Cambodian political parties gear up for July election

Cambodia's political parties are continuing to campaign this weekend, ahead of next month's general election.

It is hoped the nation's fourth democratic election will be free of violence, but already, the ruling Cambodian People's Party has been accused of intimidation by the Opposition.

Sen Lam reports from Phnom Penh that campaigning Cambodian-style is a colourful affair.

In the capital, small lorries cruise the city streets in convoys, with loud music and political slogans, as party members pile into the back of the trucks.

Human rights groups and election observers have voiced concern in recent weeks over perceived intimidation, in particular, the arrest and release of a newspaper editor, and the closure of a provincial radio station.

The station had sold air time to opposition parties without government permission.

For the moment, the campaigning climate is better than in previous elections, although threats against activists at grassroots level, are reported to continue.

Produced by Radio Australia and Australia Network

Three foreigners arrested in Cambodia on drug charges

The Sunday Times
June 29, 2008 Sunday

PHNOM PENH - THREE foreigners - a Briton, a Pakistani and a Taiwanese-American - have been arrested in Cambodia for trying to smuggle 750 grammes of drugs out of the country, police said on Sunday.

Steven Bushel, Sha Hihan and Victor Chhan were arrested at midnight Friday in a hotel room where they were discovered with 450 grammes of crystal amphetamines known as 'ice' and 300 grammes of a white powder used to produce the drug, anti-drug police investigator Chea Leng told reporters.

'We have monitored them for almost three months and we knew that they were trying to smuggle the drug out of Cambodia,' he said.

Police were still trying to learn where the suspects were smuggling the drugs, he said.

The three men were being held at the Interior Ministry's anti-drug unit to await trial, he added.

Ice can be produced in rudimentary laboratories from a range of chemicals and resembles clear, chunky crystals that can be smoked, snorted or injected.

Although drug arrests have risen, Cambodia is becoming an increasingly popular trafficking point for methamphetamines and heroin, particularly since neighbouring Thailand toughened its stance on illegal drugs in 2002.

-- AFP

Chinese-funded hydro-dams bring hope and fear to Cambodia

Cambodian children eat rice by candle-light during an electricity outage in Phnom Penh

A worker, in Cambodia's neighbouring state of Laos, overlooks a hydro-power dam under construction

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Hydropower is held up as the beacon of hope for millions of electricity-starved Cambodians, with ten planned hydro-dams set to power up their homes for the first time.

But flicking the switch comes at a price as critics say the controversial deals made with mostly Chinese companies to build the dams will create further hardship for Cambodia's poor and ruin the environment.

For window-maker Dorn Seanghor, however, the prospect of working without being plunged into darkness is appealing. In the midst of Cambodia's building boom his business should be thriving, but he is constantly frustrated.

"There's usually a blackout for six to eight hours almost every day -- one time in the morning and again in the evening," he said at his shop in the capital, Phnom Penh.

"It disturbs my business. I use a generator when the power is cut, but the price of gasoline is very high now."

Still, Dorn Seanghor is one of the luckier ones. Four-fifths of Cambodians do not have access to any electricity.

Ten dams are set to begin churning between 2010 and 2019, and once they are all operational the government says they will generate 2,045 megawatts of power, serving all Cambodia's provinces.

Government officials say six of the dams will be funded by Chinese companies, but the US-based International Rivers Network warned in a January report that these Chinese investments could threaten some of Cambodia's most precious eco-systems.

"Poorly conceived hydropower development could irreparably damage (natural) resources," the report warned.

Groups have been particularly concerned about the looming affects of Kamchay Dam, under construction by Sinohydro Corporation in Bokor National Park and expected to flood 2,000 hectares (4,942 acres) of protected forest.

And now environmental groups say two more projects agreed in mid-June at a cost of more than one billion dollars -- Stung Tatay by China National Heavy Machinery Corporation and Russey Chrum Krom by Michelle Corporation -- have not been properly scrutinised.

Both will be located in the country's southwestern Cardamom Protected Forest, and about 1,600 hectares (3,953 acres) of woodland would have to be flooded or cleared to make way for the dams, the government has said.

This could destroy key animal habitats and upset the delicate eco-system.

"Cardamom is the last hot spot of conservation in Indochina," said Sam Chanthy, an environmental officer with advocacy group Forum on Cambodia.

Qian Hai, third secretary of the Chinese embassy in Phnom Penh, denied his country's companies would damage the environment.

"We just help Cambodia. All these projects are approved by the parliament and the government," he said.

Ith Praing, Cambodia's energy secretary, insisted the government conducted careful environmental studies for all the dams.

"Outsiders always raise environmental issues, but we need electricity. We must develop our country. We must use our resources rather than buying oil," he said.

Cambodia has begun to climb back from decades of civil unrest to emerge as one of the region's fastest-growing economies.

Economic growth has averaged 11 percent over the past three years, although 30 percent of the 14 million people still earn less than a dollar per day.

The government fears rocketing energy prices will scare away foreign direct investment.

"Every sector needs electric power. When we have electricity at a reasonable price, development will come along," said Ith Praing, adding the government forecasts that by 2030, 70 percent of Cambodian families will have electricity.

Opposition member of parliament Son Chhay, however, said the debate is not simply a case of economic development versus the environment.

Poor people could be forced from their land to make way for the mega-projects, crops could be destroyed, while the environment the rural poor depend upon may be wiped out, he told AFP.

"The government just closes its eyes and lets Chinese companies do things that will cause a lot of problems in the future," Son Chhay said.

"It will not resolve poverty in Cambodia. Cambodia will lose a lot without taking into consideration the environmental consequences."

Cambodia stays cool

The Bangkok Post

By Prasit Saengrungruang in Aranyaprathet

Despite concerns about a political backlash similar to the ransacking of the Thai Embassy in 2003, the Cambodian public and media are reacting calmly to the raging Thailand controversy over Preah Vihear temple.

Read more on the Preah Vihear issue in Sunday Perspective - Click here)

"Cambodia has the right to seek a World Heritage status for Preah Vihear temple, and Thai people also have the right to protest against it," said Mr Sou Chamroeun, deputy director of Bayon television station in Phnom Penh .

"The Cambodian government and its people understand the issues raised by Thai politicians and they believe bilateral relations will not be harmed," Mr Sou said in a telephone interview with Perspective last Thursday.

The interview was conducted at the same time as the no-confidence debate in the Thai parliament, where the opposition Democrat party accused Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama of acting beyond his authority by signing a joint communique with Cambodia to have the ancient temple listed as a World Heritage site.

"The World Court has ruled that the temple belongs to Cambodia and everyone must respect its ruling," said Mr Sou, who is also a deputy chairman of the Cambodian Writers Association.

He dismissed fears about adverse reactions against the Thai people and businessmen living in Cambodia. "It is unlikely that there will be a repeat of the 2003 events," he said.

In January 2003, a Cambodian newspaper article falsely alleged that a Thai actress claimed that Angkor Wat belonged to Thailand. Other Cambodian print and radio media picked up the report and furthered the nationalistic sentiment which resulted in riots in Phnom Penh on January 29. The Thai Embassy was burned and properties of Thai businesses were vandalised.

Mr Sou's views are shared by Mr Khieu Kanharith, the minister of information of Cambodia, who said any problems concerning the temple's boundaries should be settled by the joint Thai-Cambodian committee, which holds regular meetings.

In his opinion, both Thailand and Cambodia will benefit from tourism and related businesses if Preah Vihear temple is listed as a World Heritage Site. In fact, he noted, Thailand would gain more than Cambodia because most of the tourists would have to pass through Thailand in order to visit the ancient temple.

During the censure debate, the Democrats insisted the Thai government's support for Cambodia's unilateral listing of Preah Vihear would remove Thailand's right to have ownership of the temple reviewed. Democrat party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said the Cambodian map that Foreign Minister Noppadon had acknowledged could put Thailand at a disadvantage in talks to settle the borderline with Cambodia .

The Thai media have demanded to know why a number of Cambodians have moved into a disputed area near the temple. If these Cambodians stay there permanently, it might cause Thailand to lose part of the area in dispute.

On this issue, Mr Hourt Song Hak, a reporter for the Cambodian daily Koh Santipap, agreed that the Cambodian settlers must be moved out of the area. Other than that, it is the Cambodian government's right to seek the listing of Preah Vihear, which belongs to Cambodia, as a World Heritage Site, he told Perspective.

Interestingly, the Cambodian reactions to the controversy are typically in stark contrast to the nationalistic mood of Thai politicians, media and academics.

Thai historian Thepmontri Limpaphayom has suggested that if the Cambodian request is put on the agenda of the World Heritage Committee in Quebec early next month, Thailand's World Heritage Committee should resign to pressure other member states of the World Heritage Committee to postpone considering the issue.

Meanwhile, Supreme Commander Gen Boonsang Niampradit said the Royal Thai Air Force had already put its transport planes on standby in case it was necessary to evacuate Thais from Cambodia if the issue gets out of hand.

During the height of violence in Phnom Penh on Jan 29, 2003 - when rioters attacked the Thai Embassy and the premises of Thai-owned businesses, including Shin Corp, then owned by the family of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra - the Thai government sent military aircraft to Phnom Penh to evacuate Thai nationals, while angry Thai protesters demonstrated outside the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen attributed the government's failure to prevent the attacks to incompetence, and noted that the riots were stirred up by extremists. The then chairman of the National Assembly, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, claimed that opposition leader Sam Rainsy had directed the attacks. Rainsy, instead, said he had tried to prevent the violence.

Sacravatoons : " The Lawsuits "

Click on image to zoom in
Courtesy of Sacravatoon at http://sacrava.blogspot.com/

Sacravatoons :" A Pointball pen & a Gun "

Click on image to zoom in

Courtesy of Sacravatoon at http://sacrava.blogspot.com/

Who's that nibbling at the world's landmarks?

Microorganisms and fungi are eating away the stone of treasured monuments, causing irreversible damage.

By BINA VENKATARAMAN, New York Times
June 28, 2008

At Angkor Wat, the dancers' feet are crumbling.

The palatial 12th-century Hindu temple, shrouded in the jungles of Cambodia, has played host to a thriving community of cyanobacteria ever since unsightly lichens were cleaned off its walls nearly 20 years ago. The microbes have not been good guests.

These bacteria (Gloeocapsa) not only stain the stone black, but they also increase the water absorbed by the shale in morning monsoon rains and the heat absorbed when the sun comes out. The result, says Thomas Warscheid, a geomicrobiologist based in Germany, is a daily expansion and contraction cycle that cracks the temple's facade and its internal structure. Warscheid, who has studied the deterioration of Angkor Wat for more than a decade, said in an interview that these pendulum swings have broken away parts of celestial dancer sculptures on the temple walls.

"It is getting worse -- up to 60 or 70 percent of the temple is black," he added.

Once chalked up to weathering, the damage at Angkor Wat is now seen as the result of a much more complex dynamic: the interaction of microorganisms with the chemical and physical properties of the temple.

In various places around the world, from Easter Island to the Acropolis, microscopic organisms are accelerating the deterioration of monuments and historic landmarks. Scientists and conservators have only recently begun to understand the role that common bacteria and fungi play in destroying cultural sites and how -- if at all -- they can be stopped. This growing recognition is inspiring new techniques to combat microbial damage.

"Our heritage is disappearing," said Ralph Mitchell, a biology professor at Harvard. "Whether it's Angkor Wat or the Mayan sites in Mexico or the Native American archaeological sites in the West of this country, they are all under threat. And the question is, can we preserve them?"

From bacteria that feed on hydrocarbons to endolithic fungi that eke out an existence within porous rock, monument-damaging microbes thrive because they survive in environments inhospitable to other flora and fauna.

"One of the recent discoveries that is of concern is that increased air pollution can sometimes increase biodeterioration," said Eric Doehne, a scientist at the Getty Conservation Institute. Some bacteria feed on chemicals found in pollutants, excreting an acid that eats away at stone, metal and paint.

Microbes pose a serious risk to the monuments at the Acropolis in Athens, including the golden-proportioned Parthenon and the Temple of Athena Nike, said Sophia Papida, conservator for the Acropolis Restoration Service.

Bacteria penetrate the veins of the marble, attract water and expand, cracking the monuments' faces and pillars, Papida said. Lichens burrow circular holes in the marble, a phenomenon known as honeycomb weathering, and exfoliate sculptural friezes that tell the stories of gods and goddesses.

Microbes also thwart painstaking efforts to restore the monuments. Acropolis stones can crumble into thousands of tiny pieces, leaving a near-inscrutable jigsaw puzzle. "Our work is attacked by microorganisms, and we have to go back, remove the microorganisms and put it back together," Papida said. "The bacteria which are there, they are having a good time, actually."

For decades, researchers struggled to grow laboratory cultures of bacteria that thrive on monuments. Today, genetic techniques allow scientists to better identify microorganisms, but that does not always mean they can reverse the damage.

"We can use DNA analysis to identify who's there, but it doesn't mean that they cause the problem," said Robert Koestler, director of the Museum Conservation Institute at the Smithsonian.

Some efforts to preserve monuments become the very cause of the problem. Biodegradable polymers used to consolidate the stones of Mayan ruins in Mexico, for example, created conditions ripe for damaging microbes.

An added complication is that the organisms sometimes protect monuments, such as the volcanic rock formations known as the Cappadocian "fairy chimneys" of southeastern Turkey. Just as lichens once kept Angkor Wat from absorbing too much water and heat, scientists discovered that lichens on the chimneys prevent them from taking in too much water, keeping them intact longer.

"It's not always a bad-news story," Doehne said. He is optimistic about scientists' ability to manage microbial attacks. "We are seeing a burst of knowledge coming to the fore, really in the last 20 years."

At Angkor Wat, Warscheid developed a biocide called "melange d'Angkor" that will be used to whiten certain areas of the temple. The chemical solution changes the ability of the cyanobacteria to produce their black-staining byproduct. There is no point, he says, in applying the biocide to the whole temple: After 10 years, the bacteria will adapt to it. "In certain places, where there are carved stone scriptures, you can provide the manpower to do this cleaning on a regular basis."

At the Acropolis, University of Athens researchers are working with Papida to test a biocide, a quaternary ammonium compound that she hopes will get the restoration back on track.

Fighting off microbes is a matter of "vigilant and routine maintenance," said Mark Weber of the World Monuments Fund. People often deal with "stone-eating organisms," as if they are singular events, he added, rather than as adaptive beings.

Another emerging solution is to starve the microbes. Conservators did this to kill off cotton-candy-like fungi on flooded African artifacts housed in a university building in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit, Koestler said. The fungi thrive on oxygen; they created an anoxic environment by flushing the objects with argon.

The method is easier, of course, indoors. Outdoors, combating microbes can mean cutting off their water source. "You want to catch it early -- just like you diagnose a disease," said Mitchell of Harvard. Once a biofilm, a community of bacteria like the slimy coating that forms on your teeth, develops, any effort may be futile.

In Warscheid's view, protecting monuments, while important, is delaying the inevitable. "We have to accept that at some moment they will disappear," he said. "But we know a lot about how to conserve them for the next 20, 30 years."

Children exploited in Cambodian building boom - 28 Jun 08

AlJazeeraEnglish

Cambodia is one of southeast Asia's poorest countries, and that poverty has forced many parents to take their children out of school and send them to work.

But the country is experiencing something of a construction boom.And that means many children are ending up on building sites or in factories, where the work is dirty and dangerous.

Fauziah Ibrahim reports from Battambang province, where hundreds of children are now risking their health and their lives, working in brick kilns.

Cambodian genocide court to decide on detention of ex-Khmer Rouge official

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Steve Czajkowski

[JURIST] Former Cambodian Foreign Minister Ieng Sary [Trial Watch profile; JURIST news archive] is set to appeal his provisional detention in a June 30 open hearing to be broadcast on radio and TV stations, according to documents [scheduling order, PDF; Hearing invitation, PDF] released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) [official website; JURIST news archive]. Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, who served as minister for social affairs, were arrested [PDF press release; JURIST report] in November 2007 and charged [JURIST report] with crimes against humanity and war crimes for breaches of the Geneva Convention [text] based on their role in the Khmer Rouge [JURIST news archive] communist regime of the 1970s. Sary and his wife have cited health concerns in their appeals against detention orders. Sary has been hospitalized twice [JURIST report] so far this year.

Sary was pardoned in 1996 [NY Times report] by King Norodom Sihanouk, but in a response [PDF text] to the hearing by the civil party in the case, the pardon was said to violate international law, and is non-binding on the ECCC, which was established by in 2001 to investigate and try surviving Khmer Rouge officials. According to published proceedings [PDF, text], Sary is punishable under articles 5, 6, 29, and 39 of the Law on the Establishment of the ECCC [text]. The Khmer Rouge is generally held responsible for the genocide of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians [PPU backgrounder] who died between 1975 and 1979. To date, no top Khmer Rouge officials have faced trial. Sary and Thirith are two of five former Khmer Rouge leaders in the custody of the court.

Temple row may cause rift between countries

The Bangkok Post
Saturday June 28, 2008

Cambodia issues Preah Vihear warning

Flaring nationalist sentiment in Thailand over the Preah Vihear temple issue threatens to harm ties between the neighbours, Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong warned yesterday.

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said the government is ready to reverse its decision to accept a revised border map if Thai people disagree.

The two countries have reached a deal, setting the map around the Preah Vihear temple, so Cambodia can apply to Unesco for a World Heritage listing.

But Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama has come under fire for agreeing to the deal, which became a key issue in the censure debate that ended on Thursday with the seven targetted ministers and Mr Samak winning votes of confidence.

''Politicians in Thailand should not exploit the Preah Vihear temple issue in their domestic struggles,'' Hor Namhong told reporters in Phnom Penh.

''This could damage the cooperation and friendship that exists between the two countries.''

Cambodia this week closed the temple after about 100 Thais, mostly from Si Sa Ket province, marched to the site to protest against the deal, which they say resulted in Thailand losing territory.

But Hor Namhong insisted: ''The drawing of the Preah Vihear map for listing as a World Heritage site does not affect the border at all. Thailand will not lose even one centimetre of land.''

Both countries have historically laid claim to the site, which sits on Cambodian soil but can only be easily accessed from Thailand.

He also denied an accusation by the anti-Thai government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) that Thailand's backing of Cambodia's World Heritage bid is in return for business concessions for ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

''This has nothing to do with that. These people used it as a pretext for their own political exploitation,'' the Cambodian foreign minister said.

Mr Samak appeared to have softened his stance on the issue following the censure debate.

He said the contents of the joint communique between Thailand and Cambodia could be reviewed if the Thai public disagreed with it.

In a bid to ease pressure over the temple issue, the Thai Foreign Ministry will issue a 61-page white paper, available at www.mfa.go.th, to clarify Thailand's role.

Krit Kraichitti, director-general of the Treaties and Legal Affairs Department, Anuson Chinvanno, director-general of the East Asia Affairs Department, and ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat yesterday held a press briefing.

They insisted the signing of the joint communique did not obligate Thailand and did not violate the constitution.

The Foreign Ministry also promised to do its best to protect the country's sovereignty and bilateral relations.

According to Mr Tharit, security was being stepped up at the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh, but the situation there otherwise remained normal.

A researcher yesterday submitted a petition to the Prime Minister's Office to oppose Cambodia's application.

The petition, signed by 33,000 people, was lodged by historian M.L. Walwipa Charoonroj, of Thammasat University's Thai Studies Institute.

M.L. Walwipa said the signatories objected to Phnom Penh's bid to list the ruins and rejected any obligations Thailand had made with Cambodia.

She said the objection was raised because border disputes between the two countries were not yet settled.

The petition was accepted by Jul layuth Hiranyawasit, permanent secretary of the PM's Office.

The Administrative Court yesterday finished examining the PAD's petition seeking suspension of the joint communique.

The court is expected to decide whether to accept the petition for a hearing on Monday.

The PAD has asked the court to nullify the cabinet resolution on June 17 to endorse Cambodia's map of the temple, which was feared to be used by Phnom Penh to contest Thailand's sovereignty over the contentious overlapping areas.

In Si Sa Ket, former charter drafter Sawet Tinkul yesterday filed a complaint with police against some 500 Cambodian villagers for alleged illegal entry and encroachment.

The Cambodian villagers were accused of building houses, shops and other structures in Phra Viharn (Preah Vihear) National Park's compound.

Police investigators accepted the complaint for review while noting the matter was sensitive and would be handled carefully. _ Agencies and Bangkok Post.

Thai court blocks support for Cambodia temple bid

June 28, 2008

BANGKOK - A TOP Thai court imposed an injunction on Saturday against Bangkok's support for a bid by Cambodia to register a disputed 900-year-old Hindu temple on their border as a World Heritage Site.

The Administrative Court's decision came after a legal request by the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which has whipped up a nationalist frenzy over the Preah Vihear temple, which many Thais believe belongs to Thailand.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the ruins were part of Cambodia, a decision that has rankled with most Thais ever since. Cambodia's move this year to have Preah Vihear accorded World Heritage status has reopened the wound.

The PAD, whose supporters have been camped outside Government House for more than a week, says Bangkok is backing Phnom Penh's bid in return for business concessions in Cambodia for ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Mr Thaksin and both the Thai and Cambodian governments deny the claims by the PAD, a motley collection of businessmen, academics and royalists united in their hatred for the telecoms billionaire ousted in a 2006 coup.

It is not known how the injunction will affect the heritage push by Cambodia, which has warned of consequences for its relations with its larger neighbour. The Court said the temporary injunction would be in place until it had come to a full decision.

Fears of a major diplomatic reaction, or worse, over the temple are not overblown, especially since Cambodian politicians are in campaign mode for a July 27 general election.

In 2003, a nationalist mob torched the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh after a newspaper erroneously reported comments from a Thai soap opera star saying the famed Angkor Wat temples belonged to Thailand.

-- REUTERS

Stop Abuse of Cambodian Brides; Khmer Ambassador to South Korea: Cambodian Women Are Not Goods

28 June 2008
The Mirror, Vol. 12, No. 566

“Phnom Penh: In recent years, Cambodian women had married foreign men and they were often abused in many different ways, such as through trafficking and exploitation. After many women had married to Taiwan, Cambodian women started to marry to South Korea, and some are being mistreated by their husbands and families. That is why the Cambodian Ambassador to South Korea reacted strongly that Cambodian women are not goods, and he asked to stop the abuse of Cambodian brides.

“Mr. Lim Samkol, Cambodian ambassador to South Korea, spoke to the Korean Times - and his words were published early this month - asking South Korean citizens to accept Cambodian brides as new members of their families, and he asked them to try to understand and forgive them for some expressions of culture shock.

“He said that Cambodian women are not goods. He said so, because most Cambodian women who got married to live in South Korea were married after Korean men had spent money to arrange these marriages.

“Previously Mr. Han Kuk-Yom, the president of the Women Migrant Human Rights Center, had told the New York Times that that government does not guarantee to protect the rights of the Korean men’ wives who are immigrants or to protect them from mistreatment. He said that Korean men believe that they are allowed to mistreat their wives, because they had spent much money to the tourist companies or for the marriage arrangement; and they always look down on women from poor countries.

“Mr. Han Kuk-Yom said, ‘Three years ago, women were taught before they were sent to Korea, but now they did not get much education, so they need to spend much time to grow accustomed to their lives in Korea, such as learning Korean and other traditions.

“According to the International Organization for Migration, Mr. John McGeoghan said that Korean men seek wives in foreign countries, because they cannot find wives in their country.

Most of them are farmers or fisherman, or they have families in rural areas. He added that most men got married through marriage agencies or matchmakers, or by their own arrangements, and they get married with women who are Chinese, Japanese, Philippinas, or Thai; and the weddings are often celebrated in Christian churches. At present, most international marriages are with women from developing countries in the region, such as China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Mongolia, Thailand, and Cambodia.

“Mr. John McGeoghan told Khmer Sthapana that the state of being victimized is easily caused by the unbalance of the economic situations that can lead to the exploitation to foreign women by treating them unequally, including discrimination, violence, and the abuse of women’s rights.

According to a report of the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Korea, 37% of international immigrant women got fake information about their husbands, including about mental health, 28% got fake information about the income of their partners, 21% lied that they are wealthy, and 20% got cheated by giving fake job information about their future husbands.

“Mr. John McGeoghan said last month in the World Vision organization in Phnom Penh that, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Korea, 31% were verbally abused, 26.5% were physically abused, 23.1% were sexually abused, and 18.4% were abused by threats.

“According to the index of the International Organization for Migration, the number of brides marrying Korean men increased dramatically: in 1990 there were only 619 foreign brides counted, and in 2005 there were 31,180. According to the Korea Times, there are 2,564 Cambodian women married to Korean men.

“Late March 2008, the Cambodian government stopped temporarily all marriages between Cambodian women with foreign men after many irregularities were found.

“In May, in a meeting of a working group against human trafficking at the World Vision organization, the Secretary of State of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Ms. You Ay, said, ‘Cambodian girls are not goods,’ but previously, marriages to foreign countries had shown irregularities, because they were made not according to the marriage law, and they did not respect Khmer traditions; and the ways in which the matchmakers choose women shows extreme exploitation – Korean men gave them US$15,000 to US$20,000, but the brides got only US$300 to US$1,000.

“Ms. You Ay added ‘I want marriages based both on love and on the hearth, but not that marriages happen for money.’

“Khmer Sthapana has contacted victimized women married to Korea and was told that most of the Khmer women marrying Korean men received only US$300 to US$1,000, while the Korean men spent US$15,000 to US$20,000. If women were beautiful, they received US$700 to US$1,000. These women thought that their marriages are like winning a lucky draw and expected that they would be able to send some money home to improve their families’ livelihood.

“However Ms. K.S.A. aged 19, in Svay Teab, Chamkar Leu, Kompong Cham, said that her expectation dissolved like water; she was mistreated by her mother-in-law and finally she had decided to return to her country like a widow with a four-month-old child.

“As for Ms. V., aged, 23, she told Khmer Sthapana last week that she and her sister live in Rolea B’ier, Kompong Chhnang, and married Korean men last year. Now, she got divorced from her Korean husband, because he has epilepsy and his mother mistreated her. Before the matchmaker had told her that everything was alright.

“Cambodia and Korea have cooperated since 1997. Since 2004, the number of Korean tourists visiting Cambodia ranked first. Now there are Cambodian people working and staying in Korea, and the number of Cambodian brides is approximately 2,500.

“Mr. Lim Samkol, 60, who is the Cambodian ambassador to Korea since 2004, finally said, ‘I expect that more and more Koreans can come to visit Cambodia.’”

Khmer Sthapana, Vol.1, #35, 28.6.2008

The Bangkok Post
Saturday June 28, 2008

A Cambodian lawyer has urged the United States to extract a written statement from chief terrorist suspect Riduan Isamuddin, who is better known as Hambali, which could vindicate his clients, two Thai Muslims convicted of colluding with Hambali in plotting terrorist attacks.

Cambodia's Supreme Court in March upheld a term of life imprisonment imposed on two Thai Muslims and a Cambodian Muslim convicted of collaborating with Hambali in plotting a terrorist attack against foreign embassies in Phnom Penh between 2002 and 2003.

The two convicted Thais are religious teachers Abdul Azi Haji Chiming and Muhammad Yalaludin Mading.

Five Islamic groups in Thailand are discussing what they can do to help the men. They may ask to have the men serve their remaining prison terms in Thailand, or seek a royal pardon.

However Kao Sopha, the lawyer representing the men, insisted such an avenue would only amount to an admission of the prisoners' guilt.

His clients did not commit any crime, he said in Bangkok yesterday. But he said he was open to the possibility of the men serving their sentences in Thailand in a prisoner exchange programme.

The 37-year-old lawyer is in Thailand to visit the convicts' families and talk to support groups in Bangkok and Yala.

He said the US should ask Hambali to make a statement which would declare once and for all if his clients were guilty.

Hambali was a key member of the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) extremist network which authorities believe was responsible for numerous attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people. Hambali spent months in Cambodia before being captured in Thailand in 2003.

Khunying Amporn Meesuk, of the National Human Rights Commission, said the government has suggested to Cambodia that the prisoner exchange programme be implemented, but Phnom Penh has not responded.

Meanwhile in Pattani, a kamnan was shot dead by gunmen on his way home in Muang district yesterday.

The victim, Dueramae Jehteh, 64, was a kamnan in tambon Klong Maning.

Police said Dueramae left a teashop and headed home when four gunmen on two motorcycles approached and opened fire on him.

Tourism’s dark side: Cambodian villagers displaced in favor of development

Photo provided by LICADHO
According to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, police burned down 60 homes as they forcibly evicted these Cambodian villagers.

By Milo Anderson
Northwest Asian Weekly

The white sands of Otres Beach sit two miles south of Sihanoukville, Cambodia. It’s less crowded than the larger beaches closer to downtown. Tourists from Europe, Australia and the United States, along with Cambodians on vacation, come to enjoy the sun and the warm ocean and the small, open-air, thatched-roof bars and restaurants that line the sand. At night, Roman candles and Christmas lights reflect off the black water.

Relaxing in beach chairs facing the ocean, the tourists’ backs are turned to the red dirt road that connects them to downtown Sihanoukville, and the tiny shacks beside the road which house the evicted villagers of Spean Chhes.

On April 20, 2007, 150 soldiers and police armed with machine guns, electric batons and tear gas came to Spean Chhes, burned or demolished all the villagers’ houses, cut down their coconut and jackfruit trees and arrested several who resisted.

Of the 100 families that lived there, 80 remain by the side of the road, within sight of the concrete barrier surrounding the site of their old village and a few hundred feet from the tourists on Otres Beach. They have nowhere else to go.

The evictions in Spean Chhes are one example of a widespread problem in Cambodia. The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) has documented dozens of cases of land grabbing by wealthy, well-connected individuals and companies throughout the country.

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a long history of violence and famine.

In the past two decades it has become a major recipient of international aid money and has developed a tourism and garment industry alongside the traditional subsistence agriculture still practiced in much of the country. Economic development has raised land prices.

Manfred Hornung, a monitoring consultant with LICADHO, said it’s easy to see why Spean Chhes, located next to an attractive tourist destination, was targeted for development. “It’s prime real estate.”

According to Horm Theurn, who cleared land for a farm in Spean Chhes 15 years ago with her family, when the police and soldiers came to demolish the village they said, “It’s your fault because before when we offered you money, you didn’t take it. Now we take the land for free.”

She said she has no idea what will happen to her and the other families. She said they want to return to their land, but they are afraid they will be shot.

Villagers were also worried about their relatives in prison. Fourteen men were charged for fighting the police and soldiers with slingshots, rocks and glass bottles. One man escaped arrest, five were acquitted, one who used a machete was sentenced to four months and the remaining seven men were given the lightest sentences possible.

But when the prosecutor appealed their convictions, the men had to stay in jail awaiting their new trial. After intense lobbying by LICADHO and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the appeals court finally heard the case on April 3, and the men were released a week later.

Hornung said the criminal cases against the villagers were meant to intimidate them and distract them from pursuing a civil case to get their land back, and it’s a pattern he sees in other land disputes. “The government is very successful in keeping people busy getting out of prison,” he said.

According to a 2001 land law, if someone has possessed land uncontested for five or more years before the law was passed, they have the right to claim ownership before a cadastral commission.

However, according to Hornung, no court or commission has ever addressed the issue of land ownership in Spean Chhes. And since residents were not allowed to remove their possessions before their houses were destroyed, they lost documents that may have proved how long they lived there.

“We don’t talk about the rule of law in this office,” Hornung said. “It’s just practicalities.”

The governor of Sihanoukville, Say Hak, who organized the eviction, could not be reached for comment. The information officer for Cambodia’s National Authority for Resolution of Land Disputes, Chum Bun Rong, was unable to say who resolved the question of ownership of the land, or how they reached that conclusion. He also didn’t know what the government plans to do about the villagers living by the road.

The humanitarian organization M’Lop Tapang provides basic medical assistance to the evicted villagers. Setha Thouch, a team leader with M’Lop Tapang, said the children have been hardest hit by the evictions.

During the summer rainy season, Thouch said, the ditches fill with water and many children develop skin diseases. In the dry winter months, cars, trucks and tourists riding in tuk-tuks — small three-wheel taxis — create clouds of red dust that cover everything. Respiratory diseases are common, he said.

Hornung said the unwillingness of Cambodia’s leaders to respect their own laws undercuts the mission of aid agencies.

“They knew how to make a living there,” said Hornung. “Now they are slum dwellers. This is man-made. This is not the poverty in this country.”

For more information, visit the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights at www.licadho.org. A longer version of this report is available at www.nwasianweekly.com.

Thai court blocks support for Cambodia temple bid

Sat Jun 28, 2008

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A top Thai court imposed an injunction on Saturday against Bangkok's support for a bid by Cambodia to register a disputed 900-year-old Hindu temple on their border as a World Heritage Site.

The Administrative Court's decision came after a legal request by the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which has whipped up a nationalist frenzy over the Preah Vihear temple, which many Thais believe belongs to Thailand.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the ruins were part of Cambodia, a decision that has rankled with most Thais ever since. Cambodia's move this year to have Preah Vihear accorded World Heritage status has reopened the wound.

The PAD, whose supporters have been camped outside Government House for more than a week, says Bangkok is backing Phnom Penh's bid in return for business concessions in Cambodia for ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin and both the Thai and Cambodian governments deny the claims by the PAD, a motley collection of businessmen, academics and royalists united in their hatred for the telecoms billionaire ousted in a 2006 coup.

It is not known how the injunction will affect the heritage push by Cambodia, which has warned of consequences for its relations with its larger neighbour. The Court said the temporary injunction would be in place until it had come to a full decision.

Fears of a major diplomatic reaction, or worse, over the temple are not overblown, especially since Cambodian politicians are in campaign mode for a July 27 general election.

In 2003, a nationalist mob torched the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh after a newspaper erroneously reported comments from a Thai soap opera star saying the famed Angkor Wat temples belonged to Thailand.

Cambodia should consider Joint inscription of preah Vihear site

By Nophakhun Limsamarnphun
nop1122@yahoo.com
The Nation
Published on June 28, 2008

Unesco's World Heritage Committee is due to meet next week in Canada to consider Cambodia's proposal for inscription of the ancient Preah Vihear temple on the World Heritage list. I believe that Unesco will not approve the Cambodian bid at this stage, despite the Thai Cabinet's recent endorsement of a joint communique between the two countries on this matter.

According to this joint communique - signed by Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama and Cambodian Deputy Premier Sok An on June 18 - both countries agreed to five major points that were based on the results of a bilateral meeting on May 22.

First, Thailand explicitly supports the inscription, based on a map prepared by Cambodia, at the upcoming 32nd session of the World Heritage Committee in Canada.

Second, Cambodia accepts the inscription without - at this stage - buffer zones on the northern and western areas of Preah Vihear temple.

Third, the map presented by Cambodia shall supersede the other maps and graphic references.

Fourth, pending the work of the Joint Commission for Land Boundary concerning western and northern areas of the temple, the two countries agree to prepare jointly the management plan of these areas for consideration by Unesco in 2010.

Fifth, the inscription of Preah Vihear shall be without prejudice to the rights of Thailand and Cambodia on demarcation works of the two countries.

All these points were debated fiercely in the Thai Parliament on June 22 and June 23, with opposition MPs accusing the government of conceding sovereignty to Cambodia.

In my opinion, Thailand's national interest was compromised at least as far as the negotiations over the temple were concerned.

As indicated by former foreign minister Nit Pibulsongkarm, the country's interest would be best protected if the foreign ministry insisted on a joint nomination together with Cambodia for Preah Vihear's inscription as a World Heritage site.

Second, Thailand should make it clear to Cambodia that it would oppose any unilateral attempt for Prear Vihear's inscription.

In the spirit of the founding of Unesco, it is highly unlikely that the UN body will go ahead with the inscription of the site should there be any opposition from a neighbouring country.

In the case of Preah Vihear, built around 1,100BC, Thailand's national interest would be compromised because the endorsement of Cambodia's single-country nomination would serve as a basis that bars any future attempt by Thailand to contest its sovereignty over the temple, which is situated just next to its border.

More importantly, the issue of the surrounding areas, currently in Thailand's territory, would be complicated and the integrity of Preah Vihear complex would be compromised, given that a number of elements of the temple such as a giant reservoir and the Naga staircase are situated in Thai territory.

Again, it would be best for both countries to jointly nominate the temple as the World Heritage site so as to avoid these territorial and management issues.

It would also be considered reasonable if the temple and its peripheral areas are turned into a joint-development area co-owned by Cambodia and Thailand.

Any monetary or other benefits derived from this joint effort could then be shared between the two nations in a fashion similar to the Joint Development Area between Thailand and Malaysia, covering oil and gas resources in the countries' territorial waters.

Academics urge Unesco to defer temple registration

The Bangkok Post

A group of academics submitted a letter to the office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in Bangkok on Friday, urging the World Heritage Committee to defer consideration of the listing of Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage Site as they opposed Cambodia's unilateral move on the issue.

The academics led by Dr. Tul Sitthisomwong of the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, submitted the petition with 40,000 signatures and handed the letter to Unesco representatives in Bangkok.

A letter in Friday's Bangkok Post (click here and scroll down to fourth letter) from the Unesco director explained that all that Unesco can do is forward the letters, pleas and petitions, since Unesco does not actually select the Heritage Sites.

The officials promised to forward the letter to Unesco headquarters in Paris on Friday.

The petitioners said they objected the Thai-Cambodian Joint communique signed by Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama and Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An on June 18 and called for deferring consideration of the listing of the 11th century temple as a World Heritage site.

Dr. Tul said the petitioners want UNESCO to wait for a joint nomination for the ancient temple's listing by Thailand and Cambodia as they believe that the World Heritage status should not be completed without the inclusion of Sra Trao or ancient reservoir and other historic structures on the temple compound.

The Chula medical academic also led some 30 protesters to the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok to submit a letter to the embassy's officials, protesting Cambodian government's unilateral application of the Preah Vihear temple registration.

However, embassy officials refused to accept the letter, saying it was the sensitive issue and told the protesters to submit the letter to Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to forward it to the Cambodia embassy. (BangkokPost.com, TNA)

Court intervenes

(BangkokPost.com)

The Supreme Administrative Court on Saturday ordered the government to halt all support for Cambodia's application to Unesco to list Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage Site. The foreign ministry said it might appeal and the anti-government PAD demanded the government resign.

In an unusual 2am ruling, judges voted nine to three to order the cabinet to suspend, at least temporarily, the Thai support in a joint communique with Phnom Penh.

The communique, signed in Paris on June 18, says that Thailand supports the unilateral request by Cambodia to Unesco to list the temple as a World Heritage Site - but no including the temple grounds, which are still disputed between the two countries.

The judges backed a suit brought by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which is trying to overthrow the government.

The suit claims that the application to Unesco by Cambodia could effectively take the temple grounds out of Thai hands, a claim loudly denied by the government and foreign ministry.

The PAD urged the court to nullify the cabinet resolution of June 17 supporting and endorsing Cambodia's map of the ancient temple.

The Unesco meeting to consider the Cambodian appliation begins on Wednesday in Canada. Cambodia is going to attach the Thai cabinet support statmement to its formal application.

A foreign ministry spokesman on Saturday said the ministry could appeal the Administrative Court's order.

The PAD called for the government to resign over the issue, saying that Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama should show his spirit immediately because he had mishandled the temple issue.

"The decision on Preah Vihear temple could not be done by the foreign minister alone, therefore, the entire cabinet must take responsibility as well," said core PAD leader Pipop Thongchai.

He also said the group may try to expand its anti-government protests out of Bangkok and to up-country provinces.

A radical change of fortune

Vorn Mak, left, and Soeur Nhek won the grand prize of the hospital lottery yesterday morning. The couple bought eight tickets. (Mike Hensen, Sun Media)

By JOE MATYAS -- Sun Media
The London Free Press

couple who fled the killing fields of Cambodia more than two decades ago became instant millionaires yesterday when they won the London hospitals Dream Lottery.

Vorn Mak and his wife, Soeur Nhek, said they were speechless when notified by telephone they had won the grand prize.
"We have never won anything before," said their daughter, Claudia Mak, who was with her parents when the phone rang before 8 a.m. yesterday.

After the news sunk in, "we were jumping up and down" with joy and hugging each other, she said.

Vorn Mak has worked as a cleaner at the downtown Hilton Hotel for about 15 years and Soeur Nhek works as a Pennysaver flyer inserter at The London Free Press.

The couple came to London as refugees 21 years ago after fleeing the violence of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.

"The war was very bad and we were lucky to get away from it," Vorn Mak said.

The couple won a grand prize that included a $650,000 home in the city's southwest, $204,000 in furniture, appliances and electronic goods and a $55,000 BMW vehicle.

But they said they've chosen the cash option of $1.1 million, the largest cash prize in the history of the charity lottery, which supports London Health Sciences Centre, St. Joseph's Health Care and Children's Health Foundation.

The winners said they will take their time deciding what to do with the money before making any life-changing decisions.

"It has been a very good year for the lottery," Dream Lottery co-ordinator Rita Fieder said. "We sold out for the second straight year and we've raised more than $1 million for the hospitals."

Second grand prize winner was John Clymans of Woodstock. His prize gave him the choice of a Doral boat and two Waverunner personal watercrafts, or a $100,000 cash alternative.

Third prize winner was Ruth Fitzsimmons, a Byron resident. She accepted her prize at the dream home location, 1191 Buttonbush Cres., along with her husband of 47 years, Jim.

She opted to take $100,000 cash instead of the prize of two cars and $5,000 cash.

"If she's going to make a habit of winning $100,000, I think I'll stick with her," her husband quipped.

Ruth Fitzsimmons was asleep when her husband got the call.

"At first I didn't believe him," she said

The Fitzsimmons are longtime ticket buyers.

"What a beautiful morning," she said.

A complete list of winners can be found in The Free Press and online at www.londondream.ca on July 5.

All winners will be contacted with an official letter through Canada Post.

Cambodia photos win global press competition

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Meixner, Seth
Friday, 27 June 2008

Photographer Nigel Dickinson has been awarded first prize in the features category of the prestigious Press Photographer’s Year 2008 competition for a series of pictures shot last year in Cambodia.

Dickinson, whose portfolio spans much of the globe, has worked extensively in South East Asia, documenting environmental and rights issues.

His prize-winning work in Cambodia featured Stung Meanchey dump and Cambodia’s last passenger train route from Phnom Penh to Battambang.

“I am very happy and honored to receive this award. It’s humbling to be awarded a prize by one’s peers, fellow photographers and experienced photojournalists,” Dickinson told the Post by email on June 25.

“As a human being and as a journalist, I cannot help but become concerned with what I see and become involved with people and issues,” he added.

“Especially when I witness such a strong spirit, and receive such warmth and hospitality from the Khmer people, who live with corruption, the legacy of the Khmer Rouge, often in poverty and surviving against the odds.

Dickinson’s work can be viewed on his website www.nigeldickinson.com

Villagers pray to spirits of 'ghost house'

TRACEY SHELTON; Even though no one lives there, the interior of “the house the ghost bought” in Kampong Chhnang province remains mysteriously dust-free.

PHIL CARDEN; Kampong Chhnang’s famed “ghost house” has become a shrine for the superstitious, as well as the focus of 2006 movie detailing the isolated home’s legendary haunting.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Tracey Shelton and Nguon Sovan
Friday, 27 June 2008

Passing motorists who glance at the building beside a quiet stretch of National Road 5 in Kampong Chhnang province are likely to assume it's just another farm house.

But a closer look reveals something eerie about the house, known according to local legend as "the house the ghost bought.

"Cambodians who travel often on the highway know better than to pass the house without uttering a word of prayer or presenting offerings to appease the spirits believed to dwell within its splintering wooden walls.

The stairs to the house have disappeared and visitors have to scale one of the wooden stilts on which it rests to gain entry.

Inside, the house is empty apart from burnt incense sticks and a water jug. Despite flapping shutters that open to reveal dusty, surrounding fields, the house is surprisingly dust free.

Phnom Penh resident Chhe Phallin and a group of relatives and friends recently drove the 120 kilometers to the Baribor district house to thank the spirits, whom she believes granted her wish about her father's health."

My father had gone insane, even wandering naked in the streets at night," she said as she made offerings of food and incense to thank the spirits."

I came to the house last month and prayed with incense and begged the spirits for help. Two days later my father came back to my house - normal. Now he looks after my daughter, cleans the house, cooks our meals. What can I say? I have to believe.

"Phallin noted how clean the house was, even though "no one cleans it."

A movie filmed on location by the CamPro Film production company in 2006 tells the popular myth about the house. According to the myth, a young couple who had just moved into the newly built house was approached in a dream by a ghost who offered to buy it for $3,000 worth of gold. The couple agreed and in the morning, as promised, found the gold on their doorstep.

But they did not move out, and after ignoring warnings from the ghost to vacate the house, the couple woke one morning in the surrounding field with their belongings set neatly around them.

The movie shows the couple eventually leaving the house, but for any others who dare to sleep in it, according to the myth, the field awaits.

Huy Yaleng, assistant to the director of CamPro Films, said the company decided to make the movie after hearing the myth about the house. He attributes the movie's popularity throughout the country to a strong Khmer belief in superstition.

"Most of the actors and actresses felt afraid when they realized they would be shooting at a real haunted house," Yaleng said, "but nothing happened because before shooting we prepared a Buddhist prayer to ask the spirit if we could film the movie."

The caretaker of the house is 50-year-old Nhek Phea, whose family lives nearby. Phea said some elements of the movie are based on fact - the house was built in 1993 by his older sister, Samrith Lorn, who tried to sell it a year later for $3,000, an exorbitant price at the time.

But the rest of the myth about the house is based on nothing more than rumor, Phea said.
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After ignoring warnings from the ghost to vacate the house, the couple woke one morning in the surrounding field with their belongings set neatly around them.
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The myth, he said, began as the result of an offhand comment by a local villager, who had said no one would buy such a highly priced house and it would have to be sold to a ghost.

"The house is now a holy place for believers in spirits," said Phea. "Every day, many people come here to pray to the ghosts - even rich people drive their luxurious cars here to pray for good earnings. They make offerings of roasted pigs, chickens, and fruit, as well as money."

Phea said the cash offerings are donated to a nearby pagoda and nearby families often enjoy the food offerings. Last year one staunch believer in the myth spent $7,000 to build a concrete shrine honoring the ghosts that stands in front of the house.

Phea said he tells everyone there are no ghosts but no one listens. The rumor continues to spread and the house keeps attracting an increasing number of Cambodians from throughout the country.

Although he claims not to make any money from its fame, Phea is happy to maintain the house as a place of supplication and prayer.

"The rumor cannot be stopped," he said. "It's a local belief."

How history shaped the Pearl of Asia

Asia Times Online

Phnom Penh - A Cultural and Literary History by Milton Osborne

Reviewed by Andrew Symon

With Cambodia's national elections on July 27, a new history of the crucible of the country's politics, the capital Phnom Penh, is a valuable guide to what is at stake.

No firm grip on Cambodia's murky modern politics can be attained without an extensive knowledge of the country's often traumatic past. And as Australian academic Milton Osborne recounts in his new volume, the country's past transformations and tragedies have most frequently played out in riparian Phnom Penh.

There is now an uncertain brew combining the new energies and hopes of young Cambodians with a government under the authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen, under whom official corruption runs rampant and culprits act with impunity. While the economy is more buoyant than at any time since the 1960s, propelling vigorous commerce and construction in the city, there are as always inequalities of opportunity and reward.

Set against this is the resilience of ordinary Cambodians, the renewal of traditions and arts that Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge tried to stamp out, and the belief that Osborne finds among younger Cambodians in the future and their courage to call for change to the present political system. "Some subjects have an obvious ending. Phnom Penh is not one of these," the author writes.

Few Western authors can boast Osborne's experience and knowledge of Cambodia and the wider Mekong region. For nearly half a century he has witnessed and analyzed the region's often-turbulent change and written extensively about its history and politics, including, among other books, a biography of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia's flamboyant and indefatigable royal leader for almost all of the last 50 years of the 20th century, Sihanouk: Prince of Light, Prince of Darkness.

His Southeast Asia: An Introductory History, now in its ninth edition, is the definitive short history of the region and commonly used in university classes around the world. Most recently, Osborne has concentrated his energies on the environmental challenges the region now faces from hydropower and other modern developments on the Mekong River and its tributaries.

He returns to Cambodia in this latest book, Phnom Penh: a Cultural and Literary History. The title is a tad misleading, as the book is much more than a cultural guide. The book's central theme is how the course of Cambodian history has created, shaped, buffeted - and during the Khmer Rouge period from 1975-79 - devastated the city. Osborne weaves into the political story a description of the city's architectural development, a colonial creation under the French who in 1865 convinced then-king Norodom, retired king Sihanouk's grandfather and great-grandfather to current King Norodom Sihamoni, to move his palace to Phnom Penh from Udong, located 35 kilometers north of Phnom Penh.

Today the urban focal point remains the royal palace and national museum, which both look out majestically over the junction of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. Osborne's book is enriched with line drawings of Phnom Penh's palaces, temples, colonial buildings and street life. Yet Phnom Penh is not stuck in a time warp. With Cambodia's economic growth - and seemingly poor town planning - jarring change is on the way, with planned skyscrapers and growing traffic congestion.

True to the book's title, Osborne breaks his journey at several literary way stations. Here he looks at descriptions by visiting writers in the 1920s and 1930s - among others the famous French author and Gaullist minister Andre Malraux, who was convicted of trying to steal ancient statues from a temple complex near Angkor Wat. Another is British writer Somerset Maugham, who Osborne later encountered as a young Australian diplomat in Phnom Penh in 1959 during the grand old man of literature's return visit to the country at age 85.

"I heard him deliver the observation that no one should die before they see Angkor," writes Osborne.

Phnom Penh was a very different world when Osborne first arrived in 1959 as a 22-year-old diplomat with the Australian Embassy. Preparing to attend ceremonies at the Royal Palace, Osborne writes that, "I found I should equip myself with a white sharkskin suit, the prescribed dress for the diplomatic corps at daytime ceremonies. When I later came to wear it with my colleagues in the corps, I cold never rid myself of the feeling that we looked like a rather seedy collection of Italian ice cream vendors."

He returned in the mid-1960s for research towards a doctorate in history at Cornell University in the United States. "As I returned to Cambodia each year. ... I found Phnom Penh's mood increasingly morose as its citizens recognized that the good times had passed and puzzled over whether they might ever return. ... In 1971, I made my last visit before the terrible triumph of Pol Pot's force four years later. Yet with war growing in intensity in the countryside, Phnom Penh was already a city under partial siege." An earlier book by Osborne - Before Kampuchea - recalls these tumultuous times in detail. He sketched the lives and thoughts of Cambodians from various walks of life he met and became acquainted with in his student days in Phnom Penh - many of whom were to disappear in the Pol Pot years. He returned in 1981, while working for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, to an utterly shattered city, with still fresh Khmer Rouge-run extermination centers and exhumed mass graves of the killing fields.

"The smell of human decomposition hung heavy in the air over the lines upon lines of battered skulls lying on the grounds beside the graves," he wrote.

While the city was made a virtual ghost town under the Khmer Rouge, whose radical Maoist regime forced its inhabitants into rural areas to achieve a never-realized agrarian utopia, important buildings and structures generally escaped destruction. The royal palace still stands and the national museum's priceless Angkor sculptures and other collections were mostly left untouched, curiously by a regime that aimed to erase vestiges of the bourgeoisie past and reset the national clock to year zero.

"Much has changed in Phnom Penh since that 1981 visit, and both Cambodia and its capital have attainted an apparent degree of normality," Osborne writes. "Visitors encounter smiling people who appear to have triumphed over a recent past and to have achieved a phoenix-like rebirth from the figurative ashes of the period when Pol Pot ruled," writes Osborne.

Osborne has continued to take stock of post-conflict Cambodia and the wider region variously as a university historian, head of the Southeast Asian branch of the Australian Government's Office of National Assessments, an intelligence analysis group reporting to the Prime Minister, and over the past decade as an independent author.

But as he underlines, the promise inherent in the UN-sponsored 1993 elections and the recent economic surge will not be fully realized as long as the corruption and impunity associated with the long rule of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People's Party (CPP) remains entrenched. Sadly, there is little chance that the July election, the fourth since 1993, will lead to a healing of what Osborne describes as these "running sores".

With his government's dominance over the national media and well-funded political machine, few expect Hun Sen and his CPP to lose their stranglehold on political power. But with the new hopes and expectations aloft in Phnom Penh, a new chapter is opening on the country which Osborne's new book puts into erudite historical context.

Phnom Penh - A Cultural and Literary History by Milton Osborne, Signal Books, Oxford, May, 2008. ISBN 978 1 904955 40 5. Price US$28.

Andrew Symon is a Singapore based analyst and writer and frequent visitor to Cambodia.

Blind hail introduction of special ballot papers

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Sovan Nguon
Friday, 27 June 2008

A leading member of the blind community has hailed a move by the National Election Commission that will make it easier for tens of thousands of sight-impaired Cambodians to vote in the July 27 general election.

“It is very good,” said the executive director of the Association of the Blind in Cambodia, Boun Mao, referring to the commission’s decision to introduce special ballot papers based on a concept he proposed before the 2003 general election.

“It gives a 100 percent opportunity for the blind to cast votes in secret,” Mao said of the voting system, under which sight-impaired voters will use a card that enables them to identify by touch each party according to its position on a list.

“I submitted the concept to the NEC before the 2003 election but they did not use it at that time,” he told the Post on June 17.

Mao, who was blinded in an acid attack in 1993, said about 144,000 blind Cambodians were eligible to vote, but almost all of them had never participated in an election.

“Most of them don’t even have ID cards, so how can they get voter registration cards?” Mao said in an earlier interview before the commission unveiled its decision on June 16. He said the blind also had problems arranging travel to polling stations.

Mao said he had voted in every national election with the assistance of a relative who marked his ballot paper.

“However, I could not be absolutely certain that my relative voted for the party of my choice,” he said, explaining that the need to vote in secret had inspired his concept for special ballot cards for the blind.

Announcing the decision to introduce the cards, commission secretary general Tep Nytha acknowledged that they were based on the concept proposed by Mao.

The blind would continue to be able to have assistants cast ballots for them, Nytha said.

“We will promote the use of the special ballots for the blind, mainly through the radio, for 15 days before election day,” he said.

“We absolutely encourage the blind to register to vote, if they have the necessary identity documents,” Nytha said.

“There is no discrimination against them.”

News of the special ballot papers has already resulted in some members of the blind community deciding to vote for the first time on July 27.

“Through this method I can be certain of voting for the party of my choice,” said Kampot resident Mam Meth, 45, who was left blind after contracting measles when he was 15.

“I really want to vote because I want to use my right as a citizen to vote for a leader I love,” he said.

Nav Chantharith, 36, a native of Kandal province, will also be voting for the first time on July 27.

Chantharith said he had not participated in general elections since 1993 despite having a voter registration card because of his inability to vote in secret and the difficulty of arranging travel to a polling station.

“The special ballot papers for the blind are good because we can be certain of voting for the party of our choice and in secret,” said Chantharith, who lost his sight 33 years ago when he contracted retinitis.

“However, it will be better if Braille is used for the ballot papers because it will encourage more blind people to learn Braille; it’s a means of promoting Braille,” said Chantharith, who works for the NGO World Vision.

However, the NEC’s Nytha said it had no plan to provide Braille ballot papers because of budgetary constraints.

The NEC said earlier this month that 8,125,529 voters were registered for the election, with voting to take place at 15,255 polling stations throughout the country.

Tecotech starts on fiber optic cable to Japan

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Kay Kimsong
Friday, 27 June 2008

In a bid to reduce the costs of telecommunications services in Cambodia, Tecotech Co., Ltd will invest $50 million in submarine cable linking Sihanoukville to Japan and to global networks beyond, Tecotech chairman Huot Vanthan told the Post on June 21.

Pok Sophat, director of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications’ administration department said that Tecotech would be the first-ever Cambodian company to invest in submarine cable.

“The cable is another choice of gateway that will lower the cost of calls going in and out of Cambodia,” said Sophat.

Satellite communications were simply too expensive, Huot Vanthan added.

“I will spend my own capital and help connect Cambodia to the world,” by cooperating with a US-based firm, said Vanthan, who also operates a specialized investment bank and is a shareholder of Maruha Japan Bank. “We won’t begin to see a return … until the fourth year of operations.”

Tecotech began laying an inland cable from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville last week and was expected to complete this stage of the project within eight months. The whole project was slated for completion in about two-and-a-half years.

The German government has already donated fiber optic cables to connect Poipet and Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, and from Phnom Penh to Bavet, and Svay Rieng along the Vietnamese border, said Sophat.

“We already have six GSM network operators here,” said Vanthan. “So we should have a low-cost cable backbone for them.”

Once the system was up, he added, the price of telecommunications would come down considerably, allowing Cambodia to attract more investors with lower communications costs.

Compared to Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodia currently had the lowest level of technology and highest telecommunications costs in the region and was failing to meet its potential as a communications hub at the center of ASEAN.

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I will spend my own capital and help connect Cambodia to the world.
– Huot Vanthan
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“Our aim is offer cheap telecommunications to the public and to investors,” said Sophat, noting that the National Assembly was expected to soon pass a law assuring fair competition in the telecoms industry.

Cambodia’s open market policy has attracted many telecoms with high potential for growth, he said.

Last year, the Cambodia Investment Board (CIB) approved licenses for several telecommunication companies and the sector brought in a total of $471 million in capital, creating about 1,850 jobs.

Among telecoms receiving the green light in 2007 were Cambodia Advance Communications Co. (CADCOMMS), a 3G network provider with $164 million in capital; (Cambodia) Fiber Optic Communication Network Co., with 100-percent Chinese investment and $28.3 million in assets; and Applifone, a GSM 1800 Mobile network with 75 percent Kazakhstan investment and 25 percent Nepali investment, as well as assets $82.8 million.

Meanwhile, Viettel (Cambodia), a GSM mobile service project 100 percent owned by the Vietnamese People’s Army, will invest $70 million in building a Cambodian arm.

Temple tensions

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Kenneth T. So
Friday, 27 June 2008

Dear Editor,I am incensed that after 46 years of silence, now Thailand is protesting against Cambodia for the use of the French-Siamese Commission map made in 1907 that recognizes the demarcation of Cambodia’s frontier.

Why, after all these years, is Thailand objecting to Cambodia’s use of the joined commission map agreed by both France and Siam in 1907? This map was used at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on June 15, 1962.

As history has recorded, the ICJ sided with Cambodia and recognized that Preah Vihear was located within Cambodia. Thailand had accepted the ICJ decision.

The affair of Preah Vihear has flared up again because of Cambodia’s application to UNESCO to include the temple of Preah Vihear on the World Heritage List.

The initial Thai government reaction was swift and negative. They tried to block Cambodia’s application. Finally, due to pressure from Thai academicians and diplomats all over the world, the Thai government relented and no longer opposed Cambodia’s application.

However, as cunning as ever, Thailand threw a wrench into the gears to stop everything in motion. Thailand says that she does recognize Preah Vihear belonging to Cambodia but not the demarcation of the frontier that she agreed by the ICJ in 1962. Thailand insisted on using her own map that had never been recognized by the ICJ.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee will meet on July 2, 2008 in Quebec. One of the subjects of discussion will be on the temple of Preah Vihear.

Thailand knows full well that this meeting is very important for Cambodia. She knows that UNESCO needs cooperation from Thailand before it can record the temple of Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site.

Thailand really knows how to play this game. Cambodia should not fall into Thailand’s blackmail and should hold her accountable to the court of international laws.

It is time that Thailand stops bullying Cambodia and acting as if the latter is still her vassal state. As for Cambodia, it is time for her to develop and complete the road to Preah Vihear that ex-Phnom Penh governor Chea Sophara had started.

Kenneth T. So

Thai protests keep border closed

Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP; Thai tourists visit the Preah Vihear temple on June 21, the day before Cambodia closed the nearby border checkpoint with Thailand due to escalating Thai tensions over a map of the temple’s surrounding area.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Sambath Teth
Friday, 27 June 2008

The border with Thailand at the Preah Vihear checkpoint will stay closed until Thai protesters near the ancient temple site disperse, amid concerns that the demonstrators might “instigate problems,” said Preah Vihear provincial governor Preap Tan.

“We have to be careful for our people’s security, so we have to close it,” Tan said on June 26.

The checkpoint was closed late on June 22 after the protesters gathered at a market near the main entrance to the temple, on top of a ridge most easily accessed from the Thai side of the border.

The protesters oppose a June 17 decision by the Thai cabinet to approve a new map drawn by Cambodia of the site of the 10th century Hindu monument.

Approval of the map has cleared the way for Cambodia’s nomination for Preah Vihear’s listing as a UNESCO World Heritage Site to proceed after years of delays.

Deputy Prime Minister Sok An is leading the Cambodian delegation to a UNESCO meeting in Quebec, Canada, in early July at which the nomination will be considered.

“We hope that Preah Vihear will be added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites,” Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, said on June 25.

Siphan said he could foresee no obstacles to listing because of a joint communique endorsing the nomination signed by Sok An and the Thai foreign minister, Noppadon Pattama, on June 18.

However, the Thai government is coming under increasing criticism from opposition parties and civil society groups over its endorsement of the nomination.

The government of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej was condemned over the issue during a no-confidence debate in the Thai parliament last week. The issue has also been taken up by a coalition of anti-government groups which began street protests in Bangkok last month calling for Samak’s resignation.

The arrival of protesters at the checkpoint came after speakers at the street protests began using the Preah Vihear issue to step up their criticism of Samak.

Siphan said the reopening of the checkpoint will depend on the behavior of the Thai protesters.

“The checkpoint will be reopened after the demonstrators disperse and the situation calms down,” he said.

He criticized Thai opposition parties for politicizing the issue and also accused them of instigating demonstrations against Cambodia’s bid to seek World Heritage listing for Preah Vihear.

Siphan also expressed frustration at the attitude of Thai opposition parties towards the 1962 ruling by International Court of Justice granting sovereignty of Preah Vihear to Cambodia.

“Thai opposition party leaders are lawmakers but they oppose the international court’s decision,” he said.

Meanwhile, the closure of the checkpoint has forced Cambodian snack and souvenir vendors at the temple site to suspend operations.

Ley Eang, who runs a cafe at Preah Vihear, said on June 25 his only customers since the closure had been other Cambodians living at the site.

“My shop has had no customers from outside, so business is not good,” Eang told the Post on June 25.

“Some shopkeepers have returned to their home villages for a rest,” he said.

Preah Vihear checkpoint chief Ros Heng dismissed concerns that the closure would lead to food shortages on the Cambodian side of the border.

“We have no problem with food shortages as in past years because there is now road access to the temple,” Heng said.

He said there were dozens of Thai protesters at the market. “We are watching them,” Heng said.

New weapon to fight theft of Khmer relics

HENG CHIVOAN; Looting of Khmer artifacts has prompted the publication of a list of ill-gotten items to look out for.

The Phnom Penh Post

Written by Brendan Brady and Chrann Chamroeun
Friday, 27 June 2008

The illicit trade in Khmer antiquities has led to the creation of the Red List by an international arts organization as a tool to help customs officials, police officers, art dealers and collectors recognize artifacts unlawfully smuggled out of Cambodia.

To be published in September by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the Red List describes the types of artifacts most favored in the illicit antiquities market.

It offers sufficient identifying features that "if a customs officer opens a package and sees something similar, they can contact local officials to authenticate it," said Jennifer Thevenot, the ICOM officer in charge of the project.

"It's difficult to say if the looting situation in Cambodia has gotten better. It's still dramatic," said Thevenot. "I can say this from wandering through Paris auction houses."

She noted that "cultural tourism is a main source of income for Cambodia, so robbing artifacts is robbing the country of income.

"Cambodia is one of only four countries to have a Red List. The others are Iraq, Afghanistan and Peru, while similar lists exist for Africa and Latin America.

While she specified the Ministry of Interior's cultural heritage police and Interpol as the most likely officials to make use of the Red List, she said the booklet was an awareness-raising tool that could be easily distributed and interpreted.

Even eBay and other internet trading sites were beginning to monitor the sale of antiquities using the lists, she said.

"It generates international interest and gives visibility to the problem," she said, and, while the list would have no legal authority, it was meant to stimulate domestic and international lawmaking and law enforcement.

A major legal issue for Cambodia, she explained, was that Thailand and Singapore, both popular transit points for the illegal trade in Khmer antiquities, were not signatories of the 1970 UN resolution on the trafficking of cultural heritage which obligated countries to monitor the traffic of antiquities across their borders.

"This could be an opportunity to hold a press conference in Thailand where we could make a pitch for them to become a signatory," said Thevenot.

A consultative group met June 23-25 at Cambodia's National Museum of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh to draft the Red List for Cambodia. The group, which included representatives of the National Museum, the Ministry of Culture, and the NGOs Heritage Watch and Friends of Khmer Culture, agreed to a list organized according to pre-Angkor, Angkor, and post-Angkor periods, in categories of stone, metal, wood, and ceramic works.

The document, to be published in Khmer, English, French and possibly Thai, will also include a list of all cultural heritage laws that impact on Cambodia.

"Looting of Angkor-era relics has been going on for so long that there isn't much left to take, so now the looting of prehistoric items is a bigger issue," said Dougald O'Reilly, head of Heritage Watch.

O'Reilly said the new list would be a boon for a country that, only recently, was viewed as one of the easiest places to pilfer from.Officials at the Angkor complex in the 1990s, he said, used to speak of photographers documenting the temples for dealers in Bangkok who would make catalogues from which collectors could order pieces to be stolen.

Nuon Than, administrative head of the heritage police, said officers in his department were scheduled to receive training on July 4 on how to use the list.