Conservation plan in Cambodia aims to protect habitat of endangered bird

A system of strip dams in Kampong Thom province, Cambodia, that conservationists say are threatening the endangered bird. (Jerry Harmer/The Associated Press)

The Associated Press
Published: April 14, 2008

STOUNG, Cambodia: Conservationists in Cambodia think they might be turning the corner in their fight to save one of the world's rarest birds.

Since 2005, a rush to turn grasslands into large rice farms has gobbled up one-third of the Bengal florican's habitat in Cambodia, threatening the critically endangered bird with extinction.

But a new land-protection plan - devised by the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in New York, along with BirdLife International from Britain and Cambodian authorities - appears to be slowing this controversial real estate grab.

Most of the world's Bengal floricans, believed to number fewer than 1,000, live in scattered pockets on the fringes of Cambodia's Great Lake, also known as the Tonle Sap. The rest are in India, Nepal and Vietnam.

The Cambodian program to protect florican habitat bans development in five zones totaling 135 square miles, or 350 square kilometers, while villages and farms within the zones can remain, preserving traditional ways of life. The plan calls for the police to patrol by motorbike during the dry season and by boat during floods.

Since the program was adopted, three planned developments have been canceled and another put on hold, according to Tom Evans, a Wildlife Conservation Society technical adviser in Cambodia.

"Some prospective developers have been deterred at an earlier stage when they learned that the areas had a special designation," he said.

More such zones, known as integrated farming and biodiversity areas, are planned.

In mid-March, the height of the dry season, the grasslands near Great Lake, in west-central Cambodia, are at their bleakest. They stretch to the horizon, brown and flat under the blazing sun, with barely a tree to break the monotony. Smoke curls into the air where farmers burn off scrub to rejuvenate pasture for their cattle. Ox carts trundle down deeply rutted tracks.

But for the patient and the sharp-eyed, this landscape offers a striking sight: the courtship display of the male Bengal florican.

The bird, a black-and-white bustard - large, long-legged and heavy, looking like a small ostrich - struts into a clearing, stretches its long neck and ruffles up its feathers. It then flits into the air before fluttering back to the ground in an undulating pattern, like a parachutist caught in a crosswind.

As it descends, it emits a deep humming sound that has earned it its Cambodian name, "the whispering bird." The displays are usually carried out within sight of other males, in what amounts to an open dance competition to attract a mate.

"They're really unique," says Lotty Packman, a 24-year-old researcher from the University of East Anglia in England. "They're very striking and very charismatic."

Packman was spending long days in the heat, netting floricans and attaching tracking devices to learn more about them, especially the elusive female, of which little is known.

The species was rediscovered in Cambodia in 1999. Before then, the country's decades-long civil war had made detailed exploration of the countryside too dangerous.

But peace has proved to be a far greater threat. Businessmen have snapped up thousands of acres of land in often murky deals and built more than 100 strip dams, which turn the grassland - the florican's natural habitat - into rice paddies that can produce rice during the dry season.

Cambodia’s Urban Renewal Turns Ugly

Vincent MacIsaac
16 April 2008

The government is using the fiction of slum clearance to kick the poor off valuable property

Just a stone’s throw away from Cambodia’s National Assembly in Phnom Penh, a fading billboard trumpets an urban renewal campaign promising to transform 100 poor communities into thriving neighborhoods within a year. Included is the decimated slum that lies behind parliament – Dey Krahorm, or Red Earth village.

The billboard, erected a few months before national elections four years ago, shows Prime Minister Hun Sen leading a band of impassioned officials as they stride toward this much publicized goal.

They never reached it. After the election, urban renewal turned into poverty expulsion. Red Earth now resembles a moonscape of rubble, teetering shacks and evacuated spaces. Fewer than 100 of the nearly 1,000 families who lived there when the billboard was erected remain.
The rest have been trucked off to one of the many relocation sites 20 to 30 kilometers outside the city, most of which lack electricity, clean water, toilets, schools, clinics and, importantly, access to jobs.

Excluding Burma, “Cambodia has the most abusive record of forced evictions in the region,” said David Pred, the country director of Bridges Across Borders, an international non-governmental organization formed to combat the root causes of violence.

In an interesting twist, the Cambodian Red Cross, which has been appealing for donations to resettle squatters, is headed by the prime minister’s wife, Bun Rany Hun Sen. Besides widespread allegations of corruption and misuse of funds, the Cambodia Red Cross’s appeal for funds to resettle people evicted as a result of land grabs by people closely tied to the prime minister is, to use the phrase of one diplomat, “more than a little off-putting.”

An official at the International Red Cross agreed: “There’s something not quite kosher about this,” he said.

Although evictions have been a companion to Asia’s “asymmetrical growth”, as Pred calls it, over the past 25 years, the situation in Cambodia is exacerbated by the lack of legal protection for those facing eviction. “At least in a country like the Philippines, affected people can go to court and a have some chance at stopping [evictions] or getting fair compensation. That is not possible in Cambodia today,” Pred said.

Dey Krahorm resident Lee Luleng was blunter: “If I call the police [for help] they will arrest me.” Lee Luleng, 61, is among those who have declined the offer of either relocation outside the city or compensation equivalent to less than 10 percent of the land’s market value of more than US$3,000 per square meter from 7NG, the shadowy company that claims ownership of the land.
(7NG describes itself as a publicly listed company in a country that does not have a stock exchange. In a telephone interview, 7NG chairman Srey Sothea said the company is not listed on a foreign bourse and that all its funds are sourced in Cambodia. He declined, however, to identify the exact source of the company’s funds or name its board of directors. He did say, however, that 7NG is “seeking foreign investment.”)

Declining a bad deal from 7NG can come at a heavy price. At least 13 residents of Dev Krathorn, including six community representatives, have been charged with criminal offenses, according to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, which has documented a three-year campaign of what it calls “harassment, intimidation and provocation” against the community by private security officers and municipal police.

“They shout, ‘Get out, dogs!’ We shout back, ‘You’re worse than Pol Pot,’” is how Lee Luleng described the frequent standoffs with police and security officers. Along with insults and obscenities, police sometimes toss bags of urine at them, residents say. Police erected a wall along one end of the community to block access to street-side shops (forcing owners to sell or relocate) and tried unsuccessfully to block access to the market that is the community’s main source of income.

Srey Sothea, the 7NG head, said no employees of his company were involved in altercations with residents of Dey Krathorm. “We’re a construction company, not a security firm,” he said. He also denied allegations that 7NG is paying police officers to drive the residents from their homes.

“When Cambodians hear the phrase ‘development plan’, they know it means evictions,” explained Choun Chamrong, a land-rights program officer at the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Organization. “Usually they give up quickly because they know they are up against companies or individuals connected to the government,” she explained. In 2006, Adhoc recorded 16 cases of entire communities being forcibly evicted. Last year, the figure rose to 26.

Brittis Edman, a researcher with Amnesty International, pointed to another disquieting trend. “What we are seeing over the last year is that the courts are increasingly being used as tools to silence housing rights activists,” she said before the February release of AI’s report “Rights Razed: Forced Evictions in Cambodia.” The report warned that “at least 150,000” Cambodians are at risk of forced evictions.

The government’s response was unintentionally amusing. It insisted there were no forced evictions in Cambodia and accused Amnesty International of trying to grab headlines. Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak went further. He told reporters that if the government did not respect human rights, it would have expelled Amnesty’s representatives from Cambodia.

What he failed to mention, however, was that police tried to stop Edman from meeting a group of residents facing eviction near Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak Lake on February 10. “They told us we didn’t have a permit to hold the meeting, but we explained we were just having a discussion,” Edman said. After a brief face-off, police allowed the discussion to proceed, but they photographed every resident, journalist and activist present, and tape-recorded the meeting.

Villagers say they are crammed together now in a ditch with no access to clean water and no source of income. The impact of forced evictions on public health has yet to be measured – at either the local, provincial or national levels – but NGOs working with communities that have been evicted are scrambling to find funds to expand their medical outreach programs. Illnesses include malnutrition, weakened immune systems, bronchitis and other lung infections, skin rashes, ear and eye infections, diarrhea, fever, intestinal worms, fungal infections, and post-traumatic stress.

Andong, a resettlement site where the evicted have been moved to about 20 kilometers from Phnom Penh, is a public-health disaster. The lack of sanitation, clean water and access to health care leaves the 1,500 families crammed into what has been called a “fetid swamp” highly vulnerable to any outbreak of infectious disease, health workers warn.

Five children died of dengue fever there in March last year alone, resident Kat Vijay recalls. Like most of residents of the site, Kat was evicted from Sambok Chap, a settlement along the banks of the Bassac River in Phnom Penh in June 2006.

Resident Sum Khum says living in Andong is worse than the refugee camp in which she spent 13 years on the Thai border. “Then, we had food and water. We had medicine and schools. Aid workers used to visit us,” said the 74-year-old widow. “Now, we have nothing. Sometimes the Christians come with rice and noodles, but they don’t bring enough.”

After almost two years, the evictees are still waiting for running water, electricity, a sewage system, a clinic, a school, and toilets that work. The 12 that were installed last year, along with 12 bathing stalls, can’t be used because they are not connected to running water.

When he lived in Phnom Penh, Kat Vijay worked in construction, mainly restoring the city’s French colonial mansions, for US$2.50 a day. Since then he has had no work except for a three-month stint building a row of 41 rooms at Andong for the Cambodian Red Cross, he says.

Brittis Edman of Amnesty International noted a new development in forced evictions that many diplomats may find even more off-putting. Some residents at resettlement sites are being threatened with eviction again, possibly to make more room for newcomers, she said.

Australia wants to boost UN involvement: foreign minister

Flags are raised outside the United Nations in New York

The United Nations General Assembly

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australia's new government is seeking a greater role in the United Nations to help make the world body more effective, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Wednesday.

Smith said Australia's bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2013-14 signalled his centre-left government's desire to play a more active role in the organisation than the previous conservative administration.

"Unlike the recent previous period, the Australian government will be engaged in and contribute to the pre-eminent forum for multilateral action -- the United Nations," he said in a speech in Sydney.

Former prime minister John Howard's government, which was ousted by Smith's Labor Party last November, had a chilly relationship with the UN, partially due to its criticism of Australia's treatment of refugees and Aborigines.

Howard also disagreed with the UN's refusal to back the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Smith said modern challenges such as climate change, terrorism and transnational crime were global problems that required global solutions through multilateral organisations such as the UN.

"We think it appropriate that we play our part in helping to reform the United Nations, so that it becomes more effective and efficient," he told the Lowy Institute foreign policy think-tank.

Smith reiterated Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's stated goal that "Australia should play an active role as a creative middle power."

Since coming to power, Rudd's government has already increased its involvement with the UN, signalling its intention to follow up on an apology to Aborigines by reversing Howard's opposition to a UN declaration on indigenous rights.

Canberra has also provided funds to a cash-strapped genocide tribunal in Cambodia that is backed by the UN, as well as calling for India and Japan to receive permanent spots on the UN Security Council.

Smith also described Australia's alliance with the United States as "indispensable" and said Canberra wanted to "re-engage" with the European Union.

He said Australia aimed to use the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to strengthen regional trade and investment.

Australia's stability, prosperity and national security were closely linked to the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, he said.

Rice crisis and Southeast Asia

Some 500 farmers staged a protest rally calling for food security and agrarian reform in Trinidad, Bohol province, the Philippines on April 10. (Photo/KMP-Bohol)

By MONG PALATINO
Column: Peripheries
Published: April 16, 2008

MANILA, Philippines, Rice is the staple food in Southeast Asia and in many parts of the world. But it is not just a food that fulfills hunger. Rice has enriched the cultures of many Asian societies.

In Thailand, asking "Have you eaten rice today?' is a way of saying "How are you?" In Vietnam it is proper to say "please eat rice" before every meal, even if the meal does not include rice. In Brunei elders remind the children to finish their meal to the last grain of rice because if not, the rice would cry.

Asians have developed a rice-flavored ice-cream, rice wine, rice cake, and rice paper. There is an annual rice festival in the Philippines. A colonial ruler of Indochina once remarked: "The Vietnamese plant rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Lao listen to it grow."

Indeed, rice is a precious commodity in Southeast Asia. It is not surprising that many people in the region are worried over reports that rice is getting more expensive and supplies are dwindling. Southeast Asian governments are assuring their constituents that prices will stabilize soon and there will be no shortages in the local markets.

Thailand is the world's biggest rice exporter. Other Southeast Asian nations like Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar are rice exporters too. On the other hand, the Philippines is the world's top rice importer.

The rice price in Indonesia is slightly lower than in the world market. An Indonesian minister asserts that the government would no longer import rice this year because with last year's rice procurement drive, Indonesia now has more than 1 million tons in stock.

In Singapore and Malaysia, consumers are buying all the rice available in the market even if authorities are assuring the public that there are ample stocks of rice in the market.

Rice is a controlled item in Brunei and Malaysia. In Brunei the price of rice has not changed, since the government is subsidizing the price. Malaysia has been giving subsidies to rice farmers for many years now. There is a proposal in Malaysia to abolish subsidies for sugar and cooking oil in order to continue supporting subsidies for staple food items such as rice and flour.

Unfortunately, the Philippine government has been encouraged by the World Bank not to give subsidies to rice farmers since according to the financial lending institution it will be counter productive.

Since the start of the global rice crisis, Cambodia has suspended rice exports as speculators continue to gamble on the increasing demand for the food staple. The government is complaining that the opposition is taking advantage of the rice situation by conducting black propaganda against the ruling party.

Cambodian leader Hun Sen reminds his constituents that the price of rice should have soared in 2000-2001 when there was a major flood in Cambodia; but the price of rice during that time was stable. Hun Sen blames "dishonest people who are instigating rumors" about a rice shortage in the market.

The Philippine government is asking its people to reduce their consumption of rice. Instead of rice, the public is requested to eat more sweet potatoes. In Malaysia the government is asked to give more support to the poultry industry and fruit and vegetable farmers. Health experts explain that reducing consumption of rice is not bad at all since rice and other grains like wheat and corn are actually worse than sugar. One bowl of cooked rice is the caloric equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar.

Vietnam has recently imposed a ban on rice exports to help stabilize domestic food prices. Vietnam is currently facing double-digit inflation. Bad weather also damaged part of agricultural crops in northern Vietnam early this year. Rice exports will be restricted until the month of June.

Rice bandits are scaring Thailand's countryside. In the Philippines, rice hoarders are colluding with agricultural officials to jack up rice prices. Observers believe there is no immediate fear of a rice crisis in Myanmar as most of the rice consumed in the country is produced domestically.

The global rice crisis is an opportunity to review the food security programs of Southeast Asian nations. What steps are being taken to mitigate hunger in the region? What are the reform measures which should be implemented to improve agricultural productivity?

Now is also the time to minimize or even abandon the planting of biofuels or agrofuels in Southeast Asia. Rice and food production should be prioritized.

Land conversions should be regulated to ensure availability of rice supplies. There is nothing wrong in building hotels, shopping malls, golf courses and entertainment hubs as long as the food security of nations is not compromised.

There will be an emergency meeting of Southeast Asian Ministers to discuss the rice crisis. The agenda of the caucus should be broadened to include long-term food sustainability in the region.

--

(Mong Palatino is a youth activist, regional editor for Southeast Asia of Global Voices Online, and news editor of Yehey!, a Philippine-based web portal. He can be reached at mongpalatino@gmail.com and his Web site is www.mongpalatino.motime.com. ©Copyright Mong Palatino.)

Wisconsin Film Festival announces 2008 audience awards

thedailypage.com

Kristian Knutsen
Wednesday 04/16/2008

The Wisconsin Film Festival has announced the winners of its two Audience Awards, selected by filmgoers over the course of the four-day celebration of cinema held over the first weekend of April. The Polish drama Time to Die won the award for Best Narrative Film, while the familial quest covered in New Year Baby won the award for Best Documentary Film.

Time to Die, titled Pora Umierać in Poland and directed by Dorota Kedzierzawska, screened early in the afternoon on Saturday, April 5 at the Majestic Theatre. Shot in black-and-white, the film follows the day-to-day experience of Aniela (played by the then 91-year-old Polish actress Danuta Szaflarska) during the sunset of her life. “Having seen the film, however, I can honestly say don't let the title fool you -- Pora umierać wasn't quite the terminal experience that it lets on,” writes John Benninghouse in his review of the film as seen at the festival. “While the title gives away the ending, we see Aniela pass away as happy as one can.”

The documentary New Year Baby, directed by Socheata Poeuv, screened twice at the festival, on Saturday and Sunday afternoon at the smaller auditorium in the Chazen Museum of Art. Poeuv tells the story of her family’s escape from the Khmer Rouge and subsequent life in Texas, culminating in a return to Cambodia. It will be screening again in Wisconsin on Tuesday, May 13 at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan in a Community Cinema event hosted by Independent Lens on PBS in advance of its national television broadcast on Tuesday, May 27.
Both Audience Awards at theWisconsin Film Festival are sponsored by Steep & Brew Coffee, a Madison roaster with cafes on State Street and the west side. These two films received the highest average scores in their respective categories as voted upon by filmgoers, who submitted ballots ranking the title on a one-to-five scale at the end of eligible screenings.

The “Wisconsin’s Own” and “Wisconsin Student Shorts” winners were announced in advance of the festival. This year, the prizes were presented as “jury awards” rather than as individual awards (like “documentary” or “narrative”) as in previous years. These films were supported in the festival by Case IH Agriculture based in Racine.

Globe Express Services puts down roots in Cambodia

Globe Express Services recently launched a new corporate office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

eyefortransport.com
(4/16/2008)

Cambodia’s Ministry of Commerce has approved the establishment, issuing an “MOC Certificate of Incorporation” dated March 24, 2008 for the “Representative Office of Globe Express Services Ltd”.

Globe’s executive director Georges Mejaes, said that the company believes that Cambodia is the next area of growth after Vietnam, and consequently the region needs to be an integral part of Globe’s global network.

The new office is located in the Toul Kork District of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.
According to the World Bank, Cambodia's growth has averaged 9% annually since 1998, and is the second fastest growing country in Asia (after China) in terms of annual GDP growth.

The new Cambodian office is the latest in series of expansions for Globe Express Services:

The company opened new corporate offices in Beijing last week; three offices in Vietnam and South India, one in Malaysia and four in South India in 2007; one in Tokyo one in Brazil and two in China and Turkey in 2006.

Globe Express opens Cambodia office

Source: American Shipper+ Shippers' NewsWire
4/16/2008

Third-party logistics company Globe Express Services has opened an office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to tap into the Southeast Asian nation's potential, after Cambodia's government approved the launch.

"We feel Cambodia is the next area of growth after Vietnam,” said Georges Mejaes, Globe’s executive director. "In order to better service the needs of our customers, Cambodia needs to be an integral part of our global network."

The new office is located in the Toul Kork District of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. GES expects continued gains for the country, which experienced economic growth of 10 percent in 2007. According to the World Bank, Cambodia's growth has averaged 9 percent annually since 1998 and is the second-fastest growing country in Asia, behind China, in terms of annual rise in GDP.

Gala Charity dinner to provide cows for Cambodia's poor

Apr. 17, 2008
The Yomiuri Shimbun

An inventive scheme aiming to help impoverished families in rural Cambodia by providing short-term loans of cows is the motive behind a gala charity dinner and auction to be held in Osaka next month.

Hope International Development Agency, a nonprofit organization that helps people overcome poverty by providing human and financial resources, will host the May 10 event at The Ritz-Carlton, Osaka, in the city's Kita Ward.

Funds raised at the event will go toward the Cow Bank project, a part of Hope's microcredit program, which promotes self-help among rural families and sustainable development in Cambodia.

The Cow Bank operates literally as its name implies: Families borrow a cow from Hope and use it to fertilize and plough their fields. Ideally, the cow will give birth during the loan period, and when the calf becomes self-sufficient a few months later, the borrowed cow is "paid back" to Hope.

The family keeps the calf, while the returned cow is then loaned to another poor family. This cycle can be repeated several times, according to Hope.

The May 10 event, to begin at 7 p.m., is the second such event the organization has staged in the Kansai region.

The evening will feature a five-course dinner; a silent auction of items from developing countries, local artists and companies; live entertainment by Japanese musicians; a short video presentation on Hope's activities in Cambodia; and the opportunity to contribute to helping people in the nation.

The organization, based in Naka Ward, Nagoya, and headquartered in Canada, invites organizations, groups and individuals to attend the event. A table for 10 costs 220,000 yen, while individual tickets are 30,000 yen each.

Tickets for the gala event must be reserved by April 21.

The Osaka event, to be hosted in partnership with The Ritz-Carlton, Osaka, is sponsored by Lexus and AstraZeneca K.K.

A similar event hosted by Hope in Nagoya on Feb. 29 saw more than 450 people attend, along with media organizations including NHK and local TV and radio stations.

The Tokyo event is scheduled for May 9 at the Embassy of Canada.

For more information, visit www.hope.or.jp or call (052) 204-0530.

Cambodia needs anti-torture commission

By LAO MONG HAY
Column: Rule by Fear
Published: April 16, 2008

UPI Asia on Line

HONG KONG, China, Between 1975 and 1979 the Cambodian people suffered the world's worst torture in recent history. The worst acts of torture were carried out at the notorious Tuol Sleng center in Phnom Penh by the then Khmer Rouge regime. This center has been turned into a genocide museum since the overthrow of that regime in 1979.

Torture did not end with the end of that murderous regime, though it has drastically declined in comparison. It is still perpetrated at police stations, prisons and other detention centers, and the police still show brutality in the eviction of people from their homes and lands, and in banning public demonstrations.

In February 2008, in Koh Kong province, a young fisherman was allegedly beaten and kicked about immediately after his arrest and later on when in police custody, making him lose consciousness on both occasions. Hardly two weeks later, in Kep seaside town, a police officer was arrested and then allegedly shackled day and night for 24 days in a windowless cell at a police discipline unit for allegedly disobeying the order of the country's national police commissioner to cede his land to a senior government minister.

Nevertheless, the Cambodian government has seemed to show its earnestness in combating and preventing torture. In 1992 it became a party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, or CAT. In 2005 it signed the Optional Protocol to this Convention, or OPCAT, hardly three years after this protocol had been adopted.

In 2006 it supported the trial, and welcomed the sentencing to 12 years' imprisonment, of six police officers for the torture and murder of a woman in police custody. In 2007 it ratified OPCAT, becoming only the second Asian country to do so and the 34th party to this protocol.

However, Cambodia's earnestness has not been matched by deeds as required by the two related international human rights instruments. It has as yet to enact a law to criminalize torture and lay down a procedure for victims to have their right to freedom from torture adjudicated and promptly redressed, as stipulated in CAT.

Likewise, it has yet to make a declaration recognizing the competence of the U.N. human rights body called the Committee against Torture, created under CAT. With this recognition aggrieved individuals can resort to this committee when domestic institutions fail to adjudicate their rights and award appropriate remedy, which is very much the case in Cambodia.

The Cambodian judiciary and other competent authorities have failed to act, let alone promptly, to address torture cases. In the case of the alleged police torture of the young fisherman mentioned above, the prosecution in Koh Kong province turned down the complaint of torture against the police filed by that young fisherman. He could not get his complaint accepted and acted upon until after the prosecutor had moved to another position and been replaced.

The prosecution in Kampot province accepted the complaint against the alleged police torture and illegal confinement of the police officer in Kep seaside town when it was filed, but it has not been acted upon.

Cambodia has also failed to honor its obligations under OPCAT which prescribes, among other things, that state parties must create a national mechanism to prevent torture within the prescribed 12 month period after they become a party to it. Cambodia became party to OPCAT on March 30, 2007, yet 12 months have already elapsed without it setting up any such mechanism, despite the offer of outside assistance.

According to OPCAT, this anti-torture commission must be an independent body. It must have power of access, without hindrance, to all places where persons deprived of their liberty are detained; the right to meet in privacy any of those persons; authority to make recommendations to protect those persons' fundamental rights including freedom from torture; and its recommendations should be heeded by all authorities responsible for those detention centers where violations of rights have been detected. The body must also have adequate resources to do its work.

The Cambodian government must not delay any longer the creation of such an anti-torture commission as prescribed by OPCAT and its declaration of recognition of the competence of the Committee against Torture under CAT. Cambodia's judicial or other competent authorities should promptly investigate acts of torture or other ill-treatment, adjudicate these acts, punish the perpetrators, award appropriate remedy to their victims, and take appropriate action to prevent the repeat of such acts.

Any further delay and any continued failure to take action to combat and prevent torture will harm the Cambodian government's credibility and cast doubt upon its earnestness in combating torture. It will also raise suspicions that it condones torture and other forms of ill-treatment of a population which has already suffered so much from such atrocities in its recent past.

--

(Lao Mong Hay is 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.)

(Mam Somaly) Cambodian Sex Slave Defender Wins Children’s Rights Prize

SR International - Radio Sweden

A Cambodian activist who’s worked tirelessly to rescue girls from sexual slavery was named the winner on Wednesday of the World’s Children’s prize for the Rights of the Child.

The Swedish prize committee said Somaly Mam was honoured for her ”dangerous struggle” to save girls sold to brothels in Cambodia. She was selected the winner in a vote by 6.6 million children worldwide.

Mam was herself sold as a sex slave when she was a child and in 2006 her 14-year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and sold to a brothel.

Mam has helped build safe houses that provide refuge, food and health care abd schooling for girls saved from slavery.

The award which honours efforts to better the lives of children worldwide, is split into three parts.

Peru’s Josefina Condori and Agnes Stevens of the U.S. share an honourary award. The committee cited Condori’s work to protect house maids who work under ”slave-like conditions” in Peru and Stevens’ work for homeless children in the U.S. through the Schools on Wheels organization.

Sweden’s Queen Silvia will host an awards ceremony on Friday at Gripsholm’s castle outside Stockholm.

Cambodians pray at Pol Pot’s grave a decade after his death

04/16/2008
By KER MUNTHIT

(AP) ANLONG VENG, Cambodia - Ten years after the death of brutal Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, his grave has become a symbol of spiritual comfort to some in the village where he is buried.

Villagers pray at the site, asking for blessings of luck, happiness and even protection from malaria _ despite the mayhem he wrought upon their country. He died on April 15, 1998, apparently of heart failure.

"I know it is odd, but I just do as many people here do, asking for happiness from his spirit," said Orn Pheap, a 37-year-old woman who lost a grandfather and two uncles during the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror from 1975 to 1979.

"I don’t know how long I can stay angry with him, since he is already dead," she said. Her house sits 100 yards from the grave.

Officials in Anlong Veng, 190 miles north of the capital, Phnom Penh, say only few of the area’s 35,000 residents pray at Pol Pot’s grave.

For most, Pol Pot is remembered as a murderous tyrant with fanatical communist beliefs. Under his leadership, the Khmer Rouge turned the country into a vast slave labor camp, causing the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, forced labor and execution.

But Cambodians believe in the influence of spirits and superstitious forces on their daily lives and fortunes, which may be why some worship at Pol Pot’s grave.

Last week, the grave _ a pile of dirt covered by a knee-high corrugated zinc roof _ was cluttered with clay jars filled with half-burned incense sticks, a sign of prayer and worship.

Many may still view their former tormentor as a powerful figure, said Philip Short, author of "Pol Pot: The History of a Nightmare," a biography of the former despot.

"Evil or good is not the issue," Short said in an e-mail. "He has imposed himself on Cambodians’ imaginations, and in that sense he lives on" in the spirit world.

Once a jungle war zone, Anlong Veng is now a sprawling border market town bustling with the kind of capitalist activities Pol Pot and his comrades sought to stamp out. Ramshackle shops are filled with clothing, house wares, pirated DVDs and other goods from nearby Thailand.

Cambodian pop songs blare from a coffee shop near Pol Pot’s grave, which has been designated a tourist attraction. It is among the few remnants of Khmer Rouge history, which the government is trying to preserve.

Some Cambodians have traveled to Anlong Veng to spit on the grave and curse him in anger, said 37-year-old Sat Narin, who owns a nearby clothing shop.

"Given his bad reputation, he should not be venerated," he said. "But somehow he is popular with some people."

Among the worshippers who seek blessings from Pol Pot’s ghost are ethnic Vietnamese who live in the community _ a sharp irony given Pol Pot’s massacres of ethnic Vietnamese during his rule.

A 33-year-old Vietnamese resident, who goes by her adopted Cambodian name of Van Sothy, recalled a nightmare in which she saw a black-clad man sitting on a tree near her hut.

When she described the vision to her Cambodian neighbors, they advised her to bring offerings of fruit and boiled chicken to Pol Pot’s grave to ask his spirit for protection.

"I have prayed at his grave ever since. I just want to show some respect to the spiritual master of the land," she said.

If Pol Pot were alive, he would likely be facing war crimes charges along with five of his former comrades currently detained by Cambodia’s U.N.-backed genocide tribunal. The long-delayed trials are expected to start later this year.

Nhem En, who was forced to work as the photographer at the Khmer Rouge’s Tuol Sleng torture center in Phnom Penh, says he is setting up his own museum in Anlong Veng about the communist group _ not to glorify them but for educational purposes.

He too used to light incense and pray at Pol Pot’s grave, he said, but "only for him not to butcher people again in his next life."

Driver in Thai truck tragedy surrenders

Associated Press
04.16.08

BANGKOK, Thailand - The driver of a truck in which 54 illegal immigrants from Myanmar suffocated last week has surrendered and confessed to working for a human smuggling network, Thai police said Wednesday.

Suchon Bunplong, 38, turned himself in Tuesday after a six-day manhunt, police Col. Kraithong Chanthongbai said.

"He was scared he would be killed by the others involved (in the network), so he surrendered for his own safety," said Kraithong, adding that police were searching for two other suspects identified by Suchon.

The driver said he was hired for $2,300 to take the migrants from the border town of Ranong to the resort island of Phuket in southern Thailand. He was paid half the money in advance and was to collect the rest on arrival, Kraithong said.

The tragedy has shed light on the brutal cost of human trafficking and the plight of desperate job-seekers in parts of Southeast Asia.

Thailand is a magnet for millions of migrants from its poorer neighbors - illegal workers who lack legal protection and are often ruthlessly exploited. The migrants from Cambodia, Laos and especially Myanmar take menial and dangerous jobs shunned by Thais. More than 1 million people from Myanmar are believed to be working in Thailand.

The 54 who died were among 121 people crammed into the truck's sweltering 20-foot container, which was locked and unventilated.

About 30 minutes into the trip, the passengers began pounding on the walls and screamed for help, survivors said last week. They used a mobile phone to call the driver, who briefly turned on air conditioning.

The air conditioning later shut down, and they called the driver again but couldn't get through. One survivor said last week the driver's phone had been switched off.

Suchon told police he ignored the ringing phone because he was driving at night and trying to concentrate on a dark, winding road, said police Lt. Gen. Apirak Hongthong. Suchon said he also feared that if he stopped the truck he would attract attention from other motorists.

About two hours into the journey, Suchon pulled over, unlocked the container and quickly fled when he saw the state of the victims, police said.

Thai authorities said last week that 53 of the 67 survivors would be jailed for two months on charges of illegal entry and then deported. Fourteen of the survivors were minors under the age of 18 who were sent home without trial.

Adoptive parents of Cambodian children forge a bond

Bonna Neang Weinstein will open her Khmer Art Gallery, at319 N. 11th St. in Philadelphia, on Friday night for a New Year celebration for local families with Cambodian children.

Glennon helps Sophina across the monkey bars at East Goshen Park as her other daughters follow.

CLEM MURRAY / Inquirer Staff Photographer
Denise Glennon and her husband, Gary Haubold, with daughters (from left) Clara, 9; Sophina, 6, walking dog Violet; Lucy, 10; and Cecilia, 7. Sophina is Cambodian; her sisters are Chinese.

CLEM MURRAY / Inquirer Staff Photographer
Sophina Haubold, 6, of Malvern, gets a push from her father, Gary, at East Goshen Park. Hers is oneof about 25 families in the group Southeastern Pennsylvania Families With Cambodian Children.

Apr. 16, 2008
By Jeff Gammage
Inquirer Staff Writer

Six years ago, two suburban women met at a typically suburban get-together, a Little People's Music class where both had enrolled their toddlers.

Joan Blair and Bonna Neang Weinstein immediately saw they had more in common than notes and lyrics.

Weinstein is a daughter of Cambodia, a survivor of the 1970s genocide known as the Killing Fields. And Blair has a daughter, Veata, adopted from that war-ravaged Southeast Asian land.

"I thought, 'This is great, but how is she going to keep this little girl interested in her heritage?' " Weinstein said of that day in Elkins Park.

Today, Weinstein, 43, runs the Khmer Art Gallery, just north of Chinatown, a venue alive with the majesty and mystery of ancient Cambodia. On Friday, Blair, 54, and 8-year-old Veata will be among the guests at a grand Cambodian New Year celebration featuring authentic music, dance and food.

Everyone is invited, but Weinstein has issued a special invitation to Cambodian adoptees, for she feels she understands their quandary. Though the United States is her adored, adopted country, "there's still that missing part."

Veata and her young peers occupy an unusual station, even within the complicated world of international adoption. Cambodia opened to American families in the 1990s but closed in 2001 amid allegations of child trafficking, without completing many adoptions in between.

Only about 1,755 Cambodian adoptees live in the United States - children bound by ethnicity and divided by geography. Their coterie is the opposite of the big communities surrounding children adopted from Guatemala, Russia and world leader China, who come by the thousands each year. Because the Cambodian children arrived in the same short span, they have no older generation of role models, and no new arrivals behind.

Four years ago, Denise Glennon of Malvern started Southeastern Pennsylvania Families With Cambodian Children. Her goal "was for my child to know other Cambodian children," she said. "There are so few, particularly in the suburbs."

Today, at the group's events, she notices that all the children are about the same age. "Our group is going to keep going," she said, "but it is heartbreaking."

Children adopted from China have a vibrant community centered on 67,000 children. Almost every big city has a chapter of Families With Children From China, a support and education group.

More than 400 families belong to chapters in South Jersey and the Philadelphia area, where they take part in midautumn celebrations, Mandarin lessons, calligraphy classes, cooking, music and book clubs.

By comparison, the Cambodian children's group has about 25 families. People come from as far as Gettysburg and Rochester, N.Y., for the annual summer picnic.

"Everyone wants this," Glennon said. "They want their children to feel like they're part of, not really a community, because the kids don't know each other that well, but that they're from a very special place."

Glennon and her husband, Gary Haubold, have three daughters from China and one from Cambodia. Sophina, 6, has enormous interest in her Cambodian homeland, but "truthfully," Glennon said, "it's confusing. 'How can I be from there when I'm your daughter?' It's a lot to think about."

And that's before Glennon tries to explain the homicidal reign of the Khmer Rouge, a subject Weinstein knows too well. She was not even a teenager in 1975 when the regime seized Cambodia and began the holocaust of the Killing Fields.

Government workers, scholars and professionals were executed; others were starved and beaten in labor camps. An estimated 1.5 million died.

Weinstein, confined apart from her father and brother, recalled being ordered to dig a retention pond - during the dry season. She was sure she was digging her grave.

Her father escaped to Thailand, and in 1979, after the Vietnamese invaded and drove off the Khmer Rouge, she and her brother made their way there, too. She emigrated to the United States in 1984 and lives in Abington.

Today, many of her countrymen dwell in soul-shocking poverty, in villages where land mines continue to kill and maim. It was desperate, postwar poverty that drove adoptions in the late 1990s.

"The birth parents are very, very poor," said Harriet Brener of Jenkintown, mother of a Cambodian daughter, Mya, 8. For some parents, baby formula is an unaffordable luxury, said Brener, who previously worked helping people adopt from Cambodia. Forced to choose among hungry mouths, they may leave a child at an orphanage.

Cambodian adoptions peaked at 402 in 2000. The next year, amid alarming reports of child trafficking, the U.S. government suspended adoptions. Two Americans who ran a Seattle adoption agency later pleaded guilty to criminal charges, admitting to a scheme in which children were taken from families and represented as orphans on immigration papers.

Advocates say the ban punishes the innocent, with estimates of parentless Cambodian children reaching several hundred thousand. It's unknown when or whether adoptions might resume.

Meanwhile, the American parents of Cambodian children seek community where they can find it.

"There aren't that many of us," said Judy Haupt of Exton, whose 10-year-old daughter, Sophia, attends a Cambodian classical dance class in South Philadelphia.

Blair and her partner, Nancy Kraybill of Elkins Park, take Veata to the same class, trying to provide a tie to Cambodia - an effort that is by turns embraced and rejected. Some days, Blair said, Veata is eager to get to class. Other times, engulfed by the culture around her, she's more interested in High School Musical.

Weinstein wants her Khmer Gallery, in a renovated warehouse basement on North 11th Street, to be a place where Cambodian children feel welcome. She's planning music and language classes.
Walking into the gallery is like stepping into a movie, perhaps Raiders of the Lost Ark, with intricate stone carvings filling room after room. Life-size wooden Buddhas keep watch over smaller deities. Behind a curtain, a windowless room holds beautiful, unsettling art, a memorial to the Killing Fields.

"I live, breathe, sleep and eat culture," Weinstein said. "And Cambodia is not just culture, it's identity."

Cambodians back doctor's snub of French first lady nude

Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni (C), Premier Hun Sen (L) and doctor Beat Richner (R) cut a ribbon during the inauguration of the Kuntha Bopha 4 hospital in Phnom Penh, in 2005. Richner, who heads a Cambodian children's medical group, reportedly turned down the sale proceeds of the 1993 picture of Italian ex-model Carla Bruni, who is now married to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

16/04/2008
PHNOM PENH (AFP)

Parents of Cambodian children on Wednesday backed a Swiss doctor working in the kingdom who refused a donation from money raised by the sale of a nude photo of the French first lady.

Beat Richner, who heads a Cambodian children's medical group, reportedly turned down the sale proceeds of the 1993 picture of Italian ex-model Carla Bruni, who is now married to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The nude eventually sold to an anonymous man of Asian descent at a New York auction last week for 91,000 dollars, but Richner told media that he would not take any money since the picture would shock Cambodian sensibilities.

Parents in impoverished Cambodia said they approved of Richner's decision.

"There are many ways that people can raise money and donate it to the hospital, not by nudity," said Bou Koeun, the father of a two-month-old boy who is being cared for at Richner's Kantha Bopha hospital in Phnom Penh.

Song Lai Sreng, 25, whose baby girl is also receiving treatment at the hospital, said the paediatrician had made the right decision.

"Talking about nudity, it is not acceptable in our culture," she told AFP.

Richner told The Cambodia Daily newspaper on Wednesday that Swiss photographer Michel Comte, who took the picture, said he had a buyer lined up who would acquire the photo if the money went to the Kantha Bopha Children's Hospital Association.

But Richner turned him down, the paper said.

Cambodia has a visible sex trade, but at the same time conservatives laud modesty as part of the local culture.

R.I. senators honor late photojournalist

Wednesday, April 16, 2008
By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — As Rhode Island’s Cambodian community celebrates Cambodian New Year, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed yesterday introduced a Senate resolution honoring Dith Pran, a photojournalist whose heroism under the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime was documented in the 1984 film The Killing Fields. Dith died in New Jersey on March 30 of pancreatic cancer.

The Senate resolution honors Dith as one of the most dedicated and outspoken advocates for human rights in Cambodia and calls him “a modern-day hero and an exemplar of what it means to be a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the world.”

It states that the United States “owes a debt of gratitude to Dith Pran for his tireless work to prevent genocide and violations of fundamental human rights,” and calls on teachers throughout the country to spread Dith Pran’s message “by educating their students about his life, the genocide in Cambodia, and the collective responsibility of all people to prevent modern-day atrocities and human rights abuses.”

“Dith Pran was a witness to, and a fierce critic of, the greatest atrocities men have inflicted upon their fellow men,” said Whitehouse. “His willingness to share his story brought light to dark places, and hope to millions.”

Reed said, “Dith Pran devoted his life to exposing the horrors he experienced during the Cambodian genocide. He gave voice to the two million men, women and children who were killed by the Khmer Rouge. By sharing their stories and his own experiences, Mr. Dith’s work as an advocate for human rights will continue to have an impact for generations to come.”

As many fled Cambodia during the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, Dith Pran sent his wife and children to safety abroad but stayed behind with investigative journalist Sydney H. Schanberg to help ensure that news of the events there reached the outside world.

Captured by the Khmer Rouge, he endured forced labor and beatings for four years until his escape in 1979. He coined the term “the killing fields” to describe the mass graveyards he witnessed during his 40-mile journey across the Cambodian border to a Thai refugee camp.

Dith reached the United States in 1980, and became a photojournalist for The New York Times. He founded the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project to educate individuals around the world of the horrors he survived.

On March 30, the news that Dith Pran had died spread quickly through Rhode Island, home to one of the largest Cambodian refugee populations in the country, and where Dith paid numerous visits to give voice to the Cambodian holocaust.

Pich Chhoeun, former president of the Cambodian Society of Rhode Island, said, “Without Dith Pran, I don’t think people would be aware of the Cambodian struggle as much as they have for the last 30 years or so. His life, his story — certainly the movie — I think contributed to allowing people internationally to know what happened in Cambodia.”

Cambodia to host AFC Challenge Cup

nepalnews.com
Apr 16 08

Cambodia will host the Group D qualifying matches of the AFC Challenge Cup 2008 from May 24-28, announced AFC on Tuesday.

Nepal, who were originally scheduled to host Group D from May 10- 14, withdrew last month, citing political unrest.

Macau, Nepal, Cambodia and Palestine will fight it out for a place in the eight-team finals in Hyderabad, India (July 30-August 10) with only the group toppers advancing to the main competition.

The revised match schedule will be released shortly.

2006 runners-up Sri Lanka became the first team to qualify for the finals of the second edition on April 6 when they topped Group A comprising Pakistan, Chinese Taipei and Guam.

DPR Korea, Turkmenistan, hosts India and Myanmar have direct entry to the tournament, while the winners of the 2008 and 2010 editions of the AFC Challenge Cup qualify automatically for the 2011 AFC Asian Cup in Doha, Qatar.

Tajikistan won the inaugural edition in 2006 after defeating Sri Lanka in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

U.N. chief calls for justice in Cambodia

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- On the tenth anniversary of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's death, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed Tuesday for the senior leaders of the regime to be brought to justice.

"I would like to remind the international community of the urgent importance of bringing to closure one of history's darkest chapters," Ban said in a statement.

The secretary-general said he hoped that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia "will soon deliver long-overdue justice for the people of Cambodia."

"The United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia remain actively engaged in efforts to hold the Khmer Rouge senior leaders and those most responsible accountable for their horrific crimes," he said.

Five former Khmer Rouge leaders have been detained and will face the ECCC, most of them on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

They are: Kaing Guek Eav, the alleged chief torturer of the regime; former Khmer Rouge Prime Minister Khieu Samphan; Ieng Sary, the regime's former foreign minister, and his wife, Ieng Thirith; and Nuon Chea, the top surviving regime leader.

The ECCC, which was established by both the United Nations and Cambodia, became operational in 2006, but the first formal hearings took place in fall of last year.

More than 2 million people died during the party's efforts to transform Cambodia into an agrarian utopia before troops from neighboring Vietnam overthrew the regime. Remnants of the Khmer Rouge continued to battle Cambodia's government into the 1990s before they fragmented in the middle of the decade.

Pol Pot, known as "Brother Number One" during the group's nearly four years in power, died in a jungle hideout in 1998. Ta Mok, the former Khmer Rouge military chief known as "The Butcher," died in a Cambodian military hospital in 2006 while awaiting trial for crimes against humanity.

The tribunal, which includes three Cambodian and two international jurists, is expected to continue until at least 2010.

For Garments, Hope Despite Opposition

By Erik Wasson, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
15 April 2008

Sumedh Chhim reports in Khmer, Part 1 (2.22 MB) - Download (MP3)
Sumedh Chhim reports in Khmer, Part 1 (2.22 MB) - Listen (MP3)
Sumedh Chhim reports in Khmer, Part 2 (1.94 MB) - Download (MP3)
Sumedh Chhim reports in Khmer, Part 2 (1.94 MB) - Listen (MP3)

Duty-free access is key for Cambodia because the US buys 70 percent of Cambodia’s garments and currently charges a 17 percent average tariff on them.

Cambodia fears that at the end of this year, when US emergency quotas on Chinese garments expire, factories will give up on Cambodia’s 330,000 garment workers and relocate either to China or Vietnam, which now enjoys the quota-free access of a full World Trade Organization member.

Hoping a tariff cut will keep factories where they are, Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh traveled several times to Washington in 2007 to press the case.

Representative Jim McDermott introduced a bill in Congress that would cut the tariffs.
“We’re talking about people, about countries where people live on about $2 a day,” McDermott told VOA Khmer recently. “And my view that’s the bottom line. It doesn’t make any difference what color you are or what language you speak, if you’re living on $2 a day, you need some help.”

McDermott, a Democrat who served in the Peace Corps in Africa, introduced the New Partnership for Development bill in October, and this bill would expand duty-free garment access to all least developed countries.

Currently major garment producers Bangladesh and Cambodia are the only developing countries that do not benefit from other special trade preference programs that grant duty-free access.
The bill has the strong support of the US retailers and importers who want to increase their profits by paying less for the garments.

But because of strong opposition from the US textile industry, as well as African and Central American countries, and increasing anti-trade rhetoric by Democrats in Congress running for president, trade watchers in Washington believe the bill has little chance of succeeding this year.

Last month, the US textile industry and garment makers in Africa and Central America wrote to Congress urging it to deny duty-free access to Bangladesh and Cambodia. These nations describe Cambodia as an industrial powerhouse that will cost them jobs.

Under existing preference programs, many poor countries must use US fabric to get duty-free access when shipping garments back to the US.

Restrictions on African garments also limit their use of non-African fabric. These restrictions are important sources of textile jobs in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama.

“If this act went through, we could lose tens of thousands of US textile jobs because we would lose billions of dollars in yarn and fabric orders currently being exported overseas and turned into clothing and brought back into the United States,” textile lobbyist Cass Johnson, the president of the National Council of Textile Organization, told VOA Khmer. “Those apparel orders would be lost because Bangladesh and Cambodia, two countries that use no US yarns or fabrics, would be replacing those orders with new apparel orders that are made of Chinese yarns or fabrics.”

“That’s because the bill gives them extraordinary new benefits which make it impossible for us or our overseas export partners to compete,” Johnson said. “We send nearly $10 million worth of yarns and fabrics to Mexico, the Andean countries and to the CAFTA region under various trade promotion programs.”

US textile makers see Cambodia’s growing garment exports, up 20 percent from 2006 to 2007 despite a 49 percent decrease in the last quarter of 2007, as a major threat.

“ Bangladesh and Cambodia, even without this new bill, have taken about $2 billion of apparel trade from the region,” Johnson said. “They are super-competitive countries. They have grown 60 percent over the last three years. This bill would supercharge that growth. You would see billions and billions of dollars lost from the region. You’ve got to think: that is potentially hundreds of thousands of jobs.”

The letter to Congress was signed by business groups in South Africa, Lesotho, Kenya, and Madagascar in Africa; and Peru, Nicaragua, Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador in the Americas.

Jas Bedi, the Chairman of the Kenya Apparel Manufacturers Exporters Association, said the bill undermines the African Growth and Opportunity Act, signed into law in 2000, which gives duty-free access to lesser developed African countries.

“Kenyan industry is similar to the rest of Africa [and] is struggling to survive with no gain in market share with the expiry of the Multifiber Agreement since 2005,” he said. “This new bill will not help the situation.”

Lobbyists, including some retail supporters of McDermott’s bill, said that 2009 would be the first opportunity to discuss new benefits for Cambodia. This year several US preference programs expire and when an attempt to extend them and add new benefits for Africa failed in a House committee last month, these supporters were discouraged.

McDermott disagrees.

“My feeling is that there is, there is always time in a legislative session, when we’re talking March, to do something,” he said.

McDermott said that the fight to get his bill passed has become complicated. There is a battle in the US Congress over enacting a new free trade agreement with Colombia.

President George W. Bush has made that bill his top trade priority, but Democrats and union leaders in the US are against it.

The battle is forcing Democrats to choose sides, and they are choosing to oppose greater trade.
Statements by senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the leading Democratic candidates for president, against the cornerstone of US trade policy, the NAFTA agreement with Mexico and Canada, have further motivated Democrats to oppose new trade benefits.

“But there’s quite a bit of time for us to do something,” McDermott said. “We’ve been talking about having hearings on this bill in April. And so, I already think there’s a real possibility that we’ll get a lot of that done.”

McDermott included benefits in the bill to appease worried African countries after they complained last year. One limits the amount of clothing Cambodia could claim duty-free access for to the amount of garment it currently produces.

This could avoid a massive increase or “surge” in new Cambodian garments that would dominate the market. Deapite the pressure, McDermott said that he will not take Cambodia and Bangladesh out of the bill.

“Poor countries, LDCs [lesser-developed countries] ought to be dealt with,” he said. “And if you’re an African LDC, you’re not a whole lot different than an Asian LDC or a South American LDC...The fear of the Africans is that they’re going to lose everything, that it’s all going to be sucked up by the Asians. Well, we put in protections, we put in firewalls that you couldn’t get more than they’re producing already and for the next ten years.”

Lobbyist Johnson said these safeguards are not enough.

“When countries have had these caps before they very cleverly get around them by offering importers the ability to use part of the cap but only if they will bring in new business,” Johnson said. “There are various ways around the cap that countries and importers have used in the past. I’m sure Bangladesh and Cambodia would be no exception.”

Johnson also said that the supporters of the bill are not really concerned with helping Cambodia or making clothes cheaper for American consumers, so much as enriching themselves.

“Major importers and retailers are supporting this bill,” Johnson said. “One of the reasons, and this is one of the stories you don’t hear about this bill, is they get $900 million a year in duty savings. They pay $900 million in duties on apparel goods coming from those two countries and that would be a gift from the US treasury into their pockets, which doesn’t help the people in Bangladesh and Cambodia much but it does help US retailers get a little richer.”

Asked if his LDC bill is dead now that developing countries have joined forces with the US textile industry against it, McDermott noted that his bill has the support of powerful House Ways and Means Committee chairman, New York congressman Charles Rangel.

“When somebody tells me a bill is dead,” he said, laughing, “that makes it even more fun when we make it happen.”

Inflation, Increased Cost of Living Expected to Hurt Cambodian Families

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
15 April 2008

Khmer audio aired on April 14 (7.41 MB) - Download (MP3)
Khmer audio aired on April 14 (7.41 MB) - Listen (MP3)

With inflation increasing, civic leaders are concerned children will face malnutrition or drop out of school to help their struggling families.

The price of rice and other goods continues to increase, pinching the pockets of many everyday Cambodians.

As far back as 2004, when there was little inflation, 45 percent of Cambodian children under the age of 5 faced malnutrition, said Chea Vannath, former director of the Center for Social Development, as a guest on “Hello VOA” Monday.

That number is likely to now increase, she said.

The world is facing an “economic tsunami,” she said, and it was up to everyone, including the government, private sector and non-governmental agencies to curb the impact.

The UN and IMF have warned of food insecurity worldwide, and already countries like Haiti and Egypt have seen riots over the rising price of goods.

“Some of the countries have no food stores, unlike Cambodia, we have them,” Chea Vannath said.

Still, if the government isn’t careful, the situation could turn “dire,” as the next rice harvest is not until October or November, around the festival of Pchum Ben, she said.

Rice millers and the government should be seeking to buy rice at the price of foreign businessmen in order to help people, she said.

Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union, said Monday that inflation was a continuing concern among workers, despite a proposed $6 increase to monthly income.

Workers have not received an exact date as to when the increase will come, he said, also a guest on “Hello VOA” Monday.

The $6 increase to monthly income came after the Free Trade Union threatened sweeping strikes, as the cost of living was surpassing a worker’s monthly income.

The opposition meanwhile has threatened to stage a second rally in coming weeks to protest the rising cost of goods.

Chea Mony said he had not called on all his workers to join one demonstration earlier this month, leaving it up to individuals.

His union is independent, he said.

New Year a Time for Local Tourism

By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
15 April 2008

Khmer audio aired April 15 (1.00 MB) - Download (MP3)
Khmer audio aired April 15 (1.00 MB) - Listen (MP3)

Local tourism increases around Khmer New Year, the most popular time of the year for Cambodians to move around the country, a trend that is likely to increase this year, a top official said.

“We expect that Cambodian people moved much more compared to last year,” Tourism Minister Thong Khon told VOA Khmer. The increase was “due to good living conditions of Cambodian people and to good infrastructure.”

The exact number of local tourists moving throughout the country is unknown, but officials estimate at least 5 million local tourists travel across the country during the country’s three main festivals: New Year, the Water Festival, and Pchum Ben.

Most of the travel comes at New Year, and this year has seen more, officials said. “Of course they move a lot, because they get money from selling land and because we have a good infrastructure,” said Meung Son, president of Eurasie Travel.

However, Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union, said that local tourists may be less than in years past, thanks to inflation.

Only the rich are able to move around this year, he said.

Lake Developers Want ‘Safety’

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
15 April 2008

Khmer audio aired April 15 (1.79 MB) - Download (MP3)
Khmer audio aired April 15 (1.79 MB) - Listen (MP3)

The fear of terrorism and the ineffective control of foreign tourists, as well as internal migrants, are all driving the development of the Boeung Kak lake area, officials said recently.

The Cambodian government hopes to bring modern development to the area, to prevent chaotic settlement in the capital, officials said.

“We need to strengthen the security issue and develop modernization construction in Boeung Kak for easily monitoring security,” Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Pa Socheathvong told VOA Khmer. “There are many complicated security problems for those coming in and those going out, without good security control.”

Phnom Penh has leased the land to developer Shukaku, Inc., in a $79 million deal, but residents say they are not being paid a fair price to leave the lake homes.

“We knew terrorists have easily hidden in there, like CFF and JI terrorist leader Hambali,” he said, referring the Cambodian Freedom fighters and the leader of the Southeast Asian group Jemaah Islamiyah. “If we cannot properly control this area, it will create a security problem for Phnom Penh in the future.”

Members of the CFF came from the area to attack government forces in Phnom Penh in November 2000, and Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, reportedly stayed in the area prior to his arrest in Bangkok in 2003, following the 2002 Bali bombings carried out by JI.

Critics say city government and developers are neglecting the interests of Boeung Kak villagers as they move to clear the area of the makeshift homes jutting over the lake. “Safety and people’s living are very important issues, but Boeung Kak development must provide for the very important interests of Boeung Kak villagers, or the people’s interest will be lost,” said Keo Remy, vice president of the Human Rights Party, which is competing in July’s general elections.

Be Pharum, Boeung Kak villager, said residents supported development.

“But we request that the government find a proper resolution for Boeung Kak villagers, to avoid the suffering with the development like people in Sambok Chap, Koh Pich…in Phnom Penh.”
Phan Sithan, coordinator of NGO Forum on Cambodia, acknowledged that the area was important for security.

“But the people’s living is also an important part of development,” he said.

The government must “seriously consider” the relationship between security and people’s livelihoods, he said.

Small Parties a Target: Group

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
15 April 2008

Khmer audio aired April 15 (1.09 MB) - Download (MP3)
Khmer audio aired April 15 (1.09 MB) - Listen (MP3)

With general elections fast approaching, smaller competing parties are likely to be targets of threat and intimidation, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said Tuesday.

In a monthly bulletin, the rights group warns that intimidation can include murder, but may be as seemingly small as the knocking down of party signs.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the rights group was wrong in its accusations, adding that smaller parties sometimes do not respect National Election Committee regulations.

Opposition members still face intimidation from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, opposition leader Sam Rainsy said.

Meanwhile, competing parties such as the Sam Rainsy Party, Human Rights Party and Norodom Ranariddh Party, are still not properly allowed to express themselves, said Hang Puthea, executive director of the Neutral & Impartial Committee for Free & Fair Elections in Cambodia.

Destruction of parties signs is now more frequent in Phnom Penh than the provinces, he said.

International fund eyes Vietnam’s market

NhanDan Online
April 16, 2008

International fund Vietnam Property Fund says it hopes to take advantage of the booming Vietnamese economy by listing on the alternative investment market (AIM).

According to local newspaper Daily Express, Vietnam Property Fund is expecting to raise US $100 million when it is put on the market on April 25.

Following the heading “Peace and prosperity in Vietnam”, the paper said that more than 30 years after the war, Vietnam is emerging as one of Asia’s economic success stories.

The daily applauded Vietnam’s high 7.5% economic growth for the past 10 years, saying the level is expected to be maintained during the next five years.

The paper claimed economic success is leading to an increased demand for real estate development and the Vietnam Property Fund is looking to invest in this area.

The fund will initially focus on investments in real estate companies.

In addition to its Vietnamese portfolio, the company is looking to invest up to 20% of its assets into real estate in neighbouring countries such as Laos, Cambodia and China, the paper reported. (VNA)

Alone once, and lost in Angkor's eerie spell

Just a dozen years ago the temple complex still offered visitors all the solitude they needed to dream Khmer dreams

April 16, 2008

If I had to pick my favourite photo of my 1996 trip to Cambodia, it would be a shot of the sunlight playing with shade on a stone carving of an apsara. But if I were asked what was my most remarkable photo, I would have to choose a picture of a long bas-relief cloister where there's nary a soul in sight.

Perhaps the pictures in themselves aren't worth a thousand words each, but they dramatically illustrate this fact: In 1996 Cambodia had 260,000 visitors, and last year there were more than two million.

In 1996, what has become a virtually risk-free trek from Bangkok to Siem Reap by land or river was still a few years away. The US government discouraged overland travel between Phnom Penh and the gateway to Angkor too, since there was still a chance of being ambushed by Khmer Rouge holdouts.

A dozen years ago there was no need to get up before dawn to make sure you could walk among the Angkor temples in splendid loneliness. There was no jostling for the best shots of the ruins at dusk.

The ancient complex was all but empty throughout the day, save for a few intrepid adventurers - and clusters of local people, mostly children, who tried to reel in riel from the visitors, or better, US dollars, in exchange for batik fabrics, T-shirts and all-purpose krama scarves.

Nowadays, thanks to the peace that came to Cambodia in 1998, visitors complain that the temples are despairingly overrun.

The Indochina War came to an end in early 1975, but 33 years ago tomorrow the even greater horrors that would paralyse Cambodia were just beginning as the Khmer Rouge seized Phnom Penh.

In late 1978, after the worst of the so-called auto-genocide in which some 1.7 million Cambodians perished, Vietnamese forces liberated the country's east and south from the cruel Khmer Rouge overseers. The invaders backed the Maoist extremists into a squirreling crescent of land along the Thai border.

But even as late as 1996, the rulers-turned-rebels still controlled vast areas just several kilometres from the Angkor complex.

At the Tha Phrom temple that year I was the only visitor. Or so I thought - until I heard someone shout, "You!"

I looked back to see a lone soldier headed my way, and for a minute stood paralysed, thinking he was Khmer Rouge. As he came near, though, I saw with relief that he wore a government-flag patch on his shoulder, with its silhouette of Angkor Wat.

"I show you temple," he said, in what sounded part question but mostly statement. Wherever I wandered among the elegant old grounds, where centuries-old trees climbed over the even more ancient stones of the temple, he was close behind.

"This temple was built under King Jayavarman VII," he said, adding nothing to what I'd already read in Lonely Planet.

As we parted ways after the "tour", a few of his colleagues showed up. I half-smiled and nodded at my "guide" and, keeping my head down, walked back to my car and told the driver to go on to the next temple.

Instead of starting the engine, he asked, "Do you have a dollar? That's the usual fee they ask for."

Unsure of who had lost or gained face, I diplomatically went back to pay the soldier a dollar. He smiled and let me take his photo.

These days, with the broad stream of visitors pouring into Angkor, such extracurricular activity is barred by the government.

While I felt relatively safe throughout my trip, only about 13 kilometres away were the pinkish stones of the Bantery Srei temple - the Citadel of the Women. Two years earlier an American woman had been killed near there by Khmer Rouge soldiers.

It was still too close to the frontline to consider a visit in 1996, but my future wife went in '98 and proudly announced that I'd missed the most elegant temple in the area.

I imagine I'll make it there some day, and if there are too many people scrumming for photos, well, they can be Photoshopped out once I'm back home.

Carleton Cole

The Nation

‘Long-overdue’ justice necessary in Cambodia, says Secretary-General Ban

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

15 April 2008 – Noting that today is the tenth anniversary of the death of the notorious Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on the United Nations-backed tribunal to “soon deliver long-overdue justice for the people” of the South-East Asian country.

“I would like to remind the international community of the urgent importance of bringing to closure one of history’s darkest chapters,” Mr. Ban said in a statement.

“The United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia remain actively engaged in efforts to hold the Khmer Rouge senior leaders and those most responsible accountable for their horrific crimes.”

The Secretary-General said it was his hope that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) – which has been operational since July 2006 – could soon deliver justice.

Under an agreement signed by the UN and Cambodia, the ECCC was set up as an independent court using a mixture of Cambodian judges and staff and foreign personnel. It is designated to try those deemed most responsible for crimes and serious violations of Cambodian and international law between April 1975 and January 1979.

Estimates vary but as many as three million people died during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, which was then followed by a protracted period of civil war in the impoverished country.

New breath for the Khmer muse

An immigrant couple in the US helps preserve Cambodian values through poetry - and the way they raise their children

April 16, 2008

Sinan Ung became fascinated with the infinitely varied forms of Cambodian poetry at the age of nine. Over the next decade she wrote dozens of poems about life in her small village in Kandal province. Then came the Khmer Rouge - tomorrow is the 33rd anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh - and they told her to stop writing.

Owning pens or paper was not allowed between 1975 and '79, so Ung waited for rain and wrote poems in mud with a stick or her finger - until the day she was caught.

"They kicked me," she says. "I knew if they caught me again, they'd kill me, so I wrote in my head. I didn't forget one word of my poems."

Only years later would she have the opportunity to write them down, and she's since taught many Sunday-afternoon poetry classes at Khmer Arts, a shop in the small American city of Lowell, Massachusetts, that she runs with her husband, Molyrath Sim.

Ung and Sim arrived in the United States from a Thai refugee camp in 1981, with their year-old son Poly. They lived with a couple in Lexington, Massachusetts, who had agreed to care for them under a Lutheran World Relief programme for Cambodian refugees.

Following the births of their second son Mony and daughter Molyna, Ung and Sim decided they'd better teach their children about Khmer culture. Even as the couple learned a new language and social system in America, their commitment to honour their native culture increased.

While raising their children in a foreign country, Ung and Sim passed on to them many of the core aspects of Cambodian society - fluency in the language, reverence for elders, Theravada Buddhism and observance of the Cambodian New Year every April.

Once they opened Khmer Arts, they set out to promote and preserve their native culture within Lowell's Cambodian community, the second largest in the US. Their store is filled with Cambodian art, handicrafts and books. Lowell has dozens of Khmer grocery stores and restaurants, but few shops offer traditional Khmer artistry.

Khmer-language books on Cambodian history, Buddhism and grammar line one wall of the shop.

Ung says it's important to pass on the language to young Cambodians, who might otherwise only know English. She lends and occasionally gives books to local Cambodians who can't afford them.
In her poetry classes, Ung explains the complicated techniques and meters that allow for multiple meanings. There are more than 50 distinct forms of Cambodian poetry, she says, and all of them rhyme.

It's meant to be recited as much as it's read. Heard aloud, it sounds more like song than spoken verse. It's often recited in rubato form, in which a rhythmic flow is suddenly broken by briefly closing the larynx.

On breaks from her job at an electronics assembly plant in nearby Burlington, Ung gives regular, informal Khmer-language lessons to co-workers - immigrants who never learned to write their native language. They work the evening shift, which is popular with many Asian immigrants.

Ung and Sim are hoping that the various cultural artefacts and social norms they took for granted early in life can survive being transplanted in Cambodian communities in America, especially after they were almost wiped out by the Khmer Rouge.

Carleton Cole

The Nation

UN urges justice for victims of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge genocide

The Earth times
Tue, 15 Apr 2008
Author : DPA

New York - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Tuesday called for Cambodia's courts to deliver a verdict on the mass killings in the 1970s by the country's Khmer Rouge government, whose leader Pol Pot died 10 years ago. Pol Pot led communist troops to topple the US-backed government in Phnom Penh in April, 1975, and launched a country-wide sweep to wipe pout the middle class and intellectuals, resulting in more than 2 million deaths from forced labour and extermination.

He died 10 years ago this week. But Cambodia's efforts to bring the handful of Khmer Rouge survivors to justice have dragged on despite international assistance to establish a tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the genocide.

Ban called for closure on the Khmer Rouge cases, which he called "one of history's darkest chapters."

"The UN and the Royal government of Cambodia remain actively engaged in efforts to hold the Khmer Rouge senior leaders and those most responsible accountable for their horrible crimes," Ban said in a statement.

"With the support of the international community, it is my hope that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia will soon deliver long-overdue justice for the people of Cambodia," he said.

No to Naked Carla: Cambodians Teach West a Lesson in Human Dignity

Tiberge

Tue, 2008-04-15

A nude photo of Carla Bruni, the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was sold at auction in New York last Thursday for 91,000 euros. The photographer had persuaded the seller, German collector Gert Elfering, to donate the money from the sale to charity. Elfering chose the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital Association in Cambodia. The head of the hospital, Swiss pediatrician and musician Beat Richner refused the money.

This article from Courier Mail summarizes his position (there is a discrepancy over whether the amount of 91,000 is in euros or dollars):

Swiss paediatrician Beat Richner, head of a children’s medical care group, said he had turned down an offer of $US91,000 raised at a New York auction last week of the 1993 picture of Italian ex-model Carla Bruni, now married to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“My decision was taken out of respect for our patients and their mothers,” he said in an interview with Le Matin Dimanche.

“Accepting money obtained from exploitation of the female body would be perceived as an insult.”

In Cambodia “use of nudity is not understood in the way it is in the West”.

He did not wish his institution, the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital Association, “to be involved in the media exploitation of Madame Bruni”.

“The idea behind this gift was to get publicity for the auction and the photographer,” Dr Richner was also quoted as saying. “It was a way of using us.”

In addition to the above remarks, Le Salon Beige, whose readers praise the integrity of Dr. Richner, quotes him as saying:

“My refusal is not a criticism of this photo or of its model. [...] We are not in Hollywood. My decision was made out of respect for our patients and their mothers. They feel as secure in our hospitals as in a pagoda. Accepting money that comes from the exploitation of the female body would be perceived as an insult to their sensitivity and their poverty. At the same time, for Cambodians and their government, Madame Bruni is now seen as the First Lady of France. Our reputation would be stained by what they would perceive as disrespect should we accept money of this nature.”