The Phnom Penh Post - ENGLISH: “Five activists arrested outside embassy” plus 9 more

Five Boeung Kak lake activists were arrested outside the French Embassy by plain-clothed and uniformed police officers this morning as they petitioned for the release of fellow activists taken into custody last week.

In the first test of the government's tolerance for public assembly since last week's brutal attacks on protesters, the activists were immediately arrested after arriving at the embassy at about 8.30am.

Phnom Penh Municipal Hall has banned demonstrations in the lead-up to tomorrow's commemoration of the toppling of the Khmer Rouge regime but is not clear why they arrested a group of people merely submitting a petition.

The Cambodian Center for Human rights confirmed Yorm Bopha, Tep Vanny, Phan Chhunreth, Song Srey Leap, and Bo Chhorvy, several of whom have previously been jailed by authorities, were all arrested.

Nay Vanda, deputy head of human rights monitoring and the legal aid section at rights group Adhoc, said the UNOHCHR had told him police were talking with the five and that they believed the group would be released this afternoon.

"As a human rights activists I strongly condemn the arrests, the illegal arrests and the illegal detention. I appeal to all victims of Cambodia to demand their rights…that they are losing," he said.

"This is the time to stand up."

As of yet, the UNOHCHR said they were unable to comment.

Rights groups and supporters of the activists gathered at Phnom Penh Municipal Police Headquarters afterward calling for their release but were told by a police officer the group had already been transferred to court.

Municipal Hall spokesman Long Dimanche said that the group had not requested permission for their activities and had just been arrested as a warning but could not confirm whether they would be released.

"They protested and marched in the street without permission from the authority and I am not sure when protesters will be allowed again. Based on a statement from the Ministry of Interior it will be allowed when the situation in Phnom Penh returns to normal," he said.

Housing Rights Task Force director Sia Phearum said the group had been requesting the release of fellow Boeung Kak lake activist Chan Putisak and nine others arrested during a crackdown on demonstrations on Thursday.

IN the 1970s, Thailand was full of American and Australian surfers. Flying in from the West Coast of the United States or Sydney, they smuggled home high powered "Thai stick" marijuana – named after the wooden sticks which the buds were wrapped around.

Historian Peter Maguire of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington teamed up with ex-pot smuggler Mike Ritter to tell their stories in their book Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade.

On Saturday, during a visit to Phnom Penh, Maguire spoke to Bennett Murray about his own life growing up with the smugglers and how Cambodia was a place of 'no return'.

What made Thai sticks special?
To this day, it's some of the strongest pot in the world. You could take a Thai stick and press it against a window and it would stick. It was a long, strong high. It wasn't a peppy, uppy kind of thing. It would knock you on your f---ing ass. You can't get it anymore, but it was true one-hit pot. Over time, the Thai [drug manufacturers] became greedy and the Thai sticks' quality started declining, and no one wanted them.

What was your first impression of the smugglers?
They were my idols as a teenager. Being down in Baha [Mexico] and seeing these guys fly in to the most remote desert in a Cessna with a beer in their laps. They would pull out their surfboards and surf the best two hours of the day, hop in their plane, and fly back to Cabo San Lucas for happy hour. They were Robin Hoods to us, and we looked up to them.

What was the biggest risk to smugglers?
It was that pinched little part of the Gulf of Thailand near Vietnam. This stretch of water in the mid '70s through the early '80s was one of the most dangerous pieces of water in the history of maritime navigation. Because you had all the Vietnamese boat people fleeing with their valuables after the war, you had piracy the likes of which human history had never seen. The average boat person's boat was robbed four or five times. They would get to the point where they'd steal the engines. It was just shocking.

Were the Khmer Rouge a threat?
The Khmer Rouge had extremely good Chinese radar. You're a blip on the radar screen, and next thing you know you have a patrol boat bearing down. That was the ultimate nightmare to my co-author. He compares Cambodia at the time to Tolkien's Mordor – this black place of no return. Many boats disappeared without a trace.

What happened to the smugglers themselves?
Now they are getting old, it's pretty depressing. None of them have any money left, most of them had everything taken [by the government after getting caught]. They're trying to enter the workforce in their mid '60s, like my co-author. He at least finished college and is an exceptionally smart guy. But some aren't. A lot moved to Mexico, or moved to countries where their little bit of social security money goes further. It's not a happy ending. They flew high for a period of time but they all did the Icarus and eventually came crashing down to earth.

Thai Stick is available on Amazon Kindle for $16.57 and will go on sale at Monument Books in February.

Dear Editor,

Having read the article titled "KRT civil parties meet to assess future", published on the December 24, 2013, I would like to express some comments and clarifications.

It is clear that civil parties have two main concerns at this stage: the decision in case 002/01, including reparation, and how the second sub trial can be envisaged and started.

I will shortly come back to the reparation, to recall that in our submission, filed on the 8th October 2013, and in our final oral submission, on the 16th October, we were very clear on the fact that at this stage, we have not found all the financing for the reparation projects and on the fact that, because of this, we could not perfectly finalise all our projects.

Then, it is not surprising that the TC also highlights the lack of funding in itself.

But I would also like to recall that we have often insisted on the fact that we, as Civil Party, should not have to "fully secure funding". I would like to insist again (as I did many times), on the fact that it was unfair to put this charge on the civil parties.

It would be more unfair to reproach the lack of funding to the civil parties, if this lack of funding remains a reality in the future.

On the second sub trial, I read in the article that CPs produced a statement saying that they "want the trial on the evidence in case 002/02 to start as soon as possible, without waiting until a verdict in case 002/01 is issued".

I think there is a misunderstanding about the civil parties' position and their statement.

You will find (below) the true statement issued at the forum. This statement mentions that civil parties want: 1) the judgment in case 002/01 to be delivered expeditiously, and 2) evidentiary hearings in case 002/02 to start as soon as possible.

This is quite different. We can see that civil parties have to appreciate and reconcile two things in the same time.

They have to appreciate their interest balancing the verdict in the first trial and the start of the second trial.

This is not very easy for them and in any case, they need to be at least completely and seriously informed and aware of all parameters.

At this point, I am happy to see that a lot of people seem to be preoccupied by the civil parties' interest. Doing so, they have to well inform them, like we, civil party lawyers, we have done from the start of the trial, even when it was not very easy to do so.

Obviously, all civil parties, or at least a great majority of them, wish to see case 002/02 start as soon as possible. In the same time, all civil parties are strongly impatient to have a verdict in case 002/01.

They are looking forward to having this verdict as a result of the two last years, and as a necessary completion.

If we want to protect the civil parties' interest, our duty is certainly not to give them shortened information. It is certainly not to let them think that case 002/02 could start in February 2014 when the Trial Chamber has already said that it would be impossible.

Our duty is certainly not to let the civil parties think that case 002/02 could be finished very quickly when experience shows that we need about two years more.

Our duty is certainly not to hide the serious legal issues at this stage, and that starting case 002/02 now would necessarily delay the verdict in case 002/01.

Our duty is certainly not to hide the current financial issues which undermine the ECCC's work developments.

Our duty is certainly not to hide the fact that, if just starting case 002/02 could be rather easy, what we have to think about is how we can ensure its good completion despite all the abovementioned obstacles.

That is why, during the forum stated in December, the civil party lawyers took time to explain all things.

And that is why it is important to take into account the right statement expressed by the civil parties. They want to start case 002/02 "as soon as possible" (not "immediately" as said in the article), but they first want the judgment in case 002/01 to be issued "expeditiously".

Issuing a decision in case 002/01 has been raised as an urgency during all the hearings of the past two years. We, at the ECCC, all know that point, just because we all have insisted on this urgency.

We, at the ECCC, also all know that completing case 002/02 will not be an easy task.

These are all things that civil parties deserve to know, if we want to protect their interests.

Elisabeth Simonneau Fort
International Lead Co Lawyer for Civil Party.

We, approximately 200 Civil Parties in Case 002 against the Accused Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan from Battambang, Pailin, Kampong Thom, Kampong Cham, Pursat, Kampong Chhnang, Kratie and Phnom Penh who attended the Regional Civil Party Forum on 23 December 2013 in Phnom Penh, wish to express our position that we would like the Court to 1.) deliver the judgment in Case 002/01 expeditiously and 2.) to commence the evidentiary hearings in Case 002/02 as soon as possible in view of both our and the Accused's age and health condition and the burden on stakeholders to finance the ECCC.

We would also like to appeal to all relevant stakeholders to support the ECCC so that the Court can move forward.

On most Sundays, the wide boulevard separating two rows of some 40 mustard-coloured factories in the Canadia Industrial Park is teeming with people.

Garment workers who live on the premises stroll or bicycle along the road, stopping to eat at the same restaurants, patronizing the same stores. For businesses lucky enough to be in Canadia's microcosm of an economy, the 13,000 workers in the park have translated into a steady stream of revenue. But all that changed on Friday, when garment workers—many of whom held jobs at one of Canadia's factories—clashed with military police and riots cops outside the park on Veng Sreng road.

The bloody altercation was part of an ongoing labour strike that started almost two weeks ago, when workers walked off the job after the government refused to raise minimum wages to $160.

The demonstration took a fatal turn after authorities arrested protesters and rights activists on Thursday. That night, clashes broke out between angry protesters and violent police. By Friday morning, the fighting intensified, with police opening fire at demonstrators who were armed with rocks and homemade weapons.

By the afternoon, police had killed four people and injured more than 20, including bystanders. Soldiers moved in shortly after, sending many packing.

By Sunday, the once-busy streets of Canadia were silent.

The majority of workers had fled the violence over the weekend, leaving behind small groups brave enough to stick it out and try to collect their paychecks.

Young security guards sat in posts outside shuttered factories. Virtually all of the shops were closed. Food markets were operating at low capacity, and piddling sales were being made at the few businesses that were open. Standing under a factory with smashed windows and looking around at the abandoned boulevard, 23-year-old Srey No, who was there waiting to be paid, said the park felt like "a town without people".

Chhuoen Ra, a 24-year-old security guard at a factory that makes purses and handbags, had a different way of describing the abrupt change in mood. "The place always has many workers walking around and is full of workers. But now there are only few," Ra said.

"It is like a war zone, where people are trying to escape."

Min Chandara, the chief of administration at the Canadia, said the mass exodus started more than a week ago, when workers joined the nationwide strike demanding increased salaries.

As the violence began to heat up early Friday, Canadia virtually emptied out. Since then, he said, it has stayed that way.

According to Chandara, there are about 600 permanent businesses and 350 mobile stores located inside the park and on the street in its vicinity. Many remain boarded and locked up. "Business has completely stopped," Chandara said.

"Our staff and also some workers who still stay in the park cannot even find a place to buy food to eat." He is hopeful that the workers will start to come back soon, perhaps as early as this week, because the 10th is when monthly payments arrive and are collected.

One man, who asked not to be identified for fear that his income would suffer as a result, was one of the first among store owners to return and test the waters: "I am worried, but I need to open my business," the man said, standing next to his wife and three children.

On weekends, he can make around $500 selling mops, chairs, plates, bowls and other home supplies. Since he reopened Sunday morning, however, he hasn't made a single sale.

"I don't know what to do. I hope things will be solved soon," he added.

Oun Vanna, 55, sells pork at the market right outside the park's entrance. It's been quiet and her profits have also taken a huge hit.

"People are going outside now. They seem to be scared, as they see the soldiers along the road," she said.

On Veng Sreng, the rocks and burning heaps of junk have been cleared away, but the road doesn't bear the markings of normalcy. Soldiers lounge in trucks parked right on the street, or sit on the sidewalk, guns close to their sides. A group of them stood outside a nearby clinic that had been ransacked during Friday's protest. Angry strikers said the doctor would not treat a wounded worker, so they trashed the place, hauling the beds out into the street and breaking and looting anything they could find inside.

Days later, broken bits of window remain scattered around the sidewalk. Across the street, pharmacist Pich Sokun watched from his counter. One of the handful to open up shop, Sokun said he had only sold $5 of medicine Sunday, as opposed to his usual earnings of $80 or even $100.

Stores to the right and left of him were still closed, either because no workers were there to buy anything, or out of fear. Asked why he didn't do the same, Sokun said, "I'm not afraid," explaining that he was "neutral" in the dispute.

At least one business stopped before it got started.

On the same strip as Sokun a few stores away, Chay Ry, 41, sells phone credit and changes money. He had done well enough recently to purchase the storefront property next to his.

However, the start of the new enterprise turned out to be problematic.

"I expanded it on Friday," he said. Alluding to the violence, he added, "but I never got the chance to open."

A security guard for HNK Company was arrested in Phnom Penh's Sen Sok district early on Saturday for impersonating a police officer by donning a National Police uniform, complete with a fake pistol, district police chief Mak Hong said yesterday.

According to Hong, suspect Touch Ravuth is expected to be charged by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court today for both impersonating a police officer and drug use.

"He was arrested by police while [they] were driving motorbikes on patrol in Sen Sok district's Toek Thla commune and found him wearing a National Police uniform with a plastic pistol at his waist on January 4," Hong said.

"After checking and questioning him, we knew that he was a fake officer," he added.

The day after Ravuth's arrest, Hong said, police took him to search his house and found military clothing and paraphernalia there.

"Our police investigation, revealed he was a drug user as well," Hong added.

An undercover police operation has led to the arrest of a Loatian man believed to have smuggled one kilogram of methamphetamines from Laos into Stung Treng province on Friday.

Major Nou Hour, chief of the provincial anti-drug police unit in Stung Treng, said that 51-year-old Kis Keoduong Champa was issued drug-related charges in the provincial court on Saturday.

"He was arrested by our provincial anti-drug police unit when he brought about a kilogram of drugs from his country to sell to our undercover police agents near the Cambodia-Laos border in Stung Treng's Thala Barivat district," Hour said yesterday.

"He was charged by the provincial court with drug possession, transporting and trafficking, and is now awaiting trial in prison."

Major Nou Hour said that according to the Cambodian Anti-Drug Law, the Laotian national could face between five and 10 years in prison if found guilty.

Two ethnic Kuoy villagers in Preah Vihear province's Tbeng Meanchey district are in hiding after rumours circulated yesterday that police were seeking to arrest them for participating in a protest against two Chinese plantation firms last week.

Lor Chann, provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, said yesterday that Phan Sokhet, 25, and Chhim Samut, 31, were on the run after taking part in a protest of more than 150 Kuoy villagers that began on Thursday.

"They were told that police had planned to arrest them for inciting villagers to protest against the companies," he said, adding that if police were looking for the men it could be an attempt to intimidate the protesters into halting a planned one-month demonstration.

On Thursday, Venerable But Buntenh, president of the Independent Monks Network, along with another monk, Nam Chanthen, and three staff members of the Community Legal Education Center – Bo Pao, Em Sarom and Chhan Sambo – were arrested by Preah Vihear provincial police after attending the protest. Sokhet said yesterday that he was concerned for the safety of himself and Samut after he was told that police were searching for them.

"Police arrested the monks and NGO staff without any reason, so for me I need to escape because the situation is not good and police just arrest anyone they want," he said.

"We all lost the land, so we protest for a solution. I did not incite them and they did not incite me either."

However, Tbeng Meanchey deputy district police chief Soam Hay and Brame commune police chief Thin Chanthy denied that police were searching for the two men.

The two monks and CLEC members were released shortly after 9am on Friday following the intervention of Adhoc and a protest outside the district police station by 106 ethnic Kuoy.

Si Kiry, provincial police chief, yesterday played down the detention of the monks and CLEC staff. "We did not arrest or detain them. We saw them . . . with protesters and we questioned them, and when there was no problem we let them go," he said.

A Canadian national was arrested in Battambang on Sunday for allegedly having sex with a minor, anti-human trafficking police said yesterday.

Koy Heang, provincial director of the anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection unit, said that Vadim Scott would be sent to court today and charged with buying child prostitution for purchasing sex with a 14-year-old boy.

"We arrested him at 12:10am on Sunday, while a 14-year-old boy was sleeping with him. The man had slept with the boy already, but when we opened the door, the boy ran out," he said, adding that Scott had been living in Thailand and only arrived in the country recently.

Scott is now in custody of the provincial police, said Heang, and was in touch with the Canadian embassy and finding a lawyer.

"[He said] he regretted what he had done, and that he thought that the child had reached the legal age," added Heang.

Garment workers have begun leaving the area surrounding embattled Veng Sreng street en masse, following the outbreak of clashes early on Friday morning.

An estimated 80 per cent of the more than 10,000 workers who live and are employed in the Meanchey district suburb have vacated their homes, said Som Aun, president of the government's Cambodian Council of National Unions (CCNU).

"As far as I know, the workers at other factories did not return to their hometowns, but the workers living on Veng Sreng street and near Canadia park left their rental homes out of fear," he said.

Four people were killed and more than 20 injured after riot police opened fire outside the Canadia Industrial Park on protesting workers, some of whom were armed with homemade weapons, rocks and
Molotov cocktails.

Those who joined the clashes numbered only in the hundreds, while many living in the surrounding area began evacuating as early as Friday.

Keo Nary, 31, said she left as soon as the fighting broke out and returned home to Svay Rieng at her parents urging.

"I heard the shooting like firecrackers near my rental house. I am so frightened, because I have never seen such an event before," said Nary, who is employed at 8 Star Sportswear.

"I do not know yet whether I will go back to work or suspend my employment. It depends on the situation in Phnom Penh. But I am worried I will not receive the wage, because the company pays wages to the workers every sixth of the month," she said.

Pen Dos, 26, said he, too, had returned to his home in Svay Rieng after seeing military police officers storm rental homes shortly after midnight on Friday and beat up workers.

"They knocked down the doors to find the workers and hit and arrested without paying attention to whether they joined the protest, that's why I am scared," he said.

Like Nary, Dos will not return until the situation appears calm, saying he would wait until he felt his security could be assured.

According to the CCNU's Aun, factories would be re-opening on Wednesday – following the Tuesday national holiday.

"I hope that they will come back to work as usual then when the situation at Canadia park is back to normal," Aun said.

May Sopheaktra, secretary general of the Cambodian Alliance Trade Union (CATU), said yesterday that his union was still calling for a $160 a month minimum wage.

"We are preparing a new strategy based on the worker's desire, but we do it step by step."

On Wednesday, the five major unions are set to meet with the Labour Ministry to discuss the strikes and recent outbreaks of violence.

Solidarity Center country director Dave Welsh said it was difficult to gauge how much of the exodus was due to the violence, and how much was part of a holiday weekend stretching to Tuesday's national holiday.

But there could be little doubt that the clashes had an impact.

"I'm sure this is a huge contributing factor."

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SEAN TEEHAN

More than 100 villagers from eight ethnic communities in Mondulkiri province on Friday symbolically burned two chainsaws allegedly used to illegally log community forest before delivering four others they had confiscated to the provincial forestry administration, participants and Adhoc said yesterday.

Burning the saws outside the Bunong ethnic community office in Pech Chreada district was a ceremonial offering to the villagers' ancestors, said Broy Kveuy, 41, a representative for Pou Chrei commune.
"We killed one pig to pray to our ancestors to look over our forest," Kveuy said.

The ceremony was also an appeal against future logging, according to Kveuy, based on fears that continued crimes plaguing the community forest would be pinned on villagers.

However, villagers are continually patrolling the forest area, according to Bun Chantha, provincial program assistant for rights group Adhoc, who also participated in the ceremony. According to Chantha, the event was also designed to be a gesture signalling cooperation with forestry officials.

Kep Kot, director of the provincial forestry administration, echoed the need for continued collaboration between forestry officials and the community. "We need communities to work with us to ensure the prevention [of more logging]."