Recent slayings renew old fears
By Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondent, 2/29/2004
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- On a recent trip to a village along the banks of the Mekong River, Kem Sokha brought along not only his trusted bodyguard but also a private American security specialist.
Kem Sokha is not a politician, a big businessman, or a diplomat, but a leader in Cambodia's fledgling human rights movement. And he believes his life is in danger.
The recent brazen killings of a prominent labor organizer, Chea Vichea, and several others affiliated with an opposition political group have heightened the sense of lawlessness in Cambodia, where murder is seen as a common political tool -- and the rich and powerful seem above the law.
The nation's police, judiciary, and elections institutions are controlled by the ruling party, led by Prime Minister Hun Sen, and many Cambodians and foreign aid workers have little confidence that justice can be served.
"I fear the killing fields in Cambodia are still open," said Kem Sokha, president of the Cambodia Center for Human Rights, referring to the place the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime would kill its victims of torture from 1975 to 1979.
Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge member who deserted the regime and joined the resistance, has maintained his grip on power in one form or another for nearly two decades through collaboration with Vietnam, military coups, and elections deemed by international observers as lacking "free and fair" standards.
The most recent elections, in July, saw the ruling Cambodian People's Party win a majority of seats in Parliament, but not the two-thirds required to form a government. Since then, a tense political drama has heated up between the CPP and the Democratic Alliance, made up of two opposition parties. Although both sides talk of reaching a settlement soon, the stalemate persists.
The government crisis has coincided with a wave of high-profile murders the past few months.
Chea Vichea, 36, who was affiliated with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, was killed Jan. 22 in broad daylight in a driveby shooting in Phnom Penh. A radio journalist, a famous actress, and her mother -- all associated with the Democratic Alliance -- were gunned down in a similar fashion.
Human rights workers and opposition leaders have seized on what they called a questionable investigation into Chea Vichea's killing, saying it shows the history of impunity that has plagued Cambodia for decades is still prevalent. Two suspects are being held; one accused police of beating him to force a confession.
Accusations have been leveled by the opposition and democracy organizations that the killings were intended as a warning to opposition leaders to join the prime minister in a government.
A ruling-party spokesman, Khieu Kanharith, rejected any idea that the killings were ordered by members of his party. , saying the allegations were political ploys. "If we wanted to use violence, why wouldn't we have hit someone higher up in the party?" he said.
But outside of the government, the killings have raised alarms.
"They certainly appear to be politically motivated," said Jackson Cox, the Cambodia director of the International Republican Institute, an American organization that promotes democracy around the world. "The political situation here is tense, and members of the opposition, both high and low, are being murdered."
The recent killings have foreign relief workers and many Cambodian wondering whether Cambodia's development as a democracy has foundered after making great strides since the United Nations launched a $2 billion relief effort in 1992.
The government points out that Cambodia was rebuilding from total disaster. While many problems remain, the political situation is much less violent than in the past, Khieu Kanharith said.
The opposition rejects such reasoning. "It's not a bloody step forward when we go from 1 million dead to 200," said Sam Ung Bung-Ang, a spokesman for the Democratic Alliance. "Life is life, and one murder is too many."
Development statistics paint a picture of slow progress. A 2003 UN report said Cambodia is still ranked 130 of 173 countries on the Human Development Index. Other than Laos, Cambodia has the lowest life expectancy and literacy rates in the region, and the highest mortality rates for mothers and young children.
"With the economy now, state assets are war spoils, and what we call `corruption' . . . is simply [the government] running the country like a family business," said Sam Rainsy, the main opposition party leader. "If we continue like that, we will go down the drain."
Asked about the pace of Cambodia's development and human rights record under the current government, the government spokesman said more time and money were needed. (Cambodia receives about $500 million annually from foreign donors.) He also said Cambodia was being held to a higher standard of democracy than its neighbors.
"We don't have enough human resources," Khieu Kanharith said. "We've had a lot of assistance from donor countries. If you want to blame someone, blame them."
Many are now looking for the international community to increase the pressure on the government. Although some US senators have criticized the government, reaction from most foreign governments and development institutions, many of whom provide the funding for Cambodia to function, has been muted.
"Where is the outrage?" asked Cox, from the International Republican Institute.
Meanwhile, the political stalemate had delayed the convening of the long-awaited Khmer Rouge war-crimes tribunal. Government and opposition politicians say the tribunal would go forward once a government was formed.
©2004 Globe Newspaper Company
Sunday, February 29, 2004
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Concerns on bird kill compliance in rural Vietnam
All fowl targeted in battle against flu
By Jan McGirk and Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondents, 2/3/2004
BANGKOK -- Hour after hour throughout the past week, the mass cull continued with systematic haste. Thai soldiers and prisoners marched into chicken coops in 29 provinces, wearing surgical masks and shower caps.
Rubber-gloved hands grabbed hens off their roosting spots, jammed the squawking birds into fertilizer sacks, and then flung them into deep pits. Dirt was dumped on top and doused with quicklime before the cullers left for the next farm infected with bird flu.
Grim newsclips of the army's assault on 14 million Thai chickens were broadcast all week.
Nimit Saengchan is in despair. All 19,000 birds at his farm in Bang Lane district were destroyed last week, and he had to lay off his six workers.
"Now I have to find another job myself," he said.
Saengchan said he has loans to pay off, and the government's compensation of $1 per culled chicken won't stretch far. Without the 10,000 eggs he used to sell every day, he said he has no means of livelihood.
Farmers and vendors are being hit hard as 10 Asian countries confront the virulent H5N1 strain of the bird flu that already has wiped out tens of millions of chickens and ducks. At least eight people have died in Vietnam and two in Thailand, but so far there have been no reports of person-to-person transmission, a development that could trigger a human influenza pandemic.
In Vietnam, where authorities say they are prepared to slaughter every fowl in the country, most farmers and poultry sellers in cities appear to be acquiescing to government orders to sell their products to the state -- which then destroys them -- at well below market value. But in the countryside, authorities say, some farmers are trying to hold out.
At a market in the Mekong Delta town of Long Xuyen on Saturday, a half-dozen government health inspectors combed the hundreds of stalls looking for chickens, ducks, eggs, and any poultry products they could find.
"We know people are still hiding chickens, but the number is reducing," said the lead inspector, Le Van Thang, pointing to baskets of fowl his inspectors confiscated that morning.
Despite the government's effort, chickens and ducks can be seen roaming free in the small farms that line the hundreds of canals and rivers criss-crossing the Delta.
"We are sending inspectors to the large farms, but we can't go everywhere," Le said.
The World Health Organization, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Organization for Animal Health have all appealed to wealthy countries to compensate farmers across the region for their economic losses. Otherwise, specialists fear, cash-strapped farmers may sell tainted meat, which could infect kitchen workers and consumers.
Thailand's prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has promised to suspend poultry farmers' debts for six months, although at least three months are needed for new chicks to mature enough to lay eggs.
Thaksin, a billionaire who once worked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise while attending college in Texas, is urging Thais to resume eating poultry. He pledged to pay surviving family members $75,000 if anyone died eating chicken cooked at a temperature above 168 degrees Fahrenheit. "When it's cooked, it's one million percent safe," he said in his weekly radio address.
Meanwhile, grief is galvanizing into anger and resignation. When all of one provincial farmer's hens were struck dead recently, according to media reports, she allegedly went berserk and started flinging their limp bodies onto other farms, apparently hoping that the flu would bankrupt her neighbors, too.
Many Thais think their leaders bungled the crisis by waiting too long to act, and they don't trust government authorities to protect them anymore, particularly after government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair admitted that a bureaucratic "screw-up" delayed eradication of bird flu in its early stages. The disease was mislabeled as fowl cholera, although some local veterinarians say they spotted avian influenza three months ago and were too intimidated to come forward with an inconvenient truth that would damage exports worth an annual $2 billion.
A sense of hopelessness pervades the market in Long Xuyen, Vietnam. Asked what he will do for money while the flu outbreak continues, vendor Do Huu Nghia, 40, said he will be jobless.
"I don't know how I will eat; I will be very poor," he said, dumping hundreds of his eggs into a basket government inspectors were waiting to collect.
Another poultry vendor threw up her hands as she listened to a government proclamation over a loudspeaker explaining the compensation vendors would receive for their products: While chickens usually sell for $2 each, and eggs for six cents, the government is only paying 75 cents in compensation for chickens and just over a penny apiece for eggs.
"Please tell the government we need help very badly," said the woman, who did not wish to be identified. "Please tell people to help us."
Farmers and vendors are not the only ones affected.
When the Thai capital was declared an epidemic center, traders at Chatuchak, Bangkok's biggest open-air market, raised a flap. The owners of an estimated 80,000 exotic birds -- ranging from fighting cocks to cockatoos and rare finches -- balked at killing them, although the law requires any stock within a three-mile radius of an infection zone to be destroyed. Authorities have granted a short reprieve to meet demands for a more selective cull that would spare birds issued health certifications by licensed veterinarians.
After officials at a quarantine checkpoint seized a champion rooster traveling to a cockfight, Bangkok's fighting cock breeders turned defiant. Rather than hand their prized birds over to be dispatched without dignity, the men slit the throats of 20 roosters at Chatuchak Market and tossed them into a soup pot. Then they slurped bowls of spicy Tom Yam Gai soup made from their birds.
Nikhom Apiratanakosol, head of the Fighting Cock Breeders' Club, complained that the government should have warned chicken owners about the epidemic.
"Officials let the disease spread widely and then ordered a sudden mass slaughter," he said.
McGirk reported from Bangkok; Frankel from Long Xuyen, Vietnam.
©2004 Globe Newspaper Company
By Jan McGirk and Rafael D. Frankel, Globe Correspondents, 2/3/2004
BANGKOK -- Hour after hour throughout the past week, the mass cull continued with systematic haste. Thai soldiers and prisoners marched into chicken coops in 29 provinces, wearing surgical masks and shower caps.
Rubber-gloved hands grabbed hens off their roosting spots, jammed the squawking birds into fertilizer sacks, and then flung them into deep pits. Dirt was dumped on top and doused with quicklime before the cullers left for the next farm infected with bird flu.
Grim newsclips of the army's assault on 14 million Thai chickens were broadcast all week.
Nimit Saengchan is in despair. All 19,000 birds at his farm in Bang Lane district were destroyed last week, and he had to lay off his six workers.
"Now I have to find another job myself," he said.
Saengchan said he has loans to pay off, and the government's compensation of $1 per culled chicken won't stretch far. Without the 10,000 eggs he used to sell every day, he said he has no means of livelihood.
Farmers and vendors are being hit hard as 10 Asian countries confront the virulent H5N1 strain of the bird flu that already has wiped out tens of millions of chickens and ducks. At least eight people have died in Vietnam and two in Thailand, but so far there have been no reports of person-to-person transmission, a development that could trigger a human influenza pandemic.
In Vietnam, where authorities say they are prepared to slaughter every fowl in the country, most farmers and poultry sellers in cities appear to be acquiescing to government orders to sell their products to the state -- which then destroys them -- at well below market value. But in the countryside, authorities say, some farmers are trying to hold out.
At a market in the Mekong Delta town of Long Xuyen on Saturday, a half-dozen government health inspectors combed the hundreds of stalls looking for chickens, ducks, eggs, and any poultry products they could find.
"We know people are still hiding chickens, but the number is reducing," said the lead inspector, Le Van Thang, pointing to baskets of fowl his inspectors confiscated that morning.
Despite the government's effort, chickens and ducks can be seen roaming free in the small farms that line the hundreds of canals and rivers criss-crossing the Delta.
"We are sending inspectors to the large farms, but we can't go everywhere," Le said.
The World Health Organization, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Organization for Animal Health have all appealed to wealthy countries to compensate farmers across the region for their economic losses. Otherwise, specialists fear, cash-strapped farmers may sell tainted meat, which could infect kitchen workers and consumers.
Thailand's prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has promised to suspend poultry farmers' debts for six months, although at least three months are needed for new chicks to mature enough to lay eggs.
Thaksin, a billionaire who once worked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise while attending college in Texas, is urging Thais to resume eating poultry. He pledged to pay surviving family members $75,000 if anyone died eating chicken cooked at a temperature above 168 degrees Fahrenheit. "When it's cooked, it's one million percent safe," he said in his weekly radio address.
Meanwhile, grief is galvanizing into anger and resignation. When all of one provincial farmer's hens were struck dead recently, according to media reports, she allegedly went berserk and started flinging their limp bodies onto other farms, apparently hoping that the flu would bankrupt her neighbors, too.
Many Thais think their leaders bungled the crisis by waiting too long to act, and they don't trust government authorities to protect them anymore, particularly after government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair admitted that a bureaucratic "screw-up" delayed eradication of bird flu in its early stages. The disease was mislabeled as fowl cholera, although some local veterinarians say they spotted avian influenza three months ago and were too intimidated to come forward with an inconvenient truth that would damage exports worth an annual $2 billion.
A sense of hopelessness pervades the market in Long Xuyen, Vietnam. Asked what he will do for money while the flu outbreak continues, vendor Do Huu Nghia, 40, said he will be jobless.
"I don't know how I will eat; I will be very poor," he said, dumping hundreds of his eggs into a basket government inspectors were waiting to collect.
Another poultry vendor threw up her hands as she listened to a government proclamation over a loudspeaker explaining the compensation vendors would receive for their products: While chickens usually sell for $2 each, and eggs for six cents, the government is only paying 75 cents in compensation for chickens and just over a penny apiece for eggs.
"Please tell the government we need help very badly," said the woman, who did not wish to be identified. "Please tell people to help us."
Farmers and vendors are not the only ones affected.
When the Thai capital was declared an epidemic center, traders at Chatuchak, Bangkok's biggest open-air market, raised a flap. The owners of an estimated 80,000 exotic birds -- ranging from fighting cocks to cockatoos and rare finches -- balked at killing them, although the law requires any stock within a three-mile radius of an infection zone to be destroyed. Authorities have granted a short reprieve to meet demands for a more selective cull that would spare birds issued health certifications by licensed veterinarians.
After officials at a quarantine checkpoint seized a champion rooster traveling to a cockfight, Bangkok's fighting cock breeders turned defiant. Rather than hand their prized birds over to be dispatched without dignity, the men slit the throats of 20 roosters at Chatuchak Market and tossed them into a soup pot. Then they slurped bowls of spicy Tom Yam Gai soup made from their birds.
Nikhom Apiratanakosol, head of the Fighting Cock Breeders' Club, complained that the government should have warned chicken owners about the epidemic.
"Officials let the disease spread widely and then ordered a sudden mass slaughter," he said.
McGirk reported from Bangkok; Frankel from Long Xuyen, Vietnam.
©2004 Globe Newspaper Company