Even despots don't live forever

Osama bin Laden, Moammar Kadafi and Kim Jong Il (Mazhar Ali Khan/AP Photo, Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images, Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

Will this despot be next? (Photo: Reuters)

Three villains — Osama bin Laden, Moammar Kadafi and Kim Jong Il — are gone.

January 1, 2012
By Doyle McManus
Los Angeles Times
Op-Ed

It was a bad year for the villains of the world.

Three of the biggest bad guys met their ends: Osama bin Laden, killed by U.S. commandos who stormed his villa in Pakistan in May; Moammar Kadafi, killed by Libyan insurgents who captured him (with the help of a NATO airstrike) in October; and Kim Jong Il, the ruler of North Korea, who died Dec. 17, reportedly of a heart attack.

Bin Laden was the most important. Americans remember him, of course, as the architect of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. But his larger achievement was in organizing Al Qaeda, a multinational movement whose purpose was to focus its violence not on local issues — plenty of terrorist groups do that — but on the distant United States. That innovation will guarantee him a place in history. "It is fair to say," former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer wrote in his biography of Bin Laden, "that he has had a greater impact on how Americans view their society, government and security than any other individual in the past 50 years."

Nothing changes with the authoritarian regimes in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Burma

Saturday, January 23, 2010
By Scott Johnson
Canada Free Press

Nothing changes in Vietnam. Nor in Laos, Cambodia or Burma. These authoritarian regimes continues to do anything to repress its people in order in maintain a corrupt and brutal regime.

And can you beleive that hundreds of Montagnards remain in Vietnam’s prisons and the US State Department doesn't want to include these people as prisoners of concern?? (ie: not enough evidence of religious persecution)

Just an appalling act of abandonment.

Regards
Scott
Human Rights Watch
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Vietnam: Repression Intensifies Prior to Party Congress

"With its treatment of peaceful critics, the Vietnamese government seems determined to stand out as one of the most repressive countries in Asia. We’d be thrilled if the Vietnamese government proved us wrong, but there are no signs that it will reverse its increasingly harsh crackdown on dissent." - Brad Adams, Asia director

Rights Defenders, Democracy Activists Targeted

January 21, 2010
Source: Human Rights Watch

(New York) - This week’s convictions and heavy sentences for four Vietnamese democracy activists, including the prominent human rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh, highlighted the climate of increasingly harsh political repression in Vietnam, Human Rights Watch said today after the release of its World Report 2010.

The 612-page World Report 2010, the organization’s 20th annual review of human rights practices around the globe, summarizes major human rights trends in more than 90 nations and territories worldwide. In Vietnam, the report says, the government arrested and imprisoned dozens of democracy activists linked to opposition parties, independent bloggers, land rights protesters, and members of unsanctioned religious organizations during 2009.

“With its treatment of peaceful critics, the Vietnamese government seems determined to stand out as one of the most repressive countries in Asia,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “We’d be thrilled if the Vietnamese government proved us wrong, but there are no signs that it will reverse its increasingly harsh crackdown on dissent.”

In the lead-up to a key Vietnamese Communist Party congress in 2011, Human Rights Watch is concerned that the Vietnamese government will intensify its campaign to silence government critics and curb social unrest in an effort to quell any potential challenges to its one-party rule.
Away from the public spotlight, in 2009, the police cracked down on farmers protesting land grabs in the Mekong Delta, on Catholic parishioners in central and northern Vietnam opposing government confiscation of church properties, and on Montagnard activists in the Central Highlands resisting government control of their churches.

The four activists just sentenced to prison - Le Cong Dinh, Nguyen Tien Trung, Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, and Le Thang Long - were tried in Ho Chi Minh City on January 20 and 21 and received prison sentences ranging from five to 16 years. They were arrested during May and July for alleged links with the banned Democratic Party of Vietnam. They were accused of “colluding” with Vietnamese activists based abroad to create anti-government websites, post critical articles on the Internet, and incite social instability, and charged with attempting to overthrow the government under article 79 of Vietnam’s penal code. A fifth defendant, Tran Anh Kim, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison under article 79 on December 28.

On January 14 and 15, the Gia Lai provincial court sentenced two Montagnard Christians to prison, for nine and 12 years respectively, allegedly for organizing a “reactionary underground” network in violation of the country’s unity policy.

“Rights-respecting governments should speak up to protect peaceful activists and rights defenders in Vietnam and insist that the government abide by its international commitments,” Adams said. “Donors have been far too quiet about rights in recent years, but Vietnamese activists say that they will never succeed without consistent support from influential governments.”


Vietnamese courts sentenced at least 20 government critics and independent church activists to prison during 2009 on vaguely worded national security charges, according to the World Report. These include nine dissidents from Hanoi and Haiphong convicted in October for disseminating anti-government propaganda under penal code article 88. Their sentences are expected to be upheld in hearings before Vietnam’s Supreme Court this week even though the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined last year that five of the defendants had been detained arbitrarily.

Hundreds of other peaceful political and religious activists are serving long prison sentences in Vietnam. Religious freedom deteriorated during 2009, Human Rights Watch said. The government targeted religious leaders and their followers who advocated civil rights, religious freedom, and equitable resolution of land disputes.

There were also clashes between police and thousands of Catholic parishioners in Quang Binh protesting government confiscation of church properties, and government-orchestrated mobs violently dispersed followers of Thich Nhat Hanh, a renowned Buddhist monk who has advocated more religious freedom.

In the Central Highlands, authorities continued to arrest Montagnard Christians suspected of belonging to unregistered house churches considered subversive by the government, or of planning land rights protests or conveying information about rights abuses to activists abroad. On several occasions the police beat and shocked Montagnards with electric batons when they refused to sign pledges to join government-sanctioned churches.

During the review of Vietnam’s rights record by the UN Human Rights Commission in May, Vietnam defiantly rejected recommendations by UN member states to allow groups and individuals to promote human rights, express their opinions, and express public dissent. The government also refused to issue invitations to visit Vietnam to UN rights experts covering freedom of religion, expression, torture, and violence against women.

Vietnam’s antipathy toward free expression and other fundamental rights does not bode well for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which Vietnam now chairs, Human Rights Watch said. Vietnam has signed the ASEAN Charter, a legally binding agreement that commits member states to “strengthen democracy, enhance good governance, and protect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

“By locking up peaceful rights defenders, democracy activists, and cyber-dissidents, the Vietnamese government is clearly flouting its promises to ASEAN and the international community,” Adams said.

Cambodia's Battling Broadcasters

In a country with few critical new soruces, Radio Free Asia is taking on tough stories. As RFA puts the government on edge, its reporters are on edge.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

Posted October 10, 2007
By Shawn W. Crispin
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

The threat came into Lem Pichpisey’s cell phone just days after he aired an investigative series about alleged government complicity in the illegal logging of a nationally protected forest. The anonymous caller told Lem, a reporter for Radio Free Asia (RFA), that he “could be killed” if he continued his critical news coverage from the area.

Lem traced the number to a roadside vendor in Phnom Penh who rented mobile phones by the minute to unregistered customers. The vendor could identify the caller only as a young Khmer man who sped off on a motorcycle after placing the call.

Lem was already on edge. After his undercover reports from the Prey Long reserve in central Kompong Thom province had caused a national stir, a source tipped him that government security officials were taking great interest in his work. His anxiety mounting, Lem fled in June to Thailand, where he remained for more than a month.

Despite calls from local and international press organizations, including CPJ, the Cambodian government has yet to launch an independent investigation into the death threat. Lem has since resumed reporting in Cambodia, but to limit the risk, senior editors have reduced his regular broadcasts from five to three stories per week and taken him off the Prey Long beat.

Despite the potential danger, Lem felt compelled to return to his home in Battambang province. “If I had stayed away from Cambodia any longer, I wouldn’t be able to help report the truth about my country’s problems,” he said in an interview with CPJ.
Lem’s story is a familiar one among the Cambodia-based reporters for RFA, the U.S. government-funded broadcaster. Since 2005, three of the station’s 14 regular and on-call reporters have fled the country due to concerns over potential government reprisals.

Journalists have often been caught in the crossfire of Cambodia’s violent political history. Reporters were rounded up and slaughtered during the Khmer Rouge’s notorious reign of terror from 1975 to 1979 and were frequently attacked in the more than decade-long civil war that followed the December 1978 invasion by Vietnam, which ousted the radical Maoist regime and installed Hun Sen as prime minister.

By 1993, U.N.-sponsored democratic elections had ushered in a new parliamentary system of government and a constitution that guaranteed free expression. The 1993 Press Law, which provides a legal framework for press freedom, forbids censorship and protects confidentiality of sources. In practice, however, enforcement of these legal guarantees is highly inconsistent. Cambodian journalists still work in a hostile environment, particularly in far-flung provincial areas where corrupt officials are involved in illegal activities and where the rule of law is weak.

Between October 2005 and January 2006, Hun Sen ordered the imprisonment of three journalists, two in connection with their reports on a controversial border treaty with Vietnam. The unsolved killings of six newspaper editors and reporters—from the country’s democratic transition in 1993 through the violent 1997 coup launched by Hun Sen against Prince Norodom Ranariddh, then the country’s co-prime minister—still hangs over Cambodia’s media like a sword. Ministry of Information officials frequently harass editors over stories that cast the government in an unfavorable light.

That is particularly true for RFA, whose journalists often report under pseudonyms for fear they could be the target of government retaliation.

An angry Hun Sen pointing at RFA's reporter Um Sarin in front of the National Assembly, calling him "insolent" and "rude" (Photo: Sralanh Khmer newspaper)

During a question-and-answer session with local journalists in front of the country’s National Assembly in May, Hun Sen referred to RFA staffer Um Sarin as “insolent” and “rude” after the reporter questioned him about the details of a government shakeup. In the exchange, which was later broadcast on government-affiliated television stations, the premier pointed his finger at the reporter and called RFA’s reporting “insolent.”

As the premier’s bodyguards surrounded the reporter, Hun Sen warned Um Sarin that he should be afraid to ask similar questions in the future. For RFA journalists, the national attention given the incident raised fears of possible reprisals from pro-government groups. Um Sarin soon fled Cambodia for Thailand.

“We sometimes hit on the weak points of the government—corruption, poor governance, poverty, joblessness—which reflects on the government’s overall poor performance,” Um Sarin said. “We often contradict the government-controlled media, and that is the main reason Hun Sen is so angry with RFA.”

Hun Sen has consolidated his political power at the ballot box. His Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and businesspeople loyal to the party who hold government-administered print and broadcast licenses now dominate the Khmer-language media landscape. There are 20 or so regularly published local-language newspapers, all but two of which are heavily slanted in favor of Hun Sen and the CPP.

The same is true for the country’s 11 television stations, which broadcast news that unfailingly casts Hun Sen’s government in a favorable light—portraying senior CPP officials opening new public works projects, meeting with admiring local citizens, and greeting foreign dignitaries. One leading news station is run by the prime minister’s daughter, while others are owned by senior CPP members or their close business associates.

But the CPP-led government does not have a monopoly on radio news. High illiteracy and poverty rates mean that radio reaches more Cambodians than any other news source. According to a 2006 survey conducted by Washington-based media consultants InterMedia, 29 percent of Cambodia’s 14 million people listen to international radio stations on a weekly basis.

RFA and the U.S. government-funded Voice of America are neck and neck in claiming the country’s largest listening audience, according to the survey. RFA’s reports are aired twice daily, once in the morning and again in the evening, over privately run Beehive FM 105 and on shortwave beamed from Washington.

InterMedia’s survey found that more than 31 percent of the population listened to RFA on a regular basis, while 56 percent of the population living within a 50-mile (80-kilometer) radius of Phnom Penh regularly tuned in. RFA’s Khmer service director, Sos Kem, said in an e-mail from Washington that he expects that RFA’s listening audience will grow substantially because Beehive Radio has recently increased its broadcasting power from 5 to 10 megawatts, extending the station’s coverage to more remote provinces.

Established in Cambodia soon after Hun Sen launched his 1997 coup, RFA immediately introduced a new, grassroots style of radio reporting, including on-the-ground sound bites from people affected by the news. RFA’s recent fare has included such reports from villagers affected by state-backed land grabs, illegal logging, and alleged official corruption. This unfettered approach to the news has, over the years, lured listeners away from state-controlled stations, which still focus on senior government officials’ statements and activities.

Cambodian Minister of Information Khieu Kanarith did not respond to CPJ’s requests for an interview, but the government is clearly not enamored of RFA’s work. In February 1999, RFA negotiated a contract with the Ministry of Information that would have allowed the broadcaster to establish its own FM station in Phnom Penh—only to see the ministry back out days later because of political concerns.

RFA soon moved to lease FM airtime from Phnom Penh-based Beehive Radio. As if in a chess match, the Ministry of Information then banned Beehive Radio from carrying the reports. Only after Beehive’s owner, Mam Sonando, lodged a formal complaint with parliament—citing provisions of the 1993 Press Law—was the station allowed to resume its broadcasts of RFA news reports.

Still, RFA’s broadcasts over Beehive Radio are aired on a 30-minute time lag from when they are originally transmitted from Washington—giving the Ministry of Information time to monitor RFA news reports before they go out over the national airwaves.

Pen Samitthy, editor-in-chief of Rasmei Kampuchea, Cambodia’s leading pro-government daily newspaper, and a Hun Sen associate, said that several government officials believe RFA’s coverage is slanted against the CPP and in favor of the political opposition. He cited in particular the station’s coverage leading up to last year’s commune elections, including reports that pro-CPP groups threatened opposition canvassers and intimidated their grassroots supporters into staying away from the polls. “They aired several stories that did not make the prime minister very happy,” Pen Samitthy said.

According to RFA editors in Washington and Phnom Penh, their reporters are frequently singled out for harassment by government officials. In December 2006, Hun Sen’s bodyguards prevented Lem from reporting on the opening of a new government-funded building in Battambang province. This past April, the premier’s bodyguards blocked RFA reporter Sok Ratha from covering the opening ceremony of a road project in remote Ratanakiri province.

Phnom Penh-based RFA field editor Ath Bonny said that news reports about illegal logging, malnutrition in impoverished areas, and human rights abuses have resulted in angry, and sometimes threatening, calls from senior Ministry of Information officials.

“They ask me: ‘Why do you report like this? You are Khmer. Don’t you know this makes a bad international image for your country?’” said Ath Bonny, recalling a recent exchange with an official. “I said to him, ‘That’s what the people are saying and it’s the reality of the situation—that we are just doing our jobs as journalists, and that this is our country, too.”

Ath Bonny said RFA listeners often seek out the station’s reporters with their individual stories about local-level corruption. “Nowadays, the people don’t complain to the government or police, they complain to RFA,” he said. “Many people see us as a direct channel to communicate with their national leaders, and I think that makes the government nervous.”

RFA works out of an unmarked office in a multistory townhouse in the heart of Phnom Penh. Office managers affix RFA’s logo to the office’s steel-caged front door when guest speakers are scheduled for studio interviews, but quickly take it down after they have safely arrived, according to Ath Bonny.

“This is Cambodia—it is very difficult to judge who might make trouble for us,” he said. “We are often afraid, but we still do our work professionally.”

Like other RFA reporters, Ath Bonny speaks from personal experience. In October 2005, Hun Sen ordered the arrest and detention of Beehive Radio’s Mam Sonando and several civil-society activists for comments they made about a controversial border treaty with neighboring Vietnam. RFA had aired similar reports; Ath Bonny fled to Thailand for a time after a palace source told him that he, too, was in the government’s sights.

The arrests, though, sparked a bit of a backlash. Some local journalists said that Hun Sen’s government has since attempted a more sophisticated—or, at least, less overtly repressive—approach to its relations with the media. Under pressure from Western donor countries, which still contribute roughly half of the Cambodian government’s annual budget, the prime minister agreed in January 2006 to release Mam Sonando and the others. In August, he vowed to decriminalize defamation—although reporters could still be jailed on “disinformation” or broadly construed incitement charges.

“There’s been a change, at least in the language used,” said Charles McDermid, managing editor of the Phnom Penh Post, an English-language newspaper. “Now they’re at least talking about democracy.”

And Lem is still trying to break daring stories. In August, he aired a news report about alleged government involvement in illegal logging in southern Porsat province. “Where the government tries to hide, we try to show,” he said. “That’s the power of Cambodian radio.”

Shawn W. Crispin is CPJ’s Asia program consultant. He conducted this research mission in August.

Critics Say Cambodia Oil Revenues May Curse Rather Than Benefit

Cambodian Tang Solin, 59, pours gasoline into a smaller bottle at her road-side store in the capital Phnom Penh, Cambodia (File)

By Rory Byrne
Voice of America
Phnom Penh
15 May 2007

Revenues from large deposits of oil and gas discovered in Cambodia's territorial waters are expected to start flowing by the year 2010. The government says the funds will be used to pay for much-needed infrastructure projects and to cut borrowing. But as Rory Byrne reports from Phnom Penh, some critics are warning that oil money could fuel corruption and undermine economic development rather than benefit the country.

The exact amount of oil and gas lying off Cambodia's southern coast is still being assessed, but it is substantial. Last month, a Chinese exploration company announced it has found about 230 million barrels of oil plus half a trillion cubic feet of natural gas in just one of Cambodia's six exploration blocks. Other Asian companies and the U.S. oil giant Chevron are also exploring.

The oil could mean millions, and perhaps billions, of dollars for Cambodia's small economy each year. The government says the money will go into the central budget for development projects, to pay civil servants and to cut state borrowing.

But some development experts say there is a danger that Cambodia could be dragged deeper into poverty and corruption by what some call the oil curse.

Corruption is already widespread in Cambodia, and revenues from other state-owned natural resources including timber and precious stones have gone into private pockets. Ek Siden is the Development Issues Program Coordinator for the NGO Forum on Cambodia, representing more than 70 international and Cambodian non-governmental organizations.

"The institutions in Cambodia is very weak, and power is centralized - just only with one-man-show - and we are afraid that the government will use that budget in another way, not to serve the country and not [to] benefit the society as a whole, it will benefit only a few elites," said Siden.

Economists warn that if handled improperly, oil revenues can fuel corruption and contribute to inflation, which could mean key industries like garment manufacturing lose their competitive edge, pushing up joblessness and poverty.

John Nelmes, the resident representative of the International Monetary Fund in Cambodia, says an overhaul of the country's financial management systems will be required.

"I think there are big challenges, there's a lot of work to be done. One of the keys is that they have to put in place strong macro-economic management, that means budgetary policy that is sound and that directs money towards productive uses," said Nelmes. "Another key is to ensure that inflation remains low and that the economy remains competitive."

Human rights groups fear an oil-rich government may ignore the needs of the public and give in to authoritarian tendencies. Ek Siden of the NGO Forum says economic disparities could lead to social unrest and political instability.

"The government may spend a large amount on the military in order to keep just one-man-show, or keep just in the power, so that is the problem," said Siden. "It's also when there's no transparency of management of the revenue, it also become a conflict in the society"

U.S. Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli says at this stage, it is unclear what the oil revenue will mean for Cambodia.

"I think it's too early to say whether the oil is going to be a curse or a blessing. The good news is that the Cambodian government is well aware that it could be a curse. And just having that knowledge, being aware of what has happened in other countries, may be enough to forestall it here," said Mussomeli. "We are certainly talking to the government, lots of other countries are also offering assistance and guidance. But what it will take ultimately is political will and the political realization that the oil could really destroy this country."

To prevent that from happening, the government says that all oil revenue will be channeled through the central budget where it will be used to cut state borrowing, to pay for projects like roads and irrigation and to pay civil servants salaries. Sok Saravuth is the Director of Cambodia's Budget Department. He says that the money will be invested to improve the economy.

"A big lot of investment is needed to push the economy. Only about 5 to 10 percent of the investment required can be afforded by the national revenue. On the order of 80 to 90 percent is funded by grants or loans therefore I don't think we have to worry much that the government has no clear plan or that the money will not [be] used wisely," said Saravuth. "The prime minister has already agreed and decided that this oil revenue will be put into the budget."

Some human rights groups are warning that Cambodia may already be on the wrong path. They say there has been little transparency over the awarding of oil exploration contracts and criticize the authorities for not releasing information on the sums of money that oil companies have already paid.

With two or three years to go before the real oil money begins to flow, most agree that there is much work to be done to ensure that oil money is a blessing for Cambodia and not a curse.