Forced evictions?
February 29, 2008
Tear Gas and Gunfire During Latest Violent Eviction In Cambodia’s Capital
Early on the morning of 22 February, 2008, more than 100 heavily-armed military police, intervention police and district police officers violently and forcibly evicted 23 households in Banla S’et village, Khmuonh commune, Russey Keo district, Phnom Penh. As a result, four villagers were injured and eight were detained, leaving behind a dismantled community with nowhere to go.
The eviction was carried out less than 24 hours after the community received notice of eviction. Military and police forces arrived shortly after 7.30am, and less than five minutes later, fired two tear gas canisters at residents while simultaneously shooting dozens of AK-47 bullets into the air, in a blatant attempt to intimidate and force the community to leave. Many bullets were also fired directly at a nearby vehicle, which subsequently exploded.
Authorities then used two mechanical excavators to quickly tear down the community’s 23 concrete and wooden houses. A small number of families were allowed to enter their homes to collect their belongings before they were demolished. None of the affected families have been given compensation for the loss of their houses and possessions, nor have they been provided with alternative housing.
Four people were injured and eight arrested. According to Licadho, all 23 families had been living on the land since 1994 and had official documents to prove it. In 2005 two “businessmen” claimed ownership of the land and took the 23 families to court. No prizes for guessing which way that decision went.
So who are the businessmen?
Licadho doesn’t say.
Development a bitter pill
February 29, 2008
Although not specifically about Cambodia, this AFP story based on research by the Asian Development Bank underscores the price of development. With new roads and jobs and prosperity comes drugs and prostitution and crime.
Massive Asian Development Bank lending to the region’s transport sector may be helping drive the spread of AIDS across the world’s most populous continent, the bank said in a study released Thursday.
It cited 16 percent prevalence rates of the HIV virus that causes AIDS along one particular transport route in southern India, compared with less than one percent nationwide.
[...]
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said that construction, especially large infrastructure projects, draws a large influx of men into rural areas, and along with attracting cash, boosts the demand for sex.
Commercial sex work and the trafficking of drugs and humans, particularly women and girls for sex work, also follow major construction projects and transport routes, the study said.
“Better roads bring many benefits but also increase risks through greater mobility and connectivity,” the ADB said.
“Mobile people, especially ‘mobile men with money’ are more likely to engage in risk behaviours such as unprotected sex with casual partners and sex workers, and drug use,” the Manila-based lender said.
Cambodia is booming. And along with that prosperity is surely to come a stack of social problems the country is ill-equipped to deal with.
Stealing the word of God
February 28, 2008
I recently paid a visit to Psah Toul Tom Poung, the main tourist market in Phnom Penh, to buy some new clothes for the kiddies. It was a relatively uneventful affair. We plowed our way through a morass of people, rummaged through heaps of clothes, made our purchases, and departed. As usual, the last few vendors near our chosen exit were vendors selling bootleg DVDs, VCDs, CDs, and software. Windows Vista? Adobe Photoshop? Quickbooks? All these and can be yours for just a dollar. Two dollars if you don’t bargain.
For better or for worse, the sight of such brazen disregard for the law and ethics has long since lost its ability to enrage me. So it is that I surprised myself by the degree of disgust and anger that engulfed me when I saw one particular software package on display … Bibleworks 6.0.
There is something seriously, deeply, disturbingly wrong about buying bootleg Bible software.
[...]
The reason I was filled with such disgust is that the market vendors, who are probably animistic Buddhists, realized that there was an untapped market for media specifically targeting the huge missionary community. Though our purchases of their software may bless the vendors financially, I fail to see how we are revealing anything about our God who calls us to be holy as he is holy.
Anita responds:
More than disgusting me, it saddens me that we missionaries are ruining our own witness by encouraging illegal activity. Are we any better than the “pagans” we are trying to “convert”?
Um, no. Welcome to reality. What took you so long to get here?
Government bans sexy songs
February 28, 2008
Phnom Penh authorities have censored three songs because of lyrics that glorify infidelity.
The titles of the three songs banned from public broadcast for inciting infidelity say it all, according to Cambodian government and cultural officials, local media reported Thursday. The offending songs, If I Can’t Be First Can I Be Second?, Love Another’s Husband and May I Have a Piece of Your Heart Too? have been banished from the nation’s thousands of karaoke restaurants, Khmer-language Koh Santepheap reported.
“We are searching for other songs which affect people’s honour, especially that of women,” the paper quoted Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema as saying.
[...]
“People can still play the songs in private – this is only a public ban,” one official said on condition of anonymity. “I don’t think music has much to do with it, but it’s an official request.”
It seems likely that this “official request” came from first lady Bun Rany Hun Sen, as crackdowns on suggestive things almost always originate from her — just never you mind about that silly little constitution thingy.
The problem with Cambodia?
February 28, 2008
“Mr. Son Chhay, a Sam Rainsy Party [SRP] lawmaker from Phnom Penh, and a leader of the SRP lawmakers, said on 25 February 2008 through the Candlelight radio program [Sam Rainsy’s radio program], that it is the politics in our society and the mistakes of the leaders of the country that lead neighboring countries to influence Khmer people very easily.
[...]
He added that after Cambodia was invaded by Yuon troops [in 1979], the influx of the way of ruling and training in the new society made Khmer citizens forget about their national interests by thinking only about seeking pleasure – for example television and radio stations broadcast only dancing and singing programs. The society is full of gambling, drugs, sex, and alcohol, which drive Khmer young people crazy.
Got that? The problems started in 1979 — before that everything was cool, and singing and dancing was outlawed, and violators were tortured until they went insane and confessed their allegiance to the Hanoi masters and then had their faces bashed in with the butt of a rifle. Yeah, my friend, those were the good ol’ days.
Factoid of sleep
February 28, 2008
A propos of pretty much nothing:
… 10% of the citizens of Phnom Penh (Cambodia) sleep on roofs …
World’s coolest swimming pool
February 27, 2008
Note to overzealous nationalist
February 27, 2008
Women in politics
February 27, 2008
The role of women in Cambodian politics is growing.
More than 300 female commune council officials started four days of meetings in Phnom Penh Tuesday, in an effort to improve their leadership skills.
The women, who came from four main political parties, are expected to meet with government officials, National Assembly members, foreign diplomats and other non-governmental agencies.
Last year’s commune elections saw a record number of women run for office. And while it’s not yet clear how many women intend to run for office in the national elections scheduled for July, anything to encourage female participation in politics is good news.
Duch weeps
February 27, 2008
Khmer Rouge executioner Kaing Guek Eav yesterday led a team of ECCC officials on a tour of the killing fields.
The chief torturer under the Khmer Rouge “Killing Fields” regime wept and prayed on Tuesday as he led the judges who will try him for crimes against humanity around the mass graves for some of its victims.
[...]
“I saw Duch kneel in front of the trees where Khmer Rouge soldiers smashed children to death,” a policeman told reporters after the four-hour tour.
“He cried and apologised to the victims” in the former ricefields outside Phnom Penh, he said.
[...]
“Duch expressed his sadness and shed tears two to three times,” tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said. “He held his palms together to pay respect to the victims in front of the shrine of skulls.”
The redeeming power of Christ, no doubt.
Overseas calling
February 26, 2008
Jeff has the latest on the latest VOIP widget to make overseas calls: Gizmo5. Verdict: “nice.”
‘Chasing the Flame’
February 26, 2008
Bloomberg reviews Samantha Power’s “Chasing the Flame,” a biography of U.N diplomat Sergio de Mello.
He spent most of his career in hellholes, among them Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, East Timor and, fatally, Iraq. Again and again Power points up the UN’s failures in those places, though “failure” is a relative term for an organization that sends its personnel into infernos the powerful nations of the world are eager to ignore.
[...]
His ongoing moral dilemma was how far to engage the butchers in order to prevent more killing. Power doesn’t hesitate to fault him for cozying up to the Khmer Rouge, and for becoming so friendly with Radovan Karadzic and Slobodan Milosevic that his detractors started calling him “Serbio.”
In what seems like an even crueler joke, this deftness at placating thugs was what made the Bush administration decide he was a man it could do business with. And that was his bad luck. He’d fallen in love and was ready to settle down in Geneva when the Americans pressured Secretary-General Kofi Annan into naming him head of the UN mission in Iraq.
Ieng Sary at Calmette ‘indefinitely’
February 25, 2008
AFP reports that Ieng Sary has been moved to Phnom Penh’s finest medical facility.
Detained Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary, one of five top regime cadres expected to face a UN-backed trial over Cambodia’s 1970s genocide, has been hospitalised indefinitely, officials said Monday.
[...]
He will remain hospitalised for “a period of time in order that the doctors can monitor his health,” Reach Sambath told AFP.
“The illness is not threatening his life,” he added.
Not yet, anyway.
The ‘daily’ Phnom Penh Post
February 25, 2008
Thomas Crampton, via a help wanted ad from an unidentified source, says the Phnom Penh Post plans to publish daily come May.
Job available: Managing Editor, Phnom Penh Post In conjunction with Editor-in-Chief, oversee the operations of an English-language newspaper published five times a week. The Post is currently published fortnightly. Move to daily is expected to take place in May.
Cambodian national baseball team
February 24, 2008
Torture re-enactments
February 22, 2008
The head of the main Khmer Rouge torture center will be taken from a detention cell to the former regime’s “killing fields” next week to stage a re-enactment of his alleged crimes before officials of Cambodia’s genocide tribunal, a judge said Friday.
Does anybody really need to know how another human being’s head was bashed in with the butt of rifle, in all the gory, bone-fragmented details? That seems just a wee bit gratuitous, frankly.
7 easy rules for a more effective union
February 22, 2008
The government on Monday added to Phnom Penh’s statuesque legacy of Mahatma Ghandi with a monument inscribed with seven of the Buddhist leader’s teachings (photo).
- Politics without principle.
- Wealth without work.
- Pleasure without conscience.
- Knowledge without character.
- Commerce without morality.
- Science without humanity.
- Worship without sacrifice.
It is obvious the government has for years been following these rules with steadfast discipline and uncompromising integrity. Without exception, the CPP-led government has excelled at each and every item on the list. Is it no wonder than such men of honor have been showered with riches and fortune by the gods?
No. It is not.
Thais done crying over Preah Vihear
February 21, 2008
Thailand has come to its senses, apparently.
Cambodia will send a team of officials to Bangkok next month in an attempt to end the conflict over the proposal to have Unesco include the Preah Vihear shrine on the World Heritage list, Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said Saturday.
The team will be led by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s advisory chief Var Kim Hong.
[...]
Noppadon said Saturday he had discussed the issue with his Khmer counterpart Hor Nam Hong on the sidelines of the Asean retreat meeting in Singapore on Tuesday.
Hor Nam Hong asked for Thai support for his country’s resubmitting of the proposal to Unesco this year. He said Phnom Penh was ready to declare that the procedure would not affect the border demarcation.
Noppadon said Var Kim Hong will discuss the issue with the Thai Foreign Ministry’s Legal Affairs Department chief Weerachai Pladisai. He insisted Thailand had no policy to block Cambodia’s proposal to Unesco but that the territorial issue should be resolved first.
Cambodian volleyball a finalist in global Nike challenge
February 21, 2008
The Cambodian National Volleyball League (Disabled) on the hustings.
The CNVLD has been selected as a finalist in the Nike – Changemakers Sport for a Better World Competition. It is the only Asian finalist of 382 entries from 69 countries.
An online vote will now decide the winners from the 16 finalists.
Your vote can help Cambodia win the Nike-Changemakers Sport for a Better World Competition and support Cambodia’s Athletes with Disability.
Find out how to vote by visiting the CNVLD website:
http://www.standupcambodia.org/blog/?p=1189#more-1189
‘Earth in Flower’
February 21, 2008
A book, most likely the book, on the Royal Cambodian Ballet.
After a military coup deposed King Sihanouk a new government seized control of Cambodia … and the royal dancers. Surrounded by violence, scholars desperately sought to document this cultural treasure by engaging American researcher Paul Cravath. He arrived as a circle of war gripped the capital city, becoming one of the only Westerners in history to gain firsthand access to the formerly sequestered troupe of royal dancers, teachers and archives.
On April 17, 1975, Phnom Penh fell; the Khmer Rouge began their reign of terror. Cravath escaped the city on a military transport only 10 days earlier with his research intact. The archives he accessed were destroyed. Most of the royal dancers perished in the Killing Fields.
Three decades later, Cravath’s painstaking documentation of the choreography, musicology, costuming, stagecraft, theatre and origins of Cambodia’s ancient dance tradition will finally be published. His book offers new insights about this beautiful art, its long-hidden history and, according to the author, “Earth in Flower reveals how Cambodian dancers have, for more than a millennium, balanced the Khmer relationship between heaven and earth.”
Today’s lunar eclipse
February 21, 2008
Can’t been seen from Cambodia. In case you were wondering.
Working for the railroad
February 21, 2008
VIA Crossing Cambodia: The recent ADB deal to revamp Cambodia’s decrepit railway already appears to be showing dividends.
There are two railway lines, one from Phnom Penh to Battambang, and another one from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, but there are no more crowds of people like before, when also goods were actively transported, but unfortunately, the benefits from the present services do not improve the railway staff’s living conditions, nor were they transparently shown. It was only seen that the general director of the Royal Railways quietly bought one more villa and changed to new cars.
Not so quiet anymore, aye?
Cambodia: rumours on the Internet, sex and bombs edition
February 21, 2008
Prime Minister Hun Sen hot to trot for mail order brides [EAS]
Floating nuclear reactors coming to a Mekong River near you [Pete's Intelligence Blog]
The Cambodian genocide continues in Thailand [Khmerization]
Democracy sucks, say airport moto drivers [EAS]
Disabled people want sex love too [Jinja]
Dead Fish feeds poorly dressed backpackers to the alligators [Fuchsia Boy]
U.S embassy ‘threatened’ by terrorists
February 20, 2008
Not two weeks ago Prime Minister Hun Sen stood in front an anti-terrorism conference in Siem Reap and declared Cambodia free from terrorists. It didn’t last long.
The US embassy in Cambodia received a terrorist threat prompting authorities to dispatch police and military police to protect it, a government official said.
Khieu Sopheak, the spokesman of Cambodia’s Ministry of Interior on Tuesday (Feb 19) confirmed that there was a threat against the US embassy.
“The threat was sent through a media company, which informed the US embassy on the threat. The US embassy told the authority and we sent our forces to protect the embassy,” the spokesman said. “In addition, we also made an investigation and now we know the identity of the suspect.”
It seems likely that this “threat” is the result of a single random wingnut, and not an orchestrated attempt by a well-oiled terrorist machine. U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomelli appeared totally unworried.
“[W]e should not pay too much attention to the threat as it doest not pose any security or safety threat to us,” the US ambassador said. “We are not concerned about the threat.”
UPDATE: AP reports that the “terrorist” was actually a disgruntled American vet.
LATER UPDATE: This translation of the original story, printed by Rasmei Kampuchea and translated by KI, is much better.
In the evening of 18 February, the US embassy in Cambodia was threatened by a terrorist attack, forcing the Cambodian authority to take immediate measure by sending several hundreds police force to protect the safety of the embassy, as well as investigating for the suspect of the threat.
Color-coded news for conspiracy theorists
February 20, 2008
Can anyone explain the use of color-coded text at Khmer Intelligence? Forever the blog has used bold red type to indicate something approaching importance, for example
The Cambodia Daily reported that Chao Phally, a member of the SRP committee and party president for Kratie province, was rewarded with the position of advisor to Hun Sen with the rank of minister, and Hor Sopheap, a member of the SRP committee from Banteay Meanchey, was rewarded with the position of government advisor with a rank of secretary of state.
At some point KI then introduced bold blue type, the use of which has become more prevalent over time, even if its meaning is still completely elusive.
The Cambodia Daily also reported Chao Phally as saying: “I have sacrificed myself for the sake of democracy for a long time.”
And then today things have gone completely mental. It’s not just sentences now, but words. And not just red or blue, but red and blue, with some black in the middle, and oversized. If the use of blue was opaque, this tri-color stuff is absolutely mind-reeling.
Jacques Verges, nicknamed “the Devil’s advocate” for his defence of some of the world’s most notorious criminals, said Khieu Samphan would not speak to court officials until thousands of pages of evidence against him is translated into French.
Is De La Gar out of Thorazine? Or does this stuff actually mean something?
Cartoon blogging
February 20, 2008
VIA JINJA: Sticky Gum is cartoon-blogging his way though Cambodia, including a motorcycle journey to the coast. It’s not serendipity that he finds.
Organ trafficking: the next great scourge?
February 20, 2008
In a story applauding the Cambodian government for passing a new anti-trafficking law, the Independent Catholic News exposes new horrors in human trafficking. But first the good news:
The new law, which has been under preparation since December 2007, consists of 52 articles to be applied more rigorously in cases of kidnapping for trafficking or sexual exploitation of women and minors, with punishments of up to 20 years in prison and heavy fines.
That’s not quite right. The law has been under development for ages. It was first debated in the National Assembly in December 2007. And not everyone is as optimistic about it as the Catholics, but no matter. With the new law on the books fighting trafficking will be easier, and that can only be counted as a good thing. But then there’s this:
According to groups like UNICEF and other international organisations, Cambodian minors and women are often taken to other countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, where they are made slaves, or become victims of sexual abuse or forced marriages, or organ trafficking.
Organ trafficking? Holy Jesus! Are Cambodians now falling victim to this? The U.S. Embassy says no. But maybe that’s because they’re part of the conspiracy. After all, would the Pope lie?
POSTSCRIPT: Have you ever sold an organ? Details are Sketchy wants to know about it. Please write us at detailsaresketchy@hushmail.com. All replies are completely confidential.
The WB mantra: peace, political stability and the rule of law
February 20, 2008
VIA SOPHAK: Nisha Agrawal, the outgoing country manager of the World Bank, spoke recently to the Economic Times. Like just about everyone these days, Ms. Agrawal is bullish on Cambodia, but …
Q: What are the economic prospects of Cambodia in the next five to ten years?
A: Cambodia has abundant resources, which give it a potential that has not been fully utilized. For instance, the land has not been fully utilized. Another great resource is people. And there is all this oil and mineral wealth as well as forestry.The question in each of these areas is how to get a good quality of development that is sustainable, environment-friendly and equitable to poor people.
Cambodia also needs investors, and to attract them it needs three things: peace, political stability and the rule of law. Cambodia now has the first two. But there is still concern about the rule of law: the court system is not functioning well.
Q. What other sectors Cambodia should focus on?
A: There are no reasons for Cambodia to focus on any particular sectors – instead it would be better to improve the investment climate for all sectors so that Cambodia can have a diversified economy. Cambodia’s narrow base of growth makes it vulnerable by the SARS epidemics. The Cambodian garment sector may be weakened by Vietnam’s entry to WTO, or the potential lifting of safeguards on Chinese productions.What is important to attract investors are three things: peace, political stability and the rule of law. Cambodia now has the first two. But there is still concern about the rule of law. The court system is not functioning well at the moment and while Cambodia has many laws, it is diffucult to enforce them.
The Country has abundant land, natural resources, labor, and capital. What is missing is certainty for investors that rule of law can provide.
Did we mention the rule of law? The World Bank may very well get what it wants. Word on the street is that the government is poised for a post-election crack down on corruption, which is making a lot of people nervous — especially the opposition. Arresting your political opponents, however, is not quite the same as cleaning up corruption, and in the eyes of the watching investment world, actions of the government can serve only one of two motives: enforcing the rule of law, or entrenching the culture of impunity. It can’t be both.
