KI Media: “KKF Newsletter No. 78 - March 2011” plus 23 more

This brief comment is made in response to an article that appears here under the headline: "Perceptions of America" by David P. McGinley.

If Native Americans could speak and act for themselves, they would have deported all non-native Americans back to where they or their ancestors came, including this so-called "American Thinker", instead of enduring the indignity of living on the Reservations and being labelled "primitive" in the process!

Now, he will do well to ponder the remark by Karl Marx about the American justice system that knew only how to send people to the gallows, but never considered the root causes that brought them before those gallows in the first place.

We don't know why someone who has been living in a country for twenty five years 'never bothered to become a citizen' of that country, nor the social circumstances that led him to breach the law of that country.

To become a naturalised citizen of most western countries, naturalisation procedures presumably insist on the applicant being able to demonstrate 'good or sound character' as one of the essential prerequisites.

Just because one comes to reside in another country or takes refuge in that country because of circumstances over which one has no control (and the prospective deportee here would have his own decision made for him by either his guardians or parents, being a minor upon entering the Good Old US of A) does not imply that one has no right to expect 'fair treatment' by the law of that country.

It is one thing to provide citizens with formal equal opportunities, but to treat them all 'equally', irrespective of their particular or individual situations, would be to discriminate against them and do violence to their 'right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness'.

I find it disappointing that as an educator, the author has arrived at such illiberal conclusions. One could understand such views being associated with the US Immigration Department. After all, regardless of his subjective claim, there is no such a thing as 'a typical citizen', or what he/she thinks on any issue that can be conveniently lumped together under the headline: "Perceptions of America".

All this reminds me of a report about one Dith Pran (whose life story inspired the 1984 film "The Killing Fields") having been beaten by American cops whilst on assignment as a New York Times photographer, and the observation by one well-known journalist that certainly, "the Khmer Rouge are not without their equivalents in the West!"

When one listens carefully to the speeches and accents of these deportees (which can be traced to the negro ghettoes of Los Angeles or New York where a violent, gangland culture was already in full swing even before the KR era or the arrival of their bewildered families there) one would have to be inhumane to not feel that they have been made to be on the wrong end of a country's justice system by virtue of being forced to return to another country, in which they now find themselves, to all intent and purposes, complete aliens. Moreover, if they are not deemed worthy enough to remain on US soil, why should they be pronounced good enough to be among the Cambodian people, who have played no part within the last twenty-five years of their lives or so?

With time, even convicted criminals are known to have changed and reformed their habits or improved their persons. However, the greatest aid that can be provided them towards this end would presumably be their own familiar cultural environment or milieu, which Cambodia is definitely not?

When speaking in defence of any country's laws, it might be worthwhile for the speaker as a citizen (let alone a thinker and an educator!) to reflect upon one English philosopher's caution that:

"Society, even at its worst, is still a blessing. The state, however, is at its best repressive, and is frequently, intolerant".

A US-Cambodian lawyer who lost family members to the Khmer Rouge says she will file the first civil party suit against regime cadre who are not currently in the custody of the UN-backed tribunal.

Seng Theary's complaint names former Khmer Rouge commanders Meas Muth and Sou Met, in what she said is an effort to move the court forward on cases 003 and 004.

The court has so far only prosecuted one case, against torture chief Duch, and it is preparing for a second, against Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith. But the future of cases 003 and 004 remain unclear.

Those two cases, which the international prosecution has pushed forward against some judges at the court and the wishes of senior officials, would widen the scope of the tribunal and could mean more indictments.

"I want to claim full justice," Seng Theary, who is also a complainant in the upcoming case against four jailed leaders, told VOA Khmer Monday. "I am aware that there is political interference in those cases, and I want to encourage other victims to participate in filing complaints for cases 003 and 004, where political leaders have declared the cases would not move."

Government officials have said in the past there is no interference with the court, but Prime Minister Hun Sen and tribunal prosecutor Chea Leang have both said wider indictments have the potential of destabilizing the country.

The court has kept the names of potential defendants in cases 003 and 004 confidential. However, Meas Muth, a former division chief of the regime, and Sou Met, a central committee member, are both among a small group of cadre experts have said could be indicted in further trials.

Seng Theary's potential complaint met with sharp recrimination from the court.

"Any names alleged by Theary Seng or anyone else is pure speculation," tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen told VOA Khmer Monday. "And to start speculating on names of a confidential investigation under the pretext of being a civil party applicant is irresponsible and reckless and is contradictory to judicial due process."

Seng Theary's lawyer, Choung Chou Ngy, said Monday he had not yet filed documents with the court, but Rong Chhorng, head of the Victim's Support Service, confirmed he had received an e-mail from her declaring her intent to file.

Meas Muth, who currently lives in a remote village in Samlot district, Battambang province, has said in the past that deaths under his watch were from "sickness, fever, lightning, drowning," and did not constitute wrongdoing on his part. He has defended his position in the Khmer Rouge as a defender of Cambodia against foreign invasion.

Sou Met could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Gia Lai Province authorities have helped to build a vocational training school in Preah Vihear Province in Cambodia.

Gia Lai Province donated US$350,000 to build the training school along with the participation of the Royal Government of Cambodia.

The Gia Lai-Preah Vihear School is located in Phum Thorm Cheat in Chorm Ksan district. The school built in 8 months on an area of 540 square meters, includes a two-story building, six theory rooms, three practice rooms, labs and an internet room.

It will provide short-term and medium-term skill training in repairing small machinery, radios, tape-recorders, TV sets and wood processing items for souvenirs as well as provide practical training in vegetable growing and fish breeding.

150 students have already enrolled in its first course.

And the United States has been pushing — since the time of John F. Kennedy and before — to support similar aspirations for democracy — in Western Europe and Japan after World War II; in the failed but well-intentioned efforts to block communism from South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos; in foreign aid to the former Socialist bloc after the collapse of communism; and in scores of Third World (Developing) countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Some of our democracy aid has worked well but some has failed.

In the Ukraine after 2000, U.S. aid programs brought Ukrainian journalists, judges, and young civil society leaders to visit America's imperfect but still growing democracy or receive training at home. Then, when the old communist rulers tried to steal an election, independent pollsters named the real winner. TV journalists reported on the fraud, the Supreme Court declared the election invalid and thousands came to shiver in democracy protests in the Orange Revolution.

But U.S. democracy aid to Egypt has for years failed to put a dent in the authoritarian rule of the ruling National Democratic Party and its chief, Hosni Mubarak. Democracy aid to many African countries has also failed to change the way things are run — the corruption, the authoritarian rule, the managed press.

But when you say that the local culture may determine the success or failure of democracy aid, then you risk being called a racist. Isn't democracy for everyone?

Maybe not. And maybe democracy will take a different character in different countries.

Thailand is a peaceful, freedom-loving, easy-going country but if you question the monarchy or its control over vast wealth, you risk prosecution. And even a relatively free press in other issues did not prevent the military coup of 2006 and the populist riots by poor country people against the urban wealthy.

Now while Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh all struggle to create some form of democracy, no one today would say they have achieved an end to corruption, created equal opportunity for minorities and disadvantaged groups or installed governments that aim to create the maximum benefits to the maximum number of their citizens.

One has to also recognize that few countries in Africa have escaped from authoritarian and corrupt rule. Latin America made a big leap from decades of rule by the caudillos to elected governments in the 1990s. But with little real change in the non-egalitarian economic system, new, leftist caudillos such as Hugo Chavez have seized power.

So when I see the uprisings in the Middle East, I wonder if they all mean the same thing by democracy as we do in America and Europe. Many protestors do, as they have been to that magic mountain and studied in Paris or London or America. They've seen ordinary people deciding in the ballot box the future of their countries. They have seen cops and prosecutors and judges hold more power than presidents such as Richard Nixon and Jacques Chirac of France who were prosecuted by the independent justice systems of their countries.

When I taught seminars for journalists in Senegal some years ago, one young reporter told me: "Of course you can criticize government policies in America. But you cannot actually call the president a liar in the newspaper, can you?."

I then told them that every U.S. president has been called a liar in the press going back to the founding of the country. If that reporter is still working at his craft he could see in the American press that people question today whether President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii as he claims or in Kenya or elsewhere.

Somehow I find it hard to believe that in the Middle East, where direct face-to-face confrontation is avoided as it rapidly escalates into violence, reporters and political leaders of tomorrow will be able to call each other liars and get away with it. Now insults are not what democracy is made of. But a democracy that punishes people for insults is not worth the paper its constitution is printed on.

What we need to do if we want the Middle East to move towards democracy that is more than a slogan is to work with the existing (surviving) military and economic elites, as well as with the young activists, to pass on the practical tips that move a democratic ideal into the messy realm of the street.

The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups already know how to enforce rigid control over their members, to simplify all political choices — such as the recent vote in Egypt on constitutional amendments — into a demand that you "vote for Islam." These Brotherhood ward captains do not value the core democratic principle of independent thought. And if they win power they will likely be sure that no one ever again questions Islam — as they see Islam. The blasphemy laws of Pakistan could spread across the Middle East if they win power.

So U.S. support for democracy means more training for: journalists, editors, publishers, teachers, civil society, judges, police, non-government organizations, and mid-level political and administrative leaders.

We are rolling a great stone uphill and there is no certainty that it will ever overcome the gravitational pull of the history, the culture and the greedy seeking to retain control over policy, wealth and power.

But so long as we do not pull back and keep offering in all humility a roadmap to the democracy developed over 800 years in Europe and America, then this grand experiment may succeed.

Thailand and Cambodia should first hold a Joint Boundary Commission (JBC) meeting, and the General Border Committee (GBC) meeting could then follow, Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon said on Monday.

Gen Prawit said he wants the JBC to be separate from the GBC.

The JBC meeting should be held first and its outcome could be discussed later at the GBC meeting, which is not urgent, he said.

Indonesia has invited Thailand and Cambodia to hold both GBC and JBC meetings at Bogor, east of Jakarta, on April 7-8.

The foreign ministries of Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to attend the JBC, but the defence ministries of the two countries have not been able to agree on the GBC meeting. The GBC is chaired by the respective defence ministers; the JBC by the foreign ministers.

While Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh has insisted in holding the 8th GBC in Bogor, with Indonesia acting as mediator, Thai Defence Minister Prawit has said he will definitely not go to Indonesia and that the GBC should be bilateral only, attended by soldiers of the two countries and held only in either in Thailand or Cambodia.

"I don't understand why Tea Banh wants Indonesia to be the middleman. The existing problems are between the two countries, which enjoy good relations. Why must another country be involved?" Gen Prawit said.

On the military presence along the border, Gen Prawit said he had no intention of talking to Cambodia over possible reductions or redeployments of troops and heavy weapons in and around the 4.6 square kilometre disputed area.

He said soldiers of both sides should stay where they are for now, but they must be careful to avoid misunderstandings or use of force.

"What I want is peaceful co-existence," Gen Prawit said.

Yesterday, SRP MP Mu Sochua said that the NatAss (National Assembly) should return her immunity back. She said that she already paid off her fine and the NatAss did not provide her immunity back yet. CPP MP Cheam Yeap replied that Mrs. Mu Sochua will receive her immunity back at the end of 2011. Cheam Yeap said that the problem that Mrs. Mu Sochua did not receive her immunity immediately was because she was involved in an illegal case, and according to the law, she must wait 1 year after her sentencing date before she can receive her immunity back (sic! sic! sic!)

The WG calls your urgent attention to the latest draft of the Cambodian NGO Law which remains excessively restrictive. There is concern that the draft will move forward to final review by the Council of Ministers as early as Friday April 1st.

As a member of the International Contact Group, we ask you to share this Alert with your contacts on the ground and join diplomatic efforts already underway by the international community in Cambodia. The objective is to encourage the Government of Cambodia to engage in a serious, meaningful, comprehensive review of the proposed legislation and the introduction of amendments to it so that it is aligned with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

In the event that the review does not allow for the proposed law to be amended in a way consistent with the above-mentioned international human rights law instruments, consideration should be given to withdrawing the proposed text and entering into a meaningful consultation with all stakeholders that would lead to a bill reflecting international standards and best practices.

The Working Group of Community of Democracies is an intergovernmental organization of democracies and democratizing countries committed to strengthening and deepening democratic norms and practices worldwide.

The organization is composed of both governmental representatives and civil society organizations who meet as a group at biennial conferences.

--------------

Mr. Ngeth Moses

Communications Coordinator

LOCAL activist Theary Seng has announced plans to file the first civil party application in the Khmer Rouge tribunal's controversial third and fourth cases, targeting her complaint at former KR military commanders Meas Muth and Sou Met.

The former executive director of the Centre for Social Development said in a statement Friday that Meas Muth and Sou Met - commanders of the Khmer Rouge navy and air force, respectively - were among the five suspects being investigated by the tribunal in Cases 003 and 004. The identities of suspects in these cases remain confidential, however, and Theary Seng acknowledged yesterday that she had not received confirmation from the tribunal the pair are indeed under investigation.

"I'm taking a high risk here because I don't have official documents before me," she said, though she added that she was "very confident" that the pair were being investigated.

"The information is really based on public documents, on articles and research, experts and people who have been [working on] these issues," she said.

United Nations court spokesman Lars Olsen called Theary Seng's allegations premature and irresponsible.

"The court will not be bullied into confirming or denying speculation about a confidential investigation," he said.

"This is a reckless act which shows complete disregard for judicial due process and principles of law."

Meas Muth and Sou Met have long been suggested as suspects for the tribunal, having been named by scholars Stephen Heder and Brian Tittemore in their influential 2001 paper "Seven Candidates for Pros-ecution: Accountability for the Crimes of the Khmer Rouge".

Prime Minister Hun Sen and other government officials have expressed opposition to the court's pending investigations in Cases 003 and 004, calling them a threat to the Kingdom's stability. Prosecutors have said there will be no further investigations at the tribunal beyond these cases.

In 2007, Theary Seng became the first person to pursue civil party status at the tribunal, applying to participate in Case 002 after having lost both her parents under the Khmer Rouge. She said in her statement that she had targeted Meas Muth and Sou Met in her new application because she considered them responsible for the deaths of her parents "for their roles as military commanders who contributed to the common purpose and design in the arrests and executions specifically in their respective divisions and generally for the whole of Cambodia".

Uth Sopheak, 26, the son of Meas Muth, said yesterday that he was unconcerned about a possible case against his father.

"I am not worried about him because he did nothing wrong," Uth Sopheak said. "It is useless for people to keep thinking about revenge."

Since 9/11, one of the big concerns of America's ruling class is what the rest of the world thinks of the United States -- hence the lamentation of "why do they hate us?" In fact, one of President Obama's goals when taking office was to change the world's perception of America. Of course, the ruling class is worried about only what its elitist counterparts think, not your typical citizen of another country.

So what does that typical citizen think?

Since moving abroad last year, I have gained some insight into answering this question. One recent discussion with one of my law students was quite illuminating. The student, who is from Cambodia, complained to me that the U.S. government was going to deport a Cambodian national who had been permanently living in the U.S. for over twenty-five years. The prospective deportee had moved to the U.S. in the 1980s to escape the communist killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. In those twenty-five years, he never bothered to become a citizen.

Recently, the man in question was convicted of committing a felony. Suddenly, the place to which he had fled that saved him from being massacred, the place that has provided him with a level of personal liberty nonexistent in his place of birth -- even before the Khmer Rouge -- is supposedly treating him unfairly.

When I questioned my student as to why, during those twenty-five years, the felon did not become a U.S. citizen, my student, quite matter-a-factly, "Because [the felon] was Cambodian." So, I asked, since the felon considers himself a Cambodian, why does he have a problem with being deported back there? My student responded that the felon had been gone too long and no longer knew the culture. So this felon considers himself Cambodian and therefore does not want to become an American citizen, but he also does not want to return to Cambodia -- and the U.S. government should accommodate him.

I then asked the student whether the government of South Korea (where I am currently teaching law) has the right to deport me if I commit a felony (or for any reason, for that matter). The student had no problem answering "yes" and added that "Korea is for the Koreans!" I then asked, "Whom is America for?" He did not answer.

This exchange came as a revelation to me. My student essentially alleged that the United States is there for his (i.e., the world's) benefit if and when he needs something. Korea is for Koreans. Cambodia is for Cambodians. But America must be for anyone and everyone. Korea and Cambodia have the right to keep you or kick you out, but America does not.

This perception, while problematic at times, is not all bad. America has always been a beacon for the oppressed. It is a source of hope for millions. While most will never make it to her shores, America's very existence is a comfort of possibilities: as long as America stands strong, a better life is possible.

But the perception typified by my student certainly is not all good, either. It presumes that America should expect nothing in return. It also presumes that the world gets to dictate what America can and cannot do. Thus the deportation of even a convicted felon is unfair. How dare America have her own laws, her own sovereignty?

Most of Europe views America, especially her military, in the same way. For the past sixty years, Europeans have looked down their noses at America for its large defense budget. However, Europe gladly accepted and relied upon U.S. protection during the Cold War while spending little to nothing for its own defense. Instead of being grateful, Europeans maintain a faux moral superiority. Of course, it's easy to be "anti-war" when someone else is willing to fight your battles. Nonetheless, when the U.S. goes to war for her own self-interest, Europe, cozy in the safety not of its own making, preens with jilted outrage. America must protect Europe, but Europeans think they should get to decide when America can protect herself.

America's immigration issues are tainted with this same perception, especially concerning arguments made in support of illegal aliens. Not only, as the arguments go, should the illegals be allowed to stay, no questions asked, but they also should have access to all the benefits of citizenship. And this is not a request or desire; it is a demand (a "right"). Thus, America's laws are to be ignored, but her benefits must be administered, with the American taxpayer footing the bill. Everyone who crosses into America's borders has a right to America's largesse, but America has no right to ask for or expect anything in return -- not even that her own laws are followed.

In a sense, America does belong to the world. For centuries now, America has been a place where the rest of the world's people have come to get away from the rest of the world. Lately, however, the rest of the world have asked (demanded) only what America can do for them. Well, America and most of her citizens do more than enough. How about doing your part?

The Funcinpec held its congress on 02 April 2011.

On 02 April, the Funcinpec held its party congress at its new headquarters located in Bakkheng commune, Russei Keo district, Phnom Penh city. The congress approved a number of amendment change, as well as the separation of responsibility between the party's legislative branch and the party's executive branch.

In the results of the congress – which was participated by more than 3,000 party activists – the party approved the nomination of Keo Puth Reaksmey, the former party president, as the party leader, and it also approved the nomination of Nhiek Bun Chhay, the former party secretary-general, to the position of executive president, as well as approving the nomination of Lu Laysreng, the former party no. 1 vice-president, to the position of party honorary president.

Nhiek Bun Chhay, the new Funcinpec executive president, declared with confidence that this party will receive even more support from grassroot party activists, especially during the upcoming 2012 commune election, and the upcoming 2013 general election.

Nhiek Bun Chhay claimed: "I believe that the Funcinpec has nowhere else to drop further, it only has 2 seats left [at the NatAss (National Assembly)]. It can only try to get up, how much it will get up depends on our efforts."

In addition to this, Keo Puth Reaksmey – who was recently approved to become the party leader – indicated that this party still maintains its standing and it will continue to cooperate with the ruling CPP party in order to continue to develop the country.

Keo Puth Reaksmey indicated that: "There were party reforms in 2006, and we will continue to reform, i.e. we do whatever to divide the responsibility a little bit at a time. This is what we call no dispute, no wrestling [power] from each other because each one of us do not know what to wrestle for, because [when it comes] to greed, each person wants it very much, but if we want only a little, this is what we are doing."

Doctor Sok Touch, an independent political analyst in Cambodia, is very interested in this issue, i.e. the Funcinpec party with its newly elected leaders, can it preserve its internal cohesion in order to avoid party splitting, notwithstanding its support for the upcoming 2012 and 2013 elections? "We already saw it: When Keo Puth Reaksmey and Lu Laysreng are nominated to these positions, it means that the pair have been promoted out of power. Therefore, the one who grabs power in the party is H.E. Nhiek Bun Chhay. If it is Nhiek Bun Chhay, then we can see how can it be a royalist party, when there is no royalist line, no royalist blood at all? Therefore this is a problem. Therefore, the point I want to make is that: let's not talk about the election, how can this party maintains its stability until the election? This is the question."

The Funcinpec party extraordinary congress was held on 02 April 2011. This is the party's very first congress since the one they held in 2006 where they decided to remove Prince Norodom Ranariddh from his position as party leader.

The Funcinpec congress on 02 April also approved the nomination of 3,000 party candidates to the commune election, and it also approved 120 members of the leadership committee, as well as 45 reserved members for the party leadership committee. These approvals are valid for the next 5 year of the party mandate.

Clad in a blue shirt under a cream jacket, Kaing Guak Eav sat back, seemingly relaxed to the point of boredom. The judge, prosecution and defense debated the finer points of the relationship between Cambodia's penal code and the tribunal set up to examine crimes committed under Khmer Rouge rule from 1975 to 1978. Meanwhile, the man known as Comrade Duch, sitting alone two rows behind his legal team, punctuated an impassive stillness with the occasional bout of fidgety restlessness.

As head of the S-21 torture camp, Duch—pronounced "Doik"—oversaw the torture of around 16,000 prisoners at the former school, now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Most of the detainees were later murdered at Choeung Ek, one of the country's thousands of mass graves or "Killing Fields," around 15 miles from Phnom Penh's city center. S-21 was only one of over 190 similar detention, torture and murder camps set up all over Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge era.

Duch was not part of the Khmer Rouge leadership and is the only one of the five accused to have expressed remorse for his crimes, offering at one point to face a public stoning and to allow victims to visit him in jail. But he made a u-turn on the final day of his trial in November 2009, asking to be acquitted and freed, which left many wondering if his contrition was sincere.

After being sentenced to 35 years in prison last July, both defense and prosecution launched appeals, the former saying the sentence is too long, and the latter claiming an unwarranted leniency. In effect the sentence means that Duch will serve around 18 years, or roughly 11 hours jail time for each person killed at S-21. ?"We reiterate our request that the sentence be increased to something more appropriate to the crimes committed," said prosecution lawyer Chea Leang, speaking in Khmer.

The hybrid nature of the tribunal is reflected in the bilingual proceedings, with international lawyers and judges speaking in English, while Cambodians use Khmer. The 300 or so people in the public gallery wore headsets, listening to the translation in their preferred language, as security berated some of the high school students in the gallery for nodding off during the densely legalistic arguments.

Duch's defense says that the sentence should be reduced, due to time served already, and referred back to "mitigating circumstances" discussed during the previous trial. "Any reference to international courts such as Rwanda or Yugoslavia is not appropriate," said lawyer Kar Savuth, adding that "psychological evaluation shows that Duch can re-enter society."

Duch says that the crimes he committed and oversaw were carried out under duress from the Khmer Rouge leadership, a defense similar to that used by Nazis at the post-World War II Nuremberg trials. "Duch tried to isolate himself from the crimes at S-21," claimed the defense. "What would you or anyone have done in his shoes? It would be like trying to disobey orders from the SS."

At the Toul Sleng museum, meanwhile, a copy of a 1976 letter handwritten by Duch stands in one of the cells through which thousands passed to their deaths, upstairs from the torture implements used at the compound.

Exhorting the use of gruesome punishment at S-21, it signs off with "therefore, you Comrade can employ hot torture methods with force for long periods … even if it may cause death."

Lead prosecution lawyer Andrew Cayley said that the case ultimately comes down to the fact that Duch "is a man who got up every day for work, for over three years, and murdered over 12,000 people."

Only seven people are known to have survived S-21, where visitors can see gruesome photos of murdered prisoners taken by Vietnamese army photographers after the compound was liberated by troops sent in by Hanoi.

"That is what this is all about," Cayley concluded, after describing Duch as "selective and opportunistic" in his cooperation with the court, and that his case "did not meet the standards for mitigation."

Discussing the appeal, for which a verdict is expected in June, Khmer Rouge survivor Youk Chhang said that "if the sentence is reduced, it will be a slap in the face for the victims." However, he cautioned against any public anger, adding that "we must also respect the rule of law."

Sitting among a mountain of books and documents covering the history of Khmer Rouge rule, Chhang spoke at his office at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has contributed to gathering evidence against the Khmer Rouge.

Despite concerns about the Duch appeal, he says the "more important is Case No 2," referring to the impending trial of the four senior surviving Khmer Rouge top brass—"Brother No. 2" Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Thirith and Ieng Sary. They will come before the tribunal later this year.

Along with Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader who died in 1998, the four are regarded as among the top decision-makers during the Communist reign of terror in Cambodia, which was ended by a Vietnamese military invasion in 1979. An estimated 2 million Cambodians—a quarter of the population—were killed by the Khmer Rouge, with an estimated 5 million of the country's present-day population of 15 million listed as survivors of the era.

Like previous years, KI-Media offers to post your Khmer New Year Greetings message on our website free of charge. Please send in your messages in PDF or JPeG format to kiletters@gmail.com.

Cambodian New Year Celebreation

1594 Cunningham Ave.

San Jase, CA 95122

Tel: (408) 923-2166/ 550-5060

Thursday 14 April 2011

Friday 15 April 2011

Saturday 16 April 2011 (from 8:30AM to 10PM)

Sunday 17 April 2011 (from 8:30AM to 3PM)

It is a country soaked in blood, devastated by war, and its people are starving to death. Every day numbed witnesses to the appalling tragedy that has consumed Cambodia trek across the border into Thailand. Stumbling on reed-thin legs through the high elephant grass that grows along the frontier, they form a grisly cavalcade of specters, wrapped in black rags. Many are in the last stages of malnutrition, or are ravaged by such diseases as dysentery, tuberculosis and malaria. Perhaps the most pathetic images of all are those of tearful, exhausted mothers cradling hollow-eyed children with death's-head faces, their bellies swollen, their limbs as thin and fragile as dried twigs. Since early October, an estimated 80,000 Cambodians have made it safely across the border, and perhaps 250,000 others are clustered in the western provinces of the country, waiting for their chance to escape. They are the lucky ones. Relief agencies believe that as many as 2.25 million Cambodians could die of starvation in the next few months unless a vast amount of aid is provided soon.

With food and proper care, most of the adults in the refugee camps have a chance for full recovery. Many of the children, however, have already suffered permanent brain damage and bone deformation as a result of malnutrition. The riveting photographs of these innocent victims of regional avarice and ethnic hatreds have helped arouse universal horror at the ordeal of Cambodia. In 1975 the country had a population of approximately 8 million; as many as 4 million Cambodians have died since then.

No nation on earth has seen more suffering in the past decade than this once tranquil and fertile land. Though neutral in the early years of the Viet Nam War, Cambodia unwittingly became a base for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, and the target of savage U.S. bombings. Its popular Chief of State, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was overthrown by Premier Lon Nol in 1970. Lon Nol was in turn deposed by Pol Pot when the Khmer Rouge, as the Cambodian Communist forces are called, took over the country in 1975. After four years of mass terror and murder under the Khmer Rouge the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia last December and installed a puppet regime headed by President Heng Samrin.

Cambodia's agony continues. Hanoi, with 180,000 soldiers operating in the country, has now embarked on an intensive effort to wipe out the remaining Khmer Rouge forces loyal to Pol Pot. Unless the fighting is halted somehow, Cambodia itself could be the ultimate casualty of war.

Efforts to mount a vast international relief campaign gathered force last week as visitors to refugee camps in Thailand and to the interior of Cambodia returned with searing eyewitness accounts of mass starvation. Three U.S. Senators, the first American officials to visit the Cambodian capital of Phnom-Penh since the fall of Lon Nol, testified before Edward Kennedy's Senate Judiciary Committee that famine and disease threatened to extinguish the entire Cambodian people. Republican John Danforth of Missouri said he and his colleagues had visited camps in Thailand that were simply "ground with people strewn over it." Danforth argued that "hundreds of thousands of people [are] at death's door. We saw people who couldn't walk 100 yards." Said Democrat James Sasser of Tennessee: "The human suffering we found was so deep and pervasive that I don't have the words to adequately describe it."

In Phnom-Penh, officials of the Heng Samrin regime reluctantly conceded to the Senators that at least 2.25 million Cambodians faced extreme "hunger" and that 165,000 tons of rice were needed in the next six months. Nonetheless, the government turned down the Senators' proposal to open a truck route from Thailand that would greatly increase deliveries of famine relief supplies by the International Red Cross, UNICEF and other agencies. Phnom-Penh officials were obviously more concerned about preventing food from falling into the hands of the Khmer Rouge insurgents than they were with saving hundreds of thousands of Cambodians from starvation and death. Condemning the obstructionist tactics that have thus far limited relief supplies to a fraction of the need, Danforth observed: "If a government is determined to murder its own people, I don't know how to stop it."

At a press conference, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance pleaded with "those who control the territory and the population" of Cambodia to put "humanitarian concerns ahead of political or military advantage" and allow food and medical supplies to be brought into the starving country by land, sea and air. Vance said that he would represent the U.S. this week at a special U.N. conference on the Cambodian catastrophe; he also reaffirmed President Carter's pledge of $69 million to the international relief effort. Said Vance: "I can think of no issue now before the world community and before every single nation that can lay greater claim to our concern and to our action."

On the Senate floor, Republican Jacob Javits of New York and Democrat Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island urged that the U.S. and other countries establish a huge airlift of food and medicine into Cambodia if Phnom-Penh persists in refusing to allow a "land bridge" for trucks to enter Cambodia from Thailand with supplies. A bipartisan group of 68 House members urged Carter to set up a joint airlift with the Soviet Union. The plan was first suggested by the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh of the University of Notre Dame. Said he: "I'm perfectly willing to ride in the lead truck and get shot in the process rather than sit back and have it on my conscience that I did nothing to stop a second holocaust" Hesburgh also suggested that the U.S. withhold grain sales to the Soviet Union unless the Kremlin collaborates in making 150,000 tons available to the Cambodians immediately. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Senate majority leader, contacted Soviet Ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin in an appeal to Moscow to persuade Phnom-Penh to allow food to be trucked in. At the same time, Kennedy is supporting a move to increase the amount of aid pledged by President Carter from $69 million to $99 million.

In Western Europe, the plight of the Cambodians also sparked wide-scale efforts. For the French, who had ruled Cambodia for 90 years, until 1953, compassion ran high for their former colonial subjects. This week's U.N. conference is the result of an initiative by French Foreign Minister Jean François-Poncet. His earlier appeal for more aid to Cambodia spurred a nationwide "S O S Cambodia" campaign that has raised $2 million from French citizens. Three French medical teams are working in refugee camps in Thailand, while the hospital ship lie de la Lumière, which is now headed for Thailand, has cared for thousands of Cambodian and other Indochinese refugees. Even the French Communist Party has offered to help the starving Cambodians through a "Sanitary and Medical Aid Committee for the Cambodian people."

From Britain, a Hercules plane has been flying 15 tons of supplies a day into Phnom-Penh's airport. The Australians have provided three charter flights and 80 tons of food and medicine. The Japanese government has approved a $4.5 million emergency grant for Cambodian refugees and has recruited a team of medical volunteers to work in the camps. The scores of countries participating in this week's U.N. conference on Cambodia are expected to pledge considerably more assistance. Among them will be the U.S.S.R. Although the Soviets have done nothing to assist Western aid efforts, they are expected to boast of their food shipments to Cambodia, though it is unclear how much of this food is channeled to the occupying Vietnamese forces.

Responding angrily to the worldwide clamor, the Heng Samrin government has condemned the international aid offers as a "maneuver by the imperialists and international reactionaries" to assist the Khmer Rouge insurgents. Justifying its refusal to allow relief supplies to be brought in by truck, the government claimed that the port of Kompong Som and the airport of Phnom-Penh were "perfectly adequate" for the purpose. But according to on-the-scene investigations by the three U.S. Senators, only 12,000 tons of food and medicine can be brought in by air and ship each month, whereas 30,000 tons can be delivered by trucks alone. Docks at Kompong Som have been destroyed. One particularly poignant obstacle to deliveries by ship was discovered by Oxfam officials. They found that dock workers at Kompong Som are so enfeebled by malnutrition that they cannot unload heavy shipments of food from deep-draught freighters. According to UNICEF Executive Director Henry Labouisse, Phnom-Penh officials have instructed the U.N. agency not to send anything that weighs more than 50 kilos (110 Ibs.) "because people are too weak to carry anything heavier."

Despite the best efforts of the Thais and international relief agencies, the aid being provided to the 80,000 Cambodian refugees who have reached Thailand is makeshift and inadequate. TIME Hong Kong Bureau Chief Marsh Clark last week visited a camp that had been hastily set up to care for 30,000 refugees at Sakaew, 40 miles west of the Cambodian frontier. Most of the refugees had taken shelter from blinding rainstorms in huts constructed of poles and plastic sheets; small blue tents had been set up for dozens of orphans. Field kitchens were preparing high-protein rice gruel for the starving, while field hospitals tended to the sick, some of whom were laid out on mats on the muddy ground. Women were bathing their babies in mud puddles. Though latrines had been dug, most of the refugees were too ill or too weary to use them. "They defecate where they stand or where they sleep," said one UNICEF official.

Reported Clark: "In a single one-hour period, I saw four dead bodies in the Sakaew camp. One was lying in the muddy track that runs down the middle of the camp, covered by a blanket. Nobody paid any attention to it. Another was that of a woman who was already in rigor mortis, her feet sticking stiffly out from the end of a yellow cloth her husband had thrown over her. The husband sat in a daze while people in the adjoining makeshift shelters not more than four feet away were going about their business of cooking, eating and sleeping as if the dead woman were not there. 'I've got a body here,' I heard one young volunteer shout to an official. 'What do I do with it?' The official shrugged. Throw it out back with the others,' he said. The bodies collected in the rear of the camp are then gathered up, placed on ox carts, and taken to a nearby Buddhist temple for burial.

"Besides the sick and hungry refugees, the camp also contained a contingent of Khmer Rouge soldiers who had been beaten back into Thailand over the past three weeks by a Vietnamese offensive in the border areas. Though far better fed than the other refugees, toughened to hardship and accustomed to living by their wits in the jungle, the Khmer Rouge and their entourage had clearly reached the limit of their endurance. They did not look like human beings in the accepted sense of the term but rather like wild animals, completely brutalized. They slept huddled side by side like beasts in a cage. They seldom spoke and kept their eyes cast downward. They seemed so pathetic that it was almost possible to forget the abominable cruelties they had committed in trying to establish a new Communist civilization at a cost of millions of Cambodian lives."

In essence, it was Cambodia's unwilling role as a pawn in the Indochinese wars that led to what U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim calls "a national tragedy that may have no parallel in history." In the mid-1960s the country's peaceful mode of life, under the benevolently authoritarian rule of Prince Sihanouk, was suddenly imperiled by the Viet Nam conflict. At the time, Cambodia was an overwhelmingly agricultural country that exported rice. Though it could hardly have been termed prosperous—per capita income was only $110 a year—its people lived relatively well by Asian standards. Unfortunately, the Cambodian army was weak and poorly equipped; Sihanouk was unable to prevent the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese from using parts of the country as sanctuaries and resupply routes for their forces in South Viet Nam. The existence of these sanctuaries led the U.S. to launch what would become highly controversial secret bombing raids over Cambodia in 1969 and to invade the country the next year. In March 1970, while Sihanouk was in Moscow, he was ousted in a coup organized by Premier Lon Nol, an army marshal with mystical tendencies. Even with an infusion of U.S. supplies, Lon Nol proved unable to cope with the Vietnamese and the growing guerrilla army of the Khmer Rouge. The five years of fighting that followed put Cambodia well on its way to the cruel hunger of today. By 1974 the U.N.'s World Health Organization and the U.S. Senate Refugees Subcommittee reported that malnutrition was already a severe problem.

In his angry book Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia, British Journalist William Shawcross has charged that the bombing and invasion of the country set the stage for the Khmer Rouge conquest of Cambodia. U.S. policy, Shawcross argued, "was creating an enemy [the Khmer Rouge] where none had previously existed." In his memoirs, Henry Kissinger answered that the North Vietnamese were the first to violate Cambodia's neutrality, and that it is outrageous to blame American policy for the horrors that the Khmer Rouge unleashed on its own people after the collapse of the Lon Nol government in 1975.

The ideological guru of the Khmer Rouge was Cambodia's former head of state, Khieu Samphan. While a graduate student in France during the 1950s, he argued in a doctoral dissertation that a Communist-run Cambodia should "withdraw from the world economy and restructure the local economy on a self-centered basis" in order to purge the country of "decadent colonial influences." With unspeakable brutality, this deceptively bland program was imposed on "Democratic Kampuchea" (as that country was renamed) by the government of Premier Pol Pot after the Khmer Rouge took power. Phnom-Penh, once a placid, luxury-loving city of broad avenues and towering hibiscus trees, became a ghost town as the Khmer Rouge force marched the city's refugee-swollen population to resettlement on rural communes that were no better than slave-labor camps. Even the wounded were prodded at gunpoint from hospital beds —and left to die along the roadside if they were too weak to walk. At the camps, Cambodians of all ages were forced to work from dawn until after dusk planting rice. Families were separated, Buddhism abolished as the state religion and virtually every trapping of civilization disappeared: postal services, telephones, currency, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly.

A major goal of the Khmer Rouge was to destroy the intelligentsia. People who wore glasses were killed, on the suspicion that they knew how to read or write. Of the 500 physicians in Cambodia in 1975, only 57 survived the Khmer Rouge purge. People suspected of lagging on the job were punished by death, rendered by a hatchet blow on the back of the neck, or, as many refugees have reported, by evisceration. Groups of children who were found guilty of being the offspring of "undesirables" were reportedly chained together, then buried alive in bomb craters under dirt that was shoved on top of them by bulldozers. Between 1975 and 1978, from 2 million to 3 million Cambodians died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

The Khmer Rouge excesses were condemned almost everywhere except in China, which had long favored an independent Cambodia, one that would be outside North Viet Nam's sphere of influence. Peking propped up the Pol Pot regime with vast amounts of military and economic aid. The North Vietnamese, meanwhile, never gave up their dream of taking all of Indochina. In early 1978 Hanoi used the excuse of some Khmer Rouge raids on Vietnamese border villages to invade Cambodia. Ostensibly, the Vietnamese soldiers involved were "volunteers" assisting a "National Salvation Front" headed by Heng Samrin and other obscure Khmer Rouge defectors. Last Christmas the Vietnamese and Heng Samrin's Cambodians launched a major assault on provincial capitals. On Jan. 7, Pol Pot and his surviving cadres abandoned the capital and fled to a Khmer Rouge mountain hideout.

Cambodia's years of genocide were over, but the hunger problem was made worse, if possible, by the Vietnamese conquest. Hanoi's forces, numbering about 180,000, found themselves locked in a war with 20,000 to 30,000 dogged Khmer Rouge guerrillas, who still control much of the countryside. As a result of the continuing war, food has become a weapon on both sides. The Khmer Rouge routinely ravage the new paddyfields planted under the Vietnamese occupation. Not only are the Cambodians starving, but even the Vietnamese troops are said to be on short rations. Many of the Khmer Rouge have been pressed back into hilly, thickly jungled areas where rice cannot be grown. Still, the Khmer Rouge eat almost as well as they always have; it is the civilian slave laborers they force to accompany them who are starving.

Systematic pillaging by Vietnamese troops has compounded the country's plight. Cambodian shops, homes and Buddhist temples have been stripped by Hanoi's invaders. Machines, household appliances, furniture and Buddha heads have been loaded aboard planes and trucks and shipped to Viet Nam. There are even reports that the Vietnamese are loading rice intended for refugees aboard carriers headed for Hanoi.

Hanoi's disregard of the plight of the Cambodians has been reinforced by the enmity between the two peoples. The Vietnamese have long regarded the Cambodians as treacherous barbarians who had the impudence to revolt against their domination in 1840. Observed Minh Mang, the Vietnamese emperor at the time: "We helped the Cambodians when they were suffering and lifted them out of the mud. Now they are rebellious. I am so angry that my hair stands upright. Hundreds of knives should be used against them, to chop them up, to dismember them."

Partly as a result of this historic hostility, Viet Nam has been unable to colonize or pacify Cambodia effectively. No one, least of all the Cambodians, believes that the present regime in Phnom-Penh is anything other than a Hanoi puppet government. Many analysts think that Cambodia is being run by a high council in Hanoi, headed by Vietnamese Politburo Member Le Due Tho, who was co-winner (with Henry Kissinger) of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for having brought peace to Indochina. Tho refused to accept the honor.

The Cambodians hate their Vietnamese conquerors, but they live in deathly fear of the Khmer Rouge, who have not abandoned their politics of terror. Though it is not known for sure whether Pol Pot survived his ouster by the Vietnamese last January, he is widely believed to command his guerrilla forces from hideouts in the Cardamom Mountains of southwest Cambodia. Other known areas of Khmer Rouge strength are in the heavily forested northeast and the mountainous west.

From these strongholds the guerrillas fan out across the country for swift strikes against Vietnamese army outposts and supply routes. One broadcast by a clandestine Khmer Rouge radio station —probably located in China's Yunnan province—claimed that several Cuban and Soviet advisers had been killed in a Phnom-Penh airport ambush.

Innocent Cambodians are, as ever, caught in the crossfire. According to refugees, Vietnamese troops "liberating" a hamlet from the Khmer Rouge will customarily abolish the communal kitchens and other vestiges of Pol Pot's extremist brand of Communism and allow the citizens to elect their own leaders. The Vietnamese then move on to other villages, leaving the inhabitants defenseless against the revenge of Khmer Rouge who swoop down at night, reinstitute the communal kitchens, seize what food is available, and kill the elected leaders.

Although the Vietnamese troops in Cambodia outnumber the Khmer Rouge 7 to 1, it is by no means certain that Hanoi can defeat the Khmer Rouge. The Cardamom Mountains are densely forested and remote. The Vietnamese supply lines are long and vulnerable to harassment, and the Khmer Rouge know the country. Continuing Vietnamese efforts to root out the guerrillas may merely add to the chaos in Cambodia.

One advantage enjoyed by the Khmer Rouge is their ability to make tactical retreats into Thailand, where they rest and regroup—much to the discomfiture of the neutral Thais. Some 30,000 Khmer Rouge and their supporters crossed into Thailand last month during a Vietnamese offensive, and reportedly have since returned to Cambodia, presumably having hidden their arms there. One obvious danger is that Hanoi might risk a direct attack into Thailand. Said a top Western diplomatic observer in Bangkok last week: "The war can easily spill over into Thailand. Hanoi wants very badly to get rid of the Khmer Rouge and may use hot pursuit to accomplish its purpose."

To blunt that possibility, Washington has sold Bangkok $400 million worth of sophisticated weapons in the past fiscal year, including 150 M48 tanks. A spokesman for the Defense Department said last week that shipments of arms to Thailand had been speeded up during the past several months because the U.S. has been concerned that the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia might spread to other countries.

The U.S. can help arm the Thais against a Vietnamese incursion, but Washington seems virtually helpless to influence the apparently inexorable course of events that is engulfing the Cambodian people. One reason is that the war being waged inside the country is ultimately a reflection of the deep-rooted Sino-Soviet conflict. Another is that Hanoi perceives all humanitarian efforts by the world to feed the starving Cambodians as "interference" in the affairs of the Phnom-Penh government. In spite of growing Western pressure, many diplomatic observers believe that Phnom-Penh, under Hanoi's direction, will continue to obstruct any large-scale relief efforts. Said one Western diplomat in Bangkok: "The Vietnamese might not want supply trucks rolling down the Cambodian highways because they are engaged in military operations on those roads. They also may not want outsiders to see that it is Hanoi that is righting the war against the Khmer Rouge and not Phnom-Penh. They fear that even if the food is distributed to Cambodian civilians, some of those civilians may pass it on to the Khmer Rouge, or have it seized. Finally, the Vietnamese simply don't give a damn about what happens to the Cambodians."

If that chilling assessment is correct, what does the future hold for Cambodians who may survive the present famine? No viable alternative to Vietnamese rule exists at present. Some Cambodian emigres have placed their hopes in the Khmer Serei, or Free Khmers. These survivors of the Lon Nol forces are bitter enemies of both the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge. But with only 3,000 able-bodied soldiers, concentrated in western Battambang province, the Khmer Serei are a very remote threat to Hanoi. TIME's Clark visited a camp on the Cambodian-Thai border north of Aranyaprathet where there are Khmer Serei forces. Though dashingly outfitted in U.S. Marine Corps and Army jungle suits, the Khmer Serei looked anything but warlike. Resting on hammocks, with their transistor radios tuned to American pop music, they seemed to have been reduced to a state of permanent indolence.

Some hopes for creating a future independent government in Cambodia center on the irrepressible Prince Sihanouk, who wanders in exile between Peking and the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. Sihanouk had been put under house arrest by the Pol Pot regime when the former Chief of State had boldly returned to Cambodia at the height of the Khmer Rouge terror. He re-emerged just as Phnom-Penh fell to the Vietnamese invaders last January. He appeared at the U.N. to make an impassioned speech in favor of Cambodian independence in which he compared Viet Nam to a "starving boa constrictor leaping on an innocent animal."

Though erratic and sometimes clownish, the wily Sihanouk is still popular in his country, particularly among the peasants. Because of his longtime residence in Peking he would probably not be acceptable to the Soviet Union as a compromise leader of the country, in the unlikely event that Hanoi could be persuaded to withdraw its forces from Cambodia. Last month Sihanouk announced the formation of a Confederation of Khmer Nationalists in exile, which was building its own armed forces. The Prince also said that he would attempt to establish a provisional government in Cambodia that would exclude backers of both the Peking-supported Khmer Rouge and Hanoi-sponsored Heng Samrin. Sihanouk declared that his organization was supported by 100,000 exiled Cambodians around the world. But, as one U.S. State Department official put it last week, "Sihanouk's fatal flaw is that his so-called troops are actually scattered around the coffee houses of the U.S., Australia and Western Europe."

In reply to questions submitted by TIME to Sihanouk, the Prince cabled that "the majority of the Cambodian people, and me, myself, consider that the No. 1 danger and menace threatening the innocent Cambodian people is the genocidal regime of Pol Pot, and that Vietnamese colonialism is enemy No. 2. It is my opinion that it is necessary that the regime of Pol Pot must first be eliminated by the Vietnamese army." After that, the Prince would hope to eliminate the Vietnamese presence from Cambodia.

Sihanouk may regard Vietnamese colonialism as evil No. 2, but the non-Communist nations of Southeast Asia are as hostile to Hanoi's puppet regime in Phnom-Penh as they are to Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. Viet Nam has been repeatedly rebuffed in its efforts to have the legitimacy of the Heng Samrin regime endorsed by the world's major powers. Indeed, only the Soviet Union, its satellites and a few other smaller countries have recognized the present Phnom-Penh government. Hanoi suffered a particularly humiliating defeat in September when the U.N. General Assembly, by a 2-to-1 margin, voted to seat a representative of the Pol Pot regime as Cambodia's delegate.

Despite the ghastly record of the Khmer Rouge, the majority—which included the U.S.—could not stomach legitimatizing a regime that had been installed at the point of Vietnamese guns.

Last week Hanoi was cannily maneuvering to use the U.N. special conference on aid to Cambodia as a stepping stone for recognition of the Heng Samrin regime. Vietnamese Ambassador Ha Van Lau reportedly raised the issue of Samrin representation with Secretary-General Waldheim. Phnom-Penh's Foreign Minister Hun Sen sent a message to Waldheim saying that his government viewed "with sympathy" all well-intentioned humanitarian assistance and was "prepared in consequence to send its representatives to assist the proposed conference."

Though clearly motivated by political opportunism, the Hun Sen statement was the first indication that Phnom-Penh—if properly rewarded—might ease somewhat its restrictions on relief supplies to Cambodia. Unless Cambodia's borders are opened to life-giving aid, the situation will remain what it has been for five years: the war in Cambodia will be fought to the last starving Cambodian.