Beijing has unveiled plans to build a £347 million hydroelectric power plant in Cambodia.
China's state-owned Huadian Corporation plans to begin building the 338 megawatt plant this year, the company said in a statement posted on the website of the China Electricity Council.
The announcement followed the signing last week of a financing agreement with the Export-Import Bank of China during a China-Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Nanning.
Cambodia's economy has grown rapidly over the past decade, but poverty remains widespread, particularly in the countryside where basic infrastructure is still lacking.
Apart from the hydroelectric plant, which will be Cambodia's biggest, Huadian said last month that it plans to build two 50 megawatt coal-fired facilities with partner Cambodia Energy Ltd.
Huadian's new energy development division recently signed an agreement to invest 26 billion yuan (£2.36bn) in building five solar projects with a total annual power output of 2 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in Jiayuguan, Gansu province, over the next 10 years.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
China to build giant hydro project in Cambodia
Cambodian PM says Thai government won't survive
By Prak Chan Thul
PHNOM PENH, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said indicated on Tuesday that relations with neighbouring Thailand remained tense and said "it won't be long" before a change of government in Bangkok.
The outspoken premier, who has made it clear he is unwilling to cooperate with the current Thai leadership, said ties might be restored soon -- but only because Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's embattled government will not last much longer.
"There is no need to set conditions to send back the (Thai) ambassador," he said at a graduation ceremony in Phnom Penh. "Wait for the next government -- it won't be long."
Hun Sen's comments came ahead of a planned push to unseat the Thai government by protesters and parliamentarians allied with exiled former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was appointed an economic adviser by Hun Sen and offered asylum.
The speech followed Cambodia's decision on Monday to return control of Cambodia Air Traffic Services to its Thai owners after taking temporary control of the company and suspending its Thai staff over a spying controversy [ID:nBKK496131].
One of its engineers was sentenced to seven years in prison for leaking details of Thaksin's flight to Phnom Penh in November to a Thai diplomat. He was released after Thaksin lobbied Cambodia to pardon him in what his critics said was a publicity stunt to discredit the Thai government [ID:nBKK430205].
Thaksin's job in Phnom Penh and his visit there angered Bangkok, which is trying to seek his extradition, and resulted in a recall and expulsion of diplomats by both sides.
Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said on Tuesday that relations were unlikely to improve unless Cambodia reconsidered its appointment of the fugitive billionaire.
Hun Sen said Thaksin's appointment had nothing to do with the row, which he said stemmed from Thailand's opposition to Cambodia's listing of its 11th Century Preah Vihear temple as a U.N. heritage site, and a deadly skirmish between border troops, which he described as a Thai "invasion".
Abhisit's government has said the listing, which the previous administration had supported, should not go ahead until the land around the temple, which straddles their joint border, is properly demarcated.
For a Q+A click [ID:nSGE60A0B4] and related analysis [ID:nSGE5BH0EH]). (Additional Reporting by Pracha Hariraksapitak in Bangkok; Writing by Ambika Ahuja; Editing by Martin Petty))
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FM: Thailand still not to normalize relations with Cambodia now
BANGKOK, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said Tuesday that currently, it is still not the time to normalize the relations with Cambodia, Thai News Agency reported.
If Cambodia has not ended its relationships with ousted former Thai Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, it will be difficult to improve the bilateral tie, Kasit said.
No matter what Cambodia would say, it could not change the fact that Cambodia has not respected the justice system of Thailand, Kasit said.
The diplomatic problem between the two countries has occurred after Cambodia has appointed Thaksin as an economic advisor to Cambodia's government and Hun Sen from Nov. 4.
A day after the appointment, the Cambodian government announced recall of its ambassador to Thailand in a move to respond to the Thai government's recall of its ambassador to Cambodia.
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Monday, January 11, 2010
Volunteer heads to Cambodia
By DENISE PIPER - Whangarei Leader
Tess Guiney, 21, leaves for Cambodia on January 29 with Volunteer Service Abroad.
She is one of 12 new university volunteers, or UniVols, who are heading to Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, South Africa and Tanzania this year.
The UniVols programme provides opportunities for students from Otago and Victoria universities to gain practical field experience.
Tess is doing a masters in geography at Otago University, looking specifically at development geography.
"I am especially interested in the gap which exists between countries of the developed north and those of the developing south.
"By travelling to Cambodia I will be able to see how development and poverty are actually experienced within nations," she says.
Tess hopes the programme will give her an opportunity to see real life examples of the
theoretical themes covered in her studies.
Cambodia is a largely rural economy and the second poorest in southeast Asia, causing serious disadvantages in health, education and employment, she says.
"I feel that by travelling to Cambodia I will hopefully be able to share my knowledge with them but also to gain a new understanding of development by learning from the people of Cambodia," she says.
Tess will work with the rural Economic Development Association, a non-governmental organisation in the province of Svay Rieng.
The association works with those in the community who are most vulnerable, including people living with HIV AIDS, orphans and vulnerable children, and those people with chronic illnesses.
She will be a childcare worker for orphans and will organise activities for them and help to improve their living conditions.
The work will be done alongside the Cambodian staff to ensure development occurs in a form the local community desires, a guiding principal of Volunteer Service Abroad, she says.
"Volunteer Service Abroad arranges for people to live within and work alongside local communities in an attempt to ensure more representative development, something that my own studies have firmly convinced me is the key to reducing poverty," she says.
Like other Volunteer Service Abroad volunteers, Tess will be covered for travel, initial resettlement, accommodation and utilities, a living allowance and insurance. Her student loan is interest-free for the year of the assignment.
Cambodian govt returns air traffic firm to Thais
The Associated Press
(AP) — PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia's government on Monday returned management of the country's air traffic control company to its Thai owners, a small concession in a dispute over its overtures to ousted former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Control of Cambodia Traffic Air Services, or CATS, was seized in November after Cambodia arrested a Thai employee, Siwarak Chutipong, on a spying charge. He allegedly stole the flight schedule of Thaksin-who is a fugitive from Thai justice but who was visiting Cambodia as a VIP guest-and gave it to a Thai diplomat.
Other Thai employees of the company were barred from coming to its offices, but not otherwise penalized.
Samart Corp., the parent firm of CATS, said Cambodia's Cabinet returned control of the company on Monday.
In 2008, a Thai court sentenced Thaksin in absentia to two years in prison for violating a conflict of interest law, but he fled into exile before the verdict. He was ousted by a 2006 military coup after being accused of corruption and abuse of power.
In early November, Cambodia named Thaksin as an adviser to the government on economic affairs. The appointment, and a subsequent visit by Thaksin, set off a diplomatic imbroglio in which the two countries recalled their ambassadors. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thaksin had been unfairly convicted for political reasons.
Siwarak was convicted and sentenced to seven years in jail by a Cambodian court but was pardoned soon afterward and allowed to leave for Thailand.
The statement by Samart quoted its president, Watchai Vilailuck, as expressing appreciation for the handover and saying that it signaled "that Kingdom of Cambodia is open and fair to the foreign businesses and shall win investor's confidence in the long-term."
It said that Samart in 2001 won a concession to operate CATS for 32 years.
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Mekong Dams Could Threaten Aquatic Life
Plans to build a series of hydropower dams on the Mekong River could threaten already endangered species in the waterway.
The Mekong River is the lifeblood of Southeast Asia, with the largest inland fisheries in the world.
About 40 million people depend to some degree on the fisheries, worth about $2.5 billion a year.
But fisheries experts say plans by Cambodia, Laos and Thailand to build hydropower dams on the Mekong would block fish migration, threatening already endangered species.
Environmental activists say plans by Laos to build a dam in the Don Sahong area near the Cambodian border could doom the nearly extinct Irrawaddy dolphin.
Soung Ma earns money taking tourists for a rare glimpse of the dolphins. "Local people normally work in dolphin tourism. Everyone has a small boat and can pick up tourists and get money from tourists every day or every month depending on the season," Ma said.
The Mekong River Commission works to manage river resources among Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Jeremy Bird heads the commission and says balancing the pros and cons of hydropower dams is the biggest challenge facing the Mekong basin. "We're talking about the livelihoods of millions of people but we're also talking about a huge potential resource of hydropower which can not only provide foreign revenues to the countries, but can those revenues can then be used to finance other development programs and help countries meet their targets on poverty alleviation and millenium development goals," Bird said.
Some dams on rivers feeding the Mekong have disrupted fish populations.
Fishermen may have to turn to aquaculture like this tilapia farm in Vientiane to make up for the lost wild catch.
Suchart Ingthamjitr, a program officer at the MRC's fishery program, says fish farms help meet demand. "The price of wild fish is higher than cultured fish. But, the problem of wild fish is seasonality," Ingthamjitr said. "Yeah, you can catch and have the wild fish depend on the time of year. But, for tilapia all year round you can buy it in the market."
As the sun sets on the Mekong, fishermen try their luck.
Environmental and fisheries experts say damming the Mekong will change some of their traditional ways.
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Sunday, January 10, 2010
Cao expected home this week from trip to Far East
The Associated Press
(AP) — NEW ORLEANS - U.S. Rep. Joseph "Anh" Cao is due back in Louisiana this week after a congressional trip that took him to his native Vietnam as well as Cambodia, Laos and Japan.
Cao, a New Orleans Republican who left Vietnam as the U.S. pulled out of the war with the communist North Vietnamese in 1975, spoke of reconciliation with the communist nation. He was elected in 2008 as the first Vietnamese-American in Congress.
He had not visited his home country since 2001.
"Many of my aspirations sometimes are not in parallel with that of the Vietnamese government's policies, but I still hope that we can continue to cooperate and work together," Cao said according to reports in the online newspaper VietnamNet.
In Cambodia, Cao spoke dismissively of the Chinese government, speaking of the country's "imperialistic intents." The comments were in response to questions about the decision of the Cambodian government to deport 20 ethnic Chinese back to China, a move that some activists fear may lead to their arrest or persecution.
China recently signed economic agreements with the Cambodian government reportedly worth $1.2 billion.
Cao traveled to the Asian nations with Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., and Delegate Eni Faleomavaega from American Samoa. Cao's staff said he would talk about the trip when he returns to Washington.
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Laos first stop as P Penh goes complaining
A small story sometimes has big implications. What is happening between Cambodia and Laos nicely fits this definition.
Cambodian Deputy Foreign Minister Long Visalo went to Vientiane last Tuesday. His mission to the northern neighbour was clear. The Cambodian government wanted to brief Laos about its dispute with Thailand.
In the Laotian capital, Long Visalo lectured some 200 Lao Foreign Ministry officials on the history of Preah Vihear, the ruling by the International Court of Justice in 1962 that the Hindu temple belonged to his country, as well as Cambodia's right to list it as a World Heritage Site under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in July 2008.
The Cambodian deputy minister also told his hosts about the border dispute between his country and Thailand, which started after the latter country made a U-turn on its previous stance which had been in support of Cambodia's attempt to list Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site.
The Cambodian campaign cannot be seen as anything but the start of its efforts to drum up backing from other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to help sort out the border conflict with Thailand for good.
And Laos will not be the only stop in this tactic. On the list, of course, are Burma and Vietnam (the latter is scheduled to take the Asean chair till December).
Phnom Penh's strategy is to turn the dispute over the overlapping land boundary of 4.6 square kilometres into a regional issue by trying to bring in the involvement of other Asean members.
Thailand thinks otherwise, with its intention to keep the matter as a quarrel between two neighbours which should be settled by the two neighbours only.
The more countries jumping in, the more difficult it will be to resolve the problem.
The talks in Vientiane did not cover the issue of ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra - at least as far as the information made public shows.
But then again, the Thaksin issue is not a main factor at all for Cambodia.
Ending Thaksin's role as an economic adviser to Phnom Penh is Bangkok's condition for diplomatic normalisation with Cambodia. No country can stand seeing its citizen, who has been sentenced to jail, given recognition by another government.
But for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, the root cause goes beyond last year when he added Thaksin to the long list of advisers to his government. It began right there on the border between Cambodia' Preah Vihear province and Kantaralak district in Si Sa Ket province.
The whole issue is about the temple and the land dispute in that area.
"You raise the issue of Thaksin, but you forget the issue of Preah Vihear," Hun Sen said in October, during one of his verbal onslaughts on Thailand.
It is not difficult for anybody to guess that there is no way in sight for the two countries to end the sour ties, given their vastly different positions which are beyond the reach of a compromise. But, as Asean members, they cannot leave relations festering this way, either. Other countries view what is happening between Thailand and Cambodia as an obstruction to Asean's attempts to bring unity into the club which, five years from now, is to become one single community. However, what can other Asean countries do but watch and hope that there will be a miracle to end the two neighbours' quarrel?
Another worry from the Thai-Cambodian spat is that it could spill over to poison ties between Thailand and other members in Asean who are very close to Cambodia. One of them is Laos. The history of their jungle warfare to drive out, first the colonialists and then the Western-supported governments, has made Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam brothers, who also have same positions on issues in Asean. As countries with Thailand as their immediate common neighbour, Cambodia and Laos have long been aware of the rising Thai influence in their country.
So far there are no problems in the relations between Thailand and Laos. But that does not mean everything will go smoothly. Problems still exist but they have been swept under the carpet by Vientiane over the past years because it needed help from Thailand to host the SEA Games last year.
Now the Games are over. Now the Cambodian deputy minister has visited Vientiane. And now the story of Thai-Laos relations in the post-SEA Games era begins.
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RP sends more peacekeepers to world’s hot spots - Davide
MANILA - Filipino soldiers deployed with United Nations peacekeeping forces are at an all-time high with more than a thousand military and police peacekeepers serving in various conflict areas around the world, according to the country’s UN delegation.
In his year-end report to Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, Ambassador Hilario Davide Jr., permanent representative to the UN, said the Philippines had a total of 1,056 Filipino peacekeepers in nine UN peacekeeping missions at the end of 2009.
“We are proud of the fact that despite our limited resources, we were still able to fulfill our obligations as a member of the family of nations,” the envoy said.
He also assured the UN that it could continue counting on the Philippines as a “responsible and reliable” peace-keeping partner.
In a statement from the UN headquarters in New York, Davide said the figure, which represented a 40 percent surge in troop deployment compared to that of 2008, pushed the Philippines up to the 23rd position in the list of the top troop and police contributing countries.
The Philippines was 29th in the list with 626 peacekeepers deployed at the end of 2008.
“The 656 officers and enlisted personnel from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the 415 officers from the Philippine National Police (PNP) currently serving with the UN represent the largest number of Filipino peacekeepers deployed overseas since the Philippines participated in its first UN peacekeeping operation during the term of President Diosdado Macapagal,” Davide said.
The Philippines first participated in UN peacekeeping operations in 1963 when it contributed a 40-member squadron from the Philippine Air Force to provide air support for the UN mission in the Congo.
Since then, Filipino peacekeepers have participated in UN operations in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Sudan’s Darfur and southern regions, Georgia, Golan Heights in the Palestinian territories, Haiti, Iraq, Liberia, the Kashmir regions disputed by Pakistan and India, Kosovo, Nepal, and East Timor.
Davide also reported that the Philippines remains’ on the list of the top contributors of individual police officers to UN operations. He said most PNP peacekeepers are deployed in Africa with 169 serving with the UN-African Union Hybrid Mission in Darfur ; 29 with the UN Mission in Sudan; and 26 with UN Mission in Liberia. Another 153 officers are deployed in East Timor; 22 in Haiti; and one in Afghanistan.
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Saturday, January 09, 2010
Cambodia Confronts the "G" Word
The horrors of the Khmer Rouge's rule may be in the past, but the question of whether its crimes amounted to genocide lingers on.
BY BRENDAN BRADY
The hybrid Cambodian-U.N. tribunal has been trying five former top regime officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Its first trial, of Kaing Guek Eav (alias Duch), the warden of a prison code-named S-21, where an estimated 15,000 prisoners deemed enemies of the revolution were tortured before being executed in the nearby "killing fields," concluded in November. A verdict is expected in March. Last month, the tribunal added genocide as a charge against the four remaining defendants for their alleged role in the slaughter of ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims in Cambodia. The charges need to be finalized in the court's closing order, but it is widely thought that they will all be included in the formal charges against the defendants.
Duch admitted to his role in overseeing the S-21 prison. But the regime's chief ideologue, Nuon Chea (known as "Brother No. 2"), former President Khieu Samphan, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, and his wife and social affairs minister, Ieng Thirith, have all denied culpability for the charges they face. By all reliable accounts, however, they were the chief architects of the regime's catastrophic experiment to forge an agrarian utopia by methods that included forcing the population onto rural collectives; abolishing money, schools, and religion; and exterminating perceived enemies of the revolution.
In 1999, U.N. experts concluded that the Khmer Rouge should face charges for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. They said there was strong evidence -- including Khmer Rouge statements, eyewitness accounts, and the nature and number of victims of each group -- pointing to genocide against the Cham and Vietnamese as ethnic groups and against the Buddhist monkhood as a religious group.
In light of the denial and obfuscation of the former regime's leadership, the court's role in clarifying the historical record is now especially important. "That is part of the healing process," says David Scheffer, a former U.S. war crimes ambassador, "to confront these charges head-on inside the courtroom rather than see them abandoned forever." It was for this purpose of direct confrontation that the tribunal included an innovative "civil party" system allowing victims into the courtroom to air grievances and question the defendants.
Many advocates of minority rights applaud the addition of genocide charges as a way for these groups to reaffirm their rights in Cambodian society. Lyma Nguyen, a lawyer representing a group of 17 ethnic Vietnamese survivors, says the genocide charge would allow her clients to formally pursue the truth about why they were targeted and, in the process, "reconstitute their identity." Lawyer Lor Chunthy said the more than 200 Cham Muslim civil parties he represents are still consolidating their place in Cambodian society. "There is still discrimination against the Cham, so this sends an important message that Muslims in Cambodia are part of the country," he notes. Both lawyers said the groups they represent unequivocally think they were singled out because of their ethnic or religious identity.
Cambodian advocates of the charge also say it carries enormous symbolic weight that will help the tribunal receive local support. "The addition of genocide charges reflects what the millions of Cambodians who survived have wanted since 1979," says court spokesman Reach Sambath. The charge resonates with all Cambodians, he says, because, according to their understanding of the term, it best describes the crimes inflicted upon them. The Khmer term for genocide is pralaay puch sah, as it approximately sounds transliterated from Khmer, and literally means to "destroy from the root" or "kill the seed of the race." Given the Khmer Rouge's maniacal obsession with cleansing society of unwanted elements, it is not hard to see why Cambodians frequently use this particular expression to describe the regime's policies.
But genocide, in an international court, has a strict definition and is notoriously hard to prove. There is little doubt the Khmer Rouge led a campaign to wipe out groups it considered incompatible with the revolution. The question is whether the groups were targeted first and foremost because of their ethnic or religious identities, or because they represented perceived political and economic enemies of the state -- categories that fall outside the crime's definition. The fact that certain ethnic or religious groups suffered disproportionately and sustained severe repression of their practices does not necessarily constitute genocide.
This point is still vigorously debated among academics who study this bloody era in Cambodia's history. "They weren't mowed down because they were Cham. They were mowed down because they resisted and anyone who resisted during that time was killed," says David Chandler, a scholar on the Khmer Rouge and the author of A History of Cambodia. "They were forced to eat pork because they were Cham -- but that's not genocide."
Some observers fear that the genocide charge is being wielded by international powers for political gain. Philip Short, author of Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare, a biography of the now deceased Khmer Rouge leader, argues that the term genocide has been bandied around by foreign powers as a "political commodity." Short says that the U.S. government, whose war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s is often believed to have contributed to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, has pushed for genocide to be applied to the regime so it can condemn the crimes and assume a moral high ground, while distancing itself from the circumstances that lead to the horror and terror.
"The Jews were killed in Germany because they were Jews. Not because of any resistance to the Nazis, but because they were considered detritus or scum. In Rwanda, the Hutus killed Tutsis simply because of their racial type," Short says. "But this wasn't the case in Cambodia. This regime was one of the greatest abominations of the 20th century. It's bad enough without now trying to [add] politically motivated charges."
The court's coinciding request for an additional $93 million from donor countries to finance the court over the next two years has also prompted murmurs that ulterior motives lie behind the new charge. "It smacks of a publicity stunt," says Michael Karnavas, the international defense lawyer for one of the accused, Ieng Sary. "It seems like this new charge is a way to show the importance of the tribunal and to help get funding." The court says there is no connection.
Piyamin Yusoh, an enlisted civil party with the tribunal, holds out hope that the genocide charges can draw attention to the persecution his people experienced during the Khmer Rouge's reign. He is the current Muslim leader, or hakim, of Svay Khleang village, the historical heart of Cambodia's minority Muslim community. It was here that the Cham staged a bloody, and unsuccessful, uprising after the Khmer Rouge carried out secret executions of their men. "I'm hoping the tribunal will acknowledge the particular suffering of the Muslim people," Yusoh told me in an interview I did for IRIN News. "We weren't allowed to practice our religion; we were forced to eat pork; our women couldn't wear hijabs. For us, this was humiliating. The Khmer Rouge wanted to annihilate all people who practiced Islam." The Khmer Rouge, he says, tried to "destroy us from the root," referring to what he perceived as genocidal intent.
But, as a participant in the tribunal, Yusoh is an exception -- many victims are unfamiliar with the tribunal and the legal classifications of the Khmer Rouge's crimes. A month before proceedings opened in the Duch trial last February, a survey showing that 85 percent of Cambodians had little or no knowledge of the tribunal was published by the University of California-Berkeley's Human Rights Center. That number would now certainly be lower following the publicity of the initial trial, but it nonetheless reflects the disparity between Cambodia's impoverished countryside and the highly technical legal machine in the capital, Phnom Penh.
For regular Cambodians, the tribunal's most important task may be delivering some sense of justice in the form of concrete results, rather than contributing to endless legal debates that could risk prolonging the process. "Scholars have been debating [whether the Khmer Rouge's crimes constituted genocide] for 20 years," says Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, a custodian of primary documents on the Khmer Rouge. "For the victims, it meant watching someone take a piece of wood to the back of your husband's head. You can call it smash, crush, or whatever, but it was, most importantly, what people experienced."
That is how Ly Sarfyas, a 66-year-old woman in Svay Khleang, feels about the tribunal. "I would just like to kill them myself," Sarfyas, who was left without any family after the Khmer Rouge's rule, told me. "It's difficult to wait for the court, but it's what we are relying on."
Ailing Cambodian toddler gets help from Long Beach group
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
When the toddler steepled her fingers in the traditional Cambodian greeting, she earned their smiles and good will. But it was the somber results of her physical exam and tests that put Socheat Ngor on the fast track to treatment as the newest child to receive help from Hearts Without Boundaries.
Socheat, 2, lives in poverty in a village in southern Cambodia. At the age of 4 months she was diagnosed with a heart ailment that would require surgery not readily available in her home country.
Hearts Without Boundaries, a Long Beach nonprofit that has helped bring two Cambodian children to the U.S. for life-altering surgery, learned of Socheat's ailment from family in Long Beach.
At that time, she was put on a list of children in need of help and it was arranged for Socheat and her family to meet with members of the Hearts Without Boundaries team, who were in Siem Reap with doctors from Variety Children's Lifeline who make annual trips to Cambodia to help children with mild heart ailments and diagnose and assess others.
Susan Grossfeld, a volunteer who was instrumental in brokering the deal that brought one of the Cambodian children to the U.S. last year, said she was instantly enamored of Socheat.
"She's tiny and has a tiny voice," said Grossfeld.
Grossfeld added that what the girl lacked for in size she made up for in spirit and vivacity.
"People fall in love with her right away," Grossfeld said.
In the past two years, Hearts Without Boundaries has helped arrange for two children with heart defects to come to the U.S. for life-altering surgeries they could not receive in Cambodia.
The first two patients, Davik Teng, 9, and Soksamnang Vy, 1, had congenital defects called ventricular septal defects, or holes in their hearts.
In the case of Socheat, Hearts Without Boundaries had started working with her family to raise money to send the child to Singapore or Thailand for the procedure.
However, when Socheat was examined by Dr. Paul Grossfeld, a cardiologist from Rady Children's Hospital who helped with the successful treatment of Vy, he found her ailment was worse than expected and her need for more rapid treatment became evident.
Socheat suffers from a defect known as tetralogy of Fallot.
"This is a much more complex defect and surgery," said Susan Grossfeld, who is Paul Grossfeld's wife.
In addition to having a large hole in her heart, Socheat also suffers from a second hole in the heart, an obstruction of blood flow to the lungs and other problems.
And in recent weeks, her health as suffered.
According to Dr. Luy Lyda of Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap, Socheat has had difficultly breathing and has visited the emergency room three times in recent weeks.
Susan Grossfeld, who brokered a deal with the Children's Heart Center and the Sunrise Children's Hospital in Las Vegas to perform surgery on Vy, has gone back to the Nevada heart group and hospital.
They have agreed to donate their staff and facilities once again.
Because of the severity of the ailment, however, time is short. Grossfeld says the hope is to have Socheat in the U.S. and operated on within a month or two.
"We don't want to wait any longer than necessary," Grossfeld said.
It also has to be determined if the child is healthy enough to travel.
Hearts Without Boundaries is rallying to prepare and pay for travel documents, arrange lodging and find funding for Socheat and her mother to come to the U.S.
Hearts Without Boundaries founder Peter Chhun, who is still in Cambodia, was thrilled when told of the Las Vegas offer.
"I am so excited, I don't know if I will be able to sleep tonight," Chhun said via phone from Cambodia.
Anyone interested in donating to Hearts Without Boundaries for Socheat can find information on-line at heartswithoutboundaries.org.
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291 .
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Cambodia: As rickshaws get cycled out, some look back
In Cambodia a decade ago, some 10,000 cyclo drivers – as rickshaws are called here – wheeled along Phnom Penh streets. Today there are fewer than 1,500.
For six years, Porn Eab has pedaled his rusting rickshaw along Phnom Penh’s narrow lanes and wide avenues. The work leaves him exhausted at the end of the day, when the wiry man parks his rickshaw in an alleyway and beds down for the night on its bucket seat.
“It’s a hard job. It makes my legs tired,” says Mr. Porn while he waits for customers, one hand resting on his cyclo, as the vehicles are known here.
But the cyclo, once an iconic fixture in this bustling Asian city, has seen better days. Some 10,000 cyclo drivers wheeled along Phnom Penh streets a decade ago. Today there are fewer than 1,500 cyclos here, according to a local advocacy group that helps the often-impoverished cyclo drivers.
“People take pity on the cyclo drivers,” says Im Sambath, a project officer with the Cyclo Center. “They think the work is too hard for the drivers, so they are reluctant to take them.”
It’s also a sign of changing times. Although Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in the region, its economy has pushed forward over the past decade. The city’s once placid streets have become thick with traffic. “Cambodians want to be modern,” says Mr. Im. “The economy is developing. People want to use faster vehicles because they think the cyclo is slow.”
Indeed, wheeling down Monivong Boulevard, a main thoroughfare that bisects the city, a cyclo is passed by a swarm of motorcycles, trucks, and flashy new cars. Huffing and puffing in the curb lane, traffic whizzing by just inches away, the man pedaling the cyclo is quickly left behind.
And although he would rather be doing anything but this, Roeun Rom, a part-time driver and farmer, says it’s the only way to make money for his children back home in the provinces when the rice isn’t ready to be harvested. “I have no choice,” Mr. Roeun says. “I need to keep driving cyclos.”
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Friday, January 08, 2010
Cambodia approves China-Cambodia Consular Convention
PHNOM PENH, The Cambodia's government on Friday approved the China-Cambodia Consular Convention aimed to not only improve the two countries' diplomatic ties but also to facilitate the trade flows between the two countries, said the government's release.
"The cabinet meeting agreed and approved a draft agreement on China-Cambodia Consul given gradually increasing of economic, trade, investment and tourism relations between Cambodia and China," said the release.
"This convention is also aimed at protecting the rights and the individual interest of the two peoples," it added.
The government release also said that Cambodia has six consular offices in China.
Cambodia received 2.16 million tourists last year compared with about 2.13 million in 2008, a two percent increase, while 114,894 tourists from China.
China is also the Cambodia's biggest foreign direct investment (FDI), according to the state-run investment agency of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC).
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Hun Sen only PM candidate of Cambodia's ruling party: CPP
The ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) reassured Thursday that Prime Minister Hun Sen is the only candidate for the prime minister from its party for the next elections.
Giving speech at the party's commemoration of the 31st anniversary of the downfall of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime, Chea Sim, president of the CPP and president of the Senate said that Hun Sen will be the "only candidate from his party for prime ministerial position" in next general election.
Hun Sen, 57, has been in power for already 25 years and is considered the longest government leader in office in Asia.
After several decades of civil war, Cambodia held its first general election in 1993 under the full supports from the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).
Since then, Cambodia hold its election every five years and HunSen was re-elected prime minister ever since.
Source: Xinhua
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U.S. to consider turning Cambodia's debt into development aid
The United States Congressman Eni Faleomavaega told Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursdaythat he will discuss with his colleagues about Cambodia's debt if it can be turned into assistance for development projects in this country, a Cambodian official said.
Eang Sophaleth, Hun Sen's spokesman told local reporters that during the meeting with Hun Sen on Thursday morning in Phnom Penh,Eni Faleomavaega said he will discuss with his colleagues after returning to the United States about the debt.
Eni Faleomavaega, who was accompanied by his two Congressmen Joseph Cao and Mike Honda, was making a two-day visit to Cambodia.
Cambodia has several times asked the United States government to consider canceling its debt amounting to some 300 million U.S. dollars it borrowed since 1972.
The U.S. has not yet answered to Cambodia's request for the debt written-off.
Cheam Yeap, chairman of the National Assembly's Economic Commission and a senior member of the Cambodian People's Party said several countries including China have written off Cambodia's debts owed some decades ago.
Cambodia is also asking Russia to cancel its debt that amounts around to 1.5 billion U.S. dollars.
Source: Xinhua
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Thursday, January 07, 2010
U.S. to consider turning Cambodia's debt into development aid
PHNOM PENH, The United States Congressman Eni Faleomavaega told Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursdaythat he will discuss with his colleagues about Cambodia's debt if it can be turned into assistance for development projects in this country, a Cambodian official said.
Eang Sophaleth, Hun Sen's spokesman told local reporters that during the meeting with Hun Sen on Thursday morning in Phnom Penh,Eni Faleomavaega said he will discuss with his colleagues after returning to the United States about the debt.
Eni Faleomavaega, who was accompanied by his two Congressmen Joseph Cao and Mike Honda, was making a two-day visit to Cambodia.
Cambodia has several times asked the United States government to consider canceling its debt amounting to some 300 million U.S. dollars it borrowed since 1972.
The U.S. has not yet answered to Cambodia's request for the debt written-off.
Cheam Yeap, chairman of the National Assembly's Economic Commission and a senior member of the Cambodian People's Party said several countries including China have written off Cambodia's debts owed some decades ago.
Cambodia is also asking Russia to cancel its debt that amounts around to 1.5 billion U.S. dollars.
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Cambodia marks liberation under cloud of crackdown
Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen greets supporters upon his arrival at his party headquarters, to mark the 31th anniversary of the toppling of Pol Pot's genocidal regime, in Phnom Penh. - Reuters pic
Before the festivities, attended by thousands of people in the capital Phnom Penh, the premier vowed to arrest anyone seen handing out leaflets opposing his rule, the latest in what rights groups say is a growing campaign to silence dissent.
Hun Sen’s warning to his critics, who say the government is abusing its power to crush all forms of political opposition, came five days after a court issued an arrest warrant for main opposition leader Sam Rainsy.
The crackdown coincides with trouble in one of Southeast Asia’s most impoverished economies after an unprecedented boom which saw economic production expand 10 per cent annually in the five years up to 2008. Since then, foreign investment has collapsed, tourist arrivals have plummeted and construction has stalled.
Data this week showed about 30,000 workers in the garment industry, a mainstay of the economy, lost their jobs last year as exports to the United States shrank.
Opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua, sued by Hun Sen in July after she accused him of defamation, today called on the public to resist what she said were intimidation tactics by authorities. “We must still continue to express opinions, not back down because of threats,” she said. “We must give a clear message that we can’t accept the closure of free expression.”
Hun Sen on Tuesday announced the threat to arrest anyone handing out leaflets that express opposition to him or his policies. He said he had seen some such leaflets that were printed in neighbouring Thailand for distribution in Cambodia.
“Leaflet distributors be careful, I will arrest,” he said.
He also rejected claims he had been using the courts to intimidate his opponents and warned Rainsy to “be prepared” to go to prison, adding that his long-time political rival, who is now in exile in Europe, would not be pardoned.
The threat appeared effective. No opposition leaflets appeared during today’s celebrations marking an invasion by Vietnamese forces in 1979 that toppled the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge, blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people.
The National Assembly, dominated by the ruling Cambodia People’s Party, passed legislation last year outlawing protests of more than 200 people and tightening existing defamation laws in what opponents said were measures to prevent criticism and keep rival politicians in check.
Risk analysts say despite corruption and concerns over human rights and judicial interference, Cambodia’s political and economic stability should remain intact in the foreseeable future, with little threat to the government’s grip on power.
South Korea and China, the country’s biggest sources of investment, signed agreements late last year to pour more money into Cambodia, which will open its first stock exchange later this year as part of a $2 billion project to build a new financial centre.
Rainsy, who heads a party named after him, is accused of causing criminal damage after uprooting several border demarcation posts to appease farmers. — Reuters
Cambodia's ruling party warns KRouge court
PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Cambodia's ruling party Thursday warned the country's UN-backed court not to disrupt national progress in its pursuit of Khmer Rouge leaders, as it marked the 31st anniversary of the regime's ouster.
The court is preparing to give a verdict in its first trial, of former torture centre chief Duch, while four other senior leaders of the hardline communist regime are awaiting trial on war crimes and other charges.
But Cambodian and international prosecutors have openly clashed over whether the court should pursue more suspects, while the Cambodian investigating judge has refused to summon high-ranking government officials as witnesses.
"We oppose any attempts to use the chamber for ill-intentions that would have an impact on peace, national reconciliation and development, which are our hard-won achievements" said Chea Sim, president of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP).
Addressing thousands of supporters during a rally to mark the anniversary of the toppling of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime by Vietnamese-backed forces in 1979, Chea Sim pledged the party's continued backing.
"CPP offers its support to the current process of (the tribunal) in trying crimes committed by senior leaders of the Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge) regime," he said.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is also the deputy leader of the CPP, has repeatedly warned that pursuing more suspects from the hardline communist regime could spark civil war.
The process has often been hit by allegations that Hun Sen's administration has attempted to interfere in the tribunal to protect former regime members who are now in government.
After several years of haggling between Cambodia and the UN, the tribunal was created in 2006 to try former Khmer Rouge leaders.
Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation or overwork as the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime tried to create an agrarian utopia. After being toppled they continued to fight a civil war until 1998.
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Asian villages carve out a new life
By STEVE MOLLMAN
The village of Tmatboey in the northern plains of Cambodia seemed to have little going for it. It lacked clean water; there were no real roads. The people toiled mostly at subsistence farming, barely scraping by.
The villagers didn't realize they had a valuable asset -- hiding in plain sight, so to speak: a tourist attraction that a niche group of international travelers would happily pay to see, even if it meant a stay in basic accommodations.
It's a bird. Actually, two: the long-legged giant ibis and the white-shouldered ibis, both among the rarest in the world. In the eyes of hard-core bird-watchers, they carry near-mythical status.
And now they're making money for Tmatboey. In 2004, the Wildlife Conservation Society, which credits itself with having saved the American bison a century ago, set up the Tmatboey Ibis Ecotourism Project to lure bird-watchers. During the most recent peak season, November 2008 to May 2009, providing services to bird-watching visitors brought in more than $12,000 all told, a fortune by local standards. About 30% went into a community fund for improving basics like education and plumbing; today, life in Tmatboey has been significantly improved by new wells, water pumps, roads and a new school.
In villages in many parts of Asia, nonprofit groups from around the world are putting into practice that time-worn proverb: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Rather than donating clothes or books, handing out mosquito nets or building schools, they're bringing money-making enterprises to rural Asian communities. Some involve training in activities such as sewing and bamboo craft; many are tourist-related.
Among environmental groups, there has been a shift in the past decade or so toward "a more integrated view of conservation and development," says Graham Bullock, a former ecotourism coordinator for the Nature Conservancy's China program. For instance, says Tom Clements, a technical adviser to the Wildlife Conservation Society's Cambodia program, the Tmatboey project works "by empowering local people to manage their own tourism enterprise, in a way that explicitly links revenue received to conservation outcomes."
The goals of each organization vary, of course, as do the circumstances of each village. "One size definitely does not fit all," says Mr. Bullock. But more organizations now seek "the participation and empowerment of local communities," he adds.
Below, a pair of projects aimed at helping villages help themselves.
Chi Phat Commune, Cambodia
The Chi Phat Commune -- a collection of four villages that's home to about 550 families, or nearly 3,000 people in all -- sits on the banks of the Piphot River in Cambodia's Cardamom mountains near the Thai border. Getting there from Phnom Penh takes four to five hours and involves two highways and a scenic ride upriver on a long-tail boat.
The villagers get by mostly on rice farming and fishing. To make extra money, some work as laborers on nearby plantations. Others sell livestock and other goods at the local market.
And some engage in illegal activities like poaching and logging -- which, along with land-clearing for farming, have exacted a heavy environmental toll. While large animals including elephants still roam the Cardamoms, their numbers -- along with those of scaly anteaters, wild pigs, deer, monkeys, bears and lizards known as Bengal monitors -- are dwindling. And so is their habitat, one of Southeast Asia's largest remaining tracts of rainforest.
After studying the Chi Phat village situation, the Wildlife Alliance, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit founded in 1994 with the goal of protecting wildlife, forests and oceans, concluded that poverty was the root cause of wildlife and forest loss in the Cardamoms. The alliance also saw that ecotourism -- the area's thick forest, winding streams and rivers and abundant wildlife make it ideal for mountain biking and trekking -- offered the possibility both of alleviating poverty and leading villagers to see value in the nature surrounding them.
Before Wildlife Alliance started to help develop Chi Phat as an ecotourism gateway (its Web site: www.mountainbikingcardamoms.com), though, it approached not only villagers, but also local authorities and tour operators to see if the project could fly. One challenge would be attracting customers; little has been written about the area. Another would be explaining ecotourism to the locals.
"Often throughout the world, NGOs enter a local community telling them that tourism is the answer to their problems and very much raising expectations, without any consultation with local tour operators to see whether there will actually be any market for what they are proposing," says Mark Ellison, who runs Asia Adventures, an independent tour operator. "Then one or two years down the line they sit back and scratch their heads wondering why after all the training, capacity building, meetings, and infrastructure development, no tourists are coming."
Today a handful of private companies make up the Friends of Chi Phat tour-operator group, which works with Wildlife Alliance to attract tourists. They market Chi Phat as a destination, handle reservations and bring guests to and from the village.
The "Friends" operators can charge tourists whatever they wish, but they pay upfront for services provided by the villagers, such as cooking, guiding, bike maintenance and lodging. About 80% goes to the villager providing the services; the remaining 20% goes into a community fund that improves the village's education, water supply, roads and so on.
Of course some training was needed at first: The villagers of remote Chi Phat were not accustomed to seeing tourists, much less catering to them. In fact, says Mr. Ellison, "until a few years ago many of the locals had not even seen a foreigner."
So in early 2008, Wildlife Alliance -- which established a permanent base in the village in January 2007 (after more than four years of research) -- and its tour-operator partners set up training programs in sanitation, hospitality, English, first-aid and waste management.
A bike mechanic, for instance, was brought in from Phnom Penh to teach villagers how to maintain a modern mountain bike. The hiking and biking trails were created by former hunters and loggers from the village, who now serve as trail guides. So far they've finished two mountain-biking trails (both there-and-back routes) and four circular trekking trails, including some night-camping sites. More trails are in the works.
Not surprisingly, old habits die hard. One villager who was asked to head the group for transporting guests on motorbikes was caught transporting something else instead: a wild pig. The local village council demoted him, with a warning that another transgression would get him kicked out of the project.
"People have been dependent on the forest for livelihoods and domestic needs for quite some time now -- and still are," says Oran Shapira, a 33-year-old Israeli working in Chi Phat for the Wildlife Alliance. "This will not completely change in one day or one year. It's a process."
Tourists stay in a handful of villager huts that have been converted -- with help from the Wildlife Alliance -- to accommodate guests. They're still rustic, but a little better-equipped than before. Squat toilets were added, for instance, so that guests didn't have to relieve themselves in the fields.
The first guests arrived early in 2008, and by year's end there had been about 200. Last year, the village received more than 670 guests, who biked, hiked, swam in the river and played volleyball with the locals.
Asia Adventures charges $250 a person for a three-day trip that includes a one-day mountain-biking excursion and transport to and from Phnom Penh. In 2008 the village collected about $7,000, says Mr. Shapira; last year, more than $19,200.
David Miller, who works for the Australian Taxation Office in Canberra, visited Chi Phat for three nights in December 2008. He wasn't expecting luxury: "You don't go visit a place in the middle of the jungle if you're expecting comfort all the way," he says.
He went on a guided hike one day and on a mountain-biking trip another. "Cycling through remote jungle, and not recognizing much of the flora, made it much more exciting" than biking back in Australia, he says. His tour guides were village men who didn't speak English but were friendly, communicated well with body language, and knew the forest like the back of their hands.
On his bike trip, he passed large swaths of burned land. (Fires not only clear land but also chase out animals, making them easier to catch.) "I don't know of many other ways to offer alternatives to these people so they will stop cutting down the rain forest," he says. "Action like ecotourism is better than no action at all."
Nawung, Indonesia
In 2006, an earthquake in central Java reduced many small villages to near rubble. But aside from some light damage to a few ramshackle buildings, the quake had little outward effect on Nawung, a rural village of about 500 people in the foothills near Yogyakarta. Below the surface, however, was a different story: Geological shifts caused the village's few natural wells to dry up.
It was a blow to farming, the village mainstay, already a challenge in the dry, hilly land. The village needed a new gig.
Enter Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund, a century-old German aid organization that bolsters rural communities through reconstruction, livelihood training and disaster-risk reduction. Some years ago in Kosovo, it reconstructed homes and taught returning war refugees to cultivate saffron as a cash crop.
At the time of the Java earthquake, more than half the people of Nawung earned less than $1 a day, says Sae Kani, an ASB program manager for Indonesia who specializes in disaster-risk-reduction education. Young villagers typically left to find work in retail, manufacturing, housekeeping or construction in places like Jakarta and Yogyakarta.
But in 2007, ASB noticed the village had something going for it -- a new road linking Nawung with Yogyakarta, 45 kilometers to the west, and other significant towns, including Sleman, to the northwest, and Wonosari, to the south. The road -- a scenic route through hills, forests and paddy fields -- significantly boosted the trade and tourism potential between Nawung and Yogyakarta, a hub for Indonesian arts and crafts, as well as other towns and villages.
Within this setting, ASB set out to help make the village self-reliant by teaching villagers to make crafts and foods that they could sell to nearby merchants and retailers.
The ASB team -- three field staff members and a project manager (plus, in the beginning, an architect and engineer) -- moved into the village and set up workshops to train villagers in four skills: bamboo weaving, stone carving, textile making and food preparation.
The food-preparation group is the largest, with about 50 members, all women. Tumiyem, a mother of two small children who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, is one of them. Through an interpreter she says that before the training, "we knew nothing about cooking snacks." Now, she says, the benefit is two-fold: The women can generate extra income and "we can gather with our friends regularly."
About 18 men studied stone craft; now nine of them churn out soap dishes, small statues and water fountains for gardens. The textile group -- three women and two men -- sew pillowcases and containers.
ASB helps with marketing and business connections, teaches bookkeeping and profit management, and provides a little start-up capital for each group. The food-preparation group, for instance, received about $550, part of which went to buy supplies.
Sales are climbing. Last year a woman named Atun who makes chips -- primarily from banana and cassava -- sold about $390 of her snacks from July to November, compared with $110 in the first six months of the year. The stone-masonry group, which sells most of its products to a pair of buyers from Yogyakarta, saw the biggest jump in sales: Between March and November, it pulled in nearly $900, up from about $110 for all of 2008.
ASB has spent about $100,000 on the project, along the way building things such as a small showroom to display the village's goods, production and storage houses for the bamboo-weaving and stone-masonry groups and a Web site (www.nawung.com). Its three staff members in Nawung will stay through the end of this year, when ASB plans to focus more on tourism development and improved marketing for village handicrafts.
The German nonprofit also set up a microfinance fund within each group so members can take out small loans. For instance in the food group, borrowers can obtain three-month loans at an interest rate of 5% a month. (The interest income is used to benefit the groups, such as for raw materials.) And villagers have a good track record of repaying the loans, which they've used for a variety of purposes. Last spring, for example, a member of the stone-craft group named Tukino borrowed $21 to buy fertilizer and pay his children's school fees.
Today, Nawung is on the upswing: New homes are springing up, streets are better paved and cellphones are a more common sight. More important, when ASB leaves, the skills it has taught will likely remain.
—Steve Mollman is a writer based in Asia.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Vietnam - HCM City marks Cambodia’s Liberation Day
January 7, 1979 was the a very violent day the Vietnamese soldiers invading Cambodia. The day that Cambodia had lost so many things which we are mourning until today. After Vietnamese soldiers invaded Cambodia, they robbed everything including raped women and children and also killing them very cruel.
The 31st anniversary of Cambodia ’s Liberation Day (January 7) was celebrated in Ho Chi Minh City on January 5.
Prominent amongst the participants were Truong Minh Nhut, the President of the city’s Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Association and Luon Kim Khuon, Cambodian Consul General to Ho Chi Minh City .
They both stated that Liberation Day is a historical milestone for the spirit of international solidarity and the special friendship between Vietnam and Cambodia .
Over the past 30 years, relations between the two countries have been taken to new heights.
Cooperation and friendship between cities and provinces in both countries, especially Ho Chi Minh City and Phnom Penh, have also constantly developed.
On behalf of the Cambodian people and Government, Luon Kim Khuon expressed thanks to Vietnam for its assistance during Cambodia ’s struggle for national liberation in the past and its current reconstruction. He also expressed his gratitude to the Vietnamese soldiers who fought and died during the war in Cambodia
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