Lake Residents Seek Audience With Ban Ki-moon

More than 100 residents from Phnom Penh's Boeung Kak lake area gathered in front of the UNDP offices on Monday to request a meeting with the UN secretary-general on his upcoming visit.

Ban Ki-moon is expected to arrive Wednesday for two days of official talks with Prime Minister Hun Sen and others, and lake residents said Monday they hoped he could help resolve an ongoing dispute with development company Shukaku.

Residents said in a letter they wanted “to stop the forced eviction from their homes and lands.” UNDP officials accepted the request and said they would forward it to Ban's office.

“We want to meet Ban Ki-moon to help us be free of forced eviction,” lake resident Sam Vanna said Monday. “We need government development projects for a modern city, but we want to live in the Boeung Kak area.”

On his visit, Ban is expected to address ongoing issues with the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal, and he is scheduled to visit the Tuol Sleng genocide Museum.

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Arisman 'seeks Cambodian visa'

Fugitive red shirt leader Arisman Pongruengrong has reportedly recently filed an application for a Cambodian visa from the country's consulate in Sa Kaeo's Aranyaprathet district.

Mr Arisman, who allegedly entered Cambodia earlier, reportedly wants to obtain a Cambodian visa so he can extend his stay in the country.

Sa Kaeo governor Sanit Intharasuksri said he had contacted the Cambodian consulate to tell its staff that Mr Arisman might have used a fake exit stamp from Thai immigration when applying to enter Cambodia.

Thai immigration officials have no record of Mr Arisman leaving or re-entering the country, so it was not possible for him to obtain the stamp legally for the visa application.

Mr Sanit said he had been told by Cambodian officials that they may not have realised the Thai immigration stamp on Mr Arisman's passport could be a fake and processed the application without question.

Informed sources say Mr Arisman has been in hiding Siem Reap with his bodyguard. He allegedly hired someone to file the visa application in Aranyaprathet on his behalf.

The Department of Special Investigation has indicted 25 red shirt protesters and pro-Thaksin Shinawatra politicians, including Mr Arisman, on terrorism charges, which carry a maximum penalty of death.

Mr Arisman led hundreds of protesters in storming the parliament during the red shirt demonstration on April 7.

A week later, scores of police raided a Bangkok hotel, where Mr Arisman and other red shirt leaders were staying, but police failed to arrest him after he was lowered from the third floor to supporters waiting below.

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Drug-law alarm bells

Articles of a draft drug-control law expected to be finalised by the end of this month are
consistent with procedures used in Vietnam and China, and could result in drug users
being compelled to perform forced labour, Human Rights Watch has warned.

Joe Amon, director of HRW’ s health and human rights division, said both Vietnam and
China “ have reportedly offered assistance to Cambodia on drug policy” .

“ There is a real danger that Cambodian centres will follow the Chinese or Vietnamese
model – longer periods of detention and detainees forced to labour for private
companies,” he said.

A recent version of the draft law includes an article stipulating that treatment periods at
government-run centres can last for up to two years.

Amon said on Sunday that the present law did not specify minimum or maximum periods
for rehabilitation, but that “ the current practice is to detain people for three to six months,
sometimes a year” .

Rights groups have reported that detention periods for drug users are longer in China and
Vietnam, though Amon said this approach had not worked.

Neak Yuthea, director of the department of legislation, education and rehabilitation at
the National Authority for Combating Drugs, confirmed that Cambodia had looked to
Vietnam while drafting drug-control and rehabilitation policies.

“ We learnt from Vietnam about how they proceed in their centres and how they care for
their addicted people so that we will apply it to Cambodia,” he said. Read more!

Spirits blamed as girls faint in Cambodia

AFP

Teachers of 10 teenage girls who collapsed one after another at their rural Cambodian school blamed the mysterious ailment on angry spirits on Saturday.

The girls, aged between 14 and 18, were treated in hospital after fainting but doctors could not ascertain why the youngsters were struck down, said Ruos Lim Chhee, head of the high school in Pnov, northern Cambodia.

He said that all of the girls were found to be healthy, with no signs of food poisoning, although two were a little low on glucose.

"We are afraid we are under a spell because we didn't offer any traditional dancing and music to the spirits on the opening day this year," he said.

"But we have just offered fruits, boiled chickens and wine to the spirits today, and we hope the students will get better and the spirits will take care of us."

Mil Khim, a teacher who witnessed the string of incidents on Thursday, said one of his students started to complain of chest pains early in the morning and then suffered convulsions before falling unconscious.

"The strange phenomenon lasted only a few hours, as eight seventh graders and two from eighth and ninth grade fainted subsequently," he said.

Cambodians in rural areas often believe supernatural forces are behind unexplained events.

"We think that perhaps the spirits are angry because the doctors, teachers and even police found no trace of poison or physical weakness," said district governor, Pech Sophea.
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British orphanage head in child sex claim in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH — The British founder of a Cambodian orphanage is facing prosecution for sexually abusing children at the home, officials said Saturday.

Nicholas Patrick Griffin is accused of abusing "many" children, both boys and girls under the age of 15, said Sun Bun Thorng of the government's anti-human trafficking department in Siem Reap, northern Cambodia.

Around 70 children housed at the orphanage, near the historic Angkor Wat temples, will be removed for their own safety, he told AFP.

The 52-year-old was arrested earlier this week and officials said they expect to uncover more cases as the investigation progresses.

Sun Bun Thorng said Griffin was the founder of Cambodia Orphan Fund, which according to its website aims to "create projects that will help Cambodian people break the poverty cycle and help themselves to a positive future".

The orphanage takes children up to the age of 18.

Griffin, who is believed to have left the UK in 2006, faced several charges of child molestation in 2008, but these were dropped due to lack of evidence, Sun Bun Thorng said.

Chheng Vanna, deputy director of social affairs in Siem Reap, said that her department helped police investigate institutional abuse at the orphanage.

"We will have to move the children because since the founder will be in detention, nobody is going to support them," she said.

Cambodia is engaged in a major drive to net foreign paedophiles as it looks to shed its image as a haven for sex criminals.

In a separate investigation another Briton, Matthew John Harland was charged with "purchasing child sex and committing indecent acts" with four girls aged from 12 to 16 in Phnom Penh, according to the victims' lawyer Peng Maneth.

She said the 36-year-old's trial was delayed on Friday after allegations emerged that he paid a bribe of 15,000 dollars to a court official.

Samleang Seila, country director of anti-paedophile group Action Pour Les Enfants, said the Harland case was the first exposure of alleged corruption in court.

Cambodia has jailed dozens of foreigners for child sex crimes since 2003 or deported them to face trial in their home countries.
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Clinton, Gates to hold talks in Melbourne

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to visit Australia as part of a two-week, six-nation tour of the Asia-Pacific region.

The tour, starting next week, takes in Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand, the State Department announced on Friday.

In Melbourne, Mrs Clinton will be joined by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates for annual consultations between the US and Australia.

Despite warm relations between the two countries, Mrs Clinton will become the highest-ranking official from the Obama administration to visit.

She called off a scheduled visit in January to focus on relief after Haiti's earthquake; President Obama has twice called off trips to Australia due to domestic concerns.

AFP
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ADB-Funded Cambodian Rail Line Reopened to Help Regional Trade

By Prak Chan Thol

PHNOM PENH, Oct. 23 (Reuters) - Cambodia has reopened a stretch of railway destroyed during the country's war and officials described it as a step towards boosting regional trade through rail links with neighbors.

The Asian Development Bank is contributing $84 million to a $141 million project to repair 650 km (400 miles) of railway linking Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, to its borders with Thailand and Vietnam by 2013.

The first section officially opened on Friday runs 120 km (75 miles) southwest from Phnom Penh to Touk Meas in Kampot province, near the border with Vietnam.

Kunio Senga, director general of the Asian Development Bank's Southeast Asia Department, told a news conference the rail link would lower the cost of staple commodities that poor Cambodian families depend on and would help position the country as a sub-regional transport hub.

Tauch Chankosal, secretary of state at Cambodia's Ministry of Public Works and Transport, said a study was under way for a rail link between Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, possibly with financial help from China.

''The estimate is about $600 million,'' he said of the construction cost. ''The funding is not yet finalized.''

Toll Holdings Ltd of Australia has signed a 30-year concession to operate and maintain the railway, which was frequently mined and attacked by Khmer Rouge guerrillas leading to the deployment of cars mounted with machine guns in front of locomotives in the 1980s and 1990s.

Wayne Hunt, CEO of Toll Global Logistics, said the priority was to get freight operating. He said the firm had already invested $5 million and planned to employ 600 people eventually.

The 110-kilometre section that opened Friday runs south from Phnom Penh to the town of Touk Meas. Once it is completed in 2011, the full southern line, which is 250 kilometres long, will link the capital with the port of Sihanoukville.

Reconstruction of the northern line, which runs 390 kilometres north-west from Phnom Penh to the Poipet border crossing into Thailand, is scheduled to finish in 2012.

Once that is completed, the final link in the Singapore-Kunming chain will be the railway between Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam. Read more!

Clinton to visit Asia next week

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will head next week on a visit to Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand, the State Department announced Friday.

Clinton will also travel to Hawaii where she will hold talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, whose government has been trying to weather tensions with China, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.

President Barack Obama's administration has described Southeast Asia as a key diplomatic priority, saying that the dynamic region was neglected by former president George W. Bush due to his focus on Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Obama administration has sought to build relations with Malaysia, seeing it as a potential force for moderation within the Islamic world.

Political relations were rocky when Malaysia was led by Mahathir Mohamad, who was known for his strident criticism of the West. The United States sometimes riled Malaysia with past calls to expand democratic freedoms.

Despite warm relations between the United States and Australia, Clinton will become the highest-ranking official from the Obama administration to visit.

She called off a scheduled visit in January to focus on relief after Haiti's devastating earthquake, while Obama has twice called off trips to Australia due to domestic concerns.

Clinton will visit Hanoi for the annual East Asia Summit. The United States has warming relations with Vietnam, where experts say that concerns about a rising China have trumped memories of the war against the United States.

However, Crowley said that Clinton would skip a meeting of foreign ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Japan. Obama is expected to attend the full summit in Yokohama.

Clinton will meet Maehara in Hawaii and send her deputy, Jim Steinberg, to the APEC talks for foreign ministers, Crowley said.
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Cambodia opens first line of restored rail system

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – A new rail line opened in Cambodia Friday, a crucial first step towards restoring the country's devastated rail system after decades of civil war and neglect.

The newly rebuilt 120 kilometre (75 mile) stretch connects Phnom Penh to the southern town of Touk Meas, near the border with Vietnam.

It is the first part of a planned 650-kilometre (400 mile) countrywide rail network that will run from the northern border with Thailand via the capital to the southern seaside town of Sihanoukville.

The total cost of restoring the Cambodian network -- expected to be operational by 2013 -- is 141 million dollars, of which the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing 84 million dollars.

"This new railroad represents another important step for Cambodia in overcoming its legacy of conflict," said Kunio Senga, director general of ADB's southeast Asia department.

The link connecting Cambodia's capital and Touk Meas is also a "major step" towards a wider plan to create a rail system stretching from Singapore to China, according to the ADB.

Countries in the region are supporting the pan-Asia train network as a cheap way of transporting goods.
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Project puts trains back on Cambodia's rails

PHUM KSENG, Cambodia (AP) — The railroad is many things to people in Cambodia: playground, garbage dump, open-air toilet, livestock grazing ground, a dry path for traversing swampy terrain.

What it has not been for many years is working transportation for either people or freight. In fact, train service was halted completely last year.

That may change soon. Development specialists have persuaded the government to privatize the system, which officially reopened Friday with one freight line between Phnom Penh and Touk Meas, near the Vietnamese border.

Eventually, they promise, a refurbished railroad will revive Cambodia's economy and drag it out of decades of poverty and chaos. It would be an important missing link in a proposed regional rail system that would stretch from Singapore to Kunming, China.

"It's a powerful symbol of Cambodia's reconstruction and redevelopment," said Lachlan Pontifex, an aid expert with the Australian government, which is helping to fund the $141.6 million effort.

While an efficient transport network holds out great promise for Cambodian businesses, the reclaiming of railroad land could sink thousands into deeper poverty. Many people who live and sell goods alongside the rails — often barely subsisting — fear they will be evicted from their homes. Others, like the operators of makeshift carts that ferry people along the tracks, known as "bamboo trains," will lose a meager but reliable livelihood.

Cambodian and foreign backers said they are trying to minimize the disruptions, spending millions to compensate those affected.

French colonial rulers laid the first rails across the rice paddies and wetlands in the 1920s. By 1969, track stretched from the Thai border to the capital Phnom Penh and continued southwest to Sihanoukville, on the Gulf of Thailand.

Then Cambodia plunged into chaos, beginning with a U.S.-backed military coup and ending in the tyrannical Khmer Rouge regime. After the Khmer Rouge's ouster in 1979, the southern line was still an occasional battleground. Stations crumbled, locomotives rusted and the system ground into dysfunction.

In the past dozen years, the country has seen a sputtering economic boom, which clogged the roads with people and goods.

But the railway remained best avoided. A train ride between the capital and the provincial city Battambang, about 185 miles (300 kilometers) northwest, took more than a day, at a time when a taxi ride took less than four hours.

The Cambodian government shut the system down in November 2009 and awarded the Australian company Toll a 30-year joint venture contract to refurbish and operate it. Toll received an $84 million loan from the Asian Development Bank and others.

Earlier this month, after $5 million in investments in new rails, signs, locomotive repairs and workforce training, the freight service to Touk Meas began operating ahead of Friday's inauguration. The entire railroad — including new spurs directly to the ports — is to be operational by 2013.

"Upgrading the infrastructure will improve competitiveness in Cambodia's economy and promote direct investment in Cambodia itself," said Putu Kamayana, director of the development bank's Cambodian office.

For now, only freight will travel the rails, and the main beneficiary in the short run is likely to be Touk Meas' cement industry. Officials said the competition is already pushing down shipping costs, and should decrease costs for goods like fuel oil or rice.

Of greater concern to the thousands of Cambodians living on or near the rails, however, is what will happen to them. On Phnom Penh's outskirts, scores of families live in tin-roof shacks sometimes just an arm's length from passing trains.

As many as 3,650 families could lose either their homes or their livelihoods. The Asian Development Bank said more than $3.5 million has been budgeted to compensate people who will be moved.

That's small consolation to villagers like Khun Sarom, 38, who with his family of five runs a shop out of a bamboo-floored house just a few yards (meters) from the tracks in Phum Kseng, a village about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Phnom Penh. He said he's lived in his house for 20 years, earning about $5 a day selling cigarettes and pirated DVDs but has no title to the land. He said he knew very little about the rail project and had no idea whether he would get any money or land if he was evicted.

"I guess it's good, as long as I'm not kicked out," he said.

North of Phnom Penh, Prak Pheam, 31, said the railroad would put his bamboo train, a rickety carpet-sized contraption powered by what looked to be a lawnmower engine, out of business. He said he earns $25 in a good week, and had hoped he would get some money for losing that income. But he said only a handful of bamboo drivers have been told they would receive anything, and no one really understood how the money was being handed out.

"It's unfair that I'm not getting money," he said. "I'll have to go back to the rice fields. Or get a job on a train."
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Briton on child sex abuse charge in Cambodia orphanage

The British founder of a Cambodian orphanage is facing prosecution for sexually assaulting a boy in his care.

Nicholas Griffin, 52, was held when police raided his isolated base in countryside near Siem Reap, in the north-west of the country.

Up to 100 children were moved to a safe house in an operation that involved British and local investigators.

Mr Griffin, originally from Wales, left Britain in 2006 before founding the Cambodia Orphan Fund, one year later.

He faces a potential 10-year jail sentence over a claim he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old boy.

Fortress-like building

He was originally held on suspicion of breaking child labour laws and his orphanage licence.

The orphanage manager, a Cambodian man, has been charged with the illegal removal of a child to the orphanage.

Jim Gamble, of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), said Cambodian police are now examining claims of "institutional abuse" within the orphanage, which occupies an unusual fortress-like building.

Mr Gamble added: "The UK and Cambodia may have different legal systems and law enforcement practices, but we share a clear, joint commitment: to prevent harm to children."

He said the operation demonstrated the value of the organisation's international child protection network.
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Flooding impacts provincial prison

Severe flooding in Northwestern Cambodia has left Banteay Meanchey provincial prison under more than 70 centimetres of water and created increasingly worrisome humanitarian conditions at the facility, prison officials and rights workers said.

Thean Chhorvoan, acting director of Banteay Meanchey provincial prison, said floods hit the detention centre beginning last Saturday and had been rising ever since.

“On Tuesday, the water level rose to a half-metre, and as of Thursday, the level of water has risen to 70 centimetres, even though authorities have used four generators to pump out water from the prison around the clock,” Thean Chhorvoan said.

The area around the prison was also flooded, he added.

Thean Chhorvoan said yesterday that administrators had no immediate plans to evacuate inmates from the prison because they had succeeded for the time being in diverting the floodwaters from the prisoners’ sleeping area.

But Chea Sothea, a prison monitor for local rights group Licadho, said inmates were having trouble sleeping as water seeped into their quarters.

With the prison’s latrine flooded, she added, inmates had been forced to defecate in plastic bags, creating an extremely unsanitary environment that had led several prisoners to fall ill with diarrhea.
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Police arrested 10 murder suspects

Meanchey district police have apprehended 10 men suspected of involvement in the brutal murder of three family members whose slashed and beaten bodies were found in their home in Phnom Penh’s Chamkarmon district on Tuesday.

The three victims – 16-year-old Ry Nalin and her parents, 52-year-old Ry Saron and 46-year-old Ne Sovannary – were found in their home in Village 7 with their hands tied behind their backs and their throats cut. The house had also been robbed.

Mean Heng Tith, deputy district police chief, said 10 male suspects aged between 16 and 35 had been arrested and temporarily detained for questioning in connection with the incident.

He said all 10 suspects live in Meanchey district’s Chak Angre Leu commune but declined to provide any further details because of ongoing investigations.

He also stressed that no one had been charged.
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Groups Warn of Abuse Increases in Land, Resource Deals

Villagers in the provinces of Koh Kong and Kampong Speu have alleged that sugar plantations operated by Ly Yong Phat have pushed them off their land.

Government land concessions and the exploitation of natural resources are creating an increasing number of rights violations and other pressures on villagers, a group of local non-governmental organizations said Wednesday.

“Land concessions are affecting Cambodian villages and communities in some provinces,” said Thun Saray, president of the rights group Adhoc, speaking at a national conference for advocacy in Phnom Penh.

The number of land issues has increased over the last nine months, he said, leading to an increase in rights abuses.

An Adhoc study of land issues in Phnom Penh and the provinces of Kampong Speu, Koh Kong, Oddar Meanchey, Preah Vihear, Stung Treng and Banteay Meanchey found 272 ongoing land disputes. As a result, it found 128 people had been arrested and more than 100 had evaded detention. Fifty-five people remain in custody, facing criminal charges related to protests in the disputes.

Wednesday's conference brought together hundreds from across Cambodia, some of whom were representatives of villages feeling the strain of land concessions.

“Now there are 31 families with land issues with the Heng Houy [sugar plantation],” Phoa Ngeng, a resident of Chi Kar Krom commune of Koh Kong province's Sre Ambel district, said.

People there live in fear, she said, with at least one or two people summoned to provincial court every day. She called on the national government to stop providing land concessions to private companies to prevent rights violations.

Heng Houy, the head of the company, has said he obtained the concession legally and had purchased land legitimately from villagers.

Ongoing disputes create the loss of farmland for villagers and other livelihoods, villagers at the conference said. Meanwhile, minority villagers have been pushed from homes and forests that are an important part of their culture.

Meanwhile, exploitation of resources, including for hydropower, have increased the burdens on some villagers.

For example, the Srepok and Yali hydropower dams in Vietnam have created poor living conditions for people downstream.

Kong Chanty, a resident of Stung Treng province's Sesan district, said Wednesday that the dams have pushed more than 1,000 families from 18 villagers from their homeland.

“Now we have moved the houses to a near area, and we lost villages and the land, the farming fields and our ethnic culture,” he said.

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Ban Ki-moon Expected Later This Month

Ban Ki-moon, right, Secretary General of United Nations meets with Hor Namhong, deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Cambodia, left, at United Nations, September 2010.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to make an official visit at the end of the month, and observers say they hope he will address human rights issues as well as the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

“The impression about this trip is that it is to focus on the Khmer Rouge tribunal,” said Ou Virak, director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.

However, if Ban is traveling with the vice chairman of the UN's Human Rights Commission, rights abuse could be on the agenda, he said.

The UN may be pushing for more funding at the tribunal, which has struggled financially all year, while it must also push for independence at the court, he said. The court also needs a proper mechanism to fight allegations of corruption, Ou Virak said.

Koy Kuong, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Ban was expected Oct. 26 through Oct. 28, but he did not outline details for meetings.

Earlier this year, Ban made an appeal to donors to fund the UN-backed court, which has tried one former Khmer Rouge, and is preparing a case for four more.

Further indictments have proven difficult, and critics say the government has hampered the work of the court, especially with the refusal of six senior government officials ignoring summonses from the international investigating judge.

A diplomat in New York said donors are waiting to see a strategy for winding down the court before they commit to more funding.

Seng Theary, founder of the Center for Justice and Reconciliation and a participant in the trials so far, said she hoped Ban's visit would relieve the pressures of funding, as well as political interference, for the court.

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Life term sought for Khmer Rouge jailer sentenced to 19 years for war crimes, other offences

By The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Prosecutors have appealed for a life sentence against the former Khmer Rouge jailer who in July received what many considered a lenient penalty for war crimes, crimes against humanity and related offences.

Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal convicted Kaing Guek Eav — also known as Duch — and sentenced him to 19 years after considering that he co-operated, showed some expression of remorse and was not in the Khmer Rouge's inner circle.

Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen said Tuesday prosecutors have filed documents seeking to have the court impose a stiffer sentence. The appeal was lodged Oct. 13 but posted publicly by the tribunal Tuesday.

In announcing their intention to appeal in August, the prosecutors said the original judgment "gives insufficient weight to the gravity of Duch's crimes and his role and his willing participation in those crimes."

The tribunal is seeking justice for the estimated 1.7 million people who died from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition as a result of the radical policies of the 1975-79 communist Khmer Rouge regime.

Duch's lawyer had also announced his intention to appeal the court sentence and seek his client's release, but it is unclear whether he has officially done so.

Duch (pronounced DOIK) was the first defendant to be tried. He supervised a prison where as many as 16,000 people were tortured before being taken away for execution.

Also found guilty of torture and murder, Duch was originally sentenced to 35 years. Time served reduced the sentence 11 years, and he was compensated five years for illegal detention in a military prison.

Four more defendants are expected to go on trial by the middle of next year: Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge ideologist; Khieu Samphan, its former head of state; Ieng Sary, its foreign minister; and his wife Ieng Thirith, who was minister for social affairs.
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Parents, daughter murdered in Phnom Penh

A mother, father and their 16-year-old daughter have been found murdered in Phnom Penh’s Chamkarmon district, their bodies apparently slashed and bashed with knives and bats.

Municipal Police Chief Touch Naruth said the bodies of the three victims –Ry Nalin and her parents, 52-year-old Ry Saron and 46-year-old Ne Sovannary – were found in their home in Village 7 with their hands tied behind their backs and their throats cut.

He said the three victims had multiple injuries inflicted with a variety of weapons.

“The suspects used a rope and killed the victims by stabbing them with a knife, [and also attacked them with] an axe and a bat. It is a cruel murder,” he said.

The killings bring to five the number of multiple murders reported in Cambodia since July.

The most recent such case occurred on October 9, when a 47-year-old woman, her 24-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old waitress were shot dead in Kandal province’s Takhmao town....read the full story in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or see the updated story online from 3PM UTC/GMT +7 hours.
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Hun Sen Accuses Sam Rainsy of Serving Foreign Interests

Prime Minister Hun Sen has warned the opposition party not to personalize a conflict against him and accused its leader of serving Thailand's interest.

The accusation came after 26 Sam Rainsy lawmakers filed a petition last week to summon the premier to explain on the alleged military training to Thai red shirt protesters inside Cambodia.

“Do not turn it into a conflict with Hun Sen,” Hun Sen said on Monday at a public forum. “[You] have a problem with the law. It’s a legal matter, but [you] have tried to turn it into a dispute against me.”

Sam Rainsy has been sentenced to 12 years in jail on charges of falsifying public documents, disinformation and destruction of border markers in Svay Rieng province.

“I never take a personal issue as a big one,” Sam Rainsy told VOA Khmer by phone from France. “I only file complaints against the Vietnamese in order to protect Cambodian territorial integrity. Cambodian people have fallen victims to the culture of impunity in the past 20 or 30 years. The powerful have a bad habit of killing people at will. I must work to end this impunity for the sake of people’s peace.”

Sam Rainsy announced last Saturday through a video conference to his supporters that he had filed complaints to the courts in the US, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands -- alleging Hun Sen of collusion in a number of violent incidents in Cambodia.

Sam Rainsy accused Hun Sen of being responsible for the 1997 grenade attack on the opposition rally; extrajudicial killings in the aftermath of the 1997 coup against it coalition partner Funcinpec; the killings of non-violent demonstrators and monks in 1998; and atrocities against civilians along the border during the civil war in the 1980s.

In September Sam Rainsy launched a campaign to mobilize international support to pressure the Cambodian government to bring him back into the country. But Hun Sen insists that the opposition leader must at least serve two third of his punishment. Read more!

Conservation group urges action to save Angkor, other developing world cultural heritage sites

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A U.S.-based foundation is urging concerted international action to preserve world-famed cultural heritage sites at risk of loss or damage, including Cambodia's ancient Angkor Wat temple complex, one of the great landmarks of Asia.

The Global Heritage Fund says in a report circulated Monday that "of the nearly 500 global heritage sites in the 100 poorest and emerging countries of the world ... over 200 are facing irreversible loss and damage today."

Among the other sites highlighted are Sumerian archaeological sites in southern Iraq it says that are subject to massive looting; the ancient city of Hasankeyf in Turkey that could be flooded by a new dam project; and Kashgar in western China, where old quarters face demolition under government plans to guard against earthquakes that will relocate over 50,000 people.

"The trend of loss is accelerating due to the simultaneous man-made threats of development pressures, unsustainable tourism, insufficient management, looting, and war and conflict," says the report, "Saving Our Vanishing Heritage: Safeguarding Endangered Cultural Heritage."

The report says that visitors to Angkor Wat increased by 188 per cent from 840,000 in 2000 to 2.4 million in 2009. The temples were built when Angkorian kings ruled over much of Southeast Asia between the ninth and 14th centuries. After centuries of abandonment — and neglect in the 1970s during a civil war — they have emerged as Cambodia's leading tourist destination.

Visitors climbing over the ruins is causing "heavy deterioration of original Khmer stonework," the report warns. It adds that hotels and restaurants nearby are sapping region's aquifer, which has caused the famed Bayon temple's 54 towers to sink into the ground.

Tan Sambu, an official of the Apsara Authority — the Cambodian government office that oversees the temples — said it has issued guidelines for tourists, telling them not to touch carvings and statues. Earlier this year, South Korea provided $9.2 million to build a new road that will circle the temple complex and reduce traffic inside the heritage area.

"Of course when there are many tourists visiting, the deterioration of the original stonework at the temples can't be avoided, but our agency has tried to reduce the effects as much as possible," Tam Sambu said.

The Global Heritage Fund report calls for the preservation of heritage to be recognized as a global priority like combating climate change and biological diversity. It is due to will host a forum on the issue Tuesday at California's Stanford University.
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Flooding on Thailand-Cambodia border still critical

(NECN/MCOT: Sa Kaeo, Thailand) - The border district of Aranyaprathet in Sa Kaew province was under water for the second day on Sunday, with more than 1,000 households being affected.
Flooding in the municipal area and Aranyaprathet's market was described as the worst in 13 years, forcing local residents and vendors to move their belongings and goods to areas with higher ground. Buddhist monks had to wade through floodwaters while on their morning alms rounds.
Many roads in the Aranyaprathet municipal area were heavily flooded and several sections of them could not be used by small passenger cars.

At the border market of Rong Kluea, which was earlier heavily inundated, saw receding levels of floodwater and was returning to business as usual. However, officials were removing large amounts of garbage brought by floodwater.

At Sa Kaew's Baan Klong Luek border checkpoint, cargo trucks from Thailand were prevented by Cambodian authorities from entering that country due to severe flooding in Cambodia's border town of Poipet. The Cambodians said there was no space left to store new goods and the local warehouses were being flooded.

Officials at the Aranyaprathet customs house said the Cambodian authorities order continued for the second day Sunday.

They said each day more than 150 trucks carrying Thai exports to Cambodia pass the Baan Klong Luek border checkpoint. It was estimated that the suspension of cargo transport caused 50 million baht in loss of revenue each day for Thai exporters.

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Mekong countries should delay dam projects for decade: study

Countries in the lower Mekong River region should delay any decisions about building hydropower dams for 10 years, an influential new study said Friday, warning of the many risks involved.

The recommendation was made in a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) report commissioned by the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental advisory body that deals with all Mekong River-related activities.

The MRC -- which represents Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam -- is studying the possible construction of 11 hydropower projects on southeast Asia's longest river.

"The recommendation to defer dam construction for a 10-year period is very significant," said Tiffany Hacker, an interim communication advisor for the MRC.

Environmental groups have long objected to damming the river, arguing that it would damage fragile ecosystems.

The assessment, led by consultants with the help of the MRC, government agencies and civil society representatives, said more time was needed to study the risks that come with building dams in such a complex environment.

"The mainstream projects are likely to result in serious and irreversible environmental damage and... losses in biological diversity and ecological integrity," the report said.

It also warned that the dams would have a negative impact on fisheries and could "lead to increasing food insecurity for millions of people".

The MRC stressed that it was under no obligation to follow the report's recommendations, but Hacker told AFP that member countries were "likely to take the findings seriously".

The four countries will now study the findings "for at least six months" before deciding on how to proceed, Hacker said.

More than 60 million people rely in some way on the river, which is the world's largest inland fishery, according to the MRC.

The wildlife group WWF has warned that the Mekong giant catfish -- one of the world's biggest freshwater fish -- could be driven to extinction if plans to build hydropower dams on the river go ahead, blocking spawning grounds.
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Nine years old girl allegedly tortured

Officials are investigating allegations that a 9-year-old girl was tortured while working as a housemaid for a family in Pursat province.

Ben Sivla, a commune councillor, said the girl’s neighbours reported the case to police and rights workers on Saturday after she fled the house where she lived and worked in Krakor district’s Anlong Thnout commune.

“She ran away from home because her [employers] fought her and accused her of taking their money,” she said.

She said officials had found “many wounds” on the girl’s head, hands, face and back – some of which appeared to have been inflicted with knives and ropes – and that the girl appeared to have been the victim of ongoing abuse.

“She has both new wounds and old wounds on her body,” she said.

She said the girl – who had previously worked for two other families and was sold to her current employers in exchange for 100 kilograms of rice – was being sheltered in an orphanage pending the results of an investigation, which would include interviews with the girl’s former employers.
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PNoy names envoys to Cambodia, Brunei

MANILA, Philippines - President Benigno Aquino has reappointed Noe Wong as ambassador to Cambodia and named retired general Nestor Ochoa as ambassador to Brunei.

Aquino had appointed Ochoa as acting armed forces chief at the start of his presidency, but was replaced by General Ric David.

Wong, a former admiral in the Philippine Navy, was appointed ambassador to Phnom Penh by President Arroyo.

Their appointments will have to be confirmed by the Commission on Appointments.

Cambodia and Brunei are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a cornerstone of Philippine foreign policy.

The Presidential Communications Operations Office said the President also appointed the following to the Cebu Port Authority:

Vicente T. Hualdo Jr. and Engr. Ben Acol as commissioners representing the shipping sector;

Arturo R. Barit, representing the cargo handling sector;

Atty Joselito Pedaria;

Engr. Carlos G. Co and Engr. Dennis Villamor, representing the business sector.

The Cebu Port Authority is under the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC).
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Sex Workers Advised to Use Condoms to Prevent HIV Infection

As per the international Independent Commission on AIDS in Asia, 10 million women indulge in sex with 75 million men, who further have sex with additional 50 million people.

Steve Krauss, who is the Regional Director of UNAIDS Asia Pacific, said, “The technology is there to prevent infections, but punitive laws get in the way”.

The international community until recently was singing paeans for Cambodia for effectively implementing its 100% Condom Use Programme, according to which it was necessary for the sex workers to use condoms during sex.
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But commencing the national anti-trafficking law in the year 2008 largely illegalized sex work and forced the sex workers to hibernate.

After the closure of most whorehouses in Cambodia, majority of sex workers adopted other professions like working in karaoke bars, massage parlors and parks, putting them at increase risk to police corruption and HIV infection.

Andrew Hunt, creator of the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers said that police believe that its main duty is to clamp down on sex workers use condoms as evidence.

Hunter also said that the police require legal training, as many nations refuse to present condoms as evidence in court.

Hunter further stated that majority of sex workers believe that amendments should be done both in the judicial procedure and accessibility to justice. Read more!

UBELONG Contributes to Reaching the MDGs In Cambodia

In September we proudly supported our volunteering projects in Cambodia by donating money from the UBELONG Fund to help reach the UN's Millennium Development Goals.

(I-Newswire) Washington, DC, October 16, 2010 - We recently proudly supported our volunteering projects in Cambodia by donating money from the UBELONG Fund to the Salvation Center Cambodia (SCC), a local Cambodian organization devoted to sustainable community development. The money was used to help a school for disadvantaged children in the Som Reang Mean Chey community of Phnom Penh. Specifically, it went to provide the children with school uniforms and materials, including plants for the school’s educational garden.

Our donation was made as part of a larger city-wide event that brought together various organizations to raise awareness and fundraising in support of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to end extreme poverty by 2015. During the event, volunteers from across the world solicited donations from local business and held discussions with locals and tourists about the MDGs. The volunteers also played games with local children and helped them to create community gardens and learn English.

For the volunteers, the festivities were an opportunity to learn about the MDGs, as well as contribute firsthand to poverty alleviation efforts. In line with the UBELONG mission, volunteers of all backgrounds were able to contribute and make a difference. UBELONG co-founder Raul Roman was in Cambodia visiting the UBELONG projects during the run-up to the event and, as he notes: “It was inspiring to see locals and international volunteers from all walks of life working together. Any barriers that may have existed because of culture, language or nationality were overcome as people came together with the aim of making a positive difference.”

Looking ahead, we look forward to continuing our support of local organization like SCC. In the next 12 months we anticipate that over 1,000 volunteers of all backgrounds and nationalities will join our programs. These volunteers represent the core of our efforts to assist communities. We encourage you to explore our volunteering opportunities in both Cambodia and the rest of the world, and to help spread the word about UBELONG.

To learn more about our projects in Cambodia and throughout the world, please visit www.ubelong.org. Read more!

Chaotic But Widespread Voting in Philippines: Monitor

Despite concern raised by critics, a Cambodian election expert says Cambodia's process is better than some, particularly the Philippines.

“Because in the Philippines, there is behavior that does not follow procedures and the election law, so they can't compare to Cambodia,” said Keo Darith, a monitoring coordinator for the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia.

Cambodia's electoral organization is orderly, better equipped and includes secret ballot booths, he said, as a guest on “Hello VOA.” Keo Darith recently monitored an election in the Philippines.

Cambodia is preparing for commune elections in 2012 and national elections the following year. In past elections, some groups, including the opposition, have complained of registration and voter-list flaws that denied some the right to vote.

The National Election Committee this month has begun to register new voters, in a process that ends Oct. 20.

The Philippines, which has been a democracy since 1946, operates in a system of electoral anarchy, where folded papers are used as ballots and 10-year-old children vote in lieu of their parents, Keo Darith said.

For all that, voters are more attentive than in Cambodia, which in recent years has seen a drop-off in election participation and where access to voting information is limited, he said.

Keo Darith said he supports a computerized voter list equipped with biometrics that would make it easier for people to vote.
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Council of Ministers Approves $2.3-Billion Budget for 2011

Last month, September, Cambodia purchased 94 T-55 tanks from eastern Europe to bolster its military capacity.

The Council of Ministers on Friday approved a draft budget of more than $2.3 billion for 2011, an increase of $445 million over the year before.

The Council approved military and security spending of $298 million, including $185 million for the Ministry of Defense.

The Ministry of Interior was budgeted $111 million, the Ministry of Health $165 million and the Ministry of education $218 million.

Defense and security spending reflected an increase of $22 million over the previous year, the largest increase overall.

Spending for the Ministry of Interior rose $1 million, while the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education saw increases of $21 million and $20 million, respectively.

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DirectRooms.com - Runners Raise Money for Landmine Survivors in Cambodia

Experienced and amateur runners will be stretching off and warming up in preparation for the Angkor Wat half marathon taking placing at the start of December DirectRooms.com can reveal.

PHUKET, THAILAND, The race will see competitors sprinting from the start line to gain an early lead before settling into a more gradual pace as runners take to the course to raise essential funds for people affected by landmines.

Cambodia has one of the highest percentages of people maimed by anti-personnel land mines in the world and the country is still littered with the devices resulting in more people needing help. The race aims to support people who have been injured with medical care and provide prosthetic limbs which need replacing every three to four years.

The money raised from race entry fees and from runners collecting sponsorship money is donated to the Hearts of Gold charity.

Athletes will be trying to complete the 21km course in the shortest time possible which starts and finishes from the world famous Angkor Wat in Siem Reap. For people that feel they can't tackle the whole half marathon distance but still want to take part there is a 10km run for men and women and also a 3km run for families.

Spectators staying in a Siem Reap hotel can also see contestants taking part in the 21km wheelchair race and all events are being held on 5th December 2010.

Lek Boonlert, marketing head at www.DirectRooms.com commented: "The race is for a great cause and generates much needed funds for landmine victims. Hundreds of people will be taking part and hotel accommodation will be getting booked up so any visitors heading to the city should make an early online reservation."

About DirectRoomsDirectRooms an independent discount hotel Reservations Company based in Asia. Established and online since 2000 with over 50,000 hotels worldwide.

For further information

please contact Lek Boonlert:Email: email us hereTel: + 66 (0)76 241 145. Read more!

Foreign visitors to Angkor Wat rise by a quarter to 804,000

Phnom Penh - The number of foreign tourists visiting the Angkor Wat temple complex, Cambodia's key tourist attraction, climbed 24 per cent in the first nine months of this year, local media reported Friday.

The Apsara Authority, which manages the temples, told the Phnom Penh Post newspaper that 804,000 people had visited the complex this year compared with 649,000 in the same period last year.

However Bun Narith, who heads the Apsara Authority, said the impact on revenues was unclear.
'(For example) some 200 to 300 government delegations attended meetings in Siem Reap, and they visit Angkor Wat for free,' he said.

The president of the Cambodian Association of Travel Agents said up to 80 per cent of foreign tourists visit Angkor Wat, which is situated outside Siem Reap town in western Cambodia.
'Most guests think they haven't seen Cambodia if they miss visiting Angkor Wat,' Ang Kim Eang said.

The number of tourists to the kingdom is up 15 per cent this year, but big-spending visitors from the United States and the United Kingdom are down 4 per cent. The average foreign tourist spends 112 dollars a day when in-country.

Most of this year's increase in tourist numbers has come from neighbouring Vietnam, whose citizens typically spend less and do not stay as long.

The government is targeting 2.4 million tourists this year, 11 per cent up on last year.
Tourism is one of Cambodia's four economic pillars, along with agriculture, garment manufacturing and construction. Agriculture was the only pillar not badly hit by the 2008 global economic crisis. Read more!

Union rejects industry offer

THE Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia said yesterday that it would drop all complaints related to last month’s strikes in exchange for apologies from workers and unions, an offer a prominent union leader said had been rejected.

GMAC Secretary General Ken Loo said the offer had come following “several meetings” with union leaders and government officials convened in an attempt to resolve the outstanding disputes within the industry.

“We have two main conditions that we deem necessary. Firstly would be at the confederation level, we need a letter of apology ... not to us, but rather to all stakeholders,” Loo said.

“Secondly, at the enterprise level, the workers in question at the enterprise level have got to apologise to the factories.”

“If the unions accept the facts and acknowledge the fact that they were in the wrong, that’s the end of the issue.”

But Kong Athit, secretary general of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, said GMAC’s offer was unacceptable.

“We cannot do that because we are not wrong and the government did not accuse us of being wrong,” he said. “If we apologise to them, it means we admit we were wrong, and then they can make more problems for us.”

Loo said 67 union representatives in total remained suspended in connection with strikes held last month to protest the minimum wage for garment workers. A total of 358 workers who protested the suspensions of their representatives had been fired because they ignored court orders requiring them to return to work within 48 hours, he added.

Kong Athit disputed these figures, however. He said 106 union representatives remained suspended and 677 workers had had their contracts terminated after protesting these suspensions.

Loo said that if the unions and workers did not agree to apologise, the factories that had filed complaints would continue to pursue them through the court system.

“If they don’t feel they were in the wrong, obviously they don’t have to apologise,” he said. “Obviously, we don’t think we were wrong, and the unions don’t admit they were wrong, but somebody’s wrong, so we can only turn to the courts to intervene.”

In a speech last month, Prime Minister Hun Sen called for employers to drop complaints against workers and union representatives.

Tuomo Poutiainen, the chief technical adviser for the International Labour Organisation’s Better Factories Cambodia programme, said it was still possible to find a compromise that would suit both the unions and the employers. He pointed to last month’s signing of a memorandum of understanding between union and industry representatives related to dispute resolution as a promising step for the Kingdom’s industrial relations.

“In my opinion, there’s basis to find positive cohabitation, and that would play well for the future of the industry,” Poutiainen said.

On Monday, 22 union representatives who had been suspended at the Sangwoo garment factory in Kampong Speu province were allowed to return to their jobs following a meeting with factory management. Read more!

Cambodan network warned over mobile money service

­The National Bank of Cambodia has warned that it will take action after local mobile network, Mobitel launched a mobile banking service without applying for permission from the Central Bank. The Central Bank issued a ruling in August that it must oversee credit remittances - which it says includes the money transfer services provided by mobile networks.

Mobitel's Cellcard Cash service was launched on September 20 without the filing of an application, reports the Phnom Penh Post. The money transfer service is backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Central Bank director general Tal Nay Im declined to comment on what action the central bank was considering, she did not rule out legal action against the mobile network operator.
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"I cannot tell you yet [what action we will take], but we have to do something," she said.

Mobitel Chief Executive Officer David Spriggs declined to comment on the issue, but operations manager Kay Lot has said that the company did not consider mobile-money transfers to be banking.

On the web: Phnom Penh Post
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In Wake of Complaints, City Agents Charge Correct Tax

A watchdog organization says the Ministry of Economy and Finance's tax collectors are bilking the country out of at least a million dollars a year by overcharging for annual vehicle stickers.

As the deadline for annual vehicle taxes approaches, tax agents in Phnom Penh appear to be avoiding the kind of overcharges that led to a flurry of complaints last month.

In a bundle of 90 complaints sent to the newfound Anti-Corruption Unit, 2,700 people complained they were being overcharged at tax collection sites across the country.

But at 15 sites around Phnom Penh this week, tax agents were charging the standard amount set by the Ministry of Finance, while avoiding unofficial surcharges.

“I paid for tags for two motorcycles according to the price on the invoice,” said Chea Bora, a 30-year-old resident of Phnom Penh's Prampi Makara district. His Chaly cost 3,500 riel, about $0.80, for a vehicle tag, and his more expensive Fino cost 4,500 riel, about $1.07.

“The tax agents didn't overcharge me,” he said.

Ly Vanny, a tax agent in the capital's Chamkar Mon district, said accusations of overcharging did not apply to her.

“We respect the price table of the Ministry of Economy and Finance's general tax department,” she said. “We want the process of vehicle tax collection to have transparency and effectiveness for both tax agents and tax payers.”

Nevertheless, in complaints filed with the ACU by the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific, Cambodians said they were being overcharged for their annual tags. The ACU has said it is considering the complaints for possible investigation.

Om John, deputy chief of the Finance Ministry's tax department, said agents have been counseled not to over charge, though they do not always comply. Still, he said, overcharging has been reduced.

The deadline for vehicle tax is Oct. 20, and as the deadline approaches, people outside of Phnom Penh say they are being forced to overpay. Sometimes they are asked to pay extra for the forms, or for pens, they said.

“I almost lost my temper, because the government staff are supposed to work to serve the interests of the people,” said Thon Saroeun, 38, who lives in Siem Reap province. The set fee for tax on his CRV car is 100,000 riel, or $25, he said. But agents charged him an extra 5,000 riel.

“It affects my own feelings, when tax agents illegally take money,” he said. “Five thousand riel is not so much, but many people pay the overcharge. I feel bad paying the overcharge because the money comes from my own labor.”

“The agents look down on the law,” said Keo Soeun, a 65-year-old farmer from Svay Rieng province. He said he was overcharged 1,500 riel, around $0.40, for his vehicle tax. “I earn less than $1 per day, and I can spend 1,500 riel to buy salt, prahok [fish paste] and fish sauce to eat for three days.”

Pang Sameth, a 47-year-old motorcycle taxi driver in Preah Sihanouk province, said overcharging for government services has worsened his living conditions. He earns about $2 a day and supports a family of three children.

“I want the government and the Anti-Corruption Unit to take strong action against corruption,” he said. “If the tax agents continue to overcharge, it affects the legal system, the state regime and the system of government and administration,” he said. “The overcharging hurts my feelings, my spirit and my daily living.”

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Illegal migrant workers await decision in Malaysia

Cambodian officials have said that four women caught working illegally in Malaysia might be allowed to stay in the country, a decision that a Malaysian official said would contravene immigration laws.

Unt Vantha, second secretary at the Cambodian embassy in Kuala Lumpur, said embassy officials interviewed four women on Monday after they were caught working as domestic aids while staying in the country on a social visit visa.

He said the case – which was originally investigated by the Cambodian Interior Ministry’s Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department following a complaint filed by the parents of the four women – was not being treated as one of human trafficking because the women reported that they had willingly gone to Malaysia.

“They told us that they are OK,” he said. “They said they work with a kind employer.”

He said it was possible the four women would be allowed to continue working in Malaysia.

“We reported the case to our government, and now we are waiting for instructions from our government [regarding] whether we should send them back or not,” he said.

In the meantime, he said, the four women and their employers would apply for work visas.

Raja Saifful Ridzuwan, minister counsellor at the Malaysian embassy in Phnom Penh, said he had not yet received information about the case, but that illegal workers would not normally be allowed to stay in Malaysia.

He said Cambodians could stay in Malaysia for 30 days on a social visit visa, but would be detained and sent to court if caught working without a permit during this time.
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Parliamentary Group Seeks Solution to Sam Rainsy Cases

A group of European parliamentarians says charges brought in Cambodia against opposition leader Sam Rainsy are more political than criminal.

The Inter-Parliamentarian Union issued a resolution this month calling on Cambodian authorities to “explore ways and means of resolving the issues at hand through political dialogue.”

Sam Rainsy, who is in exile abroad, is facing a 12-year jail sentence in two cases, for uprooting markers along the Vietnamese border and for posting a map on his party's website the government says falsely alleges Vietnamese border encroachment.

The Appeals Court this week upheld a guilty verdict in Sam Rainsy's border marker case, which carries a two-year sentence for destruction of property and incitement.

The IPU called on the government to “enable Mr. Sam Rainsy to resume his parliamentary activities as rapidly as possible.”

Government officials, including Prime Minister Hun Sen, have said the cases belong to the courts and will not be discussed beyond them.

The IPU said in its Oct. 6 resolution the cases “never should have been brought before the courts, but resolved at the political level.”

As a result of the charges, Sam Rainsy has been stripped of his parliamentary immunity. Meanwhile, his party and others must now prepare for commune elections in 2012 and national elections the following year.

The IPU said it was “particularly alarmed that, if upheld, this verdict would bar Mr. Sam Rainsy from standing in the 2013 parliamentary elections.”

The verdict would also have “consequences far beyond Mr. Sam Rainsy's case, as it is bound to affect the opposition,” the IPU said, calling recent prosecutions of other opposition supporters a narrowing of the political space and detrimental to the democratic process.

Cheam Yiep, a senior Cambodian People's Party lawmaker, said Sam Rainsy had broken the law and should face the legal ramifications.

“What they have raised as a resolution of the IPU, I cannot accept it as a parliamentarian of Cambodia,” he said, and he accused the IPU of “listening to the minority.”

The Sam Rainsy Party holds 26 of 123 National Assembly seats, compared to the CPP's 90.

“So they are paying attention only to 26 seats,” he said.

The IPU resolution calls for close monitoring of the developments of Sam Rainsy's legal cases.
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Immigration Reform Bill Could Lessen Deportations: Group

The US has expelled more than 200 Cambodians under the law since 2001, when Cambodia signed an agreement to take back deportees.

A new immigration bill already drafted in Congress could reduce the number of Cambodians deported from the US, supporters say.

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill, which has the backing of a number of groups, including Cambodian, still needs more support, Sinuon Hem, director of the Asian Pacific Islanders Youth Program, told VOA Khmer.

“We should push congressmen from the Republicans to help sponsor it,” she said from Seattle, Wash.

Passage of the bill would reduce Cambodians on a deportation list under immigration laws, she said. Currently, the list is 1,400 Cambodians long, many of whom have already served jail time and have the potential of becoming good US citizens, she said.

Deportation of some US-Cambodians under the law have met with opposition from the Cambodian-American communities. So far 230 people have been deported. Five of them were sent in September.

Daravuth Huot, the Cambodian consular in Seattle, said he has received requests for more information about deportation procedures, but he encouraged people who are concerned to seek legal counsel.

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Cambodia blasts Thailand over Red Shirt accusations

by Michelle Fitzpatrick Michelle Fitzpatrick

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Cambodia on Wednesday accused Thai authorities of playing "dirty games" and concocting evidence that anti-government "Red Shirts" had received weapons training on its territory.

Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) said that 11 Red Shirts picked up in the northern province of Chiang Mai this month had confessed to receiving three weeks of training in Siem Reap to assassinate politicians.

"When they came back to Thailand, they were sent to Chiang Mai to prepare for assignment. They told us that they were trained for sabotage and assassination," DSI chief Tharit Pengdit told AFP on Monday.

The 11 men, who are reportedly part of a larger group of 39 militants, will not face charges but will serve as witnesses in efforts to prosecute the people who organised the training, he added.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said that he had been in touch with his Thai counterpart Abhisit Vejjajiva about the allegations and asked him to clarify Bangkok's position.

In a speech at a university graduation ceremony, Hun Sen said Cambodia had a "responsibility to fight against terrorism" and that it would "not interfere in Thailand's internal affairs".

The government-owned Thai news website MCOT quoted Police Lieutenant Colonel Payao Thongsen as saying that the men were taken by Red Shirt leaders to Cambodia without passing legal immigration processes.

The Cambodian government strongly rejected the allegations, saying it would not allow foreigners to set up training camps on its territory.

In a statement, a spokesman for the Council of Ministers accused the Thai authorities of engaging in "malicious political manoeuvring" to link the country to Thailand's internal problems.
Cambodia "strongly demands that Thailand DSI put an end to the dirty games of concocting evidences to deflect Thailand public opinion from Thailand's own internal political and social problems," he said.

Mass anti-government rallies by the Red Shirts in the heart of Bangkok in April and May left 91 people dead -- mainly civilians -- in clashes between demonstrators and armed soldiers.

The Thai government has blamed the movement for a recent string of bomb blasts, but the Reds deny any involvement and have accused the authorities of a conspiracy to justify tough security powers and tarnish the Reds' image.

Ties between Thailand and Cambodia have been strained since a long-running dispute over a border temple flared up in 2008, and the Red Shirt row threatens to reverse a recent thaw in relations.

In another statement, Cambodia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the "unsubstantiated and malignant claim made by the DSI is causing greater harm to the Thai-Cambodian relations".

Thailand was outraged when Cambodia hired ousted former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra, a hero to many of the Reds, as an economic adviser in November 2009.

The move led to both countries withdrawing their ambassadors and relations were not fully restored until Thaksin resigned in August of this year.

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Japanese man guilty of buying underage sex

Phnom Penh Municipal Court has sentenced a Japanese man to seven years in prison after finding him guilty of purchasing sex from a 13-year-old girl in August last year.

Atsushi Kato, 40, was arrested in September 2009, one month after police raided a Daun Penh district brothel where he paid for sex with the girl on multiple occasions.

His arrest was carried out after he visited the government-run rehabilitation centre where the victim was held following the raid.

He said he paid the victim a visit because he wanted “to know how well she was being treated there”.

In addition to handing down the jail term, Judge Din Sivuthy ordered Kato to pay 400,000 riels (US$94) in compensation, and said he would be deported at the end of his sentence.

Kato told reporters after the verdict was announced that he planned to appeal.

“I am not happy with the conviction, and I will ask my lawyer to appeal the conviction at the Appeal Court,” he said.

Defence lawyer Kao Soupha said the sentence was “acceptable” because it was the minimum called for under the Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation.

He added, though, that the guilty verdict itself was unjust.

“My client was not aware that the prostitute was 13, because she was wearing makeup and it was not necessary to ask her for her identity card,” he said.

“This is my question to you court officials and government officials: When you go to have sex with girls, have you ever asked them to show identity cards?”

Nuon Phanith, a lawyer provided to the victim by child protection NGO Action Pour Les Enfants, said the compensation awarded to his client was “too small”.

“The court’s conviction is acceptable and just for my client, and is in the right accordance with the law,” he said.

“But the compensation is too small relative to the damage inflicted on the victim.”
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Court Upholds Verdict for Sam Rainsy in Border Marker Case

A guard separates Prum Chea, left, and Meas Srey, right, as they wait at the Court of Appeals on Wednesday. Both were released later with time served on charges related to the uprooting of markers along the Vietnamese border in Svay Rieng province.

The Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a two-year jail sentence against opposition leader Sam Rainsy, while releasing two villagers with time served on charges related to a Vietnamese encroachment demonstration.

The court upheld the verdict of Svay Rieng court against Sam Rainsy, who was found guilty of destruction of property and racial incitement for uprooting markers along the Vietnam border, where Cambodian villagers said they had lost land to encroachment.

Sam Rainsy's lawyer, Chu Choung Y, said he would appeal the verdict with the Supreme Court.

Arrested for the October 2009 incident were Prum Chea, 41, and Meas Srey, 40, who lived in Chantreay district where the posts were uprooted.

Both have been held ever since, but the Appeals Court said Wednesday they could be released with time served. Both said they were grateful for the decision.

Read more!

Cambodia denies Thai assassination plot allegation

By GRANT PECK (AP)

BANGKOK — Cambodia on Tuesday strongly denied allegations in Thailand that members of the anti-government Red Shirt movement were trained in Cambodian territory to assassinate top Thai leaders, including the prime minister.

A senior Thai security official alleged Monday that 11 men who were arrested last week in the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai were among 39 given ideological and combat training in a "neighboring country."

Lt. Col. Payao Thongsen, a senior investigator for the Department of Special Investigation, did not name the country when he made the allegation at a news conference. But he described the routes the men allegedly took to their training ground, which led to Cambodian border crossings.
Cambodia denied the accusation.

"Why would we need to do this? Cambodia would receive absolutely no benefit from training these people," government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Tuesday. "Cambodia strongly rejects these allegations."

Cambodia's relations with Thailand have been contentious for years, with the focus mostly on a border dispute.

The Thai allegations also raise the stakes domestically in an increasingly convoluted political battle that began in 2006, when elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted by a military coup for alleged corruption and disrespect toward Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

The coup, which was touted as a way to restore stability after months of anti-Thaksin demonstrations that had all but paralyzed his administration, instead polarized the country, with Thaksin's opponents and supporters both protesting in the streets ever since.

The Red Shirts include many Thaksin supporters as well as activists opposed to military interference in politics.

Two months of protests earlier this year by the Red Shirts — formally called the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, or UDD — demanding early elections degenerated into violence. About 90 people were killed in clashes before the army cleared the streets of demonstrators on May 19. Most top Red Shirt leaders have been detained on terrorism charges.

Dozens of bombings widely thought to be linked to the political strife have also plagued Bangkok this year.

Payao said the 39 alleged trainees were part of a conspiracy to topple Thailand's monarchy, an allegation that his agency — the equivalent of the FBI in the United States — has made in the past against Red Shirts and their sympathizers.

"During the training, they were taught by the Thai UDD members who were in the neighboring country about political beliefs and more importantly about hatred toward the institution," he said in an interview with the government-owned MCOT television network.

"The institution" is a common euphemism for the monarchy, which until recent years has been held in almost universal high regard. However, some Red Shirts and social critics perceive that some palace circles were involved in the coup.

A report on MCOT's Web site said that Payao asserted that the alleged terrorists' three weeks of training "was held in a Cambodian army camp and they were trained by Cambodian soldiers." The website of several Thai newspapers cited him making the same assertion.

Payao said the men were "trained to know almost every kind of weapon," including assault rifles and grenade launchers, and were also shown the use of C4 plastic explosive.

He did not explain why Cambodia would be involved in such a conspiracy.

The two nations have had small, sometimes deadly, skirmishes over the demarcation of their border near the 11th century Preah Vihear temple. Relations worsened last year, with both countries withdrawing ambassadors, after Cambodian leader Hun Sen made Thaksin an official adviser and hosted him like a VIP. Thaksin recently resigned that position, and both countries restored their ambassadors.

MCOT reported that Payao said the alleged assassination targets included Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, recently resigned Deputy Prime Minster Suthep Thaugsuban, influential politician Newin Chidchob and a senior police officer.

Payao displayed what he said was evidence of the plot, including maps and photos. None of the 11 men arrested in Chiang Mai have been produced for the press to give their side of the story.

MCOT reported that Jatuporn Prompan, a Red Shirt leader and member of Parliament, denied that his movement was part of any assassination plot.
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Ties with Cambodia strained over reds

By The Nation

P Penh denies Bangkok claim red warriors got weapons training in Siem Reap; NSC backs up DSI findings

Thailand and Cambodia have found their newly restored relations at another highly delicate juncture after a Thai police investigation revealed militant red shirts were allegedly trained in Siem Reap.

The Cambodian government yesterday denied that red militants had been trained on its soil to carry out acts of terror in Thailand, while in Bangkok the government tried to cushion the impact on bilateral ties by saying Phnom Penh leaders had no policy of supporting such alleged training.

The bombshell allegations were made by the Department of Special Investigation on Monday and backed up by the National Security Council (NSC) yesterday

Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said his country would receive no benefit from either sheltering or training red militants, while the spokesman's office for the Cambodian government said the report was a fabrication, and that giving weapons training to foreigners was against its constitution.

A statement released yesterday by the spokesman's office claimed the allegation was a Thai government plan to undermine the red-shirt movement for political gain. "It's a nonsense that Cambodia would want to have problems with anyone for no reason," the statement said.

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) cited interviews with 11 men accused of seeking weapons training, who were arrested recently at a Chiang Mai resort. And it released details of similar weapons training for another 24 men in Cambodia.

DSI director-general Tharit Phengdit said yesterday details about Cambodia's training of some 39 red militants needed further verification.

Media reports cited different numbers of red militants becoming active after completion of weapons courses they attended, either in Thailand or elsewhere. The total number mentioned is 64 overall, with four allegedly assigned as bodyguards for wanted militant Arisman Pongruengrong.

Details from interviews with the 11 men, who have sought protection with the DSI and given much more information, will forwarded to the government's Centre for Resolution for the Emergency Situation (CRES). It will then decide how to deal with the issue, with advice from the Foreign Ministry.

Spokesman Panitan Wattanaya-gorn said Cambodia's denial about weapons training was being verified, but the issue would be discussed between Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his counterpart Hun Sen at the 17th Asean meeting in Vietnam on October 28-30. He said Hun Sen had pledged to look into the matter to determine "how credible it could have been" after he met with Abhisit at the Asia Europe Meeting in Brussels on October 4 and 5.

Panitan said the Brussels meeting had a good atmosphere and both leaders made an unofficial pledge to exchange intelligence tip-offs about criminals from one country fleeing to the other.

He said the weapons training courses included bomb-making, demolition, use of firearms and grenade launchers, and given only to successful candidates.

The CRES was keeping a close watch on hard-core red-shirt groups. "Security officials will keep pressuring them to prevent them from being fully active," he added.

NSC secretary-general Thawit Pliansri had confirmed the DSI's

intelligence report about the red

militants receiving weapons training in Cambodia.

Justice Minister Pirapan Sali-rathavibhaga said more details were being gathered to verify that Arisman had been linked to the weapons training before Thailand decides whether to ask Cambodia to extradite him to face indictments here. Read more!

Residents Claim Flooding From Developer's Lake Fill

Cambodian amputee beggar is given money by a passerby while wading in flooded street in Phnom penh

Heavy rains on Monday flooded the homes of at least 1,000 people in the Boeung Kak lake area of Phnom Penh, where residents say the pumping of sand and mud into the lake by a city developer has diminished a natural drainage system.

Most have now temporarily evacuated their flooded homes.

More than 50 people gathered in front of City Hall Tuesday to protest against the development, which has met with continued criticism.

The protesters delivered a complaint to city officials claiming their homes were filled with up to a half a meter of water after heavy rains. Some staid behind to yell their dismay, saying the development of areas of Phnom Penh were not good for its people.

Residents said Tuesday such flooding did not happen before Shukaku, Inc., began filling the lake as a development site.

Officials for Shukaku, which began filling the lake for a $79 million development in 2008, were not available for comment. The company is at odds with thousands of residents who say they have been offered a buy-out that is too small.

Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Pa Socheatevong said Tuesday the flooding was not caused by the pumping. Many areas of the capital had flooded as a result of heavy rains and a lack of drainage citywide, he said.

“Last night, I didn't sleep well, because of flooding in my house,” Laom Eang, a 38-year-old noodle vendor at Village 24 in the Srah Chok commune of Daun Penh district, said. She sat at her home, where she cooks for customers, and where floodwater 30 centimeters deep covered the floor. “I've never seen flooding like this after heavy rains,” she said, blaming the fill development, which seeks to cover about 120 hectares of lake.

Nearby, Kong Sokha, 44, who rents out a mobile gas stove from house to house, said he could no longer live in the area.

“I'm afraid the flood level will become higher and higher,” he said. “I've rented this house for nearly two months, but I've never seen it flood like this. The flood pollution has given me a little headache. My wife and I have decided to move to another place where there is no flood, to avoid danger.”

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Indochine Mining to raise millions

Gold and copper miner Indochine Mining Ltd, which is exploring concessions in two Cambodian provinces, said it expects to raise as much as AU$25 million (US$24.5 million) in an initial public offering after receiving commitments from investors worldwide.

Indochine’s Phnom Penh-based operations manager and board member Ross Hill said that many institutional investors were seeking exposure to Cambodia’s gold and copper resources, with investors confirmed from the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United States, Papua New Guinea, China, Malaysia and Australia.

“Already attracted at an early stage and continuing to support the company are some of the world’s most prestigious and professional investment houses,” he told the Post via email.

“For example, the company’s largest single investor Jabre Capital Partners is one of Europe’s biggest and the best performing fund in 2009.”

Priced at AU$0.20 per share, Indochine aimed to raise $12 million with provision to float another $13 million worth of shares, depending on demand.

With tenements of 2,900 square kilometres in Ratanakiri province and 1,400 square kilometres in Kratie province, Indochine claims to have the largest landholding of all miners in the Kingdom....read the full story in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or see the updated story online from 3PM UTC/GMT +7 hours.

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Heavy rain, strong winds force cancellation of all flights in Cambodia

By The Associated Press (CP)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia has suspended all flights to its two international airports due to heavy rain and strong winds.

Civil aviation official Him Sarun says the suspension at the airports in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap started at 10 a.m. Monday (0300 GMT) and would remain in effect as long as the weather was bad. He says some 20 flights to and from other countries were cancelled. Domestic flights were also stopped.

Him Sarun said Monday: "We did it for the sake of travellers' safety." He says that pilots could not see the runway.

The Ministry of Water Resource and Meteorology says the poor weather conditions started Sunday and would last until at least Wednesday. All-day rain flooded parts of capital Phnom Penh as deep as 1 metre (3.3 feet). Read more!

Sam Rainsy Holds Congress, Vows Pursuit of Hun Sen

Phnom Penh residents are treated in Kalameth Hospital for wounds after grenade attacked in Capital Phnom Penh on Saturday afternoon July 5 1997. Fighting broke out between troops loyal to the rival prime ministers and shellfire hit downtown areas.

The exiled leader of Cambodia's main opposition met with supporters in a party congress in Canada over the weekend, saying he would not back down on complaints against the ruling prime minister for crimes against humanity.

Sam Rainsy, whose party holds 26 of 123 National Assembly seats, said he will seek the arrest of Prime Minister Hun Sen for crimes committed during Cambodia's period of civil war, among others.

“We must file complaints to all the courts for the arrest of Hun Sen,” he told some 350 party supporters at the congress in Montreal.

“No need to wait until 2013,” he added, a reference to the date of the next national election. “The sooner the better. And this time I will not back off, brothers and sisters, because I am determined that this time will not be a protest in exchange for my return to Cambodia. I do not want to go back to Cambodia as long as Hun Sen is still destroying the nation and still serving the Vietnamese.”

Sam Rainsy is facing a total 12 years in jail on charges related to continued allegations, including a map on his party website, that the Vietnamese have encroached on Cambodian land. The issues of border encroachment and the government's relationship with Hanoi remain hot-button items for some Cambodians.

Sam Rainsy said he has filed complaints to the courts of the US, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands, alleging Hun Sen's collusion in a number of violent incidents in Cambodia's recent history.

Sam Rainsy has charged that Hun Sen was involved in the 1997 grenade attack on an opposition rally; extrajudicial killings in the 1997 coup over coalition partner Funcinpec; the killings of non-violent demonstrators and monks in 1998; and atrocities against civilians along the border during the civil war in the 1980s.

Officials have denied the premier's involvement in the alleged crimes.

The latter policy “caused hundreds of thousands of Cambodians to die,” Sam Rainsy told the party congress. “That's why we've taken action against Hun Sen, to arrest Hun Sen and convict him by law.”

He likened Hun Sen to Manuel Noriaga, a Panamanian dictator, and Charles Taylor, the ex-president of Liberia who is on international trial for alleged war crimes.

“I believe Hun Sen cannot avoid a fate like that of Noriega and Charles Taylor,” he said to applause.

Government spokesman Phay Siphan said Tuesday Sam Rainsy's charges had no legitimacy and that it was “impossible” for Cambodia to have a dictator. Hun Sen was duly elected, he said.

Sam Rainsy, who has already filed a complaint in New York for the 1997 grenade attack, will travel to the European Union, where he hopes to collect signatures from parliamentarians to reactive the Paris Peace Agreement, thereby calling on its signatories to push harder for human rights, an independent court and other democratic institutions.

“All those countries with obligations vowed in the Paris agreement to ensure Cambodia's independent sovereignty,” he said. “Now where is the independence? Sovereignty? And freedom, where is freedom?”

Ruling party lawmaker Cheam Yiep said the Cambodian People's Party “completely” rejects accusations the country has not followed the peace agreement, citing the National Assembly, institutions of law and order, and democracy.

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Security guard pleads self-defence in murder case

Phnom Penh Municipal Court has heard the case against a security guard charged with the premeditated murder of a Malaysian businessman and his Cambodian chef in February.

Nop Thearo, 20, was arrested on February 24 after being accused of stabbing Lim Theang An – the 71-year-old director of the Karasans company, a Malaysia-based engineering firm – to death the previous night at his house in Chamkarmon district’s Boeung Keng Kang I commune.

He is also accused of murdering Cambodian Hem Mali, 51, who was working that night as a chef for Lim Theang An.

According to a police report the accused allegedly stabbed the pair while working the evening shift at the Chamkarmon house. He later allegedly moved the bodies to the trunk of the victim’s car with the intention of abandoning the vehicle.

However, the report said he then changed his mind and dragged the bodies back to the entrance of the house, then brought a safe from downstairs in an attempt to fool police into thinking their deaths were the result of a robbery. The accused then waited for police to arrive.

Nop Thearo denied the charges against him during the court hearing, insisting he had been acting in self-defence.

“I heard loud sounds during the night, and I went to investigate and accidentally touched the front door,” he said. “The old woman then began to shout ‘thief’, but I tried to tell her, ‘It is me, Thearo’.”

He told the court the pair kept screaming, prompting him to try to cover Lim Theang An’s mouth.

He said he was then struck by Lim Theang An in the head with a petrol can.

“He grabbed a knife and stabbed me in the stomach, but I fought him and stabbed him with his own knife in the stomach just once,” he said.

“The old woman then came at me with a knife, but I dodged it and she stabbed the man in the stomach a second time.”

He said the woman then grabbed his penis and refused to let go, leading him to stab her. “It really hurt, and I told her to take her hands away but she ignored me,” he said. “I then attacked her with the knife twice.”...read the full story in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or see the updated story online from 3PM UTC/GMT +7 hours.
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