Jun 15th, 2010
DredgingToday.com
A dispute over a sand-dredging operation on the Mekong River in Kandal province’s Khsach Kandal district was resolved Sunday after the company operating the dredging boats agreed to work within areas designated by experts from the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, officials said.
Khsach Kandal Deputy Governor Khieu Soknath said that officials from the Sam Chetra Sand Dredging Co made the promise during a meeting with ministry officials and local community representatives.
But he said the company denied villagers’ claims that the dredgers were operating outside of the permitted areas, threatening the collapse of riverbanks and the loss of village farmland.
“The company has denied allegations that it has operated anarchically outside its permit area over the past month,” he said.
On Sunday, specialists from the Ministry of Water Resources placed plastic beacons on the river to mark the permitted dredging area, and the company promised to operate within its limits and cease nighttime dredging in line with villagers’ requests, Khieu Soknath said.
In a report last month, London-based watchdog Global Witness argued that despite a sand-export ban ordered by Prime Minister Hun Sen in May last year, dredging operations continue to pose environmental threats in the country’s rivers and marine areas.
But Khsach Kandal district Governor Kong Sophon said that the number of dredging companies operating on the Mekong has dropped drastically since Hun Sen’s ban.
Chan Yutha, chief of cabinet at the Ministry of Water Resources, said that about 20 companies have received licences to dredge sand in the Mekong River, and that most adhered to government regulations.
“We have established an intervention team in order to crack down on illegal sand dredging,” he said.
Democratic Kampuchea Pol Pot Khmer Rouge Regime
ReplyDeleteMembers:
Pol Pot
Nuon Chea
Ieng Sary
Ta Mok
Khieu Samphan
Son Sen
Ieng Thearith
Kaing Kek Iev
Hun Sen
Chea Sim
Heng Samrin
Hor Namhong
Keat Chhon
Ouk Bunchhoeun
Sim Ka...
Committed:
Tortures
Brutality
Executions
Massacres
Mass Murder
Genocide
Atrocities
Crimes Against Humanity
Starvations
Slavery
Force Labour
Overwork to Death
Human Abuses
Persecution
Unlawful Detention
Cambodian People's Party Hun Sen Khmer Rouge Regime
Members:
Hun Sen
Chea Sim
Heng Samrin
Hor Namhong
Keat Chhon
Ouk Bunchhoeun
Sim Ka...
Committed:
Attempted Murders
Attempted Murder on Chea Vichea
Attempted Assassinations
Attempted Assassination on Sam Rainsy
Assassinations
Assassinated Journalists
Assassinated Political Opponents
Assassinated Leaders of the Free Trade Union
Assassinated over 80 members of Sam Rainsy Party.
"But as of today, over eighty members of my party have been assassinated. Countless others have been injured, arrested, jailed, or forced to go into hiding or into exile."
Sam Rainsy LIC 31 October 2009 - Cairo, Egypt
Executions
Executed over 100 members of FUNCINPEC Party
Murders
Murdered 3 Leaders of the Free Trade Union
Murdered Chea Vichea
Murdered Ros Sovannareth
Murdered Hy Vuthy
Murdered 10 Journalists
Murdered Khim Sambo
Murdered Khim Sambo's son
Murdered members of Sam Rainsy Party.
Murdered activists of Sam Rainsy Party
Murdered Innocent Men
Murdered Innocent Women
Murdered Innocent Children
Killed Innocent Khmer Peoples.
Extrajudicial Execution
Grenade Attack
Terrorism
Drive by Shooting
Brutalities
Police Brutality Against Monks
Police Brutality Against Evictees
Tortures
Intimidations
Death Threats
Threatening
Human Abductions
Human Abuses
Human Rights Abuses
Human Trafficking
Drugs Trafficking
Under Age Child Sex
Corruptions
Bribery
Embezzlement
Treason
Border Encroachment, allow Vietnam to encroaching into Cambodia.
Signed away our territories to Vietnam; Koh Tral, almost half of our ocean territory oil field and others.
Illegal Arrest
Illegal Mass Evictions
Illegal Land Grabbing
Illegal Firearms
Illegal Logging
Illegal Deforestation
Illegally use of remote detonation bomb on Sokha Helicopter, while Hok Lundy and other military officials were on board.
Lightning strike many airplanes, but did not fall from the sky. Lightning strike out side of airplane and discharge electricity to ground.
Source: Lightning, Discovery Channel
Illegally Sold State Properties
Illegally Removed Parliamentary Immunity of Parliament Members
Plunder National Resources
Acid Attacks
Turn Cambodia into a Lawless Country.
Oppression
Injustice
Steal Votes
Bring Foreigners from Veitnam to vote in Cambodia for Cambodian People's Party.
Use Dead people's names to vote for Cambodian People's Party.
Disqualified potential Sam Rainsy Party's voters.
Abuse the Court as a tools for CPP to send political opponents and journalists to jail.
Abuse of Power
Abuse the Laws
Abuse the National Election Committee
Abuse the National Assembly
Violate the Laws
Violate the Constitution
Violate the Paris Accords
Impunity
Persecution
Unlawful Detention
Death in custody.
Under the Cambodian People's Party Hun Sen Khmer Rouge Regime, no criminals that has been committed crimes against journalists, political opponents, leaders of the Free Trade Union, innocent men, women and children have ever been brought to justice.
i think if they are doing in accordance to the law, it is legal issue. however, we should worry about the unlawful business in this field, the rampant removing of sands that create serious erosiion to riverbanks and coastal ecosystem, etc... is the kind we all legitimately concerned about, really!
ReplyDeletePaul Ferber was scuba diving in Cambodia's Sre Ambil River shortly after ships had finished dredging the area. As director of Marine Conservation Cambodia, Ferber was used to seeing the Cambodian estuaries teeming with marine life. He was shocked: Over 15 kilometers of river, he saw exactly one fish and two shrimp. "It was crazy to dive and see nothing," he says.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't just happening to Cambodian rivers. Cambodian fishermen say fish stocks have plummeted off the coast of the province of Koh Kong, and that they now need to travel further and further to feed their families. Residents say the timing of these changes points to one main culprit: the sand industry, for which dredgers suck up more than 25,000 tons of Cambodian sand a day to export primarily to Singapore, according to a report released this week by Global Witness, a London-based environmental watchdog.
Along the Kampot River in February, angry residents destroyed nearby dredging equipment after a collapsing riverbank threatened their village. Mu Sochua, an opposition party parliamentarian, said the villagers had already tried pressuring their provincial leaders and sending letters to the Prime Minister and that the villagers "had no other choice." Phay Siphan, a spokesman from the Cambodian Council of Ministers, dismissed Mu's complaints, saying, "From my experience, the opposition party never does the job. They sit down and wait to hear from outside reporters and then take the opportunity to insult the government."
(See pictures of new species along the Mekong Delta.)
In Cambodia's Koh Kong province every month, dredgers extract more than 850,000 tons of sand, according to Global Witness, which valued a year's worth of Koh Kong sand at nearly $250 million on the market in Singapore. A Cambodian government-sponsored website claims that dredgers remove only between 40,000 and 60,000 tons of sand per month in Koh Kong, and that the sand mining operations "remain small-scale." Global Witness acknowledges their numbers are only estimates but stands by their claim that the numbers are far greater than the government is reporting.
Exact numbers are hard to come by since the wheeling and dealings of Cambodia's sand trade go on behind closed doors, Global Witness says. The report claims two Cambodian senators with close ties to both Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Cambodian military are at the center of this trade. In response to Global Witness, the Royal Embassy of Cambodia in London released a May 11 statement slamming the study, calling it a "cheap and rubbish report" containing "malicious and misleading claims by an international> troublemaker."
It isn't the first time Global Witness has picked a fight with Cambodia's ruling elite. After the release of a 2007 report alleging links between high-ranking members of the government and illegal logging, the Cambodian government denied all charges, the head of the Forestry Department called the report "laughable," and a provincial governor — who also happens to be the Prime Minister's brother — promised that if members of Global Witness ever set foot in Cambodia, "I will hit them until their heads are broken."
Not everyone has given up on putting a stop to dredging in Cambodia. Chourn knows it will be difficult to end unsustainable sand dredging in Cambodia because of the "rich people and the power men behind it."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1989047,00.html#ixzz0qwzvpq9C
i think conflict resulf from unfinished business and the inability to understand or more importantly listen to all point of view from all sides. why are we still failing to listen? maybe it is to do with our bad attitude or something. please examine oneself carefully if we are to be a good and productive citizen.
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