'They planned to kill me - but I survived'

Cambodia's Ray Charles lookalike endured serious hardships. Jon Lusk on the man who escaped the Khmer Rouge

Friday July 27, 2007


With his legs folded under him as he sits on the floor, Kong Nay seems a frail figure, dwarfed by the large banjo-like instrument he holds. There's a flash of gold fillings in his smile, and when he sings, the voice of a much stronger man jumps out, answering the call of his strings.
This 61-year-old Cambodian is a master of the chapei dong veng, an ancient long-necked guitar with two strings thought to have arrived in Cambodia with the Buddhist faith nearly two millennia ago. Kong's penetrating, nasal wail closely follows or spars with the simple and often melancholic tunes he plunks out on the nylon strings of the instrument. The dark glasses that mask his heavily pock-marked face and sightless eyes have earned him the nickname of "the Ray Charles of Cambodia", but the two artists have rather different stories.

"I'm so excited and honoured that they compare me to him. But at the same time I'm not very happy with myself because the American Ray Charles was so rich and I'm so poor," he chuckles.

meet Kong on his first day in the UK, where he is touring with his 21-year-old protege Ouch Savy to promote their joint debut album, Mekong Delta Blues. Kong admits he doesn't really know what the blues are - not the musical kind, anyway. But the superficial resemblance of his music to the African-American form, and the tough life he's lived do more than justify the title.

Born in the southern Cambodian province of Kampot, Kong was blinded by smallpox at the age of four, and as a boy fell in love with the sound of the chapei. "I felt it was something that I should learn, something that would give me a good life in the future," he recalls.

His family was too poor to afford one, though, and for five years he sang and mimicked the chapei vocally, until his father finally bought him an old one. At 13, he began to take lessons from an uncle, mastering the basic repertoire within only two years. He then began playing professionally, improvising on traditional folk songs by spontaneously spinning stories like a hip-hopper, tailoring them to each audience.

"At 18 I met my wife [Tat Chhan] and we started our life together, depending on chapei. We managed to earn a good living. Not too rich, not too poor, but just good enough to survive, like other people. But when the Khmer Rouge took over, that was a big turning point in my life," he says with characteristic understatement.

In 1975, like millions of other Cambodians, his entire family was deported to a forced labour camp by Pol Pot's genocidal regime. Despite the Khmer Rouge's dislike of artists in particular, they found a use for Kong. "I was forbidden from singing folk tales, or songs that touched on social issues. Instead they told me to sing something that served their propaganda. So during the lunch break, I would sing and play to entertain people."

While most prisoners were given three large spoons of rice per day, Kong and anyone else who was sick or disabled got only one, and starved more rapidly. After two years, they stopped Kong's music altogether and forced him to work. "They planned to kill me. I was on their list. But then the Vietnamese [army] invaded and so I survived." During the bombing that ended the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror, Kong and his wife each lost a brother. Another of Kong's brothers had been executed, but all seven of their children - three born in the camp - miraculously survived.

In 1979, the family returned to their village, where Kong resumed his life as a chapei artist, and they had three more children. In 1991, Kong won a national chapei singing contest in Phnom Penh, and the following year moved there at the invitation of the Cambodian ministry of culture. The salary was poor, but his family - and those of a few other artists who had survived the genocide - were allowed to build homes in the city's Tonle Bassac squatters' community.

Then in 1998, Kong received a young visitor called Arn Chorn-Pond, a former refugee who now lived in the US. He was another survivor of the killing fields, who had been forced take part in atrocities from the age of nine and had returned to Cambodia periodically over the previous decade, trying to make peace with his past. Cambodia had lost around 90% of its artists in the genocide, and Chorn-Pond's family, which had run an opera company, had been particularly hard hit.

"When I came back to Cambodia in 1989, I found nobody here, except one of my sisters," he explains from Phnom Penh, his voice still raw with anguish. "They were all starved to death or killed by the Khmer Rouge - my dad, my mum, my cousin, my nephew, my uncle ... 35 in my family had disappeared."

With Kong Nay and several others, Chorn-Pond founded the Cambodia Master Performers Programme, which soon became Cambodian Living Arts, a charity dedicated to reviving the country's performing arts by helping to lift surviving artists out of poverty and employing them to pass on their skills to the next generation. "It was for me an urgent thing to start this, because I knew that my culture was going down in the next 10, 20, 30 years, if no one did anything about it," he says.

In 2003, Kong began teaching four young students, including Ouch Savy. That same year both he and Chorn-Pond appeared in the harrowing Emmy-nominated film The Flute Player, now being shown before each of his UK performances. When Peter Gabriel saw it, he was so moved that he began donating equipment and expertise to CLA, which led to the recording of Mekong Delta Blues.

Chorn-Pond's vision is of a Cambodian artistic renaissance by 2020, but it won't be easy. The loss of so many artists created a cultural vacuum that has been filled by foreign music, leaving most Cambodian youth hooked on western rap and rock or Chinese pop, and scornful of their own traditions. Government arts funding has been very limited during Cambodia's slow economic recovery, but ironically, Kong and his neighbours are now under pressure to move 20km away as developers eye their inner-city land. He relates this in the song My Life - as close as he's prepared to get to singing about politics these days. Apart from wanting to stay put, what else does he wish for?

"I hope that peace will prevail. There should be no more fighting, no more civil wars, no more conflicts. I am sick and tired of it."

· Kong Nay is playing at Womad, Charlton Park (0845 1461735), until Sunday, then touring. Read more!

Putting the Khmer Rouge on Trial

By Kevin Doyle/Phnom Penh

At 82, Nuon Chea's eyesight is failing and most days he sports large, dark sunglasses. What remains of his white hair is slicked back in strands and though his breath labors painfully at times, he can still sit upright and at full attention for hours when discussing his role in Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime. A former chief lieutenant to leader Pol Pot, Nuon Chea is the highest-ranking Khmer Rouge member still alive — and the key figure in a coming courtroom showdown which international and Cambodian prosecutors hope will hold the remnants of the regime accountable for the estimated 2 million deaths which occurred during their bloody reign in the late 1970s.

It's a trial that has long been coming. After Cambodia appealed for international assistance in setting up a genocide tribunal in 1997, it took another nine years of governmental foot-dragging and tortuous negotiations with the United Nations over the shape and structure of the court before prosecutors and judges were sworn in last July. Since then, the proceedings have encountered months of legal wrangling and administrative delays, leading to concerns that the few surviving Khmer Rouge leaders could die of old age before being brought to justice.

This month, however, seems to mark a point of no return. On July 18, prosecutors submitted the names of five possible suspects to the court's investigating judges. That list has not been released to the public, though it's widely assumed to consist of elderly regime leaders like Nuon Chea, who have lived in quiet retirement since abandoning their movement in the late-1990s after reaching a peace deal with the government.

For his part, Nuon Chea is sure his name is at the top of the list. With the death of Pol Pot in 1998, he admits that he is now "responsible for everything that happened."

"I consider this court a battlefield fight between patriots and invaders. I will not allow anyone defeat me," the former communist revolutionary says, speaking from his small wooden house in Pailin on the Thai border in northwest Cambodia. If called before the court, he plans to explain that the killings were "not a policy" of the regime, a line all former Khmer Rouge leaders have stuck to. Nuon Chea rejects the idea that the fanatical legions of young Maoist rebels he led during the 1970s executed thousands and dumped them in mass graves, or that hundreds of thousands more were worked to death, succumbing to starvation and disease in the countryside after being forced to labor day and night to build the Khmer Rouge's vision of an ideologically pure agrarian society. Publicly he will only say that "mistakes" were made under the Khmer Rouge, and still speaks proudly of his former boss, Pol Pot. He has hinted that the skulls and bones in Cambodia's thousands of mass graves could merely be those of Cambodians killed by U.S. bombing during the civil war of the 1970s or the Vietnamese incursion of 1979.

Nuon Chea is the most outspoken of the former Khmer Rouge leaders; other likely targets of the tribunal have taken a lower key approach. Khieu Samphan, 76, the former Khmer Rouge head of state, lives near Nuon Chea in Pailin but has had little to say on the speculation that he is one of the five defendants. Ieng Sary, 78, the regime's former foreign minister, and his wife Ieng Thirith, 75, the former minister of social affairs, have also avoided the media. A young man who answered the door at their large house in a quiet neighborhood in central Phnom Penh said the couple had recently gone to Bangkok, where they frequently travel for medical treatment. Kang Kek Iev, 63, known as Duch when he headed the S-21 torture center in Phnom Penh where thousands were imprisoned and executed, is the sole regime member in prison. Now a born-again Christian, Duch has been held in pre-trial detention since 1999 after being discovered working for a local humanitarian organization.

With the names of the five suspects now in the hands of the investigating judges, the evidence will be analyzed — prosecutors have submitted 14,000 pages of documentation, including interviews with 350 witnesses — and a decision taken on whom to charge. That could happen as early as January 2008, with the first trials soon after, officials at the tribunal said. All that's needed now is just a little more patience, according to Youk Chhang, Cambodia's foremost researcher on the Khmer Rouge and head of the Documentation Center of Cambodia. "This is a lesson we can learn from. Not just for Cambodia, but globally, as genocide seems to happen everywhere now," he says. "It's time for us to solve this and move on." Read more!

Cambodia to hold school event for small arms education

The Japan Assistance Team for Small Arms Management in Cambodia (JSAC) and Working Group for Weapons Reduction (WGWR) are co-organizing an educational event on small arms in Phnom Penh on July 27 to 28, a press release said Thursday.

Six high schools will host this event, under the cooperation of the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, the JSAC press release said, adding that the students will participate and learn about the small arms problem in Cambodia.

WFWR, JSAC, Ministry of Interior officials and campaign volunteers will teach high school students about the risks and laws relating to weapons, it said.

The event is intended to raise students' awareness on the small arms problem, and contribute in building a culture of non-violence and peace among the youth, it added.

JSAC has implemented its weapons collection and other peace building activities in the northwest areas of Cambodia and is currently focused on Battambang province and Kompong Thom province, it said.

According to the press release, the number of small arms collected through JSAC activities since 2003 is now 28,375.

Source: Xinhua. Read more!

World Bank head to visit Australia, Asia

The new World Bank President Robert Zoellick will next week visit Australia for talks with APEC finance ministers.

Zoellick, a former US chief trade negotiator and deputy secretary of state, indicated he would not shy away from discussing corruption and governance issues during a trip that will also take in Japan, Vietnam and Cambodia.

"I want to try to stress the overall rule of law, good governance, the openness of a society and how it can contribute to development and opportunity," he told reporters.

China and several other states reacted angrily earlier this month at published World Bank governance rankings that gave some authoritarian states low rankings in areas such as democratic accountability.

"It's unfortunate that it's become such a controversial item, in that if you look at most of the work in the development field, having sound institutions and having good governance is a core element," he said, without referring to a particular country.

Zoellick will first meet in Australia with finance ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation grouping who begin a week of talks in Queensland on Sunday.

Talks with the 21-member APEC forum ministers, coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the Asian financial crisis cover "what's been achieved (and) where are the question marks in the system," he said.

In Cambodia and Vietnam, Zoellick will visit World Bank projects and hold meetings with government officials, business leaders and civic groups.

"One of the challenges here is that even though they've got pretty good growth, the capacity in the country is very thin," he said of Cambodia.

Cambodians remain heavily dependent on textile exports and Zoellick said he hopes the bank can help "broaden their overall economic possibilities."

Vietnam, he said, was "now starting to deal with the second stage of reforms" after an economic boom in its cities, and it needs to spread growth to poorer rural areas.

Japan, the World Bank's second-largest shareholder, is a leading player in international development aid with an annual aid budget of some $9 billion that will host next year's Group of Eight industrialised nations summit, Zoellick said.

"I'm interested in trying to get the sense of priorities that Japan sees in the development area," he said, adding that he would thank Tokyo while encouraging the Japanese to continue their support for international development. Read more!

Cambodia: Peruvian Men, Thai Woman Sentenced For Drug Trafficking In Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA: A Cambodian judge sentenced two Peruvian men and a Thai woman to 20 years in jail Wednesday (July 25th) on charges of trafficking a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cocaine, officials said.

Judge Chhay Kong, of Phnom Penh Municipal Court, said he sentenced Heder Martel Rojas, 23, Rodol Foniek Otero Farias, 27, and a 26-year-old Thai woman, whose name he was unable to give.

He said he had convicted them on July 12th on charges of transporting illicit drugs. He also ordered each of them to pay a 50 million riel (US$12,195) fine.

Rojas was arrested at Phnom Penh International Airport on October 6th when an X-ray machine showed he had swallowed 106 small packets of cocaine, Lt. Gen. Lour Ramin, secretary-general of Cambodia's National Authority for Combatting Drugs, said at the time.

Lour Ramin said Rojas led police to Farias and the Thai woman, the partner of Farias, in Siem Reap province. He said the three told police they had planned to take the drugs across the border to Thailand.

Saing Vannak, a Cambodian lawyer for the three defendants, said Rojas admitted wrongdoing in court, but Farias and the woman said they were not involved in trafficking and were merely Rojas' friends. They plan to appeal the verdict and sentences. (AP) Read more!

Woman slain in vicious S.J. attack fought to save family from genocide in Cambodia

By Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:

Sany San survived a modern-day genocide in Cambodia, and after arriving in the United States four years ago, it seemed as if she had finally been delivered from harm's way.

But on a quiet Sunday morning, on her way to catch a bus to her job at a doughnut shop, San's life was cut short in an attack so violent that it has left police, her relatives and many in San Jose's tight-knit Cambodian-American community in shock and disbelief.

"She was supposed to be safe in this country," said Jennifer Chan, vice president of the Cambodian Women's Association in San Jose. "But we couldn't protect her."

Two men, described by police as transients, were arraigned Wednesday in Santa Clara County Superior Court in connection with the crime, charged with murder, robbery and sexual assault.

According to investigators, San's attackers approached her as she neared Knox Avenue on Story Road, shortly after 6 a.m. It was about a mile from where she was staying.

The two men first talked with San, 46, who is 5-feet-2-inches tall and weighed 110 pounds, apparently intending to rob her. They then began to beat her, dragging her behind bushes, where they took turns sexually assaulting her. Then they stabbed her repeatedly, leaving her to die.

Officer Enrique Garcia described it as the "most vicious, violent and monstrous crime" San Jose has witnessed in years.

Wednesday, during a tearful interview at her East San Jose home, San's aunt, Sokhim Sann, said one of the hardest things to accept was that her niece, on a normal day, never would have been walking on the stretch of road where she was killed.

"I usually give her a ride to the bus station near De La Cruz Boulevard" in Santa Clara, Sann said.

San usually caught the bus from that station to an unidentified doughnut shop near Palo Alto where she worked as a janitor.

But Sunday morning, Sann was not feeling well. Without complaint, San, who had only been in San Jose since April, said she would take the bus from Story Road.

"When you look at her, you wouldn't think she's been through all these hardships," said San's cousin, Ratana Kim. "But the lives of many Cambodians are about hardship and sacrifice. And she embodied that."

San was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, the eldest of eight children in a middle-class family. Her father was a university professor who taught Khmer, the Cambodian language, and her mother was a homemaker.

In high school, she studied Khmer and English, said Sann, 52, and she had expressed interest in attending university.

During the genocidal campaign of the Khmer Rouge, the communist organization that ruled and terrorized Cambodia from 1975-79, San's father, Him Kao, was executed by soldiers. An estimated 3 million people died during the Khmer Rouge rule.

San, her mother, Muykeh, 64, and her siblings fled the city for Battambang, in northwest Cambodia. Soon, the family was captured and sent to forced labor camps, where three of her five brothers died. For a time San was with her two sisters at one of the Khmer Rouge's so-called re-education camps, where young people were indoctrinated and forced to dig ditches. Eventually they, too, were separated.

San - showing her quiet, steely will - escaped from her camp and walked for days in search of the camp where her sisters were being held, Sann said. San found one sister. During their flight from the Khmer Rouge camp, San walked across a neck-deep lake, with her sister on her shoulders.

The other sister was killed by the Khmer Rouge.

San was 18 when the Khmer Rouge regime ended. With her father dead, and as the oldest child, she became the head of her household - witness and survivor to one of the century's worst atrocities. As her family's sole breadwinner, she took up work as a market vendor and a seamstress. Once while she was working at the market, a burning gasoline hose struck her legs. She couldn't work for a year.

"She's someone who didn't like to trouble other people," Kim said. "She never thought of herself and she's very, very caring."

San continued to support her family, even after she moved to America, Sann said. She sent most of her wages to Battambang, where her mother, one brother and one sister still live in a small house.

Coming to the United States was a dream San had long nursed, even though she and her family had missed the opportunity to leave Cambodia as refugees during the Khmer Rouge years, Sann said.

"She spent everyday worrying about how to feed her family," Sann said, in tears. "She really wanted to come and she was willing to do anything because she thought she could find a better living."

Four years ago, San arrived in San Jose with a temporary tourist visa. She lived for several months with relatives, then moved to Modesto to join a friend who worked at a doughnut shop. She stayed in Modesto for three years, working to clean the shop.

In April, she returned to San Jose after her friend left the Modesto job. She stayed with her aunt and found another job cleaning a doughnut shop, this one near Palo Alto.

Her temporary visa had long expired, making her an undocumented immigrant.

Three days before she was slain, Sany San told her relatives, "It didn't matter I never married. The important thing was I got here and I'm helping my family."

In Khmer culture, the Cambodian culture, the virtue of Sany San's life was her sacrifice, her aunt said.

Her life, she said, was her family and not herself. That she was not married, was never in a relationship, "made her pure in Khmer tradition."

"Her violation is what disturbs so many of us in the Cambodian community," Kim said. "For her life to end like this is devastating."


IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

Send memorial contributions, which will be used by San's family to pay for funeral services, to the San Jose Police Officers' Association, 1151 N. Fourth St., San Jose, Calif. 95112. For more information, call (408) 298-1133.

Contact Jessie Mangaliman at jmangaliman@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5794. Read more!

Unhappy anniversary for ASEAN, Myanmar

By Clive Parker

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - This week marks the 10th anniversary of Myanmar's accession to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a controversial act of engagement that at the time ran counter to the investment sanctions the United States had leveled against the country's military regime.

A decade later, ASEAN's hope that diplomatic inclusion would nudge Myanmar's military leaders toward more democracy has gone unrealized, and the tortuous process of negotiating with the hardline regime has badly undermined the grouping's regional clout and global credibility.

Arguably, ASEAN's Myanmar dilemma has now reached a crucial diplomatic juncture. Myanmar's membership in the 10-nation grouping has frequently raised European Union hackles, and Brussels has refused to conduct free-trade negotiations at a regional level with ASEAN because it would entail de facto dealing with Myanmar.

Meanwhile, US President George W Bush recently canceled a meeting with ASEAN leaders in Singapore during a scheduled Asia trip. Soon after, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that she too would skip the ASEAN Regional Forum, a strategic talk shop hosted by the grouping each year, scheduled for next month in Manila.

The Bush administration has been a strong critic of Myanmar's regime, with Rice publicly referring to the country as an "outpost of tyranny".

In 1997, many ASEAN members were cautiously optimistic the grouping could leverage its various government-to-government contacts with the reclusive regime to promote positive political change.

Former Thai foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan, who is now tipped to be ASEAN's next secretary general, in June 1998 advanced the notion that ASEAN should abandon its tenet of non-interference and adopt a policy of "constructive intervention" in dealing with Myanmar, which was later tweaked and became the blueprint for ASEAN's diplomacy toward the junta.

At the same time, there were geostrategic concerns that backing US sanctions would open the way for China to gain significant influence over a neighboring country. Although ASEAN was first formed as a five-member grouping in 1967 to guard against communist expansionism, particularly from Vietnam, the political reality since the end of the Vietnam War has been to enhance collectively member states' negotiating leverage and strategic deterrence with regard to China.

Critics - namely the US and anti-junta campaign groups in exile - have argued that the military government, which annulled the results of 1990 democratic elections it resoundingly lost, does not deserve the privilege or political legitimacy of ASEAN membership. However, ASEAN's outreach toward Myanmar was overshadowed at the time by the deteriorating political situation in Cambodia.

In July 1997, ASEAN took a moral stand and deferred Cambodia's joining after a bloody coup orchestrated by Prime Minster Hun Sen, which entailed the murder of several opposition politicians and a new wave of refugees into Thailand. ASEAN at the time declined to admit Cambodia until "free, fair and credible" elections were held. US rights group Human Rights Watch said at the time that ASEAN's role in Cambodia "has certainly been highly useful and constructive, and we hope that ASEAN will also become more active on [Myanmar]".

Trade reliance
ASEAN's moral sway over Myanmar has been negligible. Economically, however, ASEAN's pro-engagement policy has paved the way for more trade and investment. Myanmar's trade with ASEAN has risen dramatically since 1997, giving the military regime a desperately needed economic lifeline in the face of US-led trade and investment sanctions. Myanmar's trade with ASEAN, measured as a percentage of the country's total trade, increased from 44% in 2000 to 51.6% in 2005, official statistics show.

Of ASEAN's current 10 members - Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar - only Laos has failed to diversify its trade mix outside of the region less than Myanmar. While much is made of China's economic influence over Myanmar, its total bilateral trade of US$1.2 billion in 2005 amounted to only half the amount ASEAN conducted with the country.

As Myanmar's economy has become more reliant on ASEAN goods and markets, some political analysts suggest the grouping has more political leverage over the regime than it has exercised. That economic integration is expected to increase, as all ASEAN members have committed to reduce tariffs to below 5% by the end of 2010, as part of the new ASEAN Free Trade Area agreement.

Beijing's willingness to overlook Myanmar's poor rights record, which certain ASEAN members have occasionally criticized, is speeding the two authoritarian countries' economic integration. When ASEAN members expressed their frustration at the slow pace of change in Myanmar, "the regime had essentially dumped it in favor of China", said Debbie Stothard of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma.

One big indication that Myanmar is moving to hedge its ASEAN exposure: a new $1 billion gas pipeline linking Sittway, Myanmar, to Kunming in southwestern China, set for groundbreaking at the end of this year. Analysts note that the pipeline deal was sealed shortly after Beijing vetoed a US-led United Nations Security Council resolution against Myanmar's rights record in January.

ASEAN, on the other hand, sat on the fence during the resolution's vote - Indonesia, the only member of the bloc currently a member of the Security Council, symbolically abstained. Yet in 2006 ASEAN applied uncharacteristic diplomatic pressure on Myanmar to demonstrate progress on its so-called "roadmap toward democracy". In March, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited Yangon to follow up and was closely followed by Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar that month.

In his capacity as an ASEAN representative, Albar was charged with inspecting Myanmar's "democratization process", but his trip ended in frustration when he was barred from meeting with members of the opposition National League for Democracy, which won the annulled 1990 polls.

Albar flew out of Myanmar a day earlier than scheduled and, by some accounts, ASEAN's already strained relationship with Myanmar hit a new nadir. Past and current United Nations overtures, including the new round of outreach by the new UN secretary general's special representative on Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, meanwhile to date have wholly failed to produce any democratic progress.

Charter hopes
Now, ASEAN is finally upping the diplomatic ante in a move that will seemingly make or break its relations with Myanmar. In a significant departure from the grouping's erstwhile tenet of non-interference, by next year ASEAN is expected to adopt a framework that will legally bind its members to a charter that enshrines democratic values, good governance, and respect for human rights and freedoms.

Roshan Jason, spokesman for the ASEAN inter-parliamentary caucus on Myanmar, a group of regional parliamentary members aimed at pushing for political change in that country, said the new charter represents "one more opportunity to tackle Myanmar, once and for all". ASEAN "must show the political will to do so", he told Asia Times Online.

Speaking to reporters in Singapore on Tuesday, ASEAN secretary general Ong Keng Yong said the group charter was aimed at Myanmar, but he significantly ruled out the possibility of punitive measures for non-compliance. That would appear to give the junta yet another escape route - although non-compliance would no doubt open the regime to harsh criticism among ASEAN members.

Already it seems the junta is in denial about the new charter's actual commitments. In a May editorial run in the government mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar, Myat Thu, a member of the Myanmar delegation involved in charter discussions in Manila, was quoted saying, "The meeting chairman explained ... the charter would not feature human rights and the discussions would not focus on matters on termination of charter member countries."
The next meeting on the ASEAN charter is set for next week in Manila, and a draft is expected to be submitted for approval to the ASEAN summit in Singapore this November.

In 1997, ASEAN assured the West that it could cajole the junta on to a more democratic path. Ten years later, through the new charter initiative, the grouping appears to be finally following through on that pledge. How much longer Myanmar decides to remain in the regional club, however, is an open question. Read more!

A question of genocide in Cambodia

BANGKOK - For nearly 30 years, the Khmer Rouge regime that unleashed a reign of terror during its rule of Cambodia from 1975-79 has been accused of committing genocide. But employing a strict legal definition, was that the case?

That and other troubling questions are slated for scrutiny as Cambodia's highly anticipated war-crimes tribunal is now finally under way. Last week marked a milestone in the long-delayed United Nations-sponsored tribunal when prosecutors submitted.

the names of five former Khmer Rouge leaders to stand trial.

Although widely reported as genocide, some legal experts say it's not an open and closed case against the Khmer Rouge.

"Describing the acts committed in Cambodia as genocide has always been controversial," Rupert Skilbeck, head of the Defense Support Section of the tribunal, said in a telephone interview from Phnom Penh. "It is not easily accepted by the legal community. The court will have to consider this question."

The globally accepted definition of genocide is an act of violence aimed to "destroy an ethnic group because of their nationality, race, religion", said Skilbeck, who also served as the adviser for the defense during the special war-crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone. "Killing a people for their political views, as happened in Cambodia, is different," he contended.

There are other hard questions that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), as this tribunal is officially called, is expected to answer. Foremost among them is how many people the Khmer Rouge actually killed between April 17, 1975, and January 6, 1979, the precise period of their rule and the period that the tribunal is examining.

"The number of people who died in Rwanda was not challenged, but the number of deaths in Cambodia has not been confirmed; it could be challenged," Skilbeck said this month when he met with journalists in Bangkok. In Rwanda, by comparison, an estimated 800,000 people from the ethnic Tutsi group were slaughtered by Hutu extremists during that country's civil war in 1994. Legal experts agree that was a definite act of genocide.

The Khmer Rouge has been accused of killing as many as 1.7 million Cambodians, or a quarter of the Southeast Asian nation's population at the time. The victims were either executed or died as a result of forced labor or starvation from famine, as the Maoist group depopulated the cities and attempted to turn the country into an agrarian utopia.

The tribunal's proceedings on these mass deaths could also prove embarrassing to major powers involved before and after Cambodia was dragged into the US war in Vietnam, which raged through the 1960s and early 1970s. Washington's secret bombing raids over Cambodia in the early 1970s are now well documented, as too is the major role Beijing played in propping up the Khmer Rouge as they systematically killed their perceived enemies.

"America's illegal bombing raids will come up in figuring out how many died in Cambodia," said Skilbeck. "There will be lots of issues that will come up during the trial that will be embarrassing to many countries."

The quest for justice began 10 years ago, when talks about establishing the tribunal commenced between the UN and Phnom Penh. Since then, the process has been strewn with hurdles, including several placed by Prime Minister Hun Sen's government, which independently brokered a compromise with several high-level Khmer Rouge leaders, including some who serve in his government.

Hun Sen has backtracked on his initial financial commitments to the tribunal and has also heaped scorn on human-rights groups that have challenged Phnom Penh's choice of local judges for the trial. The ECCC, unlike other tribunals, such as the one that investigated crimes against humanity committed in the former Yugoslavia, is not completely international in nature, but rather combines local and foreign jurists.

The ECCC is also expected to question the credentials of some of the appointed Cambodian lawyers and judges, based on concerns leveled by rights groups and others about the local jurists' grasp and application of international law, the basis of the tribunal's proceedings.

Cambodia's legal community, as with other educated professionals and intellectuals, were singled out as enemies of the state and systematically brutalized by the Khmer Rouge. By some estimates, only nine lawyers and judges survived the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror.

For the Cambodians who survived the brutality and are among the millions who lost relatives to the radical Maoist regime, there are several other questions they hope the ECCC will help to answer.

"Many people want to know why the Khmer Rouge killed their own people and how they were killed," said Im Sophea, a ranking member of the Center for Social Development, a Phnom Penh-based non-governmental body. "We expect the court to reveal answers for this. Public expectation is very high."

The war-crimes trial of course will not hear from Pol Pot, the notorious leader of the Khmer Rouge, who died in his jungle redoubt in 1998. Nor will Ta Mok, widely known in Cambodia as "The Butcher", for the alleged atrocities he oversaw during the brutal regime's rule, take the stand; he died in June last year.

The five names submitted last week to stand trial at the ECCC were major figures in the Maoist group. According to reports in the Cambodian press, those on the prosecution's list include Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's deputy; Khieu Samphan, former Khmer Rouge head of state; Ieng Sary, the regime's former foreign minister; and Kang Kech Eav, also known as Duch, who was the head of the infamous Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh. Read more!

Party General Secretary reiterates policy to boost ties with Cambodia

Cooperations and a good neighbour, what are Cooperations and a good neighbour?

A cooperation in order to defrock Cambodian Monks and killing Cambodian people are just the same games that Communist Yuon Hanoi had been playing and cooperation to let Yuon robbing land from Cambodia.

VietNamNet Bridge – Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh has renewed the Vietnamese foreign policy of respecting the friendship and cooperative relations with Cambodia and is eager to improve on ties with its neighbour.

The Party leader made the remark while receiving a high-level delegation of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), headed by Nay Pena, member of the CPP Standing Board, in Hanoi on July 24.

General Secretary Manh said the relations would be strengthened in order to follow the motto of “Good neighbours, traditional friendship, long-term, sustainable and comprehensive cooperation” for the benefit of people of each country and for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region.

General Secretary Manh congratulated the achievements of the CPP and Cambodian people in the building of peace and national harmony, socio-economic development, expansion of international relations and improvement of their country’s position at regional and international arenas.

He expressed his wish that under the leadership of King Norodom Sihamoni, the Senate, the National Assembly and the Royal Government, the Cambodian people would continue to obtain greater achievements in the process of building Cambodia into a peaceful, neutral, non-aligned and prosperous nation.

He asked the Cambodian delegation to convey his best regards to former King Norodom Sihanouk, the Queen-Mother, King Norodom Sihamoni, President Chea Sim, Deputy President Hun Sen, Honorary President Heng Samrin and other leaders of the CPP.

Nay Pena expressed his gratitude for the assistance the Vietnamese Party, State and people had lent to the Cambodian people during their struggle for national freedom, their escape from genocide and the current national construction.

The CPP official expressed his wish to further boost ties between the two parties and people in the future.

Earlier, a delegation of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) headed by politburo member Truong Vinh Trong held talks with the Cambodian delegation.

During the visit, the Cambodian guests had a working session with Nguyen Van Son, member of the CPV Central Committee and Chairman of the CPV Commission for External Affairs.

Read more!

England soccer great Bobby Charlton visits Cambodia on land mine mission

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: England soccer great Bobby Charlton arrived in Cambodia on Tuesday as part of a mission to raise awareness for the impoverished Southeast Asian nation's continuing land mine problem.

"We are going to try to teach young people how to recognize the dangerous mines that are still around," said Charlton, who is in Cambodia as a supporter of charity Spirit of Soccer, which helps children in land mine affected areas of the world through the development of soccer.

An estimated 4-6 million mines and other pieces of unexploded ordinance remain buried in Cambodia after more than three decades of armed conflict.

Charlton will to tour land mine areas in Battambang province, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of the capital Phnom Penh, said Khek Ravy, vice president of Football Federation of Cambodia.

Spirit of Soccer operates one of its two soccer coaching projects in Cambodia, the other is in Bosnia.

On Thursday, Charlton — who joined Manchester United when he was 17 — will meet with young Cambodian soccer players to discuss some techniques with them.

Charlton, 70, is one of soccer's best known identities. He was a member of England's 1966 World Cup winning team, the same year he was named European Footballer of the Year.

The Manchester United director said Cambodia should promote its soccer to as high a level as many of its regional neighbors.

"It's about time," he said. "Everyone's waiting for Cambodia. Vietnam, China, everywhere else is very happy playing football."

World governing body FIFA ranks Cambodia's national team at 169 out of 208.

Charlton visited Spirit of Soccer's Bosnian program in 2005.

Read more!

Bananas head for jungle in Cambodia

JETSETTING Jupiter Mines directors David Evans and Jeremy Snaith certainly get around.

The pair - dubbed "bananas in pyjamas" after inappropriate antics in first class on a flight to Abu Dhabi earlier this year - have turned their attention to the Cambodian jungle.

Through a private company called Indochine Resources - in which Jupiter is a shareholder - Mr Evans and Mr Snaith have gained rights to roam among elephants, tigers and leopards as they pick up rock chip samples in the ASEAN heritage-listed Virachey National Park.

One of their fellow Indochine directors is Robert Coghill, a fellow first-class passenger on the infamous Etihad Airways flight. He provided an affadavit in support of Mr Evans and Mr Snaith.
Last month their lawyer, Ross Hill, said he was "unaware of any connection" between Mr Coghill and his clients. But last night Mr Hill could not reach Mr Evans to confirm.

The fourth and final Indochine director is Chris Eddy, an Australian based in Dubai.

Mr Evans and Mr Snaith were on their way to Dubai when they were arrested at the Abu Dhabi airport. Mr Hill said the visit was in part to attract investors to Indochine. It is believed Mr Evans and Mr Snaith have both travelled to South-East Asia since receiving suspended sentences from an Abu Dhabi judge.

The Cambodia Daily recently reported Indochine - previously named Battle Mountain Minerals - had signed a memorandum of understanding to search for minerals in Ratanakkiri province.

A geologist at Perth's Great Australian Resources, which has exploration projects in Cambodia, said a MOU would allow a company to survey an area and take rock chip samples but the concession would have to be converted to an exploration lease before drilling could take place.

The World Bank has been pushing for the Virarchey National Park to be protected from mining, having provided $US1.91 million ($2.16 million) in loans and $US2.75 million in grants to an environment ministry program since 2000.

World Bank spokeswoman Pichaya Fitts said the Cambodian government was expected to pass a law imposing a strict ban on mining in core areas of the park later this year.

Because very little minerals exploration has been conducted in Cambodia it has been deemed a highly prospective region.

Oxiana hit 33 metres at 9.9 grams per tonne of gold at an exploration project there and its annual report said "field assessment of other areas and projects of interest is ongoing".

Acting Jupiter chief executive Rob Benussi said his company previously had a direct investment in some of the Indochine leases but had converted the holding to shares in the unlisted company. In its March quarterly report, Jupiter said it had invested $120,000 in seed capital.

Meanwhile, Mr Snaith has sold another $28,000 of Jupiter shares. Jupiter is holding a meeting to vote on ousting Mr Evans and Mr Snaith as directors next month. Read more!

New party launched in Cambodia possibly to weaken opposition force

The Human Rights Party (HRP) of some 10,000 supporters was launched here on Sunday, possibly with an eye to weaken the kingdom's opposition force, local media said on Monday.

Kem Sokha, 54, who was unanimously appointed the president of the party, said that HRP was formed in response to the needs of both local and overseas nationalists and democrats who want a political party which prioritizes the interests of the nation, not individuals, reported major Cambodian-language daily newspaper the Koh Santepheap.

"It is time for Cambodia to have a real fully democratic political party which has emerged from the people," Sokha said, adding that HRP's door is still open for those who have real willingness to improve the nation under the umbrella of true democracy.

Sokha told the crowd that the HRP has also been established to upgrade the living standards of the people and turn Cambodia into a society which offers equal choices and opportunities for every citizen in seeking their future.

The party elected former Prime Minister Pen Sovann, who in 1980 headed the People's Republic of Kampuchea, as one of its deputy presidents, along with Keo Remy, a former Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) lawmaker and Keat Sokun, former financial officer of the now defunct Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party.

English-language newspaper the Cambodia Daily on Monday quoted National Assembly First Vice President Nguon Nhel as saying that HRP can benefit the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) by weakening the opposition vote.

After the latest local election held on April 1, the opposition SRP surpassed the co-ruling Funcinpec Party and became the second largest party of the kingdom. The augmentation of SRP is widely thought to constitute a kind of menace to CPP, although it is now dominant in the government and the legislative bodies.

Source: Xinhua. Read more!

KDDI, Alvarion bridging digital divide in Cambodia, Vietnam

Alvarion has announced its collaborative work with KDDI to bridge the digital divide in Cambodia and Vietnam. KDDI promotes telecommunications and information and communications technology (ICT) services via its own specific activities, and also participates in the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) organisation.

APT’s main goal is to reduce digital divide and promote advanced services including internet access, e-learning, e-government and e-commerce as part of the pan-Asia initiative.

KDDI is using Alvarion’s solutions in Vietnam and Cambodia, to improve broadband data services to residents, schools and municipalities. Alvarion is supporting KDDI and working together to tailor solutions that are optimised for local requirements. KDDI is making use of Alvarion’s BreezeMAX in Vietnam, and BreezeACCESS VL in Cambodia. . Read more!

Cambodia reported to supply Tamil Tiger weapons

Cambodia is said to be a main source of weapons for Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers.

The defence magazine Jane's Intelligence Review says Cambodia is one of the most significant single sources of weapons for the insurgent group.

Cambodia's interior ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak acknowledges some weapons may still be getting to the Tigers, but says it is small-scale.

He says his governnment would like information to lead it to the offenders because Cambodia's people are victims of weapons and do not want people in other countries to suffer the same crisis.

Weapons from Cambodia filled Tiger arsenals in the past, but officials in Cambodia have assured the Sri Lankan government that the arms trade has stopped. Read more!

Khmer Rough' s Slaughter house of Cambodia

IF you have been to Cambodia in recent years, the chances are that you will have been to Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh. There is a savage irony in the fact that this former secondary school that was used as a prison and torture centre by the Khmer Rouge regime is now on the tourist trail.

In the mid to late 1970s, men, women and children arrived at Tuol Sleng, or SS 21 as it was codenamed, in the middle of the night and left only to be executed in what came to be called the killing fields. Now, men, women and children arrive in coaches and depart for lunch in their nice hotels, many of them shocked and chastened by what they have seen.

Visiting Toul Sleng is a brutal experience. It has been left more or less as the liberating Vietnamese forces found it in 1979. School buildings that look pretty much like any others of the era were crudely converted into a high security prison. Iron bedsteads that were used to transmit electric shocks still sit in the downstairs rooms and there are dark stains on the floors.

Upstairs is a long iron bar to which prisoners were shackled lying down and elsewhere, on the wall, is a signboard that tells prisoners how they must behave. Point 6 advises, “Whilst getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.”

Of the 20,000 people who passed through Toul Sleng’s gates, just seven survived.

Yet, for all the horror of the physical environment of Toul Sleng, it is the photographs of some of these 20,000 that haunt the visitor most. The Khmer Rouge were fastidious about keeping records and every prisoner was photographed when they entered the prison.

These black and white portraits are chilling. The faces are often expressionless, the eyes blank. These are the faces of the condemned, of men, women and children who surely knew that they were about to suffer indescribably and then die at the end of it. And for what? For a confession that they had been CIA collaborators, or sympathised with the Vietnamese or ? whatever their torturers wanted to hear, for not until there was a signed confession could execution release them from their torment. The fact that the confessions were wildly improbable and wholly made up was not important; what was important was the signed document.

It was these pictures that haunted photographer Nic Dunlop and, in turn, he started to photograph them. But it was the discovery of a photograph of Comrade Duch that began his obsessive search for the director of SS 21.

Armed with this photograph, Dunlop set off to find the man who had presided over the madness that was Tuol Sleng and The Lost Executioner is his account of the history of Toul Sleng, of his interviews with people who worked there, with one of the seven who survived and finally of his success in meeting Comrade Duch. It is a gripping, horrifying and important story.

At the beginning of the book is a photograph of Duch as a boy. He has thick black hair, neatly parted, and is looking directly into the camera. He is neatly turned out for what is clearly a studio shot and he looks slightly solemn as befits such a serious occasion, with just the merest hint of a smile.

The next picture, chronologically, sees Duch in standard Khmer Rouge attire, seated behind a microphone addressing an invisible audience. It is this photograph that Dunlop carried around Cambodia in his back pocket until, eventually, he was able to identify Duch in 1999 and get him to confess to his deeds as director of SS 21.

The Lost Executioner is a grim read but it is a story that needs to be told and needs to be listened to. It is fraught with questions and moral dilemmas. How did this almost cherubic boy become the man who could scrawl with impunity, “Kill every last one of them” on prisoners’ files and become “one of the worst mass murderers of the 20th century”?

How valid is it to claim, as many Khmer Rouge have done, that they did what they did because they were “just obeying orders” and would have themselves been killed had they not done so?

After being identified, Duch is imprisoned, but in the preceding years he had converted to Christianity and was known as a talented and compassionate aid worker.

Would it have been better for him to have atoned for his sins by helping others rather than languishing pointlessly in a jail?

And on a bigger issue, why have there been no trials of the Khmer Rouge leaders? Why was the West so blind to what was happening in Cambodia that it actually recognised the Khmer Rouge as a legitimate regime?

The Lost Executioner is a fine book that puts flesh onto the horrifying statistics that tell the story of the Khmer Rouge genocide, five years in which approximately two million people – nearly a quarter of the population – died. At one point in the book, Dunlop refers to Stalin’s chilling quote that one death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic. Thoughtful, reflective and compelling, The Lost Executioner brings home forcefully that this particular set of statistics is almost unbearably tragic. Read more!

Cambodian human rights activist launches his own political party

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: A prominent human rights activist once jailed for criticizing Cambodia's prime minister moved directly into the political arena Sunday by launching his own party.

Kem Sokha, 54, unveiled his Human Rights Party at a well-attended congress, making it the latest political force trying to challenge the iron grip on power of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People's Party at the next general election scheduled for July 2008.

The Sam Rainsy Party is the only opposition force in Parliament against Hun Sen, while the royalist Funcinpec party, which once was a significant rival, is a partner in Hun Sen's government and has been significantly weakened by its own internal disputes.

One of the goals of the Human Rights Party is "to raise the living standard of the people and change Cambodia into a society that offers equal choices and opportunities for every citizen in seeking their future," Kem Sokha said in an opening speech at his party congress, which organizers claimed was attended by some 10,000 supporters.

"We are confident that our party will achieve the greatest result from the upcoming election," he said after the congress formally elected him the party's president.

Kem Sokha has a long-standing reputation for advocating social justice and fighting against corruption and human rights abuses.

He used to be a lawmaker of the now-defunct Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party, one of the challengers to Hun Sen's party in the 1990s. After his party was dissolved, Kem Sokha joined the royalist Funcinpec party and became one of its senators before resigning the post to create the Cambodian Center for Human Rights in late 2002.

Some other well-known political figures joining Kem Sokha's party include Pen Sovann, former prime minister of a communist Cambodian government in the early 1980s; Keo Remy, former lawmaker of the Sam Rainsy Party; and Son Soubert, the son of former Cambodian statesman Son Sann, who founded the defunct Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party in the early 1990s.

Pen Sovann, Keo Remy and Keat Sokun, a former member of the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party, were also elected vice presidents of Kem Sokha's party.

Early last year, Kem Sokha was jailed for several weeks along with two other human rights workers, a union leader and a journalist on criminal charges of defaming the prime minister.

Hun Sen ordered their release following strong international condemnation. Read more!

Cambodia to present big events to attract more tourists

Cambodia will present big events late this year to attract more tourists to visit the country and help boost the economy and reduce poverty, said Tourism Minister Thong Kong here on Thursday.

"We will have night markets soon in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap province, home of the Angkor Wat temples, organize the Johnnie Walker Cambodia Golf Open 2007 in Siem Reap, conduct better celebration of the Water Festival than previous years in Phnom Penh, hold half marathon in Siem Reap, and join the World Culture Expo 2007 from Sept. 7 to Oct. 26 in South Korea," he told reporters at the half-year review meeting of his ministry's work.

Cambodia is also preparing to host the Angkor International Tourism Expo 2007 in Siem Reap in early October and the ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asia Nations) Boat Racing soon in Phnom Penh, he added.

"These events can show tourists that our country is stable and peaceful to visit," he said.

The plane crash in June, which killed 22 people, had limited impact on the kingdom's tourism industry, as the government had worked hard in the rescue operation and the aviation companies will strengthen the control of their planes' quality, improve safety measures for tourists and adopt better flight routes, he said.

In the first six months of this year, Cambodia received 975,349 tourists, about 20 percent increase over the same period last year, and most of them were from South Korea, Japan, the United States, Vietnam and China, he said.

At the end of this year, we estimate to have about two million foreign tourists in all, he added.

Last year, 1.7 million foreign tourists visited Cambodia, harvesting over one billion U.S. dollars for national revenues.

Tourism is one of the three pillar industries of Cambodia. The Angkor Wat temples in Siem Reap, the clean beach resorts in Sihanoukville and the Phnom Penh city are travelers' hottest destinations.

Source: Xinhua. Read more!

Cambodia: Former Cambodian Police Chief Sentenced To 14 More Years In Prison

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA: A Cambodian court sentenced a former police chief to 14 more years in prison for possession of counterfeit currency after he was slapped with a 26-year term for other crimes, a prosecutor said Thursday (July 19th).

Former Phnom Penh police chief Heng Peo, 49, was already serving a 26-year sentence after being convicted of several crimes, including ordering the assassination of a judge in 2003 and illegal possession of weapons, said prosecutor Sok Kallyan.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge Chey Sovann sentenced Heng Peo on Wednesday (July 18th). His wife Ngin Sotheavy, 39, who is living in exile in Finland, was also sentenced in absentia to 13 years in prison on the same charge.

Police seized US$30,000 in counterfeit U.S. currency in a raid of the couple's house in July last year, the prosecutor said.

Heng Peo was once in the inner circle of Cambodia's strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen.

After fleeing Cambodia in July last year, Heng Peo sought refuge in Malaysia, but was deported in December after losing a court battle to stay there while seeking asylum in another country. (AP) Read more!

Japanese company to invest in Cambodia for bio-diesel

A Japanese company will invest 800 million U.S. dollars in Cambodia to plant castor bean and refine castor oil into bio-diesel, company source said here on Friday.

The Biwako Bio-Laboratory Co., Ltd. from Japan will plant castor bean on 48,000 hectares of land in Kompong Speu and Kompong Cham provinces and then establish a factory to refine castor oil into bio-diesel which is expected to replace gasoline, said Mitsuo Hayashi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company.

"Now we are waiting for the result of the oil sample test in the laboratory in Japan. We want to know what kind of seeds will be planted to provide high turnouts," he said.

Some 48,000 hectares of castor plants will yield 100,000 tons of castor oil annually and 40,000 tons of bio-diesel after refinery, he said.

The company needs 500,000 hectares of land for the project in 20 years and the Cambodian government is now helping to find land, he added.

Mitsuo is among the 30 representatives of the Japanese delegation currently on visit to Cambodia. Kozo Yamamoto, Deputy Minister of Economy of Japan, leads the team to find investment opportunities here.

Japan is the largest donor country for Cambodia but has little investment in the kingdom.

Source: Xinhua. Read more!

S. Korea provides 30 mln USD loan to Cambodia to equip gov't IT system

The South Korean company Kisan Telecom Co. Ltd has signed an agreement with the Cambodian government to provide a loan of 30 million U.S. dollars for the public Information Technology (IT) system project in Cambodia, local media reported on Friday.

The loan will be used to equip the government's IT management system, including Internet access for government institutions in 10 provinces and cities of Cambodia, the Raksmey Kampuchea newspaper said.

The agreement was signed by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An and Park Byung Ki, CEO of Kisan Telecom company, on behalf of both sides, the newspaper added.

IT system has become a key role in the whole society and Cambodia needs to have and develop IT system management in government institutions, Sok An was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Cambodia also needs more human resources for IT system management, he added.

This is the second time for a South Korean company to provide loan with low interest rate for Cambodia to equip the government IT system. In the previous time, a South Korean company provided a loan of 20 million U.S. dollars for the Cambodian government.

Source: Xinhua. Read more!

AP Exclusive: Former Khmer Rouge leader says he is ready to face trial for genocide

PAILIN, Cambodia (AP) - The top surviving leader of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, accused of genocidal policies that led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million of his countrymen, said unhesitatingly Thursday he was ready to be judged by an international tribunal.

«I will go to the court and don't care if people believe me or not,» Nuon Chea, the chief ideologue for the communist Khmer Rouge when they held power in the late 1970s, said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

He spoke a day after prosecutors in the tribunal examining the deaths submitted a confidential list of five former Khmer Rouge leaders they believe should be tried, along with the evidence to back the charges. Judges will decide whether to proceed with indictments.

«They didn't specify the names of the people, but I know I'm included,» Nuon Chea said at his home in northwest Cambodia near the border with Thailand.

Cambodian and international prosecutors submitted evidence including thousands of pages of documentation and the locations of more than 40 mass graves.

Now an ailing 82-year-old, Nuon Chea _ the former «Brother Number Two» in the Khmer Rouge, right-hand man to the group's notorious leader, the late Pol Pot _ has consistently denied any responsibility for the mass brutality.

«I was president of the National Assembly and had nothing to do with the operation of the government,» he said Thursday. «Sometimes I didn't know what they were doing because I was in the assembly.

Cambodian scholars dispute the claim, and believe he was an instrumental policy-maker.

The prosecutors said the acts allegedly carried out by the five unnamed Khmer Rouge leaders «constitute crimes against humanity, genocide, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, homicide, torture and religious persecution.

«I had no intention to kill my people,» said Nuon Chea. «The tribunal shouldn't rely solely on the law but on intention as well.

Former Khmer Rouge leaders have usually denied knowledge of large-scale killings, despite a preponderance of evidence, most dramatically mass graves around the country.

They sometimes blame neighboring Vietnam _ Cambodia's traditional enemy _ for the killings. After a series of bloody border raids by the Khmer Rouge on Vietnamese villages in late 1978, Hanoi invaded Cambodia to oust the Khmer Rouge and install a puppet government, garrisoning the country for about a decade.

«There are two kinds of war, one to protect your country, one where you invade another country,» said Nuon Chea, in apparent reference to the battles with Vietnam. «I was trying to protect my country.

He said there were more police than usual stationed outside his small house since Wednesday evening's announcement of the legal moves in Phnom Penh, and he had to be careful about what he said.

«It happened 30 years ago and it's very difficult to remember. Some of them (tribunal members) never experienced that. They weren't there, how could they know what was going on.

Marcel Lemonde of France, one of the tribunal's co-investigating judges, declined to discuss when the suspects' names would be made public and when they might be arrested, though he indicated it could be soon.

«We are encouraged by the progress of the (tribunal) and look forward to the day when identified suspects are brought to justice,» said U.S. Embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle.

Ros Saroeun, a 53-year-old motorbike-taxi driver, reflected the opinions of many older Cambodians, commenting that «I am delighted they will be brought to trial, because they have caused the death of more than 30 of my relatives.

The late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998 and his former military chief, Ta Mok, died in 2006.

In addition to Nuon Chea, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and former head of state Khieu Samphan live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health.

Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch, who headed the Khmer Rouge's S-21 torture center, is the only former senior official in government custody.

His lawyer, Ka Savuth, said Thursday that he had been informed that his client was soon to be transferred from a military prison to the detention facility at the tribunal's headquarters, an indirect confirmation that he was one of the five suspects named by prosecutors.

He said Duch «welcomed the news and wished for his trial to take place as quickly as possible.

According to tribunal rules, the maximum penalty for conviction of crimes falling within its jurisdiction is life imprisonment.

Cambodia first sought U.N. help in 1997 to set up a tribunal, but it took years of tough negotiations before the two parties signed a pact in 2003 agreeing to hold trials.

Associated Press writer Ker Munthit in Phnom Penh contributed to this story. Read more!

U.S. supports Cambodia's bid to list Preah Vihear Temple as world heritage site

PHNOM PENH, July 19 (Xinhua) -- The United States has expressed support for Cambodia's bid to officially register the Preah VihearTemple as world heritage site and will provide aid for its development and management plans, local media reported on Thursday.

U.S. Ambassador Joseph A. Mussomeli here on Wednesday told Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Council of Ministers Sok An that the temple has to be officially registered as world heritage site even if there is opposition from the third side, press official for the Council of Ministers Phan Sithan was quoted by English-language newspaper Cambodian Daily as saying.

The United States will send a group of experts to Cambodia to help organize the development and management plans for the temple's official registration as world heritage site and also provide grant aid to support the plans, he said.

Recently, Long Visalo, deputy minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, told reporters that the world heritage committee of the United Nation's Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) asked Cambodia to organize the development and management plans for the Preah Vihear Temple after receiving the kingdom's request to list it as world heritage site.

The committee promised to decide whether the temple can be registered as world heritage site in early 2008.

The Preah Vihear Temple was built from the 11th to the 12th century on top of the Dorng Rek Mountain in the northern part of Cambodia next to Thailand. Cambodia secured its ownership of the temple in 1962, out of fierce competition with Thailand. Read more!

Local family returns from eye-opening trip to Cambodia

Julie Kirkwood

Between 1975 and 1979, Khmer Rouge guerillas in Cambodia set out to relocate the entire population into agricultural labor camps. In less than four years, roughly 30 percent of the nation's population was killed, either through starvation, torture or execution.

An entire generation of teachers, police officers and doctors was wiped out -- targeted along with foreigners, Christians and Muslims, and anybody who resisted.

Andover doctors Tom and Rebecca Hoerner knew this history when they arrived in Cambodia last month on a medical volunteer trip.

But it didn't hit home until they spent time in Phnom Penh hospitals.

"You don't see any 45-year-old doctors," said Tom Hoerner, an orthopedic surgeon with Essex Orthopaedics in Andover. "They don't have a core of mid-life experienced physicians to educate anybody else."

Rebecca Hoerner, a pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Cambridge Health Alliance, said she noticed the same thing.

"There are very few people my age in the hospital," she said.

The couple used two weeks of vacation time to travel to Cambodia through an organization called Health Volunteers Overseas, just returning this month.

Tom Hoerner spent his days doing rounds and operating on broken arms and legs at a free charity hospital in Phnom Penh and at a nearby state-run hospital. His wife visited hospital laboratories and gave the local doctors much needed advice on safety and techniques. Unlike the automated, highly efficient laboratories in the United States, these laboratories are operating at the level of an American lab in the 1950s, with a lot of the tests done by hand, she said.

"There are only five pathologists in the country for a population of 13 million people," she said. "They're starting from scratch. ... Their equipment is quite old. A lot of it is borrowed and donated."

The Hoerners brought their youngest daughter, 17-year-old Hannah. She volunteered at a nearby school, helping a class of third grade students practice English. She also helped her mother inventory laboratory materials and toured a pediatric hospital with her father.

Hannah said she found the Cambodian children to be curious, welcoming and giddy over small pleasures, such as blowing bubbles and singing songs.

She also found the medical conditions sobering, especially in the pediatric hospital where young children were fighting cases of dengue fever and HIV/AIDS.

"I didn't know what to expect going into it," Hannah said. "I'd never been to Asia, let alone to a developing country. ... It just impressed me how gracious the people were. They welcomed me so much."

Cambodia has been politically stable for nine years now, and it shows, Tom Hoerner said. Though the health care system is rebuilding from virtually nothing, he said he left with a great sense of hope and a feeling that he had seen a nation on the path to recovery.

"I think the Cambodians are going to be OK," he said.

Rebecca Hoerner said she went to Cambodia not sure if there would be anything for a pathologist to do, so it was eye-opening to realize how much the people in her profession could contribute.

She said it also made her appreciate her life at home.

"We take a lot for granted in this country," Rebecca said.

And though he was exhausted when he got back, he said the trip was rewarding, just like his trip three years ago with Health Volunteers Overseas to Vietnam.

"Any time you're not doing your usual job, it's reinvigorating," Hoerner said. Read more!

Former Khmer Rouge leader denies role in genocide

PAILIN, Cambodia: The highest-ranking former Khmer Rouge leader still alive denied on Thursday that he was responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during the party's brutal 1975-79 rule, adding that he was ready to face an international tribunal.

Prosecutors in the tribunal examining the deaths submitted a confidential list Wednesday of five former top Khmer Rouge leaders that they believed should be tried, along with the evidence to back the charges. Judges will decide whether to proceed with indictments.

"They didn't specify the names of the people, but I know I'm included," the former chief Khmer Rouge ideologue, Nuon Chea, said in an interview at his home in northwest Cambodia.

Cambodian and international prosecutors submitted evidence including thousands of pages of documentation and the locations of more than 40 mass graves.

"I will go to the court and don't care if people believe me not," Nuon Chea said. "It happened 30 years ago and it's very difficult to remember. Some of them" - tribunal members - "never experienced that. They weren't there, how could they know what was going on?"

Seeming unperturbed, Nuon Chea sat clutching a walking stick, the legacy of a stroke, and complained of pain in his right leg as he spoke, while his wife served homemade iced fruit juice.

He said there were more police officers than usual stationed near his house since the announcement Wednesday evening of the legal moves in Phnom Penh, and he added that he had to be careful about what he said.

Now an ailing 82-year-old, the former "Brother Number Two" in the Khmer Rouge has consistently denied any responsibility for the mass brutality that engulfed Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge held power.

"I was president of the National Assembly and had nothing to do with the operation of the government. Sometimes I didn't know what they were doing because I was in the assembly," he said. "I had no intention to kill my people.'

Marcel Lemonde, a tribunal's co-investigating judge who is a native of France, declined to discuss when names of the suspects will be made public and when they might be arrested, though he indicated it could be soon.

A statement from the tribunal said the prosecutors - a joint Cambodian-foreign team - submitted 25 cases to the judges involving "murder, torture, forcible transfer, unlawful detention, forced labor and religious, political and ethnic persecution." All five suspects were senior leaders, it said.

Pol Pot, the late Khmer Rouge leader, died in 1998 and his former military chief, Ta Mok, died in 2006. In addition to Nuon Chea, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and the former head of state, Khieu Samphan, live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health. Kaing Khek Iev, who headed the Khmer Rouge's S-21 torture center, is the only former senior official in government custody.

Cambodia first sought help of the United Nations in 1997 to set up a tribunal, but it took years of tough negotiations before the two parties signed a pact in 2003 agreeing to hold trials. Read more!

Cambodia Town is now on the map

A stretch of Anaheim Street in Long Beach has the new designation, and its immigrant merchants are happy for the historic recognition.

By Anna Gorman, Times Staff Writer
July 18, 2007

Sithea San fled the killing fields in Cambodia as a teenager and found refuge in Long Beach, where she attended college, got married and bought a house.

Now, more than a quarter-century later, San finally has a place that she and thousands of other native Cambodians say they can call home.

A strip of Anaheim Street was officially named the nation's first "Cambodia Town" earlier this month — the most recent cultural designation in a county that is home to Little India, Little Tokyo and Historic Filipinotown.

City and community leaders say the designation not only will recognize the contributions of Cambodians, but also will help revitalize the neighborhood by attracting more businesses, visitors and tourists to the area. San and others are making plans to put up Cambodia Town signs and set up a business improvement district and are considering building a community center and a memorial to those who died under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.

"Now we have the name," said San, chairwoman of Cambodia Town Inc. "Now we have to make it happen. We have the responsibility to make the place nice."

Long Beach, known as the Cambodian capital of the United States, is believed to have the largest concentration of Cambodians outside of the home country. Some of the first Cambodians in the United States were students who attended Cal State Long Beach in the 1960s as part of an exchange program. Waves of refugees followed in the 1970s as they escaped the Khmer Rouge regime, which took the lives of more than 1 million people. According to 2000 census figures, about 20,000 Cambodians live in Long Beach, but community leaders estimate a larger population.

Cambodia Town runs along the Anaheim corridor, from Junipero Avenue to Atlantic Avenue. There are already scores of Cambodian-run businesses on the street, including jewelry stores, restaurants, travel agencies and fabric shops.

At Monorom restaurant Tuesday, a lunchtime crowd ate Cambodian noodle soup while Khmer-language music videos played on a television. Owner Sopha Nhoung, who came to the area more than 20 years ago, said he was proud to finally be recognized.

"They have Chinatown, Koreatown, Thai Town," Nhoung said. "We've been living here for a long time. We deserved this."

Down the street at Angkorwat Art, Sopheap Samrieth said he signed a petition that supported the designation. But his main reason was to draw customers.

"It will bring more people here," said Samrieth, as he pointed out paintings depicting the ancient temple complex of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. "It will generate more business."

The drive to get a Cambodia Town began in 2001, when a few community members began meeting to talk about the possibility.

The leaders brought the issue to the City Council last year. Some critics expressed concerns that the designation could lure more gangs to the area and that it would exclude Latinos and African Americans.

But Cambodian leaders argued that the title would help the entire city by making the street safer and cleaner and by developing the neighborhood into a regional destination.

Naming the area Cambodia Town would also highlight immigrants' cultural heritage and encourage youths to get involved helping their community, San said. In June, the city of Long Beach commissioned a survey that showed wide support for the cultural designation. On July 3, the City Council voted 8-1 in favor of naming the stretch Cambodia Town.

Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal, who voted for the designation, said the new name is a welcome mat for Cambodians, as well as for others who want to experience something different in Long Beach.

"We are leveraging a very unique destination," she said. "What makes Anaheim [Street] different is this collection of shops, stores and businesses that happen to be mostly Cambodian American owned."

Not all of the businesses on Anaheim Street are Cambodian. Manny Caldera, manager of La Bodega Market, said the name wasn't important to him.

"As long as the business is good, it doesn't matter," said Caldera. His store caters to Latinos. "They can name it Cambodia Town or any other."

Veasna Kiet, 40, who runs Phnom Penh Express travel agency, said the new name makes him proud. "We live far away from our country," he said. "Now we have a hometown here." Read more!

5 defendants proposed in mass killings in Cambodia

BANGKOK: Prosecutors in Cambodia announced Wednesday that they had submitted to a special tribunal a list of five potential defendants in a long-delayed trial for the mass killings by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.

Although the five names were not made public, the submission was one of the most significant leaps forward in a case involving crimes committed more than 20 years ago. It has been delayed by legal and political disputes for a decade.

Under the tribunal's rules, the evidence will now be studied by investigating judges who will then decide on any formal indictments.

"This is the moment the victims have been waiting for," said Youk Chhang, who directs a documentation center that has collected some of the strongest evidence. "This is a turning point toward justice."

The radical communist Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, when 1.7 million people were killed by torture, disease, overwork and starvation.

The Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998, and his military chief, Ta Mok, died in 2006, but a number of elderly former leaders are living quietly in Cambodia. Only one is in custody.

No Khmer Rouge leader has ever been brought into court to face charges for crimes that resulted in the deaths of as many as one-fourth of the population and left the country in ruin and trauma.

The announcement Wednesday said the prosecutors had submitted for investigation 25 "distinct factual situations of murder, torture, forcible transfer, unlawful detention, forced labor and religious, political and ethnic persecution."

It listed allegations that it said constitute crimes against humanity, genocide, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, homicide, torture and religious persecution.

While names were not disclosed Wednesday, a half-dozen former leaders have often been mentioned as the most likely defendants.

They include Nuon Chea, the movement's chief ideologue; Khieu Samphan, the former head of state, and Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister, all of whom were members of the Khmer Rouge central committee.

Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch, the commandant of the main torture house, Tuol Sleng, is the only major figure in custody, but not under the jurisdiction of the special tribunal.

The mandate of the tribunal is to prosecute senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge movement as well as those "most responsible" for the crimes. There is no limit to the number of cases that can be brought.

The prosecutors' announcement described the Khmer Rouge atrocities as a criminal enterprise with far-reaching political aims.

"These crimes were committed as part of a common criminal plan constituting a systematic and unlawful denial of basic rights," they said. "The purported motive of this common criminal plan was to effect a radical change of Cambodian society along ideological lines."

In support of their submissions, the prosecutors said they had transmitted more than 1,000 documents totaling more than 14,000 pages of evidence. Large troves of files have been uncovered over the years, some with meticulous records of tortures and killings.

The documents include the statements of more than 350 witnesses, a list of 40 other potential witnesses, thousands of pages of Khmer Rouge government documents and the locations of more than 40 undisturbed mass graves, the statement said.

The tribunal, set up jointly by the United Nations and the Cambodian government, is a complex balancing act between Cambodian and foreign judges and lawyers, and between Cambodian and international standards of justice.

It has been criticized by some human rights groups for falling below those international standards and leaving room for political manipulation by the Cambodian leader, Prime Minster Hun Sen.

Cambodian and foreign judges have teamed together at all levels of the process, with decisions carefully calibrated by a supermajority system intended to resolve disputes between the two camps.

The submission Wednesday was made by two co-prosecutors, a Canadian and a Cambodian, and is now in the hands of co-investigating judges.

The cultures and legal systems clashed earlier this year in a stalemate between Cambodian and foreign judges over procedural rules, and the atmosphere between the two camps was described by participants as acrimonious.

The dispute, which involved national pride as well as legal standards, was the latest of many delays since Cambodia formally sought the help of the United Nations in 1997 to set up an international tribunal.

Because of delays, one year has already passed since the tribunal was inaugurated and only two years remain on its mandate, budgeted at $53 million. Experts said that could be extended if progress was being made.

Earlier on Wednesday, the tribunal announced another step forward - the inauguration of a small, red-roofed detention building, ready to receive any defendants once they are indicted. Read more!

Happy Football to bring Cambodia's homeless teenagers to world arena

The non-governmental Happy Football Project has selected a team to represent Cambodia in the Homeless World Cup in Melbourne in 2008, which is organized by the European Football Federation, local media said on Wednesday.

"It is about small steps toward big dreams," Paraic Crogan, co- founder of the project, was quoted by English-language newspaper the Cambodian Daily as saying.

Khun Sokhrin, 37, coach of the group of homeless, orphaned, or otherwise disadvantaged children said he is not expecting immediate miracles from all the teams under the project.

Coaches from Inter Milan, current Italian football Serie A champions, have also committed to coming to Cambodia to give workshops to the Happy Football players sometime next year, said Sokhrin.

The Happy Football Project is one of a growing number of projects aimed at building a network of football talents in Cambodia, while providing opportunities to disadvantaged children.

Source: Xinhua. Read more!

Russia set to sign WTO accession protocol with Cambodia soon

MOSCOW, July 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russia intends to sign documents on its accession to the World Trade Organization with Cambodia in the near future, a government official said Tuesday.

Russia signed a protocol on the conclusion of bilateral talks for its entry into the global trade body with Guatemala on June 26, with Vietnam on July 6, and now has to complete negotiations with Cambodia, and reach agreements with Georgia and Saudi Arabia.

"We have agreed with Cambodia and we'll sign all the documents in coming weeks," said Andrei Kushnirenko, director of the department for trade negotiations at the Russian Ministry for Economic Development and Trade.

Russia, the largest economy outside the 150-member bloc, expects membership to boost market reforms and ensure better transparency, while providing a secure business environment for trade and investment. Membership will also help the country diversify its economy, participate in projects to develop future common trade rules, and safeguard its interests.

Kushnirenko also said a new round of Russia's WTO accession talks with Saudi Arabia would take place in Geneva on July 23. Read more!

Cambodia issues directive limiting activities of Christian groups

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodia's government has issued a directive limiting proselytizing and other activities by Christians, officials said Tuesday.

Christians are not allowed to promote their religion in public places, or use money or other means to persuade people to convert, the directive says. It does not mention other religions.

"They can do any activity inside their institutions, but are not allowed to go door-to-door," said Sun Kim Hun, deputy minister of cult and religion.

He said the directive, dated June 26 but distributed Tuesday, follows similar proclamations in 1999 and 2003 and is a reminder to Christian groups not to conduct activities against the law.

There were fewer than 70,000 Christians and about 170 churches in Cambodia in 2006, according to government figures. More than 90 percent of Cambodia's nearly 14 million people are Buddhist.

Cambodian Buddhists are generally tolerant of other religions. But last year, about 300 Buddhist villagers, apparently angered by a rival faith within their community, razed a partially built Christian church.

The mob chanted "Destroy the church!" and "Long live Buddhism!" as it descended upon the unfinished Protestant church near Phnom Penh.

Also last year, a group of Christian worshippers was caught distributing candy and cakes to young poor people in the countryside and trying to convert them, Sun Kim Hun said. Such activities are illegal under the directive.

Nhean Song, a Cambodian pastor with the Union Church in Phnom Penh, said none of its 300 members has broken the directive, but he knows members of other churches have.

"We will follow the directive, we have no purpose to do anything against the Cambodian government," he said. Read more!

Curtain call for an icon of Cambodia's artistic recuperation

Cambodian artists training at the burnt-out Basac theather in Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh's Bassac Theatre has been drummer Nop Sambona's home since the Khmer Rouge were pushed from power 28 years ago, leaving behind a ruined country, its singers, dancers and musicians among the 1.7 million people murdered by the regime.

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Those who survived the apocalypse unleashed by the Khmer Rouge, which was particularly brutal in pursuing of Cambodia's artists, trickled back into the city and began trying to rebuild their lives.

The theatre became the soul of this battered community, a bright spot in an otherwise dead world that evoked a cultural richness which would never be fully revived.

Nearly three decades on that bright spot is dimming as the site on which Cambodia's national theatre sits has been leased to a private developer and the building doomed to be razed.

Its artists, who have soldiered on against darkness, wet and neglect since a fire gutted the auditorium and stage area in 1994, were offered 300 dollars each and told last month to leave.

"This place has produced hundreds of artists. The theatre produced the nation's great culture," says Nop Sambona, taking a break from what will be one of the last rehearsals to resonate through the Bassac's now derelict performance hall.
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"It's a landmark. We're so sorry that we've lost it," he says, gesturing over his shoulder at the Bassac's flame-blackened foyer.

Constructed in 1966, the 1,200-seat Bassac was designed by Vann Molyvann, Cambodia's most famous modern architect, as a monument to Cambodia's thriving performing arts scene.

It is not hard to imagine the capital's elite, dressed in elegant evening wear, gliding through the Bassac's imposing triangular foyer and up the cantilevered staircases suspended over shallow pools of water, about to view a performance of the Royal Ballet.

The Bassac was one of dozens of gems built by Vann Molyvann, whose wide boulevards and stunning public buildings transformed Phnom Penh from a tiny backwater into a graceful capital during Cambodia's short period of prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s.

The era, known as the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, or Cambodia's "golden age," also spurred on a strong revival in performing arts, with the Bassac at its heart.

Cambodian artists were training at a burnt out Basac theater.

"During the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, the government considered the theatre a part of our national heritage," an angry Vann Molyvann says. "Heritage cannot be sold, changed or denied -- now they are destroying it. Now they've sold our national heritage to a famed businessman."

Khim Sarith, secretary of state at the Ministry of Culture, says the site had been leased to Cambodian tycoon Kith Meng, who plans to develop a "cultural building".

In an earlier deal struck in 2005, Cambodia's culture ministry ceded land around the Bassac on the condition that the theatre be renovated, retaining its original name and architecture.

Kith Meng was to get an undisclosed amount of property around the theatre in exchange for building a conference centre and office blocks.

But Khim Sarith explains that the government is unable to afford the "millions of dollars" it would cost to restore the Bassac.

"The theatre will be knocked down because it is burned and is old," he says.

"There is nothing there," he says, adding the new theatre that Kith Meng has agreed to build elsewhere in exchange for the property "will be better than the old one".

Buth Choeun, chief of administration at the culture ministry's performing art department, says the theatre's state of decay has made it increasingly dangerous to work in.

"If we stay here it will be difficult for us -- we fear the old walls will fall on us," he says.
The Basac Theater in Phnom penh ot Cambodia thought to be sold to rich businessman.

Vann Molyvann is not satisfied by the deal.

"They do not care about heritage," he says. "I am very worried. I have no hope that Cambodian artists can spread our culture anymore -- Cambodian culture will die.

"The land prices at that site have reached more than 1,000 dollars per square metre (yard). So it's no longer about national heritage."

Ieng Sithul, director of the Khmer Actress Association, says the proposed site for the new theatre is "not suitable," suggesting instead that the Bassac be restored.

"If the old site has a beautiful theatre, it will help add value to our culture," he says.

But like all of those facing eviction, he is heartbroken about the end of the Bassac.

"We have nothing but regret. We have only sympathy for the theatre and can only say goodbye to our poor home."

In the background Nop Sambona has begun rehearsing again, his drumming heard from behind a glass window on which someone in a desperate effort to stave off the inevitable has scrawled" "Please help to preserve, don't destroy." Read more!

Trial set in overseas child sex case

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA - Seven years ago, Russian courts convicted a wealthy American motel owner of molesting children, sent him to prison, then expelled him from the country.

Bianchi, 44, of North Wildwood, N.J., faces trial beginning Monday under a controversial federal law aimed at thwarting "sex tourism." He is accused in this country of committing crimes — assaulting nearly a dozen minors — on foreign soil.

So far, however, only one federal appeals court — the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — has reviewed the law, upholding it in a 2-1 ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal of that decision.

"It is a very unusual theory to say that you can prosecute an American citizen in this country for actions taken completely in another country," said Rory Little, a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official who is now a University of California law professor. "This is not a crime against America, although it‘s a crime against universal morality."

The 9th Circuit case involved Michael L. Clark, a 70-year-old Seattle man who in 2004 became the first person prosecuted under the law. He pleaded guilty to molesting boys in Cambodia, while reserving the right to challenge the law itself, and is serving a 97-month sentence.

"To do this in a foreign country, you have to send an investigator over there, and that person has to make contacts in the community. That may not be possible, given the language differences and cultural differences," said Michael Filipovic, an assistant federal public defender in Seattle.

"Americans go to these countries and create a pretty bad image," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said. "A hundred dollars can buy a lot of food for a pretty long time for a lot of these families. ... This is the kind of case that shows why there‘s a need for this (law)." Read more!