Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon agrees that Thailand and Cambodia can discuss their border disputes in Indonesia, but insists that any such talks must be bilateral and Indonesian authorities must not be involved. Gen Prawit was responding on Monday to a report that his Cambodian counterpart Gen Tea Banh proposed that the next meetings of the Thai-Cambodian General Border Committee (GBC) and of the Thai-Cambodia Joint Boundary Commission (JBC) be held together in Indonesia. Gen Prawit said Gen Tea Banh had not informed him of his proposal yet. He said the next meeting of the GBC and JBC should not be held at the same time. The JBC meeting should come first because the GBC meeting's agenda is security along the Thai-Cambodian border and was ‘’discussable’’. There should not be a problem, the defence minister said. At the next GBC meeting the two sides will discuss problems in implementing agreements over the disputed border area, security along the border, illegal labour, drug smuggling and other crime. When Gen Prawit was asked by the reporters what he would say if Cambodia insisted the meeting take place in Indonesia, he said Thai authorities would have no problem with that, but both sides would need to talk first. However he insisted the GBC meeting must be bilateral. ‘’ Asean (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) has agreed that Indonesia will take part only in the news conference and will not attend the meeting. We have no problem if things remain this way,’’ Gen Prawit said. The general reiterated his previous position that the Thai-Cambodian border dispute does not affect the travel or trade of people in either country and the two sides can still sit around a table and negotiate,. There, there should be no need to hold the JBC and GBC meetings in a third country. Meanwhile, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) spokesman Panthep Puapongpan has filed a petition with the House of Representatives, again demanding that parliament refuse to endorse the three JBC memos under the 2000 MoU regarding border issues. The PAD claims that parliamentary endorsement of the three memos, which were signed in 2009 and in 2008 by the Joint Boundary Commission, would result in a significant loss of territory. The government will table the three memos in parliament tomorrow. Read more!
Monday, March 28, 2011
Police beat Cambodian garment workers
At least eight female garment workers were injured on Monday in clashes with Cambodian riot police, who used shields and electric shock batons to end a protest over a factory closure, witnesses and a union said. At least eight female garment workers were injured on Monday in clashes with Cambodian riot police, who used shields and electric shock batons to end a protest over a factory closure, witnesses and a union said. Some demonstrators were pushed to the ground and shocked with batons when police with guns and riot gear were deployed to forcibly end a road blockade by an estimated 1,000 female workers who were demanding unpaid wages and compensation after a local factory went bankrupt. The clashes were the latest setback for an industry that forms a vital part of Cambodia's fledgling $10 billion economy. The garment sector was badly hit during the global economic slump from 2008 and more recently has been plagued by strikes over low pay and working conditions. "Police were ordered to beat up workers, some were hit in the heads and shoulders and others were pushed to the ground," said Chhoeun Chanthy, a 30-year-old garment worker . "We were not afraid, we were peaceful." Chea Mony, president of the Cambodia's Free Trade Union (FTU), told Reuters the total number of injured was unknown and some workers were being held in police custody. "This is very serious. These workers were only in dispute with employers," Chea Mony said. "This violence is not justified," he said, adding that a government committee tasked with dealing with such disputes was "useless". Phnom Penh police chief Touch Naruth declined to comment and a legal representative for the factory was unavailable. Garment manufacturing is Cambodia's third-biggest currency earner after agriculture and tourism. About 30,000 jobs were lost in 2009 after a drop in sales to the United States and Europe. The downturn led to a strike by more than 210,000 garment factory workers last year and more mass strikes have been threatened over a controversial move by the government to regulate trade unions. Cambodia exported garments, textiles and shoes to the value of $2.3 billion in 2009, down from $2.9 billion in 2008. According to the World Bank, the sector is in recovery and exports grew 24 percent in 2010 after a 20 percent contraction. An estimated 300,000 of Cambodia's 13.4 million people work in the sector and send vital cash to impoverished rural villages where many people live on less than $1 a day. Reuters Read more!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Trimming the cost of an Asia trip
Police to question Orphanage paedophile over rape claim
By Darren Devine A LIFELONG friend of paedophile Nick Griffin has told Wales on Sunday she became suspicious after he took a teenage boy who has since accused him of rape on a camping trip alone. Janet De Selincourt allowed Griffin to live on the trout farm she one ran in North Wales and spoke out after we revealed the teenager’s allegations last week. Following our exclusive story, North Wales Police have also promised to quiz Griffin, 53, about the alleged two-year campaign of abuse against a teenager in the Llangollen area when he is released from jail in Cambodia. The orphanage-founder is serving a year behind bars for abusing boys younger than 15 at his charity institution in South East Asia. Mrs De Selincourt, 69, admitted that despite her suspicions about Griffin she has written to him in Cambodia and will stand by him because “a friend is a friend”. She said: “I know he’s been convicted, but I find it very difficult to believe what I’ve heard. “I did write to him. I sent a letter to the British Embassy in Cambodia and enclosed a birthday card for him. “In the birthday card I said: ‘We’re with you all the way whatever.’ A friend is a friend regardless.” Mrs De Selincourt has known Griffin since the mid 1980s when he became her lodger in Addlestone, Surrey. In the early 1990s Griffin went to live in Shepherd’s Bush, London, where he set up his own business and employed Mrs De Selincourt’s daughter. In 1996 Mrs De Selincourt came to Glyn Ceiriog, near Llangollen, to run the Upper Mill’s trout farm. About two years later Griffin joined her in North Wales, from where he ran the Ives Management Services property firm, met his alleged Welsh victim and became a scout leader. The alleged victim last week told Wales on Sunday Griffin wormed his way into his confidence for two years before abusing him for two years between the ages of 13 and 15. The man, who is now 23, has since been convicted of possessing child porn and is on the sex offenders’ register. But Mrs De Selincourt said despite her unease over the camping trip she is certain the alleged victim was never abused at the trout farm. She said: “There was nothing going on at the house – I can guarantee that. “There was one occasion when I sort of didn’t like the idea that Nick had gone camping (with the boy). But I wasn’t (the boy’s) mother. His mother and father were the people who had the say.” When the police began looking into the allegation in 2009 she told them the alleged victim slept on the floor in Griffin’s room only once at the trout farm. The alleged victim told WoS last week he originally complained to police about the abuse in 2004, but his allegation was not properly investigated. A spokesperson for the force confirmed they had been investigating since 2009, but said there was no record of a complaint going back to 2004. Detective Inspector Arwyn Jones said they hoped to arrest and interview Griffin once he is released from his Cambodian jail. The pervert will be thrown out of the country he left for in 2006 once he is released in about 12 months’ time. Cops here will immediately arrest him if he returns to the UK or goes to a country with which there is an extradition treaty in place. Mr Arwyn Jones said the force had been in regular contact with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOPS) throughout the investigation. North Wales Police put Griffin on the police national computer as a wanted man before being told by CEOPS he was under investigation in South East Asia. Mr Arwyn Jones added: “The enquiry will be pursued and brought to a conclusion once Griffin is released from custody.” Read more!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Cambodia to see more participation in Earth Hour event
PHNOM PENH, Mar 26, 2011 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Some eighty businesses, and groups of individuals in Cambodia switched off their lights and electrical devices for an hour, starting at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday to celebrate "Earth Hour".
About 80 hotels, restaurants and shopping malls in the capital, including Hotel Cambodiana, Hotel Le Royal and Hotel Inter- Continental, as well as many individuals from across Cambodia have turned off their lights or partly turned off their lights for one hour to celebrate their action in protecting the environment.
"We have turned off the lights and lit candles instead during the Earth Hour, let the guests enjoy the unique atmosphere of romance, they feel very happy," a manager of Hotel Le Royal said.
Earth Hour is the world's largest environmental movement which encourages individuals, businesses and communities around the world to turn off their lights for one hour on March 26 at 8.30 p. m. local time in a bid to raise awareness about climate change.
Seng Teak, WWF-Cambodia's director, said Saturday that this is the second year that WWF has encouraged people in Cambodia to participate in this international event.
"It's still few participants, but it has doubled the number in 2010's event and I believe that year by year, more people will be aware of it and there will be more participation," he said.
WWF-Cambodia has assumed two Cambodian famous actors Yuthara Chhany and Tep Rindaro as the Earth Hour Ambassadors.
"Action for earth of these legendary actors will be a great example and will influence fans, families and friends to join forces with the rest of the world in the celebration of one thing that unites all of us -- the planet," he said.
Yuthara Chhany said, "The planet is ours and we can do our part to protect it, make your action for our only planet with the rest of the world."
"As individuals, we can do our own part to reduce the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere and take action on climate change for 365 days," he added.
The event was launched in 2007 in Sydney, Australia.
In 2010, hundreds of millions of people, in 128 countries and territories across the world, took part in the event.
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WT students return from Cambodia
By Matt Hamilton
Two weeks ago we brought you the story about the West Texas A&M University Readership Program and their trip of a life time.
Well, those 14 students have returned from their trip to Cambodia and they say the experiences they gained on the trip are irreplacable.
"It was a life changing trip. We went to different NGO's and basically learned to research where your money goes, because what some organizations seem as, they sometimes aren't," said Tyler Sweeney, a Senior Peer Leader and documentary filmmaker who went on the trip.
The trip also made the students realize how lucky they are.
"I also saw all of Cambodia and it made us thankful for all we have."
12 freshman along with two Peer Leaders were chosen out of hundreds who wrote essays to win the trip. This year marks the fourth international trip WTAMU has taken in conjunction with its Freshman Readership Program. The WT students traveled with student essay winners from Texas A&M International University in Laredo.
Cambodia was chosen as the destination because this year's common reader for Freshman Readership Program was The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam. In the book, Somaly talks about her experience of being sold into sex slavery and how she helps others.
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Friday, March 25, 2011
Labor Leaders Threaten Protest Over Draft Law
A Cambodian garment worker speaks on a loud speaker as she leads a strike in front of a factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Sept. 13, 2010.
Labor leaders say they want the Ministry of Labor to accept their recommendations to a law now being drafted to regulate union activity, threatening they will hold mass demonstrations otherwise.
“If they do not take the recommendations of the unions, there will be a big, peaceful demonstration until they change it,” said Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, as a guest on “Hello VOA” Thursday.
Union officials say they are opposed to the current version of the Ministry of Labor’s draft law, which they say will make it harder for unions to function and easier for factories to sue labor leaders. Proponents of the law say it will help regulate a sometimes unruly sector and important economic engine.
A second “Hello VOA” guest, Ath Thun, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union, said too that his and other unions will protest if their recommendations are not adopted.
“In the first stage, we have had discussions with all union leaders in Cambodia, from every political spectrum, and we are all agreed and share the same concerns,” he said.
Ath Thun said the current draft does not allow freedom for unions to execute their duties and makes it more difficult for them to recruit members, by requiring regular reporting to ministries and increasing fines and punishment for union leaders.
The draft will also require unions to run their membership dues through the employer, he said. “That we can’t do, as the employers do not want unions,” he said.
The draft also makes it easy for authorities to suspend or cancel a union’s license or to “punish” unions, he said, a contravention of international conventions.
“If this law is passed without incorporating the opinions of the unions and workers, that means there are no unions’ rights, and violations of the law will increase, because no one will take the risk to be a union leader anymore,” he said.
Rong Chhun said the unions will resubmit their recommendations to the Ministry of Labor on Friday.
The ministry said this week that the draft is meant to benefit workers, not restrict unions. Cambodia has at least 62 unions that represent many of the nation’s 300,000 factory laborers.
Both labor leaders said Cambodians are traveling to outside countries like Malaysia, South Korea, Vietnam or Thailand in search of work, because the government has not created jobs for them at home.
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Women in Garment Factories Help Cambodia Out of Poverty
PHNOM PENH, Mar 25, 2011 (IPS) - Cambodia’s rise out of poverty continues to depend on the nimble fingers of young women like Khiev Chren. She has spent the last three years in a garment factory on the outskirts of this capital city, churning out clothing for international name brands such as Levis, Dockers and GAP. "This is my first job and I need the money to help my family in the province," the 23-year-old said, barely pausing as her fingers guided the left leg of a white trouser under the needle of her electric sewing machine.
Around her rose a hum from nearly 2,000 sewing machines, behind which sat women stitching garments from jeans to shirts, in a well-lit cavernous hall. "This is a more secure job than working in the rice fields back home," Chren admitted, alluding to the hardship of life in her rural-rice-growing province of Takeo, south of Phnom Penh.
The increasing dependence on women like Chren for this Southeast Asian country’s journey out of poverty was brought home Monday by the World Bank’s ‘East Asia and Pacific Economic Update’. "Garment exports registered a 24 percent growth in 2010 after shrinking 20 percent during the 2009 [global financial] crisis," the international financial institute revealed of the main driver of Cambodia’s fledgling export economy.
"Two of Cambodia’s growth drivers rebounded faster than expected," the Bank added in its assessment of the country’s economy, referring to the garment and footwear sectors. "As a result, some 55,300 new jobs have been created by both industries in 2010, recovering most of the jobs lost during the 2009 economic downturn."
Women in this country of 14 million have benefited from this windfall in new jobs, amplifying the trend in the garment sector from the time it set its roots in the mid-1990s helping Cambodia recover from decades of conflict, genocide and occupation - which ended with the 1991 Paris peace accords - and extreme poverty. Today, the face of the 320,000 workers in the country’s 270 garment factories remains a feminine one.
The garment factories, which serve as a base for this country’s limited industrial sector, are also pivotal as an employment magnet for the bulging youth population. Nearly 35 percent of the population is between 10 and 24 years old, earning this country the distinction of having the biggest youth population in Southeast Asia, according to U.N. estimates.
It is the labour of the female workforce, in fact, that has contributed to over 70 percent of export earnings from garment sales to markets in the United States and Europe. In 2008, before the global financial crisis, exports earned 4.07 billion U.S. dollars, dropping to 3.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2009 following the crisis - which saw U.S. markets shrink. But by last year, the export market, led by garments, had rebounded, with earning inching close to 4.6 billion U.S. dollars.
And the monthly income of the female labour-force - above 90 U.S. dollars - has been a significant element in helping alleviate poverty in a country still ranked among the world’s 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that Cambodia, which has a third of its population living below the poverty line, will fall short of meeting a 2015 global millennium development goal (MDG) of slashing by half the number people who had been living on less than one dollar a day in 1990.
In rural Cambodia, where close to 85 percent of the population live, the number of people living below the poverty line was as high as 43 percent of the population in 1994, but had dropped to 34.79 percent prior to the 2009 financial crisis. It is a drop for which the garment sector earns kudos.
"The garment factories have been an equaliser in alleviating poverty in rural Cambodia," says Tumo Poutiainen, chief technical advisor of Better Factories Cambodia, a special initiative to ensure high labour standards involving the International Labour Organisation (ILO). "Women come to work in the garment factories not just for themselves, but to send money home."
The remittances that the 350,000 garments factory workers sent home prior to the crisis helped two million people in rural areas, ILO estimates reveal, not counting the additional 150,000 jobs the factories spawned on the fringes of Phnom Penh creating a "secondary economy".
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No Life Sentence Possible in Duch Verdict: Officials
Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who ran the notorious Toul Sleng, a top secret detention center for the worst "enemies" of the state, appears on a television screen of the press center of the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, 2010
The Supreme Court Chamber of the Khmer Rouge tribunal will hold the final hearing in the case of torture chief Duch next week, but officials said Friday no one should expect to see a life sentence for the defendant.
Many victims of the regime and participants in the case were disappointed when Duch was handed a commuted sentence of 19 years last year. But tribunal officials told reporters Friday that even if the Supreme Court Chamber finds in favor of an appeal from the prosecution, the maximum sentence Duch will receive is 45 years.
The three-day hearing is scheduled to begin Monday and last for three days. “It will be the last sentencing for Duch,” tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said Friday. “He cannot appeal any more.”
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Kek Iev, was found guilty by the Trial Chamber of atrocity crimes that included crimes against humanity, in the first-ever trial for the UN-backed court.
The Supreme Court Chamber will have to decide if the commuted sentence handed down from the Trial Chamber is acceptable, or whether he should be let out sooner or serve a sentence up to 45 years.
The chamber will also have to decide on an appeal from the defense that questions the legality of Duch’s trial under the court, which is tasked with trying the senior-most leaders of the regime.
“This is not a hearing about how people were tortured, how many people were killed and so on,” tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen said Friday. “It’s a hearing about legal arguments, such as, was Duch a senior leader or most responsible within the mandate of the court.
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A crooked cop, drug money and diamonds: Action-packed allegations at Montreal trial
There are the Cambodian bankers and their monk. The Quebec mobster and his psychic. The crooked cop and a bunch of Colombian cocaine traffickers.
Not to mention the axe murder, the Israeli diamonds and the Latvian bank accounts.
From Miami to Phnom Penh, this tale involves as much as $100-million in drug money, in one of the largest alleged schemes to hide proceeds of crime ever brought before the courts in Canada.
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Sy Veng Chun, 63, and his wife Leng Ky Lech, 48, are charged with running what prosecutors call “a sophisticated money-laundering system” with a drug trafficker named Daniel Muir as one of their principal clients.
The Cambodian-born couple ran a tiny currency-exchange boutique in Montreal’s Chinatown, not two blocks from the courthouse where they now stand accused.
From evidence at the Montreal trial, which began a year ago, and in other court cases in Florida, a fuller picture is emerging for the first time of an alleged intricate criminal web spanning three continents.
It started with Mr. Muir, a Quebecker whose rap sheet reads like a CV for a fast-rising drug importer, graduating from busts for a few grams of coke in 1988 to hundreds of kilos by the turn of the century. A thriving independent operator, he had a cordial relationship with Mafia bosses such as Frank Cotroni and was sanctioned by the organized crime groups in Montreal.
But with success came the problem of what to do with all those profits. According to Suzanne Pépin, a clairvoyant who became Mr. Muir’s confidante, “Daniel was fed up with hiding his money,” the Montreal trial was told.
Mr. Muir heard about the services offered by Mr. Chun and Ms. Lech, who ran two companies from the same Chinatown address called Peng Heng Or Gold Inc. and A&A Services Monétaires Inc., court heard.
The pair had been in the news before, when they were executives of Credit Bank of Cambodia of Phnom Penh. In 1995, they lost $2-million trading commodities futures and were unable to meet their margin call. Their bank defaulted, setting off a scandal in Cambodia.
In early 2000, at an Old Montreal restaurant, Mr. Muir and the two accused struck a deal, according to Ms. Pépin, who attended the supper. She said Mr. Chun was described as “the courier of money to Cambodia,” and Ms. Lech told Mr. Muir she had “other clients like him.”
(If Mr. Muir had his clairvoyant, Ms. Lech had her own spiritual adviser, a Buddhist monk, to see whether it was “a good thing” to take the trafficker’s money, the trial heard.)
By 2001, Mr. Muir and an underling, Bernard Mondou, started to negotiate with the Colombian drug baron Elias Cobos-Munoz to import a tonne of cocaine to Canada, via the Bahamas and Florida, according to U.S. court filings.
To pay for the drugs, Mr. Mondou turned to a childhood friend, Montreal police officer Pierre Goulet, to transport $3.5-million to Miami, according to a Quebec court ruling. Hiding packs of cash in the seats and doors of a car, Constable Goulet would flash his badge to avoid scrutiny at the Quebec-New York State border.
The initial plan was to bring the cocaine by plane. However, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the air route had to be dropped and they used instead a speedboat, court documents in Quebec and Florida say.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had gotten wind of the plot and intercepted the shipment in the Bahamas in January, 2002. The DEA then took the cocaine to Miami for a sting operation, according to DEA affidavits.
Days later, in the parking lot of a Taco Bell restaurant, Colombian traffickers brought a U-Haul truck to pick up the cocaine they would deliver to Mr. Muir’s men, unaware they were dealing with undercover DEA agents. Mr. Muir had to fly to Cuba to talk with his Colombian contacts about the lost cargo, not knowing that a police operation was being mounted against them, DEA affidavits said.
Back in Montreal, Mr. Muir kept on rolling.
His ex-wife testified that he told her he had “solved his money problems” when he entrusted about $100-million to Ms. Lech, “his partner for money.”
Ms. Lech came to Mr. Muir’s home to pick up boxes full of $20 bills, court heard. Mr. Chun and Ms. Lech moved the money overseas, prosecutors said, by wiring bank drafts to Cambodia and purchasing more than $10-million in diamonds in Israel, Belgium and Switzerland that were then sent to Hong Kong, Thailand and Cambodia.
“The purchase of this quantity is consistent with the use of diamonds to store wealth via proceeds of crime,” Corporal Kelly Ross, an RCMP expert, said in a statement filed before the court.
The cash was also funnelled through Canadian financial institutions such as the Desjardins credit unions, the Bank of Montreal and the Bank of Nova Scotia, the trial heard.
In addition, prosecutors said, Ms. Lech used money “borrowed from her friend Daniel The Frenchman” to open a small bank in Phnom Penh, Peng Heng SME, which specialized in credit for small businesses.
In October, 2002, Mr. Chun and the Buddhist monk were at Montreal’s airport, about to fly to Cambodia, when agents doing a routine security check found $600,000 U.S. – in $100 bills – in Mr. Chun’s carry-on bag, court heard.
Even though no charges were filed, the RCMP seized the cash.
Mr. Muir, meanwhile, was having trouble with the Colombians.
In 2003, he sent them $3-million through Panama. The Colombian shipped him 800 kilos of cocaine via Venezuela, but half was ruined in transit. Mr. Muir had to send emissaries to Miami to negotiate with the Colombians, who said he still owed them $1.7-million for the Venezuelan delivery, Florida court documents said.
In the fall, Mr. Muir sent $1-million to the Colombians, using a circuitous route that went from accounts in Latvia and Russia, through banks in New York and San Francisco to Costa Rica, according to a U.S. Justice Department indictment.
One evening in February, 2004, Mr. Muir was leaving the Club Wanda’s strip club in downtown Montreal when two men armed with an axe and knife ran after him. Witnesses heard him scream, “They’re going to kill me!” before he was hacked and stabbed. The murder has never been solved.
At the time, “investors” had paid Mr. Muir $35-million for more drugs, but the money was now missing, according to a U.S. Justice Department case summary.
Four months later, the DEA, the RCMP and police in the Bahamas and Colombia announced a series of charges against the Colombian and Canadian organizations. Mr. Mondou, Mr. Cobos-Munoz and Constable Goulet and dozens of others were all eventually convicted.
As police began digging into Mr. Muir’s background, the money trail led them to the Chun-Lech enterprise.
“We started making the links between the two organizations,” Sergeant Benoît Roy, the RCMP’s lead investigator on the case, said in an interview.
Police say they discovered that Mr. Muir’s $1.2-million mansion at the foot of Mont St. Hilaire, south of Montreal, was in Ms. Lech’s name. The hunt was on.
Mr. Chun and Ms. Lech were arrested in January, 2005, after returning from another trip to Cambodia. It took another five years of legal wrangling before their trial finally got under way.
The defence has yet to present its side of the story, and a key witness to much of the alleged laundering, Mr. Muir, is dead.
If found guilty, they could each face a maximum of 10 years in prison. The Crown will also seek confiscation of two homes valued at more than $2-million, the $600,000 seized at the airport and 3,800 diamonds and gems.
During a break, the couple sat serenely in the court corridor.
“I’m not worried,” Mr. Chun said.
Ms. Lech nodded and smiled. “I’m not afraid of anything,” she said.
With reports from Les Perreaux and Ingrid Peritz in Montreal
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Thursday, March 24, 2011
Vietnam cop 'beat cabbie for not running light'
Taxis wait for customers in downtown Hanoi. A Vietnamese deputy police chief attacked and threatened to shoot a taxi driver for refusing to run a red light, a report in state-controlled media said Thursday
.A Vietnamese deputy police chief attacked and threatened to shoot a taxi driver for refusing to run a red light, a report in state-controlled media said Thursday.
Cabbie Do Quoc Thai said his passenger twice asked him not to stop at traffic signals and, when he insisted on obeying the lights, seized the steering wheel and threatened to shoot him, Tuoi Tre newspaper's website reported.
He said the man then used a belt to attack him during the alleged altercation on Sunday night in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho.
Running red lights is a routine practice among Vietnamese motorists.
The incident happened outside a local police station whose officers invited the pair in for questioning, Tuoi Tre reported. It identified the passenger as Major Bui Minh Thang, second-in-command of Hau Giang province's traffic police.
"Thang threatened the police and asked one official in the room to kneel and apologise to him," the report said.
Tuoi Tre reported that it interviewed Thang who said he had been drinking wine and beer before calling the cab.
Both the traffic police in Can Tho and neighbouring Hau Giang provincial police -- which are reportedly led by Thang's father -- declined comment to AFP.
Vietnam's traffic police are regarded by citizens as notoriously corrupt.
In a report last year the US-based Human Rights Watch urged Vietnam to investigate "widespread police brutality". The group said it had documented 19 incidents of reported brutality by law enforcers over the previous year, resulting in 15 deaths.
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Military opposes Cambodia border talks in Indonesia
By PIYANART SRIVALO
NUTIDA PUANGTHONG
THE NATION
Published on March 25, 2011
Prayuth asks Phnom Penh to host GBC meeting, opposes Indonesian observers in disputed territory
One of the two scheduled meetings between Thailand and Cambodia's two border committees will not take place in Indonesia next month as the Thai military opposes holding talks in a third country, senior government officials said yesterday.
Indonesia, as Asean chair, had called parallel meetings of the General Border Committee (GBC) and the Joint Boundary Committee (JBC) on April 7-8 in Bogor, to find ways to settle the border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia.
Doubts arose about the meetings after Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan and Army chief Prayut Chan-ocha said they did not want the military-run GBC to meet in a third country. The meeting should be held either in Cambodia or Thailand, Defence Ministry spokesman Thanathip Sawangsaeng said.
"The GBC is a bilateral mechanism on border affairs between Thailand and Cambodia. We have never had a meeting in a third country," he said.
Prawit said he had sent a letter to his Cambodian counterpart Tea Banh to ask whether Phnom Penh was ready to host the next GBC meeting. "I believe Cambodia would call a GBC meeting soon," he said.
Following a recommendation from the United Nations Security Council, Asean had planned to facilitate the peace arrangement between Thailand and Cambodia after a major border skirmish in February. It proposed sending Indonesian observers to the disputed areas adjacent to the Hindu temple of Preah Vihear.
Jakarta said yesterday that as Asean chair it was waiting for approval of observers from both host countries. Phnom Penh has already replied it was ready to accept the observers, but Thailand was reluctant as the military said the plan should be discussed in the GBC meeting first.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva tried to gloss over the disagreement, saying the military would participate in the GBC meeting eventually, but it would not hold it parallel with the Foreign Ministry-run JBC.
The JBC is a bilateral mechanism for land boundary demarcation. Its progress was stalled when the Thai Parliament delayed approving the minutes of previous meetings. Parliament will discuss the documents today.
"At this stage, the JBC would be an important forum to talk over the boundary matters, including the Indonesian observers," Abhisit said.
Both countries should examine the way the Indonesians plan to carry out their observation, he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban echoed the military opinion, saying Thailand would not allow any foreign officials to be stationed in the disputed area. "We have to discuss details of the observation first," he said.
Abhisit also said he did not want to see Indonesian observers in the 4.6-square-kilometre disputed area claimed by Thailand and Cambodia.
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Cambodia hosts international seminar on maritime security operations
PHNOM PENH, Military officials from 23 countries in Asia-Pacific region and the United States met here on Thursday for a 10-day seminar on maritime security operations.
The so-called MPAT TE-19 (Multinational Planning Augmentation Team Tempest Express-19), focused on maritime security operations, was sponsored by the U.S Pacific Command.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the United States Ambassador to Cambodia Carol A. Rodley said that the seminar focuses on how all nations deal with transnational threats in maritime domain.
"Transnational threats in maritime security have caused harms to our whole economies and have been threatening the effectiveness and efficiency of the work performance and the well-being of our people," she said.
"To deal with this issue, it does not just start with the military alone, but it requires coordination and cooperation between government agencies and there must involvement from all those who live and work at near the water including the fishermen, shipping companies, local police to partner nations."
"With all parties' cooperation, it will help ensure the efforts with maximum results in ending conflicts, stopping piracy, or halting terrorism, criminal activities in maritime domain," she added.
Lieutenant General Nim Sovath, chief of Cambodia Defense Ministry's Department of Politics and Foreign Affairs, said that the MPAT TE-19 is in line with the policy of the royal government of Cambodia to ensure maritime security, sovereignty, territory and economic development.
"Through this maritime security operations exercise, I believe that participants will receive good experiences and ideas in defending maritime borders against criminal activities such as terrorism and trans-border crimes, illegal fishing and so on," he said.
The Multinational Planning Augmentation Team (MPAT) Program is a cooperative multinational effort to facilitate the rapid and effective establishment and/or augmentation of a multinational task force headquarters.
The MPAT provides responsive coalition/combined expertise in crisis action planning. (PNA/Xinhua)
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Indonesia awaits approval on Thai-Cambodia mission
JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesia said Thursday that an ASEAN plan to send Indonesian military observers to the disputed Thai-Cambodia border had stalled as it awaited approvals from Bangkok and Phnom Penh.
At a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta last month, Thailand and Cambodia agreed to accept Indonesian observers to a flashpoint section of the border where heavy fighting erupted in February.
ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan hailed the agreement as a "historic day" for the 10-nation block, but more than a month later the observer teams remain in Jakarta and Thailand's military now says they are not needed.
"We're still waiting for further approvals from both countries before we can proceed to go to the area," Indonesian foreign ministry spokeswoman Kusuma Habir told AFP.
The observers had not received their operating orders and did not even know where they would be posted or for how long, she added.
"We hope that we will receive their approvals as soon as possible," Habir said.
Thailand's army chief, General Prayut Chan-O-Cha, said Wednesday the observers were not wanted in the disputed area near an 11th-century temple because it was too dangerous and they would only complicate matters.
Prayut said the Thai defence ministry, armed forces and military commanders rejected the idea of outside monitors, but conceded it was up to the government to decide.
A Thai government spokesman denied however that there had been any change in Bangkok's position, and said a joint border committee would be convened to iron out the details of the observers' mission.
Cambodia insisted on Thursday the delay was being caused solely by Thailand.
Foreign ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said the Cambodian government had already sent all the necessary paperwork to Indonesia.
"For Cambodia, there is no problem. We have immediately responded to all Indonesian letters involving the TOR (Terms of Reference)," he told AFP.
"Cambodia has already agreed to the locations and timing (for the observers). If Thailand does not want the observers, Cambodia accepts them unilaterally," he said.
Thailand and Cambodia have each accused the other of starting the border clashes, which erupted around the Hindu temple of Preah Vihear.
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Estaban Lazor meets with top Cambodian government official
Havana, Cuba, Mar 24.- Esteban Lazo, Vice-president of the Cuban Council of State, met on Wednesday with Hor Namhong, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Cambodia, now on an official visit to Cuba.
According to a report by the National Television Newscast, the two leaders tackled several issues on the international agenda and the current situation of bilateral relations.
Likewise, Lazo -also a Politburo member- and the distinguished visitor reiterated their willingness to continue strengthening the bonds existing between Cambodia and Cuba.
Also participating in the meeting were Long Visalo, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and Hay Sonnarin, Cambodian ambassador to Havana, among others, while the Cuban party was also represented by First Deputy Foreign Minister Marcelino Medina, as well as by other officials of the island’s Foreign Ministry. (acn).
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Wednesday, March 23, 2011
UNICEF Concern Prompts Cambodian Investigation of Orphanages
Cambodian orphans play together as they wait for adoption at Kien Klaing orphanage center in Phnom Penh, (File)
The Cambodian government has begun investigating the country’s orphanages; just days after the United Nations Children's Fund expressed its concerns that nearly three out of four children in the country's orphanages have at least one living parent.
Earlier this week, UNICEF said most of the 12,000 children in Cambodia’s orphanages are, in fact, not orphans. Nearly three-quarters of them have one living parent, yet the number of children in care has more than doubled in five years.
UNICEF said the number of orphanage centers has nearly doubled, to 269 facilities in the same period.
Just 21 of those are run by the government. The rest are funded and run by foreign donors and faith-based organizations.
Tourism
UNICEF country head, Richard Bridle, told VOA he is concerned many centers have turned to tourism to attract funding and that, by doing so, they put children at risk.
Bridle says even the best-intentioned tourists and volunteers are funding a system that is helping to separate children from their families.
International studies have shown that children are better off in a family or community setting.
That also happens to be a much cheaper way of caring for them, says Sebastien Marot, the founder of Phnom Penh’s respected street kids organization called Friends International, which was established 17 years ago.
Money-making venture
Marot says the figures from UNICEF indicate a serious problem: Either there is a misconception about stability in Cambodia in the 21st century, or "unscrupulous people" are engaging in a charity business and using children to make money.
"We have been working 17 years and we haven’t placed kids in an orphanage. And, we are working with the most marginalized kids that have the most difficult families. We haven’t placed any in an orphanage in eight years, except for heavily disabled or very, very sick, because the families are really in no capacity for taking care of them. And, that is the real situation," Marot said.
Marot acknowledges that most tourists going to orphanages are acting out of pure motives when they visit the children and give money.
But he says there is little doubt that some Cambodian orphanages have been set up to make money from foreign tourists.
Visitors to Cambodia’s tourist centers of Phnom Penh, the temple city, Siem Reap and the beach resort, Sihanoukville, are regularly bombarded with pleas to visit orphanages.
Marot’s advice is that tourists should behave as they would at home.
"The real question is: Would you do this in your own country? No. Have you ever visited an orphanage in your own country? No. Why? Because an orphanage is a safe place for kids and has to have a child protection system - it is to protect those children," Marot noted. “They are already totally vulnerable. Having people coming from outside is just not acceptable."
A spokesman for the Social Affairs Ministry, which is carrying out the inspections, admitted this week that the government does not know whether the thousands of children in care are being treated well or badly.
The spokesman says it is unclear how long it will take to inspect all 269 orphanages, but promises that those found to be sub-standard or in contravention of the law will be closed.
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Indonesia not wanted, Prayuth insists
Observers from Indonesia are not needed to solve the Thai-Cambodian border dispute, army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha insists.
Thai military leaders have also proposed that Thailand and Cambodia set up joint checkpoints to secure the disputed area.
"A third country or any other country must not get involved. Thailand and Cambodia can talk.
He repeated the stance taken by Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon and armed forces chiefs. They want the Foreign Ministry to tell Cambodia they do not want any observers from Indonesia, the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), to get involved in bilateral border issues.
"I do not reject observers but I do not think they are necessary because we can solve the problem ourselves.
"If observers finally come, I will keep them on the outside.
"Why should they enter the strategic area? That is dangerous. If observers are there, can they prevent Cambodia from violating the 2000 MoU?
This is the point," Gen Prayuth said, referring to the Thai-Cambodian memorandum of understanding on bilateral demarcation.
Indonesia proposed a compromise solution on Feb 22 to try to solve the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia by sending 15 of its observers to each side of the border near the Preah Vihear temple.
The army chief also insisted that the next meeting of the General Border Committee (GBC) would happen in a bilateral manner. He said it was the turn of Cambodia to organise the GBC but if Cambodia was not ready to host it, Thailand could do so.
Meanwhile, the world heritage body Unesco is sending an urgent mission to examine Preah Vihear temple after it was damaged in border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia.
"I intend to send a mission to the area as soon as possible," Unesco's head Irina Bokova said on Tuesday.
Ms Bokova called for "calm and restraint" around the Preah Vihear temple, which suffered damage during recent fighting.
"World Heritage sites are the heritage of all humanity and the international community has a special responsibility to safeguard them," she said.
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Fuel Smuggling Grips Region
A gasoline and diesel black market thrives in Burma, while an illicit border fuel trade haunts Vietnam and Cambodia.
People in Burma are grappling with a serious fuel shortage on the back of surging gasoline and diesel prices, but the commodity is being smuggled into China for higher prices there.
Compounding the problem is a black market for fuel in Burma itself, with residents having to wait for hours and dig deeper into their pockets to pay for daily supplies.
The higher fuel prices have sent food costs soaring, hurting average consumers in this impoverished military-ruled nation.
"Diesel is being smuggled out to China from Burma, because the oil price in China is going up. Three months ago, gasoline was smuggled to China, but it is diesel now," said a resident from Muse, a Burmese town along the porous border with China.
He said that only people "who have connections to the authorities" can transport the fuel across the border, suggesting corruption is driving the illicit trade.
Fuel is a sensitive issue in Burma. In 2007, when gas prices soared, monks took to the streets of Rangoon to protest in what became known as the "Saffron" revolution, drawing thousands of people. The revolt was put down by security forces who killed at least 31 people and beat and detained hundreds.
Burma's neighbors are also reeling from higher fuel prices that have led to smuggling amid concerns that sweeping unrest in the Middle East and Africa will limit oil production and send oil prices even higher. Some countries provide subsidies to cushion costs.
Queue up
A truck filled with gas tanks passes a roadside gasoline stand in Rangoon, Feb. 22, 2011.
In the former capital Rangoon, the country's key commercial center, motor vehicles often have to queue up for miles overnight to get gasoline.
"You have to be in line for at least three hours to get gasoline from the gas station. Because of the gas price hike, all commodities prices are skyrocketing," a Rangoon resident said.
A street vendor selling fried rice said, "I sell fried rice for 300 kyat (about 30 cents) per plate. Trishaw [motorized three-wheeled cab] drivers told me they can't buy my food anymore, as they can't afford it."
A resident in Mandalay, Burma's second-largest city, said gasoline prices shot up from 4,000 kyat to 4,800 kyat (U.S. $4.00 to U.S. $5.00) within a week. Street vendors who buy and sell gasoline are being pursued by police."
A resident from Maubin in the rice-growing Irrawaddy division said that gas stations open at around 8 a.m.
Half an hour later, he said, prices rise far above official levels.
"We have to pay street price after 8:30 a.m. All gas stations in Maubin are owned by Ayeyar Shwewah company, a company run by two sons of Shwe Mann, who is a current Parliamentary chairman, so nobody dares to complain."
Vietnam, Cambodia
In Vietnam, fuel is siphoned off and smuggled across the border to Cambodia to cash in on the higher prices, while gasoline smuggling from Thailand to Cambodia is also common.
A Vietnamese man calling himself Chi, who has long done business in Cambodia, said gas smuggling is a "daily business" in Cambodia.
"They smuggle gas to Cambodia via sea, then on land. That is for big business. But for small shipments, people smuggle over the land border, so much that we don’t know how much gas is smuggled to Cambodia every day."
Xaymun, a Cambodian woman, said gas prices jumped recently.
“I have heard that gas is brought here from Vietnam. I heard that the authorities could catch the smugglers, but then they get bribed and they let the smugglers go.”
Operating hours
Vietnamese authorities plan to limit the operating hours of filling stations along the border to only 12 hours beginning from 6 a.m. to combat smuggling.
Vehicles traveling from Vietnam to Cambodia will be allowed to buy enough fuel to travel only 50 to 100 kilometers (31 to 62 miles) under the plan, according to the VietNamNet Newspaper report.
Reported by the RFA Burmese, Cambodian, and Vietnamese services. Translation by Khin May Zaw, Viet Ha, and Sum Sok Ry. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.
Cambodia Appreciates Cuban Support, Says Foreign Minister
HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 23 (acn) The Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hor Namhong, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, expressed the gratitude of his country for the Cuban support during several decades.
Hor Namhong, who was received by the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, affirmed that the bilateral relations between these two countries are in excellent conditions; whereas, his Cuban counterpart agreed by saying that such links are “historical and deep-rooted”.
The Cambodian diplomat noted that Cuba has supported this Asian nation in different fields, and mentioned that this cooperation dates back to the most tragic period in the history of Cambodia, referring to the US aggression against Viet Nam (1959-1975), which involved Laos and Cambodia.
Rodriguez appreciated the solidarity of Cambodia with Cuba, essentially in the struggle, within the United Nations, against the US economic, financial and commercial blockade imposed against Cuba for more than five decades.
Namhong, who was the Cambodian ambassador to Cuba from 1973 to 1975, is in official visit to Cuba for the second time. The first one was in 2006, when he headed the Cambodian delegation to the 14 th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Cuba has cooperated with Cambodia, with more than 14 million inhabitants, in the field of education for several years.
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Cambodia concerned about labour trafficking
The Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has called for a crackdown on labour trafficking and urged Cambodians to seek employment opportunities at home.
The call comes as the government itself faces scrutiny over its regulation of so-called training centres for Cambodians seeking work abroad.
Human rights groups say the centres hold poor Cambodian women against their will, while they wait to be sent overseas for domestic work.
Reporter: Alma Mistry
Speakers: Mathieu Pellerin, consultant with Cambodian human rights group Licadho; Nilim Baruah, chief technical advisor, International Labour Organisation, Bangkok.
MISTRY: The United Nations says Cambodia is a source and a destination for sex work and forced labour. It's also a pool of cheap labour for its larger neighbours Thailand and Malaysia. In 2004, there were over 180,000 Cambodian workers registered in Thailand, according to the International Labour Organisation. In addition, the ILO estimates there were over 80,000 unregistered or illegal workers. Mathieu Pellerin from the Cambodian human rights group Licadho says the rural poor have limited options to find work in the countryside.
PELLERIN: The number of opportunities to find work in Cambodia is very low. So I don't think we could call these people opportunists- the risks of migration to find employment to in a foreign country is very high.
MISTRY: Matthieu Pellerin says workers are often sought out by recruiters who make offers that may be attractive to poor families in the villages.
PELLERIN: Basically misrepresenting what the job will be, luring the families to accepting to give one or some of their daughters to go and work in foreign countries through these recruitment agencies. And there's also a loan that is offered to family by company, roughly 100 dollars, so its a very simple form of debt bondage.
MISTRY: It's these recruiters that have come under scrutiny, after accidents and deaths involving women at a so called pre-departure centre in Phnom Penh this month. Matthieu Pellerin says it's not uncommon for women to be confined to the centres for months, with their requests to see their families ignored.
PELLERIN: There was one woman who after spending more than five months in the pre-departure centre of a recruitment agency called T and P and has requested many times to visit her children and after five months, she decided to try leaving the compound from the third floor window and fell on the ground. Four days later in that same company, a woman died. 35 year old woman died and the official cause of death the police declared, was heart attack, which could be questioned.
MISTRY: After the death Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered the Anti-Corruption Unit to look into the growing sector of recruitment. On Monday he also called on relevant local authorities to crack down on illegal labour brokers. But critics say the incidents highlight a weak system of regulation for the recruitment of exported labour from Cambodia. It's a criticism that the International Labour Organisation, which has been working with the Cambodian government, can't ignore. Nilim Baruah is the Chief Technical Advisor with the ILO in Bangkok.
BARUAH: There's enough experience to say what kind of laws should be put in place, what kind of regulations regarding cost of recruitment and transperancy regarding cost and also what kind of complaint mechanisms there should be. There can be a much better regulatory system in place but I mean in the case of Cambodia they dont really have it now. They are starting to put it in place.
MISTRY: Nilim Baruah says the Cambodian Government is working to legislate better protections for migrant workers. But he says job creation, must be the overall priority.
BARUAH: In the ILO while we promote protection of migrant workers and safe migration we emphasise first of all job creation where people so jobs should be created where people are and people, the migration choice should not be a compelling one, it should be an option.
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Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Prawit rejects GBC meeting in Indonesia
Defence minister wants bilateral talks
Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon and army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha will not attend the 8th General Border Committee meeting with Cambodia.
Army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha greets a boy as he presides over the opening ceremony of two 20-floor condominiums in the background built for families of soldiers. The 2.1-billionbaht residence is located in the compound of an old military prison at the 11th Military Circle in Bangkok’s Kiakkai area. WASSANANANUAM
Referring to the meeting, scheduled for Bogor, Indonesia, on April 7-8, Gen Prawit said: "No, I'm not going. Why should I go for the meeting in a third-party country? [Thailand and Cambodia] know each other well enough and don't want any other party to get involved."
A military source said Gen Prawit had also decided not to attend an earlier GBC meeting in Indonesia proposed by Cambodia and the Asean chair.
Gen Prawit cited the same reason then, saying relations between the Cambodian and Thai armies were good enough for the border dispute to be resolved through bilateral mechanisms, said the source.
According to the source, Gen Prawit said he would seek to have talks with his Cambodian counterpart, Gen Tea Banh, but was concerned the latter would not agree, since Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had made it clear he would not allow any new bilateral discussions with Thailand.
Gen Prayuth also said Cambodia's proposal to set up 15 joint border checkpoints in the disputed 4.6-square-kilometre area near Preah Vihear temple was unnecessary, as he believed the dispute could be solved through military talks.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said yesterday that Unesco would push for Thailand and Cambodia to attend a meeting on border issues in May.
He was speaking after a meeting with Unesco director-general Irina Bokova.
The May talks are aimed at improving the understanding between the two countries before Unesco holds its World Heritage Committee (WHC) meeting in Paris a month later.
There, the WHC will discuss Cambodia's management plan for Preah Vihear.
The meeting was scheduled for Bahrain but switched to Paris when political unrest erupted there.
Mr Abhisit also said bilateral talks through the Thai-Cambodian Joint Boundary Commission (JBC) remained crucial to deter attempts to turn the border issue into a multilateral matter.
To allow the JBC mechanism to move forward, the parliament's endorsement on the three JBC memos under the 2000 MoU regarding border issues was needed, he said.
Meanwhile, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) said it would petition the National Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate Mr Abhisit and the other concerned people over allegations they had violated Sections 157, 119 and 120 of the Constitution by not revoking the MoU.
PAD spokesman Parnthep Pourpongpan said the alliance would also petition the Constitution Court to interpret if the MoU was in breach of the charter.
The health of Thai Patriots Network coordinator Veera Somkhwamkid, jailed for eight years in Cambodia after being found guilty of espionage and illegal entry to the country on Dec 29, is said to have vastly improved.
His younger brother, Preecha Somkhwamkid, visited Veera at Prey Sar prison in Phnom Penh on Monday and reported that his condition was much better after a recent bout of ill health.
Retired CF teacher raises money to build Cambodian school
Donna Martin interacted with students while visiting a school in Cambodia that she raised money to build. Martin, a retired Chippewa Falls High School teacher, raised the $13,000 needed to build the school by substitute teaching and seeking donations.
By Jon Swedien Leader-Telegram staff
"I didn't feel like I was doing anything important," said the former Chippewa Falls High School teacher, who retired in 2003.
But about a year ago, Martin found a new purpose while reading a magazine article about a charity program that works to open new schools in poverty-stricken rural Cambodia. If she could raise $13,000, it would finance a new school.
"I thought, ‘Well there's no reason I can't do that,' " she said.
And so Martin went to work. She set aside money she earned substitute teaching, saving up about half the money needed. To raise the other half, she sought donations from friends and colleagues and church groups in Chippewa Falls.
Martin thought it would take three years to meet her goal, but within a year she had raised $13,000. The money was used to build a new middle school in the Cambodian village of Khan Sar, which serves 84 students who previously had to walk or bike several miles to attend school.
When Martin was asked to name the school, she christened it Chippewa School after the community that helped her meet her goal.
"You get a lot for your money in Cambodia," Martin said with a laugh on Friday, a day after she returned from a trip to Southeast Asia.
On March 1, Martin visited Chippewa School, along with friends Virginia Metzdorf and Sue and Gene Decker.
Students lined up to welcome Martin, and local and regional dignitaries came to the school to thank her and speak about the importance of education, said Sue Decker, a former colleague of Martin's at Chi-Hi.
"It was a pretty moving experience," she said. "I was very proud of my friend."
Decker said rural Cambodia lacks the basic infrastructure - electricity, running water and paved roads - that is taken for granted in the U.S. One of the major features of Chippewa School, in addition to its four classrooms, is its well that provides the school with running water.
She said it was evident many of the students came from humble means.
"The kids don't really have much. Most were barefoot," Decker said.
Martin made a similar observation when she and her friends handed out packets of school supplies.
"One boy said he'd never seen a globe before," Martin said. "You wonder what their view of the world is when they've never seen a globe."
And while Chippewa School may be built, Martin said she's not done raising money.
"When I saw the school, I thought, ‘I don't think this project is finished,' " Martin said. "Their needs are so incredible.'"
Martin next hopes to raise money to bring an English teacher to the school or to buy computers. Decker said Martin's continued philanthropy is good for her friend's morale.
"She's a very goal-orientated person," Decker said. "She wants to give of herself."
Meanwhile, Martin said she hopes her efforts motivate others to take up altruistic causes.
Swedien can be reached at 715-833-9214 or jon.swedien@ecpc.com .
School Program
The program that Donna Martin participated in is the American Assistance for Cambodians' rural schools project. The program has built more than 300 schools, according to the association's website. The organization was founded by former Newsweek Cambodian Bureau Chief Bernie Krisher.
To learn more go to http://www.cambodiaschools.com/.
Cambodia permits 33 companies to send workers abroad
PHNOM PENH, March 22 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian government has permitted 33 private companies to send laborers to work in foreign countries, according to a government report.
The report released Tuesday by the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training said that in 2010 the ministry permitted 33 companies who arranged Cambodian laborers to work in several Asian countries.
It said 20 private companies were permitted to send workers to Malaysia with a total of 16,394, among them 13,872 are females.
Thailand is the second country where 11,224 Cambodian workers were sent by 10 permitted companies to work there in 2010, among them 4,920 are females.
South Korea was the third country for Cambodian laborers to work there with 2,116 workers.
Other sources, however, said the number of Cambodian workers in those countries is higher than the official record, especially, if accounted with those working illegally in Thailand.
According to the government's report, Cambodian laborers working in Thailand and Malaysia earn about 200 U.S. dollars per month, whereas in South Korea and Japan is between 800 and 1,000 U. S. dollars per month.
As of date, Cambodian workers are only sent to these four countries, but more targeted nations such as Kuwait, Qatar, Canada and Singapore are being negotiated.
On Monday, Prime Minister Hun Sen called for a crackdown on labor trafficking to Thailand, saying salary for workers status is no different for those being employed locally.
"We've had been a shortage of laborers recently, therefore, I would like to appeal to our people that there are many job opportunities in Cambodia," he said.
Hun Sen said people who chose to work in Cambodia could avoid abuse and mistreatment from employers in Thailand or would not risk arrest when crossing the border for working illegally.
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Local Cambodian Freedom Fighter gets jail for tax evasion
Cambodian Freedom Fighter Sentenced to Additional 37 Months for Tax Evasion
A self-appointed commander of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters, a Long Beach-based group formed to seize political control in the southeast Asian country, was sentenced Monday to a concurrent term of 37 months in prison for tax evasion.
Yasith Chhun, a 54-year-old United States citizen, was previously sentenced last June to a life term for conspiring to kill in a foreign country and other federal counts stemming from his 2008 conviction.
The same year, Chhun pleaded guilty to conspiring to file false tax returns and aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns. Chhun admitted operating an accounting service that filed false tax returns for numerous taxpayers, resulting in a loss of more than $400,000, according to court papers.
Before he was sentenced to the life term last summer, U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson expressed some sympathy for the defendant, who told the judge he formed the 200-strong Cambodian Freedom Fighters partly to avenge the murder of his father at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.
"I don't think Mr. Chhun is an evil human being," the judge said. "I think he's had a tragic life -- and had the misfortune of being born in a place where terrible things were happening."
Chhun, a former Long Beach accountant who came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1982, was found guilty in 2010 after a two-week trial of the four charges against him -- conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, conspiracy to damage or destroy property in a foreign country, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States and engaging in a military expedition against a nation with which the United States is at peace.
Jurors were told Chhun planned "Operation Volcano" to overthrow the government of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The failed attempt resulted in the deaths of at least six people, including a 15-year-old boy killed in a grenade attack and a young man who was shot by a stray bullet, Pregerson said.
During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Chhun as a callous, cowardly, incompetent leader of the CFF, who held group meetings at his Long Beach business, CCC Professional Accounting Services, located in the 2700 block of East 10th Street.
Chhun also met with former members of the Khmer Rouge military at the Cambodia-Thailand border in October 1998 to plan Sen's overthrow, prosecutors said.
The Khmer Rouge and its leader, Pol Pot, ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The Communist organization was blamed for the deaths of more than 1 million people through execution, forced labor and starvation in what became known as the country's "killing fields."
After raising money in the United States -- including staging a May 2000 fundraiser at the Queen Mary -- the CFF launched "popcorns," or small-scale guerrilla attacks in Cambodia against gas stations, coffee shops and other targets, according to the U.S. government.
The judge also noted that the CFF "was probably infiltrated, so had no realistic chance of succeeding."
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Amnesty Possible Without Premier Request: Analysts
While some ruling government officials maintain that opposition leader Sam Rainsy can only receive a royal pardon with a request from the prime minister, legal observers say that practice is only a matter of courtesy.
Opposition lawmakers and other legal professionals say a royal pardon is up to the king himself, Norodom Sihamoni.
The king was sent a letter this week by opposition party lawmakers seeking a reprieve for their leader, Sam Rainy, who was removed from parliament this month.
The letter, signed by 24 Sam Rainsy Party lawmakers, comes as the party faces the prospect of the 2012 and 2013 elections without its leader, who is in exile and facing criminal convictions in Cambodia. Some political analysts have warned that elections will have less legitimacy in the eyes of the international community if they are held without the leader of the opposition.
Ou Virak, director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, told VOA Khmer that a royal pardon, by law, need not be requested by the prime minister. Such a request has only become a practice, he said.
“It’s because the prime minister has the power,” he said. “That’s why generally there is a request from the premier—and because [Sam Rainsy’s] case is political, whether or not there is amnesty might depend on the approval of the premier of Cambodia.”
The request from the Sam Rainsy Party to the king was not outside the law, he said, but it could put some political pressure on Norodom Sihamoni, who has remained relatively outside the political arena since taking the thrown in 2004.
“I would say that the king would have some consequences, because in Cambodia the political situation, the issue of politics, needs approval from the prime minister,” he said. “So it may be that the king has to wait for a sign from the prime minister.”
In recent weeks, ruling party officials have said a request from the prime minister can provide amnesty for criminals who have served at least two-thirds of their sentence, a reference to a law distinct from the constitutional provision for general royal amnesty.
Kao Supha, a Cambodian lawyer, said the king does have a right to pardon criminals, although he “always” waits for a request from the prime minister as a matter of course.
“If [a request for pardon] is directly submitted to the king, the king will send a letter to the prime minister, to allow the prime minister to submit a request back to His Majesty,” he said.
Last week, the Supreme Court upheld decisions by lower courts that found Sam Rainsy guilty of racial incitement and destruction of property, for destroying markers near the Vietnamese border. With no further legal recourse, the National Assembly removed him from his seat as a representative of Kampong Cham province. That means the only way he can regain his parliamentary seat is to be pardoned.
The constitution, in Article 27, stipulates: “The king shall have the right to grant partial or complete amnesty.”
Son Chhay, a National Assembly lawmaker for the Sam Rainsy Party, said this means the king has individual authority, even if in practice a request typically comes from Prime Minister Hun Sen.
“As a habit, so far, His Majesty gives special favor to the prime minister, in order to offer the premier the honor of making a request for amnesty,” he said.
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Cambodia to host 10th ASEAN taekwondo championships next month
PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) - Cambodia will host the 10th taekwondo championships of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on April 7-9, Vath Chamroeun, secretary general of National Olympic Committee of Cambodia (NOCC), said Tuesday.
"It will be the first time Cambodia hosts the international taekwondo tournament event," he said. "We hope that it will go smoothly and we will plan to host other international sports events in the future."
There will be around 300 athletes and coaches from seven countries in ASEAN taking part in the event including Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, except Indonesia, Brunei and Myanmar.
The tournament will be held at Olympic Stadium with the support from ASEAN Taekwondo Federation.
The tournaments are classified into two categories-underage athletes and adult athletes.
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Monday, March 21, 2011
Observers See Few Options But Concession for Opposition
Cambodian political observers say that opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who was removed from the National Assembly last week, will need to look for concessions with the ruling party if he is to return to politics.
Sam Rainsy is facing several criminal sentences related to the uprooting of markers on the Vietnamese borders and the publication of a map on his website alleging Vietnamese encroachment into Cambodian territory.
Kem Sokha, the president of the minority opposition Human Rights Party, said Sam Rainsy must now “apologize” or make other overtures beneficial to the ruling party if he is to return ahead of 2012 and 2013 elections.
“That’s what we see so far as political compromises,” he said.
Similar concessions were made by Prince Norodom Ranariddh ahead of his return from exile on graft charges ahead of the 2008 national elections, he said.
Such concessions can include a written apology or clarification to Prime Minister Hun Sen, he said.
The National Assembly ousted Sam Rainsy from his seat as representative of Kampong Cham province last week, after the Supreme Court upheld a criminal conviction against him. He still faces a court battle for disinformation after publishing a map on his website lower courts have found were fabricated.
Sam Rainsy has said the maps accurately show Vietnamese encroachment, a politically volatile accusation. Vietnamese officials have denied any encroachment has taken place.
Independent analyst Chea Vannath said political reconciliation is still possible, although she did not specify what that might mean.
Nhiek Bun Chhay, secretary general for the royalist Funcinpec party, said an apology would allow Sam Rainsy to return.
Sam Rainsy told VOA Khmer recently he will not apologize and that he feels justified in his claims that Cambodia is losing land to Vietnam. However, he said he is still looking for national or international solutions.
“I took the lead to defend the national interest, so the national interest is political,” he said.
Hun Sen has said Sam Rainsy’s case is a legal matter for the courts, not a political matter for the executive branch.
Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker Cheam Yiep echoed that position in an interview, saying the charges against Sam Rainsy are legal, not political. And his removal from the Assembly was done on legal grounds, Cheam Yiep said.
He reiterated claims that Sam Rainsy would have to write Hun Sen, who has the power to request a royal pardon for crimes.
Sam Rainsy said in an interview his removal from the National Assembly was a breach of the law, because he was voted in by his constituency. The move will likely bring international condemnation, he said, and ultimately strengthen his party.
Ruling party officials have “openly exposed themselves as people who don’t understand the law, who don’t understand democratic principles and who are suppressing the constitution,” he said.
He said he was similarly removed from the Assembly in 1995, but his party garnered even more support in subsequent elections.
“I believe that in 2013, there will be a change, and the Sam Rainsy Party will be stronger and stronger,” he said.
The Sam Rainsy Party currently holds 26 of 123 seats in the National Assembly. His removal from the National Assembly has prompted little international reaction so far.
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Cambodia starts work on Chinese-funded road in northwest
Battambang, Cambodia, March 21 (Xinhua) - Cambodia on Monday broke ground for the construction of a China-funded 176-kilometre-road in the Northwestern part in order to facilitate travelling and trucking agricultural products to markets.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the road No 57B was held Monday in Battambang province about 350 kilometres northwest of capital Phnom Penh.
The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Hun Sen and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Pan Guangxue, and top government officials, diplomatic corps, locals and students.
The road will facilitate travelling among former-battlefield provinces of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey and Pailin, the premier said during the ceremony.
"The construction of the road today was resulted from good close cooperation between Cambodia and China," Hun Sen said. " Through the ambassador Pan Guangxue, I'd like to express my sincere thanks to the government and people of China for financial support for this road."
"The road will provide huge economic benefits to our people to truck their agricultural products to markets and facilitate them in travelling easier and faster," he said. "We have been turning the former fighting zones to be a development area."
The premier also asked the ambassador to help attract Chinese investors to the country's agricultural sector through investing in high technology rice mills and warehouses in order to boost Cambodia's economy and to export to China as the two countries has signed the rice and cassava export agreements already.
Meanwhile, the ambassador said that the road will be vital for rural farmers in trucking their products for markets.
"Through the construction of the road, I believe that farmers will increase their farming as it will be easier to truck their products to markets," he said.
"The road is also reflected the attention of Chinese government on Cambodian development and always ready to provide assistance to Cambodia in social and economic development," he added.
According to the master-plan, the construction of the road will cost 89.9 million US dollars, which is the soft loan from the government of China. It will take 48 months to complete.
Source: Xinhua
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CAMBODIA TO ESTABLISH ELECTRIC-POWERED CAR PLANT
PHNOM PENH, March 21 (Bernama) -- A local Heng Development Co., and a Hong Kong-Chau Leong Enterprise on Monday signed a joint- venture of US$20 million to build a electric-powered car manufacturing plant branded ''Angkor'' in Cambodia, reports Xinhua news agency.
The agreement was inked among Sieng Chan Heng, director general of Heng Development Co., Li Yue Liang, director general of Hong Kong-Chau Leong Enterprise, and a Cambodian innovator Nhean Phaloek, witnessed by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam On.
Of the US$20 million joint venture, Heng Development Co., holds 80 percent while Hong Kong-Chau Leong Enterprise holds the rest, said Sieng Chan Heng during the signing ceremony.
"The establishment of the electric-powered plant will be an opportunity for Cambodia to show the world about the works of Cambodia by Cambodian people," she said. "We hope the Angkor- branded cars will be supported by local customers and in the future, we will expand our sales to overseas markets."
The plant is being built on the land area of 47,000 square meters in Takhmao district of Kandal province, generating 300 jobs. It will be capable to produce between 500 units to 1,000 units a year, with raw materials and spare parts from China, she said, adding that the first production will be available early 2012.
Li Yue Liang, director general of Hong Kong-Chau Leong Enterprise, said that the establishment of the car plant will contribute to the development of Cambodian economy in the long term.
"We hope the government will fully support us in this car production as it will contribute economic growth and reduce poverty," he said.
"The electric-powered car will be environmentally friendly." Ith Praing, a secretary of state for the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Energy, said that the plant will also bring technology transfer from Chinese technicians to local technicians.
"This will be the first car production factory in Cambodia," he said. "The electric-powered cars will help to reduce environmental pollution and reduce reliance on the usage of hiking oil," he said.
The car models and designs will be created by Cambodian innovator Nhean Phaloek.
-- BERNAMA
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Sunday, March 20, 2011
Cambodia calls for 15 border checkpoints
Thais suspect ulterior motive in disputed area
The Cambodian military has proposed 15 joint border checkpoints be set up in the 4.6-square-kilometre area near Preah Vihear temple also claimed by Thailand, a military source said.
The idea has been floated to the Thai military through Indonesia, as the incumbent revolving chair of Asean, and the Thai Foreign Ministry, but details have yet to be discussed, the source said.
The proposed joint border checkpoints, which would be overseen by observers from Indonesia, did not include one at Keo Sikha Kiri Savara pagoda, a temple in the disputed area claimed by Cambodia, the source said.
Most of the proposed checkpoints would be located in areas supervised by Thai troops, including Phu Makhua mountain, the source said.
The source said the proposal would put Cambodia at an advantage and there could be an ulterior motive for the suggestion.
There are more Thai troops stationed in the 4.6-square-kilometre disputed area than Cambodian soldiers.
Cambodian soldiers will push for the setting up of the checkpoints during a visit to the border area by Indonesia, the source said.
The details, however, will be thrashed out at a meeting of the Thai-Cambodia General Border Committee in Indonesia on April 7-8.
The meeting will be co-chaired by Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon and his Cambodian counterpart, Tea Banh.
The proposal came after the Suranaree task force halted construction of a two-kilometre-long road stretching from Pha Mor I Dang cliff to the ancient Sa Trao reservoir and stairway of the Preah Vihear temple.
Thai soldiers had completed 70% of the road when border clashes on Feb 4 brought construction to a halt.
They resumed building the road on March 4, prompting Cambodian soldiers to send a letter protesting against the construction.
Cambodian soldiers last week threatened to open fire if Thai soldiers continued, so the roadworks were suspended, the source said.
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