The Phnom Penh Post - ENGLISH: “Violent clash of strikers, police kills one” plus 9 more

At least one woman died when police opened fire with live ammunition amid intense rioting in the capital's Stung Meanchey district this morning, during what began as a march of striking garment workers attempting to reach the prime minister's house.

Hundreds of employees at SL Garment Processing (Cambodia) Ltd. making their way from the Meanchey district factory were met by riot police and fire trucks near the Stung Meanchey bridge – the site of a similar conflagration on election day in July.

The march was planned to commemorate the three-month anniversary of about 5,000 workers striking at SL.

At about 9:30am, a man – who the Post has not confirmed is a representative for the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (C.CAWDU) – gave an order over a bull horn, at which point he and more than 100 protesters rushed the police.

A growing number of protesters hurled rocks and bricks at the police as they fired water cannons into the crowd in response.

Police retreated to the other side of the bridge, leaving at least three officers behind in the Stung Meanchey pagoda complex. One was seen fleeing his police truck as protesters surrounded it and pelted it with rocks, while the other two took refuge in a pagoda building.

As demonstrators rolled the abandoned police vehicle into the street, turning it over and setting it ablaze, a crowd gathered in front of the building that had police holed up inside.

Monks, who initially kept rock-throwing demonstrators out of the building, were ultimately unsuccessful. United Nations peace-keeping officials entered the small building, where the two officers were now hiding inside a small, locked room after demonstrators stripped them of their shields, batons and body armour.

At about 10:30am, police advanced across the bridge, shooting tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition into the crowd of hundreds.

Vong Voleak, 23, wept across the street from the pagoda after the onslaught. Her mother, Eng Sokhom, 49, died of a gunshot wound, she said.

At Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital, where Sokhom was rushed, her husband confirmed that she had died.

While the total number of those injured by gunfire remains unconfirmed, a Post reporter at the hospital was shown an X-ray showing a bullet lodged inside one of the wounded brought from the scene of the riot. Hospital staff said they were caring for three shooting victims at their facility.

Toak Tin, a monk at the Stung Meanchey pagoda, told the Post he personally witnessed at least two men shot, one above the hip and one in the upper-thigh area. Both men were also rushed to the hospital, he added.

At least six men were arrested inside the pagoda, and two were beat heavily by police as they were dragged out.

By noon, protesters had dispersed and traffic went by as if nothing had happened.

Phnom Penh Municipal police commissioner Lieutenant General Choun Sovann declined to comment on how many people were injured or arrested.

After the riot, Kong Athit, C.CAWDU's vice president, decried the police response to, what he said, was supposed to be a peaceful march.

"We are quite unhappy about it, because the way the police responded, it's not responsible, it's not professional... they used real guns," Athit, who was not at the riot, said in a phone interview. "We can walk where we want peacefully and go where we want to go... why did police attack us?"

The International Court of Justice yesterday unanimously declared that its 1962 judgment awarding the Preah Vihear temple to Cambodia also gave the Kingdom sovereignty over the promontory that the temple sits on.

But while the announcement was initially greeted as a resounding victory by some in Cambodia, the world court took pains to specify that the 1962 decision dealt with only a "small area" surrounding the temple.

The decision leaves unanswered the question of sovereignty over the remainder of the 4.6-square-kilometre area forming the heart of the long-running dispute between Cambodia and Thailand.

The court also deemed it was not necessary to address whether the 1962 verdict determined a boundary line between the Kingdom and its western neighbour, though it did state that its original ruling forbade Thai troops from occupying that promontory area.

Speaking live on CTN after the judgment, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said the judgment, while not perfect, was adequate.

"Of course, we cannot say the verdict of this court today satisfies our aims 100 per cent, but we are happy, as the ruling met the majority of our demands," he said.

Namhong specified that the court had recognised the Annex 1 map – drawn up by France and Thailand (then Siam) in the early 20th century and used by Cambodia in 1962 – as the map delineating the borders in the temple area.

He added that the fact that the court had rejected a second map presented by the Thai government after the 1962 judgment was a victory, along with the court's decision that the road leading to the temple should remain fully free and open.

"I would like to affirm that this is a verdict that has to be implemented by all parties.… I would like to inform all Cambodians that the government has never ignored the protection of our territorial sovereignty," he said.

In failing to address a larger area of land than the promontory, the court's verdict – which cannot be appealed – paves the way for the two nations to deal with the border issue through negotiation.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra addressed that point following the verdict.

"Thailand will enter negotiations with Cambodia to put an end to the issue," she said in a nationally televised press conference, the Bangkok Post reported.

Prime Minister Hun Sen, meanwhile, called on the armed forces and citizens alike to avoid creating tension with Thailand in a televised address last night.

"This is an important and historic step forward in the efforts of the Cambodian government to solve the issue between Cambodia and Thailand … peacefully and based on international law," he said.

The judgment, viewed as a small victory for Cambodia but not a huge loss for Thailand, is expected to calm tensions at the border, which have been high despite pledges by both governments to keep the peace no matter what the court ruled.

Yesterday, as the verdict approached, villagers living near the border, many of whose homes had been destroyed during previous Thai shelling, were still making grim preparations.

Along one dirt road, women, girls and young men – all standing ankle-deep in soft mud – giggled as they used hoes, buckets and plastic dinner plates to clear out a concrete culvert that they intended to use as a bunker should shells start falling in their village.

Fellow resident Yun Saray, 58 – apparently overseeing the work – stalked back and forth between the two groups of her family members.

"I really hate war; war has always destroyed everything," she said. "We want to live in peace, but we are afraid of the Thais and that a war could start with them."

Yesterday's verdict coincided with mass anti-government protests in Bangkok against a political amnesty bill that critics say will allow former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to return to the country from self-exile and escape a jail term.

Many feared that an ICJ decision going firmly against Thailand – a hot-button issue for a myriad of powerful nationalist groups – could add momentum to a popular movement that could bring down the government, and risk further fighting with Cambodia.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, political scientist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, said yesterday that the verdict had taken some fuel out of the anti-government protests, as well as defusing tensions at the border.

"This is not the bombshell decision that the Thais were fearing. If the decision had been completely in Cambodia's favour, it would have fanned the flames [of these protests] and the downside was dire," he said.

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"It will be played as a halfway victory for Thailand, not as a defeat … and the Cambodians might play it the same way, "Now they are forced to go back to a bilateral framework … which is optimistic given the leadership of both governments are aligned. They see eye-to-eye on the need to work things out," he said.

However, given that the court restricted its verdict to clarifying the "vicinity" of the temple, questions over what would change on the ground, if anything, remained unanswered last night.

"We're waiting to see the Thai side, but as for withdrawing our troops, I think we have to see what is going on after the verdict, and also we have to wait for the government's policy on what they want to do," said Ou Narin, deputy commander of army's 3rd Division, which oversees Preah Vihear.

The court concluded yesterday that in 1962, the ICJ did not mean to define "the vicinity" of the temple as extending beyond the promontory of Preah Vihear nor seek to address the sovereignty of any area "beyond the limits of the promontory".

This promontory, according to the court, extends to the west and northwest of the temple, towards the Thai border, where it drops into a slope and then into a valley that separates it from the neighbouring hill of Phnom Trap.

In the north, the limit of the promontory is the Annex I map line, the court said.

"Accordingly, the Court considers that the promontory of Preah Vihear ends at the foot of the hill of Phnom Trap, that is to say: where the ground begins to rise from the valley," the court judgment said.

Cambodia asked the court to interpret its 1962 decision in April 2011 following fierce border clashes in February and April of that year that left 28 dead.

Tensions had begun to escalate in 2008, when the 11th-century temple was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The recent dispute centres on maps submitted by Cambodia during the World Heritage site nomination process in 2007, which the Thais have said encroached on Thai territory and showed a different border line to the original colonial map used in 1962 – a claim Cambodia rejects.

The difference between the maps, according to the Thais, is the 4.6-square-kilometre area under contention.

Many now hope that the ICJ verdict will allow Cambodia and Thailand to end the longstanding dispute, and allow those living on the border to feel safe again.

Sixty-five-year-old Chim Yoeung's eyes were brimming with tears after he watched the verdict at a village coffee shop near the border yesterday.

"I think this verdict is very just for Cambodia, and also can end the problems that we have had recently, and Thailand will not dare do anything more to Cambodia."

Cheang Am, 39, a soldier from the frontlines, said he was ecstatic about the verdict, which had the potential to change his life for the better.

"I think that when Thai troops withdraw from the disputed area, maybe I can go back home and live with my family, and can plant crops or something to support them, because my salary is not enough."

VONG SOKHENG AND KEVIN PONNIAH REPORTED FROM PHNOM PENH; MAY TITTHARA AND STUART WHITE REPORTED FROM PREAH VIHEAR

Following a request from Russia for his extradition, eccentric property tycoon Sergei Polonsky was arrested on an island off Sihanoukville yesterday, authorities and one of his employees said.

Police said the 40-year-old was detained on charges of embezzlement over a failed $176 million construction project in Russia, but gave no details of any plans to extradite him.

"We're now implementing the arrest," said Y Sok Khy, director of the Ministry of Interior's anti-terrorist department, who worked with police in Preah Sihanouk to apprehend Polonsky. "We are at Koh Dek Koul, where he [Polonsky] resides. His arrest is in relation to the embezzlement of millions of dollars in Russia."

One of Polonsky's employees, who asked not be named, told the Post that the businessman was arrested at Koh Rong, an island close to where he was detained in late December for alleged violence against six boatmen.

"Mr Polonsky was arrested at Koh Rong, where was travelling, and police brought him back to Koh Dek Koul. He was handcuffed," he said. "Police questioned him and searched his house.… He's now being transferred to Phnom Penh."

National Police spokesman Kirth Chantharith would not confirm whether Cambodia – which has no extradition agreement with Russia – would send Polonsky back to his country to face charges.

"We've arrested him following a request from Russia," he said. "Regarding the extradition, we'll let the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs work on that."

Sam Prachea Manith, director of the minister's cabinet at the Ministry of Justice, said he was not aware of the arrest, while Koy Kuong, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, could not be reached.

Polonsky, reported to be a billionaire before the global financial crisis, is the former owner of property firm Mirax, which ceased operations in 2011.

A warrant for the tycoon's arrest in Russia was issued in August. In recent days, his details have appeared on Interpol's website.

Polonsky was one of three Russians arrested in late December for allegedly threatening six boatmen with a knife and ordering them overboard near Koh Rong. The trio spent months in Sihanoukville prison awaiting trial, even after the boatmen agreed to drop the charges in exchange for $20,000.

They were released on bail in April on the condition that they regularly report to authorities. Polonsky, however, has since spent time in Israel.

Provincial court director Mong Monichakrua said yesterday that he was not sure how Polonsky's arrest would affect his trial in Cambodia.

"I can't predict that," he said.

The arrest came days after Polonsky posted videos on his Facebook proclaiming his innocence and making a raft of allegations, including that a "corrupt" official was trying to extort money from him to block his extradition.

In a video posted on Friday, an acquaintance of Polonsky's is seen negotiating with the "official" – allegedly named Bunthalom – while the Russian businessman parades around in a white towel in the background.

As talks progress, Polonsky moves towards the camera, commandeers the phone and enters discussions himself.

In a written post on Facebook the next day, Polonsky says Bunthalom warned him it would be a "question of life and death for me if I don't pay him the money". Russian media has reported the figure to be $1 million.

"This official is the same person who is in charge of obtaining signatures for my arrest without trial," Polonsky wrote. "In addition to that, Russian special forces have arrived to Cambodia … [and] newly appointed Ambassador of Russia, instead of meeting me, is threatening the Cambodian government for an urgent release of the document concerning my arrest."

Russian media has reported that its government rejected efforts by the businessman to secure a plea bargain.

An official at the Russian embassy in Phnom Penh declined to comment yesterday. "All information is on the site of the Russian embassy," he said.

As of last night, however, the site contained no information about Polonsky's arrest.

New populations of hog deer, Indochina's most endangered breed of deer, have recently been discovered in Kratie and southwest Cambodia, Fauna & Flora International (FFI) said yesterday.

Discovered by a joint team from the Royal University of Phnom Penh and FFI, wild hog deer were found in five out of 10 potential areas of habitat.

Sarah Brook, species manager for FFI's Cambodia program, explained that two subspecies of hog deer are known to exist, but while Indochinese hog deer were once prevalent in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Yunnan, in southern China, they have since died out in those areas.

"Cambodia is the only country in Indochina with any hog deer remaining. so this is a positive thing, it's amazing that they are still surviving here (only just) – but it's not too late to save them," Brook wrote in an email yesterday.

Hog deer were last discovered in 2006 near Kratie province after villagers, camera trapping and preliminary surveys assessed that about 50 to 80 deer were in the area.

Prior to the 2006 discovery, only two locations had been identified as sustaining low numbers of hog deer populations, in the 1980s.

Dr Nick Souter, of the Royal University of Phnom Penh's Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, working in tandem with FFI, said that while the latest batch of deer had been found outside of nationally protected land, working to increase their numbers was not impossible.

"We would prefer to find them surviving in protected areas only because it makes conservation efforts more difficult," Souter said, adding that hunting and habitat degradation were the primary agents responsible for decimating the country's population.

The WWF Cambodia Programme Office describes hog deer as relatively small with varying dark brown to yellow brown fur and white-tipped tails. The animals prefer tall, wet grasslands usually near medium or large rivers and typically avoid densely forested areas, Brook said.

"Hunting is the most significant threat for the remaining populations of hog deer in Cambodia – they are hunted for local consumption and possibly for the wild meat trade," she said.

An environmental group has hit out at the Lao government for organising a tour of the proposed Don Sahong hydropower dam site, saying it should not be trying to "sell" a project that has not been regionally approved.

"Today a site visit is taking place to the Don Sahong dam in southern Laos, which has been organised by the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines and the Lao National Mekong Committee," a statement released by International Rivers yesterday says.

"This visit is an attempt to sell the project to neighbouring countries in the absence of a regional agreement or proven measures to mitigate environmental or social impacts of the project."

Other NGOs have also warned of the impacts of the dam – which Laos has vowed to start building this month – on the Mekong River and Cambodians who depend on it.

But the Lao government and the Malaysian company building the dam insist it is safe.

The Post was invited to send reporters to join the site tour but could not do so due to scheduling conflicts.

Three males attempting to smuggle luxury wood on Saturday evening were thwarted by authorities in Mondulkiri's Keo Seima district, provincial forestry officials confirmed yesterday.

The suspects now being detained at the provincial police station are Vor Vanser, 16, Le Fy, 16, and Cheurng Vanseurn, 18.

All three of the suspects hail from O'Raing's Dak Dam district said Sak Sarang, a provincial military officer who alleges all three are Vietnamese citizens.

"We sent them to the forestry administration office, which is expected to deal with the case. But the Vietnamese suspects might be sent to the police [station] since they have an immigration office," Sarang said, noting the amount of luxury wood seized was unconfirmed.

Nhem Vanny, the provincial police chief, said yesterday the suspects were arrested by military police but had yet to be taken to the local police station.

"The suspects may still be at the provincial forestry office since they might not have filled out documents [detailing the arrest]," Vanny said.

Mangrove forests along Cambodia's coast in Kampot support more than 100,000 families and create a diverse ecosystem that is home to hundreds of unique species.

But coastal development projects, coupled with locals' reliance on the forest for their livelihoods, threaten to decimate more than 1,000 hectares of this lush environment, an NGO has said.

The mangroves have been in decline for a decade due to human activities, including logging and filling the waterways with sand to create artificial land, according to Wildlife Conservation Cambodia.

Fishing communities say their livelihoods are also being affected by a 1,000-hectare special economic zone under construction in the province.

Besides a $100 million seaport and $400 million Chinese-backed coal power plant being built at the site, a private company, Keo Chea, is building a 200-hectare hotel complex in nearby Kep Thmey village.

"The land has been demarcated for investors. It is state land, but we local citizens cannot use the land. They say it has been allocated for development," said Nak Sen, who represents fishermen in Kampot town's Trouey Koh commune.

The commune is also home to a salt farm and land is being divvied up to expand the business, placing the mangroves further at risk, he added.

A dam-like structure built into the sea to shelter the port will only help to seal the fate of the mangroves, according to Mam Kesey, an investigator at rights group Licadho in Kampot province.

"They fill up the coast with sand and build a protecting dam into the sea for more than 20 kilometres, which severely affects the natural resources as well as the coast," Kesey said.

Shifting climactic patterns being monitored by the local officials are a growing cause for concern, said Sar Sarin, director of Kampot's Fisheries Administration.

The squeeze on arable land has gone hand-in-hand with increasing coastal erosion and rivers drying up, he added.

But all is not lost, Sarin said, as reforestation programs have made some progress towards restoring the forests. In 1970, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization measured 3,000 hectares of mangrove forest in Kep and Kampot provinces combined.

Local officials say that with the help of foreign donors, only 100 hectares have so far been lost. However, no accurate measurements of the forest have been taken in recent years and more is destroyed every day.

Villagers are now being educated on the value of the forests through a government scheme that aims to involve local communities in conserving the forest.

"These are measures to prevent climate change. We allow communities to join our efforts and protect and reforest," Sarin said.

But Phou Teng, director of the Wildlife Conservation Cambodia in Kampot province, is less optimistic.

"Everywhere, the mangroves are being destroyed every day; it cannot be prevented," he said.

A 29-year-old man was arrested and charged with murdering his one-year-old cousin on Sunday.

Kim Heng lived with his aunt and second cousin in Banteay Meanchey's Preah Netr Preah district.

The suspect's aunt, Chreb San, 56, told police that on Sunday, she called her nephew to come to dinner. The man emerged from the house and allegedly grabbed the child, hacking the infant's head with a meat cleaver and throwing him against a pillar.

"After he killed the boy, he turned to chop his aunt until she, too, was seriously injured," alleged Keo Bun Yoeun, district police chief. "The villagers and relatives said the man did not argue or have any problem with [his aunt], but the man liked to stay quietly in a dark place.

"The villagers said he used to have a mental health problem several years ago and he just came back from working in Thailand," the police chief said, adding that the infant's parents also work in Thailand.

With five escaped suspects still on the loose, Ratanakkiri's provincial court yesterday turned its attention toward prison officials during Sunday's early-morning jailbreak.

Ratanakkiri deputy prosecutor Ros Saram yesterday said he questioned prison guards about the escape – during which five men awaiting trial for robbery, sexual assault and murder broke out of prison.

"We have not yet accused any prison guard of carelessness connected with yesterday's jailbreak," Saram, who declined to disclose the number of guards questioned, told the Post/i> yesterday.

"The court wants to know from prison guards exactly what happened; the court will continue to investigate the case."

Six men originally escaped from the shared cell, but police caught Phai Vet as he attempted to escape.

When prison officials interrogated Vet on Sunday, he said the six men took turns hiding two pieces of jagged steel in their shoes, taking them out nightly to file down the bars to their cell over the course of an undetermined number of nights.

A jailbreak of several men accused of serious crimes is unacceptable, said Chhay Thy, provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, said.

"The prison must create a system in which inmates are watched all the time to ensure security," Thy said.

Not even the imminent threat of war could quell tourists' appetite for historical sites – at least at Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple, which was the subject of a highly contentious ruling at the International Court of Justice yesterday.

While government figures show that local tourism to the 11th-century ruin has declined some 36 per cent in the first nine months of 2013 compared with the same period in 2012, foreign visits were up more than 50 per cent in the same time frame. And despite the fact that analysts had predicted a fiery Thai reaction to a ruling on the land surrounding the site, local and out-of-town sightseers over the past two days remained undeterred.

"I don't see that they show any concern about the situation because both foreign and local tourists are still visiting here," said You Sovan, the deputy director of the Preah Vihear Provincial Tourism Department. "I already checked with my staff at the temple; more than 100 tourists, both locals and foreigners, are visiting there [on Monday]."

Jean Philippe Lepage, who manages the Preah Vihear Boutique Hotel, said yesterday that his establishment hadn't seen any change in bookings in the lead-up to the ruling.

"Actually, it's been OK. Today we had two rooms only, but yesterday [Sunday] we had a lot," he said. "But we did not have anyone delay their booking or cancel their reservation."

"We have more journalists, of course – yesterday and two days ago," he added.

Some tourists, though, had their concerns, like Chey Cheng, a 22-year-old monk who had been unaware of the coming ruling when he visited on Sunday.

"I am worried when I hear about that news, and if I had known in advance I would not have come to visit," he said.

Other tourists at Preah Vihear were well aware of the border tensions, and had decided to visit anyway.

Bill Housworth, who lives and works in Siem Reap, said Sunday that he had gone through with plans to visit the temple despite the imminent verdict, though he did consciously decide to visit the day before the ruling.

"We thought about it, but we thought that if there was any violence it would happen tomorrow, not today," he said.

Likewise, Dutch national Daniel Meyer said that residing in the Middle East had somewhat inured him to the threat of war breaking out.

"I'm more worried about dengue and malaria than some border conflict that doesn't seem to escalate that quickly," he said, glancing back at the temple. "I guess it's worth fighting about – or almost."