The plan to meet between Cambodian and Thai troops on Monday was aborted and there was no meeting between the commander of Cambodian [army] region 4 with his Thai counterpart from region 2. The Thai commander of region 2 told local Thai news media at the end of last week that there will be a meeting on Monday 13 July between the commanders of Cambodian region 4 and Thai region 2. The goal of the meeting is to improve the tense situation along the border frontline. General Chea Morn, the Cambodian commander of region 4, also made the same comment about this meeting. The cause of the abortion is not yet known. Nevertheless, Cambodia army officials in Preah Vihear temple claimed that the situation along the border frontline is still quiet at a time when it is learnt that Thai troops are carefully strengthening their concrete trenches.
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Monday, July 13, 2009
Meeting between Khmer and Thai troops aborted
The 'cemetery goods' at Chau Long market
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The ‘cemetery goods’ trading began in the 1990’s. At first, the goods were mainly clothes, including relatively new products, and were widely popular. Later on, cemetery goods came to include electronics, consumer electric products, children’s toys and many other consumer goods. The products are gathered from many countries, including the US, South Korea, Japan, Canada and Hong Kong, and carried to Singapore.
In Singapore, they are classified and packaged and then are exported to Phnom Penh or Rong Kloea flea market in Thailand. B.K.A, a big trader of ‘cemetery goods,’ said that nearly ten tons of goods reach Vietnam every day, a level even higher than the volume of Vietnam’s new garment exports.
An Giang Customs Agency said that since the beginning of 2008, the agency has seized 17,000 kilogrammes of used clothes and 4,000 metres of fabric.
VietNamNet Bridge – A huge volume of used goods from the ‘rich countries’ seeps into Vietnam across its border with Cambodia. The trade in seconds, irregulars and second-hand clothing, fabrics and electronic gear, unsanctioned but clearly tolerated, has flourished since the early days of ‘doi moi.’
In Chau Doc, a city in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang province, Chau Long Market has become well known as an entrepot for used goods ‘smuggled’ into Vietnam from nearby Cambodia. The people of the Delta call them ‘cemetery goods.’ According to Lam Van Tuoi, deputy manager of the market, some 275 households now trade in ‘cemetery goods’, including clothes, handbags, footwear and fabric.
The general depot of ‘cemetery goods’
Every morning at Chau Long, big trucks arrive to deliver goods. Bales of goods, one after the other, are unloaded from the trucks and carried to every household before they are delivered to customers.
Every bale of used clothes weighs 100 kilogrammes and sells from three million to over five milliion dong. Customers here are mainly wholesalers who carry the used goods back to their home provinces.
Another market, next to the Tinh Bien border crossing, specializes in foreign made fabric. At Tinh Bien, there are some 300 kiosks; many sell ‘irregular’ fabric or liquidated stocks of imported fabric at very low prices. Some fabric sells for only 3,000-5,000 dong per metre, so cheap that it is called ‘cemetery fabric’.
Like the used clothes, the fabric is sold in bales, each containing 50-120 meters of cloth.
“People purchase the fabric to make clothes or door curtains to sell at markets,” said T, a vendor at the Tinh Bien Market. Customers who purchase goods in big volumes need only provide their addresses and put money down; their goods will be delivered to their doors.
Imported footwear, wallets, hats, ties and children’s toys are also on offer. There are some ten traders of these kinds of products in Chau Doc town. The traders said they travel to Rong Kloea flea market in Thailand to collect goods to resell in Vietnam.
The route of the ‘cemetary goods’
At Tamau Market in Takeo, Cambodia, boats arrive from Phnom Penh laden with second-hand products, irregulars and overstocks: electronic goods, consumer electric products, bicycles and consumer products.
At Tamau market is the transit place, Vietnamese traders collect the goods they have purchased in Phnom Penh, Kompong Som port (Cambodia) and Rong Kloea Market. From there, the gods are carried across the border line to depots in Chau Doc town. From the depots, goods pour out every day to Chau Long Market and other markets in neighboring Delta provinces.
Tamau is but one of many cross-border transit places. There is a depot in Prekchray (Cambodia’s Kandal province). This is a huge, metal-roofed house containing many tens of tons of old fabric and clothes. Prices there are cheaper by 500,000 dong per bale, so a lot of Vietnamese traders come to Prekchray.
The ‘cemetery goods’ are also carried on boats from Phnom Penh through Bac Dai border crossing, and then carried along the track to Dong Thap in Long An province, enroute to HCM City, where the goods are re-sold in Ba Chieu, Tan Binh and An Dong Markets.
Wastes, too, are being brought to Vietnam
‘Cemetery goods’ are selling well in Vietnam because many Vietnamese consumers are happy to buy dirt cheap products.
Traders said that the quality of the illegal imports has deteriorated. Previously, every 100 kilos of shirts (400 shirts on average) had 170 first-class shirts, but now there are only 100. (‘First-class’ products mean the ones which still look new and have acceptable quality). It’s the same for jeans. Only 20 pairs of jeans are found ‘relatively good’ in every 50 kilos of the products, according to Tuan, who has been trading goods from Phnom Penh.
The threat embodied in these imports, says an environment official in An Giang province, is that Vietnam is becoming the place which consumes the refused products of the rest of the world’s countries.
Cross-border traders say that nowadays liquidated fabric from China’s textile factories have been carried to Cambodia to be re-exported to Vietnam.
Tuoi tre newspaper has reported that this kind of fabric has been purchased by private garment workshops which make low cost clothes, blankets, pillow cases and window curtains for sale in rural areas. Besides, the fabric is also used to make uniforms for workers and as lining for other products like handbags and seat cushions.
To ‘renew’ overly old products, the fabric is reportedly treated with chemical substances which are harmful to human health. Besides, used products may bear the germs of their original users.
From:
Stop thief! Teens swipe girl's donation jar
LOWELL -- Police are looking for two young teens who went into a Broadway Street convenience store and stole a donation jar that was placed there by a 10-year-old girl who was raising money for poor children.
Officers were called to P&S Convenience, at Willie and Broadway streets, after a passing motorist saw a clerk chasing someone down the street last night about 9:15 p.m.
Store owner Peter Nhim said the clear plastic container had been chained and locked to the store's counter, but that one of the boys yanked on it hard enough that the plastic container broke free.
He chased the boys through the parking lot behind his store and saw them escape down Cross Street, toward Fletcher Street.
"I'm so upset right now. She worked hard on this thing," Nhim said of his 10-year-old daughter, Chresina, who was collecting the money. "Even kids put their change in there."
Nhim said there were $5 and $10 bills in the container.
He said his daughter was raising money to buy school supplies for poor children in Cambodia, since she had been there and met students who barely had any supplies.
She came up the idea on her own, and Nhim agreed to support it by putting a jar on his store's counter.
The jar was made of clear plastic, and bears a picture of a young girl, about 8 years old, holding a younger child.
"She was so happy," Nhim said of his daughter. "Right now if I called her she would cry."
The boy who grabbed the jar
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China actions 'appropriate'
THE Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement Saturday supporting China's actions in the restive Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, where, according to the Chinese government, unrest between Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese has left 184 dead.
"The government of China is taking appropriate measures to address the problem and restore social order," the statement said in reference to China's crackdown in Xinjiang.
In the wake of the riots in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, Chinese state media have reported that many mosques in Urumqi were closed Friday, and that public assembly without police approval has been banned.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs called these government actions China's "exclusive internal affair".
Rebiya Kadeer, the president of the World Uighur Congress, wrote in The Wall Street Journal Wednesday that deaths in Xinjiang are likely much higher than reported by Chinese state media, saying her sources claim 400 Uighurs have been killed in Urumqi.
Uighurs, a Turkish-speaking Muslim minority in Xinjiang, have long complained about discrimination and the suppression of their language and culture.
Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong told the Post that the ministry issued the statement "to show Cambodia's stance that China is a friendly country".
Relations between China and Cambodia, however, have not always been so friendly. In a 1988 essay, Prime Minister Hun Sen called China "the root of everything that was evil in Cambodia", referring to China's support of the Khmer Rouge.
But after Hun Sen ousted Prince Norodom Ranariddh in a 1997 coup, China was the first country to recognise Hun Sen's rule, delivering to Cambodia military cargo valued at up to US$2.8 million, according to Julio Jeldres, Norodom Sihanouk's official biographer.
Since 2006, China has pledged $880 million in loans and grants to Cambodia. China also built and financed the more than $30 million Council of Ministers building.
The Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh said Sunday that it welcomed Cambodia's statement of support but declined to comment further.
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Hun Sen's rule by order: "Spoiled youngsters" [most of whom are sons on high-ranking CPP officials] had to be dealt with Hun Sen's personal order
Officials say new disciplinary measures will help address the problem of juvenile delinquency.
FOLLOWING a directive issued last month by Prime Minister Hun Sen, the government has launched a crackdown on juvenile delinquency that will target "spoiled youngsters" in a bid to maintain social order, an Interior Ministry official said Sunday.
According to a list of disciplinary measures to be posted in towns across the country, young people will be more closely monitored and could face more serious charges if caught engaging in crimes.
"We have just begun to gradually implement the disciplinary measures after the prime minister called for action against spoiled youngsters,"
Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak told the Post Sunday, referring to a directive on June 24 ordering ministries and law enforcement officials to crack down on "gangster activity".
'Big brothers' disciplined
"We see that nowadays young people's acts are sometimes entangled with crime and the destruction of culture and tradition," Khieu Sopheak said.
"If we do not have any measures to cope with [young people], our society will definitely become chaotic, and children of the next generation will imitate such a lack of discipline."
Khieu Sopheak said most of the young people that the ministry has picked up so far were "big brothers" associated with criminal gangs.
"In the past, we have gathered thousands of young people who were acting immorally and causing trouble to society. Having gone through rehabilitation, some young people are sent back to their parents.... However, in some serious cases, they are sent to the court," he said.
The new disciplinary measures are being tested in pilot programmes in the country's more densely populated areas, though Khieu Sopheak said it would likely be taken to small villages.
"We thought delinquency only happened in the cities, but now this culture of immorality has become widespread."
Him Yun, vice president of the Khmer Youth Association, told the Post Sunday that he welcomed measures to control delinquency, but he warned authorities not to use the directive as a front for their own bullying.
"While we approve measures to cope with problematic youngsters, local authorities should implement measures effectively," Him Yun said.
From:
China actions 'appropriate': From a repressive regime to another
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Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses support for China's broad crackdown in Xinjiang province, calling it an 'internal' decision that will 'restore social order'.
THE Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement Saturday supporting China's actions in the restive Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, where, according to the Chinese government, unrest between Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese has left 184 dead.
"The government of China is taking appropriate measures to address the problem and restore social order," the statement said in reference to China's crackdown in Xinjiang.
In the wake of the riots in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, Chinese state media have reported that many mosques in Urumqi were closed Friday, and that public assembly without police approval has been banned.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs called these government actions China's "exclusive internal affair".
Rebiya Kadeer, the president of the World Uighur Congress, wrote in The Wall Street Journal Wednesday that deaths in Xinjiang are likely much higher than reported by Chinese state media, saying her sources claim 400 Uighurs have been killed in Urumqi.
Uighurs, a Turkish-speaking Muslim minority in Xinjiang, have long complained about discrimination and the suppression of their language and culture.
Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong told the Post that the ministry issued the statement "to show Cambodia's stance that China is a friendly country".
Relations between China and Cambodia, however, have not always been so friendly. In a 1988 essay, Prime Minister Hun Sen called China "the root of everything that was evil in Cambodia", referring to China's support of the Khmer Rouge.
But after Hun Sen ousted Prince Norodom Ranariddh in a 1997 coup, China was the first country to recognise Hun Sen's rule, delivering to Cambodia military cargo valued at up to US$2.8 million, according to Julio Jeldres, Norodom Sihanouk's official biographer.
Since 2006, China has pledged $880 million in loans and grants to Cambodia. China also built and financed the more than $30 million Council of Ministers building.
The Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh said Sunday that it welcomed Cambodia's statement of support but declined to comment further.
From:
Deportees at border cite fears
NEARLY a fortnight after their deportation by Thai immigration authorities, Khmer Krom asylum seekers staying in Banteay Meanchey province say they are suffering from hunger and fear as they encounter the uncertainty of life in a strange country.
Since their July 2 deportation, 33 of the 56 deported have left the border, counting on friends and relatives across the country for food and shelter.
But the remaining 23 deportees, born and raised in southern Vietnam, have no family in the Kingdom and are now living in limbo at a small pagoda outside Poipet town. The deportees did not want their exact location to be published.
Several deportees told the Post Friday that the group had endured harsh living conditions since arriving in Poipet. Despite aid from a Christian charity, they said they have been forced to survive on a single meal a day, drink pond water and sleep on the floor in cramped living quarters with no mosquito nets.
"We can't leave the house and can't go to the market, let alone go to work to try and sustain ourselves. It's dangerous out there. We can't trust anyone," said deportee Nguyen Van Hai (names have been changed).
Worst of all, said Pham Van Thanh, another deportee, was the constant fear of repatriation to Vietnam, where Khmer Krom claim they face restrictions of freedom of expression and religion.
"What we are most concerned about is that Cambodian authorities do not allow us to stay here and will send us back to Vietnam," he told the Post.
"If we are sent back, we will be jailed."
The 56 Khmer Krom fled southern Vietnam for Thailand between six months and six years ago and were awaiting the results of their asylum applications when arrested as illegal immigrants by Thai police and detained at Bangkok's Immigration Detention Centre on June 12.
The Khmer Krom said they had been living in isolation from the rest of Thai society and had received no news from home prior to their arrest.
"We have absolutely no contact with our families in Vietnam. We have no idea what's happening to them now. It's likely that they're being spied on," said Vu Van Ba, another of the deportees.
Nguyen Van Hai said it had been hard to live a normal life in Thailand.
"We could not do anything there. No work, no business, and we were under surveillance at all times," he said
At the time of their deportation, the Bangkok office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was in the middle of processing their asylum applications. The deportees said they were angry the UNHCR had been unable to intervene after their arrest.
"UNHCR did not provide any assistance when we were in Bangkok," Pham Van Thanh told the Post. "When arrested by the Thai police, we called UNHCR officials in Bangkok asking for intervention, but their hands were tied."
Sara Colm, a Human Rights Watch researcher, said Sunday that the deportation might put an end to the group's attempt to seek asylum abroad.
"It's difficult for the refugee process to be completed now that they have been deported to Cambodia," she said, noting that UNHCR Cambodia will not consider the asylum claims of Khmer Krom.
She said that UNHCR operates according to Cambodian government assurances that all ethnic Khmers - including those from southern Vietnam - have the automatic right to Cambodian citizenship, making it technically impossible for them to claim refugee status while staying in the country.
Article 4 of the 1996 Nationality Law also states that any person with one Khmer parent can become a citizen.
But the difficulty facing the deportees is that the government does not seem willing to grant them the rights of citizenship enshrined in law, with one official saying they face deportation to Vietnam.
"We do not have any principle of providing these people with shelter or accommodation," said Try Narin, the governor of Poipet town. "I have asked local authorities to find them, and if we [do] we will send them back to their homeland."
UNHCR's office in Phnom Penh could not be reached for comment Sunday.
From:
Govt 'rejects' Thai Web site
THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans to send a diplomatic note to Thai officials this week voicing its disapproval of a Web site launched by Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva that claims parts of Cambodia as "lost" Thai territory.
Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said Sunday that officials had decided to "reject" the Web site, which launched July 4, and would send the note "early this week".
The site, www.ilovethailand.org, features a video that includes a green map of the Siamese Empire at its most expansive. As images of Thai kings appear on the screen, sections of the empire turn dark red before they are removed from the map.
Sections lost to Cambodia include parts of Siem Reap and Battambang provinces as well as the land on which Preah Vihear temple sits.
Towards the end of the five-and-a-half minute clip, a narrator addresses "the talented people of the young Thai generation" and emphasises the importance of understanding their country's history.
But Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said Thursday that the video was actually "twisting the facts of history".
And government officials are not the only ones to have criticised the video.
Michel Tranet, a Cambodia historian and lecturer, said Sunday that the video was "absolutely wrong".
He argued that Thailand had violated Cambodia's sovereignty far more often than the reverse, saying: "The Thai historians themselves and the internationals know that Thailand has regularly ventured into Cambodian ancestral territory."
Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, said the Thai government was being dishonest in its presentation of Thailand's past actions towards Cambodia.
"If we actually look at history, today's Thailand was the Khmer Kingdom's territory before," he said.
Thai Embassy officials could not be reached for comment Sunday.
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Timber export ban to save forests, promote carbon-credit trading
Cambodia's "avoided deforestation project", part of an agreement signed last month with nine community forestry groups in Oddar Meanchey, is expected to generate 8.5 million tonnes of carbon-offset credits over 30 years, according to the NGO Terra Global.
MINISTER of Agriculture Chan Sarun on Thursday announced a Kingdom-wide ban on timber exports in a move aimed at protecting forests and promoting a future carbon-credit trading programme.
"We must stop illegal timber exports and make a greater effort to protect our forests," Chan Sarun said. "With carbon credits, we can develop the country and improve the lives of our people without damaging our environment."
In years past, illegal logging for domestic use and cross-border trade has stripped Cambodia of much of its natural forest cover, he said, adding that the government has confiscated nearly 300,000 hectares of land cleared of its forests by developers and land speculators.
"We have [also] confiscated more than 52,000 cubic metres of illegal timber, some 319 trucks used by illegal loggers and prosecuted more than 600 individuals involved in the illegal timber trade," Chan Sarun said.
Ma Soktha, head of the reforestation office at the Ministry of Agriculture's Forestry Department, said the government spends between
US$850,000 and $1 million each year on conservation efforts, tree plantings and security efforts to prevent logging in protected areas.
"We will not have to worry about illegal logging if we enforce existing laws and halt all timber exports as well," he said.
Ma Soktha said the government has also planted nearly 50,000 hectares of trees and laid the groundwork for a carbon-credit programme.
"We have created two carbon-credit sample areas on 24 hectares of forest land in Oddar Meanchey and Koh Kong provinces," he said.
Amanda Bradley, country director for Community Forest International, said last week that the export ban and increased conservation efforts were important steps towards combating global warming and developing a new sustainable market for carbon credits for Cambodia.
"The government stands to profit substantially from developed countries with a carbon-credit programme, which in turn would help people improve their economic situation," she said.
Nop Polin, national coordinator of climate change awareness at Geres, said trading in fresh air, as he described the carbon-credit programme, instead of illegal timber could reduce greenhouse gasses and help prevent global climate change.
"We need forests to protect against global warming and other natural disasters," he said. "And we can sell the world our carbon credits, which is to say we can sell them fresh air."
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Under the gaze of the Divine Eye
AGONG rings out over the city, swallowed by the noise of the morning traffic, as the devotees arrive in their Sunday best - flowing white robes and small black caps for the men - and gather in the main prayer hall.
Incense chokes the air as three priests, clad in gold and red, lead the congregation in chants under the unblinking gaze of the Divine Eye, suspended in a sky-blue frame above the altar.
For adherents of Caodaism, a religious sect native to southern Vietnam, the ceremony is a fortnightly ritual that emphasises universal peace and the oneness of man, God and the universe.
"Since I started participating in Caodaism, my family is happier because I stopped using violence against my wife, stopped drinking wine and stopped having a mistress," says Phan Van Quang, 64, who started going to the temple when he was 25 to "understand the dharma" and gain good fortune.
Phnom Penh's Caodai temple, a shaded citadel down an alley off Mao Tse-Tung Boulevard, has been the Cambodian home of Caodaism since 1934; and temple elders say that before the Khmer Rouge, it boasted a congregation of over 10,000.
Though that number has dwindled to around 2,000 today, the temple continues to find eager converts among the city's Vietnamese community.
"Day after day, more and more people are respecting Caodai," said Tran Van Ngoan, the head of temple security.
"We do not force people to participate in this religion. People respect it by themselves voluntarily."
Today, he said, there are over 1,300 Caodai temples in southern Vietnam, and over 5 million adherents, spread as widely as Japan, North America, Europe and Australia.
East meets West
Caodaism - more properly known as Cao Dai Dam Ky Pho Do, or the "Third Great Universal Religious Amnesty" - was born in southern Vietnam in the early 1920s, when Vietnamese civil servant Ngo Van Chieu claimed to have made contact with spirits who communicated to him a symbol - the "all-seeing eye" - and a new creed reconciling the great religious philosophies of East and West.
In an attempt to create the ultimate religious synthesis, Chieu poured everything but the kitchen sink into Caodaism, which counts Sun Yat-sen and French author Victor Hugo among its saints.
Although the doctrine itself is a melange of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, it also incorporates arcane aspects of 19th-century French spiritism, including seances, Ouija-boards, and the bizarre practice of pneumotographie, in which pieces of paper are placed in envelopes and suspended above the altar, where they are supposedly inscribed with messages from God.
Caodai architecture is the same synthetic brew as its doctrine, combining Buddhist sculpture and European baroque into what British author Graham Greene once described as a "Walt Disney fantasia of the East".
Though a more modest affair than its elder brother, the Caodai Holy See in Vietnam's Tay Ninh province, Phnom Penh's temple is the same technicolour feast, with menageries of dragons, lotus flowers and coloured flags covering every available surface.
Tran Van Ngoan said that in order to participate in the religion, adherents have to adopt a vegetarian diet, starting with six days a month during the first six months, and then 10 days a month thereafter.
But attendance at the temple is only required for the main fortnightly services, and the religion - unlike Christianity or Islam - does not demand strict loyalty from its adherents.
"I follow both the Caodai and Buddhist religions - they are not so different from each other," says Yin Chhay, a 56-year-old Khmer from the city's Meanchey district who attends four Caodai services a month but goes to the pagoda for Buddhist festivals.
A holy exile
Phnom Penh's Caodai temple also has a peculiar claim to fame as the resting place, from 1959 to 2006, of Pham Cong Tac, one of the religion's founders and first known "mediums".
Known to adherents as the Ho Phap, or "Defender of the Faith", Tac also brought Caodaism to Cambodia in 1927, when he was posted to Phnom Penh as a junior official in the French colonial administration.
Hum Dac Bui, a spokesman for Caodai.org, a California-based nonprofit organisation, said Tac was sent to Cambodia to prevent him spreading the religion further in Vietnam, but that he quickly went about establishing it in Phnom Penh.
Upon his return to Vietnam, the religion continued to grow at a remarkable pace under Tac's leadership. By the 1950s, an estimated one in eight South Vietnamese was a Caodai, and the religion ran most of Tay Ninh province as a feudal theocracy, collecting its own taxes and maintaining a standing militia of tens of thousands of men.
Tac had achieved such stature within Vietnam that in May 1954 he attended the Geneva Conference, where he tried in vain to prevent the partition of the country.
But when South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, a staunch Catholic, came to power in 1955, the domestic political calculus began to turn against the Caodai.
In 1956, Diem forcibly disbanded the Caodai militias and other nationalist rivals. Tac and a close circle of followers sought political asylum in Cambodia, where he died in 1959.
"Pham Cong Tac moved to Cambodia because he did not want to see our Vietnamese people fighting with each other. He asked for his body to be taken back only when Vietnam was again at peace," said temple manager Vo Quang Minh, referring to Tac's deathbed request to Prince Norodom Sihanouk.
In November 2006, his remains were finally sent to be interred at Tay Ninh, bringing to an end nearly a half century of exile in Phnom Penh.
Vietnamese restrictions
But whether Vietnam remains a truly "peaceful" place for Caodaists remains unclear. Although the Caodai militias initially fought alongside the communist Viet Minh against the French authorities during the 1940s and 1950s, they turned against them once the colonists were expelled in 1954.
Following the fall of Saigon in 1975, the communists took their revenge, confiscating Caodai property and arresting or exiling many of its leaders.
Vo Quang Minh said that relations between the Cambodian Caodai and the Vietnamese government were difficult during the occupation of the 1980s, but have since improved.
But despite some positive changes, rights groups and exiles say the Vietnamese government continues to ban participation in independent Caodai factions and oversees all internal Caodai affairs.
"Undercover government agents have infiltrated the administration of Caodai, and the religion has to function according to the government's [rules] without respecting the current religious constitution," said Hum Dac Bui.
"The Tay Ninh Holy See has become more or less a place of tourist interest for the profit of the government and is totally paralysed from a religious point of view."
Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said that only the government-approved Caodai sect is legally recognised, and that those who belong to splinter groups are subject to "harassment, arbitrary detention, and imprisonment".
In September 2004, he said, 12 Caodaists from Vietnam were arrested in Phnom Penh when they attempted to deliver a petition to delegates attending an ASEAN meeting.
After being deported to Vietnam, nine members of the group were sentenced to prison terms of up to 13 years on charges of undermining Vietnam's national security.
Adams added: "Cambodia is generally much more free with regard to freedom of religion than Vietnam, whose government sees unregistered church groups ... as a threat to the authority of the Communist Party."
But Tong Dinh Duong, 30, a member of the Saigon Caodai temple on Tran Hung Dao Boulevard in Ho Chi Minh City, told the Post last year that whatever the political situation, Caodaism's unique blend of Western mysticism and Eastern philosophy would prevail.
"When religion combines these together, people living together in the future won't fight together," he said. "In the future, we will have peace."
Malaysian group to invest $160m in Cambodian power
PHNOM PENH, July 13 (Reuters) - Malaysia's Leader Universal Holdings Bhd (LUNS.KL: Quote, Profile, Research), southeast Asia's largest cable and wire group, will invest $160 million in a coal-fired power plant in southern Cambodia, a government minister said on Monday.
The deal aims to meet the increasing demand for power in Cambodia and will increase production by 100 megawatts by late 2011 or early 2012, Ith Praing, deputy minister of industry, mines and energy, told Reuters.
He said the plant would be situated in the costal province of Sihanoukville and was expected to take two years to complete.
Cambodia currently produces an estimated 300 MW of electricity and has planned to meet its demand of 400 MW with supplies from neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam.
The high cost of electricity in Cambodia, which has a unit price of $0.20 per kilowatt hour, has limited foreign investment in the impoverished country as it seeks to rebuild after three decades of civil war.
The government is hoping to attract $3 billion of foreign investment to build six hydro power plants and a coal power plant by 2018 and more than double the current levels of production. (Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Martin Petty and Jon Boyle)
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Officer follows dream, joins the force
Like many middle-schoolers, Tonney Neouv admired the adventurous life of fighting crime as a badge-wearing “man in blue.” Unlike most of his peers, however, Neouv actually followed through with his dream and recently finished training as an officer for the Lexington Police Department.
After a four-year detour to the U.S. Marine Corps following his 2003 graduation from Central Davidson High School, Neouv decided the time was finally right to enroll in the Basic Law Enforcement Training Program at Davidson County Community College. He graduated from the program last December.
“The wait was well worth it,” the 24-year-old said of his longtime dream.
Now with months of field training under his belt, he is excited to start work as a full-fledged police officer. And police administrators are happy to have him. To them, Neouv represents many things for the Lexington department.
Particularly, Neouv is a testament to the success of the police department’s Junior Explorer Program, which operates in conjunction with the Boy Scouts to target middle and high school youths interested in learning the basics of law enforcement. Participants receive the chance to ride along with select officers on routine calls to observe how traffic stops are made and what to look for when conducting an investigation.
Neouv joined the program when he was in the eighth grade.
“I got a letter from the police department, so I decided to act on it and got in,” he said. “From then on I was in the Explorer program, from eighth grade until the end of high school. I just always wanted to be a police officer.”
Chief John Lollis said Neouv’s application for employment stood out because of his time as a Junior Explorer.
“We’re real excited to have Tonney because he started in our Explorer program,” he said, adding that he has enjoyed seeing Neouv gain experience and confidence.
“Anytime we have an officer that starts in our Explorer program and comes back to be an officer, that’s a success to us,” said Capt. Tad Kepley.
Though reluctant to identify himself as unique, Neouv also represents an important milestone for the Lexington police force. He is the first person of Asian decent to work as an officer there.
Neouv’s family moved to the U.S. from Cambodia in the early 1960s.
“He’s just got a wonderful personality,” Lollis said. “And we think it’ll create some inroads with the community and with some of the Asian people in Lexington. We also think he’ll be a good role model for teenagers.”
Kepley said it is important to establish trust as a police officer, and people are more likely to trust someone who looks like them and understands their culture.
But Neouv, who prefers a modest approach to his accomplishments, said he had never considered himself as different in that way.
“We all wear blue,” he said.
Neouv joined the Marine Corps right after high school because he was two years shy of the age limit to become a police officer. He agreed with Kepley that the discipline he learned there will serve him well as an officer.
“A lot of their structure seems to be very similar to what our structure is about, and that makes someone like Tonney attractive to us. It makes a real good fit,” Kepley said. “He represents what our police officers are all about, and that’s professionalism.”
Three weeks ago Neouv took his first call on his own as an officer: a larceny of money out of a wallet.
“There’s not really anything I don’t like about it,” he said of those first couple weeks. “I plan on being here for a while.”
Ryan Jones can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 227, or ryan.jones@the-dispatch.com.
From:
Witness says she saw Duch kill Cambodians
A former medic at Khmer Rouge's S21 prison has testified at a trial in Cambodia that she saw the prison warden bludgeon two men to death.
Nam Mon, a civil claimant at the United Nations-back war crimes trial in Phnom Penh, is the first witness so far to speak of seeing the warden, known Comrade Duch, killing inmates.
Her testimony is significant to Duch's defence because he has said he simply followed orders and did not personally torture or kill any of the 15,000 people murdered at the prison between 1975 and 1979.
Uncles bludgeoned
Nam Mon told the court that while working as a medic at S21, she watched from the third floor as Duch beat both of her uncles to death under a palm tree outside the prison gate.
But Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, rejected her testimony entirely.
He said none of the names she had provided were on the list of S21 prisoners and said there were no women medics in the prison.
He said he was shocked that all of Nam Mon's family had died under the Khmer Rouge.
Duch is charged with crimes against humanity and faces life in prison if convicted.
Four other former Khmer Rouge leaders will face the court once Duch's trial ends later this year.
From:
Malaysian-driven energy for Cambodia coastal town
HANOI, July 13 — Malaysia’s Leader Universal Holdings Bhd will invest US$160 million (RM560 million) in a new coal-fired power plant in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, to meet the local increasing demand for electricity, Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.
Presently, the capacity of all power plants in the Southeast Asian nation is only around 410MW while the demand is estimated at 808MW, according to the local state-owned power company, “Electricite du Cambodge”.
The power plant with a designed capacity of 100MW is scheduled to commence its operations in 2012 after two years of construction, said Leader’s Managing Director Sean H’ng Chun Hsiang.
The company is a leading wire and cable producer located in Penang. The Group’s principal activities are manufacturing and selling telecommunication, power and optical fibre cables, and various electronic wires. Other activities include providing power generation services, property development, letting of properties, insurance agent and investment holding.
Besides Malaysia and Cambodia, the Group also carried out projects in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Belgium and Saudi Arabia.
Sean also revealed a plan to develop a 700MW power plant in Sihanoukville and the project will start after the completion of the 100MW plant in 2012. Sihanoukville is a popular coastal town located about 200km south-west of Phnom Penh.
It is one of the fastest-growing regions in Cambodia due to its beaches and island hops as well as a few casinos currently in operation.
Cambodia currently relies on importing electricity, with 220MW from Vietnam and 30 MW from Thailand. – Bernama
From:
Church workers reflect on emulating Saint Paul in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH : Missioners and lay Catholics said the recently concluded Year of Saint Paul has helped them to see how their work of evangelization in the country parallels that of the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Father Bob Piche, from the Paris Foreign Missions Society, said that just as Saint Paul proclaimed the Good News to communities of different cultures, "so during my 11 years in Cambodia as a missioner, I have spent a lot of time learning the culture, traditions and way of life of the local people."
Father Piche, who is a parish priest in Phnom Penh, added that "the Good News will be easy to proclaim if we appreciate the culture and traditions of local people."
The priest was among more than 1,000 Catholics from across the country who attended a Mass on June 27 to close the Pauline Year. The special year ran from June 28, 2008, to June 29, 2009.
Father Paul Roeung Chatchai from the Thai Missionary Society, speaking to UCA News, said Saint Paul is his role model in his missionary work among Cambodians.
"He went to many places where the people did not know Jesus. I came to Cambodia where most people do not know Jesus," said the priest who is the coordinator for the Catholic Social Communications office in Phnom Penh.
Duong Savong, a catechist, noted that "Saint Paul was a clever missioner who used the cultures of nations to proclaim the Good News of Jesus."
"In Cambodia we are using his style (of evangelization) to catechize people," he added.
He noted that among Cambodians attending catechism classes, some belong to marginalized communities that Church organizations support, while others want to learn more about Christ. Whatever their reasons, "we always give them love and show them how Jesus calls people to love one another," he said.
During the June 27 Mass, Bishop Emile Destombes, apostolic vicar of Phnom Penh, praised all missioners, community leaders and Church workers in Cambodia for their work in making the Gospel flourish in the country over the last 20 years. "We have come a long way since 1989," he said.
Since that year, when Bishop Destombes became the first missioner to return to Cambodia after two decades of civil war and religious persecution, the Catholic Church has revived, as has religion in general in the predominantly Buddhist country.
In Phnom Penh apostolic vicariate, one of three Church jurisdictions in the country, there are now 38 Catholic communities, including those that speak English, French and Korean, and 40 Religious congregations and societies.
All these communities are a good resource for proclaiming the Good News, Bishop Destombes noted.
Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio, the Bangkok-based apostolic nuncio to Cambodia, also attended the Mass. He encouraged the whole Catholic community in Phnom Penh to continue proclaiming the Good News.
About 95 percent of the more than 14 million Cambodians are Buddhists. Christians form approximately 2 percent of the population.
From:
Khmer Rouge horrors still haunt victims 30 years on
Kampong Speu, Cambodia -- They started arriving before 8 a.m., middle-aged men and women, poor rice farmers mostly - damaged survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime.
The Documentation Center of Cambodia, a private research organization that collects evidence on the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, was bringing to this small provincial town a video projector and a DVD. It shows highlights of the testimony in a Khmer Rouge trial under way in Phnom Penh.
"I want to contribute to engaging the victims in the court process," explained Youk Chhang, the center's director. The founding agreements establishing the court opened the proceedings to victims of the Khmer Rouge. "Some Cambodians have moved on," he added. "But there are others who still suffer, and these are the ones we are targeting." That's just whom he got.
For an hour, about 75 people watched transfixed as Kaing Khek Lev, commander of S-21, the notorious prison-torture chamber where thousands of Cambodians died, described his crimes. He is better known as Duch, and he told how he supervised as his soldiers executed victims by whacking them on the back of the head with a hoe.
Duch is 66 now and looked directly at the judges with a calm and confident gaze, seeming to be the commander still, as he confessed to his terrible crimes, apologized and asked for forgiveness.
"I was given a directive to use a plastic bag to suffocate prisoners," he acknowledged.
When the video excerpts ended, the room sat silent - stunned, it seemed. A documentation center official asked audience members to talk about what they had seen.
The DVD was paused on a scene in which Duch seemed to be staring directly at the crowd with a stern, almost threatening, gaze.
The first woman who raised her hand took the microphone and promptly broke into tears.
"Forgiveness is not acceptable," she declared, wiping her eyes. "They killed my father and two older brothers."
Next a middle-aged man told of how six of his relatives died, and as he spoke his large brown eyes grew red and filled with tears. Still another man was choking up so that his words were hard to understand.
"I was a child, and I was starving," he stammered. "They gave us no food, and sometimes I would fall down and pass out and then wake up again." And so it went.
Cathartic? Perhaps. Injurious? Maybe.
The problem is, almost half the adult population of Cambodia, those older than 35 or 40, shows symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, a severe psychological condition that typically afflicts soldiers, but also civilians who live through trauma - like the horror here 30 years ago.
And for them, psychiatric experts say, watching a video like the one these people saw is like poking a stick in a hornet's nest. It triggers all of the symptoms: pain, rage - even violence.
One medical study of Cambodian refugees in Long Beach - the largest concentration of Cambodians in the United States - found that 62 percent of the adults had PTSD.
That and other studies found a generally dysfunctional population with high levels of alcoholism, drug use - and terrible violence.
Daryn S. Reicherter, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, served as a consultant to the Documentation Center here in the spring and came back concerned. "There needs to be some medical follow-up with these people" after the show has ended, he insisted.
So far, the Documentation Center has trucked more than 10,000 villagers to Phnom Penh to see the trial - or brought DVD excerpts to show in their own villages.
Youk Chhang understands the doctors' concerns but points out that he is a researcher, not a treatment specialist. The government, he says, should provide any needed psychiatric services. But then, Cambodia has only about 26 psychiatrists in the entire nation.
Yim Choy, a 44-year-old farmer, shouted at the crowd, saying that he had been conscribed to a child-labor team. "I cannot forgive Duch," he declared, his voice laced with bitter anger. "How can I when I saw him throw little boys against a tree?"
Afterward, he told me that, even now, he cannot talk about those times without growing angry. And yet he has a hard time keeping the thoughts out of his mind.
He even dreams of the horrors - a hallmark of PTSD. "I see myself with my hands tied behind me." All of that makes him angrier still.
After watching scenes like this, Reicherter posed a rhetorical question: "Why is this important?"
"Children are growing up," he explained, "with violent, PTSD parents who are drunk and beat them. That's the generation that is coming."
Joel Brinkley is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and a former foreign policy correspondent for the New York Times. To comment to him, e-mail brinkley@foreign-matters.com. Contact us at forum@sfchronicle.com.
From:
Khmer Rouge horrors still haunt victims 30 years on
Kampong Speu, Cambodia -- They started arriving before 8 a.m., middle-aged men and women, poor rice farmers mostly - damaged survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime.
The Documentation Center of Cambodia, a private research organization that collects evidence on the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, was bringing to this small provincial town a video projector and a DVD. It shows highlights of the testimony in a Khmer Rouge trial under way in Phnom Penh.
"I want to contribute to engaging the victims in the court process," explained Youk Chhang, the center's director. The founding agreements establishing the court opened the proceedings to victims of the Khmer Rouge. "Some Cambodians have moved on," he added. "But there are others who still suffer, and these are the ones we are targeting." That's just whom he got.
For an hour, about 75 people watched transfixed as Kaing Khek Lev, commander of S-21, the notorious prison-torture chamber where thousands of Cambodians died, described his crimes. He is better known as Duch, and he told how he supervised as his soldiers executed victims by whacking them on the back of the head with a hoe.
Duch is 66 now and looked directly at the judges with a calm and confident gaze, seeming to be the commander still, as he confessed to his terrible crimes, apologized and asked for forgiveness.
"I was given a directive to use a plastic bag to suffocate prisoners," he acknowledged.
When the video excerpts ended, the room sat silent - stunned, it seemed. A documentation center official asked audience members to talk about what they had seen.
The DVD was paused on a scene in which Duch seemed to be staring directly at the crowd with a stern, almost threatening, gaze.
The first woman who raised her hand took the microphone and promptly broke into tears.
"Forgiveness is not acceptable," she declared, wiping her eyes. "They killed my father and two older brothers."
Next a middle-aged man told of how six of his relatives died, and as he spoke his large brown eyes grew red and filled with tears. Still another man was choking up so that his words were hard to understand.
"I was a child, and I was starving," he stammered. "They gave us no food, and sometimes I would fall down and pass out and then wake up again." And so it went.
Cathartic? Perhaps. Injurious? Maybe.
The problem is, almost half the adult population of Cambodia, those older than 35 or 40, shows symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, a severe psychological condition that typically afflicts soldiers, but also civilians who live through trauma - like the horror here 30 years ago.
And for them, psychiatric experts say, watching a video like the one these people saw is like poking a stick in a hornet's nest. It triggers all of the symptoms: pain, rage - even violence.
One medical study of Cambodian refugees in Long Beach - the largest concentration of Cambodians in the United States - found that 62 percent of the adults had PTSD.
That and other studies found a generally dysfunctional population with high levels of alcoholism, drug use - and terrible violence.
Daryn S. Reicherter, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, served as a consultant to the Documentation Center here in the spring and came back concerned. "There needs to be some medical follow-up with these people" after the show has ended, he insisted.
So far, the Documentation Center has trucked more than 10,000 villagers to Phnom Penh to see the trial - or brought DVD excerpts to show in their own villages.
Youk Chhang understands the doctors' concerns but points out that he is a researcher, not a treatment specialist. The government, he says, should provide any needed psychiatric services. But then, Cambodia has only about 26 psychiatrists in the entire nation.
Yim Choy, a 44-year-old farmer, shouted at the crowd, saying that he had been conscribed to a child-labor team. "I cannot forgive Duch," he declared, his voice laced with bitter anger. "How can I when I saw him throw little boys against a tree?"
Afterward, he told me that, even now, he cannot talk about those times without growing angry. And yet he has a hard time keeping the thoughts out of his mind.
He even dreams of the horrors - a hallmark of PTSD. "I see myself with my hands tied behind me." All of that makes him angrier still.
After watching scenes like this, Reicherter posed a rhetorical question: "Why is this important?"
"Children are growing up," he explained, "with violent, PTSD parents who are drunk and beat them. That's the generation that is coming."
Joel Brinkley is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and a former foreign policy correspondent for the New York Times. To comment to him, e-mail brinkley@foreign-matters.com. Contact us at forum@sfchronicle.com.
From:
Church workers reflect on emulating Saint Paul in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH : Missioners and lay Catholics said the recently concluded Year of Saint Paul has helped them to see how their work of evangelization in the country parallels that of the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Father Bob Piche, from the Paris Foreign Missions Society, said that just as Saint Paul proclaimed the Good News to communities of different cultures, "so during my 11 years in Cambodia as a missioner, I have spent a lot of time learning the culture, traditions and way of life of the local people."
Father Piche, who is a parish priest in Phnom Penh, added that "the Good News will be easy to proclaim if we appreciate the culture and traditions of local people."
The priest was among more than 1,000 Catholics from across the country who attended a Mass on June 27 to close the Pauline Year. The special year ran from June 28, 2008, to June 29, 2009.
Father Paul Roeung Chatchai from the Thai Missionary Society, speaking to UCA News, said Saint Paul is his role model in his missionary work among Cambodians.
"He went to many places where the people did not know Jesus. I came to Cambodia where most people do not know Jesus," said the priest who is the coordinator for the Catholic Social Communications office in Phnom Penh.
Duong Savong, a catechist, noted that "Saint Paul was a clever missioner who used the cultures of nations to proclaim the Good News of Jesus."
"In Cambodia we are using his style (of evangelization) to catechize people," he added.
He noted that among Cambodians attending catechism classes, some belong to marginalized communities that Church organizations support, while others want to learn more about Christ. Whatever their reasons, "we always give them love and show them how Jesus calls people to love one another," he said.
During the June 27 Mass, Bishop Emile Destombes, apostolic vicar of Phnom Penh, praised all missioners, community leaders and Church workers in Cambodia for their work in making the Gospel flourish in the country over the last 20 years. "We have come a long way since 1989," he said.
Since that year, when Bishop Destombes became the first missioner to return to Cambodia after two decades of civil war and religious persecution, the Catholic Church has revived, as has religion in general in the predominantly Buddhist country.
In Phnom Penh apostolic vicariate, one of three Church jurisdictions in the country, there are now 38 Catholic communities, including those that speak English, French and Korean, and 40 Religious congregations and societies.
All these communities are a good resource for proclaiming the Good News, Bishop Destombes noted.
Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio, the Bangkok-based apostolic nuncio to Cambodia, also attended the Mass. He encouraged the whole Catholic community in Phnom Penh to continue proclaiming the Good News.
About 95 percent of the more than 14 million Cambodians are Buddhists. Christians form approximately 2 percent of the population.
From:
A(H1N1): American contracts swine flu
An American man has become the most recent person to be stricken with the AH1N1 virus, taking the number of confirmed cases in Cambodia to nine, said Ly Sovann, deputy director of the Ministry of Health's Communicable Diseases Control Department. Ly Sovann said the 34-year-old, who works and lives in Cambodia, tested positive for the virus on Thursday. Health officials said they suspected he contracted the virus after he returned from Bangkok last week. "He is fine now and is staying at his home in Phnom Penh," Ly Sovann told the Post Sunday. He said the 15-year-old Australian girl who tested positive for the virus last week had been released from Calmette Hospital on Saturday.
From:
Deportees at border cite fears
NEARLY a fortnight after their deportation by Thai immigration authorities, Khmer Krom asylum seekers staying in Banteay Meanchey province say they are suffering from hunger and fear as they encounter the uncertainty of life in a strange country.
Since their July 2 deportation, 33 of the 56 deported have left the border, counting on friends and relatives across the country for food and shelter.
But the remaining 23 deportees, born and raised in southern Vietnam, have no family in the Kingdom and are now living in limbo at a small pagoda outside Poipet town. The deportees did not want their exact location to be published.
Several deportees told the Post Friday that the group had endured harsh living conditions since arriving in Poipet. Despite aid from a Christian charity, they said they have been forced to survive on a single meal a day, drink pond water and sleep on the floor in cramped living quarters with no mosquito nets.
"We can't leave the house and can't go to the market, let alone go to work to try and sustain ourselves. It's dangerous out there. We can't trust anyone," said deportee Nguyen Van Hai (names have been changed).
Worst of all, said Pham Van Thanh, another deportee, was the constant fear of repatriation to Vietnam, where Khmer Krom claim they face restrictions of freedom of expression and religion.
"What we are most concerned about is that Cambodian authorities do not allow us to stay here and will send us back to Vietnam," he told the Post.
"If we are sent back, we will be jailed."
The 56 Khmer Krom fled southern Vietnam for Thailand between six months and six years ago and were awaiting the results of their asylum applications when arrested as illegal immigrants by Thai police and detained at Bangkok's Immigration Detention Centre on June 12.
The Khmer Krom said they had been living in isolation from the rest of Thai society and had received no news from home prior to their arrest.
"We have absolutely no contact with our families in Vietnam. We have no idea what's happening to them now. It's likely that they're being spied on," said Vu Van Ba, another of the deportees.
Nguyen Van Hai said it had been hard to live a normal life in Thailand.
"We could not do anything there. No work, no business, and we were under surveillance at all times," he said
At the time of their deportation, the Bangkok office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was in the middle of processing their asylum applications. The deportees said they were angry the UNHCR had been unable to intervene after their arrest.
"UNHCR did not provide any assistance when we were in Bangkok," Pham Van Thanh told the Post. "When arrested by the Thai police, we called UNHCR officials in Bangkok asking for intervention, but their hands were tied."
Sara Colm, a Human Rights Watch researcher, said Sunday that the deportation might put an end to the group's attempt to seek asylum abroad.
"It's difficult for the refugee process to be completed now that they have been deported to Cambodia," she said, noting that UNHCR Cambodia will not consider the asylum claims of Khmer Krom.
She said that UNHCR operates according to Cambodian government assurances that all ethnic Khmers - including those from southern Vietnam - have the automatic right to Cambodian citizenship, making it technically impossible for them to claim refugee status while staying in the country.
Article 4 of the 1996 Nationality Law also states that any person with one Khmer parent can become a citizen.
But the difficulty facing the deportees is that the government does not seem willing to grant them the rights of citizenship enshrined in law, with one official saying they face deportation to Vietnam.
"We do not have any principle of providing these people with shelter or accommodation," said Try Narin, the governor of Poipet town. "I have asked local authorities to find them, and if we [do] we will send them back to their homeland."
UNHCR's office in Phnom Penh could not be reached for comment Sunday.
From:
Parliament OKs deal to send migrant labourers to Kuwait
PARLIAMENT last month approved an agreement with Kuwait allowing Cambodians to work in the Gulf state, an official said Sunday.
Um Mean, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, said the final step was for the Senate to approve the deal.
"After that both parties will set up a joint task force to study the job requirements in more detail," Um Mean said, adding that Kuwait has already approved the deal.
The two states signed a memorandum of understanding late last year on the issue of migrant workers.
An Bun Hak, the president of the Cambodian Recruitment Agency, which has permission from the ministry to provide workers for the scheme, said most jobs would be in oil and gas as well as hospitality.
"We will lead a delegation to gauge the job market in Kuwait early next month and investigate it in-depth," he said, adding that monthly wages would be around US$350.
The agreement follows a deal between the two states allowing Kuwait to lease tracts of Cambodian land to grow food.
An Bun Hak said that for cultural reasons Cambodia's Cham Muslim minority would likely benefit most from the scheme, although he stressed that his firm would not discriminate.
"We will recruit both Cambodian Muslim workers and non-Muslim workers," he said. "But Cambodia's Cham Muslim people will have more ability because they will be able to adapt to Kuwait's culture more quickly than other Cambodians."
He said the first workers - a trial group of up to 200 people - would be sent to Kuwait before the end of the year.
"Kuwait has not set a quota, so we hope to send between 6,000 and 7,000 workers each year," An Bun Hak said, adding that workers in the oil and gas sector would gain valuable skills for Cambodia's upcoming resources industry.
Thun Saray, the president of local human rights group Adhoc, welcomed the deal, saying it is important that the government does what it can to help Cambodians find work.
"What worries me is the laws protecting workers," he said. "Before the government allows people to work overseas, it should provide them with information about working conditions so they can avoid disputes. They must be properly informed about where they will be working."
Cambodia's 20 private recruitment agencies have to date sent 21,000 migrant workers to South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia. Wages vary widely, with a worker in South Korea able to earn up to $700 per month. In Malaysia they can earn between $120 and $150 per month, while wages in Thailand are $80 to $120.
From:
Swatch to expand in Cambodia
SWISS watchmaker Swatch Group said its franchisee will open two more branded stores in Cambodia. Its first store opened in April.
The company said the Kingdom's demographics mean it should prove a good market.
Thai Philippe from Swatch franchisee K Thong Huot Telecom said one store will open in Phnom Penh and the other in Siem Reap, both likely next year in shopping malls.
Although Swatch sales are currently low, he said the arrival of a new collection should help to raise the brand's profile locally.
"A lot of people are attracted to the design of Swatch, but they are hesitating to buy it because the brand is not yet well-known here," he said.
At the launch of Swatch's new collection in Italy last month, Nicolas Hayek, chairman of Swatch Group, said global sales had held during the downturn.
"[Worldwide] sales of Swiss watches went down 27.6 percent last year, but Swatch has performed much better and we haven't seen much of a decrease," he said. "Even in the US market Swatch is doing very well - dropping just 9 or 10 percent when compared to some other brands which are down 50 percent or more."
From:
MFIs see lending growth dip
MICROFINANCE institutions (MFIs) said loans are down sharply in the first half of the year, while bad debts have risen due to the economic crisis.
Hout Ieng Tong, president of the Cambodian Microfinance Association, predicted the situation would not improve before the end of the year. He forecast the average level of nonperforming loans (NPLs) for the industry would rise tenfold to 3 percent this year.
Chea Phalarin, manager of market leader Amret, said the company was being cautious in its lending, while clients were afraid they would be unable to make repayments.
"We planned to disburse US$50 million of loans in the first six months of this year, but only $33.5 million was lent to 230,000 customers," he said, adding that Amret lent $30 million in the first half last year.
The NPL rate increased from 0.08 percent at the end of last year to 2.8 percent at the end of June, he said.
Sim Senacheat, general manager of Prasac, the nation's second-largest MFI, said last week that loan disbursements were down 13 percent to $33 million from $38 million in the first half of 2008. Prasac also has fewer clients now: 87,700 as opposed to 100,000 at the end of June last year.
"The economic and real estate downturn mean we have restricted our loans - especially large-scale loans.... That's because we are concerned about repayment capacity," said Sim Senacheat, adding that bad loans were up from 0.23 percent at the end of 2008 to 1.35 percent at the end of June.
MFI Sathapana echoed the problems of its competitors. Chairman Bun Mony said loans were one-third below target at $22 million, and bad loans stood at 1.7 percent, up from 0.2 percent at the end of 2008.
From:
Helping to reinstall art into Cambodian consciousness
KHUN Sovanrith and Venn Savat, two Cambodian contemporary painters, are presenting their latest works at Reyum Institute, open today from 5 to 8pm.
According to the two artists, the status of painting as a relatively new art form in Cambodia, especially when it comes to contemporary art, motivated them to contribute to the emerging national scene through this exhibition.
As a member of the first generation of painters trained at the School of Fine Arts following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, Venn Savat remarked that painting has been growing more prominent in Cambodian arts since the 1980s.
However, most Cambodians are still far more familiar with sculptural works, and thus his and Khun Sovanrith's commitment to art education will remain strong and proactive for the foreseeable future.
The exhibition at large consists of varying styles and themes, including sceneries, still lifes and abstract paintings. Buddhism is explicitly expressed throughout the exhibition, as shown by the series of lotus, Buddha and Nirvana paintings. The artists hope to send messages of peace to their audience through such works.
"When people are reminded of Nirvana, they will try to limit their demand and share what they have with others," Khun Sovanrith said.
The artists said the variety on offer in their exhibition aims to depict the big picture of Cambodian daily life.
"We want to use paintings as communication tools to express [Cambodian] life values," said Khun Sovanrith.
Increased opportunities
Currently working at Reyum as a teacher, Khun Sovanrith said he also wanted to provide more art-related opportunities as well as increased exposure to the public free of charge, particularly to Cambodian youth.
"Paintings do not draw much interest in Cambodia because the country is still impoverished.
"Most of my students [at Reyum Institute] are poor and not educated enough about arts," he said.
Before working at Reyum, Khun Sovanrith worked at the Department of Pegagogical Research within the Ministry of Education as a book illustrator from 1996 to 1999.
Though this experience drew him into art education, he was limited to producing black-and-white sketches that could be literally understood. Now with painting, he is free to be creative and use artistic abstractions to imply different messages and target different audience groups, a practice he feels is more fitting for an art teacher.
Khun Sovanrith has nine paintings, and Venn Savat fourteen, on display at Reyum. This exhibition marks Venn Savat's 20th exhibition and the sixth for Khun Sovanrith.
From:
Crown, Naga stroll to CPL wins
A second-half display of power from Phnom Penh Crown was enough to overwhelm a plucky National Defence Ministry (MND) side Saturday and ensure that they kept up the pressure on Preah Khan Reach at the top of the Cambodian Premier League table.
After a slow opening to the first half, the game received the desired shot in the arm on 22 minutes when MND took a shock lead against the run of play. Nov Sokseila provided the moment of divine inspiration when he picked up the ball on the right and burst into the box.
After beating two players, the angle was against him, but the tiny winger managed to toe-poke the ball past the keeper to cap a glorious solo effort.
The goal certainly caused alarm in the Crown defence, and just minutes later the defending champions' back line were pushing the panic buttons again when Um Kompheak connected well with an acrobatic volley, only to see it whistle past the post.
With 16 minutes left in the half, Crown had their best chance so far when a Chan Rithy corner cleared everybody, including a shaky-looking Samrith Seiha in goal, but when the ball fell to Tunji Ayoyinka at the far stick, his cross-cum-shot evaded everybody when all it needed was the slightest touch.
After the break, Crown set the tone from the off with Oscar Mpoko hitting a vicious shot with the outside of his boot from the edge of the box. The ball was flying into the top corner, but Samrith Seiha leapt like a praying mantis and acrobatically clawed it away.
It didn't take long for the goal to come however, and just five minutes into the half Crown were level. Ayoyinka was sent rocketing down the left and, although he could have gone it alone, the Nigerian forward unselfishly squared to Srey Veasna, who arrived at the far post to tap in. Crown then laid siege to the MND goal, with a shot from Mpoko dubiously disallowed. However, they had to wait until the 85th minute before the breakthrough finally came. Chan Rithy played a delicious reverse pass with his weaker right foot for Mpoko to control. Without breaking his stride, the midfield dynamo volleyed a sumptuous lob over the keeper and into the net.
Somewhat harshly on MND, it was soon three when, in injury time, Ayoyinka collected a long ball, held off two defenders and finished calmly to wrap up the points for Crown.
Naga Corp 3 Spark FC 0
In Saturday's second game, Spark FC were unable to deal with a Naga Corp side that coasted to victory without ever moving out of second gear.
After almost opening the scoring in comedic circumstances when the Spark goalkeeper's attempted clearance bounced off Teab Vathanak and just wide on seven minutes, Naga eventually found the back of the net, although once again there was more than a whiff of good fortune about it.
Naga's Yemi Oyewole was fed on the edge of the box, and the cultured midfielder's attempted cross looped over the goalkeeper and dipped just in time to sneak into the far corner for the opener.
Twenty-two minutes in, though, Spark almost nicked an equaliser against the run of play through a superb Plong Chanthou header, but Chaom Veasna was able to flick the ball away from just underneath the bar.
Nine minutes later, Oyewole almost grabbed his second of the afternoon, but his header flashed just wide, with the keeper scrambling. Then, with eleven minutes left in the half, Naga made it two. Teab Vathanak twisted up his marker on the left, fired in a great low ball across, and with numerous players sliding in, Olawaseun Olatide made a hash of his clearance and turned it past his own goalkeeper.
It was more of the same in the second half. Sunday Okonkwo almost added a third for Naga in the 51st minute when he picked the ball up 30 yards from goal, drove at the defence and unleashed a thunderbolt with his left foot which Pouv Raksa did well to turn over the bar.
Just a minute later, Okonkwo went even closer when he met Teab Vathanak's low cross from the left with the outside of his right boot. The shot beat the keeper but thudded off the base of the post and rebounded to safety.
Naga were rampant by this point, and after Oyewole saw his strike well saved by Pouv Raksa, they got the third goal their dominance deserved. Teab Vathanak outfoxed a defender on the edge of the box and slipped a sly pass through to Friday Nwakuna, who kept his composure and placed the ball into the corner to put the seal on an impressive Naga performance.
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Phouchung Neak shock leaders
CAMBODIAN Premier League leaders Preah Khan Reach (PKR) had the wind knocked out of their sails by Navy side Phouchung Neak in their top-versus-bottom clash at the Olympic stadium Sunday that ended a 2-2 draw. It was all one-way traffic as PKR struck the woodwork twice in a frantic opening, but they were left reeling from a double sucker punch in as many minutes.
Tith Dina leapt around in jubilation after his screamer from twenty-five yards sailed into the top corner after PKR failed to clear the danger from a corner kick on 19 minutes.
Just as fans were getting their breath back, Phouchung, with just one point from their previous nine games, doubled their lead when debutant Wilson Mene sent his teammates into more raptures with a well-executed volley at the back stick from Heng Sokly's sweet cross. The navy side didn't deserve their scoreline, but they weren't complaining.
In response, PKR stepped on the gas and reduced the deficit on the half-hour. Olisa Onyemerea rose above everyone to powerfully head home Tum Saray's corner. Phouchung held out for fifteen minutes of the second period, until was Onyemerea on hand again to turn in a low cross from Khounla Boravy, though the expected onslaught from PKR never really materialised. Honours were shared, although it was a massive moral victory for the Navy side over their illustrious opponents.
Post Tel Club 0 Build Bright 2
In a much quieter affair, Build Bright United (BBU)took the points in the second game of the afternoon, with a straightforward 2-0 success over Post Tel. The result was never in doubt as BBU always held the upper hand. Indeed, in new signing Augustine Ogemi, they had the game's best player by a country mile.
After arriving from PKR during the mid-season break, the Nigerian took just nine minutes to register his first goal for his new club. Rising above despairing Post Tel goalkeeper Thong Chanraksmey, he planted his header into the net from a gorgeous inswinging cross by Ek Vannak.
BBU settled the game fifteen minutes into the second half when Oriola Adeseye applied a deft touch to lift his shot over Thong Chanraksmey when a corner fell to him in the box.
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Crown fail to sign hotshot Prince Justine
THE much speculated transfer of the Cambodian Premier league's top scorer Prince Uche Justine finally never happened with his club Spark FC unable to reach an agreement with Phnom Penh Crown. Crown manager Makara Be claimed he did everything possible to lure the prolific scorer to the reigning champions, but to no avail, resigning to the signing of former Naga striker, Cameroon born Ousmannou Mohamadou as his foreign player transfer allowance during the July window. Prince Justine was suspended for Spark's game against Naga Corp Saturday after receiving two yellow cards.
Meanwhile, Crown striker Tunji Ayoyinka played possibly his last game for the club Saturday ahead of his trip to join an undisclosed side in the Turkish second division. According to the player, two teams are interested in his signature.
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Officials meet in Siem Reap for golf and informal talks
HIGH-ranking Cambodian and Thai authorities held an informal meeting Thursday in Siem Reap to encourage their regional commanders to set up additional meetings in an effort to reduce tension along the border near Preah Vihear temple, a defence official said.
Chhum Sucheat, the spokesman and undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Defence, told the Post Sunday that ministry officials hoped the meeting would push the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) commander of region 4 and the Thai commander of region 2 to meet more regularly.
"We are optimistic from the meeting that the result will be more dialogue between Cambodian and Thai commanders, which will help reduce tensions in order to avoid armed confrontation," he said.
Neang Phat, a secretary of state at the Defence Ministry, and advisers to General Anupong Paochinda, commander-in-chief of the Thai army, participated in the meeting, said Chhum Sucheat, who added that after the meeting the Cambodian and Thai delegation played golf together.
It is normal for both Cambodia and Thailand to reinforce troops at the border.
Chhum Sucheat said the next meeting between the Thai and Cambodian defence ministries would be an annual meeting to discuss border issues, which will be held in Bangkok between July 21 and July 23.
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Photo by: TRACEY SHELTON
Thai Captain Manus Sripitak (second from left) meets with Cambodian officials at Sambok Khmum last week. Officials from the two countries also met informally in Siem Reap last Thursday.
Along the border, Cambodian military officers said Sunday that the Thai army had brought in reinforcements to the border area.
Yim Phim, commander of Brigade 8, said Sunday that Thailand brought tanks, artillery and infantry to the border.
"So far, nothing has occurred, and the armies at the front lines remain on alert," Yim Phim said.
Chhum Socheat would neither confirm nor deny reports of troop reinforcements but downplayed their significance.
"It is normal for both Cambodia and Thailand to reinforce troops at the border ... therefore both sides now want to try to hold more meetings between regional commanders," Sucheat said. "We will try to set up more meetings in line with the recommendation of Prime Minister Hun Sen."
Cambodia and Thailand have long disagreed about the ownership of the area near Preah Vihear temple, and the dispute turned violent after UNESCO granted the 11th-century temple World Heritage site status last July.
Periodic gunbattles, the last one in April, have killed seven soldiers since then.
Although in 1962 the World Court ruled that the temple was in Cambodian territory, recently Thailand said it would seek joint listing of the temple, further raising tensions on the border.
The area near the temple has never been officially demarcated, in part because the border is still littered with land mines.
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