KHAMERLOGUE

May Titthara,PhnomPenhPost,10 April 2012

One of three women shot during a protest outside the Kaoway Sports factory in Svay Rieng province’s Bavet town on February 20 accused deposed town governor Chhouk Bandith of the crime yesterday, but told a judge she hadn’t been sure until seeing a media report about the case.

Appearing in the provincial court yesterday, Nuth Sakhorn, 23, said she had lost consciousness after being shot during the 6,000-worker protest at the factory, which supplies global sports brand PUMA.

“I told the judge that I knew it was Chhouk Bandith who shot the three of us following a media report,” she said. “At the time, we were all unconscious.”

Nuth Sakhorn said she was seeking compensation from the former Bavet governor, who allegedly confessed in the provincial court last month to shooting her, Buot Chinda, 21, and Keo Near, 18, but walked free.

“I ask compensation from Chhouk Bandith of US$45,000 – and I want the court to sentence him according to the law,” she said.

Nuth Sakhorn told the Post that she feared for her safety after making her statement to the court and returning home yesterday.

Hing Bun Chea, Svay Rieng chief prosecutor, said he had questioned all three workers who had filed complaints claiming former Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith had shot them.

“I will be checking more documents before deciding whether to charge Chhouk Bandith. I will let you know [the outcome] later,” he said.

Moeun Tola, head of the labour programme at the Community Legal Education Centre, said the provincial court seemed unwilling to issue an arrest warrant even though the Ministry of Interior had announced Chhouk Bandith as the suspected shooter.

“We should know who he is,” Moeun Tola said. “He is just the district governor. The court, however, seems afraid of this man, because he has a lot of high-level officers and tycoons backing him.”

On March 7, Bavet town officials allegedly attempted to buy the silence of all three victims, offering between $500 and $1,000 for them not to press charges.

By Thik Kaliyann,The PP Post,16 March 2012

More than 30 families living near the Siem Reap River in Siem Reap’s Aranh Sakor village have sent a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen and member of parliament Seang Nam, asking not to be evicted from their land because of the planned widening of the river.

A man being relocated from an area near the Siem Reap river stands near partly dismantled homes last month. Photo Thik Kaliyann

Village resident Dy Saroeun, 34, said authorities had measured her land, but failed to provide her with any explanation regarding the purpose or result of the measurement.
“We have lived along this channel [of the river] since the Khmer Rouge regime. Why do they want us to relocate if we don’t live on government land?” Dy Saroeun said, adding that she possessed legal documents that proved her ownership of the land.

Siem Reap district governor Tep Bun Chhay told the Post yesterday villagers living by the river did not understand the river was being widened to protect Siem Reap town against the effects of flooding and bolster development.

“Widening Siem Reap’s river has cost more than US$1 million. That is not a joke,” Tep Bun Chhay said.

“We would like to widen the river in a straight line, and that may affect some of those families [living along the river], but we will give them compensation and land.”

In their letter to the premier, villagers asked that the river be widened in its current shape, as opposed to the provincial planning authority’s plan to straighten it out during the widening process.

However, some of the villagers were not bothered by the idea of moving, as long as the government provided them with fair compensation for their relocation.
Resident Seng Sok Heng said she had given authorities permission to measure her land even though she had no information about the final plans.

“We will relocate to a new place if the compensation is acceptable,” she said.

Nineteen families have already been relocated after receiving monetary compensation, as well as a seven-by-15 metre plot of land.

By Chhay Channyda and David Boyle,The PP Post,16 March 2012

In a shock development, a court official said yesterday  deposed Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith had confessed to shooting three women at a protest last month in a case that has brought international scrutiny to Cambodia’s judicial system

Factory worker Buot Chinda is wheeled into the Svay Rieng provincial hospital last month after being shot. Photo by Derek Stout

Svay Rieng provincial prosecutor Hing Bun Chea said Chhouk Bandith had confessed to the triple shooting, outside the Kaoway Sports Ltd shoe factory, after going to the court a day early for questioning. Despite the confession, he walked out of court a free man.
“I already questioned him this morning. He was accompanied by his lawyer. He confessed to the shooting, but he gave me many reasons for that,” Hing Bun Chea said.

“It is my right not to arrest [him]. I don’t see it as important. I investigated in accordance with [my] role and procedures.”

On Thursday last week, Svay Rieng deputy provincial governor Men Vibol announced that Chhouk Bandith, the sole supect, had been removed from his position as Bavet town governor to prevent him wielding judicial influence in the case.

Bavet town officials have allegedly attempted to buy the silence of all three victims, 21-year-old Buot Chinda, 18-year-old Keo Neth and 23-year-old Nuth Sakhorn, offering between $US500 and $1,000 for them not to press charges.

Buot Chinda, who was shot in the chest and went into hiding after filing a complaint against Chhouk Bandith, said yesterday she feared for her safety because he was still free.
“I am angry that he has not been arrested while everyone knows that he shot me and others,” she said.

Sam Prachea Manith, director of cabinet at the Ministry of Justice, said the decision to arrest or not was up to the court. “If the suspect has a real address and they [the court] are sure the suspect will not escape and can deposit money with the court, this suspect is not [necessarily] detained,” he said.

Chhouk Bandith could not be reached for comment yesterday, and his lawyer, Mao Sam Putheary, declined to comment.

Sok Sam Oeun, executive director of the Cambodian Defenders Project, said the prosecutor could technically release the suspect without asking the investigating judge to arrest him if he intended to charge him with battery, a misdemeanour, rather than a more serious crime.

“It may be a problem about the interpretation of the law, I think. It also depends on the type of crime,” he said.

“It is a problem with the Cambodian legal system. For me, I think if he used a gun, it is what we call physical force.

“If he is shooting, even if it is shooting the legs, it can do very serious damage.”
Rights groups such as Licadho and the Cambodian Legal Education Centre have repeatedly asserted that the case is a clear example of attempted murder because the gunman shot directly into a crowd of about 6,000 protesters who were demanding improved pay conditions.

Last Monday, Hing Bun Chea issued a summons rather than an arrest warrant for Chhouk Bandith, saying he was not convinced by the police report, despite the fact the former governor had been identified by Interior Minister Sar Kheng as the sole suspect.
Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, said the failure of the prosecutor again to seek an arrest was more evidence of corruption in the case, which needed to be investigated.

“They [the court] know full well that they are not fulfilling their obligations to the investigations, that the whole thing is a sham and that they’re not trying to investigate because the whole thing is a pre-determined outcome,” he said.

“It’s another stark example of the widespread impunity that is going on in this country. It’s a sad state of affairs for the justice system.”

A group of 32 rights groups and unions, including CCHR, issued a statement yesterday calling on the government to ensure that Chhouk Bandith’s arrest become a top priority.
“Many Cambodian garment workers already live a life of hardship, suffering, poverty and uncertainty. As such, the workers should receive protection and support from the State, not face further victimisation through brutal acts of violence,” the statement said.
PUMA, which sources shoes from the Kaoway Sports Ltd factory, has launched its own investigation into the case.

In a statement yesterday, PUMA again urged the Cambodian government to ensure a fair, impartial investigation was conducted, saying its primary concern was the security and safety of the workers.

29 December 2011 by Vong Sokheng, the PPPost

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party was violating the human rights of Cambodia’s citizens and acting like the murderous Pol Pot regime, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday.

Prime Minister Hun Sen speaks yesterday in Phnom Penh photo by Pha Lina

Hun Sen, leader of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, told more than 3,000 students at a graduation ceremony he presided over that the SRP was forcing all its members to swear they would vote for the SRP and to hand over their mobile phones the night before commune elections in June next year.

“These issues are a serious violation of universal human rights, and it looks like detaining people in the same way they did during the Pol Pot regime,” the premier said.

The SRP suspected that some of its members in commune councils across the Kingdom and members of the National Assembly would not vote in favour of the lead opposition party, Hun Sen said. 

“I want to send a message to human-rights NGOs to pay attention to this issue,” the long-serving leader, who rarely requests the engagement of human-rights organisations in Cambodia’s affairs, said.

His condemnation of the SRP and request for human-rights organisations to investigate comes one day after an alliance of 149 associations, unions and NGOs issued a joint statement criticising the SRP’s mobile-phone confiscation order.

The alliance, the Cambodian People Network for Peace, issued a joint statement citing the orders of SRP leader Sam Rainsy to all party members to swear they must vote for his party and that they must all hand in their phones on January 28 as a way to express loyalty.

“The CPNP believes the use of forceful threats and warnings by SRP toward SRP commune council members does not respect democracy or human rights,” the statement reads.

“The actions of [Sam Rainsy] are in full contradiction with the democratic principle that the power belongs to the people, by the people and for the people.”

The threat by Sam Rainsy to confiscate mobile phones was an “act of treason” that compromised the will of the people, who were the “owners of their votes”, the alliance said.

Sam Rainsy is now in exile in France to escape what he views as an unjust and politically motivated prison sentence for encouraging villagers to uproot border posts on the Cambodia-Vietnam border in Svay Rieng.

SRP spokesman Yim Sovann said yesterday that the call to the party’s members to swear loyalty in the commune council elections was strictly voluntary.

“We are all willing to swear and there is no intimidation,” Yim Sovann said. “We do so to express loyalty to the president of the SRP.”

In regards to the call for handing over mobile phones the day before the election, Yim Sovann said the motivation for this extreme act was to try to reduce the impact of threats and intimidation by the CPP.

“We are experienced in recording the conversations from CPP members threatening, intimidating and offering to buy votes from SRP members on election day,” he said. “We have filed a complaint to the [National Election Commission], but it has never been fairly ruled on.

“In this circumstance, the NEC has become a tool of the CPP, and so we must find a way ourselves to stop the intimidation, threats and vote buying,” the spokesman said.

NEC Secretary General Tep Nytha said that intimidation, threats and vote buying as well as any other activities jeopardizing voters are against the law.

“Individual voters must cast their vote by their own volition,” he said. “If the NEC found there was such vote buying and intimidation by a political party’s candidate, that candidate would be removed and fined between 2 and 50 million riel.”

PHNOM PENH, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) — More than 1,500 Cambodian workers in garment and shoe factories have fainted within this year due mainly to overwork, poor health, exposure to chemical substances, and hysteria, said a senior government official on Friday. “Fainting incidents started occurring often and repeatedly this year,” Say Siphonn, secretary of state for the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, said in a meeting on findings the fact of the mass fainting in garment and shoe factories.

“More than 1,500 workers in a dozen of garment and footwear factories had fainted so far this year,” he said.”Mass fainting incident is case that can affect our garment industry which is the country’s largest income earner.”

The causes of incidents included more hours of over-time working, chemical substances in cloths, smell of insecticides, heat, bad working environment, workers’ malnutrition, and panic, he added.

The meeting, organized by the International Labor Organization (ILO), was attended by stakeholders from the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), buyers’ representatives, unions, and non- governmental organizations.

“It is an important meeting to discuss and find ways to prevent such incidents in the future,” said Siphonn.

The latest mass fainting happened on Dec. 8 at Sportex Industry factory in Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district. Some 59 garment workers fell ill after a fire alarm went off and sent workers in to a frenzy of mass hysteria.

Garment industry represented more than 90 percent of Cambodia’ s total exports. By August this year, the country has 291 garment and textile factories with 324,800 workers, and 39 foot-wear factories with 63,600 employees, according to the reports of the Ministry of Commerce.

This combination of three photos released by Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts

By Sopheng Cheang,AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The Khmer Rouge carried out its policies for the sake of the Cambodian people and to protect the country from invaders, the notorious regime’s second-highest leader said Tuesday at a tribunal considering charges of crimes against humanity against three top leaders.

Nuon Chea told the U.N.-backed tribunal it was failing to consider the complete story behind the Khmer Rouge, who are accused of being responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people when they held power in 1975-79.

He blamed neighboring Vietnam for much of the trouble that befell his country — the same belief held by the Khmer Rouge three decades ago, as its experiment in utopian socialism fell apart.

Nuon Chea, chief ideologist for the communist movement and its No. 2 behind Pol Pot, and two former comrades — 80-year-old Khieu Samphan, the ex-head of state; and 86-year-old Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister — all avow their innocence.

The charges against these surviving members of the once-mighty inner circle of the communist movement include crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture.

The prosecution earlier Tuesday told the court Pol Pot’s close confederates cannot blame their late leader alone for the atrocities that took place. Pol Pot died in 1998 in the jungle while a prisoner of his own comrades.

Prosecutor Andrew Cayley said that like Pol Pot, the three aging former members of the regime now on trial exercised life-and-death authority over Cambodia while in power in 1975-79.

“The accused cannot credibly claim they did not know and had no control over the crimes that occurred” when the group ruled what they called Democratic Kampuchea, he said.

In opening statements delivered Monday and early Tuesday, the prosecutors described a litany of horrors, recalling how the Khmer Rouge sought to crush not just all its enemies, but seemingly the human spirit.

Most of the population were forced to work on giant rural communes and deprived of any sort of private life. Forced marriages took the place of love, and dissenters were dispatched to the so-called ‘killing fields.’

Nuon Chea, who spoke in time alloted for defense rebuttals of the prosectors’ statements, did little to directly address the allegations of atrocities.

He instead gave a political history of the Khmer Rouge and Cambodia, insisting that his role was always a patriotic one.

“I had to leave my family behind to liberate my motherland from colonialism and aggression and oppression by the thieves who wish to steal our land and whip Cambodia off the face of the earth,” he said.

He accused Vietnam of repeatedly seeking to occupy Cambodia, a charge familiar from when the fraternal socialist neighbors first fell out in the 1970s.