CAMBODIA Crime; In cold blood

The circumstances surrounding journalist

Khim Sambo’s murder point to official

involvement,

writes Vincent MacIsaacri

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2008 SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

(http://tinyurl.com/3ed232)

(comments: Recently, an American official in Cambodia, stated that Cambodia political killing has slowdown markedly. In other words, Hun Sen regime has improved its human right records by slowing down political killings. Is this statement accurate. The answer is a plain no. why, because Hun Sen did not need to kill because he can use the judicial system under his full control to bring down any politicians that he think is danegrous to challenge his dictatorial power. But, if he thinks that any p[olitician is threatening his power, he will not hesitate to resort to the murder, as seems to be the cases in the murdera of reporter Khim Sambor and his son, in cold blood. Hok Lundy the Vietnamese-Cambodian chief of the mafia like police force in cambodia, a close friend and an in-law of Hun Sen. The FBI was called to investigate the cases. I don't have any faith in the investigation because, the Bush administration ahd decided to make Hun Sen an ally of the United States to fight against the increasing power in the region and in the world. Sad, but true. Naranhkiri Tith, Ph.D. Washington DC. October 11, 2008)

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Two weeks before he and his 21-yearold son were shot dead, Cambodian journalist Khim Sambo reported on a not uncommon topic in opposition affiliated newspapers. When gamblers from the upper echelons of the ruling Cambodia People’s Party (CPP), accompanied by armed bodyguards or police, have prolonged losing streaks, it sometimes erupts in anger and even violence.

“When they lose, and cannot borrow more from the casino, they arrest the casino owners,” he wrote under one of his numerous pseudonyms, Srey Ka, in the June 28-29 weekend edition of the daily Khmer Conscience, which is affiliated with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP).

However, Khim Sambo – whose own anger needed to be “toned down”, according to a former colleague – went further than most, mocking the behaviour of a senior police officer described by many as “one of the most dangerous men in Cambodia”.

He reported on an incident that allegedly occurred – SRP newspapers are often accused of fabrication or exaggeration – on June 25 at a casino complex at a border crossing with Vietnam in the town of Bavat in Svay Rieng province.

After losing his shirt at Le Macau Casino and Hotel, the officer borrowed from the casino, lost that, borrowed more – and lost again. When the casino manager refused to lend any more, he had him arrested by the junior officers accompanying him, Khim Sambo reported.

He went further, describing how the officer stacked the deck: “When he loses US$100,000, the casino returns US$50,000. But he plays until losing the returned money, and demands to borrow more. If any casino owner dares to say ‘no’, he threatens to arrest him.”

Khim Sambo did not identify the officer by name but dropped enough hints so that when he concluded his report by stating “there is no need to name [the CPP gamblers] because everyone in Cambodia knows who they are”, he assumed readers would be able to identify the officer, a source said. “He did not think he had put himself in danger because he did not identify the officer by name,” the source said on condition of anonymity. Several others – all of whom requested anonymity, citing concern for personal security – said that Khim Sambo was writing about Cambodian National Police Commissioner Hok Lundy.

The former governor of Svay Rieng province has been at the top of Cambodia’s police force since 1994. “There is hardly anyone in Cambodia who has shown more contempt for the rule of law than Hok Lundy,” Human Rights Watch has said. He “represents the absolute worst Cambodia has to offer”, it said.

“We believe the killing is related to that article,” Son Chhay, the whip of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party claimed, though he declined to identify the subject of the article.

The editor of Khmer Conscience, Dam Sith, who had been jailed on defamation charges in June, said he knew nothing about the article when interviewed by phone last Thursday.

That day, he was interviewed by one of the two agents from America’s FBI, said to be “supporting” their Cambodian counterparts in the investigation.

“I told them I don’t know anything about who is behind the killing, and that I hope they find who it is,” he said.

Chan Soveth, a programme officer at the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, warned that “if the FBI cannot work independently [their assistance] is just a political game”.

He arrived at the scene of the double homicide about 30 minutes after it occurred at about 6.30pm on July 11and has been investigating ever since. He fears the police are protecting the perpetrators rather than trying to solve the crime.

Khim Sambo, 47, bled to death on the side of a busy street in central Phnom Penh, minutes after being shot twice in the back while riding a motorcycle driven by his son Khat Sarinpheata. The young man died the next day in a Phnom Penh hospital, after being shot twice while cradling his dying father, said Chan Soveth.

The killers, two men on a motorbike who approached Khim Sambo and his son from behind, were probably hired assassins, he said, pointing out that they used a K-49 pistol with a silencer.

“They had no fear of being arrested. They weren’t wearing helmets and made no attempt to disguise their identity. They acted like they were under protection,” Chan Soveth said.

When he arrived at the scene, he was able to gather information from bystanders but, when he returned the following morning, no one would speak to him, he said. Silence permeates human rights groups in Cambodia. When asked who he thought was behind the killing, Chan Soveth declined to answer. “I want to continue living in Cambodia,” he said.

He believes the murders were intended to create an atmosphere of fear ahead of the July general election, which the CPP won by a landslide. This view was widely promoted by Cambodian and

international human rights groups who expressed outrage following the killing.

But SRP whip Son Chhay disputes that there was any link between the killings and the election. “It was not a political killing,” he said. “There was no order from the top of the CPP,” he said.

“[Prime Minister] Hun Sen does not know who is behind the killings. If Hun Sen knew who was behind the killings, the FBI would not have been allowed to join the investigation.”

He added: “The FBI has been allowed in because the CPP believes they will be unable to find evidence of government involvement,” though he in no way suggests that the CPP has turned benevolent.

“Their behaviour, their totalitarian thinking is very much like the Khmer Rouge. Either you support the CPP or you are an enemy of the state. Killing opposition members is acceptable,” he said.

Son Chhay and Chan Soveth said they feared that the FBI was likely to be used by the Cambodian police to provide a veneer of legitimacy to what the latter described as a “sham

investigation”.

Son Chhay noted: “They have this great ability to manipulate the international community and they will manipulate the FBI to make sure nothing happens [with the investigation].”

This is already happening, he said, pointing to a police statement published in the Cambodia Daily this month quoting Phnom Penh’s police commissioner as saying that an “FBI official had agreed that the killings were motivated by someone seeking revenge against the journalist’s son”.

Senior police officers have suggested that the target of the killers was not Khim Sambo but his son.

In his initial report into the crime, Chan Soveth found no evidence that either the father or the son were involved in a personal dispute that could have led to their murders.

US embassy spokesman John Johnson said he was aware that some human rights investigators had accused the local police of a cover-up. Because the investigation was ongoing, he said, he could not comment on the details of the case.

The FBI agents were playing a “purely supportive” role in the investigation at the invitation of the interior ministry, he said. Besides two investigators, who arrived on September 14, a forensic artist had arrived last week to assist local police with a sketch of the assailants, he added.

One day after meeting the FBI agents, Phnom Penh deputy police chief Hy Prou, who is in charge of the investigation, said there were no leads on a suspect and that the complexities of the case made investigating it difficult.

However, the fact that editor Dam Sith was interviewed for the first time after the FBI agents arrived could signal that the bureau is nudging the Cambodian police in a new direction – towards the articles Khim Sambo wrote before he was killed.

In an interview at his home last Saturday, Dam Sith said that one of the questions asked by the FBI agent, who was accompanied by a translator from the US embassy and two Cambodian officers, concerned the kind of articles Khim Sambo had written for him. He said he replied: “A lot of articles about different things.”

Dam Sith is a father with three young children. Since Khim Sambo’s killing he does not leave his home unless he has to. He looked like he had not slept in weeks and was in a highly nervous state.

In 2006, Hok Lundy was denied a US visa due to allegations that he was involved in drug and human trafficking. The following month, however, the FBI awarded him a medal for his efforts in fighting terrorism. In April last year, he was finally granted a US visa, to attend a Counter-terrorism orkshop.

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By Geoffrey Cain

(Comments: This article provides a unique view and analysis on important    problem facing Cambodia's quest for survival under the corrupt and dictatorial regime of Hun Sen and his CPP. Historically, looking from the external side, Cambodia has been facing two threats from thailand and Vietnam. However, there is a great difference bewteen the threat from these two countries. Vietnam is definitely the more dangerous for Cambodia's survival. Thailand being a more democratic and sharing with cambodia a common cultural heritage, there is more room to maneuver. Only recently, because of Hun Sen diabolical design to make Vietnam look like a better friend to cambodia, he started the row with Thailand on the issue of Preah Vihear. Unfortunately, a lot of Cambodians, including some well-meaning and well- kown Cambodians fell victims of this fake nationalism fabricated by Hun Sen .

Just to make my points clearer on the diiference between the more deadly threat from Vietnam and the more reactive threat from Thailand, just look at how these two neighboring countries have been treating Cambodian minorities in their own respective country. The Vietnamese are committing genodide against the Khmer Krom,,as reported by rebecca Somers, the german humanist, whereas, the Thais has allowed the Khmer Surins to be fully integrated in their society and to even be appointed as prime minister after the end of World War II. 

Now let us look at the potentialenemy from within. The Moslems community in Cambodia consists of two groups; the Chams and the Chvears. The Chams are those who espcaped from Vietnam genodicde and came from the former Kingdom of Champa which was totally obliterated by Vietnam in the 17th century. The Chvears are those who came from Malaysia and Indonesia who convert the Chams into Islam.  The Cham and the Chvears have comon racial background being of Malay culture and race. As the article has pointed out, the Chams as in all Moslems cases pledge their allegiance to religion first, and the state in which they live, second. this si the real problem for cambodia as a sovereign nation.

In addition, as the outgoing US Ambassador, Joseph Mussomeli, had pointed out that these Cambodian Moslems have very close tie with the Middle east countries and received an enormous amount of financial and religious assistance (import ofImams, building of new mosques) from them to advance the cause of Islam in Cambodia.  This 'state within the state situation' can only bring more instability  for Cambodia down the road, if we add to that priority givien to Islam first before the state by the Moslems,  the issue of international terrorism's support by these Moslems, Cambodia future is bleaker than ever before, indeed! 

Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 9, 2008) 

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PHNOM PENH - Competition for influence in Cambodia, recently seen as a two-country race between the United States and China, has now seen another deep-pocketed suitor emerge: petrodollar-rich Gulf states.

                              While Washington has required counter-terrorism cooperation for its assistance, and Beijing has sought greater access to markets, Middle Eastern countries seem keen to build

religious ties with Cambodia's Muslim Cham minority.

                              Kuwait and Qatar promised as much as US$700 million in August, packaged as soft loans and investment deals to help develop Cambodia's relatively primitive infrastructure. The massive aid packages include agriculture and energy-development initiatives, and a new open skies agreement

granting Kuwait Airlines direct flights to Cambodia.

                              Beyond the economics, was a geopolitical twist to the aid package. Prime Minister Hun Sen agreed in principle to a Kuwaiti request not to support military or economic interventions against Iran, a target of US criticism for allegedly developing a secret nuclear weapons program. Hun Sen also plans a tour in January to strengthen political and economic links with Middle Eastern countries.

                              The financial aid package made big business headlines, but what went relatively unnoticed were the millions of dollars earmarked for building Muslim institutions. The impoverished and

marginalized Cham, estimated to number about 400,000, have long sought and received funds from Middle Eastern patrons in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and regional neighbor Malaysia to build mosques and religious schools, travel on the haj and study overseas.

                              With that assistance, an increasing number of Middle Eastern imams have taken up residence in Cambodia's traditionally moderate Cham communities and often promoted Wahabbi and Da'Wah Tabligh fundamentalist interpretations of Islam.

                              Concerns that foreign influence was stoking local terror risks first arose when four Muslim teachers from southern Thailand, Egypt and Cambodia were arrested at Phnom Penh's Cham-run Om-al-Qora school in 2003 for allegedly being members of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror group and using the school as a terrorist training center.

                              The arrests came days before the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' regional form opened in Phnom Penh, where then-US secretary of state Colin Powell was scheduled to attend. One Cham religious leader said the arrests were a political tactic to "woo the Americans", while Cham opposition parliamentarian Ahmad Yahya lashed out at Hun Sen, referring to him as a "second Pol Pot" because "he used to close schools as well".

                              Terrorism concerns intensified when authorities discovered that alleged top al-Qaeda operative Riduan Isamuddin, alias Hambali, took refuge in the same school in the months leading up to

his August 2003 capture in Thailand. The US has since reiterated its concerns that radical Islamic organizations operating in Cambodia were winning more influence over the Cham.

                              In an August farewell speech this year, US ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli told reporters that "there are some organizations here that are very radical and that are very intolerant, and they are trying very hard to change the attitude and the atmosphere of the Muslim population here in Cambodia".

                              Last year, the US helped to establish a National Counter-terrorism Committee and this year opened a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in a massive new US Embassy. Robert Mueller,

director of the FBI, said at the office's opening ceremony that Cambodia was important "because of the potential for persons transiting Cambodia or utilizing Cambodia as a spot for terrorism", according to news reports. Mueller was the first FBI director to ever visit Cambodia.

                              The minority Cham, the antecessors of the region's once-dominant Champa kingdom, have long been open to foreign influences. They are also no stranger to official oppression and prosecution, both in Cambodia and Vietnam. Ben Kiernan, who heads the Cambodian genocide project at Yale University, estimates that 90,000 of a total 250,000 Cham population were killed during the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime which ruled between 1975 and 1979.

                              Only 21 of a total 113 imams, or Islamic teachers, survived the radical Maoist regime, along with only 15% of Cham-built mosques, says Kiernan. That tragic history, academics and analysts say, have made the Cham more susceptible to outside religious influences. Islamic charities from Gulf states first entered Cambodia in 1991, when a ceasefire was declared among warring militias, according to academic Agnes De Feo, author of the upcoming book, Muslims of Cambodia and Vietnam.

                              Foreign identity

                              Faith-based charitable organizations, which Cham often refer to generically as "Kuwait", came mainly from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and gained significant clout

over the ethnic minority's traditional Malay Muslim culture. Indian and Pakistani Islamic organizations, mostly promoters of the Tablighi Jamaat, or dawah, an apolitical movement aimed at revitalizing Muslim communities considered to be in danger of losing their Muslim identities, arrived later

in the 1990s.

                              The result was a schism in the Cham community between the Tabligh Jamaat and Wahhabists, which have generally sought to fit Cham Islam into a more universal framework of Wahhabism, according to De Feo. However, scholars credit foreign Islamic groups for revitalizing the Cham's once-vibrant culture and sense of Muslim identity after its decline in the 1970s. Cambodia had 280 imams in 2007, a marked increase from the 21 that survived the atheist Khmer Rouge era.

                              With charities from the UAE funding much of their construction, it is customary for Cham to name newly built mosques "Dubai", followed by the Cambodian city or village in which they reside. De Feo and other scholars note the new mosques do not resemble Khmer Buddhist pagodas as they did pre-1975, but rather have taken the form of standard mosques in Gulf states.

                              Other mosques have taken on Indian and Pakistani forms, implying, some say, a shift from the Cham's traditional Malay Muslim-influenced practices. Cham formal dress has also recently changed to resemble more dawah and Middle Eastern styles, says De Feo.

                              Cham leaders have used foreign funds to start at least 19 cultural organizations that promote Cham heritage, most notably the Cambodian Muslim Development Foundation, run by Osman Hassan, secretary of state at the Ministry of Labor, and the Cambodian Islamic Development Association, led by opposition parliamentarian Ahmad Yahya, which develops and promotes local Muslim institutions. Few such groups existed before 1975, and their establishment post-1991 signifies a cultural resurgence among the Cham.

                              Sith Ibrahim, an ethnic Cham who is a secretary of state in the Ministry of Cults and Religions, recently told the Phnom Penh Post that "Cham Muslims have received direct benefit from the government's political and economic links with countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait."

                              At the same time, scholars cite mainstream Khmer concerns that the foreign-backed Cham cultural reawakening has caused them to resist Cambodia's new drive to speed up economic development and integrate with the global economy.

                              Influenced by fundamentalist Gulf charities and increasingly assertive local Cham organizations, the group's religious leaders often now say they don't want to cede their unique ethnic identity for a sense of Buddhist Khmer universalism. Critics say the Cham are instead conforming to foreign interpretations of Islam, which emphasize loyalty to faith before loyalty to the state.

                              Some argue a similar mindset has entrenched in Southern Thailand, where foreign-influenced ethnic Malay Muslim insurgents are have been fighting a bloody battle against the predominantly Buddhist Thai state for decades. The Thai daily The Nation reported in 2004 that hundreds of Cham attempted to cross into the southern Thai province of Pattani after the deaths of nearly 100 Thai Muslims at the hands of the military.

                              Despite those incidents, De Feo argues that despite deep-rooted historical connections Cambodia's Cham and southern Thailand's Malay Muslims operate in completely different geopolitical contexts. Unlike Thailand's Muslim secessionist insurgents, the Cham have no claim to independence and therefore little reason to embrace militant ideologies. Many Cham still view themselves as immigrants to Cambodia and they are an ethnic minority elsewhere in the region, including Vietnam and Malaysia, De Feo claims.

                              Other analysts say the Cham pose little threat, even with the growing presence of cash-rich Wahhabist charities in their areas. Some point to a January 2008 report by the US Congressional Research Service which advocated developing "a foreign aid approach that addresses the attractiveness of China's policy of non-interference with domestic affairs" and engaging "regional Muslim states and populations in a way that both supports moderate Islam in its struggle against radical Islam and brings the United States closer to regional Muslim states".

                              Instead, the US's current focus on developing counter-terrorism initiatives in Cambodia is pointed directly at Cambodia's ethnic Cham. Whether the US believes that threat is real, or is rather using it to strategically position itself vis-a-vis China's growing economic clout, is still an open question. But with the big, new Middle Eastern investments earmarked for Cambodia, and with the Hun Sen government's and the local Cham's warm response, the US may now find it has two major cash-rich competitors for influence rather than one.

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                              Geoffrey Cain is based in Phnom Penh and a contributor to the Far Eastern Economic Review and Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), a United Nations-run news wire service. He may be reached at geoffrey.cain@gmail.com.

                  © Copyright 1999 - 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings), Ltd.

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Minding Cambodia's bottom line

Written by Brendan Brady

The Phnom Penh Post; Wednesday, 24 September 2008

 (Comments: This interesting and very informative interview, of Senaka fernando a senior manager of a well-known and reputable American financial firm, Pricewaterhouse&Coopers, by the Phnom Penh Post, in which Mr. Fernando gave a good and detailed look at the real and difficult conditions in which foreign and local investors are facing under the corrupt dictatorship of Hun Sen and his CPP. It is a fair and honest assessment of the Cambodian situation, and reflects the reality in doing business in Cambodia.

Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 3, 2008)

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Since 1995, Senaka Fernando, a senior manager at the Cambodian branch of financial services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers, has observed the rise of the Cambodian economy

 VANDY RATTANA

(Senaka Fernando outside the PricewaterhouseCoopers offices in Phnom Penh.

Education Graduated from St Joseph’s College in Colombo before passing the Licentiate Examination given by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka. Fernando is a member of London’s Institute of Marketing.

Career Fernando worked with various international agencies in Cambodia and elsewhere in the region, as well as consulted with the Cambodian government ministry programs before being employed at PricewaterhouseCoopers).

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When did PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) start in Cambodia?

We follow our clients. The entrance of a major client into the Cambodian market, British and American Tobacco, prompted us to come here in 1995.

Who were PwC's clients in the early days?

After the passage of the foreign investment law in 1994, foreign investors gradually started to trickle, and if you look at our revenue numbers from '95, '96, '97 they were always on the rise. Even though there wasn't much inflow of commercial clients in the beginning, the donor money kept flowing to Cambodia and we helped manage their projects. Donors look at us to see the projects they fund are properly managed and there's financial transparency. They would give money to a ministry, which would set up a project implementation unit whose finances we would manage.

Is it difficult to set up a company in Cambodia?

It is quite easy to set up a company here. If you want to set up a 100 percent foreign-owned company, you can, unlike with some other countries in the region where you sometimes have to enter a joint venture with a local partner.

Who are PwC's clients?

We get referrals from our PwC network saying we have a client that's coming to Cambodia to look for real estate, set up a factory, set up a bank, and we give them advice on the investment environment. In recent years we've been working a lot with property management, banking, hotels, casinos, and the most recent trend in growth has been in financial services, construction and real estate. The diversity is becoming wider. We advise them on how to set up - how to structure a company and how to tax plan - and once they are in operation we do audits.

The central bank also happens to be an audit client. There aren't many countries in the world where we do an audit of the regulator. If you take the Asean region, it's only Cambodia. When we audit the National Bank, we audit them like any other client. It is part of the whole transparency process because it is in the national bank's constitution that they need to be checked and audited.

Do you ever decline clients?

We have a long checklist to go through before accepting a client. One classic example where we reject is when someone comes in for an audit with two sets of books - one for internal purposes and one for tax purposes where they manipulate the numbers. That's a trigger point for us to decline the client. Most of the time when we turn down clients it's because they don't want to give us the information about their numbers and accounts upfront.

Do you use a country-specific auditing approach in Cambodia?

We have one audit approach, which we will follow in the United States, in Cambodia, in Afghanistan. Depending on certain factors, we may do some extra work. For example, in a country like Cambodia when, say, constructing or purchasing a school for an aid-funded project, there will be extra work done to see how the biddings are awarded because that can be especially tricky. 

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