A request from a Cambodian MP to Chinese President Hu Jintao

Chinese President Hu Jintao will visit Cambodia on a four day visit from March 30 to April 2. President Hu Jintao will visit Cambodia to strengthen bilateral cooperation between our two countries and talk on regional issues prior to Cambodia's hosting of the 2012 ASEAN summit.

The following is an open letter to President Hu Jintao.

Dear President Hu Jintao,

We welcome the news for your visit to Cambodia and see it as a time for optimism, hope and more importantly, change.

It is envisaged that 2012 will be the year when you will end your second five-year term as party head. Therefore may I take the liberty to suggest to you that this could be a great opportunity to propel China forward as a legitimate leader in the global context.

Because in spite of its rapid socio-economic advancement and modernisation, China continues to operate as an authoritarian one-party State that imposes severe restrictions on human rights both in China and abroad.

In particular, recent events in Tibet have involved the self-immolation of a number of Tibetans - the last count was 30 confirmed self-immolations since February 2009. President, this is their desperate attempt to gain the world's attention over the plight of Tibet and the lack of religious freedom, some as young as 18 years old!

The continuation of China's systematic repression of Tibetan people can not be ignored. Tibetans are gentle and peace loving people and they are seeking a level of autonomy to preserve their culture and their way of life. Surely it is not too much to ask. President Hu Jintao please use your authority to put an end to any further egregious human rights violations and begin to reconcile with the Tibetan Government-in-exile to settle the problem by beginning negotiations, without further delay, with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

At the same time Chinese citizens, just like Cambodian citizens, face the same issues and challenges over livelihood issues, land seizures, forced evictions,abuses of power by corruption and economic inequalities. All these issues need to be resolved and we look to China to set a positive example in the region.

Controversial environmental projects funded by the Chinese government worldwide, including those in Cambodia, must also stop. The Kamchay dam in Kampot province and the Tatai dam in Koh Kong, are multi million dollar Chinese funded projects, which have destroyed hundreds of hectares of forest and farmland and negatively impacted on fisheries and on local people's livelihoods. Consideration of the environmental impacts in either project had no place in any decision-making process. Of course, there is some clear accountability here with the Cambodian government as well, but China is definitely the stronger influence. We ask that the President ensure the next environmentally disastrous hydro dam project, which involves another Chinese company, scheduled for Stung Araeng in Koh Kong, does not proceed.

Finally President Hu Jintao please consider seriously how you would like your legacy to the world to be remembered. Change is inevitable. The rate at which the world is changing is beyond all our control: climate change, political change, illustrated by the recent Arab Spring demonstrations through out Middle East.

Surely President you would prefer to be remembered as the wind of change and not the reason behind the violent clouds of protest!

Phnom Penh March 26, 2012

MP Son Chhay

China to Gamblers: Come to Cambodia

Chinese development at Botum Sakor National  Park

3/21/2012
Forbes

Pity the poor Chinese gambler. Barred from making legal bets in his own officially straight-laced country, he undergoes much trouble and expense to indulge his habit anywhere he can, from the new casinos of Macau and Singapore to Las Vegas, where a tiny band of baccarat players from the Mainland accounted for 42 percent of all table betting last year.

But if developers have their way, gamblers from China could soon enjoy a new East Asian haven where controls are few, the regime’s entirely on their side, and they have a free hand to displace locals and even bulldoze government nature preserves: Cambodia.

In the most recent deal, the Cambodian government sold off more than 130 square miles of a national park to a Chinese developer, Tianjin Union Development Group, which promises “extravagant feasting and revelry” and has already cut a 40-mile road through virgin forest that’s habitat to endangered tigers and elephants, and sent the people who lived in these lands for generations off packing.

Koh Kong intervention sought [-Maybe it's time to burn down the Chinese development?]

A man stands near a construction base for a Chinese company at Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province last month. (Reuters)

Friday, 09 March 2012
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

The provincial office of rights group Licadho has called on Koh Kong provincial politicians to help more than 1,000 families being forcibly evicted to make way for a sprawling gambling resort and other development, representative said yesterday.

More than 130 families, from three villages in Kiri Sakor and Botum Sakor districts in Koh Kong province, had filed complaints to Licadho between April and December last year, asking for intervention after staff from Chinese company Tianjin Union Development Group and military police allegedly tried to force them off their land.

“We would like to ask the company to stop taking military police to burn down villagers’ homes, to stop forcing and threatening villagers – let them live on their land,” the letter says.

Insight: China gambles on Cambodia's shrinking forests (Repost by request from Pissed Off)

Schoolboys ride a motorcycle through Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

Construction work takes place at Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

March 6, 2012

Andrew R.C. Marshall and Prak Chan Thul

For activist Chut Wutty, Union Group's activities smack of colonisation. "You think after 99 years that this land will be returned to Cambodia? You think they'll kick the Chinese out? No way. It's forever."

BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia (Reuters) - It was once the unspoiled jungle home for tigers, elephants, bears and gibbons. But today Botum Sakor National Park in southwest Cambodia is fast disappearing to accommodate a much less endangered species: the Chinese gambler.

"This was all forest once," says Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, an environmental watchdog based in the capital, Phnom Penh, gesturing across a near-treeless landscape.

"But then the government sold the land to rich men."

He means Tianjin Union Development Group, a real-estate company from northern China, which is transforming 340 sq km (130 sq miles) of Botum Sakor into a city-sized gambling resort for "extravagant feasting and revelry," its website says. A 64-km (40-mile) highway, now almost complete, will cut a four-lane swathe through mostly virgin forest.

National parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Cambodia, an impoverished country known for its ancient temples and genocidal Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s, could soon vanish entirely as deep-pocketed Chinese investors accelerate a secretive sell-off of protected areas to private companies, warns Chut Wutty and other activists.

The Chinese are destroying Cambodia's environment ... thanks to Hun Xen

Chinese firms increase investment in Cambodia at cost of environment

Fri Mar 09 2012
Reuters

It was once the unspoiled jungle home for tigers, elephants, bears and gibbons. But today Botum Sakor National Park in southwest Cambodia is fast disappearing to accommodate a much less endangered species: the Chinese gambler.

“This was all forest once,” says Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, an environmental watchdog based in the capital, Phnom Penh, gesturing across a near-treeless landscape.

“But then the government sold the land to rich men.”

He means Tianjin Union Development Group, a real-estate company from northern China, which is transforming 340 sq km of Botum Sakor into a city-sized gambling resort for “extravagant feasting and revelry,” its website says. A 64-km highway, now almost complete, will cut a four-lane swathe through mostly virgin forest.

Chinese Company Displaces Locals to Build Casino in Cambodia

http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/asiabrief/2012-03-07/chinese-company-displaces-locals-to-build-casino-in-cambodia.html

Insight: China gambles on Cambodia's shrinking forests [-China creating anti-Chinese conditions in Cambodia similar to Indonesia in the 60s?]

Schoolboys ride a motorcycle through Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

Construction work takes place at Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province February 20, 2012.

March 6, 2012

Andrew R.C. Marshall and Prak Chan Thul

For activist Chut Wutty, Union Group's activities smack of colonisation. "You think after 99 years that this land will be returned to Cambodia? You think they'll kick the Chinese out? No way. It's forever."

BOTUM SAKOR, Cambodia (Reuters) - It was once the unspoiled jungle home for tigers, elephants, bears and gibbons. But today Botum Sakor National Park in southwest Cambodia is fast disappearing to accommodate a much less endangered species: the Chinese gambler.

"This was all forest once," says Chut Wutty, director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, an environmental watchdog based in the capital, Phnom Penh, gesturing across a near-treeless landscape.

"But then the government sold the land to rich men."

He means Tianjin Union Development Group, a real-estate company from northern China, which is transforming 340 sq km (130 sq miles) of Botum Sakor into a city-sized gambling resort for "extravagant feasting and revelry," its website says. A 64-km (40-mile) highway, now almost complete, will cut a four-lane swathe through mostly virgin forest.

National parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Cambodia, an impoverished country known for its ancient temples and genocidal Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s, could soon vanish entirely as deep-pocketed Chinese investors accelerate a secretive sell-off of protected areas to private companies, warns Chut Wutty and other activists.

Chinese company buy into business deal in Cambodia with $1 mln worth of equipment, no words on under the table donations

Governor of China's Yunnan Province Qin Guangrong (L) attends the signing ceremony of the donation agreement, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, April 7, 2007. According to the agreement, China's Yunnan province will donate fax machines, computers, printers and generators worthing altogether one million US dollars to Cambodian government. (Xinhua/Xia Lin)

PHNOM PENH, April 7 (Xinhua) -- China's Yunnan province expanded economic cooperation with Cambodia in the fields ranging from real estate to hydropower plant and electricity transmission network as a batch of agreements were signed here on Saturday.

An enterprise from Yunnan province here on Friday signed two agreements with a Cambodian Company to co-develop two real estate projects in Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville.

Officials from the Yunnan Southeast-Asia Economy and Technology Investment Industrial and the Cambodia's Shukaku Company signed the agreements in presence of Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An and Governor of China's Yunnan Province Qin Guangrong, who is leading a delegation to visit Cambodia from April 5 to 9.

Under the agreements, the two sides will cooperate to develop the Boeng Kak Lake area in Phnom Penh into a multi-purpose living and recreation center called the New City of East, and establish an eco-garden in Sihanoukville for tourism and other commercial uses.

The signing ceremony was held on the sidelines of the one-day China (Yunnan) - Cambodia Investment and Trade Fair, which attracted some 400 participants from both governments and business arenas to seek cooperation.

The above projects will be implemented as Yunnan plans to intensify its cooperation with Cambodian partners in the fields of agriculture, transport, hydropower, investment, trade, forestry, tourism and mining, said Qin Guangrong while addressing the fair.

Meanwhile, Chinese companies from Yunnan province here on Saturday launched two power projects in Cambodia, the Stung Atay hydropower plant and a set of electricity transmission network.

Sok An and Qin Guangrong unveiled the foundation stones of the two projects during a ceremony held in Phnom Penh.

China Yunnan Corporation for International Techno-Economic Cooperation and Yunnan Southeast-Asia Economy and Technology Investment Industrial Co., LTD. undertake the construction and development of both projects, a press release said, adding that the Cambodian government adopts BOT pattern (build, operate and transfer) for the projects.

On the sideline of the unveiling-ceremony, the two Chinese companies and the Cambodian government also signed a memorandum of understanding for co-constructing Stung Roessei Hydropower Plant in Koh Kong province.

Earlier on Saturday, Qin Guangrong and Sok An hosted the signing ceremony of an agreement for the Yunnan provincial government to donate altogether 1 million U.S. dollars worth of fax machines, computers, printers and generators to the Cambodian government in the coming months.

A press release said that the bilateral trade between Yunnan and Cambodia stood at 3.51 million U.S. dollars in 2006.

By the end of 2006, the two sides have signed over 20 economic and trade agreements worth of 40.39 million U.S. dollars, it added.