Khmer Voice

FROM TODAY’S WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA
June 27, 2008

The Khmer Rouge war-crimes tribunal released its budget wish list Tuesday, and it isn’t petty cash. The court is asking for $86 million to stay in business through December 2010 and possibly more if the trials take longer. That’s less than they were asking for in February, when an earlier version of the budget stood at $114 million. But donors should still be wary.

The tribunal, run jointly by the United Nations and the Cambodian government, wants typical Turtle Bay flab: a built-in 15% contingency fund that amounts to $11 million over the next 2 1/2 years. Donors are balking, and so far only Japan and Cambodia have pitched in a meager $4 million. As we went to press the steering committee was debating whether to scale the contingency fund back to 7.5% of the budget.  Read more... (385 words, 1 image, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

McCain’s wife, Cindy McCain, visited the main garbage dump in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh on Monday and met with impoverished children who scavenge there, The Associated Press reported from Phnom Penh.

McCain visited the sprawling Stung Meanchey dump, where the refuse of Phnom Penh’s 1.5 million people ends up, said Pen Kosal, an official with For the Smile of a Child, a French aid group that helps feed children who scavenge the dump.

McCain toured the aid group’s office, located near the dump, and spoke to several children at breakfast, he said.

“She was very simple and liked the children very much. She even hugged some of them regardless of their dirty clothes,” he said.

The aid group receives rice donations from the United Nations’ World Food Program to feed some 6,000 boys and girls, most of whom live with their families near the dump and scavenge discarded bottles, cans, plastic and other scraps to sell.  Read more... (199 words, 1 image, estimated 48 secs reading time)

Updated Tue May 27, 2008 3:55pm AEST

Thailand’s ousted prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, plans to build a “modern city” in neighbouring Cambodia.

Mr Thaksin outlined his plans for Koh Kong province near the Thai border during a meeting with Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen.

A spokesman for the prime minister says Mr Thaksin did not say how much money would be invested but said the planned city would include a financial centre, hospital, schools and housing.

The spokesman says Hun Sen welcomed the plan, asking Mr Thaksin to work on his project with the Council for the Development of Cambodia.

Supervisors clear the area before detonating any landmines they find

On a wooded hillside above a village in north-west Cambodia, a man speaks into a radio.

Figures in body armour and visors head downhill to shelter from the sun under some trees.

A whistle sounds and then a siren. A few minutes later a loud crack echoes around the countryside. Grey smoke floats into the air.

The first landmine of the morning has been destroyed.

It was a Chinese-made type 72A – a small, green object that blows off the leg that treads on it or the arm that picks it up.

The team head back up the hill. There are many more mines to go.

This is a scene that is repeated day after day across Cambodia, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.  Read more... (967 words, 6 images, estimated 3:52 mins reading time)

Sak Sokhum says he does not know why so much killing took place

Sak Sokhum does not know who to blame for the estimated 1.7 million people who died under the Khmer Rouge.

He was only 15 when he joined the Maoist movement in 1974.

Everyone had to, he says. They were going to save Cambodia from capitalists and the mounting threat from the Vietnamese.

First he was a driver. Later, when the Khmer Rouge had emptied cities and sent millions of people to work in the fields, he became a bodyguard for a mid-ranking commander.

When the regime fell in 1979, he and many thousands of fighters fled northwest to continue the battle.

For years he was a signals operator, relaying information between base commanders and guerrillas in the jungle along the Thai border.  Read more... (1041 words, 6 images, estimated 4:10 mins reading time)