Asean may call for pardon

Portraits show pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi during a rally calling for Suu Kyi's release on August 11. Suu Kyi was found guilty of breaching the terms of her house arrest. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

Aug 19, 2009
AFP

UPBEAT ABOUT BREAKTHROUGH
MR WEBB, the first US official to hold talks with Than Shwe, was upbeat about the prospects of a breakthrough.

'I think we have a moment here we might be able to do something,' he told CNN, speaking from Bangkok.

'We had about a 40-minute conversation on a wide variety of issues,' he said of his landmark meeting with the junta leader.

'And with respect to her (Suu Kyi's) situation, I also want to emphasise that I made a request of the government that they consider releasing her from detention and... (said) no future election process would have any credibility with the outside world unless she were able to participate in the political debate.' -- AFP

REGIONAL officials will discuss a proposed joint call for Myanmar to free democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi during a meeting in Jakarta later this week, a diplomatic source said on Tuesday.

Thailand, the current chair of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean), said on Friday it was pushing for a consensus among member states to ask Myanmar's military rulers to pardon Ms Suu Kyi.

'We will discuss it at a senior officials' meeting this week in Jakarta,' the source, who asked not to be named, told AFP. The meeting will be held on Thursday and Friday in the Indonesian capital, the diplomat said.

'We support it, but I don't know if all Asean (members) support it,' the diplomat said, when asked about his country's position. 'There's nothing firm, only a proposal so far,' he added.

US Senator Jim Webb, in an interview with CNN on Monday after a visit to Myanmar, said he understood that Asean was working on the proposal to seek amnesty for Suu Kyi. Mr Webb had met with Myanmar's reclusive ruler, Senior General Than Shwe, during his trip.

Asean has faced frequent criticism for taking a soft line on its most troublesome member, but Mr Webb indicated the bloc could be about to toughen its stance. 'I am of the understanding that we are possibly going to see from Asean... a petition of some sort that would ask for amnesty for her as well, which would be a major step forward in resolving the situation,' he said.

The 64-year-old Suu Kyi was found guilty last week of breaching the terms of her house arrest after an eccentric American man, John Yettaw, swam to her lakeside villa in May and stayed there for two days.

Myanmar junta leader Than Shwe commuted her sentence to 18 months under house arrest, but this would still rule her out of elections due to be held next year.

International anger erupted at Myanmar after Tuesday's verdict, but Asean's reaction was typically muted, expressing only 'deep disappointment.' Mr Yettaw flew out of Myanmar on Sunday with Mr Webb, who secured the former military veteran's release from a sentence of seven years' hard labour.

Asean leaders will hold their next summit from October 23-25 in the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin. As well as Myanmar, Asean also groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Read more!

Khmer Spell Checker for Firefox (Mekhala) is now available

Please click on the link below to get additional details from MitLeap website:
http://mitleap.com/profiles/blogs/khmer-spell-checker-for

Read more!

The Free Press Magazine Online Vol. 1, No. 9 now available

Click here to read The Free Press Magazine Online:
http://fpmonline.net

Read more!

Sen disregards covenant on rights

"One Web site, one group and a few others send out the message: "Cambodian younger generations are the hope, the catalyst and the agent of change for Cambodia."

Certainly, their time has come. My hat is off to them, I wish them success."

August 19, 2009
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)

One can learn much from old sayings and words of the wise. An African saying goes, "One must talk little and listen much." The Turks say, "Those who know do not talk; those who talk do not know." The Swedes say, "Whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more."

Mother Teresa of Calcutta implored, "There should be less talk. ... Take a broom and clean someone's house. That says enough."

Eleanor Roosevelt, whom Americans called "the best first lady" in United States history, is known for her work to improve the lot of the underprivileged. She said, "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

In contemporary Cambodian politics, the small minds that delight in digging and throwing dirt at those they don't like are "willing executioners," tools of the ruling autocracy that needs them to overwhelm, distract and disrupt legitimate debate on issues of public and national interest. A boneless tongue that flaps, Cambodians say, turns a lone black crow into 10 ravaging crows.

Father Lawrence G. Lovasik, a missionary, wrote: "Only the ignorant and narrow-minded gossip, for they speak of persons instead of things," and that, "it is just as cowardly to judge an absent person as it is wicked to strike a defenseless one."

Lord Buddha teaches, "The evils of the tongue are lying, slander, abuse and idle talk."

Recently, a Khmer reader inquired about the meaning of the Khmer saying, "Somdei sar jiat," which, literally, means "words reveal one's race." The intent of the saying was to convey that words, spoken and written, reveal the kind of a person one is. One's value, worth, dignity -- or lack thereof -- are intertwined in his words.

American essayist, philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Words are alive; cut them and they bleed."

Last April 24, The Cambodia Daily's front page article, "Mu Sochua To Sue Premier For Defamation," reported on Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's nationally broadcast speech on April 4, in which he affirmed that he wouldn't help villagers who side with the opposition. He spoke to the audience about a Mu Sochua, woman "cheung klang," or "strong legs," a derogatory term, who in the 2008 election campaign "hugged" someone and then complained her blouse had been "unbuttoned" by force.

The Daily said that in June 2008, an army officer "twisted her arm, thus making her blouse buttons come undone," so Sochua filed an "assault complaint."

At an April 23 press conference, Sochua announced her lawsuit against Sen for defamation, seeking 500 riels, or 13 cents. On April 27, The Daily reported on its front page: "Prime Minister To Countersue Mu Sochua."

Thus began a Khmer political ramvong, a popular slow dance in which participants move around and around in a circle to the sound of drums.

"Executive control of the court is an established fact and it is known that the court lacks independence," lamented the Asian Human Rights Commission in a press release.

On June 10, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court dismissed Sochua's lawsuit, claiming no defamation had occurred, but processed Sen's countersuit against Sochua.

On June 15, Human Rights Watch called on Sen's regime to "cease its threats, harassment, and spurious legal action against opposition members of parliament and lawyers defending free expression." The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights-Cambodia declared, "the use or the threat of legal action ... is a serious threat to democratic development which may undermine the efforts of the past 16 years to rebuild a tolerant and pluralistic environment in Cambodia."

Those words didn't matter to Sen and his ruling party.

On Aug. 4, the Court ordered Sochua to pay 8.5 million riel ($2,500) in fines to the state, and 8 million riels ($2,000) in compensation to Sen, for defaming the premier.

A day later, Sen, who likes to use ceremonies as platforms and the media as tools, warned in a graduation ceremony speech in Phnom Penh that government critics should "be careful with the language of 'dictatorial regime.' Be careful, one day legal action will be used" ... and "when legal action is used, you guys would say freedom of expression is prohibited, but your expression is wrong."

Sen, recipient of a University of Hanoi honorary doctorate, no doubt meant every word he said. For the last few months, several criminal defamation and disinformation lawsuits have been filed against government critics -- politicians, journalists and a 22-year-old law student.

Sen, premier of a country that signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and incorporated it into Cambodian law, tramples that law, tells the world it doesn't understand free expression as he does and makes clear he doesn't care who thinks what. Unconditional Chinese aid and assistance to keep him and his autocratic regime afloat allows him to thumb his nose to the West, who lecture him to respect the international standards of good governance.

That seems to leave Cambodians on their own.

One Web site, one group and a few others send out the message: "Cambodian younger generations are the hope, the catalyst and the agent of change for Cambodia."

Certainly, their time has come. My hat is off to them, I wish them success.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

Read more!

Garment exports plummet 18pc over first half of year

Garment Manufacturers Association head Van Sou Ieng says industrial disputes like the one in this file photo are to blame for the garment-sector downturn, as new figures show first half exports fell 18pc. (Photo by: Tracey Shelton)

Monday, 17 August 2009
Chun Sophal
The Phnom Penh Post

It is difficult for us to estimate the total value for long-term exports of apparel in Cambodia ...

Commerce Ministry figures show a smaller drop than over the first quarter as manufacturers group head blames industrial unrest, not economic crisis

Exports of garments, footwear and other textile products dropped 18 percent year on year over the first half to US$1.27 billion, Ministry of Commerce figures released at the weekend show.

Exports to the United States, Cambodia's key market, were down 30 percent. Canada took 13 percent less by value, while European purchases were down 5 percent over the period.

The figures were released by the ministry's Trade Preferences Systems Department and account for all exports under the generalised system of preferences (GSP) and most favoured nation (MFN) programmes.

Cambodia exports almost all its garments, textiles and shoes through these schemes, which allow the world's least-developed nations to avoid quotas imposed by rich countries on exports from other developing countries.

Looking for a rebound

Department Director Mean Sophea said he expected a rebound would begin to be seen in September.

"It is difficult for us to estimate the total value for long-term exports of apparel in Cambodia because the situation of the world's economy has not recovered yet," he said.

Month-by-month data was not available at the weekend, but the figures suggest the rebound may have already started. In the first quarter of the year, garment exports fell 26.41 percent year on year across to $534.6 million, suggesting a better second quarter.

In March alone, exports were down 38.03 percent year on year to $164.3 million.

Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh told the Post in May that export orders for that month and June would provide a strong indicator of the sector's prospects for the rest of the year. The two months coincided with the start of the "hot season" in the US and Europe, he said.

Van Sou Ieng, president of the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC), told the Post Sunday that the decrease in apparel exports could not be blamed entirely on the global economic crisis.

Cambodia's garment products are more expensive than those of China, Vietnam and Bangladesh, and the country was clearly losing to its more efficient competitors., he said.

"I believe at least 100 factories have been closed down and suspended so far because there has been no orders," Van Sou Ieng said.

Industrial unrest

He also revised a prediction he made in May that exports would fall 30 percent for 2009 on the previous year. He said Sunday he anticipates a 40 percent decline for the full year, claiming that buyers were being scared off by strikes and demonstrations.

Sector representatives have also blamed high electricity prices, customs inefficiencies and a poorly trained workforce for the garment industry's low competitiveness.

Ath Thun, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, admitted that factories were closing and that there is pressure on the sector, but said Sunday that GMAC exaggerated the number of closures to scare unions. Factory owners are using the global economic crisis as an excuse to close factories without paying workers' wages properly and to frighten workers from protesting or negotiating, he said.

"I think Cambodia's garment sector would have collapsed already if 100 factories were really closed because the country's total number of factories is only around 300," he said.

Read more!

NZ man seeks justice for brother at KRouge trial

Rob Hamill's brother Kerry was one of three foreigners who were murdered by the 1975-1979 communist movement

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
By Suy Se
AFP

PHNOM PENH — A New Zealand Olympic rower told Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court Monday how he had felt like killing the boss of the Khmer Rouge prison where his brother was killed by the regime.

Rob Hamill's brother Kerry was one of three foreigners who were murdered by the 1975-1979 communist movement after their yacht was blown off course and into Cambodian waters.

Hamill, who represented New Zealand at the 1996 Olympics, was testifying at the trial of jail chief Duch, who was accused of overseeing the torture and execution of about 15,000 people at the Tuol Sleng detention centre.

"At times I have wanted to smash you, to use your word, in the same way that you smashed so many others," he said. Duch has said that the Khmer Rouge used the official term "smash" to refer to killing its enemies.

"Today, in this court room, I am giving you all the crushing weight of emotion -- the anger, the grief, and the sorrow. I am placing this emotional burden on your head," Hamill said.

Kerry Hamill, 27, was sailing through the Gulf of Thailand in 1978 with two friends, Canadian Stuart Glass and Briton John Dewhirst, when their yacht was intercepted by a Cambodian patrol boat.

Glass was shot dead immediately while Dewhirst and Hamill were taken for interrogation and torture at Tuol Sleng for two months, during which they were forced to confess to being CIA agents. They were then killed.

Earlier Monday, Frenchwoman Martine Lefeuvre wept as she told the tribunal how her Cambodian husband was tricked into returning from overseas to die at Tuol Sleng.

She said her French-educated spouse, Ouk Ket, was asked to return home in 1977 from his job as a diplomat in Senegal, Dakar, to help the reconstruction of Cambodia.

But she said that on arrival Ouk Ket was "kidnapped with his hands tied behind his back, blindfolded, and brought in a truck" and went to "hell" at the jail.

Lefeuvre said that in 1991 she and her family came to see Tuol Sleng, which was turned into a genocide museum after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, and found his name on a list of the dead.

"I came before this chamber in order to ask for justice to be done for this barbaric crime," the 56-year-old nurse told the court, demanding the "maximum sentence" for Duch.

Duch, a 66-year-old former maths teacher whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, said he felt remorse for their suffering.

"I was such a coward at that time. I did not dare to assist anybody," Duch told Hamill.

Duch has previously accepted responsibility for running the jail and begged forgiveness, but insists that he did not have a central role in the Khmer Rouge hierarchy.

Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia, resulting in the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork and torture.

Read more!

Brother of NZ victim rages at Khmer Rouge trial

A Cambodian man watches television at a restaurant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Monday, Aug. 17, 2009 as it shows Rob Hamill from New Zealand whose brother was killed by the Khmer Rouge during its 1975-1979 rule in Cambodia. The TV program is broadcast during the trial of Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who is tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the U.N.-backed tribunal. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
By SOPHENG CHEANG
AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The brother of a New Zealander tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge three decades ago told the man who ordered the execution on Monday that he wished him a similarly gruesome fate.

Kerry Hamill was 28 when his yacht was blown off course into Cambodian waters in 1978, and he was captured by the radical communist regime. He and a shipmate, Briton John Dewhirst, were taken to Phnom Penh's S-21 prison and later killed.

Kerry's brother, Rob, wept as he testified at the trial of S-21's commander, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch — the first of five senior Khmer Rouge defendants to be tried by a U.N.-assisted tribunal and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions.

"Duch, at times I have wanted to smash you, to use your words. The same way that you smashed so many others," Rob Hamill said, sitting in a suit and tie, his hands folded before him. "Smash" was the euphemism the Khmer Rouge used when ordering executions.

"At times, I have imagined you shackled, starved, whipped and clubbed, viciously. I have imagined your scrotum electrified, being forced to eat your own feces, being nearly drowned and having your throat cut," said Hamill, referring to some of the horrors faced by prisoners.

Duch sat behind him, expressionless.

"I have wanted that to be your experience, your reality. I have wanted you to suffer the way you made Kerry and so many others (suffer)," Hamill said.

About a dozen Westerners were among the estimated 16,000 people held at the prison before being killed. The communist regime's radical policies while in power from 1975-79 caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people nationwide by execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition.

Rob Hamill, 45, a rower who represented New Zealand at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, said his family learned of his brother's death 16 months after he disappeared. Their parents read in a newspaper that he was executed after two months at S-21.

"Death not by shipwreck, not by drowning or freak accident, but death by torture. Death by torture not over a few seconds or minutes or hours or days or weeks even," said Hamill.

Asked by judges for his response, Duch (pronounced DOIK) repeated his earlier testimony that he received orders to kill the Westerners and burn their bodies.

He asked for forgiveness from the victims' families, acknowledging that they had suffered miserably.

He said he was not offended by being blamed.

"Even if the people threw stones at me and caused my death, I would not say anything," he told the court.

Duch is charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and murder, and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty.

His trial is expected to wrap up by the end of the year.

Read more!