A further 160 families in Cambodia face forced eviction

13 August 2009
A further 160 families in Cambodia are to be forcibly evicted from their homes without being given adequate alternative housing or just compensation.Two lakeside villages in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh received an official notice on Monday, giving them seven days to dismantle their houses. A private company is due to redevelop the site for tourism and commercial use.Around 4,200 families living on or around Boeung Kak Lake in central Phnom Penh are affected by this re-development, which is the outcome of an agreement reached in 2007 between the Municipality of Phnom Penh and the private company. The company started filling the lake with sand in August 2008, in preparation for building.The agreement was made without any prior consultation with the affected families, who since learning about the deal have repeatedly protested and voiced concern about the plans. At least two villagers have been arrested for their peaceful protests.Company workers and security forces have intimidated and harassed many others, while the rising water levels caused by the filling of the lake, have flooded and destroyed many homes around its shore, forcing people to move.The inhabitants of Village 2 and Village 4 were offered three options by the notice signed by the Daun Penh district governor: compensation of 8,000 USD plus an additional two million riel (approx 500 USD) to cover the cost of dismantling the houses; a flat at a resettlement site some 20 kilometres away plus two million riel; or new housing on-site but with temporary relocation.The resettlement site at Damnak Trayoeung has no adequate shelter, water, electricity, sanitation, sewerage, health care or job opportunities.The offer of on-site development is welcome as it demonstrates that the authorities are exploring alternatives other than eviction. This is also the option favoured by most of the 160 families.However, according to the notice, they still have to dismantle their homes within seven days and accept relocation to a site far away from their work places and schools for an undetermined period, with no formal assurances that they will be able to return to secure tenure at Boeung Kak. Last month, security forces forcibly evicted 60 low-income families from their homes in an area of central Phnom Penh called Group 78. The families in Group 78 had been living under the threat of forced evictions for three years, with the Cambodian authorities following none of the safeguards required under international law.The Cambodian Government has consistently failed to guarantee the right to adequate housing and to protect its population against forced evictions. In 2008 alone, Amnesty International received reports about 27 forced evictions, affecting an estimated 23,000 people.Amnesty International is reiterating its calls on the government to end forced evictions and introduce a moratorium on all mass evictions until there is a legal framework in place which protects human rights.Amnesty International has urged the Cambodian authorities to halt immediately any plans to forcibly evict the families living in Villages 2 and 4 in Boeung Kak.The organization also urged them to reconsider the plan to move the community to the resettlement site at Damnak Trayoeung and called on the authorities to hold genuine consultations about the onsite development plans, including clarifying the time frame for temporary relocation and a guarantee of security of tenure at Boeung Kak.Moreover, Amnesty International is demanding that the authorities uphold Cambodia's obligations under international human rights treaties prohibiting forced eviction and related human rights violations.

Source: Amnesty International

Cambodia joins microloan clean-up

Cambodia joins microloan clean-upBy Stephen Kurczy PHNOM PENH - Impoverished Cambodia has emerged as a global microfinance leader, becoming the first Asian nation to hold lenders accountable to their original mission of poverty reduction. If a new global initiative aimed at promoting greater transparency over microfinance institutions (MFIs) recently launched here gains traction, the multi-billion dollar industry could be set for a shake-out. It has long been assumed that microfinance ventures, launched in the 1970s as non-profit enterprises to bring cheap credit to the poor, prioritize alleviating poverty over maximizing profits. In recent years, celebrities such Robert Duvall, Natalie Portman and Yeardley Smith, (the voice of Lisa in animated television series The Simpsons), became official spokespeople for different MFIs such as Pro Mujer (Pro Women), Finca International, and the Grameen Foundation.

The United Nations Capital Development Fund has in recent years channeled millions of dollars in donor funds into MFIs. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of the World Bank, says it has given more than US$600 million to more than 100 MFIs worldwide and maintains a commitment to double that investment to $1.2 billion by 2010, making IFC the largest investor in an industry servicing more than 80 million people around the world. But so-called barefoot banking has come under growing criticism as MFIs reap huge profits. Reports have shown that many misrepresent their underlying loan fees, with some charging annual interest rates in excess of 100%. For instance, Mexico's Banco Compartamos, originally a non-profit institution, generated $458 million in an April 2008 initial public offering. Private investors piled into the offering because the bank charges its 1.4 million poor borrowers up to 128% annual interest. Chuck Waterfield, a microfinance expert and Columbia University professor, has found that many MFIs, including Compartamos, advertise as pro-poor enterprises with 4% monthly interest rates but when additional hidden fees were added those rates often topped 10% per month. Waterfield recently devised a platform for borrowers and international donors - who underwrite and provide cheap capital for many microcredit banks to on-lend - to view more clearly individual MFIs' true underlying interest rates. "Compartamos was a watershed for the industry. It takes a crisis to make you do what you should have done 10 years ago," Waterfield told Asia Times Online. In mid-2008, he launched MicroFinance Transparency, a database of interest rates charged by individual microlenders that aims through publicity to refocus microfinance on poverty alleviation. The goal, he says, is to collect loan information from all microcredit lenders worldwide and publish their real annual percentage rates at his website, mftransparency.org. "The organizations with the highest interest rates have the glossiest annual reports, with pictures of mothers with babies, and they talk about how they're helping those mothers while making boatloads of profits," Waterfield said on August 7 at a launch event in Phnom Penh. "So we put the prices up there and say, 'Nice annual report but you're charging twice the interest rate as anyone else to those mothers with babies'." Waterfield hopes that all MFIs will openly join the initiative and prove they have nothing to hide. He first introduced the project in March in Peru, then in Bosnia in April, and this month in Cambodia before heading to another launch in Bangladesh. He acknowledges that he can't force microcredit lenders, many of whom bury hidden costs in the small print of their loan forms, to sign up to the initiative. "We've got to build credibility and Cambodia helps us build credibility because it's a willing participant. The next country we go to will be a little less willing. And next year we'll go into the countries that are really reluctant to have us show up." People over profitsWhile Cambodia is renowned for its endemic corruption and is often rated among the world's least transparent countries, Waterfield said he chose the country as the first Asian nation for his initiative because its registered MFIs rank among the world's top in terms of social performance, consumer protection and ethical practices. Of the 12 Asian MFIs that have signed on to a social performance indicators program launched by the Washington DC-based Microfinance Information Exchange (MIX), a provider of MFI business information and data services, half hailed from Cambodia. Five Cambodian banks are also included in MIX's ranking of the world's top 100 MFIs; only India, with six, claims more. In June, Angkor Microfinance Kampuchea was one of three MFIs worldwide to receive the first gold award for social performance reporting from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and Consultative Group to Assist the Poor. "Cambodian MFIs have been at the forefront of industry reporting for many years," MIX's chief operating officer Blaine Stephens wrote in an e-mail in response to Asia Times Online questions. "My guess is that they will demonstrate as much commitment to reporting social performance as they have to reporting financial performance in an open and transparent manner." Cambodian MFIs charge interest based on 30- or 31-day months. This may sound intuitive, but in Mexico and other developing countries most MFIs charge interest rates based on a four-week month, which effectively allows them to charge the borrower for an extra month every calendar year, Waterfield said. The annual interest rates charged by MFIs in Cambodia are among the lowest worldwide at between 24% and 36%. While higher than normal rates on commercial consumer loans, microloans are inherently more expensive because the lender receives less return while incurring overheads and transaction costs similar to those for larger loans. "Here in Cambodia, we are committed to making sure that the financial services provided to the poor come as tools for their empowerment rather than shackles for their exploitation," Cambodian National Bank director general Tal Nay Im said on August 7. The National Bank has recently issued a legally binding sub-decree for MFIs to advertise their real effective interest rates. Cambodia is the only country to outlaw flat interest rate loans, a credit structure where monthly interest is paid on the total loan amount even as the borrower pays down the principal - which means the borrower is effectively paying interest on money already paid back. In comparison, every MFI in Mexico charges a flat rate and only one microcredit bank in impoverished Bangladesh, the Grameen Bank, charges borrowers a declining rate where they pay less and less interest as the outstanding amount owed is paid down. The Grameen Bank was founded in the 1970s by Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 and the US Presidential Medal for Freedom this week for his efforts to provide low interest loans to the poor. While many microcredit institutions claim to take inspiration from his example, Yunus has publicly lamented the industry trend towards profit maximization over uplift of the poor. He, for one, has strongly endorsed Waterfield's new Microfinance Transparency initiative. "Microfinance emerged as a struggle against loan sharks, so we don't want to see new loan sharks created in the name of microcredit," Yunus told BusinessWeek at the time of the project's launch. While Cambodia's 18 MFIs have agreed to submit their loan data to MicroFinance Transparency, the Bangladeshi government is drafting a law that will require all their MFIs to submit data to the initiative. In Bangladesh, banks do not at present advertise their true interest rates, Waterfield said, and there is the risk of a consumer backlash if published interest rates suddenly appear to double overnight. Leaky lendingNot all MFIs are equally excited about Waterfield's transparency initiative, particularly those whose reputation would take a hit through greater disclosure. One of mftransparency.org's features will show, in graphical form, the relationship between loan size and interest rates charged. That presentation will show more clearly where MFIs' priorities lie. Many MFIs had been so profitable that hedge funds, venture capital firms, and other big private equity investors have sought ways to enter the business. In Cambodia, private equity fund Leopard Capital announced in March that "we are currently evaluating several options to invest in the sector, including participating in any pre-IPO [initial public offering, or sale of shares to the public] capital raising by a leading MFI, acquiring an existing MFI or merging an existing MFI with a smaller commercial bank." Despite Cambodia's lead on MFI transparency, the sector has been facing financial troubles wrought by the global economic crisis. The industry-wide at-risk portfolio for the nation's 1 million microloan borrowers rose from 0.5% in mid-2008 to 3.39% in mid-2009. That's exposed flaws in previous client screening. Mai Yop, a 55-year-old salt farmer in southern Cambodia's Kampot province, admits to having lied to get a $1,000 loan three years ago from microfinance bank Acleda. While microloans are extended solely for business purposes, such as the provision of new cattle or farming tools, Mai Yop says she used the money to pay for her husband's stomach surgery. "I had to lie, or I wouldn't get any money," said Mai Yop, who now lives on a budget of $5 a day. In order to pay back her first loan, she took loans from two other microlenders, and finally from a high-interest charging informal moneylender who eventually seized her farmland due to non-payment. Some borrowers say they'd be in a better situation today if they'd never taken on a microloan. "We are poorer than ever," said Oum Siv, a 50-year-old grocery vendor in Kampot. Earlier this year, she said she owed $10,000 to a private moneylender after taking out a series of microcredit loans for her husband's construction business, which failed to get off the ground amid the economic slowdown. Cambodia's MFIs say they have since adopted more rigorous screening processes for potential borrowers. But the toll from years of lax screening has only now become apparent. The situation is similar in several Cambodian provinces, with tens of thousands of Cambodians unable to repay their microloans and now at risk of losing their homes and farmland. Despite these challenges, Waterfield said that Cambodia remains a relative microcredit success story. Elsewhere, when it comes to openness and transparency, "some of these [lenders] say, 'We've been lying for 20 years for some legitimate reasons, so it's not so easy to start telling the truth.' Here, it was like, 'sure, what do you need, we'll give it to you.' There was no resistance, no nervousness. We'll never see that again ... anywhere we go."

Source: Asia Times

Cambodia: A land up for sale?

Romam Fil is moving rapidly through a dense patch of forest. Every few metres he pauses and points to edible plants and roots that the Jarai people of north eastern Cambodia have relied on for generations.
Then suddenly the trees come to an end. In front of us is a vast clearing, the red earth churned up and dotted with tree stumps.
Beyond that, stretching as far as we can see is a rubber plantation, the young trees are still thin and spindly and sway gently in the breeze.
This is the scene of a battle the Jarai people of Kong Yu village have been fighting, and losing for the past five years.
It started when local officials called a meeting and said they needed some of the forest.
"They told us they wanted to give part of our land to disabled soldiers," said Mr Fil.
"They said if you don't give us the land, we'll take it. So we agreed to give them a small area, just 50 hectares."

The villagers say they were then invited to a party and when many of them were drunk they were asked to put their thumbprints on documents.
"Most of us don't know how to read or write, and the chiefs did not explain what the thumbprints were for," said Mr Fil.
The villagers later found they had signed away more than 400 hectares - and the land was not for disabled soldiers, but a private company who began making way for the rubber plantation.
"They cleared areas where our people had their farms, and they destroyed our burial ground," said Mr Fil.
Political connections?
Lawyers for the owner of the plantation company, a powerful businesswoman called Keat Kolney, insist she bought the land legally.

But groups advocating for local land rights in Cambodia say part of the reason she was able to acquire the land is because she is married to a senior official in the ministry of land management.
It is not the only case where those closely connected to senior government figures are alleged to have taken land from poor Cambodians.
Five years ago, in north-western Pursat province a large grazing area was turned into an economic land concession - land the government grants to private firms for investment in large-scale agriculture.
It was allocated to a politically well-connected company called Pheapimex.
"They just came one day with their bulldozers and started clearing the land straight away," said Chamran, a farmer in the area.
"So we organised a demonstration but then a grenade was thrown among us - we don't know who by. Nine people were injured. The military police pointed a gun in my stomach and said if you hold another demonstration we will kill you."
Transparent process
Under the law, land concessions granted by the government should not exceed 10,000 hectares but the Pheapimex concession, although much of it is so far inactive, covers 300,000 hectares.
Global Witness, an environmental pressure group, estimates Pheapimex now controls 7% of Cambodia's land area.

The organisation says the company's owners, a prominent senator and his wife, have strong links to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Pheapimex did not reply to requests for a response to these allegations, but the Cambodian government maintains that the process by which private companies acquire land is both transparent and legal.
"The requirement is not to be close to the prime minister," said Phay Siphan, spokesman for Cambodia's Council of Ministers.
"The requirement is that you have enough capital, you have the technology to develop the land."
'Kleptocratic state'
It is not just in rural areas that people complain of losing land.
Cambodia's recent stability, following decades of violence, has attracted a rapid boom in tourism and a race among foreign and local entrepreneurs for prime real estate on which to build new resorts.

Many of the country's beaches have already been bought up.
And rights groups estimate that 30,000 people have been forcibly evicted from their homes in the capital Phnom Penh over the past five years to make way for new developments.
The roots of the problem date back to the 1970s when the brutal Khmer Rouge regime abolished private property and destroyed many title documents.
A land law passed in 2001 recognises the rights of people who have lived on land without dispute for five years or more, but in many cases it is not being implemented.
The UN estimates hundreds of thousands of Cambodians are now affected by land disputes.

But land is not the only state asset being sold at an alarming rate.
Beginning in the 1990s, large swathes of the country's rich forests were bought up by logging companies.
Now sizeable mining and gas concessions are also being granted to private enterprises.
Eleanor Nichol of Global Witness believes individual members of the Cambodian government, right up to the highest levels, are benefiting.
"Essentially what we're dealing with here is a kleptocratic state which is using the country and its assets as their own personal slush fund," she said.
The Cambodian government rejects these allegations.
"They could accuse [the government of] anything they like. Cambodia operates under a modernised state of law. Everyone is together under one law,” said Phay Siphan.
Back in Kong Yu village, the Jarai people are waiting to hear the result of suit filed in a local court to try to get their land back.
"If the company gets the land, many of our people will starve," says Mr Fil.
"If we lose the land, we have lost everything.”

Assignment is broadcast on BBC World Service on Thursday at 0906 GMT and repeated at 1406 GMT, 1906 GMT, 2306 GMT and on Saturday at 1106 GMT.

Former chief of Khmer Rouge torture centre in Cambodia asks for 'harshest punishment'

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - The former chief of the Khmer Rouge's main torture centre, being tried by a U.N.-backed tribunal on genocide charges, asked the Cambodian people Wednesday to give him "the harshest punishment."
The statement from Kaing Guek Eav, who headed the notorious S-21 prison in Phnom Penh, came as a widow wept before the court, demanding justice for the death of her husband and four children during the communist regime's reign of terror.
"I accept the regret, the sorrow and the suffering of the million Cambodian people who lost their husbands and wives," the defendant told the tribunal. "I would like the Cambodian people to condemn me to the harshest punishment."
Kaing Guek Eav - better known as Duch - is being tried for crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture. Up to 16,000 people were tortured under his command and later killed during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 rule. Only a handful survived.
Duch (pronounced DOIK) later became an evangelical Christian and worked for international aid organizations after the ouster of the Khmer Rouge.
He noted Wednesday that Jesus Christ was stoned before his death by crucifixion.
"If Cambodians followed this traditional punishment, they could do that to me. I would accept it," he said.
Duch is the first of five senior Khmer Rouge figures scheduled to face long-delayed trials and the only one to acknowledge responsibility for his actions. His trial, which started in March, is expected to finish by the end of the year.
He could face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Cambodia has no death penalty.
During Wednesday's court session, Bou Thon, 64, said her husband was a driver at the Khmer Rouge's Industry Ministry when he was accused of being a traitor and sent to S-21. She was assigned as a cook.
Her husband and four children vanished, and Bou Thon said she believed all were killed at Choeung Ek, better known as the Killing Fields, outside Phnom Penh where S-21 prisoners were dispatched for execution.
With tears in her eyes, Bou Thon said she tried to forgive and forget but could not.
Duch, asked by the judge to speak about the Khmer Rouge killings, said they were "like the death of an elephant which no one can hide with only two tamarind tree leaves."

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Millicom to sell Cambodian operations

NEW YORK – Luxembourg-based wireless service provider Millicom International Cellular SA said Tuesday it agreed to sell its Cambodian operations to the Royal Group, its partner in Cambodia, for $346 million.
This transaction comprises Millicom's 58.4 percent holdings in CamGSM, Royal Telecam International and Cambodia Broadcasting Services, the company said.
The deal is expected to close before the end of the year.
Millicom provides cell phone service in developing regions in Asia, Africa and Latin America that have limited wireline infrastructure.

Hundreds hand in petitions to protest Cambodia land grabs - Summary

Phnom Penh - About 300 Cambodians handed in petitions to government ministries and organizations in Phnom Penh Tuesday to protest the growing national problem of land grabs and forced evictions. Organizers of the group action warned that landlessness is deepening poverty, and demanded an immediate end to intimidation and court action against people trying to protect their land.
Seng Sokheng, a spokesman for the community groups involved, said the petitions represent the concerns of 15,000 villagers in 19 of the kingdom's 24 provinces and municipalities.
He said the petitions were submitted to the National Assembly, the cabinet of Prime Minister Hun Sen, the Council of Ministers, the National Authority on Land Disputes and three government ministries.
"Some ministries were happy to receive the petition, and others were not," Seng Sokheng said of the reaction the villagers had received.
Organizers said 200,000 hectares of petitioners' land are at risk in this predominantly rural society, where more than 80 per cent of the population live in the countryside. The petitions contained more than 15,000 thumbprints, a standard way of signing in Cambodia, where literacy rates are low.
A government spokesman said he could not comment on the issue until he had discussed the petitioners' concerns with other government departments.
The land seizures are carried out by foreign firms, companies with government connections, or by politicians and the military. Development is the standard reason the government gives for granting mining or land concessions.
The community group gave the example of one military official who took communal farmland in Battambang province, western Cambodia. The group said the official then used the courts to threaten 37 villagers with theft of property for trying to farm the land.
"There are food shortages. People take loans and cannot pay [them] back," the group said of the affected villagers. "Food shortages lead to sickness, and people cannot pay for medical treatment."
The group warned that the litany of forced evictions, displacement and landlessness is reaching "crisis proportions."
"Evictions and land confiscation continue in Cambodia, despite calls by the World Bank, the ADB [the Asian Development Bank], the UN and Cambodia's donors for the government to enact a moratorium on forced evictions and land confiscation until it establishes effective conflict resolution mechanisms and relocation procedures meeting international standards," they wrote.
The organizers said communities are being driven into poverty, and their efforts to find peaceful solutions are met with intimidation, court action and even violence from the police and military.
"When we try to protect our legal rights, we receive intimidation," villager Pol Cheoun from Battambang province said in the statement. "We want the government and the donors to know what is happening. We are losing our land, forest and fisheries we depend on. We are getting poorer and poorer, and the rich are getting richer."
A community activist from the northern province of Oddar Meanchey told the Cambodia Daily newspaper that he is in favour of development, "but I don't want to see development lead people to tears."
Amnesty International wrote last year that 150,000 Cambodians are at risk of losing their land.

Source: DAP

Thai man arrested for drawing Angkor Wat on bathroom floor

A Thai man was arrested for living illegally in Cambodia for more than ten years and for drawing an image of Angkor Wat on his bathroom floor, national media reported.

Police arrested Salavout Khamsan, 35, in Poipet in western Cambodia after neighbours saw the drawing of Cambodia's famous temple and told the authorities.
Poipet police chief Nuth Ly said the man had "desecrated the precious temple which is a World Heritage site."
The provincial police chief, Hun Hean, said the explanation given by the man - that he drew the image out of affection for the temple, and not to demean it - was not good enough.
"It is just an excuse, because he could have drawn it on paper and posted it on a wall," he said.
"Or he could buy a painting or a postcard with an image of Angkor, not draw it in front of a toilet and step on it."
Salavout Khamsan, a construction worker who entered Cambodia in 1998 through the Poipet checkpoint, faces up to six months in jail for visa violations.
Hun Hean said it is not clear which law will be used for punishing the alleged crime of drawing Angkor Wat on the bathroom floor.

Burma Court sentences Aung San Suu Kyi to 3 years

Rangoon - A Burmese court Tuesday sentenced opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to three years in prison and hard labour.

The verdict however was immediately commuted to 18 months under house detention by the country's military supremo.
A special court set up in Insein Prison found Suu Kyi, 64, guilty of breaking the terms of her detention by allowing a US national to swim into her lakeside compound-cum-prison on May 3.
Burma's junta leader, Senior General Than Shwe, immediately reduced the court's three-year sentence in prison to one year and six months under house arrest.

Source: The Nation

TYPE A(H1N1) -Vaccine proves to be safe for human trial

GPO to launch FluMist tomorrow; victims on the rise

The Government Pharmaceuti-cal Organisation will next month start undertaking human trials on the live-attenuated vaccine against the type-A (H1N1) virus now that laboratories in the Netherlands and Russia have confirmed the virus-seed vaccine proved to be safe on animals, GPO's board chairperson Dr Wichai Chotewiwat said yesterday.Meanwhile, he added, that tomorrow the GPO would be coming up with the first few doses of FluMist, a nasal spray live-attenuated vaccine. The Public Health Ministry announced last week that the number of swine-flu victims had risen to 81 after 16 more patients succumbed to the virus. The ministry said it is suspected more than 500,000 people have been infected, and that the death toll was closer to 100 people.In a bid to tackle the outbreak, the Public Health Ministry and Mahidol University's ethics committees have, in principle, given the university's Faculty of Tropical Medicine the green light to research the vaccine.Citing a recent e-mail from laboratories in the Netherlands and Russia, Wichai said so far the virus-seed vaccine had been tested for safety and toxicity on mice and ferrets, and that a human trial would be launched in Thailand next month."The e-mails say that the virus-seed vaccine proved to be safe on animals and that there were no toxins or mutation," he said.The GPO will also be incubating the virus to make sure it is free from contamination before it is tested on some 400 volunteers from September 4. So far, about 100 people have volunteered for the trial, he said.In a bid to ensure safety of the volunteers, Wichai said the ministry's Ethical Committee would also set up a data and safety monitoring board. The World Health Organisation's regional office, based in India, will send a representative to help the ministry set up this board, while WHO staff members will work along with Thai researchers to monitor the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. The panel, which is still closely studying details of the project, has until today to decide on whether or not to allow the vaccine to be tested on humans.A recent report from the Ramathi- bhodi Hospital says that samples collected from a patient, who has already recovered, show that the type-A (H1N1) virus is resistant to the oseltamirvir antiviral drug.However, the ministry's advisory committee, chaired by leading virologist Prasert Thongcharoen, insisted that the evidence was not enough to confirm the virus is resistant to the drug, because the study was only done on the change to the virus gene's genetic position. He added that research had not been done on enough samples to confirm the virus was resistant."More samples need to be tested before we can confirm the virus is resistant," he said.However, Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai said just to be safe, he would reserve up to 100,000 courses of the second drug zanamivir.

Source: The Nation

Investment in Cambodian tourism reaches $354 mln in half year

The investment in Cambodia's tourism reached to about 354 million U.S. dollars in the first six months of this year and is a leading field that got the most investment, the local media said on Tuesday.
"Council for Development of Cambodia (CDC) approved about 1.22 billion U.S. dollars investment projects totally from private companies and 354 million U.S. dollars of the total is on tourism investment project," the khmer language newspaper Rasmei Kampuchea quoted the document from CDC as saying.
Agricultural field stands second row after tourism with 323 million U.S. dollars and next field is industry with 303 million U.S. dollars.
In total, Cambodia received 53 investment projects for the first half year and tourism field attracted seven projects, while agri-industry has 12 projects, garment industry with 14 projects and three in energy projects.
If we consider on the projects for the first six month of this year, it increases four projects but the investment capital went down about 3.2 billion U.S. dollars compared with the same period of last year, it said, adding that for first six month of last year, Cambodia yielded with 49 investment projects with about 4.43billion U.S. dollar.

Source: Xinhua

Cambodia, Vietnam to strengthen bilateral co-op between ruling parties

Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and Vietnamese Communist Party will continue to enhance their bilateral cooperation, a Cambodian official said Monday. Both sides agreed to enhance human resources development and share experience, Ieng Sophalet, assistant to Prime Minister Hun Sen told reporters after the talk between Hun Sen and Houng Binh Quan, member of Central Politburo of Vietnamese Communist Party and chairman of the Central Committee of International Relation Affairs of the Vietnamese Communist Party. Both sides will also exchange the visits of party delegations regularly to enhance the cooperation, he said, adding that Prime Minister Hun Sen requested both parties to promote bilateral cooperation in economy and trade amid the global economic and financial crisis. Houng Binh Quan and his delegation arrived here on Sunday for athree-day visit. He will also meet with Cambodia's Senate President Chea Sim and the National Assembly President Heng Samrimon Tuesday.

Source: Xinhua

Cambodia: Law On The Statute Of Judges

Sunday, 9 August 2009, 11:47 pmPress Release: Asian Human Rights Commission
Cambodia: Law On The Statute Of Judges, Not Their Retirement, Is The Right End From Which To Tackle Judicial Reform
Last June the Cambodian government ignored the jurisdiction of the nomination and discipline of judges and prosecutors of the Supreme Council of the Magistracy (SCM) when it bypassed the court and got the King, who is chairman of this supreme judicial council, to retire and replace half of the eight SCM members. The retired members were Ouk Vithun, Prosecutor General of the Supreme Court, 62, an ex-officio member; Henrot Raken, 68, Prosecutor General of the Appeal Court, another ex-officio member; Khieu Sameth, 62, President of Kandal Provincial Court, an appointed member; and Sin Dim, 66, President of Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court, another appointed member.

The government’s infringement upon the SMC’s jurisdiction is unconstitutional as it violated the independence of the judiciary of which the SCM is an integral part. Apparently the government was not happy with the lack of the SMC’s swift disciplinary action against a provincial prosecutor whose alleged faults had been widely reported in the press.
Perhaps more importantly, the government was not happy with the SCM when the latter had not retired the judges and prosecutors it had proposed. The SCM had its own reasons for not heeding the government’s proposal. It wanted to uphold its independence and exercise its authority over the nomination and discipline of judges and prosecutors.
Even more importantly, there was no law on the statute of judges and prosecutors which should set the retirement age for them. The government has not yet enacted this long overdue law and also the law on the organization of the judiciary when the country‘s Constitution has specifically stipulated the need to enact both laws since 1993. Like the law on the statute of civil servants and the law on the statute of members of the armed forces, which have not been specifically stipulated in the Constitution and which had both been enacted in the mid-1990s, this law on the statute of judges and prosecutors would determine, among other things, the age of retirement for judges and prosecutors. Without this law, the SCM would have no legal basis to retire judges and prosecutors.
The SCM did not comply with a government decree (not a law) which has been echoed by subsequent government circular letters and which fixes the retirement age of 60 for judges and prosecutors when this decree was based on no law on the statute of judges and prosecutors. This inaction has led the government to accuse the SCM of defending certain members of the judiciary who have wished to remain in active service.
Now with a new composition more amenable to the government’s wishes, the SCM sets out to retire some 27 elder judges and prosecutors, retirement which some have seen as part of the long overdue judicial reform.
However, the retirement of the four members of the SCM in June and the planned retirement of a big batch of judges and prosecutors are but palliatives to defuse mounting pressure for judicial reform. These measures have tackled this reform at the wrong end and have in no way come to address the real issue of the legal foundation of Cambodia’s entire judiciary. They have further violated the constitutional principle of the separation of powers, judicial independence and consolidated the executive control of the judiciary.
If the government is not happy with the functioning of the SCM, the Prime Minister should raise the issue with the King who is its chairman when he has an audience with him twice a month (Art.20 of the Constitution). The government should not delay any further the enactment of the law on the statute of judges and prosecutors and the law on the organization of the judiciary so that judges and prosecutors, who belong to the same body of magistrates, would have proper legal status, which they don’t have at the moment, and all courts of law would be duly established by law, which they are not at the moment. Everyone would thus be entitled to be tried by an independent, competent and impartial tribunal established by law, a right which is specifically stipulated under Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Cambodia is a party.
The government cannot apply the law on the nomination of judges and on the functioning of courts of law enacted in the communist days, prior to the promulgation of the current Constitution, and any decree enacted thereof when they are not among the “Laws and standard documents in Cambodia that safeguard State properties, rights, freedom and legal private properties and in conformity with the national interests, (which) shall continue to be effective until altered or abrogated by new texts” under the transitional article 158 of the current Constitution.
The absence of the law on the statute of judges and prosecutors poses a big problem of legitimacy for the composition of the SCM itself whose three judge members should be elected by their peers, an election which has been held up for 16 years, which is too long. The lack of the legitimacy of the composition of the SCM in turn questions the legitimacy of the composition of the country’s Constitutional Council which is a sort of a constitutional court, whose three members are appointed by the SCM.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) urges the Cambodian government to prioritise the building of the legal foundation and framework of the country’s entire judiciary, its organization and the status of judges and prosecutors by enacting the law on their statute, including their retirement age, in tandem with the law on the organisation of the judiciary, two of the important laws that are specifically stipulated in the country’s constitution. This is the right end from which it should tackle judicial reform in Cambodia. About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
ENDS
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Rob Hamill heading to Cambodia to testify against Khmer Rouge

Trans-Atlantic rower Rob Hamill is about to head to Cambodia to testify against the Khmer Rouge prison boss accused of torturing and murdering his brother.

Kerry Hamill was 27 when his yacht strayed into Cambodian waters back in the late 1970s.

A fellow crewman was shot dead while he and a passenger ended up at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where both were tortured and murdered.

Mr Hamill has been furiously collecting evidence since he found out he could testify about his brother's killing.

He will testify before the tribunal next week.