Charges in strike violence surface

Protesters gather at a burning improvised roadblock on Veng Sreng Boulevard in Phnom Penh during clashes with police that turned deadly in January.

A union leader has been charged with causing violence and destroying property during a garment strike that ended in security forces shooting dead at least five people on January 3, a court summons obtained yesterday shows.

Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW), must appear in Phnom Penh Municipal Court for questioning on September 12 over the strike on the capital’s Veng Sreng Boulevard, the summons says.

“I, Chea Sokheang, an investigating judge … charge Pav Sina with intentional violence in aggravating circumstances, intentional damage and threats to damage and make an obstacle to traffic in front of the Canadia Industrial Park … between December 25, 2013, and January 3, 2014,” it reads.

Sina, who faces arrest if he does not attend the hearing, denied the charges and said court officials had told him that leaders of five other unions involved in the December and January minimum wage strikes would also be summonsed.

One of them, Ath Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (C.CAWDU), said he had not yet received a summons but expected to.

“I saw a complaint when I went to the court last week,” Thorn said. “I saw the summons; [an official] showed it to me.”

Thorn alleged that the Garment Manufacturers’ Association in Cambodia was behind the complaint.

“GMAC are representing more than 170 [factories],” he said.

In February, the Post reported that 170 factories had sought GMAC’s help to file lawsuits against a number of major independent or opposition-aligned unions.

Reached yesterday, GMAC Secretary-General Ken Loo said he didn’t know if the summons was related to GMAC’s complaint, but said the factories association “absolutely” wanted an outcome.

“I was called to the investigation last week,” he said. “We are asking the court to rule as to who should be responsible for the losses, who should be responsible for the violent demonstrations.”

Sokheang, the investigating judge, declined to comment, while prosecutors in the case could not be reached.

Sina said that neither he nor his members had attended the Veng Sreng strikes. The charges against him, he added, showed “the government’s intentions to frighten us as we continue our demands for a higher minimum wage”.

The charges follow recent minimum-wage talks involving major garment unions and come despite no results in a government investigation into the deadly violence of January 3 being made public.

“I’m disappointed with the authorities that they didn’t find the perpetrators who shot workers, but have instead turned their interests to the activities of those protecting the workers’ livelihoods,” Sina said.

When asked about the results of the government investigation, Khieu Sopheak, Ministry of Interior spokesman, said no further information would be released.

“We have already investigated, and it has already been approved,” he said.

Labour rights groups yesterday said they were shocked at the timing of the charges against Sina.

“It’s amazing. I can only assume there’s been a miscommunication [in the judicial system],” said Dave Welsh, country manager for Solidarity Center. “If this is the direction [the government] is taking, it’s the worst possible thing they can do. We seemed to have moved past this.”

Moeun Tola, head of the labour program at the Community Legal Education Center, said he believed the timing was “intentional”.

“The court is being used again as the minimum wage deadline nears.”

After demanding $160 per month during last year’s strikes, unions are this year asking for $177. The government’s Labour Advisory Council will rule on the increase in October, to be applied in January.

“If the LAC meeting does not satisfy [unions], then they will strike more,” Tola said.

Source: www.phnompenhpost.com

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General in Interpol’s sights

A policeman enters a house during a search of the premises yesterday in Phnom Penh in connection to a double murder involving a military general.

A military general and adviser to Deputy Prime Minister Ke Kim Yan who is wanted on suspicion of the double murder of his mistress and their daughter has been added to Interpol’s “Wanted Persons” list.

Major General Kim Marintha, 57, is suspected of carrying out the premeditated murder of his mistress, Va Dary, 27, and their 6-year-old daughter, Kem Thavichda, on February 15.

The badly decomposed bodies of Dary and Thavichda were found on March 20, dumped in scrub land near Pech Nil in Kampong Speu province.

Both Marintha and his son, Kim Seng Rithy, 30, now appear on the red list of wanted persons on the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, website.

According to the website, Marintha is charged with “voluntary murder”, while his son is accused of hiding the bodies and using illegal weapons.

Last month, Marintha’s son-in-law Chea Samnang, 34, was arrested in Preah Sihanouk province and officially charged by the municipal court prosecutor with being an “accomplice to an intentional murder”.

A joint task force has been investigating the case since mid-March and, in the latest chapter of its investigation, yesterday raided the home of Marintha’s ex-wife, Eang Kanet.

When Kanet arrived at her home in Phnom Penh yesterday afternoon, she led police who were stationed outside into the property but stressed that she and Marintha were divorced and claimed that she had not seen him for “a long time”.

After a lengthy examination of the scene, police re-emerged but had uncovered no new evidence. But one police official who asked not to be named told the Post that police believed that Marintha had been a regular guest at the property.

Following the inspection, Kanet refused to speak to reporters. “I’m not related to the crime,” she said.

Yesterday’s action followed a police raid last month of GST Express Bus Company, one of several businesses’s owned by Marintha, where investigators believe the murders took place.

James McCabe, director of operations at the Child Protection Unit, said yesterday that his team was continuing “to provide coordination and support to the ongoing investigation”.

Source: www.phnompenhpost.com

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‘Death hole’ if Hun Sen stays

Former prime minister and current opposition lawmaker Pen Sovann speaks to the media at the National Assembly yesterday, after the launch of a campaign to limit prime ministers to two terms in office.

Civil society groups had called on three former prime ministers to back their push for term limits to be added to the constitution, but only one, a bitter rival of Prime Minister Hun Sen, joined them yesterday at the National Assembly to launch the campaign.

Pen Sovann, who served briefly as Cambodia’s first prime minister following the toppling of the Khmer Rouge before being purged and jailed in Hanoi, currently sits in the National Assembly with the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party.

He said the lack of term limits had allowed Hun Sen to become a dictator.

“Our Khmer natural resources are now exhausted, because he is a dictator and did not ask for the opinions of lower-level officials. If he remains in office, our Khmer country will fall into a death hole,” he said.

The push to impose a two-term, or 10-year, limit on prime ministers has been spearheaded by election watchdog Comfrel, which said yesterday that it had collected petitions from more than 1,000 civil society representatives and politicians supporting the endeavour.

“This is just the first step. We will deliver these petitions to the National Assembly presidents, deputy presidents and Samdech Prime Minister. And especially we will send them to all 123 lawmakers so all of them know … that people support this,” Comfrel executive director Koul Panha said.

He added that the campaign’s aim was to persuade lawmakers to support term limits before constitutional amendments are made in October for a new National Election Committee.

The group had also invited former prime ministers Ung Huot and Prince Norodom Ranariddh, but neither attended.

Ranariddh said yesterday that while he supported term limits, he was not optimistic that the initiative would obtain the required two-thirds parliamentary approval. “In principle, I support this,” he said.

Ranariddh confirmed he would not attend another press conference on September 9 because the decision to impose term limits would be up to the political parties.

Huot could not be reached yesterday, but according to Comfrel, he will attend next week’s event.

Source: www.phnompenhpost.com

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Charity begins elsewhere

An audience watches statements being delivered at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in Phnom Penh during Case 002 in 2011. Thailand and Malaysia are the only two ASEAN nations that have contributed to funding the ECCC. ECCC

As the Khmer Rouge tribunal was mired in budget woes in August last year – five months after unpaid national staff walked out on the job and weeks before they would do so again – David Scheffer, the UN’s chief court fundraiser, travelled to four ASEAN countries in search of money.

Visiting some of the bloc’s wealthiest member states – Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore – Scheffer aimed to drum up long-awaited funding for the beleaguered UN-backed court, its national side in particular, from regional donors.

“My best judgement is that these ASEAN governments are considering financial support for the ECCC [the tribunal’s formal acronym], but the timing of that support remains uncertain,” a hopeful Scheffer told the Post after the trip – not his first attempt to raise funds in the region – on which he was accompanied by government officials.

It is still uncertain. A year later, only Malaysia has stepped up to the plate. Its $50,000 contribution to the national side in July brought total ASEAN contributions to the court since its inception to just $74,331. (Thailand contributed the rest back in 2006.) To put it in perspective, the court has spent more than $216 million since 2006.

By way of comparison, Luxembourg, a tiny country in Europe, has contributed more. And it’s not alone.

Other states that have individually beat out the combined donations of Cambodia’s nine ASEAN partners include Japan, Australia, the US, the UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the European Union, South Korea, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Spain, New Zealand, India, Austria, Ireland and Belgium.

Though the Cambodian government is responsible for funding the national side, it has often relied on intervention from foreign donors to avert financial shortfalls and ensure staffers are paid.

Traditional donors Sweden and Norway have stepped in on the government’s behalf this year to cover second- and third-quarter salaries for Cambodian employees.

While many ASEAN states are still developing countries – with notable exceptions, such as Singapore – even symbolic contributions from them have been sorely lacking, said Youk Chhang, director at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which researches Khmer Rouge history. By largely failing to support the court after many years, he added, ASEAN states have lent credence to the notion that they still see human rights as a Western concept and that the supposed unity of the region extends little beyond the economic sphere.

“People all over the world feel responsible. They feel an obligation to do this, and that’s what we want to see. And these are Cambodia’s neighbours.… [They are] so insincere.”

Chhang says he has lobbied officials from ASEAN countries for years, but they have “ignored” calls for help, citing the bloc’s nonintervention principles, despite many appeals also having been made directly by the government.

“This is not about Cambodia, it’s about global issues. ASEAN cannot say we cannot interfere with Cambodia’s internal issues.… No, genocide, crimes against humanity are global issues.… So any means – I’m not demanding money – but any means ASEAN can contribute would show political responsibility to prevent genocide.”

But in a region where human rights are often protected on paper but not in practice, and where many leaders have chequered histories, ASEAN governments have misgivings about supporting this kind of judicial process, analysts say.

“Some ASEAN governments are wary of endorsing a UN-backed human rights process in their neigbourhood – a precedent that could come back to haunt them,” said John D Ciorciari, a Cambodia observer at the Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and co-author of Hybrid Justice, a recent book on the tribunal. “Some also have their own histories of engagement with Cambodia.”

After the fall of Democratic Kampuchea in 1979 and the installation of a Vietnamese-backed government, Singapore and Thailand backed resistance forces that included the Khmer Rouge on the Thai-Cambodia border. Thailand also allowed ex-DK leaders to use its soil as a safe haven until the late 1990s.

However, Cambodians have no desire to take “a revenge position”, Chhang said. Scheffer, whose official title is UN Secretary General’s Special Expert on United Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials, said last month that he continues to lobby ASEAN diplomats together with Cambodian government officials.

“We knew from the beginning that it will take time to orient ASEAN governments to the work of the ECCC,” he said in an email.

“The Cambodian Government had demonstrated a keen interest in obtaining ASEAN financial support for the Court, for which we at the United Nations are grateful. Our joint efforts are beginning to produce results, with the all important contribution from Malaysia. I remain hopeful that some other ASEAN governments will follow suit as soon as possible, and efforts with these governments continue.”

But while Scheffer said last year that ASEAN funding was critical to the future of the tribunal, he expressed confidence that the donor base was continuing to expand in other regions, such as the Arab world.

“So while ASEAN governments remain very important targets for contributing to the national budget of the Court, other governments are also part of the donor base.”

But according to Ciorciari, donating provides “a relatively easy opportunity for ASEAN to boost the credibility of its own expressed commitment to human rights”.

“The court has many problems, but an ASEAN member is nonetheless asking for help to deal with some of the most heinous crimes in Southeast Asian history,” he said.

Diplomatic representatives of Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Thailand did not respond to requests for comment. The Myanmar and Laos embassies could not be reached, while a Vietnamese Embassy spokesman declined to comment.

The Indonesian Embassy’s first secretary Muhsinin Dolisada said Indonesia was still “considering” whether it would donate to the tribunal, and said that since Scheffer visited Jakarta last year, his country has been preoccupied with elections, which took place in April and July.

“Whether [his request] is rejected or accepted, we have not reached any decision yet,” Dolisada said.

The tribunal’s national side continues to seek financial support from outside donors, including ASEAN countries, to make up a budget shortfall, according to Ek Tha, deputy director of the press department at the Council of Ministers.

Chhang believes ASEAN states still have time to “rethink” how they see the court. “ASEAN has a great opportunity; the door is still open and they should not miss it.… There is a role for ASEAN that they have not yet fulfilled.”

Source: www.phnompenhpost.com

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More Vietnamese Arrested as Foreigner Census Continues

Police in Ratanakkiri province said they arrested at least three Vietnamese nationals Tuesday morning illegally living in Cambodia, days after six others were deported as a result of the Interior Ministry’s ongoing census of foreigners.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said that the census, which officials have said will be more extensive and wider-reaching than those done before, will soon turn its focus to non-Vietnamese foreigners.

The ministry created a general department of immigration in January and placed then-National Police Deputy Commissioner Sok Phal at the helm. It has since promised to better implement existing immigration laws.

In Ratanakkiri, the province’s deputy police chief, Chea Bunthoeun, said authorities had found only 190 ethnic Vietnamese families living in the province over the past two weeks, compared to about 300 during the last census in 2012.

Six illegal immigrants were sent home on August 29, he said, and a few more were detained Tuesday.

“We found three to four more Vietnamese, who only came to live here illegally about half a month to a month ago, after we deported the six Vietnamese people back to Vietnam,” said Mr. Bunthoeun. “Now our police experts are questioning them.”

Mr. Bunthoeun said the census had found that most foreigners in the province are ethnic Vietnamese but also that Indians and Americans make up a large portion of the foreign population.

“About 70 to 80 percent are Vietnamese people; there are about 600 Vietnamese living in Ratanakkiri province,” he said.

General Sopheak of the Interior Ministry said the census, which last week also saw official immigration certificates handed out to more than 100 undocumented Vietnamese residents in Kandal province, would soon expand to other, non-Vietnamese foreigners.

“You will be later in Phnom Penh,” Gen. Sopheak told a foreign reporter by telephone. “Only the Vietnamese now, but then [other] foreigners. There is lots of land in the country to cover…. It will be your time, don’t worry.”

The spokesman said the census collectors were tasked with collecting a wide array of information about foreigners.

“All of the data related to people: their names, date of birth, place of birth, parents’ names, their CVs, where did they come from, by which means—all the information,” he said.

Phnom Penh immigration police chief Mom Sitha said that authorities were preparing to carry out the census in the city and could begin collecting data as early as next week.

The census has also gotten underway in Pursat province, where a large portion of Cambodia’s ethnic Vietnamese population lives in villages on the Tonle Sap lake.

Provincial deputy police chief Ban Heng said the census had so far not expanded beyond Pursat City and the districts of Bakan and Kandieng along the lake.

“I cannot tell you the results of the census yet because we have not totaled them,” he said. “There have been no problems with doing the census, it is all going [normally].”

Kompong Chhnang provincial police chief Prak Vuthy declined to say whether the census had begun in his province, which also has a large number of ethnic Vietnamese living along the Tonle Sap.

Kandal provincial deputy police chief Top Sovann said the census had not yet begun in his jurisdiction, though 100 residency certificates were handed out last week.

Mr. Sovann said those papers, valid for two years, were given to ethnic Vietnamese identified during the 2012 census.

General Phal, the director-general of the immigration department, said he was out of the country but would provide more details about how the census was being conducted after he returned later this week.

(Additional reporting by Alex Willemyns)

sovuthy@cambodiadaily.com

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Historic White Building to Be Demolished

Phnom Penh’s iconic White Building has been condemned and must be demolished, municipal Governor Pa Socheatvong said Tuesday.

The Sothearos Boulevard apartment block, which was built under Prince Sihanouk in 1963 and has flourished into a community of artists and civil servants, is no longer safe for residents, Mr. Socheatvong said, meaning that some 600 families will need to find new homes.

The White Building on Sothearos Boulevard in Phnom Penh has been slated for demolition by City Hall. (Siv Channa/The Cambodia Daily)

“The most important thing is that the building is condemned,” the governor said. “How can we not knock it down? The time has come for us to knock it down.”

Mr. Socheatvong gave no timeline for the demolition but said the safety of the residents was already in jeopardy due to the state of the building.

City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche said the building, which has 468 apartments and stretches across two villages in Tonle Bassac commune, is structurally unsound. He said inspectors from the municipal department of land management and urban planning had carried out an inspection of the building and judged that it was no longer safe to live in.

“City Hall has informed the people that their homes are corrupted and that they are in danger,” Mr. Dimanche said, before referring further questions to the municipal building inspectors.

Chea Srun, director of the municipal department that conducted the inspection of the building, could not be reached. Mr. Srun’s deputy, Sok Cheng, declined to comment.

Last week, residents and social workers inside the building said that 7NG, the development company that owns 3.9 hectares of adjacent land, was buying up apartments one at a time.

Contacted Tuesday, 7NG director Srey Chanthou said his company was “not interested in buying the White Building or the land” on which it stands.

However, Mr. Socheatvong said that another development giant, the Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation (OCIC), parent company of Canadia Bank and builder of Koh Pich island, would be part of the relocation process.

The governor explained that he was negotiating to move White Building residents to Chroy Changva district, where OCIC is building an apartment block and market that evictees from other Phnom Penh development sites have already agreed to move to.

“I am working on this,” he said. “We don’t know whether [OCIC] will build homes in exchange for this building or not. There is no positive response yet.”

“Let’s wait for us to talk with the people and reach an agreement,” he said.

Touch Samnang, project manager for OCIC, said that his company would assist City Hall in the relocation of the White Building’s residents.

He said his company had advised the municipality that it would consider a deal in which apartments it built in Chroy Changva would be provided to the White Building’s evictees.

“We built it to sell, but when we heard that City Hall was worried about the White Building, we made the suggestion,” Mr. Samnang said.

At the White Building on Tuesday, some residents said they had not heard of the municipality’s plan to demolish their homes. They also said they had no intention of being bullied out of their community by City Hall or any private company.

“We will never go down and move out because most residents are civil servants,” said Leap Kanitha, 44.

The former actress, a building resident since 1981, said she had not seen or heard of any visit from inspectors. As far as she was concerned, the structure was safe and sound.

“It remains firm,” she said. “If you take a hammer and hit the building, you will see sparks fly.”

reaksmey@cambodiadaily.com, blomberg@cambodiadaily.com

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Court Questions 7 Vietnamese Suspects in Unprovoked Attack

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday questioned seven Vietnamese men arrested Sunday evening in Chbar Ampov district for allegedly attacking a 19-year-old man, officials said.

The attack, which left the victim in need of more than 30 stitches, occurred during an altercation between the Vietnamese men and a group of Khmer youths who were playing football in Prek Pra commune.

On Monday morning, more than 100 people protested outside the district police station after the victim, Keo Sotheara, who police originally said was 16, was detained overnight. He was released later that day.

District penal police chief Mey Chakriya said the seven suspects were sent to the court Tuesday morning but added that police had not determined whether they were Vietnamese nationals.

“I think they might have been born in Cambodia or have lived here for a long time because most of them speak Khmer, but they don’t have any documents because they always move from place to place for work,” Mr. Chakriya said, adding that police had not been in contact with the Vietnamese Embassy.

Deputy municipal court prosecutor Va Sakada said she questioned the men and sent the case on to the investigating judge.

“The case is still in the process of investigation and must remain secret,” she said.

Ny Chakriya, senior investigator for local rights group Adhoc, said the organization was providing legal representation for the victim at the request of his family.

“We have filed the documents and this morning provided a lawyer for the victim,” he said.

Kong Sophy, 44, said she filed a complaint on behalf of her son because she was worried about his health.

“My son is weak. He is vomiting and dizzy and cannot stand up properly, so I want the court to put these men in jail and provide me with compensation,” she said.

Mr. Sotheara said he had been playing football with friends when the suspects attacked them unprovoked.

“I am afraid to sleep, in case this happens again. I want these Vietnamese men punished according to the law,” he said.

sony@cambodiadaily.com

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ECCC Struggles to Dispose of ‘Extra’ Charges Against Leaders

After Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, the two most senior surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime, were convicted of crimes against humanity last month, largely for their roles in forced evacuations, attention turned to the next phase of their trial, which will deal with a more representative selection of crimes.

But judges and lawyers at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) are also trying to deal with a vexing legal question that has gone largely overlooked: What can and should be done about the “extra” charges that aren’t included in either of the two phases?

The case against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan has been divided into smaller portions in an effort to speed up the trial process. The second trial phase, known as Case 002/02, will begin later this year, covering crimes including genocide, forced labor and political purges.

But a number of additional criminal accusations and crime sites will almost certainly remain unadjudicated. These include some nine execution sites and security centers, the Prey Sar forced-labor worksite, crimes against humanity committed during incursions into Vietnam, and forced evacuations from the Eastern Zone of Democratic Kampuchea.

The tribunal’s Supreme Court Chamber has repeatedly instructed the Trial Chamber to create a coherent plan for how to deal with these charges, but trial judges have appeared to dawdle in making any decision on the issue.

“[T]he status of the remaining charges remains unclear due to the Trial Chamber’s repeated indecision regarding charges remaining outside the scope of a severed trial not currently underway,” the Supreme Court Chamber said in a ruling issued in late July.

The ruling admonished the Trial Chamber for “provid[ing] no plan whatsoever to deal with the charges remaining outside the scope of Case 002/02.”

The most obvious way to deal with extra charges that are unlikely to be aired in court is simply to drop them. There is no provision in the court’s Internal Rules for this, but six months ago, ECCC prosecutors proposed a rule change that would allow judges to withdraw criminal accusations from a case.

Although prosecutors asked for the issue to be dealt with as soon as possible, judges on the court’s Rules and Procedure Committee (RPC) have still not made a decision on whether to recommend the change, nor has a plenary session of judges been called. Such a session—which is the only way court rules can be amended—has not been held since September 2010.

Lars Olsen, a spokesman for the court, said the RPC would soon finish its deliberation on the rule change.

“If the RPC recommends a rule amendment, a plenary will be scheduled,” he said.

Other ways to deal with the extra charges would be to convene a second panel of trial judges to hear them, or for the Trial Chamber to simply exercise its own authority to withdraw the charges, based on precedent in international jurisprudence. In its July decision, the Supreme Court Chamber said any of these routes would be acceptable, but noted that the Trial Chamber has an obligation to “bring closure” to the case as soon as possible.

Anne Heindel, a lawyer and the co-author of a recent book about the ECCC, “Hybrid Justice,” said the Trial Chamber was shirking its responsibility to deal with the issue in a timely fashion.

Ms. Heindel noted there was international precedent for withdrawing charges, and that the Supreme Court Chamber had authorized the Trial Chamber to draw on this precedent.

“The Trial Chamber keeps refusing to make this decision…It’s a total deferral or disregard of their responsibility,” she said.

“The accused have a fair-trial right to know which of the charges they will be required to confront, and the civil parties have a right to know if their harms will ever be addressed.”

wallace@cambodiadaily.com

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Vietnamese carriers test routes over Cambodia

Two Vietnamese airlines have reportedly commenced flight simulations of routes over Cambodian airspace in an effort to cut travel time between that country’s two major cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh.

Vietnamese media reported yesterday that both Vietnam Airlines and VietJet Air had on Friday commenced flight simulations of the new paths, dubbed the “golden air route”, with Boeing 777, Airbus A321 and A320 simulators.

The two carriers have until Wednesday to conduct the simulations over the south of Laos and the northwestern corner of Cambodia, before aviation authorities in all three countries decide whether to allow the new route, according to Vietnamese news site tuoitrenews.vn.

Chhun Sivorn, director of air navigation at the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation in Cambodia (SSCA), said the airlines’ proposal to fly across Cambodian airspace was warranted.

“The Vietnam Civil Aviation Authority requested us to facilitate Vietnamese airlines to fly their domestic flights. Currently, those airlines fly over their own territory rather than through Laos and Cambodia, and it takes a very long time,” Sivorn said.

In July, Vietnamese Transport Minister Dinh La Thang called on both the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam and Cambodia’s SSCA to discuss allowing the new flight routes.

According to the minister, the Vietnamese airlines stand to save $300 million in fuel per year if the SSCA and the Lao government agree to the new routes.

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Cambodia crackdown on corruption in schools scores low with exam cheats Education ministry cleans up system in which students have routinely bribed teachers to help them pass tests for university

Proctors frisk students before a graduation exam in Phnom Penh. Cambodia’s clampdown on bribery and corruption in its education system has dismayed some pupils. Photograph: Sovannara/Xinhua

When Tep Seila’s older brother sat his all-important grade 12 exams, he was able to use “cheat sheets” to help him pass after paying the school heads a few dollars per subject.

But Seila, a 21-year-old from a poor family of rice farmers with an NGO scholarship to study in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, could not do the same when he sat the tests last month.

“I think if I could have cheated I could have passed,” he said on Friday, minutes after learning that he had failed to obtain his high school diploma. “But this year was so strict and I couldn’t get the answer sheet.”

Seila is angry that he wasn’t allowed the cheating privileges long enjoyed by Cambodian students at these exams, a pass mark from which is required for university entrance. He’s not alone.

The results of a government blitz on cheating and corruption at this year’s grade 12 exams have just been revealed. Only 26% of students passed, compared with 87% last year, and only 11 students out of the almost 90,000 who sat the exams obtained the top A grade.

For the first time in recent history, all the students who passed did so purely on merit, according to the education ministry.

In past years, students were able to bring mobile phones and cheat sheets into the exam rooms. Teachers would leak test papers for a fee, students would pool money to get proctors to turn a blind eye to their cheating, and parents would even throw rocks wrapped with answer sheets through the windows of testing centres.

This year was different. Copies of the exam were kept under lock and key, military police were deployed at testing sites, students were patted down no fewer than three times as they entered exam halls, and crucially, thousands of volunteers were hired by the government anti-corruption unit as independent monitors.

“It was totally different compared to all the previous high school exams, particularly at grade 12,” says Preap Kol, executive director atTransparency International Cambodia.

Kol, whose organisation ranks Cambodia 160th out of 177 countries in itscorruption perceptions index, says corruption is “systematic” in the education system. This means that from an early age, students learn in an environment where paying bribes is not only normal, but expected.

“If you look at state primary schools, when students enter, they will experience being asked by the teacher to give some money, either in the form of buying lessons or as ‘thank you’ [payments],” Kol says. “Every month the teacher sends a grade book to parents and when you return to school teachers will expect some money in this.”

Many teachers also collect small amounts of money from pupils every day, and will often only partially teach the syllabus in order to hold extra classes for more fees.

A 2007 study by NGO Education Partnership (pdf) found that Cambodian parents were spending an average of $108 (£82) a year in informal fees to send one child to a state primary or secondary school, equal to 8.6% of average family income. But teachers, who are paid paltry salaries, say they have no choice.

Chhun Heng*, a 36-year-old philosophy teacher, has been teaching since 2003, earning $150 a month. Petrol and food alone cost him and his wife about $10 a day, he says. So like most teachers, Heng does other jobs to make ends meet.

“How can I live on $150 a month? If you divide my salary by 30? In the morning, I spend 10,000 riel ($2.50) on coffee and noodles alone. So how about parties? Or food? Or doctor’s visits? Or toothpaste? Or haircuts?”

Heng says he feels ashamed that he takes bribes from students, but gets defensive when the ethics of the practice are questioned. “They want to kill teachers for corruption but why don’t they target corruption in their own office first?” he says of high-ranking government officials.

While Cambodian education ministers have tried to clean up national exams before, only to see them soon become mired in corruption again, the recently appointed minister, Hang Chuon Naron, appears determined to make permanent changes.

“The result of the exam allows us to fix our education system, [because] we can see the strengths and the weaknesses [clearly],” he says. “[The reforms] are necessary because we cannot allow this to continue, otherwise we will produce massive [numbers] of graduates who will not be able to find jobs.”

But the three-quarters of students who failed this year have been given a second chance. The prime minister has announced a retest on 13 October. However, some students are pessimistic about their chances of passing under the same tough conditions, even with more time to prepare.

With tears rolling down her cheeks after realising she had failed, an 18-year-old who gave her name only as Chhorn bemoaned the changes. “I’m angry at the reforms. It was too fast and we could not focus on studying,” she said, sobbing.

“Last year, my sister could cheat. She passed and now she’s at university. But I don’t know if I can go to university in October. I don’t know if I can pass.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

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Talks with Cambodia renew hope for deal on overlapping claims area in gulf, electricity cooperation on the cards

The Energy Ministry will hold discussions with Cambodia about cooperation in electricity and the overlapping petroleum-claims area in the Gulf of Thailand during the current official visit to Phnom Penh by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tanasak Patimapragorn.

Kurujit Nakornthap, director-general of the Mineral Fuels Department of the Energy Ministry, who is part of the Thai delegation, said the department hoped that after this visit, the Foreign Affairs Ministry would appoint a committee to

resume negotiations with Cambodia on the overlapping claims area for the mutual benefit of the two nations as soon as possible. This is because it will take no less than 10 years to produce petroleum from the area once a deal is signed.

The area is believed to have potential given its proximity to the existing petroleum exploration and production fields in the gulf, he said.

"This visit is regarded as opening a new era for restarting the talks about the overlapping claims area, which have been delayed for a long time," said the official. 

If a deal is reached, the Thailand-Cambodia overlapping claims area is likely to contribute significantly to Thailand's petroleum reserves, which are estimated to last for only another seven years, he said.

Meanwhile, regarding the government's order for petroleum concessionaires to cease crude-oil exports, which total 20,000 barrels per day, Kurujit said his department actually sent the request to petroleum producers three or four months ago, and there were no crude-oil exports last month. Chevron Exploration and Production Thailand, which is a major crude-oil producer, agreed to cooperate until there is a change in the government's order, he said.

A source from the Ministry of Energy said the negotiations with Cambodia on the overlapping claims area that covers 26,000 square kilometres would follow the guidelines of a memorandum of understanding signed in 2010 to divide negotiations into two parts. The upper area will be taken care of by military, security, and Foreign Ministry officials and the lower part will be negotiated under the Joint Development Area concept that was used successfully between Thailand and Malaysia in the past.

The prospects are to help Thailand increase its natural-gas reserves by 30 per cent and extend the production in the Gulf of Thailand by about 10 years. 

Cambodia recently awarded a concession to Total of France to explore for petroleum in the overlapping claims area.Source: www.nationmultimedia.com

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