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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