.C. aid worker dies after Cambodia attack

A B.C. aid worker who was severely injured after being attacked in Cambodia last week has died from his injuries.

Jiri Zivny, 46, of Kamloops, B.C., died at 5:15 p.m. local time Thursday in Phnom Penh's Calmette hospital, where he was being treated for serious head injuries.

Zivny was attacked after he withdrew money from an ATM in Preah Sihanouk Province last Friday, about four hours south of Phnom Penh. He was reportedly clubbed in the head by assailants who stole his cash, his wallet, some of his clothes and left him for dead.

Zivny's medical insurance had expired and his death comes as his agency was trying to raise funds to bring him back to Canada for medical treatment -- a flight that could cost up to $20,000.

Friend and fellow aid worker Monty Aldoff says Zivny received a "substandard" level of medical care in the capital city's hospital.

"The conditions were deplorable," he told CTV News Thursday morning, his voice breaking. "It stunk and there were rats everywhere and it was just substandard. Unacceptable."

Aldoff, with help from the International Humanitarian Hope Society, the Kamloops, B.C. agency they worked with, brought in an American doctor to oversee Zivny's progress.

Zivny was in the country delivering supplies to Asian orphanages, as part of a trip organized by the B.C. charity. He had been travelling with other IHHS members in December, but had decided to extend his trip.

IHHS president Evelyn Picklyk told The Canadian Press that Zivny had a passion for his work with children.

"Every time we went to an orphanage, he was in tears," she said.

While Picklyk said aid workers generally travel in groups, she confirmed that Zivny had been travelling alone at the time that he was attacked.

According to the Canada Revenue Agency website, the IHHS falls under the "missionary organizations and propagation of gospel" category of charitable organizations. It has held charitable status since Jan. 1, 2007. Read more!

No impartial tribunal in Cambodia

By Lao Mong Hay

Hong Kong, China — Cambodia is bound by the Paris Peace Agreements, which were concluded in 1991 to end a protracted war in the country and which obligate Cambodia to adhere to international human rights norms and standards. These include, among other things, the creation of an independent judiciary and the right to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law.

All the specified international human rights norms and standards have now become an integral part of Cambodia's Constitution. This Constitution spells out clearly that Cambodia shall recognize and respect human rights as stipulated in all relevant international instruments. It provides for the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, the guarantee of this judicial independence by the king with the assistance of a supreme judicial body called the Supreme Council of the Magistracy, and the protection of human rights by the king and the judiciary.

However, despite all the constitutional guarantees and protections mentioned above, in reality the Cambodian people have not enjoyed these rights, including the right to a fair and public hearing by a competent and impartial tribunal. There is no such tribunal as yet in Cambodia.

Since the abandonment of communism in the early 1990s, the Cambodian judiciary has not proved to be independent despite continued criticism over its lack of this important attribute. It is very much under political control. Most, if not all, members are affiliated to the ruling party, with the chief justice of the Supreme Court being a member of the party's standing and central committees.

More recently the Cambodian authorities have recognized the obvious, though indirectly. Last October a deputy prime minister, Sok An, announced that the government “will be preparing a workshop on the law and courts,” saying that the government had heard “bad rumors about courts in Cambodia” and it was going “to work very hard to change that.” He added that the government “needed to enforce discipline and make sure that the courts are independent."

As for competency, the courts have recently been found to be short of it. Last year the Senate's Legislation and Justice Committee conducted an investigation into the functioning of the courts and the legal knowledge of judicial officials. After the completion of the investigation in a number of courts in November, its chairman, Ouk Bunthoeun, revealed some of the committee's findings, one of which was the inadequate knowledge base of these officials. "The judges and the prosecutors are facing difficulties implementing the laws …There are a lot of technical terms that (they) don't understand," he said.

The Cambodian courts have also been found to lack impartiality. This lack comes from their lack of independence and from corruption. A survey by Transparency International released in February 2008 found that the judiciary, in tandem with the police, was the most corrupt institution in Cambodia.

A study by an NGO released earlier, in December 2007, said, “ The primary functions of the courts continue to be: 1) To prosecute political opponents and other critics of the government; 2) To perpetuate impunity for state actors and their associates; 3) To promote the economic interests of the rich and powerful.” Ouk Bunthoeun, mentioned above, said his committee had also found the bias and corruption that the courts have been accused of.

The dismal status of the courts of law and the ensuing denial of constitutional right to a fair and public hearing by an independent, competent and impartial tribunal should no longer be tolerated. The king of Cambodia should discharge his constitutional duty, get the Supreme Council of the Magistracy which he chairs, and seek support from the government and the Parliament to ensure the independence of the judiciary.

As the first step, the law on the status of judges and prosecutors that the country's Constitution has specifically stipulated and the government has long promised, was enacted and effectively enforced. This law should affirm and protect the constitutional immovability and independence of this group of judicial officials so as to ensure the security of their tenure. It should prohibit their affiliation to any political party while their tenure is secure.

The Supreme Council of the Magistracy should free itself from political control as well and, like judges and prosecutors, its members should not be affiliated to any political party. This council should effectively enforce its code of ethics for judges and prosecutors and establish the procedure and mechanism for complaints against these judicial officials which should be easily accessible to the public.

In the meantime, the leadership of the country should respect the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary, and end their control over it. Furthermore, this branch of government should be allocated adequate resources so that it can properly provide justice and protect human rights.

--

Lao Mong Hay is a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.) . Read more!

Canadian arrested in Cambodia on child sex charges

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: A Canadian man has been charged with sexually abusing two Cambodian girls, ages 10 and 12, and could face up to 13 years imprisonment if convicted, authorities said Wednesday.

Mok Pheang, a prosecutor in Sihanoukville province, said that Daniel Lavigne, 68, of Quebec province was charged Wednesday with having sexual intercourse and committing indecent acts with minors.

Police arrested Lavigne on Monday at the bus station in Sihanoukville town, said Soun Sophan, deputy police chief of the coastal city 185 kilometers (115 miles) southwest of Phnom Penh.

The suspect was headed to the capital, Phnom Penh, with the two girls, Soun Sophan said

The officer said Lavigne denied the charges, claiming that he treated the girls as his adopted daughters. But the girls told police that the Canadian had sexually molested them at a guesthouse.

Lax law enforcement and poverty have made Cambodia a prime destination for foreigners seeking sex with minors. However, police have in recent years stepped up efforts to fight the crime, and several foreigners are serving lengthy prison terms. Read more!

B.C. aid worker left for dead after Cambodia attack

Hun Sen regime is about violence and crimes. Especially, the local authority that people trusted the most are among criminals. Those authorities are the slave of the crimes and the riches. This kind of crime was usually associated with the local police officer and the drug addicts.

A B.C. man is fighting for his life in Cambodia after a violent mugging.

Darcy Wintonyk

Humanitarian worker Jiri Zivney was beaten, robbed and left for death January 9 in Phnom Penh outside a bank machine.

"As he was riding away on his motorbike, they clubbed him in the head and he crashed his bike," family friend Monty Aldoff tells CTV News.

The 46-year-old was transferred by ambulance to a hospital in the capital city, where he is listed in critical condition. Doctors are working to stabilize him so he can be brought back to Canada for treatment.

According to the International Humanitarian Hope Society, the Kamloops resident was in the country delivering medical supplies to orphans on behalf of their agency.

Zivney was on his 24th day of a humanitarian trip to China, Vietnam, Thailand and Burma. Most of the other team members returned to Canada after the Bangkok airport shutdown in November, but Zivney and another team member wanted to carry on by land.

A trust fund has been set up in Zivney's name at Valley First in Kamloops, B.C., Account # 610071571 (transit # 27310-809).

Read more!

Cambodia drafts law to regulate internet strictly

PHNOM PENH, The Cambodian Ministry of Information is drafting a law that will extend the libel, defamation and ethics rules currently governing print media to other media platforms, including Internet, national media said on Tuesday.

The law will be used to formalize content management rules so that they can be easily applied by future information ministers, the English-language daily The Phnom Penh Post quoted Information Minister Khieu Kanharith as saying.

"We are drafting the legislation in order to have a proper law to manage radio, television and other platforms," he said.

The recent explosion of media outlets of print media made the law necessary, he said, pointing to the increase in websites in recent years, as well as the growth in radio and television.

It is unknown when the draft law will be finished as much work needs to be done before it can be sent to the Council of Ministers for approval, he added.

Cambodia now has 9 aerial television channels, 60 cable channels, several satellite and Internet channels, and dozens of newspapers and magazines, according to official figures.

The number of websites remains unknown yet.
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Official denies delay of opening Cambodian stock market

PHNOM PENH, A Cambodian official denied media reports that the opening of stock exchange market has been delayed indefinitely due to the worsening global economic slowdown, English-language newspaper the Cambodia Daily said Tuesday.

"We didn't declare postponement of the stock exchange. I am sure it will open in 2009," Mey Vann, director of the Department of Finance Industry of the Ministry of Finance and Economy, was quoted as saying.

"We are working on it and there is no delay," he said, but decline to discuss the exact date.

On Monday, another English-language daily The Phnom Penh Post quoted Mey Vann as saying that "Cambodia has been affected by the global financial crisis, especially in terms of real estate and garment exports. Therefore, the plan to open our own stock market has been postponed, and no specific schedule is set for it."

The launch of the stock exchange market was originally scheduled for last September, with the South Korean Exchange providing funds and technical support.

As Cambodia's economy, one of the region's most vibrant, slowed to single-digit growth last year, the exchange's future was put in doubt, said The Phnom Penh Post.

Cambodia enjoyed consistent double-digit economic growth rate from 2005 to 2007, which fueled the government's ambition to upgrade its financial and capital market, and the establishment of a stock exchange market was just one of its major plans in this regard.
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U.S. to donate $600,000 in military aid for Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, The United States plans to donate more than 600,000 U.S. dollars in "non-lethal" military aid to Cambodia in 2009, national media on Tuesday quoted U.S. Embassy spokesman as saying.

The United States expects to give 635,000 U.S. dollars in aid toward countering transnational criminal activities, including anti-drug trafficking and demining programs, John Johnson told English-language newspaper the Cambodia Daily.

The aid encompasses an estimated 575,000 U.S. dollars in Foreign Military Funding, which is used to buy vehicles, protective gear as well as medical and communication equipment, and about 60,000 U.S. dollars in International Military Education and Training Funding, which is primarily for English-language education, he added.

The U.S. suspended military aid for Cambodia at the end of last century and lifted the restriction two years ago.

In 2008, it donated 1.5 million U.S. dollars in peacekeeper training, 1 million U.S. dollars in demining assistance, and nearly 3 million U.S. dollars in other humanitarian programs in the kingdom, according to the embassy.
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CAMBODIA: Malaria becoming deadlier

PAILIN, 13 January 2009 (IRIN) - A deadly strain of malaria along the Thai-Cambodian border is becoming increasingly immune to treatment, threatening the global effort to end malaria, new evidence shows.

Artemisinin combination therapy (ACT), whereby patients take both a fast-acting and slow-acting drug to kill the parasite, is losing its therapeutic effects as treatment is taking longer.

"We are facing a problem that instead of killing the parasite within 24 to 36 hours as before, ACT now needs up to 120 hours to kill the parasites," Pascal Ringwald, a medical officer at the World Health Organization (WHO), in charge of monitoring anti-malarial drug resistance, told IRIN from Geneva.

The parasite's resistance to Artemisinin, one of two drugs in ACT therapy, is the driving factor behind the deterioration of ACT.

Usually, doctors will prescribe Artemisinin with one of many slower-acting drugs.

Yet the problem is not only resistance to Artemisinin, which has existed since the 1970s, but rather tolerance to ACT, the more advanced therapy consisting of two drugs, Ringwald said. Artemisinin monotherapy refers to taking the drug alone and is not recommended by the WHO.

"Artemisinin resistance appears in parts of Southeast Asia where there has been rampant and uncontrolled use of Artemisinin monotherapy," Sir Richard Feachem, director of the Global Health Group at the University of California at San Francisco, told IRIN.

At one-tenth the price of ACT and without its adverse side-effects, such as vomiting, Artemisinin monotherapy continues to remain a popular choice for many.

However, if the threat is not contained, resistant malaria will spread through the region and hit poor communities in particular, Feachem warned.

Duong Socheat, director of the National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control in Phnom Penh, told IRIN that ACTs, outreach and prevention tools like mosquito nets had seen remarkable progress despite a tolerance threat. A total of 100,000 malaria cases were reported in 2006, falling to 59,000 in 2007 and 54,000 in 2008.

The malaria death rate has been halved in only two years – from 396 in 2006 to 241 in 2007 and 184 in 2008.

Containing the threat

At an emergency meeting in October, the WHO recommended a switch to a new ACT therapy called dihydroartemisinin–piperaquine (DHA-PIP) for 2009, which is virtually 100 percent effective according to new trial results in Cambodia.

The previous ACT treatment since 2001, artesunate mefloquine, is still 90 percent effective, but unpopular among at-risk populations that still use monotherapy despite the ban.

Merchants often sell cheap, counterfeit monotherapies in rural areas.

The WHO also recommended wider distribution of mosquito nets, stricter enforcement of the ban on monotherapies, and the rapid deployment of WHO-endorsed drugs.

Drug-resistant history

Yet malaria has been developing resistance to Artemisinin for decades, and ACT tolerance is only a new phase in the parasite's evolution.

Since the 1970s, factors such as gem-mining migrants from all over Southeast Asia mixing malaria strains at the Thai-Cambodia border, an unregulated drug market, and overuse of Artemisinin monotherapy have all caused plasmodium falciparum, a common malaria parasite in Cambodia, to develop resistance to the drug.

The government and WHO responded by endorsing ACT in 2001 and banning Artemisinin-only therapy. But even ACT, despite being more than 90 percent effective against malaria, will need to be adapted soon, Feachem said.

"Ensuring that Artemisinin is always given with another drug, in the form of ACT, is a clever use of a clever drug," Feachem said. "However, parasite resistance will eventually catch up with this, and for this reason the development of new drugs ... is of the utmost importance to the health of people worldwide."

Fake drugs and patients not complying with their treatment schedules are other factors.

"If people don't take their drugs regularly, then they will have problems with resistance," Hou Nirmita, head of the health department at the Ministry of Women's Affairs, told IRIN.

But Feachem, who thinks malaria could be eradicated worldwide by 2050, sees hope. "The challenge of drug resistance, and the fact that we can never prevent the development of resistance in the long term, provides a strong argument for the acceleration of elimination and control efforts now," he said.

"To delay or to implement programmes in a half-hearted manner is both expensive and dangerous,” he explained.

According to the WHO World Malaria report for 2008, half the world's population is at risk, and an estimated 247 million cases led to nearly one million deaths in 2006. Pregnant women and children in Africa are especially threatened, the WHO says. Read more!

Cambodian PM makes first Middle East visit

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has departed for oil-rich Kuwait in his first-ever visit to the Middle East, aimed at expanding business and trade ties.

Hun Sen was accompanied by a number of high-ranking government officials and business people as he left on the four-day trip on a plane provided by Kuwait.

"This visit will lead to the development in the future between Cambodia and Kuwait, and between Cambodia and other countries in the Middle East," Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told reporters.

During the visit, officials are scheduled to sign agreements on Kuwaiti technical aid to build a hydro-power plant, irrigation systems and roads in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, the minister said.

Officials will also agree to direct flights between the two nations to boost tourism, he said.

Hor Namhong, who is accompanying Hun Sen, said the premier would also hold discussions about rice, trade exchange and investments.

Kuwaiti premier Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Sabah visited Cambodia and inked trade deals last August, while Phnom Penh is also looking into land-lease agreements with Kuwait.

Kuwait granted Cambodia a 546-million-dollar agricultural loan in August in return for crop production.

Impoverished Cambodia has climbed back from decades of civil unrest to emerge as one of the region's most vibrant economies, attracting increasing foreign investment.

Cambodian officials have also said they hope Middle East governments will help train local experts on the petroleum industry, which is starting to take root after the discovery of offshore deposits.
Read more!

The Cham draw on their inner strength

By Paloma Esquivel
January 12, 2009
In the secluded courtyard of a weathered condominium complex, at the dead end of a graffiti-marred Santa Ana street, the Cham are busy preparing a summer feast.

Banana trees grow tall here, shadowing crowded stalks of lemon grass and green onion. Severed bits of a cow slaughtered in conformity with Islamic law fill bright blue plastic tubs. Nearby, women sit cross-legged, chatting and laughing; their strong hands grind fresh ginger in stone mortars.

Centuries ago, the Cham ruled over their own kingdom, known as Champa, along the coastline of what's now Vietnam. They were maritime traders whose first religion was a form of Hinduism, but they later adopted Islam. Today they are a people without a homeland, their numbers a few hundred thousand. For centuries, they have been chased from place to place -- from the highlands of Vietnam to the rivers of Cambodia and, in the bloody aftermath of genocide, to the United States, where thousands have settled.

In the margins of each place, they've come together.

So it is here, where a hundred Cham families live in this worn Santa Ana complex alongside Latinos, Laotians and Cambodians. In the middle of one of the city's most crime-infested neighborhoods, they have turned one apartment into a mosque and built a world centered on faith. In celebration, neighbors prepare feasts and share stories. In hardship, they share burdens, the cost of food and the cost of burial.

But even as they've struggled to keep their small community intact, the outside world has crept in. Some young people have turned to gangs and drugs. Others have packed their bags and fled. A few have drifted from the religion and language that shaped their youth. Now, when the call to prayer goes out, the mosque is filled mostly with elders and small children, as if those in the middle simply disappeared.

On the day of the feast to celebrate the beginning of Ramadan and the end of the Islamic school year, one man finds himself wanting to rebuild his ties.

Nasia Ahmanth doesn't properly speak Cham, which is similar to Malay. He rarely attends mosque and can't read the Arabic of the Koran. He rarely prays.

He was a baby when his father, El Ahmanth, led a village of Cham refugees here. But as the group put down roots, Nasia drifted, lured by the streets. By the time he was 17, he says, he was an addict and speed was his drug of choice. As it raced through his body, he felt unstoppable, light and creative at once.

Now he's 30 and, he says, sober. He has a son of his own and two years ago moved out of the neighborhood to distance himself from drug-using friends. Last year, though, when his father died, he found himself looking homeward, wanting to rebuild his ties to a community he feared was fading.

"I want my son to know what Cham is," he said.

Nasia had just been born when his family fled the Khmer Rouge's brutal reign in Cambodia in 1979. They went to Thailand, then to refugee camps in the Philippines before landing in Santa Ana.

With a few hundred dollars in refugee assistance, his father rented an apartment on Minnie Street, in a neighborhood ravaged by shootings and drugs. He sponsored 10 families living in refugee camps in Thailand who had also fled Cambodia, and before long those families were sponsoring more refugees.

Ghazaly Salim and his wife and daughters were among the first to arrive, coming at the senior Ahmanth's request after first landing in Houston.

Today Salim, 56, is a telephone installer who spends his off time organizing the mosque. He is something of a community patriarch. He values faith and piety above all, and, though it's not a Cham tradition, he wears a skullcap as a sign of fealty.

Decades ago, he was a religious student in Cambodia. Just before it was time to leave for the school, he went, house by house, to his neighbors. Each family gave him some rice to sell in the market so he could pay for school.

Sticking together "is what our grandfathers taught us," he said.

In Santa Ana, he found freedom and opportunity -- and more struggle.

Minnie Street runs parallel to Santa Ana's north-south railroad tracks, a place of squalor and danger. Over the years, it became a first stop for immigrant families: Latinos, followed by Cambodians and Laotians and then Cham. In this new home, windows were lined with bars. Paint peeled, cockroaches crawled on walls, and rodents scurried across the floors. Families packed 10 to an apartment.

In villages in Cambodia and Vietnam, the Cham had been renowned blacksmiths and rice farmers. In Santa Ana, they struggled to find work in packing plants, as janitors and on assembly lines for minimum wage.

Nasia's mother, Sani Karim, worked on an electronics assembly line. His father got a better job as a teacher's assistant at the nearby elementary school. Those who couldn't find work spent days sitting on the sidewalk or standing idly in doorways. At night, drug dealers could be heard whistling to warn others when police cars cruised by.

Even so, many of the Cham determined to build a mosque. Almost as soon as they arrived, they pooled their minimum-wage salaries and asked for help from local Arab Muslims. In three years they had enough to buy Building B-2, a dingy single-story unit with bars on the windows and a door that opens onto a concrete courtyard. Most moved into surrounding units; others rented nearby.

Five times a day, the call to prayer from B-2 sounds across the neighborhood. Inside, men line up on prayer rugs laid over a linoleum floor. Women, who don't go outside without covering their hair with scarves, go to a white-walled bedroom in the back for their own prayer.

For elders, the mosque and its courtyard are a refuge. But younger generations have struggled to navigate between their insular community and the world that surrounds them.

"You can only go to the mosque so much before you get tired of the uniformity," said Mogul Ahmanth, 35, Nasia's brother.

Here, it isn't difficult to find a different way of life.

Late last year, more than 200 heavily armed police and federal agents raided the condo complex. Eighteen people, mostly Latinos suspected of dealing heroin and cocaine for the Minnie Street Lopers, a local street gang, were dragged out in handcuffs. Inside apartments, agents found semiautomatic weapons and a bolt-action SKS carbine with a foldaway bayonet, popular with communist troops in Vietnam. Heroin, rock cocaine and 3 pounds of methamphetamine were also seized; some of the drugs had been stashed in tree trunks.

When he was young, Nasia's father would regale him with stories about the Cham. As a child he sometimes imagined his father's position of leadership in the community made him something of a Cham prince.

As they grew, the father advised his three young boys to go to mosque and talk to the elders. Get involved in their discussions, he told them. Help with small things -- moving chairs, cleaning up, organizing events.

"You need to learn to walk before you can run," he said.

Nasia rejected his father's way of life in favor of the one he saw friends adopting. In junior high, he joined a group of Cambodian and Laotian homeboys in a tagging crew. In high school they became a gang. They never did anything too bad, he insists. But there was alcohol, then pot. Eventually, he found himself in the bathroom of a friend's Minnie Street apartment, inhaling his first line of speed. Addiction seemed to come quickly.

He remembers going home before dawn one day, his pupils dilated, his teeth grinding.

His father stared at him. "I know what you're up to."

The man who believed Nasia would grow up to be an architect, who imagined he would help lead the Cham, looked at his son and walked away.

A short time later, the son packed his belongings and left for Delaware, where a friend lived. He worked as a machine operator for four years, until he knew he could go home without turning back to drugs. He returned four years ago.

But the community regards him with suspicion. Although he considers himself a Muslim, he admits he doesn't embrace regular prayer or other tenets of the faith.

"Religion is the way of life," said Salim, the community leader. "You have to know religion to lead. You have to know what to teach."

Even so, when Nasia's father died last year, the urge to embrace his community grew stronger.

The Cham stories his father told him when he was younger have stayed with him; they hold a power over him. He believes that one day the Cham might have their own homeland again.

Recently, his father's advice about volunteering to help, about learning to walk before running, has echoed in his mind.

He began talking to Mathsait Ly, an older cousin, about helping, and he persisted until Ly gave him a chance. This year, Ly asked him to join the Cham board of directors as event coordinator, making him its youngest member. He would serve as master of ceremonies at the feast marking the beginning of Ramadan and the end of the Islamic school year.

The day of the feast, elders woke early to roast sweet marinated meat; women made rice, cauliflower and pickled carrots sliced thin as paper.

A few men tended fresh meat grilling over hot coals. Others lifted a giant aluminum pot full of boiling tripe onto a gas fire. Someone had tagged a giant red face with Xs for eyes on a condominium wall.

Salim and Ly scuttled about, giving directions and watching over the celebration.

Nasia showed up a few hours late -- about 10 a.m. The others had been up before dawn.

"I went to a movie last night," he said, smiling apologetically.

Inside the mosque, he nervously paced on prayer rugs, his shiny black hair combed back neatly. A group of graduating students shuffled in place, tugging at stiff shirts and long robes.

Nasia glanced at a speech he'd written for the crowd gathering outside. He clicked the end of his pen over and over again, reading aloud, tripping over unfamiliar Arabic words.

When he took to the stage, his voice hardly registered, despite the microphone in front of him.

"This day is about coming together to celebrate the end of Ramadan," he said -- though it marked the start of the traditional month of fasting. No one seemed to notice the slip.

"This," Nasia Ahmanth said, "is the day where parents become proud of their child." Read more!

Rights & Wrongs: Cambodia, Ethiopia, DRC and More

CAMBODIA MARKS ANNIVERSARY, BUT NO CLOSURE -- Cambodia marked the 30th anniversary of the demise of the Khmer Rouge regime Jan. 7 with memorials for the suffering of millions. But the country remains haunted by the knowledge that perpetrators of Cambodia's greatest crime have yet to stand trial for their crimes.

Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime held sway over Cambodia from 1975-1979, a period in which millions of Cambodians died from torture, overwork, starvation and executions. In early 1979, a joint Vietnamese-Cambodian force toppled the regime, bringing in a new government largely beholden to its Vietnamese allies. Some Cambodians object to celebrating the date's anniversary, as it ushered in a decade of restrictive Vietnamese control, while others mark it as the close to Cambodia's darkest chapter.

The celebrations contained no public recognition of the lingering frustration and confusion over the government's failure so far to try any of the people responsible for the Khmer Rouge's worst atrocities, despite the efforts of a United Nations-backed tribunal designed to do so.

Many of the Khmer Rouge's most notorious leaders have passed away, including Pol Pot, who died in 1998. But five central figures of the regime's murderous campaigns have been indicted by the court and are awaiting trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Kang Kek Ieu (better known as "Duch"), who commanded the infamous S-21 torture center in Phnom Penh where 15,000 prisoners -- nearly everyone who entered the facility -- died, may be the first to go on trial in March.

Rights groups and opposition politicians have questioned the tribunal's ability to conduct its operations free from political influence, raising the specter of a government unwilling to let the trials proceed due to fears some of its cadres might be implicated during the process.

"After 30 years, no one has been tried, convicted or sentenced for the crimes of one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century. This is no accident. For more than a decade, China and the United States blocked efforts at accountability, and for the past decade Hun Sen has done his best to thwart justice," Brad Adams, Asia Director for Human Rights Watch said in a press release.

NEW ETHIOPIA LAW ANGERS RIGHTS ADVOCATES -- The Ethiopian government is coming under fire from rights groups and aid organizations over a new law that severely restricts the aid community's ability to address the health- and rights-related concerns of the Ethiopian population.

"The law's repressive provisions are believed to be an attempt by the Ethiopian government to conceal human rights violations, stifle critics and prevent public protest of its actions ahead of expected elections in 2010," Amnesty International said in a statement urging donor governments to condemn the legislation and monitor its implementation.

Parliament endorsed the law, which restricts the operations of any foreign group working on issues related to gender equality, children's rights, disabled rights, conflict resolution and criminal justice, on Jan. 6. Any domestic non-governmental organization receiving more than 10 percent of its funding from international sources will be subject to the same restrictions.

Opposition politicians and rights advocates predict as many as 95 percent of the 3,500 organizations working in Ethiopia will be forced to close their operations as a result of the law, and worry that the government will use the law as a means of control. The law's backers said no organizations would be closed but instead be required to fund and source their operations locally.
Ethiopia, desperately poor and facing yet another famine, is one of the world's largest donor recipients.

SENEGALESE GAY COMMUNITY REELS IN WAKE OF SENTENCES -- Senegalese judicial authorities sentenced nine gay men to jail terms of eight years each on charges of conspiracy and unnatural acts, Jan. 8. The decision, the first of its kind in Senegal, outraged gay rights groups and rattled a community already living in fear of punitive laws.

As Rights & Wrongs previously reported, dozens of countries around the world have laws criminalizing homosexual relations and a recent attempt by the United Nations General Assembly to reaffirm gay rights garnered mixed results. Senegal, considered one of Islamic Africa's most tolerant countries, has been commended in recent years for its advances on rights protection in general, but has been susceptible to rising anti-gay sentiment across the African continent.

SECURITY COUNCIL APPLAUDED FOR CONGO RESOLUTION -- Global Witness commended the United Nations Security Council last week for recent resolutions to prevent the financial exploitation of the Democratic Republic of Congo's resources to fuel conflict and human rights abuses there.

Human rights groups including Global Witness, which focuses exclusively on resource usage and international trade systems, have been raising concerns over the relationship between resources and conflict in the DRC for the better part of a decade.

The resolutions, passed by the UNSC on Dec. 22, give the U.N. peacekeeping force in the DRC the authority to "use its monitoring and inspection capacities to curtail the provision of support to illegal armed groups derived from illicit trade in natural resources," and provides for sanctions on any entity facilitating the operations of illegal armed groups through trade in resources.

Mining and sales of cassiterite (tin ore), gold, coltan (an essential component of mobile phones) and wolframite (from which tungsten is derived) are among the activities that fund armed groups in the area.

Recent violence in the DRC has forced more than 250,000 people from their homes, in addition to more than 1 million displaced by previous conflagrations. Rights abuses against the civilian population have been all too common. In particular, widespread use of rape as a weapon has reached epidemic proportions in DRC, with aid workers calling the situation the worst in the world. No one knows for sure how many women have been brutalized and estimates range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

Juliette Terzieff is a journalist who specializes in human rights. Her WPR column, Rights & Wrongs, appears every other Monday.
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Lessons from Cambodia

By Roger Phillips
Record Staff Writer

STOCKTON - There was a photograph of a rural house that sits on stilts to protect it from flooding. There was a picture of a savory plate of noodles and vegetables cooked by a street vendor, a healthy dinner for 75 cents. And there was a photo of a traffic jam in Phnom Penh that looked as congested as anything one might find driving through rush-hour traffic on Interstate 205.

This was part of what Katie Schubert spoke of during her 35-minute slide show Sunday afternoon on Cambodia to about 150 congregants at Central United Methodist Church.

Schubert, 30, also was spreading the word about the purpose of the three months she spent in Cambodia late last year. The Stockton native who attended Central Methodist as a child was in the Southeast Asian country working for the nonprofit agency Project Against Domestic Violence. The organization held a 16-day anti-violence campaign leading up to world Human Rights Day on Dec. 10.

"People often think (domestic violence is caused by) alcohol or poverty," Schubert told her audience. "Those aggravate it, but they aren't the causes. It's really about aggression and power."

Schubert made her presentation as audience members lunched on egg rolls and other foods prepared by some of Central Methodist's Cambodian congregants.

During her stay in Cambodia, Schubert said she and her group visited villages and held forums to educate citizens about the effects of domestic violence. Schubert - who is pursuing a doctoral degree in ethics from the Claremont School of Theology in Southern California - said she is particularly interested in finding ways to use religion to empower women.

Though she comes at the subject from a Christian perspective, one of the photographs she showed was of three Buddhist nuns in largely Buddhist Cambodia. She said the nuns are active in teaching their country-men about human rights.

Toward the end of her program, Schubert fielded a few questions from the audience. Asked to describe her best experience on her journey, she said it was finding ways to communicate with citizens in Cambodian, a language in which she is not fluent.

Her worst experience, she said, was bargaining with merchants. She said she focused on trying to negotiate fair prices, but in retrospect the process made her feel "terrible."

"Take a couple of steps back," said Schubert. "My quality of life is great. I have so much more. ... I felt terrible about the inequality." Read more!

Cambodian court charges suspected mastermind of bomb plots with terrorism

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Phnom Penh Municipal Court here on Monday charged Sam Ek, the suspected mastermind of two foiled bomb plots in the city, with conducting terrorism acts and illegal recruitment of armed people.

The court will make further investigation and Ek will receive his sentence in around two weeks.

Cambodian police arrested the 48-year-old man and his three subordinates on Jan. 7 in Banteay Meanchey province.

Ek had confessed to police that he produced and laid explosive devices near the Ministry of National Defense and the state-run TV3 Station on Jan. 2, 2009, and also did the same thing near the Cambodian-Vietnamese Friendship Monument in 2007.

On both occasions, specialists detonated the bombs, without causing any damage and casualty.

In addition, Ek had created his anarchic and illegal army with tiger head as its logo and carried out some anti-government activities in Modulkiri and Koh Kong provinces in the past years, according to the police.

The suspect was a former soldier and also expert of using chemical substances to make explosive devices.
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Cambodian premier says he will attend ASEAN summit

Phnom Penh - Cambodia's prime minister will attend next month's summit of the Association of Sout East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in neighboring Thailand despite hinting last week he would boycott the meeting, media reports said Monday.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said last week that attending this year's series of ASEAN meetings would be too costly and time consuming, but Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told The Phnom Penh Post newspaper that the premier definitely would attend.

'I would like to confirm that Prime Minister Hun Sen will attend the ASEAN meeting in Hua Hin, Thailand, from February 27 to 28 and March 1,' Hor Namhong said.

The meeting was originally scheduled for mid-December 2008 but was postponed and relocated due to ongoing domestic political turmoil in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

Tensions between Thailand and Cambodia have been simmering since July last year when a border dispute at an ancient Hindu temple erupted into a brief military skirmish.. Read more!

This Hyphenated Life / 30 years after revolution, Cambodia is blossoming with tikkun olam

I recently returned from spending Hanukah in Cambodia, a place so remote that even Chabad has not yet ventured there.

How can a country known for man at his very worst - genocide, land mines, sex trade, acid throwing etc. - be a source of hope and inspiration?

Looking back at my whirlwind trip last month, which included a meeting with the country's young and personable king, as well as Khmer Rouge survivors, former street children and even local Muslims, an answer begins to emerge.
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Amidst the squalor and heart-wrenching beggars (Cambodia is still one of the poorest countries in Asia), Phnom Penh is bustling with throngs of smiling people - often three and four on one moped.

It's especially remarkable that a city which had all its residents forcibly evacuated to the country side by the world's most radical communist regime in the mid 70s, is now home to an uptick in foreign trade and investment, a real estate boom, gentrified French colonial buildings with hip new restaurants, and even a recent glowing profile in the travel section of the New York Times.

While veteran western visitors barely recognize the place, from my newbie perspective, Phnom Penh has retained its indigenous charm and has not yet been overrun by crass commercialism. A sign that reads 'KFC coming soon' is a warning that?s about to change.

In the meantime, speaking of signs, you have to look hard to find any outward evidence of Jewish life. In total I spotted one Zim container, one homemade Israeli flag proudly flying among a row of flags along the Mekong River, and a pair of loud Hebrew speaking tourists (I'm being redundant).

Seriously, it's hard not to see the country from a very Jewish perspective. It starts with our shared experience of mass murder.

January 11th marks the 30th anniversary of the overthrow of Cambodia from the brutal forces of Pol Pot - although I was reminded that he and his troops continued to haunt the country from the periphery basically until his death in 1998. Countless comparisons to the Holocaust have been made before and for good reason.

If you haven't heard it, add the name, Tuol Sleng to Auschwitz, Bergen Belson, etc. It was the notorious prison and torture center set in a former high school in the middle of an ordinary suburban neighborhood and more than the swaying palm trees and barbed wire remain.

Not the polished floors and multimedia video displays that you'll find at Yad VaShem and the Holocaust Museums, instead clearly underfunded and understaffed with bullet marked walls, cracked tiles, shackles, and pictures of the familiar yet haunting stares of the victims.

You don't need to go to museums to hear the stories. "My father was a math teacher and for that he was murdered by the Khmer Rouge," said our tour guide as he took us through the amazingly beautiful historical ruins of Angkor Wat. A wonderful Cambodian woman returning to visit her native country, told us how her younger brother and father disappeared and that she ate rats to survive before fleeing to the US.

Yet, like Israel after the Holocaust, something special is starting to emerge out of the ashes and there is much more to the link between our peoples than genocide.

If there was an international capital for Tikkun Olam (repairing the world), aka a lab for social entrepreneurship in '08/09, this is it. Here's a glimpse of what I saw:

Eat at Friends (and scores of other cause related restaurants and shops) and have gourmet like cuisine cooked and served by former street children.

Visit the country's first dormitory for women college students built by author and MIT Professor Alan Lightman and his Harpswell Foundation (I'm honored to be on their advisory board).

Meet a Cambodian ex-pat who is providing much needed psychological counseling to a country with only a handful of mental health professionals.

See T-shirts and bumper stickers urging protection for Cambodia?s children from horrific cases of pedophilia.

Sit in a newly constructed mosque, as we did, speaking to Cham Muslims (one of the most persecuted groups under the Khmer Rouge) who are shunned by the Islamic world for embracing a moderate religious practice that would make most of us think of Reform Judaism.

Make no mistake about it, this progress is both nascent, and given the country's history and continued challenges, precarious too.

My wife and I joined five others, who are much more active than we are in helping turn Cambodia around, in an hour long meeting at the royal palace with the gracious and impressive King of Cambodia. When leaving he made a point of both thanking us for our support and expressing "the need your continued help."

While I didn't have the chance to explain the significance of the Hanukkiah we gave to King Sihamoni as a gift, later in the day I was able to play the role of Jewish emissary.

'Nes Gadol Haya Sham' (A Big Miracle Happened There) I wrote in Hebrew on the white board for students at the Harpswell Foundation's dormitory, using the familiar motto of Hanukkah.

These young women were screened and selected for their intelligence, ambition and leadership abilities. They arrived from poor rural areas and only a year or two ago first saw running water, let alone a computer, and are now ranked at the top of their respective classes at the country?s most prestigious universities.

'Nes Gadol Haya Sham' these 35 young Cambodian women enthusiastically repeated.
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Dutch Cambodia trial lawyers claim intimidation

Can you believe what is going on in Khmer Rouge Court? Cambodia is Khmer Rouge country, especially the majority of Top government officials were former Khmer Rouge. The criminals are always in a moving forward, even the judges in the UN-backed tribunal are among crooked criminals. what is the future of this hybrid tribunal going to hold for?

Two Dutch lawyers representing a former Khmer Rouge leader at the war crimes trial in Cambodia say they feel intimidated by the judges in the Cambodia tribunal. The lawyers, Victor Koppe and Michiel Pestman, have told Radio Netherlands Worldwide that the judges are threatening legal action against them because they are attempting to expose corrupt practices at the tribunal.

Mr Koppe and Mr Pestman say judges and other court personnel had to buy their appointments by handing over a significant part of their salaries to government officials. The lawyers raised the matter with the Cambodian government, but no action was taken. They then lodged a complaint with a Phnom Penh court. However the judges have threatened to counter with their own legal action, saying the lawyers' complaint was damaging the reputation of the war crimes tribunal.

The two lawyers are representing "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders due to stand trial. Read more!

PM Abhisit confident Cambodia's Hun Sen will attend ASEAN

BANGKOK, Jan 10 (TNA) -- Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is confident that all the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries, including Cambodia, will attend the group's summit to be held in Thailand's Hua Hin resort late next month.

Mr. Abhisit said what his Cambodian counterpart said was probably a suggestion that the ASEAN summit should be held concurrently with the group's dialogue partners, whom the Thai government had already informed of the necessary to hold the summit first as several agreements must be jointly signed by ASEAN leaders.

The Cambodian leader has been contacted and he has confirmed that he will attend the ASEAN summit February 27-March 1 in Hua Hin.

Mr. Abhisit announced on Wednesday that his coalition government had decided to move the summit to Hua Hin, southwest of Bangkok, instead of the capital, to avoid possible disruption by anti-government protesters threatening to interfere with he summit.

Due to complications, ASEAN's meeting with its dialogue partners --China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand -- is now expected to be held in April with an as yet undetermined venue, Mr. Abhisit said.

Despite confirmation by the Thai government leader that his Cambodian counterpart will attend the summit, Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said in Phnom Penh on Friday that Mr. Hun Sen may not attend the ASEAN summit because it would be costly and difficult for him to attend.

Also, the spokesman said talks with China, Japan and South Korea were critical because they are expected to give US$80 billion in regional aid to reduce short-term liquidity problems, in line with the so-called Chiang Mai initiatives agreed following the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Thailand presently holds the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN, which groups it with Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. (TNA) Read more!

Vietnam-Cambodia trade hit US$1.7 billion in 2008

Two-way trade between Vietnam and Cambodia hit nearly US$1.7 billion in 2008, an increase of US$400 million from a year earlier, according to the Vietnamese Trade office in Phnom Penh.
Of the total figure, Vietnam exported US$1.45 billion worth of goods to Cambodia, the office said on January 10.

Between 2004-08, the volume of Vietnamese goods exported to the neighbouring country increased by 40 percent annually and the export value rose fivefold compared to the import value.

The leading export staples to Cambodia in 2008 were building steel, agricultural machines, fertilisers, plant pesticides, household utensils, farm produce, milk, seafood and petrol. Seafood products made up 80 percent of Cambodia’s market share, followed by building steel (68 percent) and farm produce (67 percent).

Cambodian exports were mostly wooden products, rubber latex, grains, unprocessed cashew nuts, tobacco and cassava.

By late 2008, 120 Vietnamese businesses opened their representative offices and showrooms in Cambodia.

Currently, Vietnam is Cambodia’s 10th largest foreign investor, with 19 licensed projects capitalised at US$228 million. Read more!

Former Lodi woman ready to help on a missionary trip to Cambodia

By Ross Farrow

nurse who is a fourth-generation Lodian is traveling to Cambodia to help child prostitutes and those who work for low wages in garment and other industries.

Nannette Grinnell, 58, will spend most of the next two years helping impoverished Cambodians with their basic needs. In the process, she will introduce them to Christianity in a land she describes as 99-percent Buddhist.

"She's just an unusual person and outstanding," said Arilee Pollard, a family friend from Lodi.

Working through Operation Mobilization, Grinnell will join missionaries from throughout the world in helping the poor on her mission.

"It was a lifelong dream to do it, but I never had the opportunity," said Grinnell, who spent the past week visiting her mother, Betty Grinnell, in Lodi.

Grinnell has been a registered nurse for 35 years, including two years at Stockton's Dameron Hospital before taking a similar position at Kaiser Permanente in South Sacramento in 2007. She moved to Texas six months ago to stay with her grown daughter before going overseas.

After training, Grinnell will focus primarily on children, some of whom haven't reached puberty, who are victims of the sex industry and labor practices in other fields that would violate American child labor laws.

"It's culturally accepted there," she said.

Grinnell said she will enter an environment where many mothers have died of AIDS, leaving their children to be raised by grandparents or other legal guardians with no income. That's how children become exploited in sex, garment or other industries, she said.

The plan calls for missionaries to develop relationships with grandparents and guardians, provide parenting classes and place children in a day-care center so their guardians can go to work.

"We can't change the (Cambodian) government, and we can't change their economic status, but we can give them the hope of Jesus, because that's the only hope," Grinnell said.

Additionally, she plans to use her nursing training to get families plugged into whatever medical help is available.

Going overseas for two years may be quite an undertaking, but Grinnell is excited to go.

"It's not really an interest; it's a call of my life," she said. "I'm an evangelist at heart, and I have a passion to share the gospel. I have a real passion for children to develop a foundation for the Word of God."

She took month-long missionary trips to Mexico in 1998 and India in 2000. But Grinnell said she wanted to commit herself for a longer period of time.

"I told God I would go wherever He needed me, and the doors kept opening to Cambodia," she said.

Although many missionaries are right out of college, Operation Mobilization is attracting older people — even retirees, Grinnell said.

Grinnell was born in Lodi and grew up in Placerville. She returned to Lodi in 2004 to take the Dameron Hospital position.

She came to Lodi a week ago from Texas to visit her mother, Betty Grinnell, and tie up some loose ends, like selling her car and her other possessions.

Grinnell will spend two weeks at a conference in Germany, where missionaries from around the world will take cultural training, pray for each other and give encouragement. Then she'll head to Operation Mobilization's Singapore headquarters for more training.

On Feb. 4, she will arrive to Cambodia, where she will spend three months learning the national language — Khmer. Its alphabet has 96 letters, and they're different from letters in the English language. Then she'll begin her missionary work.

When she returns in two years, Grinnell said she hopes to minister to the large Cambodian populations in Stockton and Sacramento. Read more!

Four arrested in Cambodian bomb plot

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodian authorities have arrested four men on suspicion of planting three bombs around the capital last week, a senior police officer said Saturday.

Deputy national police commissioner Sok Phal told reporters that one of the four alleged plotters was 44-year-old Som Ek, a dual Cambodian-Thai national who had previously worked as a Cambodian military policeman.

"He (Som Ek) told the police that his bomb plot was to bring attention to the group inside and outside the country, so he could extort money," Sok Phal said.

"This is just some kind of business just to rob or extort money," he added.

He said Som Ek had been arrested on Wednesday and told authorities that his group was backed by people outside Cambodia.

The deputy police commissioner gave no further details on the alleged group or other three suspects.

No one was harmed in the bomb plot in which police found three explosive devices on January 2 planted near the Ministry of National Defence and a television station.

Mine clearance personnel destroyed the bombs later that day.
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