Cambodia's rats welcomed by Vietnamese gourmets

Live rats are stored awaiting transport to Vietnam at Chrey Thom district in Kandal province, 65km (40 miles) south of Phnom Penh near the Cambodia-Vietnam border, May 15, 2009. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
A boy shows off a rat he caught at Khos Thom district in Kandal province, 65km (40 miles) south of Phnom Penh near the Cambodia-Vietnam border, May 15 ,2009. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

2009-05-15
Xinhua

PHNOM PENH - Vietnam has become the main importer of Cambodia's rats with 50 tons of rats being imported through the checkpoints along the border everyday, local media reported on Friday.
"We are working in the rice fields during the day and catching the rat at night. We can catch about 10 kg to 20 kg rats every night, " the Chinese language newspaper Cambodia Sin Chew Daily quoted a young rat trader as saying. The rat traders could sell them at border for about 3,000 riel (about 75 cents) to 4,000 riel (about $1.00) per kilo.

At the Chrey Thom border checkpoint, immigration police officer Roeun Narin said there was regular stream of middlemen in the rat-meat trade crossing the border, and he knew of more rat-trading at other checkpoints along the border.

Leh, the rat trader in the town of Chrey Thom, by the Vietnamese border, said she buys about one ton of rats per day during April and May from middlemen who bring the rodents from Cambodia's Kandal, Kompong Cham and Takeo provinces. From November to March the haul usually drops to between 300 and 400 kg per day, she said.

Every day there are more than 30 Vietnamese middlemen waiting at the border checkpoints to purchase the rat from Cambodia, an online Vietnamese media outlet reported. The rat sales at the checkpoint of Vietnam's An Giang province alone has reached to about 50 tons in recent days, the officials of Vietnam were quoted as saying.

"Most Cambodians only know a few ways to cook it, but in Vietnam they know many dishes, such as soups, curries and fried rat," Chhoeun, another middleman said. Vietnamese enjoy the small rice-field rats, as they think they are natural.

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I believe that King Sihamoni currently is merely a rubber stamp king, to say it bluntly": Cambodian expat from Lowell

(Photo: RFA)

Cambodian expats’ opinion on the King’s role

14 May 2009
By San Suwidh
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer

On the occasion of the national holiday celebrating the 56th birthday of King Norodom Sihamoni between 13 to 15 May, San Suwidh is reporting about the opinion of a number of Cambodian expatriates regarding the role of the current king of Cambodia.

King Sihamoni is the son of King Norodom Sihanouk and Queen Monineath Sihanouk. He was born in Phnom Penh of 14 May 1953, i.e. 6 months ahead of Cambodia’s access to independence from France.

During his youth, the prince liked to study dance, music and theater. In 1971, he received an award in his competition in classical dance at the Prague national conservatory of music and dance, in communist Czechoslovakia. Between 1976 and 1979, he was detained by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime along with his parents and his younger brother, Prince Norindrapong.

Following his release from the killing fields, he completed several functions involving art, mainly in France. The king is expert in language. He speaks Cambodian, French, Czech and English. While living in Paris in 1993, he directed two films involving ballet: “Soben” (Dream) and “Theat Taing Buon” (The 4 matters).

On 14 October 2004, at the age of 51, he was selected by the council of the throne as the king of Cambodia.

It has been 5 years since the king acceded to the throne. On the day of his crowning, he swore that he will abide by his father’s teaching, and he publicly announced: “What must be remembered forever is pure nationalism. We must clearly avoid all sorts of corruption, and at all time. Everything that we must apply should be aimed at serving the supreme interest, the livelihood of the Khmer nation and people.”

He also announced openly that: “I will be close to all our compatriots, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters, children, nephews, all of you, and I will share your fate forever.”

On the occasion of his 56th birthday, various government officials sent him warm well wishes. Cheam Yeap, a member of the CPP permanent committee and chairman of the National Assembly committee on finance and economy, praised the role of the king, saying: “He has very good opinion, he never embarrass the people, the government or the legislative branch. He always smoothed out the difficult tasks of the government, as well as those of the legislative branch and the judiciary branch.”

Nevertheless, a large number of Cambodians do not know very well their king. Even though he publicly claimed that the palace will not hide anything, and he is spending several days each week to serve his compatriots and meeting the people, in the past 5 years, the king is still unknown to his subjects. More seriously is the fact that Cambodian expatriates have negative opinions of the king.

Sim Huot, a Cambodian-American living in Stockton, California who claims to be a true royalist, is still puzzled about the king’s role: “When the king ascended to the throne, he promised to the people that he will work hard and pay attention to the people in general, he will absolutely oppose corruption, he will labor for his land, such as the border issue for example. But I don’t know what he is doing or not doing. On the border issue, I keep on hearing this issue discussed on Radio Free Asia which I listen to and the people are shouting about corruption, about forced evictions, did the king strongly intervene on these cases? When he ascended to the throne, he promised that he will follow his father’s footstep and he will absolutely oppose all forms of corruption.”

Sieng Sak, a former KR who currently lives in Lowell, Massachusetts, blamed the constitution which ties the king’s hands and does not allow him to do anything. Sieng Sak said: “I believe that King Sihamoni currently is merely a rubber stamp king, to say it bluntly. This is one issue. The second issue, based on the current feelings of Cambodians who respect the king, what King Sihamoni is doing is just enough to calm down Cambodians who want to have a monarchy only, but when speaking about serving the interest of the country, serving the country future peace, he did not do anything about them. The reason I am saying he is not doing anything on these issues is because the constitution is tying him up already, he reigns but he does not rule, so he has no power, he cannot represent anything, he cannot be anybody’s shade simply because he has no power.”

In reply to Sim Huot’s question above regarding the king’s interventions to help his subjects or not, Princess Ang Duon Nim Sophine said: “Regarding the king, it’s not that he is not doing anything to protect his subjects, but it is as if he is under some intense pressure, he is being under intense pressure. What he needs to do, he must ask the authorization from the prime minister. The constitution stipulates that the king has the power to pardon people on certain occasions, such as during the Pchum Ben ceremony, during his birthday, so he must use this prerogative, but I heard that when he asked the authorization [from the PM], they rejected his request. Whatever he tried, he couldn’t do it.”

In the midst of these opinions on the king’s role, Cambodian people are sending wishes to their king on his birthday which happens to be a 3-day holiday also.

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Cambodian-American teenager killed in Lowell was an 'innocent bystander'

She was an 'innocent bystander'

Lawrence mom tries to cope with shooting death of daughter shot in head

May 15, 2009
By Bill Kirk
bkirk@eagletribune.com
The Eagle Tribune (Massachusetts, USA)

LAWRENCE — Sophal Choeun spoke quietly as she leafed through a family photo album that contained pictures of her dead daughter and her other children.


"I pray to God they find who did this to my daughter," said Choeun, 45, a Cambodian immigrant who lives with her three other children and mother on the second floor of an Abbott Street multifamily house.

Her daughter, Tavaryna Choeun, 17, a Lawrence High School dropout with a history of running away from home, died yesterday in the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, where she was brought Tuesday night after she was shot once in the head in Lowell.

Police said Choeun was an "innocent bystander" — shot while riding in the front passenger seat of a car with a male friend driving and a female friend in the back seat.

No arrests were made as of last night. Authorities said they believe they know who the shooter is.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said yesterday the driver and shooter, who are gang-affiliated, had an altercation earlier in the day, but the shooting was not gang-related.

Leone said a car pulled up alongside them and someone fired several shots, hitting Choeun once in the head. No one else was injured.

He said Choeun's two friends then dumped her body onto Suffolk Street in Lowell, where a passer-by saw her and called police.

Corey Welford, a spokesman for Leone, said police found Choeun on the street in front of 132 Suffolk St. at 10:14 p.m.

Choeun moved to Lowell to live with her 20-year-old boyfriend several months ago.

Leone said the driver and the other female passenger were interviewed, and that it was not known why they didn't take her to a hospital or call 911.

"I'll go see her in Boston today," said Choeun's mother, her other children and mother sitting by her side on a couch in the living room of their apartment at 184 Abbott St.

Choeun said her daughter had never been in trouble, and Lawrence police Chief John Romero confirmed yesterday that the girl had never been arrested in Lawrence.

The victim's sister, Maryanne Choeun, 18, said Tavaryna had dropped out of high school in her freshman year and had run away from home several times. She recently ran away from her foster home in Lawrence and had been living with her 20-year-old boyfriend in Lowell.

Tavaryna's father lives in California and is traveling in Cambodia, said Maryanne Choeun, adding that she hasn't seen her father in years and that he was unaware of his daughter's death.

Aside from her father, mother and sister Maryanne, Tavaryna has a younger sister, Susan, 16, and brother, Peter, 7, and grandmother, Chy.

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Visitors to Cambodia down

May 15, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

The number of foreign tourists visiting Cambodia dropped in the first quarter of 2009 as the global economic crisis cuts the number of people travelling.

Visitors from South Korea and Japan are down sharply.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael
Speakers: Ell Lavy, Siem Reap tuk tuk driver; Dr Thong Khon, Cambodian Minister for Tourism

Click here to listen to the English audio program (Windows Media)

CARMICHAEL: Leave the famous jungle temple - known as Ta Phrom - outside Cambodia's tourism capital of Siem Reap and - as you can hear - you are surrounded by vendors selling cold drinks, musical instruments and postcards. Cambodia has relied for a decade on the expanding tourist trade as one of its pillars for economic growth. A record 2.1 million people visited the country last year.
So the news that tourism numbers have dropped in the first quarter of 2009 from the same period last year is not good. Overall the number is down just three and a half percent to 622,000 which is better than the government had feared. But the headline figure tells only one part of the story. Tourists from richer countries such as Japan and South Korea have dropped by a third, with short-term visitors from neighbouring Vietnam making up the numbers.

And that is why tourism worker Ell Lavy - a 25-year-old driver of a motorised rickshaw around the temples of Angkor Wat - has seen his monthly earnings drop from one hundred US dollars to just seventy. Previously he would get two or three tourists a week - now he is lucky to have one.

LAVY: You know last year when I recommend them to another place they say no problem for them. But this year when I invite them to somewhere they say they that no - they have no money to pay everything. [CARMICHAEL: So you have noticed they are spending less money, and there are less tourists?] Yes, less tourists also.

CARMICHAEL: Government figures show the number of visitors from South Korea and Japan, which last year provided the largest and third-largest number of foreign visitors respectively, dropped by one-third to around 100,000 in the first quarter of this year.

Gregory Anderson is the general manager of the upmarket Le Meridien Angkor hotel in Siem Reap. He has noticed there are fewer Japanese tourists in town, and says occupancy rates are down 20 percent for Siem Reap's upmarket hotels. He blames the global economic situation, as well as political volatility in Thailand and an ongoing border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand.

So in the face of lower spending on travel and tourism in the current global downturn, what can Cambodia do to boost visitor numbers? Tourism Minister Dr Thong Khon says he is targeting countries that are less affected by the global slump. And he is optimistic that 2009 could yet prove better than last year. But he says Cambodia is not helped by problems in Thailand.

KHON: Because you know Thailand is a main gate to Cambodia. Thirty three percent of total arrivals to Cambodia come from Thailand by air, by water, by land. When Thailand is affected, so it affects Cambodia too.

CARMICHAEL: To minimize that problem, the ministry is trying to boost short-haul flights from within the ten-member ASEAN nation and China, Japan and South Korea. Cambodia has already scrapped visa requirements for nationals within a number of ASEAN states. And he says the private sector must work to make the country more attractive - including using discounts for hotels and restaurants.

But making Cambodia more attractive isn't helped by the trickle of reported crimes against foreign tourists, some of them serious. The most high-profile was that a friend of Britain's Princess Eugenie had her handbag stolen in Phnom Penh recently. What does he think of the incident?

KHON: In Cambodia the whole country is completely safe and secure. But the thing that happened is not everywhere. Sometimes like this or like that. But the case of the princess - we checked with the police, we checked everywhere - they have no information. If the case really happened, why did they not report it to the police?

CARMICHAEL: Dr Thong Khon says the global crisis has seen Cambodia downgrade its estimate of tourist arrivals for 2015 by around one-fifth to 4 million visitors. So what message will he take to the region to try and boost visitor numbers?

KHON: Many tourists come to stay in home-stay, in the countryside, on some islands, for one month, for two weeks with the family. From Scandinavia, from Australia. They come from everywhere. No problem. Come. Come to stay in Cambodia.

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Cambodian Stories' kicks off Novel Dance's 10th anniversary

The 60-year-old Japanese Koma, left, dances alongside the dancing painters, dressed in traditional Cambodian clothes. (Courtesy of Novel Hall)

Friday, May 15, 2009
By Paul Nieman
Special to The China Post (Taiwan)

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Tonight Cambodian Stories, the first performance of the tenth anniversary of the Novel Dance, will take place in the Novel Hall in Taipei. The performance will run through the weekend.

The dance's choreography was created by Japanese dancers Eiko and Koma, who feature in the play along with several dancing Cambodian painters. They are painters, so they have already had the 'inward eye,' Eiko explains, so it wasn't that hard for them to use their knowledge of the human body to perform well with the dancing. Cambodian Stories is about love, loss and hope, three topics that are very recognizable for the players of the piece, of whom most are affected by the low standards of life and the troubled history of Cambodia.

The painting dancers have only performed abroad in the United States so far. Taiwan is the second country in their international campaign. The dancers will paint on stage during their performance, making it a unique combination between painting and dancing.

“These young artists are full of dreams, just like everybody else. Everybody has dreams, even old people such as Eiko and me, and we are 57 and 60,” Koma said. Since participating in the performances, they do not only paint the traditional style that they have learned to paint, but just whatever they want to paint. Later on in the novel dance series there will be Wayne McGregor's Random Dance in Entity from May 22 through May 24 and the 10-year-old El Yiyo, who will star in the New Flamenco Generation from June 5 to 9, both at the Novel Hall in Taipei City.

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Catholics remember Khmer Rouge victims amid war-crimes trial

Bishop Emile Destombes, apostolic vicar of Phnom Penh, blesses what used to be the bed of the late Bishop Joseph Chhmar Salas
You Prakort, younger sister of Bishop Joseph Chhmar Salas, tells the story of her brother’s death at the hands of the Khmer Rouge at a memorial service on May 7 at Taing Kauk Parish. Behind her is a picture of her brother

May 14, 2009

KOMPONG THOM, Cambodia (UCAN) -- As the U.N.-backed trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders continues in the capital, Catholics gathered to remember a bishop, priests and laypeople killed by the brutal regime about 30 years ago.
About 40 people from across Cambodia came together on May 7 for a special Mass at Taing Kauk, 100 kilometers north of Phnom Penh, a place Cambodian Catholics call Memorial Place or Land of Hope. Here they prayed on a day specially dedicated to remembering all the Catholics who died during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror which ended in 1979.

Bishop Emile Destombes, apostolic vicar of Phnom Penh, said in his homily that they were there to remember Khmer Bishop Joseph Chhmar Salas, former apostolic vicar of Phnom Penh, and all the priests, brothers and sisters who died during the religious persecution then.

Bishop Destombes gave thanks to God for their missionary work, which laid the foundations of the Catholic Church in Cambodia. "We have to continue this mission," to be "witnesses of Jesus" in Cambodia, he said.

Om Lan, 63, a Catholic living in Taing Kauk, told UCA News he was very proud of Bishop Salas. "Because of him we have a Catholic community here," he said.

According to Father Gnet Viney, a Khmer priest, the local Church chose this place as a memorial site as it is closely connected with the lives of Bishop Salas and some priests. They were forced to leave Phnom Penh Khmer when Khmer Rouge soldiers marched into the city on April 17, 1975, and eventually came to the Taing Kauk area.

According to You Prakort, a younger sister of Bishop Salas who also attended the memorial, the new arrivals in the area faced immediate discrimination by the local people. She said the Khmer Rouge forced her brother and his priests into hard labor by working in the fields. Bishop Salas later died from a combination of exhaustion and malnutrition, she said.

The prelate reportedly died in Taing Kauk in September 1977 at the age of 39.

In the Land of Hope compound, the church has erected a cross dedicated to Bishop Salas and reconstructed the hut where he and his priests used to live and celebrate Mass, said Father Viney.

Thirty years after the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror, alleged surviving leaders of the regime are now being tried for crimes against humanity by a joint U.N. Cambodian government court.In his Easter message, Monsignor Enrique Figaredo, apostolic prefect of Battambang prefecture, said the trial will conclude an era in Cambodian history. "Any justice from the trials may not impact much on peoples' lives now, but at least we will be able to look toward the future with some healing of past hurts and injustices," he said.

"We can hope that those who act with impunity now, will be brought to justice," he added.

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French school evicts Cambodian locals [-Did the French learn eviction from Hun Sen and his cronies? Bravo la France?!?!]

The existing residents say they have nowhere to go
Limsreang and his family face eviction after living in their home for 30 years
"It's a horrible feeling because they say they're doing this for us - for us the students" - Raimondo Pictet, student at the lycee and protester

Wednesday, 13 May 2009
By Guy De Launey
BBC News, Phnom Penh

San Limsreang knew it was over when the "green screen of death" arrived.

These corrugated metal fences are a common sight in Phnom Penh, encircling communities destined for eviction.

At least two dozen police accompanied the workmen sent by City Hall as they dug holes, banged in fence-posts and erected the screen in front of the grocery stalls and coffee shops at the rear of the Lycee Rene Descartes.
Limsreang and his neighbours looked on fearfully as their homes were cut off from the street. They knew all too well what usually happens to communities marked in such a manner.

The 68-year-old had been hoping for a peaceful retirement after a varied working life.

He had worked as a banker, a vet and a civil servant - and for 30 years his ever-expanding family made their home on the fourth floor of a building behind what is now one of Cambodia's elite schools.

Now the Lycee Rene Descartes wants to expand.

And along with its landlord, the French embassy, it has asked the local authorities to clear Limsreang's building so that it can be used for the school.

The lycee insists that the building belonged to the school before the Khmer Rouge arrived in 1975; now it is merely taking back its rightful property.

The residents, however, say they were ordered to live behind the lycee after Vietnamese-backed forces ousted Pol Pot's government in 1979.

Labelled 'squatters'

"We wanted to go back my old house but other people were occupying it," Limsreang says.

"After 1979 everyone ended up living in different houses. At that time all the houses belonged to the government - that's why we had to do that."

The new regime did not allow much flexibility. As well as being directed to live in the building behind the lycee, many were told to work in the school which took over the site.

Later the residents took jobs with the local government or the civil service.

They lived rent-free, but were officially registered by the authorities, and took their right to live in their homes for granted.

That turned out to be overly-optimistic. When peace returned to Cambodia in the 1990s, so did the Lycee Rene Descartes.

At first the school co-existed with the residents, but an expanding demand inspired the lycee to seek the removal of the community.

"This site belonging to the embassy must go back to the school," says Pierre Olivieri, the co-ordinator of a parents' committee pressing for the move.

"We're the only French school in the world with a squat - even nations at war like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan don't have that.

"It's not good for the image of France or Cambodia."

The residents resent being labelled as "squatters", and they were unwilling to leave for the compensation on offer - a few thousand dollars and a plot of undeveloped land on a reclaimed lake on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

Limsreang says that City Hall made a series of threats to evict his community - and said it would give them nothing if they did not accept the terms.

Fearing the worst, some families signed the deal and moved out.

The only ray of hope for the residents was the support of some of the students at the Lycee.

'Regularly criticised'

A student demonstration before Khmer New Year in April brought much-needed publicity to the community's plight.

"It's a horrible feeling because they say they're doing this for us - for us the students," says a 17-year-old protester, Raimondo Pictet.

"For security reasons and for our well-being, these people are being evicted. Well they're human beings too - and they also have a well-being.

They have children who are also going to school - and if they're evicted they won't be able to finish their school year."

Raimondo's efforts have not been appreciated universally.

He says he has been insulted by some students' parents, and a local newspaper published a disparaging comment from the school principal.

But the residents behind the lycee say they are grateful for the students' involvement.

"I'm really excited that teenage students understand about human rights," says Limsreang, before he is interrupted by his son Vichet, a medical student.

"Yes, but it's not good for the French government. Maybe they don't give a damn about human rights issues in Cambodia.

"But we're living here legitimately, and we want to leave here with a fair amount of compensation. We don't want to get rich or anything."

The French embassy did not respond to several requests for an interview.

After weeks of pressure, the remaining residents have now agreed to go.

They say they are sympathetic to the needs of the school, but frightened that their relocation might turn into another forced eviction in which they could lose everything.

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"Cambodia's development cannot be made with our tears"

Geneva (Switzerland), May 7th 2009. Ros Han, Chan Vichet, Sia Phearum and Seng Sokheng in font of Palais Wilson, Wilson quay, headquarters of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights (Photo: Laurent Le Gouanvic)

13-05-2009
By Laurent le Gouanvic
Ka-set

From the top of the stairs of the Wilson Palace in Geneva, headquarters of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNHCHR) and formerly the late League of Nations, Ros Han, Chan Vichet, Sia Phearum and Seng Sokheang look at the unobstructed view of lake Léman and the Mont-Blanc quay, a street where luxury boutiques, banks and posh hotels run side by side. At the heart of the Swiss city, in a setting which strongly differs from Kratie, Oddar Meanchey and Phnom Penh, these four Cambodians came to make a call for help and file the demands of those evicted from their land or from those who are under threat of eviction to the international community. Before attending the Cambodian Government reporting to the Committee of economic, social and cultural rights of the UNHCHR, which is holding its 42nd meeting on May 11th and 12th, those heralds of Cambodian civil society held a series of meetings, hoping to put an end to evictions and land grabbing in their country.

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Lawrence teen, 17, shot in Lowell, dies

Tavaryna Choeun, 17 - Paul Bilodeau / Courtesy photo

May 14, 2009
By Bill Kirk
bkirk@eagletribune.com
The Eagle Tribune (North Andover, Massachusetts, USA)

LOWELL — A Lawrence teen who was shot and pushed out of a car on a street in Lowell Tuesday night died early this morning, her family told The Eagle-Tribune today.
Tavaryna Choeun, 17, who lived with her family at 184 Abbott St. before moving out of the house several months ago, was shot in the back of the head by unknown assailants, her body dropped on the side of Suffolk Street where she was found by Lowell police at 10:16 p.m. Tuesday.

She was taken to Lahey Clinic in Burlington and was on life support before succumbing to her injuries at 2 a.m. this morning, said her mother, Sophal Choeun, 45.

"I pray to God they find who did this to my daughter," said Choeun, a Cambodian immigrant who lives with her family, including three other children and her mother on the second floor of an Abbott Street multi-family house.

"I'll go see her in Boston today at 1 p.m.," she said quietly, her children and mother sitting by her side.

Choeun said her daughter had never been in trouble, and Lawrence Police Chief John Romero confirmed yesterday that she had never been arrested in Lawrence.

However, she said her oldest daughter was in the custody of the Department of Social Services because she kept dropping out of school.

"I didn't want her to drop out," she said.

The victim's sister, Maryanne Choeun, 18, said Tavaryna had dropped out of Lawrence High School in her freshman year and was a chronic runaway. She had run away from her foster home and was most recently living with her boyfriend in Lowell, a 20-year-old man, she said.

Tavaryna's father lives in California and is traveling in Cambodia, Maryanne Choeun said.

Aside from her mother and sister Maryanne, Tavaryna has a younger sister, Susan, 16, and brother, Peter, 7, and grandmother, Chy.

Maryanne Choeun told the Lowell Sun she hadn't talked to her sister in several months, but that she is a shy and quiet girl, who had no enemies and no problems with her boyfriend.

"We just want to know who did it," Maryanne Choeun said. "I can't believe they did this kind of stuff to my sister."

Lowell Police Capt. James McPadden said the investigation is ongoing and is being handled by District Attorney Gerard Leone's office.

A spokesman for Leone, Corey Welford, could not be reached for comment this morning.

Anyone with information is asked to call Lowell police at (978) 937-3200 or Crimestoppers at (978) 459-TIPS (8477). Callers may remain anonymous, but can receive up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest.

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Sichan Siv Will Visit the Long Beach Public Library on May 19th

Cambodian "Killing Fields" Survivor, Ambassador Sichan Siv, Bestselling Author of Golden Bones, Will Visit the Long Beach Public Library May 19th

The Long Beach Public Library Foundation will present "killing fields" survivor's story of success at the Main Library in Long Beach, CA on Tuesday May 19th from 5:30.-7:30p.m. Ambassador Sichan Siv will tell his tale of endurance and triumph rising from Pol Pot prisoner to U.S. Ambassadorship to achieve the American Dream.
Long Beach, CA (PRWEB) May 14, 2009 -- Daring escapes from war horrors coupled with meteoric rises from tragedy's ashes are often thought to be only the stuff of Hollywood films. But the dramatic and courageous life of The Honorable Sichan Siv - a refugee from the Cambodian "killing fields" and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations - is a true story.

The Long Beach Public Library Foundation is pleased to present Ambassador Siv on Tuesday, May 19, to tell his amazing and inspiring story from his best-selling book, Golden Bones: An Extraordinary Journey from Hell in Cambodia to a New Life in America. This will be the Ambassador's first appearance in Southern California.

While war raged throughout Southeast Asia in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ambassador Siv was a young intellectual and graduate student in Cambodia. He was part of the target demographic that dictator Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge sought to eradicate, resulting in the infamous "killing fields" or rice paddies dotted with millions of skulls.

Siv was captured and placed in a slave labor camp, but made a daring escape though the jungle to Thailand. After months in a refuge camp, he entered the United States. Once here, through diligence and hard work, he rose to the heights of the U.S. government.

Tuesday, May 19 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Main Auditorium, Long Beach Public Library
101 Pacific Avenue, Long Beach

Tickets are available for $30 by calling (562) 628-2441 or purchasing online at www.lbplfoundation.org. The event will include a live reading by Ambassador Siv, book signing and refreshments. Books will be available to purchase.

The non-profit Long Beach Public Library Foundation supplements and supports the Long Beach Public Library. The Foundation's programs include Family Learning Centers at each of the city's 12 libraries, as well as the Raising A Reader program, which has graduated more than 5,700 parents and pre-schoolers from its reading readiness course. Among the Foundation's most prominent programs is the annual Long Beach Reads One Book, when the entire city spends a week celebrating a selected book and its author. Funds from Ambassador Siv's appearance will support these programs.

Long Beach Public Library Foundation
101 Pacific Avenue, Long Beach, CA
562/628-2441 - lbpl.foundation@charter.net
Contact: Sara Pillet

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