KI Media: “[Thai] PM insists Cambodia was spying” plus 18 more

KI Media: “[Thai] PM insists Cambodia was spying” plus 18 more

[Thai] PM insists Cambodia was spying

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 04:42 PM PDT

Evidence will be cited to help Thai border case

13/06/2011
Bangkok Post

The government insists it has solid evidence to present to the international community concerning Cambodia's alleged spying along the border.

It also rejected Phnom Penh's accusation the spy claims are fabricated to justify aggression against Cambodia.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva yesterday said Cambodian authorities had tried to contact Thailand to secure the release of the three men.

"It it is fabrication, why did Cambodia try to contact us for help in obtaining their release?" Mr Abhisit said.

Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti said a Cambodian consulate official had directly contacted Thai authorities with regard to the detained men.


Mr Abhisit said there were grounds to believe the three men were involved in alleged spying and that a number of documents were also seized from them. After police have finished an investigation, the Foreign Ministry will take up the matter based on their findings. Details of the alleged spying will soon be made public.

"The information is solid enough and will also be presented to the international community," the prime minister said.

He added the information should also be beneficial when Thailand makes its case in international forums over the border dispute with Cambodia.

Three men, a Thai, a Cambodian and a Vietnamese were arrested in Kantharalak district of Si Sa Ket on Tuesday evening carrying maps with military bases marked on them, according to police.The suspects have denied they were spying in the area.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jessada Katawethin yesterday said no legal action will be taken against the three men without clear evidence.

Police will forward their findings to the prosecution, which will then consider whether to submit the case to the court.

Mr Jessada said if and when the case goes to court, the three men can appoint their own lawyers.

Authorities from the Vietnamese and Cambodian embassies can visit the three men according to international practices.

Vietnam Eyes Foreign Help

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 04:30 PM PDT

June 12, 2011
By Jason Miks
The Diplomat

Vietnam has raised the stakes a little more in its current row with China, calling on the United States and others to step in and help find some kind of resolution.

The request comes on the back of a number of confrontations over the past few weeks in the South China Sea, a region that's hotly contested by the two, as well as several Southeast Asian countries. Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand also claim various parts of the area, but it's Vietnam's claims of harassment by Chinese vessels that have been making headlines.

On Thursday, Vietnam claimed that Chinese boats had again trespassed into its territory, and it accused China of deliberately trying to cut undersea cables deployed by a ship hired by PetroVietnam. This is far from the first spat – as I noted here last year, Vietnam has been angered at the repeated detention of fishermen trawling near the disputed Paracel Islands, which Vietnam claims.

Reuters has a useful timeline of the recent tensions, to which should be added the new call by Vietnam for intervention by the international community. Bloomberg today quoted Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga as saying:

'Maintaining peace, stability, security, and maritime safety in the Eastern Sea is the common interest of the countries inside and outside the region…Every effort by the international community in maintaining peace and stability in the Eastern Sea is welcome.'


This will, of course, be anathema to Beijing, which has resisted foreign involvement in territorial disputes. Indeed, China was angered by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's suggestion last July that the United States could be an intermediary.

Vietnam has pledged to undertake navy drills tomorrow, and meanwhile it has been tolerating rare demonstrations by hundreds of protesters angry at what they see as China's violations of Vietnamese territory.

Writing here earlier this week, Huy Duong suggested that the best way for Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations to respond to what they see as an overbearing China will be for them to work together.

Will they? Minxin Pei has an interesting piece for us up today on the dispute – and what China should do to ease tensions. But I also asked Vietnam watcher Tran Huu Dung, a professor of economics at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, for his take.

'It's widely agreed among those who pay attention to the balance of powers in Southeast Asia that the only way for Vietnam, or any single country in the region, to push back China is to band together,' he told me. 'However, this would mean that the Vietnamese must recognize that they should also acknowledge the interests of other countries in the region. These interests may be different from theirs. A clearly stated, long-term regional policy incorporating these considerations hasn't been offered by the Vietnamese.'

I also asked him for his view on the latest tensions between China and Vietnam, and how optimistic he is that future rows can be resolved peacefully.

'The tension between Vietnam and China goes back thousands of years, and there's no reason to expect that it will ever end. However, this doesn't mean that the two countries can't co-exist peacefully for a long period of time,' he said. 'This peaceful co-existence depends not only on the behaviour of the Chinese government, but also on how they perceive the weakness of the Vietnamese leadership. The recent incident could be looked at as a test of this leadership.'

Sam Rainsy: “I cannot unite with an untrustworthy and deceitful party”

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 04:24 PM PDT

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy
10 June 2011
By Kuoch Kuntheara
Radio France Internationale
Translated from Khmer by Khloy Ek

This week's guest in Kuoch Kuntheara's program is Mr. Sam Rainsy, President of the Sam Rainsy Party. On Monday 06 June 2011, PM Hun Xen warned that he will release secret documents related to Sam Rainsy. Today, Sam Rainsy indicated that he is not concerned with this warning and he did not receive any advice from Hun Xen nor did he want anything from Hun Xen. At the same time, Sam Rainsy also indicated that, starting from now, the SRP cannot unite with the HRP that sneaked to hold secret negotiations with the CPP.

Click the control below to listen to the interview in Khmer:

70%: Poem in Khmer by Kaun Neak Sre

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 04:05 PM PDT

"It's better to win against oneslef than to win against others": Opinion by Ven. Hok Savann

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 03:53 PM PDT

U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 03:37 PM PDT

Afghans from Fab Lab worked to install a FabFi wireless mesh radio with parts from a recycled oil canister. (Credit: Hameed Tasal/Fab Folk)

A case filled with enough equipment to set up an autonomous, metropolitan WiFi network. The New America Foundation, a nonpartisan research group, is developing a portable, WiFi-based network that could be carried into contested regions and allow dissident groups to set up networks independent of a government-controlled network. (Credit: Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times)
June 12, 2011
By JAMES GLANZ and JOHN MARKOFF
The New York Times

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy "shadow" Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype "Internet in a suitcase."

Financed with a $2 million State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet.

The American effort, revealed in dozens of interviews, planning documents and classified diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times, ranges in scale, cost and sophistication.

Some projects involve technology that the United States is developing; others pull together tools that have already been created by hackers in a so-called liberation-technology movement sweeping the globe.


The State Department, for example, is financing the creation of stealth wireless networks that would enable activists to communicate outside the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, according to participants in the projects.

In one of the most ambitious efforts, United States officials say, the State Department and Pentagon have spent at least $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on protected military bases inside the country. It is intended to offset the Taliban's ability to shut down the official Afghan services, seemingly at will.

The effort has picked up momentum since the government of President Hosni Mubarak shut down the Egyptian Internet in the last days of his rule. In recent days, the Syrian government also temporarily disabled much of that country's Internet, which had helped protesters mobilize.

The Obama administration's initiative is in one sense a new front in a longstanding diplomatic push to defend free speech and nurture democracy. For decades, the United States has sent radio broadcasts into autocratic countries through Voice of America and other means. More recently, Washington has supported the development of software that preserves the anonymity of users in places like China, and training for citizens who want to pass information along the government-owned Internet without getting caught.

But the latest initiative depends on creating entirely separate pathways for communication. It has brought together an improbable alliance of diplomats and military engineers, young programmers and dissidents from at least a dozen countries, many of whom variously describe the new approach as more audacious and clever and, yes, cooler.

Sometimes the State Department is simply taking advantage of enterprising dissidents who have found ways to get around government censorship. American diplomats are meeting with operatives who have been burying Chinese cellphones in the hills near the border with North Korea, where they can be dug up and used to make furtive calls, according to interviews and the diplomatic cables.

The new initiatives have found a champion in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose department is spearheading the American effort. "We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations," Mrs. Clinton said in an e-mail response to a query on the topic. "There is a historic opportunity to effect positive change, change America supports," she said. "So we're focused on helping them do that, on helping them talk to each other, to their communities, to their governments and to the world."

Developers caution that independent networks come with downsides: repressive governments could use surveillance to pinpoint and arrest activists who use the technology or simply catch them bringing hardware across the border. But others believe that the risks are outweighed by the potential impact. "We're going to build a separate infrastructure where the technology is nearly impossible to shut down, to control, to surveil," said Sascha Meinrath, who is leading the "Internet in a suitcase" project as director of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan research group.

"The implication is that this disempowers central authorities from infringing on people's fundamental human right to communicate," Mr. Meinrath added.

The Invisible Web

In an anonymous office building on L Street in Washington, four unlikely State Department contractors sat around a table. Josh King, sporting multiple ear piercings and a studded leather wristband, taught himself programming while working as a barista. Thomas Gideon was an accomplished hacker. Dan Meredith, a bicycle polo enthusiast, helped companies protect their digital secrets.

Then there was Mr. Meinrath, wearing a tie as the dean of the group at age 37. He has a master's degree in psychology and helped set up wireless networks in underserved communities in Detroit and Philadelphia.

The group's suitcase project will rely on a version of "mesh network" technology, which can transform devices like cellphones or personal computers to create an invisible wireless web without a centralized hub. In other words, a voice, picture or e-mail message could hop directly between the modified wireless devices — each one acting as a mini cell "tower" and phone — and bypass the official network.

Mr. Meinrath said that the suitcase would include small wireless antennas, which could increase the area of coverage; a laptop to administer the system; thumb drives and CDs to spread the software to more devices and encrypt the communications; and other components like Ethernet cables.

The project will also rely on the innovations of independent Internet and telecommunications developers.

"The cool thing in this political context is that you cannot easily control it," said Aaron Kaplan, an Austrian cybersecurity expert whose work will be used in the suitcase project. Mr. Kaplan has set up a functioning mesh network in Vienna and says related systems have operated in Venezuela, Indonesia and elsewhere.

Mr. Meinrath said his team was focused on fitting the system into the bland-looking suitcase and making it simple to implement — by, say, using "pictograms" in the how-to manual.

In addition to the Obama administration's initiatives, there are almost a dozen independent ventures that also aim to make it possible for unskilled users to employ existing devices like laptops or smartphones to build a wireless network. One mesh network was created around Jalalabad, Afghanistan, as early as five years ago, using technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Creating simple lines of communication outside official ones is crucial, said Collin Anderson, a 26-year-old liberation-technology researcher from North Dakota who specializes in Iran, where the government all but shut down the Internet during protests in 2009. The slowdown made most "circumvention" technologies — the software legerdemain that helps dissidents sneak data along the state-controlled networks — nearly useless, he said.

"No matter how much circumvention the protesters use, if the government slows the network down to a crawl, you can't upload YouTube videos or Facebook postings," Mr. Anderson said. "They need alternative ways of sharing information or alternative ways of getting it out of the country."

That need is so urgent, citizens are finding their own ways to set up rudimentary networks. Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian expatriate and technology developer who co-founded a popular Persian-language Web site, estimates that nearly half the people who visit the site from inside Iran share files using Bluetooth — which is best known in the West for running wireless headsets and the like. In more closed societies, however, Bluetooth is used to discreetly beam information — a video, an electronic business card — directly from one cellphone to another.

Mr. Yahyanejad said he and his research colleagues were also slated to receive State Department financing for a project that would modify Bluetooth so that a file containing, say, a video of a protester being beaten, could automatically jump from phone to phone within a "trusted network" of citizens. The system would be more limited than the suitcase but would only require the software modification on ordinary phones.

By the end of 2011, the State Department will have spent some $70 million on circumvention efforts and related technologies, according to department figures.

Mrs. Clinton has made Internet freedom into a signature cause. But the State Department has carefully framed its support as promoting free speech and human rights for their own sake, not as a policy aimed at destabilizing autocratic governments.

That distinction is difficult to maintain, said Clay Shirky, an assistant professor at New York University who studies the Internet and social media. "You can't say, 'All we want is for people to speak their minds, not bring down autocratic regimes' — they're the same thing," Mr. Shirky said.

He added that the United States could expose itself to charges of hypocrisy if the State Department maintained its support, tacit or otherwise, for autocratic governments running countries like Saudi Arabia or Bahrain while deploying technology that was likely to undermine them.

Shadow Cellphone System

In February 2009, Richard C. Holbrooke and Lt. Gen. John R. Allen were taking a helicopter tour over southern Afghanistan and getting a panoramic view of the cellphone towers dotting the remote countryside, according to two officials on the flight. By then, millions of Afghans were using cellphones, compared with a few thousand after the 2001 invasion. Towers built by private companies had sprung up across the country. The United States had promoted the network as a way to cultivate good will and encourage local businesses in a country that in other ways looked as if it had not changed much in centuries.

There was just one problem, General Allen told Mr. Holbrooke, who only weeks before had been appointed special envoy to the region. With a combination of threats to phone company officials and attacks on the towers, the Taliban was able to shut down the main network in the countryside virtually at will. Local residents report that the networks are often out from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m., presumably to enable the Taliban to carry out operations without being reported to security forces.

The Pentagon and State Department were soon collaborating on the project to build a "shadow" cellphone system in a country where repressive forces exert control over the official network.

Details of the network, which the military named the Palisades project, are scarce, but current and former military and civilian officials said it relied in part on cell towers placed on protected American bases. A large tower on the Kandahar air base serves as a base station or data collection point for the network, officials said.

A senior United States official said the towers were close to being up and running in the south and described the effort as a kind of 911 system that would be available to anyone with a cellphone.

By shutting down cellphone service, the Taliban had found a potent strategic tool in its asymmetric battle with American and Afghan security forces.

The United States is widely understood to use cellphone networks in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries for intelligence gathering. And the ability to silence the network was also a powerful reminder to the local populace that the Taliban retained control over some of the most vital organs of the nation.

When asked about the system, Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the American-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, would only confirm the existence of a project to create what he called an "expeditionary cellular communication service" in Afghanistan. He said the project was being carried out in collaboration with the Afghan government in order to "restore 24/7 cellular access."

"As of yet the program is not fully operational, so it would be premature to go into details," Colonel Dorrian said.

Colonel Dorrian declined to release cost figures. Estimates by United States military and civilian officials ranged widely, from $50 million to $250 million. A senior official said that Afghan officials, who anticipate taking over American bases when troops pull out, have insisted on an elaborate system. "The Afghans wanted the Cadillac plan, which is pretty expensive," the official said.

Broad Subversive Effort

In May 2009, a North Korean defector named Kim met with officials at the American Consulate in Shenyang, a Chinese city about 120 miles from North Korea, according to a diplomatic cable. Officials wanted to know how Mr. Kim, who was active in smuggling others out of the country, communicated across the border. "Kim would not go into much detail," the cable says, but did mention the burying of Chinese cellphones "on hillsides for people to dig up at night." Mr. Kim said Dandong, China, and the surrounding Jilin Province "were natural gathering points for cross-border cellphone communication and for meeting sources." The cellphones are able to pick up signals from towers in China, said Libby Liu, head of Radio Free Asia, the United States-financed broadcaster, who confirmed their existence and said her organization uses the calls to collect information for broadcasts as well.

The effort, in what is perhaps the world's most closed nation, suggests just how many independent actors are involved in the subversive efforts. From the activist geeks on L Street in Washington to the military engineers in Afghanistan, the global appeal of the technology hints at the craving for open communication.

In a chat with a Times reporter via Facebook, Malik Ibrahim Sahad, the son of Libyan dissidents who largely grew up in suburban Virginia, said he was tapping into the Internet using a commercial satellite connection in Benghazi. "Internet is in dire need here. The people are cut off in that respect," wrote Mr. Sahad, who had never been to Libya before the uprising and is now working in support of rebel authorities. Even so, he said, "I don't think this revolution could have taken place without the existence of the World Wide Web."

Reporting was contributed by Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Andrew W. Lehren from New York, and Alissa J. Rubin and Sangar Rahimi from Kabul, Afghanistan.

"Ak-Yutte-Thor" a Poem in Khmer by Nore Yutt

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 08:25 AM PDT

PUBLIC STATEMENT BY CO- INVESTIGATING JUDGES

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 03:04 AM PDT

Judge Blunk when asked about the investigations into 003, 004
 ________


12 June 2011 [So what that it's a Sunday? We're not paranoid!] 

PUBLIC STATEMENT BY CO- INVESTIGATING JUDGES

In view of questions by the media regarding recent attempts by certain OCIJ staff members who have obtained new jobs outside of OCIJ, to portray their departure as "resignation" in protest over the CIJs' decision to close investigations in Case 003, the CIJs emphasize that they welcome the departure of all staff members who ignore the sole responsibility of the CIJs in this issue; the CIJs also emphasize that they  are able to deal with Cases 003 and 004 in a competent and timely manner with remaining staff members, supplemented if necessary by short-term contractors.
______

We're still a happy family of competence and smiles at the OCIJ, with short-term contractors aplenty!

Thai Buddhism is not immune to cult fanaticism, especially when it is mixed with Nazis admiration

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 01:50 AM PDT

Close Encounters of the Buddhist Kind

An exclusive look inside a booming multibillion-dollar, evangelical, global Thai cult.

JANUARY 20, 2011
CAPTIONS BY RON GLUCKMAN, PHOTOS BY LUKE DUGGLEBY

Picture this: millions of followers gathering around a central shrine that looks like a giant UFO in elaborately choreographed Nuremberg-style rallies; missionary outposts in 31 countries from Germany to the Democratic Republic of the Congo; an evangelist vision that seeks to promote a "world morality restoration project"; and a V-Star program that encourages hundreds of thousands of children to improve "positive moral behavior." Although the Bangkok-based Dhammakaya movement dons saffron robes, not brown shirts, its flamboyant ceremonies have become increasingly bold displays of power for this cult-like Buddhist group that was founded in the 1970s, ironically, as a reform movement opposed to the excesses of organized religion in Thailand.

Yet, despite the pageantry, the inner workings of this fast-growing movement are little known to Thailand's general public, and certainly to the rest of the world, though its teachings loom large among the legions of devotees. The veil of secrecy parted briefly in late 1999, when two top Dhammakaya leaders were charged with embezzlement in what many considered a political ploy to suppress the temple's growing power. The charges were dismissed in 2006 after the former abbot and a colleague returned some land and nearly 1 billion baht ($32 million) to temple control.

This obscurity is because -- despite its 24-hour satellite TV station -- Dhammakaya has diligently worked to avoid the limelight. Until now. Over the past year, photographer Luke Duggleby and reporter Ron Gluckman have been granted unrivaled access to the facilities and ceremonies of Dhammakaya, and they provide an exclusive look at this mesmerizing movement.

Cambodians rally against child labour

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 12:40 AM PDT

Sunday, June 12, 2011
AFP

PHNOM PENH — Hundreds of Cambodian school children marched through the country's capital on Sunday to mark the World Day Against Child Labour, waving banners calling for an end to the widespread practice.

The demonstration was organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Cambodian government, who have set a goal of ending the worst forms of child labour in the country by 2016.

They also announced the launch of an ambitious programme to rid Phnom Penh's popular riverside area of child workers by this time next year.

Menacherry Paul Joseph, head of the ILO's anti-child labour programme in Cambodia, said it was "a shame" that young children could be seen begging or selling books and souvenirs to tourists until late at night.

"Cambodia is truly a kingdom of wonder (sic!). Let us make it a kingdom without child labour ," he said at the rally, where demonstrators waved banners saying "Warning! Children in hazardous work - End child labour".


According to the ILO, some 1.5 million Cambodians under the age of 18 are forced to work, more than 310,000 of them in hazardous jobs such as spraying pesticides or working in brick factories.

Ten-year-old child worker Soth Ousphea, watching the rally, said his mother could not afford to send him to school, and instead he earned around 50 cents a day collecting plastic bottles and cans.

"I want to go to school," he told AFP.

Cambodia is one of Southeast Asia's poorest countries, with around a third of its 14 million people living on less than a dollar per day.

Child labor in Cambodia: Another success of the Hun Xen regime?

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 12:20 AM PDT

(All photos: Radio Free Asia)

Thailand wants to exchange Cambodian suspect with Yellow Shirt prisoners in Cambodia

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 12:05 AM PDT

 

11 June 2011
By Yun Samean
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Khloy Ek
Click here to read the original article in Khmer

Regarding the arrest of a Cambodian citizen in Thailand, the Thai ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Saturday that the Thai government wants to exchange the suspected Cambodian citizen with the 2 Thai Yellow Shirt activists who are currently jailed in Cambodia.

In February, the Cambodia tribunal sentenced two Thai citizens for border trespassing and for entering prohibited military zone.

Kasit Piromya, the Thai minister of Foreign Affairs, added that the arrested Cambodian citizen would have to face 2/3 of his sentence first before a prisoner exchange can take place. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Thai PM, also ordered the Thai ministry of Foreign Affairs to explain about the accusation made by Cambodia related to this arrest.


On Friday, Cambodia rejected the accusation, saying that it did not send army spies to the disputed zone, and that Cambodia believes that the arrest of a Cambodian citizen made by Thailand was only done with the intention of aggressing Cambodia.

The Thai government announced that the Thai tribunal will continue its legal course first before the Thai government issue other comments.

The Cambodian vice-consul met with Cambodian citizen accused of spying by Thailand

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 11:45 PM PDT

11 June 2011
By Hang Savyouth
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Khloy Ek
Click here to read the original article in Khmer

An official for the Cambodian ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that the ministry sent the Cambodian vice-consul in Thailand to meet with a Cambodian citizen who was arrested by the Thai authority in Sisaket province.

Following the meeting, it was found that the man was a simple Cambodian citizen who, sometimes, visits Thailand to look for work only. He was not involved with secret spying for Cambodia as he was accused off by the Thai government.

In the afternoon of Saturday 11 June, Koy Kuong, spokesman for the ministry of Foreign Affairs, rejected all accusations [made by Thailand] and said that the Cambodian ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it categorically rejected [the accusations] because it believe that this is a dishonest invention made by the Thai authority and the Thai PM in order to confuse the public opinion by accusing Cambodia and by lying about the truth.


Koy Kuong added: "The government of Cambodia announced that the invention above is only a subterfuge to foment aggression on Cambodia in the future, and Cambodia regrets that the PM of a neighboring country resorts to adopt lying as his foreign political strategy. Cambodia clearly confirmed that it does not need to do anything to what the Thai PM lied as spying."

The immediate reaction by the Cambodian government took place after Thailand claimed that it arrested 3 men who acted as spies for Cambodia. The three men were arrested in Srol village, located in front of Preah Vihear temple, in the afternoon of 07 June.

On 10 June, the Bangkok Post quoted Thai Colonel Sompoj Khomprang, the police chief in Kantharalak district, Sisaket province, as saying that the Thai authority arrested 32-year-old Suchart Muhamad, a Thai citizen, 43-year-old Ung Kimtai, a Cambodian man, and 37-year-old Nguyen Tengyang, a Vietnamese citizen.

The Thai police indicated that the three were riding a pickup truck and they had maps on them. The three were approaching Thai army bases and large trenches built by the Thai government for use by Thai citizens to protect themselves during clashes. The three also were marking up these locations so they are suspected of involvement with spying for Cambodia.

Phay Siphan, mouthpiece of the Cambodian Council of Ministers, rejected this accusation, saying that, regarding spying activities, Cambodia never sent its agents to spy on Thailand: "The baseless accusation is only an accusation in order to plan for an attack on Cambodia only. The Cambodian individual who was accused of spying, has a proper passport. Thailand accused him of spying, and for this spying he was riding a car to enter inhabited areas, he had a passport and he even had maps."

On 20 June, the Cambodian ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a written statement categorically rejecting the [accusations made by the] Thai PM and the Thai authority, saying that this is an invention to lie to the public opinion in order to create confusion on Cambodia.

Patina of the past

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 10:20 PM PDT

PHOTO: PORNPROM SATRABHAYA
PHOTOS COURTESY OF DOUGLAS LATCHFORD



A connoisseur of Khmer art talks about his latest tome on the subject


9/06/2011
Sean Trembath
Bangkok Post

For decades, Douglas Latchford has immersed himself in the world of Khmer art. Twelve years ago, he and co-author Emma C Bunker set out to write the definitive titles on the subject.

In less than a month, the final volume of the series will be released. Khmer Bronzes: New Interpretations of the Past, along with 2004's Adoration and Glory: The Golden Age of Khmer Art and 2008's Khmer Gold: Gifts for the Gods, form the most comprehensive study of Khmer art history ever published.

The 600-page tome has over 460 photographs, and compares Khmer pieces to bronzes from various other cultures of the same era.

Latchford spoke to Life about his collection of Khmer pieces, the process of finding new sculptures, and what is covered in the new book.

How did you build this collection of photographs?

Some of them are my collection, which my son took photos of. Some of them are from museums, like the Metropolitan New York or Phnom Penh museum. The other ones, in private collections, the owners provided the photographs.


How big is your personal collection? Have you catalogued it?

Not really. It's probably 80 to 100 pieces, spread out between here and London. There's some in America as well. I lend them to museums.

How do you find out about new pieces? Do you make it known that you are looking for bronzes?

A serious collector knows what is where. I've studied pieces for over 40 years. It's a matter of reading books and visiting museums. For example, every March at the Armory in New York, they have an Asia week. Collectors from all over the world gather. We all know each other. In America, there are probably half a dozen private serious collectors.

What do collectors look for in new pieces?

What is attractive to a collector is the patination [the colour of the tarnish on the bronze]. When bronzes were made, they would have all been bronze coloured. Based on what kind of soil they lay in, whether it was an acidic soil, or malachite, or iron, it would take on a bluish patina, a green patina, or a brown patina.

Which type of soil gives the best patina?

Probably an acidic soil. The acids cause the corrosion of the surface of the bronze. Also, being buried near water. Water flowing could polish the bronze over a period of time.

What happens when a new piece is found? What determines where it ends up? Is it simply an auction, with the highest bidder getting the piece?

One, it's a matter of luck. Two, it's a matter of who the finder is and who he decides to take it to. Where he thinks he'll get a better price, where he'll get a fair deal, where he'll get paid without hassle.

Are you still actively seeking pieces?

Yes, but in a small way. There's a very small supply of items coming through now. The war in Cambodia, the civil war, more or less curtailed the supply of pieces coming through. But pieces do come through from time to time, and they are sought after. There's a series of collectors both Thai and foreign here. There are about half a dozen Thais who buy seriously. They have big money and possibly get first choice.

During the civil war in Cambodia, did a lot of art get destroyed?

No. People talk about it being destroyed, but I've not seen any evidence. They talk about mass destruction of pieces in the museum, but it's not true. The museum was locked. They went in, and they may have stolen a bit of gold. I think there was some gold in the basement, and I think they broke the lock of the safe and took the gold, but the statues themselves, they didn't destroy.

Were you living in Bangkok at the time?

Yes.

How was it for you as an expert on Cambodian art?

Very disturbing. We couldn't get accurate stories about what was happened. The border closed in April '75. I was there actually, in Phnom Penh, two weeks before the Khmer Rouge came in. I was nearly kidnapped. Not nice.

Who is your writing partner, Emma Bunker?

She is a curator at the Denver Art Museum. She used to write a lot on Chinese bronzes from the steppes. We met some 30 years ago, but we lost touch with each other. I met her again about 12 years ago in New York. She said, "Why don't you do a book, with the knowledge you have and the showpieces that have hitherto been unseen?" So I said OK, and we wrote the first one.

What's the process of writing a book like this with a partner who is not here?

(He points at the telephone) Big telephone bills.

What is the structure of the book? We do it chronologically.

What are the earliest examples you show?

They go back to 300BC. Bronze was used for drums and percussion instruments. They occurred in South China, they occurred in Vietnam, and Cambodia and northeast Thailand.

Why bronze for this book as opposed to some other material?

There are three main materials, gold, bronze, and stone. In our previous two books, we did stone and we did gold, so the logical next one was bronze.

How do the bronze pieces you've studied compare to stone pieces from similar eras?

Stone was more commonly used because of the availability. They would go out to a quarry, get a chunk of stone, and make a figure, whereas bronze they would have to get the money, get the materials, get the gold, get the silver, get the tin, get the lead, get the ore. They had to have casting techniques, which were quite sophisticated for that time. There was an enormous cost.

So I imagine bronzes would tend to have been owned by the nobility?

They would have been in the possession of nobility, of major temples, and major places of worship.

Was there any point where bronze became more affordable?

No, but major bronzes would have been made for royalty, or for large shrines, whereas smaller bronzes would have probably been for home use. There were several pieces cast that would have been used as individual shrines in people's houses.

Khmer Bronzes: New Interpretations of the Past by Emma C Bunker and Douglas Latchfordwill be launched on July 1 in Bangkok.

Chor Kare - "The Square Thief": Poem in Khmer by Kaun Neak Sre

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 09:55 PM PDT

Sinatoon: Deum Ampil Dek-Chor No. 2

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 09:44 PM PDT

Cartoon by V. Sina

Cambodia is at "Peace" says Blood-drenched CPP

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 09:33 PM PDT

Kampong Speu land eviction violence, June 2011



K-5 Genocide
March 30, 1997 Massacre of Women and Children
Summary Executions during 1997 Coup d'Etat
1998 Elections Violence against Monks
Assassinations of Chea Vichea, Journalists, Politicians
Prime Minister's Wife, Children and Nephews Who Murder in Cold Blood
10,000,000 Cambodians living on knife-edge Poverty
Prevalence of Gang Rape, Prostitution, Human Trafficking

CHEYO! TO HUN SEN'S PEACE!
(a refrain of Cambodians' initial Cheyo! on the morning of April 17, 1975)
We need to BREAK THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE by VOTING FOR GENUINE PEACE with TRUTH and JUSTICE.

Closing Order of Case 002 against Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 09:14 PM PDT

In preparation for the start of trial hearings beginning on 27 June 2011 of Case 002 against the surviving Khmer Rouge senior leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, KI Media is starting a new series in posting installations of the public document of the Closing Order of Case 002.  The Closing Order of the Co-Investigating Judges forms the basic document from which all the parties (Co-Prosecutors, Co-Lead Lawyers for all civil parties, Defense Lawyers) will be making their arguments before the Trial Chamber judges (one Cambodian President, 2 Cambodian Judges, 2 UN judges).  Up until now, the hearings involving these four surviving senior Khmer Rouge leaders have been in the Pre-Trial Chamber over issues of pre-trial detention and jurisdictional issues.  Beginning in June 2011, the Trial Chamber will hear the substantive arguments over the criminal charges (e.g. genocide, crimes against humanity, penal code of 1956).  Available in Khmer and French.  Contact the ECCC for a free copy.


CLOSING ORDER
of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde, 15 September 2010

D. TREATMENT OF TARGETED GROUPS 

205. One of the five policies was to implement and defend the CPK socialist revolution through the targeting of specific groups by whatever means necessary. This measure adversely affected many groups of people within Cambodia at that time, directly or indirectly. The Co- Investigating Judges have been specifically seized of acts of the CPK targeting the Cham, Vietnamese and Buddhist groups, and the targeting of former officials of the Khmer Republic (including both civil servants and former military personnel and their families), occurring throughout Cambodia from the early stages of CPK control over certain parts of the territory before 1975 and continuing until at least 6 January 1979.

206. The Co-Investigating Judges are seized of treatment of the Cham in the Central, East and Northwest Zones; of the Vietnamese in Prey Veng and Svay Rieng Provinces in the East Zone and during incursions into Vietnam; of Buddhists throughout Democratic Kampuchea; and of former officials of the Khmer Republic during the movement of the population from Phnom Penh. This last incident constitutes only one of several occurrences of a pattern of targeting former officials of the Khmer Republic.698 

207. An objective of this policy was to establish an atheistic and homogenous society without class divisions, abolishing all ethnic, national, religious, racial, class and cultural differences. This is evidenced through Party documents relating to class. In 1974, an article written by Pol Pot in Revolutionary Flag set forth the notion that a "special class" existed in Cambodian society, comprised of "soldiers, police and Buddhist monks" 699 The notebooks of cadre that appear to refer to this article state that all national minorities were also considered to be part of this "separate special class type".700 Other classes such as the feudalists, capitalists and bourgeois were described as opponents of the revolution.701 In September 1975, the implementation of this objective evolved when the CPK proclaimed these classes and the special separate class types abolished, declaring that the only classes that existed were workers and peasants, and that all of the other classes had been melded into these two groups.702 At this time, or shortly thereafter, Phnom Penh radio made its last references to Buddhist monks,703 Cham704 and other "national minorities".705 Although senior Party authorities continued to talk about a Cambodian population incorporating non-Khmer nationalities into 1976,706 by August 1977, the national minorities' de facto abolition and assimilation was officially stated to have advanced to the point where the country was described as "99 per cent" Khmer.707 Another objective of this policy was to eliminate enemies and to destroy certain groups, as such, in whole or in part. The targeting of specific groups was a key means by which the CPK did "whatever can be done that is a gain for the revolution"

៉"Sou Slab Doembei Srae" "ស៊ូស្លាប់ដើម្បីដីស្រែ" a Poem in Khmer by Sam Vichea

Posted: 11 Jun 2011 06:51 PM PDT

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