The Beleaguered Cambodians

JANUARY 13, 2011

Margo Picken
Magnum Photos
The causeway across the moat at Angkor Wat; photograph by Steve McCurry

More than thirty years after an estimated two million people died at the
hands of Pol Pot’s regime of Democratic Kampuchea, trials of senior Khmer
Rouge leaders and those most responsible for the deaths are at last taking
place in Cambodia. On July 26, the first to be tried, Kaing Guek Eav,
commonly known as Duch, was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for war
crimes and crimes against humanity—a sentence that he and the prosecution
have since appealed. Duch directed Security Prison 21, also known as Tuol
Sleng, where at least 14,000 prisoners, mostly Khmer Rouge cadres and
officials, were tortured and killed.1

Even more important, the next trial, which will probably begin in 2011,
involves the four most senior Khmer leaders still alive: Nuon Chea, known as
Brother Number Two; Ieng Sary, who was foreign minister; his wife, Ieng
Thirith, minister for social affairs; and Khieu Samphan, who was president
of Democratic Kampuchea. Now in their late seventies and early eighties, all
four were arrested in 2007 and on September 16 were formally charged with
war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and related crimes under
Cambodian laws.

While the trials have refocused international attention on Cambodia’s dark
past, little attention has been given to how the much-watched proceedings
relate to the troubled politics of Cambodia today. Will they lead to a new
era of justice and accountability for a beleaguered people or end in another
betrayal?

Cambodia is ruled by longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian
People’s Party. They govern with absolute power and control all institutions
that could challenge their authority. Opposition political parties exist,
giving the illusion of multiparty democracy, but elections have not been
fair and the opposition no longer poses any threat to Hun Sen. The monarchy
has survived but has little influence. The freedoms of expression,
association, and assembly are severely curtailed. Human rights organizations
are intimidated, and a draft law aims to bring them under the regime’s
authority. The judiciary is controlled by the executive, and the flawed laws
that exist are selectively enforced. Hundreds of murders and violent attacks
against politicians, journalists, labor leaders, and others critical of Hun
Sen and his party remain unsolved.

The regime’s violence against political opponents has been flagrant. In
March 1997 Hun Sen’s bodyguards were clearly implicated in a grenade attack
on a peaceful rally in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, led by opposition
leader Sam Rainsy.2 Sixteen people were killed and over 140 injured,
including a US citizen. No serious inquiry was ever completed. Royalist
opponents of Hun Sen were murdered when he deposed Prime Minister Norodom
Ranariddh in a coup on July 5–6, 1997. More people were killed during the
July 1998 elections, which Hun Sen won. In January 2004, the popular labor
leader Chea Vichea, an outspoken critic of the government, was shot, one of
several contract killings in Phnom Penh before and after the July 2003
elections, carried out in broad daylight by helmeted gunmen on motorbikes.

In October 2005, in an attempt to encourage prosecution of these murders and
other serious crimes, Peter Leuprecht, at the time the United Nations
secretary-general’s special representative for human rights in Cambodia,
issued a report tracing a continuing and accepted practice of impunity since
the start of the 1990s. However, open discussion of the report and its
recommendations was not possible in Cambodia and it was ignored.

By confronting the crimes committed between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge
trials offer hope of breaking the pattern of impunity that has characterized
Cambodia’s recent history. But they could also allow Cambodia’s leaders to
claim a commitment to justice and the rule of law while avoiding
accountability for their own crimes and repressive practices.

Cambodia was once one of Asia’s greatest empires. The only existing account
of life in what we now call Angkor was written by Zhou Daguan, a Chinese
envoy, after he spent almost a year there at the end of the thirteenth
century. What he saw and described was an extraordinary civilization still
at its height, the outcome of five centuries of political and cultural
continuity. His stories are taught in schools and scholars draw on them to
gain a picture of life and society in Angkor.3

Angkor’s ancient glory is reassuring to a people whose history after gaining
independence from France in 1953 has been so perilous. Drawn into the cold
war and the war against Vietnam, they endured the Nixon administration’s
covert and illegal bombing in the late 1960s in pursuit of the Vietcong; the
overthrow of their head of state and former king, Prince Norodom Sihanouk,
in 1970; and years of more bombing and civil war that culminated in the
Khmer Rouge taking absolute control when it captured Phnom Penh in April
1975 and founded the state of Democratic Kampuchea. It ruled until it was
ousted in January 1979 by Vietnamese troops who installed the People’s
Republic of Kampuchea with Soviet backing.

Hun Sen, formerly a Khmer Rouge regimental commander who fled to Vietnam in
1978, emerged as a principal leader of the new government, serving first as
foreign minister and then as prime minister. The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, had
retreated to camps on the Thai border, allied itself with other opposition
forces, and continued to claim power. Since the US and other nations did not
want to recognize a Cambodian government dominated by Vietnam, these
disparate forces were supported and armed by China, the US, and Thailand,
among others, and recognized by the United Nations as the legitimate
government of Cambodia.

The end of the cold war, and exhaustion among Cambodians after so many years
of war, made possible an internationally brokered peace agreement in
1991—the Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodia
Conflict4—and the deployment a year later of the United Nations Transitional
Authority for Cambodia (UNTAC), the largest peacekeeping operation the UN
had ever mounted. UNTAC was charged with overseeing an end to armed
conflict, disarming the armies of the fighting factions, repatriating
refugees, and creating a neutral political environment for fair elections,
which it was to organize.

The royalist party won the May 1993 elections.5 When Hun Sen threatened
armed secession, a power-sharing arrangement was brokered to meet his
demands, resulting in an unwieldy coalition government that he came to
dominate. Cambodia became the Royal Kingdom of Cambodia under a new
constitution, and Norodom Sihanouk returned to the throne. UNTAC left in
September 1993, its departure dictated by the UN Security Council, not by
conditions in Cambodia where violence and fighting against the Khmer Rouge,
which had boycotted the elections, continued. For the outside world, the
main objective had been achieved, namely to enable the former cold war
powers to disengage from a country in which they no longer had any interest.

The stage was set for a series of deceptions and disappointments. In 1993,
the UN Commission on Human Rights asked the secretary-general to appoint an
independent expert to serve as his special representative for human rights
in Cambodia and to establish an office in the country. The UN office and the
special representative were jointly charged with assistance to the
government, monitoring the human rights situation, and reporting annually to
the commission and UN General Assembly. This mandate, one of the strongest
ever given to a UN human rights operation, deserved support, but many
governments regarded it as too intrusive. Wary of setting precedents that
might be followed elsewhere, they gave little help, making an already
difficult task almost impossible.

For a decade and a half, four successive special representatives tried to
get the Cambodian government to set up the laws, institutions, policies, and
practices necessary to uphold and protect elementary rights. From the
outset, Hun Sen, who was steadily consolidating his power over the country,
swung between reluctant cooperation with the representatives and vindictive
personal attacks on them.6 He spoke of Yash Ghai, the last representative—a
distinguished academic and constitutional lawyer from Kenya—with utter
contempt and refused to meet him. In his reports, Ghai regretted that
deliberate and systemic violations of human rights had become central to the
government’s hold on power. Hun Sen’s ruling party still dominated Cambodian
politics; the constitution and legal and judicial system were regularly
subverted; corruption was entrenched; and government impunity and threats
against those who criticized the status quo continued.

Hun Sen demanded that Ghai be dismissed and that the position of special
representative of the secretary-general be abolished. In the end he got his
way. Yash Ghai resigned in frustration in September 2008, and the UN Human
Rights Council, which had replaced the Commission on Human Rights in 2006,
eliminated the position. The council established instead its own “special
rapporteur,” thereby bringing this office under its direct control. The
human rights office has also not been exempt from criticism, and Hun Sen has
asked that it be closed down on several occasions, first in 1995 and most
recently when Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon visited Cambodia in October.

Despite the country’s poor record on human rights, Hun Sen and his party
boast that Cambodia has the most liberal and open economy in Southeast Asia.
Economic growth has indeed been rapid since the mid-1990s, averaging 7
percent a year. But the new wealth is concentrated in Phnom Penh, a city
with its back turned on rural Cambodia, where over 80 percent of Cambodia’s
14.6 million people live. One in three Cambodians lives below the poverty
line. Many more live just slightly above it. Most subsist on farming tiny
plots of land and by foraging.

About nine million hectares, half of Cambodia’s surface area, are estimated
to be reasonably productive. Under the Khmer Rouge, all land was
expropriated, entire populations uprooted, and land records destroyed.
During the Vietnamese occupation that followed, land remained largely
collectivized. The Land Law of 2001 could have helped to bring about
equitable land distribution and security of tenure; instead, under a
compliant judiciary, well-connected investors and companies have grabbed
land at an alarming rate, rapidly destroying the livelihood of the rural
poor. Those living on the land are simply told that it now belongs to
someone else and they must go. The urban poor also suffer, notably in Phnom
Penh where thousands have been evicted from their homes to desolate
settlements outside the city.7

The Land Law allows the government to lease land to national and foreign
companies for plantations and commercial agriculture for up to ninety-nine
years under terms tantamount to ownership. Basic information about these
“economic land concessions,” such as the identity of companies and
shareholders, is hard to obtain. The largest lease was awarded in 2000 to
Pheapimex Company Ltd., which is owned by close friends of Hun Sen. It spans
two provinces and is over 300,000 hectares, far exceeding the 10,000-hectare
ceiling stipulated in the Land Law.

The leaseholders of these concessions have seldom adhered to the conditions
and safeguards stipulated in the law; nor have they contributed to state
revenue, reduced poverty, or increased rural employment, which was the
government’s rationale for granting them.8 Most often the concessions have
been held for speculative purposes or have provided a cover for cutting down
forests, which are protected under other laws. Since 1994, the government
has also handed over vast tracts of land to the military as “military
development zones,” ostensibly to provide land and jobs to demobilized
soldiers. It refuses to say how much land it has allocated or where these
zones are.


Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images
Cambodian children holding portraits of Hun Sen and his wife, Bun Rany, at a
protest 
in front of the prime minister’s residence, Phnom Penh, September
2010

The World Bank has advised the government to support small farms and
smallholder agriculture, which, it argues, would be as or more economically
beneficial than Cambodia’s leasing policy.9 But the government has ignored
this advice, and still more concessions are in the offing. Concessions for
gem and mineral exploration, hydroelectricity dams, special economic zones,
and tourism development have raised similar concerns.

For over a decade, the UK-based organization Global Witness has courageously
exposed widespread illegal logging, asset stripping, and corruption
involving highly placed government and military officials. Its reports have
been confiscated, its staff threatened, its recommendations dismissed; and
it can no longer operate in Cambodia. Its report “Cambodia’s Family Trees,”
issued in June 2007, provides shocking evidence that the country is run by
an elite that generates much of its wealth from the seizure of public
assets. It shows how a relatively small group of Cambodian tycoons with
political, business, or family ties to senior government officials have
benefited from the allocation of forest concessions.10 “Country for Sale,”
issued in February 2009, finds the same patterns of corruption and patronage
in the management of Cambodia’s oil, gas, and minerals. It deplores the
rapid parceling up and selling off of the country’s land and resources, with
millions of dollars in company payments to secure contracts unaccounted
for.11 “Shifting Sand,” issued in May 2010, records the wholesale removal of
Cambodia’s sand to Singapore where it is used to extend the island’s
landmass.12

These policies have wrought havoc on Cambodia’s environment and driven vast
numbers of poor people out of the city and off the land, their meager
livelihoods destroyed. With nowhere to go, they become a source of cheap
labor for plantations and factories in special economic zones. When members
of desperate communities protest, their villages come under ever stricter
control and their leaders are arrested on charges such as incitement or
damage to property.

Roughly half of Cambodia’s national budget is provided by foreign
governments and development agencies. Known collectively as “the donors,”
they form a large and diverse presence in Phnom Penh. Yash Ghai repeatedly
underlined their moral and legal responsibility toward Cambodia, urging them
to be far more active in demanding progress on human rights and democratic
and accountable institutions. While several voice the need for “good
governance,” “participation,” “transparency,” “accountability,” and “the
rule of law,” these concepts lack the clarity of human rights standards
defined in law, and Cambodia’s leaders have become masters at interpreting
them narrowly.

Hun Sen has routinely criticized and threatened organizations advocating for
human rights, accusing them of pursuing a politically partisan agenda and
inciting the people to unrest. Donor nations ranging from Japan to France
have typically advised human rights groups to engage in a more
“constructive” dialogue with the government. Many are inclined to view
human rights as far too ambitious a concern for a country like Cambodia, and
are more at ease with the UN’s 2000 Millennium Development Goals than with
human rights treaties that are legally binding.

In any case, the donors have competing interests. China, which stands apart,
is the largest contributor and does much to keep the ruling party in
power.13 Japan is next, vying with China for influence. It is also largely
supportive of the regime, and takes a lead role in UN deliberations on the
Khmer Rouge trials and human rights. France, the former colonial power, is
pragmatic and influential in the European Commission, a significant
contributor. In 2008, the US resumed direct government aid, cut off after
the 1997 coup. It has funded civil society organizations like the Community
Legal Education Center and has sought to improve the functioning of
political parties and the electoral system, but lately has given increasing
priority to counterterrorism measures and military training and
cooperation.14

The UN Development Program and other UN agencies, which together contribute
a considerable amount, are supposed to give human rights central attention
in their programs; but they have been hesitant to take on human rights
violations. The Asian Development Bank and the World Bank have generally
steered clear of human rights altogether.15

While donor nations have called for measures to strengthen the rule of
law—primarily to improve the environment for foreign investment and private
business development—the results have been disappointing. The judiciary
remains the creature of the executive, and an anticorruption law, under
discussion since 1994 and then rushed through parliament in March 2010, is
extremely weak. Meanwhile the discovery of potentially significant deposits
of oil and natural gas has made concerns about corruption ever more
pressing.

For all but a few Cambodians, the supposed “beneficiaries” of overseas
development aid, the donor world is remote and hard to comprehend, and such
organizations as Human Rights Watch and Global Witness urge donors to be far
more exacting about the way their funds are used. Despite these concerns, in
June, donor nations including Japan, the US, and members of the EU pledged a
record $1.1 billion with few questions asked.

The Khmer Rouge trials capture what little attention the outside world has
to give Cambodia. The country’s citizens remain bewildered about the
killings, deaths, and enormity of suffering under Democratic Kampuchea, and
the forthcoming trial of the four senior Khmer Rouge leaders may provide
some of the answers and understanding they are looking for. But it is far
from clear that the proceedings will have a useful effect on Cambodia’s
current predicament.

The prosecution, with the title Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia (ECCC), was formally set up by the UN and the Hun Sen government in
2006 to prosecute

senior leaders of Democratic Kampuchea and those who were most responsible
for the crimes and serious violations of Cambodian penal law, international
humanitarian law and custom, and international conventions recognized by
Cambodia, that were committed during the period from 17 April 1975 to 6
January 1979.
The ECCC is a hybrid court, with Cambodian judges and staff in the majority,
assisted by international judges and staff recruited through the UN. Its
complex structure was initially established in a 2003 agreement, the result
of years of wearisome negotiation between the representative of then UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Hun Sen’s government.

Many more hurdles had to be overcome, including the court’s location. The
government persuaded the UN to agree to a location not in central Phnom Penh
but instead at the site of the new Military High Command Headquarters, some
ten miles from the city center, arguing that it would have advantages for
security and would reduce costs. Meanwhile, Kofi Annan’s recommendation that
the trials be funded through the UN’s regular budget and not exposed to the
vagaries of voluntary contributions was disregarded, leaving the court in
continuing financial difficulties, dogged by corruption, and open to
meddling from donors and the government alike. The court’s budget was
increased in 2008 from the original $56.3 million to $135.4 million to allow
the trials to continue until the end of 2010. Many more millions will be
needed to keep them going after that date.

The court continues to be mired in political interference and delay, and Hun
Sen has made clear his opposition to extending prosecutions beyond the
present five defendants.16 The judges and staff assigned by the UN to assist
the court face familiar dilemmas, among them how to avoid lending legitimacy
to a process in which Cambodia’s judiciary is not independent and the
country’s leaders have set out to limit and control the trials.

The ECCC agreement allows the UN to withdraw should the government cause the
court to function in a manner that does not conform to UN standards. But
most certainly the UN, not the government, would be blamed. One of Hun Sen’s
main claims is that the UN has a history of betraying Cambodia. Why, he
asks, did it do nothing during Pol Pot’s regime? Why did it give the Khmer
Rouge a seat in the General Assembly in the 1980s, when his own government
in Cambodia went unrecognized? If the UN withdraws from the trials, or
additional funds are not forthcoming, he will ask why the international
community is abandoning Cambodia and failing to confront one of the most
horrendous atrocities of the twentieth century, when a quarter of the
country’s population died, even though the ECCC is set to accomplish little
that the ordinary Cambodian courts could not accomplish themselves.

If the trials are to serve justice, one outcome must be the transformation
of the “ordinary” system of justice in Cambodia today and an end to impunity
for government and military officials and their friends once and for all.
The trials must also establish as complete a record as possible of the
crimes committed under the Khmer Rouge, and open the way to dispassionate
examination of what happened before and after. Cambodia’s recent history
continues to be intensely contested, and the questions it raises cannot
continue to be buried if Cambodians are to build a decent future for their
nation.

For most foreigners, Cambodia seems to be a relatively stable country,
hospitable to outside investment and welcoming for expatriates and visitors
touring Angkor’s temples and the killing fields. Hun Sen, now one of the
world’s longest-serving prime ministers, maintains good relations with
China, Japan, the US, Australia, and France. Unlike the Burmese generals, he
has managed to manufacture an outwardly acceptable face, and has used
international assistance to gain legitimacy at home and abroad.

Taking credit for ridding Cambodia of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, Hun Sen
cooperates with the trials as long as they don’t diminish his power. He
talks of sustainable development and reducing poverty while he and his party
have exploited the country’s resources and pocketed the payoffs. He
tolerates the UN human rights presence, provided it limits itself to
overcoming the legacy of Cambodia’s tragic Khmer Rouge past. He uses Pol Pot’s
record as the yardstick to measure progress, thereby making failure
impossible. The trials reinforce this message. No outside governments care
to ask too many questions. Their economic and security interests are more
important, as Hun Sen knows, and human rights are treated as dispensable.

Some believe that sooner or later Cambodians will rebel, but it seems more
likely that their discontent will instead be channeled into extreme forms of
nationalism, as under the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia has been divided and preyed
upon for much of its modern history. Many Cambodians fear Vietnam and
Thailand as predatory neighbors, and passions against both countries can
become quickly inflamed.17

In the 1991 peace agreements, the “international community” assumed special
responsibilities to the people of Cambodia that have yet to be properly
honored. Cambodia today is a corrupt and cruel semidictatorship that should
be getting much more scrutiny from the rest of the world. The Cambodian
people deserve better. Thirty years after the appalling transgressions of
the Khmer Rouge, much of the country still lives in fear.

—December 15, 2010

Duch will serve nineteen years of this sentence. He benefits from deduction
of the eleven years he has served since his arrest in May 1999, and a
five-year reduction to compensate for the time he spent in military
detention without trial before his transfer to the court in July 2007. His
trial divulged little information that was not already known about his
responsibility for the systematic torture and killing of thousands. Now
being held in the special prison complex built for the trial, he has
appealed his sentence and is seeking acquittal, while the prosecution is
asking for life imprisonment. A detailed account of Duch can be found in
Richard Bernstein's " At Last, Justice for Monsters ," The New York Review ,
April 9, 2009, and in Stéphanie Giry's " Cambodia's Perfect War Criminal ,"
NYR Blog, October 25, 2010. ↩

In January 2010, Sam Rainsy was sentenced quite unjustly to two years'
imprisonment in absentia, which Cambodia's Appeal Court upheld in
October—for damage to property and incitement to racial discrimination in
connection with the demarcation of Cambodia's border with Vietnam, a highly
volatile issue. In September he was sentenced, again in absentia, to ten
years' imprisonment on related charges of disinformation and falsifying
public documents. ↩

The first rendition into English from the original Chinese of Zhou Daguan's
A Record of Cambodia: The Land and its People was published in 2007 by
Silkworm Books. Peter Harris, the translator, provides a fascinating
introduction setting Zhou in his time and place, along with meticulous
notes, maps, and photographs to explain the text. ↩

The peace agreements were signed in Paris on October 23, 1991, following the
withdrawal of Vietnamese troops in 1989. They laid down a blueprint for a
liberal democratic political regime. They were signed by Cambodia and
eighteen other nations, including Australia, Canada, China, France, India,
Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the USSR, the UK, the US,
and Vietnam. Cambodia was represented by a twelve-person Supreme National
Council, chaired by Sihanouk, with members from the State of Cambodia (the
renamed People's Republic of Kampuchea); the Party of Democratic Kampuchea
(the Khmer Rouge); the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, which
became the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party; and the royalist party,
Funcinpec, established by Sihanouk in 1981. Funcinpec is the French acronym
for Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique, et
Coopératif, or the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral,
Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia. ↩

Four and a quarter million Cambodians voted in the election, representing 90
percent of the registered electorate. Funcinpec received 45 percent of the
vote, the Cambodian People's Party 38 percent, and the Buddhist Liberal
Democratic Party 4 percent, with the rest shared between seventeen other
political parties. William Shawcross's " A New Cambodia " provides a
firsthand account of the election and its immediate aftermath: see The New
York Review , August 12, 1993. ↩

The special representatives were Michael Kirby, Thomas Hammarberg, Peter
Leuprecht, and Yash Ghai. They served without remuneration, discharging
their mandate through regular missions to Cambodia. Their reports can be
found on the website of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights in Cambodia: cambodia.ohchr.org. ↩

Reports recording the impact of these policies on Cambodia's poorest people
include "Rights Razed: Forced Evictions in Cambodia," Amnesty International,
February 2008; "Untitled: Tenure Insecurity and Inequality in the Cambodian
Land Sector," issued in October 2009 by Bridges Across Borders Southeast
Asia, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, and the Jesuit Refugee
Services; and "Losing Ground: Forced Evictions and Intimidation in
Cambodia," September 2009, the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, a
coalition of national nongovernmental organizations. ↩

Reports with these findings include "Land Concessions for Economic Purposes
in Cambodia: A Human Rights Perspective," Special Representative of the
Secretary-General for human rights in Cambodia, November 2004. This report
was updated in June 2007 with much the same overall findings. ↩

Cambodia: Halving Poverty by 2015? Poverty Assessment 2006," report of the
World Bank, February 2006. ↩

"Cambodia's Family Trees: Illegal Logging and the Stripping of Public Assets
by Cambodia's Elite," Global Witness, June 2007. The report includes a
detailed case study of illegal logging in Prey Long Forest, the largest
lowland evergreen forest in mainland Southeast Asia, which has allegedly
involved Hun Sen, his minister of agriculture, the director of forest
administration and families and friends. ↩

"Country for Sale: How Cambodia's Elite Has Captured the Country's
Extractive Industries," Global Witness, February 2009. In a statement of
March 5, 2010, Global Witness urged donors to condemn a new policy announced
by Hun Sen in late February whereby private businesses will support
particular military units through voluntary donations. Its concern was that
this policy officially sanctions and legitimizes a practice of companies
hiring soldiers to protect their business interests. Cambodian businessmen
Ly Yong Phat and Mong Reththy, who figure prominently in "Country for Sale,"
were among those named as sponsors. ↩

"Shifting Sand: How Singapore's Demand for Cambodian Sand Threatens
Ecosystems and Undermines Good Governance," Global Witness, May 2010. ↩

China has only recently begun to put figures to the development assistance
it provides. Its pervasive economic presence in Cambodia is described in
François Hauter's " Chinese Shadows ," The New York Review , October 11,
2007. ↩

According to Human Rights Watch, the US has provided more than $4.5 million
worth of military equipment and training to Cambodia since 2006, some of
which has gone to military units and officials with records of serious human
rights violations. In a statement of July 8, 2010, the organization called
for a halt to US military aid pending thorough vetting of Cambodia's armed
forces to screen out individuals and units with records of human rights
violations. Its call was prompted by Angkor Sentinel, a regional military
exercise held in Cambodia in July as part of the US Defense and State
Departments' 2010 Global Peace Operations Initiative to train peacekeepers,
and the selection of the ACO Tank Unit, which has been involved in illegal
land seizures, to host part of the exercise. ↩

Other donor nations include Australia, Canada, Sweden, Germany, the UK, and
Denmark, and aid agencies such as AUSAID, USAID, JICA, and Sida. ↩

Hun Sen reiterated this position during his meeting with Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon on October 27, 2010. See also "Political Interference at the
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia," Open Society Justice
Initiative, July 2010, and "Salvaging Judicial Independence: The Need for a
Principled Completion Plan for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia," Open Society Justice Initiative, November 2010. ↩

Anti-Thai riots were set off in the lead up to the July 2003 elections by
ill-founded rumors that a Thai actress popular in Cambodia had said that
Angkor Wat belonged to Thailand and that Cambodians were dogs. Anger against
Thailand erupted again just before the July 2008 elections over Preah
Vihear, a disputed eleventh-century Angkor temple on the Thai-Cambodian
border, a source of continuing tension. ↩

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Independently Searching for the Truth since 1997.
MEMORY & JUSTICE

“...a society cannot know itself if it does not have an accurate memory of its own history.”

Youk Chhang, Director
Documentation Center of Cambodia
66 Sihanouk Blvd.,
Phnom Penh, Cambodia