"If the US gives us the equipment, we are happy. And if they won't give it to us, it is also good": Khieu Kanharith

Cambodia shrugs at US punishment over Uighurs

04/02/2010
Agence France-Presse

PHNOM PENH--The Cambodian government on Friday said it was untroubled by a US refusal to send military aid to the Southeast Asian nation as punishment for its deportation of 20 Chinese Uighurs.

The US stopped a shipment of 200 military trucks and trailers on Thursday in response to Phnom Penh's controversial December deportation of the ethnic Uighur asylum seekers to China, where they said they would face torture.

Nations and rights groups deplored Cambodia's move to expel the Uighurs, who had been labelled "criminals" by Beijing after fleeing China's far western Xinjiang region following violent clashes with the majority Han.

Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said his country was not concerned by the cancelled donation of surplus US military supplies, part of an American aid programme.

"If the US gives us the equipment, we are happy. And if they won't give it to us, it is also good," he told AFP.

"There will be no effect to our military work," the spokesman added, saying that the UN refugee agency had been too slow in assessing the Uighurs' claim to refugee status.

The decision to deport the Uighurs came a day ahead of a visit by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, during which he agreed 1.2 billion dollars in aid and loans to Cambodia with Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Clashes between Xinjiang's Uighurs and China's majority Han ethnic group in July left nearly 200 dead and 1,600 injured, according to official tolls.

The US State Department in its last annual human rights report said that China was stepping up cultural and political repression against Uighurs in Xinjiang.

READ MORE - "If the US gives us the equipment, we are happy. And if they won't give it to us, it is also good": Khieu Kanharith

Cambodia bristles at US aid cut over deportations

Friday, April 02, 2010
AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia bristled Friday at a U.S. decision to cut a small military aid program to protest the December deportation of Muslim asylum seekers to China, saying if they deserved protection the United States could have offered it.

The United States announced Thursday it had suspended the program that supplied surplus trucks and trailers. It was a response to Cambodia's deportation of the 20 Uighurs who had fled ethnic violence last year in China's far west. China accused the Uighurs of involvement in the violence.

The suspension involves about 200 vehicles supplied directly to the Cambodian military and does not affect the roughly $60 million civilian aid program to Cambodia, said U.S. Embassy spokesman John Johnson.

In statements to the U.N. refugee agency, the Uighurs said they witnessed and documented the July rioting in the Xinjiang region between their minority group and majority Han Chinese and that they feared lengthy imprisonment or even the death penalty if they were returned to China. It was China's worst ethnic violence in decades.

"These Uighurs were not real political asylum seekers," said Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith. "If they were real political asylum seekers, the United States could have granted them asylum in the U.S."

"We're happy if the United States provides us with aid, but it's their right to suspend it," he said.

China had called the group criminals and presented Cambodia with arrest warrants, the spokesman said. Cambodia said it deported the group because they had entered the country illegally.

"Cambodia couldn't refuse the request from China to deport them, because China sent us arrest warrants," Khieu Kanharith said.

China is key ally and donor to impoverished Cambodia.

Days after the deportations, China announced a $1.2 billion aid package to Cambodia. China has denied the aid was linked to politics saying it came with "no strings attached."

The group of Uighurs had made the journey from China's far west through to Vietnam and then Cambodia with the help of a network of missionary groups.

The U.S., the U.N. and several rights groups had urged Cambodia not to deport the group. Following the deportations, the U.S. said it was "deeply disturbed" and that the incident would affect Cambodia's relationship with the United States.

China has not revealed the fate of the deportees.

Overseas activist groups say Uighurs in China have been rounded up in mass detentions since the summer's violence that killed about 200 people in Xinjiang. Almost 200 people have been tried and several dozen death sentences have been handed down, although authorities haven't said how many people have been executed.

READ MORE - Cambodia bristles at US aid cut over deportations

A History Tour of Phnom Penh's Buildings

http://www.forbes.com/

via CAAI News Media

Ron Gluckman, 04.02.10

Forbes Asia Magazine dated April 12, 2010

Phnom Penh is one of Asia's most architecturally intact cities.

Tourism and investment are booming in Phnom Penh, and the Cambodian capital's rich architectural heritage is a big draw. It seems like a city from 50 years ago, the result of the Khmer Rouge taking Cambodia back to Year Zero. The eerie sense of a bygone Asia is a perfect backdrop for the boutiques, galleries and restaurants springing up by the score in the historic mansions. But development inevitably brings demolition. "Every day something seems lost," says Alexis de Suremain, who runs hotels in several historic estates and Chinese House, in the city's oldest Chinese shophouse.

Help could come from Asian Heritage Properties, a fund open to large investors that aims to buy key heritage buildings, restore and rent them out. "Call it social capitalism," says Patrick Davenport, who plans to launch the fund with Douglas Clayton, who runs Leopard Capital, Cambodia's largest investment fund. "It's sad to see Phnom Penh repeat all the same mistakes of the rest of Asia," he says. "But there is still time to try a different approach."

RIGHT:This tower-topped structure often stops traffic along the busy intersection of Street 108 and Norodom Boulevard. One of Phnom Penh's oldest buildings, it claims numerous features that are not found anywhere else in the city. Historic preservation groups such as Heritage Watch put it high on the list of municipal architectural treasures that runs to hundreds of buildings.

LEFT: Largely the residence of squatters and ghosts in recent years, this ornate, early 1900s estate has been a favorite of filmmakers chronicling the war era; bullet and mortar holes are still visible. Often threatened with demolition, it was recently acquired by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Cambodia, which runs a restaurant and bar in a renovated colonial structure nearby. The fcc plans a boutique hotel; guests will have views of the National Museum and the fairy-tale Royal Palace.

READ MORE - A History Tour of Phnom Penh's Buildings

Cambodia shrugs off U.S. halting shipments of military trucks

April 02, 2010
Source: Xinhua

Cambodia shrugged off U.S. suspended shipments of 200 military trucks over retaliation of Cambodia's deportation of Chinese asylum seekers last year.

Koy Kong, spokesman for Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said that Cambodia has her full sovereignty to implement its policy in deporting the illegal 20 Chinese Uighur asylum seekers back to China in December last year.

"It is the rights of U.S. government to either donate or suspend such assistance. Cambodia is implementing its own policy and laws within the frameworks of full sovereignty," Koy Kong told Xinhua.

"That means U.S. can implement their policy and we can implement ours."

Foreign media quoting United States Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the United States informed Cambodia last month that it was suspending the shipment of 200 military trucks and trailers as a consequence of Cambodia's December decision on the illegal Chinese Uighur asylum seekers.

READ MORE - Cambodia shrugs off U.S. halting shipments of military trucks

TRAVEL NOTES

The figure of a young Khmer girl carved in stone at the Cambodian temple of Angkor Wat.

AP / DAVID LONGSTREATH

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Floods, then drought, did in Angkor

The Warwick Mall will rise again; Angkor Wat wasn’t so lucky.

It turns out that flooding rain, intersperced with decades-long drought, conspired to topple the historic city of Angkor, researchers from the U.S., Australia, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam have reported. They studied the ring patterns of millennia-old trees found the Khmer empire’s former capital and found they were subjected to water and food supply-depleting weather events, leaving the city vulnerable to interrelated infrastructural, economic and geopolitical pressures in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The finding, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sheds new light on the mystery surrounding Angkor’s demise in 1431. Spanning about 400 square kilometers (98,842 acres) in southwestern Cambodia, Angkor is South-East Asia’s most important archaeological site, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which listed it as a World Heritage site in 1992.

The analysis showed several abrupt reversals from drought to very intense monsoons during the late 14th and early 15th centuries.

Vatican artifacts stopping in St. Louis

The Missouri History Museum in St. Louis will be the only Midwestern stop in a traveling exhibition of rarely seen art and artifacts from the Vatican.

“Vatican Splendors: A Journey through Faith and Art” opens May 15. The exhibition is one of the largest collections of Vatican art, documents and historically significant objects ever to tour North America. Some of the items have never left the Vatican.

Highlights include artwork, personal objects and tools of Michelangelo; frescoes and mosaics; artwork dating to the third century; and bone fragments and other relics of saints.

Tickets go on sale April 19. Details: mohistory.org/home/.

Tracking college friends online

Want to keep track of your friends on spring break or any other time of year? A new Web site started by college students aims to make it easier.

With Gtrot — gtrot.com/ — you can use Facebook to check out where your friends are headed and broadcast your own travel plans. Gtrot also links with travel booking sites like Kayak.com to help you hop onto your friend’s flight. And through Gtrot, you can see a map of where your friends have been, to pick up tips on a city you might be planning to tour.

Of course, your friends have to be registered on Gtrot and Facebook for all this to happen. But if you’re a college student heading to Cancun or Panama City, Fla., chances are they’re on Facebook already. Gtrot just takes things one step further, said Zachary Smith, one of the site’s young co-founders.

“Being college students ourselves, we saw the need for a more integrative kind of travel experience,” said Smith. “We’re the target audience.”

He noted that any highly mobile person on Facebook will find Gtrot handy, even if it’s just to share a cab to the airport.

“Especially during major academic holidays, when thousands of students leave the same campus for similar destinations, our cab- and ride-sharing tools will help travelers save money and reduce the environmental impact of their trips,” said Robert Corty, another Gtrot co-founder, in a press release.

Moving artwork on Disney cruise ship

The walls and floors will come alive on Disney’s latest cruise ship.

More than 20 pieces of moving artwork will line the decks of the Dream, which launches early next year, while two interactive floors will keep kids on their feet in the ship’s youth areas.

The new interactive experiences were unveiled during a recent press demonstration at the headquarters of Walt Disney Imagineering, the company’s creative design team.

The 22 pieces of “enchanted art” will be showcased on LCD screens encased in glass and surrounded by a frame housing speakers and a camera that can detect when a cruiser is in front of it. For example, if a passenger is looking at a photo of Walt Disney on the beach in Rio de Janeiro, the characters from “The Three Caballeros” may zip through the landscape.

In the ship’s youth areas, children will be encouraged to step, jump and pound on two interactive floors featuring games with characters from such Disney films as “Bolt,” “Tron” and “Princess and the Frog.” Glowing pads around the floor’s perimeter are used to detect weight and control what happens on 16 screens planted within the interactive floor surface.

READ MORE - TRAVEL NOTES

SRP officials storm out of city workshop

Animated CPP Mann Chhoeun (R) (Photo: John Vink/Magnum)

Thursday, 01 April 2010
Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post

DOZENS of Sam Rainsy Party district councillors stormed out of a workshop at City Hall on Wednesday in response to what they perceived as attacks on their party’s leadership, then staged a press conference at which they called for Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Mann Chhoeun to be removed from his post.

The workshop, which was convened to cover the effective use of city data books, descended into partisan rancour after Mann Chhoeun accused “opposition lawmakers” of groundlessly blaming municipal officials for the eviction of poor residents of Phnom Penh to the capital’s outskirts.

SRP district councillors at the event said afterwards it was clear that Mann Chhoeun had been referring to their party, and also that the deputy governor said he had wanted to knock out their teeth.

“I have always heard Mr Mann Chhoeun attack the opposition party. He did not say the specific party name, but he was focusing on the SRP,” Thach Khunsarin, a Meanchey district councillor, said at the press conference staged at party headquarters following the walkout.

“We would like to request that the government remove Mr Mann Chhoeun from his post as Phnom Penh deputy governor.”

SRP lawmaker Ho Vann also said he believed Mann Chhoeun’s behaviour was evidence that he is unfit for his role.

“What we heard from Mann Chhoeun today was impolite. He is not suitable to be a leader. Beating us until our teeth fall out – is he suitable to be deputy governor? He is not a politician, and this is not a time to propagandise,” he said.

Reached Wednesday afternoon, Mann Chhoeun denied the allegations levelled against him by the SRP district councillors.

form : ki-media.blogspot.com

“I just called on them to learn on behalf of the authorities. Some of them did not want to work but attacked instead. Then they walked out. This shows that they do not have good manners, that they are impolite people,” Mann Chhoeun said.

READ MORE - SRP officials storm out of city workshop

Join the audience in the trial opposing Sam Rainsy to Hor 5 Hong

VENEZ AUJOURD'HUI ASSISTER AU PROCES OPPOSANT HOR NAM HONG A SAM RAINSY A PARIS

Ce jeudi 25 mars, à partir de 13 heures, venez nombreux assiter à l'audience de la Cour d'Appel de Paris (Chambre de la Presse) où Sam Rainsy sera confronté avec Hor Nam Hong dans un procès en diffamation intenté par le deuxième contre le premier. Il faut aider la vérité à triompher pour que justice puisse être rendue un jour au peuple cambodgien victime du génocide khmer rouge de 1975 à 1979.

Rendez-vous AUJOURD'HUI, dans la solidarité et la dignité, au Palais de Justice, Ile de la Cité.
Paris 1er - Métro Saint Michel

----------

Join the audience in the trial opposing Sam Rainsy to Hor 5 Hong

Today, Thursday 25 March, starting from 1PM, come in large number to join the audience at the Paris Appeal Court (Chambre de la Presse) where Sam Rainsy will be confronted by Hor 5 Hong in a defamation lawsuit brought by the latter against Sam Rainsy. The truth shall prevail so that justice can, one day, be rendered to the Cambodian people who were victimized by the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge genocide.

See you Today in solidarity and dignity at the Palais de Justice, Ile de la Cité, Paris 1er, Metro Saint Michel.

READ MORE - Join the audience in the trial opposing Sam Rainsy to Hor 5 Hong

Son of 2-star general Chea Morn arrested … for robbery

2-star General Chea Morn (L) (Photo: Reuters)

26 March 2010
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Siem Reap provincial authority indicated that Chea Sophal, the son of General Chea Morn, the commander of the army region 4, was arrested by military police on 24 March and sent to the court for sentencing. An anonymous source from the Siem Reap military police indicated that the arrest is related to a robbery that took place 5 years ago in Chong Kaosou village, Slor Kram commune, Siem Reap city. The same source said that he does not know the cause of the robbery, but Chea Sophal was sentenced in absentia to 5 years of jail time for robbery. The source indicated that, following the sentence, Chea Sophal appeal the court decision. On 24 March, Judge Ith Samphos held another trial and in the afternoon of that same day, the judge decided to sentence Chea Sophal to 6-1/2 years of jail time for robbery and illegal use of firearms.

READ MORE - Son of 2-star general Chea Morn arrested … for robbery

hea Dara unfit to be a general of Cambodia?

Chea Dara's wild and baseless claim against Cambodia's opposition party is unbecoming of a RCAF general (Photo: AFP)

Border dispute fomented by groups opposing the Khmer and Thai governments (sic!): Chea Dara

24 March 2010
By Tin Zakariya
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer

A high-ranking RCAF officer, who is currently in charge of the Preah Vihear temple area, accused Cambodia’s opposition and Thailand’s opposition of fomenting the border dispute in Preah Vihear temple that is dragging for more than one year now.

This declaration was made by Chea Dara, the commander of the RCAF zone 4, during a presentation given at the Council of Ministers on border defense by the RCAF on 24 March 2010.

4-golden star General Chea Dara, the RCAF deputy commander-in-chief in charge of the Preah Vihear temple area, said that is was the opposition group to the Cambodian government that fomented problems involving the border dispute in Preah Vihear temple and that this situation lasts until now (sic!).

Chea Dara said: “The CPP resolved several problems and it was successful. Right now, the Cambodian opposition to the CPP, in addition to the Thai group that opposes Cambodia, they push for a handing of the sword to the Thai opposition. Because the Cambodian opposition cannot win the election over the CPP, that’s why they dream this up….”

Yim Sovann, SRP spokesman, issued an immediate reaction, saying that the SRP does not owe anything to any foreign country, and the SRP does not cooperate with any country to destroy its own country.

Yim Sovann claimed: “We never gave our land to the foreigners, and we never asked for help from any foreign countries, nor do we owe any country. Therefore, we are not getting ourselves involved with any country to destroy Cambodia by giving our land to the foreigner, we never want to do something like that. What we are doing daily is to protect our territories.”

UNESCO decided to list Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage site at the beginning of July 2008, then on 15 July 2008, several hundred of Thai black-clad soldiers invaded a Cambodian pagoda located near Preah Vihear temple and this led to a confrontation between the Cambodian and Thai armies that lasted until now.

Dr. Hang Puthea, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), indicated that the army is a neutral institution, i.e. it must not serve any political party.

Hang Puthea said: “The army is a neutral institution for Cambodia, it does not belong to any political party. However, when an official or a [government] employee uses a forum or his position to serve a political party, I think that this could be a problem.”

Yim Sovan also indicated that the opposition MPs never betray the nation, quite to the contrary, the opposition party protects our lands from the border aggression both along the east and west borders. He also asked that high-ranking RCAF officer not be involved in political issues.

READ MORE - hea Dara unfit to be a general of Cambodia?

Montrey Vay Tob - "The beating officials": A Poem in Khmer by Srey Sra'Em

READ MORE - Montrey Vay Tob - "The beating officials": A Poem in Khmer by Srey Sra'Em