Stupid crazy

Hun Sen had a few salty words for Mr Abhisit yesterday.

Prime Minister Hun Sen directly insulted the prime minister of Thailand as “stupid” and “crazy” on Monday, as he continued a four-day tour of disputed border regions in the north.

The remarks, aimed at Abhisit Vejjajiva, were a reaction to the Thai premier’s criticism of Hun Sen’s visit in military uniform to the temple of Preah Vihear on Saturday, in a continuing row between the two national leaders.

[...]

“Prime Minister Abhisit is stupid and crazy today,” [Prime Minister Hun Sen] continued. “You have no right to ban me from wearing a military uniform. The wearing of the uniform is up to me, and I haven’t wronged the Cambodian constitution or law.”

Correct! It’s the responsibility of every military dictator to wear battle fatigues for political benefit. Surely Thailand knows that.

POSTSCRIPT: It gets better.

“Abhisit, will you swear on having all your family members be killed in a plane crash … that your soldiers did not come to invade Cambodia at Wat Keo Sekha Kirisvarak?” Hun Sen said.

“Do you dare to swear on magic that could break your neck, on a plane crash or a dissolution of the countries, that your soldiers did not invade Cambodia’s territory on July 15, 2008?”

‘Khmen’

Erik W. Davis, an American religious scholar fluent in written and spoken Khmer, enters the “yuon” fray. His post illuminates the nuances of the debate that others (including here) have so far failed to capture.

[A] term can be ‘innocent’ in conception and ‘racist’ in use, as terms are all the time.  Usage and context is always at stake.  Yuon is “sometimes” racist, and “sometimes” not.

In addition to his own insight, Erik links to this enlightening discussion, which concludes with the astute observations of one Dr. Steven Heder.

Generally speaking, Khmer, Yuon, Siem and Khloeng were used in precolonial times colloquially, non-pejoratively and non-racially. … Significant changes occurred from 1970, with the Khmer Republic openly promoting a radical further racialization and pejorarivization of Yuon, who were officially defined as racial and national enemies. … The current situation is largely an extension of the PRK/anti-PRK period, but given the political hegemony of the PRK successors as translated into domination of education and media, there is a more widespread use of Vietnam in approved parlance, but Yuon common colloquially, but much more loaded with a pejorative feel than before 1970, less much 1860.

To really bring the dispute home, Mr Davis looks west.

Insisting that Khmer should feel ‘innocent’ and blameless in all situations where the word Yuon is used is precisely like insisting that the Thai should feel free and comfortable in all situations using the words “Khmen” and “Khom” to refer to Khmer.  Both words have a ‘real’ linguistic origin, have become deeply confused in etymology, and are regularly used in everyday speech in a bivalent manner – sometimes merely referring to the ethnic group of Cambodia, and other times containing a very precise nuance of “dirty, stupid, impoverished, and sneaky.”

Thoughts?

Google map flap

Ogle Earth, a blog documenting how Google Earth and other “neogegraphical” tools affect geopolitics, weighs in on the Google Maps controversy. After reviewing the history, Stefan Geens, the blog’s author, comes to this conclusion:

All these signs point to what appears to be an actual line of control that lies well inside the border as drawn by Google. Strictly speaking, Cambodia’s complaint has some merit.

But is Google to blame for all this? Is there a nefarious plot afoot to deny Cambodia its rightful greatness under the Sun, etc, and is Google being “pretentious”?

No, of course not. As can easily be verified by turning off border data in Google Earth’s Layers sidebar, credit for the yellow line goes to Tele Atlas, which provides much of this kind of information to Google Earth. Where Tele Atlas gets its data from is another story — most likely, it acquired Thailand’s official border dataset, and used it unmodified and uncritically.

So what would the optimal map of this place look like? In my opinion, it should show both Thailand’s maximal version (which we have today in yellow) and Cambodia’s claimed 1907 map line, though both lines should appear in red (as these borders are disputed). Then, in orange, I’dd add a line of control that accurately reflects the reach of both countries inside this disputed area.

That’s easier said than done, of course. Cambodia and Thailand would almost certainly disute the borders of the disputed areas, their length, location, size, width, contour and any other debatable aspect, and Google would wind up acting as arbiter in a fight between angry neighbors. The simple solution is to print a disclaimer, which Google does. Unfortunately, Cambodian officials demand the world take note of their ignorance.

In truth, Google is not the pretentious one here; it’s the government. After all, why would Google, a global leader in technology worth an estimated $150 billion, care about a few  kilometers of disputed border between Cambodia and Thailand?

The answer is it wouldn’t, it doesn’t, and it never will.

Cambodia tries to silence Google

A couple of weeks ago, Sam Rainsy published “unprecedented evidence” of Vietnamese land grabbing. Using GPS gizmos and Google maps, Mr Rainsy concluded that border markers #184 to #187 in Svay Rieng province encroached into Cambodian territory by a few hundred meters or so.

Today the government tried to silence Google. But it’s not what you think.

Cambodia has hit out at Google (GOOG.O) over what it called a “radically misleading” map of the disputed Thai-Cambodia border, accusing the world’s biggest search engine of being “professionally irresponsible”.

Cambodia, which is embroiled in a bitter diplomatic row with Thailand over the demarcation of the frontier, said the Google Earth map was “devoid of truth and reality” and called for its immediate removal because it was not internationally recognised. ….

“(The map) is devoid of truth and reality, and professionally irresponsible, if not pretentious,” Svay Sitha, secretary of state of the Cambodia’s Council of Ministers, wrote in the letter seen by Reuters on Friday.

“We therefore request that you withdraw the already disseminated, very wrong and not internationally recognised map and replace it,” he said.

Not a peep about Svay Rieng. Surely that’s no accident.

‘Yuon’

In a recent story about Sam Rainsy, The Phnom Penh Post described the word “yuon” as derogatory. Responding to the charge in a letter to the editor, Bora Tuoch defends the use of the word. Others have followed. And more letters in today’s paper offer further defenses.

The rebuttals are always the same: For one, ignorant foreigners don’t know anything about Khmers or the Khmer language, so they should all stop talking. For two, Khmers have used the word “yuon” to describe the Vietnamese for a thousand years; it carries no more or less significance than the word “barang.”

All of which sounds perfectly reasonable. Being reasonable, however, is not the same thing as being true.

Because the truth is, derogatory epithets are not defined by those who use them. They are defined by those against whom they are used. Mr Touch addresses specifically this fact.

Some “experts” have argued that if the Vietnamese are offended with the use of term, the Khmer should follow their wish. Political “correctness”, or forced accommodation rather, is not new to the Khmer. Back in the 19th century, the Khmer were forced to learn and speak Vietnamese rather than the Khmer language, and to behave and to dress the way the Vietnamese did under the policy of Vietnamisation by Emperor Minh Mang or his dynasty. When the Khmer resisted, they were punished and, in some cases, executed. The resistance has continued.

Even Mr Tuoch — in a passionate, well-reasoned and meticulously crafted defense — can’t help but admit that the word “yuon” is, in fact, offensive to some Vietnamese people. Yet rather than discard such offensive language, Mr Tuoch and his supporters continue to craft evermore extravagant rhetorical arguments to support their hatred. If Mr Tuoch set out to prove that the word “yuon” is not a racial slur, and that he (and by extension Sam Rainsy) is not a racist, then Mr Tuoch has not only failed, he has testified against himself.

UPDATE: The Post today runs an old article by Sophal Ear and Kenneth So that, as one would expect, defends the use of the word “youn.” It’s an infinitely reasonable, well-articulated argument. But it does not change the fact that some Vietnamese people are offended by the word. That is why many non-Khmers consider the word derogatory. Not because they are stupid foreigners, but because the word is offensive to Vietnamese people. Surely that is not too difficult to understand?

Suffer the children

British photographer Matt Writtle recently visited Kamrieng village in Battambang near the border with Thailand. In a photo essay titled “Child prisoners in Cambodia,” Writtle uncovers the lives of child workers in the area and the provincial prison they often wind up in. It’s a shame the government does take the welfare of its children nearly as seriously as it does their dress sense. Writtle’s work is yet a another heartbreaking reminder of just how derelict the government is in providing care for its most vulnerable citizens.

The march of censorship

The government is preparing to filter Internet content, The Phnom Penh Post reports today.

The government’s morality committee will soon begin holding bimonthly meetings to review Web sites featuring racy images of Khmer women, and will consider blocking access to those deemed in conflict with national values, officials said Tuesday. …

“As young Cambodians have access to such technologies, they indulge and commit wrongdoings that deviate from our customs and traditions by accessing and replicating erotic and pornographic images over Internet sites,” [Ros Sorakha, and undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications] said during the annual conference of the National Committee for Upholding Cambodian Social Morality, Women’s and Khmer Family Values.

Details of the initiative are still sketchy. But like most efforts of the morality police, this one too seems destined to become a monument to bureaucratic folly. Considering the fact that prostitution is rampant throughout the country, efforts to censor short-shorts in cyberspace seems more than just a bit misguided. It’s a wonder they even bother trying.

UPDATE: The story is now online. The post has been updated accordingly.

Emergency Sex

HBO is making a movie based on the best-selling book “Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth.”

Maria Bello has teamed with Oscar winners Simon Beaufoy and Russell Crowe for a series project in the works at HBO.

Bello is set to star in the drama “Emergency Sex,” which is being written by “Slumdog Millionaire” scribe Beaufoy and executive produced by Bello, Beaufoy and Crowe.

Inspired by the book “Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story From Hell on Earth,” by Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait and Andrew Thomson, the project revolves around the larger-than-life exploits of expatriate nongovernment-organization workers who find their sanity tested in the face of atrocities, loneliness and primal desires.

The book chronicles the real-life experiences of Cain, Postlewait and Thomson, who met in Cambodia during the 1990s as members of a UN peacekeeping mission.

The New Yorker has the background.

Oh, ship

Remember that Cambodia-flagged cargo ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates last week? It wasn’t hijacked. It was impounded.

A Cambodian vessel reportedly hijacked off Somalia instead was detained in the Somaliland port of Berbera on court orders, a port official said on Saturday.

The Kenya-based East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme earlier in the week had said the MV Layla-S had been hijacked after discharging its cargo in the breakaway northern enclave of Somaliland last year.

However, assistant chief of Berbera port Bile Hirsi said the ship was held after a local businessman, whose goods were destroyed in a fire on board another ship that belongs to the owners Layla-S, asked the court to detain it.

The Cambodian registry boasts a long and illustrious history of providing cover to the world’s shadiest shipping agents, and Cambodia-flagged vessels appear regularly in the news in the most peculiar of circumstances.

Earlier this month, the MV Victor needed rescuing after it found itself stranded in Russian waters. In November, the Dolian collided with the Nikolai Psomiadi in the Black Sea. In October, Russian authorities detained the Bansei under suspicion of poaching. And in September, the Kramco split right down the middle and sank off the coast of Turkey.

These are relatively good times for the Cambodian registry, too. Things used to be much worse.

Thai soldier killed in border clash

Thai and Cambodian soldiers stationed along the Pursat border traded fire for about 15 minutes Friday night, leaving one Thai soldier dead.

Cambodia reported Saturday its troops killed one Thai soldier in the latest border clash between their militaries.

Khuy Sokha, governor of western Pursat province, said troops from the two sides fought for about 15 minutes late Friday after about 20 Thai soldiers crossed into Cambodian territory and refused to leave when confronted by Cambodian soldiers.

Cambodian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Chhum Socheat said one Thai soldier was killed, with Cambodian troops firing AK-47 assault rifles and B-40 rocket propelled grenades.

That’s the second clash in a week, both times prompted by the same thing: armed Thai soldiers illegally crossing into Cambodia. You would think that Thailand was trying to probe Cambodia’s border defenses.

Honesty pays $125,000

A Cambodian refugee in Las Vegas recently won a $125,000 playing poker.

“At one point he was dangerously low on chips and had to ask another player to make change. Kimbo was given too much and really needed the chips, but said he’d never feel good about stealing from an older man. So he returned the overpay chips, and his luck turned, and he went on to win.”

Probably just a fluke.

Saved by The Grey Man

Australian news talks to The Grey Man.

The Grey Man organisation is a Brisbane-based charity made up mainly of former SAS soldiers and policemen. Its volunteers are used to dangerous assignments, but their work tracking down South East Asian paedophile rings and freeing young girls can get equally hazardous.

For six months The Grey Man has been trying to establish a presence in Cambodia, a notorious haven for sex offenders.

The group’s president, a former SAS soldier who uses the pseudonym John Curtis, says one of his members stumbled on an illegal brothel while on a fact-finding mission in Cambodia.

That fluke led to The Grey Man’s first arrest in Cambodia, and to the rescue of two underage girls, one 10, the other 14. If there is an argument for the death penalty, this is it. Pedophiles are notoriously incorrigible, and anyone caught selling children into sexual bondage deserves the chair.

Rainsy sentenced to 2 years

Sam Rainy gets another shot at his Mandela moment.

Sam Rainsy, the leader of Cambodia’s largest opposition party, has been sentenced to two years in jail after a closed court found him guilty of pulling up posts used to demarcate the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.

Mr Rainsy, currently in Paris, said the conviction was politically motivated. He had led a protest last October to highlight what he said was land encroachment by Vietnam.

“I don’t care about this sentence,” Mr Rainsy said. “I will continue to fight for justice for Cambodians who are victimised by land grabbing, including border encroachment.”

The Daily says Rainsy and two villagers were fined nearly $15,000 for uprooting six temporary border markers. The conviction means Rainsy can no longer serve in the National Assembly. The court sentenced each villager to one year in prison. And there’s this:

Officers from several police forces kept a watchful eye on reporters as they stood outside the courthouse, occasionally photographing them and recording reporters’ interviews with their own recording devices. Provincial immigration police also demanded to see and then photographed the passport and Cambodia media pass of the only Western journalists in attendance.

Supporters have applauded the government’s intimidation of the media and its abuse of the judicial system, saying there are no more effective means of maintaining the ruling party’s stranglehold on power.

The Chicago Cubs of Asia?

Through the eyes of The Local Quipster:

*Whenever my friend Jim gives me hell about talking about SJU glory days, I will relate to him that the Cambodians are still enjoying their glory days of the 13th century in the Angkor period. They are the Chicago Cubs of Asia.

And many more.

Hun Sen: 25 years in power

Paul Vrieze surveys the life and times of Asia’s second-longest-serving leader.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen recently marked his 25th anniversary as the Southeast Asian nation’s leader. First appointed by the Cambodian National Assembly on January 14, 1985, he became at 33 years old the youngest prime minister in the world.

Hun Sen’s journey from a communist leader to an elected head of government spans a quarter of a century of civil war, domestic and international upheaval, a negotiated peace and transition to democracy through which he and his Cambodia’s People’s Party (CPP) have imposed themselves as the country’s deliverers of stability and order.

By retaining the helm in Cambodia’s fractious politics for 25 years, he now stands among a unique category of leaders, ranking as the 11th-longest ruling leader in the world. In Southeast Asia, only the Sultan of Brunei, the number one longest-serving government leader since assuming office in 1967, has been in power longer than Hun Sen. Of the other nine longer-serving leaders, five are heads of governments in Africa and four are from the Middle East.

It’s quite possible that Samdach Akkak Moha Sena Padey Dekjo Hun Sen is the world’s greatest living leader. As Sam Rainsy has mentioned, 25 years at the helm of a democracy is “unprecedented.”

‘Elegy’

John McDermott, the photographer, has published a new book titled “Elegy: Reflections on Angkor.” The launch party is tomorrow at the National Museum in Phnom Penh. Andy has the details.

Toyota Camry, say hello to my little friend

Some good ol’ boys in Australia have made a music video the Cambodia film commission would rather the world did not see.

Bill Chambers’ clip I Like Guns has been viewed more than 1.26 million times in the six weeks it has been online.

The video shows country musician Chambers shooting at everything from watermelons to cars, with everything from muzzleloaders to a fully automatic M60 and a rocket-propelled grenade.

Since you are not legally allowed to fire a rocket propelled grenade in the former British penal colony, Lee had to travel to Cambodia to film much of the clip.

I Like Guns. As music goes, it’s pretty lame country. But one less toxic-black-smoke-spewing Camry on the road the better.

Cambodia’s ‘market’ economy

The newest Siem Reap night market opened and then closed in a matter of days. Dianna has the inside scoop, including this:

I had heard about the market only because I help  Douk, the handicapped bookseller. The booksellers know everything that goes around town because they move around the town everyday peddling their books. There were no ads about the new night market, and word spread by mouth. As a foreigner, I would never have heard about it if not for Douk. By the time he encouraged me to get a couple of stalls at the market, there were only 6 left – everything had been grabbed by people in the know. At US$400 a stall, I took 4, planning to flip a couple. Later I heard there was a Korean guy who bought “many, many” with the same intention. We wondered how he had learnt about the market.

In other words, the whole thing was a giant scam perpetrated in broad daylight.

Brangelina headed for splitsville

Admit it. You care.

Drug abuse

Human Rights Watch says the government should close its drug rehabilitation centers.

A prominent human rights organization said Monday the Cambodian government should close all its 11 drug detention centres, describing them as abusive and unfit for their purpose.

The US-based Human Rights Watch added in its 98-page report that staff should be prosecuted for torture and other criminal acts.

‘Individuals in these centres are not being treated or rehabilitated, they are being illegally detained and often tortured,’ said Joseph Amon, the director of HRW’s health and human rights division. ‘These centres do not need to be revamped or modified; they need to be shut down.’

[...]

Former detainees told researchers about incidents of rape and sexual abuse, torture, beatings and the compulsory donation of blood.

The organization concluded that ’sadistic violence’ was ‘integral’ to how the centres operate, and said treatment programmes, which revolve around military drills and physical exercise designed to make detainees sweat, were ‘ethically unacceptable, scientifically and medically inappropriate, and of miserable quality.’

‘There is no evidence that forced physical exercises, forced labour and forced military drills have any therapeutic benefit whatsoever,’ it said. ‘After a number of months in the centres, individuals are declared ‘cured’ because drugs are no longer physically present in the body.’

The government sees no problem and has asked donors to help fund more centers.

Armies clash near Preah Vihear

AP reports.

Lieutenant General Chea Tara, deputy armed forces commander and field commander for the area, said Cambodia suffered no casualties in the fighting on Sunday, about 12 miles (20 kilometres) east of Preah Vihear temple. He said fighting began when Thai troops intruded into Cambodian territory.

Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Chhum Socheach said there had been two firefights lasting about five minutes each beginning shortly after 9am (0200 GMT, 10am Singapore time).

UPDATE: It was all just a “misunderstanding,” reports DPA. It always is.

Chaa Ong waterfall

A beautiful picture.

Temple of doom

From The Cambodia Daily today:

The Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok sharply rebuked a Monday editorial on Cambodia in Thailand’s English-language newspaper, The Bangkok Post, calling the piece “Completely ridiculous, absurd and vulgar.” The article written by Pavin Chachavalponhpun, a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore … talked about the difficulty of Thai-Cambodian relations and states Prime Minister Hun Sen “has used his intimate relations with Hanoi to counter-balance his country’s ties with Bangkok.” Ouk Sophoin, the Cambodian Embassy’s Charge d’Affaires in Thailand … called Mr Pavin a “vulgar,” “pseudo, cocky,” Thai ill-bred” scholar as well as an “unscientific, discredited author.”

The article is here: “In spat with ‘Siem’, Hun Sen needs Hanoi in his corner.”  Ouk Sophoin doth protest too much.

The power of Facebook

Women own fifty-five percent of all Cambodian businesses, yet only 10 percent of female business owners are active in business associations. Presumably uncomfortable with real-world professional groups, which are traditionally dominated by men, more and more Cambodian businesswomen are turning to the virtual world of Facebook to develop professional contacts and exchange information.

A group called Cambodia Women in Business has set up on social-networking site Facebook to act as a forum for businesswomen.

… Since its launch in November, over 100 women and men have become members of the site. They post links to academic studies, newspaper articles and discussions on gender equality in Cambodia.

The IFC reports the reaction has “been very enthusiastic” so far. It hopes that by promoting women’s empowerment, they can fuel economic growth within the business community and so reduce poverty.

If this is true, the IMF IFC should seek professional help. Such hopes are delusional. Internet penetration in Cambodia is less than one half of one percent of the population. Furthermore, anyone who is a), a business owner, and b), plugged into Facebook, is no doubt c) not poor to begin with. Surely the big brains at the IMF IFC are more realistic than that?

Thaksin Shinawatra in the Penh

Cambodia’s Thai economic adviser is back on the job.

FUGITIVE former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra arrived in Cambodia on Wednesday for his third trip as a controversial economic adviser to the country, said a government spokesman.

Thaksin, whose visits have stoked a diplomatic row between the Thai and Cambodian governments, landed in a private jet at Phnom Penh International Airport, spokesman Khieu Kanharith told AFP. ‘He has arrived. He just landed,’ Khieu Kanharith said. ‘I don’t know about his itinerary yet.’

Meanwhile, Thaksin’s allies in Thailand are on the verge of submitting a no-confidence vote against the government. Thaksin himself is preparing for a February 26 court date that  many believe will result in the permanent seizure of about 69 billion baht, sugar the court says Thaksin amassed illegally. Pundits insist he is now down to his last $500 million, and Asia One calls the situation “do or die.”

A Record of Cambodia

Zhou Daguan’s book about Angkor Wat has been translated from the original Chinese to English. Michelle Vachon has the complete story.

The human rights situation in Cambodia is comparable to a natural disaster, government says

From today’s (grammatically challenged) Cambodia Daily. Freudian slip? Or just gob-smacking chutzpah?

In a meeting yesterday with the UN human rights envoy, Prime Minister Hun Sen called for a broader definition of human rights, pointing to the economic recession and natural disasters as the type of harm to the public that should be included when speaking of the rights of human beings, an attendee said yesterday. …

“In this meeting [Mr Hun Sen] raised two challenges: First, the world economic crisis, and second, natural disasters such as Typhoon Ketsana and flooding. [Mr Hun Sen] regarded them as a violation of human rights [in that] they reduce the services each person is supposed to receive. He wants a broader understanding of human rights rather than [focusing] merely on freedom of expression. Human rights should have a broader meaning than this,” [president of the government's human rights committee Om Yentieng] said.

It’s impossible to know whether the government really believes this, or whether it’s just more diabolical obfuscation meant to conceal the country’s abysmal human rights record. Either way, though, the fact that the government continues to treat the life and death of its own people with such utter contempt betrays the depths of Cambodia’s broken humanity. All the 40-story high-rises in the world will not change the fact.

Ghost voice

Chhom Nimol talks to Spinner about love songs, the holocaust and Dengue Fever’s new compilation, “Electric Cambodia.”

Asked her pick of the bunch, Nimol says, “My favorite is the song that talks about a young girl waiting for the handsome guy.”

[...]

“Some talk about bands and flowers and teenagers,” she responds. “A lot talk about broken hearts and break-ups. But I think my favorite song is ‘Sneaha.’”

“Sneaha” is Pan Ron’s remake of Cher’s 1966 hit “Bang Bang.”

“I really like that one,” [bassist Senon] Williams agrees. “It’s just a cover of ‘Bang Bang’ but not even a cover. The lyrics are different. The melody’s a little different. It’s kind of what we’ve done with Dengue Fever in reverse. The song is beautiful, for one. Amazing production. But there, this way, they take this American music and just completely make it Cambodian. There’s the melody and energy and all the psychedelics, but nothing remaining of the American familiarity.”

Dengue Fever is expected to be in town for a few days in May.

Scorned in Cambodia

Andrew Anthony wrote a great piece in The Guardian last week about British leftist Malcom Caldwell, the virtually unknown Pol Pot apologist who met a bloody end in a Phnom Penh hotel room in 1978. The Cambodia Daily reprinted Anthony’s story last week as a three-part series. It’s long but worth reading.

Anthony’s article sparked a mini debate between Noam Chomsky, who Anthony accuses of goading Caldwell into going to Cambodia, and world famous Chomsky hater Oliver Kamm. Chomsky’s reply to Anthony’s article was published Sunday. Kamm’s takedown of Chomsky’s response came almost immediately.

The only thing more furious than a scorned woman, it would seem, is a scorned intellectual.

Scambostan, part 46,482

From DPA: Cambodian fortune-teller foiled in reverse alchemy swindle

A fortune-teller who turned gold jewellery into tin foil to dupe villagers has been warned by police not to repeat the scam, national media reported Tuesday.

Bun Srey Neang was arrested after persuading villagers in Kandal province near the capital that they should leave their jewellery in a jar with her for 15 days. She said all of their wishes would come true when they came back and opened the container.

However the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported that villagers got much less than they hoped for when they found that their jewellery, worth around 200 dollars, had been replaced with tin foil.

Outsiders often feel like local scammers prey on them simply because they are foreigners. Such an attitude better reflects the magnitude of Western arrogance than it does reality. The truth is, thieves are far, far likelier to target their own people. And being a Westerner is nearly always more of a deterrent than not. In terms of everyday overcharges and petty bribes, that too troubles locals far more than it does foreigners. So don’t feel special.