Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Japan tells Hor 5 Hong to go "くそを食べる"
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| Discordant note: Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (left) chats with Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong before the East Asia Summit foreign ministers' meeting in Phnom Penh on July 12. REUTERS / KYODO |
Wednesday, Sep. 5, 2012
Kyodo
Japan has told Cambodia, which holds the rotating ASEAN chairmanship this year, that
it is dissatisfied with the chairman's statements after two meetings of
the bloc's foreign ministers in July, according to diplomatic sources.
Foreign
Minister Koichiro Genba, in a letter to his Cambodian counterpart, Hor
Namhong, dated July 24, voiced regret that the issue of the abductions
of Japanese nationals by North Korea was not included in the statement,
which was issued after the foreign ministers' meeting of the ASEAN
Regional Forum in Phnom Penh on July 12, the sources said.
Genba
also took issue with Hor Namhong over the chairman's statement issued
following the foreign ministers' meeting of East Asia Summit member
countries, held in the Cambodian capital on the same day, saying that territorial disputes in the South China Sea with China and its neighbors were not properly conveyed.
The sources said Hor Namhong
responded to Genba's letter, noting that such statements are not meant
to be a verbatim record but rather a summary of the overall views of a
meeting.
"No country, except, Japan . . .
had voiced disagreement with the chairman's statements," Hor Namhong
was quoted as saying in his letter to Genba on July 27.
With Russia, South Korea and
China having gone on the diplomatic offensive over territorial disputes
with Japan, the tone of Hor Namhong's letter to Genba suggests a decline
in Southeast Asia of Japan's diplomatic clout.
US, China jockey for influence with ASEAN [-The US thanks Indonesia rather than Hun Xen]
Bagus BT Saragih
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
As US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton wrapped up her mission in Jakarta to enhance ties with the
Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and bolster the
grouping’s role in the South China Sea spat, China pledged to give Cambodia US$500 million in loans and grants as a token of gratitude for Phnom Penh’s move in accommodating the Asian superpower’s interests in the region.
Clinton concluded her state
visit to Indonesia by making a courtesy call on President Susilo Bambang
Yu-dhoyono and paying a visit to ASEAN headquarters in South Jakarta.
In her meeting with Yudhoyono,
Clinton discussed the South China Sea issue as well as Indonesia’s key
role in ASEAN toward producing a peaceful resolution with China
regarding the conflicting territorial claims.
“On the latest developments in the South China Sea, Secretary of State Clinton expressed the US’ appreciation for Indonesia’s role,
particularly having managed to retain ASEAN unity. Indonesia and the US
have agreed to push for a code of conduct within the zone, particularly
ahead of the ASEAN and East Asia summits in Phnom Penh in November,”
Marty, who accompanied Yudhoyono at the meeting, told a press conference
at the Presidential Office on Tuesday.
After her meeting with
Yudho-yono, Clinton held a meeting with ASEAN Secretary-General Surin
Pitsuwan to indicate US support for the 10-nation association.
Surin said that during her
visit, Clinton “extended moral support” to ASEAN for its efforts in
dealing with the South China Sea issue.
Late on Monday, Aun Porn
Moniroth, secretary of state for finance in Cambodia, which is ASEAN
chair this year, announced that Prime Minister Hun Sen had signed four
loan agreements for unspecified projects worth about $420 million when
he visited China over the weekend, Reuters reported.
Three more loan agreements,
worth more than $80 million, were expected to be signed later this year,
Moniroth said, adding that Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao had also
pledged a grant of 150 million yuan ($24 million) as “a gift” for
Cambodia to use on any priority project.
“The Chinese government also
expressed its appreciation for the part to be played by Cambodia as
ASEAN chair in maintaining good cooperation between China and ASEAN,”
Moniroth said.
According to Xinhua news agency,
Wen said that China “will coordinate with Cambodia and support the
country in order to make the upcoming series of meetings among East
Asian leaders a success”.
Cambodia was deemed the state
most responsible for the 2012 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) fiasco. At
the meeting, which was held in Phnom Penh, ASEAN members failed for the
first time in the group’s 45-year history to issue a joint communiqué,
following fierce debates on the wording of a section on territorial
claims in the South China Sea.
Officials from several ASEAN
countries viewed Cambodia as stonewalling any efforts to change the
position of China, one of its most powerful allies.
The latest developments from
Phnom Penh could potentially undermine the shuttle diplomacy carried out
by Marty, on Yudhoyono’s instructions, only days after the AMM ended,
which Indonesia and the US see as vital to maintaining unity in
Southeast Asia.
On Wednesday, Yudhoyono, First
Lady Ani Yudhoyono and a number of Cabinet members will leave for Ulan
Bator, Mongolia to pay a diplomatic visit, and Vladivostok in Russia to
attend the APEC summit.
The trip to Ulan Bator was in
response to an invitation from Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj,
presidential foreign affairs spokesman, Teuku Faizasyah, said in a
statement.
“With the mineral-rich Mongolia,
there is the potential to forge bilateral cooperation to support
Indonesia’s energy security,” he continued.
During the APEC summit,
Yu-dhoyono is expected to have bilateral meetings with Russian President
Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Mexican President Felipe
Calderon, Peruvian President Ollanta Moses Humala, and Chilean President
Sebastian Piñera.
Clinton, meanwhile, will join
Yudhoyono in Vladivostok after touring several Asia-Pacific cities
including Beijing, China; Dili, Timor Leste; and Bandar Seri Begawan,
Brunei Darussalam.
Cambodia's ASEAN help leads to Chinese aid [-Payout time for Comrade Hun Xen...]
By Prak Chan, Reuters
PHNOM PENH -- China has pledged more than US$500 million in soft loans and grants to Cambodia and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao thanked it for helping Beijing maintain good relations with the regional grouping ASEAN, a Cambodian junior minister said.
A summit of the 10 members of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in July failed to
issue a joint communique for the first time in the group's 45-year
history after disagreement over the wording of a section on territorial
claims in the South China Sea.
Cambodia,
which chairs ASEAN meetings this year, was accused by some countries in
the group of stonewalling in support of its ally, China.
The South China Sea has become
Asia's biggest potential military flashpoint. China's claim over the
huge area has in particular set it against ASEAN members Vietnam and the
Philippines.
Four loan agreements for
unspecified projects worth about US$420 million were signed when
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen visited China over the weekend,
Secretary of State for Finance Aun Porn Moniroth told a briefing late on
Monday.
Another three loan agreements,
worth more than US$80 million, are expected to be signed this year, Aun
Porn Moniroth said, adding that Wen had also promised a grant of 150
million yuan (US$24 million) as “a gift” for Cambodia to use on any
priority project.
“The Chinese government also
voiced high appreciation for the part played by Cambodia as the chair of
ASEAN to maintain good cooperation between China and ASEAN,” Aun Porn
Moniroth said.
According to China's Xinhua News
Agency, Wen said China “will closely coordinate with Cambodia and
support the country to make the upcoming series of meetings for East
Asian leaders a success.” Those meeting are in Cambodia in November.
Chinese investment in Cambodia
totaled US$1.9 billion last year, more than double the combined
investment by ASEAN countries and 10 times more than the United States,
which is trying to extend its influence in the region.
Aun Porn Moniroth said Premier
Wen had given “positive consideration” to Hun Sen's proposal that China
provide new loans of between US$300 million to US$500 million per year
for the next five years for unspecified projects.
He also said a Chinese firm
planned to invest US$2 billion to build a steel plant in Cambodia
employing about 10,000 people and with the capacity to produce 3 million
tons of steel a year. He gave no details so it was not possible to
verify how far advanced the plans were.
PM will hand-deliver titles [… if he does not change his mind again – Remember the ELC ban?]
Wednesday, 05 September 2012
Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post
Prime Minister Hun Sen will personally deliver land titles to residents in Kratie province’s Snuol district on September 21 following the completion of the land measuring mission by volunteer youth there.
“I will go to Kratie’s Snuol district to distribute land titles for
these residents for the first time. They are not provisional but
complete land titles for ownership,” Hun Sen said during a graduation
ceremony held at Koh Pich yesterday.
“Today all granted land titles following the measurement are declared
complete, so the people in all those areas don’t need to face a
transitional period,” the premier continued.
Just three months ago, some 2,000 student volunteers were dispatched
across the country to measure land for families who claim to live in
areas overlapping economic and other land concessions, though the
success of how this would be implemented has been a point of conjecture
since the ambitious plan was announced.
According to the premier’s order, land titles have been granted in
three forms of disputed land: concession land granted to private
companies since 2000, economic land concessions and state land covered
by forest that has been designated as such since 2002 and which
residents have occupied since.
Hun Sen again touted the ambitious figures: 1.2 million hectares of
land measured across 178 communes for 350,000 families, but since the
project began, only 10 per cent of the disputed land has been measured.
The completed land measurements in Snuol district have, as required,
have been posted at the district hall for the past month for villagers
or companies to lodge objections, Hun Sen highlighted, so the land
titles given to villagers would be complete with no other avenues for
protest.
Men Vanna, Snuol district governor, said he is preparing 930 land
titles to issue to the residents living in Srae Cha and Pi Thnou
commune.
“The land in these two communes involves state land and economic land
concession of the CIV private company. Six hundred families will be
granted land titles,” he said, explaining that often one family would
receive more than one land title for houses and farming plots.
Kratie-based Adhoc observer Samrith Vanna said the measuring project
in Kratie had gone smoothly in Snuol district, although it was
continuing in Chhloung district.
In his speech, Prime Minister Hun Sen also said he will publish
200,000 copies of the basic principles on land and sea border issues
with Vietnam that he presented in his marathon five-hour speech to the
National Assembly on August 9.
Bulldozing of crops reignites dispute [-Sure path to Hun Xen’s predicted land revolution?]
Wednesday, 05 September 2012
Phak Seangly
The Phnom Penh Post
Phak Seangly
The Phnom Penh Post
Contractors hired by Cambodian land brokers bulldozed
through four hectares of villagers’ crops in Poipet town on Monday,
breaching a truce contract that protected the villagers’ land until
January 1 next year.
According to the contract, the families residing on land claimed by
11 independent Cambodian land brokers would move to an area near their
original Stung Bot village.
Instead, bulldozers greeted the families on Monday, destroying crops, three small sheds and the familys’ livelihood.
“The [landowners] destroyed four hectares of crops
including mango, banana, acacia and other crops in order to prepare the
land for sale,” said Dy Srey, a resident living in Stung Bot village. “Residents begged them to stop, but they ignored us.”
About 100 residents protested yesterday in Poipet town following the bulldozing.
Srey said that 108 families will file a letter today with Poipet town hall contesting the contract with the brokers.
Residents have resided on the land since 1997 and were issued land
titles in 1998. However, the land brokers claim to have held a title
since 1993.
The villagers are now demanding compensation and the right to remain on their land.
The protesters were peacefully prevented from continuing their march through Poipet town yesterday.
Town governor Ngor Mengchroun said the long-running land dispute had
been solved before the bulldozing had reignited the problem.
“The broker wants to build a road on the 20 hectares of land,”
Mengchroun said. “They do not want to destroy the crops; they just want
to build on the land.”
Vorn Sareth, Stung Bot village chief, said the act of bulldozing crops was in breach of the previously determined contract.
The land brokers could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Boeung Kak woman arrested
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| Yorm Bopha speaks to reporters in June. She was arrested yesterday and sent to Prey Sar prison for pre-trial detention. Photograph: Meng Kimlong/Phnom Penh Post |
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| Lous Sakhorn (in blue shirt) leaves Phnom Penh Municipal Court with other villagers from the Boeung Kak lake community yesterday following his release. He was arrested yesterday morning along with his wife, Yorm Bopha, who later in the day was sent to Prey Sar prison for pretrial detention. Photograph: Pha Lina/Phnom Penh Post |
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Claire Knox
The Phnom Penh Post
Bopha was a vocal presence at protests for the Boeung Kak 13, a group of women arrested during May 22 eviction protests.
Prominent Boeung Kak villager and protester Yorm Bopha was yesterday jailed in Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison, after she and her husband – en route to check for their names on a voting register – were pounced on by police in plain clothes in what her husband claims was a set-up.
Outside a building housing Srah Chork commune’s electoral roll, 29-year-old
Bopha and her 56-year-old husband Lous Sakhorn were arrested at about
9am by 10 policemen, who shoved them into an unmarked car and sped away, according to witness Doung Kea.
About 100 villagers who gathered outside Daun Penh police station
maintained they had not been informed of an August 29 arrest warrant
handed down by Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge Te Samnag – a response
to an alleged act of intentional violence committed on August 7.
“The accused suspects escaped after the court issued the
warrant… to ensure the suspects are judged fully they must be arrested,” Samnag told the Post.
While her husband was released at about 3pm, Bopha was ushered away
to Prey Sar prison to await her trial for Article 218: intentional
violence.
Sakhorn said he and his wife had never received the
warrant and a Srah Chork police officer had phoned them several days
ago, asking them to check their names on the electoral roll.
“When we arrived, they arrested us without any official documentation … they then accused us of leading people to fight authorities,” he said.
He said that at 11am he asked to call his neighbour to collect his children from school, but was denied.
Bopha was a vocal presence at protests for the Boeung Kak 13,
a group of women arrested during May 22 eviction protests. They were
charged two days later with disputing authority and trespassing on land
awarded to ruling Cambodian People’s Party senator Lao Meng Khin’s
development firm Shukaku and sentenced to between one and two and a half
years in prison.
The women were released on June 27 but still carry the burden of guilty convictions.
Tep Vanny, one of the Boeung Kak 13, said the latest
arrests were an obvious attempt to threaten their recent calls for the
demarcation of 12.44 hectares of land that Prime Minister Hun Sen
pledged to them just over one year ago.
Housing Rights Task Force communication official Long Kim Heang said
the arrest and warrant were a new, illegal tactic to scare Boeung Kak
women into silence.
Opposition Sam Rainsy Party MP Mu Sochua said she would act immediately against the arrest and would again lobby US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to intervene.
“This is a psychological and physical threat – this kind of pressure should not be mounted on a victim,” she said.
Local Observers Support UN Envoy’s Latest Rights Report
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| Surya Subedi, U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia, speaks during a press conference in Phnom Penh, file photo. |
Subedi said in his report that upcoming elections face a number of irregularities and need reformed.
04 September 2012
Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
WASHINGTON DC - Local rights advocates and political observers in Cambodia say they support the most recent human rights report issued by the special UN envoy Surya Subedi, despite denials of its veracity by government officials.
Subedi, who visited the country
earlier this year, said in his report that upcoming elections face a
number of irregularities and need reformed.
He also said that rights workers
and journalists continue to face harassment and that the freedom of
expression is of “principal concern.” Land disputes remain a concern, he
said.
“To me having directly monitored the events for the past few years, it seemed this report revealed the obvious situation in Cambodia in the fields of human rights, rule of law and democracy,”
said Lao Monghay, an independent political analyst. “And the report
also focuses on the election and mechanisms of the election
institution.”
Among the election
irregularities, Subedi reported concerns about the use of state
resources, such as government employees or vehicles, by political
parties during campaigning.
“Some
political parties reported threats, intimidation and harassment
(including legal proceedings) against their members and candidates,” according to the report. “These are extremely worrying allegations.”
Subedi also reported on
intimidation and threats to rights workers and journalists, including
defamation or incitement charges. “The threats faced by these
individuals have taken a serious turn for the worse, with an increase in
the use of live ammunition against people defending their rights and
protesting against Government policies and practices,” the report says.
“Since the beginning of 2012,
there have been at least four incidents in which individuals have been
shot,” the report says. This included the death of Chut Wutty in Koh
Kong province in April and the death of a 14-year-old girl in Kratie
province in May.
“These incidents have hampered
the activities of human rights defenders in Cambodia, with many now
fearing for their lives,” the report says.
Subedi said in the report that
potential court prosecution under the criminal code has created a
“chilling effect on freedom of expression in Cambodia.”
“Land disputes and forced
evictions continue unabated in Cambodia, and feature the use of force by
the authorities and business enterprises,” the report says.
Government spokesman Phay Siphan
said the report is not an accurate reflection of Cambodia’s rights
environment. “What Mr. Subedi sees is just a universal value that can’t
apply in Cambodia,” he said. “The Cambodian government has many
priorities to fulfill, but the work that can be done depends on the
ability of one’s own culture. That’s important.”
However, rights workers say the government should heed the report.
“What they have missed, they
should try to fulfill more,” said Am Sam Ath, chief investigator for the
rights group Licadho, “to allow Cambodia to become democratic, have
rule of law and respect human rights properly.”
Suon Bunsak, secretariat
director for the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, a consortium
of rights groups, said the report “reveals much of the truth in
Cambodia.”
Lao Monghay said the government
has not done enough to improve democracy, rights and rule of law,
despite its claims. “In fact, it has not,” he said. “And whenever there
is indication about its lacking on these points, then there is a
reaction.”
Gates Foundation Provides Millions for Sanitation in Cambodia, Vietnam
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| Bill Gates, accompanied by his wife Melinda speak to students at an appearance at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina. |
Men Kimeng, VOA Khmer
WASHINGTON DC - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has provided nearly $11 million to help more than 1 million people establish better sanitation through the construction of latrines.
The funding, provided to the East Meets West Foundation, will help people in Cambodia and Vietnam, where around 17,000 people die each year from poor sanitation, said John Anner, director of East Meets West.
That means the loss of some $1.2 billion a year to medical treatment and absence from work, he said.
“So we see sanitation as not
simply being a health issue, but also something that helps families
trapped in the cycle of poverty and makes it hard to climb out of
poverty,” Anner told VOA in an interview.
Meach Sotheary, executive
director for the group Cambodian Women for Peace and Development, a
local partner, said the project means more than just building latrines
for impoverished Cambodians. “We have to educate them so that they
understand why they need to build latrines,” she said.
CWPD will focus work on Pursat and Kampot provinces. The project runs through 2015.
Sout Yea, deputy governor of
Kampot, said more latrines need to be built in the province, “because,
according to their nature, farmers do not pay much attention to
sanitation.”
The World Bank estimates that
for every dollar invested in sanitation, a country saves $9 in
productivity, said Nguyen Minh Chau, country director for East Meets
West in Vietnam. “So it’s a very good return for investing in
sanitation.”
Westerner in Photograph Identified as American Sailor
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7Df4ybZNOs
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| In this photo taken on Aug. 20, 2012, Director of Documentation Center of Cambodia, Youk Chhang arranges photos, a part of about a thousand of newly-discovered photo collection of detainees at the former Khmer Rouge main prison S-21, in his office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. More than three decades have passed since the Khmer Rouge ultras orchestrated the deaths of nearly 2 million, one out of every four Cambodians, and turned the country into a slave labor camp. |
The photographic evidence proves there were more than just four Westerners detained, tortured and ordered executed at the Tuol Sleng prison.
04 September 2012
Men Kimeng, VOA Khmer
WASHINGTON DC - Researchers at
the Documentation Center of Cambodia have identified one of two
Westerners who appeared amid more than 1,400 photographs donated to the
center last month.
Researchers say one of the men photographed was American Christopher DeLance, who was seized by the Khmer Rouge as he sailed off the coast with three other foreigners.
The photographic evidence proves
there were more than just four Westerners detained, tortured and
ordered executed at the Tuol Sleng prison, known to the Khmer Rouge as
S-21, which was supervised by jailed torture chief Duch.
“This finding is testimony
against what Duch has always claimed, that there were only four
westerners who died at S-21,” Chhang Youk, director of the Documentation
Center of Cambodia, told VOA Khmer. “On the contrary, there were 12 of
them, and one life is already important, not to say 10,000 or 20,000
lives. It adds to more responsibility for Duch.”
Duch is currently serving a life
sentence, having been found guilty of atrocity crimes for his role at
the prison by the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal. He refused to identify
the men in the two photographs when questioned by researchers, who are
still working to identify the second man.
DeLance, who was born in 1949,
was executed at the prison just prior to the ouster of the Khmer Rouge
in January 1979. He was tortured into saying he worked for the CIA,
according to documents detailing his confession. His Khmer Rouge
interrogators said he had used a boat delivery “as a cover,” when he had
been spying on the Khmer Rouge navy.
Chhang Youk said that nearly all
confessions made at the prison pointed to the CIA or Vietnamese spies.
Prisoners believed they would be freed if they confessed, no matter the
truth, but they were in fact executed as a result, he said. “After
asking his friends, there is no reason to believe he was a CIA agent,”
he said.
Researchers at the center say DeLance’s family members have declined to look at the photograph.
Khmer Rouge cryptographer explains regime’s codes
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| Norng Sophang, a former telegraph and code operator who testified at the Khmer Rouge tribunal. Photograph: ECCC/POOL |
Joseph Freeman
The Phnom Penh Post
“The Khmer Rouge had a slogan: ‘Secrecy is the key to victory. High secrecy, long survival.’”
Khmer
Rouge leaders and cadres were so paranoid about messages being
intercepted that communications took place on special frequencies and
secret signals were exchanged between the sender and receiver before
transmission could occur, said Norng Sophang, a former telegraph and
code operator who testified at the Khmer Rouge tribunal yesterday.
Sophang, a 60-year-old retired
teacher, spent much of his day on the stand delving into the nitty
gritty of the intricate system.
In response to questions posed
by senior assistant to the international co-prosecutor Tarik Abdulhak,
he told the court that senior leaders would send transmissions to the
zones using a special technique, and that telegrams were given an extra
wrinkle of encryption depending on the level of classification.
A recipient trying to decipher some of the most sensitive documents, for example, would have to work through a few steps.
“There are three layers for the
process of encryption in order to make the message final,” Sophang said.
“The most confidential messages were in relation to the journeys made
by the cadres … and secondly, it was the internal affairs, that is, what
happened in various bases, that would fall under this category as
well.”
At his job, Sophang taught
others how to use and understand one of the more basic methods, which
involved a 100-cell table filled with letters and numbers.
To unlock the numerical part of a
telegram using the table, the reader would have to know that each
character in the table translates corresponding figures in the rows and
columns.
“For instance, for number nine,
that is number 1 [on the vertical column], and on the horizontal line it
is number 8, so 18 represents number nine.”
Numbers, Sophang added, could
describe offices and even people. Son Sen, Democratic Kampuchea’s
defence minister, was referred to simply as 47.
“And in relation to an open message, as in unencrypted, there were very, very few,” Sophang said.
Coding and ambiguous language
was another part of the cloak-and-dagger nature of the Khmer Rouge, said
Youk Chhang, head of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has
collected thousands of telegrams from the regime.
Seemingly straightforward telegrams are marked by idiomatic phrasing and a lack of clear reference.
One of their strangest
qualities, though, is a heavy reliance on adjectives and adverbs:
“felicitously welcome the second anniversary of national independence”;
“the super-fantastic 17th of April”; and “let’s congratulate
super-excellently the glorious Communist Party of Kampuchea”.
The act of concealment was central to the operation and thinking of Democratic Kampuchea, Youk said. “The Khmer Rouge had a slogan: ‘Secrecy is the key to victory. High secrecy, long survival.’”
Boeung Kak Activist Detained After August Demonstration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvXvN_xd7vI
Yorm Bopha is accused of involvement in a violent demonstration over housing rights at the contentious development site.
04 September 2012
Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Tep Vanny, a representative of Boeung Kak residents insisting on better resettlement options, said the arrest was a “cowardly act” by the court authorities, who have ordered similar detentions in the past.
PHNOM
PENH - Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday detained an activist of
the Boeung Kak neighborhood for intentional violence, rights advocates
said.
Yorm Bopha, 31, and her husband,
Lours Sarkorn, 56, were arrested after they appeared at their local
commune office to inspect a voter registration list for the 2013
elections. Lours Sarkorn was released later.
Yorm Bopha is accused of involvement in a violent demonstration over housing rights at the contentious development site.
She has been involved in
numerous demonstrations since the Shikaku, Inc., company began
developing there, pushing thousands of families from their homes to make
way for a commercial and residential complex.
Tep Vanny, a representative of
Boeung Kak residents insisting on better resettlement options, said the
arrest was a “cowardly act” by the court authorities, who have ordered
similar detentions in the past.
Am Sam Ath, an investigator for
the rights group Licadho, said he believed the arrest was aimed at
stopping ongoing protests over the development.
Maids’ mother told to drop complaint: NGO [-Lawlessness rules in Nom Benh]
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| Cambodian worker return from Malaysia. Photograph: Pha Lina/Phnom Penh Post |
Tuesday, 04 September 2012
Sen David
The Phnom Penh Post
The recruitment firm HRD Company had allegedly threatened the mother of two sisters working as maids in Malaysia, pressuring her to withdraw her NGO complaint seeking help in repatriating her daughters or risk having all communication with them cut, a rights group said yesterday.
Pov Chhan, 50, from Kampong
Cham’s Kampong Siem district, filed a complaint with the Community Legal
Education Center on Saturday after the second anniversary of the
expiration of her daughters’ contracts, saying she had not heard from
them, nor had they returned home.
“[On Sunday], the company called me by phone. They said: ‘You are so poor, if you file a complaint, you will not get any money from us’,” Chhan said yesterday.
“But I really do not want money;
I just want my two daughters back home safely. I did not get their
salary ever, not even 100 riel.”
Chhan said she had heard from
her daughters only twice since they left at the beginning of 2010, and
both times the sisters had been distressed.
“They called one time seeking
help. One said she had been beaten and the other one was ordered to work
as a maid for many houses,” she said.
“They said they wanted to come back home, but they were not allowed.”
Moeun Tola, head of the labour
program at the Community Legal Education Center, said the NGO was
investigating Chhan’s complaint and the allegation that HRD Company had
threatened her to drop the complaint.
When contacted yesterday, an HRD
Company representative, who declined to be named, would not comment on
the allegation, but said he would pass on the information to his
superiors.
Phnom Penh will host a regional conference today on migrant labour standards and human rights.
Conviction a threat to CNRP
Tuesday, 04 September 2012
Meas Sokchea and Rosa Ellen
The Phnom Penh Post
Meas Sokchea and Rosa Ellen
The Phnom Penh Post
The Cambodian National Rescue Party is
one step closer to its ambition of running in next year’s election
after it was approved by the Ministry of Interior last week, but the newly formed opposition party faces more hurdles if self-exiled party co-founder Sam Rainsy is to lead it.
In an official letter signed by
Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng, the CNRP was told
its request to register as a political entity had been given the green
light and could now be considered for registration in the next election
by the National Election Committee.
Headquartered on street 1972 in
Phnom Penh Thmey’s commune of the capital’s Sen Sok district, the CNRP
must now fulfil the requirements of the country’s Political Party Law.
“To achieve validity, the
National Rescue Party must complete the forms and conditions as stated
in Article 20, Chapter 5 of the law on political parties,” Sar Kheng’s
letter stated.
This includes registering party officials and members.
Tep Nytha, secretary-general of National Election Committee, said he welcomed the newly formed CNRP, but it could not be recognised if the party’s head candidate was a convicted criminal.
“So, if such a case arrived at the NEC … [we] have the right to cancel the name from the candidate list.”
CNRP representative Pol Ham
would only say that Sam Rainsy’s leadership was being discussed but that
the first step of approval meant the Ministry of Interior had complied
with the formation of the new party and that a CNRP emblem would soon be
released, vowing the party would have no trouble collecting the
thumbprints of 4,000 members.
Koul Panha, executive director
for the Committee of Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, said the new
party would be challenged to raise funds and educate voters about its
policies before the 2013 poll.
“Because if they had merged,
everything could be brought together, but this [the Cambodian National
Rescue Party] is not a merger. I think that is the challenge,” he said.
As well as funds, which NRP
reports on its website to have reached $51,000 since the party was
announced, Koul said the new party could find it hard to make its
presence felt in logos and visual campaigns.
“It’s not easy,” he said. “They’ll face some conflict or severe arguments to put their logos up.”
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