Common cause: Villagers unite to seek aid in dispute

Wednesday, 16 November 2011
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Representatives from villages in three districts in Kampong Cham province embroiled in land disputes had joined forces to deliver petitions to provincial governor Hun Neng requesting his intervention in the pending eviction of more than 3,000 people, villagers there told the Post yesterday.

Long Sokhum, from Chamkar Leu district, said the petitions were on behalf of 649 families in her district, Memot and Stung Trang districts. Villagers feared being “relocated to make way for rubber trees” and were asking for Hun Neng’s assistance, she said.

Hun Neng is Prime Minister Hun Sen’s older brother.

Three companies were trying to force families to vacate the area but were offering them land elsewhere half the size of their current plots and only US$600 per family, Long Sokhum said.

Viet troops banned opposition MP from visiting border [from inside Cambodia] (Updated)

Viet troops prevented a group of SRP MPs from visiting the location for a border post in Memot district, Kampong Cham province, on 14 Dec 2010 (Photo: Uon Chhin, RFA)

14 Dec 2010
By Uon Chhin
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Soy
Click here to read the article in Khmer

On 14 Dec 2010, Vietnamese border troops banned a group of about 18 opposition SRP MPs and other party officials – right inside Cambodian territories – from visiting the location where stakes are installed for a border post delimiting Cambodia and Vietnam in Memot district, Kampong Cham province.

The ban took place between the border inspection post in Daun Roath and border post 103 located in Daun Roath village, Roung commune, Memot district, and the scuffle lasted about 30 minutes.

SRP MP Son Chhay indicated that the ban by the Viets show that Vietnam encroached on Cambodian territories because its troops came to prevent Cambodian MPs and officials right inside Cambodian territories.

Son Chhay added: “If the Viet side has secret for them to prevent our delegation from taking a look just at these border stakes, then it creates even more suspicions as to whether what the secret is for them to ban us from seeing these stakes?”

Nevertheless, Hun Neng [Hun Xen’s brother], the Kampong Cham provincial governor, claimed that the Viet issued this ban because the SRP MPs entered the Viet territories and these MPs and officials do not know the geography of this area.

Prior to going to look at border post 103 in Roung commune, the SRP MPs and officials visited border post 108 and 109 located in Dar commune, Memot district. There, MP Son Chhay declared that 14 Cambodian villages in Memot district were lost from the border post planting based on the map used by the Memot district authority and direct interviews with local officials and villagers.

Mrs. Yem Muon, a villager from Dar commune, indicated that she lost 1.5 hectare of her land: “Now that I lost my land, I don’t know what land [to earn my living], I lost everything brothers and sisters! This is the second time already. Last year they already took 8-hectare of my land, now they came and took my [leftover] land for the second time, I lost everything, what land can I use to earn a living?”

Mrs. Som Phy who lives in Daun Roath village, Roung commune, indicated that she lost about 1.5-hectare of her land and that, right now, Viet villagers are cultivating on her land: “The rice field you can see there, the one next to that forest, that’s my rice field, yes! The Yuons took everything, this is the land I have left right now, this is it! This is the rice field I’ve got now! Next to the pagoda fence. This I tell you, nephews and nieces, this is all I have left!”

From France, Mr. Sean Pengse, President of the Cambodia’s Border Committee (CBC), said that the Cambodian government should not ignore the lost of rice fields by local farmers due to these border post plantings. He added: “The villagers are complaining that the Yuons encroached inside Cambodia, this is true from what I know, it’s not just 2-3 hectares at all. In some areas, such as Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri, the Yuons encroached close to 15-km inside our territories.”

Mr. Sean Pengse added that, to preserve Cambodia’s territorial integrity, he asks the Cambodian government to respect the Paris Peace Accords (PPA) on Cambodia, as well as the Cambodian Constitution. Furthermore, the PPA stipulates that all treaties that affect Cambodia’s territorial integrity must be annulled.

Khmer Intelligence News - 29 October 2009

KHMER INTELLIGENCE NEWS

29 October 2009

Government reduces soldiers and policemen’ bonuses (1)

Because of a fall in state revenue due to the economic recession the government is reducing bonuses usually paid to some 200,000 soldiers and policemen. The government normally pays the armed forces “basic salaries” and “bonuses for function fulfillment” on a monthly basis. Bonuses, which had been markedly increased in 2008, can be much higher than salaries. They are now being reduced by 30 percent to 50 percent.

Government withholds councilors’ salaries (1)

Over 3,000 district, provincial and municipal councilors elected last May have yet to receive their salaries. The government has been withholding their salaries for five months allegedly because of “administrative problems” and “budget constraints”. But in fact, the government also wants to slow down the decentralization process whereby the ruling CPP would have to share some power at the local level with the opposition SRP which controls approximately 20 percent of the commune, district, provincial and municipal councilors.

Canadia Bank now controlled by Hun Sen’s family (2)

Partly as a result of bad loans linked to the collapsing property sector, Canadia Bank, Cambodia’s largest commercial bank, has recently come under the control of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s family (wife and children). The information is not made public because of concerns about corruption probe and Canadia Bank is involved in several cases of land grabbing.

The Hun Sen family has also taken control of several large development projects abandoned by South Korean firms, such as the 42-storey Gold Tower.

Hun Sen’s brother Hun Neng to be appointed Phnom Penh governor (2)

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s elder brother Hun Neng, currently Kampong Cham province governor, will soon be appointed Phnom Penh governor, replacing Mr. Kep Chuptema.

Foreclosures expected by the end of the year (2)

The government finds it more and more difficult to prevent several nearly bankrupt commercial banks ridden with property-linked bad loans (Canadia Bank, Foreign Trade Bank) from conducting foreclosures. A large number of properties will be seized by the end of the year from the banks’ defaulting clients and sold at auction. Observers expect a further drop in property prices in the next few months.

Sam Rainsy in Cairo (1)

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy is currently in Cairo to attend the 56th Congress of Liberal International (LI). The SRP is a member of the center-oriented LI, the world’s third largest international political grouping behind those formed by the Conservative and the Socialist. Sam Rainsy who had received the prestigious LI Freedom Award in 2006 in Marrakech (Morocco), will be the main speaker in a ceremony to present a book covering 25 consecutive LI Prizes for Freedom whose recipients included Corazon Aquino (Philippines, 1987), Vaclav Havel (Czekoslovakia, 1990), Mary Robinson (Ireland, 1993), Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma, 1995) and Martin Lee (Hong Kong, 1996).

CPP rejected by Socialist International (2)

The CPP candidacy to be a member of Socialist International (SI) has been continuously rejected in spite of Mr. Hun Sen’s repeated demand to join the powerful left-wing international political grouping. The reason for the rejection is related to the CPP’s poor human rights records including the Cambodian government’s repressive policy against trade unions. Both the CPP and its partner Funcinpec are currently members of the right-wing Christian/Centrist Democrat International (CDI).

King informed about seriousness and complexity of land issues (1)

Since his accession to the throne in 2004, King Norodom Sihamoni has been officially informed about the country’s situation only by Prime Minister Hun Sen. For the first time, a group of opposition National Assembly members on October 27 shared with the Monarch the people’s concerns as perceived at the grassroots level. The most serious concerns are related to land issues with citizens increasingly and unfairly losing their lands all over the country because of rampant corruption undermining the whole government including the judicial system. The King was also informed about Cambodian farmers continuously losing their rice fields along the border with Vietnam. In a recent past, King-Father Norodom Sihanouk had expressed very strong reservations about the way the Hun Sen government “works” on border delineation with neighboring countries.

[End]

The Dangers for Journalists Who Expose Environmental Issues

Sep-18-2009
Source: Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders)

We must defend journalists who expose attacks on the environment.

Radio Free Asia, one of the few media to cover this story in detail, was threatened by a man who went to the station’s bureau in Phnom Penh. And one of its reporters, Lem Piseth, had this conversation with an anonymous caller: “Is that you, Lem Piseth?” “Yes. Who are you?” “You are insolent, do you want to die?”

“Why are you insulting me like this?”

“Because of the business of the forest and you should know that there will not be enough land to bury you”. Piseth fled across the border into Thailand.

This kind of threat has to be taken seriously.

(PARIS, France RFP) - Guinean journalist Lai Baldé has been threatened. Egyptian blogger Tamer Mabrouk has been sued. Russian journalist Grigory Pasko has just spent four years in prison. His Uzbek colleague, Solidzhon Abdurakhmanov, has just been given a 10-year jail sentence. Mikhail Beketov, another Russian journalist, has lost a leg and several fingers as a result of an assault.

Bulgarian reporter Maria Nikolaeva was threatened with having acid thrown in her face. Filipino journalist Joey Estriber has been missing since 2006… What do these journalists and many others have in common?

They are or were covering environmental issues in countries where it is dangerous to do so. There is a lot at stake in the environment. The first step in protecting nature is to carry out a detailed survey of the state of the resources and the way they are used. On the basis of this analysis – in which the press plays a significant role – political decision-makers can then establish rules and norms for economic actors and the public.

The gathering of information alone is threatening for many companies, organised crime groups, governments and the various kinds of intermediaries that profit from misuse of the environment. Environmental concerns complicate their plans. As a result, investigative journalists and environmental activists are seen as an unwanted menace and even as enemies to be physically eliminated.

In many countries – especially, but not only, those that are not democracies – journalists who specialise in the environment are on the front line of a new war. The violence to which they are subjected concerns us all. It reflects the new issues that have assumed an enormous political and geostrategic importance. The conflicts between journalists and polluters are too many and too varied to be listed.

Sometimes a crisis can be sparked by no more than a journalist’s arrival at a sensitive location where his presence is not wanted. In southern China, for example, foreign journalists have been chased out of villages where most of the world’s discarded computers are stripped apart in an environmentally disastrous manner. In other cases, it is the publication of a detailed press report, with names and facts, that sparks an act of physical aggression or coercion.

This is what happened to Mikhail Beketov, who was beaten nearly to death by local government thugs who did not like his coverage of a plan to build a motorway through a Russian forest. The assailants are not always who you might expect. In most cases, the violence is the work of thugs in the pay of criminal entrepreneurs or corrupt politicians. But in some countries, as Reporters Without Borders has found, the local population paradoxically often supports those responsible for deforestation or polluting factories although it is the most direct victim. The reason is nonetheless obvious.

Those who get rich by despoiling resources are able, in the process, to provide work to those in most need. As a result, combating deforestation and pollution is often difficult and thankless work.

The fight is all the more unequal for usually being waged in countries where all the machinery of state seems to be an accomplice to the crimes and where the judicial apparatus, when it exists, does not play its role. Most cases linked to the environment never reach a conclusion in the courts. You can even say that most journalists are on their own when it comes to defending themselves. Hence the importance of making this struggle known and mobilising public opinion in its support.

Depletion of natural resources – a sensitive issue everywhere Natural resources are not inexhaustible. What is true underground is also true on the surface. The forest can regrow, but the forests that man is replanting today will never be as biologically rich as the primary forests that are hundreds of thousands of years old.

Hence the importance of conserving them.

That is what Lúcio Flávio Pinto, the founder and editor of Jornal Pessoal, a Brazilian bimonthly based in Belém, in the northern state of Pará, tried to do. He published a series of reports about deforestation in the Amazon. As a result, 33 lawsuits were brought against him. Lai Baldé, radio Bombolom-FM’s correspondent in Bissora, in northern Guinea-Bissau, took up the same cause. The day after the station broadcast a long report by him on illegal logging, he got an anonymous call offering advice: “Hey, brother! Why are you making such a big deal about this? We know that these people are doing something bad. But we have no choice. Don’t talk about this again. Be nice.”

In Burma, the question is dealt with in a more radical fashion. The military government’s censorship board has suppressed all references to illegal logging, making things easier for the Chinese companies that are logging on a large scale. Cambodia has lost half of its primary forest in the past 15 years although millions of dollars in foreign aid have been spent on protecting the Cardamom Mountains. Three journalists received death threats when they tried to follow up reports on deforestation by the NGO Global Witness that implicated associates of Prime Minister Hun Sen in large-scale illegal logging. Hun Sen’s brother Hun Neng said that, if any Global Witness representatives came to Cambodia, he would “hit them until their heads are broken.”

Radio Free Asia, one of the few media to cover this story in detail, was threatened by a man who went to the station’s bureau in Phnom Penh. And one of its reporters, Lem Piseth, had this conversation with an anonymous caller: “Is that you, Lem Piseth?” “Yes. Who are you?” “You are insolent, do you want to die?”

“Why are you insulting me like this?”

“Because of the business of the forest and you should know that there will not be enough land to bury you”. Piseth fled across the border into Thailand.

This kind of threat has to be taken seriously.

Filipino journalist Joey Estriber, a radio host in Aurora province (northeast of Manila), has been missing since March 2006. He was kidnapped by four men and never seen again. In his programme “Pag-usapan Natin” (Let’s talk about that) on a local radio, he often criticised the intensive logging in Aurora by companies with allies inside the government and he had participated in a campaign to have the permits of nine of these companies withdrawn.

The Indonesian island of Sumatra is being deforested as fast as almost anywhere in the world. One of the logging companies responsible, PT Lontar Papirup Pulp and Papers, is a subsidiary of Asia Pulp & Paper, itself a subsidiary of the powerful Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas. So it is not easy for journalists to draw attention to this ecological disaster.

Cyril Payen, the Southeast Asia correspondent of several French media, investigated illegal logging by PT Lontar Papirup Pulp and Papers, but he and his crew were arrested by company security guards on 10 July 2009 as they were filming trucks being loaded with timber. The company’s head of security tried to seize their video cassettes before handing them over to the local police, who continued to hold them until they were freed as a result of protests from the local media.Many inter-Lúcio Flávio Pinto has been exposing environmental devastation in Brazil for more than 40 years.

Logging on the Indonesian island of Sumatra national corporations do business with Sinar Mas without a thought for Sumatra’s deforestation.

Referring to Sinar Mas, Payen told Reporters Without Borders: “They buy journalists or threaten them with lawsuits. Although the Indonesian media are free, they do not do enough reporting on the rampant deforestation that is taking place.”

The Aral Sea’s destruction is another example of authorities trying to cover up the catastrophic waste of natural resources. Solidzhon Abdurakhmanov, an Uzbek journalist who had written extensively about the Aral Sea ecological disaster, was arrested in Karakalpakstan, a western autonomous region of Uzbekistan, on a drug trafficking charge in June 2008 and was summarily sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The verdict was quickly upheld by the local supreme court on 19 November 2008 despite procedural irregularities and enormous gaps in the prosecution case. The video the police made of the operation that led to Abdurakhmanov’s arrest strangely did not show the moment the drugs were allegedly found. The police also failed to say where he was supposedly obtaining the drugs or to whom he was supposedly selling them.

What we do know about Abdurakhmanov is that he wrote for many independent news websites, including Uznews, which called him “the last independent voice in Karakalpakstan,” and that he specialised in covering the impact of the Aral Sea’s disappearance on the local population’s livelihoods and health. Everything indicates that his arrest was deliberately planned in order to punish him for his reporting.

Back in Brazil, Vilmar Berna, the editor of the Niterói-based environmentalist daily Jornal do Meio Ambiente, which exposes clandestine overfishing and threats to protected marine life in Rio de Janeiro Bay, is a constant target of threats and intimidation attempts. A bloody, half-burnt body was dumped outside his home in May 2006. As if the meaning of that “message” was not sufficiently clear, an anonymous woman caller then warned him he could be killed soon. He filed a complaint with the Niterói police and hired two bodyguards.

But he could not afford to keep paying them and he no longer has protection. Fabrício Ribeiro Pimenta had to flee his home town in the neighbouring state of Espirito Santo after being assaulted on 30 July 2009, apparently at the behest of the owner of an illegal marble factory that he had repeatedly denounced in his reporting as source of toxic dust in a residential district.

There is no shortage of examples. In 2008 in the Republic of the Congo, residents of the village of Mbodji (60 km from Pointe-Noire) complained about the build-up of drilling waste at a nearby oilfield where the Italian company Eni Congo is drilling. After going there and doing a report, Télé Pour Tous (TPT) immediately found itself being pressured and threatened by the local authorities.

But this time, the local population demonstrated in support of the journalists and samples of the drilling waste were finally taken for laboratory analysis. They are still waiting for the results.

In Egypt, Trust Chemical Industries has for years been dumping unrecycled water into Lake Manzalah and the Suez Canal, near Port Said, while the government, out of fear or as a result of corruption, refused to intervene. Tamer Mabrouk, an ordinary blogger, investigated the issue and then took the risk of posting the results of his enquiries online. He was sued for libel in June 2008.

“I brought a lawsuit against the company myself, requesting its closure as a source of pollution,” Mabrouk said. “The court ruled that it was not competent to hear the case. At the same time, Trust Chemical Industries asked me to withdraw my suit in return for a sum of money. When I refused outright, they demanded that I issue a retraction.” A Port Said court fined Mabrouk 6,000 euros on 26 May 2009 – a fairly dissuasive message for someone who takes more than a year to earn that kind of money. He was then fired from his job.

In Côte d'Ivoire, people no longer seen to remember that large amounts of toxic waste from the Probo Koala, a tanker chartered by the Dutch company Trafigura, were dumped in and around Abidjan in September 2006. Gases emitted by the waste reportedly killed 10 people and injured 7,000. It was a big story for a while but now there is nothing in the newspapers. Concern about the environment seems to have evaporated. The Yopougon industrialists who pump chemical products into Abidjan’s lagoon are suspected of keeping the subject off-limits by slipping “envelopes” into some journalists’ pockets.

In China, Wu Lihong was sentenced to three years in prison in 2007 for alerting the Chinese and international media to the pollution of Lake Taihu, the third largest in China. In Internet posts, he blamed the uncontrolled dumping of industrial waste for the lake’s asphyxiation. Another example, China’s Propaganda Department, which is in charge of censorship, waiting 10 days in 2005 before allowing the media to report that the Songhua River had been contaminated with benzene, thereby endangering the lives of millions of people living on its banks.

Critics of nuclear power are also liable to be punished in China if they try to take their case to the media. Gansu province anti-nuclear campaigner Sun Xiaodi and his daughter were arrested in June 2009 on charges of “divulging state secrets abroad” and “spreading rumours” for disseminating information Pollution of Lake Taihu near the city of Wuxi, in Jiangsu province.

The dangers for journalists who expose environmental issues about radioactive contamination at uranium mine No. 792. Sun was sentenced the following month to two years of reeducation through work. His daughter was also sent toa camp.

In information posted online and provided to the foreign media, they had also accused officials in the Gansu district of Diebu of exaggerating the impact of the May 2008earthquake in their district in order to obtain more state aid. A former worker in mine No. 792, Sun has been campaigning tirelessly about the dangers of radioactive contamination for the past 20 years.

Peru is another glaring example. The Andean town of La Oroya is the fifth most contaminated place in the world because of a smelting complex operated by Doe Run Peru. Its 35,000 inhabitants are permanently exposed to heavy metals and gases. But you will not hear anyone talk about this scandal because the company has developed an effective method of surveillance using a network of “health workers” who patrol the town. Anyone talking to independent journalists risks losing their job and social benefits. The impoverished inhabitants are very hostile towards the press, which is seen as posing a threat to their only source of work. Doe Run Peru’s employees rejected an ecological rescue plan in order to be sure of keeping their jobs.

Even more emblematic is the case of Grigory Pasko, a former reporter for the Russian navy’s in-house newspaper Boevaya Vakhta who went on to write for the ecology magazine Ekologiya i Pravo about the neglect of the navy’s nuclear submarines and the resulting pollution. While still working for Boevaya Vakhta, Pasko had filmed footage of the Russian fleet dumping radioactive waste in the Sea of Japan. It was eventually aired by the Japanese TV station NHM, causing an international outcry.

After spending 20 months in prison from 1997 to 1999, he was tried and sentenced to four years in prison in 2001 on charges of spying and high treason. He was accused of illegally attending a meeting of the navy high command in order to gain access to classified information and pass it to Japanese news media. He appealed against his conviction before the Russian supreme court and then took his case to the European Court of Human Rights. In 2002, he was awarded the Reporters Without Borders-Fondation de France prize for his fight against censorship.

Even defending protected natural areas is risky. The Sofia-based weekly Politika ran a story by Maria Nikolaeva on 9 February 2007 about an illegal real estate development project in the Strandzha national park, Bulgaria’s largest nature reserve. The same day, two men went to Nikolaeva’s office and told her: “You know full well you shouldn’t write things like this. And you know what happens to curious journalists, they get acid thrown at them.”

A journalist based in Khimki, a satellite town outside Moscow, Mikhail Beketov has criticised the local authorities for years and has established a reputation as a defender of Khimki Forest, which is threatened by the construction of a motorway betweenMoscow and St. Petersburg. His car was set on fire in May 2007. Local prosecutors brought a criminal libel case against him in February 2008. At the start of November 2008, he had been drafting a letter to the Russian authorities to accompany a petition signed by Khimki residents opposing the motorway, but he never posted it. He was beaten and left for dead outside his home on The Peruvian city of La Oroya, the site an enormous smelting complex, is one of the world’s 10 most contaminated places.

He survived, but only after spending days in a coma and having a leg and several fingers amputated. One of Beketov’s lawyers, Stanislas Markelov, was murdered in the centre of Moscow on 19 January of this year. The Moscow-based daily Novaya Gazeta published Beketov’s letter on 18 February. But the inhabitants of Khimki never saw the issue. Someone bought up all the copies that were meant to be distributed there. Khimki mayor Victor Strelchenko, the originator of a real estate project that Beketov had opposed, was reelected in March.

In Sri Lanka, Tamil journalists have been prevented from investigating the impact of the military presence on the Jaffna Peninsula’s natural areas and in some cases have been threatened for trying to do so. An environmentalist writer called Ayngaranesan said: “Since 2006, I have been seeking information about the deforestation in certain militaryc ontrolled areas. The military have totally disrupted the ecosystem for security reasons. I recently wanted to write an article about the environmental impact of the refugee camps set up by the government but the editor said the subject was too sensitive.”

Finally, in Namibia, where very attractive nature reserves are available to tourists, some things are not meant to be seen. Jim Wilckens, a British investigative journalist working for the Eco-Storm news agency, and his South African cameraman, Bart Smithers, were arrested on 16 July 2009 while filming the culling of baby seals on the coast.

They were eventually released after being fined 5,000 Namibian dollars (443 euros) each on charges of violating the maritime resources law by entering a restricted area without permission.

A long-term struggle

French photographer, filmmaker and ecologist Yann Arthus-Bertrand and a 10-member crew were doing a report for the programme “Seen from the sky” about the controversial construction of a dam at Yacyreta, near Posadas (the capital of the Argentine province of Misiones) when they were arrested at Puerto Iguazú airport on 20 February 2008.

The suspicions of the Argentine police had been aroused by their meeting with inhabitants of the village of El Brete who opposed the dam. The helicopter they had chartered was forbidden to take off and they ended up being held for five days before finally being released on bail.

Journalists everywhere take risks into order to make others more aware. They must keep going, despite all the various kinds of harassment to which they are exposed. This aim of this report is to denounce the indifference of authorities and governments that too readily neglect the protection of journalists who are defending the right of their fellow citizens to be informed about attacks on the environment.

The post of Phnom Penh governor will be given to Hun Neng or Pa Socheatvong

Khmer Nation newspaper
9th March, 2009
Reported in Khmer by Khmerization

There are many reports in the past that Prime Minister Hun Sen plans to remove Mr. Kep Chutema, the current governor, and replace him with someone else.

Sources from within Mr. Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) said Mr. Kep Chutema’s replacement could be Mr. Hun Sen’s older brother, Mr. Hun Neng, who is currently the governor of his home province of Kampong Cham, or someone else, presumably Mr. Pa Socheatvong, the current deputy governor. But the reports have been dismissed in the past by Mr. Hun Sen or his officials.

Sources from the CPP added that Mr. Kep Chutema (pictured) will be given a powerless role of president of Municipal Council. The sources also said that current governors of many cities and provinces will be reshuffled to the powerless posts of presidents Municipal or Provincial Councils.

The Khmer Nation newspaper reports that, according to the CPP sources, when he heard that he will be removed from the governorship of Phnom Penh, Mr. Kep Chutema was very unhappy because it means that he will be taken out from a plum post where he can earn a lot of extra money.

The same CPP sources said that Mr. Hun Neng, older brother of Prime Minister Hun Sen, has been eyeing the Phnom Penh governorship for a very long time. The same with Mr. Pa Socheatvong, the current deputy governor. And as a result both will have to fight for the position.

Khmer Intelligence News - 21 February 2009

21 February 2009

A new Phnom Penh Governor in May (2)

The CPP has named current Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema its top-of-the-list candidate for the Capital City Council election to be held on May 17, 2009. Kep Chuktema will then become President of the to-be-formed CCC, a position incompatible with that of Phnom Penh governor. This governor position will be given to Hun Neng, an elder brother of Prime Minister Hun Sen and currently governor of Kampong Cham province. There was a foiled plan to appoint Hun Neng Phnom Penh governor in 2004. See "Hun Neng to be appointed Phnom Penh governor" (KI News, 18 August 2004).

Provincial, city and district elections manipulated by CPP (2)

The ruling CPP is using many methods to manipulate the forthcoming provincial, city and district council elections scheduled for May 17, 2009. In those indirect elections, voters are the existing 11,353 commune councilors who were elected in April 2007 in Cambodia's 1,621 communes. The two main competitors are the CPP (7,993 councilors) and the SRP (2,660) while the two "royalist" parties, NRP (425) and Funcinpec (274), will be virtually wiped out given the election system.

The CPP is using against the SRP the following methods to manipulate election results:

• Press politically-motivated charges against SRP councilors, many of whom have been arrested and jailed, thus losing their voting right. The CPP-controlled tribunal has issued arrest warrants targeting several SRP commune councilors including 2 commune chiefs.
• Offer money and well-paid government adviser positions to entice SRP commune councilors to defect to the CPP or to vote for CPP candidates.
• Prevent the SRP from removing its councilors who have defected to the CPP and from replacing them with loyal councilors as legally allowed in the framework of the party list system. The CPP authorities, from the commune office to the Interior Ministry, are stalling any replacement request presented by the SRP, whereas the CPP is able to change any of its councilors within days.

IRI poll: most CPP voters actually have no political preferences (2)

By the end of 2008, the Washington-based International Republican Institute conducted an opinion poll, with one of the questions asked being the following: "What differences do you see between the major parties that competed in National Assembly elections?"

The answers were as follows:

• No differences: 33%
• Don't know: 22%
• Gifts they give: 8%
• There are differences but cannot specify: 4%

Therefore, 67% of voters do not have any real political preferences. This group of voters mainly voted for the CPP in past elections, only seeking to be on the safe side (because of intimidation) or to receive gifts (because of extreme poverty), whereas the remaining 33% voters are more politicized and more politically determined and they mainly voted for opposition parties.

At the July 2008 national election, the CPP collected 58% of the votes (mainly from the 67 % less politicized voters), whereas the SRP and the HRP obtained respectively 22% and 6% of the votes (mainly from the 33% more politicized voters).

One can see that the CPP political base is not that strong since the ruling party's propaganda themes (7th January, protection against the Khmer Rouge, peace, "development", Hun Sen's role, etc) do not hold sway in the people's mind.

South Korea, a bad teacher for stock exchange investments (2)

On February 20, Cambodia's Finance Ministry was forced to postpone the signing of a joint venture agreement on the new Phnom Penh stock exchange to be launched by the end of the year. The reason for the postponement was the fact that the Korean adviser and partner who was supposed to cosign the agreement in his capacity as CEO of the South Korea Stock Exchange, did not show up. Maybe, it was a blessing in disguise because South Korea Stock Exchange was NOT the place to invest in during the past 2 years: since 2007 a foreign investor with Korean stocks has seen the value of his assets reduced by 80 percent (stock prices in Seoul went down by 50 percent and the Korean currency, the won, fell by 30 percent against the US dollar). See also "Foreign brokerage firms will be allowed to operate in Cambodia" (KI News, 27 September 2007) and "No stock market in Cambodia in a foreseeable future" (KI News, 31 January 2007).
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ARCHIVES

27 September 2007

Foreign brokerage firms will be allowed to operate in Cambodia (1)

On September 12, 2007, the National Assembly passed a law that lays the ground for the creation of a Stock Exchange in Cambodia. Many serious problems have to be solved before a real Bourse can be set up in this country (KI News, 31 January 2007: "No stock market in Cambodia in a foreseeable future"). During the parliamentary debate, opposition leader and former Finance Minister Sam Rainsy, who had been a security analyst and a portfolio manager in Europe for twenty years, stressed that the Government will have to be strict to ensure that listed companies release accurate information to prevent the public from being cheated. He obtained the assurance from the Government that foreign brokerage firms will be allowed to do business in Cambodia in order to help our future Stock Exchange meet international standards in due course.

See financial model for stock evaluation developed by Sam Rainsy at http://tinyurl.com/yvzvxg

31 January 2007

No stock market in Cambodia in a foreseeable future (2)

Contrary to several official announcements in a recent past, Cambodia will not be able to set up any stock market in a foreseeable future. Even the South Korean companies the Cambodian authorities had strongly hoped that they would help establish a Bourse in Phnom Penh, have given up the idea because there is no reliable accounting system in Cambodia. Any listed companies would have to present credible financial statements and records over several consecutive years, which is virtually impossible to obtain in a country plagued with corruption and lawlessness.

18 August 2004

Hun Neng to be appointed Phnom Penh governor (3)

Prime Minister Hun Sen's eldest brother Hun Neng, currently Svay Rieng provincial governor, will replace Kep Chuktema as Phnom Penh Municipality governor in September or October this year. Kep Chuktema will take up the current position of Hun Neng.

Hun Neng thanks VN for the road linking Cambodia NR 7 to the unfair border imposed by VN in Memot

10/11/2007
Cambodia, Viet Nam open additional border gate

A new border gate between Memot district in Cambodia’s Kampong Cham province and Loc Ninh district of Viet Nam’s Binh Phuoc province has been inaugurated.

Addressing the inaugural ceremony on November 7, Governor of Kampong Cham province Hun Neng expressed thanks to the Binh Phuoc People’s Committee for its help to build a 31km road linking the new border gate to Cambodia’s highway 7.

Construction of the project began on the same day.

Source: VNA

Illegal logging: Is the Thief of the Nation related to the Chief of the Nation?

Kleptocratic élite: Hun Neng (L) and his younger brother Hun Sen (R)

In Woods of Hun Sen's Brother, Illegal Logging Continues Unmitigated

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
15 August 2007

A report from a former government forest monitoring group earlier this year has failed to dent the trade of illegal timber, residents of Kampong Cham province say.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, residents said they have stood helplessly and watched as truck after truck laden with high-value trees—illegally cut and harvested—pass them by on National Highway 6A, on their way from the provincial forests to destinations unknown.

The governor who controls Kampong Cham, Hun Neng, brother of the prime minister, could not be reached for comment.

Witnesses say trucks with large timbers loaded onto them, with high-quality trees resting underneath, are covered with blue tarps and sent out of the forest.

The forest monitor Global Witness earlier this year issued a report linking the trade to Prime Minister Hun Sen, his relatives and friends, and a Cambodian "kleptocratic elite."

In the wake of the report, Hun Neng said if he ever saw a Global Witness investigator, he would break his head open, a threat the group quickly denounced.

CAMBODIA:Denuded by Corruption, Plunder, Impunity

The other power couple of Cambodia: the threatening Hun Neng (L), Hun Sen's brother; and Leang Vuoch Chheng (R), Hun Neng's wife and a member of the Logging Sydicate

June 6th, 2007
by Marwaan Macan-Markar,
Inter Press Service News Agency

‘'If (they) come to Cambodia, I will hit them until their heads are broken,'' says a government official from the South-east Asian country in a local newspaper report on Tuesday.

The speaker happens to be Hun Neng, brother of Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen and, currently, governor of Kompong Cham province. The targets he has in mind for such violence are the researchers of Global Witness, a London-based environmental lobby.

A few days before, Phnom Penh turned its ire on Global Witness by banning the object of such anger -- a 95-page report by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) released Jun.1 about illegal logging in the country. The title, ‘Cambodia's Family Tree,' offers a tongue-in-cheek image of a study that exposes the lengths to which members of the most politically influential families have gone to strip the country's natural assets with ‘'complete impunity.''

The dominant illegal logging syndicate, which goes under the name of the Seng Keang Company, is ‘'controlled by individuals related to Prime Minister Hun Sen, Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Chan Sarun and Director General of the Forest Administration Ty Sokhun,'' states Global Witness.

The annual timber haul from illegal logging is estimated to be over 13 million US dollars, reveals the report. ‘'Illegal logging in Cambodia not only fills the pockets of the political elite; it also funds the activities of a 6,000-strong private army controlled by Hun Sen. The Brigade 70 unite runs a nationwide timber trafficking and smuggling service, catering to prominent tycoons, that generates profits of two million dollars to 2.75 million dollars per year.''

The cost of such plunder on this country, where close to 40 percent of the population live in poverty and where nearly 30 percent of forest cover has been wiped off over a five year period, cannot be ignored, says Global Witness director Simon Taylor. ‘'The political culture of corruption and impunity means that Cambodians are still among the world's poorest people.''

‘'I don't view the government of Cambodia as the government of Cambodia. It has been captured by a kleptocratic elite,'' he said in an IPS interview. ‘'Lawlessness is an issue that starts at the top.''

But this showdown has broader implications. It comes days ahead of a major meeting of international donors in Phnom Penh, where rampant corruption, human rights violations and the culture of impunity due to flaws in the criminal justice system are expected to come under some scrutiny.

The meeting of the Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum, which runs from Jun. 19-20, will include representatives from the World Bank and officials from developed nations. Pledges made at this meeting, which previously met as the Consultative Group (CG) to aid Cambodia, often account for close to half of the country's national budget.

In March 2006, the CG pledged to give 600 million U.S. dollars in aid to Cambodia. Yet at the same time, it turned the heat on the Hun Sen administration, urging the government to crackdown on corruption through a comprehensive anti-corruption law, to implement broad judicial reform and to demonstrate genuine efforts to stem the destruction of the country's natural resources.

This push for cleaner government came in the wake of a law approved in early March last year by the 123-member National Assembly. It gave the power for a political party to form a government if it had secured a simple majority, rather than a two-thirds majority, as was the case before. The immediate winner was Hun Sen's Cambodia People's Party (CPP), which had 73 seats in the legislature.

That Phnom Penh has dragged its feet on the goals set out by the CG -- despite the CPP enjoying the right to govern alone for the first time and pass new laws -- is not only the view of Global Witness.

Even local, independent think tanks based in the country's capital are hardly impressed. ‘'There is hardly any sign of major change. There has been slow progress on legal reform and corruption is still a big concern,'' Im Sophea, a ranking member of the Centre for Social Development, told IPS by phone from Phnom Penh.

And rather than threaten critics, the government should ‘'conduct a proper investigation to find out if the revelations in recent reports are true,'' he says. ‘'The international donors must take note of this.''

‘'The donors have to hold the government accountable to deal with the lawlessness,'' adds Taylor. ‘'What is happening is that Hun Sen says no and they (the donors) stick their heads in the sand like an ostrich.''

In fact, Hun Sen has also been as caustic as his brother -- although less threatening in his words. His target is also another international voice that has levelled criticism at the country's human rights record. On Monday, the premier used a speech broadcast on national radio to attack Yash Ghai, a Kenyan lawyer who is currently serving as the U.N. human rights envoy to Cambodia.

‘'Even if you live for another 1,000 years and I am still alive, I will not meet you,'' Hun Sen was quoted as having said over the radio, according to the AFP news agency.

Cambodian government officials have continued to snub the U.N. envoy since he arrived in the country on May 29. This visit came after his recent report provided a critical account of the widespread impunity enjoyed by human rights violators, consequently undermining the rule of law.

‘'It is imperative that the Cambodian government embrace the rule of law to honour its international human rights obligations,'' the Hong Kong-based Asia Legal Resource Centre said in a statement soon after Ghai arrived in the country. ‘'The core element of the rule of law is an independent judiciary. In Cambodia, the judiciary is under the executive control as judges are mostly affiliated to the ruling CPP party.''

Ty Sokhun calls GW “crazy” – Hun Neng said he will beat up GW staff until their heads split should they visit Cambodia

Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Ty Sokhun, the Director General of the Forestry Administration, who was named in Global Witness (GW) report as being one of the persons involved in illegal logging, had angrily reacted by calling Global Witness’ staff as ‘crazy people.’ Ty Sokhun recognizes that Khun Thong, who is also named by Global Witness, is indeed his father-in-law, but Ty Sokhun said that Khun Thong and his other relatives are not involved in illegal logging. Ty Sokhun told The Cambodia Daily on Monday that Global Witness produced lies in all the pages of its report, and he said that Global Witness issued this report only to attract attention and to obtain financial gain. He said that Global Witness report is laughable.

Hun Neng, the Kompong Cham provincial governor and Hun Sen’s older brother, also reacted angrily by saying that he is thinking about legal means to deal with Global Witness which accused Leang Vuoch Chheng, his wife, and Hun To, his son, of involvement in illegal logging also. Hun Neng said that if Global Witness staff comes to Cambodia, he will beat them up until their heads split.