Hennessy: An amazing story of an odyssey from the Killing Fields to the White House

Life dangled from a precipice. Your best chance of survival was to pass yourself off as an illiterate peasant.

If you were educated, you might die. If you wore glasses, suggesting you were educated, you might die. If you were seen foraging for food, even grass or insects, you might die.

It was Cambodia, 1976. A year earlier, the Khmer Rouge had taken power. Now they were determined to establish a primitive society, one easily ruled. When the decade ended, they were gone. But up to 2 million people were dead.

Or so it is thought. No one can make an accurate count.

But Sichan Siv, 27 years old, resourceful and brave, had survived. He was especially vulnerable, having once worked for the humanitarian group CARE and having helped refugees from the Vietnam War, which, if revealed, would have meant certain death.

Siv escaped Cambodia by walking 500 harrowing miles past land mines, Khmer Rouge patrols, decomposed bodies, wild jungle animals and booby traps. It took him almost a year to reach neighboring Thailand.

Separated from his family by the Khmer Rouge, he never saw his loved ones again, but he survived in part by recalling his mother's words: "No matter what happens, never give up hope."
It was a message that would carry him to the United States, the White House and the United Nations.

Coming to Long Beach

Sichan Siv will tell his remarkable story Tuesday in Long Beach as a guest of the Long Beach Library Foundation.

Meanwhile, I have interviewed him from his home in San Antonio, Texas, where he now lives and has written his story in a book called "Golden Bones."

Q: What is meant by "Golden Bones?"

A: Cambodians call somebody who is extremely blessed and lucky a person of golden bones.

Q: And you were extremely lucky to have escaped Cambodia. Why did you leave?

A: The Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia into a land of blood and tears. It was an enormous slave labor camp where people toiled for 18 hours a day with only one meal. It was deepest hell. I was sentenced to death twice, for trying to escape and for damaging a truck.

Q: Your life under the Khmer Rouge and while trying to flee Cambodia was nightmarish. Do you still dream about those days?

A: Not anymore. I used to have nightmares for a long while. As I woke up, I felt very relieved when I realized that I was in America.

Q: How did you escape Cambodia?

A: On Feb. 13, 1976, I jumped off a logging truck in northwest Cambodia and ran across the jungle for three days having nothing to eat or drink. I fell into a booby trap and was severely wounded. In Thailand, I was jailed for illegal entry before being transferred to a refugee camp. I spent a few months teaching English to fellow refugees and being ordained a Buddhist monk. I arrived in Connecticut on June 4, one month before the Bicentennial.

To the White House

Q: After being sponsored by a Connecticut family, you assimilated very quickly. How did you manage that?

A: I felt I had to adapt to be adopted. So I did everything that came my way to the best of my ability, from picking apples to driving a taxi. I got a scholarship to graduate school at Columbia. I worked on Wall Street and other places until 1988 when I volunteered in the (George H. W.) Bush campaign. I was one of the lucky few to be asked to serve at the White House in 1989.

Q: That's a remarkable career.

A: I was at the right place at the right time. The Bush transition was looking for someone to handle the communications aspects of our national security. I was born in a poor country, spoke several languages, and was familiar with international relations. When President Bush left the White House in 1993, I returned to the private sector and continued to work on global issues. This experience also helped me when George W. Bush nominated me to be a U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in 2001. I was unanimously confirmed by the Senate.

Q: What do you consider the achievements of the Bush presidents?

A: It's hard to describe them in a few sentences. At the White House, first among equals was President George (H.W.) Bush's decision to extend Most Favored Nation trading status to China and to receive the Dalai Lama. Then you have to give high marks on his management of the post-Cold War world. At the U.N., George W. Bush was the first president to increase foreign assistance by 50 percent since JFK, and the first head of state to bring human trafficking to the world's attention. I feel very privileged to have served two presidents, and through them the American people.

Q: In 1992, you returned to Cambodia as a member of the highest-level mission to that country since 1975. Describe what it was like to go back.

A: It was an emotional return. I had left 16 years before, on foot through the jungle. I returned as a presidential assistant in a U.S. government aircraft. I did not recognize anything. For a few hours, I was numb.

Q: Soldiers returning to their old battlefields sometimes say it is therapeutic to see them at peace. Has that been the case for you in returning to Cambodia?

A: It is therapeutic. I try to take my wife there once a year to reconnect and to show her new places. (Siv's wife, Martha, is Texan.) In November 2008, we went to Ratanakiri (a province) in the Northeast, a remote wild and mountainous region. I was there with my older sister 40 years ago. It brought back fond memories, as well as sad ones.

Q: What does Cambodia need to do at this point in its history?

A: Cambodia needs to address domestic issues such as injustice, crime and corruption. When these are resolved, it can be a politically mature nation.

Q: You travel often to American cities with large Cambodian populations. Why?

A: It's part of carrying my mother's wisdom of never giving up hope, as I describe in "Golden Bones," and encouraging others to continue to work hard, do great things, and lead a good life. I also try to connect all these communities so that they can compare and build upon their experiences.

Cambodia to Texas

Q: You now live in Texas, a far cry from life in Cambodia. How is that working for you?

A: I love Texas. While growing up in Cambodia, I enjoyed watching Western movies in French and was amazed at the "can-do" attitude of Texans. As we usually say, "I was not born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could." I also love California. Each time I am here, I say to myself, "I'll be back."

Last month, Siv was honored for his service by being given the George H.W. Bush Asian/Pacific American Heritage Association's Award. The award came with a letter from the former president, who wrote, in part: "When we think of you, we think about an outstanding leader and public servant; we think about honor, decency, and integrity....Well done, my friend and well deserved."

Tom Hennessy's column appears on the first and third Sundays of the month. He can be reached at 562-499-1270 or by e-mail at scribe17@mac.com.

HEAR HIS STORY

Former Ambassador Sichan Siv will speak from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Long Beach's Main Library, 101 Pacific Ave.

Admission: $30 benefiting the Long Beach Library Foundation. For reservations, call 562-628-2441.

The book: Barnes & Noble will sell copies of "Golden Bones." Read more!

Red Cross helping Cambodian family separated by war reconnect

Inside the Long Beach Red Cross offices, Cambodian refugee So Chhim,left, his daughter Bo Oum, and his grandson Brandon Oum, 3, get a first look at small photo of his sister and her aunt, So Sophan. The Red Cross is beginning a process that will help them reunite with So s sister, who became separated from her brother during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. (Stephen Carr/Staff Photographer)


By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer


LONG BEACH - So Chhim sat quietly with an international envelope and a passport-sized photograph of his sister clutched between his fists.

In a nearby seat, Mike Farrar, a volunteer case worker with the Red Cross' Tracing and Location services, explained the process for So to reconnect with his sister, So Sophan, in Cambodia.

The two have not seen each other since 1968 when So Chhim was a soldier in the Cambodian army. They have not had any contact since 1991 when they were able to communicate through an intermediary. When the go-between disappeared, so did any chance at communication.

In the 17 years since, So Chhim has gone about the business of making a living, raising his four children and seeing five grandchildren added to his family.

He buried the memories of his surviving sister along with those of the family he lost to the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, which was responsible for the deaths of upwards of two million Cambodians from execution, starvation and disease.

In August 2008, So Sophan reached out to the Red Cross, which offers a global free service to help reconnect families that have become separated by disaster, natural or man-made.

Red Cross officials say the service is offered whereever there is need.

After an exhaustive search, So Chhim was found through a brother-in-law at a liquor store in Norwalk.

Coincidentally, it was learned that So Chhim works at an airplane parts manufacturer just across the San Diego (405) Freeway from the Long Beach offices of the Red Cross.
It was joked that if the Red Cross had put his name on a balloon, he could have seen it from work and walked over.

Although So Chhim maintained a stoic exterior when Farrar first made contact, his daughter Bopha Oum said he later "teared" in his room.

"He tried to pass it off as something in his eye," Oum said.

As So Chhim talks about contacting his sister and as he recalls the harrowing circumstances of his escape from Cambodia and the slaughter of his family, there is no feigning a lack of emotion.

"It's very important to reconnect," he said through translation. "Now, even though physically we can't be close, emotionally and spiritually we can be connected."

So Chhim doesn't know if he will ever return to Cambodia. A military man trained in special forces, he was intensely sought by the Khmer Rouge.

Even though So Chhim and his wife, Chandy Ma, escaped to Thailand, the Khmer Rouge tried to have So Chhim turned over. They even sent family to try to cajole him.

So Chhim knew better. He says his name was posted on a kill list and that he was to be tortured for seven days before being put to death if caught.

He later learned that his three brothers and their entire families were executed by the Khmer Rouge. Only the younger sister, who was forced to marry a Khmer Rouge soldier, and an older brother, a simple farmer, survived.

Although So Chhim got in touch with his sister after the war, because of his notoriety he did not contact her directly for fear she might face reprisals. When the friend disappeared, so did their only connection.

On Friday, So Chhim drafted a simple letter to his sister.

Oum looks forward to learning more about the aunt she's only heard about.

"I'm very excited. I was in shock," she said. "I mean, we've grown up with the stories, but it never came to mind that we might contact her."


Farrar said he was thrilled to help reconnect the family.


"It's rewarding that we can do humanitarian work like this," Farrar says. "A lot of people think we only do blood work, but it's so much more."


In the case of the So family, it's about bring blood relatives together again.



greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291
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Cambodia's first Cannes buyer leaves town

By Patrick Frater


CANNES -- Sales companies seeking to make their first deals in Cambodia might have missed their chance this week as the country's first-ever buyer at the Cannes market left town Saturday, having snapped up a handful of titles.

"The market is very narrow and focused almost entirely on four genres -- action, horror, comedy and Korean romances," said Kmy Films founder Mariam Arthur, a U.S. film exec now residing in Cambodia.

Arthur picked up two Korean titles this week, including Prime Entertainment's 2006 romance "The Elephant on the Bike." The deals add to the seven movies she bought at Filmart, headed by "Parasomnia" from American World Pictures, "Last of the Living" from Quantum Releasing and others from Lonely Seal and Fries Films.

Cambodia, like neighboring Vietnam, is one of Asia's last undeveloped cinema markets.

"There are almost no 35mm projectors, there are no multiplexes at all, and the Hollywood majors do not distribute there, though this week I had meetings with Universal," Arthur said. "Piracy, with masters coming from Malaysia, is also a problem."

Most films are screened from 2K digital projectors. But distribution technology could skip a generation and further open up the market even if long-awaited multiplexes remain unbuilt. Phone companies are now streaming movies to hand-held devices as well. Read more!

Cambodia: a patient waiting

The response in Cambodia to the emergence of the H1N1 virus is a singular example of how a predominantly rural country is preparting for the threat of an epidemic without borders, says Michel Thieren.

May the tevoda grant us good health and prosperity, freeing us from suffering and fear. [...]
I am finishing my call, o nineteen pralung, come back all together now.

There is no more suffering, no more fear, no more misfortune.

O my dears, your relatives are gathered together in great number."

- Hau Pralung, Treatise for Calling the Souls of the Sick

"Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity"

- the World Health Organisation, constitution

The emergence of a new threat to people's health is always refracted through the immediate and local circumstances of their lives. The worldwide reaction to the Influenza A (H1N1) virus is an example. Cambodia, where I work and live, offers a singular portrait of how a society - rural and poor, with its own unique cultural and ethnographic character - responds to and copes with an epidemic without borders .

The cost of ignorance

The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that as of 06:00 GMT on 15 May 2009, there were had officially 7,520 cases of Influenza A (H1N1) infection in thirty-four countries; there had to that point been sixty-five deaths. The world has since 4 May been on level five (on a scale of six) of "pandemic alert".

This category, to health professionals, indicates a sustained community transmission of the virus in at least two countries within the same region (continent); a situation that in turn augurs the imminence of a global pandemic (active transmission in two continents). When it occurs, the emergency committee of the International Health Regulations (IHR) - an international legal instrument binding 194 countries to help the international community prevent and respond to acute public-health risks - can activate plans and preventive measures, publish daily updates, and make available knowledge about the evolving situation.

This mechanical precision is indispensable, but it also comes up against the limits of current understanding: for as yet, science knows very little about A/H1N1, and this opens the door to all sorts of allegations and interpretations of what is actually happening.

On 12 May 2009, for example, a leading online political magazine in the United States had as its main headline: "The List: Five Disease Outbreaks that are Worse than Swine Flu". There, A/H1N1 was retrospectively minimised by comparing it (already!) to five serial-killers: cholera, meningitis, HIV/Aids, Ebola, and dengue fever. By thus comparing numbers which should not be compared - because they denote different events, risks, patterns - the result is to remove readers and citizens from the core realities, instead of bringing them closer.

In any event, it will be a long time before the data on A/H1N1 will allow general inference for a long time, and therefore cannot now be subjected to (abusive) "analysis". The issue around A/H1N1 is not whether it spreads less or spares more lives than many other ongoing threats: it is that 7 billion humans are at equal risk of being infected by an entirely new virus against which no one is immune and whose epidemic and killing path cannot be predicted. This is what makes A/H1N1 different from any other disease - regardless of their respective morbidity and mortality totals.

The gaps in scientific knowledge are too easily filled by rumour, myth, hyperbole and attention-seeking media dramas. Many public-health practitioners have come to realise that fighting these requires much more work than solving a real problem.

In science's name

The WHO director-general Margaret Chan made her first official communication on A/H1N1 on 29 April 2009. She warned the world that "new diseases are, by definition, poorly understood and influenza viruses are notorious for their rapid mutation and unpredictable behaviour". The implicit message was that science - both virology and epidemiology - would restrict itself to support evidence-based communication on the new phenomenon. The tone was set that the WHO's messages with regard to A/H1N1 would for the foreseeable future operate with a degree of approximation and conditionality, all in the name of scientific exactitude.

However, when scientific evidence remains largely unsettled, the communication interface can be problematic. A messenger is scientifically accountable and needs to stand on the true ground of current knowledge; yet the recipient of the message requires a simplified and unambiguous formulation in order to take appropriate action. When an international health agency speaks within the strict limits of health and biomedical science, it may compromise its duty to preserve the collateral consequences on its auditors of the possible ambiguities these limits contain.
Yet if the same organisation presented user-friendly categorical statements without proper acknowledgment of doubt, it would to some degree sacrifice its commitment to scientific excellence. How to reconcile theory with practice? Only by stratifying messages through different audiences, from lay individuals to scientific experts, progressively loading them with technically complex and interpretable content.

In the end, however, there must be a consistent thread that links the two ends of the discourse, and in a way that the recipient at each point along the way can make sense of it for their own purposes: the virologist researcher who typified the A/H1N1 virus or decoded its ADN sequence; the epizootic expert who implements the food-standard guidelines, the Codex Alimentarius; the epidemiologist who estimates the lethal risk and the contagion of the virus (and who establishes the principles of the IHR); the economist who estimates the macro- or micro-economic consequences of a pandemic on a household's purchasing-power; all the way to the pig-farmer in the Argentinean pampa or among the Cambodian ricefields, whose only income depends on the readiness of people to eat pork.

The fact that there is very little in common in the knowledge, beliefs and daily lives of the people who exist along the communication "thread" makes it vulnerable to conflicting or overlapping messages. Often, experts speak from their respective scientific locus with no concern that different locuses may conflict with each other. Even as individual statements are pronounced in the name of scientific excellence, the "excellence" of an influenza epidemiologist may collide with the one of a public-health

veterinarian or an economist. When science leaves interpretation on pork-safety open with regard to A/H1N1, the consumer may start to see the threat coming from the food rather than from the person coughing and spluttering in the vicinity.

Cambodia in the world

Cambodia, like its immediate neighbours in southeast Asia - Vietnam, Laos, Thailand - has at the time of writing experienced no case of A/H1N1, and the situation has remained in preparedness mode. In the three weeks since (on 24 April 2009) the World Health Organisation released its first report of an "Influenza-like illness in the United States and Mexico", Cambodians have been waiting for their "public enemy". Many predicted that it would kill in massive numbers - something not so hard to conceive in a country which in 1975-78 experienced genocide at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

It is indeed often the case that contingency planning is - rightly - planning for the worst scenario, even if it is rarely the worst scenario that ultimately prevails. So, in Cambodia, "pandemic contingency plans" were discussed, updated and activated at all levels. The international organisations operating in Cambodia reviewed their procedures on how to protect their personnel and maintain business continuity. Cambodian health authorities refreshed their plans too with the support of international-aid agencies; they received up-to-the-minute messages from Mexico, Atlanta, Ottawa, Geneva; and they took the necessary actions to broadcast basic prevention measures to the Cambodian population.

For example (albeit a weak example, as the measure generates a very low transmission-limiting dividend), a thermal scanner was installed at Phnom Penh and Siem Reap international airports to monitor returning travellers over possible contamination with the virus. This was complemented with quarantine and medical evacuation of screened suspected cases at Calmette general public hospital - perhaps not necessarily the one that people who can afford international travel would select, but the one where effective mass patient management could be organised.

A stoic response

The Cambodian media has done a good job in relaying what the country's 13.4 million people needed to know about the new disease without either distortion or panic. In most parts of the country, it quickly became clear that this was an enemy to be watched but from afar rather than an immediate danger; and that this new disease was a human-to-human problem and not about animals - a piece of information Cambodians can't but be very receptive to.

The common sense of the rural population has been strikingly evident. There is no sign that the pork-based economy in provinces like Kompong Thom is in any way affected. Cambodian farmers continue to raise and sell pork to smoking factories, and people continued to consume pork without further questioning.

But discreet signals of fear have been visible in the cities - mostly among the higher economic end of the Cambodian population and the expatriate community. Pork-meat and pork-based products were left in piles on the shelves of main supermarkets. In Phnom Penh, there was a roaming undercurrent of worry - of a new flu virus that would spread fast and kill in numbers (the memory of "severe acute respiratory syndrome" [Sars] in 2003 was ever-present here). The louder fears expressed by leading global voices and media outlets were softly replicated. The fact that Vietnam and Hong Kong had been epicentres of recent flu outbreaks added to the concern.

In short, Cambodians' relatively stoic attitude has not reflected a lack of public concern. The signs are that the country's government - doubtless aware of the political gains and losses associated with good and bad pandemic management - is truly committed to protect the health of its people. The response to A/H1N1 in Cambodia has been free of what have been regarded as democratic malpractices.

A fragile balance

This balance of communication and precaution was somewhat jeopardised by a report in the leading newspaper the Cambodian Daily on 7 May 2009 on the sensitive subject of meat-consumption. The approach was precisely to pick some dissonances from among leading voices on the pandemic, each one speaking from its own specialised interpretation of partial evidence. An expert warned that "meat from sick pigs or pigs found dead should not be consumed under any circumstances"; another attested that "all pork products are safe for consumption"; a further said that "this new strain of influenza virus does not contaminate humans easily and has a very low pathogenicity for both humans and pigs, unlike the avian flu which killed millions of poultry".

The appearance of scientific cacophony makes the consensual and reassuring message of the WHO director-general even more essential, in reaffirming that "influenza viruses are not known to be transmissible to people through eating processed pork or other food products derived from pigs". The relatively low intensity of the new disease abroad and its absence in Cambodia have played a role in holding rumours at bay. The consumption of pork is safe because there is no case of A/H1N1 in Cambodia, not because the virus is primarily associated with human-to-human transmission. But if any proof of A/H1N1 transmission appears in the country, the mixed messages in the 7 May report could revive and eclipse the WHO's efforts to achieve coherence in communication.

The result could then be stories about the power of A/H1N1 to attack humans and animals, followed by people ceasing to eat pork and the sudden imperiling of an entire vernacular economy of subsistence. In an instant, tens of thousands of people in Cambodia would move from daily subsistence to daily survival; and in a country where five mothers still die every day in childbirth, and where 127 children in every 1,000 born to the poorest families already die before reaching the age of 5, the fragile health gains that have been made may be wiped out. In short, to overestimate the food-borne risk of A/H1N1 in the name of (incomplete) science and consequent difficulty to estimate and aggregate risks could lead to underestimating the one of sudden poverty-induced illness. The media too has a crucial role in matters of life and death.

Thinking in Cambodia

Even those international public-health doctors who now mostly sit in research laboratories or other institutions once sat at the bedside of a patient. It is important for all of us to maintain the doctor's ethos at the heart of our work, and preserve direct contact with the realities and lives of the population we serve. In Cambodia and for Cambodians, good public-health practice must begin by integrating two basic features of Khmer culture: how illness is represented, and how the language accommodates semantic nuances.

Cambodia is predominantly a rural country; the Cambodian farmer is the socio-cultural nexus, at the core of the country's identity and heritage. The Cambodian farmer - and by extension every Cambodian - carries some sense of a direct line of descent from the ancestors of the ricefield; it is routine to be at the same time loaded with animist convictions while riveted to an unequivocal pragmatism.

All Cambodians - including public-health officials - can accept and understand that the "early signs of Influenza A (H1N1) are flu-like, including fever, cough, headache, muscle and joint pain, sore throat and runny nose, and sometimes vomiting or diarrhoea". They also know that "when a person is gravely ill, on the verge of losing consciousness, it is understood that the person's pralung (independent soul-entities) are no longer in his or her body"; thus, traditionally, to call the pralung to return to their residence within the patient's body requires a ritual to be performed. Moreover, the pralung are "also found in certain objects, plants and animals, whose integrity at particular moments is likewise essential to the integrity of the community". The way illness is conceived in this profound and affectively rich context presents singular challenges to the communication of scientific argument that disaggregates animal-to-human and human-to-human transmission of new viruses.

The Khmer language does not formally mark the distinction between different conditionals, nor easily accommodate assumptions, understatements, or subordinate and multifaceted assertions. The semantic nuances of "could be", "should be", "can be" and "will be" are easily lost in translation; in most cases they would end up by converging on the last one. The development of WHO-style consensual messaging using multivariate conditionality to incorporate initially dissenting opinions is not easy in this context.

The outcome of a situation where being scientifically right can generate conceptual or semantic ambiguities is, where A/H1N1 is concerned, yet to be fully tested in Cambodia. So far, its people are continuing to handle everything the world can throw at them with characteristic yet extraordinary grace and fortitude. The global is everywhere local. In the end people will, within their own cultural and social reality, find ways to manage a threat and protect themselves against it.
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Visitors to Cambodia dip as global economic crisis continues

The number of foreign tourists visiting Cambodia dropped in the first quarter of 2009 as the global economic crisis cuts the number of people travelling.

Visitors from South Korea and Japan are down sharply.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael
Speakers: Ell Lavy, Siem Reap tuk tuk driver; Dr Thong Khon, Cambodian Minister for Tourism

CARMICHAEL: Leave the famous jungle temple - known as Ta Phrom - outside Cambodia's tourism capital of Siem Reap and - as you can hear - you are surrounded by vendors selling cold drinks, musical instruments and postcards. Cambodia has relied for a decade on the expanding tourist trade as one of its pillars for economic growth. A record 2.1 million people visited the country last year.

So the news that tourism numbers have dropped in the first quarter of 2009 from the same period last year is not good. Overall the number is down just three and a half percent to 622,000 which is better than the government had feared. But the headline figure tells only one part of the story. Tourists from richer countries such as Japan and South Korea have dropped by a third, with short-term visitors from neighbouring Vietnam making up the numbers.

And that is why tourism worker Ell Lavy - a 25-year-old driver of a motorised rickshaw around the temples of Angkor Wat - has seen his monthly earnings drop from one hundred US dollars to just seventy. Previously he would get two or three tourists a week - now he is lucky to have one.

LAVY: You know last year when I recommend them to another place they say no problem for them. But this year when I invite them to somewhere they say they that no - they have no money to pay everything. [CARMICHAEL: So you have noticed they are spending less money, and there are less tourists?] Yes, less tourists also.

CARMICHAEL: Government figures show the number of visitors from South Korea and Japan, which last year provided the largest and third-largest number of foreign visitors respectively, dropped by one-third to around 100,000 in the first quarter of this year.

Gregory Anderson is the general manager of the upmarket Le Meridien Angkor hotel in Siem Reap. He has noticed there are fewer Japanese tourists in town, and says occupancy rates are down 20 percent for Siem Reap's upmarket hotels. He blames the global economic situation, as well as political volatility in Thailand and an ongoing border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand.

So in the face of lower spending on travel and tourism in the current global downturn, what can Cambodia do to boost visitor numbers? Tourism Minister Dr Thong Khon says he is targeting countries that are less affected by the global slump. And he is optimistic that 2009 could yet prove better than last year. But he says Cambodia is not helped by problems in Thailand.

KHON: Because you know Thailand is a main gate to Cambodia. Thirty three percent of total arrivals to Cambodia come from Thailand by air, by water, by land. When Thailand is affected, so it affects Cambodia too.

CARMICHAEL: To minimize that problem, the ministry is trying to boost short-haul flights from within the ten-member ASEAN nation and China, Japan and South Korea. Cambodia has already scrapped visa requirements for nationals within a number of ASEAN states. And he says the private sector must work to make the country more attractive - including using discounts for hotels and restaurants.

But making Cambodia more attractive isn't helped by the trickle of reported crimes against foreign tourists, some of them serious. The most high-profile was that a friend of Britain's Princess Eugenie had her handbag stolen in Phnom Penh recently. What does he think of the incident?

KHON: In Cambodia the whole country is completely safe and secure. But the thing that happened is not everywhere. Sometimes like this or like that. But the case of the princess - we checked with the police, we checked everywhere - they have no information. If the case really happened, why did they not report it to the police?

CARMICHAEL: Dr Thong Khon says the global crisis has seen Cambodia downgrade its estimate of tourist arrivals for 2015 by around one-fifth to 4 million visitors. So what message will he take to the region to try and boost visitor numbers?

KHON: Many tourists come to stay in home-stay, in the countryside, on some islands, for one month, for two weeks with the family. From Scandinavia, from Australia. They come from everywhere. No problem. Come. Come to stay in Cambodia. Read more!

Area students discover Cambodia

By JACK PALMER

palmer@crescent-news.com

Two young alumnae of Defiance College on Thursday shared their experiences in Cambodia with a group of area high school students and Rotarians.

"Despite their poverty, the people of Cambodia were so gracious. I never felt threatened at all," said Renee Chaffee, a 2007 DC graduate. "They just wanted to tell their stories."

"They have the same emotions as we do," added Jennifer Creighton of Evansport, who graduated last weekend. "They still love and care for each other. They were some of the nicest people I've ever met."

Their poignant remarks were made as co-keynote speakers at the grand banquet for the 23rd annual World Community Workshop, which runs through Saturday at Defiance College.

The workshop is sponsored by Defiance Rotary Club, Rotary District 6600 and the McMaster School for Advancing Humanity. It provides young people with an opportunity to learn about history, customs and economic and political issues of a selected area of the world.

Chaffee and Creighton reflected on their experiences in Cambodia as part of the McMaster School for Advancing Humanity program. Chaffee worked at the Cambodian Women's Crisis Center, where she addressed domestic violence as it relates to women and children to assess whether they were receiving adequate services.

"I interviewed women one-on-one," said Chaffee, who will receive her master's of social work degree next week from Case Western Reserve University. "That was the part of my life when I knew I wanted to work with women and children who had been victimized."

Chaffee also discussed "the Killing Fields," a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the totalitarian communist Khmer Rouge regime from 1975-79. These locations were the subject of a 1984 movie of the same name.

"It was very surreal being there," she said. "It's scary to know this happened in my lifetime."

Creighton's project involved the natural forms of birth control, since Cambodia's past unrest has made the use of and methods of obtaining medicinal forms of birth control difficult.

Her research took her to CycleBeads, developed by the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University.

"I wrote training materials about how to use the beads," said Creighton. "They have a 95 percent effectiveness with correct use and 88 percent effectiveness with typical use."

She said she observed a wide disparity of wealth and poverty in Cambodia, often right next to each other.

"On the streets you would see people pulling carts and others driving Land Rovers. The middle class were the people that had huts with shutters."

The workshop resumes today, when students will break into small groups and develop a presentation covering a certain aspect of Cambodian history, customs, economics and politics.

All presentations will be held Saturday morning.

"Rotary is in many countries and our mission is world peace and understanding," Rotary 6600 district governor David Daugherty told the students.

"I'm glad you are here. Make the most of it."


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China, Australia to Build Final Leg of Asian Railway

Man drives homemade wooden cart on railroad in Kampong Chhnang province some 50 kilometers north of Phnom Penh (2008 file photo)

By Luke Hunt, Phnom Penh

Chinese and Australian engineers are gearing up to build the final stretch of track in the Trans-Asian Railway, which will link Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand with Vietnam and China through Cambodia. The Cambodian government has divided the country's railway system in two. Australia's Toll Holdings takes control of old French-built lines in the east, which run from the capital to the Thai border and south to Sihanoukville, home to one of the largest ports in the Gulf of Siam.

The China Railway Group has the contract to carry out a feasibility study that will link Phnom Penh with Snoul near this country's western border with Vietnam.

This 255-kilometer stretch will complete the Singapore-to-Kunming line, a railway connecting southeast Asia to the heart of China.

Paul Power is an advisor to the Cambodian government and team leader for the Asian Development Bank's involvement in the reconstruction of Cambodia's railways. He says the railway's economic benefit for the region and Cambodia will be enormous.

"It makes Cambodia the hub of transportation between China and Singapore and you would have a port link, you would have a link to Thailand, you'll have a link through to Vietnam," Power said, "and the implications for that, for Cambodia in the region, are that Cambodia becomes the hub."

He says freight will provide the greatest economic benefits, particularly for shipping bulk goods like rice. The railway will be a cheaper alternative to ships and trucks.

However, the contractors first must deal with the thorny issue of resettling people living along the route. In Cambodia, poor landholders often are pushed out with little compensation to make way for commercial developments, causing considerable public anger.

Power says the companies working on the railway are aware of the problems that have afflicted other construction projects and thinks they can avoid similar difficulties.

If the resettlement issues are resolved quickly then authorities hope the first passengers from Singapore to China and beyond as far as London, will start boarding within the next two years.

Read more!

Serial sex offender surfaces in Cambodia

Jack Louis Sporich was living an idyllic retirement, splitting his time between a luxury condo in Sedona, Ariz., and a sprawling home he was having built in a tourist mecca in Cambodia.

The 74-year-old retired engineer appeared to have escaped his past, which included his classification as one of California's most dangerous sex offenders, one who authorities suspect may have molested more than 500 young boys over the years.

Now officials say Sporich -- who won his release from California's Atascadero State Hospital in May 2004 without spending a single day in treatment -- may have struck again.

He has been charged in Cambodia with indecent acts against minors in a case involving four young Cambodian boys, according to an official in Phnom Penh whose organization helped investigate Sporich.

Cambodian news accounts of his arrest indicate Sporich denied the allegations, which included the claim that he lured the children -- ages 9 to 13 -- to his home with toys and candies. The Cambodia Daily reported that he also attracted youngsters by dropping dollar bills in the street.

He was arrested Feb. 2 and remains in custody in the tourist town of Siem Reap, according to Seila Samleang, executive director of Action Pour Les Enfants-Cambodia. APLE-Cambodia is a nongovernmental organization that works closely with Cambodian police to target foreign pedophiles who exploit youngsters in that country, and Sporich had been under investigation by the group.

Samleang said the charges are misdemeanors punishable by a prison sentence of one to three years. Sexual exploitation of children has been a problem for years in Cambodia, where the age of consent is 15.

Todd Melnik, the defense attorney who won Sporich's release in California, said he knew nothing of the Cambodia charges. An e-mail to Sporich this week seeking comment did not receive a response.

Sporich is no stranger to charges of sex with children.

He spent nine years in prison after his conviction in Ventura County, Calif., on seven counts of lewd acts upon children under 14. Then, he was committed to Atascadero State Hospital as a "sexually violent predator" deemed too dangerous to be released upon completion of his sentence.

David Lehr, a Ventura County defense attorney who originally prosecuted Sporich, said he may have had as many as 500 victims, and that he typically befriended boys through their parents and offered to take them on camping trips.

The parents frequently would pay Sporich for his gas and the time he spent on the trips, Lehr said last week.

"If I had to pick from a list of former and current SVPs (sexually violent predators), he would be, by far, the first one I would be most concerned about," Lehr said in an interview for a series of stories in the Sacramento Bee about sexually violent predators.

Sporich was released from Atascadero in May 2004, after two juries were unable to agree on whether he would re-offend, and he immediately moved to Arizona, where the only requirement he faced was that he register as a sex offender once a year.

He is not listed on the current sex-offender registry maintained by the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Sporich's case was highlighted in the Bee's series, which revealed that it was far easier for offenders to win release from Atascadero by refusing treatment than by undergoing the lengthy treatment program designed to prevent them from reoffending.

Since the treatment program began 13 years ago, 17 offenders have won release by undergoing all or some of the required programs, and none has reoffended, the state says.

By contrast, 155 others -- including Sporich -- have been released through court orders.

After the Bee's series, lawmakers introduced a number of proposed improvements to the system and voters later overwhelmingly approved Proposition 83. That measure increased prison sentences for habitual and violent offenders and did away with the requirement that sexually violent predators be allowed a trial every two years. Instead, they now can petition annually for a hearing, but the burden of proof is on them to convince a court they no longer pose a threat.

In an interview for the Bee's 2006 series, Sporich said he felt remorse for his actions and complained that California had violated his civil rights by committing him to Atascadero for 39 months after he had completed his prison sentence.

Family members say that in recent years Sporich married a 23-year-old Southeast Asian woman with several small children and that he had begun building a large home in Cambodia.

June Caine, Sporich's older sister, said he met the woman, a waitress, overseas after leaving her a $100 tip. Caine said the family had known for years of Sporich's past and had hoped he would seek treatment.

"I don't want him out anymore," she said. "I think he's sick, and he's never going to get well. I don't want this to go on."

(E-mail Sam Stanton at sstanton(at)sacbee.com.)

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French school evicts Cambodian locals

By Guy De Launey
BBC News, Phnom Penh


San Limsreang knew it was over when the "green screen of death" arrived.

These corrugated metal fences are a common sight in Phnom Penh, encircling communities destined for eviction.

At least two dozen police officers accompanied the workmen sent by City Hall as they dug holes, banged in fence-posts and erected the screen in front of the grocery stalls and coffee shops at the rear of the Lycee Rene Descartes.

Limsreang and his neighbours looked on fearfully as their homes were cut off from the street. They knew all too well what usually happened to communities marked in such a manner.

The 68-year-old had been hoping for a peaceful retirement after a varied working life.

He had worked as a banker, a vet and a civil servant - and for 30 years his ever-expanding family had made their home on the fourth floor of a building behind what is now one of Cambodia's elite schools.

Now the Lycee Rene Descartes wants to expand.

And along with its landlord, the French embassy, it has asked the local authorities to clear Limsreang's building so that it can be used for the school.

The lycee insists that the building belonged to the school before the Khmer Rouge arrived in 1975; now it is merely taking back its rightful property.

The residents, however, say they were ordered to live behind the lycee after Vietnamese-backed forces ousted Pol Pot's government in 1979.

Labelled 'squatters'

"We wanted to go back to my old house but other people were occupying it," Limsreang says.

"After 1979 everyone ended up living in different houses. At that time all the houses belonged to the government - that's why we had to do that."

The new regime did not allow much flexibility. As well as being directed to live in the building behind the lycee, many were told to work in the school which took over the site.

Later the residents took jobs with the local government or the civil service.

They lived rent-free, but were officially registered by the authorities, and took their right to live in their homes for granted.

That turned out to be overly-optimistic. When peace returned to Cambodia in the 1990s, so did the Lycee Rene Descartes.

At first the school co-existed with the residents, but an expanding demand prompted the lycee to seek the removal of the community.

"This site belonging to the embassy must go back to the school," says Pierre Olivieri, the co-ordinator of a parents' committee pressing for the move.

"We're the only French school in the world with a squat - even nations at war like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan don't have that.

"It's not good for the image of France or Cambodia."

The residents resent being labelled as "squatters", and they were unwilling to leave for the compensation on offer - a few thousand dollars and a plot of undeveloped land on a reclaimed lake on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

Limsreang says that City Hall made a series of threats to evict his community - and said it would give them nothing if they did not accept the terms.

Fearing the worst, some families signed the deal and moved out.

The only ray of hope for the residents was the support of some of the students at the Lycee.

'Regularly criticised'

A student demonstration before Khmer New Year in April brought much-needed publicity to the community's plight.

"It's a horrible feeling because they say they're doing this for us - for us the students," says a 17-year-old protester, Raimondo Pictet.

"For security reasons and for our well-being, these people are being evicted. Well they're human beings too - and they also have a well-being.

They have children who are also going to school - and if they're evicted they won't be able to finish their school year."

Raimondo's efforts have not been appreciated universally.

He says he has been insulted by some students' parents, and a local newspaper published a disparaging comment from the school principal.

But the residents behind the lycee say they are grateful for the students' involvement.

"I'm really excited that teenage students understand about human rights," says Limsreang, before he is interrupted by his son Vichet, a medical student.

"Yes, but it's not good for the French government. Maybe they don't give a damn about human rights issues in Cambodia.

"But we're living here legitimately, and we want to leave here with a fair amount of compensation. We don't want to get rich or anything."

The French embassy did not respond to several requests for an interview.

After weeks of pressure, the remaining residents have now agreed to go.

They say they are sympathetic to the needs of the school, but frightened that their relocation might turn into another forced eviction in which they could lose everything.

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Cambodia praised for sand ban

PHNOM PENH - AN ENVIRONMENTAL watchdog group praised Cambodia on Wednesday for banning the export of sand, the dredging of which the group says degrades coastlines and depletes fish populations.

The London-based group Global Witness said it was pleased that Prime Minister Hun Sen's government responded to its concerns over the potentially devastating impacts of sand dredging.

Hun Sen announced a partial ban on the practice and a total ban on exports on May 8.

Most sand exports have gone to Singapore, which has an ambitious land reclamation project, the group said.

Indonesia had been Singapore's main supplier of sand until January 2007, when the government in Jakarta banned its export.

The group - which has been critical of the country's attitude toward the exploitation of natural resources - said the ban was a positive first step.

In a report issued three months ago, Global Witness said that 'a huge sand dredging operation' began in Cambodia's Koh Kong province last year.

The group estimated the activity to be worth at least US$8.6 million per year in Cambodia. -- AP


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Cambodia actively preparing to deal with A/H1N1 flu

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia is actively preparing to prevent and deal with the possibly appearance of influenza A/H1N1, Health Minister Mam Bun Heng said on Wednesday.

"It is the require of Prime Minister Hun Sen," Mam stressed when he inspected the Calmette Hospital on Wednesday afternoon which was preparing for isolation wards and other facilities to accept the possible influenza virus infected patients. Mam also inspected the Phnom Penh International Airport to check out the use of temperature detectors and other relevant prevention and control measures.

Mam said that the Cambodian government has attached great importance to the prevention of the disease since the confirmation of the first influenza A/H1N1 in Mexico, adding that Prime Minister Hun Sen, on many occasions, also reminded the relevant government departments to remain on full alert in dealing with the disease.

Fifty sets of medical protective clothing, special-purpose vehicles, and related drugs have been ready in Phnom Penh and the tourism city of Siem Reap, Mam added.

Cambodia installed thermal scanners at its international airports and tightened supervision at its checkpoints with neighboring countries, while the Ministry of Health used the existing equipment and system nationwide for combating bird flu to monitor the A/H1N1 flu.

Thirty countries have reported 5,251 cases of influenza A/H1N1 as of May 12 and sixty-one deaths have been confirmed worldwide, according to WHO's website.

Last week health ministers from the ASEAN and their counterparts from China, Japan, and South Korea met in Bangkok pledging to cooperate in the face of the threat from the virus and to boost stockpiles of antiviral.

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Torture Survivors in Cambodia to Testify at Khmer Rouge Trial

By SETH MYDANS


PHNOM PENH — Looking across the courtroom where he is on trial for crimes against humanity, the chief Khmer Rouge torturer cannot avoid seeing an artist and mechanic who sit together side by side, watching him but mostly avoiding his gaze.

One short and forceful, his feet dangling just above the floor, the other melancholy and drooping a bit, the men are rare survivors of the torture house he commanded, Tuol Sleng, where at least 14,000 people were sent to their deaths three decades ago.

In the weeks ahead, the two survivors will take the stand to testify against their torturer, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, and both have terrible stories to tell about a place of horror from which almost no one emerged alive.

Bou Meng, 68, the short one, survived because he was a painter and was singled out from a row of shackled prisoners to produce portraits of the Khmer Rouge chief, Pol Pot.

The other, Chum Mey, 78, was a mechanic and was spared because the torturers needed him to repair machines including the typewriters used to record the confessions — very often false — that they extracted from prisoners like himself.

Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey are living exhibits from the Khmer Rouge years — tangible evidence like the skulls that have been preserved at some former killing fields, or like hundreds of portraits of their fellow prisoners that are displayed on the walls of Tuol Sleng.

The photographs were taken at the moment detainees were delivered to the prison, before they were stripped and fettered and tortured and sent to a killing field.

Those killed at Tuol Sleng are among 1.7 million people who died during the Communist Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979 from starvation, disease and overwork as well as from torture and execution.

Duch, now 66, is the first of five arrested Khmer Rouge figures to go on trial in the U.N.-backed tribunal.

He is accused of ordering the beatings, whippings, electric shocks and removal of toenails that Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey describe — indeed he has admitted in the courtroom to ordering the beating of Mr. Chum Mey.

Both men endured torture that continued for days, and Mr. Chum Mey said, “At that time I wished I could die rather than survive.”

But both men did survive, and today they are describing scenes that none of their fellow prisoners lived to recount.

“Every night I looked out at the moon,” Mr. Bou Meng recalled. “I heard people crying and sighing around the building. I heard people calling out, ‘Mother help me, mother help me!”’

It was at night that prisoners were trucked out to a killing field, and every night, he said, he feared that his moment had come. “But by midnight or 1 a.m. I realized that I would live another day.”

Though many Cambodians have tried to bury their traumatic memories, Mr. Bou Meng and Mr. Chum Mey have continued to return to the scene of their imprisonment and torture, as if their souls remain trapped there together with the souls of the dead.

During the first few years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Mr. Bou Meng returned to work in an office at Tuol Sleng, which was converted into a museum of genocide. Now he uses it as a convenient rest stop, spending the night there on a cot when he visits the capital, Phnom Penh, from the countryside, where he paints Buddhist murals in temples.

Mr. Chum Mey, retired now from his work as a mechanic, spends much of his time wandering among the portraits, telling and retelling his story to tourists and their guides, as if one of the victims on the walls had come to life.

An eager and passionate storyteller, he will show a visitor how he was shoved, blindfolded, up the stairs during 12 days of torture, and he will drop to the floor inside a small brick cubicle where he was held in chains.

“As you can see, this was my condition,” he said recently as he sat on the hard concrete floor holding up a metal ammunition box that was used as a toilet. “It upsets me to see Duch sitting in the courtroom talking with his lawyers as if he were a guest of the court.”

Apart from their survival, both men’s stories are similar to those of many Tuol Sleng prisoners — country people who joined the Communist revolution during the Indochina war to liberate their nation from what they saw as foreign domination.

They were swept up in Khmer Rouge purges, like many others in Tuol Sleng, and they were tortured until they admitted being members of the C.I.A. or K.G.B., organizations they had barely heard of.

Both men lost their wives and children in the Khmer Rouge years, and although both have rebuilt their families, the past still holds them in its grip.

Mr. Bou Meng does not wander like his friend among the Tuol Sleng pictures, but he does keep one in his wallet — a snapshot-sized reproduction of the portrait of his wife, Ma Yoeun, who was arrested together with him but did not survive.

The picture shows a small woman, dressed in black like the others, looking forlorn and lost, her hair tousled — a record of the last time her husband saw her alive.

“Sometimes when I sit at home I look at the picture and everything seems fresh,” he said. “I think of the suffering she endured, and I wonder how long she stayed alive.”

The photograph reminds him of those most terrible moments of his life, but also of the happiest.

“We were still young, a boy and a girl together,” he said. “It’s my best memory. It was the day of our honeymoon. We slept together. It was a perfect day.”

Mr. Bou Meng has since remarried twice, but he remains shackled to his memories.

“I know I should forget her,” he said, “but I can’t.”

She visits him, he said, in visions that are something more than dreams, looking just as she did at that final moment — still 28 years old, leaving Mr. Bou Meng to live on and grow old without her.
Sometimes she appears together with the spirits of others who were killed, he said. They stand together, a crowd of ghosts in black, and she tells him, “Only you, Bou Meng, can find justice for us.”

Mr. Bou Meng said he hoped that the trial would cauterize his wounds, that testifying against Duch and seeing him convicted would free him from the restless ghosts and let him live what is left of his life in peace.

“I don’t want to be a victim,” Mr. Bou Meng said. “I want to be like everybody else, a normal person.”

But he said he knows that this may be asking too much of life.

“Maybe not completely normal,” he said. “But at least 50 percent.” Read more!

Vietnam, Cambodia & the riches of the Mekong

(Forimmediaterelease.net) CHATSWORTH, CA - The wonders of south east Asia hold a unique allure for travelers, and now, AMAWATERWAYS has combined the region’s most fabled sights into one spectacular new program. “Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Riches of the Mekong” launches in September 2009; an exclusive 15-day itinerary highlighting the region’s historical and cultural riches, ancient ways of life, and traditions. Of course, passengers can rely upon the same award-winning philosophy, service, and attention to detail that has made AMAWATERWAYS the premier river cruise operator in Europe.

A glossy new brochure, “Vietnam, Cambodia and the Riches of the Mekong 2009-2011” sets forth sailing dates, prices, and other details, and is available now. The brochure sets forth complete itineraries for the 15-day program, as well as an optional 8-day Central Vietnam pre-extension and an optional 4-day Hong Kong post-extension.

Program Highlights:

- 2 nights in Vietnam’s bustling capital of Hanoi, famous for its graceful colonial architecture, verdant parks, tranquil lakes, and ancient temples

- An overnight cruise onboard a luxurious traditional junk in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site renowned for its spectacular limestone cliffs

- 3 nights in Siem Reap,Cambodia, gateway to the Angkor Archeological Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to the legendary Angkor Wat

- An unforgettable 7-night cruise on the Mekong River aboard the luxurious, new 92-passenger MS La Marguerite, the most deluxe vessel on the Mekong

- An overnight in historic Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

About AMAWATERWAYS

AMAWATERWAYS has redefined European river cruising since its founding in 2002 by river cruise industry pioneer, Rudi Schreiner, cruise industry executive Kristin Karst, and former owner of Brendan Worldwide Vacations, Jimmy Murphy. In 2009, two brand-new 148-passenger vessels, MS Amalyra and MS Amadolce, joined the luxurious AMAWATERWAYS fleet in Europe, which consists of the MS Amacello and MS Amadante (2008), MS Amalegro (2007), and MS Amadagio (2006). In 2010, AMAWATERWAYS will welcome MS Amabella and continue to offer popular itineraries on the historic Danube, Main, Rhine, and Mosel rivers, as well as the Douro River in Portugal, the Rhône in France, and the Volga-Baltic waterways in Russia.

For brochures or more information on the new “Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Riches of the Mekong” program - or any of AMAWATERWAYS’ exciting river cruise itineraries - log on to www.amawaterways.com or call 800-626-0126.

Ana Figueroa Phone: 800-626-0126 Email: Ana@amawaterways.com . Read more!

Israel sends first economic attaché to Cambodia

Navit Zomer, Israel Money

Mission to facilitate economic cooperation between Israel, Southeast Asian country

The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor has opened Israel's first economic mission in Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh, under the charge of the economic attaché in Thailand, Tzahi Selzer.

During May a first Israeli delegation of telecommunications companies visited the Southeastern Asian country. Some 15 companies took part in the delegation, including such high profile names as ECI, Gilat and Comverse, whose representatives met with top local government officials.

Simultaneously, a Cambodian agricultural delegation came to Israel last week to participate in the Agritech agricultural exhibition in Tel Aviv.

According to Selzer, Cambodia is mainly interested in Israeli companies involved in irrigation technologies, agriculture, infrastructure and medical devices. Read more!

Royal oxen signal worry for Cambodian rice farmers

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodia's royal oxen performed an ancient ceremony to predict the country's agriculture fortunes -- and raised fears of a low rice harvest by refusing to eat any of the grain.

King Norodom Sihamoni presided over the ceremony in a park outside the palace where thousands of people watched royal astrologers observing the animals' behaviour.

After a symbolic ploughing of a portion of the field, a pair of royal oxen were led to seven dishes -- rice, corn, beans, sesame, grass, water and alcohol -- laid out on trays.

They were seen eating only beans and corn, allowing the palace's chief astrologer Kang Ken to declare that this year "beans and corn harvests will be bountiful."

The astrologer did not spell out to the crowd what it meant for the rice harvest -- but he later told reporters that it would be only about 30 percent of the expected amount.

"I am extremely worried. As the oxen did not eat the rice, I fear that I cannot have (a) good harvest of rice," said farmer Vong Sak, 53, after the ceremony, which marks the start of Cambodia's planting season.

While still taken seriously by many rural Cambodians in this deeply superstitious country, ploughing ceremony predictions have been called into question in recent years.

Prime Minister Hun Sen, who did not attend the ceremony, rebuked the royal astrologers for failing to predict deadly floods in 2001 that claimed 59 lives.

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Cambodia Deja Vu: the Invasion of Pakistan

Pfaff, William


PARIS -- Last September, during the American presidential campaign, I wrote a column declaring that the United States had again invaded Cambodia, only this time "Cambodia" was Pakistan. President George W. Bush had ordered U.S. ground attacks on the Taliban inside Pakistan's Tribal Territories, without Pakistan's authorization.

That was also when Barack Obama's foreign policy campaign platform was promising withdrawal from Iraq and military emphasis on Afghanistan and Pakistan, location of the "real" problem in the great war on terror.

A younger generation than mine, including senior military officers (not to speak of Barack Obama), may not know exactly why the United States and the South Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia in 1970, and what the result was. The invasion was a failure, and the result a humanitarian catastrophe.

Washington, frustrated in its war against the Communist Viet Cong in South Vietnam, which eventually included bombing on a scale greater than the bombing of Germany in the Second World War, decided it could solve its problem by an invasion to cut the Communist supply routes inside neutral Cambodia (which it nonetheless was also bombing: dropping 540,000 tons of explosive on Cambodia over four years).

The invasion accomplished nothing except further destruction in Cambodia. It destroyed the U.S.-supported military government in Cambodia and empowered the native Cambodian Communist resistance, known as the Khmer Rouge, which eventually, in order to create a utopian society, killed some 2 million of its fellow Cambodians.

The later head of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale wrote of the bombing: "The emergent Communist party . . . profited greatly . . . (using) the widespread devastation and massacre of civilians (to justify) its brutal, radical policies."

Three years after the invasion, the Viet Cong, with its North Vietnamese allies, forced American forces to retreat from Vietnam, and by 1975 ruled the country. In Cambodia, the genocide had begun.

The invasion was occasion for Richard Nixon to declare that the U.S. was not "a second-rate power" nor "a pitiful helpless giant" standing by while "the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy . . . threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world."

How long ago it seems -- 39 years! And here we are again.

The United States, despite its plan to deploy nearly 70,000 troops this year in Afghanistan, finds itself and its NATO allies in danger of defeat by the Taliban guerillas.

U.S. bombing, with remote-controlled "drones," of the Pakistani Tribal Territories, where the Taliban take refuge among their Pathan tribal kinsmen, has killed many people but has had no decisive effect on the fighting in Afghanistan.

American bombing inside Afghanistan is protested by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who says the air-strikes are fast turning the Afghans against the U.S., which risks "losing the moral battle" against the Taliban. Gen. James L. Jones, U.S. national security adviser, says, "We can't fight with one hand tied behind our back."

Karzai says, "How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?" Jones says of Karzai, "I think he understands that we have to have a full compliment of our offensive military power when we need it."

The former Pakistani military government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf was unwilling to send the Pakistan army into the Tribal Territories to attack the Taliban and al-Qaida.

He is now ousted, and the civilian government led by President Asif Ali Zardari, put under immense pressure by Washington, and frightened by the success of the Taliban in operations outside the Tribal Region, has agreed to the ground offensive now going on, in which Pakistani commanders are accompanied by U.S liaison officers and air controllers.

U.S. Command in "Af-Pak" now has been transferred, in obvious urgency, to former Joint Special Operations commander Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Will a special forces officer think that guerrillas -- with refuge in an inaccessible and unconquered region, amid a tri-national ethnic population of some 40 million fellow Pathans -- can be beaten by guided bombs or special forces raids? Or that an unenthusiastic Pakistani army will do the job? Or 70,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, when the Taliban can always refuse battle and pull back into the mountains?

Moreover, what is supposed to be accomplished by this war against the Taliban, which threatens to leave Afghanistan in ruins, and to tear Pakistan apart? Do the Taliban threaten the United States? Most of them could not find the United States on a map.

What have they ever done to the United States? What if the United States would just go away and leave the Pakistanis, Afghans and Pathans to settle this among themselves?

President Barack Obama says the war will not be won by military means but by a "surge" of civilian development experts, reconstruction leaders and democracy teachers, just as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently told Congress that the U.S. is training. Will this "surge" get there in time? My own feeling is that President Obama is in over his head; and that American military command, not knowing what else to do, is reverting to Vietnam, which most of its members were too young to experience.

Visit William Pfaff's Web site at www.williampfaff.com.
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Cambodia demands compensation from Thailand for losses caused by Thai troops in Preah Vihear

PHNOM PENH, Cambodian government presents its complaints to Thailand on Monday, demanding compensation for the damage and losses caused by Thai troops' attack early April on its market located in front of the Temple of Preah Vihear.

"The attack with heavy weapons by Thai troops against Cambodian territory in the area close to the Temple of Preah Vihear on April 3 caused numerous damages and set a blaze the Cambodian market located in front of the temple," a note from Cambodian foreign ministry to Thailand foreign ministry said.

"A total number of 264 stands within this market were completely destroyed, causing great hardship and misery to 319 Cambodian families who have lost their livelihood," it said, adding that "the material loss incurred on these families amounts to 2,150,500 U.S. dollars."

"The Royal Government of Cambodia demands that the Royal Thai Government take full responsibility for these damages caused by Thai soldiers and to appropriately compensate the above losses," the ministry statement said.

The Preah Vihear temple became a World Heritage Site of UNESCO in July 2008. Although the International Court in Hague decided in 1962 that the temple and its surrounding area should belong to Cambodia, Thailand has been claiming its archeological value and sovereignty.

Both troops built up within the border area since July 2008, and brief military encounters in October 2008 and April 2009 have sparked concern of possible war between these two countries. Gunfire exchange during the armed clashes also led to bullet pits and other slight wound of the temple.
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Cambodia, S Korea to sign bilateral co-op agreements

PHNOM PENH, Cambodian and South Korean governments will sign six agreements during the official visit of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to the South Korea in late May, national media said on Monday.

The six agreements will include grant to Cambodia, loans for Cambodia's road rehabilitation, waste water treatment, Siem Reap River's development and cooperation in the fields of construction, energy, mines and communications, according to Cambodia's state-run news agency AKP (the Agence Kampuchea Presse).

Premier Hun Sen will also attend the ASEAN-Korea Commemorative Summit and make a speech on the occasion during his stay in South Korea.

According to Lee Youn-joon, South Korean deputy minister of foreign affairs, the South Korean foreign minister will visit Cambodia in July, while the South-Korean president will pay a state visit to the country in October.

South Korea became the largest foreign investing country in Cambodia in 2007, according to official statistics.
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Son recalls LI veteran held captive in Cambodia

Left, Vietnam POW Captain David Baker holds his son, David Baker Jr., 3, and chats with his father in 1973. Right, David Baker Jr. today. (Newsday File Photo / Bill Senft)

BY MARTIN C. EVANS

The photograph hangs in the dining room of the Bethesda, Md., home of David Baker Jr. It shows a little boy looking up with curious wonder at a father he was too young at the time to remember.

The photograph was taken at Kennedy Airport on March 16, 1973, when Baker was 2 and his Air Force pilot father had just been released after nearly a year in a prisoner-of-war camp in Cambodia. The son's memories were so slim that he actually asked the man if he really was his father.

Now, nearly four decades later, the son is preparing to bury his father, retired Brig. Gen. David Baker Sr., at a ceremony scheduled for Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where the nation's military heroes are laid to rest.

But as he does, memories return of a father who survived captivity in the snake-ridden jungles of Southeast Asia, then spent much of the rest of his life nurturing a family and a military career that fate had nearly snatched from him.

Huntington High grad

The senior Baker graduated from Huntington High School in 1964, and from Hofstra University four years later. He retired in 1997 as a deputy director for military education to the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff. He died of heart failure on Jan. 29 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington. He was 62.

"Absolutely, it's comforting to me," Baker said of the photograph, taken by Newsday photographer Bill Senft, who is now retired. "I was able to grow up with a dad; whereas, looking at the photograph, it could have been quite different. He was able to come back to his family.

"There will be a flood of emotions," said Baker, anticipating what his feelings will be at the Arlington ceremony. "Missing him, wishing we had had more time together, thinking that my daughter didn't have the chance to get to know him better."

Baker's daughter, Emily, was born in 2002.

The elder Baker lived a storied military life. On June 17, 1972, he was a 25-year-old Air Force captain serving in Southeast Asia. His wife, Carol, and their toddler son were back home in Huntington. Assigned a target-spotting mission, he boarded a single-prop Cessna and flew low and slow over the jungles of Cambodia.

A surface-to-air missile sliced through the airplane's tail, forcing him to parachute 4,000 feet to the jungle floor, where the Viet Cong waited for him. Shot in his right leg and right hand, he was captured within minutes of reaching the ground.

He spent the next eight months in captivity, alternately dragged on display through remote villages, bound and interrogated by his captors, or held in cramped, half-buried cages that were hidden from view by the jungle's canopy.

He told Newsday in an interview after his release that water would partly fill the cages during monsoon downpours, and poisonous snakes would slither in during the night. To the very end of his life, he avoided movies in which snakes appeared.

But he seized life anew when a 1973 accord with the North Vietnamese government led to the release of some 140 American troops held as prisoners.

He returned home to his family - landing at Kennedy Airport, where Senft took the picture of Baker Sr. walking down a long corridor with his young son. He had received several medals including the Legion of Merit and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

The elder Baker went on to get master of business administration degree at the University of Hawaii in 1974, then resumed an Air Force career that eventually saw him become the only Air Force POW from the Vietnam era to fly missions over Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. He did so while serving as deputy commander of operations for two tactical fighter wings operating out of Saudi Arabia.

In 1994, he was promoted to brigadier general and appointed a vice director of operational plans to the Joint Chiefs. His son said the time in captivity had been so stressful that his father continued to have nightmares until the end of his life.

Although General Baker was often reluctant to share some of his more painful memories, his son said he always found ways to remain open to his family.

He juggled a military career in which he flew jet fighters, then came home to play baseball with his grade-school son. Later, father and son worked together to restore a 1977 Camaro, and frequently traveled to car races. After retiring from the military in 1997, General Baker began a second career with a financial consulting company to help provide for his younger son, Christopher, who is now 30.

Thoughts of family may have helped

"I have to believe that there were times while he was in that cage when he said, 'If I ever get out of here, that is what I want to do,' " said Baker, 38.

Gen. Baker will be buried with family keepsakes - a favorite watch, a heart-shaped necklace that was one of his first gifts to his wife, who lives in Mitchellville, Md., and a crayon drawing by Emily depicting herself and family members holding hands.

Baker said he believes his father maintained an appreciation for the second chance at life that his wartime repatriation offered.

That feeling was driven home a few years ago when the younger Baker hung Senft's photograph on his dining room wall.

"He was silent looking at it," Baker recalled of his father's reaction. "I have to think he was thanking his lucky stars that he was able to come home and be a part of that picture."

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Britain garment manufacturer moves operations to Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, A major garment manufacturer will move its product development center from the United Kingdom to Cambodia, a sign, according to some experts, that despite the effects of the economic crisis, the Cambodian garment sector continues to remain internationally competitive, local media reported on Monday.

Britain company New Island Clothing is setting up "a high level standards product development center," making the company one of the first to conduct the whole garment-production process -- from development to the placement of orders -- in Cambodia, New Island General Manager Kevin Plenty was quoted by the Cambodia Daily as saying.

The company, which has been in Cambodia for nine years and produces up to 75,000 men's shirts per week, had decided to set up the center here because it makes "the whole production process quicker for our customers," as the majority of materials come from the ASEAN region, said Plenty.

Kaing Monika, external affairs manager of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) said New Island's strategy showed the factory's "long-term vision and commitment in Cambodia," adding that most Cambodian factories only do "cut, make and trim" -- a production formula in which raw materials and designs are supplied and factories only really stitch the clothes together.

Tuomo Poutiainen, chief technical adviser for the International Labor Organization's garment sector program Better Factories Cambodia, said New Island's decision was "very positive for industry" and showed there was "enough confidence in the Cambodian garment sector to invest even in bad times."

Hundreds of factories have constituted the backbone of the garment sector of Cambodia, which used to generate above 70 percent of its total annual export volumes.

However, due to the global financial crisis and rising labor disputes, at least 60 garment factories have been closed and more than 50,000 garment workers lost their jobs since late 2008 and the sector's export volumes have also seen an obvious slide in the first quarter of this year.

But Plenty said he believed that the industry will see an economic turnaround within six months, and that he is not the only one within the garment industry to feel that way.


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UN chief calls for global compassion, solidarity on Buddhist day of Vesak

UNITED NATIONS, In a message commemorating the Vesak Day, which marks the birth, enlightenment and passing of the Buddha, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday called upon the world to learn from the spiritual leader's sense of compassion.

"The financial crisis, climate change, pandemics, terrorism and other international threats prove that the fates of all people are linked," the secretary-general wrote in his message.

He noted that a problem for one country can quickly turn into a global threat, saying that "I constantly remind leaders that we must act together or we will fail individually."

It is in the world's best interest to join forces in solidarity, as well as the right thing to do, Ban said. "More than 2,500 years ago Buddha taught that nothing exists in isolation."

Underscoring the idea, Ban noted that Buddha also taught that we "cannot be happy as long as others suffer, and that when we do reach out, we discover the best in ourselves."

"On this day of Vesak, let us resolve to help people who are suffering so that we may secure a better future for all," he said.

Vesak is an annual holiday observed traditionally by practicing Buddhists in South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, such as Nepal, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, Pakistan and India.

Sometimes informally called "Buddha's birthday," it actually encompasses the birth, enlightenment Nirvana, and passing (Parinirvana) of Gautama Buddha.

The exact date of Vesak varies according to the various lunar calendars used in different traditions. In Theravada countries following the Buddhist calendar, it falls on the full moon Uposatha day (typically the 5th or 6th lunar month). While the Vesak Day in China, it is on the eighth of the fourth month in the Chinese lunar calendar. The date varies from year to year in the Western Gregorian calendar but falls in April or May. Read more!

Cambodia to strengthen security for ASEAN-EU ministerial meeting

PHNOM PENH, More than thousand of police and military police will be in force in order to safeguard the upcoming ASEAN-EU Ministerial Meeting to be held here in late May, national media reported on Sunday.

The Interior Ministry will be responsible for the security of the meeting, and military and police will be deployed to have the meeting not be affected by demonstrations and terrorism activities, the Chinese-language newspaper Cambodia Sin Chew Daily quoted Khieu Sophak, the ministry spokesman, as saying.

"Tight security will be in force in meeting-place," said Khieu, but he did not give the details of the deployment of the security force.

Delegations from 40 ASEAN and EU countries will gather here in late May to discuss ways to fight terrorism, human trafficking, drug smuggling, weapon proliferation, according to a statement from the government.

The 17th Ministerial Meeting between ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and EU (European Union) will review previous and future cooperation between the two regional bodies from May 27 to 28, said the statement issued by the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Cambodian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hor Namhong and Vaclav Klaus, Czech President and current EU President, will be named as co-presidents of the meeting.
The 16th Ministerial Meeting between ASEAN and EU was held in Germany from March 14 to 15, 2007 with the adoption of the Nuremberg Declaration on an ASEAN-EU Enhanced Partnership which sets the direction and the agenda for ASEAN-EU relations in the years to come.

The meetings rotate between ASEAN and EU countries.
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Cambodia bans sand export for environmental protection

PHNOM PENH, The Cambodian government issued a directive signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen here on Friday to ban sand export for the sake of environmental protection.

"In order to protect the balance of nature and environment in areas of sea and fresh water, the government has decided to allow sand business to meet domestic demand only," said the directive.

After examination by experts, sand dredging is only allowed in places where the balance of nature can be restored or water flow is obstructed, it said.

Meanwhile, the directive "terminates any sand export to foreign countries," too.

The Committee of Sand Management has to check sand trade immediately, and report all the involved institutions to the premier, it added.

According to local reports, Cambodia used to export 40,000 to 50,000 tons of sand per month from its coastal province of Koh Kong, and the annual value of this business stood at 35 million U.S. dollars.

Vietnam and Singapore were the major destination countries.

While sand business boomed, sand dredging frequently caused riverbanks and houses to collapse along the Mekong River and the Tonle Bassac River.
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Swede held for child sex crimes in Cambodia

A Swedish man in his sixties has been arrested in Cambodia on suspicions of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy.

The man, who resides in the Stockholm area, was arrested Wednesday night local time, but denies committing any crime.

According to the newspaper, the Swede was the target of an investigation into other child sex crimes, and was a figure in another investigation into child sex crimes in Cambodia which was abandoned in September last year.

Interpol’s division for child pornography crimes learned of the arrest on Wednesday.

“We’ve received information about it, but haven’t been directly involved in the arrest,” said Interpol’s Anders Persson from Lyon, France.

Varg Gyllander, a spokesperson with the Swedish police’s National Investigation Department (Rikskriminalen), confirmed that a Swedish man had been arrested in Cambodia and that they had received information that he was taken to a detention centre in the capital city Phnom Penh.
“What we’re doing now is making sure that the Cambodian police receive the help they need from us. We’ll help them out as best we can,” he said.

Police don’t know of the exact charges against the Swede, but it has something to do with the sexual assault of a child.

“All we can say is that he’s known for similar crimes from before,” said Gyllander to the TT news agency.

Local organizations which against paedeophiles in Cambodia are said to have had the man under surveillance for some time.

He is reported to have been in the country since 2007 and been in contact with small boys, according to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

Seila Samelang from Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), claims that, prior to his arrest, the man was living together with five boys and had launched an adoption bid with local authorities in Cambodia, according to SvD.
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Despite warnings, some travel to potential danger zones

By John D. SutterCNN


CNN) -- A few weeks ago, when violence and kidnappings along the U.S.-Mexico border were all over the news, Todd Sotkiewicz took a group of high school students to Tijuana, Mexico.

The teens' parents had to be warned that the service-oriented spring break trip might go against a federal travel alert, he said. But, in his view, the value of the experience, which involved building homes for impoverished families, trumped any perceived threat.

"These poor families really needed these houses," said Sotkiewicz, a parent of one of the students and also the president of Lonely Planet in the Americas. "We went down there and we took the appropriate precautions like we all should."

While the H1N1 flu virus has stirred fears about international travel and has brought renewed attention to government travel advisories, there remains a hearty group of travelers who say such official advice doesn't dictate whether they will or won't take a trip.

For some, voyages into warned-against places are less motivated by adrenaline and more by a genuine desire to experience the world in a new way. Danger is part of the human experience, some of these travelers say. It's something that can't be avoided entirely and should be assessed by well-informed individuals, not just by governments.

"It was not a draw that there was a dangerous element to it," Sotkiewicz said of the Mexico trip. "The draw was that [the students] wanted to have a transformative experience."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends U.S. residents avoid all nonessential travel to Mexico because of swine flu. The U.S. State Department still has an alert out concerning violence in the country. A spokeswoman for the CDC said travelers should follow official government guidance when making their plans.

Robert Young Pelton, an author who has traveled to 120 countries and seen 36 wars, said people can and should travel wherever they want to, regardless of warnings. Such adventures offer intellectual stimulus and have the potential to draw meaningful connections between people, he said.

"The reason why it's important to go to places that you dreamed of or are intensely interested in is because it matters," he said. "I could send you to Disney World for a week and I don't think you would change a bit, but if I sent you to a Rwandan refugee camp, I think you would change peoples' lives, and you would be changed by it."

He says travel warnings, like those concerning H1N1, are politicized. The hysteria about this strain of flu is driven more by an irrational fear than by actual danger, he said.

"It's a fascinating fear. It's not a danger," he said of the flu. "So when people say, 'Oh, it's dangerous in Afghanistan,' or, 'It's dangerous in Mexico,' what are they basing that on? They obviously haven't been there."

Sotkiewicz said travel deals tend to pop up in destinations that are stigmatized by a health outbreak or a terrorist attack. This was true after the Madrid, Spain, attacks, as well as the SARS and bird flu epidemics, he said.

In a statement to CNN, Expedia, the travel Web site, said a travel warning like the one for swine flu "ultimately creates travel values for consumers."

"As the swine flu subsides in Mexico, we expect travel suppliers in the area to offer significant deals to increase demand for the region," Expedia said.

When asked if some people might wish to travel to Mexico despite the advisory, perhaps for a hotel deal, CDC spokeswoman Shelly Diaz said travelers should heed the warning.

"Your health should come before your wallet. There's nothing more valuable than your health," she said. "We are recommending that people avoid travel to Mexico unless it's essential. I don't know that a really good travel bargain makes it essential."

Melvin Francisquini, a 31-year-old from Miami, Florida, who is volunteering in Mexico City, said this actually wouldn't be a bad time to visit Mexico except everything is closed. On Tuesday, only a handful of people were still wearing flu masks in the subway, he said. Follow Francisquini's video posts on iReport

"Come if you're fine with everything being closed," he said. "I mean, even museums are being closed, but don't be afraid of the flu. It's nothing out of the ordinary." Avoiding Mexico specifically because of the flu is ridiculous, he said.

People who travel into potentially dangerous places seem to have their own rules for deciding what's safe and what isn't. Several said they factor in government warnings and news reports. Others consider crime rates and statistics.

The trend seems to be for people to look for online information that comes directly from travelers in the country where they want to go.

These on-the-ground observations are important because U.S. news stories about foreign countries tend to focus on crime and terrorism and not what life is actually like for people, said Pelton.

"Millions of people get up every morning and go through their entire day with nothing actually happened to them, but the media will never write a story that says, 'Nothing happened, everything's fine,' so we tend to be inundated with stories about" violence, he said.

He added: "Yes you can order a latte in Kabul and Somalia has hotels for 40 bucks a night."

Gary Arndt, a 39-year-old who sold his assets and has been blogging about his world travels since 2007, said many American travelers have a "fear of the unknown."

Arndt was in Israel when swine flu broke out. He said he would have no qualms about traveling to Mexico because of the swine flu.

He recently traveled to a region of Cambodia that is considered dangerous by some. He also went to Thailand at a time when most travelers were "freaked out" by government protesters. Prices for hotels at the time were lower because the country was emptied of tourists, he said.

"I'm not the kind of person that is an adrenaline junkie," he said. "I did bungee jump once [but] I've never gone skydiving, I don't go rock climbing. It's not like I want to go into these places because they're dangerous. Read more!