Cambodian campaigners receive justice and peace Award

Campaigners from Cambodia call on South Korea to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Mine Ban Treaty. Photo credit: Cambodia Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munitions

2012-03-28
Source: http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/news/?id=3589

The Cambodia Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Munitions, a member of the ICBL-CMC, was awarded the 15th Tji Haksoon Justice and Peace Award 2012 on 14 March 2012 in recognition of their dedication to the welfare and rights of landmine victims. During the visit, campaigners took the opportunity to urge the South Korean government to stop the manufacture of cluster munitions in the country and to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Mine Ban Treaty.

Sister Denise Coghlan, the Director of the Cambodia Campaign and Director of Jesuit Refugee Service Cambodia, and Song Kosal, Youth Ambassador to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, accepted the award at a ceremony in Seoul. The award is named after the deceased Bishop Tji Haksoon, who offered his entire life to peace and justice in South Korea.

Cambodian campaigners urge land mine ban

Mar. 26, 2012
By UCA News

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA -- While in Seoul for an award ceremony March 13, campaigners from Cambodia urged the South Korean government to ban using land mines and to scrap its stockpiles of mines and cluster munitions.

Mercy Sr. Denise Coghlan, founder of the Cambodia Campaign to Ban Landmines, and one of its activists, Song Kosal, were recipients of this year’s Tji Hak-soon Justice and Peace Award.

“We beg the world to stop making and laying mines and to help us rebuild our country,” they said during their acceptance speech.

Landmine Activist Pushes for US To Ban Weapons

Nairobi Summit on a Mine-Free World President-Designate Wolfgang Petritsch, right, chats with Tun Channareth from Cambodia. (Photo: AP)

Thursday, 16 June 2011
Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC

“What I critically want is for the US to hold the pen and sign, to agree to stop using [landmines and cluster munitions], destroy its existing stocks, and stop producing them.”

Cambodian international landmine activist Tun Channareth, who was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, has wrapped up a trip to the US, where he hoped to gather support for a petition for the US to ban the use of landmines and cluster munitions.

In an interview with VOA Khmer, Tun Channareth, who lost his leg to a mine in 1982, said at least 156 other countries have signed the international treaty to ban landmines, despite the failure of the US, China and Russia to do so.

Tun Channareth, a former soldier on the border who is now 51, was also awarded an honorary degree by Seattle University for his work to help landmine victims in Cambodia and his advocacy to have the weapons banned internationally.

Speak Truth To Power (Courage Without Borders) Series in KI-Media - Bobby Muller (US) "Internati​onal Ban on Land Mines"

Speak Truth To Power (Courage Without Borders) Series in KI-Media - Bobby Muller (US) "Internati​onal Ban o...
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/56183473?access_key=key-1n2wun89735s39pe675o

Former King Makes Plea for Countries to Join Mine Ban

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
07 November 2007

Former king Norodom Sihanouk issued an open letter Monday, calling on countries who have not adopted landmine bans to do so, to "completely eradicate this terrible scourge from our world."

"Many countries and their respective peoples have suffered much because of these weapons," the aging Sihanouk wrote in an open statement.

Lt. Gen. Khem Sophoan, director-general of the Cambodian Mine Action Committee, said Cambodia was among 100 countries that had signed the Ottawa Treaty on landmines.

"Countries that have not joined the treaty are mostly superpowers involved in producing landmines," he said.

About 292 Cambodians have been killed by landmines this year, down from 450 in the same period of 2006.