Photo by: Michael Sloan Clearance work underway at Preah Ko in this 1932 photograph included as part of the Archaeologists at Angkor exhibition.

Friday, 19 August 2011 
Michael Sloan 
Phnom Penh Post 

More than 150 years since French explorer and naturist Henri Mouhot hacked his way through the dense foliage surrounding Angkor Wat and published a breathless account of uncovering “the ruins of a lost civilisation”, a new exhibition of some of the earliest sketches and photographs of the temples gives visitors the chance to see them through his eyes.

Fifty stunning, black and white photographs and sketches by Mouhot and latergenerations of archaeologists from the École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), spanning the period between 1860 and 1960, are on display in the ballroom of the Sofitel Angkor Phokeethra Golf and Spa Resortuntil December.

The photos are part of an exhibition celebrating the completion of over 60 years ofrestoration work on Baphuon Temple. 

Launched by French Prime Minister Francois Fillon during a state visit to Siem Reap in July to officially re-open Baphuon to the public, the Archaeologists at Angkor: Photographic Archives from the Ecole Française d’Extrême Orient exhibition is the first time the EFEO photo archives have been opened to the public in Cambodia, according to the hotel’s former general manager Charles-Henri Chevet.

He told 7Days he jumped at the chance to display the stunning material.

“As many people know, Baphuon temple has recently achieved its long renovation and facelift. Pascal Royere, the director of the EFEO who was here for 12 or 13 years, was talking to me a few months ago about this project and, knowing the exhibition had been featured in one museum in Paris last year, he said: ‘Why don’t we show this exhibition here at the same time as we reopen Baphuon temple?’ And of course I immediately agreed.”

The 50 photographs now hanging in the Sofitel ballroom were selected from among 100,000 early images of the temples in the EFEO photo archives, says Chevet, and were flown to Siem Reap in June after the conclusion of an exhibition at the Musée Cernuschi in Paris.

In addition to the photographs at Sofitel, another 57 photographs from the Paris show are on display at the Artisans d’Angkor workshop in Siem Reap until August 31.

Shots of pith helmeted archaeologists in climate-inappropriate suits and ties, posing against the majestic backdrops of Bayon, Ta Prohm and Angkor Wat temples, feature heavily in the exhibition, which also has a special focus on the 60-year transformation of Baphuon from a crumbling stone ruin back to its original grandeur.

Begun in 1995, the most recent project to restore Baphuon is the continuation of earlier work by French archaeologists, who dismantled and meticulously catalogued more than 300,000 individual stone blocks from the temple structure during the 1960s.

Civil war and the destruction of records for the site during the Khmer Rouge era forced theproject to begin from scratch in 1995 under the direction of Royere, who was helped in assembling the jigsaw of stone pieces by Jacques Dumarçay, a member of the original EFEO survey team, whose earlier work is among the photographs on display.

Built in the mid-11th century as a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva by King Udayadityavarman II, Baphuon features heavily in some of the first recorded depictions of life in the Angkorian empire by Chinese envoy Chou Ta-Kuan, who, upon visiting the site in the late 13th-century, called it the “tower of bronze” and wrote that it was one of the “truly astonishing spectacles” he had encountered.

Ta-Kuan’s astonishment was shared by Mouhot, who stumbled across the temples more than 500 years later in 1863 while on an expedition sponsored by the British Royal Geographical Society.

He was not the first westerner to visit the temples, but his published diaries and sketches were the first to popularise them, sparking a wave of interest in Cambodia that eventually led to the founding of the EFEO in 1900 to preserve and safeguard temple sites.

Believing that the Angkorian temples represented evidence of a lost civilisation, Mouhot praised them as “grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome”, and wrote that seeing them for the first time “fills one with profound admiration, and one cannot but ask what has become of this powerful race, so civilised, so enlightened, the authors of these gigantic works?”

While Mouhot’s theory that the builders of the temples vanished in a similar way to the lostcity of Atlantis has long since been discredited, Archaeologists at Angkor exhibition co-ordinator Gaelle Bigeard told 7Days she still has chills when looking at the stark images of stone ruins emerging from the jungle, and wanted visitors to Siem Reap to share this experience.

“We thought holding the exhibition would [help] both tourists and local people [learn] a bit more about the history,” she said. “They can go and see the temples, but here they have a view of how they looked before.

“I think that all the photos are incredible. I run the room and so I look at them often, and you can just lose yourself in the pictures and your imagination.”

Angkor Wat - the main temple

One hundred and fifty years ago, a French naturalist wandering the jungles of Cambodia stumbled upon an archaeological gold mine.

Hidden in the jungle were several temples built by a succession of rulers of the Khmer Empire between the 9th and 12th centuries. King Jayavarman II laid the foundations for the empire in the 9th century, and Angkor remained the capital of the Khmer Empire in Cambodia for the next 400 years.

The Angkor Archaeological Park is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and efforts are being made, after years of neglect and deterioration, to maintain and protect the site. The Angkor temples – the largest temple complex in the world – are collectively one of the architectural and cultural wonders of Southeast Asia.

The most famous temple at Angkor, the Angkor Wat temple, was constructed in the early 12th century and is by far the most well known. It’s also the largest religious structure in the world.

I was captivated by the breadth and variety of the Angkor temples during my stay in nearby Siem Reap, Cambodia. Like Teotihuacan in Mexico, Angkor was known as the city of the gods, and the temples were constructed and decorated to represent their cosmological perspective. In the case of the Angkor temples, they were a dedication to the Hindu gods.

Also similar to Teotihuacan, there are temples to climb, but if you tire of this, just relax and reflect on what these buildings might have looked like a millennia ago. Try to imagine the ancient city’s bustle of activity.

The temples were actually surrounded by cities and villages in those days, but the homes of the people were built out of wood and have dissolved away over the centuries. The temples survived, as they were built from more durable materials such as brick and sandstone.

At its height, Angkor had a population of one million people – the largest pre-industrial city in the world. Reservoirs were built and an irrigation system brought water to the towns. The area was mysteriously abandoned, but some suspect climate change was a factor, which might have interfered with the water supply.

If you visit here, set aside at least three days to do the temples justice – you won’t regret it. You can bike around the ruins, although some of the more interesting ones are distances apart. It’s easier to hire a tuk tuk driver to take you from one temple to the next. Expect to pay $40-50 for three days. For a higher fee, you can hire a guide to provide more detailed explanation of the historic background and artistic interpretation of the temples.

There are locals hanging around who will offer their services for a fee, but it’s better to find an authorized guide if you can afford it. If not, it’s a worthwhile investment to pick up the book Ancient Angkor by Michael Freeman for about $7 from one of the hawkers.

Some of the more interesting ruins include the Bayon Temple and its many stone faces, in the ancient walled city of Angkor Thom, and the intricate pink sandstone carvings at Banteay Srei, 35 kilometers outside Siem Reap. I was mesmerized by Ta Prohm, where the ruins are seemingly being swallowed up by the massive roots of Banyan trees like enormous pythons.

Also among my favorites was the main temple, Angkor Wat (“city temple”), which was dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. The five towers of the Angkor Wat temple represent the five peaks of Mt. Meru, the cosmological center of Hinduism.

The walls are decorated with galleries of bas-relief carvings, including several ornate details, carvings and friezes of images of battles taken from Hindu epic tales the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. There are also detailed depictions of their conception of heaven and hell.

The best time to visit Angkor Wat – and most of the other temples – is in the early morning or late afternoon. The heat is less intense, and you’ll avoid the big tour crowds. Sunrise at Angkor Wat is particularly enchanting if you can arrange it with your driver. But the ruins are worth visiting at any time of the day. The thunder and light showers that accompanied my visit to some of the temples created an appropriately mystical atmosphere.

Be prepared to be approached by persistent hawkers at nearly every temple. These are mostly young Cambodians who are trying to help support their families. If you don’t want what they’re selling, just put your head down and keep on walking.

Most of their items seem to cost a dollar (“Mista, cold water, nice postcards, you wanna buy? Just one dolla” – you’ll hear that a lot) and they gladly welcome US dollars.

If you’re coming from Bangkok, it’s easiest just to fly into Siem Reap. Airfares are relatively cheap and the overland route can be a bit complicated. Coming by air, you can pick up your visa without hassle upon arrival at the airport.

The election of Yingluck Shinawatra has raised hopes that Thailand can improve its prickly ties with Cambodia. But will the Thai Army get in the way?

Yingluck Shinawatra spent much of the month following herlandmark victory in Thailand’s national elections in July traveling the country, meeting with adoring supporters and enjoying a well-earned victory lap. But with all the problems that await her now that she has taken over as prime minister – opposition to her populist economic policies, a simmering insurgency in southern Thailand, and above all, the immense task of national reconciliation following the political violence in Bangkok last year – it’s a lap few could blame her for wanting to extend.

Amid all these challenges, though, there’s hope that the charismatic 44-year-old may be well-positioned to address one of the region’s thorniest disputes: the border standoff between Thailand and Cambodia.

Military clashes between the two sides have left at least 28 dead so far this year, and have displaced thousands of civilians temporarily. The dispute centres primarily around Preah Vihear temple, an 11th-century complex along the border that was enshrined as a UNESCO World Heritage site for Cambodia in 2008.

In a 1962 decision, the United Nations’ International Court of Justice awarded sovereignty over Preah Vihear to Cambodia, though it didn’t address a stretch of adjacent territory that both sides now claim. Cambodia therefore requested earlier this year that the ICJ expand on its 1962 ruling in order to also address the disputed area near the temple. While a final decision on this request could take years, the ICJ made an interim order last month calling for both sides to withdraw their troops from the area.

This has so far been held up by disagreements between the respective governments over the details of the pull-out. With the term of erstwhile Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva having drawn to a close, however, Cambodian officials are holding out high hopes for the new government.

‘It’s true, we can’t hide the fact that we are happy with the victory of the Puea Thai Party,’ Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong told reporters following the Thai elections. ‘We hope that the new government in Thailand that is organised by Puea Thai will resolve issues with Cambodia more positively and more peacefully.’

Hun Sen, Cambodia’s outspoken prime minister, has made no secret of his disdain for Abhisit, calling the Oxford graduate the most difficult Thai premier with whom he has ever worked. Hun Sen has instead cultivated his relationship with Puea Thai and Yingluck’s older brother Thaksin, who currently lives abroad to avoid a graft conviction after being ousted in a 2006 coup but who is widely believed to be pulling the strings for the party. In 2009, Hun Sen appointed Thaksin as an economics adviser to the Cambodian government, calling him an ‘eternal friend.’

Yingluck, for her part, has reportedly said that the restoration of ties with neighbouring countries will be a priority for the new government, an apparent reference to Cambodia.

This will not be without its challenges, however. Many analysts see the Thai army as being behind theclashes earlier this year, and senior military officials will assuredly work to preserve their autonomy despite the change in government.

The border dispute also arouses passions from other quarters in Thai society, particularly members of the conservative establishment and the Yellow Shirt movement. Then-Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama was forced from his position in 2008 for supporting Cambodia’s UNESCO bid without parliamentary approval, and he and ex-Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej later faced charges over the issue from Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission.

Although Yingluck’s administration will be wary of inviting a similar reaction, they must nonetheless move on the issue, says Puangthong Pawakapan, an expert on Thai-Cambodian relations at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

‘I think Puea Thai realize that they have to try to solve this Preah Vihear temple issue,’ Puangthong says. ‘The new minister of foreign affairs needs to have the guts to fight against the misinformation created by the nationalists and be firm on the previous positions taken by Samak Sundaravej – that supporting Cambodia’s World Heritage inscription will not affect Thai territory at all.’

The appointment of new Foreign Minister Surapong Towijakchaikul, a relation of Thaksin by marriage, may herald a return to the business-focused diplomacy that characterized Thaksin’s tenure as prime minister. This could be a welcome approach in the Thai-Cambodian dispute, as past border tensions have held up a resolution to the countries’ so-called ‘overlapping claims area’ in the Gulf of Thailand, thought to be rich with untapped oil and gas resources.

While resistance at home may be fierce, the opportunity is there for Yingluck to move closer to resolving the conflict with Cambodia, says Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

‘Yingluck will have to try very hard to separate domestic politics from foreign affairs,’ Pavin says. ‘It will be difficult, but she has to do it.’

James O’Toole is a journalist based in Cambodia.

“Why on earth would you go there?’’ That’s the question posed to most people who want to visit Cambodia, says Kristen Paonessa, a senior at Northeastern University majoring in international affairs and economics. Paonessa, who aims to pursue a career in international development, fulfilled an experiential learning requirement by interning in Phnom Penh for the Harpswell Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit that provides housing and education to children and women in Cambodia, with the goal of empowering a new generation of female leaders. She lived in a dormitory with 45 Khmer women from rural provinces as they pursued their studies at their respective universities. She taught them English and leadership skills and fostered critical thinking discussions on current events and also took Khmer language lessons. “I believe it is crucial to expose myself to life in a developing country,’’ Paonessa says. “In order to be able to fix global issues, one must see and feel the problems on the ground.’’

BANGKOK – Thailand must do more to combat widespread human trafficking for sexual and labour exploitation, including addressing “deeply-rooted” corruption, a UN envoy said on Friday.

“The implementation of policy and legal framework on human trafficking and the law enforcement are weak and fragmented,” said the United Nations special rapporteur on people trafficking Joy Ngozi Ezeilo.

At a press conference following her 11 day mission to Thailand, Ezeilo acknowledged that progress had been made, but she underlined the need for wide-ranging improvements, in initial recommendations ahead of a 2012 report.

She said prosecutions of traffickers remain low, contributing to a culture of “impunity” for those who trade in people.

“Corruption, especially among low-cadre law enforcement officers at provincial and local levels, is deeply rooted,” she said.

“The government should promote zero tolerance to corruption and complicity of public officials with traffickers, and prosecute and adequately punish offenders to dissuade such practices.”

Ezeilo said the underlying causes of trafficking, especially demand for “cheap and exploitative” labour from neighbouring Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, “are not being effectively addressed”.

She noted “widespread” sexual exploitation – including child prostitution, pornography and sex tourism – as well as new forms of trafficking for domestic labour, begging, forced marriage and surrogacy.

Forced labour is also growing in agriculture and construction and is “notoriously common” in the fishing industry.

Ezeilo called on Thailand to review its labour and migration laws, recognising the demand for cheap, low skilled labour and to provide “safe migration options” for those entering the country from abroad.

The US State Department has placed Thailand on its human trafficking watchlist for two years running, accusing it of not doing enough to combat trafficking.

It said conservative estimates suggest there are tens of thousands of victims sold into modern-day slavery in Thailand from neighbouring countries.

Alice Pung struggled to detail her father's experiences in the killing fields of Cambodia. Photo: Rodger Cummins Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/memories-of-relative-unease-20110819-1j20v.html#ixzz1VPeR8Elr

ABOUT halfway through Alice Pung’s new memoir, Her Father’s Daughter, comes a section that hits the reader like a sledgehammer. We’re taken from contemporary Melbourne to Cambodia in Year Zero. The people of Phnom Penh, relieved the civil war is over, are smiling and welcoming their Khmer Rouge liberators. ”They were an army of children,” Pung writes. ”They did not smile back.”

The surreal atrocities of Pol Pot’s killing fields are well documented but Pung’s story has all the more impact here because the ”Black Bandits” do dreadful things to a man we have come to know well: her father, Kuan, and his extended family, many of whom were murdered. After reading these chapters, I had trouble sleeping.

Pung had trouble writing this, too, particularly towards the end. Even now she worries how Her Father’s Daughter is going to be received.

”Will the high school students ask: ‘Where’s all the humour and sarcasm’?” she says.

The humour and sarcasm provided the charm and bite in Pung’s best-selling and much-loved first book, Unpolished Gem. Her memoir of a girl high on education and achievement but low on self-esteem, growing up in a Chinese-Cambodian family in Braybrook, won the Australian Book Industry newcomer of the year award and was shortlisted for the Victorian and New South Wales premiers’ literary awards and The Age book of the year.

Sure, it had its dark side: Pung wrote graphically about the nervous breakdown she suffered in her teens. But it subverted the conventional migrant misery story and made it funny. She went on to edit a book of other peoples’ stories, Growing Up Asian in Australia.

When she began her second book, Pung at first thought she would use the same sassy first-person voice that had been so successful in Unpolished Gem. ”It didn’t work,” she says. ”You can’t be so disrespectful of the terrible things that happened in Cambodia.”

She was in her early 20s when she wrote Unpolished Gem, ”with a certain way of looking at the world and a sense of irony and satire that I don’t have now. I used them like weapons and I learnt to lay down those weapons with this book. The voices that emerge may be simple but they seem more pure – they won’t hide behind satire.”

Pung is a wisp of a young woman, dressed in black, charmingly earnest. We’re having tea and lamingtons in her apartment at Janet Clarke Hall at the University of Melbourne, where she is writer in residence. On her shelves are books, Buddhas and a kitschy Michael Jackson statue – she’s a fan.

She works part time as a minimum-wage lawyer and gives regular talks to high school students. Which doesn’t leave much time for writing – but then she tends to feel guilty when she’s writing, unless she’s on a residency. When she started Unpolished Gem at home, she felt bad because her mother was in the garage, making her jewellery, doing real work.

She always wanted to write about her father and his history and believed that would be her first book – but she wasn’t ready. And Her Father’s Daughter had a very roundabout beginning. She tried to start the book on a three-month Asialink residency in Beijing. At that time, she thought it would be about exploring her Chinese cultural roots. She ended up scrapping about 30,000 words: ”They were bad stories.”

The trouble was that China was a culture she had never had. ”My father had raised us up to be Australian, so we wouldn’t be seen as refugees,” she says. ”And secondly, we had to have the proud cultural heritage of being Chinese. But he omitted a huge part: he was born in Cambodia – and China was a place he visited when he was 16.

”So I was a complete foreigner in China. I enjoyed being there but the irony was I was supposed to be inspired by China and I felt such alienation.”

It wasn’t until Pung had moved to the US and was teaching at universities that she found the key to her book.

”My father used to call me up on Skype and because of my conversations with him I wrote a short piece, which is the last chapter of the book,” she says. ”It’s a story about a man preparing for bed and locking up his house and hiding the kitchen knives. I realised there was something in this that wasn’t in any story I’d written in China.”

So Her Father’s Daughter is based on conversations with her father, on both the spoken words and the unspoken thoughts behind them. It’s written in two third-person voices: Alice the daughter and Kuan the father.

Much more sombre in tone than Unpolished Gem, it reads like a detective story. Why does this ridiculously overprotective father do such crazy things as hiding the knives? ”I started with his life in Melbourne,” Pung says. ”Dad’s been here for 31 years. He’s quite successful: he’s got a shop, he’s raised four kids but he can never sleep without lights on and every single knife in the house is blunt. And if my mum catches the wrong tram, he panics and won’t be able to sit still.”

Of course, she could have started the book at Year Zero. But it’s not a book about refugees, she says. Refugees are people who run away and her father stopped running 30 years ago. Nor is it the kind of story her father might have wanted: about a migrant who triumphs over the bad times.

”It would have been bestseller material with all the bad stuff at the front,” she says. ”But that’s not who my father is. He’s not the sum of his bad experiences. He’s a man who has managed to transcend that. The most important thing about this book was that he was able to love us in an extraordinary way.”

This meant that no matter how paranoid that love became, she could never win an argument with her father, with someone who wanted so much for her, whose very arguments were motivated by this love. And that love has had its own profound, if unintended, effect on her personal life: she documents honestly how hard it has been to commit to a relationship, let alone any thoughts of marriage or children.

Pung, her brother and two sisters grew up with stories around the kitchen table, of families and names (”Remember Needle, she was so good at sewing – and they killed her”). But she didn’t connect the stories with her father’s behaviour. When she came to write the book, she used her university studies of genocide, had help from a friend – ”a Holocaust professor” – and talked to other Cambodians.

”But mainly the stories came from my father and I asked him, or he volunteered, to tell me,” she says. ”Whatever he gave me was a rare and wonderful gift. The funny thing was, it wasn’t painful for him. He’s been talking to University of Melbourne students about genocide for the past two years and he tells things in quite a humorous way. It was more painful for me, seeing how all the pieces fitted together. Then I knew my father was doing his best to protect me and it all made sense.”

Kuan spent four years in the killing fields and finally escaped with his new wife, Alice’s mother, Kien, via Vietnam, on a harrowing journey to a United Nations refugee camp at the border with Thailand. From there they came to Melbourne: ”He was 30 years old, the same age as I was when I finished writing the book.”

The hardest time spent on the book was the final two weeks. ”I didn’t even want to look at it or touch the thing,” she says. ”When the typeset pages came in, I had to look over it 17 or 18 times and it took its toll on me. I was in a really bad state. I was thinking, ‘Half our family died. What the hell is happening here?’ So I had to get friends to read it for me. I didn’t even want it to be published. I thought, ‘This is the most horrible thing I’ve ever read in my life. No one’s going to want to read this.”’

Fortunately, Pung’s publishers had faith when she had lost it herself. She continues to worry about what Cambodians might think of the book but she’s relieved by her father’s reaction.

”I showed it to him as I went along,” she says. ”He wouldn’t comment, he would only correct me on technical mistakes – the houses looked like this, the river wasn’t that wide. But he seems to be quite proud. He’s calling up all his friends for the book launch.”

As for her mother, she can’t comment because she can’t read the book. ”It’s like having a child who can speak Botswanan, that’s how mum reacts to my writing,” she says. ”Literate people think it’s so important to read. But my mother doesn’t need that. She watches TV, she reads Bi-Lo and Safeway and Coles ads. I take her to writers festivals interstate and sometimes overseas. And she’s very proud of me.”

■Alice Pung is a guest at the Melbourne Writers Festival. Her Father’s Daughter is published by Black Inc.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/memories-of-relative-unease-20110819-1j20v.html#ixzz1VPeL38qs

Photo: AP President Barack Obama arrives at a town hall meeting at Wyffels Hybrids Inc., in Atkinson, Illinois, during his three-day economic bus tour.

The US markets have had a turbulent run in the last few weeks, thanks to political wrangling in Washington over the budget and national debt, as well as a downgrade in the country’s credit rating by Standard and Poor’s.

A weak recovery to the global economic crisis in 2008 has not helped. A Cambodian economist in the US says that fear among investors could damage the economy further and may even lead to a double recession.

Duch Darin, a professor at Tallahassee Community College, in Florida, told VOA Khmer last week that the US loss of its AAA rating at S&P, which lowered it to AA+ for the first time ever, could cost consumers in the long run.

The credit rating determines how much interest the US must pay on the debt it uses to finance its government functions. The downgrade comes amid myriad woes for the US, which is struggling with high unemployment and a stagnant economy.

Interest rates for loans are very low, but Duch Darin said that may not be a good thing forever.

“In the short term, the interest rates for home loans and other loans are decreasing, but for the longer term, the interest rates will be higher for US consumers,” he said.

The US economy, which remains heavily dependant on domestic consumption of goods and services, could be at risk because when unemployment is high, fewer people are earning salaries or making purchases, while investors, which help build and grow businesses, are fearful to put more money in the stock market, he said.

And even though unemployment figures are gradually coming down, the future remains uncertain, he said.

“It will be hard to make predictions if the trend continues,” he said.

]]> http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/cambodian-economist-sees-more-us-woes-ahead/feed/ 0 unitedkhmer President Barack Obama arrives at a town hall meeting at Wyffels Hybrids Inc., in Atkinson, Illinois, during his three-day economic bus tour, August 17, 2011 http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/cambodian-avatars-rally-to-save-fores/ http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/cambodian-avatars-rally-to-save-fores/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:55:41 +0000 unitedkhmer http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/?p=10979 ]]>

Cambodian villagers rally against the destruction of the Prey Lang forest (AFP, Tang Chhin Sothy)

PHNOM PENH (AFP)— More than one hundred villagers dressed as the forest people from the hit film “Avatar” protested in the Cambodian capital Thursday against the destruction of the country’s Prey Lang forest.

With their faces painted blue and green and donning hats made of leaves, the demonstrators called for an end to the exploitation and deforestation of the largest lowland evergreen forest remaining in Southeast Asia. 

Joined by monks and environmental activists, villagers from the forest gathered outsidePhnom Penh’s royal palace for a religious ceremony before spreading out across the city to distribute leaflets about Prey Lang.

They say the forest, which is a source of livelihood for some 200,000 mainly indigenous people, is under threat from illegal logging and a spate of concessions granted for rubberplantations and mineral exploitation.

“I come here to ask for help for my forest,” said demonstrator Heap Khy, a 49-year-old indigenous Kuy woman, her face decorated with green paint.

Several dozen protesters were briefly detained by police and told to stop handing out flyersat busy crossings but they were released without charge, local rights groups said.

The demonstrators have likened their plight to that of the forest people in the blockbuster film “Avatar” who are forced to wage a bloody fight to protect their home from miners.

Prey Lang covers about 3,600 square kilometres (1,400 square miles) in northern Cambodia. It is home to dozens of rare plant species and endangered animals including sun bears, tigers and Asian elephants.

A man handles beans on a farm in Russey Keo district. Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN

CAMBODIA does not produce enough vegetables to meet domestic demand, requiring large amounts of imports every day, experts say.

The Kingdom has made a push to boost the agricultureindustry, but cannot viably produce certain types of vegetables.

Cheap imported vegetables hurt domestic farmers, but benefit consumers, Yang Saing Koma, president of the Cambodian Centre for Study and Development inAgriculture, said.

“If the output of Cambodian farmers cannot fulfill the country’s basic needs, then neighbouring countries can export to our country,” he said.

The Kingdom imports about 1000 tonnes of vegetables a day, he said.

Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries deputy director general Hean Vanhorn said Cambodia imported vegetables it could not produce. 

“Some kinds of vegetables don’t grow in our country, while weather conditions are not suitable, so imports are needed,” he said. However, Cambodia’s farmers were improving at growing vegetables, he said.

Some vendors said the imports were not ideal, but necessary given a lack of production.

Hong Heng, the chairman of Phnom Penh’s Damkor Market, said its vendors sold about 100 tonnes of vegetables each day, of which 80 per cent came from Vietnam and the rest from Cambodia’s provinces.

Imported vegetables generally included cabbage, collared greens, broccoli and onions, he said.

Kandal province farmer Tha Chanthun said that every two weeks he collected about 300 kilograms of vegetables such as leeks, cabbages and onions for sale at the market.

One kilogram fetched between 400 to 2000 riel depending on the type of vegetable and the season, he said.

Tha Chanthun said he ran a thriving business, but other vendors said they were out-competed by international producers.

Organic Garden general manager Soam Sothearith said his vegetable gardens had few items that sold out.

“The purpose of the gardens is to sell 100 kilograms of vegetables a day, but I can sell only 70 to 80 kilograms to the supermarket and a few restaurants in Phnom Penh.”

Photo by: Tracy Shalton Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra

Former Thai Prime MinisterThaksin Shinawatra is set to visit Cambodia this weekend, Thai media reported yesterday.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra reportedly said her brother was going to Cambodia on a personal trip and not on behalf of the Thai government, a quote that fueled media speculation about the nature of the as-yet-unconfirmed visit.

Bangkok media touted the trip as an opportunity for the former Cambodia economic advisor to discuss energy concerns.

State-run Thai news agency MCOT cited an unnamed Pheu Thai party source as saying Thaksin would help the Cambodian government negotiate a plan for the joint development of a petroleum venture in the Gulf of Thailand. 

Thailand and Cambodia have long been embroiled in a disagreement over the division of oil and gas resources in the Gulf and experts believe the election of Yingluck’s Puea Thai party has made a solution to the disputed zone more likely.

An agreement about the Overlapping Claims Area was close to being reached just before Thaksin’s removal from power in 2006, a leaked cable from the US embassy in Phnom Penh in 2007 stated.

But despite the reports of Thaksin’s plans, many in Phnom Penh were unaware of the reported visit from Cambodia’s former economic advisor.

Prak Sokhon, an adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong both could not confirm the visit. “Mr Thaksin can visit Cambodia any time he wants,” Koy Kuong said.

One well-placed source, who wished to remain anonymous, even said that Thaksin was now living in Cambodia. The Post could not confirm the claim yesterday.

Regardless of his plans, many see Thaksin as the powerhouse behind Yingluck’s government.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said that “Thaksin is rushing to show the world that he is a de facto Prime Minister of Thailand. He will be in Japan this week, again, to show that he has been a legitimate leader”.

He said any talks in Cambodia about possible investment in oil and gas exploration would “certainly irritate his enemies”.

Thaksin has personal connections with Prime Minister Hun Sen. He was appointed as an economic adviser to Hun Sen and the Cambodian government in 2009, a move that provoked the ire of former Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and led to the withdrawal of Thailand’s ambassador to Cambodia.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY THOMAS MILLER

]]> http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/our-language-is-evolving-not-dying/feed/ 1 unitedkhmer 110818_20 http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/environmental-group-sounds-alarm-for-endangered-dolphins/ http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/environmental-group-sounds-alarm-for-endangered-dolphins/#comments Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:30:18 +0000 unitedkhmer http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/?p=10965 ]]> Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 at 11:30 am UT
Source: VOA 

The environmental group World Wildlife Fund is seeking help for the highly endangered freshwater dolphins of the Mekong River, whose numbers have fallen to just 85.

A statement released Wednesday by the group says the Irrawaddy dolphins, who inhabit a 190-kilometer-long stretch of the Mekong from Kratie, Cambodia to the Khone Falls, on the border with Laos, are at increasing risk from pollution and entanglement in fishing nets, as well as the low survival rates of young dolphins.

The group is urging the Cambodian government to ban the use of gill nets and establish special conservation zones for the animals.

The Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin has been listed as a critically endangered species since 2004.

The WWF is basing its findings on surveys conducted between 2007 and 2010. It previously estimated that more than 70 Irrawaddy dolphins inhabit the Mekong River, but the group says the higher numbers are due to improved methods of monitoring.

The head of the Cambodian government agency that oversees dolphin conservation in the Mekong River disputes the WWF’s figures, saying there are between 155 and 175 dolphins in the region.

The Irrawaddy dolphins are also found in coastal areas in South and Southeast Asia, and in two other rivers — the Irrawaddy River in Burma and the Mahakam River in Indonesian Borneo.

WASHINGTON — This year is the 20th anniversary of the Paris peace accords that ended the Cambodian war and any further threat from the murderous Khmer Rouge. It required all the major powers — the United States, leading European countries, the former Soviet Union and China — as well as most Asian nations to come up with an accord, a rare achievement. In a speech last week, Gareth Evans said that during his eight years as the Australian foreign minister “nothing has given me more pleasure and pride than the Paris peace agreement concluded in 1991.”

I reported from Paris on the negotiations, which took several years of convoluted diplomacy since few countries or political parties had clean hands in the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge. When the deal was finally signed in October of 1991 there were self-congratulations all around, champagne and a huge sigh of relief that Cambodia could move on to peace and democracy.

It didn’t turn out that way. Cambodia today is essentially ruled by a single political party with little room for an opposition, has a weak and corrupt judiciary, and the country’s most effective union leaders have been murdered.

That wasn’t the scenario envisioned in Paris. Now, just as 20th anniversary commemorations are approaching, one of the few groups still enjoying the freedoms created under the peace accords are about to be silenced. The government of Cambodia is poised to enact a law that will effectively hamstring the country’s lively civil society and NGOs, among the last independent voices in Cambodia.

In Paris, the framework for Cambodia’s democracy was a much debated element of the peace accords. That debate led to Cambodia’s Constitution and its guarantee of freedom of association and speech. The proposed law on civil society would deprive these independent Cambodian groups of those rights and undermine much of their work representing the country’s most vulnerable citizens — advocating for their rights and dispensing aid, largely paid for with foreign donations. Most recently, these civil society groups exposed the government’s eviction of the poor from valuable land in Phnom Penh. As a result, the World Bank is suspending all new loans to Cambodia until those made homeless receive proper housing.

Under the new law, these independent citizen groups would have to register with the government and win approval to operate under vague criteria; if the government disapproves of a group’s behavior it can dissolve it using equally vague criteria. There would be no right of appeal.

The normally fractious Cambodian civil groups have joined together against the new law and asked the government for serious amendments to protect basic constitutional rights. They were rejected and only superficial changes were made. With little time left, one of their NGO leaders made an emergency trip to Washington to meet with international organizations, foreign embassies and the U.S. government, asking them to speak out loudly against the measure before it passes in the coming weeks.

“If this law is passed we will be silenced. Foreign donors will give us less money. The people who will suffer are the poor,” said Borithy Lun, the head of the Cooperation Committee for Cambodia. He led a meeting at the offices of Oxfam America, where I am a member of the board of directors. The law would diminish the ability of international NGOs, like Oxfam, to help the poor in Cambodia as well, since it requires all foreign nonprofit organizations to work directly with official agencies, essentially becoming an arm of the government.

All of this will have a direct impact on Cambodia’s impressive economic gains. Foreign businesses have come to rely on Cambodia’s civil society groups to act as honest brokers, pointing out the pitfalls in an economy marked by corruption and weak law enforcement. Foreign governments and institutions have already warned the Cambodian government that if the proposed civil society law is passed, they will rethink the $1 billion in aid given to Cambodia every year, which is roughly half of the country’s budget. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has spoken up repeatedly in favor of strong, independent civil societies and Cambodia has made no secret of its desire to continue improving relations with the United States.

As the commemorations of the Paris peace accords begin, with more champagne and seminars, instead of looking backward to past glory, it might be better to focus on today and reinforce the accords. Countries that are rightfully proud of their role in bringing peace to Cambodia are in a good position to require preserving the independence of civil society when Cambodia comes asking for their votes at the United Nations this fall.

The Cambodian government has two big objectives: It wants to win one of the nonpermanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, and to get the United Nations to help resolve the Thai-Cambodia border dispute centered on the temple of Preah Vihear. Cambodia has dispatched senior diplomats to countries large and small to win their votes and has initiated border talks with the government of the new Thai prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra. The price for greater influence and prestige in the world should be reinforcing democracy, not diminishing it.

Elizabeth Becker is a former New York Times correspondent and author of “When the War Was Over,” a history of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge.

Earlier this month, the Cambodian government announced it has outlawed so-called “facilitation fees” – paying small sums of cash to civil servants for services such as issuing forms or filing tax returns.

It might not sound like much, but it has sent a bolt through Western businesses in Cambodia.

Presenter: Robert Carmichael
Speaker: Stephen Higgins, CEO ANZ Royal Bank; Matthew Rendall, partner at law firm Sciaroni & Associates.

• Listen:
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CARMICHAEL: For 15 years Cambodia’s donors pushed Phnom Penh to do something about corruption, and finally – last year -the government passed an anti-corruption law.

It followed on the heels of another law – the new Criminal Code. The laws contain a list of corruption offences that were meant to come into force later this year. Last week the government announced it had moved that date forward to August 1st.

You might think – so what? That doesn’t sound like much. The government didn’t think so either, but buried deep inside the new Criminal Code – Article 605 to be precise – was a line that has got Western businesses spooked.

It all revolves around facilitation fees, which are small sums of money you pay civil servants to get things done here – two dollars to buy a copy of a form, for example, another five or ten dollars to file it.

Cambodian civil servants earn paltry salaries – typically between 50 and 80 dollars a month – and they survive by taking cash from the people who need their services, part of the petty corruption that cloaks the country.

Paying those fees is now illegal under Cambodian law. Anyone offering such a payment can be jailed for up to 10 years; anyone accepting one can get 15 years.

Stephen Higgins is the CEO of ANZ Royal Bank, a part-owned subsidiary of ANZ. He explains the concerns.

HIGGINS: It’s a major issue for business because theoretically if any business pays them, they are liable to face criminal charges and the person paying them is liable to 5 years jail or more. And for a business such as ours, if we were to pay them theoretically I would be liable to go to jail here in Cambodia, in Australia, in the UK or in the US. And I certainly don’t wish that upon myself.

CARMICHAEL: And that’s the bigger point: Nobody expects Phnom Penh will pursue investors for paying such small sums. After all, the government doesn’t pay its civil servants enough, and this is how they have topped up their salaries for years.

The problem is that since such fees are now illegal here, some Western companies could face prosecution back home.

Matthew Rendall is a partner at law firm Sciaroni & Associates.

RENDALL: Whereas the assumption is you wouldn’t be prosecuted locally for paying 20 dollars to do your monthly tax filing, for example, the fear now is that you could be prosecuted in your home countries under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and the penalties are severe, the repercussions are severe.

CARMICHAEL: The toll has started. Last month the courier FedEx said it would not deliver any items worth more than $300 dollars until the government put scheduled fees in place.

Western firms simply cannot afford the risk of paying facilitation fees. Even if they convinced a judge back home that they had done nothing untoward, says Rendall, they would still suffer reputational damage.

RENDALL: So the fear for investors in Cambodia at the moment is the impact it has on them in their home countries.

CARMICHAEL: So, back to Article 605: That article makes it a criminal offence to provide any benefit to a public official – but the Criminal Code doesn’t define the term “benefit”.

However the anti-corruption law does: It says a benefit is giving someone money to do their job, which is why facilitation fees are now illegal.

And because paying civil servants to do what they have always done is now an offence under Cambodian law, that makes it an offence under US and Australian law too, something the government didn’t consider.

RENDALL: What they didn’t see, and it turns out it was this one-line article from some other law that was written another time – coming into play and having this impact. So I suppose now that they are probably aware of this they will be now meeting among themselves of how to resolve it.

CARMICHAEL: It is not yet clear what the government will do. Two spokesmen passed the parcel on the issue, another senior official refused an interview, and two others at the finance ministry stopped answering their phones. It seems the government is still working out its approach.

But whatever action it takes, this won’t be a quick fix.

Business associations say the government should publish a schedule detailing what each service costs, and then ensure receipts are issued. That will make the fees official, which removes the risk of prosecution back home.

It sounds simple enough, but setting that up will likely require agreement between ministries and the treasury on how to divide the takings. And that could take time.

Photo: Reuters A man working at a money exchange (R) passes 100 Cambodian riel notes to a client in central Phnom Penh, March 12, 2011 (file photo)

Earlier this month the Cambodian government announced that as part of its anti-corruption drive, it had outlawed the payment of fees to civil servants.  But the move has opened a new set of problems that worry Western businesses that operate in the country.

To the government, this was expected to be a minor announcement.  As of August 1, all corruption offenses contained in two separate laws were now in force.

For Phnom Penh, this was another step on the road to combating corruption.

The problem is that the move has effectively outlawed “facilitation fees,” payments that are critical for doing business in Cambodia.  Anyone who pays them can be jailed for 10 years, while the person receiving them can get 15 years.

But what exactly is a facilitation fee?

“Facilitation fees are what are paid basically to low-ranking government officials to assist in doing their job,” said Matthew Rendall, the managing partner at Sciaroni & Associates, a law firm in Phnom Penh.  “No advantage and nothing illegal is being obtained.  And you are basically having to pay these in order to do legitimate business.”

He says these fees are not exorbitant and most businesses routinely pay them.

“It is day-to-day nickel-and-dime payments made to supplement the salaries of government workers who otherwise you know would not have enough,” Rendall added.  “You know it could be $2 for a form, $5 to submit it, $20 to put your monthly tax filing in.”

In other words, these are payments made to process paperwork.  They are not bribes. They are the sorts of fees that in other countries are paid to get a passport renewed or a license issued.

The difference is that other countries list those fees on a schedule and issue a receipt.  In Cambodia, a customer pays the civil servant, who pockets the fee.

Cambodia’s civil servants have long relied on facilitation fees, because their salaries are typically around $50 a month, far below what they consider a livable wage.

Stephen Higgins is the chief executive officer of ANZ Royal Bank, a part-owned subsidiary of Australian banking giant ANZ.  He explains why outlawing the payment of facilitation fees is a problem.

“It is a major issue for business because theoretically if any business pays them, they are liable to face criminal charges and the person paying them is liable to five years jail or more,” said Higgins.  “And for a business such as ours, if we were to pay them then theoretically I would be liable to go to jail here in Cambodia, in Australia, in the U.K. and in the U.S. And I certainly don’t wish that upon myself.”

While it is unlikely that the Cambodian government would prosecute investors for paying facilitation fees, outlawing them has effectively triggered other anti-corruption regulations in Western nations.

U.S. and Australian law allowed companies to pay such fees provided they were not illegal in the country where the payment was made.

Now that they are illegal in Cambodia, any U.S. or Australian firm paying facilitation fees here is opening itself up to prosecution at home.

Rendall says the result is that Western businesses simply cannot risk paying them.  He adds that investors have long asked the Cambodian government to formalize this system by drafting a schedule of fees and issuing receipts.  There is now a pressing urgency to do so.

“I mean we are scrambling to get the government to implement practices so that those payments are receipted or scheduled at least,” Rendall explained.

Once those fees are legal, Western businesses will be able again to pay them.  But finding out what action the government will take is tricky.  No government official responded to numerous requests for clarification of the policy.

Such ambiguity gives investors from Western nations pause and is already having an impact.

Last month, courier company FedEx said it would not deliver any items worth more than $300 until the government instituted a schedule for payments for more valuable goods.

Matthew Rendall says the situation could eventually skew the business climate to favor investors from Asia.

“Those countries that have foreign corrupt practices laws – the United States, the Western countries, etcetera – are at a massive disadvantage now,” said Rendall.  “So the one impact it has had: Does it basically result in a situation where Cambodia finds itself almost exclusively with Chinese, Vietnamese-type investors who are not susceptible back home to being prosecuted, and excluded from OECD-type countries?  Absolutely.  It is a concern, it has been raised.”

Although that result does not appear to be the intention of the law, Rendall says it could be an unforeseen consequence unless the government finds a way to resolve the problem.

Ghoulish ‘entertainment’ sees live birds thrown to their death by Britons 

By Daily Mail Reporter 
Last updated15th August 2011 
The Daily Mail 
See more pictures here.

Animal rights groups have condemned a ghoulish Cambodian tourist attraction popular with Britons where live birds are ‘ripped apart’ by hungry crocodiles.

The cruel ‘entertainment’ sees crowds of holidaymakers gather round an enclosure before tourists throw live birds down to be eaten alive by the crocodiles below. 

Cambodian workers at the Siem Reap Crocodile Farm sell live birds to tourists as ‘crocodile food’ for $7 – just over £4, according to the Sunday Mirror.
Thrown to its death: The helpless live bird is hurled into the crocodile enclosure as bloodthirsty tourists look on.

Thrown to its death: The helpless live bird is hurled into the crocodile enclosure as bloodthirsty tourists look on
No chance: The hungry crocodiles close in on the defenceless chicken after it is thrown to certain death

No chance: The hungry crocodiles close in on the defenceless chicken after it is thrown to certain death

The crocodiles are seen to surround the helpless bird the reptiles’ poorly-kept enclosure, before the chicken or duck is attacked and ‘ripped to pieces’ by one of the famished predators.

Many of the bloodthirsty tourists who take part in the ghoulish feeding frenzy are Britons, while several others film the sickening display on cameras and phones.

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One 21-year-old backpacker frmo Sheffield, who was at the farm with a friend, told the Sunday Mirror he had queued up to buy a bird before throwing it to its death.

He then yells with glee as the chicken is thrown into the enclosure, adding: ‘Did you see that big ­crocodile storm over? He wasn’t messing about – he ripped it apart. One of the legs is still lying there!’
Cornered: The helpless chicken is captured and eaten alive by one of the hungry crocodiles, who appear to be kept in squalid conditions

Cornered: The helpless chicken is captured and eaten alive by one of the hungry crocodiles, who appear to be kept in squalid conditions

He told an undercover reporter for the paper: ‘That’s what I love about Cambodia. You couldn’t do this back at home.’

Ashley Fruno, a senior campaigner for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, told holidaymakers to boycott the sick attraction near Angkor Wat Temple, one of Cambodia’s most popular tourist sites.

She said: ‘Even China has banned live feeding. Cambodia needs to take the same step.

‘We are also concerned by the conditions at the farms and the ­suffering crocodiles endure.’

Spike sent M&C a clip of the upcoming episode of “Deadliest Warrior” – where despicable men, Saddam Hussein vs. Pol Pot, are set to go head to head premiering Wednesday, August 17 at 10PM.

Dictator vs. Dictator, Psychopath vs. Psychopath.Read the article here.

The World Bank, which has lent Cambodia up to US$70 million (S$84 million) annually over the past few years, said last week it had halted loans to the country in protest over land seizures around Boeung Kak Lake, where a Chinese developer is building luxury homes. -- PHOTO: AP

Published on Aug 16, 2011 

PHNOM PENH (REUTERS) - Cambodia, under pressure by the World Bank, said on Tuesday it had set aside prime land in the capital Phnom Penh for thousands of people forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for a Chinese development project.

The World Bank, which has lent Cambodia up to US$70 million (S$84 million) annually over the past few years, said last week it had halted loans to the country in protest over land seizures around Boeung Kak Lake, where a Chinese developer is building luxury homes.

About 15,000 people have been evicted from their homes and 3,500 remain in the area.

Land seizures that lead to evictions and homelessness have become one of the most serious human rights issues in Cambodia, where property deeds and other legal documents were destroyed under the Communist Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s

Artist's impression of Neak Loeung bridge to be completed in 2015 with $131 million loans from Japan.

PHNOM PENH, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia on Tuesday inaugurated a 9-kilometer section of the national road No. 1, which is the main road in the ASEAN highway scheme, connecting Phnom Penh and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City.

The 9-kilometer section has been built since December 2009 under the Japanese grant aid of 25 million U.S. dollars.

Speaking during the inauguration ceremony in Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Hun Sen said the national road No. 1 is an international arterial road in Cambodia connecting Phnom Penh and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, constituting an important part of the SouthernEconomic Corridor and the ASEAN highway connecting Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh andBangkok.

“It plays an important role for the movement of people and the transportation of goods in the region,” he said. 

He added that when the construction of Japan-funded Neak Loeung Bridge, a part of ASEAN highway, is completed in 2015, the ASEAN highway in Cambodia’s part will be fully operational.

The premier said that so far, Japan has provided about two billion U.S. dollars to Cambodia, mostly are grant aid.

The ambassador of Japan to Cambodia Masafumi Kuroki said during the event that Japan hopes that the assistance will further strengthen the long standing friendship between Japan and Cambodia and the people of the two countries.

“We hope that the road will help Cambodia to boost its economic development and alleviate poverty,” he said.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) consist of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Editor: Xiong Tong

Photo by: Photo Supplied Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers pull back from the Thai-Cambodian border last week in Preah Vihear province.

The 21st Brigade of the RoyalCambodian Armed ForcesDivision 2 became the latest unit to be withdrawn from the Thai-Cambodian border near Preah Vihear temple yesterday, with three more units scheduled to be pulled back within the week.

The unit, which was not based within a newly-created demilitarised zone around the 11th-century temple, has been removed from the border as Thailand and Cambodia prepare for a meeting of the new Regional Border Committee later this month.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries appear to have warmed since the election of Thailand’s Puea Thai party last month, bolstering hopes of a resolution to the ongoing border conflict following deadly clashes earlier this year.

“The withdrawal of Brigade 21 today is the third time that we’ve pulled out troops from the area around the Preah Vihear temple,” said RCAF Deputy Commander Chea Tara in a statement released yesterday. 

“We will continue to make arrangements to pull out more troops, as Prime Minister Hun Sen’s aim is to increase cooperation between the two governments and avoid conflict.”

Defence Ministry spokesman Chhum Socheat said yesterday that the removal of troops from the border was a symbol of goodwill and trust between the two governments.

“They share our desire to avoid continued conflict at the border,” he said. “We will only reinforce troops if there is sufficient cause.”

The Bangkok Post reported yesterday that newly-appointed Thai Defence Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapha considers solving the border conflict his top priority.

“I am determined to settle the conflict between the two nations as soon as possible,” TheBangkok Post quoted him as saying.

Photo: AP Past flooding in Cambodia. Provincial officials said Friday that flooding has inundated thousands of homes in northeast Cambodia, after heavy rains swelled the Mekong River

Flooding along the Mekong River in three provinces has claimed six lives and left hundreds of families homeless, authorities said Monday. Five of the victims were children.

Though the flooding has abated somewhat in the provinces of Kratie and Stung Treng, it has continued farther south, in the populous province of Kampong Cham, Mao Hak, director of the meteorology department of the Ministry of Water Resources said.

The flooding left 570 families homeless and has inundated some 5,200 hectares of farmland, he said.

Mekong flooding began last week after heavy rains, and though it has abated in the upstream provinces, the river is expected to swell farther downstream, he said.

Keo Vy, chief of cabinet for the National Disaster Management Committee, said 17 districts in three provinces were flooded.

“If the water lasts for more than 10 days, rice plants will be destroyed,” he said.

]]> http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/continued-flooding-kills-six-in-northeast/feed/ 1 unitedkhmer http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/cambodian-government-decrees-land-deal-for-villagers-at-city-site/ http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/cambodian-government-decrees-land-deal-for-villagers-at-city-site/#comments Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:18:16 +0000 unitedkhmer http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/?p=10934 ]]> Aug 16, 2011, 4:00 GMT
Asia-Pacific News

Phnom Penh – The government has ordered that a tract of land at a controversial development site in central Phnom Penh be reserved for thousands of residents under threat of eviction, national media reported Tuesday.

The deal follows pressure from the World Bank, which said last week it would not lend more money until the government properly compensated villagers living around the city’s Boeung Kak lake.

Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered 12 hectares be set aside for housing for 1,000 families still living at the lake, Phnom Penh Post newspaper reported.

About 2,000 families have already been evicted from the lakeside area over the past two years to make way for a 2-billion-dollar development at the 133-hectare site.

The development is being carried out by a prominent ruling party politician and a Chinese company called Erdos Hong Jun Investment.

Earlier this year the World Bank, which was involved in a nationwide land-titling program, admitted the evictions had caused ‘grave harm’ to lakeside residents.

Few if any of the lake’s residents have been able to get land title documents from the local authorities, despite legal experts saying many are entitled to them.

Sia Phearum, the secretariat director of the Housing Rights Task Force, an NGO that has advised lakeside residents on how to avoid eviction, welcomed the news.

‘We are very glad to see (this deal) happen,’ he said Tuesday. ‘We also congratulate the government for using the smart strategy to solve the problem. This is a good model for other communities.’

The World Bank last loaned money to Cambodia in December.

Earlier this year the bank’s own assessors found significant failings in its handling of a 24-million-dollar land-titling scheme.

Their investigation found key errors by the bank’s management, and said the evictions of thousands at the lake had violated the bank’s policy on involuntary resettlement.

The report said residents had been denied due process in assessing their claims and had been evicted by the authorities in violation of agreed procedures.

The government cancelled the land-titling project in 2009 after the World Bank raised its concerns about evictions.

In recent years land prices in Cambodia have rocketed as the economy strengthened, with tens of thousands of people driven off their land by the powerful and well-connected.

The country’s land-tenure system was destroyed during decades of conflict. Around 1.6 million households have received land title documents since the programme began in 2002.

]]> http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/cambodian-government-decrees-land-deal-for-villagers-at-city-site/feed/ 1 unitedkhmer http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/cambodia-inaugurates-part-of-asean-highway/ http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/cambodia-inaugurates-part-of-asean-highway/#comments Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:16:24 +0000 unitedkhmer http://unitedkhmer.wordpress.com/?p=10932 ]]> (philstar.com) Updated August 16, 2011 11:28 PM 

PHNOM PENH (Xinhua) – Cambodia on Tuesday inaugurated a 9-kilometer section of the national road No. 1, which is the main road in the ASEAN highway scheme, connecting Phnom Penh and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City.

The 9-kilometer section has been built since December, 2009 under the Japanese grant aid of $25 million.

Speaking during the inauguration ceremony in Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Hun Sen said the national road No. 1 is an international arterial road in Cambodia connecting Phnom Penh and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, constituting an important part of the Southern Economic Corridor and the ASEAN highway connecting Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh and Bangkok.

“It plays an important role for the movement of people and the transportation of goods in the region,” he said.

He added that when the construction of Japan-funded Neak Loeung Bridge, a part of ASEAN highway, is completed in 2015, the ASEAN highway in Cambodia’s part will be fully operational.

The premier said that so far, Japan has provided about $2 billion to Cambodia, mostly are grant aid.

The ambassador of Japan to Cambodia Masafumi Kuroki said during the event that Japan hopes that the assistance will further strengthen the long standing friendship between Japan and Cambodia and the people of the two countries.

“We hope that the road will help Cambodia to boost its economic development and alleviate poverty,” he said.