Aid [from Malaysia] pours in for Cham Muslims

Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (centre) with the Malaysian team that delivered aid to villagers in Kampung Rakapram in Cambodia on Wednesday. On the left is Cambodia’s mufti, Kamaruddin Yusof @ Sos Kamry. Pic by V. Shuman

04 June 2012
By V. SHUMAN
New Straits Times (Malaysia)

EARLY RAYA GIFT: Zahid hands over clothes, generators to Cambodians

KUALA LUMPUR: THOUSANDS of Muslims in Cham district in Cambodia got an early Hari Raya Aidilfitri surprise when they received goodies from a humanitarian team from Ma-laysia on Wednesday.

The team, led by Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, presented clothes, books and generators, worth RM500,000, to residents of Kampung Rakapram and surrounding villages.

Zahid was joined by representatives from Yayasan Dakwah Islamiah Malaysia (Yadim), Polytechnic Education Department employees and reporters, who had been in Phnom Penh for the Asean Defence Ministers' Meeting.

The arrival of the convoy was greeted by more than 1,000 Muslim Cambodians.

Hearts, minds and tongues in Cambodia

Apr 18, 2012
By Julie Masis
Asia Times

PHNOM PENH - The United States Embassy in Cambodia is financing the publication of new textbooks for minority Cham Muslims, a public diplomacy initiative that will revive a forgotten traditional writing system and attempt to discourage the use of Arabic as a language of instruction in this predominantly Buddhist Southeast Asian nation.

The textbooks, the first to be printed in the Cham script since the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 reign of terror, will initially teach more than 200 Cham Muslim children to read and write in a script derived from Sanskrit, according to the US Embassy, which is also financing the production and publication of the first Cham language dictionary.

Some here have suggested the initiative aims to cut lingual links with foreign radical Islamic groups known to have made inroads to the Cham community in recent years. While Cambodia has not suffered any terrorist attacks, there have been reported upended plots.

In 2004, a Cambodian court convicted Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) operative and Indonesian national Riduan Isamuddin, or Hambali, and three other people for planning to bomb the US and United Kingdom embassies in Phnom Penh. Hambali, the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombing attack, is known to have traveled freely through Cambodia before his capture.

Extreme Khmer Episode 15: The Chams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yIUpnp1HDI

Cambodia/Islam: Reaching out to Cham Muslims

PHNOM PENH, 6 Safar/Jan.1 (IINA)-A two-month donation drive by the New Straits Times Press Charity Organisation has helped alleviate the plight of Muslims in Cambodia, writes Kamarulzaman Salleh

DONORS and sponsors of the Cambodia Humanitarian Programme can be proud that their contributions have helped to ease the plight of poor families following a visit by the New Straits Times Press Charity Organisation (“Badan Khairat NSTP”) to the impoverished nation.

With the cooperation of the Cambodian mufti’s office, the funds totalling about US$10,000 (RM31, 000) were spent on improving basic amenities and providing assistance to villagers in three provinces in the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh in July.

The amount was collected during a two-month donation drive by the media group’s newspapers — Harian Metro, Berita Harian and New Straits Times — with the cooperation of TV Al-Hijrah, a unit under the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim).

Nicolas Axelrod's 24hrs: Fishing two rivers

24hrs - Fishing two rivers from Nicolas Axelrod on Vimeo.

After 20 years of living on a five-meter boat, Yousuf and his wife Isma have never seen the fish stocks so low. Only a few years ago the family was able to earn more than twice as much as they do today. With their current daily income of 5 – 10 dollars, Yousuf and Isma support their nephew as well as their three sons, two of whom live with their grandmother in the family’s home province of Kandal. “The fish stock are lower because the water is shallow” Isma explains, “when the water levels are high the fish migrate to the shallows, and when the water drops again the fish migrate back. If the water levels are shallow, the fish do not migrate.” 

Yousuf and Isma live a semi-nomadic life moving around the Tonle Sap and Mekong river area from shore to shore. They used to dock their boat permanently on Koh Pich Island before investors decided to develop the island. The community, made up of approximately 20 boats, was forced to move. At the moment, the manager of a ferry terminal allows them to stay nearby for most of the year. “We are often told to move from here,” says Isma, “especially during the water festival and when high-ranking officials visit the area.”

They live in the area where the two rivers meet, and fish in several different shallow parts of the two waterways, occasionally moving to follow migrating fish and staying a couple of days in different areas.

Yousuf and Isma along with the 20 other boats that make up the community are all Cham, a South East Asian ethnic group. With roots in the ancient Kingdom of Champa, the Cambodian Cham are mainly Muslim. Islam makes up less than one percent of the Cambodian population, which is predominantly Buddhist. The Cham tend to live in their own towns or areas within larger cities.

Though they are happy in the constant motion of the waves and travelling everyday in their floating home, raising a family on a boat is not easy. Yousuf and Isma lost two children who drowned after falling off the boat. “That is why I don’t want to live on the river” she says. She would also like to live in the same place all year round and see her children grow up and go to school like other children. In the mean time, they fish many different areas around the Mekong and Tonle Sap, where the two rivers meet. 

For additional photos and multi-media videos by Nick, please visit:
http://www.nicolasaxelrod.com/

Assalamu'alaikum!

Assalamu'alaikum! To all our Muslim brothers and sisters who are observing Ramadan in Cambodia

Cambodia's Muslims seek justice for genocide

Cambodian Muslims remain haunted by the past (AFP/File, Tang Chhin Sothy)

Sunday, July 17, 2011
By Michelle Fitzpatrick (AFP)

CHRAING CHAMRES, Cambodia — Zakaria Bin Ahmad cannot forget the years of horror under the brutal Khmer Rouge when even praying was to risk death for Cambodia's persecuted minority Muslims.

Many others in his community did not survive the late 1970s reign of terror by the hardline communist regime, which executed Islamic scholars, destroyed mosques, forced Muslims to eat pork and forbade headscarves.

"People tried all kinds of ways to pray. Sometimes while they were driving an ox cart... sometimes in the jungle when we asked to use the toilet, and sometimes while we were washing," the 61-year-old recalled.

But mostly, he remembers people disappearing, never to be seen again.

Khmer Rouge Trial Opens Old Wounds

Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Daniel Schearf, VOA | Phnom Penh

"We didn’t expect much from the Cambodian officials but we expected a lot more from the United Nations."

The United Nations-backed trial of former senior Khmer Rouge leaders in Cambodia aims to bring some degree of justice after decades of impunity for their bloody revolution. For the victims, the trial has re-opened painful wounds but also brings hope for healing.

Kup Aishah, a minority Cham Muslim, turns the pages of a large-print copy of the Koran.

Wearing a traditional navy blue headscarf she fondly recalls how she has had this Koran since she was 12 year old.

During Cambodia’s bloody Khmer Rouge era in the 1970s, when religion was outlawed, she wrapped it in plastic, dug a hole in her yard and hid it.

Research Focuses on Muslim Women Under Khmer Rouge

An estimated 500,000 Cambodian Muslims died under the Khmer Rouge, through overwork, starvation or execution. (Photo: Brendan Brady, IRIN)

Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Wednesday, 08 June 2011

“Speaking out about one’s bitter experiences, or sorrow, is difficult, but it provides one with long term healing.”

Cambodia’s women Muslims are increasingly embracing their own identities, as the minority group as a whole struggles with the impacts of the Khmer Rouge, according to new research.

“Cham Muslim women were cut off from the traditional roles of taking care of their households and children,” Farina So, a researcher at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, told “Hello VOA” on Monday.

So has now completed four years of research and compiled a book, “The Hijab of Cambodia: Memory of Cham Muslim Women after the Khmer Rouge,” soon to be released.

Muslims In Cambodia Hail Malaysians' Contribution To Rebuilding Their Lives

KAMPUNG CHAM (Cambodia), June 1 (Bernama) -- The Muslim community in Cambodia recognises the contribution of Malaysians in terms of development and education to help rebuild their lives after a period of suffering under the brutal Pol Pot regime.

Kampung Cham deputy governor Sobri Kassim said since the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen ruled the country, the Muslims in Cambodia, however, had been given the flexibility to develop their economy and education, and to observe their religious practices.

"From that early stage, Malaysians have been coming here to help us," Sobri told participants of the Jejak Warisan Jawi II (JWJ2), an expedition to explore Southeast Asia and China to trace the Malay heritage, while on a stop in Kampung Jumnik, here, Wednesday.

Many Local Muslims See bin Laden Death as a Curative

Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Monday, 02 May 2011

“I think that the terror war happened greatly in Osama bin Laden’s time, but after Osama bin Laden’s death, the terror war will be reduced toward a low level.”

A number of Cambodian Muslims welcomed news that Osamba bin Laden was killed in Pakistan Monday, and some said they hoped it would improve religious rifts that followed the terror attacks in the US nearly a decade ago.

US President Barack Obama confirmed bin Laden’s death at the hands of an American strike team late Sunday night on the East Coast, as huge crowds gathered in jubilation in front of the White House in Washington and at Times Square and Ground Zero in New York.

The announcement came Monday morning in Cambodia, which has been a willing ally in US counter-terrorism efforts since 9/11 and after it was discovered a major Southeast Asian terrorist leader, Hambali, found haven here in 2003.

Cambodian Muslims have said in the years since they felt unfairly stigmatized, despite some US efforts to engage the community, particularly through radio programs and diplomatic efforts.

A short course on Islam in Cambodia

Mawlid ceremony at Kampong Tralach, Kampong Chhnang, February 2011. Photo by: DC CAM

Wednesday, 02 March 2011
The Phnom Penh Post Staff

Islam is changing in Cambodia. Muslims are financially benefiting from aide from global Islamic institutions, often at the expense of traditional practices, which are quickly changing according to the preferences of international donors.

Cambodian Islam is composed of three main groups: the orthodox Islam, who make up a 80% of Cambodian Muslims, the Chvea Muslims of coastal regions and the Imam Sann group. The first group has the closest connection to Muslims around the world, and their practices most closely resemble those seen in other the majority of Muslim populations. Most orthodox followers, for example, forbid keeping dogs as pets as it is considered unsanitary.

Cambodia remembers its fallen Muslims

January 6, 2011
By Julie Masis
Asia Times

PHNOM PENH - In September 1975, 2,000 or so Cambodian Muslims picked up their swords and machetes and for several days fought off heavily armed Khmer Rouge soldiers at the village of Svay Khleang. The rebellion was sparked during the holy month of Ramadan in response to Khmer Rouge attempts to arrest Muslims for praying at their local mosque.

The rebellion was defeated but won't soon be forgotten: a museum that will preserve the stories of Muslim survivors of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal reign of terror from 1975-79 is scheduled to open at the Mabarak mosque outside Phnom Penh later this year.

Between 100,000 and 400,000 Cham Muslims died under the Khmer Rouge regime, according to figures provided by the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, either from murder, starvation or disease. Most of the country's mosques were destroyed or desecrated during the Khmer Rouge's radical attempt to create a communist utopia.

Nick Axelrod's 24hrs – Fishing two rivers

Posted on December 2, 2010
By Nicolas Axelrod
Originally posted at http://nicolasaxelrod.wordpress.com

For additional report and video please visit:

http://nicolasaxelrod.wordpress.com

24hrs - Fishing two rivers from Nicolas Axelrod on Vimeo.

After 20 years of living on a five-meter boat, Yousuf and his wife Isma have never seen the fish stocks so low. Only a few years ago the family was able to earn more than twice as much as they do today. With their current daily income of 5 – 10 dollars, Yousuf and Isma support their nephew as well as their three sons, two of whom live with their grandmother in the family’s home province of Kandal. “The fish stock are lower because the water is shallow” Isma explains, “when the water levels are high the fish migrate to the shallows, and when the water drops again the fish migrate back. If the water levels are shallow, the fish do not migrate.”

Yousuf and Isma live a semi-nomadic life moving around the Tonle Sap and Mekong river area from shore to shore. They used to dock their boat permanently on Koh Pich Island before investors decided to develop the island. The community, made up of approximately 20 boats, was forced to move. At the moment, the manager of a ferry terminal allows them to stay nearby for most of the year. “We are often told to move from here,” says Isma, “especially during the water festival and when high-ranking officials visit the area.”

They live in the area where the two rivers meet, and fish in several different shallow parts of the two waterways, occasionally moving to follow migrating fish and staying a couple of days in different areas.

Yousuf and Isma along with the 20 other boats that make up the community are all Cham, a South East Asian ethnic group. With roots in the ancient Kingdom of Champa, the Cambodian Cham are mainly Muslim. Islam makes up less than one percent of the Cambodian population, which is predominantly Buddhist. The Cham tend to live in their own towns or areas within larger cities.

Though they are happy in the constant motion of the waves and travelling everyday in their floating home, raising a family on a boat is not easy. Yousuf and Isma lost two children who drowned after falling off the boat. “That is why I don’t want to live on the river” she says. She would also like to live in the same place all year round and see her children grow up and go to school like other children. In the mean time, they fish many different areas around the Mekong and Tonle Sap, where the two rivers meet.

Courting the Cham

New theatre of terror?

A cultural revival gathers pace. So do worries about fundamentalism

Sep 30th 2010
The Economist
PHNOM PENH

IN THE so-called war on terror, Cambodia is a sleepy outpost on a tense South-East Asian front that stretches from the Philippines to Thailand. Western governments are, however, worried that trouble may be brewing in this backwater.

Security experts fret about the possible perversion of a cultural revival by Cambodia’s Muslims, who mostly belong to the 400,000-strong Cham minority. In the genocidal 1970s the Khmer Rouge executed most leaders of the Cham and tried to exterminate both the tribe and Islam from the Maoist paradise they said they were building. Ben Kiernan of Yale University estimates that 90,000 out of a population of 250,000 died, a higher rate of loss than any other ethnic group. Only 21 imams survived out of 113, along with perhaps 15% of Cambodia’s mosques.

As they struggled from the wreckage, poor Muslim congregations came to depend on foreign charities for help rebuilding their mosques, whose numbers have risen tenfold to around 250 today, says Bjorn Blengsi, an anthropologist. They also became receptive to imported versions of Islam, which tend to be stricter than the traditionally relaxed local variety. Agnès de Féo, another anthropologist and author of “L’Islam au Cambodge et au Vietnam” says both Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia and Tablighi Jemaat from India are gaining adherents.

Nothing wrong with that, perhaps. Most Islamic charities teach the faith and help the poor. But not, alas, all. In one much-publicised incident in 2002, according to the American government, a local member of the Kuwaiti-based Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS) helped an Indonesian fugitive, Riduan Isamuddin (alias Hambali), the mastermind behind the nightclub bombings in Bali. Hambali, who is now in prison in Guantánamo Bay, reportedly said he had hoped to bomb the American and British embassies in Phnom Penh and to use Cambodia as a base for terrorist operations throughout South-East Asia. RIHS, which has been cleared of links with terrorism by Kuwait’s government, remains active in Cambodia. A local affiliate, the Kuwait-Cambodia Islamic Cultural Training Centre, recently met the president of parliament.

The influence of foreign religious organisations seems to be growing along with rising government loans from Gulf states. These loans include help for rebuilding religious institutions. In January, for example, Cambodia approved an agreement with Kuwait from 2008 in which the oil-rich state promised loans of $546m, mostly for energy and agriculture, and including $5m for new mosques and madrassas (Islamic schools). The only unusual thing about this was that the religious component was revealed. According to Milton Osborne of the Lowy Institute, an Australian think-tank, most aid packages from the Gulf include such a component but do not make it public.

Nothing wrong with that either, of course. But suspect and banned organisations seem to be moving in the slipstream of genuine charities. According to Ms de Féo, the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and the International Islamic Relief Organisation have both worked in Cambodia. Branches of these bodies appear on the United Nations’ list of organisations banned for their links with al-Qaeda. Several other Kuwaiti charities in Cambodia are on America’s list of groups which finance terrorism, including some local affiliates of RIHS.

The concern of security experts is not that scores of terrorist actions are being carried out or even averted just in time. The most recent example of a terrorist plot hatched in Cambodia was as long ago as 2004, when three people connected to a madrassa in Phnom Penh were convicted of planning to bomb embassies there.

Rather, the worry is that unsavoury organisations are coming into the country to take advantage of the Cham revival. Though the Cham themselves do not seem to be embracing extremism, they remain—understandably given their history—suspicious of outsiders (including Cambodia’s government). Few people really know what is happening inside the areas they control. Fundamentalism remains a force in South-East Asia, and lawless Cambodia is no safe haven.

RAMADAN: Cambodian Muslims prepare to break their fast

A Cham Muslim man prepares grapes for the evening meal at the Nurunnaim Mosque in Russey Keo district. (All PHOTOS: WILL BAXTER)
A Cham Muslim boy sets out plates of grapes and noodles for members of the community surrounding Nurunnaim Mosque.
Muslim men chat before the evening meal at the entrance of Nurunnaim Mosque.

Thursday, 09 September 2010
Khouth Sophakchakrya
The Phnom Penh Post

MEMBERS of Cambodia’s 600,000-strong Cham Muslim community are set to celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan, which draws to a close today. During the entire month of Ramadan – which began on August 11 – Muslims are required to fast from dawn until sunset.

Sa Lesh, a Cham Muslim and hakim (elder) at the Nurunnaim Mosque in the city’s Russey Keo district, explained that Ramadan is the holiest of months in the Islamic calendar, and is intended to cleanse devoted Muslims of all sins.

“Allah has taught us through the Qur’an to make good commitments and to share food with the poorest of people,” he said. “Why did Allah teach us to do that? Because he wants us to understand about suffering and hunger… so we will distribute food and other belongings to the poor.”

He said that elders, the infirm and children under age 15 were not required to fast.

[Native of Cambodia] Professor Becomes Advocate, Inspiration to Students

Helps Aspiring Entrepreneurs Obtain Degree through Venture Connects Program

August 5, 2010
By Franci Valenzano
Madison County Courier (New York, USA)

(Morrisville, NY) Dr. Emad Rahim brings more to the classroom than rich knowledge about his subject matter.

The Morrisville State College professor adds elements students can relate to along with anecdotes from his personal life to teach them they can accomplish anything.

That inspiration has been a motivating factor in the classroom and in his life—now it’s branching out even farther.

Rahim, assistant professor of entrepreneurship and small business management, is a motivating force behind a new Morrisville State College program, Venture Connects, which is helping adult students find creative ways to return to the classroom to further their education.

Through Morrisville Venture Connects, students who have already earned an associate degree in multiple disciplines can go back to school to earn a bachelor of business administration degree in entrepreneurship and small business management from Morrisville State College, taking courses that fit into their daily schedules.

The successful equation behind the program is a hybrid format of online and flexible weekend classes that will be taught at two locations— the Syracuse Technology Garden, in downtown Syracuse, and at Cayuga Community College. Students also engage in workshops, internships and externships through the program. Future plans are to expand Morrisville Venture Connects to other locations too.

Rahim, a teacher in the Venture Connects program, knows firsthand it isn’t easy adding college to life’s juggles. His journey to the classroom was circuitous—much like his life.

A native of Cambodia, Rahim is a survivor of the Killing Fields, sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979.

An estimated two million people were killed, starved or worked to death, among them; his father and brother and aunts and uncles, leaving him the only lineage on his father’s side.

Born in a concentration camp, Rahim escaped to Thailand with his mother when he was four, eventually making his way to Brooklyn then Syracuse through a sponsorship by Catholic Charities.

Since he arrived in America, life has been about turning trials into opportunities. A poor student who struggled through high school, Rahim took college classes while working two jobs and supporting a family, eventually earning his doctorate degree.

Philanthropic acts and people who encouraged him along the way empowered him to help others. Teaching is just one of the many ways he has reached out.

“I wanted to bring my passion into the classroom, to inspire my students and create an environment that engages them,” he said.

That spirit is evident outside of the classroom too.

Rahim is also principal consultant with Global i365, formerly Innovative Development Inc., a consulting group that provides business services specializing in the areas of diversity management, project management, technology, programming, nonprofit development and marketing.

He’s also been an advocate for local human service agencies and has worked with at-risk families and children and adults with disabilities.

A firm believer in utilizing outside resources, Rahim has relied on many to get to where he is today.

“I could not have accomplished all I have in my life without the resources and support that surrounded me,” he said. “When you hit a roadblock, look for an alternate route to get to your destination.”

He hopes for some, that path is Venture Connects, which offers services and support, and coaching and mentoring that will open doors for students too.

Through classroom and hands-on experience, students gain technical and business expertise and learn to apply entrepreneurial skills to start their own business ventures.

Students who take the program through the Syracuse Technology Garden will learn from seasoned entrepreneurs and interact with start-up companies in a real business environment.

“Because of this centralized location and through our partnerships and networks, students will have an enormous pool of resources and experts to help bring their business idea to fruition,” Rahim said.

Students who complete the Venture Connects program will leave with more than a bachelor degree in entrepreneurship and small business management under their belts.

“They’ll also have a completed business plan and the opportunity to apply for seed money to start or expand their business,” Rahim said.

In addition to teaching, Rahim speaks openly at high schools, universities, community organizations, conferences, workshops and public forums about his life, diversity, immigration and cultural awareness.

Part of Rahim’s life was made into a play, “Tales From the Salt City,” written and directed by Tony Award Nominee and USA Playwrights Award Recipient, Ping Chong. The Syracuse Stage Theatre production shares the dramatic migration stories of Rahim and six other local residents from Syracuse, N.Y.

Venture Connects is made possible through a grant from the Kauffman Foundation.

For more information about Venture Connects, call 315-684-6225, e-mail Rahime@morrisville.edu or visit www.morrisville.edu/ventureconnects/.

Franci Valenzano is public relations associate at Morrisville State College.

Survivor recounts genocide

Woman says it’s too important to forget horrors

July 19, 2010
VENICE BUHAIN; Staff writer
The Olympian (Olympia, Washington State, USA)

LACEY - For Lacey resident Rokaih Vansot, who fled at age 4 with her family from the killing fields of Cambodia, the history of what happened to her relatives under the Khmer Rouge is too important to forget.

But those memories are painful for both her mother, who lost 33 members of her family to the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, and for her father, who lost 39 members of his family to that regime. Those numbers do not include extended family members, she said.

“For my family, it is still very fresh – all the violence and the punishments,” said Vansot, a human resources consultant with the state Department of Transportation. Vansot spoke to a group organized at Pleasant Glade Elementary School by the Olympia Jewish-Muslim Listening Group, an organization formed to encourage conversation and understanding after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Vansot and Tacoma author Daran Kravanh, a Khmer Rouge survivor who authored a survival memoir of the regime, “Music Through the Dark: A Tale of Survival in Cambodia,” were invited to speak about the Cambodian genocide under the rule of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, known commonly as the Khmer Rouge.

In 1975, Cambodia was taken over by the Khmer Rouge, and the Communist party’s reforms, including seizing control of agriculture, education and local government, led to the deaths of about 21 percent of Cambodia’s population. At least 2 million Cambodians died of starvation, disease or by torture and execution by the Khmer Rouge.

Kravanh recounted how police officers, students, city officials, doctors and other educated people would disappear, or be “reassigned” under the paranoid eyes of the Khmer Rouge.

He said children were brainwashed into spying on their parents for the government.

“If the children found one – that his mom or her mom was a policeman or something – then your mom disappeared,” Kravanh said.

Kravanh and his wife and co-author, Bree Lafreniere, alternated between reading from his memoir of how his talent and love for playing the accordion brought out his will to survive and the help of unlikely supporters, and talking about his experiences and playing songs that he wrote or performed during that time.

Many of the Cambodians refugees now living in Lacey are Cham, a Muslim ethnic minority that was targeted by the Khmer Rouge.

Vansot, who is Cham, said that the Khmer Rouge would persecute the Cambodian populace with their meal rations.

“They served pork to Muslims, and did not give any to people who ate it,” she said.

Her sisters, both under age 10, were forced to do agricultural work and taught to love the Communist party, which provided their food and other needs, instead of their parents, Vansot said.

Vansot said she has few vivid memories of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Her older sisters and her parents, until recently, have avoided discussing it.

“It’s been difficult for them to share that information,” she said.

Her parents get upset when discussing her grandparents, uncles, aunts and their families who all died under the Khmer Rouge.

“I want to find out as much history and data, so it’s not lost,” Vansot said. “My mother says, ‘I don’t want to remember. Just leave it.’ That’s her way of healing. She’s lost so many family members.”

Anise Ahmed, an organizer with the Olympia Jewish-Muslim Listening Group, said that the young people in the Cham community want to know their family histories, but their older family members still are too traumatized to talk about the Cambodian genocide.

Vansot “had the courage to ask her parents,” he said. “A lot of young people want to know.”

CAMBODIA: Khmer Rouge genocide charge marks milestone for minorities

Nguyen said the genocide charge would allow her clients to formally pursue the truth about why they were targeted and, in the process, “reconstitute their identity” as a distinct group in Cambodia whose rights need to be respected.

PHNOM PENH, 24 May 2010 (IRIN) - As judges at Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge tribunal decide whether to include genocide as a charge in the closing order, advocates say prosecuting the crime would represent a milestone for official recognition of the rights of the country's Vietnamese and Muslim minorities.

“There is still discrimination against the Cham, so this sends an important message that Muslims in Cambodia are part of the country,” Lor Chunty, a lawyer representing more than 200 Cham Muslim civil parties in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), told IRIN.

Estimates suggest there are more than 300,000 Cham Muslims living in Cambodia and put the number of ethnic Vietnamese much higher than the government figure of 100,000 – although the vast majority of Cambodia’s 14.7 million people are Buddhist ethnic Khmers.

Most of the 1.7 million Cambodians who died from overwork, starvation and murder during the ultra-Maoist regime’s 1975-1979 reign of terror were Khmers.

However, in 1999, UN experts concluded that Khmer Rouge leaders should face charges for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes on strong evidence – including Khmer Rouge statements, eyewitness accounts and the nature and number of victims of each group – pointing to genocide against the Cham and Vietnamese as ethnic groups and against the Buddhist monkhood as a religious group.

The ECCC has been trying five former top officials of the regime for war crimes and crimes against humanity. In December, the tribunal added genocide as a charge against the four remaining defendants for their alleged role in the slaughter of ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims living in Cambodia.

The charge still needs to be finalized in the court’s closing order, but it is expected to be sustained.

Members of the Vietnamese and Muslim minorities who are participating in the court say it is necessary if the court’s justice is to be thorough and help ensure they stand beside Khmers as first-class citizens in today’s Cambodia.

The tribunal, said Deputy Prosecutor Anees Ahmed, “has to provide, to the extent possible, a true and complete historical account of the [the] crimes in all their manifestations, egregiousness and breadth”.

Respecting rights

Lyma Nguyen, a lawyer representing ethnic Vietnamese who lived through the Khmer Rouge era, and are now applying to be civil parties, said ethnic Vietnamese are still struggling to consolidate their place in Cambodian society.

“Even though most of the victims I represent have been living in Cambodia for many generations, many face discrimination to this day,” she said.

Nguyen said the genocide charge would allow her clients to formally pursue the truth about why they were targeted and, in the process, “reconstitute their identity” as a distinct group in Cambodia whose rights need to be respected.

Antagonism towards ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia is compounded by centuries of conflict between Cambodia and its more powerful neighbour.

Vietnamese communities say they receive less government funding for schools and hospitals than Khmer communities.

They also point to the common use by Cambodians of the pejorative term yuon – which roughly translates as “barbarian” – to refer to Vietnamese, even those who are Cambodian citizens.

Muslim communities, too, complain of being overlooked.

“I’m a survivor and I want the court to know our suffering and our history,” said one ethnic Vietnamese man who cannot be named for safety reasons. “We suffered and lost our relatives, so we want to see a fair trial for our ethnicity because we are human beings too.”

Though he was born and lived his entire life in Cambodia, local authorities refuse to give him a citizen ID card, he claimed.

Focusing on the plight of Cambodia’s ethnic groups under the Khmer Rouge, he believed, could translate into greater attention for the prejudices they face today.

“The genocide charge makes us feel that our particular issues are being given attention,” he said.

In Preah Sihanouk, a Tale of Two Mosques

A mosque in Tramoung Chroum for followers of Imam San sect

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Preah Sihanouk, Cambodia Tuesday, 18 May 2010

“They each have their own rights to practice religion in their own way.”

Din Nos lives just a few steps from a newly built mosque in his home village of Banteay Prey in Preah Sihanouk province. But he refuses to pray there.

Instead, the 76-year-old travels a kilometer down the road, to neighboring O’trav village. That’s because the new mosque has brought new ways with it, and Din Nos, who is almost bald and was lying on a long wooden bed facing the new mosque, prefers the old traditions.

“In this new mosque, they do not pray the way we do,” he said. “We don’t just follow the new way after having seen it, because we have our traditional ways left behind by our ancestors.”

According to Din Nos’ traditions, the practice of Islam includes prayers for the dead, so that they may communicate with Hell, and celebration of the birthday of Mohammad. These practices and others are denounced by the mosque next door.

It wasn’t always this way, though. Residents here say they used to pray at the same old mosque, which was named after the two villages—O’trav and Banteay Prey—that shared it.

The breakup came in 2008, after the new mosque, funded by benefactors in Saudi Arabia, was built. The Derol Es Las Mosque cost about $30,000 and was constructed after a group of young Muslim men returned from overseas studies in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Indonesia, according to Ron As Matt, a religious teacher at the mosque.

“The practices of Islam by the traditional group are against our religion,” he said in an interview at the new mosque. “The Quran allows Muslims to do just two celebrations: Ramadan and the Hajj in Mecca.”

“If they continue their practices, it will affect the next generation,” said Ron As Matt, who is 29 and studied Islam in Thailand. “The young will take on the wrong practices that do not exist in the Quran or under ‘hadith.’”

Down the road, the traditionalists disagree.

“Our group cannot accept the Wahhabist teachings,” Sen Sakarya, himself a teacher at the older mosque, said. “We don’t agree with them, because we have done our own way for generations. The Wahhabists just want to eliminate or long-standing practices.”

So far, the schism over the mosque and the new ways have led only to verbal attacks. No violence has been reported between the followers of each mosque.

Still, Ung Feul, the provincial imam, said he has had to step in and ask both sides to respect each others’ practice.

“They each have their own rights to practice religion in their own way,” he said.