August 3, 2009
By ACHARA PONGVUTITHAM
THE NATION
As it has around the world, the "Rising China" phenomenon has been felt strongly in the Asean region, affecting Thailand's market-leader status in a number of the bloc's member states.
The emergence of China has caused jitters in every region of the globe, with both traditional and emerging markets fearing negative impacts. For its part, Thailand is losing competitiveness in terms of both market share and leadership in three emerging Asean markets: Laos, Cambodia and Burma.
As one of the world's major economic powerhouses, the expansion of China has been felt strongly not only in terms of resources but also in the markets for almost all goods. China is currently engaged in its third move since 1980 to link with networks of overseas Chinese through trade and investment expansion, after acceding to the World Trade Organisation in 2001.
Speaking at the Thailand Research Fund's recent roundtable, "Impact of Emerging China Through Asean-China Free Trade Agreement", experts on China shared the view that it is an important goal of China, which has huge foreign reserves of US$2.13 trillion (Bt418.6 trillion) to sweep up assets globally, as well as taking stakes in banks around the world.
In addition, Beijing has learned from its previous problems with food safety, chemical residues in products and poor production quality, the experts said. China has improved its manufacturing controls to produce standard-quality goods to serve not only domestic demand but also the export market.
Roundtable participants pointed out that China's domestic market now demands high-quality products in line with their increased purchasing power, while the international market needs quality goods at a reasonable price due to a drop in purchasing power brought on by the global financial crisis.
Participants agreed that Thailand should think about how to get the most benefit from China through trade partnerships, both at the regional level and at world forums.
Sompop Manarungsan, an expert on China and a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics at Chulalongkorn University, said the Chinese government has a clear policy to support investors in exploring opportunities overseas. This is aimed at exploiting the country's huge foreign reserves as well as balancing its economic growth and export competitiveness in the long run, Sompop said.
As a result, Chinese investors have diversified their investment from US bonds into real sectors everywhere.
"It is very clear that China has turned from an inward trade and investment outlook to that of an outward investor," Sompop said.
This has key implications for Thailand, particularly in its trade and investment relationships with Laos, Cambodia and Burma.
China now has strong influence in those markets, turning what was once seen as a potential "baht zone" into a likely "yuan zone" market, the lecturer said. Markets along those three countries' borders with Thailand have long accepted baht, but are now also accepting Chinese yuan.
China has also launched an Overseas Development Assistance policy, which offers not only financial assistance but also infrastructure development to potential markets, Sompop said.
"This assistance will allow China to become a big player not only in Asia but also in countries in other regions," he said.
An official from the Thai Foreign Trade Department who concentrates on Laos said Thai goods traded at Bo Keaw had dropped from 90 per cent to 40 per cent of the market total due to increasing imports of Chinese products.
"It is an important sign that Chinese goods will replace Thai goods in the future," the official said.
Pisanu Rienmahasarn, vice president of Huachiew Chalermprakiat University, said cheap goods from China are not the main threat to Thailand's competitiveness. Rather, he said, the threat came from improvements in China's manufacturing sector, which now had the ability to produce high-quality goods.
"The government should concentrate on how to establish close relations with China, as we [Thailand and China] have many areas that can be synergised," Pisanu said.
Thailand should focus more on a Cross Border Trade Agreement to boost trade between the two countries, the academic said. In particular, the development of infrastructure in the North of Thailand linking Burma, China, Laos and Vietnam would create huge trade and investment possibilities, Pisanu said.
Read more!
Do young Cambodians know that they are still ruled by the former KR?
Hun Xen, Chea Xim and Heng Xamrin were former Khmer Rouge cadres
Cambodia sets right painful history in school texts
Mon, 3 Aug 2009
ABC Radio Australia
Cambodia's government is including a 100 page text on the Khmer Rouge period in its 2009 high school curriculum.
The Documentation Centre of Cambodia says half a million copies of the text, "A History of Democratic Kampuchea" are being distributed to more than 13 hundred schools across the country.
The Centre's Director says it's hoped that students studying the Khmer Rouge past will help build a reconciled society in Cambodia.
However, Oppositon Member of the Cambodian Parliament Son Chhay says the text doesn't go far enough. Read more!
Cambodia sets right painful history in school texts
Mon, 3 Aug 2009
ABC Radio Australia
Cambodia's government is including a 100 page text on the Khmer Rouge period in its 2009 high school curriculum.
The Documentation Centre of Cambodia says half a million copies of the text, "A History of Democratic Kampuchea" are being distributed to more than 13 hundred schools across the country.
The Centre's Director says it's hoped that students studying the Khmer Rouge past will help build a reconciled society in Cambodia.
However, Oppositon Member of the Cambodian Parliament Son Chhay says the text doesn't go far enough. Read more!
Cambodians begin to learn of bloody past [... some of the former KR are still in power]
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
AFP
ANG SNUOL (Cambodia): It plunged their country into a communist “Year Zero” in the late 1970s and killed about a third of the population, but most young Cambodians shrug when asked about the Khmer Rouge.
“I never learned about the regime and my parents never told me about it either,” says 15-year-old Si Phana. Her schoolmate Ang Pheaktra, 17, knows only a little more about that bleak time which traumatised a generation.
“My parents only told me that the Khmer Rouge were very cruel,” Ang Pheaktra says.
Even though there’s a war crimes tribunal for senior leaders of the movement, most here are unaware the regime killed up to two million people and enslaving the population on collective farms. Read more!
AFP
ANG SNUOL (Cambodia): It plunged their country into a communist “Year Zero” in the late 1970s and killed about a third of the population, but most young Cambodians shrug when asked about the Khmer Rouge.
“I never learned about the regime and my parents never told me about it either,” says 15-year-old Si Phana. Her schoolmate Ang Pheaktra, 17, knows only a little more about that bleak time which traumatised a generation.
“My parents only told me that the Khmer Rouge were very cruel,” Ang Pheaktra says.
Even though there’s a war crimes tribunal for senior leaders of the movement, most here are unaware the regime killed up to two million people and enslaving the population on collective farms. Read more!
A beauty pageant with a difference [... the contest was banned by Hun Xen's order]
After losing a leg to a landmine, Song Kosal became involved in the campaign to ban the weapons. (Photo: Jared Ferrie / The National)
August 02. 2009
Jared Ferrie, Foreign Correspondent
The National (UAE)
PHNOM PENH - Song Kosal’s life has so far taken her from the rice paddies of rural Cambodia, where she lost a leg to a landmine at the age of five, to the White House to present a petition urging the US to sign a treaty banning landmines.
On Friday she will embark on yet another journey when she takes part in the Miss Landmine competition, a beauty pageant for victims of landmines. Ms Kosal will be vying for the title along with 20 other women who have lost limbs to landmines left over from Cambodia’s civil war. The winner will be crowned in a ceremony in December and will receive a custom-made prosthetic limb.
Although she already has a prosthetic leg, it does not fit properly and it is painful to use, so she walks with a crutch instead. While a prosthetic leg designed especially for her would make walking much easier, the prize is not her reason for participating in the contest.
“I want to try to get people to pay attention to women with disabilities and to not discriminate. People with disabilities can do anything,” she said. “And if we do this project we can raise the issue of the ban [on landmines].”
Miss Landmine is the brainchild of Morten Traavik, a Norwegian actor and theatre director. He launched the first pageant last year in Angola, which is one of the three most heavily mined countries in the world, along with Cambodia and Afghanistan.
Mr Traavik was staying at the family home of his then girlfriend in Angola’s capital, Luanda, in 2003, just one year after the end of the country’s civil war.
“There was still a very palpable sense of a state of emergency,” he said. The streets were strewn with garbage, buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes, and of course there were thousands of amputees, victims of landmines that peppered the countryside. During his visit, Mr Traavik got to know some of the neighbourhood children and they asked him to be a judge at a contest they were organising called Miss “Beco”, meaning Miss Backstreet.
“It was such a wonderful event,” Mr Traavik recalled. “A narrow back alley was the catwalk. The women were of all shapes, sizes, nuances of brown and black. It was a very inclusive event. It made me see how uncomplicated it can be, a playful celebration of life and beauty.”
The experience stuck with him and before long Mr Traavik came up with the idea of organising a similar event to raise awareness about landmines, which are currently banned by 156 countries but continue to kill and maim decades after the end of armed conflicts. His idea was met with scepticism if not outright disgust by many of the international organisations he approached for funding.
“Some people have a purely gut reaction that all beauty pageants are bad no matter if they have a higher purpose,” said Mr Traavik, who said many people he talked to could not get past the concept of a pageant as “sleazy old men voting for young dancing babes in bathing suits”.
But the Angolan government and local community groups gave their support and after applying to the Norwegian Arts Council a few times he finally received a grant.
The Cambodian government, however, yesterday urged the cancellation of the event, Agence France-Presse reported. In a letter to organisers, the ministry of social affairs said: “The ministry asks the people who organise this contest to stop this action … for protecting … the honour and dignity of people with disabilities.”
While Miss Landmine is a far cry from the average pageant, it does follow the traditional aesthetic of beauty contests. The competition will kick off with the launch of a photo exhibit and a glossy magazine featuring contestants photographed against backdrops of beaches and Cambodia’s famed ancient temples. People throughout the world can cast votes online for their favourite candidate at www.miss-landmine.org/cambodia. Those votes will be taken into account by judges who will decide the winner at the December event, which will feature contestants on a catwalk in gowns and a brief interview conducted by an MC.
According to the Miss Landmine magazine, Ms Kosal lost her leg to a Gyata 64 anti-personnel mine, which was manufactured in Hungary and sold for about US$15 (Dh55).
Ms Kosal said she could not remember the incident, but her mother, who was working in a rice paddy at the time, told her that she was collecting firewood when she stepped on the mine. Her story is common in Cambodia, which is littered with mines left behind after a two-decade long war between government troops backed by Vietnam and Khmer Rouge rebels.
“I am very angry at these people who put landmines there,” said Ms Kosal. “But I am happy that I have the chance to join the campaign to challenge countries like the US that have not signed the treaty.”
The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty has yet to be signed by 37 countries, including the UAE. Ms Kosal is a youth ambassador for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a global advocacy network. In 2001, she travelled to Washington, DC, to present a petition containing 263,000 signatures to Colin Powell, who was serving as the secretary of state in the administration of George W Bush.
“I liked him, the way he spoke, the way he acted,” she said, but added that Mr Powell said the US would sign the treaty, which it has not done. “I was upset that he promised me, then he forgot what he said to me.”
Mr Traavik noted that the US, along with China and Russia, are major producers of weapons including landmines, and none of them have signed the treaty, also known as the Ottawa Accord. According to Landmine Monitor, a civil society group that tracks progress made in eliminating landmines, those three countries have by far the biggest stockpiles, with about 145 million antipersonnel mines between them.
“It’s not a coincidence that these countries unwilling to sign the Ottawa Accord are also the biggest weapons producers,” he said. “Of course there is a powerful arms industry and a powerful arms lobby that does not want to lose money.”
That is why it is important to keep pressuring such countries by bringing attention to the issue in any way possible, he said, even if it means challenging commonly held assumptions about the evils of beauty pageants. Read more!
August 02. 2009
Jared Ferrie, Foreign Correspondent
The National (UAE)
PHNOM PENH - Song Kosal’s life has so far taken her from the rice paddies of rural Cambodia, where she lost a leg to a landmine at the age of five, to the White House to present a petition urging the US to sign a treaty banning landmines.
On Friday she will embark on yet another journey when she takes part in the Miss Landmine competition, a beauty pageant for victims of landmines. Ms Kosal will be vying for the title along with 20 other women who have lost limbs to landmines left over from Cambodia’s civil war. The winner will be crowned in a ceremony in December and will receive a custom-made prosthetic limb.
Although she already has a prosthetic leg, it does not fit properly and it is painful to use, so she walks with a crutch instead. While a prosthetic leg designed especially for her would make walking much easier, the prize is not her reason for participating in the contest.
“I want to try to get people to pay attention to women with disabilities and to not discriminate. People with disabilities can do anything,” she said. “And if we do this project we can raise the issue of the ban [on landmines].”
Miss Landmine is the brainchild of Morten Traavik, a Norwegian actor and theatre director. He launched the first pageant last year in Angola, which is one of the three most heavily mined countries in the world, along with Cambodia and Afghanistan.
Mr Traavik was staying at the family home of his then girlfriend in Angola’s capital, Luanda, in 2003, just one year after the end of the country’s civil war.
“There was still a very palpable sense of a state of emergency,” he said. The streets were strewn with garbage, buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes, and of course there were thousands of amputees, victims of landmines that peppered the countryside. During his visit, Mr Traavik got to know some of the neighbourhood children and they asked him to be a judge at a contest they were organising called Miss “Beco”, meaning Miss Backstreet.
“It was such a wonderful event,” Mr Traavik recalled. “A narrow back alley was the catwalk. The women were of all shapes, sizes, nuances of brown and black. It was a very inclusive event. It made me see how uncomplicated it can be, a playful celebration of life and beauty.”
The experience stuck with him and before long Mr Traavik came up with the idea of organising a similar event to raise awareness about landmines, which are currently banned by 156 countries but continue to kill and maim decades after the end of armed conflicts. His idea was met with scepticism if not outright disgust by many of the international organisations he approached for funding.
“Some people have a purely gut reaction that all beauty pageants are bad no matter if they have a higher purpose,” said Mr Traavik, who said many people he talked to could not get past the concept of a pageant as “sleazy old men voting for young dancing babes in bathing suits”.
But the Angolan government and local community groups gave their support and after applying to the Norwegian Arts Council a few times he finally received a grant.
The Cambodian government, however, yesterday urged the cancellation of the event, Agence France-Presse reported. In a letter to organisers, the ministry of social affairs said: “The ministry asks the people who organise this contest to stop this action … for protecting … the honour and dignity of people with disabilities.”
While Miss Landmine is a far cry from the average pageant, it does follow the traditional aesthetic of beauty contests. The competition will kick off with the launch of a photo exhibit and a glossy magazine featuring contestants photographed against backdrops of beaches and Cambodia’s famed ancient temples. People throughout the world can cast votes online for their favourite candidate at www.miss-landmine.org/cambodia. Those votes will be taken into account by judges who will decide the winner at the December event, which will feature contestants on a catwalk in gowns and a brief interview conducted by an MC.
According to the Miss Landmine magazine, Ms Kosal lost her leg to a Gyata 64 anti-personnel mine, which was manufactured in Hungary and sold for about US$15 (Dh55).
Ms Kosal said she could not remember the incident, but her mother, who was working in a rice paddy at the time, told her that she was collecting firewood when she stepped on the mine. Her story is common in Cambodia, which is littered with mines left behind after a two-decade long war between government troops backed by Vietnam and Khmer Rouge rebels.
“I am very angry at these people who put landmines there,” said Ms Kosal. “But I am happy that I have the chance to join the campaign to challenge countries like the US that have not signed the treaty.”
The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty has yet to be signed by 37 countries, including the UAE. Ms Kosal is a youth ambassador for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a global advocacy network. In 2001, she travelled to Washington, DC, to present a petition containing 263,000 signatures to Colin Powell, who was serving as the secretary of state in the administration of George W Bush.
“I liked him, the way he spoke, the way he acted,” she said, but added that Mr Powell said the US would sign the treaty, which it has not done. “I was upset that he promised me, then he forgot what he said to me.”
Mr Traavik noted that the US, along with China and Russia, are major producers of weapons including landmines, and none of them have signed the treaty, also known as the Ottawa Accord. According to Landmine Monitor, a civil society group that tracks progress made in eliminating landmines, those three countries have by far the biggest stockpiles, with about 145 million antipersonnel mines between them.
“It’s not a coincidence that these countries unwilling to sign the Ottawa Accord are also the biggest weapons producers,” he said. “Of course there is a powerful arms industry and a powerful arms lobby that does not want to lose money.”
That is why it is important to keep pressuring such countries by bringing attention to the issue in any way possible, he said, even if it means challenging commonly held assumptions about the evils of beauty pageants. Read more!
Former teacher invents solar-energy car
Solar-energy powered car invented by Kong Pharith (Photos: Keopich Metta, RFA)
31 July 2009
By Keopich Metta
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
Click here to read the article in Khmer
Kong Pharith, a former math and physics teacher from Kampong Chhnang province, uses his knowledge to successfully come up with a solar-energy-powered car.
The sound that was heard earlier was a trial attempt to move a car powered by solar energy and it was a first time that such a car is found in Cambodia. The car is the work of a former math and physics teacher from Kampong Chhnang province. Kong Pharith is this native teacher of Kampong Chhnang.
For the idea to come up with such a car, Kong Pharith, who is currently the chairman of the Able Builder Organization and also chairman of the Phnom Penh-based Intelligent Planning Center, indicated that, prior to coming up with this vehicle, he spent about 6 months researching for the right formula. His solar-energy car attempt comes at the heel of his invention of the solar-energy powered bicycle which he was also successful last year.
He added that for the solar-energy powered car, he used second-hand parts and assembled them together before adding solar energy cell battery and motor.
Kong Pharith said: “for the engine to run fast or slow, if we don’t know how to control it, when the motor is running slow, it is weak because there is not enough electrical power. When it is weak, it cannot pull the car forward, but after researching, we use the PMW [technology]. For the PMW … we use a wave to control the engine to speed up while maintaining the engine power. There were several trials made during the research phase.”
Kong Pharith indicated also that his car can carry 2 to 4 passengers at a speed of 30 to 40 km/h. The car itself weights 750 kilos, and the solar cell can produce between 2,000 to 2,430-watt of power daily. The car can be driven between 30 to 40 km per day.
He also indicated that if there is no sunlight, or if the driver wants to drive farther, the car battery can be charged by electricity because his car is equipped with a dual battery system.
Kong Pharith said: “Therefore, this car uses a dual hybrid system. We are not relying on solar energy alone, we also have a electrical input to charge the battery, and we can still use it. In the future, we will also add a small [fuel?] engine in there as well. When we want to drive far, we can rely on the additional small [fuel] engine to help the solar power energy move the car forward. Every part is available in Cambodia, so that in the future, if the car breaks down, all parts can be bought from the market for replacement.”
Kong Pharith indicated also that for his first attempt to come up with the solar-energy powered car, he spent more than $3,000. He believes that his expense is too high because the parts are expensive, especially the solar cell panel installed on the roof of the car. The cost for a 130-watt solar panel is close to $700 and a small 20-watt solar panel costs about $100.
He added: “Some of the parts that we need to buy are transistors which are essentially small semi-conductors. We use them to control the speed of the motor. At first, some of them burnt up and were damaged. We tried other types unsuccessfully, so we have to make several changes, but at the end, we were successful, we found a way to use them with success.”
Regarding this solar-energy car, Nget Vibol, director of the patent office of the ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy, said that he knew about this story, and he had also encouraged the inventors.
Nget Vibol added that he knew about the car, but he had not met the inventors yet and they had not come forward to apply for a patent yet.
Nget Vibol said: “He let us know about this car already, but he must apply for a private patent, so we leave this up to the inventors to decide, we are not forcing them, except to say that some of the technologies used requires other expertise.”
Kong Pharith said that he did not apply for a patent yet because he has just completed his research and his car.
He said that he will apply for a patent when he can bring his car to the ministry of Public Works for an inspection in the future.
Besides this solar-energy powered car, Kong Pharith also came up with a solar-energy powered bicycle, but because of lack of funding and not many people know or pay attention on his invention. Up to now, he assembled together 4 solar-energy powered bicycles. He indicated also that he recently received some orders for solar-energy bicycles from overseas, including from France.
“I don’t dare produce too many of these bicycles because each one of them costs between $300 to $400. We try to lower the cost, but we were not able to. Lowering the cost means lower quality. Steel bicycles are too heavy, therefore we must decrease their weight. For the solar powered car, I want to decrease the weight also, because the lighter they are, the better they are,” Kogn Pharith said.
He indicated also that, besides coming up with his ideas, he also tries to teach others [on the technology]. He usually charges $200 for the 2-month training, however, for poor students from the provinces, he teaches them free of charge. He currently has 10 students learning under him. Read more!
Public Screening of Who Killed Chea Vichea?
NEWS RELEASE
July 31, 2009
PUBLIC SCREENING OF WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA?
AT RHODE ISLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
AT RHODE ISLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Loud Mouth Films is proud to present the first U.S. festival screening of Who Killed Chea Vichea? in Providence, Rhode Island.
Who Killed Chea Vichea? will be screened at 5:20 PM on Friday, Aug 7, at the Columbus Theatre Arts Center, 270 Broadway, Providence, along with the short films In Their Boots: Broken Promise by Abe Greenwald, and Open Air by Shira-Lee Shalit.
Filmed over five years in Cambodia, Who Killed Chea Vichea? is a one-hour documentary thriller about the assassination of Cambodia's top labor leader and the police plot to frame two innocent men. Cambodia is one of the world's largest garment producers and exports some $2 billion worth of garments to the U.S. each year.
On a sunny morning in 2004, two men on a motorbike pulled up at a Phnom Penh newsstand. One of them stepped off, walked over to Chea Vichea, the president of the garment workers union, and calmly shot him in the head and in the heart. Who Killed Chea Vichea? takes us from the dusty streets and slums of Phnom Penh to remote villages, through courtrooms, brothels, factories and gambling dens. It is an unprecedented film about the inner workings of one of the world's most corrupt states.
Produced by Providence native Rich Garella and directed by Bradley Cox, the film was named one of Amnesty International's top ten "Movies That Matter." It is a co-production of Independent Television Services and WGBH Boston.
"There's a large Cambodian community in Providence, and we're going to do our best to reach out to them," Garella said. The festival has already agreed to donate a block of tickets to Providence organization of Cambodian youth.
Loud Mouth Films: info@loudmouthfilms.net
Who Killed Chea Vichea? official site: http://www.whokilledcheavichea.com
Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76083065273
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100857517875
BACKGROUND AND FILM SYNOPSIS
By 2004, Cambodia was becoming one of the world's largest garment exporters. Foreign-owned factories employed hundreds of thousands of desperate young women who flooded in from the countryside. The country quickly became dependent on garment exports. Its biggest customer was, and is, the United States.
Vichea, the president of Cambodia's free trade union, slept on a straw mat in the union office and didn't collect a salary. Despite beatings and death threats, he rallied the workers as they fought for wage increases, improved working conditions and an end to forced overtime, and often won. He gained an international reputation in the labor movement, and Cambodia gained a reputation as a model country for worker's rights.
But inside Cambodia, the lesson of the Khmer Rouge regime, and of the regimes before and after it, is well known. Ally oneself with power--or face the consequences.
WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA? is about the killing of one man and the slow silencing of an entire nation. It is about how a small elite keeps an iron grip on power through the use of its police, its army, its manipulation of the courts and its most effective tool: fear. And it is about how hope survives against incredible odds.
--
Loud Mouth Films
Philadelphia/Bangkok
http://www.whokilledcheavichea.com
Read more!
Who Killed Chea Vichea? will be screened at 5:20 PM on Friday, Aug 7, at the Columbus Theatre Arts Center, 270 Broadway, Providence, along with the short films In Their Boots: Broken Promise by Abe Greenwald, and Open Air by Shira-Lee Shalit.
Filmed over five years in Cambodia, Who Killed Chea Vichea? is a one-hour documentary thriller about the assassination of Cambodia's top labor leader and the police plot to frame two innocent men. Cambodia is one of the world's largest garment producers and exports some $2 billion worth of garments to the U.S. each year.
On a sunny morning in 2004, two men on a motorbike pulled up at a Phnom Penh newsstand. One of them stepped off, walked over to Chea Vichea, the president of the garment workers union, and calmly shot him in the head and in the heart. Who Killed Chea Vichea? takes us from the dusty streets and slums of Phnom Penh to remote villages, through courtrooms, brothels, factories and gambling dens. It is an unprecedented film about the inner workings of one of the world's most corrupt states.
Produced by Providence native Rich Garella and directed by Bradley Cox, the film was named one of Amnesty International's top ten "Movies That Matter." It is a co-production of Independent Television Services and WGBH Boston.
"There's a large Cambodian community in Providence, and we're going to do our best to reach out to them," Garella said. The festival has already agreed to donate a block of tickets to Providence organization of Cambodian youth.
Contact:
Loud Mouth Films: info@loudmouthfilms.net
Festival and ticket info:
RI International Film Festival: http://riff.bside.com/2009/films/whokilledcheavichea_riff2009
Film website:
Who Killed Chea Vichea? official site: http://www.whokilledcheavichea.com
On FaceBook:
Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76083065273
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100857517875
BACKGROUND AND FILM SYNOPSIS
By 2004, Cambodia was becoming one of the world's largest garment exporters. Foreign-owned factories employed hundreds of thousands of desperate young women who flooded in from the countryside. The country quickly became dependent on garment exports. Its biggest customer was, and is, the United States.
Vichea, the president of Cambodia's free trade union, slept on a straw mat in the union office and didn't collect a salary. Despite beatings and death threats, he rallied the workers as they fought for wage increases, improved working conditions and an end to forced overtime, and often won. He gained an international reputation in the labor movement, and Cambodia gained a reputation as a model country for worker's rights.
But inside Cambodia, the lesson of the Khmer Rouge regime, and of the regimes before and after it, is well known. Ally oneself with power--or face the consequences.
WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA? is about the killing of one man and the slow silencing of an entire nation. It is about how a small elite keeps an iron grip on power through the use of its police, its army, its manipulation of the courts and its most effective tool: fear. And it is about how hope survives against incredible odds.
--
Loud Mouth Films
Philadelphia/Bangkok
http://www.whokilledcheavichea.com
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