By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
28 December 2009
Svay Rieng provincial court issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Sam Rainsy on Monday, after he failed to appear at an arraignment in the provincial capital.
Sam Rainsy, who is facing charges of incitement and destruction of property related to a border incident in October, had requested a postponement of Monday’s hearing, claiming he was busy abroad.
Svay Rieng investigating judge Long Kespirum wrote that the request offered “no reason to postpone, so we cannot permit postponement.” The court issued the arrest warrant following the hearing Monday morning, Long Kespirum told VOA Khmer.
Sam Rainsy’s attorney, Choung Chou Ngy, said the decision was made at the discretion of the court.
Sam Rainsy, who had his parliamentary immunity suspended in November, is charged with allegedly leading a group of supporters to unearth markers from the ground in Chantrea district, where villagers said they worried about Vietnamese encroachment.
Two villagers facing destruction charges have been arrested, and three have gone into hiding. Sam Rainsy said on Friday he was fully responsible for the destruction of the markers, and he urged the court to drop the charges against the villagers.
The destruction charges carry a sentence of up to three years in prison. Incitement carries a sentence of up to one year and a fine up to 10 million riel, or $2,500.
The case will now move back to the prosecutor’s office, where it will be reviewed before it is handed to the provincial trial judge.
วันจันทร์ที่ 28 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2552
LEADERSHIP: To lead is to serve
"What kind of society do we Khmer want? We want a great society. A society where everyone believes s/he can influence change, where leaders serve and where courage, integrity and grace abound. This is a call to action. To do nothing is to let our society rot and allow the destructive mentality to prevail" - Theary C. Seng
First published in The Phnom Penh Post in June 2008 as part of the Voice of Justice columns on the advent of our 4th parliamentary elections. In light of growing social restlessness and political morass whereby the political "leaders" often baffled us and foreigners alike in their coarse speech and demeanor, let us head into 2010, pondering anew their reflections upon us as a people in the eyes of the world and fellow Khmer citizens. And how we can affect change, or as remarked by Gandhi, "You must be the change you want to see in the world."
LEADERSHIP: To lead is to serve
As Election Day nears and in light of the recent experience of the Center for Social Development, my thoughts have been turning to issues of leadership, and I am haunted by and mourn the state of affairs. A great vacuum exists in society with echoes of clanging dissonances and cacophonies from the ugliness, deceit, small-mindedness, power plays that abound. We see and experience brute power where "might makes right", devoid of wisdom, goodness, beauty and truth.
This state of affairs fosters a mentality of destruction where only the ego reigns and consumes everything in its way - with it reason. The ego says if "I cannot have this position, then you cannot have it either... even if it means destroying the organization and its staff; even if it means destroying my reputation and self in the process. I will do it because it destroys you."
This state of affairs cannot go on. It cannot go on because it will destroy us all.
We, at CSD, are doing something about it. If we believe a leader is a reflection of us or who we would like to be, then we will not tolerate violence; we will not tolerate injustice; we will not tolerate un-accountability and mismanagement. Rather, we desire leaders who will pull us to a higher plane from the pit of violence, manipulation, small-mindedness, pettiness; we desire leaders with vision, who reflect what we aspire to be and not encourage our darker side, but with clarity and integrity, who enlarge our space to be the best persons we could be.
It has been and is currently said that we Khmers deserve the leaders we have. Rather than react defensively, meditate on whatever degree of truth is in this statement and do something about it.
But as a colleague reminded me, maybe we are starting in the wrong place. Maybe it is not "leadership" but "service" we should be focusing on, for genuine leadership is a call to serve. Thus, to lead is to serve. And everyone can and should serve.
The issue is really: what kind of society do we want? A society where leadership mistakenly means power, authority, force, coercion? Or a society where leadership is service?
Another approach is to say what leadership is not. It is not about winning at all costs; it is not the feeding of the ego. Rather, as reminded by a colleague and history, the greatest leaders were/are ones whose finest hours are in failures, as grace and transformation triumph.
Of course, reading is only a reminder; to change habits and perspectives must take us from reading to meditating and the difficult job of implementing these virtues faithfully in our lives. More than ever, we Khmers, are in need of transforming our minds to think of leadership as service and to believe that we can effect change, if we are to move from this society of hopelessness and violence to one of well-being and greatness.
So, as we go to the polls in a month's time to elect our national leaders and as we go through life learning how to respect authority - in a healthy manner - let us be reminded of basic virtues of courage, integrity and vision that have been lost in the cacophony of violence and brute power, in the following excerpts by Dr. Mark Strom.
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I work with leaders to encourage them...to do two things - to lead with greater integrity of character, and to lead with greater rigor and clarity of thought... confidence with a hint of humility... Leadership is not the preserve of an elite... Leadership is influencing people to change themselves or the world. That’s all it is. And there is only one measure of leadership – the influence you have upon others.
You can lead for good, or you can lead for ill. You can lead as someone who regards all people as being of equal and high value. You can lead in a manner that reflects this value. Or you can lead as a tyrant. The choice is yours.
Never confuse leadership with your position in the food chain. Your leadership stands independently of your rank and status in the world...
What will it take for you to make a difference? There are many factors we could and should consider... I'm going to pin the difference you will make in the world on the question of the depth of your own character - on the priority and energy you give to the deepening of your character, to the nurturing of your soul, and to the getting of wisdom… I believe nothing compares to the leader's personal depth...
Society seems more interested in personality than in character... Too rarely do we consider whether a person shows integrity, perseverance, kindness, or courage...
"Make your lives extraordinary"...It is what I want in my own life. It's something I hope you can say unapologetically. In my own case it is colored by 16 years of chronic childhood sickness and my living sense of death being close at hand. That is partly why life is precious to me.
Imagine your funeral... I would hope that at least one person will say of me, "I'm glad he was here. He made a difference for me." Great leadership begins at this level in one's gut...
Knowledge is a crucial asset - far more than qualifications or even experience. But I put it to you that your character is your greatest asset … We talk big about vision. But people do not buy a vision. They buy into the person who has the vision...
An ancient sage once wrote, "Wisdom is supreme; though it costs you all you have, get understanding." Leadership is inseparable from responsibility. We tend to talk about rights, and we need to when so much abuse of natural rights endures. But the topic of leadership must take us beyond rights to responsibility. Our conversation... is not about asserting our personal rights to anything in the world, but about reminding ourselves of the responsibilities we accepted for the wellbeing of others when we look up the leader's mantle... We are saying that a leader may know what others need. Many leaders have rationalized abuse in the name of knowing what people really need. But it is no answer to avoid leadership for fear of misusing it. Leadership is about responsibility, and the exercise of responsibility requites wisdom. How am I to discharge my responsibility? The greater the responsibility I carry, the greater my need for wisdom...
Wisdom is reading oneself, others and the world with insight and acting with integrity.
Wherever I read in the wisdom traditions, I find two emphases about wisdom: to possess the faculty to read life well and a character to match. A wise man or woman reads what's going on around them insightfully. They are not easily taken in by appearances. They look beneath. They are not so easily tricked. They read life well. The flip side is the question of character. I may face a deal of some kind and everything in my gut is telling me to be cautious... You might say that I read it well, that I was clever even, but you will never call me wise if I acted in a way which was contrary to my values. Wisdom is both the capacity to read life well and then to act with integrity.
My framework begins with an ancient philosopher whose thinking both inspires and irritates me. Aristotle...his work titled The Politics...
What docs "living well" look like? Like most of his peers he drew from the three great ideals of the classical world: truth, beauty and goodness. But there was also an ideal of being part of a purpose bigger than oneself… the ideal of unity...Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity... the intellectual, the aesthetic, the moral, and the spiritual. Not spiritual in the sense of religion or affiliation to an organization, but in the sense of being connected to a purpose larger than ourselves.
Can people live well if they can never be sure if they are being told the truth? ...Or what effect does it have to place people in ugly environments? ...Or think what life would be like if we had no social contract to preserve life. We cannot live well if we fear being harmed... Finally, what is it like to have no sense of purpose? When we feel there's no point getting out of bed in the morning … But where there is truth, where there is beauty, where there is goodness, and where there is unity, we may live well.
If that is a reasonable and helpful picture of the ends towards we must aim as leaders, as people who create and sustain partnerships for living well, then what are the outcomes? What would I see if I did lead wisely? ... Has my influence upon other people led to greater Clarity, Elegance, Strength, and Heart for them?
If we lead well towards truth, if we lead wisely in the intellectual dimension of life, then we would expect to see people who are clearer about who they are and what they are doing. We would see much less of the vagary which bedevils organizational life - the nonsense of projects that meander along for weeks, months, even years where people wonder what it's all about...
If we lead well towards beauty, if we lead wisely in the aesthetic dimension of life, then we would expect to see people bringing the very best of their talents to the making of great ideas, products, and solutions... I mean the elegance that arises even in mundane things from the artistry of people's lives. As leaders we would assist people to create and sustain environments in which they can bring forth the very best of who they are... They can be proud of, and find delight in, the works of their hands and minds.
If we lead well towards goodness, if we lead wisely in the moral dimension of life, then we would expect to see people who are strong in character.
If we lead well towards unity, if we lead wisely in the spiritual dimension of life, then we would expect to see people who have heart for what they do...
Four dispositions of heart and mind help give shape to my thinking and behavior as a leader who wants to lead wisely and ensure a partnership for living well. My four frames are – Story, Design, Promise, and Grace. The three sets of words link up like this:
Truth —> Clarity —> Story
Beauty —> Elegance —> Design
Goodness —> Strength —> Promise
Unity —> Heart —> Grace
Stories connect us very deeply to who we are... We tell each other stories... That's how relationships grow.
The great leaders of history, both those whose names are known, and those whose deeds remain obscure, have been story tellers. They connect deeply with people. They tell stories that touch the heart and the imagination. They paint a picture with words about the past and about the future...
A promise is when I speak in a way that you can justly base your expectations upon what I’ve said... I routinely find two symptoms in organizations: dishonesty and immaturity...
The Chilean philosopher. Fernando Flores says, "Most people speak without intention... We aren't aware of the amount of self-deception that we collect in our personalities...People talk about changing their thinking, but they have no idea what that is, let alone how to do it. The key is to stop producing interpretations which have no power"…
Flores is right: we construct our realities in language. It does make a difference whether I say things which limit me. My speech plays a powerful role in either inhibiting or liberating me, and those whom I lead.
That puts an enormous emphasis on a leader's speech. This is why every wisdom tradition places great emphasis upon the tongue and its power to give life or to destroy...
Grace is to extend kindness and dignity to another irrespective of their rank or merit or your own... to ignore one's place in the great chain of being... to overthrow mindless bureaucracy and sophisticated pettiness with small acts of gentle dignity. Grace is meeting as equals and acting accordingly.
Grace is a radical idea. To show grace is to circumvent the system... To show grace is to ignore educational attainment, wealth, physical appearance and prowess, popularity, fame or success as marks of a person's value... Leo Tolstoy once wrote:
"It is a mistake to think that there are times when you can safely address a person without love... It cannot be otherwise, because mutual love is the major law of our existence."
Great leaders, known or unknown, leaders who engage the hearts and minds of people with integrity and imagination, exhibit two deep qualities in tandem: humility and nobility...There is no trade off between them. Strength and gentleness. Grace reframes strength... To endure the scorn of those of small minds, self-deceived and given to mean and measly speech. It takes a noble heart to carry a grand purpose with a dignified presence. It takes grace to refuse to erect a monument to one's ego...
So how can you cultivate grace in your life?
The process is practical not magical.
- Dr. Mark Strom, 13 July 2001.
To read the complete address, please visit www.csdcambodia.org "Voice of Justice Program: A Conversation about Character, Wisdom, and Being a Leader".
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What kind of society do we Khmer want? We want a great society. A society where everyone believes s/he can influence change, where leaders serve and where courage, integrity and grace abound. This is a call to action. To do nothing is to let our society rot and allow the destructive mentality to prevail.
Theary C. SENG
Theary C. SENG, former director of Center for Social Development (March 2006—July 2009), founded the Center for Justice & Reconciliation (www.cjr-cambodia.org) and is currently writing her second book, under a grant, amidst her speaking engagements.
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Filial relationship between the king and the three Yuon stooges: Cambodia Operetta?
King Promotes CPP Leaders to Generals
By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
28 December 2009
The three top leaders of the Cambodian People’s Party were awarded military ranks as five-star generals last week, by order of the king.
Prime Minister Hun Sen, Senate President Chea Sim and National Assembly President Heng Samrin all received their stars on Dec. 21, in a royal decree signed by King Norodom Sihamoni.
The newly conferred rank was based on national leadership achievements, according to a copy of the decree obtained by VOA Khmer.
Son Chhay, a lawmaker for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, said by phone Wednesday Cambodia needs a law and a supreme military council to deal with such matters, although he acknowledged the king’s right to make promotions.
Kem Sokha, president of the opposition-aligned Human Rights Party, said the promotions were unnecessary. “Promotion should be balanced to figures of the army,” he said.
Cheam Yiep, a CPP lawmaker, said there was no need for further legislation on military ranks, as the king has the constitutional right to decide.
Cambodia at Fault in Uighur Expulsion: Expert
By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
28 December 2009
A leading rights investigator squarely blamed the government for the forced deportation of 20 Uighurs to China last week, as officials failed to examine their asylum status in time.
“As we have not done this, that’s why we received criticism from countries and from UNHCR,” said Ny Chakrya, chief investigator for the rights group Adhoc, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”
The Uighurs were reportedly fleeing unrest in their home province of Xinjiang, where anti-Chinese rioting in May left nearly 200 people dead. Twenty-two arrived through November. Beijing called them criminals, and, on the eve of the arrival of China’s vice president, Cambodia deported them.
The move prompted sharp criticism for the UN, the US and international rights groups, who said the government had failed to adhere to its international obligations to protect refugees and asylum seekers.
Government officials said they applied immigration laws and were not pressured by China to deport the group. They also blamed UNHCR for failing to assess the status of the group quickly enough. (Two Uighurs remain at large.)
Ny Chakrya said Thursday the Cambodian authorities themselves had failed to properly assess the asylum seekers and instead deported them as illegal immigrants.
“That seems to affect our obligation and violate universal human rights, as well, if the 20 Uighurs receive persecution,” he said.
China has already executed at least 17 people in the wake of the July riots.
Cambodia was obligated to investigate each individual case and to protect the asylum seekers until it could determine their status, Ny Chakrya said.
Any criminal accusations should have been investigated from Cambodia, using documents from China, to determine whether the criminal charges were politically motivated, he said.
International law should be applied before domestic law, he said.
“If those 20 Uighurs have problems after they return, then Cambodia’s credibility will face more serious [challenges],” he said.
Washington
28 December 2009
A leading rights investigator squarely blamed the government for the forced deportation of 20 Uighurs to China last week, as officials failed to examine their asylum status in time.
“As we have not done this, that’s why we received criticism from countries and from UNHCR,” said Ny Chakrya, chief investigator for the rights group Adhoc, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”
The Uighurs were reportedly fleeing unrest in their home province of Xinjiang, where anti-Chinese rioting in May left nearly 200 people dead. Twenty-two arrived through November. Beijing called them criminals, and, on the eve of the arrival of China’s vice president, Cambodia deported them.
The move prompted sharp criticism for the UN, the US and international rights groups, who said the government had failed to adhere to its international obligations to protect refugees and asylum seekers.
Government officials said they applied immigration laws and were not pressured by China to deport the group. They also blamed UNHCR for failing to assess the status of the group quickly enough. (Two Uighurs remain at large.)
Ny Chakrya said Thursday the Cambodian authorities themselves had failed to properly assess the asylum seekers and instead deported them as illegal immigrants.
“That seems to affect our obligation and violate universal human rights, as well, if the 20 Uighurs receive persecution,” he said.
China has already executed at least 17 people in the wake of the July riots.
Cambodia was obligated to investigate each individual case and to protect the asylum seekers until it could determine their status, Ny Chakrya said.
Any criminal accusations should have been investigated from Cambodia, using documents from China, to determine whether the criminal charges were politically motivated, he said.
International law should be applied before domestic law, he said.
“If those 20 Uighurs have problems after they return, then Cambodia’s credibility will face more serious [challenges],” he said.
National Assembly Begins Expropriation Debate
By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
28 December 2009
Parliamentarians on Monday began reviewing a controversial draft law that will allow the government to seize private land for development purposes, while opponents say the law will legitimize land-grabs.
The draft law, comprised of 8 chapters and 39 articles, allows state seizure of real estate for the public interest. Private land can be taken for the construction of an airport, bridge or energy grid extension, for example. The law also requires reasonable compensation.
“This law is a base for the government to continue to rebuild and develop infrastructure, waterways, land and air,” said Cheam Yiep, a lawmaker for the ruling Cambodian People's Party. The law will also encourage investment, he said.
Yim Sovann, a spokesman for the Sam Rainsy Party, said the time was not right to have such a law, with thousands of Cambodians victims of land-grabs and forced evictions.
“It will make more victims,” he said. “We will not raise our hands to pass [the law]. Although it stipulates compensation, it doesn’t work according to the market.”
Civil society groups have criticized the draft law on similar grounds and have requested lawmakers to allow their input.
Original report from Phnom Penh
28 December 2009
Parliamentarians on Monday began reviewing a controversial draft law that will allow the government to seize private land for development purposes, while opponents say the law will legitimize land-grabs.
The draft law, comprised of 8 chapters and 39 articles, allows state seizure of real estate for the public interest. Private land can be taken for the construction of an airport, bridge or energy grid extension, for example. The law also requires reasonable compensation.
“This law is a base for the government to continue to rebuild and develop infrastructure, waterways, land and air,” said Cheam Yiep, a lawmaker for the ruling Cambodian People's Party. The law will also encourage investment, he said.
Yim Sovann, a spokesman for the Sam Rainsy Party, said the time was not right to have such a law, with thousands of Cambodians victims of land-grabs and forced evictions.
“It will make more victims,” he said. “We will not raise our hands to pass [the law]. Although it stipulates compensation, it doesn’t work according to the market.”
Civil society groups have criticized the draft law on similar grounds and have requested lawmakers to allow their input.
Thailand Deports Hmong Asylum Seekers to Laos
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Dec 28 (IPS) - In a move that places greater weight on growing regional solidarity over historical ties with a western superpower, Thailand ordered its military to forcibly return over 4,000 men, women and children from the Hmong ethnic community to Laos, the country they had fled in search of political asylum.
By Monday, the first batch of 440 Hmong—an ethnic tribe living in the mountains of northern and central Laos—from an isolated camp in the Petchabun province in north-eastern Thailand was removed under the watchful eye of over 4,500 soldiers and police, says the Thai government’s spokesperson, Panitan Wattanayagorn, adding that the operation involving military trucks began at dawn.
"We have given instructions to the military officers that this move has to be conducted ensuring the safety of the Hmong and with no violations of their rights," says Panitan. "Our agreement with the Laotian government is that all the Hmong should be sent back by the end of the year."
It means that the "time for negotiations is over" and the Thai government will "not turn back on its decision," Panitan confirms in an interview with IPS. "That would undermine the relationship we have developed with our neighbour Laos in recent years. It is a relationship built on good faith."
Bangkok’s decision to send the Hmong back to communist-ruled Laos has prompted protests from a range of international actors, notably the United States. Washington has been equally troubled by Thai authorities justifying the deportation after characterising the majority of Hmong as "economic migrants," not refugees.
"This is a deeply disappointing decision by the government of Thailand," Eric Schwartz, U.S. assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, tells IPS in a telephone interview from Washington. "You cannot make categorical statements that all people are economic migrants unless the (Thai) government has knowledge of each individual case."
The U.S. government, the United Nations and concerned human rights groups state that at least 158 of the Hmong asylum seekers had been recognised as refugees by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). And a further 80 had "bullet wounds," suggesting that they had fled violence in Laos.
What is more, Thai officials have denied the UNHCR access to screen the largest group of the Hmong, who had been living in makeshift shacks at the Huay Nam Khao village in Petchabun. Journalists and other independent observers have also been denied contact to the same group.
According to Human Rights Watch, the New York-based global rights lobby, Thai authorities have violated international refugee laws by using "intimidation" to silence the Hmong. The coercive tactics included "light deprivation," separating parents from children and cutting off "access to clean water and proper sanitation."
"Thai authorities know very well that the United States and other countries would have been prepared and are still prepared to ensure the possibility of third-country resettlement for each person deemed to need protection," says Schwartz, who ended a mission to Bangkok last week, where he made a bid to secure a policy shift from senior Thai officials.
But for the Thai administration of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, that would have meant a further delay in ending a problem that traces its roots back to the mid-1970s. At that time, Thailand opened its borders to refugees who poured in from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam following the end of the U.S. government’s war in Indo-China. At its height, Thailand hosted over 1.5 million refugees.
"We have been trying to persuade the U.S. to take these people back but the U.S. has not said they will receive all of them," says Panitan, the Thai government spokesman. "Thailand cannot shoulder this burden alone."
Thailand’s stance suggests how far regional politics has changed since the end of the Cold War era, when Bangkok was Washington’s strongest ally on mainland South-east Asia during the wars the U.S. government waged in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
The Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) "secret war" in Laos was among them, beginning in 1961 and ending in 1975, when U.S. troops left Vietnam in defeat. This clandestine war staged by Washington’s spy agency depended on tens of thousands of Hmong for manpower.
The covert military operation to fight the advancing communist guerrillas in Laos resulted in the landlocked South-east Asian country coming under relentless aerial attacks—where over two million tonnes of explosives were dropped by U.S. bombers, more than the explosives dropped on Europe during the Second World War.
Both the U.S. public and the Congress were kept in the dark while this conflict raged. The CIA’s air base in Long Chen, in central Laos, became one of the busiest airports in the region at that time. Flights from Thailand were frequent.
But the triumph of the communist forces in Laos saw the Hmong flee their homeland in the thousands, first to Thailand as refugees and later to the United States for resettlement. Some 250,000 to 300,000 Hmong – nearly a third of this ethnic group’s population in Laos – joined this exodus decades ago.
In 2005, when the United States took in 15,000 Hmong who had been languishing in Thai refugee camps since the 1970s, Washington declared that it would the last group of refugees it was aiding.
But soon after that, the current group of Hmong asylum seekers surfaced in Petchabun, hoping for a similar journey to the U.S. for supporting the CIA during its "secret war" and being persecuted by the Laotian military since the conflict ended.
Among them is Blia Pao Yang, a leader of the refugees in Petchabun, says Joe Davy, a Hmong rights advocate in an e-mailed statement. "Many in his group have war wounds and have been documented by the Thai military as having legitimate asylum claims."
BANGKOK, Dec 28 (IPS) - In a move that places greater weight on growing regional solidarity over historical ties with a western superpower, Thailand ordered its military to forcibly return over 4,000 men, women and children from the Hmong ethnic community to Laos, the country they had fled in search of political asylum.
By Monday, the first batch of 440 Hmong—an ethnic tribe living in the mountains of northern and central Laos—from an isolated camp in the Petchabun province in north-eastern Thailand was removed under the watchful eye of over 4,500 soldiers and police, says the Thai government’s spokesperson, Panitan Wattanayagorn, adding that the operation involving military trucks began at dawn.
"We have given instructions to the military officers that this move has to be conducted ensuring the safety of the Hmong and with no violations of their rights," says Panitan. "Our agreement with the Laotian government is that all the Hmong should be sent back by the end of the year."
It means that the "time for negotiations is over" and the Thai government will "not turn back on its decision," Panitan confirms in an interview with IPS. "That would undermine the relationship we have developed with our neighbour Laos in recent years. It is a relationship built on good faith."
Bangkok’s decision to send the Hmong back to communist-ruled Laos has prompted protests from a range of international actors, notably the United States. Washington has been equally troubled by Thai authorities justifying the deportation after characterising the majority of Hmong as "economic migrants," not refugees.
"This is a deeply disappointing decision by the government of Thailand," Eric Schwartz, U.S. assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, tells IPS in a telephone interview from Washington. "You cannot make categorical statements that all people are economic migrants unless the (Thai) government has knowledge of each individual case."
The U.S. government, the United Nations and concerned human rights groups state that at least 158 of the Hmong asylum seekers had been recognised as refugees by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). And a further 80 had "bullet wounds," suggesting that they had fled violence in Laos.
What is more, Thai officials have denied the UNHCR access to screen the largest group of the Hmong, who had been living in makeshift shacks at the Huay Nam Khao village in Petchabun. Journalists and other independent observers have also been denied contact to the same group.
According to Human Rights Watch, the New York-based global rights lobby, Thai authorities have violated international refugee laws by using "intimidation" to silence the Hmong. The coercive tactics included "light deprivation," separating parents from children and cutting off "access to clean water and proper sanitation."
"Thai authorities know very well that the United States and other countries would have been prepared and are still prepared to ensure the possibility of third-country resettlement for each person deemed to need protection," says Schwartz, who ended a mission to Bangkok last week, where he made a bid to secure a policy shift from senior Thai officials.
But for the Thai administration of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, that would have meant a further delay in ending a problem that traces its roots back to the mid-1970s. At that time, Thailand opened its borders to refugees who poured in from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam following the end of the U.S. government’s war in Indo-China. At its height, Thailand hosted over 1.5 million refugees.
"We have been trying to persuade the U.S. to take these people back but the U.S. has not said they will receive all of them," says Panitan, the Thai government spokesman. "Thailand cannot shoulder this burden alone."
Thailand’s stance suggests how far regional politics has changed since the end of the Cold War era, when Bangkok was Washington’s strongest ally on mainland South-east Asia during the wars the U.S. government waged in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
The Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) "secret war" in Laos was among them, beginning in 1961 and ending in 1975, when U.S. troops left Vietnam in defeat. This clandestine war staged by Washington’s spy agency depended on tens of thousands of Hmong for manpower.
The covert military operation to fight the advancing communist guerrillas in Laos resulted in the landlocked South-east Asian country coming under relentless aerial attacks—where over two million tonnes of explosives were dropped by U.S. bombers, more than the explosives dropped on Europe during the Second World War.
Both the U.S. public and the Congress were kept in the dark while this conflict raged. The CIA’s air base in Long Chen, in central Laos, became one of the busiest airports in the region at that time. Flights from Thailand were frequent.
But the triumph of the communist forces in Laos saw the Hmong flee their homeland in the thousands, first to Thailand as refugees and later to the United States for resettlement. Some 250,000 to 300,000 Hmong – nearly a third of this ethnic group’s population in Laos – joined this exodus decades ago.
In 2005, when the United States took in 15,000 Hmong who had been languishing in Thai refugee camps since the 1970s, Washington declared that it would the last group of refugees it was aiding.
But soon after that, the current group of Hmong asylum seekers surfaced in Petchabun, hoping for a similar journey to the U.S. for supporting the CIA during its "secret war" and being persecuted by the Laotian military since the conflict ended.
Among them is Blia Pao Yang, a leader of the refugees in Petchabun, says Joe Davy, a Hmong rights advocate in an e-mailed statement. "Many in his group have war wounds and have been documented by the Thai military as having legitimate asylum claims."
PM Abhisit: Hun Sen accusation on planned Cambodia coup won't affect relations between peoples
BANGKOK, Dec 27 (TNA) -- Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Sunday accusation by his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen over an alleged plan to stage a coup in Cambodia-- which he denied earlier-- would not disrupt relations between the peoples of the two neighbouring countries.
Speaking during his weekly address on television and radio, Mr Abhisit said he considered the criticisms by Mr Hun Sen as “normal” because many other people also criticised him daily.
Mr Abhisit said he would not allow the charges by the Cambodian leader to affect relations between peoples of the two countries.
Mr Hun Sen was quoted by an international news agency as speaking at a provincial ceremony Thursday, saying he had seen a secret Thai government document outlining a plan to mount a coup.
The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a complaint with the police the same day, charging key leaders of the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship with publicising confidential documents and libel following a leak of the ministry’s classified document on relations between Thailand and Cambodia.
Relations between Thailand and Cambodia have worsened since the Cambodian prime minister appointed ex prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic adviser last month and refused to extradite him to Thailand to serve his two-year jail term for violating the law on conflict of interest.
The situation further deteriorated when the two countries recalled their ambassadors and later expelled their diplomats. A Thai engineer was arrested on spying charges for allegedly passing secret information on Thaksin's flight schedule to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. Pardoned by the Cambodian king, the engineer returned to Bangkok earlier in December.
Asked whether Thailand would send an ambassador to Phnom Penh next year, Mr Abhisit said the issue is not a crux if Cambodia does not violate Thai judicial system which has sentenced Mr Thaksin and that Phnom Penh government also review issues which have caused the problem.
Mr Abhisit said he tried to normalise trade along the common border and to conduct assistance by his government to Phnom Penh, but Mr Hun Sen rejected it.
The Thai prime minister said what his government had done should be considered “very light” as it would not affect trade or lead to war with that country, but it is impossible to let Cambodia continue criticising Thailand and its judicial system, he said, adding that it is a pity that some Thais have tried to create tensions.
Speaking during his weekly address on television and radio, Mr Abhisit said he considered the criticisms by Mr Hun Sen as “normal” because many other people also criticised him daily.
Mr Abhisit said he would not allow the charges by the Cambodian leader to affect relations between peoples of the two countries.
Mr Hun Sen was quoted by an international news agency as speaking at a provincial ceremony Thursday, saying he had seen a secret Thai government document outlining a plan to mount a coup.
The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a complaint with the police the same day, charging key leaders of the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship with publicising confidential documents and libel following a leak of the ministry’s classified document on relations between Thailand and Cambodia.
Relations between Thailand and Cambodia have worsened since the Cambodian prime minister appointed ex prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic adviser last month and refused to extradite him to Thailand to serve his two-year jail term for violating the law on conflict of interest.
The situation further deteriorated when the two countries recalled their ambassadors and later expelled their diplomats. A Thai engineer was arrested on spying charges for allegedly passing secret information on Thaksin's flight schedule to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. Pardoned by the Cambodian king, the engineer returned to Bangkok earlier in December.
Asked whether Thailand would send an ambassador to Phnom Penh next year, Mr Abhisit said the issue is not a crux if Cambodia does not violate Thai judicial system which has sentenced Mr Thaksin and that Phnom Penh government also review issues which have caused the problem.
Mr Abhisit said he tried to normalise trade along the common border and to conduct assistance by his government to Phnom Penh, but Mr Hun Sen rejected it.
The Thai prime minister said what his government had done should be considered “very light” as it would not affect trade or lead to war with that country, but it is impossible to let Cambodia continue criticising Thailand and its judicial system, he said, adding that it is a pity that some Thais have tried to create tensions.
Hun Sen's vanity is a danger to regional solidarity
(Photo: AFP)
December 29, 2009
The Nation
EDITORIAL
As the Thai-Cambodian dispute continues, Asean may have to step in to mediate
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen should know Thailand as well as anybody, having experienced and dealt with more than a dozen Thai prime ministers. He said shamelessly the other day that the Abhisit government was planning a coup to topple him. Also, that Thailand wanted to wage war on Cambodia. He cited an alleged confidential briefing paper from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, claiming there was a Thai strategic plan against his country to unseat him. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was quick to deny that there is any such plan.
Hun Sen should know for a fact that the person who is really capable of toppling him is his recently appointed economic adviser -Thaksin Shinawatra. In the early 1990s, everybody knew that Thaksin, as a business tycoon, was involved in a short-lived plot to dislodge Hun Sen because of a conflict of interest over mobile telephone contracts.
At the moment, both Hun Sen and Thaksin are wedded in a marriage of convenience because they can use each other. They also have a common enemy - Abhisit. But the Thaksin-Hun Sen relationship will not last. Sooner or later, it will unravel for all to see.
Abhisit is right in saying that the Cambodians will find out the truth behind a series of idiotic political conspiracies. Only a halfwit would believe the comments concocted by Pheu Thai MP Jatuporn Promphan.
When that time comes, Hun Sen will have a lot of explaining to do to his people. Obviously, at the moment, this is not possible because the media in Cambodia have been gagged by the government. Hun Sen may be riding on Thailand's back to boost his popularity, but the problem with this kind of person is that the truth will catch up to them. As Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
Despite the ongoing political conflict, people-to-people contacts between the two countries continue without any disruption. Thai tourists have returned to Cambodia for the festive season after many tour cancellations. This is good news, as it suggests that the spitting contest between these dull politicians has a limited bearing on the people of the two kingdoms; people who have more in common than they do differences. As neighbours, the people-to-people aspect of our bilateral ties is very important. It should not be determined and shaped exclusively by our respective governments.
At the moment, any positive movement in Thai-Cambodian relations will have to wait because neither side is willing to climb down. On the Cambodian side, the stakes get higher every day, as Hun Sen has bet on Thaksin's political ascension and his promise to reward Hun Sen if he returns triumphantly to Thailand. On the Thai side, Abhisit remains firm in his position on diplomatic protocol and practice. He is likely to stay on, albeit with the threat of disturbances by the Thaksin-backed red shirts.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has been briefed by the conflicting parties since mid-November, continues to monitor the current tension between the two countries He has yet to make any move to mediate in the conflict. The dispute and Hun Sen's personal involvement are an important issue that Asean, under the new chair, Vietnam, will have to discuss.
Hun Sen's growing power, as well as his arrogance, has jeopardised the regional grouping's solidarity. If Asean is really a rules-based organisation, since the Asean Charter came into force, then Hun Sen should be the first Asean leader to be reprimanded because he has thus far broken all the rules of good neighbourliness and Asean customs.
East Turkestan: More Xinjiang Death Sentences
Monday, 28 December 2009
Source: UNPO
China's national media haven't reported on new trials and death sentences related to deadly riots in Xinjiang.
Below is an article published by Radio Free Asia:
A court in China has handed down death sentences to another five people for their alleged roles in deadly ethnic rioting in Urumqi, capital of the far western Xinjiang region, news agencies say.
The new trials, omitted from China’s national media, brings the number of death sentences handed down in connection with the rioting to atleast 22, of which at least nine have already been carried out.
“Altogether 22 defendants in five cases went on trial Dec. 22- 23,” Reuters quoted Hou Hanmin, director of the Xinjiang Government Information Office, as saying.
The names of the defendants all appeared to be Uyghur. Uyghurs are a Turkic, largely Muslim people indigenous to what China now calls the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), many of whom bitterly resent Chinese rule in the region.
News blackout
Hou declined to specify the charges, which she said were published in Xinjiang newspapers. The Internet has been blocked in Xinjiang since July, and local newspaper Web sites are inaccessible from outside the region.
Ma Xinchun, spokesman for the Urumqi city government also told AFP that five people were handed death sentences and eight given life in prison. Four more were handed sentences of 10 years or longer, Ma was quoted as saying.
Ethnic Uyghurs attacked Han Chinese in Urumqi on July 5, after protests against Han attacks on Uyghur workers in Guangdong, in far-off southeastern China. Majority Han launched revenge attacks two days later.
Urumqi’s Intermediate Court meanwhile sentenced five more people to death with a two-year suspension—which the courts generally commute to life in jail.
Another eight people were jailed for life, according to a statement faxed by the spokeswoman.
The statement said the court was shown ample evidence in the open trials, and that more similar trials would follow.
China last week pressed Cambodia to deport a group of 20 Uyghurs, including two young children, who fled after the July riots and sought asylum with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Phnom Penh.
Cambodia said it expelled the Uyghurs because they had illegally entered the country. It has since been sharply criticized by Washington, which said the deportations would harm bilateral ties with the United States, though they may have strengthened relations with Beijing.
On Monday, China signed off on more than U.S. $1.2 billion in aid to Cambodia during a visit there by Vice President Xi Jinping. The assistance, including 14 agreements for grants and loans, ranges from help in building roads to repairing Buddhist temples.
Source: UNPO
China's national media haven't reported on new trials and death sentences related to deadly riots in Xinjiang.
Below is an article published by Radio Free Asia:
A court in China has handed down death sentences to another five people for their alleged roles in deadly ethnic rioting in Urumqi, capital of the far western Xinjiang region, news agencies say.
The new trials, omitted from China’s national media, brings the number of death sentences handed down in connection with the rioting to atleast 22, of which at least nine have already been carried out.
“Altogether 22 defendants in five cases went on trial Dec. 22- 23,” Reuters quoted Hou Hanmin, director of the Xinjiang Government Information Office, as saying.
The names of the defendants all appeared to be Uyghur. Uyghurs are a Turkic, largely Muslim people indigenous to what China now calls the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), many of whom bitterly resent Chinese rule in the region.
News blackout
Hou declined to specify the charges, which she said were published in Xinjiang newspapers. The Internet has been blocked in Xinjiang since July, and local newspaper Web sites are inaccessible from outside the region.
Ma Xinchun, spokesman for the Urumqi city government also told AFP that five people were handed death sentences and eight given life in prison. Four more were handed sentences of 10 years or longer, Ma was quoted as saying.
Ethnic Uyghurs attacked Han Chinese in Urumqi on July 5, after protests against Han attacks on Uyghur workers in Guangdong, in far-off southeastern China. Majority Han launched revenge attacks two days later.
Urumqi’s Intermediate Court meanwhile sentenced five more people to death with a two-year suspension—which the courts generally commute to life in jail.
Another eight people were jailed for life, according to a statement faxed by the spokeswoman.
The statement said the court was shown ample evidence in the open trials, and that more similar trials would follow.
China last week pressed Cambodia to deport a group of 20 Uyghurs, including two young children, who fled after the July riots and sought asylum with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Phnom Penh.
Cambodia said it expelled the Uyghurs because they had illegally entered the country. It has since been sharply criticized by Washington, which said the deportations would harm bilateral ties with the United States, though they may have strengthened relations with Beijing.
On Monday, China signed off on more than U.S. $1.2 billion in aid to Cambodia during a visit there by Vice President Xi Jinping. The assistance, including 14 agreements for grants and loans, ranges from help in building roads to repairing Buddhist temples.
Leader Of The Pack
Source: Strategy Page
December 28, 2009: China aspires to be a world power. It's understood that China cannot do this alone. Even the mighty United States has allies it depends on. Who can China depend on? Not a lot. In fact, China has a rather disturbing roster of friends. There's Pakistan, a corrupt nation, always on the verge of falling apart and one of the few remaining sanctuaries for Islamic terrorists. China is also cozy with North Korea, Iran and Myanmar, pariah nations all. So China has been forced to improvise. This has resulted in uniting the search for allies, with business opportunities, China embraces countries willing to do business (especially if they have needed raw materials), no matter what their international reputation. As a result, China has made friends with some of the most unsavory states of Africa. China is nonplussed by Western disdain at this behavior. It's business, and the outcast states have few nations they can do business with. That cuts down on the competition. Operating conditions are less than ideal, but the Chinese are accustomed to dealing with corruption and criminal gangs. It's really a good fit.
China played on these friendships recently to get Cambodia to expel twenty Chinese citizens (ethnic Turks, or Uighurs) suspected of participating in recent ethnic violence, and sending them back to China. China does not want the separatist minded Uighurs setting up operations outside China, and is using all its diplomatic clout to extradite wanted Chinese citizens from foreign sanctuaries.
Chinese courts are being kept busy persecuting Internet pests. The expense and stress of going to trial, then the large fines, or even jail term, that usually result, causes outspoken Chinese to think twice before they say something, the government might not like, on the Internet. Writer Liu Xiaobo was recently sentenced to 11 years in prison, because he wrote a book that called for more freedom. China has been a communist police state for the last 60 years, and the people in charge want to keep it that way.
December 27, 2009: China announced that it had rescued the Chinese coal ship, the De Xin Hai, and its 25 Chinese sailors, off the coast of Somalia. What was not immediately mentioned was the payment of a $3.5 million ransom, and the pirates then leaving the ship. The seizure of the ship, two months ago, despite the presence of Chinese warships and commandos in the area, was embarrassing for the Chinese government. Little was said, in the government controlled press, about the De Xin Hai. But the chatter on the Internet was less than flattering for the government. That apparently led to the attempt to spin the ransom payment as a military rescue mission.
December 24, 2009: A court in western China condemned five more Uighur men to death, for participating in ethnic violence earlier in the year. Five other death sentences were commuted, meaning the accused would spend life in prison. Nearly a thousand people, mostly Uighurs, have been arrested and are being prosecuted. The government is still seeking several hundred others, many who have fled the country.
December 17, 2009: China has a growing reputation for taking every opportunity to do a little espionage on the side, especially an overseas business operation is close to a military base. For example, the U.S. government is threatening to block a Chinese firm from developing a mine in Nevada, because the operation would be too close (80 kilometers) to Fallon Naval Air Station, where experimental work is done. Earlier in the year, Australia also blocked Chinese investment in a mining operation that was near Woomera (where missiles are tested.) In Taiwan, Chinese government officials are not allowed to own real estate. While there are some national security concerns at play here, Taiwan is mainly concerned with preventing corrupt Chinese officials from hiding their loot in the form of Taiwanese commercial and residential property.
December 28, 2009: China aspires to be a world power. It's understood that China cannot do this alone. Even the mighty United States has allies it depends on. Who can China depend on? Not a lot. In fact, China has a rather disturbing roster of friends. There's Pakistan, a corrupt nation, always on the verge of falling apart and one of the few remaining sanctuaries for Islamic terrorists. China is also cozy with North Korea, Iran and Myanmar, pariah nations all. So China has been forced to improvise. This has resulted in uniting the search for allies, with business opportunities, China embraces countries willing to do business (especially if they have needed raw materials), no matter what their international reputation. As a result, China has made friends with some of the most unsavory states of Africa. China is nonplussed by Western disdain at this behavior. It's business, and the outcast states have few nations they can do business with. That cuts down on the competition. Operating conditions are less than ideal, but the Chinese are accustomed to dealing with corruption and criminal gangs. It's really a good fit.
China played on these friendships recently to get Cambodia to expel twenty Chinese citizens (ethnic Turks, or Uighurs) suspected of participating in recent ethnic violence, and sending them back to China. China does not want the separatist minded Uighurs setting up operations outside China, and is using all its diplomatic clout to extradite wanted Chinese citizens from foreign sanctuaries.
Chinese courts are being kept busy persecuting Internet pests. The expense and stress of going to trial, then the large fines, or even jail term, that usually result, causes outspoken Chinese to think twice before they say something, the government might not like, on the Internet. Writer Liu Xiaobo was recently sentenced to 11 years in prison, because he wrote a book that called for more freedom. China has been a communist police state for the last 60 years, and the people in charge want to keep it that way.
December 27, 2009: China announced that it had rescued the Chinese coal ship, the De Xin Hai, and its 25 Chinese sailors, off the coast of Somalia. What was not immediately mentioned was the payment of a $3.5 million ransom, and the pirates then leaving the ship. The seizure of the ship, two months ago, despite the presence of Chinese warships and commandos in the area, was embarrassing for the Chinese government. Little was said, in the government controlled press, about the De Xin Hai. But the chatter on the Internet was less than flattering for the government. That apparently led to the attempt to spin the ransom payment as a military rescue mission.
December 24, 2009: A court in western China condemned five more Uighur men to death, for participating in ethnic violence earlier in the year. Five other death sentences were commuted, meaning the accused would spend life in prison. Nearly a thousand people, mostly Uighurs, have been arrested and are being prosecuted. The government is still seeking several hundred others, many who have fled the country.
December 17, 2009: China has a growing reputation for taking every opportunity to do a little espionage on the side, especially an overseas business operation is close to a military base. For example, the U.S. government is threatening to block a Chinese firm from developing a mine in Nevada, because the operation would be too close (80 kilometers) to Fallon Naval Air Station, where experimental work is done. Earlier in the year, Australia also blocked Chinese investment in a mining operation that was near Woomera (where missiles are tested.) In Taiwan, Chinese government officials are not allowed to own real estate. While there are some national security concerns at play here, Taiwan is mainly concerned with preventing corrupt Chinese officials from hiding their loot in the form of Taiwanese commercial and residential property.
Thai Opposition Files Complaint Against Foreign Minister, Prime Minister’s Aide Over Leaked Document
BANGKOK, Dec 28 (NNN-TNA) — Thailand's Opposition Puea Thai Party (PTP) plans to file complaints with the Office of the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) against Foreign Affairs Minister Kasit Piromya and Panithan Wattanayakorn, deputy secretary-general to the prime minister, for malfeasance over the leaked classified document concerning Thai-Cambodian relations, a party spokesman said Sunday.
Spokesman Prompong Nopparit said he and a party legal expert would file complaints with the NCCC this week urging the state agency to probe the two government figures for malfeasance under Criminal Law Article 157 after both admitted that the document, prepared by the foreign affairs ministry for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, was authentic.
The document was made public by Jatuporn Prompan, a key leader of the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday petitioned the police, charging key leaders of the UDD with publicising confidential documents and libel following the leak of the ministry's classified document on relations between Thailand and Cambodia.
The action undertaken by Mr. Kasit should be considered as abuse of power, violating other people's rights, affecting security in and outside the country, and planning to cause damage to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as well as to the government and the public, said Mr. Prompong.
The document, leaked from the Foreign Ministry, was released by Jatuporn, a member of the opposition Puea Thai Party and UDD key leader. Mr Jatuporn claimed that it contained measures to threaten the life of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin.
Mr. Prompong said he would also ask the PTP party membership whether the party should petition to remove Foreign Minister Kasit from his post.
Meanwhile, Mr. Jatuporn filed a complaint with the police against Foreign Minister Kasit for being negligent in doing his duty and defamation related to the classified document case.
The UDD leader also lodged complaints against Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs Veerasak Futrakul and Vachara Phetthong, a Democrat MP, accusing them of defaming him and lodged a false complaint against him.
Spokesman Prompong Nopparit said he and a party legal expert would file complaints with the NCCC this week urging the state agency to probe the two government figures for malfeasance under Criminal Law Article 157 after both admitted that the document, prepared by the foreign affairs ministry for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, was authentic.
The document was made public by Jatuporn Prompan, a key leader of the anti-government United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday petitioned the police, charging key leaders of the UDD with publicising confidential documents and libel following the leak of the ministry's classified document on relations between Thailand and Cambodia.
The action undertaken by Mr. Kasit should be considered as abuse of power, violating other people's rights, affecting security in and outside the country, and planning to cause damage to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as well as to the government and the public, said Mr. Prompong.
The document, leaked from the Foreign Ministry, was released by Jatuporn, a member of the opposition Puea Thai Party and UDD key leader. Mr Jatuporn claimed that it contained measures to threaten the life of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin.
Mr. Prompong said he would also ask the PTP party membership whether the party should petition to remove Foreign Minister Kasit from his post.
Meanwhile, Mr. Jatuporn filed a complaint with the police against Foreign Minister Kasit for being negligent in doing his duty and defamation related to the classified document case.
The UDD leader also lodged complaints against Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs Veerasak Futrakul and Vachara Phetthong, a Democrat MP, accusing them of defaming him and lodged a false complaint against him.
Cambodia holds Khmer traditional measurement exhibition
PHNOM PENH, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Reyum Institute has documented more than 130 Khmer traditional measurements and will run a show-casing of the documentation for the public in Phnom Penh from Dec. 28, 2009 to Feb. 2010, official news agency AKP reported on Monday.
According to Research Manager of Reyum Institute Preap Chanmara, Cambodia has long been using a wide variety of measurements for length, height, weight, depth, size, substance and time. Some measurements have been standardized with human body, things, like coconut fruit and tree, and others have been adapted from French measurements; for instance, meter, kilometer, etc.
Chanmara said that sources of the documented measurements include interview with people, written documents, and observation of people's daily interaction.
Different locations may use and understand different measurements. Some locations may use the same measurements for different meanings.
According to Research Manager of Reyum Institute Preap Chanmara, Cambodia has long been using a wide variety of measurements for length, height, weight, depth, size, substance and time. Some measurements have been standardized with human body, things, like coconut fruit and tree, and others have been adapted from French measurements; for instance, meter, kilometer, etc.
Chanmara said that sources of the documented measurements include interview with people, written documents, and observation of people's daily interaction.
Different locations may use and understand different measurements. Some locations may use the same measurements for different meanings.
Thais force Hmong refugees to go home [-Thai cruelty knows no bound!]
A picture released by the Royal Thai Army shows Hmong refugees being removed from the Huay Nam Khao camp in northern Thailand yesterday. Photo: AFP
December 29, 2009
SETH MYDANS, BANGKOK
NEW YORK TIMES, AP
THE Thai army has begun forcibly returning thousands of ethnic Hmong asylum seekers to communist Laos despite international protests.
''The operation started at 5.30am [yesterday],'' Colonel Thana Charuvat, who is co-ordinating the repatriation, told reporters at an army centre about 12 kilometres from the camp in Phetchabun province.
He said 5000 soldiers, officials and civilian volunteers had entered the camp in Huay Nam Khao village to begin rounding up the group of more than 4000 Hmong being held there.
Members of a mountain tribe that aided the US in its secret war in Laos, the asylum seekers say they fear retribution by the Laotian Government, which continues to battle a ragged insurgency of several hundred Hmong fighters.
Thailand initiated the repatriation despite complaints from the US, the United Nations and human rights and aid groups. It was doing so despite some asylum seekers being eligible for refugee status, human rights groups said.
''This forced repatriation would place the refugees in serious danger of persecution at the hands of the Laos authorities, who to this day have not forgiven the Hmong for being dedicated allies of the US during the Vietnam War,'' said Joel Charny, acting president of advocacy group Refugees International.
The remote Hmong encampment in Phetchabun province, about 300 kilometres north of Bangkok, is a remnant of an Indochinese refugee population that once numbered 1.5 million. That included boat people from Vietnam, survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia and hundreds of thousands of Hmong who crossed the Mekong River from Laos.
Since the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the US has processed and accepted about 150,000 Hmong refugees in Thailand for resettlement in the US. But in the past three years Thailand has not allowed foreign governments or agencies to interview the Hmong.
Refugee experts say the camp residents are a mix of refugees who fear persecution and economic migrants who have left Laos over the past few years. They include dozens who display what appear to be battle scars, as well as some older refugees who fought on the US side during the war.
A separate group of 158 asylum seekers has been interviewed by the UN, which has labelled them ''people of concern'' who could face persecution if returned. The Thai Government says these asylum seekers will be forcibly repatriated eventually.
Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said the exact timing of the deportations was in the hands of the military, but that it would be completed by Thursday, in accordance with an agreement with Laos. He said Laos had said the returnees would be treated well and the UN could interview them within 30 days of arrival to determine if any were eligible for resettlement elsewhere. ''There is no reason to believe they will be harmed,'' Mr Panitan said.
Reporters have not been allowed into the camps since 2007. Last May the main aid group assisting the Hmong in Phetchabun, Medecins Sans Frontieres, withdrew in protest at the conditions at the camps.
''We can no longer work in a camp where the military uses arbitrary imprisonment of influential leaders to pressure refugees into a 'voluntary' return to Laos, and forces our patients to pass through military checkpoints to access our clinic,'' the group said.
Colonel Thana said the group of 4000 Hmong in Huay Nam Khao village would be removed from the camp by truck and later transferred to 100 buses that carried 40 people each.
Special forces members were among the troops entering the camp and 50 mobile prison trucks also arrived there on Sunday night, said Sunai Phasuk, a Thailand analyst at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
''The army said they would first target group leaders and potential troublemakers. Those people would be snatched and sent out first,'' he said.
Sam Rainsy takes sole responsibility for the uprooting of border stakes
Sam Rainsy raised Mrs. Meas Srey's hand to show her courage to uproot the border stakes (Photo: Meng Huor, Radio France Internationale)
26 December 2009
By Pen Bona
Radio France Internationale
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy declared that he is taking sole responsibility for the uprooting of border stakes in Chantrea district, Svay Rieng province. Sam Rainsy’s decision to come out and take this responsibility takes place at a time when the Svay Rieng provincial court charged a number of villagers of colluding with Sam Rainsy to uproot the border stakes at the end of October. This legal case is heating up the political atmosphere in Cambodia one more notch.
Sam Rainsy, who in the past claimed that he was only a witness in the uprooting of border stakes, has changed his mind and he now accepts the full and sole responsibility in this case.
From France where he is now staying, the opposition leader issued a statement on Friday indicating that, according to the law, he is the person who is solely responsible and who should be tried by the court. All the other persons who were present in this incident were victims of his action only.
Sam Rainsy’s decision to accept full responsibility is taking place at a time when the Svay Rieng provincial court is continuing its investigation in this border stakes uprooting. The court also charged a number of villagers who participated in the uprooting with Sam Rainsy. Up to now, the court has arrested two villagers and three others fled because they are concerned about being arrested.
At the end of October, Sam Rainsy and a group of villagers uprooted 6 border stakes that were installed by the joint Cambodian-Viet border committee in Koh Kban Kandal village, Chantrea district, Svay Rieng province. The villagers charged that these stakes were planted on top of their rice fields. Subsequently, Sam Rainsy was charged by the Svay Rieng court for destruction of public properties and for inciting racial discrimination.
Sam Rainsy declared that he was only witnessing the uprooting of these border stakes that led to the loss of Cambodian territories. However, now, he declared that he is taking full and sole responsibility in this case. Yim Sovann, SRP spokesman, explained today that Sam Rainsy did not uproot the stakes, but as a MP who was present on the spot, he accepts to take the responsibility for the villagers.
Yim Sovann claimed that the villagers are not to be blamed because they uprooted border stakes that are planted on their properties. However, if the court wants to charge anyone in this case, the court should only charge Sam Rainsy. Nevertheless, the Svay Rieng court is still continuing its work in this case.
26 December 2009
By Pen Bona
Radio France Internationale
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy declared that he is taking sole responsibility for the uprooting of border stakes in Chantrea district, Svay Rieng province. Sam Rainsy’s decision to come out and take this responsibility takes place at a time when the Svay Rieng provincial court charged a number of villagers of colluding with Sam Rainsy to uproot the border stakes at the end of October. This legal case is heating up the political atmosphere in Cambodia one more notch.
Sam Rainsy, who in the past claimed that he was only a witness in the uprooting of border stakes, has changed his mind and he now accepts the full and sole responsibility in this case.
From France where he is now staying, the opposition leader issued a statement on Friday indicating that, according to the law, he is the person who is solely responsible and who should be tried by the court. All the other persons who were present in this incident were victims of his action only.
Sam Rainsy’s decision to accept full responsibility is taking place at a time when the Svay Rieng provincial court is continuing its investigation in this border stakes uprooting. The court also charged a number of villagers who participated in the uprooting with Sam Rainsy. Up to now, the court has arrested two villagers and three others fled because they are concerned about being arrested.
At the end of October, Sam Rainsy and a group of villagers uprooted 6 border stakes that were installed by the joint Cambodian-Viet border committee in Koh Kban Kandal village, Chantrea district, Svay Rieng province. The villagers charged that these stakes were planted on top of their rice fields. Subsequently, Sam Rainsy was charged by the Svay Rieng court for destruction of public properties and for inciting racial discrimination.
Sam Rainsy declared that he was only witnessing the uprooting of these border stakes that led to the loss of Cambodian territories. However, now, he declared that he is taking full and sole responsibility in this case. Yim Sovann, SRP spokesman, explained today that Sam Rainsy did not uproot the stakes, but as a MP who was present on the spot, he accepts to take the responsibility for the villagers.
Yim Sovann claimed that the villagers are not to be blamed because they uprooted border stakes that are planted on their properties. However, if the court wants to charge anyone in this case, the court should only charge Sam Rainsy. Nevertheless, the Svay Rieng court is still continuing its work in this case.
Yuon flaunting its $6 bln investment in its colony of Cambodia
Viet Nam to promote $6b investment in Cambodia
28-12-2009
VNS (Hanoi)
HCM CITY — Viet Nam and Cambodia signed deals worth US$6 billion at a conference held in HCM City last Saturday to promote Vietnamese investment in Cambodia.
Held by the Cambodian Development Council and Viet Nam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment, the conference brought together 500 policymakers and business executives from the two countries under the chairmanship of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his Cambodian counterpart, Hun Sen.
Under the various agreements signed at the conference, Viet Nam will invest in electric generation, food processing, fertiliser production, rubber plantation and bauxite mining in Cambodia.
"This is a huge investment from the Vietnamese side," said Dung, noting that the country’s total investment in 50 countries was just $7 billion.
"The Vietnamese Government is committed to creating favourable conditions for domestic businesses to invest in Cambodia," Dung said.
Vietnamese businesses have invested in over 60 projects in Cambodia with a total capital of nearly $900 million, making Viet Nam among the top three foreign investors in Cambodia.
Doan Nguyen Duc, chairman of Hoang Anh Gia Lai Corporation, vowed to further step up investment there, noting that his corporation was currently farming 20,000ha of rubber in Rattanakiri Province and mining ore at a total investment of $100 million.
"We have also built villages, roads, and schools in areas that we invest in apart from providing $4 million to set up a soccer academy."
Hun Sen said Cambodia was calling for foreign investment in its areas of strength, such as agriculture, forestry, industry, infrastructure, processing, mining and tourism.
Cambodia would create a favourable investment environment for Vietnamese businesses to operate in the country, Hun Sen vowed.
"On behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia, I guarantee Vietnamese investors lots of preferences," he said, noting that Cambodia allows investment even in some sensitive sectors like banking, insurance, and media not yet fully open in other countries.
Dung hailed the efficiency of Vietnamese-invested projects in Cambodia but said that the results have not yet matched the potential of both countries nor lived up to people’s expectations.
At the conference, the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Cambodian Development Council signed a memorandum of understanding on investment promotion.
The Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade and the Cambodian Minister of Industry, Mining and Energy also signed the minutes of their meeting regarding bauxite exploration and exploitation in the Cambodian province of Mondulkiri.
The Bank for Investment and Development of Cambodia (BIDC), which opened its HCM City branch over the weekend in the presence of Dung and Hun Sen, also signed commitments to provide financial services to Vietnamese businesses investing in Cambodia.
The branch was part of BIDC’s strategy to expand into a major financial source for Vietnamese investors and businesses operating in Cambodia.
The Phnom Penh-headquartered bank was launched last July with charter capital invested by the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam.
BIDC president Tran Thanh Van said at the opening ceremony that the new branch was expected to serve as a payment channel connecting the economies and banking systems of the two countries.
28-12-2009
VNS (Hanoi)
HCM CITY — Viet Nam and Cambodia signed deals worth US$6 billion at a conference held in HCM City last Saturday to promote Vietnamese investment in Cambodia.
Held by the Cambodian Development Council and Viet Nam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment, the conference brought together 500 policymakers and business executives from the two countries under the chairmanship of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his Cambodian counterpart, Hun Sen.
Under the various agreements signed at the conference, Viet Nam will invest in electric generation, food processing, fertiliser production, rubber plantation and bauxite mining in Cambodia.
"This is a huge investment from the Vietnamese side," said Dung, noting that the country’s total investment in 50 countries was just $7 billion.
"The Vietnamese Government is committed to creating favourable conditions for domestic businesses to invest in Cambodia," Dung said.
Vietnamese businesses have invested in over 60 projects in Cambodia with a total capital of nearly $900 million, making Viet Nam among the top three foreign investors in Cambodia.
Doan Nguyen Duc, chairman of Hoang Anh Gia Lai Corporation, vowed to further step up investment there, noting that his corporation was currently farming 20,000ha of rubber in Rattanakiri Province and mining ore at a total investment of $100 million.
"We have also built villages, roads, and schools in areas that we invest in apart from providing $4 million to set up a soccer academy."
Hun Sen said Cambodia was calling for foreign investment in its areas of strength, such as agriculture, forestry, industry, infrastructure, processing, mining and tourism.
Cambodia would create a favourable investment environment for Vietnamese businesses to operate in the country, Hun Sen vowed.
"On behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia, I guarantee Vietnamese investors lots of preferences," he said, noting that Cambodia allows investment even in some sensitive sectors like banking, insurance, and media not yet fully open in other countries.
Dung hailed the efficiency of Vietnamese-invested projects in Cambodia but said that the results have not yet matched the potential of both countries nor lived up to people’s expectations.
At the conference, the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Cambodian Development Council signed a memorandum of understanding on investment promotion.
The Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade and the Cambodian Minister of Industry, Mining and Energy also signed the minutes of their meeting regarding bauxite exploration and exploitation in the Cambodian province of Mondulkiri.
The Bank for Investment and Development of Cambodia (BIDC), which opened its HCM City branch over the weekend in the presence of Dung and Hun Sen, also signed commitments to provide financial services to Vietnamese businesses investing in Cambodia.
The branch was part of BIDC’s strategy to expand into a major financial source for Vietnamese investors and businesses operating in Cambodia.
The Phnom Penh-headquartered bank was launched last July with charter capital invested by the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam.
BIDC president Tran Thanh Van said at the opening ceremony that the new branch was expected to serve as a payment channel connecting the economies and banking systems of the two countries.
NZ lessons applied in Cambodia
28/12/2009
By ANGELA CROMPTON
The Marlborough Express (New Zealand)
Marlborough will always be a place of treasured memories for Cambodian couple Phirum and Sokphal Keo.
Blenheim was their home from 1987 until 2006, but now they are back in Cambodia, determined to help rebuild it after the "killing fields" days of the Pol Pot regime.
Speaking in Blenheim last week before flying to Dunedin on the last leg of a three-week holiday, Mr and Mrs Keo said they originally came to New Zealand as refugees. Mr Keo arrived in 1979 after stowing away in a Red Cross plane; his wife in 1980 after fleeing Cambodia on foot to Thailand with her family.
Their first New Zealand base was Dunedin and it was at an English language class at the polytechnic where they met and fell in love. Marrying and moving to Blenheim, they ran a takeaway business on Grove Rd and raised two children, Patrick and Emily. Both are now grown and living in Wellington and it was Emily's graduation from Victoria University that brought them back to New Zealand this time.
While staying for a few days in Blenheim with Mrs Keo's sister Synath Heng, the couple caught up with former colleagues. Mr Keo went to his old golf club, met long-time friend mayor Alistair Sowman and talked with Kaikoura MP Colin King and his predecessor, Linda Scott.
Mr Keo was an active member of the National Party while living in Blenheim, and in latter years was treasurer for its Kaikoura office. He now belongs to the National Party equivalent in Cambodia, the opposition Sam Rainsy party.
The ruling government had all the right principles on paper, Mr Keo said, but corruption remained rife in Cambodia.
He said the prime minister had too much power and even the banks and the court system lacked any real autonomy.
Life in New Zealand had taught the Keos that freedom of speech and people looking after one another make communities strong.
Following the mass executions during the Pol Pot regime, many Cambodians just want to look after themselves. But Mr Keo remains positive that good changes will happen and identifies "justice and education" as the keys.
Children in many areas have substandard education because their schools have no teachers.
"They don't get paid, so they turn up for a couple of hours, then go off and do something else to make money.
"If you want your child to have an education, you send them to a private school. Poor people can't afford that – and if you aren't corrupt, you can't make enough money."
The Keos said they themselves made "just enough to survive", but had no thoughts of living in New Zealand again.
"What we learned from this country is a lot of positive thinking that we can take to Cambodia to teach people," Mr Keo said.
By ANGELA CROMPTON
The Marlborough Express (New Zealand)
Marlborough will always be a place of treasured memories for Cambodian couple Phirum and Sokphal Keo.
Blenheim was their home from 1987 until 2006, but now they are back in Cambodia, determined to help rebuild it after the "killing fields" days of the Pol Pot regime.
Speaking in Blenheim last week before flying to Dunedin on the last leg of a three-week holiday, Mr and Mrs Keo said they originally came to New Zealand as refugees. Mr Keo arrived in 1979 after stowing away in a Red Cross plane; his wife in 1980 after fleeing Cambodia on foot to Thailand with her family.
Their first New Zealand base was Dunedin and it was at an English language class at the polytechnic where they met and fell in love. Marrying and moving to Blenheim, they ran a takeaway business on Grove Rd and raised two children, Patrick and Emily. Both are now grown and living in Wellington and it was Emily's graduation from Victoria University that brought them back to New Zealand this time.
While staying for a few days in Blenheim with Mrs Keo's sister Synath Heng, the couple caught up with former colleagues. Mr Keo went to his old golf club, met long-time friend mayor Alistair Sowman and talked with Kaikoura MP Colin King and his predecessor, Linda Scott.
Mr Keo was an active member of the National Party while living in Blenheim, and in latter years was treasurer for its Kaikoura office. He now belongs to the National Party equivalent in Cambodia, the opposition Sam Rainsy party.
The ruling government had all the right principles on paper, Mr Keo said, but corruption remained rife in Cambodia.
He said the prime minister had too much power and even the banks and the court system lacked any real autonomy.
Life in New Zealand had taught the Keos that freedom of speech and people looking after one another make communities strong.
Following the mass executions during the Pol Pot regime, many Cambodians just want to look after themselves. But Mr Keo remains positive that good changes will happen and identifies "justice and education" as the keys.
Children in many areas have substandard education because their schools have no teachers.
"They don't get paid, so they turn up for a couple of hours, then go off and do something else to make money.
"If you want your child to have an education, you send them to a private school. Poor people can't afford that – and if you aren't corrupt, you can't make enough money."
The Keos said they themselves made "just enough to survive", but had no thoughts of living in New Zealand again.
"What we learned from this country is a lot of positive thinking that we can take to Cambodia to teach people," Mr Keo said.
Bigger role for Asean, with room to grow
Rodolfo C. Severino
The Straits Times
However, the political split in Thailand and the diplomatic sniping and occasional armed skirmishes between Thailand and Cambodia have projected an image of Asean in disarray.
DEC 28 — As the year ends, one is driven to pick events that may have been significant to Southeast Asia. To me, the most significant events this year were, not necessarily in the order of their significance, the Impeccable “incident”, the global economic crisis, the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen, the United States' strengthening links with Asean, Barack Obama becoming United States President, the fortification of structures in the South China Sea, the continued rise of China, the effectivity of the Asean Charter, and the bad blood between Thailand and Cambodia.
On March 8, the Impeccable, a US naval vessel designed to tow surveillance equipment, was confronted — “harassed”, the US said — by Chinese ships in China's 322km exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as it sought information on a submarine base on Hainan island. Both China and the US agree the Impeccable was in China's EEZ. But they disagree on whether it was legal under international law for the Impeccable to do what it was doing in the area. This incident highlighted the strategic rivalry between China and the US, notwithstanding their economic interdependence.
The tensions characterising the rivalry also underline the differences in values between China and the US. This year happens to be the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square “massacre”, as the West calls it, or “incident”, as the Chinese prefer. The event cost many young lives and turned the spotlight on the contending values of the West, on the one hand, and China and others, on the other. The West regarded Tiananmen as an assault on the rights of people; Beijing defended its actions by pointing to the value that China placed on political stability as a prerequisite for economic development.
This year has seen the US government, for strategic and economic reasons, reaching out to Asean. On the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Singapore, Obama met the leaders of all 10 Asean countries, including Myanmar, indicating the intention to make such meetings an annual affair. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travelled thrice to East Asia this year, including a visit to the Asean Secretariat.
On one of her trips, Clinton signed the instrument by which Washington acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, had already met the leaders of Asean countries that were members of Apec, appointed the first US ambassador to Asean, and started a large programme to support Asean integration.
Significantly, structures in the South China Sea have continued to be fortified this year. While all claimants have an interest in peace and the safety of navigation and overflight in this body of water, they each have a strategic interest in strengthening their respective toeholds on the features that they occupy and the waters that they control.
China has continued its rapid economic rise, despite the global economic crisis, and has seen its political and diplomatic influence surge consequently. These have enlarged the potential for China's dominance of East Asia and, therefore, its need to proceed in such a way so as to avoid the travails of, say, Washington's erstwhile dominance of the Western Hemisphere.
This year is the start of the implementation of the Asean Charter, which entered into force in December last year. The terms of reference for the regional human rights commission have been adopted and its members named. For the first time in an Asean document, the Charter enshrines aspirations for the internal behaviour of states — democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms, rule of law, good governance and social justice — as well as Asean's longstanding norms for inter-state conduct.
Asean's processes for decision making and dispute settlement have also been streamlined. An experts group is hard at work putting legal flesh on the bare bones of major Charter provisions. The member-states' permanent representatives have been appointed, and ambassadors of many other countries have been accredited to Asean.
However, the political split in Thailand and the diplomatic sniping and occasional armed skirmishes between Thailand and Cambodia have projected an image of Asean in disarray. It is perhaps the sense of an ineffectual Asean that has prompted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to propose an overarching Asia-Pacific structure to deal, at summit level, with both security and economic issues. Unclear as to its membership and as to whether it would lead to an improvement over present Asean-centred structures, the proposal has apparently met with resistance or tepid reaction.
Meanwhile, Vietnam is diligently preparing to take the helm of Asean and Asean-centred forums next year.
The Straits Times
However, the political split in Thailand and the diplomatic sniping and occasional armed skirmishes between Thailand and Cambodia have projected an image of Asean in disarray.
DEC 28 — As the year ends, one is driven to pick events that may have been significant to Southeast Asia. To me, the most significant events this year were, not necessarily in the order of their significance, the Impeccable “incident”, the global economic crisis, the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen, the United States' strengthening links with Asean, Barack Obama becoming United States President, the fortification of structures in the South China Sea, the continued rise of China, the effectivity of the Asean Charter, and the bad blood between Thailand and Cambodia.
On March 8, the Impeccable, a US naval vessel designed to tow surveillance equipment, was confronted — “harassed”, the US said — by Chinese ships in China's 322km exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as it sought information on a submarine base on Hainan island. Both China and the US agree the Impeccable was in China's EEZ. But they disagree on whether it was legal under international law for the Impeccable to do what it was doing in the area. This incident highlighted the strategic rivalry between China and the US, notwithstanding their economic interdependence.
The tensions characterising the rivalry also underline the differences in values between China and the US. This year happens to be the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square “massacre”, as the West calls it, or “incident”, as the Chinese prefer. The event cost many young lives and turned the spotlight on the contending values of the West, on the one hand, and China and others, on the other. The West regarded Tiananmen as an assault on the rights of people; Beijing defended its actions by pointing to the value that China placed on political stability as a prerequisite for economic development.
This year has seen the US government, for strategic and economic reasons, reaching out to Asean. On the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Singapore, Obama met the leaders of all 10 Asean countries, including Myanmar, indicating the intention to make such meetings an annual affair. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travelled thrice to East Asia this year, including a visit to the Asean Secretariat.
On one of her trips, Clinton signed the instrument by which Washington acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, had already met the leaders of Asean countries that were members of Apec, appointed the first US ambassador to Asean, and started a large programme to support Asean integration.
Significantly, structures in the South China Sea have continued to be fortified this year. While all claimants have an interest in peace and the safety of navigation and overflight in this body of water, they each have a strategic interest in strengthening their respective toeholds on the features that they occupy and the waters that they control.
China has continued its rapid economic rise, despite the global economic crisis, and has seen its political and diplomatic influence surge consequently. These have enlarged the potential for China's dominance of East Asia and, therefore, its need to proceed in such a way so as to avoid the travails of, say, Washington's erstwhile dominance of the Western Hemisphere.
This year is the start of the implementation of the Asean Charter, which entered into force in December last year. The terms of reference for the regional human rights commission have been adopted and its members named. For the first time in an Asean document, the Charter enshrines aspirations for the internal behaviour of states — democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms, rule of law, good governance and social justice — as well as Asean's longstanding norms for inter-state conduct.
Asean's processes for decision making and dispute settlement have also been streamlined. An experts group is hard at work putting legal flesh on the bare bones of major Charter provisions. The member-states' permanent representatives have been appointed, and ambassadors of many other countries have been accredited to Asean.
However, the political split in Thailand and the diplomatic sniping and occasional armed skirmishes between Thailand and Cambodia have projected an image of Asean in disarray. It is perhaps the sense of an ineffectual Asean that has prompted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to propose an overarching Asia-Pacific structure to deal, at summit level, with both security and economic issues. Unclear as to its membership and as to whether it would lead to an improvement over present Asean-centred structures, the proposal has apparently met with resistance or tepid reaction.
Meanwhile, Vietnam is diligently preparing to take the helm of Asean and Asean-centred forums next year.
US Senator Leahy May Review Funding of U.S.-Thailand Military Relations as Anupong, Abhisit Move Against Hmong
Abhisit and Anupong: The killers of 4,000 Hmong refugees?
"Should the Hmong be treated similarly it could badly damage the Thai military's reputation, and put our military collaboration at risk," U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy said on the Senate floor regarding U.S.-Thai Military Relations.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Washington, D.C. and Bangkok, Thailand, December 28, 2009 - The text of a Senate floor statement by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy ( D-VT ) was released today in Bangkok, Thailand and Washington, D.C., in opposition to the forced repatriation of over 4,000 Lao Hmong political refugees from Thailand to Laos.
“Key U.S. Senators are openly stating that the return of Lao Hmong refugees to Laos by Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Army Chief of Staff General Anupong Paochinda may have negative effects on America’s relationship with Thailand, including potential damage to the U.S.-Thai military relationship, including American funding, and the annual Cobra Gold exercises,” said Philip Smith, Executive Director of the Center for Public Policy Analysis ( CPPA ) in Washington, D.C.
Smith continued: “Senator Leahy is calling for the potential review of the funding for U.S.-Thailand military relations as General Anupong and Prime Minister Abhisit Order the Thai Army to move against defenseless Lao Hmong political refugees at Huay Nam Khao in Petchabun Province. Moreover, Prime Minister Abhisit and General Anupong have ignored repeated appeals by Members of Congress and the international community to His Majesty, Bhumibol Adulayadej, the King of Thailand, to grant asylum to the Hmong refugees until they can be resettled in third countries like Australia, Canada and The Netherlands, that have agreed to host them.”
“It is important to note that U.S. Senators, Russ Feingold ( D-WI ), Patrick Leahy ( D-VT ), Richard Lugar ( R-IN ), Barbara Boxer ( D-CA ), Al Franken ( D-MN ) , Amy Klobuchar ( D-MN ), Mark Begich ( D-AK ), Lisa Murkowski ( R-AK ) and Sheldon Whitehouse ( D-RI ) sent the letter to Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on December 17, 2009, and released it on December 23, 2009, in Washington, D.C. following reports of more Thai soldiers and a large troop convoy of over 50 army trucks and buses being deployed at the main Hmong refugee camp at Ban Huay Nam Khao to force over 4,000 political refugees back to Laos over the Christmas and New Year holiday season,” Smith concluded.
“Senator Leahy, Chairman of the key committee in the U.S. Senate that oversees international U.S. military assistance, has issued a clear message to the Thai Government that forced repatriation of Hmong back to Laos, as now appears imminent, would have dire implications for U.S. military-to-military cooperation with Thailand,” said Edmund McWilliams, a retired senior foreign service officer who served at the U.S. Embassies in Thailand and Laos and is a combat veterans of the Vietnam War.
“The Senator, joined by other colleagues earlier this month, wrote to the Thai Prime Minister underscoring the urgency and importance… of this issue; Forced repatriation of Hmong back to the land from which they were driven would be especially egregious in this Christmas season, particularly for many Christians among the Hmong,” McWilliams explained.
The following is the text of the statement by Senator Leahy:
STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY
ON
THE FATE OF HMONG REFUGEES
Senate Floor
December 23, 2009, Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to speak briefly about a worrisome humanitarian situation that is developing in Thailand, which could cause problems for our relations with the Thai military.
Thailand and the United States are long time friends and allies, and our armed forces have developed a cooperative relationship. Many Thai military officers have been trained in the United States, and Thai soldiers have participated in joint U.S.-Thai training exercises such as Operation Cobra Gold. I expect this relationship to continue. But I am very concerned, as I know are other Senators, that the Thai Government may be on the verge of deporting roughly 4,000 ethnic Hmong back to Laos where many fear persecution.
Thailand has a long history of generosity towards refugees from Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is a history to be proud of. But the Thai Government, which insists that the Hmong are economic migrants who should be repatriated, has reportedly deployed additional troops to Phetchabun province where most of the Hmong are in camps. There is a growing concern that the Thai military may expel the Hmong before the end of the year. There is also concern that a group of 158 Hmong in Nongkhai province, who have been screened and granted United Nations refugee status, could be sent back to Laos. I understand that the United States and several countries have told the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Thai Government they are prepared to consider this group of refugees for resettlement. Potential resettlement countries should be given an opportunity to interview these individuals in Thailand.
It may be that some of the 4,000 Hmong are economic migrants. It is also likely that some are refugees who have a credible fear of persecution if they were returned to Laos. I am aware that many Hmong fought alongside the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, working with Thai authorities, needs to determine who has a legitimate claim for asylum and who does not, in accordance with long-standing principles of refugee law and practice. No one with a valid claim should be returned to Laos except on a voluntary basis. The United States, and other countries, can help resettle those who do have valid claims but need access and the opportunity to consider relevant cases.
I mention this because I cannot overstate the consternation it would cause here if the Thai Government were to forcibly return the Hmong to Laos in violation of international practice and requirements. The image of Laotian refugees – including many who the United Nations and the Thai Government itself have stated are in need of protection – being rounded up by Thai soldiers and sent back against their will during the Christmas season, and the possible violence that could result, is very worrisome. On December 17th I joined other Senators in a letter to the Thai Prime Minister about this, and I ask that a copy be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.
As Chairman of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee which funds international assistance programs, I have supported U.S. military training programs and other assistance to the Thai military. We share common interests and want to continue to work together. But after the deplorable forced repatriation to China of Uighur refugees by Cambodian authorities last week, we expect better of the Thai Government. Should the Hmong be treated similarly it could badly damage the Thai military’s reputation, and put our military collaboration at risk.
###
Contact: Ms. Maria Gomez or Mr. Juan Lopez
Telephone ( 202 ) 543-1444
info@centerforpublicpolicyanalysis.org
CPPA - Center for Public Policy Analysis
2020 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Suite No. #212
Washington, DC 20006 USA
Thailand deports Lao-Hmong despite international concerns available
Dec 28, 2009
DPA
Bangkok - Thailand on Monday began deporting 4,000 ethnic Hmong refugees to Laos despite international appeals to the government to reconsider the involuntary repatriation to an uncertain future.
The first batch of 442 Hmong were taken from Huay Nam Khao camp in Phetchabun province at 9:30 am (0230 GMT) to buses that will carry them to Nong Khai province where they will cross the Mekong River on the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge into neighbouring Laos, said Thai Army Colonel Thana Jaruwat, spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command.
The remaining 3,600 have thus far refused to leave the camp peacefully, he said.
'We will try to convince them to leave on their own will but if they refuse we will enforce the law,' Thana said.
Thailand has never recognized the Hmong at Huay Nam Khao, 280 kilometres north-east of Bangkok, as refugees but instead has classified them as illegal migrants, who, according to Thai law can be expelled without bringing charges against them, Thana said.
Officials from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), other human rights workers and journalists were held several kilometres away from the camp to prevent outsiders from observing the mass deportation operation.
'If the Hmong see journalists they will do themselves harm to make a scene and we don't want that,' Thana said.
The US government, the UNHCR and the European Union all urged the Thai government to reconsider its deportation plans but to no avail.
'This is unfortunate and indefensible and we're very concerned about it,' said Eric Schwartz, the US assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, in a telephone interview with the German Press Agency dpa.
Thailand and Laos agreed months ago that the Hmong at Huay Nam Khao camp must be deported by year-end. The Lao government announced on state TV Sunday night that the returning Hmong will be treated humanely.
'The government of Laos has a great opportunity now to demonstrate a policy of humanitarian treatment for those who have returned,' Schwartz said.
Preparation for the mass deportation began last week when the Thai army, which controls Huay Ban Khao, confiscated all sharp objects and mobile phones from the 4,000 Hmong residents, some of whom have lived in the camp since 2004 hoping to be resettled in third countries.
The Hmong, an ethnic minority which has inhabited the mountainous northern region of Laos for centuries, were recruited as guerrilla fighters by the US military in its 'secret war' against communist forces in Laos.
The communists prevailed in 1975, and the Hmong were left behind. Unknown thousands fled to neighbouring Thailand since 1975 and sought resettlement abroad.
In 2003, the US agreed to take 14,000 Hmong who had lived for years at Tham Krabok temple in north-east Thailand. Since then, some 8,000 more Hmong sought refuge in Thailand, claiming persecution at home.
About 3,000 refugees returned to Laos voluntarily in 2008-09. Thailand insists the remainder must be deported to prevent the country from being a magnet for more Hmong migration.
'There are ways to try to discourage economic migrants but you cannot decide by fiat one day that people are going to stop crossing the border when they need protection,' Schwartz said.
Besides Hmong, Thailand has attracted more than 1.5 million refugees from Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam over the past four decades.
The Thai government has been criticized for not allowing UNHCR to determine the Hmong's eligibility for refugee status. At least 158 former Huay Nam Khao residents, now in a detention centre in Nong Khai, have been classified as 'people of concern' by the UN agency.
Despite claims of concern, no foreign country has expressed interest in accepting the Huay Nam Khao community.
To date, the Lao government has not invited the UNHCR to work in the country, nor to monitor the Hmong repatriation process, although foreign embassy staff in Vientiane have been brought to resettlement camps where some of the 3,000 Hmong who returned have ended up.
DPA
Bangkok - Thailand on Monday began deporting 4,000 ethnic Hmong refugees to Laos despite international appeals to the government to reconsider the involuntary repatriation to an uncertain future.
The first batch of 442 Hmong were taken from Huay Nam Khao camp in Phetchabun province at 9:30 am (0230 GMT) to buses that will carry them to Nong Khai province where they will cross the Mekong River on the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge into neighbouring Laos, said Thai Army Colonel Thana Jaruwat, spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command.
The remaining 3,600 have thus far refused to leave the camp peacefully, he said.
'We will try to convince them to leave on their own will but if they refuse we will enforce the law,' Thana said.
Thailand has never recognized the Hmong at Huay Nam Khao, 280 kilometres north-east of Bangkok, as refugees but instead has classified them as illegal migrants, who, according to Thai law can be expelled without bringing charges against them, Thana said.
Officials from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), other human rights workers and journalists were held several kilometres away from the camp to prevent outsiders from observing the mass deportation operation.
'If the Hmong see journalists they will do themselves harm to make a scene and we don't want that,' Thana said.
The US government, the UNHCR and the European Union all urged the Thai government to reconsider its deportation plans but to no avail.
'This is unfortunate and indefensible and we're very concerned about it,' said Eric Schwartz, the US assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, in a telephone interview with the German Press Agency dpa.
Thailand and Laos agreed months ago that the Hmong at Huay Nam Khao camp must be deported by year-end. The Lao government announced on state TV Sunday night that the returning Hmong will be treated humanely.
'The government of Laos has a great opportunity now to demonstrate a policy of humanitarian treatment for those who have returned,' Schwartz said.
Preparation for the mass deportation began last week when the Thai army, which controls Huay Ban Khao, confiscated all sharp objects and mobile phones from the 4,000 Hmong residents, some of whom have lived in the camp since 2004 hoping to be resettled in third countries.
The Hmong, an ethnic minority which has inhabited the mountainous northern region of Laos for centuries, were recruited as guerrilla fighters by the US military in its 'secret war' against communist forces in Laos.
The communists prevailed in 1975, and the Hmong were left behind. Unknown thousands fled to neighbouring Thailand since 1975 and sought resettlement abroad.
In 2003, the US agreed to take 14,000 Hmong who had lived for years at Tham Krabok temple in north-east Thailand. Since then, some 8,000 more Hmong sought refuge in Thailand, claiming persecution at home.
About 3,000 refugees returned to Laos voluntarily in 2008-09. Thailand insists the remainder must be deported to prevent the country from being a magnet for more Hmong migration.
'There are ways to try to discourage economic migrants but you cannot decide by fiat one day that people are going to stop crossing the border when they need protection,' Schwartz said.
Besides Hmong, Thailand has attracted more than 1.5 million refugees from Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam over the past four decades.
The Thai government has been criticized for not allowing UNHCR to determine the Hmong's eligibility for refugee status. At least 158 former Huay Nam Khao residents, now in a detention centre in Nong Khai, have been classified as 'people of concern' by the UN agency.
Despite claims of concern, no foreign country has expressed interest in accepting the Huay Nam Khao community.
To date, the Lao government has not invited the UNHCR to work in the country, nor to monitor the Hmong repatriation process, although foreign embassy staff in Vientiane have been brought to resettlement camps where some of the 3,000 Hmong who returned have ended up.
Cambodia needs clear policy on immigrants
Dear Editor,
Op-Ed: Soprach Tong
Viewer comment: of course Hun Sen, Heng Samrin and Chhea Sim including their patrons are knowing nothing about the bright future of Cambodia. They are leading the country to the dark future, not the bright future. Those leaders and some followers are blindly boasting about current progressive of materials which has advanced beyond Khmer Rouge regime. But these leaders and their patrons are leading to destroy the national institutions of Cambodia. Without having a strong institutions, Cambodia is like a house without foundation. Vietnam has planned 20, 50 and 100 years to eliminate Cambodia. It is called "eliminate without bleeding". This tactic is to amputate Cambodia's main national institutions. Now, Cambodia's Nation, Buddhism and Monarchy have been twisted and manipulated by the CPP disguising under the rigid plans of Vietnam. Immigration is part of those tactics to manipulate Hun Sen's blind eyes. Cambodians will become Vietnamese when Cambodian people cannot say anything about its border under the border ongoing demarcation (as evidence Cambodian farmers at the border are arrested and jeopardized). Election will produce nothing for Cambodia, but for Vietnam while major aggressive voters are Vietnamese, CPP needs power next 100 years, NEC is not neutral and partial, Vietnam's development in Cambodia is a long plan to absorb this country etc. Today, I came across a speech by one of the Khmer elders said that "Khmer Rouge eliminated their own people but strongly protected territorial land. Current regime, the government has given up their land to Vietnam but keep lives of the people a under maltreatment". So between Khmer Rouge and Hun Sen government, which regime is better? Saying this, Hun Sen and his followers will respond to us that they don't see Vietnamese carried any Khmer land out to Vietnam. CPP's response has always sarcastic like what sVar Kimhong has recently manipulated about the border demarcation with Vietnam at the national assembly. Only one question is that sVar Kimhong has never been to the border, if he went their he will take or see the pictures like Son Chhay showed in the letter. What is the future of Cambodia?
I write in response to the article “Vietnam repatriates Cambodian beggars” (December 23). I was ashamed to hear that nearly 900 illegal Cambodian beggars were repatriated by Vietnamese authorities this year, as well as the recent deportation of illegal Cambodian workers sent back through the border by Thai authorities, several of whom were killed while passing through the forest on the Cambodian-Thai border.
However, there have been no strong reactions against the Thai shootings of these people, just warnings for the migrants not to emigrate to Thailand, forgetting that a poor standard of living forced these people to leave home and cross the border illegally in the first place.
In general, the government always declares Cambodia is run by a “government of economic growth”. But this slogan should be questioned: What does it mean that the Cambodian economy does not have enough capacity to create work for domestic labourers? On the other hand, during the recent tensions between Cambodia and Thailand, we heard information about hundreds of Cambodian returnees who were being turned back every day.
Then, the Cambodian authorities quickly deported the ethnic Uighur refugees, who were seeking political asylum, back to China last Saturday. But in the case of other illegal foreign immigrants living and gaining job opportunities in the Kingdom, the government does not take measures against them as actively as Vietnam and Thailand.
From my point of view, I think that this slow reaction against illegal immigrants is maybe due to the fact that the Cambodian economy has not yet produced enough work for the local labour force, and that perhaps Cambodia does not have the necessary immigration laws to control who enters its territory.
Therefore, we would very much appreciate if the National Assembly was to review and pass important draft laws on immigration to deal with domestic labour and manage the population in order to alleviate poverty in Cambodia.
Tong Soprach
Phnom Penh
Op-Ed: Soprach Tong
Viewer comment: of course Hun Sen, Heng Samrin and Chhea Sim including their patrons are knowing nothing about the bright future of Cambodia. They are leading the country to the dark future, not the bright future. Those leaders and some followers are blindly boasting about current progressive of materials which has advanced beyond Khmer Rouge regime. But these leaders and their patrons are leading to destroy the national institutions of Cambodia. Without having a strong institutions, Cambodia is like a house without foundation. Vietnam has planned 20, 50 and 100 years to eliminate Cambodia. It is called "eliminate without bleeding". This tactic is to amputate Cambodia's main national institutions. Now, Cambodia's Nation, Buddhism and Monarchy have been twisted and manipulated by the CPP disguising under the rigid plans of Vietnam. Immigration is part of those tactics to manipulate Hun Sen's blind eyes. Cambodians will become Vietnamese when Cambodian people cannot say anything about its border under the border ongoing demarcation (as evidence Cambodian farmers at the border are arrested and jeopardized). Election will produce nothing for Cambodia, but for Vietnam while major aggressive voters are Vietnamese, CPP needs power next 100 years, NEC is not neutral and partial, Vietnam's development in Cambodia is a long plan to absorb this country etc. Today, I came across a speech by one of the Khmer elders said that "Khmer Rouge eliminated their own people but strongly protected territorial land. Current regime, the government has given up their land to Vietnam but keep lives of the people a under maltreatment". So between Khmer Rouge and Hun Sen government, which regime is better? Saying this, Hun Sen and his followers will respond to us that they don't see Vietnamese carried any Khmer land out to Vietnam. CPP's response has always sarcastic like what sVar Kimhong has recently manipulated about the border demarcation with Vietnam at the national assembly. Only one question is that sVar Kimhong has never been to the border, if he went their he will take or see the pictures like Son Chhay showed in the letter. What is the future of Cambodia?
I write in response to the article “Vietnam repatriates Cambodian beggars” (December 23). I was ashamed to hear that nearly 900 illegal Cambodian beggars were repatriated by Vietnamese authorities this year, as well as the recent deportation of illegal Cambodian workers sent back through the border by Thai authorities, several of whom were killed while passing through the forest on the Cambodian-Thai border.
However, there have been no strong reactions against the Thai shootings of these people, just warnings for the migrants not to emigrate to Thailand, forgetting that a poor standard of living forced these people to leave home and cross the border illegally in the first place.
In general, the government always declares Cambodia is run by a “government of economic growth”. But this slogan should be questioned: What does it mean that the Cambodian economy does not have enough capacity to create work for domestic labourers? On the other hand, during the recent tensions between Cambodia and Thailand, we heard information about hundreds of Cambodian returnees who were being turned back every day.
Then, the Cambodian authorities quickly deported the ethnic Uighur refugees, who were seeking political asylum, back to China last Saturday. But in the case of other illegal foreign immigrants living and gaining job opportunities in the Kingdom, the government does not take measures against them as actively as Vietnam and Thailand.
From my point of view, I think that this slow reaction against illegal immigrants is maybe due to the fact that the Cambodian economy has not yet produced enough work for the local labour force, and that perhaps Cambodia does not have the necessary immigration laws to control who enters its territory.
Therefore, we would very much appreciate if the National Assembly was to review and pass important draft laws on immigration to deal with domestic labour and manage the population in order to alleviate poverty in Cambodia.
Tong Soprach
Phnom Penh
Svray Rieng villagers under death threat for protesting land dispute
26 December 2009
By Sok Serey
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer
Villagers from Romeas Hek district, Svay Rieng province, indicated that they are threatened with arrest and death when they stood up to protest against a company that cleared lands and destroyed the villagers’ crop.
About 100 Cambodian villagers from Ta Suos village, Tros commune, Romeas Hek district, Svay Rieng province, claimed that a number of villagers where threatened with shooting and killing, arrest, and sending to jail when they prevented machineries from the Peam Chaing rubber plantation company from clearing lands and destroying large number of hectares of their cassava and cashew crops.
Yea Yeng, a Ta Suos villager, declared that large number of hectares of cassava and cashew crops were destroyed from the rubber plantation company’s land clearing operation.
Yea Yeng said: “This morning, 70 to 80 villagers went to protest, to stop them from continuing their land clearing. They did not agree, they scorned us and they wanted to shoot us. They threatened to handcuff us.”
Chhum Chham, another villager, indicated that the situation is very tense right now: “Nowadays, it is very difficult. The villagers are not allowed to take their animals out for grazing. Where should we go look? There is no place for our buffaloes to graze, all our lands are gone, the villagers have nothing now. Our meager vegetable crops were destroyed, that’s why the villagers cannot take it anymore.”
Another villager chimed in: “Our cassava crops are destroyed, that was why we went to stop them. They wanted to beat us up. We surrounded them, not allowing them to beat us. They said that they will beat us and they will handcuff us and send us to jail.”
Regarding the villagers’ accusations above, Pen Ny Den, the deputy director of the Svay Rieng-based Peam Chaing rubber plantation company, said that he did not know about this case.
Pen Ny Den said: “I was actually near there, but I did not know the details. I don’t know if the land was cleared or not because I am in Kampong Som now.”
Nget Nara, a facilitator for the Adhoc human rights organization, said: “We call on the local authority to pay attention and provide appropriate safety to the villagers.”
Victims of the destruction indicated that they came to live in this area since 1979. In 2007, the Peam Chaing rubber plantation company came and laid claim to the ownership of the villagers’ lands.
The company brought in 3 mechanical land clearing equipments to clear the land and to destroy numerous hectares of grown cassava and cashew crops belonging to the villagers.
The villagers and the local authority indicated that the company laid claim to 3,960 hectares of land for rubber plantation. Several hundreds of families from 5 villages are currently concerned about the grabbing of their lands in the near future. The five villages include: Ta Suos, Boeung, Tros, M’reak Teab and Trapaing Peay villages. They are all located in Romeas Hek district, Svay Rieng province.
By Sok Serey
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer
Villagers from Romeas Hek district, Svay Rieng province, indicated that they are threatened with arrest and death when they stood up to protest against a company that cleared lands and destroyed the villagers’ crop.
About 100 Cambodian villagers from Ta Suos village, Tros commune, Romeas Hek district, Svay Rieng province, claimed that a number of villagers where threatened with shooting and killing, arrest, and sending to jail when they prevented machineries from the Peam Chaing rubber plantation company from clearing lands and destroying large number of hectares of their cassava and cashew crops.
Yea Yeng, a Ta Suos villager, declared that large number of hectares of cassava and cashew crops were destroyed from the rubber plantation company’s land clearing operation.
Yea Yeng said: “This morning, 70 to 80 villagers went to protest, to stop them from continuing their land clearing. They did not agree, they scorned us and they wanted to shoot us. They threatened to handcuff us.”
Chhum Chham, another villager, indicated that the situation is very tense right now: “Nowadays, it is very difficult. The villagers are not allowed to take their animals out for grazing. Where should we go look? There is no place for our buffaloes to graze, all our lands are gone, the villagers have nothing now. Our meager vegetable crops were destroyed, that’s why the villagers cannot take it anymore.”
Another villager chimed in: “Our cassava crops are destroyed, that was why we went to stop them. They wanted to beat us up. We surrounded them, not allowing them to beat us. They said that they will beat us and they will handcuff us and send us to jail.”
Regarding the villagers’ accusations above, Pen Ny Den, the deputy director of the Svay Rieng-based Peam Chaing rubber plantation company, said that he did not know about this case.
Pen Ny Den said: “I was actually near there, but I did not know the details. I don’t know if the land was cleared or not because I am in Kampong Som now.”
Nget Nara, a facilitator for the Adhoc human rights organization, said: “We call on the local authority to pay attention and provide appropriate safety to the villagers.”
Victims of the destruction indicated that they came to live in this area since 1979. In 2007, the Peam Chaing rubber plantation company came and laid claim to the ownership of the villagers’ lands.
The company brought in 3 mechanical land clearing equipments to clear the land and to destroy numerous hectares of grown cassava and cashew crops belonging to the villagers.
The villagers and the local authority indicated that the company laid claim to 3,960 hectares of land for rubber plantation. Several hundreds of families from 5 villages are currently concerned about the grabbing of their lands in the near future. The five villages include: Ta Suos, Boeung, Tros, M’reak Teab and Trapaing Peay villages. They are all located in Romeas Hek district, Svay Rieng province.
New form of malaria threatens Thai-Cambodia border
This Aug. 27, 2009 photo shows stacks of expired malaria medication in an NGO's village office near Pailin, Cambodia. Malaria parasites in the Thai-Cambodia area of Pailin, Cambodia have become resistant to artemisinin-based therapies according to Non Governmental Agencies working in the region. If this drug stops working, there's no good replacement to combat a disease that kills 1 million annually. As a result, earlier this year international medical leaders declared resistant malaria here a health emergency. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
This Aug. 28, 2009 photo shows malaria researcher Sornsuda Setaphan preparing blood samples at the hospital in Pailin, Cambodia. Malaria parasites in the Thai-Cambodia area of Pailin, Cambodia have become resistant to artemisinin-based therapies according to Non Governmental Agencies working in the region. If this drug stops working, there's no good replacement to combat a disease that kills 1 million annually. As a result, earlier this year international medical leaders declared resistant malaria here a health emergency. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
This Aug. 29, 2009 photo shows Cambodian Hoeun Hong Da, 13, still recovering from an attack of malaria, smiling as he arrives home with a new mosquito resistant bed net as he arrives at O'treng village on the outskirts of Pailin, Cambodia. This spot on the Thai-Cambodian border is home to a form of malaria that keeps rendering one powerful drug after another useless. This time, scientists have confirmed the first signs of resistance to the only affordable treatment left in the global medicine cabinet for malaria: Artemisinin. If this drug stops working, there's no good replacement to combat a disease that kills 1 million annually. As a result, earlier this year international medical leaders declared resistant malaria here a health emergency. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
This Aug. 29, 2009 photo shows Chhay Meth, 9, suffering through an attack of malaria at the family's home in O'treng village on the outskirts of Pailin, Cambodia. This spot on the Thai-Cambodian border is home to a form of malaria that keeps rendering one powerful drug after another useless. This time, scientists have confirmed the first signs of resistance to the only affordable treatment left in the global medicine cabinet for malaria: Artemisinin. If this drug stops working, there's no good replacement to combat a disease that kills 1 million annually. As a result, earlier this year international medical leaders declared resistant malaria here a health emergency. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
2009-12-28
By MARGIE MASON and MARTHA MENDOZA, Associated Press Writers
Associated Press
EDITOR'S NOTE: Once curable diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria are rapidly mutating into aggressive strains that resist drugs. The reason: The misuse of the very drugs that were supposed to save us has built up drug resistance worldwide. Second in a five-part series.
PAILIN, Cambodia (AP) - O'treng village does not look like the epicenter of anything.
Just off a muddy, rutted-out road, it is nothing more than a handful of Khmer-style bamboo huts perched crookedly on stilts, tucked among a tangle of cornfields once littered with deadly land mines.
Yet this spot on the Thai-Cambodian border is home to a form of malaria that keeps rendering one powerful drug after another useless. This time, scientists have confirmed the first signs of resistance to the only affordable treatment left in the global medicine cabinet for malaria: Artemisinin.
If this drug should stop working, there would be no good replacement to combat a disease that kills 1 million people annually. As a result, international medical leaders declared this year that resistant malaria here is a health emergency.
"This is not business as usual. It's something really special, and it needs a real concerted effort," said Dr. Nick White, a malaria expert at Mahidol University in Bangkok, who has spent decades trying to eradicate the disease from Southeast Asia. "We know that children have been dying in Africa _ millions of children have died over the past three decades _ and a lot of those deaths have been attributed to drug resistance. And we know that the drug resistance came from the same place."
Malaria is just one of the leading killer infectious diseases battling back in a new and more deadly form, the AP found in a six-month look at the soaring rates of drug resistance worldwide. After decades of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and staph have started to mutate. The result: The drugs are slowly dying.
Already, The Associated Press found, resistance to malaria has spread faster and wider than previously documented. Dr. White said virtually every case of malaria he sees in western Cambodia is now resistant to drugs. And in the Pailin area, patients given artemisinin take twice as long as those elsewhere to be clear of the parasite _ 84 hours instead of the typical 48, and sometimes even 96.
Mosquitoes spread this resistant malaria quickly from shack to shack, village to village, eventually country to country.
And so O'treng, with its 45 poor families, naked kids, skinny dogs and boiling pots of rice, finds itself at the epicenter of an increasingly desperate worldwide effort to stop a dangerous new version of an old disease.
Bundled in a threadbare batik sarong, 51-year-old Chhien Rern, one of O'treng's sick residents, sweats and shivers as a 103-degree fever rages against the malaria parasites in her bloodstream.
Three days ago Chhien Rern started feeling ill while looking for work in a neighboring district. So she did what most rural Cambodians do: She walked to a little shop and asked for malaria medicine. With no prescription, she was handed a packet of pills; she is unsure what they were.
"After I took the drugs, I felt better for a while," she says. "Then I got sick again."
The headaches, chills and fever, classic symptoms of malaria, worsened. Chhien Rern's daughter persuaded her to take a motorbike taxi past washed out bridges and flooded culverts to the nearest hospital in Pailin, a dirty border town about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from O'treng.
Doctors say there is a good chance that Chhien Rern was sold counterfeit drugs.
People generate drug resistant malaria when they take too little medicine, substandard medicine or _ as is all too often the case around O'treng _ counterfeit medicine with a pinch of the real stuff. Once established, the drug-resistant malaria is spread by mosquitoes. So one person's counterfeit medicine can eventually spawn widespread resistant disease.
Yet in most parts of the world, people routinely buy antimalarials over the counter at local pharmacies and treat themselves.
A recent study out of neighboring Laos found 88 percent of stores selling artemisinin-based drugs, the same ones scientists are desperately trying to preserve, were actually peddling fakes. Worse, nearly 15 percent of the counterfeits were laced with small hints of artemisinin, which could prompt resistance. The researchers found indications that some were made in China, feeding smugglers' routes that snake through Myanmar and into Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The counterfeits, along with outdated drugs, are jumping continents. In Africa, where malaria is endemic in 45 countries, the fake drug industry is thriving. A 2003 World Health Organization survey found between 20 percent and 90 percent of antimalarials randomly purchased in seven African countries failed quality testing, depending on the type of drug.
WHO and Interpol formed a task force three years ago to try to stop counterfeiters, seizing millions of fake malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and other pills in Southeast Asia and Africa. But officials say the work is only as good as the countries' legal systems.
"One of the problems is that there's not really any enforcement, so what happens when they find a drug that's counterfeit or substandard?" says David Sintasath, a regional epidemiologist at the nonprofit Malaria Consortium in Bangkok. "The policy is to take it away from them. That's good until the next month when they get their next shipment, right?"
Countless unlicensed shops in Cambodia sell artesunate, a single-drug therapy that has been banned in the country. Artesunate, a modified version of artemisinin derived from a Chinese herb, has been hailed as miracle treatment worldwide because it works so well with so few side effects. But Cambodian surveys have shown that many patients take artesunate alone instead of mixing it with another antimalarial drug, making it easier for resistance to build.
"The drug has been around for a long time and misused for a long time, and this is all encouraging the parasite to develop resistance," says Dr. Delia Bethell, of the U.S. Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Science, whose research has been at the forefront of identifying emerging resistance on the border.
Back in western Cambodia a few miles from O'treng village, shopkeeper Nop Chen turns a flashlight on a glass case full of drugs he hawks from inside his cramped roadside house. He digs through the many boxes and produces two different types of artemisinin-based antimalarials. Both lack the full amount of a second required medication, mefloquine, necessary to treat the strain of malaria in the area and ward off more resistance.
But Nop Chen, a former Khmer Rouge medic, points to a small Cambodian seal on the boxes and says he feels confident the drugs are the real deal. Still, he acknowledges he is not licensed to sell the pills and he is unsure where they originated.
"I'm not concerned because it's got the sticker and the stamp," he says, squinting at the Khmer script on the labels. "Because of the logo, I trust it to not be fake; it was made in Cambodia."
Walk past O'treng's cluster of sagging huts, cross another cornfield and hike a twisted mile (1 1/2 kilometer) on a dirt track to a wooden shack where a string of smoke is curling through the wooden floor planks in a largely futile effort to keep mosquitoes away. It is here that skinny 13-year-old Hoeun Hong Da wakes up on the floor nauseous and burning with fever.
Hong Da recovered from malaria two months ago, but now the dizziness and headaches are back. He has been sickened by the disease six or seven times in his short life _ too many to remember. He knows that if he does not get to a hospital soon, he could die.
With no new treatments in the pipeline, normally reserved scientists are quick to use words like "disaster" or "catastrophe" when asked what might happen if they do not contain the disease that is ravaging young Hong Da before it spreads to Africa. There, malaria already kills an estimated 2,000 kids every day.
For the past 50,000 years the malaria parasite has been evolving, and migrating, alongside humans. It moves within the huts of O'treng, and into neighboring towns when men like Hong Da's father and older siblings float from job to job.
Some work is close enough for them to return home at night, but other jobs keep them away for stretches of time. They sleep in tight rows, sweating and weary, in disintegrating bamboo huts with workers who are also traveling, and possibly infected with malaria.
The concept of containing drug resistance has never been tried before. Scientists wonder: How do you control the spread of a resistant parasite transmitted by mosquitoes that bite people who live and work in infested jungle areas, then scatter in all directions, all the time?
This area, the former stronghold of the murderous Khmer Rouge, has a notorious history. Burmese migrant workers who once mined rubies and sapphires in these now deforested hills are believed to have helped transport strains resistant to the drug chloroquine back to Myanmar a half-century ago. From there it spread to India and later over to Africa until the drug was useless worldwide.
A decade later, history repeated itself when resistance to the drug sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine followed the same path.
Now, in western Cambodia, scientists are worried because the artemisinin-based drugs are taking longer than usual to kill the parasites. This year, an army of aid agencies and experts from the WHO began racing to this impoverished corner on the Thai-Cambodian border to divide up a $22.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aimed at stopping this virulent new strain.
Grants haven't stopped lines of Cambodians, sick or not, from queuing up every morning at Thailand's border, charging past the checkpoints in search of work or goods. Some may carry resistant strains in, others may bring them home.
Grants have not stopped the parasite from spreading in the O'treng area, despite widespread bednet distribution, awareness campaigns and enhanced surveillance systems. Some scientists say the only sure way to fix the problem is to eradicate malaria entirely from western Cambodia.
"It's really dangerous," says Dr. Rupam Tripura, who is conducting a study in Pailin for the Wellcome Trust-Mahidol University-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Program. "What will happen to the mosquitoes? Can you kill those living in the jungle? No. So you cannot kill the strain."
If O'treng is the epicenter of this emerging disease, Phoun Sokha is the point man aimed at controlling it.
At 47, Phoun Sokha is the village malaria worker who lives at the mouth of the hamlet and proudly displays an orange plastic kit that resembles a tackle box.
Phoun Sokha is serious about his packets of medicine and his rapid tests to prick blood from sick villagers' fingers to determine whether they have malaria, and if so, what type. He makes sure patients are taking their free medicines and checks to see if they are improving. If not, Phoun Sokha can even arrange transportation to the hospital.
But treating O'treng's malaria patients can be frustrating.
"Some of the patients, when they went to the hospital, after one month, maybe they get malaria again," he says.
Today Hong Da, the village boy who has fought malaria so many times before, heads home from the hospital after a few days of treatment. He clutches a new mosquito net he hopes will prevent yet another infection. Together, the recovering boy and his weathered mom shuffle past sick neighbor Chhien Rern's shack before disappearing among the tassels of the cornfield toward their home.
But all is not well.
Under a tattered quilt, Hong Da's 9-year-old sister Hoeun Chhay Meth is curled on a thin mattress atop the wooden floor inside the family's open-air home.
She had malaria alongside her brother two months ago. They share a mosquito net that she burned a hole in when she stayed up one night reading by the light of a makeshift candle. Her brother thinks that is how the mosquitoes infected them.
"Very afraid of dying," says Chhay Meth, who has started taking medicine provided by the village malaria worker. "I feel worse than before. I cannot walk myself or stand up by myself and cannot eat well."
Hong Da understands. He gently lifts his little sister's limp body, scooping her up, his strength returning. Chhay Meth reaches weakly for her mother.
Like her big brother, this child does not know about counterfeit drugs or antimalarials.
She only knows she is sick. And the medicines do not seem to work as well any more in this little village she calls home.
____
Martha Mendoza is an AP national writer based in Mexico City. Margie Mason is an AP medical writer who reported from Cambodia while on a fellowship from The Nieman Foundation at Harvard University.
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