PSR-PSNK Informations - PSR et PDH

Transcription

PSRPSR - PSN
PS N K Informations
KNbkSseRg<aHCati
iExµr - PARTI DU SALUT NATIONAL KHMER
HCatExµ
matuPUmid*kMst´rbs´elakGñk kMBug degØayrkCMnYyCabnÞan´BIelakGñk
YOUR MISERABLE MOTHERLAND
Cambodia National Rescue Party
NEEDS YOUR HELP NOW
http://www.nationalrescueparty.org/
Radio PSR - CNRP
Site PSR - CNRP
http://www.facebook.com/candlelightprogram
http://www.samrainsyparty.org/
Numéro203
sUmemtþaCYyseRg<aHCati
Exµr
HCatiExµ
01 AVRIL 2013
4ème année
INTEGRITE - VERITE - JUSTICE
International Community Must Burn Bridges With Illegitimate
Opposition leader Son Soubert barred from Vietnam
Government And Help Ensure Democratic Elections
matikasMxan´> - S O M M A I R E
m s C x -- CC N
N RR FF :: http://www.nrp-dc.com/
SROK KHMER :
. Cambodia / Land rights activist Yorm Bopha
. LE DEBAT – Francophonie : combats de femmes
. Yorm Bopha : la cour suprême refuse la libération conditionelle
. L’aventure humaine de Troyes au Cambodge
. Déplacement de Bertrand Delanoë au Laos et au Cambodge à
l’occasion du 75ème bureau de l’AIMF
. VIDEO – ‘’One Dollard Project’’, épisode #1, : le Ministre de
la papaye fermentée
. Textile – Hausse du minimum, trop timide pour les syndicats
. Un Haut-Pyrénéen et ses enfants retrouvés morts au
Cambodge : le suicide familial écarté
. Neuf touristes blessés dans un accident de montgolfière à
Siem Reap
. Le rugby au Cambodge, une histoire de transmission
. Cuisine – Du social et des saveurs : la recette gagnante de Rondeng
. Kratié cut to shreds
. Hun Sen linked to BHP deal : report
. Government Denies Reports on Mining Corruption and Hun Sen
. Audit Finds Major Flaws in National Voter List
. NDI defends audit of Cambodia’s voter rolls
. Troubling Data in voter rolls : report
. Evictees back on Land
. Contruction begins at bloody eviction site
. King Sihamoni Petitioned Over Jailed Boeung Kak Activist
Histoire&Culture :
. Cambodia and Indochina Federation
Kamnap-Kumnou :
xageCIglavbic xaglices[mbWt xagekItyYnebH xagkñúgyYnbUm
--------------------------------
The CWC Cambodia condemned Govt on the Border &
concerned a policeman's position in Pailin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiKIuAGSx0Y
International Community Must Burn Bridges With Illegitimate
Government And Help Ensure Democratic Elections
March 24, 2013
CAMBODIA
International Community Must Burn Bridges With Illegitimate Government And Help Ensure
Democratic Elections
Revelations this week from the National Democratic Institute (NDI) on the state of electoral lists in
Cambodia show that the country is run by an illegitimate government which has maintained power
over the decades through falsified elections.
The conclusions of the enquiry driven by the US non-government organization dedicated to promoting
democracy globally, indicate conclusively that recent elections in Cambodia rest on electoral lists that
have been manipulated and falsified to an extent that destroys the concept of universal suffrage. The
will of the people has been at best obscured and at worst denied at successive elections.
The moment has now come to acknowledge that the current government in Phnom Penh, controlled
by the same party (Cambodian People’s Party) for 34 years and by the same prime minister (Hun Sen)
for 28 years, has no legitimacy.
According to the discredited National Election Committee (NEC), the ruling CPP won 63% of the votes
at the last communal elections on June 1, 2012, versus 31% for the united opposition made up of the
Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and the Human Rights Party (HRP).
If the electoral lists hadn't been falsified, but established in an honest and transparent manner to
allow the popular will to be expressed via universal suffrage, the results would have been significantly
different.
At a cautious, minimum estimate, the irregularities found by the NDI imply the following distortions:
1- An increase in the number of votes attributed to the CPP of 10% through the use of
fictional or phantom voters. These voters who only exist on paper are an automatic reservoir of
support for the ruling party. The NDI found that “10.4% of names on the (official) voter list were
unknown.” In these calculations, I assume that almost all these fraudulent votes accrued to the CPP.
2- An increase in the number of votes attributed to the CPP of a further 10% from the
25.8% of names who are on the electoral register which belong to people who, in all
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likelihood, won’t vote at the assigned place. The names of the absent people are often used to
create votes for the CPP by passing off one person as another, meaning impersonation through
fraudulent voter identification documents. I am cautious and take only 10%, which is less than half of
the figure given by the NDI, as representing CPP fraudulent support. According to the NDI, “17.9% of
names on the list exist but live most of the time in another location; 7.4% have permanently relocated,
and 0.5% were confirmed as dead.”
3- A reduction in the number of votes cast for the opposition by at least 10% out of the
17.1% of citizens who were eligible but not registered or de-registered. Here I take a
little more than half the NDI figure as representing lost opposition votes. Non-inclusion
on the electoral register is, in the first place, the result of political and administrative discrimination at
first enrolment, when citizens known to be opposition supporters meet insurmountable administrative
problems with a village or commune chief who favors the CPP (98% of cases). Even once enrolled on
the register, electors can suddenly lose their right to vote through the selective suppression of names
by the NEC, which affects only the opposition. Some of the removals are even more surprising as they
concern citizens who voted in the elections of 2008 and/or 2012. This is effectively
disenfranchisement and shows that the NEC is carrying out political cleansing for the CPP. According
to the NDI, "10.8% of eligible citizens who think they are registered were not found on the voter
registry. Further, 7.8% of eligible citizens are currently unregistered even though they said they voted
in the 2008 and/or 2012 elections."
4- The prevention of a potential increase of opposition votes of at least 10% by creating
all sorts of difficulties for voters on election day. This is done through organised confusion
along with political and administrative discrimination against opposition supporters, notably in the
issuing of identity documents and in tolerance of inaccurate information. According to the NDI, "Voter
data (in 2012/2013) is less accurate than in 2008. Only 63% of records show matching data for date of
birth, compared to 78.9% in 2008; and 86.4% of names match, compared to 87.8% in 2008."
Discriminatory measures aim to obscure the existence of those citizens who are, or are suspected of
being, supporters of the opposition in order to prevent them from voting. The complex administrative
procedures put in place by the NEC have contributed to a continuous decline in voter turnout from
over 90% in 1993 (elections organised by the United Nations) to 60% (including ghost and other fake
or fraudulent voters) in 2012. Lower turnout automatically penalizes the opposition. The CPP uses the
resources of state to get its supporters to the polls and make sure they are in the right place to vote.
Opposition supporters face all manner of administrative obstacles.
In consequence, by partly correcting the impact of some of the above-exposed election irregularities,
the result of a democratic, transparent and honest election would have been as follows:
•
Ruling CPP: 63% - 10% - 10% = 43%
•
Opposition SRP + HRP: 31% + 10% + 10% = 51%
The scope of changes made to the figures corresponds to the scale of the irregularities and anomalies
found by the NDI in the electoral register, which are sufficient to completely overturn the expression
of the popular will.
The NDI said that there is "a dire need for fundamental change in the voter registration and list
compilation process in Cambodia to ensure the right to vote for all eligible citizens and to prevent
ghost voters and potential for manipulation and fraud." Rather than the NEC, which is controlled by
members of the ruling CPP, an independent and professional body should carry out voter registration,
the NDI said.
New electoral lists are clearly needed if Cambodia’s vote is to be meaningful. The experience of
Bangladesh has shown that this can be done. With cross-party political will and the support of the
United Nations Development Program (UNDP), a new high-quality electoral register for over 80
million Bangladeshi voters was created in a matter of eight months in 2008.
To allow the Cambodian people to express itself and to let the country elect a legitimate government,
the international community must increase the pressure on the authorities in Phnom Penh to accept
the recommendations of the United Nations issued in 2012 for the organisation of this year’s elections.
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These UN recommendations are underscored by the NDI which details the steps to be taken to
produce an electoral register of sufficient quality to allow elections worthy of the name.
Please help bring about democracy in Cambodia through free and fair elections so as to render justice
to the Cambodian people whose will has been distorted for so long.
Sam Rainsy
Cambodia’s opposition leader
Posted by Socheata at 11:59 PM 25/03/2013
LI President joins Cambodia's opposition leader
at Brussels protest
LI President Hans van Baalen MEP was among the
leading figures that welcomed in the European Parliament
in Brussels a delegation of the national opposition in
Cambodia led by the Opposition Leader and Chairman of
the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD - LI
Cooperating Organisation) Sam Rainsy, Mu Sochua MP
and Men Sothavarin MP.
The delegation met amongst others Cecilia Wikström MEP
of Folkpartiet from Sweden (LI Full Member). LI
President Van Baalen participated in a protest rally in
front of the European Parliament that was organised by
the Cambodian opposition.
Referring on a report by the US State Department that questioned the credibility of the upcoming
elections, Sam Rainsy reiterated his public call to the international community not to monitor the vote
in Cambodia, and inadvertently give the electoral process a false legitimacy.
In a most recent development, the National Democratic Institute — NDI (LI cooperating organisation)
in its press conference in Phnom Penh, presented conclusions that justify Sam Rainsy's repeated
assertions about voter list manipulation by the NEC.
Cambodian Opposition Leader Petitions Politicians in
London
Liberal International – n°325
The leader of the opposition in Cambodia and Chairman of CALD (LI
cooperating organisation), Sam Rainsy, joined LI Secretary-General, Emil
Kirjas, in London this week to strengthen his support ahead of the
Cambodian elections in July. Following an appeal made by the LI President
Hans Van Baalen MEP, who called on the international community not to
send election observers to Cambodia as a sign of protest to the illegitimacy
surrounding the electoral processes in the country, Mr Rainsy visited LI's
headquarters and the Houses of Parliament where he met with the Deputy
Leader of the Liberal Democrats (LI full member) Simon Hughes MP and
former LI President, Lord Alderdice. The visit comes in light of a press
conference in Phnom Penh, at which the National Democratic Institute —
NDI (LI cooperating organisation) confirmed Rainsy's repeated assertions about voter list manipulation.
Earlier this week, 5 ALDE MEPs wrote to the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign
Affairs and Security Policy about Sam Rainsy being denied the right to stand as a candidate for the national
elections in the country.
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Cambodian Polls a ‘Win-Win Situation’ for
Opposition
Opposition Leader Sam Rainsy
2013-03-26
Radio Free Asia
Exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Tuesday that his
party will get an indirect boost in July elections even if he is
not allowed to return to contest in the polls.
The president of the National Rescue Party (NRP) united opposition
coalition told RFA's Khmer Service that Prime Minister Hun Sen’s
government would be in shambles if it was returned to
power without implementing election reforms or allowing him to contest in the polls.
“Participating in the election would be ideal, but if I can't participate, it would be good too in a way,”
Sam Rainsy said.
“Without my presence, the election will be seen as worthless and no one will
recognize it. Cambodia will be seen as having an illegitimate government.”
Sam Rainsy said he would nevertheless continue to exhaust avenues to push for him to return to
Cambodia, where he faces up to 11 years in prison after his conviction on charges he says were part of a
campaign of political persecution against him led by Hun Sen.
But the 63-year-old, who currently lives in Paris, said that if he cannot return to participate in the
election, the NRP—formed from his erstwhile Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) and another leading group, the
Human Rights Party (HRP)—would indirectly benefit from his absence because it would highlight the
polls as being neither free nor fair.
Sam Rainsy said he believes that the international community would shun the ruling Cambodian
People’s Party (CPP) leadership if Hun Sen were to win an election criticized as being a sham and
could move to end financial assistance to the country.
He said Cambodians would also view the government as unlawful if there was no free and fair
elections, which could undermine the CPP’s rule.
“This is a win-win situation. If the CPP wins the election, it would be just as if
they had lost, because no one will recognize the result,” he said.
But the opposition leader vowed to continue his fight to take part in the polls.
He is traveling to England on Wednesday where he will meet with government officials, lawmakers
and other activists from around the world to gain their support for his bid to return to Cambodia.
“I will raise support to ensure a free and fair election in Cambodia,” adding that he
would push for reform of the country’s National Election Committee (NEC), which critics say lacks
independence from the ruling party.
“The committee must be independent and I must be allowed to participate in the election campaign in
July.”
The NEC had removed Sam Rainsy as a voter and disallowed him from standing as a candidate in the
elections in a ruling in November. The committee reaffirmed its position in January, saying that his
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convictions for crimes that included destroying border markers near Vietnam in 2009 make him
ineligible to vote or to run for office.
Government claim
Sam Rainsy’s comments came as Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong met with outgoing
Australian Ambassador Penny Richards in Phnom Penh, stressing that the elections will be free and
fair, regardless of the opposition leader’s participation.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Kuy Koung said Hor Namhong told the ambassador that the
election would be “conducted smoothly.”
“[Sam Rainsy’s] party will participate in the election as planned, even without him here,” he said.
“The deputy prime minister said there is no way that the election will not be free and fair.”
The United States in January criticized the NEC’s decision to disqualify Sam
Rainsy based on his criminal convictions, saying it called into question the vote’s
legitimacy.
Free and fair elections “require a level playing field and unfettered participation of
opposition parties,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at the time. “So the
exclusion of a leading opposition leader calls into question the legitimacy of the whole democratic
process in Cambodia.”
Sam Rainsy has said that the opposition's chances in the coming elections are good, basing his forecast
on local elections last June in which he said the SRP and the HRP collected a total of 31 percent of the
popular vote in spite of what he described as a partisan election commission and serious manipulation
of voter lists.
“Therefore, one can understand why incumbent Prime Minister Hun Sen wants to exclude me from
the election process in spite of international condemnation,” he said.
Hun Sen is the longest-serving leader in Southeast Asia, having ruled Cambodia since 1985. In 2009
said he would continue to stand as a candidate until 2023.
Reported by Samean Yun and Sok Serey for RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun.
Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Posted by Socheata at 7:39 AM 27/03/2013
--------------------------------
Invitation à un souper avec LP Sam Rainsy, Président de CNRP
Chers Compatriotes et Ami(e)s,
Le 4 mai 2013, LP Sam Rainsy visitera Montréal une dernière fois avant l'élection générale au Cambodge, le 28
juillet 2013.
Le groupe de travail mixte (SRP, HRP, Fondation CNRF et groupe indépendant, membres de l'Association des
Ingénieurs Cambodgiens du Québec, membres de l'Association Boudhhique) «Krom Ka-Gea Samrorp Samruol»
, qui est en charge de cette préparation a décider d'organiser une réception dans un restaurant lequel sera
déterminé d'ici quelque jours.
Par le présent, nous comptons sur la présence de tous les membres et supporteurs de CNRP (Kanakpak Sang
Kruos Cheat) et sur leurs efforts pour prêter main forte pour faire la sollicitation auprès des membres de leur
famille, amis et connaissances afin de maximiser la participation . Vous pouvez réserver individuellement ou une
table via courriel à une des personnes dans CC ci-dessus. Votre confirmation avant le 15 avril sera grandement
appréciée.
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PS. Le prix est de 100.00$ par personne (incluant repas et Don).
Merci à l'avance
Sokha et équipe
514-217-9827
-----------------------------------
Opposition leader Son Soubert barred from Vietnam
Son Soubert
26 March 2013
By Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post
Human Rights Party deputy president Son Soubert said yesterday he
had been blocked from entering Vietnam on Friday despite
having obtained permission for the visit from the Vietnamese
embassy.
Soubert told the Post he had intended to visit a museum in Ho Chi Minh city
for archaeological research and visit family in Kampuchea Krom’s Preah
Trapaing province but was blocked at the Tay Ninh border checkpoint.
“We received all proper clearance [to enter Vietnam]. They prohibited me without giving a reason,” he said.
Soubert added that if the Vietnamese ambassador did not respond to his request for an explanation, Soubert
would file a complaint to the United Nations accusing Vietnam of human rights abuse.
The Vietnamese embassy declined to comment.
Independent analyst Lao Mong Hay said this was not the first time Vietnamese authorities had
blocked Cambodians with proper paperwork from entering the country, adding that such
moves tended to target opposition figures due to the two governments’ friendship.
Workers in South Korea Want More Opportunity Back
Home
Cambodian workers in Seoul, South Korea, greet Mr. Kem
Sokha, head the opposition Human Rights Party, during his visit
there in late March 2013 to garner support ahead of the
upcoming national elections. (Courtesy of Touch Vibol)
30.03.2013
By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
“When one understands politics and votes for the
right representatives, they can lead the country
properly,” [Sok Vantha] said. “Then there will be higher salaries and plenty of jobs.”
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Cambodian workers in South Korea say high wages there have helped their families back
in Cambodia, but many here say they would rather work back home,under the rights
circumstances.
An estimated 30,000 Cambodians work throughout South Korean farms, factories and homes, earning far more
than they could back in Cambodia. Workers in South Korea earn up to $2,800 per month here.
But in interviews with VOA Khmer, workers say they were pushed to move thousands of miles away from family
because there are not enough opportunities in Cambodia.
Sithith Sovann, 34, who now works in Seoul, said he left Kampong Cham province to find work here. He
appealed to the government to raise wages in Cambodia so that others won’t have to make such a move. “We
have to have enough to spend on the family,” he said in an interview with VOA Khmer.
“My migration was to improve myself, because we can’t be our parents’ successors, farming or doing traditional
work,” he said. “If I hadn’t migrated, I may not have been able to change my family’s economics.”
Sok Vantha, 28, from Kampot province, has worked in South Korea for two years. At his home, there was
not enough work, he said in Skype interview. “I finished university and my first salary was
only $70 per month,” he said. “It did not match the price of goods in the market. I could
not survive, so I decided to migrate.”
His salary was similar to that of many Cambodians in the workforce. The garment industry, which employs up to
350,000 people, has a wage of about $60 per month, though that is slated to increase to $80 per month.
Workers often protest these wages, saying they have not kept up with the price of consumer goods.
In a recent speech, Prime Minister Hun Sen said the wages are improving. At $80 per month, he said, some
workers will be able to send money home. He called promises of greater wages by his political opponents
“empty.” But opposition lawmakers say Cambodian wages are not advancing enough to keep up with the cost of
living in the country.
In South Korea, Sok Vantha said he has been able to work as a laborer and earn good money, but he encouraged
Cambodians back home to study hard and be engaged in the Cambodian political process.
“When one understands politics and votes for the right representatives, they can lead the
country properly,” he said. “Then there will be higher salaries and plenty of jobs.”
Au Cambodge, la première femme élue au parlement est
aussi une pionnière des réseaux sociaux
Traduction publiée le 11 Mars 2013 16:00 GMT · GlobalVoices
Ecrit par
Sopheap Chak
Traduit par
Stephanie Camus
[Tous les liens sont en anglais]. Dans la foulée de la journée internationale de la femme, nous
vous invitons à découvrir Mu Sochua, la première femme à jamais avoir été élue au parlement
cambodgien, et une des rares personnalités politiques au Cambodge à utiliser activement les
médias sociaux.
Sochua souhaiterait faire des questions de la femme une priorité dans l'élaboration des lois et est
connue pour son opposition au gouvernement du premier ministre Hun Sen.
Elle est d'ailleurs actuellement sous la menace de poursuites judiciaires menées par le
gouvernement pour ses déclarations faites en 2009 dans lesquelles elle explique qu'elle portera
plainte contre le premier ministre pour avoir ouvertement tenu des propos désobligeants et
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menaçants contre elle lors d'un discours prononcé au cours d'une visite dans la province de
Kamptot, dans le sud ouest du Cambodge. Toujours est-il que la cour a rejeté la plainte de
Sochua alors qu'elle acceptait celle qu'avait déposée son adversaire. Elle pourrait encourir une
peine de prison si la Cour suprême décidait de maintenir sa condamnation pour diffamation à
l'égard du premier ministre.
Mu Sochua à la rencontre de femmes lors d'une
réunion dans une zone provinciale du Cambodge.
Photographie provenant de la page Facebook de
Sochua Mu.
Malgré cette affaire, elle continue de vouloir atteindre ses
objectifs politiques et le nombre croissant de « citoyens
du net » ainsi que la montée des médias sociaux, qui,
selon elle, permettent d'apporter de nouvelles idées et
des points de vue différents en politique, la rendent
optimiste. C'est au cours d'une interview faite par mail que Sochua nous fait part de sa vision de
la politique et des médias sociaux.
1. Pour quelles raisons êtes-vous entrée en politique ?
Après avoir entendu madame Hilary Clinton quand elle était encore première dame parler des
« droits de la femme au même titre que les droits de l'homme » et du pouvoir dont les femmes
ont besoin pour mettre en place de véritables changements et avoir un statut plus important ; les
femmes doivent prendre le pouvoir et se politiser. C'était lors de la 4ème conférence des femmes.
Quand je suis rentrée de Beijing, je me suis vue proposer une place de conseillère auprès du
premier ministre. J'ai alors rejoint un parti politique et suis toujours restée politiquement active
depuis.
2. Quand avez-vous commencé à tenir un blog ? Comment gérez-vous votre emploi du
temps ?
Voilà deux ans maintenant que j'ai une page Facebook et mon propre blog. Twitter est venu plus
tard. Je consacre en moyenne deux heures quotidiennes aux réseaux sociaux, presque chaque
jour de la semaine dans la mesure où je considère qu'il est important de communiquer
directement avec ses fans et ses amis. Je trouve que c'est également une façon responsable de
communiquer, puisque selon moi, la politique est une question personnelle. Généralement, je fais
des recherches sur les problèmes que je mentionne. J'utilise même parfois mes propres
photographies.
3. Vous êtes la seule personnalité politique à tenir un blog au Cambodge. Qu'est ce qui
vous a poussé à le faire ?
Cela vient de mon intérêt pour les moyens de communication, la lecture, l'écriture et l'envie
d'apprendre et de m'informer. Et, bien évidemment, de mon envie de gagner des voix électorales,
et de promouvoir et soutenir mon parti politique.
4. L'utilisation des médias sociaux se développe au Cambodge. Dans quelle mesure
contribuent-ils à votre travail dans le monde politique ?
Le public concerné est jeune, ce qui est très important ; les jeunes peuvent apporter une vision
nouvelle de la politique et du développement. J'ai de bon retour et de nombreuses réponses de la
part de la jeunesse, et particulièrement de la jeunesse locale. C'est très gratifiant et très
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encourageant. Je pense qu'il s'agit là d'un procédé démocratique, ouvert, loin de toute peur ou
tentatives d'intimidation. Mais je reçois également des messages haineux, parfois très violents,
avec de fausses accusations ; ceci étant dit, toute personnalité publique doit s'attendre à ce genre
de choses.
5. Comment les médias sociaux peuvent-ils influencer le monde de la politique au
Cambodge ?
Le phénomène devient de plus en plus important chaque jour. J'espère trouver de plus en plus
d'amies et fans féminins. Je suis une femme politique connue, et le fait que des amis ou des fans
communiquent avec moi est un signe que la politique change. Les médias sociaux apportent de
nouvelles idées, des nouveaux points de vue, comme sur la question du développement. Plus
d'idées, plus d'opinions, plus de différence apporte de la diversité et nous poussera à être plus
tolérant. Quoi de mieux pour le Cambodge ?
6. Où vous voyez-vous dans cinq ans?
Toujours dans la politique et j'espère plus sage encore.
Ecrit par Sopheap Chak · Traduit par Stephanie Camus
--------------
Breaking All-Male, Offline Trend, Cambodia's First Female Lawmaker
Blogs
Posted 8 March 2013 17:36 GMT – GlobalVoices
Written by
Sopheap Chak
To commemorate the International Women's Day this year, let us meet Mu Sochua, the first
woman ever to be elected to Cambodia's Parliament and one of the very few politicians in
Cambodia who actively use social media.
Sochua advocates the prioritization of women issues in policymaking and is a known critic of the
government of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
In fact, she is currently facing a government lawsuit in connection to her statement in 2009 that
she would sue the Prime Minister for allegedly using derogatory and threatening language against
her in a speech he made during a visit to Kampot province in southwest Cambodia. Kampot is the
parliamentary district of Sochua. However, the court rejected her case while a counter case filed
by her opponent was allowed. She would face a possible imprisonment term if the Supreme Court
upholds her criminal defamation conviction for criticizing the Prime Minister.
Mu Sochua in a meeting with community women's groups
in one of the provinces of Cambodia. Photo taken from
Sochua Mu Facebook page.
Despite her court case, she continues to pursue her political goals and is
optimistic with the growing number of netizens and the rise of social
media which she believes can bring new ideas and different views in
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politics. Through an email interview, Sochua shared her perspectives on politics and social media.
1. What inspired you to join politics?
After listening to then First Lady Hillary Clinton speak about “women's rights as human rights” and the power
that women need in order to make meaningful changes and give power to women-women need to seize
power and become political. That was at the 4th World Conference on Women. When I returned from
Beijing, I was offered a position as Adviser to the First Prime Minister. I joined a political party then and have
been active in party politics ever since.
2. When did you start blogging? How do you manage your time?
On Facebook and owning my own blog, just about two years ago. Twitter a bit later. I spend an average of
two hours a day on social media and do it 95 percent of my time as I think it is important to communicate
directly with fans and friends. I also think it is a responsible way to communicate as I consider politics as a
personal matter. I usually research issues that I talk about. Sometimes, take my own pictures.
3. You are the only politician who maintains a blog in Cambodia. What convinced you to blog?
It comes from my interest in communications, in reading, in writing and in wanting to know more. And of
course, my interest in gaining votes and getting publicity and support for my party platform.
4. Social media usage is on the rise in Cambodia. How does social media contribute to your
political work?
The audience is young and that is very important and youth have potentials to bring a new vision for politics
and development. I get good feedback and responses from youth and mostly local youth. It is very
rewarding and engaging. I think it is a democratic process, open and free from fear and intimidation. But I
also do get hate mail and sometimes very aggressive with false accusations but that is what a public figure
should expect.
5. How can social media influence Cambodian politics?
It is growing every day. I hope to find more female friends and fans. I am known politician and for fans and
friends to communicate with me is a sign that politics is changing. Social media brings new ideas, different
views as it is for development. More ideas, more views, more differences bring diversion and will force us to
be tolerant. All good for Cambodia.
6. Where do you see yourself in five years?
Still in politics and hopefully wiser.
Written by Sopheap Chak
Mrs. Mu Sochua's visit to Lyon, France
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRzmZnRBuCI
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Scaredy CPP tiger scared of the CNRP's popularity?
Kep Chuktema nixes CNRP congress in park
27 March 2013
By Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post
Phnom Penh municipal governor Kep Chuktema rejected a request by the
biggest opposition party to hold its congress early next month in
one of the capital’s public parks, according to a copy of the official letter
from the city.
The Cambodian National Rescue Party – a recently formed alliance between the Human Rights and Sam Rainsy parties –
wanted to hold its upcoming congress on the south side of Wat Botum Park, but the municipality said no on the grounds that
public spaces should not serve as political venues.
“I would like to tell you that as per your request asking for the park in front of Botum Vatey pagoda – at the south part – for
holding congress of Cambodian National Rescue Party with about 10,000 participants, Phnom Penh municipal hall would
like you to find a private location,” Chuktema wrote in the letter dated March 13.
Chuktema also serves as the head of the CPP’s Phnom Penh branch.
Asked to clarify, Long Dimanche, spokesman for the Phnom Penh municipality, said that the spot is mainly used for
exercising and certain kinds of ceremonies, and that holding a political meeting there would contradict the public nature of
the park. It would also snarl traffic in the area, he added.
About 10,000 participants are expected to attend the congress on April 7.
“If a political party asks for that spot, another political party will also ask. That area cannot be allowed for political use,”
Dimanche said.
Pol Ham, deputy president of the CNRP’s temporary committee, disagreed.
“The absolute ruling group thinks that all state properties belong to them only, both public areas and state institutions,” Ham
said.
He wasn’t surprised with the rejection, however, saying that the government “always” denies opposition party requests.
With the congress less than two weeks away, the CNRP still has not made a decision on a backup place for the event.
“We will hold it anywhere we can,” Ham said.
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------------------
The CWC Cambodia condemned Govt on the Border & concerned a
policeman's position in Pailin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiKIuAGSx0Y
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CWC Statement
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http://moneaksekar.com/
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Cambodia / land rights activist Yorn Bopha
Dear all,
Please see response from The Dutch Human Rights Ambassador who we met and appealed
for Yorm Bopha's release.
Sochua
Dear Ms Van der Woude,
On behalf of the Ambassador for Human Rights I would like to thank
you for sharing with us the latest news regarding the appeal hearing for
Yorn Bopha. The delay of the hearing without even setting a new date is
unfortunate and a reason for growing concern. Further to your e-mail I
can assure you that through our embassy in Bangkok and together with
other EU member states we will continue to follow the case of Yorn
Bopha and will work to the best of our ability to effectively contribute to
her unconditional release.
With best regards,
Jetty Kouwen
Senior policy officer
Asia and Oceania Department
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
T: +31 (0)70 348 6394
E: [email protected]
------------------------------------
Congratulations, Ms. TEP Vanny! We love you! We're proud of you!
Tonight Tep Vanny received the Golden Butterfly Award
as the Activist portrayed in Even a Bird Needs a Nest film
at the Movies That Matter Festival in The Hague.
"I wish to thank the Jury for its choice but I can not be
happy when I know that my community continues to
struggle for justice. The price I receive tonight gives me
more strength to fight for the release of Yorm Bopha,
another woman activist who lost her appeal in court
today., said Tep Vanny when she received the Award.
For more information:
http://www.moviesthatmatter.nl/english_in
dex/nieuws_en/news/485
Seen and heard on H.E. Mu Sochua's Facebook
Posted by Khmer Democrat at 11:59 PM 28/03/2013
------------------------Convictions of activists in Cambodia demonstrates dire state
of justice
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Activist Yorm Bopha was sentenced to three years imprisonment
(Photo: Jenny Holligan)
“These shocking verdicts show why Cambodians have
good reason not to trust their courts” - Rupert Abbott,
Amnesty International's Cambodia researcher
Thu, 27/12/2012
Amnesty International
The fabricated charges used to convict two housing rights activists in Phnom Penh’s
Municipal Court confirms the dire state of Cambodia’s justice system and rule of law in
the country, Amnesty International said today.
This morning, Yorm Bopha was sentenced to three years imprisonment for ‘intentional violence’, while late
yesterday Tim Sakmony was found guilty of making a false declaration and given a suspended prison sentence.
The charges in both cases are fabricated and no credible evidence was presented at their trials.
“These shocking verdicts show why Cambodians have good reason not to trust their courts,” said Rupert Abbott,
Amnesty International’s researcher on Cambodia.
“Amnesty International has designated Tim Sakmony and Yorm Bopha as prisoners of conscience. They are
being persecuted purely for their work defending the rights of those in their communities who have lost their
houses through forced evictions.”
Yorm Bopha has actively defended the right to housing for her community at Phnom Penh’s former Boeung Kak
Lake, where some 20,000 people have been forcibly evicted since 2008.
Tim Sakmony protested the violent forced eviction of 300 families in her community in Phnom Penh’s Borei
Keila in January 2012 and called for provision of the alternative housing promised to them.
Cambodian justice experienced another setback today when the Appeals Court upheld the 20-year sentences of
Born Samnang and Sok Sam Ourn who were convicted for the killing of trade union leader Cha Vichea in 2004
based on forced confessions.
“It is baffling how the Appeal Court could have arrived at its verdict in the Chea Vichea case given the lack of any
new evidence and the fact that both of the accused have credible alibis,” said Abbott.
“The forced confession and intimidation of witnesses are indicative of a deeply flawed criminal investigation.”
“It is a travesty that these two men face a further 15 years in prison for a crime they did not commit, while the
killers of Chea Vichea are still free.”
The three verdicts delivered in the past 24 hours come at the end of a terrible year for justice in Cambodia.
Just last week charges were inexplicably dropped against the former governor of Bavet town in Svay Rieng
province, accused of injuring three women factory workers in a shooting in February.
An investigation into the killing of prominent environmental activist Chut Wutty in April was dropped two
months ago; while there has been no investigation into the killing of a 14-year-old girl by security officials in Pro
Ma village, Kratie province, in May.
Meanwhile, prominent journalist and radio station owner Mam Sonando, a prisoner of conscience sentenced to
20 years' imprisonment in October on baseless allegations of "secession", is in jail waiting for his appeal trial
hearing to be scheduled.
“Contrary to upholding the rule of law, the Cambodian courts have been piling one injustice on top of another
and ensuring that impunity rules,” said Abbott.
“Pressure from development partners and strong, urgent action by Cambodia’s government is needed to end this
mockery of justice
----------------------------
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Solidarity with Yorm Bopha at Amnesty International Holland
Cambodia: Supreme Court Keeps Activist Jailed
1
2
1- Boeung Kak Lake resident Yorm Bopha (L) gestures to her supporters as she attends a hearing in the
2-
Supreme Court in Phnom Penh on March 27, 2013. (Reuters)
Boeung Kak Lake resident Yorm Bopha (C) reacts after she was denied bail at a hearing in the Supreme
Court in the capital city of Phnom Penh on March 27, 2013. (Reuters)
Donors Should Step Up Pressure for Unconditional Release of Yorm
Bopha
March 29, 2013
Human Rights Watch
"The Supreme Court’s ruling against the activist Yorm Bopha was no surprise
following Hun Sen’s public endorsement of her trumped-up conviction. Donors
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should not shrink from demanding that the government drop the charges against
Bopha and raise their concerns about the Cambodian judiciary’s lack of
independence." - Brad Adam, Asia Director
(New York) – The Cambodian Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the trumped-up imprisonment of a landrights activist should prompt Cambodia’s donors to demand her unconditional release, Human
Rights Watch said today.
On March 27, 2013, the Cambodian Supreme Court denied bail to Yorm Bopha, who was imprisoned in
December 2012 after receiving a three-year sentence on apparently politically motivated charges for protesting
government land grabs that have adversely affected 700,000 Cambodians. On March 19, with Bopha’s appeal
pending, Prime Minister Hun Sen gave a speech in which he declared Bopha’s sentence a “simple case of her
beating someone up,” for which she had properly been criminally convicted.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling against the activist Yorm Bopha was no surprise following
Hun Sen’s public endorsement of her trumped-up conviction,” said Brad Adams, Asia director.
“Donors should not shrink from demanding that the government drop the charges against Bopha and raise their
concerns about the Cambodian judiciary’s lack of independence.”
Bopha, 29, is one of the leaders of long-term protests against illegal evictions of residents of the Boeung Kak area
of Phnom Penh by a Chinese company and a local firm closely linked to Prime Minister Hun Sen. In May 2012,
13 women who were Boeung Kak residents and who had demonstrated against the deal were arrested, summarily
convicted of illegally occupying land and rebellion, and sentenced to up to 30-month prison terms. Bopha was a
major voice in peaceful public protests against the jailing of the 13. She helped put the issue on the agenda of
then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who forcefully raised it with Hun Sen and other senior officials. The
13 were later released, albeit with their convictions intact.
Before being returned from court to the prison after the Supreme Court ruling on March 27, Bopha called on
other land activists “not to retreat,” declaring “no matter what label anyone applies to us, there will be justice for
us.”
The government has pursued a large-scale program of providing title to land since May 2012. This has resulted
in many land disputes that have been the subject of protests by people alleging that they have been unlawfully
displaced, including at Boeung Kak. On September 4, 2012, Phnom Penh authorities, in an apparent attempt to
deter protests, arrested Bopha for alleged involvement in a conspiracy to assault a man for stealing side mirrors
from her car. She was charged along with her husband, Lous Sakhon, and her two brothers.
The four were tried by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on December 26 and 27, 2012. Despite insufficient
evidence to establish guilt, Bopha was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, while her husband
received a suspended prison sentence. Her two brothers were convicted in absentia. Bopha appealed her
conviction to the Appeal Court, which has yet to set a date for hearings. The Appeal Court denied her application
for bail and she appealed for bail to the Supreme Court.
On March 13, a group of land activists, including Sakhon, staged a protest at the Justice Ministry, calling for her
to be given an appeal date and be released. They then marched to Hun Sen’s residence in Phnom Penh. They
were assaulted by a mixed force of police, gendarmes, and security guards, who severely beat several protesters,
including Sakhon.
The Supreme Court ruling against Bopha is further evidence of Hun Sen’s brazen interference in the work of the
Cambodian judiciary. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Dith Munthy, is a member of the ruling
Cambodian People Party’s politburo and a close confidante of the prime minister.
“A politically controlled judiciary has targeted a brave woman who has had the audacity to challenge powerful
interests and people, including Hun Sen,” Adams said. “Donors successfully took up the case of the ‘Boeung Kak
13’ and ensured their release from prison, but they have more to do. The release of Yorm Bopha and an end to
attacks on land activists should remain at the top of the donor agenda.”
------------------------------
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LE DÉBAT
Vanessa Burggraf vous donne rendez-vous à 19h10, du lundi au jeudi, pour débattre de l'actualité du
jour avec ses invités.
DERNIÈRE MODIFICATION : 20/03/2013 - FRANCE 24
- CAMBODGE - ÉGYPTE - FRANCOPHONIE - NORD-KIVU
Francophonie : combats de femmes
http://www.france24.com/fr/20130320-france-francophonie-rdc-nord-kivu-violcambodge-egypte
Francophonie : combats de femmes (partie 2)
http://www.france24.com/fr/20130320-france-francophonie-rdc-nord-kivu-viol-cambodgeegypte-partie2
Nous vous proposons une émission spéciale consacrée aux combats des femmes du monde francophone. 400
d'entre elles, venues de 77 pays, toutes issues de la société civile, se sont retrouvées à Paris au Quai Branly
pour parler de leurs expériences, de leurs luttes pour plus d'égalité et pour dire non aux violences qu'elles
subissent.
Nos invitées :
•
Julienne Lusenge, Congolaise originaire du Nord-Kivu, présidente d'ONG et directrice du Fonds
pour les Femmes Congolaises. Elle a reçu le Prix des Droits de l'Homme de l'Ambassade de
France à Kinshasa pour son combat contre les violences sexuelles en RDC.
•
Mu Sochua, Cambodgienne, députée de l'opposition, membre du parti Sam Rainsy et
ancienne ministre de la Condition féminine.
•
Mavie Maher, Égyptienne, réalisatrice et membre d’un mouvement de femmes qui lutte pour
l'amélioration de la situation économique et politique en Égypte.
Michèle André, vice-présidente de la section française de l'Assemblée parlementaire de la
francophonie et ancienne Secrétaire d'État chargée des droits des femmes.
-------------------------------------------
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Yorm Bopha: la cour suprême refuse la libération conditionnelle
29 March 2013 – Cambodge Post
Pour la seconde fois, la cour suprême a rejeté mercredi la demande de libération conditionnelle
déposée par Yorm Bopha. Âgé de 29 ans, cette militante est l’une des porte-parole des quelque 20 000
personnes expropriées de force du quartier du lac de Boeng Kak à Phnom Phnom Penh.
Elle a été condamnée à trois ans de prison ferme le 27 décembre pour violences volontaires à l’égard
de deux chauffeurs de tuk-tuk lors d’un procès vivement critiqué par les associations de défense des
droits de l’homme. Elle a fait appel de ce jugement mais pour l’heure aucune date n’a été fixée par le
tribunal.
Yorm Bopha souffre de problèmes cardiaques qui nécessitent des soins réguliers. C’est ce qu’elle a
expliqué aux juges de la cour suprême demandant également sa mise en liberté pour pouvoir s’occuper
de son fils âgé de neuf ans.
Des arguments rejetés par le juge au motif qu’aucun document officiel n’attestait de la réalité de ces
problèmes de santé et qu’elle avait déjà été jugée.
Yorm Bopha a donc été reconduite à la prison de Prey Sar par ses gardiens. « Nous devons continuer à
nous battre pour nos terrains » a t-elle lancé à l’adresse de la centaine de personnes venues de Boeng
Kak pour la soutenir.
L'aventure humaine de Troyens au Cambodge
Publié le samedi 30 mars 2013 à 11H00 – Céline TILLIER - l’est-éclair
Les jeunes ouvrières trouvent le soutient dont elles
ont tant besoin grâce à l'association Claire Amitié.
Demain, un bâtiment accueillera quatre ateliers
Ils viennent de tous horizons, unis dans la volonté
d'apporter l'aide indispensable à la formation de
jeunes Cambodgiennes exploitées
Des étoiles dans les yeux, les premiers s'envolent samedi.
Destination Phnom-Penh et une aventure humaine qui
aboutit enfin. Philippe, Béatrice, Benoît et les autres ont donné de leur temps autant qu'ils ont sué pour
amasser l'argent indispensable à la réalisation de leur part du projet : aider celles qui en ont tant besoin.
L'histoire remonte à l'année 2009, lorsque Philippe et Nathalie Halajko se posent au Cambodge. Avec la soif
d'aider chevillée au corps, c'est presque naturellement qu'ils croisent Nicole Nivault et l'association Claire
Amitié. « Sur place, l'équipe vient en aide aux jeunes ouvrières des entreprises chinoises ». Exploitées, elles
sont parfois contraintes de vendre leurs corps pour suivre. « Lorsque la nuit tombe, les jeunes femmes
s'assoient au bord des routes et attendent le client. »
La demande pressante tient à l'aide alimentaire, médicale mais aussi à la formation de ces jeunes filles
perdues. Dans ce quartier populaire du bout du monde, l'apprentissage de la cuisine, de la coiffure, de la
couture ou de la langue anglaise s'impose comme les maillons solides d'un avenir meilleur. Mais pour y
parvenir, la structure manque cruellement. « Nous lançons ce projet de construction d'un bâtiment pour
accueillir quatre ateliers. » Claire Amitié accepte l'idée et s'engage.
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A Troyes, une dizaine de familles relèvent une partie du défi. Ils sont différents, viennent d'ici ou d'ailleurs,
travaillent ou savourent leur retraite. Ils sont catholiques et prêts à tout pour avancer ensemble et réussir.
Réussir, c'est relever les manches et mouiller le maillot. Un projet qui n'a rien d'un parcours de santé. «
Nous allons travailler avec les ouvriers cambodgiens sur le second œuvre. » Plomberie, électricité, peinture
ou menuiserie : il ne s'agit pas simplement de payer. « Notre souhait est de vivre avec ces gens, de
découvrir leur culture et leur façon de vivre », précise Benoît Jousset.
Fatigue…
Avec la volonté d'y croire, ils foncent alors tête baissée. Sans jamais tendre la main. Ils ne quémanderont
rien. « Nous avions besoin de 15 000€ pour accomplir ce sur quoi nous nous étions engagés. »
Comme les autres, Béatrice Mirat a fait les vendanges et les vide-greniers. Depuis trois ans, elle a vendu des
gâteaux et organisé une soirée dansante. Un investissement sans faille pour un projet humain, commun. «
Nous avons enchaîné les actions pour atteindre notre but. » Et puiser dans les porte-monnaie, « il était
évident que chacun d'entre nous prenne en charge son voyage ».
Après des mois d'espoir mais jamais de doute, ils découvriront le Cambodge dans quelques jours. Car pour
la grande majorité d'entre eux, ce voyage sera le premier. Le reste promet d'être nourri de sourires, de
fatigue et de rencontres toujours plus émouvantes.
Dans un mois, ils diront la richesse de l'aventure et sans doute la fierté d'avoir réussi.
COMMUNIQUÉS DE PRESSE
Déplacement de Bertrand Delanoë au Laos et au Cambodge à l’occasion du 75ème bureau de
l’AIMF
29/03/2013 – Mairie de Paris
Bertrand Delanoë, accompagné de Pierre Schapira, adjoint chargé des relations internationales, des affaires européennes et de la
francophonie, se rendra le 1er avril à Vientiane (Laos) pour présider la réunion du 75ème Bureau de l’Association Internationale des
Maires Francophones (AIMF). Le maire de Paris poursuivra son voyage à Phnom Penh du 2 au 3 avril, ville avec laquelle Paris partage
une longue histoire de coopération.
Dans l’après-midi du 1er avril, la vingtaine de maires membres du Bureau de l’AIMF se réuniront dans la capitale laotienne. A l’agenda
l’adoption d’un programme de financement de plus d’un million d’euros relatif à des projets urbains portant sur l’appui aux services
essentiels et aux équipements publics et sur la réhabilitation du patrimoine. Ces projets concerneront 2 millions de personnes en Asie
(Cambodge) et en Afrique (Tunisie, Mauritanie, Sénégal, Cameroun, Rwanda, Burkina Faso et Niger).
C’est la première fois que l’AIMF se réunit au Laos, mais l’association y a déjà réalisé plusieurs projets pour un total de plus d’un million
d’euros, parmi lesquels ceux favorisant l’adduction d’eau potable dans différents quartiers périurbains ainsi que la fourniture
d’équipements publics, dont un laboratoire de langue au lycée de Vientiane. La réunion de l’AIMF au Laos sera aussi l’occasion
d’engager des négociations avec l’ASEAN avec pour objectif de nouer des partenariats entre le réseau des villes francophones et celui des
villes de cette région.
Le 2 avril, le maire de Paris se rendra à Phnom Penh, où il rencontrera le gouverneur et les autorités du pays pour faire le point sur la
coopération bilatérale entre les deux villes capitales. L’accord noué depuis plus de 20 ans a permis d’accompagner Phnom Penh dans
toutes les étapes successives de son développement (urbanisme, transports, espaces verts, etc) grâce à des projets d’assistance, de
formation et d’expertise. Paris a également soutenu le financement d’un programme de branchements sociaux de la Régie des Eaux de
Phnom Penh à hauteur de 50 000€ depuis 2010. Dans le domaine culturel, via sa convention avec l’Institut français, Paris soutient depuis
2004 le centre de ressources audiovisuelles BOPHANA, créé par le cinéaste cambodgien Rithy Panh. Ce dernier est très impliqué dans le
travail de mémoire relatif à la période des Khmers rouges. Cette aide, qui se monte à plus de 120 000€ au total, a permis d’aménager la
salle de projection collective nommée «Paris – Eden Cinéma » et de financer le projet photographique destiné à collecter la mémoire de la
ville de Phnom Penh.
Lors de son passage au Cambodge, le maire de Paris s’entretiendra avec le Premier ministre Hun Sen. Au cœur des discussions, la
coopération entre les deux capitales mais également le soutien de l’AIMF au développement des villes cambodgiennes. A cet égard,
l’AIMF a soutenu des projets de modernisation des services municipaux et les équipements publics à Phnom Penh pour un total de plus
de 1,5 million d’euros. Parmi les autres réalisations de l’AIMF, une étude sur l’extension de l’alimentation en eau potable et la
réhabilitation du patrimoine de Kampot et l’accompagnement de Siem Reap dans le développement de son action en faveur du tourisme.
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Un entretien aura lieu avec le roi Sihamoni. Ce sera l’occasion pour le maire d’évoquer avec ce grand francophile, à la fois Grand-Croix
de la Légion d’Honneur et seul membre étranger de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, l’engagement de Paris et de l’AIMF
dans la transmission des valeurs universelles aux générations futures et le travail de mémoire en cours au Cambodge.
VIDÉO - "One Dollar Project", épisode #1 : le Ministre
de la papaye fermentée
Lepetitournal – 29/03/2013
Le centre Bophana lance un projet à l'échelle mondiale : le "One Dollar
Project", qui prévoit de regrouper une série de vidéos présentant des
hommes et des femmes du monde entier qui vivent avec un dollar par jour.
La première vidéo fait le portrait de Mao Bora, vendeur ambulant de fruits,
dont l'élégance lui a valu d'être surnommé "le Ministre de la papaye
fermentée".
Par Santel Phin
Voilà qui est intéressant. Je suis tombé par hasard sur cette vidéo, et je me suis rendu compte que j'avais déjà croisé à
maintes reprises l'homme dont elle fait le portrait : Mao Bora. Celui-ci vend des papayes d’une façon assez surprenante, et
avait attiré mon attention à maintes reprises. J’avais même prévu de lui consacrer un article sur KhmerBird, mais je n’ai
jamais eu le temps d’approfondir mes recherches à son sujet.
Aussi suis-je heureux de le découvrir dans cette vidéo. Son parcours est touchant, et il éveille en même temps des
interrogations très pertinentes. Il est aujourd’hui nécessaire de penser et de construire une plateforme communautaire, qui
soutiendrait les toutes petites entreprises du Cambodge.
http://vimeo.com/55341360#
Cette excellente vidéo fait partie d’un projet non moins intéressant, le "One Dollar project", lancé par le centre Bophana. Le
principe est simple : n'importe quel réalisateur en herbe peut proposer une vidéo de 7 minutes, retraçant l’histoire de
quelqu’un, n’importe où dans le monde, qui gagne un dollar par jour.
On parle d’un dollar, mais vous comprendrez qu’il ne s’agit pas là de faire de la comptabilité exacte, mais plutôt de montrer
le parcours et le courage de personnes qui affrontent la vie avec des revenus dérisoires.
Si vous appréciez la vidéo et souhaitez soutenir le projet, visitez donc la page du "One Dollar project"
et faites passer le message autour de vous. J’attends quant à moi avec impatience de découvrir
davantage de vidéos du projet...
TEXTILE - Hausse du salaire minimum, trop timide pour les
syndicats
AFP - lepetitjournal.com - Samedi 23 mars 2013
Le Cambodge va augmenter le salaire minimum des ouvriers du textile d'environ 20% après une série de mouvements
sociaux, a-t-on appris de source officielle, mais la hausse est jugée insuffisante par les syndicats. Le salaire mensuel
minimum des centaines de milliers de salariés d'un secteur qui travaille surtout comme sous-traitant pour des grandes
marques mondiales va passer le 1er mai de 61 à 75 dollars US, a indiqué le gouvernement dans une déclaration lue à la
télévision jeudi soir. Les ouvriers recevront également 5 dollars par mois pour leurs dépenses de santé.
L'industrie textile, source très importante de devises, emploie quelque 650.000 personnes, en majorité des femmes, dont
400.000 dans des usines dédiées à l'exportation. Le secteur, marqué par des scènes d'évanouissements collectifs, est
secoué depuis 2010 par un mouvement social portant sur les salaires et les conditions de travail. Des négociations entre les
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patrons et les syndicats s'étaient terminées en début de semaine sans accord formel, forçant le gouvernement à
intervenir. Les syndicats réclamaient 100 dollars par mois. "L'augmentation est trop faible. Cela ne va pas améliorer les
conditions de vie des travailleurs. L'inflation est élevée", a souligné auprès de l'AFP Rong Chhun, président de l'Union des
Confédérations du Cambodge, promettant une manifestation. Ken Loo, secrétaire général de l'Association des industriels du
textile du Cambodge, a de son côté assuré que les patrons appliqueraient les directives.
L'an dernier, plus d'un millier d'ouvrières auraient perdu connaissance dans les usines de confection. Avec ces
évanouissements, expliqués par les militants par le surmenage, une sous-alimentation et une mauvaise ventilation, les
grèves et manifestations se sont multipliées. Certaines ont même dégénéré comme en février 2012, lorsque trois ouvrières
ont été blessées par un homme qui a ouvert le feu.
Un Haut-Pyrénéen et ses enfants retrouvés morts au
Cambodge : le suicide familial écarté
PUBLIÉ LE 25/03/2013 08:47 - MODIFIÉ LE 25/03/2013 À 10:27 – LADEPECHE.FR
Laurent Vallier était arrivé au Cambodge en 2000./Photo DDM
Près de deux ans après la découverte des corps du Haut-Pyrénéen Laurent Vallier et de ses
quatre enfants, la théorie du suicide qui prévalait jusqu'à présent vient d'être écartée par la
justice française.
L'enquête menée au Cambodge par la justice française écarte la thèse du suicide dans la
mort d'un Français et de ses quatre enfants dont les corps avaient été retrouvés au fond
d'un étang il y a plus d'un an, a indiqué l'ambassade de France à Phnom Penh.
Laurent Vallier avait disparu en septembre 2011 avec ses quatre enfants. Les corps avaient été retrouvés quatre mois plus
tard dans un 4x4 blanc, immergé dans un étang de la propriété de ce veuf de 42 ans, dans la province de Kampong Speu
(sud-ouest).
La juge d'instruction du Tribunal de Grande instance de Paris en charge du dossier, Claudine Enfoux, a pu se rendre sur
place et travailler avec une équipe d'enquêteurs. «Des avancées extrêmement sérieuses ont été réalisées. Elles permettent
désormais d'écarter l'hypothèse du suicide», a précisé le communiqué de l'ambassade.
«Les échanges de pièces et de procédure, les recherches de police technique très délicates et les nombreuses auditions
n'ont été possibles que grâce à une collaboration très efficace et constante des équipes cambodgiennes».
Une urne funéraire, identifiée par des proches comme étant celle de l'épouse, une Cambodgienne décédée en 2009, se
trouvait aussi dans la voiture.
Chhim Rithy, un magistrat de Kampong Speu, a indiqué que des traces de sang avaient été découvertes sur une corde et
dans la maison des victimes. «Ce n'est pas un suicide», a-t-il convenu.
Il avait fallu attendre le mois d'avril dernier pour que des recherches ADN déterminent que les cinq corps retrouvés étaient
bien ceux du Français et de ses enfants.
La police cambodgienne, qui mène elle aussi son enquête, a toujours refusé de commenter le dossier. Le grand-père des
enfants, Tith Chhuon, a de son côté affirmé qu'il ne croyait pas en la thèse du suicide, convaincu que son gendre et ses
quatre petits-enfants avaient été assassinés.
À Gez (65), son frère n'a jamais cru à cette thèse
«Le Cambodge ne joue pas le jeu. J'ai le sentiment que les autorités bloquent le dossier par souci de donner une bonne
image de leur pays à l'étranger, à l'heure où elles veulent développer le tourisme et attirer des investisseurs», déclarait le 8
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octobre 2012 à «La Dépêche du Midi» Xavier Vallier. Le frère de la victime n'a jamais cru à la thèse du suicide familial.
«Pour nous, sa famille, cette version est incohérente, affirmait alors Xavier Vallier. Laurent s'était remis du décès de son
épouse survenu en 2009 (N.D.L.R. : morte en couche lors de la naissance de leur dernier enfant) et avait des projets».
Selon son frère, il travaillait sur une station d'aquaculture, après avoir eu un restaurant et exploité des chambres d'hôtes. En
sa qualité d'étranger, il n'avait pas le droit de posséder les deux maisons et les rizières qu'il avait achetées. Du coup, tous
ses biens étaient au nom de sa femme. Avec la disparition de son épouse, s'est alors posée la question de l'héritage. La
succession, dont une partie pourrait revenir à sa belle-famille, avait cependant été bloquée par la justice.
Persuadés du caractère criminel de l'affaire, ses parents avaient porté plainte pour «assassinats». Plusieurs éléments les
confortent dans cette idée. «Tout d'abord, Laurent était jalousé, car considéré comme riche. Il ne se sentait plus en sécurité
au Cambodge», ont-ils expliqué. Les soupçons de Xavier Vallier se portaient plus précisément sur la belle-famille de son
frère avec qui il entretenait des rapports compliqués. Pour ces gens, qu'il avait aidés financièrement à plusieurs reprises,
c'était le blanc, celui qui a l'argent», suggérait-il alors.
La Dépêche du Midi
Neuf touristes blessés dans un accident de montgolfière à Siem Reap
28 March 2013 – Cambodge Post
A Siem Reap, neuf touristes ont été blessés mardi lors d’un atterrissage raté d’une
montgolfière appartenant à la société Cambodian Flight International Travel, a indiqué
hier un responsable de la police du site d’Angkor. Parmi eux, un ressortissant ukrainien
aurait été grièvement blessé.
Une rafale de vent aurait précipité le ballon contre un palmier alors qu’il se trouvait à
5m du sol au dessus d’une rizière, a indiqué ce responsable de la police.
Selon ce policier, ce serait le quatrième accident de cette nature depuis décembre, date à
laquelle Cambodian Flight International Travel a inauguré ses vols.
En février, une montgolfière appartenant à cette même société avait déjà raté son
atterrissage, terminant sa course au milieu d’une route très fréquentée, ainsi qu’en atteste la photo ci-dessous publiée par le Phnom Penh
Post.
Le rugby au Cambodge, une histoire de transmission
Anonyme | Gavroche | 08/03/2013 - Gavroche
Depuis 12 ans, la Fédération cambodgienne de rugby existe
pour transmettre des valeurs aux enfants défavorisés, plus que
pour former des joueurs de haut niveau. Mais un manque de
financement met en péril les initiatives de la Fédération.
Bien qu’elle soit aujourd’hui dénommée en anglais la Cambodian
Federation of Rugby (CFR, Fédération cambodgienne de rugby) la CFR
a bel et bien une histoire française. Elle est née en 2000, tirant ses
racines du Royal Rugby Club du Cambodge, première organisation
rugbystique du pays lancée en 1996. La même année, des activités rugby et une première équipe senior, Les
Piliers d’Angkor, principalement composée de parachutistes bayonnais, sont lancées par deux Hexagonaux
du Royal Rugby Club du Cambodge, Jean-Claude Garen, médecin généraliste de formation, et Philippe
Monnin, actuel vice-président de la CFR qui s’occupe depuis 20 ans de plantations d'hévéas au Cambodge.
« La relation entre le rugby cambodgien et la France est même bien plus ancienne que cela : des liens
existent depuis le Protectorat français du Cambodge », explique Tan Theany, présidente de la fédération qui
garde des coupures de l’Echo du Cambodge annonçant l’organisation d’un match de rugby entre des Français
le 1er avril 1928.
Tan Theany, 70 ans et seule femme à diriger une fédération de rugby dans le monde, est également
secrétaire générale de la Commission nationale du Cambodge pour l’Unesco. L’organisation des Nations unies
pour l'Education, la Science et la Culture collabore avec la fédération de rugby depuis la naissance de cette
dernière. Les deux entités ont d’ailleurs leur siège situé dans la même maison, sur la place du monument de
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l’Indépendance à Phnom Penh. Dès 2000, l’Unesco a proposé d’utiliser son programme « d’écoles associées
» pour diffuser ce sport. La première école de rugby a été créée cette même année au sein de l’Organisation
non gouvernementale « Pour un sourire d’enfant » (PSE) qui fait toujours partie du programme fédéral.
L’Unesco et CFR ont pour but commun l’aide à l’épanouissement des enfants cambodgiens les plus pauvres.
« L’objectif de la Fédération est d’utiliser le rugby comme outil d’insertion sociale auprès des jeunes issus de
milieux défavorisés, de manière à ce qu’ils puissent se construire, prendre confiance, trouver de la
reconnaissance et s’épanouir à travers la pratique du rugby, explique Jean-Baptiste Suberbie, l’un des deux
agents de développement que compte la CFR. Ici, il n’y a pas de sport dans les écoles, et certains enfants
qui n’ont rien à faire jouent de l’argent aux billes, se droguent ou ramassent les poubelles. Le rugby ne peut
pas tout résoudre mais les valeurs de ce sport que sont l’esprit d’équipe, la fierté, le respect, la solidarité et
le courage servent à construire de belles personnes. »
Une première en Asie
Le jeune homme de 26 ans, qui a joué au niveau Fédérale 3 en France (équivalent à la cinquième division),
est en poste au Cambodge depuis un an et demi, après avoir connu plusieurs expériences dans
l’humanitaire. S’il est aussi l’entraîneur assistant de l’équipe nationale, c’est surtout des enfants qu’il
s’occupe. Il entraîne une fois par semaine une centaine de jeunes entre 10 et 18 ans issus de l’orphelinat
Aspeca, ainsi que de l’association Taramana qui accueille des enfants du quartier défavorisé de Boeng Salang
à Phnom Penh. Et il parvient à organiser un match toutes les deux semaines pour chaque catégorie d’âge. Il
fait également depuis peu goûter les joies du ballon ovale à des enfants sourds et muets de la fondation
Krousar Thmey – « Nouvelle Famille » en khmer –, rare organisme d'aide aux enfants handicapés du
Cambodge.
Le gabarit moyen et les carences alimentaires en protéines et calcium de ces petits Cambodgiens obligent
Jean-Baptiste à axer ses séances d’entraînement sur des exercices ludiques avec le ballon. Ces enfants
rapides et habiles ne sont initiés que petit à petit à l’art du plaquage. « Sur toutes ces expériences, il n’y a
que du positif à retenir chez ces jeunes, explique ce fou de rugby originaire de Bordeaux. Ils sont vraiment
enthousiastes et en demande perpétuelle de jeux. Comme j’habite près de l’orphelinat Aspeca, il m’arrive de
faire des entraînements improvisés le soir avec les enfants. Certains sont vraiment passionnés par le rugby,
et ils sont aussi doués. Il y a quelques semaines, ils ont facilement battu les élèves du Lycée français qui
faisaient tous deux têtes de plus qu’eux. »
Ces bambins qui prennent du plaisir dans l’effort physique sont également amenés à réfléchir sur leur
comportement de tous les jours. Ainsi, les éducateurs qui avaient remarqué que les garçons insultaient
souvent les filles, ou ne leur passaient pas le ballon, ont organisé cette année le « Good Men Tournament ».
Cet événement a été l’occasion de mettre les filles des équipes à l’honneur et d’expliquer aux garçons le
principe d’égalité entre les sexes à travers des ateliers. « La société cambodgienne est très violente envers
les femmes. Il y a beaucoup de viols et de violences domestiques, affirme Jean-Baptiste Suberbie. Nous,
nous croyons que si un enfant se comporte bien sur le terrain, il se comportera bien en dehors. Et que cela
lui servira plus tard pour trouver un travail et s’intégrer dans la société. »
Enfant des bidonvilles
Dul Khemrin, 25 ans, fait partie de ses enfants du bidonville de Boang Salang qui se sont épanouis grâce à
l’Ovalie. Pris en charge avec son frère par l’ONG Pour un Sourire d’Enfant à la mort de sa mère alors qu’il
avait 10 ans, il a commencé à jouer au rugby huit ans plus tard. Cet électricien de profession est désormais
joueur de l’équipe nationale cambodgienne et du Stade Khmer, l’une des quatre équipes seniors du pays. «
Le rugby m'a apporté beaucoup de bonheur, raconte-t-il. J’ai pu faire des compétitions, apprendre l'esprit
d'équipe, apprécier la victoire, digérer la défaite. Le rugby m'a donné un objectif. Je savais que si je
continuais à progresser je pourrais faire gagner mon équipe. Je connais des gens qui grâce au rugby ont
arrêté la drogue ou sont sortis de la criminalité. Moi, le rugby m'a apporté un équilibre et un but. »
Dul Khemrin est également formé comme entraîneur-assistant des jeunes par Jean-Baptiste Suberbie, dans
l’idée de « rendre ce qu’on lui a donné ». Il espère devenir à terme agent de développement à la Fédération.
« A long terme, notre volonté est d’avoir réussi à former des entraîneurs-éducateurs cambodgiens, de
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manière à ce que le développement du rugby puisse être à la fois pérenne et autonome », explique JeanBaptiste Suberbie. Ce dernier pense que de nombreux enfants qu’il a actuellement en mains suivront les
traces de Dul Khemrin qui est un exemple pour eux sur et en dehors des terrains.
« Pas du rugby de haut niveau »
La CFR comprend 22 équipes de rugby : quatre équipes des moins de 11 ans, six équipes des moins de 13
ans, trois équipes des moins de 15 ans, deux équipes des moins de 17 ans, une équipe de moins de 19 ans,
deux équipes féminines et enfin seulement quatre équipes seniors concentrés sur Phnom Penh qui
s’affrontent dans la Super 4 League, sorte de Top 14 cambodgien. « Il n’est pas question de parler
aujourd’hui de rugby de haut niveau au Cambodge, atteste Jean-Baptiste Suberbie. La ligne directrice de la
fédération est avant tout de s’occuper de l’insertion sociale des enfants. » Pourtant, le rugby avait
commencé à grandir très rapidement dans le royaume. En 2003, seulement trois ans après la création de la
fédération, un championnat se jouait avec une dizaine d’équipes issues de plusieurs provinces. La fédération
cambodgienne recevait aussi cette année-là le « Developpement Award » de l’International Rugby Board
(IRB – Fédération internationale de rugby) qui récompense l’entité ou la personne ayant contribué le plus au
développement du rugby dans l’année. Le Cambodge a été ensuite intégré à l’IRB en tant que membre
associé. En 2006, l’équipe nationale remportait ses trois matchs de la saison face au Laos, le Brunei et
l’Indonésie, véritable performance.
Mais depuis 2008, les Koupreys, surnom des joueurs du XV cambodgien, ne décollent pas de la dernière
place du classement des équipes asiatiques et le nombre de licenciés a légèrement baissé, passant d’environ
400 en 2007 à quelque 300 aujourd’hui. « La dynamique a été rompue car tout le travail de la fédération au
commencement était le fait d’un tout petit nombre de personnes, raconte Jean-Baptiste. Et quand celles-ci
se sont un peu moins impliquées, beaucoup de choses se sont arrêtées. C’est pour cela qu’aujourd’hui nous
souhaitons former au maximum des Cambodgiens qui travailleront sur le long terme avec la fédération. »
Des difficultés financières sont aussi à l’origine de ce coup de frein. L’IRB avait promis en 2008 de faire
passer le Cambodge du statut de membre associé à celui de membre à part entière. Une promesse non
tenue qui prive la CFR de financements indispensables. La visite en 2010 de François Trinh-Duc, demi
d’ouverture international français parrain de PSE, n’a pas non plus eu les retombées escomptées par la
Fédération. Aujourd’hui, celle-ci a besoin d’environ 20 000 dollars par saison pour couvrir le prix des licences
et assurances des nouvelles équipes, les déplacements, la nourriture lors des matchs, les locations des
terrains et les salaires des deux agents de développement. Si son collègue australien dispose d’un revenu,
Jean-Baptiste travaille bénévolement. « L’une des grosses parties de mon travail actuellement se situe donc
dans la recherche de partenariats financiers et/ou matériels avec des associations, entreprises, collectivités,
clubs et donateurs privés situés en France », explique-t-il. Devant le peu de réponses positives, le jeune
homme fait réaliser des tee-shirts au nom des associations qu’il transporte en France, où les vêtements sont
vendus, dans les bagages d’amis. Ce système D permet tout juste la survie des activités mises en place par
Jean-Baptiste qui vient d’apprendre le refus de l’octroi d’une enveloppe de 20 000 dollars par le Comité
international de la Croix-Rouge. L’organisation humanitaire avait pourtant validé à deux reprises le projet de
la Fédération cambodgienne. « Je suis usé par cette situation, admet Jean-Baptiste qui sait qu’un éventuel
retour forcé en France par manque d’argent signifierait la fin de certaines équipes d’enfants. J’ai dépensé
beaucoup de mes économies, je fais attention aux prix pour chaque chose que je mange et je ne sors pas.
Mais même en vivant comme cela, les choses deviennent difficiles. Aujourd’hui, je me raccroche aux sourires
des enfants. »
Texte : Paul Garibaldi
Photos : Pascal Della Zuana
CUISINE – Du social et des saveurs : la recette gagnante de
Romdeng
Samuel Bartholin - lepetitjournal.com - Mardi 26 mars 2013
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L’ONG Friends International vient de publier en français un livre, Des araignées aux fleurs de lotus, compilant les
recettes de son restaurant Romdeng, qui depuis huit ans vise à la fois à dispenser une formation et à promouvoir la
gastronomie cambodgienne.
"A cette époque le Cambodge était un pays où la vie était rude et bien différente de celle
d’aujourd’hui" : c’est sur ces mots que s’ouvre le livre Des araignées aux fleurs de lotus,
consacré à la "cuisine cambodgienne créative". Une entrée en matière a priori insolite pour
un ouvrage de recettes, moins quand on note que c’est Friends International qui est à
l’origine de cette publication. Son fondateur, le Français Sébastien Marot, évoque ainsi en
ouverture les conditions d’apparition de l’ONG dédiée aux enfants des rues.
L’environnement âpre du Cambodge au début des années 90, avec la présence des armes
à feu, des gangs recourant à des mineurs. Cherchant un contrepoint à ce quotidien difficile,
Marot espéra le trouver dans les saveurs de la cuisine locale. "Mal m’en a pris, car cela me rendit rapidement très malade", explique le
travailleur humanitaire : l’hygiène et la qualité des produits trouvés sur les marchés laissaient alors encore fortement à désirer.
Une envie de cuisine khmère
La situation allait cependant s’améliorer au fur et au mesure des années. L’ONG Friends allait également se développer et donner une
formation professionnelle à de nombreux jeunes défavorisés, notamment dans la restauration, avec son fameux établissement
d’apprentissage, "Friends The Restaurant". Mais ce dernier repose avant tout sur une cuisine fusion, mélangeant saveurs occidentales et
asiatiques. L’envie d’un établissement mettant en valeur la cuisine cambodgienne taraudait Sébastien Marot et son équipe, ce fut enfin
chose faite en 2005, avec l’ouverture de Romdeng. "Romdeng s’inspire de recettes de provinces reculées du Cambodge pour les remettre
au goût du jour", explique Sabine Valens, chargée de communication et marketing à Friends. La formule fonctionne, notamment auprès des
occidentaux, curieux de découvrir la cuisine khmère dans un cadre plus accessible à eux qu’un restaurant local. Et de faire ainsi une bonne
action, en soutenant l’effort d’insertion que mène l’endroit.
Scènes de la vie cambodgienne
Des araignées aux fleurs de lotus, qui vient de paraître en français, après une première publication en anglais, reprend les nombreuses
recettes proposées par Romdeng. Le livre est agréable et bien ordonnancé, avec ses parties "Salades", "Soupes et curries", "Grillades",
"Vapeur", "Friture", enfin, "Desserts et boissons". De belles illustrations de mets et d’ingrédients rythment les pages, mais aussi des scènes
de la vie du Cambodge, rappelant la vocation de Friends d’être ancré dans la société. Un ouvrage idéal pour mieux se familiariser avec le
goût cambodgien, souvent dans l’ombre des très renommées cuisines vietnamiennes et thaïlandaises, et qui est ici mis à l’honneur, sans
complexe, dans une belle mise en pages.
Quelques plats proposés par Romdeng :
Le plus insolite : Tarentules croustillantes, sauce au citron vert et poivre noir de Kampot
"Au Cambodge, les tarentules constituent un mets très délicat » rappelle Des araignées…
Cambodgiens les grignotent comme les Occidentaux mangent des frites"
Le plus traditionnel : Trois types de Prahok servis avec des aubergines, des haricots
« Les
kilomètres et
des feuilles de chou
"Le prahok est le plat national du Cambodge. Son goût, très fort et très puissant, ne plaît pas à tout le
monde"
Le plus populaire auprès des clients (à part le Amok) : Aubergines grillées au porc et à la coriandre
"J’aime beaucoup le goût fumé de ce plat. Je suis impatient de le faire découvrir à mon jeune fils
Dorian dès qu’il sera assez aventureux pour tester des plats un peu différents" Sébastien Marot, cité
dans Des araignées…
Romdeng : #74 rue 174, Phnom Penh
Des araignées aux fleurs de lotus, Friends International, 2013, en vente 35 dollars à Carnets d’Asie, et dans les boutiques
Friends’n’stuff (rue 13, marché russe, hôtel Intercontinental).
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-----------------------------------------
Kratie cut to shreds [by Viet companies] –
ព ឈ
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ខ
កច
ក !ម#$!ន យ&ន ប(ផ*+ញ ខទ ចខទ.
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Rubber plantations sprawl across the concession owned
by Vietnamese firm Tay Nam inside the Snuol Wildlife
Sanctuary in Kratie province. Photograph: Heng
Chivoan/Phnom Penh Post
29 March 2013
By David Boyle and May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post
In June of last year, Prime Minister Hun Sen
ordered three rubber firms, including Binh
Phuoc, which holds an adjacent 10,000
hectare concession inside the SBCA, to stop
logging some 85 per cent of their ELCsthat remained evergreen or semi-evergreen forest.
The Landsat pictures show that, if anything,the firms Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 1
Company, Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 2 Company and Eastern Rubber (Cambodia)
only intensified the rate of clearing.
‘I heard a f—ing crazy dog say that we can’t dock in Kampong Saom, but we definitely can do that,” a crackling
voice declares boisterously.
The speaker, captured in video obtained by the Post, is part of an illegal timber syndicate.
As he brags about selling timber to people he refers to as “long nose”, Khmer slang for
foreigner, he parades around a timberyard filled with container after container packed
with luxury wood.
Posing in front of an open container of what is identified as either luxury Thnuong or rosewood logs, a man
referred to as the owner, beams with a greedy smile.
“The most important thing is that everything is agreed from there, when [it] arrives here, they will take all
[varieties],” a voice says.
There are at least 37 container loads – hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars worth of illegally
logged timber in the yard.
The identity of the speaker is unknown and he could be anywhere in the country – indeed, this type of
luxury wood harvesting is happening all over Cambodia.
But nowhere is it more blatantly visible than along the national roads, endlessly lined with rubber plantations,
that bisect the northeastern provinces of Kratie, Mondulkiri and Ratanakkiri.
From the sky, it is clear that the multi-million dollar timber trade has already decimated
Kratie’s 75,089 hectare Snuol Wildlife Sanctuary.
Imagery from two of NASA’s Landsat satellites compiled by the Post from photos snapped between 2009 and
2013 suggests that about 60 per cent of the entire sanctuary’s evergreen forest has become
cleared land.
Just a small fraction of the 55,135 hectares of known granted economic land concessions − with eight in total
accounting for more than 70 per cent of the protected area – remain green, and there is little reason to suggest
that forest coverage will stay for much longer.
Like a bad joke, a sign for one of the Snuol Wildlife Sanctuary’s ranger substations stands
surrounded by hectare after hectare of clear-felled forest, some of it still smouldering.
The rest of the land within this ELC granted toVietnamese firm Tay Nam K has already been turned
into rubber plantations.
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But at the gates of the nearby Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 2 Company’s concession, at the start of the
adjacent 305,647 hectare Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area (SBCA), access is blocked. This
protected area, to date relatively well preserved, is going next.
Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 2 also employs what could be read as satirical signage. Under one of the rubber
company’s billboards is written “Investor: Tien Dat Furniture Corporation Binh Dinh”.
In June of last year, Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered three rubber firms, including Binh
Phuoc, which holds an adjacent 10,000 hectare concession inside the SBCA, to stop
logging some 85 per cent of their ELCs that remained evergreen or semi-evergreen forest.
The Landsat pictures show that, if anything, the firms Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 1
Company, Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 2 Company and Eastern Rubber (Cambodia) only
intensified the rate of clearing.
It is hard to put precises percentages on the extent of forest clearance revealed through the satellite images but
easy to see that huge swaths have disappeared in the three concessions since Hun Sen’s directive.
The prime minister’s green thumb intervention to save the sanctuary from the fate of its southern neighbour was
seemingly reversed just months after he signed off on the order on June 28.
Snuol District Deputy Governor Men Vanna told the Post that after Hun Sen’s order was handed down,
a joint research committee headed by Deputy Prime MinisterYim Chhaly was established.
The committee determined that because Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 2 Company was not threatening any existing
forest, the firm would be given back 5,000 hectares – or half of their total original concession, he said.
“The forest that has been cleared by company is damaged forest, it is not evergreen forest – before the
government granted both to the company,” Vanna said, but conceded even his officials had to gain permission to
enter the area.
It’s an old excuse – that companies granted concessions in protected areas are just
clearing already degraded forest – and one that flies in the face of what is clearly visible
from space. The logging here, the satellite imagery shows, hasspecifically targeted
evergreen forest.
While satellite imagery can be ambiguous when analysing the destruction of deciduous forest, because the trees
shed their leaves during the dry season, making it difficult to identify them, the results are far more conclusive
when it comes to evergreen forest.
None of the three companies ordered to stop logging by the premier list contact details online. When the Post
contacted the Cambodia office of the largest state Vietnamese rubber firm, Vietnam Rubber Group, an employee
said he did not have the authority to speak about the firms, then declined to say whether the company was in any
way linked to VRG. He told a reporter not to call back and directed questions to VRG’s Hanoi
office, which could not be reached.
Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chhaly did not answer his phone.
Rather than the rubber company, Vanna put most of the blame for the logging of the protected
forest on an influx of settlers who had moved in after the prime minister’s national land-titling scheme
was launched in July.
In the time since, a population of 49 families that contested between 60 and 100 hectares of land also claimed by
the company had swelled to 405 families, he said.
“The land that they take over is forest land; it is not land that they used to plant crops before. They are
newcomers, and the reason that they take over the forest land that belongs to company is because they hope that
the government will measure the land for them,” Vanna said.
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Mom Sakin, 54, has fought for the protection of the SBCA since 2000 through the community forest program
and led a direct intervention this week when villagers seized chainsaws and a bulldozer from Binh Phuoc Kratie
Rubber 2 Company’s concession.
She is frustrated by the migrants who have flooded into the area since the prime minister’s land-titling scheme
was initiated, but is far more concerned by the ruthless actions of a foreign company she said was destroying any
natural resource in sight.
“Before, we lived with green fresh forest, but now we live with nothing. We see only the base of the trees and the
smoke as they burn,” she said, lamenting that company employees had even shot most of the monkeys in the
area to feed themselves.
Sakin painted a picture of anarchic destruction, whereby villagers were co-opted into logging for the company,
which was protected by military police and soldiers, who in turn extorted money from illegal loggers at six
“checkpoints” set up in the area.
She alleged that they charged loggers $2.50 per ox cart, $45 per chainsaw and $125 per
truck load, while the company intimidated those who resisted their plans.
“The company always shoots into the sky to threaten people who don’t want to move
when they come to clear the land,” Sakin alleged, adding that some villagers eventually agreed to move
for between $250 to $500.
Officials from the Snuol district Forestry Administration, which is responsible for
protecting the SBCA, and the district military police did not answer their phones when
contacted by the Post, while National Military Police Spokesman Kheng Tito said he was unaware of the issue.
One person who is aware of the issue is Prime Minister Hun Sen, who in February said he was joining the battle
to protect luxury rosewood and crackdown on illegal logging.
Unfortunately, most of the rosewood in Cambodia is already gone, but there are many more varieties of lucrative
trees left for the pilfering.
Meanwhile, for the masterminds of such operations, business continues with little fear of
any repercussions.
“Hey, my friend, go and stand over there, I will film you in close up to let other people know you are a timber
owner,” the voice on the illegal logging video sales pitch says.
“I film video; I will put in [digital] memory. Here, a timber owner, a rosewood owner. He owns the rosewood.
Now you know him. If you need rosewood you can contact him.
He is the right guy,” the voice says as the owner poses in front of the camera.
Timber Traders - ./ 0 ឈម&ញ ក+ប1 ន2ង ជ&ញ ឈ
ខ!5ចប+ប1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tm64wNqQkY
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Hun Sen linked to BHP deal: report
Thief of Cambodia
03/26/2013
Source: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/
A BHP Billiton Ltd mining deal being probed for alleged corruption was
overseen by Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, sensitive diplomatic cables
reveal, according to The Australian Financial Review.
The miner's abandoned attempt to establish a bauxite mine in Cambodia and its
hospitality program for Chinese officials at the 2008 Beijing Olympics are at the heart of a foreign bribery
investigation run by Australian Federal Police and the US Justice Department.
The newspaper reported that the "protected" diplomatic cables showed the Cambodian Prime
Minister’s close involvement in 2006 negotiations with BHP executives, including his
promises of ‘‘a possible tax holiday’’ and that he would give ‘‘BHP one million hectares of
land’’.
Hun Sen has dismissed reports suggesting BHP was involved in bribery in Cambodia.
Earlier this month it was revealed a US Justice Department Investigation into BHP's sponsorship of the 2008
Beijing Olympic Games had discovered "suspicious transactions that had been recorded as legitimate business
payments" by the miner.
The mining gaint said it has been cooperating with the relevant authorities in an investigation into possible
violations of anti-corruption laws.
Cambodian PM linked to talks
Hun Sen. Photo: Reuters
March 26, 2013
The Age (Australia)
A BHP Billiton mining deal being investigated for alleged corruption was
personally overseen by Cambodian strong man Hun Sen, diplomatic cables
reveal.
The mining giant's aborted attempt to establish a bauxite mine in Cambodia and its hospitality program for
Chinese officials at the 2008 Beijing Olympics are at the centre of a foreign bribery probe involving the
Australian Federal Police and the US Justice Department.
Diplomatic cables, several marked ''sensitive'' and ''protected'',show for the first time Cambodian Prime
Minister Hun Sen's close involvement in 2006 negotiations with BHP executives.
The cables show Hun Sen told a private audience in Cambodia that he would give ''BHP 1 million
hectares of land'' weeks before the 2006 agreement was signed. He also promised the company
''a possible tax holiday'' and chaired a committee examining legal issues associated with the BHP proposal.
The cables reveal how BHP decided to stop all mineral exploration in Cambodia in 2009 just months after a
British-based non-government organisation exposed its ''tea money'' payments of $US 3.5 million to Cambodian
government departments and raised concerns some of the money had gone missing.
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There is no evidence suggesting any of the money went to Hun Sen, who has dismissed reports suggesting BHP
was involved in bribery in Cambodia.
The cables, released under FOI by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, show BHP in 2006 took what
Australian officials regarded as an unusual step of asking them to directly approach Hun Sen for a meeting to ''go
to the next level and close the deal''.
Although Australian officials rejected the request to approach the Cambodian leader on BHP's behalf in order to
''preserve our political capital'', embassy staff in Phnom Penh contacted Hun Sen's office to get a contact name
and number to pass to BHP.
In September 2006, Hun Sen and BHP executives signed an agreement granting the firm
and joint venture partner Mitsubishi rights to explore a huge area of land for bauxite
deposits. The deal was ratified by Hun Sen and then prime minister John Howard weeks
later.
The cables make clear that although BHP's exploration process was progressing slowly during 2007 and 2008,
the company's Cambodia-based executives were optimistic about the project's success. However, the diplomatic
cables show a change in BHP's stance on Cambodia shortly after the February 2009 release of the Global
Witness report.
In April 2009, Australian diplomats sent a ''confidential'' cable to Canberra raising doubts about BHP's longterm commitment to Cambodia, blaming the global financial crisis and the country's ''own poor financial
management''.
The cable stated that any withdrawal by BHP would ''not only breach BHPB's MOU with the Cambodian
government (signed in the presence of prime ministers Hun Sen and Howard in Canberra in 2006)'', but would
also ''diminish Australia's influence in this major sector''.
Australian diplomats in Phnom Penh also sent a cable to Canberra in response to the claims by Global Witness
stating that ''the specific references [to] Australian companies are very concerning''. However, they remained
confident BHP had done nothing wrong.
BHP told the Australian government in June 2009 that it would pull out of Cambodia because the bauxite
deposit was not worth mining due to global financial conditions.
The firm asked for the information to be kept secret from Hun Sen's administration, which was not told of the
decision until August 2009.
Government Denies Reports on Mining Corruption and Hun Sen
[-That's all Hun Xen can do: Deny! Deny! Deny!]
29.03.2013
VOA Khmer
The Cambodian government on Thursday dismissed
media reports in Australia linking Prime Minister Hun
Sen to a mining company under investigation there
forcorruption.
Earlier this week, The Age newspaper reported on Australian
documents that described officials from BHP Billiton seeking a
special meeting with Hun Sen prior to being given mineral
exploration rights in 2006.
The government’s Quick Reaction Unit, which deals with media, said in a statement Thursday
the report was “exaggerated” and meant to “dishonor” Hun Sen ahead of the July national
elections. (sic!)
BHP Billiton is under investigation in the US and Australia for allegedly corrupt practices in mining deals in
Cambodia and China. Cambodia consistently ranks among the most corrupt countries in Asia.
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Preap Kol, executive director for Transparency International Cambodia, said his organization does not have a
mandate to investigate corruption claims such as those made in The Age, but he said he will monitor the media
outcome.
Son Chhay, a lawmaker for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, said The Age has “no interest” in Cambodian
politics. Rather, the Cambodian government should evaluate the country’s corruption, he said.
Audit Finds Major Flaws in National Voter List
Cartoon by Sacrava
March 24, 2013
By Zsombor Peter and Phorn Bopha
The Cambodia Daily
“I am concerned by thelarge number of eligible
citizens who will show up on election day to
discover their names are not on the list and can’t
vote either because they were incorrectly deleted
or think they are registered but are not. I’m equally
concerned that there is a significant number of names on the list that are not attached to
real people.”
More than 1 in 10 people who are registered for July’s national elections appear not to
exist and 9 percent of past voters have been taken off local voting lists unfairly, according to
an independent audit of the country’s latest voter registry released yesterday.
By just about every measure, the voter list isworse than it was heading into the last national
election in 2008, said Laura Thornton, country director for the National Democratic Institute (NDI), one of
the organizations that conducted the audit.
“The key finding is that overall, there has been a decline in all aspects of the quality of the voter list
in Cambodia,” she said. “There is a decline in comprehensiveness, there’s a decline in
accuracy and there’s a decline in… validity, compared to 2008.”
A joint effort by NDI, the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Nicfec) and
the Center for Advanced Studies, the audit adds weight to recent warnings from another local election monitor
that this year’s elections are shaping up to be the least fair in the 20 years since the U.N.-sponsored national
election of 1993.
“These findings reveal flaws that may have implications on the quality and legitimacy of these elections,” Ms.
Thornton said.
“I am concerned by the large number of eligible citizens who will show up on election day
to discover their names are not on the list and can’t vote either because they were
incorrectly deleted or think they are registered but are not. I’m equally concerned
that there is a significant number of names on the list that are not attached to real
people.”
Among the nearly 4,900 Cambodians that Nicfec volunteers randomly sampled across the country last month,
they could not find 10.4 percent of the people whose names were on the national voter list.
In other words, Ms. Thornton said, “the names on the list are not attached to existing people.”
That compares to only 7.7 percent of registered names that did not match up with real people in 2008.
The National Election Committee (NEC) announced earlier this year that the voter list consisted of a total of 9.6
million people.
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“I want to emphasize quality control here,” Ms. Thornton said. “We looked for these people. We talked to pagoda
heads. We talked to neighbors. We tried to find family members. And every single one of the unknown voters
was confirmed not to exist by the village chief.”
The audit also found that the data commune election offices had on voters was becoming increasingly
inaccurate.
For example, the birth dates of voters on their national ID cards and the dates recorded on the national registry
matched up only 63 percent of the time this year, compared to 78 percent of the time in 2008. Names matched
up only 86.4 percent of the time.
Ms. Thornton said that those numbers could have major implications come election day.
“What this means is that people show up at the polling station and they have their identification documents. The
polling station official looks at the data on the list, looks at the ID documents, and can likely turn away these
people because the data does not match,” she said.
While election rules allow for some flexibility on names and birth dates, she added, “that puts a lot of discretion
in the hands of polling station officials. If the data doesn’t match for someone, they do have the right to not allow
them to vote.”
The auditors looked at the list of names taken off the registry and found that 9.4 percent had been wrongly
removed, just as many as in 2008.
Again, Ms. Thornton stressed the lengths to which the researchers went to get their numbers right.
“We…checked their name in their polling station where they were deleted and checked to see if their name was
still at the polling station and maybe they just deleted a duplicate name,” she said. “We also checked them in
other logical locations where they might be. So the point of all this is the quality control of this operation gives us
a lot of confidence in the data we found.”
Nicfec Director Hang Puthea said more than 1 in 10 of the people that the volunteers surveyed said they were
expecting to vote but were not in fact registered, setting up the prospect of mass disappointment on election day.
According to Ms. Thornton, all this raises the odds of more people trying to vote under names that are not their
own.
“It increases the risk because there are names on the list not attached to real people,” she said.
Mr. Puthea and Ms. Thornton would not speculate which party had the most to gain from the irregularities, as
the volunteers eschewed questions about political affiliation in order to get the most honest answers out of their
subjects.
But, with the commune councils in charge of voter registration, and the vast majority of those councils firmly in
the hands of the ruling CPP, most election observers believe these long-standing complaints with the voter list
run in the CPP’s favor.
The NEC itself is stacked with ex-CPP officials and the Interior Ministry refuses to reveal how members are
selected, or to let any other party have a say in the selection process.
Just last week, the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia said the government is actually moving
further away from a democratic vote, and that this year’s vote was likely to be the least fair since 1993.
Some of the country’s Western donors have also called for the government to let selfexiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy return and stand in July’s vote.
The groups behind the latest audit made a number of recommendations.
Long term, they want the government to take voter registration duties away from the elected—and naturally
partisan—commune councils, and give them to a genuinely independent body.
More immediately, they want the NEC to let observers stand behind the polling clerks as they check IDs on
election day.
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Contacted yesterday, NEC Secretary-General Tep Nytha was dismissive of the audit’s results.
“The report has a lot of suspicious points. Some figures are not right,” he said. “We have 900 polling stations, but
they found only 144 polling stations. I don’t know how they did their job.”
Mr. Nytha appeared to be confusing the number of nationwide polling stations with the number of sites the
groups said they had visited for their audit. He also said their last audit also left much to be desired.
“In 2008, they said there were people who did not have their names on the list,” he said. “They gave us 88 people
to check. After we checked, more than 50 people had their names on the list.”
Even so, he said the NEC would check their figures if the groups sent them a list of names.
NDI defends audit of Cambodia’s voter rolls
The National Election Cheating
25 March 2013
By Joe Freeman
The Phnom Penh Post
The National Democratic Institute is standing by its highly
critical report outlining flaws in voter registration data after
the government’s main electoral body questioned the
veracity of the results and demanded names of people
interviewed.
In a statement released Friday, after local news stories ran coverage of the scathing audit and the National
Election Committee attempted to throw into doubt the study’s credibility by criticising its methodology, the
institute issued a lengthy rebuttal.
“From their press release, it seems they didn’t fully understand the data or the research
process,” NDI’s senior director in Cambodia, Laura Thornton, said yesterday.
In a central allegation, the election committee claims that NDI figures contradict themselves. One figure puts the
voter registration rate at around 83 percent, which would mean a decline from 2008.
In another section of the audit, the election committee says, the figure stands at a total of 90 percent.
But the NDI statement argues that “those two numbers cannot be logically combined or compared,” because the
first set of interviews asked eligible voters if they had registered, while the second sought to match names on the
list with actual people.
The institute also denied another claim that its field team had only conducted interviews by phone, and cited a
confidentiality agreement in refusing to release interviewees’ names.
The 2013 Cambodia Voter Registry audit, which the NDI, Cambodia’s Center for Advanced Studies, and the
Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia put together in February, called for a
number of changes ahead of July’s elections.
In light of a dip in registration, names deleted without cause and voters whose existence couldn’t be verified,
among other concerns, the audit urged the National Election Committee to make the registration list available in
analysable format and to accept international monitors at polling stations.
Tep Nytha, secretary general of the National Election Committee, told the Post yesterday that there is little
likelihood of implementing the recommendations.
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Troubling data in voter rolls: report
22 March 2013
By Joe Freeman and Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post
Voters who can’t be found,
deletions of names from lists
and
a
decline
in
the
accuracy of registry data are
just a few of the many areas
of concern that two nonprofits
brought to the attention of the National
Election Committee (NEC) in a
statistically scathing report released
yesterday.
Data collection for the massive 2013
Cambodia Voter Registry Audit –
which the government is already calling into question – involved more than 450 observers.
Beginning in February, they tracked the accuracy of the government’s voter list in a so-called two-way test: crossreferencing both the names on the list with the actual people, and conducting the process in reverse with different
respondents.
Led by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Cambodia’s Center for Advanced Study, and the Neutral and Impartial
Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), interviewers reached a broad sampling of about 5,000
eligible and registered voters spread out across 24 provinces.
The results will prove disconcerting for believers in the fairness of the electoral process,
and stir doubt in optimists who believe improvements have been made since the last
national elections five years ago.
“I think the whole point is that the quality of the voter’s list has declined, in every single measure by which you measure a
voting list,” said Laura Thornton, senior director of the NDI.
“This is important to us, because it’s in direct confrontation to what the NEC and the government is saying about the voter
list, that it’s never been better, that registration has never been higher. There is this narrative that things have gotten better,
and yet, the data is showing that, actually, it’s worse.”
The troubling statistics presented in the report, which used the most recently available information from 2012, cover a host
of topics.
There is the dip in registration, from about 88 per cent in 2008 to 83 per cent today. There is the 10.4 per cent of voters
whom the interviewers could not even locate or account for but whose names were registered, and the 9.4 per cent of
eligible voters who found themselves deleted from the list. Last but not least, there is the 10.8 per cent who think,
mistakenly, that they are registered.
Looking at the problem broadly, Thornton said the first issue is enfranchisement, and “the other point of the findings is,
what’s going on with the names on the list.”
Koul Panha, head of the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, said his organisation, which did not take part
in the audit, has found similarly worrisome problems in past studies.
The report yesterday made several suggestions going forward, including allowing independent monitors to observe polling
stations to look out for verification problems that may arise on election day.
None of this sat well with NEC Secretary-General Tep Nytha, who yesterday called the audit “suspect”. He demanded that
the NDI provide the names of those it interviewed to check the accuracy of its findings.
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“NEC is requesting NDI to give the names for three cases. First, those who have rights to vote and were deleted from voter
list; second, those who were already registered but did not have a name in the voter list; and third, those who used to vote in
2008 and 2012, and now can’t find their names on the voter list,” Nytha said. “Now we ask them to give those names so
that we can be sure about this audit.”
The release of the report came mere months before the national elections in July. On the same day, Prime Minister Hun Sen
put in a plug for his own candidacy and the Cambodian People’s Party in the elections on July 28. Speaking in Kompong
Thom province’s Santuk district in a pagoda inauguration ceremony, Hun Sen asked Cambodians to support him for
another term.
“Now it is my turn to depend on you. There is nothing difficult. Just tick [the ballot] if you love Hun Sen, if you pity Hun
Sen, if you are satisfied with Hun Sen, if you believe in Hun Sen. Please vote for the CPP.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MAY TITTHARA
Hun Rock Cafe coming to the Kingdom of Extraordinary
Wonder
Hun Sen’s Niece Brings Hard Rock
Restaurant to Cambodia
March 25, 2013
By Joshua Wilwohl and Kaing Menghun
The Cambodia Daily
Hun Kimleng, who is the niece of Mr. Hun Sen, and is
married to National Police Chief Neth Savoeun, is the
chairwoman of Worldwide Investment Group. Ms.
Kimleng’s company is also an investor in at least two
other restaurant chains—Australian coffee company
Gloria Jean’s and Chinese restaurant Emperors of China—as well as HML Law Firm and Consultants.
Hard Rock Cafe, the iconic U.S. restaurant franchise known for its
collections of rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia, will open restaurants in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, in a deal with a
local firm owned by the niece of Prime Minister Hun Sen, company representatives said Friday.
According to U.S. public relations firm Coyne PR, which represents Florida-based Hard Rock Cafe, the global
chain has signed a franchise deal with local companies Worldwide Investment Group and Meas Development to
open two restaurants in Cambodia.
“As part of this new agreement, the companies plan to open a new Hard Rock Cafe location in Siem Reap, and
later, a second cafe in Phnom Penh,” Coyne PR said in a statement.
“A long-term lease has been signed on a colonial building across from the Old Town and the River, which will be
home to the new Hard Rock Cafe Siem Reap. The new Siem Reap cafe will be part of a beautiful development,
where 11 other restaurants and retail shops are going to be installed during 2013,” the statement added.
Hard Rock’s announcement on Friday comes after U.S. fast food chain Burger King opened its first restaurant in
Cambodia at Phnom Penh’s airport in February and after the recent arrival of U.S. ice cream chain Dairy Queen,
reflecting the growing confidence of brands in the country’s stability and economic potential.
Worldwide Investment Group’s chief operating officer Bearring Phang said the company’s investment in the
Siem Reap Hard Rock restaurant is about $3 million. The capital investment for the Phnom Penh Hard Rock
would depend on the location, which had not yet been secured, he said.
“We hope to open in Phnom Penh sometime in 2014,” he said.
“Hard Rock is a well-known brand. We believe Hard Rock is a real franchise with several locations in 58
countries, and it will be popular in this country.”
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Hun Kimleng, who is the niece of Mr. Hun Sen, and is married to National Police Chief
Neth Savoeun, is the chairwoman of Worldwide Investment Group. Ms. Kimleng’s company
is also an investor in at least two other restaurant chains—Australian coffee company
Gloria Jean’s and Chinese restaurant Emperors of China—as well as HML Law Firm and
Consultants.
According to the HML law firm website, “[Ms.] Kimleng has extensive experience as a corporate shareholder and
a high management profile in many businesses and has good relation with various ministries.”
Worldwide Investment Group is also a partner of land development firm TTY Corporation Co. Ltd.
Meas Development is operated by Belgian restaurateur Alain Dupuis, who is the majority shareholder in the Blue
Pumpkin franchise, the Emperors of China and several other local restaurants.
Hard Rock, which was founded by Americans in London in 1971, currently has 141 cafes and 18 hotels around the
world. The company is owned by the Seminole of Florida, a tribe of Native Americans.
Hun Sen Touts Successes, Distances Himself From Local
Leaders
March 28, 2013
By Neou Vannarin
The Cambodia Daily
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday told voters not to hold it
against him if they disapprove of local CPP officials and to
vote for him anyway come this year’s national elections in
July.
“Please don’t hit the cart if you are angry at the cow. Don’t stop voting for Hun Sen if you hate your
commune chief,” he said in a speech in Kompong Cham province to inaugurate a pagoda.
“It’s a national election,” he said. “Don’t be confused, the national policy is set out by me.”
More than 97 percent of the country’s 1,633 commune chiefs are ruling party
officials. Given broad authority to manage electoral registers, commune chiefs have come under increasing
scrutiny from various independent election monitors who have found irregularities in voter lists.
Speaking at the inauguration of the pagoda in O’Reangou district, Mr. Hun Sen applauded the decision to again
raise the minimum wage for what he estimated are Cambodia’s 600,000 garment workers.
“The minimum wage has increased from less than $30 to over $40, then $62 and now $80,” he said. The $80
includes a pre-existing health bonus in the minimum wage of $75, which will be effective in May.”
“That’s why some garment workers can send money to their family,” he added.
Cambodia’s minimum wage is still the lowest in Southeast Asia, and economists and labor advocates have said
that $75 is well below a living wage in Phnom Penh.
Comparing Cambodia to countries around the world beset with internal conflicts, such as Egypt, Syria and the
south of Thailand, Mr. Hun Sen boasted that “only the CPP can maintain long-lasting peace
and stability.”
“The CPP has never changed its symbol. It is simply an angel spreading flowers. So just tick that angel sign [and]
you are electing Hun Sen,” he said.
Mr. Hun Sen also noted that O’Reangou district was where he lost an eye as a soldier in the country’s civil war in
the 1970s.
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“O’Reangou is the land where I lost one of my eyes. One piece of shrapnel is remaining in my eye, so sometimes
when there is rain and thunder, I suffer,” he said.
Government Threatens RFA With Potential Lawsuit Over
Border Report
ផ*ក1ចយ គ( +មប 7ង 0+5$.5 .
A screenshot of Radio Free Asia's Khmer Service report bout the potential government lawsuit, March 28, 2013.
29.03.2013
By Heng Reaksmey VOA Khmer
A government spokesman on Thursday warned US broadcaster Radio Free Asia
against potentially inciting reporting on land loss along the Thai border, calling it
a “national security” issue that could prompt legal action.
RFA, a US-funded broadcasting agency, aired an interview earlier this week with a former Khmer Rouge soldier
in the border province of Battambang who said the Cambodian boundary had lost around 10 kilometers to
Thailand in recent decades.
Land loss to regional neighbors is a political and social flashpoint for many Cambodians and has in the past
sparked riots, demonstrations and, in 2008, a military standoff with Thailand that lasted for years.
Government spokesman Phay Siphan told reporters on Thursday the government would consider a lawsuit
against RFA for its border reporting if it deemed the reports threatening to national security.
However, media advocates say the government should seek to correct what it deems as erroneous reporting
through the media itself, or the press law, and not through lawsuits.
RFA said in statement it stands by the story, which was “accurate, objective and well-sourced.”
“The Cambodian government’s attack on RFA is just the latest in a series of public and private threats that fit a
distinct pattern—one meant to intimidate our reporters and to discourage objective reporting on issues sensitive
to the government,” RFA said. “As we have said in response to similar threats in the past, RFA will continue to
provide the reliable and accurate news and information that our Cambodian listeners seek and deserve,
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regardless of whether the issue is sensitive to certain political parties or officials. We refuse to be intimidated and
bullied into self-censorship.”
Puy Kea, of the Council of Cambodian Journalists, said the government should not use the courts to sue
journalists.
Koy Pisey, deputy chief of the Cambodian Border Authority, said the borders between Cambodia and Thailand
remain the same, though about 25 of 73 demarcation markers have been difficult to locate.
Ninety garment workers faint in 48 hours
Mass fainting at Sabrina factory
25 March 2013
By Mom Kunthear
The Phnom Penh Post
About 90 garment workers fainted at the SL Garment
factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district on Friday and
Saturday, union officials said.
Government officials and unions were investigating the cause of the faintings, Um Visal, a Coalition of
Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union labour dispute resolution officer, said yesterday.
“I just went down to the factory [Saturday] when the workers fainted,” he said.
“It smelled bad even when I was... outside. It was very difficult to breathe and gave me a headache. The bad
smell comes from a water-propelled fan.”
Soung Sophorn, SL Garment administrative officer, said workers had contributed to their own fainting.
“The doctors told me they fainted because their health is not good – they did not have breakfast,” Sophorn said.
“If the factory caused the fainting, more than 6,000 workers would have fainted.”
She added, however, that workers could go home today if sick.
Powerless Phnom Penh Struggles With Hot
Season
March 25, 2013
By Simon Henderson and Sun Mesa
The Cambodia Daily
As air-conditioning units slow to a halt, computers die
and the lights go out, the frustration of local business
owners and organizations in Phnom Penh is boiling
over once again as the annual hot season blackouts
have arrived.
“We lost power at 11 a.m. [on Wednesday]. By 3 p.m., it
hadn’t come back on, so we had to go home,” a staff member at NGO Forum, which is based in the
Russian Market area of Phnom Penh, said on Thursday.
“It is happening all the time now,”said Manuel Garcia, operations manager at Boddhi Tree Social
Enterprise, which owns several boutique hotels as well as a bakery and cooking school in Phnom Penh.
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“[On Tuesday], we were without electricity for six hours. Customers want to leave with the loss of Internet and
air conditioning; $70 or $80 dollars of food perishable in the heat gets wasted,” he said, adding that his company
relies on the state utility to provide power as the cost of equipping each of the business’ properties with an
individual generator is prohibitive.
“I have been listening for years to government promises, but the situation is worse than ever.” Mr. Garcia said.
“This is 2013, not 2001. Phnom Penh is getting more and more expensive, but services are not improving to
match it, which means that it’s becoming less competitive.”
Although Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) forewarned in December that temporary power cuts throughout the dry
season would be necessary, the recent spike in blackouts is a sign to some residents that government promises to
improve basic services are being broken.
And the power outages are hitting more than just businesses.
Road safety became an issue as traffic lights blacked out along Monivong Boulevard on Monday evening and
again on Tuesday morning, forcing the city’s blue-uniformed traffic police to manually direct busy rush hour
traffic at the Sihanouk Boulevard intersection.
Phnom Penh Municipal spokesman Long Dimanche said that City Hall had contacted EdC to instruct them to
reconnect power to the city’s traffic lights, but quickly added that any issue with Phnom Penh’s erratic power
supply was the responsibility of EdC alone.
Power cuts have always been a fixture of life in Phnom Penh, and this year is likely little different from any year
in the past.
The 190-megawatt, Chinese-built Kamchay hydropower dam in Kampot province came online in 2011 with the
promise of bringing more power to Phnom Penh and helping reduce the country’s energy-supply deficit.
Yet according to an EdC official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak with
the media, the Kamchay dam is currently operating at only 10 percent of its capacity because “there is no water”
during the dry season. Blackouts were also the result of EdC upgrading power transformers, which required that
some sub-stations had to be temporarily cut off, the official said, adding that the upgrade work should be
completed by mid-April.
“The upgrades are ongoing, according to plans that were already made, and we cannot deviate from the plan,”
the EdC official said.
Though the government has announced grand plans for hydropower as a means to solve Cambodia’s electricity
shortages, the seasonal water shortages in dams expose a flaw in the government’s energy-development plan,
critics say.
Meach Mean, coordinator for local environmental group 3S Rivers Protection Network, said that even the
massive 400-megawatt Sesan 2 dam project in Stung Treng province, approved by the National Assembly on
February 15, could expect to also suffer from water shortages during dry season—the very time that power is
needed most to keep people cool.
“Dams need water,” Mr. Mean said. “But the fact is, Cambodia is much better suited to solar energy than
hydropower,” he said.
Michael Shaw, an independent renewable energy adviser who worked with NGO Engineers Without Borders in
Cambodia, said that even with the nine new hydropower dams in the pipeline, Phnom Penh and other cities are
growing at a pace that will exceed that supply.
The consequence, he said, is that people on the city’s fringes will continue to experience electricity shortages, so
“the reliance on diesel-powered generators will continue and may even increase.”
Sao Moun Doung, general manager at the White Mansion boutique hotel on Street 240, believes that although
the blackouts are a problem, in the long run things are improving, and patience is required.
“Since 1999, things here are getting better,” she said. “But things happen slowly.”
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Evictees back on land
About 45 former Borei Keila families have moved back to empty lots in the
community, Monday, March 25, 2013. Photograph: Khouth Sophak
Chakrya/Phnom Penh Post
26 March 2013
By Khouth Sophak Chakrya
The Phnom Penh Post
Dozens of families at Borei Keila have moved back on to land
they were evicted from last year, despite intimidation and
threats of arrest by security forces employed by developer Phan Imex.
Earlier this month, security guards tore down the shelters of 12 families who had returned to the
site.
Since then, despite more tents being pulled down by security forces, 45 families have settled on the site, saying
they will not leave until the adequate housing they were promised on adjoining land is delivered.
Soy Sorn, one of the first to return, denied charges by Phan Imex owner Suy Sophan that she was occupying the site illegally.
“We will not leave until a solution is found. This was my place until the company destroyed our
houses last year without compensation,”she said.
Villagers signed a deal with Phan Imex in 2004, agreeing to vacate the land in exchange for the construction of 10 high-rise
apartment blocks for 1,776 families on an adjacent site.
Only eight blocks were constructed and the remaining families were violently evicted in January last year, leaving hundreds
homeless or forced to live in remote relocation sites.
According to Sophan, she has since sold the land to prominent businessman Sy Kong Triv.
“We do not care about changing the land owner; we just know that Suy Sophan is the one who destroyed our houses and
confiscated our land without compensation,” evictee Suo Em said.
Seng Kunthear, 36, who has lived at Borei Keila, in the capital’s Prampi Makara district, since 1995 said she has official
documents that prove she is entitled to an apartment.
“I want the company and authorities to solve this problem by providing us with a proper shelter
where I can earn a living and support my children’s education,”she said.
Suy Sophan could not be reached for comment.
Construction begins at bloody eviction site
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A Dey Krahorm resident salvages some of her belongings during the
forced eviction of the community in 2009. Photograph: Heng
Chivoan/Phnom Penh Post
27 March 2013
By Chhay Channyda and Justine Drennan
The Phnom Penh Post
“It’s a land of tears, a land of people’s pain.”
More than four years after the violent forced eviction
of about 800 families from Dey Krahorm in the capital’s
high-rent Tonle Bassac commune, small-scale construction is finally beginning on the site.
In the past month, the skeletons of a future barbecue restaurant and a beer garden have risen up on the eastern
side of Dey Krahorm, while on the site’s south side, on a plot sold to another company, foundations are being
laid for a Sou Sou Suki Soup restaurant.
But this is not much to show given the time that has passed since the heavily criticised eviction of the 3.7-hectare
site’s residents in January 2009 to make way for real estate company 7NG, which once promised large-scale
development of the site, activists said.
Srey Sothea, 7NG’s chairman, said in 2009 that the company had plans to build a “modern
commercial centre including hotels and supermarkets” at Dey Krahorm.
However, as the evicted families to this day struggle to eke out meagre livelihoods, the majority of the land that
7NG promised to develop remains vacant, and the owner of the site of the future soup restaurant said he was still
looking to rent the remaining portion of his plot.
“The Suki Soup restaurant just rented a part of the land from me,” said the plot’s owner, who declined to give his
name or that of the company.
“There is still land available for rent.”
“We rent it for $4 per square metre per month,” he said, adding that he had bought the land from 7NG two or
three years ago.
Workers, he said, had just begun laying foundations on the site, where concrete blocks and machinery can be
seen.
An employee of the CKL Construction Company hired to build the restaurant said the building would be three
storeys high and able to accommodate 1,000 people.
Sou Sou Suki Soup’s manager told the Post yesterday his company was “thinking about” building on the site, but
said he did not know when the project would be finished.
Staff in 7NG’s office on the eviction site said yesterday they believed the land next to the office had been sold to
other companies but could not say when, or for how much.
Meanwhile, on a plot on Dey Krahorm’s eastern side, a worker said she had been retained to cook food for about
a dozen men building a restaurant called B+P BBQ, which was set to open next month.
She said the beer garden next door, labelled Ta Tep House, would also open soon.
Calls to the restaurants’ owners were unanswered.
The cook said she believed the barbecue’s owner was renting the land from 7NG for $3 a square metre per
month.
“I’ve heard it’s $4,000 a square metre to buy,” she added. “I feel pity for the Dey Krahorm
people, but in this society rich and powerful people always win against the poor.”
“A classic case of possession for speculation” is how David Pred, the managing associate of Inclusive
Development International, explained the long wait for development.
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“They uprooted and destroyed the lives of [hundreds of] families, and for what? For
nothing. To sell off plots of land piecemeal to the highest bidder. It’s despicable.”
Sia Phearum, secretariat director for the Housing Rights Task Force, and Eang Vuthy, of the rights group
Equitable Cambodia, agreed, saying this kind of development was not doing Cambodia’s economy any good
either.
“The development has no transparency, no accountability. That’s why good investors are
not interested in investing in Cambodia,” Phearum said.
“They say they’re going to use the land to build a commercial centre, or to bring tourists... but we see that’s not
really happening, and we see investors are not really interested in investing in this property,” Vuthy said.
The widespread criticism of the Dey Krahorm eviction was most likely deterring investors, he said.
“Businessmen also care about their reputations. And the Dey Krahorm community protests every year to
commemorate the evictions and highlight the case. Everyone knows about it.”
Such a lack of interest might explain why the site had been empty for more than four years, he said, adding that
the monthly asking price of $3 to $4 a square metre seemed low.
The current small-scale developments were “just to avoid criticism” of speculation, Vuthy added.
Meanwhile, Phearum said, the evicted former Dey Krahorm residents were still suffering from the loss of their
homes and livelihoods, and the majority had returned to the city from their Kandal province resettlement site,
40 kilometres away.
Lao Tip Seiha, deputy general director of the Construction Department at the Ministry of Land Management,
Urban Planning and Construction, and the ministry’s deputy director general, Beng Hong Socheat Khemro,
referred questions on the matter to local authorities.
Phnom Penh Municipality spokesman Long Dimanche said he was unsure of the land’s status, adding that the
city required the company to submit a master plan for the site’s development but 7NG had not submitted any
such plan.
Dey Krahorm community member Chan Vichet said yesterday he was not surprised the land where he used to
live had been divided and rented to small businesses, despite 7NG’s claims before the eviction that it would build
a 52-storey, income- and investment-generating commercial building.
“I don’t know who 7NG sold it to, but I’d like to tell them it’s still disputed land,” Vichet said.
“It’s a land of tears, a land of people’s pain.”
King Sihamoni Petitioned Over Jailed Boeng Kak Activist
Boeng Kak anti-eviction activist Kong Chantha, center, is flanked by
two police officers as she prays for the release of jailed fellow activist
Yorm Bopha outside the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh on Friday. (Siv
Channa)
March 31, 2013
By Khy Sovuthy
The Cambodia Daily
About 50 women protested in front of the Royal Palace on Friday
morning and handed in a petition to King Norodom Sihamoni, requesting his support in the case of jailed antieviction activist Yorm Bopha, whose request for bail was turned down by the Supreme Court earlier this week.
The protesters said that a Royal Pardon from King Sihamoni is Ms. Bopha’s only chance to be freed from prison,
and that they would continue to lobby the King for support until Ms. Bopha is released.
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“Please Samdech Sihamoni and Queen Mother [Monineath] help to release Yorm Bopha
and please… help to intervene for the land [we lived on] as well,” protesters from the
Boeng Kak community yelled for about two hours outside the palace, until Laing Chamnap, the Royal Palace’s Cabinet officer, accepted their petition.
“I will receive this petition,” Mr. Chamnap said. “I will hand it to my superior, but I’m not sure,” if
King Sihamoni will receive the petition, he added.
Song Srey Leap, one of the protesters, said the petition is only the first.
“I hope that our petition will reach the King and Queen [Mother], and if it does not arrive with them, we will
hand it in again and again until Yorm Bopha is released,” Ms. Srey Leap said.
In September, Ms. Bopha, a 29-year-old mother, was arrested for allegedly ordering an attack on two
motorcycle-taxi drivers.
Found guilty on the word of the two injured men, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced Ms. Bopha, a
longtime anti-eviction activist, to three years in prison for committing intentional violence with aggravating
circumstances.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court denied Ms. Bopha’s request to be released on bail to take care of her family.
The petition to King Sihamoni states that the accusations against Ms. Bopha are untrue, and pleads with the
King to ask the Justice Ministry to order Ms. Bopha’s release.
Am Sam Ath, technical supervisor for local human rights group Licadho, said the appeal to the Royal Palace was
the last option available to Ms. Bopha.
“The activists have protested many times and took petitions to many places but never got a satisfying result. So
asking the King to intervene is their final chance,” he said.
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Histoire & Culture :
Cambodia and Indochina Federation
by Chan Dara, translated by Ith Thong Ngoun and Pen Nearovi
http://absara.free.fr/Khmer-books/1cambo-indo-federat.htm
(t
t)
29
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enAmant…
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Kamnap-Kumnou :
5ម* ង +5
- ទ55ន8 ប51 *9ក #$!យ*2ម
Samléng Reatr par Huy Lim
http://kiwi6.com/file/5f5149rxly
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