McNamara's Retreat

By Max Frankel


IN RETROSPECT The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. By Robert S. McNamara with Brian VanDeMark. Illustrated. 414 pp. New York: Times Books/Random House. $27.50.

IN his 79th year, Robert S. McNamara at long last offers the public a glimpse of his aching conscience. The most willful Vietnam warrior in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, he was also the first at the top to admit defeat, in private. He then stood silent on the war for a quarter-century and drowned his sorrow in good works at the World Bank. Mr. McNamara personified the slow maturing of America's foreign policy from cocky interventionism to cost-conscious realism, yet for a generation he refused to explain his conversion, explore his mistakes, judge his colleagues or instruct posterity. The pain, or the guilt, was simply too great. As he states in the preface to "In Retrospect": "This is the book I planned never to write."

Until now, he contends, the story of how "the best and the brightest" got it wrong in Vietnam has not been told. But David Halberstam, who applied that ironic phrase to his rendering of the tale 23 years ago, told it better in many ways than Mr. McNamara does now. So, too, did the Pentagon Papers, that huge trove of documents assembled at Mr. McNamara's behest when he first recognized a debt to history. The contemporary analyses in the papers, which were leaked to The Times in 1971, stand up so well that they now serve their patron as a major source.

What Mr. McNamara adds to the public record are some White House documents and tape transcripts revealing, most notably, his own agonized attempts in 1967 to persuade President Lyndon B. Johnson to stop sending more men to the slaughter: the Secretary of Defense who had come to tame the Pentagon with managerial wizardry ended up desperately begging for a fig leaf for withdrawal, in the form of a coalition that would inevitably give the Vietcong dominance in Saigon. Mr. McNamara says he does not know to this day whether he thus quit or was fired. "Maybe it was both."

But he left with a whimper, not a bang. So why speak out now? The main reason, he says, is that he has "grown sick at heart witnessing the cynicism and even contempt" with which so many Americans view their institutions and leaders. He knows how much Vietnam contributed to that disaffection; he would never deny the war's terrible damage. But he hopes to prove that the mistakes were "mostly honest," even if traceable to a ghastly ignorance of the Vietnamese people, culture and terrain, and the historical forces of that time.

Why should the rest of us relive his agony? Mr. McNamara, characteristically statistical, points to "11 major causes for our disaster in Vietnam" in a chapter called "The Lessons of Vietnam." But implicitly his book screams another lesson: Though cynicism and contempt for power are destructive of government, a respectful skepticism is essential, and rarely wrong.

BY delaying his war memoir so long, Mr. McNamara has greatly compounded the difficulty of his mission. Now that the Soviet Union lies in ruins and American corporations beg for business in China and Vietnam, no one under the age of 50 can be expected to fathom the fears and phobias of the 1960's to which he rightly ascribes the Indochina disaster. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the most venerated American of the time, had taught -- and the Kennedy and Johnson teams never dared to doubt in time -- that if South Vietnam was "lost" to Communism, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia would fall like dominoes, imperiling India, Burma, Indonesia and the Philippines, if not also Japan, and emboldening the Russians and Chinese to extend Communist conquests by military force or subversion in ways that would sooner or later provoke a nuclear World War III, the very destruction of civilization.

Yes, that is how America's leaders spoke to each other and, all too persuasively, to the public. Mr. McNamara's book reminds us that they even repeated the litany in memos to their Presidents, to inoculate them against any temptation to retreat from Vietnam. And if all those dominoes were not cause enough, there were promises to be kept in order to preserve the value of America's other diplomatic threats and commitments.

Mr. McNamara and his generation came to power convinced that the "appeasement" of Nazi Germany -- the failure to block its early grasp for Europe's dominoes -- had led inevitably to a catastrophic World War II. Averting another such disaster, they were sure, required punishing anything resembling Communist aggression in its earliest stages, when the cost would be tolerable. That was their creed as they rebuilt Western Europe and stood toe to toe with the Soviet armies across Germany, fought to a bloody stalemate against China in Korea, threatened war over Berlin and risked war to force Soviet missiles out of Cuba. Thus "contained," the Soviets and Chinese took to endorsing "wars of liberation," thereby qualifying even distant uprisings as threats to American security. Mr. McNamara's first assignment from President John F. Kennedy was to augment America's nuclear power, whose use was unimaginable, with the forces and weapons they were sure would be needed to fight "conventional" wars.

From this bed of doctrine grew what Mr. McNamara considers his team's most fateful error: mistaking Ho Chi Minh's nationalist drive to unite Vietnam as the challenge of a monolithic Communist world. That misjudgment foreclosed any discussion of how an American withdrawal from Indochina could be made strategically tolerable. It even prevented analysis, before the plunge, of how high a price the commitment was worth. Mr. McNamara's dry rendering of those fateful tenets of containment fails to convey the passion with which they were embraced. And he mostly ignores their powerful resonance in domestic politics.

Kennedy, no less than Johnson, subscribed to these simplistic doctrines and the misjudgments they inspired, even though Mr. McNamara, without persuasive evidence, deems it "highly probable" that Kennedy would have pulled back from massive intervention in a second term. This presumes that had Kennedy lived, the same cast of senior officials would have avoided what Mr. McNamara describes as a second tier of error: the failure to live by the mantra that the battle in Vietnam was political, a fight for the "hearts and minds" of an abused peasantry, and that Americans could assist but never supplant the South Vietnamese.

In this pew, Mr. McNamara himself was a prominent sinner. His can-do spirit found no mission impossible, even as Saigon's governments and armies crumbled. His domineering intellect and predilection for systems analysis made him a pathetic victim of erroneous and deceptive military audits of bodies counted, weapons captured, sorties flown, supply lines ruptured. Soon enough, as the press decided, it became "McNamara's war," and certainly America's.

Mr. McNamara deplores the absence of political advice from old Asia hands who had been driven from Government service in the McCarthy purges. But as he proves again in this memoir, he did not easily integrate political wisdom and intuition into his analyses. Even in retrospect, he does not associate the drift into war in Vietnam with the Republican taunts that Democrats had "lost" China to Communism. (Kennedy was afraid to recognize not only China but even Outer Mongolia!) Mr. McNamara cannot bring himself to believe that the election calendar affected Johnson's willingness to escalate the war in 1965 but not in 1964 or, as Johnson eventually confessed to Doris Kearns, that he stayed the course in Asia because he feared losing effectiveness at home -- like Truman after the "loss" of China -- as much as he feared the repercussions of defeat abroad.

Finally, Mr. McNamara recounts a third tier of error -- an escalating pattern of military misjudgment. He is hard on the Joint Chiefs of Staff for their misplaced optimism in the early years, their always excessive faith in high-tech weapons and their later expectations that massive bombing and frontal battles could wear down the Vietnamese enemy. He is remiss in not fully rebutting the postwar claims that timid civilians had tied the military's hands with unreasonable limits on troop commitments and bombing targets. Mr. McNamara emphasizes how little was accomplished by bombings heavier even than those in World War II. And he explains Johnson's caution in target selection by recalling the fear that a more rapid escalation could provoke Chinese intervention. But Americans who cannot accept David's triumph over Goliath draw more belligerent "lessons" from this history, which Mr. McNamara should have engaged more directly.

Even more disappointing is Mr. McNamara's unwillingness to explore the human tragedies and political legacies of this longest American war. What was it like to send tens of thousands to their deaths in an increasingly dubious cause? How did the strain affect the men in charge? We get a glimpse of Jacqueline Kennedy beating him on the chest in protest against the war, and of angry insults hurled on the ski slopes, but no real introspection. Mr. McNamara says the war tore deeply at his own family, but quickly adds: "I am not comfortable speaking in such terms."

What then of the political legacy? How, without growing cynical, can citizens protect themselves against the stubborn ignorance and misplaced zeal of their leaders? In the darkest days, Mr. McNamara remembers, he watched the demonstrators from his Pentagon window and insisted that his subordinates show respect for the freedoms of speech and assembly. But he took refuge -- and takes it even now -- in opinion polls that recorded support from the majority of Americans who, as he well knew, had been misinformed and denied vital information at every major turn.

"Looking back," he writes, "I clearly erred by not forcing . . . a knock-down, drag-out debate over the loose assumptions, unasked questions and thin analyses underlying our military strategy in Vietnam. I had spent 20 years as a manager identifying problems and forcing organizations -- often against their will -- to think deeply and realistically about alternative courses of action and their consequences. I doubt I will ever fully understand why I did not do so here."

YET even now Mr. McNamara means he should have stirred debate only inside the small circle of Presidential counselors led by himself, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser (later succeeded by Walt Rostow). Mr. McNamara blames Johnson for going to war furtively, with no regard for the rights of Congress and the public, but he rejects any obligation to resign in protest or, once out of office, to share his policy disagreements with the country. Cabinet officers, he contends, should have a constituency of one: the President -- from whom they derive all authority and through whom alone they can be held accountable.

That is surely the right ethic for normal times. Unelected officials should not steal their President's mandate to pursue an independent course. But a thousand dead Americans a month create their own constituency. Even military discipline admits a higher duty than hierarchical loyalty when power is badly used and puts lives at risk.

Mr. McNamara relieved his private turmoil by reading poetry, and shared his misgivings with Robert F. Kennedy and a few other intimates. But he refused to abandon or attack the President whom he had helped to guide into quicksand. He and Johnson "loved and respected" each other, in a bond that even now, in retrospect, keeps the public at a distance looking on, with skepticism, I hope. Read more!

Local Rotary gets $300K grant for Cambodia project

By Christopher Curry
Staff writer


Since 2005, the Rotary Club of Gainesville and locally run nonprofit organization Sustainable Cambodia have worked together to improve the quality of life in impoverished villages of rural central Cambodia's Pursat province.

They have established a school for children, funded the construction of wells for clean drinking water supplies and crop irrigation and helped bolster the area's sustainable food supply with gardens and the donation of livestock to village families.

But their past ventures together have never had the one-time infusion of funds the groups just received - a $300,000 grant from Rotary International.

Richard Allen, the president and co-founder of Sustainable Cambodia and a member of the Rotary Club of Gainesville, said the majority of the money will go toward additional water wells in the dry region, where drought lasts some five months a year.

Drinking supplies, crops and the survival of livestock all depend on those wells, Allen said.

"Water, over there, is the linchpin of everything that takes place," Allen said.

To date, Sustainable Cambodia has funded more than 100 water wells in the Pursat province.

The grant money will fund 80 additional wells and 8,000 water filters to supply clean water to the region.

It will also fund construction of 800 new latrines, 20 community ponds for farming fish, raised gardens able to withstand floods, and road repairs in the Pursat's Kravanh district, according to a press release from the Rotary Club of Gainesville.

In addition to the infrastructure projects in Cambodia, the Gainesville groups have helped establish a partner organization in Cambodia - the Rotary Club of Pursat.

Elena Casson, chair of the Rotary Club of Gainesville's Cambodia committee, said that, working with the club in Cambodia, planning has already started on the projects the grant will fund so construction work will be able to begin by the end of the year.

The Rotary Club of Gainesville was one of 15 worldwide recipients of the rotary International grant. The local group had to pledge $30,000 in matching funds.

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Author Attacks Price Cutting Retailers

Here is anothner news about criminal activities in Thailand about Human Right abuse and killing their foreign workers, especially those who came from Cambodia and Vietnam, most cases washed to shores from fishing boats.

By P.J. Gladnick


Your humble correspondent always checks out NeverPayRetailAgain very carefully every morning. That site often provides information about sales bargains that sometimes defy belief. In fact, yesterday at Publix I was able to purchase 2 packages of Ball Park Franks plus a large seedless watermelon for a total cost of just $4.98. $3.99 BOGO (Buy One Get One free) on the hot dogs minus a $1.00 Ball Park coupon so my cost was just $2.99. The watermelon was $4.99 but there was a $3.00 discount coupon if you bought two packages of Ball Park Franks so the watermelon only cost me $1.99. Total cost of everything was $4.98 rather than the regular full price of $12.97. A savings of over 60%.

However, according to Ellen Ruppel Shell, I was guilty of not only bargain shopping but also aiding and abetting in despoiling the environment and taking advantage of cheap labor. Here is Ruppel Shell's assertion in her book, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, as covered in the New York Times:

Ms. Ruppel Shell, a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly and a journalism professor at Boston University, is disgusted with retailers who she says have abandoned their principles in pursuit of rock-bottom prices. And she is angry with the rest of us for supporting them.

Ms. Ruppel Shell argues that our national obsession with bargains has lowered our standard of living and hurt the environment and the quality of American products.

Are you looking for bargains? Shame on you! You have incurred the wrath of one Ms. Rupple Shell. Of course, discount retailer Wal-Mart comes in for its share of slams from the outraged author:

“Cheap” has plenty of targets, and many are usual ones. Ms. Ruppel Shell lambastes Wal-Mart, saying it underpays its workers and enables other retailers to do the same. She criticizes China as tolerating sweatshops with dangerous working conditions. And if you have a weak stomach, you may not get past the chapter entitled “Cheap Eats.” The author goes into wrenching detail about the foul and environmentally noxious conditions at some of the world’s largest factory farms, suppliers to the fast-food industry.

You like eating shrimp at low prices? Ms. Ruppel Shell is not happy with you either and even blames you for the devestation caused by the 2004 South Asia tsunami:

She castigates Red Lobster, saying it patronizes Thailand’s shrimp farms. The Thai shrimp industry has been accused of environmental, child labor and human rights abuses; it attracts migrant workers from Vietnam and Cambodia who labor for next to nothing, Ms. Ruppel Smith writes.

She also writes that Thai shrimp farmers have clear-cut the country’s coastal mangrove forests — a protective wall between land and sea — to make way for more breeding grounds. She cites a United Nations report that says their disappearance exacerbated the effects of the Southern Asian tsunami in 2004 that killed more than 5,300 people in Thailand alone. In other words, many have paid a terrible price so Americans can feast on cheap crustaceans.

Yes, Ms. Ruppel Shell really dislikes those retailers who provide us with steep discounts but, ultimately, she blames YOU for taking advantage of those bargains:

But most of all, Ms. Ruppel Shell indicts all of us for supporting these discounters — particularly those of us who consider ourselves politically and socially aware.

“We rail against exploitation of low-paid workers in Asia” but still drive long distances to save a little money on tube socks, she writes. “We fume over the mistreatment of animals by agribusiness but freak out at an uptick in food prices. We lecture our kids on social responsibility and then buy them toys assembled by destitute child workers on some far-flung foreign shore.”

One of the inadvertently funniest observations made by Ms. Ruppel Shell is her assertion that the shopping cart has "fooled" consumers into buying too much. I kid you not:

...She infers that Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket company, introduced the shopping cart in 1937 to fool his consumers into buying more goods. But how many of us can stand in the checkout line with a week’s worth of groceries in our arms? Mr. Goldman deserves gratitude, not scorn, for his consumer-friendly innovation.

Yeah, something we would really look forward to in the bizzaro Ruppel Shell world; lugging around heavy bags of groceries in the supermarket. Oh, and in her alternate universe, she actually thinks consumers could revolt in favor of being charged higher prices:

In the end, she calls for a consumer revolution. She says that we must spend in a way that is consistent with our principles.

And now I see that NeverPayRetailAgain has listed a "Daily Steal" bargain for FREE insect repellent picnic tablecloths. Should I risk the wrath of Ms. Ruppel Shell for taking advantage of this?

UPDATE: Amazon now has her $25.95 book on (gasp!) sale at $17.13. A savings of $8.82. So how many more trees will be killed due to the extra books sold due to this price cut? Where is the OUTRAGE at your own price cutting book sale, Ms. Ruppel Shell? Read more!

Japanese language proficiency test to be held in Myanmar

YANGON, July 5 (Xinhua) -- A Japanese language proficiency test for Myanmar citizens will be held in the former capital of Yangon in late this year to boost language communication between peoples of Myanmar and Japan, according to Myanmar Association of Japan Alumni (MAJA) Sunday.

Sponsored by the Japanese Embassy and the MAJA, the 11th Japanese language proficiency test will take place on December 6 at the Japanese Embassy here, the sources said, adding that the test will cover four levels.

Meanwhile, the 10th Japanese speech contest was held in Myanmar under the title of "Together Toward the Future, Mekong and Japan" in last May and four winners were produced out of 15 contestants.

Myanmar and Japan have been cooperating closely in the culture sector. Some Japanese film festivals were held over the last few months in Myanmar, while a special piano and flute concert by famous Japanese artists Hiroshi Matsushima and Yoshimi Matsushima is to take place in Myanmar's Yangon and Mandalay in August this year under the Japan-Mekong exchange year program.

The program has introduced music concert, film festival, get-together party, and Japanese speech contest every month since January this year.

Other programs to be added include Karatedo contest, Ekabana flower decoration show, Japanese fashion show, Japanese singing contest, Judo contest and film festivals respectively.

In March this year, a music concert by a 20-member Myanmar Gitamate Music Band, involving Myanmar and Japanese artists, had taken place in Yangon under the program to showcase the cooperation and friendship between Japan and Myanmar.

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS)-Economic Cooperation has worked out a plan for development of tourism as part of its economic cooperation in the subregion, designating the year 2009-2010 as GMS tourism year.

The Mekong River is shared by six countries -- China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
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Migrant fishermen fall through cracks in Thai trafficking laws

By Joel Brinkley


Don't ever accept an invitation to go fishing in Thailand. You might not come back.

Almost daily, bodies are washing ashore along the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia, Burma, Cambodia. These are unfortunate migrants, most of them from here in Cambodia. These people were sold to Thai fishermen who took them out to sea, worked them until they starved to death and then threw them overboard. It happens all the time.

The problem got so bad that the United States Senate's Foreign Relations Committee and the United Nations both but put out reports in recent weeks excoriating Thai and Malaysian authorities for selling Cambodian and Burmese migrants to Thai boat captains, sending them to a near-certain death. "If they are unable to pay for their release," the Senate report said, "the refugees are sold into forced labor, most commonly on fishing boats."

Once on the boat, "they don't come back," said Maj. Gen Visut Vanichbut of the Thai police. "All they get to eat is the fish that get left over in the net. They aren't paid. If they get sick, they're thrown overboard."

When they die, from overwork or starvation, their bodies are thrown to the sharks. In most cases, no one knew the victim was on the boat, and so no one claims the body if it washes ashore.
The general told me about this last year. But the United Nations report shows that the hideous problem continues at full force even now. It quotes several Cambodians who watched fishermen decapitate captives or throw them overboard. Several governments, not just Thailand's, are at fault. And by all accounts, the economic crisis is exacerbating the problem.

Until just now, the Cambodian law governing trafficking did not even recognize men as potential victims. The laws were written to protect women and children drawn into sexual slavery. But in June, the government in Phnom Penh announced that it was revising the statute.

"Today we change our strategy also to focus on men," Kong Chhan, a deputy director in the Ministry of Social Affairs, told the Phnom Penh Post.

Now we can only wait for Thailand to change its strategy.

Most of the news you hear from Thailand these days involves the riots and demonstrations to overturn whatever government happens to be in power. No one talks about the fishing-boat problem. The fishermen pay off the police. The police then cover up the crimes, and so hundreds of victims continue to die month after month.

If a victim manages to survive, then Thailand is well-equipped to care for him and then use international agencies to help send him home. The Thai government has shelters and administrators whose jobs are to help human-trafficking victims. I have seen them. The shelters are quite nice. And that serves as a stark illustration of a noxious paradox that afflicts human-trafficking enforcement in Thailand, Cambodia and much of the world.

When human trafficking first came into focus for law-enforcement a decade ago, legal and political officials everywhere put primary emphasis on protecting the victims - the people who were lured into slavery and abused. Stories a decade ago of police and immigration agents jailing and then deporting the trafficking victims along with their captors horrified human-rights advocates, and their complaints were quite influential when the first human-trafficking laws were drafted.

No pressure

That victim-oriented approach has held firm all these years, and "it has proved to work perfectly for the Thai," said Lance Bonneau head of the International Organization of Migration office in Bangkok, his tone oozing disgust. His organization works with the Thai government to send trafficking victims back home to Cambodia, Burma - just as other IOM officers do all over the world.

"If you 'have' the victim," Bonneau told me, "there's no pressure to go after the traffickers" who are paying off the police. "It doesn't upset any of the arrangements the police have" with the fishing boat captains, the brothel and dance-club owners or others who enslave hapless victims. The traffickers can pursue their unconscionable work; the police can continue taking their kickbacks.

When the State Department researches its annual Trafficking in Persons report each year and asks Thailand what it is doing to fight trafficking, the Thai can point to their anti-trafficking laws and to those lovely shelters for victims. Usually, that's enough to save Thailand from a poor rating.

Thailand officials responded to the Senate and United Nations allegations with angry denials. Maybe in Washington's next report, it will look a little deeper at Thailand.

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Vietnam Plans To Build Border Economic Zone With Cambodia

HANOI, July 4 (Bernama) -- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a master plan to build the region along the border with Cambodia into a major economic zone, according to the Vietnam news agency's report.

Under the ambitious scheme, the southwestern border areas, comprised of four provinces in the Central Highlands and six provinces in the southern region, will be developed into an economic zone of national and international importance by 2020.

The border economic zone including Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Dac Lak, Dak Nong, Binh Phuoc, Tay Ninh, Long An, Dong Thap, An Giang and Kien Giang provinces, will act as an entry point for trade, services and cargo transportation between the Greater Mekong's Sub region and the East Sea.

The area, which totals 73,369sq.km, is home to 12,650,000 people and expected to become a national economicdriving force in terms of agriculture, forestry, hydropower and transportation, according to the plan announced by the Government website.

By 2030, the areas along the Cambodia border will become a major economic zone of national and international importance, which can have a special influence to the Central Highlands and the central and southern regions of Vietnam, as well as to other economies in the Gulf of Thailand.

The area is expected to become the nation's biggest natural reserve of biological diversity and ethnic cultures, and one of the major tourist attractions in the ASEAN region, the news agency said.

The cities of Buon Ma Thuot and Pleiku in the Central Highlands, Long Xuyen in the Mekong Delta and Trang Bang Town in Tay Ninh will be developed into the development cores of the region.

Priorities will be given to developing urban centres and economic zones along the border with Cambodia. Phu Quoc Island will become a special administrative and economic zone under the plan, which has a vision through 2030.
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Border dispute not lead to war with Cambodia: Thai defense minister

BANGKOK, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Thai Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said on Saturday that he was confident that the border dispute with Cambodia will not lead to war between the two countries as some fear.

Thailand's Army Region 2 commander will hold talks with Cambodia's army region 4 commander to ease tension along the border and to reduce military forces of the two countries deployed near Preah Vihear temple, Prawit was quoted by the website of the Bangkok Post as saying.

The area around Preah Vihear Temple, which was inscribed as a World Heritage Site on July 7 last year, has been the scene of a tense standoff between the Cambodian and Thai armed forces. The Cambodian government insisted that Thai troops have deployed on Cambodian soil, while Thailand said its troops are only in the disputed zone.

Early Saturday, Thai Deputy Prime Minister for security affairs Suthep Thaugsuban flew to Cambodia to attend the opening ceremony of No 67 highway, due to be presided by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

This is the second visit to Cambodia by Suthep in two weeks.

Suthep said that Thailand has no policy to cut number of troop deployed along Thai-Cambodia border for the time being.

However, he expressed confidence that the situation along the border will not escalate to violent confrontation between the two countries.

In mid-June, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit said the government would ask UNESCO to review last year's decision to register Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site when he meets the organization this week in Spain.

On Cambodian side, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said his country was ready for any situation which might follow the reinforcement of troops on the Thai side of the border.

Tensions have escalated at the Thai-Cambodian border, with Thailand's Second Army Area commander Lt General Wiboonsak Neeparn recently rotated troops at Preah Vihear so that they are fresh and ready for a possible attack from Cambodia.

Cambodia has already boosted its presence in the border area.
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Tensions Reportedly Rise at Preah Vihear Border

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer


Military sources said Thursday Thai troops have reinforced their positions along the contested border near Preah Vihear temple, adding tensions to a military standoff that has resulted in several skirmishes over the past year.

“A clash could have happened this afternoon, at 3 pm, but finally tensions were abated,” one officer stationed in Preah Vihear province said Thursday.

On Wednesday night, Thai soldiers arrived in five trucks at the entry of Preah Vihear temple, which is at the center of the disputes that were sparked when the temple was added to a Unesco World Heritage list in July last year.

Cambodian soldiers barred about 10 Thai soldiers from entering an encampment near Keo Sekha Kirisvarak pagoda, which has been occupied by Thai soldiers since July 15, 2008, the officer said, requesting anonymity.

“They came with their truck lights switched off,” he said.

Other military sources said Thai soldiers had reinforced positions near Ta Thao gate, at the entry of the 11th-Century temple, near two areas where fighting occurred in 2008, namely Sambok Khmom and Veal Intry, or Eagle Field.

Gen. Pol Saroun, commander of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, downplayed the rising tensions between the military.

Lt. Gen. Chhom Socheat, undersecretary of state for the Ministry of Defense, said the situation on the border was “normal” on both sides.

In meetings between regional military commanders Wednesday, the Cambodian side urged the Thais to withdraw troops from nearby the pagoda, Sambok Khmom and other areas around the temple, Chhom Socheat said.

Thai commanders said they would take the request under consideration, he added.


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Opposition Seeks Visit of Jailed Journalist

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington


Opposition lawmakers on Thursday made a request to Phnom Penh court to visit a jailed opposition journalist who arrested following a verdict last week he had printed false information about a senior official.

Hang Chakra, chief of the Khmer Mchas Srok newspaper, was sentenced to 12 months in prison and fined $2,195, after publishing reports in April and May that implicated Council Minister Sok An in corrupt practices.

Sok An, who is responsible for some of the nation’s most important matters, including the Khmer Rouge tribunal and offshore oil exploration, filed suit, alleging the articles could affect political stability, as they were written about government leaders.

Police arrested Hang Chakra immediately after the verdict was announced, June 26.

“We want to visit him and ask him about some affairs about the arrest,” Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Yim Sovann told VOA Khmer Thursday.

Chhoung Chu Ngy, Hang Chakra’s lawyer, said he had requested release on the grounds that his detention was unjust. He also said he plans to appeal the verdict.

Chiv Keng, chief of Phnom Penh Municipal Court, and judge Din Sivuthy, who handled the case, could not be reached for comment, but a court official who asked not to be named said the court was considering the visitation request.

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Thailand, Cambodia start military reduction at border

BANGKOK, July 3 — Thailand and Cambodia are starting to reduce the number of military personnel deployed along the shared border on Friday to ease tension between the two neighboring countries, according to Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban.

Mr. Suthep asked the villagers not to panic about the border situation and affirmed he is quite confident in Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's affirmation to do everything possible to ease border tensions.

The Thai deputy prime minister visited Cambodia last Saturday and met with Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen, who asked him to convey the message to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the Thai people that Cambodia would try to ease tensions along the border to create a good atmosphere to foster bilateral economic cooperation and good relations.

Mr. Suthep said starting Friday, Thailand and Cambodia would begin to readjust their forces near the ancient Preah Vihear temple to avoid confrontation.

The Thai deputy prime minister said he would visit Cambodia again on Saturday, and expects to meet Mr. Hun Sen for further talks.

"Both governments are responsible to run their countries,” Mr. Suthep said, “so we should trust in each country's affirmation, or what they say, as we are sincere with each other. We have a strong determination to make the people of both nations have good understanding with each other.” (PNA/TNA)

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Cambodia says it gave UN a plan for Preah Vihear in April

By Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation


Cambodian authorities have dismissed a claim by Thailand's Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti in the dispute over the drawing up of a plan to "safeguard and develop" the Preah Vihear Temple. Cambodia says Phnom Penh submitted the plan in April.
Suwit said earlier, after the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee in Spain, that the committee had delayed its decision to take up the Preah Vihear issue since Cambodia had not yet completed its management plan.

Hang Soth, the general director of Cambodia's Preah Vihear National Authority, said Cambodia had submitted conservation plans to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) on April 4.

"We don't understand why Thai leaders have said Cambodia has until next year to submit the plan," Hang Soth was quoted as saying by the Phnom Penh Post as seen yesterday on its website.

"We have already submitted our projects … Cambodians made the temple. Why can't we conserve it?" he said.

Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said the Thai statements were meant to cover up their failure at the Unesco meeting in Spain, where they were unable to get their challenge to the Preah Vihear plan on the agenda.

"The Thai leaders' comments are just to hide their failure to review the listing," he said.

The World Heritage Committee meeting in Spain on June 23-30 issued its decision 33COM 7B.74, which has been seen by The Nation and does indeed say that Cambodia submitted its report for the safeguarding and development of the temple in April and the committee reviewed it on April 24.

The committee made a request to the State Party (Cambodia) to submit to the World Heritage Centre by February 1, 2010, a report on the progress made in the implementation of the recommendations by the committee in its decision 32COM 8B.102, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 34th session in 2010.

In fact there is no extension of a timetable, as February 2010 was mentioned in the previous decision in the 32nd session in Quebec, in paragraph 16, saying: "further requests the State Party of Cambodia to submit to the World Heritage Centre by February 2010, for submission to the World Heritage Committee at its 34th session in 2010, a full management plan for the inscribed property, including a finalised map". Read more!

Khmer Rouge henchman denied bail

Judges rejected the former Khmer Rouge head of state's appeal for release from jail before his trial at Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court.

Khieu Samphan, 77, who is charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes, is one of five top cadres being held by the tribunal over atrocities committed during the regime's 1975-1979 rule.

The former leader appealed in April to be let out of jail but judges ruled his detention was necessary to protect his security and preserve public order.

"There continue to be well founded reasons to believe that the charged person may have committed the crimes with which he has been charged," said the pre-trial chamber ruling.

"The charged person attended at least one meeting where the situation of traitors and their potential execution was discussed," it added.

Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation and overwork as the Khmer Rouge regime emptied Cambodia's cities, exiling the population to vast collective farms in its bid for a communist utopia.

The ongoing first Khmer Rouge trial began in February, when the regime's notorious prison chief, Kaing Guek Eav, better known by the alias Duch, went before the court.

Khieu Samphan was arrested in 2007 but no date has been set for his trial with three other leaders, which is expected to take place next year.

The Khmer Rouge tribunal was convened in 2006 after nearly a decade of fractious talks between the Government and United Nations over how to prosecute the former Khmer Rouge leaders.

Read more!

Cambodia fails to sell garments to Japan

THE Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) announced on Wednesday it has failed to boost local industry by tapping the Japanese clothing market.

Cheath Khemara, GMAC's labour issue officer, told the Post Wednesday that the Kingdom had lost out because producers were unable to compete with neighbouring countries on quality, transportation and pricing.

"We really regret we failed to grab such a big market, but we will keep trying in the hope that we can enter Japan in future," he said.

He said exporting to Japan would add at least US$100 million annually in garment revenues.

The president of GMAC, Van Sou Ieng, led a delegation to Japan in November in a bid to persuade buyers to consider Cambodian garments.

The delegation included manufacturers, government officials and union representatives, and concluded with Japan agreeing to a trial purchase of 10,000 suits and 100,000 pairs of shoes. That deal has not happened.

One of the delegates on that trip, Chea Vuthy from the Council for the Development of Cambodia, told the Post he was not aware of the reasons for failure.

He added that responsibility lay with the Ministry of Commerce.

However, Mean Sophea, who is director of the department of trade preferences at the ministry, was unable to comment on Wednesday as he was in a meeting.

Ath Thun, the president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Unions, an umbrella organisation that has more than 50 garment unions as members, said the failure was a great loss.

Japan is a large market, he said, and its consumers can afford to pay higher prices than people in other markets.

"To my mind loss of confidence by workers in their job security and their low salaries are the main factors which contributed to low quality," Ath Thun said. "But I don't think these are the main reasons for the failure to enter Japan."

Ath Thun said that, more importantly, the government needs to make the bureaucratic process more transparent and improve infrastructure used by the industry.

"Then I am sure we can make a new deal which will allow us to export garment products to Japan," he said.

Cambodia has long wanted to export garments to Japan, the world's third-largest market for such exports after the US and the European Union.

The industry earns revenues of $3 billion annually. Read more!

leading maker of fish sauce in Cambodia aims for US

Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN, A worker manages the production line at the Kampot Fish Sauce factory in Kampot. The company is hoping to make its first overseas sales to the United States.

Kampot Fish Sauce looks to branch out and tap into overseas market after complaining of glut of local manufacturers producing substandard goods.

THE Kingdom's most popular fish sauce brand has told the Post it is looking to target the US market in a bid to boost sales. Toung Sopheap, the owner of Ngov Heng Kampot Fish Sauce processing factory, which makes Kampot Fish Sauce, said her husband is currently in the United States seeking marketing and distribution partners.

"We need to grow our sales and look at new markets overseas because we have run into some problems with the local market - there are many illegal fish sauce companies making a cheap, low-quality product," she said.

Toung Sopheap said her company is inspected every six months by the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, and supplies 60,000 litres of fish sauce, soybean sauce and chilli sauce a month to wholesalers across the country.

"Despite the economic crisis damaging other sectors, we haven't been affected. Production and demand haven't dropped," she said. "I certainly hope we'll export to the US this year, because our sauce is very popular among Cambodian-American visitors to Cambodia."

Meng Saktheara, the director general in charge of the ministry's small and medium enterprise department, said 800 fish and soy sauce manufacturers were operating in Cambodia.

Some - such as Toung Sopheap's factory - are recognised by the ministry as producing a quality product.

The director general of the Institute of Cambodian Standards, Ping Sivlay, said just 30 makers of fish sauce currently hold the Standard Certificate and follow ministry guidelines.

Higher quality required
He said most producers wanting to export would have to adopt better standards in order to meet stringent international food-quality guidelines.

"If the industry wants to improve its quality and meet the standards required to compete with imported and local producers, they should first apply for Cambodia's Standard Certificate," he said.

"That way we can recommend their product and ensure they manufacture according to a proper standard."

The Ngov Heng Kampot Fish Sauce processing factory was established in Kampot in 1995 with a capital investment of US$100,000.

It employs 32 staff, and has 40 storage tanks that refine 2,000 litres of sauce a day.

Read more!

How rice wine ferments the Cambodian spirit

Rice wine is a popular tipple all over East and Southeast Asia, and, as one soon discovers, it comes in a wide variety of styles and possesses an assortment of medicinal qualities.

Dos Lun fills an order for srah sohl in Takeo (Left) Dos Lun stokes the fire to heat the rice wine.

AN old English proverb says, "Good wine needs no bush", meaning that something of good quality does not need to be advertised. This is especially true of Cambodia's traditional alcoholic beverage srah sohl, or rice wine.

As rice is the primary staple of most Cambodian diets, it comes as no surprise that the cheapest and most popular alcoholic beverage for most Cambodians is a potent brew made from the plentiful grain.

Similar to sake from Japan or cheongju from Korea, rice wine in Cambodia is produced by fermenting grains of rice until the starches in the rice convert into sugars, resulting in a mildly alcoholic liquid. Unlike wine made from grapes, the fermentation period can take as little as 24 hours.

"Once you have the equipment, the process is quite simply really," said Dos Lun of Tang Russey village in Takeo province.

Every second day Dos Lun boils 25 kilos of rice, lays it to dry in the sun, and then transfers it to plastic buckets, where it is mixed with a natural fermenting agent called dom bai in Khmer. The mixture is then left to bubble and ferment overnight. Once the rice has fermented, it is dumped into a large metal vat along with pure rainwater and covered with a purpose-built lid, sealed with a rice husk paste.

Leftover rice husks and scrap wood are used to start a small fire under the vat, heating the rice mixture so that the watery, alcoholic mixture evaporates, travelling up two metal pipes protruding from the lid and down through a concrete container full of water. The water in the container cools the liquid in the pipes, and a small spigot at the bottom of the container releases the clear, pure, mildly grainy-flavoured rice wine.

Three stages
"There are three stages of wine," said Dos Lun. "The first batch is extremely strong, and is not suitable for drinking. The second stage is the best, at about 30-percent alcohol content, and the third stage is very weak. I often mix the first and third batches to create an evenly balanced blend."


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If you don't drink, how will the rice wine merchant make his living?

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Dos Lun sells his natural rice wine from his stilted wooden house in the midst of rice fields and cow paddocks for 2,000 riels a litre, and can sell as many as 20 litres a day. "People like to buy rice wine from me because they know it's natural and not bad for you," he said. "You have to be careful because some producers of rice wine that sell in bulk from stores or roadside stalls put chemicals and pesticides in the wine to make it taste stronger, but really it just makes you sick."

Takeo native Khem Sokkhieng said, "I like to drink rice wine during special festivals or holidays and sometimes when I'm relaxing with friends or family, but some people drink it every day. Farmers who work in the rice fields will often drink one glass of srah sohl in the morning before they go to the fields in order to warm their body, and then again at night to relax."

Srah sohl can also be used as a base for traditional Khmer medicinal remedies, which many claim can cure everything from muscle aches, fatigue and stomach disorders to menstrual cramps and labour pains.

Medicinal
Medicinal rice wine in Cambodia goes by the name srah tinum, and can be produced by infusing pure rice wine with items such as herbs, roots, tree bark, and even insects.

Chen Veasna, owner of Restaurant No 66, a family-run restaurant on Street 360, has been selling srah tinum at the two-level restaurant for fifteen years, and believes wholeheartedly in its healing powers.

"All of the wine we sell here is good for aches and pains in the body," she said. "Some of the varieties are particularly good for women, although anybody can drink any of the varieties. And the greatest advantage of our wine is that it doesn't burn your stomach when you drink it because it contains no harsh mixtures or harmful ingredients."

Varieties of medicinal rice wine at the restaurant include srah gondia, a dark, rum-coloured brew that is made by infusing red termites in rice wine and then straining the bodies out. The resulting drink tastes a bit sweet and earthy, with flavours of almonds and nutmeg. It is said to help with blood circulation and menstrual cramps.

Srah bondul pich is made from the woody stems of a small plant native to Cambodia and possesses a vibrant yellow colour, with an extremely strong, bitter taste that coats the tongue long after it is swallowed. It is said to be most beneficial for elderly people and cure arthritis, rheumatism and body pains.

Srah tinum chen sei is the most common type of medicinal rice wine in Cambodia and is often taken to alleviate stomach disorders and fatigue. The best tasting wine by far at Restaurant No 66 is srah dom narp k'mull, a strongly alcoholic, sweet and slightly spicy blend, made from black sticky rice. The busy restaurant also sells regular srah sohl.

Hangover-free
All rice wine at Restaurant No 66 is sold by the litre and varies in price depending on the variety. "I can't even count the number of people that come here every day to purchase rice wine," said Chen Veasna. "People love it because it is healthy and it won't give you a headache or hangover the next morning, provided, of course, you don't go overboard on it."

Whether imbibed as a social lubricant, for pleasure, or for curative purposes, srah sohl is a long-established element of traditional Khmer culture, and to quote a common Khmer colloquialism, "If you don't drink, how will the rice wine merchant make his living?" Read more!

UNESCO meet raises the stakes on Preah Vihear

Written by Thet Sambath


The favourable outcome for Cambodia in Spain could translate to more confrontation on the border, according to senior military officers.

THE meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Seville, Spain, ended Tuesday without discussing Thailand's challenge to the committee's July 2008 decision to list the disputed Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage site.

But Cambodian military officials at the border say the committee's decision not to review the case could further heighten tensions and prompt another armed clash, following armed confrontations in October 2008 and in April of this year.

Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said last month that a joint listing of Preah Vihear temple would better promote peace and tourism around the 11th-century temple complex, according to Thai media.

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More Thai troops, tanks and artillery have been sent to confront our troops.

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He pledged that Thailand would use the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee to challenge the inscription of the temple.

"I would like to see peace in the area and people from both sides benefit from a joint listing of this site," Abhisit was quoted as saying.

But Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, said that Thailand's inability to get its objections onto the committee's agenda was a "diplomatic failure".

Yim Phim, the commander of Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) Brigade 8 stationed in Preah Vihear province, said that although he welcomed the committee's decision, he worries that Thai soldiers may be angry and start another border clash.

"We are on alert after the Thai failure to get it reviewed," he said. "I am told that more Thai troops, tanks and artillery have been sent to confront our troops."

Raising the stakes
Phorng Eung, a Cambodian soldier, said that Thailand has been evacuating villages near the Preah Vihear border, a sign Thailand could be planning something.

"Thai solders have asked their people to leave villages near the temple, but our villagers at Ko Muoy are doing business as usual," he said.

"Because the Thais did not get their way, they are not happy and might do something at the border. We are on alert 24 hours a day."

But Ros Heng, deputy governor of Chom Ksan district near the Preah Vihear temple, said that villagers in his district are preparing for the possibility of more conflict.

"Some of our people are digging trenches after we informed them in Ko Muoy and Sam Em villages near the front line to protect themselves from Thai shells," Ros Heng said.

"We alerted out people to prevent an accident from happening. It is better to take action first," he said.

The World Court ruled in 1962 that the temple belonged to Cambodia, although the most accessible entrance to temple is in Thailand. Read more!

Hun Sen warns Thais against air incursions near disputed temple

Written by vong Sokheng and Thet Sambath


PM also says that in the event of war, Thailand will need up to 50,000 troops to subdue 10,000 of the Kingdom's own battle-hardened soldiers.

PRIME Minister Hun Sen sounded a belligerent note during informal talks with Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon on Saturday, warning that if Thailand violates Cambodian airspace along the border Cambodia has the right to shoot down Thai aircraft, the premier said Tuesday.

"I told the Thai deputy prime minister and minister of defence frankly to be careful about not flying across the border into Cambodian territory," Hun Sen told an audience of new graduates at the National Institute of Education in Phnom Penh on Tuesday.

"I am afraid that I won't be able to control the shooting if the ground soldiers lose patience."

Hun Sen said he also told Suthep and Prawit that, if full-blown hostilities break out between the two countries, Bangkok would need to mobilise between 30,000 and 50,000 soldiers to match 10,000 of the battle-hardened troops stationed at the disputed Preah Vihear temple. He said that Cambodia did not want confrontation, but that Thailand must not violate the the country's territorial sovereignty.

"We are waiting to shoot because we are not invading [Thailand]. Cambodia is not showing muscle, but to defend the nation we will play it until the end," Hun Sen said.

Meanwhile, the situation on the border remains tense, with officers of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) saying they are ready to counter any Thai incursions.

"The situation at the front line is increasingly tense since I learned that Thai soldiers are scheduled for military exercises along the Thai-Cambodia border near Koh Kong province to Anses of Preah Vihear Temple on July 3," said Seoun San, an RCAF captain based at Veal Sambokhmum.

"If the rockets launched from the military exercises fall into Cambodian territory, we will open the fight without discussions."

Officials at the Thai embassy could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Read more!

Photographer Hei Han Khiang, ‘Right Place, Right Time’

By VOA Khmer, Sothearith Im


After Hei Han Khiang survived a forced labor camp for children under the Khmer Rouge, he wanted little more than to live a life of peace. But innate talent and dogged pursuit enabled him to become an accomplished photographer.

Now living in the New York, Hei Han Khiang was born in 1968 to a family of six near Phnom Penh’s Damkor Market. His father was a teacher and noodle shop owner.

The Khmer Rouge pushed the family to Battambang province as the regime enacted Year Zero, and Hei Han Khiang lost an older brother and older sister. After the regime’s overthrow, the family sought refuge in the US, by way of Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. Finally, in 1981, they arrived in New York.

“When I first came here I had no clue what the city was going to be like,” Hei Han Khiang told VOA Khmer in a phone interview. “I came here with a pair of sandles, and it was cold, but I was so amazed to see the streets, big buildings, and we lived near the bridge here. It was just amazing, George Washington Bridge, how long it is. And there was just so much to buy, so much selling in the stores, so many kinds of food here, different kinds of people. You know, when we first came here, we ate a lot of meat.”

When he first arrived in the United States, he had few ambitions, having survived his ordeal in Cambodia.

“It was still fresh in my memory, war, evacuation, and escaping from one place to another in refugee camps,” Hei Han Khiang said. “We didn’t have much of anything, so we didn’t really see very far. I think maybe it was just culturally shocking to me to see, you know, a new world.”

As time passed, his interests grew: he wanted to be a teacher, or doctor; his parents wanted him to go into business. In the end, he realized his interest was in the arts. He began snapping pictures of his family, who had never had photographs before. His love of the art form grew from there.

He began taking classes at the Cooper Union School, on Saturdays.

Marina Gutierrez, director of Cooper Union’s Saturday Arts Program, said still remembers him.

“Khiang mentioned us as helping open his eyes to art, but he also helped us open our eyes to a larger world,” Gutierrez said. “When he was a student with us, I can’t say he showed much promise in drawing or painting, but he has an incredible spirit, and I think that’s something that you cannot teach somebody. That’s what really makes the artist.”

Hei Han Khiang’s art, temperament and spirit are interchangeable, she said, contributing to a successful career.

“When he was my student I thought that he was a wonderful person,” Gutierrez said. “I didn’t have any idea that he would become a wonderful photographer and artist, because the work he did was OK. It was not notable. As a teacher, you can never imagine a limit on somebody. Only they can define their own limit.”

Hei Han Khiang went to State University of New York, in Buffalo, in 1988. He was sent by the university to study Chinese language, culture, history, political science and paintings in Beijing, from September 1988 through June 1989. Just then, the Tiananmen Square demonstrations broke out.

Hei Han Khiang photographed the unrest, proving his mettle as a photographer.

Dee Wedemeyer, a former employer, recalled Hei Han Khiang as a courageous, dedicated, and talented photographer.

“He makes sacrifices to make this trip abroad to take photographs, and he is a documentarian,” Wedemeyer said. “He documents anything that other people have not found. You know, walking the Ho Chi Minh Trail is not something that everyone has done.”

Thirty of his Tiananmen photographs were displayed at Christonpher Henry Gallery, New York, from May 29 through June 28, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the crackdown.

The gallery’s owner, Christopher Henry, told VOA Khmer he selected the photographs from thousands of applicants.

Henry said sometimes photojournalists can be too good at taking pictures: their images can look unreal. Hei Han Khiang’s photos were honest and real, and the exhibition was a success.

The images were visually striking and iconic, he said, and, coming from a student, came from a different perspective.

“It really has a much more honest impression,” Henry said. “Any images therefore were much more [like] somebody just happened to be at the right place at the right time, rather than somebody that was sent there to chronicle or document an event.”
Read more!

UN rights expert concerned at restriction of lawyers’ freedom in Cambodia

A United Nations independent human rights expert today voiced concern at attempts to curtail lawyers’ freedom to effectively represent their clients in Cambodia, with criminal charges being leveled recently against attorneys in the South-East Asian nation.

“To be able to represent their clients effectively, lawyers should not be subject to threats or intimidation, nor should they be targeted for prosecution or disciplinary action merely for having acted in the interests of their clients,” said Leandro Despouy, the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.

“Lawyers play an important role as defenders of human rights and must be free to represent their clients as they see fit in accordance with professional standards and the rule of law.”

Last week, he said, a lawyer, working for an opposition member of the National Assembly who alleged that she has been defamed by the country’s Prime Minister, was himself charged with criminal defamation and could be expelled from the Cambodian Bar Association.

This January, he added, defense lawyers representing defendants at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) – the UN-backed tribunal trying Khmer Rouge leaders accused of mass killings and other crimes three decades ago – were threatened with legal action by Cambodian judges for having called for corruption allegations at the tribunal to be properly investigated.

Further, Mr. Despouy noted, in June 2007, attorneys representing indigenous communities in Ratanakiri Province, involved in a land dispute with a businesswoman with ties to the Government, were threatened with criminal charges and disciplinary action for having allegedly “incited” communities to file a suit to reclaim their land.

The expert cautioned that these recent moves against lawyers seem to indicate a worrying new trend which could have a chilling effect on the legal profession, expressing his support and encouragement for the Bar Council and its President “in their efforts to strengthen the legal profession in Cambodia and to defend lawyers against attempts to undermine their independence.”

In a press release, Mr. Despouy, who reports to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in an independent and unpaid capacity, underscored that Cambodia’s obligations under international law, as laid out in the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, say that “lawyers should not be identified with their clients or their clients’ causes as a result of discharging their functions.” Read more!

Cambodia gets more time to submit Preah Vihear plans

Cambodia has until February next year to submit its plan for safeguarding and developing the Preah Vihear temple, Natural Resource and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti said yesterday.

The World Heritage Committee's decision initially obligated Cambodia to submit its plan by February this year, following the temple's heritage inscription last July.

However, Phnom Penh has not been able to submit many details of the plan, including a map of buffer zones around the site, owing to its boundary conflict with Thailand.

Fortunately, the delay has given Thailand a chance to campaign for a joint nomination of the Hindu temple with Cambodia, Suwit said.

The controversial Preah Vihear attracted renewed international attention after Thailand maintained its objection to the temple's inscription, which resulted in an angry outburst from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and tension at the border.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva did not discuss the campaign for a joint nomination. However, he did say that since Cambodia has more time to submit its plan, it would have an opportunity to follow the World Heritage Committee's decisions and clear up any difficulties along the border.

"We have expressed our concerns to the World Heritage Committee over several sensitive issues because we don't want to have problems or any tension with Cambodia," Abhisit said.

However, acting government spokesman Panitan Watanayagorn interpreted the delay as a victory for Thailand, following Suwit's heavy campaign during the committee's meeting in Spain from June 23 to 30.

He said the delay would give Thailand a chance to seek better understanding from members of the World Heritage Committee.

"The government hoped the World Heritage Committee would allow the two countries to jointly run the temple," Panitan told reporters.

Army chief General Anupong Paochinda said he would redeploy troops to border areas adjacent to the Hindu temple in accordance with the government's policy to pave the way for a peaceful solution.

"We don't have a timeframe, but it depends on the satisfaction of both countries. We have a common intention not to use force," he said.

Read more!

Cambodians Take Back the Lens

By ROBERT TURNBULL


PHNOM PENH — While Pol Pot was still alive and civil war raged, it was a great time to be a photographer in Cambodia. That’s unless you happened to be Cambodian.

At the first scent of blood the testosterone-fueled pack, largely routine invaders from the safe haven of Bangkok, would assemble, all too appropriately at Phnom Penh’s Foreign Correspondents Club, a Mekong-side colonial watering hole straight out of a Marguerite Duras novel. They had tripods strapped to their backs and phallic zoom lenses at the ready.

Meanwhile the few Cambodians lucky enough to have access to a camera could be found snapping tourists emerging from the Royal Palace nearby or in Siem Reap, positioning honeymoon couples on the causeway of Angkor Wat. As one of Cambodia’s leading photographers, Mak Remissa recalled, “The foreign media didn’t really trust us to take pictures, but we needed to eat.”

That changed when the dictator died in 1998. With the Khmer Rouge vanquished, Cambodia was no longer a “hot” destination. The foreigners departed, leaving the handful of Cambodians with a modicum of technical competence to fill the vacuum. For Reuters, Agence France-Presse, the Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post, they represented a useful supply of cheap labor; for the Cambodians, it was a rare opportunity to learn on the job.

Cambodia is, of course, one of the world’s most photogenic places. Its abundance of ancient monuments, rambunctious street life and saffron-robed monks habitually silhouetted by crimson sunsets stirs even the most disinterested tourists to fiddle with their apertures.

Though it’s perhaps taken too long for Cambodians to stake their rightful claim on some of this imagery, a handful of recent events confirmed what many have long suspected: that given a chance, Cambodians have very personal stories to tell, both in artwork and photojournalism.

The opening in March of the Sa Sa Gallery on Street 360 in Phnom Penh trumpeted the first photographers’ collective to be run entirely by Cambodians for Cambodians. Six young professionals — Kong Vollak, Heng Ravuth, Khvay Samnang, Lim Sokchan Lina, Vuth Lyno and Vandy Rattana — aim to create a buzz around this new space by mounting monthly shows of work by both artists and photographers. “The gallery is open to any Cambodian with a serious body of work,” said Mr. Vandy.

Significantly, Sa Sa is an abbreviation of Stiev Salapak, or “Art Rebels.” The gallery takes its name from a group founded in 2007 by Mr. Vandy, a passionate 27-year old who is trying to defend photographers’ interests in an increasingly competitive and still foreign-dominated environment. Currently employed by the Phnom Penh Post, Mr. Vandy is perhaps unique for having criticized foreigners living in Cambodia for not providing enough technical and moral support to Cambodian photographers.

Yet he would be the first to acknowledge a debt to more experienced colleagues from abroad. Since 2000 the Magnum photographer John Vink has been quietly rebuilding capacity in Cambodia by setting up workshops and mentoring several members of the first generation of post-conflict Cambodian photographers.

When the French photographer Stéphane Janin opened his Popil Gallery in Phnom Penh in October 2005, members of the younger generation of Cambodian photographers began to glimpse a future in the medium. Using the gallery as a forum, Mr. Janin encouraged his students to examine the history and content of photography, as well as its sociological impact.

His star pupil was Mr. Vandy, whose 2006 “Looking in my Office” series used the milieu of a telecommunications company to throw light on corporate behavior during the country’s short-lived boom. “I doubt if any professional foreign photographer in Cambodia could have come up with something as timely and insightful as these images turned out to be,” said Mr. Janin, who is currently living in Washington but still exerts considerable influence in the country.

The other significant change has been the advent of photo festivals. Following the Angkor Photography Festival in Siem Reap, now in its fourth year, PhotoPhnomPenh was inaugurated in November 2008. The curator was Christian Caujolle, the creator of the Vu agency and gallery and the first picture editor of the French daily Libération. Mr. Caujolle will reprise the festival in November.

“Cambodian work is technically unsophisticated but it is driven from personal necessity, and there is no question in my mind that some of it meets international standards,” said Mr. Caujolle. Looking back into history, local photographers, he said, were functionaries in King Sihanouk’s newly independent Cambodia and took part in national propaganda campaigns during the 1960s. Many died under the Khmer Rouge, who rather than exploit their talents sent their own novices to learn the craft in China, whose Cultural Revolution influenced Pol Pot’s regime.

A highlight of the Phnom Penh festival was “Bodega,” an event in which the recently created agency Melon Rouge showcased 15 photographers in a dilapidated colonial building one block from the Mekong. The results revealed both the variety of approaches to diverse subject matter and a paradox at the heart of the national psyche: the combination of pride and profound unease.
Melon Rouge’s founders, Nicolas Havette and Thierry Marre, want Cambodians to realize their own projects without pressure. Images of rubber harvesting in Kompong Cham by three “resident” photographers sponsored by the French Agency for Development were hung cheek-by-jowl with “Cinderella,” a study of the evanescence of identity by Chan Moniroth, the only female photographer in the show.

But Cambodian photographers also need to learn to “present pictures to editors, create narratives, photo essays and generally manage images,” according to Mr. Havette. Reasons often cited for their apparent lack of professionalism are the high cost of materials and weak computer skills. Yet perhaps the most evocative example of Cambodia’s contribution to photography could not have been more low tech.

Thaing Chhea Chhinn’s pinhole shots of the architect Vann Molyvann’s White Building, a riverside dilapidated architectural gem built to house athletes and civil servants in the 1960s, were taken with nothing but a shoe box and negative paper, yet for Mr. Caujolle they conveyed “a total awareness of a major issue in Phnom Penh, namely architectural heritage being sacrificed for personal profit. While meaningless on the international circuit, for Cambodians these pictures resonate.”

“The Building,” an ongoing project involving 25 emerging Cambodian photographers, explores landlessness, poverty and social exclusion from the perspective of the squatter community of thousands of families living in and around the White Building. It is being exhibited through Saturday at the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre in Phnom Penh. Among other revelations, the project illustrates how Cambodia’s urban poor share resources and in some cases flourish.

Some photographers working on “The Building” have come to the medium through another visual art: painting. At the same time, a number of Cambodians trained as photojournalists see themselves primarily as artists. Mr. Mak’s solo shows at Phnom Penh’s Java Café and the McDermott Gallery in Siem Reap, for example, featured close-ups of colonies of ants carrying fish. According to an old Khmer proverb, “when the water rises, the fish eat the ants; when the water recedes the ants eat the fish.”

“I love these fluctuations,” said Mr. Mak. “In this case, which species dominates the other depends on the changing situation of nature.”

Mr. Mak, who has won multiple awards, dreams of setting up his own school to train independent photographers. He complains of government indifference and little progress since the era when photography was used largely as a propaganda tool. At the Phnom Penh festival the Ministry of Culture went so far as to ban Mr. Vink’s images for Magnum of the funeral for the murdered union activist Kem Sambo, an act that could hardly have helped assuage suspicions of the government’s involvement.

Sensitivities over subject matter are not confined to the state. “It’s easy to find suffering in Cambodia and even easier to photograph it,” said Maria Stott, the founder of On Photography Cambodia, the organization behind “The Building.” Visiting photographers’ voyeuristic images of monks, sex workers, amputees and AIDS sufferers don’t always tell the truth or contribute to the debate, she said.

Many foreigners have set up shop in Cambodia at a time when many locals wish they would stay away. The difficulties of a small market and struggling media outlets has made the scene increasingly competitive. “Exposure to other people’s work can be challenging and motivating,” said Ms. Stott, a Polish photographer and curator. “The first Phnom Penh festival demonstrated that photography really functions in Cambodia and has been a valuable educational tool, but the medium can also be discriminatory, disrespectful and dangerous.” Read more!

Hwang-DBS to start Cambodia bank ops soon

HWANG-DBS (Malaysia) Bhd (HDMB) is a step closer towards operating a commercial bank in Cambodia.

HDMB said Cambodia's Minister of Commerce had on June 26 issued a certificate of incorporation of HwangDBS Commercial Bank Plc (HDCB) which is effective from June 19, 2009.
As required by the National Bank of Cambodia, HDCB targets to start operations in Cambodia by July 31, subject to a final licence to be issued by the National Bank, HDMB said in announcement on Bursa Malaysia.

HDCB is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the HDMB and will operate as a commercial bank in Cambodia.

Currently, HDCB has an issued and paid-up capital of US$2 comprising two ordinary shares of par value US$1 each.

The issued and paid-up capital of HDCB will be increased to US$20 million, comprising 20 million ordinary shares of par value US$1 each, all to be issued to HDMB before the start of business operations. - Bernama . Read more!

I ate insects to live, says Pol Pot torture survivor

Former Khmer Rouge prisoner tells of haunting memories of 'killing fields'
By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent


One of the few survivors of a notorious Khmer Rouge torture centre from which thousands of people were despatched to their deaths has revealed how he and the other inmates scrabbled to find insects to eat to avoid starvation and ate their paltry meals alongside the corpses of those who had died. At times he thought about eating the remains of the dead.

Van Nath, an artist who dodged death only because of his ability to produce a portrait of the regime's leader, Pol Pot, told a genocide trial in Cambodia that although he escaped with his life 30 years ago he was still shackled by his memories. Wiping away tears as he launched into a series of harrowing recollections, the 63-year-old said: "My suffering cannot be erased – the memories keep haunting me."

As he gave his testimony the white-haired survivor was face to face with his jailer, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as "Comrade Duch", the head of Tuol Sleng jail where Mr Nath was held between January 1978 until January 1979. Duch is one of five former regime members being tried by the joint UN-Cambodian inquiry.

"We were so hungry, we would eat insects that dropped from the ceiling. We would quickly grab and eat them so we could avoid being seen by the guards," said Mr Nath, who lost two children during the four years the Maoist-inspired regime controlled the country. "We ate our meals next to dead bodies, and we didn't care because we were like animals. The conditions were so inhumane and the food was so little. I even thought eating human flesh would be a good meal."

In a country where 1.7 million people died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge either by execution, starvation or disease, Mr Nath is that rare thing: a survivor. Of the estimated 14,000 people sent to Tuol Sleng to be tortured and interrogated before being dispatched for execution at "killing fields" on the edge of Phnom Penh, barely a dozen are known to have lived through it, and just six are still alive today. Mr Nath said the only reason he survived was because Duch learned that he was a trained artist. He was quickly asked to produce portraits of Pol Pot, the regime's leader who died in 1998. "I survived because Duch felt good when he walked into my workshop," he said.

But he also revealed details of the torture suffered before Duch learned of his talents. He was beaten, electrocuted, had his fingernails pulled out, and also underwent a form of "water-boarding". Prisoners, he said, were fed six teaspoons of rice porridge a day.

Duch, who showed little reaction as he watched Mr Nath give evidence, is the first former Khmer Rouge leader accused of crimes against humanity to go on trial. The others are deputy leader or "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, the former foreign minister Ieng Sary; the former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith; and the former head of state Khieu Samphan. Duch, now 66, was arrested in 1999 after a journalist found him working for a Western aid group in northern Cambodia, having converted to Christianity. Earlier this year as final preparations were being made for the long-awaited tribunal, The Independent interviewed Mr Nath in his gallery in Phnom Penh. Almost every painting was starkly produced in dark colours. Many showed torture and execution.

"I cannot escape from being a witness," he said at the time. "It is so hard for me to tell you. I suffered so much from that prison; that is why I have been so sick."

Mr Nath said he had either witnessed everything he painted or else was told about it by other prisoners. "Now I have the ability to testify before this chamber. This is my privilege, this is my honour," he told the court. "I do not want anything more than justice."

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Kids as young as four are sold and then raped

CAR boss Peter Vardy was so traumatised by child sex trafficking in Cambodia that he couldn’t sleep at night — and now he’s vowed to help tragic victims.

The 31-year-old visited the Asian country several years ago and was shocked that families were selling their kids as young as FOUR to pimps.

He’s now teamed up with Swiss-based charity Hagar International to launch a campaign tomorrow to raise cash for forgotten victims.

The charity — which has taken a battering in the recession — needs £40,000 to build a new shelter in the country, and Peter is aiming to raise another £60,000 to help it survive.

Peter, from Durham, said: “I was left numb with horror. It’s hard to understand just how bad the poverty is.

“I was aware of children being sold by their families to pimps just to buy a fridge. That child is then at the mercy of rape and torture. If you walk onto the streets of Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, within seconds you will be offered the chance to have sex with a girl or boy of any age.

“The damage done to these kids is immeasurable. That’s why we need to keep this organisation alive.

We want to help Hagar build a new shelter for the abused kids, to protect them so they get the chance to be educated.”

Peter — grandson of car magnate Reg Vardy — has started a new Vardy empire in Scotland with showrooms in Motherwell, Kirkcaldy, Edinburgh and Perth.

Last year Vardy’s showrooms raised £35,000 to help build water filters for 1,400 communities in the country, estimated to save one child’s life every month.

He even returned to Cambodia to help build the water filters. And now he’s urging employees to back the new campaign.

Peter added: “Colleagues throughout the dealership will be involved in sponsored events. They have really enjoyed being part of the process.” Read more!

Cambodia, Bahrain to sign joint agreement of diplomatic establishment

The Kingdom of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Bahrain will sign a joint communiqué on the establishment of diplomatic relations to expand the cooperation between a country in South East Asia and a country in the Middle East, a Cambodian official said on Monday.

Hor Nam Hong, Cambodia's deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, and his Bahraini counterpart will sign the joint communiqué of creating the official diplomatic ties, said Koy Khong, under secretary of state and spokesman for Cambodia's Foreign Ministry.

"It is the first time for the two countries to mend the diplomatic ties," he said, adding that in future the two countries will expand cooperation on tourism, investment, trade, and economy.

According to a press release from the Cambodian Foreign Ministry, Hor is to join the first ASEAN-Gulf Cooperation Council Ministerial Meeting, to be held from June 29 to 30, in Manama, Bahrain.

At the meeting, "we will talk about the cooperation on the global economic and financial crisis, combating terrorism, poverty reduction, sustainable development and economy," Koy Khong said.

The ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Gulf group includes Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
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Gillings lab at UNC wins $8.5M for USAID clean water initiative

A clean water program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has won a new award worth up to $8.5 million, the university announced Monday. The program traces its origins to a gift made by Quintiles founder Dennis Gillings and his wife, Joan.

The funding will be used to expand a project to bring clean drinking water and improved sanitation to homes in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The five-year award comes from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The program is called Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Enterprise Development – or WaterSHED. It is a joint effort between UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health, the Kenan-Flagler Business School and the Kenan Institute-Asia.

UNC says in a statement that its researchers will search for ways to increase the use of water filters in homes that lack clean drinking water in order to help reduce diarrhea and related diseases that kill nearly 2 million children a year. They will also investigate ways to achieve financially sustainable, scaled-up access to safe water sources. These include harvested rainwater, improved sanitation and greater practice of personal hygiene.

The USAID award will be managed by UNC’s public health school. The principal investigator is Mark Sobsey, the Kenan Professor of Environmental Sciences and

Engineering.

The award grew out of the Carolina Global Water Partnership, one of the first Gillings Innovation Laboratories funded through a $50 million gift to the public health school from Dennis and Joan Gillings.

Dennis Gillings, a former UNC professor, launched and built Durham-based Quintiles into the world’s largest contract research organization. CROs run clinical trials on drug candidates for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

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Pol Pot artist weeps at jail horror

One of the few survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime's main torture center wept yesterday as he told Cambodia's war crimes court how he was only spared because he painted propaganda pictures of Pol Pot.

Van Nath described how hunger drove prisoners to eat insects that fell from the ceiling at the communist movement's Tuol Sleng prison, and said he was so famished he dreamed about eating human flesh.

The 63-year-old is the first survivor to testify at the UN-backed trial of jail chief Duch, who is charged with overseeing the torture and extermination of around 15,000 people who passed through the notorious facility.

"The conditions were so inhumane and the food was so little," Van Nath said. "I thought even eating human flesh would be a good thing for me at that moment."

Duch, real name Kaing Guek Eav, slumped in his chair while the former inmate recalled how he was photographed, stripped and then shackled with other prisoners after being taken to Tuol Sleng.

Prisoners had three teaspoons of gruel for each meal and some ate insects, Van Nath said, although he could not as they fell too far from where he was chained.

"I lost my dignity. Even with animals they would give enough food," Van Nath said. "If they (guards) found out we were eating insects we would be beaten, so we could only do it if we avoided being seen by the guards."

Inmates shackled next to him died during his first month and at one point, too weak to walk by himself, he was summoned downstairs and thought his own death was imminent.

But he was instead told to paint a portrait of Pol Pot, the leader of the 1975-1979 regime, whom Van Nath did not recognise.

"I knew that if I did not paint very well, I would be in big trouble. I was so nervous," Van Nath said.

"I only had the feeling that I had to paint very good portraits so that he (Duch) would be happy," Van Nath said. "When he did not show good feelings in his facial expressions, I was scared and anxious."

Guards strung one prisoner up in the yard at Tuol Sleng when he was found to be a poor sculptor, Van Nath added.

Van Nath went on to become one of Cambodia's most famous artists. The court was shown his paintings of torture methods including prisoners being whipped, plunged in water and having their fingernails pulled out with pliers.

"Even though I've tried my best to forget, it still haunts me," Van Nath said. "I never imagined that I would be able to sit in this courtroom today to describe my plight, my experience."

Sketches showed how he was taken from his family and tortured with electricity, while a painting showed Tuol Sleng guards whipping prisoners and seizing their babies.

Earlier in his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Duch, 66, begged forgiveness from victims of the regime after accepting responsibility for running the jail. He faces a life sentence.


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Killeen couple cares for Cambodian children

By Jade Ortego


The Tuckers say they feel happy. They're lucky. They're blessed. They have more than 1,000 Cambodian children infected with the human immunodeficiency virus who rely on them for medication, food and sometimes shelter, schooling and companionship.

John and Kathy Tucker of Killeen went to Cambodia in the January 2000 as Catholic lay missionaries. They became involved with a hospice program for Cambodians infected with HIV, Seedlings of Hope. Cambodia has one of highest rates of HIV in Asia.

It soon became clear that there were no programs to help children in Cambodia infected with HIV. Because of widespread ignorance about the nature of the virus, those children were frequently cast off, left to die in the street. None of the 200 orphanages in Cambodia at the time would accept any HIV-positive child.

"Assume your sister died of AIDS and you take her children, and find out one of the kids has AIDS. You're afraid that child may infect your biological children … even though it's almost impossible to transmit from child to child," John said. "People don't know that and they want to protect their own children so out of ignorance they abandon these other children," he said.

Their own clinic

In 2006, the Tuckers began New Hope for Cambodian Children (NHCC), a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, which includes an outreach program, a transitional home for intensive care for infants and the very ill, a day care, and most recently, a village for abandoned children infected with the virus.

Neither John nor Kathy has any medical background.

"There was no (antiretroviral) medicine. The choice was to learn about the medicine or let the kids die," John said.

The Tuckers got a manual about HIV and learned about the medicine and found out it was available in Thailand. They bought it, imported it and hired local doctors to help them start their own clinic.

The NHCC outreach program now covers five provinces and attends to the medical needs of 850 children still living with family members. NHCC provides antiretroviral medication, medical transportation expenses and food for these children.

Antiretroviral medication suppresses the virus enough so that the immune system can reconstitute itself. After taking the medication, some children can be tested and come back with a negative result. The children will become sick again if they miss dosages, however, and can develop resistance to the drugs.

The Clinton Foundation donates money for the medicine for all of these children involved with NHCC, and has gotten the cost down to $12 a month for one child. The same medicine is about $1,000 a month in the United States.

NHCC now includes a village, an almost-sustainable commune of abandoned children on 20 acres about 45 minutes from capital city Phnom Penh.

Building a community

New children arrive every week, kicked out of orphanages or abandoned at hospitals, but the current number is 180.

The kids, age 2 to 19, live in a family and community. NHCC pays a married man and woman $50 a month each to live with and raise eight children in the village. These households are in groups of three, and they eat together; these groups of homes are part of a close-knit larger community.

The Tuckers are working to make the village sustainable. They use only three and half hours of electricity a day, and make their own bio-diesel out of waste vegetable oil from local restaurants. They make methane gas from pig waste, and use solar panels to power water pumps. The village has 250 pigs and 2,200 chickens.

Many orphanages in Cambodia have children make postcards or other crafts to pay for the cost of running it. The NHCC village is funded entirely by private donations, many from the Killeen area, especially St. Paul Chong Hasang Catholic Church in Harker Heights.

"These are children and they're going to be children and they're going to go to school, they're not going to work in the afternoon," John said.

No splitting families

The orphans all attend the local provincial school. Their studies are supplemented by tutoring in every class, largely to make up for a lack of education before their entrance into the program. The village also has art, music and dance classes, and a computer class and basketball court that non-infected children from the provincial schools are allowed to sometimes use.

This year, a 19-year-old is graduating out of the village and will move to Phnom Penh to go attend a university there. The boy isn't infected with the virus; he is one of the 27 non-infected siblings of a child with HIV who lives on the village. "We don't split up families," Kathy said.

Next year, the first HIV-positive child will graduate, and the year after, 12 will. The Tuckers want to rent a house in Phnom Penh for graduates to live in while they attend college or vocational school, where they can still receive care and medication, and remain a part of their family.

NHCC is a secular organization, and doesn't proselytize to the children. "Our kids are Buddhist and they stay Buddhist," John said. "But they do all wear rosaries because they glow in the dark," Kathy said.

Kathy also started a daycare program for HIV positive children that provides their widowed mothers with local, living-wage jobs making quilts, which got media coverage by the BBC and the New York Times. Those quilts, which look like baby blankets decorated with elephants and other animals, can be purchased at St. Paul's.

People can volunteer to work at the village or donate to NHCC online at newhopeforcambodianchildren.com.

"We get to take care of sick kids and get them healthy. We found something at the end of our lives that gives us real meaning. We love what we're doing," John said. "We sleep very well," Kathy said.
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Cambodian ruling party CPP marks 58th anniversary

PHNOM PENH, Thousands of members of Cambodian People's Party (CPP) on Sunday gathered to celebrate the58th anniversary of the founding of the party (1951-2009) in the central headquarters in Phnom Penh.

"We celebrate this event in order to express profound gratitude to our beloved compatriots, soldiers, and people in all generations for their resolute struggles and sacrifices for the cause of nation and fatherland," Chea Sim, president of the CPP told the ceremony.

"In its name as the political force that is leading the country, the party must double efforts to achieve its supreme objective that is guaranteeing sustainable peace, stability and national security, maintaining independence, sovereignty and territory integrity, accelerating socio-economic development to catch up with other countries in the region," he said.

"At the same time, people's poverty, good governance, fight against corruption, extension of public services with quality and confidence, are some of the priority areas that require more efforts," he said.

"We have a firm belief that Cambodia will continue to achieve positive growth this year despite currently being affected by the global financial crisis and economic downturn," Chea Sim said.

"I would like to express my respect for army and police and soldiers of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces and national police who have been heroically fulfilling their duties defending our fatherland and along the border," he said.

Cambodian People's Party was initially called the Khmer People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP), which originated in the longstanding people's struggle movement for national independence. CPP won 90 of 123 seats in general election in July 27, 2008.

Representatives from CPP's coalition partner FUNCINPEC and other small political parties as well as some foreign diplomats, including Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Zhang Jinfeng, also attended the celebration.
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Lightning kills five Cambodians in a day: newspaper

Lightning strikes killed five people in Cambodia in a single day, a local newspaper reported Sunday.
Two people were killed in Kampot province, in Cambodia's south, while three were killed in the central provinces of Kampong Chhnang and Kampong Speu, according to the newspaper Rasmei Kampuchea Daily.

It said four of the victims, all killed on Friday, were farmers working in the fields -- a group especially at risk when they continue to work during rainstorms.

Around 50 Cambodians were killed by lightning in the first four months of 2009, while the official toll for last year was 95 deaths.

Experts say the tropical Southeast Asian country, with its many rivers and lakes, is particularly prone to cloud formations which generate intense lightning storms.

These formations can lie just 50 metres (164 feet) above the earth, and anyone underneath is vulnerable to lightning strikes.

Cambodia's government is trying to raise awareness in the provinces of measures to protect against such natural disasters, according to Long Saravuth, weather expert at the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology.

"We hope there will be fewer deaths as more and more people become well-informed about safety during lightning storms," he said on Sunday.

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Cambodia PM meets Thai minister on border dispute

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen hosted one of Thailand's deputy premiers at his home on Saturday in an attempt to diffuse a long-standing border row with friendly chat.

Hun Sen's wife cooked lunch for Suthep Thaugsuban and Thai Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon at his residence in southern Kandal province, Suthep said, after tensions recently escalated over the UNESCO listing of an ancient temple.

Troops from both sides have built up on the Thai-Cambodia frontier in recent days near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, where seven soldiers have died in clashes since tensions flared last year.

Thailand's decision to ask world heritage body UNESCO to reconsider listing the temple has angered Hun Sen, but despite claiming the issue would not be discussed Saturday, Suthep said they had agreed to reduce tensions at the site.

"Prime Minister Hun Sen asked me to convey the message to our Prime Minister Abhisit (Vejjajiva) and the Thai people that Cambodia will try to reduce tensions (along the border) to assist economic cooperation between the two countries," Suthep told reporters after returning to Thailand.

"We should let bygones be bygones, forget the nightmare of the past and look forward to a positive future for both countries," he said.

Suthep also announced that a dam would be constructed in Cambodia to channel water to Thailand's eastern seaboard.

Foreign ministry spokesman Kuoy Kong said the pair had simply had a "friendly talk".

Hun Sen vowed on Thursday to take a hard stance on the dispute over the temple, the ownership of which was awarded to Cambodia by the World Court in 1962, sparking decades of tensions.

Unrest flared in July 2008 after UNESCO granted world heritage status to the ancient Khmer temple with its crumbling stone staircases and elegant carvings.
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Q+A-Preah Vihar temple and Thai-Cambodian tensions

BANGKOK, (Reuters) - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen met behind closed doors on Saturday with Thailand's deputy premier, Suthep Thaugsuban, as tensions simmered over the disputed Preah Vihear temple.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva sent his right-hand man, Suthep Thaugsuban, to meet Hun Sen to explain why Thailand was challenging a U.N. decision to make the 900-year-old temple a world heritage site under the sole jurisdiction of Cambodia. [ID:nBKK469181]

WHAT'S THE HISTORY OF PREAH VIHEAR?

Preah Vihear, or Khao Phra Viharn as the Thais call it, was completed in the 11th century and pre-dates Cambodia's more famous Angkor Wat temple complex by 100 years.

Many say its stunning setting atop a jungle-clad escarpment overlooking northern Cambodia also eclipses its celebrated cousin as the finest of all the ruins left by the mighty Khmer civilisation.

The temple has in recent years been accessible mainly from Thailand. Landmines and Khmer Rouge guerrillas kept it off-limits from the Cambodian side for decades.

WHY THE DISPUTE?

Both sides have historically laid claim to the temple but a 1962 World Court ruling awarded it to Cambodia, by a vote of 9-3.

Thailand and Cambodia have since squabbled over the demarcation of the border and jurisdiction over the 1.8 square miles (4.6 sq km) of land around Preah Vihear has never been settled.

For generations, the temple stirred nationalist passions on both sides. Before the court in the Hague made its ruling, Thailand's government organised a fundraiser in which every citizen donated 1 baht to pay for the legal team.

COULD THE ISSUE TURN VIOLENT?

Cambodia's bid last October to list the ruins as a World Heritage Site sparked a flare-up in which one Thai and three Cambodian soldiers died in a gunfight.

In the most recent flare-up in April, two Thai soldiers died in an exchange of rocket and rifle fire with Cambodian troops.

Both countries have sent more troops to the border and security analysts say minor skirmishes are always a possibility.

A military standoff would further strain ties between the two historic foes and only exacerbate a long-running dispute that is unlikely to be resolved any time soon.

HOW IS IT BEING RESOLVED?

The two countries routinely pledge cooperation over the temple issue, give guarantees their border troops will not engage in hostilities and agree to delineate the border once and for all, but the quarrelling never seems to stop. Thailand wants joint development and supervision of the Hindu temple which could one day be a lucrative tourist site. However, the temple debate is often used as a tool to gain popular support or to distract the public from other issues at home.

"This challenge by Thailand has more to do with the political situation in Bangkok," said Chanthana Banprasirichote, a political science professor at Thailand's Chulalongkorn University.

"They know this is a good way to boost their credibility and get support from the public." (Compiled by Martin Petty; Editing by Sugita Katyal)
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