Burrill Report: Leading Malaria Drug Becoming Less Effective

http://www.onemedplace.com

By Kristi Eaton, The Burrill Report:

Poor regulations and substandard use could be to blame for growing resistance to a leading anti-malaria drug, researchers say. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine says malaria parasites, which are injected into the bloodstream by infected mosquitoes, are growing more resistant to artemisinin, the leading drug used to fight the disease. The increasing resistance to the drug threatens to render it less effective and could eventually make it obsolete, putting millions of lives at risk. Malaria kills more than 1 million people a year, many of whom are young children or pregnant women.

Researchers studied 40 patients in Pailin, western Cambodia, and 40 patients in Wang Pha, north-western Thailand following reports that the efficacy of artemisinin, single drug therapies, and combination therapies were declining in western Cambodia. In randomized trials, the patients were given a dosage of artesunate, an artemisinin drug, another anti-malarial drug, mefloquine, or a combination of the two. On average, patients in Thailand were clear of parasites in 48 hours; in western Cambodia it took 84 hours. Of the 20 patients in each country treated with only one of the drugs, there were recurrences of the infection in six patients in western Cambodia, compared to just one person in Thailand. A recurrence occurred in two patients from Cambodia who used combination therapy and one patient from Thailand. This suggests, the scientists say, that artemisinin was less effective on the Cambodian parasites.

A beauty pageant with a difference

After losing a leg to a landmine, Song Kosal became involved in the campaign to ban the weapons.
Jared Ferrie / The National

http://www.thenational.ae
Jared Ferrie, Foreign Correspondent
August 02. 2009

PHNOM PENH // Song Kosal’s life has so far taken her from the rice paddies of rural Cambodia, where she lost a leg to a landmine at the age of five, to the White House to present a petition urging the US to sign a treaty banning landmines.

On Friday she will embark on yet another journey when she takes part in the Miss Landmine competition, a beauty pageant for victims of landmines. Ms Kosal will be vying for the title along with 20 other women who have lost limbs to landmines left over from Cambodia’s civil war. The winner will be crowned in a ceremony in December and will receive a custom-made prosthetic limb.

Although she already has a prosthetic leg, it does not fit properly and it is painful to use, so she walks with a crutch instead. While a prosthetic leg designed especially for her would make walking much easier, the prize is not her reason for participating in the contest.

“I want to try to get people to pay attention to women with disabilities and to not discriminate. People with disabilities can do anything,” she said. “And if we do this project we can raise the issue of the ban [on landmines].”

Miss Landmine is the brainchild of Morten Traavik, a Norwegian actor and theatre director. He launched the first pageant last year in Angola, which is one of the three most heavily mined countries in the world, along with Cambodia and Afghanistan.

Mr Traavik was staying at the family home of his then girlfriend in Angola’s capital, Luanda, in 2003, just one year after the end of the country’s civil war.

“There was still a very palpable sense of a state of emergency,” he said. The streets were strewn with garbage, buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes, and of course there were thousands of amputees, victims of landmines that peppered the countryside. During his visit, Mr Traavik got to know some of the neighbourhood children and they asked him to be a judge at a contest they were organising called Miss “Beco”, meaning Miss Backstreet.

“It was such a wonderful event,” Mr Traavik recalled. “A narrow back alley was the catwalk. The women were of all shapes, sizes, nuances of brown and black. It was a very inclusive event. It made me see how uncomplicated it can be, a playful celebration of life and beauty.”

The experience stuck with him and before long Mr Traavik came up with the idea of organising a similar event to raise awareness about landmines, which are currently banned by 156 countries but continue to kill and maim decades after the end of armed conflicts. His idea was met with scepticism if not outright disgust by many of the international organisations he approached for funding.

“Some people have a purely gut reaction that all beauty pageants are bad no matter if they have a higher purpose,” said Mr Traavik, who said many people he talked to could not get past the concept of a pageant as “sleazy old men voting for young dancing babes in bathing suits”.

But the Angolan government and local community groups gave their support and after applying to the Norwegian Arts Council a few times he finally received a grant.

The Cambodian government, however, yesterday urged the cancellation of the event, Agence France-Presse reported. In a letter to organisers, the ministry of social affairs said: “The ministry asks the people who organise this contest to stop this action … for protecting … the honour and dignity of people with disabilities.”

While Miss Landmine is a far cry from the average pageant, it does follow the traditional aesthetic of beauty contests. The competition will kick off with the launch of a photo exhibit and a glossy magazine featuring contestants photographed against backdrops of beaches and Cambodia’s famed ancient temples. People throughout the world can cast votes online for their favourite candidate at www.miss-landmine.org/cambodia. Those votes will be taken into account by judges who will decide the winner at the December event, which will feature contestants on a catwalk in gowns and a brief interview conducted by an MC.

According to the Miss Landmine magazine, Ms Kosal lost her leg to a Gyata 64 anti-personnel mine, which was manufactured in Hungary and sold for about US$15 (Dh55).

Ms Kosal said she could not remember the incident, but her mother, who was working in a rice paddy at the time, told her that she was collecting firewood when she stepped on the mine. Her story is common in Cambodia, which is littered with mines left behind after a two-decade long war between government troops backed by Vietnam and Khmer Rouge rebels.

“I am very angry at these people who put landmines there,” said Ms Kosal. “But I am happy that I have the chance to join the campaign to challenge countries like the US that have not signed the treaty.”

The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty has yet to be signed by 37 countries, including the UAE. Ms Kosal is a youth ambassador for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a global advocacy network. In 2001, she travelled to Washington, DC, to present a petition containing 263,000 signatures to Colin Powell, who was serving as the secretary of state in the administration of George W Bush.

“I liked him, the way he spoke, the way he acted,” she said, but added that Mr Powell said the US would sign the treaty, which it has not done. “I was upset that he promised me, then he forgot what he said to me.”

Mr Traavik noted that the US, along with China and Russia, are major producers of weapons including landmines, and none of them have signed the treaty, also known as the Ottawa Accord. According to Landmine Monitor, a civil society group that tracks progress made in eliminating landmines, those three countries have by far the biggest stockpiles, with about 145 million antipersonnel mines between them.

“It’s not a coincidence that these countries unwilling to sign the Ottawa Accord are also the biggest weapons producers,” he said. “Of course there is a powerful arms industry and a powerful arms lobby that does not want to lose money.”

That is why it is important to keep pressuring such countries by bringing attention to the issue in any way possible, he said, even if it means challenging commonly held assumptions about the evils of beauty pageants.

jferrie@thenational.ae

Not an average tale of love, tragedy

The Disappeared by Kim Echlin (Hamish Hamilton / Penguin Canada, $29)

In a slim novel, Echlin crafts work of beauty

http://thechronicleherald.ca/

By MARY JO ANDERSON
Sun. Aug 2, 2009

Picture, if you can, the Apsara dances of Cambodia and the stylized, sensuous movements through which a legend or story are told. Each dancer moves with liquid suppleness, balancing and turning with exquisite grace, all within a soundscape of music. Hands and feet curving — to resemble lotus blossoms perhaps — never stop their delicate turning. Beneath all the grace there is a muscular strength that propels it.

The Disappeared (Hamish Hamilton, $29) by Toronto author Kim Echlin, is a dance of words that resembles the Apsara dances in beauty, grace, sensuality and power. The sentences curve to reveal and make solid the images and ideas held within them. The book’s slim contour of only 228 pages holds such a weight of story and history.

In what is a seemingly impossible feat, the form is carved perfectly to the task — the book balances on the beauty. For Echlin, balance was a crucial element she sought during the long, difficult process of crafting this novel, which holds both a story of "abiding love " and of a genocide of unimaginable horror.

Echlin is able, by imagination and art, to take the reader on a journey through eros and evil — a journey that travels into utter darkness but does not leave us in despair.

The Disappeared tells the story of Anne Greves, a girl of 16 and of her lover, Serey, who at 21, is a student from Cambodia, in Montreal during the late 70s. They meet at a blues bar where Anne has snuck in underage. The two are inexorably drawn to each other and become lovers.

Music pervades the opening pages of the book like smoke in a jazz club. "Bones work their way to the surface," Anne states as she begins to reveal the story from a vantage point 30 years later, back in Montreal.

The Disappeared by Kim Echlin tells a love story and also recounts the horrors in Cambodia under Pol Pot during the 1970s. (JANET BAILEY)

I had an opportunity to speak with Echlin about the bones of the novel when she participated in the Banff International Translation Centre program at The Banff Centre. This program offers authors and translators a unique opportunity to meet and discuss their work. Echlin was able to confer with two translators who were working on The Disappeared during the program; one translator was from China, another from Spain.

For Echlin, a trip to Cambodia eight years ago with her husband and young children, seeded this novel that was seven years in the making. A woman spoke to Echlin in a marketplace and told "her story very quietly" and it was this revelation of personal tragedy that impelled Echlin to want to "create a voice that used storytelling to witness" the genocide in Cambodia.

Echlin explains there is a long history of "testimonial writing," both fiction and non-fiction, especially in other cultures. Holocaust literature from the Second World War, and witnessing literature from South America, are two examples of art attempting to describe the indescribable.

The novel was very long, at one point, Echlin says, and she had written from many different narrative voices in different versions. She had sent an early form of the manuscript out to publishers only to have it rejected. At that point Echlin rethought the work.

"I wasn’t sure that I had the capacity to do it, but I set the whole thing aside. Two weeks later I was back at it. . . . I didn’t even look at the other versions. I started fresh."

Echlin then found the voice the story required. "I came to the idea of the ‘you’ voice."

The novel is told through Anne Greve’s narration using second person narrative, which uses the narrator to address another character. This technique draws the reader into the story. More than the voice, Echlin also found the form the book required.

"I thought that the shortness, the brevity would have its own power." She pared the book down to its essence. And Echlin knows from years of research, of listening, of reading truth commissions from Africa and Argentina, how dark the journey can be.

"To read the stories of torture, of massacres — it is actually part of being a witness — you need a place where you can go, where you can breathe again." Echlin creates these moments for her characters and for her readers.

When Anne first meets Serey, she is a high school student living with her father, an engineer who specializes in medical prosthetics. Her mother died when Anne was two and her father has been a lonely and distant man since.

"When he read to me he sometimes looked at the black and white picture of my mother on the bedside table. . . . Papa’s voice would drift away and I learned to wait quietly. . . . I think I began to read this way, studying the words in an open book, waiting for absence to be filled."

So when Anne first sees Serey in the nightclub she is ready to read the world through him. Their love is portrayed sensuously and Echlin offers acute perceptions of a young girl’s entry into the adult world of love and loss.

"A girl wears her lover’s clothes . . . because she is trying to understand why she feels both freed and broken." At one point Anne says, "The world is outside the garden." Deep in the book, there is a page, blank except for this single sentence: "I can still see a particle of dust hanging in a sunbeam near your cheek as you slept."

Anne becomes aware of Serey’s history and the fact that he has not heard from his family in four years, since a telegram warned him not to return to Cambodia. During those four years, the outside world had little knowledge of the genocide under the Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot.

When Serey learns the borders have opened he must return to search for his family. This wrenching apart of the two lovers separates them for more than a decade until Anne believes she sees Serey during a news broadcast and determines to travel to Cambodia to find him.

The soul of the book (the love story can be seen as the body of the book) is the 150 pages that detail Anne’s awakening to the horrors of the Cambodian genocide.

"This thing is sure: Time is no healer," Anne remarks remembering her mother’s funeral and carrying all she knows of Serey and Cambodia.

I ask Kim Echlin if art can be a healer. She responds by saying, "If healing means being able to go on and to hold the story but not forget — then yes, art does that, I think." After a pause Echlin emphasizes, "It’s more, healing is not forgetting."

In The Disappeared, Anne meets an artist named Vann Nath on her journey through Cambodia.(Nath is a real person — a survivor of the torture camp Tuol Sleng, one of only seven survivors of the more than 5,000 prisoners.) Nath tells how he survived the camp by painting pictures of Pol Pot.

But after "it was over he began to paint the tortures, the pictures of Tuol Sleng."

Anne thinks of art, music, and the chorus of Antigone: "Human cruelty turned into a note of music, the rhythm of a sentence."

Kim Echlin has wrought a work of singular beauty, a work which turns "human cruelty" into the image of a particle of dust by a lover’s cheek, into the rhythm of the sentences that carry knowledge of the world so all may witness.

Echlin has worked as a producer for CBC’s The Journal and as a reporter.

Sex tourism and Canada's weak response

Benjamin Perrin author of the study 'Canada's Travelling Sex Offenders,' has worked in Cambodia with child victims of sex tourism. (Photo courtesy The Future Group)

Somaly Mam and Rosalind Prober, listen intently at a rally to help stop human trafficking. The campaign is a partnership between The Body Shop, the Somaly Mam Foundation and Beyond Borders. (Sandie Benitah / CTV Toronto)

A crowd gathers at the human trafficking rally, held in font of the Metropolitan United Church at Queen and Church Streets on July 30, 2009. (Sandie Benitah / CTV Toronto)

Somaly Mam speaks at a rally about her experience as a victim of Cambodia's sex industry. (Sandie Benitah / CTV Toronto)

Rosalind Prober, shown here speaking at a Toronto rally, is one of Canada's most influential activists involved in the sex tourism issue. (Sandie Benitah / CTV Toronto)

http://www.ctv.ca/

Sun. Aug. 2 2009

By Sandie Benitah, CTV.ca News

If you had asked anyone to describe Donald Bakker they would likely have said he was just an ordinary Canadian -- a loving father and husband who lived a middle-class lifestyle, working regular hours at Vancouver banquet halls and donating part of his modest salary to an international children's charity.

No one would have called him a child predator, but in 2005 Bakker became the first Canadian to be convicted under the country's sex tourism law after an investigation found that he paid seven young girls in Cambodia to have sex with him.

Canada has had laws in place since 1997 that allow Canadian authorities to prosecute citizens who have committed sex crimes against children overseas. However, in the last decade, Canada has only convicted three people under its sex tourism law, a new study out of British Columbia has found.

The study's author, Benjamin Perrin, a law professor and Canadian expert on sex tourism, says that Canadian men are actively contributing to the problem of child exploitation in troubled countries such as Cambodia and Thailand.

And although Canadian authorities have all the legal tools they need to go after the offenders, they are lacking an enforcement strategy to effectively tackle the problem, he said. The result is that offenders can travel to these troubled countries knowing that they likely won't be investigated.

Several countries around the world have investigators stationed overseas, actively pursuing their nationals who travel to sex tourism hotspots looking for young prey.

Australia is perhaps the best example of a country proactively pursuing offenders. Southeast Asia is the number one vacation destination for Aussies, and as a result the country has stationed Australian officers in several countries in the region and officials have forged a working relationship with the foreign police.

Canadian officials are not ignoring the issue, Perrin says, but their resources are being spent on tracking drug trafficking networks, terrorism links and sales of weapons.

"What's clearly missing is the political will," he tells CTV.ca in a recent interview. "More resources should be allocated to administer these laws."

Perrin calls the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's approach to the issue "accidental prosecution" -- because authorities often stumble upon the evidence rather than actively pursue the perpetrators, like the Australians do.

In Bakker's case, it was Vancouver's police force that stumbled upon video footage of the man having sex with Cambodian children. Local authorities were probing Bakker's past after he was charged with assaulting Vancouver prostitutes. The videotape was accidentally discovered when police executed a search warrant on his property.

Challenges to police

The RCMP did not return messages left by CTV.ca but a Toronto sex crimes police officer who has travelled to Cambodia for work says that Canadian authorities have a number of issues that challenge their ability to go after sex offenders overseas.

A big part of the problem is that the police forces in most impoverished countries where children are part of the sex trade lack the resources to build an effective network with international authorities, says Det. Const. Janelle Blackadar.

In some cases the police forces are on such a tight budget they don't even have enough gasoline in their cars to respond to a call.

Corruption is also a big problem for law enforcers as it is quite common for suspects to bribe authorities to drop the charges. Because money is so scarce, bribes are often accepted.

"People are very poor, so of course money is going to influence them," Blackadar says.

"It's not the same police society we have here," she continues. "It's not good business to investigate the (wealthy) businessmen who contribute to the country's economy."

Blackadar says money is also the reason why families push their children into the sex trade.

"Children there realize at a very early age how life is going to be for them," she says. "Families will sell their daughter's virginity. Families profit from this."

"It's been part of their society for so long, it's part of their culture almost," she adds.

NGO's to the rescue

The difference in attitudes towards children and sex is probably the biggest challenges international authorities face. Acceptance and widespread corruption make it difficult for investigators to collect evidence.

Most of the time, Blackadar says, evidence is collected by people who work at non-governmental organizations who have made it their mission to stop child trafficking and exploitation.

They collect evidence and pass it on to the appropriate authorities in hopes they'll be able to prosecute the offender.

Rosalind Prober is one such activist whose work has helped put Canada on the right track.

She is behind the "Prober amendment" to Canada's child sex tourism legislation, which was introduced in 1996. The amendment allowed authorities to prosecute Canadians who have committed crimes against children in other jurisdictions.

Today, the Winnipeg resident is arguably Canada's most influential lobbyist in the issue of sex tourism and has co-founded an organization called Beyond Borders, which helps tackle child exploitation

Prober was in Toronto on July 30 to launch a campaign with the Body Shop and the Somaly Mam Foundation, which fights human trafficking.

In an interview, Prober tells CTV.ca that Canada has simply not made the issue of sex tourism a priority.

Aside from stationing more RCMP officers in troubled countries, changes also need to be made to Canada's national sex offender registry, she says.

Prober and several other organizations including World Vision Canada have called for the government to issue travel warnings for people who have been convicted of sex offences in Canada and who travel abroad after serving their sentence.

"They can take their passport and say goodbye to Canada and get right back to business," she says.

Part of the solution, Prober suggests, is to make the registry public.

"These people are put right back into society anonymously," she says. "The registry is inadequate."

She admits that issuing travel advisories would be a "bureaucratic nightmare" as lawyers would have a field day arguing for the individual's right to freedom of mobility.

"It's just a matter of whose rights are going to trump whose rights," Prober says with a sigh.

For Somaly Mam, a Cambodian woman who was brutally raped as a child and sold into a brothel, the issue has never been about rights. It has been about survival.

Tired of talking

Mam was also in Toronto this week, visiting from Cambodia to share her experience and to persuade the Canadian public to take action.

She tells CTV.ca that speaking engagements are how she helps raise funds for the shelters and foundation she helps run, but that in truth, she is tired of all the talking.

"I don't understand what we are doing by talking," Mam says. "Talking is great but we need more reacting. While we keep talking, pedophiles are going into our country and killing our children.

"I'm so fed up, I've spent so much time writing letters." she says.

Her frustration is palpable and when she explains her current life in Cambodia, it becomes easy to understand why she is so angry.

Her shelters, scattered throughout southeast Asia, have saved about 6,000 girls. Each houses about 200 girls, some as young as five, all of whom call her "mommy."

She never turns anyone away despite the fact that sometimes there is not enough money to feed everyone. Her goal is to keep them safe and away from predators, 30 per cent of whom are tourists, she says.

The efforts have resulted in her being named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2009. Nonetheless, she realizes her limitations and says while she helps girls get out of the sex trade, she alone can't stop the problem.

"Only political power has the power to stop it," she says. "Not me."

Part of the problem Mam sees with international authorities is their lack of co-ordination across borders. By comparison, criminal organizations tend to be extremely organized.

She says the general public must put pressure on their governments to act, if a solution is to be found.

"I do this because this is my life, but you have a great life and yet you are all here," she tells a crowd of about 50 people gathered at a human trafficking rally in Toronto on July 31.

Mam says despite the frustrations and tribulations she continues to face in Cambodia, she is in no hurry to move from her home.

Her suffering as a child has driven her to help other children survive the same atrocities she faced at the hands of pedophiles.

"Those little girls teach me everyday to stand up and love," she says at the rally, choking up with emotion. "Being a victim is your whole life. You never forget it."

Cambodians begin to learn of bloody past

Cambodian students read textbooks about the hardline Khmer Rouge regime at the Hun Sen Ang Snuol high school

Cambodian students are seen behind of a pile of textbooks about the hardline Khmer Rouge regime

Cambodian students read textbooks about the hardline Khmer Rouge regime at the Hun Sen Ang Snuol high school

By Suy Se (AFP)

ANG SNUOL, Cambodia — It plunged their country into a communist "Year Zero" in the late 1970s and killed about a third of the population, but most young Cambodians shrug when asked about the Khmer Rouge.

"I don't know who are the Khmer Rouge. I never learned about the regime and my parents never told me about it either," says 15-year-old Si Phana.

Her schoolmate Ang Pheaktra, 17, knows only a little more about that bleak time which traumatised a generation.

"My parents only told me that the Khmer Rouge were very cruel," Ang Pheaktra says.

Even though there's a war crimes tribunal for senior leaders of the 1975-79 movement, most here are unaware the regime killed up to two million people, emptying cities and enslaving the population on collective farms.

The country is pocked with bone-strewn memorials and mass graves but Hang Chhum, principal at Hun Sen Ang Snuol High School, says many young people do not even believe Khmer Rouge atrocities occured.

"Cambodians rarely tell the bitter history to their children," Hang Chhum says. "Many young Cambodians nowadays do not believe the regime happened because its tragedy was too extreme."

More than 70 percent of Cambodia's 14 million people were born after the Khmer Rouge were ousted in 1979 and, as the topic has been sensitive among elites who were involved with the regime, little about it has been taught in schools.

But this year, three decades after the fall of the reign of terror, the Cambodian government has agreed to include a text on the Khmer Rouge -- "A History of Democratic Kampuchea" -- in its 2009 high school curriculum.

Some half a million copies are being distributed to more than 1,300 schools across the country for grades nine through 12.

"We want students to know that this event did happen in Cambodia and it is not fabricated," Hang Chhum says.

"So when they learn and understand what happened under the regime, they will in the future tell their children so that this regime will never reoccur," he adds.

The 100-page text on the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge was reviewed by Cambodian and foreign scholars. It also includes lessons from Nazi and Rwandan genocides.

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which produced the text, says students studying the Khmer Rouge past will "help heal the wounds of their parents and help build a reconciled society in Cambodia".

Cambodia's bloody history was briefly included in 2002 high school social studies classes, but the book was cut from the curriculum after it caused tension between Premier Hun Sen and his then rival, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

The text failed to mention that Ranariddh defeated Hun Sen in the country's 1993 election, the first democratic polls after the premier participated in a Vietnam-backed invasion force which ousted the Khmer Rouge.

Hun Sen forced a coalition after that UN-backed poll, and the two men served as co-prime ministers until he ousted the prince in 1997. The rejected textbook glossed over those details, while highlighting Hun Sen?s 1998 national election victory.

Students appeared pleased to get the new textbook and promised to study hard during a recent ceremony unveiling the book at Hun Sen Ang Snuol High School, some eight kilometers (five miles) from the first UN-backed Khmer Rouge court.

The tribunal is currently dealing with the trial of Duch, the former head of the regime's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, which is now a genocide museum.

At the start of proceedings in March, 66-year-old Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, begged forgiveness from victims after accepting responsibility for overseeing the torture and execution of around 15,000 people.

But as the trial continues, it remains to be seen if many Cambodians will learn more about their brutal history.

Knowledge here about the Khmer Rouge has been so dismal that a University of California, Berkeley study showed last year, before Duch's trial began, that nearly 40 percent of Cambodians had no knowledge of the war crimes court.

Court officials assert that number has changed drastically as 12,000 people so far have visited Duch's trial, and compelling testimony has been broadcast on national television.

"With your own eyes, you can see people in this country are very thirsty for information about this tribunal," says court spokesman Reach Sambath.

"It's important to get people engaged in the process. We think it will help Cambodians finally settle with peace in their hearts."

D.C. outcry: Montagnard cause grows desperate

H. Scott Hoffmann (News & Record)
Photo Caption: H’Juel Ya is a UNCG junior who works at a Montagnard human rights group in Greensboro.

Sunday, August 2, 2009
By Lorraine Ahearn
Staff Writer

GREENSBORO — Until the sweltering day in June when they were reunited at Ho Chi Minh City Airport, it had been 30 years since H’Juel Ya’s mother and grandmother laid eyes on each other.

The elder had been imprisoned by the Vietnamese government as a Christian; the younger fled into the jungle, escaping to Cambodia.

From there, she eventually made her way to the United States, settling in Greensboro in 1992, part of a community now estimated at 9,000 strong in North Carolina, the largest such ethnic enclave of Montagnards outside Vietnam.

“It was happy, but sad, seeing them together,” said H’Juel, 19, of her first trip to Vietnam. “Leaving her mother was the hardest decision my mother ever had to make. Montagnards are so close.”

For many such fractured families living in exile and watching the long anguish of human rights abuses in Vietnam — religious repression, jailing of labor leaders and journalists, the crushing of political dissent — a glimmer of hope has emerged.

Amid reports of escalating civil rights violations, members of Congress held a press conference Thursday in Washington calling for the Vietnamese government to release 400 alleged political prisoners.

The action was led by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), sponsor of this year’s toughly worded Vietnam Human Rights Act, to which Greensboro Republican Howard Coble signed on as a co-sponsor last week.

The resolution, laying out a litany of human rights abuses on the part of the Communist regime, would tie non-humanitarian foreign aid levels to progress toward a civil society.

“This gives us some leverage to insist that they improve their human rights approach better than they’ve done in the past,” Coble said in a phone interview Friday, citing the heavy concentration of Montagnards in his district for his interest.

Earlier in July, 37 U.S. senators led by Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., signed a letter demanding the release of Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly.

A symbol of religious repression in Vietnam, the 63-year-old Hue Catholic priest has spent a total of 17 years in prison since 1970. Photos by Agence France Presse from his last trial on political dissidence charges show the priest bound and gagged by guards as he stood trial.

But to understand the picture in everyday Vietnam, consider H’Juel’s recent trip. A UNCG student and caseworker for the Greensboro nonprofit Montagnard Dega Association, she was immediately picked out as an American when she arrived in the Central Highlands, the mountains and valleys that are home to the tribes.

“It’s your glasses,” relatives told her. Villagers are so poor, no one can afford them. “I didn’t see a single person wearing glasses. Even old people.”

Cousins her age did not go to school — let alone college — but worked in the heat, picking coffee beans, doing wash.

Her uncle works closely with local authorities, therefore, H’Juel and her family needed to register with the police only when they arrived, to let them know who was staying overnight and which extended family would be visiting.

Yet a fellow Greensboro Montagnard who flew with H’Juel’s family to Vietnam but whose relatives weren’t as well-connected was stopped and questioned daily during the trip, H’Juel said.

While in Vietnam, H’Juel attended Protestant services, but at a government-approved church, where the service was in Vietnamese, not the Mnong language her relatives speak.

Apart from the repressive flare-ups that make headlines — the June attack on a Buddhist monastery in south Vietnam, for example, or arrests of Catholics last week — the very idea of government-registered churches troubles those promoting civil rights.

Under international law, there is no provision for registering churches, and human rights advocates argue that the practice is the first step toward government control.

Denominations that join hundreds and thousands of citizens together on Sunday mornings are perceived — in the mind of the authoritarian regime — as dangerous.

“It’s the organization that’s the problem,” said Scott Flipse, director of the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom’s East Asia program. “That’s the threat to the government.”

Part of a delegation to Vietnam in May, Flipse said the commission had verified that 355 Montagnards are currently imprisoned by the government. This comes against a backdrop of accelerating repression, with the shutdowns of newspapers and blogs, the arrest of a prominent labor lawyer and the destruction of one of the original Christian churches in the highlands last spring.

And though the Human Rights resolution addresses an array of broken promises by the Vietnamese government since it joined the World Trade Organization and prepares to reassume presidency of the U.N. Security Council this fall, some believe the Montagnards may be the most desperate part of the picture.

Before the Vietnam War, in which the Montagnards fatefully took sides with U.S. forces, the population of the highland tribes numbered in the millions; today, unofficial estimates are as low as 650,000.

Because of that history, as well as such ongoing land issues as a massive bauxite mining rights sale in the highlands, exiled leaders fear the Montagnards are destined to be completely displaced, if not erased.

Said Y Siu H’long, executive director of the Montagnard Dega Association, “For Buddhists, they want them to practice within the border of the law. For the Montagnards, they want to kill us all, so they can live on our land. That’s the main point.”

At Human Rights Watch, observers noted that just prior to Vietnam’s acceptance into the WTO, there was a climate of tolerance of newspapers, unions and political opposition.

But once Vietnam had been embraced by the world community and removed from the U.S. State Department’s “Countries of Particular Concern” human rights watch list in late 2006, the situation deteriorated with crackdowns on Internet use and arrests of labor leaders.

In a recent BBC interview, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Michalak maintained there was “no evidence” that Vietnam should be put back on the list.

Out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, an amendment to the proposed appropriations bill seeks to put Vietnam back on the watch list.

Rep. Brad Miller, who sits on the Foreign Affairs panel, has supported that idea in the past, a spokeswoman said last week, and is reviewing the human rights resolution, which has a companion version in the Senate introduced by B oxer.

Previous versions of the resolution passed the House but failed in the Senate, where a core group of senators led by Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry argued that trade and geopolitical interests take precedence.

This year, however, human rights advocates say there could be a policy shift in the new administration.

“I’m not saying I would bet the farm on it,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “But if this thing passes, it would send a very potent message.”

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com

Illawarra youth worker's two months in Cambodia

Clementina Velasco with Meid Ray at the Green Gecko children's home in Cambodia.

Green Gecko project children Tida (left), Chieng Ang, Teara and Sophy pictured at the charity's home near Siem Reap last week.

http://www.illawarramercury.com.au

BY COURTNEY TRENWITH
3/08/2009

Tears well up in Clementina Velasco's eyes when she describes the night she met a Cambodian child whose parents pulled him from the safety of a children's home to work the streets.

"His family wanted him on the streets because he could make more money there," she said, choking back tears.

What made that meeting so emotional for the Wollongong woman was her own experience at that home, about 2km from Siem Reap and the famous archaeological site of Angkor Wat.

As a volunteer at the home during May and June this year, Ms Velasco, 25, witnessed the tremendous impact it had on the lives of dozens of children who are the legacy of a society still reeling from the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.

The home, run by the Green Gecko Project and established by Australian woman Tania Palmer and her Cambodian partner Rem Poum, has rescued more than 70 children from the streets and provided shelter, education, food and the potential for a successful future.

During the two months, Ms Velasco taught and played with the children, developing a bond that would permanently affect her.

"Most of them aren't orphans (but) their families are too poor to feed them so the children have been on the streets until all hours begging," Ms Velasco said.

"(There's) a range of social and physical issues that combine to make some pretty horrible home environments for the children."

Ms Velasco has worked with Illawarra youth for several years but this was her first overseas volunteering role.

"I found the first few weeks really easy because everyone is so happy in such a great place, where they've got food, good shelter (and) they go to school," she said.

"It took a few weeks before getting to know the children ... and learning some of their stories and their backgrounds, (before) you really start to learn where they've come from. That made it even more amazing to see how far they had come."

Ms Velasco is selling Green Gecko cookbooks, with Cambodian recipes and stories and photos of children involved in the project, at Green Bean Play Cafe in Fairy Meadow to raise money for the project.

For more information visit www.greengeckoproject.org.

Cambodia rejects landmine beauty contest

http://news.smh.com.au/

August 2, 2009

The Cambodian government has urged the cancellation of a beauty pageant in which landmine victims will compete to win a prosthetic leg, organisers say.

In the Miss Landmine Cambodia contest, 20 competitors from around the country are due to appear in a photo exhibition opening on Friday in Phnom Penh, followed by an internet voting campaign to select the best candidate.

But in a letter to organisers, the Ministry of Social Affairs has called on them to cancel the contest - although the Cambodian Mine Action Authority said in 2007 it fully supported the event.

"The ministry asks the people who organise this contest to stop this action ... for protecting ... the honour and dignity of people with disabilities," the letter said in English.

But Norwegian pageant director Morten Traavik said the contest, which offers as the top prize a custom-made prosthetic leg, would increase awareness about the victims of landmines.

"I have asked to meet the Cambodian officials to clear up our misunderstanding, and I hope once they know about our project details, they will welcome this," he said.

He explained that the pageant aimed "to raise awareness of what landmines have done to the people", adding that it would be a "big shame" if people could not see the exhibition.

The first Miss Landmine contest was held in Angola last year, drawing protests from rights activists who viewed it as exploitative and racist.

Cambodia remains one of the world's most heavily mined countries, along with Afghanistan and Angola.

Hundreds of people are killed or maimed every year by the millions of landmines and other unexploded ordnance still littering the countryside after decades of conflict.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen cancelled a Miss Cambodia beauty pageant in 2006, saying he would not allow such a contest until poverty in Cambodia was reduced by more than half.

Cambodia: Warm reception for floating book fair

http://www.inspiremagazine.org.uk

Residents of the coastal town of Sihanoukville welcomed Doulos crew with open arms during the floating book fair’s recent visit to Cambodia. The extended hands of friendship were firmly seized by all those on board, who had spent months praying and preparing for the 18-day visit.

As Doulos approached the coast and pulled into port, the crew had high expectations of all God would do.

The country’s Minister of Tourism, His Excellency So Mara, was present at the quayside as the ship docked and the gangways were lowered. Along with His Excellency Mr Sbong Sarath, Governor of Sihanouk Province, he wanted to personally welcome the crew into port. Both of the distinguished guests were delighted to learn that following Doulos’ first-ever visit to Cambodia in 2007, there is now a Cambodian serving among the all-volunteer Christian crew.

During previous port of calls, the ship’s company had appealed for donations of medical supplies and educational resources. Churches in Hong Kong and Taiwan responded generously. With Doulos docked in Cambodia for over two weeks, those gifts were distributed to needy communities across the country, with orphans, schoolchildren and the sick among the many to benefit.

Back on board, the ship’s educational and Christian book fair was also busy, as thousands of people came to chose from the titles on offer.

After departing Sihanoukville on 28 July, Doulos headed to Bangkok in neighbouring Thailand. The ship is already attracting considerable media interest there following news that a member of the royal family will visit.

On the other side of the world, Doulos’ sister ship, Logos Hope, has completed a highly successful visit to the UK and is now serving impoverished communities in the Caribbean region.

Further information from www.omships.org

Cambodians learn about past

Even though there's a war crimes tribunal for senior leaders of the 1975-79 movement, most here are unaware the regime killed up to two million people. --PHOTO: AFP

The Straits Times
http://www.straitstimes.com/

Aug 2, 2009

ANG SNUOL (Cambodia) - IT PLUNGED their country into a communist 'Year Zero' in the late 1970s and killed about a third of the population, but most young Cambodians shrug when asked about the Khmer Rouge.

'I don't know who are the Khmer Rouge. I never learned about the regime and my parents never told me about it either,' says 15-year-old Si Phana.

Her schoolmate Ang Pheaktra, 17, knows only a little more about that bleak time which traumatised a generation.

'My parents only told me that the Khmer Rouge were very cruel,' Ang Pheaktra says.

Even though there's a war crimes tribunal for senior leaders of the 1975-79 movement, most here are unaware the regime killed up to two million people, emptying cities and enslaving the population on collective farms.

The country is pocked with bone-strewn memorials and mass graves but Hang Chhum, principal at Hun Sen Ang Snuol High School, says many young people do not even believe Khmer Rouge atrocities occured.

'Cambodians rarely tell the bitter history to their children,' Mr Hang Chhum says. 'Many young Cambodians nowadays do not believe the regime happened because its tragedy was too extreme.' More than 70 per cent of Cambodia's 14 million people were born after the Khmer Rouge were ousted in 1979 and, as the topic has been sensitive among elites who were involved with the regime, little about it has been taught in schools.

But this year, three decades after the fall of the reign of terror, the Cambodian government has agreed to include a text on the Khmer Rouge - 'A History of Democratic Kampuchea' - in its 2009 high school curriculum.

Some half a million copies are being distributed to more than 1,300 schools across the country for grades nine through 12.

'We want students to know that this event did happen in Cambodia and it is not fabricated,' Mr Hang Chhum says. -- AFP

_________________________

So that future will be told regime will never reoccur

'SO WHEN they learn and understand what happened under the regime, they will in the future tell their children so that this regime will never reoccur,' he adds.

The 100-page text on the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge was reviewed by Cambodian and foreign scholars. It also includes lessons from Nazi and Rwandan genocides.

Mr Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which produced the text, says students studying the Khmer Rouge past will 'help heal the wounds of their parents and help build a reconciled society in Cambodia'.

Cambodia's bloody history was briefly included in 2002 high school social studies classes, but the book was cut from the curriculum after it caused tension between Premier Hun Sen and his then rival, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

The text failed to mention that Mr Ranariddh defeated Mr Hun Sen in the country's 1993 election, the first democratic polls after the premier participated in a Vietnam-backed invasion force which ousted the Khmer Rouge.

Mr Hun Sen forced a coalition after that UN-backed poll, and the two men served as co-prime ministers until he ousted the prince in 1997. The rejected textbook glossed over those details, while highlighting Hun Sen's 1998 national election victory.

Students appeared pleased to get the new textbook and promised to study hard during a recent ceremony unveiling the book at Hun Sen Ang Snuol High School, some eight kilometers (five miles) from the first UN-backed Khmer Rouge court.

The tribunal is currently dealing with the trial of Duch, the former head of the regime's notorious Tuol Sleng prison, which is now a genocide museum.

At the start of proceedings in March, 66-year-old Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, begged forgiveness from victims after accepting responsibility for overseeing the torture and execution of around 15,000 people.

But as the trial continues, it remains to be seen if many Cambodians will learn more about their brutal history.

Knowledge here about the Khmer Rouge has been so dismal that a University of California, Berkeley study showed last year, before Duch's trial began, that nearly 40 per cent of Cambodians had no knowledge of the war crimes court.

Court officials assert that number has changed drastically as 12,000 people so far have visited Duch's trial, and compelling testimony has been broadcast on national television.

'With your own eyes, you can see people in this country are very thirsty for information about this tribunal,' says court spokesman Reach Sambath.

'It's important to get people engaged in the process. We think it will help Cambodians finally settle with peace in their hearts.' -- AFP

Site Rides Rising Tide of Web Users

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
01 August 2009

The slogan for angkorone.com, a recently launched Web site, makes it networking goals known: “Khmers, unite, inspire, share.”

Angkor One, which has become highly popular in a short time, uses networking tools similar to Facebook, allowing users to communicate with friends and family from across the globe. But it also does something that Facebook does not: it asks Cambodians using the site to help out others.

“A percentage of the profit will go to charity,” said Steven Path, a Cambodian-American who founded the site. “We want all Khmers living overseas, especially those with good jobs and money, to send in just $15 to buy a water filter for a poor family here.”

The Web site joins a number of others in Cambodia’s emerging information market, at a time when users are increasing and prices are falling, even as the technology improves.

The site is posted in English and Khmer, making it “easy for Khmers all over the world to use it and join the community of Khmers,” Path told VOA Khmer recently.

Angkor One is loaded with information on tourist attractions across Cambodia, and users can even book tour guides from the site.

“We want foreigners and Khmers abroad to see what Cambodia has to offer, so that they can visit our country,” said Path, 41, who left Cambodia when he was seven.

The Web site has proven effective in mobilizing people beyond their computers. A few weeks ago, for example, Angkor One organized a social event to bring groups of students and monks together to collect litter around Phnom Penh’s Wat Phnom.

The site has become popular, too, ranking 29th most visited from June 22 to July 22, with only five Khmer-language sites ranking higher, according to Alexa.com, which monitors Web traffic.

Angkor One has emerged at a time when more and more Cambodians are using the Internet, especially with the introduction of a standard Khmer font recognizable by different computers. Most of these Internet users are young, primarily using the Web to network, according to an Open Forum survey. That allows more and more people to connect with each other over vast distances.

No accurate figure for Cambodian Internet uses is available, though the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications says 40,000 subscribers are registered with the country’s Internet service providers. The ministry says 219 Internet cafes are operating across the country in 19 provinces; more than 100 run in Phnom Penh alone.

And while Cambodia’s Internet rates remain higher than its neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam, Phu Leewood, secretary-general for the nation’s information technology authority, said the government was working to bring cheaper Internet access to the countryside.

Cambodian blogger Be Chantra said the site is well designed and could be poised as the leading social Web site in Cambodia.

“In terms of social networking, Angkor One is the first-ever made by a Cambodian, so in the future, if the site is run well, it will probably be ahead of the others,” Be Chantra said.

And because it also appears in Khmer, the site can be useful to non-English speakers in Cambodia, he said, as more young people access Khmer-language sites.

Opinion: Pol Pot's younger brother finds peace

Saloth Nhep bears a striking resemblance to his older brother, Pol Pot, but has lived a very different life. (Jay Mather/GlobalPost)

Cambodians appreciate, even savor, the calm in their country, rather than worrying over the deprivation of their present-day lives.

http://www.globalpost.com

By Joel Brinkley - GlobalPost

PREK SBOV, Cambodia — Saloth Nhep enjoys watching the Khmer Rouge trial, underway in Phnom Penh. Like most Cambodians, his home does not have electricity, but he has a small black-and-white TV powered by a car battery.

What strikes him, he says, is that “the court is not Cambodian, it’s partly international. That’s unusual here.”

Both the United Nations and Cambodian government are administering the trial. Still Saloth Nhep says he hopes the defendants, aged Khmer Rouge leaders, are convicted, even though they were close friends and war-time compatriots of his older brother, Saloth Sar — Pol Pot.

The Khmer Rouge leader, Brother Number One, died 11 years ago, and at that time Saloth Nhep grieved. "When I heard the news I was very sad, and I felt my heart slow down," he said then.

Now he is 84 years old. Even with a creased face and white hair, Saloth Nhep holds a striking resemblance to his brother. Whatever anger he still holds toward his brother relates primarily to Pol Pot’s neglect of his family — not his role in the deaths of two million Cambodians.

Before joining the Cambodian communist party, Saloth Sar studied in France, and “after he came back from France, he came to see us only twice,” Soloth Nhep complained. "He did not care about family. He has never even seen the face of my oldest child.”

While the Khmer Rouge held power, from 1975 to January 1979, “I did not know the name Pol Pot, did not know he was my brother,” Saloth Nhep said. Even as the president’s brother, he was swept into the vortex of the Khmer Rouge horror. Unlike his older brother, he was an illiterate rice farmer — just the kind of Cambodian the Khmer Rouge respected.

“They treated me like everyone else; they didn’t know he was my brother. I didn’t know Pol Pot. The work was very hard, and their was no freedom.” But then in 1977 he saw a poster with his brother’s picture. He stared. He was shocked.

“What I was thinking was that he should not be leading the country this way and letting people starve to death.”

After that, he says he did not tell anyone that Pol Pot was his brother. Asked why, he just shrugged. He continued working with little if anything to eat until the Vietnamese invasion in 1979. Neither during the war nor after did he ever see his brother again.

Today, Saloth Nhep illustrates the paradox of Cambodian life, 30 years after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime — 10 years after the last Khmer Rouge guerrilla surrendered. He lives with his extended family in a small house. The walls of his home, and the roof, are of bamboo and palm fronds. He has no toilet, no telephone, no clean water, no furniture other than straw mats and a hammock he sits in without a shirt as he dries off from his bath from a bucket. As he talks, three young children, Pol Pot’s great nieces, watch him from behind another hammock, giggling and chewing on rice cakes.

Saloth Nhep is content now. His expression at rest is serene. “The present government is better than the previous regime,” he avers. “There is freedom of travel, and we have security.” That’s all he seems to want.

For most Cambodians, life is an unending struggle to survive.

Just down the road, Tuy Khorn, 42, is trying to plow her rice paddy with a single-blade plow pulled by two oxen. The Khmer Rouge killed her husband, so she is alone. She tries her best to tie a heavy rock to the plow blade so it will dig a deeper furrow. But as soon as she ticks the oxen with a stick, and the animals begin lumbering forward, the rock falls off. Again and again.

“Some years I can grow enough rice” to last through the year, she says. “But if there’s no rain, I can’t grow enough. I don’t know what I will do if there’s no rain, maybe just go by nature” — meaning eat fruits and insects and whatever she can find in the wild.

But Tuy Khorn does not complain. The country is at peace. She needn’t worry about Khmer Rouge raiders popping out from behind the line of trees just ahead. Even now, she and most Cambodians appreciate, even savor, the calm and worry less about the deprivation of their present-day lives.

“We worked hard to achieve peace,” said Prach Chann, governor of Battambang Province. “Now we don’t want to fight among ourselves anymore. Now we can move on.”

After a long life of hard labor, Saloth Nhep does not complain, either. He is calm, clear-eyed, comfortable with himself. He now has enough to eat, and he has gained respect in his village, even with his uncanny resemblance to his notorious brother. Once, they actually elected him to a school committee.

“They can see that I behave in a good way, so they accept me,” he said. “I just live like everyone else. I never had to prove myself because I was not involved with my brother. That is hard to explain to people from far away.” He, too, is at peace.

US trade envoy to voice 'tough love' for Africa

US Trade Representative Ron Kirk

WASHINGTON — The top US trade diplomat said Friday he would have a message of "tough love" for African nations on an upcoming visit after some complained about extending export preferences to other poor regions.

US Trade Representative Ron Kirk plans to travel with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to an economic meeting next week in Kenya. Kirk will then visit Ethiopia and Senegal, while Clinton will head to six other African nations.

The Kenya meeting involves countries covered by the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a US law giving preferential access to the world's biggest market to African states with open markets and democratic governments.

Kirk acknowledged that some African nations were concerned at calls by US lawmakers to extend such benefits to impoverished nations in other regions -- notably Bangladesh and Cambodia, major producers of textiles.

"I think some of what we may respond with is a little bit of tough love," Kirk told reporters on a conference call.

"The reality of being involved in a globally interconnected world is that those countries... that invest in their people and their education, that reform their laws, that invest in their infrastructure are the ones that are the most successful," he said.

"The United States is absolutely committed to strengthen the successful relationship with AGOA, but that should in no way impair our relationships with other least-developing countries," he said.

Bangladesh and Cambodia both export more garments to the United States than all African nations combined.

But the Asian nations in turn have been seeking greater access since the end of a global quota system in 2005, fearing being swamped by giants China and India.

Kirk said the United States nonetheless firmly supported AGOA, signed in 2000 by then-president Bill Clinton.

The legislation transformed the US ties with Africa "from principally a paternalistic and sort of humanitarian relationship to one that frankly was more balanced around mutual interests," Kirk said.

Trade between US and sub-Saharan Africa has more than tripled since AGOA but critics say that the impact has been inflated by US demand for oil from energy producers such as Angola and Nigeria.

Opinion: Identifying Cambodian injustice

A woman pushes her bike in February 2008 along a railroad track in Pursat Province, where Top Chan Sereyvudth is the chief prosecutor. (Chor Sokunthea/Reuters)

What prosecutor Top Chan Sereyvudth's true nature says about Cambodia's justice system.

http://www.globalpost.com/
By Joel Brinkley - GlobalPost
Published: August 1, 2009

PURSAT, Cambodia — Top Chan Sereyvudth is a little man, maybe five foot four, with a bit of fuzz on his chin that some might mistake for a beard. When faced with questions about his problematic behavior, he takes several steps backward with a nervous look. His is the face of injustice in Cambodia.

Top is the chief prosecutor in Pursat Province, a government lawyer charged with bringing malefactors to justice. Well, through a bureaucratic sleight of hand, he managed to have a case transferred from Banteay Meanchey Province, on the other side of the nation, into his own courtroom. This case involved a dispute with four villagers over ownership of some land. These villagers were locked in argument with none other than Top Chan Sereyvudth, who stood to gain five acres for himself.

In his own courtroom, the prosecutor managed to dispatch the villagers to jail after the court offered a preliminary judgement in his favor. In Cambodia, where courts are plagued with graft and inequity, that would have been the end of it — if not for Chhay Sareth, governor of Pursat Province.

He had been out of town during the prosecutor’s escapade, but he heard about it when scores of the victims’ friends from Banteay Meanchey began raucous demonstrations in the center of town.

“I was just informed that there were angry people in the street,” the governor told me. “I was 100 kilometers away. The case was getting bigger and bigger. I thought, if we don’t stop it, Hun Sen will hear about it!” Hun Sen is Cambodia’s prime minister.

After hurrying home, he called in the protesters, heard their story and “ordered the police to assure their security.” A few days later, the case moved to trial. By now the governor’s concern was well known, and the trial judge, In Bopha, let the four men go. When I asked him why, he chose his words carefully.

“It was determined that the crime was committed in Banteay Meanchey province and was out of our jurisdiction. So I ordered it forwarded back to Banteay Meanchey under article 290 of our code.”

As all of this proceeded, Justice Minister Ang Vong Vattana grew angry. After all, he had approved the prosecutor’s request to transfer the case. Now, what was a governor doing messing around in his courts?

“The minister of justice asked me why I got involved in this,” the governor recalled. “I told him: ‘This problem came here from Banteay Meanchey, and when someone vomits on your leg, you have to react. So I got involved.’ I respect these people, even though they came from Banteay Meanchey. I did not know this case until they came here. The prosecutor brought this case here.”

All of that happened in February and March. I spoke to the governor in early July and asked him: After all of that, why is Top Chan Sereyvudth still chief prosecutor in Pursat Province?

“I wonder why the prosecutor, who was really involved in this case, why there is no punishment, no measure taken against him,” he said. “I still wonder why. If you want to know more, I suggest you talk to the minister of justice.” So I did. But not before Top Chan Sereyvudth showed his true nature one more time.

At the end of June, Lieut. Col. Ou Bunthan, a trafficker in endangered species, sent his employee, Leang Saroeun, to pick up a wild pangolin someone had captured. Leang did as told, but on the way back the animal escaped. The colonel was furious. He summoned Leang to his house, poured four liters of gasoline over him and then lit him.

Leang's wife, Laet Heang watched in horror as her husband, ablaze, “ran and jumped into a cistern” full of water, she told me. A few days later he died. Word of this got around, of course. A reporter asked Top Chan Sereyvudth about the incident, since it occurred in Pursat.

Top said he was awaiting a police report before considering the case. But then, without skipping a beat, he pronounced: “It is slanderous to say that Ou Bunthan burned Leang Saroeun."

A few days later I asked Justice Minister Ang Vong Vattana first about transferring the land case to Pursat. The minister answered with an imperial tone: “I have the right to transfer the case, and I did it.” But didn’t Top have a personal interest in the case? “People say he was involved, but nobody has shown me the proof.”

Okay, then, was it proper for Top to pronounce guilt in the Ou Buntham case — before he had even seen the police report?

For a moment, the minister simply glared with a pinched lip, narrow-eyed stare. Then he stood up and stormed out of the room, muttering, “you waste my time.”

Today, Top Chan Sereyvudth is still Pursat Province’s chief prosecutor. Today, as every day, justice in his court cannot be had.

The Vietnamese Embassy Asks Cambodia to Focus on Investment of Vietnamese Companies in Cambodia – Saturday, 1.8.2009

Posted on 1 August 2009
The Mirror, Vol. 13, No. 623
http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com/

“Phnom Penh: The Vietnamese Ambassador to Cambodia, Mr. Ngô Anh Dũng [Ngo Anh Dung], had met with the Minister of the Council of Ministers, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, to discuss existing cooperation in some important sectors with Vietnamese investments in Cambodia.

“An official of the Council of Ministers told reporters that after the meeting on 29 July 2009 at the Council of Ministers, Mr. Ngô Anh Dũng stated his intention to continue the existing work of the former ambassador, and he pointed to some important points that the Vietnamese government has requested to keep under attention, which are related to major investment sectors in Cambodia such as mines and energy where there is investment by Vietnamese companies. Therefore, the ambassador asked for cooperation and instructions from the Cambodian government. Regarding the oil sector, the ambassador said that both countries have large resources of oil and gas, because Vietnam has a lot of experience in these fields, as it has cooperated with Cuba, some countries in Africa, and Russia. As for agriculture and rubber plantations, the Royal Government of Cambodia had provided already 100,000 hectares as concession land. Also, the Viettel company is a licensed investor in telecommunications [brand name Metfone – 500,000 mobile phone users]. There is cooperation in culture, and in expanding tourism [after 5 years with tourists from South Korea topping the list, in 2009 there are more Vietnamese tourists than Korean] by combining tourism of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, since these three countries are similarly rich in cultural and artistic potential. Vietnam has already assisted in human resources development for Cambodia, so this is like what has already also been done before.

“In response, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An agreed that Vietnam is a country with much experience in development. Thus, Cambodia will try to ensure good and timely cooperation.”

Note:

This meeting followed several days of high level talks on Cambodian-Vietnamese cooperation, about which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam reported

Vietnam, Cambodia talk further cooperation

“Vietnamese and Cambodian leaders have met in Phnom Penh to discuss measures to boost the bilateral economic relations.

“During his three-day working visit to Cambodia , beginning on July 25, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Trương Vĩnh Trọng [Truong Vinh Trong] held talks with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Vice Chairman of the Cambodian National Assembly Heng Samrin on July 26.

“The Cambodian leaders highlighted the visit by Deputy Prime Minister Trương Vĩnh Trọng, saying that the two countries’ solidarity and friendship have been further reinforced and developed.

“Deputy Prime Minister Trương Vĩnh Trọng and his entourage also paid a courtesy visit to Buddhist Supreme Patriarch Tep Vong at the Ounalom Pagoda, and presented hospital beds, medical equipment and computers to the Cambodian Buddhist Center’s infirmary.
The same day, the Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Trương Vĩnh Trọng and the Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen attended a ceremony to inaugurate the Cambodian national airline – Cambodia Angkor Air, a joint venture between Vietnam Airlines and the Cambodian Aviation Administration.

“They also witness the awarding of the Cambodian Government’s license to the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) to open a representative office in Cambodia, and to set up an insurance company, and an investment development company in Phnom Penh.”

Rasmei Kampuchea, Vol.17, #4961, 1.8.2009
Newspapers Appearing on the Newsstand:
Saturday, 1 August 2009

Mayor Bear helps Cambodian orphans

Travelling bear: Debra Long with her Mayor Bear and son Sam at the orphanage in Cambodia

http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/

Saturday 1st August 2009

THE Mayor Bear has been on an inspirational trip to help children in Cambodia.

Debra Long and her son, Sam Cain, aged 16, took the Mayor of Bolton’s mascot to an orphanage in Siem Reap, where they used the bear to help teach English to children there.

The underprivileged children loved the cuddly creature so much that he ended up staying at the orphanage.

Mrs Long, from Atherton, whose son is a pupil at Canon Slade School, said: “We had a brilliant time working with the children.

“We used the bear to teach them about the clothes people wear in England. When it came time to leave we couldn’t bear to take him with us.

“We cycled to the orphanage every day. It was a very different kind of holiday, especially for Sam, but he insisted he wanted to come and he loved it.”

Before his trip, the Bolton bear stopped off at Bridge Hair Studio, in Blackburn Road, Astley Bridge, to get his fur trimmed.

Owner Nicola Harrison, who is selling the bears at her salon, said: “People can come in and get their hair done before they go on their holidays and get a Mayor Bear to take with them.”

The Mayor of Bolton, Cllr Norman Critchley, is selling the bears to raise money for his chosen charities and he wants owners to take them on holiday and send back a picture as proof of how far they have travelled.

The owner of the bear which has travelled furthest will be treated to a champagne reception in the Mayor’s Parlour. The bears can be bought for £8.50 by calling the Mayor’s office on 01204 331057, or by calling in at Bridge Hair Studio.

steven.thompson@ theboltonnews.co.uk

Philippines, Southeast Asia, Mourn Death of Former President Aquino

Filipinos view remains of Mrs. Aquino at La Salle school in suburban Mandaluyong, east of Manila, 01 Aug 2009

By Daniel Schearf
Bangkok
01 August 2009

The Philippines is mourning the death of former president Corazon Aquino, who succumbed to cancer early Saturday morning. Mrs. Aquino is remembered as the icon of democracy in the Philippines for leading a "people power" movement against dictatorship. But, Mrs. Aquino also inspired democracy beyond the Philippines.

The Philippines is planning ten days of public mourning, masses and overnight vigils to honor the passing of former President Corazon Aquino.

She died Saturday at the age of 76 after a year-long battle with colon cancer. Corazon Aquino was known affectionately as "Cory" and was the Philippines first female president.

Mrs. Aquino's son, Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, told journalists he never asked his mother how she wanted to be remembered. But, he said he believed Corazon Aquino would be thought of as someone who did her best to help others and never gave in to the temptation of power.

Former Philippine President Corazon Aquino in 2008 file photo

"She really put into practice defending not only the rights of her friends but even those who would oppose you, relinquishing her power as fast as possible with adoption of the 1987 constitution. And, then, I can go on and on," he said.

Corazon Aquino is widely respected for leading a peaceful and popular movement in the late 1980s that overthrew dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The "people power" movement that swept Corazon Aquino into the presidency was felt not just in the Philippines but also across the world.

Southeast Asia in the 1980s was marked by communist governments and military dictators.

Teuku Faizasyah, a spokesman for Indonesia's department of Foreign Affairs, says Mrs. Aquino helped to inspire Indonesia's own movement to become a stable democracy.

"We are close neighbor," he said. "We watched the development in the Philippines at that time. And, certainly, there are a lot of resemblance-what happened in late 90s Indonesia and what happened in the late 80s in Philippines. People learned that by being together we were able to make a change in our political landscape."

Singapore's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Mrs. Aquino will long be remembered and respected both in the Philippines and internationally for her devotion to her people.

Even after retiring from politics, Mrs. Aquino actively challenged Philippines politicians she saw as corrupt.

She joined the Catholic Church and army in helping to oust President Joseph Estrada. And, until she became sick last year, Mrs. Aquino supported street protests against his successor, current President Gloria Arroyo.

But, even those Mrs. Aquino opposed had good things to say about her.

Mrs. Arroyo, who was in the United States on an official visit, praised Mrs. Aquino for helping restore democracy and the rule of law.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he was deeply saddened by Mrs. Aquino's death.

6th Thai-Cambodian Joint Commission meets in Bangkok

http://enews.mcot.net

BANGKOK, Aug 1 (TNA) - Thailand will host the 6th Meeting of the Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation between Thailand and Cambodia (Joint Commmission) on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Centara Grand Hotel in Bangkok.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Kasit Piromya is heading the Thai delegation and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong leads the Cambodian delegation.

The parties will review past cooperation and plan future collaboration, according to a Thai foreign ministry statement.

The meeting is a time for Thailand and Cambodia to strengthen relations, and further discuss issues raised during Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s official visit to Cambodia on June 12.

The program and activities of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Thailand and Cambodia in 2010 are expected to be discussed.

The Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) will be held Tuesday, and the Joint Commission will meet Wednesday.

The countries foreign ministers will sign an agreement on transferring sentenced prisoners and cooperating to enforce prison sentences.

The Joint Commission is responsible for supervising the bilateral relations between the two countries.

The meeting will address bilateral cooperation in politics, security, economics, society, science and technology.

The parties will also consider cooperation in multilateral frameworks such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), Emerald Triangle and the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS).

The 5th JC Meeting was hosted by Cambodia February 7-10, 2006 in Phnom Penh. (TNA)