A Change of Guard

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Saturday 31 October 2009

Cambodia gives big boost to military budget


By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Cambodia, one of Southeast Asia's poorest countries, plans to boost defense and security spending by 23 percent next year, its budget showed on Saturday, raising the prospect of a clash with the IMF.

Cambodia plans to spend $274 million on defense and security next year, up from $223 million this year, the budget showed. The total budget for calendar 2010 was $1.97 billion, which meant the military was allocated about 14 percent of total spending.

That compares with 1.7 percent spent on agriculture, the backbone of Cambodia's economy, and 0.7 percent on water resources. About 1.7 percent was set aside for rural development.

Military spending is a sensitive topic in Cambodia because of the millions of dollars of donor money flowing into the country, largely to social programmes.

"This big budget for defense is meant for preventative measures in response to international conflicts," said government spokesman Phay Siphan (pictured).

Siphan said the spending was unrelated to tensions with neighbouring Thailand over land surrounding a 900-year-old, cliff-top Hindu temple known as Preah Vihear. Skirmishes in the border area have killed seven troops in the past year.

Thailand is challenging a U.N. decision to make the temple a world heritage site under Cambodian jurisdiction. Cambodia was awarded the temple in a 1962 international court ruling that did not determine who owns 1.8 square miles (4.6 sq km) next to it.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) criticised Cambodia last year for its military spending, leading the Cambodian government to cut back its defense budget during a debate in parliament after questioning by the IMF.

"Donors will not be happy," Ou Vireak, head of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said of the latest military budget.

He said Prime Minister Hun Sen was likely trying to whip up nationalist support by projecting an image of a strong military at a time of heightened tension with Thailand.

"By doing so, he is turning the country effectively into a military state," he said.

(Editing by Jason Szep and Dean Yates)

Construction of Cambodian bourse to begin in Dec

31st October, 2009

By Ek Madra

PHNOM PENH, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Cambodia expects to begin construction in December on its first stock exchange, a government official said, giving momentum to a long-delayed joint venture with South Korean investors.

'We expect to have the ground-breaking ceremony in December,' Mey Vann, director of the financial industry department at Cambodia's Ministry of Economy and Finance, told Reuters.

The idea of a Cambodian stockmarket has been floated since the 1990s but has struggled for traction in a country known for chronic poverty and a history of upheaval, including the Khmer Rouge 'Killing Fields'.

Cambodian authorities have partnered with private South Korean developer World City Co Ltd to build a $6 million, four-storey stock exchange on the waterfront of a new financial district, Cambodian and World City officials have said.

The area where the stock exchange will be built is flooded swampland on the edge of Boeung Kak Lake in the heart of the Phnom Penh. The end of the rainy season this month will clear the way for workers to begin building the exchange on the corner of what developers are calling Phnom Penh Boulevard.

'The site is under a flood these days. We are pumping the water from the site,' said Vann, adding he expected construction to take between eight months and one year.

The bourse was supposed to open in September, a target set last year when South Korea's stock exchange operator agreed with the Cambodian government to set up and run a joint stock exchange.

But the global financial crisis intervened, ending an unprecedented boom which saw Cambodia's economy expand 10 percent annually in the five years up to 2008. Foreign investment collapsed, tourist arrivals fell by double digits and garment exports, a mainstay of the economy, shrank by 15 percent.

Cambodian officials rejected an initial design, saying the exchange's exterior was too modern and not Cambodian enough. It has since been redesigned using traditional Khmer accents.

'We are still working on finalising the design of the exchange building,' said Vann. 'We'd like to have a mixed design which shows both the culture of Cambodia and Korea.'

Korea Exchange, Asia's fourth-largest bourse operator, will own 49 percent of the exchange and is recruiting and training workers for it. Cambodian will own the rest.

Cambodian officials have cautioned against moving too fast, in some cases questioning whether a country whose education system was decimated during Pol Pot's 1975-79 reign of terror is ready to invest in stocks.

'We are going to launch a public awareness campaign about our stock market next month,' said Vann.

The exchange expects to start small with just four or five companies issuing about $10 million worth of shares each, Intyo Lee, project director for Korea Exchange, said in early October.

That's comparable to neighbouring Vietnam's first stock market launched in 2000 with its initial market capitalisation of $43 million. Today, Vietnam's market is worth $27 billion.

(Writing by Jason Szep, Editing by Dean Yates)

((jason.szep@thomsonreuters.com; +66 2 648 9720. Reuters messaging jason.szep.reuters.com@reuters.net)) Keywords: CAMBODIA EXCHANGE/

(If you have a query or comment on this story, send an email to news.feedback.asia@thomsonreuters.com)

Vietnam condemns Sam Rainsy’s act, slanderous allegations

Hun Sen (L) inaugurated Border Pillar 171 with Vienam's PM on 24th February, 2008.

30th October, 2009
VOV News (Hanoi)

A spokesperson for the Vietnam Foreign Ministry on October 30 strongly condemned Sam Rainsy – President of Cambodia’s Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) – for uprooting demarcation poles on Vietnam-Cambodia borders and making slanderous allegations against Vietnam.

On October 25, 2009, Sam Rainsy visited a border demarcation site between Vietnam’s Long An province and Cambodia’s Svay Rieng province, uprooting six demarcation poles at location 185 and bringing them back to Phnom Penh. He even accused Vietnam of “taking Cambodia’s land through border demarcation”.

Spokesperson Nguyen Phuong Nga said that currently Vietnam and Cambodia are speeding up border demarcation and landmark planting. Protecting landmarks and demarcation poles is the common task of the governments and people of the two countries, in line with bilateral agreements and international law.

Ms Nga described Sam Rainsy’s act as perverse, saying it violated the laws of both Vietnam and Cambodia as well as treaties and agreements reached between the two countries, and obstructed the process of border demarcation. She said Sam Rainsy’s slanderous allegations were ill-informed and irresponsible and that they aimed to incite hatred and undermine the fine relationship between Vietnam and Cambodia.

She asked the Cambodian Government to take necessary measures against such a destructive act, creating favourable conditions for conducting border demarcation and landmark planting between Vietnam and Cambodia on schedule in the interest of the two nations.

Cambodian PM to attend first Mekong-Japan summit in Japan

Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako of Japan.

PHNOM PENH, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen will lead a high delegation to participate in the first Mekong-Japan Summit from Nov. 6 to 7, 2009 in Tokyo, Japan, according to a statement released by the Cambodian Foreign Ministry on Friday.

The statement said the delegation will include Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and Cham Prasidh, senior minister and Minister of Commerce.

"This forthcoming summit clearly demonstrates the political commitment at the highest level of the Mekong countries and Japan for a comprehensive development of the Mekong region, including management of the Mekong River," the statement said.

During his stay in Japan, Hun Sen will be received in the Royal Audience by His Imperial Highness Crown Prince Naruhito at his Royal Palace, meet Takahiro Yokomichi, speaker of the House of Representatives of Japan, Eda Satsuki, president of the House of Councilors, and also hold a bilateral meeting with Hatoyama Yukio, Prime Minister of Japan.

The statement said at the end of the summit, Hun Sen will attend a joint press conference and signing ceremony on the Tokyo Declaration on a "New Partnership for the Common Flourishing Future" between Japan and the Mekong region countries, appended with the Japan-Mekong Action Plan.
Editor: Deng Shasha

Chavalit: Thaksin won’t reside in Cambodia

Chavalit (R) shook Hun Sen's had during his visit to Cambodia on 21st October, 2009.

Published: 31/10/2009
Bangkok Post

Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyuth, chairman of the opposition Puea Thai Party, said fugitive former prime minister would not permanently reside in Cambodia as he did not want to create any problem to Thailand.

“I had asked him (Thaksin) why he did not stay in the neighbouring country as it is near to his hometown and family, but he said no”, Gen Chavalit on Saturday.

“Staying in Cambodia could lead to many problems to Thailand”, Thaksin was quoted as saying by Gen Chavalit.

The opposition camp chairman disclosed that he will visit Malaysia in mid-November and after that he will make a visit to Burma.

He said he has known Gen Than Shwe for quite a long time and thus he can help improve relations between Thailand and Burma.

Regarding a criticism that he was trying to discredit the government and to help Thaksin, Gen Chavalit said if someone wants to do a big thing, he must be able to stand for such a negative criticism.

The ex-premier insisted that all he had done and plans to do are for the benefit of the country.

PM denies influencing ruling

29th October, 2009
Bangkok Post

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is distancing his government from a Council of State recommendation that ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra be stripped of his police rank and royal decorations.

Thaksin Shinawatra first wore the police uniform in 1973.

Mr Abhisit Wednesday said the government had not influenced the council's ruling on this matter, which was strictly between the Royal Thai Police and the government's legal advisory body.

"The Royal Thai Police asked the Council of State about the matter, and now the ruling has come out it will have to comply," he said.

The Council of State recommended on Tuesday that the fugitive prime minister be stripped of his police rank and royal decorations because he had been convicted and sentenced to two years in jail. Thaksin was a police lieutenant colonel before he built his business empire and entered politics.

The Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions found him guilty in October of last year of a conflict of interest in relation to the sale of a prime piece of real estate on Ratchadaphisek Road to his then wife.

Mr Abhisit said the revoking of Thaksin's police rank would be handled by the Royal Thai Police while the recall of his royal decorations would be undertaken by the relevant agencies.

Procedures call for the Secretariat of the Cabinet to propose the recall of the decorations to the prime minister for endorsement and then forward the matter to the Office of His Majesty's Principal Private Secretary. The recall, once it has royal endorsement, would be announced in the royal gazette.

The former prime minister has received nine royal decorations, the highest being the Knight Grand Commander (Second Class, higher grade) of the Most Illustrious Order of Chulachomklao, bestowed in 2002.

Thaksin wrote on his Twitter page yesterday that "it is a normal practice for this government... if they could find a law to kill me, they would have done.

"Law should be enforced for peace of society, justice, and equality, but this government chooses to enforce for political outcomes. Now I have to sing the song Khob Khun Thi Some Term (Thanks for repeatedly hitting me)."

Thaksin supporters have also come out to criticise moves to revoke his police rank and royal decorations.

Core Puea Thai Party member Chalerm Yubamrung said the move appeared to be politically motivated. It came just days after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen offered Thaksin a refuge and a job as his economic adviser.

"The government may or may not take advice from the Council of State," he said. "It depends whether or not the advice is useful to the government."

Mr Chalerm said the offence of which Thaksin was found guilty does not justify stripping him of his rank under the police's code.

Puea Thai: Thaksin being persecuted

Thaksin with his wife Potjaman.

Published: 29/10/2009
Bangkok Post

It’s hard for the government to deny that stripping deposed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra of his police rank is political persecution, opposition Puea Thai Party deputy leader Kanawat Wasinsangvorn said on Thursday.

“Considering the ongoing political situation, most people believe Thaksin is being persecuted in order to reduce his credibility,” Mr Kanawat said.

The former premier was being discredited because Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was suffering continual setbacks.

“Lately, Mr Abhisit had lost face as five leaders of member countries did not show up at the opening ceremony of the Asean summit in Hua Hin last weekend,” he said.

In addition, the prime minister had destroyed previously good relations with Cambodia by using strong words in an interview in retaliation for the Cambodian prime minister's statements about Thaksin.

He claimed that Mr Abhisit was not acceptable to many leaders of Asean. The premier also lost face when a recent poll results showed that he was less popular than Thaksin.

Mr Kanawat said the continuing political retaliation will only escalate the problem of social divisions, and lead to violent confrontation.

He called on Mr Abhisit to be patient and use the limited time he had left in office to perform his duty, rather than playing political games.

He suggested the prime minister quickly settle the problems behind the train strike that inconvenienced so many passengers and the investment impasse in Rayong’s Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate, which he said was destroying investor confidence.

After the killing fields

Cambodians today are looking for explanations for the disasters that have befallen their country, not least through the trials of former leaders of the communist Khmers rouges, writes David Tresilian from the capital Phnom Penh

Click to view caption
Photographs of prisoners from the hundreds on display at the Tuol Sleng Museum in Phnom Penh. Some 14,000 people were killed there by the Khmers rouges

Foreign visitors to Cambodia today tend to stay in Siem Reap, a small town in the north-west of the country from which they can explore the magnificent temples at Angkor. Built by Cambodian, or Khmer, kings between the 10th and 13th centuries, the temples have long served as symbols of Cambodian nationhood, and they are among the most important monuments in the region.

Siem Reap is reminiscent of Luxor in scale and character, and, like its Egyptian counterpart, it owes its prosperity to monuments and temples that attract tourists from across the world to what is otherwise still a sometimes little-understood and certainly under-appreciated country.

However, few such visitors may be aware that just a few decades ago Siem Reap, like the rest of the country's north-western region, was under the control of the Khmers rouges, Cambodian communist party forces or "Red Khmers", whose period in government in the 1970s made them a kind of by-word for brutality.

From April 1975, when Khmer rouge forces overthrew the US-backed Cambodian government in the capital Phnom Penh, to their own overthrow at the hands of invading Vietnamese forces in 1979, up to 1.7 million people are believed to have died as a result of Cambodian communist party rule of the country then dubbed Democratic Kampuchea.

Some of these people were murdered by the regime, dying on the infamous "killing fields" where anyone suspected of opposing Khmer rouge rule was bludgeoned to death. Others died of starvation or sickness in a country in which forced labour became the norm, and where communist party rule, supposedly aimed at economic self-sufficiency and industrial development, succeeded in turning the country into a kind of vast labour camp.

Communist party authorities carried out a bizarre experiment in social engineering, involving the forced evacuation of urban areas -- two million are believed to have been evacuated from Phnom Penh alone to work on labour camps in the countryside -- the abolition of money, the destruction of the family and the attempted eradication of religion, the aim being to transform the country along Maoist lines and carry out a kind of irreversible revolution.

Anyone visiting Cambodia 30 years later, struck perhaps by the unearthly beauty of the countryside and the grace and friendliness of the people, will want to know how such a nightmare could have descended on this country of some 14 million people and what steps are being taken to bring those responsible to justice.

Such questions have a better chance of being answered today than they have had at any time since the collapse of the Khmer rouge regime in 1979. Starting in February this year after decades of delay, a UN-sponsored mixed tribunal made up of Cambodian and international judges has been trying surviving senior members of the regime that ruled Democratic Kampuchea for crimes against humanity and on other lesser charges.

While the tribunal has attracted criticism, with neither the Cambodian authorities nor the UN nor international human rights agencies apparently always being happy with the results, it has had the effect of opening the events of 30 years ago up to inspection in a country that has sometimes seemed too traumatised by the past to look too deeply into it.

While the former Cambodian communist party leader Pol Pot, "Brother Number One", real name Saloth Sar, died in mysterious circumstances in 1998, other senior members of the regime, including foreign minister Ieng Sary and minister of social affairs Ieng Thirith, the regime's second in command, Nuon Chea, and former head of state Khieu Samphan, all now in their 80s and sometimes in poor health, are in custody awaiting trial in Phnom Penh.

Only a comparatively lowly member of the hierarchy, Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, governor of the regime's state security prison of Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh, has thus far been put on trial, and a verdict is expected following closing statements in November.

Over the months and years to come, former senior members of the Khmer rouge regime will be brought before the court, it is hoped bringing some measure of explanation and psychological closure to those who suffered so terribly at its hands.

***

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, as the mixed UN-Cambodian court is called, is located just outside Phnom Penh on a site borrowed from the Cambodian military. Getting to the court involves driving from the city centre along roads lined by the kinds of small businesses that seem to make up a large section of Cambodia's economic life.

From six in the morning to 10 or 11 at night, noises of banging and clanking emerge from innumerable small workshops, with food stalls and nondescript-looking shops selling anything from fruit and vegetables, piled up in colourful pyramids as in Egypt, to Buddhist statuary.

Much of Cambodian life seems to be lived in the streets, at least in popular or rural areas, and, as in many Southeast Asian cities, not least in neighbouring Vietnam, motorcycles are favoured forms of transport. The early morning streets in Phnom Penh are packed with traffic, many women riding side-saddle behind their male or female drivers, apparently unperturbed by the sometimes poor state of the roads.

The scene that greets visitors to the mixed tribunal is quite a contrast to the activity in the streets. Having surrendered passports, cameras, mobile phones and recording devices to security and been through an airport-style metal detector, visitors are shown into a curved auditorium done up in pastel colours and air-conditioned against the heat. Facing the banked rows of seats is a glass wall, and behind this, sealing the court off from the public auditorium, are the judges and lawyers making up the mixed tribunal.

The court itself is a kind of compromise between those who wanted greater international involvement -- perhaps a purely international tribunal sitting in a location outside the country where the events under investigation took place, like the international tribunals in The Hague -- and those who wanted the court to be located in Cambodia itself and to be run by the Cambodian judiciary with only minimal international involvement to guarantee legal standards.

In the event, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia represent an experiment in joint UN and Cambodian supervision. Of the five trial chamber judges, three are Cambodian and two are international, with a similar system of joint responsibility being used for the co- prosecutors, one international and one Cambodian, and the co-defence.

Just as important as the trial chamber is the pre-trial chamber, which investigates charges against those suspected of involvement in Khmer rouge atrocities and may recommend prosecution. Under the complex formula worked out between the UN and the Cambodian authorities, this chamber, like the trial chamber itself, operates on a system of "super-majority". Only if the international and Cambodian judges agree by four to one can a prosecution proceed.

Cambodia's newspapers provide a daily digest of the court's activities, which have included disagreements between the international and Cambodian judges over the scope and limits of the tribunal's operations. In a country that is still recovering from decades of civil conflict, with the country's warring forces, including the remnants of the Khmers rouges, only agreeing to join the political process in the 1990s as part of a process of national reconciliation, perhaps neither the Cambodian government nor apparently the Cambodian judges want to delve too deeply into past responsibilities.

Many former members of the Khmers rouges now occupy important positions in Cambodian public life, including the minister of the interior Sar Kheng, minister of foreign affairs Hor Nam Hong, and prime minister Hun Sen. All three defected before the fall of the regime in 1979 in order to escape from ever more bloody internal purges. Anyone over the age of 40 in Cambodia today will have first-hand memories of Khmer rouge rule, and the potential for a witch hunt against those suspected of even limited involvement in atrocities is clear.

While the founding statutes of the court attempt to limit conflicts over who should be prosecuted and why -- only senior leaders of the regime can be indicted and then only for activities carried out between 1975 and 1979 -- there have nevertheless been disagreements over how these should be interpreted. Prime minister Hun Sen has warned, for example, that further indictments could jeopardise national stability and lead to renewed civil war, saying earlier this year that he would "prefer to see the court fail than for war to come back to Cambodia".

Yet, crucial to the court's proceedings though such issues may be, they are likely to be of limited interest to any but the most-dedicated observers. Attending the trial of Duch recently before it adjourned for the closing statements, there was a feeling both that the court was engaged in necessary work, helping to clarify what happened during the years of Khmer rouge rule in Cambodia, and that it could get bogged down, or was getting bogged down, in legal flummery.

A mixed scene meets the eye in the court's public gallery. Aside from a smattering of foreigners -- journalists, NGO workers, tourists -- the vast majority of the audience is made up of Cambodians. Many of these people come from country districts, and on some days recently there were a good many members of the country's Muslim Cham minority present, this having suffered particularly badly under Khmer rouge rule.

Listening to the testimony of character witnesses, which took up two days of the proceedings, and of psychological experts, which took up considerably more, is likely to leave any observer feeling restless. Duch has pleaded guilty to the charges against him, unlike the other defendants, who have all claimed that they were unaware of the atrocities taking place in Cambodia under their rule. How Duch struck contemporaries during his student days, the testimony of one witness, and the "psychological mechanism of splitting" he arguably displays, debated by the psychological experts and the presiding judge, have perhaps at best only academic interest.

However, the court proceedings also throw up details that seem to speak illuminatingly about Cambodian society, then and now, and about the individuals who made up the Khmer rouge regime.

As a foreign observer, one is struck by the elaborate hierarchy governing social relationships in Cambodia, something that the Khmers rouges did their best to sweep away. Many leads were inexplicably ignored or not followed up in cross-questioning at the trial, and Duch himself seemed to be given extraordinary licence to explain his views in what at times became rambling disquisitions larded with faded Marxist slogans.

Yet, when Duch was called upon to speak the atmosphere in the public gallery changed. People stopped fidgeting, sleeping, or doing whatever else they were doing and leaned forward, attentive to every word he had to say, even the silliest and most inconsequential.

This impression was unmistakable, and it seems to indicate a thirst among Cambodians to understand the men responsible for what happened in the country in the 1970s. What do they look like? What do they have to say?

It seems to indicate, too, that the real value of the court may well lie not in the verdicts it will eventually hand down, but in the light it sheds on how the regime operated and the roles played in it by those occupying senior positions. This will doubtless be further clarified once the trials of the former senior Khmer rouge leaders begin next year, starting with that of Nuon Chea, Brother Number Two.

***

The prison over which Duch presided, now a museum in Phnom Penh's southern suburbs, was once a secondary school, and the design of the buildings and their arrangement reflect this original function. Blocks of classrooms a few storeys high face each other across an open area, each block being fronted with open corridors and having access stairs at the corners. A single administrative building occupies the centre of the open space between the buildings facing the main entrance.

When Vietnamese forces entered Phnom Penh in January 1979, driving retreating Khmer rouge soldiers before them, they came upon terrible scenes at Tuol Sleng. In addition to the corpses of a number of people, chained to iron bed frames on the ground floor of one of the buildings having apparently been murdered, they found evidence of mass graves neighbouring the site, and, in the former school's administrative building, thousands of documents, files holding details of the prisoners once held there.

Subsequent study of these documents, mostly typed, some meticulously written out in longhand, revealed that many of them consisted of "confessions", autobiographical accounts by prisoners that often seemed to have been extracted under torture. Photographs were attached to the files, and each prisoner was carefully numbered, his or her admission date scrupulously recorded.

Only later did it become clear that all those who had entered the Tuol Sleng prison, some 14,000 of them, had been bludgeoned to death at the killing fields of Cheong Ek just outside Phnom Penh.

The Vietnamese took the decision to turn Tuol Sleng into a museum, and the Vietnamese designer Mai Lam, also responsible for the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, was invited to find a way of preserving the site and displaying its horrendous collection of documents. A decision was made to leave the buildings untouched, and visitors to Tuol Sleng today can walk through former classrooms crudely divided by Khmer rouge guards into tiny cells in which prisoners were once kept chained.

On the lower levels, photographs of former inmates are displayed, row upon row of them, their expressions strangely blank, presumably terrified, showing men, women, boys and children as young as a couple of months old staring into the recording lens.

Visiting the prison today is an unforgettable experience, and one emerges numbed at such records of brutality. Emerging from the former classrooms into the bright sun of a Cambodian afternoon, one is struck by the shoddiness, the banality, of a regime that not only failed in its larger economic and political objectives, adopting a Marxist rhetoric that even its senior leaders apparently did not bother to understand, but at the same time also instructed some of those who served it to use whatever tools lay to hand -- cart axles and rusting pickaxes are among the objects displayed at Tuol Sleng -- to murder many of its own people.

However, such reflections pale compared to the desolation that descends on visitors to Cheong Ek. Arriving at this site 17km or so from the centre of Phnom Penh early on an autumn morning, one is shown first to the tall, pagoda-like structure that dominates the site. Housed within this, mounted on shelves reaching to the top, are some of the bones and skulls of those killed here from 1975 to 1979, their remains thrown into pits by Khmer rouge guards.

Driving back into Phnom Penh along roads lined by small workshops engaged in varieties of light industry, it is noticeable that the area around Cheong Ek has been left undeveloped despite the growth of the city since the late 1970s and the increasing value of the land. Buddhist ceremonies are regularly performed at Cheong Ek, and the site is dotted by tiny altars piled with offerings.

Who would want to build a house, or start a business, on land haunted by the victims of the Khmers rouges? Yet, perhaps this is the case for Cambodia as a whole, a situation that the mixed tribunal has been set up if not to rectify then at least to try to remedy. It should bring with it a sense that such crimes cannot simply be committed with impunity, their perpetrators allowed to go free and their victims forgotten.

***

Emerging from the tribunal hearings, reflections can naturally arise on the limitations of this form of justice.

Many of those who joined the Khmers rouges, from senior cadres to foot soldiers, were acting from high-minded motives. In the absence of political alternatives, and in the face of an American-backed regime of legendary cupidity, the communist forces in the countryside seemed for many to offer the best hope of renewal. Add to this an American bombing campaign of Cambodia, a spillover from the war in neighbouring Vietnam, that saw US forces drop nearly three million tons of bombs on the country killing between 50,000 and 150,000 civilians, and it may be hardly surprising that many people decided to join the Khmers rouges.

According to Yale University history professor Ben Kiernan, an expert on the Khmers rouges, in its undeclared war against Cambodia "from October 4, 1965, to August 15, 1973, the United States dropped... 2,756,941 tons' worth [of ordnance] on Cambodia, dropped in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites." To put this figure into perspective, "the Allies dropped just over two million tons of bombs during all of World War II. Cambodia may be the most heavily bombed country in history."

Reading the biographies of the leaders of the regime, many of whom, like Saloth Sar, studied in Paris in the 1950s, qualifying as teachers and university professors, a common thread of political commitment emerges. While these people were appallingly misled, they nevertheless included some of the best minds of their generation. Perhaps it is the fate of revolutions to eat their own, many of this older generation dying in the purges that swept the regime from 1977 onwards.

In order to find agreement on the court's mandate, it was agreed that only senior members of the regime would be investigated and there would be no examination of events before 1975 or after 1979. The delicate political balancing act that finally brought peace to Cambodia in the 1990s would have been threatened by an investigation of everyone who had had dealings with the Khmers rouges.

However, allowing the court to investigate Khmer rouge activities before 1975 and after 1979 could also have cast unwelcome light both on US actions in Cambodia before the collapse of the US-backed regime and on the international support for the Khmers rouges that allowed the group to pose as the recognised government of Cambodia until the early 1990s and delayed legal action starting against its senior leaders until February this year.

While the UN-sponsored mixed tribunal is exploring what happened in Cambodia under the rule of the Khmers rouges, as a result of its mandate it is unable to investigate the atrocities that took place in the country before 1975 or the international support for the Khmer rouge leaders that allowed them to escape justice for so long.

What is Mr. Sam Rainsy's main battle horse for the next election?

Below is Mr. Davan Long's reply to my op-ed titled "Rainsy’s publicity stunt carries a powerful political message".


Good observation Khmerization. The question is: will Mr. Sam Rainsy be able to make the issue his main battle horse for the next election, or is this just a one time show to offset PM Hun Sen mounting popularity during the recent spat with Thailand?

Regards,
DL

-----------------------------------------
And below is my reply to Mr. Davan Long:

Dear Davan,

Good question. I think the opposition, especially Mr. Rainsy himself, had attempted to use the border issues on every election but they did not gain any ground on this issue for the simple reason that the country (from local to national level) and the election was tightly controlled by the ruling party. When the organiser of the election is also the candidate in that election, in this case we are talking about the ruling CPP, it is natural that it will win.

On the question of popularity, there is no question that Mr. Hun Sen has made use of the Preah Vihear issue shrewdly and made himself seen by many Khmers as the one leader who can stand up to Thai bully. Mr. Rainsy and the oppositions had not made use of this issue to any political advantage over the government because so far he and his party has been too silent on the issue.

In my previous op-ed, I have heavily criticised his party for being too silent on the issue. I hope he will realise that he can no longer remain silent any more because P. Vihear has been a very important issue for Cambodia. It is not an option for him to remain silent any longer.

However, while Mr. Rainsy has been silent on the Khmer-Thai borders, he has been very vocal about the Khmer-Vietnamese borders. His action on 25th of removing six illegal border poles is an example. I believe that this is not just a one off show, there will be more to come. But whether he can convert this issue to an election gain is another issue which remain to be seen.

When talking about election victory in Cambodia, one has to take into account that the election is organised by a biased electoral body, tightly controlled by the ruling party which itself is also a candidate in that election. As a result, the election victory cannot be measured correctly because it is not the true representation of the voters' will. Thanks. I appreciate your interests in my op-ed.

Khmerization

Khieu Kanharith: RFA did not have licence to broadcast


By Khmerization

Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith has revealed that Radio Free Asia (RFA) has not registered with the Information Ministry and therefore did not have a licence and permit to broadcast in Cambodia, reports Deum Ampil.

The new revelation came at a time when the Ministry of Labour is trying to resolve the complaint lodged by 7 former staff who claimed that they were unfairly sacked by Radio Free Aisa, in contravention of the Cambodian Labour Laws.

On Friday 30th, Mr. Oum Sao Ly, director of Labour Dispute Resolution at the Ministry of Labour said the attempted mediation had failed to resolve the dispute.

In late September and early October, 7 RFA staff had been sacked by Mr. Kem Sos after they staged a tyre-burning protest (pictured) in front of the RFA Phnom Penh Office. The sacked staff claimed that they were sacked because they dare to voice their opposition to Mr. Kem Sos' dictatorial style of management. However, Mr. Kem Sos and RFA Management claimed that the sackings were the results of the organisation's restructure after their contracts had expired.

Mr. Phan Sophat, representative of the sacked staff and himself sacked, appealed to RFA to respect the Cambodian Labour Laws. "We request that RFA respect the Labour Laws of the Kingdom of Cambodia and do its utmost to resolve this issue in accordance with the Laws", he said.

400 Khmers seeking works in Thailand arrested and repatriated

The 400 returnees walking along the street in Poipet to find a place to stay.

By Khmerization

A group of 400 Khmer would-be migrant workers, including children and old people, who are trying to cross into Thailand to find works have been arrested by Thai police on 27th October and repatriated to Cambodia on the same day, reports Koh Santepheap.

The group had been arrested 20 metres from the Khmer border at Robieng Checkpoint near Poipet. They said they came from Kampong Thom, Kampong Cham, Siem Reap, Oddar Meanchey and Banteay Meanchey provinces and are looking for works in Thailand as their homes, rice crops and farms have been destroyed by Typhoon Ketsana recently.

The groupd had been handed over to Khmer authority at Poipet International Checkpoint. They were encouraged to return home. However, they said that they have no homes to return to and will make another attempt to cross the borders again in the hope that they can find works to feed their families.

Many Cambodians had risked their life attempting to cross the borders to find works in Thailand and often they have been arrested and beaten before being repatriated by Thai authority. Some were even maimed and killed by Thai troops and police.

Filmmaker Hopes to Bring Justice in Acid Attack

Tat Marina

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
30 October 2009


Skye Fitzgerald, whose recent documentary, “Finding Face,” chronicles the life of acid attack victim Tat Marina, hopes support built from the film will go toward punishing the perpetrators and finding justice for his subject.

“One of our strategies with releasing the film here in the United States is to garner more support,” Fitzgerald told VOA Khmer in Washington, where he is on a tour to promote the film.

He had come to the capital, he said, “to make sure that legislators, politicians, and folks from the human rights community have a chance to access the film, learn about Tat Marina’s story, and hopefully get more fully engaged with the issues the film raises.”

Tat Marina, a young karaoke singer who was severely disfigured and nearly killed when she was doused with acid at a market in Phnom Penh in 1999, is expected to speak at the film’s launch in Washington, as she did when it showed in Portland, Ore.

Fitzgerald has also begun sending DVDs by request to Cambodia and has encouraged the distribution of copies.

“It’s not been a project that we engaged with for financial gains necessarily,” he said, “but it is a project that we couldn’t say no to.

“It was one that we felt very powerfully about, because of the nature of the story, because we knew that Marina hadn’t had a chance before to seek out any justice for herself or the family,” he said. “And so we felt very dedicated to making sure we took our resources and used them to help her and the family to tell the story.”

The film has invoked anger and sympathy in its viewers so far, from Americans and Cambodians alike. (The wife of a senior official is suspected in the attack, but no arrests have ever been made.)

“Through what I’ve heard it is injustice for her, and I want to personally see her pictures, and want to know how good the story is,” Keo Ang, a market vendor in Svay Rieng province, told VOA Khmer by phone. “Therefore I want a DVD, to show it to my family and some people so that they are able to understand more about her life.”

Hun Sen’s jibes raise speculation

Hun Sen arriving at the Asean Summit.

Thai Takes
The Star, Malaysia
By PHILIP GOLINGAI

As the Cambodian premier strained his connections with the Thai government, Thaksin’s tit for tat with Bangkok continues.

IN an editorial cartoon, The Nation’s cartoonist Stephff answers a question that has recently been bugging Thais – What is really wrong with Hun Sen?

Last week, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen offered political asylum to Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai prime minister ousted in a bloodless coup in 2006.

Thaksin has been in self-exile after fleeing Thailand in 2008 to avoid a two-year jail term on corruption charges.

Two days later, after arriving in Thailand to attend the Asean Summit, Hun Sen embarrassed Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva again when he announced that he would offer Thaksin a job as economic adviser.

On Thursday, Stephff’s cartoon showed an “alien” resembling the square face of Thaksin bursting out of the guts of a grimacing Hun Sen, with the “alien” holding a foot-clapper (the symbol of red-shirted pro-Thaksin supporters) confronting a terrified Abhisit.

The why as to Hun Sen’s recent Thaksin lovefest, according to the French cartoonist, is: “The horrible truth: Hun Sen was only a host body ….”

Stephff’s take is ha-ha funny. But it is a bit too far-fetched. I prefer The Nation’s military expert Avudh Panananda’s take. “It was a hoax perpetrated by Thaksin and Hun Sen to overshadow Abhisit’s Asean Summit,” he said.

Avudh does not believe the Cambodian’s declaration that the former telecommunications tycoon is his “eternal friend”.

“It is a myth that Thaksin-Hun Sen ties go back decades. The two were never close before Thaksin came to power in 2001,” he said.

In an article in The Nation, the writer gives a historical perspective of the two leaders’ relationship.

“At the peak of Thaksin’s popularity in 2003, Hun Sen wanted to lessen Thai domination in the wireless communications business.

“He pushed for the granting of a licence to a Japanese operator,” Avudh writes.

“This led to a failed coup in Phnom Penh. Cambodian leaders, particularly those in the Hun Sen camp, had lingering (suspicions) about the involvement of certain Thai figures.

“Soon after, Hun Sen fanned the Cambodian backlash on a Thai television actress. This in turn led to riots and the torching of the Thai Embassy,” Avudh says.

“To this day Thaksin and Hun Sen still cast suspicions on one another, although they have been boasting about their buddy-buddy ties for mutual gains.”

After the Asean Summit that ended on Oct 25, Thaksin again stole the limelight from Abhisit, who badly wanted to use the meeting of Asean leaders to atone for the abandoned summit in Pattaya in April.

On Tuesday, Surapong Towijak-chaikul, an MP from the pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai Party claimed that during the summit, Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah stayed in Thaksin’s seaside home instead of the official accommodation provided by Ab-hisit’s government.

Surapong, however, did not provide any evidence to back up his claim, which was intended to show that the Sultan was close to Thaksin and not to Abhisit.

Was the claim another hoax to embarrass Abhisit? Probably. The following day Kongkiart Natthavong, the head of security in charge of protection for the Sultan of Brunei, denied that the Sultan stayed in Thaksin’s home.

“It was my duty to accompany him and I had to go everywhere with him. I must know if he goes to other places,” Kongkiart said.

Then came the Abhisit government’s revenge.

On Wednesday, the government announced it would strip Thaksin of his royal awards (the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant and the Most Illustrious Order of King Chula Chonklao) and police rank (lieutenant-colonel, from his days in the police force from 1973 to 1987).

Though the Abhisit government is denying it, many political pundits see the government’s latest campaign against its arch-rival as tit for tat for Thaksin’s recent publicity stunts.

The billionaire politician’s res-ponse was classic Thaksin.

He Twittered: “This can be expected of this government ... If they could use the law to kill me, they would have done so a long time ago.”

“Theoretically, the law-enforcement side is created to maintain peace and justice. Law must be enforced fairly and equally, but the government opts to exercise the law to serve a political goal,” he wrote.

It would not take long for the “alien” resembling the square face of Thaksin to strike back.

Cambodian beggars in HCM City

30th October, 2009

VietNamNet Bridge – A small group of Cambodian child beggars have appeared in HCM City in recent months.

Cambodian child beggars in HCM City.


At 6pm at a crossroads on Dien Bien Phu street, three kids in ragged and dirty clothes, holding plastic bowls stand at traffic lights asking for small change.
The two older children collect the cash while a much younger child lies naked on the pavement.

They eventually disperse when they hear a police whistle. Next day they are back – but this time the group includes six children and two women.

The two women sat on the pavement while six children divided into three groups, work around the roundabout of Dien Bien Phu street.

From asking around reporters traced them back to a marshy piece of land along the Nguyen Huu Tho road, District 7, which looks like a dumping ground. There are several tents made of coconut leaves and a small house.

Local residents say the house owner pitied the children so he allowed them to live in the house free. They also said that there are over 50 Cambodian people who have been living in this area for around 7 months.

A Cambodian man, who can speak a little Vietnamese, told VietNamNet that they came from Cambodia and they often return home each 3-4 months.

These Cambodian earn their living by collecting waste and begging.

Local government has several times sent them back home but they returned, said Tran Mong Thanh, chairman of Tan Hung ward. Thanh said there are many other Cambodians in HCM City, not only in his ward.

Mai Thi Hoa from the HCM City Department of War Invalids and Social Affairs said that under the HCM City’s regulations, all beggars will be gathered at social patronage centres and then be sent back to their homes.

Tu Truc

Long journey to a new life

Manawatu Standard
New Zealand
Last updated 12:00 31/10/2009

SAM
WARWICK SMITH/The Manawatu Standard
HAPPY: Cambodian refugee Sam Put with his partner Nicky and daughter Madison.

Relevant offers

War, extreme poverty and starvation are not issues Manawatu residents face every day, but for migrants and refugees, these problems have often been part of life. Adjusting to a new homeland may not be easy, but when JONATHON HOWE spoke to 29-year-old Cambodian refugee Sam Put, he discovered that success in the face of adversity was possible.

Sam Put was just one week old when his mother carried him, his brother and a bag of rice across Cambodia's killing fields and into Thailand.

His parents were fleeing from Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, which killed more than one million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. "My parents had to flee," Sam says. "If they'd stayed, they would have been shot or abducted to work in rice fields.

"Pol Pot's regime, they don't want anyone that could think, because they don't want leaders, they want followers."

The 14-day trek to the Thai border was a dangerous journey over mountains and across rivers. Sam's parents endured many horrors on that journey. They lost a daughter to starvation, they saw the dead and disfigured bodies of men, women and children on the side of the road, they saw babies abandoned because their cries would alert soldiers. Sam's cries led to his family being ostracised by a larger group, but his mother would not abandon him.

"She got pushed aside from the group that was leading the way," he says. "At that time, if a soldier hear you, they will pretty much kill you, and you can't tell a baby to sshh."

Sam's family was placed in the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp with tens of thousands of asylum seekers. He spent his first nine years in Khao-I-Dang, a nightmare place filled with death, violence and sexual abuse.

"For me, seeing people die of starvation felt like it was natural because I grew up with it."

He remembers soldiers raiding the camp looking for women and children to rape. "It would happen about once a week. About 10 or 20 soldiers would come in. We always kept everything packed in case we had to run.

"Looking back now, I don't know how so many people survived in that camp for such a long time."

But Sam learnt to adapt, spending most of his time looking for food and attending lessons given by elders.

Sometimes he would escape from the camp and go fishing at a nearby river, a perilous task because Khmer Rouge boats patrolled the waters.

"One night when we went we saw one guy who was caught and got decapitated.

"Although his death distressed me, we continued to fish there. It was that or my family would have starved."

Every year his family prayed they would be chosen for resettlement. Sam compares the selection process to a lottery that his family lost for eight years.

"It's just a list and if your name comes up, you get to go. If it doesn't, then you just stay there," he says. "We were there for nine years, so you can just think the amount of time we'd just wait around to go every year, hoping, hoping, hoping to go."
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People were reluctant to take in big families, so Sam's parents put him and his brother forward as a separate family.

In 1989, Sam and his brother hit the jackpot and were headed for New Zealand.

Today, Sam is a polite, cheerful and confident 29-year-old family man. He works in business banking at the Bank of New Zealand and is a semester away from finishing a Bachelor of Education degree, majoring in secondary school physical education, at Massey University.

He also coaches the Takaro International soccer team, attends St Matthew's Church and plays a leading role in the Manawatu Cambodian Association. He recently celebrated the arrival of his first child, Madison Grace Put, with his Kiwi fiancee, Nicola.

His achievements have even caught the attention of staff at Wellington's Te Papa museum. Sam will feature in an exhibition called The Mixing Room: Stories from Young Refugees in New Zealand, opening in April next year, which will tell the settlement stories of refugees aged between 12 and 29 who act as leaders and mentors in their communities.

But Sam wasn't always happy. On arrival in Palmerston North, he felt trapped by his poor English, his loneliness and his lack of independence.

Sam and his brother were placed with a Cambodian family who, although kind, were no substitute for parents.

"A month felt like a decade without a family," he says.

"When I left the camp, I didn't realise that I was going so far away. I thought I could see my mum and dad whenever I wanted."

Sam's lack of English meant he needed help with basic tasks like buying books or ordering food.

"I just felt I was dumb and isolated and a burden on people.

"I felt it was harder to cope than when I was in the refugee camp, because I didn't know how to relate to this place."

Sam was most afraid of school, where he could not hide his lack of English. Some children ridiculed him for being different, and he was subjected to racism.

"I was being laughed at because I didn't really know what I was doing there," he says.

"There were names like black spot because I was real black, dumb a.... One kid called me alien, because the things I was doing were quite strange.

"In the camp, we would hunt sparrow. I did that at school and I got told off because it wasn't the norm, but for me I thought it was normal, because in the refugee camp we hunt sparrow all the time."

He also felt awed by the abundance of food and comfortable lifestyle in Palmerston North.

"I'd never seen a telly, so when I first saw a telly, I cried because I thought, `Why are these little people stuck in this TV'?"

It was a huge moment when Sam's parents came to Palmerston North about a year after he arrived.

"I can never repay what my parents done for me and that's why, in a way, I wanted to help bring them to New Zealand, because without them I wouldn't be here today."

But the problems did not stop. The feelings of isolation remained and at his lowest point he contemplated suicide.

"You've just got to be strong.

"Because of my language barrier, it was hard for me to speak it out. It's hard to tell people what was wrong if you find it hard to communicate."

Sam worked hard at his English, and when he left high school, things began to improve. He credits the turnaround to three things: tertiary study, sport and church.

He completed a sports science and coaching diploma at Universal College of Learning and started to coach the multicultural Massey International soccer side, which later became Takaro International.

"I just slowly started to become confident in who I am, to grow up and be a man and take responsibility."

Making Kiwi friends was vital for integrating into New Zealand society, he says.

"Rather than just hanging with my own people, I learnt to branch out. To me, it was getting both cultures and bringing them together to adapt."

Sam now helps other Palmerston North refugees in his roles on the Manawatu Cambodian Association and Ethnic Forum. His most recent project was organising last weekend's Cambodian Soccer tournament in Palmerston North.

"There is hope for migrants or refugees if they learn to adapt and, as a community. We try to provide them with the correct network and just promote the awareness of different people.

"They will be able to achieve what I have achieved. It's going to be hard at first, but there is light at the end of the tunnel."

Cambodian PM defends friendship with Thaksin

Slideshow image

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is seen in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009. Thailand would seek the extradition of Thaksin Shinawatra if the fugitive former prime minister accepts an invitation for refuge in neighboring Cambodia, Hun Sen said Thursday. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)


The Associated Press
Friday Oct. 23, 2009

CHA-AM, Thailand — Cambodia's leader offered to make Thailand's ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra his economic adviser Friday, threatening to worsen already tense relations between the Southeast Asian neighbours.


Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen also compared Thaksin -- still a deeply divisive figure in Thai politics -- to Myanmar's democracy icon Aung Sang Suu Kyi.

Hun Sen made the remarks to reporters just an hour after he arrived in Thailand to attend the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

"It's true that I invite him to Cambodia anytime," Hun Sen said of Thaksin. "At the same time I will offer to make him my adviser."

Thaksin was toppled in a 2006 military coup after being accused of abuse of power and disrespect to Thailand's monarch. He was sentenced in absentia to two years in prison for breaking a conflict-of-interest law.

Still, he remains a powerful and divisive influence on Thai politics. Mass protests and clashes between his supporters and opponents have periodically destabilized the country.

The current Thai government is considered allied with anti-Thaksin forces and is keen to prevent him from staging any kind of political comeback. His Thai passport has been cancelled.

Analysts said recent tensions over a disputed border may have prompted Hun Sen to so openly back Thaksin.

Relations between Cambodia and Thailand are already strained by a sometimes violent border dispute over a parcel of land around an 11th century Khmer temple.

Thai leaders for their part were keen to downplay any tension with their neighbour over Hun Sen's remarks.

"We're here to build a community, which means solidarity, which means unity. I don't want (Hun Sen) to be a victim or a pawn for somebody that undermines the interests of his country, and the interests of the region," Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said.

The Cambodian leader, the longest serving head of government in Southeast Asia, roiled the climate ahead of the summit Wednesday by meeting a senior member of Thailand's main opposition party and telling him that Thaksin was welcome in Cambodia.

"It appears that Hun Sen also wants to openly ally himself with rivals of Abhisit's government because he hasn't been happy with how this government has handled the border dispute," said Sukhum Nuansakul, a political scientist at Bangkok's Ramkhamhaeng University. "The issue of Thaksin is one that was sure to cause jitters in Thailand."

Thai officials said they would seek Thaksin's legal return should he visit Cambodia by invoking an extradition treaty between the two countries.

But in a statement Friday, Cambodia said it has "the legal ground to absolutely reject any extradition" because a request would be based on a "political offence."

Hun Sen described Thaksin's battles with his own government as an internal affair of Thailand and said he would not interfere. But he compared Thaksin's status to that Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader, whose continued detention is a point of discussion within ASEAN.

"People talk about Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar, why can't (they be) talking about Thaksin?" he asked.

Abhisit said he believed Hun Sen was "seriously misinformed" and that he doubted many people around the world would liken Thaksin to Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate who has been under detention for 14 of the last 20 years.

Cambodia eyes Nov. 4 rice tender

Cambodian rice is being loaded for export to overseas.

Business World

MACTAN, Cebu (Philippines) -- Cambodia aims to double exports in five years and play a bigger role in the global rice market.

Ny Lyheng, managing director of the Federation of Cambodian Rice Millers Associations, said on Thursday that his group also plans to tap new markets, including the Philippines, as he expressed interest to participate in the Philippine tender on November 4.

Mr. Ny said Ambassador Noe Wong and his staff at the Philippine Embassy in Phnom Penh recently toured the facilities of Baitang (Kampuchea) Plc. (Cambodia Green Plc), which operates the first and biggest rice milling plant in Cambodia. The plant has the capacity to produce 720 metric tons a day, Mr. Ny added.

Cambodia presently produces around eight million metric tons of paddy rice, only half of which is for domestic consumption. The other half, which translates to about 3 million MT of milled rice, is exported to Germany, France, Malaysia and other countries.

The target is to more than double exports to 8 million MT of milled rice by 2015, Mr. Ny said.

"Cambodia has great potential to be a major player (in the rice market). We can compete in terms of quality and quantity," Mr. Ny said.

To increase production, Mr. Ny said they will cultivate more lands for rice, increase the cropping periods, improve farming techniques and upgrade rice mills.

The government had provided the federation a loan, part of which was used to held upgrade milling equipment throughout the country.

"Now, 15% of our mills are ready to export. They are expected to start exporting in 2010," Mr. Ny told delegates to the World Rice Conference here that ended Thursday.

The rest of the mills will continue to cater to domestic requirements while upgrading their equipment.

Cambodia presently has 2.6 million hectares of ricelands. "We have a very big land area. We can increase our irrigated lands," Mr. Ny said.

Other emerging rice exporters are Myanmar, which targets to export 1 million MT next year; and Uruguay, whose paddy exports may reach 1.25 million MT, or about 800,000 MT of milled rice. -- Marites S. Villamor

Out with the old, in with the new: report calls for decentralized electricity generation in Cambodia

Probe International
Friday, October 30, 2009

The Cambodian government should shelve its plans to construct massive hydro electric dams, and instead implement and enforce policies that promote decentralized electricity generation, says a new report by Probe International and the NGO Forum on Cambodia. The report’s author, Grainne Ryder says Cambodia’s abundant biomass, hydro, solar, and natural gas resources, and an electricity sector that is already decentralized, place the country in a unique position to accelerate investment in decentralized generating technologies and move away from 20th century central planning models.

In the report, Powering 21st Century Cambodia with Decentralized Generation, Ms. Ryder argues that bringing cheaper and more reliable sources of electricity to residents is necessary to develop their economy. Currently, only 18 percent of the population is connected to an electricity grid, and rural Cambodians pay as much as 50 to 60 US cents per kilowatt-hour—some of highest electricity prices in the world.

The Cambodian government believes the best way to improve access and bring down costs of electricity is to construct a string of massive hydro dams linked to a national transmission system and increase large-scale power imports from neighboring countries. Ms. Ryder argues that there is a much better way.

“Recent technological advances have made it more economical and reliable to generate power on a much smaller scale, closer to where power is needed, using many smaller power plants and building-scale generating technologies,” she says.

She is calling for decentralized electricity generation, which typically includes renewable energy technologies and high-efficiency gas-fired power plants scaled to meet consumers’ needs on-site or within the local distribution network. But, she says, the Cambodian government has yet to consider the benefits of decentralized generation, and instead pursues more large-scale—often environmentally and socially reckless—sources of electricity.

“Cambodia is in an ideal position to develop electricity supply alternatives that are far less destructive than big dams and giant coal plants,” she says. “But vested and incumbent donor and energy industry interests have effectively narrowed Cambodia's choices to a false choice between big dams, dirty coal, and hazardous nuclear.”

Unlike large-scale power plants that require extraordinary amounts of capital and take years to build before they can deliver a single kilowatt to consumers, decentralized generating technologies can be quickly installed and deliver electricity to consumers for cheaper and far less environmental impact.

In fact, if the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy follows through with its plans for 14 large hydropower dams to be in operation by 2020, it will be far more expensive than more local and decentralized sources of power. According to the report, Cambodia’s big hydro projects are expected to cost US$1500 per kW range. This is far higher than the $300 to $700 per kW cost for gas-fired combined cycle plants, which can be installed in as little as three to six months.

Further, Ms. Ryder says, many of the large hydro electric projects being pursued by the Cambodian government would not be possible without huge subsidies from international development banks and donor agencies. As a result, the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy—with help from the World Bank—has created a new donor-dependent bureaucracy.

Ms. Ryder suggests a few policy changes to help usher in a decentralized power system: the government should remove import duties on all decentralized generation technologies and equipment, give all power generators non-discriminatory access to local distribution grids and introduce interconnection standards that accommodate all producers, amongst others.

“Decentralized generation,” she says, “can be financed and organized by any number of local organizations and entrepreneurs in ways that create local employment, encourage investment in rural businesses, and boost farmers’ incomes.”

Ms. Ryder says the aim of this report is to start a dialogue, calling for a clear-eyed rethinking of Cambodia's electricity future. But in order to do so, the government needs to implement a few vital regulatory policies.

“Cambodia’s electricity future ultimately requires changing the legal, regulatory and financial framework for the country's energy sector,” she says. “I want to lay forth a very simple set of recommendations to get the dialogue going for those who believe the present approach is far too hazardous to the environment, people's health and the economy.”

Friday 30 October 2009

Who is the king: A poem by Sam Vichea


Click on text to read.

Ke Sovannroth, SRP Secretary General, would likes to say thank you to SRP supporters

Dear SRP supporters,
Ke Sovannroth, SRP Secretary General, would likes to say thank you to SRP supporters.
Please click link to read full text in Khmer http://tinyurl.com/yjtco96
SRP Cabinet

Defamation: Mu Sochua to appeal to highest court


Friday, 30 October 2009
By Laura Snook
Phnom Penh Post

Defamation
OPPOSITION lawmaker Mu Sochua (pictured) will today file an appeal to the Supreme Court against her conviction for defaming Prime Minister Hun Sen, a court official said Thursday. The outspoken Sam Rainsy Party parliamentarian vowed to take her case to the higher court earlier this week after her conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal, a move she described as “politically motivated”. The original ruling, handed down by the Municipal Court in August, found Mu Sochua guilty of defaming the premier and ordered her to pay a total of 16.5 million riels (US$3,963) in fines and compensation. Despite the Appeal Court’s decision, Mu Sochua remained defiant on Wednesday. Speaking outside the Court of Appeal, she again said she had no intention of paying the fine. The prime minister sued Mu Sochua for defamation in April after she filed her own complaint that he had made derogatory remarks about her during a press conference. Her lawsuit, however, was dismissed by the Appeal Court on October 14, whereas Prime Minister Hun Sen’s proceeded.

Hun Sen, Thaksin and corrupt coalitions



By Frank G. Anderson
UPI Asia.com
Column: Thai Traditions
Published: October 30, 2009

Nakhonratchasima, Thailand — Last April the Bangkok Post, Thailand’s English-language daily, ran an article passing on a “leak” from the Royal Thai Air Force that it had tracked former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s private jet as it crossed the border into Cambodia, once each at Phnom Penh and Koh Kong.

At the time, Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh (pictured) denied any contact between Cambodia and Thaksin. He rhetorically asked why Thaksin would want to come to Cambodia, and added that his country could do nothing to help the fugitive prime minister. He also said, "I have never seen Thaksin come here to Cambodia.”

So perhaps a few eyebrows were raised when Cambodia’s prime minister indicated in late October that he had a warm place in his heart for Thaksin.

Hun Sen, as he arrived in Thailand on Oct. 23 for the latest ASEAN summit, loudly proclaimed that Thaksin was welcome in his country and that he would not extradite him to Thailand if so requested by Thai authorities. He even pointed out that Article 3 of a Thai-Cambodian extradition treaty prohibits the extradition of those accused of political offenses. He went further to suggest that he would appoint the fugitive to be his economic adviser.

In response, Thailand’s current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva politely but pointedly told the Cambodian leader that he should not let himself be used as a pawn, but should work with other ASEAN members to meet the organization’s goals

Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thuagsuban subsequently had a two-hour talk with Hun Sen explaining the Thai government’s position regarding Thaksin. Suthep came out of the meeting publicly confident that Hun Sen would not make any more such comments. Perhaps privately he knew better.

According to claims by the anti-Thaksin People’s Alliance for Democracy, the ousted prime minister had already established friendly relations – allegedly in the form of personal financial benefits – with the Cambodian government in parlaying Thai sovereignty over the temple of Khao Phreah Vihear that sits on the two countries’ border for offshore oil concessions from Cambodia, that Thaksin would allegedly benefit from.

Hun Sen’s apparent disregard for Thailand’s sensitivities is not really all that difficult to understand. Like Europe and other countries that considered hypocritical certain policies by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, so too it is likely that Cambodia feels Thailand is hypocritical – saying one thing but doing quite another.

Thai people, unsurprisingly, have different opinions concerning Hun Sen’s comments in support of Thaksin, but most appear to be critical. One pro-PAD activist, in fact, threatened to lead a large group of protesters to surround the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok, mostly because of the Khao Phreah Vihear temple dispute, but also because of what is viewed as Cambodian government interference in domestic Thai politics.

One protest leader who did demonstrate against the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok said, “Hun Sen's action intentionally showed hostility to Thailand, its government and its military as well as the Thai people. It is interference in Thai politics.”

As if for Thailand to further shoot itself in the foot over the issue of handing Cambodia hundreds of acres of land around Khao Phreah Vihear, Thai TV viewers were treated to a speech by Lt. Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol, an army specialist and flamboyant individualist, in a recent TV interview.

When asked about the real problem behind the Khao Phreah Vihear issue and why the army could not resolve what Thailand views as seizure of its territory, Sawasdipol replied, “The army … it’s a ‘play golf’ army, ‘country club’ type. That’s why.” This is the same man who had earlier helped train guards for the pro-Thaksin Red Shirts until told by his superiors to stop, and who had allegedly been involved in violence against the People’s Alliance for Democracy in 2008.

Thailand’s relations with its “friendly neighboring countries” Cambodia, Burma, Laos and Malaysia have been traditionally less than ideal – for the majority of people in each nation, that is. But for business and political sleight-of-hand on both sides, the relationship has been very lucrative. Thaksin and look-alike “investors” gained immense fortunes through various deals with all these countries, including telecommunications contracts, oil concessions, lumber operations, construction and more.

For his part, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has his hands full keeping together a weak political coalition that has been described as one where everyone gets what he wants, and may abandon the ship, sinking the coalition, if he doesn’t.

This coalition includes Pranawm Phokham, parliamentarian from Nakhonratchasima and board member of the Motherland Party, which is composed of both pro- and anti-Thaksin members. A glittering example of the fruit of Pranawm’s labor during his political life includes a multimillion dollar resort home, now under construction near a controversial forestry reserve region of Wang Nam Khiew in Nakhonratchasima province.

Pranawm was one of 28 members of parliament who voted for Abhisit to become prime minister. Quid pro quo for Pranawm may include Thailand’s own version of its U.S. counterpart, “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

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(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development. A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)

Temple bike ride just the ticket for a fun day out


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Riders at last year's Angkor Wat Bike Race on the temple course.
Participants in this year’s fourth annual Angkor Wat Bike Race and Fun Ride on Saturday December 5 will have a choice of completing one or three laps of a course which winds around temples including Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom.

The 30-kilometre one-lap course caters for amateurs, while the three-lap course is for more competitive cyclists. The event attracts international interest because of the spectacular temple scenery.

So far 50 people have registered, with another 100 or so expected to sign up before the day. Last year 125 people competed, and ride coordinator Drew McDowell of the Village Focus International NGO said he was hoping to better that number.

The race, held the day before the Angkor Wat International Half Marathon, is a fundraiser for Village Focus International which works on projects in education and rural development.

There will be a dinner on the evening before the ride and brunch afterwards at extra cost.

The race will start in front of Angkor Wat at 6am. Participants will receive a T-shirt, a certificate of completion, and a basket of Kampot peppercorns.

The entry fee is US$50 for foreigners and $25 for Khmers with a special offer of $2 for Khmer women, some of whom will be given free bike rental.

Online registration is at www.villagefocus.org/bike.

Thai Rath columnist Mae Lookjan: Prime Minister Abhisit's tit-for-tat against his Cambodian counterpart was uncalled for,

Published: 30/10/2009
Bangkok Post

Despite gushing official statements, the Abhisit government's performance at the recent Asean Summit was disappointing.

The so-called achievements in Hua Hin and Cha-am were too little compared with the huge budget spent in organising the three-day event.

The 15th summit got off on an inauspicious start, as four heads of state and government failed to show up at the official opening.

The Thai-Cambodian spat over deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra did not contribute in any way to the grouping's quest for unity, friendship and cooperation.

Prime Minister Abhisit's tit-for-tat against his Cambodian counterpart was uncalled for, as Thailand was the host of the meeting. He should have reserved his criticism for some other occasion.

Many issues have been left unsolved after the meeting, including the lifting of import tax among the 10 member countries, the Thai-Philippine rice tariff, free investment regulations, and the fate of Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi.

Asean's dream of becoming a unified community remains just that _ a distant dream. If Thailand and Cambodia are still at each other's throats, how can the group become unified?

Thailand & Cambodia Argue About Thaksin & the Coup

Scoop.co.nz

Thailand and Cambodia Argue About Thaksin & the Coup

by Richard S. Ehrlich

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand and Cambodia have descended into a loud political feud about Bangkok's 2006 coup, and Thailand's current threat to demand the extradition of its fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The rift between the two Buddhist-majority nations in the heart of Southeast Asia was expected to worsen if Mr. Thaksin accepts Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's surprise offer of a temporary house.

"There is an extradition process," warned Thailand's powerful Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban on Tuesday (October 27).

"The turmoil following Cambodian leader Hun Sen's remarks, about ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra being welcome in his country, has thrown the government into a spin," the Bangkok Post newspaper, which opposes Mr. Thaksin, reported on Tuesday (October 27).

Ratcheting up his rhetoric, Mr. Hun Sen compared Mr. Thaksin to Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has languished under house arrest in Rangoon for 14 years.

"Many people are talking about Mrs. Suu Kyi of Burma. Why can't I talk about the victim, Thaksin?" Mr. Hun Sen said on October 23.

"That cannot be regarded as interference by Cambodia into Thai internal affairs. Without the coup d'etat in 2006, such a thing would not have happened," Hun Sen said.

Soft-spoken Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva lashed out Mr. Hun Sen's remarks.

"There are few people in the world who believe Thaksin is similar to that of Mr. Suu Kyi," Mr. Abhisit said later that day.

"I hope Prime Minister Hun Sen will receive the right information and change his mind on the matter."

Cambodia's government spokesman Phay Siphan said on October 23: "Cambodia has a right to offer Thaksin to visit Cambodia, and we have no obligation to send him back to Thailand."

If "former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra wishes to travel to Cambodia anytime...the Cambodian prime minister is ready to prepare a residence for [his] stay in Cambodia," reported Cambodia's government-run TVK television on October 22, according to Agence-France Presse.

Mr. Thaksin has been an international fugitive, based mostly in Dubai, dodging a two-year prison sentence for a conflict of interest.

That conviction involved a Bangkok real estate deal -- for his now divorced wife -- which was arranged when he was prime minister.

Mr. Thaksin became prime minister in 2001 when most voters elected the billionaire telecommunications tycoon, hoping he would boost the economy and modernize Thailand.

Mr. Thaksin was removed in September 2006 by Thailand's U.S.-trained military in a bloodless coup when they used tanks, armored personnel carriers, Humvees and other weapons to seize power.

He has unsuccessfully tried to return to power with the help of allied politicians, and get back his two billion U.S. dollars worth of assets which the coup leaders froze.

International human rights groups, however, want Mr. Thaksin investigated for his role in the alleged extrajudicial murder of more than 2,000 people during his government's "war on drugs."

Mr. Thaksin remains politically active in self-exile.

He helps lead a mass movement of so-called "Red Shirts" who claim to represent Thailand's majority lower classes, especially in the countryside.

Together they demand an immediate election, expecting Mr. Thaksin's allies to win.

They are opposed by the "Yellow Shirts" who claim to support Thailand's urban middle class and constitutional monarchy.

Led by Sondhi Limthongkul, the Yellow Shirts blockaded Bangkok's international and domestic airports in November 2008 for eight days, stranding more than 300,000 people worldwide.

Their blockade helped weaken a government allied to Mr. Thaksin, and paved the way for Parliament to elect Mr. Abhisit.

Mr. Abhisit's fragile coalition government enjoys the military's support, and much of his personal security is handled by the military.

Thailand's wealthy elite have mostly thrown their weight behind Mr. Abhisit as well, and appear nervous about Mr. Thaksin and the Red Shirts plotting to destabilize Bangkok.

Cambodia's prime minister has thrown a wild card into this dangerous mix, apparently hoping to attract big investments by Mr. Thaksin and weaken Bangkok's strategy over a smoldering border dispute, according to some analysts.

"It is true that I would invite former Prime Minister Thaksin to visit Cambodia anytime, and to be my economic advisor," Mr. Hun Sen said on October 22.

Thailand and Cambodia are former war-time enemies -- and current investment partners -- so the stakes are high for all sides to quell their public sniping.

Occasional killings on both sides have continued in and around the ancient stone ruins of Preah Vihear, a Hindu temple on the Thai-Cambodian border.

That dispute dates back to the 1950s, and continued even after the International Court in the Hague, Netherlands, confirmed Cambodia's ownership in 1962.

The conflict flared again after the ruins were declared a World Heritage Site in July 2008 by the World Heritage Committee, based on Cambodia's proposal to cash in on its tourism potential.

Thailand and Cambodia have suffered much worse relations in the past.

After Richard Nixon became president of the United States in 1969, he used Thailand as one of several military staging areas for heavy aerial bombing raids against communists in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, until America's wars ended in 1975 -- one year after Nixon's presidency -- with the U.S. defeated in all three countries.

Washington and Bangkok later indirectly backed Cambodia's communist Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, when his jungle-based guerrillas were in a loose alliance with other Cambodian rebels fighting against Vietnam's 1979-1989 occupation of Cambodia.

Thai and Cambodian politicians have been fleeing to each other's country for the past 50 years, seeking sanctuary from coups, arrest warrants, and other threats.

In 1957, when Thai dictator Field Marshall Sarit Thanarat unleashed a military coup against Prime Minister Phibun Songkram, the toppled leader fled Thailand for Cambodia in his Ford Thunderbird car.

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Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist who has reported news from Asia since 1978. He is co-author of "Hello My Big Big Honey!", a non-fiction book of investigative journalism. His web page is http://www.asia-correspondent.110mb.com.