Saturday, January 10, 2009
10/01/2009
Bangkok Post and AFP
Phnom Penh - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen may not attend a regional summit in neighbouring Thailand next month, his spokesman said Friday, after it was rescheduled following months of protests in Bangkok.
Thailand said it would go ahead without him. Asean Affairs Department director-general Vitavas Srivihok said Cambodia's absence would not affect the summit.
Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said it would be costly and difficult for Hun Sen to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting, recently moved from Bangkok to Hua Hin.
The summit was originally set to be held in Bangkok in December but was moved first to northern Chiang Mai, then delayed and moved again to the coast in late February as political turmoil engulfed Thailand.
Hun Sen believes meetings with key regional partners China, Japan and South Korea, which have been pushed back to take place separately in April, are the most important element of talks, the spokesman said.
"If it's only the 10 Asean countries meeting, it would be difficult for Hun Sen to go," he said.
"He says that Thailand should reconsider and wait until the end of the year (to host the summit)."
But Hun Sen has been a prickly critic of Thailand and its term as chairman as Asean, suggesting several times last year it would be better if Thailand gave up the chair because of its internal problems. The true sticking point, however, has been the disputes over Preah Vihear temple and border demarcation.
Hun Sen backed a suggestion from Singapore that the bloc consider staging the summit at the Asean secretariat in Jakarta, the spokesman said.
He said talks with China, Japan and South Korea were most critical because they are expected to give $80 billion in regional aid to reduce short-term liquidity problems, in line with the so-called Chiang Mai initiatives agreed in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
Thailand currently holds the rotating chairmanship of Asean, which groups it with Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.
Cambodia likely to miss Asean summit
Friday, January 9, 2009Anybody for palm juice drink (Teuk Thnot Chou)?
Saturday, January 10, 2009
A Cambodian fermented palm wine vendor sits on the roadside as she waits for customers in front of Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Jan. 9, 2009. Fermented palm wine is regarded as special wine and remains popular for Cambodian men in the rural areas. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)Read more!
Foreign Investment Expected to Slump
Saturday, January 10, 2009
By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
09 January 2009
Foreign direct investment is expected to drop by $200 million in 2009, from more than $800 million last year, according to a recently published World Bank report.
The drop in foreign investment would cause a fall from a high of 10 percent of GDP in 2007, to 5.2 percent in 2009, “as foreign investors become more cautious about investing in developing countries,” according to the report, “East Asia: Navigating the Perfect Storm.”
Cambodia saw a record $866 million in FDI in 2007, followed by $812.7 million in 2008. But the World Bank report predicts about $596 million in foreign investment to reach the country this year.
“We recognize the downturn of FDI, because of the global economic crisis, but the slowdown in 2009 is better than [the investment] in the early 2000s,” Hang Chhuon Naron, secretary general of the Ministry of Finance, said Friday. “But the government has taken measures to pay its budget for public investment.”
Opposition lawmaker Yim Sovann said he was “very concerned” about the drop in investment.
“It affects the people’s living, and the people will have no job to do,” he said. “It causes the government policy to reduce poverty fail.”
Top Cambodian KRouge trial officials to be investigated for graft [-Will it be a real investigation or just a show-investigation?]
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Sean Visoth, Director of the Khmer Rouge tribunal's Office of AministrationSaturday, January 10, 2009
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A Phnom Penh court will hear a corruption complaint against top officials at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal, a judge told AFP Friday.
Chief judge of Phnom Penh Municipal Court Chev Keng said he would accept the complaint against Sean Visoth, the top government official at the court, and Keo Thyvuth, its former chief of personnel, lodged Thursday by defence lawyers.
The lawyers allege the pair have received kickbacks from court workers, but on Friday the tribunal's Cambodian judges released a statement denying any involvement.
The judges added the complaint "was causing confusion and seriously affecting the honour and dignity of all individual judges and this (Khmer Rouge tribunal) institution as a whole."
Thursday's complaint was lodged by international lawyers for Khmer Rouge "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, one of five former leaders due to stand trial.
They said the failure to address corruption allegations undermined Nuon Chea's right to a fair trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Last year the UN launched an investigation into allegations that Cambodian workers had been forced to pay for their jobs, and withheld at least 300,000 dollars in July funding and court salaries.
The investigation's findings were never made public but Keo Thyvuth was later transferred from the court and Sean Visoth put on leave.
The tribunal opened in 2006 after nearly a decade of wrangling between the United Nations and Cambodia.
It is expected to hear its first case within the next few months, against former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav.
Up to two million people were executed or died of starvation and overwork as the communist Khmer Rouge dismantled modern Cambodian society during its 1975-1979 rule in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia.
Read more!
Opposition groups issued statements criticising 7th January Day
Friday, January 09, 2009
Mr. Sourn Serey Ratha.
By Mao Sotheany
8th January, 2009
Translated from Khmer by Khmerization
In a statement released yesterday, Mr. Seng Huot, secretary-general of the Sam Rainsy Party in Finland, stressed that 7th January is a day that the leadership of the Cambodian People's Party feel very proud with the Vietnamese army which had toppled the Khmer Rouge regime.
It is a day that Vietnam has invaded Cambodia that make Cambodia to lose its independence and democracy.
He added that every Khmer people should celebrate 23rd October (1991) because it is a day that all Khmer warring factions agreed to end the war.
In relation to 7th Jay Day, Mr. Sourn Serey Ratha, chairman of the Cambodian Actions and Committee of Justice and Equality, based in America and Mr. Dy Kareth, vice-chairman of the Cambodian Border Committe based in France, have issued statements separately which described 7th January as a day of the great victory of the Vietnamese colonialism over Cambodia and accused Vietnam of controlling Cambodia candidly and openly for 30 years behind the scene. This is a great danger that has caused the Cambodian nation and to the Khmer people to lose their soverignty, territorial integrity and their national indentity, the statements said.
Mr. Khieu Kanharith, government spokesman and Minister of Information, considers the groups that are opposed to 7th January Day as those who wanted to whitewash their shame for not being part of the liberation of the Cambodian nation.
Read more!
Thai gov't worries about 2,600 Thai workers in Gaza Strip
Tuesday, January 6, 2009 BANGKOK, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Labour Ministry is worried about the well-being of about 2,600 Thai workers now employed in the Gaza Strip as fierce fighting between Israeli troops and the militant group Hamas continues without any sign of ending soon, Deputy Permanent Secretary for Labour Pornchai Yooprayong said Tuesday.
Pornchai said there are about 2,600 Thai workers employed at 27 sites in the area.
The Ministry's Employment Department has been instructed not to dispatch new batches of Thai workers to Gaza for safety reasons, said Pornchai. So far all Thai workers there are safe, he said.
Fighting intensified when Israel sent ground forces into the Gaza Strip after several days of air raids against Hamas. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 100 civilians, according to United Nations figures. Nine Israelis have died since the operation began on Dec. 27.
Thai gov't worries about 2,600 Thai workers in Gaza Strip
BANGKOK, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Labour Ministry is worried about the well-being of about 2,600 Thai workers now employed in the Gaza Strip as fierce fighting between Israeli troops and the militant group Hamas continues without any sign of ending soon, Deputy Permanent Secretary for Labour Pornchai Yooprayong said Tuesday.
Pornchai said there are about 2,600 Thai workers employed at 27 sites in the area.
The Ministry's Employment Department has been instructed not to dispatch new batches of Thai workers to Gaza for safety reasons, said Pornchai. So far all Thai workers there are safe, he said.
Fighting intensified when Israel sent ground forces into the Gaza Strip after several days of air raids against Hamas. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 100 civilians, according to United Nations figures. Nine Israelis have died since the operation began on Dec. 27.
Calling for a government mea culpa for the KR
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Cambodia’s Extraordinary Chambers will see its first trial early this year, but some observers are calling for the government to do more than support the trial - by apologising for the injustices of the KR regime.
Tuesday, 06 January 2009
By Long Panhavuth
Letter to the Editor of The Phnom Penh Post
Dear Editor,
The fall of the Khmer Rouge regime left 1.7 million killed, all infrastructure destroyed and many widows and orphans.
The new government after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime and the current government tried to provide restorative justice for Cambodians, but the scale of the crimes committed was so big and a genuine political will to seek redress remained so fragile that today Cambodia is still struggling to obtain reparations for the victims of past human rights violations.
In (the book) An Introduction to the Khmer Rouge Trials, Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen said: "Not a single one of our people has been spared from the ravages brought upon our country during the three years, eight months and twenty days" of Democratic Kampuchea.
The present operation of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) is an illustration of the government's good will to deal with past human rights violations by providing some sort of justice for Cambodians who were victimised during the period of the KR regime. This court allows victims to participate as civil parties and to make claims for reparations, though in symbolic ways. As of the end of October 2008, there were 28 civil parties in case 001 (S21-Kaing Guk Eav aka Duch) and 24 civil parties in case 002 (Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, and Kaing Guk Eav) and there are more than 2,500 applications pending. These figures show that the court is relevant and important for Cambodians.
Soon the court will conduct its first trial. Due to the number of victims, neither the court nor the state can compensate each individual. Individual compensation, if it were to be selective, may also affect existing reconciliation in communities.
In any case, the internal rules of the ECCC only allow the court to provide collective and symbolic reparations. There is no money in the court's current budget and the ECCC has not established a Trust Fund to provide and implement reparations. The accused also claim to be indigent. In the minds of the judges, collective and symbolic reparation may be limited to forcing the convicted person(s) to pay for publication of the court decision or forcing him/them to publicly apologise.
This is not enough for the victims to move forward.
Reparations uphold the status of victims as bearers of rights and convey a sense that they are owed some compensation. Reparations should serve as a vehicle for acknowledging past violations and state responsibility for crimes committed in its name, as well as a public commitment to address their enduring impact. We can't change the past, but how can victims move forward?
What victims have asked for is not necessarily money. Public apology is often referred to by victims as a key element of the reparations they seek. Up to now, such an apology has never come from the state.
Many victims say that they cannot reconcile when the state has never apologised for the crimes of its predecessor. Yet, state agent(s) continue to get political benefit from the sufferings of the victims.
The country established May 21 as "Hatred Day" to commemorate the death of the victims and, in most public speeches, our prime minister acknowledges the crimes and sufferings of Cambodians during the KR regime. However, he has never issued or planned to come up with any state policy to apologise for the wrongdoings of the prior regime.
Such a state apology has been made in many parts of the world. Hungarian authorities apologised for the role of the state in the genocide of the Jews; Canada apologised and provided compensation for historical abuses against native nations; former French president Jacques Chirac apologized for the crimes committed in the name of the state during the Second World War; the US president as well as the secretary general of the United Nations apologised publicly for their failure to stop the genocide in Rwanda; and other heads of state apologised for past abuse in Australia, Chile, Serbia, etc.
Why not Cambodia?
The government's issuance of a public apology in the name of the state would not disturb social peace, nor would it upset any former Khmer Rouge members who are now in the government, at the parliament or in the Cambodian People's Party.
It would not create political instability. Instead, it would bring more legitimacy to the current government, as it would show its consciousness of the enormous price paid by Cambodians to previous human rights abuses, and assure that they won't be repeated again.
The apology will help the victims to heal and move forward. The state apology could be issued in parallel with the first judgment issued by the ECCC in order to make the symbolic reparations offered more meaningful.
But it could also be made on the 30th anniversary of the end of the KR regime, on January 7, 2009, the day on which the CPP's current leaders put an end to Democratic Kampuchea.
Long Panhavuth
Cambodia Justice Initiative
Cambodian prosecutor Chea Leang (L) and Sok An, her powerful CPP uncle
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
No more KR suspects: Chea Leang, Sok An's niece
No more KR suspects: Cambodian prosecutor
Tuesday, 06 January 2009
Written by Brendan Brady
The Phnom Penh Post
The Extraordinary Chambers’ Chea Leang breaks her silence on why the court must not seek to bring more ex-KR leaders on the docket
PUTTING more former KR leaders on the docket would contradict the original mandate of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, overstretch its duration and budget, and undermine national stability and reconciliation, according to Cambodian co-prosecutor Chea Leang, whose reasoning against expanding the trials was made public for the first time on Monday.
Since late last year, Chea Leang and her international counterpart, Robert Petit, have been at loggerheads over whether to submit more suspects for investigation - beyond the five former Khmer Rouge leaders currently detained.
"She feels that this court should instead prioritise the trials of the five suspects already detained," especially since, according to her, the tribunal's mandate "envisioned only a small number of trials", said a statement from the UN-backed tribunal released Monday.
"She maintains that this Court's mandate can be adequately filled by the prosecution of the suspects already detained," it added.
Chea Leang, who could not be reached for comment Monday, had filed her arguments December 29 to the tribunal's Pre-Trial Chamber in response to a "statement of disagreement" lodged earlier in the month by Petit after the pair failed to agree on his proposal to add additional suspects. While Petit has refused to confirm any figures, sources close to the court say that six additional former regime members have been targeted.
"There is a difference in our interpretation of what this court is about," Petit told the Post Monday, although he insisted the disagreement has not delayed ongoing investigations at the tribunal.
Expanding the docket would help the court fulfill its mandate, he said, adding: "The stability of any society can only be enhanced by improved accountability".
Petit acknowledged that expanding the docket presented "legitimate" financial concerns but was confident the move "would be supported by donors".
Long Panhavuth, program coordinator for the legal watchdog Cambodian Justice Initiative, said, "Expanding the number of suspects will improve the integrity and independence of the court, and that will attract more donor funds".
The group has urged the Cambodian side of the court to demonstrate its independence by allowing further investigation in the face of government fears that a wider roundup could expose current leaders to scrutiny.
PM: 30% of Cambodians live under poverty line
PHNOM PENH, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Some 30 percent of Cambodians now live under the poverty line, said Prime Minister Hun Sen here on Tuesday while addressing a bridge inauguration ceremony.
"We are making efforts to reduce poverty step by step and I couldn't achieve giant leap in this regard," he said.
Cambodia realized 1 percent reduction of poverty on annual basis in the past years, thanks to the government policy and the economic growth, he said.
Cambodia is one among the 49 least developed countries in the world and the government previously claimed that 35 percent of the population lived under the poverty line of no more than 1 U.S. dollar of daily income for a person.