Editorial | Articles about Cambodia | Khmer

Friday, November 11, 2011

2,000 Schools Remain Closed

RFA

Schools hit by floods in Cambodia's Pusat province.

Some 2,000 schools in Cambodia remain closed as the worst floods in more than a decade continue to wreak havoc in Southeast Asia, where the death toll has risen to 1,000, officials and reports say.

Most of the affected schools are along the lower Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, said Nhim Vannda, the first vice-president of the National Committee for Disaster Management.

Only 2,000 of 4,000 schools nationwide have reopened since the floods hit 18 provinces and cities in early October, officials said.

Nearly 250 people have perished in the floods in Cambodia so far, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest flood bulletin.

“We are very concerned about the students' education. I am afraid that they can’t finish their curriculum on time,” said Yoeung Rithy, chief of a village in Kompong Thom province on the banks of the Stung Sen river.

Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association President Rong Chhun said even while some schools remain open, their classes are delayed due to logistical problems.

School equipment has been damaged and documents destroyed due to the disaster, he said.

“The Ministry of Education must establish a supplementary curriculum for the students to make sure that they can finish their academic year as usual,” Rong Chhun said.

Ministry of Education Director Ung Ngohok said additional classes would be held to prevent affected students from falling behind in their studies.

"The government has also instructed the Ministry of Education to make sure that the students have enough time to prepare for their examinations," he said.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has provided U.S $300,000 to help subsidize educational materials in flood-affected areas.

A Ministry of Education report obtained by RFA showed that there are still 900 schools in 15 provinces under flood waters.

Some of the schools where the floods have receded may not have resumed classes because the damage has not been rectified.

Climate change

At least 1,000 people have died in the region's floods, according to an Agence France-Presse tally on Thursday. Millions of homes and livelihoods have also been destroyed by the disaster.

The World Bank warned that climate change will bring more floods and extreme weather to Southeast Asia.

"What we are seeing is there are more floods, more extreme weather events, higher temperature, more variable rainfalls, and we believe that is caused by climate change," Andrew Steer, the World Bank's special envoy for climate change, said in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.

"And we should expect this to increase, sadly," Steer said.

The death toll in Thailand, grappling with its worst floods in half a century, has reached 533, the government said, and the slowly advancing waters are now threatening the heart of Bangkok, a city of 12 million people.

Vietnam's government has reported at least 100 deaths, including many children, in southern and central parts of the country while a fresh deluge in central provinces prompted the evacuation of some 30,000 people.

At least 106 people have died in flash floods caused by heavy storms in central Burma in late October.

In Laos, 30 people lost their lives in the floods, OCHA said in a statement.

The U.N. body, which does not include Burma in its flood updates, also reported 98 deaths in the Philippines.

Vast swathes of rice paddy fields have been damaged or destroyed in Southeast Asia as a result of the inundations triggered by unusually heavy monsoon rains that began some three months ago.

"To date, nearly nine million people have been affected by torrential rains and overflowing rivers," OCHA said.

Reported by RFA's Khmer service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved

Labels: Flood

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Thursday, November 10, 2011

WTM: Travel 'contributing to human trafficking' in Cambodia

Source: travelweekly.co.uk/

The travel industry is inadvertently contributing to “internal human trafficking” in Cambodia by developing a view of responsible tourism which encourages travellers to visit and donate to orphanages.

Michael Horton, founder of Cambodian non-profit organisation ConCERT, launched a stinging rebuke on a day of debates about Responsible Tourism opened by Fairtrade Foundation executive director Harriet Lamb.

Horton said tourist visits to orphanages in Siem Reap were exacerbating the problem of child poverty, with some owners keeping children dirty and malnourished to encourage donations.

He also said that 72% of children in orphanages were not orphans but merely came from poor families, and described the movement of children across the country to institutions where tourists visit as “simply internal child trafficking”.

Instead, Horton urged delegates to develop an approach to responsible tourism which focused on community based-support and poverty reduction, and “not just providing a satisfying experience for paying guests”.

Horton’s views were echoed by responsible tourism expert Professor Harold Goodwin, who pledged his support for the campaign, and UNWTO secretary general Taleb Rifai, who said there must be a shift away from the concept of tourists as superior to local people who were seen as attractions.

Earlier in the day, Lamb opened the fifth World Responsible Tourism Day by calling on all travel companies to place responsible tourism on boardroom agendas.

“Maybe these tough times could be a chance for a radical rethink. This is the ideal time to be brave and innovative and take this vision for responsible tourism to the heart of your business,” she said.

Lamb said she hoped the launch of the first UK fair-trade holiday package to South Africa on Wednesday would be the “first building block” towards a certified fair-trade movement for travel.

Labels: orphanage, Tourism

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Climate change to bring more floods: World Bank

Thailand's worst floods in half a century have killed 533 people (AFP, Joan Manuel Baliellas)

HANOI (AFP) — Climate change will bring more floods and extreme weather to Southeast Asia, a World Bank official said Thursday on a visit to the region, where hundreds have died in severe inundation.

"What we are seeing is there are more floods, more extreme weather events, higher temperature, more variable rainfalls and we believe that is caused by climate change. And we should expect this to increase, sadly," Andrew Steer, the World Bank's special envoy for climate change, told reporters in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.

Thailand's worst floods in half a century have killed 533 people and damaged the homes and livelihoods of millions around the country.

In neighbouring Cambodia, the deadliest floods since 2000 have killed at least 247 people while more than 100 have died in Vietnam, mostly in the southern Mekong Delta.

Steer, who cancelled plans to visit Thailand on his regional tour because of the disaster, said the floods there were "consistent with what we know to be true about climate change."

The United Nations says climate change, fuelled by hydrocarbon-based energy systems, is the world's most pressing environmental issue.

Labels: Flood

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CAMBODIA: “Open” economy praised by WTO

Author: Richard Woodard | just-style.com

Cambodia has won praise from the WTO for its “solid” economic performance and relatively open economy, at the conclusion of the country’s first Trade Policy Review.

The WTO highlighted the fact that Cambodia’s per capita income had more than doubled in the period under review, while the poverty rate had fallen from 35% to 26%.

Organisation members also congratulated the country for successfully emerging from the global economic crisis without having to adopt protectionist trade measures.

Describing Cambodia's economy as relatively open, the WTO pointed to a trade-to-GDP ratio of about 65% and noted that exports accounted for a large proportion of employment growth.

However, the WTO is urging the country to step up efforts to diversify its goods exported and markets targeted, fearing that Cambodia is over-reliant on relatively few products and countries.

Furthermore, the organisation said Cambodia still had “significant work to do” to improve its business environment and to address infrastructure bottlenecks.

Despite the praise for Cambodia’s economic achievements, local business leaders are lamenting the lack of financing for manufacturing exports - which hurts the garment industry especially hard.

Van Sou Ieng, president of the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia, told the Phnom Penh Post that manufacturers finance themselves, largely with support from parent companies in Hong Kong and Taiwan. But smaller local companies without overseas ties often lack resources.

Labels: WTO

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Cambodia: unexploded devices found near school

Source: member // Jesuit Refugee Service International

Battambang (Cambodia), 9 November 2011 – More than 100 unexploded devices have been found near a small school in northwestern Cambodia.

The unexploded devices – including anti-personnel landmines, anti-vehicle weapons and cluster munitions – were found within a five square kilometre radius of the school and some as close as 100 metres from areas where the school children and villagers frequent on a daily basis.

The school, situated in the Phnom Kpaus village of approximately 500 inhabitants, is attended by 84 students.

"Fortunately, in the last week the whole village has been littered with signs reminding the inhabitants of the existence of these deadly devices", said Javier Olaguivel, who works in the nearby diocese of Battambang and cooperates with JRS in Cambodia.

"As you can see anti-personnel landmines and cluster bombs in Cambodia continue to be not just an isolated issue but a day-to-day problem that's far from being resolved. There are still more than four million landmines and cluster bombs waiting to destroy people's lives even in supposedly safe areas, such as Phnom Kpaus village", continued Mr Olaguivel.

"It's heart breaking to see Cambodians forced to live and work in areas marked by the 'Danger!! Mine!!' signs because they don't have anywhere else to go or any other way of making ends meet", added Mr Olaguivel.

According to JRS, situations as flagrant as these remind us that much more help is needed not only in Cambodia but in many other heavily mined countries before the remnants of war are effectively cleared. Moreover, it also clearly underlines the importance of banning the production, stockpiling and use of these weapons.

For the JRS press statement on forthcoming review of the Convention on Conventional Weapons see http://jrs.net/news_detail?TN=NEWS-20111109080254 and for information on the involvement of the organisation in international campaigns see http://www.jrs.net/advocacy?LID=71&L=EN

Labels: Battambang

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Cambodia wilderness under the chainsaw

By Stephanie Scawen in Asia | http://blogs.aljazeera.net

Environmental activists call on the government of Cambodia to conserve Prey Lang forest [EPA]

"Tell me how can we fix Khmer culture," my driver asked me, as we sat outside the CRCK rubber concession in Prey Lang forest.

"Education, education, education," I replied. "So that people know corruption is wrong and can be stopped."

"Yes, but our leaders, they are rich and they were educated overseas. They have education, but it seems to make no difference," he retorted. "What can we do?"

It's heartbreaking to see the rapid destruction of the last and largest primary forest of its kind left on the Indochina peninsula.

About 3,600 square kilometres of land that is quickly falling victim to the chainsaw.

Tens of thousands of people who live around the forest and rely on it for their livelihood are seeing their primary source of income disappear.

Resin trees are protected under the constitution from being felled.

Villagers can tap the resin and sell it for use as a sealant on boats, as a fragrant oil, and the flammable properties of some species allow it to be used as a slow-burn wick.

About 20,000 of these trees were felled in the first six month of this year alone. And that was just in one district.

People are going hungry and growing angry.

And it's not just the resin trees. Luxury Asian hardwoods are being picked off and shipped off at night.

Locals talk of hearing the sound of chainsaws after dark in the forest. Other villagers who have moved to the area are hired for their oxcarts to help drag the logs deep out of the forest, indirectly complicit in the destruction.

Activists say if the cutting continues at its present rate, there will be nothing left in a year.

At the CRCK concession, they were meant to plant rubber. The land was cleared, the trees felled, but the land wasn't suitable for rubber. So now they grow cassava.

Yet it's guarded by police armed with AK47s and M16s.

We need the guns to protect ourselves, the police tell me.

"From what?" I ask.

I can't get an answer, but they are here to confront several hundred villagers from the four provinces that cover Prey Lang, who've been trekking deep through the forest for the last three or four days to protest against the logging.

The district governors have been ordered to get their villagers back. How they hope to do this is not clear, but police reinforcements have been arriving over the last 24 hours.

The last time villagers tried to protest outside CRCK they were surrounded by armed police and prevented from even fetching water from the river for two days until they had to give up.

The deputy district governor told us there would be 500 police to stop the protest.

If they can put that much effort into stopping a protest, you have to ask why they can't do the same to protect the last great wilderness in Cambodia.

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Cambodia: forestry and development, it's not always clear cut

Is helping indigenous people develop community forestry good for development, or is it better to let foreign companies log the native forest and replace it with rubber plantations?

By Duncan Green Thursday 10 November 2011 04.44 EST guardian.co.uk

Hea Samoeun is chief of the resin collectors in his village in Cambodia. Photograph: Duncan Green

Last week in Cambodia, some questions on forestry and development came into sharp relief. I visited a region where Oxfam's local partner is helping indigenous people develop community forestry and resist the encroachment of foreign companies (as well as Cambodian ones, and the odd party or army boss) intent on logging the native forest and replacing it with rubber plantations.

I expected a black-and-white case but, as so often happens, found a much more complex picture. First, the community forestry: the village of O Preah in Kratie province (north-east Cambodia) is home to 67 families of the Phnong indigenous group, who have set up a rather successful community resin association. They tap resin from three species of trees and sell it to varnish and paint producers in Cambodia and neighbouring countries – and since they formed a producer association to market collectively, things have been going well. Until now.

The Vietnamese company Dong Nai/Dong Pu has been granted the land under the Cambodian government's new economic land concessions law – large parcels of land are sold off to investors, usually foreign, for logging and industrial agriculture.

Hea Samoeun, chief of the resin collectors, said members are not happy. They spoke to the commune council, but were told to get jobs on the plantations. "We don't want to work for the company – resin collecting is what we have done for years. The company tried to negotiate by offering us $3 a tree, but if we agree they will cut down everything – so the community said no. They came back and offered us $200 per family and some land for two years for seven families, but we still said no. Why? Because in one day we can earn maybe $12 from collecting resin and still have time for fishing. The company pays you $3.50 and you work from morning to night."

The problem is the economic land concessions law overlaps with the law protecting resin trees in the community forest. Land titles have only been introduced in Cambodia in the last decade (previously all land belonged to the government), so the land rights of Hea Samoeun (as with most Cambodian farmers) are legally murky.

And here's where the politics and power kick in. The law is only part of the story, and sometimes it seems a fairly minor part (although Hea Samoeun shows us his carefully filed legal complaint, adorned by 67 red ink thumbprints from the largely illiterate villagers).

"It is illegal under the land law to log resin trees – the forestry administration tells us it should be up to five years in jail for cutting down a single tree," said Hea Samoeun. "The government claims the community agreed to give up the land, but has never shown us any document – and the law says it should be published."

The two sides are at a stand-off. So far, so black and white. But wait. On a car journey, we pass dozens of neat rows of worker housing and a clinic, all built by Dong Nai/Dong Pu. The rubber plantation will provide jobs for 20 times (maybe more) as many people as currently make a living from resin collecting – poor Cambodians migrating into the forest from the lowlands. After all, rubber tapping is just a form of organised resin collection. Provided wages and conditions are acceptable, isn't that development too?

The compensation that Dong Nai/Dong Pu offered was better than in many similar situations elsewhere in Cambodia, and the company stopped logging at the first protest – that's not what we've seen in far bloodier land grabs in Uganda and elsewhere. One local NGO even holds them out as a model of good practice.

Cambodian activists counter that the plantation jobs are badly paid, and will go to incomers (so what?), that the loss of biodiversity and other "environmental services" is an issue, and that indigenous people do badly when they migrate from their home village. Apples and pears – culture and economics; economic rights v indigenous rights v human rights (all supposedly indivisible). If the process was fair and transparent, it might be possible to argue out the pros and cons, but politics and power obscure and skew every decision.

As for Hea Samoeun and his people, it's incredibly hard to see a successful outcome. The companies don't want to engage and formal laws and politics are often a shadow play, while the decisions come from informal and unaccountable power and money.

Can we make a convincing business case for a different approach, and would investors even listen? Could a pro-poor investor make a decent profit and pay decent wages (eg for rubber), or buy their products from smallholders (with government or NGO support)? And would the government support such an effort?

Our outgoing country director thinks this is one way forward. NGOs have made some progress on other value chains, eg pharmaceuticals, garments and supermarkets, by being propositional and working with progressive businesses to develop the business case. Might it work for forests too?

Like I said, a much more complicated picture than I was expecting – what have I missed?

Labels: forest ecosystems, Hea Samoeun, Oxfam, The Vietnamese company Dong Nai/Dong Pu

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Cambodia attracts $476 M investments from ASEAN in 9 months

PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) - Cambodia had received the fixed asset investment of $476 million from its ASEAN member countries in the first nine months of this year, an increase of 66 percent versus the same period last year of $287 million, according to the government's reports on Thursday.

From January to September this year, the country had granted licenses to Vietnam's investment projects worth $246 million and to Malaysia's projects of $230 million, showed the reports from the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC).

During the first 9 months last year, the country received the fixed asset investment of $287 million, of which, $152 million from Malaysia, $114 million from Vietnam and $19 million and $2 million from Singapore and Thailand respectively.

The reports recorded that the ASEAN countries investing in Cambodia are only Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore.

From 1994 to September 2011, among ASEAN, Malaysia is the largest investor in Cambodia with the accumulative investment of $2.6 billion, followed by Vietnam at $812, said the CDC's data.

Thailand and Singapore are the third and fourth with $746 million and $636 million respectively.

They invested in various sectors of businesses here including agriculture, especially rice mill and rubber plantation; industries, garments and construction materials; mineral resources; tourism; aviation; telecommunications; and banking and finance.

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

Labels: ASEAN

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Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Cambodia marks 58th anniversary of independence from French protectorate

Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni (C) greets the crowds during a celebration marking the 58th anniversary of independence from French protectorate, in Phnom Penh Nov. 9, 2011. (Xinhua/Philong Sovan)

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia commemorated the 58th anniversary of the declaration of Independence Day from French protectorate on Wednesday.

The event was held at the Independence Monument under the presidency of Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni and the participation of National Assembly President Heng Samrin, Cambodia 's Prime Minister Hun Sen, the First Vice President of Senate Prince Sisowath Chivan Monirak, and other high-ranking officials, diplomatic corps, armed forces, as well as students, totaling about 20,000 people.

During the celebration, King Norodom Sihamoni laid the wreath and lit the victory torch inside the monument.

The victory flame will be kept burning for three days.

Cambodia gained independence from the French protectorate on Nov. 9, 1953 after the retired King Norodom Sihanouk had conducted the royal crusade in 1952.

France had ruled Cambodia for 90 years until the country declared independence.
Editor: Chen Zhi

Labels: Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni, Independence, Prime Minister Hun Sen

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UN Not Fulfilling Tribunal Role as Partner: Monitor

Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC

With the Khmer Rouge tribunal facing its second case and continued criticism over its handling of two more, a leading court monitor says the UN needs to consider itself a partner and “set an example.”

“Since its inception, there has been no one on the UN side to take full responsibility for the success or failure of the court,” Long Panhavuth, a monitor for the Cambodia Justice Initiative, told “Hello VOA” Monday.

“Mostly when there is a problem, the UN tends not to acknowledge a problem and seems to push it to the other side to take responsibility,” he said. “They are also slow to respond to an issue.”

The UN was slow to address corruption allegations that dogged the court early after its inception and has not fixed other challenges to the court, he said.

In a Facebook comment prior to the show, Seang Sophagna, a staff member on the UN side of the court, said the tribunal is a chamber of the Cambodian court. “The UN role is to assist not to control or oversee.”

Long Panhavuth disagreed, saying that UN officials do not clearly understand their role at the hybrid court.

“Some UN officials see their role as just coming in to assist, which requires that they give only advice,” he said. “But they actually perform their full roles as prosecutor, investigator and judges representing the international side.”

He suggested the UN side see itself as a “partner,” not as an “adviser.”

Labels: Khmer Rouge, Khmer Rouge Tribunal, UN

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374 Schools in Cambodia Remain Closed due to Flooding

Sourcea:Xinhua

As many as 374 schools in Cambodia remain closed, leaving more than 40,000 students mostly in primary schools unable to attend classes due to flooding, a government official said Wednesday.

Chan Sophea, director of primary school department of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports said more than 40,000 students from 374 schools have yet returned to their classes as flooding has not receded fully.

According to Chan Sophea, roughly 1,400 schools in 13 provinces across the nation were inundated by flooding that began since August this year.

Of the 374 schools remaining closed, only four are at secondary level, the rest are at primary level and most of them are located in provinces that lie along the Mekong River or Tonle Sap Lake.

Keo Vy, spokesman of the National Committee for Disaster Management said some 51,000 families who had evacuated from homes due to flooding have all returned to their homes.

However, he said, aid reliefs will be continued to be distributed to those who are severely affected for at least three more months.

It has been the worst flooding that hit the region in a decade, with at least 250 people killed and 1.5 million people affected.

The flood is estimated to have cost Cambodia 521 million U.S. dollars, mainly due to damages of rice paddies and roads.

Labels: Flood

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Cambodian MP wants bilateral agreement on domestic workers

Source: freemalaysiatoday.com

PETALING JAYA: Cambodian opposition MP, Mu Sochua, is determined to push for a bilateral agreement between Cambodia and Malaysia on the protection of Cambodian domestic workers here.

According to her, a mere memorandum of understanding, as suggested by Human Resources Minister S Subramaniam would be insufficient in addressing and resolving the issue of Cambodian domestic worker abuse in Malaysia.

Cambodia last month imposed a temporary ban on its citizens from working in Malaysian households following allegations of abuse.

Sochua, who was the driving force behind the ban, is adamant that better mechanisms be put in place when it is finally lifted to guarantee the protection of domestic workers and the prosecution of those who violate the law.

In a joint press conference with Tenaganita today, she explained that a bilateral agreement is crucial because it would have to include the Asean Migrant Workers Declaration, the International Labour Organisation( ILO) Convention on Domestic Workers and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

“And the agreement shouldn’t be limited to governments alone but must also include civil society, unions and NGOs to truly address the issue,” she said. “And politicians have to be involved as well so that we can hold ourelves accountable to our constituents.”

“I will continue pushing for clear mechanisms that will ensure a clean process of recruitment and accountability. This is not about business alone.”
Tenaganita, meanwhile, announced that it will push for a standardised contract for all domestic workers which will be the basis for the development of the bilateral agreement.

Its executive director, Irene Frenandez, told the media that Malaysia practiced discrimination in the way it addressed domestic workers as there are different contracts for each country.

“We need a standard contract for all domestic workers regardless of their countries of origin,” she said. “This way employers will also be clearer on their responsibilities in terms of protecting and addressing the rights of the domestic worker.”

Fernandez added that the Bar Council and other civil society groups had submitted a memorandum to the Human Resources Ministry about a year ago which included the recommended contract.

“We will revive that discussion and work together with Sochua and other civil society organisations in Cambodia on this matter,” she said. “Hopefully these basic demands and requirements are put in place so the ban can be lifted within three months.”

Fernandez also said that the two main issues that required restructuring are the recruitment fees and the need for a post-arrival orientation programme.

“Recruitment fees is one of the major controls that employers have over domestic workers,” she pointed out. “It creates debt bondage and has to go. Direct recruitment from Indonesia only costs RM2,000, so employers don’t really need to fork out huge amounts for a domestic worker.”

“The post-arrival orientation programme must be rights-based and conducted for both employer and domestic workers. We will ask the government to allow civil societies to also conduct this programme to prevent agencies from pushing their own framework of control.”

Sochua, however, acknowledged that certain measures would take more than three months to implement, like the full adoption of the Asean declaration, changing legislation and reforming the judiciary.

“But Cambodia has to clean its house first before asking Malaysia to do the same,” she said. “We need to address the problem of unemployment among women by protecting them instead of simply providing them employment opportunities abroad.”

“The temporary ban has sent out a very clear message in Cambodia and has received strong public support. And I believe that the Cambodian Prime Minister has the political will to change the situation. But there is still a long way between will and what is eventually done.”

During her first visit to Malaysia in August, Sochua only met with rescued domestic workers and NGOs to avoid her visit being politicised.

This time however, she will be holding informal talks with opposition MPs including Subang MP Sivarasa Rasiah and Batu MP Tian Chua.

But she made it clear that she isn’t here to seek out media opportunities or to seek the apology that Foreign Minister, Anifah Aman, promised to offer if the allegations of abuse are true.

Neither Anifah nor any government representative has responded to a recently released report by the Human Rights Watch on the abuse of Cambodian domestic workers to Malaysia.

“What is an apology without addressing the real issue or hearing the voices of the workers?” said Sochua. “And without realising that a visa of employment is not a visa of exploitation.”

Labels: Malaysia, Mu Sochua

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Peace Accords ‘Assurance’ of a Continued Cambodia: Analyst

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC

US Cambodians mark 20th anniversary of Paris Agreement in Alexandria, Virginia, USA.

The Paris Peace Accords, signed 20 years ago and ending decades of war, are the key to the continued survival of Cambodia, a leading political analyst says.

Speaking near the anniversary of the accords, sign on Oct. 23, 1991, Lao Monghay told VOA Khmer the accords ended the conflict and put in place democracy and human rights.

The accords ultimately eliminated the threat of the Khmer Rouge and paved the way for massive amounts of aid money to come to Cambodia for rebuilding, he said.

“I understand the Paris Peace Accords as an assurance for the eternal life of Cambodia,” he said during an interview in Washington. “If we constantly respect them, especially Cambodians.”

Cambodia still struggles with border demarcation, flawed elections and political violence, evidenced by the 1997 coup, as well as a muffled opposition in the National Assembly, he said.

Signatory countries to the accords have an “obligation” to enforce them, but only if they are given ample evidence through which to do so, he said. “We have this, but we don’t like to file cases,” he said.

Every country has a different policy, he said. The US intervenes on matters of human rights, while France continues good relations and Japan produces dialogue and other advice, he said.

Such cases could produce rocky international relations between Cambodia and other countries, he said. “That’s why they face difficulties. It is a problem with the government. They want continuous good relationships.”

Labels: 1991 Paris Peace Accords, Paris Peace Agreement

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Cambodia's fashionable rebels

By Guy De Launey BBC News, Phnom Penh

Cambodian youngsters are becoming increasingly fashion conscious and are trying new looks

More photos

As the sun sets, the rebels come out. Their favourite form of transport is the Scoopy motorbike. Their destination is Phnom Penh's riverside branch of Pencil.

On the face of it, this is an unlikely venue for youthful insurrection.

This nondescript, low-rise building in Cambodia's capital was, until recently, a slightly shabby supermarket. But where the shelves of food and household goods once stood, the rag trade has taken over.

This is what the rebels have come for. You shall know them by the brevity of their skirts and the blondness of their hair.

Too much flesh?

They arrive in force. Hundreds of motorbikes are already crammed into the narrow parking area in front of Pencil by 17:00, and a growing queue of others is starting to block the road. The four-wheeled drive cars dropping off the more well-to-do rebels exacerbate the congestion.

Many of those arriving share a common look: micro-mini skirts or hot pants for the women, and elaborately coiffed and coloured hairdos for the men.

In many countries, this would barely raise an eyebrow, but in Cambodia it could be read as a deliberate effort to confront authority.

The lithe-limbed, topless apsara dancer carved into the stones of the ancient temples of Angkor may be one of the icons of this small nation, but the modern powers-that-be frown on the exposure of too much flesh.

In the past, television celebrities have been ordered to dress modestly, and keep a conservative hairstyle.

Even those with a lower profile have had to contend with the attention of teachers and traffic police. Both groups have been known to administer impromptu haircuts or even cart offensively styled youngsters off for "re-education".

'More exciting'

All this is a sign of how the aesthetic norms, in place since three decades of conflict came to an end in the 1970s, are being challenged.

"It's changed a lot in the past two or three years," says Cambodia's leading model agent, Sapor Rendall.

"Designers are making things more exciting now. When we got out of the war, it was very conservative. In the past you'd think: 'My mum would kill me for dressing like this'," she says, gesturing to her low-cut, cleavage-exposing vest top. "But now... don't care."

That attitude is shared by the young crowd at Pencil.

"Sometimes my mum asks 'Aren't you ashamed of going out like that?' But it's changed for the new generation," says Arun, a 25-year-old shop-worker with crimped and highlighted hair, who says she takes style tips from international pop singers like Rihanna, Beyonce and Pink.

Her 23-year-old friend Monika says her mother does not mind her dyed-blonde hair or her preference for short skirts.

"People can do what they want now," she says. "Not just dress as the authorities say. It's a free style - a sexy style."

A Korean style, as it turns out. The young women all acknowledge the influence of the slew of celebrities coming out of Seoul, who they watch on the wildly popular local, youth-orientated channel MyTV.

One of the busiest concessions inside Pencil is simply called Korean Style.

There are dozens of other clothing stalls - most no bigger than a walk-in wardrobe, with garments hanging from floor to ceiling and a fitting area squeezed into a corner.

Daly Na, 19, runs a stall called Darlink, which specialises in hot pants.

"These are my designs," she says, pointing out the boldly coloured cut-offs on one side of the shop. Copycats are rife, she notes ruefully.

"People have seen what they're wearing in other countries," says Ms Na. "Everybody wants to be Korean - or pick up styles from Thai and Hong Kong fashion magazines."

'Not our culture'

Prices can be bargained down from an initial asking price of $15 (£9). However, the hot pants are still too expensive for those outside of a rapidly emerging urban middle-class.

And Ravy Nick, a 19-year-old student, finds it hard to disguise her distaste for the styles on display in Pencil.

"This is not our culture," she says. "Men look down on you when you wear sexy. They think you're easy."

However, Ms Nick believes the sartorial mood may have shifted irreversibly.

"The government can say things, but they haven't made any rules or laws - they're not doing anything about it."

As Cambodia has one of the youngest populations in the world, the numbers would seem to be on the side of the fashion rebels.

For the moment, their desire for self-expression appears to be limited to personal style and consumerism. There seems to be little appetite for any movement other than that of the upward march of the hemline.

However, as the increasingly affluent urban youth become ever more savvy with social media and foreign travel, they may also bring further changes to a country finally emerging from conflict and conservatism.

Labels: Fashion

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Tuesday, November 01, 2011

America’s fixer in Cambodia

In the post-communist kleptocracy, a former Reagan aide is the man to see.
By Ken Silverstein
Salon.com

Bretton Sciaroni, right, shakes hands with Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen

PHNOM PENH — Bretton Sciaroni, an American expatriate and former ideologue of Ronald Reagan’s White House, makes a most unusual power broker in contemporary Cambodia. The portly Sciaroni is an official advisor to the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, a one-time Khmer Rouge cadre. The Cambodian government has bestowed on Sciaroni the titles Minister Without Portfolio and His Excellency. From his office in an exclusive section of the city — neighbors include the president of the ruling party — he runs a consulting firm that brokers business deals on behalf of foreign investors — deals that often benefit well-connected companies and individuals like Sciaroni himself.

Sciaroni also appears to be a chief intermediary between the U.S. government and Cambodia, which has emerged in recent years as an unlikely American ally. The U.S. cut most assistance to Cambodia in 1997 after Hun Sen staged a coup but resumed aid a decade later. Competition with China for influence in the region and growing trade ties — the United States buys more than half of Cambodia’s apparel production, its primary export — are the primary factors behind the political warming. It probably didn’t hurt that Cambodia struck oil and Chevron got a stake in the most promising field. Today Cambodia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. aid in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia and the Philippines. And Brett Sciaroni is, at least politically, the biggest American in the country.

Earlier this year Sciaroni met me for drinks at the Elephant Bar of the Raffles Hotel. Wearing a light-colored jacket and yellow tie and sporting gold-rimmed glasses and a thick gold bracelet, Sciaroni offered an upbeat view of his adopted country.

“This is very much an emerging economy and democracy,” he said while sipping from a glass of Chateau Batailley, a French Bordeaux. “There’s been a lot of political progress. The ruling party no longer intimidates the opposition.” He describes his own work in Cambodia in altruistic fashion, saying, “This is a country where you can make a difference. If you make a suggestion to a government official and he likes it, it will happen.”

Most independent observers have a different view of Cambodia under Hun Sen, who has held power since a 1997 coup. Forty percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day, and groups like Human Rights Watch and Global Witness have documented large-scale corruption and political repression.

“Cambodia is run by a kleptocratic elite that generates much of its wealth via the seizure of public assets, particularly natural resources,” Global Witness said in a 2007 report. According to opposition parliamentarian Son Chhay, Sciaroni “covers up the government’s bad practices and uses his connections to convince the U.S. to keep [supporting] the government.” And Dana Rohrabacher, the conservative California congressman who says he personally likes Sciaroni, told me Hun Sen had no genuine legitimacy and that “Brett has become part and parcel of a clique of the Cambodian elite that is neither democratic nor honest.”

Reagan’s flimflam man

How did a fervent right-wing anti-communist and old pal of Ollie North’s end up in Cambodia as the chief foreign advocate for a man who fought as a Khmer Rouge guerrilla against a U.S.-backed government before becoming head of the Vietnamese puppet regime that overthrew it? That was a big ideological leap, but Sciaroni’s chief talent — performing intellectual acrobatics for his paymasters, whoever they might be — has served him equally well in Washington and Phnom Penh.

(I repeatedly sought comment from Sciaroni after our interview in Phnom Penh, but he declined to reply to questions about Iran/contra and his other political activities in the U.S, or his business or political activities in Cambodia.)

By 1984, just five years after he received a law degree from UCLA, the sky seemed the limit for young Bretton Sciaroni. Following short stints at two right-wing think tanks and as a Commerce Department political appointee under President Reagan, he was named chief counsel to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. During this period, he provided legal arguments needed to move forward with Reagan’s Star Wars scheme (on the specious grounds that it didn’t violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) and with military aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, which Congress had flatly forbidden.

When Iran-Contra investigators subsequently asked him why the administration turned to him for advice instead of to more experienced staff lawyers at the White House or Justice Department, Sciaroni replied, “Frankly … that thought has crossed my mind as well. I don’t know why my opinion was the only one.”

The reason, however, was quite apparent. Like John Yoo and other conservatives on whom the Bush administration relied for the flimflam needed to justify torturing terrorism suspects in violation of the Geneva Convention, Sciaroni was a loyalist who the Reagan administration knew would reach the conclusions it wanted.

Indeed, compared with Sciaroni, Yoo looks like Oliver Wendell Holmes. In 1986, Sciaroni wrote a series of opinions, including a memo that said North’s aid to the Contras was legal even though Congress had flatly banned any training “that amounts to participation in the planning or execution of military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua.” (Sciaroni determined that the ban didn’t cover “generic” military aid, which he expansively defined as including categories like marksmanship, intelligence reporting and the construction of fortifications.)

When he was later asked by a superior at the oversight board to investigate media accounts of illegal aid to the Contras, Sciaroni determined they were false, largely on the basis of a five-minute conversation with North. The latter denied everything, which was good enough for Sciaroni.

But Sciaroni soon crashed. During his 1987 testimony before the congressional committee investigating Iran-Contra, it emerged that he had passed the bar exam only on his fourth try (in three different states), and that he got the chief counsel’s position despite never having previously held a job in the legal profession. Before long he lost his government job and was scraping by as a fellow at the American Conservative Union and as a pro bono lobbyist for a group of right-wing Salvadorans close to that country’s murderous military-dominated regime.

When he learned in 1993 from Rohrabacher that Hun Sen was looking to hire an American attorney for a short-term assignment, Sciaroni was quick to seize the opportunity. He arrived right before the May 1993 elections, which were organized by the U.N. following the reign of the Khmer Rouge and years of civil war. The royalist party triumphed in the balloting but agreed to a power-sharing arrangement when Hun Sen threatened to lead an armed revolt.

“The funny thing is that if the CPP [Cambodian People’s Party] had won the election, I probably would have been back in the U.S. after two months,” Sciaroni told me at the Elephant Bar. “But they lost and they panicked. I had written up some things they liked, and they asked me to stay on.”

It seemed odd that the strongly conservative Rohrabacher, a strong critic of Hun Sen’s ever since the 1993 vote, would help Sciaroni get a job with the government, but the congressman confirmed the story during a phone conversation. It turned out that Rohrabacher and Sciaroni had known each other since their college days, when they were members of Young Americans for Freedom and Youth for Reagan.

“After the Iran-Contra scandal, all of Brett’s friends deserted him, which is typical of Washington,” Rohrabacher told me. “A Cambodian-American constituent told me that Hun Sen was going to hold free elections; he was looking for a lawyer to draw up an honest election code and was willing to pay top dollar. I knew Brett really needed the money and thought he’d be perfect for the job. And he did a good job — they did have a free and fair first-round vote. The only problem was that Hun Sen lost and didn’t abide by the results, and our government buckled. They should have told him, ‘You lost, get out,’ but instead they agreed to a compromise and Hun Sen became one of the two prime ministers.”

Rohrabacher was furious about the outcome, but Sciaroni continued to work for Hun Sen.

“He’s like a ‘Lord Jim’ character,” Rohrabacher told me of Sciaroni. “His own country abandoned him when Iran-Contra became a scandal. He became a destroyed human being who went overseas to start a new life.”

Spinning repression

Sciaroni’s close relationship with the regime became especially apparent after Hun Sen seized power in a bloody military coup in July 1997 that left at least 41 oppositionists dead. Enter Bretton Sciaroni, who assembled and directed a lobbying and public relations team that tried to spin the coup in Washington. The centerpiece of the campaign was a “white paper” that alleged that the royalist party had employed a “campaign of provocation” against the CPP and that the coup was therefore a legitimate preemptive measure by Hun Sen.

The Washington Times exposed the campaign, prompting outrage among Americans in Cambodia and some of Sciaroni’s right-wing comrades back home. When the Times asked him what help or advice he contributed to the white paper, “Sciaroni grimaced and responded, ‘No comment.’ ”

The following year, Sciaroni coordinated another P.R. campaign around an election that Hun Sen organized and handily won.

Rita Colorito, who worked on the campaign for an American lobbying firm recruited by Sciaroni, later wrote about her experience in an article called “Confessions of a Spin Doctor.” “The Cambodian People’s Party didn’t care about human rights progress,” she wrote. “It simply wanted favorable media coverage and renewed international aid.” Nonetheless, Hun Sen’s American spin team did its best to sell their client by “taking semantics to an absurdity,” Colorito wrote.

Sciaroni’s campaign misfired, though, when it persuaded Tina Rosenberg of the New York Times Magazine to come to Cambodia to report on Hun Sen’s inspired leadership. Rosenberg wasn’t impressed and wrote an article (under the headline “Hun Sen Stages an Election”) that said that since 1975, “Cambodia has suffered under an assortment of dreadful Governments, and Hun Sen has been in all of them.”

Petrified that Rosenberg’s story would cause them to lose their fat contract, the PR team held an “emergency phone conference” to spin the article to Hun Sen and convince him it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

Hun Sen apparently accepted the explanation. In 2002, his government granted Sciaroni Cambodian citizenship. Since then he has publicly lauded Sciaroni for “seeking justice for Khmers” and expressed hope that “he will continue to stay here with us.”

A bridge to U.S. business and government

Sciaroni’s success is based on a simple truth. Political contacts are the handmaiden of business operations the world over, but in a country like Cambodia — with its tiny intertwined political and economic elite — they are vital. “You get opportunities because you are close to the government,” a Westerner living in Phnom Penh told me. “You have to be in their good graces.” Sciaroni’s connections, this person said, run wide and deep: “Brett has been here since the early days, when things were very rough. There aren’t many [foreigners like that], and Brett is the only American.”

Numerous sources told me that Sciaroni’s closest contact in the regime is Sok An, the deputy prime minister and head of the council of ministers. Sciaroni has accompanied Sok An on international delegations and advised him during meetings with international agencies like the World Bank.

The State Department’s most recent annual report on human rights said that the CPP has “consolidated control of the three branches of government and other national institutions” and that the government “restricted freedom of speech and of the press … and at times interfered with freedom of assembly.” Sciaroni’s rosier assessment, which he offered when we met, is that “the electronic media is dominated by the government, but the print media is freewheeling and sometimes irresponsible. Elections are pretty good in a technical sense.”

During a speech at a 2007 investment conference in Cambodia he pitched Hun Sen’s authoritarian brand of government as a plus for business. “Investor confidence has been strengthened by the … stability in the officials you deal with,” he said. “You are not likely to see great swings in policy because of new officials coming on the scene.”

Sciaroni also pitched the regime during a 2009 visit to Cambodia by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb. “Sciaroni praised the Cambodian government’s regular dialogue with the private sector,” said a cable released by Wikileaks. “Sciaroni confidently asserted that no Amcham [American Chamber of Commerce] has as much influence on a government in Southeast Asia” as the one in Cambodia. (Sciaroni has headed the local American Chamber since it was founded in 1998.)

Son Chhay and other government critics I spoke with said they feared Sciaroni had played a role in softening American policy toward Cambodia, which until a few years ago placed a heavy emphasis on human rights. Nowadays, expanded trade and military cooperation get far higher billing. The United States has become “obsessed with the need for ‘dialogue’ with the government, and he is seen as a bridge for that,” one Cambodian activist, who asked not to identified, told me.

Sciaroni is not shy about what he can deliver for his customers. During his speech at the 2007 investment conference, Sciaroni explained how his firm had negotiated a major tax benefit for an American company that had balked at investing locally because the import of raw aluminum was taxed at a rate of 7 percent.

“In rapid succession we met various senior officials,” Sciaroni recounted. “[One of them] said ‘what would you like it [the rate] to be?’ and the company said ‘How about zero percent?’ And zero percent it was and is today.”

Sciaroni’s other clients have included Chevron and Mitsui, which hold stakes in Cambodia’s most promising oil field, and international mining firms like BHP Billiton, Mitsubishi and Oxiana. He has also worked with Raptor Forestry, which according to a business plan I obtained, is “investigating the potential” for large-scale timber and agricultural projects. Sciaroni, the plan says, received equity in the venture for providing legal services and his “network of local contacts.”

Sciaroni was listed on initial incorporation records as chairman of the board of a local subsidiary of another client, Paris-based CityStar for which he serves as legal counsel. CityStar set up shop in Cambodia in early 2007, almost precisely as the government was selling off for development public land near the coastal town of Sihanoukville. The process resulted in gorgeous beaches, islands and protected areas being purchased by well-connected companies on terms undisclosed to the public. CityStar, which plans to build luxury hotels and villas, won two concessions in a national park area as well as two other areas for development on separate islands off the coast of Sihanoukville.

And so it goes for Sciaroni, whose fleeting success in Ronald Reagan’s Washington served as a steppingstone for far bigger things in Cambodia. And with ties to the U.S. government warming and American firms like GE, DuPont and Microsoft setting up shop in Cambodia in recent years, the outlook for the future is bright.

“Opportunities abound,” Sciaroni told me of Cambodia, though he may as well have been describing his own good fortune in washing up here. “It’s a great environment.”

Ken Silverstein is a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine and an Open Society fellow. More Ken Silverstein

Labels: Bretton Sciaroni, Prime Minister Hun Sen

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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Khmer Rouge defense files suit against Hun Sen

By SOPHENG CHEANG

Defense lawyers in Cambodia's Khmer Rouge genocide trial filed a complaint Monday accusing Prime Minister Hun Sen of interfering in the proceedings.

Two lawyers for Nuon Chea alleged in a criminal complaint at Phnom Penh Municipal Court that Hun Sen and others in the government had blocked some witnesses from testifying and interfered with the defendants' right to a fair trial.

Previous similar challenges on side issues have failed to affect the proceedings.

Keo Ramy, a spokesman for Cambodia's Cabinet, said the government has not interfered in the tribunal's work and that Nuon Chea's lawyers were just carrying out a delaying tactic.

Nuon Chea, the No. 2 Khmer Rouge leader, is to go on trial with three other defendants late next month. The U.N.-backed tribunal is seeking justice for an estimated 1.7 million people who died of starvation, exhaustion, lack of medical care or torture during the communist Khmer Rouge's 1970s rule.

The four defendants have been indicted on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture.

Hun Sen has publicly chided and threatened the tribunal several times, saying it should not extend its prosecutions beyond the four people to be tried next month and one who has already been convicted. He says more trials could be divisive and even lead to civil war. Many believe, however, that Hun Sen fears his political allies could face indictment.

Some human rights groups accuse the U.N. of bending to Hun Sen's will at the cost of true justice.

Earlier this month, Siegfried Blunk -- the tribunal's German judge responsible for indictments -- resigned, alleging that government interference in the investigation of new cases could give the impression he was bowing to pressure.

Blunk defended his record, blaming government pressure for the lack of new cases. He cited Cambodia's information minister as saying in May that if investigating judges wanted to probe new cases, "they should pack their bags and leave."

Labels: hun sen, Khmer Rouge Tribunal

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Fears of Food Shortages Rise With Thai Floods

By Shibani Mahtani

Southeast Asia’s battle with some of the worst floods in decades is far from over, with waters seeping deeper into the Thai capital of Bangkok. But the United Nations is already warning that parts of Southeast Asia affected by the floods are facing “serious food shortages,” a problem caused by destroyed crops and compounded by the difficulty in delivering food assistance.

A report from the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization says that significant flooding and devastation across Southeast Asia – including Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand – has caused severe damage to housing, infrastructure and agriculture.

Official estimates indicate that 1.6 million hectares, or 12.5% the total rice farmland has been damaged in Thailand alone. In Cambodia, 12% of paddy fields have been destroyed, with another 7.5% in Laos, 6% in the Philippines and 0.4% in Vietnam according to the FAO. In Thailand, while no precise crop damage estimates are available, the FAO warned that the main rice season is at the critical growth stage and is likely to be affected the most.

The region has also seen scores of livestock killed or displaced, with significant numbers considered to still be at risk. In Thailand alone, 9.9 million head of livestock are at risk according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, though this number is set to rise as the flood situation worsens.

Diplomats and representatives of countries affected by the floods have continued to downplay fears of food shortages across Southeast Asia, where rice is the most important food.

“Of course there will be less output this year, but I think there will be enough for export and for the consumption inside Thailand,” said the Thai Ambassador to Singapore, Nopadol Gunavibool, at a media briefing reported in the Straits Times.

The Cambodia Ambassador to Singapore, Sin Serey, said that some farmers in Cambodia had switched to flood-resistant rice grains which could grow even if paddy fields were flooded. Both were speaking at an event to raise funds for flood victims in Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines.

In Singapore, even though roads have remained relatively dry except for some relatively inconsequential flash floods, some in the import-dependent city-state are still worried about the availability and price of rice. The issue was raised in Singapore’s parliament, but the Ministry of State for Trade and Industry was quick to allay fears that the city-state will be affected. Though rice prices have risen 9% in Singapore since January, Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State for Trade and Industry said that Singapore imports rice from a variety of sources – including Vietnam, India and the United States.

Additionally, all rice importers in the city-state keep a stockpile of two month’s supply. The Ministry of Trade and Industry is continuing to watch the situation.

Countries affected by the floods, however, may not be as fortunate. The Ministry of Commerce in Thailand warned last week – before the worsening flood situation – that there could be a possibility of a rice shortage later in the year with 5-6 million tons of rice lost to the floods, and an additional 35 warehouses and rice mills devastated.

Labels: Flood, Thailand

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Saturday, September 17, 2011

Thai-Cambodia ties on the mend, but Thaksin casts a shadow

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen in Phnom Penh on Thursday. REUTERS

by Pavin Chachavalpongpun | Today Online
09:01 AM Sep 17, 2011

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra ended her first visit to Cambodia on Thursday. Her brother, the self-exiled former Premier Thaksin - still considered by supporters as Thailand's "real" Prime Minister - arrived in Phnom Penh just one day after Ms Yingluck's trip.

The twin visits to Cambodia by the Shinawatras have received much publicity in both countries and in the region. This is because they signal a sea-change in Thai policy toward Cambodia which could lead to rapid progress in bilateral ties.

These ties were severely damaged by the so-called Thai nationalists, mostly from the yellow-shirt People Alliance for Democracy (PAD), who had politicised the issues in Thai-Cambodian relations in order to undermine the pro-Thaksin regime in the past. The previous government of Abhisit Vejjajiva, with a foreign minister who was opposed to Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen, also had a large part in sustaining the neighbourly animosity.

Ms Yingluck returned home after a productive discussion with her counterpart, Mr Hun Sen, especially on the issue of the withdrawal of troops in the disputed areas surrounding the Preah Vihear Temple. Ms Yingluck and Mr Hun Sen agreed to allow an Indonesian monitoring team to witness the redeployment of their troops - a win-win for Thailand, Cambodia and the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN).

It was not revealed whether the two leaders also addressed the issue of oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Thailand where both countries have long engaged in a boundary dispute. But it was almost certain that both premiers would aim to proceed with joint development, rather than begin the demarcation of the maritime border which would be an uphill task.

As for a request to release two Thais from the anti-Thaksin Patriots Network charged last December with espionage and illegal entry, the Cambodian Government made it clear that both would have to serve at least two thirds of their eight-year sentences. Ms Yingluck's offer to negotiate with Cambodia for their release was meant to send a strong message that her government was willing to help its domestic political enemies walk free from a Phnom Penh jail.

Yesterday, Thaksin took his turn to visit Phnom Penh. He holds no official position in Ms Yingluck's government, but has acted as if he was serving in the Thai cabinet. He has claimed that his visit was to assist in rebuilding trust and friendship with Cambodia. Apart from meeting with Mr Hun Sen, he is planning to play golf in Siem Reap and take part in a football match between red-shirt members and Cambodian footballers.

Thaksin's presence in Cambodia will definitely irritate his opponents in Bangkok, and could therefore complicate the work of Ms Yingluck's government in the rapprochement with Cambodia.

Wanted under Thai law on corruption charges, his appearance so close to home is a slap in the face for the traditional elites who have made efforts to block his entry to many foreign countries. The warm Cambodian hospitality will have boosted Thaksin's confidence to make his case to the world that he was in fact a legitimate leader overthrown by a military coup.

As a result, his visit could open the door for the Thai elites to strike back at Ms Yingluck's administration. When he was appointed as an economic advisor to the Cambodian government in 2009, then Prime Minister Abhisit had cut Thailand's relations with Cambodia.

Now, the back-to-back visits may raise concerns among anti-government factions about possible private deals on oil and gas investments between Thaksin and certain influential personalities in Cambodia. And while Ms Yingluck did not meet up with her brother in Phnom Penh, his rush to arrive in Cambodia unfortunately eclipsed his sister's official visit.

Finally, the fact that Mr Hun Sen rolled out the red carpet for the Shinawatras, including organising a football game, underscores the fact that Cambodia is dabbling in the Thai domestic political game - and apparently with the Yingluck government's blessing. It used to be the other way round - Thailand intervening in Cambodian politics since the peak of the Cold War.

It remains to be seen if Ms Yingluck's trip to Cambodia would help heal the deep wound in Thai-Cambodian relations in the long run. There are many contentious issues, worsened by the distortion of history and the misuse of nationalism on both sides.

Ms Yingluck will have to try harder if she wants to seriously improve her country's relations with Cambodia. But she must do this without Thaksin standing in the background.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun is a fellow at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies.

Labels: Prime Minister Hun Sen, Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck Shinawatra

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Friday, September 09, 2011

Cambodia: Officials, police disrupt rights training event again

By Aliran, on 9 September 2011

For the second time in less than a month, a human rights training event in Cambodia has been disrupted by men carrying AK-47s, reports the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights.

Village, commune and district authorities, together with police armed with AK47s, disrupted a human rights training event on 7 September. The event was organised by the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) and the Natural Resources Protection Group (NRPG) in Mean Rith commune, Sandan district, Kampong Thom Province. Those involved in the disruption threatened to arrest the organixers if the event proceeded. It was the second such disruption in a month.

While no arrests were made, officials and police photographed individuals seeking to participate in the event. The involved in the event were community members affected by the ongoing destruction of Prey Lang forest or other land conflicts as well as event organisers and observers.

The training event was the first to be held by the CCHR and the NRPG following a media report in The Cambodia Daily on 6 September. The report quoted Kampong Thom provincial police chief Phan Sopheng as accusing the two groups of inciting people through the provision of human rights training. He threatened to seek the suspension of both groups if further training events were conducted.

On 6 September, the chief monk at Wat Kiribotaram, under pressure from commune and district level officials, withdrew the permission he previously granted to both groups for the use of the pagod. The groups were supposed to hold a training event on 8 September in Dang Kambith commune for another community affected by the destruction of Prey Lang.

This morning at 8.30am, staff from CCHR and NRPG arrived in Mean Rith commune to prepare the venue for today’s training event. The training was organised in response to information from community members that deforestation activities in the area had increased of late.

In total, 34 participants registered to take part in the training although organisers were informed by participants that others had been stopped from traveling to take part in the event. Shortly after the venue was prepared, officials and police arrived and informed CCHR and NRPG that, if they were to proceed with the event, they would be arrested.

Commune and district officials stated that the organisers had failed to provide adequate notice of the event. But the Law on Peaceful Demonstrations provides that no such notice is required for “education dissemination activities” including training events. The organisers had nevertheless informed the provincial authorities of the event in writing.

Under the direction of deputy governor of Sandan district, Div Hok, police photographed all participants who had registered for the event as well as the organisers and observers from The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (LICADHO) and The Community Legal Education Center (CLEC).

Div Hok requested that the organisers provide the identity cards of all participants and observers. This request was denied. After a two hour stand-off between the authorities and the organisers, the event was eventually allowed to proceed following a discussion with Sandan district council member Uch Bunhy.

In response to the intervention of officials and armed police, Ou Virak, President of CCHR, commented:

For the second time in less than a month, a human rights training event organised by CCHR and NRPG has been disrupted by men carrying AK-47s. Again, the authorities have claimed that CCHR and NRPG have failed to satisfy notification requirements that simply do not exist. To see the authorities resort to these kinds of tactics against ordinary citizens who simply want to inform themselves of their rights under Cambodian and international law is nothing short of shocking.

Nevertheless, what I will remember most from today is not the school yard bully-boy tactics deployed by the authorities; rather it is the defiance of the participants – ordinary people motivated by their desire to inform themselves of their human rights under Cambodian and international law facing down armed police.

Labels: Cambodian Centre for Human Rights

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Thursday, August 25, 2011

Cambodia tribunal - judges bowing to political pressure?

Published on : 25 August 2011 - 10:41am | By International Justice Desk

Reuthers Pictures: Former Khmer Rouge president Khieu Samphan (2nd row from front, C, in glasses) sits at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) on the outskirts of Phnom Penh June 29, 2011. The four most senior surviving members of Cambodia's murderous Khmer Rouge regime went on trial for war crimes on Monday, three decades after its "year zero" revolution marked one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century.

Judges will announce “sometime next year” if two politically sensitive cases will be heard at Cambodia’s tribunal, according to the court’s international co-prosecutor. The decision will hinge on whether the suspects can be considered “senior leaders or those most responsible” for crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge regime.

By Jared Ferrie, Kampong Chhnang

Andrew Cayley made the comments during a presentation to about 70 teachers attending a training course on Khmer Rouge history. In a question and answer period following his talk, one teacher asked about the status of the court's third and fourth cases (003 and 004), which the government has warned will not be “allowed” to go to trial.

Cayley noted that prosecutors built those cases before he was appointed to the court in 2009.

“They were put into my lap,” he told the teachers. “The only thing I can do is follow the law and the rules of the court in addressing these case. Ultimately, it will be a matter for the judges to decide whether people involved in these cases were senior leaders or those most responsible.”

Mid-ranking cadres
The identities of the suspects have not been released, but leaked documents reveal that 003 involves the heads of the Khmer Rouge navy and air force, while the suspects in 004 were mid-ranking cadres who allegedly oversaw mass killings and other atrocities in areas under their control.

In a recent statement, the co-investigating judges said they had “serious doubts about whether the suspects (in 004) are ‘most responsible’”. But the judges shared no information about the nature of those doubts.

In an interview last month with VOA, Investigating Judge Siegfried Blunk expressed similar doubts about the suspects in 003.

Political pressure
Observers worry that such statements indicate the judges are bowing to political pressure and preparing to dismiss the cases. The judges ignited an ongoing controversy when they closed down the investigation into 003 despite failing to interview suspects or examine sites that may contain mass graves.

Cayley has lodged an appeal with the Pre-Trial Chamber, which can ask the judges to re-open the investigation. He said in an interview that Blunk’s statements regarding doubts that the suspects fall under the jurisdiction of the court are premature.

“I believe that you’ve actually got to carry out a full investigation before you can make that determination of whether somebody is either senior or most responsible,” he said.

An August 5 “Court Report”, released by the public affairs section of the tribunal, notes that investigations are ongoing into 004. An investigating judge interviewed key witnesses in July, and legal staff members are examining more than 50,000 pages of “evidentiary material”, according to the report.

On August 19, the court also released a redacted version of Cayley’s appeal to the Pre-Trial Chamber – a move Cayley had requested in its text.

Inadequate investigation
Among other arguments, the appeal states that the investigation carried out by the investigating judges was inadequate and did not produce enough information to determine whether the suspects fall under the court’s jurisdiction.

“Given that the PTC (Pre-Trial Chamber) has ruled that jurisdictional issues are fundamental, without further investigations it is highly possible that the entire Case 003 could be dismissed,” the document reads.

In an interview, Cayley noted that Blunk told VOA that he and his Cambodian counterpart, You Bunleng, developed a criteria to determine whether suspects fall under the jurisdiction of the court, under the categories of senior leaders or those most responsible”.

“My office will be asking for those criteria because we haven’t seen them so far,” he said. “And certainly when we can make an assessment ourselves whether that test actually falls within the remit of international criminal law.”

Jurisdiction
He added that the Supreme Court Chamber is expected to issue a judgement soon regarding the court’s first case, which will deal with the issue of jurisdiction.

“I anticipate they will be coming up with their own set of criteria which Judge Blunk will be bound by,” he said.

Cayley was referring to an upcoming judgment in response to an appeal by Duch, a Khmer Rouge prison chief who was convicted last summer. He appealed his sentence, arguing that he had no choice but to follow orders and thus did not fall under the court’s jurisdiction.

Cayley said the court is expected to issue a verdict by the end of this year.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Labels: Andrew Cayley, Khmer Rouge, Khmer Rouge Tribunal

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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Cambodia shrugs off aid curb

A Cambodian worker (C) stands on a pipe pumping sand into the Boeung Kak lake in central Phnom Penh on August 16, 2011. Cambodia has moved to resolve a high-profile dispute about a mass eviction from a lakeside area in the capital after the World Bank froze lending to the impoverished nation over the row.

By Brian McCartan | Asia Times Online

Cambodian leaders have shrugged off a World Bank move this month to suspend new lending due to state-sponsored, large-scale evictions to clear land for development projects. While rising access to private Asian capital, particularly from China, has helped Cambodia weather previous Western donor pressure for reform, the socio-economic costs of the latest sanction could be much higher.

The World Bank had come under pressure from local and foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to take a tough stance against Cambodia's government in response to well-documented forced evictions of communities. The issue centered on a large-scale urban development project planned for central Phnom Penh at Boeung Kak lake where many of the residents are involved in catering to a growing tourist industry.

The pressure increased late last year after an internal investigation found that the World Bank had violated its own social and environmental policies in supporting the project. It is being led by the privately-held Cambodian Shukaku company, which signed a 99-year lease with the government in 2007 to develop Boeung Kak and the surrounding area into a district of luxury apartments and high-end shops.

The company is chaired by Lao Meng Khin, a powerful senator affiliated with the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and a close associate of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Shukaku is partnered with the Inner Mongolia Erdos Hongjun Investment Co Ltd of China, which has pledged broadly to spend US$3 billion in Cambodia on property development, metal processing and power generation.

However, the joint venture has raised some eyebrows due to the unlisted Chinese company's murky background and ownership. Critics say that the company has no proven expertise in any of the areas in which it has pledged to invest, and there is an unusual lack of publicity around a company that has promised to commit such a large amount of capital outside China.

The developers began pumping sand into the lake in 2008, flooding homes and virtually wiping out the once tranquil lake's ecology. Land holders have had no say in the process and have been accused by the government as illegal squatters on state-owned land. These accusations, NGOs say, run counter to Cambodia's land law, which provides protections against evictions to long-time land holders. Many of the residents at Boeung Kak have lived there for decades.

However, the lake's residents were excluded from a process organized by the World Bank to adjudicate property claims. Over 2,000 have already been forced from their homes and another 10,000 now face eviction. The international lender has since called on the Cambodian government to halt the evictions and agree to fair compensation for land holders. After failing to reach an agreement, the World Bank stated on August 9, "Until an agreement is reached with the residents of Boeung Kak lake we do not expect to provide new lending to Cambodia."

The World Bank has lent Cambodia between US$50 million and $70 million annually for the past few years with the last disbursement made in December 2010. Most of the loans have been committed to health and education projects. Despite these capital commitments, Cambodian leaders have so far shrugged off the World Bank's statement about withholding future loans.

Analysts say they can afford to, given the billions of dollars of aid and investment the government now receives from China without strings attached. Cambodia's foreign donors pledged $1.1 billion in aid last year, with China committing the most of any country. China has also become Cambodia's largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI), with stated plans to spend $8 billion on 360 different projects during the first seven months of 2011.

It is difficult to separate Chinese foreign aid from investment since they are often intertwined. Chinese companies receive government subsidies to participate in projects that by Western standards would often be considered as development related. During a 2010 visit by Hun Sen to Beijing, China promised to provide a $300 million loan to construct two national highways and irrigation projects. Other deals concluded during the visit, mostly related to infrastructure, were worth around $293 million.

Hun Sen has made it clear in several speeches that he prefers Chinese to Western aid due to the lack of attached conditions. Western donors often predicate their aid packages on democratic reforms and improvements in human rights and counter-corruption. Hun Sen is apparently not alone in this opinion: the opaque regimes in Laos and Myanmar have also shown a preference for Chinese aid and investment for similar reasons.

Sphere of interest
Together with Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos are often considered Beijing's "sphere of interest" in Southeast Asia.

China became Laos' largest foreign investor in 2010 with total investments amounting $2.9 billion since 2000. Much of China's investment there is in mining, hydropower projects, agribusiness and services. It has also secured a prominent place as an aid donor through large-scale infrastructure projects such as the construction of Route 3 connecting southwestern China with northern Thailand through Laos.

Some of these projects have aimed more at securing goodwill, such as the widening of the Central Avenue in downtown Vientiane and the construction of the National Cultural Hall, than making money. That's evidenced in the fact that many loans are dispensed interest-free.

Last year, largely Western aid agencies and donors cautioned Laos about racing ahead with a development plan based too heavily on natural resource exploitation without enough emphasis on health, education and capacity development among the local population.

The Lao government has stated some of its own concerns over investment, especially in terms of long-term and concessions, such as those granted to Chinese investors to build casino complexes. However, the government has made it clear it intends to reduce its high dependency on official development assistance in favor of increased access to Asian private capital, especially from China.

In Myanmar, where the country ostensibly made a transition from direct military rule to a democratic system earlier this year, there is increasing Chinese investment as the country's leaders continue to look to Beijing for economic as well as diplomatic support. Much of China's investment is in natural resource extraction, hydropower projects, and infrastructure, but there is a growing interest in acquiring agricultural land, especially for rubber.

Myanmar's rulers have long relied on Chinese investment and aid to make up for a lack of development assistance from the West. Sanctions and concern over human-rights issues have prevented Western donors from providing funding at levels similar to that donated to Laos and Cambodia. Human-rights and political opposition groups have long argued that Chinese aid has allowed the military to stay in power and continue to repress the population.

China plans in coming years to further expand its trade with the region and is making moves to develop more extensive physical trade arteries. Beijing has announced plans to pour money into road and rail projects in coming years, linking its landlocked southwestern region with ports in Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia. It is hoped this will increase trade, promote regional investment and tourism, as well as strengthen ties with the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

This may be music to the ears of Southeast Asian policymakers who are interested in developing their countries' economic potential as well as improving their own financial situations given the high levels of corruption in the region. However, growing Chinese influence, especially in the economic sphere, is becoming increasingly worrisome to the average farmer and shopkeeper in these countries.

For instance, there is growing discontent in Laos over what some see as too much Chinese influence in the country. Laos are especially concerned by the growing number of Chinese migrating to work in the country on Chinese projects. This became especially acute in Vientiane when plans for an urban development project near the iconic That Luang monastery came to light.

The project, which was widely perceived as building a "Chinese city" in the heart of the capital, has stirred nationalistic responses from the city's growing middle class. In addition to a penchant by Chinese companies to import Chinese workers to work on their projects, Laos are worried those workers will not return home after the projects are finished, as has been the case on certain roadway projects in remote northern areas.

Land concessions are also an issue, especially in the north where Chinese companies have been able to acquire large tracts of land for plantation agriculture. While many villagers have been able to arrange contracting agreements to provide rubber to Chinese companies, others say they have been forced to convert their land to rubber cultivation. The north is also the location of two Chinese casino, hotel and shopping complexes at Boten and Huay Xai, where sovereignty has seemingly been handed over to Chinese developers.

There is also a longstanding, but largely quiet, animosity towards Chinese influence in Myanmar. Growing Chinese economic influence in recent years has heightened a perception of Chinese as untrustworthy businessmen bent on taking over the country.

As evidence, many Burmese point to the large areas of Mandalay and other cities which have become crowded with shops with store signs only in Chinese and catering to the growing number of Chinese moving into them. This perception apparently extends to the upper echelons of government, where some leaders are reportedly alarmed by China's growing economic clout vis-a-vis the local population.

For the average Myanmar farmer, especially in the country's northern region where there is an increase in China-linked agribusiness projects, there is concern over being evicted from their lands in favor of commercial plantations. Human rights groups have documented this practice throughout the country in a process often carried out by military units.

Others are worried their land will be taken for infrastructure and other projects. Environmental groups have documented the confiscation of land to build a deep sea port in Myanmar's south that will ship oil and gas through pipelines being constructed by Chinese companies to China's land-locked southwestern region.

While not solely the work of Chinese companies, rising evictions in Cambodia are creating a huge number of landless displaced people across the country. Some analysts speculate that the sheer number of people displaced could lead to social stability problems in the future as Cambodians forced off their land and without other viable economic options become increasingly desperate.

Unless Cambodian government policymakers make a shift from their headlong rush for development and reckless policies to supply China's demand for natural resources, agricultural products and diplomatic allies, the risk will rise that their development projects cause more social problems than they resolve.

It's a message the World Bank has delivered belatedly with its suspension of new lending and advice Cambodia's leaders would be wise to heed if they are to maintain social stability amid rapid economic growth and rising Chinese influence.

Brian McCartan is a freelance journalist. He may be reached at brianpm@comcast.net.

Labels: Boeung Kak Lake, Lao Meng Khin, Prime Minister Hun Sen, World Bank, Yeay Phu

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