Cambodia 1990

Via Andy Brouwer: “Cultural Survival” — a quarterly magazine promoting the rights, voices and visions of indigenous people — at one point years ago (18 17, to be exact) devoted an entire issue to Cambodia.

As pointed out by Andy, the entire issue is online, and includes roughly 25 articles written by such heavy-weights as Ben Kiernan, Michael Vickery and David Chandler, as well as many other well-known Cambodia watchers. Topics span the gamut, among them The Rule of Law (Michael Vickery), The Court Ballet (Eileen Blumenthal) and A Talk With Prime Minister Hun Sen (Chou Meng Tarr).

Cambodia vs. the United States

The United States is often said to have the best health care in the world, and that may be true — if you can afford it. Yet in at least some instances, citizens of the Kingdom of Cambodia fare better.

West Virginia has a higher percentage of toothless older adults than impoverished countries, such as Madagascar, Gambia, Cambodia and Indonesia, according to the World Health Organization.

This is almost certainly a result of diet rather than superior dental care. And while it’s hardly a cause for celebration in either country, it’s a fact worth noting if for no other reason than to help dispel any lingering myths that everything in the U.S. is roses.

That, and it’s impossible not to note a story about do-it-yourself teeth pulling, especially one with a passage like this.

So one night last fall, after drinking beers with a friend at The Wildcat II tavern here on the banks of the Big Sandy River, Crites descended into the depths of her garage apartment below the bar and took matters into her own hands.

She rubbed her gums with hydrogen peroxide, swigged a pint of moonshine and retrieved the orange-handled pair of pliers from her kitchen drawer.

KRT fees scrapped, onward marches justice

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Cambodian Bar Association has suddenly decided to scrap all fees related to foreign lawyers, save for a one-time registration fee.

In a meeting that ended late Friday, the Cambodian Bar Association voted to drop all fees, save $500 for registration, for foreign lawyers wishing to participate in the Khmer Rouge tribunal, three bar association lawyers said.

Lower fees could pave the way for continued talks over internal rules governing the tribunal, but it was unclear Friday night whether the decision would bring anyone back to the table.

The $500 registration fee, while still obnoxiously high, is certainly within the financial reach of any foreign lawyer. But that’s never been the issue. The issue, ultimately, is whether potential defendants could afford such fees, or whether such fees would effectively put foreign lawyers beyond the financial means of potential defendants. That is perhaps a nuance too subtle for some, but the validity of the court rides on such notions.

So will the lone $500 registration fee now be acceptable to the court’s foreign contingency? Of course it will. The price just dropped from $5,000 to $500. That’s not an insignificant discount. Any sane person would be ecstatic with a deal like that.

Ostensibly, the fee standoff is the final sticking point in a long and tortured negotiation process to get the court off the ground. With a deal now in place, the court can proceed to the business of trying those most responsible for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge — or so it would seem.

But those who believe the problems of the court are now over probably need to disenthrall themselves. With this hurdle now finally out of the way, the powers that be will almost certainly feel compelled to manufacture some other wrong-headed measure to take its place. It’s not so much a question of if, but rather when. And the answer will probably be measured not in months or weeks or days but in minutes. Probably negative.

Journalist murdered

From VOA: The editor of the Voice of Khmer Krom newspaper has been found murdered.

Pov Sam Ath, 29, a journalist who colleagues say was sympathetic toward the Khmer Kampuch Krom ethnic group, was found murdered Wednesday.

Police said they found Pov Sam Ath’s body hidden in the bushes of a field in Treng Trayung commune, Kampong Speu province. He had been beaten with a baton, asphyxiated and put in a trunk, police said.

Pov Sam Ath was the editor of Samleng Khmer Krom, or Voice of Khmer Krom, a newspaper sympathetic to the cause of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom ethnic group, many of whom live in Vietnam but have cultural ties to Cambodia.

Family members who spoke to VOA said Pov Sam Ath’s death may have been related to a personal grudge. And perhaps that is true. But the timing is suspicious, and anything less than a thorough and transparent investigation will only fuel rumors and more suspicion. And probably more violence.

Official commune vote results contested

The official results for the recent commune elections have been announced. According to the Mirror, the breakdown is this:

•  the CPP gets 1,591 commune and subdistrict chiefs, 1,125 first deputy chiefs, 185 second deputy chiefs, and 5,092 commune and subdistrict council members; totally 7,993 seats
• the Sam Rainsy Party gets 28 commune and subdistrict chiefs, 403 first deputy chiefs, 963 second deputy chiefs, and 1,267; totally 2,660 persons
• Funcinpec gets 2 commune and subdistrict chiefs, 47 first deputy chiefs, 155 second deputy chiefs, and 70 commune and subdistrict chiefs; totally 274 persons
• the Norodom Ranariddh Party gets 46 first deputy chiefs, 317 second deputy chiefs, and 61 commune and subdistrict council members; totally 425 persons
• the Hang Dara Democratic Movement Party gets 1 second deputy commune chief.

You will no doubt be shocked to learn that Sam Rainsy is not entirely satisfied with the results.

Ms. Mu Sochua, the Secretary-General of the Sam Rainsy Party, told Rasmei Kampuchea by phone on the evening of 24 April, ‘The Sam Rainsy Party opposes the irregularities which effect the results of the elections, for example: in Poipet only 30% of the people voted, it opposes the NEC’s bias, the presence of village and commune chiefs at the polling stations during the election day, the threats, the vote buying before the election day, and the irregularities in issuing Form 1018 [for voters who had problems with their voting documents].’

“She said, ‘The Sam Rainsy Party finds that the results released by the NEC today cannot be acceptable, especially for the communes and subdistricts where the Sam Rainsy Party filed complaints, but the NEC did not check and solve the complaints properly, and rejected them under the pretext of not having sufficient evidence.’”

The dressing down of Hok Lundy

The U.S. State Department has apparently given Hok Lundy a dressing down over Cambodia’s poor human rights record and its notoriously corrupt police force, of which Hok Lundy is the chief. From the State Department press release:

While noting improved bilateral cooperation between the United States and Cambodia in areas such as counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics, Hill, Patterson, and Farrar urged Lundy and the Cambodian police to strengthen significantly their efforts to combat trafficking in persons, which remains a serious problem in Cambodia. They also urged that Cambodia make much greater efforts to prosecute and convict public officials, including police officers, who are involved in trafficking, and that Commissioner General Lundy make the police more responsive to trafficking issues.

Hill, Patterson, and Farrar also stressed to Lundy that the Cambodian police should fully respect and protect human rights as they carry out their law enforcement duties. They also noted the need for the Government of Cambodia to address its poor human rights record and corruption outlined in the 2006 Human Rights Report.

Blistering, eh?

This is, of course, nothing more than four sentences of political lip service to factions inside the U.S. government that expressed reservations over dealing with Hok Lundy, who in 2005 was refused a U.S. visa for his alleged ties to human trafficking (not the only thing to which Hok Lundy has been linked).

But the fact remains: the United States gave Hok Lundy not just a visa but a medal. And that says more than any lame press release from the State Department ever could.

Crocodile prediction comes true, kinda

When the Royal astrologer predicted — among other dire misfortunes — a rash of crocodile attacks to come in the “Year of the Pig,” there were naysayers. This afternoon, however, when villagers in Kampong Cham spotted several crocs swimming in the Mekong, the unbelievers quickly understood the foolishness of their ways.

Phnom Penh – Cambodian villagers along the Mekong river were on crocodile alert after reports of sightings of a number of large reptiles near a populated area, an official said on Wednesday.

Deputy chief of the fisheries department in Kampong Cham province, about 125km from the capital, Phoung Dyna, said villagers had reported seeing three crocodiles over 1-metre long and up to half a dozen smaller specimens in the river in recent days.

“The crocodiles have not harmed any people there so far,” he said. “But it is not normal for them to be seen in the river.” [...]

Local panic was fuelled by a New Year prediction by the Royal Palace astrologer broadcast in local media of a rash of crocodile attacks in the new Year of Pig – a forecast initially shrugged off by most Cambodians.

The position of Royal Astrologer had gone vacant for years during the reign of Norodom Sihanouk. With the coronation of King Sihamoni, or shortly afterwards, palace watchers say the vacancy was filled. And not a moment too soon, either. Along with crocodile attacks, palace astrologer Im Borin has predicted flooding, famine and a “big problem in Phnom Penh” in the coming year. Doubters take heed.

EU Film Festival

The EU has announced the 2007 EU Film Festival schedule for Phnom Penh. Films from 14 countries will be screened at the French Cultural Center beginning May 8. While it’s not quite clear who chooses the films, it’s a rather impressive list, and for film buffs trapped in Cambodia, the festival should provide a severely needed fix.

Official visit to Japan

KYODO VIA KI: According to Kyodo, Prime Minister Hun Sen will make an official state visit to Japan in June.

Sexerati Cambodia

Sexerati super-star Melissa Gira made it through Cambodia. Although what she found still remains a mystery, her writing on the Sexerati blog is always intelligent, passionate and insightful, so it should be quite interesting to get her take on Cambodia and Cambodia’s sex industry.

Photos from the trip are available on flickr, and Melissa says she will be recapping her Cambodian experience all this week — the first entry is here — and promises some “exciting” video.

Stay tuned.

Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten

Four-minute trailer for the movie Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock And Roll.

A History of Democratic Kampuchea

AP reports about the first book on the Khmer Rouge to be written by a Cambodian historian.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – The first history book written by a Cambodian about the Khmer Rouge is a step toward educating the nation about the murderous regime, a leading genocide expert said Sunday.

“Cambodians are at last beginning to investigate and record their country’s past,” said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group documenting the Khmer Rouge crimes.

Unlike Khamboly Dy’s “A History of Democratic Kampuchea,” to be released Wednesday, Youk Chhang said previous books about Cambodian history have been written almost exclusively by foreigners. Cambodia was named Democratic Kampuchea during the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge rule that led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people.

Cambodian schools currently teach little about the Khmer Rouge, largely because the subject is sensitive among political groups and high-profile individuals once associated with the now-defunct communist movement.

According to AP, Khamboly Dy’s book will also be used in schools as a reference book, although in what capacity is not exactly clear. Still, it’s a start.

Never look down

In another terrific installment, razzbuffnik at “All the dumb things” continues with his tales of bumming planes rides around Cambodia back in the 70s — including more terrific photography — and the things he used to do to pass the time on longer flights.

One time when I was flying in one of those old scrap heaps I noticed a window with a large jagged hole in it. I tentatively stuck my hand a short distance out and felt the warm air rushing past at about 380kph (approximately 150knots or 170mph). I made a small wing out of my hand and was playing with the air (like when I was a kid in the family car). As timed passed, I got a little bolder and stuck my arm out further and further with (surprisingly) nothing bad happening. One of the things that I always wanted to do on a plane was look straight down at the ground, I was getting a bit bored with looking across at the horizon all the time.

Sooo…

POSTSCRIPT: Photography geeks will be chuckled to know that the Cambodian film processing industry’s long and distinguished career of destroying negatives dates back to at least 1974.

Street fighting monks

How tough is Cambodian politics?

Two opposing groups of Cambodian Buddhist monks engaged in a street fist fight today during a protest to demand religious freedom for their fellow monks living in southern Vietnam.

Lim Yuth, a 23-year-old Buddhist monk, suffered a cut on his left eyebrow during the brawl, but it was not immediately clear what caused the injury.

Lim Yuth was among some 50 monks who marched through Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, to voice their grievances over alleged mistreatment by Hanoi authorities against Cambodian Buddhist monks in southern Vietnam.

Without fail, every time some monks get bloody the government trots out the excuse that the monks in question were not actually real monks, but impostors, as if that somehow makes it okay to beat them with a tree branch.

It’s not. (Maybe the FBI wouldn’t mind pointing that out to our police chief when the two talk terrorism.)

Meanwhile, the conflict between Vietnamese authorities and ethnic Khmer monks in Vietnam seems all but certain to continue, entangling sympathetic monks inside Cambodia. Today’s brawl is at least the third confrontation in the past several weeks, all spawned by Vietnam’s heavy handed suppression of religious freedoms.

All the monks wanted to do today was deliver one letter of protest to the Vietnamese embassy.  But apparently that was too much for some men to handle. For its part, the Cambodian government sent in 200 heavily armed riot police, who apparently did nothing but watch as a small group of counter-demonstrators showed up and threw rocks and bottles at the original group. The fight prevented the monks from delivering their protest letter.

At least for now. But after stewing for several weeks already, and with the Cambodian government blatantly inflaming matters, it seems rather certain that there’s more to come.

Any port in the storm

VIA KI: In a story about flags of convenience, the Asia Times says that way back in 1994, when reliable electricity was all but non-existent, the Cambodian government had the vision to embrace the power and promise of the internet and e-commerce.

One of the most notorious FOC countries was Cambodia. In 1994, Cambodia established its own ship registry – Cambodian Shipping Corporation (CSC), based in Singapore – and began immediately flagging ships of other nations.

Although its beginnings were modest (only 16 foreign ships registered with Cambodia during the first year) the CSC rapidly expanded. According to CSC, prior to its closing in 2002, the number of ships registered with the company was between 400 and 600, but according to US investigators and Cambodian officials the number was probably twice that.

CSC offered basically what many other FOC countries offered: registry for any ship, no questions asked, under its (Cambodia’s) flag for a low price. But, unlike other FOC countries, it offered to do the entire process online and within 24 hours. Despite Cambodia’s relative lag in Internet technology, its operation in Singapore enabled CSC to pioneer online registration.

Flags of convenience, of course,  are predominantly used to hide illegal activity — drug dealing, arms smuggling, human trafficking, etc — and are often flown by unseaworthy ships.

According to an article in the Guardian of London, by 2002 the company had about 450 registered ships, and out of this number 25 had suffered shipwrecks/strandings, 41 collisions, nine fires and 45 arrests. Nine Cambodian-registered ships were deemed severely hazardous and banned from entering European ports.

Not long after that article appeared, Cambodia finally bowed to international pressure and got a handle on the problem.  Control of the registry was contracted to a South-Korean firm, and these days, Cambodia-flagged ships don’t make the headlines nearly as often as they used to.

Which is all well and good. But there is still something rather suspicious in the fact that crackdowns on criminal enterprises always seem to fall rather neatly along partisan lines. As the Asia Times story makes clear, it wasn’t the CPP that controlled the Ministry of Transportation. Nor was it Hun Sen who kept intimate ties with the North Korean government.

Rape gone wrong

VIA Khmer Intelligence: There is wrong, and then there is wrong — then there is this:

Phnom Penh – An unsuccessful sexual advance by an elderly Cambodian man on a young heifer ended badly when the bovine fought back, kicking him to death, local media quoted police and villagers as saying Thursday.

Khmer-language daily Kampuchea Thmey quoted authorities as saying that Ta Sam, 67, of south-western Svay Rieng province had been divorced for just 10 days when his urges apparently overcame him in the middle of the night with tragic consequences.

Sounds of a scuffle caused the man’s grandson to investigate, whereupon he found Sam’s naked body lying under the family’s frightened cow with injuries to his head and genital area consistent with being kicked by the beast, the paper reported.

But read the whole thing, it gets weirder.

Gypsy back-packing English teachers, circa 1974

No telling whether it’s true or not, but this tale is fascinating.

Back in 1974 when I was 17, I was travelling around South East Asia. I ended up in Cambodia about six months before the war there came to an end. One of the reasons why I went to Cambodia, is that I met a Belgian guy when I was in Laos who said it was possible to hitchhike when there by military aircraft or civilian air cargo.

I stayed in Cambodia for about six months and found myself various jobs teaching English. Road travel at that time was impossible as the government only controlled the cities (if you could call them that) and several of the larger towns. The Khmer Rouge was in control of the rest of the country.

When I wasn’t working (which was often) I used to hitch a ride down to the Phnom Penh airport, walk out onto the tarmac (Ahhh the bad old days when safety just didn’t seem to matter) and ask pilots for free rides as their planes were being loaded. I didn’t care where I went and most of the pilots were happy to have someone to shoot the breeze with on their flights. …

A couple of interesting photos, too.

The Hok Lundy gamble

The Washington Post today says that concerns over Hok Lundy’s trip to Las Vegas provoked quite the debate inside the George W. Bush White House.

A U.S. visa application by Cambodia’s police chief provoked a rancorous argument inside the Bush administration because of the official’s alleged links to an act of terrorism and to trafficking in women. But the State Department decided to permit Hok Lundy to travel here this week for counterterrorism meetings with senior officials at the FBI, U.S. officials and others disclosed yesterday.

The decision was a policy reversal for the department, which last year told Lundy, a longtime aide to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, he would not get a visa to attend a U.S. police conference. [...]

“This is kind of a hold-your-nose deal,” said a senior U.S. official who was not authorized to speak for attribution. The U.S. Embassy in Cambodia, the State Department’s East Asia bureau, the Justice Department and the FBI pushed for the visa approval, while the State Department’s human rights and anti-trafficking offices strongly urged the application’s rejection, two U.S. officials said. R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, cast the deciding vote. [...]

Pressed to explain the decision, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday: “I know that there are a lot of allegations, and I’m not trying to discount those allegations. The key here is that there’s no — in the review of the visa application, there was no legal bar to his being granted a visa.” Essentially, he added, “it comes down to a policy judgment, and the policy judgment in this case was he was scheduled to attend a conference or a meeting with the FBI concerning counterterrorism issues.”

Take that, Human Rights Watch — Hok Lundy had an appointment, or something — so there.

UPDATE: Hok Lundy responds.

Little fanfare to commemorate fall

Only Sam Rainsy and a few hundred followers turned out to mark the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge 32 years ago.

Cambodians marked the 32nd anniversary of the fall of the capital to Khmer Rouge troops Tuesday with a subdued memorial service but little fanfare.

A small ceremony organized by the opposition Sam Rainsy Party at the Choeung Ek killing fields just outside the capital was the only tangible reminder of the anniversary. A few hundred prayed at a stupa of skulls among the mass graves.

More interesting, though, is the political commentary from the former KR foot soldier and current deputy governor of Pailin, My Mak.

 ’I still remember that day as Victory Day. I thought it was the sweetest day I would ever know,’ said My Mak, deputy governor of the north-western former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin.

‘We would still celebrate it now if the government allowed us … not what happened afterwards, because on that day we could not know what lay ahead, but because of what it meant on the day itself.’ [...]

‘We truly believed in the revolution. We believed we were liberating our country and claiming the Motherland back. After years of fighting, Phnom Penh just opened up to us, and many of the people welcomed us.’

Mak said the young troops believed they had saved Cambodia from foreign imperialism, and, for a short time at least, thought victory marked a new, better era and an end to killing.

‘(But) the revolution changed. People I worked with started disappearing. We knew something terrible was happening, but we were mere foot soldiers. We could do nothing. I spent most of those years in fear of my own life.’

Happy Cambodia New Year!

The cops are drunk, the card games are on, and the capital is rapidly coming to a stand still. So go and get your New Year on. Just watch out for the “Cambodia special wine.”

See ya enxt wekk.

Court upholds conviction for union leader’s “killers”

That Cambodia’s court system is irredeemably corrupt really should come as no surprise.

Phnom Penh – The Cambodian Appeals Court on Thursday dismissed the appeal of the convicted killers of a prominent union activist and said 20-year jail sentences would stand in a verdict that infuriated human-rights groups who have campaigned for the defendants’ release.

Judge Saly Theara took minutes to uphold the August 2005 sentence against Born Samnang, 27, and Sok Sam Oeun, 40, for the January 2004 shooting death of opposition-aligned union leader Chea Vichea. The two men were not present in court.

Outrageous. But not at all unexpected. Surely there is a special place in hell for the men behind this travesty.

The Gods must be crazy, part 236

VIA Khmer Intelligence: The Baptist Press yesterday ran a fairly typical story about one of their young Christian men wondering the backroads of Cambodia trying to convince the heathens of their unhappiness. Rather inexplicably, though, the Baptist Press thought it best to change the name of not only their man in the story, but also of the story’s author, for “security reasons.”

Why would they need to do that?

“It’s really important for Christian people to do development work in addition to evangelism to catch the vision for really changing a place,” McFadden says. “I just hope I am able to portray to them someone who genuinely cares about their needs. If we totally ignore the dire situation and physical concerns, it’s not responsible on our part as Christians.”

McFadden and his team minister to the Cambodian people first by providing water filters, locating cleaner water sources, providing medical education and creating educational videos. Within his team, McFadden is taking a key role in animal husbandry and agricultural programs. As he helps his neighbors raise healthier goats and pigs and produce better crops, he builds relationships that give him opportunity to share his testimony.

While McFadden loves the work he is doing now, he is excited about plans to move to a more remote village on his own. That village, accessible only by ferry across the Mekong River, has no electricity, running water or concrete buildings. By choosing to live among these isolated Buddhist people, he hopes to show them that happiness in life comes not through rituals or things but through a God they have never heard about.

So let’s see: lure the people in with offers of aid and medical help, gain their trust, and then slip them the mickey. Golly, that doesn’t sound dishonest or anything. Why would they be worried about their safety?

NGOs from the darkside

Ian Gary, Oxfam America’s policy adviser for extractive industries, spoke recently at a Phnom Penh seminar addressing Cambodia’s newfound oil wealth. Specifically, he talked about how the Kingdom might avoid the “oil curse.”

“In many countries, when they start receiving oil, there’s a sense that ‘Oh, we don’t have to work anymore … there’s all this free money coming in’,” Gary said.

“There’s this mentality of let’s just enjoy the party while it lasts,” he added.

Mr. Gary is obviously uneducated to the hard-working ways of Cambodia’s parliament, a group that which despite being hampered by the longest holiday calendar in Asean, still manages to pass an impressive number of laws ensuring the continued protection of the country’s established fiefdom of democracy.

But really, all joking aside, that’s not the funny part. The funny part is this:

He also said laws need to be in place to ensure that the oil sector is as transparent as possible, adding that Oxfam and other civil society groups would urge oil companies to help combat corruption.

“We’ll be pushing companies like Chevron and others who are investing in Cambodia to … encourage the government to be more transparent about how money coming in from the oil industry is being managed and spent,” he said.

Khmer Rouge redemption

Over at the Watchman Prophecy News, Lucille Talusan writes about Pastor But Gnorn, who before finding God killed people for the Khmer Rouge.

“I did not feel any guilt because it was my duty to kill,” said Pastor But Gnorn, Full Gospel Christian Church. “I needed to follow instructions from my superior. I cannot remember how many people I killed. When I capture the enemy, I tie his hands on his back and then shoot him.” [...]

And they heard the Gospel message from Christian missionaries and relief workers in the refugee camps.

It was there that Gnorn’s wife – who was also a Khmer Rouge soldier -gave her life to Christ in 1987.

“I persecuted my wife and said bad words to her,” Gnorn said. “I said Jesus is not my God because he is a foreigner. One day, after my wife came home from worship, I kicked my wife and she almost died.” [...]

Today, Gnorn pastors a church and meets with former Khmer Rouge soldiers in the hopes of convincing them to repent of their sins and accept Christ.

That’s quite a turn-around.

The wheels of justice

So how are things going for opposition party members who recently won commune council positions?

Two newly elected SRP commune officials in Banteay Meanchey and Battambang provinces have been accused of separate crimes by their respective provincial courts, according to SRP officials who claim the legal action is intended to undermine their party.

In Banteay Meanchey, Math Yuy, Souphy commune chief in O’Chrou district, has been accused of illegal deforestation by the provincial court, according to a copy of a court summons dated March 29. [...]

In Battambang Horn Chhouy, the SRP’s newly elected second deputy chief for Banan district’s Ta Kream commune, was charged in absentia Thursday with inciting villagers to destroy property [a fence] in July, said Sar Chandet, assistant to SRP lawmaker Eng Chhay Eang.

It will come as no surprise that the Sam Rainsy Party says these cases are politically motivated. When the weather is unfavorable, Mr. Rainsy accuses the gods of CPP bias. On the surface, however, the timing of these two cases raises some serious concerns. And despite Rainsy’s constant cries of persecution — and really, he is persecuted — these two cases, and possibly more like them, seem like pretty good candidates for further investigation, if not by the country’s fiercely independent court system then by the media.

Yet through all his years as a politician, Sam Rainsy has shown a remarkable inability to choose his battles wisely. Crying persecution at every turn makes him look like a whiner. Running when he should fight makes him look like a coward.

If Sam Rainy truly intends to be the flag bearer for the country’s opposition — as he proclaimed after the recent commune elections — he will have to do more than just talk about it. At the very least, he will need to demonstrate two things he has been lacking so far — the moxie to take on the CPP gorilla and the courage to stand for his convictions.

Now may be a good time to start.

Sihanouk and US captives

H.D.S Greenway looks back on 1968.

When I saw pictures of the British sailors and marines, on the eve of their freedom from Iran, dressed in ill-fitting suits that Iranian tailors had run up for them, memory raced back nearly 40 years when a similar drama was being played out in another country of which the United States then disapproved.

It was Cambodia in the autumn of 1968, in that last twilight time before regime change, war, and the Khmer Rouge tore that country to pieces. Prince Norodom Sihanouk had managed to keep Cambodia out of the inferno that was raging in neighboring Laos and Vietnam, but the United States was cross at him for allowing the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese to use his territory – not that he really had any choice.

Some American soldiers, on a river boat, had wandered up the Mekong from Vietnam into Cambodian territory and been captured. Sihanouk played the incident with the same theatricality as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran did with his British prisoners.

“When we do something from Islamic compassion, we expect nothing in return,” Ahmadinejad said, and so he freed his prisoners as a gift.

Sihanouk used the occasion of a national holiday to release his captives. He, too, had sent tailors around the jail to measure his prisoners for new suits – white linen suits in this case. Sihanouk threw in neckties as well – the tie of his political organization. Like the Iranians, he made a public spectacle of his country’s generosity, and spoke, too, of religion.

“I love Buddha,” he said in his high-pitched voice, “all Cambodians are small Buddhas” and they would be compassionate and let the prisoners go. But he refused to give back their boat. “It has no heart, it has no soul, it will do very well here with our little navy,” he said.

Petulant even then.

Fancy pants

In a post on Spring fashion trends, Ethnic Denim includes a relatively uninspiring pair of capri pants by Pierce Jeans, available at Couture Candy. Pierce is what one might call an ethical fashion company. Or it aspires to be. Or at least it tries to market itself as such. It’s hard to tell.

The description with that uninspiring pair of dark blue denim capris mentions Pierce Jeans’ “Cambodia Project,” which Couture Candy, no doubt using Pierce-approved copy, explains as thus:

Something that truly differentiates Pierce Jeans from the rest of the pack is that it’s giving away a significant chunk of its company’s profit to help feed the children all over the world.

Pierce Jeans was named for the owner’s youngest son Pierson, who asked his father to “create a brand to help children who are needy, hungry, and unfortunate.”

Each pair of jeans comes with a unique, hand-stitched symbol on the back pocket that represents the country or continent that Pierce Jeans will support that year. Brown represents Cambodia, blue is for Mongolia and green symbolizes Africa, for example.

By giving profits from their denim line to organizations like Worldvision, Pierce Jeans is using the jeans craze to make a real difference through fashion.

Which is all well and good, assuming it’s true. And really, there’s no real reason to think that it’s not. At the same time, though, other than that throw-away line about Worldvision, there’s surprisingly little information available to support Pierce’s claims, either at Pierce’s web site or anywhere else.

But no matter. Except for the capri pants, the rest of Pierce’s jeans are really cute. And really expensive. Which at about 150 bucks a pop, means you’re really helping.

If heaven could weep…

A blog titled Midrash recently excerpted a dozen or so relevant paragraphs from David Batstone’s “Shining Light into the Sexual Darkness: Cambodia and Thailand.” Whether the book itself is any good, or accurate, who knows? But the excerpts that Midrash offers give a pretty sober analysis of the problem.

Why does the sex trade thrive in this part of the world (Southeast Asia)?
1) Devastating poverty
2) Armed conflicts
3) Rapid industrialization
4) Exploding population growth

According to the author Southeast Asia is passing through a period of radical transition. “Whenever a society faces seismic changes, the powerless suffer most.”

“At least one in three of Cambodia’s 15 million people live below the poverty today. Cambodian women, above all, do not get the chance to study formally or learn vocational skills; 41 percent of the country’s adult women are illiterate…Desperate to secure the well-being of their parents or perhaps their own childre, a poor woman can become easy prey for a trafficker…” [...]

“In many countries of Southeast Asia, over half the population alive today falls under the age of fifteen. Confronted with a scarcity of jobs and food, local communities do not have sufficient resources for their young people. As harsh as it sounds, the young are the first to become expendable.”p23 [...]

There is a traditional Cambodian proverb that says, “If Heaven could cry, then Cambodia would never know a drought.”

Not mentioned here, but mentioned elsewhere in the post, is the level of official complicity played by corrupt government employees. Most human trafficking, at least in Cambodia, happens with at least tacit approval of the police.

News that the government has recently launched the country’s first national task force to combat human trafficking is welcome. Given prodding by the U.S. and other governments to increase efforts to tackle the problem, Cambodia has made marked improvements in arresting high-profile Western sexual predators. But as everyone readily admits, that’s a tiny percentage of the actual problem.

What else is happening off the Western radar is unknown. But the hope is that with an official government task force, a beachhead has been established inside the government that too often turns a blind eye to problem.

Cambodia in the news

Chea Vichea murder scapegoats pray for justice, get prostitutes instead [Monsters & Critics]

CPP discovers the power of feminine persuasion [ Phnom Penh Post]

Chinese to fund Cambodia’s need for speed [People's Daily Online]

Cambodia, Vietnam to slow-roast cyclist during post-New Year race [Nhan Dan]

Not even death will stop Toul Sleng survivors from testifying [Telegraph]

Nhiek Bun Chay just says no to drugs [People's Daily Online]

Confronting the past

In 1980, having just escaped the horrors of Pol Pot’s killing machine, a young Cambodian man named Rithy Panh was living in France and studying carpentry at vocational school when someone handed him a camera. Neither person could have known at the time how such a mindless gesture would have such a powerful impact.

Ever since his 1994 movie “Rice People” introduced a Cambodian voice to world cinema, the director Rithy Panh has become the conscience of a nation still haunted by the tragedy of its recent past. “From the beginning I knew my work would focus on the problems in my country,” Panh said. “It’s been 26 years since the fall of the Khmer Rouge, yet we still don’t fully understand why we were forced to live through these horrors. [...]

His objective is neither revenge nor retribution: the key to the healing process he sees as lying in the collective memory of victims. “We have no recorded images of the genocide,” he said. “If we don’t confront the past, we will lose these essential memories; which is why I encourage people to tell their stories. The Khmer Rouge tried to destroy our culture and our identity, but it could never be simply a process of erasing something from a blackboard.”

Robert Turnbull, writing for the IHT, has the story.