AlJazeeraEnglish
When a cyclone lashed southern Myanmar last year, it claimed 138,000 lives - and gave the world a glimpse into the desperation of people in that secretive state. More than 800,000 people were displaced, but the government refused outside help. One year on, the United Nations says half a million survivors have inadequate housing that won't protect them this monsoon season. Our correspondent travelled through the heart of the Irrawaddy Delta in the immediate days after the storm. For her safety we aren't naming her, as she has now revisited some of those places to meet people still suffering the after-effects of Cyclone Nargis.
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Inside Myanmar's cyclone zone - 03 May 09
Dom Joly: Chilling eyes in the land of the killing fields
The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk
http://www.independent.co.uk
Sunday, 3 May 2009
I looked into the eyes of evil twice last week. Wandering aimlessly around Cambodia I pretty much fell into a narrative for my book. I was having a drink at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Siem Reap when a man sidled up to me and inquired as to whether I was a journalist? I said yes. He then asked me whether I wanted to meet a man who was selling Pol Pot's shoes.
If this was a tourist scam, it was a pretty original one. I got into a beaten-up old car and we drove for about 15 minutes until we got to a house on the outskirts of town.
The man met us at the door. He was nutbrown with a squeaky voice and very hospitable. Once seated, he produced two Rolleiflex cameras and a pair of old sandals made from car tyres, as was the custom with the Khmer Rouge. After a brief chat it soon became clear that the sandals were not the story.
The man turned out to be Nhem En, the photographer of the prisoners brought into the notorious Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh to be tortured and then murdered. This man's photographs are now possibly the most poignant and hideous symbols of the genocide committed by Pol Pot's regime in the late Seventies. Here I was, sitting in his living room with his grandchildren running around his feet, smoking Alain Delon cigarettes. I felt sick. Once I realised who this man was I tried to leave as soon as possible, but was unable to do so without going through a protracted souvenir photograph session looking down the lens of evil.
Four days later I was in Tuol Sleng itself, staring at the heartbreaking photographs that Nhem En had taken. With me was Chun Mei, one of only seven survivors from the place. He showed me how he had been shackled to the floor and cudgelled if he moved without permission. His fingers were distorted, the result of endless beatings and of having his fingernails ripped out.
This being Cambodia, however, things weren't quite so black and white. Chun Mei was a member of the Khmer Rouge before the organisation started to turn its murderous intent on itself. Nothing is quite so simple as goodie and baddie, victim and perpetrator, in this unbelievably beautiful country.
One certainty is the guilt of "Comrade Duch", the former commander of Tuol Sleng. He is currently on trial just outside Phnom Penh in a hugely expensive joint UN-Cambodian tribunal.
I found a man who claimed he could get me into the trial. This time we met at the Foreign Correspondents' Club overlooking the river in Phnom Penh. I started to wonder whether all foreign correspondents had it this easy, sitting around drinking gin in their club until a story turned up and tapped them on the shoulder?
When I arrived at the court, disaster: there was a dress code and shorts were a strict no-no. A policeman roared off on a bike and returned with some trousers he offered to "rent" me. Suitably attired, I entered. We sat in a half-empty auditorium looking at the court through a thick wall of glass framed by heavy dark wood.
Two rows of sombre-looking judges faced the defendant. He sat with his back to us, dwarfed by proceedings. Duch's voice however, was strong as he talked about "smashing people to bits" – his term for executions. He was very precise on the tiny details of daily life in Tuol Sleng.
During a short break I walked right up to the glass, as though in a zoo. Duch rose from his seat and turned to look at us, his audience. For three seconds our eyes met – three seconds I shall never forget.
Revealed: The Khmer Rouge's face of torture
These are the first images of Khmer Rouge prison interrogator Ta Chan who continues to live in a remote Cambodian village Mail Online
http://www.dailymail.co.uk
CNN reporter Dan Rivers tracks down Ta Chan, the chief interrogator of the Khmer Rouge’s notorious S-21 prison camp ...
By Mail Foreign Service
03rd May 2009
A groundbreaking documentary sheds new light on atrocities committed in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-1979.
The regime killed a greater proportion of their own people - more than 1.7 million men, women and children - than any other regime in the 20th century.
Five Khmer Rouge leaders are now in court facing justice, including Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who was head of Security Prison 21 (S21).
Click here to watch Part 1
But prison interrogator Ta Chan continues to live in a remote Cambodian village. While he has not been charged with any crime, survivors say Ta Chan played a key role at S21.
In exclusive footage from 1996, Ta Chan gives a guided tour of what he said at the time was a recently closed Khmer Rouge prison in the jungle.
Rarely seen footage from 1998 of the last known TV interview with ailing Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who led the country into the horrors of genocide, is also shown.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk
CNN reporter Dan Rivers tracks down Ta Chan, the chief interrogator of the Khmer Rouge’s notorious S-21 prison camp ...
By Mail Foreign Service
03rd May 2009
A groundbreaking documentary sheds new light on atrocities committed in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime of 1975-1979.
The regime killed a greater proportion of their own people - more than 1.7 million men, women and children - than any other regime in the 20th century.
Five Khmer Rouge leaders are now in court facing justice, including Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who was head of Security Prison 21 (S21).
Click here to watch Part 1
But prison interrogator Ta Chan continues to live in a remote Cambodian village. While he has not been charged with any crime, survivors say Ta Chan played a key role at S21.
In exclusive footage from 1996, Ta Chan gives a guided tour of what he said at the time was a recently closed Khmer Rouge prison in the jungle.
Rarely seen footage from 1998 of the last known TV interview with ailing Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who led the country into the horrors of genocide, is also shown.
Norng Champha, a survivor of the notorious S21 prison camp, breaks down in tears as he watches footage of himself of the day he was rescuedAmong the programme’s extraordinary moments, a survivor of S21 sees himself on film shot the day he was rescued. At the time, Norng Champhal was a young child whose mother was among those executed.
More than 30 years later, he breaks down in tears as he sees the images and recounts the horror of the death camp. He describes how he survived by hiding in a pile of discarded clothes.
For survivors, feelings for the trials are mixed as both defence and prosecution lawyers reveal the credibility of the UN-backed war crimes tribunal is being jeopardised by the corruption allegations.
Click here to watch Part 2:
While there are no suggestions the judges or lawyers are involved, employees of the court’s Office of Administration described pressure to to provide kickbacks to supervisors to keep their jobs. The employees say the combined amounts of the kickbacks were large: 'Thousand dollars. 30 or 40 thousand US dollars a month.'
More than 30 years later, he breaks down in tears as he sees the images and recounts the horror of the death camp. He describes how he survived by hiding in a pile of discarded clothes.
For survivors, feelings for the trials are mixed as both defence and prosecution lawyers reveal the credibility of the UN-backed war crimes tribunal is being jeopardised by the corruption allegations.
Click here to watch Part 2:
While there are no suggestions the judges or lawyers are involved, employees of the court’s Office of Administration described pressure to to provide kickbacks to supervisors to keep their jobs. The employees say the combined amounts of the kickbacks were large: 'Thousand dollars. 30 or 40 thousand US dollars a month.'
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was responsible for overseeing one of the worst genocides in modern historyThe Chief of Defence Section of the trial, Richard Rogers, adds: 'It (the trial collapsing) is becoming a real possibility… the victims who’ve been waiting for 30 years for these trials deserve justice…peace…closure.'
The UN’s internal affairs body confirmed to CNN it has investigated the alleged corruption in the court administration, but would not share the results of the investigation.
The Cambodian government also confirmed an investigation, but says no evidence of corruption was found.
World's Untold Stories: Killing Fields: Long Road to Justice is shown tonight on CNN at 0930, 1800 and 2330 and Sunday at 1530
Ex-Khmer Rouge: Death was certain in his prison
Incarceration at the Khmer Rouge's most notorious prison was tantamount to a death sentence since not even the movement's supreme leader had the right to release prisoners, the centre's chief told a special tribunal on Thursday.
Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, commanded the Phnom Penh prison where as many as 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been tortured before being sent to their deaths. Only a handful survived.
Duch, 66, is being tried by a U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal for crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture.
The UN’s internal affairs body confirmed to CNN it has investigated the alleged corruption in the court administration, but would not share the results of the investigation.
The Cambodian government also confirmed an investigation, but says no evidence of corruption was found.
World's Untold Stories: Killing Fields: Long Road to Justice is shown tonight on CNN at 0930, 1800 and 2330 and Sunday at 1530
Ex-Khmer Rouge: Death was certain in his prison
Incarceration at the Khmer Rouge's most notorious prison was tantamount to a death sentence since not even the movement's supreme leader had the right to release prisoners, the centre's chief told a special tribunal on Thursday.
Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, commanded the Phnom Penh prison where as many as 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been tortured before being sent to their deaths. Only a handful survived.
Duch, 66, is being tried by a U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal for crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture.
Former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, on a screen at a court press centre during the tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia'When people were perceived as enemies and arrested and sent to S-21, no one was entitled to release them. Even Pol Pot, the most senior person in the Khmer Rouge, acknowledged that he had no right to release any people,' Duch said.
'That was the party line,' he said.
Duch (pronounced Doik) recalled that one prisoner, a dentist, was arrested and later petitioned Pol Pot to keep him alive so he could treat the Khmer Rouge leaders. He did not say what happened to the dentist.
During the testimony, Duch said that before 1970, the Khmer Rouge had no internal purges and dared not harm people under their control because they needed their support to fight the war against the U.S.-backed central government.
The killings and purges began in 1973, two years before the Khmer Rouge victory in April 1975, he said. Then about a year later, thousands of people were arrested throughout the country and branded as 'state enemies.
''It is clear that the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) cannot avoid being prosecuted for the crimes it committed,' he said.
'Everyone was involved, including myself, but the senior leaders, they were the direct perpetrators.
'Duch said he never refused or failed to implement orders from above and thus was able to survive.
Duch is the first senior Khmer Rouge figure to face trial and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. Senior leaders Khieu Samphan, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Ieng Sary's wife, who are all being detained, are likely to be tried in the next year or two.
In their own words
ST PHOTO: Sim Chi YinThe Straits Times
http://www.straitstimes.com
May 2, 2009
Saturday Special Report
'FORTIFY the spirit of the revolution! Be on your guard against the strategy and tactics of the enemy so as to defend the country, the people and the Party.'
- Khmer inscription on the gate of the secret S-21 prison when it was discovered by Vietnamese troops after the Khmer Rouge fell in January 1979
'If there is instability, the government has the ability to deal with it. Who would fight the court? Assuming they arrest six more former leaders or whatever, the people in Anlong Veng will take a truck and drive it to the court? And they would fight with whom?
Who is their enemy now? The court?
But in a way, the concern is legitimate. There might be political instability. But I'd love for the Khmer Rouge to come out on the street to say 'Look, this is why I joined the Khmer Rouge'. Tell us why you join the Khmer Rouge, don't just sit there and deny it. That's healthy debate.
I don't think that will destablise society. The govt has the ability to prevent any violence. No doubt.'
- Mr Youk Chhang, 47, director of NGO Documentation Center of Cambodia, responding to critics' charge that trying more ex-Khmer Rouge would destabilise Cambodia or plunge it back into civil war
'No one shows anger at my father. You can go around and ask Cambodians if they are angry. It's the trial that is inciting people to hate the Khmer Rouge.'
'I have no hope that my father will be freed. Right or wrong, he will be tried. We can't do anything about it.'
'As his son, I feel he was committed to not just the Khmer Rouge but to the whole country.'
'I don't know who should be responsible (for the 1.7 million deaths). I don't feel my father is wrong.'
- Mr Khieu U Dom, 36, son of former Khmer Rouge president Khieu Samphan.
'Cambodians, even in Anlong Veng, don't care about the trial. They care about their stomachs. But in the long run, it will be important as historical record.
'I'm not bothered about the trial. The government and the UN will take care of it. Trying those five leaders should be enough. No need to spend too much money. And then Cambodians can get on with their lives.
'If they really want to seek responsibility, they should also try America, and several other countries...
'If they want to try me, okay. But they will have to find proof.'
- Mr Nhem En, 48, former Khmer Rouge cadre who joined the movement at age 11 and rose to become photographer at S-21 Prison, making many of the infamous, haunting portraits of prisoners before they were executed. Now a deputy governor of northwest Anlong Veng district.
'The court detained him only as a suspect, so he is not guilty yet, and it is illegal to imprison him for that. Pol Pot was the top leader, whereas he (Nuon Chea) was the deputy secretary of the Democratic Kampuchea and chairman of the National Assembly. So he was not in charge of the executive body of the Khmer Rouge and had not right or power to order those people to commit killings.
'I dare not to say if the trial is fair or not because I am still making investigations on all the charges imposed by the prosecutors. I want to find out if the charges are correct or not. If he ordered the killing, I can't protect him either.'
- Mr Sun Arun, Cambodian lawyer for 'Brother No.2' Nuon Chea, 81, Khmer Rouge ideologue and Pol Pot's right-hand man, the most senior of the five Khmer Rouge leaders in custody. He emerged from the jungle at the end of Cambodia's civil war in 1998 and lived near the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin, near the Thai border, until his arrest in 2007. Now charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Due to be tried in the next year or two.
'I have not asked him about the atrocities. He still asks not to be asked any questions at all. Let the prosecutor find the truth'.
-Mr Ang Oudom, Cambodian lawyer for former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary. Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, who had been Khmer Rouge's social affairs minister, had been living freely in the Cambodian capital for more than 10 years before being arrested in 2007 for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
'People shouldn't hate our whole family. They should hate only those responsible. Our neighbours have no issues with us. Some people think we got benefits because we're Pol Pot's family but it's not true at all. We suffered like everyone else.
'Nobody has come to try to take revenge on us. But no one wants to go back to that regime.
'In Buddhism, whoever acts will bear the consequences of those acts. If one does good deeds, he will receive good. If he does bad things, he will get retribution.'
- Sarloth Nhep, 83, Pol Pot's youngest brother
'He was a nice, studious boy. He studied hard - not like the kids in this generation! I heard he's now on trial. I think he probably did what he's accused of. Even in this village, we just followed the village chief's orders. They used young children as security guards. We couldn't oppose them. So I can't really say what Kieu did or didn't do. If you're promoted to a high rank and the boss asked you to do something, you'll have to do it. That's how it is.'
- Rice farmer Tan Hing, 82, lives a few doors down from where Duch once lived. Also distant cousin of Duch's father.
'One of the paradoxes of the Cambodian genocide is the blurriness of the lines between perpetrators and victims. As Duch noted in his trial, the Khmer Rouge explicitly selected young children, who they likened to a blank slate, to serve as cadres. Many were involved in killings. Some even killed their family members and relatives. To what extent is a young child of 13, 14, or 15 responsible for such acts? It is a difficult question to answer.
'Similarly, many perpetrators later became victims. The mug shots at the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes are iconic images of the Cambodian genocide. But the majority of the people in these photos were former Khmer Rouge who were being purged. Some were themselves involved in purges and mass murder. Are they victims or perpetrators?
- Professor Alex Hinton, director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at the Rutgers University in the US.
'As a 'court of law', this court has limited value. All courts, no matter how developed or advanced, are mandated to try evidence. Here, the evidence is 30 years old, lost, compromised and the witnesses are either dead and/or too frightened to come forward. Moreover, this court is tainted with charges of corruption and political interference. But it is also a 'court of public opinion' - one that fosters dialogue long-overdue topics such as history, healing, reconciliation, forgiveness.'
-Ms Theary Seng, 38, lawyer and director of Cambodian NGO, the Center for Social Development. She will be a 'civil party' in the trial of the four other Khmer Rouge leaders in custody. Author of 'Daughter of the Killing Fields'. Spent five months in a Khmer Rouge prison; both parents were killed by the regime. She and surviving family members trekked across to Thailand in late 1979 and fled to the US.
'Most people's pain and anger are now diluted. They don't want revenge anymore. I just want the tribunal to try those five leaders without further delay.'
-Madam Sok Kheng, 62, sugarcane juice seller, in a southern suburb of Phnom Penh. Lost four members of her family to the Khmer Rouge.
'I worry that these leaders will die and nothing will happen. Like with Pol Pot and Ta Mok. Before the establishment of the court, we thought justice was very far away, but now it seems at hand. It just needs to proceed quickly.
- Mr Hong Ra, 56, retired civil servant, lost more than 30 family members during the Khmer Rouge. Has been following Duch's trial daily on TV and radio.
'Water always flows from the top to bottom, never the other way around. I believe lower ranked leaders like Duch were just following orders to survive. I'm not saying he should be pardoned, but I see that as the reality.'
- Mr Hong Ra, 56, retired civil servant, lost more than 30 family members during the Khmer Rouge. Has been following Duch's trial daily on TV and radio.
'The court reminds people of the past and the pain. But 30 years have past and it's not so painful anymore. Cambodian people believe in letting bygones be bygones. The tribunal is still necessary because it will reveal information about events of the past. But whether it will bring justice or not, I don't know.'
- Mr Hong Ra, 56, retired civil servant, lost more than 30 family members during the Khmer Rouge. Has been following Duch's trial daily on TV and radio.
'I don't know about the trial. We are busy making a living. I still feel angry when I think about how the Khmer Rouge killed my family, and how we had so little food and had to work very hard. But we're just angry. What can we do about it?
- Mr Soi Savoeun, 53, fisherman, lives in a village next to Cheoung Ek, the killing field where prisoners from S21 were taken to be executed. Chased out to the countryside to farm rice during the Khmer Rouge's rule, he returned to his home village after the regime fell in early 1979 to discover heaps of bloated corpses, some with blindfolds over their eyes, in the vicinity. The stench lasted for almost half a year, he said.
'I'm not following the trial very closely because I'm very busy with my business. But it's good to have this trial because like our parents told us, the Khmer Rouge killed lots of people. And with this court, there's a lot in the media about the Khmer Rouge, so younger Cambodians can learn about it too.'
- Mr Sreng Sona, 28, a trader in office equipment, from Kbal Koh village 30 km south of Phnom Penh.
'I'm shocked by what I saw. I feel afraid of the Khmer Rouge and a lot of pity for the victims. I will remember this forever, and tell my children too. We don't want the Khmer Rouge to come back.'
- High school student Lorn Dalin, 17, from Kampot province, a 2� hour drive from Phnom Penh, after a tour of Tuol Sleng / S21 prison
'I know my grandparents have been waiting for this day. They don't say much because they want to live in the present. But they have been following the news of Mr Duch's trial by listening to radio every day. I know many people like my parents and grandparents are still angry with the Khmer Rouge. They want justice and fairness. Me too. We need to learn about these stories, our own history. If we don't study it, it will be lost and future generations of Cambodians won't know that we had this cruel regime.'
- High school student Eng Rithy, 17, at the start of Duch's trial.
'I know there is a trial on but I don't know the man on trial. I believe only some of the Khmer Rouge stories my parents tell me because I didn't see it for myself. And I find it hard to believe that Khmer people killed Khmer people.'
- High school student Kun Thida, 16.
'I don't have time to follow the trial but I know it's important because so many Cambodians suffered. What I don't understand is why the court costs so much money and how come the Khmer Rouge leaders' children are rich and doing well. Maybe it's our government policy. They should spent the money to help the old victims instead.'
- Mr Reang Chan Phi Run, 29, hotel receptionist in Phnom Penh.
'It's a powerful and big step forward, especially since he's the only one of the five in custody who has confessed. But the question is whether it is really from his heart or for a reduction of sentence.'
- Mr Long Panhavuth, 34, programme officer with the local NGO Cambodia Justice Initiative, on Duch's admission of guilt and public apology for the regime's atrocities.
http://www.straitstimes.com
May 2, 2009
Saturday Special Report
'FORTIFY the spirit of the revolution! Be on your guard against the strategy and tactics of the enemy so as to defend the country, the people and the Party.'
- Khmer inscription on the gate of the secret S-21 prison when it was discovered by Vietnamese troops after the Khmer Rouge fell in January 1979
'If there is instability, the government has the ability to deal with it. Who would fight the court? Assuming they arrest six more former leaders or whatever, the people in Anlong Veng will take a truck and drive it to the court? And they would fight with whom?
Who is their enemy now? The court?
But in a way, the concern is legitimate. There might be political instability. But I'd love for the Khmer Rouge to come out on the street to say 'Look, this is why I joined the Khmer Rouge'. Tell us why you join the Khmer Rouge, don't just sit there and deny it. That's healthy debate.
I don't think that will destablise society. The govt has the ability to prevent any violence. No doubt.'
- Mr Youk Chhang, 47, director of NGO Documentation Center of Cambodia, responding to critics' charge that trying more ex-Khmer Rouge would destabilise Cambodia or plunge it back into civil war
'No one shows anger at my father. You can go around and ask Cambodians if they are angry. It's the trial that is inciting people to hate the Khmer Rouge.'
'I have no hope that my father will be freed. Right or wrong, he will be tried. We can't do anything about it.'
'As his son, I feel he was committed to not just the Khmer Rouge but to the whole country.'
'I don't know who should be responsible (for the 1.7 million deaths). I don't feel my father is wrong.'
- Mr Khieu U Dom, 36, son of former Khmer Rouge president Khieu Samphan.
'Cambodians, even in Anlong Veng, don't care about the trial. They care about their stomachs. But in the long run, it will be important as historical record.
'I'm not bothered about the trial. The government and the UN will take care of it. Trying those five leaders should be enough. No need to spend too much money. And then Cambodians can get on with their lives.
'If they really want to seek responsibility, they should also try America, and several other countries...
'If they want to try me, okay. But they will have to find proof.'
- Mr Nhem En, 48, former Khmer Rouge cadre who joined the movement at age 11 and rose to become photographer at S-21 Prison, making many of the infamous, haunting portraits of prisoners before they were executed. Now a deputy governor of northwest Anlong Veng district.
'The court detained him only as a suspect, so he is not guilty yet, and it is illegal to imprison him for that. Pol Pot was the top leader, whereas he (Nuon Chea) was the deputy secretary of the Democratic Kampuchea and chairman of the National Assembly. So he was not in charge of the executive body of the Khmer Rouge and had not right or power to order those people to commit killings.
'I dare not to say if the trial is fair or not because I am still making investigations on all the charges imposed by the prosecutors. I want to find out if the charges are correct or not. If he ordered the killing, I can't protect him either.'
- Mr Sun Arun, Cambodian lawyer for 'Brother No.2' Nuon Chea, 81, Khmer Rouge ideologue and Pol Pot's right-hand man, the most senior of the five Khmer Rouge leaders in custody. He emerged from the jungle at the end of Cambodia's civil war in 1998 and lived near the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin, near the Thai border, until his arrest in 2007. Now charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Due to be tried in the next year or two.
'I have not asked him about the atrocities. He still asks not to be asked any questions at all. Let the prosecutor find the truth'.
-Mr Ang Oudom, Cambodian lawyer for former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary. Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, who had been Khmer Rouge's social affairs minister, had been living freely in the Cambodian capital for more than 10 years before being arrested in 2007 for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
'People shouldn't hate our whole family. They should hate only those responsible. Our neighbours have no issues with us. Some people think we got benefits because we're Pol Pot's family but it's not true at all. We suffered like everyone else.
'Nobody has come to try to take revenge on us. But no one wants to go back to that regime.
'In Buddhism, whoever acts will bear the consequences of those acts. If one does good deeds, he will receive good. If he does bad things, he will get retribution.'
- Sarloth Nhep, 83, Pol Pot's youngest brother
'He was a nice, studious boy. He studied hard - not like the kids in this generation! I heard he's now on trial. I think he probably did what he's accused of. Even in this village, we just followed the village chief's orders. They used young children as security guards. We couldn't oppose them. So I can't really say what Kieu did or didn't do. If you're promoted to a high rank and the boss asked you to do something, you'll have to do it. That's how it is.'
- Rice farmer Tan Hing, 82, lives a few doors down from where Duch once lived. Also distant cousin of Duch's father.
'One of the paradoxes of the Cambodian genocide is the blurriness of the lines between perpetrators and victims. As Duch noted in his trial, the Khmer Rouge explicitly selected young children, who they likened to a blank slate, to serve as cadres. Many were involved in killings. Some even killed their family members and relatives. To what extent is a young child of 13, 14, or 15 responsible for such acts? It is a difficult question to answer.
'Similarly, many perpetrators later became victims. The mug shots at the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocidal Crimes are iconic images of the Cambodian genocide. But the majority of the people in these photos were former Khmer Rouge who were being purged. Some were themselves involved in purges and mass murder. Are they victims or perpetrators?
- Professor Alex Hinton, director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at the Rutgers University in the US.
'As a 'court of law', this court has limited value. All courts, no matter how developed or advanced, are mandated to try evidence. Here, the evidence is 30 years old, lost, compromised and the witnesses are either dead and/or too frightened to come forward. Moreover, this court is tainted with charges of corruption and political interference. But it is also a 'court of public opinion' - one that fosters dialogue long-overdue topics such as history, healing, reconciliation, forgiveness.'
-Ms Theary Seng, 38, lawyer and director of Cambodian NGO, the Center for Social Development. She will be a 'civil party' in the trial of the four other Khmer Rouge leaders in custody. Author of 'Daughter of the Killing Fields'. Spent five months in a Khmer Rouge prison; both parents were killed by the regime. She and surviving family members trekked across to Thailand in late 1979 and fled to the US.
'Most people's pain and anger are now diluted. They don't want revenge anymore. I just want the tribunal to try those five leaders without further delay.'
-Madam Sok Kheng, 62, sugarcane juice seller, in a southern suburb of Phnom Penh. Lost four members of her family to the Khmer Rouge.
'I worry that these leaders will die and nothing will happen. Like with Pol Pot and Ta Mok. Before the establishment of the court, we thought justice was very far away, but now it seems at hand. It just needs to proceed quickly.
- Mr Hong Ra, 56, retired civil servant, lost more than 30 family members during the Khmer Rouge. Has been following Duch's trial daily on TV and radio.
'Water always flows from the top to bottom, never the other way around. I believe lower ranked leaders like Duch were just following orders to survive. I'm not saying he should be pardoned, but I see that as the reality.'
- Mr Hong Ra, 56, retired civil servant, lost more than 30 family members during the Khmer Rouge. Has been following Duch's trial daily on TV and radio.
'The court reminds people of the past and the pain. But 30 years have past and it's not so painful anymore. Cambodian people believe in letting bygones be bygones. The tribunal is still necessary because it will reveal information about events of the past. But whether it will bring justice or not, I don't know.'
- Mr Hong Ra, 56, retired civil servant, lost more than 30 family members during the Khmer Rouge. Has been following Duch's trial daily on TV and radio.
'I don't know about the trial. We are busy making a living. I still feel angry when I think about how the Khmer Rouge killed my family, and how we had so little food and had to work very hard. But we're just angry. What can we do about it?
- Mr Soi Savoeun, 53, fisherman, lives in a village next to Cheoung Ek, the killing field where prisoners from S21 were taken to be executed. Chased out to the countryside to farm rice during the Khmer Rouge's rule, he returned to his home village after the regime fell in early 1979 to discover heaps of bloated corpses, some with blindfolds over their eyes, in the vicinity. The stench lasted for almost half a year, he said.
'I'm not following the trial very closely because I'm very busy with my business. But it's good to have this trial because like our parents told us, the Khmer Rouge killed lots of people. And with this court, there's a lot in the media about the Khmer Rouge, so younger Cambodians can learn about it too.'
- Mr Sreng Sona, 28, a trader in office equipment, from Kbal Koh village 30 km south of Phnom Penh.
'I'm shocked by what I saw. I feel afraid of the Khmer Rouge and a lot of pity for the victims. I will remember this forever, and tell my children too. We don't want the Khmer Rouge to come back.'
- High school student Lorn Dalin, 17, from Kampot province, a 2� hour drive from Phnom Penh, after a tour of Tuol Sleng / S21 prison
'I know my grandparents have been waiting for this day. They don't say much because they want to live in the present. But they have been following the news of Mr Duch's trial by listening to radio every day. I know many people like my parents and grandparents are still angry with the Khmer Rouge. They want justice and fairness. Me too. We need to learn about these stories, our own history. If we don't study it, it will be lost and future generations of Cambodians won't know that we had this cruel regime.'
- High school student Eng Rithy, 17, at the start of Duch's trial.
'I know there is a trial on but I don't know the man on trial. I believe only some of the Khmer Rouge stories my parents tell me because I didn't see it for myself. And I find it hard to believe that Khmer people killed Khmer people.'
- High school student Kun Thida, 16.
'I don't have time to follow the trial but I know it's important because so many Cambodians suffered. What I don't understand is why the court costs so much money and how come the Khmer Rouge leaders' children are rich and doing well. Maybe it's our government policy. They should spent the money to help the old victims instead.'
- Mr Reang Chan Phi Run, 29, hotel receptionist in Phnom Penh.
'It's a powerful and big step forward, especially since he's the only one of the five in custody who has confessed. But the question is whether it is really from his heart or for a reduction of sentence.'
- Mr Long Panhavuth, 34, programme officer with the local NGO Cambodia Justice Initiative, on Duch's admission of guilt and public apology for the regime's atrocities.
Pakistan’s impending ‘Cambodian Moment’ (Comment)
Thaindain Newshttp://www.thaindian.com
May 3rd, 2009
By Harold A. Gould
The latest news from the Hindu Kush makes one thing painfully apparent: The Taliban/Al Qaeda jihadistani quasi state, “Jihadistan Emirate”, has achieved critical mass. It has now metastasized into a killer disease that threatens the survival of Pakistan’s fragile democracy.
The decisive indication that coherent political integration has been achieved by the Taliban is their successful conquest of Swat. This initial incursion outside their montane territorial fortress now shows that Taliban/Al Qaeda can call the shots regarding subsequent targets. This is evident from their deliberate and systematic expansion from Swat into the contiguous portions of Malakand Division, commencing with Buner district.
What is striking is that they are undertaking the latter in blatant defiance of agreements that were ostensibly ratified between them and the Pakistani government. It is clear, in other words, that the Taliban/Al Qaeda leadership view understandings and agreements that have been made with government authorities in the course of their politico-military expansion purely in tactical terms.
They sense the weakness and paralysis of the Pakistani government, and its consequent willingness (nay eagerness!) to engage in political appeasement, as a golden opportunity to gradually overpower and gain control of the Pakistani state.
The signs are everywhere that the Taliban/Al Qaeda strategy is working, and the authority of the Pakistan government is gradually waning despite official assurances to the contrary. Pakistani officials insist that the situation is under control when all the evidence points in the opposite direction. When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton alluded to the “existential threat” to Pakistan’s survival posed by the extremists, Pakistan’s Ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani, replied that “we do not have a situation in which the government or the country of Pakistan is about to fall to the Taliban.”
His statement exemplifies the state of denial the democratically elected government of Pakistan is in. Clearly, President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and even army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani are in a state of paralytic inaction.
If one is searching for an analogy to what may be forthcoming from the Hindu Kush, in the face of the breakdown of popular government in Pakistan, it might not be far fetched to look no further than the Pol Pot phenomenon and the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. There are disturbing similarities between the two cases.
As the Khmer Rouge germinated and perfected their retrograde Maoist extremism in the remote jungle backwater of Cambodia, so the Taliban and Al Qaeda have honed their brand of doctrinal extremism and their accompanying organizational apparatus in the remote valleys of the Hindu Kush. As in the case of the Khmer Rouge, the Americans and the purportedly more advanced segments of Pakistani society at first took the extremists lightly, slighted them strategically, and indeed played political footsie with them until it became apparent that they were a serous threat.
When it seemed to then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger that the Khmer Rouge could be useful in opposing the North Vietnamese, in January 1968 the US Army helped the Khmer Rouge establish the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea, which materially strengthened them. Much as ISI and the CIA from time to time bolstered the Taliban when it seemed they might be of value to both countries’ regional strategic interests.
There is another horror scenario waiting in the wings should a political collapse result in a “Cambodian Moment” for Pakistan. A Taliban regime in Pakistan would not only tear at the social fabric of Pakistan and plunge millions of Pakistanis into fratricidal conflict, it would potentially place nuclear weapons in the hands of lunatics like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar!
This would impose on US President Barack Obama a moral dilemma beyond anything he could have imagined or contemplated when he assumed office. The only option open to him would be to take out the Pakistani nuclear facility at Chagai Hills in much the same manner, but on a grander scale, than Israel did when it feared that Saddam Husain’s Daura reactor near Baghdad would go critical by July or August of 1981.
The ramifications this would have for South Asia and indeed the entire world boggle the mind.
Yet this is a scenario whose occurrence cannot be dismissed as long as Pakistan’s civil society acting through its elected secular government, in consonance with the United States and the UN, move decisively before it is too late.
(03.05.2009 - Harold A. Gould is visiting scholar in South Asian Studies at the University of Virginia. He can be contacted at harold.gould4@verizon.net)
borei keila -- lives at risk
http://www.amnestyusa.org
Amnesty International
"I want Prime Minister Hun Sen and [his wife] Bun Rany to know that we are living in misery so that they can help and intervene, because we have no one else. We also want to live."
Community member living with HIV and facing forced eviction
Around 32 Phnom Penh families living with HIV-AIDS are facing imminent forced eviction from Borei Keila in central Phnom Penh to a resettlement site without water, electricity and medical services. The families, who now live in temporary shelters, have protested at the planned resettlement to Tuol Sambo, some 25 kilometres from the city, where they would have no means of income and lose access to adequate health services.
L iving conditions at Tuol Sambo pose a great health risk while transport costs to continue anti-retroviral treatment and access to medical services in the city would be prohibitive. So far, their protests to the authorities have been unsuccessful.
"They have told us that we will have to leave early May", said Seang Vy, 32, who is blind from opportunistic disease as a result of HIV.
Seang Vy told Amnesty International that members of all the families have visited Tuol Sambo to see the site for themselves; her mother went to check it on her behalf. They describe the housing as cramped, unstable and lacking basic services, but fear the distance to medical facilities the most.
"I wonder if they want us to move there so that we die more q
"I wonder if they want us to move there so that we die more quickly," said Seang Vy, a Borei Keila community representative.
uickly. If we get sick at night, there is no means of transportation," she said.
And if they get sick during the day, they may not be able to afford a motorcycle taxi to travel to a clinic. All 32 families have at least one member who requires anti-retroviral treatment, a life-saving treatment provided through government- and NGO-supported programs. However, many have opportunistic infections.
The resettlement site
The housing at the resettlement site in Dangkor district is made of green metal sheets and looks distinct from the other homes in the semi-rural area. When Amnesty International visited the site in April 2009, villagers in the vicinity already referred to it as "the AIDS-village". Seang Vy and the other village representatives expressed strong fears that they will face further discrimination and stigmatization because of their HIV status if forced to live in this separate, distinct enclave. Stigmatization may be further perpetuated by their poverty and lack of job opportunities.
"We are afraid that [in Tuol Sambo] we won't be able to sell anything we might produce, and we won't be able to touch meat or fruit when we go to the market. That's not the case in the city, where people have many ways of living and don't have such ideas", said Thy, 35, a mother of two.
T he resettlement housing does not meet minimal standards for emergency shelter with respect to size, fire safety and sanitation, according to Medecins Sans Frontiers, which surveyed the site in 2008 when construction had first begun. The buildings are too close together for safety and ventilation, while the land and the buildings are unstable. The living space is not sufficient for an average family and there is no privacy as the metal sheets separating the flats are only partial.
Tuol Sambo has no clean water supply and only a very rudimentary sanitation system. The housing is made of corrugated metal which makes the inside space very hot, while the outside space between the rows of housing is almost non-existent.
"There is no land to plant even a banana tree," said Seang Vy.
Most of the 32 families are living in severe poverty and would sink even deeper into poverty if they are forcibly e
The housing at the resettlement site at Tuol Sambo is far from adequate: it is cramped and lacks basic amenities, including clean water supply.
Evicted to Tuol Sambo.
Currently they make a living as scavengers or porters in a market near to Borei Keila or as day labourers, earning daily wages of between 6,000 and 10,000 riels (approx 1.50-2.5 USD). A one-way trip from Tuol Sambo to their current work places costs an estimated 15,000 riels, so the forced eviction would effectively deprive them of their means to earn a living.
T hy and her husband, both of them living with HIV, struggle to earn an income due to health problems. She has had to give up her work as a fruit-seller a year ago, and they rely on what her husband can earn as a motorcycle taxi driver. It would be very difficult for him to earn enough driving a taxi in the semi-rural village of T
Thy and her husband Prum Pel are both in poor health and struggle to earn a living. Like the other 31 families they rely on access to medical services.
Tuol Sambo.
Borei Keila -- a social land concession
The families live within a large poor urban community, Borei Keila, which the government designated as a so-called social land concession for residential development in 2003. Poor, homeless families are the primary beneficiaries of social land concessions, according to the 2003 Sub-Decree on Social Land Concessions. In the case of Borei Keila social land concession it was intended to be implemented as a land-sharing arrangement between a private developer, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, and residents. The agreement gave the developer 2.6 hectares of the land in Borei Keila for commercial development, in exchange for constructing new housing for the original over 1,700 residents on two hectares of the land. The remainder, consisting of 10 hectares, was to be returned to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.
In March 2007 the Municipality of Phnom Penh resettled the families, who lived in Borei Keila, against their will and reportedly with force, in the so-called Green Houses, temporary shelters built -- just like the resettlement site - of mostly green corrugated metal sheets. The authorities told them that they would stay there for a few months only, to pave way for the construction of a number of residential multi-storey houses. They agreed, hoping that at least
those of them who had rented housing since at least 2000 would get flats in the new buildings, still under construction.
Many of the 32 families have lived in Borei Keila long enough to be eligible for flats in the new buildings, in accordance with a 2004 agreement between the Municipality and the community that affords housing entitlements to renter families residing in Borei Keila since the year 2000 or earlier. However, in an assessment process involving NGOs and the UN in March 2007, officials of the Municipality refused to assess the vast majority of cases involving HIV-affected families. Seang Vy, Thy and others believe that the authorities discriminated against them because of their HIV status. Instead of assessing them to determine eligibility for flats in the new buildings, the authorities decided to forcibly evict them.
On 27 April 2009, amid criticism against the imminent forced eviction, local officials - for the first time - publicly acknowledged to journalists that families who are eligible should receive apartments at Borei Keila. However, there appears to have been no decision to halt the planned forced eviction, nor have any representatives of the Prampi Makara District, mandated to conduct such vetting, started assessing the families' eligibility. Sun Srun, the District Governor, told the Cambodia Daily on 11 April 2009 that the families "must accept this offer" [of relocation].
Amnesty International believes that those who have been denied housing for which they are eligible, should immediately be given apartments at Borei Keila. Any family found ineligible, should be provided other adequate alternative housing with access to health services for anti-retroviral treatment and treatment and job opportunities.
Background
The last decade has seen a steady rise in the number of reported land disputes and land confiscations and evictions, including forced evictions, in Cambodia. Victims are almost exclusively marginalized people living in poverty, who are unable to obtain effective remedies. This rise is a result of the lack of the rule of law; a seriously delayed process of legal and judicial reform; and endemic corruption.
In 2008, Amnesty International received reports about 27 forced evictions, affecting an estimated 23,000 people. Some 150,000 Cambodians are known to be living at risk of forced eviction in the wake of land disputes, land grabbing, agro-industrial and urban redevelopment projects. An estimated 70,000 of these live in Phnom Penh.
HIV prevalence is reported to be declining in Cambodia, down from 1.2 percent of the adult population between 15 and 49 years in 2003 to 0.9 percent in June 2007, according to UNAIDS. The number of people living with HIV is estimated at 71,000.
As a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and other international human rights treaties, Cambodia has an obligation to stop forced evictions and to protect the population from forced evictions.
Forced evictions are evictions carried out without adequate notice, consultation with those affected, without legal safeguards and without assurances of adequate alternative accommodation. Whether they be owners, renters or illegal settlers, everyone should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats.
Cambodia also has an obligation to ensure adequate provision of health care to all its citizens, including access to treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS. The International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and human rights also urge states to ensure universal access to HIV-related goods, services and information, and that they "not only be available, acceptable and of good quality, but within physical reach and affordable".
Cambodian health authorities, which have won international acclaim for their achievements in addressing HIV and AIDS, espouse an approach of "continuum of care" which seeks to address not only the medical issues but also social, psychological, legal, and economic consequences of living with HIV. The Cambodian 2002 Law on Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS provides that no one"shall be quarantined, placed in isolation or refused abode", or expulsed "due to the actual, perceived or suspected HIV/AIDS status of that person or his/her family members."1
TAKE ACTION!
Write urgently to the Prime Minister:
Calling on the authorities to protect the 32 families living at Borei Keila from forced eviction, and to immediately determine their eligibility for flats in the new buildings which are being built as part of the 2003 social land concession;
Calling on the authorities to guarantee adequate alternative housing with security of tenure for those found to be ineligible, including access to health services for anti-retroviral treatment and treatment for HIV and AIDS related illnesses or opportunistic infections;
Calling on the authorities to ensure that the families are not discriminated against because of their health status;
Calling on the government to end all forced evictions as a matter of urgency.
Prime Minister Hun Sen
Office of the Prime Minister
#38 Russian Federation Blvd.
Phnom Penh
Kingdom of Cambodia
Salutation: Dear Samdech
Fax: + 855 23 36 0666
Email: cabinet1b@camnet.comk.kh
Email: cabinet1b@camnet.comk.kh
1 Law on the Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS, 2002,
"I want Prime Minister Hun Sen and [his wife] Bun Rany to know that we are living in misery so that they can help and intervene, because we have no one else. We also want to live."
Community member living with HIV and facing forced eviction
Around 32 Phnom Penh families living with HIV-AIDS are facing imminent forced eviction from Borei Keila in central Phnom Penh to a resettlement site without water, electricity and medical services. The families, who now live in temporary shelters, have protested at the planned resettlement to Tuol Sambo, some 25 kilometres from the city, where they would have no means of income and lose access to adequate health services.
L iving conditions at Tuol Sambo pose a great health risk while transport costs to continue anti-retroviral treatment and access to medical services in the city would be prohibitive. So far, their protests to the authorities have been unsuccessful.
"They have told us that we will have to leave early May", said Seang Vy, 32, who is blind from opportunistic disease as a result of HIV.
Seang Vy told Amnesty International that members of all the families have visited Tuol Sambo to see the site for themselves; her mother went to check it on her behalf. They describe the housing as cramped, unstable and lacking basic services, but fear the distance to medical facilities the most.
"I wonder if they want us to move there so that we die more q
"I wonder if they want us to move there so that we die more quickly," said Seang Vy, a Borei Keila community representative.
uickly. If we get sick at night, there is no means of transportation," she said.
And if they get sick during the day, they may not be able to afford a motorcycle taxi to travel to a clinic. All 32 families have at least one member who requires anti-retroviral treatment, a life-saving treatment provided through government- and NGO-supported programs. However, many have opportunistic infections.
The resettlement site
The housing at the resettlement site in Dangkor district is made of green metal sheets and looks distinct from the other homes in the semi-rural area. When Amnesty International visited the site in April 2009, villagers in the vicinity already referred to it as "the AIDS-village". Seang Vy and the other village representatives expressed strong fears that they will face further discrimination and stigmatization because of their HIV status if forced to live in this separate, distinct enclave. Stigmatization may be further perpetuated by their poverty and lack of job opportunities.
"We are afraid that [in Tuol Sambo] we won't be able to sell anything we might produce, and we won't be able to touch meat or fruit when we go to the market. That's not the case in the city, where people have many ways of living and don't have such ideas", said Thy, 35, a mother of two.
T he resettlement housing does not meet minimal standards for emergency shelter with respect to size, fire safety and sanitation, according to Medecins Sans Frontiers, which surveyed the site in 2008 when construction had first begun. The buildings are too close together for safety and ventilation, while the land and the buildings are unstable. The living space is not sufficient for an average family and there is no privacy as the metal sheets separating the flats are only partial.
Tuol Sambo has no clean water supply and only a very rudimentary sanitation system. The housing is made of corrugated metal which makes the inside space very hot, while the outside space between the rows of housing is almost non-existent.
"There is no land to plant even a banana tree," said Seang Vy.
Most of the 32 families are living in severe poverty and would sink even deeper into poverty if they are forcibly e
The housing at the resettlement site at Tuol Sambo is far from adequate: it is cramped and lacks basic amenities, including clean water supply.
Evicted to Tuol Sambo.
Currently they make a living as scavengers or porters in a market near to Borei Keila or as day labourers, earning daily wages of between 6,000 and 10,000 riels (approx 1.50-2.5 USD). A one-way trip from Tuol Sambo to their current work places costs an estimated 15,000 riels, so the forced eviction would effectively deprive them of their means to earn a living.
T hy and her husband, both of them living with HIV, struggle to earn an income due to health problems. She has had to give up her work as a fruit-seller a year ago, and they rely on what her husband can earn as a motorcycle taxi driver. It would be very difficult for him to earn enough driving a taxi in the semi-rural village of T
Thy and her husband Prum Pel are both in poor health and struggle to earn a living. Like the other 31 families they rely on access to medical services.
Tuol Sambo.
Borei Keila -- a social land concession
The families live within a large poor urban community, Borei Keila, which the government designated as a so-called social land concession for residential development in 2003. Poor, homeless families are the primary beneficiaries of social land concessions, according to the 2003 Sub-Decree on Social Land Concessions. In the case of Borei Keila social land concession it was intended to be implemented as a land-sharing arrangement between a private developer, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, and residents. The agreement gave the developer 2.6 hectares of the land in Borei Keila for commercial development, in exchange for constructing new housing for the original over 1,700 residents on two hectares of the land. The remainder, consisting of 10 hectares, was to be returned to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.
In March 2007 the Municipality of Phnom Penh resettled the families, who lived in Borei Keila, against their will and reportedly with force, in the so-called Green Houses, temporary shelters built -- just like the resettlement site - of mostly green corrugated metal sheets. The authorities told them that they would stay there for a few months only, to pave way for the construction of a number of residential multi-storey houses. They agreed, hoping that at least
those of them who had rented housing since at least 2000 would get flats in the new buildings, still under construction.
Many of the 32 families have lived in Borei Keila long enough to be eligible for flats in the new buildings, in accordance with a 2004 agreement between the Municipality and the community that affords housing entitlements to renter families residing in Borei Keila since the year 2000 or earlier. However, in an assessment process involving NGOs and the UN in March 2007, officials of the Municipality refused to assess the vast majority of cases involving HIV-affected families. Seang Vy, Thy and others believe that the authorities discriminated against them because of their HIV status. Instead of assessing them to determine eligibility for flats in the new buildings, the authorities decided to forcibly evict them.
On 27 April 2009, amid criticism against the imminent forced eviction, local officials - for the first time - publicly acknowledged to journalists that families who are eligible should receive apartments at Borei Keila. However, there appears to have been no decision to halt the planned forced eviction, nor have any representatives of the Prampi Makara District, mandated to conduct such vetting, started assessing the families' eligibility. Sun Srun, the District Governor, told the Cambodia Daily on 11 April 2009 that the families "must accept this offer" [of relocation].
Amnesty International believes that those who have been denied housing for which they are eligible, should immediately be given apartments at Borei Keila. Any family found ineligible, should be provided other adequate alternative housing with access to health services for anti-retroviral treatment and treatment and job opportunities.
Background
The last decade has seen a steady rise in the number of reported land disputes and land confiscations and evictions, including forced evictions, in Cambodia. Victims are almost exclusively marginalized people living in poverty, who are unable to obtain effective remedies. This rise is a result of the lack of the rule of law; a seriously delayed process of legal and judicial reform; and endemic corruption.
In 2008, Amnesty International received reports about 27 forced evictions, affecting an estimated 23,000 people. Some 150,000 Cambodians are known to be living at risk of forced eviction in the wake of land disputes, land grabbing, agro-industrial and urban redevelopment projects. An estimated 70,000 of these live in Phnom Penh.
HIV prevalence is reported to be declining in Cambodia, down from 1.2 percent of the adult population between 15 and 49 years in 2003 to 0.9 percent in June 2007, according to UNAIDS. The number of people living with HIV is estimated at 71,000.
As a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and other international human rights treaties, Cambodia has an obligation to stop forced evictions and to protect the population from forced evictions.
Forced evictions are evictions carried out without adequate notice, consultation with those affected, without legal safeguards and without assurances of adequate alternative accommodation. Whether they be owners, renters or illegal settlers, everyone should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats.
Cambodia also has an obligation to ensure adequate provision of health care to all its citizens, including access to treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS. The International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and human rights also urge states to ensure universal access to HIV-related goods, services and information, and that they "not only be available, acceptable and of good quality, but within physical reach and affordable".
Cambodian health authorities, which have won international acclaim for their achievements in addressing HIV and AIDS, espouse an approach of "continuum of care" which seeks to address not only the medical issues but also social, psychological, legal, and economic consequences of living with HIV. The Cambodian 2002 Law on Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS provides that no one"shall be quarantined, placed in isolation or refused abode", or expulsed "due to the actual, perceived or suspected HIV/AIDS status of that person or his/her family members."1
TAKE ACTION!
Write urgently to the Prime Minister:
Calling on the authorities to protect the 32 families living at Borei Keila from forced eviction, and to immediately determine their eligibility for flats in the new buildings which are being built as part of the 2003 social land concession;
Calling on the authorities to guarantee adequate alternative housing with security of tenure for those found to be ineligible, including access to health services for anti-retroviral treatment and treatment for HIV and AIDS related illnesses or opportunistic infections;
Calling on the authorities to ensure that the families are not discriminated against because of their health status;
Calling on the government to end all forced evictions as a matter of urgency.
Prime Minister Hun Sen
Office of the Prime Minister
#38 Russian Federation Blvd.
Phnom Penh
Kingdom of Cambodia
Salutation: Dear Samdech
Fax: + 855 23 36 0666
Email: cabinet1b@camnet.comk.kh
Email: cabinet1b@camnet.comk.kh
1 Law on the Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS, 2002,
Pregnant woman faces death penalty in Laos
The Peninsula
5/3/2009
Source ::: Reuters
LONDON: Britain said yesterday it would raise the case of a pregnant British woman, who faces the death penalty in Laos if convicted of drug smuggling, when its foreign minister meets the Laotian deputy prime minister next week. Britain would do what it could to ensure Samantha Orobator, 20, would not face the death penalty if found guilty at the upcoming trial and provide consular help so she received good legal assistance, Foreign Minister Bill Rammell said. “The British government is opposed to the use of the death penalty in all circumstances,” Rammell said in a statement, ahead of Thursday’s meeting in London. “We have made the Laos authorities aware of this at the highest levels in Samantha’s case, as we do in all cases where a British national faces charges that carry the death penalty or has been sentenced to death.” Orobator from south London was arrested at Wattay Airport in August last year accused of smuggling heroin into the country, the British Foreign Office said.
British legal charity Reprieve said she was carrying 0.6kg of the drug, an amount that exceeded the statutory minimum for the death penalty in Laos. Reprieve says Orobator, who fell pregnant in December while in prison, faced a hastily-arranged trial next week and if found guilty, a death sentence. “By scheduling her trial for next week, the Laos court has made it impossible for any lawyer to prepare an adequate defence,” the group said in a statement. “If convicted next week, Samantha would face death by firing squad. Samantha is severely distressed, and Reprieve has grave concerns for her health and that of her unborn child.”
Source ::: Reuters
LONDON: Britain said yesterday it would raise the case of a pregnant British woman, who faces the death penalty in Laos if convicted of drug smuggling, when its foreign minister meets the Laotian deputy prime minister next week. Britain would do what it could to ensure Samantha Orobator, 20, would not face the death penalty if found guilty at the upcoming trial and provide consular help so she received good legal assistance, Foreign Minister Bill Rammell said. “The British government is opposed to the use of the death penalty in all circumstances,” Rammell said in a statement, ahead of Thursday’s meeting in London. “We have made the Laos authorities aware of this at the highest levels in Samantha’s case, as we do in all cases where a British national faces charges that carry the death penalty or has been sentenced to death.” Orobator from south London was arrested at Wattay Airport in August last year accused of smuggling heroin into the country, the British Foreign Office said.
British legal charity Reprieve said she was carrying 0.6kg of the drug, an amount that exceeded the statutory minimum for the death penalty in Laos. Reprieve says Orobator, who fell pregnant in December while in prison, faced a hastily-arranged trial next week and if found guilty, a death sentence. “By scheduling her trial for next week, the Laos court has made it impossible for any lawyer to prepare an adequate defence,” the group said in a statement. “If convicted next week, Samantha would face death by firing squad. Samantha is severely distressed, and Reprieve has grave concerns for her health and that of her unborn child.”
Japan pledges to help Cambodia in technology
Kyodo News
http://www.japantoday.com
http://www.japantoday.com
Sunday 03rd May
PHNOM PENH — The Japanese government pledged Saturday to help Cambodia in information communication technologies, a move Japan said will help boost economic growth. The pledge was made by Kunio Hatoyama, Japanese minister of internal affairs and communications, at a meeting with So Khun, Cambodian’s minister of posts and telecommunications.
During the talks, Hatoyama credited ICT with contributing about 40% to Japanese economic growth. ‘‘Japan will implement a feasibility study by Japanese experts, make a presentation on new technologies for next generation IP (Internet protocol) networks, and give advice on a Cambodia broadband master plan,’’ a record of the discussions showed.
PHNOM PENH — The Japanese government pledged Saturday to help Cambodia in information communication technologies, a move Japan said will help boost economic growth. The pledge was made by Kunio Hatoyama, Japanese minister of internal affairs and communications, at a meeting with So Khun, Cambodian’s minister of posts and telecommunications.
During the talks, Hatoyama credited ICT with contributing about 40% to Japanese economic growth. ‘‘Japan will implement a feasibility study by Japanese experts, make a presentation on new technologies for next generation IP (Internet protocol) networks, and give advice on a Cambodia broadband master plan,’’ a record of the discussions showed.
Japan to set up additional $61.5 billion scheme for Asia
May 3 2009
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Japan will establish a scheme to supply up to about 6 trillion yen ($61.54 billion) to Asian nations in the event of a financial crisis, Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said on Sunday.
The yen swap plan will be in addition to Japan's $38.4 billion contribution to a $120 billion regional liquidity fund.
Both measures are aimed at supporting the region's economies in a crisis, Yosano told reporters on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting in Indonesia.
"This brings our contribution to supporting regional liquidity to about $100 billion," Yosano said.
Japan hopes the yen scheme will also promote the use of the currency in the region, business daily Nikkei reported.
Yosano spoke to reporters following a meeting with the finance ministers of South Korea and China. The three countries on Sunday finalized details of the $120 billion liquidity fund of 13 Asian nations.
South Korean Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun told reporters China and Japan will each contribute 32 percent of the fund, while South Korea will provide 16 percent.
The rest will come from the 10 ASEAN members -- Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Singapore.
In addition to the two initiatives, Yosano said Japan will introduce a framework to guarantee samurai bonds, yen-denominated debt issued in Japan by foreign governments and firms, up to 500 billion yen ($5.13 billion).
Asian finance ministers agreed in February to enlarge a multilateral swap pool under the so-called Chiang Mai Initiative to $120 billion from $80 billion proposed last year to help defend their currencies from the fallout of the global economic crisis.
($1=97.50 Yen)
(Reporting by David Dolan in Nusa Dua and Yoko Nishikawa in Tokyo; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Japan will establish a scheme to supply up to about 6 trillion yen ($61.54 billion) to Asian nations in the event of a financial crisis, Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said on Sunday.
The yen swap plan will be in addition to Japan's $38.4 billion contribution to a $120 billion regional liquidity fund.
Both measures are aimed at supporting the region's economies in a crisis, Yosano told reporters on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting in Indonesia.
"This brings our contribution to supporting regional liquidity to about $100 billion," Yosano said.
Japan hopes the yen scheme will also promote the use of the currency in the region, business daily Nikkei reported.
Yosano spoke to reporters following a meeting with the finance ministers of South Korea and China. The three countries on Sunday finalized details of the $120 billion liquidity fund of 13 Asian nations.
South Korean Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun told reporters China and Japan will each contribute 32 percent of the fund, while South Korea will provide 16 percent.
The rest will come from the 10 ASEAN members -- Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Singapore.
In addition to the two initiatives, Yosano said Japan will introduce a framework to guarantee samurai bonds, yen-denominated debt issued in Japan by foreign governments and firms, up to 500 billion yen ($5.13 billion).
Asian finance ministers agreed in February to enlarge a multilateral swap pool under the so-called Chiang Mai Initiative to $120 billion from $80 billion proposed last year to help defend their currencies from the fallout of the global economic crisis.
($1=97.50 Yen)
(Reporting by David Dolan in Nusa Dua and Yoko Nishikawa in Tokyo; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
Pakistan's impending 'Cambodian Moment'
Published by: Noor Khan
Published: Sun, 03 May 2009
The signs are everywhere that the Taliban/Al Qaeda strategy is working, and the authority of the Pakistan government is gradually waning despite official assurances to the contrary. Pakistani officials insist that the situation is under control when all the evidence points in the opposite direction. When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton alluded to the "existential threat" to Pakistan's survival posed by the extremists, Pakistan's Ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani, replied that "we do not have a situation in which the government or the country of Pakistan is about to fall to the Taliban."
His statement exemplifies the state of denial the democratically elected government of Pakistan is in. Clearly, President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and even army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani are in a state of paralytic inaction.
If one is searching for an analogy to what may be forthcoming from the Hindu Kush, in the face of the breakdown of popular government in Pakistan, it might not be far fetched to look no further than the Pol Pot phenomenon and the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. There are disturbing similarities between the two cases.
As the Khmer Rouge germinated and perfected their retrograde Maoist extremism in the remote jungle backwater of Cambodia, so the Taliban and Al Qaeda have honed their brand of doctrinal extremism and their accompanying organizational apparatus in the remote valleys of the Hindu Kush. As in the case of the Khmer Rouge, the Americans and the purportedly more advanced segments of Pakistani society at first took the extremists lightly, slighted them strategically, and indeed played political footsie with them until it became apparent that they were a serous threat.
When it seemed to then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger that the Khmer Rouge could be useful in opposing the North Vietnamese, in January 1968 the US Army helped the Khmer Rouge establish the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea, which materially strengthened them. Much as ISI and the CIA from time to time bolstered the Taliban when it seemed they might be of value to both countries' regional strategic interests.
There is another horror scenario waiting in the wings should a political collapse result in a "Cambodian Moment" for Pakistan. A Taliban regime in Pakistan would not only tear at the social fabric of Pakistan and plunge millions of Pakistanis into fratricidal conflict, it would potentially place nuclear weapons in the hands of lunatics like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar!
This would impose on US President Barack Obama a moral dilemma beyond anything he could have imagined or contemplated when he assumed office. The only option open to him would be to take out the Pakistani nuclear facility at Chagai Hills in much the same manner, but on a grander scale, than Israel did when it feared that Saddam Husain's Daura reactor near Baghdad would go critical by July or August of 1981.
The ramifications this would have for South Asia and indeed the entire world boggle the mind.
Yet this is a scenario whose occurrence cannot be dismissed as long as Pakistan's civil society acting through its elected secular government, in consonance with the United States and the UN, move decisively before it is too late.
Published: Sun, 03 May 2009
The signs are everywhere that the Taliban/Al Qaeda strategy is working, and the authority of the Pakistan government is gradually waning despite official assurances to the contrary. Pakistani officials insist that the situation is under control when all the evidence points in the opposite direction. When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton alluded to the "existential threat" to Pakistan's survival posed by the extremists, Pakistan's Ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani, replied that "we do not have a situation in which the government or the country of Pakistan is about to fall to the Taliban."
His statement exemplifies the state of denial the democratically elected government of Pakistan is in. Clearly, President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and even army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani are in a state of paralytic inaction.
If one is searching for an analogy to what may be forthcoming from the Hindu Kush, in the face of the breakdown of popular government in Pakistan, it might not be far fetched to look no further than the Pol Pot phenomenon and the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. There are disturbing similarities between the two cases.
As the Khmer Rouge germinated and perfected their retrograde Maoist extremism in the remote jungle backwater of Cambodia, so the Taliban and Al Qaeda have honed their brand of doctrinal extremism and their accompanying organizational apparatus in the remote valleys of the Hindu Kush. As in the case of the Khmer Rouge, the Americans and the purportedly more advanced segments of Pakistani society at first took the extremists lightly, slighted them strategically, and indeed played political footsie with them until it became apparent that they were a serous threat.
When it seemed to then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger that the Khmer Rouge could be useful in opposing the North Vietnamese, in January 1968 the US Army helped the Khmer Rouge establish the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea, which materially strengthened them. Much as ISI and the CIA from time to time bolstered the Taliban when it seemed they might be of value to both countries' regional strategic interests.
There is another horror scenario waiting in the wings should a political collapse result in a "Cambodian Moment" for Pakistan. A Taliban regime in Pakistan would not only tear at the social fabric of Pakistan and plunge millions of Pakistanis into fratricidal conflict, it would potentially place nuclear weapons in the hands of lunatics like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar!
This would impose on US President Barack Obama a moral dilemma beyond anything he could have imagined or contemplated when he assumed office. The only option open to him would be to take out the Pakistani nuclear facility at Chagai Hills in much the same manner, but on a grander scale, than Israel did when it feared that Saddam Husain's Daura reactor near Baghdad would go critical by July or August of 1981.
The ramifications this would have for South Asia and indeed the entire world boggle the mind.
Yet this is a scenario whose occurrence cannot be dismissed as long as Pakistan's civil society acting through its elected secular government, in consonance with the United States and the UN, move decisively before it is too late.
Cambodian gov't alerts public over upcoming peak of dengue fever
www.chinaview.cn
2009-05-03
PHNOM PENH, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian government has reminded the public to caution against the upcoming peak of dengue fever, which has killed two people nationwide so far this year, national media said on Sunday.
The rainy season started earlier this year, which fueled the spread of the epidemic and brought the number of infected cases to 871 during the first four months, almost two times the number in the same period of last year, according to the Chinese-language newspaper the Jian Hua Daily on Sunday.
Usually, children aged from one to nine years were the most fragile group to the illness, Minister of Health Mam Bun Heng was quoted as saying in the report. He added that some 71 percent of the contaminated cases went to children.
"People should frequently clean their water-saving tanks, kill mosquito eggs in their tanks with pesticide and sleep in anti-mosquito nets," said the minister.
According to official figures, in 2007, a rampant year for the disease in the kingdom, 407 children died of it, out of a total of 39,851 infected cases of minors.
Editor: Xiong Tong
PHNOM PENH, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian government has reminded the public to caution against the upcoming peak of dengue fever, which has killed two people nationwide so far this year, national media said on Sunday.
The rainy season started earlier this year, which fueled the spread of the epidemic and brought the number of infected cases to 871 during the first four months, almost two times the number in the same period of last year, according to the Chinese-language newspaper the Jian Hua Daily on Sunday.
Usually, children aged from one to nine years were the most fragile group to the illness, Minister of Health Mam Bun Heng was quoted as saying in the report. He added that some 71 percent of the contaminated cases went to children.
"People should frequently clean their water-saving tanks, kill mosquito eggs in their tanks with pesticide and sleep in anti-mosquito nets," said the minister.
According to official figures, in 2007, a rampant year for the disease in the kingdom, 407 children died of it, out of a total of 39,851 infected cases of minors.
Editor: Xiong Tong
Cambodia refutes U.S. underestimation of its anti-terrorism capability
www.chinaview.cn
2009-05-03
PHNOM PENH, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian Information Minister has refuted a U.S. State Department report about the country's capability of countering terrorism as "not 100 percent correct," national media said on Sunday.
The recently issued U.S. report about the global anti-terrorism situation claimed that terrorists might take advantage of the weakness of Cambodia, such as corruption, poverty and lax management of the border, to carry out illegal acts in its territory, despite the government had made a clear promise to crack down on this type of crime, the newspaper Jian Hua Daily quoted the minister as saying.
In addition, Cambodia lacked training and other resources to counter terrorism, it added.
Khieu Kanharith, also spokesman for the Cambodian government, said "there is no country in the world that can control its border with 100 percent accuracy, neither Cambodia."
However, "the government has established strong and trustworthy relations with different communities in order to nip any social violence in bud," the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, the newspaper also quoted a senior official of the Interior Minister as saying that there is minimum possibility that terrorists' acts occur in Cambodia, and fighting against money laundering should be the kingdom's priority in the anti-terrorism field.
According to official reports, no major terrorism case with global connection has occurred in the country so far.
Editor: Xiong Tong
PHNOM PENH, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian Information Minister has refuted a U.S. State Department report about the country's capability of countering terrorism as "not 100 percent correct," national media said on Sunday.
The recently issued U.S. report about the global anti-terrorism situation claimed that terrorists might take advantage of the weakness of Cambodia, such as corruption, poverty and lax management of the border, to carry out illegal acts in its territory, despite the government had made a clear promise to crack down on this type of crime, the newspaper Jian Hua Daily quoted the minister as saying.
In addition, Cambodia lacked training and other resources to counter terrorism, it added.
Khieu Kanharith, also spokesman for the Cambodian government, said "there is no country in the world that can control its border with 100 percent accuracy, neither Cambodia."
However, "the government has established strong and trustworthy relations with different communities in order to nip any social violence in bud," the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, the newspaper also quoted a senior official of the Interior Minister as saying that there is minimum possibility that terrorists' acts occur in Cambodia, and fighting against money laundering should be the kingdom's priority in the anti-terrorism field.
According to official reports, no major terrorism case with global connection has occurred in the country so far.
Editor: Xiong Tong
DANIDA BOARD APPROVES SECOND PHASE OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS AND GOOD GOVERNANCE PROGRAMME IN CAMBODIA
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark
http://www.phnompenh.um.dk
On 1 April 2009, Danida’s Board approved the second phase of Danida’s Human Rights and Good Governance programme in Cambodia, which is managed by the Representative Office of Denmark in Phnom Penh. The second phase runs for two years until the end of 2010 with a total of 14,9 mio. Danish Kroner.
Support will be provided to the implementation of the Royal Government of Cambodia’s Legal and Judicial Reform Strategy, strengthening of indigenous peoples' rights, strengthening of the National Audit Authority as well as Public Administration Reform. Furthermore, activities carried out by a number of civil society organisations will be supported, including provision of legal aid to poor and vulnerable groups, strengthening of cooperation between local organisations and commune councils in resolving conflicts over access to land and other natural resources, monitoring of human rights and strengthening the ability of citizens to defend their rights, provision of alternative conflict resolution mechanisms, strengthening of popular engagement in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal and provision of evidence for the trials, strengthening civil society advocacy for better management of revenues from extractive industries, dissemination of information on corruption matters as well as advocacy for improving access to information in the government
For more information on this support please click here.
http://www.phnompenh.um.dk
On 1 April 2009, Danida’s Board approved the second phase of Danida’s Human Rights and Good Governance programme in Cambodia, which is managed by the Representative Office of Denmark in Phnom Penh. The second phase runs for two years until the end of 2010 with a total of 14,9 mio. Danish Kroner.
Support will be provided to the implementation of the Royal Government of Cambodia’s Legal and Judicial Reform Strategy, strengthening of indigenous peoples' rights, strengthening of the National Audit Authority as well as Public Administration Reform. Furthermore, activities carried out by a number of civil society organisations will be supported, including provision of legal aid to poor and vulnerable groups, strengthening of cooperation between local organisations and commune councils in resolving conflicts over access to land and other natural resources, monitoring of human rights and strengthening the ability of citizens to defend their rights, provision of alternative conflict resolution mechanisms, strengthening of popular engagement in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal and provision of evidence for the trials, strengthening civil society advocacy for better management of revenues from extractive industries, dissemination of information on corruption matters as well as advocacy for improving access to information in the government
For more information on this support please click here.
Cambodia to host ASEAN-EU ministerial meeting in late May
Philstar
http://www.philstar.com
http://www.philstar.com
May 02, 2009
PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) -- Delegations from 40 ASEAN and EU countries will gather here in late May to discuss ways to fight terrorism, human trafficking, drug smuggling and weapon proliferation, said a statement received on Saturday.
The 17th Ministerial Meeting between ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and EU (European Union) will review previous and future cooperation between the two regional bodies from May 27 to 28, said the statement issued by the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
"In particular we will talk about how to control weapons of mass destruction," said ministry spokesman Koy Kuong.
Cambodian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hor Namhong and Vaclav Klaus, Czech President and current EU President, will be named as co-presidents of the meeting.
The 16th Ministerial Meeting between ASEAN and EU was held in Germany from March 14 to 15, 2007.
The meetings rotate between ASEAN and EU countries.
Indonesian tenor singer appears in Cambodia
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Tenor singer Albert Wisnu from Indonesia`s city of Yogyakarta performed a romantic song recital at a function on a cultural exchange at the Indonesian Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 29, 2009, it was reported here Friday.
The event which was attended by Cambodian diplomats, officials and international organizations as well as the mass media was held as part of the embassy`s efforts to set up and develop the relations between the two peoples through cultural activities, Indonesia`s Ambassador to Cambodia Ngurah Swajaya said.
On the occasion, Albert Wisnu who was runner up 1 of a national radio and television song competition in 1992 carried 10 classical songs which are the works of Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms and four Indonesian classical songs created between the 1950s and 1960s by Sudarnotho, Ismail Marzuki, G.R.W. Sinsu and Syafii Embut.
The Song Recital event was made possible thanks to a collaboration between the Indonesian embassy in Phonm Penh and Tembi House of Culture, Yogyakarta, and Art+Foundation, Phom Penh.
During his stay in Phnom Penh, Albert Wisnu also appeared at Almond Hotel on April 25, 2009, and Art Cafe on April 26, 2009.
The event was the second cultural activity organized by the Indonesian embassy in Phnom Penh this year. The previous event was a puppet show with narator Ki Aneng Kiswantoro from Yogyakarta on February 18, 2009.
The Indonesian embassy in Phnom Penh also has an Indonesian cultrural centre which introduces national cultures through books, films, dances and music besides courses in Indonesian Language.
The event which was attended by Cambodian diplomats, officials and international organizations as well as the mass media was held as part of the embassy`s efforts to set up and develop the relations between the two peoples through cultural activities, Indonesia`s Ambassador to Cambodia Ngurah Swajaya said.
On the occasion, Albert Wisnu who was runner up 1 of a national radio and television song competition in 1992 carried 10 classical songs which are the works of Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms and four Indonesian classical songs created between the 1950s and 1960s by Sudarnotho, Ismail Marzuki, G.R.W. Sinsu and Syafii Embut.
The Song Recital event was made possible thanks to a collaboration between the Indonesian embassy in Phonm Penh and Tembi House of Culture, Yogyakarta, and Art+Foundation, Phom Penh.
During his stay in Phnom Penh, Albert Wisnu also appeared at Almond Hotel on April 25, 2009, and Art Cafe on April 26, 2009.
The event was the second cultural activity organized by the Indonesian embassy in Phnom Penh this year. The previous event was a puppet show with narator Ki Aneng Kiswantoro from Yogyakarta on February 18, 2009.
The Indonesian embassy in Phnom Penh also has an Indonesian cultrural centre which introduces national cultures through books, films, dances and music besides courses in Indonesian Language.
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