If you tire, press on; touring temples brings understanding

Angkor Thom is near the better-known Angkor Wat and almost as impressive. The complex was built as a royal city.

The Philadephia Inquirer
Sun, Jan. 20, 2008

SIEM REAP, Cambodia - Frequent travelers call it "temple fatigue," the wave of exhaustion that sets in when you've seen one (or five) ruins too many.

It comes with the territory here. Not only is Siem Reap home to Angkor Wat, one of the world's largest religious monuments; the area also houses more than 300 other monuments, all beautiful and significant, in various stages of decay. If you take in too many at once, even the most intricate carvings can seem mundane.

But there's nothing like immersion to understand the complex history of the Khmer people. At one time, their empire spread from modern-day India to Vietnam, encompassing both Buddhist and Hindu faiths. One king, Jayavarman VII, commissioned hundreds of stone structures throughout the country, all within 30 years (although Angkor Wat, which graces Cambodia's flag and currency, was built by a predecessor, Suryavarman II).

So even if your feet hurt, your shirt is damp with sweat, and you feel you never want to see another temple again, somehow you need to find the energy to visit just one more.

Here are a few of the must-see sites at Siem Reap, all covered by a $40 three-day pass:

Angkor Wat. The early-12th-century structure is as immense and awe-inspiring as it looks in pictures. Both a capital and a temple honoring the Hindu god Vishnu, Angkor Wat is too large to take in all at once. We toured in the morning, avoiding the crowds, and then returned at dusk to see the iconic three stone towers bathed in golden-hour light. Definitely a See-You-Before-You-Die sight.

Angkor Thom. Just up the road from Angkor Wat and built almost a century later, Angkor Thom is almost as impressive. A former royal city, the Angkor Thom complex is most famous for the Bayon, a Buddhist temple that features enormous faces carved from stone. There are plenty of other monuments here, too; we especially liked the South Gate, with a row of stone angels and demons holding a large naga (snake) on either side of the road.

Ta Prohm. If you've seen Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, you're familier with Ta Prohm, also known as the "jungle temple." Here you can see what happens when nature goes unchecked: Huge trees have engulfed the buildings and crushed the walls with their roots. Despite the crowds, it's an otherworldly sight and eerily romantic; Don and I both picked this one as our favorite.

Banteay Srei. Off the beaten path in the countryside, Banteay Srei is the oldest of the temples we visited (one guidebook placed its consecration date at 967 A.D.). It was also tinier and perhaps the most beautiful, because of the intricate carvings of Aspara dancers and Hindu gods. We particularly loved how the red sandstone appeared pink in the morning light.

- Chris Gray

'Go protest in Darfur', Cambodia tells Mia Farrow

A military policeman stops Khmer survivor, author and activist Theary Seng and US actress Mia Farrow from making their way to lay flowers at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. (Reuters: Chor Sokunthea)

ABC News

Baton-wielding police have barred Hollywood actress Mia Farrow from holding a rally in Cambodia's "Killing Fields" as part of her campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.

Some 100 military police blocked Farrow, who fronts the Dream for Darfur pressure group, and her fellow activists from entering the compound at Tuol Sleng, the Phnom Penh high school that became Pol Pot's main torture centre.

"Darfur has nothing to do with Cambodia. Go protest in Darfur," Phnom Penh police chief Touch Naruth told reporters after the hour-long stand-off ended without incident.

The group, which had planned to lay flowers and light a symbolic Olympic torch in the compound, has held similar events in Chad, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia as part of a campaign to persuade China to push the Sudanese administration into ending the violence in Darfur.

"Our hearts are breaking for what happened in Cambodia today," Farrow later told a news conference, accusing China of putting pressure on Cambodian authorities.

"The Chinese Government was trying to prevent us from commemorating the genocide in Cambodia and denying survivors the opportunity to show solidarity with the people of Darfur.
"We wish Beijing to exercise a similar amount of diplomatic pressure on Khartoum [Sudan's seat of government] to end the genocide in Darfur."

Beijing is hosting the 2008 Olympic Games and human rights groups have targeted China in the hope of using the spotlight thrown on the country to influence Chinese foreign policy.

China, a major investor in Sudan's oil industry, has been accused of breaching international rules and fanning bloodshed by selling Sudan weapons that have been diverted to Darfur.

Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Khanarith had said Farrow's group would face "consequences", including deportation, if they pressed ahead with the rally.

"What they will be doing at Tuol Sleng is not to commemorate the victims of the Khmer Rouge, but to use Khmer skulls to pressure China," he said.

"This is an insult to the Cambodian people."

- Reuters

Shooting victim’s parents try to cope

Foss High School security officer Eugene Haynes-Ransom keeps his eye out for trouble in school hallways, watching video monitors. He’s a Foss grad.

The News Tribune.com
KRIS SHERMAN; kris.sherman@thenewstribune.com
Published: January 20th, 2008

Tears flow easily, and dreams remain unfulfilled in the East Side Tacoma home of Ry Sou and Rorth Kok.

Sometimes, when she can no longer tolerate the soul-deep ache, Sou walks up the stairs to her son’s bedroom, sits on his sleigh bed, and talks to him.

She thinks about opening the closet but does not.

The memories of her son, Samnang Kok, are too strong there, she says. They lie in the look and feel and smell of the clothing he wore as a student at Foss High School. They hide in his shoes. They lurk in his belongings.

Samnang Kok, a 17-year-old junior, was shot and killed a year ago in a school hallway, minutes before classes were to resume following winter break. He died there, next to a bank of lockers, on Jan. 3, 2007.

He was shot three times with a 9 mm handgun.

Douglas S. Chanthabouly, then an 18-year-old junior, is charged with first-degree murder in Sam Kok’s death. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in Pierce County Jail awaiting trial.

Sou and Kok miss their son every day, their grief perhaps scabbed over a bit but still raw.
“It’s hard,” Sou says, balancing her 3-year-old grandson, Makhai – Sam’s son – on her lap. She speaks in halting English, thick with the accent of her native Cambodia, but her pain needs no translation.

“He say every day, ‘Is Daddy gone?’” Sou says, retrieving the small, pink plastic clock her grandson pushed off the table in play. “‘Daddy go heaven, now,’ he say. ‘I hate someone kill my daddy.’”

Makhai lives with his mother, Tiari Johnson, but frequently spends time with his grandparents.
The family hasn’t filed a claim against the Tacoma School District, and Sam Kok’s parents don’t seem interested in one.

They’re more concerned, they say, with the welfare of their grandson and of their daughter, Lisa, a freshman at Lincoln High School. The couple also has two grown sons.

Sou, a cashier at the Emerald Queen Casino, says she’s talked to administrators at Lincoln about the need to keep her daughter safe.

“I want all the students to be good,” she adds. “I don’t want trouble.”

Sou was pregnant with Sam when she emigrated to the United States. She gave him a name that means good luck.

“I come from Cambodia, and I find freedom,” she says, pausing to pluck a napkin from the table and use it to blot tears. Kok does the same, wadding the napkin up and wiping it across his lined face.

“I take care of my son,” Sou continues. “I go to work. My son go to school. … When I am old, I plan my son take care of me.”

“He’s a good son,” Kok says quietly, his small frame quaking with the effort. “He help a lot. He good kid. He really smart.”

The couple expected Sam to watch his own boy grow to manhood, too.

When Sam wasn’t studying or helping his parents around the house, he watched cartoons with Makhai or played simple games with his son, an exuberant, small moving object.

“He like a small car,” Sou says, pointing at her grandson. “Zoom, zoom, zoom. … He look like his daddy,” she adds, pointing to Makhai’s dark, shining eyes.

It is those same eyes, in the larger Sam version, that peer at the world from above a teenage smirk in the life-size photo that hangs on the wall in the bedroom that was Sam’s. Below it rests a mini shrine – candles; an ornate cross; a vase of pink, orange and yellow flowers; incense; a pack of cigarettes and a lighter awaiting their owner.

“I look at the pictures. I cry,” Sou says. “I talk. I say, ‘Why? Why? My son go to school. Why my son die?’”

Kris Sherman: 253-597-8659

Mountain top site marks border with Laos, Cambodia

Representatives of Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia inaugurate a border landmark yesterday. — VNA/VNS Photo Sy Huynh

HA NOI — The governments of Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia yesterday inaugurated a border landmark at the point where the three countries converge.

Among those attending the ceremony were Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Dao Viet Trung, his Lao and Cambodian counterparts, and leaders of three provinces: Kon Tum of Viet Nam, Attapu Province of Laos and Rattanakiri Province of Cambodia.

The triangular border landmark, with three faces, stands on a mountain, 1,086m above sea level. It is more than 2m high and made of marble.

At the ceremony, representatives of the three governments said they appreciated the landmark, which represents the border identified by agreements signed among the three countries.

They said the landmark symbolises the will, aspiration and determination of the governments and peoples of the three countries in solving territory and border matters. The landmark was also evidence of the belief, understanding and friendship between the three countries, the meeting heard.

Also yesterday, Bo Y bordergate, which links Viet Nam’s Kon Tum Province with Laos’ Attapu Province was officially opened after being upgraded.

Trung and a number of senior officials attended the ceremony.

Viet Nam’s Bo Y and Laos’s Phu Cua bordergates are expected to boost trade between the two countries.
The Vietnamese Government is investing in upgrading infrastructure at Bo Y.

Local authorities have received 34 investment applications worth of VND19.2 billion ($1.2 million), in addition to 15 other ongoing projects worth of VND422 billion ($26.3 million).

A long-term development plan for Bo Y bordergate zone is in the pipeline and is expected to further increase trade, investment, and tourism in the region.

— VNS

Authorities block Mia Farrow from genocide ceremony in Cambodia

CBC News
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Canadian Press: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodian police blocked American actress Mia Farrow from holding a genocide memorial ceremony today at a Khmer Rouge prison.

At one point, officers forcefully pushed Farrow's group away from a barricade.

The Cambodian government had barred the ceremony and police sealed off roads leading to the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng prison, which is now a genocide museum in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Farrow and her group arrived at one of the barricades and refused to go away.

Police started pushing the group, which eventually returned to a waiting car and drove off without anyone getting hurt.

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died during the Khmer Rouge's genocidal reign from 1975-1979.

Farrow was in Cambodia as part of tour of seven nations that have suffered genocide to call attention to the current humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.

Cambodia shutters genocide museum to block US actress Farrow

Sun, 20 Jan 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodian police locked down a former Khmer Rouge prison Sunday with barricades in a 300 metre radius after US actress Mia Farrow vowed to continued with a scheduled anti-China rally. More than 200 officers were posted to block the elderly actress and entourage that had intended to light a torch at the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum.

Farrow's global Dream For Darfur rally draws attention to China's economic support of Sudan and the war in Darfur ahead of the August Olympics, but China is one of Cambodia's staunchest allies and authorities banned it and threatened arrests and deportations.

In the end, however, it was an anticlimax, with Farrow and friend Seng Theary, director of her Cambodian partner agency Center for Social Development, forced to stand forlornly on the wrong side of the barrier holding wilting white water lilies in scorching heat for an hour in a 70-strong crowd before giving up.

Farrow said little, letting the outspoken young US-Khmer rights activist Seng do all the talking as they pleaded fruitlessly for entry. But the pair suffered more jostling from journalists, who appeared to outnumber Dreamers, than they did from police.

Some Farrow supporters tried to threatened police with US embassy intervention, but were rebuffed. Phnom Penh security chief Police General Hy Pru turned up to supervise, and the rally ended quietly.

Police said there were no arrests.

Cambodian officials were vehement in denying permission to the organizers. Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith branded them ignorant foreigners attempting to use Cambodia's genocide as a fund-raising vehicle.

Museum director Chey Sopheara was among those who felt the ceremony would hijack the memories of the up to 16,000 people who were tortured or killed in former school.

At a press conference after the rally, Farrow, 62, and Seng expressed disappointment but no regrets. On Saturday, authorities allowed Farrow to tour the museum sans torch and Sunday said the problem was the torch and the agenda, not Farrow herself.

Up to 2 million Cambodians died in the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime.

They’ve Got Those Mekong Blues Again

The members of Dengue Fever are, from left, Ethan Holtzman, Senon Williams, Zac Holtzman, Paul Smith, David Ralicke and Chhom Nimol.

By R J SMITH
January 20, 2008
LOS ANGELES

DENGUE FEVER is a Los Angeles band featuring a Cambodian-born singer and five American alt-rockers who regularly embarrass her onstage. On the cover of its new album, “Venus on Earth” (M80), the guitarist Zac Holtzman, with a long beard and goggles, drives a scooter with the vocalist Chhom Nimol sitting demurely behind him sidesaddle, the way a good Cambodian girl would ride through the streets of Phnom Penh. Dengue Fever, which specializes in an unlikely mix of 1960s Cambodian pop, rock and other genres, is a lot like that image. Propriety and smart aleck indie rock race by, blurring together.

It is a band of rollicking lightness that keeps coming up deep. At a recent show in the Echo Park neighborhood here, the male members were downright goofy, but Ms. Chhom, singing mostly in Khmer and dressed in shimmering Cambodian silk garments she designs herself, looked like old-school royalty, a queen before the hipoisie. No wonder she seemed to roll her eyes from time to time onstage. But after the set, when she lighted a candle onstage to honor those killed by the Khmer Rouge, her voice broke and tears ran down her face.

“I think we balance each other out,” Mr. Holtzman said in a recent interview. “She’ll bring the whole place to a hush, and that would be a long night if it was just that. And then we smash the place up.”

Dengue Fever formed after the Farfisa organ player Ethan Holtzman, Zac’s brother, traveled to Cambodia in 1997, discovered ’60s Cambodian pop and returned with a stack of cassettes. This was not the sort of roots-driven folk sounds ethnomusicologists crave; this was locally produced, gleefully garish trash infused with the surf guitar and soul arrangements that Armed Forces Radio blasted across the region during the Vietnam War. It flourished until the Khmer Rouge came to power in the 1970s and functionally dismantled Cambodian culture.

Dengue Fever’s music is a tribute to that lost pop. But the six members of Dengue Fever form a quintessential Los Angeles crew, with a mix of backgrounds and interests that seems fitting in a region with the largest Cambodian population in the United States (in Long Beach, south of downtown Los Angeles) and a flourishing indie rock scene (in the hills east of Hollywood). The band is the musical equivalent of that ultimate modern Los Angeles marker, the polyglot strip-mall sign. It too offers a cultural mash-up; beyond the obscure Cambodian pop you can hear psychedelia, spaghetti western guitars, the lounge groove of Ethiopian soul and Bollywood soundtracks. “Seeing Hands,” on the new album, has an almost Funkadelic groove, while “Sober Driver” is an all but emo complaint about a guy who drives the cute girl everywhere and gets nowhere.

Now Dengue Fever is starting to make its mark far from its hometown. The band recently returned from the Womex world music festival in Seville, Spain, where it was one of a handful of acts to play showcase performances. British publications have included it in “next big thing” roundups, and Dengue Fever’s songs have been on television and film soundtracks, including Jim Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers.” A new documentary, “Sleepwalking Through the Mekong,” that follows the group on its first trip as a band to Cambodia, seems likely to gain it further notice. (It plays the Mercury Lounge on the Lower East Side on March 4, and at Southpaw in Brooklyn on March 5.)

“The underground people are getting hip to world music, and the world music side is getting hip to how you don’t have to have a dreadlock wig and Guatemalan pants to be cool,” said the bassist Senon Williams, sitting in his backyard with Ms. Chhom and Zac Holtzman.

“Now that Nimol is going to start singing more in English,” he added, “it’s making new things possible for us. Nimol really wants to connect with the American audience more now.”

Dmitri Vietze, a publicist and marketer for many global music acts, sees the band as “part of a larger developmental pattern” in world music. “Can you stick them in the world-music bin at brick and mortar retail stores?” Mr. Vietze asked. “I don’t know. But as far as how they fit into world music in a larger philosophical context, they are a part of a huge and promising future.” He noted that the American market had been introduced to world sounds most often by American artists who love and emulate them, like Paul Simon. Now, he said, he sees a movement toward music made and influenced by émigrés: “We’re seeing more and more bands like Dengue Fever.”
Ms. Chhom speaks in broken English that her band mates struggle to first understand and then interpret for a reporter. Born in Battambang, Cambodia, Ms. Chhom moved to Long Beach in 2000, when she was 21. Both her parents were wedding singers, and she followed in the family business. An invitation to sing in Minneapolis brought her to America, and her sister, already living in Long Beach, introduced her to the local dinner-club scene.

Ms. Chhom stressed how important the music that inspired the Holtzman brothers was to her when she was growing up. One favorite is the great Khmer pop singer Sinn Sisamouth, who sang with Ms. Chhom’s father on a movie soundtrack. Sinn Sisamouth was a royal court singer of ballads in the 1950s who by the end of the ’60s was called “the king of Cambodian rock ’n’ roll,” with a queasy garage sound and a mellow nod to Nat King Cole, reinventing the rock wheel on a Pacific rim. Sinn Sisamouth disappeared after the Khmer Rouge took over. An artist close to the old government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, he is said to have died in a labor camp.

Bouncing Mr. Williams’s 1-year-old son on her knee, Ms. Chhom seemed a little bored with the interview process, her deftly drawn eyebrows often forming a skeptical V. She already had a reputation as a singer in Cambodia when she auditioned, along with several other Cambodian women, for Dengue Fever in 2001. When her competitors saw her, Zac Holtzman said, they politely excused themselves, assuming she would automatically get the gig. In 2002, while Dengue Fever was recording its debut album, Ms. Chhom was stopped in a routine check by immigration agents during an orange alert and was detained for having a lapsed green card. She spent 22 days in confinement, and upon her release sang endless nights in a Cambodian dance club in Long Beach called the Dragon House to pay off her legal fees. The band’s second album was titled “Escape From the Dragon House,” a reference to Ms. Chhom having paid off her legal fees and putting her immigration troubles behind her.

As far as connecting with her band mates, that’s still a work in progress. When they first started playing together they had to establish a sense of trust across language and cultural barriers. Now they hang out sometimes after a show, but even socializing can be complicated.

“Sometimes I go out ,and I like to dance because in Cambodia I could never go to clubs and dance like that,” Ms. Chhom said.

Zac Holtzman responded, “There’s always a few nights on tour when we go out and do a few clubs and some dancing ——”

Ms. Chhom interrupted emphatically : “I don’t want to talk, I want to dance. And these guys all like to talk. I know it’s the American style, they like to drink and talk and talk, but to those people I just say, ‘Hi, bye, let’s go dance.’ ”

Older generations of Cambodians in California are sometimes critical. “They don’t want me to show off too much of my dress,” she said. “They always tell me, ‘Don’t forget you’re a Cambodian girl.’ ” But the younger generation responds to Dengue Fever and even breakdances to its reinvention of a mongrel music that is itself a reinvention of a mongrel music from the West.

Folk music it’s not, but in one crucial way Dengue Fever has folk resonances. To Ms. Chhom and other young Cambodians in the States, pop singers like Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Sereysothea, who died in a labor camp in Cambodia in the 1970s, hit a nerve that blues singers or hillbilly bands do for many Americans: the music takes listeners back home, to a home that doesn’t precisely exist anymore.

“Sleepwalking Through the Mekong,” directed by the Los Angeles filmmaker John Pirozzi, shows what happens when that 1960s pop makes its way back across the Pacific. It follows Dengue Fever on a 2005 trip to Cambodia, and in the penultimate scene the band sets up a stage in a slum full of corrugated shacks and plays a concert. The reaction is festive at times, but there are also some slack-jawed, unreadable expressions. Whether that’s the impact of lost pop music coming back to life or the surreality of American rockers dropping down from postmodern Los Angeles, is a question the band is smart enough to leave unanswered.

Mia Farrow and Theary Seng confrontation with Hun Sen's polices

US actress Mia Farrow (R) and Theary Seng (L), Khmer survivor, author and executive director of the Center for Social Development, hold lotus flowers as police stop them from making their way to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh January 20, 2008. Farrow says she will ignore a deportation threat and pursue plans to light a symbolic Olympic torch in Cambodia's "Killing Fields", as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

Memebers of the police and military stand guard at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh January 20, 2008. Cambodian police barred Hollywood actress Mia Farrow and other activists from laying flowers at a "Killing Fields" museum on Sunday, as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

Police confront U.S. actress Mia Farrow's group outside Tuol Sleng Genocide museum in Phnom Penh January 29, 2008. Cambodian police barred Hollywood actress Mia Farrow and other activists from laying flowers at a "Killing Fields" museum on Sunday, as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

Tourists look on as police stand guard at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh January 20, 2008. Cambodian police barred Hollywood actress Mia Farrow and other activists from laying flowers at a "Killing Fields" museum on Sunday, as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

Police stop tourists as they stand guard at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh January 20, 2008. Cambodian police barred Hollywood actress Mia Farrow and other activists from laying flowers at a "Killing Fields" museum on Sunday, as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

Photographers try to take photos of American actress Mia Farrow after police removed her group from Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008. Cambodian police blocked Farrow from holding a genocide memorial ceremony Sunday at a Khmer Rouge prison, at one point forcefully pushing her group away from a barricade.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

American actress Mia Farrow, left, holds hands with Theary Seng Cambodian Executive Director of the Center for Social Development, after police moved their group away from Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008. Cambodian police blocked Farrow from holding a genocide memorial ceremony Sunday at a Khmer Rouge prison, at one point forcefully pushing her group away from a barricade.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

A policeman (R) attempts to stop U.S actress Mia Farrow (C) and from making their way to lay flowers at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh January 20, 2008. Farrow says she will ignore a deportation threat and pursue plans to light a symbolic Olympic torch in Cambodia's "Killing Fields", as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

American actress Mia Farrow, second right, is led by a police officer, foreground, after her group was removed from Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008. Cambodian police blocked Farrow from holding a genocide memorial ceremony Sunday at a Khmer Rouge prison, at one point forcefully pushing her group away from a barricade.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

American actress Mia Farrow, left, and Theary Seng, right, Cambodian Executive Director of the Center for Social Development, move away after police pushing their group outside Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008. Cambodian police blocked Farrow from holding a genocide memorial ceremony Sunday at a Khmer Rouge prison, at one point forcefully pushing her group away from a barricade.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

American actress Mia Farrow, center, looks on as Theary Seng, second left, Cambodian Executive Director of the Center for Social Development, talks outside Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008. Cambodian police blocked Farrow from holding a genocide memorial ceremony Sunday at a Khmer Rouge prison, at one point forcefully pushing her group away from a barricade.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Rubber export turnover forecast to hit 1.5bn USD

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam is expected to rake in 1.5 billion USD from rubber exports this year due to growing demand for natural latex and increasing prices in the world market.

Le Quang Thung, President of the Vietnam Rubber Association (VRA), told a conference that was held in Ho Chi Minh City on January 18 to launch the association’s plans for 2008.

Thung said the price of exported rubber latex now stands at 41 million VND (roughly 2,560 USD) per tonne – the highest price to date.

The country has been eager to grow high-yield rubber varieties and apply new farming techniques in an effort to raise average output to 2.5 tonnes per ha in 2015 and 3 tonnes per ha in 2020 from the current 1.6 tonnes per ha.

At the meeting, participants agreed that in 2008 the association will focus on market research, helping local businesses improve product quality, and register national trademark protection for prestigious enterprises.

In addition, VRA will also increase trade promotion activities, send delegations abroad to inquire experiences, and seek opportunities to cooperate with foreign partners.

Vietnam , currently housing around 495,000 ha of rubber trees, plans to increase the acreage to 700,000 ha by 2010.

It has also grown hundreds of thousands of ha in Laos and Cambodia.The country shipped abroad 719,000 tonnes of rubber latex last year, earning some 1.4 billion USD, up 1.6 percent in volume and 8.8 percent in value over the previous year.

(Source: VNA)

Mia Farrow in Cambodia, visiting Tuol Sleng

American actress Mia Farrow looks at a painting depicting torture at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008. Farrow visited the former Khmer Rouge prison, which is now a genocide museum, Saturday where she plans to hold a ceremony spotlighting the crisis in Sudan, despite a ban imposed by the Cambodian government.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

American actress Mia Farrow, center, looks at photos of former Khmer Rouge prisoners at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008. Farrow visited a former Khmer Rouge prison Saturday where she plans to hold a ceremony spotlighting the crisis in Sudan, despite a ban imposed by the Cambodian government.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

American actress Mia Farrow inside a cell at a former Khmer Rouge prison at the Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008. Farrow visited the former Khmer Rouge prison, which is now a genocide museum, Saturday where she plans to hold a ceremony spotlighting the crisis in Sudan, despite a ban imposed by the Cambodian government.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

American actress Mia Farrow takes pictures of human skulls during her visit at Choeung Ek killing field in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008. Farrow visited a former Khmer Rouge prison Saturday where she plans to hold a ceremony spotlighting the crisis in Sudan, despite a ban imposed by the Cambodian government.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Mia Farrow confronts Cambodian police

American actress Mia Farrow, center, looks on as Theary Seng, second left, Cambodian Executive Director of the Center for Social Development, talks outside Tuol Sleng genocide museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008. Cambodian police blocked Farrow from holding a genocide memorial ceremony Sunday at a Khmer Rouge prison, at one point forcefully pushing her group away from a barricade.

By KER MUNTHIT ·
The Associated Press
Updated 01/20/08

Cambodian police blocked Mia Farrow from holding a genocide memorial ceremony Sunday at a Khmer Rouge prison, at one point forcefully pushing her group away from a barricade.

The Cambodian government had barred the ceremony several days ago and police on Sunday sealed off all roads leading to the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng prison, which is now a genocide museum.

The American actress and her group arrived at one of the barricades and refused to go away, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. Police started pushing the group, which eventually returned to a waiting car and drove off. Nobody appeared to have gotten hurt.
Farrow could not be immediately reached for comment.

Farrow, who is working with the U.S.-based advocacy group Dream for Darfur, was in Cambodia as part of a seven-nation tour of countries to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

She had planned to light an Olympic-style torch outside the former prison to send a message to China - the next Olympic host and one of Sudan's major trading partners - to press the Sudanese government to end abuses in Darfur.

More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003 when ethnic African rebels took arms against the Arab-dominated central government. Khartoum denies accusations it committed widespread war crimes.

The Cambodian government, which has strong economic and political ties with China, said days ago it would prevent the 62-year-old actress from going through with the ceremony. The government accused Farrow of having "a political agenda against China" and staging the event for political rather than humanitarian reasons.

Farrow denied that her intentions were political in an interview Saturday, and said she was determined to press ahead with the ceremony.

"It's pretty harsh to be against a ceremony that honors the victims of Darfur and genocide survivors everywhere," Farrow said.

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died during the Khmer Rouge's genocidal reign from 1975-1979. Thousands of Khmer Rouge prisoners were tortured at the Tuol Sleng prison before being executed outside the capital at the site known as "the killing fields."

Cambodian police block Mia Farrow's Darfur rally

REFILE - ADDING TITLE OF THEARY SNG A policeman (R) attempts to stop U.S actress Mia Farrow (C) and Theary Seng (L), Khmer survivor, author and executive director of the Center for Social Development, from making their way to lay flowers at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh January 20, 2008. Farrow says she will ignore a deportation threat and pursue plans to light a symbolic Olympic torch in Cambodia's "Killing Fields", as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

A policeman (R) attempts to stop U.S actress Mia Farrow (C) and Theary Seng (L), Khmer survivor, author and executive director of the Center for Social Development, from making their way to lay flowers at Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh January 20, 2008. Farrow says she will ignore a deportation threat and pursue plans to light a symbolic Olympic torch in Cambodia's "Killing Fields", as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.
REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian police barred Hollywood actress Mia Farrow and other activists from laying flowers at a "Killing Fields" museum on Sunday, as part of a campaign to end atrocities in Sudan's Darfur.

Some 100 baton-wielding police blocked Farrow, who fronts the Dream for Darfur pressure group, and her fellow activists from entering the compound at Tuol Sleng, the Phnom Penh high school that became Pol Pot's main torture centre.

"Darfur has nothing to do with Cambodia. Go protest in Darfur," Phnom Penh police chief Touch Naruth told reporters after the brief stand-off ended without incident.

The group, which had planned to light a symbolic Olympic torch in the compound, has held similar events in Chad, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia as part of a campaign to persuade China to push Khartoum into ending the violence in Darfur.

The group, which included a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, were due to hold a press conference later in the day.

Beijing is hosting the 2008 Olympic Games and human rights groups have targeted China in the hope of using the spotlight thrown on the country to influence Chinese foreign policy.

China, a major investor in Sudan's oil industry, has been accused of breaching international rules and fanning bloodshed by selling Sudan weapons that have been diverted to Darfur.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million others have been driven from their homes in years of fighting. The Sudanese authorities put the death toll at 9,000 and say the West has exaggerated the conflict.

Farrow said in an earlier interview that Phnom Penh was putting the interests of Beijing, one of its biggest donors, above the memories of the estimated 1.7 million victims of Pol Pot's 1975-79 reign of terror.

"We came here with the deepest respect," Farrow told Reuters, tears welling up in her eyes. "I am sad because I think it's a good thing to do."

Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Khanarith had said Farrow's group would face "consequences", including possible deportation, if it pushed ahead with its plans.

"What they will be doing at Tuol Sleng is not to commemorate the victims of the Khmer Rouge, but to use Khmer skulls to pressure China. This is an insult to the Cambodian people," he told Reuters.

The U.S. actress called on China to use its influence to push Khartoum to halt the violence in its western Darfur region and admit international peace-keepers.

"Please, China, do everything in your considerable power to persuade Khartoum to admit the peacekeeping force," she said.

"They can effectively provide security for the people of Darfur and the innocent civilian population that is being ripped apart."

Little Cambodia, Growing Still Littler

RJ Mickelson for The New York Times
Fordham Road in the Bronx, where many Cambodians who came to New York as children initially settled.

New York Region
By DAVID SHAFTEL
January 20, 2008

VIBOL SOK SUNGKRIEM, a 31-year-old aspiring filmmaker, had invited a few friends over for dinner, and his apartment just east of the New York Botanical Garden was flooded with camaraderie and the aroma of spicy Southeast Asian food.

Like Mr. Sungkriem, who wears a whisper of a mustache and favors baggy clothes, most of the half-dozen guests were Cambodians who came to New York as refugees in the 1980s.

Over katiev, a spicy Cambodian noodle soup made with beef, shrimp and fish balls, they told stories about escaping from Khmer Rouge soldiers in Cambodia as they fled to refugee camps in Thailand. They talked about running from thugs on Fordham Road when they were younger, when violence was a fact of everyday life in many Bronx neighborhoods.

As they ate, Mr. Sungkriem opened his laptop and switched on its video instant messaging so that two absent friends could join the party. Within the past few years, both had moved from New York to Cambodian communities elsewhere in the country; one, a police officer, to Los Angeles, for a better job, the other to Stockton, Calif., after a particularly harrowing mugging.

Those two departures tell a broader tale. Not long ago, Mr. Sungkriem and his friends held such parties frequently. But since the mid-’90s, a growing number of Cambodians have left the city, and the parties are held less often.

Data from the 2000 census shows that the city’s Cambodian population decreased by 31 percent from 1990 to 2000. According to a census analysis by the Hmong Studies Internet Resource Center, the decline occurred as nearly all the country’s other Cambodian communities were expanding.

At the high-water mark of 1990, census figures show, 2,565 Cambodians lived in the city, primarily in the Fordham, University Heights and Bronx Park East sections of the Bronx. Most were refugees who were resettled in New York after fleeing the repressive Khmer Rouge regime, which fell in 1979 and claimed nearly two million lives. According to an analysis of 2005 numbers prepared by the Census Bureau, barely 1,000 Cambodians then remained in the city.

“Everybody is leaving,” Mr. Sungkriem said recently at an IHOP restaurant near his apartment.
“It used to be if you walk down Fordham Road, you would bump into lots of Cambodians walking or shopping. Now you can be driving up and down all day, and you never see any.”

Trials are finally expected to start sometime this year for five major Khmer Rouge figures who were detained and will face a special tribunal backed by the United Nations, but many of New York’s dwindling number of Cambodians are focusing on more immediate problems.

“In the ’80s, people didn’t understand what Cambodians were,” Mr. Sungkriem said. “They just called us Chinos. But if you said you were a gangster, you were a star. A lot of people have grown out of that, though, and there are no jobs, no community services. So a lot of people left.”

Among those eager to leave is Paul Keo, 36, who moved to the Bronx when he was 11 and grew up with Mr. Sungkriem.

Mr. Keo, who recently married, works as a technical administrator for Pratt Institute, and the other day, dressed in corduroy pants, fleece jacket and running shoes, he could easily have been mistaken for a Pratt student, save for the ring of keys on his belt.

Although he enjoys his work, he is increasingly weighing the options. “The community here is broken,” he said in an empty Pratt classroom. “I really don’t want my children to grow up in the same difficult environment I did.”

FOR many Cambodians who came to the city in the ’80s, the high school years were tainted by crime and violence, and poor schools left them prepared only for the manufacturing jobs that had already begun leaving the city. Mr. Keo said his solution was to “steal” his education. “After high school,” he said, “I would go to colleges and sit in on classes and observe the material without registering.”

The problems of Cambodians in New York were compounded because the community, small to begin with, became established during a decade when the city struggled on many fronts.

“The violence they experienced during the Khmer Rouge was similar to the violence they saw every day in the Bronx,” said Chhaya Chhoum, director of the Youth Leadership Project at CAAAV, formerly the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence. “So they were never able to move away from their trauma.” The group occupies a former convent on Valentine Avenue near Fordham Road that it plans to make a Southeast Asian cultural center.

In the turbulent Bronx, few of the Cambodian cultural, religious and community centers that have formed in places like Long Beach, Calif., Lowell, Mass., and Minneapolis took root.

Groups like the Vietnamese fared better. Although many of them came to the Bronx roughly around the same time as the Cambodians, they arrived in larger numbers. And unlike the Cambodians, a culturally isolated people, the Vietnamese forged bonds with the city’s large Chinese population, with whom they share cultural ties.

One result of the exodus of the city’s Cambodians is a widening generation gap. Cambodians who remain in New York tend to be older and in failing health; those who leave are typically younger emigrés who attended school in the United States and have the ability or the resources to find jobs elsewhere, often in hotels or garment factories.

One emigré, Siek Chanty, 51, who is unemployed and spends time at the center, said she wanted to leave the Bronx but had nowhere to go.

Many who were separated from their families during the war have located relatives in places like California or Texas. But, Ms. Chanty said through an interpreter, “I haven’t found anyone.”

A Response to the New Year Parade Statement

January 19, 2008

Navy Phim - Author

On Wednesday, January 9, 2008, the Cambodian New Year Parade Committee had a meeting to continue the parade planning. At this meeting, they passed out a press release entitled “Objectives of Cambodian New Year Parade.” Even though the press release does not acknowledge the expressed outraged against the invitation given to Sok An, the Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, the language and points made in the writing functions as a rebuttal and justification for the invitation. The press release begins by discussing a policy of non-discrimination and the final paragraph opens with the statement, “We know that the current Cambodian government is not perfect, but we believe in open dialogs and making changes through peaceful means as taught by Dr. Martin Luther King.” The statement that the Cambodian government is not perfect is an allusion to and an acknowledgement of the destructive practices of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), a corrupt and oppressive government that is presently controlling Cambodia. To use the phrase “not perfect” to describe the CPP is an understatement. This is a government that has engaged in numerous violations of human rights and the oppression of the Cambodian nation including the murders of journalists who dared to speak against them. CPP polices have mistreated and used violence against villagers to evict them from their land. Having an official member of this government in the parade is tantamount to condoning their actions and turning a blind eye to the injustice that occurs in Cambodia, injustices that are committed by the current government.

A parade does not offer the opportunity to discuss or have “open dialog”. A discussion forum is needed for an open dialog to be possible and effective. If the Cambodian New Year Parade Committee and Cambodia Town is interested in creating an open dialog to encourage changes through peaceful means, they should create an event that is separate from the parade. In opening this dialog, they should invite CPP government officials, representatives from the Cambodian Center for Human Right (CCHR) (http://www.cchr-cambodia.org/en/), organizations that work to eliminate human right violations, and members of the community.

The open dialog topics that need to be addressed with the government of Cambodia are human right issues and freedom of expression, to name a few. The CCHR has implemented many forums in Cambodia to engage in open dialogs and could provide recommendations on how to do this.

The parade is not a place for “open dialog” because it is not a forum discussion. The majority of the community is participating as spectator and the government official would be sitting on a float waving to spectators who are attending the parade to celebrate Cambodian New Year and culture. The people sitting in these floats should be inspirational figures who bring pride and joy to the community. A member of a corrupted government can only bring forth anger and resentment in a time for celebration.

The director of CCHR, Virak Ou received the 2007 Reeboks Human Rights Award for Young Activists for his human rights work in Cambodia. He was one of four recipients to receive the award worldwide. This is something that the Cambodian community is proud of and this is the person that should be invited to attend the Cambodian New Year Parade. He represents open dialog and change through peaceful mean. To learn more about his work, click on this link:
http://www.reebok.com/Static/global/initiatives/rights/awards/recipients/virak.html
I believe Dr. Martin Luther King would be willing to meet with oppositional figure to create open dialog and understanding, but I cannot imagine that he would invite members of the Ku Klux Klan to participate in a parade celebrating the African-American community as a mean of encouraging open dialog.

Below is the press release that the Cambodian New Year Committee passed out on January 9, 2008

Objectives of Cambodian New Year Parade

LONG BEACH, CA -The new Year Parade committee has a policy of non-discrimination for participation in the parade. The parade’s main objectives are to promote the Cambodian culture, area businesses, and particularly Cambodia Town. Political slogans and election campaigns are strictly prohibited.

We have followed the official US policy in dealing with the Cambodian government which is recognized by all nations in the world. We believe past parades have made major impacts on the participating Cambodian officials: to witness the joy and pride of Long Beach Cambodian-Americans, and the personal freedom that people enjoy under US laws. High Cambodian officials who have participated in the past parades and celebrations include: Sokha Kem (NGO Human Right Activists), H.E. Than Pok (former-secretary of state), H.E. Vora Khunthoul (Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs), H.E. Sin Neung (Parliament Member), H.E. Chang Song (Senator), H.E. Widhya Chem (Ambassador to UN), H.E. Sreywath Ek (Ambassador to USA), and Cambodian Rice Miller Association.

We know the current Cambodian government is not perfect, but we believe in open dialogs and making changes through peaceful means as taught by Dr. Martin Luther King. We will continue to invite the Cambodian government regardless of the officials’ political party to participate in the parade because the parade will help promote freedom and democracy in Cambodia.

A petition to protest the parade has been circulated online and within the community, but a group of my friends and colleagues have decided to create a shorter one. We also want to obtain the support of people outside of the Cambodian community and write the petition with them in mind as they may not know anything about Cambodia or the reasons for our protest. This is a human rights issues and it requires attention and support from all members of society.
Having more than one petition is acceptable. Even though, it serves the same purpose, people may want to express themselves differently. You can choose to sign either one or write your own. The existing petition can serve as a guideline.

Please download, sign the petition, and get as many signatures as possible: http://navyphim.com/SokAnPetition.pdf

Email me for further instruction on where to send the petition: navyphim@gmail.com

Visiting actress Mia Farrow says she's 'bewildered' by Cambodian ban on Darfur ceremony

American actress Mia Farrow takes pictures of human skulls during her visit at Choeung Ek killing field in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008. Farrow visited a former Khmer Rouge prison Saturday where she plans to hold a ceremony spotlighting the crisis in Sudan, despite a ban imposed by the Cambodian government.(AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

By KER MUNTHIT,
Associated Press Writer
Sat Jan 19,

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — American actress Mia Farrow said she was bewildered by the Cambodian government's attempt to block a ceremony at a former Khmer Rouge prison intended to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

"It's pretty harsh to be against a ceremony that honors the victims of Darfur and genocide survivors everywhere," Farrow said in an interview Saturday. "Frankly, I'm a little bewildered."

Farrow said she and other activists were determined to press ahead with the Sunday ceremony at the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng torture facility, and would hold it outside the former prison's gates if police block them from entering.

Farrow, who is working with the U.S.-based advocacy group Dream for Darfur, traveled to Cambodia to stage a mock Olympic torch-lighting ceremony at the former prison. The ceremony aims to send a message to China — host of the 2008 Olympics and one of Sudan's major trading partners — to press Khartoum to end abuses in Darfur.

China has strong economic ties with both Sudan and Cambodia.

The Cambodian government said days ago it would prevent the 62-year-old actress from going through with the ceremony because the group had "a political agenda against China" and was holding the event for political rather than humanitarian reasons.

Farrow denied that her intentions were political.

"It's so not a protest but is rather a ceremony" to "honor the victims of Darfur and all genocide survivors and victims," Farrow said.

The Khmer Rouge's communist regime in the 1970s led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians.

Thousands of prisoners of the Khmer Rouge were tortured at Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh before being executed outside the capital at a site known as "the killing fields."

Farrow visited both sites Saturday, trailed by several plainclothes police who took pictures of her during a two-hour visit to the prison, which is now a genocide museum.

Wearing sunglasses, jeans and a black T-shirt, Farrow took pictures of the gruesome photographs of torture that fill the former prison's walls. A Cambodian member of her entourage explained the exhibits.

Dream for Darfur has taken its torch-lighting campaign to other places that have suffered mass killings — the Darfur-Chad border, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina — to honor genocide victims and call attention to the violence in Darfur. The group plans to head to China following its Cambodia visit.

Farrow said she has been to the Darfur region eight times and that "it is impossible to go there and witness what I have witnessed without emerging with a deep commitment to end the suffering there."

Dream for Darfur claims China has sold weapons to the Sudanese government and that Chinese oil operations in Sudan have helped fund genocide there.

China, the Khmer Rouge's biggest backer in the 1970s, is a major donor to Cambodia and has been described by current Prime Minister Hun Sen as Cambodia's "most trustworthy friend."

Landmark planted on border line T-junction

19/01/2008

VietNamNet Bridge - A landmark has been planted on the T-junction of the border line between Viet Nam , Laos and Cambodia.

A ceremony to inaugurate the landmark was held at the site on January 18 with the co-chairmanship of Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Dao Viet Trung, Cambodian Senior Minister in charge of Border Affairs Var Kim Hong, and Lao Deputy Foreign Minister and Head of the National Border Committee Phongsavad Boupha.

Present at the ceremony were representatives from three countries’ relevant ministries and agencies, authorities and people of three bordering provinces, Kon Tum of Viet Nam, Attopeu of Laos and Rattanakiri of Cambodia.

The 2m-high granite landmark is placed on a mountain peak at an altitude of 1,086m which was the intersection of the three countries’ border lines.

Construction of the landmark by central highlands Kon Tum province started in December 2007 under the supervision of the three countries’ experts.

Representatives from the three countries agreed that the T-junction border landmark was planted in accordance with the border treaties signed by the three countries. They also expressed hope that the landmark would become a tourist destination.

They shared the view that the erection of the landmark show the will, aspiration and determination of the three countries’ governments and people to jointly deal with border issues and it was an evidence of the mutual confidence, understanding and cooperation between the three countries.

The three governments’ officials affirmed the resolve to complete the land border demarcation between Cambodia and the other two countries, while building more and upgrading landmarks on the Viet Nam-Lao border line.

All of the works are aimed to serve for the Development Triangle Programme that was agreed by the three countries’ Prime Ministers to build, protect and manage the common border line, thereby building a border of peace, friendship, cooperation and development, they stressed.

(Source: VNA)

Preparation to Start the Lightning Campaign 2008

Posted on 18 January 2008.

The Mirror, Vol. 12, No. 543

“Phnom Penh: Samdech Akak Moha Senapadei Dekchor Hun Sen ordered the municipal authorities to take action to crack down on all big and small gambling sites in Phnom Penh, for the citizens’ safety for the New Year 2008.

“A source from the Phnom Penh authorities said that Samdech Dekchor Hun Sen’s order has already reached all officials’ hands and the authorities have also started to meet with each other in order to plan a schedule to conduct a big crackdown in Phnom Penh.

“In the letter, Samdech Prime Minister noticed eight main targets for the campaign to be conducted successfully. However, it is not stated in which districts the eight targets are. A military police official said that the main sites to be suppressed are not big casinos but a number of guesthouses and hotels that secretly operate drug trafficking. Looking from the outside, some guesthouses seem to have guests entering to stay as normal, but inside, drug trafficking and sex trafficking is operated illegally. Some big casinos have even small children entering to gamble, badly affecting the society.

“A Municipal official said that some sites have some tacit agreements with local authorities.
Generally, they hide something from the higher levels to keep their individuals’ interests. As for officials of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, they said that they do not know whether the sites are legal or illegal; they just know that the sites operate and pay taxes to the state – that is all.

“The official added that in some hotels they put up signs as massage and karaoke parlors, but actually they operate sex trafficking and gambling.

“A police official of the Phnom Penh Municipal Police Commission told Kampuchea Thmey that the police has already received the order, they are just waiting for the time to start the suppression. According to Samdech Hun Sen’s order, gambling at hotels and guesthouses will be suppressed, and if evidence is found that owners of the hotels and guesthouses commit crimes, they will be arrested and brought to the courts for punishment. The new year campaign to crack down on gambling, drug trafficking, and sex trafficking is named ‘Lightning Campaign 2008′.”

Kampuchea Thmey, Vol.7, #1548, 18.1.2008

Cambodian mother, friend charged over sale of daughter

Sat, 19 Jan 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - A Cambodian mother and her female friend have been charged with selling her daughter and another young woman, local media reported Saturday. Som Vanny, 42, a karaoke shop owner, and her friend Sour Sarun, 55, were arrested after reports she had sold her 17-year-old daughter and another 20-year-old girl to a foreigner of unspecified nationality for sex, local newspaper Koh Santepheap reported.

The Khmer-language daily quoted Sun Bunthon, anti-trafficking police chief of the northern province of Siem Reap, 400 kilometres from the capital, as saying the two women face up to 20 years in jail if convicted. It did not say how they had pleaded.

Impoverished Cambodia, notorious for human trafficking and sexual exploitation, has made serious efforts to shake off its seedy reputation and made dozens of arrests in recent years. Karaoke shops are often thinly veiled fronts for prostitution in the country.

Remembering Cambodia

Mixed memories of Cambodia course through this young and vibrant tribute to the street food of Southeast Asia.

Ratha Chau, who, with most of his family, fled Cambodia when he was 1, has revisited his homeland several times. He is best-known as the buttoned-up manager of Fleur de Sel, then the shirtsleeved floor boss who launched Ribot. Taking a page from his childhood, he now commands the open kitchen of Kampuchea as owner-chef.

Flanked by a chef de cuisine, Mr. Chau supervises a fascinating menu of hits and near-misses.
But who has the expertise to accurately judge Cambodian--or Kampuchean--cooking? Mr. Chau says the cuisine has no benchmark in New York. The question becomes: Do you like what you're eating? The answer: Most of the time.

Kampuchea is the ancient Khmer name of the often troubled nation. Notorious Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot renamed Cambodia Democratic Kampuchea as he exterminated 1.5 million of its inhabitants.

The only threat to guests at the Lower East Side restaurant is the fierce noise level born of a full house seated amid hard surfaces: pressed-tin ceiling, bare wood floors, uncovered tabletops and glass walls open to the street. Soothing and smoothing the way is an attractive, personable staff--that's Mrs. Chau on the door--all of whom "work from their heart," Mr. Chau says.

Small tables, wooden benches and drink menus printed in Mead notebooks express recollections of early school days. But top-notch drinks like blackberry margaritas and "grilled" Bloody Marys, spiked with wasabi and ginger, are definitely not kid stuff.

Guests begin with such Cambodian "share" plates ($7 to $12) as grilled sweet corn coated with coconut, mayo and chili; a pickle plate of zestily spiced watermelon rind, daikon, cabbage, cucumber and soy sprouts; or honey-glazed crispy cubes of pork belly. Other shares are chicken, tofu salad, seared sweetbreads, and a spicy and sour treatment of mussels.

Four savory crepe options ($11 to $12) feature vegetables, chicken, pork or shrimp cooked after marinating in tuk trey, a mixture of fish sauce, vinegar, lime juice, sugar and garlic. The items are build-it-yourself packages that diners wrap in lettuce leaves and dip in a sauce containing crushed peanuts. Though flavorful, the crepes require considerable finesse with chopsticks.

Num pang ($9 to $13) are sandwiches made with toasted baguettes that come with pickled vegetables and chili mayo. Pulled oxtail in spicy tamarind-basil sauce is terrific, hoisin-laced pork meatballs with rice and light tomato sauce a solid runner-up.

Small plates from the grill ($9 to $12) include tamarind- and honey-glazed baby back ribs that fall from the bone at the touch, as well as lip-smacking organic chicken wings in a five-spice chili sauce.

Ten meal-sized soups, stews and cold noodle dishes ($14 to $17) compose the heart of the menu.
The broth in Phnom Penh katiev, a noodle soup with a bit of everything--shrimp, chicken, pork and duck--seemed flat and out of place. Ditto the bwah moun, in which jasmine rice, chicken, tiger shrimp, lime juice, Thai chili and other elements foundered in less than felicitous broth.

The overall read is that diners can have a lot of culinary discovery and fun at Kampuchea without embracing the noodles. There was also a long wait between early courses and the uneven mains.

Knowing what we now know, we'd return to try other grills, like lemongrass quail with lime-black pepper sauce or ginger-rubbed freshwater prawns. And perhaps order more num pangs, including pulled catfish with honey, shallots and peppercorns.

A lot of thought went into the beverage selection. Excellent wine matches include Gr�ner Veltliner and Riesling, and beers from Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and the Philippines are available.

Actress Mia Farrow visits Khmer Rouge prison, site of banned Darfur ceremony in Cambodia

PR-Inside.com
2008-01-19 10:13:06 -

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - American actress Mia Farrow visited a former Khmer Rouge prison Saturday where she plans to hold a ceremony spotlighting the crisis in Sudan, despite the Cambodian government's ban on the event.

Several plainclothes police trailed Farrow and took pictures of her during a two-hour visit to the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng Prison, which is now a genocide museum in the capital, Phnom Penh.Farrow, who is working with the U.S.-based advocacy group Dream for Darfur, came to Cambodia to hold a mock Olympic torch-lighting ceremony at the former prison. The ceremony aims to send a message to China _ the next Olympic host and one of Sudan's major trading partners _ to press Khartoum to end abuses in Darfur.China, host of the 2008 Olympics, has strong economic ties with both Sudan and Cambodia.

The Cambodian government said days ago it would prevent the 62-year-old actress from holding the ceremony because the group had «a political agenda against China» and was holding the event for political rather than humanitarian reasons.

Farrow herself has not commented on the matter, but a Cambodian rights group that is helping to organize the event has said they plan to proceed with the ceremony.

Dressed in sunglasses, jeans and a black T-shirt, Farrow took a guided tour of the prison, where thousands were tortured during the Khmer Rouge's genocidal rule over Cambodia in the 1970s. An estimated 1.7 million deaths have been blamed on the regime.

Farrow took pictures of the gruesome photographs of torture that fill the former prison's walls as a Cambodian member of her entourage explained the exhibits.When a reporter asked her about the planned ceremony, Farrow smiled and replied «Hello!» A waiting car whisked her away.

She was accompanied by Theary Seng, director of the advocacy group Center of Social Development, which is helping organize the event planned for Sunday.

«Our resolve is still the same, which is to go forward» Theary Seng said Friday. «It's really difficult how anyone can be against honoring survivors of genocide, particularly as Cambodians.

Dream for Darfur has taken its torch-lighting campaign to other places that have suffered mass killings _ the Darfur-Chad border, Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina _ to honor genocide victims and call attention to the violence in Darfur. The group plans to head to China following its Cambodia visit.

Dream for Darfur claims China has sold weapons to the Sudanese government and has defended Khartoum's actions in Darfur at the U.N. Security Council, while Chinese oil operations in Sudan have helped fund genocide there.

China, the biggest backer of the Khmer Rouge's communist regime in the 1970s, is a major donor to Cambodia and has been described by current Prime Minister Hun Sen as Cambodia's «most trustworthy friend.

Local Buddhists mourn loss of spiritual leader

By David Perry, dperry@lowellsun.com
01/18/2008

LOWELL -- In his 90 years, the Venerable Ly Van Aggadipo witnessed the worst in humanity but as a respected community member and spiritual leader of Lowell's Glory Buddhist Temple, worked to bring out the best in people.

The Buddhist monk, who since 1989 led Glory Buddhist Temple in Lowell, died Saturday afternoon at Lowell General Hospital, surrounded by friends, followers and family, including his wife of 70 years, Sea Tan.

Like many who arrived here in the 1980s, he escaped the horrors of Killing Fields of Cambodia, fleeing Khmer Rouge soldiers.

The temple and community have mourned his passing this week with prayers and chanting, as the leader lies in state.

Among the earliest of the first wave of Cambodians to resettle in Lowell, he arrived in June 1981.
A mainstay in ushering other Cambodian refugees to normalcy in their new land, he helped found the Cambodian Mutual Aid Association of Greater Lowell Inc., and was also among those who created the Cambodian Buddhist Association of Lowell.

With that group, he helped establish the Trairatanaram Temple in North Chelmsford, which served not only as a religious temple but a cultural center.

He was invited to lead the Glory Buddhist Temple in 1989, shortly after his ordination in Maryland. Though two other monks also serve the temple, Ly Van was its leader until his death.
Local Buddhists remember Ly Van as a peaceful man, a respected temple elder and a voice of reason.

"He was a kind, gentle person, full of wisdom," said Samkhann Khoeun, former director of the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association. "People talked to him and he helped many, many people, He was always willing to make an extra effort."

Sokhar Sao, the temple's president and Ly Van's nephew, said that Ly Van was ordained a Buddhist Novice in Cambodia at 19, but left a year later to marry Tan Sear. They had a son, Chha Non Ly, of Paris, and adopted a daughter, Chivby Ho, of Lowell.

Ly Van worked rice fields as a farmer in their Cambodian village of Don Teav, Battambang.
In the 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge began its reign of torture and execution, Ly Van was forced to work on agricultural projects for 12 to 14 hours a day, and nearly starved to death.
When the Vietnamese Communist troops invaded in 1979, Ly Van and his family were among thousands who fled to the Thai border, but were turned back. Ly Van and his family were among the first wave, taken to Mount Dangrek, where hundreds "and maybe thousands," said Sao, plunged to their deaths.

Ly Van and his family escaped by climbing down the mountain, using rocks, limbs and small trees. For six weeks, they ate whatever they could and avoided landmines, booby traps and the battles of Vietnamese and Khmer soldiers.

They entered Thailand across a stream and eventually were taken to a holding center, where Thai soldiers regularly mistreated residents. They were eventually transferred to a refugee processing center in the Philippines, granted political asylum and began their journey to America.

"I say anyone who survived that to make it to the U.S. has 1,000 lucks," said Sao.

Sao said he had heard of his uncle but never met him in Cambodia. When he met Ly Van in Maryland in 1988, "I told him my story and of my relatives. He said, 'you are related to me.' I was shocked."

Sao, who was living in Pennsylvania at the time, moved to Lowell in 1989.

Ly Van never forgot his homeland, whatever horrors happened there.

"He helped so many in the community, not just here, but in Cambodia," said Sao, 47. "He helped other temples and villages over in Cambodia, sometimes with money to help build schools, bridges, roads and ponds to store water. Sometimes he went back and sometimes he helped from here."

Khoeun was surprised to learn that Ly Van knew his grandfather back in Cambodia.

He was equally surprised to find a batch of poetry the monk had composed.

"It is wonderful poetry," said Khoeun. "It is about his experiences with the Khmer Rouge and his life, escaping the ordeal in Cambodia." He also wrote poems of the country's kings, generals and other political figures in the 1960s and '70s, Khoeun said.

"I want to type them up and put a small book together in his memory."

Ly Van's body is to be cremated tomorrow.

Douglas Mendel Cambodian Relief Fund fundraiser

DAILY NEWS STAFF REPORT
January 18, 2008

Please come for a fun evening and to support The Douglas Mendel Cambodian Relief Fund in its mission to help two projects in 2008. First to build an addition for a fire station in Ratanakiri, Cambodia, and secondly to support two national parks in the country.

The fundraiser will be held on Friday, Jan. 25, at Food Hedz World Cafe in Frisco, from 5-9 p.m. All the night's proceeds will be donated to the Douglas Mendel Cambodian Relief Fund.

Cambodian crafts will be for sale. Food Hedz World Cafe is located in Frisco, between Wal-Mart and Safeway, 842 N. Summit Blvd. For more information, call (970) 668-2000.

Cambodia may expel China protestors

PRESS TV
19 Jan 2008 01:15:08

Mia Farrow plans to hold a ceremony at Tuol Sleng prison.Cambodia threatens to expel activists who plan a ceremony at a Khmer Rouge prison to increase pressure on China over the crisis in Darfur.

Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith condemned the event, led by American actress Mia Farrow, as 'insulting' to victims of the communist regime which devastated Cambodia during the late 1970s.

"They want to use Tuol Sleng Prison to attack China, not to commemorate the souls of Cambodian people," said Khieu Kanharith, threatening to expel those who insist on holding the ceremony.

The group of activists, Dream for Darfur, has started a torch relay through nations that have suffered genocide to draw attention to China's close ties with Sudan, while Beijing is to host the Olympic Games in August.

Farrow's group had planned to hold a ceremony Sunday outside Tuol Sleng, formerly a torture center turned into a genocide museum.

The government on Wednesday said it would not allow the event, accusing the group of attempts to politicize the Olympic Games.

But organizers said on Friday that they would still rally at the prison despite the ban.

China--which has been under pressure to use its economic ties with Sudan to stop the violence in Darfur-- was also a close ally of the communist Khmer Rouge, which accounted for up to two million Cambodians' deaths between 1975-79.

China absorbs almost two thirds of Sudan's oil output and is the most influential ally of the African country where violence has claimed thousands of lives since it erupted in volatile Darfur region in 2003.

Radio Broadcasted during Khmer Republic 1975

Phnom Penh.com

- Kampuchea National Radio broadcasted in 1975: Hosted by Huy Meas & Sos Math

- Kampuchea National Radio broadcasted in 1975: Hosted by Huy Meas

Radio Australia : 17 January 2008

Thursday 17/01/2008

Local Buddhists mourn loss of spiritual leader

01/18/2008
By David Perry, dperry@lowellsun.com
Lowell Sun (Lowell, Mass., USA)

LOWELL -- In his 90 years, the Venerable Ly Van Aggadipo witnessed the worst in humanity but as a respected community member and spiritual leader of Lowell's Glory Buddhist Temple, worked to bring out the best in people.

The Buddhist monk, who since 1989 led Glory Buddhist Temple in Lowell, died Saturday afternoon at Lowell General Hospital, surrounded by friends, followers and family, including his wife of 70 years, Sea Tan.

Like many who arrived here in the 1980s, he escaped the horrors of Killing Fields of Cambodia, fleeing Khmer Rouge soldiers.

The temple and community have mourned his passing this week with prayers and chanting, as the leader lies in state. Among the earliest of the first wave of Cambodians to resettle in Lowell, he arrived in June 1981.

A mainstay in ushering other Cambodian refugees to normalcy in their new land, he helped found the Cambodian Mutual Aid Association of Greater Lowell Inc., and was also among those who created the Cambodian Buddhist Association of Lowell.

With that group, he helped establish the Trairatanaram Temple in North Chelmsford, which served not only as a religious temple but a cultural center.He was invited to lead the Glory Buddhist Temple in 1989, shortly after his ordination in Maryland.

Though two other monks also serve the temple, Ly Van was its leader until his death.

Local Buddhists remember Ly Van as a peaceful man, a respected temple elder and a voice of reason.

"He was a kind, gentle person, full of wisdom," said Samkhann Khoeun, former director of the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association.

"People talked to him and he helped many, many people, He was always willing to make an extra effort."Sokhar Sao, the temple's president and Ly Van's nephew, said that Ly Van was ordained a Buddhist Novice in Cambodia at 19, but left a year later to marry Tan Sear.

They had a son, Chha Non Ly, of Paris, and adopted a daughter, Chivby Ho, of Lowell.Ly Van worked rice fields as a farmer in their Cambodian village of Don Teav, Battambang.

In the 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge began its reign of torture and execution, Ly Van was forced to work on agricultural projects for 12 to 14 hours a day, and nearly starved to death.

When the Vietnamese Communist troops invaded in 1979, Ly Van and his family were among thousands who fled to the Thai border, but were turned back.

Ly Van and his family were among the first wave, taken to Mount Dangrek, where hundreds "and maybe thousands," said Sao, plunged to their deaths.

Ly Van and his family escaped by climbing down the mountain, using rocks, limbs and small trees. For six weeks, they ate whatever they could and avoided landmines, booby traps and the battles of Vietnamese and Khmer soldiers.

They entered Thailand across a stream and eventually were taken to a holding center, where Thai soldiers regularly mistreated residents.

They were eventually transferred to a refugee processing center in the Philippines, granted political asylum and began their journey to America.

"I say anyone who survived that to make it to the U.S. has 1,000 lucks," said Sao.Sao said he had heard of his uncle but never met him in Cambodia.

When he met Ly Van in Maryland in 1988, "I told him my story and of my relatives. He said, 'you are related to me.' I was shocked.

"Sao, who was living in Pennsylvania at the time, moved to Lowell in 1989.Ly Van never forgot his homeland, whatever horrors happened there.

"He helped so many in the community, not just here, but in Cambodia," said Sao, 47. "He helped other temples and villages over in Cambodia, sometimes with money to help build schools, bridges, roads and ponds to store water.

Sometimes he went back and sometimes he helped from here."Khoeun was surprised to learn that Ly Van knew his grandfather back in Cambodia.

He was equally surprised to find a batch of poetry the monk had composed."It is wonderful poetry," said Khoeun.

"It is about his experiences with the Khmer Rouge and his life, escaping the ordeal in Cambodia."
He also wrote poems of the country's kings, generals and other political figures in the 1960s and '70s, Khoeun said.

"I want to type them up and put a small book together in his memory."Ly Van's body is to be cremated tomorrow.

American Movie Star Attempts to Campaign Pushing China to Help to End Violence in Darfur, but Cambodian Authorities Are Likely to Reject the Attempt

A tear goes down the face of Hollywood actress and UNICEF ambassador Mia Farrow (L) as she visits the cemetery where victims of 1995 massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys are buried in Srebrenica December 6, 2007. Cambodia has barred Farrow and a group campaigning for an end to atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region from lighting a symbolic Olympic torch at a "Killing Fields" memorial site. REUTERS/Danilo Krstanovic

Posted on 18 January 2008.

The Mirror, Vol. 12, No. 543

“Phnom Penh: The 63-year-old American movie star Mia Farrow, now a UNICEF good-will ambassador wants to come to Cambodia at the end of the campaign, urging the Chinese government to help to end abuses in Darfur in the western part of Sudan, but Cambodia is likely not to allow the event.

“According to a report of Reuters, the American movie star had started a campaign with an Olympic-style torch relay, in order to push China, which has good relations with the government of Sudan, to help to end abuses in this area of conflict, ending the campaign in Cambodia, after she had already carried on the campaign which had started in Chad, near to Darfur.

“The same source said that Cambodia is the sixth country through which the American actress Mia Farrow carried the torch, after starting in Chad, and moving through Rwanda, Armenia, Germany, and Bosnia.

“Mr. Khieu Kanharith, the Minister of Information and the government’s spokesperson, did not answer his telephone; as for Mr. Khieu Sopheak, the Ministry of Interior spokesperson, he did not answer his telephone either on the afternoon of 16 January, but he told the Herald Sun [Australia] that Cambodia does not welcome such a campaign, and Cambodia will also not allow any gathering for such an Olympic-style torch relay.

“He told the same source that whoever conducts the event would face a trial.

“So far, the crisis in Darfur is still the hottest in the world. Violence has killed approximately 200,000 people during five years of war, starvation, and diseases.

“Mia Farrow was born on Monday 9 February 1945. She started making movies in 1964 until now. She is also playing a role as a UNICEF good-will ambassador.”

Rasmei Kampuchea, Vol.16, #4491, 17.1.2008

Boeng Kak Lake in Phnom Penh

Areyathor, Vol.14, #1301, 18-19.1.2008

A Report Says [National Assembly President] Samdech Ponhea Chakrey Heng Samrin Signed a Letter for the Suspension of Pumping of Soil to Fill Boeng Kak Lake [the Phnom Penh governor and vice-governor allegedly also disagree with each other about pumping of soil to fill Boeng Kak lake]

Boeng Kak Lake in Phnom Penh - 16.1.2008

The BoengKak Lake in Phnom Penh is contracted to an hardly known Korean company for “development” - 90% are to be filled in and built up. For a long time, it served as a reservoir to take in flood water. Several hundred families would be displaced…

Preparation to Start the Lightning Campaign 2008

Posted on 18 January 2008.

The Mirror, Vol. 12, No. 543

“Phnom Penh: Samdech Akak Moha Senapadei Dekchor Hun Sen ordered the municipal authorities to take action to crack down on all big and small gambling sites in Phnom Penh, for the citizens’ safety for the New Year 2008.

“A source from the Phnom Penh authorities said that Samdech Dekchor Hun Sen’s order has already reached all officials’ hands and the authorities have also started to meet with each other in order to plan a schedule to conduct a big crackdown in Phnom Penh.

“In the letter, Samdech Prime Minister noticed eight main targets for the campaign to be conducted successfully. However, it is not stated in which districts the eight targets are. A military police official said that the main sites to be suppressed are not big casinos but a number of guesthouses and hotels that secretly operate drug trafficking. Looking from the outside, some guesthouses seem to have guests entering to stay as normal, but inside, drug trafficking and sex trafficking is operated illegally. Some big casinos have even small children entering to gamble, badly affecting the society.

“A Municipal official said that some sites have some tacit agreements with local authorities. Generally, they hide something from the higher levels to keep their individuals’ interests. As for officials of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, they said that they do not know whether the sites are legal or illegal; they just know that the sites operate and pay taxes to the state – that is all.

“The official added that in some hotels they put up signs as massage and karaoke parlors, but actually they operate sex trafficking and gambling.

“A police official of the Phnom Penh Municipal Police Commission told Kampuchea Thmey that the police has already received the order, they are just waiting for the time to start the suppression. According to Samdech Hun Sen’s order, gambling at hotels and guesthouses will be suppressed, and if evidence is found that owners of the hotels and guesthouses commit crimes, they will be arrested and brought to the courts for punishment. The new year campaign to crack down on gambling, drug trafficking, and sex trafficking is named ‘Lightning Campaign 2008′.”

Kampuchea Thmey, Vol.7, #1548, 18.1.2008

Dream Deferred

Financial Times, UK
Jan 19 2008

Mia Farrow is deeply concerned about the plight of Sudan's Darfurregion, where government-backed militias are engaged in genocideagainst the population.

The 62-year-old actress is part of the advisory committee for Dreamfor Darfur, which is trying to pressure Beijing - a leading patronof the Sudanese regime - to use its leverage in Khartoum to stop thepersecution of civilians in the blighted region.

It may have seemed logical for Darfur campaigners to expect sympathyfor their cause in Cambodia, which was devastated by the 1970s genocideoverseen by the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge.

But Phnom Penh has vetoed Farrow's plan to hold a ceremony and lightan Olympic-style torch this weekend at the Khmer Rouge's notoriousformer Tuol Sleng prison as part of a campaign to draw attentionto the Darfur crisis.

Similar ceremonies have already taken placein other countries touched by genocide including Rwanda, Armenia,Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Cambodia explained its decision by saying that the activists were not"doing this for humanitarian reasons but because they have a politicalagenda against China".

China is Cambodia's largest trading partner and one of its biggestaid donors - which is perhaps why Phnom Penh is willing to let bygonesbe bygones.