មិនស៊ើប អង្កេតត្រដរខ្យល់ អីទេ៖ អាមួយថាមិនទាន់ដឹងលទ្ធផល អាមួយទៀតថា ទទួលលទ្ធផលល្អ

ការស៊ើបសួរ​ របស់តុលាការ ពាក់ព័ន្ធការបាញ់ សម្លាប់ លោក ឈុត វុទ្ធី និងលោក អ៊ិន រតនា មិនទាន់ដឹងលទ្ធផល

Friday, 04 May 2012
ដោយៈ អេង គឹមជាង
DAP-news



កោះកុងៈ មន្រ្តីអង្គការសិទ្ធិមនុស្ស និងមន្រ្តីយោធា បានអះអាងរួមគ្នាថា នៅព្រឹកថ្ងៃទី៤ ខែឧសភា មន្រ្តី តុលាការ ខេត្តកោះកុង កំពុងធ្វើការសាកសួរទៅលើជនសង្ស័យម្នាក់ ដែលមានការជាប់ពាក់ព័ន្ធទៅនឹងករណី បាញ់សម្លាប់ ប្រធានអង្គការការពារធនធានធម្មជាតិ និងមន្រ្តីកងរាជអាវុធហត្ថ ប៉ុន្តែលទ្ធផលយ៉ាងណានោះ មិនទាន់ដឹងទេ។

លោក អំ សំអាត មន្រ្តីស៊ើបអង្កេតអង្កការសិទ្ធិមនុស្សលីកាដូ មានប្រសាសន៍ថា រហូតមកទល់ម៉ោង១១ និង២៥ នាទីនេះ តុលាកំពុងសាកសួរជនសង្ស័យម្នាក់ ដែលត្រូវបានគេបញ្ជូនទៅតុលាការកាលពីម៉ោង ៥ និង៣០ល្ងាច ថ្ងៃទី០៣ ខែឧសភា មិនទាន់បានបញ្ចប់ការសាកសួរនៅឡើយទេ។

Institutions pass the buck on Sochua [-CPP institutions are all equally incompetent!]

Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post

The National Assembly and the Ministry of Justice are passing the buck on the issue of who is responsible for restoring the parliamentary immunity of opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua, saying each institution is awaiting an authorisation letter from the other.

Earlier this month, the Sam Rainsy Party parliamentarian called for her immunity to be restored, after the resolution of her high-profile legal spat with Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Cheam Yeap, chairman of the National Assembly’s Banking and Finance Committee, said today that the parliament cannot restore Mu Sochua’s immunity unless the Justice Ministry requests it first.

“The court requested firstly that [her immunity] be suspended, so when it happens the court must inform the parliament through the Justice Minister,” Cheam Yeap said.

Im Chhun Lim's crocodile tears after the eviction was already completed?

A woman pumps water from a well outside makeshift homes on the edge of Boeung Trabek lake Monday. More than 150 families have been evicted due to the construction of a canal at the lake. (Photo by: Pha Lina)

‘Regret’ over forced evictions

Monday, 27 December 2010
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

A senior government official on Monday expressed “regret” over the forced eviction and relocation of thousands of Phnom Penh residents in recent years, attributing problems to a lack of awareness in resolving government policy.

Speaking at a workshop in Phnom Penh, Im Chhun Lim, the Minister of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, said that though the removal and relocation of residents’ homes was commonplace in developing countries, it was important that the government takes action based on the proper policies.

He said much confusion stemmed from residents who are living illegally on state land, but who claim ownership and market-price compensation for their properties.

“It is regrettable that [we] were not previously sufficiently aware of how to resolve issues such as the confusion between resettlement based on humanitarian policies and the resettlement based on market price compensation or unreasonably high compensation demands that could not be accommodated,” he said.

Im Chhun Lim added that some relocation cases were complicated by the involvement of politicians, which delayed compensation negotiations or caused standoffs between residents and the authorities. Often, the disputes did not end until the government took “administrative measures”, forcibly removing residents from disputed land.

He stressed that the government wanted to avoid these problems at all costs and would implement a “humanitarian” policy related to urban evictions and relocations.

Rights groups claim that thousands of families have been illegally evicted from valuable land in the centre of Phnom Penh and relocated to sites on the outskirts that often lack all but the most basic amenities.

Sia Phearum, secretariat director of the Housing Rights Task Force, said that from 1990 to 2010, 130,000 Phnom Penh residents – nearly one in 10 of the city’s residents – have been the victims of urban land grabs.

“The evacuation of people from the capital to the suburbs affects their standard of living. This forces them to lock their homes [in the suburbs] and come back to the capital to look for jobs to support themselves,” Sia Phearum said.

Am Sam Ath, technical supervisor of local rights group Licadho, said the evacuation of residents from the city to ill-equipped relocation sites on the outskirts seriously affected such communities.

“The regret [expressed by Im Chhun Lim] is justified, but the victims are citizens. The authorities should have thought about the welfare of people first before simply evacuating them,” he said.

Bridge Inquiry Aims To Find What Government ‘Missed’

The head of the organization, Ou Virak, told “Hello VOA” on Thursday that interviews with nearly 50 witnesses showed too few police were stationed near the bridge. (Photo: by Men Kimseng)

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Monday, 20 December 2010

“The response of the police was much lacking.”

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights is continuing its investigation of the Nov. 22 Diamond Bridge catastrophe, but it lacks the authority to summon government officials and police for questioning.

The head of the organization, Ou Virak, told “Hello VOA” on Thursday that interviews with nearly 50 witnesses showed too few police were stationed near the bridge.

The center is holding its own investigation into the disaster, which killed 353 people, after the government’s official report was concluded in under a week and found no fault with Water Festival organizers, city planners or security officials.

“In our view, the government report missed a lot of angles,” Ou Virak said. “That’s why CCHR is trying to seek information through other aspects of the situation, including watching videos and interviewing victims and witnesses.”

The organization was following more leads and had “found much more than the government when it ended its investigation,” he said. “But we don’t have the authority to summon anyone for questioning like the government.”

Like the government report, CCHR found witnesses who said the main cause of the deadly stampede came when people began shouting that the swaying bridge would collapse. But it also found there had been “no preparation” for such a crowded bridge and that police were not stationed near the choke point.

The group also found reports that electric shocks went through the crowd, he said, a claim it is continuing to investigate.

Witnesses said the police had done little on the mainland side of the bridge to keep the crowd from amassing on the bridge, as a concert got underway on Diamond Island, on the other side. Witnesses also said a barricade for vehicles had become a source of congestion for foot traffic.

Overall, Ou Virak said, the disaster showed an “absence of good governance,” where officials have not taken responsibility for the incident, and where underpaid police were not at their stations.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, officials had blamed the incident on the crowd, saying that uneducated people “from the countryside” had panicked. Ou Virak called this “irresponsible.” Meanwhile, the National Assembly did not step forward in its own inquiry, he said.

Ou Virak was also critical of the response to the stampede, where, he said, police stacked the injured with the dead, creating more fatalities.

“The response of the police was much lacking,” he said, “and the police were not prepared or trained properly to understand early rescue.”

Tun Srey Pov, who survived the bridge incident and also spoke on “Hello VOA” Thursday, said there were not enough police to contain a situation that rapidly got out of hand.

“If they had had enough security or enough control, there would not have been a deadly stampede that caused more than 300 people to be killed,” she said. “I want to know for sure.”

Questions linger over bridge shocks

Police inspect the underside of the northern bridge to Diamond Island following a deadly stampede on November 22. A string of broken lights are visible in the lower left quarter of the photograph. (Photo by: Rick Valenzuela)

Wednesday, 08 December 2010
Thomas Miller
The Phnom Penh Post

Diamond Island’s now infamous northern bridge reopened on Wednesday, 10 days after the government declared the case into how and why the water festival stampede left hundreds dead and injured closed.

National Assembly President Heng Samrin rejected an appeal by opposition lawmakers earlier this week to open an independent investigation into the tragedy, as the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights announced its own inquiry into the deadly accident.

Lingering questions remain, however, about what role, if any, electric shocks played in the stampede.

Numerous survivors of the stampede say they received shocks from the wiring of lights lining the bridge.

Srey Loeung, who survived the tragedy, said she supported further investigations into the issue “for finding the true reason for the unexpected tragedy of the stampede”.

“I still believe that some injured and dead people suffered electric shocks from the bridge railing, where some electrical lines were cut,” she said.

“My husband was also shocked from the bridge railing, but he immediately took his hand away, while my younger sister-in-law died as a result of electric shock,” Srey Loeung said, adding that her sister-in-law, Sum Chan Phoeun, 24, fell unconscious after being shocked and was trampled to death.

Srey Loeung and her husband escaped, like many others, by climbing over the railing and jumping into the river below.

During the early hours of medical response, a doctor at Calmette hospital told The Post that the two main causes of death among the bodies he had examined were suffocation and electrocution. That has since become an anomalous official assessment.

Hospital officials and the government have since said there is no evidence to support such claims.

“There is not any sign to prove that the victims suffered from electrocution,” said Minister of Health Mam Bunheng, who headed the sub-committee responsible for examining victims of the stampede for the government’s inquiry.

Chhouy Meng, head of the emergency care unit and vice chief of the technical office at Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh, said he saw no signs of electrocution.

“Maybe some people who tried to jump over the bridge into the water touched the electric wire … but it’s not the cause of death or injury”, he said.

The government did not perform autopsies for its report.

Paul Hurford, an Australian firefighter who has been assisting with emergency response in Cambodia for more than four years and was on the scene within hours, said it would be difficult to prove that anyone was electrocuted.

“Without real physical surface burns, and without autopsies that they didn’t do, there’s no real way of proving electrocutions,” he said.

Galena Nicola, a doctor at Phnom Penh’s Naga Clinic, said the impact of an electric shock depends on a number of variables.

Touching an electric source with both hands can stop the heart, Nicola said, whereas it is easier to stop a current if someone is standing on the ground.

“If you use water, like I heard the water cannon was used, it increases everything,” Nicola said.

Numerous people reported that police used a water hose to cool down the crowd, but Hurford said the crowd had requested it.

“I do know from a source that water was used by the fire brigade to cool the crowd, primarily for that, and it was done at the request of the people.”

Some survivors reported minor shocks from touching the wiring on the bridge railing. Nao Vannak, 17, from Kandal province, said he survived by leaping into the water.

“But when I jumped down I touched the bridge and was electrocuted [shocked] a little bit.”

Phat Navy, 38 from Prey Veng province, said she had lost two high school-aged nieces, Thuc Srey Roth and San Srey Neang, in the incident.

“People said they got unconscious after fainting in the crowd and we didn’t know if they suffered electric shock or not, but I think they probably got shocked in addition to fainting because they turned off the bridge’s lights sometime after 10pm,” she said.

The government has concluded that the stampede was caused by the swaying of the suspension bridge, which sparked a panic among the crowd.

Ou Virak, president of the CCHR, said it would be “very difficult” to get to the bottom of such questions.

“Of course, it would be great if the companies and authorities would cooperate and allow us to have access”, he said.

But Ou Virak said he wanted to find out more about electric shocks.

“Maybe [the shocks were] just enough to slow people down, to numb people, and that could be even worse – people don’t know what’s going on,” he said.

“I hope the government will continue the investigation” Ou Virak said. “I don’t think an investigation of one week is enough.”

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHRANN CHAMROEUN AND CHEANG SOKHA

NatAss Prez nixes independent bridge investigation

“If we set up a committee, we don’t know what to do” - Incompetent Cheam Yeab

Assembly President Nixes Separate Bridge Inquiry

Chun Sakada & Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh & Washington Tuesday, 07 December 2010

“It is regretful, but we will not give up on our investigation.”

National Assembly President Heng Samrin on Tuesday denied an opposition party request that parliament establish a special commission to investigate the deadly Nov. 22 bridge stampede.

A government committee determined the stampede, which killed 353 people and injured nearly 400, was an accident due to panic on the crowded Diamond Bridge.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said in days following the disaster that no officials would be held responsible for what he called a “joint mistake” in an unforeseeable event.

But opposition lawmakers said the National Assembly should establish an investigation of its own, a request Heng Samrin said was “not a necessity.”

Son Chhay, a lawmaker for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, who signed the request with two other parliamentarians, said the denial showed “non-responsibility by the National Assembly.”

“It is regretful, but we will not give up on our investigation,” he said. “We will work closely with some non-governmental organizations to independently investigate the real cause and information on the deadly incident, and push the government to fine government officials who lacked responsibility.”

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights, an independent organziation, has said it will pursue its own investigation into the tragedy.

Speaking on “Hello VOA” Monday night, Kimsour Phirith, another lawmaker for the opposition, said the government findings were not enough.

“This was not a natural disaster like a tsunami or volcano eruption, where we were not able to know it in advance,” he said.

“Responsible officials,” he said, should be held accountable through resignations or suspensions.

However, Cheam Yiep, a National Assembly member for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, said the government investigators had “done their job to handle the problem.”

“If we set up a committee, we don’t know what to do,” he said. “It is not our expertise.”

He suggested that the legislative body bring government representatives to answer questions, a process Kimsour Phirith said had proven ineffective in the past.

“Instead of coming to answer questions, they just come to read their answers and ignore the questions,” he said.

Koh Pich bridge case swept down the Tonle Sap in a hush-hush investigation cover up

Xok An and the clueless investigation commission (Photo: CEN)

Investigation results for Koh Pich bridge: a clear accident case [so claimed the government]

29 Nov 2010
By Sopheak
Cambodia Express News
Translated from Khmer by Soch

The tragedy on Pich Bridge was not a planned terrorist or a criminal case, and it was not the result of electrocution either, however, it was an accident due to panic and stampede. The deaths were due to asphyxia, dehydration and impossibility to move muscles.

This is the result of the investigation conducted by the commission in charge of investigating the tragedy on Pich Bridge on 22 Nov 2010. The result was presented during a press conference held at the Council of Ministers on Monday afternoon. The highly anticipated investigation result has been made public, but there is nothing new or different from what government officials have been trumpeting all along.

Xok An, the minister of the Council of Ministers and chairman of the commission above, indicated that funds received from donors will be provided to the victims through the ACLEDA bank for security reason.

Yesterday, Hun Xen announced that there is nobody who will be blamed in this case, it is a joint responsibility due to carelessness and underestimation of situation. Like Hun Xen, Xok An also claimed that this is a major lesson for future Water Festival celebrations.

The press conference indicated that the investigation on Pich Bridge is now completely closed.

"Hun Sen's speeches will not be able to persuade me to believe in him"

Ruling party ignoring the more pressing issues

Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Seng Ratha
Letter to The Phnom Penh Post

Dear Editor,

In recent months the Cambodian People's Party has unfairly cracked down on human rights groups, opposition parties and Khmer newspaper editors.

For example, Mu Sochua, a member of the National Assembly, was openly trapped by the CPP. Between the Cambodian Constitution and Hun Sen's orders, which has proved more powerful?

To crack down on elected parliamentarians is to threaten and intimidate thousands of people in Cambodia.

When the EU, the US, the UN, donor countries and independent critics criticise the government, Hun Sen and his group always say that their critics do not understand the law.

Hun Sen has said he could completely destroy the opposition party in two hours.
But has his government arrested and imprisoned any of the criminals who killed and shot the journalists, opposition activists, singers and actresses up until now? He needs only two hours to destroy the opposition party. How long will he need to reduce corruption?

Hun Sen's speeches will not be able to persuade me to believe in him.

Seng Ratha
Phnom Penh