Belgian paedophile expelled from Cambodia

Wed, 23 Sep 2009
KHMER HOT NEWS

Phnom Penh - A Belgian man convicted twice for child sex offences was expelled from Cambodia seven weeks after a coalition of child protection organizations petitioned authorities to expel him, a media report said Wednesday. Philippe Dessart, 49, was put on a plane to Thailand last week, the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported.
"We had enough legal grounds," the national police spokesman told the newspaper. "We didn't decide to deport him to Belgium; we just decided that he should be out of our country. Wherever he went to, it was his right."
Dessart was released from a Cambodian jail in April having spent three years in prison for sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy. On his release, he sparked outrage from child protection organizations by marrying the boy's mother after moving into her home in western Cambodia.
Dessart was previously convicted of child sex offences in his native Belgium, serving time there in the 1990s for child rape and torture.
Dessart's lawyer said his client's deportation was an abuse of his rights.
"He was with his wife; police came to invite him to a commune police station telling him that the national commissioner orders you to be expelled," Dun Vibol told the newspaper. "[On arrival in Thailand Dessart] called me saying he's got nothing with him and said they don't respect the law in Cambodia."

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Belgian paedophile expelled from Cambodia

Submitted by Sahil Nagpal
Wed, 09/23/2009
Phnom Penh - A Belgian man convicted twice for child sex offences was expelled from Cambodia seven weeks after a coalition of child protection organizations petitioned authorities to expel him, a media report said Wednesday.
Philippe Dessart, 49, was put on a plane to Thailand last week, the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported.
"We had enough legal grounds," the national police spokesman told the newspaper. "We didn't decide to deport him to Belgium; we just decided that he should be out of our country. Wherever he went to, it was his right."
Dessart was released from a Cambodian jail in April having spent three years in prison for sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy. On his release, he sparked outrage from child protection organizations by marrying the boy's mother after moving into her home in western Cambodia.
Dessart was previously convicted of child sex offences in his native Belgium, serving time there in the 1990s for child rape and torture.
Dessart's lawyer said his client's deportation was an abuse of his rights.
"He was with his wife; police came to invite him to a commune police station telling him that the national commissioner orders you to be expelled," Dun Vibol told the newspaper. "[On arrival in Thailand Dessart] called me saying he's got nothing with him and said they don't respect the law in Cambodia." (dpa)

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Tea Banh pays US official visit

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates (right) welcomes Cambodian Defence Minister General Tea Banh on Monday at the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

Wednesday, 23 September 2009 15:03 Jacob Gold and Vong Sokheng
Meeting with the US defence secretary addresses greater military cooperation, though concerns linger about alleged rights violations by Cambodian soldiers.
CAMBODIAN Defence Minister Tea Banh met with US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates at the Pentagon in Washington during an official visit on Monday, Defence Ministry spokesman Chhum Socheat told the Post on Wednesday.
The agenda included improving military cooperation during humanitarian assistance scenarios and strengthening the capacity of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. The discussion also focused on regional security issues and cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
“We expect that the relationship between the RCAF and the US military will move close together after this high-level visit by the Cambodian defence delegation,” Chhum Socheat said.
The US has promised to sponsor Cambodia’s role in defence exercises scheduled for July 2010 and slated to involve more than 2,000 military personnel from countries across the Asia-Pacific region, he said.
Tea Banh is expected to arrive back in Cambodia today. The US embassy declined to comment further on the outcome of the meeting pending an official statement due to be released today.
US-Cambodian military relations have come under scrutiny from US congressmen following testimony by Human Rights Watch to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing in Washington earlier this month.
The NGO reported that since 2006 the US has provided training and material assistance totalling approximately US$4.5 million to Cambodian military units such as Prime Minister Hun Sen’s personal bodyguard unit, Brigade 70, Special Airborne Brigade 911 and Brigade 31 of the RCAF. Eight congressmen sent a letter last Friday to Gates inquiring about the connection between and US military aid and these units’ alleged human rights abuses, which the Cambodian military denied.
The meeting of the two nations’ defence chiefs comes ahead of a bilateral agreement, due to be signed by the US and Cambodia today, under which the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will provide Cambodia with US$7.79 million to help stimulate broader economic growth.
The additional funding will finance an expansion of USAID’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises 2 and Business Enabling Environment programme, aimed at alleviating rural poverty by making family-owned businesses more productive, the organisation said in a statement released to the media on Tuesday. USAID expects to commit a total of $61.8 million in assistance to Cambodia this year.

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Regional grants target biodiversity

Wednesday, 23 September 2009 15:04 Irwin Loy
Cambodia to receive eight grants to help preserve river ecosystems and endangered fauna.
CAMBODIAN groups are among several organisations around the region slated to receive more than US$2 million in grants aimed at conserving threatened biodiversity.
The money will come from the Indochina-based section of the internationally funded Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), which calls the region one of the most threatened biodiversity hot spots in the world.
“Freshwater habitats are particularly threatened in Indochina, so we’re very happy to have already funded local organisations,” John Pilgrim, a manager with NGO Birdlife International, said in a press release. The NGO is responsible for implementing CEPF grants in the region.
The fund approved 19 grants out of 166 applications received from Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. Of these, Cambodia received eight.
One of the grants, worth just under $20,000, will go to the local 3S Rivers Protection Network, which will use the funds to raise local awareness about the potential impact of dams on the Srepok, Sesan and Sekong rivers in northeastern Cambodia.
Other Cambodian grants are aimed at conserving threatened species in the country.
According to CEPF, only 5 percent of the region’s natural habitats remain in “relatively pristine condition”. The group sees poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation as closely linked, as a large portion of the rural population is dependent on natural resources.

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Court exonerates Ho Vann

Wednesday, 23 September 2009 15:04 Meas Sokchea and James O’toole
IN a surprise verdict, Phnom Penh Municipal Court acquitted Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) parliamentarian Ho Vann of defamation on Tuesday, but his co-defendants Neou Vannarin and Kevin Doyle of The Cambodia Daily newspaper were ordered to pay four million riels (US$1,000) each on related charges.
The charges stemmed from an April 2009 article published in the Daily in which Ho Vann was quoted as saying that academic degrees awarded to 22 officers of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces by a Vietnamese military institute were “worthless”.
In a subsequent clarification statement, Ho Vann claimed that the article, written by Neou Vannarin, had misquoted him. At a Municipal Court hearing on September 9, however, Daily Editor in Chief Kevin Doyle maintained that Ho Vann had been quoted accurately.
Ho Vann and Neou Vannarin were not present for the verdict and were tried in absentia, though Doyle appeared, flipping through a copy of his newspaper as he waited for the proceedings to begin.
“After listening to the case, [the court] understood that Ho Vann said nothing wrong in the interview, but that Kevin Doyle and Neou Vannarin issued a defamatory story in their newspaper,” Municipal Court Judge Sin Visal said. Ho Vann’s clarification letter, the judge added, demonstrated that the SRP parliamentarian had been misquoted.
“The verdict is correct because Ho Vann did not say what was published in the newspaper,” said SRP parliamentarian Chea Poch, who attended the hearing. “Khmer people need to stop suing one another and concentrate on working together to develop the country.”
Observers from the civil society community expressed surprise at Ho Vann’s acquittal, which was greeted with smiles and handshakes by a number of spectators in the courtroom.
Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR) president Ou Virak cast the verdict against the spate of government lawsuits against opposition critics in the last few months, calling it “a little light in this darkness”. He speculated that the decision may have been influenced by next week’s meeting of the Cambodian Development Cooperation Forum, a gathering of Cambodian government officials and international donors.
The verdict against Kevin Doyle and Neou Vannarin was less encouraging, however. Pa Nguon Teang, the president of Voice of Democracy Radio, condemned the decision, saying that the judiciary’s acquiesence to political pressure “is an obstacle to freedom of the press in Cambodia”.
CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap said that Ho Vann’s parliamentary immunity, which had been revoked pending a verdict in his case, could be restored with a two-thirds vote in the National Assembly. Local rights group Licadho said, however, that Ho Vann’s immunity should be automatically restored based on Cambodian law.

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PAD makes demands on Preah Vihear

Writer: BangkokPost.com
Published: 20/09/2009

The yellow-shirt People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) called on the Cambodian government to quickly move its villagers and troops out of the disputed border area around Preah Vihear temple.

About 300 Thai soldiers at Preah Vihear national park in Si Sa Ket province allowed 33 PAD protesters led by Veera Somkwamkid to enter the site on Sunday.

After arriving at Mo I Daeng cliff in the national park, PAD core member Veera announced that the ancient temple and the areas around it are within Thailand's territory in reference to the border demarcation in 1904.

"Now, the Cambodian people have encroached on our country. The PAD would like the Cambodian government to quickly move its people and soldiers out of this area, or else Thai people will have to do their duty in protecting the country's sovereignty," Mr Veera said.

The Suranaree Task Force commander, Maj Gen Chavalit Choonhasarn, and a group of army officials were present when Mr Veera read the PAD's statement.

The PAD members later left the national park.

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Ex-reporter helps Cambodia face up to past

Sep. 21, 2009
Norimasa Tahara
Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent (Japan)

PHNOM PENH--Thirty years after the end of the Khmer Rouge regime that killed nearly 2 million people, a former Japanese news reporter has been appointed as a public relations officer at Cambodia's special war tribunal.

Yuko Maeda assumed the post at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, which was jointly set up by the United Nations and the Cambodian government to try former senior members of the regime led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998.

Since taking up the post, Maeda has been up to her ears dealing with media interviews.

"I believe that after these trials end, Cambodia at long last can become a normal country again," Maeda, 45, said.

After working as a reporter for The Kobe Shimbun, Maeda studied journalism at Michigan State University.

She first became interested in Cambodia in 1996, when she came across The Cambodia Daily, an English-language newspaper, while studying war and media coverage in Michigan. After graduating in 1997, Maeda became a reporter for the daily newspaper in 1998.

Maeda worked day in and day out reporting on how the country was rebuilding itself.

During this time, "I started feeling that I wanted to play a role in reconstructing a country," she recalled. This ambition inspired Maeda to go to Liberia in 2005 and work as a public relations officer for the U.N. mission in the African country.

When she returned to Phnom Penh, the skyline showed more high-rise buildings than before as the city showed definite signs of growth.

However, Maeda strongly believes the psychological scars of the Cambodian people have yet to heal.

"That's precisely why the special tribunal's role in helping to settle the past is so significant," Maeda said. "When I have time, I'd love to sit with a group of Cambodian people and listen to their stories about the Pol Pot era."

Maeda's spirit as a passionate reporter remains undimmed.

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