Land dispute intensifies in Siem Reap

17 Jan 2009
By Pen Bona
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from Khmer by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the article in French

About one hundred farmers from Chikreng commune, Chikreng district, Siem Reap province, burnt tires in front of the provincial court on Friday 16 January, in order to demonstrate their anger.

The farmers were camping in front of the court for the last three days, to demand for the release of a journalist and two villagers who were arrested on 26 December stemming from a land dispute case opposing two groups of farmers.

The dispute started in 2004 and it involves more than 400 hectares of land straddling two communes: Chikreng and Anlung Samnor. Each commune claims the ownership of the land.
In a letter sent to Heng Samrin, the president of the National Assembly, on 16 January, Sou Phirin, Siem Reap provincial governor, sided with the Anlung Samnor commune villagers, saying that the land belonged to the latter. Chikreng commune villagers then exploded into a demonstration. Sou Phirin added in his letter: “Violence took place last December between the two opposing groups, and it led to the arrest of three people.” However, according to the angry Chikreng villagers, this decision by the governor was not fair and it was motivated by private interests. In fact, according to the Chikreng villagers, the land would belong to a high-ranking official in the region, this explained the reason for Sou Phirin’s decision.

On Friday, in spite of the incidents, no violence took place. However, the demonstrators threatened to continue their action until the three arrested men are freed. This situation worries human rights observers. It should be noted that more often nowadays, during land conflict cases, angry villagers tend to gather up in front of the court. This tendency reflects among many villagers their loss of confidence in the judicial system. Chan Saveth, an investigator for the Adhoc human rights group, indicated on Saturday 17 January that, if the number of land disputes seems to be stable, “the nature of the dispute has worsened. In 2008, we noted more than 300 land dispute cases, the majority of which involved army soldiers. We also noted that more often, arrests were made in land dispute cases,” he deplored.

The US preaches "democratic and just government" in Cambodia ... but goes on to support Hun Sen's authoritarian regime: Go figure that out!

Chargè d’affaires Piper Campbell delivers remarks at an Asia Foundation sponsored event.

Chargè d’affaires Piper Campbell addresses the future of Cambodian/U.S. relations with the Asia Foundation

Le Royal hotel
January 12, 2009
Source: US Embassy in Phnom Penh

On the 12th of January at an Asia Foundation sponsored event entitled “America’s Role in Asia” the Chargè d’affaires spoke to a packed house at the Le Royal hotel in Phnom Penh on the many ways the U.S. is engaged with the Royal Government of Cambodia. In her remarks she noted that while we are welcoming a new President, Secretary of State and U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia,
both the level of our engagement and the general direction of our efforts are not likely to change. She hypothesized that this was mainly due to the enormity of the issues that Cambodia faces such as poverty, weak rule of law and poor health – all of which require stable, long term solutions. She also listed the long term goals that the U.S. has which are “to see a country which is domestically stable and able to secure its borders; where government is democratic and just; where the government joins coordinated donors investing in the Cambodian people to improve health and education standards; and where a healthy economy raises more people out of poverty and provides an opportunity for business”. The Chargè concluded by concurring with the Foundation’s hope that the new US administration accords Asia the attention that its intrinsic importance to the US demands.

[Vietnamese] Seeking strange foods for lunar New Year’s Eve

17/01/2009

VietNamNet Bridge – Many people prefer strange foods like worms, scorpions and snakes to popular food for the lunar New Year’s Eve like dog meat. They believe these “exotic” foods will help them avoid bad luck in the new year.

Lying in Dich Vong alley, Cau Giay district, Hanoi is Phuc Van Lai Restaurant, a familiar destination for those addicted to insects. The restaurant is more crowded at the year’s end.
A waitress at Phuc Van Lai, Nguyen Khanh Linh, said: “At the beginning, our restaurant provided normal food like pork, chicken, seafood but in recent years, we have had new cuisines processed from scorpions, crickets, and grasshoppers.”

Cuisines processed from insects at Phuc Van Lai are mainly fried or roasted with salt. The restaurant buys frozen insects from traders in Ha Tay.

The restaurant is very crowded at the year’s end so the restaurant has to buy insects at a higher price from the Nghia Tan wholesale market. According to Linh, the restaurant’s customers are mainly youngsters.

Located on Kim Ma road, in front of the Thu Le Zoo, Bao Lam Restaurant is always full. Many students chose the restaurant as the site of lunar New Year’s Eve parties before they return home.

The most famous cuisine at Bao Lam is sau chit, a species of worm, steamed with a special spice of the Thai ethnic group in the northwestern region. Some youngsters even like eating live chit worm.“Our class comes to this restaurant on special eves like Christmas, the Western New Year and particularly the lunar New Year’s Eve. It is quite difficult to eat chit worm but it is really nutritious,” said Le Trung Hoi, a student from the Stage and Movie University.

Bao Lam buys chit worms from ethnic minority people in northwestern provinces. This species of worm lives in ivory bamboo sections. Each section contains only one chit worm. Bao Lam charges VND40,000 per plate of 20-30 ivory bamboo joints.

The people in the southern province of Tay Ninh and some provinces near the border with Cambodia like cuisines made from crickets and spiders very much. They say these cuisines originated from Cambodia. At first, men tried these cuisines because it is said that these things can help them strengthen their “manly” power. After that, youngster tried and liked them as well.

Those who have higher incomes often go to Le Mat village, Long Bien district, Hanoi to taste cuisines made from snake. Le Mat is a famous snake-breeding village in Hanoi.

In Le Mat, dozens of restaurants lying along the village roads sell snake-made food. Popular names include Quoc Trieu, Van Duc, Xuan Chu, Trong Khach and Huong Que.

Nguyen Van Trong, 70, the owner of the Trong Khack Restaurant, said that more customers come to his restaurants at the year’s end, including foreigners.

The restaurant processes several tens of kilos of snakes per day. Trong’s daughter-in-law, Pham Thi Van, said that snake can be processed into ten major cuisines: soup, frying, grilling, grilled pie, fried snake skin, spring roll, etc. The restaurant also offers sticky glutinous rice with snake fat, snake with ginger soup.

Each customer can pay VND100,000-150,000 to taste cuisines made of coluber. Copperhead is more expensive, around VND700,000 per kilo. Customers will see restaurant staff catch live copperheads and turn them into cuisines in front of their very eyes!

“Some customers eat live copperhead heart,” Van said.

Many people choose snake for their lunar New Year’s Eve party because snake is a fatty food good for the winter.

Hanoi's marching order to Heng Xamrin: Don't let any Vietnamese political dissidents into Cambodia

Vietnam treasures ties with Cambodia

January 17, 2009
Nhan Dan (Hanoi)

Neighbouring leaders hail their nations’ ties

Vietnam has a long-standing policy of respecting its traditional relationship and multi-faceted co-operation with Cambodia, and considers the rapport it enjoys with its neighbour as an invaluable asset of the two nations, said a government official.
Vietnamese National Assembly (NA) Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong made this remark during talks with his Cambodian counterpart, Heng Samrin, in Hanoi on January 16.

NA Chairman Trong said that Vietnam had a keen interest in Cambodia’s achievements and firmly supported the Cambodian Government’s policies for developing the country, for the prosperity and happiness of the people, and for peace and stability in the region.

He also said that the two countries’ NAs should adopt more concrete measures to ensure their own development, as well as their bilateral relations.

He welcomed the two countries’ ratification of a supplementary treaty to the Vietnam-Cambodia Treaty on Border Demarcation and the initial results of the two countries’ landmark planting scheme.

He stressed that the two sides should be determined to implement high-level agreements and work together in preventing hostile forces from using their territories to oppose the other and harming their bilateral relationship.

On this occasion, NA Chairman Trong thanked the Cambodian people for the valuable support and assistance they had given to Vietnam recently.

He also expressed his gratitude to the Cambodian NA and Government for creating a favourable environment for Vietnamese people to live and do business in Cambodia, as well as helping Vietnam to locate and repatriate the remains of its volunteer soldiers who fell in Cambodia.

Cambodian NA Chairman Heng Samrin praised the co-operation between the two legislative agencies, that had made positive contributions to the two countries’ harmonious relationship.

He suggested that the two agencies intensify their exchange of information, experiences and visits, and work together in implementing previously-signed co-operation agreements.

He said he was pleased with the expansion of bilateral relations into new fields, leading to greater levels of practical efficiency and accelerating each nation’s national construction and development processes.

He affirmed that the Cambodian NA and people had always supported their traditional rapport with Vietnam and attached great importance on developing this in the future.

He praised the results of a high-level meeting of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos to seek measures to boost trade and tourism, and develop transport and irrigation works with the aim of ensuring that the three countries’ border area is one of peace, stability and development, alleviating poverty and improving living conditions for locals.

Chairman Heng Samrin confirmed his country’s determination to work with Vietnam in completing all outstanding landmark plantation work during the first half of 2012.

On behalf of the Cambodian NA and people, he expressed thanks to the Vietnamese Party, Government and people for their effective support and assistance to Cambodia in their past struggle for national liberation and the current cause of national construction and development, helping the Cambodian people to topple the genocidal Pol Pot regime.

The same day, NA Chairman Heng Samrin was received by President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, Huynh Dam and attended a banquet hosted by NA Chairman Nguyen Phu Trong in honour of him and his entourage.

The Cambodian NA leader began his official visit to Vietnam on January 15 and is scheduled to conclude his visit on January 19..

Violence, Forclosures Define Cambodian Community 20 Years After School Shooting

Jan 17, 2009
Eric Tang
New America Media, News Report
National Public Radio (USA)

Editor’s Note: Twenty years after a gunman opened fire on a schoolyard of mostly Southeast Asian children in Stockton, Calif., the Cambodian American community tries to heal from that violence, and the larger issues affecting refugee immigrants to America. Eric Tang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies and the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His forthcoming book is titled 'Unsettled: America’s Refugees and the Struggle for a Just Resettlement.'
STOCKTON, Calif. -- “Going back to teach at the school was my way to letting go of it all,” said Rann Chun, a third-grade teacher at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, Calif.

Exactly 20 years ago, on January 17, 1989, Chun was a nine-year-old student at Cleveland when a lone gunman opened fire on the schoolyard, killing five and injuring 30 before taking his own life. Chun’s six-year-old sister, Ram Chun, was among those killed.

Before Columbine or Virginia Tech—indeed before “school shooting” became familiar phraseology in American culture—there was the Stockton schoolyard incident.

Few outside of Northern California recall this tragedy in which 24-year-old gunman Edward Patrick Purdy emptied 105 shots from an AK-47 assault rifle into a schoolyard of approximately 450 schoolchildren. Fewer still recall that at the time of the shooting, Southeast Asian refugee children comprised 70 percent of Cleveland’s student body. Among the five fatalities, four were Cambodian Americans—including Ram Chun—and one was a Vietnamese American. Their ages ranged from 6 to 9 years old. The families of these children had recently resettled in Stockton in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia.

Twenty years ago, the tragedy brought forth divergent – if not competing – analyses and lessons. Racial justice advocates demanded that the attorney general consider the incident a hate crime. Others took the occasion to call for stronger gun control laws. But for the mostly Cambodian-American survivors, there was another lesson gleaned: The struggle for peace and survival does not end with resettlement in the United States.

According to Stockton community leader Sovanna Koeurt, those who lost their children had to “either let go and build something new and for the better or they didn’t survive.”

Chun’s father found this impossible to do. Though he had had lost loved ones to the Khmer Rouge, he could not pull himself together after the killing of his youngest daughter.

“He didn’t survive,” Chun said. Within 10 years of the shooting, the father passed away, succumbing to deep depression and heavy drinking.

Three years ago, Chun returned to Cleveland Elementary to become a first-grade teacher—incidentally, this was the grade his sister was in during the time of the shooting. He now teaches third grade.

“I went back to be role model for change, for a new beginning,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave it behind as a place where my life changed for the worse, but for the better.”

According to Koeurt, Chun’s story exemplifies not only triumph over tragedy, but also the way in which a young man can beat the odds in a community plagued by poverty and gang violence.

“Resettlement to America was just another verse, another phase, in our story of refugee survival,” said Koueurt, who is the founding director of APSARA, a social service agency and community development corporation created in the wake of the shooting. She is referring to how life in the United States presented a new set of hardships and tragedies, and how refugees had to draw on the skills from their past lives in order to survive. Indeed, the schoolyard shooting has not been the only hurdle to overcome in the past 20 years.

Long Keo, 27, was among the 30 wounded during the shooting, having sustained a bullet wound to the abdomen. He recalls multiple surgeries throughout his childhood, going in and out of hospitals for years after the incident. And yet, when he looks back on his adolescence, surviving the shooting is not his defining struggle. Instead, he recalls the gang violence that gripped Stockton and nearly took his life on more than one occasion.

Several years ago, his living room was riddled with bullets from a drive-by shooting. Then, this past summer, his mother learned that the family would be evicted from their home. They were renting from a landlord who was on the brink of foreclosure. When I came to speak with the family about the 20th anniversary of the shooting they, understandably, were more interested in talking about their current housing crisis.

These smaller tragedies that have dotted the lives of Stockton’s Cambodian Americans perhaps explains why, there is little fanfare surrounding the 20th anniversary of the shooting. This is not to say that community members have become inured to violence and tragedy, but rather that there is a broader context of immigrant and refugee life in which the shooting must be discussed.

Still, on Friday night the Children’s Museum of Stockton held a small, invitation-only memorial event for the victims and heroes of 20 years ago. Today, the city’s local paper, The Stockton Record, will run a feature article looking back on the incident. And then there are those, like Chun, who find ways to “honor my sister’s memory everyday.”

“I could have taught at another school in the district,” said Chun. “But I chose to be here. Being here helps me let go of the tragedy, but still hold on to her.”

Ros Sereysothea's life (1946 - 1977?)

Ros Sereysothea (1946 - 1977?) was a Cambodian singer-songwriter in the 1960s and '70s. She was part of a thriving pop music scene in Cambodia, music that was influenced by rhythm and blues and rock and roll. She was a frequent singing partner with Sinn Sisamouth, Cambodia's top male singer of the era. She is thought to have died while imprisoned in a labor camp under the Khmer Rouge regime.


Biography
Born Ros Sothea in Battambang Province circa 1946, her family was poor and made a living by performing Khmer traditional music. Singing duets with her brother, Serey, the Serey-Sothea pair became quite well known and went to the capital Phnom Penh, where they found work performing in clubs. With her bell-like singing voice and diva-like qualities, Ros eclipsed her brother and became a solo artist, changing her name to Ros Sereysothea.

Her high, clear voice, coupled with the rock backing bands featuring prominent, distortion-laden lead guitars, pumping organ and loud, driving drums, made for an intense, sometimes haunting sound that is best described today as psychedelic or garage rock.

And like the leader of the music scene, Sinn Sisamouth, Sothea would often take popular Western rock tunes, such as John Fogerty's "Proud Mary" for example, and refashion them with Khmer lyrics.

She was honored by King Norodom Sihanouk with the royal title, "Preah Rheich Teany Somlang Meas", the "Golden Voice of the Royal Capital."

Her career was cut short with the takeover by the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. Forced out of Phnom Penh with all the other residents, she lived at a worksite in Kampong Speu. When her identity was learned by Khmer Rouge leaders, she was made to write and perform songs celebrating the regime. When she wasn't singing, she was required to work at digging irrigation ditches like everyone else in the camp.

She was forced by Pol Pot to marry one of his assistants in 1977. She disappeared under typically mysterious circumstances during the brutal regime of the Killing Fields and is almost certainly dead. Most believe that she died from being overworked in a Khmer Rouge agricultural camp, although it has also been reported that she either died of malnutrition in a hospital in Phnom Pehnh during the last weeks of the Khmer Rouge regime or that she had a fight with her Khmer Rouge husband and was sent away, never to be seen again.