Cambodian Mass Murderer, Dick Cheney -- Morally Equivalent?

By Tim Graham January 23, 2008

After discussing on the Washington Post website how he’s an atheist who’s enjoyed recreational drugs and who giggles at calling hemorrhoids "asteroids," Washington Post Magazine editor Gene Weingarten truly offers too much of a peek into his soul. He suggests murderous Cambodian tyrant Pol Pot and Vice President Cheney are somehow morally equivalent.

Weingarten also writes a humor column in the weekly magazine, which raises this question about the Cheney-like-Pol Pot thing: Is Weingarten failing at being a humorist? Or is he really lost in a bottomless pit of moral obtuseness?

Believe it or not, the line about Cheney surfaces in a discussion about peevish people who get extremely angry over bumper scratches on their cars:

Money talks: Maybe people don't want their cars scratched because they want to trade them in or sell them someday. A few scratches or dings can take hundreds of dollars off the re-sale value of a car. Someone leaning their seat back will not cost you hundreds of dollars. You are wrong on this one. I don't hit bumpers and I partially recline my seat on airplanes, this does not make me a bad person.

Gene Weingarten: Yep, the reclining does make you a bad person. Not evil like Pol Pot or Dick Cheney, but inconsiderate.

Tens of millions of dollars to be spent on Cambodian roads

Malaysia Sun
Wednesday 23rd January, 2008

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and its development partners are providing $40.8 million to help Cambodia maintain roads.

ADB will extend a $6 million loan to the Road Asset Management Project. Australia will provide a $4.8 million grant through the Australian Agency for International Development to be managed by ADB. The International Development Association of the World Bank Group will help fund the project through a $30 million credit line.

The government of Cambodia will complete project funding by providing $17.55 million.

The project will finance periodic maintenance for about 950 kilometers of roads managed by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport to help fill the gap between road maintenance requirements and available funds. The project will also enable the ministry to sustain road maintenance and management.

Before the project is implemented, the ministry will establish a road asset management office that will be in charge of systematic maintenance planning of roads managed by the ministry. It will also support and train ministry management and line organizations to become efficient road asset managers.

“The project will promote economic growth by reducing future transport costs and preserving road connections. It will lead to a more sustainable road sector based on an efficient network of roads and effective road management,” said Peter Broch, Transport Economist of ADB’s Southeast Asia Department.

Cambodia primarily depends on its road network, which covers about 39,400 kilometers, to transport goods and people. Road management is shared by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, which is responsible for about 11,400 kilometers of national and provincial roads, and the Ministry of Rural Development, which manages about 28,000 kilometers of rural roads.

By the early 1990s, years of civil strife had led to widespread deterioration of roads. Rehabilitation of the primary national roads has been undertaken over the last 15 years with substantial support from ADB and other development partners and is now almost completed. Some 2,700 kilometers of national road have so far been rehabilitated, and they connect the major population centers and Cambodia with its neighbors. The asset value of the rehabilitated network is about $800 million, but it is deteriorating rapidly due to lack of adequate maintenance, poor road quality and increasing traffic.

"This means large parts of the investment in rehabilitating the national roads could be lost within the next five to six years unless the Ministry of Public Works and Transport's road asset preservation works program is expanded and accelerated," said Mr. Broch.

Regional Perspective

US Could Ban ‘Kleptocrats’ From Entry

By Brian Calvert,
VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
23 January 2008
Heng Reaksmey reports in Khmer - Listen (MP3)

Top Cambodian officials implicated in illegal logging could face a ban from US entry, according to a new US law.

Under a recently inacted 2008 spending law, the State Department must compile a list of foreign government officials and their immediate family members suspected of involvement in corruption in natural resources depletion.

Any name the on the “anti-kleptocracy” list will not be granted entry into the US, with exceptions for UN meetings or law enforcement requirements, according to the law.

“If it now it becomes hard to, you know, go and stay in your nice house in Manhattan or wherever you happen to have it, then too bad,” said Simon Taylor, director of the resource monitor Global Witness.

A 2007 Global Witness report, “Cambodia’s Family Trees,” names a number of high-level officials and family members as part of countrywide illegal logging rackets.

Congress has urged the State Department to consider the report when making its list of Cambodian officials.

A State Department spokesman said Wednesday the US “takes all allegations of corruption seriously.”

The US “shares many of the concerns” raised by the Global Witness report and is “reviewing all relevant information” to compile its list, the spokesman said.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Congress was seeking to ban Cambodian officials as a way to attract votes ahead of a presidential election and said the move to ban corrupt officials was not a “presidential decree.”

In fact, Congressional elections are not held this year, and the US does not run on a decree system.

The potential ban was welcomed by some conservationists in Cambodia.

“It is right for the United States to deny entry visas for those violating international law, because logging is an important issue,” said Hieng Rith, director of the Cambodia National Research Organization. “When all the trees are logged, there will be no rain. By definition it’s just like destruction against humanity, as humans will die if there is no rain.”

The Global Witness report, issued in June 2007, angered Cambodian officials and was immediately banned across the country.

It said Cambodia’s forests were being stripped clean by a network of Cambodian elite that generated its wealth from the seizure of public assets, including wide swaths of forests.

Officially ejected from the country in 2006, Global Witness spent years investigating the networks of illegal logging.

The report implicates more than a dozen officials, including Forestry Minister Chan Sarun, Forestry Administration Director Ty Sokhun and military officers of the elite military Brigade 70, which Global Witness called a “private army” of Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The officials have denied wrongdoing in the past, and were unavailable for further comment Wednesday.

All of them are part of a circle of kleptocrats and cronies surrounding Hun Sen, Taylor said.
“Either he’s looking the other way, because they’re too close, which doesn’t say much for his authority, or he’s part of the problem,” Taylor said.

Global Witness was “disappointed” that language in the bill was removed that would have banned US companies from doing business with listed kleptocrats, butTaylor said the group would continue to push for stronger language in the future.

“Here we are in Cambodia ten years down, we’ve had a decade worth of billions of dollars of delivery, and very little delivery, I think, beyond personal wealth expansion in Phnom Penh and a few other centers," he said. "And meanwhile, the average lot of the average Cambodian hasn’t gone up that much, and the assets of the state have been stolen and parked offshore.”

For more information, see the Global Witness report, and the 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

CPP Village Chief Blocks Forum, Party Claims

By Chun Sakada,
VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
23 January 2008

In Khmer - Listen (MP3)

A ruling party village chief moved to block a scheduled political meeting by the Human Rights Party last week, officials said Wednesday.

The Human Rights Party was meeting to rally political support in Chhouk district, Kampot province, ahead of national elections in July.

Local authorities moved to block party officials from entering the village, said Sen Sov, a Human Rights Party official in Kampot.

“They said if we dare to hold any political meeting, they will dare to arrest us,” Sen Sov said. “My activists are worried and afraid of the arrest, as they would suffer in prison.”

Chey Sena Village Chief Chek Eng declined involvement in threats, but said in order to hold such meetings need permission.

“I didn’t threaten,” he said. “I don’t have a problem; just do it, but I ask that you have permission.”

The Human Rights Party has been blocked from a series of scheduled public meetings in recent weeks, by what it calls political intimidation.

Any prohibition of such activity is against electoral law, said Chhin Savuth, a rights investigator for the Cambodian Human Rights Center.

Voter Information Cards Spark Row

By Seng Ratana,
VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
23 January 2008

Listen (MP3)

A decision by the National Election Committee to distribute information cards to voters met with resistance from opposition parties and rights groups who said Wednesday the committee will likely only distribute information to ruling party supporters.

The National Election Committee has been criticized for supporting the Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party.

The plan, which would use commune councils to distribute the information, could lend itself to political manipulation, as the CPP controls a vast majority of the councils, the groups said.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy said that in previous elections, his supporters did not get such cards.

“The village chief will not distribute them to those who do not support the Cambodian People’s Party,” he said.

NEC Chairman Im Suosdey said the committee would call for rights groups and political parties to be observers of the process to ensure the cards are distributed.

Observers worry that the cards, which are only informational, may confuse people; those who don’t get the cards might believe they cannot vote.

“Sometimes there is discrimination, and in some families, some get the cards and some do not,” said Koul Panha, director of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections.

Timeline: Cambodia : A chronology of key events

BBC News
Wednesday, 23 January 2008

Khmer Rouge radio announces his death

1863 - Cambodia becomes a protectorate of France. French colonial rule lasts for 90 years.
1941 - Prince Norodom Sihanouk becomes king. Cambodia is occupied by Japan during World War II.
1945 - The Japanese occupation ends.
1946 - France re-imposes its protectorate. A new constitution permits Cambodians to form political parties. Communist guerrillas begin an armed campaign against the French.
Independence
1953 - Cambodia wins its independence from France. Under King Sihanouk, it becomes the Kingdom of Cambodia.
1955 - Sihanouk abdicates to pursue a political career. His father becomes king and Sihanouk becomes prime minister.
1960 - Sihanouk's father dies. Sihanouk becomes head of state.
1965 - Sihanouk breaks off relations with the US and allows North Vietnamese guerrillas to set up bases in Cambodia in pursuance of their campaign against the US-backed government in South Vietnam.
1969 - The US begins a secret bombing campaign against North Vietnamese forces on Cambodian soil.
1970 - Sihanouk is deposed in a coup while abroad. The prime minister, General Lon Nol, assumes power. He proclaims the Khmer Republic and sends the army to fight the North Vietnamese in Cambodia. Sihanouk - in exile in China - forms a guerrilla movement.
Early 1970s - Cambodian army faces two enemies: the North Vietnamese and communist Khmer Rouge guerriillas. Gradually, the army loses territory.
Cambodia Year Zero
1975 - Lon Nol is overthrown as the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot occupy Phnom Penh. Sihanouk briefly becomes head of state, the country is re-named Kampuchea.
All urban dwellers are forcibly evacuated to the countryside to become agricultural workers. Money becomes worthless, basic freedoms are curtailed and religion is banned. The Khmer Rouge coin the phrase "Year Zero".
Hundreds of thousands of the educated middle-classes are tortured and executed in special centres. Others starve, or die from disease or exhaustion. The total death toll during the next three years is estimated to be at least 1.7 million.
1976 - The country is re-named Democratic Kampuchea. Sihanouk resigns, Khieu Samphan becomes head of state, Pol Pot is prime minister.
1977 - Fighting breaks out with Vietnam.
1978 - Vietnamese forces invade in a lightning assault.
1979 January - The Vietnamese take Phnom Penh. Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge forces flee to the border region with Thailand. The People's Republic of Kampuchea is established. Many elements of life before the Khmer Rouge take-over are re-established.
1981 - The pro-Vietnamese Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party wins the elections to the National Assembly. The international community refuses to recognise the new government. The government-in-exile, which includes the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk, retains its seat at the United Nations.
1985 - Hun Sen becomes prime minister. Cambodia is plagued by guerrilla warfare. Hundreds of thousands become refugees.
1989 - Vietnamese troops withdraw. Hun Sen tries to attract foreign investment by abandoning socialism. The country is re-named the State of Cambodia. Buddhism is re-established as the state religion.
An uneasy peace
1991 - A peace agreement is signed in Paris. A UN transitional authority shares power temporarily with representatives of the various factions in Cambodia. Sihanouk becomes head of state.
1993 - General election sees the royalist Funcinpec party win the most seats followed by Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP). A three-party coalition is formed with Funcinpec's Prince Norodom Ranariddh as prime minister and Hun Sen as deputy prime minister. The monarchy is restored, Sihanouk becomes king again. The country is re-named the Kingdom of Cambodia. The government-in-exile loses its seat at the UN.
1994 - Thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas surrender in government amnesty.
1996 - Deputy leader of Khmer Rouge Ieng Sary forms a new party and is granted amnesty by Sihanouk.
Coup
1997 - Hun Sen stages a coup against the prime minister, Prince Ranariddh, and replaces him with Ung Huot. The coup attracts international condemnation and Cambodia's membership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is delayed. The Khmer Rouge put Pol Pot on trial and sentence him to life imprisonment. Pol Pot is filmed and interviewed by a western journalist.
1998 - Ranariddh is tried in his absence and found guilty of arms smuggling, but is then pardoned by the king. Pol Pot dies in his jungle hideout. Elections in July are won by Hun Sen's CPP, amid allegations of harassment. A coalition is formed between the CPP and Funcinpec. Hun Sen becomes prime minister, Ranariddh is president of the National Assembly.
2001 - Senate approves a law to create a tribunal to bring genocide charges against Khmer Rouge leaders.
2001 June - International donors, encouraged by Cambodia's reform efforts, pledge $560 million in aid at a donor conference in Tokyo.
2001 June - Five Cambodians, three of them US citizens, are sentenced to life for involvement in armed attack by US-based Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF) on government buildings in Phnom Penh in 2000. CFF says it will continue campaign to overthrow Prime Minister Hun Sen.
2001 December - First bridge across the Mekong River opens, linking the east and west of the country. The 1.36km bridge cost $56 million.
2002 February - First multi-party local elections; ruling Cambodian People's Party wins in all but 23 out of 1,620 communes.
2002 May - Prince Norodom Chakrapong sets up his own Norodom Chakrapong Khmer Soul Party; his half-brother Prince Norodom Ranariddh heads the Funcinpec party, part of the ruling coalition.
2003 January - Serious diplomatic upset with Thailand over comments attributed to a Thai TV star that the Angkor Wat temple complex was stolen from Thailand. Angry crowds attack the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh. More than 500 Thai nationals are evacuated by military aircraft.
2003 July - Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party wins general elections but fails to secure sufficient majority to govern alone.
Hun Sen re-elected
2004 July - After nearly a year of political deadlock, Prime Minister Hun Sen is re-elected after his ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) strikes a deal with the royalist Funcinpec party.
2004 August - Parliament ratifies kingdom's entry into World Trade Organisation (WTO).
2004 October - King Sihanouk abdicates and is succeeded by his son Norodom Sihamoni.
2005 February - Opposition leader Sam Rainsy leaves Cambodia after parliament strips him of his immunity from prosecution, leaving him open to defamation charges brought by the ruling coalition.
2005 April - Tribunal to try surviving Khmer Rouge leaders gets green light from UN after years of debate about funding.
2005 October - Prime minister signs a controversial border agreement with Vietnam. Legal action is taken against some critics of the deal, prompting international concern.
2005 December - Opposition leader Sam Rainsy, in exile in France, is convicted by a Cambodian court of defaming PM Hun Sen and is sentenced to nine months in prison.
2006 February - Sam Rainsy receives a royal pardon and comes home after a year in exile.
2006 May - Parliament votes to abolish prison terms for defamation. The legislation had been used to jail some government critics.
2006 July - Ta Mok, one of the top leaders of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, dies aged 80.
2006 October - Royalist Funcinpec party, a junior partner in the ruling coalition, drops Prince Norodom Ranariddh as its leader.
2007 March - Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who now lives abroad, is sentenced in absentia to 18 months in prison for selling the headquarters of the Funcinpec party. He was accused of earning $3.6m on the deal but denies the charge.
2007 July - UN-backed court tribunals begin questioning suspects about allegations of genocide by the Khmer Rouge.
2007 September - Most senior surviving member of Khmer Rouge, Nuon Chea - "Brother Number Two" - is arrested and charged with crimes against humanity.
2007 November - Genocide tribunal holds first public hearing - a bail plea from a former prison chief, Khang Khek Ieu, who was better known as Comrade Duch.

Cheapskate abductor gets caught

(Photo: Bunry, Koh Santepheap)

January 23 2008

Phnom Penh - A Cambodian man who allegedly abducted a five-year-old girl from her provincial home and brought her to the capital to sell was caught when he arrived at his destination and argued about the taxi fare, police said on Wednesday.

Pech Sopheak, 23, took the girl from her Kampong Chhnang home around 100 kilometres from the capital on Monday, but when he arrived he would not pay so the driver called the police, Kampong Chhnang chief of anti-trafficking General Prack Soany said.

"The police compared the girl with him to a picture of the kidnapped girl and arrested him," she said. "His problem was caused by 10 000 riel (about R14).

"She said Sopheak had admitted he was going to sell the child to an elderly couple who only had boys of their own and wanted a daughter but that she had now been returned safely to her family.

If convicted he faces up to 20 years in jail.

- Sapa-DPA

Petroleum giant plans to develop prime Cambodian beach resort

Wed, 23 Jan 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - An offshoot of the company in control of Cambodia's most powerful petroleum group, Sokimex, plans to develop a top-end resort on a beach in the coastal province of Sihanoukville, the area's deputy governor confirmed Wednesday. Sokha Hotel Group would construct a 1,000-room hotel and golf course over 54 hectares around O'Chheuteal beach, the largest and most popular of the municipality's pristine white sand beaches.

"This is a great boost for our economy. It will create employment and solve the crisis of hotel rooms we have every holiday season," deputy governor Sboang Sarath said by telephone.
With Sihanoukville expanding its port to attract the lucrative cruise ship tour industry and readying to reap expected oil reserves offshore from the municipality, 240 kilometres south-west of the capital, within two years, the once sleepy coastal town has scrambled to increase its top-end accommodation.

Currently Sihanoukville has just two 5-star hotels, including Sokha Beach Resort, also owned by Sokha Hotel Group, which also has a private beach and claims its bookings double every year.
Last Chinese New Year, an estimated 20,000 people flocked there, and many were forced to sleep on the beach because of room shortages.

The formerly impoverished Angolan capital Luanda has thrived since oil was discovered there and its tourist industry has boomed - a phenomenon Cambodia is hoping also follows its expected oil wealth.

Sokha Hotel Group has also announced plans for a 500-room hotel on a peninsular opposite the capital Phnom Penh and Prime Minister Hun Sen flew to another coastal province, Kampot, this week for the announcement of a 1-billion dollar plan by the group to develop the former French hill station resort of Bokor.

Sihanoukville's beaches have been compared to Thailand's famously beautiful beaches for their clear waters and fine white sand.

For Cambodians, fear is a way of life

By LAO MONG HAY
January 23, 2008

HONG KONG, China, Last December, in a speech at a rally in Phnom Penh to mark International Human Rights Day, Prof. Yash Ghai, the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy for human rights in Cambodia, said, among other things, that "fear -- fear of the state, fear of political and economic saboteurs, fear of greedy individuals and corporations, fear of the police and the courts -- describes the plight of numerous communities and families in Cambodia as they do in many other parts of the world."

Fear on the part of ordinary people in relation to their rulers at all levels of public administration, from village chiefs to the head of state, is a norm in Cambodia, where these rulers behave as masters, not servants, of their people. The concept of "public administration as service and citizens as clients" is absent in the political and administrative culture of the country, where these rulers still consider public services not the rights of their people, but favors they are doing them.

People invariably need to oil the palms of administrators to get things done, be they the registration of births, marriages or deaths; medical treatment at public hospitals; applications for licenses; adjudication of conflicts; or even the payment of taxes to the government. When they are in trouble with the law and get caught, they have an ingrained fear of being tortured by the police. They or their relatives need to offer bribes to them for better treatment.

Nor can people expect the courts to do their constitutional duty to protect the rights of citizens.

Accused persons or litigants in civil cases cannot expect a fair trial or the enforcement of their rights when they engage in a legal conflict with the powerful or the rich.

The same special envoy also remarked in his speech about the attitude of the Parliament toward the plight of victims of land-grabbing, comments that are typical of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled across the country: "People threatened with eviction … reminded me that the National Assembly sits only a few meters away from them and yet has long turned a blind eye to their suffering."

Although they have exercised their right to vote and regularly elect their rulers, people do not have confidence and trust in the system and institutions of the country. Aggrieved Cambodians invariably have recourse first to nongovernmental organizations, especially human rights and legal aid NGOs, to seek assistance in getting the public authorities to adjudicate and enforce their rights. They also have recourse to the media to help publicize their cases and convey their requests to their rulers to enforce their rights and find justice for them.

In a report published last October, Ath Bonny, field editor of Radio Free Asia, said: "Nowadays the people don't complain to the government or police: they complain to RFA. Many people see us as a direct channel to communicate with their national leaders, and I think that makes the government nervous."

Such assistance and publicity have made the public authorities angry with NGOs and the media.

For instance, in his Jan. 14 report to higher authorities, a commune chief in Siem Reap Province blamed human rights NGOs and RFA for "instigating" a protest by a group of 50 villages to get fair compensation for the damage to their properties due to the construction of a road.

With advice from NGOs or on their own, aggrieved people band together and stage protests against evictions from their homes and lands, the arrests of their fellow villagers or representatives or other violations of their rights, all of which are serious issues affecting many people in the country. They stage such protests locally or in the capital in front of the residence of the prime minister and the Parliament, bracing themselves against the consequences of bans on all public demonstrations and protests.

On Jan. 15, for instance, 40 villagers from two provinces went to stage a protest in front of the Parliament against the grabbing of their lands. Earlier, in November 2007, a group of 30 peasants with sickles in their hands went to the court in Battambang to support their representative who had been summoned to appear and to put pressure on the court not to arrest her in a land dispute case, for they knew that arrest is a common practice used to break the spirit of the weaker party that has a stronger case.

There is an urgent need to allay the fear that is so prevalent in Cambodia and to win public confidence and trust in the government and all public institutions of the country that are now so lacking. This aim could be achieved by the realization of the concept of "public administration as service, citizens as clients" through observance of, and respect for, the rights of the people and the diligent enforcement of these rights.

--

(Lao Mong Hay is currently a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)

Travel Blog: Siem Reap and Angkor Temples

Wednesday, 23 Jan 2008

Anna Kainberger is taking a year-out from her career to travel in south-east Asia, Australasia and the South Pacific, along with Hawaii and the USA. This month she will be reporting from Laos and Cambodia. Here is her seventh blog entry:

From Phnom Phen I decided to take yet another bus to Siem Reap, a journey that looks like a three hour bus ride on the map but which in the end will take around seven hours. However, the buses are comfortable enough with air conditioning and regular toilet stops.

Mind you, the driver stops at places where he will make a commission from passengers buying food or drinks. That's just the way things go in Asia, everyone is trying to make a living and they want their friends and family to make a living as well.

Siem Reap has become a major tourist hub thanks to the Angkor temples, which were rediscovered by a French Explorer in the late 19th century.

Until then the temples were mostly covered by jungle and long forgotten. I was quite astonished how one could "lose" or "forget" such a large and historically important area. We are not just talking about one big temple, there are thousands of them.

The main temple of Angkor Wat and the thousands of smaller temples cover a huge area in and around Siem Reap and the river Tonle Sap. They have been designated a Unesco cultural world heritage site and also one of the seven man-made wonders of the world.

Historically, the area in and around Angkor Wat was a totally functional city with a long period of very successful monarchs. The most famous is probably Jayavarman VII, who successfully fought of the Cham (from what is now Vietnam) and started constructing Ankgor Thom and its city walls and the Bayon temple.

The Bayon was the religious and geographical heart of the kingdom and bas-reliefs carved on the walls depict not only the king's battles with the Cham but also scenes from the day-to-day life of Khmer villagers and many faces of the god.

In addition, Jayavarman constructed the temple of Ta Prohm, which is now famous for featuring in one of the Lara Croft - Tomb Raider movies.

Jayavarman VII's massive program of construction coincided with a transition in the state religion from Hinduism to Mahayana Buddhism, since he himself had adopted the latter as his personal faith. In the 14th century the country converted to Theravada Buddhism for good.

The end of the Angkorian period is generally set at 1431 AD, the year Angkor was sacked and looted by Thai invaders, although the civilisation had already been in decline over the 13th and 14th centuries.

Over the course of the 15th century nearly all of Angkor was abandoned and the city moved to Phnom Pen. Only Angkor Wat continued to be used as a Buddhist shrine.

Today the area is well looked after and groomed by the Cambodians, as well as the French world heritage programme, and it is definitely worth exploring the temples for at least three days.

Passes can be bought at the official entry point and cost US$20 for one day, US$40 for three days and US$60 for a whole week. I opted for a three day pass and explored Angkor Wat, Bayon and the close by smaller temples by bicycle on the first day - it is a six km ride from Siem Reap and bikes can be rented for as little as US$2 per day.

On my second day I was terribly hungover, as I stayed in Siem Reap over New Year's Eve and a huge street party was organised in the main traveller's centre. Needless to say there were buckets of all sorts of alcoholic drinks, music and dancing until the wee hours. Plus it is the tradition to throw buckets of water onto the celebration - so I got home rather late and soaked.

I decided that instead of riding a bicycle it was probably wiser to hire a tuk-tuk driver for US$6 for a half day and went to see Ta Phrom the Tomb Raider temple.

This features huge and very, very old trees growing on top of the temple, inside it, out of it and around it. No wonder this location was used a movie, the beauty and power of those trees can be physically felt when you walk through the ruins of Ta Phrom.

On my third day I hired a tuk-tuk driver for the whole day to complete what was left of the so-called grand tour. This will cost you about US$13-15, depending on your negotiation skills, and your driver will always wait for you and take you to the next temple. Provided his English is good enough he will also come up with interesting stories about the temples.

Usually your guesthouse can arrange a tuk-tuk driver for you, they often also offer bicycles or motorbikes for rent; the options are endless.

In terms of accommodation, Siem Reap offers anything and everything. Budget accommodation starting from US$2-3 up to five star deluxe spa hotels.

I stayed at a brand new guesthouse close to the Grand Palace and a good 15 minute walk away from the main traveller's area, which is located around the old market.

Our guesthouse was literally brand new and the owners were keen to bring in new guests. It goes by the wonderful name of Good Kind Guesthouse. The people there were not only good and kind but they also invited us to their oldest daughter's birthday party and gave us traditional Khmer scarves as a leaving present when we said our good byes.

I saw a lot of elephants in and around Angkor Thom. It is a popular tourist activity to visit the temples on the back of an elephant. I have to be the party pooper here and say: Wherever possible in Asia, please avoid riding elephants.

These are highly intelligent and majestic animals and sitting on their backs in a saddle like structure is not enjoyable for them. If anything they should only be ridden on their necks, where it is easy to carry a mahouts weight, but not on their backs.

Plus elephants need to spend about 18 hours a day eating and finding food and most of the Elephants used for these tourist rides are way too thin. My travel companion and I decided that instead of riding them we would buy ten kgs of bananas and feed them to these absolutely beautiful creatures as a tiny treat.

You will also come across a lot of children trying to sell you cold drinks, post cards, handmade flutes, handmade animal ornaments, bracelets or all of the above. It is hard to say no too many times and I ended up taking those kids to food stalls and buying them coconut pancakes or fruit.

Also, if you do promise to a kid to come back they will remember you, so don't even dream about bailing out. At any of the temples you will find a large number of food stalls run by families who have looked after these areas for generations. They sell traditional Khmer scarfs and silks as well as T-shirts and any old tourist souvenir that your loved ones back home might desire.

The temples of Angkor are absolutely incomprehensible at times. I kept wondering how many people had lost their lives to help build these massive constructions. They are highly spiritual sights and I was often left in awe when first setting sight on these beautiful buildings.

For me three days was more than enough and the constant begging, the many, many children selling their goods and the always apparent poverty of the Cambodians got to me.

I decided to board yet another bus and leave Siem Reap for Thailand via the Poipet/Aranyaprathet border.

When travelling in Cambodia there are only two main roads covered with tarmac: the north-south connection and the road to Sieam Reap. All other roads are red dust paths. Prepare yourself for a bumpy ride and bring a scarf to wrap around nose and mouth to avoid major sneezing attacks. (You will see a lot of Cambodians do this as well - and a Khmer Scarf will cost you only US$1.

When crossing back into Thailand I immediately felt a small sense of relief. Real roads, real infrastructure and no more begging. Although I have to say I definitely recommend that you include Cambodia if you are planning on visiting south-east Asia, as no matter how much time you spend there the experience is very grounding.

What happened in Cambodia in recent history is still visible to this day, yet the people will greet you with a lot of warmth and make you feel very welcome.

As I had been travelling for nearly ten weeks non stop I was keen to reach a beach for the first time since starting my travels in early November. So I headed down to the island of Ko Chang before going back to Bangkok.

Chinese scientists working on new HIV vaccine

(China Daily)
2008-01-23 10:23

HONG KONG: Scientists here and on the mainland are working on an AIDS vaccine to protect against three variants of HIV sweeping across southern and western areas of the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Chen Zhiwei, director of the new AIDS Institute in Hong Kong, said scientists have been using gene sequencing to track how HIV viruses on the mainland are evolving, and their geographical spread.

Two closely related HIV variants had been spread by intravenous drug users (IDUs) from southwestern Yunnan Province; one to as far as Xinjiang in the northwest, and the second to Guangdong in the south.

The third variant is in Yunnan and southern Guangxi province, which Chen said is passed mainly through heterosexual sex.

Chen, who worked alongside the well-known HIV/AIDS scientist David Ho in the United States before moving to the Hong Kong institute, said scientists in the US and China have developed a vaccine based on the two HIV variants spreading among IDUs, which they hope to test on animals by the end of the year.

"If you want to make a vaccine, it is better to have a local strain as a target to work on," Chen said.

The HIV variants circulating in south and west China are similar to those found in India, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, as well as in Taiwan and Hong Kong, he said.

"The epidemic in China has evolved over time. Previously, the major risk factors were IDUs and the tragic story of blood donation in central China.

"But after these people got infected, they passed it on and it is now in the general population," Chen said.

"After 2006, heterosexual sex has been playing the major role in transmission of the virus. Infections have gone up in the general population and from mother to child."

The presence of these variants in Taiwan and Hong Kong also could be a telltale sign of the traveling routes of drug users in the region, Chen said.

The AIDS Institute hopes to help set up HIV screening centers in China, which is estimated to have about 700,000 people living with HIV/AIDS.

Vietnamese Living Illegally in U.S. Face Deportation

By MARGIE MASON
Associated Press
January 23, 2008

HANOI, Vietnam — Thousands of Vietnamese living illegally in America now face deportation after the two countries completed an agreement yesterday, a move that sparked worry among immigrant communities.

Vietnamese who entered America illegally after the former foes normalizedrelationsin1995could now be forced to return to their birth country, the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Julie Myers, said.

The deal has been under negotiation for 10 years. Vietnam had previously been reluctant to accept citizens back, and community leaders in America said many immigrants have been living with deportation orders for years, even decades.

"Some Vietnamese have been here have a very long time," an organizer with VietUnity, an Oakland-based Vietnamese community organization, Carolyn Tran, said. "They don't have a connection there any more."

More than 1.5 million overseas Vietnamese — the largest population outside Vietnam — live in America. Many fled their native country in boats after the Vietnam War ended in 1975 and northern communist forces took control of the former South Vietnam, which the U.S. had backed.

Critics of the agreement wonder whether this pact won't be rolled back to include others who entered the United States in the 70s and 80s.

"There is concern," said Joren Lyons, a staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, which has represented dozens of Vietnamese facing deportation orders. "Vietnam has said for decades no, these people can't be returned to Vietnam, and now they're saying yes. So is this a foot in the door?

Will they start accepting people who came earlier as well?"

Cheap Cambodian kidnapper caught after refusing to pay taxi fare

Wed, 23 Jan 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - A Cambodian man who allegedly kidnapped a five-year-old girl from her provincial home and brought her to the capital to sell was caught when he arrived at his destination and argued about the taxi fare, police said Wednesday. Pech Sopheak, 23, took the girl from her Kampong Chhnang home around 100 kilometres from the capital Monday, but when he arrived he would not pay so the driver called the police, Kampong Chhnang chief of anti-trafficking General Prack Soany said.

"The police compared the girl with him to a picture of the kidnapped girl and arrested him," she said. "His problem was caused by 10,000 riel (2.50 dollars)."

She said Sopheak had admitted he was going to sell the child to an elderly couple who only had boys of their own and wanted a daughter but that she had now been returned safely to her family.

If convicted he faces up to 20 years in jail.

Deposed Thai PM Returning to Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand - The wife of deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Wednesday that her husband will return home from self-imposed exile in May.

Pojamarn Shinawatra revealed the plan when appearing before the Supreme Court on charges that she used her husband's political influence to buy prime Bangkok real estate from a government agency at a third of its estimated value.

Pojamarn returned to Thailand earlier this month, a trip Thaksin said was to prove their innocence and clear the family's name.

Thaksin was toppled in a bloodless military coup in 2006, with opponents accusing him of massive corruption and abuse of power.

U.S. Teen Brings New School To Rural Cambodia

Global Briefs
By: AsianWeek Staff, Jan 23, 2008

BANTEAY SREY, Cambodia — Hundreds of Cambodian villagers welcomed the arrival of a new school, a gift from an American teenager who raised $52,000 after reading about the hardships of growing up in Cambodia.

Rachel Rosenfeld, 17, made her first visit to the Southeast Asian country for the opening of the R.S. Rosenfeld School, which brings five computers and Internet access to 300 primary school students in a small village of Siem Reap Province, a poverty-stricken area that is home to the country’s famed Angkor Wat temple complex.

Rosenfeld, of Harrison, N.Y., said she learned about the village of Srah Khvav after reading a newspaper article last year that discussed the plight of poor Cambodian children, who often have no access to education.

To raise money, Rosenfeld sent out hundreds of fund-raising letters, sold T-shirts and offered naming rights for several structures in the school, a statement said. The $52,000 she raised was supplemented by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, which contributed $10,000 and $13,000.

— MSNBC

Claims union leader's killers were 'innocent scapegoats'

ABC Radio Australia

23/01/2008

listen windows media >

Four years after Cambodia's outspoken union leader Chea Vichea was assassinated, many believe his killers are yet to face justice.

That's despite the fact two men are currently serving 20-year jail terms for his murder. The Cambodian opposition and human rights groups say the men are innocent scapegoats.

They've accused Prime Minister Hun Sen's government of covering up what they've called a politically motivated killing.

Presenter - Joanna McCarthy Speaker - Sam Rainsy, leader of Cambodia's opposition Sam Rainsy party; Sara Colm, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch .

MCCARTHY: It was Chea Vichea's morning ritual. Every day he would read his newspaper at the same kiosk in a crowded Phnom Penh street, and it was there on January 22nd, 2004, that two men on a motor bike pulled up and fired bullets at close range into his head and chest. Chea Vichea died instantly. His friend and political colleague, Cambodia's Opposition leader, Sam Rainsy.

RAINSY: He was very brave, very dedicated to the cause of the poor, of the oppressed. He continued to fight for the same cause and unfortunately exactly four years ago, on this very day, he was killed by unknown murderers. And today we deplore the fact that the real murderers have not been arrested. There are many indications that some powerful people were behind the murder. They must be very powerful to be able to protect the culprits.

MCCARTHY: The investigation of the two men charged weith Chea Vichea's murder was plagued with irregularities. Both were sentenced to 20 years in jail, after a trial which presented no witnesses, no forensic evidence and none of their many alibies. Sara Colm, from Human Rights Watch.

COLM: I think it's a product of international pressure in part that the government felt obliged to produce scape goats for the murder. But, in fact, the investigation was very sloppy and the trial itself in no way met a fair trial standard.

MCCARTHY: Four years after his death, Chea Vichea leaves a mixed legacy. The labor conditions he worked to expose in Cambodia's booming garment industry have somewhat improved. But two other union leaders have been killed in the meantime and Sara Colm says hundreds of political killings remain unsolved.

COLM: There's a longstanding climate of impunity in Cambodia for political killings. So it's really long overdue for the Cambodian Government to fire higher standards of justice, given that it's really entered the international arena in the last ten years by a number of steps such as its membership in ASEAN and other factors.

MCCARTHY: And Cambodia continues to resist calls from international donors to reform their judiciary, which is widely seen as an arm of the government.Sam Rainsy says the international community which provides half Cambodia's national budget has to do more.

RAINSY: On this issue, the donor community has been rather weak. Actually they have turned a blind eye to crime that has never been investigated or seriously investigated.

MCCARTHY: Why do you think they're prepared to turn a blind eye?

RAINSY: Because they may think that there are more important issues than the murderer of innocent people. For instance, they must defend personal or their national interest and they must be willing to have good relations with the Cambodian Government at any cost.

US could ban travel for Cambodians tied to illegal logging

Cambodian trucks loaded with timber wait to cross into Vietnam

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — The US has passed a law that could see travel bans for Cambodian officials accused of looting the country's natural resources, a move hailed Wednesday by conservationists as a strike against illegal logging.

The law, enacted in December, endorses calls by the US Congress to deny visas to Cambodian officials identified in a 2007 report by the environmental watchdog Global Witness as being guilty of plundering Cambodia's forests.

London-based Global Witness's caustic study, titled "Cambodia's Family Trees," accused a "kleptocratic" elite of systematically clearing Cambodia's woodlands.

It named several figures close to Prime Minister Hun Sen, including Forest Administration Director General Ty Sokhun and Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun, as being directly involved.
In response, an outraged government last year banned the Global Witness report from Cambodia and continues to dismiss its allegations.

A Cambodian government spokesman could not be reached Wednesday for comment on the US legislation.

But the law "sends a clear message that the exploitation of Cambodia's natural resources by a small group of powerful individuals at the expense of the country's poor is unacceptable," Global Witness director Simon Taylor said in a statement received Wednesday.

The legislation, which authorises spending by Washington, instructs the US State Department to identify foreign officials, and their relatives, who are believed to have "been involved in corruption relating to the extraction of natural resources in their countries."

It also endorses a congressional subcommittee recommendation to "prohibit corrupt Cambodian officials identified in the June 2007 Global Witness report ... from entering the United States."

But it is unclear if the law will result in visa refusals for individual Cambodians.

US embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle told AFP that "there is no ban ... no specific names have been given to the embassy."

Lowell property firm agrees to settlement in discrimination case

By Associated Press
Tuesday, January 22, 2008

LOWELL - A property management firm has agreed to pay as much as $158,000 to settle allegations that it discriminated against Cambodian-Americans who tried to rent apartments, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday.

Pine Properties Inc. and six affiliate companies would pay up to $114,000 to compensate victims under the settlement, which is subject to approval by a federal judge in Boston. The settlement also requires Pine Properties to pay a $44,000 fine and take steps to ensure it doesn’t practice further discrimination.

The defendants, who own and operate 13 rental properties in Lowell, refused to show available apartments to Cambodian-Americans who didn’t have appointments, while white people were shown apartments immediately without appointments, the department said.

A phone message seeking comment from Pine Properties was not immediately returned Tuesday.

The government sued Pine Properties and the affiliates in September, alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act. The Justice Department said the lawsuit was the first the agency has ever filed alleging discrimination against Asian-American based on its fair housing testing program.

The case grew out of Operation Home Sweet Home, an initiative to enforce fair housing laws using people who pose undercover as prospective tenants or homeowners.

Cambodia to establish stock exchange

ABC Radio Australia
23/01/2008

Cambodia has signed an agreement with representatives from South Korea's stock exchange operator to establish Cambodia's first stock market in 2009.

The memorandum of understanding makes formal a planned joint venture between Cambodia and the Korea Exchange, or KRX, which is Asia's fourth-largest bourse operator.

The Cambodian government will own a 51 per cent share in the new exchange, with KRX holding 49 per cent.

While still one of the world's poorest countries, Cambodia has emerged from decades of conflict as one of the region's rising economies.

It has posted annual economic growth averaging 11 per cent over the past three years on the back of strong garment and tourism sectors.

Cambodian toddler dies after acid attack

Wednesday Jan 23, 2008
AEDT

A three-year-old Cambodian girl has died after being doused with acid while sleeping with her grandmother, who was also severely burned in the attack, local media have said.

Relatives suspect the unidentified person who carried out the assault is the jealous wife of a man who works with a female member of the child's family, the English-language Cambodia Daily reported.

Immediately after the January 16 attack, the pair were rushed to a provincial hospital some 100 kilometres from their home in southern Cambodia.

But the child, Thai Tim, died the following morning as family members were trying to negotiate the cost of transporting her to a larger hospital in the capital Phnom Penh, the Cambodia Daily said.

Her grandmother, Thorm Saroeun, suffered burns to 30 percent of her body, the report said.

Acid attacks, while decreasing in recent years, are still a common form of revenge in Cambodia, often committed by jilted lovers.

Ancient remains uncovered in Cambodia

ABC Radio Australia
23/01/2008

Japanese archaeologists say they have discovered the remains of a man-made water channel in northwest Cambodia - used for rituals as far back as the first century.

They say they have found the sacred mounds or altars at the ruins in Snay village in Banteay Meanchey Province.

The discovery comes under a two-year project that began last January.

Yoshinori Yasuda, a professor of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, says previously it was believed that Khmer civilization started from the seventh to ninth century AD.

He says based on the latest findings, researchers now think the Khmer civilization goes back to the first century AD.

Mr Yasuda says the recently discovered water channel may be the world's oldest, or some 600 years older than the Tikal ruins in Guatemala in the seventh to ninth centuries.

The site is located about 370 kilometres northwest of Phnom Penh, or about 70 kilometres west of Siem Reap Province, which is home to Angkor Wat.

With 10 Japanese archaeologists and experts and 50 Cambodian staff, the team excavated five sites last year, discovering 36 tombs, seven pits and 156 pottery pieces.

Young boy's story of faith is first of many to come

23 January, 2008

Cambodia (MNN) ― The GodMan film debuted in Cambodia last November. It is an animated story of Jesus Christ. Book of Hope is showing the film in schools and churches. In the Buddhist nation, public showings would likely have adverse effects. "Inside church facilities, they are free to invite anybody who wants to come. And people are able to come without hesitation," said Ty Silva with Book of Hope.

During the first showing in November, a young boy watched the film with great interest. Silva later found out that the boy was the nephew of the Book of Hope director in Cambodia. The boy had come to live with the director's family from his rural home.

The night after the boy had seen the GodMan, the director's family had a water leak in their home and had difficulty finding the leak. They decided to pray, and the little boy offered a prayer, for the first time, asking God to help them.

"Even though he had been around a Christian family for several weeks, it hadn't made any softening in his heart. But when he saw the GodMan, when he saw Jesus there on the screen, it got his attention, and it changed his attitude and feeling. Now he has made that commitment to Christ," said Silva.

Silva adds that there will likely be more of these stories as the film is shown in more places.
To show it in more places, Silva says they have a unique idea. "The idea is to put all this equipment into a little mini-van and be able to go around to rural provincial areas and be able to show the God man and then to give all the children a free gift of a Book of Hope," he said.
Usually generators are required to take to rural villages in order to show the film.

The mini-van outreach would be done in conjunction with local churches and in turn strengthen them. Christianity is relatively young in Cambodia.

Deadline Approaching for Tribunal Budget, Groups Worry

By Mean Veasna,
VOA Khmer Original report from Phnom Penh
22 January 2008

Listen Mean Veasna reports in Khmer

The Khmer Rouge tribunal is facing a time and money crunch that could make trials difficult, two rights groups warned Tuesday.

"There is enough budget for the salaries of the international members for the whole year in 2008. But the Cambodian personnel who are working at the Khmer Rouge tribunal will run out of money in the next few months," said Seng Theary, executive director of the Center for Social Development. "If the Khmer Rouge tribunal has no budget, the tribunal will not be able to dispense salaries for the personnel. When the personnel have no salary, we are concerned that the court might stall."

Observers worry the tribunal will run out of funds before all five jailed Khmer Rouge leaders are tried, in proceedings the Cambodian foreign minister has said could run into 2012.

A budget shortfall has made the trial of five jailed former Khmer Rouge leaders more difficult, said Hisham Moussar, a legal expert monitoring the tribunal for the rights group Adhoc.

The tribunal's mandate only has a year and a half remaining, he said, "a short time."
"And if the time is short and the money is not there on time, it will be more difficult for the trial of the five people," he said.

Union Calls on Police to Reopen Chea Vichea Murder Case

By Chun Sakada,
VOA Khmer Original report from Phnom Penh
22 January 2008

Listen Chun Sakada reports in Khmer

Members of a prominent trade union commemorated the murder of its leader in 2004 by calling on police Tuesday to re-investigate and bring the true perpetrators to justice.

Chea Vichea, leader of the Free Trade Union of Workers in the Kingdom of Cambodia, was gunned down Jan. 22, 2004, near a Phnom Penh market.

Two men convicted of his murder are widely considered innocent. Free Trade President Chea Mony, brother of Chea Vichea, and other workers and activists laid a wreath at the site of the murder Tuesday and called on police to re-investigate the killing, to free the two jailed men and find the murderers and those who hired them.

"Today, we… want to appeal to the government and the courts to re-open the investigation of the murderer who gunned down Chea Vichea on Jan. 22, 2004, and we dismiss Born Samnang and Sok Samoeun as Chea Vichea's killers," Chea Mony said.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy also attended the ceremony, held near Wat Langka.

"We would like for the government to find the real killer who gunned Chea Vichea down, and those behind the perpetrator, to find and arrest them and bring them to justice," Sam Rainsy said.

Human Rights Party Vice President Keo Remy said the slain leader would earn an honorary title if the party were to win elections in July. He also promised a statue in Chea Vichea's honor if the party were to win a majority of seats in the National Assembly.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said Tuesday police had done their work well and had sent their investigation to the courts, which found Born Samnang and Sok Samoeun guilty.

Licadho founder Kek Galabru prayed "to the angels" for Chea Vichea and other slain labor leaders, and for the release of the Born Samnang and Sok Samoeun, both of whom are now serving 20-year sentences.

Ieng Sary's Lawyer Requests House Arrest

By Chiep Mony,
VOA Khmer Original report from Phnom Penh
22 January 2008

Listen Chiep Mony reports in Khmer

The lawyer for jailed Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary said Tuesday he wants his client released form a tribunal detention facility and placed under house arrest ahead of any atrocity crimes trial.

Former foreign minister Ieng Sary, who is 78 and suffers from heart problems, was arrested in November and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"It would be OK if this were a normal illness such as backache, fever, headache, dizziness," said lawyer Ang Udom. "But this is a critical illness. You know, it is heart disease. It has been operated on."

Hisham Moussar, tribunal monitor for the rights group Adhoc, said Tuesday such a release could allow a suspect to cast his influence on evidence or witnesses.

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said Tuesday the pre-trial judges will have a chance to decide on pre-trial release, which, if granted, would allow Ieng Sary to stay at his home in Phnom Penh ahead of a trial.

Town At Odds Over Buddhist Temple

Watching Video

WMTW.com
January 22, 2008

BUXTON, Maine -- In Buxton, controversy over a Buddhist temple was the focus of Monday night’s town planning board meeting.

The Wat Samaki Cambodian Buddhist Temple, on Back Nippen Road, has been around for about two years but is just now seeking a permit from the town to hold services.

Many neighbors at Monday night’s meeting said the temple’s large gatherings cause traffic and parking problems and are destroying the rural nature of their neighborhood.

The town has asked the temple to limit its gatherings to 200 people and to provide a parking lot with a maximum of 68 spaces. The temple also is being required to abide by the town’s noise ordinance, possibly limiting the number of large gatherings it can hold in a year.

Temple officials said they are happy to work with the town.

The planning board will vote on the permit on Feb. 11

Dengue Fever: Los Angeles band mixes Cambodian pop and American indie rock

Dengue Fever members at the Short Stop bar in Los Angeles: From left, Ethan Holtzman, Senon Williams, Zac Holtzman, Paul Smith, David Ralicke and Chhom Nimol. (Kevin Estrada)

By RJ Smith
January 22, 2008



Multimedia



Audio: Music from 'Venus on Earth'» Listen

Dengue Fever is a Los Angeles band featuring a Cambodian-born singer and five American alt-rockers who regularly embarrass her onstage.

On the cover of its new album, "Venus on Earth" (M80), the guitarist Zac Holtzman, with a long beard and goggles, drives a scooter with the vocalist Chhom Nimol sitting demurely behind him sidesaddle, the way a good Cambodian girl would ride through the streets of Phnom Penh.

Dengue Fever, which specializes in an unlikely mix of 1960s Cambodian pop, rock and other genres, is a lot like that image. Propriety and smart aleck indie rock race by, blurring together.

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

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

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

Dengue Fever's music is a tribute to that lost pop. But the six members of Dengue Fever form a quintessential Los Angeles crew, with a mix of backgrounds and interests that seems fitting in a region with the largest Cambodian population in the United States (in Long Beach, south of downtown Los Angeles) and a flourishing indie rock scene (in the hills east of Hollywood). The band is the musical equivalent of that ultimate modern Los Angeles marker, the polyglot strip-mall sign.
It too offers a cultural mash-up; beyond the obscure Cambodian pop you can hear psychedelia, spaghetti western guitars, the lounge groove of Ethiopian soul and Bollywood soundtracks.

"Seeing Hands," on the new album, has an almost Funkadelic groove, while "Sober Driver" is an all but emo complaint about a guy who drives the cute girl everywhere and gets nowhere.

Now Dengue Fever is starting to make its mark far from its hometown. The band recently returned from the Womex world music festival in Seville, Spain, where it was one of a handful of acts to play showcase performances. British publications have included it in "next big thing" roundups, and Dengue Fever's songs have been on television and film soundtracks, including Jim Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers." A new documentary, "Sleepwalking Through the Mekong," that follows the group on its first trip as a band to Cambodia, seems likely to gain it further notice.

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

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

Dmitri Vietze, a publicist and marketer for many global music acts, sees the band as "part of a larger developmental pattern" in world music. "Can you stick them in the world music bin at brick and mortar retail stores?" Vietze asked. "I don't know. But as far as how they fit into world music in a larger philosophical context, they are a part of a huge and promising future."

He noted that the American market had been introduced to world sounds most often by American artists who love and emulate them, like Paul Simon. Now, he said, he sees a movement toward music made and influenced by émigrés: "We're seeing more and more bands like Dengue Fever."

Chhom speaks in broken English that her band mates struggle to first understand and then interpret for a reporter. Born in Battambang, Cambodia, Chhom moved to Long Beach in 2000, when she was 21. Both her parents were wedding singers, and she followed in the family business. An invitation to sing in Minneapolis brought her to the United States, and her sister, already living in Long Beach, introduced her to the local dinner-club scene.

Chhom stressed how important the music that inspired the Holtzman brothers was to her when she was growing up. One favorite is the great Khmer pop singer Sinn Sisamouth, who sang with Chhom's father on a movie soundtrack. Sinn Sisamouth was a royal court singer of ballads in the 1950s who by the end of the '60s was called "the king of Cambodian rock 'n' roll," with a queasy garage sound and a mellow nod to Nat King Cole, reinventing the rock wheel on a Pacific rim.

Sinn Sisamouth disappeared after the Khmer Rouge took over. An artist close to the old government of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, he is said to have died in a labor camp.

Bouncing Williams's 1-year-old son on her knee, Chhom seemed a little bored with the interview process, her deftly drawn eyebrows often forming a skeptical V. She already had a reputation as a singer in Cambodia when she auditioned, along with several other Cambodian women, for Dengue Fever in 2001. When her competitors saw her, Zac Holtzman said, they politely excused themselves, assuming she would automatically get the gig.

In 2002, while Dengue Fever was recording its debut album, Chhom was stopped in a routine check by immigration agents during an orange alert and was detained for having a lapsed green card. She spent 22 days in confinement, and upon her release sang endless nights in a Cambodian dance club in Long Beach called the Dragon House to pay off her legal fees. The band's second album was titled "Escape From the Dragon House," a reference to Chhom having paid off her legal fees and putting her immigration troubles behind her.

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

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

Zac Holtzman responded, "There's always a few nights on tour when we go out and do a few clubs and some dancing . . . "

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

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

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

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

Cambodia Eyes Golf

Cambodia doubled its number of luxury golf courses last year to four and hopes to have eight by 2010 in a bid to lure more high-end tourism from the fast-growing sport in Asia, officials said, reported AFP.

Cambodia in 2007 opened its only two PGA-rated courses in the popular tourist town on Siem Reap, in northwest Cambodia near the famed Angkor temples which remain the country’s biggest draw for foreign visitors. A third course backed by South Korean investors is expected to open in Siem Reap in 2009, said Suos Yara, secretary general of Cambodia Golf Association.Three other multi-million-dollar golf projects are also under construction near the capital Phnom Penh.

Police bar actress from Killing Fields museum

22 Jan 2008
Source: ITN

Actress Mia farrow has been stopped from laying flowers at a Killing Fields museum by baton-wielding police.

One hundred Cambodian officers blocked the Hollywood actress and her group from entering the Phnom Penh high school, which was the compound that became Pol Pot's main torture centre.

The visit was part of a campaign to end atrocities in Darfur, and the group have already paid similar visits to Rwanda, Bosnia and Armenia.

The ultimate goal of this campaign is try and influence Chinese policy, as the country if a major investor in Sudan's oil industry.

This has led to accusations that China is breaching international rules and causing violence by selling Sudan weapons that have been diverted to Darfur.

Mia is spearheading this particular campaign as she a spokesperson for the Dream for Darfur pressure group.

Cambodian Chinese prepare for Chinese New Year lion dance

Leaders of the Chaozhou Guild of Cambodia hold joss sticks during the inauguration ceremony of new prop lions used in lion dance, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 22, 2008. The Chaozhou Guild of Cambodia, a civilian group of the Cambodian Chinese originated from Chaozhou, China, held the ceremony here on Tuesday to greet the forthcoming Chinese lunar calendar new year, which falls on Feb. 7 this year. (Xinhua Photo)

Leaders of the Chaozhou Guild of Cambodia add the finishing touch on a new prop lion used in lion dance, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 22, 2008. The Chaozhou Guild of Cambodia, a civilian group of the Cambodian Chinese originated from Chaozhou, China, held the ceremony here on Tuesday to greet the forthcoming Chinese lunar calendar new year, which falls on Feb. 7 this year. (Xinhua Photo)

Roasted pigs prepared for the inauguration ceremony of new prop lions used in lion dance are seen at the Chaozhou Guild of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Jan. 22, 2008. The Chaozhou Guild of Cambodia, a civilian group of the Cambodian Chinese originated from Chaozhou, China, held the ceremony here on Tuesday to greet the forthcoming Chinese lunar calendar new year, which falls on Feb. 7 this year. (Xinhua Photo)

Cambodian road network gets 40.8 mln usd in funding for maintenance - ADB

Tue, Jan 22 2008
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MUMBAI (Thomson Financial) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it will provide 40.8 mln usd along with its development partners to help Cambodia maintain roads managed by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport and improve the capability of the ministry in managing and maintaining its road network.

The bank said ADB will extend a 6 mln usd loan to the Road Asset Management Project. Australia will provide a 4.8 mln usd grant through the Australian Agency for International Development to be managed by ADB, it said.

The International Development Association of the World Bank Group will help fund the project through a 30 mln usd credit line. The Cambodian government will complete project funding by providing 17.55 mln usd, the ADB said.

The project will finance periodic maintenance for about 950 kilometres of roads managed by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport to help fill the gap between road maintenance requirements and available funds, the bank said.

Thai-Cambodian project leads to Living Angkor Road

The Nation
January 22, 2008

People who love art and history may soon have a wonderful opportunity to travel back 800 years in time to the great Empire of Angkor and King Jayavarman VII of Cambodia.

Collaboration between Thai archaeologists from Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy and Silpakorn University, and Cambodian archaeologists from the Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap in a project called the Living Angkor Road has made this possible.

Surveys have been conducted along the 254-kilometre Angkor Road from Cambodia's Angkor to Thailand's Phimai.

The idea of the project is to eventually develop virtual reality archaeological images of the Empire of Angkor displayed in three dimensions.

King Jayavarman VII was one of the most forceful and productive kings of the Khmer Empire of Angkor. He expanded the empire to its greatest territorial extent and engaged in a building programme that produced numerous temples, highways, rest houses and hospitals.

He also rebuilt the city of Angkor Thom and rebuilt and extended a system of highways which radiated outward from the Bayon temple and the royal palace and reached far into the provinces. He constructed 121 rest houses along these roads. During his reign, the king built 102 hospitals throughout his kingdom. He was more than 90 years old when he died around 1215.

Surat Lertlum, the archaeologist from Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy who initiated and leads the project, said archaeological and anthropological knowledge, geo-informatics technology, information technology, and geo-physics technology were utilised to identify the ancient road from Angkor to Phimai that was mentioned in the inscriptions by King Jayavarman VII.

The first step was to identify the historic road and human settlement of the Khmer empire to show how the people lived and how the country looked in the past. Stone bridges, dharmashala (rest houses) and arogyashala (hospitals) were sought out.

"Remote sensing and geographic information system technology are used by archaeologists to pinpoint and identify archaeological sites and as tools for archaeological analysis. Technology itself cannot make the project complete. It requires other aspects of knowledge including archaeology and anthropology as well as surveys in the field talking with people," said Surat.

Archaeologists and anthropologists went to the field with global-positioning system devices equipped with geographic information systems as well as both satellite maps and vector maps to collect data.

Apart from the satellite and vector maps, the project also requires other sources of information such as digital elevation models, old maps, aerial photos and ground surveys.

Once the teams find the exact location of targeted archaeological sites they can record their position and then upload details to the database at Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy. It is available at http://larp.crma.ac.th.

The historical, archaeological and cultural multimedia database for the area of study will include all the knowledge from archaeologists, historians, current cultural information and information from current studies. This information will be used to perform further analysis to understand the ancient road in terms of utilisation and beliefs about the ancient road in former times.

"Then all the information will be structured in a reference format that can be used by researchers or other interested persons. In addition, it will be very useful for tourism purposes, especially for the cultural route tourism campaign," said Surat.

The project was supported by funding from the Thailand Research Fund. The project is now in the second phase. The first and the second phases take one and a half years.

Cambodia: Four years on, still no justice in killing of Chea Vichea

Photo: Tens of thousands of mourners wear black headbands calling trade union leader Chea Vichea a "worker's hero" at a silent funeral march in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on January 25, 2004. Union leader Chea Vichea who was killed in broad daylight on January 22, 2004 in what appears to be a political assassination.

January 28 will mark the fourth anniversary of the initial arrests of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun for the murder


MyNews.in
22/1/2008

Four years after the murder of Cambodia’s most prominent labour union leader, Chea Vichea, six leading international human rights organizations and the world’s largest trade union federation called on the Cambodian authorities to exonerate and free the two men unfairly convicted for the crime.

The continued imprisonment of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeum without any credible evidence against them is of grave concern, said a joint statement by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Asian Human Rights Commission, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (a joint program of the International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organization Against Torture), and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

January 28 will mark the fourth anniversary of the initial arrests of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun for the murder of Chea Vichea, the president of the Free Trade Union of the Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC), who was killed on January 22, 2004. Each is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted in a grossly unfair trial in August 2005.

“From the beginning, this case has been tainted by serious procedural flaws and violations of basic fair trial rights,” said Sara Colm, senior researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch. “A first step for justice in Chea Vichea’s murder would be the prompt release of those unfairly convicted.”

Numerous irregularities marred the police and court investigations in this case. The police allegedly tortured Born Samnang to get a confession. A judge who initially dropped the charges against the two men for lack of evidence was swiftly removed from his position, and the charges were reinstated.

The subsequent trial of the two men was conducted in a manner that flagrantly violated Cambodian law and international fair trial standards. In April 2007, the country’s Appeal Court upheld their convictions despite its own prosecutor acknowledging that there was insufficient evidence.

Chea Vichea’s family members say they believe Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun are not responsible for the crime, as has the prime witness to the murder, Var Sothy, who fled the country in fear for her life.

“There is compelling evidence that these two men were targeted by the authorities as scapegoats for the murder, and nobody is fooled by this charade,” said Souhayr Belhassen, president of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

The Cambodian authorities’ handling of the case has attracted extensive criticism, domestically and internationally, from human rights activists, lawyers, union advocates, and others.

The International Labour Organization and the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for human rights in Cambodia have repeatedly expressed grave concerns about the convictions of the two men and called for a fresh investigation into Chea Vichea’s murder.

“Any objective examination of all the available evidence shows that these two men never should have been arrested, much less imprisoned for four years already,” said Basil Fernando, executive director of the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission.

In addition to calling for the exoneration and immediate release of the two men, the seven organizations urged the Cambodian government to launch a full and impartial investigation into the murder, as well as an independent and public inquiry into the handling of the prosecution of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun.

This would include investigation into allegations of police brutality, intimidation of witnesses, and political interference in the judicial process.

In addition to the murder of Chea Vichea, there has been a clear and ongoing pattern of violence against trade union activists in Cambodia. This includes the murders of FTUWKC official Hy Vuthy in February 2007 and FTUWKC Steering Committee member Ros Sovannarith in 2004, and a series of physical assaults against other FTUWKC unionists.

“The murder of Chea Vichea and other trade union leaders has had a chilling effect on labour rights and workers’ freedoms in Cambodia, even more so given the lack of proper, credible investigations to find their killers,” said Guy Ryder of the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation, whose 311 affiliates represent 168 million workers worldwide. “It sends a deplorable message to Cambodian workers that trade union membership or activity will put their safety at risk.”

The seven organizations urged the Cambodian government to take prompt action to address the key issues highlighted by this case: Cambodia’s endemic impunity and lack of rule of law, government interference in the judiciary, intimidation and violence faced by trade union members and leaders, and widespread torture by the police.

“This case highlights the use of torture by Cambodian police, mainly to force confessions out of criminal suspects, and the courts’ readiness to turn a blind eye,” said Eric Sottas, director of the Geneva-based World Organization against Torture. “The Cambodian government and courts should take meaningful action to prevent and punish the use of torture.”

“Four years after the murder of Chea Vichea, the true perpetrators remain at large while two innocent men are imprisoned,” said Brittis Edman, Southeast Asia researcher for London-based Amnesty International. “This deep injustice shows the sorry state of rule of law in Cambodia and the urgent need for genuine legal and judicial reform.”

“Cambodia’s donors, who are pumping millions of dollars in aid into the country, and particularly those supporting the government’s so-called reform programs, need to be demanding real progress – not mere lip service – toward improving the judiciary’s independence and professionalism,” said Anselmo Lee, executive director of FORUM-ASIA.

Archaeological find dates back Khmer civilization by six to eight centuries

The Cheers News
22.01.2008

A team of Japanese archeologists have discovered a man-made water channel in northwest Cambodia used for rituals as far back as the first century, which dates back the Khmer civilization by six to eight centuries.

The site - Snay village in Banteay Meanchey Province, is located about 370 km northwest of Phnom Penh, or about 70 km west of Siem Reap Province, which is home to Angkor Wat.

"Before, it was said that Khmer civilization started from the seventh to ninth century AD, but based on our research here, Khmer civilization went back to the first century AD," said Yoshinori Yasuda, a professor of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto.

According to the Japan Times Online, the discovered water channel may be the world's oldest, or some 600 years older than the Tikal ruins in Guatemala in the seventh to ninth centuries.

"Khmer civilization established a very well-organized and harmonized water system.

They constructed a perfect water circulation system (up to and including) the Angkor Wat period between the ninth and 12th centuries," said Yasuda.

The archaeological team also found sacred mounds or altars at the ruins in Snay village in Banteay Meanchey Province under a two-year project that began in January 2007.

(ANI)