“He demolished Buddhism when he was in power.”
In this photo released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Nuon Chea, center, who was Pol Pot's No. 2 and the group's chief ideologist, sits during the second trial of the top leaders of Khmer Rouge in the court hall of the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, file photo.
Jailed Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea continued to defend the regime’s policies in a major trial on Thursday, saying the movement was not bent on destroying Buddhism, despite the systematic destruction of pagodas across the country.
Those who accuse the Khmer Rouge of seeking to destroy the religion “do not understand Buddhism,” he said in testimony before the UN-backed tribunal. Buddhism resides in the heart, and in meditation, he said, not in temples.
Thousands of pagodas were destroyed, along with the banking and education systems, after the regime came to power in 1975.
“The party had no measures to eliminate Buddhism,” Nuon Chea told the court under questioning.
However, tribunal attendee Lay Sochea, a monk from Wat Neakvoan pagoda in Phnom Penh, disagreed.
“It’s just his pretext,” he said. “He demolished Buddhism when he was in power.”
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Friday, December 16, 2011
Nuon Chea Denies Khmer Rouge Intended To Destroy Buddhism
Cambodia's future rests on punishing past sexual crimes, argue campaigners
Gender violence in Cambodia owes much to the Khmer Rouge, many feel – yet the trial of the regime's leaders ignores the issue
By Hanna Hindstrom
Net Saveoun was 18 when she was gang raped by Khmer Rouge soldiers. She was one of 30 women selected to "carry salt" and taken to the forest in Pursat province, western Cambodia in 1978. Each of them was beaten, brutalised and had their throat slit before being tossed into an open grave.
"I was the last one," said Saveoun. "I was hit with an axe and my clothes were torn off and then they raped me. They hit me three times with an axe. Then I was thrown into that hole full of blood. Everyone else was already dead."
There is also evidence to suggest that perpetrators were not punished and that the Khmer Rouge deemed rape an acceptable retribution against "enemies of the state".
The hearing's panel of experts called for the ECCC to hold senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge to account for the widespread sexual violence inflicted on the Cambodian people.
"Sexual violence is the only crime against humanity that is routinely dismissed as 'collateral damage'," said Nancee Bright, chief of staff to the UN's special representative on sexual violence in conflict.
Organisers hope the event will encourage victims to speak out and help end the culture of impunity that still haunts Cambodia today.
"[The brutalities of the Khmer Rouge regime] may have happened a long time ago but the legacy of those crimes lives on," said Bright. "We see sexual violence including trafficking of girls as young as six, we see forced prostitution and gang rape, oftentimes via people within their communities, and we see very little protection of migrant workers."
There are no comprehensive statistics on sexual violence but, according to rights groups, rape is on the rise, especially among young people. While rape is illegal and punishable by law – Cambodia introduced a new penal code last year that clarified the definition of rape – enforcement is a problem. So too is a culture of blaming victims, which ensures few women speak out. Poor women and sex workers are the worst affected.
"I have no hope at all in the legal system of this country," said Kong Vanna, who witnessed his sister's rape more than 30 years ago and still lives in the same village as two of the perpetrators. As the statute of limitations under Cambodian law has passed, he has no legal recourse.
Rights activists are adamant the ECCC must end the legacy of impunity and send a clear message that rape is unacceptable. "If we don't address issues of violence in the past, the violence of the present will continue to happen," said Duong Savorn. Read more!
Gunfire hits Thai Chopper
By Cheang Sokha
Cambodia military forces shot at a Thai military helicopter yesterday after it flew into Cambodian airspace in Koh Kong province.
Major General Dy Phen, chief of Cambodian-Thai border relations office, said the helicopter made an emergency landing after about 100 bullets were fired at it as it crossed markers in Koh Kong’s Mondul Seima district at about 1:30pm.
“They have abused the air territory of Cambodia, so we had to fire at them,” Dy Phen, who was recently promoted to the position of adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen, said.
The rear of the helicopter was damaged and could not fly, so it landed at the border between Koh Kong and Pursat provinces, he said.
“If we flew into their territory, they would also shoot at us, but so far we have not received any reaction from Thailand.”
Dy Phen said he believed the encroachment was deliberate and related to Thai soldiers wanting to erect a Buddhist statue along the border so they could deploy their military officials in the area.
“They did it on purpose,” he said. “Our soldiers are now following the situation.”
Attempts to place statues along the border had been made in the past, but Cambodian soldiers had always removed them, he said.
A high-ranking military official in Koh Kong province also confirmed to the Post that they fired at the helicopter after it flew into Cambodian territory.
“They tried to land, but we did not allow it,” he said.
Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongpakdee and Defence Ministry spokesman Thanatip Sawangsaeng could not be reached for comment, but a government source in Trat, Thailand, who did not wish to be named confirmed that a Thai military helicopter on a mission to supply a border post had suffered damage to its tail but had landed safely without anyone being injured.
At the Preah Vihear temple, on the border, Cambodian border-relations officials yesterday received a letter from their Thai counterparts saying Cambodian officials had brought a group of heritage experts to see the temple of Preah Vihear, damaged from shells during the clashes earlier this year, without prior permission, Chan Chhorn, official for the Preah Vihear National Authority, said.
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Thai chopper shooting caused by misunderstanding: Thai navy
BANGKOK, Dec 16 - The commandant of the Royal Thai Marine Corps on Friday said Cambodia's firing on a Thai helicopter on a border mission was caused by a misunderstanding but said that Cambodian and Thai agencies would meet Saturday to discuss measures to prevent any repetition of the incident.
Vice Admiral Pongsak Phureeroj spoke in his capacity as commander of the Chantaburi-Trat border defence forces following media reports that Cambodia's firing at a Thai Bell 212 helicopter while it was on mission to survey the border area and transport food to army personnel stationed along the Thai-Cambodian border.
Adm Pongsak said the Royal Thai Navy already submitted a protest letter to Cambodia's Military Region 3 commander after the attack.
"I definitely affirm that the Navy's helicopter did not trespass Cambodian territory but we were flying to transport food for Thai and Cambodian troops which were deployed only 50 metres away from each other and this is a regular mission," he said.
Adm Pongsak said he was surprised after being informed of the attack as military ties between the two neighbours were considered "very good" and both troops had lunch together every day.
"The Cambodian commander will come to talk with us about this tomorrow (Dec 17) and lay out measures to prevent any repeated incident," Adm Pongsak stated. "What happened must have been caused by misunderstanding and there was no ulterior motive."
The Thai commander said his troops did not return fire on the Cambodian troops after the shooting but the pilot landed immediately as irregularities were detected after the shooting.
Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Towichakchaikul on Friday commented in correspondence with the Royal Thai Marine Corps chief that the firing at the Thai chopper by Cambodian troops was caused by "misunderstanding", and said he is waiting for more details on the matter. (MCOT online news)
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Thursday, December 15, 2011
Logging in Cambodia
Dead wood
A resurgence in illegal logging takes its toll
OF THE five dirt-poor farmers who set out from Chhoeu Slab village in November in search of rosewood, only four returned. The fifth is recuperating in a Thai hospital, having been shot by a Thai border patrol. The boom in trade of the rich-hued hardwood has already claimed 15 lives in 2011, and dozens more have been wounded by Thai soldiers. An unknown number have simply vanished. The shootings could yet become a source of tension between the Thai and Cambodian governments, whose relations have improved immeasurably since Yingluck Shinawatra became Thai prime minister in August.
Slung along the Thai-Cambodian border, the forests of the Dangrek mountains were once brimming with the luxury wood. But rosewood stocks have fallen precipitously in recent years as illegal logging has run rampant. For Cambodian loggers, that means having to push farther into Thailand’s territory—risking capture, injury or death.
The cause of the boom is simple: growing demand in Vietnam and, especially, China. To meet the demand, a complex network of loggers has sprung up, with the riskiest work carried out by the poorest. Some are country men plucked out by ringleaders promising large sums for sawn planks. Others are villagers solicited by local soldiers.
Timber is smuggled out of Cambodia in boats and trucks. For years the trade was overseen by top officials, tycoons and their families, until international attention and even the Cambodian prime minister’s displeasure put a clamp on things. Environmental groups say it is now led by Cambodia’s armed forces. A long-running Thai-Cambodian border dispute that flared up in early 2011 around the temple of Preah Vihear has been a boon for the trade: the army has free access to surrounding areas that others do not.
Inevitably, prices are rising with demand. On the international market, the best rosewood planks can sell for $50,000 a cubic metre. A rosewood wardrobe can fetch $20,000. And as the trade diverts wood abroad, prices within Cambodia have climbed too.
The financial impact on the villagers has been huge. They may earn as little as $250 a year as subsistence farmers, but middlemen will pay them $100 for a good rosewood stump and $10 for a small one. So it is hardly surprising that villagers are venturing farther into the Thai forests, even as the risks mount.
Soy Sambo, a 53-year-old who lives in Por Peal village, 120km (75 miles) east of Chhoeu Slab, is testament to those risks. Her husband and 19-year-old son ventured into the forests in October as part of a logging expedition of 12 people, organised at the behest of a local military officer. The teenager was shot dead, and his father was arrested by Thai authorities when he returned for the body.
A tearful Mrs Soy Sambo says that everyone knows the danger. But they are so poor, she says, they have to risk their lives for the money. Read more!
Cambodia’s Healing Fields
Land mines once crippled a war-ravaged Cambodia. Today the nation is a model for how to recover from this scourge.
By Mark Jenkins
Phototograph by Lynn Johnson
Delicately brushing away the soil with his fingers, Aki Ra uncovers a dark green land mine buried two inches beneath the overgrown dirt road. The size of a large soup can, the mine was planted by the Khmer Rouge about 15 years ago on this ox track in northwestern Cambodia—the most densely mined region of one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
"This is the type 69 Bouncing Betty made in China," says Aki Ra, his breath fogging the blastproof visor of his helmet. Bouncing Betty is the American nickname for a bounding fragmentation land mine. The pressure of a footstep causes it to leap out of the ground and then explode, spraying shrapnel in every direction. It can shred the legs of an entire squad.
Soft-spoken and cherubic, Aki Ra knows the inner workings of the Bouncing Betty and just about every other variety of mine. In the mid-1970s, when he was five, the Khmer Rouge separated him from his parents and took him into the jungle with other orphans. At that time, Pol Pot, commander of the Khmer Rouge, had plunged the country into chaos, closing schools, hospitals, factories, banks, and monasteries; executing teachers and businessmen; and forcing millions of city dwellers into a gulag of labor camps and farms. The small hands of children like Aki Ra were invaluable tools. He was trained to lay land mines, defuse and deconstruct enemy mines, and reuse the TNT for what are now called improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Some years later, when Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia, they dragooned Aki Ra into their army, and he was forced to fight against his former captors. When the United Nations' peacekeeping forces finally arrived in 1992, he'd been living in the jungle for some 15 years. He joined the UN as a deminer. When the peacekeepers left two years later, much of the best agricultural lands—vegetable gardens, pastures, rice fields—were still mined. Farmers trying to reclaim their fields were being blown to pieces. For a decade and a half, using only a knife and a stick, Aki Ra worked as an unpaid sapper, defusing rather than detonating land mines, reclaiming his country one square foot at a time. By his own count, he has defused some 50,000 devices: blast mines, antitank mines, bounding mines, and other explosives.
"I found a lot of mines that I laid," he says with a conflicted sense of pride and shame.
Now a certified deminer, he has his own squad, the Cambodian Self Help Demining team, partially funded by the U.S. The deminers use special metal detectors to search for explosives; that's how they found the Bouncing Betty.
Sweat is dripping off Aki Ra's face as he carefully places a small charge beside the land mine, attaches wires, and runs a thin cable a hundred yards away. Like all official demining organizations, Aki Ra's team no longer defuses land mines but detonates them in situ instead. Squatting behind a tree, he pushes the red button. The explosion is terrifying. With half a grin, Aki Ra says, "One less land mine, one less child without a leg."
In the warfare that raged in Cambodia from 1970 until 1998, all sides used land mines. There are more than 30 different types. Villagers have prosaic names for them based on their appearance: the frog, the drum, the betel leaf, the corncob. Most were manufactured in China, Russia, or Vietnam, a few in the United States. Pol Pot, whose regime was responsible for the deaths of some 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979, purportedly called land mines his "perfect soldiers." They never sleep. They wait, with limitless patience. Although weapons of war, land mines are unlike bullets and bombs in two distinct ways. First, they are designed to maim rather than kill, because an injured soldier requires the help of two or three others, reducing the enemy's forces. Second, and most sinister, when a war ends, land mines remain in the ground, primed to explode. Only 25 percent of land mine victims around the world are soldiers. The rest are civilians—boys gathering firewood, mothers sowing rice, girls herding goats.
Despite its horrific history, Cambodia has now become a model for how a nation can recover from the scourge of land mines. There are more than a dozen programs for demining, land mine risk education, and survivor assistance in the country. The number of men, women, and children killed or injured each year by mines (both antipersonnel and antitank), explosive remnants of war, or IEDs has fallen from a high of 4,320 in 1996 to 286 in 2010. Survivors are offered medical and vocational assistance. Every schoolchild is taught about the dangers of explosives. Contests have even been held for the best hip-hop songs about land mine awareness.
"I've been rude since I was young," a male performer boasts in one winning song. "I can only make things from bombs."
"No need to exaggerate and show off to me," the female chorus replies. "I don't care and don't want to hear about this."
Major minefields have been mapped and are being systematically demined. There's even a Cambodia Landmine Museum, created by Aki Ra. Located outside Siem Reap, a provincial capital, it displays the mines and ordnance that he deactivated. With support from Americans Bill and Jill Morse, who founded the Landmine Relief Fund, Aki Ra also cares for and educates 35 children at an orphanage.
Worldwide, millions of land mines are buried in nearly 80 countries and regions—from Angola to Afghanistan, Vietnam to Zimbabwe. That's one of every three nations. Many of them are following Cambodia's example. In 2002 almost 12,000 people worldwide were reported killed or maimed by land mines or other explosives. Since then, annual casualties have fallen to fewer than 4,200. This dramatic improvement is a direct result of the Mine Ban Treaty signed in Ottawa, Canada, in 1997, an international agreement banning the use, production, or transfer of land mines and calling for mandatory destruction of stockpiles. Today 157 countries have become party to the treaty, including Afghanistan, Liberia, Nicaragua, and Rwanda; but 39 countries have refused to join, including China, Russia, North Korea, and the U.S.
The American position is complicated. The United States has not used antipersonnel land mines since 1991, not exported them since 1992, and not produced them since 1997. But the nation has a stockpile of some 10 million land mines, and prior to the '90s, it exported 4.4 million antipersonnel land mines, an unknown number of which are still in the ground. Ian Kelly, a State Department spokesman, described the government's official position in 2009: "We would not be able to meet our national defense needs nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we signed this convention." Nonetheless, under pressure from the United States Campaign to Ban Landmines, the Obama Administration has been conducting a comprehensive review of its land mine policy.
Despite its refusal to join the treaty, the U.S. has done more to counteract mines than any other country, spending $1.9 billion during the past 18 years through the Humanitarian Mine Action Program—roughly a quarter of the total spent on demining and other remediation activities around the world. There's been a special emphasis on helping Cambodia, which has received more than $80 million since 1993.
As in many countries, the vast majority of demining in Cambodia is done by hand. Demining machines—30-ton, dinosaur-size rototillers that flail the earth to a depth of 12 inches—are exceedingly expensive. Only three are in use, along with 50 or so dogs trained to sniff out a mine. But in the end, a human must dig it out.
Demining operations have strict protocols. Outfitted in heavy, high-collared, crotch-protecting flak jackets and thick-visored helmets, a team of 10 to 25 deminers line up along the edge of a minefield with garden tools and a metal detector. Moving forward in yard-wide lanes, they first clear the vegetation from each three-foot-square block, then sweep the ground with the detectors. They toil straight through monsoonal rains and scorching heat, moving the detectors across the ground, listening for the telltale beep.
The salary is decent for Cambodia—about $160-$250 a month—but money is not the main motivation. When Hong Cheat was five or six years old, a cow he was tending stepped on a land mine. The explosion killed his mother and father and blew off his right leg. He was surviving on the streets of Phnom Penh as a beggar when Aki Ra adopted him and trained him to be a deminer.
"I like to clear the land mines," says Cheat. "I don't want to see any more people like me in my country."
There's a new sense of hope spreading across Cambodia. The country is becoming a place where you can dream of a better life—and where sometimes, those dreams come true. Just ask Miss Landmine Cambodia.
Dos Sopheap, a young woman from Battambang Province, lost her leg to a mine when she was six years old. Her father, then a soldier, was carrying her in his arms through the forest at night when someone in front of them stumbled on a trip wire. Her leg was amputated high above the knee, and she has always used crutches with her false leg—until now.
To the tearful clapping of her family, Sopheap is taking her new titanium prosthesis for a test run around their dirt front yard, scattering the ducks and chickens. As befits a beauty queen, she is wearing a flouncy, peach-colored dress lit up like a rose by the setting sun. Her twin sisters hang on to each arm as she walks stiffly in circles, and her mother weeps.
Competing against 19 other women who had also lost limbs, Sopheap won the 2009 title of Miss Landmine Cambodia through an Internet vote based on her photo. She was awarded $1,000 in cash and a $15,000 state-of-the-art prosthesis. The beauty pageant was founded by Morten Traavik, an eccentric Norwegian theater director who organized the first contest in Angola in 2008.
"The goal is to bring attention to the global issue of land mine contamination," Traavik had told me earlier at a beauty parlor in Battambang where Sopheap was being coiffed and made up for a photo shoot, "and to make us think about how we, able-bodied people, look at disabled people, and not least how disabled people perceive themselves and present themselves."
"It was so hard to watch other children run and play in the schoolyard," says Sopheap's mother. The other children teased the young girl. But that didn't discourage her. Beautiful and quiet, she became a top student, ranking fifth in her high school class. The other kids now call her Miss Landmine, which pleases her. She hopes to become an accountant someday. Her mother later confides that Sopheap also "just wants to be like the other girls and be able to wear jeans."
People aren't the only victims of land mines. A country's economy is crippled too. More than 60 percent of Cambodians are farmers, who can't work a field if it's mined, can't earn an income, and can't feed their families. This is one reason why so many other mine-poisoned countries have struggled for so long after armed conflict has ended.
"There's a clear link between land mine contamination and poverty," says Jamie Franklin of Mines Advisory Group (MAG), one of the major demining operations in Cambodia. Franklin has a large map of the country on the wall of his office in Phnom Penh. The eastern half is splattered with thousands of tiny red and purple dots, representing U.S. bombing raids during the Vietnam War. The western half is marked with hundreds of yellow squares, representing minefields. Unexploded ordnance and minefields are huge obstacles to increased agricultural production, which the government believes is necessary for economic development and recovery.
MAG has demined thousands of acres of contaminated land during the past two decades, including the village of Prey Pros in central Cambodia, where brilliant green squares of flooded rice fields shimmer as far as the eye can see. In Prey Pros, you can hear hammers and laughter. Crops have been good for the past few years, and residents are building homes.
Thath Khiev, the village chief, bounced a naked baby on his knee while his wife stirred a cauldron of bubbling rice. Seventeen years ago, their world was very different.
"We did not have enough food to eat," Khiev tells me. "We could not grow rice on our own land because the soldiers had laid the mines." Prey Pros was once a garrison for Cambodian government forces. Two companies of soldiers were stationed here to protect a nearby bridge. To deter the Khmer Rouge, the bridge was mined and the village's rice fields were also heavily mined as a no-man's-land perimeter. Even footpaths in the village were mined. "It was very difficult," Khiev says.
MAG demined the area around Prey Pros in 1994 and 1995, removing 379 antipersonnel mines and 32 unexploded ordnance.
"Now we can walk safely to the rice fields and work freely without fear of mines," Khiev says. Tossing his grandson in the air, he adds, "It's safe for little children. If they want to swim in the river, in the lake, they can."
As villages and rice paddies like Prey Pros have been cleared, Cambodia's economy has grown stronger. In 1999, the first full year of peace, Cambodia had a gross national income (GNI) of $10 billion and a per capita annual income of $820; 11 years later, in 2010, the GNI had almost tripled to $29 billion, and personal income had more than doubled to $2,040.
Since 1992 demining has cleared about 270 square miles, but there are still some 250 square miles of contaminated land left. Currently, 23 to 31 square miles are cleared a year, which means it will take another decade to rid Cambodia of mines and other explosives—a goal that has been achieved in less heavily mined countries like El Salvador, Honduras, and Albania.
"We simply cannot clear them fast enough," Franklin says.
Even though deminers are still busy, Cambodia is no longer a devastated nation. Cities and villages throb with industriousness.
"We have a future now," says San Mao.
Short and muscled, Mao is an elite runner. He rises at four o'clock every morning to train, threading five miles through the wet, black streets of Phnom Penh. An hour later, after changing his curved fiberglass prosthesis for a rubber foot, he goes to work, whizzing around town as a motorcycle taxi driver. At five in the afternoon, he picks up his young daughter from school, then goes out for another run. His efforts have paid off.
Nine times in recent years, Mao has won the Angkor Wat International artificial leg ten-kilometer foot race, part of the Angkor Wat International Half Marathon, which was founded in 1996 to help land mine survivors.
He doesn't run just to win races. Running has calmed his mind. He used to get headaches from thinking too much about the past. "Now I focus on making a living for just one day, on eating for one day," he says, almost smiling.
Mao was a 15-year-old farm boy in 1987 when he was kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge. Soldiers dragged him away from his family into the jungle near the Thai border, forcing him to carry ammunition and refusing to feed him. One morning he spotted fruit beneath a tree. The next thing he remembers he was lying in the mud, blood everywhere. The tree had been booby-trapped. "I cannot find anything to compare to the pain," whispers Mao. "I died there."
Three days later, unconscious but alive, he was found by other soldiers, who carried him to a hospital across the border in Thailand. Doctors amputated his leg below the knee. Upon returning to Cambodia, he began vocational training sponsored by Handicap International. That's where he met Ouch Vun, his future wife.
Today the couple live in central Phnom Penh with their daughter and ten other tenants. Their corrugated metal shack is set on stilts above a swamp with floating garbage. Inside, the walls are papered with pages from a pop culture magazine. Mao's race medals hang from nails behind the TV.
When I visit, Regina, their seven-year-old, offers me a bottle of water, then sits in her father's lap. Ouch Vun hobbles over and places a whirring electric fan before me, then awkwardly seats herself beside her husband, tucking her sarong over her artificial leg.
Vun is so shy she barely speaks. Her eyes drop when I look at her. She tells me that her right leg was blown off in 1990 when she was digging for gold with her impoverished family. "When the doctor cut off my leg, I cried for months," she says.
Regina has been watching first her father, then her mother, tell their stories. Mao is stroking her hair, Vun lightly touching her arm. Unlike her parents when they were her age, she can walk without fear of suffering the same fate.
A week later, on a mild December morning, a crowd of hundreds cheers the start of the Angkor Wat ten-kilometer race. It's a fitting location for the biggest race of its kind in Cambodia, with 50 or more runners. The famous ruins were once indiscriminately planted with land mines. Today Angkor Wat is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations.
When San Mao first comes into view, the clapping and cheering swell. Sweat streaks his cropped black hair; his round face is as calm as Buddha's. Whether he knows it or not, Mao is the embodiment of a country transcending its past. His feet, one muscle and bone, the other bowed fiberglass, are like wings. When they carry him first across the finish line, Cambodians erupt in jubilation.
. Read more!
Cambodia is the new China for Halfords
By Enda Mullen
China is no longer the automatic go-to country for manufacturing with the emerging economies of tomorrow offering better value, according to the boss of one of the Midlands’ best known companies.
Halfords chief executive David Wild said the company was seeking out new manufacturers across the globe in countries such as Cambodia as it strove to retain a competitive edge.
Mr Wild revealed the South East Asian country had emerged as an unlikely supplier for bicycles in a supply chain that is rapidly changing and evolving and believes it offers a real alternative to the Chinese option.
“As these markets mature labour costs increase,” he said. “If we want to stay price competitive we also have to be trying to find new manufacturing sources.
“We are now buying bikes from Cambodia, which is a lower duty area and therefore has lower costs.
“We have to go to new sources and have found a supplier that provides excellent value and we pass that on to the customer. You have to work much harder to find the cheapest sources.”
But it is not a case of the company turning its back on China, with Halfords having recently opened an office in Shanghai to target new manufacturing areas of the country and Mr Wild continues to see the country as a major supply source.
“We have set up an office in Shanghai to look at the whole of China and see there are areas that offer lower production costs,” he added.
“The south east seaboard of China was the traditional production area and most of the buying offices were in Hong Kong. More and more production is spreading to other parts and Shanghai is an important buying area for us.”
The Cambodian connection came about more by chance than by design, according to Mr Wild, with Halfords taking a proactive role as it developed.
“We go to fairs two or three times a year where all the cycle producers exhibit,” he said. “At one we met someone who was actually producing in Taiwan. He found it increasingly expensive and said he was thinking of opening a factory in Cambodia.
“We looked at the bikes and the guy clearly knew what he was doing.
“Cambodia offered cheap labour costs and duty rates, so we said if you want to build a factory there we will provide some technical help regarding the bikes we want.
“We started buying bikes two years ago, in relatively small volumes at first but it has got bigger over time.
“It’s an example of finding the right partner, supporting them with our technical help and moving to a significant level of production.”
Importantly, Cambodia could be just the first step of many and Mr Wild revealed it is not the only new country it is exploring opportunities in.
“We’re not talking about it publicly but we are already looking at where we can go next,” he said.
The Halfords chief remains cautious about dealing with the downturn but believes providing customers with services and products they need and want at the right price remains key, particularly in relation to car servicing at its Nationwide Autocentres chain.
“The recovery profile is looking to be a long one so what customers are doing is recognising things are not going to get any better so they are changing their behaviour,” he said. “Customers are much more price conscious when servicing their car and our autocentres business has been doing well.
“Our position is that most customers feel main dealerships do a very good job but they pay a very high price. They are happy with the quality of work but feel they are paying too high a price. Independents are much more flexible, much more responsive and you can usually get your car in more quickly. But customers need to feel more comfortable with an independent as regards the same quality of work and trustworthiness.
“We are delivering a balance, the quality of work of a main dealer with a brand that is trusted and the same price you pay at an independent.”
There are also plans for growth of the Nationwide Autocentres business. When Halfords bought it last year there were 223 servicing outlets, a figure that has since grown to 247, and Mr Wild said he believes there is room for 400 or more with plans to grow the business by around 30 outlets a year.
Bicycles also continue to be a growth area for Halfords, as does its online retailing operation, though Mr Wild feels its ‘reserve and select’ model where people browse online but go to a store to confirm their purchase is in line with what customers want.
“It’s a very powerful combination,” he said. “People talk about multi-channel retailing and Halfords is one of the best in the UK at doing that.
“They research online and buy online but come to the store to get added value. In most cases don’t take money off customer until they come to the store, to give them a chance to be completely satisfied before parting with their money.”
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Cambodia to get its first drop of oil by end of 2012
China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) has begun drilling in Block F, nearly 40km south of Sihanoukville in southern Cambodia, Council of Ministers Press and Quick Reaction Unit spokesman Ek Tha said Wednesday.
"CNOOC’s chief executive told Deputy Prime Minister HE Sok An today about the company drilling its first well since it got the oil and gas exploration project in 2007," he said.
The spokesman said Sok An welcomed the drilling and asked about CNOOC’s decision in Block F.
According to the National Petroleum Authority, the block covers more than 7,000sqkm, with the first drilling project expected to cost US$20 million.
The commencement of drilling follows an environmental impact assessment received by civil society last month. Cambodia expects to get its first drop of oil by the end of 2012.
Read more!
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
CNOOC to start drilling 1st oil well in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH - The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) will start drilling the first well in the Block F offshore in Cambodia's Preah Sihanouk province later this month, Li Fanrong, the company's Chief Executive Officer, said Wednesday.
His disclosure was made during a meeting with Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, minister of the council of ministers, according to Ek Tha, spokesman and deputy director of the Council of Ministers' Press Department.
Li Fanrong said the start of the drilling showed the firm's commitment to investing in Cambodia's oil and gas sector and it resulted from good and long relationship between Cambodia and China, according to Ek Tha.
The first well drilling is expected to cost 20 million US dollars.
Meanwhile, Sok An said it was a very good sign for Cambodia's oil and gas sector and added that Cambodia fully supported the firm for the drilling.
He also asked the CNOOC, which is China's biggest offshore oil and gas company, to help develop Cambodian petroleum officials to keep up with new techniques in oil and gas industry.
The government of Cambodia awarded the Block F in the total area of over 7,000 square kilometers to the CNOOC in 2007, according to the document of the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority.
The Block F is one of the six offshore Blocks that Cambodia awarded to companies to do the exploration.
The other five Blocks are Block A by the US Chevron and Japan' s Mitsui Oil Exploration, Block B to Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production and Singapore Petroleum, Block C to Polytec Petroleum Hong Kong, Block D to China Petrotech Holdings Limited, and Block E to Medco Energi and Kuwait Energy.
The impoverished Southeast Asian nation hopes that the first drop of its own-produced oil will be available from December, 2012 as now Cambodia's Petrochemical Company, a joint-venture with the China National Automation Control System Corporation, has been studying the feasibility to build an oil refinery with an annual capacity of 5 million tons per year in Preah Sihanouk province.
Read more!
Inevitable, or in Limbo? A Dam for the Mekong
“Many villages don’t even know they need to be resettled, and people living downstream don’t know what’s happening.”
By Rachel Nuwer
As The Times reported last week, environment ministers from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos have decided to await the results of further studies before making a decision on whether to proceed with construction of a dam in the Mekong River. Conservationists argue that damming the river, a vital and biologically diverse lifeline for people in all four countries, would be irresponsible. (Check out our slide show to get a sense of the river’s centrality to people in the basin.)
What comes next, however, is unclear. The government of Laos, where the dam would be built, is not satisfied with the decision, according to Viraphonh Viravong, the deputy minister of the Laotian Ministry of Energy and Mines. “It would be very sad and not very fair to Laos not to develop the Xayaburi project since this is a very rare opportunity for Laos to attract foreign investment,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Times. “We would not be very proud of ourselves to continue begging for development assistance.”
What is more, Laos began preliminary construction at the dam site before last week’s meeting and has yet to make a clear commitment to stop construction at Xayaburi.
“The government of Laos didn’t mention the topic at the meeting,” said Surasak Glahan, a spokesman for the Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental body that is responsible for promoting cooperation in the basin and organized the meeting. He said the commission and the other member governments had sent official letters to the Laotian government inquiring about construction activity but had yet to receive a reply.
After the meeting, the Laotian authorities told some members of the local media that the construction activity had nothing to do with the dam and was part of “normal” projects like bringing roads to local communities.
As we noted here last week, the Xayaburi dam, a 1260-megawatt hydropower project, is the first of 11 proposed mainstream dams on the Mekong River. Although it is aimed at generating much-needed foreign exchange earnings for Laos, scientists and neighboring countries like Vietnam and Cambodia have expressed concern over the project’s potential social and environmental impacts since it was first proposed in September 2010.
Some scientists and conservationists still hope that the project can be shelved altogether. “We will continue to advocate for no dams on the Mekong,” said Ame Trandem, the Southeast Asia program director for the nonprofit group International Rivers. She said that damming the river would be “reckless and irresponsible” given the many uncertainties about the project’s effects on the ecosystem and local people.
Zeb Hogan, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno who has studied the river’s ecosystem, said that the Mekong countries had made “a prudent decision” for now that represented “a rare win” for fish and for the millions of people who depend upon fish and the health of the Mekong for their livelihoods.
For critically endangered species like the Mekong giant catfish, the delay preserves the possibility of saving the species from extinction, he said in an e-mail.
Mr. Viravong counters that the dam’s impacts would be “insignificant” and that the project will not cause significant trans-boundary problems downstream.
Mr. Glahan of the Mekong River Commission said that it was awaiting directions from the four member countries. The nations may request further studies and the drafting of details on what approach the countries would prefer to take in addressing the dam’s potential impacts, he said.
The four countries have already asked Japan to assist in further studies.
Thirteen other nations, including the United States, and donor agencies like the World Bank attended last week’s meeting. In a statement, those countries and organizations said they hoped that further studies would address knowledge gaps and “account for the full value of environmental, economic and social services currently provided by the basin.” A spokesman for Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, called the delay “a positive sign,” Agence France-Presse reported.
Mr. Viravong said that Laos was recruiting experts on fisheries and sediment to review previous reports evaluating the dam’s potential impacts, including a strategic environmental assessment and a controversial report commissioned by Laos that said dam construction would pose no serious risks yet incorporated no new scientific research. He said that such reviews should take two to three months.
A comprehensive environmental study involving Japan and the other donor countries would probably take 10 years, Mr. Viravong warned.
The international partners have also recommended deeper engagement with local communities in the decision-making process, especially people who could be most affected by the dam. That would require providing the communities with detailed environmental impact assessments written in their own language at least 30 days before a public consultation, Ms. Trandem said, which has not happened so far in any of the four countries.
This is especially pressing for Lao communities, who have not been consulted. “They’ve really heard mixed information,” Ms. Trandem said, “Many villages don’t even know they need to be resettled, and people living downstream don’t know what’s happening.”
Mr. Viravong, the Laotian government minister, emphasized that the Xayaburi project would provide clean, renewable and sustainable energy. “This is not for Lao people only, but for the benefit of the region and the whole world,” he said. “Please help Laos develop sustainable hydropower projects and don’t make this more difficult for the poor people of Laos.” Read more!
Khmer Rouge leader tells Cambodia court: 'don't call me Brother Number Two'
The former deputy leader of the Khmer Rouge told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court on Wednesday that he was never called "Brother Number Two", a nickname he said was "too big" for him.
Giving evidence at his landmark atrocities trial, alongside two other senior members of the brutal 1970s regime, Nuon Chea said there "was no such thing" as a hierarchy numbering system within the Khmer Rouge.
"I am not 'Brother Number Two'," the 85-year-old said, though he admitted he was the deputy secretary of the party and "one step below" leader Pol Pot – who died in 1998 and was widely known as "Brother Number One".
The hardline communist Khmer Rouge emptied cities, abolished money and religion and wiped out nearly a quarter of the population through starvation, overwork or execution in a bid to create an agrarian utopia.
Nuon Chea, ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary and ex-head of state Khieu Samphan all deny charges of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity for their roles in a regime blamed for the deaths of up to two million people.
The trio's long-awaited trial is seen as vital to healing wounds in the still-traumatised nation and hundreds of Cambodians again packed the public gallery to see Nuon Chea, wearing a black jumper and jacket, take the stand.
"So 'Brother Number Two' to me seems too big for me," the elderly defendant said. "I have never used 'Brother Number Two' and in the party no one called me 'Brother Number Two' at all."
He added that he believed the moniker was popularised by Cambodians who had studied in neighbouring Vietnam and copied that country's culture of assigning numbers to indicate ranks.
The first phase of the trial will focus on the forced evacuation of over two million residents from Phnom Penh to work in rural areas, a decision Nuon Chea said was made without input from fellow accused Khieu Samphan.
"He had no business to do with the evacuation or otherwise of the people. It was not his task," Nuon Chea said.
On Tuesday, Khieu Samphan told judges he was a mere figurehead who had no real power in the party. The French-educated intellectual has always insisted he knew nothing, until long afterwards, of the mass killings under the regime. Read more!
Cambodia expects 7% growth in 2011: premier
PHNOM PENH - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday said the country's economy would grow by about seven per cent in 2011 despite the agricultural damage caused by unusually heavy flooding.
Cambodia's deadliest floods in over a decade, triggered by heavy rains in August and September, killed at least 247 people and destroyed nearly one tenth of the nation's rice paddies.
"I would like to confirm that although the agricultural sector growth is at zero per cent, Cambodia's economic growth rate will be around seven per cent this year," Hun Sen said during a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh.
He said the economy was boosted by an increase in garment exports and international tourist arrivals and a resurgent construction industry.
The International Monetary Fund last week projected that Cambodia's economic growth in 2011 would fall slightly below six per cent as a result of the floods, down from an earlier forecast of 6.7 per cent.
The global body said it expected Cambodia's gross domestic product growth to reach 7.25 per cent in 2012.
Written off as a failed state after the devastating 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime and several decades of civil war, Cambodia has used garment and footwear exports and tourism to help improve its economy.
The country enjoyed several years of double-digit economic growth before being hit hard by the global financial crisis which began in 2007.
But like much of Asia, Cambodia has bounced back and achieved 5.9 per cent growth in 2010, according to Hun Sen.
Cambodia remains one of the world's poorest countries, with around 30 per cent of its 14 million people living on less than US$! (S$1.3) a day.
Read more!
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
'Unfit' Khmer Rouge defendant to stay detained
By SOPHENG CHEANG
Print Font: +-PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia's U.N.-assisted tribunal ordered Tuesday that a Khmer Rouge defendant earlier ruled unfit to stand trial will remain detained to see if her mental condition improves.
The highest chamber of the tribunal reversed a ruling by junior judges that would have freed 79-year-old Ieng Thirith whose doctors concluded has Alzheimer's disease. The lower panel had said the illness diminished her mental capacity. Prosecutors had appealed against her release.
The new ruling came during the second week of testimony in the trial of Ieng Thirith's three co-defendants, who include her husband, Ieng Sary, foreign minister in the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime. Ieng Thirith was social affairs minister.
The tribunal is seeking justice for 1.7 million people who died of starvation, lack of medical care or execution under Khmer Rouge rule. The defendants have been charged with crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture. All have pleaded innocent and in statements to the tribunal have blamed Vietnam for much of Cambodia's troubles.
Lars Olsen, a spokesman for the tribunal, said Ieng Thirith would remain at the tribunal's detention center until medical treatment was arranged and she could be detained at the location where she undergoes treatment.
"After six months of medical treatment, Ieng Thirith shall undergo a new medial, psychiatric and/or psychological expert examination, before the Trial Chamber will have to make a new assessment of her fitness to stand trial," he said in an emailed statement.
Ieng Thirith has said the charges against her are "100 percent false" and said she always worked for the benefit of the people. She is the sister-in-law of Khmer Rouge supreme leader Pol Pot, who died in 1998. Pol Pot married Ieng Thirith's sister, Khieu Ponnary, who died in 2003.
Her husband and the other co-defendants were also part of the communist group's ruling inner circle: Nuon Chea, who was second in command to Pol Pot and the group's chief ideologist, and head of state Khieu Samphan.
To handle the case faster, the tribunal has grouped different charges to be tried separately. The current proceedings cover the forced movement of people and crimes against humanity.
Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan gave testimony Tuesday — both rehashing positions they had taken in their opening statements — while Ieng Sary asserted his right not to testify.
Nuon Chea told the court that the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh had been planned by Khmer Rouge leaders two years before they captured the capital on April 17, 1975. More than 1 million people were forced to immediately go to the countryside, where most were forced to work on giant communes as the Khmer Rouge attempted to create a pure agrarian socialist society.
He said the Khmer Rouge had determined that the people in Phnom Penh were already starving and would be better off moving to the countryside.
They also wanted to see if the United States, which had been fighting against them, and Vietnam, socialist allies but Cambodia's traditional enemy, would seek to attack them.
He insisted that Vietnam, not the Khmer Rouge, was responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Cambodians. Vietnamese spies and traitorous Cambodians were responsible for the regime's troubles, he insisted.
Only the most hardcore enemies of the Khmer Rouge, who would not reform despite repeated attempts at re-education, were killed, he said. The revolution needed human beings as capital, to defend the country, he said. Keeping people alive "was much better than killing them."
Khieu Samphan insisted he was not a part of the group's inner circle, but only an intellectual they had recruited but not really trusted. "I did not participate in any decision making process," he said.
"I was appointed deputy prime minister of nothing, a defense minister of nothing, military commander of nothing," Khieu Samphan said in his statement, referring to positions he held during the group's armed struggle for power in 1970-75. Read more!
Three Thai soldiers killed by landmine
BANGKOK — Three Thai soldiers were killed and one was critically wounded when an old landmine exploded Tuesday as they were trying to defuse it on the country's border with Cambodia, a military official said.
The anti-tank device, thought to have been planted decades ago, was discovered in Klong Hat district, Sakaeo province, around 240 kilometers (150 miles) east of Bangkok.
"The three soldiers killed in the course of their work were aged between 45 to 50," said a local military official, who declined to be named.
The border between Thailand and its neighbour is littered with landmines left over from decades of war in Cambodia.
Earlier this year, deadly border clashes broke out between the two countries near an ancient temple further northeast on their shared frontier.
The Hague-based International Court of Justice in July asked both nations to withdraw military personnel from around the Preah Vihear temple complex and the border has been calm in recent months.
Read more!
Malaysia seizes hundreds of elephant tusks worth $1.3M from Kenya en route to Cambodia
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian authorities have seized hundreds of African elephant tusks worth 4 million ringgit ($1.3 million) that were being shipped to Cambodia.
Customs official Azis Yacub says inspectors at Port Klang harbor found the tusks hidden in containers of handicrafts from Kenya’s Mombasa port. The shipment was headed for Cambodia’s beach resort area of Sihanoukville.
Officials said Tuesday they had no precise figure for the number of tusks, which weighed nearly two tons.
The seizure followed a tip-off Monday. No arrests have been made.
Malaysia has stepped up inspections for illegal ivory after wildlife groups said the country was becoming a transit hub for tusks amid robust demand in China.
Read more!
Monday, December 12, 2011
Scientists discover more than 200 new Mekong species
Scientists have identified more than 200 new species in the Greater Mekong region of south-east Asia, a report by conservation group WWF says.
They say that throughout 2010 more than 100 plants, 28 reptiles, 25 fish and seven amphibians were discovered.
But the WWF warns that many are endangered - while others could disappear before they are identified.
The Greater Mekong area includes Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, Laos and Yunnan province of China.
It is one of the world's most bio-diverse areas, home to some of the planet's most endangered wild species including the tiger, the Asian elephant and the Mekong dolphin.
The WWF says that more than 1,000 species have been discovered in the Greater Mekong over the past 10 years.
BBC environment reporter Mark Kinver says that new species are frequently found in the region because of increasing levels of human activity, which is proving to be a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, building roads opens up remote habitats to scientists who can then venture into previously unexplored areas and record the rich diversity of wildlife.
But this can also have a damaging ecological impact, especially if it results in a greater exploitation of the land which destroys these fragile ecosystems, our correspondent adds.
Female-only lizard
Among recent finds was a female-only lizard species, which reproduces by cloning, and was only discovered after a scientist spotted it on the menu of a Vietnamese restaurant.
Ms Bladen said that the female-only cloning lizard was also an exiting find.
"This lizard is not genetically diverse and is therefore very vulnerable. So these species are often found in shrinking habitats that are under pressure from rapid and unsustainable development and climate change," she said.
"But while we have extraordinary richness in this region, it is a richness that is under threat and shrinking fast and needs urgent effort to protect it."
The latest WWF report comes just days after the organisation announced the extinction of the Javan rhino in Vietnam because of poaching, and a 70% reduction in the number of wild tigers in just over 10 years.
China, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia are all planning hydropower dams along the Mekong river to meet the increasing demand for electricity.
Another new species - discovered in 2010 - is a snub-nosed monkey found in a remote and mountainous part of Burma's Kachin state, WWF spokeswoman Sarah Bladen told the BBC.
"It is well known to locals, who would spot the black-and-white monkey in the rain with its head between its knees, shielding it from the rain running into its upturned nose," she said. Read more!
Cambodia, U.S. start another joint exercise to boost military ties
PHNOM PENH, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and the U.S. marines on Monday began another humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise to boost the two countries ' military relations, according to a press release from the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh.
The joint exercise was made just days after a similar one was ended last Friday between Cambodia's military police and U.S. marines from the III Marine Expeditionary Force.
The press release said that the joint exercise will be held in the vicinities of Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville and last until Dec. 18.
It added that U.S. marines and sailors from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and Amphibious Squadron 5 aboard the USS Pearl Harbor and USS New Orleans will exchange experiences with Cambodian forces pertaining to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief response, as a means to enhance professional cooperation and coordination between the two forces.
Components of the exchanges include an engineering civic action project, medical and mass casualty response drills, platoon maneuvers, and a community relation-building blood drive campaign.
"This exercise serves as another example of how U.S. and Cambodian forces can work together, increase each other's cultural understanding, enhance capabilities, and improve coordination, while providing services to areas and individuals in need," said Jeff Daigle, charg d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy to Cambodia.
Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercises have strengthened the relationship between the U.S. and Cambodian armed forces, while also improving the ability of Asia-Pacific nations to work together effectively to provide relief and assistance in the event of natural disasters and crises, added the press release.
Read more!
Cambodia to send labour to Qata
By May Kunmakara
The government has approved Qatar as a destination for the growing number of Cambodian labourers seeking employment overseas.
Workers will not be recruited for housekeeping services, however, private sector officials said. The abuse of maids in Malaysia – many of whom were reportedly under-aged – has brought much scrutiny to the recruiting agencies that sent the women abroad.
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday approved the agreement on domestic labour with Qatar that the two governments originally endorsed in 2008.
A statement from the Council of Ministers said the agreement would promote a higher level of private-sector cooperation between Cambodia and the gulf state, something in line with the Kingdom’s goals for globalisation. It would also curb illegal migration and mitigate the risk of a domestic labour shortage, the statement said.
Hong Chheoun, director of Cambodia’s National Employment Agency, was not immediately available for comment.
The Qatari market needs thousands of labourers annually, a demand higher than other labour-importing countries, An Bun Hak, chairman of the Association of Cambodia Recruitment Agency, said.
“We’ve seen that Qatar’s labour market conditions are much better compared to many other countries in the Middle East,” An Bun Hak recently told the Post.
“The [Cambodian] government is in part trying to reduce unemployment. Domestic labour markets are also not sufficient in supporting young labourers, so this is a temporary strategy for helping them find employment.”
About 300,000 Cambodians enter the labour market each year, according to a report from the United Nations Development Programme. Securing employment for recent entrants would require cooperation between the government and the private sector, the report said.
Qatar will absorb up to 40,000 Cambodian workers a year with fixed salaries of up to US$400 per month for unskilled workers, An Bun Hak said.
Cambodians sent to Qatar would not work as maids or housekeepers as they have in other countries, An Bun Hak claimed. Sending workers to private households presents a risk for abuse, he said.
“We won’t allow them to work in the housekeeping industry because we have different cultures and daily living habits. We want to avoid any abuse that could happen by chance so we decided not to send them to work in housekeeping,” he said, adding that Cambodians would be employed as construction workers and hotel staff.
Nine Cambodian maids have died in Malaysia this year, the Post reported last month. The Cambodian government temporarily prohibited recruitment companies from sending young women to Malaysia last month after cases of rape, forced detention, exploitation and death rocked both countries.
The Philippines has considered banning labour recruiters from sending maids to Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates because the countries could not guarantee the protection of the workers, according to UAE business publication Arabian Business. But Cambodian workers in Qatar would be protected by the gulf state’s Ministry of Labour, An Bun Hak claimed. Employers would also provide round-trip airfares once a year, a unique offer from the country, he added.
Cambodia sends about 80,000 domestic workers to South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan every year. While private companies manage business between the latter three countries, the South Korean government manages incoming labour from Cambodia.
Cambodia also signed a similar memorandum of understanding with Kuwait in 2008, however, a formal agreement has yet to materialise, An Bun Hak said, adding that he was unsure if complaints of abuse in the country were at fault for the delay.
“We’re waiting for an annoucnment from the government on [the Kuwaiti] market. If it’s okay, we will contact [employers],” he said..
Read more!
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Cambodia: prison labor concerns
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Prisoners at Prey Sar Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, detail garments from the Croft & Barrow brand, which is owned by the Milwaukee-based Kohl's Department Stores. (Courtesy) |
The Cambodian garment industry is small by global standards, but it has one big thing going for it: as Western clothing brands have become increasingly sensitive to the conditions in their supply chains, Cambodia has set itself up as a “sweatshop-free” alternative to garment giants like China and Bangladesh.
Though such standards are not always upheld in practice, the country has become something of a boutique destination for foreign brands concerned about corporate social responsibility.
But all this could be about to change. Human rights groups say the country’s hard-won reputation is on the line following the passage of a new law that legalizes the use of prison labor by private companies — including garment contractors.
The law, approved by Cambodia’s Senate late last month, gives the general director of prisons the power “to enter into a contract to allow prisoners to work for any organization or individual” in industry or farming.
Rights groups say the new rules fly in the face of both Cambodian and international labor laws, such as Convention 29 of the International Labor Organization. It also puts the country’s trade partners — which include US firms — at risk of importing garments and footwear unlawfully produced by prisoners.
“What they’ve done with this new law is open Pandora’s Box,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). “All of a sudden [prison officials] are going to have a captive prison workforce that they can use to contract labor production for a fraction of what a normal company would pay to a free person.”
More from GlobalPost: Angelina Jolie's legacy in Cambodia
“Inside prison walls, life is dominated by corruption,” Licadho reports. “There is a price tag attached to every amenity imaginable, from sleeping space to recreation time. Those who can’t afford to pay are forced to endure the most squalid conditions.”
More from GlobalPost: When genocide turns personal in Cambodia
Since 2009, according to information shared by HRW, Prey Sar, Phnom Penh’s main correctional facility, as well as jails in Kandal, Takeo, Battambang, Svay Rieng and Preah Sihanouk provinces, have set up small-scale prison labor programs. While nominally producing goods for the domestic market, there is some evidence that prisoners have produced goods for export, including to the US.
Photos obtained by GlobalPost appear to show female prisoners at Prey Sar working on garments bearing the Croft & Barrow and Sonoma brands, both owned by the Wisconsin-based Kohl’s Department Stores. The 1930 Tariff Act bans the import to the US of any goods that have been produced with forced labor. The photo attached to this story is one such photo, and below is another. The source of the photos wished to remain unidentified.
The contents of the photos, dating from late 2009 and early 2010, could not be independently verified. But rights activists say the corruption and squalor of the Cambodian prison system mean that the passage of the new law could trigger a steady leak of for-export garment work into prisons.
Already, local media have reported that prisons in Battambang, Kandal and Takeo are planning to establish for-profit garment schemes under the new law. Cambodian prison officials say the programs are voluntary, with profits being split among inmates, prison management and reinvestment in raw materials.
At the same time, the government also claims it is taking a strong line against the use of prison laborers in export production.
In July, the Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh rose the issue in a letter to the head of the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC), which represents the apparel industry, writing that the use of “impure” sources of labor could “cause the buyers in main import countries to cancel their buying agreements” and result in “a disaster” for an industry that employs around 300,000 Cambodians.
Ken Loo, GMAC’s secretary general, said similarly that his organization opposed the use of prisoners to assemble for-export garments, and would investigate any allegations. “The fact that it’s legal here doesn’t change things for other countries where we export,” he told GlobalPost.
Vicki Shamion, a spokesperson for Kohl’s Department Stores, said her company was unaware that any of its products had been or were being manufactured in Cambodian jails, but that its vendor guidelines “expressly forbid the use of bonded labor, indentured labor, prison labor or forced labor in the manufacture or finishing of products ordered by Kohl’s.”
“We take allegations related to violation of these terms very seriously,” Shamion said. She added that recent allegations would be investigated.
Whether or not government checks succeed remains an open question. HRW says turning Cambodia’s ramshackle prisons into ad hoc garment factories — for domestic production or otherwise — has the potential to call into question the standards of the entire industry.
“I have no confidence whatsoever that the government of Cambodia has either the political will or the capacity to prevent prison production for profit from ending up in the export stream,” Robertson said.
Adam Hutchinson, executive director of the Prison Fellowship Cambodia, which provides services in 24 Cambodian prisons, said it was important to distinguish between the use of prison labor for producing export goods, and inmate labor programs in general.
“Prison work schemes, if used well, can be of great benefit for both prisoners and prisons,” he said. But the “inefficiency and inconsistency” in monitoring capacity meant that prison labor systems were “open for abuse.”
“There seems to be no clearly defined process at the present moment,” Hutchinson said. Read more!
Fading memories give K.Rouge trial slow start
By Michelle Fitzpatrick (AFP)
PHNOM PENH — Cambodia's historic Khmer Rouge trial has barely begun but one verdict is already in: the fragile health and failing memories of the elderly accused and witnesses will make for a long, slow road to justice.
More than three decades after up to two million people died in the country's "Killing Fields" era, a UN-backed tribunal began hearing evidence over the past week in the case against the Khmer Rouge's three most senior surviving leaders.
For the hundreds of Cambodians who came to the Phnom Penh court each day hoping for answers that could shed light on the secretive 1975-1979 regime, the proceedings proved an exercise in patience -- punctuated by frequent bathroom breaks.
Judges pleaded for "flexibility" from all parties as they were forced to constantly adjust the schedule to accommodate the needs of the first four men to give evidence -- including defendant "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea.
"We saw a lot of hurdles this week from technical glitches to recollection issues and age issues," said tribunal monitor Clair Duffy from the US-based Open Society Justice Initiative.
"It kind of set the stage for what this trial will be like, because these issues will crop up time and again."
Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the hardline communist movement wiped out nearly a quarter of the population through starvation, forced labour and execution in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia.
Co-defendants Nuon Chea, former foreign minister Ieng Sary and ex-head of state Khieu Samphan deny charges including war crimes and genocide.
A fourth accused, 79-year-old former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith, who is married to Ieng Sary and was Pol Pot's sister-in-law, was recently ruled unfit to stand trial due to dementia.
Owing to fears that not all the suspects will live to see a verdict, the court has split their complex case into several smaller trials, starting with the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh and related crimes against humanity.
"But even this first mini-trial is going to take one or two years," Nuon Chea's lawyer Michiel Pestman told AFP. "It's going to be a very long, tiring process. It's like a trial with a Zimmer (walking) frame."
Nuon Chea, 85, was first to give evidence on Monday, and although the session was cut short because he was suffering from fatigue and high blood pressure, his performance was easily the highlight of the week.
Pol Pot's most trusted deputy gave detailed insight into the rise of the communist movement in Cambodia, rarely needing to refer to a blue binder filled with notes to jog his memory, though he did repeatedly complain of tiredness.
In his testimony, broadcast live on television, he claimed the Vietnamese were instead to blame for the mass killings -- and were still trying to encroach on Cambodian land.
Judges later turned their attention to the first high-profile witness, a former aide to Ieng Sary, who spoke via videolink as he was too ill to leave his home in northern Cambodia.
Long Norin, 73, appeared to struggle to recount exact dates and events.
"It has been 30 years. How can I remember all these things?" he said in exasperation after the prosecution probed him about the tasks he carried out under Ieng Sary.
Taking evidence from the Khmer Rouge insider, who prosecutors said seemed "reluctant" to testify, was an agonisingly slow process interrupted by the witness's numerous toilet breaks and trouble with the audio technology, requiring questions to be repeated several times.
In an effort to bring at least one testimony this week to a close and avoid renewed hassle with the interactive set-up, judges said the court would exceptionally sit on a Friday.
But that hearing was adjourned as soon as it began after Long Norin called in sick -- disappointing the 300 high school students who had travelled for more than two hours by bus to catch the trial in action.
"We will come back again. We want to know about the Pol Pot regime," said Seang Virak, 19, after the session ended abruptly, allowing him only a quick glimpse of the accused.
"I am very angry with them because they killed people all over the country," he said.
Unfailingly polite, however, the teenager added: "But I am sorry to hear the witness is sick."
Read more!
