The Phnom Penh Post - ENGLISH: “Borei Keila occupiers violently removed” plus 9 more

AT LEAST six people, including a pregnant woman, were injured this morning when security forces armed with batons and shields descended on the capital's Borei Keila community, forcibly removing families who had occupied an unfinished building since Wednesday.

After blocking off the road into Borei Keila at about 7am, helmeted military police and district security guards stormed the site, where many of those violently evicted in 2012 live in tents among piles of garbage.

Authorities kicked a woman sleeping next to the building where evictees had taken up residence, aggravating a crowd of mostly woman.

The two groups clashed, with authorities striking residents with batons, before both groups threw rocks at each other.

Hasok Chinda, 35, a woman who is seven months' pregnant, said she was beaten in the clash.

"I'm so angry, because I have a [land title], but I stay in the [tents]. Why? The way the municipality and City Hall talk about all the people at Borei Keila, it's wrong."

Choa Sophea, told the Post that she had been feeding her newborn baby when she was struck in the face and then beaten unconscious.

Rights group Licadho issued a statement saying six people had been injured.

Naly Pilorge, director of Licadho, told the Post that her organisation had treated some of the injured and sent three beaten women to a clinic for further treatment.

Chinda – due to give birth in just a couple of months – was expected to fully recovery, Pilorge added.

Dozens of families had occupied the unfinished Building 9 without permission since Wednesday, claiming the authorities were marking out smaller parcels of land than what they had promised to them.

Representatives of the families, violently evicted from their homes more than two years ago, said yesterday they had expected the authorities to forcibly remove them.

Phnom Penh governor Pa Socheatvong had earlier said that authorities could not be held responsible if "any problem occurred" at Borei Keila, because they were occupying the building without permission, according to villagers and City Hall.

After the clash, a fence was soon being constructed in front of Building 9, owned by developer Phan Imex, the company that failed to honour a contract signed in 2003 to house the villagers.

Opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua was present at the crackdown and helped rush a man, who was bleeding profusely, to safety.

"I was trying to help this young guy . . . to get out of there," she said. "He said he had just been standing by."

Sochua condemned the violence, describing it as "the same old thing – forcing people to leave their homes and cracking down on them".

"Is it necessary, legal and proportionate? We have people paid to injure, maim and kill," she said, referring more widely to other state-inflicted violence this year. "It's not the solution."

City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche defended the incident, saying security forces had been responding to a complaint lodged by Phan Imex that families were occupying one of its buildings.

In such circumstances, he said, violence was "inevitable".

"When it comes to administrative actions likes these, managing not to have violence is difficult," he said, adding that it came from both sides. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHANE WORRELL

He raised the issue of the temporary shelters for us, but when will we get flats or a real solution? Or will we live in temporary shelters like this forever?

This week, business reporter Eddie Morton interviews Jacques Marcille, the CEO of Eau Kulen, which brands itself as Cambodia's first locally sourced bottled mineral water. After launching in Siem Reap province early last year, the new entrant to a competitive market mostly populated by overseas brands has struggled to compete on prices. A 1.5-litre bottle of Eau Kulen costs around 80 cents, compared to around 50 cents for non-mineral water. Marcille talked to the Post about what distinguishes Eau Kulen from the pack, and the company's forward-looking strategy.

Bottled water brands fill the shelves at Lucky supermarket and other shops. Are all of them imported, and is there stiff competition over pricing?
There is a lot of competition, especially in larger supermarkets, with foreign brands mostly imported from Europe and some from Vietnam and Thailand. There are also some local brands, which are not natural mineral water. They are instead branded as "pure drinking water", and don't have any natural minerals in them at all.

Are people getting what they pay for, or are they being misled?
Our competitors are the imported brands of mineral water, who, admittedly, do usually make a good product. That said, no one is actually better than our locally made Eau Kulen in terms of its mineral composition. Some foreign brands sell sparkling water, with natural or added carbon dioxide. We are not producing sparkling yet. I personally find that selling a 1.5-litre bottle of mineral water for more than $2 per bottle is very, very expensive, and frankly ridiculous.

What kind of work went into setting up your company?
The first difficulty was to obtain precise geological maps to understand the environment of Mount Kulen, which is located in Siem Reap province. Secondly, we met difficulties finding a company that was able to drill through the deep layers of sandstone, as it took very specific and expensive equipment to do so. All told, it took me approximately one year to find the Eau Kulen spring. We had help though, from people with knowledge of the region, including Pierre Gubri from the NGO Water for All in Cambodia, and some geologist friends. The initial idea, however, to source a Cambodian mineral water came from Bernard Forey, the man behind Vietnam's La Vie natural mineral water.

What about costs?
In Europe, to have the right to be called "natural mineral water" you need to bottle the water at the source itself and to produce your bottles in the bottling plant. As such, our facility, which requires a lot of energy in order to manufacture our own bottles, is at the foot of Mount Kulen. Any investment in such an isolated area will inevitably cost more. The investment is from parent company Kulara Water, the company producing Eau Kulen, and amounts to a little more than $8 million.

How has Kulen water been selling?
Admittedly, sales could probably have been faster, but it is progressing. We are targeting the Cambodian local market at first, with the aim of educating people on the health benefits of drinking natural mineral water rather than pure drinking water. Only a few people understand the actual health benefits. They know that all chemical reactions in the body require minerals to function properly and that minerals found in water are more easily absorbed than those found in food.

Is expansion in the cards?
Our aim is to become the number one natural mineral water brand in Cambodia, and even export to close countries. Obviously, there are more untapped springs in Cambodia, but many of these springs are not mineralised. Some have very acidic PH levels.

Could mineral water production become a bigger industry here?
It must become bigger. While everybody is speaking about saving the planet and lowering carbon dioxide emissions, is it not totally ridiculous to have full containers of water travelling on cargo boats halfway around the world? It is energy consuming, and I hope this message will be understood here in Cambodia.

How much money is spent on bottled water annually here?
I do not have any exact figure, but a lot of water is used. The country is hot, very hot, and people need to drink. At present, the biggest market here is the production of pure drinking water – without minerals.

The market for mineral water here is still limited as it comes at a higher cost. However, people drinking pure drinking water should understand that it takes nearly twice as much pure drinking water than mineral water to actually quench their thirst. That is because water without minerals is very quickly expelled by the body.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Unbeaten Indonesian cage fighter Fransino Tirta has signed for ONE Fighting Championship, the leading mixed martial arts promotion in Asia announced yesterday.

Tirta, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and multiple winners of grappling, sanshou, boxing and combat sambo competitons, has amassed a 15 wins, one draw record since he turned professional in 2003. , "I'm glad that we have come to an agreement, and I can focus on training for my next fight," Tirta was quoted as saying in a press release.

"I cannot wait to fight under the ONE FC banner and show the true quality of Indonesian MMA to the world." ONE FC's next event, entitled War of Nations, will be held on March 14 at Kuala Lumpur's Stadium Negara and headlined by a welterweight world championship contest between American Brock Larson and Nobutatsu Suzuki of Japan.

A marquee match-up between former champions Boeung Ket Rubber Field and Naga Corp is the highlight of a Metfone C-League tie at Olympic Stadium tomorrow.

The differing moods in their camps add an extra dimension to the fierce rivalry between the two teams. While last year's runners-up Boeung Ket will be anxious to get the equation right after two successive defeats, the 2009 champions and last year's Hun Sen Cup winners Naga will be eager to build on their five-goal swamping of Build Bright United.

There is plenty of firepower on both sides to raise the competitive ardour and keep the spirits of the fans high.

Naga coach Prak Sovannara conceded that it would be a tough encounter, but felt quite comfortable with the way things had been shaping with the team. Naga has a vibrant frontline and an equally versatile midfield that could keep the Boueng Ket backline on the hop.

The 2012 champions allowed both TriAsia and National Police Commissary to get the better of them late in the game, just the kind of waywardness they ought to avoid if they are to match strides with their decidedly better rated rivals this time.

In tomorrow's floodlight fixture, Western University, who were involved in a well-fought goalless draw with Ministry of National Defence, will meet Kirivong Sok Sen Chey, who had no answer to Phnom Penh Crown's controlled aggression last week in that 2-0 loss.

Away at the Old Stadium, tomorrow's prime contest pitches defending champions Svay Rieng against the table topping TriAsia in what could be a stirring duel.

The newcomers to the Premier League have already ruffled a few feathers, notably in a victory over Boueng Ket in the second week of the competition, and coach Daisuke Yoshioka is confident that the side could hold its own against a well-furnished outfit like Svay Rieng, who were surprisingly held to a goal-less draw last week. Asia Europe University and MND figure in the day's second match.

Meanwhile, Crown's pleasing form should be of great concern to Build Bright United, who were swept off their feet by Naga.

Crown's strength lies in splendid team effort and the team's attacking patterns worked very well against Kirivong Sok Sen Chey.

The six-match schedule for the weekend winds up with a late evening clash between Albirex Niigata and National Police.

The first foreign franchise to enter the Cambodian league scene has been a huge disappointment so far in three defeats by widening margins.

The Police are fresh from their thrilling win over Boeung Ket and should handle Albirex with some ease.

Weekend Fixtures
Saturday February 15 At Old Stadium:
Svay Rieng v TriAsia PP – 1:30pm
Asia Europe Uni v MND – 3:45pm

At Olympic Stadium
Boeung Ket v Naga Corp – 3:30pm
Western Uni v Kirivong – 6pm
Sunday February 16
At Olympic Stadium
PP Crown v BBU – 3:30pm
Albirex Niigata v Nat Police – 6pm

Build Bright United won the battle of the universities on Wednesday night, edging out education establishment rivals Western Uni 1-0 in their Group D clash of the Hun Sen Cup under floodlights at Olympic Stadium.

A Heng Sokly screamer from distance in the 35th minute was all that separated the teams. The result saw BBU progress to the last 16 knockout stage along with group toppers Ministry of National Defence.

When I invited a friend to eat at K'Nyay a couple of weeks ago, his reaction was, "Oh yeah, that place near Riverside." Luckily he had me on hand to inform him that in September last year, the restaurant, whose name means "ginger" in Khmer, moved to the hotel The Terrace on 95, not far from Tuol Sleng prison.

A long-standing haunt of Phnom Penh's vegetarian and vegan community, its previous landlord decided to carry out building work right next door, so the owner David Hunt and his team decided to move. "Most of our loyal customers have found us at our new home at The Terrace," he said.

However, on two recent trips to the restaurant, I found the place pretty empty. I hope the reason for this is that people had the same thoughts as my friend – that K'Nyay was somewhere on Riverside (just off Sothearos Boulevard, to be precise). Because the restaurant still serves up inexpensive and interesting food and drink that, if you're a fan of Cambodian cuisine, is worth returning for.

Located on the corner of Streets 95 and 348, the terrace is a peaceful spot to enjoy a meal or a drink, and the interior's homey atmosphere makes you feel as if you're stepping into somebody's living room. This is hammered home by the obligatory taking off of shoes at the top of the steps, the vibrant paintings on the walls and the comfy sofas and cushions.

However, having only arrived in Phnom Penh just as the restaurant changed location, I am slightly bemused by what is new on the menu, which is almost unchanged apart from the addition of a couple of western items.

No matter – both food and drink are good. On a recent Saturday, a big group of friends and I sipped happily on Firefinch Sauvignon Blanc ($19), though the restaurant ran out after two bottles. Another friend was disappointed when he ordered a mojito to hear that there was a mint shortage, which the waiter put down to markets being closed for Chinese New Year. Instead he ordered a passionfruit martini, which was well-received.

Fancying something cheesy, I ordered the curried chicken quesadillas, which went so far as to satisfy my craving. But K'Nyay is famous for its curries, so I went back a week later. This time, my friends and I were off the booze. We experimented with K'Nyay's juices and shakes, and were impressed: I relished the fresh zest of my mango and passionfruit smoothie, while another enjoyed a banana and peanut butter smoothie.

To start, we shared sweet potato fries ($3): succulent and flavoursome, particularly with our hummus dip, which was the most deliciously garlicky hummus I've had in Phnom Penh. The chips were heavy: I was almost too full for my main course, the Cambodian green curry with chicken ($6). The option of eating it with baguette rather than rice was welcome.

With K'Nyay's move, the restaurant is gradually branching out in new directions, including the delivery of vegan lunch boxes, and a range of dairy-free ice creams and sorbets. Judging from the scarcity of other diners, the new location may not yet have secured the popularity it deserves. In the meantime, embrace the solitude. K'Nyay, #43, Street 95. Closed Mondays.

Vandong Thorn runs Buddhism for Social Development Action (BSDA), an NGO created and run by monks from Wat Nokor Bachey in Kampong Cham. He spoke to Nathan A. Thompson about leaving the monkhood, or sangha, after 20 years, being a famous smot singer and what he thinks about the monks who march with the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party.

What was it like to leave the sangha after 20 years?
Monks have to follow 227 rules so it's nice to have some breathing space. I can now ride a bicycle or a moto, which is forbidden for monks. I miss living closely with my brothers and teaching the novices but it is still possible to practice Buddhism without being a monk. Of course, I find it difficult sometimes because laypeople can cheat and fight over self-interest but . . . what is it they say? You can't change the world in a day. So all I can do is start with my own behaviour.

How have you involved your pagoda in running the NGO?
We established BSDA in 2005 when the local community criticised the monks at my pagoda. They said that the monks preach altruism but don't practice it. Deeply hurt, seven monks and I founded BSDA, financing it privately until international donors came on board. Today, the monks volunteer in both practical and management roles. They are effective at raising support from the local community, who love our projects, but sometimes their responsibilities as members of the sangha suffer. I experienced this when I was a monk – I broke the rules by spending too much time travelling abroad to meet with donors.

What do you think about the monks who protest?
The head of the Cambodian sangha has long been associated with the CPP. But how can he stop the young monks from protesting with the CNRP and garment workers? I think the head of the sangha should be neutral and allow monks to make up their own minds. I think monks should demonstrate for human rights, justice and to protect marginalised people. By fighting for these things the young monks are following the Buddha's teaching. But they must be careful that their involvement does not damage the fabric of Cambodian society. It is time for the Cambodian sangha to call on both parties to negotiate a peaceful solution.

How is your NGO influenced by Buddhism?
Most important to BSDA is the practice of metta [compassion] as opposed to friendliness based on self-interest. Practicing metta stirs up feelings of love and kindness which grow and ultimately overcome all economic and social barriers. Metta is the heart of what we do. To me, it makes sense to be a Buddhist NGO working in Buddhist communities because the people we help feel ownership and are proud to be benefitting from us. Most Cambodians are proud of their culture and they want NGOs to respect their religion.

Do Cambodian NGOs function better than their foreign counterparts, in your opinion?
I have a great deal of respect for the Western NGOs and I can't generalise as they vary. The success of their work depends on leadership, approach and accountability. Whatever the Western NGO, they spend plenty of money on staff, overheads and expertise. They are always highly trained and provide needed skills and knowledge to Cambodia, but the high cost of their human resources means they have less money to spend on helping the community.

Part of your work is to help people affected by drugs in Kampong Cham. How do you go about this?
Many young unemployed people in Kampong Cham become addicted to drugs like glue and methamphetamine and it is part of BSDA's mission to help them. We provide harm reduction services such as HIV/AIDS prevention, self-help groups and counselling. We hope that they will eventually find good jobs and be able to move away from addiction.

Finally, you are also a famous smot singer – can you tell us more about that part of your life?
Smot is a religious Cambodian song [comparable to Christian hymns]. It is to inspire people to follow Buddhism and provides a welcome break from long sermons during religious ceremonies. I was trained when I was 13 and became famous throughout Cambodia because I have a suitable voice for smot. I love traditional music and found that I could play the roneat ek (Cambodian xylophone) without being trained. I was a natural. My favourite songs describe the life of the Buddha and the good character of his parents.

Next week, a book by American academic Andrew Mertha will be published, delving for the first time into first-hand accounts of the ties between Democratic Kampuchea and Beijing.

In 2010, the Chinese ambassador to Cambodia, Zhang Jinfeng, claimed that the People's Republic of China had never politically engaged with what was the Democratic Kampuchea regime. Instead, he argued that assistance was limited to "food, hoes and scythes".

Others believe the communist country's influence ran much deeper. Youk Chhang, director at the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), said that the Chinese even trained Khmer Rouge prison guards on how to arrest the enemies of "Angkar", adding: "The Chinese 'advisers' were there from the top all the way down to the lowest level of the Democratic Kampuchea regime."

The Chinese have always kept quiet about their involvement, historian Milton Osborne wrote in an email this week ahead of the release of a new book that will re-examine the relationship. "For many years the Chinese government was not anxious to have its role in Cambodia during the Pol Pot period given attention and I judge that it would prefer that it not receive publicity now. But its role is now widely known, at least among Southeast Asian specialists, if not among the general public."

A new book attempts to deconstruct the complex relationship between the two states. In Brothers in Arms: China's Aid to the Khmer Rouge, 1975 - 1979, which will be published next week in the United States, Andrew Mertha, associate professor of government at Cornell University in New York State, explores China's role in Democratic Kampuchea, measuring the aid it provided against the influence it had on the regime. The thrust of his argument is that despite China having donated huge amounts to the Khmer Rouge, it had little say in policy due to the low level of competence in both governments.

It's not the first attempt to tell the story of the Chinese in Pol Pot's Cambodia: a couple of years ago Huang Shiming, a former Chinese "intelligence worker", or spy, published a memoir of his experience, which saw him grow up in Phnom Penh, move to China following Mao's call for revolution during the 1950s, and move back to Cambodia as a spy.

But Mertha's non-fiction account is different. The academic, who lived in China for seven years and has written two books about Chinese politics, uses personal stories and anecdotes from both Chinese and Cambodian technicians who were in the country at the time, as well as Khmer Rouge officials, to delve into the relationship between the two countries. According to Mertha, both sides spoke of the Chinese providing "the only glimpse of humanity that those Cambodians saw". He added: "The Chinese would never scold the Cambodians and would get their hands dirty to show them how to get something accomplished, and share their food and cigarettes with them when Democratic Kampuchea cadres weren't looking."

According to Mertha, the book tries to consider the countries' relationship through the lens of individuals and what he refers to as "subnational institutions" rather than national leaders. He added: "The reader is also treated to an extensive and systematic mapping of the bureaucratic landscape of Democratic Kampuchea."

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While much of the world knew very little about Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge took power in April 1975, Pol Pot's regime maintained diplomatic relations with a number of countries, including North Korea, Yugoslavia, Romania and, until 1977, Vietnam.

But its relationship with China was particularly noteworthy, Mertha said. "Chinese assistance dwarfed that of all the other countries combined. China was treated by the Democratic Kampuchea leaders as a different type of entity than the others," he said.

This was because of the vast quantity of aid it gave to the Khmer Rouge: firstly, in military form, before and after 1975. It continued throughout the party's rule in other forms: the building of roads and railways; the establishing of the Kampong Som petroleum refinery and the airfield at Kampong Chhnang; the processing of Chinese crude oil from Daqing oil fields. The relationship also meant that China could exploit Cambodia's natural rubber production, and work on its electricity grid. There has even been speculation that Phnom Penh's increased electricity production at the time may have been geared towards eventually repopulating the capital, Mertha said.

During this period, there were several thousand Chinese people in the country, some of whom Mertha interviewed for his book. According to the historian David Chandler, Mertha is the first historian to have done so. Writing in an email this week, Chandler said: "These 'technical experts' weren't hidden, and were often photographed with Democratic Kampuchea officials, although they never speak out in public, and Mertha's book is the first one to let them talk."

Mertha said: "They were in Cambodia to try and help their revolutionary brethren and to bring glory to China in its mission to help Cambodia develop under Chinese tutelage."

According to Mertha however, the idea of Cambodia being China's "revolutionary brethren" only went so far. While there is a common link made between Maoism and the Khmer Rouge, particularly when comparing Pol Pot's Four Year Plan in 1976 and China's Great Leap Forward, the reality of the relationship between the two communist states was quite different, and this was reflected in the relationship between officials in Cambodia. He said: "By 1975, the Chinese, having learned from bitter experience, were warning the Cambodians against rushing too quickly towards realising their revolutionary goals. Khieu Samphan and Ieng Thirith are said to have smiled condescendingly."

Mertha also contested the widely held view that the Khmer Rouge were Maoist, and claimed, perhaps controversially, that Cambodian communism was far more influenced by its Soviet counterpart.

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On top of warnings against jumping into revolution, lack of skills and training in Democratic Kampuchea would frustrate the Chinese who lived in the country, as well as a lack of interpreters, leaving both sides to rely on gestures to communicate.

John Ciorciari, assistant professor in public policy at the University of Michigan and co-author of Hybrid Justice: The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, agreed with Mertha that politically speaking, China's influence in Democratic Kampuchea wasn't as great as some might think, adding that its "support for disastrous Khmer Rouge policies can easily be overstated".

He continued: "Mertha has shown that important limits to Chinese influence also existed at the bureaucratic level, as fragmented Chinese aid-administering agencies struggled to work with mismatched, underdeveloped, and sometimes obstinate Democratic Kampuchea institutions."

Yet despite disagreements on the ground and a lack of influence over Democratic Kampuchea's policies, China's aid to the Khmer Rouge regime prevailed. Mertha said: "This is because regardless of who the leader is in China at any given time, even Mao in his waning years, he can only press forward on a finite number (two or three) of key policy preferences."

The academic believes that China's relationship with Cambodia – "certainly seen as a feather in Beijing's cap" – is the first in many subsequent links to what he calls "client states" of the emerging superpower. But he said that the book provides a counter-argument to what has now become a mainstream view: that China's increasing power is influencing less developed countries. He said: "We need to be more sober in our predictions about China's engagement abroad, because at the end of the day, China's influence is only as good as the efficacy of the institutions that manage its relationships with the developing world."

Ciorciari agreed with this link when analysing aid today, saying: "Capabilities measurable in money or military might do not necessarily translate into policy influence."

And what of the relationship between China and Cambodia today? Last week, Murray Hiebert, deputy director and senior fellow of the Sumitro Chair for Southeast Asia studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, published an article in the Thai newspaper The Nation claiming that Beijing has been keeping Hun Sen's government "at arms length" since the increase in opposition protests against the general elections of July last year. He added that although China was until recently Cambodia's most important patron, there has been a recent shift in its policy towards the Kingdom.

According to Milton Osborne, it's too early to conclude that there has been a significant change in the countries' relationship. He said: "We will need a great deal more evidence than is currently available to conclude that this relationship, which has so far served both parties well, is changing in a clear and important fashion."​

The world's largest UFO cult has reached Cambodia.

"People are not [ready] yet, but we will keep trying to spread the message," said Am Vichet, the head of the Cambodian chapter of the Raelian Movement, which believes a group of scientists created life 25,000 years ago in a laboratory.

The 41-year old, who works at reproductive health NGO Marie Stopes, said he became a Raelian in 2007 after attending a lecture where the cult's philosophy was explained. "I want to learn new things. Then, at that time, I joined a lecture and they showed me a video and I thought it was interesting. But it was not enough just to go one time; I wanted to learn more," Vichet said.

His next step was to read a book penned by the group's leader, Frenchman Claude Vorilhon, now known by his acolytes only as Rael and who founded the cult in 1974. He claims to be a reincarnation of Buddha.

Vorilhon, then a journalist for an automobile magazine and racing car test driver, says that, on December 13, 1973, he took a detour on his way to work and wandered around an inactive volcano near Auvergne in France. There, he met an extraterrestrial called Yahweh Elohim, who explained "the message".

The message was simple: life on Earth is the scientifically engineered creation of an advanced alien civilisation, and Vorilhon's mission on this planet is to prepare humankind for their eventual return.

One of the main goals of Raelism is to build a $20 million embassy for the Elohim, preferably in Israel. Perhaps due to Raelism's symbol – a swastika enveloped in a Star of David – the movement is banned in the birthplace of Judaism.

So Raelians are looking eastward and, last January, applied to the Council of Ministers in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

The project, which the letter states will generate "several billion euros of revenue, as well as additional spinoff ventures", will make Cambodians "the first [people] to benefit from the Elohim's highly advanced technologies".

But more than a year after the application was submitted, Rael has yet to receive a response from Phnom Penh.

Ek Tha, a spokesman for the Council of Ministers, said that although he was not aware of the application, he would welcome an extraterrestrial movement in Cambodia.

"I myself have researched UFOs and extraterrestrial life for the last two years," he said.

"To me, this would be great if we can start an alien movement or institution in Cambodia. We are not alone, my friend. When I tell my friends at work, nobody believes me."

But any attempt to build the embassy may come up against practical obstacles, according to Dan Thibault, a French-Canadian who travels across Asia spreading Rael's teachings and was in Phnom Penh last week to hold a public lecture.

"The problem is political . . . the problem is the extra-territoriality, the airspace. We need a protected airspace, like a no-fly zone over the embassy," Thibault said. "The country that will organise the embassy will be the spiritual and cultural centre of the union to come. It's a really big thing."

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Vichet explained how he began to accept the Raelians' ideas after he read Vorilhon's first book, The Book Which Tells the Truth, which Vichet recently translated into Khmer.

"I started thinking what our natural state was, and one day you can see these things in the sky, and then I thought, oh, it's true. And then that night I saw the lights again and after that I start to become a Raelian," Vichet said.

"After that, my life changed. I learn and I read the books and I changed a lot of what I used to think, like negative thinking, and I changed myself."

The movement claims to be expanding in Asia, boosted by growing followings in China and Japan. Three Cambodians turned up to the meeting last week, at which Thibault delved further into Raelian philosophy.

"Life has been created 25,000 years ago. The Elohim came here, they were a group of scientists who had mastered DNA, and they created all forms of life on this planet," he said. "They sent all the gods – Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Moses – all the prophets sent throughout history. We live in the scientific era and at this time we can create life significantly in laboratories, which means we are equal to gods."

To appeal to Asia's Buddhist masses, Raelians have tailored their teachings to the students of the Buddha.

Rael now claims to be the Maitreya, the reincarnation of the Buddha. He said the date of his meeting with Yahweh Elohim corresponds with the Buddhist calendar year 3000, when the sutras state the Buddha shall reappear. The new Buddha, the sutras continue, "will come from the west" in "the land of the cock", which is a national symbol of France.

But controversies over attempts at human cloning in Europe have led to Vorilhon's exile from France, where there is a warrant out for his arrest.

"We want to live forever. [Human cloning] is the first step towards eternal life," Thibault said. "It sounds, perhaps, crazy, but some scientists are working right now on downloading your personality. We'll be able to download our personality from our brain to a computer.

"The next step is you upload your personality into a new body. We're going to do that, it's just a matter of time."

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Despite the movement's expressed alignment with Buddhist values, since its first seminar in 2006, it has only managed to attract 10 adherents in Cambodia.

"We just have a very small number in Cambodia," said Vichet, adding that he hopes more people will hear the message now that he has translated one of Vorilhon's books into Khmer. "Most of the Cambodian people, they don't want to read, especially big books. They don't want to read a whole story."

Raelism, which now claims to have close to 85,000 members in more than 100 countries, has courted controversy in an attempt to gain notoriety and support, including campaigns for public nudity, LGBT rights and setting up a clinic in Burkina Faso to reconstruct women's genitals after they have suffered female genital mutilation.

They also hope to attract celebrity support, much like Scientology.

"We met Michael Jackson; Rael met Russell Brand in the past year. But the fear, they don't want to identify themselves publicly," Thibault said, shortly after playing an animated video showing the four-foot-tall Elohim, who look remarkably similar to Jackson, meeting Vorilhon.

Mike Kropveld, executive director of the Montreal-based InfoCult, which has documented Raelism for about 30 years, said that the group is attempting a two-pronged approach to move into Asia.

"They have been trying for years to move into other countries. They have been raising money endlessly [to do this]," he said. "At the same time, they've been trying to get Israel to form an embassy. I don't know why they want an embassy in Cambodia.

"They also often move into the shock area, or something that's titillating, like the topless campaign. A more accurate [membership] figure would be 5,000, of people who would consider themselves members."

Kropveld said that Raelism appeals to disillusioned followers of many religions.

"It has had an appeal here, some of the messages the group subscribes to, it's like a church in terms of the treatment of women, going to heaven, going to where the creators are," he said. "It's not really so far off from what [new members] believed before. They kind of have a global religious perspective."

While Raelian leaders say Buddhism is compatible with their beliefs, Vichet stopped practising around the time he became a Raelin "guide" through a baptism ceremony in 2007. Through the ceremony, Vichet believes his "cellular plan" was transmitted to a computer in preparation for judgment when the Elohim return in 2035.

"We do a baptism to get the plan transmitted and become a Raelian. The baptism actually is physical . . . everybody has vibrations, you transmit these vibrations."