BANGKOK, Jan 23 (TNA) - Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya will make an official visit to Cambodia next week for the first time since taking his post in December, a senior official said on Friday.
Mr. Pisanu Suvanajata, deputy director of the Department of East Asian Affairs, confirmed Mr. Kasit's visit to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, scheduled for Sunday and Monday (January 25-26) at the invitation of Hor Namhong, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
In addition, during the two-day trip, the Thai foreign minister is scheduled to make a courtesy visit to His Majesty Preah Bat Samdech Preah Boromneath Norodom Sihamoni, King of Cambodia.
He will also meet high-ranking Cambodian officials including Senate President Chea Sim, National Assembly President Heng Samrin, Prime Minister Hun Sen and meet with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong.
In addition to introducing himself, Mr. Kasit will reaffirm Thailand's readiness to host next month's Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN) summit in Hua Hin to senior Cambodian officials.
He will also meet with Foreign Minister Hor Namhong regarding the Thailand-Cambodia border situation, in particular the disputed Preah Vihear area, in a bid to strengthen bilateral relations and to alleviate any problems by peaceful and sincere means.
Mr. Pisanu added that the Thai-Cambodian Joint Boundary Commission (JBC) is working on resolving the Preah Vihear dispute. The JBC will meet on the issue in early February in Bangkok. (TNA)
Read more!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Thai FM to officially visit Cambodia next week
Extending a hand to Cambodia
Future Cambodia Fund director Kylie Tattersall in Andong, a settlement outside Phnom Penh. She holds a girl whose father was shot dead over a $US2.50 debt. Photo: H Shipp
TODAY is a relatively pleasant day in Andong, a settlement just outside Phnom Penh. The sun is peeking through wispy cloud, and nearby rice paddies are dotted with soaring palm trees. There are bubbling green pools of fetid filth under the small, stilted huts, malnourished children with bloated stomachs wander vacantly, and groups of possibly rabid dogs eye off visitors.
But, reflects sometime Melburnian Kylie Tattersall, it's sometimes much, much worse. "It pours down in the rainy season. Within two minutes you've got black raw sewage up round your knees and children running through that … I've been in it myself."
Tattersall is one of about 2500 Australians working in Cambodia, many of them in aid and development. Three decades after the overthrow of dictator
Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge forces, Cambodia is still recovering. Pol Pot's rule, synonymous with the deconstruction of Cambodian society and the atrocities of the Killing Fields, was followed by 18 years of civil strife — the legacy of which still lies buried across the country in the form of more than 4 million landmines.
An inescapable reminder of the chaos that has plagued the country, the hidden munitions have killed more than 19,400 people and injured countless more in the past 14 years, according to the Cambodia Mine/UXO Victim Information System.
Above the surface, there are other problems. This remains a country in which only 16 per cent of rural dwellers have access to a toilet, more than 12,000 children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases, and gross national income is just $US490 ($A750) per capita.
Tattersall describes how more than 5000 Cambodians were forcibly evicted from their Phnom Penh homes in June 2006, driven 22 kilometres out of the city and deposited on the barren, undeveloped patch of land where they now live. Like many Phnom Penh residents, most did not have legal land title; that system fell off the rails in 1975 after Pol Pot evacuated the city and sent its former residents to work — and die — in the countryside.
Shown the road by developers and their hired guns, Andong's poor are just some of the 30,000 Amnesty International says have been evicted in Phnom Penh since 2003.
Gradually, however, the country is finding its feet, assisted in part by the Australian Government and a willing body of everyday Australians such as Tattersall.
"Some people explain (Andong) like a refugee camp, but without all the assistance," says Tattersall. "It's effectively a dumping ground. There's no sanitation, there's nothing." Save for one small enclosure, 100 metres from the edge of the slum and just across the village's "shitting field", the place reeks of despair.
But even in Andong — amid chronic disease, malnutrition and violence — there is hope. This small, fenced enclosure is "Happy Garden", a sanctuary created by Australian charity Future Cambodia Fund (FCF) for Andong's young. In any other setting, the learning complex, playing field, playground, hard court, water wells and toilets would barely raise an eyebrow. Here, the tiny compound is everything the local children could want — an escape from reality.
The centre, now managed by Tattersall, was founded by another Australian, Leigh Mathews, also of Melbourne. Named Young Victorian of the Year late last year for her efforts in establishing FCF, Mathews is now a finalist in the Australian of the Year awards, to be announced in Canberra tomorrow.
Mathews formed FCF in 2004 after stopping in Cambodia on the way home from a working holiday in the UK. "I was deeply affected by Cambodia when I got to Siem Reap (in the country's north-west)," she says. "I hadn't been exposed to that type of poverty before."
The newly formed charity started by running a street clinic in Siem Reap and then began a program providing support for children with neurological problems. Then, in April 2007, Mathews visited Andong. "I was absolutely horrified … People were living under tarps with just pieces of cardboard and reeds. (Andong) had been there almost a year and it looked like it had been set up a week."
Future Cambodia Fund focused on alleviating the trauma of displacement. Happy Garden now caters for 100 to 180 children at a time, with staff engaging them in sports, learning, health and creative activities; on the day of this visit, the youngsters are putting on a musical performance. With a car battery powering the stereo, the young boys and girls — faces heavy with make-up — sing and dance for the audience.
One of the smaller Australian NGOs in Cambodia, FCF operates on a yearly budget of about $US50,000 ($A76,000). At the other end of the spectrum is development agency CARE Australia, running on about $US9 million a year. Funded by government aid programs and private initiatives, CARE has been working in Cambodia since 1990 in areas including agricultural development, mine removal, crisis management, health and education.
In Pailin, a remote district in the far west of the country, South Australian agriculture adviser Greg Secomb is the only Westerner living in the district. Secomb points to a 29-kilometre road built last year under CARE management and funded by AusAID to the tune of $US600,000. Unremarkable to any Western observer, the graded, red-earth road — signposted with a small Australian Government insignia — has changed lives, he says.
"There's a lot of pride in that road. You're out in the middle of Woop Woop and you see that (Australian) logo and you know the impact it's made for thousands of people."
Travel times to schools and hospitals have been cut from eight hours to three in some instances, and where farmers once had their prices beaten down by middlemen, they can now take their own produce to market and receive a fair price.
Elsewhere, at the village of Ou Chheukroam, Village Development Committee chief Chhim Chhon points out an area of 123,000 square metres. Cleared by CARE Australia under a previous program, the area was found to contain 428 anti-personnel mines, one anti-tank mine and 110 pieces of unexploded ordnance.
Farmed by starving, desperate villagers before it was cleared of mines, the minefield took five lives and maimed more than 20 others, Chhim says. Now, the land is covered with crops, and children and livestock can wander where they please. Bright blue plastic water pumps are scattered through the village and Chhim is halfway through building a frog farm with the assistance of CARE.
Working with 2654 families in just this region, CARE's activities include providing frog and fish farms, allocating land tenure, offering microfinance, setting up village councils, training in rice production and crop rotation, installing water pumps and building infrastructure.
The alternative — removing the mines and walking away — leaves villagers ill equipped to farm their land and vulnerable to land-grabbers.
Through AusAID, Australia contributed $60.7 million to development in Cambodia last year, making it the country's fourth-largest bilateral donor.
Professor David Chandler, a Cambodia scholar at Monash University, says Australia was one of the first nations to enter the state in 1989, following Vietnam's withdrawal. In the ensuing years, Hawke government foreign minister Gareth Evans was instrumental in setting up the Paris Peace Accords of 1991 in what was "a very much-Australian led" process, Chandler says. The accords paved the way for UN-sponsored democratic elections in May 1993, a key moment in the nation's history.
Today, well over 100 Australians are working in volunteer programs at any one time. Anna Olsen, 28, of Collingwood, has just finished an 18-month contract with Australian Volunteers International, which placed her with the Ministry of Women. "I loved it," she says. "I really like living in Phnom Penh and it sounds kind of twee, but I like the people."
As technical assistant to the minister, Olsen organised meetings, helped in policy formation and negotiated the tangled business practices that have led Transparency International to rank Cambodia the equal 12th-most corrupt nation in the world.
Australian Volunteers International country manager Mary Flood says the group has placed more than 270 volunteers in Cambodia since the dark days of the early 1980s. Fifteen to 20 highly qualified Australians represent it in roles across the country at any one time. "We have staggeringly good people wanting to come here," Flood says. There appears to be no shortage of Australians wanting to fill Olsen's boots.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Expert calls for Cambodian gov't to lower bank reserve rate
PHNOM PENH, The government must lower the reserve rate of banks so that financial institutions can loan more money and fuel the economy in the grips of a financial slowdown, national media reported on Thursday.
The National Bank of Cambodia, in an attempt to lower inflation and cool the lending market, began requiring in May 2008 that banks double their reserves from 8 to 16 percent of all their foreign currency.
"Inflation is coming down particularly in food and energy costs(since December 2008) and now the danger is the economy slowing down, so at some stage (the government) might relax some of its policies on credit squeezing," English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily quoted John Brinsden, vice president of the Acleda Bank, as saying.
.
The reserve rate has significantly cut Acleda's ability to issue loans, he said, adding that outstanding loans at Acleda grew just 5 percent in the last six months of 2008 after the central bank doubled the reserve rate.
Prior to that, in the first six months of 2008, outstanding loans at Acleda grew 50 percent to more than 450 million U.S. dollars, he said.
"We just do not have the funds we would like (available)," he added.
The Cambodian economy enjoyed double-digit increase during the 2005-2007 period, but down to below 10 percent in 2008 and will further slide to around 5 percent in 2009, according to the forecasts by experts and international financial institutions.
Read more!
Cambodian armed forces commander fired
The head of Cambodia's armed forces was dismissed from his post Thursday and replaced with a longtime loyalist of Prime Minister Hun Sen with whom he served in the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.
A royal decree announced the removal of Gen. Ke Kim Yan, the commander in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, who was replaced by his deputy, Gen. Pol Saroeun.
No reason was given for the move. Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said it was a normal reshuffle, which was initiated by the government.
After Ke Kim Yan, 53, failed to support Hun Sen's 1997 coup against then co-Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh, he was marginalized and left without any real power. He was threatened several times with dismissal by the prime minister, whose control of the country is virtually unchallenged.
Ke Kim Yan joined the Cambodian armed forces in 1979 and became its head in 1999. Politically he allied himself with Hun Sen's rivals in the ruling Cambodian People's Party leadership.
Pol Saroeun, meanwhile, is known to have close ties to Hun Sen. Both served during the communist Khmer Rouge regime that took power in 1975, and both fled the murderous group before it was ousted in 1979.
Several other top members of the ruling Cambodian People's Party are also former members of the Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies are widely considered responsible for the deaths of at least 1.7 million people though execution, starvation, overwork and starvation. Several members are the regime have been charged with war crimes at a U.N.-backed genocide tribunal.
Read more!
Cambodia opposition seeks Obama's help in murder probe
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodia's opposition leader Thursday urged US President Barack Obama to help find the killers of a prominent union boss, as hundreds of people gathered to mark five years since his murder.
Chea Vichea, who headed the country's largest labour union and was a vocal critic of Prime Minister Hun Sen's government, was gunned down at a Phnom Penh newsstand on January 22, 2004.
The daylight murder shocked Cambodia and badly fractured the country's nascent workers' movement. It was condemned by rights groups as a brutal attempt to silence opposition-linked unions.
"I beg US President Barack Obama to help Cambodian people find the criminals to bring them to justice," opposition leader Sam Rainsy told a crowd Thursday at the spot where Chea Vichea was shot.
The politician marched through Phnom Penh with some 300 garment workers and unionists to place wreaths and light incense sticks at the newsstand.
Sam Rainsy criticised authorities for failing to arrest the real culprits, but said he hoped that a "push from outside" would bring "change" in the case of Chea Vichea's murder over the next year.
Cambodia's highest court late last month provisionally released two men convicted of killing Chea Vichea and ordered the case to be re-tried, citing unclear evidence.
The two men, Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, had been arrested just days after the union chief's 2004 death, convicted of murder and quickly sentenced to 20 years each in prison.
The United States and UN welcomed the decision by the court to order a retrial. International and local rights watchdogs had called the conviction and trial deeply flawed and said the true perpetrators remained at large.
But two other labour leaders have also been murdered since Chea Vichea's killing, in an escalation of attacks against workers' rights advocates.
Their deaths cast a pall over Cambodia's key garment industry, with several major clothing labels warning the government that swift justice was needed for their continued presence in the country.
Read more!
Indian doctor gets prestigious Cambodian award
New Delhi (PTI): Chinkholal Thangsing, a doctor from India, who is currently Asia Pacific bureau chief of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has been honoured with a prestigious Cambodian award for his contribution towards humanitarian services in the country.
'Royal order of Sahametrei' is conferred primarily on foreigners who have rendered distinguished services to the King and to the nation by Royal decree of the King of Cambodia, a release issued by AIDS healthcare foundation (AHF) here said.
"The award recognised Thangsing's exemplary contribution and dedication towards humanitarian services rendered by him and and the organisation for the people living with HIV/AIDS and general public in Cambodia," it said.
Giving away the award, Cambodia's Health Minister Mam Bun Heng said, "This is a big honour and my proud privilege to hand over the 'Sahametrei' to you, to honour and recognise your selfless dedication and contribution to better the lives of our people."
AHF is the US' largest non-profit HIV/AIDS healthcare, research, prevention and education provider. Its bureau operates in Cambodia, China, India, Thailand, Vietnam and Nepal.
Read more!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Vietnam: Halt Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Mekong Delta
Government Suppresses Peaceful Protests for Religious, Cultural, and Land Rights
New York, January 21, 2009) - The Vietnamese government should immediately free Khmer Krom Buddhist monks and land rights activists in prison or under house arrest for the peaceful expression of their political and religious beliefs, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Khmer Krom is a large ethnic group in the Mekong Delta that is central to Vietnam-Cambodia relations.
The 125-page report, "On the Margins: Rights Abuses of Ethnic Khmer in Vietnam's Mekong Delta," documents ongoing violations of the rights of the Khmer Krom in southern Vietnam and also abuses in Cambodia against Khmer Krom who have fled there for refuge. Wary about possible Khmer Krom nationalist aspirations, Vietnam has suppressed peaceful expressions of dissent and banned Khmer Krom human rights publications. It also tightly controls the Theravada Buddhism practiced by the Khmer Krom, who see this form of Buddhism as the foundation of their distinct culture and ethnic identity.
"Vietnam's response to peaceful protests provides a window into the severe and often shrouded methods it uses to stifle dissent," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The government should be trying to engage in dialogue with the Khmer Krom, rather than throwing them in jail."
Drawing on detailed interviews with witnesses in both Vietnam and Cambodia, the report shows that Khmer Krom in Vietnam face serious restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly, association, information, and movement. In researching this report, Human Rights Watch came into possession of internal memos circulated by the Communist Party of Vietnam and Vietnamese government officials outlining their concerns about unrest among Khmer Krom in the Mekong Delta and strategies to monitor, infiltrate, and silence Khmer Krom activists. The documents are included in an appendix to the report.
"The official documents we publish today lay bare the efforts by the Vietnamese government to silence critics," said Adams. "This is bare-knuckled, indefensible political repression."
"On the Margins" provides a rare, in-depth account of a protest conducted by 200 Khmer Krom Buddhist monks in Soc Trang province, Vietnam, in February 2007. Protesters called for greater religious freedom and more Khmer-language education. Although the protest was peaceful and lasted only a few hours, the Vietnamese government responded harshly. Police surrounded the pagodas of monks suspected of leading the protest. Local authorities and government-appointed Buddhist officials subsequently expelled at least 20 monks from the monkhood, forcing them to defrock and give up their monks' robes, and banishing them from their pagodas. The authorities sent the monks back to their home villages and put them under house arrest or police detention, without issuing arrest warrants or specifying the charges against them. During interrogations, police beat some of the monks.
In May 2007, the Soc Trang provincial court convicted five of the monks on charges of "disrupting traffic" and sentenced them to two to four years of imprisonment. Some of the monks were beaten during interrogation. After the demonstrations, the authorities instituted stricter surveillance of Khmer Krom activists, restricted and monitored their movements, banned their publications, and monitored their telephones.
The report also examines rights abuses of Khmer Krom who have moved to Cambodia, where they remain among Cambodia's most disenfranchised groups. Because they are often perceived as ethnic Vietnamese by Cambodians, many Khmer Krom in Cambodia face social and economic discrimination and unnecessary hurdles to legalizing their status.
The Cambodian government has repeatedly stated that it considers the Khmer Krom to be Cambodian citizens. Yet the Cambodian authorities often react harshly when Khmer Krom become too critical of the Vietnamese government, a close ally of the Cambodian government. In 2007, Cambodian police forcefully dispersed a series of protests in Phnom Penh by Khmer Krom monks denouncing the rights abuses they had experienced in Vietnam.
In February 2007, a Khmer Krom monk, Eang Sok Thoeun, was killed in suspicious circumstances after he participated in a protest in Phnom Penh. In June 2007, Cambodian authorities arrested, defrocked, and deported to Vietnam a Khmer Krom activist monk, Tim Sakhorn, who was sentenced in Vietnam to a year in prison. Human Rights Watch called on the Cambodian government to investigate thoroughly the killing of Eang Sok Thoeun, and on the Vietnamese government to allow Tim Sakhorn, placed under house arrest in Vietnam after his release from prison in May 2008, to return to his home in Cambodia if he chooses.
"The killing, imprisonment, and defrocking of Khmer Krom monks sends a chilling message to Khmer Krom activists in both Cambodia and Vietnam," said Adams. "An ethnic group that should enjoy the protection of two countries finds itself stripped of protection by both."
Read more!
Tobique Valley students help Cambodia kids
A yearbook is full of memories and for the students of Tobique Valley Middle High School, the 2009 edition will evoke images of how they helped less fortunate children thousands of miles away. The students have raised $650 for school children in Cambodia and on Friday, Jan. 16, they added their signatures to a school banner that has already been signed by the Asian youngsters.
"We decided this year that we wanted to do something a little more meaningful than dedicating our yearbook to an individual," Dylan Mahaney, yearbook editor, said of their decision to dedicate it to the project. "This was something we thought was worthwhile."
Teacher Bridget Nugent Rideout is yearbook advisor and she suggested the Cambodian project to the students. Her dad Professor Bill Nugent and his childhood friend Gary Keenan of K-Line Construction in Woodstock are working to help the Pinocchio School for Poor Children in Sihanoukville, coastal Cambodia, and travelled there over the Christmas holidays to deliver $4,000 raised by a variety of supporters mostly in New Brunswick. The money will be used to buy school uniforms, shoes, school desks and other supplies.
On Jan. 16, the Tobique Valley middle school students watched a presentation that featured photographs of the children taken during the Cambodian visit. Dylan Mahaney along with Sabrina St. Pierre, junior editor, and Kelsey Witherly, yearbook member, explained Prof. Nugent and Keenan not only delivered much-needed money but also book bags and other school supplies that delighted the youngsters.
"They bought a lot of flip-flops," Mahaney added, noting the lightweight footwear is ideal there. "These children really don't have very much."
As students saw photographs of sparse living conditions, Mahaney noted the hammocks in the pictures serve as beds, couches and chairs. Families that number as many as 26 people live in one small home. In another photograph, the Tobique Valley students saw their school banner being signed by the Cambodian children.
"Their alphabet doesn't look like ours so some of their names don't look like words," Nugent Rideout explained. "This is the same banner that you are going to sign and then it will be on display in our school."
The majority of the funds raised by Tobique Valley Middle High School came from the 24-hour famine held by high school students recently. The middle school classrooms had donation collection jars that also brought in dollars.
Anyone who wants to help the children in Cambodia is also welcome to get involved. Paul Nugent is currently working as a professor in the English department at Yeungnam University in Korea and Gary Keenan is back in Woodstock but both men have committed to continuing to help the children.
"Paul is planning to return within the year to personally deliver any donations or items that in been donated in Woodstock or Korea," Nugent Rideout explained. "The two Monquarters will bear the costs of shipping or delivering any items that are donated."
Although Professor Nugent and Keenan have been involved in a variety of humanitarian projects, their discovery of the Sihanoukville school happened almost by accident. The men had been delivering aid in Vietnam and were spending two weeks touring Cambodia when they met the founder of an orphanage and school for the poor who was in the guest house where they stayed. Cees Chamuleau, originally from Holland, had gone to Cambodia to visit an old friend when he became aware of child labour being used to run a small stone quarry in the community. Appalled by what he saw, he brought the story to the attention of the United Nations and then decided he wanted to open a school there to give the youngsters an alternative to labouring.
Despite a lot of opposition, Cees eventually opened a school for 250 students, many of them residents of the orphanage he also established nearby.
"Children do not have to pay to attend the school as most families in the area have little or no money," Nugent Rideout stated.
"Cees and his associates give the children uniforms and shoes, a midday meal and look after their medical needs, some of which are very serious."
The visit to the school was described as "heart warming" by Nugent and Keenan who said the children were delighted to have visitors. The pupils received Canada pins and flags, a large New Brunswick and Canadian flag, as well as some candy. The children will receive some of Prof. Nugent's recently published storybooks as well as Scotiabank rulers donated by Tom and Bridget Brennan. The supporters also provided a Christmas feast of suckling pig that was enjoyed during the December visit.
"There are some Christians there and they do have Christmas but it isn't like here. They don't have all the presents. It's just a day they observe," Mahaney explained.
Items still being collected include new clothes like t-shirts, caps, school supplies, calculators and donations. A donation of $25 can buy five school uniforms, a desk or flip-flops for 50 children.
More information is available by contacting Gary Keenan at 328-9848.
When the students at Tobique Valley look back on their school year, they will have the satisfaction of knowing they did something that made a difference in the world. The photographs of Cambodian children with big, bright grins make the Tobique Valley students smile.
"You can see how excited these children are," Mahaney noted.
Read more!
Where Guns Fall From the Sky
A weapons collection in Cambodia in a scene from “Dealing and Wheeling in Small Arms.”
“I’d rather lose one son than my gun, because with a gun I can save my family,” declares a frightened Congolese villager in “Dealing and Wheeling in Small Arms,” a depressing, scattershot survey of the spread of weaponry around the world, especially in Africa.
This Dutch film, directed by Sander Francken, shifts abruptly back and forth between a ground-level view of how small arms have affected poor countries and a throw-up-your-hands analysis of the inability of any international agency, including the United Nations, to curtail the prolific, and profitable, small-arms trade. Although the film visits Cambodia, Uganda and Bosnia, it focuses mostly on Congo, where imported guns have plunged the country into perpetual civil war.
The Congolese strife suggests a rural African equivalent of gang warfare in American urban neighborhoods, and the documentary includes more than one scene of gun-toting children wreaking havoc. Angry Congolese villagers emphasize that the guns were not made there; they were manufactured outside the country. They find their way to Congo by plane, boat and car through shadowy networks that are almost impossible to trace because the route involves so many way stations, with payoffs at each.
It is not surprising that some Congolese view the spread of small arms as a conspiracy of the haves to keep the country at war while stripping it of its natural resources. One man tells of guns’ being dropped from airplanes and of villagers’ being lined up, handed free weapons, and told to go fight one another.
Accurate statistics about the spread of small arms are hard to come by and are, at best, rough estimates. In the last 15 years, Vanessa Redgrave says in a voice-over, 100 million small arms were manufactured and sold, with Western Europe the largest supplier. Attempts to reduce the supply are pitiful.
The movie wastes precious time following the director around as he interviews gun dealers and marksmen on firing ranges about the differences between this and that automatic weapon; these scenes smack of gun fetishism, and to those who don’t share what might be called the gun gene, they are boring and creepy.
Gun love, the film suggests, is in our blood, and the manufacture and distribution of arms a rampant social pathology that is not about to end anytime soon.
DEALING AND WHEELING IN SMALL ARMS
Opens on Wednesday in
Manhattan.
Produced and directed by Sander Francken; written by Joost Schrickx, Josh Lacey and Mr. Francken; narrated by Vanessa Redgrave; directors of photography, Sander Snoep, Pieter Groeneveld, Edwin Donders, Jan-Dries Groenendijk, Maarten Kramer and Mr. Francken; edited by Gys Zevenbergen; music by Rainer Michel. At the Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue, at Second Street, East Village. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. This film is not rated.
9 tips for verboten vacations
By Christopher Elliott
Tribune Media Services
(Tribune Media Services) -- When it comes to travel, forbidden is in.
Cuba, Iran and North Korea -- long off-limits to most American visitors -- might be added to the "allowed" list under an Obama administration. Other destinations that were considered too dangerous or hostile to Americans are becoming fashionable again, as travelers jettison boring "staycations" for something more exotic.
"People who love to travel will take their chances," says Glenn Strachan, a wireless communications consultant in Annapolis, Maryland. He's been to several "forbidden" places, including everyone's favorite no-no vacation hotspot, Cuba, as well as Vietnam and Cambodia when they were still closed to Americans.
"Had we been caught," he says of his visit to Cambodia years ago, "we likely would have been killed."
That's the thing about these verboten vacations: They can be risky. The State Department publishes a list of travel warnings that shouldn't be ignored. They range from Cote d'Ivoire, which is experiencing periodic episodes of political unrest and violence since a failed coup a few years ago, to the Philippines, where Americans are at risk from terrorist attacks.
Never mind the health hazards of vacationing somewhere that's off the beaten path. Or on the warpath.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes health advisories for most countries. If you're traveling to Somalia, for example, you should consider vaccines for yellow fever, Hepatitis A and B, typhoid, rabies and polio. Going to Myanmar? Add a vaccine for Japanese encephalitis and take your malaria pills, please. "We very rarely tell people that they should not go to a particular country," says CDC spokeswoman Shelly Sikes Diaz.
So when they do, you might want to heed their warning.
Still interested in going off the grid on your next getaway? Here are nine tips.
There's no such thing as safe
Even if you decide to travel somewhere familiar -- or at least government-sanctioned -- there's no guarantee you'll come back alive. "Let's face it," says Joy Thrun, who owns Classic Travel, a travel agency in Okemos, Michigan, "there is no safe place." Curiously, some of the destinations that are thought to be dangerous, including Israel, Nepal, Kenya, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Haiti, Syria and the Philippines, are not as hazardous to your health as the government would have you believe, she adds. "I would not hesitate to travel there," she says. "They're wonderful travel destinations."
Ask around
That's the advice of Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet, and author of "Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil." "It's very interesting to compare the U.S. Department of State advisories with the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office advisories and Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade," he told me, adding that the British ones are generally the "most measured." When he visited Afghanistan and Iraq a few years ago, he remembers the British advisories essentially saying, "This bit is really bad, this bit is probably OK, take care anywhere," he says. "They didn't simply say 'don't go.'"
Remember, you're not the first American
Brandon Wilson, author of "Dead Men Don't Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa" says if you want to go somewhere forbidden, odds are other Americans have already been there. "Fortunately, there are some great fellow-traveler resources, such as blogs and forums, where folks can address your concerns," he says. "Tap into their knowledge and see how they may have skirted around the needless bureaucracy."
Brush up on customs
A breach of etiquette may sink your entire trip, warns Martha Wharton, a vice president at TCS Expeditions in Seattle. For instance, if you're a woman traveling to Iran, don't forget to have a separate passport photo taken for your visa, in which you're wearing a headscarf. "Also, in Muslim countries, no alcohol is allowed, and in Burma, there is no cell phone or non-government controlled Internet access," she adds. "Such is the nature of expedition."
Got money?
Your ATM card and credit card may not work in a country that's "off limits." "It's pretty tricky," says Peter Frank, who edits the travel site Concierge.com. "Traveler's cheques are probably useless, and the last thing you want to do is carry around a big wad of cash. But depending on the destination, that may be your only choice."
Mind your own government
The biggest hurdle to visiting a "forbidden" place may not be that country's regime, but your own government. Kelly Hayes-Raitt, a Santa Monica, California, Middle East activist and blogger, says her trips abroad have left her with an FBI file listing her pre-invasion and post-invasion trips to Iraq. "It's not easy traveling to countries that the U.S. has deemed off-limits," she says. Among the challenges: securing visas, researching accommodations and getting wheels once you're in the country. "Some of these countries, like Iran and North Korea, require American tourists to have full-time minders, which really increases the cost for single travelers dramatically," she told me.
Don't break any rules -- push to change them
Another challenge in traveling to an off-limits country is making sure that you don't violate any laws, according to James Friedlander, the president of New York-based Academic Arrangements Abroad. Without the necessary permits, your trip may be illegal. "Many times, getting permission is possible through high-level cultural institutions or political contacts," he says. For instance, the U.S. government routinely allows academics and journalists to visit these banned countries. But the long-term solution is to push for these rules to be lifted. "With the change in administration in Washington, some regulations regarding travel to Cuba, for example, will be relaxed," he says.
Have a security plan
While many of these destinations aren't as dangerous as you might think, you still have to plan ahead and take certain precautions. Philip Farina, a San Antonio-based security expert, recommends you design a backup plan that enables you to get to a safe environment if you find yourself in danger. "This includes letting your friends and family know where you will be heading, checking with the U.S. Department of State and the Overseas Security Advisory Council to see who the danger-players in that country are, and how they operate," he says. Farina says you should carry a hidden kit containing a copy of your passport, emergency cash, a local phone card, a map of the travel region and the telephone number of a company that specializes in high-risk evacuations -- just in case.
Shut up
You'll be tempted to tell the world about your Cuba vacation, but you might want to think twice. Not only could you face fines and imprisonment, but also your friends might take a dim view of your choice of destination. "I think that the biggest hurdles to traveling to a forbidden destination are the propaganda machine and the hostile, uninformed reactions of fellow Americans who really know nothing about the countries in question or about the laws regarding travel there," says Julie Schwietert Collazo, the managing editor of Matador Travel and a frequent visitor to Cuba. "There's also the fear that we're doing something terribly unpatriotic by going to these off-limits places. I don't think there's anything further from the truth."
Even if more countries are open to Americans than ever before -- and even if more Americans want to visit these undiscovered destinations -- it's still likely that large parts of the globe will continue to be free of Western visitors. At least, for now. That's the assessment of Babs Ryan, who wrote a book about globalization called "America's Corporate Brain Drain."
"Unfortunately," she told me, "the beautiful, history-rich Middle Eastern countries will still be ignored by most Americans. Even frequent travelers lump Muslims and Arabs into one category or are ignorant about the difference in cultures in that region."
And in that case, ignorance is not necessarily bliss.
(Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine. This column originally appeared on MSNBC.com. You can read more travel tips on his blog, elliott.org or e-mail him at celliott@ngs.org).
Read more!
Cambodia to work out new law to punish drug traffickers
PHNOM PENH, Drug traffickers will receive harsh punishments for possessing small quantities of illegal substances if a new draft law to be worked out in March, national media reported on Wednesday.
Under the proposed law, drafted by the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD) at the Ministry of Interior, life imprisonment will be given to those who are in possession of 80 grams of heroin, according to the Phnom Penh Post.
Currently, life terms are only handed down to those who are in possession of at least 100 grams.
"The new law is more detailed. We have given greater consideration to guilt, punishment and the amount of drugs (necessary for punishment)," Lour Ramin, permanent vice chairman of NACD told the Post.
The draft, written with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as advisers, will also strive to comply with international drug control laws including those regarding prescription drugs available over the counter in Cambodia, officials said.
Lars Pedersen, officer in charge and project coordinator for the UNODC in Cambodia, described the new legislation as having a much "tighter control" on drug trafficking across Cambodia's borders with neighboring countries.
"The drug situation in Cambodia has escalated over the years with the use of illicit drugs increasing and drug trafficking becoming a major concern for the Cambodian government," he said.
Read more!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
What happened in Cambodia?
By Abe De Ramos
Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong)
As the extent of the U.S.-led financial crisis unfolds globally, developing Southeast Asian countries are finding themselves in the position of suffering the collateral damage. While not directly hit by the liquidity crunch like their larger and wealthier neighbors, they’re also not immune to the slowdown, being part of the chain that supplies goods to consumers in the West who are now crimping on their spending. Indeed, the crisis highlights how developing economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) are being reduced to a fringe role in the global economic landscape, and how they’re facing the hard truth that they won’t be able to regain the “tiger economy” status they once held without building a stronger domestic base.
On the surface, it seems as though the region will ride out the crisis relatively well. After all, the first economies to go into recession are those whose financial and industrial sectors are directly linked to the fortunes of the West. The liquidity crunch in Wall Street has weakened the financial hubs of Hong Kong and Singapore, while falling consumer confidence is hurting many Japanese companies reliant on exports to the United States and Europe. Projected declines in GDP growth rates for developing Asean nations this year also seem to be less severe than in China, the factory of the world, as well as Taiwan, Korea and India, which generate substantial revenues from exports of goods, services and technological expertise.
But the region is far from well and good. Being in the middle of the supply chain East Asia has created in the last 20 years—in which a computer is designed in Japan or Taiwan, its components made in Malaysia, Thailand or Indonesia, then assembled in China—developing Asean nations are seeing a mild slowdown now only because of the lag effect. The question is how quickly and how well it can recover when the full impact of the global slump finally hits home.
In the near term, countries like the Philippines and Vietnam have little leeway to boost domestic economic activity in order to offset falling external demand. With the crisis proving deeper than expected, Asian governments may need to provide stimulus packages and pursue easier monetary policies. However, most are already overstretched, with negative fiscal balances unsupported by a narrow tax base, and made worse by fiscal leakage through corruption. Those with the borrowing capacity such as Thailand and Malaysia can raise funds, but for much higher costs given the lack of liquidity and greater perception of risk.
What differentiates developing Asean nations from the rest of the region is a weak domestic economy. Private consumption expenditure as a component of GDP has barely budged since at least 1990. This would not necessarily be a negative factor if it were overshadowed by growth in state expenditure and capital formation through investments, as has happened in China and India. However, these indicators have also lagged across Southeast Asia, with the exception of Vietnam, a newcomer to liberalization.
It’s true that in the larger economies of Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, exports have grown and made significant contributions to their GDP growth over the period. It’s also true that in the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam, remittances from migrant workers have become an important revenue source and driver of domestic demand. But these trends only emphasize the troubling reality that developing Asean nations are struggling to create their own wealth within their respective boundaries.
In the long term, no country in the region is yet competitive enough to generate robust, sustainable growth without the spoils from their industrial neighbors and the West. This is a factor of their failure to innovate and create globally competitive domestic industries. While China has foreign investments and exports to thank for its growth, it used its newfound wealth to invest in knowledge and manufacturing technology, creating not just a virtuous cycle of job creation and more investments, but also national champions—companies that are taking on global giants. In India, it’s not the state but an enterprising private sector—encouraged by favorable demographics and an economy that’s opening up—that’s giving birth to the same virtuous cycle and homegrown multinationals. How many innovators and global companies from Southeast Asia can you name?
The problem is it may already be too late for developing Asean countries to attract the kind of foreign investments that will help them benefit from technology transfer. Multinationals that have the technology are putting it to use in China, investing only in the region to diversify geographic risk. Private investments, meanwhile, are constrained by capital limitations and a general lack of entrepreneurial spirit: companies are not borrowing, and banks are not lending. As a percentage of GDP, domestic credit from the banking sector in developing Asean nations, apart from Vietnam and Cambodia, is lower than 1995 levels. Domestic capital markets, an alternative funding source, are shallow: stock markets are small, bond markets even more so.
This situation isn’t likely to change soon. The Asian crisis of 1997 has forced both banks and investors to be conservative in lending and borrowing, and governments’ inclination to build up their foreign reserves has no doubt misallocated capital away from job-creating and industry-building initiatives. In other words, as developing Asean nations rebuilt themselves from their own crisis, they lost sight of the long term, in the process losing competitiveness to aggressive neighbors. This current crisis, as it washes on their shores, should challenge the region to reassess its vision for the future, perhaps towards a domestic economy able to dictate its own fate.
Abe de Ramos, an Associate Fellow of the Asia Society, is a Hong Kong-based financial editor and a former policy analyst at the CFA Institute’s Center for Financial Market Integrity.
Read more!
Cambodian casinos out of luck as revenues take a hit
Written by Kay Kimsong
Local casino operators report fewer gamblers on both the Thai and Vietnamese borders, with across-the-board cost cuts planned for this year.
THE global economic crisis has hit Cambodia's gaming industry, with casinos on the Vietnamese and Thai borders announcing hefty cost cuts.
The local downturn comes amidst a global gambling slowdown affecting casinos worldwide - Macau's gaming industry posted a US$300 million drop in revenues in the last three months of 2008, while US gambling hotspot Nevada reported a 65 percent plunge in takings last year.
Cambodia is particularly susceptible: With about 30 casinos, it has more gambling venues than any country in Southeast Asia. Traffic at the Thai border is down sharply with casinos taking a triple hit from the global economic crisis, recent border tensions and a falling Thai baht.
At the Kings Crown Casino and Hotel - with locations in Cambodia on both the Thai and Vietnamese borders - the number of visitors has dropped sharply, leading to losses of $620,000 in the last quarter of 2008, the company said.
The company says it is cutting the work week for its more than 2,000 employees, a move designed to trim costs, said Cambodian Peoples' Party Senator and casino owner Phu Kok An.
He told the Post that his company was negotiating with employees to reduce their working month from 30 to 15 days.
"We are not laying off workers but they will get 15 days' salary. If your salary is $200 per month, you will get $100."
The company currently spends $300,000 a month on salaries, he added.
The casino has outlets in Poipet on the Thai border and Chrey Thom district, Kandal province, close to Vietnam.
"We are not earning enough income to spend on staffing, water and electricity. When people earn less money, they gamble less," Phu Kok An said.
He said that the number of gamblers fell sharply but that the business would remain open.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
we are not earning enough income to spend on staffing, water and electricity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We earned some profit in early 2008 but made losses over three months [in September, November and December 2008], we employ a lot of workers - we are overstaffed - and we're overspending," he said. But Vann Sitha, vice president of New World Casino-Hotel in Bavet on the Vietnam border, said his company does not plan to lay off any of its 700 employees or reduce working hours. Although some staff had resigned, it would continue to recruit, he added.
"Our casino management has never laid off staff, but some like to move from job to job seeking a better salary offer," he said, adding his business had been less affected by recent events given its location on the Vietnamese border as opposed to the troubled Thai side.
Phat Bun Hour, assistant to Koh Kong Casino owner Ly Yong Phat, also a CPP Senator, declined to comment.
Chea Peng Chheang, secretary of state at the Ministry of Finance, is calculating the casino industry's total revenue for 2008, which he said will be completed this week. Revenues are expected to be lower than the $10 million generated in 2007.
Read more!
Guarding Cambodia's giant turtles
Written by Brendan Brady
Sambor district, kratie
Wildlife officials use cash to entice Mekong residents in northeastern Cambodia to protect nesting grounds of Cantor's soft-shell turtles, believed extinct just two years ago.
LAST year, Mekong resident Su Pie sold the delicate eggs he unearthed to Chinese miners working in the area, banking around US$20. This year, he stands to make exponentially more by not laying a hand on any nests he discovers, as well as ensuring no one else does either.
The 59-year-old fisherman and farmer, whose home lies along the Mekong in a district called Sambor, about an hour from the city of Kratie, stands along the banks of the river with his wife and three children as he explains to Conservation International (CI) officials his mixed success this year in contributing to their project.
The good news was he found two nests. The bad news was he ate the eggs from one after he suspected it would be discovered by other local fishermen, given its visible location.
The conservation officials cringe as they hear this. They can count the number of meals that could push Cambodia's population of the endangered Cantor's giant soft-shell turtle to extinction. But the program employing locals to protect nests is in its first year, and they expected it to develop with hitches.
Cantor's can grow up to two metres in length and reach weights of more than 50 kilograms. The turtle's flat, soft shell is covered with rubbery skin and has been valued for use in post-natal traditional Khmer cures.
In 2007, wildlife experts found the super-sized freshwater turtle species, which was previously believed to have vanished from Cambodia. Until the discovery in May that year of an 11-kilogram female by a scientist working for the government and the global conservation group WWF - including her nesting grounds and hatchlings - the Cantor's turtle was believed by officials to exist only in very small numbers in Laos, and many feared the animal's extinction was imminent.
Since then, the wildlife groups planned to employ local villagers to protect the species' breeding grounds.
"I like helping protect them, but if I didn't get money, I would always take half of them and leave the other half," the fisherman said. "Other fishermen come around looking for eggs, also, so it can be difficult to do what I'm asked."
After verifying the location of the preserved nest, the conservation officials pay Su Pie $30 on the spot. The fisherman receives a net, which he is instructed to place over the nest to protect it from natural predators, such as monitor lizards, so the baby turtles can be caught and studied before they are released by the CI team, which will base itself in the area as the hatching period nears.
"Thirty dollars for finding the nest, plus $2 a day from the time we see the nest until it hatches, plus $2 per hatched egg," explained the program's head monitor, Kim Chamnan. Nests typically hold 20 to 50 eggs, which take more than 60 days to hatch.
"He can make a lot more by cooperating with us. He'll get more than $200 for this nest if they hatch," said Kim Chamnan.
Last year, CI officials were able to preserve four nests and held onto twelve hatchlings for a "Head-Start" program in which they allow them to mature in captivity before they are released at a size large enough to overwhelm any would-be natural predators.
A fragile youth
Sightings of adult Cantor's are rare, as they hug the muddy river bottom. Sonar is required to track the turtles, given the depths of as much as 40 metres they tend to inhabit.
"It buries itself in the sand and spends 95 percent of its time completely hidden out of sight with just its eyes and nose showing," said David Emmett, a wildlife biologist for CI based in Cambodia. "It feeds from this position, striking at fish and crabs."
But the creatures are especially vulnerable at birth as the mother, while armed with a bone-crunching bite, does not hang around the nest.
Kea Ratha, a graduate student at the Royal University of Phnom Penh whose research has centred on the feeding behaviour of hatchling Cantor's, says their high-mortality rate during pre-natal stages and as newborns places a premium on efforts to protect their nesting sites.
But "besides the Conservation International project, nothing is being done to protect this species, which faces many threats", she said.
Emmett says officials have not yet been able to survey the Cantor's population in Cambodia, but estimated it was on the decline, with only around a hundred breeding adults.
"Adults are being caught and sold, and nests are plundered by fisherman for eggs. The population is surely declining, but because they are capable of laying so many eggs - up to 50 in one nest - the population could recover very fast if the nests are protected."
Locals search for nests by looking for tracks from the mother. They poke a stick into the sand, and if it gives easily, it is a sign eggs may lie below.
Cambodian palettes are not especially drawn to turtle eggs, says Kim Chamnan, unlike the Chinese, for whom turtle holds a potent combined culinary and medicinal allure.
At rural markets in the area, an egg goes for around 1,500 riels (US$0.37 cents), so a nest's bounty is not likely to land much more than ten dollars. But that cash is still very attractive to local fishermen who are not aware of the conservation officials' much larger offer.
Trawling along the river in a thin, wooden vessel, the two-man Conservation International team approaches residents they see on or along the river, giving them a graphic laminated handout with a picture of a turtle nesting site and a number to call should they spot one. The hefty cash rewards get the attention of local residents, but it will take time for the campaign to spread awareness. In the meantime, officials will continue to find dug-up nests, like the handful spotted along the river's banks during the day's patrol.
Money talks
Like most of the riverine inhabitants, 31-year-old Ken Vy fishes and farms for a living. But he has stood out to Conservation International officials for his ability to sniff out nests.
Last year, he was informed of the project towards the end of the hatching season, so he got a late start, spotting one nest for which he was rewarded with a total of $200.
"I had already eaten or sold the eggs from two nests. I just came here to walk my cattle, and while I was here, I would look for nests," he said.
But with hundreds of dollars hanging in the balance, he now dedicates part of his time to searching for nests.
"Last night, I came at four in the morning with a headlamp to go searching. If I waited until later in the morning, I was afraid other fisherman would see me and search here, too."
He has staked out two nests on a small sand bank near his home. "I come here a few times every day to protect the nests, to make sure no one else is stealing the eggs."
In the presence of officials from the capital soliciting his help, Ken Vy becomes animated as he talks about his laborious routine to keep would-be egg snatchers at bay.
But he was clear it was the handsome cash reward that motivated him to rise in the dark hours of morning to hunt for nests he can protect - and the pragmatism of the wildlife team in understanding this could be the thrust behind the program's success if the endangered species is to be protected.
Read more!
Cambodian mobile phone operators to expand services
PHNOM PENH, Despite the economic downturn and concerns over corporate investment, Cambodian mobile phone operators say their expansion plans are on schedule for 2009 as the industry continues to grow, national media reported Tuesday.
"Our expansion plans are on track," Adam Cabot, CEO of Star-Cell, was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying.
The company has announced it was going to expand services to all of Cambodia's provinces for its 100,000 subscribers.
"Yes, (the crisis) will have an effect, but it is hard to say how much. We are still maintaining our position and doing well," he said.
Cambodia's mobile market has grown rapidly in the past five years, and companies are scrambling to gain a foothold as phones and the internet gain popularity.
Domestic mobile-phone usage surged 49 percent in 2007 but the national penetration rate remains a low 17 percent.
In contrast, neighboring Vietnam saw 75 percent growth with a 33 percent penetration rate in the same year, according to Budde Comm, an independent telecoms analyst.
Cambodia's low mobile penetration rate is a draw for many companies such as Vietnam-based mobile operator Viettel, which is launching a major drive to tap Cambodia's rural market and bring schools online.
Read more!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Cambodia's Funcinpec, NRP agree to alliance for may election
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia's two main royalist political parties, the Funcinpec and the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP), have decided to combine forces for May's district and provincial council elections, national media reported Monday.
Officials from the two parties met on Thursday to hold talks and agreed to assist each other in the upcoming election, in which commune councilors will vote to choose the first-ever district, provincial and municipal councils, Funcinpec Secretary-General Nhiek Bun Chhay was quoted by the Cambodia Daily newspaper as saying.
"We have agreed to unite with each other during the council election on May 17," he told the newspaper.
He added that the two parties uniting to form a single party would make sense because the NRP was originally born out of Funcinpec.
NRP spokesman Suth Dina confirmed that the discussions between the two parties were held and the two parties would cooperate for the May election.
In late 2006, Prince Norodom Ranariddh formed the NRP shortly after being ousted from the presidency of Funcinpec, effectively splitting the royalist vote.
Read more!
Cambodia to Finish Bourse Listing Details by April
By Daniel Ten Kate
Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Cambodia, the second-poorest country in Southeast Asia, plans to complete the listing requirements for its first stock exchange by April in preparation for a December opening, a top exchange official said today.
“Everything is on schedule so far,” Ming Bankosal, director-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia, said by phone from Phnom Penh. “We will finalize the issuing requirements by the end of the first quarter, and after that we’ll accept applications from companies.”
Cambodia, which abolished money under the Khmer Rouge three decades ago, is seeking to lure foreign funds as the global economic recession has led to drops in tourism, garment exports and commodity prices. The International Monetary Fund said the economy may grow 4.75 percent this year, which would be the slowest since 1998.
The government has targeted 20 companies to sell shares during the exchange’s first year of operation. They include Sokimex Group, the country’s biggest petroleum company, and Acleda Bank Plc, its largest bank, Kao Thach, head of the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s financial market division, said last year.
Regulations
“The starting date is not really the key issue,” said Douglas Clayton, chief executive officer of Leopard Capital, one of several private equity firms that plans to invest in companies and cash out through share sales in the local market. “I won’t mind if it’s delayed for another year because it might give them more time to get the regulations in order.”
Leopard Capital has raised about a quarter of the $100 million it’s targeting for a fund that closes at the end of March. Opportunities are rife for those with cash on hand who can benefit from falling prices, Clayton said.
The global financial crisis, which cut the value of stock markets in neighboring Thailand and Vietnam by at least half last year, has not deterred Cambodia from pressing forward with a stock exchange, Ming said. The SECC is in the process of developing tax breaks and other incentives for companies to list, he added.
“Now the U.S. is in the process of recovery and this recovery can spread to the world,” Ming said. “We hope that in late 2009, everything will be okay.”
The listing requirements in Cambodia will likely be modeled on the Kosdaq, South Korea’s second stock market that was set up 12 years ago for small- and medium-sized firms as well as venture start-ups, according to Kao Thach. Companies seeking a Kosdaq listing need to be in business for at least three years with minimum paid-in capital of 500 million won ($495,417) and debt-to-equity ratio of less than 150 percent of the industry mean.
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at dtenkate@bloomberg.net
Read more!
Cambodia's first Khmer Rouge trial to start mid-February
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal on Monday officially set February 17 as the start date for the long-awaited first trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders accused of atrocities in the 1970s.Court documents said the hearing for former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav -- better known as Duch -- will be for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention as well as premeditated murder and torture.
Duch, 66, will be the first leader of Cambodia's brutal 1975-1979 communist regime to stand trial at the tribunal, an initial step towards justice for the up to two million people who died under Khmer Rouge rule.
He will be tried for "his acts or omissions in Phnom Penh and within the territory of Cambodia between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979," said the court documents, released to the media on Monday.
Duch was indicted last year for allegedly overseeing the torture and extermination of more than 12,000 men, women and children when he headed Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, known as S-21.
"This is what we have been waiting for for so long," said Tuol Sleng survivor Vann Nath, who made it through years in the prison because he was put to work painting pictures that celebrated the regime.
"Now we know the clear date for the trial. And we hope that we will know the truth that we have been waiting 30 years for," added Vann Nath.
A mathematics teacher who became the Khmer Rouge's torturer-in-chief, Duch has been in prison since 1999 for his role at Tuol Sleng. He was formally transferred to the tribunal in July 2007.
Thousands of inmates were taken from the centre he ran for execution at Choeung Ek, now infamously known as the Killing Fields.
The indictment last August gave a detailed breakdown of the horrific conditions at Tuol Sleng and Duch's alleged role in the atrocities, saying that every prisoner who arrived there was destined for execution.
"Duch personally tortured or mistreated detainees at S-21 on a number of separate occasions and through a variety of means," the indictment said.
Chum Mey, another survivor of Tuol Sleng who was spared because he was put to use repairing car engines, called Monday's announcement "another step toward justice."
"I want Duch to speak about the truth of the regime and where he got the order to kill the people," Chum Mey said.
Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation and overwork as the regime emptied Cambodia's cities, exiling millions to vast collective farms in a bid to forge a communist utopia.
Duch is one of five Khmer Rouge leaders who have been detained by the court for their alleged roles in the regime.
Also in detention awaiting trial are "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan, ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, who was the minister of social affairs.
Established in 2006 after nearly a decade of negotiations between Cambodia and the UN, the long-stalled tribunal has met controversy as it seeks to prosecute crimes committed 30 years ago by senior Khmer Rouge leaders.
At least two of the top Cambodian tribunal officials have been accused of corruption by some defence lawyers in connection with an alleged scheme where local staff were forced to pay kickbacks for their jobs.
Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia which chronicles Khmer Rouge crimes, said the court needed to do better.
"Many have feelings of reservation. It's been three years and over 50 million dollars, and now we have a small case coming up," Youk Chhang said.
"It's just a beginning -- a little tiny light in the tunnel," he added.
The tribunal received a boost earlier this month when Japan's foreign minister pledged funding of 21 million dollars during a visit to Cambodia.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Complex remains refuge in a new land
By Jennifer Torres
Record Staff Writer
Now Chhit is the 26-year-old mother of a Cleveland School kindergartner named Donovan.
They share an apartment at Park Village, a place where breezeways shuttle ghosts and gossip, and walls shelter lives still touched by past tragedies.
On a chilly morning before Christmas, Chhit wrapped herself in a sweater and sat in the corner of her couch. High on her living room's walls hung paintings of Cambodian villages she has never seen, and stacked neatly in shelves were magazines - Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Us - that Chhit and her sisters trade back and forth.
Donovan had a few minutes more to sleep before his mother woke him for school.
Terror to terror
In 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces took over Cambodia, and over the next four years, nearly 2 million people - more than 20 percent of Cambodia's population - were killed in a campaign of forced labor, starvation and execution.
Thousands fled. More than 150,000 of them were moved to the United States.
Federal authorities tried to place refugees across the country to diffuse their impact. But Cambodian families wanted to live near each other, and enclaves such as Park Village grew.
Cultural and linguistic concentration - along with the trauma they had suffered - led to isolation. But it also helped preserve traditions and networks of support.
Soth Chhit, Savan's father, fled Cambodia with his family in January 1979, and for the next six years, they lived in Thai refugee camps.
On Sept. 12, 1985, the family arrived in Louisville, Ky., but after five months, they moved again - to No. 42 at Park Village.
"We heard rumors about California," Chhit said, "that it was like a Cambodian homeland."
He remembers pandemonium at the complex three years later.
Parents were yelling. Something had happened at their children's school.
Chhit rushed to Cleveland. He couldn't find Savan.
"But we found all her articles," he said. "We didn't know if she was alive, and there was no one there to explain."
She had been shot three times in the leg and was taken to Dameron Hospital.
"When I crawled from the playground to the hallway, a man was there," Savan said. She said the man helped her and rode with her to the hospital, but she never found out who he was.
The walls have ears
Tacked above Phan Mao's apartment door is a Buddhist prayer forbidding evil to enter.
Mao moved to Park Village from Texas in 1987.
"It felt almost like home because of all the countrymen," she said.
Her 10 children attended Cleveland School.
On a recent afternoon, women gathered in her apartment to prepare for a prayer service planned for a dying neighbor.
Monks from the Wat Dharmararam Buddhist Temple on Carpenter Road come almost weekly to Park Village for religious ceremonies.
Two came to lead chants for Thang Pen, Mao's neighbor, who lay in a hospital bed.
Men and women left their shoes outside Pen's door and knelt around her to pray.
Savan believes that when people die, their ghosts sometimes return. When she was younger, she worried about seeing ghosts at Park Village.
Now she worries about the eyes of elderly neighbors who report her comings and goings to her mother.
It's impossible to keep secrets inside the complex, she said.
Maintaining a haven
The Park Village Apartments were built in 1968. By 1989, they were desperately run-down.
Children had nowhere to play. Residents faced flooding, crowding and sewage leaks.
Finally, as authorities were threatening to close Park Village because of its squalor, its owner defaulted on government loans, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development took control.
In 1993, a low-income housing organization and a group of tenants working together as the Asian Pacific Self-Development and Residential Association, or APSARA, bought the complex from HUD for $1.
The apartments and grounds were extensively renovated, and social service programs were developed.
In October, Park Village residents began a celebration of APSARA's 15th anniversary with a Cambodian blessing dance.
Leaders talked about how Park Village had become a center of Cambodian-American life. Police officials discussed how safety had improved in the community, which had once been the birthplace of the Loc Town Crips street gang.
When the sound system failed, APSARA's assistant director, Vanna Prasit, joked that the organization's equipment was also in its 15th year, and money to replace it was even scarcer than in the past.
Park Village offers after-school tutoring, lunch and social activities for seniors, a fitness program, and dance and language lessons. There is also a Head Start preschool inside the community's gates.
But budget troubles have scaled back many programs, and Prasit worries others are threatened.
On a rainy afternoon just before winter break, her daughter, a Cleveland first-grader, was among the children who ran inside the community center to play and finish homework. Some pushed strollers carrying baby siblings. Many brought snacks left over from school lunches. A group of girls popped tapes of Cambodian music into a casette player and practiced dances.
Ties to Cleveland
At Park Village, there are many residents who, like Savan, are too young to remember the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. And many like her son, for whom the most frightening day at Cleveland was the first day of kindergarten, when he tried to run home.
Still, the past keeps tugging at lives moving forward, and ties to Cleveland remain strong.
In April 2006, when Stockton Unified officials proposed an attendance-boundary change that would send Park Village children to a different elementary school, parents protested. Six months later, when Pat Busher retired as Cleveland's longtime principal, the community held a celebration in her honor.
Chhit said Donovan's teacher is Cambodian and understands how to communicate with Cambodian families.
At 7:30 a.m., she woke him for school. He rubbed his eyes as she led him to the bathroom and turned on the faucet.
Chhit dropped out of Stagg High School after her junior year. She hopes to earn her diploma at adult school.
On her right leg is a deep scar left from the shooting. Sometimes, she said, that leg still hurts.
Contact reporter Jennifer Torres at (209) 546-8252 or jtorres@recordnet.com.
Read more!
‘Cambodia’s friendship priceless,’ NA leader
Of course, the friendship between Yuon and Khmer is priceless for centuries for Khmer Kingdom. The friendship had cost Cambodia everything, including natural resources.
HA NOI — National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong said that it had always been Viet Nam’s policy to develop friendship and multi-faceted co-operation with Cambodia at a meeting yesterday with Cambodian National Assembly Chairman Heng Samrin.
Viet Nam had always considered its traditional friendship with Cambodia as priceless for both nations, he said.
Trong said the two sides should educate people, especially the young, to continue preserving this traditional friendship and co-operation.
He said that Vietnamese people, being a close friend and neighbour of Cambodia, were happy to see the great achievements of Cambodian people in recent years.
"Viet Nam has always supported the Cambodian Government’s policies for the country’s development, the happiness of the Cambodian people, and peace and stability in the region," he said.
He said the two legislative bodies should take more practical measures to boost relations with each other.
Trong praised the two National Assemblies for ratifying an additional pact for the Border Demarcation Agreement between Viet Nam and Cambodia.
Trong also expressed thanks for the support that Cambodian people had given to Viet Nam in recent times. He thanked the Cambodian National Assembly and Government for creating favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community living in Cambodia, and for helping Viet Nam to find the remains of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers who died in Cambodia.
Cambodian NA Chairman Heng Samrin expressed his appreciation for strong co-operation between the two NAs, and said he believed that the two would continue to boost relations between the two countries.
Heng Samrin said he was happy to see co-operation between the two nations expanding in so many aspects.
He affirmed that the Cambodian National Assembly and people supported the development of co-operation with Viet Nam.
He said Cambodia was determined to complete border demarcation with Viet Nam by early 2012.
On behalf of the Cambodian National Assembly and the people of Cambodia, Heng Samrin expressed his gratitude for the great support that the Party, Government and people of Viet Nam gave to Cambodia, especially in helping the Cambodian people to escape the Pol Pot genocidal regime.
He gave special thanks to the Vietnamese volunteer soldiers who died for international duties in Cambodia, and their families.
Warm welcome
Later yesterday, Heng Samrin was received by Viet Nam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.
He briefed Dung about the results of his meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Phu Trong, saying it would boost bilateral ties.
Dung also spoke of the significance of Heng Samrin’s visit and congratulated Cambodians on achievements in socio-economic development, especially evident in the higher living standard of Cambodian people, the strengthened partnership that Cambodia had built with neighbouring countries and Cambodia’s stronger stance in the international arena. Dung said the legislative co-operation between the two National Assemblies had created a firm foundation for potential bonds in many areas. He said this would benefit both countries.
The PM took the opportunity to send his best wishes to Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni and other Cambodian leaders. — VNS
Read more!
