Editorial | Articles about Cambodia | Khmer
Land-Grabbing Tank Unit to Host Upcoming Regional Peacekeeping Exercises
Source: Human Rights Watch
A member of the Cambodian military salutes from a tank during a parade to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Brigade 70, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh on October 13, 2009. © 2009 Reuters
(New York) - The US selection of a Cambodian military unit with a record of human rights abuses to be the host of an annual peacekeeping exercise in Asia undermines the US commitment to promoting human rights in Cambodia, Human Rights Watch said today.
The "Angkor Sentinel" exercise is part of the 2010 Global Peace Operations Initiative, an effort jointly run by the US Departments of Defense and State to help train peacekeepers. Co-hosted by the US Pacific Command, Angkor Sentinel will be the largest multinational military exercise held this year in the Asia-Pacific region, with more than 1,000 military personnel from 23 Asia-Pacific countries taking part.
The peacekeeping exercises will begin on July 12, 2010, with a five-day "command post" exercise in Phnom Penh. A two-week field training exercise will follow, with Cambodia's ACO Tank Command Headquarters in Kompong Speu province as the host. The US Defense Department funded construction there of a US$1.8 million training center for the 2010 initiative.
"For the Pentagon and State Department to permit abusive Cambodian military units to host a high-profile regional peacekeeping exercise is outrageous," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The US undermines its protests against the Cambodian government for rampant rights abuses like forced evictions when it showers international attention and funds on military units involved in grabbing land and other human rights violations."
For years, the ACO Tank Unit has been involved in illegal land seizures, as documented by the US State Department and by Cambodian and international human rights organizations. In November 2008, the unit seized the farmland of 133 families in Banteay Meanchey province, ostensibly to build a military base. In 2007, soldiers from the unit in Kompong Speu province used armored vehicles to flatten villagers' fences, destroy their crops, and confiscate their land.
Since 2006, the US has provided more than $4.5 million worth of military equipment and training to Cambodia. Some of that aid has gone to units and individuals within the Cambodian military with records of serious human rights violations, including Brigade 31, Brigade 70, and Airborne Brigade 911.
The Phnom Penh portion of Angkor Sentinel is likely to showcase elite Cambodian military units based near the capital, such as Prime Minister Hun Sen's personal bodyguard unit and Brigade 70, both of which have been linked to a deadly March 1997 grenade attack on the political opposition, and Airborne Brigade 911, which has been involved in arbitrary detentions, political violence, torture, and summary executions.US material assistance has also gone toward rights-abusing units such as Brigade 31, formerly known as Division 44, which in 2008 used US-donated trucks to forcibly move villagers evicted from their land in Kampot province. In recent years Brigade 31 has been implicated in illegal logging, land grabbing, and intimidation of opposition party activists during the 2008 national elections. The unit was also involved in summary executions of captured soldiers loyal to the FUNCINPEC party during a 1997 coup staged by Hun Sun.
Cambodian military personnel are not held accountable for serious rights violations. Instead, Hun Sen has promoted military officers implicated in torture, extrajudicial killings, and political violence, such as Hing Bunheang, the deputy commander of Brigade 70 at the time of the 1997 grenade attack, who was made deputy commander of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces in January 2009.
In December 2009, Cambodia deported 20 ethnic Uighur asylum seekers at grave risk back to China on the eve of a visit by senior Chinese officials to Phnom Penh. The US cancelled delivery of 200 surplus military trucks and trailers to Cambodia under the US Excess Defense Articles program. This was only the most minimal response to a serious breach of Cambodia's obligations as a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, Human Rights Watch said.
In February, Hun Sen announced plans for corporate sponsorship of military units as a way to support defense costs. More than 40 Cambodian businesses have agreed to subsidize military units, including some companies that have long been allowed to misuse military units as the equivalent of security contractors to protect and support their business ventures in agri-business, banking, casinos, and national media.
"By essentially auctioning off military units, Hun Sen revealed that many military units are little more than guns for hire, not the defenders of the Cambodian people," Robertson said. "The US should not be training corrupt and abusive military units for global peacekeeping."
The US government should suspend military aid to Cambodia pending an improved and thorough human rights vetting process that screens out abusive individuals or units from receiving any aid or training, Human Rights Watch said. Certain military units, as well as individual personnel from them, should be immediately banned from Defense Department assistance, including Hun Sen's bodyguard unit, Brigade 70, Brigade 31, and Airborne Brigade 911, and any of their sub-units.
"US support for peacekeeping training cannot mean turning a blind eye to soldiers and units who have violated human rights," Robertson said. "Instead, military units that are called to deploy abroad as international peacekeepers must be true professionals, not only in technical expertise, but in their respect for human rights."
Labels: eviction, landgrabbing, US Congress, US State Department
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By TOM VATER - The Wall Street Journal
KEP, Cambodia--"Kep is not about the sea. Kep is about wind and mountain, precipitation and a way of life," says Rithivit Tep, owner of the Villa Thomas, the Cambodian beach town's oldest building. Dating to 1903, handsome and Gothic-looking, it was originally built to house French colonial administrators on break from their jobs in Phnom Penh.
Luke Duggleby for The Wall Street Journal Swinging chairs in the garden of Knai Bang Chatt
The French did little on this picturesque stretch of the country's southeastern coast but keep away from the tigers that used to roam the Elephant Mountains, which rise from the paddy fields behind the town. Its natural shoreline, mostly black rock and mangrove swamp, hardly invites bathing. But in the 1950s, Kep became an upscale resort town, Cambodia's version of France's Saint-Tropez. (Suitably, it was called Kep sur Mer, French for "Kep on the Sea.") A beach was created, and regularly replenished, using sand barged in from down the coast. The country's newly emerging elite, propelled into sudden affluence after independence in 1953, lined the Gulf of Thailand seafront with their villas.
Built in 1903 and soon to be a luxury resort, Villa Thomas is Kep's oldest building.
"Kep was wonderful in its heyday," says Rithivit Tep. "We had cocktail parties every night, artists and musicians stayed here. It was fashionable." King Norodom Sihanouk was a regular visitor, and bands played their locally developed brand of rock 'n' roll mixed with Khmer melodies on the beach. Those who danced themselves into a sweat could escape to Bokor hill station with its handsome casino hotel, spectacularly located on a cool plateau 1,000 meters above the beach town.
But for Kep, as for the rest of Cambodia, the bloom was brief. From the mid-1960s the country drifted into chaos: The U.S. war with Vietnam crossed the border, a coup deposed the king and the Khmer Rouge revolution brought isolation and genocide followed by almost two decades of civil war. (Rithivit Tep, then a teenager and fledgling tennis player—his father, the late Tep Kunnah, was a star—fled with his family in the early 1970s to France and Canada, not returning until 1992.) As recently as 10 years ago, Kep was a ghost town. Streets were overgrown, palm trees where lampposts once stood, as the former holiday homes, built by an elite that no longer existed, were subsumed by jungle.
Now the picture is changing. The area around Kep became a province in its own right in 2008, and has since attracted significant funds from the government for infrastructure development. New roads and administrative buildings, a new market and tentative efforts at urban planning in Kep itself are beginning to show results, and the town of 5,000 has been on the national electricity grid for more than a year. Resorts and restaurants open with increasing regularity, bringing Wi-Fi and swimming pools. Rithivit Tep this year plans to open his old villa (and adjoining bungalows) as a luxury resort; he's also purchased an island off the coast where he intends to establish an ecotourism venture. Initially, he plans to take high-end guests from his mainland resort to the island for romantic luxury dinners.
"Kep must be returned to its former glory," he says.
Jef Moons, a 47-year-old Belgian hotelier, is one step ahead of the pack. He visited Kep on his first trip to Cambodia in 2002, drawn by the lack of information on it in his Lonely Planet guidebook. "I was bowled over by the beauty of the people and the place and wanted to come back to share Kep with friends," he says. "I immediately bought three properties."
With a workforce of 150, Mr. Moons painstakingly restored one of Kep's handsomest beachfront properties, a 1960s villa designed by a student of Cambodia's master architect Van Molyvann. With a second, more recent villa in similarly elegant style and complemented by a pool, his stylish 11-room resort, with a staff of 45, provides Kep's highest-end accommodation.
A villa designed by a student of Cambodia's leading architect, Vann Molyvann, is today part of the resort Knai Bang Chatt.
"When we first visited Kep, we saw a full rainbow around the sun, a 'knai bang chatt' in Khmer," he recalls. "That's what I called the resort when we opened in 2004."
Veranda, on a hillside above town, offers incredible views across the Gulf of Thailand from its restaurant. Funky and attractive bungalows are connected by a warren of wooden walkways high above the grounds. Canadian-Vietnamese owner Lily Loo is happy that Kep is finding its feet again.
"We opened in 2002," she says. "In the beginning all our guests were backpackers. But in 2005, we noticed a change. Families and wealthier independent tourists began to visit. But it's been a slow process."
Slow is the word in Kep; there's not a lot to do but relax. Knai Bang Chatt has offered diversions ranging from talks by Cambodia experts to photography weekends and wellness spa weeks (not to mention several eclectic performances on the rooftop by Khuon Sethisak, Cambodia's best-known opera singer). There are pepper plantations and caves nearby to visit. The ruined villas are worth exploring—and Mr. Moons warns they may not be around for much longer.
"Many of the old houses will disappear," he says. "Khmer people want to look rich, and 1960s architecture means nothing to them. This is normal after an experience like the Khmer Rouge. Culture here is about surviving."
Luke Duggleby for The Wall Street Journal At the crab market, Kep's main attraction, the sellers keep their stock -- here a female laden with eggs -- in floating baskets.
The crab market is the town's main attraction. This long row of shacks is a hive of activity from dawn till dusk. Restaurant after restaurant, including an Italian eatery, line the curved seafront. From 4 a.m., local women, colorfully wrapped from head to toe, stand knee-deep in the surf and negotiate prices for the live crabs that are packed into wicker baskets bobbing in the shallow water. A little offshore, bright green long-tail fishing boats are anchored against the backdrop of the Vietnamese island of Phu Qoc and, to the west, Bokor Mountain. Delicious steamed crab, for which Kep is known all over the country, is served all day.
Luke Duggleby for The Wall Street Journal Just because it's called the crab market doesn't mean you can't get some grilled squid there. There's even an Italian restaurant.
A more sedate eating option is the nearby Sailing Club, also owned by Mr. Moons, an elegant wooden bungalow beside a simple pier, offering Art Deco furniture, mellow music, a short but carefully balanced menu of Khmer and Western dishes, and cocktails.
If even Kep gets to be too much, there's also the possibility of escaping to the simplest of paradises. Koh Tonsay, also called Rabbit Island, lies five kilometers off the coast, and once served as a prison. Today, simple wooden beach shacks, straw-roofed seafood restaurants and a few sun-loungers are as far as facilities stretch on the main beach, a palm-fringed bay with views of the mountainous coastline. The visitors sipping fresh coconut juice in their hammocks are a mixed bunch: backpackers, young families and wealthy, older tourists on day-trips rub shoulders along the half-kilometer sand crescent. Those not put off by the island's basic amenities can stay overnight in simple but clean beachside bungalows.
Luke Duggleby for The Wall Street Journal Koh Tonsay, or Rabbit Island, five kilometers out, offers a back-to-basics beach experience
Bokor hill station, until recently the heart of a national park, is being redeveloped into a glitzy gambling paradise, with a new resort and at least one golf course planned and even some talk of a dinosaur theme park. That's all right with Rithivit Tep; in his vision, Bokor can be for visitors seeking the shiny and new, while his beach town can appeal to those with a taste for the classic. "We have to make sure," he says, "that Kep will return to its golden age."
—Tom Vater is a writer based in Bangkok.
Labels: Kep, Tourism
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Source: Jim Luce - huffingtonpost.com
Cambodian Parliament Member Mu Sochua received a standing ovation from the sold-out, standing room-only crowd at the red carpet world premier of REDLIGHT last week. Produced and narrated by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Lucy Liu, the film left many stunned and some in tears. It is that wrenching.
"I am not a victim in Cambodia, but a survivor of Cambodia!," Sochua told the guests present. "In the darkest recess of human trafficking, there is hope!" The film featured the work of both Sochua and Somaly Mam, forming a narrative of the children they have helped out of the pits of exploitation - such as Reena and Sokha.
Daughter Malika with the human rights activist, politician and mother Mu Sochua.
Deftly blending horror and compassion, hope and futility, REDLIGHT is the second film in a trilogy that is changing the dynamics of child trafficking globally. Filmmaker Guy Jacobson has mastered the emotional edge of sexual slavery and manages to bring it to us in our sterile lives so that we get it - and want to stop it. The photography of the film is superb, with the breathtaking beauty of Cambodia juxtaposed with the squalid conditions of the children forced into the country's unspeakable brothels.
Rarely does a film have such in-depth access to the characters it follows. REDLIGHT weaves together the touching stories of its subjects into an inspirational journey for the audience. It is a true accomplishment in filmmaking.
The narration by Lucy Liu is familiar enough so that we are able to handle the unfamiliar. The quality and sensitivity of the film assures that its message will resound with audiences around the world as it is sure to win awards from Cannes to Sundance. If you chose to see only one documentary this year, make sure it is REDLIGHT.
More amazing than the film is the dangers Guy Jacobson overcame to film it in the shadow of the mafia, for whom human life holds no sanctity. He continues to risk his life daily fighting to expose and sabotage organized crime's most lucrative business.
Guy Jacobson, along with Lucy Liu, Mu Sochua, Somaly Mam, and child slavery expert Kevin Bales, are leading advocates to end child trafficking.
After the film, Sochua told the many gathered, "The movie was so real I could smell the brothel and feel the T.B. in the hospital. My Cambodia is this film." Sochua is a politician and a human rights activist. "I am a member of the Cambodian parliament - a member of the Opposition - who has been stripped of my immunity," she told the hushed audience. She represents the Sam Rainsy Party.
Guy Jacobson spoke after the film with Mu Sochua, UNICEF Global Chief of Child Protection Dr. Susan Bissell, and Israeli actress Adi Ezroni.
Sochua has refused to pay a frivolous fine imposed on her by the corrupt court there for 'defaming' the Prime Minister because she sued him for calling her a whore. "When I go back, I might be put in jail."
"My goal is to be re-elected and continue the fight for justice," she told us. "Justice! Hope!," she reminded us. "Justice is my own pursuit," Sochua said.
Guy Jacobson is a passionate filmmaker who understand child trafficking - and exposes it.
As I wrote last week, not often does a filmmaker present both an untenable social problem - and its solution. Guy Jacobson has done that. As filmmaker, former banker and lawyer, Guy's past and present reflected much of the audience comprised from the top ranks of the arts, finance and law. LexisNexis is the film's major corporate sponsor.
LexisNexis' involvement made a deep impression on many of the film viewers. "LexisNexis is to be commended for their support. It is wonderful that they have put their resources behind such an important problem," Dr. Lucie Lapovsky stated. Roberta Cooper of Vital Voices Global Partnership added, "It is critical that corporations take a role in this international problem, as has LexisNexis, among others in the travel and business community. Their important work should be publicized and praised widely."
Mu Sochua is empathetic to the stories these girls, one a victim and the other her big sister.
The brilliant film REDLIGHT is shown from the perspective of two Cambodian women opposed to childhood sexual slavery. One, Sochua, and the other Somaly Mam, a woman who escaped the brothels to dedicate her life to freeing others. Child trafficking expert Kevin Bales, author of Ending Slavery and President of Free the Slaves, is also interviewed in the film. See the film's trailer on Vimeo.
Filmmaker Guy Jacobson and his team have made a gut-wrenching plea to end child trafficking.
The deeply moving film points out that staggering statistic that 2.5 million children aged 18 months to 18 years are exploited for their young bodies each year. They can be raped 20 - 30 times a day, and up to half of them will die from shock, torture, drugs, and/or AIDS. But these numbers are difficult to grasp. The film also shows you a few real children and tells their tales. That anyone can get.
I interviewed many audience members after the Premiere. Dr. Lucie Lapovsky of Lapovsky Consulting told me:
Child trafficking is a complicated issue and I certainly do not have the solution. Clearly, traffickers should be prosecuted and not granted any leniency. Certainly, the film left me with the feeling that the economic problems in Cambodia exacerbate the situation.
The brothels should be outlawed or there should at least be aggressive enforcement to make sure that there are not children involved. Parents should be educated about what can happen to their children when they sell them.
I hope we can all be helpful in eradicating this terrible problem of child sex trafficking and can help make Cambodia a truly democratic country.
A red carpet premiere in NYC is a million miles away from children forced into sex - or is it?
Roberta Cooper, Co-chair of the Vital Voices Connecticut Council, attended the Premiere and told me afterwards:
The 'solution' lies in a multi-pronged, coordinated effort that includes the police and the judiciary and the press. There should be consequences for the patrons of the trafficked women and girls. One area that the film did not focus on is girls and women who are transported to other countries, including the United States. We need international sanctions and severe consequences for the perpetrators as well as assistance for the victims. United Nations initiatives are important as well.
I did see guy's other film Holly. I thought both films were excellent, but REDLIGHT affected me more. It had the narrative elements of Holly but was a documentary.
Particularly important is Sochua's work -- and also that of Somaly Mam -- to give the victims a place in their communities, counseling, and training in work through which they can become economically self-sufficient. It is very difficult for the rescued girls to overcome the stigmas placed on them by their own culture.
REDLIGHT is the second in Guy's trilogy, known as the K11 Project. Holly was the first in 2007, the story of a 12-year old prostitute who captures the jaded heart of a foreigner living in Cambodia who in turn goes out of his way to rescue her from the criminal element that controls her. Holly premiered at the United Nations, with honorary committee members including Susan Sarandon and Hillary Clinton.
The main theater was completely full, and another audience watched from the adjacent theater.
The REDLIGHT Children Campaign originally aimed at pressuring governments to enact or amend legislation to address this issue more effectively and allocate more resources towards enforcement of laws. This has proven to be difficult. Now, in addition to the original strategy, Guy wants to make it more difficult and costly for perpetrators to sexually abuse children. REDLIGHT Children has partnered with its sponsor LexisNexis to create both an international case law database for trafficking, and a trafficking offenders' database to assist lawmakers and prosecutors.
"REDLIGHT" director Guy Jacobson with me and John Lee at the premiere in New York City.
Following this superb film I know I cannot answer one question: Why has the United States and Somalia not signed the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Children (CRC)? As founder of Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW), I demand that our own nation takes responsibility for the lives of the children whose innocence, safety - and often lives - have been so terribly compromised. Mr. President, we owe this to these defenseless children.
For further issues, facts and the rule of law, see LexisNexis website. All photos by Arthur Eisenberg (Arthur@nycArthur.com).
Labels: Human Traffic, Mu Sochua, Prime Minister Hun Sen, Sam Rainsy Party
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UN News Center
17 June 2010 – An independent United Nations expert today urged Cambodian authorities to strengthen the country’s judiciary and improve human rights, saying the nation still has too many shortcomings in its justice system.
“There is an alarmingly high number of people in detention due to various shortcomings in the criminal justice system, and the instances of miscarriage of justice are far too numerous,” Surya Prasad Subedi, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, warned at the end of his 10-day fact-finding mission.
“I call on the Royal Government of Cambodia to introduce appropriate measures to enhance the independence and capacity of the judiciary to enable it to function as an institution capable of providing justice to all in Cambodia,” he stated in a news release.
The expert concluded that Cambodia’s judiciary is facing tremendous challenges in delivering justice for its people, especially the poor and the marginalized.
He raised specific concerns relating to the judiciary’s role in protecting freedom of expression, and the narrowing of political space for critical debate in society, “due to the disproportionate use of defamation, disinformation and incitement lawsuits against journalists, human rights activists and political opponents.”
Another major concern was cases involving land-related rights. “If you are poor, weak and dispossessed of your land, you seem to have limited chance to obtain redress either through existing administrative land management systems, or through the courts,” said Mr. Subedi.
The Special Rapporteur welcomed the adoption of a series of new laws designed to strengthen the system of justice.
However, he warned that “a combination of a lack of adequate resources, organizational and institutional shortcomings, a lack of full awareness of the relevant human rights standards, and external interference, financial or otherwise, in the work of the judiciary, has resulted in an institution that does not command the confidence of people from many walks of life.”
Mr. Subedi, who met with King Norodom Sihamoni and members of the Government and judiciary during his visit, encouraged the Government to forge ahead with measures to enhance and strengthen the judiciary and to improve the situation of human rights, and offered his assistance for such efforts.
He will submit a report, including recommendations for judicial reform in Cambodia, to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council in September.
Labels: Cambodia's Court, Justice, UN Human Rights Report
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Country Narratives
Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
Trafficking in Persons Report 2010
CAMBODIA
Cambodia is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children who are subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Cambodian men, women, and children migrate to Thailand, Malaysia, and other countries for work and many are subsequently forced into commercial sexual exploitation or forced to labor in the Thai fishing and seafood processing industry, on agricultural plantations, in factories, in domestic work, or for begging and street selling. Debt bondage is sometimes a factor that contributes to the vulnerability of Cambodians to trafficking. Some Cambodian men report being deceived by Thai fishing boat owners about the expected length of service and the amount and circumstances of their payment; some remain at sea for up to several years, and report witnessing severe abuses by Thai captains, including deaths at sea. The number of workers who went to Malaysia for employment through Cambodian recruiting companies tripled in 2009, and many of these were believed to be under the age of 18. Recruiting agencies often charge $500-$700 in fees, which includes fees for several months of required pre-departure training provided by the recruiting agencies. Recruits are sometimes detained in training centers during the pre-departure training period, and the fees make workers more vulnerable to debt bondage. Some workers are reportedly subjected to confinement and conditions of involuntary servitude in, Saudi Arabia, and other destination countries, and some returning Malaysia workers reported being paid only at the end of their contract, at which time they were also informed that a substantial part of their pay was deducted. Cambodian children are also trafficked to Thailand and Vietnam to beg, sell candy and flowers, and shine shoes. Parents sometimes sell their children into conditions of forced labor, including involuntary domestic servitude.
Within the country, Cambodian and ethnic Vietnamese women and children are trafficked from rural areas to Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and Sihanoukville for commercial sexual exploitation. The Svay Pak brothel area of Phnom Penh remains a hub for child prostitution, despite attempts by authorities to close it down. Children are also subjected to forced labor, including being forced to beg, scavenge refuse, work in quarries, and work in the production and processing of bricks, rubber, salt, and shrimp. Cambodia is a destination for Vietnamese women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution. The sale of virgin girls continues to be a serious problem in Cambodia, with foreign (mostly Asian) and Cambodian men paying up to $4,000 to have sex with virgins. A significant number of Asian and other foreign men travel to Cambodia to engage in child sex tourism. Some Cambodians who migrate to Taiwan and South Korea through brokered international marriages may subsequently be subjected to forced prostitution or forced labor.
The Government of Cambodia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Law enforcement efforts stepped up significantly, resulting in a significant increase in convictions over the prior year. However, impunity, corruption, and related rent-seeking behavior continue to impede progress in combating trafficking in persons. Authorities reported one conviction of a public official for trafficking-related corruption during the year. Labor trafficking among Cambodians migrating abroad for work is a growing problem that will require greater attention from authorities in the coming year.
Recommendations for Cambodia:
Conduct robust investigations and prosecutions of government officials involved in trafficking activities; hold labor recruitment companies criminally responsible for illegal acts committed during the recruitment process, such as debt bondage through exorbitant fees, detention of workers during pre-departure training, and recruitment of workers under age 18; expand efforts to proactively identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable groups, including the institution of nationwide victim identification procedures and referrals to adequate victim services; institute a law to regulate the recruitment, placement, and protection of migrant workers going abroad; engage governments of destination countries on the protection of migrant workers, as well as the safe repatriation of Cambodian trafficking victims and the prosecution of their traffickers; continue to prosecute criminal cases involving trafficking for both forced prostitution and forced labor; continue to train and sensitize law enforcement and court officials about trafficking, proactive identification of victims, victim referral procedures, and victim-sensitive handling of cases; improve interagency cooperation and coordination between police and court officials on trafficking cases; institute procedures to ensure victims are not arrested, incarcerated, or otherwise punished for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked; and conduct a public awareness campaign aimed at reducing demand by the local population and Asian visitors for commercial sex acts.
Prosecution
The Government of Cambodia demonstrated significant progress in law enforcement efforts against sex trafficking during the last year. The February 2008 Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation covers a wide variety of offenses, with 12 of its 30 articles explicitly addressing trafficking offenses. The law prohibits all forms of trafficking and prescribes penalties that are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with penalties for other serious crimes, such as rape. During the reporting period, authorities convicted 36 trafficking offenders, compared with 11 convictions in 2008; all but one of these convictions were for sex trafficking. While there were increasing reports of Cambodian migrant workers falling victim to trafficking due to exploitative conditions in destination countries, including Malaysia, the government has never criminally prosecuted or convicted any labor recruiters whose companies were involved in labor trafficking. In February 2010, the Phnom Penh municipal court convicted a woman for the forced labor of an 11-year-old girl enslaved as a domestic worker; the woman was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, and two related offenders were also sentenced to imprisonment.
The government partnered with NGOs to train over 4,000 police, social workers, court officials, and other employees on the 2008 law and its enforcement. There remain a large number of officials, particularly provincial-level police, who still need training. Consequently, confusion of trafficking offenses with other trafficking-related crimes such as prostitution, pornography, and child sex abuse is a sporadic occurrence, and some officials believe that enforcing laws against non-trafficking sex crimes contributed to efforts to combat trafficking. Judges and prosecutors sometimes continued to classify trafficking cases under non-trafficking articles and laws, or prosecuted non-trafficking cases using trafficking statutes. In March 2010, Cambodian police conducted raids in several cities on establishments suspected of engaging in “immoral” activities, but did not make sufficient efforts to arrest perpetrators for human trafficking offenses or identify trafficking victims, including children in prostitution. In one case, an NGO reported that military police in Sihanoukville kept the women and girls who were rounded up from multiple sites and offered them back to establishment owners for $50 a person. The government licensed 26 companies to send laborers to Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan that frequently work with independent brokers to locate potential workers. Authorities are negotiating additional labor agreements with other countries in Asia and the Middle East. However, Cambodia does not have a law to regulate the recruitment, placement, and protection of migrant workers, or to provide specific criminal penalties for negligent or exploitative recruitment agencies. During the year, police arrested one labor broker for the unlawful removal of nine children with the intent of selling them to work as servants in Malaysia; the broker is in pre-trial detention. A June 2009 inspection of a recruitment agency revealed that 20 of the 57 females questioned were under the age of 18, but the government did not arrest any labor export company officials during the year for such practices.
Impunity, corruption, and related rent-seeking behavior continue to impede anti-trafficking efforts. Police and judicial officials are both directly and indirectly involved in trafficking. Some local police and government officials extort money or accept bribes from brothel owners, sometimes on a daily basis, in order to allow the brothels to continue operating. Authorities prosecuted and convicted one public official who accepted $250,000 in exchange for forging documents intended to secure the release of a convicted child sex offender. Authorities did not prosecute the former president of Cambodia’s appeals court, who reportedly accepted $30,000 in 2008 for the release of brothel owners convicted of trafficking; the official remains employed with the Cambodian government.
Protection
The Government of Cambodia demonstrated limited efforts to protect victims of trafficking during the year. In August 2009, the Ministry of Social Affairs (MOSAVY) issued a new “Policy and National Minimum Standards for the Protection of the Rights of Victims of Human Trafficking,” which includes guidelines to improve victim treatment and protection, and began to train officials on the use of these standards. However, the effects of this policy have yet to be seen. The government lacks national procedures and sufficient resources for training to proactively identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable groups, such as foreign women and children arrested for prostitution. Raids in March 2010 against “immoral” activities were not conducted in a manner sensitive to trafficking victims and did not involve trained anti-trafficking police or anti-trafficking organizations to assist in identifying or assisting potential trafficking victims. The government continued to refer victims to NGO shelters, but did not itself offer further assistance. There were not enough places in NGO shelters to accommodate all trafficking victims; this was particularly true for children, and specifically boys, which negatively affected authorities’ ability to carry out additional victim rescues.
MOSAVY reported that local police referred 535 victims of sex trafficking to provincial offices during the year (compared with 505 in 2008) who, in turn, referred victims to NGO shelters. Authorities worked with NGO partners to repatriate 11 female victims to Vietnam during the year. Building on technical assistance from an international organization, MOSAVY began to interview persons repatriated from Vietnam to help identify trafficking victims, and reported identifying 143 labor trafficking victims in this way. MOSAVY provided transportation assistance to return the victims to their home communities, but lacked the resources to provide further assistance. In partnership with UNICEF, MOSAVY also identified 83 Cambodian victims who had been repatriated from Thailand as trafficking victims; those victims remained briefly at a transit center jointly operated by the government and UNICEF in Poipet and were provided some reintegration assistance while officials conducted family tracing. Authorities encouraged victims to participate in investigations and prosecutions of traffickers. Cambodia’s weak judicial system, the lengthy legal process, and credible fears of retaliation are factors influencing victims’ decisions to seek out-of-court compensation in lieu of criminal prosecution. Victims who participate in the prosecution of their traffickers are not provided witness protection – a significant impediment to successful law enforcement efforts. Although victims legally had the option of filing civil suits to seek legal actions against their traffickers, most did not have the resources to do so, and the government did not provide assistance to victims for this purpose. In December 2009, the government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Vietnam on victim identification and repatriation.
Prevention
The Government of Cambodia continued some efforts to prevent trafficking in persons in partnership with international organizations and NGOs. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs maintained programs to prevent the trafficking of children to Vietnam for begging. The Ministry also held “Anti-Human Trafficking Day” ceremonies in December 2009 in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and Poipet, which brought together several thousand Cambodian officials, civil society, and the public to increase awareness of trafficking, and was widely publicized on local television stations. Authorities cooperated with several international organization partners to produce radio programs on human trafficking. The Ministry of Tourism produced billboards, magazine advertisements, and handouts targeted to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts, though these efforts should be expanded. Authorities convicted nine child sex tourists during the year and initiated prosecutions against at least 17 other foreigners, including a Korean karaoke bar owner and two more Japanese citizens involved in the commercial sexual exploitation of children. State-run media ran anti-child sex tourism messages, as well as several television programs in Khmer targeted at the local population to discourage demand for child sex. Cambodian military forces participating in peacekeeping initiatives abroad received training on trafficking in persons prior to deployment.
Labels: Human Traffic, Prime Minister Hun Sen, US State Department
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By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is savoring another victory. His latest triumph: a string of verdicts against an opposition lawmaker that apparently guarantee him the liberty to insult women and get away with it.
His target, however, refuses to be silenced even after her latest showdown with the premier, who celebrated 25 years as the Southeast Asian country's leader this year. Nor has she changed her views about the Supreme Court, which upheld a lower court's decision against the outspoken parliamentarian in a bizarre case that has also put the country's judiciary on trial.
The superior court's verdict on June 3, including a fine of 16.5 million riel (US$4,000), was the third judicial ruling against the 54-year-old Mu Sochua. In August last year, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court found the former minister of women's affairs guilty of having insulted Hun Sen. In October 2009, she lost again following an attempt with the Court of Appeal.
"I will not pay the fine. They can confiscate my property. They can even take me to jail," a defiant Mu Sochua said in a telephone interview from the Cambodian capital. "I think it is a serious mistake for the ruling party to push this case at a time when the country needs reform of the judiciary."
"The judges were under trial from the beginning," she observed of the case that began early last year, when she first filed a defamation case against Hun Sen. It followed a speech he had delivered in the Khmer language, where he referred to her as "cheung klang" ("strong legs"), a demeaning term for women in the country.
But the powerful leader of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) turned the tables on the parliamentarian from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP). The ruling party stripped Mu Sochua of her parliamentary immunity to help Hun Sen file a counter defamation charge against her. Adding insult to injury, a court dismissed the original defamation case Mu Sochua filed against the premier.
Hun Sen's latest judicial triumph has broader implications in a country struggling to get back on its feet after a 1991 peace deal brought an end to decades of civil war. The timing of the superior court's verdict, in fact, has triggered questions about the role Western donors have in aiding Cambodia's reconstruction.
On June 3, while Hun Sen was celebrating the silencing of one of the country's foremost champions of democracy, free speech and human rights, international donors pledged US$1.1 billion in aid for this year, up from last year's $950 million.
The largest aid package in Cambodia's history came at the end of a two-day donor conference in Phnom Penh, lifting the pressure on the Hun Sen administration to push ahead with five areas of reform. Three areas spelled out in 2004 by donors included changes to fight corruption and increase accountability, legal and judicial reform, protection of human rights and public administration reform.
That little had changed over the years was highlighted by a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the eve of this month's donor meeting. "Serious actions, such as court convictions of corruption cases, remain selective or are limited within certain political considerations," stated the NGO Forum on Cambodia.
The financial windfall for the Cambodian regime, despite a record of defamation lawsuits against opposition parliamentarians, intimidation of the media, a growing list of corruption scandals in the natural resources sector and stripping the environment for private profit, has disheartened civil society groups.
"All the talk by donors about strengthening democracy and human rights in Cambodia is just words; it is not meaningful," said Hang Chhaya, executive director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy, which seeks to champion democratic values in the Southeast Asian state. "The Mu Sochua verdict was a slap on the face of freedom of speech."
There is a growing belief that Hun Sen's ability to get away with bullying his opponents while being propped up by the donor community has more to do with China's spreading influence in Cambodia. Beijing's US$1.2 billion package in aid and soft loans to Cambodia in December last year confirmed the battle for influence being waged in a country where one-third lives in absolute poverty.
China gave Cambodia the funds shortly after Phnom Penh deported 20 Uyghur refugees from Xinjiang, a province in northwest China. Both the United Nations and the United States criticized the expulsion, saying it violated international refugee law. The Uyghurs belong to a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority in China.
"The donors have taken into account China's economic role in Cambodia," said Ou Virak, head of the Phnom-Penh based Cambodia Center for Human Rights. "There is a lot of self interest at play."
Some analysts admit that Cambodia's international donors, who include Japan, Australia, the US and the World Bank, fear that if they walk away China will consolidate its control, leaving Western donors with little influence. Such an act would be deeply embarrassing for the donors for another reason.
"Cambodia has become the poster child of post-conflict reconstruction since the 1991 Paris Peace Accords," said Shalmali Guttal, senior researcher for Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based regional think tank. "Donors couldn't abandon it now for that would mean admitting failure."
"The Mu Sochua case reveals the lengths they are prepared to go," noted Guttal. "The donors are willing to stamp on their own benchmarks for reform in order to be in the game in Cambodia."
Labels: Hu Sen, Mu Sochua, Prime Minister Hun Sen
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By Brendan Brady / Phnom Penh
TIME
Members of the Cambodian military take part in a parade on the outskirts of Phnom Penh on Oct. 13, 2009
Chor Sokunthea / Reuters
A land dispute in March between a sugar-plantation developer and a small community in the province of Kampong Speu motivated military police stationed nearby to spring into action, ostensibly in order to prevent an eruption of violence. It didn't take long, though, for the villagers to view the supposed peacekeepers as intimidators.
It wasn't the first time military personnel were seen as supporting the business interests of Ly Yong Phat, a prominent developer and Senator with the country's ruling party. Last October in the province of Oddar Meanchey, 100 families were driven off their land by members of an infantry brigade stationed in the area. They were moved to make way for another Ly plantation, according to the local rights group Licadho. Now that Ly's businesses will be officially sponsoring both of these military units following a new government initiative, says Licadho's Mathieu Pellerin, "it looks like a job-well-done payback." (See TIME's photo-essay "The Rise and Fall of the Khmer Rouge.")
At the end of February, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen kicked off a program creating partnerships in which businesses would provide donations for particular units of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. The government has framed the initiative, which involves some 60 pairings, as facilitating the magnanimous inclination of corporations operating in Cambodia to support the welfare of the country's troops. Observers, however, caution that the program will ultimately serve to further enmesh the country's powerbrokers — political, military and business — into a network to serve their mutual interests and ensure everyone's allegiance to the ruling party.
The Cambodian military regularly guards large-scale private land concessions across the country, according to rights groups, and has been used to evict the rural poor for business developments. Hun Sen's new policy, says U.S.-based watchdog group Global Witness, is a step toward formalizing that process. "Global Witness has documented links between Cambodia's military and powerful business tycoons for many years now, so the relationships are not new," says Eleanor Nichol, a campaigner with the group, which was expelled from Cambodia in 2007 after publishing a report, fervently refuted by the government, that linked prominent officials in the government, military and business community with the illegal logging trade. "This latest move ... to officially sanction these partnerships is particularly shocking because it legitimizes a guns-for-hire scenario."
The government and companies participating in the new patronage program reject claims that the partnerships could lead to improprieties. Ly Yong Phat says his involvement in the program is to compensate for the military's lack of funding for troops' basic needs. Corporate support, according to a government memo, will "solve the dire situation of the armed forces, police, military police and their families through a culture of sharing." The government has responded to criticisms by specifying that donations would likely come in the form of food and shelter. (See the top 10 news stories of 2009.)
The program has confounded regional security experts. "It's not unusual in militarized states like Iran, Yemen, Turkey and Vietnam for the army to own and run corporations, but the direct corporate sponsorship of active-duty units is something new and very worrying," says John Harrison, a security expert based in Singapore. The only country in the region that comes close to having a similar system is Indonesia, says Carlyle Thayer, a professor of Asian security affairs at Australia's University of New South Wales. Like Cambodia, Indonesia has a long history of blurred lines between military and political power. For years, Indonesia has used "foundations" to collect donations from the private sector to compensate for shortages in public military funding. While some of the money has been used for its intended purpose of supporting military families, the system has promoted alliances between the Indonesian army and companies wherein donations are exchanged for "mafia-like" criminal services, according to Human Rights Watch.
Cambodia's army-sponsorship initiative goes against the grain of business divestment in the militaries of China and Vietnam, says Thayer. Citing a need to bolster security preparedness in the army, the Chinese government in 1998 forced its entrepreneurial army to sell off the majority of its investments and compensated the subsequent revenue shortfall by increasing defense spending. Two years ago, Vietnam called for a similar plan in the name of army discipline. "Cambodia should heed [those] lessons," says Thayer.
But unlike China and Vietnam, where booming economic growth helped bolster state funding for the military, Cambodia's army is badly strapped for cash. The problem is exacerbated by the deployment of large numbers of troops along the border with Thailand, as the two countries continue to engage in a protracted border-demarcation dispute. Even though the corporate donations are ostensibly voluntary, organizing official partnerships raises questions about the pressures companies will face to participate — and what benefits will be extended, or denied, to them based on their contributions. The end result, warn a litany of local and international rights groups, could be a cash-driven race to the top among companies vying for government favor, matched by a race to the bottom in state support of laypeople involved in rows with influential corporations.
Observers have also raised concerns that the initiative could further skew Cambodia's political landscape, which has seen a dramatic consolidation of power by the ruling Cambodian People's Party over the past decade. "In times of need, the public in many countries will spontaneously support their military ... Cambodia's new program is something very different," says Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore. By soliciting funds for the army, the government can position itself to arouse nationalist fervor that will, in turn, translate into support for its political backer: the ruling party itself.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1995298,00.html#ixzz0qQF7lNK9
Labels: eviction, hun sen, landgrabbing, Prime Minister Hun Sen
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Radio Free Asia
Two fierce political foes in Cambodia clash again.
PHNOM PENH—Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen and a firebrand MP convicted of slandering him appear headed for a public showdown, with the lawmaker facing six months in jail unless she pays a fine upheld by the country's Supreme Court.
"Mu Sochua was in the wrong
. The court has punished her and ordered her to pay a fine, and she must respect the court's decision," Hun Sen's lawyer, Ky Tek, said in an interview Tuesday.
"If she refuses, the prosecutor will take the next step—meaning she will be forced to pay or will go to jail."
But the Kompot province MP Mu Sochua said separately she won't pay the fine and is prepared for jail.
Hun Sen initially sued Mu Sochua for defamation after she accused him of making derogatory remarks about her.
Mu Sochua has called on international donors to scrutinize Cambodia's legal system and could take her case to the Constitutional Council after the country's highest court upheld her conviction for defaming the prime minister.
"I have been found guilty of a crime that I have not committed at all. This is not justice," Mu Sochua, of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party and a former women's minister, told reporters.
She was convicted last year for defaming Hun Sen during an April news conference, in which she announced plans to sue the premier for allegedly insulting her.
The ruling is a "travesty," she said, while refusing to pay a court-ordered U.S. $4,000 fine after losing her final appeal June 2.
"This is justice for sale, and this is justice for powerful people only."
"I reaffirm that I will not pay. My conscience does not allow me to pay a single cent," she said.
"But my conscience is the conscience of the Sam Rainsy Party, which struggles for justice. Just arrest me anytime."
"The lower, appellate, and supreme courts didn't take all elements of facts into their consideration
. This court system isn't credible," she said.
She has appealed to international donors to investigate the Cambodian legal system and to Suriya Subedi, U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, who is visiting the country.
Damaged reputation
Ky Tek, representing Hun Sen, argued in court that Mu Sochua had damaged Hun Sen's reputation.
Chief Judge Khim Pon agreed, upholding lower-court rulings he said were in accordance with Article 114 of the Cambodia's Penal Code.
Mu Sochua's lawyer quit the case and joined the governing party after Cambodia's bar council accused him of malpractice.
The courts dismissed her complaint and the National Assembly voted to lift her parliamentary immunity from prosecution so the prime minister's case could go ahead.
Chan Saveth, from the local human rights group ADHOC, said the court's decisions would damage respect for rule of law in Cambodia.
The Cambodian government has faced sharp criticism from rights groups for launching a number of defamation and disinformation lawsuits against critics and opposition members.
New York-based Human Rights Watch recently accused Hun Sen's government of aiming to silence political opposition and critics with a "campaign of harassment, threats, and unwarranted legal action."
Donors last week pledged a record U.S. $1.1 billion in aid for this year during a two-day conference.
But rights groups say donors should take a tougher stance to weed out corruption and diversion of funds.
Original reporting by Kim Peou for RFA's Khmer service. Translated from the Khmer by Vuthy Huot and Leng Maly. Khmer service director: Sos Kem. Executive producer: Susan Lavery. Written in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.
Labels: Cambodia's Court, hun sen, Mu Sochua, Prime Minister Hun Sen
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By Irwin Loy
Asia Times Online
PHNOM PENH - P Yuen Mach sat on the floor of her wooden home, her hands nervously twisting a stalk of lemongrass into fibrous strands. Her days have been filled with worry ever since authorities told her that the plot of land that her family occupies and which overlooks Phnom Penh's Boeung Kak lake no longer belonged to her, but to a local company that plans to flip the site into a real estate development.
"The government took the land from the poor and gave it to the rich people," she said. "We are the poor people. Now they say we're living on state property illegally."
Yuen and her relatives are among an estimated 4,000 families that will likely be relocated as part of the 133-hectare development - the largest real estate project in Cambodia's rapidly changing capital.
With numerous other land disputes simmering across the country, housing-rights advocates here say Boeung Kak lake is just one potent symbol of the worsening problems affecting the landless poor. But with international donors having pledged a record US$1.1 billion this year in aid to the government, some advocates say that those who hold the most influence have failed to use it to urge the government to pursue faster reforms.
"There are donors who give money and then keep quiet. We are sorry for that," said Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of the coalition NGO Forum on Cambodia, which is composed of local and international non-governmental organizations working in the South-east Asian country. "People are crying and they just stay quiet."
The majority of the population in Cambodia lacks legal land titles, a result of the tumultuous Khmer Rouge regime that emptied Phnom Penh of its inhabitants and stripped away private ownership. When the regime fell in 1979, refugees flooded back to the cities from the countryside, many settling in abandoned buildings and squatting on vacant land.
"When we moved here, everybody just emerged from death, from the Khmer Rouge," Yuen said. "We just grabbed it and lived on the land. If the government had told us that living here was illegal, I would never have moved here."
An ambitious donor-funded land titling project begun in 2002 was supposed to have helped people like Yuen. The $28.8 million Land Management and Administration Project, or LMAP, was designed to create a government-run land management program and distribute official land titles. Nearly one million land titles were issued as part of LMAP across the country.
But when the Boeung Kak lake residents demanded titles as part of the program, authorities rejected the requests, claiming the residents were living illegally on state property. The residents soon learned the land had been leased to a private developer, whose plans for new office towers and villas did not include them.
After the project's proponents raised concerns about evictions with the government, authorities responded by abruptly canceling the program in September 2009.
The issue of land rights is just one of many on which critics are urging donors to take a tougher stand. The international watchdog organization, Global Witness, slammed international donors last week for continuing to hand over huge sums of aid money, "despite evidence of widespread corruption and mismanagement of public funds."
"The Cambodian government has been promising to reform for years, but nothing has changed," Gavin Hayman, the group's campaigns director, said in a statement.
The government, however, called the accusations part of a "hugely damaging smear campaign" to discredit authorities. "The request from NGOs to put pressure on the government and donors is a bad approach. They insult the government and they insult the donors," said government spokesman Phay Siphan.
"We are all partners here. We respect each other and we respect the partnership. And the country donors respect this nation's right to be a nation."
In the end, the government said the donors had cumulatively pledged roughly $1.1 billion toward the national budget.
Rafael Dochao Moreno, the charge d'affaires for the Delegation of the European Union to Cambodia, said he believes the country is making strides toward development.
"It would be impossible for NGOs and development partners to agree 100%," he said. "At the end of the day, nothing is black or white. I think there is a consensus that this country is moving in the right direction."
Still, now that the money has been pledged, some critics believe donors should be acting more aggressively to ensure the funds are well spent.
"The donors should make it clear that if the government is not willing to use the aid effectively, they can find alternative ways to do so," said Ou Virak, president of the non-governmental Cambodian Center for Human Rights. "The problem is that message has never been clear."
Though donors insist they are urging Cambodian authorities to increase transparency, Ou said their efforts have done little to ensure Cambodians themselves can hold their government to account. Despite the promises, it remains unclear just where all the aid money will go, he said.
"It's easy to call on the donors to bring about change," he said. "But the fundamental challenge here is how the donors can put conditions in place that will allow the Cambodian population to be able to hold its own government accountable.
"When you ask, has the money been used effectively? I just don't know. There's no transparency in this money and what kinds of projects they help to support."
(Inter-Press Service)
Labels: donors
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By TOM VATER
The Wall Street Journal
Vann Molyvann, Cambodia's greatest living architect, recalls that the night his Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh was completed, in 1964, "I took my wife to see the work." Sitting in the top tier of the stands, they listened to Dvorák's "New World Symphony" over the stadium's speaker system. "It was one of the great moments of my life."
In the years after Cambodia won independence from France in 1953, Mr. Molyvann—then scarcely in his 30s—set out under the tutelage of King Norodom Sihanouk to transform Phnom Penh from a colonial backwater into a modern city. But in the late 1960s the country was drawn into decades of war and terror, including years under the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, and Mr. Molyvann's vision was virtually forgotten. The architect himself had to flee the country.
And while he returned in triumph after more than 20 years abroad, it was to find that grand titles didn't translate into influence in today's Cambodia. His legacy—structures in a style dubbed New Khmer Architecture—lives on, contributing significantly to the flair of the city, but even that is in danger as Phnom Penh, like other Asian capitals, clears historic buildings to make room for skyscrapers.
Cambodia is best known for its magnificent temple ruins at Angkor, remnants of a great Southeast Asian empire that covered the country's current territory as well as parts of Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. After Angkor fell to the Siamese in the 15th century, a new Cambodian capital was founded on the banks of the Tonlé Sap River. That city, Phnom Penh, remained an unstable settlement, caught up in the geopolitical ambitions of Cambodia's more powerful neighbors, until the French arrived in the 1860s. The colonial administrators drained the neighboring swamps and created a grid street plan, dotted with sumptuous villas, Art Deco markets and impressive government structures.
Even then, Phnom Penh was modest, small-town colonial France—and when Mr. Molyvann received a scholarship from the colonial government and set off for the Sorbonne in Paris, it wasn't with the dream of returning to remake it. He was a law student. But as he pursued his degree, and struggled with the compulsory Greek and Latin, he had an encounter that changed his life.
"I met Henri Marchal, the curator of Angkor for the École Française d'Extrême-Orient [the French School of Asian Studies]," Mr. Molvyann remembers, "and suddenly I knew I wanted to be an architect, so I changed to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, where I studied until 1950 under Le Corbusier." He regards that modernist architect and designer as his greatest teacher.
After that, Mr. Molyvann stayed on in Paris for several more years, studying Khmer art. While he looks back fondly on the period, he is also keenly aware that some of Cambodia's later traumas had their origins in the Paris of that time.
"The Khmer Rouge was born in the Latin quarter of Paris," he says. As they debated their country's postcolonial future, Mr. Molyvann says, the city's 400 or so Cambodian students split between nationalists and Marxists. Khieu Samphan, whom he knew as a fellow Sorbonne student, would go on to become head of state in the Khmer Rouge government.
By 1956, Mr. Molyvann was back in Phnom Penh. Independence had broadened Cambodia's horizons, in part thanks to the efforts of King Sihanouk, who at various times officially dropped his title to serve as prime minister, head of state or president, though Cambodians continued to refer to him as king. With tremendous energy and not a little royal eccentricity, the young monarch—also politician, artist, filmmaker, womanizer and host to a series of foreign heads of state and celebrities—worked to create a modern nation with an eye on the past. The leading members of an emerging urban elite, many of whom, like Mr. Molyvann, had returned from Paris, sought to create architecture, music, films, literature and art that married Cambodian tradition with modernist thinking.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in new administrative, public and private building projects that sprang up all over the capital—transforming Phnom Penh, within little more than a decade, into one of Asia's most dynamic cities.
"It was difficult at the beginning, as Cambodians had never heard of architects," Mr. Molyvann remembers. "All they knew were engineers and builders. There was a real dearth of qualified Khmer experts, as the French had used Vietnamese to administer my country. But within 10 years of independence the management of the country and its capital was Khmer. It was incredible."
Mr. Molyvann was made chief architect for state buildings and director for urban planning and habitat in 1956 and given a number of ministerial posts in the following years. "I was designing the Independence Monument and was asked to present the king with a selection of marble," he recalls. "I was too afraid to speak to him personally, but he made some suggestions and we got on perfectly after that." Shaped like a lotus flower, the monument tower, completed in 1960, remains one of Phnom Penh's landmarks.
Mr. Molyvann had part of the floodplain south of the Royal Palace drained and filled, and on this "Front de Bassac" constructed the country's first high-rises, initially for visiting athletes for the 1966 Ganefo Games, a short-lived Asian alternative to the Olympics.
"We built the stadium for 60,000 people and surrounded it with a moat, so that the waters could run off in the rainy season," he says.
Stefanie Irmer, whose KA Tours focuses on New Khmer Architecture, sees the relation between water and city as crucial to the architect's vision for Phnom Penh. "Besides creating the 'Front de Bassac' area from wetlands," she says, "almost every building Vann Molyvann designed was surrounded by water—to keep the termites out, but also to integrate the buildings into the flood plain."
Many of Mr. Molyvann's buildings are traditional in one sense—they are shaped like familiar objects. Chaktomuk Conference Hall, one of his earliest designs, is like an open palm leaf. The library of the Institute of Foreign Languages (now part of the Royal University of Phnom Penh) was inspired by a traditional Khmer straw hat. The lecture halls of the institute rest on sharply angled concrete pillars that give them the appearance of animals, about to jump. They are still in use today, as is the library.
By the early 1960s, for the first time in almost 800 years, Cambodia was blooming. The Angkor ruins were the region's biggest tourist draw, and Phnom Penh had doubled in size and become a city others in the region admired.
But the politics were turning ugly. Norodom Sihanouk, serving as prime minister, began to suppress dissent. By the mid-1960s, the U.S. had combat troops in Vietnam; as American planes began bombing North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia, the country's policy of neutrality became a farce. The former king's repressive policies alienated the political left and some rural Cambodians, who began to join a shadowy communist movement, the Khmer Rouge. Meanwhile, the right and military had become fed up with his capriciousness and nepotism. When he left to visit China in 1970, a coup replaced him with army general Lon Nol. The Swinging '60s, the meteoric rise of a young nation, the building boom in the "Pearl of Asia"—it was all over.
Mr. Molyvann remembers days with hard choices. "Shortly after Lon Nol came to power, the Israeli ambassador advised me to take my family out of the country," he says; the ambassador, a friend of his, warned him about the crumbling security and the increasing persecution of those connected with the previous government. So when Mr. Molyvann left for a conference in Israel, with his wife, Trudy, and their six children, they didn't return. Instead they moved on to Switzerland, his wife's home country.
Five years later, the Khmer Rouge marched victoriously into Phnom Penh. The new rulers immediately emptied the cities, and for almost four years Phnom Penh was a ghost town. At least 1.5 million Cambodians, nearly a quarter of the population—Mr. Molyvann's father among them—lost their lives in the killing fields. The fledgling intellectual elite was snuffed out.
"I had no contact during those years," says Mr. Molyvann. "I had to give my children a new life, so we stayed in Lausanne." He continued to work as an architect in Switzerland, Africa and Laos, for the United Nations and the World Bank. The Vietnamese pushed out the Khmer Rouge in 1979, but Mr. Molyvann "could not think of going back." The new rulers "were still communists."
"It was not until 1993 that I returned—with the U.N.," he says. Initially, his homecoming was triumphant. He was appointed minister of state for culture and fine arts, territorial management and urban planning and contributed to the application for Angkor's successful recognition as a Unesco World Heritage site.
But he soon realized that the Cambodia he had left behind in 1970 no longer existed. Cambodian People's Party leader Hun Sen, who had been installed by the Vietnamese and who continued as prime minister after the U.N.-organized elections, gave Mr. Molyvann back his villa, but the architect's plans for Siem Reap—the province in which Angkor is located—were unappreciated. He had called for a "tourist village" set apart from both the temples and the old town of Siem Reap, integrated into the environment and with water conservation as a key goal.
"The government wanted to use the resources of Angkor to develop Siem Reap without the participation of the local people," Mr. Molyvann says. "In 1998, I became president executive director of Apsara (Authority for the Protection and Safeguard of Angkor), the government body created to look after the temples. Three years later, I was fired." Unchecked development in Siem Reap has led to a dramatic drop in groundwater levels, causing subsidence that has put the Bayon, one of the main temples in the Angkor area, in danger of collapse, according to experts from the Japanese Conservation Team for Safeguarding Angkor. Development has also driven up property prices and the cost of living, a hardship for the locals in a province that remains one of the poorest in the country.
But it was not just the government and developers standing against Mr. Molyvann and his vision. Bill Greaves, director of the Vann Molyvann Project, a nongovernmental organization engaged in recreating the lost plans of the remaining New Khmer Architecture sites, thinks postwar Cambodia is simply not aware of its past.
"Right now, Singapore and Shanghai are models for forward-looking cities, both for the government and the people," he says. "Hence Phnom Penh's different stages of history are likely to be discarded."
In the past decade, as investment has begun to pour into the Cambodian capital once more, colonial and 1960s buildings have been replaced by chrome-and-glass edifices, floodwater lakes have been drained, local media have reported almost daily evictions and ministers have gushed over the need to build skyscrapers in order to keep up with the neighbors.
The government frequently declares that preservation has to go hand in hand with development. In practice, it seems to walk well behind. Beng Khemro, deputy director general at the ministry for land management, urban planning and construction, says his department's hands are tied. "Many historical properties are in terrible condition," he says. "The people who own them don't understand the value of the past and would rather demolish them and build high-rises to make a profit. The past is not appreciated. Without a change in attitude amongst the population, we are fighting a losing battle."
Cambodia has preservation laws, and Dr. Khemro says he is trying to pass a regulation to get them applied in particular instances. He'd like to try a pilot preservation project away from Phnom Penh, he says, noting that Cambodia's second-largest city, Battambang, has many buildings from the French period.
"Also," he adds, "there's less pressure."
Molyvann advocate Mr. Greaves is skeptical about the survival of the architect's legacy. "The old buildings disappear at an alarming rate—even public edifices like the National Theatre, which was knocked down a couple of years ago, are not safe. We try and get there before the demolition crews arrive."
A drive around town with Mr. Molyvann illustrates his curious position in this free-for-all scramble for change. At the Independence Monument, guards at first refuse him entry. Only after his driver reveals the distinguished visitor's identity is the master architect, old and frail, allowed to climb the steps he designed half a century ago.
Passing the stadium, Mr. Molyvann looks at the haphazard development around his favorite creation. Appropriated by developers with government connections, the moat has been partly filled in to make space for shops and an underground car park; the result is annual flooding that threatens the entire sports complex.
With equal shades of sadness and anger in his voice, Mr. Molyvann says, "Today, it's not the state who owns the old properties, but the ruling party, the CPP."
—Tom Vater is a writer based in Bangkok.
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A member of the Cambodian military salutes from a tank during a parade to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Brigade 70, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh on October 13, 2009. © 2009 Reuters
