For decades the precarious bamboo platforms have ferried people and goods in the nation's hinterlands. But increasingly there is little room, or need, for them.
The Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Battambang, Cambodia It rattles along at 20 miles an hour, swaying back and forth on uneven rails, the engine so loud it makes your teeth hurt. Then, rather unceremoniously, it runs out of gas and dies.
And you find yourself stranded in the middle of Cambodia on a handmade "norry" train, feeling a bit exposed on a 25-square-foot platform made of bamboo and scrap metal attached to wheels salvaged from old tanks.
Reporting from Battambang, Cambodia It rattles along at 20 miles an hour, swaying back and forth on uneven rails, the engine so loud it makes your teeth hurt. Then, rather unceremoniously, it runs out of gas and dies.
And you find yourself stranded in the middle of Cambodia on a handmade "norry" train, feeling a bit exposed on a 25-square-foot platform made of bamboo and scrap metal attached to wheels salvaged from old tanks.
Picture one of those hand-pump rail cars depicted in old Westerns, and you're close. It's powered (when it has gas) by a converted outboard engine. The brakes (when it has gas and you need brakes) are a wooden board pushed against the wheels. No seats.
All this bamboo and scrap metal give it a makeshift appearance, and appearances do not deceive. Pretty soon, driver Path Chanthorn starts pushing the disabled norry with hands that are missing a few fingers from a run-in with a water buffalo — "a strong cow," he mutters.
Another norry approaches from the opposite direction, every inch of its platform covered by a dozen people headed for a festival. With a single track to ride on, etiquette dictates that the norry with the lighter load be taken apart so the other can pass. So Chanthorn and his assistant quickly dismantle their vehicle and let the other one by, then put theirs back together again, all within minutes.
And you are on your way.
Now a government plan to upgrade the country's rail system may end up forever stranding the norry, an ingenious response to the decades of war, destruction and dire poverty that have afflicted Cambodia.
Under the Khmer Rouge in the mid-1970s, as the country descended into civil war and mass murder, 2 million people perished. And in leader Pol Pot's quest to reach "Year Zero," Cambodia also saw most of its roads destroyed, its trucks blown up, its locomotives charred.
By the early 1980s, as Cambodia started to emerge from the nightmare, people remembered the small vehicles used by rail workers in the 1960s to repair the tracks and started building their own. The norry, a name some say is derived from a mispronunciation of "lorry," was born.
The humble norry is a reminder of how much Cambodians lost, but it also speaks to their persevering spirit. All but left for dead under Pol Pot's genocidal regime, they defied the odds to rebuild, sometimes literally: Witness the land mine victims who picked up their lives by crafting homemade wooden limbs.
"It shows how ingenious people can be," says Ith Sorn, 55, who's been driving norries for three decades. "Cambodians came up with this when they had almost nothing."
The unique mode of transportation saw its heyday in the 1980s when other vehicles were scarce. "There were bombs and mines everywhere, roads were destroyed and rail cars a shambles," says Kot Sareurn, 50, a union leader for 23 norry drivers in Battambang, a picturesque provincial capital along the tranquil Sangker River. "Norries helped a lot of people survive, get to hospitals, get food."
Initially operators "rowed" the norries with poles, gondola-style, carrying loads of up to 40 people, eight cows or three tons of rice. After a few years, small gasoline engines were added.
Drivers said that at the peak, thousands of norries operated throughout Cambodia, charging villagers only a few cents for a ride but still making a decent living with so many people and possessions jammed aboard.
These days, the few hundred remaining norries are relegated to short distances in a few provinces, more an oddity for tourists than the lifeblood they once represented, as trucks, public buses and motorbikes fill the gap. They're still privately owned, but nowadays companies sometimes own several of them, splitting the profits with drivers.
Safety? Not a problem, Sorn says: "I've never had a bad accident. Only occasionally, if it's overloaded, we'll break down and some goats tumble off."
They've clung to life thanks to the tourists and Cambodia's catatonic rail system. The last train anyone saw around Battambang's Odombang station lumbered through more than a year ago. The norry drivers have since taken over the tiny station, sleeping in hammocks on the platform, littering its dirt floor with their cigarette wrappers.
But there's movement down the line. The government plans to revamp the nation's two modest state-owned rail lines — a 230-mile stretch from Phnom Penh to the border with Thailand completed by the French in 1942, and a 150-mile stretch from the capital to the southwestern Sihanoukville port finished with help from China and Germany in 1969. Government officials envision turning the system over to private operators by early 2012.
This would almost certainly see the go-cart-like norries muscled aside by "real" trains.
"Norries are dangerous, shabby-looking and won't last in the 21st high-tech century," says Touch Chankosal, an official with the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. "Real trains going at over 30 miles per hour would run right over them. The drivers' lives are worth more than preserving norries."
Union leader Sareurn has little nostalgia for the contraptions that have earned his keep for decades. "If the government provides compensation, we'll all stop the next day," he says.
Others aren't quite so sanguine. "I'm worried, but what can you do?" says Chanthorn, 37, who's been driving since he was 10. "The rails belong to the government. We're just borrowing them."
During the Khmer Rouge days, there were no norries, only endless walking by starving people, Sorn says in his house beside the tracks made of beams and tin. His wife, Dorn Mao, 50, shows where she was hacked with a machete by a Khmer Rouge fighter for taking a few bananas. "It's hard to think about," she says.
Recently, more foreigners have been riding his norry, Sorn says, including three with big bellies who initially balked, thinking it too flimsy to support them.
"They worried that the bamboo would break, but bamboo is very strong," he says. "If I can carry eight cows, I can certainly carry a few fat foreigners."
Thaksin Shinawatra has continued to play a role in Thai politics, even from outside the country.
CNN By Dan Rivers
Bangkok, Thailand (CNN) -- Thousands of anti-government protesters have once again brought Thailand's capital to a standstill, as they seek to unseat a leadership -- led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva -- they say is illegitimate and undemocratic.
They support Thaksin Shinawatra, who was prime minister from 2001 to 2006, before he was ousted in a bloodless coup. After his removal, he continued to play a role in Thai politics -- even from outside of the southeast Asian nation.
What is happening now?
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency April 7, hours after anti-government demonstrators (known as "red shirts" for the clothes they wear) stormed the country's parliament. Three days later, the deadliest clash in more than a decade between protesters (in this case the "red shirts") and the military erupted, leading to the deaths of more than two dozen demonstrators and military forces.
Media and analysts in Thailand say civil war may be looming, with another group called the "multi-colored shirts" (supporters of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva). They are displeased with the disruption caused by the red shirt protests. They are generally middle-class city dwellers. They are not pro- or anti-government, they simply want the government to shut down the reds to end the violence and interruptions to daily life. The red and multi-colored shirts have clashed in Silom Road, Bangkok's business and financial district.
Meanwhile, Thailand's independent election commission has recommended the dissolution of Abhisit's Democrat Party after accusing the party of accepting an $8 million campaign donation from a private company and mishandling funds allocated to it by the commission. The ruling still must be reviewed by the country's attorney general's office and its Constitution Court. A democrat party spokesman maintains the party has fully complied with all laws concerning the uses of funds during the election campaign and the party says it will fight the recommendation.
Haven't these protests been going on for a long time?
Yes, Thailand has been embroiled in political chaos for years and many here are growing weary with the instability. Ever since Thaksin came to power, there have been protesters opposing his allegedly corrupt and autocratic rule. Those protesters donned yellow shirts (the color of the king) and occupied the two main airports in Bangkok, until finally the pro-Thaksin government was brought down by a court ruling. In revenge Thaksin's supporters copied the yellow shirt tactics and took to the streets in red shirts.
Why do the sides divide on colors?
It's an easy way for them to create an identity. It all started with the yellow shirts wearing a color associated with Monday, the day of the week that Thailand's revered king was born on. That was designed to show their allegiance to the king, and more broadly the traditional elite which has dominated Thai politics for years. Thaksin's supporters then picked a color to distinguish themselves from the yellow-shirts.
Why are they arguing?
Essentially this is a classic power struggle. It's easy to portray this as simply rich against poor, but it is much more complicated than that, as illustrated by the fact that the reds leader is in fact a multi-billionaire. Thaksin rode to power by enacting populist policies which gained huge support from the rural poor. His radical approach ruffled a lot of feathers among the elite, who felt he was in danger of becoming too big for his boots, and could erode their position.
The "civil society" also become concerned over allegations of corruption and his brutal war on drugs, which saw summary executions. He was also criticized for his heavy handed response to violence in the Muslim dominated south.
Finally the army decided to oust him in a coup, which had the backing of the aristocratic elite and much of the middle class, who were becoming uneasy with the cult of personality growing around Thaksin. That set the stage for an embittered power struggle, between Thaksin loyalists and those loyal to the army, aristocracy and their traditional Democrat Party.
What are the wider implications of the protests?
If the divisions in Thailand can't be healed it could lead to a deteriorating security situation which would have wider implications for the region. Thailand's relations with Cambodia are especially frosty since Thaksin was appointed economic adviser to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The worst case scenario would see Cambodia drawn into the dispute, with Thaksin using the country as a political base, adding to the already considerable tensions on the border.
So who is Thaksin?
Visionary leader or venal despot: Opinions vary, like the color of the shirts his supporters and detractors wear. If you sport red, you think Thaksin was the only prime minister to offer the rural poor a voice and real benefits; if you wear yellow, you view him as akin to Ferdinand Marcos: greedy, self-serving and dangerous.
What is not in dispute is that he won two elections, was the only Thai prime minister to serve a full-term in office and is still hugely popular. But critics say he bought his support and was only in politics to help himself.
What is he accused of?
In 2008 he was found guilty and sentenced in absentia to two years in prison for a land deal that enabled his wife to buy a valuable city plot for a fraction of its true value.
The case currently being considered by the Supreme Court relates to the transfer of shares in his communications company Shin Corporation. The prosecution alleges he illegally transferred the shares to his family, who then sold them to the Singapore government's Temasek without paying tax.
The court will also rule on whether Thaksin's government implemented policies that benefited his businesses, including a low interest loan from the Thai government to the Myanmar government to buy equipment from Shin Corp, a change in tax laws that benefited Shin Corp and changes to satellite laws that helped Shin Corp.
What does Thaksin's defense team say?
The defense team argues that neither Thaksin nor his wife owned the Shin Corp shares while he was prime minister, selling them to their son before he took office. It was their son who decided to sell Shin Corp to the Singaporeans. The defense also claims that the Assets Scrutiny Committee -- which has led the investigation in this case -- was politically motivated, having been appointed after the coup that ousted Thaksin, and therefore was biased against him.
How much money is at stake?
76.6 billion baht (about US$2.3 billion dollars). That is the total value of his and his family's assets that are currently frozen in Thailand. But there is speculation that he has a great deal more money elsewhere.
Why bother going after Thaksin when so many other Thai leaders have been perceived to be corrupt?
Well, Thailand certainly has had a checkered history. But current Premier Abhisit Vejjajiva is widely believed to be honest and free from any taint of corruption. He wants to give the country a fresh start by showing no one is above the rule of law and that means ensuring Thaksin isn't allowed to get away with his alleged corruption, even though he is in exile. However, many analysts say this case is not just about corruption, but more about Thaksin's challenge to the Thai political elite that has ruled for decades.
The theory goes that Thaksin was dangerously popular and refused to submit to powerful factions in the army, privy council and aristocracy -- hence the 2006 coup and the lengthy efforts to shut him down.
Some of the journalists said they felt a sense of closure after the reunion
More than three dozen journalists were killed or went missing in Cambodia during the 1970-75 war. This week, reporters returned to Phnom Penh to remember the friends they lost, as the BBC's Guy DeLauney reports.
It was almost like old times.
Dozens of journalists filled the Elephant Bar at Phnom Penh's Hotel Le Royal, while on the balcony the real-life inspiration for one of the main characters in the film The Killing Fields puffed on a hand-rolled cigarette.
In the first half of the 1970s, Le Royal had been the unofficial headquarters of the international media who chronicled Cambodia's downward spiral from an oasis of peace to the takeover by the murderous Khmer Rouge.
Now, it was the venue for the first-ever reunion of the correspondents, camera operators and photographers who covered a conflict which took a heavy toll on their colleagues.
At least 37 members of the media died over the five years that it took for Pol Pot's forces to capture Phnom Penh, but the early months were the most deadly.
Two dozen journalists died or disappeared in April and May 1970, as the press corps followed United States troops in from neighbouring Vietnam.
Ambushes
"To use the old cliche, it was stunned disbelief," says Carl Robinson, a former Associated Press correspondent, and organiser of the reunion.
"We had become very complacent from the way we had covered Vietnam, where you got to the airport and you would hitch a ride on a helicopter to the war.
"There was a naïve assumption that we would be OK with the Cambodian soldiers."
The journalists soon discovered that their experience in Vietnam meant little in the more volatile situation in Cambodia, where there was little respect for the media among the multiple factions and shifting alliances fighting for control of the country.
Travelling unescorted in private cars, journalists fell victim to ambushes and road-blocks manned by hostile forces.
"It was one of the most confused battlefields since something like Kursk," says British photographer Tim Page.
"But because of the pressure from the New York and Paris bureaux to get the story, people were outdoing each other to 'road-run', and they were disappearing in droves."
One of the earliest casualties was Tim Page's close friend and colleague, Sean Flynn.
Son of the film star Errol, he had earned a reputation as a fearless photographer in Vietnam.
'Risks taken'
When the war came to Cambodia, Flynn and fellow American snapper Dana Stone set off from Phnom Penh on their Honda mopeds in search of a story.
Their friends never saw them again.
"It wasn't worth dying for," says Carl Robinson, who had made Flynn the best man at his wedding the previous year.
"But we had this fantasy notion, in the evening after a smoke or two, of going over to see what the other side was like and getting the scoop of the war.
"But the reality was it was damned dangerous. God, it was a stupid thing they did."
Mike Morrow agrees with the sentiment.
The co-founder of the Dispatch News Service, which broke the story of the My Lai massacre, he was one of the few journalists captured in Cambodia who lived to tell the tale.
"There were lots of risks taken, and lots of lives lost - some of them very hard to justify," he says.
"It is important for us to reflect on our own roles - and to remember our colleagues.
"We need to answer questions, not just for ourselves, but for journalists who follow after us. There is plenty of war reporting still to be done." 'Sense of closure'
Outside Le Royal, thoughts turned to those who were missing from the reunion.
As Buddhist monks chanted a blessing, a small monument dedicated to the dead and missing was unveiled.
Afterwards, the veteran journalists posed for snaps in front of the memorial stone, and many spoke of feeling a sense of closure.
There was at least one non-journalist among those paying tribute.
The actor George Hamilton grew up with Sean Flynn, and said he felt honoured to have been invited to pay his respects.
Actor George Hamilton came to pay tribute to his late friend Sean Flynn
"I would love to know where Sean's remains are, but at least we are alive to come back and pay homage. At the end of the day, you really want someone to remember you.
"We're talking about some of the toughest combat journalists in the world, and they all deeply feel that.
"They're not showing up here to amuse people or get publicity; this is the real deal."
Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister in Charge of the Council of Ministers Dr Sok An paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong today. During the meeting, the leaders affirmed the warm and strong bilateral relations between Singapore and Cambodia.
DPM Sok An also called on DPM and Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng. Both sides underscored the close ties between the two Governments, and welcomed greater interactions at all levels.
DPM Sok An and his wife Mrs Annie Sok An were also hosted to an informal lunch by Minister for Foreign Affairs George Yeo. DPM Sok An and Minister Yeo had a good exchange of views on furthering bilateral cooperation. They also discussed regional and international developments.
In addition, DPM Sok An received a briefing by the Casino Regulatory Authority yesterday, and will visit the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority's Marine Aquaculture Centre at St John's Island, the Institute of Technical Education and the Resorts World Sentosa over the weekend.
Dr Sok An is in Singapore for the Cambodia Forum 2010 jointly organised by the Institute of South East Asian Studies and the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace. He delivered the keynote address at the Forum this morning.
Sy Sar (left) performs Khmer, a traditional dance of Cambodia, in Anne Bass’s film “Dancing Across Borders.’’ (First Run Features)
Sometimes with documentaries, the best intentions have a way of making decent people look bad. “Dancing Across Borders’’ is a dismaying case in point. Ten years ago the socialite Anne Bass was on a trip to Cambodia. She caught a performance by a traditional Cambodian dance troupe, and the charisma of one 16-year-old so knocked her out that when Bass returned to the States, she pulled some strings and got the dancer an audition at the School of American Ballet in New York. The dancer, Sokvannara “Sy’’ Sar (it’s pronounced “See’’), had never danced ballet. But for two years, he trained with the dance instructor Olga Kostritsky, honed his skill, and became a success story.
In the film, the agents of Sy’s good fortune speak at length about how they refined his raw talent. Occasionally, they do this with Sy seated silently a foot away. Rehearsal and performance footage meant as progress reports for Sy’s family back in Cambodia are repurposed as the movie’s spine. Sy returns home to watch the kids perform at his old dance school and, in the final minutes, mentions how he no longer feels he belongs anywhere. It’s a rare self-reflective moment in a gauzy, dewy movie that accentuates the positive because it flatters his patrons, none more so than Bass, who happens to be the film’s director.
Objectivity is a mythical requirement for documentary. But perspective is a must. If it ever occurred to Bass that she risked the charge of vanity by using her already problematic charitable impulse to get a movie shown in the world’s art houses, we never see it. “Dancing Across Borders’’ — that title makes Sy’s experience seem so easy — avoids all the thorny culture clashes of East being shoehorned into West. It makes “The Blind Side’’ seem like a complex critique of race, class, and self-congratulation in the American South. Sy is less passive than the Michael Oher character in that film. But his life never seems entirely in his own hands, either.
Of course, it doesn’t feel like Bass set out to make a documentary at all. Well-meant though it may be, the movie has an advertorial gloss. It’s more convincing as the work of people looking to reap a return on their investment.
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to www.boston.com/movienation.
BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers has effectively pre-empted the findings of two investigations into its Cambodian bribery scandal by saying he expects only modest fallout for the company.
Rather than wait for the findings of an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and an internal report being conducted with the help of a US law company, Mr Kloppers jumped the gun in an interview this week with the Financial Times, said by BHP to have been planned months ago.
BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers has effectively pre-empted the findings of two investigations into its Cambodian bribery scandal by saying he expects only modest fallout for the company.
Rather than wait for the findings of an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and an internal report being conducted with the help of a US law company, Mr Kloppers jumped the gun in an interview this week with the Financial Times, said by BHP to have been planned months ago.
"We think the potential issue we've got in the total scale of the company is very modest," Mr Kloppers is reported to have said.
The report quoted the chief executive as saying the potential wrongdoing needed to be put in context, which he said was why BHP limited its disclosure of the SEC probe and its own investigations to the bottom of its March-quarter exploration report, released on Wednesday.
"If there was any view that this was something that would have had a material impact on the company - and I'm not talking about financial-only terms, I am talking about overall reputational damage, all of the things that we weigh when we look at a disclosable event - you can clearly see we thought of this in one way," he said.
But Mr Kloppers also seemed to want an each-way bet.
"I don't want to detract from the seriousness of these issues at all because there is absolutely nothing more important in life than our reputation, as events at Toyota and Citibank show. So even if there was 50¢ that had changed hands to a government official, it would have been an unbelievably big deal."
BHP has so far refused to disclose where the bribery scandal took place, but nor has it bothered to deny widespread reports that it involved a $US1 million payment by the company to the Cambodian government in 2006 to secure bauxite leases.
There has also been speculation that there could be lingering issues for BHP from an aborted nickel project in the Philippines, with a Catholic Church aid agency saying in 2008 that the company needed to be more careful in picking its local joint-venture partners.
The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development alleged that BHP's Filipino partner in a nickel joint venture had offered bribes to community leaders to buy support for the project and silence opposition to the mining.
CAFOD said that while there was no evidence that BHP was involved, the company had a responsibility to ensure that partners and contractors it had chosen to work with did not partake in bribery or corruption.
The Associated Press By MIKE ECKEL and SOPHENG CHEANG
In this photo taken on Thursday, April 22, 2010, Yoko Ishiyama, left, of Japan, weeps during a Buddhist ceremony at a paddy field of Kandoul, in Kampong Speu province, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Ishiyama's husband Koki, a former correspondent for the Japanese Kyodo News service, was reportedly missing during the Cambodian conflict. Two dozen aging colleagues on Thursday trekked to this village to mourn and remember dozens of reporters, photographers and cameramen who died covering the five-year war that ended in 1975 with the takeover by the brutal Khmer Rouge. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
KANDOUL, Cambodia — The bodies were dumped in a shallow grave amid the untilled earth of rice paddies: five journalists who had been ambushed by Khmer Rouge and Viet Cong guerrillas on May 31, 1970. Om Pao, then 12, remembers the stench of decay for days after. He helped his father heap more earth on top of the remains to keep the smell down, the pigs out and the bodies from floating away.
In all, nine journalists — American, Indian, Japanese, French and Cambodian — were attacked that day near this dusty village south of the capital, Phnom Penh. All are believed to have been killed. It was one of the deadliest incidents for reporters in the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, in a year that remains one of the deadliest anywhere for journalists.
This week, 40 years later, two dozen aging colleagues trekked to Kandoul to mourn and remember. They honored the dozens of reporters, photographers and cameramen who died covering the five-year war, which ended in 1975 with the takeover by the brutal Khmer Rouge.
"It's not only sadness for our colleagues, but also for our Cambodian friends," said Elizabeth Becker, who covered the war for The Washington Post, "but the biggest sadness is that it's taken so long for this country to recover."
Impoverished Cambodia, already roiled by the fighting in neighboring Vietnam, plunged into open war in March 1970 when Gen. Lon Nol overthrew Prince Norodom Sihanouk and seized power in a CIA-backed coup.
Two months later, as Lon Nol's forces battled Khmer Rouge insurgents and their Vietnamese allies, a six-man crew from CBS News was ambushed on the morning of May 31 as the team drove south of Phnom Penh, looking for a battle. Three men from NBC News, rushing after their competitors, were also captured.
According to former CBS cameraman Kurt Volkert, who compiled a detailed reconstruction based on witness accounts, four of the CBS employees were killed instantly. The five others are believed to have been taken to Kandoul in the days after and executed. They had their hands bound and possibly were clubbed to death.
In 1992, Volkert helped a U.S. military forensics team locate the grave just outside Kandoul. Four bodies were recovered and identified as the three NBC employees and one from CBS. The fifth body was never found.
In all, more than three dozen foreign and Cambodian journalists were killed or listed as missing during the 1970-75 war. As many as 26 were killed in the war's first year, according to tallies compiled by former Associated Press correspondents.
Earlier this year, amateur searchers digging northeast of Phnom Penh unearthed what they believe to be the remains of war photographer Sean Flynn — son of Hollywood star Errol Flynn. Sean Flynn went missing nearly two months before the U.S. television crews were ambushed.
After the Khmer Rouge took over in April 1975, dozens of other Cambodian journalists — mainly freelancers for foreign media — were executed or simply disappeared.
On Thursday, reporters, photographers and cameramen who covered Cambodia's upheaval joined throngs of curious villagers, huddling from the scorching heat under an orange and yellow tent in the middle of a rice paddy.
The smell of burning incense and the chants of Buddhist monks mixed with the sound of passing ox carts. Several visitors wept as the names of the dead reporters were read aloud. Children, naked and barefoot, begged for handouts, sipped coconut juice being sold by a vendor and splashed in the nearby puddle where the four bodies had been exhumed in 1992.
"We remember those who have died seeking both truth and reality in Cambodia," said Chhang Song, the minister of information in the Lon Nol government who worked closely with many of the reporters and helped organize the reunion.
Om Pao, whose father's paddy was just yards away from the grave in 1970, said: "To hold a Buddhist ceremony like today is good for dead people, to show the gratitude to the dead and to offer their souls a chance to rest in peace."
Former AP correspondent Carl Robinson said covering Cambodia's turmoil was much more dangerous than Vietnam. Journalists were more often on their own, without the protection of the U.S. military. And, he added, he was troubled by the U.S. role in Cambodia.
"It was nightmarish to cover it all," he said. "It's too hard to look back upon. The whole thing had been a disaster. I left feeling guilty and bitter, as a reporter, as an American, it was just shameful and the Cambodians suffered."
For Jeff Williams, a former correspondent for AP and CBS, the trip was a chance to remember the collegiality of the foreign press corps at the time.
"I don't believe in closure. Maybe it's just me, but nothing ever closes," he said. "You just move ahead."
(3BLMedia/theCSRfeed) ATLANTA, GA - April 21, 2010 - UPS (NYSE: UPS) has awarded Paul Warrington of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., the Jim Casey Community Service Award, the company's top honor worldwide for community service. Warrington, an assistant chief pilot at the UPS Airlines, was recognized for his long-standing commitment to the impoverished and underserved people of Cambodia.
For the past seven years, Warrington and his wife have made regular trips to Cambodia to help improve the lives of residents by donating supplies and providing education on water purification methods and disease control. During the last four years, Warrington and his wife have led numerous mission trips and together, their teams have completed more than 12,000 volunteer hours.
The Jim Casey Community Service Award winner is chosen annually from nominations solicited from UPS's global workforce of more than 400,000 employees. The Casey Award was created to recognize outstanding community service, a hallmark of UPS's corporate legacy and commitment to social responsibility.
Warrington’s dedication to community service is evident in local communities here in the U.S. as well as overseas. He has worked with the Agape House, a California shelter for women and children, as well as helped relocate a Somalian refugee family to Kentucky (the headquarters of UPS’s global air operations). For these community service efforts, Warrington also has been awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Award by President Barack Obama.
"Success is not about what you gain or accomplish in life," says Warrington, "It’s what you do to improve the lives of others that really matters. I count myself considerably blessed to be able to help others and am honored to use my talents and gifts to make a difference."
"Paul’s dedication to helping those in need is remarkable and a wonderful example of how to answer the call to service," observed UPS Chairman and CEO Scott Davis. "We recognize at UPS that volunteerism helps make us a stronger and more successful company. Paul’s community involvement is an inspiration to us all."
Founded in 1951 and based in Atlanta, Ga., The UPS Foundation's major areas of focus include community safety, nonprofit effectiveness, economic and global literacy, environmental sustainability and diversity. The UPS Foundation pursues these initiatives by identifying specific projects where its support can help produce a measurable social impact. In 2009, The UPS Foundation donated more than $43 million US to charitable organizations worldwide. Visit community.ups.com for more information about UPS's community involvement.
BHP Billiton declined to comment on reports that an anti-corruption probe it is facing from the US Securities and Exchange Commission involves a former bauxite exploration project in Cambodia.
BHP has revealed that it's the subject of an SEC investigation over potential violations of anti-graft laws tied to old mining exploration projects. BHP said only that the matter didn't involve China.
The case follows the jailing in China last month of staff from rival Rio Tinto for bribery and comes as the two mining giants seek regulatory approval for their controversial 116-billion-dollar Australian joint venture.
Australian newspapers, relying on a 2009 report by Global Witness, a non-governmental organisation seeking to expose corruption in the resources sectors, speculated the probe involved a joint venture to explore for bauxite in Cambodia.
West Australian mining representative bodies have welcomed Premier Colin Barnett's decision to maintain gold royalties at their current levels.
This comes as Barnett announced in Parliament that he wouldn't increase gold royalties in this year's budget.
Barnett's proposal to raise royalties for all commodities in next month's budget attracted widespread criticism from the industry, especially the gold sector, which argued that the state would jeopardise future investments.
Western Australia reportedly considered a doubling of gold royalties to 5%.
Also making headlines:
Brazil-based Vale's Goro nickel mine is still delayed. JSE-listed Kumba Iron Ore lifts its first quarter output to 11,5-million-tons. ThyssenKrupp attacks iron-ore miners for the price hike. And, West-Africa focused African Aura raises 11-million-pounds for its Liberia and Cameroon projects.
The Phnom Penh Post Thursday, 22 April 2010 Sam Rith
Smoke billows from a volcano in Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland on April 16, 2010, sending an ash cloud sweeping across northern Europe. AFP
THE giant volcanic ash cloud which caused travel chaos throughout the world reduced hotel bookings in Cambodia by between 10 and 15 percent, Tourism Minister Thong Khon and the Cambodian Hotel Association said Wednesday.
As some flights from Asia resumed Wednesday after a six-day lock down on air travel to and from northern Europe, the Kingdom is counting the cost of the eruption from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano – which began on April 14 and thrust vast plumes of potentially dangerous ash into the sky.
Minister of Tourism Thong Khon told the Post that the ash cloud “really impacted the tourism sector in Cambodia. It impacted some hotel [bookings] by about 10 percent”.
He pointed out that Cambodia has more than 300 hotels and over 20,000 rooms.
The observation has been reiterated by top representatives of the hotel industry. Luu Meng, president of the Cambodian Hotel Association (CHA), said Wednesday: “I estimate about 10 to 15 percent of hotel rooms throughout Cambodia have been cancelled due to the volcanic [ash] cloud.”
Visitors from northern Europe – where the cloud grounded flights for nearly a week – account for a significant percentage of Cambodia’s tourists.
In 2009, according to Ministry of Tourism statistics, 10.87 percent of visitors to Cambodia came from the UK or France. Last year, the tourist sector garnered US$1.561 billion in revenue, according to Director of Statistics and Tourism Kong Sophearak.
Ang Kim Eang, president of Cambodia Association of Travel Agents (CATA), confirmed Wednesday that some tourists from European countries could not get to Cambodia, as airlines cancelled flights because of safety fears. He could not say how many people were affected.
However, the end of the crisis seems to be in sight.
Abdul Karim Md Isa, area manager for Malaysia Airlines' representative office in Cambodia, confirmed that the airline restarted flights to London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt Wednesday.
CHA President Luu Meng and Tourism Minister Thong Khon predicted that tourists from European countries would arrive in Cambodia at normal levels within the next ten days.
“I do not worry much [about the impact] because it is just short term,” said Thong Khon.
He added that he did not want such incidents to occur too often this year, as it would put in jeopardy Cambodia’s goal of attracting 2.4 million tourists in 2010.
In the first three months of this year, the number of arrivals increased around 9 percent compared to the first quarter of 2009, he said.
The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines said the region's carriers had bled about $40 million a day during the crisis, AFP reported Wednesday. The International Air Transport Association put global airline losses at about $270 million a day.
Still under construction, the 66-story-high Xiaowan dam is scheduled to be completed this year. Other countries accuse China of stealing water.
Imaginechina via AP
XIAOWAN, China — Wearing cloaks of tree bark strands, villagers from the Yi ethnic minority tend wheat terraces that cascade downhill toward the riverbank.
It is a scene unchanged for centuries, and it takes place in the shadow of a modern wall of concrete as high as a 66-story skyscraper that fills a gorge of the Lancang River in remote southwestern China.
The Xiaowan dam in the hills of Yunnan province is one of eight hydroelectric projects that will bring China?s industrial revolution to the impoverished region. It is by far the biggest of the four dams built so far that when done this year will be the biggest arch dam in the world.
But not all of the water is China's. The downstream half of the 2,700-mile-long river winds through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, where it is known as the Mekong.
In those countries, 60 million people rely on the Mekong not for electricity but for food, water and transport. They say the Chinese dams have reduced the river to its lowest levels in 50 years, and environmental groups accuse China of reducing the river flow downstream.
"Many local people and groups that monitor the dams in China point the finger at the dams as one of the main causes of the drying up of the river," says Srisuwan Kuankachorn, co-director of Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance, a Thailand-based environmental group.
Srisuwan says the countries are in a drought caused by China that has killed fisheries, withered croplands and dried up waterway transportation routes.
And the problems are likely to get worse with the completion of the Xiaowan dam. A United Nations report issued in May 2009 warned that China's eight planned dams, of which Xiaowan is the fourth, "may pose the single greatest threat to the river."
"The capability of the new dam is much bigger than the other three combined," Srisuwan says.
Little leverage for compliance
At the plush local offices of dam builders Huaneng Hydrolancang, senior engineer Zhao Meng is unruffled by the dire allegations. Zhao, 58, bears a scientist's conviction that the doubters are wrong.
"However much water arrives, the same amount will leave," Zhao says. "We have no plan to keep the water or use it elsewhere. We will store water for a while as we fill the reservoir (currently 30% full), but this dam will not affect the water flow downstream."
Some regional experts agree that the hydroelectric projects are unrelated to the drought.
"China's dams have not caused this problem," says Jeremy Bird, CEO of the Mekong River Commission, an organization that helps manage the river's resources for Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
But China's refusal to provide data to the commission on the dams already is raising suspicions among analysts. This month, a Chinese delegation to the commission promised deeper cooperation but stopped short of adding to a promise to provide hydrological data for two smaller Yunnan dams.
"The Chinese must come clean on how much water they are diverting at Xiaowan and, in the future, at Nuozhadu," another dam that will boast an even bigger reservoir, says Alan Potkin, a development specialist at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University.
Xiaowan is "an enormously large dam, bigger than anything in North America," says Potkin, who worries that in two years' time both Xiaowan and Nuozhadu could be filling reservoirs simultaneously. Potkin is urging the commission to ask China for the most critical data. But he knows the board can do little if China refuses. "It has very little leverage at all," he says.
Journalists have been kept at bay at Xiaowan. A USA TODAY reporter was held up by police for three hours while trying to get to the site and then refused entry.
Local residents dispute that the drought stems from natural causes.
Here in Yunnan province, White Fish Pond hasn't seen fish for years, says Bi Xiuxian, who heads a small hydropower station on the Weishan River. For the past half-year, the river has hardly seen any water, either. So the privately owned power plant in the village of Lishimo is idle.
"Poor management of water facilities is definitely a major reason for this drought," complains Bi, an ethnic Yi. "We need new wells, better management of old wells, and more maintenance of water canals."
Elders pray for rain
China's thirst for energy will likely keep the projects moving forward without much look back, say activists.
"We need time to see the real results," says Wang Yongchen, founder of Green Earth Volunteers, an environmental group, who has monitored China's dam-building for several years. "China is developing so quickly and needs a lot of energy, but nature is not just for humans."
In Shuanghe village, Nanjian County, Yunnan province, farmer Xu Piqing stands on a bridge above the now-dry water canal that usually rushes into the Weishan River.
"We should be busy now, harvesting corn and beans, but instead we have nothing to do," says Xu, 43.
Some villagers are taking action, though.
This month, more than 100 elders will gather to pray for rain on the hilltop, lighting incense and kowtowing to the earth. It's an annual ritual, but "this year will be the biggest ever," Xu says.
The Australian April 23, 2010 Matt Chambers and Matthew Stevens
THE investigation into BHP Billiton's potentially corrupt behaviour in Cambodia yesterday widened to include British regulators as BHP revealed it had handed over correspondence between its managers and government officials in negotiations involving bauxite deposits there.
It is understood BHP has uncovered internal emails between managers in Cambodia, and possibly other countries, and government officials.
The emails, which relate to several tenements BHP has now left, are understood to have been considered to have potentially breached BHP's code of conduct and, therefore, needed to be handed to the US authorities that had previously queried BHP. It is not known at what level of government the correspondence was with.
BHP stunned markets on Wednesday, when it revealed the US Securities & Exchange Commission had queried its behaviour over certain mineral exploration ground, spurring a BHP internal investigation that uncovered possible corruption in dealing with government officials.
It is understood the investigations relate to up to $US3.5 million ($3.8m) of payments made in Cambodia from 2006 that a government official there had publicly referred to as "tea money", a local term for unofficial payments to government officials.
BHP has said the payments included $US2.5m for community projects near the bauxite project in the northeastern Cambodian province of Mondulkiri.
Britain's Serious Fraud Office confirmed yesterday that it had also been contacted by BHP on the matter and had opened its own preliminary assessment.
In an internal email to staff yesterday, BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers said the announcement of the investigation in a quarterly report was consistent with the company's approach of open and transparent behaviour when such issues arose.
"The investigation is at a relatively early stage," he said. "You should be assured that we will thoroughly and fairly investigate these matters, as we would any other possible breach of law or the code (of conduct) and take whatever action is appropriate."
The investigation comes at a bad time for BHP, just weeks after its potential iron ore partner, Rio Tinto, sacked four workers, including Australian Stern Hu, after they were convicted of bribery and stealing commercial secrets related to deals in China.
It is also comes as European and Asian steelmakers lobby the European Commission to block the planned $US116 billion merger of BHP and Rio's West Australian iron ore mines, ports and railways.
The Australian Securities & Investment Commission would not say if it was investigating BHP under recently beefed-up penalties under the Criminal Code Act.
Regulators in the US, Britain and Australia have recently tightened penalties for bribery (but there is no suggestion the BHP investigation involves bribery).
"We are in an era where these things have never been more serious," said Ian Ramsay, director of the Centre for Corporate Law at Melbourne University. "The penalties for bribery (of foreign officials by an Australian company) skyrocketed in Australia in February and the UK has just passed a new bribery act that in some respects is broader than the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act." In February, Australia boosted maximum penalties for bribery of foreign public officials from $330,000 to as much as 10 per cent of a company's annual turnover.
In BHP's case, this could be $US5bn.
BHP shares trade in Australia, Britain and the US, so its behaviour is subject to investigations by regulators in all three countries.
In its latest code of business conduct, BHP warned staff about harsher penalties under British law for "facilitation payments", which it described as "small sums to low-level government officials to obtain routine services to which BHP is otherwise entitled".
The Phnom Penh Post Thursday, 22 April 2010 Cheang Sokha
THE government has granted more than 4,000 hectares of protected national park land in Koh Kong province to an agriculture company owned by Cambodian People’s Party Senator Ly Yong Phat, who has been at the centre of several land disputes stemming from controversial land concessions.
In accordance with a sub-decree signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen and dated March 12, Ly Yong Phat’s company, the LYP Group, has been given a 10,000-hectare Koh Kong land concession, 4,100 hectares of which cuts into Botum Sakor National Park.
Ly Yong Phat confirmed Wednesday that he had received the concession, but said he had not yet finalised development plans for the site.
The senator’s companies have previously been awarded concessions in Koh Kong, Kampong Speu and Oddar Meanchey provinces that have led to fights with villagers who accused the companies of impinging on their land.
In Koh Kong and Oddar Meanchey, those concessions led to mass evictions, and villagers in Kampong Speu are currently embroiled in a dispute with Ly Yong Phat’s Phnom Penh Sugar Company.
Ny Chakrya, head of monitoring for the rights group Adhoc, said the decision to grant the senator another concession was inappropriate in light of the ongoing dispute in Kampong Speu’s Thpong district.
“The concessions are meant to develop and help the people, but we see that many people have suffered from the concessions,” Ny Chakrya said.
Mathieu Pellerin, a consultant for the rights group Licadho, said national parks are supposed to be protected, but that protected areas had been opened up by other recent land concessions. In February, for example, Hun Sen granted 1,650 hectares of Ream National Park in Preah Sihanouk province to the Hong Kong Research Investment and Development Consulting Group.
Nhil Thun, director of Botum Sakor National Park, could not be reached Wednesday, and provincial Environment Department Director Kao Sinthuon said he didn’t know about the Koh Kong concession.
FORMER Phnom Penh municipal police chief Heng Pov has written a book from prison that offers effusive praise for Prime Minister Hun Sen, in what observers say is a marked turn from previous public comments and may be an attempt to secure a pardon.
The Phnom Penh Post Wednesday, 21 April 2010 Cheang Sokha and James O'toole
FORMER Phnom Penh municipal police chief Heng Pov has written a book from prison that offers effusive praise for Prime Minister Hun Sen, in what observers say is a marked turn from previous public comments and may be an attempt to secure a pardon.
The book was first distributed to stores in central Phnom Penh on Tuesday, with Heng Pov’s preface dated January 2010. In the 227-page volume, titled Strategy to Extinguish War in Cambodia, Heng Pov offers an analysis of recent Cambodian history and politics that describes Hun Sen as the Kingdom’s most skillful leader and refers to him by his full honorific.
“The special condition of the diplomatic strategy of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen is not to consider any philosophy, country or religion as an enemy of Cambodia with whom we cannot compromise or reconcile,” Heng Pov writes, offering similar praise for the premier’s role in domestic politics.
“Samdech Techo never considered other Cambodian politicians as life-or-death enemies with whom he cannot compromise or reconcile,” he says.
Kao Soupha, Heng Pov’s lawyer, said he had proofread the book prior to publication. He said Heng Pov’s aim in writing it had been to demonstrate his patriotism and to describe Hun Sen’s political career.
“This book is not written simply to praise Hun Sen, but to show the facts of his leadership of the country,” Kao Soupha said.
Heng Pov, a widely feared leader during his time as police chief, was arrested in 2006 and sentenced last year to over 90 years in prison on a raft of charges including extortion, kidnapping and murder. He is scheduled to appear at the Appeal Court on April 30 to contest three of the cases against him, though Kao Soupha said that at this point, Heng Pov’s only hope is for the prime minister to come to his aid.
“For Heng Pov’s case, the court will never find justice for him, and only Hun Sen can save him,” Kao Soupha said.
Heng Pov’s praise for Hun Sen stands in stark contrast to previous public statements, including a 2006 interview with the French weekly L’Express in which he accused Hun Sen and former national police chief Hok Lundy of being behind the 1997 grenade attack on a Sam Rainsy Party rally and numerous other assassinations of opposition or political figures.
He also alleged that actress Piseth Pilika, who was shot and killed in 1999, was gunned down on orders from first lady Bun Rany, who he said had learned of an affair between the starlet and her husband, and accused local tycoon Mong Reththy of involvement in drug trafficking. These allegations have been denied.
Heng Pov has claimed innocence of the charges against him, alleging that they were engineered by Hok Lundy, his former rival.
Hok Lundy was killed in a helicopter crash in 2008, a fact that Cambodian Defenders Project director Sok Sam Oeun said may have played into Heng Pov’s decision to write the book.
“The enemy of Heng Pov, Hok Lundy, is dead, so maybe Heng Pov thinks he has a chance to be pardoned by the prime minister,” Sok Sam Oeun said. He added that for a case involving a high-profile political figure – Heng Pov is also a former adviser to Hun Sen – a pardon could indeed be possible.
Hang Chhaya, executive director of the Khmer Institute for Democracy, said the book might have been conceived as an attempt to “appease” Hun Sen. Though he said a pardon could be possible, he argued that given the severity of Heng Pov’s past statements, the premier may be unlikely to offer leniency.
“The fallout was so deep,” he said. “I know that sometimes the prime minister does have a change of heart over political-related court cases, but this one is a difficult one.”
Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said that Heng Pov may indeed be angling for clemency, but declined to offer a response without first reviewing the book.
“He has the free time to write – that might be the intention – but because I didn’t see the book, it would be difficult for me to make any comment,” Khieu Kanharith said, adding that government staffers could “make excerpts” for Hun Sen if they were deemed of interest.
Nearly US$1 million in Heng Pov’s personal bank accounts has frozen following his arrest, and he wrote to Hun Sen last year in a bid to secure funding for family and legal expenses, asking the prime minister to “intervene to allow me to withdraw some money from the bank, with forgiveness”. This request, however, went unheeded.
Prey Sar prison director Mong Kim Heng said Tuesday that despite his former stature, Heng Pov has received no special treatment in jail.
“He has nothing to do each day besides exercise,” Mong Kim Heng said, “and I have observed that he likes reading and writing in his free time.”
The 2,800sq m Hun Sen library extension, named after Cambodia’s prime minister, has been developed by the London practice’s office in Phnom Penh headed by practice founder Geoff Pyle.
22 April, 2010 By Anna Winston BDonline.co.uk
Construction work is underway on Pyle Architects’ £1.3 million library for the Royal University of Phnom Penh.
The 2,800sq m Hun Sen library extension, named after Cambodia’s prime minister, has been developed by the London practice’s office in Phnom Penh headed by practice founder Geoff Pyle.
The extension will more than double the size of the existing library building, which was built in the early 1990s, and create a new entrance.
Large double-glazed openings in the building will create spaces with clear views of the landscape while withstanding Cambodia’s seasonal weather extremes.
Areas of louvres provide permanent natural ventilation, and the north and south elevations feature heavy shading to deal with strong solar gain.
Funding for the scheme has been provided by a grant from the World Bank as part of the Cambodia Education Sector Support Project.
But the grant does not cover the building’s operating costs, so it has been designed to require minimal electrical services, with ramps replacing lifts and selective air conditioning. Air from the undercroft of the building will be used to help cool internal spaces.
It is due for completion in early 2011.
Pyle has also set up an organisation with local students and architects to provide tours of Cambodia’s 1960s architecture. For more information visit http://www.ka-tours.org/
"I think there is no chance to find justice for Chea Vichea under the current government - I have no belief at all," Chea Mony said Wednesday. "Is it the government's will to find the killers, or is a powerful person involved in this murder?"
The Phnom Penh Post, Thursday, 22 April 2010 James O'Toole and Meas Sokchea
Documentary seeks answers about the killing of union leader Chea Vichea.
CHEA Vichea spent the morning playing with his daughter, studying his Khmer-English dictionary and plucking his moustache before deciding to leave his Phnom Penh home and pick up a copy of the day's newspaper.
"I watched him from the balcony as he left," Chea Vichea's wife, Chea Kimny, tells director Bradley Cox. "I got up and went to the kitchen. Suddenly, I felt like something kicked me in the chest."
Cox arrived at the newsstand outside Chamkarmon district's Wat Lanka just minutes after Chea Vichea was gunned down on January 22, 2004, and his footage from the scene makes for some of the most powerful moments of his new documentary, Who Killed Chea Vichea? Local police struggle to maintain order as journalists and frenzied onlookers surround the fallen labour leader, his blood spilled over a copy of that day's Koh Santepheap newspaper.
Cox travelled to Cambodia to cover the contentious 2003 elections, and stayed to pursue the story of Chea Vichea's murder. In a one-hour film screened for the Post on Wednesday, he draws on interviews with witnesses and public figures to document the investigation of what has become one of the Kingdom's most infamous political killings in recent years.
As outrage mounted in the days following Chea Vichea's death, police arrested two men - Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun - and charged them with the killing. They were convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison at a 2005 trial that was widely derided for failing to meet international standards.
Chea Vichea's family has insisted since the arrest of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun that the pair are not responsible for the crime, a claim that came closer to vindication last year when the Supreme Court ordered their release after almost five years in prison, pending a new trial.
Interviews with the men's friends and relatives in the documentary corroborate their claims that they were nowhere near the crime scene at the time of the murder.
Chea Mony, who has taken his older brother's place as president of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia, threatened earlier this year to organise a strike if the government did not make progress in the case. He maintains that Chea Vichea was murdered because of his status as a union leader, and expressed doubt that the truth of what happened will ever come to light.
"I think there is no chance to find justice for Chea Vichea under the current government - I have no belief at all," Chea Mony said Wednesday. "Is it the government's will to find the killers, or is a powerful person involved in this murder?"
Although Chea Mony had not yet seen the film himself - Cox says plans for international distribution are still in development - he said relatives in the US had told him it presented a "frightful" depiction of Cambodian politics.
"This is not a tale - it is a true story," Chea Mony said. "This film just wants to inform other countries, particularly free, democratic countries, that we can have no confidence in the Cambodian justice system."
In August, the Appeal Court announced a new investigation in Chea Vichea's case and said that Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun are to remain free until a verdict is handed down. Appeal Court deputy president Choun Sunleng said Wednesday that investigation duties have been dispatched to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court. Court President Chiv Keng said that an investigation is in progress, but declined to comment further.
Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak said Chea Mony was entitled to express his views on the case, though he noted that the investigation of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun is ongoing.
"If he does not believe [the investigation], it's up to him," Khieu Sopheak said of Chea Mony. "Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun's release is temporary - it is not final."
Fatal consequences
Though the website for Who Killed Chea Vichea? touts the film as "a highly charged murder mystery", Cox said viewers expecting a straightforward whodunnit story will be disappointed.
"In making the movie, I was never particularly interested in finding out who actually pulled the trigger," Cox wrote in an email on Wednesday.
"I was much more interested in who was behind the murder and who gave the OK. Based on the evidence and reasonable deduction, I think the movie goes a long way in answering this."
Though the film makes no direct accusations about Chea Vichea's death, it paints a damning picture of law enforcement under Prime Minister Hun Sen, portraying former national police chief Hok Lundy and former municipal police chief Heng Pov as the government's ruthless enforcers.
"When they needed a job done, Hok Lundy would call men like Heng Pov to a meeting," one anonymous former police official tells Cox. The man says he committed "many" murders on Heng Pov's orders, and adds: "Afterwards, we'd feed the corpse to the crocodiles."
An anonymous former government official tells Cox that the judiciary is controlled in similarly hierarchical fashion.
"There isn't a single judge who is independent.... If a judge makes a decision on his own, the consequences could be fatal," the official says.
In footage from a press conference held shortly after Chea Vichea's murder, Heng Pov briefs reporters on the status of the investigation, identifying the owner of the Wat Lanka newsstand as the only witness in the case before catching himself and hastily ordering reporters not to write about her.
"If you want to help Chea Vichea, don't mention the news seller," Heng Pov says.
That woman, Va Sothy, has since stated publicly that Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun look nothing like the two men she saw commit the murder. She now lives in the United States after being granted asylum - Chea Vichea's wife and family have successfully sought asylum in Finland - and she tells Cox that the presence of a man on a mobile phone near the crime scene - suspected by onlookers to be an undercover police officer - suggested to her official involvement.
"I heard him say, 'The work is done,'" Va Sothy says.
Unbowed by threats
Cox said he hopes the film, which premiered last month in the US at the Frederick Film Festival in Maryland, will be broadcast in the US and other countries later this year. Considering its politically charged content, he was not optimistic that the Cambodian government would allow him to distribute the film here, though he said he hopes residents of the Kingdom eventually have access to it.
In its early moments, Who Killed Chea Vichea? contains footage from an interview with its titular figure. With his slight build and nasal voice, he does not make for an intimidating presence, but his resolve is clear as he describes the history of death threats against him.
"I think they want to kill me because of my experience in the past," Chea Vichea says, adding: "I'm not afraid. If I'm afraid, it's like I die."
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will exhibit 9th to 15th century masterpieces, "Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia", from May 15 through January 23, the Smithsonian’s Sackler and Freer galleries announced today.
The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery will exhibit 9th to 15th century masterpieces, "Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia", from May 15 through January 23, the Smithsonian’s Sackler and Freer galleries announced today.
They also announced a partnership with Cambodia’s National Museum, establishing that country’s first metal conservation lab.
The exhibition is the first international one to focus specifically on the skills and achievements of Khmer (Cambodian) bronze casters. It includes rarely displayed ritual and ornamental objects.
“These bronzes are among the most exquisite expressions of Khmer ideals of religious imagery and ritual implements," said exhibition co-curator Louise Allison Cort, curator of Ceramics at the Freer and Sackler galleries (FSG). The exhibition co-curator is Paul Jett, head of FSG’s Department of Conservation and Scientific Research.
The first of three linked rooms will display the two prehistoric bronze works in the exhibition: an urn with pictorial decoration, and a bell. Both are examples of rare and highly valued items that were traded over long distances within Southeast Asia. The room will also have a crowned Buddha, and an image of the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesha.
The second room, will have Buddhist sculptures from the pre-Angkor period (6th-8th centuries). One highlight is a group of seven diverse bronze figures unearthed together in 2006.They include two imported Chinese figures, both with gilding, as well as Cambodian figures.
In the third room, 11th-14 century bronzes, distinctly Angkorian in syle, include Buddhist and Hindu sculpture. A mirror that may have adorned a palace, and a heavy bell for a court elephant suggest the wide importance of bronze objects among the Cambodian elite.
Co-curator Jett and colleagues at FSG and the National Museum have established Cambodia's first metal conservation lab over the past five years. That program, the new laboratory for the treatment of ceramics, and the National Museum's long-standing stone restoration efforts, comprise one of the most advanced conservation facilities in Southeast Asia.
Cambodia will be the focus also of FSG's public education programs and Southeast Asian Film Festival, scheduled to run from September through October 2010.
The exhibition will travel to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in February 2011.
"Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia" is organized by the Sackler Gallery in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum and the National Museum of Cambodia. Major funding is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and Leon Levy Foundation.
For more info: Freer and Sackler galleries www.asia.si.edu, 202-633-1000. The Freer Gallery of Art, 12th Street and Independence Avenue SW, and the adjacent Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1050 Independence Avenue, SW, are on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Free admission.
Prey Proseth, Cambodia -- Sokha Seang, a 32-year-old rice farmer, recalls the night last spring when three elephants destroyed his home.
"They wanted to eat the food that we stored in our homes," he said. "I lost everything."
Poor farmers like Seang have felt obligated to kill the elephants - with guns, sharp bamboo sticks or poison - because they cannot afford to lose their crops. But now, thanks to a soft-spoken man known affectionately as "Uncle Elephant," farmers have found a more peaceful way of living with the elephants, said Seang, who lives in this village in the southwest province of Koh Kong. Prey Proseth, Cambodia -- Sokha Seang, a 32-year-old rice farmer, recalls the night last spring when three elephants destroyed his home.
"They wanted to eat the food that we stored in our homes," he said. "I lost everything."
Poor farmers like Seang have felt obligated to kill the elephants - with guns, sharp bamboo sticks or poison - because they cannot afford to lose their crops. But now, thanks to a soft-spoken man known affectionately as "Uncle Elephant," farmers have found a more peaceful way of living with the elephants, said Seang, who lives in this village in the southwest province of Koh Kong.
In Cambodia's elephant zones, Sereivathana Tuy has stopped farmers from cutting the animal's nationwide population - which stands at less than 400. For that, he is one of six recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize, to be awarded today in San Francisco.
Seang credits Tuy for his newfound harmony with the hungry behemoths. Instead of using deadly weapons against the endangered Asian elephants, Seang and other villagers now ward off attacks with hot chile peppers, fences, fireworks and foghorns.
Tuy, 39, was a park ranger in the 1990s when he developed a community-based model for ending human-elephant conflict that revolves around building trust with farmers and giving them the resources to fend off elephant attacks. In 2003, he brought his model to Flora and Fauna International, a nonprofit wildlife organization based in Cambridge, England.
The project is among recent efforts across Asia and Africa to save dwindling elephant populations.
"It ties in with a growing realization," said Simon Hedges, Asian Elephant coordinator at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, that methods relying heavily on law enforcement "haven't worked especially well." Teach kids first
The Cambodian program begins with teachers who educate children on how to co-exist with elephants in one of four schools across the country in isolated communities. The children then pass the new knowledge to their parents. Soon, "the whole village is talking about these techniques," Tuy said.
The plan also encourages farmers to alternate rapidly growing crops such as cucumbers and white radishes, which can be harvested several times a year before elephants have the chance to eat them. Tuy also encourages farmers to stop planting crops that elephants love - watermelons, sugarcane and bananas - in favor of ones they detest, such as eggplant and chile peppers.
"This way, the villagers keep their harvest and we conserve the elephant population," he said.
In Cambodia, the clash between elephants and humans peaked after the communist Khmer Rouge regime was ousted in 1979. Vast deforestation followed, forcing elephants to search for food and water on farmlands near their traditional forests. Poaching drops off
At the same time, wealthy Cambodians sought expensive elephant tails, tusks and the tips of their trunks - body parts they believe are symbols of power. This led to widespread poaching, Tuy says.
Before Tuy became director of his elephant project in 2005, conservationists would often report elephant killings to the police, who would then jail the perpetrators until a fine, sometimes as much as $2,400, could be negotiated.
Today, poaching has been reduced significantly. Irate farmers, however, are still known to kill elephants that threaten their crops. Tuy says law enforcement is just part of the solution. "Ultimately, you need education and improved livelihoods," he said. Love of pachyderms
Ironically, Tuy's passion for wildlife sparked under the Khmer Rouge.
In 1975, he and his family were forced to leave the capital of Phnom Penh and toil on a rice farm in southeastern Kandal province. When the Maoist regime was ousted four years later, Tuy and his family returned to the city to find their house destroyed and most of their relatives missing. Depressed, he returned to the countryside to continue farming before a chance encounter changed his life.
In 1981, a group of mahouts, or elephant trainers selling traditional medicines, arrived near his village with two elephants bedecked in opulent jewels.
"I saw the elephants, and I was amazed by them," Tuy recalled. "I fed the elephants for the first time. I couldn't sleep that night because I saw elephants in front of my eyes."
In 1988, Tuy won a scholarship to study forestry at a university in Minsk, the capital of what is today Belarus. Four years later, he returned to Cambodia to work as a park ranger.
Tuy estimates that there have been between five and 10 elephant attacks on humans since 2003, and only one death since 2005 - a sign that farmers are using safer methods to drive elephants away.
He hopes that his program will double the elephant population to 1,000 elephants in 20 years. He concedes that would be a difficult feat, given the animal's long gestation and maturation process. Asian elephants, which can live as long as 60 years, don't reproduce until they are between 8 and 14 years of age - enough time to be killed by predators, poachers or disease.
For now, however, Tuy's biggest hope in saving the elephants is changing Cambodian attitudes.
"When I was a poacher, I made a mistake," said Sophal Shout, a 54-year-old community leader in Prey Proseth who teaches villagers about alternative ways of repelling elephant attacks. Tuy "helped me find the right path." Endangered elephants
There are three species of elephants: the African Bush Elephant, African Forest Elephant and the smaller Asian elephant.
African: The largest populations, found in eastern and southern Africa, are threatened by the ivory trade. At the start of the 20th century, the African population was estimated at between 5 million and 10 million. By the end of the century, poaching and deforestation had reduced their numbers to about 500,000.
Asian: Experts say 40,000 to 50,000 wild Asian elephants live across Asia, 60 percent of them in India. In Cambodia, deforestation has caused the elephant population to dwindle from 2,000 in 1995 to fewer than 400 in 2010. In Vietnam, Laos, Bangladesh, China and Nepal, experts say only 300 or so are left in each country.
- Geoffrey Cain
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
PHNOM PENH, Apr. 20, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- The Asian Development Bank said on Tuesday that Cambodian growth is projected 4.5 percent for 2010 and higher to 6 percent for next year thanks to good crops, increasing services, tourism and constructions.
"If the weather allows for reasonable crops in Cambodia, GDP is projected to rebound by 4.5 percent in 2010," said the Bank release.
"In 2011, a return to higher--though still below trend--growth in garment exports and tourism, together with some expansion of non-garment manufacturing and a pickup in other services sub- sectors, is projected to raise GDP growth to around 6 percent," it said.
Agricultural output is projected to expand by 4.7 percent assisted by efforts to increase irrigation and the greater availability of high-yield seeds, it said.
The Bank also detailed that the growth in services is projected to resume at around 5 percent for this year and construction activity will likely grow at a moderate rate of about 4 percent, as appetite for bank credit gradually recovers and inflows of foreign direct investment, particularly from South Korea, resume for some projects.
Cambodia received 2.2 million tourists last year. The kingdom produced 7.3 million tonnes of rice for 2009/2010 of which the country saw another surplus of rice of 3.1 million tonnes available for export, according to the agriculture ministry.ADB also said that Cambodian growth was almost double digits from 1998 to 2008, but the country's growth was estimated contracted 2 percent in 2009 due to the global downturn in 2008.
The World Bank on April 7 said that Cambodian growth is projected at 4.4 percent for 2010, expects 6 percent for next year. (Source: iStockAnalyst )
I wrote last week that Alexey Semyonov of the Sakharov Foundation and Professor Baktybek Abdrisaev of Utah Valley University called Kyrgyzstan Central Asia's only nation to have "forced regime change," both observing that its people are "willing to fight for their rights." We each can profit from learning about the interconnections among seemingly unrelated events to draw lessons and build a better world. Change breeds change. The Kyrgyz situation will evolve further -- as will situations in Myanmar, Cambodia and elsewhere. Nothing shall remain the same.
But change doesn't always bring good things.
Ideas are the catalyst of action. People of different temperament patterns -- organizational consultant Dr. Linda V. Berens called them theorist, catalyst, improviser, and stabilizer -- seem essential for good thinking and action.
President Andrew Jackson advised: "Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in."
Action opens door to many possibilities: the good and the bad.
Two strong proponents of action, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Theodore Roosevelt, leave us with invaluable insights.
"I never worry about action, but only about inaction," Churchill said. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts" -- "going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."
The United Nations Human Rights Council concluded its March 26 meeting by adopting 28 resolutions. Convening in Geneva, the Council is the UN’s foremost human rights authority.
It was created after the UN’s 53-member Human Rights Commission did such an abysmal job that in December of 2004 then-secretary general Kofi Annan called for the creation of a new human rights body.
The council currently has 47 members elected on the basis of “geographical distribution” by simple majority vote of the UN’s general assembly.
Members have to commit to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”.
Annan hailed the new body as a step forward: “I don’t think anyone can claim this is old wine in a new bottle,” he said after its creation.
The council’s recent work speaks volumes. Eight of the 28 resolutions passed were criticisms directed at specific governments – one for North Korea, one for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one for Burma, one for Guinea and four for Israel.
Cambodia a grave threat Human rights violations committed by Israel and North Korea were deemed especially “grave”.
If considering human rights violations, the council must not simply focus on the governments of North Korea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burma, Guinea and Israel.
Cambodia should also be included. How could the council not include one resolution on rights violations by Cambodia’s government of the 28 passed?
The council views actions by the Israeli government as its most urgent human rights concern – more dire than, for example, the assassination of human rights defenders in Russia; the continuing genocide in Sudan; the 8 million forced labourers in China’s Laogai prisons; the 200 political prisoners in Cuba; the assault on independent media in Venezuela; the persecution of gays in Uganda.
Missing from the council’s resolutions are the cruel dictatorships in Vietnam, Belarus, Zimbabwe and Eritrea, and the brutality of Iran’s government against its own people.
But the council has forgotten the atrocities committed by the past and current Cambodian governments, backed by the Vietnamese, between April 17, 1975, and October 23, 1991, as well as following the elections of 1993 and extending into the present time.
Ignoring atrocities The atrocities that have occurred in Cambodia – about 1 million before the rise of the Khmer Rouge, some 2.5 million during their reign and another half million after the Khmer Rouge were driven out by the Vietnamese – were completely ignored by the council.
Why did the UN not find it important to speak out on behalf of the Tibetans, Uighurs, Cambodians, Chechens, Cubans, Darfuris, Dalits or dozens of other oppressed groups?
Because the UN Human Rights Council includes a dozen dictatorships, including China, Cuba, Egypt, Russia and Saudi Arabia, as well as a catalogue of governments with dreadful human rights records such as Angola, Bahrain, Bolivia, Cameroon, Djibouti, Nicaragua and Pakistan.
The world’s current roundtable for human rights is a tool to whitewash, cover up and direct attention away from the behaviour of its worst member governments.
The only working governmental alternative is a body – in the UN or outside it – composed solely of democratic, open societies applying consistent standards and willing to work transparently to expose and condemn governments that abuse human rights.
That is why we, the Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equity, are promoting political rights to ensure that victims of political crimes, such as those killed by the Khmer Rouge, get justice at the Khmer Rouge tribunal.
It is time that human rights and political rights in Cambodia become issues that we can all take seriously and that can be put at the forefront of the global political agenda.
Sourn Serey Ratha Chief of Mission Cambodian Action Committee for Justice and Equity
Chea Vichea Film Prompts Questions in US http://www.voanews.com/khmer/2010-03-31-voa4.cfm
By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer Original report from Maryland 31 March 2010
Who killed Chea Vichea? The question remains unanswered not just for the man's family but also American audiences who attended the premiere last weekend of a vivid film about Cambodia's politics and the slain union leader's struggle for labor rights.
"Who Killed Chea Vichea?" debuted at Maryland's second Frederick Film Festival in an effort to attract international support for the cause of justice for workers and Cambodians.
Director Brad Cox said murders of unionists and journalists, a biased court system and incompetent police continue to plague Cambodia and need international attention.
"What I think the first step in these Western countries should be is acknowledging that Cambodia is not a democracy," Brad Cox told VOA Khmer. "It's run by the very few at the very top, and to suggest that it's a democracy is a myth."
That myth is convenient for Western countries to accept, "because they don't want to confront or upset the government," Cox said. "If they can at least acknowledge that these things happen, that would be a first step in trying to make thing better there."
"Who Killed Chea Vichea?" examines the competition for power among the country's main political parties, the Cambodian People's Party, Funcinpec and the Sam Rainsy Party, following general elections in 2003.
At the time, Cambodia's workers, led by Chea Vichea, were demanding better salaries and working conditions in tumultuous, massive demonstrations.
Chea Vichea was shot dead in broad daylight in January 2004 as he read a newspaper near Phnom Penh's Wat Langka pagoda. The two assailants escaped, but two other men, widely believed innocent, were promptly arrested, charged and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The two men, Born Samnang and Sok Sameoun, spent five years in jail before they were provisionally released in a Supreme Court decision in 2008. No further arrests have been made.
"Who Killed Chea Vichea?" does not answer its own question, but Cox said the labor leader's prominence as an activist meant an order for his assassination "would have to come from very high. And the way the government is set up, there are very few people who are very high."
People are still afraid to talk about the killing, Cox said, and the courts have moved slowly in bringing their attention to the case.
The film, however, is raising awareness and prompting viewers to ask their own questions.
"When I saw this documentary, I felt emotional and painful, but don't know what else we can do to help," said Khalarath Bloesch-Sek, who saw the film in the town of Frederick. "There seems not much we can do to help improve Cambodia. I hope that the younger generation will stand up and lead the country forward to be a better place."
Jason Judd, one of the film festival's organizers, was also a colleague of Chea Vichea. "Leading a union is very difficult; one must be brave," he told VOA Khmer. "And in Cambodia there are not many union leaders like Chea Vichea."
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Loud Mouth Films Philadelphia/Bangkok http://www.whokilledcheavichea.com
