Cambodia is to build a Khmer Rouge genocide museum and library, funded by the United States, as a permanent reminder of the "Killing Fields" atrocities of Pol Pot's guerrilla movement, its director-to-be said today.
Documentation Centre of Cambodia head Youk Chhang, who has been cataloguing the ultra-Maoist regime's crimes for more than a decade, said the museum would be on the site of an old re-education camp in the capital.
"Genocide does not discriminate. It kept happening in the last century and one way is to use education as a tool help to prevent genocide," he told reporters.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, himself a former Khmer Rouge soldier who defected to Vietnam in the late 1970s, handed over the land on April 17, the 33rd anniversary of the 1975 downfall of Phnom Penh to Pol Pot's peasant army.
A $56 million United Nations-backed court has charged five top cadres with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Cambodia has appealed to its donors for another $114 million in funding to see the trials through to a conclusion. - Reuters
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Monday, April 21, 2008
US gives Cambodia $2 mln for genocide museum
Thai broker Seamico eyes Vietnam, Cambodia in Q3
BANGKOK, April 21 (Reuters) - Thailand's Seamico Securities ZMIC.BK aimed to finalise plans later this year to expand into Vietnam and Cambodia, two of Asia's fastest-growing economies, the brokerage firm said on Monday.
The company also planned to sell up to 1 billion baht ($32 million) worth of debentures during June and July, Seamico Vice Chairman and Managing Director Pinit Puapan told reporters.
"We should have a clear picture of our overseas expansion in the third quarter," Pinit said without giving further details.
Seamico, ranked 7th among Thailand's 38 listed brokers, is focused on underwriting share and debt issues as well as advising companies on initial public offerings.
The Thai firm said last year it wanted to buy stakes in Vietnamese brokerage firms, but did not name any targets.
Vietnam's main stock index .VNI rose 23 percent last year after jumping 145 percent in 2006, powered by surge in foreign funds. The index has fallen 42.3 percent so far this year.
Seamico expected to receive a licence to enter Cambodia later this year, he said.
On Monday, Seamico shares closed down 1.8 percent to 3.22 baht while the overall index was 0.4 percent lower. ($1=31.50 Baht) (Reporting by Saranya Suksomkij; Writing by Ploy Chitsomboon; Editing by Darren Schuettler)
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Cambodia opposes Dalai Lama's attempts to sabotage Beijing Olympics
PHNOM PENH, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia opposes attempts by the Dalai clique to sabotage the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing by making use of the Tibet issue, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong said on Monday.
Cambodia also opposes any foreign interference in China's internal affairs, said Hor, who is also minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, during a meeting with a visiting Chinese delegation.
The Olympic Games have nothing to do with politics and Cambodia fully supports China's hosting of the 2008 Olympics, Hor told the delegation headed by Zhang Xuan, deputy party chief of China's Chongqing city.
King Norodom Sihamoni will attend the games' opening ceremony in Beijing, he added.
The Cambodian government has consistently adhered to the one-China policy and opposed Taiwan independence, he said.
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French lawyer in Cambodia to represent ex-Khmer Rouge leader
By KER MUNTHIT
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A French lawyer who defended terrorists and a former Nazi officer arrived in Cambodia on Monday to represent a former Khmer Rouge leader.
Jacques Verges declined to comment and only said "go to the court" before being whisked away in a car after his arrival at Phnom Penh International Airport.
Verges will join a Cambodian attorney to argue former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan's appeal against his pretrial detention.
The U.N.-assisted tribunal has held Khieu Samphan since Nov. 19 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from atrocities committed under Khmer Rouge rule in 1975-79.
The communist group's radical policies led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.
Khieu Samphan is one of five former leaders of the group held for their alleged roles in the atrocities. He has repeatedly denied any involvement.
Verges has won international notoriety for his past efforts in defending criminals such as Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal and Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie.
Khieu Samphan has said he has known Verges since he attended university in France in the 1950s, when both were active in student movements against French colonialism.
Khieu Samphan's defense team also includes Say Bory, a Cambodian lawyer who used to serve on the constitutional council, the country's highest legal body.
Say Bory said the defense is challenging both the tribunal's grounds for detaining Khieu Samphan and its arguments implicating him in the Khmer Rouge's atrocities.
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Sunday, April 20, 2008
Cambodian Campaigner Get World's Children's Prize In Stockholm
By Bjarne Wildau
Somaly Mam of Cambodia, who has campaigned against trafficking and child prostitution was Wednesday named winner of the World's Children's Prize. Queen Silvia of Sweden, one of the patrons of the prize, was to present the award, worth 150,000 dollars, at a ceremony on Friday.
Somaly Mam was sold to a brothel as a young girl, and has campaigned against trafficking for the past 12 years. She has set up three safe houses for girls rescued from brothels and offers them food, health care, schooling and job training, organizers said.
Her organization, that is known under its French acronym, AFISEP, has helped some 3,000 former sex workers.
However, Somaly Mam's campaign against the sex trade in Cambodia has "earned her many enemies and death threats. Her own 14 year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and sold to a brothel" two years ago, organizers said.
Somaly Mam was selected by a jury of former child soldiers, street children, bonded workers and refugees from 17 countries.
Somaly Mam was also winner of the Global Friends' Award in a worldwide vote among some 6.6 million children.
The World's Children's Prize award, was established in 2000 by the Swedish non-governmental organization, Children's World.
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Far Reaching Impact of the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia
Deep in the former opium-growing region of the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia, a new road has opened that is bound to change the social, economic and environmental fabric of the region forever. But unlike so many changes in Asia that have been studied only after their impact has occurred, researchers were on the ground for this one from the very beginning.
Using a combination of high-tech satellite technology and traditional boot-pounding research, they are working to understand the impact of change on a region that has largely existed in steady isolation for generations.
The road, inaugurated with great fanfare in early April by the prime ministers of Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, will link the city of Kunming in southern China through northern Laos to Chiang Mai in Thailand and then on to Bangkok, nearly 1,100 miles away. This new “Route 3,” the first modern ground link between China and Thailand, cuts directly through the formerly isolated high mountain areas of the region - the famed “Golden Triangle.”
Among those researching the impact of the road through Montane Southeast Asia is East-West Center researcher Jefferson Fox. Under grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA worth about $1.5 million, Fox and his colleagues are studying how the road will affect the environment, land use practices and daily life in the regions it penetrates.
But in larger ways, their study will contribute to the understanding of how projects such as this have impacts far beyond the direct economic or physical changes that drive them in the first place.
Working with economists, geographers, sociologists and others, Fox put together a high-tech database, which in turn has led to a greater understanding of dynamics of change.
“We’re looking at the road as a metaphor for change,” Fox said.
A half-century ago, this was a remote mountainous region populated by indigenous people who survived on traditional shifting cultivation and subsistence hunting. From far northern Thailand through Laos and into China, “you wouldn’t even know you were in three different countries,” Fox said.
But change inevitably came. Opium production became an export crop, and, later, cash crops such as rubber began to take over. The Chinese, Fox notes, were particularly successful in establishing rubber in the semi-tropical areas of southern China with a system that became a combination of state-run enterprises and private small landholders.
In Thailand, an interest in land preservation led to the creation of land set-asides and national parks that left traditional indigenous people marginalized or dispossessed, he said. In Laos, the indigenous people are increasingly becoming sharecroppers for outsiders who are eager to plant more and more rubber.
The introduction of year-round “monocrops” has had an immediate and measurable impact on the environment, Fox says. This is particularly true with an introduced crop such as rubber, with its high demands for land and water resources.
The only thing holding back even further expansion of rubber and further loss of the existing environment and traditional cultures in the area was lack of an adequate means of getting that product to market.
Hence, the road.
Traditionally, such development projects happen, and then scientists come in to study their impact after the fact, Fox said. In this case, the study began before the road was completed and led to a solid baseline of information that can be used to accurately paint a before-and-after picture.
Whether that change is good or bad can be a matter of perspective, Fox said. But what is without question is that transformation is coming to the region on a scale that could not have been imagined previously.
“We’re really on the verge of a major change in land use in the uplands of Southeast Asia,” he said. “It was going to find a way to happen anyway, but not at this speed.”
What is important to scientists such as Fox is that, this time, the change - beginning with the physical and environmental transformations and moving on to all the associated impacts - is being watched and measured. It makes sense, he said, to monitor land-use change as the baseline for understanding these massive changes taking place.
“These cultures were built around their land use,” he said. “If you change land use policies, you’re going to have an impact on your culture.”
Along with that change of land use come new environmental problems, such as demand for water and loss of biodiversity; the shift from a subsistence to an export economy; social change as people move toward cash jobs and urban centers; and the influx of new people and ideas carried easily along the smooth new Route 3 road.
One concern is the spread of disease, particularly HIV/AIDS, which is known to “flow along roads,” Fox said. The fact that Kunming and the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai are known for high incidence of AIDS makes this unhappy change inevitable.
Another concern, he said, is the potential for an uptick in smuggling. While opium production has been largely curtailed, there is still a lucrative black market for tropical hardwoods and lumber. Illegal forestry could expand with easy access to the new road, he said.
Over time, Fox said, the story of a place transitioning from subsistence to a commercial economy “is not a new story.”
“But a major road that opens up an area that has been totally isolated is not that common,” he said. “Here we have three countries, three (land use) policies. It’s a great opportunity for understanding.”
Jefferson Fox is a senior researcher at the East-West Center in Honolulu, specializing in land-use and land-cover change in Asia, and is coordinator of the Center’s Environmental Change, Vulnerability and Governance research group.
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Friday, April 18, 2008
Careless drivers blamed for high holiday road toll
Written by Khouth Sophak Chakrya
Eight killed, 21 injured in Phnom Penh
Substantially more people were killed on Phnom Penh roads this New Year than during the 2007 holiday break despite the efforts of road safety organizations and the Cambodian government, who campaigned hard to lower the holiday road toll.
Eight people were killed and 21 injured in the capital over the April 12-15 holiday period, said the deputy chief of Phnom Penh’s traffic police, Pen Khun, who blamed poor driving for most crashes.
Last Khmer New Year in Phnom Penh, only one person was killed and 20 injured during the five days from April 12-16, he said.
“Ninety-seven percent of all accidents are caused by human error, primarily drunk driving and speeding,” Khun said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Road Transportation said the number of accidents nationwide from January to March 2008 had more than doubled from the same period last year.
In Siem Reap province this New Year, there were nine traffic accidents that injured 16 people, although no fatalities were reported, Siem Reap police chief Sot Nady told the Post on April 16.
“We had eight fewer accidents this year than in 2007 because many people didn’t drive their cars during the festivities as we had bad storms at the time,” he said.
Keo Savin, director of the Department of Road Transportation, said roads were becoming more crowded and this was contributing to a higher rate of crashes in general.
From January until the end of March, 421 people were killed on Cambodian roads and a further 3,003 injured, compared with 206 fatalities and 2,122 injured in the first three months of 2007, according to the department’s figures.
“The sheer volume of vehicles causes accidents now,” Savin said.
From January 1 to March 31, “in the whole of Cambodia, 11,414 people received driving licenses but the number of registered vehicles went up even faster – 34,810 vehicles were registered, of which 29,049 were motorbikes,” he said.
Several NGOs and government departments issued warnings and held high-profile public ceremonies in the build-up to the Khmer New Year break in the hope of saving lives on the Kingdom’s notoriously chaotic roads.
The National Road Safety Committee on April 7 warned people to drive carefully as there is often a spike in the number of traffic accident during national festivals, particularly during Khmer New Year when thousands of families flood out of the cities in overloaded vehicles to celebrate the holiday in their home provinces.
Still, festivities got off to a bad start in Phnom Penh with five people killed in three crashes on April 13.
Pop star Sok Pisey was injured on April 14 when the car she was driving blew a tire and ran off a road in Koh Kong province, killing four passengers, including her 10-year-old sister, and injuring five others.
The 19-year-old, who had been traveling from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville for a concert, was taken to Calmette hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.
According to the Road Traffic Accident Victim Information System (RTRAVIS), from April 12-18 last year there were 1,340 minor casualties, 74 fatalities, and 341 severe injuries nationwide.
While an accurate national tally of crashes is yet to be compiled for the holiday this year, the deputy head of the department of judicial police, Him Yan, said on 16 April he was optimistic that “traffic accidents during the Khmer New Year period for this year will be fewer than last year.”
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Govt shrugs off Thai border complaints over Preah Vihear
Written by Cat Barton and Vong Sokheng
The government on April 11 denied Thai allegations it was overstepping its boundaries at the long-disputed Preah Vihear temple that straddles the Thai-Cambodian border, in the latest bout of political jostling that has for years has prevented Cambodia from listing the ancient Hindu temple as a UNESCO world heritage site.
Although the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled in 1962 that the temple belongs to Cambodia, the actual boundary line in the district remains unclear and the 4.6-square-kilometer area surrounding the temple is claimed by both countries.
Thailand sparked off the latest series of exchanges on April 11 when it summoned the Cambodian Ambassador to Thailand, Ung Sean, and claimed Cambodia had dispatched troops to the contested area over a month ago. This would violate a memorandum of understanding signed in 2000 by both parties which bars them from making any changes in the area before the border can be demarcated.
Ouch Borith, Secretary of State at the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told reporters the only armed forces deployed in the area were there to maintain the temple and provide security for visiting tourists.
“There is no confusion about the border and no overlapping area with Thailand’s territory in Preah Vihear,” Borith said. “The border was clearly mapped out in the Hague’s decision which was recognized by the international community.”
Thailand has lodged complaints before; in 2004 over the building of a road, in 2005 over the setting up of official outposts and a community, and in 2007 over the issuing of a decree to claim the area so it can be registered as a World Heritage Site.
This time, they requested Phnom Penh withdraw its armed forces and leave the area vacant until the completion of demarcation – expected in about 10 years.
Cambodia is trying to demarcate the border area itself, which requires finding 73 old markers that once signaled the border line. Since 2006, they have found 20.
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Witness to history, telegraph service set to shut down
During a recent visit to the Central Post Office on Bangrak Road, officials there proudly told me about the history of the post office building, which has been deemed to be part of the nation's cultural heritage.
Jeerawat Na Thalang
The Nation
"There's a bomb underneath the car parking lot," an official said, pointing to the parking space in front of the building. The bomb was dropped during World War II but it did not explode. Officials didn't know how to retrieve the bomb without setting it off, so they left it there after the war ended.
The monolith building was designed according to old European architectural styles and its floor is decorated with tiles from Italy. The tiles may have darkened over the years but they give a vintage look to the interior of what is known as both the Bangrak Post Office and the Central Post Office, Bangkok South.
The building has witnessed the fast-changing pace of communications technology, from the old days when postmen wore neatly ironed shirts with shining stripes and rode bicycles to deliver mail to more modern times when people on different continents can communicate via email within seconds.
From next month, this old building will witness another historical event in the evolution of technology. The telegraph service will cease to exist, with a new generation turning to new methods of communication like e-mail.
Telegraph was once one of the most popular ways to send quick messages. People used the telegraph wire to deliver hot news, such as the results of a job interview, news of a recent death or claims for debt payment. At its peak, from 1987 to 1992, more than 500,000 messages were sent by telegraph each month. But that number has declined to some 8,000 this month. CAT decided to close down the service because the cost of maintaining it was not worthwhile.
The telegraph service came to Thailand in 1875. At that time, both the French and the British offered to construct telegraph lines in Thailand. The French offered to connect the line to Saigon, while the British wanted to run a line from Bangkok to Tavoy, Burma. King Rama V eventually turned down the offers from both countries and decided that Thailand would construct its own line. Thailand launched its first line in the East, connecting Bangkok and Samut Prakan. The service was later expanded to Prachin Buri to connect with the Indochinese line in Battambang in Cambodia and Saigon in Vietnam. Later on, the service was expanded throughout Thailand.
The telegraph was in fact part of several historical events. On January 17, 1928, the Post and Telegraph Department launched the international radiotelegraphy line for the first time by using a short-wave transmission machine to send a signal to Berlin. King Rama VII sent a telegraph to the Thai ambassador in Berlin saying:
SIAMESE MINISTER BERLIN
GREETING AM GLAD TO BE ABLE TO SEND FIRST MESSAGE DIRECT BANGKOK BERLIN RADIO
PRAJADHIPOK R
During World War II, the international telegraph service - which came through Manila - was halted in December 1941. Later on, the Thai government tried to negotiate the re-launching of the service via a neutral country. On April 6, 1942, the international telegraph service was reopened as the service was connected via Geneva, Switzerland.
Postal staff said that when they were students at the Post and Telegraph School, Morse Code class was their toughest because they had to memorise how to send the code accurately. An urban legend at the school had it that some telegraph experts could receive and memorise four messages at the same time before delivering them all later.
Officials said they received incomprehensible messages frequently, which they suspected were sent by lovers. Unfortunately, quite a number of the messages sent were death notices.
"It combined the art of finger-tapping and the accuracy of the code," said Saneth Pangsapha, the 59-year-old head of the Bangkok South Post Office in Bangrak. He demonstrated how to tap the code with his flexible wrist. "Telegraph is very classic. It requires both technical skill and a human touch," he said while complaining that his wrist has turned "dusty" because he cannot move his fingers to tap the code as fast as he used to.
These days, the telegraph service section consists of 25 staff members, a reduction from some 300 when the service was more popular. The telegraph section is located on the upper floor of the Bangrak Post Office. Morse Code is no longer applied. Officials use a computerised system to send telegraphs.
Consumers can, however, fill out the telegraph forms, which they can collect from the ground floor of the post office. Pieces of the brown paper form available in a box obviously shows that the form has not been reprinted in years.
Many years ago, the telegraph office wanted to change the image of the telegraph service. "People were frightened when they received a telegraph. They thought chances were good they were about to receive death news," said Kanissorn Tongsap, another post office official. The post office introduced the idea of telegraphs sent for "friendship and goodwill". However, the campaign was not quite successful as people turned to other types of technology to send messages, such as SMS.
Thailand is not alone in closing the service, as other countries have also ended the service recently. "The other factor forcing us to close the service is that spare parts needed for telegraph equipment are no longer available," said Kanissorn. Some countries such as France, however, used telegraph services during the Iraq War because the services were deemed safer. Who knows, the abandoned telegraph poles along several main roads may be dusted off and used again.
Members of the public are invited to join the telegraph exhibition in the final week of April at the Central Post Office in Bangrak.
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ADRA Provides Food and Shelter for Fire Survivors in Cambodia
Ann Marie Stickle
Website: http://www.alertnet.org/redir/mem_out_219487/http://www.adra.org
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
Coordinating with the mayor's office, ADRA Cambodia distributed rice, noodles, fish, salt, sugar, and vegetable oil to 520 families, or approximately 2,000 identified fire survivors, on April 12.
On April 15, ADRA expanded its response, distributing shelter and noodles for an additional 80 identified families that were also displaced by the fire, and are currently living in a make-shift internally displaced camp near the site of the tragedy.
According to authorities, the fire began at around 5 a.m. and burned for approximately 5 hours.
Due to the close proximity of the poorly constructed wooden homes, and the crowds of people escaping with their possessions, fire engines were unable to enter the area to extinguish the fire, which caused the complete destruction of all 450 homes located there, leaving behind only concrete poles.
More than 50 families were immediately moved to an open field nearby. However, more survivor families are joining the displaced persons camp each day, swelling the camp's population to more than 250 families. ADRA International, the ADRA Asia Regional Office in Bangkok, Thailand, and ADRA Cambodia are funding this response. ADRA has worked jointly with the Cambodia Adventist Mission, the Cambodia Adventist School, and Adventist Frontier Missions in packaging and distribution, and is coordinating with the mayor's office, village leaders, and other NGO partners in the relief efforts.
To assist in ADRA's response to the fire in Cambodia, please contact ADRA International at 1.800.424.ADRA (2372) or donate online to the Emergency Response Fund at www.adra.org. ADRA is present in 125 countries, providing community development and emergency management without regard to political or religious association, age, gender, race, or ethnicity. Additional information about ADRA can be found at www.adra.org. -END- Author: Ann Stickle, Associate Director for ADRA Cambodia Media Contact: Hearly Mayr ADRA International 12501 Old Columbia Pike Silver Spring, MD 20904 Phone: 301.680.6357 Mobile: 301.526.2625 E-mail: Media.Inquiries@adra.org
Thursday, April 17, 2008
New Year's blast in Cambodia kills 1, injures 25
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — An attacker hurled a hand grenade into a crowd of people dancing at a Buddhist temple to celebrate Cambodia's traditional New Year, killing one villager and wounding 25 others, police said Thursday.
The attack, which killed a 21-year-old man, occurred Wednesday evening about 30 miles north of Siem Reap in western Cambodia, said Ou Em, the provincial police chief.
Many villagers had gathered at the temple for dancing to mark the last day of the traditional New Year holiday, police said.
"First, I thought it was a firecracker that exploded until I saw people with blood on them," said Bou Nimol, a 17-year-old girl who witnessed the attack. "I just ran straight home after that."
Police said they were investigating the attack but had no immediate suspects.
Siem Reap, about 140 miles northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh, is the site of the famed Angkor temples.
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Man guilty of Cambodia coup plot
It is so sad and regret to see the Justice in the United State bear from its role to pro the Mafia government of Cambodia. In stead of helping Chhun as political exile; United State is trying to please those criminal Mafia officials.
A US court has convicted a Cambodian-born man of masterminding a failed coup attempt against the Cambodian government eight years ago.
Chhun Yasith, 52, was found guilty of four charges relating to the failed attack in November 2000.
Dozens of armed men attacked government buildings in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, in a bid to overthrow Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Several people were killed but the prime minister escaped unhurt.
The court in Los Angeles found Chhun guilty of three charges of conspiracy and one of planning a military expedition against a US ally.
"The planning and fundraising happened right here in the United States," prosecutor Lamar Baker told the court earlier this month.
"It was like the labels say, 'Made in the USA'."
But a lawyer for Chhun argued that his client's only goal had been "to bring democracy to his homeland".
"It was misguided and naive in its execution but it was not misguided and naive in its intent," lawyer Richard Callahan said.
Armed attack
Chhun left Cambodia in the early 1980s when the country was in disarray following the Vietnamese invasion that swept the Khmer Rouge regime from power.
He became a US citizen and worked as an accountant in Long Beach, California.
But in the late 1990s, prosecutors said, he founded a group called the Cambodian Freedom Fighters.
The group's aim was to unseat the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander who had defected to Vietnam in the late 1970s.
Prosecutors said that the group - controlled by Chhun from a base in Thailand - carried out a series of smaller attacks in the lead-up to the coup attempt.
Then on 24 November 2000, dozens of rebels armed with rockets and grenades attacked government buildings in Phnom Penh.
Several people were killed and more injured.
In the wake of the attack, dozens of people were arrested and jailed. Chhun was tried and convicted in absentia by a Phnom Penh court.
He will be sentenced in Los Angeles on 8 September, where prosecutors say he could face life imprisonment.
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Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Cambodia’s Urban Renewal Turns Ugly
Just a stone’s throw away from Cambodia’s National Assembly in Phnom Penh, a fading billboard trumpets an urban renewal campaign promising to transform 100 poor communities into thriving neighborhoods within a year. Included is the decimated slum that lies behind parliament – Dey Krahorm, or Red Earth village.
The billboard, erected a few months before national elections four years ago, shows Prime Minister Hun Sen leading a band of impassioned officials as they stride toward this much publicized goal.
They never reached it. After the election, urban renewal turned into poverty expulsion. Red Earth now resembles a moonscape of rubble, teetering shacks and evacuated spaces. Fewer than 100 of the nearly 1,000 families who lived there when the billboard was erected remain. The rest have been trucked off to one of the many relocation sites 20 to 30 kilometers outside the city, most of which lack electricity, clean water, toilets, schools, clinics and, importantly, access to jobs.
Excluding Burma, “Cambodia has the most abusive record of forced evictions in the region,” said David Pred, the country director of Bridges Across Borders, an international non-governmental organization formed to combat the root causes of violence.
In an interesting twist, the Cambodian Red Cross, which has been appealing for donations to resettle squatters, is headed by the prime minister’s wife, Bun Rany Hun Sen. Besides widespread allegations of corruption and misuse of funds, the Cambodia Red Cross’s appeal for funds to resettle people evicted as a result of land grabs by people closely tied to the prime minister is, to use the phrase of one diplomat, “more than a little off-putting.”
An official at the International Red Cross agreed: “There’s something not quite kosher about this,” he said.
Although evictions have been a companion to Asia’s “asymmetrical growth”, as Pred calls it, over the past 25 years, the situation in Cambodia is exacerbated by the lack of legal protection for those facing eviction. “At least in a country like the Philippines, affected people can go to court and a have some chance at stopping [evictions] or getting fair compensation. That is not possible in Cambodia today,” Pred said.
Dey Krahorm resident Lee Luleng was blunter: “If I call the police [for help] they will arrest me.” Lee Luleng, 61, is among those who have declined the offer of either relocation outside the city or compensation equivalent to less than 10 percent of the land’s market value of more than US$3,000 per square meter from 7NG, the shadowy company that claims ownership of the land. (7NG describes itself as a publicly listed company in a country that does not have a stock exchange. In a telephone interview, 7NG chairman Srey Sothea said the company is not listed on a foreign bourse and that all its funds are sourced in Cambodia. He declined, however, to identify the exact source of the company’s funds or name its board of directors. He did say, however, that 7NG is “seeking foreign investment.”)
Declining a bad deal from 7NG can come at a heavy price. At least 13 residents of Dev Krathorn, including six community representatives, have been charged with criminal offenses, according to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, which has documented a three-year campaign of what it calls “harassment, intimidation and provocation” against the community by private security officers and municipal police.
“They shout, ‘Get out, dogs!’ We shout back, ‘You’re worse than Pol Pot,’” is how Lee Luleng described the frequent standoffs with police and security officers. Along with insults and obscenities, police sometimes toss bags of urine at them, residents say. Police erected a wall along one end of the community to block access to street-side shops (forcing owners to sell or relocate) and tried unsuccessfully to block access to the market that is the community’s main source of income.
Srey Sothea, the 7NG head, said no employees of his company were involved in altercations with residents of Dey Krathorm. “We’re a construction company, not a security firm,” he said. He also denied allegations that 7NG is paying police officers to drive the residents from their homes.
“When Cambodians hear the phrase ‘development plan’, they know it means evictions,” explained Choun Chamrong, a land-rights program officer at the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Organization. “Usually they give up quickly because they know they are up against companies or individuals connected to the government,” she explained. In 2006, Adhoc recorded 16 cases of entire communities being forcibly evicted. Last year, the figure rose to 26.
Brittis Edman, a researcher with Amnesty International, pointed to another disquieting trend. “What we are seeing over the last year is that the courts are increasingly being used as tools to silence housing rights activists,” she said before the February release of AI’s report “Rights Razed: Forced Evictions in Cambodia.” The report warned that “at least 150,000” Cambodians are at risk of forced evictions.
The government’s response was unintentionally amusing. It insisted there were no forced evictions in Cambodia and accused Amnesty International of trying to grab headlines. Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak went further. He told reporters that if the government did not respect human rights, it would have expelled Amnesty’s representatives from Cambodia.
What he failed to mention, however, was that police tried to stop Edman from meeting a group of residents facing eviction near Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak Lake on February 10. “They told us we didn’t have a permit to hold the meeting, but we explained we were just having a discussion,” Edman said. After a brief face-off, police allowed the discussion to proceed, but they photographed every resident, journalist and activist present, and tape-recorded the meeting.
Villagers say they are crammed together now in a ditch with no access to clean water and no source of income. The impact of forced evictions on public health has yet to be measured – at either the local, provincial or national levels – but NGOs working with communities that have been evicted are scrambling to find funds to expand their medical outreach programs. Illnesses include malnutrition, weakened immune systems, bronchitis and other lung infections, skin rashes, ear and eye infections, diarrhea, fever, intestinal worms, fungal infections, and post-traumatic stress.
Andong, a resettlement site where the evicted have been moved to about 20 kilometers from Phnom Penh, is a public-health disaster. The lack of sanitation, clean water and access to health care leaves the 1,500 families crammed into what has been called a “fetid swamp” highly vulnerable to any outbreak of infectious disease, health workers warn.
Five children died of dengue fever there in March last year alone, resident Kat Vijay recalls. Like most of residents of the site, Kat was evicted from Sambok Chap, a settlement along the banks of the Bassac River in Phnom Penh in June 2006.
Resident Sum Khum says living in Andong is worse than the refugee camp in which she spent 13 years on the Thai border. “Then, we had food and water. We had medicine and schools. Aid workers used to visit us,” said the 74-year-old widow. “Now, we have nothing. Sometimes the Christians come with rice and noodles, but they don’t bring enough.”
After almost two years, the evictees are still waiting for running water, electricity, a sewage system, a clinic, a school, and toilets that work. The 12 that were installed last year, along with 12 bathing stalls, can’t be used because they are not connected to running water.
When he lived in Phnom Penh, Kat Vijay worked in construction, mainly restoring the city’s French colonial mansions, for US$2.50 a day. Since then he has had no work except for a three-month stint building a row of 41 rooms at Andong for the Cambodian Red Cross, he says.
Brittis Edman of Amnesty International noted a new development in forced evictions that many diplomats may find even more off-putting. Some residents at resettlement sites are being threatened with eviction again, possibly to make more room for newcomers, she said.
Charity dinner to provide cows for Cambodia's poor
An inventive scheme aiming to help impoverished families in rural Cambodia by providing short-term loans of cows is the motive behind a gala charity dinner and auction to be held in Osaka next month.
Hope International Development Agency, a nonprofit organization that helps people overcome poverty by providing human and financial resources, will host the May 10 event at The Ritz-Carlton, Osaka, in the city's Kita Ward.
Funds raised at the event will go toward the Cow Bank project, a part of Hope's microcredit program, which promotes self-help among rural families and sustainable development in Cambodia.
The Cow Bank operates literally as its name implies: Families borrow a cow from Hope and use it to fertilize and plough their fields. Ideally, the cow will give birth during the loan period, and when the calf becomes self-sufficient a few months later, the borrowed cow is "paid back" to Hope.
The family keeps the calf, while the returned cow is then loaned to another poor family. This cycle can be repeated several times, according to Hope.
The May 10 event, to begin at 7 p.m., is the second such event the organization has staged in the Kansai region.
The evening will feature a five-course dinner; a silent auction of items from developing countries, local artists and companies; live entertainment by Japanese musicians; a short video presentation on Hope's activities in Cambodia; and the opportunity to contribute to helping people in the nation.
The organization, based in Naka Ward, Nagoya, and headquartered in Canada, invites organizations, groups and individuals to attend the event. A table for 10 costs 220,000 yen, while individual tickets are 30,000 yen each.
Tickets for the gala event must be reserved by April 21.
The Osaka event, to be hosted in partnership with The Ritz-Carlton, Osaka, is sponsored by Lexus and AstraZeneca K.K.
A similar event hosted by Hope in Nagoya on Feb. 29 saw more than 450 people attend, along with media organizations including NHK and local TV and radio stations.
The Tokyo event is scheduled for May 9 at the Embassy of Canada.
For more information, visit www.hope.or.jp or call (052) 204-0530.
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U.N. chief calls for justice in Cambodia
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- On the tenth anniversary of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's death, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed Tuesday for the senior leaders of the regime to be brought to justice.
"I would like to remind the international community of the urgent importance of bringing to closure one of history's darkest chapters," Ban said in a statement.
The secretary-general said he hoped that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia "will soon deliver long-overdue justice for the people of Cambodia."
"The United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia remain actively engaged in efforts to hold the Khmer Rouge senior leaders and those most responsible accountable for their horrific crimes," he said.
Five former Khmer Rouge leaders have been detained and will face the ECCC, most of them on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
They are: Kaing Guek Eav, the alleged chief torturer of the regime; former Khmer Rouge Prime Minister Khieu Samphan; Ieng Sary, the regime's former foreign minister, and his wife, Ieng Thirith; and Nuon Chea, the top surviving regime leader.
The ECCC, which was established by both the United Nations and Cambodia, became operational in 2006, but the first formal hearings took place in fall of last year.
More than 2 million people died during the party's efforts to transform Cambodia into an agrarian utopia before troops from neighboring Vietnam overthrew the regime. Remnants of the Khmer Rouge continued to battle Cambodia's government into the 1990s before they fragmented in the middle of the decade.
Pol Pot, known as "Brother Number One" during the group's nearly four years in power, died in a jungle hideout in 1998. Ta Mok, the former Khmer Rouge military chief known as "The Butcher," died in a Cambodian military hospital in 2006 while awaiting trial for crimes against humanity.
The tribunal, which includes three Cambodian and two international jurists, is expected to continue until at least 2010.
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008
More U.S. soldiers' remains in Vietnam repatriated
HANOI, April 14 (Xinhua) -- The Vietnam Office for Seeking Mission Persons transferred Monday custody of possible remains believed to be those of Americans who died during the conflict in Southeast Asia and recovered from excavation sites in Vietnam's central region.
At the repatriation ceremony at the Da Nang International Airport in central Da Nang city on Monday, U.S. ambassador to Vietnam Michael Michalak and U.S. Army lieutenant colonel James Saenz, representing the U.S. government, received custody of the remains, according to a press release by the American Embassy in Vietnam. The ceremony marks the 106th post-war repatriation of remains from Vietnam.
To date, 883 Americans have been identified since 1975 -- 627 from Vietnam, 224 from Laos, 29 from Cambodia, and three from China. There are 1,763 Americans still unaccounted for from the war in Southeast Asia, including 1,353 in Vietnam, said the release.
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During Pol Pot's reign of terror 1.7m died. Now locals pray at his grave
By Ker Munthit in Anlong Veng, Cambodia
TEN years after the death of the brutal Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, his grave has become a symbol of spiritual comfort to some in the village where he died.
Villagers pray at the site, asking for blessings of luck, happiness and even protection from malaria – despite the mayhem he wrought upon their country.
"I know it is odd, but I just do as many people here do, asking for happiness from his spirit," said Orn Pheap, 37, who lost a grandfather and two uncles during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror from 1975 to 1979.
Her house in Anlong Veng, 190 miles north of the capital, Phnom Penh, sits 100 yards from the grave, and she said: "I don't know how long I can stay angry with him, since he is already dead."
For most, Pol Pot, who died ten years ago today from apparent heart failure, is remembered as a murderous tyrant with fanatical communist beliefs. Under his leadership, the Khmer Rouge turned the country into a vast slave labour camp, causing the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, forced labour and execution.
Last week, his grave – a pile of dirt covered by a knee-high corrugated zinc roof – was cluttered with clay jars filled with half-burned incense sticks, a sign of prayer and worship.
Cambodians believe in the influence of spirits and superstitious forces on their daily lives and fortunes, which may be why some worship at the grave.
Anlong Veng, once a jungle war zone, is now a sprawling market town, bustling with the kind of capitalist activities Pol Pot and his comrades sought to stamp out. Ramshackle shops are filled with clothing, homewares, pirated DVDs and other goods from nearby Thailand.
Pol Pot's grave has been designated a tourist attraction, and it is one of the few remnants of Khmer Rouge history, which the government is trying to preserve.
Some Cambodians have travelled to Anlong Veng to spit on the grave and curse him in anger, said Sat Narin, 37, who owns a nearby clothing shop. "Given his bad reputation, he should not be venerated," he said. "But somehow he is popular with some people."
Among the worshippers who seek blessings from Pol Pot's ghost are ethnic Vietnamese who live in the area – a sharp irony given the massacres of ethnic Vietnamese during his rule.
One such woman recalled a nightmare in which she saw a black-clad man sitting on a tree near her hut. When she described the vision to her Cambodian neighbours, they advised her to take offerings to Pol Pot's grave to ask his spirit for protection. "I have prayed at his grave ever since," she said. "I just want to show some respect to the spiritual master of the land."
FIVE FACE WAR CRIMES TRIAL
IF POL Pot were still alive, he would be facing war crimes charges along with five of his former comrades detained by Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal.
Their long-delayed trials are expected to start later this year.
The five are: the alleged chief torturer of the Khmer Rouge, Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch; Khmer Rouge prime minister Khieu Samphan; Ieng Sary, the regime's former foreign minister, and his wife, Ieng Thirith, who was also a Khmer Rouge member and the top surviving Khmer Rouge leader, Nuon Chea.
Nhem En, who was forced to work as the photographer at the Khmer Rouge's Tuol Sleng torture centre in Phnom Penh, says he is setting up his own museum in Anlong Veng about the communist group – not to glorify them, but for educational purposes.
He, too, used to light incense and pray at Pol Pot's grave, he said, but "only for him not to butcher people again in his next life".
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PETRA NEMCOVA - NEMCOVA HAUNTED BY CAMBODIA CHARITY TRIP
The Czech Republic-born model was so jarred by the experience she has teamed up with Southeast Asian-based charity the Somaly Mam Foundation in an effort to raise awareness for the devastating crimes.
She says, "It makes me so angry. Girls and boys get sold as young as four-years-old and are put in animal cages. Some of them never see the light anymore. We met this girl who was 13 and a pimp made her lose her right eye. The words 'pimp' and 'child' should never be in the same sentence."
Nemcova was so moved by the Foundation, which seeks to rescue women and girls from the horrors of a life in brothels or on the streets, she wore a dress hand-sewn by women rescued by the group to a recent charity gala.
The model suffered her own hardship during a 2004 vacation to Thailand, surviving multiple broken bones and internal injuries when a tsunami hit land, killing her then-boyfriend, photographer Simon Atlee, and leaving her stranded for hours in a palm tree.
Monday, April 14, 2008
100 tourists evacuated after Cambodian hotel fire: police
PHNOM PENH - About 100 tourists were evacuated early Saturday from one of Cambodia's biggest hotels and casinos, after a fire broke out at a construction site inside the complex in Phnom Penh, police said.
Wood being used for remodelling the NagaCorp hotel caught fire, sparking a blaze in a district of the city crowded with government offices, including the parliament and foreign ministry, military police officer Klook Chandara said.
About 50 firefighters and volunteers worked for three hours to douse the blaze, he added.
The damage was contained to one part of the hotel, and no injuries were reported, although the hotel evacuated all its guests.
"I had just woken up, and someone called me to get out of the room. I was so shocked," said Malaysian tourist Choy Meng Choong, as he hauled his belongings out of the hotel.
The NagaCorp hotel and casino attracts hundreds of tourists every day, mainly from Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.
"As soon as we knew that something was burning at the back, we evacuated the all tourists to a safe place outside the hotel," said a hotel marketing manager, who asked not to be named.
"Everyone is safe. No one was injured," he told AFP, as a column of thick smoke billowed into the sky.
The blaze was the second major fire in two days in Cambodia's capital, after more than 200 wooden shacks in a slum area were destroyed early Friday, leaving thousands homeless.
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Cambodia Protects Endangered Bird
By Jerry Harmer
STOUNG, Cambodia (AP) — Conservationists in Cambodia think they may be turning the corner in their fight to save one of the world's rarest birds.
The Bengal Florican, known in Cambodia as "the whispering bird," is remarkable for a male mating display that amounts to a dance competition to attract a mate.
Since 2005, a rush to turn grasslands into large-scale rice farms has gobbled up one-third of the Bengal Florican's habitat in Cambodia, threatening the critically endangered bird with extinction.
Now, a land protection plan devised by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, along with British-based BirdLife International and Cambodian authorities, appears to be slowing this controversial real estate grab.
Most of the world's Bengal Floricans, believed to number less than 1,000, live in scattered pockets on the fringes of Cambodia's Great Lake. The rest are in India, Nepal and Vietnam.
The Cambodian program to protect Florican habitat bans development in five zones totaling 135 square miles. Villages and farms within the zones can remain, preserving traditional ways of life. Police patrol by motorbike during the dry season and by boat when floods come.
Since the program was adopted, three planned developments have been canceled and another put on hold, says Tom Evans, a Wildlife Conservation Society technical adviser in Cambodia.
"Some prospective developers have been deterred at an earlier stage when they learned that the areas had a special designation," he added.
More such zones, dubbed Integrated Farming and Biodiversity Areas, are planned.
In mid-March, the height of the dry season, the grasslands near Great Lake are at their bleakest. They stretch to the horizon, brown and flat under the blazing sun, with barely a tree to break the monotony. Smoke curls into the air where farmers burn off scrub to rejuvenate pasture for their cattle. Ox carts trundle down deeply rutted tracks. An occasional motor vehicle kicks up clouds of dust.
But for the patient and the sharp-eyed, this landscape offers a sight to behold: the courtship display of the male Bengal Florican.
The bird, a black-and-white bustard that looks like a small ostrich, struts into a clearing, stretches its long neck and ruffles up its feathers. Then, it flits into the air before fluttering back to the ground in an undulating pattern, like a parachutist caught in a crosswind.
As it descends, it emits a deep humming sound that has earned it its Cambodian name, "the whispering bird." The displays are usually carried out within sight of other males, in what amounts to an open dance competition to attract a mate.
"They're really unique," says Lotty Packman, a 24-year-old researcher from the University of East Anglia in England. "They're very striking and very charismatic."
Packman was spending long days in the heat, netting Floricans and attaching tracking devices to learn more about them, especially the elusive female of which very little is known.
"You can't conserve it if you don't know its natural history," Packman said after tagging and releasing a male with a solar-powered transmitter that will send back data every two days. "It's a race against time."
The species was rediscovered in Cambodia in 1999. Until then, the country's decades-long civil war had made detailed exploration of the countryside too dangerous.
But peace has proved to be a far greater threat.
Businessmen have snapped up thousands of acres of land in often murky deals and built more than 100 strip dams, which turn the grassland into emerald-green rice paddies that can produce rice during the dry season.
Conservationists have worked hard to win the villagers' support, but despite the restrictions on development, a new plantation has been laid out in one zone and preparations have been made for another. Signs marking the protected areas have been knocked down — it's not clear by whom.
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