Ambassador: Cambodia-Vietnam cooperation grows

Cambodian Ambassador to Vietnam Vann Phal has highlighted developments in cooperative ties between Vietnam and Cambodia during an interview granted to the Vietnamese press to mark the 40th anniversary of the two countries' diplomatic ties. The interview runs as follows:

Q: What is your assessment of the relations between Vietnam and Cambodia in the fields of politics, economy and culture in recent years?

A: Cambodia and Vietnam’s traditional ties were built on a firm foundation that was fostered and preserved by senior leaders. The ties were based on the two nations' aspirations for solidarity, friendship and mutual assistance in the course of national liberation to gain independence, peace, freedom and development. Our leaders have made regular visits to each other and held frequent working sessions to seek ways to turn the people's aspirations for solidarity, friendship and comprehensive cooperation into reality.

In the context of great upheavals in the region, it is significant that the ties between Cambodia and Vietnam are growing day by day, despite difficulties at time.

In particular, the two countries' cooperation has recently recorded remarkable developments. First of all, their political ties have been constantly strengthened and solidified through a series of visits by the two countries' high-ranking leaders. Vietnamese Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh visited Cambodia in March 2005; State President Nguyen Minh Triet, in March 2007; former Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, in March 2006; Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, in December 2006. Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Phu Trong has also visited Cambodia, while King Sihamoni and Prime Minister Hun Sen visited Vietnam in March 2006 and October 2005, respectively.

Alongside the exchange of visits by Party, State, Government and National Assembly leaders, the two sides have made concerted efforts to bolster the ties between their agencies, sectors, mass organisations, and localities, especially those along the borders. These formal and informal visits demonstrated high resolve of the two countries' leaders in building and fortifying the two countries' relationships under the motto of "good neighbourliness, traditional friendship, and long-term, durable and comprehensive cooperation".

The Cambodian Royal Government and the Vietnamese Government have made a sound decision to sign the supplementary agreement on the 1985 treaty to settle the long-standing border issues in order to build a peaceful borderline, which will be significant to the future of the two countries. In this spirit, the inauguration of the border marker at the Ba Vat-Moc Bai international border gate was held on Sept. 27, 2006 in the witness of the two countries’ Prime Ministers. The two countries plan to finalise the installation of landmarks in 2008.

Agreements reached during high-level visits have created important legal and political ground for the two countries’ cooperative ties to expand and become more practical and effective in all the fields of economics, culture, education, health care and transport and communications. In parallel with the fine development of the two countries’ political relations, the two governments have paid due attention to the development of multi-faceted bilateral cooperation based on the principle of equality and mutual benefits. The two countries have devised a number of mechanisms for bilateral cooperation in economics, culture, science and technology. The two governments also paid special attention to exchange activities to boost the understanding between the two people, especially the youth.

In addition to bilateral relationship, as members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the two countries have accelerated cooperation and mutual assistance within the framework of international and regional cooperation mechanisms such as the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), the Non-Aligned Movement, the United Nations, the Francophone, the Cambodia-Vietnam-Laos Development Triangle, the West-East Corridor (WEC), the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS), and the Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam cooperation (CLMV). The two nations have regularly exchanged views and coordinated their activities at international and regional forums. Furthermore, the two countries have fulfilled their international tasks in protecting the environment and combating terrorism as well as seeking peaceful solutions to all issues and realising the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

I firmly believe that the two countries’ future relationship that is based on mutual respect, equality and mutual interests will enjoy fine results in all domains, meeting the two peoples’ desire to live in peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region and the world at large.

First of all, I highly appreciate the fine development of the Cambodia-Vietnam relationship and comprehensive bilateral cooperation. I hope that the two countries’ comprehensive cooperation will continue to be promoted in the coming years with the aim of ensuring stability, peace and economic development for the two countries in the new regional and international context.

Q: In your opinion, which sectors should the two countries give priorities to in order to improve the efficiency of bilateral cooperation and successfully tap their respective strengths?

A: To expand bilateral cooperation in an effective way, the two countries should continue to consolidate and develop their relations along the direction agreed by leaders of the both countries during their visits. Furthermore, they should build appropriate mechanisms and policies to facilitate investment by both Vietnamese and Cambodian businesses in industry, agriculture, tourism and construction. The two governments should pour more capital into economic cooperation between bordering provinces and prioritise sectors which the two countries have strengths in such as tourism, education, health care and transportation.

Vietnam-Cambodia friendship and solidarity should be consolidated and strengthened to serve each country's cause of national defence and construction and facilitate their international integration processes.

Cooperation in security and defence should also receive due attention in order to create concerted actions in the fight against transnational crimes for the sake of peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world at large.

The two countries should strive to settle pending issues, including land border marker planting and immigrants in a cordial spirit so as not to let them affect bilateral relations.

Q: In recent years, fairs of high-quality Vietnamese goods are annually organised in Cambodia. What do you think about these annual fairs and their role in the development of the two countries’ trade, investment and tourism relations?

A: The organisation of annual fairs of high-quality Vietnamese goods and the development of bilateral trade, investment and tourism relations over recent years are very useful in helping the two countries improve their products’ competitiveness, attract foreign investment and revise legal procedures, after Cambodia and Vietnam entered the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

In addition, favourable natural conditions and potentials in tourism of the two countries have brought numerous opportunities for cooperation. The two countries should maintain their multifaceted cooperation in line with the current trend of integration and economic development, and actively carry out the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia triangle development roadmap and the cooperation programme in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).

Over recent years, bilateral relations have made progresses in all fields and obtained encouraging achievements. The first conference of the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Joint-Coordination Committee held in Pleiku town, Central Highlands Gia Lai province of Vietnam in May 17-18 this year helped facilitate the movement of people, vehicles and products, encourage investment, trade and tourism, in a bid to boost development in the triangle region, fully tap potentials of agro-industrial areas in ten provinces of the three countries. The Co-chairmen of the Joint-Coordination Committee decided to levy preferential tariffs and simplify procedures for cross-border trade in the region.

In 2006 alone, Cambodia-Vietnam trade surged by 30% year-on-year. Vietnam exported US $780 million worth of goods to Cambodia and imported US $170 million. The two countries aim to obtain US $2 billion in trade by 2010.

I hope that bilateral trade, investment and tourism relations in coming years would be developed further in order to contribute to economic development in the region, particularly in transportation and tourism.

Q: You have just taken up your assignment in Vietnam, so what are your impressions of the land, people and development of the country?

A: I have been here just 23 days. However, I worked at the Cambodian Embassy in Vietnam from 1994-1998. Coming back to Vietnam after nine years, I was very surprised at the rapid development of your country. It can be said that Vietnam is running towards the future.

Since Vietnam began its renewal process in 1986, the country has seen big changes. With its accession to international organisations such as the WTO and APEC, Vietnam’s position on the international arena has increasingly improved. I believed that under the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam, your country will soon reach the goal of becoming an industrial nation by 2010. (VNA) Read more!

MTV and Fulbright join forces overseas

By NATASHA T. METZLER, Associated Press Writer Fri Jun 22, 4:03 AM ET

WASHINGTON - At Georgetown University, Aaron Shneyer put together a Jewish-Arab band and falafel dinners to help students from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide find common ground. Now he‘s heading to Jerusalem where he‘ll use pop and hip-hop music to promote peace.

The other scholars include a Harvard University grad who will travel to South Africa to create a documentary film on marching bands comprised of underprivileged youth, and two students whose musical studies are tied to their different heritages — Jamaican and Cambodian.

For his fellowship project, Shneyer plans to select five Israeli and five Palestinian students in Jerusalem to compose and study music together and possibly perform.

MtvU will help Shneyer and the other fellows communicate with American students by posting videos, blogs or podcasts online. Shneyer says he hopes it can educate his peers about a region that "all of the news we hear about is very negative."

Although Bowen, 22, is not a musician, she has sung in both gospel and classical choirs for years. A recent graduate of New York University‘s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, Bowen plans to research Panamanian contributions to reggae music as a path to understanding the dual identities of West Indians living in Spanish-speaking countries.

She also plans to create a compact disc or Web site with audio clips of Panamanian musicians narrating the history of their culture, which could be used in Panamanian schools.

Similarly, Phally Chroy, a graduate film student at Temple University, received a fellowship to study music from his Cambodian heritage.

"One thing that really helped me a lot was the music. It helped me make a lot of sense about how my mom and dad act toward me and the community," the 25-year-old said in a phone interview from the airport before leaving for a pre-fellowship trip to Cambodia — his first visit back to his native country.

"This music is part of a community of people who almost lost their identity," Chroy said.

His film will likely follow foundation bands around the country preparing to face each other in an annual competition, with a focus on four groups outside Johannesburg, Collins said.

He learned about the foundation during his tenure as president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, in which he played percussion for four years. He wanted the orchestra to travel to South Africa, but was unable to raise the funds. Nevertheless, Collins stayed in touch with the foundation and planned to work with them after graduating from Harvard this spring.

"I just saw the way that we, the orchestra, used music to make people happy," Collins said in a phone interview from his family‘s apartment in New York City. "I wanted to be able to do that on an even larger scale."

Representatives from both the State Department and mtvU said they plan to continue the program.

The first four recipients will begin their fellowships in the fall. Applications for the next round are now open and will be accepted until Oct. 19. Read more!

Creative Student Web Sites Win Doors to Diplomacy Contest

Students from Minnesota, Taiwan take top honors in annual competition

By Louise Fenner
USINFO Staff Writer

Washington – Early in 2007, a group of American students traveled to Cambodia to learn about “citizen diplomacy” and undertake projects to help rural schools and orphanages. That trip inspired three of them to create an innovative Web site called Doors 2 Cambodia.

The three students are the American winners in the sixth annual Doors to Diplomacy Web site contest. They share the top honors with four Taiwanese students who created a Web site exploring Taiwan’s international medical assistance programs.

Doors to Diplomacy challenges students ages 11 to 18 around the world to create Web sites that teach the importance of international affairs and diplomacy. This year, 190 teams from 38 countries submitted entries.

The winning Web sites are Doors 2 Cambodia, created by students from Triton High School in Rochester, Minnesota, and International Medical Aid, developed by four students from Ming-Dao High School in Taichung County, Taiwan.

“Others can learn from the research they did,” said Yvonne Marie Andres, founder of Global SchoolNet (GSN), which coordinates Doors to Diplomacy for its sponsor, the U.S. Department of State.

“They did an excellent job of presenting their position on issues of global importance and documenting what their research was,” she said, “and including multimedia and making it interesting.”

Global SchoolNet has pioneered global project-based learning, which brings students together online to collaborate on projects. The 2006 Doors to Diplomacy winners included three American students at an Internet-based “virtual school” who created their Web site entirely online through e-mail and conference calls. (See related article.)

“It’s all becoming multimedia, digital media, and the students love it,” Andres told USINFO. “The students love to be able to create and then have an audience for their creation.”

The Minnesota students’ site incorporates more than 40 video clips about their trip to Cambodia for a service-learning class. The clips can be seen on YouTube.com, and the students also have a page on MySpace.com.

The videos include interviews with Cambodian scholars – some in the Khmer language – and a record of the students’ visit to the garbage dump at Stung Meanchey, a district of Phnom Penh where some 70 families live. In one video entitled Tanh Na Rouk (Hell), a Cambodian man describes the killing of his father by the Khmer Rouge and the circumstances that forced him to move his family to the dump.

“Witnessing the tragic conditions [at the dump] was one of the worst feelings we experienced during the entire trip,” said the students on their Web site.

“One of the things that impressed the judges most about the Doors 2 Cambodia team was their work as 'ambassadors' for their project,” said Janice Clark, a public affairs specialist with the State Department. “Not only did they educate others, but [they] actually accomplished some tangible work.” The students helped dig wells in Cambodia, and in preparation for the trip they raised money for bathrooms and chalkboards for some schools and orphanages.

The Taiwanese students faced the challenge of producing their Web site in English (a contest rule) as well as Chinese, and they had to use instant translating software for their research, since much of the material was in languages other than Chinese.

The students raised money for AIDS projects and recruited classmates to sponsor impoverished children through World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization. On their Web site, they said they discovered that even a small financial contribution could make a difference to those less fortunate.

Clark said she and the other judges were struck by the students’ extensive research and their advocacy for Taiwan’s international assistance programs. “Their theme was ‘Taiwan used to need help, and now we’re modern and we the Taiwanese need to give back,’” she said.

Each winning student receives a $2,000 scholarship and the adult mentors receive a $500 cash award for their schools.

In addition to the top two prizes, Doors to Diplomacy honored entries from Bulgaria, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Malaysia, The Philippines, Romania, Singapore, Turkey, Turkmenistan and the state of California.

Student peers and educational professionals did the preliminary judging, and final selections were made by the State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs.

The winning sites can be viewed at Doors 2 Cambodia – including the video Tanh Na Rouk -- and The Role of Taiwan in World Health - International Medical Aid.

More information about Doors to Diplomacy is available from the Global SchoolNet.

The full text of the announcement of the winners is available on the State Department Web site. More information also is available on Future State, the State Department's youth site.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov ) Read more!

CAMBODIA: Journalist flees country after receiving death threat

New York, June 22, 2007 --The Committee to Protect Journalists is gravely concerned about an anonymous death threat made Saturday against Radio Free Asia (RFA) reporter Lem Pichpisey. Fearing for his safety, Lem fled across the Thai-Cambodian border the next day and is now in exile in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

Lem told CPJ that he received the threat on his mobile telephone while driving in the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh. The anonymous caller told the reporter "to beware" and warned that he "could be killed" for his radio reports on alleged illegal logging activities, he said in recounting the incident.

"I didn't want to leave my country and stop my reporting," Lem told CPJ in an interview on Thursday, "but my life was in danger."

The threat followed a series of RFA reports in which Lem followed up on allegations of official complicity in illegal logging activities. The charges were first made in a research report issued by Britain-based environmental watchdog group Global Witness.

Lem's broadcasts included undercover reporting in the Prey Long forest of central Kompong Thom province. Lem told CPJ that he had been followed by people he believed were plainclothes military police while in the Prey Long forest and later in the capital.

"We call on Cambodian authorities to launch an independent investigation into the death threat made against Lem Pichpisey," said Joel Simon, CPJ's executive director. "Democratic governments must ensure the security of working journalists, even when they report critically on official policies and actions."

A handful of Khmer-language daily newspapers had serialized RFA's reports on the Global Witness report. The local language Sralanh Khmer newspaper was forced to stop publication of the reports after government officials threatened to close it down, according to media reports.

The management of the French-language Cambodge Soir newspaper sacked the news editor who oversaw publication of the Global Witness report's allegations, according to news reports. The newspaper has now halted operations after the news staff went on strike over the dismissal.

Committee to Protect Journalists. www.cpj.org
E-mail: info@cpj.org Read more!

Vietnamese war veterans go to Cambodia to enhance ties

PHNOM PENH — A delegation from the Viet Nam War Veterans Association began a four-day working visit to Cambodia on Tuesday at the invitation of Cambodian Minister of Social Affairs, War Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation Ith Sam Heng.

At a working session the same day, Lieutenant General Dang Quan Thuî, head of the Vietnamese delegation, and Heng agreed to accelerate exchanges and co-ordination between the two countries’ war veterans associations with a view to boosting Viet Nam-Cambodia ties.

Heng said the Cambodian people will never forget Viet Nam’s assistance, particularly the help of voluntary soldiers during the struggle to liberate the country from the genocidal Khmer Rouge.

Heng said the Vietnamese veterans association was a good example for the Cambodian War Veterans Association, especially in terms of improving the lives of Cambodian veterans and their families.

The Vietnamese delegation was scheduled to visit Prime Minister Hun Sen, Deputy PM and Defence Minister Tea Banh, and Deputy PM and Interior Minister Sar Kheng.

They will also attend the first congress of the Cambodian War Veterans Association and visit its establishments. — VNA Read more!

Cambodian culture week to be held in Viet Nam

All in the wrist: Cambodian dancers performing Apsara, an art form recognised by UNESCO as an intangible world heritage. — VNS Photo Doan Tung

A Cambodian Culture Week will be held in HCM City, Binh Duong and Soc Trang provinces from next Monday to Saturday to celebrate 40 years of formal diplomatic relations between Viet Nam and Cambodia.

Some 35 representatives from Cambodia are participating in the event, which is being jointly organised by Viet Nam’s Ministry of Culture and Information and Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. Among activities planned for the celebration will be a performance of Apsara dancing, recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage of the world. The four dances that make up Apsara have earned world wide recognition.

In HCM City, there will be an exhibition entitled Cambodia – Land, People and Traditional Culture. On display will be various images of the country - its landscape and people, in addition to examples of traditional Cambodian wedding dress, antiques, handicrafts and unique sculptures in bronze, brass, silver and stone.

In HCM and Can Tho cities, there will be free screenings of four Cambodian films, including the classic Virtuous Mother, which is standard teaching materials in Cambodian secondary schools and won second prize in Cambodia’s National Film Festival in 2005.

"This cultural week is the product of the two countries’ co-operation. It aims to boost the traditional friendly ties between the Vietnamese and the Khmer people," said Le Tien Tho, Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Culture and Information.

Cambodian Culture Week in Viet Nam will also provide an opportunity for artists and actors from the two countries exchange experiences and preserve and develop the cultural identities of the two countries. — VNS

Read more!

Cambodia Keeps Taking, Gives Little

A Cambodian beggar with her sister walks in a market in search of alms in the capital city Phnom Penh.

By Hannah Beech


Why do the rich nations keep funneling millions of dollars every year to a corrupt country like Cambodia? Each summer, at around this time, for more than a decade, international donors have pledged huge sums to prop up the impoverished Southeast Asian nation. The donors unveil a goody bag of financial aid contingent on the country tackling endemic problems like corruption, human-rights violations and environmental degradation. And each year, like ritual, longtime Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen dutifully pledges to clean up the government's act. Alas, also like ritual, little or nothing happens. Yet somehow the entire ceremony repeats itself year after year.

On Wednesday, June 20, foreign donors — a collection of foreign governments, multinational banks and various U.N. agencies — promised to funnel $689 million of aid to Cambodia, a 15% increase from last year and an amount roughly equivalent to half the nation's annual budget. This year, they did issue statements chastising the Hun Sen government for failing to adequately battle widespread graft. Cambodia ranks No. 151 out of 163 nations surveyed in Transparency International's 2006 government corruption index. Addressing donor representatives gathered in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh this month, Hun Sen promised that long-delayed anti-corruption legislation would be passed "as soon as possible." The statement was a virtual carbon copy of what he had pledged last year.

Foreign aid has long been employed as a political tool, with varying levels of success. Rich economies get to feel good about sharing their wealth with the less fortunate. At the same time, Western nations dole out cash to poorer economies in hopes of encouraging budding democratization efforts. But if anything, Cambodia has continued to backslide. A Hun Sen-backed coup in 1997 removed Co-Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Opposition party members are regularly harassed. And a July 2006 deadline imposed by Hun Sen himself for introducing a draft of anti-corruption legislation passed with no evidence of any such document.

The country's economy has grown (more than 10% last year, due in part to tourism and the textile industry). But wealth appears to be concentrated in the hands of the few. Earlier this month, the international watchdog organization Global Witness released the findings of a three-year investigation that accuses a network of Hun Sen's relatives and friends of having made tens of millions of dollars from illegal logging. (Several of those implicated by Global Witness have denied the allegations, and the watchdog's report itself has been banned from domestic distribution by the Cambodian government.) In the report, Global Witness castigates the international donor community for facilitating what it labels a deeply corrupt Cambodian ruling class: "Donor support has failed to produce reforms that would make the government more accountable to its citizens. Instead, the government is successfully exploiting international aid as a source of political legitimacy."

The trouble is that Cambodia does not have to depend only on Western donors to help it patch together its economy and government. There is China. Unlike other foreign governments, China puts few strings on its aid, and its generosity in doling out funds for the Cambodian government now rivals Western munificence. Last year, Hun Sen publicly praised Cambodia's "most trustworthy friend" China for its pledge of $600 million in aid and loans; this month, the Cambodian Prime Minister went on to thank the Communist giant for giving money without "order[ing] us to do this or that" — presumably in contrast to pesky requests for reform from other international benefactors. "China has changed the game," says Sok Hach, director of the independent Economic Institute of Cambodia. "Their attitude toward aid has decreased the leverage of the rest of the world."

Further diluting international influence is the potential of oil and gas revenues to transform Cambodia's still largely agrarian economy. Two years ago, Chevron announced the discovery of offshore oil reserves in Cambodia. If natural-resources dollars do start flowing in 2010, as some expect, the country may for the first time enjoy a major revenue source that could help it stand on its own feet. Yet, in countries like Nigeria, oil money has only served to enrich a tiny minority while leaving the rest of the country impoverished. And the alternate source of income may only make it more difficult for Western efforts to tie aid to improved Cambodian governance.

Nevertheless, some human-rights groups blame the donor community for their consistent unwillingness to pull aid when their pleas for reform aren't met. "The donors' list of conditions hardly changes over time, and the government simply ignores them year after year," says Brad Adams, Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch. "Hun Sen continues to run circles around the donors, making the same empty promises every year and laughing all the way to the bank." Read more!

Author documents Cambodian adoption in ‘Bones that Float’

LANDER, Wyo. — It took a trip almost to the highest point in the world for Kari Grady Grossman to discover her professional calling in life.

In spring 2002, Grossman was tracking the Ford-sponsored women’s expedition to the summit of Mount Everest (local Jody Thompson and former local Kim Clark were two of the climbers) as a writer for Discovery Channel online. On Mother’s Day, at 18,000 feet elevation and 8,000 miles away from her 2-year-old adopted son, whom she desperately missed, she realized that adventure writing was no longer her dream.

“That was a real defining moment,” Grossman said.

She redirected her efforts toward researching a book on Cambodia, from where she adopted her son, Eric Ratanak Grady Grossman, in 2001 and where she and her husband sponsor a school in his name.

Four years later, she realized her goal, publishing “Bones that Float” a memoir of her experience adopting a child from poverty-stricken Cambodia and attempt to locate her son’s anonymous birth mother intertwined with two stories of survival from native Cambodians. The first is the compelling, often heart-wrenching, recollections of Amanda Prom, a neighbor and friend of Grossman’s in her hometown of Lander, Wyo., whose family lived through the cruel Khmer Rouge regime before escaping to the U.S. in the early 1980s. The second is of Sovann, an early 40s friend of the Grossmans who also lived through the Khmer Rouge, but stayed in Cambodia and his struggles to make a life for himself and his family in an economy devastated by war, even with an education.

The idea of weaving together the three stories, Grossman says, was to bring Cambodia’s troubled past, including enduring U.S. bombings in the late 1960s and early 1970s, to a mainstream audience.

Her inspiration came when she brought her new son home to the mountains of Wyoming in late 2001.

“I was shocked and amazed that nobody around me seemed to know anything about what had happened in Cambodia,” she said, referring to four years in the 1970s when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. Anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 million Cambodians died or disappeared during the brutal reign.

“Bones that Float” is on the shelves at both Weber’s Books and Hamlet’s Book Shoppe in Breckenridge, and has sold well.

Courtney Phillips, manager at Weber’s, just placed in a second order of 15 books after the first six copies sold out.

“People really generally love it,” she said. “They’re comparing it to (Greg Mortenson’s) ‘Three Cups of Tea’ as far as tone and the way it made them feel. It’s just really giving people some hope in a time when those kinds of feelings are few and far between for most of us.”

Similar to Mortenson, who began building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan after a failed K2 bid in 1993, the Grossmans quickly recognized the need for education in Cambodia.

Shortly after adopting Eric, Grossman and her husband sponsored the Grady Grossman School in the village of Chrauk Tiek in the Kampong Speu province near the Cardamom Mountains.

It started with 50 kids studying on a dirt floor under a dilapidated thatched roof. The school now serves 10 times the number of students and includes a teacher’s residence so educators can afford to instruct the kids.

With government salaries hovering around $25 a month, many instructors have traditionally made teaching a second priority to other odd jobs that paid the bills.
“In many new buildings, there’s no education going on because the teachers don’t make enough money to live so they don’t show up to work,” Grossman said.

Supporting teachers with a food stipend and residence enabled more teachers to educate full-time and therefore more kids to attend school.

Grossman, who visits Cambodia every year, is now aiming to develop a lifeskills training center at the school to equip students with crafts that can provide a means of income.

For instance, teaching students how to grow agriculture or developing cooking fuels alternatives to wood to help curb illegal logging in the forest — a huge problem near Chrauk Tiek.

Eventually she hopes the life skills model can spread to other schools in Cambodia.
“What I envision is not building more schools. It’s making the schools already built function independent of the government and self-sustaining,” Grossman said.

A quarter of all the profits from “Bones that Float” go to the Friends of the Grady Grossman School. For more information, visit http://www.gradygrossmanschool.orp/.

Nicole Formosa can be reached at (970) 668-4629, or at nformosa@summitdaily.com.

Event and book signing
Kari Grady Grossman will have a booth on Breckenridge Main Street during the Mountain 2 Mountain Race for the Mountains on June 24. Also on June 24, she will sign copies of the book at Weber’s Books in Breckenridge from 4-6 p.m
She’ll be back at Hamlet’s Book Shoppe for a book signing at the end of August.

Read more!

Vietnamese to poise Cambodian children forgeting its Crocodile jaws

Cambodian children are the civilization of Ankor, for century, Ankorcivilization had never forgotten the past experience with Vietnamese (the nation with full of hatred toward Cambodian people). The history of bitter relationship, massacre and destroying Cambodia.

And now Vietnam is trying to lure Cambodian children into a sweet relationship which is not nowaday. Every Cambodian knew what Yuons are, Yuon should stop pretending that they are innocent friendship; it is a waste of time, Hun Sen government is wasting money for Cambodian Youth organization to go along with Yuon youth organization.

Party leader backs greater Vietnam-Cambodia youth ties

Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh said that Vietnam would fully back efforts and programmes that bring the Vietnamese and Cambodian public and in particular youth closer together.

The statement came in the form of a letter sent by the Party leader to participants at the Vietnam-Cambodia Youth Friendship Meeting, which runs from June 16-22 in Vietnam.

Vietnam will always “support and create conditions for Vietnam and Cambodia’s young generations to increase their mutual co-operation, understanding and assistance for the benefit of all,” the party leader said.

He spoke highly of the initiative to organise the meeting on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Vietnam and Cambodia, an event that holds great significance for the relationship framework of the two nations.

President of the Cambodian People’s Party Samdec Chea Sim also sent a letter to the meeting, describing the event a reflection of the development of ties between the two countries. (VNA) Read more!

Cambodia clears up voter list for general election in 2008

The Cambodian National Election Committee (NEC) has started to clear up the 2007 voters' list for the general election in 2008, local media reported Thursday.

The clearing-up of the voters' list aimed at checking up the real figure of Cambodian voters in the 2008 election, Khon Koemono, vice president of the NEC's public information unit, was quoted by the Raksmey Kampuchea Daily as saying.

"We have to check voters' list and voters' registration from now to August 2007," he said.

The NEC also would like to appeal all political parties and NGOs to observe the process of the clearing-up of voters in order to have clear and fair figures, he added.

According to a NEC press release about the commune councils election on April 1, only around 70 percent of the over 7 million Cambodian voters went to vote.

Cambodia is expected to hold the next general election on July 27, 2008, it said.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

CAMBODIA: Human cost in development relocations

Cambodia's international donors have pledged $US690 million in aid to the impoverished nation over the next year. The pledge came after the Prime Minister, Hun Sen, told the meeting he would get 'in touch' with the fight against corruption and land disputes. But his commitment has not impressed the human rights organisations that work with Cambodia's poorest populations, who say donors should demand actions and not words.

Presenter/Interviewer: Bill Bainbridge
Speakers: Kong Nai, Cha Pei master and evictee; Naly Pilorge, director, Licadho; Ou Virak, director, Cambodian Centre for Human Rights

BAINBRIDGE: Human rights organisation, Licadho, filmed Nai's story. Their director, Naly Pilorge, says land grabbing in Cambodia has exploded in recent years.

PILORGE: It's often done with very little notice, no participation from the communities, and often very violently with the use of weapons and machinery and often the people that are doing the evictions are company guards usually with the authorities, whether the village chief or riot police.

BAINBRIDGE: Cambodia's economy is booming. According to the International Monetary Fund it grew at 10.4 per cent last year and should grow at around nine per cent this year and land values have tripled in the past two years. That's led developers to try to lock up valuable parcels of land.

PILORGE: These evictions are done for development puposes, however, what we see is often there's no development. Fences are constructed but there's no development for years and years.

BAINBRIDGE: The Cambodian government typically provides land on the outskirts of town as compensation for those who are moved. But Cambodian Centre for Human Rights director, Ou Virak, says that land is totally inadequate.

VIRAK: For the people who have been relocated a while back for the community it's usually non-existent. They don't stay in the relocation site, these people are being pushed to a place where they cannot help their families or make a living. This is one of the reasons we think it's such a disaster.

BAINBRIDGE: In one case more than a thousand people were forced out of their homes to a relocation site a year ago. The government said they were squatters and the land was needed for development. But 12 months on the land has not been developed and Ou Virak says the site is virtually uninhabited. Ou Virak says the coveted real estate usually ends up in the hands of Cambodia's political elite.

VIRAK: In all of these land deals pretty much if you dig down deep enough you'll notice there's a link not just to any government but to a very, very few high ranking officials in the top level of the government and particularly the Prime Minister.

BAINBRIDGE: Under current Cambodian law anyone who has occupied land peaceably for five years has ownership rights over it but NGOs worry a new sub-decree the government is developing with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank will legitimise the land theft. Ou Virak says Cambodia's international donors are sending the wrong signal by increasing the amount of aid they provide the country.

VIRAK: You know I think there must be more pressure and I think that the donor community who are supposedly involved in promoting democratic principles should follow the democratic principles themselves and really should involve the Cambodian public in the whole process and not keep it from the Cambodian public. Read more!

Cambodia donors pledge $690 mln in 2007 aid

PHNOM PENH, June 20 (Reuters) - Cambodia's international donors pledged $690 million in aid for 2007 on Wednesday, a 15 percent increase on the previous year that reflected recognition of government and economic reforms, a Cambodian official said.

"We received more than we expected. This is a reward for Cambodia's good performance over the last year," senior Finance Ministry official Hang Choun Naron said after a donor conference in Phnom Penh.

A breakdown revealed that much of the increase was accounted for by $91 million from China, which has shunned the collective donor process in previous years, preferring to offer bilateral assistance instead.

Japan remained the biggest contributor, with $112 million.

Twenty percent of the aid was in the form of loans and the rest in grants. Historically, Phnom Penh has relied on foreign aid for more than 60 percent of government spending.

The assistance should provide another boost to the war-scarred southeast Asian nation's economy, which is enjoying near double-digit growth due to relative political stability and booms in the tourism, clothing and construction sectors.

"We are going to spend this money on education, health care, improving infrastructure, rural development and agriculture," Hang Choun Naron said.

The economy grew 10.4 percent last year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which expects growth of 9 percent in 2007 and 7.5-8 percent in 2008, making it one of the world's fastest-growing economies, albeit worth only $7 billion.

In a big push to banish the legacy of Pol Pot's "Year Zero" revolution and its estimated 1.7 million victims, Phnom Penh has obtained a B+ credit rating from Standard and Poor's and a B2 from Moodys this year.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge soldier who has been in charge for more than 20 years, announced plans for a stock market in 2009, another sign of the accelerating recovery from the horrors of the "Killing Fields".

Despite this, donors also called for greater commitment to reform of a notoriously corrupt and political judiciary, and swift enactment of draft anti-graft laws that have been gathering dust on the shelves of parliament for years.

Hun Sen's critics accuse him of being an autocrat who has brought stability at the expense of human rights and openness.

Eight Westerners were arrested outside the meeting on Tuesday for campaigning for the release of two men whom rights groups say were framed for the 2004 murder of a prominent union leader.

Phnom Penh police chief Touch Naruth said the group -- three Americans, two Canadians, one New Zealander, one Briton and one Dane -- had been arrested for "protesting illegally".

They were released after signing an agreement not to do so again, police said. Read more!

Vietnam joins Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand to boost rice exports

Vietnam will collaborate with Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand to raise the profile and quality of the region's rice exports.
A cooperation agreement to this effect was being considered by the five countries which belong to the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Co-operation Strategy (ACMECS), the Vietnamese trade ministry said.

The agreement would cover transfer of farming techniques and sharing of global market information to strengthen the region’s competitiveness.

Vietnam has already signed a similar agreement with Thailand, and the two countries plan to meet in Hanoi next month to discuss implementation of the accord.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, rice exports topped 1.8 million tons in the first five months fetching US$580 million, a year-on-year decline of 21 per cent and 8 per cent.

The ministry said the decline had been caused by logistical challenges, including difficulty in leasing ships, increase in freight charges, and bad weather which hindered the loading of rice bags onto ships for export.

This year Vietnam expects to export around 5 million tons, Thailand 8 million tons, Cambodia about 300,000 tons, and Myanmar around 100,000 tons.

The Philippines recently bought 280,000 tons of 25-per-cent broken rice from Vietnam at of $328.96-348.99 per ton to be delivered between June and August.

Source: VNA Read more!

Cambodia detains foreigners over protest at donor meeting

Phnom Penh - Cambodian police said Tuesday they had detained at least five foreigners for distributing leaflets urging the release of two men convicted of the murder of a trade union leader during an annual donor meeting.

Daun Penh district police chief Phorn Pheng said at least five people he believed to hold foreign passports had been 'invited' to the Phnom Penh municipal police foreigner office but said he could not give details.

'We did invite five people go to the foreigner police office ... They were distributing leaflets outside a meeting while (Cambodian Prime Minister) Hun Sen spoke inside,' Pheng said.

He said he could not confirm local media reports which said that as many as eight foreigners were detained, including Americans, Canadians, a New Zealander, a Briton and a Scandinavian, but added that they were not expected to face serious charges.

'I don't know any more information, because they have been transferred from my department now, but I hope and would expect they will be free to go soon,' he said.

The two-day annual meeting of most of the aid dependent country's key donors is scheduled to conclude Wednesday, with donors tipped to meet or surpass the 601 million dollars pledged to Cambodia last year.

The foreigners were allegedly distributing leaflets demanding the release of two men convicted of the January 2004 murder of union leader Chea Vichea.

Under criticism by a number of donors, the 2005 convictions for the murder of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun have been blasted by human rights groups including Amnesty International as a cover-up. There have been widespread demands for the men's case to be reopened.

The annual donor meeting comes in the wake of the government's recent banning of a negative logging report by London-based environmental group Global Witness and a highly critical report in Geneva last week by Yash Ghai, UN human rights envoy to the Cambodia.

On Saturday, New York-based Human Rights Watch demanded donors make Cambodia more accountable for how it uses aid, claiming human rights abuses and endemic corruption were still rampant despite billions in aid being poured into the country in the past decade.

The meeting comprises key bilateral donors to Cambodia including the US, Germany, Japan and South Korea, and the Asian Development Bank, the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank. Read more!

Cambodia pleases donor countries with anti-corruption oaths

Cambodia here on Tuesday opened its annual donor countries' meeting, with its prime minister Hun Sen repeatedly vowing to fight corruption at any cost to safeguard these donors' confidence in his government.

"We have always fight corruption with concrete measures and the government is determined to adopt anti-corruption laws as soon as possible," he told more than 100 representatives of donor countries and NGOs and top governmental officials at the two-day First Cambodian Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF).

In addition, Hun Sen even promised to hand over his personal properties to the new government, if his Cambodian People's Party (CPP) fails to win the next general election, apparently in effort to counter the wide-spread allegations that the current CPP government is too corrupt to stay in power in 2008.

"CPP has already appointed me as premier candidate for the general election in 2008, and if CPP fails, I will sign to hand over the properties (of mine) and all the official documents to the new government," he said.

Hun Sen made these remarks at the forum for the Cambodian government, its development cooperation partners and the civil society to dialogue on public policy issues and the associated financing framework on medium term, namely the annual meeting for the donor countries to help the government offset its budget.

While official figures showed that the donors pledged 601 million U.S. dollars in aid for Cambodia in 2006, almost half of its government budget, the kingdom still cherished much higher expectation this year due to its confirmation of rich reserves of oil and natural gas.

However, in recent days, NGOs have verbally attacked the government for corruption, in order to provide tools for the deputies of 18 donor countries and five NGOs at CDCF to press for anti-corruption efforts and contain donations.

At Tuesday's forum, to appease the donors, Hun Sen described corruption as "cancer of the society" and vowed to fight it with real actions.

"Even we don't have anti-corruption law yet, we take strict actions to fight corrupt officials," he said, adding that the government has already established its committee to handle the work.

Recently, he said, seven government officials were punished over illegal logging, two arrested and put into jail for seizing private properties, one accused of conspiracy in state land grabbing and destroying forestry, one another accused of destroying natural resources and ruining the environment, and 11 others jailed over cutting forestry illegally in Ratanakiri province.

Meanwhile, the premier told the representatives that his party is set to win the next election, obviously trying to fuel their confidence in CPP and its continued governance.

According to the law, any political party who wins 50 percent of the votes at the National Assembly plus one more vote can establish the government, he said.

"Now Cambodia has about 60 political parties. If CPP wins the next general election, I will continue to lead the country as premier," he said.

The 50 percent plus one rule can guarantee that no more political deadlock will occur in Cambodia, he added.

Hun Sen has been country leader since 1985 and transformed Cambodia from a war-torn land into a kingdom with macro economic stability for over 10 years.

According to the government's report, between 1994 and 2006, the average annual economic growth rate of Cambodia was 9.8 percent. In 2005 and 2006, the rates respectively stood at 13.4 percent and 10.4 percent.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

Cambodian PM returns after visit to Japan

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen returned Saturday from a visit to Japan, which was aimed to strengthen the relationship between the two countries.

At the Phnom Penh international airport upon the arrival of Hun Sen, Secretary of State of Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Long Visalo told reporters that it was the first official visit for Hun Sen to Japan, which was from June 13 to 16.

Long Visalo said that during the visit, Cambodia and Japan signed an agreement to protect Japanese investors in Cambodia, adding that groups of Japanese entrepreneurs, investors and government officials will visit Cambodia next month in order to find chances for investment.

So far, the loans and grants from Japan to Cambodia are worth about 1,177 million U.S. dollars, he said.

Japan will also provide scholarships for 1,000 Cambodian students in the next 5 years, he added.

Hun Sen also requested the Japanese government to help Cambodia with several projects, including the National Road No.2 from Phnom Penh to Takeo province, the water irrigation system for Vay Ko river which will benefit the people in Kompong Cham, Prey Veng and Svay Rieng provinces, the expanding of Sihanoukville sea port, the creation of special economic zone in Sihanoukville, the electricity network from Phnom Penh to Kompong Cham and Kratie province, the water clean system in Siem Reap province and the Neak Loung bridge, Long Visalo said.

Japanese experts will come to study and construct these projects soon, he added.

Japan has been Cambodia's largest donor country for years, but lags behind other countries in the fields of investment and trade.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

Cambodia asks foreign donors for more aid

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: The Cambodian government opened a meeting with foreign donors Tuesday to ask for more aid, amid a barrage of criticism that it has reneged on promises to control rampant corruption.

Despite economic growth averaging 11.4 percent for the last three years, Cambodia remains one of the world's poorest countries and heavily reliant on foreign aid. Donors pledged US$601 million (€448 million) to the government last year.

It is not yet clear how much Cambodia will ask for during the two-day meeting that started Tuesday.

Human rights and environmental groups said the government keeps breaking its promises of reform, and that donors must get tougher with the government to ensure it meets its pledges.

"If their mission is to help Cambodia's long-suffering population, rather than just cozying up to its kleptocratic government, donors must start insisting on tangible actions to combat corruption and impunity," Simon Taylor, director of the Britain-based environmental group Global Witness, said in a statement Monday.

Early this month, his group issued a stinging report alleging tycoons, some senior officials and relatives of Prime Minister Hun Sen were running illegal logging businesses. The government denied the allegations.

Yash Ghai, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for human rights in Cambodia, in a report this month, also blasted the government's land concessions.

He said many rural Cambodians were losing out on land which was being given to those with government connections, including for logging purposes.

U.S. Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli has praised the government for realizing strong economic growth and "solid progress" in some health and legal areas.

But progress in other important areas, such as land-grabbing, the environment and good governance "is hampered by the systemic corruption we see in Cambodia today," he said Saturday.

Yet, the donors "are being taken for a ride" by the government, Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch's Asia director, said Saturday.

"Hun Sen continues to run circles around the donors, making the same empty promises every year and laughing all the way to the bank," he said. Read more!

JSM plans Vietnam, Cambodia IPO

JSM Indochina Ltd, a company set up to invest in Vietnamese and Cambodian real estate, said on Tuesday it planned an initial public offering in London to raise between US$400 million and $600 million.

JSM, which is based in the Cayman Islands and focuses on the development and management of retail and serviced apartment assets, plans to sell up to 600 million shares at $1 each, targeting admission by the end of June, it said in a statement.

"JSM Indochina will give investors access to one of South East Asia´s fastest-growing economies and a developing property market," Chief Executive Craig Jones said in a statement.

"We believe that Vietnamese and Cambodian real estate fundamentals now offer extremely attractive opportunities for investors."

The offering comes as real estate firms in Europe face slowing property price rises and higher interest rates.

Last week, British hotel owner Vector Hospitality pulled a potentially record-breaking $4 billion IPO, and Spain´s Realia was forced to slash its offering price.

Jones, who plans to sell land in Vietnam and Cambodia worth around $35 million to JSM in exchange for shares, shrugged off concerns over potential lukewarm investor demand for property stocks.

"Investor demand for access to markets in Vietnam is quite strong ... We feel very comfortable with our $US400 to $US600 million raise. We think that is a result of strong investor demand globally," Jones said.

"There are very few international retailers there with exceptional (retail) parks... We see a number of retailers wanting to enter the market and we want to be there providing them with facilities."

The company, which will focus on HCM City and Hanoi areas, was in talks with retailers such as Parkson Retail Group for letting, Jones said.

Lehman Brothers is acting as bookrunner to the issue, and Evolution Securities is acting as nominated adviser.

The company will give Lehman Brothers an over-allotment option over ordinary shares of up to a maximum of 15%. Read more!

Cambodia gets grant for hydro expansion in Mekong power trade

The World Bank has announced the award of a US$18.5M grant to Cambodia to help develop power trade projects in the Greater Mekong, which will involve a hydro project and a transmission line to import surplus hydroelectricity.

In approving the grant, which is being issued via the International Development Association (IDA), the bank noted that the projects aim to expand power trade in the region and also bring more affordable grid-based electricity to selected provinces in Cambodia.

The key hydro related features of the projects approved by the bank are:

* Component C-5: A detailed feasibility study for a hydro power plant that is selected jointly by IDA and Cambodia’ Ministry of Industries, Mines and energy (MIME). Potential projects, capacities and timelines were not disclosed.

* Component C-2: a 115kV transmission system from south Lao PDR to Stung Treng province, Cambodia, to allow for the import of surplus hydroelectricity.

However, the bank also noted that a separate 115kV line approved under the grant, to run from Tai Ninh in Veitnam to Kampong Cham, Cambodia, may in future allow for the export of hydro from Cambodia to Vietnam.

The total cost of the power trade projects is US$20M with US$1.5M contributed by Cambodia.

The power trade studies will be implemented on behalf of the government by Electricite de Cambodge (EDC). Read more!

Cambodia textbook details horrific past

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- Cambodia offers plenty of Khmer Rouge "killing fields" attractions. There is a grisly genocide museum complete with torture instruments and former mass graves that draw camera-toting tourists.

But for the country's school children, the Khmer Rouge remain off the curriculum, leaving students virtually clueless about how the now-defunct communist group became a killing machine in late 1970s.

Now that knowledge gap may at least be partially filled through the newly released "A History of Democratic Kampuchea," a textbook about the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule by Khamboly Dy, a Cambodian genocide researcher.

It's a start in Cambodia's painful journey to seek healing, said Khamboly Dy, a 26-year-old staffer at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group collecting evidence of the Khmer Rouge atrocities.

"Nothing can compensate for the Cambodian people's sufferings during the Khmer Rouge," he said, adding that learning about the regime's history "is the best compensation for them."

The book comes at the right time, as Cambodia may finally put surviving Khmer Rouge leaders before an internationally-backed tribunal for genocide and crimes against humanity, Khamboly Dy said.

Still, the 100-page textbook isn't slated for general classroom use. Khamboly Dy said 3,000 copies in the Cambodian language will be given to libraries, students and teachers for free, and more will be printed once additional funds can be raised.

David Chandler, an American scholar and author of several books on Cambodia, says a straightforward account is long overdue since the government "seems unwilling to produce such a text, or at least does not share a sense of urgency about exposing this period of he past."

Some ex-Khmer Rouge continue to hold senior positions in the regime.

Most books about the Khmer Rouge era, when some 1.7 million perished through hunger, disease and executions, have to date been either written by foreigners or overseas Cambodians. Very few of these have been translated into the Cambodian language, and none are cheaply available.

Khmer Rouge history was briefly featured in a high school social study textbook in 2002 before the entire book was yanked off the curriculum because it provoked political tension between Prime Minister Hun Sen and his former ally, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

The book had only highlighted the victory of Hun Sen's ruling party in the 1998 national election and failed to mention Ranariddh's defeat of Hun Sen in the 1993 polls. Despite his party's defeat then, Hun Sen maneuvered to become a co-prime minister along with Ranariddh before toppling him to grab full power through a coup in 1997.

As a result of Ranariddh-Hun Sen rivalry, the entire modern history of Cambodia from the French colonial period to the present was expunged from schools, Khamboly Dy said.

In the new book, Khamboly Dy said he had to carefully select words to explain certain past events, including the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge by Vietnamese troops.

For Hun Sen's camp, the Vietnamese were not invaders, but to his opponents they always were.

So Khamboly Dy wrote the Vietnamese "fought their way into Cambodia" alongside Cambodian resistance forces including Hun Sen. "This is the fact. Whether they invaded or liberated (Cambodia) is only political interpretation," he said.

Before defecting, the prime minister earlier served as a military commander with the Khmer Rouge while ex-King Norodom Sihanouk forged an alliance with them against the U.S.-backed government of the early 1970s.

Researchers say there is no evidence linking Hun Sen and Sihanouk to the Khmer Rouge atrocities despite their past alliance with the now-defunct communist movement, making it unlikely for either of them to be indicted by the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal. Sihanouk himself was under house arrest, and many of his royal family members perished during the Khmer Rouge period.

The government has endorsed the book only as core reference material for writing future history textbooks, but not for use in general education, said Sorn Samnang, president of the government-run Royal Academy, who sat on a committee which scrutinized Khamboly Dy's book.

Although it contained useful information, he said the book could affect the many still living people involved with the Khmer Rouge mentioned in the work. He did not elaborate.

Such an attitude only "suggests that any excuse, however shameless, will be seized upon if it helps the Cambodian authorities avoid raking over the past," said Philip Short, who wrote "Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare," a political biography of the late Khmer Rouge leader.

He said the book is an accurate and objective account of a very complex period, and therefore "deserves to be not merely an approved textbook for Cambodian schools, but a compulsory text, which all Cambodian schoolchildren should be required to study."

Chey Vann Virak, an 11th grade student in Phnom Penh, said his history teacher would randomly mention "a little bit" about the killings under the Khmer Rouge.

At home, the 17-year-old said his parents occasionally recalled for him and his three siblings the sufferings they went through and say, "All of you are just lucky to have been born and grown up in this era."

That is all he knows about the Khmer Rouge. Read more!

Soccer-Malaysia beat Cambodia 6-0 in Asian Cup warm-up

KUALA LUMPUR, June 18 (Reuters) - Malaysia began their preparations for next month's Asian Cup with a 6-0 victory over Cambodia on Monday.

Though Cambodia are 20 places below Malaysia at 169 in the world rankings, the home side were after a confidence-boost ahead of friendly fixtures against a much stronger United Arab Emirates on Thursday and Jamaica on June 28.

Former national captain Rosdi Talib celebrated his return to the team after a three-year absence by opening the scoring in the 23rd minute with a 30-yard strike.

The home side missed several chances to increase their advantage and had to wait until soon after the break for their second goal, with Mohd Ivan Yusoff scoring from close range.

Hairuddin Omar made it 3-0 in the 58th minute before Eddy Helmi added two more. Aidil Zafuan finished off the Cambodians with a goal in the final seconds.

"It is important that we get off on the right note in the first game of the final phase -- now we have to be better in the second match (against UAE)," Malaysia head coach Norizan Bakar told journalists.

Malaysia face China, Iran and Uzbekistan in Group C of the Asian Cup from July 7-29. They are co-hosting the tournament with Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. Read more!

Vietnam, Cambodia youths get closer

Vietnamese youths welcomed Saturday a delegation of Cambodian counterparts for a friendship get-together in Ho Chi Minh City.

The opening ceremony of the gathering was held at the Student Cultural House and attended by the secretary of the Vietnam Youth Union, Nguyen Van Thuong, and central committee member of the Cambodian People’s Party and president of the Cambodia Youth Association, Men Kuon, besides the head of the HCMC people’s committee and 120 members from the two nations.

Addressing the ceremony, Thuong expressed happiness at the expansion of relations between the Youth Union in the two countries.

“Vietnamese youths will do their best to further consolidate and enhance this friendship,” he promised on behalf of his organization. He also presented souvenirs to the visitors.

The get-together, to run until Friday, will also feature seminars on youth meetings, a visit to the Hoa Binh Children’s Village, exchanges with local youths, and trips to several historic sites.

Read more!

VN, Laos, Cambodia map out border zones in HCMC

HCM CITY — Experts from Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia have identified the exact location where the three countries’ borders meet during a conference this week in HCM City.

The position will now be marked with a border post as agreed to by each party.

Nguyen Hong Thao, head of the Department for the Western Border under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Border Commission, led the Vietnamese delegation.

Thao said delegates embraced feelings of solidarity, friendship and mutual understanding and all sides agreed on principles and basis for the demarcation.

They also discussed how to implement and co-ordinate plans in the future to complete marking this border point by the middle of 2008.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this effort was significant in further completing border demarcation programmes among the three countries and also contributed to the Programme for the Development Triangle Cambodia-Laos-Viet Nam initiated by the three countries’ Prime Ministers last August. — VNS Read more!

Ex-journalist's mission: educate Cambodia

Retired American journalist Bernie Krisher, a Holocaust survivor, has enlisted the aid of Hawaii's movers and shakers and retirees to join him in building schools for Cambodia children, who still live in the shadow of the Killing Fields.

In the years after infamous communist leader Pol Pot killed 2 million Khmer people in the 1975-79 genocide, Cambodia has struggled to rebuild without the aid of all of the trainers, educators, artists and entertainers who were among the first to be executed. Last year, only one out of every two Cambodia children completed primary school, but Krisher hopes to change that with the 355 Khmer schools that he has built largely with U.S. and Japanese aid.

During his most recent visit to the islands, Krisher networked with Gov. Linda Lingle as well as Hawaii's business and community leaders and secured funding for six more schools.

Last year, only one out of two children in Cambodia completed primary school.

Trying to change that statistic in a post-Holocaust nation is much like trying to grow a garden in a kudzu patch -- often small seedlings emerge only to be choked by the unrelenting vines.

The United Nations Development Program estimates that 90 percent of Cambodians live in rural areas, more than a third live below the poverty line and many are dying of preventable diseases. Each year, about 30,000 Khmer children die -- that's one of the highest childhood mortality rates in Southeast Asia.

In the years after infamous communist leader Pol Pot killed 2 million Khmer people in the 1975-79 genocide, ignorance is the vine that ate Cambodia. Luckily, retired American journalist Bernie Krisher, himself a survivor of another Holocaust, knows something about gardening in adverse circumstances.

Krisher believes the Khmer children, who live in the shadow of the Killing Fields, are the seedlings that one day will make Cambodia's economy and community bloom. That's why he's come out of his retirement as the former Newsweek bureau chief for Asia to help build 355 schools for Khmer children. He's getting by with a little help from business leaders, high-ranking friends who include among them the likes of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, and folks from Hawaii and around the globe.

Earlier this month, Krisher stopped in Hawaii during a five-week fundraising tour in the United States. During his most recent visit to the islands, Kri-sher met with Gov. Linda Lingle, Hawaii business leaders and other movers and shakers, securing funding for six more schools.

"The people in Hawaii are very generous," Krisher said. "There are many retired people here who have had a good life like me. If you are enjoying the fruits of what you gained in terms of prestige and finance, you are looking for ways to give something back."

Krisher, who was on his third visit to Hawaii and has worked with more than 50 donors from the islands, described kamaaina as among "the most hospitable people" that he's ever had the fortune to meet.

"Where else in the world do you land and they put a lei around your neck?" he said.
But, more importantly, Hawaii people opened their hearts and their checkbooks to Krisher's primary cause, shoring up the health, education and, eventually, economic prospects of Khmer children so that the emerging country can meet its development goals. On this trip, donors -- many from Hawaii's business community -- pledged roughly $78,000 to bring the total of Hawaii-funded schools in Cambodia to 16.

Krisher's business partnership with Hawaii started three years ago when he met Jerry and Vanny Clay, who were touched by the plight of the children they saw while on a trip to Vanny's home country. Vanny, who now teaches French at Punahou School, was one of the lucky Khmer nationals who were studying in France when the Khmer Rouge began terrorizing Cambodia.

"I wanted to show my husband Angkor Wat," said Vanny. "While we were looking at the beautiful sights, we noticed that there were children wandering around. When I asked why they didn't go to school, they said there were no schools."

That's been the status quo in the wake of Pol Pot's quest for a completely agrarian society, said Douglas Gardner, the UNDP resident representative and UN resident coordinator for Cambodia, during an interview last October in Phnom Penh.

"The country lost many of its trainers -- the school teachers, the professors, the artists, the entertainers -- and that continues to strike at the development of young Cambodians," he said.

While searching for a way to help the children of her homeland, Vanny learned of Krisher and his efforts to empower Cambodia through its children. A dialogue eventually led to Kri-sher's first Hawaii donor trip.

"We invited other couples to a reception at my husband's law firm and they were all convinced that this was the way to help children," Vanny said. "We don't push people -- it's from their heart if they want to help."

The Clays and other prominent Hawaii business people and citizens, like Andrew and Marty Roach, who first met Kri-sher in the 1960s in Asia, have not only become school donors but also his unofficial ambassadors in the islands. Others, like Rose Marie and Richard Pritts, who formed a network of sponsor donors to fund a school, have even made or are planning to make trips to Cambodia to extend the connection and cement business partnerships.

For many business leaders in Hawaii, it's also been a way for them to follow Krisher's example and enhance their retirement.

"Cambodia is kind of an orphan nation and it arouses a lot of sympathy," said Dr. Bill Cody, a retired psychiatrist who along with Heather Cattell, a psychologist, donated a school garden that feeds 370 school children.

The need to help was more personal for the Roach family, who built Krisher's No. 266 school and named it the Monique Brousseau School after their adopted Khmer granddaughter.

"Because of my granddaughter, I'm really trying to help as much as I can," said Marty Roach. "When I look at her, I think here is this bright child from a Cambodian village and there must be lots of children just like her."

Krisher's seemingly boundless energy, which provided the genesis for his creation of two nonprofit organizations, the American Assistance for Cambodia and Japan Relief for Cambodia, has produced results beyond his rural schools project. Krisher's organizations also have resulted in a free hospital, a free press, empowerment programs to help girls stay in school and a special academic program for Cambodia's brightest students.

"Helping Cambodia find the power center and get things accomplished has satisfied my ego as journalist," he said. "Being a journalist taught me to find the points where you can get something accomplished. I know how to identify the people to go to and how to get things done."

While some are amazed that Krisher has accomplished so much in his retirement, his powers of persuasion are the stuff of legends. One of Kri-sher's schools bears the Kissinger name because it was donated by Walter Kissinger, Krisher's longtime friend -- who also happens to be the brother of Henry Kissinger, who as former President Nixon's secretary of state and national security adviser played a key role in the United States' decision to bomb Cambodia in the 1970s.

"They were worried about the reaction Cambodian people would have to a school with the Kissinger name," Krisher said. "I told them that it would be OK. The people would love it and they did."

Krisher also pulled a minor coup of his own when he managed to convince J.K. Rowling's' publisher to translate a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" into Khmer.

"I discovered that Cambodians stopped reading after Pol Pot," Krisher said. "Kids want to learn English and computer skills, but they've never heard Shakespeare or Dickens. I thought that I would like to publish one book that would get kids to read."

"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" fit the bill because of its universal appeal for all ages, he said.

"It has ghosts, and Cambodians believe in ghosts, and it has a kid who triumphs over evil, and so far the Cambodians have not triumphed over evil," he said.

Krisher understands old ghosts, and the role that hope can play in rebuilding a life.

"I think he's driven because of his background," Roach said. "You know he was a Holocaust survivor. He was on the last train out of France and escaped to the United States where he got a good education. Now, he's trying to do the same for others."

In this stage of Krisher's life, it's more about supplying the missing link, he said. It's about what comes after you've managed to triumph over evil and reach your dreams. It's about realizing that life, even in rural Cambodia, has its own complexities.

"There's a missing link when the United Nations Development Program or the World Bank talks about poverty reduction," Krisher said. "Earning $2 a day instead of $1 a day might feed a family or put a roof on a house. It might help them manage their life a little better, but it won't help them reach their potential -- for that they need to go to school."

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Observers say potential impediments await Cambodia's genocide tribunal

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Efforts to prosecute Khmer Rouge leaders over the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during the 1970s could face further obstacles despite judges approving rules for the U.N.-backed genocide trials, observers said Thursday.

«The hardest part has yet to come, and that is who and how many (suspects) should be or should not be» indicted, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group collecting evidence of the Khmer Rouge atrocities, said.

After repeated failures over the past six months, Cambodian and foreign judges announced the rules Wednesday that pave the way for the tribunal to begin investigating Khmer Rouge leaders for the mass killings during their 1975-79 communist rule.

The rules were one of the judges' last major tasks before they could begin working on the cases, but it was unlikely the trials would start anytime soon. That is a growing concern as there is a chance the aging defendants could all die before they are brought to justice.

The top Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Ta Mok, the Khmer Rouge army chief, died last July while in detention pending trial by the special tribunal. He was believed to be 80.

The only defendant now in custody is Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 torture center in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Their senior-level colleagues, Nuon Chea, the movement's chief ideologue; Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister; and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state, live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health.

Cambodia and the United Nations created the genocide tribunal last year under an agreement they reached in 2003. The 17 Cambodian and 12 foreign judges and prosecutors have spent the last six months in sometimes rancorous disagreement on guidelines for the trials.

The tribunal is an unprecedented hybrid. It will operate under the Cambodian judicial system often criticized as weak, corrupt and susceptible to political manipulation. Decisions require support from a majority of the Cambodian judges, backed by at least one U.N.-appointed judge.

On Wednesday, neither the Cambodian nor the foreign judicial officials would give details about their cases or reveal names and the number of potential suspects.

Kek Galabru, president of the non-governmental human rights group Licadho, warned that while the rules were approved the hearings likely faced more hurdles and delays.
She said the Cambodian and foreign co-prosecutors could fail to reach a consensus on which suspects should be indicted.

If the prosecutors fail to reach a consensus, they will have to refer their disagreement to the tribunal's pretrial chamber, she said. The chamber, made up of three Cambodian and two foreign judges, would need to obtain a majority vote plus one to decide whether to allow an indictment to go ahead.

«You can find obstacles at any moment that can delay it by one month, two months, three months,» Galabru said.

Only on «the day I see the accused convicted I will be relieved and satisfied,» she said. Read more!

Vietnam-Cambodia plant one more border marker

The site of planting a new marker on both side of the borders, nobody know the exact point or a little deep into Cambodian land except the pro-Vietnamese government.

Vietnam and Cambodia installed Friday a marker to demarcate their common border at Xa Xia in southern Kien Giang province and Cambodia's Kampot province.

It is the second marker installed along the border in southern Vietnam. The first was erected at Moc Bai in Tay Ninh province.

Following the event the two countries are set to begin talks on planting a third marker at Giang Thanh in Kien Giang province along with other minor markers.

Source: VNA

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12-year-old French-language newspaper closed down in Cambodia

Major French-language newspaper in Cambodia, the 12-year-old Cambodge Soir, has been closed down permanently after a two-day strike, local media on Thursday quoted a statement as saying.

The daily newspaper's parent company Societe des Editions du Mekong claimed to be bankrupt, but the truth stood behind an article on the Global Witness report with a theme widely judged too critical towards the government, English-language newspaper the Cambodian Daily quoted the staff's statement and senior editor as saying.

The reporter writing the article was fired and then led to the strike by the staff members on Monday, said the statement.

"On Tuesday night, the director verbally announced the administrative council's decision to close down the Societe des Editions du Mekong, which publishes the Cambodge Soir," it added.

The Societe des Editions du Mekong hasn't given any public comments yet.

The Cambodge Soir used to boast an educated readership who could understand French and enjoy a fixed group of advertisers such as French restaurants and leisure spots.

The Global Witness report alleged that some senior government officials of Cambodia were connected with each other to steal national properties like forestry and land. The government has banned the report and started investigations to locate the people behind it.

Source: Xinhua Read more!

Cambodia PM welcomes 'Killing Fields' tribunal pact

TOKYO, June 14 (Reuters) - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday welcomed an agreement by Cambodian and international judges to open the long-awaited "Killing Fields" tribunal.

Cambodian and international judges agreed the basic rules on Wednesday for operating a special court to try Pol Pot's top surviving henchmen, allowing the tribunal to proceed in earnest.

"Cambodia will not have a bright future unless the problem is resolved and the trial is held and they are punished," Sen told reporters in Tokyo, where he is on a four-day visit.

Canadian co-prosecutor Robert Petit, who has been compiling preliminary cases against the top Khmer Rouge leaders, told reporters on Wednesday that he would lodge his first formal accusations with the court "within a few weeks".

"This is undoubtedly what all of the people of Cambodia have been hoping for," Sen said through a translator. "I really hope the trial will begin as soon as possible."

Around 1.7 million people are thought to have died during Pol Pot's four-year reign of terror, which was brought to an end in 1979 by a Vietnamese invasion.

Most of the victims of his "Year Zero" revolution were executed, or died of torture, disease, overwork or starvation.

"All the people of Cambodia are very much interested in how the international community will have the Khmer Rouge leaders take responsibility for having inflicted huge damage and how it will hold them responsible to the people for the atrocities," Sen said.

"I believe the Cambodian people have the right to press for that," he added.

Pol Pot himself died in the jungle in 1998 in one of the Khmer Rouge's final redoubts along the border with Thailand. Neither the self-styled "Brother Number One" nor any of his comrades were tried.

The $53 million United Nations-backed court has been plagued by delays and arguments between local and international legal officials, although the approval of the court's internal rules removes the last formal obstacle to its work.

However, no suspect will be appearing in court for at least six months.

The most likely defendants are "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, former President Khieu Samphan, and Duch, head of the Tuol Sleng interrogation and torture centre in Phnom Penh.

Japan is the major financial backer of the court, which is expected to reveal the full extent of China's involvement with the Khmer Rouge. Read more!

Cambodia investment pact inked

By REIJI YOSHIDA
Staff writer

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Phnom Penh counterpart, Hun Sen, signed a pact Thursday to promote investments by Japanese firms in Cambodia.

Under the pact, signed at the prime minister's office in Tokyo, Japanese firms will be treated equally in terms of regulation and taxation as Cambodian firms when they invest in the country.
The pact would bar Cambodian companies from requiring investing Japanese firms to transfer technology or procure products in the Southeast Asian nation, because such demands may discourage investments from Japan.

Japan is the top donor to Phnom Penh, but the world's No. 2 economy accounts for a mere 2 percent of Cambodia's overall trade, according to Japanese official data.

Donors are meeting in Cambodia next week, but many have expressed deep frustration over the lack of reform in the corruption-rife nation.

Hun Sen, who arrived on a four-day visit Wednesday, met Japanese business leaders at a luncheon and met with Abe earlier the day.

During the meeting, Abe expressed his intention to provide Cambodia with 3 billion yen in official development assistance over the next three years, even amid recent ODA cutbacks due to the government's austere fiscal policy.

Hun Sen, visiting Japan for the 15th time, welcomed the economic assistance.

In accordance with the pact inked Thursday, a business mission consisting of government and private-sector leaders will be sent in July to promote Japanese investments in Cambodia, Abe told Hun Sen during the meeting. Abe also stressed Tokyo's intention to back up a project to build a second major bridge over the Mekong River, the official said.

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Mini Charity Marathon for Kids in Cambodia

Runners gearing up to race to raise money

If you haven't witnessed it yourself then you would have heard the story of a child with his or hands stretched out begging for money, pleading for help, longing for a bit of hope.

A common sight for tourists traveling in Asia and around the world.

The plight of children in poor countries is not something everyone has witnessed first hand. But for those who have, it's something they never forget.

In Cambodia, where half of the population is under 15, the story is no different.

Child prostitution, homelessness, poverty, a paedophile's playground, human trafficking are just some of the horrors faced everyday.

And something two well traveled women saw for themselves and never forgot.

Andrea Kvasnica and Emma Stringer got the chance to help those children they had seen being exploited, neglected and forgotten during a marathon of a fundraising stint at the weekend.

What started out as being a fun 10km run between friends turned into a mini-marathon of English teachers in Daegu raising 2.4million Won ($2,700 Canadian dollars) for children of Cambodia.

Along side the river on the morning of Saturday, June 9th, with a back drop of mountains, and below the roaring traffic overhead, 75 people ran, walked, cycled and rollerbladed all with a common cause. To support children of poverty.

"It was just supposed to be a small run with 10 friends, but more people heard about it and it just escalated from there," says Emma, originally from Leicester, England.

The two pals have lived in South Korea for three years and as keen athletes, running about five times a week, they wanted to do another long distance run having completed a half marathon in April.

Andrea Kvansnica and Emma Stringer with co-worker Mr. Cho never forgot what they saw in Cambodia

"The way it works here is that as the season goes on so the distances get longer, but we only wanted to do a 10km so decided to organize our own," says Andrea, from Ottawa, Canada.

With the help and support of other friends they were able to organize the 10km and 5km mini-marathon in Daegu and from their experiences in the impoverished Southeast Asian country decided the children they had seen stuck in a plight of hopelessness would benefit from their hard work.

The two friends, who met in South Korea while working at a Hagwon in Daegu, traveled to Cambodia in October 2005 with the intention of staying for seven days.

But having experienced the plight of children and families there were forced to cut their holiday short. Something they never forgot.

"We were planning to be there for seven days, but everywhere we went it was like people were breathing devastation," recalls Andrea, 27.

Hearing stories from tuktuk drivers who had lost their family to genocide, murder and poverty and seeing first hand the immense problem of child exploitation by paeodophiles they were shocked by how it left them feeling. Were they also taking advantage of the people by being tourists? Were they feeding the corruption of the poor?

"It was really depressing and we felt really bad because we are mega rich compared to them. We were trying to have a vacation and we felt so guilty because we were rich and they weren't," adds Emma, 26.

Andrea says "To go and visit was really hard because every day you are reminded of how dire the situation is. It's in your face all the time. Any time anyone asks me where's the worst place I have been to, Cambodia always pops into my head. That was humans in their worse situation."

Since their trip the pair have learnt more about the history and politics of the country and discovered the charity Children of Cambodia Fund who they chose to donate the money from the mini marathon to. The money will be used to help rescue children living on the dumps and tips of litter and rubbish everywhere because they have no families, no homes and no money.

The organization is trying to combat the problem with child prostitution by setting up orphanages and projects to get the children off the streets.

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Asia with 85 percent of the population of 12.5 million people living in rural areas. There is a high infant mortality rate and the average life expectancy is 57 years old. During the notorious regime of Pol Pot in the 1970s around 1.5 million people lost their lives.

"Everywhere has poor places, we know, but it was a massive difference in Cambodia," says Emma.

Andrea adds: "The difference is that in other countries you can see there is some wealth and they can feed themselves and provide houses, but in Cambodia you just don't see it. Everyone is just suffering and the thing is there's no hope. They just don't have the means to move on. Their generation is stumped."

Since starting to organize the mini marathon six weeks ago, Andrea and Emma have realized they are not alone in their experience and know they will not be the last.

"A lot of people told us they had been or were about to go. Cambodia touches a lot of people's hearts from what they have heard or seen," adds Andrea.

The money raised far exceeded the two women's expectations and the support they say was amazing.

"We just want to say thank you to everyone who helped us and we hope it will be of some benefit to the children in Cambodia," Andrea says. Read more!

China donates 200 water pumps to Cambodia

China donated 200 units of small-size diesel-powered water pumps on Wednesday to Cambodia for agricultural use.

Sun Weiren, Economic and Commercial Counselor of the Chinese Embassy to Cambodia, and Sam Sarith, Secretary of State of Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology of Cambodia, signed the certificates of delivery and receipt on behalf of both governments.

Sun said that the Chinese government expects the donation to help beef up the agricultural development of Cambodia.

Sarith expressed his government's appreciation for the donation and hoped to carry out more cooperation with the Chinese side in the field of agriculture, especially irrigation and water conservancy.

Source: Xinhua Read more!