A One-eyed Bastard Thanks You for Your Donation

Scoop.co.nz (New Zealand)

Thursday, 5 March 2009, 12:04 pm
Opinion: SOLO - Sense of Life Objectivists

SOLO-NZ Op-Ed: A One-eyed Demonic Bastard Thanks You for Your Donation

Philip Duck
March 5, 2009

Between one-third and one-half of Cambodians live in crushing poverty as they try to survive on a dollar or less a day. That poverty motivates many poor peasant families to sell their young daughters into brothels; one-third of Cambodia’s prostitutes are under the age of seventeen and sentenced to a life of being caged in a grubby shack to service grubby men, for nothing more than a bowl of rice each day.

Poverty results in one half of Cambodian children under the age of five being underweight, and infant mortality stands at 95 deaths per 1000. More than half of those deaths are due to diseases and infections that can easily be prevented by vaccines. The percentage of its population living with HIV/Aids is the highest in Asia and it has been estimated that more that 7 million Cambodians- that’s 64% of the population- carry tuberculosis. Poverty means an average life expectancy for a Cambodian is just 56 years.

NZAID, the New Zealand Government’s international aid and development agency, has allocated 4.4 million dollars to Cambodia as it attempts to address this suffocating poverty. And who could argue against that- a dollar each from comparatively wealthy New Zealanders to assist the desperately poor. But of course this is not the government’s money to give away; in true Robin Hood style the government steals from the taxpayer to give, without consent, to deprived Cambodians. The government with supreme arrogance gets to declare those who most deserve your money.

That’s despicable, but what if those tax dollars don’t actually help the poor but rather they prop up both an untouchable Cambodian elite and an evil government led by a ruthless killer? What if your money doesn't provide vaccinations for young Cambodians but instead is used to bribe policeman to turn a blind-eye to men having sex with children? How would you feel about your money contributing to that?

Bauk, or gang rape, is almost a sport to wealthy young Cambodian men. These spoilt cowards carry out their deeds with impunity; money, influence and corruption ensure that they will not come to trial.The favourite method for rich wives to take revenge on their husband’s mistresses is to throw a bucket of acid in their rivals face; however political and business power ensure that justice will never be served. And should you have a disagreement in a nightclub with one of Cambodia’s moneyed he might just shoot you. Or more likely he will get one of his bodyguards to do it. Either way for them it’s all risk free. Meanwhile corrupt government officials and developers regularly throw the poor and powerless off their land whilst the police beat them should they resist. And it’s your money that pays for some of that unearned power and the bribes and intimidation, it really is.

Corruption and intimidation have long been a problem in Cambodia and while there have been campaigns by the UN and nations such as New Zealand to make any supply of aid dollars contingent on improvements in basic human rights and the rule-of-law, these have largely failed; the Cambodian government whilst making the right noises, politely gives the finger to its donors and continues as it wishes. Why wouldn’t they, when your money keeps on coming in?

That money makes up more than 50% of Cambodia’s budget but incredibly it is estimated that corrupt practices cost the Cambodian people 500 million dollars every year. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid drained off to support a truly wicked government and their cohorts and used to bully the poor, imprison opponents, censor the media and steal land as and when they please in an environment where corruption is not just tolerated but encouraged.

Foreign taxpayers money started coming in 1992 when the UN established the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). Its mandate was to implement law and order, rebuild the country’s infrastructure and assist with the re-settlement of tens of thousands of people who had fled the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. Most importantly UNTAC was there to oversee free and fair elections. UNTAC bought more than 9,000 vehicles, spent $118 million on salaries and $62 million on travel and, incredibly, paid a daily hardship allowance to a large number of senior UN officials of more than the average annual Cambodian salary. Two billion dollars was spent in all and they failed.

The lead up to the 1993 elections was marred by violence and political intimidation, particularly by the members of the Cambodian People’s Party (CCP); a party led by Hun Sen. Hun Sen had for some years been the Prime Minister of Cambodia having being installed by the Vietnamese as a puppet and this allowed him to make full use of his already established powers over the police and army. Bizarrely, despite the attacks but most likely because of the immense amount of dollars poured into Cambodia, the UN declared the election to be ‘free and fair.' Nevertheless, regardless of all CCP attempts it was the Royalist party, FUNCIPEC, headed by Prince Ranariddh that headed the election with 45% of the vote against the 36% achieved by the CCP.

However, Hun Sen refused to accept this loss and with heavy threats backed by both military and police force and a few well-aimed grenades he destroyed the new democratic process by forcing a coalition with an unwilling FUNCIPEC. Incredibly this arrangement meant Cambodia was to have two Prime Ministers, with Ranariddh being Prime Minister Number One and Hun Sen, Prime Minister Number Two. Prime Ministers One and Two quickly increased M.P salaries ten-fold. And after spending $2 billion dollars of other people's money the UN sat back and allowed all this to happen and in the process showed Hun Sen that he could do just as he pleased. Meanwhile government and UN money kept on rolling in.

In 1997 Hun Sen, described by Singaporean strongman Lee Kwan Yew as “utterly merciless and ruthless, without humane feelings,” carried out a bloody coup that removed FUNCIPEC from power. Hun Sen, an ex-military commander of the Khmer Rouge was now firmly in control and a series of ‘free and fair’ elections have sinced increased his parliamentary majority. That majority is surely nonsense; since 2000 I have made 8 or 9 visits to Cambodia and I have yet to find one Cambodian supporter of Hun Sen. Not one. What you can find though is fear, hatred and rage for that one-eyed demonic bastard. Yet your money keeps on rolling in.

Following the coup, to further secure his power, Hun Sen shaped 180 new ministerial positions, most of which he proceeded to sell for $100,000 a pop. It’s often claimed that Hun Sen leads the biggest per capita government in the world and it is certainly one of the most corrupt. Yet donor money keeps on rolling in. It keeps on rolling in despite a 2003 UN development report that found that poverty has become much worse under Hun Sen and that the rate of infant mortality rose between 1987 and 2000; not that such matters as infant mortality, tuberculosis or grinding poverty would be of any concern to a man like Hun Sen. And the money keeps on rolling in despite Hun Sen’s public support for the barbarians of the Burmese junta and it keeps on rolling in despite Cambodia’s development as a breeding ground for terrorists. Ultimately your taxed dollars, funnelled through to Cambodia by the UN and government funds these outrages. How do you feel about that?

If well-targeted 4.4 million dollars could achieve many, many positive things in Cambodia. But certainly government has no right to take your money and then decide to use it in its own way, let alone in a way that helps fund Hun Sen and his cronies. Rather, the business of donating is best left to individuals or private companies who can research and scrutinise, should they wish, the many private charities in Cambodia to see where best their money could be used. Hell, they couldn’t do worse at that than NZAID who are also in the process of spending more than 13 million dollars on the one-party states of Laos and Vietnam.

SOLO (Sense of Life Objectivists): SOLOPassion.com

Ben Kiernan Speaks on Cambodian Genocide

Manhattan College Quadrangle

Kayla Hutzler
Issue date: 3/4/09

When people attend a Cambodian Genocide symposium, most are expecting to hear story of heart-wrenching despair about the victims. However, at his lecture "Genocide in World History" on Feb. 24th Ben Kiernan introduced about 35 students to another side of genocide - the side of the leaders and their consequences.

Keirnan wrote six names on the board, one up higher and then next five a few inches lower in list form. Those were the names of six influential leaders of the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot was the infamous leader who is now dead. The other five however are currently awaiting trials in Cambodia before an international criminal tribunal. This is a government composed of UN and Cambodian judges, where neither group of judges can make a decision on their own.

Duch was the second name that appeared on the board. He controlled Tuol Sleng prison, a prison/death camp, where he was responsible for the murder of at least 14,000 people. Towards the end of Khmer Rouge command, Duch was told by Nuan Chea to destroy the documents and photos they had taken at Tuol Sleng. (Nuan Chea was a chief decision maker in the Khmer Rouge.)

However, Keirnan explained, Duch killed the last of the prisoners and never had time to destroy the documentation. This has resulted in about 4,000 photo negatives being found, a large part of evidence against them.

Duch; Kheiu Samphan, who was head of state; Ien Sary, the former foreign minister; and his wife Ieng Thirith, who was involved in the Khmer Rouge Central Committee, have all been imprisoned for the past ten years. Duch's trial began last week, and it is believed that he will release incrimination information about other Khmer Rouge leaders.

While some formal charges have been lodged against these leaders, it is not yet known what they will be charged with. The prosecutors seem to have enough evidence to ensure they receive charges of crimes against humanity, forced labor, crimes against political parties and war crimes.
Unfortunately, to charge them with genocide is an extremely large task explained Kiernan. The genocide convention act requires that the alleged group must prove to have deliberately attempted to destroy an entire group of people.

This appears to be the case, as they murdered almost every Vietnamese, Chinese, and Muslim person. However, Keirnan seemed skeptical as to whether or not there was enough evidence to charge the remaining five leaders with genocide.

A large concern of Kiernan and many of the Cambodian Genocide survivors is that the ECCC (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia) will run out of money before all the leaders are put on trial. The mixed tribunal and the ECCC do not receive nearly enough funds to continue working through the evidence and putting on the trials. A large concern is they will run out of money before all five can be rightfully charged.

Kiernan spent the rest of his time explaining history of the Khmer Rouge, something a few of the confused students found great relief in. While getting heavily into the current day issues of legality and punishing the leaders, many students still seemed to be wondering exactly what it is they had done, and how this had occurred in such a recent age.

The Q+A time proved to be the moment most students will remember and take with them. As students were asking questions, an older Cambodian raised his hand, and in a foreign language spoke with Kiernan, who then translated. He explained that he and two of the gentlemen with him were Cambodian Genocide survivors and that everything he said was entirely true, and he genuinely thanked him.

Cambodia's Curse: Struggling to Shed the Khmer Rouge's Legacy

Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

By Joel Brinkley

Foreign Affairs
March/April

Download a PDF of the article here

Theary Seng often thinks of that April morning in 1975 when she watched her parents cheering on the Khmer Rouge as its soldiers marched into Phnom Penh. She was four years old. Within days, Pol Pot's foot soldiers had killed her father; three years after that, her mother died in a prison compound. Today, Theary Seng runs a nonprofit legal-advocacy group in Phnom Penh. She is eager to move on. But the rest of Cambodia, and much of the world, remains mired in the nation's sorrowful past. During its four-year reign, the Khmer Rouge killed as many as two million people. Nowadays, the venal government of Prime Minister Hun Sen may take "ten lives or even a hundred lives," she told me in August, "but what's that compared to two million? That's still the Cambodian standard, and that's the international standard."

The devastation Pol Pot wreaked on his country remains hard to comprehend, even three decades later. His goal, as he put it, was to return Cambodia to "year zero" and transform it into an agrarian utopia. To that end, he purged his nation of educated city dwellers, monks, and minorities, while imposing a draconian resettlement program that uprooted almost everyone else. These measures led to the deaths of one-quarter of the country's population.

The Khmer Rouge fell in 1979, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and replaced the regime with a puppet government, in which Hun Sen became the foreign minister. When Vietnamese forces pulled out ten years later, they left behind several Cambodian factions battling for control. Then, in 1991, these groups' leaders signed a UN-sponsored peace accord, giving Cambodia the extraordinary opportunity to start over. Before Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and even the Balkans, Cambodia was the international community's grand nation-building project. The country's new constitution awarded Cambodians the human rights, personal freedoms, and other protections of a modern democratic state. And in 1993, the United Nations staged a national election to select a democratic government. After the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia would remake itself at last, and its people would have a chance to thrive.

But in the 16 years since that election, the government has squandered that opportunity. Hun Sen came in second in the 1993 election but muscled his way into the government nonetheless. Four years later, he staged a coup. Since then, his government has been looting Cambodia's natural resources, jailing political opponents, kicking thousands of the weakest out of their homes, and fostering an expansive system of corruption, all the while ignoring any challenges or complaints from organizations and governments around the world.

"People in America, all they know of Cambodia is the Khmer Rouge," Joseph Mussomeli, then U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, told me in August. "Cambodia is trying to make it in the twenty-first century, but Washington is still stuck in the 1970s." Its perception skewed by this outdated vision, most of the world barely seems to notice that the Hun Sen government is destroying the nation.

Co-Judges of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Release Search Warrant after Confidential Information Leaked - Wednesday, 4.3.2009

Posted on 5 March 2009
The Mirror, Vol. 13, No. 602

“The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia – ECCC – released an announcement yesterday, 3 March 2009, about a violation of the confidentiality of investigations, after there was information about confidential documents published by defense lawyers on their website.

“The announcement said that responding to clear and repeated violations against the instruction of the co-investigating judges, the co-investigating judges ordered defense lawyers to stop immediately their publication of documents related to investigations, except for documents that had been published already on the website of the ECCC, and take off those documents from the website of the defense lawyers, otherwise they will be punished for a new offense.

“In the meantime, the co-investigating judges sent copies of the documents of the warrant to the Professional Unit, which relates also to the Defense Protection Unit, to consider measures to be implemented.

“The announcement added that this decision was made based on Regulation 56.1 of the internal regulations of the ECCC, which states, ‘To protect all sides’ rights and interests, investigations must not be made public. All individuals taking part in investigations have to keep confidentiality.’ This regulation must by applied to all individuals joining investigations, especially to lawyers of all sides, and to all types of evidence. The internal Regulation (56.1) adds that only co-investigating judges have the authority to decide to publish information regarding investigations being conducted, or permit any media or any third parties to receive information about investigations.

“In the case that they do not abide by the different conditions defined by judges, Regulations 35 to 38 will be implemented. The co-investigating judges would like to explain the different reasons leading to this decision.

“Before there are public hearings, all procedures of the court always start with short or long investigations, depending on the extent of work. The confidential characteristic of this stage is crucial for the quality of the court process, especially to guarantee the protection of privacy of individuals, whose names are included in case documents, and to guarantee the presumption of innocence, and also the investigative efficiency.

“Co-investigating judges know that the stages of confidential investigations will not allow observers outside of the court to know much of the the process of that procedure. Thus, co-investigating judges try to limit the duration of investigations to make them as short as possible. The co-investigating judges recalled that in Duch’s case, the duration of the investigation was less than one year (the concluding warrant, sending the case for a hearing, with detailed clarifications about the different accusations, was published on 8 August 2008), which cannot be considered to be too long, looking at the complexities of the case. Likewise, the co-investigating judges try as much as possible to work speedily, so that the present investigation of a second case will proceed without delay.

“In order to promote public awareness as much as possible, the co-investigation judges reminded the public that every month, they produce bulletins, briefly describing the activities of different units of the ECCC . In addition, to guarantee the efficiency of all policies above, the co-investigating judges will make more publications than before about their different activities and publish more documents related to the investigations.

“The co-investigating judges would like to remind the public that though all decisions of the court might be opposed by appeals complaints, the respect for decisions has to be upheld.”

Cheat Khmer, Vol.1, #30, 4.3.2009
Newspapers Appearing on the Newsstand:
Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Cambodia Needs A Rights-Based NGO Law

Scoop.co.nz (New Zealand)
Thursday, 5 March 2009

Press Release: Asian Human Rights Commission

In 1991 two accords were concluded to end the war that had ravaged Cambodia for so many years. These accords assigned the UN to keep the peace, organize the election of a new government and administer Cambodia for some 18 months, in 1992 and 1993, for all these purposes.

The UN presence then gave birth to a civil society in Cambodia, previously a communist country, when local NGOs were successively created to do human rights and development work. Together with the peace accords and international assistance, the UN laid a solid foundation for the civil society’s further development after the end of its mandate.

Nowadays, despite the lengthy and tortuous procedures for their creation through some ten layers of administrative units from the grassroots to the top of the Ministry of Interior, there are nevertheless some 2000 NGOs on the ministry’s register. Thanks to their work across the country NGOs have become an integral part of Cambodia’s social fabric.

However, over recent years, the government has imposed a number of restrictions on their activities, especially the activities of human rights NGOs. In 2005 the Ministry of the Interior issued a set of guidelines to instruct all commune authorities (grassroots authorities), among other things, that all activities of NGOs and other associations and civil society organisations, "must have cooperation from provincial or municipal governors" and "all invitations to provincial, district and commune officials to attend any seminar or training sessions must have the approval" of these governors as well.

These guidelines in effect restrict the activities of NGOs as their members have to travel potentially long distances to the offices of provincial or municipal governors and get through lengthy bureaucracies to get such approvals. Cambodian local authorities have rigorously enforced these guidelines and have banned or interrupted many NGO activities, especially the holding of public forums for the public to debate issues affecting their livelihood.

Now the government has set out to regulate NGOs through an act of parliament. Upon its election in July 2008, with a substantially increased majority, 90 out of the total seats of 123, the government has made this law one of the three laws to be enacted as a matter of priority, the other being the penal code and the anti-corruption law. The reason for this urgency was the government’s concern that their funding could come from terrorist groups. Prime Minister Hun said in September 2008: “We have a concern that sometimes under so and so NGO, financial assistance has been provided for terrorist activities, take for instance the Al Um Quran under which Ham Bali hid himself in Cambodia.”

This reason is hardly plausible since the control of funding for terrorist activities are already adequately dealt with by the Anti-Terrorism Law enacted in 2007 (Chapter 11 on funding and aid for terrorism). The real reason behind the need for such a law is more likely the anti-NGO sentiment still prevailing in the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, a former communist party. In 2006 Heng Samrin, the President of the National Assembly and Honorary President of the ruling party, said: “Today, so many NGOs are speaking too freely and do things without a framework. When we have a law, we will direct them.” After the July 2008 election Heng is still holding the two positions.

As spelt out clearly in Cambodia’s Constitution, freedom of association is one of the fundamental rights of the Cambodian people, and, according to the same constitution, there needs to be a law to determine this right.

However, this law should further guarantee and protect this fundamental right. It should faithfully reflect Cambodia’s international human rights obligations under the peace accords mentioned above and other international human rights instruments, and also its own constitution.

The accords say, among other things, that “all persons in Cambodia shall enjoy the rights and freedoms embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant international human rights instruments” and “Cambodia undertakes “to support the right of all Cambodia citizens to undertake activities that would promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms".

The Universal Declaration, which Cambodia has incorporated in its constitution, guarantees the right to freedom of association. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Cambodia is a party, also guarantees this right and elaborates it further “1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests. 2. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those which are prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (ordre public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

The same NGO law should not in any way curtail the Cambodian people’s “right to participate actively in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the nation”, a right that is guaranteed and protected under Article 35 of their Constitution.

Cambodian lawmakers should be reminded that civil society is essential for democracy and development, and their country is supposed to be a liberal democracy according of its Constitution. The regulation of NGOs should not mean to “direct them” as National Assembly Chairman Heng Samrin has said.

In designing the NGO law, those Cambodian lawmakers should get inspiration, for instance, from the South African Non Profit Organisations Act of 1997. Like the South African Law, the Cambodian law should be designed, for instance, “to provide for an environment in which (NGOs) can flourish” with no unjustified restrictions on their activities, and “to establish an administrative and regulatory framework within which (NGOs) can conduct their affairs”. The same law should also require “every state organ to determine and co-ordinate the implementation of its policies and measures in a manner designed to promote, support and enhance the capacity of nonprofit organisations to perform their functions.”


About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

CCNN Valentines Day day of the death

cambodiacnn

Cover Valentines Day, Cambodia adoption and the dumping of a military chief

CCNN: worst interview ever

cambodiacnn

This week: 10,000 Thai soldiers come arrive in Cambodia for shelling. Bun Rany told Hun Sen to stop using derogatory words and the worst news interview ever!

Govt plans combination therapy to treat drug-resistant malaria

IPPmedia

2009-03-04
By Angel Navuri

The Government is planning to introduce a combination therapy treatment for malaria to address the problem of drug resistance in the country.

Deputy Health Minister Dr Aisha Kigoda told ‘The Guardian` in an exclusive interview that the therapy would help improve malaria treatment in the country.

Dr Kigoda was giving the country`s stand on the recent warning by World Health Organization (WHO) that the emergence of Artemisinin resistant parasites along Thai- Cambodia border could seriously undermine the global malaria control efforts achieved.

She explained that the government would sort out the monotherapy malaria drugs so that there won`t be confusion.

She said that the combination therapy would help treat all complicated malaria cases.

Surveillance systems and research studies supported by WHO to monitor anti malarial drug efficacy in countries are providing new evidence that parasites resistant to Artemisinin have emerged along the border between Cambodia and Thailand where workers walk for miles every day to clear forests.

The risk that they may be infected with a drug-resistant form of malaria could set back recent successes to control the disease.

``Huge strides have been made in the last ten years to reduce the burden of malaria, one of the world\'s major killer diseases.

Strong malaria control programmes have helped lower infection rates in several countries,`` says the statement.

It further states that the recent shift from failing drugs to the highly effective Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) has been a breakthrough, adding that appropriate treatment with ACTs succeeds in more than 90 per cent of cases.

WHO, with a US$22.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will endeavour to contain Artemisinin resistant malaria parasites now emerging along the Thai-Cambodia border before they spread and reverse the gains.

The statement added that WHO will work in collaboration with several key partners including the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control of the Cambodian Ministry of Health, Bureau of Vector-Borne Disease of the Thai Ministry of Public Health, Faculty of Tropical Medicine of Mahidol University Bangkok, Institut Pasteur Cambodia, Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Bangkok and the Malaria Consortium.

SOURCE: Guardian

PM Proposes to Omit National Congress from Cambodian Constitution

2009-03-04
Xinhua
Web Editor: Xu Leiying

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Wednesday that national congress is not a good idea for the country and should be deleted from the Cambodian Constitution.

"The (part about holding) national congress should be omitted from the constitution, because it could cause turmoil for the country if we conduct it," he told a school inauguration ceremony in Takeo province.

According to the constitution, a national congress can be convened, if needed, for all political parties to join and debate relevant issues.

"Now, we have at least 50 political parties which are registered at the Ministry of Interior and it is easy to cause turmoil for the country (if a national congress is held for them), " national television TVK quoted him as saying.

"It is difficult to conduct a national congress," he said, adding that only the major ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) can collect enough votes to omit it from the constitution.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Cambodia used to hold national congress in front of the National Museum near the Royal Palace to seek the best resolution for the problems of the country and also debate the difficult matters that the country faced.

Since the kingdom conducted its first general election in 1993, no national congress has been convened again.

There is now the National Assembly, the top legislative body for the political parties to discuss government issues and participate in management of the country.

PM welcomes Cambodian planning minister

VOV News
03/04/2009

The planning and investment sectors of Vietnam and Cambodia should increase the exchange of visits and share experience to promote bilateral cooperation in trade and investment, said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

While receiving Cambodian Minister of Planning Chhay Than in Hanoi on March 4, Mr Dung affirmed that Vietnam is willing to help Cambodia train its officials in planning.

Minister Chhay Than said that his ministry wants to learn from Vietnam’s development experience and expand cooperation with the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment, particularly in personnel training.

He thanked the Vietnamese people for their heart-felt support and valuable assistance to Cambodia during the past struggle for national liberation and the current process of national construction.

He conveyed top Cambodian leaders’ regards to Mr Dung and other Vietnamese Party and State leaders.

Earlier in the morning, Minister Chhay Than held talks with his Vietnamese counterpart Vo Hong Phuc and they signed a memorandum of understanding to increase bilateral cooperation in planning.

Vietnam, Cambodia boost cooperation in planning and investment

VOV News
03/04/2009

Vietnam and Cambodia signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Hanoi on March 4 to strengthen bilateral cooperation in planning and investment.

Signatories to the document were Vietnamese Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc and Cambodian Minister of Planning Chhay Than.

Under the MoU, both ministries will closely co-ordinate in devising plans to improve advisory work for their governments. They will hold the exchange of high-level delegations annually, share experiences in planning, and organize short-term training courses for their staff.

This year, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) will invite officials from the Cambodian Ministry of Planning to visit several border provinces on fact-finding trips to promote mutual understanding.

Last year, the Government of Vietnam provided VND90 billion in non-refundable aid to the Cambodian Royal Government to strengthen cooperation in the field of education and training, according to the MPI. In addition, Vietnam also granted more than 1,800 scholarships to Cambodian students in the field of education, culture, sports, and inspection.

In 2008, two-way trade between the two countries reached US$1.7 billion, up 42 percent compared to the previous year. Currently, around 39 Vietnamese projects capitalized at US$211.2 million have received business licenses from the government of Cambodia.

Cambodian rule weighs on Dreamgate’s RM200m debt notes

THE EDGE

Written by Joe Chin
Wednesday, 04 March 2009 22:43

KUALA LUMPUR: RAM Ratings has placed the A1/P1 ratings of Dreamgate Corporation Berhad’s RM200 million Commercial Papers/Medium-Term Notes Programmes (2007/2014) on Rating Watch, with a negative oulook.

The rating agency said on March 4 the Rating Watch reflects RAM Ratings’ concerns about the adverse impact of the recent changes in Cambodia’s gambling regulations, which are expected to have negative implications on Dreamgate’s credit profile.

Most of Dreamgate’s profit-generating technical support and management Services (TSM) concessions are located in Cambodia (as of end-2008, some 79% of its concessions were positioned in that country.)

RAM Ratings said it understood that the Cambodian government has issued directives banning its citizens from gambling.

At the same time, slot operators have been asked to remove gaming machines from entertainment clubs by June 2009. This means that all slot machines can only be located in licensed casinos and hotels.

About 1,500 of Dreamgate’s slot machines (or 30% of its devices installed in Cambodia) are affected by the ruling.

On top of that, another 1,900 of Dreamgate’s slot machines in Cambodia have been affected by a more recent directive issued in February 2009.

Now, even slot machines in Cambodian hotels are required to temporarily cease operations, pending a full review of their licences and compliance with the earlier directive.

“We understand that the management plans to relocate the initially affected 1,500 machines to Macau, the Philippines and other casinos under the Group’s stable in Cambodia; the exercise is expected to be completed by mid-2009. On the other hand, the fate of the other 1,900 machines remains uncertain at this juncture,” it said.

RAM Ratings said Dreamgate might consider relocating these machines to Macau and the Philippines as well, if the licence review stretches more than two months.

In 4Q FY Dec 2008, Dreamgate incurred a pre-tax loss of RM9.48 million, due to various factors that include slowing TSM sales, write-off of expenses in relation to club closures and higher operating costs arising from additional outlets; before the regulatory changes, Dreamgate had added 12 new outlets in fiscal 2008.

Given these disruptions to its Cambodian operations, the Group’s performance in FY Dec 2009 is likely to come under severe pressure.

“RAM Ratings is concerned about Dreamgate’s position going forward. Given these rulings, we opine that the Group’s businesses in Cambodia are unlikely to yield the same returns as before.

While we note that Dreamgate will be moving these machines to new TSM concessions in Macau and the Philippines, its TSM presence in these countries is still relatively small,” says Kevin Lim, RAM Ratings’ Head of Consumer and Industrial Ratings.

RAM Ratings said it was monitoring the developments vis-à-vis Dreamgate, and keeping in close contact with the management in the lead-up to our annual review of its ratings.

The ratings will remain on Rating Watch until the review is completed; this is expected within the next three months.

Sacked General Proposed for Deputy PM

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
04 March 2009

Gen. Ke Kim Yan, the former commander of the armed forces who was fired in January, will be given a position as deputy prime minister, pending parliamentary approval, officials said Wednesday.

Prime Minsiter Hun Sen fired Ke Kim Yan for improprieties in running a side business, instead of commanding the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, but officials say a proposal for his appointment to deputy prime minister will be made to the National Assembly.

Defense Minister Gen. Tea Banh told VOA Khmer Tuesday there was “nothing strange” about the appointment, as Ke Kim Yan had served the military “for a long time.”

Ke Kim Yan served as commander-in-chief for three administrations. His sacking worried some over a split within the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, but one observer said the promotion to deputy prime minister indicated “peace and stability” within the government.

The military command shake-up comes as Cambodia prepares for continued cooperation with the US and set to host a multinational military exercise in 2010, Tea Banh said.

More than 10 countries, including the US, will participate in the exercises, a “heavy responsibility” for Cambodia, Tea Banh said.

Cambodia regularly sends troops on UN peacekeeping missions to Sudan and has joined military exercises with Mongolia and Bangladesh.

Judges Threaten Sanctions of Tribunal Defense Team

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
04 March 2009

The defense team for jailed Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary agreed to temporarily withdraw information from a Web site Wednesday, following orders from tribunal judges over concerns of confidentiality.

Ang Udom, Cambodian defense for Ieng Sary, said the team had decided to remove the content in order to retain good relations with the court.

“Most of what [the judges] raised is incorrect,” he said. “We posted only what was related to legal procedure, that which we expect the public should know, understand and hear and that [the judges] hide.”

In a statement posted on their Web site Wednesday, the defense lawyers strongly disagreed with a court order to remove information posted on the site and said they planned to issue a public response to the “flawed legal reasoning” of the Office of Co-Investigating Judges.

The “confidential” documents sited by the investigating judges are, “in fact, public,” the lawyers said.

Tuesday’s order called for the removal of three documents from the site, the lawyers said: the appeal against the tribunal’s refusal to appoint a psychiatrist to Ieng Sary and requests for information about two international staff members of the court.

In a letter to the defense, investigating judges Marcel Lemonde and You Bunleng ordered the removal of the documents within 48 hours, threatening legal consequences if the order was not followed.

Ieng Sary, 84, whose health is the poorest among five jailed leaders, faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role as foreign minister of and senior leader of the regime.

Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said his defense team had posted documents that were already banned by investigating judges.

US, Cambodia To Have Defense Attachés

By Taing Sarada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
04 March 2009

Cambodia and the US have agreed to establish military attachés in their respective embassies, officials say, in a move that further enhances cooperation between the two countries.

“A military attaché between Cambodia and the US is a very good sign, in order to have better cooperation and confidence in each other, Kouy Koung, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told VOA Khmer.

Mutual defense attachés have not existed between the two since the 1970s.

The agreement was made in January, to strengthen Cambodia’s military capacity to combat crime, such as drug trafficking and production, human trafficking and terrorism, Kouy Koung said.

Cambodian Defense Minister Gen. Tea Banh told VOA Khmer by phone that the reemergence of a defense attaché established a relationship “like countries around the world.”

The US has provided equipment and training to Cambodia since 2006, and will assist in the future with equipment, training and courses in English for the military, US Embassy spokesman John Johnson said.

The US gave 31 trucks to the Defense Ministry last year, along with $7 million in military aid.

An opposition lawmaker said the addition of defense attaché to the missions of each country would improve Cambodia’s currently “unprofessional” defense force.

Cambodia has also enjoyed improving military relationships with Vietnam and China.

Members of a Japan's demining group use a mine sniffing dog to search for landmine during a demonstration at the Moh E-Daeng clift, Cambodia. (AP Photo)

By VOA Khmer, Washington
Video Editor: Manilene Ek
03 March 2009

new litter of puppies, born in Cambodia, are being used as the first mine-clearing dogs in Southeast Asia. Cute as they are, these puppies are being prepared for a deadly serious purpose. They are being trained to sniff out the explosive commonly known as TNT (trinitrotoluene). Cambodia is littered with tons of unexploded munitions left over from decades of war. The Landmine Monitor report 2007 says that in Cambodia between 2006-2006 there were 61 fatalities, of which 12 were children, and further 389 casualties, of which 128 were children.

The puppies were bred from a pair of Belgian Shepherd dogs imported from Bosnia. They were chosen for breeding because of their eager-to-please temperaments and their good genetic history.

Uk Rotha: "The parents of these puppies are experienced mine-clearing dogs. Cambodian dogs are not looked after as well as foreign dogs- they normally run wild, so they are not good for breeding."

Traditionally landmines have been cleared here using metal detectors, but this method is slow. Heang Sambo, who has been clearing mines with dogs in Cambodia for ten years, says that dogs are more effective.

Heang Sambo: "The difference between a metal detector and a dog is that the dog only smells TNT, while the metal detector picks up the sound of anything metal, including rubbish. That's why a dog is a lot faster than a metal detector."

And according to Sambo, it's important that handlers and thier dogs maintain a good relationship.

Heang Sambo: "Good landmine-clearing dogs must listen closely to their handler. They must have a good relationship with their handler, because if they love him, they will do what they asked to do. Plus, they need a sensitive nose which comes from good breeding."

Ngoun Thy, the senior dog instructor at the CMAC says that its costly to import dogs into the country and encouraged local breeding programs.

Ngoun Thy: "Importing trained landmine-clearing dogs is very expensive. One dog costs over thirty thousand dollars, which is too expensive for a country like Cambodia. And because we have very experienced dog trainers, here it makes more sense to orgainise our own breeding programme."

Worldwide, land mine casualties have fallen in the past decade from about 26,000 a year to between 15,000 and 20,000, according to the United Nations in 2007. In 2005, more than 285 square miles were de-mined, the largest area cleared since modern de-mining began in the late 1980s, according to the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines.

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia and Yemen accounted for nearly half the area, while nearly 54 square miles were cleared in Afghanistan, the campaign reported. Guatemala and Suriname have reported clearing all their known anti-personnel mines. After overtaking Cambodia in 2005, Colombia leads the world in victims of land mines and buried explosives, with 1,109 killed or mutilated in 2006, government figures show.

Cambodia signed the International Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997, ratified the treaty on 28 July 1999 and the treaty entered into force on 1 January 2000.

Information for this report was provided by APTN.

Cambodia Arrests Suspected Pedophiles from US, France

By Daniel Schearf
Bangkok
04 March 2009

Cambodian police have arrested an American and a French national on suspicion of molesting children. One organization that helped police catch the suspects worries that, despite increasing arrests, foreign pedophiles are still making Cambodia one of their prime destinations.

Cambodian authorities say the 64-year-old Frenchman was arrested after taking two Cambodian girls, aged 10 and 13, into his guesthouse room.

He was charged with "indecent acts" and could face up to three years in prison.

Separately, an American man charged with purchasing sex from two underage boys in northern Cambodia could be jailed for up to 15 years.

Samleang Seila is the Cambodia director for Action for Children, a French organization helping police to identify suspected pedophiles.

"That American man was under surveillance by our organization for more than one year," said Seila. "We heard that that American was coming to Cambodia for almost two years and he was moving from place to place in Cambodia to engage in sexual relations with separate boys."

Seila says, since 2003, his organization has helped rescue 185 sexually abused children in Cambodia, 80 percent of them young boys.

He credits international cooperation with agencies like the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation for helping track down traveling sex offenders.

U.S. Embassy spokesman John Johnson confirmed to VOA the FBI did help with recent arrests.

"At the Cambodian government's request, the FBI is involved in a number of cases in the country, including the pedophile case, not just in the north but in several cities," said Johnson.

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia and has gained the unfortunate reputation of attracting child molesters looking to exploit children living in poverty.

Seila says he worries that, despite increasing cooperation and arrests, the number of pedophiles traveling to Cambodia may actually be on the rise.

"If you look at the number in 2008, there were about 15 arrests of foreign pedophiles in Cambodia. And, up to date this year, January to today, there are six pedophiles arrested in Cambodia already for abusing children," said Seila. "So, my anticipation is that there is still a concerning, increasing number of foreign sex offenders traveling to Cambodia to engage in sexual exploitation of children."

He says, in the past, Cambodian authorities lacked the resources, skills and political will to tackle the problem.

But he says, in the last few years, police have received better training, are taking child molesting seriously and hoping to improve Cambodia's image.

Cambodian genocide court accused of lack of transparency

The Earth Times
Wed, 04 Mar 2009

Author : DPA

Phnom Penh - Attorneys for a former Khmer Rouge leader on Wednesday accused judges at Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal of undermining the court's transparency by ordering the defence team to remove legal documents from the defence's website. Attorneys for former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary said in a statement that judges had acted with "flawed legal reasoning."

A court statement released a day earlier said defence lawyers Michael Karnavas and Ang Udom faced sanctions unless the documents were removed within 48 hours from the website on Ieng Sary's defence that the lawyers had set up.

The attorneys said the documents had to do with Ieng Sary's health and the admissibility of a psychiatric assessment of the defendant.

"The Ieng Sary defence will not shy away from making a small but important contribution to public and transparent judicial proceedings," Wednesday's statement said. "Nor will we give in to attempts, deliberate or inadvertent, to limit our right to speak out publicly to protect our client's interests."

The judges called the documents confidential, but the statement argued otherwise but added the documents had been removed from the website.

The website was accessible Wednesday evening, but the documents were not on it.

According to the site's mission statement, it was set up because of the judges' unwillingness to make public "defence filings which may be embarrassing or which call into question the legitimacy and judiciousness of acts and decisions of the judges."

Ieng Sary, 83, is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders facing trial for their roles in the deaths of up to 2 million people through execution, starvation or overwork during the ultra-Maoist group's 1975-1979 reign.

The former schoolteacher has been hospitalized seven times since being arrested in August 2007 and was declared medically unfit to attend a pre-trial hearing in Phnom Penh last week.

The hearing was adjourned until April 2.

The defence lawyers' statement also accused the judges of inopportune timing after they issued their order after Karnavas had left the country after the adjourned pre-trial hearing.

"By filing this submission at the precise time that Mr Karnavas was on a plane back to The Netherlands suggests that this timing was a tactical decision," the statement charged.

Hard work drives man from killing fields to success in U.S.

Post-Bulletin

By Sarah Shonyo
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

Phala Nhean has a history perhaps unlike most local business owners.

Nhean, a Cambodian native and former war refugee, is the current owner of Wong's Cafe in Rochester. Nhean purchased the Chinese restaurant in 2007 from Dennis and Mike Wong, though Nhean's experience with the company began nearly 25 years prior, after a long journey to the United States that nearly killed him.

Nhean was born the third of six children in Battambang, Cambodia, in the late 1950s. His family was in the food business and operated a small stand until Pol Pot's reign of terror swept over the small country.

Pol Pot was the leader of a ruthless communist group called the Khmer Rouge. Like most Cambodian families, the Nheans were separated from one another, and Phala -- then an 18-year-old student -- was sent to work on a rice farm.

After narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, Nhean made the bold decision to escape to Thailand -- on foot. After a month-long journey, Nhean arrived at a Thailand refugee camp, where he later met his wife, Bunna.

Nhean and Bunna started their life together by moving to the U.S. in 1981, shortly before the birth of their first daughter, Phally, in Washington, D.C.

"We had no money," Nhean said. "When Phally was born, the doctors and nurses gave us baby clothes for her."

After working as a hotel dishwasher for two years in Washington, Nhean and his family moved to Rochester at the suggestion of a family they'd met in Thailand. With another child on the way, Nhean devoted his days to learning English and worked evenings as a dishwasher at Wong's Cafe.

With a wife and two young daughters to support, Nhean became fluent in English, earned his U.S. citizenship and moved up to cook, then head cook at Wong's.

"I worked very, very hard," Nhean said. "I had to work hard to reach my goals."

One of those goals, Nhean said, was to purchase the very restaurant that had given him a chance 25 years prior.

After Dennis and Mike Wong decided to close the restaurant in 2005, Nhean searched for a new location for the business.

Though the transition between ownership wasn't seamless -- Wong's was closed for 18 months between owners -- the result embodies one man's tireless pursuit of a dream.

Nhean and his family re-opened Wong's Cafe in 2007 at its new location in Hillcrest Shopping Center. Though he has plenty of help, including his wife and youngest daughter, Lannie, Nhean spends nearly 90 hours a week in the restaurant.

"I'm really proud of him," Lannie said of her father. "His background makes it pretty hard for me to complain about much."

Danish Professor Warns About Fake Medicine From Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia

ScandAsia.com

By Charlotte Lund Dideriksen

Despite efforts from the authorities in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia the production and distribution of fake malaria medicine still a widespread problem in the region, according to Ib Christian Bygbjerg professor in Health Science from University of Copenhagen.

He estimates that around 15 percent of the world’s malaria medicines are unauthorized copies with no proven effect, but in some areas the amounts of ineffectual false medicine rank as high as 50 percent, which have catastrophically consequences in the Malaria-stroked areas. For that reason the professor advises Scandinavian tourist to buy their medicine in their home countries, even though it is more expensive.

“Medication in Denmark is expensive but 30-50 percent of unauthorized Southeast Asian malaria medicine, often bought over the internet, doesn’t work, by using it you put yourself in danger” he states.

In the last years the Southeast Asia has tried to fight the illegal production, but despite the efforts ineffective false malaria medicine is still a massive problem.

Created 2009-03-04

Property fall fails to stop evictions in Cambodia

Borei Sontapheap stands by his makeshift dwelling at a site near Phnom Penh, after being evicted from his home in the city centre. Jared Ferrie / The National

The National

Jared Ferrie, Foreign Correspondent
March 04. 2009

PHNOM PENH // A property boom in Cambodia’s capital has seen the houses of thousands of poor residents cleared to make way for upscale developments. Although the real estate bubble has burst, the evictions continue.

Advocacy groups say about 70,000 people are in danger of losing their homes since the government began selling off land and they accuse officials of violating a 2001 law that granted residents land ownership.

“The 2001 land law is good. The problem is lack of enforcement of the law and the complicity of the government,” said Naly Pilorge, who heads the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights.

Cambodia has seen massive population shifts over the past few decades, beginning in about 1970 when villagers fled to the capital to escape civil war. Then in 1975, the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh of its inhabitants and sent them to labour camps in the countryside. When the regime fell in 1979, displaced people converged on Phnom Penh and took up residence wherever they could.

In 2001, the government enacted a law that said those who had occupied the same plot of land for at least five years could own it.

Then came the property boom.

Cambodia remains South-east Asia’s poorest country after East Timor, but its economy has grown steadily since peace returned in the late 1990s. In the past five years, that growth has been “exceptional”, according to a February report by the International Monetary Fund, which measured GDP growth at 10 per cent in 2007.

Local and foreign developers, especially from South Korea and Vietnam, began to buy property. Land prices shot up as much as 100 per cent in 2007, according to the IMF. But they fell by one-quarter in the second half of 2008.

“One could predict that there would be demand for residential buildings, but there were dozens of suppliers and no co-ordination,” said Chan Sophall, the president of the Cambodia Economic Association. “The supply simply exceeded the demand.”

The global financial crisis has had an effect, too.

“A few major urban projects have been scaled back or cancelled outright as foreign investors [mainly from South Korea] reassess their commitments in the face of tighter funding conditions abroad,” the IMF said.

Despite the slowdown, the wave of evictions has not stopped.

One morning in January, Borei Sontapheap watched as bulldozers approached his community of Dey Krahorm. Military and riot police accompanied the heavy machinery, along with about 100 crowbar-carrying employees of the 7NG construction company. When the site was levelled, the company put about 80 families who had refused to leave on buses and dumped them off at a site 16km outside the city, according to the families and advocacy groups.

“I lost a house. I lost rice to feed the family and the money in the house,” said Mr Sontapheap, standing beside the makeshift shelter that is his family’s new home.

“If we knew in advance at least we could sell the wood from the house,” said Rani, another victim of eviction. “At least we would get a few hundred dollars back.”

Ms Rani has also lost her livelihood. She used to sell fruit in the market in Phnom Penh, but now she cannot afford the transportation back to the city. Nor can she afford to send her children to school.

The company has offered each family who owned a house in Dey Krahorm one of the apartments it is building at the new site. But residents say those flats, worth about US$5,000 (Dh18,400) each, are nowhere near the value of the homes they lost.

One square metre of land in central Phnom Penh is worth about $5,000 and the two-hectare Dey Krahorm site is valued at $44 million, according to Ms Pilorge, of the Cambodian human rights group, and other observers.

The company initially offered homeowners $20,000 in compensation, but many residents were convinced they had a legal right to keep the land and refused the offer. Now that it is clear that neither the government nor the courts will back their claims, they say they will accept the offer. But 7NG says it is too late.

“If the company gives them the money it will make the people who took the apartments unhappy,” said Chang Bunna, a company spokesman.

The deputy governor of Phnom Penh municipality, Mann Choeun, who is responsible for housing issues, did not respond to requests for comment. But he told a local newspaper that Dey Krahorm residents were squatting on public land.

International organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, condemned the eviction, as did the United Nations’ special rapporteur on adequate housing, Raquel Rolnik.

“Unfortunately this is by no means an isolated case and the increase in forced evictions throughout Cambodia is very alarming,” she said in a Jan 30 statement.

The controversy surrounding Dey Krahorm may prove to be minor compared to what the government has planned for Boeung Kak, a lake in central Phnom Penh. The government has signed a contract with a private company to fill in 90 per cent of the lake and create residential and commercial real estate. The development would displace as many as 30,000 people. Critics say the plan is illegal because it violates the land law and predict it will be an ecological disaster.

Already flooding has worsened since filling began and some homes are reported to have begun to sink as water seeps into what was once solid earth. In the meantime, many of the luxury apartments built at the height of the property boom stand empty, and work has ground to a halt on other developments.

“Why the urgency to evict people?” Ms Pilorge asked.

Changing Social and Cultural Norms in Cambodia Put Youth at Risk

Source: Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) International

Nadia McGill

Website: http://www.adra.org/

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.

SILVER SPRING, Md.-Cambodian youth are facing increased danger to their wellbeing as a result of the rapidly changing social norms that have created a marked rise in risky sexual behavior, sexual abuse, prostitution, and sex trafficking, says the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).

To address this growing crisis, ADRA recently launched "Turn Up the Volume: Youth Advocacy for Reproductive Health" (TUV), a project that is being implemented in 12 communes in central and northern Cambodia in partnership with Management Sciences for Health (MSH), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Cambodian Government.

"Our goal is to advocate for youth services that are sustainable and environmentally friendly which are supported by health center staff and the community," said Ann Stickle, associate director for ADRA Cambodia.

Launched in January 2009, this two-year project is designed to empower Cambodian youth to fight exploitation and reduce their risk to these issues by building their leadership and advocacy skills and improving the quality and availability of reproductive health services in the community.

The Leadership Development Program provides training in youth advocacy, focusing on skills that boost self-confidence. Also offered are activities that identify and reduce threats to their own reproductive health.

"Through these activities, youth will receive the tools and social support they need to overcome the challenges they face on a daily basis," said Stickle.

By the end of the project in 2011, more than 54,000 people will benefit from this program, including 208 young people from the districts of Chomkar Leu and Steung Trong, and 52 government officials from the Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA), and Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport (MOEYS).

ADRA's partnership with the Cambodian Ministry of Health will strengthen the promotion and utilization of youth-friendly reproductive health services through the various levels of government, ensuring that feedback gained from TUV's Youth Advocates is successfully integrated into the activities established by local Health Centers.

TUV has received funding totaling more than $358,000 from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), MSH, and ADRA International.

ADRA is a non-governmental organization present in 125 countries providing sustainable community development and disaster relief without regard to political or religious association, age, gender, race, or ethnicity.

For more information about ADRA, visit www.adra.org.

Author: Nadia McGill

Micro-lenders run reality check

Asia Times Online
Mar 5, 2009

By Stephen Kurczy

PHNOM PENH - Cambodia's microfinance sector is one of the fastest growing in the world. There's just one snag: nobody knows if it actually helps the poor who receive the loans and whether its lending practices are sustainable.

While the percentage of Cambodians living below the poverty line dropped from 47% to 35% between 1996 and 2006, without an independent assessment of the causes behind rising incomes, microfinance outfits charged with alleviating poverty can't necessarily take the credit.

"We can't say for sure why people are better off [in Cambodia]," says Paul Luchtenberg, chief executive officer of Angkor Mikroheranhvatho Kampuchea (AMK), a microfinance institution

which over the past two years has tripled its number of borrowers to 188,000 and quadrupled its amount of outstanding loans to US$23 million.

"Is it because of microfinance or it is because GDP was increasing at more than 9% a year? We don't know. We can only say people are better off. We can't say it's because of us."

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have recently proliferated in impoverished Cambodia, with 104 organizations, including 60 non-profit lenders, operating in the country. Since 2003, they have attracted about 100,000 new borrowers each year and currently an estimated 1 million Cambodians hold $440 million in outstanding micro loans, according to the Cambodia Microfinance Association (CMA).

Yet none of Cambodia's MFIs have hard empirical data to show that their small loans actually help reduce poverty. It's important to know, Luchtenberg says, as microfinance grows in popularity and loan providers channel millions of dollars in interest-free loans into Cambodia's MFIs.

Floated by below-market interest rate loans from organizations such as Kiva.org, MFIs have the resources to provide small loans to sections of the poor that normal banks neglect. MFI customers often use the credits to buy motorbikes to transport their goods to market, purchase livestock to raise for slaughter, or mortgage a plot of land to grow rice. Repayment rates are extremely high in Cambodia, with delinquency rates of less than 1%.

Amid the mounting global economic crisis, some MFIs have reported rising default rates. That's putting the system under new strains. For instance, villagers from Kampot province in southern Cambodia complained this week to the National Assembly that a dozen microfinance companies took possession of their homes and farmland because they could not repay their loans.

Mu Sochua, the National Assembly parliamentarian representing the villagers, said they were taking out new loans to pay off old MFI debts, leading them to borrow from exploitative moneylenders. Defaults on microfinance loans will become more widespread, she says, as the global economy causes a decline in crop values and Cambodian farmers earn less from their harvests. "The economic crisis impacts differently, it's like a wave. Here, the wave is hitting the small entrepreneurs."

In Cambodia, non-profit and for-profit MFI's compete for the same market. AMK and Acleda Bank, two of the country's more prominent MFIs, exhibit the sector's shifting dynamics. Out of 652 MFIs surveyed worldwide, in 2008 the Washington-based Microfinance Information Xchange ranked AMK the 19th best in terms of transparency, efficiency and outreach, ahead of Acleda which came in at 70th.

Their philosophies differ starkly. Acleda Bank says it merely provides access to loans to Cambodians, whose responsibility it is to use the funds wisely. AMK says it strives to improve standards of living for the poor, the original mission of Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who in the 1970s first popularized microcredit in Bangladesh through his Grameen Bank.

However, the industry he popularized has shifted incentives. Most MFIs in the world today are for-profit entities with no obligation to uphold Yunus's vision. The Center for the Study of Financial Innovation found in a March 2008 report that MFIs worldwide rank "mission drift", or the divergence of MFIs from their original mission of poverty alleviation and financial inclusion, as one of the industry's biggest and fastest rising problems.

"We noticed this a decade ago, when it seemed that half the microfinanciers in the world really wanted to be full-service bankers," the study found. "Now many of them seem to be shifting from servicing the poor to flogging high interest rate consumer finance products. The profits may be more attractive, but the mission has changed - with a potentially adverse reputational impact."

MFIs "are increasingly recognizing that even with a sincere dedication to a social mission and a committed staff, they do not know whether they are achieving their desired social goals without having information or evidence," wrote Laura Foose and Amelia Greenberg in the Autumn 2008 MicroBanking Bulletin.

Mixed results
That's certainly the case in Cambodia, where experts say the industry has achieved mixed results. For-profit MFIs charge annual interest rates of anywhere between 24% and 36%, while the nation's non-profit microlenders, such as the Lutheran World Federation, charge as little as 5%. Poor Cambodians are often willing to pay the higher interest rates because non-profit microlenders have limited funds and outreach.

A year ago, most industry leaders boasted that their lending helped to reduce poverty and fuel grassroots micro-businesses. Those claims are now coming into question. "We need to know how we can change, how we can improve," Bun Mony, former Cambodian Microfinance Association president, said last month at the Cambodia Banking 2009 conference in Phnom Penh.

This assessment marked a reversal from his statements the previous year, when he told this correspondent that, "through unofficial observation, we accept that microfinance has been playing a very important role in poverty reduction." The CMA is now seeking funds to conduct a $100,000 impact study on the industry.

Some micro lenders baldly argue that it is not their responsibility to alleviate poverty. When asked if his bank has strayed from Muhammad Yunus's original vision of microfinance, In Channy, chief executive officer and president of Acleda Bank, says: "He's wrong ... It's wrong if you say microfinance is for poverty alleviation. Microfinance is for economic development. And economic development is a powerful tool for poverty alleviation."

Acleda Bank attracted 40,000 new micro- and small-loan borrowers in 2008 while doubling its profits to about $21 million. The bank has opened three international branches in neighboring underdeveloped Laos, with five more planned to open there in 2009. Acleda started as a non-profit non-governmental organization (NGO), but morphed into a full-fledged commercial bank in 2000 and now provides medium-sized and large loans to a wide range of customers.

To complete the non-profit to for-profit circle, Acleda plans an initial public offering on Cambodia's forthcoming stock exchange, scheduled to open at the end of this year. In Channy says Acleda will avoid activist criticism through a plan to pay out only 40% of the previous year's profits to shareholders. The remaining 60%, he says, will go back into the company to reduce interest rates, increase customer services and open more branches. "It's not mission drift. We can guarantee much more than if we were an NGO," he said.

AMK reports small profits - about $800,000 in 2007 and $926,000 in 2008 - all of which were reinvested into the company. "We shouldn't be about just making profits; that's straying from what the organization was set up to do," says AMK's Luchtenberg. "Microfinance is about reaching down to the poorest."

Such obligations are a matter of choice in Cambodia's unregulated context. The government does not mandate that MFIs help the poor, but regulates only whether the country's 18 licensed MFIs have adequate capital reserves. The 26 registered and 60 NGO-administered MFIs - which do not have minimum capital requirements and are exempt from profit taxes - are even less regulated. That differs from, say, neighboring Thailand, where the central bank has imposed interest rate caps on credit cards targeting subprime borrowers.

Charles Waterfield, a microfinance expert and professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, says that unregulated MFIs, including the ones in Cambodia, could act as exploitative as Mexican microfinance institution Banco Compartamos SA, which came under fire in March 2008 for skimming hundreds of millions of dollars in profits made from poor borrowers.

The Compartamos case, Waterfield says, is a cautionary tale for how easily MFIs can "raise interest rates, make large profits, and then follow a path that allows them to extract those profits into their own pockets". "I do see this as a warning call for the industry," Waterfield wrote to this correspondent in an e-mail message last year. Waterfield has organized a coalition of MFIs known as MicroFinance Transparency to police the industry and monitor annual interest rates and profits among the world's MFIs.

Grameen Bank, the original Bangladeshi MFI whose poverty-alleviating work was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, was one of 11 MFIs serving about 26 million people worldwide that initially signed onto the watchdog initiative. Alarmed by the direction of the industry, Yunus said at the initiative's launch last July: "I made this thing and they came in and abused it. What a way to discredit a whole idea!"

Costs and benefits
AMK has joined the MicroFinance Transparency initiative and has allocated some $42,000 to study whether its loans actually achieve Yunus' poverty-alleviating aims. The study, which started early last year and brought in leading academics in the field, is Page 2 of 2
Micro-lenders run reality check
By Stephen Kurczy

Grameen Bank, the original Bangladeshi MFI whose poverty-alleviating work was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, was one of 11 MFIs serving about 26 million people worldwide that initially signed onto the watchdog initiative. Alarmed by the direction of the industry, Yunus said at the initiative's launch last July: "I made this thing and they came in and abused it. What a way to discredit a whole idea!"

Costs and benefits
AMK has joined the MicroFinance Transparency initiative and has allocated some $42,000 to study whether its loans actually achieve Yunus' poverty-alleviating aims. The study, which started early last year and brought in leading academics in the field, is

tracking 1,400 existing clients over a two-year period while monitoring changes in income, assets and livelihood. "I've seen a lot of really sloppy studies," says AMK's Luchtenberg. "We don't want to be presumptive and assume that we are helping. A loan is a two-edged sword - it's a tool, but it's also a debt."

When his bank's study is completed in mid-year, it will be the first time a Cambodian MFI can point to concrete evidence that its micro-credit definitely aids the poor - if that is what the study shows. The study could also reveal that AMK, and perhaps the industry as a whole, has largely failed Cambodia's poor by saddling them with unsustainable debt. "I think we do have an obligation to know if we are fulfilling our mission," says Luchtenberg. "If we're not, then I think I've got to get out of this business."

Syed Hashami, a microfinance specialist with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, a consortium of 33 public and private development agencies including the World Bank and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, argues that a more independent randomized control experiment would be unethical since it would involve trials that deliberately withhold services to people who have are in need. Studies of MFI borrowers in other countries already show that micro loans help alleviate poverty, Hashami says.

For instance a study in Ghana found that MFI clients' incomes were $36 compared to $18 for non-clients. In Indonesia, another comparative study found borrowers increased their incomes by 12.9% compared with 3% for the control group. A detailed impact assessment in Bangladesh found that members who stayed in the micro-credit program for more than four years increased household expenses by 28% and assets by 112%.

A number of the industry's proponents in Cambodia argue that anecdotal evidence shows that micro-loans have indeed helped Cambodia's poor. "Although we have not conducted comparative or impact studies in Cambodia ourselves, we have good evidence to believe that Cambodia's commercial microfinance industry is effective and well managed," says Margarete Biallas, a manager at the Mekong Private Sector Development Facility of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which helped to establish the Cambodian Microfinance Association in 2004 and owns a 12.5% stake in Acleda.

Adds Martin Holtman, head of the World Bank-affiliated IFC's department of Microfinance Global Financial Markets, says there is ample evidence of a positive link between access to money, growth, and reduction of poverty. "Microfinance has proven to be one of the more salient success stories in the development area," he says.

Before the advent of the MFI, capital-hungry Cambodians were limited to loans from moneylenders who charged annual interest rates often higher than 100%. Those usurious terms sent the average borrower over their heads in debt. Experts in Cambodia say the rapid expansion of microfinance has put most, though not all, of the old moneylenders out of business. Biallas cited Cambodian MFIs' high number of borrowers, low default rates and decline in average monthly interest rates from 5% in 1998 to 2.5% today as proof the industry has uplifted Cambodia's masses.

With Grameen Bank founder Yunus winning the 2006 Nobel Prize and Hollywood star Natalie Portman touting microloans as a surefire road out of poverty, it sometimes seemed as if a microfinance bank could be plopped in any village in the world and locals would suddenly become wealthy businessmen.

"It was a mistake everyone made [in the 1990s] to think that Grameen could be replicated, which never really worked," Luchtenberg says. Varying population densities, economies and cultures impact the most effective forms of microfinance. For instance, while Bangladeshi villagers perform well in solidarity groups, Cambodians dislike working in large groups and the Grameen model inevitably fell short here.

"It would be imprudent to issue a blanket statement that 'microfinance works', for the simple reason that there is no one microfinance to test," wrote Nathanael Goldberg in "Measuring the Impact of Microfinance", a 2005 study commissioned by Grameen. Different people respond differently to microfinance, Goldberg found, while different banks do microfinance differently. Microfinance has in certain circumstances been known to have negative impacts.

"The recent examples of subprime borrowers in the US show that people are often driven to take on more debt than they can handle in the long run. This, together with ambitious growth targets from MFIs' Board of Directors transmitted to loan officers, could be a recipe for a 'bubble'," wrote investment analyst Catalina Robledo in the most recent MicroBanking Bulletin.

David Mueller, Cambodia representative for the Lutheran World Federation, one of the country's 60 NGOs that provide microfinance, is an open critic of the claims boasted by commercial MFIs. Whereas MFIs give small loans and maybe send out a monitor to collect the interest, development agencies such as LWF provide training and support from a full-time LWF community worker at each of the bank's 200-odd sites.

"We don't believe that access to credit is the biggest contributing factor to reducing poverty. If they only have credit, but they don't have technical support, how will they do it?" Mueller said LWF village banks are more sustainable because a part of every loan comes directly from another villager's pocket.

Villagers then self-police among themselves, denying loans if they so choose to the town drunk or other deemed high-risk borrowers. Annual interest rates for LWF village banks are less than 5%, owing to the absence of overhead and labor costs. Mueller attacks the very premise that Cambodia's MFIs, some of whose average loan size is more than $1,000, are even servicing the poor. "We're filling a gap. If somebody else was servicing the absolute poor, we wouldn't even be there."

Stephen Kurczy is an Asia Times Online contributor based in Cambodia. He may be reached at kurczy@gmail.com.

Ex-chief of Cambodian military forces to become deputy PM

www.chinaview.cn

2009-03-04

PHNOM PENH, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The government has appointed former commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) Ke Kim Yan as deputy prime minister, said English-language newspaper the Cambodia Daily on Wednesday.

"The government will send the request to the National Assembly. When the National Assembly approves it, you will know," Tea Banh, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense, told the paper.

If approved, Ke Kim Yan will become the government's 10th deputy prime minister.

The general has been without a position since being removed as RCAF chief by a Royal Decree on Jan. 22.

Editor: Xiong Tong

U.S. provided $5.6 mln of aid to Cambodia in 2008

www.chinaview.cn

2009-03-04

PHNOM PENH, March 4 (Xinhua) -- U.S. altogether provided 5.6 million U.S. dollars of aid to Cambodia in 2008, Chinese-language newspaper the Jian Hua Daily on Wednesday quoted a senior official as saying.

The amount of U.S. aid for Cambodia in 2009 has been decided yet, but it is expected to be no less than that in 2008, said visiting U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Scott Marciel here on Tuesday, after meeting officials of the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

The U.S. aid will focus on the fields of economy, trade and health, he said.

U.S. attaches much importance to its cooperative ties with ASEAN and will keeping on giving aid to Cambodia, despite the current global financial crisis.

While trying to cope well with its own issues, U.S. will also help other countries in the world, including Cambodia, he added.

Editor: Xiong Tong

Construction Bidders: US$17 Million to Construct Health Buildings Is Stalled because of Foreign Advisors - Tuesday 3.2.2009

Posted on 3 March 2009

The Mirror, Vol. 13, No. 602

“Phnom Penh: A US$17 million loan from the World Bank to build referral hospitals at provinces as well as many health centers and posts has been stalled for two years, because of a lack of management competency of foreign advisors from LBG [unclear what LBG stands for in the original - maybe the quantity surveyor company LBG-NGT Corporation from Tuas/Singapore – but maybe not]. This was stated by construction bidders who attended biddings to implement this project.

“Construction bidders criticized that for two years, there has been no construction, but there were one or two biddings. Because of this slowness, the construction of up to 10 referral hospitals and many health centers and posts in most provinces, worth more than US$10 million, has been stalled until now.

“The same source added that though recruitment for the construction project was transferred to IPA [unclear what IPA stands for in the original – maybe the recruitment company Independence Procurement Agency – but maybe not] by the Ministry of Economy and Finance recently, this project still faces the possibility of failure. It is said that the trouble originates from the LBG advisors .

“The source blamed that the technical advisors of LBG are incompetent to do the managing, and furthermore, in the plans, there are no calculations based on standard formulas and on proper construction standards. This is a major obstacle for the construction bidders, and even though many companies had protested against the mistakes of the LBG technical advisors, there was no action taken by the Healthcare Services Specification Project of the Ministry of Health.

“According to the bidders, the project was put for bidding again for a second time at the end of 2008, but still there were not many bidders attending. There will be a third bidding, and this may be continue forever.

“Bidders know well that even if one or two more biddings are held, there still will be no bidders.

“Moreover, the rushed delivering of contracts for two projects, the Kampot and the Stung Treng referral hospitals, worth more than US$2 million, in mid February 2009 by IPA, leads to a loss of tens of thousands of dollars, because the price of the bidding for this project was 60% to 80% higher compared to the formerly calculated price.

“The source went on to say that the construction processes at most places have been stalled for years, which makes the expenses for technical advisors to increase by more than 20%, which is most highly problematic. Bidders criticized this and also requested that leaders of the Ministry of Health should check the contracts between the ministry and LBG advisors urgently. At the same time, they have to recheck the management system at the secretariat supporting the heath sector.

“Bidders still remember Samdech Dekchor Hun Sen’s former words, saying that substantial expenses for foreign advisor services were right. Bidders emphasize that this is not acceptable. Everyone knows that better health services in rural areas are desperately needed by citizens almost everywhere, and also in this priority sector of the Royal Government, which is to be strengthened. Thus, the above source calls on the Ministry of Health to thoroughly check and take action against any negative points, or any individual who wastes a lot of national resources, because all money to support the health sector comes from all Cambodian citizens who will have to repay the loan to the World Bank in the future.

“Regarding what is mentioned above, Rasmei Kampuchea tried to contact the secretariat of the Ministry of Health, and LBG, for explanations, but could not reach them.”

Rasmei Kampuchea, Vol.17, #4835, 3.3.2009
Newspapers Appearing on the Newsstand:
Tuesday, 3 March 2009

Leaks at the Khmer Rouge Court: co-Investigating judges call to order

Ka-set

By Stéphanie Gée
04-03-2009

Co-investigating judges at the Khmer Rouge court have issued on Tuesday March 3rd an Order on Breach of Confidentiality of the Judicial Investigation following the publication by a Defence team of official documents on their website. The accused are the Defence lawyers for top Khmer Rouge diplomat Ieng Sary: Michael Karnavas, registered with the American Alaska State Bar, and his Cambodian colleague Ang Udom, who did not respect a decision of the judges and violated the court’s Internal Rules “by failing to act in accordance with the standards and ethics of the legal profession”. This judicial decision occurs after other leaks were revealed concerning confidential requests made by the co-lawyers for Nuon Chea.

Investigation “not to be conducted in public”
In a press release, the co-Investigating judges explain they ordered that the Defence Lawyers immediately cease to publish any document relating to the judicial investigation, other than those already published on the [ECCC web site http://www.eccc.gov.kh/ Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (KR/EN/FR)], and remove any such documents from the Defence web site within 48 hours, or face sanctions for a new offence. At the same time the co-Investigating judges transmitted a copy of the order to the relevant professional associations and the ECCC Defence Support Section (DSS) for their consideration of appropriate action.

Magistrates remind that the decision was taken in accordance with Rule 56(1) of the Internal Rules of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), which stipulates that“[i]n order to preserve the rights and interests of the parties, judicial investigations shall not be conducted in public. All persons participating in the judicial investigations shall maintain confidentiality”. The Internal Rules, they add, further stipulate that only the co-Investigating judges may “decide whether to disseminate information relating to a case under investigation or to authorise limited access to investigative acts to the media or third parties”.

Factual history
In their Order , judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde report that on December 3rd 2008, they reminded Defence teams of their obligations regarding confidentiality, after the publication of a newspaper article stating confidential information about the Nuon Chea case. Some ten days later, Ieng Sary’s lawyers mentioned to the co-Investigating judges their intention to “establish a website to provide access to all public (sic) filings submitted by the Ieng Sary Defence team”.

They continue, without mincing their words: “The current practice by the Judicial Chambers and co-Investigating judges at the ECCC, of suppressing Defence filings which may be embarrassing or which call into question the legitimacy and judiciousness of acts and decisions of the judges, all under the fig leaf that these are necessary measures to protect the supposed confidentiality and integrity of the investigation or judicial decision-making process, must be discontinued without exception. Submissions which are solely the work of the Defence team and which do not relate to the substance of the ongoing judicial investigation but relate solely to legal issues, must be debated under the watchful eye of the public.” otherwise, they concluded, this would deprive their client “of a fair and public trial” and Cambodia of “a demonstration of how complex trials for the most serious crimes can be conducted openly and transparently”.

The co-Investigating judges then notified Defence teams again that the confidentiality of the case file concerned all filings, including those drafted by the parties. But despite this rejection by the co-Investigating judges, the Defence team continued asserting that they were free to distribute case file material “at will”, thus justifying what they see as their right, with practices at the International Criminal Tribunals for Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, when websites were used by the Defence Counsel to publicise their own filings. The co-Investigating judges detailed that on January 26th, the Defence proceeded to “post nine documents on their website, the publication of which had at no time been authorised by the judges”, consisting, among other documents, of a psychiatric examination of Ieng Sary. In their Order, the magistrates gave a pounding to the arguments of the Defence and stressed that the latter may not raise a lack of knowledge of the civil law system applicable before the ECCC, nor state its disagreement with the principle of confidentiality of the judicial investigation, in order to contest the force of perfectly clear provisions of the Internal Rules [...] or to be relieved of their professional obligations”. All the more so, they say, as the Defence could have requested that the co-Investigating judges publish a document, but they did not do so.

A promise to communicate more about activities
In their press release, the co-Investigating judges explain the “confidential” nature of the preparatory investigation stage, indispensable to the quality of the judicial process, particularly to guarantee the protection of privacy of those persons mentioned in the case file and the presumption of innocence, as well as to promote efficiency in investigations”. Noting that, in the Duch case, the investigation took less than a year - which, in view of the complexity of the case, cannot be seen as an excessive period” - they claim to be aware that confidential judicial investigations do not allow observers outside the tribunal “to be completely informed of the progress of the proceedings” and assure they will make every effort “to communicate more systematically about their activities in future, and will publish an increased number of documents with regard to the judicial investigation”.

A crackdown to stop leaks?

By way of this Order, it seems that the Investigating judges want to issue a public warning to those guilty of leaking information. At the beginning of the week, the two English-language daily newspapers, the Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post revealed confidential material from the court, which was leaked to them via an unsigned e-mail... A way of doing that has rarely, if not never, been observed in other international criminal courts.

Those filings, both newspapers say, concern requests sent to the tribunal by the Defence team for Nuon Chea, alias “Brother Number Two”, that prime Minister Hun Sen, Senate president Chea Sim, National Assembly president Heng Samrin and the King Father Norodom Sihanouk be heard before the court, in order to help investigators document the structure of the Khmer Rouge hierarchy. The disclosure, some say, comes in a timely way to distract attention from other issues, as the court is struggling with allegations of corruption among the Cambodian staff at the ECCC, which led the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) to freeze the payment of funds to the Cambodian side of the tribunal in the middle of last year.

The corruption accusations are allegedly said to have been confirmed by Knut Rosandhaug, Coordinator of the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge trials (UNAKRT) and deputy director of the ECCC Office of Administration, who was appointed to this position on June 1st 2008. The Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid Committee of the German Parliament’s also said that it agreed with the serious concern shown by the UN representative, in a report posted on its Internet website in November 2008 and quoting him quite a lot. That document was presented as a report of the meeting, a month earlier, between the German parliamentary delegation and Knut Rosandhaug. After the disclosure of the existence of the publicly accessible online report, by the Cambodian Daily in its edition dated February 26th, the Bundestag withdrew it from the website without a word… This blunder, what ever the veracity of the words – which, according to the report, Knut Rosandhaug allegedly pronounced – may be, put the latter in a much uncomfortable situation.

What sanctions do lawyers risk?

Rule 38 of the ECCC Internal Rules, regarding the “misconduct of a lawyer”, specifies that “the co-Investigating judges or the Chambers may, after a warning, impose sanctions against or refuse audience to a lawyer if, in their opinion, his or her conduct is considered offensive or abusive, obstructs the proceedings, amounts to abuse of process, or is otherwise contrary to Article 21(3) of the Agreement” and also that : the co-Investigating judges or the Chambers may also refer such misconduct to the appropriate professional body”, i.e. the Bars to which lawyers are registered, as well as the ECCC Defence Support Section (DSS).

EC review raises KRT graft

Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN
Members of the European Commission confer during a press conference on Tuesday evening.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Vong Sokheng and Georgia Wilkins
Wednesday, 04 March 2009

The delegation also raised the issue of food security during annual review of bilateral cooperation.

DELEGATES from the European Commission met with Minister of Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong on Tuesday for an annual review of bilateral cooperation between the two bodies.

James Moran, director for Asia in the EC's Directorate-General for External Relations, told reporters at a press conference after the meeting that the EC would continue to support the Khmer Rouge tribunal so long as allegations are "sorted out".

"It's no secret ... everybody knows about these allegations.... We want to continue [funding], but we have to be accountable to our own taxpayers," he said.

"There needs to be a resolution as soon as possible [to the issue of corruption], and this must be sorted out," he added.

The delegation also discussed a new US$17 million "food facility" program, which will provide support to Cambodia to "strengthen food security and the livelihoods of the most vulnerable", a press release stated.

It congratulated Cambodia on securing "peace and political stability" and achieving significant economic growth.

"We will work with Cambodia to continue the progress in all aspects of the country's development through constructive dialogue and partnership," it added.

Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, said that human rights issues should be a higher priority for the body's ongoing work in the Kingdom.

"I think that the European Union must engage more with the government to have a frank dialogue rather than discussing topics with language that ignores the ongoing abuse of human rights in Cambodia," he said.

"I wish that the influence of the EU and other countries could help resolve the issue of human rights abuse by having a truthful dialogue with the government," he added.