CPP backs NEC ban on foreign participation in council elections [... but it is OK for Vietnamese to vote in Cambodian elections?]

On the campaign trail in Phnom Penh during last year's general election. (Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN)

Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Written by Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

Election watchdog Comfrel says military, police influence a higher priority.

THE ruling Cambodian People's Party said Monday it supports the ban on foreign citizens participating in the May 17 district, municipal and provincial elections.
In the election, votes will be cast by the 11,353 elected commune council members, but not by the public. The new bodies are part of the government's decentralisation program to improve representation among the National Assembly and the commune councils.

Senior CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap told the Post his party agreed with last week's ruling by the National Election Committee and said it would help to prevent any violence that might ensue by inflammatory comments by foreigners.

He claimed the CPP had discovered foreigners helping the opposition Sam Rainsy Party in last year's general election, campaigning in Kampong Cham and Prey Veng.

"We are patient with criticisms made by Cambodian politicians, but we don't want to see electoral campaigns conducted by foreigners in support of opposition political parties," said Cheam Yeap. "Their criticisms look down on Cambodia and our people."

But SRP Secretary General and lawmaker Ke Sovannroth denied the allegation. She said the only foreigners who took part in the general election were international observers monitoring proceedings.

The election-monitoring body Comfrel said the NEC had missed the point and ought to focus on more relevant issues. Comfrel Executive Director Koul Panha said the issue of foreign participation was not a priority.

"It happens very rarely and would have no influence - foreigners respect the code of conduct," he said.

Koul Panha said the NEC ought to prioritise focussing on the role of the police and Royal Cambodian Armed Forces in influencing election results. He said the NEC should issue clear regulations on how those bodies participated in elections.

NEC Secretary General Tep Nytha said the regulation was designed to remind all parties that foreigners were not allowed to take part in the campaign, and any party that flouted the rule could be fined.

Campaigning for the election will run from May 1 to 15 and is to see the CPP, the SRP, the Norodom Ranariddh Party and Funcinpec competing to win votes from the country's 11,353 commune councillors. The outcome will determine the composition of the parties at the higher-level district councils and the municipal and provincial councils.

Tep Nytha said CPP candidates were listed at 217 polling stations, the SRP had candidates at 205, Funcinpec candidates were at 71 and the NRP were at 62. A total of 17,293 candidates from the four parties are registered with the NEC.

The CPP's Cheam Yeap said his party was ready to compete with all four political parties in May's election and appealed to each party to actively build confidence among their voters.

"We aren't worried about the influence of those foreigners who back opposition parties, but we don't want foreigners coming here and insulting the Cambodian people," said Cheam Yeap.

Read more!

CPP backs NEC ban on foreign participation in council elections [... but it is OK for Vietnamese to vote in Cambodian elections?]

On the campaign trail in Phnom Penh during last year's general election. (Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN)

Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Written by Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

Election watchdog Comfrel says military, police influence a higher priority.

THE ruling Cambodian People's Party said Monday it supports the ban on foreign citizens participating in the May 17 district, municipal and provincial elections.
In the election, votes will be cast by the 11,353 elected commune council members, but not by the public. The new bodies are part of the government's decentralisation program to improve representation among the National Assembly and the commune councils.

Senior CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap told the Post his party agreed with last week's ruling by the National Election Committee and said it would help to prevent any violence that might ensue by inflammatory comments by foreigners.

He claimed the CPP had discovered foreigners helping the opposition Sam Rainsy Party in last year's general election, campaigning in Kampong Cham and Prey Veng.

"We are patient with criticisms made by Cambodian politicians, but we don't want to see electoral campaigns conducted by foreigners in support of opposition political parties," said Cheam Yeap. "Their criticisms look down on Cambodia and our people."

But SRP Secretary General and lawmaker Ke Sovannroth denied the allegation. She said the only foreigners who took part in the general election were international observers monitoring proceedings.

The election-monitoring body Comfrel said the NEC had missed the point and ought to focus on more relevant issues. Comfrel Executive Director Koul Panha said the issue of foreign participation was not a priority.

"It happens very rarely and would have no influence - foreigners respect the code of conduct," he said.

Koul Panha said the NEC ought to prioritise focussing on the role of the police and Royal Cambodian Armed Forces in influencing election results. He said the NEC should issue clear regulations on how those bodies participated in elections.

NEC Secretary General Tep Nytha said the regulation was designed to remind all parties that foreigners were not allowed to take part in the campaign, and any party that flouted the rule could be fined.

Campaigning for the election will run from May 1 to 15 and is to see the CPP, the SRP, the Norodom Ranariddh Party and Funcinpec competing to win votes from the country's 11,353 commune councillors. The outcome will determine the composition of the parties at the higher-level district councils and the municipal and provincial councils.

Tep Nytha said CPP candidates were listed at 217 polling stations, the SRP had candidates at 205, Funcinpec candidates were at 71 and the NRP were at 62. A total of 17,293 candidates from the four parties are registered with the NEC.

The CPP's Cheam Yeap said his party was ready to compete with all four political parties in May's election and appealed to each party to actively build confidence among their voters.

"We aren't worried about the influence of those foreigners who back opposition parties, but we don't want foreigners coming here and insulting the Cambodian people," said Cheam Yeap.

Read more!

CPP's latest achievement: Cambodians evicted to make way for Hanoi road

House-breakers, employed by local authorities, saw at a resident's house in the Sen Sok district of Phnom Penh on Monday. Residents of the area's Hanoi Road had been warned to leave, but many had not, instead staying to watch in shock as their homes were torn down. (Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN)
A bulldozer tears down houses along Sen Sok district's Hanoi Road on Monday. (Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN)

Pleas fail to stop the Hanoi Road eviction

Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Written by May Titthara and Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

Roadside properties demolished by authorities in advance of road-widening project, with affected families calling on the municipality to provide them with fair compensation.HOMES and fences belonging to residents of Teuk Thla and Phnom Penh Thmey communes in Sen Sok district were demolished by Phnom Penh authorities on Monday to make way for a road expansion project, with witnesses reporting that hundreds of armed police were deployed in the action.

Ten families comprising 40 people lost their homes along the Cambodia-Vietnam Frienship Highway - popularly known as Hanoi Road.

The demolition began after Sen Sok district Governor Khoung Sreng on March 6 told some residents living along the road that they had five days to remove their homes, fences and stalls. Residents did not move in time.

Oeum Reun, 53, whose house was demolished Monday morning, said she had lived there since 1979 and would go to Prime Minister Hun Sen's house to ask for his personal intervention.

"This is crueller than what Pol Pot's soldiers did to us - they mistreated me and then made me put my thumbprint on the form allowing them to demolish my house," she said.

"If they want to kill me I don't care because my house has been ... demolished."

"It's up to them - if they want to kill me, I don't care because my house has been completely demolished."

Oeum Reun said she was not interested in being relocated to the four-by-eight metre site at Thnot Chrum that the municipality was offering. "I would rather die than live at Thnot Chrum. I want to live in this area."

The expansion plan requires a width of 22 metres for the road, 8 metres of which will be for drainage infrastructure.

Sek Sovanna, a lawyer for the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC), which has been representing the residents, filed an injunction with the Municipal Court last month seeking to halt the construction and has also filed complaints to City Hall. But she said CLEC has yet to receive any response.

"The authorities wrote to them in 2004. Since then the residents have tried asking the authorities to negotiate, but they kept quiet until the end of 2008," she said.

"If they had expanded the road to the width they said in 2004, it wouldn't affect the villagers - back then they said it would be widened by 8 metres along the 4-kilometre length. Now they have turned up and said it must be widened to 30 metres."

Sek Sovanna said the authorities were obliged to pay compensation since the residents were living there legally.

She added that in 2004 there were 90 families, but more than half had left since they did not dare stand up to the authorities.

District Governor Khuong Sreng told the Post Monday that the authorities could not delay the project simply because residents had failed to move and said most would get no compensation.

"They have to respect our notice. This is for development, and City Hall has a policy only to speak to those whose entire houses are affected," he said. And because the expansion project "affected only one or two complete houses", the authorities had offered those people a plot of land each in Thnot Chrum village.

He said that other affected families had lost fences and pavement area and therefore would not be entitled to compensation.

"They have big houses and villas," he said.

No compensation

Resident Prum Navy, 38, said her 14-metre house had lost 12 metres of its length to the project.

"My house has just 2 metres left - how can I live?" she asked. "I would like compensation from the authorities to buy a new house, but they say they have no plan to provide any compensation."

She said of the 10 families that had lost their property, just one had been compensated.

"The authorities came to demolish our houses with rage - they came to tell us on Friday and gave us just three days. And today they have come and destroyed them," she said.

"We are poor people and we don't have power like them. So they can do anything to us."

Chen Ton, 60, watched as her house lost 12 metres of its length, leaving her with just 2.5 metres of living space. She said the authorities showed no pity for the poor.

"We don't deny that the authorities need to develop, but they should know how this affects us. We are humans, not animals," she said.

"They use their power to destroy our houses. We have asked them about compensation since 2004, but they never spoke with us."

Resident Tey Narin told reporters that none of the residents dared to confront the police and the authorities and simply left their houses and fences to be demolished: "No one dares to protest - we fear being arrested," he said.

Read more!

The right to land is theme in dialogue between Sweden and Cambodia

Text and photo: Jan Nordlander
Government Offices of Sweden

A hundred thousand people in Cambodia have been forced to move from their land. Sweden drew attention to the humanitarian situation of the homeless in the first dialogue meeting between Sweden and Cambodia.
The first dialogue about human rights between Sweden and Cambodia took place at the end of February in Phnom Penh. The theme was land rights. The participants made a field visit to the place to which families from a slum area in the city had been forced to move by being evicted. They were given an opportunity to speak both to those who had received new housing and those who had become homeless.

The UN estimates that around 100 000 people in Cambodia have been forced to move from their land in the last ten years, and that at least as many will be evicted in the next few years. Although compensation is given, poor people in urban slum areas are primarily affected. In the mountain areas, traditional ways of life in entire societies are threatened by collapse when owners are forced to leave their property through expropriation.

The humanitarian situation of the homeless important

The Swedish delegation urged the Cambodian authorities to take measures to alleviate the humanitarian situation of the homeless and to investigate the abuses claimed to have taken place during the evictions. The delegation also urged the authorities to establish guidelines for future evictions together with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (COHCHR), should such evictions be necessary.

Other discussions covered legislative work in human rights, the fight against corruption and impunity, measures to prevent torture, the conditions of work of NGOs and the trials of the Khmer Rouge.

Sweden is to examine the possibility of supporting Cambodia in its work on human rights, including training officials, reporting to the UN Human Rights Committees and upgrading Cambodia's national committee for human rights.

Read more!

CPP's latest achievement: Cambodians evicted to make way for Hanoi road

House-breakers, employed by local authorities, saw at a resident's house in the Sen Sok district of Phnom Penh on Monday. Residents of the area's Hanoi Road had been warned to leave, but many had not, instead staying to watch in shock as their homes were torn down. (Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN)
A bulldozer tears down houses along Sen Sok district's Hanoi Road on Monday. (Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN)

Pleas fail to stop the Hanoi Road eviction

Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Written by May Titthara and Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post

Roadside properties demolished by authorities in advance of road-widening project, with affected families calling on the municipality to provide them with fair compensation.HOMES and fences belonging to residents of Teuk Thla and Phnom Penh Thmey communes in Sen Sok district were demolished by Phnom Penh authorities on Monday to make way for a road expansion project, with witnesses reporting that hundreds of armed police were deployed in the action.

Ten families comprising 40 people lost their homes along the Cambodia-Vietnam Frienship Highway - popularly known as Hanoi Road.

The demolition began after Sen Sok district Governor Khoung Sreng on March 6 told some residents living along the road that they had five days to remove their homes, fences and stalls. Residents did not move in time.

Oeum Reun, 53, whose house was demolished Monday morning, said she had lived there since 1979 and would go to Prime Minister Hun Sen's house to ask for his personal intervention.

"This is crueller than what Pol Pot's soldiers did to us - they mistreated me and then made me put my thumbprint on the form allowing them to demolish my house," she said.

"If they want to kill me I don't care because my house has been ... demolished."

"It's up to them - if they want to kill me, I don't care because my house has been completely demolished."

Oeum Reun said she was not interested in being relocated to the four-by-eight metre site at Thnot Chrum that the municipality was offering. "I would rather die than live at Thnot Chrum. I want to live in this area."

The expansion plan requires a width of 22 metres for the road, 8 metres of which will be for drainage infrastructure.

Sek Sovanna, a lawyer for the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC), which has been representing the residents, filed an injunction with the Municipal Court last month seeking to halt the construction and has also filed complaints to City Hall. But she said CLEC has yet to receive any response.

"The authorities wrote to them in 2004. Since then the residents have tried asking the authorities to negotiate, but they kept quiet until the end of 2008," she said.

"If they had expanded the road to the width they said in 2004, it wouldn't affect the villagers - back then they said it would be widened by 8 metres along the 4-kilometre length. Now they have turned up and said it must be widened to 30 metres."

Sek Sovanna said the authorities were obliged to pay compensation since the residents were living there legally.

She added that in 2004 there were 90 families, but more than half had left since they did not dare stand up to the authorities.

District Governor Khuong Sreng told the Post Monday that the authorities could not delay the project simply because residents had failed to move and said most would get no compensation.

"They have to respect our notice. This is for development, and City Hall has a policy only to speak to those whose entire houses are affected," he said. And because the expansion project "affected only one or two complete houses", the authorities had offered those people a plot of land each in Thnot Chrum village.

He said that other affected families had lost fences and pavement area and therefore would not be entitled to compensation.

"They have big houses and villas," he said.

No compensation

Resident Prum Navy, 38, said her 14-metre house had lost 12 metres of its length to the project.

"My house has just 2 metres left - how can I live?" she asked. "I would like compensation from the authorities to buy a new house, but they say they have no plan to provide any compensation."

She said of the 10 families that had lost their property, just one had been compensated.

"The authorities came to demolish our houses with rage - they came to tell us on Friday and gave us just three days. And today they have come and destroyed them," she said.

"We are poor people and we don't have power like them. So they can do anything to us."

Chen Ton, 60, watched as her house lost 12 metres of its length, leaving her with just 2.5 metres of living space. She said the authorities showed no pity for the poor.

"We don't deny that the authorities need to develop, but they should know how this affects us. We are humans, not animals," she said.

"They use their power to destroy our houses. We have asked them about compensation since 2004, but they never spoke with us."

Resident Tey Narin told reporters that none of the residents dared to confront the police and the authorities and simply left their houses and fences to be demolished: "No one dares to protest - we fear being arrested," he said.

Read more!

The right to land is theme in dialogue between Sweden and Cambodia

Text and photo: Jan Nordlander
Government Offices of Sweden

A hundred thousand people in Cambodia have been forced to move from their land. Sweden drew attention to the humanitarian situation of the homeless in the first dialogue meeting between Sweden and Cambodia.
The first dialogue about human rights between Sweden and Cambodia took place at the end of February in Phnom Penh. The theme was land rights. The participants made a field visit to the place to which families from a slum area in the city had been forced to move by being evicted. They were given an opportunity to speak both to those who had received new housing and those who had become homeless.

The UN estimates that around 100 000 people in Cambodia have been forced to move from their land in the last ten years, and that at least as many will be evicted in the next few years. Although compensation is given, poor people in urban slum areas are primarily affected. In the mountain areas, traditional ways of life in entire societies are threatened by collapse when owners are forced to leave their property through expropriation.

The humanitarian situation of the homeless important

The Swedish delegation urged the Cambodian authorities to take measures to alleviate the humanitarian situation of the homeless and to investigate the abuses claimed to have taken place during the evictions. The delegation also urged the authorities to establish guidelines for future evictions together with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (COHCHR), should such evictions be necessary.

Other discussions covered legislative work in human rights, the fight against corruption and impunity, measures to prevent torture, the conditions of work of NGOs and the trials of the Khmer Rouge.

Sweden is to examine the possibility of supporting Cambodia in its work on human rights, including training officials, reporting to the UN Human Rights Committees and upgrading Cambodia's national committee for human rights.

Read more!

The beauty industry is proving a popular path

Written by Nora Lindstrom

Monday, 16 March 2009

A variety of schools, from expensive private courses to a free program offered by an NGO working with street children, offer a lucrative career choice. Photo by: SOVANN PHILONG Salon students at Friends International's Mith Samlanh tend to their customers last week. From the roadside barber to the top-end salon, the beauty industry in Phnom Penh offers something for everyone, at very affordable prices. While the quality remains highly variable, recent market developments are likely to result in the offering of more professional services as more beauty therapist hopefuls seek formal training. "We need to keep up with the market so our students can find good jobs," said Natalie Elverd, a technical adviser at the NGO Friends International, in reference to recent renovations at the beauty rooms and nail bar of the organisation's Mith Samlanh school. "We did the upgrade because we need to follow changes in the local economy. There has been an increase in salons, so we wanted to improve placement opportunities for our young people by providing them with a better learning environment to gain increasingly better skills," she said, adding that the renovations were made possible thanks to aid from the Australian government. The Mith Samlanh students, who were formerly street children, are given the opportunity to choose a career in hair and beauty care from a variety of other potential careers. While the beauty rooms are open to the public only during the centre's monthly flea markets, the nail bar inside the Friends 'n' Stuff shop is open on a daily basis and allows students to gain experience in a real working environment. "The idea behind opening this business for the students is for them to have hands-on training with the public. It gives them the opportunity to gain confidence and improve their [future] placement opportunities," Elverd said. She added that the training at Mith Samlanh also encompasses personal hygiene, customer service skills, how to care for and sterilise tools and how to keep the workspace clean. "The training is of good standard, as well as constantly improving. The students are very popular and in high demand in the employment market. We often have job opportunities waiting for them," said Elverd, who herself has 20 years of experience from the Australian beauty industry. There are several other beauty schools around Phnom Penh as well, catering to vast amounts of beauty therapist hopefuls, mainly girls. While the training at Mith Samlanh is free, many private schools charge significant amounts of money for their training programs. Christina's Beauty School on Sihanouk Boulevard has achieved a good reputation in the Cambodian beauty industry during its almost decade- long existence. Here, an eight- to 10-month full course costs $590 and covers a curriculum of 19 subjects, while shorter courses focussing on specific skills are also available. Owner Sun Heang said the school is attended by more than 300 students, with recent graduates usually earning between $50 and $100 per month, depending on skills. "Once they finish the course, we also offer them the opportunity to work here in my salon, or else we help them find employment somewhere else," she said, adding that there is constant interest in the courses she offers. THE TRAINING IS OF GOOD STANDARD, AS WELL AS CONSTANTLY IMPROVING. Socheat Beauty School offers training similar to Christina's, albeit at a slightly higher cost of $750 for a full course. Srei Oun, 23, has been studying there for approximately eight months along with some 100 other trainees. "I like it here. I have a lot of friends, also. My favourite thing is cutting hair," she said, though was slightly insecure about how much longer it would take for her to master all the skills necessary for a good job in the industry. Srei Oun's sister Srei Neang, 27, has been a hairdresser for 15 years and in contrast to her sibling learned the trade through working her way up. "I started by working at Central Market when I was 12 doing manicures and pedicures, but have since worked at the salons of many top-end hotels," Srei Neang explained. "You can make a good living as a hairdresser," she added. Photo by: SOVANN PHILONG A recent renovation at Mith Samlanh will offer more varied training for the growing number of students in the beauty sector. Srei Neang thinks it's better to learn while working, as opposed to going to school. "You can practise in reality straight away, and also you earn money," she said, noting that formal training can be too expensive for many people. Nevertheless, she does acknowledge that there are many salons in Phnom Penh where staff have no training whatsoever and that this is a problem. "They can open anywhere, but they don't know how to do [the services provided]" she said. As the industry develops, services provided are likely to improve as more salons have professionally trained staff. A downside of this may be an increase in prices, yet for the time being hair and beauty treatments remain affordable to most, even if their quality is sometimes dubious. The revamped Nail Bar at Friends 'n' Stuff will be open for business at the next Friends flea market, on Saturday, March 28.

Read more!

Meet Cambodia's social media elite - the Cloggers

After the tragedy and devastation of the civil war, a new young, tech savvy middle-class is emerging in Cambodia

Young motivated bloggers spearheading a web-led revolution

Monday, March 16, 2009
TechRadar.com

With its jagged, pot-holed streets and swarms of begging children, visitors are often shocked at the poverty in Cambodia, widely considered Asia's backwater behind Vietnam and China.
Shacks and slums are testament to a third of the population earning less than half a US dollar a day and Transparency International ranks the country, only recently freed from years of civil war, coups and rigged elections, as the 14th most corrupt in the world.

Yet tech-savvy youngsters are bringing a new voice to Phnom Penh's poverty-wrought landscape. Hanging out in cafes and clicking away on their laptops, they comprise a small but growing middle-class of baby-boomers born during the 1980s, after the Khmer Rouge genocide left 2million Cambodians – a quarter of the population – dead. Now they've come of age, and they're wiring Cambodia with it.

They're a tight-knit clique. Led by 26-year-old writer and photographer Bun Tharum, Cambodia's first blogger, a small group formed in 2006 to give workshops on social media. With their efforts, and Cambodia's King-Father Norodom Sihanouk starting his own blog, the group of 30 soon transformed into thousands. Now, they call themselves 'Cloggers' – Cambodian bloggers.

Tharum sees change on the horizon. "After all the hardship our country has experienced, we're trying to bring a new era of innovation," he says. "Blogs are helping break down barriers, get discussions going – something we need to move forward. It's the voice of the new generation."

Reaching the summit

The group reached a peak in popularity when it held the Cloggers' Summit in August 2007, attended by 200 international guests, including editors from Harvard Law School's Global Voices Online project. Attendees discussed social networking with a Cambodian twist, looking at how non-profits – which dominate Cambodia's economy – and students could use it, despite the country's low-bandwidth connectivity.

They hit another success in September with the first annual BarCamp Phnom Penh, an event that saw hundreds from around Southeast Asia attend, including Microsoft. "BarCamp was great for thinking outside the box," Tharum says. "We got Cambodians to start speaking their minds in that untraditional setting, the un-conference."

Much more can be attributed to the city's sudden blogging craze. While less than two per cent of Cambodians have web access on their own computers, Phnom Penh sports a huge mobile web culture. "It's amazing. Farmers are selling their land so they can buy a mobile phone and motorbike," says John Weeks, an American who heads Phnom Penh's popular House 32 web design firm. "You'll see Khmers [Cambodians] wearing sandals and eating street food while talking on their Blackberrys."

Phnom Penh has just been wired with 3G technology, far ahead of neighbouring countries Vietnam and Thailand, giving blogs explosive potential. Yet phones still haven't reached their peak, Weeks insists. "Users aren't afraid of technology. But phones aren't reaching their full potential," he says. "If ordinary Cambodians can overcome the language barrier and literacy barriers, phones have incredible gateway potential that would dwarf the current blog boom."

Huddled around in Phnom Penh's sparkling new KFC – Cambodia's first foreign franchise – the Cloggers whip out cutting-edge phones yet to catch on in the West. One begins texting in a frenzy – he's on Twitter and he's addicted. The others laugh, moving into a discussion of King-Father Norodom Sihanouk, the country's leader and highest profile blogger.

He's revered by older generations, but Cloggers don't share their zest for the monarch. "Young people don't care about the King when we blog," says Sreng Nearirath, a lawyer who blogs her thoughts in My World vs. Real Scary World. "We just blog because we want to talk about our lives and talk with each other." Cambodia, a conservative society, doesn't offer opportunities to open up and discuss your feelings, especially for women. That's what makes blogs so special here.

"Men have dominated technology fields, but we're seeing more and more women speaking their minds through blogs," says Chak Sopheap, a rising voice in Cambodia's women's empowerment movement. "They give us an outlet to gain selfesteem and be more informed about the world."

Sopheap is perhaps Cambodia's most controversial blogger, touching on subjects like trafficking, corruption, forced land evictions and women's rights. Her public profile is brave; most political bloggers in Cambodia, such as the popular "Details are Sketchy" and "KI Media" blogs, are anonymous. "If everyone keeps silent to intimidation, intimidation will gain its position.

"By making our voices heard, we can create change," she insists. She's pursuing a master's degree in international relations in Japan, which she credits for bringing new angles to her blog. "I've learned from a different cultural context about how crucial good governance is," she says, referring to Cambodia's corruption problem.

On the political power of blogs, Sopheap points to the reactions by Cloggers to Burma's 2007 Saffron Revolution. In a rare move, they co-ordinated demonstrations against the Burmese embassy and denounced Cambodia's support of the regime. Some also took part in International Bloggers' Day for Burma that same month, each dedicating a post to the protesting monks.

In nearby Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, governments actively chase down and jail critical bloggers. Vietnam is also ramping up censorship, authorities announcing in December they are to ask Google and Yahoo to help 'regulate' the web. Yet no Cambodian blogger has been blocked or arrested.

"Politicians have either not noticed political blogs or they're deeply suspicious of them," says Preetam Rai, former Southeast Asia editor of Global Voices Online, a blog aggregation service. "I think Cambodia comes under the first category. Practically speaking, blogs reach a very small percentage of Cambodian people. The politicians might as well ignore them for now."

But politics aren't the Cloggers' main focus. Most don't bother and many don't care. "Most Cambodian bloggers don't directly attack the government so, I believe, they won't be on the bad side of any government," Rai says. "The hope is that some from the current crop of bloggers end up in government in couple of years' time."

Rai also notes that Cambodia is a very young country and many high-ranking officials are likewise youthful and tech-savvy. "These are the people who can be influenced by blogs," he adds, optimistically. "The Cloggers are doing the right thing by showing people technology in a neutral way. Cambodia needs a generation that can discriminate information, by showing people online tools that can help them verify things."

Children of government officials, likewise, have been studying at universities abroad, bringing back knowledge of blogs and English fluency that gives them access to the internet world. "We see a lot of foreign influences coming into blogging culture," says Prum Seila, a journalist who blogs about Cambodian popular culture. "Government kids are coming back to Cambodia and blogging like us. They're also bringing ideas about democracy."

Seila thinks foreigners and foreign-educated Cambodians bring an 'open-source culture' because they're commenting on Clogs, challenging young Cloggers. "You wouldn't see anything like it if we weren't talking to foreigners. They bring ideas and challenges, and make us think differently about new things," he says.

Is English elitist?

Unlike Vietnam or Thailand, where bloggers write in their native languages, Cambodians tend to blog in English, linking them, says Prum Seila, with a global audience. "It's a good thing we blog in English, because how else can we inform the world about our thoughts and our problems?" he adds. "We're putting Cambodia on the map."

But Cloggers have had a long-standing debate over whether to blog in English or Khmer. English, they claim, is the language of the internet; web proficiency means reading and writing in English. Others disagree, saying a country shouldn't have to change language just to use the web.

That's why the Phnom Penh-based Open Institute has been perfecting its Khmer language Unicode. With the project including popular comedy blogger Be Chantra, whose blog "TraJoke" is in Khmer, the font has certainly been catching on. "Cambodia's English-speaking population is an elite," he says. "With Khmer, we can reach a wider audience and have a bigger impact."

But some Cloggers aren't convinced. Tharum contends that anyone who can use the internet can also read English. Seila thinks English brings much-needed international attention to Phnom Penh. Plus other Cloggers mention the possibility of getting censored once their writings are available for all of Cambodia to read.

Chantra and the Open Institute maintain their optimism. "As more Cambodians get access to computers, which is happening, more of them will write in Khmer," he says. Cambodia's growing literate middle class could indeed solidify Khmer above English. But their taste for foreign knowledge and culture could also reverse that trend."

Read more!

Meet Cambodia's social media elite - the Cloggers

After the tragedy and devastation of the civil war, a new young, tech savvy middle-class is emerging in Cambodia

Young motivated bloggers spearheading a web-led revolution

Monday, March 16, 2009
TechRadar.com

With its jagged, pot-holed streets and swarms of begging children, visitors are often shocked at the poverty in Cambodia, widely considered Asia's backwater behind Vietnam and China.
Shacks and slums are testament to a third of the population earning less than half a US dollar a day and Transparency International ranks the country, only recently freed from years of civil war, coups and rigged elections, as the 14th most corrupt in the world.

Yet tech-savvy youngsters are bringing a new voice to Phnom Penh's poverty-wrought landscape. Hanging out in cafes and clicking away on their laptops, they comprise a small but growing middle-class of baby-boomers born during the 1980s, after the Khmer Rouge genocide left 2million Cambodians – a quarter of the population – dead. Now they've come of age, and they're wiring Cambodia with it.

They're a tight-knit clique. Led by 26-year-old writer and photographer Bun Tharum, Cambodia's first blogger, a small group formed in 2006 to give workshops on social media. With their efforts, and Cambodia's King-Father Norodom Sihanouk starting his own blog, the group of 30 soon transformed into thousands. Now, they call themselves 'Cloggers' – Cambodian bloggers.

Tharum sees change on the horizon. "After all the hardship our country has experienced, we're trying to bring a new era of innovation," he says. "Blogs are helping break down barriers, get discussions going – something we need to move forward. It's the voice of the new generation."

Reaching the summit

The group reached a peak in popularity when it held the Cloggers' Summit in August 2007, attended by 200 international guests, including editors from Harvard Law School's Global Voices Online project. Attendees discussed social networking with a Cambodian twist, looking at how non-profits – which dominate Cambodia's economy – and students could use it, despite the country's low-bandwidth connectivity.

They hit another success in September with the first annual BarCamp Phnom Penh, an event that saw hundreds from around Southeast Asia attend, including Microsoft. "BarCamp was great for thinking outside the box," Tharum says. "We got Cambodians to start speaking their minds in that untraditional setting, the un-conference."

Much more can be attributed to the city's sudden blogging craze. While less than two per cent of Cambodians have web access on their own computers, Phnom Penh sports a huge mobile web culture. "It's amazing. Farmers are selling their land so they can buy a mobile phone and motorbike," says John Weeks, an American who heads Phnom Penh's popular House 32 web design firm. "You'll see Khmers [Cambodians] wearing sandals and eating street food while talking on their Blackberrys."

Phnom Penh has just been wired with 3G technology, far ahead of neighbouring countries Vietnam and Thailand, giving blogs explosive potential. Yet phones still haven't reached their peak, Weeks insists. "Users aren't afraid of technology. But phones aren't reaching their full potential," he says. "If ordinary Cambodians can overcome the language barrier and literacy barriers, phones have incredible gateway potential that would dwarf the current blog boom."

Huddled around in Phnom Penh's sparkling new KFC – Cambodia's first foreign franchise – the Cloggers whip out cutting-edge phones yet to catch on in the West. One begins texting in a frenzy – he's on Twitter and he's addicted. The others laugh, moving into a discussion of King-Father Norodom Sihanouk, the country's leader and highest profile blogger.

He's revered by older generations, but Cloggers don't share their zest for the monarch. "Young people don't care about the King when we blog," says Sreng Nearirath, a lawyer who blogs her thoughts in My World vs. Real Scary World. "We just blog because we want to talk about our lives and talk with each other." Cambodia, a conservative society, doesn't offer opportunities to open up and discuss your feelings, especially for women. That's what makes blogs so special here.

"Men have dominated technology fields, but we're seeing more and more women speaking their minds through blogs," says Chak Sopheap, a rising voice in Cambodia's women's empowerment movement. "They give us an outlet to gain selfesteem and be more informed about the world."

Sopheap is perhaps Cambodia's most controversial blogger, touching on subjects like trafficking, corruption, forced land evictions and women's rights. Her public profile is brave; most political bloggers in Cambodia, such as the popular "Details are Sketchy" and "KI Media" blogs, are anonymous. "If everyone keeps silent to intimidation, intimidation will gain its position.

"By making our voices heard, we can create change," she insists. She's pursuing a master's degree in international relations in Japan, which she credits for bringing new angles to her blog. "I've learned from a different cultural context about how crucial good governance is," she says, referring to Cambodia's corruption problem.

On the political power of blogs, Sopheap points to the reactions by Cloggers to Burma's 2007 Saffron Revolution. In a rare move, they co-ordinated demonstrations against the Burmese embassy and denounced Cambodia's support of the regime. Some also took part in International Bloggers' Day for Burma that same month, each dedicating a post to the protesting monks.

In nearby Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, governments actively chase down and jail critical bloggers. Vietnam is also ramping up censorship, authorities announcing in December they are to ask Google and Yahoo to help 'regulate' the web. Yet no Cambodian blogger has been blocked or arrested.

"Politicians have either not noticed political blogs or they're deeply suspicious of them," says Preetam Rai, former Southeast Asia editor of Global Voices Online, a blog aggregation service. "I think Cambodia comes under the first category. Practically speaking, blogs reach a very small percentage of Cambodian people. The politicians might as well ignore them for now."

But politics aren't the Cloggers' main focus. Most don't bother and many don't care. "Most Cambodian bloggers don't directly attack the government so, I believe, they won't be on the bad side of any government," Rai says. "The hope is that some from the current crop of bloggers end up in government in couple of years' time."

Rai also notes that Cambodia is a very young country and many high-ranking officials are likewise youthful and tech-savvy. "These are the people who can be influenced by blogs," he adds, optimistically. "The Cloggers are doing the right thing by showing people technology in a neutral way. Cambodia needs a generation that can discriminate information, by showing people online tools that can help them verify things."

Children of government officials, likewise, have been studying at universities abroad, bringing back knowledge of blogs and English fluency that gives them access to the internet world. "We see a lot of foreign influences coming into blogging culture," says Prum Seila, a journalist who blogs about Cambodian popular culture. "Government kids are coming back to Cambodia and blogging like us. They're also bringing ideas about democracy."

Seila thinks foreigners and foreign-educated Cambodians bring an 'open-source culture' because they're commenting on Clogs, challenging young Cloggers. "You wouldn't see anything like it if we weren't talking to foreigners. They bring ideas and challenges, and make us think differently about new things," he says.

Is English elitist?

Unlike Vietnam or Thailand, where bloggers write in their native languages, Cambodians tend to blog in English, linking them, says Prum Seila, with a global audience. "It's a good thing we blog in English, because how else can we inform the world about our thoughts and our problems?" he adds. "We're putting Cambodia on the map."

But Cloggers have had a long-standing debate over whether to blog in English or Khmer. English, they claim, is the language of the internet; web proficiency means reading and writing in English. Others disagree, saying a country shouldn't have to change language just to use the web.

That's why the Phnom Penh-based Open Institute has been perfecting its Khmer language Unicode. With the project including popular comedy blogger Be Chantra, whose blog "TraJoke" is in Khmer, the font has certainly been catching on. "Cambodia's English-speaking population is an elite," he says. "With Khmer, we can reach a wider audience and have a bigger impact."

But some Cloggers aren't convinced. Tharum contends that anyone who can use the internet can also read English. Seila thinks English brings much-needed international attention to Phnom Penh. Plus other Cloggers mention the possibility of getting censored once their writings are available for all of Cambodia to read.

Chantra and the Open Institute maintain their optimism. "As more Cambodians get access to computers, which is happening, more of them will write in Khmer," he says. Cambodia's growing literate middle class could indeed solidify Khmer above English. But their taste for foreign knowledge and culture could also reverse that trend."

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Heng Samrin's advisor accused of threatening American diplomats with weapon

Deum Ampil newspaper
13th March, 2009
Reported in English by Khmerization

An opposition MP has accused advisor to National Assembly president Heng Samrin (pictured) of threatening American diplomats with a weapon.

In a letter dated 11th March sent to Mr. Heng Samrin, Mr. Son Chhay, an MP for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), has requested him to launch an investigation into an allegation that one of his more than 100 advisors has used a gun to threaten U.S diplomatic staff in February 2009, while they were jogging along the Phnom Penh roads
The letter alleged that, on 14th February 2009, while the diplomats were jogging near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an armed man had threatened them with a gun. The man was later identified as Ob Sophy, an administrative officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who is also an advisor to National Assembly president Heng Samrin.

Mr. Son Chhay cannot confirm whether the allegation was true. However, he appeals to the authority to launch an investigation into this allegation.

Mr. Touch Naroth, Phnom Penh Police Commissioner, told Deum Ampil News on 12th March that the police has launched an investigation and identified the alleged culprit as Ob Sophy. He said: "We have launched an invetigation and found out that he (Mr. Ob Sophy) is head of one of the departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but we have turned this case to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to resolve it with the American embassy."

The police Commissioner added: "We have questioned him regarding the allegation and he said that he dropped the gun ( and tried to pick it up). But when we got a complaint from the U.S embassy, we turned the case to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to resolve it with the American embassy."

Mr. Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that he has not received any information regarding the case, but said that he will launch an investigation into the allegation.

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