Khmerlive.tv Raymond Kin's rebuttal to SRP-NA

Friday, April 23rd 2010

[To:] Sam Rainsy Party of North America
The Secretariat of SRP-NA
P.O. Box 414
North Attleboro, MA 02761
USA

Dear Secretariat of SRP-NA,

This letter is to answer your press release dated April 22nd, 2010, more particularly in response to the following quote:

"We have seen a new game being deployed behind the cultural and religious scenes with a certain political inclination in order to try to promote the CPP’s popularity abroad. For a fact, a fund raising event was held to help Haitian quake victims was purportedly presented on Khmer TV Live by one of the CPP’s friend pretending that Cambodian-Montreal were celebrating January 7, 1979 which it wasn’t to start with. It caused enormous resentment in the community and those who showed up for the good cause they believed in. Was the CPP is trying to present to the donors’ nations and the free world that it has solid supports abroad while in reality it has very little, if any? Or is it simply loosing trust among Cambodian mass inside the land due to its long corrupted policies and practices? The jailing of farmers in defending of Vietnam’s planted poles deep inside Cambodia’s territory does not help the CPP-led government’s own image or argument, but rather damaging for good."

"We have seen a new game being deployed behind the cultural and religious scenes with a certain political inclination in order to try to promote the CPP’s popularity abroad."

The CPP party is not associated with my website. The main objective of the website www.khmerlive.tv is to unite the Cambodian people worldwide, regardless to their political trend. The television channel broadcast on the website, Cambodia’s national channel TVK, may perceive that I am for the ruling party (CPP). In fact, I am not bound to any Cambodian political party. On the other hand, I have the utmost respect towards all political parties, associations and foundations working for the development and the prosperity of our country and for Khmer communities around the world. It will be a pleasure to broadcast other live Khmer TV channels, as well as various cultural and political activities of all political parties, including yours, as long as I have the permission to publish it. Up to now, only TVK and event organizers authorized me to publish on my site.

"For a fact, a fund raising event was held to help Haitian quake victims was purportedly presented on Khmer TV Live by one of the CPP’s friend pretending that Cambodian-Montreal were celebrating January 7, 1979 which it wasn’t to start with. It caused enormous resentment in the community and those who showed up for the good cause they believed in."

This assertion is false and unfounded. First, I express my sincere apologies for inconvenience caused to those who came to the event and now feel regret. It has never been mentioned that the event was to celebrate the festival of January 7th, 1979, either before, during or after the event. No political party was attached or mentioned with regard to this event, which is organised by La Chambre de Commerce Cambodge-Canada. The fundraising for the Haitian Relief was held on February 7th 2010. You can view the video diffusion of the event at http://www.khmerlive.tv/liveevent/FundraisingForHaiti/ . The objectives of the team of KhmerLive.TV was to show the solidarity of the Cambodian community in Montreal area towards a country that urgently need help, and to test the live diffusion of video stream in preparation to the song contest taking place on April 10th 2010.

"Was the CPP is trying to present to the donors’ nations and the free world that it has solid supports abroad while in reality it has very little, if any? Or is it simply loosing trust among Cambodian mass inside the land due to its long corrupted policies and practices?"

The initiative to bring live television, and this, completely free to all Khmer community abroad reveals only from the team of KhmerLive.TV based in Montreal and not of the government, nor of the CPP party. Up to now, we only got the permission of the government to be able to rebroadcast TVK live online. Initially, we rebroadcast CTN Channel, which has refused any cooperation with our initiative.

"The jailing of farmers in defending of Vietnam’s planted poles deep inside Cambodia’s territory does not help the CPP-led government’s own image or argument, but rather damaging for good."

Let me emphasize that I fully support your actions to have raised funds through MS-SRP (Moronak Sangkruos-SRP) for the villagers in Svay Rieng. On several occasions, I even announced on my site Sokha Ly’s effort to have risen over $1,100 for these villagers.

Thru this letter, let me take the opportunity to solicit you to invite me to live broadcast various activities and celebrations of your political party throughout my website’s technology. It is with great pleasure to show the various activities of all Cambodian communities and political parties to the large Cambodian community worldwide.

Yours most sincerely and respectfully,

Raymond Kin
KhmerLive.TV
info@khmerlive.tv
www.khmerlive.tv

P.S. My response is available in PDF format in
-French at http://www.khmerlive.tv/20100423_KLTV_Press_Release_FR.pdf
-English at http://www.khmerlive.tv/20100423_KLTV_Press_Release_EN.pdf

Kampot: The CPP office and the commune office are next to each other

15 October 2007
By Mom Sophon
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Opposition party officials have accused the CPP of using its party influence to interfere in the commune administration and in the election.

The opposition SRP party will file a complaint with the Ministry of Interior on Monday to ask that the commune office be moved to a new location, because the current commune office is located next to the CPP office.

Mrs. Mu Sochua, first SRP deputy Secretary-general and workgroup chairperson of the SRP party in Kampot province, indicated that if there is no moving of the commune office, the situation would appear to look like the commune officials are in fact working at the CPP office instead.

Mu Sochua said: “The SRP informed the Ministry of Interior once in 2002, asking that the commune office not be established under the CPP banner, this office is not just next (to the CPP office), it is underneath the CPP banner. This is too much!”

Mu Sochua said that, in the past, the SRP also complained about this issue, however, there is no resolution yet. Furthermore, this action seems to show that there is no transparency and independence for the commune officials. In fact, the Kampong Bay commune office, located on Kampong Bay district, is located next to the CPP office, and the CPP sign looks like it is covering on top of the commune office. This is also true for the commune offices in Kampong Kandal and a number of other commune offices in Kampot province.

Ty Rithy, the Kampong Kandal commune chief said that all commune officials want to move this office, but they don’t have the ability to do so.

Ty Rithy said: “This happened since the very beginning, it’s not just now. Recently, we try to separate them (commune and CPP offices) apart, but we have this situation since before, we cannot separate them unless we have the ability. Right now, Japan provides commune offices in each province, they will provide a commune office, but we cannot find land in town, lands are very tight squeezed, when we have land, we will exchange for it, we cannot remain cramped. Here we use row houses as an administrative office, it’s difficult, but we endure it, what can we do? We don’t have anything and we are poor, so we endure it.”

Election observer officials for the province of Kampot said that this issue can cause confusion by making people think that the campaign and the political programs organized by the CPP are done by the commune instead, and people would be confused that the commune office is campaigning for the CPP.

Mrs. Try Chhun, Comfrel director of Kampot province, said: “I believe that the action taken by the commune office to set up a sign next to the (CPP) party sign, cause confusion among people, and it make them think that the campaigning etc… done by the (CPP) party is in fact done by the commune instead. Therefore, this is not right not just only for the upcoming election, but it will cause confusion at all future elections as well, people will be confused and they will not be happy that the party sign and the commune sign are next to each other like this.”

Kul Panha, executive director of Comfrel, said that, even though there is no law to prevent the establishment and the setup of party sign next to the commune office, but based on political party rules, these political party offices should not be set up near the commune office. He also noted that this action is taken almost everywhere in Cambodia, and the CPP is using its influence on works performed by commune officials.

Reactions around the closing of Cambodge Soir

15 June 2006
By Mayarith
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy

Two days after the closing of the Cambodge Soir newspaper, various reactions came from both national and international opinions, as well as from the French embassy in Cambodia, and the Reporters Without Borders organization, asking for intervention from the representative of the Francophone organization.

Kong Sothanarith, representative of Cambodian employees working at Cambodge Soir, said that the successive reactions will shed some light and lead to a resolution in the dispute. “Because of the numerous reactions coming from readers and a number of organizations, both at the national and international levels, the French embassy was pushed to request for a restart of the negotiations. We hope that these negotiations will take place and we hope that we could reach some optimistic conclusions.”

The closing of Cambodge Soir took place after the employees of the French-language newspaper opposed the firing of Soren Seelow, a French journalist, who wrote an article about the Global Witness report on “Cambodia’s Family Trees” (“Family of the thieves of the Nation” in Khmer) which detailed about government officials and their families who are involved in illegal logging in Kompong Thom.

Philippe Monin, a director of Cambodge Soir, admitted to his employees that he is an advisor of Chan Sarun, the Minister of Agriculture who is named by Global Witness for his involvement in illegal logging corruption, and the latter was not pleased by the publication of Soren Seelow’s article.

Philippe Monin criticized Soren Seelow’s article by saying that it lacked professionalism, and that was the reason why Soren Seelow was fired. Soren Seelow said that his firing was unfair.

The closure of Cambodge Soir generated comments from various sources, and (hopefully) these reactions will provide some hope to a settlement on this issue. “We reach a point where there is a linkage … and we are fighting together to put to an end the closing of Cambodge Soir. We hope that Cambodge Soir will reopen again.”

RFA could not contact Philippe Monin for his reaction on this issue.