|Written by Kay Kimsong|
| Friday, 30 May 2008 |
Courtesy of Phnom Penh Post at http://phnompenhpost.com
Var Kimhong, the chairman of the Government Border Committee, told reporters on May 17 the Cambodia-Laos border committee had inspected 86 percent of the markers along the 540-kilometer border and only a few issues remained to be finalized.
A 14-member Laotian delegation will be in Phnom Penh from June 3 to 5 for talks on the border, said a senior official at the Laotian embassy, Kengchai Sixanonh.
“The Cambodia-Laos joint border committee has been working very smoothly and I think the relationship will get better in the future,” Kengchai said.
Kimhong meanwhile said work on demarcating the border with Vietnam had been accelerated under an additional treaty signed with Hanoi in 2005.
He said the treaty increased from one to five the number of groups working on delineating the 1,270km border, which will have more than 350 granite markers.
However, Kimhong said differences with Bangkok over the 805km border with Thailand remained a problem, and he referred to a reported incursion by armed Thai paramilitary rangers on May 16 during which some houses were damaged at Choam Sa Ngam, in Anlong Veng district of Oddar Meanchey province.
Kimhong said he was “surprised” by the incursion because negotiations had been taking place with Bangkok on opening a border crossing at Choam Sa Ngam linking Oddar Meanchey with Thailand’s Si Sa Ket province.
The governor of Anlong Veng district, Yin Phanna, said on May 19 the situation had “cooled down” after talks earlier that day between Cambodian officials, including members of the provincial border commission, and Thai army officers.
“Negotiations were the only way to solve the issue,” Phanna said, adding that no Cambodian troops were deployed in the area where the incursion took place.
Despite occasional incidents along the border with Thailand, Kimhong said Cambodia regarded the bilateral relationship as one of “eternal friendship.”
“We are like brothers or friends who live near each other ... we don’t need to deploy any troops,” Kimhong said.
The Cambodia-Thailand Joint Border Commission began its demarcation work in 2006 – three years after the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding to resolve border issues – and has focused its efforts on finding the 73 markers installed by a French-Siamese commission.
“The search for border markers has no schedule or timeframe for completing the task; what is most important is that an agreement can be reached,” Kimhong said.
Asked about the main obstacles to demarcating the Cambodia-Thai border, Kimhong said the legacies of colonialism and years of conflict meant that it was not a “normal” border.
Saturday, 31 May 2008
|Written by Sebastian Strangio and Khouth Sophak Chakrya|
| Friday, 30 May 2008 |
Courtesy of Phnom Penh Post at http://phnompenhpost.com
One high-ranking party punter has wagered $3,000 that his once-powerful political machine will fail to secure even one parliamentary seat.
His gambling partner, Funcinpec activist Chhun Saron, is giving the party slightly better odds, and stands to win a few thousand dollars even if the royalists lose all but one of their 26 seats in the National Assembly.
“If Funcinpec wins one or more seats in this election, I will win $3,000 from him,” Saron said of his high-profile opponent, who did not want to be named.
“Maybe he’s stupid,” Saron said. “But I am sure I will win. Funcinpec is certainly not the worst party in the election.”
Although unofficial gambling is illegal under Cambodian law, informal wagers among friends and colleagues are becoming a popular activity in the capital’s cafés as the election approaches.
At the Olympic café on Sihanouk Boulevard, friends of all political persuasions meet to discuss politics over coffee and fried noodles, and informal wagers – of either cash or beer – have become a common means of settling disagreements.
Eang Khun, a supporter of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, and a group of friends have bet a group backing the opposition Sam Rainsy Party that the CPP will increase its share of National Assembly seats at the election.
If the CPP wins fewer than its current 73 seats, or the SRP more than 25, Khun’s group pledges to organize and pay for a lavish party for the entire group.
“No side will really lose in this game, because the winners and losers will all celebrate together at the party after the release of the election results,” Khun said.
Chan Pheakdie, who is rooting for the SRP, agrees that the bet is no more than a harmless game among friends.
“Even if we each support different parties, we are still Khmer and we will still remain friends,” he said.
At the Kirirom Café, 65-year-old bookie Phal is offering odds of almost two to one that either the Norodom Ranariddh Party – headed by Funcinpec’s ousted leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh – or civil society activist Kem Sokha’s Human Rights Party will win seats in the National Assembly in July.
“If you bet that the NRP or HRP will win one seat or more, or if you bet that the NRP or HRP will not win any seats, and the result is correct, you win,” he said, noting that the two minor parties had so far attracted little interest from gamblers.
Khan Keomono, chief of the Public Information Bureau at the National Election Committee, said he was not aware of any election-related betting but warned backyard operators that their activities were illegal.
“The Election Law does not allow or disallow betting on the election,” he said. “But these actions are illegal in Cambodia.”
CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap also agreed that such activities were illegal without the approval of the Council of Ministers, adding that he disapproved of party members betting against their own party.
“Anyone who bets that the CPP will lose seats is not a true CPP activist,” he said.
However, Lu Laysreng, first deputy president of Funcinpec, was unsurprised by reports that party rank-and-file were betting on the outcome of the election, and admitted the party was powerless to stop it.
“Our Cambodia is a gambling country,” he told the Post by phone on May 22. “People here will even bet on whether the rain will fall.”
The mission, Pacific Angel 2008, represents a joint effort between the Army and Air Force Guard. Cruz, along with the rest of the medical command, reached three areas in Cambodia, bringing their medical expertise.
"Being a doctor is my passion. ... It is a very humbling experience to help those that need it most," Cruz said.
Alaska Air National Guard Deliver Medical Supplies to Cambodia First U.S. military aircraft to land at Kampong Chhnang Province airfield since 1975
By Capt Guy Hayes
Alaska National Guard Office of Public Affairs
The airfield at Chhnang Province, Cambodia, is busy with activity as Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, Alaska National Guard and U.S. Air Force members get operations underway for Pacific Angel 2008 here May 24. Operation Pacific Angel is a joint/combined humanitarian assistance operation. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Tom Czerwinski)
download hi-res photo
CAMP DENALI, Alaska - Seventeen Guardsmen from the Alaska Air National Guard at Kulis Air National Guard Base landed in Cambodia May 24 in support of Operation Pacific Angel.
The Guardsmen deployed to support a joint humanitarian assistance operation in the pacific region and were the first members in a U.S. military aircraft to land at Kampong Chhnang Province airfield, Cambodia, since the airfield was built in 1975.
“The Alaska National Guard continues to set the standard of excellence,” said Maj. Gen. Craig E. Campbell, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard. “As Alaskans, our Guardsmen know first hand the importance of providing relief and assistance to those in need. It’s part of our culture and this mission further demonstrates our forces’ flexibility in accomplishing multiple missions at home and around the world.”
The Guardmembers delivered a 3000-pound pallet of medical supplies to a multi-national team of medical professionals who processed the supplies for movement to clinics in Kampong Chhnang and Kampong Cham Provinces.
Members of the Alaska Air National Guard in support of Operation Pacific Angel are scheduled to return to Alaska June 2.
By Sara Colm, Senior Researcher on Cambodia for Human Rights Watch, published in The International Herald Tribune/The Asahi Shimbun
May 29, 2008
The long-delayed court process to bring Khmer Rouge leaders to justice is under way in Cambodia.
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) is a hybrid tribunal presided over by both Cambodian and international judges.
Based in Phnom Penh, it was established to try those deemed most responsible for the deaths of as many as 2 million Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge's four-year rule, which ended in 1979.
Though the tribunal has started to move forward, for the ECCC to successfully find justice for the victims of Khmer Rouge atrocities, it must overcome several major hurdles.
Cambodia's judiciary is widely known for its lack of independence and corruption, and for most Cambodians, a courthouse is not a place to seek justice.
Often the accused do not have access to a lawyer. Judges have been known to arbitrarily refuse to admit defense evidence and issue verdicts written in advance of trials. In politically sensitive cases, judges receive instructions from senior government figures.
In contrast, the ECCC is expected to meet international standards of justice.
However, the ECCC was established as a special chamber within the Cambodian court system, with the majority of its 19 judges Cambodian. The United Nations initially opposed the arrangement, fearing that the Cambodian government would try to manipulate the ECCC.
The tribunal's office of administration is split into a Cambodian-administered side and a U.N. side, with serious allegations of corruption already plaguing the Cambodian side, such as wage kickbacks to the Cambodian government.
In this context, what needs to be done to ensure fair trials?
Chief among the issues yet to be resolved is how far the ECCC will be willing to go in following the evidence and identifying additional individuals to investigate and prosecute.
ECCC budget projections presented to the donors in January indicate that at most three more individuals may be prosecuted.
However, can the ECCC be credible if it only tries a handful of the most notorious individuals? Many former Khmer Rouge government officials and senior military officials continue to live freely.
Donors should insist that the ECCC strengthen its witness and victim protection programs, without which prosecutions will be hard to conduct.
They should also support the ECCC so that their international investigators can carry out thorough investigations to bring more people to justice and enable victims to participate in the process.
As Japan and other international donor countries now consider a request for an additional $114 million (around 11.8 billion yen), they should insist upon significant reforms, including conditioning pledges on the ECCC improving its transparency and addressing the alleged corruption charges.
Japan, which has already made significant contributions to the ECCC's budget and has one judge sitting in its supreme court chamber, is ideally placed to lead the call for reform.
Only if key donors insist on all possible safeguards will it be possible for the Khmer Rouge tribunal to deliver to Cambodians the justice for which they have long been waiting.
The writer is a senior researcher on Cambodia at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based nongovernmental organization. (IHT/Asahi: May 29,2008)
Tokyo pledges help on many fronts to lift GDP in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. By Somporn Thapanachai in Tokyo
Japan has promised to continue investing effort and support to help three countries in the Mekong region - Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia - achieve US$1,000 per-capita GDP within the next decade, according to Masahiko Koumura, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Under the Japan-Mekong Region Partnership Programme, Tokyo said it would support the fundamental values of people in the region such as democracy and the rule of law, the integration of the regional economy, and fostering of collaboration, as well as the expansion of trade and investment between Japan and the Mekong region.
On the fundamental values front, Mr Koumura elaborated that Japan would like to help find ways to overcome poverty and address issues of infectious diseases and environmental problems.
He urged the private sector to work actively to promote trade and investment in these countries while the Japanese government would enhance the safety of investment activity through bilateral investment agreements with Cambodia and Laos. Japan aims to convey its own experience in areas such as cross-border transit and customs procedures.
|"Stimulating growth in the Mekong region, a late starter within Asean, will be of direct benefit to Asean as a whole, and in turn will benefit Japan itself, given its strong ties with Asean in the political, economic and cultural spheres," says Mr Koumura.|
Based on a regional fact sheet of world development indicators 2008 compiled by the World Bank, the gross national income per capita of Vietnam is estimated at $700, $500 in Laos and $490 in Cambodia.
"Stimulating growth in the Mekong region, a late starter within Asean, will be of direct benefit to Asean as a whole, and in turn will benefit Japan itself, given its strong ties with Asean in the political, economic and cultural spheres," Mr Koumura told the audience at the recent Future of Asia conference organised by Nikkei.
Greater inflows of goods, people and capital from Thailand in the south and from China in the north are possible to Laos and Cambodia as wages in the two countries are around one-fifth of the level in Thailand.
Flows are also being helped by the substantial scope of improvement in transport networks and know-how in cross-border transit.
"In my view, the day on which these countries attain the $1,000 level, led by Vietnam and followed by Laos and Cambodia, will come within 10 years through their own efforts and support from Japan and other countries outside the region, especially the support of Asean as a whole," Mr Koumura said.
Japan has already taken steps to strengthen its relationship with the region by hosting the first Japan-Mekong Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Tokyo in January, attended by ministers from Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Vietnam and Thailand.
However, China already has a greater role in the region through its joint co-operation with Asian Development Bank and the Thai government for the investment to construct the road from Yunnan province to Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. The Chinese government has also expressed its intention to support the north-south railway network from Kunming to Singapore.
Mr Koumura said these projects offered tremendous potential for infrastructure in the region to be transformed over the next 10 years. The Chinese investment is an example of a win-win situation as it would benefit people of the region and also everybody else.
Japan has also declared the goal of making the Mekong region a "region of hope and development" through its Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the completion of the second Mekong Friendship Bridge linking Thailand and Laos. The Japanese government plans to provide $20 million to facilitate goods distribution across this east-west corridor and another $20 million for a "development triangle" on the borders of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
In respect to the development of the Mekong region, Japanese and Chinese foreign-policy officials have opened a dialogue on the countries' policies for the Mekong to co-ordinate policies and share information on a regular basis.
"We will send 15 of them firstly on June 2 and the rest on June10 according to the schedule," Tea Banh told the national conference of the government's rectangular policy.
"Our K-315 group will return from Sudan on June 8," he said, adding that the new group of soldiers will replace them.
Cambodia has already sent two groups of mine sweeping soldiers to Sudan under UN humanitarian mission and each group had over 130soldiers, he said.
|Editor: Mu Xuequan|
A 12-night escorted tour with natural, historic and cultural attractions
Chitose Suzuki / AP
The Real Deal: Round-trip airfare, 12 nights' accommodations, intercity air and ground transportation, some meals, and escorted tours, from $2,599 per person—plus taxes of $95.
When: Depart on Sept. 21, 2008; add $100 for Oct. 19; $200 for Nov. 16; $300 for Dec. 7; $400 for Jan. 4, Feb. 1, 15, March 1, 15, 2009; $800 for Dec. 21, 2008.
Gateways: L.A.; add $150 for New York City.
The fine print: Breakfast daily, eight lunches, seven dinners, guided sightseeing tours, admission fees, the services of local guides and of a professional English-speaking tour director, and all local transportation and transfers (by motor coach or plane) are included. While hotel taxes are covered, airport taxes and fees are an additional $95 per person. Additional charges that are paid locally include two $25 visa fees, one for Cambodia and one for Vietnam—visas are granted upon arrival in each country—and a $25 Cambodia departure tax. You can purchase an optional travel insurance plan through Friendly Planet for $129 per person. Based on double occupancy; single supplement is $649. Read these guidelines before you book any Real Deal.
Book by: June 13, 2008; afterward, add $400 per person.
Contact: Friendly Planet, 800/555-5765, friendlyplanet.com.
Why it's a deal: In comparison, according to a recent Kayak search, the lowest multicity airfare from L.A. to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and from Hanoi, Vietnam, to L.A., departing on Sept. 21 and returning on Oct. 5, is $1,076 (China Airlines). For an additional $1,643, which includes airport and departure taxes of $120 ($95 plus the $25 Cambodia departure tax), Friendly Planet covers the round-trip international airfare as well as intra-Asia flights to Siem Reap, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, and Hanoi; 12 nights' accommodations; some meals; sightseeing tours and admission fees; all transfers; and the services of English-speaking tour guides. You also benefit from the convenience and reassurance of having all the details arranged by a reliable operator.
Trip details: The Best of Vietnam & Cambodia package includes an overnight flight (via Taipei) on a China Airlines carrier to the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. From there, you'll travel by plane and motor coach to the various destinations. The intra-Asia flights are booked by a local tour operator in Vietnam, and the carriers vary.
When you arrive in Phnom Penh in the morning, you'll meet your guide and then transfer to the 346-room InterContinental Phnom Penh hotel for an overnight stay. You'll enjoy a welcome dinner that evening.
If you can scrounge up enough energy after the long flight, join an included bonus tour of the bustling Phnom Penh on the banks of the Mekong, Tonle Sap, and Bassac rivers. The tour starts atop Wat Phnom and covers the city's major sites, including the Silver Pagoda in the Royal Palace complex, the National Museum, and, if time allows, a former Khmer Rouge prison and torture chamber—now the Tuol Sleng Museum.
A morning flight will transport you to Siem Reap, where you'll spend two days exploring the area's most significant religious treasure: the ancient temples of Angkor built by the Khmer civilization between 802 and 1220 A.D. The tour starts at the royal walled city of Angkor Thom, where you'll find the Baphuon, Elephant Terrace, Leper King Terrace, and Royal Palace. You'll also stop by Banteay Srei, Ta Prohm, and Angkor Wat. Stay two nights at Borei Angkor.
Then you'll board the bus for the ride to Tonle Sap Lake—a river-lake combination where 75 percent of Cambodia's inland fish supply comes from—home to the floating village.
Then fly from Ho Chi Minh to Da Nang, a port city on the central coast of Vietnam, and continue by motor coach to Hoi An, a World Heritage site on the banks of the Thu Bon River. This once major Southeast Asian trading port has many great examples of Vietnamese architecture. Tour highlights include the Japanese Covered Bridge, a Chinese Assembly Hall built in 1740, and the Central Market.
lore Hoi An on your own, so you can go for a relaxing swim in the China Sea or join an optional half-day tour to My Son, the capital and religious center of the former Champa kingdom ($35 per person). You'll stay two nights at Hoi An Trails Resort.
The next stop is Hue, with a pause en route in Da Nang. You'll arrive in Hue in the afternoon with just enough time to visit the Imperial Citadel, the former seat of the Nguyen Dynasty, home to a collection of temples, pavilions, shops, museums, and galleries. You'll also stop by the Dong Ba Market, where you can buy fruit, vegetables, fish, and traditional Vietnamese food. Stay overnight at Hotel Saigon Morin.
For the final leg of the trip, you'll take a short flight from Hue to Hanoi. Sightseeing highlights include the Maison Centrale, a tour of the Old Quarter on a chauffeur-pedaled tricycle (cyclo), the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the One Pillar Pagoda, and the Temple of Literature. You'll stay three nights at the 260-room Hotel Nikko Hanoi. This part of the trip also features an overnight cruise along Ha Long Bay aboard the Emeraude, a replica of a classic French colonial steamship.
You'll transfer to the airport in Hanoi to board your U.S.-bound flight. Or, you could opt to join a three-night extension to Sapa, a hill-tribe area near the Chinese border in northwest Vietnam ($550 per person; single supplement is $89).
Cambodia is warm throughout the year, with an average humidity of 60 percent. Luckily, this tour avoids the months of March through May, when the highs can reach 95 degrees. In northern Vietnam (Hanoi), the summer months of May through October are hot and humid with heavy tropical rain showers. Southern Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh) is hot and humid year-round with highs in the 90s; the best time to visit this part of the country is from September to February when the temperatures are less extreme.
By VOA Khmer, Washington Video Editor: Manilene Ek
Dy Khamboly reports in Khmer - Download (WM) Dy Khamboly reports in Khmer - Watch (WM)
A former Khmer Rouge government minister, facing charges of crimes against humanity before Cambodia's UN-assisted genocide tribunal, appealed for release from pre-trial detention in Phnom Penh on Wednesday May 21, 2008.
Ieng Thirith, who was the Khmer Rouge social affairs minister, is among five suspects facing trial for their alleged roles in the regime's brutality.
The Cambodian lawyer for the 76-year-old Ieng Thirith has cited a lack of evidence for detaining her and said she suffers from chronic illnesses, "both mental and physical," that require constant medical treatment.
The suspect is the wife of Ieng Sary, who was the regime's deputy prime minister and foreign minister. He is also detained on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Ieng Thirith is also the sister-in-law of Khmer Rouge supreme leader Pol Pot, who died in 1998.
In a detention order issued in November, the tribunal's investigating judges said Ieng Thirith was to be tried for supporting Khmer Rouge policies and practices that were "characterised by murder, extermination, imprisonment, persecution on political grounds and other inhuman acts".
She rejected the charges against her as "100 percent false," according to the detention order.
Ieng Thirith, who was among the first generation of female Cambodian intellectuals, studied English literature in Paris and worked as a professor after returning to Cambodia in 1957. Three years later she founded a private English school in the capital, Phnom Penh.
She followed her husband into the jungle to flee government repression in 1965. Their communist movement later became a guerrilla force that toppled the pro-American government in 1975, turning the country into a vast slave-labour camp in which anyone deemed bourgeois was executed or imprisoned.
The husband and wife, who are held in separate cells, have been allowed to occasionally see each other in the presence of detention guards.
Information for this report was provided by APTN.
By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
The government has shut down a radio station in Kratie province, in what critics call a censoring of free press.
The station, Angkor Rotha, was shut down Wednesday after broadcasting only 13 days, said owner Keo Chan Rotha.
The station had sold several broadcasting spots to political parties competing in July’s general election, he said.
“I ask the government for my radio to be broadcast again, because I want Cambodian to have more free information from all [political] parties,” he said.
Human Rights Party Vice President Keo Remy called the shuttering of the station a violation of free expression and an attempt to “shut up” voices of democracy.
Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said the radio station had “made the mistake of breaking the license contract and looking down on the information official in Kratie province.”
A similar radio station in Siem Reap province was still running, he added.
Original report from Phnom Penh
30 May 2008
Khmer audio aired May 29 (1.05MB) - Download (MP3)
Khmer audio aired May 29 (1.05MB) - Listen (MP3)
The submission of victim’s complaints has been slow in being processed by the Khmer Rouge tribunal, a leading rights group said.
“We sent 77 complaints, among the more than 330 complaints we received, to the Victim’s Unit,” said Hisham Mousar, a tribunal monitor for Adhoc, said. Those have been delayed in being sent from the unit to judges, he said.
Adhoc has been helping victims compile complaints for the court since December 2007, and the delay has caused the group to suspend collecting more.
But Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, said delays at the tribunal should not lead to such cessation of collection, as the collection lends “value to history.”
Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said the Victim’s Unit of the courts had received 1,281 complaints from alleged victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, and he conceded the courts have been slow in processing them.
The Victim’s Unit was only recently established and is short-staffed, he said. Besides, the tribunal must be budget-conscious and save the maximum amount of money possible for the time being, he said.
Original report from Phnom Penh
30 May 2008
Khmer audio aired May 30 (1.04MB) - Download (MP3)
Khmer audio aired May 30 (1.04MB) - Listen (MP3)
The Funcinpec party said Friday at least 50 members had been forced to join the ruling Cambodian People’s Party in Siem Reap province.
Chhum Sam, a Funcinpec commune leader for Srey Snom, said members were given money and gifts by CPP officials who told them a defection would mean they could live in peace and without intimidation.
Srey Snom District Governor Chhuern Chhean could not be reached for comment, but Tin Narin, a CPP commune chief, denied the accusations.
Adhoc investigator Sous Narin said he was working to confirm a lobbying effort by the CPP for Funcinpec, but he had not received a complaint from the coalition partner. Such acts could be a breach of election law, he said.
Original report from Phnom Penh
30 May 2008
Khmer audio aired May 29 (622KB) - Download (MP3)
Khmer audio aired May 29 (622KB) - Listen (MP3)
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday called for his government officials to work to curb inflation that has seen the price of goods increasing daily.
The price of rice has reached 3,800 riel per kilogram and fuel 5,600 riel per liter at some stations, biting into the low salaries of many workers.
“I would like to appeal to all institutions of the government to try their best to carry out the measures being taken out in order to curb inflation,” Hun Sen said, speaking at a national conference on livelihood improvement.
The government has been facing inflation since mid-2007, he said.
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Thursday Hun Sen must reign in corruption if he wants to see inflation decrease.
By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
National police on Friday clashed violently with protesters outside the Kandal province residence of Prime Minister Hun Sen, injuring six, rights officials said.
The injured were among a large group of marching protesters who came from Battambang province last week seeking the prime minister’s help in a land dispute.
Protester Seng Mony said police hit demonstrators with walkie-talkies, incurring head injuries.
Police had asked protesters to gather in one area, but they refused, because they wanted to be seen by Hun Sen in another, he said.
Another protester, Chim Sara, said the protesters had come to seek “a place of justice,” but had been “very disappointed.”
Authorities declined comment.
By Taing Sarada, VOA Khmer
Cambodians continue to suffer under a poor human rights situation and government repression, a Washington-based representative of Amnesty International said.
“It is a pathetic situation for Cambodian people, who can not exercise their rights through peaceful demonstration and their own opinion,” she said.
Meanwhile, more than 150,000 people are in danger of homelessness, the group said, in an annual report.
“The Cambodian situation is very tense, regarding the culture of impunity, land-grabbing, the restriction of the public’s campaign to express their own opinions and political discrimination,” the representative said.
Such issues are “chronic” in Cambodia, said Lao Monghay, a senior researcher for the Asian Human Rights Commission.
“It is an injustice that they send people to live on the side of the street, children have no time to go to school, no clean water, no house, and they are living poorly in an area of poor conditions,” he said.
By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
At least eight more residents of two villages in Kampot province have fled their homes, fearing arrest in a land dispute, rights officials and villagers said Friday.
The residents, of Banteay Meas district, fled as police were searching for protesters following a violent clash with authorities in April.
“We are very concerned over police arresting us without finding the wrong or right reason in the land dispute,” said a leader of the protesting villagers who asked not to be identified.
Twenty-eight people have fled their homes since the violence in April, the leader said, and some of them have gone as far as Battambang and Siem Reap provinces.
Ith Kong Chet, an investigator for the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said the arrest was a threat to the security of people and a serious human rights abuse.
Police say they are not arresting protesters, per se, but those who damaged private property and injured people during April’s clashes.
A young Cambodian work force is gaining the purchasing power to buy goods like motorcycles, which have contributed to thick traffic on the streets of Phnom Penh. (Robert James Elliott/Bloomberg News)
By Erika Kinetz
Published: May 30, 2008
If private equity interest is the bellwether for the hot investments of the future, consider this: At least four new private equity funds, backed by brand-name investors, are aiming to bring $475 million of foreign investment into Cambodia.
"Eventually, Vietnam worked out well," Marc Faber, a fund manager and investment adviser known for his "Gloom, Boom, & Doom Report," said by telephone from Switzerland. "I think the same may happen to Cambodia."
Faber, who is on the boards of two of the new private equity firms in Cambodia - Frontier Investment & Development Partners and Leopard Capital - is not the only one who thinks so.
Jim Rogers, a commodities specialist who founded the profitable Quantum Fund with George Soros in the 1970s, and Robert Ash, former chief executive of AIG Asset Management Services, are also on the board of Frontier.
Heinrich Looser, the retired chief of private banking at Bank Julius Baer in Zurich, and Jim Walker, a former director and chief economist of CLSA Securities, are on the Leopard board as well.
The surge in interest is part of a general turn toward so-called frontier markets as investors seek shelter from the global credit crisis and diminishing returns in developed markets. It is also one more sign that aid-dependent Cambodia, with a gross domestic product of just $8.4 billion last year, could finally be inching out of the shadow of its chaotic past.
For many in the West, Cambodia remains tainted by the communist crackdown after the end of the Indochina wars. Yet China, South Korea and Malaysia have been pouring in investment. In 2006, foreign direct investment totaled $2.6 billion, up from just $340 million in 2004, according to the International Monetary Fund.
A rising segment of Cambodians - a third of whom still live on the equivalent of less than $1 a day - are snapping up Honda Dream motorbikes and KFC chicken drumsticks. Cambodia, which plans to open stock and bond exchanges next year, also has the potential to produce two things the world now craves: more rice and oil.
But take a drive out of the capital, Phnom Penh, where the first skyscrapers are rising in the country, and you return quickly to a landscape of water buffalo and thatch huts, governed by the rhythm of the rains.
That looks like opportunity to Marvin Yeo, who recently quit as a syndicate manager at the Asian Development Bank to co-found Frontier, which manages the Cambodia Investment and Development Fund, with a Singaporean economist, Kim Song Tan. They hope to raise $250 million by the end of the year.
Cambodia, Yeo said, "is where Vietnam was some 8 to 10 years ago." He likes a lot about Cambodia: its location in a fast-growing region, a young and inexpensive work force, rising productivity, a pro-business government, stable politics and strong GDP growth, which peaked at 13.5 percent in 2005 but was expected to mellow to 7 percent or 8 percent in coming years.
Thirty years of an isolating war, he added, have made Cambodia "one of the best investor diversification plays around."
But as Han Kyung Tae, the chief Cambodia representative of Tong Yang Investment, part of the South Korean Tong Yang Group, points out, promise and pretty macroeconomics are one thing; closing good deals on the ground are quite another.
Han has been trying to start an Indochina investment fund for more than a year. He said he had reviewed 30 to 40 business plans, but had yet to close a single deal. Tong Yang has scaled back its venture capital aspirations and now hopes to invest $25 million in a Cambodian information technology company, as part of a Vietnam-Cambodia fund, Han said.
His search, he said, was complicated by lack of transparency in a business culture built around sealed family empires. "It's hard for us to get the information we need to invest," Han said. "It's totally new to them. Some feel offended if I ask for financial information."
Investors also say that the weak legal system, immature accounting standards and corruption in Cambodia remain challenges. An anti-corruption law has been foundering for more than a decade, and Cambodia ranks near the bottom of Transparency International's corruption perceptions index.
Kathleen Ng, the managing director of the Center for Asia Private Equity Research, which is based in Hong Kong, sees private equity interest in Cambodia as largely "spillover" from a still-emerging Vietnam.
A second wave of private equity investment in Vietnam - the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998 obliterated the first - began to crest in 2006, rising to $2.0 billion in 2007, up from $166.5 million in 2005, according to the center.
The U.S. Embassy said Friday that the 31 GMC cargo trucks — part of a group of 60 the U.S. military has agreed to give to Cambodia — will be handed over at a ceremony Monday.
The U.S. halted military assistance to Cambodia following a 1997 coup in which Hun Sen grabbed full power after ousting his co-premier, Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Hun Sen remains prime minister.
In August 2005, President Bush waived the ban, citing Phnom Penh's agreement to exempt Americans in Cambodia from prosecution by the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court.
Since direct military ties between the two countries were restored in 2006, the U.S. has pledged nearly $3.2 million in military aid to Cambodia, the embassy said in a statement.
It said the 31 trucks are "the first deliverables" under a U.S. program for "assisting Cambodia in its efforts to improve" its border security, mobility and peacekeeping operations.
It added that the U.S. military is spending $413,000 on processing, packaging and shipping all 60 vehicles — "excess defense articles no longer needed by the U.S. armed forces."
Friday, 30 May 2008
Its minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek said a study would be carried out on how its broadcasting arm Radio Televison Malaysia (RTM) could collaborate with the Cambodian Broadcasting Agency to strengthen bilateral ties.
"We can cooperate with each other by having programmes like the 'Titian Muhibah' (a joint music show broadcast over RTM and TVRI of Indonesia) to promote the culture of both countries.
"The ministry plans to discuss the matter with the Cambodian government after the country's general election in July," he told Bernama and RTM here Thursday.
Ahmad Shabery Ahmad is accompanying Malaysian King Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin and Queen Tuanku Nur Zahirah who are on a six-day state visit to Laos and Cambodia from Monday.
SCHULTZ: We are currently at the start of the wet season and flood forecasting is important. Every year there are problems even with casualties and damage. Forecasting and early warning, the issue of course is to reduce it, to try to reduce it in the future years and you see that reduction is taking place over that time but that is a gradual process.
By Philippa Fogarty
Hundreds of thousands of families around the lake depend on it to liveEvery May, when the rains come, water levels in the Mekong start to rise.
When the river flows into Phnom Penh it meets another river that drains from a lake in central Cambodia.
So full is the Mekong that it reverses that river's flow, forcing water back upstream and expanding the lake more than five-fold.
This is the Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in South East Asia. Cambodians call it the Great Lake.
It is an area of extraordinarily rich biodiversity and a key breeding ground for fish, which migrate upstream from the Mekong to spawn in seasonally-flooded forest areas.
The lake is vital to Cambodia. It provides two-thirds of the country's protein and more than one million people depend on it directly for their livelihoods.
But the lake faces serious threats.
Cambodia's population has risen rapidly and pressure on resources has increased. Fish stocks are threatened by over-exploitation and illegal fishing methods.
Farmers and developers have taken advantage of weak governance to seize and drain land in the flooded forest, destroying key wildlife habitats and polluting the lake.
More trees have been felled for domestic use by local people, some of whom have been hunting rare wildlife to compensate for smaller fish catches.
Last year, Prime Minister Hun Sen warned of a "serious environmental disaster" if the problems were not addressed.
The Asian Development Bank-financed Tonle Sap Environmental Management Project (TSEMP) is leading efforts to do that.
Eight years ago, more than half the lots on the lake allocated to commercial fishing were released to local communities.
Part of TSEMP's work is helping villages create legally-recognised community fisheries to protect and preserve their own resources. More than 170 of these groups have now been set up.
In pictures: Life on the lake
Soer Tao is deputy head of the community fishery in Kampong Klaeng, on the lake's northeast shore.
The village is home to about 10,000 people living in stilted houses to cope with the seasonal flooding. Some 85% of residents depend on fishing for their livelihoods.
Ten years ago, Soer Tao says, illegal fishing and destruction of the forest were causing serious problems to villagers. But local management of resources is bringing benefits.
The village boundaries have been formally set. Residents patrol the area and if people are fishing illegally or if developers are trying to encroach into the flooded forest, they should now be better positioned to tackle the problem.
The village has also established a fish sanctuary, 300 metres by 30 metres, where fish can spawn during the dry season. It is marked by red flags and guarded at each end.
When the flooding comes, the fish will swim out - hopefully in greater numbers every year.
"The fish sanctuary will protect the fish as livelihoods for everyone," Soer Tao said.
But it is not just about protecting fisheries.
Preak Toal is a floating village. Everything floats, even the school and the petrol station, and everyone depends on the lake to live.
Many people live in floating communities on the lake
Now projects are being set up to help families diversify their livelihoods away from the lake in a bid to reduce pressure on resources.
Former poachers patrol a biosphere reserve, guarding the rare water birds that they used to hunt. Tourists pay to enter and local families use pedalos to show the day-trippers around.
Some residents have built floating gardens for fruit and vegetables, while others are growing mushrooms in their floating houses. One group is trying to turn water hyacinth into charcoal-like fuel.
But the initiatives are, of course, not perfect. It is still much simpler for villagers to get firewood from the forests and to sell fish for quick profit.
Dr Neou Bonheur, director of TSEMP, admits that trying to promote environmental awareness to those struggling to make a living can be difficult.
Dr Bonheur says efforts to protect the lake must be sustained
"It is hard," he says, "but when we teach them not to cut the forest because it is a breeding ground for the fish, they see the benefits of that."
The villagers, he says, are not the greatest challenge.
"Now we are at a turning point - rice and fuel prices are up and there is a tendency to look for resources such as land, not from the communities but from outside groups who want to claim areas for development.
"That's the most difficult thing for us, the people who damage the communities and fisheries in that way."
Community resource management was put in place at the right time, he says, but it must be strengthened to ensure local people have a permanent voice.
He describes efforts to date as "so far, so good", but says they must be sustained.
"We cannot say it is now enough - we have to continue to work hard on many areas."
But there is one key issue Cambodia cannot control.
China, Thailand and Laos all want to dam the Mekong for hydropower, something experts say could have a serious effect on the seasonal influx of water and wildlife into the lake.
"We are a downstream country and less powerful compared to upstream countries," says Dr Bonheur. "We can only hope that through dialogue, Cambodia can voice its concern."
"The Tonle Sap is a great asset for Cambodia. We must protect it at all cost."
The team will include Thong Khon, Tourism Minister and president of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia (NOCC), and depart for Beijing on August 7, the paper quoted Nhan Sok Visal, an NOCC administrator, as saying.
King Norodom Sihamoni and Education Minister Kol Pheng also plan to attend the opening ceremony of the Games, he added.
Among the delegation members are 23-year-old Hem Bunting and 19-year-old female Sou Titlinda for marathon, and 18-year-old Hem Thon Ponloeu and his 16-year-old niece Hem Thon Vitiny for 50-meter free style swimming race, he said.
Hem Bunting won silver and bronze medals in track and field at the SEA Games in Thailand in December, he added.
It is not the first time Cambodia has sent athletes to the Olympics.
The first post-war delegation of five Khmers competed in the Atlanta Games in 1996, and Cambodia subsequently sent four athletes to both Sydney in 2000 and Athens in 2004.
Editor: An Lu
Bernama - Friday, May 30
PHNOM PENH, May 29 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has been the biggest investor in Cambodia for 14 consecutive years with investments totalling US$2.19 billion (RM7.3 billion). Malaysia's Ambassador to Cambodia Datuk Adnan Otman said that according to the March 2008 report of the Development Council of Cambodia, Malaysia ranked top, followed by China with investments of AS$1.761 billion.
"Among the business carried out by Malaysian companies are power generation, textile manufacturing, construction, hotels, restaurants, telecommunications, insurance, banking and petroleum," he said in his speech at a dinner hosted by the Malaysian Business Council in Cambodia at the Raffles Hotel Le Royal here today.
Yang Di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin and the Raja Permaisuri Agong Tuanku Nur Zahirah, who are on a four-day official visit to Cambodia, were the guests-of-honour.
Adnan said Cambodia was becoming a popular destination for Malaysians, especially for those looking for business and investment opportunities.
CAMBODIA-INVESTMENT 2 (LAST) PHNOM PENH
"The number of Malaysians who came to Cambodia in 2007 was 84,039 people, from 36,876 in 2006.
"Cambodians who went to Malaysia in 2007 totalled 23,193 people compared with only 9,957 people in 2005," he added.
-- BERNAMA NSM MIS HA
Michael Joseph Pepe was found guilty on seven counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. The federal law targets people who go overseas to engage in so-called child sex tourism.
The 54-year-old Oxnard resident faces up to 210 years in prison when he is sentenced in September.
During trial, six girls who were between 9 and 12 at the time of the abuse testified that Pepe drugged, bound, beat and raped them. A defense attorney argued the assaults were committed by a prostitute and her boyfriend who had access to Pepe's house.
HA NOI — Cambodia in the first four months of this year welcomed more than 80,000 Vietnamese visitors, an increase of 97 per cent compared with the same period last year, according to Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon.
Khon said he supported the proposed tourism co-operation and joint venture plans between Lam Dong province and Cambodian localities during a meeting with a Lam Dong province delegation in Phnom Penh on May 27.
The new figures bring Viet Nam to third place, following the Republic of Korea and Japan, in terms of the number of visitors to Cambodia, an advance from the fourth and the sixth position in 2007 and 2006, respectively.
In the first four months of this year, Viet Nam also hosted around 50,000 Cambodian visitors, up 80 per cent from the same period of last year.
Whoever says money can't buy happiness hasn't shelled out for their own beach in Cambodia. Before the crew of the Sea Breeze can even drop her anchor, Alexis de Suremain is in the water, swimming straight for 90 yards of white sand: his 90 yards of white sand. A wall of tangled jungle rises to the east; to the west, the sun sinks into its own reflection over the Gulf of Thailand. "See that?" de Suremain asks, waving at the sun as it bisects the beach view. "Right down the middle."
If all goes according to plan, these 35 acres (14 hectares) of sand, rock and jungle will in a few years host a plush eco-resort of palm trees and solar-powered bungalows. De Suremain, a French expat who runs guesthouses in Phnom Penh, says he combed Cambodia's shores for three years before he settled on building his resort on the remote island of Koh Rong. "I wanted something where you couldn't hear karaoke, where the neighbor's dogs don't bark and where the cocks aren't crowing in the morning," he says. "I wanted something completely isolated."
He's got it — for now. The postcard-perfect beaches of Cambodia's scores of islands and 270 miles (435 km) of southern shore have gone largely unnoticed by developers for the past 40 years. But in 2007, a record 2 million tourists visited Cambodia, signaling that the country was beginning to shake its killing fields image as an impoverished backwater where wandering off the beaten path could mean finding yourself astride an unexploded land mine. Cambodia is starting to register as a must-see destination, and it's not all about Angkor Wat. Brackish mangrove swamps and remote beaches are being envisaged as golf courses and plots for five-star bungalows with private pools. Indeed, there are signs of vitality in other sectors of the impoverished country's once moribund economy. Cambodia's GDP grew 10.4% in 2006 — the highest rate in Southeast Asia that year — and foreign investment shot up some 400% to nearly $4 billion. Thirteen foreign companies, including Chevron, have licenses to explore Cambodia's offshore blocks for oil and natural gas; the government says domestic oil production could begin within three years. The rush for Cambodia's gold coast is on, raising hopes that the economic torpor of this aid-supported nation will finally end. "This part of the country has been a revelation for me," says Steve Smith, a Londoner who finances his endless summer as a dive instructor in southeast Asia. "I didn't even know there were beaches in Cambodia."
The Undiscovered Country
To witness this awakening up close, I recently borrowed a wreck of a bicycle for a slow ride through the sleepy Cambodian seaside town of Kep, near the Vietnamese border. After limping along the potholed coastal road past unkempt plots of oceanfront land with crumbling colonial-era manses, I stopped to look at a billboard — the only one in sight. On it was a picture of a home that would not have looked out of place in a Denver subdivision. A young man pulled up on a motorbike next to me. "You want to buy?" he asked. I told him I wasn't in the market, and so he handed me a flyer for his business, Sunny Tours, that bore a stern warning: NOW IS THE TIME TO ENJOY KEP!!
Five years ago, Sunny Tours' catch-it-while-you-can marketing wouldn't have been very effective. In the early 20th century, Kep-sur-Mer was established as a getaway for French civil servants running the colony, and it served as an enclave for rich Khmer after independence in 1953. (The former King, Norodom Sihanouk, built a royal residence there that, like most of the old estates in town, now stands empty.) The holidays ended in the 1970s after an American bombing campaign brought the first wave of more than two decades of war, including the Khmer Rouge-led genocide that killed nearly 2 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979.
Stability has been slow to return to Kep and to the country as a whole. But today nearly every Asian nation has a stake in Cambodian industries, from hydroelectric dams to oil exploration to real estate development. In Kep, three Modernist homes have been restored into Knai Bang Chatt, a striking boutique hotel owned by two Belgians. At the other end of town, the early 20th century La Villa de Monsieur Thomas is being revamped into a five-star resort by a Khmer developer. And in February, Sokimex, a powerful Cambodian company that imports most of the nation's petroleum, began converting a colonial casino on Bokor Mountain into a flashy new resort. "All of a sudden there's interest," says Joseph Mussomeli, the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, who last year hosted the first American business conference in Phnom Penh. The country is "lucky to be stuck between 85 million Vietnamese and 65 million Thai," he says. "It's hard to ignore this place now."
More projects are in the works. About an hour's motorbike ride down a red dirt road that trails off the coastal highway, residents of the fishing village of Angkoal have started selling their small holdings to real estate developers. One family, residents of a palm-fringed knob of land that slopes into the water, says their property is regularly visited by speculators. "They come every day," says Sry Mau — even though the place where the young woman's family has lived for 23 years has already been purchased by a Cambodian hotelier for $8,000. With the money, they bought a new, considerably smaller piece of land across the road and a new fishing boat.
In a country where 4.7 million people live on less than 50 cents a day, the surge of investment is changing lives and could help create jobs. The country desperately needs more employment opportunities. About a third of Cambodians are 15 years old or younger, and they'll be entering the workforce in droves over the next two decades. Hundreds of NGOs are already busy trying to fix Cambodia, and about 20% of the government's total budget still comes from foreign aid. The prospect of a tourism boom coupled with the start of domestic oil production offers the tantalizing possibility of a more independent way forward. With foreign aid, "you'll always be living according to somebody else's rules," says Rithivit Tep, director of the private-equity firm that owns Kep's Thomas villa and development rights to two islands. "We have wasted a lot of time."
Paradise or Vassal State?
A few hours drive down the coastal road, I was sitting inside the dusty office of Sokun Travel and Tours when the lights cut out. "No good," said the woman behind the desk, looking into the dark street. "Every day, two or three times." We conducted the rest of our transaction by candlelight. Mourn Sokun, who owns the travel agency, says Sihanoukville, the current hub of south-coast tourism, can't keep up with the rush of tourists. The number of foreign visitors to the city shot up by 50% between 2006 and 2007, and infrastructure, including electricity generation, is overtaxed. In 2007, the local airport reopened to shuttle tourists between Angkor Wat and the coast, only to close months later when a domestic flight went down, killing 22 people on board. It's still closed today. Som Chenda, Sihanoukville's minister of tourism, says the city needs more of everything — more hotel rooms, more restaurants, more hospitality training, more language teachers. "We need it all," says Som. Right now, Sihanoukville doesn't even have enough fresh produce coming in: "There are too many tourists and not enough food."
In a line of work that relies on clean beaches and clear water, Mourn, the travel agent, worries the authorities aren't working hard enough to protect the environment. As more guesthouses and bars pay their license fees to operate at the popular beaches, Mourn says raw sewage is being piped into the water and trash is being dumped onto the sand. "People pay their money, and the government closes their eyes," Mourn says. Government officials say they are aware of the growing problem. "The coast is not so good now because of the fast development," says Prak Visal, who heads the Sihanoukville branch of a regional coastal-management project. Solid-waste dumping, mangrove destruction, unsustainable fishing practices and illegal logging are a few of the challenges he says the area faces. But slowing things down? Not an option. "We protect, but we develop, too," Prak says.
Though some are happy with the money they've made, others living in valuable areas fear they'll lose their land, or lose it without being fairly compensated. Few families hold formal land titles, leaving many to rely on local authorities to vouch for them as landowners if a developer comes calling. Though efforts to provide documentation for landowners have been ramped up — almost 1 million land titles have been granted since 2004, according to the World Bank — there are millions more to go. Cambodians' scramble to secure their rights speaks to a fundamental anxiety: faith in the law is dismally low. For the past two years, the country has ranked near the bottom of Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, and in a 2007 World Bank study, only 18% of respondents said they thought judges were honest. "Corruption is so pervasive it's part of the culture," says Theary Seng, executive director of the Center for Social Development, a Phnom Penh-based NGO. She worries that the billions coming in from private investment — particularly in oil — will not trickle down to the countryside where 80% of the nation lives. "If they want to do it right, they have lots of good models in the world," says Mussomeli, the U.S. ambassador, warning against Cambodia going the way of oil-cursed nations like Nigeria and Chad. "Or they could do it wrong and they could suffer the political consequences in 20 years. This is their chance to be a real country. This is their chance to have a real economy. If they screw it up, they'll be a vassal state."
The Road Ahead
Alongside road 4, the 143-mile (230 km) ribbon of asphalt connecting Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh, water buffalo graze in rice paddies that stretch from horizon to horizon. Kids in white school uniforms pedal their bikes in the dirt, moving alongside traffic like birds riding on air currents. It's places like these — in other words, most of Cambodia — where the five-star visions of the coast begin to get a bit blurry. Neither tourism nor oil alone can drive the national economy in a meaningful way. There must also be investment in agriculture and other sectors that employ most Cambodians, says Arjun Goswami, country director for the Asian Development Bank. "If one of these days I can go into Whole Foods and see a Cambodian export on the shelves, that's when I'll be a happy man," says Goswami.
In Phnom Penh, I stop by the offices of Rory and Melita Hunter, an Australian couple whose real estate company was recently granted a 99-year lease to build a luxury boutique hotel on Song Saa, a tiny pair of islands off the coast. They show me elaborate renderings of the future 40-room complex, replete with a wine cellar, air-conditioned library and 15 over-water bungalows designed to reflect the architecture of a nearby fishing village. The Hunters paid relocation costs for the 15 or so families living on the islands. They hauled away tons of trash that had been piling up for years, and started to revive the local coral reef that had been all but destroyed by overfishing. "Knowing that there had been all these other issues about how people had been relocated, we wanted to do it properly from the start," says Rory Hunter. "We're going to be doing business here for a long time." Maybe money will buy happiness for Cambodia; maybe it won't. But nobody said paradise was built in a day.