The Phnom Penh Post News In Brief

In Brief: Sam Rainsy meets with US diplomat

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Meas Sokhea
Friday, 20 February 2009

Sam Rainsy said he brought up the anti-corruption law as well as the Kingdom's response to the global economic crisis in a Thursday meeting with United States Ambassador Carol Rodley. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, the Sam Rainsy Party president said it was only right for the US government to seek input from both the ruling and opposition parties on these and other issues.

In Brief: Hun Sen extends hand to opposition

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Meas Sokhea
Friday, 20 February 2009

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday he would entertain applications for civil servant positions from members of all political parties so long as the positions were not political. He said positions in the government would continue to be filled by political appointment and would only be open to members of CPP and Funcinpec. However, "for positions that are only for public function, I do not discriminate", he said during a speech concluding a two-day reform conference.

In Brief: ILO decries ruling in union killing

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Robbie Corey-Boulet
Friday, 20 February 2009

The International Labour Organisation said it was "disappointed" to hear of Wednesday's unanimous decision by the Court of Appeal not to overturn the conviction of Thach Saveth, who was found guilty of the 2004 slaying of union leader Ros Sovannareth. "The ILO has repeatedly called for Thatch Saveth to be released from prison and for the murder of Ros Sovannareth to be investigated in accordance with international standards of due process, so that the true perpetrators can be brought to justice," read a statement issued Thursday.

In Brief: Gaming makes $20m

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by HOR HAB AND CHUN SOPHAL
Friday, 20 February 2009

CHEA Peng Chheang, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Economy, said Thursday that government revenues from the gaming sector topped US$20 million in 2008, a 20 percent spike from the previous year. He added that the government aims to increase gambling revenues this year by a further 12.5 percent by improving revenue collection, though he did not provide details. Cambodia has about 30 casinos - employing more than 15,000 people - mostly along Cambodia's borders with Thailand and Vietnam. Chea Peng Chheang added that the global financial crisis poses a challenge to increasing revenues due to its effect on the tourism sector.

CACJE questions authenticity of the Vietnamese films on S-21 immediately following the Vietnamese aggression of Cambodia

Cambodian Action Committee for Justice & Equity (CACJE)
No: 3 Fountain Ave. Cranston RI, 02920 Web: www.cacje.net,

Email: cacjepress9@gmail.com
“CACJE is an Alliance for People Power, Promote Social Justice and Support Human Equity”


Official Translation in English
No: 0044/CACJE

Immediate Press Release

Februay 19, 2009

Press Statement

Cambodian Action Committee for Justice & Equity (CACJE) expressed strong supports the position of Mr. KA SAVUTH, the co-defense attorney of Mr. KAING GUEK EAV alias Duch, ex-Director of TUOL SLENG Prison and the position of Co-Prosecutor against the use of a film documenting torture shot by Vietnamese soldiers shortly after they drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979 as evidence before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The document film served Hanoi political purpose. The orphan witness claiming living inside TUOL SLENG Prison raised more questions than answers.

Moreover, CACJE expressed displeasure relative to the declaration of CHHANG YOUK, Director of Cambodia Documentation Centre (DC-CAM) which is an organization financed by the American tax- payers. CHHANG YOUK had shown his no-professionalism, not independent, lack of deep understanding of the documentation, not be able to produce trustful documents and witnesses for the ECCC. Instead DC-CAM produces falsified, manipulated and fictive documents to serve political purpose in order to bury the truth about the Khmer Rouge. Therefore, DC-CAM induced in error the scholar studies of Khmer Rouge Era because of her published fabricated documents

To have a fair and transparent trial, and for the truth, the ECCC must reject all the documents and witnesses provided by Vietnam and China.

CACJE urges the international judges and Co-prosecutors to investigate more people, widening their scope to reach all the Khmer Rouge rulers from the top Chief of State to the region (DAMBAN) chief security forces. International judges and co-prosecutors must focus notably on the documents and witnesses. The polygraph machine might be used to sort out the witnesses.

Signed:
SEREYRATHA SOURN

Khmer Rouge Trial Lawyers Clash

AFP
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Prosecutors take their seats at the opening of the Khmer Rouge trial, Feb. 17, 2009.

Radio Free Asia

Lawyers clash at pretrial hearings in Khmer Rouge trial.

PHNOM PENH—Lawyers preparing for the long-awaited trial of the Khmer Rouge’s lead torturer clashed in court this week over whether footage shot by Vietnamese soldiers inside his notorious prison may be admitted as prosecution evidence.

The seven-minute film—shot in black and white by Vietnamese troops after they ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979—shows inmates’ emaciated bodies, some still in chains, inside S-21, or Tuol Sleng, prison.

Ka Savuth, a Cambodian lawyer who is part of the team defending Kaing Guek Eav, known by the alias Duch, protested during pretrial hearings the prosecution’s bid to use the films, which he described as fabricated.

Duch, now 66, served as commandant at Tuol Sleng during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule. On Tuesday, he sat silently as hundreds of victims crowded the court’s galleries.

Defense lawyers say the investigating judges should have vetted the film, along with new witnesses and documents described as interrogation reports bearing notes allegedly written by Duch ordering the deaths of inmates.

They also cited alleged discrepancies in the film that they say indicate tampering.

Chhang Youk, director of the nonprofit Documentation Center of Cambodia, said he received the film from Vietnam and defended its neutrality and authenticity.

“Places and pictures—pictures of the prison and children, and documents regarding the deaths—aren’t political. They are factual. They are not political, but are facts. We must not politicize facts,” Chhang Youk said after the hearing.

On the eve of the trial, two members of the Vietnamese crew said they had also found five child survivors of S-21 hiding under piles of prisoners' clothing. One child died soon after from malnutrition, they said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh meanwhile said that Washington has now sent U.S. $1.8 million in promised aid for the trial to the United Nations, which will disburse the money.

Duch, now a born-again Christian, is accused of overseeing the deaths of up to 16,000 men, women, and children at Tuol Sleng. He has expressed remorse for his actions.

The trial constitutes a landmark in this impoverished country, in which nearly everyone lost relatives, friends, or neighbors as Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, known as "brother number one," pursued his dream of an ethnically pure, agrarian utopia.

Years of wrangling

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia was established in 2006 after nearly a decade of wrangling over legal procedure between Cambodia and the United Nations.

The court will announce a start date for the trial once the witness list is settled.

The trial is widely seen as the last chance to bring the Khmer Rouge's surviving leaders to justice.

It has been called an "experiment in international justice," with domestic and foreign judges working side-by-side to try to ensure its independence.

But critics say its integrity is threatened by allegations of corruption and political interference, and many Cambodians have questioned its independence.

Only 12 people held at Tuol Sleng survived, according to the Documentation Center of Cambodia.

Most inmates were forced to make confessions, then taken from the prison for execution at a nearby orchard called Choeung Ek.

Duch is one of five ageing senior cadres facing charges and is expected to testify against “brother number two” Nuon Chea, ex-Khmer Rouge president Khieu Samphan, and ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife.

All face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Original reporting by Leng Malyand Huy Vannak for RFA’s Khmer service. Translated by Uon Chhi. Khmer service director: Sos Kem. Executive producer: Susan Lavery. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Bugged in the right direction

Photo by Courtesy Photo / William Daniell.
Nurse practitioner Anne Hall examines a villager with arsenicosis in Preak Ruessei, Cambodia. Daniell was in Cambodia this month, studying health problems caused by pesticide use.

Photo by Courtesy Photo / William Daniell.
Boys from the Kien Svay district in Cambodia take a ride on an ox cart.

Photo by Courtesy Photo / William Daniell.
A boy from the village of Preak Ruessei in Cambodia gathers water from a well.

Photo by Daniel Kim.
William Daniell lectures about risk communication in his evironmental health class. Daniell was recently named the Rhom and Haas professor of public health sciences.

The Daily

By Natasha Lee
February 20, 2009

Sometimes it takes a compassionate outsider who’s interested in karaoke to recognize the need for an environmental change.

William Daniell, associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences, started working with colleague Matthew Keifer on his Fogarty Grant that dealt with global health problems in Southeast Asia and Central America. In 2005, they decided to specifically focus on Southeast Asia; in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. During a visit to Cambodia, Daniell found his passion.

“I was attracted to the country even though it was a short stay,” Daniell said. “There was no shortage of environmental and occupational health problems. I was drawn by the people and the plethora of problems in Cambodia.”

Environmental health has grown apart from public health, but in developing countries, environmental problems are big factors contributing to public health, Daniell said.

He was recently granted the Rohm and Haas Award. The award pertains to researching, teaching and analyzing health issues related to chemical exposure. It is an internal competition specifically for the UW public health department. Each sub-department in the public health department nominates a faculty member for the award.

The recipient is given a no-strings-attached endowment for five years to engage in research pertaining to chemical problems that are health related.

Daniell’s research will primarily focus on environmental health problems in Southeast Asia, particularly Cambodia. He has been working on multiple projects, such as exploring the naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water, which he would like to integrate into the Rohm and Haas research — his chief objective is on the country’s pesticides problem.

“My focus will be on pesticide use, pesticide exposure, pesticide poisoning particularly in farmers and their families, policy aspects and vendors that sell pesticides,” Daniell said.

Native Cambodians are often exposed to pesticides, and Daniell would like to explore how often they are exposed and the quantifiable amount they are exposed to. He wants to look at pesticide poisoning due to the lack of information on products, such as warning labels.

Daniell is interested in the issue of a language barrier. Information on products may be written in a different language, such as Chinese, and this causes difficulty for farmers who are illiterate.

“Very few farmers have special training on pesticides,” Daniell said.

The policy aspect of pesticides is another concern he will look into. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies pesticides based on their toxicity into three levels: I “extremely hazardous,” II “moderately hazardous” and III “slightly hazardous,” according to their Web site. The Cambodian government currently has bans on level I and II pesticides.

“People recognize the need for rural regulation, but it doesn’t happen, because there are barriers to the rules, opposition from industries, the government is not fully functional or there’s poor communication between branches of the government,” Daniell said.

Through his research Daniell wants to look at what happens when new information is given to branches of the government, such as the Cambodia Ministry of Health, and see if it results in any significant policy changes.

“It’s a chance to test the system to see what works and doesn’t work,” he said.

A separate interest of Daniell’s is to look at the effectiveness of nontraditional health communication. While in Cambodia, he worked with Resource Development International (RDI), a non-governmental organization, who found an unconventional way of communicating to the rural audiences of Cambodia: karaoke.

Karaoke is a major part of Cambodian culture; even the most rural of villages will have a set up of karaoke, Daniell explained.

RDI explores different avenues of communication such as karaoke, puppet shows for all ages and television shows that teach villagers about the dangers of arsenic in water and as well as other important health messages.

But Daniell is not just focused on his own research. He assists organizations that need help conducting research or organizations that could still use a lending hand, such as RDI and the Cambodia National Institute of Public Health.

By serving as a mediator, he can connect different organizations that are working on similar projects and have compatible interests.

As a mediator, it’s easy to find things for both students and faculty to participate in, Daniell said.

Erica Finsness, a recent graduate in public health from the UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, traveled to Cambodia and worked with RDI for a month with the help of Daniell and other faculty members in the same department. Daniell was Finsness’ faculty adviser and mentored her in aspects of her trip to Cambodia.

“I think he’s very supportive of student ideas even if they’re somewhat unconventional,” Finsness said. “He has a real dedication to research that is readily applied and to make an effort to make himself accessible to students.”

Continuing with his passion for working with students and global health, Daniell was asked by the Department of Global Health to develop an environmental health course that will emphasize the importance of the environment in developing countries.

“What [Daniell will] be able to do is bring to the global health course a level of awareness on the pervasiveness to the problems in global health,” Keifer said.

A majority of people spend their lives working and hazards come with the job, Keifer said. The potential for something in work to affect health is enormous; it’s potentially worse in an international setting.

“[The course] creates an opportunity for [the students’] sensitization to be raised in environmental and global health issues,” Keifer said.

Daniell hopes that the class will be ready in the next academic year.

“The main goal is for students to appreciate how important the environment is in developing countries,” he said.

Reach contributing writer Natasha Lee at development@dailyuw.com.

Viettel opens mobile phone network in Cambodia

VOV News
02/20/2009

The Military Telecom Corporation (Viettel) inaugurated its Metfone service network in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on February 19. The network is managed by the Viettel-Cambodia Pte. Ltd, a Viettel subsidiary in the country.

At the inauguration ceremony, Viettel’s Director General Hoang Anh Xuan thanked the Cambodian Government for having supported the company in expanding its operations into the market, which also helps promote economic development and improve local residents’ living standards.

At the event, the Viettel head presented US$5 million to the Cambodian Minister of Education, Young People and Sports, Im Sethy, to help the country install free broadband internet transmission lines in 1,000 of the country’s schools. The project will be carried out over the next five years.

Established in June 2007, the Viettel-Cambodia Pte. Ltd has successfully installed over 1,000 broadcasting posts and 5,000 km of cables, covering all 24 Cambodian provinces and cities.

The company plans to install an additional 1,500 posts and 5,000 km of cable this year to extend its coverage to Cambodia’s remote villages and islands, creating 700 jobs for local workers.

Indonesian master puppeteer to stage show in Cambodia

www.chinaview.cn

2009-02-20

PHNOM PENH, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian master puppeteer Aneng Kiswantoro will introduce the long-cherished artistic tradition of the Java island to the Khmers, English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily said on Friday.

He will give a show of the at least 1,000-year-old art, called "wayang golek" in his country, here on Saturday.

According to the tradition, the artist performs alone to music, with 1 or 2 puppets in hands and speaking or singing relevant stories.

A veteran of 28 years old, Kiswantoro started his training with his father at five years old, at a family that has been puppeteers for seven generations.

Kiswantoro also teaches at the Indonesian Institute of Arts in Yogyakarta.

Editor: An

UN-Cambodian war crimes court is tested

boston.com

Boston Globe, United States
By Peter Maguire
February 19, 2009

EARLIER this month, the controversy-plagued UN-Cambodian war crimes court announced that the trial of Khmer Rouge prison camp commandant Kaing Guek Eav, better known as "Brother Duch," would begin in March.

Almost as an afterthought, the court added that proceedings against the regime's political leaders Ieng Sary, Nuon Chea, and Khieu Samphan - the cases that will make or break these proceedings - would be delayed for yet another year.

While it is heartening to see Cambodia's war-crimes tribunal do something other than field pretrial motions, Duch is a garden-variety war criminal who could be quickly and easily convicted by a basic military tribunal for his well-documented violations of basic human rights norms.

If Cambodia's unwieldy mixed tribunal cannot speedily convict this bloodstained butcher, it stands no chance in the cases against the well-defended and unrepentant Khmer Rouge leaders, whose legal guilt is far more difficult to prove.

Duch, although a key functionary, was not a policy maker. The former teacher lorded over a prison, Tuol Sleng, that 16,000 to 20,000 entered and less than 20 survived. Before prisoners were killed, most were photographed, tortured, and interrogated. When the Vietnamese liberated the prison in 1979, a large portion of these meticulous photographic and documentary records were recovered. Even guards at Tuol Sleng feared for their lives - according to prison records, over 500 guards and staff members were killed for such seditious acts as breaking a shovel, screaming in their sleep, or destroying a hornet's nest.

When I asked Tuol Sleng survivor Bou Meng in 2003 what he would say to Duch if given the chance, he began to fish through his pocket and pulled out a photograph of a young woman. It was his wife, who had been killed at the prison. Bou Meng had found her photograph in the prison archive the day before.

"She was tortured and killed," he said, as tears began to well in his eyes. "I would demand the return of my wife and child."

Unlike the Khmer Rouge political leaders who continue to deny knowledge of atrocities and even of Tuol Sleng Prison, Duch is now an evangelical Christian who has stoically accepted his fate, admitted his guilt, and taken responsibility for his actions.

"I am sorry," Duch told Nic Dunlop, the journalist who found him in 1999. "The people who died were good people."

Today, the former Tuol Sleng Prison chief freely admits that many of the prisoners were innocent. But he adds, "whoever was arrested had to die. It was the rule of the party."

However salacious the gory details of the Duch case might be, it is legally and politically simple. Some speculate that the Cambodian government is serving up this easily convicted thug as a sacrificial lamb in the hopes that the other over-80 defendants won't live long enough to see the inside of the courtroom. If nothing else, we might finally learn whether or not there were "Chinese advisors" inside Tuol Sleng.

The announcement of the start of the Duch trial was quickly overshadowed by UN prosecutor Robert Petit's decision to open new criminal investigations and possibly issue more indictments.

It did not take the Cambodian co-prosecutor Chea Leang (niece of Deputy Prime Minister Sok An) long to reject the move on both practical and political grounds. If nothing else, the UN's attempt to broaden this criminal inquiry will serve both as a test of the mixed tribunal's legitimacy and its ability to function as a court.

For many years, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was firmly in control of these proceedings, but by opening further criminal investigations, the UN has challenged his control. What remains to be seen is whether or not the Cambodian prime minister has the political will to try the Khmer Rouge political leaders.

If nothing else, the Cambodian strongman and his minions at the mixed tribunal are quickly learning a point best made by German political theorist Otto Kircheimer in his classic 1961 study, "Political Justice":

"Justice in political matters is more tenuous than in any other field of jurisprudence, because it can so easily become a mere farce."

Peter Maguire is the author of "Facing Death in Cambodia." A version of this piece first appeared in the International Herald Tribune.

The Number of Children with Severe Malnutrition Increases - Thursday, 19.2.2009

Posted on 19 February 2009
The Mirror, Vol. 13, No. 600

“Phnom Penh: A new report from the National Institute of Statistics found that the number of children with severe malnutrition increased, and the number of different diseases that affect children under the age of five increased also.

“The findings of a survey on the national level, analyzing the influence of high food prices, indicate that the health of children did not improve, because the number of children with serious malnutrition rose from 8.4% in 2005 to 8.9% in 2008, which is an important indication based on their weight and height proportions. This survey found also that the spread of fever among children under the age of four rose to 58.9% in 2008, compared to 39.6% in 2005.

“However, this survey discovered also some positive results regarding the situation of alimentation of women and of children under the age of two.

“The director of the National Mother and Child Health Center, Professor Dr. Kum Kanal, referred questions regarding this problem to the person who released this report.

“The deputy director of the Department of Planning and Health Information, Ms. Sok Kanha, said Tuesday evening by telephone that our country is poor, and the economic standard of living dropped, making many workers unemployed, and some farmers do not own enough rice fields, causing shortages. Therefore, they cannot provide enough food to their children.

“When asked whether the equity program of a foundation of the government is failing or not, while the health situation of the people declines, Ms. Sok Kanha claimed, ‘The equity program of the foundation of the government does not fail, because this program offers charged services to patients, but it is not to buy food for the poor.’

“She added that any solution for this problem requires participation from development partners, and especially the UN World Food Program, to provide food to people, and she requested to provide aid to ‘the hungry, otherwise its project will not be successful and will not reach he right directions.’

“[Secretary of state at the Ministry of Health and director of Calmette Hospital] Dr. Heng Taikry could not be reached for comment, but he told The Cambodia Daily on Monday that he did not know anything about the findings of this research, yet he suspected that the rising food prices probably do not affect children’s health.

“He went on to say, ‘At present, Cambodian people have a better living standard and they can eat sufficient food.’

“The above survey is funded by the United Nations Children’s Fund – UNICEF – and by the United Nations Development Program – UNDP – asking 7,500 women and children to reflect on the influence of high food prices. The Institute of Statistics found that in 2008, food prices increased by 10%, more than the price of other consumer goods.

“A consultant of the Institute of Statistics, Mr. Joel Konkle, told The Cambodia Daily that the spread of diseases such as diarrhea, fever, serious respiratory diseases among small children increased, and further research is needed to define the extent of these diseases.

“He added that more serious malnutrition and child health conditions might be caused by high food prices, because research shows a declining consumption of expensive food, such as meat and fish. Malnutrition of children makes them easily susceptible to diseases.

“Mr. Joel Konkle added a warning that poor children in cities need emergency assistance, because of the increase in the number of malnourished children under the age of five, from 9.6% in 2005 to 15.9% in 2008.

“The Chief of the Children Survival Section of UNICEF, Ms. Viorica Berdaga, said that she was surprised that serious malnutrition of children under the age of two increased. She added that those involved in food security should summon a meeting soon and take action as quickly as possible.”

Rasmei Kampuchea, Vol.17, #4825, 19.2.2009
Newspapers Appearing on the Newsstand:
Thursday, 19 February 2009

Former Khmer Rouge chief asks forgiveness

SBS World News Australia 17/02/09
The Khmer Rouge prison chief who allegedly oversaw the death and torture of thousands of Cambodians , has asked forgiveness from his victims during his genocide trial.

Killing Fields Trial Starts in Cambodia

NTDTV

STORY:

The first to take the stand is Duch, the ex-commandant of the notorious S-21 prison, who has been charged with war crimes, torture and homicide.

Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, is the first senior Pol Pot cadre in the three decades since the end of the regime to face trial.

On the eve of the U.N.-backed trial, French attorney Francois Roux said Duch, a born-again Christian, has asked the victims for forgiveness.

Early in the morning, busloads of witnesses and observers arrived at the court to be part of the historic event which seeks to bring justice and closure. The first day of the trial was also televised in Cambodia.

After the end of the morning session, emotional witnesses filled the court compound.

Most victims at the S-21 prison were tortured and forced to confess to a variety of crimes -- mainly being CIA spies -- before being bludgeoned to death in a field on the outskirts of the city. Women and children were also killed, and only a few survived.

[Phok Khon, Witness]:
"I felt traumatized when I first saw Duch. It felt like the first time it (torture) happened."

Pol Pot, the leader, died in 1998, but four of his aging henchmen are being charged.

Human rights activists are saying that just punishing people like Duch is not enough.

[Seng Theary, Center for Social Development]:

"It's an incredible trial, but we don't want him to be the scapegoat for the other leaders, he is one among thousands of potential defendants and we don't want him to be the sole scapegoat. The others must be tried, publicly with the international and the Cambodian people watching and participating.

The four others have denied knowledge of any atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge during its rule.

If convicted, the five could face life in prison.

Evil and the law

Tuol Sleng, tourist attraction

Feb 19th 2009 PHNOM PENH
From The Economist print edition

Thirty years after he was put out of business, a torturer gets his day in court

JUSTICE moves slowly in Cambodia, even—or perhaps especially—where genocide is concerned. Thirty years after a Vietnamese invasion toppled the Khmers Rouges, and nearly ten years after he was detained, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, this week became the first leader to face trial at a UN–backed “hybrid” tribunal on the dusty outskirts of Phnom Penh, set up to achieve justice for survivors of a regime that killed perhaps 2m people.

Duch ran Tuol Sleng or S-21, a notorious Phnom Penh prison (now museum), where more than 14,000 men, women and children were tortured and killed. For two days of procedural hearings the 66-year-old Christian convert sat attentively. At each adjournment he stood, touched his clasped hands to his forehead, and bowed to the crowded court. “Now he is just an old man. Before, he was the absolute man,” says Vann Nath, who survived S-21 because Duch let him paint a portrait of the Khmers Rouges’ leader, Pol Pot. “Whether someone lived or died hinged on him.”

Duch is being tried separately from four other detainees, all, unlike him, central-committee members. His systematic interrogations in S-21 left a damning trail of evidence, and he is vital to the effort to understand the regime. “He alone has admitted his deeds and will almost certainly point the finger to implicate others,” says Alex Hinton, of Rutgers University’s Centre for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights.

This week lawyers proposed witnesses and noted arguments. François Roux, the defence lawyer, from France, was expected to condemn Duch’s prolonged detention, and Robert Petit, the main international prosecutor, to claim that Duch was part of a joint criminal enterprise—an attempt to implicate the other defendants in the S-21 atrocities. The court also debated whether a child survivor of S-21 could register as a victim despite missing the deadline, or if a husband could represent his dead spouse.

The success of the court remains in doubt. Elderly victims and the defendants themselves (the others are over 75) may thwart it by dying. It took ten years of talks between Cambodia and the UN before the court opened in July 2007. In March the court’s Cambodian side will run out of money. In December the international prosecutor publicly disagreed with his Cambodian co-counsel’s refusal to seek other defendants. This raised questions about political interference. Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, among others, is a former Khmer Rouge cadre.

Yet Duch seems likely to get the trial he and his victims seek. Mr Petit requested 40 days for questioning his witnesses. The defence witnesses include Duch himself, who, according to his lawyer, intends to apologise to victims and answer their long-held questions about the torture prison. Mr Roux worries that no amount of candour by Duch could fully explain the horrors of S-21: “I’m not sure that a human being can explain something inhuman.”

Gov't survey finds health, nutrition problems of Cambodian children

People's Daily Online
February 19, 2009

A recent government survey has found that the rising cost of food has halted improvements in child health and nutrition in Cambodia, English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily said on Thursday.

The percentage of children under 5 found to be "acutely malnourished" has grown in recent years, the paper quoted the Cambodian Anthropometrics Survey, which was issued this week by the government's National Institute of Statistics, as saying.

According to the findings, 8.4 percent of children under 5 were acutely malnourished in 2005, but the number rose to 8.9 percent last year.

The report also showed a jump since 2005 in the number of young children suffering from ailments such as diarrhea, fever and respiratory infections.

"If these numbers turn out to be true, this is a very serious situation and all stakeholders involved (in food security) should take action soon," the World Food Program's recently appointed Country Representative Jean-Pierre De Margerie said.

The inflation rate of Cambodia reached a 15-year high in July 2008 at 22 percent, but gradually declined to 13.46 percent at the year-end, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) issued by the government in January.

"Food prices are significantly higher than a year ago, but the trend is reversing," Chan Sophal, president of the Cambodian Economic Association, was quoted by local media as saying then.

The CPI measures price fluctuations over a 12-month period of as elected basket of goods, from essentials such as food and gas to luxury items.

Source: Xinhua

Gov't, institutions differ on Cambodian economic growth rate in 2009

People's Daily Online
February 19, 2009

The government and major international financial institutions have different predictions of Cambodia's economic growth rate for this year, English-language daily newspaper the Phnom Penh Post said on Thursday.

While the government vowed to maintain a 6 percent growth rate, the World Bank was only confident of a 4.9 percent growth, the International Monetary Fund 4.8 percent, and the Asian Development Bank 4.7 percent, said the paper.

The major opposition Sam Rainsy Party said that the figure would be 4 percent.

The Economic Intelligence Unit, which is part of the Economist Group, publisher of The Economist magazine, was the most pessimistic predictor, only giving a 1 percent estimation.

The difference reflected the institutions' belief in the instable essence of the current year, said the paper.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday that his government will try to maintain its economic growth at 6 percent in 2009, in context of the current global financial crisis.

"During the last decade of peace and stability, Cambodia achieved high economic growth rate at around 9.4 percent per annum," he told a business seminar.

"Amazingly, economic growth reached 10.6 percent per annum over the last 5 years, with a peak at 13.3 percent in 2005," he said, adding that the rates stood at 10.8 percent in 2006, 10.2 percent in 2007 and 7.0 percent in 2008.

Source: Xinhua

U of T Samaritans saving lives in Cambodia

BILL SCHILLER/TORONTO STAR
Kunthy Ok, a midwife and assistant at the University of Toronto’s Centre for International Health in Cambodia, takes a photograph of Pich Thy and her children for their health card. The centre is funded by donations.

The Star.com

Feb 19, 2009 04:30 AM

Bill Schiller
Asia Bureau

KEP, Cambodia–Word reached Dr. Rebecca Draisey's tiny office, tucked away in this remote corner of Cambodia, late last week.

A handful of water filters were not getting to families that needed them due to a bureaucratic glitch.

And so, on Saturday morning, Dr. Draisey, the director of the University of Toronto's Centre for International Health here, strapped on her helmet, jumped on the back of her assistant's 125cc motorcycle, and together they rode off into the bush on a series of broken bi-ways and rutted red trails to sort it out.

Forty minutes later they arrived in Angkoul Commune, 25 kilometres away, where a small group of families were waiting. They wanted what people in the West take utterly for granted: clean water.

The group delivers water filters and medical help to the Cambodians on a modest budget that relies a lot on fundraising – they hope to raise $35,000 this year – and includes staff salaries and a small stipend for Draisey. Almost every dollar goes directly into improving Cambodians' health.

"We kind of knit our budget out of thin air," Draisey says.

But funding is a challenge and the financial crisis hasn't helped.

Recently, a generous contribution of $10,000, from two health-care professionals Draisey knows, had to be suspended due to the financial meltdown. "You can't blame anyone," she says. "In times like these, you definitely understand."

Recently she scored big, landing $8,000 from a U of T student organization called Earthtones to continue distributing water filters.

Draisey and the staff believe, as the late, celebrated cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead did, that individuals actually can change the world – indeed, as Mead once said, it's the only thing that ever has.

"I'd like to think we are making a difference," says Draisey.

As anyone who has worked in the developing world knows, even small sums – wisely spent – can go a long way. The filters cost about $11 each, not much for a potentially life-saving device.

So far the program has distributed 200, but Draisey's dream is to deliver 800 more by year-end. Somehow.

In a country where many drink raw water from contaminated wells, where a toilet – of any kind – is a luxury, and just 17 per cent of people have access to electricity, a good water filter is like gold.

It can mean the difference between life and death, especially for infants. "These won't filter out everything," Draisey explained as the filters were being handed out to the families at Angkoul Commune. "But they will filter out parasites and bacteria – what causes gastroenteritis. And it's gastroenteritis that often kills infants."

The distribution of water filters is just one small, but valuable project in the U of T's multi-pronged effort here, the brainchild of David Zakus, director of the university's Centre for International Health.

The university also has projects in China and in Africa.

Zakus wanted to create small-scale projects in developing countries that could provide valuable field research to local health officials, bring health education to the poor – and provide U of T students with their first experience of health care in the developing world.

Since its start here in Cambodia's remote Kep district in 2002, it has done all of that and more – on a shoestring. It has tested more than 150 wells, finding half of them contaminated; it has trained 16 midwives; it has helped organize a system of free health care for the district's poorest; and it's now trying to bring clean running water to Kep's only hospital, a facility serving the district's 37,000 people.

The hospital currently uses untreated water.

All are significant accomplishments, but all the more surprising given how small the operation is.

Draisey, a U of T medical graduate who practised medicine in Windsor, Ont., for 21 years, operates from a 49 square-metre room equipped with a refrigerator, a bicycle, two desks, two computers, and enough money to afford Internet access for three months of the year.

The grand total of staff is two: Kunthy Ok, a gifted local woman who is not only a qualified midwife but – fortunately – owns her own motorcycle, and Bunthoeun Thon, driver and program manager.

Draisey credits the idea and fundraising efforts to two U of T students who interned here: Mary Cameron, now at the University of Ottawa, and Risako Shirane, who came as an undergraduate student in global health.

For most students who get involved in the program, this is their first experience with the developing world. Many find it shocking.

"Within a very short period they end up throwing away all of their preconceptions," says Draisey. "There's shock, frustration, even anger.

"Many say, `Why isn't the world doing more for these people? Why isn't the university, the Centre for International Health, the Canadian International Development Agency? How can this be happening?'"

Dr. Draisey notes that students come from a highly structured environment while the developing world often lacks basic structure.

Most students undergo a period of reflection after the initial shock, then find there really are specific contributions they can make.

Students have helped to test local wells, gathered research on maternal health care and participated in medical outreach clinics in small villages.

One of CIH's more ambitious programs is the Most Vulnerable Family project, a pilot project aimed at ensuring the poorest of the poor in Kep have access to health services they cannot afford on their own.

CIH photographed 196 families identified by local officials, issued them health cards validated by the government, and persuaded the Ministry of Health to render services upon presentation.

Other ministries have now agreed to provide their services for free on presentation of the card, Kunthy Ok explains.

"This card will even allow a child to enter school for free," she says.

She says these words in a way meant to convey excitement, even hope.

Initial hearing prior to Duch's trial closes with debate on role of civil parties

Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 25/02/2006: Visitors in genocide museum Tuol Sleng, formerly Khmer Rouge torture centre S-21, look at picture of a body found in that very room when Vietnamese troops arrived in 1979.
©John Vink/ Magnum

Ka-set
By Stephanie Gée
19-02-2009

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) represent the first internationalised criminal tribunal to accept that victims register as civil parties. This comes partly from the fact that the hybrid jurisdiction pertains firstly to the civil law system, which was adopted by Cambodia. As a result, everything remains to be agreed to define the role of civil parties in an international criminal law system shaped until then by common law. The debate has started between the proponents of the two legal systems at the ECCC during the second and last day of the initial hearing, which is aimed to establish the rules for the trial of Duch, the former head of Khmer Rouge prison S-21 and the first who is due to appear before the Court, probably in late March.

Different roles for civil parties and prosecutors
The defence reopened the debate on the participation of civil parties – which focused on the issue of the sentence – in reaction to the inclusion of a witness on the list submitted by one of the lawyer teams for the civil parties, reportedly to assist the Court in determining the appropriate sentence it will issue against the defendant.

“As an international lawyer,” François Roux, co-lawyer for Duch, explained, “I have fought for years for victims to be able to intervene in international courts. So, I welcome the fact that victims can intervene here as civil parties, meaning that they are able to request witnesses to testify, attend the proceedings, ask questions through their lawyers and evoke the immense suffering their families and themselves have endured. We hear their voice. (…) However, what should be the role of civil parties in a civil law trial? Let us not confuse civil party and prosecutors. Civil parties are there to express their suffering and ask for reparation, but those in charge of the social remedy required by the crime are the prosecutors, who will demand a sentence in the name of society. Under no circumstances should it be the civil parties. Otherwise, it would represent a terrible regression in international criminal law, as it would lead back to vengeance. There are distinct roles. Civil parties entrust their suffering to prosecutors for the latter to request a sentence. This issue is a fundamental one for the future of this Court and what can be built in its aftermath.”

For some, an “excessive broadening” of the rights of civil parties
The French lawyer then revealed his intention to summon as an expert Robert Badinter, former Minister of Justice in France, drafter of the French law on the abolition of death penalty, and “the person who has done the most to introduce new rights for victims in criminal law.” “Well, today, he is expressing concern over an excessive broadening of the rights of civil parties. So, he could give us guidelines on what we must do,” he suggested.

Pierre-Olivier Sur, a French lawyer for the civil parties, also trained in civil law, followed in the steps of François Roux and indicated that he shared his colleague's view. “We [lawyers for the civil parties] speak for the pain of our clients. Let us ask ourselves how we are going to fulfil our role.” He argued that the role of civil parties was as much about “vindication” – by participating to the prosecution regarding the evidence that will determine the offence – as about “demanding reparations and not sanctions,” as the latter pertain to the mission of the prosecution.

The previous day, at the end of the first day of hearing, he had explained that the “French approach requires we do not talk about the sentence. Why? Because the pain suffered by the victims is such that to quantify it would mean depreciating it. (…) We do not request 20 or 40 years of prison, because giving a figure diminishes the transcendental charge of the sentence.”

For others, a limitation of the rights of civil parties
Next, Martine Jacquin, another French lawyer for the civil parties, insisted on “moderating” the words of her colleague. “Even if civil parties cannot request a sentence, they can still indicate whether a sentence is acceptable or not,” she argued, calling not to restrict the role of civil parties. Silke Studzinsky, German lawyer for the civil parties, deemed the rights of civil parties “limited” to the extent that they cannot appeal the ruling if they do not agree with the sentence issued. She considered that since civil parties are authorised to produce evidence during the proceedings, “it is normal that they also be allowed to give their opinion on the sentence.” She also insisted that the Cambodian procedure code – which applies in the ECCC – does not limit this right. Finally, Cambodian co-Prosecutor Chea Leang concluded that under Cambodian law, “civil parties must be offered the possibility to give their view on the sentence.”

Controversy over a new S-21 video
New documents added to Duch's case file include a ten-minute film footage shot in S-21 by Vietnamese in January 1979, a couple of days after the liberation of Phnom Penh. The document was handed by the Vietnamese government to the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) and Chea Leang stressed that “[they] were not aware of it [until then].”

Kar Savuth, Cambodian co-lawyer for Duch, then called the Trial Chamber not to accept as evidence the new document, “because it was provided by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” According to him, the film was “politically motivated” and therefore cannot serve to establish the truth. He also questioned the authenticity of the document by noting what he considered inconsistencies in the footage. Recalling that Nuon Chea, also known as Brother Number Two, had ordered on January 3rd 1979 to execute all the prisoners in S-21 and that only 15 survivors are known of – none of whom are shown in the film –, he expressed his surprise that children were found alive in the torture centre and did not appear emaciated in the film, although they had been gone without food for several days. He therefore wondered about the date when the children were brought to S-21 and called the Chamber to verify the authenticity of the document on the basis of the detention lists of S-21.

New evidence added to the case file – “When will it come to an end?”
For his part, his colleague, François Roux, expressed his surprise that this “30-year-old” document was communicated only now, after a year of investigations by the co-Prosecutors and a year and a half of investigations by the co-investigating judges. He renewed his wish that “the proceedings not be slowed down” and referred to the supplementary list of 52 new documents which “the co-Prosecutors deemed appropriate to add.” “There are procedural rules and an adversarial system. But at the last minute, as the trial opens, we are brought 52 documents and a film, and we learn through the press that according to DC-Cam, there is a list of 152 survivors [of S-21] who must be investigated. When will this come to an end?”

Co-Prosecutor Petit then shared his surprise that François Roux “asked the Chamber not to establish the facts because they are already established.” “But how can this trial be about anything else? (…) The defendant can plead guilty, but that is not enough. (…) We must establish the truth (…) and we will continue to seek all the evidence. I object that this will slow down the proceedings. That is not our goal. Our goal is to search for justice.”

Lawyer Roux then took a gibe at “how the office of the co-Prosecutors keeps trying to bypass the work of the co-investigating judges,”who he paid tribute to.

The hearing ended around midday. Decisions on the issues raised during the last two days as well as the trial's timetable will be issued “in due time,” the Chamber announced.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

M13 prison crashes the trial
At least three witnesses who were connected to Khmer Rouge prison M13, gone in 1975 – witnesses suggested by the co-Prosecutors and rejected by the defence –, were allowed by the Trial Chamber to be summoned during the substantial trial. According to the Chamber, they may assist in establishing the truth on the charges against Duch and his degree of knowledge on how the country's security system worked under the Khmer Rouge.

Although its existence is outside the competency of the tribunal, which is limited to facts in the 1975-1979 period, the prison was referred to by the co-investigating judges in their closing order to explain, among others, Duch's history. According to Co-Prosecutor Petit, it is a victory in the search for truth. “The witnesses are necessary to establish the defendant's state of mind.” He considered that the context in which S-21 was set up and worked must be analysed.

U.S. donates 36 vehicles to Cambodian armed forces

People's Daily Online
February 19, 2009

U.S. donated Thursday 36 M35A2 trucks and 4 trailers to the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF), said a press release from the U.S. Embassy.

U.S. Ambassador Carol Rodley turned over these vehicles to Phann Nguon, secretary of state at the Ministry of National Defense, at his ministry, it said.

The 36 M35A2 cargo trucks were part of an ongoing effort to address RCAF's transportation shortage and represented the second shipment of its kind under Cambodia's Excess Defense Articles grant program, which was funded by U.S., it added.

The vehicles handed over on Thursday were a continuation of the original order made in 2006 and brought the total number of trucks donated to 67, according to the press release.

U.S. security assistance to RCAF focused on the recommendations of a joint defense assessment meeting conducted in October 2006 by RCAF and the U.S. Pacific Command, it said.

Areas noted for improvement were border security, mobility, peacekeeping operations capability, maritime security, and communications, it added.

U.S. has pledged nearly 3.2 million U.S. dollars in assistance to Cambodia since the resumption of military-to-military engagement between the two nations in 2006, according to the press release.　

Source:Xinhua

Searching for answers in Cambodia

Kaing Guek Eav is the youngest surviving member of the Khmer Rouge

BBC News
Thursday, 19 February 2009

Thirty years after the Khmer Rouge committed genocide in Cambodia, Jonathan Head witnesses the first UN war crimes trial of a prison camp commander.

The banality of evil."

That phrase, made famous by the political scientist Hannah Arendt in her study of Nazi war criminals, kept coming back to me as I watched the small, grey-haired man, blinking behind glasses, taking his seat in the newly built Phnom Penh courtroom.

His name is Kaing Guek Eav, a former maths teacher, but in Cambodia he is known everywhere simply by his revolutionary nom-de-guerre, Duch.

And he may in the end be the only person ever held to account for one of the greatest atrocities of modern times, the killing fields of Cambodia.

Frail defendants

It has been an epic struggle even getting this far in the quest for justice for the millions of victims of the Khmer Rouge.

The Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia, as this hybrid tribunal is known, has suffered repeated false starts, shortages of funds, and bitter verbal spats between its two sponsors.

The idea of a tribunal was first mooted back in the mid-1990s, but the Cambodian government wanted to run it, while the international community - represented by the UN - argued that Cambodia's judicial system was not up to the job.

It took a decade for them to agree to set up trials presided over by both Cambodian and international judges.

The surviving Khmer Rouge leaders were not indicted until just over a year ago. They are now elderly and frail, and may not live long enough to face trial.

"So is this it?" I thought, watching Duch shuffling in the dock. "The reckoning for the great terror of the Khmer Rouge, falling on the skinny shoulders of this little old man. Is it really worth all the diplomatic wrangling, the millions of pounds wrung from donors?"

It is a question journalists, academics and human rights researchers have been asking Cambodians for years.

The answers they get are ambiguous.

Some victims have welcomed the opportunity offered by the tribunal to confront their tormentors in court. Others say they would rather forget.

Almost two thirds of the Cambodian population is too young to remember the Khmer Rouge years, and in surveys they tend to highlight problems like economic development as a more important priority.

But this is still a traumatised country. Surveys have also repeatedly shown alarming levels of stress and anxiety left by the long years of war and revolution.

So perhaps even one successful trial will help heal the wounds.

Chance encounter

And Duch is an extraordinary defendant. For a start, he is remorseful.

" The documents so carefully kept in this once secret facility, offer terrifying evidence of the Orwellian madness and paranoia of the Khmer Rouge "

Unlike the other four defendants, all top Khmer Rouge leaders, who have implausibly denied all knowledge of the killing fields, Duch has admitted his role as Pol Pot's chief executioner.

He burst into tears when taken back last year to the prison, now a grim museum, its walls lined with the harrowing faces of the thousands of prisoners he had photographed before they were tortured and killed.

Duch vanished after the Vietnamese invasion in 1979 that drove the Khmer Rouge from power, but he was discovered by chance 20 years later by a British photographer, Nic Dunlop, who had been haunted by a grainy snapshot of Duch he had carried in his wallet for 10 years.

The former prison chief had converted to Christianity and was then working for an international aid group.

When confronted by his past, Duch calmly went through the documents presented to him that he had left behind in Tuol Sleng. He confirmed his signature on execution orders.
"It's God's will that you are here," he told the photographer.

Torture and confessions

The memory of Duch etched in the minds of the handful of survivors from Tuol Sleng is of a meticulous man who always remained calm, but never flinched from ordering the most unspeakable cruelties on his victims.

A former school, Tuol Sleng prison has been turned into a genocide museum

Almost everyone who passed through his hands - at least 14,000 prisoners - was murdered, even small children.

The documents so carefully kept in this once secret facility offer terrifying evidence of the Orwellian madness and paranoia of the Khmer Rouge.

In the language of the party, prisoners were swept away or smashed to bits.

A sign still visible on the wall of the prison orders them not to scream while being tortured.

In the last years of the Khmer Rouge many of Tuol Sleng's victims were loyal party members, accused of fantastic treacheries and tortured to extract confessions that ran to hundreds of pages.

The sole British victim, John Dewhirst, who was detained in 1978 while sailing off the Cambodian coast, was forced to confess that he had been recruited as a CIA spy by his father at the age of 12.

"I remember the Englishman well," Duch told Nic Dunlop. "He was very polite."

We may never know what turned Duch from a mild-mannered maths teacher into a ruthless executioner. Perhaps even he cannot explain that.

But his trial does offer the chance - perhaps the only chance we will get - to glimpse the kind of mentality that lay behind this unfathomably cruel regime.

Slovakia and Cambodia to exhibit for the first time at ATM 2009

From citmagazine.com

Christy Wyatt, 19 February 2009

Show is set to attract 15,200 visitors, compared to 14,500 last year

Slovakia and Cambodia are among countries exhibiting for the first time at this year's Arabian Travel Market (ATM).

The show takes place in Dubai from 5-8 May and expects to attract 15,200 visitors, compared to 14,500 last year.

This year will also see 2,500 exhibitors, representing 65 countries.

The Philippines, Ecuador, Vietnam and Mozambique will also exhibit at ATM for the first time.

The C&I market in the Middle East remained buoyant, said Reed Travel Exhibitions group exhibition director Mark Walsh.

"The [outbound] UK is still the main C&I market but Russia is also becoming a strong market," he told C&IT.

Cambodian Wins Unesco Fellowship

Im Sothearith recieving a Masters in Public Administration for Ohio University, in 2006.

By Taing Sarada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
19 February 2009

A Cambodian doctoral candidate in the US has been awarded the UNESCO/Keizo Obuchi fellowship to conduct a research on “Public Service Broadcasting Model for Developing Countries: The Case of Cambodia.”

The $10,000 fellowship, from UNESCO and the Keizo Obuchi program, was awarded to Im Sothearith, a doctoral candidate of mass communications at Ohio University. He is one of the 20 UNESCO/Keizo Obuchi fellowship winners around the world.

“Many people have said press freedom in Cambodia is adequate, but we have only seen quantity, not quality,” Im Sothearith said. “The quality we’re referring to is independence of broadcasting, because broadcasting in Cambodia is still under political influence.”

UNESCO spokeswoman in Phnom Penh, Isabel Gonzalez Roje, said the organization provides scholarships and fellowships to Cambodian students each year. Ir Win Merida, an assistant program expert for UNESCO in Paris, said UNESCO awards about 500fellowships a year.

Thais To Apologize for Rockets Fired

By VOA Khmer, Reporters
Original reporst from Washington and Phnom Penh
19 February 2009

A Thai military delegation is expected to arrive on Friday to make a formal apology following the firing of several rockets over the border near an ancient northern temple, officials said.

The visit follows the reported firing of six to eight shoulder-fired rockets near Ta Krabey temple in Banteay Ampil district, Odar Meanchey province, and amid a prolonged military standoff between both countries.

No one was injured, but Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Koung said Thursday debris from the rockets had been found and were being kept by Cambodia as evidence.

Royal Cambodian Armed Forces commander Gen. Pol Sareoun said the Thai army had informed officials of a military exercise across the border, but it was unclear if the rocket-firing was a part of it.

Var Kim Hong, head of Cambodia’s border committee, said the incident was a “violation” of Cambodian sovereignty.

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan condemned the Thai military for the abuse of Cambodian territory.

US ‘Supports’ Opening Duch Hearing

Former Khmer Rouge prison commander Kaing Guek Eav, center, looks on during the first day of a U.N.-backed tribunal Tuesday. (AP Photo)

By VOA Khmer, Reporters
Original reports from Washington and Phnom Penh
19 February 2009

WATCH VIDEO, click here

The US welcomed the opening trial of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, for Kaing Kek Iev, the head of Tuol Sleng prison, as an initial hearing got underway this week.

The US “strongly supports bringing to justice senior leaders responsible for the atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge regime,” State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said Wednesday, following the initial hearing for Kaing Kek Iev, better known as Duch.

The Trial Chamber of the tribunal had a two-day initial hearing for Duch Tuesday and Wednesday, the first trial for a UN-backed tribunal that opened in 2006 after a decade of negotiations and stalling.

Duch defense attorney Francois Roux said Tuesday Duch wished “to ask forgiveness” to Khmer Rouge victims and the Cambodian people.

Duch, 66, is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and murder for his role as chief of the prison, known as S-21.

He recognized all the charges against him and wanted to answer the questions that surviving Cambodians have about the prison, Roux said.

If Duch admits to wrongdoing and apologizes, he will be the first Khmer Rouge cadre to accept blame for deaths under the regime, which in under four years amounted to more than 1.7 million people.

Four other leaders of the regime—Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith—have declared they were unaware of the mass killings going on under their stewardship. Court officials Chea Leang, Robert Petit, Marcel Lemond and a lawyer for civil parties, Hong Kim Suon, all marked the initial hearing as a positive step toward “justice” for victims.

However, Duch’s hearing opened amid lingering criticism of the tribunal, for allegations of corruption and mismanagement, which had caused some donors to freeze funding.

The US has so far pledged but not delivered $1.5 million for the tribunal, and Duguid said Wednesday the US “believes the court has made significant strides to overcome international concern about corruption and mismanagement.”

However, he said, the court “must continue to be pro-active in preventing corruption and addressing the previous allegations."

A senior UN legal official, Peter Taksoe-Jensen, is due to travel to Cambodia for a second time in coming weeks for tribunal discussions.

Cambodian opposition sounds the alarm on rural crisis

Ka-set

By Ros Dina
19-02-2009

It is time to take urgent measures to save Cambodian farmers. That was the leitmotiv hammered on Wednesday February 18th during the press conference organised jointly by the two opposition parties in Cambodia, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and the Human Rights Party (HRP), who recently established an alliance with the Democratic Movement for Change, at the SRP headquarters.

Crippled with debts following the slump in produce prices and unable to pay them back, farmers have increasingly been taken their property by banks. Kem Sokha, president of HRP, claims he has observed this trend himself during his visits to provinces in Cambodia.

Sam Rainsy called the government to guarantee a reasonable price to farmers, suspend their debts during the crisis and lower interest rates.

“The opposition has no power to give orders to financial bodies,” Kem Sokha highlighted. “But we can at least ask the government to take measures. They can do so if they really want to help farmers.” Otherwise, he added, Cambodia is at risk of a very serious social crisis.

The two opposition parties have also sent a letter, in the name of their alliance, to the government in January 2009, to recommend that 500 million dollars be made available to allow the sectors faced with difficulties in the Kingdom to overcome the international financial crisis.

Prime Minister Hun Sen responded that his government was already prepared to allocate a much higher sum to face the crisis. The head of government recalled among others that a contract of 18 million dollars – against 12 million dollars in 2008 – was signed with the Rural Development Bank (RDB) of Cambodia to assist rice cooperatives and maintain a purchase price that is stable and satisfactory for producers.

Also, Sam Rainsy explained during the press conference that he had sent a letter to the governments of various countries, including donor countries, to request that they condemn Cambodian high officials mentioned in the reports of non-governmental organisation Global Witness of June 2007, [“Cambodia's Family Trees

”http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/546/en/cambodias_family_trees “Cambodia's Family Trees”, Global Witness report (EN)], and February 2009, “Country for Sale ”. The Cambodian opposition leader also asked them to deny visas to the persons incriminated or their families if they intend to travel to their country. In addition, he recommended that any property or account they might own in those countries be seized or frozen, and he called to an end to any business transaction with those having any involvement in the cases denounced by the environmentalist NGO.

Opening session of Cambodian genocide trial concludes

Star-Telegram
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A long-delayed Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal wrapped up its opening session Wednesday with judges saying they must agree on a list of witnesses before announcing when a full trial of the former head of the regime’s notorious torture center will begin.

Kaing Guek Eav — better known as Duch — is charged with crimes against humanity. He is the first of five defendants from the ultracommunist regime that ruled Cambodia in the 1970s and turned it into a vast slave labor camp in which an estimated 1.7 million people died.

Three decades after the Khmer Rouge fell, the U.N.-assisted tribunal began a procedural session Tuesday to lay the groundwork for a full trial expected in March. The precise date has not been set, and details still need to be ironed out.

Duch, 66, oversaw the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh — previously a school, now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum — where 16,000 men, women and children were detained and tortured. Only a handful survived.

Judges had not decided whether to allow as evidence a short film shot by conquering Vietnamese forces as they entered Tuol Sleng prison in January 1979. The film, which shows decapitated bodies and previously unknown child survivors, was released by Vietnam in December.

One 69-year-old observer at the trial said the Khmer Rouge executed five members of his family, including his parents, on a single day in 1976 for refusing to hand over a cow to the authorities.

"I’m coming to see the court find justice through the law," said Na Uth, who traveled with 24 others from the northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey to watch the proceedings. "My anger never stops. I always think about it. I can’t think straight."

Union murder appeal denied

Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN
Thach Saveth at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Chrann Chamroeun
Thursday, 19 February 2009

No witnesses come forward to support overturning of conviction: Court of Appeal

THE Court of Appeal on Wednesday upheld the conviction of Thach Saveth, who was convicted of murdering a union leader in 2004. Thach Saveth's lawyer, along with the human rights NGO Licadho, condemned the unanimous ruling by a panel of three judges.

In 2005, Thach Saveth was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for the shooting of Ros Sovannareth, a union leader who was gunned down on Kampuchea Krom Boulevard in May 2004. Thach Saveth has always denied involvement in the killing, the second of three union leaders murdered in three years.

Presiding Judge Um Sarith said Wednesday the bench would not overturn Thach Saveth's original conviction because his testimony to the investigating judge in the original case had differed in some respects from his testimony to the lower court.

Um Sarith also said no credible witnesses had come forward to give the court reason to reverse the Municipal Court's decision.

Thach Saveth's defence lawyer, Sam Chamroeun, called the ruling a violation of his client's human rights and said he would appeal to the Supreme Court in less than one month.

"I am very disappointed with the court's decision to uphold the charge against my client without credible evidence and witnesses to support the charge against him," he said.

Sam Chamroeun said his client was innocent and reiterated the claim that Thach Saveth had been in Siem Reap on the day of the killing.

Thach Saveth's appeal attempt followed the recent Supreme Court decision to free two men convicted of murdering another union leader. Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun were provisionally released after spending five years in jail for the murder of Chea Vichea in 2004. The Supreme Court in December sent the case back to the Court of Appeal for reinvestigation.

Ros Sovannareth, who was the union president at the Trinunggal Komara garment factory, was shot dead in a killing that rights activists said was similar to the murder of Chea Vichea.

Licadho deplored Wednesday's ruling. In a written statement, Licadho said both hearings had been "blatantly unfair", arguing that the prosecution's case relied on a series of inconsistent written statements by police witnesses whom defence attorneys were not allowed to cross-examine. Some witnesses had identified Thach Saveth as the shooter, while others had said he was the driver of the motorbike used in the killing.

At a February 11 Court of Appeal hearing, the court refused to allow the sole police witness, who was there at the request of the defence, to testify.

A disputed ruling

Licadho said both hearings suggested "a total lack of respect for the presumption of innocence".

"The judges placed the burden on Thach Saveth to prove his innocence, rather than on the prosecution to provide overwhelming evidence of his guilt," the statement asserted. "There is every reason to believe that the case against Thach Saveth was fabricated. He was arrested by the same Tuol Kork district police officers who framed Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun."

Thach Saveth's mother, Huon Phalla, attended the hearing and was similarly displeased with the outcome. When the ruling was announced, she cried out: "It is very, very unjust - my son is innocent."

Trial debates civil party role

Photo by: Tracey Shelton
Tuol Sleng survivor and artist Vann Nath faces reporters at the second day of preliminary hearings for prison chief Duch’s trial.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Neth Pheaktra and Georgia Wilkins
Thursday, 19 February 2009

On the final day of an initial hearing for the trial of prison chief Duch, debates over the role of victims and the use of evidence show healthy party divisions.

WHAT role will be afforded victims in the trial of Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav continued to be the centre of discussions at the Khmer Rouge tribunal Wednesday, as the court concluded two days of preliminary hearings before testimonies begin in March.

The hearing, which began Tuesday, considered issues such as how many witness would be called. But the main debate inside the courtroom focused on whether to allow Norng Chan Phal, a former child prisoner of S-21, to become a civil party, and whether recently obtained video footage should be included as evidence.

"I would like to request the trial chamber judges to consider the footage shot on January 7, 1979, provided by the Vietnamese government and also the testimonies of children who escaped S-21 as new evidence," said Chea Leang, Cambodian co-prosecutor, referring to archival footage from Vietnam submitted to the court late.

But the requests sparked angry responses from Duch's defence team.

"We are in a trial, not in a boxing ring," Francois Roux, Duch's international co-lawyer, told reporters after the hearing.

"I would like to ask co-prosecutors to respect the rules. They had more than two years ... and now that the investigation is closed, they send new evidences. What is this?" he asked.

Co-lawyer Kar Savuth also called into questioned the authenticity of the video footage, which was filmed by Vietnamese soldiers and shows shackled bodies decomposing in the prison's cells.

"We don't believe that the footage is real. We consider that it is political [and] a manipulation," he said during the hearing.

The dispute over late evidence prompted a broader debate over the significance and role of civil parties, a controversial experiment at the UN-backed court.

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This is going to be an area of constant tension...but i am optimistic
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"It is not the role of the civil parties to decide on a sentence against Duch. If they do this, it will be seen as vengeance," Roux told reporters.

But civil party co-lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sur said this was not their aim.

"What is of concern is the work of the trial, the truth that Duch will give. We would like to reconstruct the truth and not touch on a sentence," he told the Post.

He argued that the unprecedented nature of victim participation at the tribunal meant that including late applicants overrode a legal deadline for submissions.

"In the history of international penal procedure, this is the first time that victims can legally represent themselves as civil parties," he said.

Friendly antagonism

The concept of civil party participation - giving victims legal clout as represented members of the court - has been a regular source of antagonism at the tribunal, though one that some observers say is healthy.

"This is going to be an area of constant tension, which is not suprising given the court's unique role for civil parties," Heather Ryan, a court monitor for the Open Society Justice Initiative, told the Post.

"But I am optimistic as the trial chamber dealt with it professionally, and everyone handled it very well," she added.

The discussions left some victims with mixed feelings about their role in the proceedings.

"I don't understand this hearing yet. It is very technical. Today at the hearing, we still don't have any result, and I continue to wait," Tuol Sleng survivor Vann Nath told the Post. "[But] I will be patient," he added.

"I am very happy to see the court working and developing," another S-21 survivor, Chhum Mey, said. "I hope that the court will judge him in the near future."

Co-prosecutors submitted a list of 35 witnesses to the chamber. Though the defence have only submitted 13, Duch's lawyers say they want as many questions as possible asked to Duch, and welcomed civil parties' role in this.

"If we don't have civil parties, the facts will not be revealed," Roux said.

Nil Nonn, president of the Trial Chamber, told the court that a date for the first testimony will be announced in the near future.

CPP leaders call for reform

Photo by: TRACEY SHELTON
Prime Minister Hun Sen speaks during a conference on Wednesday at the InterContinental Hotel.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Khouth Sophakchakrya
Thursday, 19 February 2009

At two-day seminar, PM Hun Sen and Deputy PM Sok An argue that reforms such as increasing civil servants’ salaries will improve government

THE government has no option but to continue to implement reforms that will foster economic growth, lower corruption and improve the quality of services available in the Kingdom, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An said Tuesday while kicking off a two-day seminar on reform strategies.

"If we avoid making reforms, we will definitely lose out on opportunities we now have in hand and we will continue to live under chronic poverty, conflicts and instability," he said before an audience of 650 provincial governors and other officials and civil society leaders gathered at the Inter-Continental Hotel.

Sok An, who is also secretary-general of the Council for Administrative Reform, pointed to reform initiatives already in place, including increasing the average salary of civil servants. He said these salaries have more than quadrupled since 1998, climbing from approximately $17 per month to $75 in January 2009. The government also provides a pension contribution equivalent to 16.3 percent of employees' salaries, he said.

"The government has improved the living standards of civil servants through the implementation of a consistent state reform program," he said.

This and other reforms "are not dreams but the result of our common effort", he added.

The two-day seminar concluded Wednesday with remarks from Prime Minister Hun Sen, who said reform efforts would reduce poverty and increase accountability on the part of all ministries and civil servants.

"Some ministries have many staff but not a lot of capacity," Hun Sen said, adding that he has noticed this problem for more than 20 years. Reform efforts, he said, would make ministries more efficient.

Thun Saray, president of the rights group Adhoc, said in response to Sok An's comments that government salaries were still too small, prompting qualified civil servants to leave the public sector to work for private companies or NGOs.

Speaking of reform efforts generally, he said, "We want to see the government officials do more than talk."

Heng Pov claims no money to pay lawyer

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Post Staff
Thursday, 19 February 2009

AN Appeal Court hearing for former police chief Heng Pov was delayed Wednesday when he informed the court he could no longer afford to pay his defence attorney.

Defence lawyer Kav Soupha said Wednesday that he had made requests to the Municipal Court and to Prime Minister Hun Sen himself to unfreeze Heng Pov's bank accounts so he could pay his legal fees and take care of his family.

"Heng Pov and I are now awaiting a reply ... because the Municipal Court's decision to block his withdrawals from the bank is illegal," he said.

Heng Pov is currently serving a 58-year prison sentence for a battery of charges including murder and extortion.

VN dam tests cause downstream surge in Sesan water levels

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Sebastian Strangio
Thursday, 19 February 2009

Residents say upstream water release caught them by surprise, despite reports Cambodia was notified by Vietnamese authorities

VILLAGERS living along the Sesan River in the country's remote northeast have experienced a sudden surge in water levels brought on by releases from a hydropower dam upstream in Vietnam, according to environmental activists.

On February 8, three villages in Ratanakkiri province's Vuen Sai and Andong Meas districts reported a one-metre rise in the level of the river, which became "unusually turbid", according to a statement released Tuesday by the Sesan, Srepok and Sekong Rivers Protection Network (3SPN).

Provincial 3SPN coordinator Kim Sangha said the surge had been caused by tests at the newly completed Sesan 4 dam in Vietnam's Gia Lai province, but that local residents had received no advance warning from the authorities.

"I visited two places and people said the same thing: They didn't know when the water will be released," he said by phone from Banlung.

"The dam is testing its flow and is not notifying the local people."

Information breakdown

Kim Sangha said the Cambodian government was notified by Vietnamese authorities last month that water releases would occur in February, but that the Cambodian National Mekong Committee (CNMC) had apparently failed to pass the information on to affected areas.

"I think there are problems transferring the information from the national level to the provincial level, and then onto the local level," he said, adding that, although there were no deaths, the water rises had alarmed local villagers.

"If the water comes up too quickly, people may not be able to escape. That is our worry."

But CNMC Secretary General Pich Dun said he did not receive notice of the water release, promising to follow it up with his colleagues in Vietnam.

He added that a Vietnamese regulator dam nearing completion on the border will soon allow the water to flow into Cambodia at a constant rate of 190 litres per second, preventing surges from upstream dams.

"They can regulate the water so that it will flow constantly," he said.

The 462-kilometre Sesan River, which flows from Vietnam's Central Highlands through Ratanakkiri province and into the Mekong mainstream at Stung Treng, has been heavily dammed by a Vietnamese government eager to alleviate local power shortages.

Environmental groups say this is only the latest case of a Vietnamese dam wreaking havoc downstream on the Sesan.

In 2002, International Rivers wrote that the operation of the 720-megawatt Yali Falls Dam had caused "rapid and daily fluctuations in the river's flow downstream in Cambodia's Ratanakkiri and Stung Treng provinces", resulting in 36 deaths from flash flooding.