Job agencies complicit in Malaysian abuse of Cambodian maids

Beaten and robbed … Orn Eak has returned to her village home and her five-year-old son but is still scarred by her mistreatment in Kuala Lumpur and Phnom Penh. Photo: Lindsay Murdoch



Beaten, starved and treated as a slave in a Kuala Lumpur apartment, Cambodian maid Orn Eak says a one-metre snake ended her almost two-year nightmare in Malaysia.

''When the snake crawled into my employer's apartment she blamed me and kicked me out,'' says Orn Eak, 28, one of thousands of Cambodian domestic workers who have been exploited and abused in Malaysia, some of them girls as young as 13. ''I got the blame for everything, including the death of my employer's elderly mother.''

Orn Eak's body is covered in scars from beatings by a Kuala Lumpur woman aged in her 30s who employed her through a Cambodian employment agency in early 2010.

Orn Eak, who is single, with a five-year-old son, says she joined 30,000 other young Cambodian women and girls working as maids in Malaysia because her mother was struggling to survive in their village in Cambodia's Kompong Thom province, where she lives in a bamboo hut with a dirt floor and leaking roof.

In Kuala Lumpur, Orn Eak had no days off and worked from dawn into the early hours of the next morning caring for her employer's disabled mother, who was in her 70s.

Orn Eak claims the old woman once kicked her in the head after she had delayed changing her clothes while she briefly went to the toilet. Orn Eak says her employer did not speak a word to her for months.

She says she was frequently beaten and scratched and was often hungry, surviving with food she bought with money two members of her employer's family gave her for Chinese New Year.

Nine Cambodian domestic workers died in Malaysia in 2011, according to human rights and non-government organisations.

Choy Pich, 19, was reportedly beaten by her employer and dumped outside his house. She died of pneumonia.

A Malaysian opposition MP, Charles Santiago, has accused the government in Kuala Lumpur and police of ''totally disrespecting'' Malaysian laws by conducting, at best, only cursory investigations into the deaths.

Human Rights Watch, which has interviewed 80 Cambodian maids, their families and government officials, says common abuses include excessive work hours with no rest days, lack of food and irregular or non-payment of salaries, which are as low as $US133 a month.

Usually the maids' passports are taken away from them.

Many have reported sexual abuse, restrictions of movements and bans on contact with other maids.

Last October, after reports in the Cambodian media about the mistreatment of women and girls as young as 13 in Malaysia, the Cambodian government announced a ban on sending maids to the country.

But unscrupulous recruitment agencies have ignored the ban, human rights and non-government organisations say.

Orn Eak's mistreatment worsened after her employer's mother died in hospital.

''My employer said I was not doing a good job and as punishment she only allowed me to eat one packet of dried noodles a day for six weeks,'' she says. ''I felt homesick … I missed my son and mother very much but I knew I had to keep working for them.''

But Ee Tha, 55, says she received only two payments over almost two years from her daughter's Malaysian employer totalling $US270.

The employer deducted Orn Eak's flight home from her salary, which was supposed to be $US180 a month.

When Orn Eak arrived back in Phnom Penh in November, a woman picked her up at the airport and took her to the employment agency's compound.

''I told the story about the snake to a director of the company … she told me to sit in a chair,'' Orn Eak says. ''Five men came into the room and beat me … they pushed my head into a glass door and kicked me on the ground.''

Ee Tha received a message to come to Phnom Penh to take her daughter home.

''When I saw that my daughter's face and body were cut and bruised my heart dropped to the floor,'' Ee Tha says.

''I said to her, 'I'm your mother', but she did not recognise me … I burst into tears,'' Ee Tha says.

After Ee Tha refused to leave the employment agency's office with her daughter until she was given the money she was owed, an agency director finally handed over $US1200 - meaning Orn Eak earned only $1470 for almost two years' work, half what she had been promised.

Orn Eak has suffered depression and other undiagnosed illnesses since she returned to live in the village.

Social workers have verified her claims of abuse through medical and other checks.

''I have gone to the temple every day and prayed and prayed that my daughter would be OK after all this but she still has not recovered,'' Ee Tha says.

The government in Phnom Penh has been strongly pushing migrant work abroad as a strategy to increase foreign remittances, cope with unemployment and alleviate poverty.

But Human Rights Watch says the government has abdicated responsibilities for safeguarding migrants to private employment agencies, some of which are reportedly owned by, or affiliated with, government officials.

The demand for Cambodian maids in Malaysia has sharply increased since 2009 when the Indonesian government responded to several high-profile abuse cases by imposing a moratorium on its citizens working as maids there.

The ban was lifted on December 1 after an agreement under which Indonesian maids would do 200 hours of training before coming to Malaysia.

Indonesians will also be able to keep their passports and will be given a weekly day off.

But there are no safeguards for the abuse or exploitation of Cambodian maids. Read more!

Indonesian Observer Team Will Head to Cambodia-Thai Border

In the wake of recent developments related to the border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa said on Monday that Indonesia would continue the long-delayed plan to send an Indonesian observer team to the border.

“I can confirm this thanks to the positive outcome of discussions between the Thai and Cambodian governments,” Marty told the Jakarta Globe.

“Both countries reaffirmed their wish to have an Indonesian observer team in the 4.6-square kilometer provisional demilitarized zone as a follow up to the International Court of Justice ruling,” he added, referring to the disputed area surrounding the centuries-old Preah Vihear temple, to which both countries have claims.

The International Court of Justice defined in its July verdict a provisional demilitarized zone from which both countries must withdraw military personnel.

Marty said that Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia would try to update the terms of references on Indonesian observer team’s deployment “to reflect the latest development.”

“One possibility is that the Indonesian observer team will work jointly with the Thai and Cambodian teams in carrying out their mission. The team will have a new task to ensure compliance in observing the provisional demilitarized zone,” he said, adding that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed to set up a joint working group to further cooperation.

In the previously agreed terms of references, Indonesia would send two teams on both sides of the border, each with 15 unarmed observers to ensure the cease fire is maintained, but the plan has been dormant since.

“Both Thailand and Cambodia expect that Indonesia continues its role [in the dispute] even after Indonesia’s chairmanship of Asean [concludes],” Marty said.

Indonesia held the rotating chairmanship of Asean last year when the dispute was escalating, and with UN backing, it acted as mediator to the two countries. Cambodia now holds the 2012 chairmanship of the 10-member states regional bloc.

The plan to send Indonesian military observer teams resurfaced at a news conference on Monday, when Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro revealed it after a meeting with the ministry’s top officials and brass.

“We will send our soldiers to the border of Thailand and Cambodia. Our troops have been trained and they will be stationed on certain points,” Purnomo said, referring to the training programs at the newly established Indonesian Peace and Security Center in Sentul, West Java, where Indonesian soldiers are trained prior to joining UN peacekeeping forces.

Armed Forces Chief of Staff Adm. Agus Suhartono added that the country’s military observer team was ready for deployment as soon as the terms of references were updated. “We will see if the previously agreed 30 personnel for two teams will still be enough or we will need to figure out a new number,” Agus said.

“In principle, the Indonesian team will only be present as observer if we were asked and endorsed by the two countries in dispute,” he added. Read more!

Cambodia sticks to DOC on S China Sea dispute

As the chairman of ASEAN this year, Cambodia vowed to safeguard the Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) and the guidelines of implementing the DOC, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Tea Banh said on Tuesday.

"We are all aware of the DOC that was signed in Phnom Penh between ASEAN and China at that time Cambodia was ASEAN chairman in 2002," he said in a forum on Cambodia's roles in promoting security cooperation in the name of the host of ASEAN Defense Ministers' meeting and other meetings in 2012.

"Now, it is the 10-year anniversary of the DOC," he told about 100 participants who are foreign diplomats and military attach of ASEAN countries and dialogue partner countries.

"We must safeguard the DOC achieved in Phnom Penh and achievement made in Indonesia in July, 2011 that created guidelines and implementation principles for the DOC," he said.

The minister said that Cambodia would urge for cooperation from all ASEAN members and China in order to achieve the draft Code of Conduct (COC) in 2012 in the spirit of cooperation and friendship.

"As ASEAN chair, Cambodia has a clear principle: minimize dispute and increase cooperation towards establishment of ASEAN Political-Security Community by 2015," he said.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Read more!

U.S. secretary of state, president to visit Cambodia this year: officials

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The United States'Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Barack Obama will visit Cambodia in July and November respectively to attend summits as Cambodia chairs ASEAN this year, senior officials said on Monday.

"Our Secretary of State will be here in July as well as our President will be in November," Joseph Y. Yun, deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the U. S. Department of State, told reporters after a meeting with Ouch Borith, secretary of state for Cambodia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He said that the meeting is to inform Cambodia about the upcoming U.S. leaders' visits and to discuss how to build U.S.- Cambodia relationship in 2012 through these high-level visits.

"We have really had a very exciting year ahead to strengthen U. S.-Cambodia relationship," he said.

Ouch Borith said Hillary Clinton will attend the AMM (ASEAN Ministerial Meeting) and Barack Obama will attend the ASEAN-U.S. Summit and related Summits.

"This reflects increasing relationship between the United States and ASEAN," he told reporters."The presence of the U.S. President Barack Obama in Cambodia in November is a sign showing that the Cambodia-U.S. relation is better."

It will be the first time in Cambodia's history that the incumbent President of the United States visiting Cambodia.

In the meeting, both sides also discussed about the plan for Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong's visit to Washington D.C. in March this year to strengthen Cambodia-U.S. cooperation. Read more!

LEAD: Cambodia claims final say over appointment of tribunal judge

Phnom Penh - The Cambodian government said Monday that the country's judiciary has the right to decline to appoint a United Nations-nominated judge to the Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal.

The controversial claim was made by a government spokesman and followed unconfirmed reports from local media that judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet was not endorsed as the court's new international co-investigating judge at a meeting of Cambodia's Supreme Council of Magistracy (SCM) on Friday.

Swiss national Kasper-Ansermet, who had been in limbo for a month until Phnom Penh convened the judicial body, was set to replace controversial German judge Siegfried Blunk. Blunk quit in October citing political interference in two cases currently under investigation, known as Cases 003 and 004.

Government spokesman Phay Siphan declined to confirm the result of Monday's meeting, but emphasised that the body had the power to decide whether to approve a judge or not.

Analysts, however, believe that the SCM may be stretching the limits of its mandate and driving the tribunal deeper into controversy.

'I think this situation has moved from bad to worse. If the SCM has rejected his appointment, it has totally overstepped its authority,' said Clair Duffy, tribunal monitor for Open Society Justice Initiative.

'It is really about Kasper-Ansermet's intention to investigate Cases 003 and 004.'

Senior Cambodian officials have repeatedly said that the government would not permit either case to reach trial at the court. In contrast, Kasper-Ansermet has taken to Twitter to emphasise his commitment to them.

On Sunday, he tweeted in French that he was determined to investigate the cases; a move that he implied could explain 'the resistance of some to my official nomination.'

Martin Nesirky, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, said Monday: 'We have not received any communication from the Royal Government of Cambodia' regarding the status of the Swiss judge's formal appointment.
Read more!

Sinohydro's first overseas BOT project begins operation

By Xu Keqiang

Cambodia's Kamchay Hydropower Station, the first overseas Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) hydropower project entirely funded by Sinohydro Group, was recently completed and put into commercial operation, marking a new stage in the overseas expansion of China's hydropower industry.

The 194-megawatt Kamchay Hydropower Station cost Sinohydro 300 million U.S. dollars over four years of construction, and the company is licensed to operate the hydropower station for 40 years before transferring it to the Cambodian government.

Sinohydro has adopted the creative BOT project-financing model with limited recourse, and used the project's future revenue as collateral, in order to reduce its investment risk.

AS China's leading hydropower engineering and construction company, Sinohydro has accumulated abundant technical and talent resources in water resource development over the past 60 years. It is also one of the world's largest contractors and developers of hydropower projects, and enjoys comparative advantage over its competitors worldwide.

While holding water conservancy and hydropower construction as its core business, Sinohydro is actively expanding into the upstream and downstream sectors, investing in international resource development projects, and conducting merger and acquisition activity abroad, in order to promote its structural transformation and international business expansion. Read more!

Malaria kills 98 Cambodians, down 35% in 2011

PHNOM PENH - Malaria had killed 98 Cambodians in 2011, a decline of 35 percent from 151 deaths in a year earlier, said a senior health official on Monday.

Last year, some 62,690 cases of malaria had been reported, said Char Meng Chuor, the director of the National Center for Malaria.

"We see our remarkable success in fighting malaria in the past year--despite the rise in malaria cases, the death toll has declined up to 35 percent," he told Xinhua over telephone. "This is thanks to people's awareness about the symptoms of the disease and they have timely sought medical treatment."

He said that with this good result, the country would definitely be able to completely eradicate the death of malaria by 2015.

"To achieve this target, we need the budget of $20 million a year in the next four years," he said.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease. In Cambodia, the disease is often found in rainy season and mostly happens in border provinces, forest and mountainous provinces such as Pursat, Rattanakiri, Mondulkiri, Kampong Cham, and Preah Vihear. Read more!

Cuba eyes cooperation with Cambodia

PHNOM PENH - Cuba wants to cooperate with Cambodia in the fields of agriculture and health in order to strengthen and expand bilateral ties, said the new designated Cuban ambassador to Cambodia Jose Ramon R. Yarona on Monday.

Jose Ramon R. Yarona made the comments during a meeting with Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Peace Palace.

He said Cuba and Cambodia have the possibility of launching cooperation in agriculture, pesticides and health, especially medicines for cancer prevention.

Meanwhile, he also invited the premier to visit Cuba at an appropriate time.

In response, Hun Sen accepted the invitation and said that he would make a visit to Cuba sometime in the future.

He recommended Jose Ramon R. Yarona to work with Cambodia's ministries of agriculture and health to seek cooperation in the proposed fields.

Cambodia and Cuba have established diplomatic relations for 50 years, but bilateral trade and investment are relatively small. Read more!

Vietnam vet joins ‘today’s war’

By Martin Kuz

 ASMAR, Afghanistan — No mess hall, showers or two-week leave. No mail, cellphones or Internet. No drinking tea with villagers. No helping them start businesses.

Staff Sgt. Larry Marquez, an Army reservist with the 425th
Civil Affairs Battalion, is serving in Afghanistan 39 years after deploying
to Cambodia as a teenager during the Vietnam War



Much more than 39 years separates the experience of a U.S. soldier in Cambodia in 1973 and in Afghanistan in 2012. Staff Sgt. Larry Marquez has lived the difference. He was there then; he’s here now.

“The biggest change is, the guys in Vietnam, Cambodia — they were drafted. They were doing a job because they had to,” said Marquez, 55, of El Paso, Texas, an Army reservist with Company D, 425th Civil Affairs Battalion.
“The guys in Afghanistan, they want to be doing this. You can see that in their attitude.”

Marquez belonged to the minority of soldiers who signed up for the Vietnam War, enlisting at 17 with his parents’ consent.

The teenage artilleryman reported to duty in Cambodia as U.S. forces began staggering toward the exits of the longest conflict in American history prior to the war in Afghanistan.

Despite the privation that U.S. soldiers face here, for Marquez, even the most primitive outpost feels like Versailles compared to the jungle encampments of Southeast Asia. He and his fellow soldiers subsisted solely on C rations and bathed with water scooped from rivers and puddles. Air conditioning? Find some shade. Heat? Build a fire.

His unit was so deep in the bush during its yearlong, no-leave deployment that the men went without the simple comfort of what is now quaintly called snail mail.

“Email, Facebook, Skype — we didn’t have any of that stuff,” he said. “Back then, we told stories to each other to pass the time. All you had were the guys around you.”

Trading in the good life

I met Marquez at Combat Outpost Monti, a small base in Kunar province and the seventh in eastern Afghanistan where he has been stationed since deploying in July. His return to the dirt required persistence and a little serendipity.

He left the reserves in 1987 during a period of relative idleness for the U.S. military. When the Persian Gulf War began three years later, he tried to rejoin, only to see his request sucked into a bureaucratic black hole.

Finally, in 2007, following a chance meeting at a friend’s party with a reserves recruiter who offered to help him, Marquez was again in uniform.

By then, he had lost his chance to serve in Iraq with the 425th. Four years later, after taking part in peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Russia, he headed back to a combat zone, this time as a graybeard instead of a fresh-faced teen.

“If I go out with these young guys on a patrol, they’re always asking if I need water, if I’m getting tired,” said Marquez, who apart from a tweaked hamstring has held up against the physical rigors of deployment. “They’re always watching out for the old man.”

He and his wife, Marcia, live in Carlsbad, Calif., with the youngest two of his seven children. Their home stands less than a mile from the Pacific Ocean. His civilian job as a nuclear specialist pays “extremely, extremely well.”

In other words, he traded the good life for bullets and mortars and IEDs. I asked the obvious question: What the hell was he thinking?

“I wanted to be part of today’s war,” he said. “I felt like I had something I needed to finish.”

‘Their very good friend’

In Cambodia, as an infantryman, Marquez sought to destroy. In Afghanistan, as a civil affairs specialist, he attempts to build.

He has traversed Kunar and neighboring Nangarhar province to hand out “micro-grants” of up to $5,000 to help entrepreneurs launch or expand small businesses.

Among other ventures, he has provided funding for a taxi service, bicycle repair shop and computer classes.

Along the way, he has drank a billion cups of tea with villagers looking to win him over.

“Once they find out who I am and what I can give them,” he said with a smile, “I become their very good friend.”

Vietnam slowly stabilized in the decades after the war there ended in 1975. Marquez, while unsure of Afghanistan’s long-term prospects, predicts that violence, and perhaps civil war, awaits when U.S. forces withdraw in 2014.

“As soon as we leave, it’s going to go back to the way it was,” he said. “I just don’t think the problems will be solved.”

The question of this country’s fate aside, the difference between the two wars that Marquez appreciates above all others is the reception given to returning troops in America.

“Nobody gave a crap about the soldier in the ’70s,” he said. “Today, you walk into a Jack in the Box and someone sees your uniform and buys you dinner. These young guys deserve that kind of respect.”

Spoken like a man as wise as his years.





Stars and Stripes

Read more!

Large group of U.S. tycoons visit Cambodia for investment possibilities

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- A large group of 96 U.S. billionaires, mostly spouses, have been visiting Cambodia in order to explore investment opportunities, said a senior Cambodian official.

The delegation was from the United States' Chief Executive Organization (CEO) and was led by Kenneth M. Quinn, former U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia and president of the World Food Prize Foundation, and John Ruan III, a member of the CEO and chairman of the Ruan Transportation Management Systems.

On Thursday afternoon, the delegation had met with Cambodia's government officials led by Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon, who is also the minister of economy and finance, at the Peace Palace.

"The delegation wanted to study about Cambodia's potentials for investment opportunities," Om Yintieng, advisor to Prime Minister Hun Sen, told reporters after the meeting. "They can be new investors for Cambodia in the future."

The delegation members are from sectors of education, investment and financial consultation, banking and finance, IT, pharmaceutical and health product manufacturing, tourism, energy, food manufacturing, real estate and transportation.

During the meeting, Keat Chhon said that the delegation's visit reflected their confidence in full political stability in Cambodia and it could be a boost for the investment from the United States to Cambodia.

He also presented the group about Cambodia's potentials for investment in the fields of agriculture, agro-industry, tourism, mining, oil and gas, energy, transportation and telecommunication.

Meanwhile, John Ruan III said that the group hailed the rapid development of Cambodia in all fields and added that the visit to Cambodia was to eye the country's potentials and challenges for future investment consideration.

Om Yintieng said "Currently, Cambodia has seen increasing number of investors from the United States and Japan thanks to our efforts to fight against corruption."

They arrived in Cambodia on Wednesday night by a cruise ship for an one-week visit after visiting Vietnam.

The U.S. Chief Executive Organization has the maximum 2,000 members -- all of them are tycoons with the age of at least 50 years old, said Om Yintieng. Read more!

Nine more Cambodian ‘loggers’ nabbed in Laos

By Tep Nimol


Nine Cambodians had been apprehended after illegally entering Laos near the Stung Treng border on Tuesday, officials said yesterday.

Sun Ban, commander at police station 701 on the Cambodia-Laos border in Siem Pang district, told the Post yesterday the nine men captured in Laos’s Champasak district were thought to have been logging illegally.

Laotian authorities had not yet provided further details to their Cambodian counterparts, he said.

Siem Pang district police chief Var Sophan said he had not yet received calls for help from the families of the men.

Under a district border agreement, the men would be released if their families paid Laos US$500 each, he said.

Tuesday’s incident comes less than a month after Laotian authorities detained 19 Cambodians for illegal logging in the same area.

Fifteen of them were released two weeks ago after their families each paid more than $450 to Laos for their freedom. Read more!

Back Home in Cambodia With Food as Comfort

By Seth Mydans


PHNOM PENH — The really challenging thing is trying to teach his countrymen how to eat a hamburger — a culture clash that is more than culinary as he tries to fit himself, like a lost piece in a puzzle, back into the land of his birth.

His Cambodian name is Chenda Im, but after more than 30 years as a refugee in the United States, he goes by Mike, and he is the founder, owner, manager, cook and pitchman of Mike’s Burger House, which he opened on the lot of a gas station here after his return four years ago.

“I’m American, and I already know how to handle burgers,” he said, as a salsa tune played in his restaurant. “The Cambodians, they eat the bun and then a little bit here and a little bit there. I say, ‘No, you just press down on the bun and eat it.’ And sometimes they say, ‘Don’t tell me how to eat. I’ll eat it my way.”’

Mike’s experience pitching hamburgers in Phnom Penh offers a look at the particular kind of culture shock experienced by people returning to their own culture.

He is a truly hybrid Cambodian-American — a survivor of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge period, when 1.7 million people died by execution, forced labor and starvation from 1975 to 1979; then a mail carrier for 22 years near Long Beach, California; and now one of a trickle of refugees who continue to return to restart life in the land they once fled.

It is not a large number. Over the years some have returned to enter politics and some to try their hands at businesses. Many leave after a while. One group that does not have the option of returning to the United States is made up of Cambodian-born U.S. citizens who were convicted of felonies in their adopted country and sent back here under a special deportation law.

Mike, who left at the age of 19 and is now 51, said he planned to stay. Among others who have returned and stayed are Ou Virak and Theary Seng, prominent advocates of a U.S. brand of human rights and civil society, which at this point fits a little awkwardly with Cambodia’s strong-arm form of government.

Mike is a champion of the juicy all-beef hamburger, another import that is struggling to graft itself onto the local culture. There are no international hamburger chains in Cambodia, and Americans who live here say Mike makes the only truly American burgers in Phnom Penh.

“Let me show them the way Americans eat,” Mike said, describing the training of his staff. “Show them it’s clean, safe, how to wash, really clean, from the bathroom to the kitchen. That’s the way Americans handle food. The more you keep clean, the healthier you are.”

Mike’s Burger House has been open for about six months, and with its sign advertising “I’m a Crazy Burger!” it is an almost perfect replica of any hamburger hangout attached to a gas station in the United States.

Its front counter displays packets of Americana: Pringles potato chips, Slim Jim meat snacks, Rip Rolls and Reese’s candy, Red Vine licorice, Ritz Crackers, Oreo cookies and Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies.

Americans who live here say Mike’s offers a little taste of home. But for many Cambodians, hamburgers remain a challenge.

“Sometimes the Cambodian people think I look down on them — ‘They don’t know how to eat’ — so I’ve got to step back and say, ‘O.K., you do it your way,”’ he said.

Mike himself seems a little uncertain about his place between the two worlds. “I have a warm feeling here, just a warm feeling,” he said. “Everywhere I go, I feel like I’m at home.”

But he also said, “My heart is still American,” and he speaks of his fellow Cambodians with some of the bafflement of an outsider.

“On the street I don’t feel it’s hard to fit in,” he said. “The only difference is the way we talk in the United States. You say something straight, and they think you’re saying something bad.”

But like Mike, all those of a certain age are children of the killing fields, when most lost relatives, and many continue to live with trauma.

“I’ve seen a lot of murdering,” Mike said.

“It’s just terrible when you see the bodies,” he said, describing one atrocity, “people screaming for help, women delivering babies on the ground. I thought, ‘How am I going to get through this? I’m going to die, I’m going to die.”’

Like many survivors of the Khmer Rouge, he also carries with him a lingering memory of hunger. “Since then, I just love to eat,” Mike said.

“Me and my dad and my sister, we ate a lot of bamboo shoots,” he recalled. “Even now I can still do a chicken soup with bamboo shoots.”

The memory spurred a panegyric to the joys of bamboo shoots.

“You can do a soup, you can do a curry,” he said. “You can dry it out and do sweet brown rice with pork. Then there’s bamboo shoots with water and salt, and along the road there’s lemon grass. You can eat it with a little rice or noodles.”

Food was an entry point for many Cambodian refugees into the U.S. economy. Hundreds opened donut shops and virtually took over the donut industry in Southern California. The Cambodian donut shop became as common locally as the Chinese laundry and the Vietnamese nail salon.

Mike took another path, and after graduating from Long Beach Community College, he landed what he said was a dream job as a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service.

“I was so excited!” he said, growing excited again. “Are you kidding me? The post office! They started me at $10.75 an hour — I’m a rich man!”

“I tell you, I love the job, I love the job,” he said. “You just go out there delivering the mail, you put the right mail to the houses, I was running, boom, boom, boom, boom.”

There was rain, there were dogs, there were long days, but he was happy.

“If you compare this with the killing field, it was heaven,” he said. “What are those guys complaining about? It was easy for me.”

But as his marriage collapsed and his personal life came apart, he decided to take a look at Cambodia, where he met and married a young woman, Borey Mean, who is now 29 and works side by side with him at the burger house.

It was love at first sight. “My heart just came out — boom — like popcorn!” she said, throwing her arms into the air. As for her effect on Mike, “She pulled me from the U.S.A. to here,” he said.

After returning from a visit with him to the United States, where they sampled every kind of fast food, Ms. Borey Mean said, she told her husband, “I miss hamburgers!” So, he said, “I made hamburgers, just to please her.”

“I got a kilogram of meat and brought it home,” he said. “I chopped it and pounded it. You make the meatball first, make it into a patty, and I fried it for her and put on the sauce, and she said, ‘This is it! Oh my goodness, this is it!”’

When Mike instructs his Cambodian customers on the right way to eat a hamburger, his all-American enthusiasm bursts through.

“When you bite into it, you’ve got to feel it from top to bottom,” he says he tells them. “You’ve got to sink your teeth into the soft bun, and when you hit the meat, the sauce, the crunchy iceberg lettuce, all the way down, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Your body is going to crave it. You’ll call for more.” Read more!

2 nonprofit medical missions prepare for Cambodia trips

By Greg Mellen Staff Writer


LONG BEACH - Two local nonprofits are in the homestretch of planning medical missions to Cambodia later this month.

Hearts Without Boundaries will be teaming with Children's Lifeline to provide cardiac surgeries to a dozen destitute children in Siem Reap.

And Cambodia Health Professionals Association of America will embark on its second trip to Cambodia, a six-day mission to treat 1,000 patients per day in Koh Kong province in southern Cambodia.

On Saturday, Hearts Without Boundaries is holding a fundraising dinner and party in advance of its mission, while CHPAA will finish packing for its journey by bundling health supplies at St. Mary Medical Center.

The two separate missions will save lives and deliver health care where they might not be otherwise available.
Hearts Without Boundaries, which has brought four children with heart defects to the United States for surgeries over the past four years, will for the first time help bring the care directly to the children in Cambodia.

Both organizations are upping the ante significantly. Hearts Without Boundaries will be assisting surgeons perform life-saving surgeries in Siem Reap; Cambodian Health Professionals, in its second trip, expects to double the number of patients it saw last year.

In recent years, HWB has assisted physicians with the nonprofit Variety Children's Lifeline in performing minor heart procedures at Angkor Hospital For Children, and taught Cambodian physicians how to perform the procedures themselves.

Last year, the hospital finally received the equipment needed to perform open heart surgery. Between Jan. 23 and Jan. 28, doctors from the University of California, San Diego Rady Children's Hospital and Children's Hospital Wisconsin will be able to perform operations and teach Cambodian health providers how to perform more advanced surgeries.

The doctors will treat a dozen patients. Six will receive open-heart surgeries.

In the United States, congenital heart defects requiring open heart surgery are typically performed in a child's first year. In Cambodia, many children never receive treatment and die young.

Peter Chhun, founder of Hearts Without Boundaries, cited a recent report that found 100,000 Cambodian children suffer from congenital defects, and 10 percent of those are in urgent need of surgery.

While bringing children to the U.S. is gratifying, Chhun hopes to be able to help fund more efficient missions like this to Cambodia, where children can be treated for a fraction of the cost. And, as Cambodian doctors are trained, they will be able to take over providing the surgeries themselves in years to come.

Last year, Cambodian Health Professionals conducted its first mission to Cambodia, called Project Angkor, and was overwhelmed by the response in the United States and abroad.

More than 50 volunteers traveled to Cambodia and provided medical and dental care to more than 500 patients per day. Even then, according to Teri Tan, who helped run the mission, between 2,000 and 3,000 had to be turned away.

This year, the group also plans to bring about 5,000 pounds in supplies, the last of which they will be preparing Saturday morning at the Health Enhancement Center Building at the St. Mary campus.

One of the volunteers on his first mission is Kosal Kom. The Long Beach dentist is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide that caused the deaths of upward of 2 million Cambodians. Last year, Kom assisted with preparations but was unable to make the trip.

"This time I'm in it from A to Z," Kom said.

He and five other dentists will perform extractions and restoration where possible.

"I'm very excited," Kom said. "It gives me a feeling of satisfaction."

greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-714-2093


Want to go?

What: Hearts Without Boundaries fundraiser

When: Saturday,

6 p.m. to midnight

Where: Golden Villa, 1360 Anaheim Ave., Long Beach

Cost: A donation of $35,

$20 for students, is requested Read more!

Let ‘the ASEAN way’ take reins in region’s democratization

High-level tourists: ASEAN foreign ministers ( from right) Marty Natalegawa of Indonesia, Wunna Maung Lwin of Myanmar, Thongloun Sisoulith of Laos, Hor Namhong of Cambodia, and ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan pose for photographs during a tour to the famed Angkor Wat after the ASEAN Foreign Minister’s retreat forum in Siem Reap province, some 230 kilometers northwest Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Wednesday. AP/Heng Sinith


ASEAN enjoyed good news this week as Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi confirmed her parliamentary bid and her Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim was acquitted of sodomy charges by a Malaysian court.

Observers here have agreed, however, that political reforms in ASEAN will remain sluggish, and the member states have their own “ASEAN way”, which prevents any chance for the region’s own version of the Arab Spring.

“The news [from Myanmar and Malaysia] surely brings a fresh wind to ASEAN. Reforms are indeed ongoing [in the two countries],” Parahyangan University ASEAN expert Mira Permatasari said Wednesday.

“But we can’t be too optimistic over how this will impact on the region. After all, ASEAN has that ASEAN way, with its non-interference principle.”

Although allowing only slow political process, Mira said the principle was a fit for ASEAN and was partly the reason why the organization could survive since its establishment in 1967.

She added other ASEAN member states should not pressure Myanmar or Malaysia to speed up their political reforms, saying such efforts might harm stability in the region instead.

Indonesia Center for Democracy, Diplomacy and Defense researcher Teuku Rezasyah extended the call against interference to countries outside the region, saying it might be counterproductive to the ongoing reforms.

He specifically commended the Indonesian government’s respect for the ongoing political process in Myanmar, and its establishment of good communications with both the military-linked government and the opposition.

“Indonesia has been paying attention to the process, while Western nations see only the end result but hardly the process,” Rezasyah said.

Separately, University of Indonesia international relations observer Makmur Keliat said the reforms in Myanmar and Malaysia were expected to support political reforms within ASEAN in general, particularly in regards to its handling of human rights issues.

“[These reforms] might not have a direct impact, but they can hopefully ease the review of the ASEAN Charter two years from now, specifically the clauses on the ASEAN Human Rights Council,” Makmur said.

The council, established two years ago, has been considered toothless and has hardly addressed human rights issues in the region.

Political reforms within ASEAN have been subject to the close watch of Western nations, including the US and Australia.

In his visit to Indonesia on Monday, Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd reiterated his government’s interest in Myanmar’s domestic affairs, commending the Indonesian government for its soft approach to the country that will chair ASEAN in 2014.

“I congratulate Indonesia through ASEAN for its fine diplomacy on Burma. This has been good work by our friends in ASEAN, and good work, in particular, by Foreign Minister Natalegawa,” Rudd said.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa recently visited Yangon in December, meeting with both his Myanmarese counterpart U Wunna Maung Lwin and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Marty said on the sidelines of the visit that Indonesia would continue working closely with Myanmar in promoting democracy and political reforms in the country, especially through capacity building programs. Read more!

More Silence From Khmer Rouge Leaders on Trial

“When they do not cooperate with the court, it means they have something to hide.”

Former Khmer Rouge second-in-command Nuon Chea, former President Khieu Samphan and former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary (L-R) attend their trial at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, file photo.



Jailed Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan refused to answer questions from the UN-backed tribunal on Thursday, cutting short the day’s session.

Khieu Samphan, the former head of state for the regime, is on trial for atrocity crimes alongside the regime’s ideologue, Nuon Chea, and its former foreign minister, Ieng Sary.

Nuon Chea refused to answer questions about a revolutionary magazine on Tuesday unless presented with the original copies, and Ieng Sary has said he will answer no questions from the court.

Their trial is the second of the court and likely to be its most complicated. It has taken years for this case to reach the trial stage, and the defendants have proven recalcitrant at every turn.

Trial Chamber judge Nil Nonn called an end to Thursday’s hearing early after Khieu Samphan exercised his “right not to respond.”

“When they do not cooperate with the court, it means they have something to hide,” said Lao Monghay, an independent political analyst. “But it will not be an obstacle.”

Earlier this week, prosecution at the court has questioned Nuon Chea over the creation of the regime’s armed forces, how it shared power and the establishment of security centers prior to the regime’s takeover of the country.

But in many of his responses, Nuon Chea, known as Brother No. 2 and the lieutenant of Pol Pot, said he couldn’t recall. Read more!

Sino-Cambodian ties see remarkable progress in past year: Chinese ambassador

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The relations between China and Cambodia have seen significant progress in 2011 in terms of political, economic, trade and humanitarian cooperation, the Chinese ambassador to Cambodia Pan Guangxue highlighted on Thursday evening.

Addressing at a reception ceremony to greet the upcoming Chinese New Year at the embassy residence, the ambassador said that the Sino-Cambodian political ties had rapidly developed in the past year.

"Top leaders of the two countries had exchanged visits to strengthen and expand the bilateral ties," he said.

In terms of trade, he said, the two-way trade volume was over 2 billion U.S. dollars in 2011 and it is believed that the volume will hit 2.5 billion U.S. dollars before the year 2015.

Pan also noted that last year, many investors had come to do businesses in Cambodia and an eminent achievement of Sino- Cambodian economic tie was the launch of the China-invested 193 megawatt Kamchay hydroelectric dam in December.

On the humanitarian cooperation, the ambassador said that China had provided nearly 10 million U.S. dollars to Cambodia during the period that Cambodia had been hit the worst from the floods between August and October.

"In the past year, we had achieved a great success to flourish our bilateral ties and I believe that the good ties will continue to be stronger and stronger in years to come for the interests of the two countries' peoples," he said. Read more!

Vagabond Tales: Lunch on Guilty Beach, Cambodia

by Kyle Ellison (RSS feed)
Lunch on Guilty Beach was a tough meal to swallow

If you look on a map of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, you'll find beaches such as Victory Beach and Independence Beach, but you'll find no such place as Guilty Beach. Regardless of what a map might say, unofficially, every beach in Cambodia is Guilty Beach.

Guilty Beach is not just a Cambodian phenomenon, but rather a global destination that can be found along coastlines the world over. It's in Los Cabos, Mexico, in the shadow of the famous Cabo arch. It's in Jaco, Costa Rica, backed up by sagging palm trees and world class surf. It's in Asilah, Morocco; it's in Mabul, Malaysia. Guilty Beach is every beach in the world where those unfortunate individuals living well below the poverty line--many of them children--work the beach in the hope of squeaking out much less than a living; most likely, they're just trying to make that night's dinner.

While beach merchants and scam artists can often be viewed as hawkers selling goods you would never want, Guilty Beach, Cambodia is thusly labeled because here it is different. Children don't prod you to buy some fake sunglasses--they simply ask for a bite of your food. Men don't sell knockoff jewelry for extra beer money. Rather, children sell bracelets while carrying their infant brother in their arms because their parents are too sick, or worse, dead.

Guilty Beach is thusly named because I no longer want that $2 plate of fried noodles, or that $1 can of beer. How can I accept that $2 plate of food when I just told an 11 year-old girl I didn't want her $2 bracelet? Then to eat it in front of her, as her eyes fail to flinch from the fried fare before me.

So why not buy the $2 bracelet? Why not donate my meal? Because the sad reality is knowing you cannot help them all; that there are no amount of bracelets that will heal this heart wrenching dilemma. Furthermore, the precedent set by rewarding begging can be far more disastrous than the apparent problems you're trying to prevent.

Finally, it's a somber truth knowing that these innocent faces, with bulging stomachs and bulging eyes, are merely working for someone above them, whether it's family or otherwise. The average tourist won't buy sliced mango from a fully grown man, but they'll open up their wallet for a child. And sadly, everyone knows it. These are merely conscripted child soldiers in a brutal reality of poverty and survival.

"They tell us to say that," the little girl confesses. She has just asked us to "open our hearts by opening our wallets." It's a heavy line that's been proven to work.

How do you deny an 11 year-old girl of $2 while she holds an infant and tries not to cry? How do you not look at all of them, 20 or 30 deep, wishing you could buy all of their bracelets so they can go play in the water like all 9 and 11 year-olds should?

Even if you buy them from two, three, or eight different children, eventually you have to tell one no, and is their pain dampened any by the fact you just helped the eight previous? The guilt is nonetheless the same. A line intrinsically must be drawn somewhere, but that line never gets any less painful, or justifiable. We gave the girl $1 for a smaller bracelet, and she left despondently, a sense of failure in her face. Nobody wins in this game.

Even more, who am I that you should even feel the need to beg to me? I don't deserve this phony pedestal you place me upon. I don't deserve this plate of food you lust after. I don't deserve to sit on this beach, in this comfortable chair, and lead an easier life than you.

Lunch on Guilty Beach was a tough meal to swallow. Read more!

Minister: ASEAN wants more Indian visitors



Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Mari Elka Pangestu

  Image via indonesia-oslo.no

 Indonesia's Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Mari Elka Pangestu said on Wednesday that ASEAN targeted to boost the number of Indian tourists visiting the region.

“The number of Indian tourists coming to the region has been increasing from year to year. The growth has been improving,” Mari said on the sidelines of the ASEAN Tourism Forum in Manado, North Sulawesi.

“Indian tourist arrivals to the ASEAN region stood at 14 million last year. The trend has shown an improvement [in the number of tourist arrivals],” she added without further elaboration.

To lure more tourists from India, the minister continued, ASEAN would open a representative office in Mumbai to promote the region’s tourism to Indian residents.

ASEAN tourism ministers will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the tourism cooperation with the Indian tourism minister on Thursday.

Indian Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai said that he hoped the cooperation would boost the number of tourists bound for India from the region.

“We have heritage, historical and religious tourism - everything is there. ASEAN countries share cultural roots with India somehow. [The cooperation] is a great thing,” Sahai said.

Mari said that she hoped the cooperation would boost the number of tourists from India to Indonesia.

“The number of Indian tourists coming to the region is still low compared to that of our other counterpart countries like China or South Korea,” she said, citing a lack of flight routes connecting the two countries as one of the reasons for the low number of Indian tourists coming to Indonesia.

"I hope [national flag carrier] Garuda Indonesia will open routes to India," Mari said.

According to the Central Statistics Agency, the number of Indian tourists coming to Indonesia reached 149,432 in 2011, increasing from 137,027 in 2010. Read more!

Cambodia: Release peaceful protesters detained over forced eviction

 

The women and children are some of Cambodia’s poorest, most vulnerable people – and when they’ve stood up for their legitimate rights they’ve been rounded up and locked away.

            Some 300 families in Borei Keila had their homes destroyed on 3 January 2012


The Cambodian authorities must immediately release 24 women and six children detained yesterday while peacefully protesting their forced eviction.

The group of 30 were arrested while protesting last week’s violent forced eviction of some 300 families from the poor Borei Keila neighbourhood of Phnom Penh.

“These people never should have been arrested in the first place,” said Donna Guest, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Asia-Pacific.

“The women and children are some of Cambodia’s poorest, most vulnerable people – and when they’ve stood up for their legitimate rights they’ve been rounded up and locked away. This kind of heavy-handed intimidation must stop.”

On 3 January, the families’ homes were destroyed by construction company workers accompanied by a heavy security presence. Human rights monitors and media reported that security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets against residents in an apparent use of excessive force.

Rocks, logs and bottles were thrown during clashes, and at least eight residents were arrested and remain in detention. More than 64 people were reportedly injured in the eviction.

“The authorities need to initiate a full and independent investigation into allegations of excessive force, and into why the forced eviction happened in the first place,” said Donna Guest.

The 30 women and children detained on 11 January are being held in Prey Speu Social Affairs Center in Phnom Penh, a facility regularly used by authorities to arbitrarily detain homeless people, drug users and sex workers rounded up from the streets. Human rights NGOs have reported that some detainees there have been raped or even murdered in the past.

“We have serious concerns that the 30 women and children arrested yesterday are at risk of ill-treatment,” said Donna Guest.

Amnesty International is also calling for the eight people detained during the 3 January eviction to be released, pending further investigation.

Forced evictions are a breach of Cambodia’s obligations under international human rights law, which prohibits evictions without assurances of adequate alternative accommodation, adequate notice, proper consultation, or legal safeguards.

Most of those evicted have been moved to two separate sites. Conditions at one site, Srah Po, are reportedly poor with no adequate sanitation or housing. Some families are living under tarpaulins, and others have not been given any land to settle on at all.

Borei Keila has been the home to a large poor urban community for many years. The government designated the area as a ‘social land concession’ in 2003, sharing land with a private developer which promised to build housing for the poor.

However in April 2010, the developer claimed that it could not afford to build all of the housing it had promised. The 300 families have been protesting against the company and local authority since then. Read more!

Cambodia to call for lifting of economic sanction against Myanmar

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (Kyodo) -- Cambodia will call for the lifting of economic sanctions against Myanmar, acting in its capacity as new chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Cambodia's top diplomat said Tuesday.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told Kyodo News in an interview that a statement calling on the removal of sanctions will be made when Cambodia hosts the 20th ASEAN summit in April.

"Myanmar has made good progress in democratization and, therefore, we (ASEAN) and as well as the international community should have a new position on Myanmar," Hor Namhong said.

Hor Namhong made the pledge after he met Myanmar's Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin in Siem Reap.

Hor Namhong and Wunna Maung Lwin were in Siem Reap for an informal ASEAN ministerial meeting. Read more!

Justice officials in GMS countries meet in Cambodia to strengthen human trafficking co-op

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- Criminal justice practitioners from the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) countries gathered here on Wednesday to strengthen international cooperation on human trafficking investigations and prosecutions.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Ang Vong Vathana, Cambodia's minister of justice, said that the meeting was very important to accelerate inter-governmental efforts in collaboration with local and international organizations to fight against human trafficking in persons.

"It is essential to develop realistic and effective cooperation in the criminal justice system to remove impunity for traffickers and to provide justice for victims," he said.

"It was also crucial to urge member states to strengthen cross- border cooperation in law enforcement among the six GMS countries to combat trafficking through criminal justice process," he added.

The minister said that the meeting was held under the framework of the COMMIT (Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking) Memorandum of Understanding that was signed in 2004 by the ministers representing the six member states of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) including China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The 3-day meeting was attended by senior justice officials from the GMS countries including Han Xiaofeng, division chief of the investigation department of China's Supreme People's Prosecutoriate, police captain Soe Tint at the department of transnational crime of Myanmar Police Force, Police Lt. Col. Paisith Sungkgahapong, senior special case inquiry official at the Supervising Anti-Human Trafficking Center of Thai ministry of justice.

Also attending the meeting were Thoummaly Vongphachan, director of Lao's Counseling and Protection Center for Women and Children, Ith Rady, undersecretary of state at Cambodia's ministry of justice, and Truong Thi Huong Mai, deputy head of section at Vietnam's department of prosecution service for felony cases.
Read more!

Debt fears for farmers Calls for lower microfinance rates

By Don Weinland and May Kunmakara


Government officials yesterday said high interest rates at Cambodia’s microfinance institutions were unsustainable and posed risks for social instability among the country’s farming population.

MFIs, however, said loanees were well informed of default risks, and that the institutions provided a service unavailable elsewhere in the Kingdom.

Small loans at Cambodia’s MFIs carry monthly interest rates as high as 4 per cent, Kalyan Mey, a senior advisor to Cambodia’s Supreme National Economic Council, told the Post yesterday.

At the highest, yearly rates on the loans can hit nearly 50 per cent without compound interest, which is unsustainable for Cambodia’s rural economy, he said.

“It’s too high to justify any productive gain from the farmer who raises pigs or grows rice,” Kalyan Mey said of the more than US$500 million MFI industry.

“Most farmers can’t assess the associated risks, and they don’t foresee the [possibility] of losing the property they have mortgaged,” he said.

“At the end of the day, many farmers will lose their houses and land. It can become a big social problem for the rural community.”

While some rural borrowers take loans for farming inputs such as fertiliser and rice seeds, others go into debt on hospital bills and wedding expenses, said Kalyan Mey.

Default in the countryside translates into social instability as some farmers become landless. MFI operating costs are high. Each individual farmer must be consulted for loans, which average at about $500. In addition, a majority of Cambodia’s microfinance has foreign backers who demand higher profit margins.

These free-market forces are a “very big problem” for farmers who take loans from MFIs, Son Koun Thor, president of Cambodia Rural Development Bank, said yesterday.

Given the Cambodian government’s commitment to an open market, increased competition among MFIs, and continued decreases in rates, is a solution to debt pressure on farmers, he said.

Cambodia Rural Development Bank was originally established to fund MFIs, and it is negotiating with the 10 institutions it supports to continue lowering rates, Son Koun Thor said.

A stronger government hand in the industry may be required to keep interest rates down, he said.

Sim Senacheert, general manager at Prasac Microfinance Institution, denied that rural borrowers were unaware of lending-practice risks.

During a consultation process, as well as at the time of lending, the MFI reviews the details of the loan, he said.

“I don’t believe they are uninformed. Our clients have been taking loans from us for 10 years,” Sim Senacheert said, adding that 30 per cent of Prasac’s loan portfolio was in agriculture. The default rate across Prasac’s entire loan portfolio was 0.14 per cent, he said.

“They know how to calculate the interest rate.”

Although interest rates have fallen since 2004, Sim Senacheert said operating costs still kept MFI rates high. Prasac has 24-per cent annual interest rates with an average loan size of $900, he said. If interest was too high, he said customers would go to other lenders.

Some farmers do go to unofficial lenders who are more accessible in their communities.

Ly Thet, a corn and cassava farmer in the Stung Kach commune of Pailin province’s Sala Krao district, said he recently borrowed $350 with an interest rate of about 48 per cent from a local businessman.

Farmers in the community are generally unaware of borrowing practices and often take to the simplicity of high-interest loans from unofficial lenders, according to Ly Thet.

“People here normally receive loans from businessmen because it is easy,” he said.

Many farmers who borrow from MFIs have seen profits disappear this year, a source familiar with the industry told the Post on condition of anonymity.

“In a good year, [farmers] might be making 40 per cent return, which is then eaten up with interest repayments. If you have a really bad year you could conceivably get a negative return,” the source said.

Floods in September and October threatened to push higher the rate of nonperforming MFI loans in the fourth quarter of 2011, the Post reported last year, although some industry insiders said diversified portfolios at big institutions would mitigate the effect.

Efforts to reform MFI lending have been “slow and inadequate”, Kalyan Mey said.

Farmers need more education regarding the benefits and risks of MFI lending. MFIs must make sure loans will lead to productive increases in the agriculture sector. Commercial banks should also be encouraged to pay more attention to rural finance, he said.

Farmer associations could reduce MFI and commercial bank operating costs. As the number of loans processed by banks falls, so will transaction costs, and the market would become more attractive to commercial banks, Kalyan Mey said. Read more!

Int'l visitors to Cambodia's Angkor heritage site up 23 pct in 2011

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Angkor Wat temples, one of the world heritage sites, attracted 1.6 million foreign visitors in 2011, an increase of 23 percent from 1.3 million a year earlier, according to the statistics of Siem Reap provincial tourism department on Tuesday.

Among the top ten countries visiting the temples, South Korea was ranked first with 265,000 visitors, up 31 percent; Vietnam at second with 251,400, up 45 percent; Japan at third with 120,200, up 5 percent; and China at fourth with 119,900, up 81 percent.

The statistics also showed that Thai tourists to the temples had slightly declined by 0.2 percent to 42,250 due to border dispute that led to armed clashes in February and April last year.

"Base on the figures, we see that Chinese visitors to the temples last year grew sharply and we expect that the trend will continue in the coming years," Chhoeuy Chhorn, administration chief of Siem Reap provincial tourism department, told Xinhua by telephone on Tuesday.

"More foreigners come to the temples thanks to the increases of connecting flights and chartered flights between Asian countries and Siem Reap," he said. "Also, there are broader promotions of Cambodia's tourism potentials to the world."

Siem Reap's Angkor archeological park is the country's largest cultural tourism destination; It is located some 315 kilometers northwest of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.

The entrance fees to visit the Angkor archeological site is 20 U.S. dollars a day for a foreign visitor, 40 U.S. dollars for a three-day visit and 60 U.S. dollars for a weeklong visit, said Chhoeuy Chhorn.

The tourism industry is one of the main four pillars supporting the Cambodian economy. The others are garment industry, agriculture and real estates. Read more!

ASEAN senior officials' meeting kicks off in Cambodia

SIEM REAP, Cambodia, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Senior officials of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met here on Tuesday in a preparatory meeting ahead of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' retreat, which will be held on Jan. 11.

Speaking at the opening of the meeting, Soeung Rathchavy, secretary of state at Cambodia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said Cambodia, 2012's ASEAN chair, would try all its best to lead ASEAN summits and related meetings this year successfully in order to realize an ASEAN community by 2015.

According to the agenda, the ASEAN senior officials would discuss ASEAN connectivity including Thailand's non-paper on ASEAN plus 3 partnerships on connectivity, information paper on the 15 priority projects of the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity, and ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation.

Moreover, they would talk on the implementation of the declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DoC) including the results of the ASEAN senior officials meeting working group on regional Code of Conduct (CoC) in the South China Sea, Singapore's proposal for a Track II Workshop on Maritime Ecosystems and Biodiversity, and 4th ASEAN-China senior officials meeting on the DoC and the 7th ASEAN-China Joint Working Group on the CoC.

The officials would also debate on the implementation of the ASEAN Charter including the ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights.

Finally, they would discuss about Timor-Leste's membership in the ASEAN.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Read more!

Cambodia Angkor Air plans flights to Seoul

By May Kunmakara


National carrier Cambodia Angkor Air (CAA) will introduce direct flights to South Korea sometime in the first quarter, a civil aviation official has claimed.

“We began planning our flights between Siem Reap and Incheon International Airport [near Seoul] in the first quarter after we conducted market surveys showing that Korean tourists had high potential compared to others,” said Soy Sokhan, the undersecretary of state at the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation.

He said CAA will operate regular direct flights on its Airbus 321, which can accommodate about 186 passengers.

The airline plans to expand its direct-flight options to include some major cities in China this year as well, he said.

CAA recently began flying direct between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville three times a week.

Officials at CAA could not be reached for comment. Read more!

Fabio Cannavaro visits Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Fabio Cannavaro, the Italy's World Cup winning captain in 2006, is on a four-day visit in Cambodia to help boost the country's football sector.

In a press briefing on Monday, Cannarvaro, who arrived here on Sunday, said that it was his first visit to Cambodia. During his stay, he would help promote and support football sector in this Southeast Asian nation.

He added that he would also hold coaching clinic sessions with the Phnom Penh Crown Football Club Elite Academy here and the Cambodia National U-21 team.

The visit was made at the invitation of Phnom Penh Crown Football Club (PPCFC). Rithy Samnang, PPCFC's President, said Fabio Cannavaro is one of the world's greatest football players over the past 20 years and the captain of Italy when they won the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

"Fabio is very keen to raise the profile of the football in Cambodia during his visit, as well as to support disadvantaged children at NGO-Friends International," he said.

Fabio Cannavaro, 39, won the FIFA World Player of the Year award in 2006, making him the first, and so far, only defender to win the award, according to a PPCFC's press release on Monday.

Cannavaro retired from professional football in 2011 due to an injury.
Read more!

Cambodia's ailing former king changes mind about burial and requests cremation

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia's ailing former king Norodom Sihanouk has changed his mind and asked that he be cremated after he dies.

The 89-year-old Sihanouk revised an earlier request for a burial, saying he would now prefer to be cremated. The message was posted on his website Saturday.

He asked that his ashes be put in an urn, preferably made of gold, and placed in a stupa at the Royal Palace.

Former aide Sisowath Thomico said Sihanouk wanted to follow the Cambodian and Buddhist tradition of cremation.

Sihanouk has suffered from colon cancer, diabetes and hypertension.

He was a dominant figure in Cambodian politics for six decades but abdicated in 2004, citing poor health, and was succeeded by a son, Norodom Sihamoni. Read more!

Cambodian People’s Party marks victory over Khmer Rouge

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) held a meeting in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh on Jan. 7 to celebrate the 33 rd anniversary of the victory over the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime, January 7, 1979.

Addressing the meeting, CPP President Chea Sim stressed that the Cambodian people always remember the service of united armed forces for national salvation, and never forget great and apparent support of Vietnamese volunteers, who timely responded to the urgent appeal for help from the Cambodian people to save them from the genocidal regime and prevent its return.

The Phnom Penh Post reported that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen delivered a speech to 10,000 CPP supporters in Kampong Cham Province, highlighting efforts by the people and Government of Cambodia over the past 33 years.

Meanwhile, the Union of Friendship Organizations of Vietnam, Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Society and Vietnam Veterans Association held a meeting in Hanoi Jan. 7 to mark the 33rd anniversary of Cambodia’s victory over Khmer Rouge genocidal regime.

Cambodian Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam On, vice chairwoman of the Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Society said at the meeting that the Cambodian people remember forever that January 7 is their second birth day.

She reiterated that the viewpoint of the Cambodian Royal Government and CPP is to reinforce and intensify the fine relationship between her country and Vietnam, as well as multi-faceted and long-term cooperation between the two neighbors.

On the same day, the Union of Friendship Organizations Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Society HCMC held a ceremony in the city to mark the 33rd anniversary of victory of the Cambodian people. Read more!

Q&A: Bay Area Cambodians and the Khmer Rouge Trials

Editor’s Note: Nearly 2 million Cambodians lost their lives in the infamous killing fields in their homeland between 1974 and 1979. Two months ago, a U.N.-backed tribunal began a trial for three of the accused architects of the genocide. Stanford University psychiatrist Dr. Daryn Reicherter, who has been working with Cambodian refugees in the South Bay for the last seven years, and has visited Cambodia four times, shares his observations with NAM health editor Viji Sundaram on how those whom he counsels are responding to the trial.

What percentage of Cambodians in the Bay Area is here as a direct result of the violence perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge?

All of the (first generation) Cambodian immigrants are here because of the Khmer Rouge. Prior to that, there was very little immigration from Cambodia to the United States. Most of them came as refugees from Thailand in the early 1980s. These people not only suffered at the hands of Pol Pot but they also lived in miserable conditions in the Thai camps, some of them for years.

What are some of the long-term effects of the killing fields experience on the community here in the Bay Area, both in the first and second generation Cambodians?

It’s hard to say definitively. But for the first generation immigrants, such mental health issues as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression are very prevalent. The second generation has had difficulties as a result of poverty, poor acculturation of their parents and probably their parenting styles.

As the Khmer Rouge trial goes on in Cambodia, what is the response of Cambodians here in the Bay Area?

I see a great ignorance about the trial. Many seem to choose to not be informed. Many second generation Cambodians do not know that chapter of Cambodia’s history at all, and do not know anything about the trial. But I’ve got to add that my sample may be very biased.

Trials such as this sometimes provide some sort of closure to the victims. Do you see the Cambodian refugees looking at this trial as a healing of wounds?

Most of the refugees I am aware of are not choosing to be aware of the trial. Of those who are, most are very skeptical of the process and do not seem to be very hopeful that any justice will come of it.

Is this reticence to follow the trial or to delve into the past something cultural, or is it a sign of some deeper mental health issue?

I think survivors tend to not want to talk about trauma. Individually this may be considered a "symptom" of PTSD. But collectively, it seems to be a widely appreciated consequence on populations. Jewish holocaust survivors don't talk about the concentration camps. Bosnians don't talk about the genocide. I think the khmer experience is no different.

What is the range of mental health issues the refugees suffer from? Are they open to seeking treatment?

The Cambodians tend to have PTSD and depression. Some are open to getting treatment. Our clinic at Gardner (in San Jose, Calif.,) has hybridized treatment approach with the local Khmer Buddhist temple in which the monks lead cognitive and behavioral (meditation) groups for clients with anxiety. The temple refers clients to us. We also operate parenting groups out of the temple. This partnership has helped greatly with their willingness to receive Western treatment.

You said you were told you might be summoned to Cambodia as an expert witness – if this happens what would you say about your observations?

I co-edited a book on the topic of Cambodian mental health in the contest of the court, after researching the topic in Cambodia. The attorneys representing the civil parties from out of Cambodia -- the refugees – asked me to testify about the mental health and social status of refugees as compared to the mental health of the Cambodians in Cambodia.

Dr. Daryn Reicherter provides a combination of administrative and clinical services in the area of "cross-cultural" trauma mental health. Among the many hats he wears in the field of cross-cultural psychiatry, he is a consulting psychiatrist at the Center for the Treatment of Survivors of Torture. He serves as a consultant to the Documentation Center of Cambodia. He is on the advisory council for the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation. Read more!

Being Thai is no guarantee of citizenship

As an ethnic Thai living in Cambodia, Bantom Sommai successfully fled to Thailand when the horrors of the Khmer Rouge began. But her battle for security is far from over.

"I am Thai. My family and my ancestors are Thai. But when we return to our homeland, we are not counted as Thai people. This is so painful," said Bantom.

Fleeing for life, Bantom and her family walked 10 days through the Thai-Cambodian jungle to escape to Trat and join their Thai relatives. She still remembers vividly the fear, the hunger, and the joy when they finally reached Trat to start a new life in her motherland.

"I was 16 then. Now I am 55. I don't know how long it will take me to be a Thai citizen," said Bantom with a sigh.

Without citizenship, all assets she earns from her hard work must be in someone else's name. She cannot join the formal work sector with labour protection and welfare. Up until last year when she was finally included in the Thai diaspora survey, she could not even get a driving licence, nor access to universal health care.

"Every time a policeman looked or stopped me on the road, I froze with fear," she recalls. Her life of constant fear, frustration and lack of legal rights is also shared by several thousands of returning Thais in this coastal province.

Koh Kong, the island adjacent to Trat, had been part of Siam until 1906 when territorial disputes with France ended with King Chulalongkorn's painful agreement to cede Koh Kong, Siem Reap, Battambang and Srisophon to French-ruled Cambodia, in exchange for Chanthaburi and Trat. Many Thai people stayed on in Koh Kong, travelling back and forth to Trat to make a living as usual. Many returned permanently during the Cold War and after the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. But they remain shunned legally, despite their Thai bloodline and cultural heritage.

They are not alone in their plight caused by territorial change. Thais returning to Ranong after having lived elsewhere outside the country, also face the same problem of being treated as illegal immigrants. The official survey says there are about 20,000 of them, while rights activists say the real figures are higher.

A draft law is in the pipeline to help them, but Senator Supojana Liad-prathom, chairman of the Senate's ad hoc committee on citizenship problems, fears that it might end up being useless.

As things stand now, the beneficiaries of the draft law are defined as the Thai diaspora affected by territorial changes in the last century. "But most of them have already passed away. So we need to widen the definition to include their descendants," he said. But resistance is high in the Senate and the bureaucracy, due to deep fears that the new law will attract new immigrants and affect national security. "Is it fair not to give people who are born Thai their legal rights?" Sen Supojana asked. "Also, if people do not have legal rights, they are forced to live underground. Is that good for national security?"

Prejudice and corruption aside, the matter is complicated by the extremely complex laws and regulations regarding nationality. Officials from the central government often misinterpret the law and label returning Thai migrants as illegal immigrants.

Like Nipon Krongkaew, for instance. His mother and grandmother were Thai, with documents to back the claim. But his application for citizenship has been turned down by local officials. When told by the Senate team that he is actually qualified, his eyes glistened with happy tears, as he gathered up the old crumbling documents like some treasure.

The main problem is the officials' negative attitude, says Venus Srisuk, the Interior Ministry's expert on nationality and civil registration. "This is why the definition of the 'returning diasporas' in the new nationality law must be clear, to avoid negative interpretation."

Currently in her 70s, Granny Nye Palakit does not know anything about the law. She only knows that she is Thai and wants to hold a Thai ID card of her own before she dies.

"Is it possible?" she asked.

Bantom asks the same question every day. "And no one can answer us yet why we are still denied our rights as Thais."
Read more!

Cambodia's second Angkor coming to life

Archeologists have started their work at one of Cambodia's grandest monuments, reviving the Southeast Asian site after 800 years of isolation.

Built by Jayavarman VII of the Angkorian Empire, Banteay Chhmar started welcoming visitors in 2007 after years of neglect and isolation during the civil war.

In 2008, the California-based Global Heritage Fund began work at the Buddhist temple under the supervision of Cambodia's Ministry of Culture.

Called the "second Angkor Wat," Banteay Chhmar approaches the world famous monuments in size, but only attracts an average of two visitors a day compared with an average of 7,000 daily tourists visiting Angkor.

A veteran British conservation architect has assembled a team of 60 experts and workers to revive the collapsed shrines and galleries scattered within the 12-square-kilometer archaeological site.

"We've been struggling away with this gallery for nearly two years now," says Sanday at a bas-relief, depicting a figure believed to be Jayavarman VII leading his troops into battle.

"My philosophy is to preserve and present the monuments as I found them for future generations without falsifying their history. So often people tend to guess what was there," he added.

Cambodian computer experts of Sanday's team are contributing to the project by using three-dimensional imaging in reconstructing one of the temple's 34 towers recently damaged in a severe storm.

"We hope that with one push of the button all the stones will jump into place to solve what we are calling 'John's puzzle,'" says Sanday.

Sanday prefers Banteay Chhmar is not registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and hopes its remote location will protect it from a mass tourist influx.

"I often come here in the late afternoons, when the birds come alive and a breeze stirs," he said. "It's peaceful and quiet here, like it used to be at Angkor. This is a real site." Read more!

Opposition Lawmaker Charged After Immunity Suspension

Chan Cheng and a party lawyer are accused of helping a party activist, Meas Peng, wanted for questioning in a land dispute between villagers and a ruling-party official flee the detention center, in what both say is a politically motivated case.


The Kandal provincial court on Tuesday issued charges against a Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker who allegedly helped a party activist escape provisional detention.

The move comes after the suspension of lawmaker Chan Cheng’s parliamentary immunity last week.

Chan Cheng and a party lawyer are accused of helping a party activist, Meas Peng, wanted for questioning in a land dispute between villagers and a ruling-party official flee the detention center, in what both say is a politically motivated case.

Chan Cheng, who is currently in hiding abroad, has said he did not abuse his parliamentary protections by driving Meas Peng away from the detention center, because no formal charges had been issued.

Meas Peng, a deputy commune councilor in Kandal province, was accused of involvement in protests against a company in an ongoing land dispute there and brought in for questioning last month.

Local rights groups said Monday the National Assembly, which is heavily dominated by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, abused its power in revoking Chan Cheng’s immunity ahead of local and national elections in 2012 and 2013, a charge the government rejects.

Ouk Kimseth, Kandal court’s prosecutor, said Chan Cheng and lawyer Chour Chou Ngy were charged with providing transportation to Meas Peng, who has also been charged with “escaping.”

Chan Cheng and Chour Chou Ngy could face up to three years in prison if convicted, he said.

Chour Chou Ngy said Tuesday the accusation was “abusive” and “wrong” and that the Kandal court did not have a detention order to hold Meas Peng at the time they left. Read more!

Court Issues Summons for Opposition Attorney

Opposition lawmaker Chan Cheng, who was also blamed in the alleged escape, went into hiding in December after ruling party members of the National Assembly voted to revoke his parliamentary immunity..Kandal provincial court on Monday issued a summons for an opposition party lawyer who is wanted for questioning alongside an opposition lawmaker for allegedly abetting the escape of a court suspect.

The investigating judge for the Kandal court said Chhoung Chun Ngy, a lawyer for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, has been summoned to appear Jan. 18 to answer charges of helping a deputy commune chief named Meas Peng escape questioning at the provincial detention center late last year.
Rights groups have condemned legal action in the case, saying the government is abusing the power of the court to hurt the opposition ahead of elections later this year.

Opposition lawmaker Chan Cheng, who was also blamed in the alleged escape, went into hiding in December after ruling party members of the National Assembly voted to revoke his parliamentary immunity.

Sin Visal, investigating judge for Kandal court, said he had issued his summons for Chhoung Chu Ngy “following the rule of law.”

Chhoung Chu Ngy briefly disappeared on Thursday last week, but he appeared shaken before a press conference on Friday to say he had avoided arrest.

He said then he would shave his head and wear white for 12 days in thanks for his escape. He could not be reached Monday.

. Read more!

Myanmar, Cambodia emerge as high-growth investment destinations

SINGAPORE: By some measure, Myanmar had a spectacular 2011. Endorsed as chair of Asean for 2014, and a high profile visit from the US secretary of state - reward for recent political reforms that have elevated confidence in an economy barely emerging from years in the dark.

Andrew Rickards, CEO of Yoma Strategic, said: "The country that is perhaps being held back in development, that is perhaps being held back for the last 40 or 50 years, suddenly tries to reintegrate with the world economy.

"There's an awful lot of catching up to do, challenges from basic infrastructure mobile telephones internet access to hotel rooms and getting flights... You could imagine that the whole place is creaking a little bit at the seams as it is suddenly being put on people's radar for the first time."

Singapore-listed Yoma Strategic is deeply entrenched in Myanmar, with 95 per cent of its revenue derived from property and other investments in the country in the latest half-year. It is well positioned to benefit from further reforms, even though the country still carries the weight of trade sanctions by the US and Europe.

With Singapore being Myanmar's 4th biggest trading partner in 2010, historic business ties count for a lot.

Ho Meng Kit, CEO of the Singapore Business Federation, said: "In the case of Myanmar, it will be more difficult, a little bit more unknown... The key really is the extent of the reform that is happening, whether this will be followed through, and whether it will then lead to an improvement in the business environment there.

"Then again, its a lot more opportunities so for some companies who do have links, have the intelligence there (and) have the partnership there, those risks can be managed."

Neighbouring Cambodia is also reforming its ways, although it is more established as an investment centre than Myanmar. It will chair Asean in 2012.

Danish manufacturer Jebsen & Jessen said the ease of doing business is propelling a potential US$650,000 investment in the country.

Fritz Graf Von Der Schulenburg, Eexcutive Vice Chairman of Jebsen & Jessen, said: "Small for its population, but very much open in its policy to attract new investors and it is easy to settle down there, it is very easy to build up business relationships."

Mr Ho said: "Cambodia has been reformed, has been in the market for a long time, has been a member of WTO since 2004. So of course from the risk point of view, I think Cambodia represents far lesser risk and because our companies have been operating there more recently."

Dr Mark Mobius, Executive Chairman at Templeton Emerging Markets Group, said these frontier markets are now in their "take-off stage", where self-sustaining development is taking place, thanks to high consumer spending at home.

-CNA/ac . Read more!

Orphanage tourism and Cambodia's fight to end it

In Cambodia, it's not uncommon for tourists to be offered tours of local orphanages in the same way they're offered tours of Angkor Wat.

It might be tempting to accept the opportunity to experience "the real Cambodia," especially when you're confronted by extreme poverty at every turn. But before you do, a new campaign backed by international NGO Friends-International and UNICEF asks you to think again.

"Travelers care for Cambodia and are often disturbed by the perceived situation of children," said Sebastien Marot, Executive Director of Friends-International, whose headquarters are in Cambodia. "It is essential for them to understand the real situation and what positive actions they can take to effectively protect and support these children."

A recent study of Cambodia's residential institutions showed that the rapidly growing practice of "orphanage tourism" actually does more harm than good, violating the rights of children and contributing to the separation of families. The study revealed that 72 percent of children living in institutions labeled "orphanages" have at least one living parent, and that the number of these types of institutions has grown in recent years, despite the fact that the number of orphaned and vulnerable children has shrunk. The study also showed that a number of these orphanage tourism schemes are run by unscrupulous business operators, and many aren't regulated.
 

Orphanages in themselves aren't bad, but visitors must be aware of the effects of their actions. The Friends/UNICEF campaign encourages tourists to ask themselves a number of questions before they decide to visit an orphanage, including:

• Are visitors allowed to just drop in and have direct access to children without supervision? Orphanages that allow strangers off the street to interact with children unsupervised, without conducting sufficient background checks, are not protecting the interests of the children.
• Are children required to work or participate in securing funds for the orphanage? The songs and dances may be cute, but they can also be viewed as child labor and groom children for begging and street work that leaves them open to exploitation.
• Does the orphanage have an active family reunification program? The extended family plays an important role in Cambodian culture, and efforts should be made to reunite orphaned children with family members that can care for them.

One of the most important questions, though, is one visitors should ask themselves.

"You aren't allowed to go anywhere and hug a child in your own country," said Marot. "Why should you be able to do it here?"

To learn more about positive ways to protect children in your travels, check out these seven tips from Friends-International. Read more!