People in my village work as unskilled laborers abroad

It's gloomy for me to see the youths commonly known as future citizens of the once Khmer Empire that ruled Southeast Asia seeking jobs as unskilled laborers abroad.

Ou Ritthy

July, 4, 2012
An article by Ou Ritthy published by the Asian Human Rights Commission

At first, I could not recognize the group of noisy skinny youths, about 20 in all, with dyed hair, ragged jeans and colorful shirts, drinking beer in this remote village in Pursat where I live. Their clothes and behaviors tell me they are not from the village. I thought they must be friends or relatives of some villagers. Normally, villagers here wear Kroma (scarf), or pants with or without shirts.

Then someone in the group shouted to me to join the group to drink. As I walked closer to them I realized they were all my friends. We used to tender cattle together in the last ten years.

They told me that they had been drinking beer since the early morning; they were proud of their capacity to consume alcohol. One of them complained that it's now hard to find and buy the popular and affordable Leo and Change beers, both Thai products, which were out of stock in Pursat during this Khmer New Year.

They told me they never had so much fun together; for these three whole days of the New Year, they confessed, each had already spent 200,000 riels ($50) to enjoy themselves, to buy and drink beer and home-made alcohol (the popular SraSor the people in Pursat love), dance to loud music through the night, and gamble (card games and KlaKlok). They were celebrating as they and their family members had just returned from work in Thailand.

I also met some villagers who could not pay for their entertainment during the New Year. They had not earned enough money. Worse, some were arrested and jailed in Thailand for a few months for working illegally. A few people who were injured in work accidents in Thailand became disable, and had not been able to help their parents in the rice-field. Sadly, their parents had to sell land for their medical treatment. And I met a villager, near death, who was very sick and skinny as she contracted AIDS/HIV while working at the border.

The Cambodian Tribunal's Trials

Corruption complaints at the Khmer Rouge War Crimes tribunal

OCTOBER 2, 2008
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA

Cambodia's new government was sworn in last week, and Prime Minister Hun Sen wasted no time announcing his intention to target corruption and improve the rule of law during his next five years in office. A place to start is with a full investigation of corruption complaints at the Khmer Rouge War Crimes tribunal.

The United Nations Office of International Oversight Services in New York presented the Cambodian government with a letter last month describing complaints of corruption at the tribunal from multiple staffers. But instead of investigating the allegations, Phnom Penh demanded that the original complaints be given directly to "the competent authorities" in Cambodia. It's unclear whether the complainants' identities will be protected.

Since allegations of corruption were publicized in these pages last year, the U.N. has taken steps to clean things up at the tribunal. The Cambodian government has also made a few efforts to shore up its anticorruption credibility -- appointing two new ethics monitors in August and creating a formal mechanism for complaints, albeit one that increases secrecy. The court spokeswoman, who is also one of the monitors, told us one complaint is currently under investigation.

Yet donor nations want to see more serious action. The United Nations Development Program, which oversees donations to the Cambodian side of the court, has suspended salaries to around 250 Cambodian staffers since June and plans to "delay the further release of UNDP-managed funds until the recent allegations of corruption have been resolved," a UNDP staffer told us in an email.

The tribunal also needs to do more to eliminate conflicts of interest. Deputy Prime Minister Sok An is chairman of the government task force responsible for high-level Cambodian staff appointments at the tribunal; a serious corruption case could implicate either him or people he appointed. If Sok An is serious about cleaning up corruption, he will recuse himself from any investigation.

Cambodians deserve a clean and fair trial to redress the deaths of their 1.7 million countrymen who were murdered by the Khmer Rouge. With the first trial due to begin in a few months, there's little time to waste.