The Phnom Penh Post - ENGLISH: “Official charged in pension scam: ACU” plus 9 more

The Kampong Cham Provincial Court may teach a lesson to a civil servant accused of pocketing at least one month's pension allocated to 10 retired teachers.

Officials from the Anti-Corruption Unit in cooperation with the provincial prosecutor arrested Mang Yusreng, director of Srei Santhor district's Social Affairs office on Saturday, said Kampong Cham Provincial Court deputy prosecutor Plang Sophal.

Yusreng is being held on charges of illegally exploiting others' public benefits as well as creating and using fake public documents, Sophal said.

"The judge decided to detain the suspect temporarily while the case is investigated further," Sophal said yesterday.

The ACU and Kampong Cham authorities arrested Yusreng after a lawsuit was filed by the alleged victims, who say they did not receive their 200,000 riel ($50) pension payments for March of 2012, according to a posting on ACU's website. Allegations were posted on the website a day before authorities arrested Yusreng.

In addition to withholding the teachers' pay, Yusreng also falsified thumbprints on documents, the ACU has alleged.

The ACU is appealing to retired people in Srei Santhor district who have not received pension payments to notify them through their telephone hotlines. The ACU investigation has, so far, found Yusreng appears to have acted alone, without the involvement of anyone in Srei Santhor district's education office, the ACU said.

While Yusreng's arrest was a step in the right direction, Cambodia's Independent Civil Servant Association president Kao Poeun yesterday said that the ACU should continue digging, rather than letting the buck stop at the social affairs office director.

If the government truly wants to curb corruption, Poeun said, it must widen its investigation and look into more senior officials who may have taken part directly or have been aware of Yusreng's alleged scam.

"[Yusreng's] position is not one in which he could commit this offence without his superiors' knowledge. Authorities should look for more accomplices," Poeun said. "Low salaries paid to civil servants lead them toward such corruption."

Dear Editor,

Everyone has his or her own bitter and sweet memories. The ones that are most memorable are those that have scared us the most.

In the hearts of Cambodian people who suffered from the tragic history and lived through the three years, eight months and 20 days, such horrific memory still haunts them to this very day. Each day under the brutal regime they prayed for the day to pass quickly and hoped to see sunlight the next day.

Such bitter memories bring victims to tears and causes them trauma and psychological disorders. Some people are finding ways to forget their past memory under the Khmer Rouge regime, but I doubt that they could ever do so and forgetting the past doesn't mean they can run away from it.

In my perspective, they are less likely to forget the memories from the KR regime. As part of my job at the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), one of my many tasks is to document the trial proceedings at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) dating back to 2007.

I have captured trial video footage, photos of the parties in the court and produced video clips of people's reactions to the trials. From people's reactions I can tell they can never forget the past.

The losses of their loved ones and the time they spent together are rooted very deeply in their hearts.

My father, Sa Math, once told me that he cannot forget the memory of his parents who were brutally killed under the KR. Every time my father sees pickled cucumber, it always reminds him of his mother, who always packed his school lunch with a pickled cucumber.

The regime separated people from their families and moved my father from his parents. The regime took at least one life from each Cambodian family, and mine was no exception. The regime took the lives of a number of our immediate and extended family who were accused of participating in a Cham rebellion in late 1975.

In the village where my family resided, almost 100 families were killed. They killed my grandfather and his younger brother by binding their bodies and dropping them into water, drowning them.

My grandmother died because there was no medicine to treat her illness. My father survived because he had to work hard and hide his identity, being a former Lon Nol soldier. One day, he was accused of being a Lon Nol soldier.

He tried to convince the cadres that he was only a farmer who cannot read or write, but five cadres came to his house at night and took him away with some other villagers. They got on a boat and crossed the river to an island.

There, my father thought his identity was discovered and he was going to be killed. While walking, the KR cadres clubbed the head of a villager and he fell down. When my father saw that, he fell down on his knees and, in shock, was unable to move.

The KR cadres told my father to get up and move. My father was so afraid as if his soul was no longer with him. The cadres threatened to kill my father if he told anyone. And he did not tell anyone.

Eight years after the collapse of the KR regime, I was born and grew up unaware of the history of my family and country. Through my work, I began to learn about the atrocities that had befallen the country.

After two years with DC-Cam, I was chosen to do an internship in the Shoah Foundation Institute at the University of Southern California. I met many Holocaust survivors who came to share their experiences.

Also, I interviewed many Khmer-American survivors who would never return to the country they love, fearing the emotional trauma when facing the memories of lost family and friends. After my return, I was determined to interview my father for his stories, starting on June 30, 2009.

Now it has been four years and I still don't have the whole story. He could not hold back his tears talking about his family under the brutal regime. Now he is sick and hospitalised.

I always keep him up-to-date on the Khmer Rouge tribunal because he is interested. My father told me that the survivors and the accused are getting too old and are dying one after another.

He hopes that the verdict would come before the survivors and the accused all die. A day in prison before the death of the Khmer Rouge leaders would be adequate for him and his loved ones.

Since it is impossible to forget the past, memorialising their memory can give them the strength to move on. I believe that such an act would contribute to preventing brutal acts such as those of the KR regime in the future.

Survivors have been passing their memories on to their children and grandchildren and by doing so it allows young people to be aware of their family's and the country's history.

Younger generations can benefit from the experience of their elders and use these lessons to move to a better future. I believe that memory plays a very important role in uniting people and helping Cambodians to move beyond being victims of this tragic history.

Fatily Sa
Film Archivist,
Cham Identity Project
Documentation Center of Cambodia

Logging tycoon Try Pheap's rapidly expanding land empire, criticised by rights groups for displacing families and encroaching on protected forest areas, has grown to almost 70,000 hectares in size and is helping to facilitate a cross-border illegal logging operation, a report released today alleges.

The Cambodian Human Rights Task Force (CHRTF), a local NGO, claims in the report that through as many as 15 companies operating under his name or that of his wife, Mao Mom, Pheap is in possession of almost seven times the amount of economic land concessions (ELCs) allowed by law – an allegation a representative of the tycoon denied yesterday.

"The reason to focus only on Try Pheap's companies," the report states, "is to urge the government to take action and show the truth behind why our forests are disappearing."

The report – one of a number this year focusing on Pheap's activities – also alleges that as well as being concessionaire to vast areas of land, Pheap also has exclusive rights to collect and buy luxury timber, mainly rosewood, from all government-granted land concessions in 15 provinces.

Areas mentioned include Ream National Park in Preah Sihanouk province, Preah Vihear province's Boeung Pe Wildlife Sanctuary and Virachey National Park in northeastern Cambodia.

Mining concessions are also listed as having been granted in Stung Treng province.

CHRTF's report adds that Pheap's companies – which include his MDS Import Export firm – also clear timber from concession areas in Cambodia's other nine provinces.

According to the report, at least 1,445 families have been evicted from their homes during Pheap's acquisition of about 68,088 hectares since 2010.

If true, this violates Article 59 of the Land Law, which states that individuals or legal entities controlled by the same person cannot hold more than 10,000 hectares of ELCs, even if it is spread over multiple concessions. CHRTF said it compiled information against Pheap's companies using a team of investigators across the country and tracked company officials crossing into Vietnam to sell the timber.

Included in the 52-page report are photos of company vehicles transporting rosewood, and piles of timber stationed at company offices and Pheap's home in Kandal province.

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CHRTF says it has documents from the environment and commerce ministries that detail the concessions.

The report claims Pheap is closely connected with officials from the ministries of interior and agriculture, the military, forestry officials and other concessionaires, such as Choeung Sopheap, who owns the Pheapimex company.

Sopheap is married to ruling Cambodian People's Party senator Lao Meng Khin, whose company Shukaku is licensed to develop the capital's Boeung Kak area.

CHRTF director Ouch Leng, who compiled the report, said Pheap's companies have been granted land concessions to develop rubber and pepper plantations, but has effectively seized people's land in order to export timber to Vietnam.

"The main business and politics of tycoon Try Pheap is to operate a timber business under the cloak of ELCs and … transport wood openly from Cambodia to Vietnam," he said. Transport points included Mondulkiri province, Ratanakkiri province's O'Yadav district and Sihanoukville port.

"The company has fed and sponsored armed forces and civil servants in the concession area by helping build offices, but it does not help improve people's lives," Leng said.

Multiple attempts at reaching Pheap were not successful yesterday, but a company representative in Preah Vihear province denied allegations of illegal activity.

"Our company does not log illegally," he said, adding that Pheap's companies had rights to buy timber in only eight provinces. "We buy wood that has been seized by the authorities," said the employee, who did not want to be named. "The money goes to the state. We do not export it. We process it in Phnom Penh as furniture."

He said allegations made about the companies' practices were spurious, and villagers were given adequate compensation when they were relocated.

Thorn Sarath, director of the administration department at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said he was not aware of the way the 15 companies in question were structured and would have to look into the matter further.

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"Previously, companies have followed the [Land Law] on this [a restriction of 10,000 hectares per person]," he said. "But [concessionaires] are always having problems with people, so we need to check more because previous impact studies have been too basic."

Other government officials could not be reached.

The report by CHRTF, an NGO set up in the 1990s by the International Human Rights Law Group and managed locally since 1997, is the latest to call into question concessions and licences granted to the logging tycoon.

Last month, NGO National Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) said an investigation it had carried out had discovered illegal logging in every protected forest in the country and that licences granted to Pheap, allowing him to collect and buy timber from ELCs, will leave the areas ecologically impoverished.

In February, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries granted Pheap an exclusive licence to collect and buy timber from economic land concessions in Ratanakkiri.

In June, the Post reported that Pheap's MDS Import Export company had been granted a licence to collect and process yellow vine around the Stung Atay hydropower dam in the Cardamom Mountains.

And in a report released in August, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said it had evidence of rampant illegal logging in Preah Vihear being carried out under orders from Pheap.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, said via email yesterday that big land concessions in Cambodia have inevitably resulted in "rights abuses and resource looting going hand in hand".

"Ripping apart local communities to support the greed of a few is only possible where those violating rights know that they have total impunity to do so – which is far too often the common state of affairs in Hun Sen's Cambodia."

Just days before the Supreme Court hears the final appeal of imprisoned land-rights activist Yorm Bopha, a letter obtained yesterday reveals that Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong has met with Bopha's husband and her accusers after both parties requested intervention to "end the case".

According to the letter, Lous Sakhorn, Bopha's husband, asked Socheatvong to intervene and have his wife freed from prison, while her alleged victims, motodops Vat Thaiseng and Nget Chet, "also asked Phnom Penh City Hall to intervene to end this case".

City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche said yesterday that Sakhorn and Bopha's father, Yorm Yen, had "reconciled" with the alleged victims during meetings at City Hall last Friday.

"To me, when both sides agree to reconcile with one another, it means the plaintiff has dropped the charges against the defendant," Dimanche said.

But E Sophors, president of motodops group the Cambodia Confederation Development Association, said the intervention the alleged victims sought was more about being paid compensation.

"We need compensation for the treatment of our members. Dropping the charges should be decided by the court," he said.

The letter bears the thumbprints of Socheatvong, Sakhorn, Yen, a City Hall official, a lawyer, both alleged victims and Sophors.

Sakhorn, 57, said yesterday that he was asked to appear at City Hall on Friday by Sok Penhvuth, the deputy chief of Daun Penh district, along with Yen, to negotiate with his wife's two alleged victims.

According to the letter, both parties requested intervention in letters sent earlier this month.

Last December, Bopha was convicted on a charge of intentional violence after the court ruled she had ordered a screwdriver and axe attack on the two motodops at Boeung Kak.

She was sentenced to three years in prison, a sentence that was effectively reduced to two years when she appealed in June.

During her appeal trial, a judge said the testimony of Bopha's accusers contradicted earlier statements they had made, while rights groups say charges against her were motivated by her land activism.

Yesterday, nearly 100 lotus-wielding activists rallied outside the capital's Supreme Court building, calling for Bopha's release ahead of her final appeal hearing on Friday.

The imprisoned woman's 8-year-old son was by his father's side during the protest.

Demonstrators circulated around the Supreme Court building three times to the thrum of a drumbeat, tossing paper copies of the accusations lodged against Bopha into a bowl, which were then lit on fire and left to smoulder.

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Boeung Kak representative Tep Vanny, 32, who was among the supporters, said she was hopeful Bopha would be released.

"This is her last chance, but whatever the Supreme Court's decision, she must see justice – we can't ever lose hope," Vanny said, adding that she had visited Bopha in prison only yesterday.

Amnesty International launched a worldwide campaign yesterday calling for Bopha's release, involving activists in more than 30 different countries.

Rupert Abbott, the organisations's researcher on Cambodia, told the Post yesterday that Bopha's release would be a step forward for human rights in Cambodia.

"Amnesty International considers Yorm Bopha a prisoner of conscience. Thousands of our members around the world are taking action to call for her immediate and unconditional release," he said.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AMELIA WOODSIDE

An employee of the World Health Organization's Cambodia office shared insider information with a supplier who provided funds for his personal trips abroad, a Global Fund investigation released last week has found.

The investigation, conducted by the Global Fund's Office of the Inspector General (OIG), reveals that in 2009, a WHO Cambodia employee involved with the procurement of long-lasting insecticidal bed nets (LLIN) for the Global Fund had flights to Singapore paid for by Sumitomo Chemical Singapore (SCS), a mosquito net supplier.

The report says that the WHO employee "also appears to have shared information about upcoming LLIN needs in Cambodia with SCS during its efforts to win LLIN contracts".

The WHO told the Post yesterday it has launched its own investigation into the allegations and that the employee is no longer with the organisation.

SCS paid $1,990 to the employee, who is not identified, for a personal trip to Singapore for a medical check-up in December 2009, the investigation report, released on Thursday, found.

Emails attached to the report reveal that SCS also paid for a five-star hotel in Singapore for the WHO employee and his wife for a holiday in late January 2009.

The Global Fund suspended contracts with SCS and Swiss firm Vestergaard Frandsen after the two-and-a-half-year-long investigation found that the mosquito-net suppliers had paid direct "commissions" totalling $410,000 to the director and deputy-director of the National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control (CNM) between 2006 and 2011 to secure contracts.

The report reveals that on January 18, 2009, 11 days after SCS confirmed that the Singapore hotel had been booked for the WHO employee's holiday, the employee notified SCS about an upcoming CNM procurement round in March prior to the tender being issued. In the same email – sent via his personal account – he provided the contact details of a WHO supply and administrative officer in Manila.

"Please do not say I provided this information to you, you can said (sic) it was [NAME REDACTED] who told you," the employee wrote.

In a follow-up email after SCS confirmed it could supply the 500,000 nets required, the WHO employee says that SCS should tell the WHO contact in Manila that it received the information from the CNM.

"In case you cannot [supply all of the nets], you should say you can supply 300,000 in March and between April-May for another 200,000," he writes.

"Sharing strategic or future procurement plans with only one bidder could provide that bidder with a competitive advantage over the others, as it enables the preplanning of production planning and availability of stock," the Global Fund report says.

The WHO affiliate office in Manila, "served as a Procurement Agent for several Global Fund contracts", according to the report.

The WHO employee in question was a member of CNM's bid evaluation committee for Global Fund procurements – a committee which played "an integral role in selecting the ultimate entity to win LLIN contracts", it adds.

Despite fingering this single employee, the OIG says elsewhere in its exhaustive report that it found "no evidence that [the] WHO had any knowledge of or participation in the schemes".

WHO Cambodia representative Dr Pieter van Maaren said yesterday that after being notified by the Global Fund that an employee was being investigated, it immediately began its own investigation.

"The investigation is ongoing. Therefore, WHO cannot comment about specifics of the case, except to note that the employee in question no longer works for the Organization," he said in an email.

"The World Health Organization has absolutely no tolerance for fraud or corruption by any of its employees."

Seth Faison, head of communications at the Global Fund, said that the investigation's findings would not affect the fund's relationship with the WHO.

"Our staff work closely with WHO all over the world, and this investigation will not affect the close cooperation, either in Cambodia or anywhere else," he said.

The Global Fund investigation found, in addition to commissions paid to top officials at the CNM, that a senior procurement officer at National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STD Control had regularly manipulated procurements and accepted "facilitation" payments from suppliers.

It also uncovered that MEDiCAM, an umbrella organisation for a number of health NGOs, had improperly charged the Global Fund $20,725 for two staff positions that were not filled and that suppliers had spent more than $20,000 on gifts and other payments to the CNM director, his family members and other CNM officials.

The Global Fund has disbursed US$331 million for programs in Cambodia since 2003.

As Laos pushes toward its goal of becoming the "battery of Asia" through hydropower, its newfound claim that the location for the proposed Don Sahong dam is not on the Mekong River's main stream is provoking incredulity from some observers.

Less than two kilometres north of the Lao-Cambodian border, where the Don Sahong is slated to be built, developers call the Hou Sahong channel a Mekong tributary. Under the 1995 Mekong Agreement, that would require downstream neighbours only be notified – rather than consulted – before construction of a dam.

"But it's not on a tributary, it's on a channel in the middle of the Mekong," said Meach Mean, coordinator of the 3S Rivers Protection Network. "This is the one channel that fish can migrate up year-round to spawn; they cannot swim up the other channels in the dry season."

According to regulations outlined by the Mekong River Commission, if a dam changes mainstream river flow in the dry season, or diverts water from the mainstream in the rainy season, the country building it must consult with other member states prior to construction.

In 2007, the MRC Secretariat requested that the Don Sahong, as a year-round power generator using mainstream flows, file for prior consultation.

In the June MRC meeting, Australian Ambassador to Cambodia Alison Burrows asked on behalf of development partners including the US, European Union, Japan and the World Bank that the project undergo consultation.

Ignoring these requests, on September 30, Laos submitted a notification to the MRC, along with its intention to pursue construction beginning this month.

"The notification from the Lao government specifies that on average the Hou Sahong channel naturally carries 5 per cent of the total flow of the Mekong water in that area. This could imply that Lao PDR considers that water use on this channel would have limited impact on the water quality or flows regime of the Mekong mainstream," said Surasak Glahan, MRC Secretariat communications officer.

Last week, US-based NGO Conservation International called for a moratorium on Mekong hydropower projects.

And on Friday, NGOs in Thailand demanded an immediate halt to the dam's development in a public letter by the Foundation for Ecological Recovery.

"The Don Sahong Dam was registered as one of 12 mainstream dams [in earlier proposals] and all MRC country members were informed of this," reads the letter. "Engaging the 'prior notification' process instead of the 'prior consultation' reveals Laos PDR's action to distort information in order to quicken the construction process."

Officials at the MRC said they have not taken a position.

"What's happening with Don Sahong is showing a weakness in the MRC agreement," said Youk Senglong, from the Fisheries Action Coalition. "There isn't any sort of regional authority to turn to when countries don't follow the agreement."

Dam project managers did not return requests for comment.

A cache of 130 AK-47 rifles, ammunition and two unexploded rockets have been found by a group of children in the Oral mountain range, Kampong Chhnang police officials said yesterday.

Khem Vibol, police chief at Teuk Phos district, where the weapons were reported to the authorities, said yesterday that the weapons and unexploded ordnance (UXO) – B40 and B41 rockets – were found on Dos Kromom mountain on November 10.

The rifles were buried in a shallow hole and police are guarding the area while provincial police and the Cambodian Mine Action Centre decide how to proceed, he said. There are fears there may be unexploded mines in the area.

Penh Savat, the provincial acting director at CMAC, said he would collaborate with police to remove the UXO and rifles after the Water Festival holiday concludes.

He added that the mountain may have been an old Khmer Rouge base but was not easily accessible and would require an overnight march across six other mountains to reach the area.

Though a bit young to be socio-political analysts, Cambodia's children are major believers in the social value of education, are wary of the negative side effects of alcohol on their communities and place a high priority on honest government, a study released yesterday says.

Small Voices, Big Dreams, commissioned by the ChildFund Alliance, is a worldwide survey of the outlook of children aged 10 to 12 in both the developed and developing worlds.

According to the study, 90 per cent of Cambodian children believe that alcohol is the main cause of violence in their communities, while a third believe that the best remedy to violence is improved education. By comparison, only 16 per cent of those surveyed globally chose alcohol as the principle cause of violence, and only 12 per cent saw education as its solution.

"The view that young people have – that alcohol causes violence – is important," ChildFund country director Carol Mortensen said in a statement. "It is the responsibility of everyone to eradicate violence in the home and provide a safe and nurturing environment for all children."

Meanwhile, 76 per cent of Cambodian children surveyed chose "honest and responsive government" as their most important priority from a list of 16 issues including things like healthcare, security and education. Only 44 per cent of their peers worldwide shared their view. However, social and political researcher Kem Ley cautioned against reading too much into Cambodian children's seeming interest in politics, saying that much of it was likely a response to media exposure and older siblings' and parents' views.

"Those children that I observe just follow the older ones. I have four children, but my children tend to follow my way. They can accompany me to observe the political parties campaign, but they know nothing about that," Ley said.

"They like the Gangnam Style of [the opposition's] number 7, and they like the pictures broadcast through the TV of [the ruling party's] number 4, but they don't know anything at all about the politics."

Kandal Provincial Court on Sunday charged a man with fraud for allegedly impersonating a two-star police general and trading on the name of National Police Commissioner Neth Savoeun in order to scam police officials out of fake donations for flood victims, court prosecutor Uk Kimsith said yesterday.

According to Kimsith, the suspect, 44-year-old Diep Raden, was also charged with illegally possessing a weapon. Keo Dara, an officer with the Kandal Provincial Police, said that Raden was only found out when a victim called the commissioner's assistant to ask whether Savoeun had received his donation.

"He presented himself as a senior police official who was close to General Neth Savoeun. He raised money, saying that it was going to General Neth Savoeun for him to use for rescuing flood victims," he said. "But he kept it for his own use."

A man who allegedly threw a wok of hot frying oil at his former wife in Takeo province's Prey Kabbas district on Sunday was charged with intentional violence yesterday, local police officials have said.

Sem Socheat, the director of the provincial crime office, said that the man was arrested hours after the incident.

"The suspect's family tried to negotiate with the victim, but we have to stick to the law. If they want to negotiate with the victim, they should do it at the court,'' he said.

Court officials could not be reached to confirm the charge.

Chum Chheun, Prey Kabbas district police chief, said the suspect, 23-year-old Yeu Da was drunk when he entered the house of his ex-wife, Sak Maly, 18, and attacked her.

Fortunately, Maly only suffered light injuries as she had just changed the oil in the pan, Chheun said.