Cambodia: Rebuilding lives after Typhoon Ketsana

http://www.reliefweb.int/
Source: Oxfam
Date: 19 Oct 2009

Thach You, like thousands of others in Cambodia, is struggling to keep a roof over her family's head and find enough food for her children following a season of devastating floods. Oxfam is providing relief assistance.

Flooding is not new for Thach You, a 25-year-old mother of five. Thach's house, which stands on stilts, is flooded for a week almost every year. But this year, floodwaters have reached higher and have lasted for three months. Around her house and beyond, a vast body of water covers over 80 percent of the rice fields vital to the local livelihoods in her village.

Like most of the 47 families in Toul Char, a village 143 miles north of Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, Thach's family left their house to escape the danger and since mid-July they have taken refuge on higher ground. This was especially warranted after two near- fatal incidents with her two-year-old daughter who fell into the flood waters.

Conditions grew worse for Thach's family on September 29 after typhoon Ketsana, which coincided with the annual floods, dumped heavy rains on the region. The family's temporary shelter, made of palm leaves and tree branches, was no match for the onslaught.

"On the night of the typhoon, the wind was so strong that the roof could not stand it anymore," said Thach. The wind tore it off. "The downpour of rain was frightening. I used sleeping mats to cover my four children and a blanket to cover my then two-week-old daughter while my husband and I were trembling in the rainwater praying for the storm to end."

The same storm devastated parts of the Philippines, Vietnam, and Laos.

Across Cambodia, the storm affected an estimated 100,000 people. Floods and heavy rain hit eight provinces in central and northern Cambodia. Oxfam's reports show 10,867 families being affected with 19 deaths in Kampong Thom province alone. Oxfam is now focusing relief efforts on three hard-hit provinces: Kampong Thom, Kratie, and Stueng Treng. About 97,000 people in the three provinces are affected with 40,000 hectares of rice fields destroyed. Public infrastructure and private property, including houses and livestock, were damaged or lost, causing major disruption to people's livelihoods.

Keeping her family safe

After the typhoon destroyed her roof, Thach had to find palm leaves to rebuild it—while the rain kept pouring, sometimes non-stop for days. Every day, the family looked for food and hoped that the rain would stop.

When Thach's village finally became accessible, she received an Oxfam relief kit containing one plastic sheet, one water filter, two sleeping mats, one mosquito net, one krawma (a traditional multi-purpose scarf in Cambodia), one sarong, one kettle, two 16-liter buckets, one 80-liter bucket, and a bar of soap. These items have helped her to make the living conditions a little better and to ensure that the family has clean drinking water which will help fend off some waterborne diseases.

Thach told Oxfam that finding enough food for her family has been a challenge. A month earlier, she had received 60 kilograms of rice from a relief organization, but that food was long gone because she had to feed the family and return some of the rice she had borrowed from others. To get by, Thach and her husband skip meals so that their children can have more. But malnutrition is already visible.

"Now, it's extremely difficult to borrow rice from others because everybody is in urgent need of rice," Thach said. "Today I could only borrow four kilograms of cassavas and this will keep my children full for only two days."

Oxfam is working to assist 5,000 other hard-hit households by distributing relief items. It has reached 75 percent of them, but the challenges are growing.

"More efforts by humanitarian agencies are needed as receding waters become shallow, disrupting delivery of aid by boat," said Francis Perez, country lead of Oxfam International in Cambodia. "Oxfam will consider giving cash for food if that is the only resort to avoid hunger."

Concern about public health

Food isn't the only worry for Thach's family. Health is also an issue—one that Oxfam is concerned about, too, as water-related diseases are increasing and access to medical care for many people is difficult.

In Thach's village, Chief Houen Chea said only four families in his community went to a health center within the last three months. The nearest one is nearly five miles away and now a boat is necessary to reach it.

Thach's husband, Lun Peang, can hardly walk as his foot was cut with a bamboo thorn. The foot continues to swell and he cannot perform even the basic daily chores. But Lun never sought medical help.

"Even if the public health center does not charge me fees, I will not go because I do not have the $1 I need to pay for the boat to the center," Lun said.

Oxfam plans to reach an additional 5,000 families in the recovery phase in the next three to six months to help provide sanitation, rehabilitate safe water sources, and ensure food and livelihood security for the affected communities.

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From Killing Fields to Fields of Dreams

SPORTING YOUTH: A Cambodian boy plays soccer in front of Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, 17 June 2006. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images )

By John Perra

Cambodia is an unlikely place for baseball. There is chronic poverty, lingering post-war trauma, and rampant human trafficking. Children are more likely to work or rummage through the fetid muck of the Steung Meanchey dump than go to school or play.

But for the last seven years, Joe Cook, a Cambodian refugee, has been teaching the game in his homeland, building Cambodia's first ball field. Last year, he even managed to put together a national team. In March, they finally won their first game, playing a short series against a team from Vietnam. Considering the violent history the two countries share, just playing the game was an accomplishment beyond any scorecard.

Becoming Joe Cook

For Joe Cook, playing games came to an abrupt end in August 1975. He was Jouret Puk then, the son of a high-ranking Cambodian official who commanded nearly 3,000 troops. "My little sister and I were playing behind our house," Cook remembers. "All of a sudden we saw people dressed in black and red marching toward us. We were scared and we hid behind a tree." Those people were the Khmer Rouge and they invaded his village, burning homes to the ground. "They got us all in one place," he recalls, "then they forced us to march to a camp," he says. Cook's father was killed, and his family was split up and forced into labor camps. Cook's youngest sisters were among the 2 million executed by Pol Pot's regime. In 1978, Cook, then eight, escaped his camp with his mother and oldest brother, trying to reach the Thai border.

For a week, they made their way barefoot. "It was only 18 miles to the border but it turned into 80 because we had to keep moving back and forth, criss-cross because landmines were everywhere. So were the Khmer Rouge, and the Vietnamese who had just invaded."

The three refugees had only a small cup of rice between them, so to survive they ate crickets, grass, leaves, and tree bark. "I can remember catching frogs and eating them alive," Cook says. The pools of water they came across were polluted with the dead bodies of pigs, cows, and people. "I tried to brush the blood back to drink," he recalls, "It was so thick and bitter." Bodies lined the roads and when they ran into other people escaping from the camps, they would barter for food.

Finally, they made it to the Thai border and then to a series of refugee camps. In the Philippines, they found a sponsor through the U.S. embassy and arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee in May 1983. "We couldn't even pronounce Tennessee. And we thought America must be near France because you had to take a plane to both of them," he says.

In America

There, everything was new. "I thought it was like a dream," Cook says, "A stove, a toilet, a TV. It was fascinating." And then there was the game he saw being played near his home.

"All I knew was that it was some kind of sport," he says. It was baseball. "I watched them behind a fence," he recalls, "I saw them having fun. I saw happy faces. As a kid in Cambodia, there was never happiness. But I knew in baseball is happiness. I kept going back every day. Finally I got the guts to go onto the field."

Through a combination of limited English and gestures, he made it clear to the coach that he wanted to play too. "When he gave me a glove so I could play catch, it felt like he had given me the whole uniform. I was like the other kids," he recalls. It was the start of a deep passion.

Baseball was also a way to assimilate. He became "Joe Cook," a chef in a Japanese steakhouse in Alabama, listening to Atlanta Braves baseball on the radio in his kitchen. He married and had two children.

In 2002, Cook's older sister Chamty, who he thought had perished, called from Cambodia. After years of brutality in the labor camps, she had been released in 1990 and used the Internet to track down members of her family. Cook agreed to reunite with her in Cambodia.

As a way of honoring him, Chamty wanted to travel to the airport to meet him. But the transportation costs were more than she could afford. She made a difficult decision. So as not to lose her brother again, she sold her son to traffickers. "When I arrived and found out, I was devastated," Cook says, choking up, "She didn't understand that I could've met her anywhere. I never would've wanted her to do that." The first thing he did was buy back his nephew, Chea Theara, for $86.

MINE FIELD: British sporting legend Bobby Charlton (L) walks out from a mines field at Ratanak Mondol district in Battambang province some 350 kilometers north west of Phnom Penh, 25 July 2007. Charlton arrived in Cambodia on 24 July, for a goodwill visit that is hoped to boost the country's ailing sports programme. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images)

Bringing Baseball Home

"He was so happy, so proud that his uncle had the ability to do that, he wanted to show me his town and also share his town with me," says Cook. Chea showed Cook his school in Baribo, a village in Kampong Chhang province about 68 miles west of Phnom Penh, and near it an open field.

Cook thought it would make a good spot for a baseball diamond. "What's baseball?" Chea asked. "It's a crazy game that I love," Cook told him, "I'll come back and bring equipment and teach you."

And he did. Eventually he built Cambodia's first baseball field in Baribo and began instructing kids there in the fundamentals of the game. Soon he was feeding them, teaching them English, and establishing the national team that includes Chea on its roster.

For several years, Cambodia's government wanted to shut down baseball in Cambodia. It was too American for them, according to Cook. "They kept saying, 'how about soccer?'" he says.

Although also a product of Western influence when the French brought it to Cambodia in the 1930s, soccer has been a hugely popular sport in the country for decades. The skill of Cambodia's players was the envy of much of Southeast Asia until the Khmer Rouge all but put an end to the sport. It wasn't until the 1990s that Cambodian soccer began to regain its strength, with teams competing and winning in international tournaments.

Likewise, Pradal Serey, an ancient boxing style best known for its martial arts roots and kicking technique, has begun to reemerge as a national sport. It too was nearly lost to history when the Khmer Rouge banned traditional martial arts and executed its boxers.

But Cambodia has spent more than a decade now regaining its athletic prominence. It returned to the Olympics in 1996 after a 24-year absence and has participated in those games ever since.

Coming Around to Baseball

Despite the national focus on soccer, Cook kept baseball in Cambodia going, supporting the game out of his own pocket and getting some help with equipment and coaches from Major League Baseball. Then this year, the national team started winning, beating Vietnam in that friendly series and gaining professional bragging rights by besting Malaysia in May in an official game between the countries. A governor donated land for another field after that.

Cambodia's people are starting to come around to the game. Other baseball clubs and organizations have sprung up in the past few months, including one in the capital city of Phnom Penh. The organizer of that group is a young man in his earlier twenties who calls Cook "Bong," the Khmer word for "brother," a sign of respect. That pleases Cook and he laughs, "I am baseball's big brother." In reality, Cook is now president of the Cambodia Baseball Federation.

In August, Cook developed the first regional leagues within Cambodia. The Braves, representing the west, and the Royals, in the east, play each other nearly every day. "Someday I want to build a stadium here," says Cook. The image of a stadium leaves even him, baseball's true believer here, awestruck. "Can you imagine a baseball stadium in Cambodia?" he asks.

John Perra is a journalist, a contributor to Ancient Gonzo Wisdom: Interviews with Hunter S. Thompson (Da Capo 2009), and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, where this article first appeared.

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Cambodia in Pictures

A Cambodian boy rows a boat to transport children from the neighborhoods to a school as it rains in Kamdal province, 25 km (15 miles) east of Phnom Penh October 19, 2009. RUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Cambodian children row a boat to transport other children from the neighborhoods to a school as it rains in Kamdal province, 25 km (15 miles) east of Phnom Penh October 19, 2009, after a deadly typhoon hit the country last month. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Residents live in a flooded house in Kamdal province, 25 km (15 miles) east of Phnom Penh October 19, 2009, after a deadly typhoon hit the country last month. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Houses stand in floodwaters in Kamdal province, 25 km (15 miles) east of Phnom Penh October 19, 2009, after a deadly typhoon hit the country last month. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (Posted by CAAI News Media)

Residents pass flooded houses in Kamdal province, 25 km (15 miles) east of Phnom Penh October 19, 2009, after a deadly typhoon hit the country last month. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Cambodian children go to school by boat in Kamdal province, 25 km (15 miles) east of Phnom Penh, October 19, 2009 after a deadly typhoon hit the country last month. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

School children arrive at school after they were transported from the neighbourhoods by a boat rowed by a Cambodian boy in Kamdal province, 25 km (15 miles) east of Phnom Penh October 19, 2009, after a deadly typhoon hit the country last month. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Children play near flooded houses in Kamdal province, 25 km (15 miles) east of Phnom Penh October 19, 2009, after a deadly typhoon hit the country last month. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

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A godmother confessed to torturing her 11 year-old goddaughter

from; http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2009/10/godmother-confessed-to-torturing-her-11.html

62 year-old Var Savoeun, 41 year-old Meas Nary and 62 year-old Thoeng Reth were handcuffed a long with brooms, electric cords and pliers Meas Nary used to beat and twist Sreyneang's flesh.

By Khmerization

41 year-old Meas Nary, who was arrested for cruelty against 11 year-old Sreyneang, who is her goddaughter, had confessed to torturing the girl for the period of 7 months, reports Deum Ampil.

On 16th October, Meas Nary, her 62 year-old husband, Var Savoeun, who were supposed to be Sreyneang's godparents, along with 62 year-old Thoeng Reth, who was supposed to be Sreyneang's adopted mother, were arrested for cruelty against the girl, including beatings and torturing her with sticks, electric cords and pinching her with pliers, leaving horrific scars on her body. (Read previous report and see the girl's body scars here).

According to police documents, Sreyneang was an orphan who had been put in the care of 62 year-old Thoeng Reth when she was one year old. Thoeng Reth said that at that time, her mother promised to pay her 60,000 riels ($15) per months for looking after the girl. But she never received the 60,000 riels promised to her. Later, the girl's mother died of a car accident.

In 2008, Thoeng Reth met Meas Nary and her husband who were both teachers. Thoeng Reth gave the girl to Meas Nary and her husband and in exchange the couple paid her $400.

Sreyneang said that she was beaten, tortured and abused 2 months after she arrived at the couple's house. She said that Var Savoeun, who is a teacher at Western Private School, had slapped her face several times and his wife, Meas Nary, who is a teacher at Santhor Mok High School, had confessed to beating the girl with sticks, brooms, electric cords and twisting her flesh with pliers. But she said she'd done that because she wanted to teach the girl to be a good person. "I know I've done the wrong things, but the reason I've beaten her was because I was angry with her and I wanted her to be a good girl", said Meas Nary.

On Saturday 17th, Haggar Ha, a child protection NGO, has taken Sreyneang under its care permanently. Ms. Sue Hanna, director of Haggar Ha, promised to care for Sreyneang and provides her with a good future and a good education.

Top: Haggar Ha representatives met with police and 11 year-old Sreyneang (in green). Below: Sue Hanna and other good Samaritans gave the girl some gifts.

After the publicity, Phnom Penh Governor, Mr. Kep Chutema had donated $300 to the girl and Mr. Khuong Sreng, governor of Sok San district where the girl has lived, has promised to help the girl to overcome her difficulties.

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Cambodia Seeks to Muzzle its Opposition

Monday, 19 October 2009
Written by Bryony Taylor
Asia Sentinel

"A disproportionate use of civil defamation suits by any government has the chilling effect of silencing a political life that for progress must thrive. While Singapore is an economic success, Cambodia is far from it and is yet to be considered an attractive destination for foreign direct investment. A decoupling of defamation from criminal law must coincide with a government taking lessons in constructive criticism. Without this, it is the Cambodia people who continue to lose out with a legislature, executive and judiciary, neither of which are accountable to those they rule."

New criminal libel laws put a serious dent in press freedom

After escorting United Nations officials out of the National Assembly, Cambodia's ruling party last week pushed through a draft criminal code that is regarded as yet another barrier to freedom of speech in a country becoming infamous for silencing opposition members and journalists.

Cambodia is thus in danger of going down the same road as other Southeast Asian countries in making it easier to file bring criminal libel charges designed to stifle dissent, both from the opposition and the press although its English-language newspapers remain relatively free today.

None of the members of the UN Human Rights team were allowed back into the Assembly during the debate on the code, and the television feed conveniently broke down during discussions on the code's most contentious issues regarding defamation. Ruling party members blamed the UN altercation on a change in visiting procedure paperwork and the television interruption on external feed problems.

"We did not throw them out," said Chheang Vun, Cambodia's former ambassador to Geneva. "The secretary-general for the National Assembly banned them from getting in." He warned that the situation should not be used for political gain by opposition lawmakers.

Since April 2009 the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has noted that Cambodia's government has lodged eight separate criminal defamation and disinformation complaints against opposition lawmakers, protesting civilians and newspaper editors. Two Khmer language newspapers have been forced to close after their editors were sued, and separately a student was arrested for spraying anti-government slogans on his house.

Under the new draft criminal code, media defamation cannot be considered a criminal offense and will instead be covered by Cambodia's press law. Anyone other than journalists may face fines of between $25 and $2,500 for public defamation, which the code describes as "all exaggerated declarations, or those that intentionally put the blame for any actions, which affect the dignity or reputation of a person or an institution."

Individual interpretation of these words could well lead to further curtailing of critics' remarks.

"It is a shame that the authorities did not take advantage of the drafting of the new Penal Code to remove defamation," said Brittis Edman, Amnesty International's Cambodian Researcher. "We have long called for a decriminalization of defamation; the criminal justice system is not the appropriate channel for resolving defamation cases; they are better settled under civil law and should not violate the freedom of expression."

"[The code] currently includes a number of provisions which unduly restrict freedom of expression," said the British human rights group Article 19, which lobbies for freedom of speech. It also pointed out that the broad defamation statute also appears to leave out truth as a defense against defamation charges.

"These rules should apply only to incorrect factual statements made without reasonable grounds. It should not be an offence to make a defamatory statement which is true or which is a reasonable opinion," it said.

The Washington, DC-based Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission convened a meeting last month in Phnom Penh to discuss Cambodia's situation regarding freedom of expression. Testimony by three prominent Cambodians — opposition SRP lawmaker Mu Sochua, labour advocate Moeun Tola and Kek Pung, founder of Licadho, a domestic NGO — detailed a litany of lawsuits filed by members of the ruling party curbing free speech similar to the methodology of Malaysia and Singapore's previous use of defamation.

Hun Sen's ruling CPP party rejected any accusation put forth at the hearing regarding the abuse of human rights in the country, condemning Sochua particularly for giving ‘false testimony' in a biased and misleading manner. They also highlighted Cambodia's free press.

Sochua was convicted for defaming Prime Minister Hun Sen in a ‘he said, she said' battle of lawsuits, which she faced without a lawyer after her representative was threatened with the loss of his career. Hun Sen famously insulted a strong and prominent woman widely believed to have been Sochua with the colloquial insult "cheung klang" — strong leg — in a nationally broadcast speech on April 4 2009.

She filed a defamation suit soon after. Hun Sen however, countersued on the basis that her filing against him was itself defamation and countersued. Her case was dismissed and she lost her defense, leaving her to appeal against the conviction fine of 16.5 million riels (US$3,971).

Sochua has embarked upon a battle for freedom of speech with considerable fire and PR savvy more often seen in the West. Such has been her success in bringing attention to what she calls Cambodia's "sham democracy" that delegations from the EU, a new and more forthright UN human rights rapporteur and countless damnations from NGOs and human rights groups have questioned her treatment. The US embassy in Phnom Penh has been ordered to monitor her safety and report back. But will it make a difference? History says not.

While Cambodia's Asean neighbors Singapore and Malaysia have a long history of using similar methodologies to curtail criticism and Indonesia's criminal defamation laws have the potential to bring editors to bear, according to Human Rights Watch, compared to their Asean neighbors governmental critics in Cambodia face greater penalties and actual fear of violence.

Brad Adams, HRW's Asia Director said: "Sadly, democracy is not a term I would apply to Cambodia. Aside from having elections every five years, almost all the other elements are missing. The trend is negative and with the continuing consolidation of power by Hun Sen, not least in the military, it is hard to see the trend reversing. Hun Sen has shown little ability to change over the years, to become more tolerant of criticism, less autocratic and work to create enduring, competent and independent institutions. Massive corruption and greed among those in power is at the heart of the problem, yet no steps are being taken to address it. It is depressingly similar to what has happened in Malaysia and Singapore over the years."

In an Amnesty International report concerning the actions of the Singaporean government during the period, the NGO highlighted the very same concerns that are repeated in Cambodia today. "The intended [and expected] effect of these suits, it is believed, has been to inhibit the public activities of opposition politicians."

There is very little difference between this and the ongoing actions in Cambodia, Mu Sochua says. "When [the] government of a non or semi-democratic regime is in control of the judiciary, their opponents will continue to be victims of such a lack of independence in the judiciary. However, by continuing to pursue this practice, the leaders in power will discredit themselves at the end. I believe that there will be a break point but it has to be worse before it can be better." She added that while total judicial forms were unlikely without a change in leadership, she hoped aid donors would only provide further help on a conditional basis tied to freedom of speech.

A disproportionate use of civil defamation suits by any government has the chilling effect of silencing a political life that for progress must thrive. While Singapore is an economic success, Cambodia is far from it and is yet to be considered an attractive destination for foreign direct investment. A decoupling of defamation from criminal law must coincide with a government taking lessons in constructive criticism. Without this, it is the Cambodia people who continue to lose out with a legislature, executive and judiciary, neither of which are accountable to those they rule.

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Phnom Penh's anti-drugs chief charged with possession, bribery

Mon, 19 Oct 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - The head of Phnom Penh's anti-drugs police team has been charged with illegal possession of drugs and taking bribes from arrested drug dealers, national media reported Monday. Lieutenant-Colonel Touch Muysor was suspended earlier this month after police found thousands of amphetamine tablets in his office.

A court prosecutor told the Cambodia Daily newspaper that Lt-Col Touch was formally charged over the weekend, but had been under suspicion since 2005.

The prosecutor said one charge relates to possession of drugs, while the other is for taking bribes to ensure that the cases of arrested dealers were shelved before even making it to court.

Lt-Col Touch is the second ranking officer in Cambodia's drugs force to be arrested this month. On October 2, Bun Pov, a lieutenant in the national anti-drugs police force, was arrested just one week into the job after police raided his home and found 18 kilograms of heroin and methamphetamine tablets.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation was involved in a series of arrests the same day which saw seven dealers apprehended. However police would not say whether any of the cases were linked.

Cambodia has long been seen as a regional transit point for drugs shipments.

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Bomb injures 28 in southern Thailand provincial capital

Oct 19, 2009
DPA

Pattani, Thailand - An explosion Monday at a crowded morning market in Yala City injured 28 people, two of them critically, army sources said.

The bomb, planted inside a motorcycle that was parked near a pork meat vendor at Yala's open-air market, exploded at 7:30 am, injuring the civilians and three soldiers, First Army Region chief Lieutenant General Phichit Wisaijorn said.

He blamed Muslim separatists for the latest act of violence.

'We had received a tipoff to prepare for a car bomb, but they used a motorcycle instead,' Phichit said. Police reportedly checked the parked motorcycle minutes before it went off, but failed to detect the bomb.

Thailand's three southernmost provinces - Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala - have been plagued by violence since January 4, 2004, when Muslim militants raided an army depot, killing four soldiers and making off with 300 weapons, escalating the separatist struggle.

An estimated 3,500 people have died in clashes, bombings, revenge killings and beheadings in Thailand's so-called deep south

Besides a long-simmering separatist struggle in the region, which borders Malaysia, the three provinces have a recent history of lucrative but illicit trade in smuggling, drugs and protection rackets.

About 80 per cent of the region's 2 million people are Muslims. Of the 300,000 Thai Buddhists who lived in the region, some 70,000 have reportedly left their homes over the past six years.

Although the region, which centuries ago was the independent Islamic sultanate of Pattani, was conquered by Bangkok about 200 years ago, it has never wholly submitted to Thai rule.

Analysts said the region's Muslim population, the majority of whom speak a Malay dialect and follow Malay customs, feels alienated from the predominantly Buddhist Thai state.

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Anti-drug trafficking officer arrested for drug possession

19 October 2009
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Following the suspension of the director of the anti-drug trafficking of the Phnom Penh police office on 09 October, Touch Muy Sor was arrested in the afternoon of 15 October 2009 at the Ministry of Interior. The arrest of Touch Muy Sor takes place 2 days after 8,000 methamphetamine (ecstasy) pills were found hidden in his office. These 8,000 ecstasy pills are valued at about $100,000. According to a group of police officers, Major Touch Muy Sor became the director of the anti-drug trafficking office when Heng Pov was the Phnom Penh police commissioner, and Touch Muy Sor was one of Heng Pov’s close confidants and right hand men.

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Cambodia to try men who robbed Vietnam jewellery store

Mon, 19 Oct 2009
DPA

Hanoi - Cambodian police have arrested one of four men who allegedly stole a kilogram of gold and 20,000 dollars from a jewellery store in Vietnam, a Vietnamese police official said Monday. Cambodian citizen Chum Chech, 24, was arrested in Cambodia's Prey Veng province based on information supplied by Vietnamese police, said Lieutenant Colonel Pham Van Cao of the provincial police in Tay Ninh province.

Chech is accused of being one of four men who robbed a jewellery store in Tay Ninh on April 14.

"We cannot extradite him for trial in Vietnam because the two countries have not signed an extradition treaty," Cao said. "The robbers will be tried in Cambodia under Cambodian law."

Cao said Chech had named his accomplices, who were reportedly armed and hiding in Cambodia.

He reportedly confessed that the group decided to rob the store because they needed money for a Cambodian holiday. They bought the two AK-47s and crossed into Vietnam on motorbikes and went to Tan Lap market, according to police.

They made the jewellery store owner to open his safe, and then forced him, his wife, and a housekeeper into a room and locked the door before fleeing back to Cambodia, police said.

Cao said police were still searching for the other three men.

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Attack on a Viet director of a Cambodia Angkor Air office branch

19 October 2009
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The director of an office branch of Cambodia Angkor Air, who is a Vietnamese citizen, was pursued by 2 unknown men riding a motorcycle. The pair followed him to his house and started to shoot him, but fortunately, the Viet director was not hit by the shots. This incident took place at house No. 23 on Street No. 310, Boeung Keng Kang I commune, Chamcar Mon district, Phnom Penh, at 12:15 AM on 16 October 2009. Truong Chin Vu is the name of the 39-year-old Vietnamese citizen who was attacked, he was staying at the guesthouse where the incident took place. Truong Chin Vu told the police that he never had any dispute with anybody in Cambodia. The reason for the shooting is unknown. The police said that,

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Vietnam: Sharp Backsliding on Religious Freedom

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh returned to Vietnam in 2005 after years in exile. Despite initially welcoming the monk to open a Buddhist center at Bat Nha monastery in Lam Dong province, in September 2009 Vietnamese authorities launched a violent crackdown on Thich Nhat Hanh’s followers at the monastery. (Reuters)

Harsh Crackdown on Followers of Buddhist Peace Activist Thich Nhat Hanh

October 18, 2009
Human Rights Watch

"Once again Vietnam has clamped down on a peaceful religious group – even one that was initially welcomed by the government. The government views many religious groups, particularly popular ones that it fears it can’t control, as a challenge to the Communist Party’s authority." - Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch

(New York) - The violent forced expulsion of more than 300 followers of the world-renowned Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh from Bat Nha monastery in late September highlights the Vietnamese government's suppression of religious freedom, Human Rights Watch said today.

In 2005, the Vietnamese government welcomed Thich Nhat Hanh during his first return to his homeland after 39 years in exile abroad. Government and religious officials subsequently invited him to open a Buddhist meditation center at Bat Nha monastery in Lam Dong province, which soon began to draw large numbers of followers.

But on September 27, 2009, police officers cordoned off the monastery as more than 100 thugs and undercover police officers armed with sticks and hammers broke down the doors and forcefully evicted 150 monks - all followers of Thich Nhat Hanh - beating some of the monks in the process. Police reportedly arrested two senior monks, Phap Hoi and Phap Sy, whose whereabouts remain unknown. The next day, in response to threats and coercion, more than 200 Buddhist nuns, also adherents of Thich Nhat Hanh, fled the monastery, seeking temporary refuge with the monks at a nearby pagoda.

"Once again Vietnam has clamped down on a peaceful religious group - even one that was initially welcomed by the government," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The government views many religious groups, particularly popular ones that it fears it can't control, as a challenge to the Communist Party's authority."

The crackdown is thought to be linked in part to proposals Thich Nhat Hanh made during a private meeting with President Nguyen Minh Triet in 2007 - and later made public - urging the government to ease its restrictions on religion.

All religious groups must be authorized by the government and overseen by government-appointed management committees. For Buddhists - the majority of the population - the management entity is the government-sanctioned Vietnamese Buddhist Church (VBC), sometimes referred to as the Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha.

The VBC, which is designated to preside over all Buddhist organizations and "sects" in Vietnam, oversees pagodas and educational institutes. Its approval is required for Buddhist ordinations and ceremonies, donations to pagodas, and temple expansions. It also vets the content of Buddhist publications and religious studies curricula offered at pagoda schools. In 2007, it authorized the establishment of Thich Nhat Hanh's Buddhist training and meditation center at Bat Nha monastery.

Other Buddhist organizations - such as the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) and some Hoa Hao and ethnic Khmer Buddhist congregations - are banned by the government because they choose to operate independently of government-appointed management committees.

The UBCV has faced decades of harassment and repression for seeking independent status and appealing to the government to respect human rights and cease its interference in religious affairs. Its leaders have been threatened, detained, put under pagoda arrest, imprisoned, and placed under strict travel restrictions for many years.

"Sadly, the harassment and expulsion of Buddhists in Lam Dong is not an isolated incident," said Pearson. "Buddhists in Vietnam have long faced harsh treatment and persecution."

Other religious groups, including some Catholics, ethnic minority Christians, Mennonites, and members of the Cao Dai faith, suffer repression and persecution for practicing their faith or conducting peaceful demonstrations calling for religious freedom and the return of church properties confiscated by the government. (For more information, see Background on Religious Freedom, below.)

The Crackdown on Thich Nhat Hanh's Followers

Thich Nhat Hanh - one of the world's most prominent and influential Buddhist monks - first drew international attention in the 1960s as a leader of South Vietnamese Buddhists opposed to the US war in Vietnam, critical of all sides to the conflict. He continued his anti-war activities from exile in France after he left the country in 1965. The government banned him from the country as he increasingly took on human rights issues, including the plight of the thousands of boat people who fled Vietnam after the communist victory in 1975 and the persecution of Buddhist clergy and patriarchs.

In February 2005, Thich Nhat Hanh was warmly welcomed by the Vietnamese government during his widely publicized return from exile. Thousands of Vietnamese attended Buddhist ceremonies, lectures, and monastic retreats led by Thich Nhat Hanh during three visits to Vietnam.

His return took place at a time when the government wanted to present a less-repressive stance toward religion in the hope that the United States would remove Vietnam from its blacklist of countries violating religious freedom, a stepping stone for its entry into the World Trade Organization in 2007.

During Thich Nhat Hanh's second visit to Vietnam in 2007, Thich Duc Nghi, the abbot of Bat Nha monastery and a VBC member, invited him to open a Buddhist center at the monastery. Thich Duc Nghi donated the monastery to Thich Nhat Hanh, whose followers and supporters invested money to rebuild it.

During that trip, Thich Nhat Hanh presented a 10-point proposal for religious reforms in his meeting with Triet. "Please separate religion from politics and politics from religious affairs," Thich Nhat Hanh said. "Please stop all surveillance by the government on religious activities, disband the Government Department for Religious Affairs, but first of all disband the Religious Police. All religious associations should be able to operate freely in accordance to laws and regulations, just like any cultural, commercial, industrial and social associations."

Tensions with the authorities over his calls for religious reforms, as well as the growing popularity of his meditation center, surfaced in 2008. His public support for the Dalai Lama and Tibet, which likely caused China to put pressure on Hanoi, may also have played a role.

In October 2008, the central government's Religious Affairs Committee stated that Thich Nhat Hanh had distorted Vietnam's religious policies and that some of his followers lacked legal rights to live at Bat Nha monastery. The abbot of Bat Nha - reportedly under pressure from his superiors - ordered Thich Nhat Hanh's followers to leave.

In June 2009, water, electricity, and telephone lines were shut off in an effort to force the monks and nuns to leave. Local civilians overran the monastery in June and July, shouting and threatening the monks and nuns, and confiscating food, furniture, and other property. The forced expulsions followed in September.

"The ousting of Thich Nhat Hanh's followers is clearly linked to his call for religious reforms, rather than the alleged failure of his followers to fulfill local residency and registration requirements," said Pearson. "Religious groups should be allowed to conduct religious activities freely, organize and manage themselves, and engage in peaceful expression."

The government accuses Thich Nhat Hanh's followers of conducting "illegal activities" and "abusing the religious regulations of the Communist Party and the government, to sabotage the government and oppose the VBC," according to a confidential memo from the District People's Committee in Lam Dong, dated September 17, 2009, obtained by Human Rights Watch. The directive instructs government officials to pressure Thich Nhat Hanh's followers to relocate to other pagodas under VBC management or return to their home villages.

Buddhists in Vietnam and around the world, as well as foreign embassies in Hanoi, condemned the harassment and eviction of Thich Nhat Hanh's followers. On October 5, 180 Vietnamese academics, poets, teachers, and scientists, including some Vietnamese Communist Party members, sent a petition to the government requesting an investigation into the incident. Even the VBC management board in Lam Dong deplored the crackdown in a confidential report to the VBC executive management council dated October 6, 2009.

Human Rights Watch called on the Vietnamese government to release everyone imprisoned for peaceful religious or political activities, and to end restrictions on religious groups, regardless of whether they affiliate with the officially authorized religious organizations. Human Rights Watch also urged the United States to reinstate Vietnam on its blacklist of countries violating freedom of religion.

"Vietnam's respect for human rights and religious freedom has sharply deteriorated since the US removed it from its blacklist and Vietnam was accepted into the World Trade Organization," said Pearson. "The Vietnamese government should stop treating freedom of religion as a privilege to be granted by the government rather than an inalienable right."

Background on Religious Freedom

Vietnam's 2004 Ordinance on Beliefs and Religions affirms the right to freedom of religion. However, it requires that all religious groups register with the government, and bans any religious activity deemed to cause public disorder, harm national security, or "sow divisions." Adherents of some religious groups that are not officially recognized by the government are persecuted. Security officials disperse their religious gatherings, confiscate religious literature, and summon religious leaders to police stations for interrogation. In some instances, police destroy churches of unauthorized religious groups and detain or imprison their members on charges of violating national security.

Members of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), once the largest organization of Buddhists in southern and central Vietnam, have been threatened, detained, put under pagoda arrest, imprisoned, and placed under strict travel restrictions for many years. In July 2009, for example, police surrounded many UBCV pagodas in southern and central Vietnam to prevent monks - including the current Patriarch, Thich Quang Do - from attending a memorial ceremony for the UBCV patriarch, Thich Huyen Quang, who died in 2008.

While Hoa Hao Buddhism and the Cao Dai religion are officially recognized religions, many members strongly resist official pressure to affiliate with the government-appointed committees that oversees their religious affairs. Two Hoa Hao Buddhists immolated themselves in 2005 to protest religious repression and imprisonment of their leaders. In 2005, nine Cao Dai members were sentenced to up to 13 years in prison on national security charges after they tried to deliver a petition calling for religious freedom to delegates attending an international conference in Cambodia.

The government persecutes other unsanctioned religious groups, such as members of Christian churches not registered with the government-authorized Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN), including independent Mennonite congregations affiliated with Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, a former prisoner of conscience; and ethnic minority Christians in the northern and central Vietnam.

Christian members of indigenous ethnic minority groups in the Central Highlands, commonly referred to as Montagnards, face ongoing persecution and restrictions, particularly in villages where people refuse to join the Evangelical Church of Vietnam, or are suspected of following "Tin Lanh Dega" (Dega Christianity), an unauthorized religion the government considers subversive.

During 2009, at least 40 Montagnard Christians have been arrested in Gia Lai province alone for participating in unregistered "Tin Lanh Dega" house churches. On August 14, for example, police raided a prayer meeting in a home in Chu Se district, badly beating eight Montagnard Christians, including one who had to be hospitalized. In another raid in February, the police arrested 11 Montagnard Christians from several villages, beating and shocking them with electric batons when they refused to sign documents pledging to join the Evangelical Church of Vietnam. During the last year, authorities destroyed at least two churches in Dak Lak province in the Central Highlands.

Hundreds of people are currently imprisoned in Vietnam for their religious or political beliefs, or a combination of the two. They include at least 300 Montagnard Christians; Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest; Nguyen Thi Hong, a Mennonite pastor; members of the Cao Dai faith, and at least five Hoa Hao Buddhists.

In some cases, church leaders who have emerged as civil rights campaigners are charged with national security crimes and sent to prison. This was the case with Father Nguyen Van Ly, who peacefully called for the government to show greater respect and tolerance for human rights, religious freedom and democratic principles. Arrested in 2006, he is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence.

Other prominent religious figures who advocate religious freedom and democratic reforms, such as the UBCV Supreme Patriarch Thich Quang Do and another Catholic priest, Phan Van Loi, have been held under pagoda or house arrest for years.

"In a country such as Vietnam, where the government bans independent human rights organizations, church leaders are often the leading voices advocating for fundamental rights to free speech and religious freedom," said Pearson. "While the Vietnamese government loves to tour visiting dignitaries around crowded churches and model pagodas, it tries to deny the repression of believers that takes place every day."

Conflicts over government confiscation of church properties often go hand-in-hand with increased repression of certain denominations, for example the violent crackdown by police and government-hired thugs in 2008 on peaceful prayer vigils conducted by Catholics calling for the return of church properties in Hanoi. In July 2009, as many as 200,000 Catholics peacefully protested in Quang Binh province after police destroyed a temporary church structure erected near the ruins of the historic Tam Toa Church in Vinh Diocese. Police used tear gas and electric batons to beat parishioners who resisted, arresting 19, of whom seven were charged with disturbing public order.

US Lifting of Restrictions

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other human rights covenants, Vietnam is obligated to respect freedom of expression, religious belief, and worship.

In 2004, the US State Department designated Vietnam a "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC) because of what it called "particularly severe violations of religious freedom." In 2006, the State Department removed Vietnam from the list, citing the release of religious prisoners and less-restrictive legislation governing religion. Two months later, the US granted Vietnam permanent normal trade status, which led to Vietnam's membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The lifting of Vietnam's CPC status by the US was deemed premature by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and many international human rights and religious freedom groups. After a visit to Vietnam in May 2009, the commission recommended once again that the US reinstate Vietnam on the list, stating that "Vietnam's overall human rights record remains poor, and has deteriorated since Vietnam joined WTO in January 2007."

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Combing Cambodia's idyllic coast

Photo by: Tracey Shelton

Discard raucous city vibes for intimate charms of the coast.

Monday, 19 October 2009 15:00 Clarence Heathcliffe

Sink into seaside pleasures of unspoilt luxury and escapism

There is something soothing about the ritual at Koh Kong immigration once you get used to it.

First, there is the throng of spivs offering useless advice and needless assistance, then there is the profoundly dishonest and shifty-looking immigration official quoting prices that he seems to make up on the spot.

Hardened travellers might enjoy the interview in the office with the gimlet-eyed lady who officiates. It is extremely unlikely that you will actually pay the real price, though apocryphal stories do exist of those who have the time and inclination to wait two hours and negotiate with tenacity.

Welcome to the Kingdom of Cambodia. You have arrived at the border crossing on the Gulf of Siam, now quite a busy route because a road exists from here to the resort town of Sihanoukville and on to the coastal towns of Kampot and Kep.

Koh Kong itself might not appeal to the traveller used to the more ordered society of Thailand: There are no 7-11s or other detritus of Western influences. Instead you have crumbling, spacious buildings and uncrowded, if not particularly clean streets.

The main attractions do not lie in the town itself – though the Westerners who live there seem to enjoy themselves well enough by patronising one another’s bars – but outside, in the verdant jungle and on the pristine beaches.

My own favourite spots are the Ta Tai falls, with its crystal waters and beautiful setting, and the mangrove boardwalk. There is something eerie about walking through mangroves that always puts me in mind of early explorers who became lost on some distant coastline and had to try to find their way through.

The island of Koh Kong, supposedly to be developed soon by big figures in Thai and Cambodian society, offers deserted beaches and great fishing. Irregular tours can be arranged from the Blue Marlin or Bob’s bar.

Diving is also a possibility, with a couple of interesting sites within easy reach of the town. There are plenty of guesthouses, and doubtless you will be encouraged by your motodop from the border to patronise one of his choice. Should you decline, the Blue Marlin offers good rooms for a reasonable price. The variety of eating and drinking choices is not huge but adequate.

Leaving Koh Kong these days will probably involve a bus trip, as the boat, formerly quicker, has been largely superseded by the new road, which has cut the land journey down to four hours.

It is a pleasant journey giving views over vast tracts of jungle and, seaward, great swathes of mangrove. Smugly sitting on the bus with your ticket, you would do well not to ask the actual price of the ticket at the station. I did and found out that my extremely happy and helpful motodop’s “small commission” was the same price as the ticket itself. Nobody leaves Koh Kong without being rolled somewhere.

Sihanoukville is the only beach resort in Cambodia that offers anything approaching international standards of hotel choice and food. Mercifully, it offers much more besides. Though not nearly as attractive as it was before the trees that lined the boulevards years ago were cut, Sihanoukville still retains much charm, and its uncrowded and separated beaches make it feel unhurried and varied.

Ochheuteal beach is the busiest one, attracting a crowd of young people eager to immerse themselves in Khmer culture ( booze cruises, happy hours, “happy” pizzas, etc.) whereas the more mature male fraternity can often be found instructing young Khmer ladies in the art of pool at the Freedom Hotel. These courteous, avuncular, somewhat corpulent figures are often to be seen escorting their ladies home late at night – who says the age of chivalry has died.

Victory Hill is the place for an evening’s music where musicians jam and the audience, mercifully inebriated, suffers and claps at appropriate junctures. If you follow the searchlight you will find your way to the Airport Disco, a new Russian venture that sells surprisingly good food in the daytime and plays astounding dreary techno music in the evening. It is definitely worth a visit.

On your way down there you will most likely follow a dark path and will pass the platoon of tuk-tuk drivers. A voice will gently and inevitably out call, “smoke, sir?” – they are not selling tobacco. However many times you turn down this offer you will always be asked: Hope springs eternal.

For veteran expats there is regular quiz at Sakal guesthouse, which attracts a friendly bunch of politically incorrect Trojan drinkers. The night brings out the pedant in us all, and fantastically useless bits of knowledge are displayed and defended with drunken indignation. It is good fun, and the tables are sometimes turned when the quizmaster is one of the contestants.

Sun Tour is one cruise that stands out above the rest. Run with Teutonic efficiency, it leaves from Victory Beach at 10am (ish) – even the Germans have to bow to Cambodian time. The boat is purpose-built and really is a superb example of marine engineering. Highlights include lazing on the top sun deck, jumping into the water from the same – not for the fainthearted – and swimming to the beautiful beaches. Snorkelling, though pleasant, does not equate with the Great Barrier Reef.

Another day excursion is to Ream National Park – this is not a booze cruise but a pleasant day spent watching birdlife and, perhaps, spotting dolphins.

Food is surprisingly varied in Sihanoukville, with pleasant French overtones. Good wine is available, and coffee and baguettes are widely sold. Totally unsuited to the climate, Vienna schnitzel seems to becoming widely available – The Savory Guesthouse offers good value as does the Swiss Garden.

Otres beach offers some interesting options by the expats who have opted to bale out on the coast. Try the fish tacos at Cantina if you have an afternoon to spare.

It is an interesting ride over to the beach and on the way back you can go and see a film at the Top Cat Cinema near the Golden Lions. This unique entity seats about 50 and is a great place to watch movies. You can smoke in there as well – not exclusively tobacco, either.

If you manage to tear yourself away from Kompong Som – and many don’t – you only have a short journey to Kampot and the brooding mountain of Bokor on the left-hand side. Worth a trip up, it has the remains of a French Hill station – or at least it did. Currently it is being developed, so the road might be closed.

Kampot is delightfully situated on a river and has several old colonial buildings. The rapids are a bit of a disappointment, especially as a hydroelectric project makes for a dusty journey to them. The town itself is attractive and a nice stop on the way to Kep, which is a delight.

Quiet, tucked away and forgotten for years, Kep is only now making a gradual comeback. The famed crab is a bit overrated, but the walk round the tiny national park – basically the hill that overlooks the town – is great. There are wonderful sunset views and evidence of monkeys and birds in the trees. Perhaps with not the greatest degree of sensitivity to the environment, the path is being widened to a road – get there before people start driving Humvees round it, playing loud music.

There are plenty of delightful little guesthouses, Botanica stands out for its garden, but the choice is wide.

You have reached the end of Cambodia’s coast. This is just a taster, and there is still much to explore, but there is plenty to enjoy.

You won’t get the bright lights of Pattaya, but you would be unlikely to be lonely unless so inclined. The coast is full of vigour and people doing things and starting businesses. It has the liveliness of a place starting afresh after a years of neglect.

No one should leave Cambodia without visiting Angkor, but if you have the time the coast offers a pleasant antidote to wandering around those fabulous ruins with a guidebook.

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Police Blotter: 19 Oct 2009

Monday, 19 October 2009 15:03 Thet Sambath

LAW COMES DOWN ON THREE LAWMEN
Three misbehaving policemen in Kandal province are under investigation by their squad’s internal discipline department after allegedly getting drunk and shooting a man before beating him unconscious. Police said the attack happened last Monday in Kandal province’s Muk Kampoul district, when the victim, an air-conditioner repairman, was shot in his arm then beaten unconscious.
KAMPUCHEA THMEY

HIGHWAY ROBBERY VICTIM FIGHTS BACK
A quick-thinking victim of a drive-by thief took justice into her own hands in Phnom Penh on Thursday, when she tackled one of two suspects who she said stole her golden necklace. Police say the woman had been zipping by on her motorbike when a man swiped her necklace. The woman managed to grab one thief; another suspect, however, escaped with her prized piece of jewellery.
KAMPUCHEA THMEY

BERATED HUSBAND DOWNS CHEMICALS
A man tried to kill himself by swallowing potentially deadly chemicals after his wife criticised him for staying out and drinking, police said. The incident happened Friday in Kampong Chhnang province. After a booze-filled evening, the man returned home at midnight to a tongue-lashing from his wife, police said. The man ingested the chemicals to kill himself because he was “disappointed” that his wife blamed him, police said. The man’s wife managed to save his life by rushing him to a hospital.
KAMPUCHEA THMEY

WHODUNIT? WHY? POLICE DON'T KNOW
Police in the capital are at a loss to explain why a group of “gangsters” beat a motorbike taxi driver unconscious last week. Phnom Penh police say officers saved the man’s life by taking him to a hospital after the beating Thursday in the capital’s Meanchey district but added that the “gangsters” managed to flee the scene. No one knows what sparked the attack, police said.
KAMPUCHEA THMEY

SUSPECTED MUGGER CLAIMS INNONCENCE
A man accused of mugging a woman for her telephone in Phnom Penh last week had just been released from prison after a five-year stint in the slammer, police in the capital said. The 22-year-old man is suspected of having robbed the woman in Tuol Sangke commune, Tuol Kork district on Thursday. However, the man has proclaimed his innocence, police said, telling investigators that he was drunk and never stole the phone.
KAMPUCHEA THMEY

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Phnom Penh's anti-drugs chief charged with possession, bribery

Picture by DAP News

Posted : Mon, 19 Oct 2009

By : dpa

Phnom Penh - The head of Phnom Penh's anti-drugs police team has been charged with illegal possession of drugs and taking bribes from arrested drug dealers, national media reported Monday. Lieutenant-Colonel Touch Muysor was suspended earlier this month after police found thousands of amphetamine tablets in his office.

A court prosecutor told the Cambodia Daily newspaper that Lt-Col Touch was formally charged over the weekend, but had been under suspicion since 2005.

The prosecutor said one charge relates to possession of drugs, while the other is for taking bribes to ensure that the cases of arrested dealers were shelved before even making it to court.

Lt-Col Touch is the second ranking officer in Cambodia's drugs force to be arrested this month. On October 2, Bun Pov, a lieutenant in the national anti-drugs police force, was arrested just one week into the job after police raided his home and found 18 kilograms of heroin and methamphetamine tablets.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation was involved in a series of arrests the same day which saw seven dealers apprehended. However police would not say whether any of the cases were linked.

Cambodia has long been seen as a regional transit point for drugs shipments.

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The Phnom Penh Post News in Brief

In Brief: Shuttlecocks take flight

Monday, 19 October 2009 15:00 Ung Chamroeun

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, in collaboration with the Cambodian Badminton Federation (CBF), opened the 2009 National Badminton Championship at Olympic Stadium Sunday featuring about 100 participants from 11 clubs. The tournament is split into levels A-I and A-II, with single and team categories for both men and women. Chea Bun Heng, representative of the organising committee, said the CBF had also added U13 and seniors (40-50 years old) categories this year.

In Brief: Investment slide eases

Monday, 19 October 2009 15:00 Chun Sophal

APPROVED investments in the Kingdom fell by a slower pace in September although over the first nine months they were still down 82.23 percent to US$1.61 billion compared to the same period last year, according to figures from the Council for the Development of Cambodia. Last month the value of projects approved by the government fell 33.38 percent year on year to $44.91 million compared to a 86.75 percent drop in August and a fall of 93.54 percent in July, figures showed. Services and tourism saw the largest annualised decline in approvals, but agriculture reversed that trend with nearly half a billion dollars in project approvals in the third quarter.

In Brief: Central Market reopens

Monday, 19 October 2009 15:00 Chun Sophal

PHNOM Penh's iconic Central Market has reopened part of its newly refurbished eastern side, finishing the first phase of a US$4.2 million renovation project. Sok Kim Heng, president of the market, said Sunday that the new wing opened Thursday. "For the second stage, we will open the jewellery stores soon; now we are renovating," he added. Arte-Villa Pare of France began the project in December 2008 and is due to have completed each of four stages by the end of 2010.

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SOUTH-EAST ASIA: No Welcome Mat for Civil Society at ASEAN Summit

http://www.ipsnews.net/

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Oct 19 (IPS) - A summit of regional leaders due to begin in Thailand on Oct. 23 has brought into relief a rift within the 10-member bloc about the space that should be given to civil society voices at such a gathering.

This political faultline comes at a time when the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) moves ahead to reinvent itself as a rules-based, people-centred regional body by 2015. An ASEAN charter came into force in December last year in this effort to create a body that closely resembles the European Union (EU) in some ways.

ASEAN, whose members include Brunei, Burma (or Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, was initially established in 1967 at the height of the Cold War to serve as a bulwark against the spread of communism.

Thailand, as the host of the 15th ASEAN summit in Cha-am, a resort town south of Bangkok, was hoping to cement a permanent place for an encounter between government leaders and representatives of the region’s non- governmental organisations (NGOs), said a diplomatic source.

For now, the summit’s agenda still says so. A meeting between the two groups is still on the cards from 11:50 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. on the opening day of the Cha-am meeting.

Yet the reality is otherwise, the diplomatic source from a South-east Asian country revealed to IPS. "Objections have been raised by Laos, echoing the concerns already expressed by Myanmar and Cambodia," the diplomat added. "The relevance of this engagement between ASEAN leaders and civil society is to be downgraded."

A well-informed Thai columnist on South-east Asian affairs has shed more light on what appears to be a move by countries that have no semblance of a democracy -- or ones that come down strongly on critical voices at home -- to convert this NGO-ASEAN leaders engagement into an informal exchange.

"Thailand’s long-standing plan to institutionalise the interface between ASEAN leaders and representatives of the more than 70 ASEAN civil society organisations (CSO) are crumbling," wrote Kavi Chongkittavorn in a commentary this week in ‘The Nation’, an English-language daily.

"Last week, at the ASEAN Joint Coordinating Meeting in Bangkok, a landlocked member proposed any such meeting in the future, including the forthcoming Cha-am summit, should be optional," he wrote. "ASEAN senior officials quickly took up Vientiane’s idea, which reflected the high anxiety held by their leaders since the historic event last February during the 14th ASEAN summit."

When pressed if this move did signify a "downgrading" of this meeting at future summits, a senior Thai foreign ministry official offered a diplomatic response. "We would like to see civil society participation at the ASEAN summit as a permanent pillar," said Vitavas Srivihok, director general of the ASEAN affairs department. "But we have to take a realistic approach, respecting the political development and internal process of each ASEAN country."

"Next year this meeting may come in the form of a seminar, a dinner or a reception," he adds, referring to the 16th summit to be hosted by Vietnam, one of the two ASEAN countries governed by communist parties. Laos, the region’s poorest country, is the other.

But that is not all that exposes a reluctance by ASEAN leaders to meet NGO representatives at the summit. A selection criteria of who speaks on behalf of civil society has been introduced, giving authority to the foreign ministry from, say, military-ruled Burma to approve who makes up the NGO delegation from its country.

"All the names of civil society representatives have to be sent through foreign ministries. Our colleagues from Myanmar, in particular, wanted this," Vitavas confirmed. "But this is not true with all countries. Thailand will give our civil society the full freedom to nominate their names."

Little wonder why NGO leaders are alarmed at this turn of events, marking a slide backwards from the benchmark that was set in February, when Thailand hosted the 14th ASEAN summit in Cha-am.

Using deft diplomacy, the hosts succeeded in holding for the first time in ASEAN’s 42-year-history a formal, face-to-face meeting between government leaders and NGO representatives that lasted 20 minutes. Strong protests by Burmese Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein and his Cambodian counterpart, Hun Sen – both of whom threatened to walk out of that meeting – had to be accommodated, denying the presence of the Burmese and Cambodian NGO delegates at this interface.

"We were hopeful that the success of the last ASEAN summit would be repeated. We wanted the interface to be institutionalised," said Yuyun Wahyuningrum, the East Asia programme manager of the Asia Forum for Human Rights and Development, a regional lobby group. "But we are disappointed at what we are hearing. Making this meeting optional will be downgrading its importance."

"The new selection criteria is also a problem," she said in an interview. "It is creating a climate of fear among civil society activists coming from countries like Burma and Laos."

"Why are the ASEAN leaders afraid of us?" she asked. "We are trying to build a dialogue. This interface is important to make civil society visible as our commitment to the people-centred ASEAN mentioned in the charter."

A watered-down civil society encounter with the region’s leader will expose the credibility of ASEAN, added Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, who moderated the dialogue between government leaders and NGO representative at the last summit. "It comes at a critical moment when ASEAN is trying to make itself an inclusive, people- friendly body, than a club for government leaders and bureaucrats."

"The ASEAN charter is being violated by this effort to ignore the importance of civil society," he told IPS. "It will end up bankrupt if it keeps doing more of this."

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Thailand blazes trail for human rights

Published: 19/10/2009



Thailand will launch Asean's first major push into the protection of human rights at the body's summit this weekend.

Thailand, as host of the 15th Asean summit at Hua Hin and Cha-am, will spearhead the inauguration of the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), the adoption of a declaration on climate change, and draft a declaration on education cooperation.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Asean should become a "community of action" which was able to act decisively.

All 10 leaders from the Asean region including Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, plus China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India, will convene for the summit to be in Phetchaburi's Cha-am district and Prachuap Khiri Khan's Hua Hin district from Friday to Sunday.

Among the meetings at the summit, the inauguration of the AICHR is expected to be the highlight.

The AICHR will serve as the region's main body in promoting and protecting the human rights of the peoples of Asean, particularly children, women, the elderly and people with disabilities. Its first, informal meeting will be held at the summit.

In addition, Asean foreign ministers will meet with the High Level Legal Experts Group, set up to assist Asean settle disputes, to discuss progress on the Dispute Settlement Mechanisms (DSM).

The DSM will help resolve disputes according to the rules and regulations under the three pillars of the Asean Charter only. It will not resolve disputes between states.

The dispute over the Preah Vihear temple on the border between Thailand and Cambodia will not be included in this DSM, said Asean Affairs Department director-general Vitavas Srivihok.

Mr Vitavas also said the Asean ministers would sign an agreement on the grouping's privileges and immunities.

Other issues affecting the people's well-being, including food and energy security, financial stability, pandemics and disaster management, will also be discussed.

Asean leaders will also take the opportunity of the summit to meet with representatives of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Assembly and Asean Youth and Asean Civil Society Organisations.

Mr Vitavas said the US$1.2 billion (40billion baht) Chiang Mai Initiative regional fund to help countries which face a liquidity crunch could not be launched at this summit but leaders do intend to finalise it this year.

It is possible finance ministers might hold a back-to-back meeting with Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation delegates in Singapore next month or hold a special meeting in Thailand in December, Mr Vitavas said.

At least 42 agreements will be signed during the summit, he said.

On the economic front, the Commerce Ministry will invite representatives from the region's car industry to discuss the promotion and strengthening of the industry during the Asean Economic Ministers meeting, Trade Negotiations Department director-general Nuntawan Sakuntanaga said.

Mrs Nuntawan said the AEM would sign a memorandum of understanding with China on the establishment of an Asean-China centre on intellectual property.

The summit will announce the elimination of tariffs on products under the normal track of the Asean-China free trade agreement and the Asean-Korea FTA as well as the announcement of the entry into force of the Asean-Australia-New Zealand FTA, she said.

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Alcohol suspected in high-speed crash that killed 3

Three people are dead after a BMW with a suspected drunk driver at the wheel crashed into a minivan on Finch Ave. W. at Tobermory Dr. (Oct. 17, 2009) DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR

Published On Sun Oct 18 2009

A family originally from Cambodia was returning home from temple late Saturday when a BMW, going up to 200 km/h with a suspected drunk driver at the wheel, hurtled into their minivan, cracking it in half and killing three people.

Hon To, 44, and her 24-year-old daughter Khan (Christine) Taing were pronounced dead at the scene of the horrific crash just before midnight on Finch Ave. W. at Tobermory Dr., said family member Yun Ho.

Taing was studying nursing at the University of Toronto, he added.

The other minivan passenger pronounced dead at the scene was a female family friend and fellow worshipper about to be dropped off at her home, Ho said.

To's husband, Pho Taing, 43, is in hospital in critical condition, as is a fifth passenger of the Honda Odyssey, a woman. Police said this afternoon that one of them is in "grave" condition while the other suffered less serious injuries, but wouldn't identify them.

The three dead were all thrown from the cracked-open minivan. Traffic officers were stunned by the wreckage, saying it's the kind of destruction seen occasionally on highways but not on a Toronto street. The van was turning when it was hit.

Jenny To, a friend of the 24-year-old victim, told the Star this afternoon that Taing was a "social butterfly."

"Any time we felt lonely we would call each other," she said.

The 21-year-old driver of the BMW suffered non-life-threatening injuries and is in police custody in hospital. Police say he will be charged in the crash.

Moments before the impact, the westbound BMW flew past a police cruiser heading east on Finch, said Sgt. Tim Burrows of Traffic Services. The officers witnessed the crash in their rear view mirror, he added.

The BMW was "out of control" and continued about 100 metres after smashing the minivan in two, Burrows said.

Police believe the BMW's driver had been drinking. The man has been investigated for drinking and driving in the past, Burrows said, though he could not confirm any prior convictions.

"All in all, this was an absolutely atrocious night on our roadways," Burrows said, adding that at least half a dozen other drivers were arrested for drinking and driving offences.

"Drinking and driving is a no-brain issue," Burrows said. "Once you've added alcohol to your system, driving should be out of the equation."

This afternoon, the front of the minivan lay on grass between the sidewalk and road, wires and metal protruding from its open end. Firefighters cut one piece of the van apart, removing its contents.

Finch was closed between Sentinel Rd. and Driftwood Ave. as police investigated.

With files from Stephen Smysnuik and The Canadian Press

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