Asia's Next Tiger?

Labels: Economic, Economic Success, Election, hun sen

Labels: Cambodia's Court, Prince Ranariddh

The Sam Rainsy Party and three other parties that also won seats, according to the same announcement, quickly joined forces on Monday to denounce the results, charging that they had been “manipulated and rigged” by the ruling party. They cited “illegal and fraudulent practices” relating to “deletion of countless legitimate voters' names and artificial increase” in votes for the ruling party due to “illegitimate voters.”

The ruling party’s victory and the denouncement of it by the four non-ruling parties have come as no surprise. In fact this victory had been widely predicted even months before the polls. Some have cited the economic growth achieved over recent years by the ruling party and the electorate’s unity behind it in the face of Thailand’s recent encroachment on Cambodia as the main factors contributing to the win.

In fact, the ruling party’s victory should be attributed to the system of government it put in place when it was a full-fledged communist party in the 1980s. To this system was added a democratic veneer in 1993 when the country theoretically embraced parliamentary democracy, but it has remained basically intact and in firm control. The ruling party has utilized this system to get itself re-elected over and over since its defeat in the U.N.-organized election in 1993.

The ruling party has controlled all the state apparatus – including the National Election Committee, the judiciary, security forces, civil service and educational institutions – since the communist days. It has manned all important posts with its members, so that the state apparatus and the party apparatus are but one.

Such fusion can be seen in the proximity of the offices of the party, police stations and administrative offices, whose respective buildings are located next to one another in many provinces, districts and communities. Almost all village chiefs and heads of groups in villages are also members of the ruling party. All party cadres from top to bottom enjoy high social status, impunity and material benefits gained through illicit means.

Several months before the election, the ruling party was able to successfully tempt with such privileges thousands of members of the opposition parties, including some senior members of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, to defect to it. The ruling party has proved very successful in enrolling members, so much so that just before this election one of its senior members claimed that his party had nearly 5 million members, and this out of just over 8 million voters in the country.

Through this extensive apparatus, the ruling party has been able to maintain firm control of the population. Members of each household must be registered in a police-issued family book and a residence book, and grassroots party officials must know each household and its members’ activities. Local party cadres who are also local officials can mobilize and induce the population to support the ruling party. They can also deny rival parties and even civil society organizations access to the population without prior permission. They can prevent, using force if need be, public meetings and training seminars organized by those parties and civil society organizations.

The ruling party has had a virtual monopoly and control of all the media, especially radio and television, on which the overwhelming majority of people depend for news and other information. It has been making use of this media year in year out, while its rival parties are deprived of it. Some press with limited circulation is freer, but the majority of newspapers are run by members or supporters of the ruling party, and it is rare that commercial companies dare put advertisements in newspapers known to be affiliated to any rival party.

The ruling party has been able to secure overwhelming resources for elections when it is in command of state resources and has a lot of support from private companies that seek favors for their business. Thanks to all these resources it has been able to buy votes though building social projects and giving hand-outs during election campaigns, and to fund other election expenses.

The ruling party has enjoyed all these privileges since there is no anti-corruption mechanism in place to take action against it. Furthermore, the National Election Committee also placed under its control has imposed no limit on donations to political parties and their expenses in elections campaigns. Nor has it verified and made transparent the accounts of all political parties. This system only favors the ruling party.

Last but not least, the police and courts of law which the ruling party also controls have acted more promptly and more diligently in criminal cases in which members of the ruling party are victims and members of opposition parties are suspected offenders than vice versa. Some months prior to the election, they showed only apathy toward reported threats and intimidation of activists of non-ruling parties, destruction of their signboards, and even the killing of some of them.

The system of government and social control which the ruling party has put in place and firmly controls leaves little room for free and fair competition among political parties, or for free choice among the electorate. This largely contributed to the outcome of the election, if it had not already determined it prior to the polling day. It also contributed to producing the irregularities which the four parties have used to claim that that election was manipulated and rigged by the ruling party.

--

(Lao Mong Hay is a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy Party

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen told reporters that his country's troops were ready to withdraw, but indicated that Thailand would have to pull out first from the disputed patch of land near the ancient Preah Vihear temple.

"For us, there is no problem at all. The issue is that it is up to Thailand to decide to act. For us, (we are ready) any time," Hun Sen said in Phnom Penh.

"The problem is the timing and how long it will take the Thai side to have a political decision from the government," he said.

His comments came as a Thai foreign ministry official said the government in Bangkok may ask parliament for approval before withdrawing troops, which could delay the process by several weeks.

"Both countries need to pass their domestic legitimacy processes," ministry spokesman Tharit Charunvat told AFP.

Thailand's army chief confirmed that any withdrawal from the border area would take time.

"The resolution from the meeting between Cambodia and Thailand (on Monday) will help relieve tension and improve the situation," Anupong Paojinda told AFP by phone.

"Lowering the troops at the border, however, needs to receive an order from the government first."

But Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej sought to reassure the public, telling reporters: "The foreign ministry is talking to the military. Everything is fine."

The current uncertainty follows high-level talks on Monday aimed at removing up to 1,500 soldiers from the temple area and ending the two-week long dispute.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong met with his newly-appointed Thai counterpart Tej Bunnag in the northeast Cambodian town Siem Reap.

After about 12 hours of talks, the foreign ministers said they would ask their governments to redeploy the troops from the area near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, a decision which eased tensions on the border.

"The situation is now a little bit better than in past days. Soldiers keep their weapons in one place and are walking around," said Major General Srey Dik, commander of Cambodian forces in the disputed area.

"We hope that soon the troops from both sides will withdraw from the area," he added.

The ruins of the Khmer temple belong to Cambodia, but the most practical entrance begins at the foot of a mountain in Thailand, and both sides claim some of the surrounding territory.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the Preah Vihear temple belongs to Cambodia, but surrounding land remains in dispute.

Cambodia had asked the United Nations Security Council to take up the latest conflict over the temple but suspended its request to allow the current talks to proceed.

The latest conflict has inflamed nationalist sentiment in both countries. In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen's strong stance on the temple helped him win general elections on Sunday.

In Thailand, embattled premier Samak is threatened by nationalist protesters who have made the temple a core issue in calling for his resignation.

Both sides have toned down their rhetoric after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice voiced concern about the conflict and called for a peaceful resolution.

Labels: Preah Vihear

Labels: CPP, Election, Sam Rainsy Party

A gardener works on the landscape in the front of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) headquarters in Phnom Penh. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen took nearly 60 percent of the vote in weekend polls, election officials said, but the opposition rejected his win and demanded a new balloting. (AFP/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

By Guy Delauney
Tuesday, 29 July 2008 (BBC News, Phnom Penh)

They said the governing party dominated the media and the National Election Committee (NEC), and tens of thousands of people were disenfranchised.

But they also praised the smooth running of what was described as a "technically good" election.

The EU observers were among 17,000 local and international monitors who observed the election.

While their findings were a mixed bag, there was certainly more criticism than praise.

The key issue was impartiality and the role of the governing Cambodian People's Party (CPP).

Large majority

The EU team said the CPP had made "consistent and widespread" use of state resources for its own campaigning efforts.

The party dominated media coverage to an unacceptable degree, and the presence of officials connected to the CPP on the NEC compromised that institution's independence.

The monitors said the NEC had disenfranchised 50,000 registered voters by allowing their names to be removed from the electoral roll.

But the EU's chief observer, Martin Callanan, said that had not affected the result of the election.

"Under the provisional results that have been published, the CPP clearly has a very large majority," he said.

"Therefore any irregularities which were proved would have to be on a very large scale in order to invalidate that result.''

The opposition parties beg to differ.

Four of them have rejected the provisional results, which give the CPP an overall majority.

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy Party

Quest For Freedom And Justice Has No End

I am reminded that my recent columns on Cambodia "rattled" many, even though anyone can read much of a similar nature on the Internet. My former students of politics would recall my lectures on how existing freedoms, if not cherished and defended, are hard to regain. They should remember a Chinese proverb I often quoted, "Great souls have wills. Feeble ones have only wishes," and Edmund Burke's words, "All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," as I encouraged action.

I am not writing in this space to sell a political or ideological point of view, although I have my own political and ideological preferences and have expressed them. My intent is to share ideas and provoke thought, for that's how knowledge grows. If ideas and thoughts lead to positive action for society, that's not a bad thing.

Cambodia's July 27 national elections have ended. Some have applauded the outcome; others see the outcome in dark terms.

Eric Pape's "The Rule of Murderers and Thieves," in the July 23 Newsweek Web exclusive should give readers pause; Chhan D. Touch's July 24 "Why you should not vote CPP," (Premier Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party) on the Internet outlined three "simple reasons ... a Vietnamese puppet: personal gain, fear, and ignorance."

At the same time, the Thai-Cambodian conflict, which put two armies at a standoff over the ownership of the ancient Temple of Preah Vihear, awarded to Cambodia by the World Court in 1962, clouded the emotionally charged Cambodian election. Interestingly, the Singapore Straits Times reported, Singapore foreign minister George Yeo told a news conference after the Association of South-East Asian Nations' annual security meeting, "It was not a problem, even a few weeks ago. It suddenly became a problem." This, in itself, is a topic worth dissecting.

Like it or not, the flawed Cambodian elections put "elected" leaders in government to lead the country. While Albert Einstein's words should be remembered, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result," we know that in most nation-states in the world the common goals of government are to maintain the country's independence and sovereignty (including Preah Vihear and Koh Tral for Cambodia); security (the order and the security for citizens); and economic and social well-being of all citizens (the promotion of individual and general welfare). How to get the newly elected leaders to achieve these goals?

Last week, I quoted Burma's dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who advised those feeling "hopeless and despairing: 'Don't just sit there. Do something.'"

"Change does not roll in on wheels of inevitability," civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. declared. Change "comes through continuous struggle. And so we must strengthen our back and work for our freedom," he told African-Americans. "A man can't ride you unless your back is bent." African-Americans' fight for change continues today.

There is a Khmer proverb that says, "Live with cow, sleep like cow; Live with parrot, fly like parrot." Such is the power and influence of the socialization that shapes and molds man's behavior, a process that begins at birth and ends only in death.

Being human, we all think. As with most things, however, it is the quality of the thought that matters. I have written about the Foundation of Critical Thinking that posits, "all thinking is not of the same quality," and the "quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought," and "the quality of everything we do is determined by the quality of our thinking."

"To think through," the Foundation advises, we need to "ask essential questions" on "what is necessary, relevant, and indispensable to a matter at hand."

"A mind with no questions is a mind that is not intellectually alive," asserts the Foundation.

I also wrote about Tim Hurson's book, "Think Better," that posits, "Every brain, regardless of its intelligence quotient (IQ) or creative quotient (CQ), can be taught to think better; to understand more clearly, think more creatively, and plan more effectively." Thus, people can learn.

Hurson advises: even when an answer "seem(s) so clear, so obvious, so right," -- as there are Cambodians who think Premier Sen and the CPP's corruption and repressive rule destroy Cambodia -- we should not settle on these answers but "keep asking new questions ... resist the urge to answer, the urge to know ... (because those) who 'know' ... don't need to learn because they already have the answers.

This brings me back to Suu Kyi's call on people to develop a "questing mind" that not only questions but also seeks answers.

The quest for freedom and justice has no end.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years.

Labels: Election, hun sen

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

(L-R) Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) leader Sam Rainsy, Human Rights Party leader Khem Sokha, member of royalist FUNCINPEC Prince Sisowath Sirirath and member of Norodom Ranariddh Party Muth Chantha hold hands during a news conference, as they reject election results saying it was manipulated by the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CCP) at SRP headquarters in Phnom Penh July 28, 2008. CCP claimed a landslide victory on Monday in an election bestowing another five years in power on ex-Khmer Rouge guerrilla Hun Sen, prime minister for the past 23 years. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

Labels: CPP, Election, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Click on above image to view larger

Four Major Political Parties Reject Election Results

28 July 2008

Labels: Election, Funcinpec, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Thailand and Cambodia Try Again to Defuse Temple Row

By Ek Madra

Mon Jul 28, 2008 4:34 AM BST

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (Reuters) - Thailand's new foreign minister started talks with his Cambodian counterpart on Monday to defuse a row over a 900-year-old temple that has raised fears of a military clash between the southeast Asian neighbors.

Career diplomat Tej Bunnag, who was appointed at the weekend after the resignation of his predecessor over the Preah Vihear spat, declined to talk to reporters as he entered the meeting with Cambodia's Hor Namhong in the tourist town of Siem Reap.

The Cambodian side was also keeping quiet before the talks, which are not expected to yield any major breakthrough in the dispute over 1.8 square miles of scrubland near the temple.

The ancient Hindu temple sits on a jungle-clad escarpment that forms the natural boundary between the two countries. The International Court of Justice awarded the ruins to Cambodia in a 1962 ruling that has rankled in Thailand ever since.

The Hague court did not rule on the disputed bits of land next to the temple.

With troops and artillery building up on both sides of the border, Cambodia has threatened to take the spat to the United Nations Security Council. Thailand wants all talks with its smaller neighbor to remain strictly two-way.

The talks -- the second attempt to resolve the dispute through dialogue -- are expected to run until around 4.30 pm

(0930 GMT).

CONFLICTING MAPS

Negotiations a week ago between top military officials quickly descended into an argument over which of several maps drawn up in the last 100 years should be used to settle ownership of the temple and surrounding area.

General Chea Mon, a Cambodian commander at the temple, said both he and Thai officers had ordered a halt to the digging of trenches and bunkers for the duration of the talks, but made clear that any pull-back was out of the question.

"We are still in a military stand-off," he told Reuters.

The dispute flared up when street protesters in Bangkok trying to oust the Thai government seized on its approval of Phnom Penh's bid to list the ruins as a World Heritage site.

A general election campaign in Cambodia ensured the row quickly escalated, although Prime Minister Hun Sen's landslide victory in Sunday's poll gives him scope to tone down the rhetoric and move towards some understanding with Thailand.

However, there is still a risk of the row taking on a life of its own, with ordinary Cambodians organizing collections of cash, food and clothing in the capital to send to troops on the border.

In 2003, a Cambodian nationalist mob torched the Thai embassy and several Thai-owned businesses in Phnom Penh after erroneous reports of comments from a Thai soap opera star suggesting Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temples really belonged to Thailand.

(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Alan Raybould)

Labels: Preah Vihear

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

Early Results Point to Ruling Party Win in Cambodia Election

By south-east Asia correspondent Karen Percy (ABC News)

Early results show that Cambodia's ruling party has been handed another five years in office after voters again endorsed the long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The Cambodian People's Party has increased its number of seats in Parliament at each successive election since 1993.

After early counting, it is claiming 80 of the 123 national seats this time around.

That is exactly what the party had been predicting, and the leader of the main opposition party, Sam Rainsy, says that is because the Government has manipulated the vote.

Early results also reveal that Sam Rainsy's party has increased its representation in the Parliament.

It expects to have 40 seats, its best electoral performance yet.

Both parties have benefited from the split within the royalist movement.

Official results are expected later today.

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

July 27 (Bloomberg) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former communist who has ruled for two decades, won today's election and probably increased his parliamentary majority amid greater prosperity and a wave of nationalism over a border dispute.

Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party finished first in the voting, followed by opposition leader Sam Rainsy's party, named after himself, said Khan Keo Mono, a spokesman for the National Election Committee.

``Votes are still being counted but the CPP probably won more seats than it did in 2003,'' the spokesman said by telephone today. Official results are expected tomorrow.

The ruling party's victory may lead to more foreign investment. The economic expansion and a recent military standoff with neighboring Thailand over disputed land near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, a United Nations' World Heritage Site, have benefited the incumbent government.

``Political stability has been and will continue to be the most important contributor to Cambodia's rapid economic growth,'' said a July 21 note from the Cambodia Investment and Development Fund, one of several funds planning to spend about $450 million in the country.

In the 2003 election, Hun Sen's party won 73 of 123 parliamentary seats, or 59 percent, short of the two-thirds majority then required to form a government. In 2006, lawmakers changed the constitution to allow a party to form a government with a simple majority. Hun Sen said he expects to win 81 seats in this election.

Disenfranchised

Sam Rainsy, whose party won 24 seats in the 2003 election, said today that 200,000 voters in Phnom Penh were disenfranchised because their names were taken off voter lists. He called for a re-vote in the capital, where he outperformed Hun Sen in the previous election.

Election observers, who noted the missing names on voter lists, said the poll was cleaner than in previous years. Human rights groups have said political violence during this campaign season did not reach the level seen in years past.

``This election was better,'' Hang Puthea, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, a non-governmental organization, said by phone Sunday night. ``We saw irregularities but they were fewer than we saw before.''

Sam Rainsy was probably exaggerating the number of people whose names were left off voter lists, Hang Puthea said. The National Election Committee has the authority to call a new election, an unlikely prospect at this point.

``The election went smoothly; we just had some problems with missing voter names,'' said Khan Keo Mono, the national election committee spokesman. He added that those people ``cannot vote anymore.''

Growing Support

For now, Hun Sen, 56, is enjoying growing support as foreign investment creates jobs in the energy, agriculture, tourism and garment industries and he rewards rural voters with new schools and paved roads. The ongoing troop buildup along the Thai border has stirred up nationalism that gave him a boost heading into today's election.

Thailand and Cambodia plan to meet tomorrow in Siem Reap, home to Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temple complex, to try and resolve the row over 4.6 square kilometers of disputed land. Thailand appointed a new foreign minister yesterday to lead negotiations after the previous one was forced to resign over the issue.

Issue Resolution

New Foreign Minister Tej Bunnag said in a statement today that he is ``confident that on the basis of their close and long- standing friendship, the two countries will be able to find ways to resolve the issue together.''

Cambodia has started to rehabilitate its image as a corrupt beggar state after the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s killed most of the educated class. It received $763 million in foreign aid last year.

Foreign investment is set to double from $2.7 billion this year, according to the Cambodian Investment Board, a government agency. As the country prepares to open a stock market next year, foreign investment funds such as Leopard Capital are looking at banks, office buildings, luxury hotels and other projects.

To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at dtenkate@bloomberg.net

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

Temp Result - Each Province Click on each province to view result in PDF format
Candidates for Prime Minister of Cambodia
CPP	SRP	HRP	NRP
Hun Sen	Sam Rainsy	Kem Sokha	Ranariddh

Labels: Election

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

SRP has collected countless 1018 Forms fraudulently issued by the CPP for illegitimate voters (Click on image to view larger)

Labels: Election, Sam Rainsy Party

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen shows his ink-stained finger to the media after casting his ballot during the general election at a polling station in Takmoa town in Kandal province, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, July 27, 2008. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy Party

Labels: Corruption, Election

Robert James Elliott for The International Herald Tribune

In Cambodia, Land Seizures Push Thousands of the Poor Into Homelessness

ANDONG, Cambodia — When the monsoon rain pours through Mao Sein’s torn thatch roof, she pulls a straw sleeping mat over herself and her three small children and waits until it stops.

She and her children sit on a low table as floodwater rises, bringing with it the sewage that runs along the mud paths outside their shack.

Ms. Mao Sein, 34, was resettled by the government here in an empty field two years ago, when the police raided the squatters’ colony where she lived in Phnom Penh, the capital, 12 miles away.

She is a widow and a scavenger. The area where she lives has no clean water or electricity, no paved roads or permanent buildings. But there is land to live on, and that has drawn scores of new homeless families to settle here, squatting among the squatters.

With its shacks and its sewage, Andong looks very much like the refugee camps that were home to those who were forced from their homes by the brutal Communist Khmer Rouge three decades ago.

Like tens of thousands of people around the country, those living here are victims of what experts say has become the most serious human rights abuse in the country: land seizures that lead to evictions and homelessness.

“Expropriation of the land of Cambodia’s poor is reaching a disastrous level,” Basil Fernando, executive director of the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong, a private monitoring group, said in December. “The courts are politicized and corrupt, and impunity for human rights violators remains the norm.”

With the economy on the rise, land is being seized for logging, agriculture, mining, tourism and fisheries, and in Phnom Penh, soaring land prices have touched off what one official called a frenzy of land grabs by the rich and powerful. The seizures can be violent, including late-night raids by the police and military. Sometimes, shanty neighborhoods burn down, apparently victims of arson.

“They came at 2 a.m.,” said Ku Srey, 37, who was evicted with Ms. Mao Sein and most of their neighbors in June 2006.

“They were vicious,” Ms. Ku Srey said of the police and soldiers who evicted her.

“They had electric batons” — and she imitated the sound made by the devices: “chk-chk-chk-chk.” She said, “They pushed us into trucks, they threw all our stuff into trucks and they brought us here.”

In a report in February, Amnesty International estimated that 150,000 people around the country were now at risk of forcible eviction as a result of land disputes, land seizures and new development projects.

These include 4,000 families who live around a lake in the center of Phnom Penh, Boeung Kak Lake, which is the city’s main catchment for monsoon rains and is being filled in for upscale development.

“If these communities are forced to move, it would be the most large-scale displacement of Cambodians since the times of the Khmer Rouge,” said Brittis Edman, a researcher with Amnesty International, which is based in London.

That, in a way, would bring history full circle.

Like other ailments of society — political and social violence, poverty and a culture of impunity for those with power — the land issues have roots in Cambodia’s tormented past of slaughter, civil war and social disruptions.

The brutal rule of the Khmer Rouge, during which 1.7 million people are estimated to have died, began in 1975 with an evacuation of Phnom Penh, forcing millions of people into the countryside and emptying the city. It ended in 1979 when the Khmer Rouge was driven from power by a Vietnamese invasion, sending hundreds of thousands of refugees into Thailand.

Many of the refugees returned in the 1990s, joining a rootless population displaced by the Khmer Rouge and the decade of civil war that followed in the 1980s. Many ended their journeys in Phnom Penh, creating huge colonies of squatters.

Now, many of these people are being forced to move again, from Phnom Penh and from around the country, victims of the latest scourge of the poor: national prosperity.

Whichever way the winds of history blow, some people here say, life only gets worse for the poor. If it is not “pakdivat,” revolution, that is buffeting the poor, they say, it is “akdivat,” development.

The Cambodian economy has at last started to grow, at an estimated 9 percent last year. And Phnom Penh is starting to transform itself with modern buildings, modest malls and plans for skyscrapers. It is one of the last Asian capitals to begin to pave over its past.

From 1993 to 1999, Amnesty International said in its report in February, the government granted commercial development rights for about one-third of the country’s most productive land for commercial development to private companies.

In Phnom Penh from 1998 through 2003, the city government forced 11,000 families from their homes, the World Bank said in a statement quoted by Amnesty International.

Since then, the human rights group said, evictions have reportedly displaced at least 30,000 more families.

“One thing that is important to note is that the government is not only failing to protect the population, but we are also seeing that it is complicit in many of the forced evictions,” Ms. Edman, of Amnesty International, said.

The government responded to the group’s report through a statement issued by its embassy in London.

“Just to point out that Cambodia is not Zimbabwe,” the statement read. “Your researcher should also spend more time to examine cases of land and housing rights violations in this country, if she dares.”

Here in Andong, the people have adapted as best they can.

Little by little, they have made their dwellings home, some of them decorating their shacks with small flower pots. A few have gathered enough money to buy concrete and bricks to pave their floors and reinforce their walls.

But this home, like the ones they have known in the past, may only be temporary. The outskirts of Phnom Penh are only a few miles away. As the city continues to expand, aid workers say, the people here will probably be forced to move again.

Labels: eviction, landgrabbing

Cambodians wait in line for voting at a polling station in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sunday, July 27, 2008. Longtime Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is widely expected to extend his 23-year tenure with a victory in Sunday's parliamentary elections, buoyed by a surge of nationalism amid a tense border dispute with neighboring Thailand. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

L.B. Cambodians Rally Against Border Dispute

Labels: Preah Vihear

Cambodia opposition leader Sam Rainsy shows his ink-stained finger after casting his ballot at polling station during the general election at Chan Moly pagoda in Bateay district, Kampong Cham province, about 50km from Phnom Penh July 27, 2008. REUTERS/Nicolas Axelrod (CAMBODIA)

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen shows his ink-stained finger to the media after casting his ballot during the general election at a polling station in Takmoa town in Kandal province, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, July 27, 2008. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- A dispute with neighboring Thailand over border land near an 11th century Hindu temple has sparked nationalist pride throughout Cambodia and strengthened the longtime prime minister's popularity ahead of parliamentary elections Sunday.

Thailand sent troops to the border after Thai anti-government demonstrators assembled near the Preah Vihear temple earlier this month. Cambodia responded by sending its own troops and its government says the dispute has triggered "an imminent state of war."

The temple has fueled nationalist sentiment in both countries on-and-off for decades, and the latest military confrontation between the two Southeast Asian neighbors has upstaged Sunday's election.

"The election is necessary but has become a secondary concern for me now," 27-year-old Sy Buntheng, a university student in the capital Phnom Penh, said ahead of the vote. "The encroachment by Thai troops on our land is the greatest national concern for me."

Hun Sen, 57, who has run Cambodia since 1985, is Asia's longest-serving leader and already was expected to win re-election before the dispute flared July 15. But passions over Preah Vihear temple and Hun Sen's firm stance against Thailand have galvanized undecided voters in his favor, analysts say.

Dressed in gray, long-sleeved safari shirt and pants, Hun Sen displayed a black-inked forefinger to waiting cameras after casting his ballot Sunday in Phnom Penh. He flashed a broad smile but declined comment to reporters.

"Now everybody is behind the government because it's the only institution that can deal with the Thai government. That means more votes for (Hun Sen)," said Kek Galabru, a prominent Cambodian human rights activist and election monitor.

More than 8 million of Cambodia's 14 million people are eligible to vote in Sunday's election. Eleven parties are vying for seats in the 123-seat National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, with the winner forming a new government to run the country for the next five years.

Polls opened at 8 p.m. EDT and unofficial party results are expected a few hours after polling stations closed 4 a.m. EDT Sunday. Official results are expected later in the week.

Internationally, Hun Sen has faced criticism for alleged corruption and human rights abuses. But he maintains his tenure has ushered in peace and stability after the Khmer Rouge's genocidal reign from 1975-1979, which killed an estimated 1.7 million people.

Under his free-market policies, Cambodia's economy has been one of the fastest growing in Asia, expanding at 11 percent in each of the past three years.

Preah Vihear has been the scene of several conflicts along the often-turbulent border. The temple was held by the U.S.-backed government during the 1970-75 war and was one of the last places to fall to the Khmer Rouge.

Ousted by a Vietnamese invasion, the ultra-communists became guerrillas and occupied the temple until 1998. Two Belgian tourists who were apparently trying to visit the temple in 1994 were abducted by Khmer Rouge guerrillas and then killed.

Cambodian refugees fled in droves across the border to Thailand after the 1979 invasion to escape conflict in their homeland.

Keo Neang, a 46-year-old nurse who lives near the temple, said she and hundreds of other Cambodians were shoved down steep slopes by Thai troops near the ancient temple, which sits high on a cliff along Cambodia's northern border with Thailand.

Though Thailand denies the incident happened, she said she remembers her companions blown apart by land mines that littered the jungle below the magnificent sanctuary, while other Cambodian refugees were gunned down by Thai soldiers as they tried to escape back into Thailand.

"I heard cries for help from people who were injured. Some were begging for water as they were bleeding to death," said Keo Neang, tears streaming down her face.

The current controversy revolves around 1.8 square miles of land that have been in dispute since French colonialists withdrew from Cambodia in the 1950s.

The International Court of Justice awarded the temple site to Cambodia in 1962, but anger flared in Thailand last month after Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej backed Cambodia's successful bid for the temple to be listed as a U.N. World Heritage Site.

Thailand sent troops to the border July 15 after anti-government demonstrators criticized Samak's government for supporting Cambodia's application. The Thai protesters claim the temple's new status will undermine their country's claim to the 1.8 square miles around the temple.

Cambodian says some 4,000 troops from both countries are now massed in the area around Preah Vihear. Thailand says it has 400 troops in the area and that Cambodia has 1,700.

Negotiations between the two countries on the border dispute are scheduled to resume Monday. If talks fail, Cambodia says it will renew a call for the U.N. Security Council to take up the issue.

Labels: Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy

Cambodia opposition leader Sam Rainsy casts his ballot at polling station during the general election at Chan Moly pagoda in Bateay district, Kampong Cham province, about 50km from Phnom Penh July 27, 2008. REUTERS/Nicolas Axelrod (CAMBODIA)Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen casts his ballot for the general election at polling station in Takmoa town in Kandal province, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, July 27, 2008.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodians voted on Sunday in an election likely to bestow another five-year term on long-time Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose standing has been boosted by a nationalist spat with Thailand over a 900-year-old temple.

Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) seized on the dispute about the Preah Vihear ruins, which sit on a jungle-clad escarpment separating the two Southeast Asian countries.

However, the dispatching of troops to the border by Hun Sen, a one-eyed, 57-year-old ex-Khmer Rouge guerrilla and prime minister of the past 23 years, has made his already likely to victory that much more certain.

"The result is not in doubt," said Kek Galabru, head of Phnom Penh-based human rights group LICADHO, adding that the formerly communist but now firmly free-market CPP would probably win an outright majority in the 123-seat parliament.

As well as Hun Sen's argument that he has brought peace and stability after decades of Cold War upheaval and the ravages of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, the CPP has presided over an economy that has enjoyed five years of near double-digit growth.

Another sign of the improving lot of the country's 14 million people is a fall in the level of political violence, although human rights groups say four CPP and two SRP activists, including a journalist, were murdered in the month before polling.

Early voting passed off without major incident, but the SRP claimed as many as 10,000 people in Phnom Penh, where its support is strongest, had found their names had been left off voter lists.

TEMPLE TALKS

The CPP is so confident of victory it has scheduled talks over Preah Vihear with Thailand's foreign minister in the tourist town of Siem Reap, home to Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temple complex, on Monday.

The meeting is not expected to make major headway in resolving the dispute, which is mainly over 1.8 square miles

of scrubland near the temple.

The ruins themselves are claimed by both countries but were awarded to Cambodia in 1962 by the International Court of Justice, a ruling that has rankled in Thailand ever since.

Analysts say Thai domestic politics are mainly to blame for the row, which flared up after Cambodia's successful bid to have the ruins listed as a World Heritage site.

Bangkok's initial support for the heritage listing was seized on by anti-government groups in their long-running attempt to unseat the government of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. His foreign minister was forced to resign over the issue.

There have been no major incidents so far, but both sides have sent troops and artillery to dig in near the temple and nearby Thai border villages are braced for conflict.

(Additional reporting by Ek Madra in Phnom Penh and Nopporn Wong-Anan in Bangkok; Editing by David Fogarty)

Labels: Election

Cambodia opposition leader Sam Rainsy shows his ink-stained finger after casting his ballot at polling station during the general election at Chan Moly pagoda in Bateay district, Kampong Cham province, about 50km from Phnom Penh July 27, 2008. REUTERS/Nicolas Axelrod (CAMBODIA)

Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen shows his ink-stained finger to the media after casting his ballot at a polling station during the general election at Takmoa town in Kandal province, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh July 27, 2008. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA)

FACTBOX - Key Facts About Cambodia

Sun Jul 27, 2008 (Reuters)

(Reuters) - Cambodians went to the polls on Sunday in a general election likely to hand another five years in power to Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP).

Following are some key facts about Cambodia:

GEOGRAPHY: The Southeast Asian country has an area of 181,035 square km (69,898 square miles), about 40 percent of which is forest. Neighbours are Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

CAPITAL: Phnom Penh

POPULATION: 14,241,640 (2008)

ETHNICITY: Khmers, descendants of the Angkor Empire, constitute 90 percent of the population. Vietnamese are 5 percent, Chinese 1 percent and others 4 percent.

RELIGION: Theravada Buddhism is the state religion and it is observed by 95 percent of the population. The rest practise Mahayana Buddhism, Islam and Christianity.

LANGUAGE: Khmer is the official language. Some English and French are spoken in the cities.

ECONOMY:

-- Cambodia's economy is based on agriculture, tourism and light industry, in particular garments made for export.

-- The International Monetary Fund forecasts economic growth of 7 percent for 2008.

-- Gross domestic product, by 2008 estimates, is $9.92 billion (4.98 billion pounds), and GDP per capita is $678.

-- Exports were worth $4.31 billion in 2007.

-- A U.N.-brokered peace pact in 1991 restored Sihanouk as a constitutional monarch. Elections in 1993, 1998 and 2003 led to coalition governments dominated by Hun Sen and the CPP.

Sources: Reuters; CIA World Factbook; IMF; World Bank.

(Writing by Jijo Jacob, editing by David Cutler)

-- Cambodia's annual inflation rate hit 18.7 percent in January.

* SOME HISTORY:

-- Cambodia emerged as a newly independent nation in 1953 under King Norodom Sihanouk, who was overthrown in a right-wing coup in 1970.

-- Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge guerrillas launched a bloody agrarian revolution in 1975. An estimated 1.7 million people died over the next four years in rural labour camps that became known as the "Killing Fields".

Labels: Election

Labels: CPP, Election, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Labels: Election

PREAH VIHEAR: A KHMER HERITAGE
By Kenneth T. So

THE KHMER EMPIRE

The Khmer Empire was at its apogee during the reign of Jayavarman VII (1181-1215 A.D.). Its territory covered the current Cambodia, all of southern Vietnam, all of the current Laos, all of the current Thailand, and part of the current Malaysia. Unlike the Khmers, Thais, known then as Siameses, were not natives of the region. The kingdom of Thailand, known then as Siam, did not appear in Southeast Asia until the mid- 14th century.

A well-known Thai historian, Sulak Sivarak, who was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the winner of the Right Livelihood Award said of the Khmer Empire: "It included everything right up to Lopburi and all of what is now Bangkok". Again, describing the Khmer Empire, Peter Janssan of the Hindustan Times quoted Sulak Sivaraka in his article on 18 June 2008: "Thai invasions of Cambodia, then in its decline, led to the adoption of many Khmer cultural traditions by the Thais, including the Hindu concept of god-kings and court rituals, and an ongoing fondness for Brahman-inspired black magic, especially among Thai politicians". Peter Janssan went on to describe that there are many more Khmer temples located in Thailand, especially along the northeast Thailand- Cambodian border like Buriram, Surin, and Sisaket. The map depicting the Khmer Empire at its height is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Khmer Empire during the Height of its Civilization, Before the Appearance of Siam (From Jayavarman II to Jayavarman VII)

THE FRENCH PROTECTORATE

Cambodia was a vassal state under Siam during the reign of King Ang Duong. Cambodia had lost Battambang, Sisophon, and Siem Reap to Siam. Siam had placed spies everywhere at the court of Oudong. To get out of the Siam’s manacles, King Norodom who succeeded his father, King Ang Duong, sought out help from France. On 23 March 1907, under the reign of King Sisowath who succeeded his brother, King Norodom, France (as the protectorate of Cambodia) and Siam signed a border treaty that completed the 1904 treaty. In the 1904 treaty Siam ceded Tonlé Repou, Mlou Prey, Koh Kong, and Stung Trèng to Cambodia. The 1907 treaty subsequently produced the French- Siamese Commission 1907 Frontier Line (Figure 2), placing Preah Vihear under the control of Cambodia. The French-Siamese 1907 treaty had Siam ceded almost all Cambodia ancient territory of the 16th century back to Cambodia. The territory included Battambang, Sisophon, Siem Reap, Mongkol Borei, and Tnot (Figures 3 and 4).

Figure 2. Extract from the International Court of Justice Report 1962 – The French-Siamese Commission 1907 (Scale 1:200,000) (Courtesy Bora Touch. Note in blue added by Bora Touch for clarity)

Figure 3. Map of Cambodia Showing the Te rritory That Siam Ceded To France in 1907

Figure 4. Map of Present Day Cambodia Courtesy: Official Map by the Royal Government of Cambodia Submitted to UNESCO for Preah VihearWorld Heritage List

In spite of this agreement, Thailand contested in 1934 that the Temple of Preah Vihear belonged to her and their surveyors redrew the frontier to locate Preah Vihear in Thailand’s territory. In 1954 Thailand occupied Preah Vihear. On 6 October 1959, Cambodia, under the leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, petitioned the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of the Hague, Netherlands, to rule on the dispute. By the end of the year, Thailand retaliated with a claim listing Preah Vihear as a national archeological site. On June 15, 1962, the ICJ made a judgment recognizing that the Temple of Preah Vihear belonged to Cambodia using the French-Siamese Commission 1907 Frontier Line as one of the supporting arguments (Figure 5). A satellite photo showing Preah Vihear and its surrounding region with demarcations of the frontier established by the French-Siamese Commission 1907 is presented in Figure 6. Figure 7 shows another satellite photo of Preah Vihear and the Dangrek mountain range. Thailand never protested against the verdict. However, over the years Thailand has unilaterally redrawn the map that contradicts the ICJ judgment (Figures 8- 10).

Figure 5. Area of the Temple of Preah Vihear in the Dangrek Range of Mountains (Extrapolation from the map recognized by the International Court of Justice, 15 June 1962) Courtesy: Official Map by the Royal Government of Cambodia submitted to UNESCO for Preah VihearWorld Heritage List

Figure 6. Satellite Photo of Preah Vihear and its Surrounding Region (Courtesy: Bora Touch)

Figure 7. Satellite Photo of Preah Vihear and its Surrounding Region (Courtesy: Bora Touch)

Figure 8. Thai Internal Working Document – The Official Thai Map (Scale 1:10,000) Courtesy Bora Touch. Notes in blue and green Colors added by Bora Touch for clarity

Figure 9. Thai Internal Working Document – The French-Siamese Commission Map Made in 1907 (Scale: 1:200,000) (Courtesy Bora Touch. Notes in blue by Bora Touch for clarity)

Figure 10. Extract from the Aide Memoire of Cambodia Royal Government 1962 (Scale: 1:6,000) (Courtesy Bora Touch. Note in blue by Bora Touch for Clarity)

The temple of Preah Vihear was originally built under Yasovarman I, a Khmer king who reigned from 889 to 910 A.D. The building started in light material, but its completion in stone was carried on later by his successors. The temple was dedicated to Shiva (God of destroyer).

The setting of Preah Vihear was ideal for a Khmer monarch who dedicated the temple for Shiva because of its spectacular location sitting atop of a high cliff over 500 meters above the lower ground. Aerial views of the Preah Vihear temples are shown in Figures 11 and 12.

Figure 11. Aerial View of Preah Vihear Hanging Over a Cliff On Cambodia Territory (Courtesy: Official Photo by the Royal Government of Cambodia Submitted to UNESCO for Preah VihearWorld Heritage List)

Figure 12. Aerial View of Preah Vihear

THE THAI TWISTED THESIS OF THEIR ORIGIN

There are some Thais in the academic, the press, and the media who fantasize in their justification of Preah Vihear belonging to Thailand by advancing a twisted thesis claiming that Khmer is not the same as Khorm (note: the Thai used to call Khmer as either Khamin or Khorm). They say that Khmer is Khamin, which is different from Khorm. Furthermore, they say that Khorms are the real inhabitants of what is now Thailand and they were the builders of Preah Vihear, Angkor, and all the ancient temples found in Cambodia and Thailand. They are saying that Khmers are not the descendents of the Angkor builders. Therefore, they try to justify by implication that Thai people are the true descendents of the Khorms, the original inhabitants of Thailand and builders of Preah Vihear and Angkor. The Thai people have such a twisted mind. Believing in this twisted thesis is like believing that a bullet firing from a gun can be curved around a corner. The Thais are not only satisfied to steal everything that are precious to Khmers and then claimed them to be their own, such as Preah Ko Preah Keo, Preah Khan Reach, Khmer classical dance and music, Khmer style boxing, and Khmer scripts “Aksor Moul” (the Thai called it sacred scripts instead of Khmer scripts), but now they try to even steal Khmer identity. They want to strip Khmer people bare of any ancestry.

OBSERVATIONS

A few important observations to the central issue of the Preah Vihear temple must be brought up to the attention of the world. The following are two immediate points of interest concerning the affair of the Preah Vihear temples:

1. The press keeps mentioning that Preah Vihear was an ancient Hindu temple instead of a Khmer temple. Preah Vihear is not a Hindu temple but a Khmer temple built under the reign of Yasovarman I, a Khmer king in the 9th century, dedicated to Shiva, one of the Hindu gods. When the press says that Preah Vihear is a Hindu temple, it deemphasizes Khmer ownership and legitimacy to the temple. In modern time, the war of words is very important. This clarification is very important and it must be emphasized at all time.
   
2. Thailand kept insisting on using her own map to claim the disputed area around Preah Vihear instead of the French-Siamese Commissioned Map of 1907, where the International Court of Justice (ICJ) based its judgment on to award Preah Vihear to Cambodia. The map was the product of the treaty signed by Thailand and French (Cambodia was under the French protectorate) in 1907. It is legal and binding. Thailand wants to use its own map that is not binding and not recognized by the International Court of Justice. Cambodia must not give in to the Thai insistence of using her own map to settle the dispute of Preah Vihear and its surrounding area.

CONCLUSION

Cambodia is doing the right thing to seek help from the United Nations (UN). It is not in the interest of Thailand to have the UN intervene in the affair of Preah Vihear, because she knows that Cambodia has more legitimacy and historical claim of Preah Vihear and its surrounding area than Thailand does. The UN will have to consider and abide by the 1962 judgment made by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the recent recognition by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that included Preah Vihear in the World Heritage List. If the UN were to side with Cambodia, then they would probably ask Thailand to withdraw from the disputed area.

Thailand is playing hardball because she knows Cambodia is no match with her militarily. Cambodia has no choice but to ask the UN for help. With the UN help Thailand will not dare to encroach further into Cambodia territory. If war were to erupt, Thailand would be condemned by the world and she will lose face. Additionally, the Muslims are now waiting for the right opportunity to stir troubles again in the southern region of Thailand if this latter decides to go to war with Cambodia. Thailand cannot afford to have war with Cambodia. Thailand may win in the short term but she will lose in the long run. Thailand fears the UN because among the five permanent members, Cambodia can count on France, China, and Russia to side with her. As to the US and the UK positions, nothing can be certain but if these two countries interpret the laws and historical facts properly, they should come to the conclusion that Thailand has no claim and basis over Preah Vihear and its surrounding area that she had ceded to Cambodia during the French-Siamese 1907 treaty.

The UN cannot ignore the ICJ judgment that recognized Preah Vihear belonging to Cambodia, because to do otherwise would bring chaos to the international rule of laws. There is no doubt, both based on the court of laws and historical facts, that the Temple of Preah Vihear is a Khmer heritage and belonging to Cambodia.

Labels: Preah Vihear

Cambodians to Vote, but Dissatisfied With Their Democracy

Voters may be reluctant to risk leadership change

Labels: Election

Cambodia Parties in Pre-Poll Push

Friday, 25 July 2008 (BBC-News UK)

Political parties in Cambodia have been holding rallies in a final campaign push before Sunday's general election.

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Labels: Election, hun sen

Labels: Election, hun sen

Labels: Election

Cambodian Parties Make Final Push for Votes

Soaring nationalist sentiments have powered the campaigns, fuelled by a 10-day military standoff with neighbouring Thailand over a small patch of disputed land near the ruins of the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple.

The most frenetic campaigning took place in Kampong Cham province, home to one million of the eight million people registered to cast ballots Sunday.

Just after dawn Friday, thousands of opposition supporters waved flags and rode through the town of Kampong Cham on the backs of trucks and motorcycles, blaring party policies from speakers.

The day wound down with a candlelight vigil in Phnom Penh, with Sam Rainsy supporters wearing white shirts and caps bearing the party's candle logo.

But few expect voters to oust the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), which has ruled since the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge nearly three decades ago.

Hun Sen has held the top job for 23 years, and voters are widely expected to hand him another five-year term.

His party loudly touts recent economic growth in Cambodia, one of the world's poorest countries, which has averaged 11 percent over the last three years.

Tensions over Preah Vihear only enhanced Hun Sen's standing, helping the CPP portray itself as the defender of the nation.

"The voters realise we did a lot -- building roads, schools, health care, and especially the economy. Preah Vihear is the latest thing," Phnom Penh mayor Kep Chuktema told an early CPP rally in the capital.

"We saved the lives of Cambodian people from the genocide. We gave people lives. From zero in 1979, Phnom Penh now has everything. From ghost city, now Phnom is a very good city," he said, with music blaring as 10,000 CPP supporters filled a riverside boulevard with a carnival atmosphere.

Although the CPP is tipped to win a large majority, the party mounted a massive campaign, parading in shiny new vehicles while covering the country with posters and the airwaves with promises of further development.

"The CPP campaigns are much fancier than those of other parties... The CPP outsmarts other political parties because those parties haven't achieved much at all," said Neang Sovath of the election monitoring group Comfrel.

More than 13,000 domestic and international observers are set to monitor the 15,000 polling stations.

The campaign has seen fewer irregularities and less violence than in the past, monitors say, partly because the nation is more stable, with garment exports and tourism helping pull Cambodia from the ashes of civil war.

Hun Sen's CPP expects to expand its control over the 123-seat parliament, hoping to add eight seats to the 73 it already holds, which would cement his ruthless drive to secure his grip on power.

He lost Cambodia's first elections, backed by the United Nations in 1993, but bargained his way into a power-sharing deal and then reasserted total control in a 1997 coup.

Hundreds of people were killed in the run-up to elections the following year. Protests against the CPP victory were put down violently.

The last national election in 2003 was less violent but plunged the kingdom into a year of political stalemate that resulted in a coalition with the royalist Funcinpec.

The royalists have since imploded over internal scandals, while Sam Rainsy is expected to win few votes outside the capital.

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Labels: Election, Journalism, journalist, Sam Rainsy Party

• Ascertaining rules for the national election,
• Taking care of the electoral rolls,
• Organizing the election,
• Declaring the election result.

• In 1996, Cambodia had a population of 10,968,000 people
• In 1997, Cambodia population had risen to 11,237,000 people, it had increased to 260,000 people per year with the growth rate of 2.4 %
• In 1998, Cambodia population had suddenly risen to 12,186,000 people; it had increased to 949,000 people per year with the growth rate of 8.44 %. Four times the normal rate. These figures substantiate around 680,000 Vietnamese immigrants had settled in Cambodia in 1998, for the sole purpose of enabling the CPP to win the election that year. The CPP take over the rights of the Khmer people who are already aware of their deception.
• In 1999, Khmer population had risen to 12,450,000 people it had increased to 264,000 people per year with the growth rate of 2.16 % as it was back to the normal rate.

• From UNTAC, 15 years later (1993-2008) Cambodia's population was 11,698,201 = 2,000,000 + 9,698,201 (Khmer people)
• From the NEC figure, Cambodia's population is 14,500,000, so the new immigrants figure is 4,801,799 = (14,500,000 – 9,698,201)
• The new immigrants figure represents 33 % of the Cambodia's population (Khmer, Vietnamese and others)
• The new immigrants figure represents 49 % of the Khmer's population (only Khmer e.g excluding the Vietnamese settlers, and others)

Labels: Election

Taking the High Ground at Preah Vihear

Labels: Election, Preah Vihear

Thai, Cambodian Envoys Set Temple Talks

The meeting will take place in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on Monday -- a day after Cambodia's general election on Sunday, Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej told CNN.

An eight-hour meeting between Thai and Cambodian officials ended earlier this week with both sides agreeing on only one point: that troops each country has amassed at the site of the Preah Vihear temple will not fire on each other, the Thai News Agency reported.

For now, the countries are seeking regional intervention from their Southeast Asian neighbors.

Foreign ministers of the 10 countries that comprise the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are meeting in Singapore this week.

Sundaravej spoke to his Cambodian counterpart, Hun Sen, on Thursday to arrange next week's high-level meeting. He said Hun agreed to stop pursuing the issue at the U.N. Security Council. Cambodia had sent a letter to the council to call attention to the standoff.

The dispute is over an 11th-century temple to which Cambodia and Thailand both lay claim. It sits atop a cliff on Cambodian soil but has its most accessible entrance on the Thai side.

The International Court of Justice awarded the temple to Cambodia in 1962. Thailand claims, however, that the 1.8-square-mile (4.6-square-kilometer) area around it was never fully demarcated.

Thailand says the dispute arose from the fact that the Cambodian government used a map drawn during the French occupation of Cambodia -- a map that places the temple and surrounding area in Cambodian territory.

This month, the United Nations approved Cambodia's application to have the temple listed as a World Heritage Site -- places that the U.N. says have outstanding universal value.

The decision reignited tensions, with some in Thailand fearing it will make it difficult for their country to lay claim to disputed land around the temple.

Opposition parties in Thailand used the issue to attack the government, which initially backed the heritage listing.

Cambodian leader Hun Sen, who has been in power since the mid-1980s, has portrayed the U.N. recognition as a national triumph in the run-up to the general elections.

The current flare-up began July 15, when Cambodian guards briefly detained three Thais who crossed into the area. Once they were let go, the three refused to leave the territory.

Labels: Preah Vihear

’’The Rule of Murderers and Thieves’’

Cambodia was once the grand international project. Before the upheavals of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, the global community launched an ambitious plan to heal a ruined country through diplomacy, development and democracy. It's been an uneven road--littered with hundreds of bodies, questionable elections and billions of aid dollars.

The next milestone comes on July 27, the day Cambodians will take part in national polls to choose a prime minister for the third time since 1993, when the United Nations oversaw one of the biggest electoral projects in its history. Outside Cambodia, the world may be focusing on whether a war-crimes tribunal will finally bring some hint of justice for the 1.8 million victims of the Khmer Rouge nearly three decades after the regime fell, but inside the country voters have more pressing concerns: rising inflation, glaring corruption (including government-backed land seizures) and an ever-larger gap between the wealthy and the dirt-poor.

A dozen parties qualified to run parliamentary candidates, but two main contenders for the premiership stand out. The People's Party of incumbent Prime Minister Hun Sen--a former communist and one-time low-level Khmer Rouge commander who remains an intimidating presence after more than two decades in power--holds 73 seats. The other is Sam Rainsy, a former finance minister who has long railed against corruption and was almost killed during a hit-squad attack during a 1997 protest. (A quick-moving bodyguard sacrificed his life by jumping in front of Rainsy; he was among the 13 confirmed dead.) Rainsy's party, which currently holds 24 parliamentary seats, appears likely to benefit from internal divisions in the royalist FUNCINPEC party, which currently holds 26 seats and is the junior partner in the current coalition government. But given Hun Sen's near absolute control of Cambodian television, radio, the courts and the electoral structures that validate elections, any meaningful decline in his power would amount to a stunning blow.

NEWSWEEK's Eric Pape spoke by cell phone with Cambodia's opposition leader about his third run against archrival Hun Sen, the "curse" of oil discoveries and the rise of Chinese influence. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: As with the last three elections, rights groups are reporting political murders of government opponents during this campaign…
Sam Rainsy: [Last week] a journalist from the Khmer Conscience newspaper, Khim Sambo, and his 21-year-old son, were killed near the Olympic Market in Phnom Penh by a motorcycle hit squad. These are the sixth and seventh murders linked to politics in this campaign.

But [Hun Sen allies] also threaten villagers. "And if you vote for the opposition," they are told, "there could be civil war; your homes could be destroyed." They can lose their livelihoods, even their cows.

How is this campaign different from the last three?
There is less killing, less violence and more subtle tricks to disenfranchise. Many people's names are not on the voter rolls. All of the government's supporters will have the right to vote--and they have "ghost voters" to inflate those numbers--but many others will not be able to vote.

What do you expect to happen on Election Day?
The [ruling People's Party] will organize something very exceptional; otherwise their result will be very bad. So they threaten and buy off party agents [party appointees who help monitor the election], so that they turn a blind eye to cheating. This leads to another problem: there are a few hundred international observers for 15,000 polling and ballot-counting stations; how can they guarantee a fair election?

The final results depend on the degree of manipulation. If we can prevent, resist or overcome this, we will have more votes than last time. But in the end, if they use violence, manipulation and money to buy party agents and neutralize observers, they can proclaim any result that they want.

Is your campaigning causing you trouble in Cambodian courts?
There are lawsuits accusing me of insulting the country's leaders. I publicized a report by [environmental watchdog] Global Witness that was banned in Cambodia because it describes some leaders as "thieves." So I said: "Our leaders are thieves, according to Global Witness." I mentioned it, so I may be liable to five fines of up to 10 million riels [$2,410 each]. But people who steal from the country are thieves.

Hun Sen recently said that he had stopped talking to the opposition because they only insult him.
If Hun Sen doesn't talk to the opposition, I don't mind. As long as he doesn't kill the opposition.

Why is Hun Sen still prime minister after a quarter century?
He is clever and very gifted. He is a survivor, but survival means there is no vision. You eliminate or weaken opponents, but he is leading the country nowhere. This can't last forever. There is growing unemployment, accelerating inflation, ongoing land grabs, continuing poverty, the using-up of natural resources. There are economic crimes and impunity for violent crimes and assassinations. It is the rule of murderers and thieves.

How will the discovery of oil deposits affect Cambodia?
If things stay as they are, it will mean more problems and instability, more corruption and poverty. It will be a curse--unless there is more pressure for Cambodia to become a real democracy. Then these new resources could be used to develop the country and its human resources, to strengthen democracy. But if Hun Sen remains in power, we will go the way of Nigeria.

How has the international role in Cambodia evolved?
Hun Sen needs the recognition of the West, but he no longer needs its money. China brings money to Cambodia without taking an interest in human rights or democratic conditions. And it is lucrative for China here; they enjoy the natural resources. In different forms, China is probably the largest investor in Cambodia. You can see it even in education now. There are hundreds of Chinese schools, recently built, with funds from Chinese authorities. And more and more Chinese companies come in "under the table."

The West is losing its power here. And when we get oil revenues, Western countries' leverage will be even smaller. There are just a few more years now when Western countries can still press for change. After that, it will be impossible. So the will of the Cambodian people must be expressed properly now. If the West allows it to be distorted again, it is the worst service they could render to Cambodians.

Is it possible to have a free election in Cambodia?
No. You have to measure the degree of unfairness. The question is: how unfair and how unfree?

Can you campaign?
We don't have access to broadcast media, and we have to rely on word of mouth, and there are dangers, but we still try.

You accuse the government of cheating in each election; why do you keep running for office?
If we persevere we will reach our goal in time. Despite the problems, our vote increases in each election. And even the most powerful dictators make mistakes. Who predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and its disintegration? They were much more powerful than Cambodia's leaders.

There is a wave of change, in mentalities and expectations. People say: We've had nearly 30 years of Hun Sen. They say, "K'plo," "change, change, change." Hun Sen thinks he is a giant who can sit on a volcano and keep it down, but it could blow at any moment.

Labels: CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Graphic fact file on the temple dispute. The UN Security Council is expected to discuss a tense military standoff between Cambodia and Thailand this week as more troops amassed along the border, officials said. (AFP Graphic)

Preah Vihear Dominates Pre-Election as Cambodia Seeks UNSC Resolution

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (World Politics Review) -- Cambodian authorities have called for a special U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at resolving a border dispute with Thailand as a wave of nationalism sweeps the country ahead of national elections on Sunday.

Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said Tuesday Cambodia's ambassador in New York had sought the request, as a troop build-up around a 900-year-old temple in this country's remote northwest continues. Reports Wednesday indicated that the Security Council would discuss the issue at a Thursday meeting.

"Thai troops with artilleries and tanks are building up along the border, constituting a very serious threat not only to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia but also to peace and stability in our region," Hor Namhong told a diplomatic and press briefing July 22.

Flanked by ambassadors and delegates from at least 15 countries, including the U.S., Britain, Australia and France, Hor Namhong warned Thai soldiers had positioned themselves among Khmers living on the Cambodian side of the border "thereby causing a volatile and tense situation" and security council intervention was necessary "to avoid armed confrontation."

He has also asked the 10-member regional bloc, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Cambodia and Thailand are both members, to help resolve the crisis, which has dominated the lead-up to the national poll.

Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) are widely expected to win Sunday's election outright on the back of a booming local economy and the rising tide of nationalism that followed UNESCO's July 7 decision to grant Preah Vihear temple on the disputed border with Thailand, a world heritage listing.

Bangkok had opposed the move and dispatched troops into the area on July 15. Phnom Penh countered, enlisting the help of retired Khmer Rouge soldiers, and a tense stand-off has ensued as politicians tried this week to negotiate a peaceful withdrawal.

But as far as Phnom Penh is concerned, international courts have long recognized Cambodian sovereignty over Preah Vihear.

Hor Namhong said Thailand had violated the international boundary between the two countries, which was established in 1908 between then Siam and France, the colonial rulers of Cambodia. This placed Preah Vihear 700 meters inside Cambodia.

That agreement was later challenged, with the International Court of Justice ruling in Cambodia's favor in 1962.

The U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli said while the U.N. Security Council would consider Phnom Penh's request, it would be preferable to see a bilateral resolution to the dispute negotiated between Cambodia and Thailand.

UNESCO's heritage recognition was successfully portrayed here as a government victory in international diplomacy. Thousands have turned out at rallies, marched, prayed and descended upon the ruins at Preah Vihear and this is expected to translate into extra votes for the CPP when the ballots are cast.

A constitutional amendment that allows a party to rule outright with 51 percent of the seats in parliament was also expected to provide the CPP with a lift.

Previously an unattainable two-thirds majority was required to effectively rule, and this often resulted in messy coalitions, political horse trading and bickering.

It took Hun Sen 12 months to forge a government after the 2003 poll.

Meanwhile, allegations of corruption and a sex scandal involving royalist party Funcinpec's former leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh have further damaged any chance the royalists had of improving on their miserable showing in the last election.

The Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) is expected to do well in the cities and could improve its position among rural voters after heavy campaigning in the countryside.

But the SRP is up against the CPP's well-oiled logistics and organizational structure, which blankets this country and is riding high on the Preah Vihear issue, and an economic boom not seen since the Vietnam War tipped Cambodia into decades of civil conflict in the early 1970s.

The current economic good times are being attributed mainly to 10 years of relative peace and stability under the CPP, and many observers and opposition politicians fear Hun Sen could completely obliterate their ranks at the weekend poll.

The standoff over Preah Vihear has also distracted attention from an election campaign that has shown some familiar and violent patterns from the past.

"Unfortunately, Preah Vihear has all Cambodians worried and all the media's attention is focused on Preah Vihear," said Kek Galabru, president of the human rights group Licadho. "People aren't receiving all the information they need to make an informed decision because of Preah Vihear."

She said suspected electoral-related killings, vote buying, and politically inspired arrests had been reported, adding: "How can you have free and fair elections when a journalist is killed, one who wrote articles that were against the government."

Khim Sambo, a journalist who wrote for a pro-SRP newspaper, and his son were shot dead while riding their motorbike home on a busy Phnom Penh street on July 11.

However, determining what constitutes electoral-related violence is difficult in a country where guns are common amid a notorious culture of impunity and some observers fear elections have even become a time to settle old political scores with violence.

Despite this, election monitors mostly agreed this year's campaign was a vast improvement on previous efforts, the first of which was in 1993, when a U.N.-sponsored poll designed to restore Cambodian democracy after decades of war was plagued by violence.

The suspected electoral-related death toll stands at 13, almost half the reported killings in 2003.

"The numbers have decreased but there should not be one killing," Galabru told World Politics Review. "Only when there is not one killing can an election be seen as free."

Labels: Election, Preah Vihear, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Two Cambodian Journalists Win Hellman/Hammett Writer’s Award

Rights Group Honors Defenders of Independent Media in Cambodia

(New York, July 22, 2008 - ) – Two young Cambodian journalists, Chheang Bopha and Duong Sokha, are among a diverse group of 34 writers from 19 countries to receive the prestigious Hellman/Hammett writer’s award, which recognizes courage in the face of political persecution, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Hellman/Hammett grants, administered by Human Rights Watch, are given annually to writers around the world who have been targets of political persecution or human rights abuses. The grant program began in 1989 when the American playwright Lillian Hellman willed that her estate be used to assist writers in financial need as a result of expressing their views.

“Chheang Bopha and Duong Sokha represent a small minority among Cambodia’s press corps who dare to challenge corrupt and politically biased institutions through their writings and their actions,” said Sara Colm, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Bopha, 28, and Sokha, 27, worked as reporters at Cambodge Soir, Cambodia’s leading French language daily newspaper. They quit in 2007 to protest the dismissal of a colleague who was fired for writing about a report by Global Witness, an international environmental organization, that documented the alleged complicity of top government officials in illegal logging.

Striking Cambodian staff elected Sokha as their spokesperson to demand that Cambodge Soir reinstate the fired journalist and guarantee editorial independence. The newspaper’s owners responded by closing the paper and reopening it several months later under new editorial management. Most of the former employees eventually returned to work without reassurances of editorial independence, but Sokha and Bopha refused despite intense pressure to do so.

They both pursued far less lucrative work in journalism teaching before eventually joining forces with other journalists to start an independent internet publication in Cambodian and French, Ka-Set (http://www.ka-set.info). Bopha will soon be leaving to pursue a master’s degree in journalism at the Training Center for Professional Journalists in Paris.

“In a climate of increased suppression of free expression and attacks against independent media – including from the highest levels of the government – few journalists dare challenge the system,” said Colm. “Sokha and Bopha aim to uphold professional media standards in a country with few truly independent media outlets.”

Ka-set was the brainchild of a group of four former Cambodge Soir journalists and a Magnum photojournalist. Originally launched in March 2008 with the journalists’ own money, the internet publication uses a multimedia approach to cover a wide range of issues – politics, justice, human rights, economics, Khmer Rouge, environment, culture and society. Access is free, and income comes from advertising, although the team, now numbering 10, is currently seeking additional support.

“The rare professional skills, ethics and courage exhibited by Duong Sokha and Chheang Bopha should be applauded and encouraged, especially at a time when independent journalism in Cambodia is increasingly at risk,” said Colm.

The Cambodian government controls all broadcast media and regularly suspends, threatens, or takes legal action against journalists or news outlets that criticize the government. In addition, reporters risk dismissal, physical attack, or even death for coverage of controversial issues. Earlier this month, for example, gunmen shot and killed Khim Sambo, a journalist for Moneaksekar Khmer (Khmer Conscience), a newspaper affiliated with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP).

“As political power is increasingly consolidated in Cambodia in the run-up to the July 27 national elections, so is control over the media,” said Colm.

In June, military police arrested Moneaksekar Khmer editor, Dam Sith, who is also running as a SRP candidate in the elections, after the paper reported on allegations about the current foreign minister’s role during the Khmer Rouge regime.

In 2007, a reporter in Pursat Province was the victim of two attempted arson attacks on his home, which the local police chief attributed to the reporter’s coverage of illegal logging. In June 2007, the government banned Global Witness’s report on illegal logging. Journalists who covered the report and people who helped prepare it received anonymous death threats.

Bopha holds bachelor’s degrees in French literature from Phnom Penh University and in management from the National University of Management. At Cambodge Soir she covered the human rights beat, vividly documenting the plight of Khmer Rouge victims, garment workers, women, ethnic minorities and children. She has also worked as a correspondent for Radio France International, Radio Free Asia, and International Press Service. In 2003, she assisted with the production of a documentary film, “Les Artistes du Theatre Brulé”, by Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh. Bopha has also taught print journalism at the Royal University of Phnom Penh.

Sokha studied French at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. During his four years at Cambodge Soir, Sokha was known for his reporting on justice, human rights and politics. In addition, he has worked as a French lecturer at the Royal University of Law and Economics, an event promoter for the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center, and a television reporter for “Cambodian Voices,” broadcast on TV-9 in Cambodia.

“Though young, both Bopha and Sokha are respected for their leadership and integrity during and after the newspaper strike, as well as their hard-hitting coverage of social issues and human rights,” said Colm.

Since 1989, Human Rights Watch has administered the Hellman/Hammett awards, which have been given to nearly 700 writers – including 10 Cambodians – over the 19 years of the program. The Hellman/Hammett program also makes small emergency grants to writers who have an urgent need to leave their country or who need immediate medical treatment after serving prison terms or enduring torture

Labels: Election, Journalism, journalist

Scribe's Murder, Temple Dispute Muddy Cambodian Polls

By ANDREW NETTE / IPS WRITER
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

PHNOM PENH (irrawaddy.org) — Cambodia has entered the final week of its national election campaign shocked by the murder of a well-known journalist and facing an increasingly tense standoff with Thailand over a disputed 11th century Hindu temple.

The July 11 slaying of Khim Sambo in a drive-by-shooting in Phnom Penh has cast a cloud over the poll, which until then had been largely free of serious violence, and sent shock waves through the journalist community.

"For Cambodian people it is scary," said Kek Galabru, president of Licadho, a prominent local human rights organization that is investigating the incident. "The killing will have a negative impact on the election. In journalists it will increase self-censorship. There is a chilling effect. Everyone is wondering who will be next."

Although some have claimed that the Sambo killing was an election-related political assassination, no evidence has been produced to back this.

"We estimate at 70 percent (probability) that this is a revenge case," Phnom Penh police commissioner Touch Naroth told the media last week. "The journalist could have had personal conflicts."

The most feasible explanation, according to local and international human rights groups, is that Sambo was killed because of his articles.

A veteran reporter for the newspaper ‘Monseaseka,’ or Khmer Conscience, which is affiliated to the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), the country’s main opposition political party, Sambo reported on issues relating to corruption, land grabbing and other controversial topics.

Monseaseka’s editor, Dam Sith, an SRP election candidate, was last month charged with defamation against a senior government minister and jailed for a week.

In a statement the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it was "concerned that Sambo may have been targeted in reprisal for his reporting on government corruption."

"My feeling is that it is certainly related to what he wrote," said Galabru. "Whatever the case, there was a crime and we want the authorities to mount a serious investigation to being the perpetrators to justice."

No one has yet been arrested for the killing and opposition parties and human rights investigators are pessimistic that any one will be.

According to the United Nations Office of High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Cambodia, Sambo’s killing is one of eight similar murders and attempted murders of journalists since 1994.

In all the cases cited by OHCHR no one was arrested and the perpetrators remain at large.

The uncertainty relating to Sambo’s death says much about the difficulties facing journalists in Cambodia. Almost all Cambodia’s media is politically aligned, either through the direct ownership by parties or by wealthy individuals who have strong political connections.

According to a May 2008 Licadho study on the state of the country’s media, journalists are typically poorly paid and many live in fear of physical or legal attack because of their work. "Fear is a fact of life for many of Cambodia’s journalists," it said.

The study cited a 2007 survey of 150 journalists which showed that 65 percent of them were afraid of being physically attacked, and 62 percent feared legal action. "More tellingly, 54 percent said they had been threatened with physical harm or legal action,’’ the survey said.

The report also stated that problems also arise from endemic corruption in the media, with many journalists regularly taking bribes for favorable coverage or for not reporting stories.

"Even if it (the Sambo killing) is not politically related the environment of fear it creates is a serious issue", said Mar Sophal, monitoring coordinator with the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia.

It is difficult to get accurate figures on the number of killings and acts of violence related to the election.

According to Sophal, by the end of last week there had been at least four politics-related deaths during the official four-week campaign period. Three of the victims were CPP-affiliated activists. The fourth was an opposition party supporter.

Another issue creating uncertainty in the closing stages of the Sunday election is the escalating dispute between Phnom Penh and Bangkok over the ownership of the Preah Vihear temple that stands on the border between the two neighboring countries.

Labels: Election, Journalism, journalist

...institutions remain subject to the control inherited from pre-1993 communist days, and are utilized to serve the interests of the ruling class rather than those of the people. Although Cambodia has held periodic elections, and preparations for the forthcoming election are underway, its multi-party, liberal democracy has little substance

Labels: Chea Vichea, CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party, SRP

Cambodian military police patrol Preah Vihear temple, 245 km (152 miles) north of Phnom Penh, July 21, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

"Thailand has violated the international boundary of the two countries which had been delineated since 1908 by the Mixed Commission composed of representatives from Siam (now called Thailand) and a delegation of the Protectorate Power (namely France) representing Cambodia at that time," said the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in the letter addressed to all the kingdom's compatriots.

"To date, the diplomatic efforts of the Royal Government of Cambodia to persuade Thailand to withdraw its troops and return to the status quo prior to July 15 2008 have been to no avail," it said.

"The negotiations were not successful because Thailand insisted on using a map drawn unilaterally, thus violating Cambodia's territory," it said.

Therefore, the ministry decided to "request for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to find a solution to the problem in accordance with international law," it added.

Hor Namhong, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, is currently meeting with the ambassadors from the five permanent member countries of the UN Security Council and will hold a press conference before Tuesday noon to make clear Cambodia's latest reaction to the dispute.

Earlier Monday, he asked Singapore, the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to rally the foreign ministers of Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Laos, to find a way to help ease the tension at the Cambodian-Thai border.

"Thai troops with artillery and tanks are building up along the border, constituting a very serious threat not only to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia, but also to peace and stability in the region," he told ASEAN in a letter.

Also Monday in Thailand, bilateral top-level talks failed to produce any consensus in regard with the military standoff near their border.

Last Tuesday, three Thai protesters trespassed the border to reclaim the temple, but were immediately arrested. Thai troops then came in to fetch them, thus triggering face-off with Cambodian soldiers there. Bilateral military build-up occurred dayby day. Currently, the troops there are widely estimated at thousands.

In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded the 11th century classic Khmer-style Preah Vihear Temple, together with the land it occupies, to Cambodia. The decision has rankled the Thais ever since.

The temple straddles the Thai-Cambodian border atop the DangrekMountain and was listed as a World Heritage Site on July 7 by the UNESCO's World Heritage Committee.

Labels: Preah Vihear

Cambodia's Premier in Strong Position Ahead of Vote

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (WSJ) -- Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose party is expected to win re-election here Sunday, is credited by many Cambodians with guiding their country to become one of Asia's newest investment hot spots.

But keeping the economic recovery on track in Cambodia -- a nation best-known for its genocidal 1970s Khmer Rouge regime -- is getting more difficult in the face of a global slowdown, regional competition and entrenched corruption.

Mr. Hun Sen opened Cambodia's doors to foreign investors and has overseen notable improvements in living standards. Economic growth has surged 10% or more annually in recent years, driven by an influx of investment funds, property speculators and a few big multinationals, including Chevron Corp. and BHP Billiton.

Phnom Penh, the capital, recently got a new fleet of metered taxis, and it soon will have its first skyscrapers, including a 42-story luxury condominium tower rising up next to an office for a national antileprosy campaign. In brochures, the project's South Korean developers compare the building -- which boasts a grass-covered "sky park" on its 10th floor -- to Manhattan's Time Warner Center.

But attracting a lot more investment will depend on Cambodia overcoming its reputation as one of the world's most corrupt countries. It ranks among the worst on Transparency International's annual list of graft-ridden nations, with 72% of its residents reporting they paid at least one bribe in the past year -- roughly on par with Cameroon and Albania. Opposition leaders and others say a more pervasive rule of law is needed to sustain the boom by making Cambodia attractive to blue-chip foreign investors who currently prefer countries such as Thailand or Vietnam.

Many economists believe Cambodia's miniboom is already fading. Growth has been fueled by just a few sectors -- notably tourism, construction and garment manufacturing. Inflation is soaring, pushed by higher fuel and food prices, and the new garment factories around Phnom Penh are facing new competition as China expands its textile output and global demand slows.

The International Monetary Fund predicts growth of Cambodia's economy will slow to about 7% this year, in part because of slowing garment exports.

Mr. Hun Sen has "delivered political stability, and that has translated into economic growth," says Arjun Goswami, country director for the Asian Development Bank in Phnom Penh. But, he adds, "the story is going to get more difficult for Cambodia."

Economic issues have played an important part in the election campaign. "The kind of growth we are having now is not sustainable or equitable," contends Sam Rainsy, a French-educated former finance minister who leads a prominent opposition party. Much of Cambodia's economic activity, he notes, involves illegal businesses or black-market operations: illicit logging, land speculation, gambling and prostitution. Such businesses thrive, he says, because of a political system permeated with graft.

Ruling-party leaders have dismissed some allegations of graft as exaggerated, and promised to pass legislation to rein in corruption in the future.

Though small, Cambodia could become a major investment site. It has significant deposits of bauxite, gold and other minerals, and energy companies have recently found sizable oil deposits off its coast. The country also has large areas of arable land that could be developed for rice and other crops to help meet Asia's growing demand.

Much of that potential was squandered as Cambodia suffered through wars and atrocities in recent decades. Cambodia became independent from French colonial rule in the 1950s, but was bombed heavily by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. It later fell to the Khmer Rouge, a home-grown Maoist rebel group whose leaders, including the notorious Pol Pot, outlawed money and private property in a disastrous bid to create a nation of agricultural collectives. Some 1.7 million people -- about a fifth of the population at the time -- died of illness or starvation or were killed.

Invading Vietnamese forces eventually ousted the Khmer Rouge and installed Khmer Rouge defectors, including Hun Sen, in a new government. He became prime minister in 1985. A battle-hardened soldier-turned-politician -- he lost an eye in combat -- Mr. Hun Sen survived Cambodia's transition to nominally democratic rule in 1993 and has since fended off all challengers to his rule, including a violent coup in 1997 against a rival with whom he shared power.

Despite his government's reputation for corruption and its strong authoritarian streak, Cambodians re-elected Mr. Hun Sen's party in 1998 and 2003, and he has remained popular among many Cambodians who believe the country is better off than it was a decade ago.

A party victory in Sunday's national parliamentary elections would give him another five years in power. Now in his late 50s, he has said he plans to stay in power until he is 90 years old. In a speech earlier this year, he said, "I wish to state it very clearly this way: No one can defeat Hun Sen. Only Hun Sen alone can defeat Hun Sen."

To sustain popular support, the government has rebuilt schools and repaired roads, in part with money provided by foreign donors. It has also made it easier for foreigners to visit and invest in the country, stoking a surge in tourist arrivals and hotel and office construction.

Mr. Hun Sen's party "has done a lot to improve the country," says Sokna Tea, a 20-year-old finance student who was hanging out one recent afternoon near a new $1 billion property development expected to include a 52-story tower and convention center. Many Cambodians simply believe Mr. Hun Sen's victory is inevitable or fear that a vote against his government could lead to political unrest.

Despite some reports of campaign-related violence, independent election observers say they expect the vote to be fair, and campaigning for the dozen or so parties contesting the vote has been vigorous. Mr. Hun Sen's political organization, the Cambodian People's Party, is backed by many of the country's wealthiest tycoons and has deep pockets, allowing it to vastly outspend the smaller opposition groups.

Some economic analysts say controlling Cambodia will become harder for Mr. Hun Sen, especially if rising food and energy prices undermine the recent gains in poverty reduction. More than half of Cambodia's population of 14 million is under 21 years old, and many youths are better educated than their parents, meaning they will likely demand more from their government in the future.

"I want something more than stability," says Theary Seng, a social activist in her 30s who has lived in the U.S. and now is the executive director of a Phnom Penh watchdog group known as the Center for Social Development. After all, she says, "North Korea has stability."

Write to Patrick Barta at patrick.barta@wsj.com

Labels: Corruption, CPP, Economic Success, Election, hun sen, Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Sam Rainsy

Cambodian opposition party leader Sam Rainsy (centre) stands on a truck as he greets supporters during an election rally in Phnom Penh on June 26. Cambodia is rising from the ashes of civil war and the brutal legacy of the Khmer Rouge's "Killing Fields," but it remains hobbled by endemic corruption hindering its efforts to escape poverty. (AFP/File/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Labels: Corruption, CPP, Election, hun sen, Sam Rainsy, Sam Rainsy Party

Why Thai-Cambodian temple dispute lingers

Each side has domestic reasons to prolong the conflict.

After a week of saber-rattling over Preah Vihear, which UNESCO recently designated as a World Heritage Site for Cambodia, Thai analysts and Western diplomats say there is a risk that tempers could flare. Neither side wants to be seen backing down, since parties on both sides are using the dispute to further domestic political goals, especially in Thailand.

"Nobody wants to see this dispute escalate," says a Thai military officer, who requested anonymity. "We are doing our best not to let anything happen.... Cambodia understands that the problem arises from domestic political problems in Thailand."

The risk of violence, though, remains slight as the two militaries have a close working relationship. No shots have been fired, and the only injuries came when Thai nationalists clashed last week with local Thai villagers opposed to their campaign against Cambodia's claim to the temple.

Domestic politics fuel conflict

Still, with opposition politicians in both countries playing nationalism cards, the row may prove hard to douse. Five years ago, a rumor that a Thai actress had spoken of taking back Angkor Wat, another temple, sparked anti-Thai riots in Phnom Penh. The Thai Embassy was torched and Thai nationals in Cambodia had to be evacuated by military aircraft.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is campaigning ahead of national elections on Sunday, and opponents who lag far behind in opinion polls have attacked his handling of the row, as well as his lauding of the temple's new status.

A more proximate cause, though, lies in Bangkok. Here, opponents of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, who have led months of street protests and lawsuits against his government, have used the issue to accuse it of surrendering sovereignty.

"It doesn't seem too complicated to fix [the dispute]. But Thai politics [are] so polarized that it's being used to accuse the government of selling out the country. Sentiment is high on the Thai side," says Gothom Arya, a peace advocate and chairman of the National Economics and Social Advisory Council, a government think-tank.

At a summit in Singapore, foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which groups Thailand, Cambodia, and eight others in the region, called for "utmost restraint" on the border. Cambodia said Sunday that it had written to the UN Security Council about the alleged Thai incursions, but insisted it wasn't trying to involve the UN in bilateral talks, the Associated Press reported.

A history of border disputes

Seemingly minor territorial disputes have long plagued Southeast Asia, whose colonial-era borders overwrote divisions of bygone kingdoms. Singapore and Malaysia have scrapped for years over claims to tiny islands. Thailand fought a brief border war with Laos in the 1980s. For their part, Cambodians are suspicious of Vietnamese designs on its territory, a legacy of both centuries-old rivalry and a period of occupation after Vietnam's 1979 ouster of the genocidal Khmer Rouge government.

Thai nationalists are still smarting over France's delineation of their border with Cambodia, a former French colony, which had ruled Thailand during the heyday of the Angkor period, before shrinking in size. In 1962, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Preah Vihear belonged to Cambodia, but the status of the surrounding Thai-administered area wasn't determined.

Overlapping interests

Thai nationalists fear that the temple's designation will weaken Thailand's hand, though UNESCO has said that its decision has no bearing on overlapping land claims.

Earlier this month, Thailand's Constitutional Court ruled that the government was wrong when it signed a joint communiqué with Cambodia on the issue without consulting parliament. Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama later resigned.

Behind the rhetoric is a grinding war of attrition between Mr. Samak and his enemies, whose ongoing street protests are a repeat of events in 2006 that paralyzed Thailand, before former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a coup. Samak is an ally of Mr. Thaksin, who is barred from politics but continues to loom over public life here.

Critics allege that Thaksin is cutting business deals in Cambodia and that his friends in government are smoothing his path. "This is a very sensitive issue on both sides of the border. The [Thai] government should have informed the people from the beginning. The suspicion is that there are dealings under the table," says Kasit Piromya, a former Thai ambassador to Washington and opposition supporter.

For decades, Preah Vihear was off the map as visitors steered clear of war-torn Cambodia. But the surrender of Khmer Rouge troops in the 1990s paved a tourism boom in Cambodia focused on Angkor Wat, the vast temple complex that symbolizes the country's ancient glories. Cambodia hopes to repeat the trick with Preah Vihear.

Until this month, day trippers from Thailand could visit the temple, which sits atop a rocky escarpment that is much harder to ascend from Cambodia. Both countries benefited from this arrangement by levying fees on visitors, but Cambodia eventually plans to channel tourists from its side of the border, capitalizing on its UNESCO designation.

For now, there are no tourists, only soldiers hunkered down around the ruined temple.

Labels: Angkor, Election, hun sen, Preah Vihear

• Take all necessary measures to prevent intimidation, threats and obstruction to campaign activities conducted by political parties and activists;
• Demand that private media abide by the Regulations, Procedures, Principles of Equity and Codes of Conduct;
• Strengthen monitoring activities and complaint settlement mechanisms;
• Promote and encourage observers from non-governmental committees and organizations to help those voters who have difficulties finding their name on the voter list on polling day.

• The murder of Mr. Sout Song, an activist of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), in Ong Ta Ek village, Phnom Touch commune, Odong district, Kampong Speu province on July 1, 2008. The Human Rights Party (HRP) also claimed the victim as a member;
• The murder of Mr. Loan Chok, an activist of the CPP, in Prey Kri village, Prey Kri commune, Cholkiri district, Kampong Chhnang province on July 6, 2008. Local authorities and human rights organizations believe that these two cases were not politically motivated, but rather related to resentment and land disputes.
• The assassination of Mr. Khim Katsarin, also known as Mr. Khim Sambo, 47, a SRP-affiliated journalist for Moneaksekar Khmer newspaper, and his son, Katsarin Cheata, 21, on the night of July 11, 2008, in the centre of Phnom Penh. Two unidentified gunmen fired shots, killing the two victims when they were leaving the Olympic Stadium after exercising. The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee (CHRAC) believes that the murder of Mr. Khim Sambo was related to his profession, as most of his newspaper articles focused on political disputes, irregularities in the electoral process, destruction of the forest, illegal fishing and land grabbing, in which high-ranking government officials were involved.

• An alleged attempt to assassinate Mr. Oum Sara, a commentator for the Candle Light Radio Program organized by the SRP in Phnom Penh municipality on July 6, 2008;
• 16 cases of threats of murder or physical harm in Siem Reap, Battambang, Kampong Cham, Kampong Thom, Kampong Speu, Kampot, Svay Rieng, Prey Veng and Otdar Meanchey provinces, among others. The majority of the victims were members of the SRP, the Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP) and the HRP. Most of the alleged offenders were local authority officials or CPP supporters;
• In comparison with previous months, the electoral period has seen a notable increase in the number of thefts, muggings and robberies, causing people to feel more afraid. Most of these cases have taken place in Phnom Penh municipality, Kampong Cham, Battambang, Siem Reap, Prey Veng, Svay Rieng, Kandal and Takeo provinces. In the whole month of May 2008, there were 64 cases of robbery, theft and mugging. By the end of the first two weeks of July, there had already been 41 cases of such offenses.

• Six cases of gift giving to buy votes, two of which occurred in Kampong Chhnang province, two in Siem Reap province, one in Prey Veng province and one in Pursat province;
• Numerous cases of confiscating political party leaflets and destruction of party billboards – both of which are election campaign violations – mostly in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Kampot, Kampong Cham, Kandal, Prey Veng and Stung Treng provinces and Phnom Penh municipality. When it comes to permitting political parties to hand out their leaflets and put up their posters, ordinary people are more amenable than commune and village authorities, even in cases where parties do not have the prior approval of the home owners involved. The party that has handed out and put up the most leaflets, posters and slogans is the CPP, followed by the SRP, the HRP, the NRP and Funcinpec;
• Two cases of disenfranchisement of Funcinpec members by authorities in Banteay Meanchey;
• Four cases related to provocation and obstruction to party campaign activities. One example of obstruction was when HRP representatives were prevented from conducting their campaign activities by a group of security guards at O’Russei Market in Phnom Penh;
• Authorities, civil servants and armed forces personnel in almost all 24 provinces/municipalities are still not acting in a politically neutral manner when exercising their official duties. COMFREL observed that many government officials from the various ministries/departments did not fulfill their administrative duties in first two weeks of July. Moreover, several village chiefs and local authority actors have opposed and obstructed party campaign activities.

• Seven cases related to vote buying;
• Nine cases related to participation of public and religious officials in party campaign activities;
• 19 cases related to election campaign disturbance;
• 31 cases related to destruction of election campaign materials/equipment;
• 16 cases related to disturbance and/or threats, including attempted murder;
• 20 cases related to defamation and/or insults;
• 12 cases related to general violation of regulations and procedures;
• One case related to the use of a public building by a political party;
• One case in which an administrative police chief asked for the names of political party agents and members (it is unclear whether this is a violation of election law).

• Mr. Koul Panha, COMFREL Executive Director, Tel: 012 942 017
• Mr. Mar Sophal, COMFREL Head of Monitoring Unit, Tel: 012 845 091

Labels: Comfrel, Election

A Tribunal Worth Paying For

For years, the United States withheld funding from Cambodia's Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal. Before opening its wallet, Washington insisted that the court meet international standards for fairness and anticorruption measures. That stance has now paid off, contributing to international scrutiny that has led to dramatic improvements in the tribunal's operations. It's now time for the U.S. to contribute funding and preserve the gains its earlier policy has helped foster.

This matters because the tribunal represents Cambodians' last best hope of healing the wounds they suffered under decades of Khmer Rouge rule. Roughly one in three Cambodians perished under the Khmer Rouge's Maoist experiment to send the country back to what they called "Year Zero." If Cambodia is ever to find its way to economic growth and a stable, democratic political system, it's important for its former leaders to stand trial for their alleged crimes. The tribunal's failure would be a blow for the long-suffering Cambodian people themselves, but also for the credibility of the United Nations. And it would be a black mark against the U.S. to stand idly while the tribunal America helped birth 10 years ago falters.

By pouring money into the U.N. Development Program without adequate oversight, donors for too long effectively handed their money straight to the Cambodian side of the tribunal, with predictable results. Auditors have uncovered fiscal problems, serious mismanagement and bloated salaries. The Open Society Justice Initiative, a New York-based NGO, raised serious allegations of widespread corruption and kick-back schemes among Cambodian appointees. After three years of operations, only five defendants are in custody and no trials have begun. The tribunal still lacks a credible anticorruption plan.

But major strides have been made over the past six months. The U.N. has brought in David Tolbert, a former prosecutor with the Yugoslavia tribunal, as its "special expert" to act as a much-needed coordinator between the tribunal, donors and the U.N. It boasts a new management team led by Norwegian lawyer Knut Rosandhaug, a veteran of the U.N.'s mission in the Balkans. Day-to-day judicial operations like filings and hearings increasingly adhere to basic standards of transparency and fairness. And a revised budget features more prudent expenditures, and better controls over where and how donor money is spent.

The biggest threat to consolidation of this progress now is lack of funds moving forward. The tribunal is currently seeking almost $100 million to allow it to complete its mandate. Without additional donor support, the tribunal could close its doors in a matter of weeks. And even if the tribunal did manage to secure adequate funding, the U.S. would have lost its prime leverage to push for improvements.

So far, the desire to address serious U.S. concerns and win its support has been a prime driver of improvements to the tribunal process. More than any other country, the U.S. has consistently expressed skepticism about the Cambodian government's purported efforts to cooperate with the tribunal and has championed transparency and effective anticorruption measures. Mr. Tolbert's appointment was a direct result of U.S. pressure.

That U.S. leverage only works, however, so long as people have reason to believe American money might be forthcoming if participants can satisfy the U.S. concerns. If the U.S. holds back now, despite the progress of the past few months, it will lose this advantage.

In contrast, donating now as the tribunal moves into a new, improved phase of management, would allow the U.S. to bring enormous diplomatic weight to the table. The U.S. then could exert pressure on the Cambodian government and the U.N. to ensure that the tribunal continues to focus on anticorruption policies and meeting international standards.

For example, Mr. Tolbert is crafting such a plan right now, and it would be to America's advantage to maximize its say over the proposal. As a donor the U.S. could offer powerful support to Mr. Tolbert's push to include mechanisms for participants to report suspected corruption (including whistleblower protections), greater anticorruption investigative capacity on the part of the tribunal's management, and changes to the code of conduct for judges that would spell out explicitly what constitutes corrupt activity.

Some of the fiercest opposition to funding the tribunal originates in the U.S. Congress, which is understandable, given the tribunal's troubled history. It's also healthy. The "blank check" approach adopted by the UNDP and other donors created the tribunal's problems in the first place. It is vital that the U.S. not be that naïve, let alone willfully deaf, blind and dumb in its own funding.

Instead, the type of scrutiny and attention that the U.S. could and should bring to the court as a donor will be one of the critical safeguards for progress. Particularly if America becomes a member of the tribunal's steering committee by committing $2 million or more, it will be in a position to play a powerful role in the tribunal's future.

Meanwhile, the U.S. could target its donations to specific budget items, such as victims' rights and witness protection or even the operating budget for the international side of the tribunal, and make payments over time rather than as one lump sum. Washington could use its new leverage to force the tribunal to process cases more efficiently, ensuring proceedings don't drag on for years until already-elderly defendants simply die. The U.S. would also be in a position to mandate independent and transparent accounting procedures that would not only track American dollars but aid in improving the tribunal's operations overall.

The U.S. was instrumental in negotiating the creation of this tribunal 10 years ago, and has all along affirmed its commitment to helping the Cambodian people seek justice. Up to now, the most effective way to do that has been to withhold U.S. money pending reform. But as the tribunal moves into a new phase, and with its management improving, donating will become the more effective tool for the U.S. to follow through on its promise to Cambodia.

Mr. Hall is an associate professor at Chapman University School of Law, in Orange, Calif., and a research fellow at the Center for Global Trade & Development.

Labels: Khmer Rouge Tribunal

Tomb raiders ... every year, more than two million tourists visit Angkor Wat, the 12th century Hindu-Buddhist temple which is synonomous with Cambodia / Reuters

48 hours in Siem Reap

By Masako Iijima July 15, 2008 09:23am

GOT 48 hours to explore the ruins of the ancient Angkor empire? Foreign correspondents with local knowledge can help you make the most of the temples and Siem Reap, the booming tourist town in the shadow of Angkor Wat.

Friday

6 pm: Cocktail hour

Relax on rattan armchairs in the pleasant garden of the Singing Tree Cafe just down the street from the Siem Reap river. It's a nice place for an evening drink or a healthy meal or for those seeking to unwind completely, there's an evening yoga class in the wooden, traditional Khmer house.

8 pm: Starlit temples

Every year, more than two million tourists visit Angkor Wat, the 12th century Hindu-Buddhist temple which is synonomous with Cambodia. By day, flag-waving guides herd package tourists through the world heritage site.

Saturday

7 am: Hit the temples After a quick breakfast, head for the temples. Drive around the Angkor Wat moat to Angkor Thom, the last and capital of the Khmer empire. The Bayon temple, with its 200 enormous faces smiling down on visitors from stone towers is a must-see. The Terrace of the Elephants, the platform from where King Jayavarman VII viewed public ceremonies, is well preserved compared to some of the surrounding temples which need a bit of imagination to appreciate.

11 am: Crafty potters

Go back to Siem Reap to avoid the midday sun. On the way, take a detour on the airport road to the National Centre for Khmer Ceramics Revival, a workshop which seeks to recreate ancient Khmer pottery using clay from the nearby hills, fired in a giant kiln built based on information found by archaeologists researching similar ancient sites.

Watch the potters create giant jars like the ones that are found at archaeolgical digs or try throwing a pot yourself on the primitive potters' wheel the women use and take home a special souvenir.

12.30 pm: Amok for lunch

Siem Reap's food choices have expanded dramatically in recent years. Go to Amok Restaurant, named after the Khmer curry which is made by steaming the coconut-based dish in a banana leaf for a typical Cambodian lunch. Besides the fish amok, the banana flower salad and the green papaya salad – which is similar to the Thai version but without the chillis – are also nice.

1.30 pm: Shopping hour

A good time to wander around the air conditioned shops selling silks and trinkets. Angkor Candles stocks a selection of handcarved candles in the shape of guardian lions, faces of Bayon and other local motifs.

Rajana is a fair trade shop which sells handmade silver jewellery, cushion covers and other knick-knacks. For cotton "krama" or gingham check scarves worn by Khmer Rouge fighters, head to the Old Market where they are sold in every color combination imaginable.

3.30 pm: Try the fried crickets

For a quick and unusual snack, try the fried crickets and other creepy crawlies sold on the bridge spanning the Siem Reap River. Or, for those less adventurous, you can go to the Blue Pumpkin for a banana ginger tart and iced coffee before journeying back to the temples.

4 pm: Play Tomb Raider

If the Angkor temples had not been restored, they would all look like Ta Prohm, located about 1km from Angkor Thom. Trees with enormous roots threaten to swallow the moss-covered walls of this temple and return the monument to the jungle that surrounds it. It's a familiar sight for Tomb Raider fans.

Proceed on to Pre Rup, a 10th century Shiva temple whose sandstone and brick walls glow orange in the late afternoon light. Then, climb up Phnom Bakheng, a temple mountain also dedicated to Shiva, to watch the sun set over what remains of the Angkor empire.

7 pm: Chat up an archeologist

To catch the latest gossip on archaelogical finds, have a drink with the experts. The French team will be at the Laundry Bar in the centre of town. The Japanese, who are the second largest contingent of achaeologists after the French, are usually at Cafe Moi Moi on the road back to town from the temples.

8 pm: Recall colonial Indochina over dinner

Keeping with the Angkor theme, dine at Le Malraux, a bistrot named after writer and statesman Andre Malraux who embarked on an exploratory mission into the Cambodian jungle in the early 1900s and was arrested by French colonial authorites for trying to steal bas-reliefs from one of the Angkor temples. Confit de canard and other things French will help you enjoy the atmosphere of Indochina of bygone years.

10 pm: Chase the neon lights

Night comes early to Siem Reap. But if you follow the neon lights and noise emanating from places like the Sok San Palace and Sokha Entertainment Club, you'll find yourself amid young Cambodians singing, dancing and trying their luck on the poker machines.

Sunday

7.30 am: Try a Khmer breakfast

From dawn, the Old Market is a hive of activity as housewives rush to buy fresh vegetables, meat and fish to feed their families. That is also when the food stalls offer the most choices. Rice porridge, duck noodles and sticky rice steamed in banana leaf packets make an interesting Khmer breakfast.

8 am: Hike with the Hindu gods

Drive out to Kbal Spean or the Valley of the 1000 Lingas. Wear sturdy shoes as it is a bit of a hike to the myriad of stone lingas carved into the riverbed and boulders on the banks. The Angkoreans believed the water passing over the symbols of Shiva would fertilize their rice fields and ensure a bumper crop. There are also carvings of various Hindu motifs depicting gods and sacred animals which have been watching over the water since the 11th century.

1.30 pm: Sunday lunch

Despite the Hindu overtones, there's no Kama Sutra at Kbal Spean. But there is in Siem Reap. The Indian restaurant is one of the classier ones in town and serves both north and south Indian favourites. Try their dosas – very thin and crispy.

2.30 pm: Weave some magic

Cambodia's weaving masters at the Institute of Khmer Traditional Textiles (IKTT) will be back from siesta and at their looms creating silk in intricate ikat designs. You can watch them spin, dye and weave at their workshop on the edge of town.

If you are a textile fanatic, journey to their farm to see silk worms being raised and dyes of different hues being created from tree bark, leaves and other natural sources. The organisation is trying to revive the country's silk traditions which were lost during decades of conflict.

4 pm: Explore village life

Follow the road to the right of IKTT, past the crocodile farm and basket shops, and you will soon be in Roluos, an area that is home to a clutch of 9th century temples.

Ancient architecture buffs can study the structural differences between the Bakong and Preah Ko temples and Angkor Wat, which was built centuries later. Ordinary tourists will enjoy the journey which takes you through villages, rice paddies and herds of water buffalo wallowing in the mud.

6 pm: Massage out those knots

Paved roads are increasing in Cambodia, but many are still spine-jarring dirt tracks. Go to Chai Massage near the road to Angkor Wat and let the masseuse knead the knots away and work out the kinks.

7 pm: G&T o'clock

Tourism exceeds journalism by far in Siem Reap, but there is still an FCC – Foreign Correspondents Club. It's near the river and the garden is the perfect place for a last gin and tonic before the journey home.

Labels: Angkor, Tourism

Labels: CPP, Election, Media bias towards the CPP, SRP

'Selective' Coverage After Murders:

Reporter By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
14 July 2008

The murders of an opposition journalist and his son in Phnom Penh Friday night have sent a ripple of self-censorship through his old newspaper, journalists said Monday.

Khim Sambor, 47, and his 21-year-old son, Khat Sarinpheata, were gunned down as they drove on a motorbike near Olympic Stadium Friday evening, just 16 days away from a national election.

Khim Sambor died at the scene, and his son died at a local hospital a few hours later. Both men were cremated in a Buddhist ceremony Sunday.

The killings have meant a change in the way Moneaksekar Khmer will operate, the editor said Monday.

"We don't know if there will be other pressure after the murders. We must be very careful, even for security, and in the work," the editor, Dam Sith, said. "We are afraid that if we write something risky, it could bring us in front of accusations."

Dam Sith was held in jail for a week last month following a story he ran implicating Foreign Minister Hor Namhong as a member of the Khmer Rouge.

He was released when Hor Namhong dropped defamation charges against him, and Dam Sith swore at the time to continue his pro-opposition coverage of the country.

Now, his stories will reflect a more cautious editorial approach. Self-censorship on the meaning of story text and the choice of words will change, he said.

"The murder of Khim Sambor is a serious threat against Moneaksekar Khmer," Dam Sith said. "We are worried now for the whole staff as they are reporting, and when they get back home."

Other Moneaksekar Khmer journalists echoed Dam Sith's concerns.

"We are concerned in accomplishing our jobs," said Vong Sopheak, a reporter for the newspaper. "We don't know what will happen to us, and so we must be more careful. We don't want to have a confrontation. And now we are selective of the information and selective of the topic."

Khim Sambor had covered politics, including the reporting of stories on government corruption, for the newspaper, which is affiliated with the Sam Rainsy Party.

Human rights groups said his murder was likely due to his reporting. Khim Sambor had reported for many years, and focused on conflicts, election irregularities, illegal logging, fisheries crimes, land grabbing, "which are related to powerful Cambodian officials," the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee said in a statement. His murder was likely related to his reporting, the group said.

The killings were roundly condemned by local and international rights groups.

"Allowing this murder to go unpunished would have a considerable impact on the 27 July elections, and we therefore hope the investigation will produce quick results," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement Saturday.

Moneaksekar Khmer is only one of two opposition newspapers.

A third, Sralanh Khmer, began reporting from a pro-Cambodian People's Party point of view following the defection to the ruling party of its top editor, Thach Keth, who is now a CPP undersecretary of state for the Ministry of Information.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy called Khim Sambor's killing a political assassination and called for an immediate investigation.

"When one who dares to write or argue against those with absolute power is assassinated, the perpetrators behind the killing are never found nor tried according to the law," he said in a statement Saturday. "This clearly demonstrates the nature of those in power."

Sam Rainsy also called for further investigations into murders of other opposition supporters, including labor leader Chea Vichea, parliamentarian Om Rasadie, "as well as countless numbers of journalists, political activists and others."

Police have made no arrests in Friday's killings.

The US Embassy issued a statement Monday offering the help of its Federal Bureau of Investigation office "if requested by the Cambodian government."

Labels: Election, hun sen, Journalism, journalist, Sam Rainsy Party

Labels: hun sen, Journalism, journalist, Sam Rainsy Party

Labels: Preah Vihear

Labels: Preah Vihear

Labels: Preah Vihear

Labels: Preah Vihear, Unesco

Vietnam: Restore Full Freedom to Buddhist Monk Tim Sakhorn

Human Rights Defender Released from Prison, but Whereabouts Unknown

Source: Human Rights Watch

(New York, July 3, 2008) – The Vietnamese authorities should immediately lift any restrictions on the liberty of Buddhist monk Tim Sakhorn, who was released from prison in Vietnam on June 28, 2008, Human Rights Watch said today. Sakhorn’s whereabouts are unknown. He was last seen in the company of government officials.

Labels: Khmer Krom, Tim Sakhorn

The new Angkor National Museum in Siem Reap has stirred controversy in Cambodia. Above, the exterior of the museum with the "Cultural Mall" on the right.

A New Museum Puts a Thai Imprint on Angkor

SIEM REAP, Cambodia: A common disappointment for visitors to Angkor today is the paucity of sculptural artifacts offered by the site. Without the "furniture" that once graced its magnificent temples, it can be hard to imagine the customs and rituals that animated Cambodia's formidable empire in its heyday.

Of the religious icons that survived looting or appropriation to French museums, many were relocated over decades to Cambodia's National Museum, created in the 1920s by the architect and curator George Groslier. The snag for Angkor-bound tourists in Siem Reap is that the museum is in the capital, more than 300 kilometers, or 185 miles, away.

Now Vilailuck International Holdings, based in Bangkok, has opened what it has opted to call the "Angkor National Museum" only a few kilometers from the Angkor park. Constructed over three years from a Thai design, it is currently displaying objects borrowed from the National Museum in Phnom Penh.

The other source of artifacts is the Conservation d'Angkor, a storage facility of some 6,000 pieces created by the Ecole Française d'Extrème Orient (French School of Asian Studies) in 1908 and currently in the hands of the Cambodian Ministry of Culture. Previously inaccessible, the collection has functioned as a hospital for broken pieces but also contains important Buddhas from several periods, as well as stone steles with invaluable inscriptions.

Thai interest dates to 2001. For 16 years Vilailuck's parent company, the Samart Corporation, has been a major investor in Cambodia in the telecommunications and air traffic control sectors. Charoenrath Vilailuck, the company's CEO, has an acquisitive interest in Cambodia's patrimony as evidenced by his own large collection.

But the new museum has picked up powerful detractors, especially among the tight-knit international restoration community that casts a hypercritical eye over what happens at Angkor.

The name has drawn the most controversy. The vast majority of offerings come either from pre-Angkorian times or from centuries after. Then, as the Siem Reap-based historian Darryl Collins pointed out, an enterprise that is foreign-owned and "primarily interested in turning a profit" can hardly be called national, especially when Cambodia already has a National Museum.

Collins is among those concerned that the new venture will deter tourists from visiting the National Museum in Phnom Penh, with its profusion of Khmer treasures spanning several centuries. For the Cambodian cognoscenti, too, the Angkor National Museum's appearance on the scene seems ominous, especially given centuries-old sensitivities concerning Thai designs on Cambodian patrimony.

Until 1908 Thailand had control not only of Angkor but of large swathes of northern Cambodia. In spite of a 1962 International Court of Justice ruling in Cambodia's favor, its neighbor still disputes the "ownership" of land surrounding the 10th century Preah Vihear temple at Cambodia's northern border and once threatened to veto Unesco's plans to honor the mountain temple with World Heritage Site status, which is still pending. Anti-Thai riots, which claimed the Thai Embassy and several Thai businesses, broke out in Phnom Penh in 2003 after a Thai actress allegedly said Angkor Wat still belonged to Thailand.

The most serious incident occurred in 1999. Large sections of walls with superb bas-relief images of the multi-armed Lokeshvara were looted from the 12th-century Banteay Chhma temple near the Thai border on what was generally assumed to be the orders of a Thai collector. The stolen art was intercepted by Thai police and returned to Cambodia, but suspicions linger.

The museum's design has also provoked some derision. The hint of Angkor Wat's honeycomb towers and its surrounding moats tends to be overshadowed by pink sandstone walls, which clash with its glazed orange corbel-vaulted roofing. It doesn't help that the lion's share of the 20,000-square-meter, or 215,000-square-foot, interior takes the form of retail space or a "Cultural Mall."

"This seems to have been foremost in the mind of the designers, while the collection came second," said Azedine Beschaouch, a special adviser to Unesco's assistant director general for culture and an expert on Angkor.

Anxious to promote the museum as a "learning cultural institute," the Thais are easily stung by such criticism. "We want to educate Cambodian people about their own history," said the museum's managing director, Sunaree Wongpiyabovorn. There are those "who know little about its monuments, and even less of the progress of Buddhism and what led up to it," she added.

Wongpiyabovorn insists there is no fortune to be made from the Angkor National Museum. Given that Vilailuck had to triple its original investment of $5 million due to the cost overruns, the company said it didn't expect to see a profit until at least a third of the 30-year lease has expired; under its "build, cooperate and transfer" contract, the management and financial control of the collection will then revert to the Cambodian authorities and the Ministry of Culture.

Moreover, several complications seem to have left the Thais frustrated, especially with regard to the terms and conditions of the loans. Under the original plan, the Phnom Penh museum's former director, Khun Samen, agreed to hand over as many as 1,000 artifacts - more than 950 hundred of them small 20th-century Buddhas - for the 30-year term, as well as 31 major pieces for a six-month loan.

His successor Hab Touch immediately reduced the 31 pieces to 23. "I am not going to surrender important pieces that should be permanently displayed here for the integrity of the collection," he said.

Another deal signed with the government in 2003 that gave Vilailuck extensive rights to a Conservation d'Angkor collection was threatened when, to the dismay of the Thais, the Cambodian government granted control to a South Korean company calling itself Angkor Treasure. Vilailuck requested that Deputy Prime Minister Sok An "release" the Koreans from the contract. He did, but only on the condition that the Thais agree to compensate the Koreans for an undisclosed sum.

According to Wongpiyabovorn, Unesco "maintains a strong sense of ownership of Cambodia's patrimony." Beschaouch supports the Thai initiative but is impatient about what he called "presentation that cannot claim to reflect international standards in museology." The majority of the wood, stone and silver Buddhas in the gallery of "1,000 Buddha Images," he said, "allude in design to later Ayutthaya-era temples in Thailand and have no aesthetic link with Angkor."

Unesco is engaged with the Angkor museum in improving the situation. But it didn't help that by the time of the grand opening last fall, months behind schedule, not only had most of the Angkor National Museum's artifacts still not been captioned but some copyrighted images had been lifted without permission for display. In the museum's defense, Wongpiyabovorn said that the Conservation d'Angkor's outdated card system of documentation was lost during Pol Pot's reign, leaving many artifacts with few historical records.

Will the museum have been worth the trouble? As it stands today, it will have negligible interest for the connoisseur or serious student of Angkorian art. At $12 compared to $3 for the National Museum in the capital, the price of admission for foreigners is high - the result of high fuel costs for air-conditioning, said the management.

But the museum has its uses. It should be commended for facilitating the display of objects long out of view. And, for a first time, the equinox sunrise simulations over Angkor Wat, the documentary-style videos in seven languages and the like go some way in explaining to visitors the temples' significance.

As for content, the "apsaras" and architectural features like decorated lintels replicate a lot of what is already copiously displayed on site. Yet sculptures from the pre-Angkorian capitals of Sambor Pre Kuk and Phnom Kulen merit attention. The 7th-century Phnom Da Standing Vishnu and the blue-tinted 9th-century Standing Shiva from Prasat Trapeang Phong reveal Cambodia's Hindu and Brahmanist legacy, and there are further galleries devoted entirely to Buddhist Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom and to the devaraja, or god-kings, who built these temples.

The museum insists it needs more time to develop its identity. Although its strength may not yet lie in a permanent collection, it aims to create exhibitions that inform and illuminate. The museum's curator, Chann Charouen, who is Cambodian and a former employee of the World Monument Fund, plans to rotate artifacts in a series of exhibitions from the aforementioned collections and from other Cambodian provincial museums such as those at Battambong and Kompong Cham.

It remains to be seen if the museum will embrace the growing scholarship and broad debates that currently characterize Angkorian studies, or be content to target tourists making an obligatory stop and bound inevitably for the inflated knick-knacks of the Cultural Mall.

Labels: Angkor