime in the Democratic Kampuchea. We have followed him one and half year before his arrest in 2007. He is soon facing a trial and is charged with Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes. The film gives insight into his mindset, his life today and his close relation to Pol Pot. The film is a unique story about an ex-leader the time before his arrest and before he is put on trial. The film is completed January 2010.

Others appearing in the film:

* Theary Seng, lawyer and victim of the Khmer Rouge. She is Khieu Samphan’s antagonist in the film and also the voice of the victims.
* Jacques Vergès, Khieu Samphan’s defence-lawyer often called the Devil's advocate.
* So Socheat, Khieu Samphan’s wife, who has been with him since the beginning of the seventies.
* Nuon Chea, ideologist and Head of Security of the Khmer Rouge.

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Labels: Jacques Verges | Khieu Samphan | KR documentary | So Socheat | Theary Seng

Hun Xen and Global Witness: Who’s the real thief ringleader?

Who's the thief ringleader: Global Witness or Hun Xen?

27 May 2010
By Pech Bandol
Free Press Magazine Online
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
Click here to read the article in Khmer

The shameful thug (Neak Leng) language echoed from PM Hun Xen’s mouth yesterday morning when he harshly attacked a London-based environmental protection group, calling it the “thief ringleader.”

Hun Xen declared, during a 2-day mining meeting which started Wednesday, in front of more than 300 national and international officials: “They are thieves and thief ringleaders, they know how to be thieves, that’s why they gave us advises.” The prime minister also demanded that the international community stop lecturing him on the use of funding for various programs.

Hun Xen said: “It turns out that I am a thief, they look at me like a thief, it’s time to stop the accusation and the finger pointing, because with one finger pointing at me, you are pointing the other 4 at yourself.”

Hun Xen’s reaction takes place after Global Witness issued a report indicating that all the funding that the Cambodian government collected from mining companies, which is alleged to be preserved for social funds, is simply not true. Global Witness said that based on its review of bank ledgers, no such fund exists.

In Cambodia, Global Witness is not the only organization that criticized national corruption, deforestation and destruction of the environment, even the various donor countries themselves directly criticized the abject corruption in the country.

Last year, US Ambassador Carol Rodley publicly criticized the Cambodian government for losing $350 to $500 million in revenue to corruption each year. Following this criticism, the Cambodian ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a diplomatic note last month, forbidding foreign ambassadors stationed in Cambodia from interfering in Cambodian internal affairs.

Regarding this issue, the Cambodian people, the civil society and the opposition parties are all wondering who, between Hun Xen and Global Witness, is really the thief ringleader?

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Labels: Carol Rodley | Country for sale | Deforestation | Family of the Thieves of the Nation | Global Witness | Hun Xen | Sand dredging

HRH Princess Sisowath Pongneary Monypong to preside over the 61st Kampuchea Krom Commemorative Anniversary

Click on the letters in Khmer to zoom in

Unofficial translation in brief:

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts Letter No. 15

On May 20, 2010, Minister of Culture and Fine Arts Him Chhem writes to all the heads, deputy prime ministers, senior ministers, ministers, and state secretaries of ministries and institutions on the shut-down period of 40 days for renovations of the Chaktomuk National and International Conference Hall beginning May 20 through June 31, 2010

cc:
- Chief Cabinet of the Prime Minister
- Chief Cabinet of the Royal Palace
- Senate Secretariat
- Parliament Secretariat
- Chief Cabinet of Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam An
- Archive

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The Royal Palace Letter No. 244/10

On May 26, 2010, the Minister in charge of the Royal Palace Chhean Horn informs KKC Executive Director Hon. Thach Setha that HM The King Norodom Sihamoni grants/dispatches HRH Princess Sisowath Pongneary Monypong as His highest representative in the Buddhist Offerings Ceremony to the eminent 1,949 Buddhist monks to be organized by the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Community (KKC) on June, 4, 2010 in front of Wat Padmavatei (Botumvatei).

cc:
- All relevant departments
- Archive

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KKC Letter No. 11/10

On May 26, 2010, KKC Executive Director, Phnom Penh Councilman, and former Senator Thach Setha writes to the Phnom Penh Mayor Kep Chuktema for the second time, except this time, KKC requests to use the National Olympic Stadium to hold the Buddhist Offerings Ceremony to the eminent 1,949 Buddhist monks as KKC has organized every year.

Related materials click on KKC

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Labels: Anniversary of the loss of Kampuchea Krom | Khmer Kampuchea Krom Community | Khmer Krom plight | Thach Setha

City nixes Khmer Krom ceremony

Monks attend a ceremony last year marking the 60th anniversary of a ruling that ceded territory to Vietnam. City Hall has rejected a proposal for a similar ceremony organisers are planning for next month. (Photo by: Tracey Shelton)

Thursday, 27 May 2010
Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post

CITY officials have rejected a proposal for a June 4 public ceremony marking the 61st anniversary of a French colonial ruling that formally ceded former Cambodian territories in the Mekong Delta to southern Vietnam, according to a letter dated May 21.

Khmer Krom advocacy groups had planned to hold the ceremony in the park outside Wat Botum, with organisers expecting to attract up to 5,000 people, including 2,000 monks.

The letter, signed by Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema, states that the organisers should send a new proposal to the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, and suggests that they hold the ceremony at Chaktomuk Conference Hall in order to maintain “security and good public order”.

Thach Setha, executive director of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Community, which is organising the event, said he has already contacted Minister of Culture Him Chhem, who told him that the Chaktomuk facility is closed for renovations.

He said that he sent another letter to Kep Chuktema on Wednesday, again seeking permission to hold the ceremony. He added that the event had already been organised and would go ahead whether or not City Hall gives its official blessing.

“We cannot miss this because the King has sent his representative to participate in the ceremony. So we must hold the ceremony as planned,” he said.

Kep Chuktema could not be reached for comment on Wednesday, while Koet Chhe, deputy chief of the Municipal Cabinet, declined to comment, saying he had not seen Thach Setha’s follow-up letter to the governor.

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Labels: Anniversary of the loss of Kampuchea Krom | Khmer Krom plight | Thach Setha

Thursday, May 27, 2010
PM slams critics over revenues

Thursday, 27 May 2010
Sebastian Strangio and Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

“It’s unfortunate that Prime Minister Hun Sen used the opening speech at such an important national conference promoting Cambodia’s mining sector as a stage to personally attack us, rather than focus on how his government is going to implement the critical reforms needed for transparency and accountability in the industry” - Global Witness

Hun Sen tells global community not to treat Cambodia ‘like a child’

PRIME Minister Hun Sen lashed out at critics of the government’s handling of extractive-resource revenues on Wednesday, branding them “thieves” and saying that tensions between Cambodia and international watchdog Global Witness stem from a “sexual scandal” involving the group’s staff.

Speaking at the opening of a two-day mining conference in the capital Wednesday, Hun Sen said criticisms from international organisations and foreign countries were misplaced because the government has not yet pocketed any funds from extractive industries.

“I don’t understand when they order the fish to be fried or grilled while the fish is still in the water,” he told an audience of business executives, diplomats and civil society representatives. “They have accused us of corruption in spending while we have not yet made any money.”

Ministry of Finance budget records show that the government has received more than US$28 million in signature bonuses and social fund payments from foreign companies investing in extractive industries since the beginning of 2009.

Hun Sen also said that all payments made to secure mining or oil and gas exploration rights were processed within “the framework of the state budget”, and scolded international critics for treating the government “like a child”.

“Do not teach us so much – it is boring. No one is the teacher of Cambodia,” he said.

Western governments dwelling on the issue of mining, gas and oil revenue transparency are guilty of hypocrisy, Hun Sen said, accusing them of turning a blind eye to the lucrative gem-mining operations that helped support the Khmer Rouge insurgency during the 1980s and 1990s.

“Until this hour no one has dared to criticise the diamonds in Pailin, which were dug for making war,” he said.

Revenues from gems and timber helped support the Western-backed anti-government resistance coalition, which included the Khmer Rouge.

Yim Sovann, spokesman for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), said Hun Sen’s claim that no money had been made from extractive industries was misleading.

“We have experience that Cambodia has got big fish, and that many fish are going into the ponds of corrupt officials,” he said, and alleged that US$2 billion has been lost to illegal logging since 1993.

He added that the government has yet to respond to questions from the SRP about millions of dollars in signature bonuses and social funds paid to the government by French oil firm Total and Australian mining company BHP Billiton.

The government has acknowledged receiving the payments, and critics have asserted that the funds have not been properly accounted for. “So far there is no reply regarding where the money has gone,” Yim Sovann said.

Last month, environmental watchdog Global Witness urged foreign donors to pressure the government to make such payments fully transparent.

“These figures represent only a fraction of the sum of the payments Global Witness is aware of. Overall, they raise serious questions,” campaigner George Boden said in an April 29 statement.

In his speech Wednesday, the premier launched a savage attack on the UK-based group, saying it was acting “like the boss of Cambodia”.

“They accuse the government in Phnom Penh of being thieves so I curse them as the chief thieves.... We have not yet made money, but they already accuse us of being thieves.”

Hun Sen also said that Global Witness workers had been barred from the country following a sex scandal involving a “female employee” of the organisation.

“I would like to say in public that the matter between Global Witness and the government of Cambodia started with the sexual scandal of Global Witness staff,” he said. “The matter started from that ... and now Global Witness is trying to take vengeance with Cambodia.” No other details of the scandal were provided.

Global Witness, which has been barred from the country since 2005, on Wednesday lamented the prime minister’s attempt to smear its reputation.

“It’s unfortunate that Prime Minister Hun Sen used the opening speech at such an important national conference promoting Cambodia’s mining sector as a stage to personally attack us, rather than focus on how his government is going to implement the critical reforms needed for transparency and accountability in the industry,” the group said in an emailed statement.

Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, said Hun Sen had clearly used the landmark conference as a way to send a message to his critics.

“I think he’s trying to respond to critics in the best way he knows how, which is not to respond to the issues, but to lash out at the messenger,” he said.

He added that the broadside could also be related to next week’s Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF), when donors will measure the government’s progress on key reform indicators – including resource revenue transparency – and pledge development aid for the next 18 months.

“Maybe he’s trying to set the agenda, so they can’t raise some of these issues,” he said.

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Labels: Bribery scandal | Global Witness | Hun Xen's rant

Mining sector a ‘blank slate’

Right: VIPs listen to speakers at the nation's first international mining conference, held Wednesday at the InterContinental Hotel. Left, top to bottom: Prime MInister Hun Sen; UNDP Country Representative Douglas Broderick; Minister of Mines and Industry Suy Sem. (Photo by: UY NOUSEREIMONY)

Thursday, 27 May 2010
Jeremy Mullins and May Kunmakara
The Phnom Penh Post

CAMBODIA’S untapped mining sector is a potential windfall for the country, but must be carefully regulated if it is to attract foreign investment, said international experts taking part in the Kingdom’s first international mining conference Wednesday.

World Bank mining specialist Craig Andrews told the Post the sector will benefit if regulatory and taxation issues are in place before mineral exploitation begins.

He counselled the Kingdom to avoid an Australian-style “super tax” on mining profits, saying the situation in Australia’s developed mining sector and the Kingdom’s nascent industry require different kinds of policies.

A lenient, stable mining tax policy would help Cambodia attract foreign direct investment, he said. “Companies will find it to be a deterrent if they do not find stability,” he said.

“In addition to everything else in Cambodia, there is the possibility government could change tax laws and take away profits,” Andrews told the conference at the Intercontinental Hotel, where 300 participants from throughout the world were gathered to discuss transparency and development in the Kingdom’s burgeoning mining sector.

The event was held in the wake of mining giant BHP Billiton’s high-profile internal probe into bribery allegations that have been linked by some to its former concession in Mondulkiri province.

The growing mining sector could emulate aspects of successful international models such as Chile and Botswana, Colorado School of Mines economic and mining expert Roderick Eggert said on the sidelines of the conference.

“Cambodia is starting with a blank slate. It has a chance to do things right, to benefit from others’ experience,” he said.

Mining firms are attracted to transparency and certainty, Eggert added.

Sharing the wealth
Cambodia may yet join the Extractive Industries Transparencies Initiative (EITI), an international programme aimed at opening the industry to public scrutiny, its regional director Samuel Bartlett said.

“It’s clear there’s a very vibrant debate on the issue in Cambodia,” he said.

“We’re about providing tools. It’s up to countries to get involved.”

In an opening speech, United Nations Development Project (UNDP) Country Representative Douglas Broderick said Cambodia is poised to begin developing its deposits, but must spread the wealth.

“The minerals are in the ground. It is up to us to work together to ensure that all Cambodians can stake a claim in the potential revenues from these natural resource,” he said.

Also speaking at the conference, Prime Minister Hun Sen called the nation’s resources “a new potential economic treasure”, and said that mineral wealth could contribute to the Kingom’s economic development alongside the agriculture, garment, construction, and tourism sectors.

“If Cambodia gets a chance to explore its mineral treasures, Cambodia will responsibly use the revenue for the benefit of the country,” he said.

Hun Sen called upon conference participants to share knowledge to assist the government in maximising the financial benefits from the sector, thus contributing to national development and poverty reduction.

Hun Sen also asked participants to avoid mining in historical or sacred areas, and to curtail “anarchic” mining activities.

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Tribunal Delegation Seeks Funding in New York

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Friday, 21 May 2010

“The objective of the pledging conference is to secure the necessary funding both of the UN and Cambodian components of the [tribunal] for 2010 and 2011.”

A Khmer Rouge tribunal delegation left for New York on Friday in hopes of raising more funding for the cash-strapped Cambodian side of the UN-backed court.

The delegation of four will assist in a pledge meeting on May 25 to solicit promises of funding from donor countries.

The Khmer Rouge tribunal has already successfully tried one former regime leader, Kaing Kek Iev, the torture chief better known as Duch. It is now moving toward the trials of at least four more leaders: Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith.

But the Cambodian side of the hybrid court has been plagued with financial difficulties, alongside allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Cambodian staff saw reduced salaries in April as the budget crisis squeezed a side of the court that donors have been less interested in funding.

“The objective of the pledging conference is to secure the necessary funding both of the UN and Cambodian components of the [tribunal] for 2010 and 2011” tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen told VOA khmer.

In February, donors, officially known as the Group of Interested Countries, approved an $87 million budget for court operations this year and next. So far only the US, which contributed $5 million, has actually put in the money.

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said the UN side can continue its operations through September, but the Cambodian side already owes its staff of 294 half their salaries for April and all of the salaries for May.

“It is a big concern,” he said, adding, though, that he had confidence in the donors.

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Labels: ECCC funding crisis | KR trials | KR Tribunal

Cambodia Remembers Victims of Khmer Rouge

Cambodian students re-enact torture executed by the Khmer Rouge to mark the annual "Day of Anger" at Choeung Ek, 20 May 2010. (Photo: VOA - R. Carmichael)

Robert Carmichael, VOA
Phnom Penh Friday, 21 May 2010

"Cambodian people respect the people who were killed in the Pol Pot regime," said Pa Socheatvong. "Pol Pot betrayed the country by using the people's blood as capital, so people [are] very angry with the Pol Pot regime."

In Cambodia, May 20 is known as the Day of Anger.

Each year on this day, hundreds of Cambodians head to the Chhoeung Ek killing field site on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. There a ceremony is held and a play put on to recall the victims of the Khmer Rouge.

It is a time to remember the millions who died under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime that ruled the country between 1975 and 1979.

More than 1,000 people gathered this year at the Chhoeung Ek memorial site outside Phnom Penh. There were hundreds of Buddhist monks, dignitaries, and many elderly people.

The key part of the ceremony is a macabre play staged by students. About a dozen are cast as black-clad Khmer Rouge soldiers; three dozen more are their victims.

With barked orders, gun shots, screams and tears, the Khmer Rouge and their victims act out the murders, just yards from the mass graves that form this notorious killing field where thousands died.

Pa Socheatvong is a deputy governor of Phnom Penh. He says May 20th was chosen because that was the day in 1976 when the Khmer Rouge instituted their policy to kill people.

"Cambodian people respect the people who were killed in the Pol Pot regime," said Pa Socheatvong. "Pol Pot betrayed the country by using the people's blood as capital, so people [are] very angry with the Pol Pot regime."

The performance by the students is chilling, realistic and disturbing. Many in the crowd wipe away tears during the 15-minute performance.

At the end of the play, other soldiers burst in with guns and Cambodian flags and drive away the Khmer Rouge.

That moment refers to the invasion in late 1978 by Vietnamese troops and Cambodians that saw the end of the Khmer Rouge rule of the country.

The man who sent so many people to their deaths here at the Chhoeung Ek killing field went on trial last year for crimes against humanity and war crimes. His name is Comrade Duch, and he admits he ran the S-21 torture and execution center in Phnom Penh. Judgment in his case is likely to be handed down in the coming weeks.

If Duch is found guilty - as is thought likely - he will be the first former Khmer Rouge to be sentenced for crimes committed at that time. It is a landmark case.

No-one knows how many people died during the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia, estimates range from 1.5 million to three million.

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Labels: Day of Anger | KR crimes accountability

Strategies to Prevent Dangerous Diarrhea

A sick young Cambodian girl in Pailin is located in western Cambodia. (Photo: AP)

Nuch Sarita, VOA Khmer
Washington, D.C Friday, 21 May 2010

"The persons who have cholera have a loss of body fluids leading to dehydration and a life-threatening medical condition."

A prolonged hot season in Cambodia has brought about an increasing number of cases of severe diarrhea, including more than 30 that were fatal.

Diarrhea can be dangerous because it causes dehydration, Taing Tek Hong, a Florida-based physician, said on Thursday.

“You need to drink a lot of water or use oral rehydration solutions,” he said, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”

Rehydration solutions are “a mixture of clean water, salt and sugar, which can be prepared safely at home,” he said. “The glucose in the solution is important because it forces the small intestine to quickly absorb the fluid and minerals.”

“Death can follow severe dehydration if body fluids are not replenished,” he said.

Diarrhea can come from infections caused by bacteria, viruses or parasites in water. Water can be contaminated with human waste from sewage, septic tanks, wells and ponds. Diarrhea can be spread from person to person if they don’t take care of personal hygiene. Food can also cause diarrhea if it is prepared or stored in unclean conditions.

“Fish and seafood from polluted water may also contribute to the disease,” Taing Tek Hong said. “Infection is more common when there is a shortage of clean water for drinking, cooking and cleaning.”

The most common cause of diarrhea is an infection from a virus known as the norovirus,” he said. “It is transmitted by food that is contaminated by sick food-handlers or by infected person. Norovirus spreads very rapidly in communities such as overnight camps, prisons, dormitories and cruise ships. Rotavirus and E. Coli are the two most common causes of diarrhea in developing countries.”

Cholera, meanwhile, is an acute diarrhea caused by an infection of the intestine, he said.

“The persons who have cholera have a loss of body fluids leading to dehydration and a life-threatening medical condition,” he said. “Without treatment, death can occur within hours. A person may get cholera by drinking water or eating food contaminated with the cholera bacterium. The source of the contamination is usually the waste of an infected person. The disease can spread rapidly in areas with inadequate drinking water.”

To prevent diarrhea, Taing Tek Hong recommends drinking only water that has been boiled.

“Other safe beverages include tea, soda, Coca Cola or Sprite with no ice,” he said. “Eat only foods that have been fully cooked and are still hot. Avoid undercooked seafood or shellfish. Make sure all vegetables are cooked.”

And to prevent dehydration, continued feeding and rehydration are important. Zinc tablets can help reduce the severity and duration of diarrhea. And children should be immunized against the rotavirus that can cause the disease.

“Washing your hands with soap could potentially reduce the number of diarrhea cases,” Taing Tek Hong said. “The foundations of good health are safe water, adequate sanitation and proper hygiene.”

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Labels: Diarrhea outbreak | Hot weather | Poor rural hygiene

Summer 2010 Advanced Study of Khmer, Fulbright-Hays, Abroad Program in Cambodia

Dear friends,

If you can find your way to Cambodia, an is interested in taking Khmer language and culture course from CKS. See the announcement below:

The Center for Khmer Studies

Khmer Language and Culture Study Program

Summer 2010, in Cambodia

The CKS Khmer Language and Culture Study Program offers faculty, post-graduate researchers and undergraduates from U.S. universities an opportunity to participate in an intensive eight-week study abroad program, between June 14 and August 6, 2010, in Cambodia. It is funded through Title VI of the United States Higher Education Act and is administered in collaboration with the Khmer Language Program (ASK) of the University of Hawaii, Manoa.

This CKS program is designed for those who wish to advance their Khmer language skills and understanding of contemporary Cambodian society for academic and professional purposes, but who have not completed two years of formal language training. The program is therefore intended to complement the Advanced Study in Khmer (ASK) program and is structured along similar lines.

Sea Town With a Reputation Seeks More Visitors

Tourists tanning along the shore, in Sihanoukville. (Photo: AP)

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Preah Sihanoukville province Monday, 17 May 2010

“Some are afraid to return, as they’ve lost their wallets to child thieves on the beach."

On her head, Bun Net carried a tray full of colorful bracelets, necklaces and other souvenirs. She walked along Ochheuteal beach in the coastal province of Preah Sihanouk on a recent day, selling her wares to European sunbathers under the noon sun.

“I’m not selling well there days, because there are fewer foreign tourists now, the 15-year-old vendor said, as other vendors her age gathered around. “Some vendors have sold nothing at all from morning until now,” she said.

The number of foreign visitors to this town are in decline. In the first four months of 2010, visits were down about 2 percent compared to the same period last year. The provincial tourism department estimates about 59,815 visits so far this year. In all of 2009, more than 120,000 people visited this province of eight sand beaches, an international airport and a national park, Ream.

Provincial tourism department director Som Chenda said the declining number of international tourists was due to the global economic crisis, but restaurant and guesthouse owners, along with organizations that work here, say the setback may also be due to a high number of thefts, bag snatchings and other crimes.

Such encounters have given Preah Sihanouk, or Sihanoukville, a reputation. Authorities are now battling that reputation, as they seek to increase the number of tourists coming here, rather than visiting the temples of Angkor Wat and leaving the country.

Thom Sor, a manager at the 55 Restaurant on Ochheuteal, said some foreigners visit just one time.

“Some are afraid to return, as they’ve lost their wallets to child thieves on the beach,” he told VOA Khmer last week. While they were swimming, “some lost their phones, clothes and even their flip-flops,” he said.

Foreign tourists stay in guesthouses like the GST, not far down the beach from 555 Restaurant. Guesthouse manager Meas Sam Ath said last year 100 people per day would check in; this year, the number is about half.

“Some guests complain about drive-by bag snatchings when they drive a motorcycle around, so they don’t want to come back,” he said.

Tourists like Jodie Hall, of Australian, say they are cautious when traveling around.

“I wouldn’t be around at night by myself,” she said. “I don’t take anything out that I don’t want to lose.”

City authorities are trying to address the problems and the reputation. Lonely Planet describes Sihanoukville as a town that is “not as dicey, security-wise, as its reputation of recent years may imply.” Problems like snatchings can occur in Phnom Penh, as well, according to the company’s travel website. There it also cautions against assaults and other violent incidents at the beaches, including one rape.

The city also has a reputation as a destination for sex tourists. A project officer for Action Pour Les Enfants said six child sex abuse cases were reported in the province from January to April. Last year, a total of eight were reported.

“We see child sex abuse in the streets and in the gardens at night, where there is little light,” the program officer, who gave his name as Den, said. “Recently, abuses have occurred in the quiet bushes, a new location chosen by perpetrators.”

Som Chenda, director of the provincial tourism department, said authorities have worked to lower crime by collecting young thieves from the beaches for reeducation and deploying policemen in the shadowy places where crimes often take place.

“In recent years, the problems have been better addressed,” he said in an interview last week. “We have paid more attention to strengthening our campaigns in educating tourism service operators, business managers and owners, and especially with local people—to join hands in dealing with these issues.”

The city wants to improve its existing beaches and some of the surrounding islands, he said. This too might help bring more visitors, he said.

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Labels: Beach front resort | Declining tourism industry | Sihanoukville

Tradeoffs Considered for Large Mekong Dams

Dams in Laos (Photo: BBC)

Soeung Sophat, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Monday, 17 May 2010

“For a relatively small amount of electricity, these two governments would destroy a fishery that tens of millions of people depend on for their food and livelihoods, with no alternative sources of food or income.”

Recent economic growth has led governments in the region to consider harnessing hydropower on the Mekong River. But as criticism mounts against many of the existing dams in the upper part of the river, two planned dams in the lower sections in particular have been singled out for concern. Experts say these two dams, including one proposed in Cambodia, could be devastating to the region’s fisheries.

A recent record-low water level in the Mekong has led to increased criticisms of mainstream Chinese dams by people dependent on the river, environmentalists and governments in the downstream countries. But this has not prevented Cambodia, Thailand and Laos from going ahead with their own plans to build 11 mainstream dams.

Richard Cronin, who is lead author of a recent report on Mekong dams by the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, said that a proposed dam in Kratie province is potentially one of the most dangerous to the fish stocks many Cambodians rely on. And it may not produce that much electricity.

“The lower you go the more damage you do, and actually the less productivity you get of electricity,” he told VOA Khmer. “Mainstream dams from Vientiane on south would all do far more damage than the value of electricity.”

Cronin said that many valuable fish swim upriver to spawn in Mekong tributaries as far as Laos during the dry season before coming down with the rainy season floods to feed and grow in the lower Mekong, the Tonle Sap lake and the Mekong Delta. His report warns that the the dam on Kratie’s Sambor river and a second in Laos would block or “threaten critical paths for 70 percent of the most commercially valuable species of wild fish.”

Inland fisheries are an important sector in the Mekong region, one of the richest inland fishing grounds in the word, and of particular importance to the Cambodian economy. An estimated 6 million Cambodians, 45 percent of population, are engaged in fishing or related fishing activities, with about 10 percent of them fishing full-time. The total annual freshwater catch in Cambodia is approximately 400,000 tons per year, worth an estimated $500 million.

Sam Nuov, deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture’s fisheries department, declined to comment on the Sambor dam or the Stimson report specifically. But he said that in general, there is clearly a trade-off between drawing power from the river and pulling fish from its waters, even for Cambodia’s rural population, where many of its farmers are also fishermen.

The Sambor dam is expected to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity, he said. The Lao dam could generate a further 360 megawatts.

Critics do not believe this to be a good tradeoff.

“For a relatively small amount of electricity, these two governments would destroy a fishery that tens of millions of people depend on for their food and livelihoods, with no alternative sources of food or income,” Cronin said.

Ith Praing, secretary of state for the Ministry of Mines and Energy, said 2,000 megawatts is no small amount of power. It’s about four times the current national demand, he said, adding that he didn’t expect that demand to rise much in the near future.

And the Sambor dam project is moving forward. It is now undergoing a feasibility study by the China Southern Power Grid Co., for the behalf of the Cambodian government. But it remains unclear among government officials the scale of the project, the size of the dam and whether it will include a fish passage to allow migration.

Ith Praing, who is directly involved in discussions with the Chinese company, said a preliminary study was given to them more than a year ago, but nothing has happened since. Among the options in the study is a model for building a dam that also allows fish to pass through it, he said. No final decision has been made, he said, attributing the slow speed of the project to the detail-oriented nature of the government’s analysis.

Sin Niny, vice chairman of Cambodia’s National Mekong Committee, said such inevitable trade-offs must be made if Cambodia is to meet its energy needs in the future.

Sam Nuov agrees, noting that migration measures have been an important part of the decision-making process so far.

“[At our department] we want to preserve the fish in the rivers, and if mainstream [dam projects] go ahead, we should have measures to allow fish passage,” he said.

Approaches include an expensive fish lock or ladder, construction of channels for fish migration or fish spawning grounds and increased promotion of fish farming, he said. He did not say whether fish farming could replace the loss of fisheries by the dams.

Jeremy Bird, CEO of the Mekong River Commission Secretariat in Vientiane, echoed the government’s position: that it is too early to discuss tradeoffs since policymakers are still waiting for an environmental assessment for all mainstream dams. This is expected in mid May.

But he also said the commission’s mandate is to make sure policymakers from the Lower Mekong countries are fully informed of the impacts each makes on the other, as well as alternative energy and energy-sharing options. This helps governments decide whether they want to go ahead with projects.

One dilemma for Cambodia is that other renewable energy options have not proven themselves to to have the same energy potential as hydropower. But in a 2004 World Bank assessment of development scenarios, mainstream dam projects were dismissed as too destructive of fisheries to be considered as “balanced development.”

Richard Cronin said he hopes the upcoming MRC report will be conclusively enough for Cambodia and Laos to scrap the mega-dam projects and explore other energy options—including the potential for offshore oil. Meanwhile, if even a scaled-down version of the Sambor dam was confirmed, that would be a sign of progress and awareness.

Energy is important, he said, but other countries have already wrestled with the problems of major hydropower projects, including the US.

“The big dams are a 1920s, 1930s concept of development,” he said. “There’s never been big dam projects in an area so densely populated and so dependent on a river as in the Mekong Basin.”

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Labels: Mekong River dams | Negative impact of Mekong dams

Cambodians Watching Spike in Thai Violence [-Cambodians do not support the Red Shirts who are supported by Hun Xen?]

A Thai woman prays as Thai policemen get ready soon after 3 p.m. deadline at Victory Monument in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, May 17, 2010. The Thai government on Monday warned protesters barricaded within their 'occupation zone' in the heart of the capital to leave by 3 p.m., saying anyone who remains there will be violating the law and will face two years in prison. (AP Photo/ Manish Swarup)

Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Monday, 17 May 2010

“The use of guns to kill the red shirts by the government is not a right or democratic act.”

Cambodians in Phnom Penh on Monday said they were watching the unrest and increasing violence in Bangkok, but sympathy between the authorities and anti-government protesters was split.

Violence escalated in Bangkok over the weekend, where at least 36 people have died since Thursday in the worst violence to hit the capital in decades. “Red shirt” protesters have seized a key part of the capital, and Thai security forces have begun to move in on their blockade, with the government calling for protesters to leave their entrenchment.

But who was to blame for the violence was debated in Cambodia, with many supporting the government in what they see as an illegal demonstration.

“I support the crackdown by the government on the red shirts, to avoid the negative effects on the economy, security, order and harmony of Thai society,” Ly Sokheng, a 24-year-old student at the Royal Phnom Penh University, said Monday. “The crackdown was right. The Bangkok government informed the red shirts about the crackdown if they didn’t disperse. On the other hand, the red shirts were armed against the authorities [which is] an illegal act.”

Cambodia is no stranger to street violence. Phnom Penh saw fighting in 1997, when the Cambodian People’s Party seized power from Funcinpec in a violent coup. Lessons from years of war were more apparent in older Cambodians Monday.

“The use of guns to kill the red shirts by the government is not a right or democratic act,” said Chim Rotha, a 43-year-old street sweeper, who was working near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Monday. However, he said the red shirts bore some responsibility for using weapons against the authorities.

“The authorities and the red shirts must not use weapons to solve the problem,” he said. “They should use peaceful negotiations. The red shirts’ use of weapons is illegal, but the government’s shooting of red shirts violates human rights.”

Others called for calm amid the violence.

“The red shirts should accept the road map composed by the prime minister…to hold a new election in November in exchange for the dispersal of the anti-government rally,” Ngoeum Phally, a 21-year-old student at Phnom Penh University, said. Both sides should sit and talk to resolve their differences, she said. “But right now the government’s use of force to kill the red shirts is shameful.”

Chhet Takk, 25, a student at the Kampuchea Mekong University, blamed both sides for the violence. “The government and the red shirts must now be responsible for the dead,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued its own statement Monday, saying the “severe violence” was “gravely” affecting the image of Thailand and 10 Asean members. The statement called on all parties to resume peaceful talks and “restore peace and normalcy to the Thai people, thus stability to the region.”

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Labels: Besieged democracy in Asia | Red Shirts demo | Thailand political unrest

Human Rights on the Hill

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The CPP still resorts to the KR tactics of sending spies (Korng Chhlop) to find out your political allegiance?

KI-Media Note: Our sincere thanks to Dara for sharing this document!


Click on the report in Khmer to zoom in

Translated from Khmer

CPP Phnom Penh Committee
CPP Committee for Dangkao district

Phnom Penh City, 14 September 2009

Decision on
Sending district party officials to help strengthen
the village and community levels
Along all the 15 communes in Dangkao district, Phnom Penh city

Based on:

* Directive No. 002 dated 24 August 2009 regarding the strengthening of the village levels
* Spirit of the meeting of the party Dangkao district permanent committee held on 01 September 2009 regarding the role change, the working group for the CPP committee in Dangkao district that will help strengthen the village and community levels in all 15 communes of Dangkao district, in order to strengthen the strength advantage, the winning advantage of the CPP from now until the general election for the 5th [parliament] mandate.
* Review of the qualifications of 110 CPP officials in Dangkao commune.
* Request for necessary mission at the grass root level

Decision of the party's district permanent committee

Item 1: Division of the review group, the group that will go help the commune/village grass root, and the group for final tally that includes those who are named below.

Item 2: The working groups that will go help the commune levels have the following duties:

* A- Help the commune party and the party branches, village sub-branches to build and arrange the role of the members of each party group so that they are clearly identified in order to guarantee the quantity and the quality.
* B- Pay attention to the education and training of the party sub-branches and groups so that they understand about their roles and duties, in particular, (for the president to know their members and for the members to know their president).
* C- Understand and grasp the requests made by the people, in particular, by the CPP party members who are facing hardships in order to resolve them in timely manner. Find all means and manners to help actually build various constructions in each locality.
* D- Pay attention to the research, evaluation and clear surveying of various items such as counting the number of families that belong to the CPP, (families that belong to various [other] political parties), identity of activists from various parties, and the number of people in each village, the number of those who are white/gray/black in order to establish a basis for people movement and feed this movement so that it has a higher efficiency by doing what it takes to make the black turned to gray, and the gray turned to white [Translation note: the villagers’ opinions are likely classified as black/gray/white depending on their degree of allegiance to the CPP, therefore those who do not have strong allegiance to the CPP – the black – must be turned to gray, those who have doubts on the CPP – the gray – must be turned to white, i.e. the CPP party faithful].
* E- The president, the vice-president of each working group must hold meeting to strengthen their respective groups, plan and divide their work clearly to facilitate the review of all plans put into action by the villages.
* F- The working group that go to help the commune must meet to tally and evaluate their results once a month and the president, vice-president must come to the meeting at the party’s district office once a month (under invitation) and the report must be provided in writing and sent to the party district committee on the 23rd of each month so that the party district committee has a basis to tally them for the party’s Phnom Penh city committee.

Item 3: Directive letter No. 78/007 dated 14 June 2007 is superseded.

Item 4: This decision is in effect from the day of its signing

For the party district committee
President

(Signed) Kroch Phan

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Labels: Communist spy | CPP

Reds defy deadline, rally continues

The government cancelled its ultimatum for red-shirt protesters to clear central Bangkok by 3pm, after at least 5,000 people defied the order - but said there will be no talks until the rally ends. (Photo by Somchai Poomlard)

17/05/2010
Bangkok Post

Several thousand of protesters, including women and children, remained at the Ratchaprasong rally site on Monday evening, defying the Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situation's order that they leave by 3pm or face two-years imprisonment.

There were still about 5,000 protesters at the Ratchaprasong rally site when the 3pm deadline passed, police spokesman Maj-Gen Prawut Thawornsiri said.

Shortly after 2pm, military helicopters dropped leaflets on the encampment, urging the protesters to leave immediately. This angered the protesters, who shot homemade rockets at them.

“Some protesters received distorted information,” government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said on the Thai PBS television network. “We need to communicate with them clearly. It will take time.” There was no word on when the ultimatum extension would end.

According to television reports, a telephone call from Korbsak Sabhavasu, the prime minister's secretary-general, to red-shirt leader Natthawut Saikua prompted the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) leaders to hold an urgent meeting, which began shortly after the 3pm deadline.

On receiving the call from Mr Korbsak, UDD leaders went inside a shipping container office for a meeting.

Acting government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said the Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situation would hold a meeting at 5pm to discuss steps to be taken to retake the occupied area after the 3pm deadline.

He declined to go into detail, saying only that priority would be given to evacuating children and the elderly from the rally site.

Mr Panitan said Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was still in high spirits and determined to overcome all problems.

Earlier the day, UDD leader Jatuporn Prompan said red leaders were ready to call protesters back to the Ratchaprasong rally site and begin dialogue with the government if troops stop firing at protesters.

Protest leaders are willing to negotiate with the government without pre-conditions if Mr Abhisit orders the removal of troops stationed around the rally site in Bangkok. The offer was aimed at reducing the loss of lives, he said.

The government would not respond to the UDD's call for talks until the UDD ends the protest rally, government spokesman Panithan Wattanayakorn said.

Mr Panitan said UDD leaders should first show sincerity by ending their rally, ceasing attacks on government security forces and stopping all riotous acts.

If the UDD did this, the government would reactivate its reconciliation plan, he said.

In the morning, two red-shirt guards were arrested in Ratchathewi area with a large quantity of weapons, Metropolitan Police chief Pol Lt-Gen Santhan Chayanont said at a press conference.

Pol Lt-Gen Santhan identified the two as Prasong Manee-in, 55, of Bangkok's Lat Phrao district, and Kowit Yaemprasert, 55, from Pathum Thani province.

They were arrested when Mr Prason was driving a pick-up truck past a military checkpoint in Soi Phaya Nak near the Asia Hotel.

Soldiers found in the truck about 60 items including knives, axes, iron bars, bottle bombs, ping pong bombs, large firecrackers, communications radios, and ID cards of UDD guards.

Mr Prasong said he was formerly a soldier of the 3rd Cavalry Battalion and then a construction worker before joining the UDD rally, where he met Mr Kowit.

He said he was not aware the seized items were loaded onto his truck.

The number of casualties from the clashes between government forces and UDD protesters between May 14 and 17 was now 35 killed and 252 injured, the Emegency Medical Centre or Erawan Centre said in the morning.

The death toll went up because one of the injured, Maj-Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol, better known as Seh Daeng, died from his head wound on Monday morning.

Of the 242 injured, there are six foreigners - one each from Canada, Poland, Burma, Liberia, Italy and New Zealand.

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Labels: Red Shirts demo | Thailand political unrest

Monday, May 17, 2010
KRT verdict will bring justice: PM [-Will the victims agree with Hun Xen?]

Monday, 17 May 2010
Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

PRIME Minister Hun Sen offered praise for the Khmer Rouge tribunal on Saturday, softening his tone towards the court by saying that a verdict in its first case would bring justice for victims of the Democratic Kampuchea regime.

Speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Cho Ray-Phnom Penh Hospital, the premier said the court’s ruling would mark the end of a long and tortuous struggle.

“Justice is given to us 30 years after we were liberated,” Hun Sen said. “Sometimes we cannot find justice after one year, two years or three years – we have to wait 30 years before they can provide us justice.”

Closing arguments in the tribunal’s first case – that of Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch – concluded in November. UN court spokesman Lars Olsen said Sunday that judges at the tribunal have yet to reveal a possible date for the verdict.

Hun Sen noted that UN support for the hybrid court came despite the fact that the body once supported the Khmer Rouge against the
Vietnamese-backed government that replaced them. Despite their ouster in 1979, the Khmer Rouge represented Cambodia at the UN General Assembly in the 1980s.

“When we fought with Pol Pot, they blamed us, they punished us, but 30 years later, the chief of Tuol Sleng prison has been tried,” Hun Sen said, adding that Cambodia and Vietnam had cooperated to secure the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge.

Court spokesman Reach Sambath said the tribunal had been buoyed by support from a variety of institutions in conducting its work thus far.

“The support helped court officials to move forward and provide a fair trial,” Reach Sambath said.

Hun Sen’s comments on Saturday contrasted with his previous, more confrontational statements concerning the court. In December, he warned that the prosecutions of further suspects could lead to unrest, echoing similar comments he made in September.

“If you want a tribunal, but you don’t want to consider peace and reconciliation and war breaks out again, killing 200,000 or 300,000 people, who will be responsible?” Hun Sen told a gathering in Phnom Penh on September 7.

On that same day, court prosecutors requested the investigation of five additional suspects beyond those in detention.

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Labels: Hun Xen | Justice for victims of the KR | KR trials | KR Tribunal

Cambodia Urges Thailand To Resume Peaceful Talks To Restore Peace

PHNOM PENH, May 17 (Bernama) -- The Cambodian government Monday urged all parties concerned in Thailand to resume peaceful talks in order to achieve a political settlement to the current stand- off.

In a statement released on Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said that Cambodia, as a neighbouring country and a member state of ASEAN "is very concerned by the increasingly severe violence in Thailand."

It said the current awful situation in Thailand has gravely affected not only Thailand's image, but also that of ASEAN as well, according to China's Xinhua news agency on Monday

Moreover, the statement urges all parties concerned in Thailand "to resume peaceful talks in order to achieve a political settlement to the current stand-off and restore peace and normalcy to the Thai people, thus stability in the region."

"The Cambodian people's only wish is to see the friendly Thai people enjoy a normal and peaceful life," the statement said.

Violence in Thailand has escalated in recent days, and more than 30 people have died and several hundreds people suffered injuries since the protests began.

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Labels: Red Shirts demo | Thailand political unrest

Cambodian rebirth

17 May 2010
PortStrategy

A soft loan from China could dramatically improve Phnom Penh's future

The historic capital city port of Phnom Penh is being reborn after years of neglect, reports Michael King

The port of Phnom Penh is not the usual subject of a major port focus by Port Strategy. It’s not that big, it’s not breaking any new technological ground and it’s not even near the ocean. But it does perfectly illustrate how port development can both facilitate and drive economic growth.

The inland port, located some 348 km up the Mekong River from the South China Sea, is poised to help transform Cambodia from a backwater of globalisation into a country with the potential to ‘do a Vietnam’. In other words, leverage its cheap labour resources, raw materials and willingness to embrace international trade to attract inward investment and boost economic development.

A key logjam to achieving this aim, the chief executive of a leading integrator recently told PS, is that after years of political turmoil and low levels of infrastructure investment, the national transport system is “a mess” and “too expensive”.

“It hasn’t had the logistics backbone to attract the type of inward investments that Vietnam has won.”

The integrator in question is now helping to rebuild Cambodia’s customs service and has started a series of road services linking manufacturers relocating to Cambodia to major markets in Asia and beyond by road and air.

In much the same way, Phnom Penh Autonomous Port (PPAP), both port authority and the sole terminal operator, is now trying to smooth the processes and reduce the cost of trading to and from international markets by sea.

Cargo clearance was recently improved by the opening of a new administration building providing a one-stop-shop for shippers and forwarders attempting to access international markets, said PPAP deputy director general, Ieng Veng Sun. New warehousing suitable for bonded and consolidation operations is also planned

However, the big problem for Cambodia’s shippers is that while the country’s largest port, Sihanoukville, has much to offer, it does not have a wide range of international mainline container calls. For most traders in the vicinity of Phnom Penh this has meant trucking or barging cargo to Sihanoukville or ports in Thailand or Vietnam and then feedering cargo to mainline hubs at either Singapore or Hong Kong - not a very good solution for international companies with sophisticated supply chains.

The development in Vietnam of Cai Mep, Asia’s most promising mainline container hub port, is now offering new options.

Located south of Ho Chi Minh City near the mouth of the Mekong in Vietnam, the top names in port development - SSA Marine, Hutchison Port Holdings, APM Terminals and PSA International - are already involved in either running, bidding to manage or constructing terminals at the port.

It was no coincidence that the opening last summer of Cai Mep’s first berths able to host mainline containerships coincided with a steep acceleration of export volumes at Phnom Penh, says Mr Sun.

“With Cai Mep in reach by barge and able to offer hub services, it reduces the time and the cost for shippers,” he says. “To the US, for example, this saves around $100-$200 and 2-3 days for each container.”

PPAP handled 43,312 teu last year. Although the figure was down on the 47,504 teu handled in 2008, volumes are forecast to reach 65,200 teu this year.

“In the first six months of last year volumes were a long way down compared to 2008. From June it really picked up,” he says.

“This year we were up 75% year-on-year in January to 4,547 teu, and up 50% to 3,271 teu in February.”

With existing facilities at PPAP already stretched, plans are now in place to build a new container terminal.

PPAP, a state-owned but autonomous company supervised by both the Ministry of Public Works and Transport and the Ministry of Finance and Economics, currently possesses a single container terminal of 20x300 metres dimensions and a 92,000 m2 inland container depot. The port’s maximum draught is a tiny 4.2 metres in the dry season. Only barges carrying less than 100 teu can be received.

PPAP is hoping to secure a soft loan of $28m from the Chinese government to be used to build a new container terminal 30km downstream of existing facilities by 2012. If China provides the loan, subject to clearance from Ministers PPAP will either seek additional assistance or look for private participation.

In phase one, the facility will add an extra of 120,000 teu capacity on 12 hectares of yard working 22x300m of berth. Subsequent expansions would more than double the size of the terminal and take annual capacity to over 300,000 teu.

A dredging programme due to be completed in the next five years will increase the size of the maximum vessel PPAP can receive to over 320 teu, further improving the economics of using PPAP facilities.

By reducing ocean transport costs, in the future Cambodia hopes to attract more manufacturers of more sophisticated products to the country such as major electronics and retailers. But for now, just improving the lot of textile and agricultural exporters and imports to the country’s burgeoning consumer markets would be a start.

“Cambodia’s economy is taking off and we think we can be a big part of that,” adds Mr Sun.

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Labels: Chinese loan | New Phnom Penh port

Church microfinance scheme is ‘Good News’ to poor

Workers keeping track of savings at the Church-run credit union

May 17, 2010
UCAN

A Church-run microfinance program introduced more than three years ago is helping to improve the livelihoods of many poor people in a parish in Cambodia’s capital.

“Last year, when my motorbike broke down, I thought I would have to take my children out of school, but luckily I was able to borrow 500,000 riel (US$118) from the credit union to repair my motorbike enabling my children to continue their studies,” said Meas Putry, a motorcycle taxi driver.

Putry is a signed-up member of the credit union of St. Joseph Church in Phnom Penh.

The program provides loans to poor people at the cheapest rate, said Saing Yuth, a former teacher and credit union administrator. She said loans are fixed at 1 per cent interest per month and without the need to provide collateral. Other credit institutions usually demand interest repayments of 4-5 per cent a month, she noted.

As well as the loan service, the Church credit union also has a savings account program, which gives savers an interest rate of 3 per cent per annum.

Parish priest Father Paul Roeung Chatchai introduced the credit and savings program in early 2007. “The Church’s main mission is to proclaim the Good News to the people. Our credit union is one way of doing this by providing a lifeline to poor people when they face difficult situations,” said the priest from the Thai Missionary Society.

Another objective, Father Roeung added, is to encourage and teach the local community to support each other and be less financially dependent on their families.

Initially starting with 30 members with savings totaling 170,000 riel, the program now has 170 members and 16 million riel’s worth of savings. A large amount of this is deposited in a commercial bank to earn interest.

“Our members can deposit as little as 1,000 riel per week into their savings account,” said Father Chatchai, adding that the Church has a 12-member committee that manages the program.

Putry says he now has 2 million riel in his account. “I thank God that this program has been introduced in our community,” he said.

In Cambodia there are 27 commercial banks, six specialist banks and 21 licensed micro credit institutions, according to a National Bank of Cambodia report.

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Labels: Catholic church | Helping poor people in Cambodia | Micro credit | Micro-finance

Mobile phones on rise in Cambodia

May 17, 2010
Xinhua

The use of mobile phones in Cambodia is remarkably popular and increased year by year, a government data showed on Monday.

The data of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication showed that the number of mobile phones used by the end of 2009 was 6.3 million, an increase from 3.8 million a year ago.

And by the first quarter of 2010, it estimated the mobile phone users at about 7.1 million, or about half of the country's total populations of 14.7 million.

Currently, there are nine mobile phone companies running in the country with Mobitel, owned by local tycoon Kith Meng of Royal Group, known as leading in the sector and followed by the new investment from Vietnam, known as Metfone or Vietell

The other seven are Hello, Mfone, Star Cell, Beeline, Smart Phone, QB, and Excell.

The number of mobile phone users in the country had risen over past years, and competition is also growing as users have choices to select which one is his/her favorite.

Many suggest that the boom of mobile phone users in the country is partly contributed by the economic growth and business demands in Cambodia's markets.

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Labels: Mobile phone service

Another Viet bank allowed to operate freely in the colony

Investment bank opens branch in Cambodia

May 17, 2010
VNA

The Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) has opened its first branch in Cambodia.

The Vietnamese-invested Bank for Investment and Development of Cambodia (BIDC) with a charter capital of US$70 million is the second largest bank of its kind in Cambodia.

In addition to BIDC, BIDV opens representative offices and invests in other projects in Cambodia, such as the Cambodia Investment and Development Joint Stock Company and the Vietnam-Cambodia Insurance Joint Stock Company.

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Labels: Special favor for Vietnamese banks | Vietnamese influence

Buddhist temple heightens security after vandalism, harassment

5/17/2010
By Matt Russell
The Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

The Cambodian Buddhist temple in southeast Rochester has taken a series of security measures following a string of vandalism and harassment.

The temple installed motion-detecting exterior lights and a steel-barred security door in the monks' residence in March after attempted break-ins by a man wearing a ski mask, said Chhan Aun, 60, the temple's head monk. The measures have not stopped the break-in attempts, five in total, Aun said.

Following a suggestion from the post office, the temple also removed its mailbox from 29th Street Southeast last week and and placed it next to its main building at the end of a long driveway.

The box has been repeatedly vandalized. Incoming and outgoing mail has been stolen in recent years, including bank statements, bills, and immigration documents whose theft has complicated the arriva of new monks from Cambodia, according to temple members.

"Our mailbox has been destroyed so many times, we're sick of it," said temple member Tracy Sam.

Vandalism at the temple a year ago included smashed lights, yanked flowers and a cross along with "Jesus saves" spray-painted on the driveway in orange.

Aun hasn't gotten a clear view of the mailbox vandals because the street is far from the building where he lives with two other monks. He's seen a car drive away after hearing what appears to be a hammer banging the box, he said.

The would-be intruder in the first attempted break-in earlier this year was a man in his late 30s or early 40s who didn't appear Caucasian, Aun said. The man tried to open several doors but ran when he looked in the window and saw Aun holding up a telephone threatening to call police.

Aun said he isn't sure if the same man has been involved in subsequent break-in attempts because the suspect has been wearing a ski mask.

Mailbox vandalism and mail thefts have happened at the temple sporadically since 2005, according to temple members. They haven't reported this year's vandalism and attempted break-ins out of fear of retribution but finally did so on Friday after their mailbox was damaged four times in a month, Sam said. The temple has had to buy four replacement mailboxes since 2007, she said.

Mailbox vandalism is common, especially this time of year, but it is very unusual for one mailbox to be targeted as often as the Buddhist temple's has been, said Olmsted County sheriff's deputy Jim Schueller.

"If it's happening this often, we want to start tracking it and see if we can do something about it," Schueller told Aun and other temple members Friday.

Schueller said he would request extra patrols of the temple area.

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Labels: Cambodian Buddhist temple | Minnesota | Rochester | Vandalism and harassment

Japan's imperial couple host Cambodia's king

King Sihamoni is on his first state visit to Japan

Monday, May 17, 2010
AFP

TOKYO — Japan's Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko hosted a welcoming ceremony and banquet for Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni at their Imperial Palace Monday, officials said.

King Sihamoni, the 57-year-old eldest son of former king Norodom Sihanouk, arrived in Tokyo on Sunday on his first state visit to Japan, for meetings with Japanese royals and political leaders, the Imperial Household Agency said.

He is scheduled to hold talks with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Tuesday.

One of Asia's longest-serving monarchs, Sihanouk abruptly quit the throne in October 2004 in favour of his son, citing old age and health problems.

At the welcoming ceremony, Emperor Akihito expressed hope that the king's visit would help enhance the friendly relations and understanding between the two countries, the agency said.

The ceremony in a garden at the palace was attended by the emperor and empress, Crown Prince Naruhito and his brother Prince Akishino and his wife, as well as Prime Minister Hatoyama and his wife, Miyuki, the agency said.

In a speech at the royal banquet, King Sihamoni said Japan-Cambodia cooperation would "help expand stability for the region and the world to develop further," the agency said.

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Labels: King Sihamoni | Visit to Japan

"Oy Yuon Truot Keu Chea A-Yorng" a Poem in Klmer by Sam Vichea

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Sacrava's Political Cartoon: International Trouble Maker

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

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Labels: Ban of sand export | Global Witness | Hor 5 Bora barking at Global Witness | NEgative impact of sand dredging | Political Cartoon | Sacrava

Thailand At Risk Of Long-Term Guerrilla-Style Civil War, Just Look At The New Protest Fortress That Spontaneously Emerged

May. 17, 2010
Vincent Fernando, CFA
Business Insider

The Thai protest-backing general, 'Seh Daeng', died today, from a sniper shot to the head he suffered while being interview by the New York Times. Street battles continue to rage, with a firefight last night at the Dusit Thani hotel remarkably described in quite detail via twitter by the war reporter Michael Yon.

Monday and Tuesday have been declared holidays and the Thai government has warned protesters that any remaining within their main 'Ratchprasong' central bangkok base after 3pm today will be subject to 2 years in prison. NGOs and other organizations are also trying get women protesters and their children out of the protest area. Problem is, many don't want to leave and have instead set up a refuge in a temple within the protesters' zone.

Unfortunately, he'll probably have a lot more to report

It's been a horrific situation so far, but unfortunately I expect the crackdown to intensify within the next two days. In response, the retaliation from the red shirt protesters could easily intensify as well as increasing numbers of protesters are pushed into radical violent behavior after seeing their fellows shot and killed.

There are only a few ways for the country to avoid a complete bloodbath. One involves the current government accepting the latest offer from the protesters for a ceasefire and UN involvement, which the government has unfortunately rejected. This probably seems like the simplest and most logical solution to most outside observers. In a perfect world it would be possible. The unfortunate thing is that the current established military and political forces in Thailand probably see themselves losing power under any internationally-observed political arrangement. Thus they'd rather keep this a 'domestic issue' and have incited sovereignty fears in order to deflect the Thai public from what would most likely be the most peaceful solution.

Another solution of course is for the protest leaders to simply give up immediately and tell their supporters to stand-down. Problem is, the chance of them doing this is slim since they would likely be immediately imprisoned for what could be a very long time due to extremely serious charges already laid against them. Their lives would also be in grave danger, for they'd be exposed to assassination attempts once separated from their crowds of supporters. Backers of the redshirts, which include hidden sympathetic military leaders and the most visibly the ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra might also want to continue the struggle since they'll also all face punishment at the hands of a victorious government. Nobody trusts the legal system to be transparent anymore. New hard-line red shirts may also simply emerge and take over from those who quit.

Thirdly, is for some sort of back-room deal to be struck between the established powers and opposition leaders including the self-exiled ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra (who was ousted in a 2006 coup, and who still has substantial influence over the protesters), whereby both sides accommodate some of the others demands and promise not to come after each others throats in future years. I believe this is the most likely potential peaceful exit from the crisis, but still think it is highly unlikely.

The most likely path is for little dialogue, the barring of foreign oversight, and an extremely hard crackdown on the protesters which most middle and upper class Bangkok residents will welcome as necessary.

Why shooting protesters won't 'work' this time for Thailand

Without getting into what or what isn't necessary or who's 'right', my fear is that this hard crackdown won't 'work' like it has in the past for Thailand (1992, 1976). The current protest movement is huge, passionate, and sophisticated. This has been shown by their logistics capability whereby the central protest zone has built its own infrastructure including television and radio broadcast facilities plus power generation, defense, and food supplies. Also, technology these days is such that you can't blind people and hide things as you could in the past. Any crackdown will be very visible no matter what censorship is involved. Already there has been coordinated insurrection in the provinces, blocking army convoys, reportedley block the entrance to Thailand's main port, plus sympathy rallies in many places outside Bangkok. It's widely know that there is substantial 'red shirt' support in Thailand's large North and Northeast regions. Red shirts in these regions have pledged retaliation for any major crackdown.

Yet, to me, the most striking development in the last two days has been the erection of a second protest base, near the 'Klong Toey' slums right after the government sealed the main 'Ratchprasong' rally point from direct outside access.

This second staging point has been reported by some as having at least 2,000 people, plus substantial water, food, and power generation supplies set up. All within about two days.

This to me speaks to the widespread strength of the 'red shirts' and casts serious doubts as to whether a crackdown will succeed in destroying their will. If anything, the worry is that it will cause them to revolt even harder, with even harder methods than they've already used. It's in nobody's interests to have random bombs detonating in Bangkok over the next five years. Thus negotiation will be the only long-term successful solution, for both sides, not a crackdown.

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Labels: Civil war | Red Shirts | Thailand political unrest

Siamese place Angkor Wat picture in front of the bathroom next to the foot mat

The offending picture

17 May 2010
DAP news
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Siem Reap province - On 16 May 2010, a group of Siamese staying at the Sofitel Phokeetra Golf and Spa Resort placed a picture of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat in front of the bathroom next to the foot mat.

Chhuon Rithy, the union president for the Sofitel resort, told DAP at 10AM that on Sunday, a group of Cambodian workers at the hotel opposed the placement of this picture because they believe that this is tantamount to looking down on Angkor Wat temple which represents Cambodia. He added that the Siamese refused to take the picture out, claiming that what they did was for greeting guests, not to look down [on Angkor Wat]. However, because of the displeasure and the opposition of the Cambodian workers, the Siamese finally removed the picture out art 3:30PM.

Chhuon Rithy indicated that the hotel owner, who is also a Siamese, rather than scolding his Siamese people, turned around and scolded the Cambodian employees who work there, saying that they did not administer properly. At the time of the scolding, the Siamese visitors were still staying at this hotel in Siem Reap.

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Labels: Alleged insult on Angkor Wat | Phokheetra Country Club

Reds told to leave rally site by 3pm

17/05/2010
Bangkok Post

The Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) has advised protesters to leave the rally site by 3pm Monday or face the prospect of two years imprisonment.

The announcement was made on national television about 11am on Monday and was repeated at noon.

The CRES statement said that authorities will facilitate the return home for those wishing to leave the rally site by the deadline.

Staying in the area would be dangerous because there were terrorists hiding among them and attempting to stir up unrest that would lead to injuries and loss of lives, the statement said.

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Labels: Red Shirts demo | Thailand political unrest

Upcountry reds demand [Thai] govt back off rally centre

17/05/2010
Bangkok Post

Red shirt supporters in the provinces are vowing to retaliate if authorities disperse the main protest in Bangkok.

In Chiang Mai, about 500 members of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) converged yesterday on the Chiang Mai railway station before marching to the British, US and Chinese consular offices to submit a petition.

They urged the consulates to pressure the government to refrain from using force against UDD protesters at Ratchaprasong intersection in Bangkok.

The Chiang Mai UDD supporters accused soldiers of firing at protesters in the capital and demanded an immediate end to the violence.

A source said Chiang Mai governor Amornpan Nimanant had asked the 3rd Army to shut down two pro-red shirt community radio stations for encouraging people to join the rally in Bangkok.

The commander denied the request citing security concerns, the source said.

A shuttle bus used to transport students in the army's veterinary service was torched in the province, but it was unclear by whom.

In Phayao, a red shirt network yesterday mobilised supporters from all districts at the provincial hall to demand an end to military violence in Bangkok.

Siriwat Jupamattha, coordinator of the UDD network in Phayao, said soldiers must stop killing red shirt protesters. He said his group would continue to pressure the government until it ordered troops to stop shooting at the protesters.

Phayao governor Cherdsak Chusri said he would forward the network's petition to the government so long as their rally remained peaceful.

A security source said a group of teenagers burned more than 10 tyres on Chiang Kham-Chun Road in Phayao's Chun district on Saturday night. Authorities believed it was a copycat act following the red shirts' burning of tyres on major roads in the capital.

In Ubon Ratchathani, protesters also set tyres alight outside the provincial hall on the Hua Saphan Bridge in front of the state-run NBT station and near Wing 21 air base.

Soldiers fired warning shots when protesters tried to enter the base. The protesters retreated and regrouped outside the provincial hall where they dispersed late yesterday afternoon.

Surapol Phetvara, the Thai consular-general in Kota Bharu of Malaysia's Kelantan state, yesterday said Thai residents of the country and tourists were concerned about the violence.

In Ayutthaya, the Royal Elephant Kraal started a campaign urging the government, the UDD and the armed group mixing among the protesters to stop using violence. Placards reading "stop killing, be kind and be peaceful" were seen hanging from elephants carrying tourists around the area.

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Labels: Red Shirts demo | Thailand political unrest

Women, elderly refuse to budge

Red shirt protesters, who are mostly women and children, gather close to the rally stage at the Ratchaprasong intersection yesterday. Many women and children were later moved to a nearby temple. KOSOL NAKACHOL

17/05/2010
Surasak Glahan and Lamphai Intathep
Bangkok Post

Women and the elderly taking part in the red shirt protest have defied the government's recommendation to leave the rally and return home, saying they are fearless and already have a temple as a safe haven for themselves and their children.

They were responding to calls from the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation yesterday urging women, children and the elderly to leave the site by 3pm today.

Thai Red Cross officers and NGO staff said they would go to the rally site and persuade the group to leave.

"This temple should be a safe enough place for our children," said a woman in her sixties, who did not give her name, referring to Wat Pathumwanaram which is next to the rally site.

She was among a number of the elderly, women and children who used the temple's ground yesterday as a temporary refuge.

"If there is violence near the rally's main stage, we will bring children here," she said.

Even though there has been reports of clashes between protesters and government forces which resulted in fatalities and injuries, she would not go.

"No matter what happens, I'll never leave the rally," she said. "Our friends have died for us, so we'll never leave others for the sake of personal safety."

At the temple, Sangwaan Kaew-sanga, 49, said she had no worries about her own safety because she believed she "is fighting for the right thing".

"Little children will stay here in this temple. But for women who want to fight, we will still gather in front of the stage," she said. "Everybody is united. Nobody wants to back off.

"I don't fear death."

Other women in the temple joined her in condemning the government over its lethal treatment of the protesters, saying this was another key reason for them to stay put. They said they would not leave even though there were officials from the Thai Red Cross advising them to go.

Red shirt leader Natthawut Saikua yesterday told protesters who have children to stay inside the temple "to avoid losses of lives".

Wanlop Tangkhananurak, a senator and the secretary-general of the Children Creation Foundation, said acting police chief Pateep Tanprasert called him to help coordinate with child rights organisations to urge people to abandon the site and move to safer areas.

Wat Pathumwanaram and the Police General Hospital have been set aside as safe havens.

The UN International Children's Fund in Thailand also called on all concerned to ensure the safety and protection of children and women in and around the protest site.

"We urge all parties involved to use all the means at their disposal to ensure that children and women are neither targeted in the ongoing violence nor allowed to become victims of it," a Unicef spokesman said.

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Labels: Red Shirts demo | Thailand political unrest

For quality healthcare, Hun Xen's Cambodia has to depend on Vietnam: Bravo!?!?

(L-R, front) Vietnamese former Party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, and Vietnamese Deputy PM Truong Vinh Trong at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Cho Ray-Phnom Penh Hospital in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on May 15

Work starts on Vietnam-Cambodia joint hospital

Sunday, May 16,2010
Saigon Giai Phong (Vietcong communist party)

Vietnam’s Saigon Medical Investment Joint Stock Company and Cambodia’s Sokimex Company started May 15 to construct an affiliate of Vietnam’s Cho Ray hospital in Phnom Penh City at a cost of US$42 million.

Tran Viet Hung, chairman of the Vietnamese company’s management board, said the Cho Ray-Phnom Penh multiclinic hospital covers an area of 60,000 square meters in Meanchev district, around ten kilometers from downtown Phnom Penh.

The hospital will have two five-story blocks with 500 beds and wards including internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics, cardiology, trauma and orthopedics, diagnostic tests, and emergency aid.

It is set to be completed in the next two years and create employment for more than 300 people.

At present, Vietnam receives about 250 patients from Cambodia every day, over half of them get treatment at Ho Chi Minh City’s Cho Ray hospital.

Therefore, the joint hospital will not only help Cambodian people save money and time that they would have had to spend on treatment abroad, but also contribute to improving Cambodia’s healthcare quality.

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Labels: Hun Xen begs for Viet help | Vietnamese influence in Cambodia

Eight Cambodian men back home after two years of fishing 'slavery'

The eight Cambodian men who were repatriated back from Malaysia (Photo: Licadho)

Mon, 17 May 2010
DPA

A recent conference in Phnom Penh was told that poverty and a lack of job opportunities in rural areas were driving Cambodian men into uncertain work opportunities in neighbouring countries.

Phnom Penh - Eight Cambodian men have been repatriated from Malaysia after spending up to two years working in slave-like conditions on Thai fishing vessels, local media reported Monday.

The men told human rights workers they were promised well-paid jobs in Thailand, but once there were forced onto fishing boats.

They said they were required to work for no pay, and eventually managed to jump ship when their boats docked in Malaysia for repairs.

Cham Mab, who left Cambodia in 2007, said he had witnessed men who were ill being thrown overboard.

"We tried to work even when we were sick, because we were afraid that if we did not work then they would throw us into the sea," he told the Phnom Penh Post newspaper.

Manfred Hornung, a legal adviser at human rights group Licadho, which was involved in the repatriation, said four of the men had escaped from the same boat.

He said the returnees had given Licadho the names of other Cambodian men they met who had been detained by authorities in neighbouring countries.

"They want organisations and government authorities to help these other Cambodians since they have had such a gruesome experience," he said. "They want to make sure their fellow nationals are able to come home."

A recent conference in Phnom Penh was told that poverty and a lack of job opportunities in rural areas were driving Cambodian men into uncertain work opportunities in neighbouring countries.

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Labels: Cambodian fishermen slaves | Cambodian migrant workers | Joblessness in Cambodia | Poverty in Cambodia | Thailand

Storm destroyed more than 100 houses in Battambang province

17 May 2010
By Suon Sophalmony
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer

A storm knocked down and destroyed more than 100 homes and caused 3 injuries in the evening of Saturday 15 May 2010 in Santepheap and Ta Sda communes, Sampov Loon district, Battambang province.

Chum Seub, the Sampov Loon district governor, said on Sunday 16 May that the disaster caused by the storm started on Saturday at 5:20PM.

Chum Seub said: “Now, we see that the damage affects 103 houses in Santepheap and Ta Sda commune. Three houses completely collapsed, 25 houses lost their roof completely, and 75 other are only affected: some lost 20-30 sheets of the tin roof. Three people were injured, but a man was seriously injured, he was cut by the flying wood and tin roof, the two others were slightly hit only!”

Chum Seub indicated that this is a preliminary number of houses damaged obtained by the authority following the damage. The authority is currently accounting for the number of families and the additional number houses that are affected and reported them to the Battambang Red Cross office to obtain help.

On 23 April 2010, a similar storm destroyed 105 houses by knocking them down to the ground in Samlot and Ratanak Mondul districts, Battambang province. The incident left several families without shelter.

The provincial authority indicated that, starting from 01 April to 23 April 2010, storms destroyed 197 homes in Battambang province. 188 families lost their shelters. The storm also damaged the roof of 3 schools and two monk housings. This number does not even take into account the recent damage.

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Labels: Battambang | Freak storm

A small star steals the limelight from the giant moon ... like candle light stealing the limelight from spotlights imported from VN?


A star rising on top of the moon

16 May 2010
DAP news
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Villagers from O’Raing Ov district, Kampong Cham province, reported that in the evening of Sunday 16 May, more than 300 of them living in village No. 4 East, Ompil Ta Pok commune, O’Raing Ov district, Kampong Cham, were aroused to watch a strange event when a star rose over the shining moon crescent during the 3rd night of the waxing moon of the month of Ches, Buddhist era 2554 (16 May 2010) between 7:30 and 8PM. A villager who saw this event called DAP while the villagers were watching the event above. The caller said: “In my whole life, we never see such an event.”

While the villagers at No. 4 East village were gazing at the night sky, people living in Phnom Penh and a few other regions could not see it because of the cloudy sky.

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Wounded rogue Thai general [Seh Daeng] dies as chaos continues [-Thai soldiers killed each other?]

In this May 1, 2010 file photo, Thai Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdiphol, left, also known as 'Seh Daeng', a rogue commander for the anti-government 'Red Shirts' gathers with others during a dispute over a barricade near Chulalongkorn Hospital. According to Thai media sources Khattiya, who was shot by an unknown sniper five days ago, died of his wounds on Monday, May 17, 2010. (AP Photo/David Longstreath, File)

Monday, May 17, 2010
By CHRIS BLAKE
Associated Press

BANGKOK – A rogue Thai general who aided anti-government protesters and was shot by an unidentified sniper died Monday from his wounds, raising fears of new violence after five days of street battles that have killed 36 people in downtown Bangkok.

Thai news reports said that Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdiphol, a renegade army officer accused of creating a paramilitary force for the Red Shirt protesters, died Monday of gunshot wounds. The death came five days after he was shot in the head by a sniper in downtown Bangkok while talking to journalists inside the perimeter of the protest zone.

Channel 9 television, Thai Rath newspaper and other media outlets reported Khattiya died in a hospital, where he was being treated since Thursday's attack.

The attack on Khattiya triggered widespread street fighting between anti-government protesters and the army in central Bangkok.

The Red Shirts have been protesting since mid-March demanding the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, the dissolution of Parliament and new elections.

Anti-government unrest that has boiled over in downtown Bangkok spread Sunday to other areas of the capital. The Thai military has defended its use of force, and the government flatly rejected protesters' demands that the United Nations intercede to end the chaos.

Rapid gunfire and explosions echoed before dawn Monday outside luxury hotels bordering the barricaded protest zone, where the military has attempted to seal in thousands of demonstrators camping in the downtown streets. Guests at the upscale Dusit Thani hotel were rushed to the basement for safety.

Reporters at the scene said the gunfire came both from government forces and protesters holed up inside the encampment who appear to have stockpiled a sizeable arsenal of weapons.

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Labels: Red Shirts demo | Seh Daeng | Thailand political unrest

Vann Nath’s health not improving

Vann Nath (Photo: RFI)

15 May 2010
By Leang Delux
Radio France Internationale
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer

Vann Nath, the former survivor of the Tuol Sleng jail, does not see his health improved by much even though he was discharged from hospital already. Vann Nath’s wife said that her husband cannot sleep and he cannot eat much either.

Vann Nath’s wife indicated on Saturday 15 May that she is still concerned about her husband’s heath . Kith Eng, Vann Nath’s wife, told RFI that, each day, her husband can only eat a small amount of porridge (bor-bor), and he cannot sleep either. These conditions made it such that her husband does not have strong health at all.

She added that she must take Vann Nath in for dialysis once a week at the Chea Sim dialysis center.

Last week, Vann Nath was sent to the Calmette hospital emergency because of his chronic disease. Vann Nath has been ill for many years already. He has kidney, stomach, intestine and pancreatic problems.

The 65-year-old Vann Nath is a surviving witness among a small group of surviving witnesses who escaped death from S-21 (Tuol Sleng) center. He is now old and faces several health problems.

In order to provide for the medical expense need for Vann Nath, the Bophana Center organized an art exhibit to sell 12 drawings by Vann Nath about his personal life under the KR regime. The exhibit was aimed at raising funds to help Vann Nath’s family.

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Labels: KR crimes | S-21 survivor | Vann Nath

Open Season in Bangkok (-Due to graphic violence, viewer discretion ADVISED!)




Army snipers at Lumpinee Boxing Stadium

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Labels: Red Shirts demo | Thailand political unrest

Thailand Makes Offer Of Safety to Protesters

Sunday, May 16, 2010
By SETH MYDANS & THOMAS FULLER

BANGKOK - The government offered safe passage on Sunday for any protesters who wished to leave a downtown site where they have camped for six weeks, and a protest leader said they would be free to leave.

After three days of wild street fighting, the protest leader, Nattawut Saikua, also offered to withdraw militant fighters from the streets and to negotiate if the government also called a cease-fire and withdrew its troops. That offer suggested a closer relationship with the violent wing of the protests than Nattawut had earlier acknowledged.

But he put forward a condition that was immediately rejected by the government, insisting that any talks be mediated by the United Nations. Such a condition would have legitimized the protesters as an internationally recognized party to talks.

Protesters have warned of a wider uprising if they are attacked, and the government on Sunday extended a state of emergency to five more provinces, in addition to Bangkok and 17 provinces that were already covered.

The violence began after protest leaders rejected a government offer of an early election, which had been their initial demand. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva then withdrew the offer, halted negotiations and ordered troops to blockade the protest site, but not invade it. Troops moved in Thursday, and militants outside the site challenged them.

Many protesters at the site insisted late on Sunday that they would stay.

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Labels: Red Shirts demo | Thailand political unrest

Thailand violence: soldier killed as death toll reaches 35

A Thai demonstrator throws a molotov cocktail towards security forces during clashes in Bangkok Photo: AFP/GETTY

The number of dead from three days of street battles in Bangkok has risen to 35, including the first military death.

17 May 2010
Telegraph (UK)

"There were two more deaths last night including a soldier and a protester," said a member of the official emergency medical centre in Bangkok, where troops and anti-government "Red Shirt" protesters are locked in a tense confrontation.

The official said the number of wounded had risen to 244. Among the wounded were six foreigners, he said.

A 31-year-old air force member was shot while on patrol in the flashpoint Silom district, on the edge of the Red Shirts' fortified encampment, the official said, adding that he died in hospital.

"We cannot retreat now," Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in a televised statement, encapsulating the government's all-or-nothing campaign to end protests seeking to topple his fragile, six-party coalition.

Analysts and diplomats have said that the military had underestimated the resolve of thousands of protesters who had taken over a district of luxury hotels and shopping malls from April 3.

"Unless the government cracks down and does so decisively - and that's a big if - we are going to be seeing rioting and guerrilla warfare, possibly spreading out to other areas," said an Asian diplomat who declined to be identified.

A state of emergency has already spread to more than a quarter of the country after emergency decrees were declared in five more provinces, as violence erupted in the north and northeast.

At least 64 people have died and more than 1,600 have been wounded since the red shirts began their protest in mid-March.

A Red Shirt leader, Nattawut Saikua, called for a ceasefire and UN-moderated talks to end the violence.

The government dismissed the offer. "If they really want to talk, they should not set conditions like asking us to withdraw troops," said Korbsak Sabhavasu, the prime minister's secretary-general.

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Labels: Red Shirts demo | Thai troops casualties | Thailand political unrest

The Effects of Deportation on Families

May 14, 2010
Letter to The New York Times

Re “Deportation’s Brief Adios and Prolonged Anguish” (news article, May 9):

Deportation affects all American families — those without documentation as much as those who are legal permanent residents. We’ve witnessed its effect on Southeast Asian Americans who came as refugees decades ago, and are deported back to the countries they once fled in fear of persecution.

Though one community member fled Cambodia as an infant and barely speaks the language, he was deported, because of a minor conviction from his youth, back to a country he didn’t even remember. After serving time, leading an upstanding life for eight years and starting a family, he was detained and deported while applying for citizenship.

He leaves behind a wife, two daughters and his aging mother. His daughters will grow up without their father.

Current laws are unjust, and tear families apart. We ask that judges be given the power to consider case-by-case circumstances before deciding on deportation or a second chance, an authority that was stripped under the 1996 immigration laws.

Doua Thor
Executive Director
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
Washington, May 11, 2010

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Labels: US deportation policies | US Deportees | US unfair deportation policy

Cambodia Has Come a Long Way! [-To uncover Cambodia's festering societal and economic cancer, one needs to dig deeper!]

PICTURE PERFECT: An aerial view of what Phnom Penh looks like now, taken from the writer's hotel window
ILLUSTRIOUS COMPANY: (From left) The writer with Princess Norodom Arunrasmy and Datuk Kamal Yan, Special Adviser to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak

Monday, May 17th, 2010
Rusdi Mustapha
The Malay Mail

IN 1991, I flew on an army plane to Cambodia to see our soldiers serving under the auspices of the United Nations in Battambang.

This country was just one big dust bowl and rubbish bin as it had to endure too many wars and invasions, and millions of its population were decimated by that evil force under the guise of the dreaded Khmer Rouge.

Today, the Kingdom of Cambodia is bouncing back with a vengeance, economically, politically and socially.

Last week, I had another chance to be part of an official visit there.

Our delegation was headed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

It was a moment of pride to see how Malaysia was being received with much respect by the Kingdom of Cambodian and its government.

Reason? Well, when Cambodia was down and out, Malaysia was there to lend assistance. You name it and we were there to help them without any condition. And sincere assistance to a country in need has borne its fruitful return.

Today, Malaysia is one of Cambodia's biggest foreign investors, besides Japan, China and South Korea.

As said, we are investing everywhere in Cambodia with the consent of their government.

Last week’s official visit saw Malaysian investors committing about US$1 billion (RM3.3 billion, according to AFP reports).

It was reported the private sector agreements covered “education, information communication technology security, produce deemed halal, coffee growing, a poultry farm, and in the plantation sector”. During the three-day visit, Najib met Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, and he pledged to encourage more Malaysians to invest in the kingdom.

Barely two years ago when I visited Phnom Penh, a ride from the Pochentong Airport (since renamed Phnom Penh Airport) on the way to town will expose us to a dusty road filled with red laterite dust, rubbish strewn everywhere and the proverbial chaotic traffic mainly filled with small motorcycles. But on this trip, it was a surprise!

It was like coming to a new township where everything is perfect. Can this be just for the sake of an official visit of a foreign leader that the road from the airport leading to the official hotel is filled with decorations? No, it wasn’t! I took the trouble to visit other parts of Phnom Penh and true enough the whole city has been transformed!

Indeed, Phnom Penh has decided to take a giant leap and the city is now, to my reckoning, one of the best and most comfortable cities to visit. Good food, friendly people, great scenery.

If you decide to, you can sit on the balcony of the Foreign Correspondents Club, sipping the great coffee and eating its famous cheeseburger and watching the river Mekong flow ever solidly and majestically.

According to Princess Norodom Arunrasmy, the Cambodians have a very strong resolve and they want the country to forge ahead come what may.

“We are a very positive people, the hardships we had to endure in the past, we leave them behind, but not to forget them as a lesson for us.

"Malaysia has always been a real friend to Cambodia and I see that relationship to be much stronger as we move ahead as a country.

"Investment from Malaysia has always been given a priority,” she told a group of us at her residence in the capital.

The princess is the daughter of Prince Norodom Sihanouk and she is also the Cambodian Ambassador to Malaysia.

During the lunch she prepared for us, we had laksa, rending and otak-otak and many more almost familiar Cambodian foods that are so like Malaysian cuisine.

AirAsia and Malaysia Airlines both fly to Cambodia and the flight from KL is only about one and a half hours.

Malaysians do not need a visa to go there. So, what are you waiting for?

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Labels: Malaysia | Malaysian investment in Cambodia | Norodom Arunrasmy

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: Red Shirt River

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

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Labels: Political Cartoon | Red Shirts demo | Sacrava | Thailand political unrest

Farmers protest loss of dam

Villagers in Kampong Thom province gather Tuesday morning to protest the dismantling of a Khmer Rouge-era dam in Santuk district. (Photo supplied)

Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post

MORE than 500 people from Kampong Thom province’s Santuk district on Tuesday protested the dismantling of a Khmer Rouge-era irrigation project that they say has led to the flooding of their farmland.

Villagers say the dam, when it functioned, had been used to flush water in and out of farmland belonging to residents of Santuk’s Boeung Lvea, Ti Pou, Kraya and Kampong Thma communes. Government officials dismantled it last year to build a reservoir.

“My land has been totally flooded – I can’t plant rice anymore,” said Khaul Choeun, who claimed to own 2 hectares of flooded land.

In a meeting at Santuk’s Boeung Lvea pagoda, Santuk district governor Pich Sophea told villagers that the government would not be paying compensation to families affected by the flooding because they had planted their rice on state land.

“This is the government’s project to renovate the irrigation system,” Pich Sothea said, adding that the newly built reservoir provided water for residents of five communes in Santuk.

The villagers, he added, understood that they had no right to plant rice on state land but had been incited to protest for compensation by the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP).

“We have prohibited them from planting crops there, so when their crops are flooded over, we are not responsible,” he said. “We have prohibited them again and again – they know already.”

Men Sothavarin, an SRP lawmaker from Kampong Thom, denied that the SRP had incited the protest.

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Labels: Flooding | Illegal land confiscation | Kampong Thom | SRP MP

SRP MP Men Sothavarin listen to Santouk villagers protest against the dismantling of KR era dam


May 10, 2010: MP Men Sothavarin, SRP provincial chief for Kampong Thom, and Mr. Sun Chanthy, provincial working group with more than 500 villagers from 4 communes in Santouk district, Kampong Thom province gather to protest the dismantling of a Khmer Rouge-era dam. The villagers complain that their lands were confiscated without any compensation from the government.

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Labels: Forced eviction | Illegal land confiscation | Kampong Thom | SRP MP

A Day on the SRP Campaign Trail: Kampot Province

Mu Sochua rainsing SRP party sign in Tani commune, Kampot province (All photos: SRP)
Mu Sochua talking to villagers who have gathered for the occasion
Mu Sochua talking to villagers
Dialogue between Mu Sochua and villagers

16-May-2010
Cambodia

At the Tani commune in the Kontrong village, Mu Sochua, deputy Kosal Chin, and commune supporters engaged in putting up an SRP sign. The gathering brought many people from other parties, a product of the SRP's ability to create and restore a democratic and transparent leadership, even at the grassroots level. The new SRP sign is an important symbolic change within the community, signifying that the area is now a place which puts its trust into the Sam Rainsy Party

Kosal Chin, Mu Sochua, and others had a conversation with the commune. Here they spoke about the relationship between the government and the people, stressing that it is the role of the government to listen to the needs of the people and the role of the people is to report problems as well as commentate on progress made within the community.

After the Tani commune, we moved to the Trapaing Rou village for a women's work shop. Here, Mu Sochua talked about important issues concerning the lives of Cambodian women today. She discussed three issues which are themes among Mu Sochua's speeches. She talked about health care and gender, especially concerning reproductive rights and the dangers of pregnancy during delivery. She also brought up matters of education and women while encouraging the women to be a part of the change they wish to see, calling the newly trained women diffuse their ideas to those unable to go to the work shop.

In the Sboundet village, Mu Sochua again had a dialogue expressing the role she has as a representative, stressing that development and freedom is their right, that she is working on their behalf. Here, youth voters discussed how they wanted to vote because they want to have an education and a future. Farmers also discussed corruption in government, as well as poverty and land rights, expressing that farmers have been stuck with the same life inside the village.

Although all of the settings were different in nature, there was one thread pulling them together- a dedication and passion to establishing a just and fair democratic society through a dialogue relationship between and among the people.
-----
By Nicholas Walker-Craig.

About the author: I am currently a Sophomore at the University of Michigan studying Sociology in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I am interning under Mu Sochua and will be mostly working with the Youth Wing of the SRP, and will be in Cambodia until August. I'm very excited and honored to be working with the SRP and Mu Sochua!

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