War, death and justice

Prime Minister Hun Sen wields the specter of war as he threatens the ECCC against pursuing additional suspects.

“I prefer the failure of the tribunal than to let the country fall into war,” he said, reiterating concerns that further indictments could lead to instability. “You must consider this. If there is no peace, but it turns to war, how many people will die? It will not be the court eradicating the war. But be careful of the court making war.”

But don’t dare say he is trying to influence the court.

Chaw and motherhood

This is a bit unbelievable, really.

When pregnant Cambodian women suffer morning sickness, they often reach for an unlikely source of relief: a wad of chewing tobacco.

Many become hooked, and the World Health Organization warned Thursday it is a tradition putting the health of both mothers and babies at risk.

The largest tobacco survey ever conducted in Cambodia found that about half of all women older than 48 regularly chew tobacco, and about one in five rural women first took up the habit during pregnancy, to soothe their prenatal nausea.

Frightening. Tobacco use during pregnancy is linked to lower birth weights and an increased incidence of SIDS, among other significant health dangers. In addition to roasting –  isolating new mothers above an open fire — this practice too needs to stop. Education is the key, as with nearly all of the country’s problems.

Justice watch

In The New York Times, Richard Bernstein takes a look at American indifference to the Khmer Rouge Tribunals and the pace of court justice. He argues that the court’s tepid progress is the result of its adherence to international standards of justice. And in regards to pending cases, he moves the opening dates even further into the future.

Bringing about the event has taken a very long time, more than a decade to decide on the composition of the tribunal and, once that was decided, more years to allow for international standards of due process to be observed — which is why the next phase of the tribunal, the one involving the highest surviving former Khmer Rouge leaders, won’t start for another two years or so — assuming that any of the aging remaining defendants live that long.

So the next case is scheduled to begin 2012 now? Murpy had no idea?

SEA Games

Andy has gone to Communist Lao with the national football team for the SEA Games. Lots of team pics and nice reporting. And paper-pushin’ commies.

As I thought, obtaining my press pass, despite having an email letter from the Laos authorities confirming approval of my accreditation, was a complete hassle. I’m afraid Laos has embraced officialdom and jobsworth mentality in earnest and after completing more forms, handing over more portrait photographs and deciding whether I was a journalist or photographer, as I couldn’t be both, I was officially handed my press pass and media booklet about an hour and half after arriving. It took so long that I missed the Cambodian football team’s first training session at the army stadium, but no-one knew where it was anyway, so I’ll have to try and get to the afternoon session at the television stadium, though again, no-one at the media center could tell me its location!

Misery is a writers best friend.

Stock market delayed

AFP gets the scoop!

The global financial crisis has caused Cambodia to push back its plans to open a national stock exchange this year, officials said Wednesday.

Cambodia signed an agreement last year with representatives from South Korea’s stock exchange, the Korea Exchange (KRX), Asia’s fourth-largest bourse operator, to establish a stock market in 2009.

However government officials said Wednesday that the Southeast Asian nation was not ready to go ahead with the plans due to the world financial slowdown.

Considering the stock market was originally scheduled to open in September, 09 09 09, this news is at least three months old.

UPDATE: Reuters sets the record straight.

Journalistic malpractice

The Bangkok Post is delirious.

The Prey Sar prison which is presently home to Thai spy suspect Sivarak Chutipong and thousands of other Cambodian and foreign inmates is under fresh fire for its “appalling conditions”.

The complex – described as one of the most notorious jails in Southeast Asia and often compared with the infamous Tuol Sleng prison under Khmer Rouge rule – has been slammed for alleged human rights violations.

Prey Sar is no doubt a horrible place, maybe even as bad as Thailand’s own world-famous prison hellhole Bang Kwang. But to compare it with Tuol Sleng betrays a stunning level of incompetence.

 

A stone’s throw

ESPN visits Baribo Field, home of Cambodian baseball.

I thought this would be a feel-good story. Of course, that was before I shook hands with a dead man. Before two heartsick peasants begged me to find their missing daughters. And before I learned the Khmer words for “help me” and “motherf—er.”

Yes, I definitely thought this would be an elevating assortment of words, a triumph of the human spirit with lots of pretty prose and a bright, happy ending. Sports. Uplift. An emotional shot in the arm. Tonic for a world forever going wrong. But that was before this. Before I ventured halfway around the planet to drink from a half-empty glass of half-curdled joy, before I discovered that a tale too inspiring to be true — Cambodian refugee escapes the Killing Fields, comes to America, takes hope and baseball back to his homeland (and yeah, someone already is filming a documentary) — is probably too deranged to make up.

I guess I should start with the headless chicken.

The chicken is my first mate. Maybe dinner. I’m not really sure. About anything. I’m sitting in a ramshackle wooden skiff that’s floating — barely — down a reedy marsh running through central Cambodia, where the temples beckon and the dirty, shoeless children seem to outnumber everything except the brightly colored land-mine warning signs. Around me are an interpreter and a “fixer” and the aforementioned bird by my feet, plucked and stuffed into a black plastic garbage bag, talons up. The sun hangs low in the hazy late-November sky. We’re heading south, possibly north, on our way to speak with a man who has bad things to say about another man whose supposed good works and assumed good motives are the reason I’m here.

The other man’s real name is Joeurt Puk. But everyone calls him Joe Cook.

It’s a long story, about 12,000 words. So don’t click the link unless you have an hour to spend reading the whole thing. Because it’s brilliantly written. And you will read the whole thing.

HAP TIP to TW for the link.

Property law inches forward

Changes to property laws that will give non-citizens ownership rights appear imminent.

And while the proposed law is focused on the property market, experts agree it also would be a general boost for the country, which has been struggling through its own version of the global economic downturn.

“The law, in essence, will not help the whole economy recover. But it’s part of a wider picture,” said Daniel Parkes, country manager for the CB Richard Ellis real estate company. “What it is doing is making investment in Cambodia more transparent and easier.”

The law, which is expected to go to the National Assembly for a vote in the coming months, would allow foreigners to own apartments and condominiums on buildings’ upper floors. Now they are limited to 99-year leaseholds on any property.

Ground-level residences, which include ownership of the land that the units stand on, would continue to be reserved for Cambodians.

The assumption seems to be that there is a pent up demand of foreigners out there waiting to buy overpriced boxes of air in regulation-weak third-world countries. And once Cambodia can change her property laws, cashed-up foreigners will come rafting in on river of greenbacks.

That seems a tad optimistic, really. But if you’re sitting on a hundred million dollars worth of property that the locals have shown virtually zero interest in owning, what else are you going to believe?

The truth is, a half-million dollars will buy you a 3-bedroom high-rise condo in the city. But drive 20 minutes in any direction, and that same money will buy you a palace, if not two. Local people know that, of course. Hence the new law.

The 1960s

Cambodia video footage circa 1960.

UPDATE: Consensus agrees that the video is not of Cambodia.

Raging bullies

Forty percent of Thais polled recently say Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva should have taken “harsher measures” against Cambodia for its overtures toward Thaksin. A majority 52 percent said Abhisit’s response was “appropriate.”

Prosecutor seeks 40-year sentence for Duch

The BBC reports.

Former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Guek Eav should be jailed for 40 years, a prosecutor has told Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes court.

Kaing, known as Comrade Duch, has admitted responsibility and apologised for overseeing the deaths of 15,000 people at Tuol Sleng prison.

To anyone with an American-frontier sense of justice, 40 years sounds like the kind of sentence someone gets for nicking a candy bar from the local Quick-E Mart.

Dudley Wayne Kyzer, for example, was sentenced by an Alabama court to 10,000 years in prison for killing his wife and two others. Oklahoma rapist Darron Bennalford Anderson was handed 2,200 years, and upon retrial dealt another 90 centuries, “including 4000 years each for rape and sodomy, 1,750 years for kidnaping, 1,000 years for burglary and robbery, and 500 years for grand larceny.”

Duch methodically orchestrated the torture and execution of more than 15,000 people. Forty life sentences would be a relative slap on the wrist. Forty years is practically an admission of innocence.

 

Sambo’s story

VIA Alison: Sin Son, the mahout of Wat Phnom’s world-famous elephant Sambo, tells their story to Al Jazeera.

Talking securities

Available at fine book stores everywhere.

Bunkers for the kiddies

Just as many news outlets are reporting that ties between Thailand and Cambodia are returning to normal, Marwaan Macan-Markar at UPI says that Thailand is building bomb shelters at a school near Preah Vihear and shuttering border crossings.

Children at the largest school in this village close to the Thai-Cambodian border have a new regimen to follow besides books and sports. They have drills, practising evacuation, in case their school comes under an artillery attack.

The destination of such flight is visible across Pom-Sa-Ron Widhaya. Spread around the corners of the school’s playing field and behind the only building where 600 students study are 14 bunkers. Each is built with cement, fortified with sandbags and earth and can hold 30 students comfortably.

The bunkers at the school are among the clearest signs of unease that has swept across this area as relations between Thailand and its eastern neighbour Cambodia worsen. Thai authorities have built 340 bunkers in two schools and several villages in three sub-districts in Sri Saket, the province where Baan Pom-Sa-Ron sits. The bunkers, which have been built over the past three months, cost 40 million baht (1.2 million U.S. dollars).

This almost certainly has more to do with corruption in the Thai military than any perceived threat from Thailand’s neighbor. The idea that Cambodia would launch missiles at school children is absurd. Really, really absurd.

Business as usual

The post-Thaksin recovery appears well-underway.

Air traffic between Thailand and Cambodia has returned to near-normal levels after plummeting at the height of the diplomatic spat earlier this month.

Bangkok-based carriers such as Thai Airways International (THAI) and Bangkok Airways saw bookings start to rebound last week.

… Bangkok Airways, which has the largest capacity between the two countries, saw Thais cancel flights to Siem Reap during the dispute. But there was a steady flow of foreign passengers, especially Europeans, said executives at the airline

… THAI, which has 14 flights a week between Bangkok and Phnom Penh, saw about 40% of reservations cancelled in the week after Thaksin’s visit

… But Thai AirAsia, which operates daily flights between the two capitals, said it was entirely unaffected by the souring of diplomatic ties.

Business with Thailand dropped significantly as a result of  Thaksin Shinawatra’s visit. Most notably, air and overland arrivals plummeted. The decrease hit Poipet casinos hard. Yet as soon as Thaksin left, cross-border trade began recovering. And while traders still fear a border closure, cross-border trade today is business-as-usual. If the tourist are coming back, Thai punters cannot be far behind.

All of which suggests that Thaksin’s visit will go down in history as a barely remembered footnote to November 2009. The long-term cross-country implications nil, the political significance even less. Contrary to the suggestions of hyper-inflated egos on the Thai side, there is just not that much that Thailand can do to punish Cambodia for its lack of fealty.

Cambodia denies Kasit recording

Minister of Defense Tea Banh denies allegations that Cambodia secretly recorded the conversation of the Thai politician.

The Cambodian government has no secret audio recording of Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya ordering an official of Thai embassy in Phnom Penh to obtain the flight schedule of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as claimed by a Puea Thai MP, Cambodian deputy prime minister and defence minister Gen Tea Banh, asserted on Friday.

“I think the person who exposed this case has an ill-intention or a hidden agenda. The person might want to incite war between the two countries and then put the blame on Cambodia,” Gen Tea Banh said in an interview published in the  Thai-language Kom Chad Luek newspaper

The Thai media is full of bogus reports about Cambodia. This is yet another.

Cambodia vs Thailand: the ax-murder effect

This probably qualifies as a new low point in Cambodia-Thai relations.

A Thai labourer allegedly killed a Cambodian co-worker with an axe early Friday after a heated and inebriated argument over the two countries’ deteriorating diplomatic relations, police said.

Thai national Sinchai Namnon, 44, was the chief suspect in the slaying of Cambodian national Dieng, 40, who died shortly after midnight from a gash in the head and a nearly severed arm. Both injuries were inflicted with an axe.

The two men were employees at the Srimaharacha rubber processing company in Sri Racha, Chonburi province, 60 kilometres south-east of Bangkok.

‘They were drinking together and got in an argument about the Thai engineer who was arrested on spying charges in Cambodia last week,’ Police Lieutenant Colonel Praphan Wangkanom said.

The suspect remains on the loose, police added.

CATS Thai staff locked out

Thai workers for Cambodia Air Traffic Services have been banned from CATS buildings.

The order by the Cambodian government came after Phnom Penh filed charges yesterday against Sivarak Chutipong, a Thai engineer working for CATS.

“Cambodia has charged him with stealing classified information affecting national security,” said Chavanond Intarakomalyasut, the secretary to the foreign minister.

The Cambodian government ordered Thai nationals working for CATS to immediately leave the company and prohibited them from re-entering until the legal proceedings against Mr Sivarak are completed, Samart Corporation Plc president Watchai Wilailuck said.

UPDATE: The Post and The Daily on Friday morning  offer conflicting accounts of the situation at CATS. The Post repeats recent claims made by international media in a story with the headline “Govt seizes Thai airport firm.” Over at The Daily, the lead story refutes those claims with the headline “Gov’t Denies Taking Over Thailand’s CATS.”

So which is it?

The Daily talked to three people: Kim San, director of air traffic; an anonymous airport official; and Koy Kuong, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. All three said they knew nothing about a government seizure of CATS.

The Post talked to Phay Siphan, spokesperson for the Council of Ministers. According to the Post:

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said Cambodia’s takeover of CATS was “temporary” but necessary “to ensure national security and public safety.” The financial operations of the company, he added, would not be affected.

Considering the original allegations first appeared in the Thai media, approaching them with an American-sized dollop of skepticism made sense. It seems, however, that skepticism turned into presumption over at The Daily, and instead of talking to the real brokers of power in the country, reporters instead settled for talking to the hired help, who were more likely to follow the script.

Of course, it’s also possible that Phay Siphan misspoke. But that seems unlikely. The Council of Ministers represents Prime Minister Hun Sen’s hand-picked circle of capos. Nothing of national import happens without their knowledge. When they decide something, it stays decided.

Mine-detecting bacteria

Brave new leaps in de-mining.

Bacteria which glow green in the presence of explosives could provide a cheap and safe way to find hidden landmines, Edinburgh scientists claim.

The bugs can be mixed into a colourless solution, which forms green patches when sprayed onto ground where mines are buried.

Edinburgh University said the microbes could be dropped by air onto danger areas.

Within a few hours, they would indicate where the explosives can be found.

How the multi-billion-dollar de-mining industry feels about this remains to be seen.

Strip tease

The government has stripped Sam Rainsy of his parliamentary immunity so the Svay Rieng court can investigate him for conspiracy to commit a Class C misdemeanor, or the local equivalent.

Cambodia’s parliament has stripped opposition leader Sam Rainsy of his immunity from prosecution.

The move was prompted by his reported encouragement to villagers to uproot border markers on the frontier with Vietnam last month.

… Mr Rainsy was charged with misconduct when he encouraged villagers evicted from a border area to uproot wooden posts that had been placed along the newly agreed frontier with Vietnam.

“The National Assembly has lifted the immunity of Sam Rainsy, who committed an act of destruction… and convinced people to commit criminal acts,” the house said in a statement.

In the absence of transparency, it is impossible not to suspect that Vietnam is stealing Cambodian land with the acquiescence of Hun Sen. And the more people talk about that, the more outraged they are likely to become, which is why Hun Sen refuses to let anyone even broach the subject. While enforced silence may be expedient in the short-term, it’s unlikely The Strongman can keep a lid on it forever. And when the top finally does blow, it’s likely to be a messy affair.

The number you are dialing …

Telecom news of the day.

Based on data published by Cambodia’s leading mobile operators, BMI calculates that the Cambodian mobile customer base grew by 15.5% in the first three months of 2009. By the end of March, Cambodia had almost 4.6mn mobile users, equivalent to a penetration rate of around 30%.

The telecom sector has attracted investments of $234 million in the first nine months of 2009, an increase of $199 million over the same period last year. According to this story in The Guardian, cellphone penetration rates hover about 60 percent globally and 48 percent in the developing world.

Swedish hotelier beaten to death

The body of Jan Jordansson was discovered early Saturday morning along a stretch of road in Kandal province known as a dumping ground for dead bodies.

The 45-year-old man disappeared from his hotel room in the Cambodian capital on Thursday. His body was found in Kandal province south of the city on Friday.

The man has lived in the south-east Asian country for several years and ran a hotel operation in the coastal city of Sihanoukville, according to the Expressen newspaper.

The man is reported to have met a woman over the internet and on Thursday evening was seen leaving his hotel in her company.

The man’s safe deposit box in his hotel room was later found forced open and police suspect that he was murdered in the course of a well-planned robbery.

Sihanoukville-Cambodia blog has a page in memory.

Spy vs spy

Local news reports that Cambodia has arrested another Thai spy, this time in Siem Reap. The Thai military is insulted.

The Royal Thai Armed Forces Headquarters on Saturday rejected a Cambodian news report that one of its security staff was arrested on spying charges.

A Cambodian newspaper reported that an officer identified as Manit from the Armed Forces Security Centre, an intelligence unit, was arrested at City Angkor, a hotel in Siem Reap where former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was staying.

Sitthichai Makkunchorn, the Supreme Command’s spokesman, said the Cambodian press was misinformed and its coverage blemished the agency’s reputation.

“There is no staff member [in the unit] by the name of Manit as reported by them [Cambodia's media]. A surname should have been given to make an investigation easy,” he said.

More to come, no doubt.

Cambodia arrests Thai ’spy’

Xinhua reads Rasmei Kampuchea:

Cambodian Police Authority has arrested a Thai engineer for allegedly spying for Thailand and sent him to court, police official said on Friday.

… The Thai man named Siwarak Chothipong in Khmer, 31, worked as aengineer in CATS, was arrested on Wednesday according to the arrest warrant of prosecutor of Phnom Penh Municipality Court, theKhmer language newspaper Rasmei Kampuchea reported.

He spied through copying the letters of flights of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Cambodia and Prime Minister Hun Sen from CATS – Cambodia Air Traffic Services Co Ltd which hasduties to control all flights in country…and he sent those reports to Thailand, the newspaper said.

In related news, both English dailies today say that Cambodia has booted Bangkok’s first secretary out of the country. Thailand has responded in kind.

UPDATE: Xinhua reports that the first secretary was part of the spying case. The Beeb has more.

Hun Sen vs Abhisit Vejjajiva

Hun Sen rips Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva a new one.

If Abhisit is so sure of himself, then he should call an election. What are you afraid of? Is it that you are afraid you will no longer be the PM? Are you afraid that Puea Thai party will win the election?

I am Prime Minister of Cambodia who has received two-thirds of the vote in the Cambodian parliament. How many does Than Abhisit have? You’ve stolen somebody else’s chair to seat yourself in. You claim other people’s property as your own. How can we respect that?

[...]

Referring to the accusation that Cambodia does not respect the Thai court, I don’t see any value in the Thai justice system worthy of respect.

In the past, Khieu Samphan or Noun Chea [of the Khmer Rouge] were allowed to live [given refuge] in Thailand before they were arrested upon entering Cambodia. Thailand had signed a pact not to support the Khmer Rouge.

Thailand did more than violate international law. It had signed a peace pact. And it violated many things. Thai people should consider this. If Thailand does not respect international law, how can you expect us to respect Thai law?

Read the whole thing. There’s lots more.

POSTSCRIPT: The Nation has a slightly different transcript of this interview.

The new Phnom Penh

There’s a new blog on the block: Phnom Penh. The focus — surprise, surprise — is the capital, and there’s lots of old-timey pictures and interesting Phnom Penh trivia. The most recent post asserts that Tuol Sleng was actually much, much larger than most people realize. Interesting stuff. Check it out.

The diplomatic kiss off

AFP captures the moment: Eat Sophea from the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs hands an unnamed Thai diplomat a letter officially rejecting Thailand’s request to extradite exiled Thai politician Thaksin Shinawatra. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen cited Article 3 of the extradition treaty, which covers political exiles, in his reason for refusing the request. Cambodia regards the charges against Thaksin as politically motivated.

Hun Sen, champion of democracy

Prime Minister Hun Sen is turning up the heat on his Thai counterpart.

The spat between Bangkok and Phnom Penh was in danger of turning uglier yesterday as Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen talked of banning Thai goods if Bangkok closes the border between the two countries.

[...]

On Cambodian TV on Sunday night, he further needled Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, challenging him to call a snap election and saying that the pro-Thaksin opposition party, Puea Thai, would win it.

Hun Sen, who has been in power for close to 30 years, also said that if Thailand closed the border between the two countries, Cambodia would ban all Thai products.

The PM’s statement significantly turns up the heat on the Thai junta. It also strongly suggests that Thaksin’s current visit to Cambodia is not merely some political stunt designed to enrage the Thai establishment — although it is certainly that — but part of a larger strategy aimed at regime change in Thailand. It’s hard to underestimate the stakes in such a gamble. The danger of war, say some analysts, has never been greater.

Nationalist groups in Thailand, especially the royalist “Yellow Shirts” who blockaded Bangkok’s airports last year, have been urging the new government to take a hard line.

“How bad it gets depends entirely on whether Abhisit can keep his cool and resist pressure from those who are intent on escalation of this conflict,” said Michael Montesano, a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

“But if he keeps making announcements of the kind he has made in the past few days then things could get much, much worse.”

Cambodia refuses Thailand’s request to extradite Thaksin

As expected.

Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry refused Wednesday to receive Thailand’s request to extradite fugtive ex-Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, sources said.

Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh in the morning handed over the request to the Cambodia’s foreign ministry to take Thaksin who is in Phnom Penh for the second day.

However the Thai embassy was informed that the ministry will  have to wait for recommendation from its PM’s Office.

 

Cruel Him

Elena Lesley talks to Him Huy, a jailer at S-21 in the 70s.

Him Huy asks us to come upstairs and we climb a ladder into the house’s only room. As we sit on a new straw mat, he offers us tea and warm corn cakes. Immediately Him Huy strikes me as a charismatic person. He jokes with Huy Vannak about the court-issued jacket he wore to testify and when he laughs, the network of fault lines on his face crinkles into an all-consuming smile.

His demeanour becomes far more somber, however, when we start discussing Duch and S-21. Him Huy says he never wanted to join the Khmer Rouge, but because he came from an area that supported the guerilla movement, he had no choice. He left home to fight when he was around sixteen and tried to run away several times. Like a schoolboy, he says he even faked illness and fabricated family problems because he missed his mom and her homemade Khmer cupcakes.

Although his superiors told him and other young troops they were ‘fighting imperialist forces,’ Him Huy says he never understood Khmer Rouge ideology.

‘I was too young to understand,’ he says. ‘I asked, “What are imperialists? What is capitalism?” And they told us, “They are the groups that make the difference between rich and poor.”

Far from demons, most Khmer Rouge killers were just everyday people trapped in a dissolute chapter of history.

Him Huy walks us down the dirt path back to our car and thanks us for coming. He stands at the highway’s edge, smiling and waving, as we begin the drive back to Phnom Penh. In so many ways, he is completely unremarkable. If he hadn’t been a certain age at a certain time in an area of Cambodia that supported the Khmer Rouge, he probably would have never become a killer.

As humans, survival is hard-coded into our DNA. Faced with live-or-die choices, no one should be surprised by those who choose life.

This is why, as [Theary] Seng says, we should approach our judgments of former Khmers Rouge with ‘a sense of humility. If we had been in their position, maybe we would have done the same thing.’

Or died trying.