War reporter Jon Swain pays tribute to Dith Pran

Jon Swain was about to be shot by the Khmer Rouge when Dith Pran intervened. The Sunday Times war reporter pays tribute to the courage of his friend, who died last week

Four years after his enslavement by the Khmer Rouge, an intrepid Cambodian stumbled out of the thickly wooded jungle to freedom. His legs were wobbly. He was weak with malaria. His front teeth were broken. His face was gaunt. He was incredibly thin – but he still retained his lopsided grin.

That grin was still in place – although fading – in the weeks before Dith Pran died last Sunday in a hospital in America, his adopted home, from pancreatic cancer. He was 65. Although wan and thin, he moved on gracefully, loved and mourned by all whose lives he had touched. “This is my path and I must go where it takes me,” he said shortly before the end.

Pran’s harrowing personal tale of enslavement and escape from the Khmer Rouge in 1979 had eventually become the subject of the Oscar-winning film The Killing Fields, directed by Roland Joffé, which focused global attention on one of history’s worst genocides.

Pran was justly famous. Were it not for this former tourist guide to the fabled Angkor temples, who later became interpreter and assistant to Sydney Schanberg, a reporter for The New York Times, in Cambodia, the world’s eyes would probably not have been opened to the monstrous atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge in his native land. In its rush to forge a new society, 2m people died in executions or from starvation, disease and overwork – nearly a third of the population.

However, Pran did more. After his escape he moved to America, where he worked as a photographer for The New York Times and spent the rest of his life speaking out about what his countrymen had been through. He also pushed for war crimes trials for the Khmer Rouge leaders – trials that are finally due to begin this year in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. Pran, alas, will never see them.

“I am a one-person crusade,” he once said. “I must speak for those who did not survive and those who still suffer.”

I owe this honourable Cambodian a debt of gratitude that I can never erase. He saved my life when I was captured by the Khmer Rouge.

At the time the Cambodian war was a sideshow to the war raging next door in Vietnam and some aspects of it seemed comic. Before sallying forth every morning into the countryside to witness the fighting, we reporters would meet at the Groaning Table – an open-air cafe – for a military briefing from a charming colonel called Am Rong, whose unfortunate name was a butt of endless jokes. His military communiqués, I remember, were invariably nonsense.

The seductive wartime capital, with its brothels and opium parlours, encouraged all kinds of indiscretions and we conducted our lives as though we were characters in a Graham Greene novel; or we liked to imagine that we did.

However, the war was deadly serious. So we also took insane risks and witnessed and reported on some of the most appalling human suffering that I have seen.

In the process more than 20 of the tiny foreign press corps of about 60 were killed in a matter of months by the Khmer Rouge, who never took prisoners. And many more Cambodian journalists also died.

We loved the Cambodians, who had a disarming insouciance in the face of danger. The difference between us and the band of local journalists we hired to interpret the language, politics and culture was that they were seeing and reporting on their own country being destroyed. We, on the other hand, were reporting from the privileged position of visitors who could always bail out. For them, there could be nowhere else to go: they and their loved ones were trapped by the war and their survival was dependent on the outcome.

It was Pran who was the unacknowledged dean of this Cambodian press corps, not because of the status that his job with the venerable New York Times gave him, but because he was so unusually acute and resourceful and had unassailable integrity.

The horrors of the war had made morality a luxury that many of his fellow countrymen had long since discarded. Yet, unlike so many of the politicians and generals for whom survival and money were the ultimate objectives, Pran remained faithful to his principles. He believed passionately that the story of the destruction of his beautiful homeland needed to be told. And to that end he risked his life time after time.

I first met Pran in 1972. Although his loyalty was always to Schanberg, he was ready to give help and advice to me and all the other journalists. Never more so than on April 17, 1975 – the day of the fall of Phnom Penh.

On that same day Schanberg, Al Rockoff, an American photographer, and I were captured by the Khmer Rouge.

A squad of teenage soldiers with hate-filled eyes forced us into a captured armoured personnel carrier (APC). Pran, realising we were going to be executed, selflessly argued to be allowed to join us inside, knowing full well that without his communication skills we were doomed.

It is this story that is told in The Killing Fields. And it was Dith Pran himself, by the way, who coined the phrase “killing fields” after seeing the grim piles of corpses and skeletal remains on his desperate trek to freedom.

That was in the future. Back when Pran volunteered himself as a prisoner, there seemed little hope of escape for any of us. First we were taken to the banks of the Mekong river; then the rear door of the APC opened and a pair of Khmer Rouge soldiers, pointing rifles, beckoned us out. We knew they were going to shoot us.

Pran got out first and began to talk softly and firmly, as he always did. He told the Khmer Rouge that we were neutral journalists who had come to report on their historic “liberation”; and, after a while, our would-be killers began to calm down. The tension suddenly evaporated and we were freed.

A few days later we tried to doctor one of my two British passports for Pran so that he could be evacuated with us to Thailand as a foreigner – but we failed.

The Khmer Rouge forced him to go into the countryside – by now becoming a giant labour camp – where he somehow survived torture, starvation and a life of unremitting hard toil.

When he emerged four years later, 50 members of his family had perished. Mercifully, Schanberg had evacuated Pran’s wife, Ser Moeun, and his four beloved children before Phnom Penh fell and they were safely in America.

The first I knew of his freedom was when I received a telegram from Schanberg, who had been tortured by guilt about Pran’s disappearance and had led his own one-man crusade to trace his helper and friend.

The telegram included a personal message from Pran, patterned on a Cambodian proverb: “Hi Jon. The world is round. Now I meet you again. Pran was in bad shape, but the life is remained. Love Pran.”

I still have it. In subsequent years I saw him several times back in Cambodia.

It is a place that takes over the soul, and those who have known it at its worst are irresistibly drawn back. We revisited old spots – including, once, the place on the riverbank where, blinking in the sunlight, we had stood facing the rifles of the Khmer Rouge peasant boys, waiting for the volley of shots that would kill us.

The slight man I had known had put on weight; he had adopted American food and habits and had a New Jersey twang. Beneath all that he was still the same Pran: warm and attentive, with that peculiarly Cambodian joie de vivre and a mischievous sense of humour.

His business card announced simply: “Dith Pran – photographer”. On the other side, however, it listed information about how the Khmer Rouge had ruined his beloved homeland.

Using his survival as a tool against injustice and genocide, he became a good-will ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, founded a holocaust awareness project and compiled a book of children’s accounts of growing up under the Khmer Rouge.

It is given to few journalists to make a real difference to people’s lives. Once safe in America, Pran could have retreated into the background. Countless Cambodians did. But he saw it as his duty to stop the memory of what had happened to his country fading away. That and his courage and loyalty are what made Pran magnificent.

Latterly, friends said, he had become disappointed with the way Cambodia was becoming rotten again with corruption and cruelty. His marriage to Ser Moeun had broken up and another marriage had failed.

Despite personal setbacks, he bore his public role gracefully. Right to the end he always thought there was more that he could do, according to Schanberg, who spent many days attending to his dying friend.

“Pran was a true reporter – a fighter for the truth and for his people,” Schanberg said. “When the cancer struck, he fought for his life again. And he did it with the same Buddhist calm and courage and positive spirit that made [him] so special.”

Having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer too late for much hope of survival, Pran urged others to undergo early testing. “I want to save lives, including my own,” he said.

He had triumphed over the Khmer Rouge and outlived their leader, Pol Pot, who had turned Cambodia into a madhouse. But Pran knew deep down that the battle against cancer was one he could not win.

“Cambodians believe we just rent this body,” he said not long before he died. “It is just a house for the spirit; and if the house is full of termites, it is time to leave.”

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Good times roll on for developers

By Sebastian Strangio and Meas Sokchea

Cambodia’s construction boom is set to continue through 2008 but the industry could be vulnerable to fluctuations in global commodity prices and at some point the new building supply could outpace demand, industry insiders warn.

Economic growth has been boosted in recent years by a flurry of urban construction fueled by foreign investment, especially from China and South Korea.

“The construction sector contributes a lot to people’s welfare – both for industry specialists and for unskilled workers,” said Kang Chandararot, head of the economics unit at the Cambodia Institute of Development Study (CIDS), a local research institute.

CIDS estimates that construction now contributes about 7-8 percent a year to the country’s GDP.

“The main factor that has fueled the construction boom is the expectation of future development,” said Chandararot. “This expectation … is helped by political stability and by the fact that the government wants to promote economic development.”

The Cambodian economy has grown an average of 9.5 percent each year since 2000 and is expected to continue growing at about seven percent until the end of 2009, the International Monetary Fund’s resident representative, John Nelmes, announced at an economic outlook conference in February.

Sung Bonna, president and CEO of Bonna Realty Group, is confident that the upward trends will continue. “Once we have nice, modern constructions more tourists and investors will come to visit or invest in Cambodia,” he said.

“In addition, unskilled workers are earning a full day’s wage on construction sites,” further fueling economic growth.

Im Chhun Lim, Minister of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, said at the launch of the Gold Tower 42 project in January this year that the government had received building applications worth over $1.5 billion in the first nine months of 2007.

The minister on March 25 also announced plans to introduce licensing for land brokers in an attempt to harness more of the economic benefits of the boom. Land transference and business taxes brought in approximately $21 million in revenue in 2007.

But inflation topped 10.8 percent in December last year and some analysts fear that rising oil prices – already at record highs – could put a dent in Cambodia’s construction industry.

“Now that we have stability, the people need places to live, to work, to do business,” said Chandararot. “But the high price of oil will have a very negative impact on Cambodia, especially on the construction sector. The cost of investing in [construction] has grown and grown and this has reduced the capability of investors to finance and finish construction projects.”

Even if projects are completed as planned, rising housing costs have the potential to drive buyers out of the market.

Eng Chhay Eang, Sam Rainsy Party parliamentarian and former deputy president of the National Authority for Resolving Land Issues, said the high-flying property market is good for Cambodia’s economy but warned that if demand for new housing outstrips supply, there may be problems in the construction sector.

“Construction is advantageous when it offers jobs for workers but it can be a disadvantage when the construction is superfluous,” said Eang.

“Investors could face losses if there is no one to buy or rent the new buildings,” he added.

Chandararot said: “It is clear that there is a need for construction but the issue is the demand, and whether need can be translated into demand or not has to do with future income … and many future buyers may also have a lot of financial difficulties of their own because of rising costs.”

Some of the potential economic benefit of Cambodia’s construction boom is not transferred locally because some large-scale residential projects in Phnom Penh are being developed and built by foreign firms.

Korean developer Yon Woo Cambodia Co., Ltd, which is building the $240-million Gold Tower 42 building at the corner of Monivong and Sihanouk Blvds, has brought in Hanileng Construction of South Korea to handle construction.

New Central City Plaza, an integrated development comprising housing, entertainment and shopping facilities on Russian Federation Blvd, is being developed by the Indonesian Lipo Politan Corporation and will be built by an unnamed Indonesian contractor, according to Lipo Politan spokesperson Mach Forng.

Nhem Sothea, marketing manager of Grand Phnom Penh International City, a joint venture development between Indonesian firm Cinputra and RCAF General Ke Kim Yan, would not disclose Cinputra’s contractors. He said there were “several” companies involved and all are Cambodian.

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Vietnam enterprises join Cambodia’s Telecom Expo

Nhan Dan - Vietnamese companies are participating in the 4th Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) of Cambodia World Expo which opened on April 4.

These include the Vietnam Post and Telecommunication (VNPT) and the Army Telecommunication Corporation (Viettel),

The event is jointly organised by the National Information Communications Technology Development Authority (NiDA) of Cambodia and the International Data Group World Expo Vietnam.

The expo attracted the participation of more than 40 companies from Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, the European Union, and Vietnam.

The exhibition, which lasts till April 6, is the largest telecommunications and information technology expo held annually in Cambodia.

During the event, there are also conferences to introduce and seek for solutions to promote ICT in Cambodia as well as and promote ICT co-operation between regional countries.
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Cambodia strongly opposes any disturbing activities against 2008 Olympics

PHNOM PENH, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia strongly opposes any attempts and actions aiming to interrupt the Olympic Games to be held in Beijing, said Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday at a road construction ceremony in Preah Vihear province.

The Olympic Games is sports event only, but why do some people never stop to make the problems, Hun Sen asked.

"I once ordered Minister of Interior to stop a ceremony that some people planned in Phnom Penh against the Olympic Games," he added.

According to official sources, Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni has accepted the invitation from China to attend the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The Cambodian government earlier established a 10-member delegation to participate in the Beijing Games.

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Thaksin in Cambodia to play golf with Hun Sen

PHNOM PENH, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra arrive in Cambodia on Saturday afternoon, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Saturday.

"Tomorrow morning we will play golf together in Siem Reap province," Hun Sen said at a road construction ceremony in Preah Vihear province next to Thai border.

"I also seem to have a bit of fever. I worried that tomorrow I could not hold the golf club to play with Thaksin," he joked.

"We contacted each other by phone regularly after he was deposed," Hun Sen said previously, adding that they are friends. Read more!

UN Says Markets Crucial to Climate Pact

By Michael Casey

BANGKOK, Thailand -
Back in the late 1990s, Henry Derwent had the unenviable job of selling a British government proposal that markets be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The idea was to create a system in which energy-intensive companies would buy and sell pollution permits, giving them a financial incentive to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.

It was a tough sell. Environmentalists condemned it as morally reprehensible and business leaders said it was bad economics. Even an investment bank refused to take part because it would sully its reputation.

But these days, Derwent is feeling vindicated.

The British set up a carbon trading market in 2002, followed by the European Union in 2005. New Zealand's system is expected later this year. The United States plans a regional greenhouse gas initiative in the nine Northeast states by 2009, and Australia wants a national system by 2010. All global warming bills in the U.S. Congress include a federal cap-and-trade mechanism.

While many people still oppose emissions trading over concerns that it would allow companies to keep polluting, most environmentalists and European governments now view the practice as the easiest and most comprehensive way to regulate industrial emissions.

"You are using profit motive to achieve a public good, and this is just brilliant," Derwent, now head of the International Emissions Trading Association, said on the sidelines of this week's U.N. climate change conference in Thailand.

The carbon market is getting a boost in negotiations this week in Bangkok to piece together a new global warming pact aimed at keeping temperatures from rising so high they trigger an environmental disaster. Negotiators have until late 2009 to complete work on an agreement to take effect when the Kyoto Protocol runs out at the end of 2012.

Emissions trading is seen by many as the glue that will hold the system together by reducing greenhouse gas production while generating funds to develop clean technology and help poor countries adapt to environmental changes such as rising sea-levels.

"A functioning carbon market will be critical to a successful agreement," U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told The Associated Press ahead of the Bangkok meeting.

A carbon trading market - or "cap-and-trade" system - works much like any commodities market except that traders make their fees selling a ton of carbon dioxide instead of corn or copper.

Countries that agree to reduction targets are given permits for an amount of allowable carbon dioxide emissions, and the permits are passed onto businesses. Companies can choose to cut their emissions by retrofitting a factory and selling their permits for a profit - or continuing to pollute and buy additional units of carbon dioxide on the open market.

Under the 1997 Kyoto pact, countries also can earn credits by investing in environmentally friendly projects in developing countries.

A major attraction of carbon markets is their ability to generate money to be put toward cutting emissions and helping countries adapt to the effects of climate change.

The World Bank predicts that by 2030, it will cost between $28 billion and $67 billion annually to relocate villages, build sea walls and help farmers adapt to the worsening weather.

But carbon trading has plenty of critics, many of whom argue that it does little or nothing to actually cut greenhouse gases. The EU system, for example, has had a minimal impact on emissions in its first two years.

The system has also been criticized for leaving out sectors like transport and focusing on less profitable companies like cement or chemical producers that must cut output or make major investments to reduce emissions.

Other critics, like research fellows Benjamin Sovacool and Toby Carroll at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, say market solutions increase poor nations' dependence on the industrialized world for such things as clean technology, allow industries to keep polluting, and fail to change consumer consumption patterns.

"Until people consciously realize the situation that the world is in and change their own patterns of behavior, you can't change anything," Carroll said. "One of the reason carbon trading is so acceptable to the powers-that-be is that it doesn't substantially impact on existing operations."

Carroll and others argue that a more effective way to cut emissions would be a pollution tax.

While supporters agree that carbon markets alone cannot reduce emissions, they insist they can change behavior. They noted that the European system has resulted in a number of coal plants being mothballed and they predict they will spur investment in expensive but clean technologies like solar energy and carbon sequestration and storage in which carbon dioxide is stored underground.

"The point of the market is to find the most efficient way to reduce emissions," said Greenpeace's Bill Hare, who supports the market but admits he has concerns about the lack of regulations.

"The tighter the cap, the higher you will see carbon prices and the more incentive to switch to investments to lower emitting technology and practices," he said.

Also, carbon trading will generate money to meet funding needs of developing nations, proponents say.

"There is certainly reason to be optimistic," said Miles Austin, head of European regulatory affairs for the carbon trading firm EcoSecurities. But he also said much of the future growth depends on a new climate pact that includes binding emissions reduction targets.

"The growth will begin to tail off by the end of the year if there isn't increased clarity about what will happen post-2012," when the Kyoto protocol expires, he said.

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ICT and Telecommunications World Expo 2008 launched in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia ICT and Telecommunications World Expo 2008 with the theme "Enable You One Step Ahead" was launched at the Mondial Center in Phnom Penh on Friday, expected to draw up to 50,000 visitors.

This international exhibition and conference is held by National ICT Development Authority of Cambodia (NiDA) and International Data Group (IDG Indochina) annually since 2005, a press release said.

This year, the event attracts the participation of more than 30international and local companies, showcasing the latest computer, cell phone and satellite technology, it said.

The Expo is organized to speedup the country's ICT industry development by calling government sectors, companies, and individual specialists to share their experiences, local and international companies showcase the latest ICT products, services and technologies during the three-day event, it added.

"ICT industry is developing rapidly from period to period leading Cambodia ICT and Telecommunications World Expo to play an important role in gathering local and international ICT companies to display their hottest products and services in order to meet the demand for government, private sectors, SMEs and education," said So Khun, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications of Cambodia.

By the end of 2007, there were 15,950 internet subscribers in Cambodia, compared to about 6,000 subs in 2000, according to official statistics.

In addition, mobile phone market in Cambodia is booming with 2,275,000 subscribers at the end of 2007.
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CityLink Selects Redline's RedMAX Solution for WiMAX Network in Cambodia

By Arun Satapathy

CityLink, a Cambodian Internet service provider, has chosen Redline's WiMAX Forum Certified RedMAX products for use in its multi-city network.
“To meet growing demand for broadband services throughout Cambodia, CityLink required a WiMAX solution that could support a high capacity of users while enabling us to deliver the service packages that meet our customers' needs,” said Rotha Chhay, CEO at CityLink, in a statement.

Chhay continued: “Redline's true open WiMAX (News - Alert) system, with its ease of installation, enabled us to quickly and cost-effectively integrate RedMAX with our existing wired network and immediately offer WiMAX services to our subscribers.”

CityLink has already initiated its two-city, phased deployment in Cambodia's capital city of Phnom Penh and is currently serving hundreds of business and residential subscribers.
The Internet service provider allows its WiMAX subscribers to choose from a variety of service packages, including WiMAX@Night, WiMAX@Home and WiMAX Unlimited.

CityLink also plans to extend its RedMAX network to the tourist city of Siem Reap, a popular tourist destination. The company expects to significantly increase its subscriber base by expanding its network to ten additional cities next year.

CityLink is one of the most recent service providers in Asia to adopt WiMAX technologies as way of expanding its communications network. The CityLink deployment is being managed by ECOMM Tech, a systems integrator and Redline Certified Silver Partner.

“Redline has helped carriers around the world to install and deploy reliable, profitable WiMAX networks to deliver the advanced services its customers need,” said Kevin Suitor, vice president of marketing and business development at Redline Communications (News - Alert) Group, in a statement.

Suitor continued: “There are now more than 150 deployments of our WiMAX Forum Certified RedMAX products worldwide, 49 of which are revenue-generating commercial networks. Working with ECOMM Tech, CityLink has planned a professional WiMAX network that we expect will generate a rapid return on investment.”

Benjamin Fang, Business Manager, ECOMM Tech, added: “Redline's RedMAX WiMAX offering have proven to be a cost-effective and reliable solution for expanding and enhancing communications networks. CityLink’s well-planned WiMAX strategy will enable its customers to benefit from true broadband access.”

Redline’s RedMAX Base Station (AN-100U) supports voice, video, and prioritized data traffic, enabling long-range, high-capacity wireless broadband networks. The company’s WiMAX products also include the RedMAX Indoor Subscriber Unit (SU-I) and Outdoor Subscriber Unit (SU-O), both designed for enterprise and residential services.

The RedMAX 4C, which operates in the 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz spectrum bands, is designed to conform to 802.16e Certification Wave 2 requirements.

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Former hunters help save rare birds in Cambodia: report

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — One-time hunters recruited to a conservation project have helped threatened bird populations in Cambodia's Great Lake recover, according to a report Friday.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) report said populations of some of the bird species had increased 20-fold since the project began in 2001 at Tonle Sap Lake, known as the Great Lake.

The project by the WCS and Cambodia's environment ministry employed about 30 former hunters and egg collectors as park rangers tasked with providing 24-hour protection for breeding colonies, the report said.

The plan was to boost the populations of the spot-billed pelican, milky stork, painted stork, lesser adjutant, greater adjutant, black-headed ibis and the Oriental darter.

The waterbird colonies were first discovered in the mid-1990s. At the time, the birds were threatened with extinction because of villagers' rampant harvesting of eggs and chicks, the report said.

"When first discovered, the colonies were heavily threatened by annual harvesting of the eggs and chicks by nearby villagers, mainly for trade and local consumption," the report said.

But the populations of the birds have increased from a total of 2,500 breeding pairs in 2001 to more than 10,000 pairs in 2007.

The colonies include the largest, and in some cases, the only breeding populations for the waterbirds in Southeast Asia, according to the report.

Tonle Sap lake is Southeast Asia's largest freshwater reservoir, which can expand to 12,000 square kilometres at the peak of the rainy season and recedes to about 3,000 square kilometres in the dry season.

The lake is rich in biodiversity and offers a breeding place for many species of birds and fish.
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Cambodia launches first satellite TV network

PHNOM PENH, April 3 (Xinhua) -- The national Television of Kampuchea (TVK) and the Cambodian DTV Network Limited (CDN), a branch of the Shin Satellite Company from Thailand, here on Thursday launched Techo-DTV, the first satellite TV network of Cambodia.

"From now on, people in all the corners of Cambodia will be able to watch all programs of our TV networks easily through this satellite TV network," said Khieu Kahnarith, Cambodian government spokesman and Minister of Information.

People who live at all kinds of geographical locations will be able to watch TV programs through this satellite TV service, he said.

The Cambodia National Election Committee (NEC) will be able to use this satellite TV network to educate people about election process for the general election in July, he added.

Kem Kunnawadh, director general of TVK, said that Techo-DTV is the country's first satellite television network service that can provide Direct-to-Home (DTH) television programs to every household in the kingdom.

The viewers will enjoy watching all local Khmer channels and some foreign channels, he said, adding that people can also subscribe to pay TV service in the near future.

Dumrong Kasemset, Chief of Executive for the Shin Satellite Company, said that the main benefit of Techo-DTV service includes digital quality of picture and sound similar to that of DVD and convenience to install at every location of houses and buildings.

The DTV service sells 75 U.S. dollars with satellite dish and antenna.

Urban Cambodian people can now access cable TV networks, while about 20 percent of the 14 million population in remote places can't access TV service. Satellite TV will be their solution if they can afford it.
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Rare Water Birds Recovering in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The populations of seven species of rare water birds have recovered significantly in Cambodia's Tonle Sap lake due to a program that employs former hunters as park rangers, conservationists said Thursday.

A report by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society found the populations have increased by as much as 20 times for some of the species since 2001, when the program started.
The findings mark a "success story" in efforts to protect the bird colonies from poachers, said Noeu Bonheur, the Cambodian Environment Ministry's deputy director of the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve.

"It is definitely exciting news that we should be proud of," he said.

His office and the WCS have worked together for several years on a conservation project at Prek Toal, a flooded region on the northwestern edge of the Tonle Sap.

The lake is Southeast Asia's largest freshwater reservoir, which can expand to 12,000 square kilometers (4,630 square miles) at the peak of the rainy season and recede to about 3,000 square kilometers (1,160 square miles) in the dry season. It is rich in biodiversity and provides a breeding ground for many species of birds and fish.

The WCS report, released earlier this week, said the Prek Toal bird colonies hold the largest — and in some cases the only — breeding populations in Southeast Asia of the seven globally threatened large water bird species.

The species are the spot-billed pelican, milky stork, painted stork, lesser adjutant, greater adjutant, black-headed ibis and the Oriental darter. There were over 20,000 birds in 2007, compared to 5,000 in 2001, the report said.

All seven species are listed as "threatened or near-threatened" by the World Conservation Union, Tom Clements, a WCS technical adviser in Cambodia, said in an e-mail Thursday.

"Prek Toal is the most important large water bird breeding colony in Southeast Asia. In some cases, Prek Toal supports up to 30 percent of the global population," Clements said.

When the colonies there were discovered in the late 1990s, they were threatened with extinction as a result of villagers' rampant harvesting of eggs and chicks, the report said.

But during the past seven years, a colony protection and monitoring program has resulted in a gradual decline in poaching incidents, allowing the birds to stage "remarkable comebacks," it said.

The program employs some 30 park rangers, many of whom are former poachers, who work in shifts around the clock to monitor the bird populations.

"The approach was extremely effective," Clements said.

He said some of the hunters who were not employed did try to collect the birds' eggs and chicks in the early years of the project, "but since 2004 this threat has effectively ceased."

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Australia Funds Cambodian Tribunal

By Sopheng Cheang

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Australia pledged $458,000 Thursday for Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal, whose operations have been threatened by a shortage of funds as it prepares for trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders.

Bob McMullan, the Australian parliamentary secretary for international development assistance, announced the pledge during a meeting with Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An.

He said his government made the decision to help pay Cambodia's share of the expenses because "we want to make sure that the resources are available so that this important step in justice is capable of being properly undertaken."

The money is "available now," McMullan said.

Helen Jarvis, the tribunal's chief spokeswoman, said the contribution "takes the pressure off."

The Khmer Rouge is accused of responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians during its 1975-1979 rule. So far, none of the regime's senior leaders has faced trial.

The U.N.-assisted tribunal opened its offices in early 2006 after years of wrangling between the Cambodian government and the world body. Trials — conducted jointly by international and Cambodian jurists — were originally projected to end by 2009, but are now expected to run through March 2011.

To extend its operation, the tribunal is seeking an additional $114 million. It told donor countries in January it would need $170 million, a sharp increase from the originally budgeted $56 million.

The United Nations was supposed to provide $43 million for its share of the original budget, and Cambodia $13.3 million.

Jarvis said the funds that Cambodia has available are $4.9 million short of its original share. The Cambodian side now has enough money to keep operating until the end of May, rather than April as previously projected, she said.

The pledge announced by McMullan is Australia's first direct contribution to the Cambodian side, which is "very encouraging," Jarvis said.

Australia previously gave about $2.3 million for the U.N.'s share of the budget.
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Exploitation concerns prompt Cambodia to halt processing foreign marriages

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia has stopped processing documents for the marriage of its citizens to foreigners in a move to minimize the possibility of human trafficking.

The suspension follows a recent surge in the number of Cambodian women marrying South Korean men.

Deputy Minister of Women's Affairs You Ay says that as of last Saturday, approval for all paperwork needed for marrying foreigners has been put on hold.

She did not say how long the suspension will last, but that it was introduced so that government agencies handling foreign marriage requests "can work to strengthen their procedures."

The South Korean connection made headlines last month after a report by the Geneva-based International Organization of Migration said some 2,500 Cambodian women had married South Korean men over the previous four years.

Most of the marriages occurred through the services of underground matchmaking businesses.

The report said each man would pay up to $20,000 to marry a Cambodia woman, but that a bride's family would collect only about $1,000, while the rest of the money would go to brokers.

You said the government did not want to deny Cambodians the right to marry foreigners.

"But we have also seen the negative aspects out of such marriages," she said, adding that the suspension affects all foreigners, not just South Koreans.

She was not able to say how many Cambodian nationals had married foreigners.

Although the marriages appeared to be legal, the government has expressed concerns that brokered marriages could become a cover for human trafficking, in which women are tricked or forced into marriage.

Last month, it shut down two South Korean companies for engaging in the matchmaking business. Interior Minister Sar Kheng denounced the firms' activities as "human trafficking."

"You're bound to have this type of problem when it's a business-oriented, profit-making type of environment," said John McGeoghan, a project co-ordinator in Cambodia for the Geneva-based IOM.

He said the suspension "probably is going to upset a lot of people" but is "a good preventive measure" especially "if you want to protect these girls and have more potential for a better marriage."
Read more!

At Trial, Cambodian-American Coup Plotter Portrayed as Reckless

By Josh Gerstein

LOS ANGELES — A Cambodian-American tax preparer and self-described freedom fighter, Yasith Chhun, recklessly endangered the lives of civilians and his own followers when he launched a coup attempt in his homeland in 2000, a prosecutor told jurors during opening arguments yesterday at Mr. Chhun's trial in federal court here.

Mr. Chhun's defense replied that he was engaged in a noble, if naïve, attempt to free his countrymen from a despotic regime and that he had no desire to see anyone killed in the process.

"This accountant from the city of Long Beach decided he was going to take over a country," the prosecutor, Lamar Baker, said. "And he was willing to take lives in order to do so."

Mr. Chhun's attorney, Richard Callahan Jr., said the group, which called itself the Cambodian Freedom Fighters, had the laudable goal of removing what he called the "tyrannical regime" of Prime Minister Hun Sen.

"They attempted what they believed was a gallant effort to save Cambodia from the regime of Prime Minister Hun Sen," Mr. Callahan said. "These men put their lives on the line for the cause. ... The effort was misguided and naïve in its execution to be sure, but it was not misguided in its intent."

Mr. Callahan told jurors about the "killing fields" in which an estimated 1.7 million people died in the 1970s during the murderous regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. "Hun Sen had been a brigade commander under Pol Pot and unfortunately many of the same abuses continued under his reign," the defense attorney said. Mr. Callahan noted that in 1998, as the plans for the coup were being crafted, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for Mr. Hun Sen to be indicted under international law for a variety of human rights abuses, including attacks on political rallies and the killing of Cambodian opposition figures.

The defense lawyer said Mr. Chhun's contacts with American political leaders in Washington led him to believe America would back the putsch. "His CFF members also believed the U.S. would be there," Mr. Callahan said.

At the outset of his 35-minute argument, Mr. Baker showed jurors a photograph of a bloodied man sprawled on a sidewalk clutching what appeared to be a weapon. The prosecutor said the man was a private security guard at a gas station who was fired on with an AK-47 during the coup attempt and later had a grenade tossed at him by a member of Mr. Chhun's group.

Mr. Chhun, 52, faces charges of conspiracy to kill overseas, conspiracy to damage or destroy property in a foreign country, and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction outside America. He also is charged with violating the Neutrality Act, a law that dates to 1797 and bars private military expeditions against countries with which America is at peace. Each of the conspiracy counts carries a possible life sentence. Violation of the Neutrality Act carries a possible sentence of 25 years in prison.

In court filings, the prosecution argued that federal law prohibits privately launched military efforts in most circumstances because of the deleterious effects such missions can have on America's relations with other governments. However, Mr. Baker did not make such an argument to jurors yesterday, leaving it to them to speculate about the possible impact of Mr. Chhun's amateur war-making on America.

Mr. Baker did stress that much of the planning for the attack was done on American soil. "It was, as sometimes the labels or the commercials say, 'Made in the U.S.A.,'" he said.

During his 15-minute opening, Mr. Callahan disagreed. "There was actually very little connection to the United States," he told jurors.

Mr. Baker glossed over the manner in which Mr. Hun Sen "came to power." However, the prosecutor acknowledged, albeit briefly, that Cambodia suffers from poverty, corruption, and human rights violations.

"The defendant and his Cambodian Freedom Fighters thought they could solve all of Cambodia's problems if they could just take over the country," Mr. Baker said. The prosecutor also suggested twice that Mr. Chhun was a coward because he stayed behind when the attempted takeover was carried out. "The defendant's encouragement stopped at the Cambodia border. When it was time for Operation Volcano, he remained in Thailand," Mr. Baker said.

Mr. Callahan said military advisers told Mr. Chhun that he could jeopardize the security of the operation by going along.

Press reports from the scene in Phnom Penh said about six people were killed when the coup attempt was easily put down by Cambodian government forces on the morning of November 24, 2000. However, Mr. Baker told jurors yesterday that only three men died and that all of them were insurgents.

The prosecution's opening contained a contradiction of sorts. While the prosecution is contending that any attempt by an American to overthrow Cambodia's government by force is unlawful, Mr. Baker at times seemed to fault Mr. Chhun for failing to use enough force.

Ultimately, Mr. Chhun's guilt or innocence could hinge not on the coup attempt itself but on the smaller-scale "popcorn" attacks that the insurgent group allegedly carried out in the months leading up to the coup attempt. Mr. Baker said Mr. Chhun was willing to cause "injuries and death to others" in order to get publicity for the group.

While jurors may be reluctant to convict Mr. Chhun for leading an assault on the Cambodian government, they may be less willing to forgive the smaller attacks, which prosecutors said involved throwing grenades into coffee shops and karaoke bars where mostly civilians would be present.

The prosecution's first witness was an FBI agent who suggested that Mr. Chhun, who worked out of a small office in a strip mall, suffered from delusions of grandeur. "He said he would become the interim president of Cambodia until new elections could be held," the agent, Donald Shannon Jr., said. Mr. Shannon said Mr. Chhun made the statement in an interview several months after the November 2000 coup attempt.

While Mr. Chhun's openness at that time would seem to suggest he thought he had done nothing illegal, Mr. Shannon said the accountant sometimes switched words to make the attack sound less violent. The agent said Mr. Chhun talked of "attacks" on government officials in Cambodia, but would then say, "I mean 'arrest.'" Read more!

Accused Cambodia coup leader on trial in L.A.

Is United State going to put a Cambodian hero in Jail just to please the Mafia government of Cambodia? The world knew America love justice, but love to use or abuse justice?

By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES, April 2 (Reuters) - The head of a California-based Cambodia resistance movement went on trial on Wednesday accused of orchestrating a coup attempt in 2000 against Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's government.

Prosecutors said Yasith Chhun, 52, an accountant from Long Beach, held meetings with former Khmer Rouge members in Thailand, organized fundraisers aboard the Queen Mary in Southern California and planned the "Operation Volcano" plot in November 2000 that ended in three deaths and an unknown number of injuries.

Chhun's lawyer, Richard Callahan, told a Los Angeles jury the only goal of the self-styled president of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters was "to bring democracy to his homeland."

Callahan portrayed Chhun and his followers as naive but "desperately concerned about the people of Cambodia and their future."

"You need to see what he saw and feel what he felt," Callahan told the federal court jury.

Chhun has pleaded not guilty to four charges of conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, conspiracy to destroy property in a foreign country, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States, and engaging in a military expedition against a country with which the United States is at peace.

He faces life imprisonment without parole if convicted.

Chhun was arrested at his Long Beach home in June 2005 after returning in the wake of the failed coup. U.S. prosecutors say he orchestrated the 2000 assault on Cambodian government buildings from a safe base in Thailand.

According to Cambodian media reports at the time, a heavily armed group attacked a police station and several government buildings in Phnom Penh in the predawn hours of Nov. 24, leaving at least four dead and more than a dozen wounded.

The Cambodian Freedom Fighters claimed responsibility for the shootout and dozens of suspected members were arrested in Cambodia. Three are already serving life sentences in Cambodian prisons and will give taped testimony at the trial, prosecutors said.

Chhun's trial has been delayed repeatedly because of changes in his defense team.

Hun Sen, an ex-Khmer Rouge fighter who defected to Vietnam in the late 1970s, has been in charge of Cambodia for more than 20 years. (Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Read more!

Golf course planned at former Khmer Rouge stronghold

In a move that might make the late Cambodian despot Pol Pot spin in his grave - if he had one - former Khmer Rouge cadres in their stronghold of Pailin have embraced a plan to cash in on the country's tourism boom and build a golf course.

Not that they know much about the game. If football is the beautiful game, to the ultra-Maoist former guerrillas, golf is the mysterious one.

Last week, golf fanatic Prime Minister Hun Sen visited the remote area, more than 100 km of rugged dirt road from the nearest city of Battambang, and proposed a golf course for the municipality.

Pailin is perched on the nation's northwestern border with Thailand and is just four hours by road from Bangkok, but up to 10 hours from the Cambodian capital.

Hun Sen is possibly the only country leader in the world to list his golf scores on his website.

Cambodia is so serious about developing golf as an industry that it has appointed a special representative to the Council of Ministers.

Once rich in gems and timber, these resources were all but stripped bare by the Khmer Rouge as they tried to keep the remnants of the rebel movement alive by selling them off before the rebels finally conceded to join Hun Sen's government in 1996.

Even journalists don't bother to go there anymore since four of its most infamous residents - former Khmer Rouge leaders Ieng Sary, his wife Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea - were arrested on orders from the court set up to try them. They are now languishing in a Phnom Penh jail.

Pailin's biggest draw is currently its mainly Thai-owned casinos, which operators say draw up to 10,000 Thais per month. But they lie within a quick sprint of the border and more than 12 km from Pailin town, so most gamblers drop their money there and go no further.

Nor does Pailin have the attractions of other former Khmer Rouge border strongholds such as Anlong Veng, which at least boasts the makeshift cremation site of the movement's leader Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge military commander Ta Mok's home, complete with war room.

So the former hardline communists, who drove the country to destruction in their 1975-79 failed bid to turn the nation into an agrarian utopia bereft of social classes, which left up to 2 million dead, have joyfully embraced a new ideology - golf.

'We don't understand this game and at the moment it is just a speech by the prime minister, but it would be great for Pailin,' says local Information Chief Kong Duong, once a Khmer Rouge propaganda chief.

He says he has never seen a golf ball, except on television.

'We don't know where we will put (the course), or how big it should be, but the idea is good.'

Pailin Tourism Chief So Korng is candid. He freely admits that to him, an iron is for pressing clothes, a wood is something you cut down to make furniture, and Tiger Woods is a place you never go alone or unarmed.

But he agrees that the concept of this strange foreign game (so foreign that Cambodians don't have a word for it and use the English word instead) is attractive.

'People will have more jobs, and many people inside Cambodia and from overseas will come to visit Pailin and also see our natural attractions like our waterfall, gem shops, mountains and our agricultural programmes,' he said.

Revenue from the golf course may even pay for a road to the municipality's remote afore-mentioned waterfall, which currently offers little more than precarious four-wheel drive access.

A former soldier who fought the Khmer Rouge in the early 1990's says the now-tamed rebels should also make good caddies.

'I've seen them climb mountains with two B-40 rockets strapped to their backs, so golf clubs should be no problem,' he says. That would be a whole new revolution for a movement better known for its infamous black pajama uniform than plaid and plus fours.

But not everyone is convinced. A spokesman for local non-government organization Buddhism for Development says golf is for the rich, and he doubts there will be much trickle down for the impoverished former Khmer Rouge farmers in the area.

'The former Khmer Rouge are poor. They are too busy farming to have time to play golf,' he said.

And then there is the image problem. In a 2006 interview, a senior Pailin tourism official laughingly admitted that the very concept of tourism remained somewhat alien.

'Before, our orders were to kill them, but now we invite them to visit and please spend money,' he said.
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Monument inaugurated in Cambodia to commemorate Chinese peace-keeping soldiers

Were those two Chinese solder heroes defending Cambodia? or were thousands of Cambodian soldiers being heroes who had fought for the country? Thousand Cambodian soldiers who had served the country loosing their lives during Communist Yuon invasion, the government officials had never talked about. Thank you dog Hun Xen

KAMPONG CHAM, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy and the Cambodian Ministry of National Defense here on Wednesday unveiled a monument for two Chinese peace-keeping soldiers who were killed in a rocket attack 15 years ago in this eastern province.

"The monument now stands at the place where the two Chinese soldiers, Chen Zhiguo and Yu Shili, maintained peace for the country, to tell about our commemoration and the praise of the Cambodian government and people," said Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jinfeng at the ceremony.

The six-meter-tall monument bears pictures of the Chinese flag, the logo of the United Nations, the blue helmet and pigeon.

According to the Chinese- and Cambodian-language introduction on the monument, Chen and Yu were killed by anonymous rocket attack at their campsite on May 21, 1993.

The two, together with some other 800 Chinese engineering soldiers, were then stationed in war-ravaged Cambodia to carry out peace-keeping missions under the arrangement of the United Nations.

From April 1992 to September 1993, this team renovated over 500kilometers of roads, established 36 bridges, overhauled two airports and constructed hundreds of camp houses.
Read more!

Thailand's fast track economy

Thailand Has the Second Largest Economy in Southeast Asia and is One of the World’s Leading Food Exporting Countries

DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com /reports/c87139) has announced the addition of “Thailand: Food 4Q 2007” to their offering.

Thailand is the world’s number one producer of natural rubber, rice, canned and frozen seafood, canned tuna, canned pineapples and cassava, and the number two producer of sugar.

“Thailand: Food” provides an overview of Thailand’s food industry, looking at sector size and value, the agricultural, livestock and aquaculture sectors in Thailand. It also covers the market trends and outlook, current issues, the Japan-Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement, the Kitchen of the World Project, HACCP, import and export tariffs, rules and regulations, supporting organizations and economic growth.

In addition it provides a comparative matrix and SWOT of the industry leading players: Charoen Pokphand Foods PCL (CPF) and Thai Union Frozen Product PCL (TUF).

Contents:

1. Industry Profile
1.1 Thailand Overview
1.2 Sector Size and Value
1.2.1 Agricultural Sector
1.2.2 Livestock Sector
1.2.3 Aquaculture Sector

2. Market Trends and Outlook
2.1 Current Issue
2.1.1 Japan Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement (JTEPA)
2.1.2 Kitchen of the World Project
2.1.3 Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)
2.1.4 Import and Export Tariff
2.1.4.1 Thailand
2.1.4.2 USA
2.1.4.3 European Union
2.1.5 Import and Export Rules and Regulations
2.1.5.1 USA
2.1.5.2 Japan
2.1.5.3 European Union
2.1.6 Support Organization
2.1.6.1 Thai Frozen Food Association (TFFA)
2.1.6.2 National Food Institute of Thailand (NFI)
2. Market Trends and Outlook
2.2 Market Outlook
2.2.1 Economy Growth
2.2.2 Tourism sector
2.2.3 Population
2.2.4 Exchange Rate

3. Leading Players and Comparative Matrix
3.1 Leading Players
3.1.1 Charoen Pokphand Foods PCL (CPF)
3.1.2 Thai Union Frozen Product PCL (TUF)
3.2 SWOT Analysis
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com /reports/c87139


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Laos highway opening completes all-weather Southeast Asia to China land route

BANGKOK, Thailand: The landlocked country of Laos inaugurated a new highway that will allow a north-south land route connecting Southeast Asia and China to operate year-round, the Asian Development Bank said.

The opening of Route 3 Monday fills in the last stretch of road for what is supposed to be an all-weather route that at its full length connects Singapore to Beijing, the bank said in a news release.

The inauguration of the highway, which links China's Yunnan province with northern Thailand via Laos, was attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Laotian Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh, Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda.

The leaders of the six countries sharing the Mekong River — Laos, China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand — were in Laos on Monday for a summit meeting of the Greater Mekong Subregion bloc.

At the end of the two-day meeting they agreed on "a comprehensive five-year Plan of Action that aims to spur growth, reduce poverty, promote social development and enhance environmental protection in the subregion," the Asian Development Bank said.

Measures included a rail link joining Singapore and the southern Chinese city of Kunming.

The bank, a multilateral institution that finances development projects in Asia, said the completion of Route 3 "will create more business opportunities and provide people with easier access to social services."

"Before construction commenced on the new route, the highway was closed four months each year during the rainy season, limiting communities' access to basic social services, and impeding trade and employment opportunities in the region," it said.

Tourism in Thailand, Laos and China will also be boosted, it added.

The bank, as well as the Thai and Chinese governments, each contributed US$30 million (€18.9 million ) for the project, while Laos — one of the region's poorest countries — gave US$7 million (€4.4 million), it said.

The project to modernize the road network from the Thai capital Bangkok to Kunming was under development for more than a decade, the bank said. Read more!

Australia to Co-Sponsor Regional Interfaith Dialogue

Bob Mcmullan Mp Parliamentary Secretary For International Development Assistance Member For Fraser, I will visit Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from 1 to 4 April, to attend the 'Phnom Penh Dialogue 2008 on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace and Harmony.'

Australia, together with Indonesia, New Zealand and the Philippines, is co-sponsoring the Phnom Penh Interfaith Dialogue. With our co-sponsors, we are committed to fostering mutual respect, understanding and tolerance among different religions and cultures across our region.

The Dialogue will involve faith and community leaders and interfaith experts from each ASEAN country, Australia, East Timor, Fiji, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

The Australian delegation comprises individuals from major faiths and religions, community workers and academics, all of whom are active in promoting interfaith values within their broader communities.

While in Phnom Penh I will meet with senior officials from the Royal Government of Cambodia and representatives from major aid donors. I will also take the opportunity to check on the progress of a number of Australian aid activities including work to support landmine victims and activities aimed at improving the incomes of the poor. I will also visit the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

For further information, please contact:
Sabina Curatolo (Mr McMullan's Office) Tel: +61 0400 318 205 AusAID Public Affairs Tel: +61 0417 680 590
Read more!

Cambodia, Qatar sign MOU of direct flight

PHNOM PENH, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia and Qatar set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of direct flight Tuesday afternoon, a Cambodian senior official said here Tuesday.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong made the remarks after Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani, Qatar Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, arrived at the Phnom Penh International Airport to pay an official visit in the kingdom.

The Qatar Premier's two-day visit is to strengthen the diplomatic relations between the two countries and to bring investments from the gulf-region countries to Cambodia, Hor Nam Hong said.

"We expand the direct flight service with Qatar to attract tourists and investors to our country," Moa Havannal, Secretary ofState for the Secretariat of Cambodian Civil Aviation, told Xinhua.

After signing the MOU, it will have a direct flight from Qatar to the Phnom Penh International Airport for first step, he said, adding that later the flights will be expanded to other airports.

The Qatar Premier will hold a talk with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and he will also meet with Cambodian King NorodomSihamoni, a press release from the Cambodian Foreign Ministry said.

Read more!

Interpreter of nightmares

Cambodian genocide survivor Dith Pran helped world grasp the incomprehensible.

Photographer and interpreter Dith Pran, who died Sunday of cancer, recently stressed his commonality with all humans: "I want to save lives, including my own, but Cambodians believe we just rent this body," he told The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. "It is just a house for the spirit and if the house is full of termites, it is time to leave."

His death, though, is an uncommon loss. Just being alive, Dith represented a victory over encompassing evil. What he did with that life — raising his voice persistently and eloquently to describe Cambodia's genocide — will continue to fuel efforts to recognize and prevent genocides elsewhere.

Dith, the son of a middle-class Cambodian family, spoke Cambodian, French and English. He began working as an interpreter for the New York Times in its Phnom Penh bureau in 1970. His work with reporter Syndey Schanberg would lead both to his near-death, and to his great contribution as an interpreter of Cambodia's catastrophe to the outside world.

Like so many local intepreters to the media, mostly unsung, Dith helped Schanberg navigate far more than foreign words. He was a cultural interpreter, saving Schanberg's life by hours of pleading with Cambodian soldiers who had sequestered him after the Khmer Rouge took power.

Soon after, Dith fell into Khmer Rouge hands and, like millions of his countrymen, was forced into rural slavery. Those who showed any sign of expertise or intellect were executed. Dith pretended to be a peasant, existing sometimes on bugs or blood siphoned from an ox.

His survival was miraculous: In four years the Khmer Rouge destroyed 1.7 million Cambodians in a country of only 7 million.

Dith escaped in 1979, reuniting with Schanberg in a refugee camp in Thailand. The remainder of his life was spent documenting and protesting what had happened in Cambodia's inferno. He coined the phrase "killing fields" to describe Khmer Rouge dumping sites of thousands upon thousands of corpses and bones.

His story, documented by Schanberg, inspired the film of the same name. When the Cambodian actor who portrayed Dith won an Oscar, the world learned more about Cambodia's slaughter, and a recently crushed culture gained two heroes.

Dith later launched a foundation and became a New York Times photographer. Until he died, he used all his skills — as a journalist, interpreter, celebrity and survivor — to tell their stories.

It is unfair Dith Pran couldn't live to see Cambodia's impending tribunal of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders. But few individuals have spoken so powerfully, in so many idioms, as Dith did on behalf of so many.

Read more!

Struggling Asians go unnoticed

Poor grades lumped in with standout students

If her native tongue was one commonly spoken in the U.S. instead of the less familiar Khmer, Thana Ouk might have more help at school.

She would have access to classes in her language and programs attuned to her cultural heritage. Her mother, who speaks no English, would be better able to communicate with teachers.

But Thana, a junior at Roosevelt High School, is Cambodian and can find few services tailored to her needs. Instead, she falls under the broad umbrella of "Asian" for public school funding and testing purposes.

Because many families of Asian heritage are well-educated and have comparative material advantages, and because students in the broad Asian category often perform as well as or better than white students on standardized tests, resources are scarce for Asians who are struggling in public schools.

But Thana is struggling with her schoolwork, especially reading. Her four older siblings never graduated from high school, and now the 17-year-old is fighting to avoid the same fate.

"I've been here, like, ever since I was born, but I'm not really fluent with language," said Thana, a slight girl with black hair and plastic frame glasses. "Sometimes I'll be reading a story or something in the book, and then I'll somehow get lost in the wording."

Some educators have begun to call disadvantaged Asians an invisible minority, unseen because their low test scores are masked when lumped with higher achieving counterparts.

These students, often from Southeast Asia, go unnoticed for other reasons too. Their numbers are small. There's a dearth of bilingual programs in their languages, counselors fluent in Asian languages and culture and advocates in general. Few schools can communicate with their parents who don't speak English.

At an Illinois State Board of Educationmeeting this year, several activists urged the state to report Asian achievement scores by specific ethnicity instead of lumping them together.

"Why not separate them so that everyone can use [the data] to help their own people?" asked Juanita Salvador-Burris, who argued at the meeting in Chicago. Many Southeast Asians, in particular, arrive as refugees from war-torn countries, and their children struggle with poverty and language—challenges not always shared by other Asian ethnicities.

"These kids need the same kind of supports that other groups . . . receive—extensive academic, remedial and socio-emotional support," said Sally Ewing, a former principal at Passages Charter School, which is run by Asian Human Services, a social services agency serving Chicago's pan-Asian community. "When you talk about funding grants . . . we have to be much more powerful in our case because there is this myth that Asians are doing very well."

A 2002 U.S. Department of Education study—one of the rare national reports examining Asians by ethnicity—found that Southeast Asians, including Cambodians, Laotians and Hmong have reading and math scores comparable with Latino and African-American students.

California, home to about one-third of the country's Asian population, is one of the few states where the public school system separates Asian students' test scores by ethnicity. For all 8th grade Asians, 64 percent are passing in English, a rate higher than whites across the state. Cambodians and Laotians, however, are passing at a 30 percent rate.

"We have students, sometimes ages 15 to 16, who come from refugee camps [and] have never held a pencil or opened a book," said Richard Norman, principal at Senn High School on Chicago's North Side. "They struggle just like any of the other minorities in the school."

But some argue that because of what they call the "model minority myth"—a belief that all Asians excel in academics—those who struggle do not receive the same attention as African-American or Hispanic students.

"There are also a lot of outside organizations that work to help improve [African-American and Hispanic] scores," said Alvin Yu, a director at the Chinese Mutual Aid Association in Chicago. "There are fewer working toward those ends for Asians, partially because of this perception."

Southeast Asian populations in many school districts are relatively small. Asians make up only 3 percent of the student population in Chicago Public Schools.

"There's a bigger challenge when it's a very small group and not as well-established a community from which to draw either teachers or assistants," said Ross Wiener, policy director at the Education Trust, a reform think tank in Washington, D.C.

Of the nearly 30,000 Southeast Asians in the six-county area, most are concentrated in Chicago, primarily the North Side neighborhoods of Albany Park and Uptown.

In Ouk's case, her mother, Tha, came from a family of farmers in Cambodia and had no education. During the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979, much of the educated class was exterminated. Tha Ouk fled with her family in 1978 and spent the next seven years in refugee camps before securing visas to the U.S.

Now she lives in a small Albany Park apartment with four of her grandchildren and Thana, subsisting on a mix of public assistance and what help her older children can provide. At home, Thana speaks in Khmer, though she mixes in some English with her nieces and nephews, who are half-Cambodian and half-Puerto Rican.

After school, Thana spends most days at the Cambodian Association of Illinois, a newly renovated community center on the North Side. There, she attends workshops, teaches traditional Cambodian dance and receives tutoring. She says she feels uncomfortable getting help elsewhere.

"When you ask [a] question, [teachers] look at you like, 'What? You're asking me the question? Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?' " she said with a plaintive smile. "I was like, 'No. . . . I'm the same as everybody else. I don't see why you're looking at me that way.' "
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Cooperation in Mekong region yields success

Is Cambodia in the fast track of better or disaster? well Cambodia today is in the fast track of disaster. The Hun xen government did nothing to improve the lives of million Cambodians. The government officials are richer and fater from robbing land from the poors and cutting trees and stealing all kind of natural resources.

By Zhai Kun (China Daily)

Premier Wen Jiabao is in Laos attending the third Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) summit which ends today.

Since the GMS was launched by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 1992, the five countries in the region, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, have all been put on the fast track of growth.

In this process, China has played an active role in enhancing economic regional cooperation. Besides, it has also integrated the cooperation with its domestic strategy of developing Southwest China, which lies in the upper reaches of the Mekong River, called the Lancang River. Thus, a balanced economic development is being nurtured in the greater Mekong area.

The regional cooperation is playing a vital role in promoting comprehensive development of the subregion.

The Mekong River flows through six nations, including China. Its basin covers 2.56 million sq km with a population of 320 million. With vast forests and rich underground resources, the basin boasts one of the best biological reserves in Asia.

The ADB launched the GMS in 1992, aimed at poverty eradication, and all Mekong nations have since been involved in the common initiative of economic development. It was under such a backdrop that the concept of "Greater Mekong Subregion" took shape.

Following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) took the lead in promoting regional cooperation, to which China actively responded by stepping up its cooperation with the Mekong River nations.

Countries in the Mekong subregion today have achieved political peace, social stability, and economic gains.

Regional cooperation within the GMS framework has seen advances in transportation, telecommunications, trade, tourism, and agriculture.

Take transportation as an example. After the Trans-Asian Railway was completed, the key cities in the region, Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Yangon, Phnom Penh, and Vientiane, all started direct flights to their capitals as well as construction of their ports. A transportation network linking water, land and air will play an increasingly important role in the region, and Asia as a whole.

Two criss-crossing corridors have just been completed in the region. The "north-south corridor" - a 2,000-km highway linking Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, and the Thai capital city of Bangkok via Laos, and the "east-west corridor" - a 1,500-km highway stretching from Vietnam's Da Nang through Laos and Thailand to Myanmar, will serve as vital transportation arteries in the region.

The countries in the Mekong River basin have deepened their opening up to each other, nurtured closer ties with the rest of Asia, and the world. Their efforts in recent years are paying off. The per capita annul income was $1,100 in 2006 compared to $630 in 1992.

The development momentum of the region has also attracted the attention of other countries.

The relationship between the United States and the Mekong River nations has improved, especially that between the US and Vietnam. Nguyen Minh Triet, the Vietnamese President, visited the US last year, the first visit by a Vietnamese state head to the US in the 32 years following the end of the Vietnam War.

Japan has also been paying more attention to its diplomatic ties with the Mekong River countries. The current Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has designated this year as one of exchange between Japan and nations of the Mekong region. Japan hosted a ministerial meeting in Tokyo with the foreign ministers of the five Mekong region countries in January.

More multinational companies headquartered in the US or Japan are looking to invest in the Mekong region.

It is viewed as the gateway to the east by India. And the link between the Mekong River and the Ganges River is seen as a "natural pivot to advance eastward".

In September last year, Australia published a strategic report on promoting cooperation and integration in the Greater Mekong Subregion, calling the region essential to Australia's interests. The report suggested the Australian government donate A$50 million each year for the next 10 years to countries in the Mekong region.

Many international and non-government organizations have also placed the Mekong subregion higher on their agendas.

It is clear the Mekong subregion is seeing an integration of multiple interests. It would help if more countries reach an understanding about their own roles in aiding the region.

There are several areas in which these countries can help.

The first is biological protection, tapping and protecting water resources. Second, disease prevention, like bird flu, AIDS and encephalitis B.

Other areas include cooperation in fighting terrorism, easing the shortage of manpower, and bridging development disparity in the five countries.

China has developed sound relations with countries of the subregion, an example of China's policy of promoting harmony with its neighbors.

On Friday, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Finance released a report through the People's Daily. In the report, the ministerial departments gave a detailed statement about China's economic and trade ties with the Mekong River countries, its role in promoting regional cooperation, and its plans for participating in regional cooperation in the near future.

The author is director for Southeast Asian and Oceanic Studies, China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

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Cambodia: Infamous Grenade Attack Still Unpunished

FBI Should Revive Probe of Alleged Perpetrators Promoted by Hun Sen

(New York, March 30, 2008) – The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should reopen its long-stalled investigation into the grisly grenade attack on an opposition party rally in Phnom Penh 11 years ago that left at least 16 dead and more than 150 injured, Human Rights Watch said today. The FBI investigation, which made significant progress in 1997, has been effectively abandoned.

On March 30, 1997, a crowd of approximately 200 supporters of the opposition Khmer Nation Party (KNP), led by former Finance Minister Sam Rainsy, gathered in a park across the street from the National Assembly to denounce the judiciary’s corruption and lack of independence. In a well-planned attack, four grenades were thrown into the crowd, killing protesters and bystanders, including children, and tearing limbs off street vendors. The grenade attack made headlines and provoked outrage around the world. On June 29, 1997, the Washington Post wrote:

“In a classified report that could pose some awkward problems for U.S. policymakers, the FBI tentatively has pinned responsibility for the blasts, and the subsequent interference, on personal bodyguard forces employed by Hun Sen, one of Cambodia’s two prime ministers, according to four U.S. government sources familiar with its contents. The preliminary report was based on a two-month investigation by FBI agents sent here under a federal law giving the bureau jurisdiction whenever a U.S. citizen is injured by terrorism. ... The bureau says its investigation is continuing, but the agents involved reportedly have complained that additional informants here are too frightened to come forward.”

“The FBI was close to solving the case when its lead investigator was suddenly ordered out of the country by the US ambassador, Kenneth Quinn,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The FBI has damning evidence in its files that suggests that Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered the attack, but it has refused to fully cooperate with congressional inquiries or follow through on its initial investigation. Instead of trying to protect US relations with Cambodia, it should now finish what it started.”

The FBI investigated the attack because Ron Abney, a US citizen, was seriously injured in the blast, which the United States at the time deemed to be an “act of terrorism.” Abney had to be evacuated to Singapore to treat shrapnel wounds in his hip.

Instead of launching a serious investigation, then co-Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that the demonstration’s organizers should be arrested and instructed police not to allow them to leave the country. (To read an Agence France-Presse account published at the time, please visit: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/03/28/cambod13086.htm).

On the day of the attack, Hun Sen’s personal bodyguard unit, Brigade-70 (B-70), was, for the first time, deployed at a demonstration. Photographs show them in full riot gear. The police, which had in the past maintained a high-profile presence at opposition demonstrations to discourage public participation, had an unusually low profile on that day. Officers were grouped around the corner from the park, having been ordered to stay away from the park itself. Also for the first time, the KNP had received official permission from both the Ministry of the Interior and the Phnom Penh municipality to hold a demonstration, fuelling speculation that the demonstration was authorized so it could be attacked.

Numerous eyewitnesses reported that the persons who had thrown the grenades were seen running toward Hun Sen’s bodyguards, who were deployed in a line at the west end of the park near the guarded residential compound containing the homes of many senior Cambodia People’s Party leaders. Witnesses told United Nations and FBI investigators that the bodyguard line opened to allow the grenade-throwers to escape into the compound. Meanwhile, people in the crowd pursuing the grenade-throwers were stopped by the bodyguards at gunpoint and told they would be shot if they did not retreat.

“This brazen attack, carried out in broad daylight, ingrained impunity more than any other single act in recent Cambodian history,” said Adams. “But that appears to have been one of its purposes – to send the message that opposition supporters can be murdered without ever facing justice.”

In a June 1997 interview with the Phnom Penh Post, Hing Bun Heang, deputy commander of Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit and operationally in charge of the bodyguards at the park on March 30, 1997, threatened to kill journalists who alleged that Hun Sen’s bodyguards were involved. Hing Bun Heang has since been promoted as deputy director of Hun Sen’s cabinet and, in September 2006, appointed as supreme consultant to Cambodia’s Senior Monk Assembly and assistant to Supreme Patriachs Tep Vong and Bou Kry.

The bodyguard unit B-70 remains notorious in Cambodia for violence, corruption, and the impunity it enjoys as the de facto private army of Hun Sen. According to a 2007 report by the nongovernmental organization Global Witness, “The elite Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Brigade 70 unit makes between US$2 million and US$2.5 million per year through transporting illegally logged timber and smuggled goods. A large slice of the profits generated through these activities goes to Lieutenant General Hing Bun Heang, commander of the prime minister’s Bodyguard Unit.”

In one notorious case in 2006, two soldiers from B-70 shot a Phnom Penh beer promotion girl in the foot for being too slow to bring them ice. They were arrested by military police, but released hours later by their commander. A representative of the commander said the victim would be paid $500 compensation by B-70, but no criminal investigation or prosecution ensued.

“Instead of investigating the senior officer in charge of the bodyguard unit implicated in the 1997 grenade attack and who threatened to kill journalists reporting on it, Hun Sen has promoted him,” said Adams. “Apparently, Hun Sen considers such a person qualified for a senior position in the country’s official Buddhist hierarchy.”

Given the serious and credible allegations of the involvement of the Cambodian military in the grenade attack, Human Rights Watch expressed concern that the United States has increased military assistance and training to the Cambodian military before it completed its investigation into the 1997 attack.

Human Rights Watch called on the US to ensure that it is not providing any assistance or training to current or former members of B-70 or other Cambodian special military units with records of human rights abuse. In an effort to solidify counterterrorism cooperation, the FBI in 2006 awarded a medal to the Cambodian Chief of National Police Hok Lundy for his support in the US “global war on terror.” Hok Lundy was chief of the national police at the time of the grenade attack and has long been linked to political violence.

“No credible explanation has ever been offered for the deployment or behavior of Hun Sen’s bodyguards on March 30, 1997,” said Adams. “Their actions may reach the highest levels of the Cambodian government, yet the FBI investigation has been dropped. The fact that the US is providing military assistance instead of investigating the grenade attack shows that it is effectively complicit with the Cambodian government in abandoning any hope for justice for the victims of this horrific attack.”

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Cambodia, Laos sign MOU of border crossing pass, transportation

PHNOM PENH, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia and Laos have signed a Memorandum of Understanding of border crossing pass and transportation while Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen paid a visitin Laos, Cambodian Commerce Minster Cham Prasidh said here on Monday.

The MOU was signed by Hor Namhong, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, with his Lao counterpart, Cham Prasidh told reporters at the Phnom Penh International Airport after returning from Laos.

This MOU is very important for people of both sides because it allows them to be able to cross the border between the two countries with a border crossing pass for a limited period of time and they could make business, Cham Prasidh said.

Another MOU of transportation, which allows a limited number of vehicles of both sides to cross border, was signed by Cambodian Minister of Public Works and Transportation Sun Chanthol and his Lao counterpart, he added.

He said that Cambodia and Laos will also strengthen bilateral ties and traditional and friendly cooperation for a long term.

Hun Sen left here on Friday for Laos to conduct an official visit there and attend the third Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Summit on March 30-31.

His delegation includes Hor Namhong, Cham Prasidh and other senior officials. Read more!

Vietnam to boost economic cooperation with Cambodia

Cooperation between Vietcong and Cambodia is too tasty that million Cambodians could not accepted so far, the cooperation is the tactic for Vietnam using to steal Oil and gas from Cambodia. Cambodian children will loose more natural resources to the Vietcong thieves.

VIENTIANE, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam and Cambodia have agreed to beef up their cooperation, especially in the fields of oil and gas, electricity, mining, cash crop cultivation, and construction material production.

During the meeting between Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen here Sunday, on the occasion of their attention to the 3rd Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Summit, they have agreed to accelerate Vietnamese-backed projects in Cambodia.

Trade between Vietnam and Cambodia should reach 2 billion U.S. dollars in 2010, said the two prime ministers.

The two sides have also agreed to finish their land border demarcation in 2012 as scheduled, and closely cooperate in dealing with some other issues, including those on using Mekong water resource.

Starting on Sunday, the two-day summit with the theme of "Enhancement of Competitiveness via Greater Connectivity" will focus its discussion on strengthening transport connectivity, boosting cooperation between public and private sectors, implementing sustainable environment management and enhancing cooperation for GMS developments. GMS members include Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and China. Read more!

'Killing Fields' survivor Dith Pran dies

By Richard Pyle

NEW YORK (AP) — Dith Pran, the Cambodian-born journalist whose harrowing tale of enslavement and eventual escape from that country's murderous Khmer Rouge revolutionaries in 1979 became the subject of the award-winning film "The Killing Fields," died today, his former colleague said.

Dith, 65, died at a New Jersey hospital this morning of pancreatic cancer, according to Sydney Schanberg, his former colleague at the New York Times. Dith had been diagnosed almost three months ago.

Dith was working as an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, when the Vietnam War reached its chaotic end in April 1975 and both countries were taken over by Communist forces.Schanberg helped Dith's family get out but was forced to leave his friend behind after the capital fell; they were not reunited until Dith escaped four and a half years later. Eventually, Dith resettled in the United States and went to work as a photographer for the Times.

It was Dith himself who coined the term "killing fields" for the horrifying clusters of corpses and skeletal remains of victims he encountered on his desperate journey to freedom.

"That was the phrase he used from the very first day, during our wondrous reunion in the refugee camp," Schanberg said later.

The regime of Pol Pot, bent on turning Cambodia back into a strictly agrarian society, and his Communist zealots were blamed for the deaths of nearly 2 million of Cambodia's 7 million people.

With thousands being executed simply for manifesting signs of intellect or Western influence — even wearing glasses or wristwatches — Dith survived by masquerading as an uneducated peasant, toiling in the fields and subsisting on as little as a mouthful of rice a day, and whatever small animals he could catch.

After Dith moved to the U.S., he became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and founded the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project, dedicated to educating people on the history of the Khmer Rouge regime.

He was "the most patriotic American photographer I've ever met, always talking about how he loves America," said AP photographer Paul Sakuma, who knew Dith through their work with the Asian American Journalists Association.

Schanberg described Dith's ordeal and salvation in a 1980 magazine article titled "The Death and Life of Dith Pran." Schanberg's reporting from Phnom Penh had earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

Later a book, the magazine article became the basis for "The Killing Fields," the highly successful 1984 British film starring Sam Waterston as the Times correspondent and Haing S. Ngor, another Cambodian escapee from the Khmer Rouge, as Dith Pran.

The film won three Oscars, including the best supporting actor award to Ngor. Ngor, a physician, was shot to death in 1996 during a robbery outside his Los Angeles home. Three Asian gang members were convicted of the crime.

"Pran was a true reporter, a fighter for the truth and for his people," Schanberg said. "When cancer struck, he fought for his life again. And he did it with the same Buddhist calm and courage and positive spirit that made my brother so special."

Dith spoke of his illness in a March interview with the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., saying he was determined to fight against the odds and urging others to get tested for cancer.

"I want to save lives, including my own, but Cambodians believe we just rent this body," he said. "It is just a house for the spirit, and if the house is full of termites, it is time to leave."

Dith Pran was born Sept. 27, 1942 at Siem Reap, site of the famed 12th century ruins of Angkor Wat. Educated in French and English, he worked as an interpreter for U.S. officials in Phnom Penh. As with many Asians, the family name, Dith, came first, but he was known by his given name, Pran.

After Cambodia's leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, broke off relations with the United States in 1965, Dith worked at other jobs. When Sihanouk was deposed in a 1970 coup and Cambodian troops went to war with the Khmer Rouge, Dith returned to Phom Penh and worked as an interpreter for Times reporters.

In 1972, he and Schanberg, then newly arrived, were the first journalists to discover the devastation of a U.S. bombing attack on Neak Leung, a vital river crossing on the highway linking Phnom Penh with eastern Cambodia.

Dith recalled in a 2003 article for the Times what it was like to watch U.S. planes attacking enemy targets.

"If you didn't think about the danger, it looked like a performance," he said. "It was beautiful, like fireworks. War is beautiful if you don't get killed. But because you know it's going to kill, it's no longer beautiful."

After Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia in 1979 and seized control of territory, Dith escaped from a commune near Siem Reap and trekked 40 miles, dodging both Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces, to reach a border refugee camp in Thailand.

From the Thai camp he sent a message to Schanberg, who rushed from the United States for an emotional reunion with the trusted friend he felt he had abandoned four years earlier.

"I had searched for four years for any scrap of information about Pran," Schanberg said. "I was losing hope. His emergence in October 1979 felt like an actual miracle for me. It restored my life."

After Dith moved to the U.S., the Times hired him and put him in the photo department as a trainee. The veteran staffers "took him under their wing and taught him how to survive on the streets of New York as a photographer, how to see things," said Times photographer Marilynn Yee.

Yee recalled an incident early in Dith's new career as a photojournalist when, after working the 4 p.m. to midnight shift, he was robbed at gunpoint of all his camera equipment at the back door of his apartment.

"He survived everything in Cambodia and he survived that too," she said, adding, "He never had to work the night shift again."

Dith spoke and wrote often about his wartime experience and remained an outspoken critic of the Khmer Rouge regime.

When Pol Pot died in 1998, Dith said he was saddened that the dictator was never held accountable for the genocide.

"The Jewish people's search for justice did not end with the death of Hitler and the Cambodian people's search for justice doesn't end with Pol Pot," he said.

Dith's survivors include his companion, Bette Parslow; his former wife, Meoun Ser Dith; a sister, Samproeuth Dith Nop; sons Titony, Titonath and Titonel; daughter Hemkarey Dith Tan; six grandchildren including a boy named Sydney; and two step-grandchildren.

Dith's three brothers were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Read more!

China reinforces commitment to boost Mekong co-op

China reaffirmed its commitment on Friday to continue to boost the economic cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), saying cooperation will benefit all nations in the region.

"China will further its cooperation with the other GMS members in fields such as transportation, energy, telecommunication, agriculture, environment, human resource development and tourism", said a country report issued by China prior to the third GMS summit.
China along with fellow member states Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar will attend the conference in Vientiane, Laos, on March 30 and 31.

"The other GMS countries are all friendly neighbors of China, and they and China have maintained a long tradition of friendship," said the report, which added China had always attached importance to enhancing and developing its friendly relations with other countries in the region.

GMS cooperation is project-oriented and provides financial and technological support according to the actual needs of member countries.

According to the report, a total of $9.87 billion, a shared contribution by China and the other five countries as well as the Asian Development Bank, has been poured into 34 projects, and another 146 technological aid projects also cost a total of $166 million.

Several model projects facilitated by China under the GMS economic cooperation framework were listed in the report, which included:

-- The Laos one-third section of the western line of the south-north economic corridor (Kunming-Laos-Bangkok Road)

-- Cooperation on the Pan-Asia Railway, and research into both the China and other sections.

-- The 110 KW power line connecting Hekou, Yunnan Province, and Lao Cai in Vietnam

-- The GMS Information Highway (GMS IS) phase I project

-- The first GMS Agriculture Ministers Meeting and the GMS Agriculture Information Network Service

-- The implementation of the Action Framework for the GMS Strategy of Facilitation of Trade and Investment, and its own country action plan

"China is planning to promote cooperation on agriculture, railways, and human resource training within the subregion at the third GMS summit," said He Yafei, Chinese assistant foreign minister, at a news briefing on Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's attendance at the summit.

According to He, the triennial meeting will have as its theme "Enhancing Competitiveness Through Greater Connectivity" and Premier Wen will deliver a keynote speech on China's views and proposals to further boost the GMS cooperation and its future development.

The GMS, established in 1992, promotes economic and social development, irrigation and cooperation within the six Mekong countries.

About 320 million people live within the GMS region, and their common link, the Mekong River, winds its way for 4,200 kilometers. The great majority of these people live in rural areas where they lead subsistence or semi-subsistence agricultural lifestyles.

The area boasts abundant natural resources and huge development potential. With a long history of cultural and economic exchanges among the nations, the area has formed peculiar cultural and economic characteristics based on different folk customs and natural landscapes of the six nations sharing the river.

The first GMS Summit was held in Cambodia's Phnom Penh in 2002, and the second in southwest China's Kunming in 2005.

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Chinese premier leaves Beijing to attend Mekong summit in Laos

BEIJING, March 29 (Xinhua) -- Invited by Lao Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao left here on Saturday to pay a working visit to Laos, and attend the third Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Summit in Vientiane.

Wen's visiting group includes Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission Zhang Ping, Minister of Finance Xie Xuren, Minister of Commerce Chen Deming, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regional Government Chairman Ma Biao, Governor of the Yunnan Province Qin Guangrong, Director of the Premier's Office Qiu Xiaoxiong and Assistant Foreign Minister He Yafei.

Leaders from GMS members -- Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and China -- as well as representatives from the Asian Development Bank will meet at the summit to promote economic, social, cultural, tourism and environmental cooperation within the region.

The theme of the triennial meeting is to "Enhance Competitiveness Through Greater Connectivity" and Wen will deliver a keynote speech on China's views and proposals on boosting the GMS cooperation and its future development.

The GMS, established in 1992, promotes economic and social development, irrigation and cooperation within the six Mekong countries.

The 1st GMS Summit was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 2002, and the 2nd summit in Kunming, China, in 2005.

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New probe urged for senior Khmer Rouge leaders

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Prosecutors at Cambodia's genocide tribunal called for a new investigation into claims of torture and killings committed under the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime, in a statement Saturday.

Prosecutors asked investigating judges at the UN-backed tribunal to examine allegations of crimes committed at a Khmer Rouge security centre, said the statement dated Friday.

Many Cambodians were unlawfully detained, subjected to inhumane conditions and forced labour, tortured and executed at the centre, it said.

"These factual allegations, if founded, could constitute crimes against humanity," Robert Petit, one of the prosecutors, said in the statement.

Prosecutors asked that senior regime leaders Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Thirith and Kaing Guek Eav -- all currently in the court's custody -- be investigated for their involvement in these crimes.

The request was accompanied by more than 30 supporting documents totalling around 1,500 pages of analytical reports, witness statements and documents from the period.

"As a result of the detailed nature and concise form in which the information was provided, we were able to assess and act on this information quickly," Cambodian prosecutor Chea Leang said in the statement, encouraging victims to come forward.

"Without participation of victims and witnesses, the court's ability to ascertain the truth regarding the extent of the crimes and those who are responsible for them will be significantly reduced," she said.

Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed as the communist Khmer Rouge dismantled modern Cambodian society in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia during their 1975-1979 rule.

Public trials are expected to begin this year, but delays in the process have raised fears that the elderly defendants could die before going to court.

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