BAR SUPPORTS BLM AFTER US POLICE SHOOTINGS

Tini Cafe and Bar held a fundraiser this weekend after three African-American men were shot and killed by police officers last week.
 

The shootings of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and Delrawn Smalls, during the week the United States celebrates its Independence Day, prompted widespread protests across the US and a renewed call for better, less lethal, police practices.
 

Tini co-owner Daniel Mattes said any money the bar made from 8am on Saturday morning to 11pm on Sunday will be matched by the bar’s owners and distributed to two organizations supporting the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which has taken the lead in protests against police brutality over the past three years.
 

The bar made $500 from the fundraiser and $140 in donations. Mr. Mattes said all of the money will go to the official Black Lives Matter organization and Campaign Zero, a more-policy oriented group working alongside other protest groups.
 

“The idea came to me after seeing the videos of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile’s murders. After the Philando Castile murder, I was so disturbed and feeling incapable of doing anything from so far away. Unable even to join my friends at home at protests in the street or something,” the 26-year-old San Francisco native said.  
 

“I thought okay, at the very least I’ll donate to BLM and to Deray McKesson’s organization Campaign Zero, but then I thought, wait, maybe I could use Tini as a vehicle to fundraise more and also give others the chance to participate and join as well.”
 

He added that black rights and liberation movements have a longstanding history of expanding their efforts beyond US borders, citing the ceaseless efforts of Martin Luther King Jr., Shirley Chisholm and James Baldwin to speak out against America’s bombing of Vietnam and Cambodia during the 1960s and 1970s.
 

The fundraiser was also attended by filmmaker Kavich Neang, whose 2013 documentary ‘Where I Go’ focused on skin tone biases in Cambodia. The film, one of the first to discuss the issue, focused on Paticca San, a Cambodian-Cameroonian orphan raised in Phnom Penh.
 

Mr. San’s insights on racial bias as a person of mixed heritage showed the discrimination he faced in Cambodia because of his skin color.
 

Mr. Mattes wanted protesters in the US to know there are people worldwide supporting their efforts, and hoped the bar’s event would give both Cambodians and foreigners an outlet to express themselves and show solidarity.
 

“One of the main political points was [to show] that fighting racism in America can be relevant or poignant here in Cambodia as well,” Mr. Mattes said.
 

Additional reporting by Sotheavy Nou

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/27058/bar-supports-blm-after-us-police-shootings/

ROSEWOOD EXPORTS VIOLATE UN TREATY: ORG

BY JONATHAN GREIG AND PAV SUY

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) released a report this week saying Cambodia is in direct violation of a UN treaty due to the increased logging and export of rosewood.
 

Siamese rosewood, designated an endangered species by the UN due in part to the voracious appetite for it in China, is protected under the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
 

While the CITES Appendix II protection for Siamese rosewood took effect in March 2013, during the first 18 months of its enforcement Cambodia continued to export copious amounts of the wood, with more than 12,000 cubic meters of Siamese rosewood being given legal permits for export from the Kingdom between June 2013 and December 2014.
 

“In one year alone, Laos and Cambodia appear to have harvested and exported a volume equivalent to the largest known population of Siamese rosewood remaining in the world,” the report said.
 

Wood species with CITES designation are not necessarily banned from international trade, but their export must be authorized by a country only if “relevant authorities are satisfied trade will not be detrimental to the survival of the species in the wild and that the timber is legal,” the report added.
 

Prime Minister Hun Sen doubled down on the CITES designation for rosewood, telling neighboring countries in 2013 that the trade and distribution of rosewood had been banned, while imploring them to stop buying rosewood from Cambodia.
 

In January and April in 2014, the EIA specifically asked Cambodia whether it had issued CITES export permits, to which it said it had not. But the CITES database showed that other countries had imported 964 cubic meters of wood from Cambodia at that point. With no legal source of rosewood, it is unclear how legitimate, government-stamped wood could have been exported.
 

The EIA said the CITES permits given to the 964 cubic meters of rosewood were “either incorrectly or illegitimately” handed out.
The exports, despite flouting Mr. Hun Sen’s ban, would have been accepted internationally if Cambodia had done its own survey of the amount of rosewood left in the country and decided the amount did not threaten their existing stock. But no survey has ever been done, and when asked, the spokesman for the Ministry of Environment even questioned why anyone would want to know the size of the country’s rosewood timber stock.
 

“We will never evaluate the amount of rosewood in terms of hectares because everything is mixed in together,” ministry spokesman Sao Sopheap said. Despite the specific requirements laid out in the CITES designation, Mr. Sopheap continued to ask why it was necessary to know how much rosewood was left in the Kingdom.
 

Mr. Sopheap’s comments fall in line with what the EIA said in their report: “Neither Laos nor Cambodia have credible inventories of remaining populations to justify any exports at all, or likely any evidence of legality, as required under the convention.”
 

EIA Senior Forest Campaigner Jago Wadley said Mr. Sopheap’s response “would appear to confirm our allegations that Cambodia does not have even an indicative inventory of Siamese rosewood stocks, and that it cannot have conducted the legally-required NDF [Non-Detriment Findings], and that it has therefore structurally violated CITES rules when issuing CITES export permits for 12,000 cubic meters of the species.”
 

“The EIA believes that Cambodia has only issued CITES export permits for Siamese rosewood because it is happy to violate, ignore or abuse a UN treaty, and is willing to use that UN treaty to falsely legitimize the illegal timber trade,” Mr. Wadley added. “We believe the CITES export permits should not have been issued, and suspect corruption and a rule of law defect in the country are causal factors.”
 

In terms of the permits that were issued for exported rosewood, Mr. Sopheap told Khmer Times to contact the Ministry of Agriculture, which did not respond to requests for comment.
 

He went on to tout the government’s efforts to create protected areas and set up patrols to combat illegal loggers, ignoring questions about why and how more than 12,000 cubic meters of rosewood were given permits for export.
 

The EIA was harsh in their condemnation of Cambodia’s actions, and said appropriately tough legislation was needed to force Cambodia into compliance.
 

“Laos and Cambodia have systemically disregarded the most basic legal safeguards of UN trade rules for endangered species in ways that seriously undermine the credibility of CITES, while edging Siamese rosewood ever-closer to extinction,” Mr. Wadley said. “CITES intervention is urgently required.”
 

The EIA report calls for an immediate end to any and all rosewood exports until Cambodia can show statistically that any trade of rosewood, much less the massive amount now being conducted, would not be detrimental to the already dwindling stock.
 

“All the indicators betray a governance culture where the rule of law is replaced by forms of state-sponsored crime in key ministries which influence the implementation of UN treaties such as CITES,” Mr. Wadley said, adding that Cambodia had to conduct “Legality Acquisition” tests on each consignment of timber that was exported, and only issue CITES permits after the wood’s legality had been confirmed.
 

As there is no legal source of rosewood in Cambodia, this would currently be impossible, he said.
 

“Cambodia also needs to clamp down on the forms of cronyism and corruption that have resulted in well-connected individuals being given extraordinary access to illegal timber stockpiles in the country, in ways that make it look like a governance black hole.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/26627/rosewood-exports-violate-un-treaty--org/

DUCH DISCUSSES PURGES, INDONESIA

In his last full day of testimony, S-21 detention center chief Kaing Guek Eav continued his contentious time on the witness stand, with the defense for Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan continuing their effort to question his knowledge and memory of the inner workings of the genocidal regime.
 

Anta Guisse, a lawyer for Mr. Samphan, continued her questioning from the day before, asking him about a meeting with Mr. Samphan that directly contradicted statements he previously made of never meeting him. In addition, she asked him about the arrest and execution of other Khmer Rouge leaders.
 

Ms. Guisse confronted Mr. Guek Eav, commonly known as Duch, over his lack of knowledge about the way the Khmer Rouge was run, telling him: “You were far from the center. You did not know how the center or Politburo functioned.”
 

“My previous response was clear,” Mr. Guek Eav said. “If you are a person with a brain you should understand it well.”
 

Victor Koppe, a lawyer for Mr. Chea, then took over, continuing his line of questioning from previous days about potential plots to overthrow the Khmer Rouge.
 

Mr. Koppe spent a significant portion of the day on 10 statements from former combatants from Division 310 describing a plan to take over a radio station and the airport in Phnom Penh.
 

“These statements are just surreal and do not seem to be a concrete plan at all,” he told the court. “I do not believe these statements at all.”
 

Mr. Koppe also asked him about the purges of communists in Indonesia in 1965, with the help of the United States, and whether they had any effect on the Khmer Rouge.
 

“The Khmer Rouge at that time learned about the situation in Indonesia,” he said. “The coup d’état in Indonesia was engaged by the Americans to topple the three organs in Indonesia. I was thinking that the situation may happen in Cambodia.”
 

Attempting to bring much of his questioning over the past few days to a head, Mr. Koppe asked Mr. Guek Eav about his general knowledge of the major crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge and whether they were definitive, party-led stances.
 

Mr. Guek Eav initially said he was unaware of any policy to commit genocide against Cham Muslims, to which Mr. Koppe forcefully responded in his next question.
 

“So you were unaware of any policy to target Vietnamese citizens, unaware of policy to kill Lon Nol soldiers, unaware of policy to exterminate the Cham and unaware of a policy on forced marriages,” Mr. Koppe said to Mr. Guek Eav before receiving tough rebukes from both the court president and members of the prosecution.
 

“There were no documents stating party lines about these issues,” Mr. Guek Eav said in response.
 

Mr. Guek Eav will finish his time on the witness stand on Monday morning.

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/26492/duch-discusses-purges--indonesia/

DUCH, KOPPE TRADE BARBS AT TRIBUNAL

The Khmer Rouge tribunal turned testy yesterday, with Victor Koppe, co-lawyer for Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea, going toe-to-toe with former S-21 chief Kaing Guek Eav throughout his time on the witness stand.
 

Mr. Koppe covered a variety of topics yesterday during Case 002/02 against Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Samphan and Mr. Chea, asking Mr. Guek Eav, also known as Duch, about Vietnamese-backed coup attempts against Pol Pot and the arrest and torture of Khmer Rouge commanders.
 

Since he started questioning last week, Mr. Koppe has traded subtle barbs with Mr. Guek Eav over his penchant for long-winded, off-topic answers, but yesterday, things came to a head.
 

Mr. Koppe, continuing with his underlying effort to disprove Mr. Guek Eav’s testimony by pointing out holes in his memory and inconsistencies in his testimony, attacked the witness on an issue that he has been hinting at this week: that Mr. Guek Eav’s testimony should not be believed precisely because of his consistent claim that he was not involved in some of the more unsavory aspects of the S-21 detention center.
 

After repeated denials and verbose obfuscations on a previous question, Mr. Koppe lost a bit of his cool and openly asked Mr. Guek Eav how he could be trusted to testify about the atrocities committed at S-21 if, as Mr. Guek Eav has said repeatedly, he spent most of his days secluded while reading confessions from prisoners.
 

Mr. Guek Eav did not even know how many men were in his cadre, Mr. Koppe told the court.
 

Mr. Guek Eav shot back a vehement response, telling Mr. Koppe: “The head of S-21 was not a stupid person! The chief of S-21 knew everything.”
 

The back-and-forth continued in the afternoon, with Mr. Koppe verbally sparring with not only Mr. Guek Eav, but Assistant Prosecutor Dale Lysak as well.
 

The court president and others criticized Mr. Koppe for some of the questions posed to Mr. Guek Eav about his own testimony or quotes from unverified sources.
 

Mr. Guek Eav also received his fair share of criticism from Judge Claudia Fenz for his claim that any document not provided to him before his testimony must be “full of inconsistencies.”
 

When asked a series of questions about a list of prisoners at S-21 and whether some had escaped or been released, Mr. Guek Eav angrily complained that the question had not been presented clearly.
 

“Do not confuse people. We are here to find the truth for the court and the Cambodian people,” he said to Mr. Koppe.

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/26380/duch--koppe-trade-barbs-at-tribunal/

DUCH: HUN SEN ABOVE ME IN KR

Former S-21 chief Kaing Guek Eav commented on current Prime Minister Hun Sen’s place in the Khmer Rouge hierarchy during yesterday’s hearing for Case 002/02 involving Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan.
 

Victor Koppe, a co-lawyer for Mr. Chea, ran all of yesterday’s hearing after a week of questions from the prosecution. Mr. Koppe continued to hammer Mr. Guek Eav, also known as Duch, with questions about dates and his memory before eventually moving on to his place in the Khmer Rouge hierarchy.
 

He started the day by questioning Mr. Guek Eav about when exactly control of the S-21 detention center was handed over to Mr. Chea after his superior Son Sen was transferred to a battle front. Mr. Koppe presented a variety of conflicting dates and testimonies about when the handover happened, but Mr. Guek Eav stuck to his guns and repeatedly said that August 15, 1977, was the exact day it happened.
 

Mr. Guek Eav’s rank within the Khmer Rouge then came to the fore, with Mr. Koppe asking specific questions about where he stood within the regime.
 

“I was in charge of an independent regiment. I was not a high level cadre,” he said. Mr. Guek Eav then compared himself to Mr. Hun Sen, claiming that the current premier had much more power and a higher standing within the Khmer Rouge than he ever did.
 

“He was the secretary of a special unit and a commander of a regiment, but he had combatants on his orders,” he told the court. “His soldiers were fully armed. No one dared to get in his way. I had nothing.”
 

Mr. Guek Eav said he had never known the prime minister personally, but Mr. Koppe continued to question him about Mr. Hun Sen. Mr. Guek Eav repeated his answer, albeit more dismissively.
 

“Hun Sen could flee to Vietnam with his fully armed soldiers, but I could not. I had nothing,” he repeated.
 

The mention of the prime minister comes on the heels of a request released to the public last week by the defense for Mr. Hun Sen and other senior military and government officials to appear in court to testify in the case. The defense has made this request multiple times, but was generally denied access.
 

Even if it was approved, government officials have told media outlets that no one from the government would testify because of parliamentary immunity – an ironic answer to some analysts who say the government is now disregarding the parliamentary immunity of some opposition party members.

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/26336/duch--hun-sen-above-me-in-kr/

DUCH DISCUSSES LAST DAYS OF S-21

Judge Jean-Marc Lavergne took the driver’s seat during yesterday’s hearing in Case 002/02 involving Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, peppering former S-21 chief Kaing Guek Eav with questions about massacres, photos of prisoners and the last days of the detention center.
 

Mr. Guek Eav, also known as Duch, confirmed a number of massacres committed by the Khmer Rouge, including the murder of 600 Thai soldiers in Kampong Som, now known as Preah Sihanouk province, and an unknown number of Cham citizens during their reign.
 

He later touched on the photos taken of prisoners at S-21 that have become infamous due to their prominence at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which is the name used for S-21 now. The photos were taken on direct orders from Mr. Chea, despite Mr. Guek Eav’s anger at being forced to take them.
 

“If they don’t trust me, how can I carry out my work? That is what I asked them,” he said of the portraits, intimating that their original purpose was to ensure that the correct prisoners were being detained and eventually executed.
 

While most photos were kept at S-21, Mr. Guek Eav said he kept a set of photos of the Westerners killed at the center. He did not say why he decided to keep these specific photos, but mentioned that they were taken before the Westerners were killed and burned.
 

The testimony then turned to a discussion on the number of prisoners held at the facility. Mr. Guek Eav said the total number of prisoners held at S-21 throughout his time there numbered beyond 10,000.
 

Judge Lavergne posed a series of questions to him about the rises and falls in prisoner numbers, hoping to get some explanation for the wide disparities seen at times in Khmer Rouge files. Unfortunately Mr. Guek Eav rarely said anything beyond confirming the totals and repeating statements from his previous testimony.
 

“When there were too many prisoners, we were instructed to clear them out,” he said, reiterating a line he has said throughout his time on the stand in this case.
 

Judge Lavergne specifically asked about the fall of 1977, when thousands of prisoners were killed, according to Khmer Rouge records. On October 15, 1,799 prisoners were recorded at S-21. But by December 31, the number was down to 736.
 

“Sometimes a large number of prisoners had to be removed for incoming prisoners,” he said.
 

The orders to reduce the number of prisoners came directly from his superiors and usually came in advance of a large group being sent to the center for interrogation and execution. Mr. Guek Eav said they never knew about upcoming purges because detention centers across the country did not communicate with each other.
 

He told the court that Son Sen and Mr. Chea almost never asked about the number of prisoners, but often inquired about specific prisoners and whether they had been killed yet.
 

Mr. Chea played a significant role in the “confessions” extracted from prisoners, often taking out the names of people implicated depending on seniority or relation to upper echelon Khmer Rouge officials.
 

Specifically, Mr. Guek Eav discussed an instance when he was instructed to remove Mr. Samphan’s name from a “confession” after being harshly criticized by Mr. Chea. He was also forced to remove the name Poeun from a confession by Mr. Chea because he was the son-in-law of Ieng Sary, one of the Khmer Rouge founders.
 

Judge Lavergne managed to get the most commentary out of Mr. Guek Eav when he asked about the last day of Khmer Rouge control of S-21 on January 6, 1979.
 

Forces at the detention center received no advance warning of an impending invasion by Vietnamese-backed forces, and Mr. Guek Eav was advised to work as he normally did. But by 10am, things began to change.
 

“At about 10am, I heard the sound of tanks moving, and by 11 I knew that the [Vietnamese] tanks were approaching, so I left my house,” he said. “Brother Nuon never instructed me about anything.”
 

Mr. Guek Eav told the court he tried to gather weapons to fight the invading forces and get the documents that were still at S-21. But he decided against it and fled.
 

“I made mention that the documents remained and there was no instruction to destroy them,” he said. “I met Son Sen before I was sent to China and I made mention of the documents. He scolded me for not destroying them. In 1983 I was scolded by Brother Nuon for not destroying all of the documents as well.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/26179/duch-discusses-last-days-of-s-21/

DUCH TALKS TORTURE, VIETNAMESE AT KRT

On his fourth day of testimony for Case 002/02 against Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, former S-21 chief Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, continued to deny any instances of rape took place at the infamous Khmer Rouge detention center and was questioned further about interrogation tactics as well as the treatment of Vietnamese prisoners.

Continuing her line of questioning on rape at S-21, Civil Party Co-Lawyer Marie Guiraud described a sexual assault involving a stick that was confirmed at the center by previous witnesses and asked Mr. Guek Eav what had been done to the soldier after he was accused.

In line with last week’s testimony, Mr. Guek Eav said he tried to punish the soldier, but was not allowed to because of “party rules.”

“I was angry. I told them to remove him from the women’s interrogation unit and I reported it to Son Sen,” he said. “I do not have the authority to make an arrest, so I tried to transfer him to another post. But no one reacted to my report so no one was ever arrested.”

He claimed to have created a special interrogation unit made up of the wives of the facility’s leaders because of the incident, but Ms. Guiraud immediately showed he may have been lying – two interrogators who worked at S-21 and testified previously said they had never seen any female interrogation unit and were often asked to interrogate women themselves.

She then moved on to sex and marriages at S-21, and questioned what happened to prisoners caught having sex.

“If people were caught in action outside of marriage, they were smashed,” he said. “Some were allowed, but most were arrested for misconduct.”

He added that the issue became more of a problem later on in the Khmer Rouge reign, even saying one man fled and joined an opposing army because his request for marriage was rejected.

Mr. Guek Eav harped on this point, often saying only cases like these, where prisoners were caught having consensual sex, were the only ones found. Rape, he said, was nonexistent.

“There were no cases of violent rape,” he said. “But there were cases of love.”

Torture and the Vietnamese

Mr. Guek Eav continued his attempts to partially absolve himself when questioned about torture tactics used at S-21. National Civil Party Lead Co-Lawyer Pich Ang asked him about testimony from a witness who claims to have had the nails on his big toes removed with pliers and a finger broken. Interrogators also put needles into his toes repeatedly.

“I instructed him [his subordinate] to stop this kind of practice,” he said of the toe nail removal. “I authorized electrocution. But I forbid them from killing any prisoners because we needed their confession.”

The need for confessions took new importance with Vietnamese soldiers who had been captured by the Khmer Rouge. Starting in January 1978, after the first Vietnamese soldier was brought to S-21, recordings of their confessions would be broadcast over loudspeakers on direct orders from Mr. Chea.

Mr. Chea would often edit the confessions to fit the needs and desires of the Khmer Rouge leaders. They even took the time to create a film about the Vietnamese army, using detained soldiers to act in the film before murdering them outside S-21.

Despite constant denials, obfuscations and question-dodging, Mr. Guek Eav did openly question and criticize the Khmer Rouge tactic of burying the dead after they were killed, saying the practice was not part of Khmer culture. Buddhist tradition generally calls for cremation as opposed to burials.

“For prisoners, after they were smashed, they were buried,” he said. “That was against our tradition. Against our customs.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/26076/duch-talks-torture--vietnamese-at-krt/

DUCH DENIES RAPE AT S-21

Before starting his third day on the witness stand, Kaing Guek Eav, the former head of Khmer Rouge detention center S-21, was told by the court’s president that he was free to incriminate himself, as his trial had finished and he is already serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
 

Yet when asked yesterday about multiple accusations of rape at S-21 by Civil Party Co-Lawyer Marie Guiraud during testimony for Case 002/02 involving Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, Mr. Guek Eav vehemently denied the charges, exclaiming: “Who dared to engage in sexual rape? Nobody.
 

“I don’t believe it was that easy to rape a woman in the open,” he added. “That person would have been beheaded.”
 

Ms. Guiraud continued to ask him about specific testimony from previous witnesses who claimed to have either seen or heard about rapes at the detention center. But Mr. Guek Eav refused to accept the allegations, even going so far as to defend the same Khmer Rouge leaders he had spent the previous days incriminating.
 

He started the line of questioning by admitting to one rape at S-21 involving one of his old teachers.
 

“I only knew of one case. A young man raped my former teacher. It was related to a mistake made during the interrogation process,” he said. “I believe there were not many instances of rape at S-21.”
 

But as he was asked more questions about specific instances of rape, he became more bullish and animated, slamming any assumption that rape was allowed at S-21 and even saying the accusations were fabricated.
 

In between his vehement denials, he managed to slip in excuses about why he may not have known about rapes at S-21, claiming at one point that it was his subordinate Ta Hor’s responsibility to handle any cases of sexual assault.
 

“It was not my responsibility,” he said. “And this does not reflect CPK [Communist Party of Kampuchea] policy.”
 

Mr. Guek Eav, known to many as Duch, started the day with more questions from Assistant Prosecutor Dale Lysak about the specifics of interrogations at S-21. He told the court the methods of torture often changed based on who was in charge.
 

When Ta Nat, Mr. Guek Eav’s predecessor, was in charge, electrocutions were more common and more prisoners were killed during torture. But when he took the reins, physical beatings were more prevalent.
 

He revealed a variety of horrifying facts about interrogations, including that women were often tortured by the wives of those in charge of S-21, and electrocutions were carried out by attaching phone lines to each of a prisoner’s big toes. His superior Vorn Vet suggested they use plastic bags to suffocate prisoners because they would not leave any bruises.
 

But Mr. Guek Eav seemingly tried to absolve himself of some of the blame for the torture that took place at S-21, saying: “S-21 was only an instrument of the party.”
 

Once Mr. Lysak finished his questioning for the day, Ms. Guiraud began to ask questions about specific prisoners killed at S-21 and the situation surrounding their arrest, beginning with Chao Seng, founder of the Pedagogical Institute of Cambodia.
 

Mr. Guek Eav was particularly remorseful when asked about Mr. Seng, expressing multiple times that he wished he could meet with his wife and another relative to express his sorrow and anguish about what happened to him.
 

He told the court he had been instructed by superior Son Sen and the “party center” to arrest Mr. Seng, but to give him a different name in S-21’s records.
 

“I could not protect him. That is the truth. For me, Chao Seng did many good things,” he said. “I want to meet them [Mr. Seng’s wife and a relative] to express my regret and apologize that I could not protect their man.”
 

He says he tried to keep Mr. Seng alive, but was asked by Mr. Chea himself where he was and why he was still alive after a few months at S-21.
 

Ms. Guiraud then moved on to four westerners who were killed at S-21, focusing on Michael Scott Deeds and another man, both of whom were captured by Navy forces along the coast.
 

Mr. Guek Eav said once the men were brought to S-21, he was ordered by Mr. Chea to burn their bodies.
 

“He told me in person ‘we are not Cuba, exchanging prisoners for other prisoners or goods’,” he said. “They had to be burned to ashes so that there was no evidence remaining that any westerner was arrested and smashed by us. That was the strict instruction I had to follow.”
 

Mr. Guek Eav said the men were burned along with car tires and their ashes were dumped into a pond along Mao Tse Tung Boulevard.
 

He also took time out to refute the translation of a widely circulated quote attributed to him and to the larger Khmer Rouge propaganda machine by historians and witnesses. The oft-mentioned “It is better to arrest 10 innocent people than let one traitor go” was incorrect, according to Mr. Guek Eav.
 

“This is wrong. It has been mistranslated,” he said. “Son Sen told me ‘to keep is no gain, to remove is no loss’.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/25992/duch-denies-rapes-at-s-21/

DUCH GRILLED ON CHILD MURDERS

In his second day of testimony for Case 002/02 at the Khmer Rouge tribunal yesterday, Kaing Guek Eav, the former head of Khmer Rouge detention center S-21, was grilled by Assistant Prosecutor Dale Lysak about how the Khmer Rouge, and specifically S-21 prison, dealt with relatives of prisoners, children of people who were executed and pregnant women.
 

Mr. Lysak touched on the subject during Mr. Guek Eav’s testimony on Tuesday and continued to dive deeper into understanding how the Khmer Rouge organized the detainment of women and children.
 

“Spouses and children of enemies of the regime were treated the same way as enemies of the regime,” said Mr. Guek Eav, also known as Duch. “Even when senior regime officials were arrested, their wives were arrested too.”
 

But his cadres rarely interrogated wives or children, deeming them “not important.” He claimed that before April 1975, “children were spared and raised. In that time we had no principles to smash children.”
 

But later, he says he was “instructed to kill the wives of soldiers who we thought were spying on us,” illustrating symptoms of the paranoia within the Khmer Rouge regime that would later be touched on as well during his testimony.
 

He described an instance when a group of children was brought to S-21, and he complained to his superiors that “raising children at S-21 was impossible.”
 

“But the party center told me, ‘have a firm stance and separate friends from enemies’,” he said. “I tried my best to rescue the children, but my efforts were not successful.”
 

During the trial for Nuon Chea, Pol Pot’s deputy, and Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge head of state, on a multitude of charges including genocide, Mr. Guek Eav went on to explain that when it came to the children of anyone they deemed a “traitor,” Son Sen himself said revenge should be everyone’s focus, and ‘eye for an eye’ should be a guiding principle.
 

Testimony on family purges then transitioned into the frequent Khmer Rouge purges of its own forces, and what happened to the family members of those killed. Mr. Guek Eav cited his own experience of being fearful of what might happen to him after one of his superiors, Vorn Vet, was arrested in 1978.
 

Mr. Vet and his deputy Cheng Orn were both detained along with their wives.
 

“There was no purpose interrogating the women,” he said. “The main focus was Brother Vorn. I assume his family was smashed.”
As regime forces arrested Mr. Vet, Mr. Guek Eav thought back to a meeting he had with him once, where he was told to be careful and watch who he trusted.
 

“I was so scared I could not work,” he said of the time after Mr. Vet had been arrested. “I had to stay along party lines because I was afraid I would be disappeared. If I was disappeared, my family would be disappeared as well.”
 

The fear and relentless paranoia was intentional, he said. Mr. Sen, head of the Communist Party of Kampuchea’s (CMK) security apparatus, reveled in “instilling fear” in his subordinates.
 

“Everyone was so fearful of being arrested because usually the arrests were done to people who were linked along the same lines,” he told the court. Even the interrogators at S-21, often attempting to confirm the paranoid suspicions of their superiors, were not safe from the purges.
 

Mr. Guek Eav said there were approximately 33 interrogators at S-21 at any given time, but the number fluctuated and often decreased “because some were found to be traitors and had to be smashed.”
 

Despite strict stipulations on so many aspects of life and specifically delineated party structures within the Khmer Rouge, Mr. Guek Eav said there were no specific rules on what to do with the family members of those being interrogated at S-21. Although party leaders told them to kill the children of “traitors” to stop “revenge killings,” Mr. Guek Eav claimed there was nothing specific ever said about what was to be done with detained family members. More often than not, everyone in the family was killed regardless of age, he said.
 

“If he only gave me instructions for four people, and not for the others, then they had to be smashed,” he added. “There was never any instruction not to kill children, women or pregnant women.”
 

Mr. Guek Eav confirmed an official document that said “interrogate four, smash the others,” at the bottom of a list of 18 family members, two of whom were four and six years old. All 18 were killed on April 7, 1977.
 

But throughout all of his testimony yesterday, it was often what he did not remember that ended up being the most harrowing.
 

Mr. Lysak went through a series of very specific instances hoping to get confirmation of murder from Mr. Guek Eav. But his repeated line of “I do not recall” left a disturbing pall in the courtroom. Many times he would say that so many people were killed or moved through S-21 that he was unable to remember specific situations.
 

He gave the same answer to two disturbing questions posed to him. There was a document from S-21 indicating that 160 children had been murdered in one day. Another said eight near-term pregnant women were executed in 1977 after being transported to S-21 from Prey Sar.
 

He could not recall the reason why either group was executed despite signing off on both.

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/25930/duch-grilled-on-child-murders/

THE REBOUND

“It was the lights,” Kev Hemmorlor says, staring intently at the floor. “The lights and the stage. I’ve never seen that many people.”
 

The 1:56 minute video of his strawweight Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fight at ONE Championship’s Bangkok event on May 27 is brutal to watch. Within 15 seconds, Thai opponent Kritsada “Dream Man” Konsrichai had his heel next to Hemmorlor’s cheek, narrowly missing his face but visibly affecting the wide-eyed fighter.
 

After battling his way back up to his feet following a vicious takedown, Hemmorlor is again plowed into the floor before being mounted. What follows is a minute-long, utterly cringe-worthy series of sharp elbows, with most crashing directly into his face. Referee Oliver Coste leapt into the fray moments after Hemmorlor released a terrifying yell of pain. He tapped the floor. The fight was over. 
 

As medics rushed over to the now tossing-and-turning Hemmorlor, Konsrichai gleefully circled the ring pointing to the sharp end of his elbow.

Kritsada Konsrichai (top) delivers a crushing elbow to Kev Hemmorlor at ONE: Kingdom of Champions in Bangkok on May 27.

* * *

“He can’t move too much,” his manager and promoter Benoit Rigallaud warns me the next week. “He has three broken bones at the base of his nose.”
 

It was hard not to stare at the small bandages above and below both eyes. Hemmorlor had the look in his eyes you would expect from a man who just lost a crucial fight: peace tinted with anger, calm tempered by a ferocious desire to get another shot.
 

“I just keep thinking about it,” he says. “He was not bigger or stronger, or faster, or a better fighter. But I was overwhelmed by the stage.”
When I ask him what the loss was like, a wry smile breaks the serenity blanketing his face. 
 

“I remember. He was huge,” the 28-year-old Takeo province native says with a laugh. “He was big and tough. I had never seen any man like him before. It was my second fight. I won my first.”
 

It was a Yutakhun Khom, or Bokator, fight that he remembers vividly. He was 22 and coming off his first win in his first match. He had been training for years at that point after graduating from grade 12. He wanted to go to college, but needed to help support his 11 siblings, so he made his way to Phnom Penh for construction work.
 

But fighting had always been his passion. 
 

“I used to watch Bruce Lee movies and Mohammed Ali fights. Pacquiao too. I always just wanted to be majestic like them,” he says. 
 

He first started fighting in high school at age 15, but his mother was vehemently against it. His father was more supportive, and once he graduated from high school, both agreed that he should try to fight professionally. Out of his 11 siblings, he is the only athlete and fighter.
 

In between construction work in Phnom Penh, he trained furiously, running laps in Takeo while polishing his skills in the Khmer fighting style of Yuthakun Khom, the martial art that underpins Kun Khmer. Kun Khmer, also known as Pradal Serey, focuses on the use of the body’s sharp edges – knees and elbows – and overwhelmingly powerful kicks generated from hip rotation as opposed to the usual leg snapping.
 

By 2012, he was more certain than ever that he had enough skill to become a professional fighter. He committed to training full time, studying under the tutelage of Yuthakun Khom grand master Chan Bunthoeun, the father of Kun Khmer legend and MMA fighter Chan Rothana. Rothana is now the head coach at Selapak Gym in Phnom Penh, where Hemmorlor trains.
 

“I met Kev when I met Rothana in 2012 while they were training in Takhmao,” Rigallaud said. “I didn’t know anything about him, but I thought there was something about him, his fighting condition was good.”
 

“And I trusted Rothana. He is the experienced one. When he says ‘that guy can fight’, he can fight,” he adds.
 

Hemmorlor began to rack up wins in Yuthakun Khom fight leagues, eventually hardening his bones and resolve in the smoky, oppressively humid Kun Khmer rings. 
 

He was able to fight his way through the scrappy Kun Khmer matches, where the glory of wins is the only thing making the $25-$100 dollars per match worth it. Through sheer will and an ever-improving fight technique, he secured enough wins to cement his belief that he was ready to try his hand at MMA. 
 

One of Hemmorlor’s greatest assets – the relative peace you can see behind his eyes – was what led Rigallaud to believe he was ready for the big stage.
 

“The management of the pressure of Fight Day,” Rigallaud says, when asked why he thought Hemmorlor was ready. “We’ve seen Kev destabilize opponents in small events in the past. With his potential and experience, he should be great.”
 

He lost his first MMA fight at Full Metal Dojo 7: Full Metal Massacre in Bangkok last October. His opponent, Filipino Jhaymie Gayman, put him in a rear naked choke after battling for most of the first round. Despite the loss, his strong showing propelled him into his next MMA match and solidified his belief in his ability to hang with the big boys.

Kev Hemmorlor has three broken bones in his nose and still shows a black eye from his recent loss. (Photo: Fabien Mouret)

* * *

It was 6:30 pm at Impact Arena in Bangkok, and the serenity behind Hemmorlor’s eyes was replaced by excitement, and fear.
 

“To be a successful athlete in any sport, you have to have a combination of three things: the physical, the technical and the mental capability,” Rigallaud says. “I am convinced he has the first two, and we need to find a way to help him with the third. He just needs to empty his head.”
 

Fear is often the last thing any fighter will admit to having, both to convince others of their own invincibility and to convince themselves. Yet Hemmorlor was open about the emotions coursing through every vein in his body before his last fight.
 

“I was scared, yes. 12,000 people were watching me on that big stage,” he says. It was a long, long way from the Kun Khmer rings where he had staked his claim. Those 24,000 eyes were accompanied by two Thai feet and fists aiming for his face within seconds of the opening bell.
 

Rothana was in Hemmorlor’s corner during the fight, and said the loss was just the first step for Hemmorlor.
 

“The Thai guy did a great job and was impressive. A loss is nothing if you learn from it, and Kev will do that,” Rothana says. “I lost fights in my career; it hurts and touches our ego for some hours or days, but if you have a new project, the pain does not last long.”
 

Because of his injuries, Hemmorlor will have to sit out of MMA matches for six months. But as each day passes, he becomes more and more eager to redeem himself, believing his 0-2 record in MMA fights does not represent the kind of fighter he is, and can be.
 

“I think about him and the fight when I sleep,” Hemmorlor says fittingly, considering his opponent’s ‘Dream Man’ moniker. “I dream about it. I know I could have beaten him. I know I can still beat him.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/25949/the-rebound/

DUCH: NUON CHEA CLAIMS ‘NONSENSE’

Attempting to draw links between Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea and infamous Khmer Rouge detention center S-21 prison, Assistant Prosecutor Dale Lysak spent most of the day grilling Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch to many, on the stand yesterday during Case 002/02 at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
 

Mr. Guek Eav, the first Khmer Rouge leader convicted of crimes against humanity in 2010 and sentenced to life in prison, spoke openly about Mr. Chea’s connections to the prison despite his relative reluctance later on to admit that soldiers of the Lon Nol regime had been arrested and killed at the detention center.
 

Mr. Lysak preempted Mr. Guek Eav’s testimony with a 2012 statement from Mr. Chea denying any connection to the prison.
 

“I have never been responsible for the operation of S-21. What Duch accused me of is unjust,” Mr. Chea said. “I have never ordered, or received documents from Duch. I have never been the superior of Duch.”
 

But Mr. Guek Eav refuted that statement immediately, citing direct mention of Mr. Chea by his own superior, Son Sen, and multiple documents signed by Mr. Chea giving direct orders. He also said it was agreed upon at an official party congress that any “traitors” had to be “smashed.”
 

“Everything comes from the party structure. His words are nonsense,” he said.
 

He told a story about a specific order from Mr. Chea involving the murder of Mr. Sen’s uncle and other relatives, illustrating the frequent specificity of Mr. Chea’s orders and his hands-on involvement in the activities of the prison and the Khmer Rouge’s larger security apparatus. Before a short meeting at a school in August 1977, Mr. Guek Eav said he had not met Mr. Chea in person.
 

Mr. Lysak used the rest of the day to focus on the treatment of Lon Nol soldiers after the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh. Specifically, he wanted to know who and how many soldiers passed through S-21. But Mr. Guek Eav was often unable to give him the answers he needed, either dodging questions or denying any knowledge of Lon Nol regime soldiers held in S-21.
 

Other than hearing second hand that government soldiers were being rounded up during the evacuation of Phnom Penh, Mr. Guek Eav was unable to directly verify any mass killings of Lon Nol soldiers.
 

“I had no experience dealing with former soldiers,” he said.
 

He did take Mr. Lysak through a shortened version of his own path to leadership, telling the court he was initially tasked with searching the homes of former Lon Nol soldiers and even Lon Nol’s home itself, gathering documents and hiding them at S-21. By October 1975, his boss was sent to the battlefront and he was chosen as his replacement.
 

The cross examination then turned to specific deaths at S-21, ranging from the uncle of Ta Nat, Mr. Guek Eav’s superior at S-21, and relatives of Long Boret, the prime minister from 1973 to 1975. In one instance, Mr. Guek Eav inadvertently described a horrifyingly routine practice at S-21 of prisoners being used for live surgical experiments.
 

But the point of the line of questioning seemed to concern the deaths of family members of notable Cambodians aligned with movements or forces opposing the Khmer Rouge, potentially pointing to involvement and direct orders from senior Khmer Rouge leaders like Mr. Chea.
 

When asked about the fate of the wife and young children of a professor who was killed during protests preceding the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh, Mr. Guek Eav said he could not remember specifically what happened to them, but knew how most prisoners at S-21 ended up.
 

“After the revolution, if the parents were killed, the children were killed as well,” he said. “As long as he was arrested, he or she was never released.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/25872/duch--noun-chea-claims----nonsense---/

VEILED THREATS AIRED IN YOUTUBE ‘RIGHTS’ VIDEO

The government upped the ante in their efforts to stop growing protests against them and justify their harsh response to demonstrations on Sunday night when they released a video titled, “2016 CIVIL RIGHTS: On Using The Rights In An Anarchic Way.”
 

The video, produced by the government-run Cambodian Human Rights Committee (CHRC), shuffles through images of Syria and Libya before and after their recent civil wars while ominous music plays. It goes on to say that the destruction seen by both countries was “the result of how the rights were misused.”
 

“The excessive use of rights will bring about destruction,” says the video. “As a result, all the rights were lost.”
 

It did not say which “rights” it was referring to, but implied later on that the right to protest, and maybe even freedom of speech, should be curbed in order to protect “the stability of the nation and all other rights.”
 

The video ends with a speech by Defense Minister General Tea Banh who discusses “color revolutions,” an oft-used term by government officials referencing a series of political and social movements in former Soviet Union states during the 1990s and early 2000s.
 

Although Black Monday protesters have stressed that their demonstrations are specifically about human rights officials now detained in prison, the government continues to imply that the protesters are aiming for “regime change,” because of their thematic use of color in the protests.
 

“The issue of color revolution comes in several forms. We want to make clear that we will not allow it to take place in the Kingdom of Cambodia,” Gen. Banh said in the video. “We have to prevent the second return of the genocidal regime in Cambodia.”
 

Chak Sopheap, the executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), said younger Cambodians are tired of hearing warnings from the government about the country slipping back into the horrors of the Khmer Rouge.
 

“The goal of this video is clearly to intimidate ordinary people from the full and peaceful exercise of their human rights, and represents a serious misrepresentation of both domestic and international human rights law,” she said. “It is a rather unsubtle reminder that this government is not beyond resorting to serious violence, if necessary, to hold on to power.”
 

In addition to its veiled threats, Ms. Sopheap said the CHRC’s shoddy production – many of the images representing Libya are actually photos of Singapore – only “reinforces the image of an institution that is unfit for [its] purpose.”
 

Despite the video’s pledge to “stabilize the country for brothers, sisters, and children of the next generation,” Ms. Sopheap said the government is so preoccupied with its past successes that it fails to look forward to the future.
 

“I believe that most of Cambodia’s young population is tired of hearing how the government ‘saved’ the country from Pol Pot,” she said. “Young Cambodians are full of aspirations and much more interested in looking to the future. It appears increasingly obvious that the government is out of touch with this reality.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/25564/veiled-threats-aired-in-youtube----rights----video

‘EVERYDAY’ REMEMBRANCE

Many of us have been in this situation: you go back to your childhood home and are instantly reminded of specific events in your life. The fall off the third step on the staircase in the 5th grade, the fight with your sister in the hallway when you were 15.
 

Your surroundings often serve as an immediate trigger for a backlog of memories that, unintentionally or not, your mind decided to store away in the recesses of your mind.
 

This idea is amplified a thousand times over in relation to Khmer Rouge survivors forced to live amongst landmarks, both seen and unseen, of the tragedy they lived through, and serves as the topic of Everyday Experiences of Genocide Survivors in Landscapes of Violence in Cambodia, by Savina Sirik.
 

Ms. Sirik, a researcher who spent eight years working at the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) before getting her Masters in Geography from Kent State University in the United States, looks at the way the Khmer Rouge cemented violence into the everyday lives and surroundings of the country’s citizens, among a host of other interesting topics. 
 

Many of these landscapes, despite the lack of or dilapidation of physical memorials, now serve as personal reminders of tragedy for local residents, many of whom still live in the same homes and communities they resided in during the Khmer Rouge years.
 

“Through interviews with Khmer Rouge survivors, I discuss how men and women lived through the genocide years and how they conduct their day-to-day activities in the present amid sites of past mass violence,” she writes.
 

She goes on to detail the way structures and landscapes were taken over by the Khmer Rouge, used and then abandoned again. She focuses on Khmer Rouge survivors currently living around Chamkar Siv, a former Khmer Rouge prison located in Prek Ta Meak commune, Kandal province.
 

Residents of the commune are forced to live amongst landmarks, both personal and widely identified, of the violence that occurred during the Khmer Rouge. Rice fields that drivers pass by once served as mass burial sites. Schoolhouses and temples were once Khmer Rouge offices and prisons. The book delves into the effect this has on how survivors remember and commemorate those lost as well as deal with their own memories of personal tragedy.
 

“The potential for these sites to be memorialized or used to represent the past violence have largely been dictated by politics – the politics of memory that have been employed as a tool to justify the existing political regime.”
 

This idea blends into another topic she thoroughly researches – the politics of memory and its effect on people who were not there to witness what happened. She goes on to discuss how, once the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), led by current Prime Minister Hun Sen and backed by Vietnamese forces, took Phnom Penh from the Khmer Rouge in 1979, one of the first things the PRK did was create memorials and museums at the infamous S-21 prison and Choeung Ek Killing Fields.
 

“The significant message that Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek sent to the local population in the early period of the PRK regime, and which is still apparent today, was that the population needed to support the PRK government in order to prevent the Khmer Rouge from returning to power,” the book states. 
 

“In order to justify the presence of Vietnam and distance the PRK regime from the crimes committed by the DK [Khmer Rouge] regime, the new emerging state established a narrative that labeled DK a ‘fascist’ regime, in alignment with Hitler’s Germany,” she writes. “It was also important for the PRK regime to argue that what happened in Cambodia during the DK regime, and particularly at Tuol Sleng, was a genocide like that of the Holocaust during World War II.”
 

She says that while their objective was not malicious, the memorials did serve a very specific political purpose. By highlighting the absolute worst of the Khmer Rouge, they in turn legitimized their own takeover and justified their rule of the country thereafter.
 

* * * 

The dissemination of the state-sanctioned narrative of the Khmer Rouge mostly lines up with the experiences of people across the country, she writes. But this narrative may also do a disservice to the wide range of memories related to the Khmer Rouge. 
 

The dominant narrative often has an effect on the way people personally remember situations. Many people mesh the official story with their own, sometimes even forgetting their own specific experience in favor of the common narrative.
 

But what brings people back to their own personal memories are often landmarks – significant places or events that people will always remember regardless of the amount of time that passes.
 

“By exploring the experiences of survivors who lived through the violence and continue to live among sites where mass violence was perpetrated during and after the Khmer Rouge regime, this study reaches two major conclusions: 1) Although individual experiences vary, the ways in which survivors narrate their experiences appear to relate to standard or collective narratives widely disseminated at the national level; and 2) Public ceremonies and monuments are not enough,” she writes.
 

The last conclusion is the lynchpin for the book, and she goes on to explain how the current monuments and ceremonies are supplemented, or even replaced, by hyper-local, and sometimes intensely personal, displays of remembrance, ranging from private annual ceremonies in homes to traditional Buddhist gatherings at temples or stupas.
 

This also plays a role in the way the country’s young people interact with the Khmer Rouge and its memory. Many survivors interviewed in the book said they were dismayed by the lack of understanding and, at times, outright denial of facts by a new generation that cannot fathom the idea that Khmer people would do the things historians and survivors have described to other Khmer people. 
 

“These sites constitute unmarked violent landscapes, identifiable only by local residents, and remain invisible to visitors who merely pass by the area. This is especially true for members of the younger generation born after the atrocities,” she writes, adding that having young people understand and think about what happened will not only have an effect on them, but on survivors as well.
 

“Many survivors… stressed that having their children learn and accept the history of the DK regime validated their own experiences and personal narratives,” she writes. 
 

Though efforts by DC-Cam to hold events and include the country’s history in textbooks are working to better educate young people, many survivors wonder whether the younger generation will ever truly understand what happened during the Khmer Rouge.
 

Thy, a woman Ms. Sirik spoke to for the book, said: “I think even if I keep telling them, children still do not believe me 100 percent. It’s hard for them to believe that such an atrocity could have taken place in their country and against their parents.” 
 

The book is available at all Monument Bookshops across Cambodia, Laos and Burma. You also can find it at DC-Cam. 

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/25441/---everyday----remembrance/

UN HELPS MINISTRIES BUDGET FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

As Cambodia continues its battle against raging thunderstorms and stifling droughts, officials from a variety of ministries attended a three-day workshop last week on how to incorporate the wide-ranging effects of climate change into the national and provincial budgeting process.
 

The workshop was run by the United Nations Institute for Training & Research (UNITAR) and the training arm of the Ministry of Economy and Finance as well as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Cambodia Climate Change Alliance (CCCA).
 

It aims to provide government officials with the tools to estimate and justify additional spending on potential investments that will work to reduce the potentially devastating impacts of climate change.
 

Twenty-six officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MPWT), Ministry of Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance Institute and the General Secretariat for Sustainable Development attended the series of workshops.
 

“The focus was not on relief, such as dealing with the consequences of the current drought, but more on preparedness and the long term investments that need to be made to reduce Cambodia’s vulnerability to climate change,” said Julien Chevillard, Cambodia Climate Change Alliance and development finance specialist for UNDP.
 

In the past six years, the government has made more of an effort to include climate change in its budgeting process, both for dealing with the immediate effects of droughts and storms as well as long term strategies to prepare for and mitigate the repercussions of changing weather patterns. According to research by the UN and Cambodian government, the number of extreme weather events and resulting problems will only increase as time passes.
 

“[Cambodia] remains highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to its high dependency on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, water resources, forestry, fisheries, tourism etc, which form the critical foundation of its economic growth and support the livelihoods of a great majority of its population,” Prime Minister Hun Sen wrote in the Kingdom’s Climate Change Strategic Plan for 2014-2023.
 

“Integration of climate change into national and sub-national level planning, and the development of climate change strategies, action plans and financing frameworks are among the priority actions undertaken as defined in the National Strategic Development Plan Update 2009 – 2013.”
 

UNITAR and UNDP have collaborated to help ministries work climate change into their budgets and have a better understanding of its effects through a series of workshops.
 

Angus Mackay, manager for the Green Development and Climate Change Programme at UNITAR, said the workshop was less about specific actions or investments and more of a “process of policy analysis which different ministries can follow to come up with their own investment decisions that would better address climate change.”
 

“The training was on how to use tools such as Cost Benefit Analysis in this context and to try to create a space for such tools to be applied in a very specific way to actual investment proposals linked to the 2017 budget cycle,” he said.
In the workshop, they were able to use both face-to-face lessons and internet-based instruction to teach a variety of topics, including policy appraisal techniques to inform planning and decision-making.  An interactive, Khmer-language e-tutorial developed by UNITAR was used to explain climate-responsive budgeting.
 

The UNDP has urged Cambodia to be more proactive in preparing for the inevitable effects of climate change because of its status as one of the countries most likely to struggle facing the brunt of devastating changes to the world’s weather patterns.
 

“The Climate Change Financing Framework estimates that without investment in adaptation, climate change could cost Cambodia 1 percent of GDP every year by 2030, and that economic growth could be almost entirely offset by climate change impacts by 2050,” Mr. Chevillard wrote for UNDP last month.
 

“The government and its development partners need to put in place mechanisms to ensure that programs impacted by climate change (or those with an impact on climate change) are identified at an early stage and designed accordingly, so that climate funds can be brought into the mix to co-finance these investments,” he added.
 

He mentions the need for public investments in a variety of infrastructure issues now plaguing the country, including irrigation, roads and energy. He also spoke of the need for better management of the agricultural and natural resources sectors, climate-sensitive diseases, and urban development.
 

“At this critical juncture in a competitive regional context, Cambodia could seize the opportunity of climate finance by taking high-visibility policy decisions to clearly signal to public and private investors that climate-smart investments will find a favorable environment in the country,” he said.

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/25133/un-helps-ministries-budget-for-climate-change/

‘PERVERSE’ WATCHDOG NEEDS A LEASH: NGOS

By TAING VIDA and JONATHAN GREIG

Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) officials and anti-terrorism police continued to grill rights workers for a second day yesterday, following a marathon session on Wednesday that lasted until 11 pm over allegations they told the alleged mistress of opposition leader Kem Sokha, Khom Chandaraty, to lie about their relationship to police.

Three rights workers – Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan and Nai Vonda – were brought back to the ACU offices at 8 am yesterday for further questioning along with three new ones: Adhoc’s Lim Mony, National Election Committee deputy secretary-general Ny Chakrya and Silaka director Thida Khus. The ACU tried to bring in UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights officer Sally Soen, but Mr. Soen has immunity as a UN employee. Ms. Khus said she spent three hours at the ACU, 40 minutes of which were spent in the interrogation room, before being allowed to leave. The other five were still at the ACU late last night and according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, they were to be detained overnight.  

Despite her release, Ms. Khus said she was still afraid of being arrested. “I have done nothing wrong. I do not know what kind of situation Srey Mom [is in] so I can’t say if I’m angry at her or not since I’m here just to say what happened between me and her,” she said outside of the ACU. She added that she had only advised Ms. Chandaraty about her rights during the brief time they spoke.

Ms. Chandaraty had sought assistance from NGOs after audio tapes of intimate conversations – allegedly between her and Mr. Sokha – were posted online. Initially, she denied the female voice on the tapes was hers, but later admitted it was and claimed that the NGO staff she had sought help from told her to lie to police who questioned her about the tapes.

Civil society groups have spent the week criticizing the ACU for questioning and detaining human rights workers, with some opposition party members saying the graft-busting agency has descended into using Khmer Rouge-style tactics.

Twenty-seven civil society organizations signed a joint statement condemning the interrogations yesterday, saying it “amounts to an outrageous misuse of the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) as a political tool to attack and intimidate civil society.”

“The aggressive pursuit of this investigation demonstrates that the ACU’s priorities lie not in tackling endemic corruption, but in abusing its mandate to suppress civil society and target opposition figures,” the statement said.

“It is grossly inappropriate for this body to selectively apply criminal law to civil society and critics of the government. Cambodia is perceived as the most corrupt country in Southeast Asia; in this context, it is perverse but unfortunately unsurprising that the institution supposed to combat corruption is instead being used as a political tool to harass those working to promote human rights.”

The statement questioned the need for anti-terrorism police in this case and asked why the ACU decided to interrogate and prosecute a wide swathe of people with little to no connection to the original case involving Ms. Chandaraty.

“Hauling in civil society members who are only tangentially connected to the case is just another example of Cambodia’s flawed criminal justice system, in which the scales are weighted heavily against not only critics of the government, but also those who support them,” said Naly Pilorge, the director of Licadho.

The organizations cited recent statements by government officials, including one by ruling party spokesman Sok Eysan backing the decision to place two of ACU president Om Yentieng’s sons in senior positions within the ACU.

Chak Sopheap, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said, “Civil society in Cambodia is coming under sustained attack, and this situation is becoming more severe as we approach the election period. But these tactics of intimidation will not work. We stand united in the face of this intimidation.”

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/24393//

US PREPS KINGDOM FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY

The US Department of Energy (DOE) held a workshop on “Nuclear Safeguards and the Additional Protocol” at Phnom Penh’s Sunway Hotel yesterday, highlighting the need for more technical knowledge and greater information sharing on nuclear power in Cambodia.

The workshop comes on the heels of a visit by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev last November, when the two countries signed a “memorandum on nuclear cooperation” that revealed the government’s efforts to obtain nuclear power with assistance from Russian experts.

Cambodian officials have not given details about the Russian agreement since it was signed. But Reuters reported from Russia that Sergei Kiriendo, the head of the Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom, said Russia could help with technical support, research and training if the Kingdom chooses to go ahead with the nuclear option.

“The Cambodian government is mulling…a nuclear power station,” he said. “Perhaps, it is better to begin with a research reactor and a research center in Cambodia.”

Cambodia depends heavily on imported fuel and power. Electricity in the country is among the most expensive in Southeast Asia and a common source of complaint from investors.

Most of the electrical energy that Cambodians use on a daily basis is imported from neighboring countries like Vietnam and Thailand.

To deal with frequent energy shortages, the Kingdom is seeking nearly $3 billion in foreign investment to build six hydropower plants by 2018 as it seeks to keep up with rising domestic power demands.

Of all ASEAN nations, Vietnam is the farthest along in its nuclear program with plans to start construction on a nuclear plant slated for 2018-2019. Malaysia and Indonesia are also moving forward with potential plans for nuclear energy, but there have been few concrete developments. Russia is assisting both Vietnam and Indonesia with their nuclear efforts.

The US workshop, hosted by the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) and attended by MME Deputy Director General Dr. Chan Sodovath as well as representatives of other US agencies, focused on the formalities of having nuclear energy, including how to prepare for declarations on international nuclear safeguards.

The workshop also covered how Cambodia can introduce the Additional Protocol (AP), which allows the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect nuclear sites and request information from countries that approve the AP.

“The United States has long considered the international safeguards system to be a central pillar of the nuclear nonproliferation regime’s strategy for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons,” said Anne Harrington, Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the DOE.  “President Obama re-emphasized the importance of safeguards in his 2009 Prague speech, when he called for ‘more resources and authority’ for international inspections.”

The US Embassy applauded Cambodia for approving the AP more than one year ago, saying, “Entering the AP into force is an important milestone for IAEA Member States, and workshops focused on the AP help to ensure that even states such as Cambodia – with small amounts of nuclear material – develop the necessary infrastructure and safeguards-supporting capacity to fulfill their responsibilities.”

THE CAMBODIA CONNECTION: KENT STATE SHOOTING REMEMBERED

At the start of nearly every tour at the May 4 Visitor’s Center at Kent State University in Ohio, a guide will ask guests what events they think triggered the 1970 campus protests. “Most of them answer the ‘Vietnam War’,” says Mindy Farmer, the center’s director. “Very few know that it was actually President Nixon’s announcement of the very unpopular Cambodian Incursion.”
 

The Vietnam War seems like distant history for a generation raised during the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet one of the most enduring events that has glued itself to the American consciousness is the shooting at 12:24 pm on May 4, 1970 at the university, where Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed students, some of whom had been protesting the unpopular war and President Richard Nixon’s announcement four days earlier of a planned invasion into Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines. 
 

On top of the four students killed, nine were wounded, with one suffering permanent paralysis from the chest down.  
 

“Is dissent a crime?” the father of Allison Krause, one of the four killed during the shooting, asked at her funeral. “Is this such a reason for killing her? Have we come to such a state in this country that a young girl has to be shot because she disagrees deeply with the actions of her government?”
 

Forty-six years later, the school is taking an opportunity to examine the state of dissent across the world and focus on the connections the shooting had to Cambodia, both in terms of the anti-war effort it galvanized and the effects of Nixon’s actions on Cambodia.
 

For three days at the end of April, the university held a series of events called “Cambodia after Kent State”, featuring talks with Cambodian genocide survivors, film screenings and discussions with NGOs working in Cambodia today. The goal, Farmer says, was to show the links between Cambodia and Kent State. 
 

Although historians have been making the case for decades that the US bombing campaign across Northern and Eastern Cambodia helped energize the flailing Khmer Rouge forces that would eventually take over the country, the university is hoping to educate a new generation of Americans on the dangerous, though often unintended, consequences of wide-reaching US military intervention.
 

“The shootings that occurred at Kent State University on May 4 have a legacy and lesson that far transcends the immediacy of a single place in time,” says Dr. James Tyner, a geography professor and director of the Institute of the Study and Prevention of Violence at the university who has spent the last 20 years researching the economics of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. He has been working with the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) on ironing out the conditions and circumstances that led to the country’s darkest years under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. 
 

Ohio National Guardsmen fire tear gas as they approach a crowd of protesting students on May 4, 1970. (Photo: Kent State University)

“We want to use this opportunity to consider broader questions of social movements, student activism, peace and reconciliation, and the memorialization of violence both at Kent State, Cambodia, and beyond,” he said. “Too often, America’s involvement in the Vietnam War in general, and of America’s relationship with Cambodia, are only superficially discussed—if at all.”
 

The events on May 4 and the war pushed on America by President Nixon and his predecessors, he said, illustrated many lessons that US presidents and foreign policy advisers continue to ignore in favor of military efforts that often fail to achieve their stated goal. 
 

“It becomes very easy, for some, to talk about going to war, expanding an aerial bombing campaign, supporting the use of torture during interrogation. These issues are all extremely important in contemporary American politics, and it is essential that we learn from the past,” he added. “It is necessary, through educational outreach programs such as ‘Cambodia after Kent State’, to bring home the human costs of war and armed conflict, and to acknowledge that death and destruction continue for many generations after the violence ‘officially’ ends.”
 

An understanding of the aftereffects of US foreign policy is not the only function of the events. Dr. Tyner said the resistance that the young anti-war protesters faced while demonstrating, even after the shooting, are similar to those opposing more recent activism efforts in the US, such as the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements, as well as union-led protests in Cambodia.
 

The governor of Ohio at the time, Jim Rhodes, called the protesters “un-American” and threatened to “eradicate” them a day before the shooting. Polls taken after the Kent State shooting showed a significant amount of the American populace believed the unarmed protesters were as much at fault for the shooting as the National Guardsmen who opened fire on them. But as more and more college campuses and civil society organizations vehemently protested against the war following the shooting, the public’s approval of it plummeted. 
 

In 1965, a Gallup poll found that 61 percent of Americans agreed with the war. But by 1971, the number had dropped to 28 percent. Most US involvement in Vietnam ended between 1972 and 1973, and by 1975 the war was officially over.
 

“I believe the legacy of Kent State University remains profound. There was and is a sense that student activism may affect institutional and structural change,” Dr. Tyner said.
 

The plight of those killed and injured on May 4 is ever more poignant in light of recent events in Cambodia, where the government has kicked off what some see as an outright attack on civil society organizations, protest groups and basic tenets of free speech. “Defamation” and “incitement” lawsuits have put opposition leaders and protesters in prison and forced some, including opposition leader Sam Rainsy, to flee the country entirely.
 

“The lessons of May 4 illustrate that collective effort is required; that movements are based on solidarity. Many pressing issues—exploitation, oppression, intolerance, prejudice, and discrimination—are deeply entrenched and require the concerted efforts of many individuals. For the younger generation, instant results are expected. However, students must learn that change cannot happen overnight,” Dr. Tyner said.
 

“The story of Kent State is in many respects a global story. It is a story about the quest for tolerance and openness. It is a story about peaceful coexistence and a shared humanity that far too often is sacrificed for the cause of economic gain and political ideology.” 

PRESS FREEDOM RANKING LOW BUT RISING

Cambodia ranked 128th in Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) 2015 ranking of press freedom in countries across the world, the watchdog said yesterday on its website.
 

RSF, which has been compiling the rankings yearly since 2002, said press freedom worldwide had seen a disturbing downturn as governments attempted to crack down on print and online news dissemination.
 

“The climate of fear results in a growing aversion to debate and pluralism, a clampdown on the media by ever more authoritarian and oppressive governments, and reporting in the privately-owned media that is increasingly shaped by personal interests,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.
 

“Guaranteeing the public’s right to independent and reliable news and information is essential if humankind’s problems, both local and global, are to be solved.”
 

Using journalistic independence, self-censorship, transparency, abuses and a number of other criteria, RSF compiles its list after sending out surveys to reporters and lawyers in every country.
 

Despite the low ranking, Cambodia actually rose 11 spots compared with last year. But RSF said reporters, especially those covering illegal logging and trafficking of any kind, still faced government stonewalling and overt threats of violence from powerful stakeholders within the country. RSF also mentioned the highly controversial Telecommunications Law, which they say has the “aim of closely regulating Internet use.”
 

Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan had not read the report, but dismissed claims that the Telecom Law was intended to stifle dissent, saying its purpose was to protect privacy and prevent hacking.
 

“The draft law is not a threat to freedom of speech,” he said.
 

Executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) Chak Sopheap said it will have an effect on journalists’ ability to cover difficult issues plaguing the country.
 

“While the implementation is yet to be seen, it is likely that this law is intended to provide the government with yet another tool to crack down on freedom of expression, which of course will impact independent journalists disproportionately,” she said.
 

Executive Director of the Cambodian Center for Independent Media Pa Nguon Teang echoed Ms. Sopheap’s comments last year, when he said: “The Internet, once Cambodia’s last open and free medium for press freedom and free expression, is now becoming increasingly restrictive and subject to government controls that have for so long limited the country’s mainstream media.”
 

In spite of the disagreements over the Telecoms law, Mr. Siphan said he was pleased to hear that Cambodia had climbed in the ranking.
 

“I think it is important to evaluate Cambodia in a regional context,” he said. “There is more freedom of the press here than elsewhere in the region,” he explained, saying journalists are free to report “without fear or favor.”
 

“The government always respects freedom of speech and does not censor,” Mr. Siphan added. He also said ministries were working to improve communications with the media by appointing and “empowering” spokespeople.
 

The prime minister is also using social media to create direct communications with the public, Mr. Siphan added.
 

Undersecretary at the Ministry of Information Ouk Kimseng acknowledged that covering illegal logging was dangerous, but said journalists had to be aware of the risks involved in their job.
 

“I think that if reporters want to be careful, they should not go into the forest searching for illegal logging alone,” he said. “They should go with a group of people and not just go alone.”
 

Ms. Sopheap of CCHR said Cambodia’s continually low ranking was not surprising at all.
 

“Cambodia is a dangerous place to be an independent journalist, with brave journalists regularly risking their lives and liberty,” she said, citing the deaths of 13 journalists for their reporting since 1994.
 

“We have seen a spike in threats and arrests against social media commentators as Internet penetration increases exponentially across Cambodia. The huge proportion of media outlets which are owned by individuals who are well connected to the ruling party also undoubtedly contributed to this ranking,” she added.
 

For the situation to improve, Ms. Sopheap said the government should enact the Access to Information Law, which she said would “improve transparency and offer better protection to journalists.”
 

But most importantly, she believes press freedom lies in the hands of the government and the country’s judicial system.
 

“For Cambodia to enjoy genuine press freedom, the judiciary and government need to stop targeting those who dare to expose corruption and criticize the powerful,” she said.
 

Additional Reporting by Srey Kumneth.

This story was featured in print on April 20.

SURVIVOR RECALLS CANNIBALISM AT TRIBUNAL

In harrowing testimony yesterday at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, a witness described hearing about guards at the Au Kanseng Security Center in Ratanakkiri province disemboweling a sick and dying prisoner there so Khmer Rouge security officials could eat her gallbladder.
 

Answering questions for Case 002/02, Moeurng Chandy, a 62-year-old Takeo province native, described her life in Au Kanseng after being brought there in June of 1977. She spent the first two years of the Khmer Rouge regime takeover working on a rubber plantation near Ban Lung town. Along with three other women, she was arranged to marry a man in the village. She ended up with Phon Thol, who also testified at the court yesterday. The two have since divorced.  
 

She was unsure of why she and her husband were brought to the prison, but testimony from other witnesses and research into the Khmer Rouge leadership found that Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Son Sen, three of the most senior officials within the Khmer Rouge at the time, had ordered that all workers at Ms. Chandy’s rubber plantation be arrested and brought to the prison in June of that year out of fear that a revolt was fomenting. Detainees estimate that 400-600 prisoners were held there at its peak.
 

“I didn’t know what I did. One day at a village committee meeting, the village chief said Thom, who was running all of Ratanakkiri, ordered me in. They put me in a truck after,” she said.
 

Three pairs of men and women joined her and her husband on the drive to the prison, which was about an hour or two away, according to Ms. Chandy’s testimony. “Once I got off the truck I knew I was being taken to a prison. The location was isolated and I saw people locked inside,” she told the court. “When I arrived in the area, I realized I would die. I did not know why I was sent there, but I thought that would be the end of my life.”
 

It was only after arriving at the prison that she realized she was pregnant. In early 1978, with only a single medic and her cellmates to help her, she gave birth to a baby girl. Once she regained her strength, she was assigned to work in the kitchen to cook rice for the prison guards.
 

“I had no breast milk, so I had to feed my child palm juice. The situation was miserable,” she said.
 

Ms. Chandy was eventually moved from a locked cell to an unlocked room with a guard on the outside. She described a number of atrocities committed at the prison, some of which she said she saw firsthand.
 

Groups of 10-20 Jarai people from a village along the Vietnamese border were detained at the prison during her time there. She said the women were put in her facility and tied together by a single rope. After 10 days, the prison guards told them that they would be sent back to their village. Some of the women had small children with them, half of whom could not walk without their mothers.
 

Three days after watching this from her prison cell, she said she was picking vegetables in a garden when she saw a pit created by a bomb dropped from a B52 airplane. In the pit, she could see the bodies of people wearing the same clothes as the Jarai who were detained in her facility.  
 

“I smelled the decomposing bodies. I could tell they were Jarai from their clothing. I was talking to myself, asking if I would also share the same fate,” she said. “The pits were eventually covered, and the clothes of the Jarai were distributed to other prisoners in my building.”
 

The leader of the prison guards, Ta Ouy, stuck out in her memory as particularly cruel and vengeful. She witnessed him murder a young woman, and had to hold back tears as she described the scene.
 

“I saw him walking a woman to a field as I was picking vegetables. She was begging him for her life, but he hit her with the butt of his rifle,” Ms. Chandy told the tribunal. “I did not know her, or where she was from, but I remember her begging for her life as he smashed a hoe on her repeatedly.”
 

Ta Ouy was well known around the prison for his depravity, and especially by the kitchen staff, the witness said. Ms. Chandy said it was widely rumored around the facility that the prison guards had removed the gallbladder from a dying prisoner and ate it.
 

“The kitchen was along a road I used to walk. One person was so cruel and brutal. He used a bamboo stick from the wall to cut open bodies and remove the gallbladder. These people were dying,” she said. “Every time Ta Ouy left the kitchen, he said that he ate human gallbladders.”

This story ran on March 4, 2016.

SICK, LONELY AND AFRAID, NAURU REFUGEE REGRETS COMING TO CAMBODIA

The controversial Nauru refugee resettlement deal received another blow when one of the two remaining refugees in Cambodia said he is “unwell and lonely,” in need of medical attention and fears he “will die here.”
 

In an interview with Fairfax Media, 26-year-old Mohammed Rashid complained that he has received only $4,000 of the $8,000 payout promised by the Australian government to persuade him to move from Nauru. He added that the other perks he was promised, such as good healthcare and employment, have not materialized.
 

These revelations are the latest black eye to a $40 million refugee resettlement deal struck between the Australian and Cambodian governments in 2014. Australian opposition politicians are now calling for an audit of the program.
 

“Spending millions of dollars to grease the wheels of a corrupt regime so that the government can dump a handful of people in an impoverished country is unacceptable,” Greens party immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young told Fairfax yesterday. She called for “an independent assessment of value for money.”
 

It is not the first time the Nauru refugee resettlement program has come under fire. Multiple groups have said that Cambodia – with human rights abuses of its own and a weak healthcare system – is ill-equipped to deal with refugees.
 

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) received a hefty $11 million budget to pay for medical healthcare, housing and employment for Mr. Rashid and one other refugee in Phnom Penh. It has spent $1.4 million on the two refugees so far, including hundreds of thousands spent on a luxury villa where Mr. Rashid no longer lives.
 

This controversial refugee deal was signed in 2014 when Australia promised to give Cambodia $40 million in aid in exchange for Cambodia taking refugees from Nauru. In the years since, all but two of the five refugees who came to Cambodia have returned to their home countries, but that did not stop Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton from hailing the deal as a success last week.
 

“The fact that we’ve had no drownings at sea and no successful boat arrivals I think is a pretty good outcome,” Mr. Dutton said in an interview with an Australian radio station.
 

Mr. Rashid was one of the five Nauru refugees who agreed to the resettlement deal. He originally left Indonesia bound for Australia on a boat operated by people smugglers, but was intercepted by Australian authorities and detained on Nauru in 2013. He arrived in Phnom Penh three months ago.
 

He told Fairfax Media that he now regrets the decision to leave Nauru. He suffers from kidney and lung problems as well as asthma, but said IOM has been unresponsive to his requests to be hospitalized. In a particularly harrowing part of his interview, he described having a friend take him to a hospital in Phnom Penh where doctors said he needed to stay at least 10 days for observation. Representatives from IOM spoke to doctors at the hospital and said he was only allowed to stay there for three days despite his illnesses. This, he said, contributed to an overall feeling of abandonment and isolation from the outside world.
 

A spokesman for Mr. Dutton told Fairfax a different story, saying that IOM officials contact Mr. Rashid daily, and added that he has declined offers of better housing and healthcare. “[Mr. Rashid has] so far declined to engage with IOM on their offer of assistance in seeking permanent accommodation options,” the spokesperson told Fairfax.
 

Kem Sarin, a spokesman for the Cambodian refugee department, told Khmer Times that he was surprised to read of Mr. Rashid’s problems. “I was wondering as well regarding that [the report],” he said. “We have more than 60 refugees in Cambodia that have integrated into the community – except him.”
 

Mr. Sarin added that the Cambodian refugee department is not responsible for Mr. Rashid’s wellbeing. “We are responsible for providing legal documents, to provide him a legal stay,” he said, “but for other services the IOM is the one [responsible].” Despite repeated phone calls and emails, IOM could not be reached for comment.
 

Mr. Rashid said he has warned other Nauru refugees against accepting the Australian government’s offer of a home in Cambodia. He said he has been told he cannot return to the island. “If I am going to die, I should have stayed in Nauru and died there,” he told Fairfax Media.

This story ran on March 13, 2016.