CAMBODIA New liturgical dances created during dance seminar

A group of young people in Tahen parish performing a dance (file photo)

(Post by Khmer HotNews Media)
BATTAMBANG, Cambodia (UCAN) -- About 90 classical dancers from all three Church jurisdictions in Cambodia gathered to take part in the first-ever Church-held seminar on the art form.
At the Sept. 23-25 seminar at Battambang parish, participants also created some new liturgical dances.
Participants came from Battambang prefecture and from Cambodia's other two Church jurisdictions -- Phnom Penh vicariate and Kompong Cham prefecture.
"The aim of this seminar is to instill in Catholic dancers a deep appreciation of classical Cambodian dance and to point out practices that are not in line with those handed down by our ancestors," said Soun Bunnarith, who heads the Battambang apostolic prefecture's cultural office.
Moreover, the seminar trained participants "on how to wear dance attire and as well as create new dances," she added.
Participants also choreographed three new dances -- the "Our Father Dance," the "Holy Spirit Dance" and a "Dance in Praise of the Virgin Mary."
Battambang vicar general Father Jose Hildy Banaynal praised participants for their creativity. The Jesuit priest stressed that the local Church is trying its best to preserve local traditions and spread the Good News through them.
Monsignor Enrique Figaredo, apostolic prefect of Battambang, agreed. "According to my 25-year experience in Cambodia, the best way to spread the Word of God and to get people to know Jesus is through culture," he said. "Classical dance, which is becoming popular here, is an important part of Cambodian culture." He also pointed out that classical dance is an effective way of spreading the word of God because the movements convey meaning.
During the seminar, Providence Sister Maria Art pointed out that the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) encourages local Churches to inculturate the liturgy. Since the revival of the local Church in the 1990s after decades of civil war and religious persecution, it has been using Khmer language in liturgy, the nun said. "And now, we are paying attention to Cambodian dance," she added.
Several parishes in the Buddhist-majority country now run classical dance classes catering to both Catholic and Buddhist students.
At the end of the seminar, the dancers presented classical dances and songs, accompanied by traditional musical instruments.
Ron Sphear, 20, from Tahen parish, outside Battambang, said the seminar was a wonderful experience of sharing and learning from one other.
Louy Samnang, 26, from Kompot Parish in Phnom Penh apostolic vicariate, said he has learned how to use classical dance to praise God. For him, having Cambodian classical dance in the liturgy shows Catholicism is not "a European religion," as many Cambodians believe.
About 95 percent of the more than 14 million Cambodians are Buddhists. Christians form approximately 2 percent of the population.

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Cambodian Concerns over Thai Motivation in Border Issues

Written by DAP NEWS -- Saturday, 03 October 2009
(Post by Khmer Hot News )
The Cambodian Government said on Friday that it has concerns about the political motivation of Thai leaders over border issues between Cambodia and Thailand near Cambodia’s 11th century Preah Vihear temple.
“As we have seen in border issues, n the future, Thailand will not abandon ambitions to take Cambodian land,” Pen Ngoeun, advisor to the Council of Ministers of Cambodia told reporters at a press conference at his office.
The border issues between two countries near Preah Vihear flared into armed clashes because of political motivation from Bangkok, he said, adding that Thai ‘yellow shirt’ protesters rally at the border near Preah Vihear temple with organized support.
“Thailand has still exercised and showed the ambition to invade Cambodian territory,” he stated, and Thais have been repeatedly foiled from occupying areas belonging to Cambodia around the site.
The Thais have erroneously used a map drawn by themselves to falsely stake claim to about 4.6 km square of Cambodian territory, he added. At the same time, he also launched a book title A Challenge to Thailand’s Denunciation of UNESCO and the World Heritage Committee to better explain the background to the current border issues with Thailand. Though both sides “have continued to deal the border issues which based on the peacefully bilateral deal and used all existing mechanisms,” he said. “we have noted that the Thai side have still used a hostile policy to take Cambodian land and it shows that they are not civilized people.”
Thai “extremists” must respect international law, such as the 1962 ruling of the World Court, which unequivocally awards Preah Vihear temple and its nearby environs to Cambodia. In fact, the World Court’s ruling, which Thailand initially promised to respect then rejected after they lost, was based on older documentation.
A 1904-07 border treaty between Thailand, then known as Siam, and France, the colonial representative of Cambodia, also drew the same boundary recognized by the World Court and currently claimed in by negotiations by Cambodia. That agreement was signed by the Thai monarch reigning at the time.
Earlier this week, Cambodia’s prime minister warned that any unauthorized incursions by foreigners, including civilians, would be met with deadly force. He also warned he would tear up the Thai map used in negotiations, saying he would not attend the upcoming ASEAN summit in Thailand.
In contrast, the Thai Foreign Ministry yesterday said that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen would attend the 15th Association of Southeast Asian (ASEAN) Summit in the Thai seaside report of Hua Hin in October 23-25. Veerasak Futrakul, Permanent-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, said “bilateral talks between Thai and Cambodian leaders regarding the border dispute near the ancient Preah Vihear temple has not yet been set up”. Cambodia and Thailand have confronted at the border with heavy weapons and military forces since in July 15 after Cambodia registered Preah Vihear temple as world heritage site and the armed clashed killed at least than 10 soldiers from both sides. Now Cambodian and Thai border situation is normal. Joint Border Committee will continue it tasks for the talks. But Pen Ngoeun said that he did not know exactly when they restart talks or border demarcation at areas near Preah Vihear temple.”

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Cambodia's Displaced: Can Canada Make a Difference?

Workers demolish house on prime real estate in Phnom Penh during a forced eviction on July 2. Photo: Jared Ferrie
As farmers and city dwellers are uprooted by developments, advocates call on CIDA to rise to their defence.
By Jared Ferrie, Yesterday, TheTyee.ca
(Post by Khmer Hot News )
As far back as their history goes, the Bunong lived semi-nomadic lives, cultivating small plots of land for a couple years at a time before moving on to allow the soil to regenerate. That came to an end when the United States began carrying out its secret bombing of Cambodia in 1969.
"We fled to Vietnam and we lived in camps there," recalled Prap Tuch, an elderly member of the Bunong ethnic minority.
His people stayed and escaped the horror that was to follow -- the Khmer Rouge regime, which killed as many as two million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. The Bunong finally returned to their mountainous homeland in 1986.
But they now face a new threat to their way of life.
Cambodia's government has been granting concessions to companies eager to extract the country's natural resources. Land occupied by the Bunong is being cleared to make way for rubber plantations run by Socfin, a subsidiary of the French conglomerate Bollore Group, in partnership with a Cambodian company, KCD.
Prap is just one of an estimated 150,000 Cambodians threatened with forced eviction throughout the country, according to Amnesty International. A real estate boom in the capital, Phnom Penh, has seen thousands displaced -- illegally, say land law experts -- to make way for property developments. The government recently pulled out of a World Bank financed program that aimed to halt forced evictions by sorting out land title in rural areas.
Advocates for the Bunong and other displaced groups say Canada could be an influential voice on their behalf because the Canadian International Development Agency is donor and technical advisor to the Cambodian government's land reform program.
But as more and more Cambodians are forced from their homes, Canada's response so far has been official silence.
'Three unacceptable options'
The Bunong have been offered three options: compensation, relocation or the opportunity to produce rubber on small, family-run plantations.
Prap said none of them were particularly attractive. He would prefer to produce some rubber to sell to the company while still maintaining land that would allow him to farm his traditional crops of rice, fruits and vegetables.
"I don't refuse development. We need to live as other people," he said. "But if we lose the fields, we lose our culture."
Furthermore, he said, his land has not been measured in order to assess compensation, even though he has been forced out to make way for a rubber plantation.
"Allowing people to choose between three unacceptable options for compensation is not meaningful consultation," said David Pred, country director of Bridges Across Borders, which advocates on land rights issues. "The company should start by listening to the affected communities and understanding what their needs and development aspirations are."
Phillip Monnin, who heads Socfin's operations here, did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment.
'Maybe... some errors'
Eric Beugnot, Cambodia director of the French Development Agency (AFD), said Socfin has launched a study to determine the social and environmental impacts of the plantation.
"They recognized maybe they have made some errors, some mistakes," he said. "They included in the study what has been done and eventually corrective action."
AFD is evaluating a $2.5 million plan to help "smallholders." The project would encourage the company to integrate more family-run rubber plantations into its overall operation.
"That could serve as a model for economic concessions," said Beugnot, adding that the company has no obligation to pursue such a model; it could just as easily develop its concession as a private rubber plantation.
'Laws ignored'
Daniel King, a lawyer with the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC), said the Socfin-KCD deal is murky, and information provided to the community is often conflicting.
"The actual clearing of land by Socfin-KCD has not always corresponded to this information," he said.
In fact, he said, the deal may be illegal under Cambodian law, which requires an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment prior to granting an economic land concession (ELC). Copies of those assessments have been requested from the relevant ministries, but have not been provided.
"They may not have been conducted prior to the granting of the ELC or the clearing of land," he said.
King was also skeptical of the French Development Agency's role, suggesting the danger of French taxpayer dollars being used to fund the "social aspects" of an illegal land deal.
"Its partnership with Socfin-KCD in that endeavour could be seen as supporting an ELC that is likely to be illegal under national and international human rights law," he said.
Beugnot said the feasibility study, which AFD requires if it is to provide funding to Socfin-KCD, began weeks ago and will take three months to complete.
In the meantime, those affected by the land concession have few options. On June 19, members of the Bunong held traditional ceremonies to appease ancestral spirits for the loss of forest they consider sacred, and to curse the rubber companies.
Recently, out of desperation, Prap travelled to Phnom Penh with other members of his community to raise awareness of their plight.
"I don't know how to get the land back. Now I just stay and wait and maybe my family will starve," he said.
Decades of displacement
Cambodia has seen years of massive displacement beginning with Richard Nixon's bombing campaign, which he authorized in secret without consent of Congress. In an attempt to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines along the border with Vietnam, the U.S. dropped an estimated 540,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia in four years, which strengthened support for Khmer Rouge rebels. The bombs killed as many as 500,000 people and displaced about 30 per cent of the population.
Millions more fled the countryside in the following years as a civil war raged between U.S.-backed government troops and the Khmer Rouge. When the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975, they emptied Phnom Penh of almost all of its inhabitants, forcing them and millions of others throughout the country into labour camps. After Vietnamese and Cambodian forces ousted the regime in 1979, refugees flooded back into the capital seeking shelter wherever they could find it.
Still more Cambodians languished in camps in Thailand as Cambodian and Vietnamese troops battled the remnants of the Khmer Rouge and other armed groups. The remaining Khmer Rouge were finally defeated in 1998 and refugees returned.
New era, same problem
Decades of forced migration have resulted in a tangled web of land ownership claims. In an attempt to address the issue, the government passed a law in 2001 stating that those who had occupied a piece of land continuously for at least five years could claim legal title. But Cambodian courts, which critics say are notoriously corrupt, have rarely enforced that law.
Instead of bombs, bullets and landmines, Cambodians are now forced from their homes by powerful economic interests.
In Phnom Penh, property prices shot up 100 per cent in 2007, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund. Government officials and other elites have cashed in on the boom, along with international investors, pushing people from their homes in order to develop the land. A local organization, STT, estimates that 11 per cent of the capital's population has been forcibly relocated since 1991, with major evictions still planned. In rural areas, corrupt officials also partner with international investors to exploit natural resources, often forcing people off land that they have a strong legal claim to.
Land reform program scrapped
On Sept. 4, the Cambodian government terminated World Bank financing for the Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP), which has issued 1.1 million land titles in rural areas since 2002.
During a speech on Sept. 7, Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen, said cooperating with the World Bank on the program "was difficult because it was complicated and had too many conditions."
The move came after the World Bank, under pressure from advocacy groups, issued critical statements about LMAP and forced evictions.
A July 13 World Bank review of LMAP stated: "procedures for state land classification... were only partly implemented." The bank also noted "a particular disconnect between institutional, legal and policy achievements and insecurity of land tenure for the poor, especially in urban areas, and indigenous peoples."
In plain language, the bank meant that working with government officials to devise elaborate systems for assigning land ownership has not prevented land grabbing, despite whatever laws or regulations are put in place.
Or as Pred, of Bridges Across Borders, put it: "Donors to Cambodia's land sector have tried to provide technical solutions to political problems... powerful people are able to grab the land of the poor and vulnerable majority with total impunity"
Yet, a World Bank spokesman in Phnom Penh downplayed the government's decision, noting its promise to continue the process on its own.
"The World Bank welcomes the government's commitments to continue its reforms of the land sector," said Bou Saroeun.
Pred expressed no confidence in the government's promises.
"State land has been totally mismanaged by the Cambodian government even with World Bank and other donor involvement," he said.
Canada's role
Along with the World Bank, LMAP was supported by Canada, Finland and Germany. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is also co-facilitator, along with the Cambodian government, on the Technical Working Group on Land and it holds a seat in the Ministry of Lands.
Critics have been urging Canada to use its leverage as a donor country to do more to stop the illegal expropriation of land.
"CIDA has so far been unwilling to challenge the status quo in order to address the real problems with land in Cambodia," said Pred. "Unless they do so, in a coordinated manner with other donors, there will be little return from the investments of its aid dollars."
Ironically, Pred noted, when donors refuse to stand up to governments that break their own laws, "the aid runs the risk of legitimizing the system."
CIDA's representative in Cambodia said she was not authorized to speak to reporters and directed questions to CIDA's media department in Canada, which did not respond to e-mailed questions.
On July 2, a group of 11 donors and aid agencies issued a statement calling on the government to halt forced evictions "until a fair and transparent mechanism for resolving land disputes is put in place."
The signatories included the World Bank and the United Nations, along with embassies including those of Britain, the U.S. and Australia.
"The Canadian International Development Agency, which has a seat in the Ministry of Lands, was conspicuously absent from that statement," said Daniel King the CLEC lawyer, "If I was a Canadian I'd be asking questions.

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Vietnamese businesses gain traction in Cambodia

A woman carries a large load of goods from Vietnam to Cambodia via the Tinh Bien Border Gate.'
Saturday, October 3, 2009 (Post by Khmer Hot News )

Thai and Chinese enterprises lose Cambodian market shares to Vietnamese investors.
Le Hong Thuyen is home from Cambodia looking for new suppliers for her shopping mall in Phnom Penh.
The mall, named Vinamart, is the Cambodian capital city’s number-one outlet for Vietnamese products. When it opened in 2006, Vinamart only sold a limited product range supplied by 16 Vietnamese producers. But the outlet has grown larger, and now offers a vast array of both Vietnamese and Cambodian goods.
“It’s a surprise that Cambodian people like Vietnamese goods these days,” said Thuyen. “They especially like Vietnamese food products... they’ve gotten to know and trust Vietnamese brands.”
Lay Vannak, deputy major of Takeo Province, which borders Vietnam’s An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta, said Vietnamese products had expanded their market shares in Cambodia and “some products have defeated those from Thailand and China.”
He said Vietnamese businesses have improved their competitiveness in terms of both quality and packaging.
Launch-pad
An Giang Province has a long border with Cambodia and accounted for 70 perct of bilateral trade between the two countries. Vietnam exported US$1.7 billion goods to Cambodia last year, an annual growth rate of 40-45 percent.
In August, the province officially opened the Tinh Bien Economic Border Gate Zone, where Cambodians, Vietnamese and international tourists can access duty free goods at the border.
Nguyen Minh Tri, head of the province’s Economic Border Gate Authorities, said the zone and its ten supermarkets were a strategic foundation upon which Vietnamese goods could penetrate the Cambodian market.
He also said the zone acted as a depot from which exports were launched to other markets around the globe.
Ho Chi Minh City’s Industry a Trade Service said it was difficult for Vietnamese businesses to store their products in Cambodia and it would be hard for them to boost their exports to the market where local production was underdeveloped.
Vu Kim Hanh, chairwoman of the Vietnamese High Quality Goods Club, said its members planned to build a warehouse at Tinh Bien as part of their export strategy to Cambodia.
Room for improvement
Local businesses were offering strong products at competitive prices in Cambodia, but their distribution and promotion networks remain weak, according to a survey conducted in September by the Business Support Assistance (BSA) in association with Vietnamese research firm Truong Doan.
The survey of consumers and retailers in Phnom Penh and Battambong cities showed that high-quality Vietnamese goods were recognized in Cambodia but that Vietnamese products in general were attached to less competitive labeling and promotions than those from Thailand, said Truong Cung Nghia, director of Truong Doan.
Nghia said Vietnamese businesses were strong in stationaries, bicycles and two and four-wheel accessories, footwear and garments, building materials, fertilizers, seeds, home appliances and plastic products.
Consumer and retailer satisfaction with high-quality Vietnamese goods was higher than with those from Thailand and China, said the survey, which added that retailers profited more from trading Vietnamese goods.
But still, Vietnamese businesses lacked the intense promotional campaigns of their Thai counterparts, which offered free products, cost cutting and television commercials.
In need
“We need the support of Vietnamese producers in terms of a distribution strategy,” said Thuyen from Vinamart.
Thuyen said her shopping mall dealt in Vietnamese products and she was finding it difficult to train Cambodian staff as well, due to the language barrier.
Local producers should understand the difficulties and give a hand to traders like her in the new market, she said
Vietnamese product prices were also less competitive than Thai rivals, which enjoyed lower import taxes in Cambodia and had the strategic support of the Thai government, said the BSA.
The firm said the Vietnamese government should increase dialogues on the issue with its Cambodian counterparts to help Vietnamese businesses like the Thais had done.
Reported by Minh Quang

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Cambodian FM calls on strengthening partnership for development of Mekong basin

www.chinaview.cn
2009-10-03
(Post by Khmer Hot News )
SIEM REAP, Cambodia, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- The second foreign ministerial meeting among five Mekong countries and Japan kicked off Saturday in Siem Reap province, northern part of Cambodia, aimed to boost joint development effort in the area.
As the meeting started, Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong, who chaired the one-day meeting session said "Our gathering here today constitutes a step further in the realization of our partnership for the development of the Mekong basin, which would certainly yield great benefit for the peoples living along the Mekong River and Japan as well."
The agenda for the second Mekong-Japan Foreign Ministers' Meeting is to review progress made since the first meeting in Tokyo, Japan in January 2008.
Hor Namhong also said that "The cooperation between the Mekong region and Japan is bound to have major implications for the future development of the Mekong basin." He highly appreciates Japan's commitment to provide more Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Asia, saying that this initiative "would not only strengthen Asia's growth potential, but also contribute to ASEAN integration."
The meeting attended by foreign ministers from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Japan, Vietnam was represented by a deputy foreign minister attended the meeting.
Mekong-Japan Partnership Program was launched in 2007 for the sake of peace, development and prosperity in the Mekong sub-region.
According to the program of discussion, the foreign ministers will not only discuss the development programs, but also to exchange views on regional and global issues of common concern.

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'Kasit Piromya' attends Mekong-Japan Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Cambodia

3 October 2009
(Post by Khmer Hot News)
BANGKOK, Oct 3 (TNA) – Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya and his diplomatic counterparts from Cambodia, Lao, Myanmar, and Vietnam, are meeting Saturday with newly-appointed Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada in the northwest Cambodian city of Siem Reap to review progress and set the direction for continued cooperation in regional development.
The Second Mekong-Japan Foreign Ministers’ Meeting is being chaired by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong and is being attended by Mr. Okada along with the foreign ministers of Lao, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.
On the sidelines of the Mekong meeting, Mr. Hor Namhong will also chair the Second Foreign Ministers’ Meeting regarding Emerald Triangle Cooperation between Cambodia, Laos and Thailand.
Under the Second Mekong-Japan Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, Japan, which has actively assisted the Mekong region countries, is expected to offer continued commitment to regional development with its vision to create an ‘East Asian Community’.
The meeting is aimed at improving regional infrastructure and human resources, as well as reducing poverty, and will pave the way for a leaders’ summit later this year.
In the afternoon, the foreign ministers of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand will meet under the Emerald Triangle Cooperation umbrella in which they are expected to commit to expanded cooperation in tourism, infrastructure and trade.
The Emerald Triangle Cooperation framework consists of the three neighbouring countries joining together to utilise the combined tourism resources of the sub-region for the mutual benefit of the participating countries. The strengths in the tourism industry of each member country will enhance the combined potential in this sector and promote tourism in the sub-region.
It will also help generate growth and reduce income disparity in the three countries and enhance the well being of people at the grassroots level.
In the afternoon Mr Kasit will hold bilateral talks with the newly-appointed Japanese foreign minister over common interests and plans to develop the Mekong Sub-Region. (TNA)

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Rising Energy Needs Along the Mekong

October 2, 2009
By Simon Marks
(Post by Khmer Hot News )
Speaking at an energy conference in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh this week, Carol Rodley, the American ambassador, noted that economies in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, or G.M.S., are undergoing multiple transitions — from rural to urban, and agriculture to industry.
As such, she said, they will need to significantly up their investment in energy supply.
“These transitions will drive energy demand growth in coming decades,” Ms. Rodley told delegates at the embassy-sponsored event, which included representatives of American energy giants like Chevron and General Electric.
“In the next decade, the demand for energy at national levels is expected to continue to rise between seven percent and 16 percent per annum,” Ms. Rodley continued, “or at rates much faster than projected growth of economic activities, potentially straining existing power systems.”
Energy infrastructure in the region will therefore require “billions of dollars of investment,” she said.
Phalla Phan, deputy secretary-general of Cambodia’s Supreme National Economic Council, said that the country’s energy sector had, so far, heavily prioritized urban demand, a practice that he said has resulted in 87 percent of urban households having electric lighting, compared to just 13 percent in the rural areas.
According to government statistics, 80 percent of the population resides in rural areas. Yet the remaining 20 percent, who live in the country’s urban areas consume 90 percent of the nation’s electricity.
“Cambodia has a fragmented system mostly relying on power from diesel,” Mr. Phan said, adding that the lack of a national power grid added to high energy costs in the country.
The development of hydropower, Mr. Phan said, will necessarily play a key role in the future of Cambodia’s power sector.
Cambodia currently has three functioning hydropower dams and six more under construction. By 2020, Mr. Phan said, hydropower would supply 68 percent of Cambodia’s energy needs.
“We need private companies to help the development of the country’s energy sector,” he added.
Environmentalists, however, are concerned that hydropower projects risk wiping out Cambodia’s crucial fisheries, and with them the livelihoods of local communities. They argue that decentralized, local production of electricity would have far less impact, as would the development of micro-hydro projects, which have a far smaller impact on rivers.
Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of NGO Forum for Cambodia, an advocacy group comprised of several local and international non-governmental organizations working in the country, said that continued investment in hydropower would have lasting and detrimental effects on Cambodia’s rural inhabitants.
(Members of the NGO Forum did not to attend this week’s conference — in part because the agenda, Mr. Sam Ath said, focused so heavily on environmentally damaging energy sources.)
“I think that alternative energies could be used,” he said, adding that the demand for electricity in urban areas should not overpower the needs of those living along the Mekong River, who depend on its resources.
Still, Cambodia already imports electricity from both Thailand and Vietnam, and the rising demand for electricity in the G.M.S. is urging governments in the region to favor more regional interconnectivity over decentralized energy systems.
“To meet potential in the future,” said Porametee Vimolsiri, a senior adviser at the National Economic and Social Development Board in Thailand, “we have to have regional economic integration to help each other.”

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Cambodia To Seek US Debt Forgiveness

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from New York
02 October 2009
(Post by Khmer Hot News )
Cambodia will ask the US to cancel hundreds of million dollar war-era debt the country owes, Cambodia’s foreign minister said Sunday, a day before meeting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Hor Namhong, in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly, told VOA Khmer in an interview that it was fair if the debt was cancelled.
"I will ask [Clinton] to ask the US government to relieve Cambodia's debt, because it was from the Lon Nol regime,” Hor Namhong said at a hotel near UN headquarters.
"The loan was for buying war weaponry to fight in Cambodia. I will tell her that Cambodia has never demanded reparations for the [US] bombing during the Vietnam War, which killed many Cambodians and caused damages...Therefore, the US should understand the debt Cambodia owes,” he added.
Hor Namhong, Cambodia’s longtime foreign minister, is scheduled to meet Clinton Monday in New York, Cambodian officials said. They are expected to discuss an array of issues.
Cambodian officials have said Cambodia owes more than $300 million to the US dating back to the 1970s.
This is the first time that Cambodia will discuss the matter with US senior officials after several public requests and discussions by Cambodia's top leader, legislative body and international organizations with some US officials.
"First, we will ask the US to totally cancel the debt, but if this is not possible, we will then ask to turn the majority of it into development assistance, and Cambodia will pay a certain small portion of it," said Hor Namhong.
Some countries which the US relieves debt through the form of development assistance use the money for investing in education - an example some international organizations have suggested for Cambodia.
Cambodia's biggest opposition party also agrees with the government.
"We support the government in asking some countries to cancel debts that Cambodia owes from the past, but from today onward all foreign loan should be done with care,” said Yim Sovann, member of parliament and spokesperson for the Sam Rainsy Party. “It should be used effectively not extravagantly and get lost due to corruption."
One third of Cambodia external debts are from Russia and the US.

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Tribunal Urges Victims to File Proper Complaints

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
02 October 2009
(Post by Khmer Hot News )
The head of the Khmer Rouge tribunal’s Victims Unit said Friday victims who wished to file complaints for the upcoming case against four jailed leaders of the regime should take care to file properly, to ensure speedy processing.
Some filings have included different names and dates of birth, which have delayed the process, chief of the unit Helen Jarvis said. Sometimes survivors changed their names and dates, and “this is something we have to take into account,” she said.
Hong Kimsuon, a lawyer for civil parties, said the names were indeed different for many people from one regime to the next.
The UN-backed tribunal is preparing for the case against four leaders: chief ideologue Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan, foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith.
The Victims Unit has asked that complaints by civil parties be filed by mid-November, as the first tribunal trial, for prison chief Kaing Kek Iev, or Duch, draws to a close.
“Over recent months, the Victims Unit has played a greater role in assessing completeness and internal consistency of applications made, in order to reduce delays associated with such deficiencies at later stages of the process,” Jarvis said.

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Cambodian communities facing forced eviction launch Inspection Panel complaint against World Bank

3 October 2009
(Post by Khmer Hot News )
Phnom Penh residents facing the largest forced displacement of Cambodians since the Khmer Rouge era have filed a complaint to the World Bank Inspection Panel stating that they have suffered serious harm from a Bank-funded land-titling project.
for immediate release
October 1, 2009
Phnom Penh, Residents facing the largest forced displacement of Cambodians since the Khmer Rouge era have filed a complaint to the World Bank Inspection Panel stating that they have suffered serious harm from a Bank-funded land-titling project. The complaint, submitted by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and registered on 24 September, alleges that the Bank breached its operational policies by failing to adequately supervise the Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP), which has denied urban poor and other vulnerable households protection against widespread tenure insecurity and increasing forced evictions in Cambodia.
A major report about the Bank-financed project, “Untitled: Tenure Insecurity and Inequality in the Cambodian Land Sector,” was also released this week by three international human rights organizations, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) and Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia (BABSEA).
“The principal finding of the report is that, despite a seven-year, multi-million dollar effort to reform the land sector, Cambodia’s land administration institutions have failed to improve tenure security for vulnerable groups, who are routinely and arbitrarily denied access to land titling and dispute resolution mechanisms,” stated Salih Booker, Executive Director of COHRE.
Despite having legitimate rights to the land under Cambodia’s Land Law, thousands of families residing around Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak lake were denied titles when the area was adjudicated by LMAP in January 2007, the same month that a well-connected developer acquired a legally dubious 99-year lease over the area. Residents have since been subjected to intimidation and pressure to leave their homes by the developer and local officials. So far, an estimated 900 families have been evicted from their land to make way for the development, with more than 3000 families due to face the same fate.
The NGO report states that “[t]he fact that these households do not have title is often used against them as a justification for eviction, despite the fact that many have well documented rights under the law.” “Meanwhile,” the report continues, “the wealthy and well-connected have little difficulty in acquiring land title in high value areas in which poor communities reside due to their connections or their ability to pay the high ‘unofficial fees’.”
Both the complaint and the report cite numerous flaws of LMAP, including a failure to issue titles to vulnerable households in accordance with legal procedures, ineffective and corrupt dispute resolution mechanisms, and a failure to conduct essential public awareness campaigns and legal aid programs.
The report identifies the absence of transparent State land management as a key failure of LMAP, which has contributed to the problem of tenure insecurity throughout the country. It states that the lack of transparency and an unimplemented or inadequate legal framework has led to the loss of public spaces in both urban and rural settings, as well as the large-scale depletion of the country’s natural resources, especially forests.
“The mismanagement of State land has negatively impacted the poorest Cambodians most,” said BABSEA Director David Pred. “Rural and indigenous communities have been deprived of the land on which their lives depend in order to make way for Economic Land Concessions, and poor urban households have been denied the opportunity to secure their land tenure despite their legal entitlements, when they are wrongly labelled as squatters on State land.”
Boeung Kak residents who filed the complaint against the World Bank have requested to remain anonymous, citing concerns for their safety amidst increasing intimidation and harassment of human rights defenders and political dissidents in Cambodia.
The Cambodian government abruptly ended its agreement on the project with the World Bank last month after a disagreement about the applicability of World Bank social safeguards in cases like Boeung Kak. Despite the government’s termination of the agreement, human rights groups have demanded that the Cambodian government continue to be held accountable for its contractual obligations to adhere to the project’s policy on involuntary resettlement.
“In light of the serious problems with the design and implementation of LMAP, it is incumbent upon the World Bank to conduct a thorough investigation of this project and its overall assistance strategy in Cambodia,” said Pred. “After seven years of wholly inadequate supervision of LMAP, the Bank has a responsibility to investigate and remedy the harms that have been caused to the Cambodian families who have been unfairly denied recognition of their land rights.”
“The World Bank should reconsider its approach to land titling programmes that it promotes worldwide, especially in countries without strong rule of law and the political will to protect people’s rights against powerful interests,” Booker added. “Through the Inspection Panel’s investigation, the World Bank can and should learn important lessons from LMAP.”
The notice of registration of the complaint is available at:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTINSPECTIONPANEL/Resources/Notice_of_Registration.pdf
read the report:
Untitled: Untitled: Tenure Insecurity and Inequality in the Cambodian Land Sector, Jesuit Relief Services, October 2009 (Acrobat PDF, 1.38 MB)
For more information, please contact:
David Pred
BABSEA Director
davidpred@babsea.org
+855 92 285954
Dan Nicholson
Coordinator,
COHRE Asia and Pacific Programme
dan@cohre.org
+66884030093
Natalie Bugalski
COHRE Legal Officer
natalie@cohre.org
+855 17 523276
Background on Boeung Kak case and forced evictions in Cambodia
Spanning 90 hectares in central north Phnom Penh, Boeung Kak lake is one of the only large open spaces left in Cambodia’s capital city. Prior to the recent evictions, approximately 4000 families lived on and around the lake with many depending on the lake for their livelihood. Families have been living around the lake since the early 1980s when they returned to the city following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Most of these families have legal rights to their land under Cambodia’s 2001 Land Law.
Despite the legitimate claims to the land of many of the residents around Boeung Kak, when the LMAP titling teams adjudicated the area in early 2007, the residents were denied title en masse. In the same month, the Cambodian government entered into a 99-year lease agreement with a private developer, Shukaku Inc., over 133 hectares including the lake and surrounding areas. Shukaku Inc. is headed by Lao Meng Khin, a Senator and major donor to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, who is also director of the controversial logging company Pheapimex.
Families living in the development zone began facing pressure and intimidation to leave the area in August 2008, when the developer commenced filling in the lake as part of its development plans. While few details about the development have been made public, it is estimated that approximately 20,000 people will be displaced. Included in this figure are the more than 900 families that have already been evicted without their land rights being properly adjudicated and acknowledged. In the absence of any legal protections, these families accepted woefully inadequate compensation under conditions of duress.
Evictions and forcible confiscation of land continue to rank as one of Cambodia's most pervasive human rights problems. In Phnom Penh alone, approximately 133,000 residents, or 10% of the city’s population of over 1.3 million have been evicted since 1990. While precise nationwide figures are difficult to ascertain, the rate of forced evictions appear to have increased in conjunction with, amongst other things, the granting of concessions over vast tracts of land to private investors. Meanwhile, rural landlessness has skyrocketed from around 13% in 1997 to as high as 25% in 2007.
Coupled with the absence of tenure security, rapidly increasing land values have led to rampant land grabbing by powerful and wealthy elites, to the severe detriment of local communities. The pretext of development is used to justify the forced relocation of low-income households to remote and desolate resettlement sites. However, frequently the projects driving this displacement are beset with corruption and unjust practices, perpetuating a development model that favours powerful interests at the expense of deeper poverty and increased hardship for the most vulnerable. The impending Boeung Kak Lake development is the largest and most visible of these development projects.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••
Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia (BABSEA) is an international grassroots organization working to bring people together to overcome poverty, injustice and inequity in the Southeast Asia region. BABSEA has offices in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Chiang Mai, Thailand and works in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) is an international human rights non-governmental organization that works to promote and protect the right to adequate housing. COHRE is based in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices throughout the world, and has consultative

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Tens of thousands in Philippines flee new typhoon

By ROHAN SULLIVAN (AP)
(Post by Khmer Hot News)
MANILA, Philippines — Filipinos braced Friday to be whipped by powerful winds and pelted with rain from a second typhoon in eight days, fleeing by the tens of thousands from low-lying areas and suspending cleanup operations in the flooded capital.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a nationwide "state of calamity" and ordered mass evacuations of six provinces in the path of Typhoon Parma, which was expected to hit the main island of Luzon midafternoon Saturday.
Parma threatened to expand more than a week of destruction in the Asia-Pacific region that has claimed more than 1,500 lives so far: an earthquake Wednesday in Indonesia; a tsunami Tuesday in the Samoan islands; and Typhoon Ketsana across Southeast Asia.
Cedric Daep, a top disaster official in the Philippines' Albay province, said officials there had evacuated almost 50,000 people to shelters on higher ground.
Police and the military were helping people to leave flood- or landslide-prone areas across the north and east, where heavy rain fell on Friday.
"Our objective is zero casualties," Daep told The Associated Press.
Parts of the capital, Manila, were still awash from the worst floods in 40 years caused by Ketsana on Sept. 26. Almost 300 people were killed and more than 2 million had swamped homes.
In Quezon City, where muddy brown water was still chest-deep, residents turned from cleaning up after Ketsana to trying to secure their belongings from the risk of more flooding.
"We do not know what to do or where we can go," said resident Bebang De Los Santos. "We don't have a way out and this is the only place that is safe, but we don't have any shelter."
In Albay, laundry worker Mely Malate fled with her husband and six children to an evacuation center, spurred by memories of a storm three years ago.
"During the last typhoon, we were trapped inside the house by the flood waters and we had to climb to the roof," she said. "We are scared whenever there is a storm. When we left this morning, the river was already higher than normal."
Arroyo's "state of calamity" declaration of frees up government funds to respond to emergencies.
Parma was forecast to cross the coast of the main island of Luzon north of Manila, packing sustained winds of up to 120 mph (195 kph), gusting up to 140 mph (230 kph). If the sustained winds reach 133 mph (215 kph) Parma will get the official designation "super-typhoon," the government's weather bureau said.
It was expected to continue east into the South China Sea by Sunday, though it's direction from there was uncertain. As many as 20 major storms buffet the region each year.
In southern Taiwan, the county where about 700 died when Typhoon Morakot hit in August plans to evacuate several villages prone to flooding and mudslides if a warning for Parma is issued, said county chief Yang Chiu-hsing.
Earlier this week, the storm that flooded the Philippines, Ketsana, then hit Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; 293 died in the Philippines, 99 in Vietnam, 14 in Cambodia and 16 in Laos.
Lake Laguna on the edge of the capital rose by more than 3.3 feet (one meter) as Ketsana passed and was in danger of spilling over into districts near Manila housing some 100,000 people, said Ed Manda, general manager of the Laguna Lake Development Authority.
At a briefing Friday evening, weather bureau administrator Frisco Nilo said a high-pressure system near Hong Kong had caused Parma to slow slightly and might cause it to change direction, though it was still likely to hit the main northern Philippine island of Luzon.
Associated Press writers Teresa Cerejano and Oliver Teves in Manila, Annie Huang in Taipei, Taiwan, Minh Van Tran in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Ambika Ahuja in Bangkok contributed to this report

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Gain in building approvals belies enduring downturn

Photo by: Heng Chivoan
Construction labourers continue work Tuesday on a new conference hall being built on Phnom Penh's Koh Pich. Although construction project approvals climbed 7 percent up to the end of August this year, the IMF and construction materials producers say the slump continues.
(Post by Khmer Hot News)
Friday, 02 October 2009 15:01 Soeun Say and Nathan Green
Despite a small rise in construction approvals during the first eight months of this year, analysts say the sector is still suffering from the economic crisis.
A7 percent gain in construction approvals over the first eight months of the year suggests a recovery may be imminent in the property sector, but other data showed the construction industry is still feeling the impact of the economic downturn.
According to figures released by the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction this week, 1,499 construction projects worth a combined US$1.61 billion got the green light from government officials through to the end of August 2009, up from 1,396 projects worth $1.51 billion in the same period last year. The number included 357 projects worth $470 million approved in July and August.
“This is a good sign that our construction sector is still growing, despite the global economic crisis,” said Lao Tip Seiha, director of the ministry’s Construction Department.
However, the ministry did not track how much money had actually been invested in the sector, nor which of the approved projects had started construction, Lao Tip Seiha said.
According to May estimates by the United Nations Development Programme, more than 30 percent of construction projects “may have been placed on hold” this year due to the global downturn.
In a briefing on the state of the economy last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also said the construction sector had seen a contraction this year amid the economic downturn.
“New project approvals are down sharply, and if you look closely at the import data, the import of construction materials has also been contracting since late last year,” David Cowen, deputy division chief in the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department Bank, said last Wednesday. “Bank lending to the property sector is also down.”
IMF Resident Representative John Nelmes said the decline in project approvals referred to foreign investment approvals, which are traditionally seen as a proxy for construction sector activity in the absence of reliable industry or government data. The IMF predicted that foreign direct investment inflows would fall to $490 million this year from $815 million in 2008, largely as result of reduced spending in major construction projects.
“Unfortunately, there are no monthly data on actual construction sector activity, so one has to supplement the approvals data with other indicators, such as imports of construction materials, which are down about 35 percent year-on-year so far this year,” Nelmes said. “Steel imports are about 25 percent lower.”
A downturn in sales has also been reported by brick makers. Sun Rises Brick Factory Executive Director Lay Seng Hoeun said the construction sector was sourcing between 70 and 80 percent fewer bricks from his factory this year compared to the height of the building boom in early 2008.
He said he had dropped production from 170,000 bricks a month, all of which were sold, to around 160,000 every two months. Stocks were piling up despite the lower production levels, he said.
Prices slide with demand
Prices had also dropped from between $600 and $700 for 10,000 bricks to around $200 this year, he added.
He said other nearby factories in Kandal province’s Mouk Kampoul district were facing a similar problem.
Ministry figures show 2,156 development projects worth $3.191 billion were approved over the full year 2008, down 0.64 percent on 2007, when 1,942 projects worth $3.211 billion were approved. Ministry approval is required only for projects over a certain value, with the bulk approved at municipality or provincial level.
According to the UNDP, construction projects increased in value from a total of $500 million in 2003 to more than $3.2 billion in 2007. The average project cost over the same time period increased from $157,000 to $1.65 million as developers began building high-rise apartments and office buildings.

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Minister asks Clinton to cancel Lon Nol debt

Photo by: Sovan Philong.
Foreign Minister Hor Namhong addresses reporters at Phnom Penh International airport on Wednesday evening after returning from an official visit to the US.
(Post by Khmer Hot News
Friday, 02 October 2009 15:02 Cheang Sokha and James O’toole
MINISTER of Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong said that in a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week, he called on Washington to forgive more than US$300 million in Cambodian debt.
Having just returned from his trip to the US, where he addressed the UN General Assembly on Saturday and met with Clinton in New York City on Monday, Hor Namhong told reporters at Phnom Penh International Airport that the US should shift its approach to the Kingdom’s outstanding loans.
“I told [Clinton] that the debt came from Lon Nol, when he staged his coup in 1970 and brought war from Vietnam to Cambodia,” Hor Namhong said. “The US should, therefore, consider cancelling the debt or reinvesting it to support Cambodia’s economic development.”
US embassy spokesman John Johnson said that in addition to the debt issue, Clinton and Hor Namhong covered the Khmer Rouge tribunal and US engagement with Myanmar.
The two also discussed democracy and human rights, Johnson said, with their meeting coming on the heels of Sam Rainsy Party parliamentarian Mu Sochua’s meeting with Clinton on September 11.
“[Clinton] raised this issue after she met with the opposition lawmaker and NGO workers recently,” Hor Namhong said, adding: “I reassured her that Cambodia has thousands of NGOs, more than almost any other country in the world.”

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Defendants released after Takeo court questioning

(Post by Khmer Hot news)
Friday, 02 October 2009 15:02 Chrann Chamroeun
Judge gives reporter and rights activists four days to find legal representation.
A RADIO Free Asia reporter and two human rights activists charged with spreading disinformation were released after appearing for questioning before a Takeo provincial court on Thursday.
Their release comes one day after the arrest of their co-defendant, local Cham Muslim leader Ny San, set off a confrontation between military police and shocked members of Borei Cholsa district’s Cham Muslim community.
According to Chheng Sophors, a senior investigator for local rights group Licadho, “RFA reporter Sok Sarey arrived in court for the interrogation accompanied by a lawyer. Although he was allowed to go home, the charges against him still stand. All the defendants are awaiting trial.”
The charges were brought against the defendants by Ry Mab, acting representative of the Borei Cholsa Cham, after RFA and the CCHR reported on a leadership dispute involving Cham Muslims supporting Ny San.
Chiep Cheav and Khem Sarom, the two rights activists, who are employed by the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR), answered none of the questions directed at them by investigating Judge Tith Sothy. Neither was represented by a lawyer.
“I reserved my full right not to answer any questions regarding the charge of spreading disinformation,” said Chiep Cheav.
“But I asked the judge to suspend his interrogation for 10 days in order to give me adequate time to find a lawyer. He gave us only four days before we have to show up again in court, which I accepted.”
“We refused to accept the charges brought against us. Instead, we advised the plaintiffs to lodge their complaints with the provincial religion department and the Ministry of Cults and Religions, and also suggested that they broadcast their information on Radio Free Asia,” he added.
Because two of the four days allotted to find legal representation will fall on the weekend, Chheng Sophors said he doubted the defendants would be able to find lawyers in time. Nonetheless, Chheng Sophors pledged that Licadho would remain involved.
“We will keep investigating this case until the trial. Today we brought in a UN representative to meet with the judge and find out more about the case, but I don’t know what the two discussed,” he said.

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SRP councillor arrested for cutting palm tree

(Post by Khmer Hot News)
Friday, 02 October 2009 15:03 Meas Sokchea
A SAM Rainsy Party district councillor was arrested in Svay Rieng province on Thursday after police accused him of cutting his neighbour’s palm tree.
The man’s relatives and other party members said they believed the arrest was politically motivated.
Peng Kanha said her father, Kong An, had been arrested in Svay Teap district and sent to the provincial court, which decided to detain him.
“They accused my father of destroying someone’s property by cutting leaves from the palm tree,” she said.
“In fact, my father has been taking care of this palm tree since 1983. This issue is a political story because my father is a district councillor for the Sam Rainsy Party,” she said.
SRP provincial Deputy President Meas Kheng said the arrest had been ordered for political reasons by Phang Samon, the deputy president of the court, but did not offer any details of the dispute.
Phang Samon could not be reached for comment Thursday.

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Police Blotter: 2 Oct 2009

(Post by Khmer Hot News)
Friday, 02 October 2009 15:01 Thet Sambath
‘VIRGIN SPIRIT’ QUEST LEADS TO RAPE
Police in Takeo province on Monday arrested a 47-year-old man who has been accused of raping his daughter in an attempt to channel her “virgin spirit”. The man is said to have told his 21-year-daughter that he would become sick and suffer “nervous convulsions” if he did not have sex with a “virgin spirit”. Though the daughter refused at first, she eventually agreed after the suspect had a “nervous convulsion” in front of her. After a few months, his wife begged her husband to stop raping her daughter. He refused, which prompted both wife and daughter to go to the police.
RASMEY KAMPUCHEA
GANG RIVALS SPEND A NIGHT TOGETHER
Military police on Tuesday arrested four members of rival gangs after they were caught fighting and riding their motorbikes “in a disorderly manner” in Daun Penh district. Though they were sworn enemies, the spoiled teenagers were made to stay in the same cell for one night, during which they were “educated to stop it”, police said. Their parents were allowed to take them from police custody after they promised to instruct their children to refrain from resorting to violence.
RASMEY KAMPUCHEA
‘CRUEL’ MAN DETAINS AND STABS WIFE
A 45-year-old man on Tuesday stabbed his pregnant wife to death after locking her up against her will for four days, police said. The man, who lives in Bakan district, Pursat province, at first told his children that he would kill their mother if they were not respectful. The children then reported him to the police, but not before he acted on his threat. Neak Srey Yom, the 14-year-old daughter of the suspect, said her father had always been “cruel”.
RASMEY KAMPUCHEA
WOMAN RAPED BY HER SON-IN-LAW
A 26-year-old man in Kandal Steung district, Kandal province, failed in his second attempt to rape his 56-year-old mother-in-law on Friday, police said. The accused is said to have attempted his depraved act while the two were picking vines. The mother-in-law managed to dodge the attack. When she returned to her home in Bati district, Takeo province, she said Rim Rem had successfully raped her in 2005. She said she did not complain at the time because she did not want her family’s private matters to be aired in public. Rim Rem admitted to police that he raped his mother-in-law once, saying he did so because his wife had just given birth and “it was time for prohibition”.
RASMEY KAMPUCHEA

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Officials say trafficking has dropped

(Post by Khmer hot news)
Friday, 02 October 2009 15:03 Tep Nimol
Govt and rights groups await data to confirm suspicions.
THOUGH it remains a significant issue, human trafficking in Cambodia has decreased in 2009, officials from the Ministry of Interior and local rights groups said Thursday.
Chiv Phally, deputy director of the department of anti-human trafficking and minority protection at the Ministry of Interior, said that women and children in Cambodia are safer now than in past years thanks to increased law enforcement and successful prosecutions of human-trafficking offenders. The ministry official was speaking at a conference in Phnom Penh to kick off a government campaign publicising rights protections for victims of child trafficking.
Though he did not provide any official statistics to support his claim about the trafficking decline, Chiv Phally vowed continued vigilance on the part of anti-trafficking authorities to secure further decreases. In addition to his praise for law enforcement, he also attributed the trafficking decline to community awareness programmes organised by the government that have informed the Kingdom’s residents about how best to protect themselves from predatory criminals.
Samleang Seila, country director for the child rights group Action Pour Les Enfants, said that his organisation and most others working on the issue have acknowledged the trafficking drop.
“If we look at the number of arrests and the number of complaints made to the courts, we see a reduction in human trafficking,” he said, citing “law enforcement effectiveness and the increasing understanding and commitment of the government” as the main reason for this reduction.
Lim Tith, the national project coordinator for the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP) agreed that trafficking in Cambodia has likely declined, but cautioned that the news is not all good.
“Internally, it has probably decreased, but externally, it has stayed the same or even increased,” he said, differentiating between trafficking within Cambodia and the trafficking of Cambodians to other countries.
Most Cambodians victimised by international traffickers end up in Thailand or Malaysia, he said, as the demand for cheap labour has been exacerbated by the global financial crisis.
UNIAP plans to release a comprehensive study of human trafficking in Cambodia near the end of this year, which Lim Tith said he hopes will substantiate the limited information currently available on trafficking trends.
“Definitely before the end of this year, we’ll have this data, and then we’ll know,” he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JAMES O’TOOLE AND SEBASTIAN STRANGIO

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Thousands displaced by flooding

Photo by: Heng Chivoan and AFP
Buddhist monks survey the damage in Kampong Thom province (left), while a group of women wade unperturbed through the floodwaters.
(Post by Khmer Hot News )
THE Cambodian death toll from Typhoon Ketsana climbed to 14 on Thursday, as an unprecedented clean-up operation was launched in the wake of the most ferocious storm to lash the Kingdom in living memory.
In a central Cambodian village where nine people were killed, authorities moved fallen trees from roads while victims sifted through the remains of their muddy, smashed wooden houses and gathered what was left of their possessions.
“Everything of mine, including rice, is destroyed. We are staying under a tent, filled with fear,” said weeping villager Ket Suon, 43, who fled his home with his family as it was crushed by the storm Tuesday evening.
As of last night, the National Committee for Disaster Management confirmed 14 deaths across the Kingdom. In addition to the nine who died in Kampong Thom when their houses collapsed on Tuesday night, three deaths were confirmed in Siem Reap province, where the river burst its banks and caused widespread flooding. Two more deaths were confirmed in northeastern Ratanakkiri province from flash floods.
The toll is expected to rise, with scattered reports of fatalities still emerging from remote rural areas. Sorn Thoeun, disaster reduction coordinator at World Vision, said two people also died in Mondulkiri province, although the province’s deputy governor, Yim Lux, said that they were only “missing”.
Relief efforts were under way Thursday, with local authorities and Red Cross officials working to help those who lost their homes or were forced to flee because of flooding.
“When you’ve got hundreds or thousands of hectares of rice fields affected by floods, that could affect food security in the coming months,” said Sharon Wilkinson, Cambodia director for CARE International.
The number of people displaced by the storm’s destructive force is expected to reach into the tens of thousands nationwide, but officials were at a loss Thursday as to what the final tally might be. “We do not know how many families are affected in the country,” said Uy Sam Ath, director of disaster management for the Cambodian Red Cross.
Typhoon Ketsana killed at least 383 people across Southeast Asia before it was downgraded to a tropical storm on Wednesday. The international community has since mobilised, pledging millions of dollars of aid for the battered region. On Wednesday, the European Commission promised €2 million (US$2.9 million) for relief efforts in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Ly Thuch, deputy chief of the National Committee for Disaster Management, insisted Cambodia’s government had humanitarian efforts “under control” as it coordinated aid to affected areas with local and international agencies.
In Kampong Thom’s Teak Mileang village, however, locals were left picking up the pieces. Phan Sokheun, 52, was struggling to make sense of the carnage. “I never thought my village could be destroyed like this,” she said. “My house was demolished by the storm, but it is raining heavily, so my family will get sick soon because we cannot bear the cold conditions. I don’t know how I can.”
Kong Many, 47, said he feared supplies would soon run out. “We have food provided by the Cambodian Red Cross, but it cannot support us for much longer,” he said. “Then how will we find food?”
Governor Chhun Chhorn said 200 police officers had been mobilised to help the homeless, but more help was needed in the province, which felt the full force of the typhoon when it reached Cambodia.
World Vision spokesman Haidy Ear-Dupuy warned it could be weeks before people in some of the worst-hit areas of Kampong Thom can return home.
Although most of the storm’s strength has been expended, the Mekong River is expected to reach dangerous levels within three days. “We are alerting people in the provinces around the Mekong of severe incidents,” said Mao Hak, director of hydrology and river works at the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology. Water levels in Stung Treng, Kratie and Kampong Cham provinces remain dangerously close to alert levels, he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KHUON LEAKHANA, IRWIN LOY AND AFP

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Day for the Elderly

Photo by: Sovan Philong
(Post by khmer hot news)
Friday, 02 October 2009 15:03 Kim Yuthana
The Cambodian Elder Support Organisation on Thursday took 56 elderly Cambodians to visit the Khmer Rouge tribunal, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Royal Palace to mark the International Day for the Elderly. In a statement, Prime Minister Hun Sen acknowledged Cambodia’s “responsibility, as a developing nation, to pay attention to all citizens, especially the elderly”.

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K Cham girl becomes latest victim in area’s gang rape epidemic

Wednesday, 30 September 2009 15:03 Chhay Channyda
(Post byKhmer hot news)
Kampong Cham has seen alarming increase in violent sex acts, local human rights workers say.
A SUSPECT in the rape and killing of a Khmer Muslim woman in Kampong Cham province remains in custody while police gather evidence for his trial.
Provincial police Chief Nuon Samin said Tuesday that a 36-year-old Cambodian man was arrested Sunday for allegedly raping and killing a 22-year-old woman last Saturday after finding her alone on a coffee farm in Tonloung commune.
“The suspect is being detained by the police, and we are now collecting more evidence to bring against him in court.”
Nuon Samin said that on Saturday morning the victim left home for a farm a kilometre away, where she is believed to have been attacked by the suspect sometime between 7am and 8am.
The victim’s parents became worried when she did not return home later that day.
“When her parents came to the farm that evening, they found her body stripped naked, with wounds around her neck,” Nuon Samin said.
“This was the second rape-murder in the province this month, after the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl,” he added.
Thov Chinda, provincial investigator for human rights group Adhoc, said Monday that in the first nine months of 2009, Adhoc recorded 20 rape cases in Kampong Cham, and that prior to this case, all of them were committed against girls under the age of 18.
“Rape is a very serious danger for girls in rural areas,” Thov Chinda said, adding that drugs and pornographic videos contributed to the perpetrators’ outbursts of sexual violence.
Nuon Samin said police in Kampong Cham handled six rape cases in September and agreed that incidents of rape were on the rise.
Just one week before the rape and murder of the most recent victim, an 11-year-old girl was gang-raped and killed by what is now believed to have been as many as 10 men. The alleged leader of the gang was a man who said he had fallen in love with the victim but thought himself too poor to marry her.
Both crimes occurred in rural areas of Kampong Cham and were committed in isolated locations close to the victims’ homes. In each case, the body of the victim was found by her family

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Bullets’ remark a ‘warning’

Photo by: Tracey Shelton Cambodian soldiers guard the border at Preah Vihear earlier this year. Earlier this week, Hun Sen controversially ordered troops to “use bullets“ against Thais venturing into disputed territory.---------------------------------------------------------------------------we have stored enough ammunition to shoot them, and we will follow... orders.----------------------------------------------------------------------------(Post byKhmer hot news)Wednesday, 30 September 2009 15:03 Thet Sambath and Robbie Corey-boulet PM’s instruction for Cambodian soldiers to ‘use bullets’ against Thai soldiers and civilians was intended to frighten ‘extremists’, foreign affairs official says.PRIME Minister Hun Sen’s order for Cambodian soldiers to “use bullets” against Thai soldiers and civilians who venture into disputed border territory was intended as a warning to “Thai extremists”, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.“The Thai extremists must know the consequences that will happen if they insist on entering Cambodia illegally with the intention of occupying any piece of land in Cambodia,” Koy Kuong said when asked about the premier’s comments, made Monday during a speech at the new Ministry of Tourism. Koy Kuong added, though, that the government was still hoping for a peaceful resolution to the border dispute. “Right now, we still hold the position on solving the problem with Thailand peacefully, bilaterally and amicably,” he said.When asked whether he believed Hun Sen’s comments were consistent with the government’s hopes for a peaceful solution, Koy Kuong said again that the remarks were merely “a warning”.The Bangkok Post reported Tuesday that Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban would meet with Hun Sen to discuss the border row. The report did not specify when and where the meeting would take place, and Koy Kuong said he knew nothing about it. Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva downplayed the significance of Hun Sen’s comments, telling AFP: “Whenever he gives interviews to the foreign media, he always has this attitude where he wants to make headlines.”Abhisit also said Hun Sen’s comments were likely an attempt to retaliate against Thai protests held on September 19, during which 5,000 yellow-shirted protesters from the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) gathered in Thailand’s Sisaket province to protest the Thai government’s border policy.Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers stationed near the border said Tuesday that they were ready to carry out Hun Sen’s order should Thai soldiers or civilians try to enter disputed territory.“We will not use dogs, electric bats or shields to prevent them. We have stored enough ammunition to shoot them, and we will follow Prime Minister Hun Sen’s orders,” said Srey Doek, commander of RCAF Division 3. “We will not make him disappointed on this problem.” He said Thai military officers sent a letter Tuesday asking RCAF officials to stop workers from making repairs to Wat Keo Sekha Kirisvarak pagoda, which is located near the temple, because it was in territory they said was disputed. Srey Doek said he had told the workers to continue with the repairs. A spokesman at the Thai ministry of foreign affairs in Bangkok declined to comment Tuesday, and officials at the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh could not be reached.

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Famlies ask land case be sent to K Chhnang

(Post by Khmer hot news)
Wednesday, 30 September 2009 15:03 Tep Nimol and Kim Yuthana
ABOUT 50 villagers representing 64 families from Kampong Chhnang province came to Phnom Penh on Tuesday to deliver a letter to the Ministry of Justice seeking intervention in a land dispute.
The families travelled from Kampong Chhnang’s Lor Peang village, Ta Cheist commune, Kampong Tralach district, in an effort to have their legal dispute with KDC, a private company, transferred from Phnom Penh Municipal Court to Kampong Chhnang provincial court.
Um Sophy, a village representative, said the families were seeking the change of venue because they could not afford to make frequent trips to Phnom Penh to monitor legal proceedings there.
The villagers’ thumb-printed letter also requested that Kampong Chhnang provincial court shelve incitement charges that were brought against three Lor Peang residents last year in connection with the dispute and focus instead on the civil case with KDC.
Ministry of Justice spokesman Bunyai Narith said he was not sure whether the ministry’s Department of Administration had received the letter, but that if it was submitted properly, the department would forward it to the minister of justice for evaluation.
Villagers said, however, that their letter had been rejected by the Ministry of Justice because it lacked the proper documentation.
Som Sokong, the villagers’ lawyer, said he had already sent a letter to Phnom Penh Municipal Court requesting a change of venue to Kampong Chhnang, but was still waiting for an official reply.

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Monks' morality important to Cambodia

By Chak Sopheap
Guest Commentary
Published: September 30, 2009
(Post by Kmer hot news)
Niigata, Japan — In Cambodia Buddhism is the state religion, guaranteed by the Constitution, and about 95 percent of the people are Buddhists. However, in recent times, a gradual decline in moral standards among Buddhist monks and the political affiliations of some of their leaders have raised serious concerns.
The current Great Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia Tep Vong has been accused of favoritism toward the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Some of his controversial orders include the February 2005 ban on the use of pagodas for public forums hosted by non-governmental organizations, particularly the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.
Instead of believing that public forums on human rights create chaos, Tep Vong should view them as a platform for people to voice their concerns and appeal to the government to look after their needs. Buddhism supports such a peaceful approach and nonviolent means to highlight problems and seek solutions.
Tep Vong usually makes speeches on political holidays – such as Liberation Day on Jan. 7, the day the former Khmer Rouge regime was toppled – to reaffirm his support to the ruling party. He rarely touches on issues such as moral standards or the role of monks in Cambodian society.
Several reports of monks having sex, watching pornographic materials and other social misconduct have largely gone unnoticed by the supreme patriarch. Recently a chief monk reportedly got drunk and beat some of his followers, who did not file a complaint out of fear for their safety.
Unlike the case of Tim Sakhorn – a monk who was charged with misconduct and defrocked in 2007 for allegedly destabilizing relations between Cambodia and Vietnam – the supreme patriarch has not reacted to the recent issue involving the drunken monk. This shows that the decision to defrock Sakhorn was politically motivated, and that the Buddhist leader is unconcerned about the decline of morality among the monks under his charge.
If such abuses continue, Buddhism will be less respected in the Cambodian community. This will affect other monks who devotedly follow and respect Buddhist principles. Besides, it would create a dangerous society if citizens were to lose faith in their religion, which contributes to people’s behavior and social conduct.
Buddhism has also played a significant role in national reconciliation and peace for survivors of the former dreaded Khmer Rouge regime. Cambodian people are likely to advise their children to apply Buddhist teachings as a way to solve conflicts in a peaceful manner and also to attain inner peace.
Therefore, the supreme patriarch and other monks need to maintain their gracious role and morality so that the religion is respected and valued. Monks should look back on their past roles in developing the community and the country.
Throughout history, pagodas and monks have contributed immensely to Cambodia’s cultural and educational sustainability, despite civil conflicts. However, their roles and contributions are diminishing in present times.
There are many issues like poverty reduction, corruption, social injustice, land disputes and social conflicts that confront Cambodia’s government as well as civil society. Monks should play a greater leadership role by introducing peaceful mechanisms to solve problems. This would go a long way toward helping Cambodians build a better society and future.
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(Chak Sopheap is a graduate student of peace studies at the International University of Japan. She runs a blog, www.sopheapfocus.com, in which she shares her impressions of both Japan and her homeland, Cambodia. She was previously advocacy officer of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.)

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Most Journalists Mentioned the Right to Keep Information Sources Confidential, but the Courts Do Not Accept It – Wednesday, 30.9.2009

Posted on 1 October 2009
The Mirror, Vol. 13, No. 632
http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com/
(Post byKhmer hot news)
“Phnom Penh: Many organizations and associations cooperated to hold a workshop about a network of persons and institutions to provide legal protection for journalists, where also representatives from civil society, government officials, and legal experts attended.
“The director of the Department to Defend the Poor of the Cambodian Defenders Project, Mr. Yong Phanit, said during the workshop in the morning of 28 September 2009 that the freedom of the press in Cambodia is guaranteed by the Constitution, by the press law, and by other relevant laws. Looking at the press law, it provides many kinds of rights for the press, and it speaks also about the responsibility of the press. Those rights include the right to seek information and the right to receive all kinds of information, including information controlled by the Royal Government, except for information affecting national security and public order.
“Mr. Yong Phanit added that these rights are fully guaranteed, by law, for the press. Another right is the right to keep information sources confidential. This is an absolute right of journalists by which they can keep information about sources of information confidential. Also, journalists have the right to publish information without pre-checking. Thus, when they have received information, they can publish it as they want to without checking. He added that journalists have also the right to create organizations or associations.
“He went on to say that at the same time, the law requires the journalists to be responsible for what they publish. If journalists break the law, they have to take responsibility for it. Based on the press law, the courts have the right to fine them, and the courts can also order them to publish corrections later, or to pay compensation to victims. But practically, at present, the [UNTAC time] criminal law is sometimes used to prosecute journalists who have done something which is considered to relate to articles of that law [the UNTAC criminal law], while by law, if somebody is under the control of a special law, they must be treated according to that special law, if they have violated anything under this law. Besides this, they are under the general laws like everybody else.
“Presiding over the workshop, a secretary of state of Ministry of Information, Mr. Nov Sovathero, said that, looking at the whole situation, we see that some journalists who have been jailed or fined are mostly accused of disinformation and defamation, affecting other people’s reputation. When courts requested them to provide information or documents to prove their reporting, journalists always mention the right to keep their sources of information confidential, an argument that the courts cannot accept. This is the root of the problem, and the reason for what is happening with regard to journalists in their profession life at present.
“Mr. Nov Sovathero added that journalists are really free to select the information to be published for their readers – they have to decide carefully whether to publish or not to publish something. They have to consider whom a publication would affect, or whether or not it will affect them in turn, if the information they would publish is not true.
“The aim of the workshop was to identify those who could be involved to take the responsibility for establishing a press freedom network, to promote the support for affected journalists, and to allow everybody to identify areas of problems.”
Kampuchea Thmey, Vol.8, #2059, 30.9.2009
Newspapers Appearing on the Newsstand:
Wednesday, 30 September 2009

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