dkhmernews

BAR owners in Daun Penh district were told by the Ministry of Interior over the weekend that they were required to close at midnight and to ban striptease dancing and the showing of pornographic films, several bar owners and the district governor said Sunday.

District and police officials on Saturday distributed a list of rules drafted by the ministry to bar owners and instructed them to sign contracts stating that they had read the rules and understood that they would have to close if they did not comply with them.

Daun Penh District Governor Sok Sambath said Sunday that the officials were simply reminding the bar owners of rules that were already in place.

"We just re-informed all bars to follow the contract - to close their bars after midnight, not to play loud music, not to show pornographic videos, not to allow drug use and not to allow strip dancing," Sok Sambath said.

Yim Nuch, a manager at the Velkommen Inn on Street 104, said she had been visited by the officials Saturday.

"They came to my bar and showed me the [Interior Ministry's] information, which mainly mentioned conditions about strip dancing, drug smuggling and pornographic films," she said.

"They asked us to sign five identical contracts, and I agreed to sign them."

She added that she had been told she could face criminal charges if she failed to follow the rules, though she said officials did not elaborate on what those might be.

Chhan Sro Em, 26, a manager at the UpDown Bar on Street 136, said Sunday that she had not received any information about the rules.

Our bar hasn't had any illegal activities such as sexy or strip dancing.


"Police just come around for drinking and then go," she said. "They never talk to us about that."

She said the UpDown Bar had been open for "over a year" and routinely closed at 1am or 2am without incident and without any objection from the police.

She added: "Our bar hasn't had any illegal activities such as sexy or strip dancing."

Citywide enforcement?
Sok Sambath said the rules applied to all bars in the capital and had been on the books for years, despite the fact that many regularly stay open past midnight. Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak could not be reached Sunday to confirm whether the rules would be implemented citywide.

Both Yim Nuch and Chhan Sro Em said they welcomed the rules.

"We will follow the ministry's order to close our bar after midnight if we are told by police to do that," Chhan Sro Em said. "We welcome these prohibitions, which are very good for encouraging our Cambodian girls to be gentle women, not too sexy."

The distribution of the letters in Daun Penh district came less than a week after police and local authorities arrested 15 people at the Blue Lagoon Bar, which is also located in the district on Street 108.

The officials made the arrests on suspicion that patrons were given the option of watching women strip naked.

Commune Chief Hov Shinith said last week that the bar had been closed temporarily and that municipal officials were debating whether to allow it to continue operating.

From:

THE number of passengers entering Cambodia in the first five months of this year dropped 16 percent on the same period last year, with the number of flights down almost 10 percent. Cargo brought in and out by air was also sharply down.

Khek Norinda, communications and marketing manager for Societe Concessionaire de l'Aeroport (SCA), which runs the Kingdom's airports, told the Post that flights were down as a result of reduced demand.

"We have witnessed a significant slowdown in traffic at the two international airports in Phnom Penh and in Siem Reap, both for passengers and cargo," Khek Norinda wrote in an email.

Figures from the government's State Secretariat for Civil Aviation (SSCA) showed during that period 1.15 million passengers arrived or left on domestic and international flights through Phnom Penh and Siem Reap airports. That was down from 1.37 million in the first five months of 2008, a drop of 16 percent.

Siem Reap was worse affected than the capital, with passenger numbers down almost 19 percent to 555,000 in the first five months. The total number of flights into and out of the country dropped by 1,500 to 13,914.

Cargo figures through Phnom Penh International Airport - the Kingdom's sole air-cargo hub - were hit hard. The airport received 3,353 tonnes of cargo between January and May 2009, down 41 percent on the same period in 2008. Cargo leaving the country dropped 31 percent to 3,093 tonnes.

Representatives of Korean Airlines and Bangkok Airways - two of the key carriers - could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

But Khek Norinda said airlines would be affected.

"Less traffic means contraction of revenues. Financial results will be obviously affected like all other stakeholders in [the] aviation industry compared to 2008," said Khek Norinda.

Despite the release of passenger, flight and cargo numbers, SCA again failed to publish figures on its revenues. The latest figures available - in the Cambodian Civil Aviation Data Book published by the Civil Aviation Authority in February - showed that SCA made revenues of US$10.77 million in 2006.

Mao Havannal, secretary of state at the SSCA, told the Post earlier this month that swine flu and lower disposable income were the main reasons behind the drop in air passengers.

Khek Norinda said that, despite the current problems, the mid- and long-term prospects for Cambodia's airports remain strong.

SCA said it had taken measures aimed at boosting air traffic to Cambodia in order to overcome the current effects of economic crisis.

"We have implemented an ambitious incentive package policy: We offer significant discounts to encourage airlines to open additional routes and to increase their flight frequencies in our international airports," he wrote. "Obviously, specific conditions are offered in Sihanoukville airport in order to facilitate opening of new routes to the airport."

SCA said it is also undertaking marketing at trade fairs in conjunction with the Ministry of Tourism to promote the Kingdom.

From:

It's early on a Sunday morning in Cambodia and I'm standing at a 12th-century moat. Traces of mist hover above the lotus leaves that dapple the water. Across a causeway, through a tumbled-down gate, lies Banteay Chhmar, one of the largest temples ever built by the ancient Khmer Empire. My friends and I will have the place all to ourselves.

We walk in. It turns out that we do end up sharing it, with a local man who brings his cows onto the grounds to graze. And with an affable mason who leads us across acres of fallen stone to see a message from the past, an inscription chiseled into the door jamb of a holy tower. This kind of company we welcome.

Cambodia's great temples of Angkor, 100 kilometres away, have long since been rediscovered after a quarter-century of closure by war. They now draw more than a million foreign visitors a year, not a few of whom regret that so many other people had the same idea. At peak hours, human traffic jams can form at temple steps.

But go beyond Angkor and you can find places that serve up the old solitude and sense of discovery.

Banteay Chhmar is among the most spectacular of these places. Getting to it entails hours on very bumpy and dusty dirt roads. Staying the night means making do with primitive accommodations: candlelit rooms in local homes, bath water drawn from that same moat.

I stayed the night, and it turned out to really make the visit. The next morning I rose early, as everyone here does, and took a walk in clean country air. I passed hens foraging with their chicks and boys tending to a mud oven in which charcoal was being made. I was seeing not only a temple but a way of life.

Today several thousand people -- rice farmers, cattle herders, market vendors -- make their homes on all four sides of the temple. They grow vegetables on the banks of a series of moats; they pile straw within the walls of lesser ancient buildings that dot their settlement. The ancient and present day coexist.

Spending time here also means doing a good turn, spreading a bit of wealth in a part of a war-recovering country that has largely missed out on the tourist dollars that Angkor is bringing in. People do have cellphones (charged by generator), and some have small tractors, but there are few other signs of affluence.

Banteay Chhmar was created in the Khmer Empire's last great burst of construction, under the 12th-century Buddhist king Jayavarman VII. His engineers were thinking big even by Khmer standards: To contain a great settlement, they built earthworks and moats that formed a square measuring roughly one 1.5 kilometres on each side. At its centre, within another square moat system, they built the temple.

More than a century ago, French archeologist Etienne Aymonier found the temple to be in a state of "indescribable ruin.'' It still is, despite the efforts of the friendly mason, who is part of a small reconstruction team. But that's part of what makes the site so enticing.

Exploring it means climbing over piles of large fallen stones. We passed ruined towers, courtyards and ceremonial walkways. Sometimes the stones were so high that we were walking at roof level.

The temple is no longer a formal religious site, but Cambodians believe that it, like all those that their forebears left behind, remains a holy site. In one surviving chamber we found a small contemporary shrine, with a Buddha image wearing a cloth robe, where people made incense offerings.

One of the best parts of this temple is the many bas-reliefs on its outer walls. We had to scramble up more stones to get a good view. Before us was a full sample of life 900 years ago: processions of elephants, prominent ladies tended by maids, children roughhousing, villagers in a sampan, servants tending a stove.

There were also many scenes of war with Champa, a long-vanished rival state to the east: The temple is in large part a memorial to four generals who lost their lives in that long conflict. On land, the men of arms go at one another fiercely with spears (you can identify the Chams by the curious blossom-shaped headdress they wear). On water, rows of men pull at oars from galleys as others strike at the enemy with spears. There are also images of the divine, notably the god Vishnu, with 32 arms arrayed like rays of light.

The carving style is similar to that of the Bayon temple reliefs in Angkor. The difference is there's no need to fight for a view. We did cross paths for a few minutes our first day with a party of about 20 French-speaking tourists. We saw no other visitors that day or the next.

Late in the afternoon, we went to see what the ancient Khmers could do with water. Just east of the temple, they created a big reservoir. Academics disagree over whether it did only symbolic duty as an earthly stand-in for the mythic Sea of Creation, or was part of an irrigation system, or both. Whatever the truth, I was awed by the scale.

The reservoir was now largely dry, but because its floor is low and collects water, it has been divided into rice paddies. We went for a stroll, walking along paddy dikes to keep our feet dry. We said hello to members of a farming family who were tinkering with a small tractor. A woman had caught a bucketful of paddy crabs and insects, which she would sell as food.

I spent the night at the house of a Cambodian family, friends of a friend. They couldn't have been more gracious. They gave me a room, bottled water, mosquito coils and a big luxury: a car battery hooked to a fluorescent light.

Other members of our party slept at a formal homestay, the term given to guest houses. It had two rooms with large beds covered by mosquito nets. Downstairs there was a basic bathroom with a squat toilet and scoop bath.

In the morning we had breakfast at a stall in the town's market; there are no proper restaurants. It was noodle soup with chicken, and very good.

I first visited Angkor in 1969. Back then, you could be alone in the big temples there. I once walked through the largest of them, Angkor Wat, encountering hardly a soul.

It's good to know that such an experience can still be had. You just have to work a bit harder for it.

IF YOU GO:

Getting around: There is no public transportation to the sites described here; wheels are on a bring-your-own basis. Tour companies in Siem Reap will arrange visits. If you feel adventurous, strike deals directly with taxi or motorcycle drivers and go on your own.

Being Mealea and Koh Ker can be visited in one long day. Banteay Chhmar, at four hours each way, is a bigger challenge to reach. If you're entering Cambodia overland from Thailand, you can save time by turning north at Sisophon town to reach the temple.

When to go: Winter is Cambodia's peak tourist season. Avoid March, April and May, the peak time for heat. Don't be scared off by the summer-through-fall rainy season. The rains typically occur only in late afternoon.

Where to stay: A French non-profit organization has been helping Banteay Chhmar operate a homestay program. It provides for overnight accommodations, often in a guesthouse next door to the host family's home; meals; local culture performances; and an ox cart ride. Tour companies can book you. Or you make direct contact by emailing program co-ordinator Tath Sophal at tathsophal (at) yahoo.com.

Koh Ker has guesthouse accommodations.


From:

Cambodia's high infant and child mortality rate can be fought by improving hygiene in river communities, a resource development charity said Saturday.

Lien Aid, a Singapore-based non-governmental organization, is developing a toilet that can be used in river communities where homes are constructed on floating platforms and moved seasonally.

Currently, residents use the river rather than latrines, Resource Development International - Cambodia told the IRIN news agency. This practice contributes to many deaths from waterborne diseases, a Resource Development spokesman said.

Waterborne diseases account for 74 percent of all deaths in the country, the organization said.

Lien Aid says its "River of Life" project works to prevent waterborne illness. Their designers are working on a toilet built on a floating platform and attached to river homes. The toilet is still being tested, Sahari Ani, the head of Lien Aid, said.

The prototype separates urine from feces and allows dry soil, ash or wood chips to be added to the feces to reduce odor and pathogens. A secondary storage chamber completes decomposition and pathogen destruction.

From:

It's early on a Sunday morning in Cambodia and I'm standing at a 12th-century moat. Traces of mist hover above the lotus leaves that dapple the water. Across a causeway, through a tumbled-down gate, lies Banteay Chhmar, one of the largest temples ever built by the ancient Khmer Empire. My friends and I will have the place all to ourselves.

We walk in. It turns out that we do end up sharing it, with a local man who brings his cows onto the grounds to graze. And with an affable mason who leads us across acres of fallen stone to see a message from the past, an inscription chiseled into the door jamb of a holy tower. This kind of company we welcome.

Cambodia's great temples of Angkor, 100 kilometres away, have long since been rediscovered after a quarter-century of closure by war. They now draw more than a million foreign visitors a year, not a few of whom regret that so many other people had the same idea. At peak hours, human traffic jams can form at temple steps.

But go beyond Angkor and you can find places that serve up the old solitude and sense of discovery.

Banteay Chhmar is among the most spectacular of these places. Getting to it entails hours on very bumpy and dusty dirt roads. Staying the night means making do with primitive accommodations: candlelit rooms in local homes, bath water drawn from that same moat.

I stayed the night, and it turned out to really make the visit. The next morning I rose early, as everyone here does, and took a walk in clean country air. I passed hens foraging with their chicks and boys tending to a mud oven in which charcoal was being made. I was seeing not only a temple but a way of life.

Today several thousand people -- rice farmers, cattle herders, market vendors -- make their homes on all four sides of the temple. They grow vegetables on the banks of a series of moats; they pile straw within the walls of lesser ancient buildings that dot their settlement. The ancient and present day coexist.

Spending time here also means doing a good turn, spreading a bit of wealth in a part of a war-recovering country that has largely missed out on the tourist dollars that Angkor is bringing in. People do have cellphones (charged by generator), and some have small tractors, but there are few other signs of affluence.

Banteay Chhmar was created in the Khmer Empire's last great burst of construction, under the 12th-century Buddhist king Jayavarman VII. His engineers were thinking big even by Khmer standards: To contain a great settlement, they built earthworks and moats that formed a square measuring roughly one 1.5 kilometres on each side. At its centre, within another square moat system, they built the temple.

More than a century ago, French archeologist Etienne Aymonier found the temple to be in a state of "indescribable ruin.'' It still is, despite the efforts of the friendly mason, who is part of a small reconstruction team. But that's part of what makes the site so enticing.

Exploring it means climbing over piles of large fallen stones. We passed ruined towers, courtyards and ceremonial walkways. Sometimes the stones were so high that we were walking at roof level.

The temple is no longer a formal religious site, but Cambodians believe that it, like all those that their forebears left behind, remains a holy site. In one surviving chamber we found a small contemporary shrine, with a Buddha image wearing a cloth robe, where people made incense offerings.

One of the best parts of this temple is the many bas-reliefs on its outer walls. We had to scramble up more stones to get a good view. Before us was a full sample of life 900 years ago: processions of elephants, prominent ladies tended by maids, children roughhousing, villagers in a sampan, servants tending a stove.

There were also many scenes of war with Champa, a long-vanished rival state to the east: The temple is in large part a memorial to four generals who lost their lives in that long conflict. On land, the men of arms go at one another fiercely with spears (you can identify the Chams by the curious blossom-shaped headdress they wear). On water, rows of men pull at oars from galleys as others strike at the enemy with spears. There are also images of the divine, notably the god Vishnu, with 32 arms arrayed like rays of light.

The carving style is similar to that of the Bayon temple reliefs in Angkor. The difference is there's no need to fight for a view. We did cross paths for a few minutes our first day with a party of about 20 French-speaking tourists. We saw no other visitors that day or the next.

Late in the afternoon, we went to see what the ancient Khmers could do with water. Just east of the temple, they created a big reservoir. Academics disagree over whether it did only symbolic duty as an earthly stand-in for the mythic Sea of Creation, or was part of an irrigation system, or both. Whatever the truth, I was awed by the scale.

The reservoir was now largely dry, but because its floor is low and collects water, it has been divided into rice paddies. We went for a stroll, walking along paddy dikes to keep our feet dry. We said hello to members of a farming family who were tinkering with a small tractor. A woman had caught a bucketful of paddy crabs and insects, which she would sell as food.

I spent the night at the house of a Cambodian family, friends of a friend. They couldn't have been more gracious. They gave me a room, bottled water, mosquito coils and a big luxury: a car battery hooked to a fluorescent light.

Other members of our party slept at a formal homestay, the term given to guest houses. It had two rooms with large beds covered by mosquito nets. Downstairs there was a basic bathroom with a squat toilet and scoop bath.

In the morning we had breakfast at a stall in the town's market; there are no proper restaurants. It was noodle soup with chicken, and very good.

I first visited Angkor in 1969. Back then, you could be alone in the big temples there. I once walked through the largest of them, Angkor Wat, encountering hardly a soul.

It's good to know that such an experience can still be had. You just have to work a bit harder for it.

IF YOU GO:

Getting around: There is no public transportation to the sites described here; wheels are on a bring-your-own basis. Tour companies in Siem Reap will arrange visits. If you feel adventurous, strike deals directly with taxi or motorcycle drivers and go on your own.

Being Mealea and Koh Ker can be visited in one long day. Banteay Chhmar, at four hours each way, is a bigger challenge to reach. If you're entering Cambodia overland from Thailand, you can save time by turning north at Sisophon town to reach the temple.

When to go: Winter is Cambodia's peak tourist season. Avoid March, April and May, the peak time for heat. Don't be scared off by the summer-through-fall rainy season. The rains typically occur only in late afternoon.

Where to stay: A French non-profit organization has been helping Banteay Chhmar operate a homestay program. It provides for overnight accommodations, often in a guesthouse next door to the host family's home; meals; local culture performances; and an ox cart ride. Tour companies can book you. Or you make direct contact by emailing program co-ordinator Tath Sophal at tathsophal (at) yahoo.com.

Koh Ker has guesthouse accommodations.

From:

A high-ranking official of the Human Rights Party (HRP) indicated that the HRP will hold its congress next week. The congress will be attended by party members from all cities and provinces in the country, as well as by the party’s overseas members.

The same source added that during the congress, a number of major topics are on the discussion agenda, and among these issues, the union between the HRP and the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) will also be discussed.

Keat Sokun, HRP spokesman, could not be reached over the phone for comments on this issue.

Kem Sokha, HRP President, said that: “In out party’s bylaw, there will be an advisory committee congress once every two years, and the national congress is held every 5 years. Those who attend are the national advisory members, i.e. 185 party district presidents from all over the country, the party presidents at the provincial levels, and the executive and rule committee members. It’s a total of about 300 people.”

Kem Sokha added that the 19 July advisory committee congress will also be attended by overseas party members from Europe, the US and Canada. He also indicated that there will be two major topics on the agenda:

1. Report on the application of the party goals for the past two years.
2. Plan for the upcoming 2 years, the topic will also include the drive for a union with non-communist parties.

From:

Monday July 6th, the defence set the tone with a warning: their client, Duch, “expresses doubt as to whether the witness we are going to hear was detained in S-21.” The 57-year-old witness took his seat in the courtroom, thin gold-rimmed glasses on his nose and his arms put on the armrests. In 1979, the shopkeeper from Banteay Meanchey province changed his name, Hea Hor, to Ly Hor, he explained, before telling a story that contradicted in many points the testimonies of survivors already heard. In addition, to the general surprise, he seemed not to know the documents that were added to his application to become a civil party…

Many details conflicting with what is known of S-21

Enlisted by the revolutionary forces in regiment 119 since 1972, Ly Hor, he recounted, was arrested and detained in office 15, under the authority of sector 25, in 1976, before being transferred to Takmau prison and sent to Tuol Sleng prison, then Prey Sar prison, before finally escaping and managing to return to his native village. He stole food to satisfy his hunger, which was the reason for his arrest. After this short presentation, president Nil Nonn started a detailed interrogation. The answers of the witness, who is in his fifties and joined as a civil party, were brief and rarely came with details.

The son of farmers said he was interrogated only once in the prison which he alleged to be S-21, according to what he was told by a guard. “The interrogator told me I was stubborn and tried to scare me with an electric cable and an instrument he called a ‘buffalo penis.’ I told him, ‘Yes, I am scared, but my life is in your hands. If you want to kill me, you can kill me.’ […] He threw a cigarette butt and discarded food at me and ordered me to eat them.” He was threatened but not hit, he summarised.
From: