By Mark Wiens
(Courtesy of Vimeo video)
Migration Mark travels to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to see what the city has to offer. Old market, Kandal market, Russian market, local Khmer and weird foods to eat, crazy traffic, and smiling people.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Phnom Penh, Cambodia - TV Documentary showing markets, food, and sites
(Courtesy of Vimeo video)
Migration Mark travels to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to see what the city has to offer. Old market, Kandal market, Russian market, local Khmer and weird foods to eat, crazy traffic, and smiling people.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Credit rating drops [Standard & Poor's downgrades Cambodia credit rating because of Hun Sen's dictatorship plan]
Analysts said Hun Sen (L) is grooming his son, Hun Manet (R), to succeed him a Cambodia's Prime Minister.“[Cambodia has an] untested succession mechanism and a corollary key-man risk,” he [Standard & Poor's] said, referring to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 26-year run as prime minister of the country.
Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Liam Barnes
Phnom Penh Post
Standard & Poor’s yesterday downgraded Cambodia’s sovereign credit rating, pointing to what it said was an unstable political environment and low per capita income.
These constricting factors, in addition to the country’s highly dollarised economy and reliance on international donors, led the rating agency to lower the Kingdom’s long-term sovereign rating to B from B+, Agost Benard, an S&P credit analyst, told the Post yesterday.
“As a result of our new rating methodology introduced in June, we reassessed Cambodia’s rating, placing greater emphasis on per capita income and political environment and quality.”
S&P believes the weaknesses of the “political score” in its review of the Kingdom include ineffective institutions and governance and a lack of ability in transferring political power, according to Benard.
“[Cambodia has an] untested succession mechanism and a corollary key-man risk,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 26-year run as prime minister of the country.
Although these negative factors are expected to be long-standing issues, even with a general election slated for next year, an improvement on the fiscal front could benefit Cambodia’s credit rating in the future, Benard said.
“If revenue-generated capacity is increased, reliance on international donors declines, and more money is spent on human and physical infrastructure, the Kingdom may be upgraded in the future.”
Benard said another factor weighing negatively on S&P’s assessment of the Kingdom’s political score was the continuing arrears on sovereign debt to Russia and the US, “which indicates a weak debt-payment culture”.
But the impact of the downgrade on a country like Cambodia was expected to be negligible, he said.
“Cambodia is not part of the international bond market, has no commercial external debt and all funding needs are taken care of by concessionary loans. So the rate cut is unlikely to have a material impact on the cost of funds.”
Although the Kingdom’s long-term sovereign credit rating, which assesses the credit horizon for more than a year, was lowered by a notch, the short-term rating, assessing less than 12 months, remained at B, according to the S&P statement released yesterday.
S&P defines B-grade debt as speculat-ive, saying a country with such a rating is “more vulnerable to adverse business, financial and economic conditions but currently has the capacity to meet financial commitments”.
The United States-based financial service company also downgraded the US in August – a move experts said would have both positive and negative effects on Cambodia.
ANZ Royal Bank chief executive Stephen Higgins told the Post in August the effects of the US debt downgrade might ripple out to Cambodia, even though the Kingdom’s economy was “booming” at the moment.
But he yesterday emphasised the lack of impact Cambodia’s sovereign downgrade would have on the financial sector.
“The significance is fairly limited, given that Cambodia doesn’t currently have access to public markets and there are no bond issues,” Higgins said.
“However, on the margin, it may cause some potential investors to re-assess their position, if they don’t take time to look at the fundamental reasons [to invest in Cambodia]."
Higgins said the sector was not overly concerned by credit ratings, “considering the recent debacle”– a reference to credit agencies’ role in the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.
“Rating agencies have hardly covered themselves in glory in recent years. People should take their ratings with a pinch of salt.”
Although she could not be reached for comment yesterday due to the national holiday, National Bank of Cambodia director-general and spokeswoman Nguon Sokha in August echoed Higgins’ sentiments.
“Ratings give some indication of the strength of the economy, but we should not 100 per cent rely on that,” she said, adding that the government had no immediate intention to issue sovereign bonds.
Confessions of a Spin Doctor: Shedding illusions as a flak for the Cambodian People's Party
Via www.ki-media.blogspot.com
--By Rita Colorito for Toward Freedom, November 1999
--By Rita Colorito for Toward Freedom, November 1999
Originally posted at: http://www.ritacolorito.com/uploads/Confessions_of_a_Spin_Doctor.pdf
Every year foreign political leaders, governments and related principals hire lobbyists, lawyers, and public relations professionals to polish their images in the United States. As of June 30, 1998, 549 such pros, representing 728 foreign entities, were registered with the US Department of Justice. Foreign political consulting is a multi-million-dollar business in Washington. And sometimes, the cash comes from unsavory characters.
In graduate school, I remember reading an article on Edward von Kloberg III, a spin meister who's represented murderous clients like Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko and Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Despite vowing to avoid such people, two weeks after receiving my Masters in International Affairs, I began work for the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and, indirectly, Hun Sen -- an autocrat accused of human rights abuses and ousting his co-prime minister in a bloody 1997 coup.
In the summer of 1998, the CPP had hired DMG, Inc., a Washington-based strategic communications firm, to represent the party in the US during Cambodia's first ever self-sponsored national elections. David Morey, the firm's president, was a professor of mine at Columbia University. His past clients include Philippine President Corazon Aquino, the Dalai Lama, and South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung.
He explained that the CPP wanted advice on conducting free and fair elections, improving human rights, and establishing an international tribunal for the Khmer Rouge, responsible for the deaths of some two million Cambodians from 1975 to 1979. Thus, I became part of Cambodia's Washington team, which included lawyers James Stearns of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur and William Rogers of lobbying powerhouse Arnold & Porter.
Based on Morey's record, I accepted the client's altruistic intentions and thought we could help. You see, representing such clients requires not only fooling others, but yourself. I soon realized, however, autocrats don't want advice about justice. Like claiming we worked for the party's reform wing, saying we were helping to improve human rights simply provided a "feel-good" excuse. Our client clearly wanted to preserve the status quo.
Rationalizing the Vote
In the months before Cambodia's July 27 elections, Washington frequently voiced its dislike and mistrust of the CPP and Hun Sen. The Clinton Administration, congressional leaders, and newspaper editorials advocated postponing the elections. By ousting his co-prime minister, they argued, Hun Sen had strong-armed his way into holding new elections he could control.
Taking semantics to absurdity, we argued that the coup was merely a military confrontation between the armies of Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Fortunately for our side, the Clinton Administration agreed. Maybe they were still feeling guilty about the secret US bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
Tony Kevin, the former Australian Ambassador to Cambodia, also voiced our version of the coup. Although Kevin called Hun Sen a thug and denounced his human rights record, he advocated that the elections proceed as planned.
The media charged Kevin whitewashed Hun Sen and accused him of being a CPP supporter. He wasn't, but we couldn't have asked for a better "neutral" advocate.
We actively promoted Kevin during his visit to Washington. Arnold & Porter hosted a dinner for him, inviting a handful of reporters and academics. In addition, I secured a speaking engagement for him at the National Press Club, and helped edit an op-ed he published in The Christian Science Monitor. On election day, the ambassador would lead the Volunteer Observers for Cambodian Elections, one of several international observer groups whose job was to monitor the vote.
During a human rights panel on Capitol Hill, Kevin also voiced his fear that the Khmer Rouge might return -- another idea we harped on. We argued incessantly that only Hun Sen could deal with the lingering threat. Although he had driven the regime from Phnom Penh in 1978 -- with the help of the Vietnamese army -- we ignored the fact that he'd once been a Khmer Rouge lieutenant. More important, as of June 1998, the Khmer Rouge amounted to some 400 ill-equipped guerrillas in Cambodia's far northern jungles. Yet, our campaign mantra focused on this vastly exaggerated fear.
We also insisted that Ranariddh was colluding with the brutal ex-regime. By ousting him, we said, Hun Sen had saved Cambodia from a Khmer Rouge double-cross and return to power. Stearns convinced James Zumwalt, a freelance journalist and Vietnam Veteran, to write an op-ed in the Washington Times condemning Ranariddh. After Hun Sen became Cambodia's sole Prime Minister and offered Ranariddh a figurehead role as president, the "scheme" was conveniently forgotten.
Image Problems
Zumwalt was one of the few writers on our side. Mostly, the media disliked Hun Sen intensely. Reports accused the CPP of intimidating Cambodia's journalists and denying opposition leaders equal access to TV and radio air time.
Damning editorials in the New York Times and Washington Post particularly infuriated our client. Hun Sen and Var Huoth, Cambodia's Ambassador to the US, drafted lengthy, irate responses. Although we repeatedly advised them that the Times and Post wouldn't publish an 800-word letter to the editor, we met with stubborn resistance.
Accustomed to getting their way, CPP officials said that once the editors agreed to publish, they'd shorten the letters. Until then, Hun Sen's text was to remain intact. His responses were never published.
After the elections, the Cambodian Ambassador asked me directly how we could make the media like them. "You can't just say you'll investigate killings, you actually have to do it," I explained, referring to the 100 opposition
supporters that had been killed since the 1997 coup.
The Washington team advised they investigate at least one killing to demonstrate progress. We suggested Thong Sophal, whom Cambodian police claimed had committed suicide. Sophal's eyes had been gouged out, his arms and legs cut off, and his body skinned. The ambassador looked at me blankly, then uttered the standard refrain: "It's not easy. It will take one, maybe two years."
Besides media criticism, we faced political attacks. Several congressmen, led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, signed a resolution calling for Hun Sen to be tried for crimes against humanity. Although the resolution went nowhere, it panicked our client.
Shattered Illusions
A few weeks before the vote, a CPP delegation arrived in Washington to convince the Clinton Administration and Congress the elections would be free and fair. Since Congress decides appropriations -- and Cambodia desperately needs aid -- the delegation focused on charming the Hill.
They assumed they would have instant access to the State Department and congressional leaders. Instead, officials met mostly with information officers and congressional staffers. In Cambodia they were big fish. In Washington's foreign policy pond, they weren't even minnows.
Stearns and I met the delegation, led by Cambodia's then Secretary of State Uch Kiman, in his room at the Hotel Washington. We were then ushered next door by Svay Sitha, a CPP spokesman. Sitha assured us of victory on election day. CPP internal poll numbers showed the final seat allocation for each party, which -- surprise, surprise!! -- was almost the exact allocation that emerged after the vote. Apparently, an impoverished country had 99 percent accurate polling capability.
Although Sitha served on Cambodia's Human Rights Committee, he never asked for policy suggestions. When we stepped into the hallway, however, he said, "It's too quiet here. I work better in chaos." During lunch we asked about the killings. Investigations would take time, he replied. Supposedly, Sitha was later put in charge of investigating the extrajudicial killings.
The next day, we met at the embassy to advise the Ambassador Var Huoth on his press conference. We suggested he focus on the future, move the focus away from Hun Sen, and talk about the progress on media access and the human rights commission. I sounded like a trained parrot. No progress had been made.
We knew Hun Sen needed positive exposure, and so promised to get an exclusive election-day profile published in a major magazine. Fat chance. When it came to Cambodia, magazines were only interested in that genocidal mastermind, Pol Pot, who had died in April.
Morey wanted Sydney Schanberg of The Killing Fields fame. Schanberg wasn't exactly a fan of Hun Sen, but his name recognition increased the chances of publication. Schanberg said he would have a tough time convincing an editor to buy it and pay his expenses. When Morey and Stearns suggested other payment options, without directly going through the CPP, Schanberg declined.
I suggested Tina Rosenberg, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and New York Times editorial writer. She'd been one of my professors at Columbia. Rosenberg's specialty was political villains. I told her Hun Sen would be an interesting character study. According to Morey and Stearns, who had met him several times, he wasn't as bad as everyone claimed. The man was charming, they said. He even liked to play golf.
The reasoning, of course, was oversimplified. No one ever said villains can't be charming. Even the wolf behaved pleasantly toward Little Red Riding Hood -- right before he tried to eat her.
After initially declining the offer, Rosenberg decided to write the exclusive for the Times' Sunday Magazine. We eagerly awaited the results. But the piece, titled "Hun Sen Stages an Election," didn't provide the resounding praise we wanted. An emergency phone conference was held to spin the article before the client even read it. I also heard we had 'enemies' in Cambodia who wanted us off the contract. Apparently, they thought there would be kickbacks if lobbyists they hired received the contract.
Morey assured me Rosenberg's article wasn't my fault. Why should I be blamed, I wondered, if she saw what every other reporter had seen in Hun Sen, a leader who rules with impunity? Still, for the next several weeks, my presence wasn't requested at embassy meetings. I suspect Rosenberg's article put me in disfavor.
Fine by me. Unlike public relations prostitute Edward von Kloberg, who insists he works for "democratic causes," I could no longer fool myself. I couldn't separate my principles from my paycheck.
The Spin Goes On
Toward the end, I asked Morey if I could remain in the background, and work with other, less contentious clients. I even suggested the firm not renew its CPP contract, which expired in September, because of the uninvestigated killings and lack of progress on human rights. But Morey said Rogers, whom he respected, would argue that we could effect positive change by continuing to work with the CPP. I no longer believed it.
The Cambodian People's Party didn't care about human rights progress or an international tribunal. It simply wanted favorable media coverage and renewed international aid. It also wanted Cambodia to reclaim its seat at the UN and gain membership into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Basically, the client wanted money, power, and prestige.
Since then, Cambodia has achieved most of those goals. Today, it has a UN seat, millions in aid from Japan and the European Union, and membership in ASEAN. For the moment, however, the US appears intent on tying economic aid to an international tribunal, something Hun Sen continues to stall. When my DMG contract ended last December, I didn't renew.
Every year foreign political leaders, governments and related principals hire lobbyists, lawyers, and public relations professionals to polish their images in the United States. As of June 30, 1998, 549 such pros, representing 728 foreign entities, were registered with the US Department of Justice. Foreign political consulting is a multi-million-dollar business in Washington. And sometimes, the cash comes from unsavory characters.
In graduate school, I remember reading an article on Edward von Kloberg III, a spin meister who's represented murderous clients like Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko and Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Despite vowing to avoid such people, two weeks after receiving my Masters in International Affairs, I began work for the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and, indirectly, Hun Sen -- an autocrat accused of human rights abuses and ousting his co-prime minister in a bloody 1997 coup.
In the summer of 1998, the CPP had hired DMG, Inc., a Washington-based strategic communications firm, to represent the party in the US during Cambodia's first ever self-sponsored national elections. David Morey, the firm's president, was a professor of mine at Columbia University. His past clients include Philippine President Corazon Aquino, the Dalai Lama, and South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung.
He explained that the CPP wanted advice on conducting free and fair elections, improving human rights, and establishing an international tribunal for the Khmer Rouge, responsible for the deaths of some two million Cambodians from 1975 to 1979. Thus, I became part of Cambodia's Washington team, which included lawyers James Stearns of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur and William Rogers of lobbying powerhouse Arnold & Porter.
Based on Morey's record, I accepted the client's altruistic intentions and thought we could help. You see, representing such clients requires not only fooling others, but yourself. I soon realized, however, autocrats don't want advice about justice. Like claiming we worked for the party's reform wing, saying we were helping to improve human rights simply provided a "feel-good" excuse. Our client clearly wanted to preserve the status quo.
Rationalizing the Vote
In the months before Cambodia's July 27 elections, Washington frequently voiced its dislike and mistrust of the CPP and Hun Sen. The Clinton Administration, congressional leaders, and newspaper editorials advocated postponing the elections. By ousting his co-prime minister, they argued, Hun Sen had strong-armed his way into holding new elections he could control.
Taking semantics to absurdity, we argued that the coup was merely a military confrontation between the armies of Hun Sen and Prince Norodom Ranariddh. Fortunately for our side, the Clinton Administration agreed. Maybe they were still feeling guilty about the secret US bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
Tony Kevin, the former Australian Ambassador to Cambodia, also voiced our version of the coup. Although Kevin called Hun Sen a thug and denounced his human rights record, he advocated that the elections proceed as planned.
The media charged Kevin whitewashed Hun Sen and accused him of being a CPP supporter. He wasn't, but we couldn't have asked for a better "neutral" advocate.
We actively promoted Kevin during his visit to Washington. Arnold & Porter hosted a dinner for him, inviting a handful of reporters and academics. In addition, I secured a speaking engagement for him at the National Press Club, and helped edit an op-ed he published in The Christian Science Monitor. On election day, the ambassador would lead the Volunteer Observers for Cambodian Elections, one of several international observer groups whose job was to monitor the vote.
During a human rights panel on Capitol Hill, Kevin also voiced his fear that the Khmer Rouge might return -- another idea we harped on. We argued incessantly that only Hun Sen could deal with the lingering threat. Although he had driven the regime from Phnom Penh in 1978 -- with the help of the Vietnamese army -- we ignored the fact that he'd once been a Khmer Rouge lieutenant. More important, as of June 1998, the Khmer Rouge amounted to some 400 ill-equipped guerrillas in Cambodia's far northern jungles. Yet, our campaign mantra focused on this vastly exaggerated fear.
We also insisted that Ranariddh was colluding with the brutal ex-regime. By ousting him, we said, Hun Sen had saved Cambodia from a Khmer Rouge double-cross and return to power. Stearns convinced James Zumwalt, a freelance journalist and Vietnam Veteran, to write an op-ed in the Washington Times condemning Ranariddh. After Hun Sen became Cambodia's sole Prime Minister and offered Ranariddh a figurehead role as president, the "scheme" was conveniently forgotten.
Image Problems
Zumwalt was one of the few writers on our side. Mostly, the media disliked Hun Sen intensely. Reports accused the CPP of intimidating Cambodia's journalists and denying opposition leaders equal access to TV and radio air time.
Damning editorials in the New York Times and Washington Post particularly infuriated our client. Hun Sen and Var Huoth, Cambodia's Ambassador to the US, drafted lengthy, irate responses. Although we repeatedly advised them that the Times and Post wouldn't publish an 800-word letter to the editor, we met with stubborn resistance.
Accustomed to getting their way, CPP officials said that once the editors agreed to publish, they'd shorten the letters. Until then, Hun Sen's text was to remain intact. His responses were never published.
After the elections, the Cambodian Ambassador asked me directly how we could make the media like them. "You can't just say you'll investigate killings, you actually have to do it," I explained, referring to the 100 opposition
supporters that had been killed since the 1997 coup.
The Washington team advised they investigate at least one killing to demonstrate progress. We suggested Thong Sophal, whom Cambodian police claimed had committed suicide. Sophal's eyes had been gouged out, his arms and legs cut off, and his body skinned. The ambassador looked at me blankly, then uttered the standard refrain: "It's not easy. It will take one, maybe two years."
Besides media criticism, we faced political attacks. Several congressmen, led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, signed a resolution calling for Hun Sen to be tried for crimes against humanity. Although the resolution went nowhere, it panicked our client.
Shattered Illusions
A few weeks before the vote, a CPP delegation arrived in Washington to convince the Clinton Administration and Congress the elections would be free and fair. Since Congress decides appropriations -- and Cambodia desperately needs aid -- the delegation focused on charming the Hill.
They assumed they would have instant access to the State Department and congressional leaders. Instead, officials met mostly with information officers and congressional staffers. In Cambodia they were big fish. In Washington's foreign policy pond, they weren't even minnows.
Stearns and I met the delegation, led by Cambodia's then Secretary of State Uch Kiman, in his room at the Hotel Washington. We were then ushered next door by Svay Sitha, a CPP spokesman. Sitha assured us of victory on election day. CPP internal poll numbers showed the final seat allocation for each party, which -- surprise, surprise!! -- was almost the exact allocation that emerged after the vote. Apparently, an impoverished country had 99 percent accurate polling capability.
Although Sitha served on Cambodia's Human Rights Committee, he never asked for policy suggestions. When we stepped into the hallway, however, he said, "It's too quiet here. I work better in chaos." During lunch we asked about the killings. Investigations would take time, he replied. Supposedly, Sitha was later put in charge of investigating the extrajudicial killings.
The next day, we met at the embassy to advise the Ambassador Var Huoth on his press conference. We suggested he focus on the future, move the focus away from Hun Sen, and talk about the progress on media access and the human rights commission. I sounded like a trained parrot. No progress had been made.
We knew Hun Sen needed positive exposure, and so promised to get an exclusive election-day profile published in a major magazine. Fat chance. When it came to Cambodia, magazines were only interested in that genocidal mastermind, Pol Pot, who had died in April.
Morey wanted Sydney Schanberg of The Killing Fields fame. Schanberg wasn't exactly a fan of Hun Sen, but his name recognition increased the chances of publication. Schanberg said he would have a tough time convincing an editor to buy it and pay his expenses. When Morey and Stearns suggested other payment options, without directly going through the CPP, Schanberg declined.
I suggested Tina Rosenberg, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and New York Times editorial writer. She'd been one of my professors at Columbia. Rosenberg's specialty was political villains. I told her Hun Sen would be an interesting character study. According to Morey and Stearns, who had met him several times, he wasn't as bad as everyone claimed. The man was charming, they said. He even liked to play golf.
The reasoning, of course, was oversimplified. No one ever said villains can't be charming. Even the wolf behaved pleasantly toward Little Red Riding Hood -- right before he tried to eat her.
After initially declining the offer, Rosenberg decided to write the exclusive for the Times' Sunday Magazine. We eagerly awaited the results. But the piece, titled "Hun Sen Stages an Election," didn't provide the resounding praise we wanted. An emergency phone conference was held to spin the article before the client even read it. I also heard we had 'enemies' in Cambodia who wanted us off the contract. Apparently, they thought there would be kickbacks if lobbyists they hired received the contract.
Morey assured me Rosenberg's article wasn't my fault. Why should I be blamed, I wondered, if she saw what every other reporter had seen in Hun Sen, a leader who rules with impunity? Still, for the next several weeks, my presence wasn't requested at embassy meetings. I suspect Rosenberg's article put me in disfavor.
Fine by me. Unlike public relations prostitute Edward von Kloberg, who insists he works for "democratic causes," I could no longer fool myself. I couldn't separate my principles from my paycheck.
The Spin Goes On
Toward the end, I asked Morey if I could remain in the background, and work with other, less contentious clients. I even suggested the firm not renew its CPP contract, which expired in September, because of the uninvestigated killings and lack of progress on human rights. But Morey said Rogers, whom he respected, would argue that we could effect positive change by continuing to work with the CPP. I no longer believed it.
The Cambodian People's Party didn't care about human rights progress or an international tribunal. It simply wanted favorable media coverage and renewed international aid. It also wanted Cambodia to reclaim its seat at the UN and gain membership into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Basically, the client wanted money, power, and prestige.
Since then, Cambodia has achieved most of those goals. Today, it has a UN seat, millions in aid from Japan and the European Union, and membership in ASEAN. For the moment, however, the US appears intent on tying economic aid to an international tribunal, something Hun Sen continues to stall. When my DMG contract ended last December, I didn't renew.
Two-star generals caught with ice [former Sihanouk's loyalists purged?]
Lay Virak (File photo)Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Meas Sokchea
Phnom Penh Post
A pair of two-star generals, one of them a former provincial governor, had been caught with about a kilogram of crystal methamphetamine and arrested yesterday, a government spokesman said.
Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak, said former Oddar Meanchey provincial governor Lay Virak and Khuon Roeun were caught with the drug commonly known as ice.
“[We] have real evidence after finding [the drug] in his [Lay Virak’s] car, and another two-star general is involved,” he said, adding that both men were advisers to the Ministry of Defence.
Lay Virak is former senior member of the Funcinpec party, previously led by then co-prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
Norodom Ranariddh Party spokesman Pen Sangha said Lay Virak had no association with the prince’s new eponymous party.
Lay Virak, Khuon Roeun and Defence Ministry spokesman Chum Socheat could not be reached for comment yesterday.
------------------------
Cambodia arrests generals over drugs
From: AAP
November 01, 2011
POLICE in Cambodia say they have detained two army generals suspected of trafficking methamphetamine.
National police spokesman General Kirth Chantharith says the two had been under surveillance for months and were detained yesterday.
He identified the two today as Lay Virak and Khun Rouen. Both are active duty major generals who also hold advisory positions within the defence ministry.
In January, three senior police officers including a head of the country's anti-drug trafficking agency were arrested and charged with drug-related corruption.
South East Asia has long been a major producer and exporter of heroin, and in recent years it has also become a major source of stimulant-type drugs such as methamphetamine.
A pair of two-star generals, one of them a former provincial governor, had been caught with about a kilogram of crystal methamphetamine and arrested yesterday, a government spokesman said.
Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak, said former Oddar Meanchey provincial governor Lay Virak and Khuon Roeun were caught with the drug commonly known as ice.
“[We] have real evidence after finding [the drug] in his [Lay Virak’s] car, and another two-star general is involved,” he said, adding that both men were advisers to the Ministry of Defence.
Lay Virak is former senior member of the Funcinpec party, previously led by then co-prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
Norodom Ranariddh Party spokesman Pen Sangha said Lay Virak had no association with the prince’s new eponymous party.
Lay Virak, Khuon Roeun and Defence Ministry spokesman Chum Socheat could not be reached for comment yesterday.
------------------------
Cambodia arrests generals over drugs
From: AAP
November 01, 2011
POLICE in Cambodia say they have detained two army generals suspected of trafficking methamphetamine.
National police spokesman General Kirth Chantharith says the two had been under surveillance for months and were detained yesterday.
He identified the two today as Lay Virak and Khun Rouen. Both are active duty major generals who also hold advisory positions within the defence ministry.
In January, three senior police officers including a head of the country's anti-drug trafficking agency were arrested and charged with drug-related corruption.
South East Asia has long been a major producer and exporter of heroin, and in recent years it has also become a major source of stimulant-type drugs such as methamphetamine.
Indonesia ‘ready’ to send border observers
Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Cheang Sokha and Vong Sokheng
Phnom Penh Post
Cheang Sokha and Vong Sokheng
Photo by: Heng Chivoan
A Cambodian soldier at the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple in February.
Nearly three months after Yingluck Shinawatra was sworn in as new Thai Prime Minister, heralding a rosy new era in relations with Cambodia, both sides are making baby steps toward resolving the long-running Preah Vihear border dispute.
Indonesian Foreign Minister and Association of South East Asian Nations chair Marty Natalegawa told reporters recently his nation was ready to send border observers to the troubled area.
The Cambodian government said it had been training 400 police expected to be deployed in the area around the Preah Vihear temple after troops have been withdrawn.
Natalegawa said the “dynamic” new Thai government had brought about a positive environment conducive to resolving the dispute, which sparked fierce clashes in February and April that left at least 28 people dead.
“So, I am waiting for both the Thai government and Cambodian governments, how they proceed to end the problem and how ASEAN can help,” Natalegawa told reporters at the 2011 Journalists Visiting Program in Indonesia on October 17.
“If the Thais and Cambodians need the observers to be sent, we are ready . . . In whatever way, we will be there to help them.”
Lieutenant General Kirt Chantharith, spokesman for Cambodia’s National Police, said yesterday a one-and-a-half month training program on national and international laws, including heritage conventions, had recently been completed by tourist, heritage and border police.
“We don’t know when we will deploy those individual officials. It is a preparation to comply with the government’s policy and the ruling of [the International Court of Justice],” he said.
“We are focused on the history of the Preah Vihear temple, culture, the territorial sovereignty and the strategy of ensuring security.”
Thai government spokeswoman Titima Chaisang said the Ministry of Interior held a meeting yesterday about an ICJ ruling handed down in July that ordered the establishment of a demilitarised zone around the 11th-century temple.
However, she said no details had been released from the closed-door meeting, the outcome of which will likely be raised at a November 8 cabinet meeting.
The decision from the United Nation’s highest court also demanded the immediate deployment of independent ASEAN observers to protect the temple from any further potential damage.
It followed an April 28 request from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government that the ICJ issue an interpretation of its 1962 decision, which granted territorial sovereignty over the Hindu temple to Cambodia.
Cambodia also requested the ICJ rule on provisional measures to safeguard the temple.
The decisions came at a low time in the neighbouring country’s relations, with Prime Minister Hun Sen later describing his dealings with then-Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva as a “nightmare”.
Since the election of Yingluck’s Pheau Thai party, relations have improved, punctuated by high-level visits to Cambodia from new Defence Minister Yutthasak Sasiprapa and Yingluck’s fugitive brother, the ousted former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
In September, government officials from both countries played a historic football match at Olympic Stadium in which Prime Minister Hun Sen scored a goal before being subbed off.
However, no significant concrete steps have yet been taken to implement the provisional demilitarised zone. General Srey Doek, military commander of division 3, which is stationed near Preah Vihear, said
he had yet to receive any order to withdraw his forces from the area.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY DAVID BOYLE
Indonesian Foreign Minister and Association of South East Asian Nations chair Marty Natalegawa told reporters recently his nation was ready to send border observers to the troubled area.
The Cambodian government said it had been training 400 police expected to be deployed in the area around the Preah Vihear temple after troops have been withdrawn.
Natalegawa said the “dynamic” new Thai government had brought about a positive environment conducive to resolving the dispute, which sparked fierce clashes in February and April that left at least 28 people dead.
“So, I am waiting for both the Thai government and Cambodian governments, how they proceed to end the problem and how ASEAN can help,” Natalegawa told reporters at the 2011 Journalists Visiting Program in Indonesia on October 17.
“If the Thais and Cambodians need the observers to be sent, we are ready . . . In whatever way, we will be there to help them.”
Lieutenant General Kirt Chantharith, spokesman for Cambodia’s National Police, said yesterday a one-and-a-half month training program on national and international laws, including heritage conventions, had recently been completed by tourist, heritage and border police.
“We don’t know when we will deploy those individual officials. It is a preparation to comply with the government’s policy and the ruling of [the International Court of Justice],” he said.
“We are focused on the history of the Preah Vihear temple, culture, the territorial sovereignty and the strategy of ensuring security.”
Thai government spokeswoman Titima Chaisang said the Ministry of Interior held a meeting yesterday about an ICJ ruling handed down in July that ordered the establishment of a demilitarised zone around the 11th-century temple.
However, she said no details had been released from the closed-door meeting, the outcome of which will likely be raised at a November 8 cabinet meeting.
The decision from the United Nation’s highest court also demanded the immediate deployment of independent ASEAN observers to protect the temple from any further potential damage.
It followed an April 28 request from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government that the ICJ issue an interpretation of its 1962 decision, which granted territorial sovereignty over the Hindu temple to Cambodia.
Cambodia also requested the ICJ rule on provisional measures to safeguard the temple.
The decisions came at a low time in the neighbouring country’s relations, with Prime Minister Hun Sen later describing his dealings with then-Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva as a “nightmare”.
Since the election of Yingluck’s Pheau Thai party, relations have improved, punctuated by high-level visits to Cambodia from new Defence Minister Yutthasak Sasiprapa and Yingluck’s fugitive brother, the ousted former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
In September, government officials from both countries played a historic football match at Olympic Stadium in which Prime Minister Hun Sen scored a goal before being subbed off.
However, no significant concrete steps have yet been taken to implement the provisional demilitarised zone. General Srey Doek, military commander of division 3, which is stationed near Preah Vihear, said
he had yet to receive any order to withdraw his forces from the area.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY DAVID BOYLE
Rainsy asylum claim
The SRP's complaint to the NEC dated 28th August 2008 and signed by Sok Pheakdey, Prersident of the SRP's Legal Office in Phnom Penh.Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Meas Sokchea
Phnom Penh Post
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy said yesterday a Cambodian man and his family had gained political asylum in the United States after escaping arrest three years ago when he stepped forward to allege electoral fraud by the ruling party during the 2008 national ballot.
In a statement yesterday, Rainsy said Kong Kiet, of the capital’s Meanchey district, along with his wife and three children, had not been a registered voter during the 2008 election, but “CPP-controlled authorities” had given him and others money and fake identification, allowing them to cast ballots for the CPP at polling stations.
“Because he dared to publicly expose the truth and to . . . . testify in the complaint that the SRP lodged against the CPP authorities, the police came to arrest Mr Kong Kiet, who luckily managed to escape,” Rainsy said, adding that Kong Kiet and his family had lived in a “neighbouring country” before attaining asylum.
Senior CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap said he did not know who Kong Kiet was and denied that CPP leaders had ordered the NEC or local authorities to do anything illegal during elections.
“We see that this is just defamation against the ruling party,” he added.
Tep Nytha, secretary general of the National Election Committee, said he was also unaware of the case and that the SRP had never filed a complaint to the NEC.
But senior SRP lawmaker Mu Sochua was quick to refute the last assertion, pointing out that the complaint in question had been publicly posted on opposition-related news blog KI-Media and that she clearly remembered the case.
“[Sam Rainsy] made a nationwide appeal for people who had been given wrong identification to come forward, and Mr Kiet was one of the people [who did].
“They wanted to arrest him,” she said. “I remember so well because Mr Rainsy spent a lot of time nailing down these irregularities.”
Mu Sochua added that the credibility of voter lists was crucial with commune elections looming
“Mr Kiet’s case was not an isolated one,” she said. “That’s why we want a fundamental review of the system.”
US embassy spokesman Sean McIntosh could not be reached for comment on Kong Kiet’s status.
Construction spend nears $1bn
Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Soeun Say
Phnom Penh Post
The total value of approved construction projects in the Kingdom soared 97 per cent year-on-year through September, according to official figures, reaching nearly US$1 billion.
The number of projects fell to 1,689 for the first nine months of 2011, down from 1,718 in the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction.
But the total value of those projects reached $999.3 mill-ion, a significant jump from the $508.1 million in 2010.
Lao Tip Seiha, director of the ministry’s construction department, said yesterday the main reason for the increase was Cambodia’s political stability, as it made local and foreign investors confident to undertake development projects in the country.
A steadily increasing gross domestic product was also attractive to investors, he said.
“As we already expected [after the half-year mark], the value of investment in construction continued to increase in the first nine months of this year because of strong Cambodian economic growth.”
Lao Tip Seiha noted that in September alone, the ministry had approved a large number of construction projects including apartments, villas, garment, fertiliser and sugar factories, as well as guesthouses and hotels.
“We strongly believe the sector still continue to increase through the end of this year,” he said, claiming that foreign investors were returning to invest in Cambodia from regional countries such as Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, China and Vietnam.
Property experts have agreed that a recovery is taking place in the domestic construction and real-estate markets, although they said it was not at the level seen prior to the global financial crisis.
Knight Frank country head Sunny Soo said yesterday he had yet to see strong foreign interest in Kingdom real estate since the boom that peaked in 2008, but remained optimistic.
“For a time, I didn’t see foreign investors come to invest in the property sector, but I can see local Cambodian investors come out more and more to start construction and support the real-estate market,” Soo said.
Cambodia Property Limited managing director Cheng Kheng said the latest report was proof that the industry was showing steady improvement since the previous downturn.
“It's the right time to re-start construction and housing development projects,” Cheng Keng said.
Soeun Say
Photo by: Pha Lina
A cyclist leaves the site of the US$100 million Elite Town housing development, on Diamond Island in Phnom Penh, yesterday.
The total value of approved construction projects in the Kingdom soared 97 per cent year-on-year through September, according to official figures, reaching nearly US$1 billion.
The number of projects fell to 1,689 for the first nine months of 2011, down from 1,718 in the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction.
But the total value of those projects reached $999.3 mill-ion, a significant jump from the $508.1 million in 2010.
Lao Tip Seiha, director of the ministry’s construction department, said yesterday the main reason for the increase was Cambodia’s political stability, as it made local and foreign investors confident to undertake development projects in the country.
A steadily increasing gross domestic product was also attractive to investors, he said.
“As we already expected [after the half-year mark], the value of investment in construction continued to increase in the first nine months of this year because of strong Cambodian economic growth.”
Lao Tip Seiha noted that in September alone, the ministry had approved a large number of construction projects including apartments, villas, garment, fertiliser and sugar factories, as well as guesthouses and hotels.
“We strongly believe the sector still continue to increase through the end of this year,” he said, claiming that foreign investors were returning to invest in Cambodia from regional countries such as Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, China and Vietnam.
Property experts have agreed that a recovery is taking place in the domestic construction and real-estate markets, although they said it was not at the level seen prior to the global financial crisis.
Knight Frank country head Sunny Soo said yesterday he had yet to see strong foreign interest in Kingdom real estate since the boom that peaked in 2008, but remained optimistic.
“For a time, I didn’t see foreign investors come to invest in the property sector, but I can see local Cambodian investors come out more and more to start construction and support the real-estate market,” Soo said.
Cambodia Property Limited managing director Cheng Kheng said the latest report was proof that the industry was showing steady improvement since the previous downturn.
“It's the right time to re-start construction and housing development projects,” Cheng Keng said.
Plea to Russia for temple aid
Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Bridget Di Certo
Phnom Penh Post
Without an increase in international assistance, the Kingdom’s stunning Angkorian-era temples would be at the mercy of nature and human neglect, Council of Ministers officials said yesterday.
Deputy Prime Minister Sok An last Wednesday encouraged a group of visiting Russian diplomats to contribute to the restoration of one of the temples in Siem Reap, Ek Tha, a spokesman from the Press and Quick Reaction Unit of the Council of Ministers, said yesterday.
In a meeting with Alexander Ignatov, the ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Kingdom of Cambodia, Sok An said the country had an estimated 1,000 temples, many of which were in great need of restoration and conservation.
In Siem Reap province alone, home of the famous Angkor Wat complex, there are about 90 temples.
“UNESCO listed Angkor as a World Heritage site in 1992. Since then, more than 60 temple restoration projects are under way or have been completed, with support from 16 countries,” Ek Tha said.
Donor countries who have completed or are conducting restoration work in Cambodia include China, France, India, Japan, Hungary, Switzerland, the US and Italy.
Last week, the Post repor-ted the discovery of a Buddha statue by the Indian archaeological team conducting restoration at Ta Prom temple, in the Angkor complex.
“The reason why we call on Russia, not only China, but major countries that have been friendly with Cambodia, is because it creates a good economic and cultural relat-ionship and a good image for the countries,” Ek Tha said.
“We do not want the temples damaged by nature and war to disappear, because they are a striking attract-ion – but we just don’t have the financial and technical means to conduct all the restoration ourselves,” he said, adding that Cambodia’s restoration specialists had all been killed during the Khmer Rouge regime.
UNESCO culture program specialist Philippe Delanghe said bilateral restoration projects were making a significant contribution to human resources in the Kingdom.
“A lot has been achieved from Cambodia in that sense,” Delanghe said. “The capacity of the government has improved tremendously.”
The International Co-operation Committee, formed by the Japanese and French governments in 1993 to protect the Kingdom’s temples, is due to meet in December.
Representatives from the Apsara Authority were not available for comment.
Bridget Di Certo
Photo by: Will Baxter
The sprawling roots of a silk cotton tree cover part of the Ta Prom temple in Siem Reap province. Sections of the 12th- or early 13th-century structure are being restored.
Without an increase in international assistance, the Kingdom’s stunning Angkorian-era temples would be at the mercy of nature and human neglect, Council of Ministers officials said yesterday.
Deputy Prime Minister Sok An last Wednesday encouraged a group of visiting Russian diplomats to contribute to the restoration of one of the temples in Siem Reap, Ek Tha, a spokesman from the Press and Quick Reaction Unit of the Council of Ministers, said yesterday.
In a meeting with Alexander Ignatov, the ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Kingdom of Cambodia, Sok An said the country had an estimated 1,000 temples, many of which were in great need of restoration and conservation.
In Siem Reap province alone, home of the famous Angkor Wat complex, there are about 90 temples.
“UNESCO listed Angkor as a World Heritage site in 1992. Since then, more than 60 temple restoration projects are under way or have been completed, with support from 16 countries,” Ek Tha said.
Donor countries who have completed or are conducting restoration work in Cambodia include China, France, India, Japan, Hungary, Switzerland, the US and Italy.
Last week, the Post repor-ted the discovery of a Buddha statue by the Indian archaeological team conducting restoration at Ta Prom temple, in the Angkor complex.
“The reason why we call on Russia, not only China, but major countries that have been friendly with Cambodia, is because it creates a good economic and cultural relat-ionship and a good image for the countries,” Ek Tha said.
“We do not want the temples damaged by nature and war to disappear, because they are a striking attract-ion – but we just don’t have the financial and technical means to conduct all the restoration ourselves,” he said, adding that Cambodia’s restoration specialists had all been killed during the Khmer Rouge regime.
UNESCO culture program specialist Philippe Delanghe said bilateral restoration projects were making a significant contribution to human resources in the Kingdom.
“A lot has been achieved from Cambodia in that sense,” Delanghe said. “The capacity of the government has improved tremendously.”
The International Co-operation Committee, formed by the Japanese and French governments in 1993 to protect the Kingdom’s temples, is due to meet in December.
Representatives from the Apsara Authority were not available for comment.
Cambodia/ Malaysia: Domestic Workers Face Abuse
Written by: Eurasia Review
November 1, 2011
The Cambodian and Malaysian governments’ failure to regulate recruiters and employers leaves Cambodian migrant domestic workers exposed to a wide range of abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued Monday. Tens of thousands of Cambodian women and girls who migrate to Malaysia have little protection against forced confinement in training centers, heavy debt burdens, and exploitative working conditions.
The 105-page report, “‘They Deceived Us at Every Step’: Abuse of Cambodian Domestic Workers Migrating to Malaysia,”documents Cambodian domestic workers’ experiences during recruitment, work abroad, and upon their return home. It is based on 80 interviews with migrant domestic workers, their families, government officials, nongovernmental organizations, and recruitment agents. The report highlights the numerous obstacles that prevent mistreated women and girls from obtaining justice and redress in both Cambodia and Malaysia.
“Cambodia has been eager to promote labor migration but reluctant to provide even the most basic protections for migrant women and girls,” said Jyotsna Poudyal, women’s rights research fellow at Human Rights Watch. “The government should stop abdicating responsibility to unscrupulous recruitment agencies and clean up exploitation and abuse.”
Since 2008, forty to fifty thousand Cambodian women and girls have migrated to Malaysia as domestic workers. Some recruitment agents in Cambodia forge fraudulent identity documents to recruit children, offer cash and food incentives that leave migrants and their families heavily indebted, mislead them about their job responsibilities in Malaysia, and charge excessive recruitment fees.
Domestic workers told Human Rights Watch that agents forcibly confine recruits for three months or longer in training centers without adequate food, water, and medical care. Some labor agents coerce women and girls to migrate even if they no longer wish to work abroad. Workers who escape from the training centers face retaliation for escaping or for failing to pay debts related to the recruitment process.
The husband of a domestic worker who escaped from a training center told Human Rights Watch:
The representative from the company said if my wife doesn’t return he will auction this house and land. And if the auction is not enough, they will arrest me and put me in jail.
At times collaboration of government officials with private recruitment agencies makes it almost impossible for workers to seek effective redress, Human Rights Watch found. One domestic worker said that two women had attempted suicide in a training center in Cambodia after the agency refused their request to return home.
The agency then held a meeting with all recruits. Two police officials were there.
“The police officials told us that if we [attempted to] commit suicide, then they would put us in jail,” one of the workers said. “They also said that we should never try to escape. Even if we escape, the police will find [us] and we will still be sent to Malaysia.”
In the first successful prosecution of a recruitment agency, a Cambodian court in September 2011 sentenced a manager of the VC Manpower recruitment agency to 13 months in prison for illegally detaining child workers. However, the government has failed to arrest and prosecute other recruitment agents involved in similar abuses, and it has not revoked the license of a single recruitment agency.
“While the conviction of one abusive agent in Cambodia is a step forward, it remains an exception,” Poudyal said. “The Cambodian government should put an end to systematic exploitation of domestic workers by ensuring that all agents are held accountable for their acts.”
Once in Malaysia, Cambodian women and girls often have to surrender their passports to their agents or employers, making it harder for them to leave if they are mistreated. Many work for 14 to 21 hours a day without rest breaks or days off. And many are forcibly confined to their work places, are not given adequate food, and are physically and verbally abused. Some have been sexually abused by their employers. None of the workers Human Rights Watch interviewed said they had received their full salary.
Malaysian labor laws exclude migrant domestic workers from key protections, such as a weekly day of rest, annual leave, and limits on working hours. Immigration laws tie a domestic worker’s residency to her employer, so the employer can terminate a domestic worker’s contract at will and refuse permission to transfer jobs. These policies restrict domestic workers’ ability to seek redress and to change employers, even in cases of abuse, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch documented cases in which the combination of deception and indebtedness during recruitment, forced confinement, unpaid wages, and threats of retaliation for escaping or failing to pay debts amounted to forced labor, including trafficking and debt bondage. Abused workers often turn to the local agents of their recruitment companies, since they are typically the only contact the worker has in Malaysia, but may face intimidation and a return to the same abusive employer.The Cambodian embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, has also returned workers, including those who experienced sexual and physical abuse, to their recruitment agency or employers.
The Cambodian government should introduce a comprehensive migration law, strengthen monitoring of recruitment agencies, and imposesignificant penalties when violations occur, Human Rights Watch said. The Malaysian government should revise its labor and sponsorship laws to strengthen protection for domestic workers. Both countries should increase support services for abused workers, including legal aid and psychosocial services.
Human Rights Watch also urged Cambodia and Malaysia to ratify the International Labour Organization Convention on domestic work. The treaty obliges governments to ensure decent working conditions, to impose a minimum age requirement for domestic work, and to protect domestic workers from violence and exploitative recruitment practices.
November 1, 2011
The Cambodian and Malaysian governments’ failure to regulate recruiters and employers leaves Cambodian migrant domestic workers exposed to a wide range of abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued Monday. Tens of thousands of Cambodian women and girls who migrate to Malaysia have little protection against forced confinement in training centers, heavy debt burdens, and exploitative working conditions.
The 105-page report, “‘They Deceived Us at Every Step’: Abuse of Cambodian Domestic Workers Migrating to Malaysia,”documents Cambodian domestic workers’ experiences during recruitment, work abroad, and upon their return home. It is based on 80 interviews with migrant domestic workers, their families, government officials, nongovernmental organizations, and recruitment agents. The report highlights the numerous obstacles that prevent mistreated women and girls from obtaining justice and redress in both Cambodia and Malaysia.
“Cambodia has been eager to promote labor migration but reluctant to provide even the most basic protections for migrant women and girls,” said Jyotsna Poudyal, women’s rights research fellow at Human Rights Watch. “The government should stop abdicating responsibility to unscrupulous recruitment agencies and clean up exploitation and abuse.”
Since 2008, forty to fifty thousand Cambodian women and girls have migrated to Malaysia as domestic workers. Some recruitment agents in Cambodia forge fraudulent identity documents to recruit children, offer cash and food incentives that leave migrants and their families heavily indebted, mislead them about their job responsibilities in Malaysia, and charge excessive recruitment fees.
Domestic workers told Human Rights Watch that agents forcibly confine recruits for three months or longer in training centers without adequate food, water, and medical care. Some labor agents coerce women and girls to migrate even if they no longer wish to work abroad. Workers who escape from the training centers face retaliation for escaping or for failing to pay debts related to the recruitment process.
The husband of a domestic worker who escaped from a training center told Human Rights Watch:
The representative from the company said if my wife doesn’t return he will auction this house and land. And if the auction is not enough, they will arrest me and put me in jail.
At times collaboration of government officials with private recruitment agencies makes it almost impossible for workers to seek effective redress, Human Rights Watch found. One domestic worker said that two women had attempted suicide in a training center in Cambodia after the agency refused their request to return home.
The agency then held a meeting with all recruits. Two police officials were there.
“The police officials told us that if we [attempted to] commit suicide, then they would put us in jail,” one of the workers said. “They also said that we should never try to escape. Even if we escape, the police will find [us] and we will still be sent to Malaysia.”
In the first successful prosecution of a recruitment agency, a Cambodian court in September 2011 sentenced a manager of the VC Manpower recruitment agency to 13 months in prison for illegally detaining child workers. However, the government has failed to arrest and prosecute other recruitment agents involved in similar abuses, and it has not revoked the license of a single recruitment agency.
“While the conviction of one abusive agent in Cambodia is a step forward, it remains an exception,” Poudyal said. “The Cambodian government should put an end to systematic exploitation of domestic workers by ensuring that all agents are held accountable for their acts.”
Once in Malaysia, Cambodian women and girls often have to surrender their passports to their agents or employers, making it harder for them to leave if they are mistreated. Many work for 14 to 21 hours a day without rest breaks or days off. And many are forcibly confined to their work places, are not given adequate food, and are physically and verbally abused. Some have been sexually abused by their employers. None of the workers Human Rights Watch interviewed said they had received their full salary.
Malaysian labor laws exclude migrant domestic workers from key protections, such as a weekly day of rest, annual leave, and limits on working hours. Immigration laws tie a domestic worker’s residency to her employer, so the employer can terminate a domestic worker’s contract at will and refuse permission to transfer jobs. These policies restrict domestic workers’ ability to seek redress and to change employers, even in cases of abuse, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch documented cases in which the combination of deception and indebtedness during recruitment, forced confinement, unpaid wages, and threats of retaliation for escaping or failing to pay debts amounted to forced labor, including trafficking and debt bondage. Abused workers often turn to the local agents of their recruitment companies, since they are typically the only contact the worker has in Malaysia, but may face intimidation and a return to the same abusive employer.The Cambodian embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, has also returned workers, including those who experienced sexual and physical abuse, to their recruitment agency or employers.
The Cambodian government should introduce a comprehensive migration law, strengthen monitoring of recruitment agencies, and imposesignificant penalties when violations occur, Human Rights Watch said. The Malaysian government should revise its labor and sponsorship laws to strengthen protection for domestic workers. Both countries should increase support services for abused workers, including legal aid and psychosocial services.
Human Rights Watch also urged Cambodia and Malaysia to ratify the International Labour Organization Convention on domestic work. The treaty obliges governments to ensure decent working conditions, to impose a minimum age requirement for domestic work, and to protect domestic workers from violence and exploitative recruitment practices.
WikiLeaks: BIO: ADDITIONAL BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION FOR HOR NAMHONG
If you are new to these pages, please read an introduction on the structure of a cable as well as how to discuss them with others. See also the FAQs
| Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02PHNOMPENH1361 | 2002-06-06 02:43 | 2011-08-30 01:44 | SECRET | Embassy Phnom Penh |
R 060243Z JUN 02 FM AMEMBASSY PHNOM PENH TO SECSTATE WASHDC 8519
S E C R E T PHNOM PENH 001361 FOR INR/B E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/06/2012 TAGS: CB PINR SUBJECT: BIO: ADDITIONAL BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION FOR HOR NAMHONG, CAMBODIAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
REF: PHNOM PENH 01099
CLASSIFIED BY: CHARGE ALEXANDER A. ARVIZU. REASON 1.5(B)
THIS IS AN ADDENDUM TO BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION PROVIDED REFTEL.
¶1. (S) INR/B BIO FROM 1998 REPORTS THAT HOR NAMHONG'S COLLEAGUES RESENT HIM FOR APPOINTING HIS RELATIVES TO KEY MINISTRY POSITIONS. IN 1992, INR/B DESCRIBED HIM AS AN OPPORTUNIST WHO LACKED HIS OWN POWER BASES, BUT GAINED POSITIONS BY SEEKING ALLIANCES AND DOING FAVORS FOR POWERFUL
SOC LEADERS.
¶2. (S) AN UNDATED, UNATTRIBUTED REPORT ON FILE AT THE EMBASSY CLAIMS THAT: HOR NAMHONG CAME BACK TO CAMBODIA AFTER THE KHMER ROUGE TOOK OVER, BUT WAS NOT KILLED BECAUSE HE WAS A SCHOOLMATE OF IENG SARY. HE BECAME HEAD OF THE BENG TRABEK CAMP AND HE AND HIS WIFE COLLABORATED IN THE KILLING OF MANY PRISONERS. AMONG THE VICTIMS WERE THE QUEEN'S SISTER NANETTE AND HER HUSBAND METEVI (A RELATIVE OF SIRIK MATAK). HOR
NAMHONG ALMOST KILLED CHEM SNGUON AND HIS FAMILY (INCLUDING CHEM WIDHYA WHO WAS WITH HIS FATHER IN THE CAMP) BECAUSE SOMEONE HEARD WIDHYA LISTENING TO A FRENCH RADIO BROADCAST.
THE VIETNAMESE INVADED JUST BEFORE THE CHEM FAMILY WAS TO BE KILLED. HOR NAMHONG'S WIFE ASKED IENG SARY TO HELP THEIR DAUGHTER WORK WITH THE KHMER ROUGE REGIME. SHE POINTED OUT THAT SHE HELPED IENG SARY BRING BACK A LOT OF PEOPLE TO BE KILLED. THE DAUGHTER CAME BACK. LATER, HOR NAMHONG'S WIFE SAW HER DAUGHTER'S PICTURE ON THE WALL AT TUOL SLENG AND FAINTED.
ARVIZU
CLASSIFIED BY: CHARGE ALEXANDER A. ARVIZU. REASON 1.5(B)
THIS IS AN ADDENDUM TO BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION PROVIDED REFTEL.
¶1. (S) INR/B BIO FROM 1998 REPORTS THAT HOR NAMHONG'S COLLEAGUES RESENT HIM FOR APPOINTING HIS RELATIVES TO KEY MINISTRY POSITIONS. IN 1992, INR/B DESCRIBED HIM AS AN OPPORTUNIST WHO LACKED HIS OWN POWER BASES, BUT GAINED POSITIONS BY SEEKING ALLIANCES AND DOING FAVORS FOR POWERFUL
SOC LEADERS.
¶2. (S) AN UNDATED, UNATTRIBUTED REPORT ON FILE AT THE EMBASSY CLAIMS THAT: HOR NAMHONG CAME BACK TO CAMBODIA AFTER THE KHMER ROUGE TOOK OVER, BUT WAS NOT KILLED BECAUSE HE WAS A SCHOOLMATE OF IENG SARY. HE BECAME HEAD OF THE BENG TRABEK CAMP AND HE AND HIS WIFE COLLABORATED IN THE KILLING OF MANY PRISONERS. AMONG THE VICTIMS WERE THE QUEEN'S SISTER NANETTE AND HER HUSBAND METEVI (A RELATIVE OF SIRIK MATAK). HOR
NAMHONG ALMOST KILLED CHEM SNGUON AND HIS FAMILY (INCLUDING CHEM WIDHYA WHO WAS WITH HIS FATHER IN THE CAMP) BECAUSE SOMEONE HEARD WIDHYA LISTENING TO A FRENCH RADIO BROADCAST.
THE VIETNAMESE INVADED JUST BEFORE THE CHEM FAMILY WAS TO BE KILLED. HOR NAMHONG'S WIFE ASKED IENG SARY TO HELP THEIR DAUGHTER WORK WITH THE KHMER ROUGE REGIME. SHE POINTED OUT THAT SHE HELPED IENG SARY BRING BACK A LOT OF PEOPLE TO BE KILLED. THE DAUGHTER CAME BACK. LATER, HOR NAMHONG'S WIFE SAW HER DAUGHTER'S PICTURE ON THE WALL AT TUOL SLENG AND FAINTED.
ARVIZU
Fund raising: Kingdom may borrow more in 2012 [Cambodia's debt totalled $8 billion]
Tuesday, 01 November 2011
Post Staff
Phnom Penh Post
Fund raising
Cambodia could borrow US$1.1 billion from other countries in 2012, 75 per cent more than this year, to help repair infrastructure damaged in flooding and support efforts to increase rice exports to one million tonnes by 2015, a senior official said yesterday.
Cheam Yeap (pictured), chairman of the Finance Commission, said the borrowing, which has to be approved by parliament, would come in the form of concessionary, 40-year loans at low interest rates.
He declined to say which countries might offer the loans but said that of Cambodian’s current debt of around $8 billion, some $6 billion was owed to its closest ally, China. Another $1.5 billion is owed to Russia and $317 million to the United States, he added.
Cheam Yeap said the draft 2012 budget, which also has to go before parliament, includes provisions for new spending of $2.69 billion, up from $2.4 billion this year.
As part of efforts to generate more revenue, the government in the poor Southeast Asian country intends to impose a tax on real estate and is looking at plans to start issuing bonds.
Cambodia is forecast to export 180,000 tonnes of rice in 2011, more than three times last year’s volume.
Experts previously had called for an increase in spending in the coming 2012 budget to assist in flood recovery.
Past national budgets had underspent on allocations to the Ministries of Agriculture, Rural Development and Water Resources, Chea Kimsong, manager of the development issues program at the NGO Forum, told the Post last month.
“What I hope is that when the budget for 2012 [is finalised], there will at least be an increase above the average increase in these areas,” he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY REUTERS
Cambodia could borrow US$1.1 billion from other countries in 2012, 75 per cent more than this year, to help repair infrastructure damaged in flooding and support efforts to increase rice exports to one million tonnes by 2015, a senior official said yesterday.
Cheam Yeap (pictured), chairman of the Finance Commission, said the borrowing, which has to be approved by parliament, would come in the form of concessionary, 40-year loans at low interest rates.
He declined to say which countries might offer the loans but said that of Cambodian’s current debt of around $8 billion, some $6 billion was owed to its closest ally, China. Another $1.5 billion is owed to Russia and $317 million to the United States, he added.
Cheam Yeap said the draft 2012 budget, which also has to go before parliament, includes provisions for new spending of $2.69 billion, up from $2.4 billion this year.
As part of efforts to generate more revenue, the government in the poor Southeast Asian country intends to impose a tax on real estate and is looking at plans to start issuing bonds.
Cambodia is forecast to export 180,000 tonnes of rice in 2011, more than three times last year’s volume.
Experts previously had called for an increase in spending in the coming 2012 budget to assist in flood recovery.
Past national budgets had underspent on allocations to the Ministries of Agriculture, Rural Development and Water Resources, Chea Kimsong, manager of the development issues program at the NGO Forum, told the Post last month.
“What I hope is that when the budget for 2012 [is finalised], there will at least be an increase above the average increase in these areas,” he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY REUTERS
State Logistics Agency’s Search for Rice in Cambodia
Monday, 31 October, 2011
TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The Indonesian government does not only rely on countries like Vietnam and Thailand for rice supply. The State Logistics Agency (Bulog) also looks for supply in other countries which has sufficient reserves. Bulog CEO Soetarto Alimoeso said that his office is currently exploring the possibility to sign rice imports contract with Cambodia.
“We’ve gone through all [procedures]. I even have signed a contract with the Cambodian Trade Ministry,” Soetarto told TEMPO on Sunday. Soetarto said that he had met the Cambodian ambassador to Indonesia in order to discuss about cooperation in short-term and long-term rice provision.
Bulog considers Cambodia to have more than sufficient rice reserves. The country’s overproduction reached 2 million tonnes while there are only 14 million citizens in the country.
“We’ve gone through all [procedures]. I even have signed a contract with the Cambodian Trade Ministry,” Soetarto told TEMPO on Sunday. Soetarto said that he had met the Cambodian ambassador to Indonesia in order to discuss about cooperation in short-term and long-term rice provision.
Bulog considers Cambodia to have more than sufficient rice reserves. The country’s overproduction reached 2 million tonnes while there are only 14 million citizens in the country.
LIVE STREAMING ON 03, NOVEMBER FROM NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Chers supporters, Dears Supporters
Please watch on Thursday 03rd, November at 08:00 AM PP Time, the live broadcasting the debates from National Assembly on two draft laws, the managements of Acids and Prisons. It is also the opportunity to show to our fellow countrymen, how 25 Sam Rainsy Party's MP (26 Less Lauk Prathan) defend the interests of the country, fight to establish the real democracy in Cambodia.
Please find enclosed both projects and do not forget to leave us a comment in Ustream.
We apology in advance for any technical problem which can occur during this broadcasting because our bandwidth is very low between 0.6 to 0.8 Mbts / against 20 to 40 Mbts / in Europe and the USA. Besides this transmission is made by volunteers without borders who use the very simple tools.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/
With Warm Regards.
VEUILLEZ suivre en direct, le Jeudi 03 Novembre a partir de 08h00 heure de Phnom Penh, de l'Assemblée National le débat sur le projet de loi sur les managements des Acides et les Prisons. C’est, aussi l'occasion de montrer à nos compatriotes, comment les 25 parlementaires du Parti Sam Rainsy (26 Moins Lauk Prathan) défendent les intérêts du pays, se battent pour instaurer une vraie démocratie au Cambodge.
Veuillez trouver ci-joint les deux projets en fichiers Joints.
Nous vous prions par avance de nous excuser pour tous incidents techniques qui peuvent se produire au cours de cette diffusion car notre bande passante a PP est de l'ordre de 0.6 à 0.8 Mbts/s contre 20 à 40 Mbts/s en Europe et USA. En outre cette transmission est assurée par des volontaires sans frontières qui utilisent des moyens très simples.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/
Cordialement.
Hong sok hour
Trésorier
America’s fixer in Cambodia
Bretton Sciaroni, right, shakes hands with Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen
In the post-communist kleptocracy, a former Reagan aide is the man to see.
By Ken Silverstein
Tuesday, Nov 1, 2011
PHNOM PENH — Bretton Sciaroni, an American expatriate and former ideologue of Ronald Reagan’s White House, makes a most unusual power broker in contemporary Cambodia. The portly Sciaroni is an official advisor to the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, a one-time Khmer Rouge cadre. The Cambodian government has bestowed on Sciaroni the titles Minister Without Portfolio and His Excellency. From his office in an exclusive section of the city — neighbors include the president of the ruling party — he runs a consulting firm that brokers business deals on behalf of foreign investors — deals that often benefit well-connected companies and individuals like Sciaroni himself.
Sciaroni also appears to be a chief intermediary between the U.S. government and Cambodia, which has emerged in recent years as an unlikely American ally. The U.S. cut most assistance to Cambodia in 1997 after Hun Sen staged a coup but resumed aid a decade later. Competition with China for influence in the region and growing trade ties — the United States buys more than half of Cambodia’s apparel production, its primary export — are the primary factors behind the political warming. It probably didn’t hurt that Cambodia struck oil and Chevron got a stake in the most promising field. Today Cambodia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. aid in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia and the Philippines. And Brett Sciaroni is, at least politically, the biggest American in the country.
Earlier this year Sciaroni met me for drinks at the Elephant Bar of the Raffles Hotel. Wearing a light-colored jacket and yellow tie and sporting gold-rimmed glasses and a thick gold bracelet, Sciaroni offered an upbeat view of his adopted country.
“This is very much an emerging economy and democracy,” he said while sipping from a glass of Chateau Batailley, a French Bordeaux. “There’s been a lot of political progress. The ruling party no longer intimidates the opposition.” He describes his own work in Cambodia in altruistic fashion, saying, “This is a country where you can make a difference. If you make a suggestion to a government official and he likes it, it will happen.”
Most independent observers have a different view of Cambodia under Hun Sen, who has held power since a 1997 coup. Forty percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day, and groups like Human Rights Watch and Global Witness have documented large-scale corruption and political repression.
“Cambodia is run by a kleptocratic elite that generates much of its wealth via the seizure of public assets, particularly natural resources,” Global Witness said in a 2007 report. According to opposition parliamentarian Son Chhay, Sciaroni “covers up the government’s bad practices and uses his connections to convince the U.S. to keep [supporting] the government.” And Dana Rohrabacher, the conservative California congressman who says he personally likes Sciaroni, told me Hun Sen had no genuine legitimacy and that “Brett has become part and parcel of a clique of the Cambodian elite that is neither democratic nor honest.”
Reagan’s flimflam man
How did a fervent right-wing anti-communist and old pal of Ollie North’s end up in Cambodia as the chief foreign advocate for a man who fought as a Khmer Rouge guerrilla against a U.S.-backed government before becoming head of the Vietnamese puppet regime that overthrew it? That was a big ideological leap, but Sciaroni’s chief talent — performing intellectual acrobatics for his paymasters, whoever they might be — has served him equally well in Washington and Phnom Penh.
(I repeatedly sought comment from Sciaroni after our interview in Phnom Penh, but he declined to reply to questions about Iran/contra and his other political activities in the U.S, or his business or political activities in Cambodia.)
By 1984, just five years after he received a law degree from UCLA, the sky seemed the limit for young Bretton Sciaroni. Following short stints at two right-wing think tanks and as a Commerce Department political appointee under President Reagan, he was named chief counsel to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. During this period, he provided legal arguments needed to move forward with Reagan’s Star Wars scheme (on the specious grounds that it didn’t violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) and with military aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, which Congress had flatly forbidden.
When Iran-Contra investigators subsequently asked him why the administration turned to him for advice instead of to more experienced staff lawyers at the White House or Justice Department, Sciaroni replied, “Frankly … that thought has crossed my mind as well. I don’t know why my opinion was the only one.”
The reason, however, was quite apparent. Like John Yoo and other conservatives on whom the Bush administration relied for the flimflam needed to justify torturing terrorism suspects in violation of the Geneva Convention, Sciaroni was a loyalist who the Reagan administration knew would reach the conclusions it wanted.
Indeed, compared with Sciaroni, Yoo looks like Oliver Wendell Holmes. In 1986, Sciaroni wrote a series of opinions, including a memo that said North’s aid to the Contras was legal even though Congress had flatly banned any training “that amounts to participation in the planning or execution of military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua.” (Sciaroni determined that the ban didn’t cover “generic” military aid, which he expansively defined as including categories like marksmanship, intelligence reporting and the construction of fortifications.)
When he was later asked by a superior at the oversight board to investigate media accounts of illegal aid to the Contras, Sciaroni determined they were false, largely on the basis of a five-minute conversation with North. The latter denied everything, which was good enough for Sciaroni.
But Sciaroni soon crashed. During his 1987 testimony before the congressional committee investigating Iran-Contra, it emerged that he had passed the bar exam only on his fourth try (in three different states), and that he got the chief counsel’s position despite never having previously held a job in the legal profession. Before long he lost his government job and was scraping by as a fellow at the American Conservative Union and as a pro bono lobbyist for a group of right-wing Salvadorans close to that country’s murderous military-dominated regime.
When he learned in 1993 from Rohrabacher that Hun Sen was looking to hire an American attorney for a short-term assignment, Sciaroni was quick to seize the opportunity. He arrived right before the May 1993 elections, which were organized by the U.N. following the reign of the Khmer Rouge and years of civil war. The royalist party triumphed in the balloting but agreed to a power-sharing arrangement when Hun Sen threatened to lead an armed revolt.
“The funny thing is that if the CPP [Cambodian People’s Party] had won the election, I probably would have been back in the U.S. after two months,” Sciaroni told me at the Elephant Bar. “But they lost and they panicked. I had written up some things they liked, and they asked me to stay on.”
It seemed odd that the strongly conservative Rohrabacher, a strong critic of Hun Sen’s ever since the 1993 vote, would help Sciaroni get a job with the government, but the congressman confirmed the story during a phone conversation. It turned out that Rohrabacher and Sciaroni had known each other since their college days, when they were members of Young Americans for Freedom and Youth for Reagan.
“After the Iran-Contra scandal, all of Brett’s friends deserted him, which is typical of Washington,” Rohrabacher told me. “A Cambodian-American constituent told me that Hun Sen was going to hold free elections; he was looking for a lawyer to draw up an honest election code and was willing to pay top dollar. I knew Brett really needed the money and thought he’d be perfect for the job. And he did a good job — they did have a free and fair first-round vote. The only problem was that Hun Sen lost and didn’t abide by the results, and our government buckled. They should have told him, ‘You lost, get out,’ but instead they agreed to a compromise and Hun Sen became one of the two prime ministers.”
Rohrabacher was furious about the outcome, but Sciaroni continued to work for Hun Sen.
“He’s like a ‘Lord Jim’ character,” Rohrabacher told me of Sciaroni. “His own country abandoned him when Iran-Contra became a scandal. He became a destroyed human being who went overseas to start a new life.”
Spinning repression
Sciaroni’s close relationship with the regime became especially apparent after Hun Sen seized power in a bloody military coup in July 1997 that left at least 41 oppositionists dead. Enter Bretton Sciaroni, who assembled and directed a lobbying and public relations team that tried to spin the coup in Washington. The centerpiece of the campaign was a “white paper” that alleged that the royalist party had employed a “campaign of provocation” against the CPP and that the coup was therefore a legitimate preemptive measure by Hun Sen.
The Washington Times exposed the campaign, prompting outrage among Americans in Cambodia and some of Sciaroni’s right-wing comrades back home. When the Times asked him what help or advice he contributed to the white paper, “Sciaroni grimaced and responded, ‘No comment.’ ”
The following year, Sciaroni coordinated another P.R. campaign around an election that Hun Sen organized and handily won.
Rita Colorito, who worked on the campaign for an American lobbying firm recruited by Sciaroni, later wrote about her experience in an article called “Confessions of a Spin Doctor.” “The Cambodian People’s Party didn’t care about human rights progress,” she wrote. “It simply wanted favorable media coverage and renewed international aid.” Nonetheless, Hun Sen’s American spin team did its best to sell their client by “taking semantics to an absurdity,” Colorito wrote.
Sciaroni’s campaign misfired, though, when it persuaded Tina Rosenberg of the New York Times Magazine to come to Cambodia to report on Hun Sen’s inspired leadership. Rosenberg wasn’t impressed and wrote an article (under the headline “Hun Sen Stages an Election”) that said that since 1975, “Cambodia has suffered under an assortment of dreadful Governments, and Hun Sen has been in all of them.”
Petrified that Rosenberg’s story would cause them to lose their fat contract, the PR team held an “emergency phone conference” to spin the article to Hun Sen and convince him it wasn’t as bad as it looked.
Hun Sen apparently accepted the explanation. In 2002, his government granted Sciaroni Cambodian citizenship. Since then he has publicly lauded Sciaroni for “seeking justice for Khmers” and expressed hope that “he will continue to stay here with us.”
A bridge to U.S. business and government
Sciaroni’s success is based on a simple truth. Political contacts are the handmaiden of business operations the world over, but in a country like Cambodia — with its tiny intertwined political and economic elite — they are vital. “You get opportunities because you are close to the government,” a Westerner living in Phnom Penh told me. “You have to be in their good graces.” Sciaroni’s connections, this person said, run wide and deep: “Brett has been here since the early days, when things were very rough. There aren’t many [foreigners like that], and Brett is the only American.”
Numerous sources told me that Sciaroni’s closest contact in the regime is Sok An, the deputy prime minister and head of the council of ministers. Sciaroni has accompanied Sok An on international delegations and advised him during meetings with international agencies like the World Bank.
The State Department’s most recent annual report on human rights said that the CPP has “consolidated control of the three branches of government and other national institutions” and that the government “restricted freedom of speech and of the press … and at times interfered with freedom of assembly.” Sciaroni’s rosier assessment, which he offered when we met, is that “the electronic media is dominated by the government, but the print media is freewheeling and sometimes irresponsible. Elections are pretty good in a technical sense.”
During a speech at a 2007 investment conference in Cambodia he pitched Hun Sen’s authoritarian brand of government as a plus for business. “Investor confidence has been strengthened by the … stability in the officials you deal with,” he said. “You are not likely to see great swings in policy because of new officials coming on the scene.”
Sciaroni also pitched the regime during a 2009 visit to Cambodia by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb. “Sciaroni praised the Cambodian government’s regular dialogue with the private sector,” said a cable released by Wikileaks. “Sciaroni confidently asserted that no Amcham [American Chamber of Commerce] has as much influence on a government in Southeast Asia” as the one in Cambodia. (Sciaroni has headed the local American Chamber since it was founded in 1998.)
Son Chhay and other government critics I spoke with said they feared Sciaroni had played a role in softening American policy toward Cambodia, which until a few years ago placed a heavy emphasis on human rights. Nowadays, expanded trade and military cooperation get far higher billing. The United States has become “obsessed with the need for ‘dialogue’ with the government, and he is seen as a bridge for that,” one Cambodian activist, who asked not to identified, told me.
Sciaroni is not shy about what he can deliver for his customers. During his speech at the 2007 investment conference, Sciaroni explained how his firm had negotiated a major tax benefit for an American company that had balked at investing locally because the import of raw aluminum was taxed at a rate of 7 percent.
“In rapid succession we met various senior officials,” Sciaroni recounted. “[One of them] said ‘what would you like it [the rate] to be?’ and the company said ‘How about zero percent?’ And zero percent it was and is today.”
Sciaroni’s other clients have included Chevron and Mitsui, which hold stakes in Cambodia’s most promising oil field, and international mining firms like BHP Billiton, Mitsubishi and Oxiana. He has also worked with Raptor Forestry, which according to a business plan I obtained, is “investigating the potential” for large-scale timber and agricultural projects. Sciaroni, the plan says, received equity in the venture for providing legal services and his “network of local contacts.”
Sciaroni was listed on initial incorporation records as chairman of the board of a local subsidiary of another client, Paris-based CityStar for which he serves as legal counsel. CityStar set up shop in Cambodia in early 2007, almost precisely as the government was selling off for development public land near the coastal town of Sihanoukville. The process resulted in gorgeous beaches, islands and protected areas being purchased by well-connected companies on terms undisclosed to the public. CityStar, which plans to build luxury hotels and villas, won two concessions in a national park area as well as two other areas for development on separate islands off the coast of Sihanoukville.
And so it goes for Sciaroni, whose fleeting success in Ronald Reagan’s Washington served as a steppingstone for far bigger things in Cambodia. And with ties to the U.S. government warming and American firms like GE, DuPont and Microsoft setting up shop in Cambodia in recent years, the outlook for the future is bright.
“Opportunities abound,” Sciaroni told me of Cambodia, though he may as well have been describing his own good fortune in washing up here. “It’s a great environment.”
Close
Ken Silverstein is a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine and an Open Society fellow.
In the post-communist kleptocracy, a former Reagan aide is the man to see.
By Ken Silverstein
Tuesday, Nov 1, 2011
PHNOM PENH — Bretton Sciaroni, an American expatriate and former ideologue of Ronald Reagan’s White House, makes a most unusual power broker in contemporary Cambodia. The portly Sciaroni is an official advisor to the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, a one-time Khmer Rouge cadre. The Cambodian government has bestowed on Sciaroni the titles Minister Without Portfolio and His Excellency. From his office in an exclusive section of the city — neighbors include the president of the ruling party — he runs a consulting firm that brokers business deals on behalf of foreign investors — deals that often benefit well-connected companies and individuals like Sciaroni himself.
Sciaroni also appears to be a chief intermediary between the U.S. government and Cambodia, which has emerged in recent years as an unlikely American ally. The U.S. cut most assistance to Cambodia in 1997 after Hun Sen staged a coup but resumed aid a decade later. Competition with China for influence in the region and growing trade ties — the United States buys more than half of Cambodia’s apparel production, its primary export — are the primary factors behind the political warming. It probably didn’t hurt that Cambodia struck oil and Chevron got a stake in the most promising field. Today Cambodia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. aid in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia and the Philippines. And Brett Sciaroni is, at least politically, the biggest American in the country.
Earlier this year Sciaroni met me for drinks at the Elephant Bar of the Raffles Hotel. Wearing a light-colored jacket and yellow tie and sporting gold-rimmed glasses and a thick gold bracelet, Sciaroni offered an upbeat view of his adopted country.
“This is very much an emerging economy and democracy,” he said while sipping from a glass of Chateau Batailley, a French Bordeaux. “There’s been a lot of political progress. The ruling party no longer intimidates the opposition.” He describes his own work in Cambodia in altruistic fashion, saying, “This is a country where you can make a difference. If you make a suggestion to a government official and he likes it, it will happen.”
Most independent observers have a different view of Cambodia under Hun Sen, who has held power since a 1997 coup. Forty percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day, and groups like Human Rights Watch and Global Witness have documented large-scale corruption and political repression.
“Cambodia is run by a kleptocratic elite that generates much of its wealth via the seizure of public assets, particularly natural resources,” Global Witness said in a 2007 report. According to opposition parliamentarian Son Chhay, Sciaroni “covers up the government’s bad practices and uses his connections to convince the U.S. to keep [supporting] the government.” And Dana Rohrabacher, the conservative California congressman who says he personally likes Sciaroni, told me Hun Sen had no genuine legitimacy and that “Brett has become part and parcel of a clique of the Cambodian elite that is neither democratic nor honest.”
Reagan’s flimflam man
How did a fervent right-wing anti-communist and old pal of Ollie North’s end up in Cambodia as the chief foreign advocate for a man who fought as a Khmer Rouge guerrilla against a U.S.-backed government before becoming head of the Vietnamese puppet regime that overthrew it? That was a big ideological leap, but Sciaroni’s chief talent — performing intellectual acrobatics for his paymasters, whoever they might be — has served him equally well in Washington and Phnom Penh.
(I repeatedly sought comment from Sciaroni after our interview in Phnom Penh, but he declined to reply to questions about Iran/contra and his other political activities in the U.S, or his business or political activities in Cambodia.)
By 1984, just five years after he received a law degree from UCLA, the sky seemed the limit for young Bretton Sciaroni. Following short stints at two right-wing think tanks and as a Commerce Department political appointee under President Reagan, he was named chief counsel to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board. During this period, he provided legal arguments needed to move forward with Reagan’s Star Wars scheme (on the specious grounds that it didn’t violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) and with military aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, which Congress had flatly forbidden.
When Iran-Contra investigators subsequently asked him why the administration turned to him for advice instead of to more experienced staff lawyers at the White House or Justice Department, Sciaroni replied, “Frankly … that thought has crossed my mind as well. I don’t know why my opinion was the only one.”
The reason, however, was quite apparent. Like John Yoo and other conservatives on whom the Bush administration relied for the flimflam needed to justify torturing terrorism suspects in violation of the Geneva Convention, Sciaroni was a loyalist who the Reagan administration knew would reach the conclusions it wanted.
Indeed, compared with Sciaroni, Yoo looks like Oliver Wendell Holmes. In 1986, Sciaroni wrote a series of opinions, including a memo that said North’s aid to the Contras was legal even though Congress had flatly banned any training “that amounts to participation in the planning or execution of military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua.” (Sciaroni determined that the ban didn’t cover “generic” military aid, which he expansively defined as including categories like marksmanship, intelligence reporting and the construction of fortifications.)
When he was later asked by a superior at the oversight board to investigate media accounts of illegal aid to the Contras, Sciaroni determined they were false, largely on the basis of a five-minute conversation with North. The latter denied everything, which was good enough for Sciaroni.
But Sciaroni soon crashed. During his 1987 testimony before the congressional committee investigating Iran-Contra, it emerged that he had passed the bar exam only on his fourth try (in three different states), and that he got the chief counsel’s position despite never having previously held a job in the legal profession. Before long he lost his government job and was scraping by as a fellow at the American Conservative Union and as a pro bono lobbyist for a group of right-wing Salvadorans close to that country’s murderous military-dominated regime.
When he learned in 1993 from Rohrabacher that Hun Sen was looking to hire an American attorney for a short-term assignment, Sciaroni was quick to seize the opportunity. He arrived right before the May 1993 elections, which were organized by the U.N. following the reign of the Khmer Rouge and years of civil war. The royalist party triumphed in the balloting but agreed to a power-sharing arrangement when Hun Sen threatened to lead an armed revolt.
“The funny thing is that if the CPP [Cambodian People’s Party] had won the election, I probably would have been back in the U.S. after two months,” Sciaroni told me at the Elephant Bar. “But they lost and they panicked. I had written up some things they liked, and they asked me to stay on.”
It seemed odd that the strongly conservative Rohrabacher, a strong critic of Hun Sen’s ever since the 1993 vote, would help Sciaroni get a job with the government, but the congressman confirmed the story during a phone conversation. It turned out that Rohrabacher and Sciaroni had known each other since their college days, when they were members of Young Americans for Freedom and Youth for Reagan.
“After the Iran-Contra scandal, all of Brett’s friends deserted him, which is typical of Washington,” Rohrabacher told me. “A Cambodian-American constituent told me that Hun Sen was going to hold free elections; he was looking for a lawyer to draw up an honest election code and was willing to pay top dollar. I knew Brett really needed the money and thought he’d be perfect for the job. And he did a good job — they did have a free and fair first-round vote. The only problem was that Hun Sen lost and didn’t abide by the results, and our government buckled. They should have told him, ‘You lost, get out,’ but instead they agreed to a compromise and Hun Sen became one of the two prime ministers.”
Rohrabacher was furious about the outcome, but Sciaroni continued to work for Hun Sen.
“He’s like a ‘Lord Jim’ character,” Rohrabacher told me of Sciaroni. “His own country abandoned him when Iran-Contra became a scandal. He became a destroyed human being who went overseas to start a new life.”
Spinning repression
Sciaroni’s close relationship with the regime became especially apparent after Hun Sen seized power in a bloody military coup in July 1997 that left at least 41 oppositionists dead. Enter Bretton Sciaroni, who assembled and directed a lobbying and public relations team that tried to spin the coup in Washington. The centerpiece of the campaign was a “white paper” that alleged that the royalist party had employed a “campaign of provocation” against the CPP and that the coup was therefore a legitimate preemptive measure by Hun Sen.
The Washington Times exposed the campaign, prompting outrage among Americans in Cambodia and some of Sciaroni’s right-wing comrades back home. When the Times asked him what help or advice he contributed to the white paper, “Sciaroni grimaced and responded, ‘No comment.’ ”
The following year, Sciaroni coordinated another P.R. campaign around an election that Hun Sen organized and handily won.
Rita Colorito, who worked on the campaign for an American lobbying firm recruited by Sciaroni, later wrote about her experience in an article called “Confessions of a Spin Doctor.” “The Cambodian People’s Party didn’t care about human rights progress,” she wrote. “It simply wanted favorable media coverage and renewed international aid.” Nonetheless, Hun Sen’s American spin team did its best to sell their client by “taking semantics to an absurdity,” Colorito wrote.
Sciaroni’s campaign misfired, though, when it persuaded Tina Rosenberg of the New York Times Magazine to come to Cambodia to report on Hun Sen’s inspired leadership. Rosenberg wasn’t impressed and wrote an article (under the headline “Hun Sen Stages an Election”) that said that since 1975, “Cambodia has suffered under an assortment of dreadful Governments, and Hun Sen has been in all of them.”
Petrified that Rosenberg’s story would cause them to lose their fat contract, the PR team held an “emergency phone conference” to spin the article to Hun Sen and convince him it wasn’t as bad as it looked.
Hun Sen apparently accepted the explanation. In 2002, his government granted Sciaroni Cambodian citizenship. Since then he has publicly lauded Sciaroni for “seeking justice for Khmers” and expressed hope that “he will continue to stay here with us.”
A bridge to U.S. business and government
Sciaroni’s success is based on a simple truth. Political contacts are the handmaiden of business operations the world over, but in a country like Cambodia — with its tiny intertwined political and economic elite — they are vital. “You get opportunities because you are close to the government,” a Westerner living in Phnom Penh told me. “You have to be in their good graces.” Sciaroni’s connections, this person said, run wide and deep: “Brett has been here since the early days, when things were very rough. There aren’t many [foreigners like that], and Brett is the only American.”
Numerous sources told me that Sciaroni’s closest contact in the regime is Sok An, the deputy prime minister and head of the council of ministers. Sciaroni has accompanied Sok An on international delegations and advised him during meetings with international agencies like the World Bank.
The State Department’s most recent annual report on human rights said that the CPP has “consolidated control of the three branches of government and other national institutions” and that the government “restricted freedom of speech and of the press … and at times interfered with freedom of assembly.” Sciaroni’s rosier assessment, which he offered when we met, is that “the electronic media is dominated by the government, but the print media is freewheeling and sometimes irresponsible. Elections are pretty good in a technical sense.”
During a speech at a 2007 investment conference in Cambodia he pitched Hun Sen’s authoritarian brand of government as a plus for business. “Investor confidence has been strengthened by the … stability in the officials you deal with,” he said. “You are not likely to see great swings in policy because of new officials coming on the scene.”
Sciaroni also pitched the regime during a 2009 visit to Cambodia by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb. “Sciaroni praised the Cambodian government’s regular dialogue with the private sector,” said a cable released by Wikileaks. “Sciaroni confidently asserted that no Amcham [American Chamber of Commerce] has as much influence on a government in Southeast Asia” as the one in Cambodia. (Sciaroni has headed the local American Chamber since it was founded in 1998.)
Son Chhay and other government critics I spoke with said they feared Sciaroni had played a role in softening American policy toward Cambodia, which until a few years ago placed a heavy emphasis on human rights. Nowadays, expanded trade and military cooperation get far higher billing. The United States has become “obsessed with the need for ‘dialogue’ with the government, and he is seen as a bridge for that,” one Cambodian activist, who asked not to identified, told me.
Sciaroni is not shy about what he can deliver for his customers. During his speech at the 2007 investment conference, Sciaroni explained how his firm had negotiated a major tax benefit for an American company that had balked at investing locally because the import of raw aluminum was taxed at a rate of 7 percent.
“In rapid succession we met various senior officials,” Sciaroni recounted. “[One of them] said ‘what would you like it [the rate] to be?’ and the company said ‘How about zero percent?’ And zero percent it was and is today.”
Sciaroni’s other clients have included Chevron and Mitsui, which hold stakes in Cambodia’s most promising oil field, and international mining firms like BHP Billiton, Mitsubishi and Oxiana. He has also worked with Raptor Forestry, which according to a business plan I obtained, is “investigating the potential” for large-scale timber and agricultural projects. Sciaroni, the plan says, received equity in the venture for providing legal services and his “network of local contacts.”
Sciaroni was listed on initial incorporation records as chairman of the board of a local subsidiary of another client, Paris-based CityStar for which he serves as legal counsel. CityStar set up shop in Cambodia in early 2007, almost precisely as the government was selling off for development public land near the coastal town of Sihanoukville. The process resulted in gorgeous beaches, islands and protected areas being purchased by well-connected companies on terms undisclosed to the public. CityStar, which plans to build luxury hotels and villas, won two concessions in a national park area as well as two other areas for development on separate islands off the coast of Sihanoukville.
And so it goes for Sciaroni, whose fleeting success in Ronald Reagan’s Washington served as a steppingstone for far bigger things in Cambodia. And with ties to the U.S. government warming and American firms like GE, DuPont and Microsoft setting up shop in Cambodia in recent years, the outlook for the future is bright.
“Opportunities abound,” Sciaroni told me of Cambodia, though he may as well have been describing his own good fortune in washing up here. “It’s a great environment.”
Close
Ken Silverstein is a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine and an Open Society fellow.
Cambodia seeks to uplift workers as it sets up college
Top: Garments factory in Cambodia The garment manufacturing sector is one of the biggest employers in Cambodia
Bottom: Garment workers attend classes The college hopes to provide garment workers with better career opportunities
Bottom: Garment workers attend classes The college hopes to provide garment workers with better career opportunities
31 October 2011
By Guy De Launey BBC News, Phnom Penh
This is not school the way many of us would remember it. For starters, heads are not lolling on desks, willing the bell to ring and bring the agony to an end.
Instead the rows of students are bright-eyed, alert and turned out in eye-catching white-and-orange polo shirts.
They respond eagerly to the teacher's prompts and questions, occasionally breaking into good-natured laughter.
The bonhomie is all the more impressive considering this is a Sunday and classes started not long after six in the morning.
But the students are aware that the Garment Factory Supervisors' College offers an opportunity for something rarely seen in Cambodia: career progression.
And these young people - mostly women in their 20s - have willingly given up their weekends for a crash course in subjects like the labour law and occupational health and safety.
'Lot of conflict'
The garment and footwear industry is Cambodia's biggest employer. Almost 400,000 people work in the factories, producing clothes for big names like Gap, Adidas and Marks & Spencer.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
It will maintain high productivity, bring better communication and ensure the labour law will be clearly communicated to the workers”
Nov Dara Better Factories Cambodia
Almost all of them are on the lowest pay grade, earning a minimum basic wage of $61 (£38) a month.
Overtime and seniority bonuses can push that into three figures, but until recently there was little chance of workers moving out from behind their sewing machines and into better-paying jobs.
The "us and them" divide between workers and management was stark. With little history of industrialisation before the garment industry took off a decade ago, there was a serious local skills shortage.
So not only were the garment factories largely owned by non-Cambodian companies, but most of the supervisory staff were expatriates as well, brought in from countries like China, Singapore and Bangladesh.
With little in the way of shared language or culture, workplace misunderstandings were frequent and so were the resulting disputes.
"Working across cultures they might have a lot of issues, a lot of conflict," says Nuon Laong.
Usually a factory adviser for the Better Factories Cambodia programme run under the auspices of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Laong indulges in some officially-sanctioned moonlighting as a teacher at the Supervisors' College on Sundays.
"Often problems start from a small issue - but they don't understand each other, and then it becomes a big issue. But if there are local people [working as supervisors] they can understand each other and any problems are going to be smaller."
Ensuring sustainability
Promoting local staff to supervisor status also makes sense for the people without whom Cambodia's garment industry would not exist: the buyers.
The backs of the students' polo shirts bear the names of some of the most familiar global fashion brands - showing their support for the college set up by the ILO.
This is not entirely altruistic. Local staff are less expensive than expats - lowering costs for factories and buyers alike.
But with price pressure always a factor in the garment sector, it is a measure which could ensure the long-term health of the industry in Cambodia.
"To ensure the sustainability of the garment industry, we need Cambodian supervisors to take over the role of the foreigners," says Nov Dara, the Better Factories Cambodia training manager.
"This is the goal for the Cambodian government and the Chinese factory management. It will maintain high productivity, bring better communication and ensure the labour law will be clearly communicated to the workers."
That idea is clearly getting across to the trainees at the college. A supervisor from one nearby factory rattled off a few facts about the labour law as she enjoyed her lunch break.
Morale booster
But perhaps the most important contribution could be to morale on the factory floor.
A recent series of well-publicised mass-fainting incidents has left question marks over Cambodia's hard-won image as a country which guarantees decent working conditions in the garment sector.
The college addresses this by adding pastoral care to the curriculum.
The new supervisors get information about issues ranging from reproductive health to career development, which it is hoped they will pass on to their junior colleagues.
To make the message stick, the facts come wrapped in a music and comedy performance, courtesy of a local performing arts group, which has the audience hooting with laughter and clapping along.
Hundreds of new supervisors will have received training by the time the college finishes its short run of Sunday classes in November.
If they can put what they have learned into practice, they may play an important part in making sure Cambodia's garment industry has a healthy future.
By Guy De Launey BBC News, Phnom Penh
This is not school the way many of us would remember it. For starters, heads are not lolling on desks, willing the bell to ring and bring the agony to an end.
Instead the rows of students are bright-eyed, alert and turned out in eye-catching white-and-orange polo shirts.
They respond eagerly to the teacher's prompts and questions, occasionally breaking into good-natured laughter.
The bonhomie is all the more impressive considering this is a Sunday and classes started not long after six in the morning.
But the students are aware that the Garment Factory Supervisors' College offers an opportunity for something rarely seen in Cambodia: career progression.
And these young people - mostly women in their 20s - have willingly given up their weekends for a crash course in subjects like the labour law and occupational health and safety.
'Lot of conflict'
The garment and footwear industry is Cambodia's biggest employer. Almost 400,000 people work in the factories, producing clothes for big names like Gap, Adidas and Marks & Spencer.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
It will maintain high productivity, bring better communication and ensure the labour law will be clearly communicated to the workers”
Nov Dara Better Factories Cambodia
Almost all of them are on the lowest pay grade, earning a minimum basic wage of $61 (£38) a month.
Overtime and seniority bonuses can push that into three figures, but until recently there was little chance of workers moving out from behind their sewing machines and into better-paying jobs.
The "us and them" divide between workers and management was stark. With little history of industrialisation before the garment industry took off a decade ago, there was a serious local skills shortage.
So not only were the garment factories largely owned by non-Cambodian companies, but most of the supervisory staff were expatriates as well, brought in from countries like China, Singapore and Bangladesh.
With little in the way of shared language or culture, workplace misunderstandings were frequent and so were the resulting disputes.
"Working across cultures they might have a lot of issues, a lot of conflict," says Nuon Laong.
Usually a factory adviser for the Better Factories Cambodia programme run under the auspices of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Laong indulges in some officially-sanctioned moonlighting as a teacher at the Supervisors' College on Sundays.
"Often problems start from a small issue - but they don't understand each other, and then it becomes a big issue. But if there are local people [working as supervisors] they can understand each other and any problems are going to be smaller."
Ensuring sustainability
Promoting local staff to supervisor status also makes sense for the people without whom Cambodia's garment industry would not exist: the buyers.
The backs of the students' polo shirts bear the names of some of the most familiar global fashion brands - showing their support for the college set up by the ILO.
This is not entirely altruistic. Local staff are less expensive than expats - lowering costs for factories and buyers alike.
But with price pressure always a factor in the garment sector, it is a measure which could ensure the long-term health of the industry in Cambodia.
"To ensure the sustainability of the garment industry, we need Cambodian supervisors to take over the role of the foreigners," says Nov Dara, the Better Factories Cambodia training manager.
"This is the goal for the Cambodian government and the Chinese factory management. It will maintain high productivity, bring better communication and ensure the labour law will be clearly communicated to the workers."
That idea is clearly getting across to the trainees at the college. A supervisor from one nearby factory rattled off a few facts about the labour law as she enjoyed her lunch break.
Morale booster
But perhaps the most important contribution could be to morale on the factory floor.
A recent series of well-publicised mass-fainting incidents has left question marks over Cambodia's hard-won image as a country which guarantees decent working conditions in the garment sector.
The college addresses this by adding pastoral care to the curriculum.
The new supervisors get information about issues ranging from reproductive health to career development, which it is hoped they will pass on to their junior colleagues.
To make the message stick, the facts come wrapped in a music and comedy performance, courtesy of a local performing arts group, which has the audience hooting with laughter and clapping along.
Hundreds of new supervisors will have received training by the time the college finishes its short run of Sunday classes in November.
If they can put what they have learned into practice, they may play an important part in making sure Cambodia's garment industry has a healthy future.
Landlord in San Francisco's Tenderloin accused of harboring [Cambodian] gang
Since 2009, there have been 13 separate police reports filed after incidents were reported at this apartment building in the Tenderloin. (Mike Koozmin/The Examiner)
By: Ari Burack
3oth October, 2011
Examiner Staff Writer
The City has sued the landlord of a Tenderloin apartment building for allegedly forcing tenants to live in bedbug-ridden squalor with drug-dealing gang members keeping them “like prisoners in their own homes.”
The public nuisance lawsuit, filed by City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office in Superior Court last week, targets the owner of a six-story, 88-unit apartment building at 245 Leavenworth St. It claims John Wai has kept the building in substandard conditions despite repeated violation notices since 2009.
In addition to bedbug infestations, garbage piled outside, mold and mildew, and a damaged elevator and apartment doors inside, Herrera alleged that Wai allows the building to be used as a headquarters by members of the Cambodian Crips to sell drugs and conduct other criminal activity.
The landlord’s “continued defiance has left The City with no choice but to seek a court order to protect tenants and neighbors,” Herrera said in a statement.
The lawsuit cites 13 separate police reports between 2009 and 2011 that refer to the alleged activities of the gang — also known as “TL,” “Thug Lords” and “245” — at the building and in the surrounding area.
In May 2010, a resident chased a man from his apartment after the man punched his fist through his window, but the resident was swarmed outside by at least 10 other males who punched him in the head and neck, according to one report.
The resident told police that the group regularly loitered outside the building and threatened residents. Four of the suspects were later identified as members of the Cambodian Crips.
A July 2010 report said residents of the property had previously told police they felt like “prisoners in their own homes” because of the criminal activity and intimidation by the gang.
Other reports noted sales of marijuana, hashish, oxycodone, crack cocaine and heroin in front of the property and on the block; violation of a stay-away order from the property by a suspect on felony probation; and assaults and drive-by shootings in the area by members of the gang.
Efforts to reach Wai on Sunday were unsuccessful.
aburack@sfexaminer.com
The City has sued the landlord of a Tenderloin apartment building for allegedly forcing tenants to live in bedbug-ridden squalor with drug-dealing gang members keeping them “like prisoners in their own homes.”
The public nuisance lawsuit, filed by City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office in Superior Court last week, targets the owner of a six-story, 88-unit apartment building at 245 Leavenworth St. It claims John Wai has kept the building in substandard conditions despite repeated violation notices since 2009.
In addition to bedbug infestations, garbage piled outside, mold and mildew, and a damaged elevator and apartment doors inside, Herrera alleged that Wai allows the building to be used as a headquarters by members of the Cambodian Crips to sell drugs and conduct other criminal activity.
The landlord’s “continued defiance has left The City with no choice but to seek a court order to protect tenants and neighbors,” Herrera said in a statement.
The lawsuit cites 13 separate police reports between 2009 and 2011 that refer to the alleged activities of the gang — also known as “TL,” “Thug Lords” and “245” — at the building and in the surrounding area.
In May 2010, a resident chased a man from his apartment after the man punched his fist through his window, but the resident was swarmed outside by at least 10 other males who punched him in the head and neck, according to one report.
The resident told police that the group regularly loitered outside the building and threatened residents. Four of the suspects were later identified as members of the Cambodian Crips.
A July 2010 report said residents of the property had previously told police they felt like “prisoners in their own homes” because of the criminal activity and intimidation by the gang.
Other reports noted sales of marijuana, hashish, oxycodone, crack cocaine and heroin in front of the property and on the block; violation of a stay-away order from the property by a suspect on felony probation; and assaults and drive-by shootings in the area by members of the gang.
Efforts to reach Wai on Sunday were unsuccessful.
aburack@sfexaminer.com
[Canada's] Interlake paramedic off to Cambodia
Interlake paramedic Mike Todd will head to Cambodia next year on a disaster relief mission. Photo Courtesy of the Interlake Regional Health Authority.
Interlake Spectator
STONEWALL - Interlake paramedic Mike Todd has been accepted to participate as the only Western Canadian team member on a disaster relief mission to Cambodia with the nonprofit international agency GlobalMedic.
Todd, 32, has been a paramedic for six years. He is currently based in Stonewall's emergency medical station and has been a medic with the Canadian Armed Forces medical reserves for 11 years. He has always wanted to participate in an overseas mission and looks forward to the trip that will see him depart in March 2012 for two weeks.
"I decided that I wanted to use my skills and training to help others and hopefully make a change in the world," Todd said.
GlobalMedic's Rapid Response Team (RRT) will be deploying to Cambodia to run a capacity-building mission in different villages throughout the country. The team will teach basic life-saving skills, deliver household water purification units and build the capacity of local Cambodians to deal with disasters when they strike.
Team participants must cover the costs of the mission. For Todd, this equates to approximately $3,000 for medical supplies and equipment and $3,000 for personal transportation and accommodation costs.
The retired military reservist had wanted to serve in Afghanistan, but never made it there. The trip to Cambodia will fulfill his dream of going overeas to help the less fortunate.
"This is my way of making a difference," he says.
Cambodia is a country still suffering the effects of dictatorship and civil war. The countryside is littered with unexploded devices that kill and maim thousands of people – mostly children - every year. Medical infrastructure is underdeveloped, half of the rural population does not have access to clean drinking water and risk of contracting an infectious disease including typhoid, hepatitis and malaria is very high.
To date, Todd has received support from the Paramedic Association of Manitoba and Canadian First Aid Training but he still has yet to meet his fundraising goals.
He has an online donation page at www.canadahelps.org. Click on "Giving Pages" and then search with "Mike Todd" or cheques made payable to DMGF.org can be mailed to Global Medic at 20 Claireport Cres., Unit 9, Etobicoke, Ontario, M9W 6P6. To contribute to Todd's personal transportation and accommodation costs, cheques can be mailed to Mike Todd, PO Box 4533, Stonewall, MB R0C 2Z0. Charitable receipts will only be issued for donations to Global Medic.
STONEWALL - Interlake paramedic Mike Todd has been accepted to participate as the only Western Canadian team member on a disaster relief mission to Cambodia with the nonprofit international agency GlobalMedic.
Todd, 32, has been a paramedic for six years. He is currently based in Stonewall's emergency medical station and has been a medic with the Canadian Armed Forces medical reserves for 11 years. He has always wanted to participate in an overseas mission and looks forward to the trip that will see him depart in March 2012 for two weeks.
"I decided that I wanted to use my skills and training to help others and hopefully make a change in the world," Todd said.
GlobalMedic's Rapid Response Team (RRT) will be deploying to Cambodia to run a capacity-building mission in different villages throughout the country. The team will teach basic life-saving skills, deliver household water purification units and build the capacity of local Cambodians to deal with disasters when they strike.
Team participants must cover the costs of the mission. For Todd, this equates to approximately $3,000 for medical supplies and equipment and $3,000 for personal transportation and accommodation costs.
The retired military reservist had wanted to serve in Afghanistan, but never made it there. The trip to Cambodia will fulfill his dream of going overeas to help the less fortunate.
"This is my way of making a difference," he says.
Cambodia is a country still suffering the effects of dictatorship and civil war. The countryside is littered with unexploded devices that kill and maim thousands of people – mostly children - every year. Medical infrastructure is underdeveloped, half of the rural population does not have access to clean drinking water and risk of contracting an infectious disease including typhoid, hepatitis and malaria is very high.
To date, Todd has received support from the Paramedic Association of Manitoba and Canadian First Aid Training but he still has yet to meet his fundraising goals.
He has an online donation page at www.canadahelps.org. Click on "Giving Pages" and then search with "Mike Todd" or cheques made payable to DMGF.org can be mailed to Global Medic at 20 Claireport Cres., Unit 9, Etobicoke, Ontario, M9W 6P6. To contribute to Todd's personal transportation and accommodation costs, cheques can be mailed to Mike Todd, PO Box 4533, Stonewall, MB R0C 2Z0. Charitable receipts will only be issued for donations to Global Medic.
Dream Sparks Events That Reunite Cambodian Family
Anthony Kuhn/NPR
In 1975, the Khmer Rouge told the family of Peou Nam that he had been executed. After 36 years of separation, hardship and an unusual series of events, the family was reunited in June this year. Son Phyrun visits his father at his farmhouse in southern Cambodia's Kampot province.
Anthony Kuhn
On a recent day, Peou Phyrun steers his motorcycle down the rutted dirt road to his father's home in southern Cambodia's Kampot province. His father, 85-year-old Peou Nam, lives in a traditional Khmer farmhouse on stilts, where sugar palms tower over verdant rice paddies like giant dandelions on a lawn.
Like so many other families in Cambodia, theirs was torn apart by the Khmer Rouge. But unlike so many others, they were able to find each other, 36 years later, through a most unusual sequence of events.
Enlarge Anthony Kuhn/NPR
Peou Nam's traditional Khmer farmhouse on stilts in the countryside of Kampot province. Peou settled there after surviving the Khmer Rouge's attempts to execute him. He remarried and has six children with his second wife.
Many young Cambodians born after the Khmer Rouge are either unaware of its horrors or want to move on. But the Peou family's story is a reminder that the older generation's psychic wounds have yet to heal, and that many families still hold out hope of finding their loved ones. The Khmer Rouge is believed to have killed as many as 2 million of its own citizens between 1975 and 1979.
The Search Begins
Peou Nam had served as an official in the Lon Nol government, which the Khmer Rouge toppled in 1975. The family was told that their father had been executed. In the early 1980s, Phyrun and his six siblings immigrated to Canada. One night last year, he recalls having a vivid dream.
"In the dream, I saw my father walking," he says. "And I was walking, and then I met him unexpectedly. And he said, 'Hey, dear son, I'm still alive, come to me.' "
Phyrun's elation at seeing his father alive quickly melted into tears, as he woke up and realized it was just a dream. Yet something convinced Phyrun to head to Cambodia. He spent months searching for his father along the Thai-Cambodian border. He distributed fliers with his father's picture and story, traveling to Poi Pet, the last place his father had lived.
At the same time, Phyrun's father remembers being at home when an inexplicable impulse came over him.
"I felt unsettled, restless," he recounts. "I had this urge to go to the town of Poi Pet, where I had worked before. I didn't realize my children were looking for me. Then I saw posters looking for a missing person. The person in the picture looked familiar, and the story matched my own."
I felt unsettled, restless. I had this urge to go to the town of Poi Pet, where I had worked before. I didn't realize my children were looking for me. Then I saw posters looking for a missing person. The person in the picture looked familiar, and the story matched my own.
- Peou Nam, who survived the Khmer Rouge and was reunited with his family 36 years later
Townsfolk in the border town of Poi Pet insisted that Phyrun speak to a local spirit medium. Phyrun didn't believe in the supernatural, but he went anyway. It would be the second of three clairvoyants that the family would encounter in their difficult search (the first was a psychic in Canada who told the family their father was indeed alive). This medium told Phyrun exactly when and where to meet his father.
Then the medium predicted: " 'You will see him, but I warn you, you will not recognize your father, and your father will deny you,' " Phyrun explains. " 'But you are his son and he is your father.' "
Amnesia Lifts
Indeed, both father and son thought they had the wrong person. Time had changed them both physically. And some things just didn't match. The old man had a mole on his face, which Phyrun's father didn't have. And while the son remembered his father had a blackened fingernail, the man before him had a normal, pink one.
Hoping to confirm the man's identity, Phyrun's sister in Canada turned to Connie Adams, a psychic in Merrickville, Ontario. Adams recalls the family asking her about their father.
"I could see him very clearly in my mind as an older man, not a young man, so that tells me that he was alive," she says. "But I also talked in detail during the reading about things or markings he would have on his body, or things that would identify him as their father."
The clincher came when the old man spoke to his former wife in Canada by phone.
"I began to communicate with my son's mother by phone," the elder Peou recalls. "She wasn't sure about me either, so we started to test each other, asking questions about our private life that no other family member could possibly know about."
My memory is incomplete. I just remember that I was forced to do labor and cut trees. If I didn't please my captors, they tortured me however they liked. I just endured it to survive, but I don't know how I survived.
- Peou Nam
Peou's amnesia gradually lifted and he remembered his lost family. He also remembered how the Khmer Rouge bludgeoned him and left him for dead in a mass grave, and how he climbed out from under the corpses. He recalls wandering the land in a traumatized daze, only to be recaptured by the Khmer Rouge. In a horrific sort of deja vu, he was again bludgeoned and left for dead. But he survived a second time. He later changed his name, remarried and had six more children.
"My memory is incomplete," Peou says. "I just remember that I was forced to do labor and cut trees. If I didn't please my captors, they tortured me however they liked. I just endured it to survive, but I don't know how I survived."
Hope For Others
The elder Peou says he always believed that he would reunite with his lost family in a future life. But fate brought them back together in this life, he says, which he now feels is complete.
As for the mole, it had appeared in just the past couple of years. And Phyrun explains the blackened fingernail.
"Finally he told my mother that, 'The reason why my nails are now nice and white [is] because when I was in prison, they pulled out my nails,' " Phyrun says.
While the Peou family's reunion was extraordinary, their separation was not.
Since the local media aired the family's story, other Cambodians whose families were torn apart by the Khmer Rouge have contacted the Peous and told them that their story has given them hope.
The Search Begins
Peou Nam had served as an official in the Lon Nol government, which the Khmer Rouge toppled in 1975. The family was told that their father had been executed. In the early 1980s, Phyrun and his six siblings immigrated to Canada. One night last year, he recalls having a vivid dream.
"In the dream, I saw my father walking," he says. "And I was walking, and then I met him unexpectedly. And he said, 'Hey, dear son, I'm still alive, come to me.' "
Phyrun's elation at seeing his father alive quickly melted into tears, as he woke up and realized it was just a dream. Yet something convinced Phyrun to head to Cambodia. He spent months searching for his father along the Thai-Cambodian border. He distributed fliers with his father's picture and story, traveling to Poi Pet, the last place his father had lived.
At the same time, Phyrun's father remembers being at home when an inexplicable impulse came over him.
"I felt unsettled, restless," he recounts. "I had this urge to go to the town of Poi Pet, where I had worked before. I didn't realize my children were looking for me. Then I saw posters looking for a missing person. The person in the picture looked familiar, and the story matched my own."
I felt unsettled, restless. I had this urge to go to the town of Poi Pet, where I had worked before. I didn't realize my children were looking for me. Then I saw posters looking for a missing person. The person in the picture looked familiar, and the story matched my own.
- Peou Nam, who survived the Khmer Rouge and was reunited with his family 36 years later
Townsfolk in the border town of Poi Pet insisted that Phyrun speak to a local spirit medium. Phyrun didn't believe in the supernatural, but he went anyway. It would be the second of three clairvoyants that the family would encounter in their difficult search (the first was a psychic in Canada who told the family their father was indeed alive). This medium told Phyrun exactly when and where to meet his father.
Then the medium predicted: " 'You will see him, but I warn you, you will not recognize your father, and your father will deny you,' " Phyrun explains. " 'But you are his son and he is your father.' "
Amnesia Lifts
Indeed, both father and son thought they had the wrong person. Time had changed them both physically. And some things just didn't match. The old man had a mole on his face, which Phyrun's father didn't have. And while the son remembered his father had a blackened fingernail, the man before him had a normal, pink one.
Hoping to confirm the man's identity, Phyrun's sister in Canada turned to Connie Adams, a psychic in Merrickville, Ontario. Adams recalls the family asking her about their father.
"I could see him very clearly in my mind as an older man, not a young man, so that tells me that he was alive," she says. "But I also talked in detail during the reading about things or markings he would have on his body, or things that would identify him as their father."
The clincher came when the old man spoke to his former wife in Canada by phone.
"I began to communicate with my son's mother by phone," the elder Peou recalls. "She wasn't sure about me either, so we started to test each other, asking questions about our private life that no other family member could possibly know about."
My memory is incomplete. I just remember that I was forced to do labor and cut trees. If I didn't please my captors, they tortured me however they liked. I just endured it to survive, but I don't know how I survived.
- Peou Nam
Peou's amnesia gradually lifted and he remembered his lost family. He also remembered how the Khmer Rouge bludgeoned him and left him for dead in a mass grave, and how he climbed out from under the corpses. He recalls wandering the land in a traumatized daze, only to be recaptured by the Khmer Rouge. In a horrific sort of deja vu, he was again bludgeoned and left for dead. But he survived a second time. He later changed his name, remarried and had six more children.
"My memory is incomplete," Peou says. "I just remember that I was forced to do labor and cut trees. If I didn't please my captors, they tortured me however they liked. I just endured it to survive, but I don't know how I survived."
Hope For Others
The elder Peou says he always believed that he would reunite with his lost family in a future life. But fate brought them back together in this life, he says, which he now feels is complete.
As for the mole, it had appeared in just the past couple of years. And Phyrun explains the blackened fingernail.
"Finally he told my mother that, 'The reason why my nails are now nice and white [is] because when I was in prison, they pulled out my nails,' " Phyrun says.
While the Peou family's reunion was extraordinary, their separation was not.
Since the local media aired the family's story, other Cambodians whose families were torn apart by the Khmer Rouge have contacted the Peous and told them that their story has given them hope.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)