By Sebastian Strangio

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, August 10, 2010

An Thai woman holds a portrait of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej during a Yellow Shirt rally in Bangkok. (Photo: AFP)

YESTERDAY, Thai media reported that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and nationalist Yellow Shirt leaders had reached a “common position” on the 4.6-square kilometre disputed area adjacent to Preah Vihear temple. In a televised debate with the so-called Thai Patriots Network, a fringe group dominated by the yellow-shirted People’s Alliance for Democracy, Abhisit agreed that the disputed area belonged to Thailand, and that Cambodians had “encroached” on Thai land.

During Sunday’s debate, Veera Somkwamkid, leader of the network, called on the government to revoke the memorandum of understanding on border demarcation that Thailand signed with Cambodia in 2000. A day earlier, The Nation newspaper reported, Abhisit told a rally of Yellow Shirts that he would be willing to trash the MoU and openly considered using “military means” in order to safeguard Thai sovereignty.

At the debate, however, he softened his stance, saying that preserving the MoU was in Thailand’s best interests, and that military force was a “last option”.

The fact that Abhisit eventually backed away from the confrontational stance advocated by the Thai Patriots gives little reason to hope for a solution to the border dispute that has captivated the two countries since July 2008, when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation listed Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site. Indeed, the Thai leader’s prevarications encapsulate Bangkok’s peculiar bind: how to pursue a rational solution to the border dispute while contending with the demands of the PAD demagogues who swept the government to power in 2008.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, said that after using “irrational nationalism” and mass Yellow Shirt protests to unseat former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his proxies, the government was experiencing great difficulty putting the yellow genie back in the bottle. As a result, he said, Abhisit has “lost legitimacy to deal with the [temple] issue without any political implication”.

“For Thailand, the danger lies in the fact that the Yellow Shirts, taking the same position adopted by the government, can aggravate the situation,” Pavin said. “How will Abhisit make sure that nationalism can be used at the appropriate dose?”

No end in sight

Following another round of sparring over Preah Vihear at the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in Brazil earlier this month, a solution to the temple dispute appears as remote as it did two years ago. With the Thai government now struggling to appease its own nationalist support base, analysts predict that the temple issue will continue to sour relations between Phnom Penh and Bangkok as long as the Thai crisis continues – that is, for the foreseeable future.

Puangthong Pawakapan, a specialist in Thai-Cambodian relations at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said that even a handover of power at next year’s Thai elections could be stymied by continuing Yellow Shirt “misinformation” about the Preah Vihear issue. Given that the temple issue was used by the PAD to force the resignation of former foreign minister Noppadon Pattama in 2008, she said, Thai governments of all complexions will be wary of giving ground. “This implies”, she added, “that even in the next election when the pro-Thaksin party might become a government, they will not dare to be friendly … with Cambodia.”

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By May Titthara & Sebastian Strangio

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, July 27, 2010

KAMPONG THOM PROVINCE–IN the cafes of Stoung district, yesterday’s verdict in the case of Kaing Guek Eev, alias Duch, proved a hard sell. At one cavernous establishment on National Road 6, a broadcast of the proceedings vied for attention with a cheaply made Chinese action film. As soon as the music swelled and the credits began to roll, the mostly young crowd thinned, leaving a handful of elderly patrons to watch the Khmer Rouge tribunal on a second small screen in the back. And by the time the wiry Tuol Sleng commandant stood to attention and the verdict was read out, the room was empty save for two waitresses, who ferried away empty plates and glasses.

Interest was greater, though, in nearby Chaoyot village, especially among those who knew the prison chief when he was a schoolboy. Although most village elders did not watch the verdict – choosing instead to attend ceremonies marking Buddhist lent at Svay Romeat pagoda, where Duch studied as a child – the outcome provoked spirited discussion. Among one group of old women, dressed in flowing black gowns and white blouses, reactions to the verdict ranged from cold anger to forgiveness to pity for the convicted jailer.

Hi Hor, 72, who has lived in Duch’s village since she was born, said she was livid at the length of the sentence, which she said did not match the crimes he committed. “I will kill him and eat his meat if I meet him,” she said as she sat on a woven mat in the pagoda’s flag-draped dining hall. “The court should have sentenced him to his whole life in prison.”

At Kdey Doeum pagoda, located close to Chaoyot, village elders also gathered to mark the three-month lenten period, sitting on the floor of a half-constructed dining hall on the temple grounds. Pich Doeun, a 73-year-old layman, described his own experience under Democratic Kampuchea, when he was sent to a remote part of Stoung district to toil in communal rice paddies and construct irrigation dams. When asked if the verdict against Duch was fair, Pich Doeun expressed ambivalence. On one hand, 30 years was a just sentence, he said, but part of him wanted to see Duch executed and cremated, his bones placed in a stupa and never again removed. “I survived until today because of fate,” he said. “From my point of view, the court should kill him and bring his bones back and lock them up.”

Others, however, were able to separate their anger with the Khmer Rouge from their positive memories of the young Duch. “Even though I was tortured and did not get enough food to eat during that time, I pardon him. Everything passed over 30 years ago,” said 71-year-old Chhum Oeun, sitting at Svay Romeat pagoda.

Despite the evidence presented against him at trial, she said she would always remember Duch as “good and intelligent”, not the cruel ideologue convicted of overseeing the deaths of as many as 16,000 people at Tuol Sleng. Some of Duch’s relatives, too, said they did not view Duch as a monster, and condemned the court for a sentence they said was too strict. “I really pity my nephew,” said one 71-year-old who claimed to be Duch’s aunt, and who gave her name only as Tob. “The court should have charged him for a shorter time because he is too old, and let him live together with his family in his old age. “I don’t know what happened to him to make him become a Khmer Rouge during that time because his parents were good people,” she added.

A few hundred metres down the muddy village road, Brak Chlam, 67, one of Duch’s cousins, said he hoped to see the prison chief again. “I don’t care about the court charging him. What I care about is his life – I want to see him survive,” he said. Brak Chlam said he planned to visit Duch in prison if he could find the money. “I always see his face on TV. I want to see his real face,” he said. “I was so happy when I got news that he survived, because I wanted him to survive. I don’t know what he did in Phnom Penh. I only know that he was a good and intelligent boy.”

While the verdict divided opinion among those old enough to have detailed memories of the regime, younger observers seemed more or less indifferent to the verdict handed down yesterday. At another roadside cafe, the patrons were focused instead on playing chequers and watching kickboxing. Meas Rith, 41, who sat among a group of men watching the fight, said he had not been following the tribunal closely, but that he did not think it fair that Duch could potentially die in prison.

“The court should have sentenced him to about 10 years to give him some chance to spend time in the pagoda in his old age,” he said, before turning his attention back to the television. A cry went up as the two combatants pummelled each other onscreen.

“The people in the rural areas are not as interested about what has happened in the past as people in the city,” said Chai Lign, the owner of the café. The sinewy 29-year-old said he had heard of Duch but knew little of life under the Khmer Rouge, and that many his age were the same way. “They don’t want to know about the pain,” he said. “Some people don’t even know Duch’s face, what he looks like.”

By Sebastian Strangio & May Titthara

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, July 26, 2010

KAMPONG THOM PROVINCE–THESE days, life in Chaoyot village, a collection of stilt houses nestled along the banks of the Stoung river, proceeds in much the same way it did 68 years ago, when Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, was born to parents of Khmer-Chinese extraction. It was here, in a small concrete home shaded by bamboo groves and mango trees, that Duch spent his childhood years, cycling each day the short distance to the local primary school.

The rustling palms and rutted village track are worlds away from Tuol Sleng, or S-21, the secret Khmer Rouge facility that Duch moulded into an efficient machine of interrogation, torture and death. As head of the prison, Duch is thought to have overseen the torture and killing of as many as 16,000 people, creating a nihilistic whirlwind from which only 14 or so emerged alive.

Kong Suon, 85, the oldest resident of Chaoyot village, was enraged when Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, asked to be set free. (Photo: Sebastian Strangio)

As the Khmer Rouge tribunal prepares to deliver its verdict against the 68-year old today – perhaps the only one it will ever issue – the proceedings have not gone unnoticed in Chaoyot. But the desire to see justice served means different things to different residents; whereas some are unsure how to relate Duch’s crimes to the abuses they personally endured during the regime, others seem to feel their effects acutely.

More than six decades since his birth, Duch has left only a faint trace in Chaoyot. His neat family home, currently occupied by his nephew Kim Luon, still stands, surrounded by a well-tended yard that abuts the road. Dy Thy, 63, one of Duch’s old neighbours, said she heard nothing from him during the 1975-1979 rule of the Khmer Rouge, and that she found it hard to square the quiet young student she remembers with the horrors of Tuol Sleng.

“I supposed that the Khmer Rouge were people from abroad,” she said. “I didn’t know they were Cambodian people – especially not a person born in this village.”

An exceptional student

Duch lived in Chaoyot until about the age of 14. Residents recall that from his earliest years, the boy who went by the nickname “Kiev” stood out as an exceptional student. Sem Thuon, now 69, regularly shared a table with Duch at Wat Svay Romeat primary school between the first and third grades. “I always copied from him during the exams, and he allowed me to copy,” she said. “I never thought that he would become a strong Khmer Rouge leader.”

In many ways, however, Duch’s intellectual journey epitomised that of the Cambodian communist movement. Like other regime leaders, he was a beneficiary of the sweeping educational reforms Prince Norodom Sihanouk introduced in the late 1950s. Intended to modernise the country and expand opportunities in the countryside, the reforms instead created a class of educated but underemployed young men and women who helped pry apart the country’s centuries-old system of patronage. As the 1960s wore on, Sihanouk – the God-King himself – came under stronger attack from the growing ranks of the left.

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As Cambodia and the United States celebrate six decades of diplomatic ties, the Post looks back at a  relationship that has moved from alliance to alienation and back

By Sebastian Strangio & Neth Pheaktra

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, July 16, 2010

Prince Norodom Sihanouk and his wife Monique fete Jacqueline Kennedy at Chamkarmon Palace during her visit to Cambodia in November 1967. (Photo: Private collection of Ambassador Julio A. Jeldres)

WHEN the United States and Cambodia celebrate six decades of diplomatic ties next week, they will look back on a relationship that has seen its fair share of ups and downs. Launched at the beginning of the cold war in 1950, the relationship has been fraught with ideological passions, experiencing periods of intimacy, violent disagreement and chilly silence.

It remains young: Less than two decades have passed since diplomatic ties were re-established at the end of the cold war, and barely 10 years since the end of the ensuing civil war. For 20 years out of 60, there was little or no relationship at all. Observers and officials from both countries, however, say the current bond – which they describe as built on solid foundations and enduring mutual interests – anticipates a long-term US presence in Cambodia.

Koy Kuong, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said this week that since the re-establishment of relations in November 1991, the two countries had rebuilt strong political, commercial and military ties. “Our diplomatic relations are developing, and we hope that after the 60th anniversary, Cambodia-USA relations will progress again,” he said.

The administration of US President Barack Obama has identified Southeast Asia as a focal point of a foreign policy that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a speech last year, described as “neither impulsive nor ideological”. Instead, that policy was geared towards creating “dynamic and productive partnerships that can address both the challenge and the promise of this new century”.

US Ambassador Carol Rodley said last week that since 1950, Phnom Penh and Washington have oscillated between close cooperation and periods in which they “were seriously at odds” with each other. “For some significant amount of time”, she said, “we looked past each other or we saw each other through lenses that confused rather than clarified the picture for both sides.”

Rodley, who first served in Cambodia as US deputy head of mission between 1997 and 2000, said that “dramatic” changes during her first posting, including the end of the decade-long civil war and Cambodia’s entry into ASEAN, had fostered a more lasting relationship. “We’ve come to a more mature relationship and a more mature understanding of each other, which I think is a good thing,” she said.

Past troubles

At the time Ambassador Donald Heath, a career foreign serviceman, presented his credentials to then-King Norodom Sihanouk on July 11, 1950, US policymakers saw Cambodia as both a potential ally and a potential threat. A bastion of Western influence, the country – like the remaining French territories in Indochina – was also seen as a domino teetering on the edge of a red abyss. Sihanouk, who skillfully courted all sides of the growing Indochina conflagration from 1955 until his overthrow 15 years later, was perhaps the prime embodiment of this relationship. In the mid-1960s, he broke off and then restored diplomatic relations with the US as part of his delicate dance between the cold war superpowers.

On March 18, 1970, it became clear, however, that Sihanouk had overplayed his hand. Amid increasing anger over what many viewed as the prince’s tacit approval of Vietcong encroachments into Cambodian territory, he was overthrown by a US-supported general and close adviser, Lon Nol, in a right-wing coup d’etat. For the next five years US-Cambodia relations during the Cold War era reached their high-water mark.

This period of cooperation was premised on a relationship of patronage with the US government, which provided military, economic and political support to the government. But this relationship also came at a steep price. As it poured military and economic aid into the country in a bid to stave off a communist victory, the US also executed a bombing campaign that some historians say aided the Khmer Rouge in their rise from a ragtag jungle insurgency to the country’s iron-fisted rulers.

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By Sebastian Strangio

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, July 7, 2010

RCAF Soldier Noun Sarun, 21, rests at the top of the stairs to Preah Vihear temple on July 6. (Photo: Heng Chivoan)

THOUSANDS are expected to turn out for a celebration at Preah Vihear temple today marking the two-year anniversary of its listing as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The July 2008 listing of the 11th-century Angkorian temple, the ownership of which has long been a point of contention between Cambodia and Thailand, sent bilateral relations into a tailspin from which they have barely recovered.

In Thailand, Foreign Minister Nappadon Pattama was forced to resign after the Thai constitutional court ruled he had acted illegally in supporting Cambodia’s bid. The ensuing spat – kept constantly tense by a series of small-scale border clashes – hit a new low in November last year, when Cambodia announced it had appointed Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as a government adviser. Thailand immediately withdrew its ambassador in protest, prompting Cambodia to return the favour.

Relations have remained at a stalemate so far this year. Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said yesterday that any decision to improve diplomatic relations would have to come from Thailand. “It is up to the Thai side. If the Thais want to upgrade [the relationship], they have to declare first that they are sending back their ambassador,” he said. He pledged that if Thailand were to dispatch its envoy, Cambodia would reciprocate within 15 minutes “at most”.

Cambodia’s handover on Monday of two Red Shirt activists suspected of involvement in an attempted bombing in Bangkok has prompted some observers to speculate that ties might be on the mend. On Monday, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva thanked Cambodia for the handover, and said he hoped the move would pave the way for closer collaboration between the two governments.

Springtime for Abhisit

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, said the deportation was the most recent demonstration of a thaw in relations that began at a Mekong River Commission summit in April. The change had been marked, he said, by a moderation in Prime Minister Hun Sen’s provocative stance towards the Abhisit government, as well as a recognition that Abhisit had consolidated his position since antigovernment Red Shirt protests were violently dispersed in May.

“It doesn’t seem that the Bangkok elite in the Democratic Party will give up power easily,” Pavin said. “Hun Sen must have realised that it’s no good for his long-term interests if he does not change his stance on the current government.”

According to one line of thinking, Bangkok took Hun Sen’s pro-Thaksin stance a little too seriously: their political relationship, which led relations to a new low last year, was purely pragmatic – and therefore subject to change. “It was partly a domestic political game, and partly just a way of having fun at Thailand’s expense,” said Duncan McCargo, a Southeast Asia expert based at the University of Leeds. “The history of relations between Thaksin and the CPP elite suggests that this is a very pragmatic relationship, rather than the robust and threatening alliance imagined by the Democrat Party.”

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By Cheang Sokha & Sebastian Strangio

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, July 6, 2010

CAMBODIA has deported two anti-government Red Shirt activists to Thailand, where they are accused of involvement in an attempted bomb attack in Bangkok last month. Kobchai Boonplod and Varisareeya Boonsom, both 42, were handed over to Thai officials at Phnom Penh International Airport yesterday, a move Long Visalo, secretary of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said symbolised Cambodia’s commitment to fighting “terrorist” acts.

“In the spirit of combating terrorism everywhere, we arrested the two people because they committed terrorist acts in your country and are handing them over to you now,” he told Suwat Kaewsook, charge d’affairs at the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh. “Our principle is to oppose terrorism, even if there is no request from your embassy.” Suwat said Thailand welcomed the government’s deportation of the two suspects. “On behalf of the Royal Thai Embassy, we would like to express appreciation on your cooperation about this matter,” he said.

Red Shirt activist Varisareeya Boonsom, 42, tearfully awaits her deportation to Thailand at Phnom Penh International Airport on July 5. (Photo: Heng Chivoan)

The suspects were arrested on Saturday in Siem Reap province in connection with the attempted bombing of the Bangkok headquarters of the Bhumjaithai party, part of the Thai government coalition, on June 22. The attack, which apparently failed after a makeshift bomb detonated prematurely, followed two months of Red Shirt protests in Bangkok that sparked outbreaks of violence and left 90 people dead and about 1,900 injured. Long Visalo said the two had confessed to Cambodian police that they were involved in the bombing. “They accepted that they made the bombs in Thailand,” he said.

As he was escorted by police to the plane, however, Kobchai denied allegations that the pair was involved in the plot, and pledged to fight the charges. “We are Red Shirts, and if we are sent back to Thailand the government will kill us,” he told the Post. “We will get a lawyer and fight the government. We didn’t do anything, but the government has killed a lot of people.” A tearful Varisareeya said that sending her back to Thailand meant she was “going to die”.

Cambodia’s cooperation with Thailand could mark a thawing of relations between the two countries, which each withdrew their ambassadors after Phnom Penh appointed fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic adviser in October and then refused to extradite him. Following yesterday’s deportation, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced that he was grateful to Cambodia for returning the two suspects. He also pledged to “seek further cooperation” with Phnom Penh. On Sunday, Chheang Vannarith, executive director of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, predicted “positive developments in the bilateral relationship” as a result of the extradition.

But Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said the handover stemmed purely from the Kingdom’s counterterrorism policy. “We don’t take into consideration the improvement of diplomatic ties between Cambodia and Thailand,” he said. “If Thailand wants to improve Cambodian-Thai relations, it is up to the Thai side to make the decision. Cambodia will follow.”

Michael Montesano, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, said Phnom Penh’s decision to give up the suspects was a textbook example of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s “shrewd” handling of Vejjajiva’s government. “Should the Thais be interested in better relations with Cambodia, Hun Sen will have opened the door,” he said. “Should Bangkok again take an anti-Phnom Penh line, Cambodia will be able to say that it had made an important gesture of friendship to Thailand, only to find itself spurned.”

Thai government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn was unavailable for comment yesterday.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AFP

Community fishing patrols in the waters around Koh Rung Sangleum island have taken a bite out of a once-rampant trade in coral and other resources

By Sebastian Strangio & May Titthara

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, June 22, 2010

Two illegal fishing boats are towed ashore by a community fishing patrol off Koh Rung Sangleum in October last year. (Photo: MCC)

PREAH SIHANOUK PROVINCE—THE shallow aquamarine waters around Koh Rung Sangleum island, lined with coral reefs and rich with marine life, have long provided the island’s few residents with resources and livelihoods. At the small wooden dock at the island’s Village 23, fishermen bring in fresh catches of squid, the surface of the creatures still alive with electric pulses of colour. Outside beachside homes in the village, a small cove ringed with coconut palms, residents set racks of squid out to dry, where they wither in the sun like rows of miniature deployed parachutes.

Despite the appearance of abundance, fishermen on this horseshoe-shaped island, 25 kilometres off the country’s south coast, are only just recovering from a wave of illegal poaching that, with the blessing of unknown local authorities, wreaked havoc on marine ecosystems and the age-old rhythm of life on the island. But community fishing patrols – established last year by the provincial government – have allowed locals to fight back against illegal poachers and reclaim some of the marine area.

Lawless region

Residents of Koh Rung Sangleum say laws have always been weakly enforced. Following the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979, the island existed in near complete isolation from the mainland, with only sporadic contacts with authorities. In around 2002, locals say, fishermen from Vietnam and Thailand arrived in the area and quickly came to dominate the local fishing trade with their use of more modern – and often illegal – fishing methods. “Before we had the fishing community [area], the illegal fishermen came to fish here anarchically,” said Lay Thai, the chief of Village 23. “They also used modern materials, destroying fish, seahorses, coral reefs and squid.”

The renegade operators plied the loosely policed waters around Koh Rung Sangleum and nearby Koh Rong at will, plundering the local reefs. At one point, fishing boats from neighbouring Vietnam became so commonplace that villagers began to refer to a small cove near the island as chhak yuon (Vietnamese Bay). The effect on local livelihoods, villagers say, was devastating. “Before, in one day we could catch about 30 to 50 kilogrammes [of fish], but now we can only catch around one, so this has caused a lot of fishermen, around 80 percent, to start working as construction labourers to support their living,” said Van Da, a 49-year-old fisherman from Village 23.

Paul Ferber, the founder of Marine Conservation Cambodia (MCC), which operates conservation projects on Koh Rung Sangleum, said the poachers – photographed and monitored by the patrols – displayed recklessness and daring in their search for underwater riches. They dived from small boats with the aid of home-made weight belts and a simple hose to supply air, he said, capturing sea horses, abalone and other marine resources from the seabed. A highly prized item was whip coral – a thin coral species worth hundreds of dollars per bundle – which fishermen removed with hacksaws.

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Int’l, national sides disagree on timing of future investigations

By Sebastian Strangio

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, June 10, 2010

THE Khmer Rouge tribunal has released letters documenting a disagreement concerning the timing of investigations into five additional regime suspects, continuing a long-standing pattern of disputes between Cambodian and international officials over the issue. Documents made public Wednesday showed that Cambodian co-investigating judge You Bunleng reversed an earlier agreement with his international counterpart Marcel Lemonde to open investigations into the five unnamed suspects. “For the sake of transparency, they have decided to make public the letters they exchanged recently on this issue,” the judges’ office said in a statement Wednesday.

In the first of the letters released by the court, dated June 2, Lemonde called on You Bunleng to sign a rogatory letter authorising preliminary investigations in Cases 003 and 004. He said that investigation teams were ready to be deployed “without delay”, and that if the order was not signed by June 4 he would conclude that the two disagreed on the issue, “with all the negative consequences this might entail”. “I hope we can avoid reaching this point,” he added. In a response dated June 8, You Bunleng stated that he initially signed the order Friday, but then reversed his decision, saying the issue should be considered in September after the closing order for Case 002 – the “core” of the tribunal’s mandate – is finalised. He said his decision was based on his consideration of the court’s purpose and the “current state of Cambodian society”.

UN court spokesman Lars Olsen said Lemonde will pursue the investigations on his own, pursuant to court rules. He added that investigators will not yet focus on specific individuals, but rather try to establish “whether or not crimes described in the submissions from the prosecutors took place at certain locations”. “The results from this part of the investigation will form some of the basis for the decision of whether or not to start investigations against individuals” at a later date, he said. Despite disagreement on the timing of the new investigations, Lemonde and You Bunleng are still working closely together on Case 002, which will provide a “good basis for future cooperation”, Olsen said.

The disagreement is consistent with an apparent pattern of government reluctance to prosecute any former regime leaders beyond those five already indicted by the court. In September 2009, the court’s acting international co-prosecutor William Smith announced he had filed submissions for investigations into five additional, unnamed regime suspects, overriding the objections of national co-prosecutor Chea Leang, who had argued that additional prosecutions could prompt ex-Khmer Rouge cadres and their allies to “commit violent acts”. After the announcement, Prime Minister Hun Sen echoed this warning in a speech, saying, “If you want a tribunal, but you don’t want to consider peace and reconciliation and war breaks out again, killing 200,000 or 300,000 people, who will be responsible?”

Anne Heindel, a legal adviser for the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, said the rift echoed earlier disagreements, but said that such disputes are to be expected in a tribunal combining local and international officials. She expressed concern about delays that might result, but added that it is not feasible to wait for the conclusion of Case 002 before the third and fourth cases move ahead. “If they don’t get started on Cases 003 and 004 while they’re still on Case 002, there’s probably going to be donor fatigue and unwillingness,” Heindel said. The fact that You Bunleng signed the letter before reconsidering showed “some willingness on his part to consider a third and fourth investigation”, she added.

Under the tribunal’s internal rules, either investigating judge may bring the disagreement before the Pre-Trial Chamber within 30 days. The rules also hold that while the dispute-resolution process is in motion, “the subject of the disagreement shall be executed”. Only in the case of arrests, it adds, does there need to be full consensus between the two judges.

You Bunleng could not be reached for comment.

By Sebastian Strangio & Nguon Sovan

Prime Minister Hun Sen, government officials and donors stand for the national anthem during the third Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum in Phnom Penh on June 2. (Photo: AFP)

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, June 4, 2010

INTERNATIONAL donors have pledged a record US$1.1 billion in development assistance for the upcoming 18-month period, following a two-day government-donor forum that wrapped up in the capital Thursday. At the close of the third Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF), Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon hailed the outcome of the talks.

“The meetings have been conducted successfully for all of Cambodia’s donors, development partners and development partners from civil society,” he told reporters. “This financing responds to the need for the development of the National Strategic Development Plan for this year.” Keat Chhon said Japan was again the largest donor. He declined, however, to give more details about the $1.1 billion pledges, saying, “We cannot disclose the breakdown of how much each country is providing to Cambodia.” Areas of focus in the government’s development agenda, he said, were “roads, water, human resources and electricity”. During Thursday’s meeting, delegates also discussed anticorruption measures, judicial reform and measures to improve aid effectiveness.

The $1.1 billion pledge – which surpasses the $951.5 million pledged at the last CDCF in December 2008 – comes amid mounting calls for international donors to pressure the government to meet good governance reform benchmarks. On Tuesday, 15 local NGOs said donors should “take responsibility and speak out against the deterioration of rights and democracy in Cambodia”. Doing nothing, they added, could be seen as “tantamount to complicity”. A series of 20 NGO position papers released last week said land rights and resource-revenue transparency should be key areas of focus.

Eleanor Nichol, a campaigner for UK-based watchdog Global Witness, described the CDCF meetings as a “mass exercise in intellectual dishonesty” that resulted in little concrete action on the ground. Despite years of government-donor talks, she said, hundreds of millions of dollars in resource revenues have not appeared in national accounts. “I’m absolutely astounded that in a year that’s been an annus horribilis in terms of corruption, donors have decided to up the amount of support they are giving the government,” she said. “We’re not having anything like the sense of outrage that one would expect to find in a case where there’s been pilfering on a grand scale.”

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Hun Sen tells global community not to treat Cambodia ‘like a child’

By Sebastian Strangio & Cheang Sokha

Published in the Phnom Penh Post, May 27, 2010

PRIME Minister Hun Sen lashed out at critics of the government’s handling of extractive-resource revenues on Wednesday, branding them “thieves” and saying that tensions between Cambodia and international watchdog Global Witness stem from a “sexual scandal” involving the group’s staff. Speaking at the opening of a two-day mining conference in the capital Wednesday, Hun Sen said criticisms from international organisations and foreign countries were misplaced because the government has not yet pocketed any funds from extractive industries.

“I don’t understand when they order the fish to be fried or grilled while the fish is still in the water,” he told an audience of business executives, diplomats and civil society representatives. “They have accused us of corruption in spending while we have not yet made any money.”

Ministry of Finance budget records show that the government has received more than US$28 million in signature bonuses and social fund payments from foreign companies investing in extractive industries since the beginning of 2009.Hun Sen also said that all payments made to secure mining or oil and gas exploration rights were processed within “the framework of the state budget”, and scolded international critics for treating the government “like a child”. “Do not teach us so much – it is boring. No one is the teacher of Cambodia,” he said.

Western governments dwelling on the issue of mining, gas and oil revenue transparency are guilty of hypocrisy, Hun Sen said, accusing them of turning a blind eye to the lucrative gem-mining operations that helped support the Khmer Rouge insurgency during the 1980s and 1990s. “Until this hour no one has dared to criticise the diamonds in Pailin, which were dug for making war,” he said. Revenues from gems and timber helped support the Western-backed anti-government resistance coalition, which included the Khmer Rouge.

Yim Sovann, spokesman for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP), said Hun Sen’s claim that no money had been made from extractive industries was misleading. “We have experience that Cambodia has got big fish, and that many fish are going into the ponds of corrupt officials,” he said, and alleged that US$2 billion has been lost to illegal logging since 1993. He added that the government has yet to respond to questions from the SRP about millions of dollars in signature bonuses and social funds paid to the government by French oil firm Total and Australian mining company BHP Billiton. The government has acknowledged receiving the payments, and critics have asserted that the funds have not been properly accounted for. “So far there is no reply regarding where the money has gone,” Yim Sovann said.

Last month, environmental watchdog Global Witness urged foreign donors to pressure the government to make such payments fully transparent. “These figures represent only a fraction of the sum of the payments Global Witness is aware of. Overall, they raise serious questions,” campaigner George Boden said in an April 29 statement. In his speech Wednesday, the premier launched a savage attack on the UK-based group, saying it was acting “like the boss of Cambodia”. “They accuse the government in Phnom Penh of being thieves so I curse them as the chief thieves…. We have not yet made money, but they already accuse us of being thieves.”

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