Ricky Martin Dedicates Award To Little Girl In Cambodia At amfAR Inspriation Awards

Ricky Martin carrying Cambodian babies (Photo: AP)

June 4, 2010
Excerpt from SocialiteLife.com

Ricky Martin, was honored during the night for his philanthropic contributions through his foundation. After using his last acceptance speech to address political issues close to his heart, he dedicated this award to a young Cambodian girl infected with HIV that he met while working against human trafficking.

"Today, I speak on her behalf," he said. "This award is for her. This award, I'm going to take to Cambodia again. I'm going to give it to her."

“For Communists and dictators, never trust, and always verify”: Sichan Siv

Sichan Siv
Would Mr. Sichan Siv's quote apply to Cambodia's dictator?

Remembering Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos

06/06/2010
By Sichan Siv
HumanEvents.com

Spring 2010 marks the 35th anniversary of the fall of Cambodia and South Vietnam to communism. In a recent speech at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Mich., to commemorate the sad anniversary, I mentioned a pivotal date: April 10, 1975.

While in Cambodia, I listened to President Ford’s address to the joint session of Congress through the Voice of America. My heart sank when I heard him say: “The situation in South Vietnam and Cambodia has reached a critical phase requiring immediate and positive decisions by this government. The options before us are few and the time is very short.” I quoted this in my memoir Golden Bones (HarperCollins, 2008).

In his recently published book An American Amnesia (Beaufort Press, 2010), Bruce Herschensohn speaks to this date more extensively, including President Ford’s request for “Congress to appropriate without delay $722 million for emergency military assistance and an initial sum of $250 million for economic and humanitarian aid for South Vietnam.” Herschensohn concludes his quotes with the following paragraphs from Ford’s speech:

“In Cambodia, the situation is tragic. And yet, for the past three months, the beleaguered people of Phnom Penh have fought on, hoping against hope that the United States would not desert them, but instead provide the arms and ammunition they so badly needed. In January, I requested food and ammunition for the brave Cambodians, and I regret to say that as of this evening, it may soon be too late… Let no potential adversary believe that our difficulties or our debates mean a slackening of our national will. We will stand by our friends, we will honor our commitments, and will uphold our country’s principle.” But we didn’t, adds Herschensohn.

Ford’s address was one of the most difficult he had ever delivered. On the copy of the speech that he read, he added his own hand-written words to begin the speech: “I stand before you tonight after many agonizing hours and solemn prayers for guidance by the Almighty.”

An American Amnesia starts on January 23, 1973 in the corridors of the White House, where Bruce Herschensohn was working for President Nixon. He describes the cheerful mood in the executive compound after the peace agreement had been signed in Paris by the United States, its ally South Vietnam, Communist North Vietnam, and the Vietcong, known as the Provisional Revolutionary Government.

It was more than a cease-fire, Herschensohn points out. It called for the United States and North Vietnam, a.k.a. the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, to respect the right of the South Vietnamese people to self-determination. Following articles urged all parties to settle issues through negotiations and avoid armed conflicts and acts of reprisal, to insure democratic liberties, including freedom of speech, etc.

Cambodia and Laos were barely mentioned in the Accords; not until chapter 20, article 20. (I was a high school teacher in Phnom Penh and working at a conference of Southeast Asian nations on January 23, 1973. In all naïveté, I was happy that Cambodia was mentioned at all).

Without referring to North Vietnam and the Vietcong, who had occupied Cambodia’s eastern parts since the mid sixties, the accords stated: “Foreign countries shall put an end to all military activities in Cambodia and Laos, totally withdraw from and refrain from reintroducing into these two countries troops, military advisers and military personnel, armaments, munitions and war material. The internal affairs of Cambodia and Laos shall be settled by the people of each of these countries without foreign interference.”

These all sounded idealistic and wishful. There was hardly any provision to penalize the offenders of these articles. If anything, it was like trying to give speeding tickets at the Indy 500.

Obviously, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong had no intention of respecting the accords. Two years later they ran their tanks through Saigon and took over South Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge went even farther by immediately turning Cambodia into a land of blood and tears, where some two million people died. It was said there were only two kinds of people: those who had died and those who would die.

After 12 Congresses and five Presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford), Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam fell to the Communists. Who lost them?

An American Amnesia details the role of the 94th Congress which came to Washington after the November 5, 1974 post-Watergate landslide. It brought 291 Democrats and 144 Republicans to the House, 61 Democrats and 39 Republicans to the Senate. When it convened on January 3, 1975, President Ford became no more than a caretaker. The Democratically controlled Congress, along with the biased media, the anti-U.S. and pro-North Vietnam protesters (Jane Fonda, Ramsey Clark, and the like) made President Ford’s job at best challenging and at worst impossible.

Nixon probably said it best in 1969: “Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.”

Herschensohn’s chapter on “Hotel Journalism” is very telling about “cocktail reporting,” a tendency of anti-war journalists who filed stories from hotel bars based on propaganda fed by communist sympathizers. Incidentally, I was at one of those hotels, Le Royal in Phnom Penh, with my brother on April 17, 1975 when the Khmer Rouge came in and opened the darkest chapter of Cambodia’s history.

Bruce Herschensohn does an excellent job in painting the reality of this period, exposing the biased press and the overtly pro-Communist anti-war movement, and saluting the real heroes (Bud Day, John McCain, Jim Stockdale). He debunks many myths about the Vietnam War which he refers to as the Southeast Asian War.

President Reagan once quoted a Russian proverb: “Trust, but verify.” I would add, “For Communists and dictators, never trust, and always verify.”

Bruce Herschensohn’s American Amnesia is a must read for those interested in this critical period of history.
----------------------------
Sichan Siv (www.sichansiv.com) is a former United States ambassador to the United Nations and author of "Golden Bones: An Extraordinary Escape from Hell in Cambodia to a New Life in America."

The Hun Sen Inc. and the Privatization of the CPP

Looking at the Privatization of the CPP is critically outstanding. In the civilized countries, they treat people equally including the oppositions and the dissents; but in Cambodia the CPP will punish and humiliate opponents and dissents mercilessly. And the CPP doesn't care about the fair distribution of the national wealth for all Cambodian citizens including the political parties. CPP has proudly claimed its absolute victory over the use of the national assets.

Op-Ed: Khmer Young

Congratulation Somdech Hun Sen for your success to establish the Hun Sen Inc. in Cambodia. Since the VN backing, Hun Sen has finally consolidated absolute power under the agenda of win-win strategy.

- First, he can win all external dissents; second he can win all internal competitors. He can assume all power in key powerful bodies of government such as the military and the policemen. In this stage, Hun Sen can do everything from the tiniest thing like the beauty surgery of women to the biggest thing such as the scolding of Global Witness by calling them thief; or from imprisoning the farmers to the trying in absentia of Sam Rainsy, and current decision of the supreme court towards law-maker Sochua etc.

This is not including the national resources: national budget and natural resources which are overwhelmingly deposited in the bank reserve of Hun Sen Company. As evidence, Hun Sen can possibly build 5 schools in a day by inscribing his name there. The uneducated see Hun Sen and his team's charity as a very kind one, but the educated see Hun Sen and his team's charity as the robbers who stole all nation's assets.

Hun Sen Inc. is continuing to succeed as he can secure his power in another decades.

Looking at the Privatization of the CPP, it is critically outstanding. In the civilized countries, they treat people equally including the oppositions and the dissents; but in Cambodia the CPP will punish and humiliate opponents and dissents mercilessly. And the CPP doesn't care about the fair distribution of the national wealth. CPP has proudly claimed its absolute victory over the national assets.

- Second, Hun Sen play the role as the King as he has always said when he as younghood. Not only wishing to be a king, Hun Sen has tried to embed a popular folktale inside Cambodian society by raising himself up as the reborn Sdech Korn in a popular Khmer legend.

* - The CPP's privatization has happened as they can control every cell of Cambodian society including the powerful mass media. The media has publicly flattered their leaders by comparing as the god from the sky to save Cambodia. These mass media will not balance their news or act as the professional journalist, but take only one side to divert the public.

- The CPP's privatization has happened as this party can do a favor for their VN boss by imprisoning farmers who dare to voice the loss of their land, including the opposition law-makers in the scheme of border marking.

- The CPP's privatization has succeeded as the major law-makers are belonging to this party. The law-makers can vote for favor to what CPP needed including the donation of Khmer border land to the foreigner under the special supplemental treaty in 2005, or the approval of corrupted laws which can condone the corrupts.

- CPP's privatization has succeeded as this party can extract all national budget to solely use for the victory of their party. This include the recruiting of public servants to work for their party in each election as well.

- Many more...

But what I have said is just an approach that Vietnamese agents are smiling at. The game has been put in place(the CPP) in forcing them to make enmety with opponents and individual Khmers.

Regards,

U.N. agency in Cambodia appeals for better care of women, girls

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) appealed to the world leaders to pay more care and support to the women and girls in Cambodia.

In a statement on Friday, UNFPA said the challenges of pregnancy and childbirth threaten women's lives every single day.

It said, "Though in Cambodia we have seen a two-fold increase in births attended by skilled health personnel in a decade -- progress we can all be proud of -- five women still die giving life every day, and many still lack access to essential reproductive and maternal health services."

The appeal titled "Delivering a better future for women and girls" was made just a few days ahead of the leaders from around the world to get together at the Women Deliver Conference in Washington, D.C. on June 7-9, to renew their commitments toward improving reproductive and maternal health, improving gender equality and accelerating progress toward MDG 5.

The Cambodian delegation will include Ing Kantha Phavi, Minister for Women's Affairs, Khuon Sudary and Ouk Damry, both are members of the National Assembly, Khloth Tongphka, member of the Senate, and officials from the Ministry of Health, UNFPA Representative to Cambodia Ms. Alice Levisay, and NGO representatives.

The statement said that women are a driving force in Cambodian society and in the Cambodian economy.

"When women aren't healthy, their families, their communities and the country suffer," it said.

Women Deliver representatives will call on governments, multilateral organizations, donors and non-governmental organizations to redouble their commitments and translate talk about reproductive and maternal health into action.

"Women deliver not only babies. They deliver enormous social and economic benefits to their families, communities and nations. All research shows that it pays off to invest in women. But they need to be healthy and alive to thrive and contribute," says President of the Women Deliver Initiative, Jill Sheffield.

The Women Deliver Initiative was launched at a conference held in London from October 2007 to mark the 20th anniversary of global efforts to reduce high rates of maternal and newborn death and disability in the developing world.

World Bank investigates Cambodian land titling project

The World Bank Inspection Panel began its investigation into the Bank-funded Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) in Cambodia last week, following a complaint that World Bank safeguard policies were disregarded during the $28.8 million project, leading to more than 20,000 forced displacements.

The complaint was filed in September by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), with the support of Bridges Across Borders Cambodia (BABC), on behalf of representatives of more than 4000 families living around Boeung Kak who have suffered or are currently threatened with forced eviction. It alleges that the Bank breached its operational policies by failing to adequately supervise the Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP), which denied land titles to the Boeung Kak families shortly before the area was leased by the Government to a private developer.

The LMAP was established with the stated aim of improving security of tenure for the poor and reducing land conflicts in Cambodia by systematically registering land and issuing titles across the country. However, a report released last year by BABC and COHRE[1] found that land-grabbing and forced evictions have escalated significantly over the last ten years, while many vulnerable households have been arbitrarily excluded from the titling system. This exclusion has denied these households protection against land-grabbing and adequate compensation for their expropriated land, often thrusting them into conditions of extreme poverty.

Despite strong evidence to prove their legal rights to the land, Boeung Kak residents were excluded from the titling system when land registration was carried out in their neighbourhood in 2006. Shortly thereafter, the Cambodian Government granted an illegal 99-year lease over the area to Shukaku Inc, a company chaired by Lao Meng Khim, a Sentator from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and close associate of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Residents of the area covered by the lease – many of whom have lived lawfully in the area since the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 - were suddenly accused by the Government of being illegal squatters on State-owned land.

The World Bank Inspection Panel is investigating whether the Bank breached its operational policies by failing to supervise the Government’s implementation of social and environmental safeguards tied to the project that were intended to ensure that a Boeung Kak scenario would not unfold. “These safeguards were essential for such a high-risk project in a country that is renowned for its lack of good governance and law enforcements,” said Bret Thiele, Senior Litigation Expert at COHRE.

The World Bank acknowledged in August 2009 that the safeguards had been breached and approached the Cambodian Government to discuss measures to bring the project back into compliance. The Government responded by abruptly ending its agreement with the World Bank on LMAP, citing the Bank’s “complicated conditions” as the reason for its move.

David Pred, Executive Director of BABC, highlighted similarities to a World Bank Inspection Panel case in Albania last year, in which a Bank-financed project was also implicated in forced evictions. At that time, World Bank President Robert Zoellick promised "the Bank would move promptly to strengthen oversight, improve procedures and help the [affected] families." Zoellick added that "the Bank cannot let this happen again."

“They let it happen again,” said Pred, “and this time it is 4000 families losing their homes. The Bank must find a way to repair the harms suffered by the people of Boeung Kak. Safeguard policies are not optional - if the Cambodian Government refuses to comply with its contractual obligations to respect these safeguards, then it should not be entitled to any new financing from the World Bank.”

Read the inspection panel report:
Inspection Panel report and recommendation on request for inspection Re: Cambodia LMAP (PDF, 65 KB)

Contact
■David Pred
Executive Director
Bridges Across Borders Cambodia
david@babcambodia.org

■Bret Thiele
Senior Expert – Litigation
bret@cohre.org
+1 218 733 1370

Background on Boeung Kak and forced evictions in Cambodia

Spanning 90 hectares in central north Phnom Penh, Boeung Kak lake is one of the only large open spaces left in Cambodia’s capital city. Prior to the recent evictions, approximately 4000 families lived on and around the lake with many depending on the lake for their livelihood. Families have been living around the lake since the early 1980s when they returned to the city following the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Most of these families have legal rights to their land under Cambodia’s 2001 Land Law.

Despite the legitimate claims to the land of many of the residents around Boeung Kak, when the titling team from the World Bank-financed Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) adjudicated the area in early 2007, the residents were denied title en masse. In the same month, the Cambodian government entered into a 99-year lease agreement with a private developer, Shukaku Inc., over 133 hectares including the lake and surrounding areas. Shukaku Inc. is headed by Lao Meng Khin, a Senator and major donor to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, who is also director of the controversial logging company Pheapimex.

Families living in the development zone began facing pressure and intimidation to leave the area in August 2008, when the developer commenced filling in the lake as part of its development plans. While few details about the development have been made public, it is estimated that approximately 20,000 people will be displaced. Included in this figure are the more than 1000 families that have already been evicted without their land rights being properly adjudicated and acknowledged. In the absence of any legal protections, these families accepted woefully inadequate compensation under conditions of duress. This was in direct violation of the World Bank’s Policy on Involuntary Resettlement, which the Cambodian government was contractually bound to respect in conjunction with LMAP.

Background on the Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP)

The multi-donor supported Land Management and Administration Project (LMAP) began in 2002 as the first phase of the Government’s land reform program and was established to give effect to key provisions of the 2001 Land Law. The project was originally envisioned as the first phase of a program of land reform to be implemented over a 15-year period, with the objectives of strengthening land tenure security and land markets, preventing or resolving land disputes, managing land and natural resources in an equitable, sustainable and efficient manner, and promoting equitable land distribution. LMAP intended to focus on the development of the legal and regulatory framework; institutional development; land titling and registration; strengthening land dispute resolution mechanisms; and land management.[2]

The primary donors to the project were the World Bank (pledging $28.83 million), GTZ ($3.5 million in technical assistance), and the Government of Finland ($3.5 million in technical assistance).[3] The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) joined the project in 2004 committing more than CN$10 million in both funding and technical assistance through to 2012.[4]

[1] Available at www.babcambodia.org/untitled
[2] World Bank, 2002. Project Appraisal Document for a Land Management and Administration Project.
[3] Cambodia Land Management and Administration Project summary, September 2009 (PDF, 30 KB)
[4] CIDA Website, Cambodia: CIDA funded projects, March, 2010

Lightning death brings toll this year to 35 in Cambodia

Phnom Penh (ANTARA News/Xinhua-OANA) - Lightning claimed yet another victim on Thursday with the death of 48-year-old farmer Lim Khen in Kompong Thom province, local media reported on Saturday, citing local official.

According to the National Committee for Disaster Management, Khen`s death is the 35th reported lightning death so far this year as lightning in 2009 killed 140 people.

Khen was killed as he walked home from his rice field, police chief Mat Moly was quoted by the Cambodia Daily as saying. "When he saw the rain, he left his rice field, where he was seeding. But he was unlucky and was burned on his back and his neck was broken" by the lightning, Moly said.

During a separate storm, which hit Kandal province on Wednesday, a lightning strike killed five cows and strong winds and rain caused injury to 15 villagers as strong gusts destroyed 16 stilt homes and knocked the roofs off nine more in Khsach Kandal districts`s Chey Thom and Vihear Suor communes, district governor Kong Sophan was quoted as saying.

"It was lucky that the villagers weren`t under the houses," said Sophan. "If they were inside, they probably would have died."

Step on perilous road [-Congratulations Pagna Eam!]

Pagna Eam, an immigrant from Cambodia, earned high grades at Bristol Community College and will now be attending Wheaton College. (Staff photo by Mike George)

Saturday, June 5, 2010
BY GEORGE W. RHODES SUN CHRONICLE STAFF (Attleboro, Massachusetts, USA)

Pagna Eam hopes she doesn't cry when she walks across the stage today to collect her associate degree in general studies from Bristol Community College.

But if she does, she's due.

Her graduation from BCC marks an important milestone on a long hard trip that began six years ago in Cambodia, when her mom, fearing for her safety in a politically unstable and violent land, sent her then 16- year-old daughter halfway around the world to the United States to seek a better life and freedom.

And while the journey for Eam, who aims to become a math professor, is not nearly done, she's well on her way. Now almost 22, Eam has learned English and graduated from high school.

She finished second in her class at BCC with a 3.91 grade point average and is heading to Wheaton College to study mathematics.

She will enter the highly regarded Norton school as a sophomore in September. Wheaton has given Eam almost a full scholarship, which is bolstered by loans.

The enthusiastic and dedicated young scholar is well known at BCC for arriving every day on her bicycle, her main mode of transportation. With little money, it's all she can afford. But she's not complaining.

Eam says she's grateful for the help she's gotten along the way and plans to keep peddling until she can afford a car and a home of her own.

But the journey can only be made "one step at a time," she said, adopting a version of the college vision statement often repeated by President John Sbrega: "Bristol Community College changes the world by changing lives, learner by learner."

"I believe in his philosophy," Eam said.

Her biggest challenge so far has been learning English and going through high school at the same time, she said.

"Sometimes I would be up to 2 in the morning, translating my homework, making sure I understood it, she said.

"My Cambodian to English and English to Cambodian dictionary is this thick," she said spreading her fingers a good 6 inches. Eam lives with her sister Pisey Eam, 26, who came to the United States in 2005, in the home of Bill and Patti Donlevy on Pearl Street.

Donlevy, a social worker, is well known for his work with immigrants, and Eam considers the Donlevys her American parents.

Eam credits another sister in Cambodia, Yaneth Ourn, with pushing her to learn math and teaching her how to be a good sister, daughter and citizen.

"She was a stern teacher, but a good teacher. She taught me well and she wanted me to have a better life," said Eam, who is now fluent in English and has picked other forms of communication like the "high five" which she gave to a reporter who successfully used the Cambodian pronunciation of her name.

Eam herself is far from stern, with a smile nearly always on her face.

She's already gotten a good start on her teaching career by tutoring more than 50 fellow students in math.

But her students have been teachers, too, she said.

They've helped her with her English and they've taught her how to teach.

"I learned to slow down and take things step by step," Eam said.

She's also earned praise working in the school department's Abacus childcare program.

While Eam is clearly a good sister and good daughter, she needs to wait one more year before she becomes a good citizen.

She's been a permanent resident of the United States for four years and needs one more before she can apply to become a citizen - and she can hardly wait.

Once a citizen, she'll feel safe enough to visit her mom in Cambodia.

Without the American shield to protect her, she's worried she might not be able to get out of her homeland.

But when she goes, she'll have the money, thanks to students and teachers at Attleboro High School who raised $2,000 for the trip.

It's a painful wait because Eam wants to see her mom, who's now in her 70s and ailing. She hopes to bring her to America for the medical care she needs.

But in the meantime, she talks to her by phone twice a month and today will have her close to her heart by proudly wearing a handmade traditional Cambodian outfit her mom sent to her.

"I hope I don't cry" Eam said.

Govt used vigilante groups to block SRP MPs' visit to border post No. 270

A group of vigilantes blocking 17 SRP MPs and about 200 others from visiting border post no. 270 in Anh Chanh village, Chey Chok commune, Cholasa district in Takeo on 3rd June 2010. (Photo: Uon Chhin, RFA)

Friday, 4 June 2010
By Khmerization
Source: RFA

The government has apparently used vigilante groups to set up road blocks to prevent 17 MPs from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) from visiting the contentious border post No. 270 in Cholasa district of Takeo province on 3rd June, reports Radio Free Asia.

The SRP MPs decided to defy the bans after their request was denied by National Assembly President Heng Samrin for visit to border post No. 270 claimed by villagers has having been planted inside their rice-fields and deep inside Khmer territory.

A group of about 200 people, including parliamentarians, civil society representatives as well as journalists had been stopped by police at two checkpoints for 3 hours before they were allowed to proceed to Anh Chanh village. After they arrived at Prey Pka commune, a group fo vigilantes blocked the bridge with a tractor which was stripped of its tyres. They then decided to travel by motorbikes and when they reached a canal, they were again stopped by a group of vigilantes who used two cars and a tractor to block the road at two places. The group then decided to tavel by foot for about 2 kilometres to reach Anh Chanh village when they were again blocked by about 50 young vigilantes and about 30 policemen who prevented them from reaching border post No. 270. At 12 noon, they decided to return back to Phnom Penh without reaching border post No. 270. However, some reports said that the parliamentarians and their group had managed to reach 150 metres from within the location of the border post.

Tackle Cambodia mismanagement, donors urged

International donors must act on entrenched natural resource-related corruption in Cambodia, says Global Witness

Cambodia’s international donors must tackle head on the gross mismanagement of the country’s natural resources at tomorrow’s government-donor meeting, campaign group Global Witness said today. Donors gave Cambodia $1bn in aid last year, despite evidence of widespread corruption and mismanagement of public funds and repeated failures to implement promised reform.

Ambassadors from donor countries will meet in Phnom Penh from June 2-3 for the regular review of the government’s progress towards meeting reform targets. They are expected to agree to continue to provide aid to the tune of $1bn a year - a figure almost equal to Cambodia’s entire domestic revenue through the national treasury in 2008 - even though the government has failed to meet agreed benchmarks.

“The Cambodian government has been promising to reform for years, but nothing had changed,” said Global Witness Campaigns Director Gavin Hayman. “Our latest report shows that the political elite has no intention of loosening its stranglehold over the country’s natural resource wealth. Donors simply cannot continue to turn a blind eye.”

Tomorrow’s meeting follows a series of revelations of high level corruption and governance failures over the last 18 months, including:

• The mysterious circumstances surrounding a multi-million dollar payment in signature bonuses and “social funds” made by French oil giant Total to the government. No information about the whereabouts of these payments has been made public by the authorities.
• A total lack of transparency in the latest bidding round for oil and gas exploration rights, held in late 2009. No information about the result has been made public by the government;
• An investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission into possible violations of anti-graft legislation by multinational mining company BHP Billiton during operations in a country widely reported to be Cambodia;
• The bankrolling of Cambodia’s military by private businesses, formalised by Prime Minister Hun Sen in February 2010. The following month a CPP Senator used the Battalion he sponsors to guard a plantation owned by his company against community protests;
• An escalation of land grabs resulting in urban and rural forced evictions;
• Condemnation by civil society of a new Anti-Corruption Law passed in March 2010 which fails to protect whistleblowers, and of the lack of independence of the new Anti-Corruption Unit.

Earlier this month Global Witness published Shifting Sand which outlined how a largely unregulated sand trade between Cambodia and Singapore was threatening coastal ecosystems and local livelihoods. It named two of Cambodia’s senator-tycoons as benefitting directly from the trade, and estimated that more than $10m in royalty fees could be missing from national accounts.

Global Witness is calling on Cambodia’s donors to make aid dependent on basic governance reforms which will enable Cambodia to harness its own resources for development. “Donors must take a coordinated stand against the horribly subverted dynamic of aid in Cambodia in which their country’s money props up the basic functions of the state, leaving an elite free to exploit the state’s assets for personal profit and gain further power,” said Gavin Hayman. “Taxpayers rightly expect development aid to be spent on genuine poverty reduction rather than underwriting corruption and state failure.”

/ENDS

Notes

1) In April 2010, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that the French company Total had made a payment of US$28 million to the government. US$8 million of this was for a social development fund as part of its agreement to explore for oil offshore, and an additional US$20 million signature bonus went to the government. Information can be found at http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/961/en/multi_million_dollar_payments_to_cambodia_by_french_oil_giant_total_should_be_scrutinized_by_countrys_donors

2) In April 2010, it was announced that the company BHP Billiton is under investigation for potential anti-graft violations by the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). Information can be found at http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/958/en/global_witness_statement_on_bhp_billiton_engagemen

3) Information about the private sponsorship of the Cambodian military, can be found at http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/935/en/global_witness_urges_cambodias_donors_to_condemn_s

4) Information about land grabs and forced evictions in 2010 can be found at www.ngoforum.org.kh

5) Information about the anti-corruption law can be found at http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/press/files/221Jointstatementondraftanti-corruptionlaw11march2010-Eng.pdf

Global Witness investigates and campaigns to end natural resource-related conflict and corruption and associated environmental and human rights abuses

Cambodia's central bank to take measure to stabilize riel

The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) has been putting another 3 million U.S. dollars to buy in riel currency in a bid to stabilize riel currency which is depreciated in recent weeks.

According to a Monday's announcement, seen Tuesday, from the NBC signed by the NBC's Director General Tal Nay Im, NBC has been putting each of 1 million U.S. dollars for bidding on Monday, Wednesday and Friday this week. Bidders can be commercial banks, licensed money changers and companies, it stated.

"On Monday's bidding for 1 million U.S. dollars, there were nine money changers joined. As a result, Vong Rithy Exchange shop near Phnom Penh's Olympic Market won the bidding at 4,232 riel a U.S. dollar," a central bank official who asked not to be named said Tuesday.

Riel currency is depreciated 1.67 percent to 4,260 riel a U.S. dollar on Tuesday from 4,190 riel a U.S. dollar in mid-April.

This is the second intervention from NBC to stabilize riel currency after the first dollar currency bidding of 4 million dollars in the last two weeks.

Analysts estimated that there is around 500 million U.S. dollars of riel currency has been in circulation in Cambodia and recent depreciation of riel currency is due to the appreciation of U.S. dollar and to the fewer inflows of U.S. dollar into Cambodia through trade and investment, as well as to the recent depreciation of EU currency.

Aid donors urged to get tough on Cambodia over land

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian rights groups and farmers urged foreign donors on Tuesday to press the government to suspend land concessions to investors and use fair and lawful means to settle disputes.

Non-governmental organisations and landless farmers have accused Cambodia's government of awarding a wave of concessions to foreign and local firms before evicting villagers from their land without negotiation or adequate compensation.

International donors have played a major role in the development of the impoverished country's economy, although the government has regularly admonished donors critical of its policies and accused them of interference.

On Monday Cambodia's parliament approved a five-year plan to achieve GDP growth of 6 percent annually, a figure that would require donors to provide $6 billion of foreign aid.

Sar Sok, a villager embroiled in a land dispute with a sugar company in Kompong Speu province, 48 km (30 miles) west of the capital Phnom Penh, asked donors to use their influence to force the government to change its approach.

"I ask donors to put pressure on the government on issues of human rights violations, forced evictions and land grabbing," Sar Sok said, a day ahead of an international donors' meeting in Phnom Penh.

In its drive to attract foreign investment, Cambodia has awarded big concessions to companies, mainly from China, Vietnam and South Korea, to run mines, power plants, farms and plantations for sugar, rice and rubber.

FORCED OFF THE LAND

However, rights groups say that has come at the expense of its people, with a sharp rise in the number of forced evictions by state officials profiting from the sale and leasing of farmland and urban real estate to foreign and local companies.

Cambodia's government has denied the allegations, claiming evictions are lawful and compensation is more than adequate.

Many Cambodians struggle to prove their ownership of land since legal documents were often lost or destroyed during decades of civil war.

Chhit Sam Ath, executive director of NGO Forum on Cambodia, said donors would be presented with a list of recommendations on what to demand from the Cambodian government before agreeing to future development aid.

He said existing land concessions should be suspended pending a review, while the government should halt the arrest of locals involved in land disputes and commit to a transparent and legal process to ensure cases are dealt with fairly.

"Donors have given a lot of money for land reform but there are still land evictions," Chhit Sam Ath said. "We won't stay calm with donors who give money and stay quiet while villagers are crying."

NGO says Cambodia's donors must demand reform for cash

Phnom Penh - The British non-governmental organization Global Witness said Tuesday that foreign donors must pressure the Cambodian government to deliver meaningful reform in the face of "gross mismanagement" of the country's natural resources.

"The Cambodian government has been promising to reform for years, but nothing had changed," said Gavin Hayman, the group's campaigns director.

Donor nations were scheduled to meet in Phnom Penh Wednesday and Thursday to discuss pledges. Last year, they provided almost 1 billion dollars in assistance, around half Cambodia's annual budget.

Finance Minister Keat Chhon said in April that he expected donor pledges to match or exceed last year's sum.

In a statement released to coincide with this week's meeting, Global Witness, which monitors natural resource exploitation, claimed evidence of widespread corruption and mismanagement of public funds.

Donor nations' "money props up the basic functions of the state, leaving an elite free to exploit the state's assets for personal profit and gain further power," Hayman said.

"Taxpayers rightly expect development aid to be spent on genuine poverty reduction rather than underwriting corruption and state failure," he said.

Cambodia is ranked as one of the most corrupt countries by the anti-graft monitor Transparency International, which last year placed the country near the bottom of its annual Corruption Perceptions Index.

Government spokesman Prak Sokhonn declined to comment on the statement by Global Witness, but last week, Prime Minister Hun Sen lashed out at the group, a regular critic of his government, describing the organization as "a group of thieves."

The opposition Sam Rainsy Party acknowledged some progress had been made in health, education and child protection since the last donor meeting in December 2008 but highlighted problems with land disputes and evictions.

"Titling of land must be increased, and a moratorium on evictions and arrests should be implemented until all land is formally adjudicated according to the law," the party said