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Anyone enrolling in Chinary Ung's composition classes at UCSD is going to learn about a lot more than music. "I used to tell my students: Some of you have high intelligence and are very talented. And if you wanted to, you could work very hard. But with just these three things put together, it won't click," said the Cambodian-American composer. "You won't be anybody in composition. You tell me: What are you missing?"

With his 1989 Grawemeyer Award, widely considered classical music's Nobel Prize, his Friedheim Award from the Kennedy Center, and numerous performances by ensembles around the globe, Ung is somebody.

The New Zealand Herald, reporting on "O Cambodia," a concert in Auckland earlier this year that included Ung's "In Memoriam," called him a "a major international figure." And the Herald found a "sense of catharsis" in his music, which the Connections Chamber Music Series will present in concerts in Encinitas and Mission Viejo next weekend.

Ung's highly spiritual, otherworldly music draws on a range of Eastern traditions and techniques, including having instrumentalists vocalize while they play. But he is more interested in addressing that missing element, especially with his students, than outlining the specifics of his compositional practice.

"I try to guide them on the intangible situation," Ung said in his office at the University of California San Diego, where he has taught since 1995. "Where is your heart? What are you doing? What is your message? Does it boost your ego only, or does your music communicate to people? Does it empower humanity? Or is it just a form of self-indulgence?"

Ung has spent a lifetime looking into his heart, considering his circumstances and contemplating the fragile nature of life.

He came to the United States in 1964 on an Asia Foundation scholarship to study clarinet at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. As part of the arrangement with the foundation, he committed to return to Cambodia when he had completed his master's. But on a visit with some of the New York-based Cambodian diplomats who had helped him, he had a chance encounter in an elevator with one of the foundation's former officials.

The individual invited him to his office, they had a chat, and one thing led to another. Ung obtained a scholarship to study at Columbia University, which allowed him to stay in the United States (although he returned briefly to Cambodia before starting at Columbia).

"The point is this," Ung said. "If I did not go (to that office), and I did not take that elevator at exactly the perfect time, I would have been sent back to Cambodia (permanently)." There, he would have soon faced Pol Pot and the murderous Khmer Rouge. And with their disdain for intellectuals, Ung said, "I would be gone in no time at all."

That was the fate of many of his family members, including three brothers and a sister. They perished in the genocide that claimed approximately 2 million lives.

"Life is so delicate," Ung said. "It is so scary when you look back at that. It's incredible. But I'm lucky. I'm not complaining."

Ung put the clarinet aside and studied composition with the Chinese-American composer Chou Wen-Chung at Columbia, where he earned a doctorate. But his education had just begun.

Spurred by the political turmoil in Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge's attempted eradication of traditional Cambodian culture, Ung stopped composing and immersed himself in the music of his homeland, even learning to play the roneat ek, a Cambodian xylophone.

He contacted Cambodian musicians, dancers and scholars and initiated performances and recording projects (two volumes of traditional Cambodian music for the Folkways label) while teaching first at the University of Northern Illinois and then at Connecticut College. With other Cambodian musicians and students, he formed a pinpeat, a traditional Cambodian ensemble he had first heard as a boy in the fields.

"When I heard it for the first time, I was enchanted," Ung said. "It was like, 'Oh my God!' It was just like I'm in paradise. I never realized until later that I made myself a musician because of that experience. Also because of the war: If there was no war, I'd say, 'Hey, a bunch of people are playing this instrument and preserving the art and so forth. Why bother?' But I felt responsible."

At first, his work with Cambodian music had little effect on his "serious" music, which was steeped in the post-serialist, experimental aesthetic he had learned at Columbia.

"Back then, I imagined a circle with a solid vertical line in the middle," Ung said. "This is Cambodian music and this is my own music, which was derived from my Western training. I made it clear: I don't mix the two."

Between 1974 and 1985 he wrote a single piece of "classical" music, "Khse Buon" for solo cello (or viola). In it, he tentatively started breaking through that boundary. With 1986's "Inner Voices" (which won the Grawemeyer) and especially in 1987's "Spiral" (which won the Friedheim), he found his own voice.

"The solid line became a dotted line," he said. "I don't even care anymore whether I'm being influenced by what. It's not my concern anymore."

The idea of a spiral — something that circles back but continues going — proved especially inspirational, prompting a series of pieces: "Spiral II," "Grand Spiral," "Antiphonal Spirals" and more. Ung became so obsessed by spirals he had to force himself to stop, fearful he was falling into a pattern.

"I stopped (writing spirals) for eight years," Ung said. "How did I stop? Our house is on the top of the hill, and we built a 17-foot-diameter sunken patio (in a circular shape). And I made that not just as something in the middle of my garden in my backyard; it is a mental mark to stop me from composing this spiral."

But his patio was purposely imperfect and left incomplete.

"It was calculated that way," Ung said. "I don't believe in a complete loop or circle; I always leave room for negotiation — in fight, in war, in love, in teaching, in anything."

Now a U.S. citizen, he left room to visit Cambodia in 2002 and remains committed to the cause of Cambodian music and culture. He frequently lectures and performs in Asia and is the principal curator for the 2013 Season of Cambodia festival in New York.

"It took me a long time to realize, yes, music is something I love to do, but it's not at the top of my list anymore," he said.

"Humanity, friendship, solving the suffering of your friends, yourself, reaching out to people, and so forth. There's a list probably pretty long. And then there is music."

Cambodia decided to postpone the Thai expo planned for next week in Phnom Penh, saying it is not the right time to hold such an expo.

"Due to recent restrictions on border trade by Thai military region 2, I am of the opinion that this is not the right time to promote Thai products in Cambodia," Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said in a letter to Thai embassy in Phnom Penh on Friday.

Cambodia's decision is a response to the 2nd Thai Army command' s order on Tuesday to halt a further exports of fuel and other products into Cambodia, claiming the Cambodian military may need them to support their troops in operations against Thai forces along the disputed border.

"The export ban will last until the border situation really returns to normal," the Bangkok Post online reported, citing the order letter of the 2nd Army command.

On Wednesday, Thailand announced that it would organize the second largest scale expo of Thai products in Phnom Penh from May 19-22.

"We cannot guarantee the reaction of Cambodian visitors to such exhibitions after Thai's behavior," Cham Prasidh said.

"Therefore, I have issued instructions to the Department of Trade Promotion under the Ministry of Commerce to contact the organizers of the Thai exhibition 2011 to postpone the said event until more favorable time comes," added the minister.

Jiranan Wongmongkol, director of the Thai embassy's Foreign Trade Promotion Office in Phnom Penh, which is the event organizer, said Friday that the embassy has received the letter and agreed to cancel the event.

"We have no choice, we have to postpone the event," she said. "We don't know when it will be re-arranged."

Cambodia and Thailand has border dispute just a week after Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple was listed as World Heritage site on July 7, 2008. Thailand claims the ownership of 4.6 sq km of scrub next to the temple.

Since then, both sides have built up military forces along the border, and periodic clashes between the two countries' soldiers have resulted in the deaths of troops on both sides.

The latest flare-up occurred from April 22 until May 3 at the 13th century Ta Moan temple and Ta Krabei temple in Oddar Meanchey province, leaving 19 people, on both sides, killed and nearly 100, 000 civilians evacuated for safe shelters.

SURIN, May 14 (MCOT online news) -- Cross border trade at Chong Jom border point with Cambodia in the Thai northeastern province of Surin was reportedly active this morning as many Cambodians crossed the border and bought large amounts of consumer products.

Surin's Chong Jom border point, which was reopened May 4 after it was closed by Thai officials following bloody clashes between Thai and Cambodian troops in the disputed border area on April 22, was seen as active again as many Cambodians crossed the border and bought consumer products, including vegetables and fruits. Shops owned by Thais and Cambodians were also open as vendors gained confidence that the situation has returned to normal in the area.

Many tourists were also seen wandering in the area.

Chong Jom border point is considered one of the key market places in Thailand's lower northeastern region which borders Cambodia.

At least Bt4 million changed hands at this border point on normal working days while trade is more lively on weekends.

14/05/2011 (VOV) - A ceremony was held at a cemetery in Duc Co district, in the Central Highland province of Gia Lai on May 14 to rebury the remains of 79 Vietnamese volunteer soldiers who laid down their lives in Cambodia in the past wars.

After five months of searching, the K52 team of Gia Lai uncovered the remains of 79 fallen Vietnamese combatants; one was identified as Nguyen Ngoc Doanh, who was born in 1963 in Hanoi and died in 1974 in Ratanakiri province.

Over the past 10 years, military forces in Gia Lai have found and collected the remains of 1,061 Vietnamese soldiers who died on the battlefields in Laos and Cambodia.

Reach Sambath, who survived the Khmer Rouge killing fields as an orphan and rose through journalism and teaching to become the spokesman for a tribunal in Cambodia that is trying the leaders of the Khmer Rouge, died on Wednesday. He was 47.

The cause was a stroke brought on by high blood pressure, his family said.

Mr. Reach Sambath often said that as the spokesman for the United Nations-backed tribunal, he was helping to represent the 1.7 million who died during Khmer Rouge rule, from 1975 to 1979. Among them were his parents and all but one sibling. He called himself "a spokesperson for ghosts."

Mr. Reach Sambath entered journalism in 1991 as a reporter for Agence France-Presse, the French news agency. He was one of the first Cambodians to work for a foreign news agency, and he covered the nation's first democratic election, a coup, a lingering civil war and finally the collapse of the Khmer Rouge insurgency and the death of its leader, Pol Pot. During these years he also worked as a reporter and translator for The New York Times, whose global edition is The International Herald Tribune.

He was present in 1998 when two of the last Khmer Rouge holdouts, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, both of whom are now on trial, surrendered to the government.

"When I see them, it is difficult to forgive — very difficult," he said at the time. "But we have to forgive and move on."

Mr. Reach Sambath sold ice and ferried passengers on a bicycle to support himself after the fall of the Khmer Rouge while he attended elementary and high school and learned English. He graduated in 1987 and became an English teacher. He then won a place as one of the first post-Khmer Rouge students to be sent abroad, to study agriculture in India, before returning to join Agence France-Presse. On leave from that job, he earned a master's degree in 2001 from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

He left the news agency in 2003 to become a professor of journalism and communications at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, a job he continued to hold after he joined the tribunal staff in 2006.

He is survived by his wife, Chhoy Chanthy, as well as a daughter, Reach Champaradh, and two sons, Reach Rithivong and Reach Samborakh.

Mr. Reach Sambath often returned to his home village in Svay Rieng Province, where he became a patron to his former neighbors and helped many of their children find work in Phnom Penh. One of his greatest moments of pride, he said, was to have earned enough money to conduct an elaborate Buddhist ceremony at his village for the souls of his parents.

Prosecutors at the Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh are at odds this week after investigating judges said they have completed their work on their third case - reportedly against two senior former military commanders. Critics accuse the government of interfering in the high-profile prosecutions.

The war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh has long been split over how many former Khmer Rouge cadres it should prosecute.

The international prosecutor Andrew Cayley said last year that he expected to see no more than 10 people stand trial for their alleged roles in the deaths of around two million people during the movement's rule of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.

But his Cambodian counterpart, Chea Leang, has opposed prosecuting more than five people. The first of those was the former security chief Comrade Duch, whom the court last year convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. His sentence is under appeal.

The other four, who make up Case Two, are the movement's last surviving senior leaders. Their trial is expected to start later this year.

But while those cases are moving forward, the Cambodian government has long opposed prosecuting Cases Three and Four - involving the five remaining suspects.

The prosecution is tasked with assessing the court's investigation and determining whether or not there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.

This week international prosecutor Andrew Cayley said it is clear that much more work is needed on Case Three.

"If you're asking me how much more investigation needs to be done, I would simply use the words "a significant amount" of investigation is still left to be done in that case," he said.

Cambodia remains an authoritarian country and the government's opposition to Cases Three and Four has had a chilling effect on the tribunal's Cambodian staff, most of whom have refused to work on the cases.

This week the investigating judges in Case Three closed their investigation and handed the case file back to the prosecution.

Andrew Cayley explained what work is still needed.

"I don't consider that the investigation is concluded and I've asked for a number of steps to be taken including the interviewing of the suspects who are named in the introductory submission, and a number of other steps including investigation of crime sites also originally named by the prosecution in the introductory submission, which haven't been investigated at all," he said.

Cayley's comments appear to confirm widespread rumors that the investigating judges did very little work on Case Three.

But Cayley's Cambodian counterpart, Chea Leang, later released a press statement recommending that Case Three should be closed.

Chea Leang said she had examined the case file, and decided that the unnamed suspects were not senior leaders and were not among those most responsible for crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge - the two categories that define those whom the court can prosecute.

With the Cambodian prosecutor, the government and the investigating judges all pushing to close Case Three, outside observers doubt that the prosecution will go forward.

International prosecutor Andrew Cayley's last option for Case Three is to appeal its closure to a bench of five judges. Three of the judges are Cambodian and trial observers believe the bench would likely vote to dismiss the case.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A manmade sand dune looms over Cham Pothisak's tin-roof and plywood shack, left by builders who want to transform the sprawling slum-like neighborhoods on the periphery of Phnom Penh's largest lake into fancy villas and office space.

Cham and his family are among 10,000 people who face eviction because of a questionable deal turning over some of the Cambodian capital's priciest real estate to a company reportedly owned by a close associate of the prime minister.

Their predicament stems in part from a flawed $23.4 million World Bank program that was supposed to prevent such land grabs by strengthening people's title to their land. The problems illustrate how difficult it can be for well-intentioned outsiders to bring about change in developing countries plagued by corruption and entrenched interests.

The dispute over Boeung Kak lake has embarrassed the World Bank and led to an unusually tense standoff with Cambodia's government. The bank issued an ultimatum in March demanding a halt to evictions and higher compensation for landowners. A May 8 deadline has been pushed back to next Monday, though the bank is not likely to act immediately.

The 38-year-old Cham likens the situation to life under the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-Marxist regime that terrorized the country for four years in the late 1970s.

"We're angry but we can't do anything against them," he said. "It's like the Khmer Rouge all over again. We're helpless."

The root of the mess lies with the Khmer Rouge, which outlawed private property in a bid to create an agricultural utopia. An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians were killed or died of starvation or disease under its brutal rule and failed polices.

Since the Khmer Rouge was ousted in 1979, the United Nations and other international groups have tried to help rebuild the country and its government institutions, with mixed results. Democracy has struggled; Prime Minister Hun Sen consolidated power in a 1997 coup and has not relinquished it since. A real estate boom has driven land-grabbing by wealthy or politically connected developers to new heights, activists say.

In 2002, the World Bank, the Washington-based institution focused on development and poverty reduction, helped set up the Land Monitoring and Administration Program to build a system of paper titles and central registries. Germany, Canada and Finland helped finance the effort.

When the lands in question were marginal, the system appeared to work. Government surveyors interviewed owners, reviewed documents and issued more than 1.2 million titles, a sign of the program's success, the bank says.

But when business interests wanted land — for logging, sugar plantations or real estate, for example — the process actually left some more vulnerable to eviction.

That's because government officials running the program would simply reject claims from poor landowners or deny them the right to appeal, said David Pred, whose organization Bridges Across Borders Cambodia advocates for landowners.

"Meanwhile, the wealthy and well-connected have little difficulty in acquiring land title in high value areas in which poor communities reside due to their connections or their ability to pay the high 'unofficial fees,'" Pred wrote in an email.

A 2006 report done for the German government's aid agency found that 20 percent of households surveyed were refused the right to prove ownership of their property, according a land-use consultant with firsthand knowledge of the report. The consultant spoke on condition of anonymity because the report is not public.

Many landowners around Boeung Kak — a 330-acre (133-hectare) bowl of sewage-filled water and trash-littered marshes in the shadow of high-rise banks and government ministries — expected to have a chance to argue their claims after workers began surveying their properties in May 2006.

But in January 2007, authorities surprised residents, activists and foreign donors by refusing to acknowledge any records of the residents' properties, essentially pre-empting any ownership claims.

The next month, the government announced that a company called Shukaku Inc. had acquired the development rights to the lake under a $79 million, government-backed 99-year lease. The land was worth far more, residents say.

Shukaku's chief is widely reported to be Lao Meng Khin, a ruling party senator, reclusive businessman and close associate of Hun Sen.

By August 2008, workers had started pumping sand into the lake, creating berms like the one menacing Cham's house. Torrents of sand and water flooded some homes almost instantly, sometimes in the dead of night. The World Bank and many foreign embassies complained.

In September 2009, the government abruptly canceled the land title program, citing what Hun Sen called "complicated conditions."

Most of the lake is now filled, the sand all but destroying its ecology. More than 2,000 families have already moved. The remaining landowners complain that the compensation being offered is laughable, particularly given skyrocketing real estate values.

Authorities "aren't stupid, they're just corrupt. They just have no conscience," said Tep Vanny, who faces eviction from her house on the lake's east side. "It's a way to keep the people poor, and for them to stay in power."

Neither Shukaku officials nor Lao Meng Khin responded to written requests for interviews.

Government officials, including the Phnom Penh governor and the national government's chief spokesman, either refused to comment or take a reporter's repeated phone calls.

In an internal report released March 8, World Bank inspectors concluded the land title program was flawed in its design, violated bank social and environmental policies and may have made it easier to evict landowners.

The bank also warned that it would reconsider both current and future projects in Cambodia if the government doesn't help resolve the Boeung Kak controversy. Bank President Robert Zoellick took the unusual step of publicly criticizing the government on the day the inspectors' report was released.

Aid experts say the government does not want to be seen as being pushed around by a foreign institution and may be using the fight as a signal to keep other donors in check. For the World Bank, its credibility is at stake if a strong-arm government can ride roughshod over bank policies to protect the poor.

Sia Phearum, head of a Cambodian housing rights organization, said that people in many countries welcome development projects and the hope they bring for better lives — but not in Cambodia.

"In Cambodia, people who have no land have no hope," he said.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia-The murky waters of Phnom Penh's largest lake were once visible out the back window of Cham Pothisak's tin-roof-and-plywood shack. Today, a manmade sand dune taller than the home itself menaces like an ocean wave, filling up his crawlspace basement with putrid water and his family's life with clouds of mosquitos.

It's squalid shelter at best, but in Cambodia, where 80 percent of the population depends on agriculture, logging, or fishing for their survival, land is wealth, and Cham said he has documents proving ownership to the 60-square-meter plot he bought 11 years ago. But now, along with thousands of others, he faces eviction in what may be the largest forced relocation of Cambodians since 1975, when the Khmer Rouge emptied virtually the entire capital. This time once again, it's the arbitrary power of the state at work: The government turned over some of Phnom Penh's priciest real estate, including Cham's land, to a close associate of Prime Minister Hun Sen. Developers are already moving in, pouring sand into Boeung Kak lake to fill it up, flood out shantytown homes, and prepare the site for construction. "It's like they're coming to kill us. They're taking our lives," Cham said. "We're angry but we can't do anything against them. It's like the Khmer Rouge all over again. We're helpless."

It wasn't supposed to be this way. About a decade ago, the World Bank began a program to codify property rights, with the goal of building system akin to what landowners enjoy in the West. The program was meant to make sure that people like Cham could defend their property from arbitrary expropriation. But the initiative has backfired. Instead of helping landowners, it has in many cases actually contributed to their displacement, forcing out residents who may well have had legitimate, longstanding claims to their lands and homes.

Cham's predicament is emblematic of the difficulties of bringing property rights to the developing world. Many development advocates, including at the World Bank and elsewhere, argue that property rights are a vital component of economic growth; they allow landowners to take loans, mortgage their assets, and plan economically for the future without fear of being kicked off their plot. But getting to that point is often messy in regions where overlapping claims are difficult to prove, the laws of the land are rarely enforced, and the wealthy and powerful are easily able to corrupt the system. Usually it's the poor who pay the price.

Cambodians have it worse than most, however, due mainly to the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-Marxist regime led by Pol Pot, one of the 20th century's most notorious tyrants. The Khmer Rouge, whose four years of misguided communist dogma and stunning brutality in 1970s formed the plot of The Killing Fields, outlawed private property and destroyed land records as they sought to create an agricultural utopia. Millions were uprooted from villages and cities, marched into the countryside and forced to build canals, plant rice, cultivate fields, and otherwise help create the Khmer Rouge's vision of a classless society. As many as 2 million perished from executions, starvation, disease or the violence spilling over from the war in neighboring Vietnam. In the aftermath, the thousands of Cambodians who had lost their land struggled to survive as refugees within their own country, squatting wherever they could.

The Khmer Rouge didn't last long; in 1979, Vietnam invaded the country and installed a puppet regime. But their dark legacy lives on, perhaps nowhere more than on the issue of land. The slow transition back to Cambodian rule eventually put power in the hands of Hun Sen, the current prime minister and a wily former Khmer Rouge military commander. Pushed by foreign lenders, including the Asian Development Bank, his government passed a law in 2001 laying the groundwork for a formal system of property titles or deeds to replace the ad-hoc mechanisms that had been built up over the years. The World Bank offered to help, setting up a $24 million Land Monitoring and Administration Program (LMAP) to build a system of hard paper titles and centralized registries. Germany, Canada and Finland also provided support for the effort.

Beginning in the early part of the decade, government surveyors began going house to house in 13 provinces nationwide, asking occupants to prove they owned the property. That proof could vary widely -- anything from a collection of bills to a family record book to transaction receipts that might include the fingerprints of buyer and seller. When the lands in question were marginal, far-flung, or otherwise undesirable, the system appeared to work; the World Bank says that more than 1 million titles were issued under LMAP. But when business interests were tied up with the land claims, for example, in prime areas for logging, sugar, rubber plantations, or real estate development, the system ran into trouble. Landowners whose traditional forms of documentation had been previously considered sufficient found they couldn't apply for titles. Others were left in the dark with little explanation about how the titling process was supposed to work. Then, after losing their claims, they had no avenue to appeal. Landowners who ended up being evicted often received minimal if any compensation, according to the Housing Rights Task Force, an alliance of Cambodian and foreign NGOs.

Land prices, meanwhile, have soared in Cambodia over the past decade. For the well-connected, and even for some members of the fledgling middle class, the boom has been sweet, yielding new capital and income. But it has also fueled what advocacy organizations describe as an epidemic of land-grabbing, with as many as 500,000 people arbitrarily kicked off their lands nationwide in recent years, squeezed into deeper poverty.

At Boeung Kak, where Cham lives, the land rights debacle has played out with particular dysfunction. This 330-acre bowl of sewage-filled water, trash-littered marshes, and muddy shorelines -- right in the middle of the crowded, chaotic capital -- was home to more than 20,000 people as of 2006. In May of that year, villagers and homeowners in the area were notified that the area was to be surveyed, the first step toward determining property rights, and government teams began interviewing landowners. Seven months later, however, Cambodian authorities began claiming the land, bit by bit, as the state's own.

In February 2007, the government granted development rights to a local company called Shukaku Inc., which is reportedly led by Lao Meng Khin, a senator close to Hun Sen. Shukaku wanted to build luxury villas, hotels and high-rent office space; the government offered a 99-year lease for $79 million. Then, in 2008, authorities proclaimed the land was "State Public," under Cambodian law, rendering all the current residents illegal squatters. By August, developers had started pumping sand into the lake. Homes flooded, sometimes overnight, and thousands of residents were forced to pick up and leave. They were offered government compensation, around $9,000 per household, as well as replacement apartments -- either far from the city in poor provinces, where work is harder to come by, or in temporary housing in the city with an open-ended promise for more permanent housing someday. If this didn't convince residents to leave, they faced a different form of persuasion: men, some carrying weapons, began going house-to-house "inviting" owners for one-on-one talks to convince them to give up their land, village residents say. Some carried signs saying "You Must Sell," according to residents.

The World Bank and many foreign embassies publicly called for a halt to all evictions in 2009, and shortly afterward, the government pulled out of LMAP, citing what Hun Sen complained were the bank's "complicated conditions." By December 2010, the government said that more than 2,000 families had agreed to move; their homes are being gradually demolished. Much of the lake has been filled in, and the lake's ecology all but destroyed. About 10,000 people are still fighting the evictions. They argue that the compensation on offer is far below the $3,000 per square meter rate they estimate land is selling for in central Phnom Penh. Tep Vanny, an activist who faces eviction from her own house on the lake's east side, says, "It's a way to keep the people poor, and for them to stay in power."

The government's actions appear riddled with inconsistency and dubious legal rationales. For example, the June 2008 announcement that the lake region was classified as "State Public Land" was never recorded in the national land registry, and the declaration offered landowners no redress, according to the World Bank's own internal inspection report. The 2001 property law also forbids leasing public land to private companies for longer than 15 years -- and even then, the companies are not allowed to make major changes to the plot. This, activists argue, explains why the government abruptly re-classified the lake as "State Private Land," instead of "State Public Land," in August 2008 -- a key distinction. "It does seem that the government changes the rules to fit its narrative," Bret Thiele, of the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, wrote in an email.

Neither Shukaku officials nor Lao Meng Khin responded to written requests for interviews. National and city government officials, including the Phnom Penh governor, officials at the land ministry, and the government's chief spokesman, also either refused to answer receive numerous phone calls or refused to answer any questions about Boeung Kak or the standoff with the World Bank. In a statement released March 24, the city government accused Boeung Kak residents of being "illegal land grabbers."

It's no surprise to see the government of Cambodia behaving badly; the country ranked 154th on Transparency International's most recent Corruptions Perceptions Index. It's the World Bank's role that is perhaps most troubling. Before the government abruptly pulled out of LMAP in 2009, more than 1.2 million titles were issued, which the World Bank argues is a strong measure of the program's success. The bank has also claimed that more titles and strong property rights result in better and more productive farming. But in the report compiled by the bank's inspection panel, dated Nov. 23, 2010, and released in March, inspectors said the program was flawed in its design, violated bank social and environmental policies and safeguards, and may have actually made it easier to evict land owners. The report said that despite problems noted as early as 2006, the bank's Cambodian management team didn't take complaints seriously until 2009. Even worse, a 2006 report commissioned by the German government's aid agency, GTZ -- which worked closely with both the bank and Cambodian land ministry officials -- warned that LMAP was having an adverse effect and predicted some of the very problems that played out in Boeung Kak, according to a consultant with first-hand knowledge of the report.

On March 8, the day the bank's inspection panel report was released, World Bank President Robert Zoellick publicly criticized the Cambodian government for its disrespect for property rights and demanded it stop forced evictions. The bank's Cambodia management team, meanwhile, in an addendum to the report, gave the government an ultimatum, threatening to "(review) all current and proposed support" if it does not cooperate. Currently, the bank has $343 million of funding for 16 ongoing projects. The bank set a 60-day deadline, expiring May 8, for the government to respond to its demands. It has since extended that deadline until Monday, May 16.

Remaining land owners and activists are now holding out for the government to set aside a 15-hectare plot at the lake so they can build replacement houses there, plus possibly more compensation, a position endorsed by the bank. Government officials have so far refused the demand, and protests by residents were broken up violently by riot police on April 21. As of Thursday, May 12, according to Tep Vanny, there has been no movement by the government toward an agreement.

Ironically, the aim of bringing some measure of a transparent, predictable land tenure to Cambodia ended up contributing to thousands being kicked out of their homes. The result is that many Cambodians end up feeling even less secure in their land rights than they ever did before.

For aid agencies and institutions intent on finding ways to reduce poverty, the lessons are as numerous and nettlesome. Giving a farmer or a fisherman or tailor or a shop clerk a piece of paper that proves they own the land they live and work seems like such a simple concept. But that piece of paper is only as good as the system of rules and laws that recognize its value. In a country like Cambodia, where rules and laws are often seen more as a nuisance than a code of common principles, that piece of paper can end up doing exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to do. And like always, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer: It's only the way it happens that is any different.

Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge government fell more than 30 years ago. The power behind the infamous "Killing Fields" killed as many as 2 million Cambodians through executions, starvation and disease. Later this year, four Khmer Rouge leaders are set for trial before a United Nations-backed tribunal that's charged them with genocide and crimes against humanity. Among those on trial is Nuon Chea. He was second-in-command to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who died more than a decade ago. The trial will take place in Cambodia. But some in Long Beach, home to the largest Cambodian-American population in this country, are trying to help the prosecution from half a world away.

On a recent Saturday in Long Beach, survivors of the Khmer Rouge stepped to a microphone to tell stories that are hard to hear.

Sophany Bay counsels Cambodian-Americans on mental health matters. In the 1970s, she was a teacher in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, until the Khmer Rouge sent her to a forced labor camp in the countryside.

While there, her 6-month-old daughter got sick. She the baby to someone she thought was a nurse. He wasn't.

"He took my baby and put my baby on the table and injected something into her head. When he put my baby on the table, it died immediately," said Bay.

The man who gave the shot was a Khmer Rouge soldier. Sophany Bay's two other children also died after soldiers beat them.

She and other Cambodians gathered at Long Beach's Mark Twain Library to learn about the upcoming trial, known as "Case 002."

Lawyers from the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability helped sponsor the meeting. The legal organization is representing Khmer Rouge survivors at the upcoming trial.

Case one ended last year when the tribunal handed down a 35-year sentence to Kang Guek Eav, or Duch. He ran a notorious torture prison. The court later reduced Duch's sentence by almost half, in part because of the time he'd already served.

Many victims of the Khmer Rouge criticized that reduced sentence. Lawyer Nushin Sarkarati of the Center for Justice and Accountability said part of her job is to explain to Cambodian-Americans what the courts can and cannot do.

"For example, in case one, many people asked, 'Why didn't Duch get the death penalty?'" said Sarkarati. "This court does not permit the death penalty, so that wasn't even an issue on the table."

In recent years, several parties have tried to involve more Cambodian-Americans in the second trial. Cal State Long Beach sociologist Leakhena Nou has played a major role in that effort. She founded the Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia.

For almost three years, she's gathered the testimony of Khmer Rouge survivors and sent it to the tribunal. Nou attended the recent Long Beach meeting to let the survivors know the court has accepted their testimony. She told them that they were the "heroes" behind the movement to seek justice.

The tribunal has also accepted more than 30 Cambodian-Americans as civil parties whose testimony will be admitted as evidence. Sophany Bay, the woman who lost her children, is one of 14 from California.

Andrea Evans is the legal director for the Center for Justice and Accountability. She said it's rare for survivors to take such an active role in this kind of trial.

"It's the first time that an international court has allowed this type of participation by survivors directly in the proceedings," said Evans, "so I think there's going to be a lot of examination about how this works, about how effective it is."

The proceedings could involve them even further. Evans says it's possible that some of the civil parties could testify as witnesses at the trial in Cambodia.

"We are advocating that at least some of the witnesses who testify are from the United States," said Evans.

Evans said her group is also hoping to fly some of the local Cambodians to Phnom Penh to observe the proceedings.

The court has also left open the possibility of reparations if it convicts the four Khmer Rouge leaders. Lawyers say there are too many victims for monetary payments to make sense. But Sophany Bay, who spoke up at the Long Beach meeting, said she'd accept a museum or memorial that recognizes the victims.

"I want some place for the memory, to remember my children, like other people, like other victims," said Bay.

Phnom Penh (dpa) - A German judge who jointly heads the investigation office at the UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia has threatened to file contempt-of-court charges against the tribunal's international prosecutor.

The unprecedented development that two senior UN staff might face off within the tribunal's system came days after the prosecutor, Andrew Cayley, said an investigation by Judge Siegfried Blunk's office was deficient.

Blunk did not reply Friday to emailed questions, but the Cambodia Daily quoted him as saying it could 'write any story you like' after he declined to say what lay behind the contempt-of-court charges.

Cayley said Monday that he had reviewed the file prepared by Blunk's team on the third case in the prosecution of leaders of Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge regime and would request the investigating judges do more work on it.

His comments seemed to confirm long-standing rumours that the judges have done little on the case.

Cayley, a British national, told the German Press Agency dpa Tuesday that case three still needed 'a substantial amount' of investigation and called on Blunk's office to notify the suspects they were under investigation and to interview them.

'And [there are] a number of other steps, including investigation of crime sites also originally named by the prosecution in the introductory submission, which haven't been investigated at all,' Cayley said.

Tribunal observers have long feared the investigating judges are trying to shelve the tribunal's third and fourth cases. That would suit the Cambodian government, which has repeatedly said it would not permit those cases to go to trial.

Asked whether the court was indeed trying to bury cases three and four, Blunk responded with a threat.

'The use of the word 'bury' is insolent, for which you are given leave to apologize within two days,' Blunk wrote in an email Tuesday without specifying a penalty.

Blunk's actions come at a critical time for the court as it prepares for its second case against four senior surviving Khmer Rouge leaders this year.

Cases three and four involve five unnamed former Khmer Rouge, who between them are thought to be directly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths.

But the investigating judges have refused to make public any details about either case, including which crime sites were under investigation, leading to accusations that they have deliberately excluded victims.

Tribunal monitor Clair Duffy of the Open Society Justice Initiative, which is funded by US billionaire George Soros and monitors the tribunal, said Friday that the case-three investigation had already done substantial damage to the tribunal's reputation.

She said news of possible contempt-of-court proceedings was 'potentially very damaging.'

'The potential message is that those seeking to act independently of political will and to act with integrity in the pursuit of justice will be laying themselves open to criminal sanction,' Duffy said.

In its first case, the tribunal last year convicted the Khmer Rouge's head of security, Comrade Duch, of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

More than 2 million people are thought to have died under the movement's rule of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.

FYI

An extract from Wong Wai Yee (2010) - A preliminary Study of Economic Activities of Khmer Empire: Examining the Relation between the Khmer Empire and Guangdong Ceramics Industries During the 9th-14th Century.

Who said Angkorian houses were all thatched roof.?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tNmmF3RjhE&feature=player_embedded#at=34

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YItQW4ydVEI&feature=player_embedded

On behalf of the team members of the SRP-Montreal chapter, we are pleased to invite you, your family and friends to a special gathering ceremony to be held on Sunday afternoon, June 5, 2011. Please consult the flyer below for precise information.

We are delighted to have the opportunity to receive H.E Sam Rainsy and MP Saumura Tioulong on their first joint visit to Montreal. We are proud that our community has always been a caring place, especially when it comes to real issues facing Cambodia. Our contribution to the cause of our nation's survival has been recognized and appreciated over the years, grace in large part to you for your utmost understanding and on-going supports. We could not have achieved so much without your kind supports and understanding of our country's needs and priorities.

Our leaders are looking forward to meeting and greeting you all and to spend that quality day together, that is why we have planned to dine together after the event.

Please gather your friends and come out to join us for not only a great afternoon, but for the greatest cause of our nation - a struggle for the new renaissance of Khmer nation.

The authorities accepted all 91 recommendations made by UN member states under the Universal Periodic Review in March to improve human rights, including on measures to combat impunity, forced evictions and involuntary relocation and to reform the judiciary.

In June, a visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia focused on the judiciary, which he described as lacking independence and the capacity to deliver justice to all.

A new Penal Code came into force in December which included controversial provisions that limited freedom of expression.

Thousands of people around the country, including Indigenous populations, were adversely affected by forced evictions, land grabs and land disputes, some in connection with economic land concessions granted to powerful companies and individuals. Increasing numbers of individuals and communities protested and petitioned the authorities in defence of their rights to adequate housing.

In May the authorities approved a Circular on "temporary settlements on illegally occupied land", aimed at relocating long-standing communities, some with legal tenure, from the capital, Phnom Penh and other urban areas.

In a landmark decision in July, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) convicted Kaing Guek Eav (known as Duch) for crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions for his role in mass executions, torture and other crimes during the Khmer Rouge period. Duch was the commander of security prison S-21, where at least 14,000 people were tortured and killed. He was sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment, reduced by 16 years for time served and illegal detention. Both the prosecution and defence appealed against the sentence.

Scores of people were arrested for defending the right to housing and protesting against land grabs and forced evictions, with dozens serving sentences imposed in previous years. Most were charged with fabricated, groundless or spurious offences, such as damage to private property, incitement, robbery, and assault.

The courts were used to curtail freedom of expression and association of journalists, trade union members and opposition parliamentarians.

 Violence against women and girls

No comprehensive, reliable official data was available on incidents of violence against women and girls, including sexual violence, or on the number of prosecutions of suspected perpetrators. Victims faced obstacles in obtaining justice due to criminal justice system failures and out of court settlements. A shortage of services to aid and support victims added to their trauma.

Click on the control below to listen to the audio program:

PHNOM PENH - Sometime later this year, Cambodia's war crimes court will convene its second trial at which four ailing Khmer Rouge leaders will face a raft of charges including crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. The four accused - Khmer Rouge "Brother No 2" Nuon Chea, former foreign minister Ieng Sary, head of state Khieu Samphan and minister of social affairs Ieng Thirith - are the most senior surviving leaders of the regime, whose ultra-Maoist revolution led to the death of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975-79.

The tribunal's first case, against Khmer Rouge jailer Kaing Guek Eav, came to an historic conclusion in July when judges convicted him for his role in the deaths of as many as 15,000 people at Phnom Penh's notorious S-21 prison. The 30-year jail sentence handed down against the wiry former schoolteacher, better known by his revolutionary nom de guerre Duch, is currently under appeal.

As the United Nations-backed tribunal gears up for its much more complicated second case, controversy surrounds the potential indictments of five further mid-ranking Khmer Rouge figures. The names of the suspects in Case 003 and Case 004, as the court refers to them, have not yet been officially disclosed but human-rights activists have named the pair under investigation as Meas Muth, former commander of the Khmer Rouge navy, and ex-air force head Sou Met.

The latter case also allegedly involves Im Chem, a former district chief in Banteay Meanchey province, and a pair of deputy zone secretaries, Yim Tith (alias Ta Tith) and Aom An (alias Ta An).

The government has long opposed any prosecutions beyond the second case, arguing that further arrests could threaten social stability or plunge the nation back into civil war. In October, Prime Minister Hun Sen told visiting UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon that Case 002 would be the tribunal's last and that the pursuit of new cases was "not allowed".

This week, government spokesman Khieu Kanharith warned the tribunal's foreign staff about pushing too hard on the two cases. "If they want to go into Case 003 or 004, they should just pack their bags and return home," the Phnom Penh Post quoted him as saying.

Court monitors and rights activists have recently expressed concerns over apparent signs that the international side of the court is yielding to government pressure. The issue came to a head late last month when the court's co-investigating judges - You Bunleng of Cambodia and Siegfried Blunk of Germany - officially announced that their investigation into Case 003 had been completed. Critics charged that the judges had carried out few if any field investigations in the sensitive case and that the probe had been fast-tracked as a prelude to its likely dismissal by the court.

"The investigating judges have acted precipitously to shut down the investigation, and I say that because we know from talking to people working in the court that they have not gone to crime scenes and done the kind of investigation that one would expect in any criminal case, much less a case of this seriousness," Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, told the Associated Press after the investigation was closed. "It was a political decision, it appears, to shut down this case."

Theary Seng, a human-rights activist and victims advocate, said the manner of the announcement - delivered in a curt, one-sentence statement after close of business on a Friday - indicated that Blunk and You Bunleng were shying away from public scrutiny. "It was transparently deceitful," she said. "The judges have a duty - it's not an option - to investigate. They have failed in their duty to investigate and they have failed to inform the public ... It has scarred the legacy of the Khmer Rouge tribunal already."

Bringing the five additional suspects to justice was also important in justifying the overall cost of the tribunal, she said. "There's no magic number as to how many should be prosecuted and should be indicted. But five indictees after $200 million spent with only one verdict is not acceptable. The current five are not sufficient for the crimes that took the lives of 1.7 million Cambodians."

Under the court's internal rules, which follow the French civil law system, investigating judges conduct the investigation and then submit their evidence to the court's prosecutors, who decide whether to go to trial. In a statement on May 9, international co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley said the alleged crimes in Case 003 - which include murder, torture, unlawful imprisonment and enslavement - had "not been fully investigated", and urged the co-investigating judges to "summon and question the suspects" in the case.

He also made public a detailed list of locations across the country thought to be connected with the alleged crimes and gave information to victims wishing to apply as civil parties in the case.

Though court observers welcomed Cayley's disclosure, it lacked the signature of his Cambodian counterpart Chea Leang, a long-time opponent of further prosecutions. The next day, she released her own statement countering the call for further probes, claiming that the suspects in Case 003 fell outside the court's jurisdiction, which restricts its mandate to "senior leaders" of the Khmer Rouge regime and those deemed "most responsible" for its crimes.

Despite their clear disagreement on whether to move forward on the controversial case, Cayley said he would continue to work closely with Chea Leang and fulfill the legal obligations of his position. "She and I both agree that matters within the court need to be handled according to the law," he said. "As the international prosecutor, I have a legal obligation and a duty to act and follow the rules and we have never been in disagreement on that."

Clair Duffy, a court monitor with the Open Society Justice Initiative, said that whatever the extent of Cayley's legally-invested powers, he and other international judges are likely to face significant practical difficulties as the pursuit of the case runs up against entrenched government opposition. "In terms of securing national cooperation in the investigation and arrest of suspects, the Cambodian government needs to lift its opposition to these cases and make this happen," she said. She added that the UN needed to "step up" and pressure Phnom Penh to cease its meddling in the case.

The longstanding conflict between the Cambodian and international sides of the tribunal reflects the awkward political compromise that gave birth to the hybrid court. The brewing disagreement over additional prosecutions is likely to bring such issues to a head and court observers say the fate of the two cases will be a test of the tribunal's credibility. "The point is that the issue affects more than just Case 003 and Case 004 - it affects the whole of the court," Duffy said. "Judicial independence is a fundamental tenet of any justice system. The implications of a lack of judicial independence or of political decision making by judges are huge."

Court spokesman Lars Olsen said that it was "premature" to make any kind of judgment about political interference at the tribunal. "It's too early to predict what will be the legacy of the court," he said, adding that "regardless of what will be the outcome of the investigation, the decisions of the judges will be made public" and open to scrutiny.

Theary Seng, whose parents perished under the Khmer Rouge regime, said she was hopeful that pressure was now building on the court to push forward with the third case, and that the UN would be forced to put up a "good fight" against government manipulation. "The UN failing to address these concerns will damage and further embed cynicism in the Cambodian population," she said. "The UN will be greatly implicated if they don't act."