Anyone out there wondering where their Christmas Cards are, should take a look at the Email I got from VSO Cambodia today:
***
-----Original Message-----
From: Ngin Pisit
Sent: 30 December 2005 12:11
Dear All,
Just to announce that those who sent mail by VSO courrier from 12th - 23rd Dec 05 was burned down because of fire caused by electric explosion on 24th night at the room keeping mail of the Courrier Company in Phnom Penh.
If you would like claim from the company what you lost please list it and send it to me.
Thanks
Pisit
**********************************************************************
VSO is an international development charity that works through volunteers.
http://www.vso.org.uk
Friday, December 30, 2005
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Cambodia Using Courts to Restrict Free Speech, blah, blah, blah
As recently as 1997 opponents to Sam Rainsy and the SRP tried to stifle political debate by throwing hand grenades at him during a rally; this year all that is landing in his lap are court summons.
Personally, I would call that progress.
Ho Hum.
Still, here is the recent Bloomberg Article:
***
Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Cambodia is using its law courts to stifle free speech and political activity, United Nations envoy Yash Ghai said, citing last week's jail sentence imposed on opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who lives in exile.
Criminal prosecutions, such as the defamation case against Sam Rainsy, are being brought under laws introduced in 1992 when the UN was overseeing the peace process in Cambodia, Ghai, the special representative for human rights, said in a statement yesterday, according to the UN's Web site. The laws are out of date and should be repealed, Ghai said.
``Space for political discourse and public debate is being increasingly challenged, including through the courts,'' Ghai said. ``This deeply worrying trend is a serious threat to freedom of expression and political pluralism in Cambodia.''
Sam Rainsy fled to France in February and another opposition lawmaker, Cheam Channy, was sentenced to seven years in jail in August for organized crime and fraud. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused the Cambodian government of trying to silence the opposition, including the Sam Rainsy Party, by last year accusing members of forming an illegal armed force.
Cambodia's government isn't using the courts to dismantle the opposition such as the case against Sam Rainsy, Agence France-Presse cited Khieu Kanharith, a government spokesman, as saying two days ago in the capital, Phnom Penh.
``The issue is that his accusations affect the reputation of others,'' Khieu Kanharith said. ``Politicians should be careful when speaking.''
Human Rights
Cambodia's transitional legislation, known as the UNTAC laws, were introduced before the country adopted its new constitution and signed international human rights treaties, Ghai said.
``The UNTAC law was enacted as a temporary measure and under very particular circumstances, which no longer reflect the situation in today's Cambodia,'' he said.
Cambodia's new criminal code, currently being prepared, is an opportunity to make laws compliant with the constitution and human rights obligations, Ghai said.
The U.S. State Department last week condemned the 18-month prison sentence imposed on Sam Rainsy, saying it reflected ``the continuing deterioration of democratic principles such as free speech and expression in Cambodia.''
Sam Rainsy, 56, was sentenced in absentia for defaming Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen and National Assembly President Prince Norodom Ranariddh, AFP reported last week.
The defamation suit involved alleged comments by Sam Rainsy accusing Hun Sen of involvement in a 1997 grenade attack on an anti-government rally that killed at least 19 people and Prince Ranariddh of taking bribes for joining a coalition government led by Hun Sen, AFP said.
Coalition Government
Cambodia was without a government for more than a year after political parties failed to agree on forming a coalition after elections in June 2003.
Hun Sen formed a government in July 2004 with the royalist Funcinpec party led by Prince Ranariddh. Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party won 73 of the 123 National Assembly seats in the 2003 election, short of a two-thirds majority needed to form a government on its own. Funcinpec won 26 seats and the Sam Rainsy Party took 24 seats.
Sam Rainsy won't appeal the jail sentence, AFP reported two days ago, citing his lawyer Som Chandya. Sam Rainsy flew to France and another deputy, Chea Poch, went to the U.S. after their parliamentary immunity was lifted, AFP reported in February.
Personally, I would call that progress.
Ho Hum.
Still, here is the recent Bloomberg Article:
***
Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Cambodia is using its law courts to stifle free speech and political activity, United Nations envoy Yash Ghai said, citing last week's jail sentence imposed on opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who lives in exile.
Criminal prosecutions, such as the defamation case against Sam Rainsy, are being brought under laws introduced in 1992 when the UN was overseeing the peace process in Cambodia, Ghai, the special representative for human rights, said in a statement yesterday, according to the UN's Web site. The laws are out of date and should be repealed, Ghai said.
``Space for political discourse and public debate is being increasingly challenged, including through the courts,'' Ghai said. ``This deeply worrying trend is a serious threat to freedom of expression and political pluralism in Cambodia.''
Sam Rainsy fled to France in February and another opposition lawmaker, Cheam Channy, was sentenced to seven years in jail in August for organized crime and fraud. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have accused the Cambodian government of trying to silence the opposition, including the Sam Rainsy Party, by last year accusing members of forming an illegal armed force.
Cambodia's government isn't using the courts to dismantle the opposition such as the case against Sam Rainsy, Agence France-Presse cited Khieu Kanharith, a government spokesman, as saying two days ago in the capital, Phnom Penh.
``The issue is that his accusations affect the reputation of others,'' Khieu Kanharith said. ``Politicians should be careful when speaking.''
Human Rights
Cambodia's transitional legislation, known as the UNTAC laws, were introduced before the country adopted its new constitution and signed international human rights treaties, Ghai said.
``The UNTAC law was enacted as a temporary measure and under very particular circumstances, which no longer reflect the situation in today's Cambodia,'' he said.
Cambodia's new criminal code, currently being prepared, is an opportunity to make laws compliant with the constitution and human rights obligations, Ghai said.
The U.S. State Department last week condemned the 18-month prison sentence imposed on Sam Rainsy, saying it reflected ``the continuing deterioration of democratic principles such as free speech and expression in Cambodia.''
Sam Rainsy, 56, was sentenced in absentia for defaming Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen and National Assembly President Prince Norodom Ranariddh, AFP reported last week.
The defamation suit involved alleged comments by Sam Rainsy accusing Hun Sen of involvement in a 1997 grenade attack on an anti-government rally that killed at least 19 people and Prince Ranariddh of taking bribes for joining a coalition government led by Hun Sen, AFP said.
Coalition Government
Cambodia was without a government for more than a year after political parties failed to agree on forming a coalition after elections in June 2003.
Hun Sen formed a government in July 2004 with the royalist Funcinpec party led by Prince Ranariddh. Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party won 73 of the 123 National Assembly seats in the 2003 election, short of a two-thirds majority needed to form a government on its own. Funcinpec won 26 seats and the Sam Rainsy Party took 24 seats.
Sam Rainsy won't appeal the jail sentence, AFP reported two days ago, citing his lawyer Som Chandya. Sam Rainsy flew to France and another deputy, Chea Poch, went to the U.S. after their parliamentary immunity was lifted, AFP reported in February.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
Postcard from Battambang
This is Mr Kim Long or Kum Mien as he is known to his friends in the small and peaceful village of Kompong Ambril which nestles on the bank of the River Sangker not so far away from Battambang in Cambodia’s north east.
Mr Kim Long is an unusual man for a number of reasons. Firstly, in a country where the average life expectancy is 52 he has managed stay in robust, rude health to the grand old age of 77 and still does a full time job of work.
What, however, makes Mr Kim Long more remarkable is the fact that he is one of a tiny number of Khmer survivors from the French colonial army of Indochina. Having joined the French military in 1947 he was posted to Hanoi and then spent the subsequent seven years soldiering and seeing action fighting against Ho Chi Minh’s Communist troops in Northern Vietnam until the demoralised, tired and beaten French eventually pulled out of the region in 1954 and Mr Kim Long was discharged and left to his own devices.
By the early 1970’s when the Maoist Khmer Rouge began to threaten his village Mr Kim Long was already too old for active military service in Lon Nol’s army. Nevertheless, he knew a thing or two about killing communists and so picked up his rifle again to serve in Kompong Ambril’s village militia. He modestly admits that his best friend who is also still alive at the age of 78 and lives in the next village along the river was always the better shot.
Mr Kim Long kept his past history very much to himself during the Marxist Khmer Rouge years between 1975 and 1979 for to have served in the French Army would have made his immediate execution a certainty had the fact been discovered. Nevertheless and sadly his wife and children did not survive the Pol Pot period and this has left him alone with no family.
He is grateful though that, having been used as storage space by the KR, his village pagoda was spared from destruction and is therefore one of the very few wats in the province not to have been rebuilt since 1979.
It’s a lovely low squat building in the older Battambang style and quite unlike the newer more gaudy pagodas that have been built in recent years. The Buddha life scenes within the Wat also escaped intact and are less stereotypical than newer images of the Buddha’s life to be found elsewhere.
These days Mr Kim Long, whose military bearing remains intact, lives next to his beloved pagoda and serves as its diligent guardian and caretaker.
Sometimes he wonders if the French, for whom he risked his life, might owe him some sort of a military pension.
Maybe it has been assumed that nobody of his generation survived to ask for one.
Mr Kim Long is an unusual man for a number of reasons. Firstly, in a country where the average life expectancy is 52 he has managed stay in robust, rude health to the grand old age of 77 and still does a full time job of work.
What, however, makes Mr Kim Long more remarkable is the fact that he is one of a tiny number of Khmer survivors from the French colonial army of Indochina. Having joined the French military in 1947 he was posted to Hanoi and then spent the subsequent seven years soldiering and seeing action fighting against Ho Chi Minh’s Communist troops in Northern Vietnam until the demoralised, tired and beaten French eventually pulled out of the region in 1954 and Mr Kim Long was discharged and left to his own devices.
By the early 1970’s when the Maoist Khmer Rouge began to threaten his village Mr Kim Long was already too old for active military service in Lon Nol’s army. Nevertheless, he knew a thing or two about killing communists and so picked up his rifle again to serve in Kompong Ambril’s village militia. He modestly admits that his best friend who is also still alive at the age of 78 and lives in the next village along the river was always the better shot.
Mr Kim Long kept his past history very much to himself during the Marxist Khmer Rouge years between 1975 and 1979 for to have served in the French Army would have made his immediate execution a certainty had the fact been discovered. Nevertheless and sadly his wife and children did not survive the Pol Pot period and this has left him alone with no family.
He is grateful though that, having been used as storage space by the KR, his village pagoda was spared from destruction and is therefore one of the very few wats in the province not to have been rebuilt since 1979.
It’s a lovely low squat building in the older Battambang style and quite unlike the newer more gaudy pagodas that have been built in recent years. The Buddha life scenes within the Wat also escaped intact and are less stereotypical than newer images of the Buddha’s life to be found elsewhere.
These days Mr Kim Long, whose military bearing remains intact, lives next to his beloved pagoda and serves as its diligent guardian and caretaker.
Sometimes he wonders if the French, for whom he risked his life, might owe him some sort of a military pension.
Maybe it has been assumed that nobody of his generation survived to ask for one.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Is it Christmas ???
You would not even know that it is almost Christmas here in Happy Buddhist Cambodia…
- No lights (other than the miles of multicoloured fairy lights on every Khmer beer garden)
- No Christmas trees, except the sad looking plastic one just inside the ex-pat supermarket (i.e. slightly enlarged corner shop with grossly inflated prices for tins of baked beans)
- No 24/7 bombardment and besieging of our ears by that git Phil Spectre and his Christmas album
- Oh, no Slade either
- No snow, just the sunny but low 30C of the Khmer winter.
- No houses turned into a mini Disneyland of plastic Santa’s, sponge foam snowmen, or wall mounted reindeer.
However will I survive…
Seasons Whatnots and like Yuletide Thingies
Ho, Ho, Ho
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
My New Khmer Street; Same as the Old Khmer Street ?
Snapshots from my window
Having recently moved into my new home, I have spent several early evenings sat on my new, large, L-shaped balcony. Just watching the world go by and musing on my new location and new neighbours. (I really must buy a television soon)
Diagonally opposite is a small building site where a small office with flats above is being built, a bright, shiny, new blue building of seriously geometric design. Last weekend a surly looking Frenchman turned up to survey his new office building and flat, his Khmer girlfriend was decked head to toe in western clothing and was glinting even in the distance with expensive looking gold and jewellery.
To the left is a small wooden house with a lean-to wooden shop at the front, which sells the usual assortment of shampoo, toilet roll, cigarettes, soft drinks and blocks of ice. At any given time there are usually half a dozen people milling around outside or pulling up on moto’s to buy things.
To the right is another large house which seems to have a constant stream of expensive looking 4x4’s coming and going, some with NGO license plates, some with military police license plates. Yesterday lunchtime I came home to find a shiny new Jaguar S-Type parked outside my side door and one very smug looking Khmer guy leaning against it grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
At the end of my short road, on the corner is a small wooden shack restaurant serving plates of rice and noodles, outside which one usually finds several motodop’s hanging around should one need transport anywhere.
Opposite my door is a small Khmer concrete town house, in the evening around a dozen small children, 8 to 12 years of age, usually gather in the front room to learn English, from my balcony I can hear them reciting:
A is for apple; apple ply_pomm;
B is for book; book seal_pow
C is for car; car laan
And so on…
Underneath on the ground floor, with a completely separate set of entrances and stairwells is my paranoid, highly security conscious, landlord and his family. They have a shop a few road up in P’sar Olympic selling gold and jewellery
During the course of the day, up until the early evening a stead procession of street vendors’ cycle along touting their wares buy shouting out the name of the goods or service they offer; fresh bread, shoe repairs, key cutting and knife sharpening.
As well as these cycling vendors there are the usual assortment of people selling food from wooden or steel handcarts that they push around; Chinese dumplings, papaya salad bok la’hong, rice pork bai suh_ch’rook, or whatever the current seasons fruits are.
Towards the end of the day, as traffic grows light, but before daylight totally abandons us, it is quite common to see several kids playing badminton, without a net, in the middle of the road, just bating the shuttlecock back and forth for fun, elsewhere, street children are sifting through the rubbish outside peoples houses looking for empty cans or bottles that can be resold for recycling – two empty drinks cans (coke, beer, et cetera) sell for 100riel - that is 2.5cents or just over 1 shiny new British penny.
These are scenes that anyone living in Cambodia, especially Phnom Penh, will be familiar with. After all the stress and hassle of moving house, they are strangely reassuring.
Having recently moved into my new home, I have spent several early evenings sat on my new, large, L-shaped balcony. Just watching the world go by and musing on my new location and new neighbours. (I really must buy a television soon)
Diagonally opposite is a small building site where a small office with flats above is being built, a bright, shiny, new blue building of seriously geometric design. Last weekend a surly looking Frenchman turned up to survey his new office building and flat, his Khmer girlfriend was decked head to toe in western clothing and was glinting even in the distance with expensive looking gold and jewellery.
To the left is a small wooden house with a lean-to wooden shop at the front, which sells the usual assortment of shampoo, toilet roll, cigarettes, soft drinks and blocks of ice. At any given time there are usually half a dozen people milling around outside or pulling up on moto’s to buy things.
To the right is another large house which seems to have a constant stream of expensive looking 4x4’s coming and going, some with NGO license plates, some with military police license plates. Yesterday lunchtime I came home to find a shiny new Jaguar S-Type parked outside my side door and one very smug looking Khmer guy leaning against it grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
At the end of my short road, on the corner is a small wooden shack restaurant serving plates of rice and noodles, outside which one usually finds several motodop’s hanging around should one need transport anywhere.
Opposite my door is a small Khmer concrete town house, in the evening around a dozen small children, 8 to 12 years of age, usually gather in the front room to learn English, from my balcony I can hear them reciting:
A is for apple; apple ply_pomm;
B is for book; book seal_pow
C is for car; car laan
And so on…
Underneath on the ground floor, with a completely separate set of entrances and stairwells is my paranoid, highly security conscious, landlord and his family. They have a shop a few road up in P’sar Olympic selling gold and jewellery
During the course of the day, up until the early evening a stead procession of street vendors’ cycle along touting their wares buy shouting out the name of the goods or service they offer; fresh bread, shoe repairs, key cutting and knife sharpening.
As well as these cycling vendors there are the usual assortment of people selling food from wooden or steel handcarts that they push around; Chinese dumplings, papaya salad bok la’hong, rice pork bai suh_ch’rook, or whatever the current seasons fruits are.
Towards the end of the day, as traffic grows light, but before daylight totally abandons us, it is quite common to see several kids playing badminton, without a net, in the middle of the road, just bating the shuttlecock back and forth for fun, elsewhere, street children are sifting through the rubbish outside peoples houses looking for empty cans or bottles that can be resold for recycling – two empty drinks cans (coke, beer, et cetera) sell for 100riel - that is 2.5cents or just over 1 shiny new British penny.
These are scenes that anyone living in Cambodia, especially Phnom Penh, will be familiar with. After all the stress and hassle of moving house, they are strangely reassuring.
Monday, December 12, 2005
The Divided Heart - Movie Premier
Sunday the 11th
Movie Premier and Heng’s Screen Debut
The day started very early, about 06:30. For some reason the invite-only grand opening was taking place at 08:30 on a Sunday morning. Of course, the fact that I had been out the night before handing out free VIP invitations to the opening to various friends of mine in various bars did not help the fact that my head felt like there was Khmer wedding marquee being erected within it.
Arriving around 8 we hung around outside the cinema waiting for the red ribbon cutting ceremony for nearly an hour – yes, we were on Khmer time.
All the while the TV cameras were rolling and the young freshie girl presenter from TVK was interviewing people in the crowd, as well as the actors and actresses, who were just hanging around in the crowd with us. Somewhat more relaxed than their Hollywood counterparts would be at an LA opening of their new movie.
Eventually we had the ribbon cutting and we all filtered into the cinema, as we started to enter the auditorium we were handed fruit and water by the ushers.
Thankfully inside was well air-conditioned and a blessed relief from the sun that we had been standing in for so long.
As the last few people were taking their seats an announcer gets up on stage and introduces:
The stuntmen and martial arts crew; who after taking a bow launch into a quick enactment of a fight. After this the actresses get up on stage and take a bow and a round of applause. Then the director, producers, technical crew and assorted odds and ends get up to take theirs.
Finally with curtain up around 09:30 we were besieged with adverts for beer, phones and makeup taking us up to about 10:00 for the grand premier of…
The Divided Heart
A teenage love story and rights of passage movie set mostly in Phnom Penh. It tells the story of a beautiful girl who goes off to school and has two boys fall in love with her. One a nice guy from a rich urban family, the other an equally nice, but poor, kid from the provinces with his oddball sidekick acting as a scaramouch. Neither of them is really the villain of the piece, that role falls to the rich kids highly jealous, psycho, ex-girlfriend; who between causing a scene in a burger bar, trying to bribe Miss Beautiful to leave town and arranging for her to be kidnapped (along with telling the kidnappers to rape her) fulfils the obligatory ‘baddie’ position quite enough for a Sunday morning family movie.
Although the movie is all in Khmer, I could easily manage to follow it with my modest language skills and the fact that such a narrative is almost universal in storytelling around the world gives the viewer a sense of ease with the plot.
At this point I would like to give a special thanks to my western, non-Khmer speaking friends who turned up, slight warily, to support us all, they also found it reasonably easy to follow and enjoyed the morning greatly.
One of the refreshing things about this Khmer movie was the fact that it was just a simple love story, or love triangle, set against life in modern Phnom Penh, with pretty much only the obstacles that you face in everyday life. The fact that it did not contain; men with snakes for hair, or giant super snakes, or bouncing zombie vampire monsters with white squares of paper on their foreheads was also very much a bonus for us non Khmers and does, I feel, give a sense of hope that the industry here is not just going to keep churning out schlock horror gore laden B movies forever.
I will not give away too much of the ending, but it will suffice to say that, as one would suspect, all turns out well in the end, the guys survive, the girl escapes with her honour and virtue intact and the wicked get ‘a right royal arse kicking’, to quote a friend of mine. Having watched them film various scenes from the movie over the last six months and seeing the finished project, I would have to say that the stuntmen and martial arts crew certainly earned their money in the final showdown, especially as I know that they used no protective clothing and were working for peanuts, when they filmed that ‘right royal arse kicking’.
Movie Premier and Heng’s Screen Debut
The day started very early, about 06:30. For some reason the invite-only grand opening was taking place at 08:30 on a Sunday morning. Of course, the fact that I had been out the night before handing out free VIP invitations to the opening to various friends of mine in various bars did not help the fact that my head felt like there was Khmer wedding marquee being erected within it.
Arriving around 8 we hung around outside the cinema waiting for the red ribbon cutting ceremony for nearly an hour – yes, we were on Khmer time.
All the while the TV cameras were rolling and the young freshie girl presenter from TVK was interviewing people in the crowd, as well as the actors and actresses, who were just hanging around in the crowd with us. Somewhat more relaxed than their Hollywood counterparts would be at an LA opening of their new movie.
Eventually we had the ribbon cutting and we all filtered into the cinema, as we started to enter the auditorium we were handed fruit and water by the ushers.
Thankfully inside was well air-conditioned and a blessed relief from the sun that we had been standing in for so long.
As the last few people were taking their seats an announcer gets up on stage and introduces:
The stuntmen and martial arts crew; who after taking a bow launch into a quick enactment of a fight. After this the actresses get up on stage and take a bow and a round of applause. Then the director, producers, technical crew and assorted odds and ends get up to take theirs.
Finally with curtain up around 09:30 we were besieged with adverts for beer, phones and makeup taking us up to about 10:00 for the grand premier of…
The Divided Heart
A teenage love story and rights of passage movie set mostly in Phnom Penh. It tells the story of a beautiful girl who goes off to school and has two boys fall in love with her. One a nice guy from a rich urban family, the other an equally nice, but poor, kid from the provinces with his oddball sidekick acting as a scaramouch. Neither of them is really the villain of the piece, that role falls to the rich kids highly jealous, psycho, ex-girlfriend; who between causing a scene in a burger bar, trying to bribe Miss Beautiful to leave town and arranging for her to be kidnapped (along with telling the kidnappers to rape her) fulfils the obligatory ‘baddie’ position quite enough for a Sunday morning family movie.
Although the movie is all in Khmer, I could easily manage to follow it with my modest language skills and the fact that such a narrative is almost universal in storytelling around the world gives the viewer a sense of ease with the plot.
At this point I would like to give a special thanks to my western, non-Khmer speaking friends who turned up, slight warily, to support us all, they also found it reasonably easy to follow and enjoyed the morning greatly.
One of the refreshing things about this Khmer movie was the fact that it was just a simple love story, or love triangle, set against life in modern Phnom Penh, with pretty much only the obstacles that you face in everyday life. The fact that it did not contain; men with snakes for hair, or giant super snakes, or bouncing zombie vampire monsters with white squares of paper on their foreheads was also very much a bonus for us non Khmers and does, I feel, give a sense of hope that the industry here is not just going to keep churning out schlock horror gore laden B movies forever.
I will not give away too much of the ending, but it will suffice to say that, as one would suspect, all turns out well in the end, the guys survive, the girl escapes with her honour and virtue intact and the wicked get ‘a right royal arse kicking’, to quote a friend of mine. Having watched them film various scenes from the movie over the last six months and seeing the finished project, I would have to say that the stuntmen and martial arts crew certainly earned their money in the final showdown, especially as I know that they used no protective clothing and were working for peanuts, when they filmed that ‘right royal arse kicking’.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Cambodian border town bets on vice
With no gambling regulations, Poipet is crowned casino capital of Southeast AsiaBy Benjamin PaukerSpecial to the TribunePublished December 7, 2005
POIPET, Cambodia -- The noonday sun does not discriminate. It scorches old men wheeling ragged, homemade carts stacked high with sandals and baskets to market across a bridge at the Thai border.
Korean tourists sweat while waiting in line for Cambodian visas. Young beggars take shelter in the shade, or retreat to the creek beneath the bridge, which runs gray and frothy amid mountains of trash.Yet, as the sun sets and neon signs flicker to life, Poipet comes alive.
This dusty border town, not far from where the remnants of the Khmer Rouge holed up before finally surrendering in 1999, is the new gambling capital of Southeast Asia.It is home to nine glitzy casinos and sprawling high-rise hotels that beckon thousands of Thai and East Asian travelers willing to try their luck at baccarat, blackjack and fighting-cock-themed slot machines.
The casinos, with such names as Tropicana and Golden Crown, are in a roughly quarter-mile-wide special administrative zone between the Thai border and the official entry point to Cambodia.
Star Vegas, the most luxurious of the properties, boasts elegant VIP rooms, a nightclub and an 18-hole golf course. Greens fees are less than $8.
"And no more land mines," assures Adoon Sradindam, a front office manager.
Owned by publicity-shy Thai, Sino-Cambodian, Malaysian and Indonesian investors, the casinos have sprouted like rice in the rainy season, unburdened by national gaming laws or registration.
The oldest, Holiday Poipet, is just six years old. Already, their existence is threatened by the planned $3 billion construction of two mega-casinos in Singapore, which recently repealed its 40-year ban on gambling. Thailand's prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, also has floated the idea of building casinos to bring tourism back to the tsunami-ravaged resorts in the south.
Anti-gambling religious beliefs among Thailand's Buddhists and Singapore's Muslims have long prevented state-sanctioned casinos, but the tide is turning.Gamblers, but on the sly"Thais gamble like everyone else," says Mam, who would not give his full name and once worked in an illegal casino in Bangkok's On Nut neighborhood.
"They just don't like to be seen doing it." Temporarily unemployed, he has come to Cambodia.
At Holiday Poipet, an understated Chinese-themed casino, he plays fantan, a popular table game.People slurp from bowls of noodles as the bored teenage dealer cups dozens of yellow plastic beads in a ceramic rice bowl, then puts the pile on the table. A second dealer divides the beads into groups of four.
Before the parsing, bets are placed on the number that can't be divided into groups of four.
Mam, like the other 20 people at the table, is keeping count of the results, as if a winning pattern might be divined. "I have a system," he said. "In one hour, I won 100,000 baht [about $2,400] at roulette.
"It is a fortune in Poipet, where casino employees regularly earn 4,000 baht (about $95) a month.Though technically within Cambodia, the casinos deal solely in Thai currency. Bets, salaries, winnings and losses are paid in baht, not the Cambodian riel.
Poipet is a notorious border town: dirty, dangerous, and until six years ago, not a good place for an overnight stay. It is on the road from Bangkok to Phnom Penh and Siem Riep, where the jungle temple complex of Angkor Wat draws tens of thousands of visitors annually.
Most Westerners passing through Poipet come from Bangkok to renew tourist visas or are budget backpackers who make the overland journey to Angkor, a cheap but back-wrenching trip. Small Toyota pickups offer transit for $6, an 8-hour ride between Bangkok and Angkor Wat along one of the worst major roads in Asia. The potholes are monstrous.`Armpit' of Cambodia
The border itself is notorious. Numerous Internet discussion boards for travelers warn of beggars, touts and pickpockets who roam the dusty streets. Brothels line the main road out of town toward Cambodia's central plains. The Lonely Planet guidebook, a bible for independent travelers, writes, "If Cambodia were a body, Poipet would be the armpit."
The glitzy gambling palaces are the town's sole economic engines. When the Thai government closed the border in 2003 to protest the attack of its embassy in Phnom Penh by angry Cambodian mobs, daily revenue losses were estimated at roughly $7-10 million
Asian governments are taking note of the flourishing casino industry in Macau, a former Portuguese colony now under Chinese control, where gambling revenues reached $5.1 billion in 2004. According to the American Gaming Association, Las Vegas recorded $5.33 billion in revenue last year.
Regional governments are relaxing similar restrictions on gaming, prompting analysts at Merrill Lynch to predict this October that there will be at least 50 new casinos in East Asia by 2012, and that gaming revenues will triple to $44.8 billion.
Singapore, a city-state off the southern tip of the Malaysian peninsula known for its strict ordinances on public speech and moral rectitude, is positioning itself to be on the vanguard of this boom.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has promoted the creation of two massive "integrated resorts," with hotels, shopping, restaurants, theme parks, museums and casinos.
"We cannot stand still," he told parliament in April. "We are at serious risk of being left behind by other cities." Singapore intends to tax those who go to casinos $60 to ensure that the youth and impoverished will not be corrupted. Officials hope to attract a high class of clientele.
If Thailand moves to keep pace with the casino market, Poipet's glory days will soon be gone.
But for now, gambling in Thailand is still illegal, except at racetracks and the state lottery. It is a short day trip from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. And because the casinos are in a no-man's land between the Thai border and the official Cambodian entry point, Thais don't need a visa. Express buses leave just after dawn from downtown Bangkok's Lumpini Park.
"Today, I am supposed to go to church, but I go to casino," says Dala Paleebut as the bus leaves Bangkok. The journey is three hours in air-conditioned comfort. Overdubbed American movies, gory Thai martial arts flicks and bubble-gum pop videos play on the video screens."
I am addicted to gambling," she says with a wide smile, "like drugs, like a man loves a woman." As the bus stops at Aranyaprathet, on the Thai side of the border, she jumps out, dodging the gathering beggars, touts and motorcycles to be first in the long queue of Thais waiting to test their luck.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512070207dec07,1,6120070.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true&coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
POIPET, Cambodia -- The noonday sun does not discriminate. It scorches old men wheeling ragged, homemade carts stacked high with sandals and baskets to market across a bridge at the Thai border.
Korean tourists sweat while waiting in line for Cambodian visas. Young beggars take shelter in the shade, or retreat to the creek beneath the bridge, which runs gray and frothy amid mountains of trash.Yet, as the sun sets and neon signs flicker to life, Poipet comes alive.
This dusty border town, not far from where the remnants of the Khmer Rouge holed up before finally surrendering in 1999, is the new gambling capital of Southeast Asia.It is home to nine glitzy casinos and sprawling high-rise hotels that beckon thousands of Thai and East Asian travelers willing to try their luck at baccarat, blackjack and fighting-cock-themed slot machines.
The casinos, with such names as Tropicana and Golden Crown, are in a roughly quarter-mile-wide special administrative zone between the Thai border and the official entry point to Cambodia.
Star Vegas, the most luxurious of the properties, boasts elegant VIP rooms, a nightclub and an 18-hole golf course. Greens fees are less than $8.
"And no more land mines," assures Adoon Sradindam, a front office manager.
Owned by publicity-shy Thai, Sino-Cambodian, Malaysian and Indonesian investors, the casinos have sprouted like rice in the rainy season, unburdened by national gaming laws or registration.
The oldest, Holiday Poipet, is just six years old. Already, their existence is threatened by the planned $3 billion construction of two mega-casinos in Singapore, which recently repealed its 40-year ban on gambling. Thailand's prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, also has floated the idea of building casinos to bring tourism back to the tsunami-ravaged resorts in the south.
Anti-gambling religious beliefs among Thailand's Buddhists and Singapore's Muslims have long prevented state-sanctioned casinos, but the tide is turning.Gamblers, but on the sly"Thais gamble like everyone else," says Mam, who would not give his full name and once worked in an illegal casino in Bangkok's On Nut neighborhood.
"They just don't like to be seen doing it." Temporarily unemployed, he has come to Cambodia.
At Holiday Poipet, an understated Chinese-themed casino, he plays fantan, a popular table game.People slurp from bowls of noodles as the bored teenage dealer cups dozens of yellow plastic beads in a ceramic rice bowl, then puts the pile on the table. A second dealer divides the beads into groups of four.
Before the parsing, bets are placed on the number that can't be divided into groups of four.
Mam, like the other 20 people at the table, is keeping count of the results, as if a winning pattern might be divined. "I have a system," he said. "In one hour, I won 100,000 baht [about $2,400] at roulette.
"It is a fortune in Poipet, where casino employees regularly earn 4,000 baht (about $95) a month.Though technically within Cambodia, the casinos deal solely in Thai currency. Bets, salaries, winnings and losses are paid in baht, not the Cambodian riel.
Poipet is a notorious border town: dirty, dangerous, and until six years ago, not a good place for an overnight stay. It is on the road from Bangkok to Phnom Penh and Siem Riep, where the jungle temple complex of Angkor Wat draws tens of thousands of visitors annually.
Most Westerners passing through Poipet come from Bangkok to renew tourist visas or are budget backpackers who make the overland journey to Angkor, a cheap but back-wrenching trip. Small Toyota pickups offer transit for $6, an 8-hour ride between Bangkok and Angkor Wat along one of the worst major roads in Asia. The potholes are monstrous.`Armpit' of Cambodia
The border itself is notorious. Numerous Internet discussion boards for travelers warn of beggars, touts and pickpockets who roam the dusty streets. Brothels line the main road out of town toward Cambodia's central plains. The Lonely Planet guidebook, a bible for independent travelers, writes, "If Cambodia were a body, Poipet would be the armpit."
The glitzy gambling palaces are the town's sole economic engines. When the Thai government closed the border in 2003 to protest the attack of its embassy in Phnom Penh by angry Cambodian mobs, daily revenue losses were estimated at roughly $7-10 million
Asian governments are taking note of the flourishing casino industry in Macau, a former Portuguese colony now under Chinese control, where gambling revenues reached $5.1 billion in 2004. According to the American Gaming Association, Las Vegas recorded $5.33 billion in revenue last year.
Regional governments are relaxing similar restrictions on gaming, prompting analysts at Merrill Lynch to predict this October that there will be at least 50 new casinos in East Asia by 2012, and that gaming revenues will triple to $44.8 billion.
Singapore, a city-state off the southern tip of the Malaysian peninsula known for its strict ordinances on public speech and moral rectitude, is positioning itself to be on the vanguard of this boom.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has promoted the creation of two massive "integrated resorts," with hotels, shopping, restaurants, theme parks, museums and casinos.
"We cannot stand still," he told parliament in April. "We are at serious risk of being left behind by other cities." Singapore intends to tax those who go to casinos $60 to ensure that the youth and impoverished will not be corrupted. Officials hope to attract a high class of clientele.
If Thailand moves to keep pace with the casino market, Poipet's glory days will soon be gone.
But for now, gambling in Thailand is still illegal, except at racetracks and the state lottery. It is a short day trip from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. And because the casinos are in a no-man's land between the Thai border and the official Cambodian entry point, Thais don't need a visa. Express buses leave just after dawn from downtown Bangkok's Lumpini Park.
"Today, I am supposed to go to church, but I go to casino," says Dala Paleebut as the bus leaves Bangkok. The journey is three hours in air-conditioned comfort. Overdubbed American movies, gory Thai martial arts flicks and bubble-gum pop videos play on the video screens."
I am addicted to gambling," she says with a wide smile, "like drugs, like a man loves a woman." As the bus stops at Aranyaprathet, on the Thai side of the border, she jumps out, dodging the gathering beggars, touts and motorcycles to be first in the long queue of Thais waiting to test their luck.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512070207dec07,1,6120070.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true&coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
Cambodian PM warns land seizures could spark 'revolution'
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen says land seizures involving government officials, business people and the military are destabilising the country.
He says there will be no tolerating cases of land grabbing.Land seizures in Cambodia have left thousands of poor families destitute and sparked recent unrest.
Hun Sen has warned a revolution could erupt among rural Cambodians if the practice does not cease.
"...it is time to stop before the people lose their patience," he said. "I warn you, a revolution will take place".
At least six villagers were killed in March when they fought their eviction by security forces following a court order handing the land to a village chief in northwest Banteay Meanchey province.
In August, a court dropped charges against more than 120 police, soldiers and others accused of involvement in the eviction.
The Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975-79 destroyed land registries as part of its drive for an agrarian utopia.
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/news/stories/s1526365.htm
He says there will be no tolerating cases of land grabbing.Land seizures in Cambodia have left thousands of poor families destitute and sparked recent unrest.
Hun Sen has warned a revolution could erupt among rural Cambodians if the practice does not cease.
"...it is time to stop before the people lose their patience," he said. "I warn you, a revolution will take place".
At least six villagers were killed in March when they fought their eviction by security forces following a court order handing the land to a village chief in northwest Banteay Meanchey province.
In August, a court dropped charges against more than 120 police, soldiers and others accused of involvement in the eviction.
The Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975-79 destroyed land registries as part of its drive for an agrarian utopia.
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/news/stories/s1526365.htm
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
UN officials due in Cambodia to discuss preparations for Khmer Rouge trials
A team of U.N. officials was set to arrive in Cambodia Tuesday to look into preparations for a tribunal to prosecute surviving leaders of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, a spokeswoman said.
The seven-member U.N. delegation will meet with the government's Khmer Rouge trial team, diplomats and representatives of civil society to discuss logistics and staffing, and look at the condition of the tribunal site, said Anne-Marie Ibanez, the spokeswoman for the team.
The Khmer Rouge was responsible for the death of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution during its four-year dictatorial reign over Cambodia in late 1970s. Its leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998, but several of his top deputies, aging and infirm, still live freely in Cambodia.
The trials _ for genocide and crimes against humanity _ will be carried out under the jurisdiction of the Cambodian court system with help from the international community.
Attempts to open the trials before the remaining leaders die of old age have been hampered by Cambodia's inability to find donors to help finance its US$13.3 million (£á11.4 million) share of the US$43 million (£á36.4 million) tribunal costs.
The U.N. was expected to select foreign judges for the tribunal this week. Cambodia has not yet announced its selection of judges, but once that is done, "we will move along" with the trials, Ibanez said.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/i_latestdetail.asp?id=33267
The seven-member U.N. delegation will meet with the government's Khmer Rouge trial team, diplomats and representatives of civil society to discuss logistics and staffing, and look at the condition of the tribunal site, said Anne-Marie Ibanez, the spokeswoman for the team.
The Khmer Rouge was responsible for the death of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution during its four-year dictatorial reign over Cambodia in late 1970s. Its leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998, but several of his top deputies, aging and infirm, still live freely in Cambodia.
The trials _ for genocide and crimes against humanity _ will be carried out under the jurisdiction of the Cambodian court system with help from the international community.
Attempts to open the trials before the remaining leaders die of old age have been hampered by Cambodia's inability to find donors to help finance its US$13.3 million (£á11.4 million) share of the US$43 million (£á36.4 million) tribunal costs.
The U.N. was expected to select foreign judges for the tribunal this week. Cambodia has not yet announced its selection of judges, but once that is done, "we will move along" with the trials, Ibanez said.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/i_latestdetail.asp?id=33267
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
A Life in the Day: Somaly MamInterview
The 34-year-old Cambodian leads the AFESIP association, which rescues girls and young women from brothels in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. She is separated from her husband and lives near Phnom Penh with her children: Melissa, 14, Adana, 9, and Nicolai, 3
"I wake with the sound of birds at 5. As soon as I open my eyes I think of the things I have to sort out. I have a shower, no breakfast. I get lunch for my children, then spend time on e-mails before setting out at 7. My house isn't far from Phnom Penh, but the drive can last five minutes or half an hour, depending on the rain and the state of the road.
I go first to our shelter where the girls we've rescued live. They can be hard to manage — they want to break everything — but I take them in my arms and we understand each other. In Cambodia, parents sell their children when they're five or six for as little as £60. Girls prostitute themselves for less than £1.
It's what I've been through that gives me the strength to fight back. I don't know who my parents are. As a child I remember being cold all the time. I was abandoned and raped when I was 12. Two years later I was sold off and forced to marry. My husband would get drunk, he beat me and raped me, he'd fire bullets which passed just by my head or my feet. I took the gun and shot him in the foot. I was 15. I didn't want to kill him, just hurt him as he had hurt me. I'm more of a Buddhist now, and I try to be reasonable. But when I see rapists I see red. I'm not perfect.
My husband sold me to a brothel. I had to accept five or six clients a day. Once a client called me and another girl; he said he was with just one other man. In fact, there were 20 of them; they treated us so badly I wanted revenge. I wanted to kill the man who called us. Then I thought his family would suffer, so I left him alone.
People laugh about prostitution being the oldest job in the world, but I've seen so many awful things. Girls are chained up and beaten with electric cables; one had a nail driven into her skull for trying to escape. Another, Thomdi, was sold to a brothel when she was nine. When I saw her in the street she was 17 and sick with Aids and TB. She had lots of abscesses and the people at the hospital insulted her and refused to take her in. So I took her home and washed her.
She started to get better. Then I had to go abroad. She told me she would die without me, but I had to go. I was buying presents for her when I got the call that she had died. I still feel guilty about her death.
Around mid-morning I go to the offices. I'm back on the computer and I check on the girls' health, and how they are doing at their jobs. The association has a staff of 134, including doctors, psychologists and teachers. Since we set it up eight years ago, we've saved over 3,000 girls and found them normal work.
Our job is dangerous. Once this man who ran a brothel put a gun to my temple; he was angry that I'd talked to his girls. He told me I was a bitch, that he was going to kill me. I talked to him — I knew he wouldn't kill me. People with a gun kill you or they don't — they don't pretend.
After, I got him arrested. I don't have bodyguards — I want to be free.
For me, meeting a politician or a donor is much worse than having a gun pointed at me. I didn't go to school, I don't find it easy to talk and behave properly with a bureaucrat. I have to say the truth, which hurts, but if you don't tell the truth, nothing changes.
I'm usually too busy to have lunch, but if I eat something it'll be boiled white rice and fried vegetables. Around 2pm, we hold meetings, we talk about the girls who are ill or have difficulty finding a place in society. And there are always e-mails — I get 200 to 300 a day.
The hardest thing for me to cope with is corruption. I filmed a police raid on a brothel — there was cocaine there. But then in the courts the judge said it wasn't cocaine, it was flour. We once caught a German paedophile on camera, but the courts let him off with a £4,000 fine. He went back to his country. Is that fair?
Last December we rescued 89 women and children in a police raid on a big hotel. But the pimps went to our shelter and grabbed them back. The next day they threatened to come back with grenades. I phoned everyone I could for help, but I was told I'd gone too far — I had bothered powerful people. I make a point of going to see the criminals who threaten me. I have to show them I'm not afraid by talking to them.
I get desperate at times; I tried to commit suicide two or three times. When things are overwhelming, I try to be alone somewhere dark and quiet. I can be bad company; everything makes me angry. I'm separated from my husband and I don't think I'll have another relationship. I'm not young any more; I don't want to make a man unhappy.
One or two nights a week I meet girls in brothels or on the streets. I talk to them and tell them what we could do for them. But usually I go home at 7 to cook for my children. They are in bed by 10, then it's quiet and I go back to my e-mails.
I can be at the computer until 2am.
I don't sleep well. Especially when I have to meet journalists and they ask me about my past.
When I close my eyes I feel raped and dirty. I'm very weak. At night when I don't sleep, I think that right at that moment many children are being raped. The pills I used to take don't work any more. But I can get by with two or three hours' sleep. I don't know what being happy means. But I like seeing the girls smile. That makes me feel good."
The Road to Innocence, by Somaly Mam, will be published by Virago next year.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-1891955,00.html
"I wake with the sound of birds at 5. As soon as I open my eyes I think of the things I have to sort out. I have a shower, no breakfast. I get lunch for my children, then spend time on e-mails before setting out at 7. My house isn't far from Phnom Penh, but the drive can last five minutes or half an hour, depending on the rain and the state of the road.
I go first to our shelter where the girls we've rescued live. They can be hard to manage — they want to break everything — but I take them in my arms and we understand each other. In Cambodia, parents sell their children when they're five or six for as little as £60. Girls prostitute themselves for less than £1.
It's what I've been through that gives me the strength to fight back. I don't know who my parents are. As a child I remember being cold all the time. I was abandoned and raped when I was 12. Two years later I was sold off and forced to marry. My husband would get drunk, he beat me and raped me, he'd fire bullets which passed just by my head or my feet. I took the gun and shot him in the foot. I was 15. I didn't want to kill him, just hurt him as he had hurt me. I'm more of a Buddhist now, and I try to be reasonable. But when I see rapists I see red. I'm not perfect.
My husband sold me to a brothel. I had to accept five or six clients a day. Once a client called me and another girl; he said he was with just one other man. In fact, there were 20 of them; they treated us so badly I wanted revenge. I wanted to kill the man who called us. Then I thought his family would suffer, so I left him alone.
People laugh about prostitution being the oldest job in the world, but I've seen so many awful things. Girls are chained up and beaten with electric cables; one had a nail driven into her skull for trying to escape. Another, Thomdi, was sold to a brothel when she was nine. When I saw her in the street she was 17 and sick with Aids and TB. She had lots of abscesses and the people at the hospital insulted her and refused to take her in. So I took her home and washed her.
She started to get better. Then I had to go abroad. She told me she would die without me, but I had to go. I was buying presents for her when I got the call that she had died. I still feel guilty about her death.
Around mid-morning I go to the offices. I'm back on the computer and I check on the girls' health, and how they are doing at their jobs. The association has a staff of 134, including doctors, psychologists and teachers. Since we set it up eight years ago, we've saved over 3,000 girls and found them normal work.
Our job is dangerous. Once this man who ran a brothel put a gun to my temple; he was angry that I'd talked to his girls. He told me I was a bitch, that he was going to kill me. I talked to him — I knew he wouldn't kill me. People with a gun kill you or they don't — they don't pretend.
After, I got him arrested. I don't have bodyguards — I want to be free.
For me, meeting a politician or a donor is much worse than having a gun pointed at me. I didn't go to school, I don't find it easy to talk and behave properly with a bureaucrat. I have to say the truth, which hurts, but if you don't tell the truth, nothing changes.
I'm usually too busy to have lunch, but if I eat something it'll be boiled white rice and fried vegetables. Around 2pm, we hold meetings, we talk about the girls who are ill or have difficulty finding a place in society. And there are always e-mails — I get 200 to 300 a day.
The hardest thing for me to cope with is corruption. I filmed a police raid on a brothel — there was cocaine there. But then in the courts the judge said it wasn't cocaine, it was flour. We once caught a German paedophile on camera, but the courts let him off with a £4,000 fine. He went back to his country. Is that fair?
Last December we rescued 89 women and children in a police raid on a big hotel. But the pimps went to our shelter and grabbed them back. The next day they threatened to come back with grenades. I phoned everyone I could for help, but I was told I'd gone too far — I had bothered powerful people. I make a point of going to see the criminals who threaten me. I have to show them I'm not afraid by talking to them.
I get desperate at times; I tried to commit suicide two or three times. When things are overwhelming, I try to be alone somewhere dark and quiet. I can be bad company; everything makes me angry. I'm separated from my husband and I don't think I'll have another relationship. I'm not young any more; I don't want to make a man unhappy.
One or two nights a week I meet girls in brothels or on the streets. I talk to them and tell them what we could do for them. But usually I go home at 7 to cook for my children. They are in bed by 10, then it's quiet and I go back to my e-mails.
I can be at the computer until 2am.
I don't sleep well. Especially when I have to meet journalists and they ask me about my past.
When I close my eyes I feel raped and dirty. I'm very weak. At night when I don't sleep, I think that right at that moment many children are being raped. The pills I used to take don't work any more. But I can get by with two or three hours' sleep. I don't know what being happy means. But I like seeing the girls smile. That makes me feel good."
The Road to Innocence, by Somaly Mam, will be published by Virago next year.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-1891955,00.html
Monday, December 05, 2005
Documenting Cambodia's Genocide, Survivor Finds Peace
As the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, Youk Chhang has spent the last ten years cataloguing the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge regime three decades ago.
A survivor of the "killing fields," Chhang lost scores of family members in the genocide. He says he came to his work "to get revenge."
What he found was salvation.
"They say that time heals all wounds," he said. "But time alone can do nothing. You will always have time. To me, research heals. Knowing and understanding what happened has set me free."
An affable man whose eyes stir with emotion, Chhang speaks with precise purpose. He has no problem sharing his own history, which he does because it is part of Cambodia's collective memory.
"I'm no different from everyone else," he said. "Most people here lost a family member in the genocide, and everywhere you look there is a story."
Frayed Documents
Led by dictator Pol Pot, the communist Khmer Rouge regime undertook a radical experiment to create an agrarian utopia in Cambodia. The regime reigned from 1975 to 1979, and its policies were responsible for the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, disease, overwork, and execution.
Yet little has been done to heal the trauma. Only a couple of the old regime leaders have been arrested. A war crimes tribunal is still in the planning stage. On the busy streets of Phnom Penh, not a whisper is heard about the country's darkest days.
But the sordid details can be found inside an anonymous colonial building near Independence Square. This is the home of the documentation center, which this year marks its tenth anniversary since it was founded by Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program.
The filing cabinets in here contain more than a million pages of frayed documents detailing executions, tortures, incarceration orders, forced confessions, and memorandums to and from top Khmer Rouge officials.
"The Khmer Rouge [officials] were meticulous record keepers," said Chhang, sitting in his office on the center's third floor. "They didn't realize that writing everything down would come back to haunt them."
One of the center's goals is to compile and organize the information so that it can serve as potential evidence in court. Its other objective is to simply record and preserve the brutal history of the regime.
"We don't make judgments," Chhang said. "We are only recording who did what to whom, so the puzzle can be put together."
Written documents make up only one part of the archive. The center also houses some 20,000 photos, as well as many films. Staff have conducted more than 20,000 interviews with both victims and perpetrators.
There is also the physical information gathered from more than 19,000 mass graves. During the interview, Chhang said his office had just received word that another mass grave containing 60 bodies had been found. The suspected killer had apparently come back to the grave to loot it for gold.
Selfish Crimes
Most Cambodians are extremely reluctant to talk about the genocide. In classrooms, almost nothing is taught about the Khmer Rouge. Chhang describes one textbook that has a short paragraph on Pol Pot, which says "a lot of people were killed" when the dictator's government was in power.
Chhang lost two sisters and tens of other relatives during the Khmer Rouge era, and he came close to losing his own life.
As a 14-year-old boy working on a communal farm, he was caught picking a vegetable to eat, an act banned by the Khmer Rouge as selfish. Soldiers tortured him in front of his mother.
"She couldn't cry, because that was considered a crime, so she turned around and walked away," he said. "For years I didn't understand how she could do that. Now I know that it saved our lives."
When the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed in 1979, Cambodia's economy was completely shattered, and widespread starvation continued.
Chhang says his mother gave him the equivalent of a dollar and told him to walk to neighboring Thailand. After staying in a Thai refugee camp, Chhang made his way to Dallas, Texas, where he later worked on crime prevention.
He returned to Cambodia in 1992 to begin the work of documenting the atrocities committed during the genocide.
"This work must be done," said Chhang, who still has a big scar on his leg where a guard cut him with an ax. "We can't bring back what we lost. But without legal proceedings, we would give impunity to those who cultivate genocide."
Into Court
Meanwhile, the United Nations war crimes tribunal for Cambodia, similar to those established for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, has been delayed for years. There are concerns that many of those responsible for the atrocities will never set foot in court.
Pol Pot died of a reported heart attack in Cambodia in 1998. Only two major figures from the old regime are in custody. Some believe the current government could even block a tribunal, because many of its officials were themselves members of the Khmer Rouge.
Chhang, however, says the public has benefited a lot just from the debate surrounding the tribunal.
"As long as people stay engaged, everyone benefits," he said.
A survivor of the "killing fields," Chhang lost scores of family members in the genocide. He says he came to his work "to get revenge."
What he found was salvation.
"They say that time heals all wounds," he said. "But time alone can do nothing. You will always have time. To me, research heals. Knowing and understanding what happened has set me free."
An affable man whose eyes stir with emotion, Chhang speaks with precise purpose. He has no problem sharing his own history, which he does because it is part of Cambodia's collective memory.
"I'm no different from everyone else," he said. "Most people here lost a family member in the genocide, and everywhere you look there is a story."
Frayed Documents
Led by dictator Pol Pot, the communist Khmer Rouge regime undertook a radical experiment to create an agrarian utopia in Cambodia. The regime reigned from 1975 to 1979, and its policies were responsible for the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, disease, overwork, and execution.
Yet little has been done to heal the trauma. Only a couple of the old regime leaders have been arrested. A war crimes tribunal is still in the planning stage. On the busy streets of Phnom Penh, not a whisper is heard about the country's darkest days.
But the sordid details can be found inside an anonymous colonial building near Independence Square. This is the home of the documentation center, which this year marks its tenth anniversary since it was founded by Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program.
The filing cabinets in here contain more than a million pages of frayed documents detailing executions, tortures, incarceration orders, forced confessions, and memorandums to and from top Khmer Rouge officials.
"The Khmer Rouge [officials] were meticulous record keepers," said Chhang, sitting in his office on the center's third floor. "They didn't realize that writing everything down would come back to haunt them."
One of the center's goals is to compile and organize the information so that it can serve as potential evidence in court. Its other objective is to simply record and preserve the brutal history of the regime.
"We don't make judgments," Chhang said. "We are only recording who did what to whom, so the puzzle can be put together."
Written documents make up only one part of the archive. The center also houses some 20,000 photos, as well as many films. Staff have conducted more than 20,000 interviews with both victims and perpetrators.
There is also the physical information gathered from more than 19,000 mass graves. During the interview, Chhang said his office had just received word that another mass grave containing 60 bodies had been found. The suspected killer had apparently come back to the grave to loot it for gold.
Selfish Crimes
Most Cambodians are extremely reluctant to talk about the genocide. In classrooms, almost nothing is taught about the Khmer Rouge. Chhang describes one textbook that has a short paragraph on Pol Pot, which says "a lot of people were killed" when the dictator's government was in power.
Chhang lost two sisters and tens of other relatives during the Khmer Rouge era, and he came close to losing his own life.
As a 14-year-old boy working on a communal farm, he was caught picking a vegetable to eat, an act banned by the Khmer Rouge as selfish. Soldiers tortured him in front of his mother.
"She couldn't cry, because that was considered a crime, so she turned around and walked away," he said. "For years I didn't understand how she could do that. Now I know that it saved our lives."
When the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed in 1979, Cambodia's economy was completely shattered, and widespread starvation continued.
Chhang says his mother gave him the equivalent of a dollar and told him to walk to neighboring Thailand. After staying in a Thai refugee camp, Chhang made his way to Dallas, Texas, where he later worked on crime prevention.
He returned to Cambodia in 1992 to begin the work of documenting the atrocities committed during the genocide.
"This work must be done," said Chhang, who still has a big scar on his leg where a guard cut him with an ax. "We can't bring back what we lost. But without legal proceedings, we would give impunity to those who cultivate genocide."
Into Court
Meanwhile, the United Nations war crimes tribunal for Cambodia, similar to those established for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, has been delayed for years. There are concerns that many of those responsible for the atrocities will never set foot in court.
Pol Pot died of a reported heart attack in Cambodia in 1998. Only two major figures from the old regime are in custody. Some believe the current government could even block a tribunal, because many of its officials were themselves members of the Khmer Rouge.
Chhang, however, says the public has benefited a lot just from the debate surrounding the tribunal.
"As long as people stay engaged, everyone benefits," he said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)