‘Slaves’ finally home

Four trafficked fishermen return to Cambodia yesterday after being rescued by South African authorities. Photograph: Vireak Mai/Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 06 July 2012
Phak Seangly
The Phnom Penh Post

Four Cambodian men held for months as slaves on a boat off the coast of South Africa were greeted by their relieved families at Phnom Penh International Airport yesterday after being rescued from their ordeal.

One of the fishermen, Kha Mara, 29, said the group had suffered months of physical and mental torment after believing they had signed up to work in Japan.

“We were forced to work without rest and salary and even during rainstorms,” he said on his return. “If we refused to work, they beat us.”

The four men, all from Kampong Cham province, were punched and kicked if their Taiwanese captors believed they were not doing enough work or if they “looked lazy”, Kha Mara said.

Amnesty International Annual Report 2012 - Cambodia

Cambodia

• Head of state King Norodom Sihamoni
• Head of government Hun Sen
• Death penalty abolitionist for all crimes
• Population 14.3 million
• Life expectancy 63.1 years
• Under-5 mortality 87.5 per 1,000
• Adult literacy 77.6 per cent

Forced evictions, land disputes and land grabbing continued on a large scale, with thousands of people affected. An increase in the number of economic land concessions granted to business interests by the government exacerbated the situation. Impunity for perpetrators of human rights abuses and lack of an independent judiciary remained serious problems. The authorities continued to restrict the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly by threatening, harassing and taking legal action against human rights defenders in an effort to silence them. Grassroots communities and land and housing rights activists were particularly at risk. A controversial proposed law to regulate NGOs and associations met with widespread opposition from civil society and was postponed. Critical developments at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia threatened to derail proceedings and deny justice to the victims of Khmer Rouge atrocities.

Background

An ongoing border dispute with Thailand over ownership of the area surrounding Preah Vihear temple, a World Heritage Site, resulted in armed clashes between the two countries in early 2011. The International Court of Justice ruled in July that both sides should withdraw their troops from the area, but this was only partially adhered to.

In August, the World Bank stated that since December 2010 it had stopped granting new loans to Cambodia until an agreement could be reached with the remaining residents of Boeung Kak Lake in the capital, Phnom Penh. Almost 4,000 families have been forcibly evicted from the area since 2008.

In October, the government temporarily banned sending domestic workers to Malaysia, after a series of incidents involving the reported abuse of Cambodian women and girls recruited to work as maids. Recruitment agencies in Cambodia were also accused of unlawfully detaining women and girls for training prior to sending them abroad.

Cambodia formally assumed the chair of ASEAN in November, to begin in January 2012. The government announced its intention to seek a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2013-14.

Forced evictions

Khmer Rouge soldiers redux in Prama village?

អ្នកភូមិប្រម៉ា​ត្រូវ​ទាហាន​ធ្វើ​ទារុណ​កម្ម​ ឲ្យស្រាត​ខោ​អាវ ឈ​ហាល​ថ្ងៃ និង​ដក​ហូត​លុយ​កាត់​


Monday, 21 May 2012
ម៉ៃ ទិត្យថារ៉ា
The Phnom Penh Post

ប្រជាពលរដ្ឋមកពី​ភូមិ​ប្រម៉ា ឃុំកំពង់​ដំរី ស្រុក​ឆ្លូង​ ខេត្ត​ក្រចេះ ​ដែល​បាន​រត់គេច​ខ្លួន​ពី​​តំបន់​ដែល​ឡោម​ព័ទ្ធ​ដោយ​កំលាំង​សម្ថកិច្ច​ចម្រុះ ចុះ​អនុវត្តន៍​វិធានការ​រដ្ឋ​បាលដោយ​បង្ខំ​អោយ​ពួក​គាត់​ចាក់​ចេញ​ពី​លំនៅ​ដ្ឋាន​​ដែល​បាន​ចោទ​ប្រកាន់​​រស់​នៅ​អនាធិបតេយ្យ​ ​និង​បង្កើត​តំបន់​អបគមន៍គ្រោង​នឹង​ដាក់​ពាក្យ​ប្តឹង​កម្លាំង​សម្ថកិច្ច​ដែល​បាន​ប្រើ​អំពើ​ហិង្សារ​មកលើ​ពួក​គាត់​ដែល​បាន​ព្រឹត្តិកាល​ពី​ថ្ងៃ​ទី​១៦ ខែ​ឧសភា។

សុធាវី​ អាយុ ១៩​ ឆ្នាំ ជា​ឈ្មោះ​ដែល​បាន​ផ្តល់​អោយ​អ្នក​សារព័ត៌មាន​ដើម្បី​ការ​ពារ​សុវត្ថិភាព​បាន​ថ្លែង​ទាំង​សម្លេង​​ភិត​ភ័យ​ថា​ មន្ត្រី​ទាហាន​បាន​ប្រើ​អំពើរ​ហិង្សារ​យ៉ាង​ឃោរឃៅ​មក​លើ​ស្ត្រី​ៗ​ ​និង​បុរស​ នៅ​ក្នុង​ភូមិកាល​ពីថ្ងៃទី​១៦ ខែ​ឧសភា​ ហើយពួក​​គេ​ ​រឹមអូស​​យកទូរស័ព្ទ​ និង​លុយ​ពី​ពលរដ្ឋ​យក​មក​ធ្វើ​ជា​របស់​ផ្ទាល់​ខ្លួន​របស់​ពួក​គេ​។ កញ្ញា​បាន​អោយ​ដឹងទៀត​​ថា​៖ «​ខ្ញុំ​ពិបាក​ និង​ភេ្លច​ព្រឹត្តិការណ៍​នេះ​ខ្លាំង​ណាស់​ គេ​ផ្ចង់​​កាំ​ភ្លើង​ឲ្យ​​ខ្ញុំ​ និង​ស្រី្តៗ​ជា​ច្រើន​ទៀត​ដោះ​អាវ​ចេញ​ដោយ​ទុក​តែ​ខ្លួន​ទទេដើម្បី​យក​លុយ​កាក់របស់​យើង​​ ហើយ​គេ​ចងដៃ​យើង​ដាក់​មកក្រោយ​ពួក​យើង​អោយ​ឈ​នៅ​កណ្តាល​ថ្ងៃក្តៅ​រយៈពេល​២​ទៅ​៣​ម៉ោង​»។​

សុធាវី​ បាន​អោយ​ដឹង​ទៀត​ថា​ កំលាំងចម្រុះ​​ដែល​ប្រើ​ហិង្សារ​យ៉ាង​ឃោឃៅ​មក​លើ​ពលរដ្ឋ​ទាំង​អស់​នោះ​គឺជា​កម្លាំង​ទាហាន​ ពួក​គេ​បាន​បង្ខំ​អោយ​ប្រុសៗ​នៅ​ក្នុង​ភូមិ​ស្រាត​ខោ​ អាវ​ចេញ​ទុក​តែ​ខោក្នុង​ ចំពោះ​បុរស​ណា​ដែល​មិន​មាន​ខោ​ក្នុង​គឺ​នៅ​តែ​ខ្លួន​ទទេ​។ កញ្ញា​បាន​អោយ​ដឹ​ង​ទៀត​ថា​៖ «​តាំង​ពី​ខ្ញុំ​ធំ​ដឹង​ក្តី​អាយុ​ប៉ុណ្ណឹង​ខ្ញុំ​មិន​ដែល​ឃើញ​ភា​ព​សា​ហាវ​យង់ឃ្នង​យ៉ាង​ដូច្នេះ​ទេ​»។

Cambodia: Khmer Rouge judgment welcome, but raises human rights concerns

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE


3 February 2012

Cambodia: Khmer Rouge judgment welcome, but raises human rights concerns

The UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal’s final judgment against a former Khmer Rouge prison chief in Cambodia today is an important step towards accountability but raises human rights concerns, Amnesty International said.

The tribunal’s Supreme Court Chamber upheld an earlier conviction of Khmer Rouge jailer Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, for crimes against humanity and war crimes described as “amongst the worst in human history”, and increased his sentence from 35 years to life in prison.

Duch was held responsible for killing at least 12,272 men, women, and children from 1975 to 1979 while he was in charge of “S21”, a secret prison runby the Khmer Rouge in a former school in Phnom Penh.

The judgment included additional convictions against Duch, but also raised human rights concerns by overturning a legal remedy he was granted after a Cambodian military court illegally detained him, without investigation or trial, from May 1999 until July 2007.

“The closure of this first case represents an important step towards achieving accountability for the mass crimes of the Khmer Rouge, and helping the Cambodian people draw a line under this tragic chapter of their country’s history,” said Rupert Abbott, Amnesty International’s researcher on Cambodia, who attended today’s judgment.

“But the decision to overturn the legal remedy for Duch’s unlawful detention and to provide no alternative may be perceived as a case of public opinion trumping human rights.”

Rights Group Condemns Conditions Across Asia

Cops beating a child during Borei Keila forced eviction

Monday, 23 January 2012
VOA News | Washington, DC

The group Human Rights Watch released its annual World Report Sunday, painting a bleak picture of conditions across much of Asia.

HRW said Burma's human rights situation remained dire last year, despite the transition to a military-backed civilian government. The report accuses Burma's military of rape, torture and the killing of civilians in ethnic minority conflict zones, marring the government's recent political reforms.

The group accuses China's one-party government of imposing sharp curbs on freedom of expression, association and religion, and openly rejecting judicial independence and press freedom. Meanwhile, the document says Chinese citizens are increasingly rights-conscious and challenging authorities over abuses of power and corruption.

Vietnam needs 'rights progress' for US weapons

Il semble clairement que Hanoi profite activement des tensions croissantes en mer de Chine du Sud pour accéder aux ressources technologiques militaires étrangères, notamment d’origine américaine.

Est-ce que c’est pour faire à son géant voisin chinois ou bien c’est pour préparer en douce un autre saut expansionniste en Asie du Sud Est en manoeuvrant entre les rivalités géopolitiques entre la Chine et les Etats-Unis ?

----

It seems clearly that Hanoi actively wants to take advantages from the growing tensions in South China sea in order to access advanced foreign military technological resources, especially from US.

Is it to face with its powerful Chinese neighbor or to secretly prepare for another expansionist leap in Southeast Asia by maneuvering between China-US geopolitical rivalries ?

Regards

Kith Chamroeun

22 January 2012

AFP

BANGKOK — The United States will not sell lethal weapons to Vietnam until it reverses the "backward movement" in its human rights situation, US Senators including John McCain said Saturday.

Following a visit to the communist Southeast Asian nation, McCain told reporters in Bangkok that Hanoi had a "long long list" of arms it would like to buy.

But the US delegation "specifically stated to the Vietnamese that our security relationship will be directly impacted by the human rights issues", said McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam.

"There has not been progress on human rights issues, in fact there has been some backward movement on it."

Vietnam jails land rights activists for 'propaganda'

Dozens of political critics and rights campaigners have been sentenced to long prison terms in Vietnam since 2009 (AFP/File, Hoang Dinh Nam)

Saturday, October 22, 2011
AFP

HANOI — A court in Vietnam has sentenced three land rights activists from the same family to up to seven years in jail for spreading anti-government propaganda, according to state media.

Nguyen Ngoc Cuong, 55, received a seven-year prison term while his 25-year-old son got two years and his daughter-in-law received a suspended sentence, according to the Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan.

The three were known to campaign on behalf of farmers embroiled in land disputes with local authorities, an increasingly contentious issue in Vietnam.

No public celebration of Int'l Housing Rights Day in public: Phnom Penh city is afraid of a riot?

On 20 September 2011, the Phnom Penh city hall sent a letter to Sia Phirum, the director of Housing Rights Task Force, to inform him that the city will not allow a public celebration of the International Housing Rights Day in front Wat Botum Pagoda. With the large amount of land disputes, forced evictions and land-grabbing in place currently, the city is not taking a chance to see a riot exploding in the middle of Phnom Penh. This is what happens when an autocratic regime has to protect itself from a flood of angry population:

Hide! Hide! Hide!

Deny! Deny! Deny!

Kep Chuktema inaugurating a ground breaking project in Boeung Kak Lake with Lao Meng Khin and Choeung Sopheap - his wife - who are also known as the LEECHES OF BOEUNG KAK (Photo: DAP news)

Speak Truth To Power ("Courage Without Borders) Series in KI-Media - Raji Sourani (Gaza) “Human Rights and Self-Deter​mination”

http://www.box.net/shared/rjxq6cvhfcxjblj6fcda

Speak Truth To Power ("Courage Without Borders") Series in KI-Media - Patria Jimenez (Mexico) “Gay, Lesbian, Transgende​r Rights”

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Speak Truth To Power Series in KI-Media - Francisco Soberón (Peru) “Human Rights”

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Speak Truth To Power Series in KI-Media - Martin O’Brien (Northern Ireland) “Human Rights in the Midst of Conflict”

Speak Truth To Power Series in KI-Media - Martin O’Brien (Northern Ireland) “Human Rights in the Midst of C...
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Speak Truth To Power Series in KI-Media - Fauziya Kassindja (Togo) “Female Genital Mutilation and Immigratio​n Abuse”

Speak Truth To Power Series in KI-Media - Fauziya Kassindja (Togo) “Female Genital Mutilation and Immigrati...
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Govt centre under fire

Children at the gate of the Prey Speu social affairs centre earlier this week in Phnom Penh's Dangkor district. (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)

Thursday, 07 July 2011
James O'Toole and Vong Sokheng

“We were only at the centre for one day, but we found out that it is not a good place to live”

VORN Kandop, 43, was arrested on Monday while begging in the capital’s O’Russei market. Along with his wife and five-year-old son, he was taken one day later to the Prey Speu social affairs centre.

Most detainees are held at the notorious Dangkor district facility for at least three months. Vorn Kandop and his family were able to leave the centre yesterday with the help of local rights groups, and afterwards, he recognised their good fortune.

“We were told that we would be beaten if we tried to escape from the centre, and we saw people being beaten,” he said.

Until yesterday, Vorn Kandop’s son was just one of roughly 20 children housed at Prey Speu, a government-run facility established in 2003 that has come under renewed criticism following a report from the United Nations committee on child rights made public last week. That report calls for the release of all children in the Kingdom being held in “arbitrary detention”, yet activists fear that the entrenched patterns of abuse at Prey Speu show no sign of fading any time soon.

Governor backs NGO on abuse allegations

Tuesday, 17 August 2010
Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

Click here to read on what the villagers and Adhoc have to say about DARPO/ADSP which is headed by a powerful CPP 2-star general-businessman.

THE governor of Preah Vihear province yesterday moved to quash allegations that a local NGO was guilty of ongoing human rights violations in the province.

Last week, local rights group Adhoc deployed human rights monitors to Preah Vihear to investigate complaints filed by 57 villagers, who say that employees of an NGO identified as the Drugs and AIDS Research and Prevention Organisation had committed acts of rape, land-grabbing, violence and intimidation.

Chan Saveth, a senior monitor for Adhoc, said the government had granted DARPO a 556-hectare social land concession in Choam Khsan district in 2007, in a move intended to aid poor families in the area.

Chan Saveth said yesterday that he could not disclose information about the investigation because it was ongoing, but that Adhoc would “continue to consult with local authorities” on the issue.

But Provincial governor Sar Thavy yesterday denied that such violations would occur in Preah Vihear.

“There is nothing like that here, and we, the local authorities, would not allow such serious human rights violations to happen in this modern age,” he said.

“We are waiting to see the faces of the victims and waiting for their official complaints before proceeding with our work and investigation.”

Interior Ministry Spokesman Khieu Sopheak urged any victims to file complaints in order to ensure that they are properly investigated by the authorities.

When Blessing Becomes a Curse in the Niger Delta [-Will this be the Tonle Sap's fate?]

Severely Scarred Source of Survival. With their children in tow, the women survey the destruction wrought by the massive oil spill that was followed by an uncontrollable fire. They used to fish in this part of the Oya Lake. Photo from Environmental Rights Action (ERA)
Gathering Force. Women who are situated at the Niger are becoming increasingly visible as popular and legal actions against oil companies mount. Photo from ERA.

By Betty Abah
Women in Action, No. 2, 2009

Click here to read the entire original article in PDF format

The other day I saw a supervisor of Wilbros, an oil servicing firm operating in the area. I asked him why they were not giving any jobs to the women. They had just given some casual jobs to a few boys. He looked at us and replied that indeed there were jobs for the women. I asked him, “What jobs?” He put his hands on his crotch and said “This is the job for the women.” —Madam Adeline Gilbert, Woman Leader

If injustice had not existed and natural blessings had been left unabused, Cilia Neberi would be one of the happiest and most comfortable women to grace the earth’s surface. But then, it is a world where the reverse is the case. With decades of oil-related anguish behind her, the middle-aged mother of four is now dead and gone.

Cilia lived in Ikarama, an oil-producing community in the Niger Delta where Shell and Agip carry out large-scale drilling activities. Like many women farmers in Ikarama, Cilia was the bread winner of her family. Like many other people too, she and her family were severely threatened by the oil spills. For several months, her house was like an island, surrounded by dark, slimy and nauseating substances from one of the ruptured pipes of Agip, an oil facility that is stationed right at the centre of her community.

A slim woman with an oak-like will, Cilia joined a group of women in the community to protest such environmental degradation by Agip’s unregulated and insensitive drilling activities. When their cries and pleas fell on deaf ears, Cilia and her husband devised a means of safe-guarding themselves, especially their four young children. In the morning they headed to her in-laws’ house and returned in the evenings to simply sleep the menace away.

But the menace caught up with Cilia, who eventually complained of body aches and nausea that left her unable to work. The family had no money that could have given her quality medical help on time. The Agip-sponsored clinic was also useless. Contrary to its press releases, the clinic was only inhabited by reptiles. Cilia was later taken to the General Hospital at Yenagoa but she succumbed in just a couple of weeks.

Cilia is just one of the several cases experienced throughout the Niger Delta where a natural endowment of oil has become a grievous curse. The communities constantly grapple with the consequences of oil spills, gas flares and other menaces arising from unregulated explorative activities of the international oil companies.

Many women in these subsistence communities bear the burdensome task of caring for their families, protecting them from harsh pollution. The rate of cases of cancer, infertility, leukemia, bronchitis, asthma, still-births, deformed babies and other pollution-related ailments are unusually high in this region. From Ikarama to Akaraolu to Imiringi, women are bruised and dying.

As one farmer, Marthy Berebo shared, “If I am to undress before you, you will see the extent of the toll this pollution has taken on my body. The whole of my body is racked with aches.” Charity Seiba, 66-year old mother of 10 also said, “The same oil companies that sustain this country are killing us. This is the pain with which we have to live.”

Ikarama, a predominantly fishing and farming community of 10,000 people, also ranks as one of the most polluted communities in the Niger Delta. Settled along Taylor Creek, Ikarama is host to both the Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) and Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC). Shell’s pipes that link the Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers States all pass through Ikarama. Shell’s Okordia Manifold is also situated in Ikarama.

It is assumed that by hosting big international companies like Shell, communities flourish. But the contrary happens to Ikarama, as it finds itself in a deep and dark pool of poverty. The roads have yet to be paved, as promised by the company while the lives of people are becoming worse, with their livelihoods destroyed by the frequent oil spills.

Alili Ziah is a widow with seven children. Before, she could still provide for them through fishing but now that the water has been contaminated, her family has been forced to depend on other people’s charity. “Whenever I set traps and I go to inspect, they are soaked in crude oil,” she remarked.

Like Ikarama, Imiringi has been hosting several of Shell’s gas flaring sites since 1972. The health implications arising from the open, poisonous flames are enormous. People who live nearby complain of rashes on the skin, redness of the eyes and other complications. Contamination is quite likely since women usually dry their local staple, kpopko garri near these gas flaring sites. Women’s reproductive health has also been affected, as seen with the rising number of cases of infertility and birth deformities.

As noted by farmer Margaret Amos, “Since 1972, our crop yields have started depreciating. Then, as a young girl, I noticed that our crops such as cocoyam, cassava and plantain grew more luxuriantly and when we harvested them, we got bountiful yields. But all that is now history.”

Oil has been Nigeria’s lifeblood since the late 1950s, when Shell had its first successful oil well in Oloibiri in the Bayelsa State in 1956. Eighty per cent of the country’s wealth is derived from oil while 90 per cent of revenues come from oil-related businesses. About 50 per cent of Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP), 80 per cent of budgetary revenues and 95 per cent of foreign exchange earnings come from oil that is drilled at the Niger Delta.

Ten per cent of its crude oil is directed to the United States (US). According to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Nigeria is the eighth biggest exporter of petroleum in the world.

Shell is the most dominant and oldest players in the industry that also includes big names like Agip, Mobil, Chevron and ELF. In fact, it accounts for half of the total oil production in Nigeria. In both Bayelsa and Rivers states alone, Shell’s seismic lines cover 56,000 kilometres. The company has 7,000 kilometres of flow lines and 400 kilometres of pipelines. It has 349 drilling sites. At the height of its operations, Shell produced one million barrels of crude oil daily. This figure has been reduced with the attacks of militant groups in the last few years. But given the relative stability in this volatile region, there are prospects that the figure would once more increase.

Yet oil companies have very little to show in terms of its contributions to the communities’ development. In fact, they have merely subjected communities to more poverty and disease because of their unregulated means of polluting the land, water and air. In the Niger Delta alone, there are more than a hundred gas flare sites. It has been estimated that 13 per cent of the annual global gas flared or about 23 billion cubic meters out of 168 billion cubic meters come from Nigeria. It is said that with this unabated flaring, about US$15 million worth of gas is turned into smoke daily.

As Darlene Odonogu Samuel, a 46 year old mother of six children in Ikarama pointed out, “Shell agents, Agip agents, NGOs and other people have been coming here and making promises, but so far it has all come to nothing. Still, we have no good roads.”

Moreover between 1976 and 2001, the Nigerian government documented 6,817 spills, practically one a day for 25 years. Yet analysts suspect that the amount could even be 10 times higher.

With the huge money involved in this industry, it not surprising to see conflicts that claim the lives of over 1,000 people annually. Of the oil companies operating at the Niger Delta, Shell has been deemed as the most notorious as it sanctioned human rights abuses committed by security forces at its employ. Shell arms and pays government security personnel and outfits who are always quick to quell any signs of uprising and carry out wanton human rights abuses.

In all of these, women are the major victims, as widows and mothers. They have been the families’ pillars on whose shoulders many of sorrow and deprivation fall.

As Environmental Rights Action (ERAction) stated, “The oil and gas fields have not only witnessed massive crude oil spills and gas flares and explosions. We do know that due to high levels of human rights abuses, the oil fields are also knee-deep in blood.”

Conflicts emanating from the discontent and corruption around the oil industry indeed have a history. In the 1960s, the government fought hard to quell an uprising championed by a young Niger Deltan, Isaac Boro. Though this was suppressed and Boro was later conscripted into the Nigerian Army, only to be killed under questionable circumstances, there were many others who fell victims but whose struggles and fates were not well-documented.

The 1990s was one of the most tumultuous times in the Niger Delta. Writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa roused the consciousness of the nation and the international community over the environmental injustice in Ogoniland. Following the controversial killing of four chiefs who were sympathetic to oil multinationals by irate mob of village youths, Saro-Wiwa was arrested and hanged. Military operatives paid by Shell moved into the communities with amoured tanks, guns and various weapons, shooting and killing hundreds of people including women and children, mowing down entire villages, and maiming thousands.

Today, many women still carry these scars and live in deformed bodies. One of the survivors is Promise Yibari Maapie, who had her left arm permantly withered as a result of a gun shot. Her daughter Joy also sustained damaging gun shots on her legs. “The soldiers brought pain, sorrow and hunger into my life,” she told a reporter.

After the infamous Ogoni genocide, there have been several cases, including that of the Odi Massacre in 1999, where entire towns were razed down. It was a retaliatory move by the the government’s troops, arising from the killing of some military men by militants.

In mid 2009, massacres and bombings happened in several villages in the Gbaramatu Kingdom in the Niger Delta. In the process, many women were killed, wounded or displaced. There were reported cases of those who gave birth in the forests and creeks while running away from the military attack. As usual, there were reports of rape by the soldiers.

Women are the foremost victims in the Niger Delta tragedy. Apart from contending with gas flares and oil spills, they also live at the very edge of their lives. When rusty pipelines conveying crude oil burst, farmlands, forests, streams and rivers are damaged. Scores are also killed as in October 1998 when an oil pipeline explosion roasted around 2,000 people in Jesse Town in Ethiope, West Local Government Council of the Delta State. Worse, government interventions are nonexistent and when they exist at all, they are either belated or half-baked.

Besides this, constructions of gigantic drilling projects pollute and alter the communities’ water ways, depriving residents’ access to water. These impacts are felt most by women. Aside from being farmers, they also provide food and water for the family. As Stella Ogbel, a resident in Imiringi shared, “When we were young, we used to be happy whenever it was raining. Rain water was considered to be clean, fit for drinking. We don’t have that these days. When we collect the rain water from our roofs now, the whole surface would be covered with soot occasioned by the gas flare in our community.”

Despite the tragedy that their bodies bear, women have been rendered voiceless in many communities. In most communities, it takes the special intervention of civil society organisations (CSOs) for women to be allowed into the town hall consultative fora where issues affecting the communities are discussed. Men would always insist that the matters to be discussed are too serious for women.

In many cases, women cannot claim land ownership. Farmlands usually belong to husbands and fathers. The deaths of their husbands or divorce could spell the end of their stay in those lands. Thus, environmental disasters constitute a double tragedy for women.

Nonetheless, in some communities, women are organising themselves, attempting to take up their destinities into their own hands and undoing the malevolent strings of the retrogressive customs in some communities. Such bold attempts can be attributed to the intervention of CSOs and to a large extent, changing times.

For 16 years, the Environmental Rights Action (ERA)/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, the country’s foremost environmental justice civil society group, has engaged oil-producing communities in the Niger Delta region. It has held awareness-creating and advocacy skillbuilding workshops via town hall meetings and other fora. ERA has also monitored oil spills and other environmental disasters.

ERA also produces publications, newsletters, journals, books and other publications documenting instances of environmental degradation. On certain instances, these have drawn postive responses.

In collaboration with affected communities, ERA has lodged legal actions against Shell and other multinationals for many cases of environmental injustices. ERA has also taken
up the cases of affected communities to the court of international public opinion. It held a picket outside Shell’s headquarters in the Netherlands and presented cases against Chevron to the US Congress.

Aside from its engagement with women in Ikarama, Imiringi and Akaraolu, ERA is working with women in Iguobazuwa in Edo State whose rich rain forest has been forcibly annexed by the French tire-making multinational, Michelin, without prior consent, thereby destabilising many women farmers in the community.

Betty Abah is the Gender Focal Person of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, the country’s foremost environmental justice non-government organisation.

Sources:
Alagao, Morris. (2008). “Testimonies from Imirngi for ERA.” (copy text).
Bassey, Nnimmo. (2008). “The Future of Crude Oil is Already History,” presentation at Oilwatch General Assembly in September 2008 in South Africa.
ERAction. (2004). “Shell: A Corporate Terrorist at Work.” (No. 5, 2004).
DonPedro, Ibiba (2005). Out of a Bleak Landscape. Lagos, Foreword Communications Ltd.
Gbenro Olajuyigbe (2008). ABLAZE for Oil!: Studies on the Niger Delta Conflict. Nigeria: Action Aid.
Iyayi, Festus. (13 December 2006) “Political Economy of Oil and Gas Exploitation in Nigeria” In The Tribune.
Okonta, Ike. (2007) When Citizens Revolt: Nigerian Elites, Big Oil and the Ogoni Struggle for Self-determination. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, Inc.

In Cambodia, brush back against street sweeps

This government-run rehabilitation center just outside Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh, was used to detain people rounded up from the street. It was closed in 2008 after rights groups and the U.N. raised concerns about the legality of holding people there and the quality of the facilities. (Licadho)

Human Rights Watch condemns Cambodia's campaign to clear the capital of its poor and homeless.

March 4, 2010
By Brendan Brady
Special to GlobalPost

Skyscrapers and condos are fast rising in Phnom Penh but rights groups here say real development will remain illusory as long as the government sweeps the country’s social problems under the rug.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — At night in Cambodia’s capital, parks once populated by sex workers fell silent. Streets and abandoned lots in the center of Phnom Penh where drug addicts and homeless slept lay empty. The city’s underbelly had been washed away.

Then reports of abuse emerged. Sex workers said police had detained them for weeks, taking the cash they had on hand and raping them — even those who protested by saying they had HIV. There were accounts of government facilities where drug users, street kids and the mentally ill were beaten and starved. Rights workers reported a security crisis for the groups they served, and a facility was shut down after they and the U.N. raised concerns.

That was more than a year ago and the uproar has since eased. Now, a new report has put the government’s street sweep campaign front and center again.

In a report released Jan. 25, Human Rights Watch describes a climate of “sadistic violence” in the government’s drug rehabilitation centers. Drug users face beatings and arduous forced labor, while being deprived of effective treatment for their addiction, the watchdog group says.

“He had three kinds of cable … he would ask you which one you prefer. On each whip the skin would come off and stick to the cable,” the report quotes a 16-year-old identified as M’noh as saying.

In its own study, the World Health Organization found a nearly 100 percent relapse rate in people coming out of the government’s drug rehabilitation facilities. “This is a common approach globally,” says Graham Shaw, a technical adviser for the World Health Organization in Cambodia. “It’s cheap and easy and it allows the government to show the public that it’s responding to drug dependence problems amongst the population, but it doesn’t provide a solution.”

The facilities are presided over by a mix of authorities, including local government offices, the Social Affairs Ministry as well as civilian and military police. Human Rights Watch says officials running the rehabilitation centers profited by renting out detainees as laborers and by selling blood they forced detainees to donate. More than 2,000 people were detained in 11 of these facilities throughout the country in 2008, the vast majority involuntarily, according to the group.

“The real motivations for Cambodia’s drug detention centers appear to be a combination of social control, punishment for perceived moral failure of drug use and profit,” says the report.

The report sheds light on the government’s controversial use of holding centers for drug users, homeless people, sex workers and beggars — who are often rounded up before national holidays and visits by foreign dignitaries, when the capital is on display. Rights groups have long called for the closure of such facilities, citing frequent allegations of violence and forced detention, and questioned the effectiveness of the treatment programs they supposedly offer.

The issue came into the spotlight in 2008, after the government launched a contentious law that outlawed prostitution. In the months following the law's implementation, police carried out a series of raids on brothels and street-based prostitution that rights groups said gave police free rein to rape and rob sex workers they detained. They say the law has done little more than drive prostitution deeper underground, making sex workers more vulnerable to trafficking and pushing them further away from the public health groups that have been instrumental in curbing the country's HIV/AIDS rates.

“This sort of ‘cleaning’ the streets of undesirable people has been happening for a long time, but there’s been more attention towards it recently,” said Mathieu Pellerin, who works with the local rights group Licadho.

According to Pellerin, when a Licadho outreach team was able to gain access to one of the government’s main poorhouses in 2008, they found an elderly women in her dying moments being left untreated and a young mother nine months pregnant who would have given birth in her cell without any assistance had they not been able to convince the facility to release her.

The government has denied reports of violence and mistreatment in its facilities. “There’s no violence, rape, nothing like that” in the drug centers, said Neak Yuthea, who is head of the government’s rehabilitation program. “Drug addiction is a new problem in Cambodia. This is good for them. … Maybe Human Rights Watch wants to see the drug users living on the street.”

The government says most drug users are interned at the request of their families and that many homeless volunteer to live temporarily in the centers because they are given food, a roof over their heads, and, in some cases, basic vocational training. It has also cited a lack of resources in some cases to explain substandard facilities.

Licadho’s director, Naly Pilorge, says, however, it isn’t simply a matter of underperforming social welfare. “You have people who have done nothing wrong who are detained like criminals,” she said. “It could be a construction worker who doesn’t look like he belongs on the street where he is … or a poor-looking kid who is just walking along the street.”

Skyscrapers and condos are fast rising in Phnom Penh but rights groups here say real development will remain illusory as long as the government sweeps the country’s social problems under the rug.

Refugees Are Not Bargaining Chips

January 1, 2010
By BILL FRELICK
Op-Ed Contributor
New York Times

WASHINGTON — A virus is sweeping Asia. The symptoms are heightened xenophobia and amnesia about fundamental refugee rights. Australia and Indonesia succumbed first, in October, when they stopped boats carrying Sri Lankans. Neither country would allow the Sri Lankans to disembark even though they came from a country experiencing massive violence and displacement. Almost three months later, one of the boats, holding more than 250 Sri Lankans, remains moored in the West Javan port of Merak.

Cambodia was next to catch the fever. A small group of Uighur men, women and children fleeing the aftermath of the worst ethnic violence in decades in China sought asylum in Cambodia. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees issued “persons of concern” letters on their behalf and moved them into a facility it managed jointly with the Cambodian government. But Cambodia forcibly returned 20 Uighurs on Dec. 19, despite the protests of the U.N. agency, the diplomatic corps and human rights groups. They have not been heard from since.

Now Thailand has gone viral. On Monday, soldiers with truncheons and shields herded more than 4,000 Hmong asylum seekers onto buses back to Laos from the Huay Nam Khao camp in Petchabun Province, where they have lived since 2005. For four years, the Thai Army detained the Hmong in the closed camp, never allowing the U.N. refugee agency to interview them or assess their claims to refugee status. The Thai Army’s own screening process, based on criteria never made public, found that hundreds of the Hmong had legitimate protection concerns, but Thailand never provided any additional protections. The Thai government maintained that the Hmong were “economic migrants” but refused any fair determination process to assess that claim.

When it came, the forced repatriation was conducted in the face of loud international condemnation, from the refugee agency, top levels of the U.S. State Department, and the president of the European Union. Tellingly, a group of 158 Hmong who not only had been recognized as refugees by the U.N. refugee agency but also had been offered resettlement by Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States were also deported. They had been detained separately in abysmal conditions for three years at Nong Khai immigration detention center.

The willingness to flout international refugee law and to ignore the entreaties of refugees not to be sent back to their home countries has become the mark of chummy bilateral relations between Asian states. Thailand sends back Hmong refugees — a group with a history of persecution at the hands of the Lao government dating back to the 1960s — citing a secret bilateral agreement and the Lao government’s assurances of their safe treatment. Cambodia forcibly repatriates Uighurs just as the Chinese vice president, Xi Jinping, arrives on a visit to Phnom Penh to announce a $1.2 billion aid package to Cambodia.

Governments in the region this month have lied outright to the U.N. refugee agency about their intentions to return “people of concern” to their home countries, blocked the agency from interviewing asylum seekers to assess their claims, and simply ignored the agency’s protests. The marginalization of the U.N. agency goes hand in hand with rapid erosion of the bedrock principle of international refugee law — called nonrefoulement, the prohibition on the forcible return of refugees to places where they would be likely to face persecution.

Like biological viruses, this latest strain of refugee mistreatment has its antecedents, in part, because Asia — unlike Africa, the Americas and Europe — has no legal regional framework for refugee protection. Few Asian governments have even signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, ratified by 147 countries, which sets the global standard for the treatment of refugees.

The African refugee convention has a provision that should be particularly instructive for Asian governments: “The grant of asylum to refugees is a peaceful and humanitarian act and shall not be regarded as an unfriendly act by any Member State.”

The spate of refugee returns has the urgency of an impending epidemic that needs to be contained. But the focus of immediate concern now shifts to the home countries to which these unfortunate people have been returned. China and Laos need to give the United Nations and other relevant agencies immediate and continuous access to the returnees in an atmosphere of complete openness and accountability. At the dawn of a new decade, Asian governments should commit themselves not only to the nonrefoulement principle, but also to the idea that granting asylum is a humanitarian act that should be entirely divorced from political relations between states.

Bill Frelick is the refugee policy director at Human Rights Watch.

US/ASEAN: Obama Should Press Asian Leaders on Rights

Hun Xen's regime is doing all it can to silence the opposition voice

Prioritize Burma, Free Speech, and Accountability at ASEAN-US Summit

November 12, 2009
Human Rights Watch

"Obama should use his first trip to Southeast Asia as president to put human rights on the ASEAN agenda. Burma is the obvious place to start, but media repression and unpunished rights violations are rampant throughout the region." - Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director

(New York) - US President Barack Obama should urge Asian leaders at the first ASEAN-US summit to unite in addressing the region's most pressing human rights concerns, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch called on Obama, in his meetings with leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to raise the lack of democratic change in Burma, restraints on freedom of expression across the region, widespread impunity for rights violations, and a weak regional human rights institution.

Obama, on his first visit to Asia as president, will meet with ASEAN leaders on November 15, 2009, the day after the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Singapore.

"Obama should use his first trip to Southeast Asia as president to put human rights on the ASEAN agenda," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Burma is the obvious place to start, but media repression and unpunished rights violations are rampant throughout the region."

The Obama administration has undertaken a dual approach to Burma by beginning talks with Burma's senior generals to press them to accept democratic change, while maintaining sanctions until there are genuine improvements. Senior US State Department officials visited Burma earlier this month, and on November 11, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the APEC summit, "We would like to see countries individually and through ASEAN reach out to the Burmese leadership, persuade them that it's time to start planning for free, fair and credible elections in 2010." Clinton also reaffirmed that sanctions will not be lifted until there is progress on democracy in Burma.

Human Rights Watch urged Obama to call on all ASEAN leaders to speak forcefully and with one voice to call for the release of all political prisoners in Burma, including the democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as for an inclusive political process ahead of the 2010 elections.

Obama should also urge ASEAN leaders to meet international standards of refugee protection, considering the large numbers of asylum seekers from Burma seeking sanctuary in Southeast Asian countries, Human Rights Watch said.

"ASEAN leaders have long sent mixed messages on Burma, so Obama should encourage them to unite in a strong statement of support for real democratic reforms," Pearson said. "All ASEAN countries should oppose repression in Burma and adopt basic refugee protections to promote the rights of the Burmese people."

For ASEAN to be an effective force for human rights, Obama should urge leaders to resolve ongoing human rights problems in their own countries, Human Rights Watch said. Obama should publicly reiterate the importance of freedom of expression and media freedom as an integral part of democratic society.

A major problem is the widespread use of legal systems in Southeast Asia to silence peaceful government critics, journalists, and human rights defenders, in violation of international law. Cambodia, Indonesia, and Singapore use criminal defamation laws, Malaysia and Vietnam take advantage of overbroad national security laws, and Thailand makes arbitrary use of the lese majeste law and the Computer Crimes Act.

On Cambodia, Human Rights Watch urged Obama to openly challenge Prime Minister Hun Sen's increasingly authoritarian practices, in which he and other ruling party officials use violence, threats, and the country's notoriously corrupt judiciary to silence and imprison opposition party members, journalists, land rights activists, and other government critics.

Human Rights Watch also called on Obama to urge Vietnam, which will assume the chair of ASEAN in 2010, to set an example by improving its human rights practices. The government could start by releasing the hundreds of peaceful government critics, independent church activists, bloggers, and democracy advocates imprisoned in violation of international law on groundless national security charges for expressing peaceful dissent.

Human Rights Watch also noted that in Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand, security forces continue to commit serious abuses without fear of punishment. Despite assurances from leaders that they intend to bring the perpetrators to justice, abusive officials are not being prosecuted successfully. Past violators go unpunished, while those implicated in abuses remain in the security forces and may even be promoted.

In Thailand, military and police officers known to have been involved in abuses during the 2003 "War on Drugs" and counterinsurgency operations have been promoted rather than punished. In Indonesia, human rights violators continue to be promoted within the Indonesian special forces branch, Kopassus, and the masterminds behind the 2001 murder of the human rights advocate Munir bin Thalib remain free.

Human Rights Watch urged Obama to make a firm commitment that US agencies will review information about units and individual members of security forces participating in US-funded programs to ensure that none have been implicated in human rights violations, particularly torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. Obama should also consider conditioning a greater amount of the US's security aid on progress in prosecuting those abuses.

ASEAN members have ratified a charter that commits member states to protect human rights, but the Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, introduced at the 15th ASEAN Summit in October, is weak. Several of the commissioners lack independence from their governments, and the commission's mandate is largely limited to allowing members to promote human rights, rather than protecting them.

"Obama should let ASEAN know that the regional grouping can be a formidable force for human rights," Pearson said. "But this means the new ASEAN human rights commission should have the power to protect people from abuses, not just pay lip service to human rights."

Sithi.org shows maps of the "EVIL" land concessions signed off by Hun Xen's regime

Click here for the Sithi website

Source: Sithi.org

Development Trends in Cambodia

Maps presented here highlight the extent to which the government is signing off concessions for development which is monopolizing land, forest and other natural resources to private companies both Cambodian and international. Land conflict is a major issue which raises questions not only about poverty reduction and human rights but sustainable development in general.

The development trends presented on these maps signifies a new approach to viewing the information on land allocation for concessions and other development initiatives. It is hoped that by taking a holistic approach to viewing development trends across sectors national and international organizations, the RGC and their relevant departments along with development Donor groups can begin to analyse and potentially rethink development from a new paradigm perspective. Hopefully influencing more environmentally sustainable development models which are socially equitable and just.

Information presented here is an understatement of the many other land deals which are currently active on the ground and difficult to monitor. Thus when reviewing the information it is important to note that data gathered for these maps is from open public sources of information from Government bodies, company websites, press releases and organizations working on specific sectorial issues. The actual status of many of these projects is scattered and mostly yet to be confirmed by the RGC.

A report by Amnesty International in 2008, noted that around 150,000 Cambodians were at risk of eviction. This conservative estimate has since been widely quoted in the international media. For the most part, however, the individual experiences of those affected go unreported. People living in poverty are routinely excluded from decisions affecting them. So-called development often happens to their detriment and at their expense, rather than in consultation with them.

But just how widespread is the problem? All around the country, thousands of families have lost -- or are at risk of losing -- their homes and livelihoods. They report losing their land and forest through economic land concessions, mining concessions, special development zones, logging concessions, hydro-electricity dams and just plain-old land grabbing by the rich and powerful. These maps have attempted to gather information about all these factors into one place.

Cases of land alienation, though totaling a large area, are not possible to map. The maps we release her, therefore, could be considered to be a conservative estimate of the problem of land and forest conflict in Cambodia.

The issue that we also need to look at is the claim that these developments are being done in the name of development and poverty reduction. Everyone needs to think about the reports that come in from communities to say that it is not the local people affected by concessions that are employed as laborers on the concessions – it is the landless people from other areas and from other countries who are brought in –ironically creating more landless poor.

The maps presented here are a complement to the database currently presented on this website which we are developing in order to show the extent of human rights abuse in Cambodia. We would like the government to declare which of the area in the maps are not concessions or have been cancelled. We welcome government clarification.

Forest Cover Map

Official government data as released by Save Cambodia’s Wildlife in their Cambodian Atlas maps available on line at http://www.cambodiaatlas.com/map. The map outlines 33 Protected Areas in Cambodia which accounts for a total of 4,624,971 hectares.