Unesco denies world heritage status for Preah Vihear

It’s possible that this is just more ridiculous propaganda from the Thai junta. But if it’s true, this is appalling.

The UN cultural watchdog has delayed a decision on whether to add the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple to the World Heritage list for another year, a Thai official said yesterday. [...]

The heritage committee preferred that Thailand and Cambodia apply together to register the site next year, Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat said.

Preah Vihear is a Cambodian temple on Cambodian soil, full stop. Just because Cambodia allows visitors to reach Preah Vihear from Thailand hardly gives the Thais any sort of negotiating rights over the temple’s future. If Unesco really has bowed to pressure from the Thai  junta, the organization has strayed dangerously far beyond its mandate.

Thai embassy on riot alert

Bangkok’s pushback on Cambodia’s appeal for World Heritage status for Preah Vihear has the Thai community in Cambodia just a bit nervous.

Thai authorities have gone on high alert for fear of another antiThai riot in Cambodia after the Bangkok government opposed Cambodia’s efforts to get ancient Hindu shrine Preah Vihear Temple on the Unesco’s World Heritage.

Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh held an urgent meeting of Thai nationals in Cambodia last week to go over an evacuation after it was informed of the government’s position on the matter.

The Thai government objected the Cambodian’s plan because are a number of unsettled matters between Thailand and Cambodia concerning Preah Vihear, particularly that the joint border has yet to be demarcated.

Unesco decided on Wednesday not to include the ancient shrine on its World Heritage list, thus, heightening a growing fear among Thai authorities of another chaos.

It would be nice to say that such fears are ridiculous and border on paranoia. Unfortunately, that’s a pretty tough case to make.

Relations between the two countries have still yet to completely recover from the last anti-Thai riots four years ago. Even if most Cambodians have forgotten about the destruction caused during those days of chaos, Thai nationals in the kingdom certainly have not. Nor is it likely that Prime Minister Hun Sen has forgotten the $6 million tab he got stuck with paying for the whole shameful affair.

That price tag alone, one desperately hopes, makes the chances of another anti-Thai riot seem incredibly remote. Such fears are probably ridiculous and border on paranoia

Famous last words

Korean media has gotten hold of recordings from the black box of the PMT Air flight that crashed into the side of Bokor Mountain on Monday. As just about everybody expected, it points overwhelming to pilot error.

It was pouring with rain and a thick blanket of fog was blocking all visibility. Thirty-five minutes passed after the PMT flight, carrying 22 people including 13 South Koreans, left from Siem Reap, bound for the coastal town of Sihanoukville. The AN-24 was approaching a Cambodian mountain, covered in dense jungle, when the following communication took place:

“We are flying at an altitude of 2000 feet.” (pilot)

“You are flying too low. Given your current location, you should move to an altitude of 4000 feet.” (control tower, Sihanoukville)

“It’s no problem; I am familiar with this area.” (pilot)

The plane lost contact shortly after this communication, disappearing from radar screens as it crashed into the northeastern side of Bukor Mountain.

It’s no problem; I am familiar with this area. General George Armstrong Custer could not have said it better.

A tribute to Cambodian street food

In a terrific story about Cambodia and Khmer food in Salon, Matthew Fishbane asks, Will Cambodian food ever catch on in America?

Over the past three decades, the West has fallen in love with the cuisines of Thailand, southern China, Vietnam and Malaysia, even Burma (for its barbecue), but somehow, Cambodia’s food has slipped through the cracks. It has been nearly 30 years since “before Pol Pot” became “after.” Two million tourists converged on Cambodia last year to see the temples at Angkor and what’s left of Phnom Penh’s French colonial grace. A generation of refugees resettled in America and France and had children of their own. Slowly, Khmer cultural heritage is being restored, protected, re-created. A no-fly zone covers the temples at Angkor, to keep engine blasts from shaking delicate foundations. The nation’s Royal Ballet has trained a new troupe of hyper-flexible ingenues to perform on world tours. And Khmer shadow puppetry, called sbaek thom, or “big skin,” now carries UNESCO’s seal as one of 89 “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” Why not Khmer food?

And so, why not?

When penis enlargement goes wrong

DPA VIA KI: Home penis enlargement ends in painful death.

Phnom Penh – Cambodian officials on Tuesday warned the public against home penis enlargement plans after a coroner found a man who had repeatedly self-injected his member with hair tonic had taken his own life to end the painful side effects.

Coroner Vieng Vannarith concluded that a 35-year-old construction worker had hanged himself last week after the hair tonic remedy which advertised it gave thicker and more lustrous locks failed to have the same effect when injected into his penis.

Darwin at work.

A wat in the snow

Eric at Deathpower in Cambodia makes note of an upcoming inauguration ceremony for a new shrine at Wat Munisotaram in Hampton, Minnesota. While it’s not immediately clear how many wats exists in regions where snowfall is regular — Hampton, Minnesota, for example — there can’t be many. Even fewer, it would appear, have both web sites and photos of their snow-covered wat.

Wat Buddhabhavana in Massachusetts, for example, probably gets lots of snow. But as beautiful as the place is, it doesn’t look like a wat. Nor are its photos particularly snowy. Wat Munisotaram on the other hand, not only looks like a wat, it even has this wonderful photo.

Cambodia, Devo, and the revolution

Remember that band, Devo?

Just doing my research, I’m guessing you guys formed – or at least you met each other – at Kent State about the time of the shootings. Am I right?
I was right in the middle of it and I knew two of the four students that were killed.

Jesus, that’s horrendous. Were you politically active at that point?
Yes, I was a member of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and we were protesting the illegal expansion of the war in Cambodia, by Nixon. In retrospect, with the president we have today, Nixon was interesting. We used to have a smart evil man, now we just have a dumb evil man. Nixon did this without an act of congress, back when we still cared about a constitution and the bill of rights and of course any politically active student knew this was a breach of the three parts of the government. That governor at the time was extremely right wing and knew there’d be protests. So he stocked the campus the night before with the National Guard who camped out on campus in the heating plant, so no-one could see them. Then they just sprung the next day as soon as they knew when and where the protest would be. They sprung into action and certainly none of us thought the guns were loaded. They were given a command: the first row knelt, the second row stood and they just fired for about 12 seconds straight into the crowd, like a duck shoot. At first you’re just stunned. It can’t be real, everything kind of goes into a slow-motion sound enhanced interlude then it snaps back to real time and everyone’s screaming. Then I turn my head and see a girl laying face down with an exit wound in her back as big as a grapefruit with blood rolling down the sidewalk in the noon-day sun. Women screaming, crying, and that was Alison Kraus. I didn’t know it was her straight away, but I found out later on. I knew Jeffrey Miller and Alison Kraus. I passed out. I knelt on the ground and passed out… it was just so hideous. THAT was the day I stopped being a hippie. It changed everything: no more mister nice guy.

A boy named Tenis

Meet Cambodian-American tennis hot-shot Tenis Taing.

The question is obvious, but the answer is unexpected. As perfect as it would be, there’s just not much of a story behind Tenis Taing’s name.

A four-time league champion and 53-1 this season, Taing is the 2007 Daily Press Tennis Athlete of the Year. The first name might be an ode to his accomplishments now, but it wasn’t intended to be a prediction or motivation.

Taing’s three older brothers are named Seng, Key and Sieng, and they all played high school tennis. Their parents came to Southern California from Cambodia, not particularly big fans of the sport.

After graduating from high school, Taing is now off to the University of California, Irvine, renown for its superb tennis program. “My plans are to try to make the team as a walk-on, see if I maybe have a shot at it. I would love to play. It would be an honor,” Taing said.

The secrets of the Soir

Writing for the Asia Sentinel, Douglas Gillison tells the story of the demise of the Cambodge Soir. While many of the facts are known at this point, Gillison’s piece offers a compact chronology of events and adds a few new clues to the mystery of the paper’s unraveling.

In a statement, the [Soir] staff said that publisher Philippe Monnin had told them that their holding company, which technically employed the paper’s 30-member staff, was bankrupt and would be shuttered for good. Internet access was discontinued and the paper’s fledgling Web site www.cambodgesoir.info was taken offline. [...]

The journalistic watchdog [Reporters Without Borders] protested the closure, calling on Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, a multilateral development organization created to promote the French language and one of Soir’s principal financial backers, to intervene. OIF provides slightly less than half of Soir’s operating budget and was committed to fund the paper until 2009, making bankruptcy seem improbable.

“Although your organization had just released new funds to support this newspaper, its management has decided to terminate this 12-year-old venture on the grounds of financial difficulties,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We ask you to help prevent the disappearance of this exemplary French-language daily.”

Ultimately, funding for all these French organizations flows from the French government, who ostensibly must answer to its citizens. Too bad then that there’s not a French-language newspaper around to ask the hard questions. Because if the French government is willing to sit silently as the Soir gets the shank, it seems rather likely that it’s not just the secrets of corrupt Cambodian officials the Francophonie’s hope to hide.

The other Siem Reap

In a rather peculiar juxtaposition to the Smithsonian, Vireak offers his own view of Siem Reap.

The Smithsonian on Angkor Wat

The Smithsonian this month offers an interesting if slightly pedestrian snapshot of Angkor Wat.  Along with the basic history of the empire, the package also includes some Smithsonian-quality photographs and, perhaps most interesting, excerpts from the dairy of Zhou Daguan, a Chinese diplomat who lived at Angkor.

From 1296 to 1297, a group of diplomats from China lived in Angkor, which by then was in decline but still strong. Zhou Daguan, one of the group’s members, jotted down what he saw, and his diary, The Customs of Cambodia, is the only written record of Khmer daily life (besides the inscriptions on the temple walls) that has survived. His account was translated into French by Paul Pelliot in 1902, and later into English by Michael Smithies. Below are some of Zhou Daguan’s observations:

On Khmer homes:

“The dwellings of the princes and principal officials have a completely different layout and dimensions from those of the people. All the outlying buildings are covered with thatch; only the family temple and the principal apartment can be covered in tiles. The official rank of each person determines the size of the houses.”

[...]

On Khmer justice:

“In addition, take the case where two men are in dispute and no one knows who is right or who is wrong. In front of the royal palace, there are twelve small stone towers. Each of these two men is made to sit inside a tower, and the two men are watched over by their family members. They stay one or two days, or even three or four. When they come out, the person who is in the wrong is certain to have caught some sickness; either he has ulcers, or catarrh, or a malignant fever. The innocent person has nothing wrong with him. Thus they decide who is in the right and who the wrong; this is what they call ‘celestial judgment’. Such is the supernatural power of the god of this country.”

On sickness:

“Some eight to nine out of ten here die from dysentery. As with us, medicines are sold in the markets, but they are very different from those in China, and I do not know any of them. There are also some sorts of sorcerers who practice their arts on people. This is completely ridiculous.”

Donor aid as killing joke

In Time Magazine yesterday, Hannah Beech asks the question on everybody’s lips:

Why do the rich nations keep funneling millions of dollars every year to a corrupt country like Cambodia? Each summer, at around this time, for more than a decade, international donors have pledged huge sums to prop up the impoverished Southeast Asian nation. The donors unveil a goody bag of financial aid contingent on the country tackling endemic problems like corruption, human-rights violations and environmental degradation. And each year, like ritual, longtime Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen dutifully pledges to clean up the government’s act. Alas, also like ritual, little or nothing happens. Yet somehow the entire ceremony repeats itself year after year.

The spring of this cruel fate, it seems, is as simple as it is cynical: ego. Rich countries like to make themselves feel good by giving money to poor countries. Whether that money actually makes it into the hands of people who need it, or just gets pocketed by corrupt politicians and their corporate cronies, appears to make little difference. It’s the thought that counts.

Deluded by racism

Via Khmer Intelligence, we learn about a group of concerned Americans who recently asked U.S. President George W. Bush to put a stop to the “ruthless, evil, communist regime” next door and its insidious designs to dominate Southeast Asia. Going under the name Americans Against the Annexation of Cambodia and Laos by Vietnam, it’s nearly impossible to believe that members of the group have even the vaguest notions of what they are talking about.

AAACLV also wants to bring attention to the fact that Vietnam policies amount to de-facto ethnic cleansing of the native population in the territories involved. Vietnam’s neo-colonization of Cambodia is so apparent that authorities of the Hun Sen government have completely abdicated their authority. They no longer prosecute even common law crimes committed by Vietnamese settlers in Cambodia, thereby relegating Cambodians to second-class status in their own country.

Cambodians are second-class citizens in their own country, behind the Vietnamese? That is delusional. Coming from people who have ostensibly benefited from the United State’s historic embrace of immigrant cultures, it’s also more than just a bit disheartening. No country in the world is racially pure. Nor should they be. Cambodia and Cambodians, even more so than others, should understand the dangers of such thinking.

Curious news from Cambodia

Recent news stories, shamelessly lifted from Khmer News.

Cambodia Journalist Club suggested for newspaper’s kill threatening’ investigation
Cambodia Journalist Club concerned about news freedom in Cambodia after a newspaper reporter got a kill threatening on phone by unidentified man. Lim Peseth, Radio Free Asia’s journalist in Batambang, was threatened on 16th, June 2007 after he’d investigated about illegale deforestration in Kompong Thom. CJC considers this case as a freedom abuse in Cambodia and askds for safety.

Monk commits suicide
Prey Veng: A 73-year-old monk in Sandek pagoda committed suicide because of illness. The suicide happened at 9:30 in the evening of 18th, June 2007. Police said that the dead monk was Mao Sokhorn, 73. Police added that the the dead monk had a chronic illness for a long time. The dead monk had a bruise on the neck showing that he died of hanging.

Municipal Criminal Police Shot Dead at Night
June 20, 2007: A minor criminal department police known as Keoun Chheoun, 40, was robbed and shot to dead by two civil men traveling on a motorcycle when he was riding his motorbike toward home after having a drink with old friends. He died when reaching at hospital. The thief happened at 1:00 a.m. in front of foot-army headquarter along Russia Federation street, Sangkat Mitpeap, Khan Prampi Makara.

The cancer of corruption

VIA Khmer Intelligence: Against a backdrop of unionist murders, cruel land evictions and blatant human rights abuses, the one positive statistic the government has trotted out for donors relates to economic growth. Cambodia’s economy grew at a rate of between 10.4 and 11.4 percent last year.

That makes Cambodia one of the region’s fastest growing economies. The country enjoys a large, cheap labor pool, lucrative cash crops, and is situated between two major economic powerhouses — Vietnam and Thailand — all of which should give the country a considerable leg up. But the economic picture is far from rosy.

Despite its strong profile, critical hurdles remain for FDI [foreign direct investment] in Cambodia. Cambodia’s well-known, widespread corruption and weak legal and financial systems deter all but the most speculative investors. For any sound, significant investment to occur, companies must have some guarantee that their rights to ownership and profits will be protected in the long run. Despite other incentives, no such guarantee exists in Cambodia’s system. Corrupt, inconsistent legal administration and lengthy, costly and unclear arbitration systems plague business activity nationwide. All this is no secret; Cambodia ranked 151st out of 163 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2006, a worse showing than Tajikistan and Nigeria.

In addition, groups such as Human Rights Watch and Global Witness continue to direct heavy criticism toward Cambodia regarding political freedom, environmental and human rights issues. These groups will keep many Western investors sensitive to activist pressure and public image out of Cambodia.

Endemic corruption is the root of all Cambodia’s problems, and given the current generation of leadership, there is little hope of getting a grip on the problem. Will the next generation of leadership be any better? Judging by the behavior of the children of the country’s ruling class, it is hard to be optimistic.

Perhaps most appaling is that such unadulterd raping of the country’s assets all seems so unnecessary. The kingdom’s ruling class is already wealthy beyond the average person’s comprehesion. If only they would share in that success, even just a little bit, they would be considered the country’s most honorable patriots and worshiped as heroes. Instead they are reviled as pigs.

The Soir blogs on

VIA Saorla: Ex-staff members of the Cambodge Soir have started a blog, Collectif Cambodge Soir. It’s mostly in French, but thanks to the all mighty power of Google, an English translation is available.

According to the latest blog entry, made yesterday, the staff appear to be holding out hope of a reconciliation.

The possible rehabilitation of the journalist, evoked by oral examination these last days, will not be enough to restore a climate of confidence necessary to the perenniality of the newspaper.

The redefinition of the organization of the newspaper, wished by the drafting, thus seems essential to pose the solid bases of a resumption of work, following the advertisement of the closing of the newspaper, decision which the direction seems since to have reconsidered.

The journalists and translators, present daily in the buildings of the newspaper since the beginning of the conflict, point out their determination and their will to open a true dialogue in order to find a solution durable and to start again Kampuchea Soir.

Frankly, the idea of management rescinding their declaration of bankruptcy seems delusional. But good luck anyway.

Silencing the outspoken

Somebody is obviously asking the right questions.

A Cambodia-based reporter for Radio Free Asia (RFA) covering allegations of large-scale illegal logging by Cambodia’s elite has fled to Thailand following a death threat.

“You beware. You watch out, you could get killed. Don’t be too outspoken—you can die,” an unidentified caller told Lem Pichpisey June 16, Lem said.

Lem had been investigating allegations by the British-based nonprofit Global Witness that Cambodia’s elite, including relatives and others close to Prime Minister Hun Sen, have engaged in illegal logging operations and destroyed public resources, notably Prey Long forest, some 120 miles (200 kms) northeast of the capital Phnom Penh. Lem had traveled to Prey Long to document illegal logging there.

But don’t worry about that. Economic growth was 11.4% last year.

Are donors idiots?

What does Hun Sen really think about donors gathered in Phnom Penh this week?

Cambodia conceded that land grabs and corruption were issues that needed to be tackled as an annual international donor meeting opened Tuesday, and asked the donors for more aid to tackle the problems.

Addressing the Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF), Prime Minister Hun Sen said the government was continuing efforts to weed out some ‘bad politicians behind some bad Cambodians’ and solve growing inequalities between the rich and poor, especially in rural areas.

‘I appeal to Cambodian government partners … please join with us, especially the World Bank,’ Hun Sen told the meeting, previously known as the Consultative Group meeting.

So let’s get this straight: The government doesn’t have enough money to fight corruption because corrupt government officials keep stealing all the money. The answer to this cruel riddle, according to the corrupt government’s highest officeholder, is to pile yet more millions into the pockets of the government’s kleptocratic elite.

If all those self-important foreign donors smiling and glad-handing for the cameras don’t feel like they have just had a giant broomstick shoved up their collective back side, they should.

Angelina Jolie’s rock-hard feet

Has the heat in Samlot gone to Angelina’s head?

Angelina Jolie attempts to harden her son Maddox’s feet whenever they return to his native Cambodia by making him walk around without shoes on. The actress admits her eldest son isn’t always happy to go native when he goes ‘home,’ but Jolie thinks it’s important young Maddox lives the Cambodian experience.

She explains, “When we go to Cambodia I always say, ‘Take our shoes off,’ and we walk across the rocks. There was a time he would whine about little things like that and I’ll say, ‘Everybody in Cambodia can walk with bare feet. They get tough Cambodian feet.’ So the two of us will take our shoes off and walk across the rocks and go eat a cricket.”

A tip from “Good Parenting,” no doubt.

KK: The man, the legend

In the latest edition of The Phnom Penh Post, Managing Editor Charles McDermid does a Q&A with Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith. It starts like this:

When I arrived in Cambodia in 2004, my newspaper colleagues all talked about partying with you: Sir, you’re a legend.
You know why? During the war people didn’t like journalist. No matter what they wouldn’t let you write because they thought it would be something bad. There’s one great thing that will break the ice: drinking. The first thing to learn as a journalist is drinking….

If the two men bent elbows, the Post doesn’t say. But judging by some of Kanharith’s other answers, it’s not difficult to make that assumption: Does the CPP have an image problem? “Yes, we know it. We’ve been told to find a spin doctor.” Do you like your job? “The truth is nobody wants this job.” On the recent RFA tempest:

Do you ever get tired of explaining things to journalists?
It’s not that simple, maybe because I’ve known Hun Sen since 1979. I understand him. When he scolded RFA recently is a good example. You wouldn’t understand because you don’t speak Khmer. But [RFA reporter] Um Samrin should’ve asked, “Whether the power sharing agreement [between the CPP and Funcinpec] is over or not?” but he said “Now, it shows that the power agreement has stopped.” He asked this in front of Funcinpec MPs. Hun Sen was saving the face of Funcinpec. It was as if you were with your wife and someone asks you about your concubine.

Interesting analogy, no?

Khmer wedding

In what must be the first low-fi digital reproduction of Khmer wedding music blasting at decibel levels just beyond the capability of a standard analog bullhorn, Guy at Sweet Cucumber passes along the oh-so-lovely sounds of his neighbor’s Khmer wedding.

The music really is quite lovely, but understandably — from a barang’s standpoint, anyway — Guy’s questions the necessity that such lovely music be played at such unlovely volumes.

As I said, I’m not exactly sure why these things have to be so obnoxiously loud, because I find it hard to imagine that anyone in the vicinity and not directly involved (or invited to) the celebration actually loves to be blasted away for days in a row…

Personally – and all cultural heritage bullshit aside – I find it something which ought to be banned (or at least reduced to a somewhat lesser polluting level). It’s not funny, not nice, bad for your ears, deprives you of any and all sleep, and shows a total lack of respect for others. And most of the time the music and singing isn’t all that good either…

But here’s the thing: Khmer people really do love it! That’s why wedding music is so loud, so everybody can enjoy it. Anything less than full blast would be selfish, and rude. What? You don’t want anyone to know? We are not good enough to even hear your music?

Cambodia’s mean streets

According to this news brief in today’s Cambodia Daily, traffic safety in the Kingdom is getting worse, not better, with April one of the bloodiest months ever.

A total of 146 people died and 697 were severely injured on Cambodia’s roads in April, according to a report. A total of 2,694 casualties were reported across the country, said the Cambodia Road Traffic Accident and Victim Information System’s monthly report released by the government and the NGO Handicap International. This marked a considerable increase compared to March during which 96 people were killed and 554 people severely injured nationwide, the report indicated. Describing the road accident rate in Cambodia as “worrisome,” Sann Socheata, the road safety program manager for Handicap International, called on the authorities to pay more attention to the situation. “Three people a day died in accidents in 2005 and now that is up to four,” he said. (Lor Chandara)

April, of course, is the month of Cambodian New Year, which at least helps explain the spike. But the trend is clear. Cambodia’s roads are deadly and getting deadlier. As far as getting the situation under control, there’s little to offer much hope. Virtually nobody driving on the roads today has ever been to driving school. Yet even if they had, and even if they could cite the traffic law chapter and verse, dirty traffic officials are notoriously lax about enforcing it.

So go ahead, get hammered and go racing through the streets. Even if you kill somebody or two, you can always bribe your way out of that problem, too.

Happy Birthday

 Happy Birthday to Queen Norodom Monineath Sihanouk.

Cambofest: Cambodia Film Festival

This weekend. Don’t miss it. Saturday’s “prime-time” picks include:

• The Golden Voice. USA, 2006. Dir., Greg Cahill. 24 : 30 Mins. ((( Filmmaker Greg Cahill in Attendance! ))) Ros Sereysothea was dubbed ‘the golden voice of the royal capital’ by King Sihanouk. But artists and musicians were targeted for execution by the Khmer Rouge, compelling Ros Sereysothea to conceal her identity as best she could. Despite the tragedy, her music lives on.
• Sleepwalking Through The Mekong. USA, 2006. Dir., John Pirozzi. 70 Mins. Follow Cambodian 60’s-Rock-inspired band DENGUE FEVER on a musical journey that leads them back to their musical roots in Cambodia. A new and inspired rockumentary with a soul in the land of Angkor!
• Expiration Date. USA, 2006. Dir., Rick Stevens. 94 Mins. A beguiling romantic fable revolving around the impending fate of Native American Charles Silvercloud III – and the woman who changes everything!

The rest of the program looks just as good, with more than 60 films scheduled for screening this weekend at Sala Arts, Meta House, and the secretive “Venue-X.” Films are divided into two basic categories: features, shorts & experimental; and social issues/documentaries. Screenings start at 3 p.m. Complete details at the Cambofest web site.

Al Jazeera meets Nuon Chea

Now in his 80s, Brother Number Two admits mistakes were made during the KR’s rule. His conversation with Al Jazeera also hints at legal strategies, should the ECCC ever organize a trial.

“I don’t deny that I’m responsible,” he told me. “I personally take responsibility for the bad fortune of the people during the three year period but I want to stress, what is wrong, what is right.

“My mistake is that I did not get involved with the lower levels so was not able to discover that there were bad men hiding among the people. We did not go into the local level. This was a big mistake.

“In Khmer we say, if you are careless, you lose, we had no intention of killing our people. We wanted people to have food and clothes and education. The bad people hid themselves among our people and killed them.”

We had no intention of killing our people? So it was just by accident that 2 million people died? It’s rather amazing that, in all the years since 1979, no one has taken the law into his or hew own hands. Get caught stealing a pack of cigarettes, and a deranged mob is likely to strip and beat and humiliate a child for hours, if not beat the child to death in a hysterical frenzy.

But author policies that kill millions and live to the haunting old age of 80-something. Yet even more disturbing than such wicked cosmic injustice is that many of those who managed to survive the terror of Nuon Chea’s regime still revere the man. What is wrong with humanity?

Global Witness killed the Cambodge Soir

In a patently Cambodian turn of events, the 12-year-old Cambodge Soir is dead, an apparent victim of fallout from the recent Global Witness logging report. As the Cambodia Daily explains:

The staff of French-language newspaper Cambodge Soir said Wednesday the paper had been shut down following a two-day strike over the firing of a reporter who wrote an article about the new Global Witness report that was deemed unfair to the government.

In a statement Wednesday, the newspaper’s editorial staff said the paper, a 12-year-old fixture of the Cambodian press, had been closed permanently by its parent company, Societe des Editions du Mekong, which claimed to be bankrupt.

The Daily story goes on to explain rather coyly that an “unnamed” reporter wrote a story for last Friday’s Soir that detailed the GW report and restated its allegations against Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun of “stripping the country of its forests.”

Even more coyly, the Daily quotes Cambodge Soir editor-in-chief Stephanie Gee as saying that a board member of Societe des Editions du Mekong — the Soir’s parent company — “has a professional relationship with the Agricultural Ministry.”

For whatever reasons — professional courtesy most likely, but probably also just a dash of concern about libel charges — what the Daily didn’t say is this:

Cambodge Soir’s owners, among them minority shareholder Philippe Monin, yesterday told its staff that the liquidation of the newspaper and the company that publishes it, Société des Editions du Mékong, had already begun. The announcement came just one day after the newspaper’s journalists began a strike in protest against the summary dismissal of news editor Soren Seelow for publishing a detailed story based on a report by the environmental group Global Witness implicating associates of Prime Minister Hun Sen in illegal logging.

The story did not please Monin and the newspaper’s managing editor, who summoned Seelow on 10 June and told him he was fired.

Monin, who is also employed by the French Development Agency (AFD) to act as a adviser for the Cambodian agriculture ministry, told Seelow that his article would upset the authorities and put him in a difficult position.

Ahh, those great French colonizers, still raping and pillaging the country even after all these years.

Cambodian terrorists, cont

On the editorial page today, The Nation scolds retired General Wattanachai Chaimuenwong, the adviser who has accused Cambodia of harboring Jemaah Islamiyah militants.

It was not the first time Gen Wattanachai has made the allegation, but this time Cambodian foreign minister Hor Namhong stressed to [diplomat at Thai embassy in Phnom Penh] Surasak – who was summoned to the ministry – that the issue was serious. The Cambodian minister demanded that the Thai government provide sufficient evidence to support the allegation.

Instead of giving details to back his statement, Wattanachai – like a cheap politician – shifted the blame to the media, saying he had never made such a comment and his words might have been misinterpreted.

“No foreigners are involved in the situation in the deep South,” he told reporters when asked to respond to Hun Sen’s reaction.

It is not abnormal for Thai leaders to put their foot in their mouths when trying to get off the hook, but it is abnormal for a general to claim the media misquoted him on the same issue twice within a brief period of time.

But politics being what they are, the story doesn’t just neatly wrap up there. Two days ago, police in Thailand arrested 15 Cambodian Muslims headed to the Thai south. Thai police said one of the arrested had material that could be used for bomb making. According to news reports, the material included electronic circuit boards and switches. The man who had them said he was carrying the stuff for a friend, and the equipment was intended for fishing.

Maybe. Maybe not.

The timing certainly seems suspicious. But no matter. There’s no doubt that Cambodia’s Muslims are bound by religion to support their brothers in the Thai south. Until now, there’s been virtually no evidence — at least none presented publicly — to support claims that they are doing so violently. But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Police work, not political finger-pointing, is what’s needed. Otherwise, denying the obvious — Cambodian Muslims are helping Thai Muslims — seems like a policy guaranteed to produce unhappy results.

ECCC gets OK

Cambodian and foreign jurists of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia have finally agreed to a set of rules governing the court.

PHNOM PENH, June 13 (Reuters) – Cambodian and international judges agreed the underlying rules on Wednesday for the special court to try Pol Pot’s top surviving henchmen, allowing the long-awaited “Killing Fields” tribunal to proceed in earnest.

Canadian co-prosecutor Robert Petit, who has been compiling preliminary cases against the top Khmer Rouge leaders, told reporters he would lodge his first formal accusations with the court “within a few weeks”. [...]
The $53 million United Nations-backed court has been plagued by delays and arguments between local and international legal officials, although today’s approval of the court’s internal rules removes the last formal obstacles to its work.

However, no suspect will be appearing in court for at least six months. French investigating judge Marcel Lemonde said he hoped to have his probes into the first suspects wrapped up some time within the first half of 2008.

Some call it ‘culture’

This can’t be good news, can it?

An American property mogul whose Cambodian-born wife survived the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge is looking to raise up to $600 million on London’s AIM market to build shopping centres and flats in Vietnam and Cambodia.

JSM Indochina is the brainchild of Craig Jones, a 41 year-old from Santa Monica, whose Californian-based JSM firm already sits on $1.5 billion worth of US shopping malls. Now Mr Jones has turned to the AIM market to pull in investors to back his plans to bring US-style malls from Pnom Penh to Ho Chi Min City and Hanoi.

JSM is already planning for Pnom Penh a 325,000 square feet mall where it has signed a pre-let to Parkson, the Malaysian department store, to become its anchor tenant taking about two thirds of the space. Land permits are also in place to add onto the site a 600 place car-park and 100 serviced appartments.

(Note to Times Online editors, it’s “Phnom Penh,” and “apartment” only has one “p”.)

Praying at Pol Pot’s grave

This is more than just a bit disturbing.

In a dusty corner of Cambodia a young woman pays her respects at the grave of a dead villager.

Oeurni Vi has come to give thanks after her prayer to see a boyfriend again was granted.

She comes to the grave, she says, because she loves and trusts the man who was cremated here. She even wishes he could come back.

Yet the man she so reveres was once the leader of one of the 20th century’s most brutal regimes – responsible for the death of almost a quarter of Cambodia’s population.

To all those working in education reform: a little faster, please.