By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 12/8/2002
BANGPAKONG, Thailand - Like many Thais with AIDS, Thares Sangsakul could not afford the antiretroviral drugs that might keep the disease in check. So after suffering from severe wasting and skin lesions, among other symptoms, he put his faith in a pill touted by its inventor as a possible cure.
Since he started taking the V-1 Immunitor three years ago, Sangsakul said, his life has turned around: He has regained 45 pounds, his lesions are mostly gone, and he has returned to work full time.
''I could not really explain about V-1,'' said Sangsakul, 33. ''But I know people should try it because it helps.''
While Sangsakul and thousands of others believe the pill is a lifesaver, health officials insist that there is no scientific evidence to prove it. They say inventors and distributors of the pill, which is officially registered as a food supplement, are taking advantage of the most hopeless of people in a quest for fame and wealth.
Despite the warnings, word of the pill's reported benefits is spreading, including to other countries. Perhaps most perplexing to skeptics of claims made for the substance is the new type of patient taking it: those who can afford antiretroviral treatment.
''It's all a charlatan exercise,'' said Dr. Chris Duncombe, the senior physician for a program headed by the Thai Red Cross that cares for 1,300 AIDS patients. ''The scientific evidence presented by the investigators is not at all sound. It's just anecdotal, single-case examples of many possible things - placebo, emotional, anything.''
A pharmacist named Vichai Jirathitikal invented V-1 and began distributing it to a few dozen AIDS patients three years ago. Users now number more than 60,000 in Thailand and more than 4,000 in 50 other countries, according to Dr. Aldar Bourinbaiar, a Mongolian-born former California resident who has worked closely with Jirathitikal for the past two years.
Every day, Jirathitikal says, 10 to 20 people find their way to his clinic, tucked away in an inconspicuous industrial park an hour east of Bangkok.
''They don't have a choice because they are going to die,'' he said in a recent interview. The standard drug cocktail used throughout the world is too expensive for them, he said.
He insists that toxicology tests on animals prove V-1 is safe, and asserted that 95 percent of those who take V-1 show some improvement.
''The problem is the big [pharmaceutical] companies and health institutes don't understand the HIV virus so well, and they refuse to look at our documented studies, which show our patients, including children, getting much better.''
Jirathitikal frames his program as a people-against-the-establishment drama, but the reality is that many AIDS patients in Thailand do have a choice now that the price of antiretroviral therapy in the country has fallen dramatically in the last year - to around $28 per month. The Bangkapong clinic charges $21 a month for V-1.
The scrutiny of the drug comes at a pivotal time in Thailand's battle against AIDS. Condom-distribution programs have slowed the of HIV growth, but the virus is still proliferating because of casual attitudes about prostitution and increasing intravenous drug use, health officials say.
According to a Nov. 26 United Nations report, an estimated 675,000 Thais have HIV or AIDS - significantly fewer than the estimated peak of 800,000 in 1997. A disproportionate number of Thailand's AIDS patients are poor, even when compared with the annual per capita income of $2,000.
It is with the poor that V-1 has its roots. The pill gained popularity last year, with five high-profile giveaways to anyone with an HIV-positive blood test. The largest of the giveaways, at a stadium in Bangkok, drew upwards of 20,000 people and helped fuel the near-hysteria about the supposed merits of the pill.
As a result, the government stepped in and halted the giveaways and has tried to discredit V-1, saying tests by Thailand's Food and Drug Administration show no conclusive evidence it helps those with HIV and AIDS.
V-1 has become a political hot potato, so much so that the head of Thailand's FDA recently ordered government employees not to speak about the pill to the news media. Officials from the FDA, Ministry of Health, and Medical Sciences Department all refused to comment for this story.
Further alarming health officials, V-1 has shown up in China, parts of Africa, and even in small numbers in Europe and the United States. How is not clear, although Bourinbaiar said HIV-positive tourists buy it in Thailand and take it home.
The secrecy in which the ingredients of V-1 are cloaked also breeds skepticism, since secrecy is a characteristic of quack remedies, exempting them from scientific study. Jirathitikal said it contains ''inactivated HIV antigens,'' but will give no further description.
He said that unlike the majority of experimental AIDS medicines, which seek to boost antibodies, V-1 attempts to reverse the decline in CD4 blood cells, which protect the body against infection.
A recent AIDS Day celebration at his clinic in Bangpakong showed what the government is up against: Three dozen people turned out to sing the praises of V-1, including the Thai television actress Yoko Takano, whose brother developed AIDS three years ago.
After going on antiretroviral medication, he became very ill and ''was close to death,'' Takano said.
''He switched to V-1, and now he is healthy. Why should he go back'' to antiretrovirals, she asked.
© 2002 Globe Newspaper Company
Sunday, December 08, 2002
Sunday, November 10, 2002
Bali plot linked to Thailand
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 11/10/2002
BANGKOK - Thai authorities have stepped up security measures across the country amid reports that the perpetrators of the Bali bombings might have plotted the attacks from inside Thailand and worries that terrorism that has plagued other Southeast Asian nations could migrate here.
Law enforcement officials are paying particular attention to popular coastal tourist spots, whose white sandy beaches and turquoise seas draw millions of visitors each year.
Media reports, citing Asian and Western diplomatic and intelligence officials, said last week that members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a group linked to Al Qaeda, met in January in Thailand's far southern provinces, near the Malaysian border. While there, they planned attacks against Westerners in the region - including the Oct. 12 attack in Bali that killed 190 people, according to descriptions of the gathering, which first appeared in the Asian Wall Street Journal.
Among those attending the meeting was Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, who security specialist believe is the region's operations chief of Al Qaeda.
The Thai government vehemently denied that such a meeting took place. ''We have no information about Al Qaeda or JI in Thailand,'' said Lieutenant General Chumporn Manmai, the commissioner of the Royal Thai Police intelligence unit. ''Every special branch policeman is looking for their members, but we have only suspicions.''
The commissioner said, however, that ''one or two suspects'' of Al Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah could have passed through Thailand in the past year.
Although 95 percent of Thailand's 66 million people are Buddhists, the far southern provinces are predominantly Muslim. Separatist groups operating in the south have engaged in sporadic terrorist attacks on government and civilian targets in Thailand for nearly three decades.
On Oct. 29, in the south, five schools were burned, two bombs exploded, and one bomb was defused. No one was killed. Two suspects were arrested last week in connection with those attacks. Previously, intelligence agencies had not linked those groups to Al Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah.
However, Panitan Wittayakorn, a security analyst from Thailand's prominent Chulalongkorn University, said Thai authorities believe members of those groups may have attempted to contact members of Al Qaeda via telephone and e-mail over the last year. ''But to what extent [the contact is], is not officially known,'' Wittayakorn said.
With rising terrorism in the region, cooperation with US intelligence agencies has increased, Thai and US officials confirmed. And earlier this month, at a summit of Southeast Asian countries, Thailand acceded to an accord to share security information with Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines - the latter two being the hardest hit by terrorism in the region.
Whatever effort Thai authorities are making, they had better try harder, said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism and security analyst and author of ''Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror.'' Jemaah Islamiyah is operating in Thailand, both in the south and in Bangkok, he said, citing debriefings of detainees who have admitted involvement with Al Qaeda.
''What we know is that in January, the key leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah had a meeting in southern Thailand, which included Hambali, the JI operational leader of Southeast Asia,'' Gunaratna said. The Thai government ''has not taken this business seriously, and for many years, foreign terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah and the Tamil Tigers, have used Thailand as a base.''
''It is time now for Thailand to take action against these groups. Bali could have very well happened in Phuket,'' the popular Andaman Sea resort town.
With the importance of tourism (it accounts for 6 percent of Thailand's economy) the government says it is scrambling many of its resources to ensure a repeat of Bali does not occur here.
Publicly, the US Embassy has expressed satisfaction that the Thai government takes terrorism seriously. But last Saturday, the State Department warned American citizens living and traveling in Southeast Asia that Thailand could be a possible terrorist target. It said terrorist organizations in the region have ''transnational capabilities to carry out attacks against locations where Westerners congregate.''
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra insists that Thailand is not a target for international terrorism because of its nonconfrontational stance in global politics. However, the recent allegations have raised the stakes for the country and may thrust it into a role in the US-led war on terrorism, observers say.
''If it is true, if these people were and are in Thailand, then we are involved much more than the government led us to believe,'' Wittayakorn said. ''It will create a whole new situation for Thailand.''
©2002 Globe Newspaper Company
BANGKOK - Thai authorities have stepped up security measures across the country amid reports that the perpetrators of the Bali bombings might have plotted the attacks from inside Thailand and worries that terrorism that has plagued other Southeast Asian nations could migrate here.
Law enforcement officials are paying particular attention to popular coastal tourist spots, whose white sandy beaches and turquoise seas draw millions of visitors each year.
Media reports, citing Asian and Western diplomatic and intelligence officials, said last week that members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a group linked to Al Qaeda, met in January in Thailand's far southern provinces, near the Malaysian border. While there, they planned attacks against Westerners in the region - including the Oct. 12 attack in Bali that killed 190 people, according to descriptions of the gathering, which first appeared in the Asian Wall Street Journal.
Among those attending the meeting was Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, who security specialist believe is the region's operations chief of Al Qaeda.
The Thai government vehemently denied that such a meeting took place. ''We have no information about Al Qaeda or JI in Thailand,'' said Lieutenant General Chumporn Manmai, the commissioner of the Royal Thai Police intelligence unit. ''Every special branch policeman is looking for their members, but we have only suspicions.''
The commissioner said, however, that ''one or two suspects'' of Al Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah could have passed through Thailand in the past year.
Although 95 percent of Thailand's 66 million people are Buddhists, the far southern provinces are predominantly Muslim. Separatist groups operating in the south have engaged in sporadic terrorist attacks on government and civilian targets in Thailand for nearly three decades.
On Oct. 29, in the south, five schools were burned, two bombs exploded, and one bomb was defused. No one was killed. Two suspects were arrested last week in connection with those attacks. Previously, intelligence agencies had not linked those groups to Al Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah.
However, Panitan Wittayakorn, a security analyst from Thailand's prominent Chulalongkorn University, said Thai authorities believe members of those groups may have attempted to contact members of Al Qaeda via telephone and e-mail over the last year. ''But to what extent [the contact is], is not officially known,'' Wittayakorn said.
With rising terrorism in the region, cooperation with US intelligence agencies has increased, Thai and US officials confirmed. And earlier this month, at a summit of Southeast Asian countries, Thailand acceded to an accord to share security information with Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines - the latter two being the hardest hit by terrorism in the region.
Whatever effort Thai authorities are making, they had better try harder, said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism and security analyst and author of ''Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror.'' Jemaah Islamiyah is operating in Thailand, both in the south and in Bangkok, he said, citing debriefings of detainees who have admitted involvement with Al Qaeda.
''What we know is that in January, the key leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah had a meeting in southern Thailand, which included Hambali, the JI operational leader of Southeast Asia,'' Gunaratna said. The Thai government ''has not taken this business seriously, and for many years, foreign terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah and the Tamil Tigers, have used Thailand as a base.''
''It is time now for Thailand to take action against these groups. Bali could have very well happened in Phuket,'' the popular Andaman Sea resort town.
With the importance of tourism (it accounts for 6 percent of Thailand's economy) the government says it is scrambling many of its resources to ensure a repeat of Bali does not occur here.
Publicly, the US Embassy has expressed satisfaction that the Thai government takes terrorism seriously. But last Saturday, the State Department warned American citizens living and traveling in Southeast Asia that Thailand could be a possible terrorist target. It said terrorist organizations in the region have ''transnational capabilities to carry out attacks against locations where Westerners congregate.''
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra insists that Thailand is not a target for international terrorism because of its nonconfrontational stance in global politics. However, the recent allegations have raised the stakes for the country and may thrust it into a role in the US-led war on terrorism, observers say.
''If it is true, if these people were and are in Thailand, then we are involved much more than the government led us to believe,'' Wittayakorn said. ''It will create a whole new situation for Thailand.''
©2002 Globe Newspaper Company
Saturday, November 09, 2002
Region forced to face terror
Southeast Asian nations coordinate databases, patrols
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published November 9, 2002
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Following bombings in the Philippines, the breakup of Al Qaeda cells in Singapore and Malaysia, and the Bali nightclub explosions, Southeast Asia is coming to grips with the fact that it may be the epicenter of post-Sept. 11 international terrorism.
At this week's summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Phnom Penh, representatives from 10 countries agreed to set up a regional counterterrorism center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to focus on training, assembling databases of suspected terrorists, exchanging intelligence and establishing a cooperative border patrol.
"For the progress of all nations, we reiterate the barbarity of the attacks in Bali and strongly express our solidarity in combating terrorism in all forms," Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said at the three-day session.
While the talk was tough on terror, security experts said the ASEAN countries had better back it up or face more attacks just as costly in human and economic terms as the Bali explosions last month, which killed at least 190 people. The Muslim militant group Jemaah Islamiyah is suspected of being involved in the Bali attack.
"It better be an effective measure. As long as the Jemaah Islamiyah infrastructure remains intact--and we know it is intact, at least in Indonesia and in Thailand--it will pose a threat to them and to their neighbors," said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al Qaeda--Global Network of Terror."
Gunaratna says that since the mid-1990s, Jemaah Islamiyah has been the Southeast Asian arm of Al Qaeda.
"It is very appropriate that [the regional center] will be located in Malaysia, because most of the [Jemaah Islamiyah] leaders in the region have lived for a long period in Malaysia," a country that does not hesitate to crack down on terrorists, he said.
"Terrorists are like foxes: They will always go in search of opportunities where there are weak leaders and weak security," Gunaratna added.
But skepticism about the new accord came from many corners. Even outgoing ASEAN Secretary General Rodolfo Severino expressed doubt as to what could be accomplished.
ASEAN "was interested in getting something out [on terrorism] in a hurry, which they did," Severino said. "Does it have any teeth? Well, there's a certain limit to what can be done through cooperation. First, there is a lot of work that needs to be done on the national level in the separate countries."
What had greater potential, Severino said, were narrower, regional agreements to cooperate on intelligence matters. One such agreement was recently reached by Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Before the Bali bombings, support and cooperation in fighting terrorism in Southeast Asia differed greatly from country to country. Malaysia and Singapore took tough lines on terrorism, and broke up what officials said was a plot by Islamic fundamentalists, believed to be tied to Al Qaeda, to attack American, British and Australian targets in the two countries.
The Philippines accepted counterterrorism training from the U.S. military as it fought the Muslim separatist group Abu Sayyaf in its southern islands.
But it took the Bali bombings to galvanize a regional effort to combat terror.
Perhaps the biggest change came from Indonesia. Before Bali, Jakarta had scorned requests from the United States, Malaysia and Singapore to get serious in fighting terrorism. Now, according to ASEAN summit delegates, Indonesia is willing to go along with nearly any suggestion rather than incur the anger of neighbors still upset about Jakarta's previous lack of action.
©2002, The Chicago Tribune
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published November 9, 2002
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Following bombings in the Philippines, the breakup of Al Qaeda cells in Singapore and Malaysia, and the Bali nightclub explosions, Southeast Asia is coming to grips with the fact that it may be the epicenter of post-Sept. 11 international terrorism.
At this week's summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Phnom Penh, representatives from 10 countries agreed to set up a regional counterterrorism center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to focus on training, assembling databases of suspected terrorists, exchanging intelligence and establishing a cooperative border patrol.
"For the progress of all nations, we reiterate the barbarity of the attacks in Bali and strongly express our solidarity in combating terrorism in all forms," Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said at the three-day session.
While the talk was tough on terror, security experts said the ASEAN countries had better back it up or face more attacks just as costly in human and economic terms as the Bali explosions last month, which killed at least 190 people. The Muslim militant group Jemaah Islamiyah is suspected of being involved in the Bali attack.
"It better be an effective measure. As long as the Jemaah Islamiyah infrastructure remains intact--and we know it is intact, at least in Indonesia and in Thailand--it will pose a threat to them and to their neighbors," said Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside Al Qaeda--Global Network of Terror."
Gunaratna says that since the mid-1990s, Jemaah Islamiyah has been the Southeast Asian arm of Al Qaeda.
"It is very appropriate that [the regional center] will be located in Malaysia, because most of the [Jemaah Islamiyah] leaders in the region have lived for a long period in Malaysia," a country that does not hesitate to crack down on terrorists, he said.
"Terrorists are like foxes: They will always go in search of opportunities where there are weak leaders and weak security," Gunaratna added.
But skepticism about the new accord came from many corners. Even outgoing ASEAN Secretary General Rodolfo Severino expressed doubt as to what could be accomplished.
ASEAN "was interested in getting something out [on terrorism] in a hurry, which they did," Severino said. "Does it have any teeth? Well, there's a certain limit to what can be done through cooperation. First, there is a lot of work that needs to be done on the national level in the separate countries."
What had greater potential, Severino said, were narrower, regional agreements to cooperate on intelligence matters. One such agreement was recently reached by Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Before the Bali bombings, support and cooperation in fighting terrorism in Southeast Asia differed greatly from country to country. Malaysia and Singapore took tough lines on terrorism, and broke up what officials said was a plot by Islamic fundamentalists, believed to be tied to Al Qaeda, to attack American, British and Australian targets in the two countries.
The Philippines accepted counterterrorism training from the U.S. military as it fought the Muslim separatist group Abu Sayyaf in its southern islands.
But it took the Bali bombings to galvanize a regional effort to combat terror.
Perhaps the biggest change came from Indonesia. Before Bali, Jakarta had scorned requests from the United States, Malaysia and Singapore to get serious in fighting terrorism. Now, according to ASEAN summit delegates, Indonesia is willing to go along with nearly any suggestion rather than incur the anger of neighbors still upset about Jakarta's previous lack of action.
©2002, The Chicago Tribune
Thursday, November 07, 2002
Bounce back in Cambodia's step
Letter From Phnom Penh
BY RAFAEL D. FRANKEL, UPI Correspondent
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—The Asean summit here was supposed to be Cambodia’s, and Phnom Penh’s, coming out party. After years of rebuilding following the devastation, and complete emptying of the city by the Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh would finally be in the spotlight for a good reason.
And indeed, Phnom Penh has come out. But not because of the newly paved roads, the Christmas lights which adorned the trees lining the wide boulevards; not because of the new stop lights (a gift from the Chinese), which traffic actually obeys unlike more developed cities in Southeast Asia such as Bangkok; and not because of the beautiful riverfront, complete with a few swanky cafes and a stunning Foreign Correspondents Club.
The reason Phnom Penh is back as a city is because, as one of my motorcycle taxi drivers told me in broken, but effective English, “It’s annoying having Asean here. The roads are blocked, and many people can’t get to work.” As was so aptly put by him, though he probably didn’t realize it, people here have things to do, places to go, people to see. And that includes him, a 23-year-old university student who supports himself and his studies by driving his bike taxi on his down time.
To put it simply, Phnom Penh is bustling again. The central market—a kind of pentagonal-hexagonal (it was hard to discern exactly how many sides it had) building in the middle of the main traffic circle in town—is selling everything from soap, to delectable tropical fruits, to chickens.
Incidentally, those chickens arrived most unorthodoxly. Just as I pulled up to the market, so did the motorbike driver who had strapped two dozen live chickens by their feet on all sides of the back of his bike employing an elaborate tying technique which used twine and chicken wire.
In one part of town, a whole block of money changers does a brisk business exchanging whatever you have in your pockets to whatever currency they have in their glass boxes they rest their elbows on at all times. By my count, at least twenty-two different currencies were in stock at the place I changed my money. And they are the people to see, with better rates, shorter lines, and no passport presentation required.
There are a few reasons the city is moving again, but they all stem from one very simple fact: the violence, for the most part, is gone. Is it completely safe to walk the streets alone at night? No. The unconfirmed word on the street is that the first night the current U.S. ambassador was in town, he took his wife on a walk just outside the embassy compound. They were robbed. But is there a city in the Western world where that cannot happen?
In reality, most of the crime here these days amounts to daring purse snatches at high speeds. “What you get are these bandits who drive their motorcycles up to you while you’re riding, they match your speed, and if your purse or briefcase is exposed, they’ll yank it from you,” said David Kihara, an American who has lived in Phnom Penh for nearly two years working at the Cambodia Daily newspaper. “What that does is give you a choice. If you choose to hold on to your bag, you’re going down, and you’re in a lot of pain. Otherwise you let go, and they get your bag.”
Let’s get it straight though. The lesson isn’t to avoid Phnom Penh, but rather to keep your bag between you and the driver sitting in front you. That way, there’s nothing for the intrepid thieves to grab a hold of.
The most amazing thing about the sharp decline in violence is how it came about. Starting around four years ago, the government asked the people of Cambodia to turn in their guns. Lo and behold, most of them did! So in four years, the streets of Phnom Penh, along with Cambodia’s other main cities like Battambang, Siem Reap (home of the 10th to 12th century ruins of Angkor Wat), and Kampot, went from running gun battles at night to a few mugging incidents.
“The change really is dramatic,” one NGO worker told me last year when I visited Battambang, Cambodia’s third largest city and the capital of a northwestern province. “When I first got here ten years ago, as soon as the sun went down, you could hear the gun fire start. Now, we go out at night and enjoy a beer by the river,” he said, puffing peacefully on a cigarette at a riverside café (“Café” meaning a woman with a portable beer cart who sets up 20 metal chairs around five collapsible tables every late afternoon).
To be sure, not all of Cambodia’s dark side has disappeared. The illicit sex trade is still a booming business. At some markets in town—yes, though I cringe to use it, “markets” really is the best word to describe them—virgins of varying ages can be purchased for about $500, then sold back once used for $250. After that, one English teacher in Phnom Penh told me, they are “stitched up, and sold again.”
I didn’t see this market, though. And it must be said that sexual exploitation of this magnitude—especially in this part of the world—is not a uniquely Cambodian trait.
©2002 United Press International
BY RAFAEL D. FRANKEL, UPI Correspondent
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—The Asean summit here was supposed to be Cambodia’s, and Phnom Penh’s, coming out party. After years of rebuilding following the devastation, and complete emptying of the city by the Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh would finally be in the spotlight for a good reason.
And indeed, Phnom Penh has come out. But not because of the newly paved roads, the Christmas lights which adorned the trees lining the wide boulevards; not because of the new stop lights (a gift from the Chinese), which traffic actually obeys unlike more developed cities in Southeast Asia such as Bangkok; and not because of the beautiful riverfront, complete with a few swanky cafes and a stunning Foreign Correspondents Club.
The reason Phnom Penh is back as a city is because, as one of my motorcycle taxi drivers told me in broken, but effective English, “It’s annoying having Asean here. The roads are blocked, and many people can’t get to work.” As was so aptly put by him, though he probably didn’t realize it, people here have things to do, places to go, people to see. And that includes him, a 23-year-old university student who supports himself and his studies by driving his bike taxi on his down time.
To put it simply, Phnom Penh is bustling again. The central market—a kind of pentagonal-hexagonal (it was hard to discern exactly how many sides it had) building in the middle of the main traffic circle in town—is selling everything from soap, to delectable tropical fruits, to chickens.
Incidentally, those chickens arrived most unorthodoxly. Just as I pulled up to the market, so did the motorbike driver who had strapped two dozen live chickens by their feet on all sides of the back of his bike employing an elaborate tying technique which used twine and chicken wire.
In one part of town, a whole block of money changers does a brisk business exchanging whatever you have in your pockets to whatever currency they have in their glass boxes they rest their elbows on at all times. By my count, at least twenty-two different currencies were in stock at the place I changed my money. And they are the people to see, with better rates, shorter lines, and no passport presentation required.
There are a few reasons the city is moving again, but they all stem from one very simple fact: the violence, for the most part, is gone. Is it completely safe to walk the streets alone at night? No. The unconfirmed word on the street is that the first night the current U.S. ambassador was in town, he took his wife on a walk just outside the embassy compound. They were robbed. But is there a city in the Western world where that cannot happen?
In reality, most of the crime here these days amounts to daring purse snatches at high speeds. “What you get are these bandits who drive their motorcycles up to you while you’re riding, they match your speed, and if your purse or briefcase is exposed, they’ll yank it from you,” said David Kihara, an American who has lived in Phnom Penh for nearly two years working at the Cambodia Daily newspaper. “What that does is give you a choice. If you choose to hold on to your bag, you’re going down, and you’re in a lot of pain. Otherwise you let go, and they get your bag.”
Let’s get it straight though. The lesson isn’t to avoid Phnom Penh, but rather to keep your bag between you and the driver sitting in front you. That way, there’s nothing for the intrepid thieves to grab a hold of.
The most amazing thing about the sharp decline in violence is how it came about. Starting around four years ago, the government asked the people of Cambodia to turn in their guns. Lo and behold, most of them did! So in four years, the streets of Phnom Penh, along with Cambodia’s other main cities like Battambang, Siem Reap (home of the 10th to 12th century ruins of Angkor Wat), and Kampot, went from running gun battles at night to a few mugging incidents.
“The change really is dramatic,” one NGO worker told me last year when I visited Battambang, Cambodia’s third largest city and the capital of a northwestern province. “When I first got here ten years ago, as soon as the sun went down, you could hear the gun fire start. Now, we go out at night and enjoy a beer by the river,” he said, puffing peacefully on a cigarette at a riverside café (“Café” meaning a woman with a portable beer cart who sets up 20 metal chairs around five collapsible tables every late afternoon).
To be sure, not all of Cambodia’s dark side has disappeared. The illicit sex trade is still a booming business. At some markets in town—yes, though I cringe to use it, “markets” really is the best word to describe them—virgins of varying ages can be purchased for about $500, then sold back once used for $250. After that, one English teacher in Phnom Penh told me, they are “stitched up, and sold again.”
I didn’t see this market, though. And it must be said that sexual exploitation of this magnitude—especially in this part of the world—is not a uniquely Cambodian trait.
©2002 United Press International
Sunday, October 27, 2002
Partying with fate in Southeast Asia
After Bali, the backpacking crowd cautiously carries on
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
October 27, 2002
KOH PHANGANG, Thailand -- The first time I came to this delectably tropical island in the Gulf of Thailand, I stayed on a secluded beach where, at 6 p.m. every day, the generator would make a sound somewhere between the rat-tat-tat of an M-16 and a dozen of those fireworks that are only a big flash of light accompanied by a thundering boom. While most of the young backpackers and travelers picked their heads up slowly from their tropical fruit shakes to offer a somewhat quizzical look, the Israelis all jumped--that sound was all too familiar.
In nearly every country in the region, there is one place where the backpackers take a break and party through the night to unwind from the often difficult and patience-testing trails of which Southeast Asia is replete. Bali was one of those places. Koh Pangang still is. No matter where they were, or where they are going, thousands of those traveling Southeast Asia gather here for the once-a-lunar-month full-moon party, which rages from nightfall of every full moon until noon the next day on Hadarin, one of the island's white-sand, bar-strewn beaches.
But this full-moon party that came off without incident last weekened was like none before, as the backpacking community of Southeast Asia struggled to come to grips with attacks on their own while also trying to decipher the ramifications for traveling in the region.
Nevertheless, while many of the estimated 200 dead from the Oct. 13 terrorist attack in Bali were just such backpackers, going to just such a place, another raging party went on this time around.
My trip back began on Koh San Road, in Bangkok, the backpacking crossroads of Southeast Asia. On its 300-yard-long, neon-light infested street, young people converge to start, end, or take a short break from their sojourns around the region. Like the hundreds of other travel agents on Koh San Road, Suriyon "Tommy" Saritdiwut, 28, who sold me my bus/boat ticket, speaks an effective street-learned English. Despite what happened in Bali, he is not worried about things slowing down in Thailand and says bookings have even picked up slightly since then. Like most locals here, he simply cannot imagine Thailand--a country that takes pride in offending no one--ever being a target for terror.
On the 13-hour bus trip south from Bangkok, Joanne Hunt, 18, and Rachel Adlard, 19, squirmed in the seat next to me. They left England just two days after the Bali bombing for their gap year--a year taken by many Europeans between high school and college for a combination of as little work and as much travel as possible.
Like everyone else I spoke to who had plans to go to Bali, they changed their minds. However, they remained undeterred about traveling in the rest of the region. They were in Thailand to sightsee and party, Adlard said, and having heard about the full-moon party from the book (later made into a movie) "The Beach" and from friends back home who had experienced it first hand, it wasn't something they were going to miss.
Adlard was not alone in her sentiment. Though many travelers said they are now planning on avoiding large gatherings, those coming to Koh Pangang specifically for the party were, admittedly, making a rather large exception to their self-imposed travel restrictions.
"We're here; we have to go, otherwise we'll kick ourselves later. We can't allow fear to set in," said Emma Frost, 22, from England who is traveling with her boyfriend of four years, Jonathan Jones.
Both Frost and Jones heard about Bali while trekking in northern Thailand from two Norwegians who had left Bali just two days before the bombings.
Indeed, stories of near-misses and serendipity ran rampant on Koh Pangang as the boat loads of travelers arrived in the days before the party.
Toby Bellis, 23, from Canada, said he was at the Sari night club in Bali every night for nearly a month. It was the best place to go on the island "after a day of surfing." However, on the night of the bombings, a stomach ache kept him in his room.
Mariah McBean, 28, and Katherine Switzer, 20, also from Canada, had an even more fortuitous story. They had walked into the Sari club just five minutes before the bomb exploded, but ran across the street to buy a bottle of water.
Yet even with their amazingly close calls, and the knowledge that at least a few of the travelers they met died in Bali, Bellis, McBean and Switzer weren't deterred from being in the middle of the party here. "What are you going to do, stay home?" McBean said as the three got together the night before over a drink to talk about how they are coping after Bali. "If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. I'm not a God believer, but I am a fate believer."
Tempting fate, though, seemed to be the order of the day, even more so than usual for backpackers who tend to be a bit fatalistic as a group. "Fate does take on a role in life. You could get run over by a car. You have to be cautious, but there's nothing really you can do," said 26-year-old Australian Steve Aronowicz.
"If I die, I die. At least I was having fun dancing," said Randy Ballard, 22, of Reno, Nev. His smirk and half laugh barely covered what appeared to be a permeating unease of a group of people determined to live their lives as they would, despite a nagging feeling that perhaps what they are doing is not the most cautious nor prudent course.
But among this group, caution is not yet the winner. No, they won't go to Bali, but giving up the full-moon party--and more broadly, changing their lifestyle--was too high a price to pay now in exchange for a little more safety.
But try as they might to forget about the danger, a piece of every backpacker's innocence is buried beneath the rubble of the Sari night club in Bali. This time, when a loud smoke bomb exploded in the Cactus, the most popular bar on the beach, it wasn't just the Israelis who jumped. The fear was in everyone's eyes, and real panic was just seconds away.
For now, the party is on. But one more Bali, in a place like this, and the entire Southeast Asian backpacking circuit could come crashing down just like Sari.
©2002 The Chicago Tribune
By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
October 27, 2002
KOH PHANGANG, Thailand -- The first time I came to this delectably tropical island in the Gulf of Thailand, I stayed on a secluded beach where, at 6 p.m. every day, the generator would make a sound somewhere between the rat-tat-tat of an M-16 and a dozen of those fireworks that are only a big flash of light accompanied by a thundering boom. While most of the young backpackers and travelers picked their heads up slowly from their tropical fruit shakes to offer a somewhat quizzical look, the Israelis all jumped--that sound was all too familiar.
In nearly every country in the region, there is one place where the backpackers take a break and party through the night to unwind from the often difficult and patience-testing trails of which Southeast Asia is replete. Bali was one of those places. Koh Pangang still is. No matter where they were, or where they are going, thousands of those traveling Southeast Asia gather here for the once-a-lunar-month full-moon party, which rages from nightfall of every full moon until noon the next day on Hadarin, one of the island's white-sand, bar-strewn beaches.
But this full-moon party that came off without incident last weekened was like none before, as the backpacking community of Southeast Asia struggled to come to grips with attacks on their own while also trying to decipher the ramifications for traveling in the region.
Nevertheless, while many of the estimated 200 dead from the Oct. 13 terrorist attack in Bali were just such backpackers, going to just such a place, another raging party went on this time around.
My trip back began on Koh San Road, in Bangkok, the backpacking crossroads of Southeast Asia. On its 300-yard-long, neon-light infested street, young people converge to start, end, or take a short break from their sojourns around the region. Like the hundreds of other travel agents on Koh San Road, Suriyon "Tommy" Saritdiwut, 28, who sold me my bus/boat ticket, speaks an effective street-learned English. Despite what happened in Bali, he is not worried about things slowing down in Thailand and says bookings have even picked up slightly since then. Like most locals here, he simply cannot imagine Thailand--a country that takes pride in offending no one--ever being a target for terror.
On the 13-hour bus trip south from Bangkok, Joanne Hunt, 18, and Rachel Adlard, 19, squirmed in the seat next to me. They left England just two days after the Bali bombing for their gap year--a year taken by many Europeans between high school and college for a combination of as little work and as much travel as possible.
Like everyone else I spoke to who had plans to go to Bali, they changed their minds. However, they remained undeterred about traveling in the rest of the region. They were in Thailand to sightsee and party, Adlard said, and having heard about the full-moon party from the book (later made into a movie) "The Beach" and from friends back home who had experienced it first hand, it wasn't something they were going to miss.
Adlard was not alone in her sentiment. Though many travelers said they are now planning on avoiding large gatherings, those coming to Koh Pangang specifically for the party were, admittedly, making a rather large exception to their self-imposed travel restrictions.
"We're here; we have to go, otherwise we'll kick ourselves later. We can't allow fear to set in," said Emma Frost, 22, from England who is traveling with her boyfriend of four years, Jonathan Jones.
Both Frost and Jones heard about Bali while trekking in northern Thailand from two Norwegians who had left Bali just two days before the bombings.
Indeed, stories of near-misses and serendipity ran rampant on Koh Pangang as the boat loads of travelers arrived in the days before the party.
Toby Bellis, 23, from Canada, said he was at the Sari night club in Bali every night for nearly a month. It was the best place to go on the island "after a day of surfing." However, on the night of the bombings, a stomach ache kept him in his room.
Mariah McBean, 28, and Katherine Switzer, 20, also from Canada, had an even more fortuitous story. They had walked into the Sari club just five minutes before the bomb exploded, but ran across the street to buy a bottle of water.
Yet even with their amazingly close calls, and the knowledge that at least a few of the travelers they met died in Bali, Bellis, McBean and Switzer weren't deterred from being in the middle of the party here. "What are you going to do, stay home?" McBean said as the three got together the night before over a drink to talk about how they are coping after Bali. "If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. I'm not a God believer, but I am a fate believer."
Tempting fate, though, seemed to be the order of the day, even more so than usual for backpackers who tend to be a bit fatalistic as a group. "Fate does take on a role in life. You could get run over by a car. You have to be cautious, but there's nothing really you can do," said 26-year-old Australian Steve Aronowicz.
"If I die, I die. At least I was having fun dancing," said Randy Ballard, 22, of Reno, Nev. His smirk and half laugh barely covered what appeared to be a permeating unease of a group of people determined to live their lives as they would, despite a nagging feeling that perhaps what they are doing is not the most cautious nor prudent course.
But among this group, caution is not yet the winner. No, they won't go to Bali, but giving up the full-moon party--and more broadly, changing their lifestyle--was too high a price to pay now in exchange for a little more safety.
But try as they might to forget about the danger, a piece of every backpacker's innocence is buried beneath the rubble of the Sari night club in Bali. This time, when a loud smoke bomb exploded in the Cactus, the most popular bar on the beach, it wasn't just the Israelis who jumped. The fear was in everyone's eyes, and real panic was just seconds away.
For now, the party is on. But one more Bali, in a place like this, and the entire Southeast Asian backpacking circuit could come crashing down just like Sari.
©2002 The Chicago Tribune
Sunday, May 05, 2002
Europe´s bias lies in its short memory, not anti-semitism
By Rafael D. Frankel
OPINION
VIENNA, Austria--Though residual and burgeoning anti-semitism is
surely a factor in Europe´s pro-Palestinian bias in the current Mideast
War, it cannot be said that even a sizeable portion of Europeans harbor
genuinely anti-semitic attitudes.
In Germany, merley mentioning the holocausst brings a look of shame
upon peoples´ faces. And in France, site of the most recent wave of
anti-semitic attacks, voters strongly rejected Jean-Marie Le Pen, a man
who in their minds symbolizes the old attitudes of racism and anti-
semitism with his anti-immigrant policies and notorious remark about
the holocaust being but a "footnote" in history.
Why then the overwelming anti-Israeli media coverage and pressure from
the governments in Europe?
Despite their acknowledgement of the henious crimes millions of
Europeans took part in during the holocaust, they now see that chapter
in history closed. Consequently, they fail to grasp the inherent
insecurity complex into which the State of Israel was born, and from
which--due to the unceasing threat posed to Israel first by its Arab
neighbor states and now terrorists--it has yet to recover.
Yesterday, I attended Shabbat services in Budapest at the oldest
synagogue in Europe. Where churches and cathedrals stand every few
blocks on this continent as monuments not only to previous centuries,
but to previous millenia, this "relic" is a baby in comparison, built
during the U.S. Civil War. There were, of course, synagogues of radiant
splendor built across Europe during the last 2000 years, but after the
inquisition, progroms, the holocaust, and other acts of violence
against Jews which ocurred with regularity, that is the oldest.
Today, in Vienna, I wandered through the former orthodox Jewish
neighborhood where my grandfather grew up. It is now a neighborhood
like any other in Austria. There is a grocery store, a park, even a
strip club--and no Jews. Of the 200,000 that lived here in 1939, only
6,000 Jews now reside in Vienna, the majority of which do not even have
family roots here.
Despite his experiences with the Nazis, my grandfather never carried
with him any hatred toward Germans or his fellow countrymen, and he
raised his children and grandchildren to carry only love in our hearts.
Nevertheless, during the last week while traveling through Germany,
Hungary, and Austria, I have been overcome by confused emotion. With
every elderly person I see here, I cannot help wondering if they were
complicit in the crimes commited here against my family.
For Europeans, the holocaust may be ancient history, but for Jews and
Israelis--who are still victims of anti-semitic violence on a near-
daily basis--it happend only yesterday.
When the truth about the holocaust emerged from post-war Europe, one of
the common questions asked was: why didn´t the Jews fight back? Having
been mostly passive as we were threatened, shipped as cattle to
concentration camps, and eventually exterminated so recently, can
Europe seriously expect Israel to be passive again and excersie
restraint while Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority support
terrorist organizations whose stated goal is no less than to drive every
Israeli Jew into the sea?
Indeed, having been the perpetrators of the worst anti-semitic crimes
in history, Europe has a special burden to bear in supporting the right
of Israel to live peacefully as a Jewish state. This does not mean acquiesing to an Israel which would completely deny the right of Palestinian self-determination. But it does mean the European governments need to tone down their rhetoric and acknowledge that Israel is currently engaged in yet another war for her survival, and temper their judgement accordingly.
For its part, the European media should realize that by making false
reports of massacres and tossing around terms like "genocide," they are
only inciting the anti-semitic tendencies their progenitors brought
to bear here; the results of which they have yet to come to terms with.
If my grandfather were alive today, he would be speaking out
passionately for the right of Palestinians to live with dignity and freedom on land under their own control. But he would be preaching with equal zeal against Europe´s short-term memory and her inability to this day to give the Jewish people and the State of Israel a fair shake.
©2002 Rafael D. Frankel
OPINION
VIENNA, Austria--Though residual and burgeoning anti-semitism is
surely a factor in Europe´s pro-Palestinian bias in the current Mideast
War, it cannot be said that even a sizeable portion of Europeans harbor
genuinely anti-semitic attitudes.
In Germany, merley mentioning the holocausst brings a look of shame
upon peoples´ faces. And in France, site of the most recent wave of
anti-semitic attacks, voters strongly rejected Jean-Marie Le Pen, a man
who in their minds symbolizes the old attitudes of racism and anti-
semitism with his anti-immigrant policies and notorious remark about
the holocaust being but a "footnote" in history.
Why then the overwelming anti-Israeli media coverage and pressure from
the governments in Europe?
Despite their acknowledgement of the henious crimes millions of
Europeans took part in during the holocaust, they now see that chapter
in history closed. Consequently, they fail to grasp the inherent
insecurity complex into which the State of Israel was born, and from
which--due to the unceasing threat posed to Israel first by its Arab
neighbor states and now terrorists--it has yet to recover.
Yesterday, I attended Shabbat services in Budapest at the oldest
synagogue in Europe. Where churches and cathedrals stand every few
blocks on this continent as monuments not only to previous centuries,
but to previous millenia, this "relic" is a baby in comparison, built
during the U.S. Civil War. There were, of course, synagogues of radiant
splendor built across Europe during the last 2000 years, but after the
inquisition, progroms, the holocaust, and other acts of violence
against Jews which ocurred with regularity, that is the oldest.
Today, in Vienna, I wandered through the former orthodox Jewish
neighborhood where my grandfather grew up. It is now a neighborhood
like any other in Austria. There is a grocery store, a park, even a
strip club--and no Jews. Of the 200,000 that lived here in 1939, only
6,000 Jews now reside in Vienna, the majority of which do not even have
family roots here.
Despite his experiences with the Nazis, my grandfather never carried
with him any hatred toward Germans or his fellow countrymen, and he
raised his children and grandchildren to carry only love in our hearts.
Nevertheless, during the last week while traveling through Germany,
Hungary, and Austria, I have been overcome by confused emotion. With
every elderly person I see here, I cannot help wondering if they were
complicit in the crimes commited here against my family.
For Europeans, the holocaust may be ancient history, but for Jews and
Israelis--who are still victims of anti-semitic violence on a near-
daily basis--it happend only yesterday.
When the truth about the holocaust emerged from post-war Europe, one of
the common questions asked was: why didn´t the Jews fight back? Having
been mostly passive as we were threatened, shipped as cattle to
concentration camps, and eventually exterminated so recently, can
Europe seriously expect Israel to be passive again and excersie
restraint while Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority support
terrorist organizations whose stated goal is no less than to drive every
Israeli Jew into the sea?
Indeed, having been the perpetrators of the worst anti-semitic crimes
in history, Europe has a special burden to bear in supporting the right
of Israel to live peacefully as a Jewish state. This does not mean acquiesing to an Israel which would completely deny the right of Palestinian self-determination. But it does mean the European governments need to tone down their rhetoric and acknowledge that Israel is currently engaged in yet another war for her survival, and temper their judgement accordingly.
For its part, the European media should realize that by making false
reports of massacres and tossing around terms like "genocide," they are
only inciting the anti-semitic tendencies their progenitors brought
to bear here; the results of which they have yet to come to terms with.
If my grandfather were alive today, he would be speaking out
passionately for the right of Palestinians to live with dignity and freedom on land under their own control. But he would be preaching with equal zeal against Europe´s short-term memory and her inability to this day to give the Jewish people and the State of Israel a fair shake.
©2002 Rafael D. Frankel