ADB, Cambodia cooperate in conserving resources of Tonle Sap Great Lake

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Cambodia are working together to conserve the resources of Tonle Sap Great Lake while pursuing pro-poor development initiatives in the area, said ADB in a news release Friday.

ADB and the Cambodian government jointly held a forum in Phnom Penh this month to address the issue, said ADB.

"The forum helped build a stronger sense of ownership of the Initiative among a wide cross section of people involved in this important effort," said Arjun Goswami, ADB country director for Cambodia. "This is a vital step in the effort to restore the environment and improve the livelihood of communities in the Tonle Sap Great Lake."

The Tonle Sap, located north of Cambodia's capital, is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. The ecosystem around the lake is a direct and irreplaceable source of livelihood for more than 1 million people, and an area of environmental biodiversity of global significance, said ADB.

The forum on the Tonle Sap Initiative, which ended on March 6, brought together more than 200 people from ADB, Cambodia, development partners and members of communities living on and around the lake.

Forum participants examined the challenges ahead to achieve equitable development of the Tonle Sap basin and discussed the policies and legal framework that will be needed.

"There is a risk that some of the poor and marginalized could be increasingly left behind," said Urooj Malik, director of the Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Division of ADB's Southeast Asia Department. "It is vital to involve them more in the process of formulating policies designed to improve their conditions."

A major need identified at the forum was for closer coordination of government policies, laws and regulations related to the Tonle Sap Basin, including "harmonization of those concerning natural resources management, zonation of land and water use, and infrastructure development such as roads, water and sanitation and irrigation," said ADB.

Source: Xinhua .
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Chief defense lawyer vows to prevent collapse of Khmer Rouge tribunal

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: The chief defense lawyer for the long-delayed Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal said Saturday he will try to resolve a key sticking point over fees for foreign lawyers that threatens to derail the trials.

Rupert Skilbeck, the head of the defense support section for the U.N.-backed tribunal, said he wants to meet with the Cambodian Bar Association in the coming days to "see if we can find the way to resolve the problem." He said he was confident an agreement could be reached.

The impasse involves a recent decision by the Cambodian Bar Association to charge foreign lawyers hundreds of dollars (euros) to represent defendants or victims in the long-awaited tribunal, which was scheduled to begin later this year.

The issue became public Friday after Cambodian and international judges finished a 10-day meeting to thrash out differences over draft internal rules for the genocide trials, but said the legal fee dispute had prevented their adoption.

Ky Tech, president of the Cambodian Bar Association, declined comment Saturday. He also refused to discuss details of the legal fees.

The Cambodia Daily newspaper reported Saturday that the bar has decided that foreign lawyers wishing to participate in the tribunal must pay a US$500 (€375) membership application fee to the bar.

If chosen to work with a client, they must pay an additional US$2,000 (€1,500) and a US$200 (€150) monthly fee, the newspaper said..

The international judges may boycott a plenary meeting next month if the fee issue is not resolved, the tribunal office said in a statement Friday.

It said the judges discussed, during their meetings, "in exhaustive detail many points and resolved all remaining disagreements, although some fine tuning remains to be done."

But it indicated that the international judges believed that the proposed fee was an obstacle to adopting the agreed rules, while the Cambodia judges believed the fee was irrelevant to the package of rules.

"It is unacceptable to the international judges, who consider that it severely limits the rights of accused and victims to select counsel of their choice," the statement said.

The radical policies of the now-defunct Khmer Rouge, who held power in 1975-79, led to the deaths of about 1.7 million people from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition. But none of the communist group's leaders has been brought to trial.

Squabbling over details about the rules to govern the trials has eaten up nearly a third of the tribunal's three-year planned life span. Further delay could mean that former Khmer Rouge leaders — now old and ailing — will never be brought to trial.

Prosecutors are expected to indict about 10 defendants, including the few surviving top Khmer Rouge leaders.

The tribunal was created by a 2003 agreement between Cambodia and the United Nations after years of difficult negotiations.
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