Cambodian general jailed for attacking boy who scared his daughter

Keo Monysoka in white shirt (Photo: Koh Santepheap)

Wednesday, March 17, 2010
DPA

Phnom Penh - A Cambodian court convicted a senior naval officer of assault after he attacked two teachers and a 10-year-old boy who scared his daughter, local media reported Wednesday. General Keo Monysoka, the deputy commander of Ream Naval Base near the southern tourist resort of Sihanoukville, carried out the attack on March 6 after the boy used a live turtle to frighten the general's 14-year-old daughter.

On hearing of the incident, the general and his adult son drove to the boy's school, where the general kicked and pulled the hair of two teachers and attacked the boy.

The general's adult son, who is now on the run, also allegedly pushed the boy to the ground and injured him.

The court handed the one-star general a one-year suspended sentence and ordered him to spend 10 days in jail. The judge also instructed Keo Monysoka to pay 6,500 dollars in compensation to the three victims.

Cambodian military officials enjoy relative impunity for their actions. The country's military has more than 2,000 generals, making it among the most top-heavy in the world.

Elder Monk Beats 68-Year-old Nun to Death

10/28/2009
ShortNews.com

In Banteay Meanchey, Cambodia, Pov Ron,68, confessed to beating a 68-year-old nun to death with a piece of firewood. The nun allowed pigs to eat from Pov's rice bowl and this caused an "uncontrollable anger" in Pov which resulted in murder.

Two days earlier, two monks beat a fourth-year medical student to death because he had chastised the monks for drinking palm wine (a strong wine made from palm trees).

Chhith Sophay, the chief monk, expressed alarm at the most recent killing, as well as the potential damage such violence could cause to the Buddhist faith.

Source: www.phnompenhpost.com

Khmer Rouge horrors still haunt victims 30 years on

Sunday, July 12, 2009
Joel Brinkley
San Francisco Chronicle (USA)

Kampong Speu, Cambodia -- They started arriving before 8 a.m., middle-aged men and women, poor rice farmers mostly - damaged survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime.

The Documentation Center of Cambodia, a private research organization that collects evidence on the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, was bringing to this small provincial town a video projector and a DVD. It shows highlights of the testimony in a Khmer Rouge trial under way in Phnom Penh.

"I want to contribute to engaging the victims in the court process," explained Youk Chhang, the center's director. The founding agreements establishing the court opened the proceedings to victims of the Khmer Rouge. "Some Cambodians have moved on," he added. "But there are others who still suffer, and these are the ones we are targeting." That's just whom he got.

For an hour, about 75 people watched transfixed as Kaing Khek Lev, commander of S-21, the notorious prison-torture chamber where thousands of Cambodians died, described his crimes. He is better known as Duch, and he told how he supervised as his soldiers executed victims by whacking them on the back of the head with a hoe.

Duch is 66 now and looked directly at the judges with a calm and confident gaze, seeming to be the commander still, as he confessed to his terrible crimes, apologized and asked for forgiveness.

"I was given a directive to use a plastic bag to suffocate prisoners," he acknowledged.

When the video excerpts ended, the room sat silent - stunned, it seemed. A documentation center official asked audience members to talk about what they had seen.

The DVD was paused on a scene in which Duch seemed to be staring directly at the crowd with a stern, almost threatening, gaze.

The first woman who raised her hand took the microphone and promptly broke into tears.

"Forgiveness is not acceptable," she declared, wiping her eyes. "They killed my father and two older brothers."

Next a middle-aged man told of how six of his relatives died, and as he spoke his large brown eyes grew red and filled with tears. Still another man was choking up so that his words were hard to understand.

"I was a child, and I was starving," he stammered. "They gave us no food, and sometimes I would fall down and pass out and then wake up again." And so it went.

Cathartic? Perhaps. Injurious? Maybe.

The problem is, almost half the adult population of Cambodia, those older than 35 or 40, shows symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, a severe psychological condition that typically afflicts soldiers, but also civilians who live through trauma - like the horror here 30 years ago.

And for them, psychiatric experts say, watching a video like the one these people saw is like poking a stick in a hornet's nest. It triggers all of the symptoms: pain, rage - even violence.

One medical study of Cambodian refugees in Long Beach - the largest concentration of Cambodians in the United States - found that 62 percent of the adults had PTSD.

That and other studies found a generally dysfunctional population with high levels of alcoholism, drug use - and terrible violence.

Daryn S. Reicherter, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, served as a consultant to the Documentation Center here in the spring and came back concerned. "There needs to be some medical follow-up with these people" after the show has ended, he insisted.

So far, the Documentation Center has trucked more than 10,000 villagers to Phnom Penh to see the trial - or brought DVD excerpts to show in their own villages.

Youk Chhang understands the doctors' concerns but points out that he is a researcher, not a treatment specialist. The government, he says, should provide any needed psychiatric services. But then, Cambodia has only about 26 psychiatrists in the entire nation.

Yim Choy, a 44-year-old farmer, shouted at the crowd, saying that he had been conscribed to a child-labor team. "I cannot forgive Duch," he declared, his voice laced with bitter anger. "How can I when I saw him throw little boys against a tree?"

Afterward, he told me that, even now, he cannot talk about those times without growing angry. And yet he has a hard time keeping the thoughts out of his mind.

He even dreams of the horrors - a hallmark of PTSD. "I see myself with my hands tied behind me." All of that makes him angrier still.

After watching scenes like this, Reicherter posed a rhetorical question: "Why is this important?"

"Children are growing up," he explained, "with violent, PTSD parents who are drunk and beat them. That's the generation that is coming."

Joel Brinkley is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and a former foreign policy correspondent for the New York Times. To comment to him, e-mail brinkley@foreign-matters.com. Contact us at forum@sfchronicle.com.

56-year-old pervert burns alive his former 21-year-old fiancée and her sister

56-year-old Tan Ny Long (L) is seen here during his engagement with 21-year-old Yan Kim Hean (R)
Tan Ny Long (L) was arrested while his 2 victims (R) are seen in the hospital (Photo: Samay, Koh Santepheap)

Woman and teenager seriously injured after being burnt alive by a criminal

23 November 2008
By Sophal Mony
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Click here to read the article in Khmer

A 21-year-old woman and her 14-year-old sister were seriously injured after a Cambodian-American man poured gasoline and burnt them alive because he was enraged that his engagement with the young woman was cancelled.

In the morning of Sunday 23 November, 56-year-old Mrs. Pin Savat indicated that two of her daughters, 21-year-old Yan Kim Hean, was burnt on her entire body, whereas another daughter, 14-year-old Yan Chanrith, was burnt on her legs and hands, after Tan Ny Long, a 56-year-old Cambodian man living in the US, poured gasoline on them while the two sisters were washing dishes in the back of their home.

Mrs. Pin Savat indicated that the perpetrator is of the same age as her, and he was previously engaged with her daughter. The man became enraged when the engagement was canceled and he perpetrated this violent act.

Mrs. Pin Savat said: “My daughter asked to end (the engagement), so the man agreed to it, and he took off in his motorcycle. No one knows where he went, but he came back to perpetrate this. My daughter was washing the dishes at the back of the house, he came behind her and poured (gasoline) on her and burnt her alive.”

Yan Chanrith, the younger sister of the victim, said: “I was washing the dishes with my sister, I saw Ta (Grandpa) Long [the spurned fiancé] walked over and he poured gasoline on both of us. I stood up and saw his face clearly, it was him, Ta Long, who poured the gasoline and burnt us.”

This violence took place at 7:30AM on Saturday 22 November in Bek Chan village, Prek Preah Sdech commune, Battambang district and province, when the two daughters of Mrs. Pin Savat were washing dishes in the back of their house.

The victims were urgently sent to the Visal Sok clinic in Battambang city, and in the morning of 23 November, family of the victims brought them over to Phnom Penh.

Tan Sophal, the director of the Battambang military police, indicated that Tan Ny Long was arrested in the morning of 23 November, and currently, the police is looking for evidence to build up his case and bring him to court.

Tan Sophal said: “The criminal still denies his action, we brought him to the provincial police office. However, I am now at the spot of the incident, we are gathering evidence including the gasoline (container) for burning.”

Mrs. Pin Savat, the mother of the victims, demanded that the court sentences the perpetrator according to the law, and she also asked for damage compensation, including the hospital cost for her two daughters.

According to the family of the victim, 56-year-old Tan Ny Long is a Cambodian living in the US, he got engaged with 21-year-old Yan Kim Hean on 29 June 2008, but the family of the woman cancelled the engagement at the beginning of November because the two parties do not trust each other.

Three Hospitalized in Kampot Crackdown

A young woman and her child standing next to the leftover of her home which was burnt down by the Kampot province authority on 17 November 2005 (Photo: Courtesy of Hallam Goad)

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
18 November 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

Security forces, including police and military, continued forced evictions in Kampot province for a second day Tuesday, following the injuries of at least three villagers Monday.

The authorities destroyed an estimated 230 small homes in Ta Ken commune, Chhouk district, in two days of operations to oust residents from a national park, officials said.

Soldiers and police on Monday beat seven people, striking them with rifle butts and sending three to the Kampong Speu provincial hospital, villagers said.

Touch Sambath, a doctor at the hospital, confirmed the arrival of three patients Monday night, one of them seriously hurt with strikes to his eyebrow and head. All three patients remained in the hospital Tuesday, he said.

"The villagers attacked the armed forces first" with axes and machetes, said Kampot Governor Nam Set. None of the armed forces were injured, he said.

A land dispute between the villagers in the commune and provincial environment officials has continued since September, with authorities claiming that 306 families are occupying protected land.

Villagers say many of them have lived on the land since 2000, and they suspect the land is now being re-distributed to a private company for residential development.

Attack on DJ Ano destroys Khmer Identity: Reader

Suon Pheakdei aka DJ Ano

Unofficial English translation by Heng Soy

Friday, November 07, 2008

Dear Editor,

I would like to provide my opinion in the assault case against DJ Ano!

It is true that all human beings are hurt when their loved-one is being taken away from them. However, the savage violence which took place and that was used to resolve this case brings shame to Cambodia honor: not only was Khmer pride being destroyed by this act, but also Buddhist Ahimsa (non-violence) has been cheapened shamelessly.

I am begging all our compatriots to resolve their disputes peacefully in order to preserve the honor of Cambodia which used to be a famous empire in Asia.

Thank you,

Ana Nov

Kampot Authorities Destoy 83 Homes

Home burning of villagers' houses by military police officers in Spean Chhes, Sihanoukville (Photo: Licadho)

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
16 June 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

Military police and security forces of the Ministry of Environment's forestry department destroyed 83 thatch homes Monday in Chhouk district, Kampot province, in what villagers and human rights groups say violated their rights to live on the land.

The mixed security force of about 100 troops, equipped with rifles, axes and hammers, dismantled the homes starting from 8 am Monday, villagers and officials told VOA Khmer.

"We must dismantle all anarchic houses, because these houses, constructed of thatch, have no one living there, and to protect against the grabbing of state land," said Sim Vuthea, a local member of the Kampot province social land concession commission, a government group.

The commission had permitted 181 families to stay on the forest land, because they had built farms and cultivated fields, Sim Vuthea said. However, the 83 thatch homes belonged to no one and were a part of the assets of an additional 227 families the commission was not permitting to remain on state land.

Villagers told VOA Khmer they were living there, but fled when they heard the forces were coming.

"I am very disappointed with the government, and I felt hopeless when I saw my home destroyed, but I have no right to retaliate for what they did," said Chhim Chhin, a 58-year-old farmer.

"If the authorities had confiscated this land as state property, it would be very good," Adhoc rights investigator Try Chuan said. "But the authorities should have solved the villagers' demands, because a small number of villagers could accept the authorities' request, but the majority of them did not accept it."

Land disputes in Cambodia are becoming more violent

10 December 2007
By Kim Pov Sottan
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Human rights officials indicated that land disputes in Cambodia are becoming more violent, even though the number of disputes during this year is lower than that of last year.

Mrs. Chuon Chomrong, a land program official for the Adhoc human rights organization, said that, even though, the number of land disputes decreases, however each dispute are becoming more intense, and violence is also used, leading to death and injuries. Furthermore, the disputes are now larger in size, they involve hundreds of people in each case, and people were also evacuated from their entire villages.

Mrs. Chuon Chomrong said: “I want to say that their sizes are large and the disputes are very intense, they even led to shooting and killings because of these land disputes. Recently, we just saw the event in Preah Vihear province, where shootings and killings took place, and there were also several arrests made. Last year, there were several evictions, but the majority of them are in the cities, but now, these evictions take place in the provinces also.”

Adhoc’s past 10 months report indicated that, during last year, the number of land disputes reported to Adhoc amounted to about 400 cases, and this year, this number is only 320. Nevertheless, 2 people died, more than 10 people were injured, and 138 were jailed, even though some have been released since then and only 55 are still remaining in prison right now.

On 02 December, in a land dispute case in Battambang province involving more than 100 families from Maung district, the villagers came to Phnom Penh to protest about their land dispute with the Army chief of Military Zone 5.

43-year-old Hun Sim, a representative of the villagers, said that villagers who do not own farmlands, were authorized by the authority to clear forests covered with landmines. When they were clearing the lands, they met with all kinds of accidents (from the landmines), and they are now facing the Army chief who wants to kick them out of their villagers also.

Hun Sim said: “We struggle since the very first year, we fought malaria, we drank from small dirty ponds, because we didn’t have anything, we endured everything from sleeping with mosquito bites, living in the forests, under hardship. Our children lived like monkeys, they have no school to attend, there is no water wells, no roads. The entrance road was 3-kilometer long, to reach that area, you have to cross muddy areas, and the mud come up all the way to your thigh. After all these struggles, when our crops start to bear fruits, they (Army chief) said that the lands belong to them. The villagers are so disappointed.”

Mrs. Chuon Chomrong claimed that the majority of land disputes in Cambodia are usually pitting hundreds of families and the army chief, or the villagers and the authority, or with salesmen. The regions where the disputes are more intense and which led to eviction of the villagers are in the following provinces: Kampot, Siem Reap, Kampong Thom, Battambang, Preah Vihear and Banteay Meanchey.

SRP MP Eng Chhay Eang, who is also a member of the National Authority for the Resolution of Land Disputes (NARLD), blames land disputes in Cambodia on the weak application of the law. Rich and powerful people use the law to violate the people, and this issue will become even bigger if all of these activities still continue.

Eang Chhay Eang said: “If we don’t strengthen the application of the law, land disputes cases will not end, and they will grow even bigger because of the land price increases. This makes the rich and powerful even greedier, they want theses lands even more.”

These criticisms were rejected by Hun Sen who said that they are not true.

Hun Sen, who in the past recognized that land disputes in Cambodia are worsening and are cause of concerns as they can lead to a farmer revolution, during a seminar on international commerce on 04 December, took the opposite position by claiming that land disputes stem from the population increase instead.

Hun Sen said: “These problems are real, but the lack of lands stem from the population explosion. Those who came to Cambodia 29-year ago, Phnom Penh city under the genocidal regime were devoid of people, Phnom Penh was completely empty.”

Chum Bunrong, the NARLD secretary-general, indicated that, since 2001 until now, more than 4,000 land dispute cases were resolved, and there are only about 200 cases remaining to be resolved.

Chum Bunrong said: “Those who complained about land dispute, we resolve the issue for them, one after another. Now, we can say that there are 600-700 cases left only, because of the more than 2,000 cases, some of them could not be considered as actual complains, they were request for intervention, for issuing land titles and such. The actual number of disputes are not very larger, about 400-500 only. Therefore, our government is working hard to continuously resolve these issues, there is not a single day that goes by, that we do not resolve them.”

The NARLD indicated that about 200,000-hectare of lands were taken back as state properties, and 400 cases were resolved in the past year. These resolutions were conducted through the land management department, the local authorities, the tribunal, and the NARLD as the last resort.

Even though the NARLD claimed that they are resolving these land dispute cases, human rights officials indicated that the way these resolutions are brought forth were very complicated and they came too late. The population no longer trusts that their problems could be resolve, and this could lead to the use of more violence in the future.

In Deadly Dispute, Forces Looted Homes, Stole More Land, Villagers Say

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
16 November 2007

Authorities used a land grab clash in Preah Vihear province to confiscate even more land from angry villagers, witnesses and opposition leaders said Friday.

Violence between villagers and police this week left two people dead and five injured in Preah Vihear, following the alleged sale of villager land to business interests.

Some residents are now without homes and separated from their families, witnesses said.

Authorities also cremated the bodies of two people killed in the dispute, Sam Rainsy Party commune council chief Long Ri said.

"The two bodies were cremated, and I heard that the bodies were not completely burned when they were taken to burial at the mountain," he said.

Preah Vihear Deputy Governor Sor Sam Ol said the people were not living in proper homes, "some were without walls and some others without the roof."

"I acknowledged that the authorities seized some things," he said, "but those are just knives and axes those villagers used as their weapons."

Sor Sam Ath, an investigation officer for the rights group Licadho, no relation to Sar Sam Ol, said his agency worried that some people were still missing, "probably in the jungle."

Colonel jailed for ordering his worker to beat up his protesting neighbors

Saturday, June 23, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Local newspapers reported that the Phnom Penh municipal court issued an arrest warrant for an army colonel for his collusion in injuring his opponents when the colonel ordered his construction workers to drag into his land property by force 4 persons, and beating the four until they almost died. Luy Chamroeun, the 54-year-old army colonel serving at the RCAF headquarters, was arrested by the military police in the evening of 21 June when he was traveling in his car. The arrest of the colonel stems from a land property line dispute which turns violent when the colonel ordered construction workers he hired to build his property fence to arrest and drag inside his property 4 men and women, and beating them until the four almost died. The four persons beaten up by the colonel’s men had protested the fact that the colonel built his property fence on their lands.

Union Reps Address 'Hello VOA' Ahead of May Day

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
30/04/2007

Click here to listen Sok Khemara hosts 'Hello VOA' in Khmer
(Real Media Player required)

The representatives of two Cambodian unions took calls from "Hello VOA" listeners Monday morning, in the wake of a letter from international garment companies concerned over a perceived "pattern of violence" in Cambodia's labor sector.

Chea Mony, president of the Cambodian Confederation Union, and At Thun, a member of the Cambodian Coalition of Apparel Democratic Union, spoke to listeners about International Labor Day, May 1, and the importance of union activity in Cambodia.

At least three union leaders have been murdered since 2004. Two men widely believed innocent are in jail for the murder of labor leader Chea Vichea in 2004. The murder of Hy Vuthy, in February, so far has been unsolved.

Last week, five garment manufacturers, including the Gap and Eddie Bauer, wrote a letter of concern to Prime Minister Hun Sen and other key leaders in the sector calling for deeper investigations into the murders.

Cambodia's labor sector is infamously turbulent, and labor leaders are often threatened or beaten as they campaign for workers' rights.

Beating of SRP procession participants in O'Russei

Friday, March 23, 2007

Phnom Penh - KI-Media has recently learned that SRP supporters participating in an election campaign procession in O’Russei commune, Phnom Penh city, were beaten by some 30 security guards from the O’Russei market. The beating took place at 8:20 PM on Friday, March 23, 2007. SRP received the authorization to hold the procession until 10:00 PM.

Three SRP supporters fled the scene and arrived later at the SRP headquarters, two of them are wounded by the beating. It is not yet known how many more procession participants are being wounded, or how serious their injuries are.

The procession participants claim that they have not done anything illegal, and that the authorization the SRP received allows them to proceed with the procession until 10:00 PM, but that they were attacked at 8:20 PM.

Some of the participants claim that this is the usual trick used by the authority to attack the procession on a Friday evening, when no reporters, human rights workers, or election observers are present.

Teachers held for cutting off boy's fingers

March 11 2007
AFP

Phnom Penh - Two Cambodian teachers were arrested on charges of cutting off the fingers of an 11-year-old street boy they accused of stealing a water bucket from outside their home, police said Sunday.

Nuch Thivann and Khem Chamreoun, both 25, were arrested on Saturday after police received a complaint from the victim's family, district police chief Hout Chanyaran said.

The boy, Chhun Piseth, was beaten before three fingers on his right hand were chopped off with a cleaver and thrown into a sewage pipe in Phnom Penh, according to witnesses.

"We found a big cleaver, and it's good evidence," Hout Chanyaran said.

Piseth's father, 41-year-old Pov Von, said his son often scavenged the streets for abandoned property that he could sell. He said he was shocked to see his son's fingers were chopped off.

"My son is very young, and it was too brutal to do that," Pov Von said.

Cambodia is one of the world's poorest countries, with 35 percent of its 14 million people in poverty, defined in Cambodia as living on less than 50c per day.

Nearly 1,5 million Cambodians under the age of 14 are engaged in some sort of child labour, and much of this work is unpaid and dangerous.