Meanwhile: The spirit world of the Elephant Mountains

James Pringle
Sunday, February 18, 2007
BOKOR, Cambodia

This once-opulent but long- abandoned hill town, located high above the sea on a spur of Cambodia's Elephant Mountains, is as evocative of French colonial days in Indochina as it is possible to get, down to the bottles of Bordeaux for sale at the forest ranger station.

When the stars blaze from the clear night sky and one sees the ghostly shadow of the deserted Bokor Palace Hotel at the edge of a 3,500 foot-escarpment, it is easy to imagine the orchestra playing prewar French favorites like "Valentine" by Maurice Chevalier, and numbers by his onetime lover, Mistinguett.

Colonial officials, rubber planters and their well-coiffed wives or mistresses would step out on the dance floor for the tango, rumba and Charleston.

Chips would click down on roulette tables in the nearby casino, now a deserted shell, as bow- tied attendants called "Faites vos jeux, mesdames et messieurs."

But the screams of small apes calling to their mates in the cool night are the only nocturnal cries one hears today.

And at dusk Bokor resembles nothing so much as the setting of a Marguerite Duras novel like "The Lover" — or a spooky Hollywood movie. Nowadays, the population of the town is only 20.
Two girls come in to the ranger station for a dinner of rice, fish and winter melon soup, glad to escape the solitude, and easily imagined dangers.

Unfortunate, even terrible, events have really happened here. In the 1970s and '80s, the Khmer Rouge threw their victims over the nearby cliff, dead or alive, often tossing live grenades to finish them off. Skulls and human remains littered the jungle for years, until nature played its part.

The Cambodians, great believers in the spirit world, say Bokor is haunted.

Thai Vong, 29, my driver, who zig- zagged uphill for two hours over broken rubble on the once-tarred jungle track from Kampot, a town far below, suddenly dragged himself from the clifftop.
"Something was tugging my leg toward the edge," he nervously explained, insisting he was not, in turn, pulling my leg.

The first Western explorers reached the plateau in 1917, and in 1922 the hill station was founded, similar to the now tourist-clogged Vietnamese hill resort of Dalat, where the Emperor Bao Dai hunted tigers.

In the 1940s, in a microcosm of major conflict elsewhere, there was battling between Communist Viet Minh and French forces, then, in the 70s, fighting raged between the pro-Western Cambodian government and nascent Khmer Rouge.

The 1980s brought pitched battles between Khmer Rouge, holed up in the deserted Roman Catholic church, and invading Vietnamese forces holding the bullet-pocked hotel 500 yards away. Somehow the church's cross survived. Inside, a Khmer Rouge artist left a self-portrait on the wall.

Nowadays, there are still uniformed men armed with AK-47 rifles. But these are forest rangers employed to discourage illegal logging and to protect wildlife, which includes tigers, boar, bear, deer, python, deadly kraits and, in the more remote jungle, elephants.

Before arriving, I doubted that animals could have survived decades of fighting and bombing. But my doubts vanished as a large, black boar suddenly raced across our tracks.

The ranger, Vi Rang, 21, said he would not have shot the boar, even if it charged us.

"I'd have fired in the air, as I do to scare poachers and illegal loggers," he said.

All this is encouraging news to those who thought Cambodia's wildlife had disappeared. There is currently a debate on whether to devote all efforts to protecting what is now a national park or to encouraging more tourism, besides the iPod-toting backpackers now venturing to this unspoiled, magical time-warp.

Supporters say the largely mine-free Bokor would surely benefit from tourism. After all, as a senior ranger said, "Despite everything, the animals survived, and are even claiming back their land." Read more!

Thailand is the big threat to the Land and Sea Demarcations of Cambodia.

For haft century, Cambodia had been hit several times by revolutionaries and political conspiracies. The Khmer Rouge ( Democratic Kampuchea )revolution was the fallen down dead of Cambodia. It was a political ring that Democratic Kampuchea being knocked down and stamping to dead by the so-called lovely neighbouring friends Thai and Viet.

While Cambodia was down lying dead, Thailand and Vietnam were trying to build themselves to get bigger and taller, smiling and laughing. While Cambodia was dead down, Thailand and Vietnam were on the Wheel of fortune winning prizes. It was the time that both countries did all the looting and Stealing properties that belong to Cambodia ( from music, culture, …….to relic statues belong to Ankor Temple being seen in Thailand today).

But that is not all Cambodia worried about, it is Cambodia border demarcations of the Land and Sea. Right now Cambodia had never seen their border demarcations at the Westside of the country because their border demarcations were seized by the encroachment of Thais and Thai soldiers. They had moved their post closer and closer to villagers’ homes. And causing the villagers felt frightening and scared of being shot to dead and nobody find justice for them. Cambodian government is weak, there is no sovereignty. And everyone of them is worrying about how to steal money from donors.

Cambodia had lost thousand and thousand square kilometres to Thailand, and in the past several years, Thailand had cut trees and logging Companies had transported thousand timbers nights and days. And some areas Thais have been living in and paving roads. What will happen next?

Cambodia is getting up from political knocked down and it was a very long coma for haft century. And it started to build itself with struggling under the Vietnamese authorities who are always obstructing the mechanism of progress. Many government officers in parliament are Vietnamese who controlling the steering wheel of political direction to benefit the Communist Hanoi. It didn’t want Cambodia to rise, right now Vietnameses are living all over Cambodia. While Cambodia is trying to get up, Vietnam is trying to press it down.

The mountain issues are the Sea borders that Cambodia is going to deal with Thailand and Vietnam. Cambodia is trying to develop its country by opening to international investments with all kind of businesses, especially drilling oil in the sea water.

Many companies are lining up for license to drill Oil in Cambodia Sea Water. And there is company like US Chevron had accomplished their oil exploration in the Coast of Thailand already. The estimated of oil underground is 2 billion barrels and 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. And the areas of oil exploration is close to Thailand Sea border which is Thailand had claimed it is belong them, in the past year 2006, Thai prime minister Takshin Sinawatra had asked prime minister Hun Sen to share Oil Wealth with Thailand because oil wells are in the deep sea water close to Thailand’s sea border. There was a lot of intense and we don’t know what will be happened if the two countries starting to talk about borders issues. Will Cambodia map be shrunk? Or oil war?

Read more!

Cambodia provides 2,000 tons of rice for WFP

The Cambodian government has decided to provide 2,000 tons of rice to the World Food Program ( WFP), which has helped Cambodia support children in hunger and HIV- infected people, a statement from the spokesman office of the Cambodian government said here on Saturday.

The WFP received a "critical and timely" contribution of 500, 000 euros (648,000 U.S. dollars) on Feb. 8 from the Spanish government, which allows the WFP to resume its vital food assistance to over one million poor and vulnerable Cambodians, the statement said.

Spain's contribution is crucial as thousands of Cambodians suffered from malnutrition and not having enough food, said Thomas Keusters, WFP Country Director in Cambodia.

WFP appealed in January that it needed at least 10 million U.S. dollars to assist 1.1 million hungry and poor Cambodians until July 2007, Thomas Keusters said.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

Cambodia releases 2,205 mln USD capital for public investment program

The Council of Ministers of Cambodia approved the draft of public investment program from 2007 to 2009 with 2,205 million U.S. dollars capital on Friday, a statement from spokesman office of the Cambodian government said here on Saturday.

The money will be spent on 605 projects, including 274 top priority projects and other 331 projects, the statement said, adding the projects in 2007 is worth about 695 million U.S. dollars, in 2008 about 740 million U.S. dollars and in 2009 about 770 million U.S. dollars.

The projects are all in the plans of the national development strategy, it said.

So far, the Cambodian government and development partners have pledged 1,143 million U.S. dollars for the projects, while Cambodia still needs 1,061 million U.S. dollars, the statement added.

Source: Xinhua Read more!