Rice urges countries to settle dispute

The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice walks as the Vietnam foreign minister Pham Gia Khiem applauds before the opening of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum in Singapore. AFP

July 24. 2008
AFP

The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for a peaceful resolution to a dangerous border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia.

She said the deployment of hundreds of troops on either side of the border over the past 10 days has been an issue of concern at 27-nation security talks between Asian ministers and world powers in Singapore.

“It is something that has been a subject of discussion. We are concerned about it and there needs to be a way to resolve it peacefully,” she told reporters outside the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting.

“We’ll continue to consult with the regional states... We’re going to be very guided very heavily by the views of the countries in this region.”

The territorial dispute is expected to be discussed later today at the UN Security Council after Cambodia called for the world body to help resolve the issue.

Thailand has resisted outside mediation, and talks earlier this week among foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Thailand and Cambodia, failed to ease tensions.

US says it will be guided by regional views in dealing with Thai-Cambodia dispute

Thursday, July 24, 2008
The Associated Press

SINGAPORE: The United States will be guided by the views of Southeast Asian countries in assessing a simmering Thai-Cambodia border dispute if it comes up for mediation in the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday.

The border confrontation between Thailand and Cambodia is over a piece of land around an ancient Hindu temple that was designated a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO. Thailand feared that such a designation would affect its claim over surrounding land.

Earlier this week, Cambodia wrote a letter to the United Nations seeking its intervention.

"We're going to be guided very heavily by the views of the countries in this region," Rice, whose country is a permanent member of the Security Council, told reporters during a visit to Singapore.

Rice's comments came hours after Thai Deputy Prime Minister Sahas Bunditkul said the U.S. and two other permanent members of the Security Council, China and Russia, had indicated to him that Cambodia had been too hasty in approaching the world body.

Rice, who is here to attend a security conference, did not directly comment on Sahas' statement but said she made it clear to Southeast Asian countries that the U.S. "will be very much interested in and, in fact, guided by the regional assessment of what needs to be done here," she said.

She noted the issue "hasn't really been taken up before the (U.N. Security) Council yet although there has been a potential request passed."

But "we'll continue to consult with the regional states," she said.

Thousands of troops have been amassed along the border in a tense standoff for just over a week. Cambodia has asked the Security Council to hold an emergency meeting next week to resolve the problem, a move that has irritated Thailand. It says the matter should be resolved bilaterally.

Thailand has also not allowed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, to mediate in the dispute.

French U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said Wednesday the 15-nation Security Council "should meet as fast as possible" based on Cambodia's request.

"We are in charge of peace and security, so, if we can diffuse the tensions and if we can prevent any development that could be dramatic for the region and for peace and security, we will do it and we think we have to do it," he said.

Trafficking a Global Threat: US

By Taing Sarada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
09 June 2008

Cambodia may have moved out of US "watch list" status for its efforts to combat human trafficking, but it still must improve its efforts, US officials said.

The US moved Cambodia onto its list of "tier 2" nations last week, saying it had improved its efforts but still fell short of US standards for combating trafficking.

“Globally, human trafficking is a multi-dimensional threat," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in the State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons report. "It deprives people of their human rights and dignity. It increases global health risks. It bankrolls the growth of organized crime and it undermines the rule of law. In recent years we’ve witnessed a hopeful global movement uniting civil society, governments, and international organizations-not just to confront this crime, but to abolish it.”

Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli, who is currently in the US, said Cambodia had shown a clear commitment over the last two years to fight trafficking, though the government does acknowledge it has a "serious problem."

US praises Cambodia's crackdown on prostitution [... while sex workers say: "Sex Work is Work"]

"Sex Work is Work" said sex workers in "plain English" in Phnom Penh (AP Photo)

Jun 5, 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - The United States Thursday gave its support to fierce Cambodian crackdowns on brothels and saluted anti-human trafficking efforts in its annual Trafficking in Persons report.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement that the US appreciated concerted government efforts to stamp out the trade.

The news flew in the face of a protest by more than 100 sex workers and representatives Wednesday condemning the government's zero tolerance policy against brothels enshrined in a new law they claimed equated consensual sex work with trafficking.

Activists claimed the new law outlawing brothels is forcing sex workers away from education and health programmes and onto the streets. They said it had also led to police abuses of sex workers' human rights, including rape and robbery.

'That protest was a protest against the law,' Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng told a press conference. 'Please show us the evidence that police or competent authorities are harming or doing something wrong to you.'

US embassy officials said the US government had pumped 14 million dollars into Cambodian anti-trafficking measures since 2003 and now believed the investment was paying off.

Rice said Cambodia still did not fully comply with US anti-trafficking standards, 'however it is making a significant effort to do so.'

Cambodia 'has strongly supported an anti-trafficking effort including publicly promoting a zero tolerance policy', she said.

US Khmers Tourniquet US Diplomacy to Restrain Policy

Khieu Kanharith (L) and Condoleeza Rice (R)

February 20, 2008
Op-Ed by Kok Sap
Originally posted at http://neokhmer.com

Ms. Condoleezza Rice, PhD-Multilingual current US Secretary of State stated on 13 February that the United States was disappointed about the pace of change in Cambodia. She told lawmakers that the United States wanted to see Cambodia have more progresses than at present. The subliminal messages are Cambodia is still a one man rule country and the oppression that led to poverty created by the regime is the core violation of UN basic human rights

The XO-MUM Khieu Kanhnharit, a half mixed Mien Information Minister and Dictator Spokesman, said Ms. Rice drew the conclusion based on false information. Then he reached up in a drunk jab, which is why we do not wonder why the United States is bogged down in Iraq. This son of the four season drunkard forgot that it was the same that Viet Cong lost lives in its 1979 conquest in Mien land too. Also if it was not for the same US pressed on the Viet Cong to leave Cambodia to UNTAC in 1991 Paris Accord, probably Mr. XO-MUM ended up dead or Viet naturalized already. He spoke like he was a real gutsy gun slinger rather than a habitual drunk living in bottle since his adulthood. Too ungrateful too soon that US tolerated his Mien Government to remain in place until today. This is a problem with Mien attitude.

Look at his reasoning, first, if Cambodia's government had done very little, it would not have received votes. It forgets to define Cambodia Government in what period and under whom? Other hand he seemed confessed if it was not Communist Government T54, AK 47 and hunger that would not be no votes at all after Sihanouk was held hostage at gun barrels after 1997 no blood Coup. It is a mistake the loud mouth XO-MUM half Mien spoke nonsense for poor Khmers.

Here is another point of how ignorant this drunk is: second, if the government is said to be not good enough, does Ms Rice dare determine that among the 10 ASEAN member countries Cambodia is ranked last? What is the rank given to Cambodia in ASEAN? Just with political stability and economic growth in the country, it can already be understood." Let me ask how many actual members of ASEAN? What’s ASEAN plus three? And plus six? Who are the three and the six? The ten geographical members are most autocratic, junta, authoritarian, and outright absolutist. Which pecking order is Mien government fit in?

By the way for all the progresses made in Cambodia by the XO-MUM Mien Government, Cambodia ranked 162/180 dirt poor country with a whopping GNP index ($0.75/day).Imagine with all loans and collaterals the XO-MUM Mien government signed away on a daily routine basis from the last 20 some years, by the time the drunk died of liver failure and heart attack Cambodia may be auctioned out by South Korea to North Korea for the recuperation of loss capitals in a new patch of land for North landless refugees.

"The statement by Ms Rice of the US Department of State is already a signal to the Cambodian Government about the US position. We are aware that democracy in Cambodia is a democracy on the lips of top leaders, while concrete actions are that threats still exist, killings of politicians still exist, the freedom of expression is stifled, and nonviolent demonstrations to express views publicly are banned. Moreover, even in a draft law on demonstration, the Royal Government has the intention to muffle the freedom of the people who want to demonstrate.

“Khieu Kanhnharit also pointed out that now, Ms Rice made the remarks at the push by the government's opponent, before the election, and he said, "She spoke from abroad, the Cambodian people know. By the way who are the government opponents, Khmers, Xmers, or Miens?" The Drunken minister does not listen to RFA because he is always too drunk to hold his head up. And also he had no clue there are Khmer origin families live in US, although his adopted son aliased Mayarith (in old Khmer maya=delusional, darkness; rith=power, ability) serves as a CPP fallopian tube and works for RFA. Yet the XO-MUM Mien claims he knows people know he does not know what people know. That puts in short, he is a genuine dumb in a Whiskey kettle.

Other thing is the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are US mechanisms to enable some idiotic leaders like Mien in Nom Penh to get some senses out their own rectal that money keeps the world goes round not guns or bombs. In the eyes of both institutions at present Mien, regarded as one of the poorest nations in the world, is found to have been bogged down deeply in corruption, which is the root cause of the country's poverty. Besides Global Witness Report, Amnesty International Observation, Professor Yash Ghai annual finding, we still have General Heng Pov, a Mien Government sacrificial scapegoat in Prey Sar prison as a soon dead witness.

This is a byproduct of efforts done by some of our fellows in US who advocated their respective elected officials to call upon Cambodia evaluation in all concerned matters at the UN General Assembly or WB/IMF annual audit is necessary. At the beginning of 2008, the US Department of State paid special attention to Cambodia, and, in particular, the US Senate has approved a law banning Cambodian officials implicated in the destructive cutting down of forest trees from setting foot on the American soil. The US Congress, too, called on the Department of State to consider using the Global Witness' "Nation-stealing Family Trees" report to compile its list. On 23 January, the US Department of State's spokesman stated that the United States meticulously considered making corruption charges. He added that the United States shared a lot of concern raised by the Global Witness in its report and was reviewing all the information relating to this story.

The Global Witness report contains the names of 12 important Viet Mien officials and businessmen close to Mien/Somre Prime Minister Hun Sen, including Chan Sarun, Minister of Agriculture; Ti Sokun, Chief of the Forest Administration, and the commander of Brigade 70. The Global Witness has enraged Viet Mien government officials, and the assertion by Ms. Rice early this week also made Information Minister Khieu Kanhnharit's blood boil. It is a natural reflect from natural dogma, truth hurts.

Regardless as your US earned rights, in order to curb Cambodia human rights violation, human trafficking, health disparity services, corruption and immoral ethics laws, we need to be in motion in the name of world democracy and human rights defenders. Please reflect on a grain of sand that made Pyramid rise to heaven. You may think your action in US is minimal but other hand in democracy you right are invaluable. Express concerns and ask elected officials to reinforce accountability and compliance before US allowed further trade favors unless Cambodia was purged out all Mien Government in Phnom Penh in July 2008.

Per our old wise Khmer say, toum pouk touv barn phnao wia maork, so comparably say in US squeaky wheel gets oil. The US Khmer grass root voters action is necessary and now. Those who can share time to volunteer in campaign please do regardless what side you are on. Those who can contribute financial donation to each campaign please also do. Remember even in US, all accept there was no free lunch. You get what you pay for. Also those who do nothing may also get pay too, nothing.

Khieu Kanharith Said Enraged by US State Secretary's Remarks on Cambodia

(Left to right) Cambodian Information Minister Khieu Kanharith, US Department of State Condoleezza Rice, and Sam Rainsy Party MP Mao Monyvan

Government Official Angry With US State Secretary for Speaking About the Truth in Cambodia

17 Feb 08 - 18 Feb 08
By Savary
Sralanh Khmer Newspaper
Translated from Khmer by Anonymous

A high-ranking government official is furious with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for making conclusion based on false and inciting information.

Condoleezza Rice stated on 13 February that the United States was disappointed about the pace of change in Cambodia. She told lawmakers that the United States wanted to see Cambodia have more progresses than at present.

Khieu Kanharith, information minister and government spokesman, said that Ms Rice drew the conclusion based on false information. He said, "The reason Ms Rice is bogged down in Iraq is because at the very beginning, information is received only from groups of bad people. That is why we do not wonder why the United States is bogged down in Iraq. First, if Cambodia's government had done very little, it would not have received votes. Second, if the government is said to be not good enough, does Ms Rice dare determine that among the 10 ASEAN member countries Cambodia is ranked last? What is the rank given to Cambodia in ASEAN? Just with political stability and economic growth [in the country], it can already be understood."

Mao Monivan, MP of Kampong Cham constituency and deputy secretary general of the Sam Rainsy Party [SRP], said the assertion by Ms. Condoleezza Rice was correct especially about the democratic process in Cambodia. He said, "The statement by Ms Rice of the US Department of State is already a signal to the Cambodian Government about the US position. We are aware that democracy in Cambodia is a democracy on the lips of top leaders, while concrete actions are that threats still exist, killings of politicians still exist, the freedom of expression is stifled, and nonviolent demonstrations to express views publicly are banned. Moreover, even in a draft law on demonstration, the Royal Government [Royal Government] has the intention to muffle the freedom of the people who want to demonstrate."

Khieu Kanharith also pointed out that now, Ms Rice made the remarks at the push by the government's opponent, before the election, and he said, "She spoke from abroad, [but] the Cambodian people know."

Regarding Khieu Kanharith's critical remark that the United States is bogged down in the United States, Mao Monivan said, "It is normal for the superpower to make decisions against dictatorial regimes, including the former Iraqi leader (Saddam Hussein). Since that country threatened democracy in the world, it must be decided to help rescue the people in that country so there will be genuine democracy."

It should be pointed out that recently, economic experts remarked that Cambodia's economy had grown passably over the past few years, but Cambodia still depended on foreign aid for development and solving the still devastating poverty problem. Moreover, one of the problems the Cambodian people are currently facing is the imbalance between income and the needs for livelihood, while the prices of consumer goods at the markets have shot up.

The World Bank used to remind the government to focus on monitoring the gap between the rich and the poor, especially between the rich and the rural people. At present, Cambodia, regarded as one of the poorest nations in the world, is found to have been bogged down deeply in corruption, which is the root cause of the country's poverty.

At the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, the US Department of State paid special attention to Cambodia, and, in particular, the US Senate has approved a law banning Cambodian officials implicated in the destructive cutting down of forest trees from setting foot on the American soil. The US Congress, too, called on the Department of State to consider using the Global Witness' "Nation-stealing Family Trees" report to compile its list.

On 23 January, the US Department of State's spokesman stated that the United States meticulously considered making corruption charges. He added that the United States shared a lot of concern raised by the Global Witness in its report and was reviewing all the information relating to this story.

The Global Witness report contains the names of 12 important officials and businessmen close to [Cambodian Prime Minister] Hun Sen, including Chan Sarun, minister of agriculture; Ti Sokun, chief of the Forest Administration, and the commander of Brigade 70. Nevertheless, some of the implicated people denied the Global Witness report as false.

The Global Witness has enraged government officials, and the assertion by Ms. Rice early this week also made Information Minister Khieu Kanharith's blood boil.

Chiem Yiep defends the CPP development policy

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testifies on Capitol Hill before Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, 13 Feb 2008

Lawmaker Defends Cambodia's Development Policy

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
14 February 2008

A lawmaker from the ruling party defends Cambodia’s development policy.

Speaking to VOA Khmer by phone, Cheam Yiep, a lawmaker from the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) says that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s disappointment about Cambodia doe not reflect the real progress in Cambodia.

"I can say that what Mrs. Rice US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has raised is her rights," says Cheam Yiep.

The Associated Press in Washington DC quoted Secretary Rice as saying "the U.S. is disappointed about pace of change in Cambodia". Rice reportedly told law makers on Wednesday that the United States wanted to see more progress in that country. However, the Associated Press did not elaborate.

Cambodia receives about USD 600 million dollars every year. An estimated 34 percent of its population is living under the poverty line and most people in Cambodia makes less than a dollar a day.

VOA could not reach government spokesman Khieu Kahnarith and other senior government official for comments.

Rice says US disappointed by the pace of change in Cambodia

2008-02-14

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the United States is disappointed about the pace of change in Cambodia.

Rice told lawmakers Wednesday that the U.S. wants to see more progress in that country.

Some 1.7 million Cambodians died under the communist Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s.

Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal has five former leaders of the Khmer Rouge in custody awaiting trial.

Corruption in Cambodia is a way of life. Most civil servants earn only about $25 (euro 17) a month.

Asia may feel 'slighted' as Bush, Rice skip talks: analysts

By P. Parameswaran

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A week after US President George W. Bush postponed talks with Southeast Asian leaders, Washington confirmed Tuesday that his top diplomat will also skip an annual meeting with regional counterparts, prompting warnings that Asia may take offence.

As the Bush administration clears the decks to focus on Iraq, the failure by the two to keep their appointments could be seen by the region as a snub, experts say, especially since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has scrapped her trip twice.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Rice's deputy John Negroponte would lead the US delegation to the meetings hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Manila this year.

The meetings include an August 1-2 dialogue between the region and its key trading partners -- ASEAN is the largest US export market after Europe and Japan -- as well as a high-level regional security forum.

The 27-member ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is the only high level official security group in the Asia-Pacific region, and includes Russia, India, China, the European Union and North Korea.

"Secretary Rice regrets that she won't be able to travel to the ASEAN meeting. It is the press of other business," McCormack told reporters, citing her July 30-August 2 trip to the Middle East to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and stability in Iraq.

The White House announced last week that Bush had postponed talks with leaders of the 10 ASEAN states -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The landmark summit, scheduled for September when Bush receives a much-awaited assessment of the situation in insurgency-wracked Iraq, was aimed at highlighting 30 years of official ties between Washington and Southeast Asia.

Rice had cancelled a trip to the annual ASEAN meetings in 2005, becoming the first American secretary of state to skip the ARF talks since they were first held in 1994, drawing criticism from the region which felt its stature had diminished in Washington's eyes.

"Obviously, the Middle East is terribly important but I think it would only be natural if the countries in Southeast Asia did feel a bit slighted," said Asian expert Robert Hathaway of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars.

"Other than the war on terrorism, Washington has in recent years rather neglected that part of the world. So I expect the State Department announcement today will not be welcomed," he said.

ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong had said last week that it would be a "dampener" if Rice skipped this year's meeting.

But McCormack said Washington's engagement in Southeast Asia was unshaken.

"I don't think anybody really seriously questions our engagement in Southeast Asia. We have deep involvement with not only ASEAN but with the individual countries in Southeast Asia," he said.

"I expect that she (Rice) will at some point in the next 18 months travel to Southeast Asia as well," particularly to the Philippines, he said.

Despite the assurances, however, governments in East Asia "firmly believe they are witnessing the long, steady decline of the US commitment to their region," said Walter Lohman, former senior vice president of the US-ASEAN Business Council.

"To them, the latest series of decisions appear to be part of a pattern dating back to the pullout from Clark Air Base and Subic Bay in 1992," he said, referring to the US withdrawal from the key Philippine bases.

While the region is familiar with the overwhelming draw on US attention from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, "they are also witnessing up close a China that, if it is not yet a superpower, is emerging as first among equals in the region," Lohman said.

"The calculation is not an idle exercise -- governments in East Asia are determining where their future lies and whether they can rely on the United States for the next 50 years in the same way they relied on it for the previous 50," he said.

Condi raises human rights with VN foreign minister

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (R) greets Pham Gia Khiem, Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, at the State Department in Washington March 15, 2007. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Rice Raises Human Rights With Vietnamese Foreign Minister

By David Gollust
Voice of America
Washington
15 March 2007

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discussed human rights and other issues in a meeting Thursday with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem. The Vietnamese government is accused of a new crackdown on political dissent. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

The meeting here reflected a continued political rapproachment between the two former adversaries in the Indochina war.

But it came against a background of growing concern about alleged backsliding by the Vietnam's communist government on human rights.

The monitoring group Human Rights Watch said last week despite growing global recognition -- reflected in Vietnam's new membership in the World Trade Organization, and recent hosting of the APEC Pacific-rim summit -- the Hanoi government has embarked on one of its worst political crackdowns in 20 years.

It said among those arrested in recent weeks include two outspoken human rights lawyers and a dissident Roman Catholic priest.

At a photo opportunity with her Vietnamese counterpart, Secretary of State Rice declined to respond to reporters' questions about the issue.

However at a briefing just before the start of the meeting, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said human rights was at the top of Rice's agenda. "The Vietnamese have made some advances in that regard. They've made some advances with respect to religious freedoms in Vietnam. There have been, however, some detentions that have been of real concern to the United States and we have raised those issues with Vietnamese officials. Secretary Rice has done that in the past and I would expect that certainly a general discussion about human rights, if not a specific one about these cases, will take place during the meeting," he said.

U.S. officials said the talks also covered Southeast Asian regional issues, trade, and plans for a Washington visit by Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet, who would be the country's first post-war head of state to come to the United States.

An agreement in principle for the trip was reached during President Bush's Hanoi visit for the APEC summit last November, but officials here said late Thursday they had no date to announce.

The United States and its former communist enemy normalized diplomatic relations in 1995 and President Bush extended normal trade relations to Hanoi at the end of last year.

Bilateral trade between the two countries now exceeds $12 billion a year. But Wednesday a leading congressional human rights advocate - New Jersey Republican Chris Smith - said Vietnam's recent behavior shows that trade and respect for human rights do not always go hand-in-hand. "I hope we finally get it, and I hope the administration gets it, and the congressmen on the Democrat and Republican side who have this naive belief that if you just trade, somehow that trading will matriculate (develop) into respect for human rights. It hasn't happened in China. It has not happened in Vietnam," he said.

Last November, the State Department removed Vietnam from a list of countries where serious violations of religious freedom are said to occur.

But in its annual report on human rights conditions world-wide, issued earlier this month, it said Vietnam's rights record remained unsatisfactory - noting that opposition movements are officially prohibited amid tightening controls over the press and internet.

Foreign Minister Khiem, who traveled to Washington with top officials of the Vietnamese ministries of transport, science, telecommunications and education, is also meeting U.S. legislators and businessmen during his visit.

During his State Department visit Thursday, officials of the two countries signed a maritime cooperation agreement.