Editorial | Articles about Cambodia | Khmer
By Associated Press
Reuters Pictures A survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime, Mom Kimsen 61, (R) is accompanied by a court official as she shows her portrait to the media at the Tuol Sleng (S-21) genocide museum in Phnom Penh May 31, 2011. She was part of the more than 300 villagers brought to the Khmer Rouge notorious security prison S-21, now museum, by the court on a regular tour basis. Mom Kimsen, who spent about a year in different prisons in 1977, said that she found her photo and two other photos of her relatives at the museum , appealing to the U.N. backed tribunal to sentence the former regime leaders in detention to life in prison for crimes they committed.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — It was supposed to be a model for international justice and national reconciliation: a U.N.-backed tribunal to hold trials on one of the 20th century’s grimmest chapters — the Khmer Rouge’s murderous 1970s regime in Cambodia.
Eight years after its creation, however, the multinational panel is riven by suspicion, infighting and angry resignations over whether to try more Khmer Rouge defendants on war crimes charges, in addition to the jailer already convicted and four top officials scheduled for trial June 27.
Critics fear the panel is caving to pressure from Cambodia’s strongman prime minister — himself a former Khmer Rouge cadre — to quash any further indictments, or that the United Nations’ resolve to continue the trials may be waning.
The tussle raises questions about whether the panel can find full justice for the estimated 1.7 million people who were killed, starved, worked to death or died of disease in the “Killing Fields” of the Khmer Rouge’s savage 1975-1979 rule.
“The integrity of the (tribunal) hangs in the balance,” warned former U.S. war crimes ambassador David Scheffer, who helped establish the court.
One of five panel employees who recently quit in frustration, London-based researcher Stephen Heder, chastised investigative judges in his resignation letter for what he described as closing the case on the additional suspects “effectively without investigation.”
Heder also cited the “toxic atmosphere of mutual distrust” at what he called “a professionally dysfunctional office” of the tribunal’s investigating judges, according to a copy of the letter obtained this week by The Associated Press.
The United Nations weighed in Tuesday, with the chief spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon strongly supporting the panel and its impartiality.
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government sought the United Nations’ help in the late 1990s to create the tribunal. But he didn’t want a fully international court, like for the former Yugoslavia.
Despite misgivings from negotiators, the final agreement in 2003 set up a hybrid system, with Cambodian and international judges and prosecutors working with Cambodian and international laws, under French-style rules.
“I did not want ... the U.N. emblem to be given to an entity that did not, shall we say, represent the highest international standards,” Hans Corell, the chief U.N. negotiator at the time, told AP. “But of course what we predicted seems to have developed into the problem that we were concerned would occur.”
Prosecutors have compiled substantial evidence for so-called Cases 003 and 004, which include two top military commanders who also were top officials in Cambodia’s post-Khmer Rouge military, according to confidential court documents obtained by AP. The documents allege both took part in purges that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.
The government, however, has openly stonewalled. Hun Sen told Ban last year that new cases would “not be allowed.”
He has warned that new cases could spark renewed civil war, though his opposition likely stems from the many Khmer Rouge officials, like himself, who are now in government and who fear investigators could dredge up new evidence of war crimes.
“The Cambodian government has been forthright all along that there would be no new cases,” said Anne Heindel, legal adviser to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which researches the Khmer Rouge. “It’s the failure of the United Nations to act that’s been surprising.”
Scrutiny recently has focused on the two investigating judges who, under the French-style rules, are primarily responsible pretrial investigations. Separate seven-judge panels try the cases.
Many had hoped that German investigating judge Siegfried Blunk would pursue the new cases despite objections of his Cambodian counterpart.
Instead, the judges’ office has made a series of controversial rulings that many observers say are without legal basis and appear intended to pre-empt at least one of the cases.
British co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley has fought the rulings and released new details about the investigation, prompting a harsh rebuke from the judges, which Cayley slammed as “abusive,” ‘’unreasonable,” ‘’capricious,” unprecedented.”
Tensions among some court employees and U.N. legal advisers reached a boiling point last month when several employees sent an angry letter to Ban complaining about Blunk, according to two officials who have seen the letter, but asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss the court’s internal matters. Blunk also sent a letter to Ban, though its contents are unclear.
At least five employees have resigned in protest over Blunk’s actions, including Heder, a consultant who compiled extensive evidence about new suspects.
Blunk was also the focus of Cambodian rights activist Ou Virak, who complained that his conduct was “a matter of utmost concern” and suggested that the U.N. had acquiesced to Cambodia’s government.
Blunk declined to answer questions from AP, but issued a statement through a court spokesman: “The co-investigating judges have worked independently from outside interference, and are resolved to defend their independence against all interference wherever it may come from.”
The feud, and concerns about public perception, prompted officials from the court’s main donors, which includes the United States, Australia and others, to intervene directly with Blunk and Cayley multiple times — by phone and in person.
“I believe in the good faith in each of the good people that I’m talking with. They have very good reason for doing what they’re doing,” the current U.S. war crimes ambassador, Stephen Rapp, said in an interview with AP. “Reasonable people can disagree, but people need to see that this is an issue that this is being decided on the law not on the basis of political pressure.”
Ban’s chief spokesman Martin Nesirky in a statement released Tuesday denied speculation that it was pushing judges to close cases 003 and 004.
“The judges and prosecutors must be allowed to function free from external interference by the Royal Government of Cambodia, the United Nations, donor States, and civil society,” he said. “It follows that the United Nations categorically rejects media speculation that we have instructed the (judges) to dismiss Case 003.”
Clair Duffy, who monitors the tribunal for the Open Society Justice Initiative, said the damage the court has suffered could be mitigated by how the upcoming trial — which includes the man who was second only to the infamous Pol Pot — plays out, “and in particular whether it was able to withstand political pressure from the Cambodian government.”
But the final judgment will rest with Cambodians and whether they embrace the court’s decisions as model justice or political charade.
___
Associated Press writer Edith Lederer in New York contributed to this report from New York.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Labels: Khmer Rouge, Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Prime Minister Hun Sen
» Read more!
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- One recent Sunday afternoon, television audiences across Cambodia watched a middle-aged man named Krem as he was introduced to the mother of his young girlfriend.
The mother, Oeurn, looked dubiously at her daughter's poorly dressed, extravagantly mustachioed suitor.
"How did you spend the Cambodian New Year?" Oeurn asked him.
"I went to Preah Vihear," Krem replied, referring to a contested 11th century temple on the Thai border that has sparked several skirmishes between Cambodian and Thai forces over the past few years. "We performed comedy for the soldiers who protect us from Thai invasion. I would like to ask the New Year's angel to protect our soldiers and let them defeat the enemy."
A bit later, Krem abruptly announced to Oeurn, "Phnom Penh municipality now has less garbage and is cleaner. Do you know who did that?"
"Who?"
"It is because of Excellency Kep Chuktema, the governor. He has educated people and broadcast it on television not to litter, so now there is less garbage and no more bad smell."
It might not be precisely how every Cambodian villager addresses his prospective mother-in-law, but the exchange was par for the course on Bayon TV, where Krem's wildly popular comedy troupe performs a similar sketch every week, with goofy domestic scenarios routinely breaking into extravagant praise for government policy or officials aligned with the ruling Cambodian People's Party. The propaganda became even more pointed in late April, during 13 days of deadly border clashes with Thai forces.
Bayon, owned by the daughter of Cambodia's strongman prime minister, Hun Sen, is not alone: this kind of politicized comedy is shown on all of the country's eight television stations -- performed by comedians who, frequently, are also paid members of Hun Sen's personal bodyguard unit. Many of the comedians bear the rank of colonel or lieutenant colonel.
The country's dozens of "colonel comedians" underscore the extent to which Hun Sen and his CPP have consolidated power over the past two decades, successfully marginalizing not just rival politicians but also dissenting artistic and cultural voices.
"It is further evidence of the deep reach of Hun Sen's personal networks of loyalties, and the growing difficulty of doing opposition politics in Cambodia," said Duncan McCargo, a professor of Southeast Asian politics at the University of Leeds.
In 1997, Hun Sen -- who then served as co-prime minister in a coalition government with a royalist political party, Funcinpec -- staged a bloody coup, ousting his counterpart, Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Although Ranariddh was eventually allowed to return, Funcinpec suffered heavy losses in subsequent elections and never recovered. More recently, in 2009 and 2010, the government filed two separate lawsuits against Sam Rainsy, a liberal politician popular among urbanites and expatriate Cambodians. Rainsy, who had emerged as the new leader of the opposition, was ultimately sentenced to a total of 12 years in prison, leaving him in de facto exile in France. And over the past few years, the government has systematically sued activists, journalists, and critics of every ilk, levying steep fines or jail terms (one man was sentenced to two years for suggesting that a new lighting system at Angkor Wat could harm the 12th-century temple).
Although most of the colonel comedians' skits and sketches are only sporadically political, they sometimes venture into deeper ideological waters. In 2009, after U.S. Ambassador Carol Rodley infuriated the government with a speech on corruption, both Krem and his equally famous counterpart Koy launched a series of comedy routines that bitingly mocked international NGOs for their own corruption problems.
In 2005, Krem created a routine called "Be Careful Not to Overuse Your Rights" that cast aspersions on human rights workers who teach Cambodian villagers about equality. And, during every election season, the comedians barnstorm around the countryside on the CPP's behalf.
General Hing Bunheang, commander of the Prime Minister Bodyguard Unit, an autonomous section within the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, confirmed that the unit had a bureau called the "Propaganda and Education Commission." It comprised 152 performers and artists, including the bulk of the country's comedians.
"Most of them are men, and they have the same rank as colonels. They have their own weapons," he said. As soldiers, the comedians "can go to battle with Thailand if there is a need," he added.
They can also misuse their weapons: In April, the popular comedian San Mao, also known as Colonel Thu Chamrong, was detained in Phnom Penh after firing his military-issue handgun in the air during a brawl. Police quickly released him, suggesting that the bodyguard unit discipline him.
According to General Bunheang, artists receive personal invitations from Hun Sen to join the unit and sometimes perform for audiences free of charge at the premier's request. He insisted that the members of the Propaganda and Education Commission are not engaged in propaganda.
"The bodyguard group is not for political propaganda but for entertaining people," he said.
Mu Sochua, a prominent opposition lawmaker, laughed at Bunheang's claim. Sochua had herself narrowly avoided a jail term after she was stripped of her parliamentary immunity and convicted of defaming the prime minister in 2009.
"It's a form of propaganda," she said. "It's not art, it's not promoting freedom of expression in the arts. ... The language that is used by the comedians, and sometimes even the gestures and the movements, convey a lot of power and authority and violence. And the message is all about good and evil."
Krem, the stage name of Colonel Ou Bunnarith, is a case in point. Perhaps the most passionately partisan of all the comedians, he displays an almost missionary zeal for winning converts to the CPP.
"Convincing people via artistic performances is very successful, and it is easy to take people out from their misbehavior or participation with the wrong political parties," he said in an interview.
Krem has been a household name in Cambodia since the 1980s, when the nation was only a few years removed from the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge regime and in the thick of a civil war with the movement's militant remnants. That is also when Krem first joined the Hun Sen bodyguards, which dispatched him to perform shows in Khmer Rouge-controlled areas to encourage defections.
"We were there to perform for the Khmer Rouge soldiers and propagandize for those soldiers to return to their motherland," he said. "We did political propaganda in our performances, and our words made them pleased."
Now that the Khmer Rouge have been eliminated, with the regime's four surviving senior leaders soon to be tried in Phnom Penh for war crimes, Krem applies his comedic talents toward ridiculing the country's rapidly shrinking political opposition. During the 2003 national election campaign, he produced and acted in a two-hour film called Mistletoe that lampooned both Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy, portraying the former as a pleasure-seeking sycophant and the latter as an out-of-control meddler. In the lead-up to local elections in 2002, he created a short film that made fun of garment workers who protested in the streets for better wages.
"When the election campaign comes, we have to do a hundred percent propagandizing for ... the CPP," he said.
Koy, the stage name of Colonel Chuong Chy, a doughy, thick-featured man, is also active on behalf of the government. Of the four men in the comedy troupe that Koy leads, three of them -- including Kren, a popular comedian with dwarfism -- belong to the Prime Minister Bodyguard Unit. The fourth is an officer in the 70th Infantry Brigade of the Cambodian army, which is also closely linked to the premier and has been accused of human rights abuses.
Like Krem, Koy joined the bodyguards in the 1980s, starting out as a captain and rising to colonel two years ago in a mass promotion of entertainers. In person, he is terse and severe, rarely cracking a smile. Although he openly describes the work he does as propaganda, he insists his troupe writes all its own skits with no government input.
"We just tell people how good [Hun Sen] is, how he constructed the country, how many buildings he builds," Koy told me backstage after one of his performances, fiddling irritably with the keys to his Lexus. "Nobody tells us what to say. We just describe what we have seen- -- roads, schools, irrigation -- and make it a little bit funny."
Standing nearby was Koy's longtime friend, Colonel Chhum Bunchhoeurn of the 70th Infantry, still sporting painted-on white whiskers and eyebrows. Colonel Bunchhoeurn, best known by the stage name Banana, agreed that any political overtones to the group's comedy were totally coincidental.
"We don't have time to talk about [politics] because we're just concerned about striving to make people laugh," he said. "If we pretend to be a father, we're just concerned with being a father."
Please use a JavaScript-enabled device to view this slideshow
Still, in one of the troupe's recent shows, entitled "No Luck," a comedian known as Klouk (real name Lieutenant Colonel Tum Saruth), who was playing an elderly father, began talking politics almost as soon as he walked onstage.
"We just want to stay in peace, but [Thailand] does not want us to stay in peace -- they caused trouble, so now I have to go participate in the army and protect our territory from invasion," Klouk told a rapt studio audience, using exaggerated martial gestures to elicit gales of laughter.
Koul Panha, director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections, a local NGO, said comedians such as Koy and Krem are immensely popular with Cambodian viewers, who don't always have many other entertainment options.
"It's very strange that many comedians, I mean famous comedians, become bodyguards with a military rank," he said. "People know it -- the prime minister gives public information about the comedians being bodyguards -- but they control the TV and ordinary people have no choice but to watch them."
Panha pointed out that all of Cambodia's eight TV stations are linked to the CPP in some way, creating a "very limited playing field" for opposition parties.
A decade ago, when Funcinpec was a more serious contender for power, it had its own comedian-affiliates. But as the party has dwindled over the past few years, its comedians have all defected to the CPP.
The best known of them, Lorcy, struggled for years to find work after campaigning for Funcinpec during the 2003 election season. He claimed he had been blacklisted from the airwaves and feared for his life. In 2009, he defected from Funcinpec and published an open letter of apology to Hun Sen through General Bunheang. His career immediately picked up. Krem invited him to join his troupe for a guest appearance, and now Lorcy regularly performs on two government-affiliated stations. On April 1, he became a lieutenant colonel in the bodyguard unit.
"I was really regretful of my mistake, which was why I apologized for forgiveness to be given to Samdech [Hun Sen]'s child, me," said Lorcy, using a Cambodian honorific that roughly translates as "Lord." "Samdech is a great leader. He forgave me for my mistake, which was done by accident, and I made a commitment to sacrifice my life to serve the party and Samdech."
Lorcy said he planned to devote the next stage of his career to "make and spread propaganda and send messages to people over the party's and Samdech's accomplishments."
Panha and Sochua said cases like Lorcy's showed that there was little freedom of expression for those whose views stray from the party line.
"It's a form of political discrimination," said Sochua, who noted that the comedians draw their military salaries from the national budget. "Every element that is painted as opposition is faced with this discrimination. It is a very sad state for democracy."
But Phay Siphan, a government spokesman, dismissed this criticism, saying that comedians and entertainers merely held a strong preference for the ruling party.
"Comedians can be CPP members and they do whatever they feel like doing to support the party. That's their own choice."
He said the government never dictated the content of comedy routines: "We are too busy to tell them to do this, to do that."
By all accounts, they don't need to.
"We work for the prime minister, so why should we perform for Sam Rainsy?" asked Krem. "If we eat a person's food, we have to work for that one."
Neou Vannarin and Kuch Naren contributed reporting from Phnom Penh
Labels: Cambodia Government Propagandists, Cambodian Comedians, Hing Bunheang, hun sen, Kep Chuktema, Koy, Krem, Oeurn
» Read more!
PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIA'S UN-backed war crimes tribunal has come under fire from observers and Khmer Rouge victims as it weighs a controversial new case that is strongly opposed by the government.
The court's third case - which targets two unnamed individuals - has proved so contentious that Cambodian and international prosecutors openly argued about whether to pursue it this month.
'There is definitely already damage to the court because of the controversy,' said tribunal monitor Clair Duffy from the rights group Open Society Justice Initiative.
So far only one member of the murderous 1975-79 regime, former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, has been successfully prosecuted. He was sentenced last July to 30 years in jail for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The case is now under appeal. A second trial involving the regime's four most senior surviving leaders is due to start next month.
But the government want the court's activities to end there, arguing that going after more suspects further down the chain of command could plunge the country back into civil war. Prime Minister Hun Sen - himself a mid-level cadre before turning against the movement - last year said the third case was 'not allowed'.
Little information has been made public about case three, but the suspects are believed to be former Khmer Rouge navy and air force commanders. A possible fourth case, thought to involve three mid-level cadres, is still under investigation but is also facing political pressure. -- AFP
Labels: Khmer Rouge, Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Prime Minister Hun Sen
» Read more!
Corruption is rife and dissent is stifled, as "Cambodia's Curse" shows. But entrepreneurs are giving the country some hope.
By GEOFFREY CAIN - THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
If schools are a reflection of society, then they show Cambodia to be a limp and defeated nation. On the first day of class, Cambodian children learn they must bribe their teachers to get good grades, a practice that continues for the 3% of them who make it to college. Teachers, struggling on salaries of less than $100 a month, take their cuts and pass the money up to the principals. The principals then pay off local education officials, and so on to higher circles of government. In the end, those who give the largest bribes eventually win promotions—giving them access to even bigger cash flows.
Cambodia's Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land By Joel Brinkley Public Affairs, 416 pages, $27.99In this system, students learn few useful skills except how to survive under a corrupt regime, writes journalist Joel Brinkley. For the lucky few who pay, and sometimes even murder, their way to the top of the government, life is good. But for the ordinary farmers and laborers, kickbacks are simply an expensive roadblock to economic and social advancement.
"These demands are humiliating. It pushes a lot of smart kids out to the rice fields instead of helping our country," Sok Sopheap, a high school student who was kicked out of class because he didn't pay a bribe, told me. "This is why Cambodia stays poor."
Mr. Brinkley's depressing book is a mostly illuminating, though sometimes lopsided, chronicle of the politicians and bureaucrats who have plagued Cambodian society for the past 30 years. After the Khmer Rouge regime oversaw the deaths of 1.7 million people and was unseated in 1979, a new group of opportunists took their place. That wily clique, installed by the invading Vietnamese, includes current Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The Cambodian People's Party (CPP) solidified its hold on power in part by manipulating foreign governments and keeping the country poor. Its first big target was the United Nations, which took advantage of the end of a Cold War stalemate in 1989 to attempt a democratic transformation of the country. In 1992, U.N. peacekeepers tried to rebuild the country by launching the most expensive peacekeeping operation at the time—total cost $1.6 billion—and overseeing elections that attracted a remarkable 90% voter turnout.
Mr. Hun Sen lost those elections but refused to step down; four years later, he ended the U.N.'s dream of democracy for Cambodia when he ousted his democratically elected co-prime minister, Prince Norodom Ranarridh, in armed clashes. Since he has consolidated power, Mr. Hun Sen has repeatedly sued and pushed his critics into exile, and has attempted to stall progress of the Khmer Rouge tribunal.
Nevertheless, foreign governments funded the CPP-led government with $18 billion in aid and soft loans after U.N. peacekeepers departed. The leaders squandered much of this largesse on mansions, luxury cars, private security forces and political pandering—all to further their power. Today, the country loses $500 million a year to corruption, USAID reports.
Mr. Brinkley won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980 for covering Cambodian refugees, and he weaves the details of the nation's underbelly into a compelling argument, interviewing powerful figures and foreign officials involved in politics, courts, hospitals, land development, forests and schools. Particularly engrossing is his account of the country's infamous 2010 anticorruption law, something the West pushed Phnom Penh to pass since the early 1990s, which would force government offices to face tougher audits.
For 15 years, Mr. Hun Sen repeatedly promised donor countries and organizations that he would pass the law. But while the donors complained every year that he still hadn't, they nonetheless assented to his requests for more money, raising their annual aid pledges from $770 million in 1994 to nearly $1.1 billion by the time Mr. Hun Sen acceded to their requests in 2010.
But the new law hardly meets international standards. It does not require officials to publicly disclose their holdings, the heart of any anticorruption law, and allows them to offer gifts in exchange for favors "in accordance with custom and tradition." The saga becomes yet one more example of the ineffectiveness of foreign aid, and Mr. Brinkley rightly wonders what foreign officials are up to. When he visits the new anticorruption office, he finds that it sends complaints directly to the institutions that the complainants accuse, with their names attached—leaving them open to threats and intimidation.
Such gifted storytelling makes up for some shortcomings, including some minor errors of fact. For instance, Mr. Brinkley writes that a 1997 grenade attack on an opposition rally occurred at a park across from the National Assembly that is named after Mr. Hun Sen. While the location of the blast is correct, it is actually a separate, nearby park that is named after the premier.
More troublesome are Mr. Brinkley's historical arguments. He suggests, for example, that leaders can act with impunity because most Cambodians will not change centuries-old attitudes. Kings traditionally awarded posts to mandarins who paid kickbacks, a scheme that Mr. Brinkley asserts continues uninterrupted.
It is true that Cambodians do not have a history of popular sovereignty, which may help explain why democracy-building faltered. The Khmer language reflects the fact that most Cambodians have low expectations of their leaders: The verb translated into English as "to govern," for example, literally means "to eat the kingdom."
But that fact is a long distance from Mr. Brinkley's sweeping conclusion that Cambodians, timid and wavering by upbringing, accept tyranny because they see no alternative. "They carry no ambitions. They hold no dreams," he writes. "All they want is to be left alone." The first two statements are patronizing and disproven by the growing number of entrepreneurs. The third gives short shrift to the recognition of many Cambodians that democratic government is the surest path to domestic tranquility.
Mr. Brinkley's grim assessments on issues such as corruption and the ineffectiveness of donor aid ring true. Nevertheless, Cambodia is fast shedding its image as a lawless mafia state. The society is, despite all its problems, becoming more stable. Its economy is improving, thanks to limited regulation and taxation. Once pitied as a basket case, Cambodia may yet prove its critics wrong, despite its governance curse.
Mr. Cain is a writer in Vietnam.
Labels: Corruption, Joel Brinkley
» Read more!
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 18, 2011 at 9:06 AM ET (The New York Times)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — An internal debate over the targets of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal turned into a public dispute Wednesday, when judges ordered a prosecutor to retract his call for further investigations.
The fight at the United Nations-backed tribunal added to mounting fears that prosecutions are being quashed for political reasons.
The two investigating judges, from Germany and Cambodia, on Wednesday ordered British co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley to withdraw a statement he issued last week citing specific crimes that deserved further investigation. They said the statement violated tribunal rules and must be retracted within three days, without specifying the punishment for failure to comply.
Critics fear the judges ended their investigations prematurely into what the court calls Case 003, bowing to Prime Minister Hun Sen's demands that the trial's focus be kept narrowly on the one suspect convicted last year and four set for trial next month.
About 1.7 million people died of starvation, exhaustion, lack of medical care or torture during the communist Khmer Rouge's reign of terror in the 1970s.
Cayley's statement was issued just a few days after co-investigating judges Siegfried Blunk and You Bunleng announced that all investigations into Case 003 had been concluded.
The tribunal follows French-style law, which mandates that investigating judges collect evidence that is then forwarded to prosecutors who decide whether to go to trial. There are parallel sets of Cambodian and international judges and prosecutors working together.
Legal observers and victims advocates complained that the investigations into the new cases were cut short without even the most basic effort being made, such as summoning the suspects for questioning.
"They've basically done a desk study, and it appears that that desk study was a sham," Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said in an interview last week in Bangkok. "It was a political decision, it appears, to shut down this case."
Cayley's statement called the investigation inadequate and detailed previously unreleased information about the yet-to-be-prosecuted cases, including information about mass graves and other alleged crime sites.
The judges' order said that Cayley violated court confidentiality rules and ordered him to publicly retract his statement within three days.
Cayley was traveling and could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But his deputy, Bill Smith, told The Associated Press that Cayley had not decided yet whether to appeal the judges' order. He said Cayley was justified in releasing the information under court rules.
Labels: Khmer Rouge, Khmer Rouge Tribunal
» Read more!
Published: 16/05/2011 at 02:51 PM
Online news: Bangkok Post Learning
Agreement with Philippines for low-cost rice may cut into Thai and Vietnam market share.
Cambodia eyes Filipino market, Nascent rice exporting industry is eager to ship, offering to undercut competitors by Steve Finch
PHNOM PENH: Cambodia has held high-level talks with the Philippines that could result in the country's fledgling rice-export industry competing with Thailand and Vietnam for contracts to supply the world's largest importer.
On the sidelines of the recent Asean Summit in Indonesia, Prime Minister Hun Sen offered to sell rice at lower prices than competitors in a meeting with Filipino President Benigno Aquino, according to a Cambodian government aide. The offer was made in return for investment in Cambodia's under-developed agricultural sector, said Srey Thamrong, an adviser to Hun Sen, who was present during the talks in Jakarta on May 7.
''They expressed their desire to import rice,'' he said, adding that President Aquino told Hun Sen he would appoint a team of government officials to negotiate the arrangement.
The meeting followed a fact-finding mission by the Philippines National Food Authority to Phnom Penh early last month as part of the Aquino government's plans to diversify and reduce spending on rice imports that hit 2.25 million tonnes last year, the highest in the world.
''We are studying the possibility of Cambodia as an alternate source [of imports],'' NFA chief of staff Gilbert Lauengco told the Phnom Penh Post in April. Shipments would start ''at the very latest next year'', he added, although the exact amount and price the Philippines would pay Cambodia is yet to be agreed.
NFA Administrator Angelito Banayo told the Philippines' annual Rice Congress earlier this year the country paid an average US$630 per tonne for rice imports in 2010, or $1.42 billion overall, which represented more than 44% of the Philippines $3.47 billion trade deficit for the year.
This figure is set to fall dramatically in 2011 amid rising rice stocks and improved domestic production in the Philippines, according to government projections, providing tropical storms do not damage crops as has happened in the past in the typhoon-prone country. A Department of Agriculture report showed Philippines rice stocks reached a record 3.08 million tonnes by April 1, up 8% on the same period last year, while rice production climbed an annualised 16% in the first quarter to just over 4 million tonnes
In response, the NFA has announced plans to slash rice imports to just 860,000 tonnes this year after the new Aquino government accused its predecessors of over stockpiling rice, a move likely to further diminish opportunities for the country's two main suppliers Vietnam and Thailand as Manila also looks to add Cambodia as a lower-cost alternative.
Reports in the Philippines said the government has agreed to purchase 200,000 tonnes from Vietnam this year as part of a rice-supply deal with Hanoi, while Thailand is set to be the main supplier of the country's reduced-tariffs programme with an agreement to ship 98,000 tonnes.
In recent years Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, has struggled to compete with Vietnam to supply the grain to the Philippines after shipments of 500,000 tonnes in 2008 dwindled to 80,000 tonnes in 2009 before climbing again to more than 200,000 tonnes last year. In the past Thailand has said it hopes to ship half a million tonnes of rice per year to the Philippines
Meanwhile, Vietnam is also set to lose out if the Philippines imports rice from Cambodia, say analysts. The Thai Rice Exporters Association estimates Cambodia supplies up to 1.5 million tonnes of paddy to Vietnam every year, which is then processed and shipped on as official export produce to markets including the Philippines. But during the talks in Jakarta, Mr Aquino reportedly told Hun Sen that Manila was ready to ''remove the middleman'' - Vietnam - resulting in lower import prices for the Philippines should Cambodia become equipped to process and ship the necessary quantities of rice, which is not yet the case
''Cambodia's rice exports are mainly to Thailand and Vietnam at the moment and that is Cambodia's best option while the necessary downstream structures and logistics are not yet in place,'' said Korbsook Iamsuri, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
It remains unclear whether the Philippines will meet Hun Sen's request for the necessary investment in Cambodia's underdeveloped agricultural industry, subject to a formal agreement.
Although Cambodia is currently the world's seventh-largest exporter, it still has a long way to go before it can turn a paddy surplus estimated at just under 4 million tonnes this year into processed rice of a quality ready for shipment given inadequate infrastructure, high electricity prices and a lack of financing options in the industry.
''Hence Cambodian rice is not yet a threat to [the] export markets of both Thailand and Vietnam,'' said Ms Korbsook.
Labels: Agriculture, hun sen, Philippines, Rice Export, Thailand, Vietnam
» Read more!
Message from Dr. Leakhena NOU, Ph.D
ASRIC is asking for your support to push for continued prosecutions of other potential KR defendants for cases 003-004. Please see link below and sign if you wish, and fyi you don't have to be Khmer/a survivor to sign the petition. We are simply asking for your support to help the survivors fight for justice they deserve.
"Cambodian Survivors Seek Justice"
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
San Jose Cambodian community awaits justice
One of the worst genocides of the 20th century happened in Cambodia, in the 1970s. The extremist Khmer Rouge party, led by Pol Pot tried to create a rural farming society, evacuating people from their homes and jobs in urban areas to the country, where many were killed by the government, starved, or were worked to death.
SOPHANY BAY: If I did not see justice, you know, it’s kind of like I kind of cannot close me eyes properly when I die.
SINA MEAS: Pain me to death. I cannot find my husband, I cannot find my son. So I do not care the judgment day, but for the sake of my community I want justice done for them.
KELVIN SO: I am so happy that this is the first time that my case have been accepted by the Phnom Penh tribunal.
Read more
Local Cambodian-Americans play active role in trial of Khmer Rouge leaders
Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge government fell more than 30 years ago. The power behind the infamous “Killing Fields” killed as many as 2 million Cambodians through executions, starvation and disease....
Sophany Bay counsels Cambodian-Americans on mental health matters. In the 1970s, she was a teacher in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, until the Khmer Rouge sent her to a forced labor camp in the countryside.
Read more
Petition Link:
Facebook Page link: (A quick way to send a link of the petition to all of your facebook friends by logging in and selecting the 'Share' option as well as the 'Like' button - I also suggest sending a personal message to all of your friends letting them know how important it is to sign this petition and share it with others as well)
---------------------------------------------------------------
Leakhena NOU, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Sociology
California State University, Long Beach
Department of Sociology, PSY-143
1250 Bellflower Blvd.
Long Beach, CA 90840-0906
Direct Office #: (562) 985-7439
Fax #: (562) 985-2090
E-mail: lnou@csulb.edu
Labels: Khmer Rouge, Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Leakhena NOU, San Jose
» Read more!
By Khmerization
Mr. Eng Chhay Eang (pictured), former Secretary General of the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and the party strongman, has resigned as an MP for the Battambang constituency where he had served for several terms already.
It is not sure what prompted him to resign, but he was known to be under tremendous pressures after he was publicly attacked Mr. Mao Monivan for nepotism and cronyism. Mr. Mao Monivan had resigned as an MP and was then expelled from the party for his public outburst against Mr. Eng Chhay Eang and the party spokesman, Mr. Yim Sovan.
Mr. Eng Chhay Eang was instrumental in strengthening the party's rural base and in the setting up of party branches across the country. He is politically astute and earned high praises from Mr. Sam Rainsy for his intelligence and management skills. He was once touted as a possible successor to Mr. Sam Rainsy as a party president due to his political shrewdness. However, he was heavily criticised for his heavy-handedness against internal criticism and has often been considered as a liability to the party due to his past gambling addiction.
Mr. Eang Chhay was replaced by Mr. Vann Narith.
At the same time, Mrs. Long Sakhorn, an MP from the ruling Cambodian People's Party, has also tendered her resignation as an MP for the seat of Prey Veng and she was replaced by Mr. Pov Samy.
Labels: Eng Chhay Eang, Mao Monivan, Sam Rainsy Party, SRP, Vann Narith
» Read more!
April 20, 2011
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS
My email box has been flooded with messages. Some made me smile. Two hard-hitting messages from Cambodia made me look for some spiritual balance. A friend from a different continent who used to discuss with me the value of education wrote, after reading my columns, about the necessary "critical mass" needed to catalyze change.
I combined all three messages to writing this column.
It's no revelation that if we want to look for something in a person or a regime, negative or positive, we can find it. And we can be sure that there are supporters and critics of any position: A thesis is followed by antithesis. Opposites are a fact of life -- the yin and the yang
I have written about alleged bribes demanded by instructors at Cambodia's universities, but an email from a reader in Cambodia, most likely from a teaching circle, reported also on corrupt practices among primary and secondary school teachers in his area. The writer reported that teachers extort money from students in return for one thing or another. The reader was livid, saying the "authorities concerned" know but do nothing: "I fear if these practices are ingrained in the culture of corruption, the young Cambodian generation will be severely affected in thoughts and behaviors."
Another email, under the rubric, "Cambodian people are living in starvation, except corrupt officials," reads: "Millions of times, millions of words from officials, millions of promises and of plans, but nothing has changed: The rich become richer, the poor become poorer. ... I saw people in my village ... including my parents, go hungry because they can't pay the loans from banks and financial institutions, and are forced to sell their lands and their homes. Some decided to go to Thailand for work. My parents and their neighbors used to live without worries, but now they are miserable. At each election, money was waved in their faces, they needed the money, they voted for the money."
On April 6, I quoted a Cambodian reader's email about the "visible hardware" -- the new buildings, bridges and roads which led 76 percent of respondents in a survey to cheer about progress and development under Premier Hun Sen, as opposed to the lack of much-needed "software" -- informed citizens and critical thinkers. The reader charged that Cambodia's "strong culture of suspicion and mistrust will cripple society even deeper into a passive coma." He lamented, "Even many of the young are now in this unfortunate trend."
Of course, I expected supporters of Premier Hun Sen to vociferously denounce the authors of the emails above. Yet, even Hun Sen agreed that 35 percent of Cambodia's populace live below the poverty line, and rights groups continue to accuse government officials of stealing the nation's resources for personal gain.
Critical mass
In physics, a "critical mass" refers to necessary amount of fissionable material to maintain a chain reaction at a constant rate.
Buddha's truth of the inevitability of change means that at a certain point or time or situation, change occurs, and that "something" must reach a certain level, amount or size, and then it will unleash an activity or event that will change the status quo. Thus, the water that is hot at 211 degrees boils at 212. It produces steam; steam yields energy. [KI-Media Note: water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius]
My friend reminded me: You need a "critical mass" to bring about change, sustain it and render it long-lasting. Amen.
As I examined statistics compiled by the United Nations Children's Fund, I saw vicious circles that should drive conscientious citizens to coalesce to create that critical mass. UNICEF reported Cambodia's net secondary school enrollment for 2005-2009 for males at 36 percent and females at 32 percent -- a net secondary school enrollment ratio of 34 percent.
This refers to students who are actually enrolled in school. How many of them actually attend (Cambodia's schools are open only a few hours per day) or how many actually graduate from secondary school are different problems.
Though unlikely, let's assume that 90 percent of young Cambodians who are enrolled in secondary school do graduate. That's only 90 percent of the total 34 percent enrolled.
To develop quality thinking to contribute to Cambodia's development and progress, we should want to know how many graduates go on to university. Let's assume that half of the graduates (which is, again, very unlikely) go to university. Statistically, half of the 90 percent of the total enrollees of 34 percent yields about 15 percent who may go to university. Of course, not everyone of those who go to university graduates, but let's say 70 percent do. This would yield about 10 percent of a certain age group who might be considered educated.
This is hardly a "critical mass" to bring change to Cambodia.
No room for despair
Even if the Hun Sen regime returned all the dollars from theft of national resources to the education pot, it would take a long, long time before young Cambodians' secondary school net enrollment would move from the current dismal 34 percent of eligible students to even 80 percent, which might be the percentage that would create the catalyst to foment meaningful change.
Until then, Cambodians will have to rely on the handful of educated individuals and independent non-governmental organizations -- a small "critical" group to swim against the current to inspire the young ones in the face of corruption, violations of rights and freedom, to want to go to school, to stay in school, to graduate.
They are the "critical mass" needed to effect the change!
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam. Write him at
peangmeth@yahoo.com.
Labels: Education, Gaffar Peang-Meth, Prime Minister Hun Sen
» Read more!
Dear colleagues,
By now, you must be aware of Kem Sokha's letter to me dated April 18. All the press has received it and has asked for my reply to Kem Sokha's question about the formula for uniting the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party: Creation of a new party with a new name, or merger with the SRP?
I've just replied to VOA and RFA that before choosing any FORMULA for a union, we must first show the required SPIRIT for a genuine and sincere union. Such a spirit requires mutual respect and mutual solidarity as real partners in a real union would show to each other.
Therefore, the HRP, if it is sincere, must stop publicly treating the SRP as an enemy by using the same language, the same propaganda tools and the same political tricks (such as displaying "defectors") as the ones used by the CPP in their continuous attempt to "break" the SRP.
If the HRP treats the SRP as an ENNEMY, as the CPP does, how could they hope to become our PARTNER? What ground does the HRP have to treat us as an enemy? We have never committed any crime against the Cambodian people compared to the multiple crimes we reproach the ruling CPP to have committed. On the contrary, we have done our best to defend our country and all the victims of injustices in Cambodia.
In fact, by adopting the CPP's attitude toward us, the HRP is -- willingly or not -- serving the CPP interest and they have become a CPP de facto ally, at a time when the SRP is the main target for the CPP in the face of very serious national problems. Everybody can see that the SRP bears the brunt of the CPP attack on the opposition and the civil society. And curiously the HRP now joins hands with the CPP in attacking the SRP.
This is not the first time that an "Alliance" of democratic forces is due to collapse: Remember the past "alliances" between the SRP and the royalist FUNCINPEC party. Eventually, only the SRP has proved to abide by principles whereas its short-term “allies” proved to be political opportunists manipulated and bought by the CPP.
All the best,
Sam Rainsy
Labels: HRP, Kem Sokha, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party
» Read more!
Elizabeth Becker, Special to The Chronicle
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Cambodia's Curse
The Modern History of a Troubled Land
By Joel Brinkley
This year Arab leaders have been caught off balance by their citizens, who have shown unexpected courage and come out in force to demand democracy and an end to corruption and cruel inequities. Those protests are proof that the truism that Arabs needed "strongmen" to rule them was wrong. In just weeks, the nonviolent demonstrators overthrew the ruling tyrants in Tunisia and Egypt, inspiring other uprisings in Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria. Now, no matter how these revolts play out, Arabs have broken out of racial and cultural stereotypes that said they were unfit for democracy.
In his new book "Cambodia's Curse," the former New York Times journalist Joel Brinkley comes very close to offering a similar dead-end theory to explain why he thinks the people of Cambodia are "cursed" by history to live under abusive tyrants. In his telling, Cambodians are passive Buddhists who have accepted their stern overlords since the days of the Angkor Empire. "Far more than almost any other state, modern Cambodia is a product of customs and practices set in stone a millennium ago," he writes, blaming that history for the ability of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to squash meaningful dissent against his corrupt regime.
As a young reporter, Brinkley won a Pulitzer Prize in 1980 for his coverage of the Cambodian refugee crisis. Returning to the region 30 years later, Brinkley - now a professor of journalism at Stanford - chose his subject well. Hun Sen deserves a thorough examination. Along with his cronies, he has amassed extraordinary wealth selling off the country's assets to the highest bidder. Everything is up for grabs - land wrested from peasants to be sold to corporations and turned into plantations or tourist resorts, young girls and boys sold into prostitution, and dense forests cut down and the lumber sold abroad. Corruption is everywhere. Underpaid schoolteachers demand bribes from their students, judges issue rulings based on the amount of money paid on the side or the dictates of the government, businesses flourish by paying handsome bribes for licenses and to avoid unwelcome regulations.
Brinkley admirably highlights nearly all of these crimes and demonstrates that Hun Sen's administration has been a disaster for many Cambodians. His portrait of the businessman Mong Reththy is a gem, showing how businessmen enrich themselves through corrupt government concessions and then underwrite charities or schools in the areas impoverished by their corruption.
Yet there are only two types of Cambodians in these pages - either victims (passive, poverty-stricken Cambodians for whom Brinkley shows great sympathy) or villains (cruel, selfish politicians and businessmen). Missing are normal Cambodians who work day jobs and study at night to get ahead; Cambodians who return from abroad with dreams of a better life; Cambodians who promote human rights or flourish in the arts and sciences.
The few people painted in full, heroic strokes are American diplomats who served as ambassadors to Cambodia. Brinkley focuses on them and the foreign community of aid groups and governments who spend billions of dollars to improve the lives of Cambodia's poor. He correctly asks whether much of that money has gone to waste or into bank accounts of corrupt officials, and chastises foreign governments for not demanding real reforms for the aid.
Undermining his reporting is his thesis that thousand-year-old traditions are to blame for this state of affairs rather than 21st century realities. Brinkley fails to track the extraordinary sums of foreign investment fueling official corruption. Crooked signing bonuses and commissions, money laundering, selling off government land to foreign investors, human trafficking - these modern plagues are hardly confined to Cambodia. International businesses are pouring billions into Cambodia. China and South Korea are at the top of that list, giving them an outsize influence in Cambodia, yet they barely appear in Brinkley's book.
To retain control over all that money, Hun Sen has amassed a monopoly on power through the army and police, buying off or killing off dissidents. His path to power has been anything but democratic: Trained as a young Khmer Rouge officer, Hun Sen defected and was installed as prime minister by the Vietnamese occupiers; later he bullied the United Nations into appointing him a co-prime minister even though he lost the country's first election, then rigged subsequent elections.
Brinkley makes the blanket claim that Cambodians accept this because they are a people who "could not, would not, stand up and advocate for themselves," forgetting Cambodia's history of revolts or movements against French colonial rule, King Sihanouk's autocracy, the corrupt Lon Nol regime, the Khmer Rouge, Vietnam's occupation and Hun Sen himself. In more recent times, Chea Vichea led a free-trade union movement and became a serious challenger to Hun Sen's power until he was gunned down by thugs. Brink- ley mentions Vichea's murder in a short paragraph without fully describing his impact or the courage and skill he showed organizing Cambodia's textile workers.
And countless Cambodians have fought back when soldiers and police have thrown them off their lands. Cambodian activists like Dr. Pung Chhiv Kek have been so successful defending against human rights abuses that the government issued a draft law in December to effectively put them under government control. Brinkley might have also given greater weight to Cambodia's short experience with fully free elections and the legacy of the Khmer Rouge revolution, which could put a damper on anyone's desire to revolt again.
Further clouding his book are frequent errors. He describes the United Nations' 1993 peacekeeping operation as an "occupation," and then compares it unfavorably to the Allied occupation of Germany. He claims it is "rare to see Cambodians laugh." He confuses the Hindu faith with the Hindi language. He has China invading Vietnam in 1989, rather than in 1979. And why does he make the exaggerated claim that Cambodians are "the most abused people in the world"?
By arguing that Cambodians are passive and that the "Buddhist notion of individual helplessness" is a central factor holding them down, he dismisses the possibility that Cambodians could reform their own country. Instead he concludes that the country's best hope is in the hands of foreigners. He challenges the foreign governments to withhold aid money until Hun Sen lives up to his promises to enact reforms and respect human rights. "Maybe, just maybe, after 1,000 years, Cambodia's rulers might finally be forced to give the people their due," he writes.
Or maybe Hun Sen doesn't need that money so desperately and those donor governments are not such disinterested parties.
Brinkley may blame the legacy of Angkor kings for Hun Sen's ability to keep down Cambodians. But the Cambodian leader's recent actions suggest otherwise. When Egypt's Hosni Mu- barak started tottering under the demands of protesters, Hun Sen shut down the opposition websites in Cambodia.
Elizabeth Becker, a former correspondent for the New York Times and Washington Post, is the author of "When the War Was Over" (1986), a history of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. E-mail comments to books@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/17/RVTE1IKUA9.DTL
This article appeared on page GF - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Labels: Cambodia Democracy, Prime Minister Hun Sen
» Read more!
By Joel Brinkley, Sunday, April 17, 7:45 PM
The Washington Post - Post Opinions
Representatives of more than 3,000 governments and donor organizations are meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Wednesday. If past experience is indicative, they will pledge to provide hundreds of millions in aid.
Year after year, smiling Cambodian government leaders attend these pledge conferences, holding out their hands. But first they have to listen as ambassadors and aid officers stand at the podium, look them in the eye, and lambast them for corruption and jaw-dropping human rights abuses. (Photo: Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer Service)
Most of these donors should simply stay home.
Year after year, smiling Cambodian government leaders attend these pledge conferences, holding out their hands. But first they have to listen as ambassadors and aid officers stand at the podium, look them in the eye, and lambast them for corruption and jaw-dropping human rights abuses.
Each year Prime Minister Hun Sen promises to reform. The donors nod and make their pledges — $1.1 billion last year. Then everyone goes home and nothing changes. In the following months, officials dip into the foreign aid accounts and build themselves mansions the size of small hotels, while 40 percent of Cambodia’s children grow up stunted for lack of nutrition during infancy.
This year should be different. Over the past two decades, the Cambodian government has grown ever more repressive. Now it is actually planning to bite the hand that feeds it: The legislature is enacting a law that would require nongovernmental organizations to register with the government, giving venal bureaucrats the ability to shut them down unless they become toadies of the state.
Eight major international human rights organizations are calling on Cambodia to back down, saying the bill is “the most significant threat to the country’s civil society in many years.” Donors, they say, should hold back their pledges. But they say that every year, and each year the donors ignore them. Meanwhile, the status of the Cambodian people the aid is supposed to help improves little if at all. Nearly 80 percent of Cambodians live in the countryside with no electricity, clean water, toilets, telephone service or other evidence of the modern world.
All of this might surprise most Americans. It has been decades since many people here have given Cambodia even a thought. Forty years ago, Cambodia was on the front pages almost every day as the United States bombed and briefly invaded the state during the Vietnam War. Then came the genocidal Khmer Rouge era, when 2 million people died.
How many know what has happened there since? Last month, the Nexis news-research service carried 6,335 stories with Thailand in the headline. Vietnam had 5,196. For Cambodia, 578.
Most people don’t know that Cambodians are ruled by a government that sells off the nation’s rice harvest each year and pockets the money, leaving its people without enough to eat. That it evicts thousands of people from their homes, burns down the houses, then dumps the victims into empty fields and sells their property to developers.
That it amasses vast personal fortunes while the nation’s average annual per capita income stands at $650. Or that it allows school teachers to demand daily bribes from 6-year-olds and doctors to extort money from dirt-poor patients, letting them die if they do not pay.
This is a government that stands by and watches as 75 percent of its citizens contract dysentery each year, and 10,000 die — largely because only 16 percent of Cambodians have access to a toilet. As Beat Richner, who runs children’s hospitals there, puts it, “the passive genocide continues.”
You wouldn’t know any of that from the donors’ behavior. You see, for foreigners Phnom Penh is a relatively pleasant place to live. Rents are cheap and household help is even cheaper. Espresso bars and stylish restaurants dot the river front — primarily for diplomats and aid workers.
Donors have largely been able to pursue whatever project they wanted without interference. They knew that the government would steal some of their money. But so what?
“Some money goes this way or that way,” said In Samrithy, an officer with a donor umbrella group. “But it’s useful if some of it reaches the poor. Not all of it does but some does. That’s better than nothing.”
Even with that, many donors feel the way Teruo Jinnai does. He’s the longtime head of the UNESCO office in Phnom Penh. “Here I have found my own passion,” he told me. “Here, I can set my own target. So that gives you more power, more energy, more passion.”
Well, Mr. Jinnai, the noose is tightening. If, as expected, the NGO bill becomes law, government repression will reach out for you, too. Isn’t it time, then, for all those donors to make a statement? On Wednesday stand up and tell the government: I am withholding my aid.
Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is the author of “Cambodia’s Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land.”
Labels: donors, Prime Minister Hun Sen
» Read more!
April 11, 2011
Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com
In a surprise move, the Cambodian Prime Minister, Sandech Hun Sen, has cancelled a titanium strip mine project in one of Southeast Asia’s last great intact forest ecosystems, the Cardamom Mountains. According to a press release sent out by the Cambodian government the mine was canceled due to "concerns of the impact on the environment, biodiversity and local livelihoods" of villagers. The mine, which was planned to sit directly in the migration route for the largest population of Asian elephants in Cambodia, had been largely opposed by locals in the region who spent years developing eco-tourism in the region.
"We were under the impression the battle was lost. We are very pleased that the prime minister has weighed the environmental impact," Wildlife Alliance Communications Officer John Maloy told AFP.
Wildlife Alliance, a conservation NGO, has worked extensively in Cambodia for nearly a decade, including with the village of Chi Phat near the area slated to be strip-mined. Many local had residents given up logging and poaching to focus on tourism efforts; for its part, Wildlife Alliance invested over half a million US dollars to build infrastructure.
"We are elated by the decision of Prime Minister Hun Sen. It is incredibly encouraging to see that the prime minister has looked so deeply into this proposed titanium mine and taken the effort to weigh the consequences that this project would have on the rainforest and the local people," said Wildlife Alliance CEO Suwanna Gauntlett in a statement. "[Mining company] United Khmer Group had promised staggering revenues for the government, and we applaud the courageous decision of the prime minister to see the greater value of the forest as it currently stands."
United Khmer Group publically projected that the mine would bring in $1.3 billion dollars a year, but Wildlife Alliance and the Cambodian newspaper Phnom Penh Post questioned the company's projections. According to the Phnom Penh Post, the company was citing prices for titanium that were three times current market price and was projecting a big haul of titanium without ever conducting a comprehensive study of the ore deposit.
Incredibly rich in wildlife, the Cardamom Mountains is home to Indochinese tigers, Malayan sun bears, and pileated gibbons, in addition to 250 species of birds. According to Wildlife Alliance 70 threatened species live in the area, including the Siamese crocodile, which is listed as Critically Endangered.
- Endangered species found in the Cardamom Mountains according to the IUCN Red List:
- Asian elephant (Elephas maximums): Endangered
- Banteng (Bos javanicus): Endangered
- Burmese python (Python molurus): Near Threatened
- Clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa): Vulnerable
- Dhole (Cuon alpinus): Endangered
- Frog-faced softshell turtle (Pelochelys cantorii): Endangered
- Gaur (Bos gaurus): Vulnerable
- Green peafowl (Pavo muticus): Endangered
- Indochinese tiger ( Panthera tigris corbetti): Endangered
- Malayan sun bear (Helarctos malayanus): Vulnerable
- Pileated gibbon (Hylobates pileatus): Endangered
- Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis): Critically Endangered
- Smooth-coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata): Vulnerable
- Southwest Chinese serow (Capricornis sumatraensis): Near Threatened
Labels: forest ecosystems, hun sen, Prime Minister Hun Sen, titanium
» Read more!
10 December 2007
Bernama
PEKAN: The existence of seven pyramid-like hills near Tasik Chini has again sparked interest in the legend of a lost civilisation in the area that could date back to the 12th century.
While there is no proof that the hills are man-made, there is a possibility that it is part of a lost city or may at least shed some light on the mystery.
The pyramid-like hills near Tasik Chini have sparked interest in the legend of a lost civilisation.
It is long believed that the ancient city could only be found in the depths of the lake. This is based on a theory that the area was inundated with water after the fall of the Khmer empire, of which the city was a part of in the 15th century.
Although many people have made claims of a sunken city, little effort has been made to unravel the mystery. Based on pieces of porcelain found in the area, the city could have been built when the Khmer empire was at the height of its power.
The Khmer empire was ruled, between 802 and 1432, by a succession of "god kings" and had its capital in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where the famed Angkor Wat temple complex stands.
According to a villager, the "pyramid" was more evident when one of the unique hills in Padang Kerbau was cleared by a plantation company recently.
"Before this, all the hills looked normal. However, the way they were 'positioned' is not natural and that is quite interesting," said Ahmad Najib Mohd Don of Kampung Melayu, Chini.
Ahmad Najib, 57 and his wife, Pauziyah Abdullah, 49, later drove their pick-up truck to the hills and found that the formations stood in a swampy area.
Although she was born in Kampung Melayu, Pauziyah said she never realised the peculiar shape of the hills as they were covered by vegetation.
"The hills are also inaccessible because of the swampy land which surrounds them."
The new development has excited archaeologist, Professor Datuk Dr Nik Hassan Shuhaimi Nik Abdul Rahman, who was known for his leading role in the expedition to locate the lost city in 1998.
"There's a possibility as we cannot say for sure its exact location. It can be in the lake or on land," said the senior research fellow at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia when contacted.
He said there was no conclusion during the two-week exploration nine years ago as the team had lacked funds.
"We managed to drain a small part of the lake but the compartment walls collapsed when we were about to clear a layer of mud on top of a rocky base."
Labels: Khmer, Khmer Empire
» Read more!
Monday, 11 April 2011
James O'Toole
The Phnom Penh Post
The United States has registered sharp criticism of the Cambodian government in its annual human rights report, raising long-standing concerns about land rights, corruption and judicial independence.
A protester speaks in October of the eviction of residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak lake. (Photo by: Uy Nousereimony)
Released on Friday in Washington, the US report covers 194 countries and spans more than 7,000 pages. The section on Cambodia stretches 42 pages and paints a grim picture of human rights in the Kingdom, calling rule of law weak and corruption “endemic”.
“Members of security forces committed arbitrary killings and acted with impunity. Detainees were abused, often to extract confessions, and prison conditions were harsh,” the report states.
“Human rights monitors reported arbitrary arrests and prolonged pretrial detention, underscoring a weak judiciary and denial of the right to a fair trial. Land disputes and forced evictions, sometimes violent, continued.”
The report depicts a two-tiered society in which the well-connected rarely face legal action and are able to strip state and private assets with impunity. The poor, meanwhile, have difficulty navigating the court system and have little recourse in the face of violations such as land-grabbing and unlawful detention.
With just 30 percent of the country’s 751 lawyers offering pro bono services, the US said, basic legal rights are inaccessible to most of the population.
Reports of beatings and forced confessions in police custody were common, with illiterate defendants sometimes forced to sign confessions they did not understand. Defamation cases against poor villagers and government critics continued, and more than half of all appeals cases took place without defendants present.
Forced relocations increased in 2010 compared to the previous year, the US said, amid “ineffective” work by the government’s Cadastral Commission and National Authority for Land Dispute Resolution.
There were no reports of politically motivated murders, though the Kingdom’s security forces were responsible for at least 12 extrajudicial killings last year, the US said, citing data from local rights group Adhoc.
The government did receive credit for its religious tolerance and its cooperation with development groups on prison and refugee issues. The report also noted the passage of the country’s long-awaited Anticorruption Law last year, though it said government officials “frequently engaged in corrupt practices with impunity”.
Past US rights reports have drawn criticism from Cambodian officials, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs calling the publication “a routine that has nothing to do with human rights reality in Cambodia” following the 2008 report. Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said yesterday that he had not yet seen the latest report, though he nonetheless dismissed its findings as “out of date”.
“Some issues are out of date – we’ve solved the problem already – and some issues, we can’t work 24 hours,” he said. The government, he said, is working “to build a culture of human rights respect through the law”.
US assistant secretary of state Michael Posner told reporters in Washington on Friday that growing restrictions on civil society organisations, of the sort now being considered in Cambodia with the government’s controversial draft NGO Law, are among the global human rights trends about which the US is most concerned.
“This week, for example, we’re in a diplomatic negotiation with the government of Cambodia, which is now considering adopting a new law to this effect, which would make it much more difficult for Cambodian human rights and other organisations to operate,” Posner said.
Restrictions on internet freedom and “discrimination against vulnerable groups” are the US’s other key global rights concerns for this year, he said.
Labels: eviction, Human Rights, United States of America
» Read more!
Source: monstersandcritics.com
Bangkok - The Thai-Cambodian border dispute has set a precedent for regional problem solving by the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Indonesian foreign minister said Monday.
Indonesia, which now holds the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN, has been active over the past two months in promoting a ceasefire and facilitating talks between Thailand and Cambodia over their joint claims to a plot of land adjacent to an 11th-century Hindu temple on their border and hosted talks Thursday and Friday between them in Bogor.
'I think we have the potential for this episode to have a silver lining, a positive long-term impact in the sense that we are setting a precedent,' Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said in Bangkok.
ASEAN has in the past maintained a stance of non-interference in it 10 member states' internal or bilateral affairs, raising questions about the group's effectiveness as a regional problem solver.
'I think it has had a potentially positive impact, for it shows ASEAN for the first time addressing an issue of this type directly and not simply producing documents,' Natalegawa said.
Both Cambodian and Thailand are members of ASEAN, which also includes Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.
Preah Vihear temple has been a bone of contention between Thailand and Cambodia for the past five decades, leading to a cessation of diplomatic ties in 1958.
The two countries agreed to have the sovereignty spat settled at the International Court, which in 1962 ruled that the temple belonged to Cambodia.
Fighting broke out between Thai and Cambodian troops near the temple February 4-7, killing three Thais and five Cambodians and leaving dozens wounded on both sides.
The conflict raised questioned about solidarity within ASEAN, which is striving to be an economic community similar to the European Union by 2015.
Although Indonesia has played a role in bringing both sides to the negotiating table, Thailand and Cambodia remained at loggerheads over joint claims to a 4.6-square-kilometre plot of land adjacent to Preah Vihear that was not including in The Hague's 1962 ruling.
Nalalegawa was in Bangkok to lead an ASEAN foreign ministers meeting on the upcoming East Asia Summit, one of Asia's pivotal security forums, which Indonesia is to host in October or November.
Labels: Cambodia Thailand Border, Preah Vihear
» Read more!
By SETH MYDANS - The New York Times - Asia Paciic
Published: April 7, 2011
BANGKOK — A proposed law to control nongovernmental groups in Cambodia threatens to silence some of the last independent voices in an increasingly repressed nation, a group of leading international human rights agencies said Thursday.
Calling the proposal “the most significant threat to the country’s civil society in many years,” the agencies urged foreign nations and aid groups to oppose the law, which they said would undermine much of the nation-building work the donors have supported at a cost of billions of dollars.
The measure, which is moving toward enactment by Parliament, would for the first time require nongovernmental organizations of all types and sizes to register and to follow complex reporting procedures. The law would give the government new leverage to shut down any group it considers to be opposed to it.
Human rights advocates said the law would cap a long process during which Prime Minister Hun Sen has imposed controls over his political opponents, the security forces and the judiciary, leaving the independent groups and civil society the country’s only independent voices.
“Should this law pass as it is currently formulated, the survival of each and every N.G.O. in Cambodia will be at the whim of the government,” said Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, referring to nongovernmental agencies that monitor and act on areas like human rights, legal affairs, the environment, land issues, public health and the role and rights of women.
“Emboldened by the legitimacy that they believe a law gives to abusive behavior, the government is likely to use the N.G.O. law to silence its people and to tighten its control on their daily lives,” he said. “The international community needs to act now, or Cambodia will continue in its march away from democracy and toward autocracy.”
Simon Taylor, director of Global Witness, an independent rights monitoring group, said the proposed law was a test of the commitment of donor nations and international agencies to the future of the civil society they had worked for two decades to foster.
“If the donors stand by while the government adopts this law, they cannot in good conscience claim to be working in the interests of Cambodia’s development objectives,” he said.
Despite Cambodia’s continuing pressures on human rights and its failure to control corruption, illegal logging and an epidemic of sometimes violent land seizures by powerful interests, international financial support for Mr. Hun Sen’s government has continued to increase.
At their most recent annual conference last June, donor nations and international agencies pledged $1.1 billion in aid for this year, a record amount, up from $950 million last year, despite widespread criticism that much of the money was misspent or diverted.
The aid is equal to roughly half the country’s official budget. In principle, it gives the international community leverage to maintain or strengthen basic freedoms and democratic institutions.
The amount has risen even as Cambodia’s economy has steadied itself and begun to grow, and even as China has matched Western donors with its own financial support, which comes unencumbered by the human rights conditions imposed by the West.
In December 2009, China awarded Cambodia $1.2 billion in aid and soft loans. That pledge came immediately after Cambodia deported 20 ethnic Uighur refugees to China over the strong objections of the United States and the United Nations, which called the deportation a violation of human rights.
“It must be remembered that the freedoms of association, expression and assembly in Cambodia are already heavily restricted, particularly at the community level,” said one of Cambodia’s oldest human rights groups, Licadho, in a separate report last week on the proposed law.
In their statement on Thursday, the international human rights agencies said that the strict financial conditions of the proposed law would disproportionately affect small groups with limited resources operating at the local level, “making them vulnerable to prosecution for carrying out legitimate activities without the proper legal status.”
The agencies voiced concern over what they called a lack of safeguards and meaningful judicial review mechanisms and pointed to the vague wording regarding a right of appeal of government sanctions.
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said, “Cambodia’s proposed law could too easily be used to refuse registration or close down organizations that serve the public interest.”
“Over the past 20 years, the development of civil society has been one of Cambodia’s few enduring achievements,” he said. “This law threatens to reverse that progress.”
In the early 1990s, Cambodia emerged from two decades of civil war and mass killings by the Khmer Rouge, which left the country brutalized, without an educated class or civic institutions.
As part of a $2 billion nation-building effort, the United Nations established democratic forms of government and introduced standards of human rights that soon became a part of political discourse.
The concept and practice of human rights and political freedoms grew hand in hand with the introduction of the nongovernmental organizations that are now under threat.
Labels: A proposed law to control nongovernmental groups, Human Rights
» Read more!
By Guy De Launey, BBC News
Campaigners against cluster munitions say Thailand has admitted it used the weapons against Cambodia in February.
The Cluster Munition Coalition called the decision “appalling” and “unconscionable”.
The weapons were banned by an international convention three years ago, but neither Thailand nor Cambodia have signed the agreement.
Admitting the use of cluster munitions would represent a significant shift in Thailand’s position.
Cambodia was quick to accuse its larger neighbour of using the weapons during four days of border fighting in February.
Thailand denied the allegation – saying that if anyone had used cluster munitions, it was Cambodian forces.
But several humanitarian organisations have visited the border area around Preah Vihear temple, and they reported finding unexploded cluster bomblets.
This evidence appears to have caused the shift in Bangkok’s stance.
The Cluster Munition Coalition says that Thailand has confirmed that it fired the weapons, claiming that it was self defence against heavy artillery from Cambodia landing in civilian areas.
The coalition says that should not be a justification for using weapons which are banned by more than 100 countries.
According to the campaigners, thousands of villagers are now at risk of death or serious injury because of unexploded ordnance near their homes.
Part of the reason for the weapons notoriety is that children find the brightly-coloured bomblets attractive and get badly hurt if they pick them up.
Labels: Ban Cluster Bombs, Cambodia Thailand Border, Preah Vihear
» Read more!
Reuters Pictures A survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime, Mom Kimsen 61, (R) is accompanied by a court official as she shows her portrait to the media at the Tuol Sleng (S-21) genocide museum in Phnom Penh May 31, 2011. She was part of the more than 300 villagers brought to the Khmer Rouge notorious security prison S-21, now museum, by the court on a regular tour basis. Mom Kimsen, who spent about a year in different prisons in 1977, said that she found her photo and two other photos of her relatives at the museum , appealing to the U.N. backed tribunal to sentence the former regime leaders in detention to life in prison for crimes they committed.
