Pakistan Told to Ratchet Up Taliban Fight

By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: December 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is turning up the pressure on Pakistan to fight the Taliban inside its borders, warning that if it does not act more aggressively the United States will use considerably more force on the Pakistani side of the border to shut down Taliban attacks on American forces in Afghanistan, American and Pakistani officials said.

The blunt message was delivered in a tense encounter in Pakistan last month, before President Obama announced his new war strategy, when Gen. James L. Jones, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, and John O. Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief, met with the heads of Pakistan’s military and its intelligence service.

United States officials said the message did not amount to an ultimatum, but rather it was intended to prod a reluctant Pakistani military to go after Taliban insurgents in Pakistan who are directing attacks in Afghanistan.

For their part the Pakistanis interpreted the message as a fairly bald warning that unless Pakistan moved quickly to act against two Taliban groups they have so far refused to attack, the United States was prepared to take unilateral action to expand Predator drone attacks beyond the tribal areas and, if needed, to resume raids by Special Operations forces into the country against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.

A senior administration official, asked about the encounter, declined to go into details but added quickly, “I think they read our intentions accurately.”

A Pakistani official who has been briefed on the meetings said, “Jones’s message was if that Pakistani help wasn’t forthcoming, the United States would have to do it themselves.”

American commanders said earlier this year that they were considering expanding drone strikes in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, but General Jones’s comments marked the first time that the United States bluntly told Pakistan it would have to choose between leading attacks against the insurgents inside the country’s borders or stepping aside to let the Americans do it.

The recent security demands followed an offer of a broader strategic relationship and expanded intelligence sharing and nonmilitary economic aid from the United States. Pakistan’s politically weakened president, Asif Ali Zardari, replied in writing to a two-page letter that General Jones delivered from Mr. Obama. But Mr. Zardari gave no indication of how Pakistan would respond to the incentives, which were linked to the demands for greatly stepped-up counterterrorism actions.

“We’ve offered them a strategic choice,” one administration official said, describing the private communications. “And we’ve heard back almost nothing.” Another administration official said, “Our patience is wearing thin.”

Asked Monday about the exchange, Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said, “We have no comment on private diplomatic correspondence. As the president has said repeatedly, we will continue to partner with Pakistan and the international community to enhance the military, governance and economic capacity of Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

The implicit threat of not only ratcheting up the drone strikes but also launching more covert American ground raids would mark a substantial escalation of the administration’s counterterrorism campaign.

American Special Operations forces attacked Qaeda militants in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan in early September 2008, in the first publicly acknowledged case of United States forces conducting a ground raid on Pakistani soil.

But the raid caused a political furor in Pakistan, with the country’s top generals condemning the attack, and the United States backed off what had been a planned series of such strikes.

During his intensive review of Pakistan and Afghanistan strategy, officials say, Mr. Obama concluded that no amount of additional troops in Afghanistan would succeed in their new mission if the Taliban could retreat over the Pakistani border to regroup and resupply. But the administration has said little about the Pakistani part of the strategy.

“We concluded early on that whatever you do with Pakistan, you don’t want to talk about it much,” a senior presidential aide said last week. “All it does is get backs up in Islamabad.”

During his speech at West Point last week, Mr. Obama said that “our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan.” But for the rest of the speech he referred to the country in the past tense, talking about how “there have been those in Pakistan who’ve argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence.”

He never quite said how his administration views the Pakistanis today, and two officials said that Mr. Obama used that construction in an effort not to alienate the current government or the army, led by Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

Even before Mr. Obama announced his decision last week, the White House had approved an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas. A missile strike from what was said to be a United States drone in the tribal areas killed at least three people early Tuesday, according to Pakistani intelligence officials, The Associated Press reported.

Pakistani officials, wary of civilian casualties and the appearance of further infringement of national sovereignty, are still in discussions with American officials over whether to allow the C.I.A. to expand its missile strikes into Baluchistan for the first time — a politically delicate move because it is outside the tribal areas. American commanders say this is necessary because Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader who ran Afghanistan before the 2001 invasion, and other Taliban leaders are hiding in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province.

Pakistani officials also voice concern that if the Pakistani Army were to aggressively attack the two groups that most concern the United States — the Afghan Taliban leaders and the Haqqani network based in North Waziristan — the militants would respond with waves of retaliatory bombings, further undermining the weak civilian government.

Publicly, senior American officials and commanders take note of that concern. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Pakistan in late October with offers of a strategic partnership. But General Jones followed Mrs. Clinton two weeks later carrying more sticks than carrots, American officials said.

Vietnam’s Answer to Khmer Krom Education: More Vietnamese Classes

It is interesting to read the latest article from Vietnam Net Bridge entitled, “Class teaches Vietnamese to Khmer in An Giang” posted on 1st August 2008.

When one reads this article for the first time, one may not help but feel a sense of pride that Vietnam government is helping the Khmer people become literate in the Vietnamese language.

It is likely to be a mutual feeling amongst many Vietnamese people and perhaps they are expecting the Khmer people to feel grateful for such acts.

What the Vietnamese government does appear to understand or fully appreciate is that learning Vietnamese is the problem.

Such initiatives have been taking place since 1970s where all Khmer teachers were prohibited to teach Khmer and were only allowed to teach Vietnamese. It has and continues to be a systematic effort by the Vietnamese authorities to assimilate the Khmer people into mainstream Vietnamese society.

A few months ago, an article (http://khmerkrom.net/?q=node/1254) was written about how teachers in Vietnam were attempting to explain why Khmer students were dropping out likes flies. Their conclusion was that the Khmer students had an “inability to learn.”

Sounds like an excuse to explain a genetic disorder that only the Khmers people have in the Mekong Delta.

This latest article by Vietnam Net Bridge shows clearly a misunderstanding of what the Khmer community in Vietnam really needs.

And that is definitely not more Vietnamese classes.

Khmer students are not coping well in classes because everything is in Vietnamese. Vietnamese authorities and teachers are expected the Khmer students to pick Vietnamese as if it was their first language.

The reality is Vietnamese will always be their second language and unless Vietnam recognises this and stop forcing them to give up their native language, Khmer students will continue to miss out on good quality education again and again.

For the last four years, the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation has recommended to the Vietnam at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues for more classes in the Khmer language. They recommended more funding be allocated to sustain existing school models which are embedded in the Khmer Buddhist temples.

To this date, there has been no major systematic effort by the Vietnamese government to have bilingual classes in which Khmer classes are being taught at the same time.

Instead more Vietnamese classes are being set up, a system which ensures that the Khmer language is not an important priority for the government.

Khmer Krom Buddhist monks and people have been forced to find their own way of preserving what is left of their culture and language.

There are no articles written about government initiatives which promotes and protects the Khmer language.

No clear signs which indicates that Vietnam understands or appreciate the Khmer culture and the urgent need to preserve it in all of its form.

This article also shows the lack of priority and disregard that Vietnam has on the Khmer language.

The tone of the article shouts to us, “It is all about us, about being the Vietnamese”.

What about the Khmer language?

“There remain some difficulties, but we are very pleased to see the Khmer try to learn Vietnamese,” Lieutenant-Colonel Hoa said.

It is great that Khmer students are eager to learn Vietnamese and it is certainly a skill that they must be equipped with to survive in a home that is increasing less familiar and more Vietnamese.

It is clear that the Vietnam government wants the Khmer people to fully incorporate into the Vietnam mainstream society at all cost.

It doesn’t matter if the very heart, culture and language of the Khmers is lost in the process.

When will the Vietnamese government realise that such thoughts and action will be their ultimate undoing?

While having more Vietnamese schools will help them incorporate into the greater Vietnamese society, it will set up for more Khmer students to fail and drop out because it does not accurately address their bilingual needs.

Vietnam‘s education system is failing for the Khmer people.

When will Vietnam finally listen to the voices and concerns of the Khmer people rather for it own selfish reasons?

Reflecting on Khmer Krom women

International Women’s Day marks an important event for all women around the world to celebrate.

This upcoming March 8th 2009 marks and celebrates the fruitful struggle of women to get recognition, equality, justice, peace and development.

While the women in countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America are celebrating, the existence of such a day remains unheard of in the Kampuchea-Krom.

For the hundreds of thousands of Khmer Krom women living in the rich fertile Mekong Delta, their struggle for equality and justice is not unlike their fellow women in Russia or Australia.

In fact, the very struggle that the women of Austria, Denmark, Germany and Australia faced in 1900s continues to be a struggle for the Khmer Krom women today.
Like many of their indigenous sisters around the world, Khmer Krom women continue to face double discrimination under the communist Vietnamese government.

First they are discriminated because they are Khmer Krom and secondly because they are women.

Ranked amongst the poorest peoples of Vietnam, Khmer Krom women and children miss out on the basic essential living aids, with little to no access to health care, education and healthy drinking water.

Many Khmer Krom women are forced to find non traditional means to support their families, some forced to travel thousands of miles to find employment, only to find that they are overworked and unpaid. Some find themselves victims of trafficking and unaided by the government are often abused and discriminated.

Despite the overwhelming odds stack against them, the Khmer Krom women continue to a strong and united forced amongst the Khmer Krom communities. In the Khmer culture, Khmer women are considered important in their role as the bearer of the next generation. The traditional role of a wife is to be the head of house and take care of the finances.

Often invisible, they are the backbone of the Khmer civilisation. Instead of confining women to the kitchen and house, current society must encourage women to go to school, be educated and take a proactive role in society.

In light of International Women’s Day, it is important to celebrate the success of many women who fought for their right; it is just as equally important to continue to light the torch for countless others such as the Khmer Krom women who remain in the dark and are still living without their basic rights.

Khmer Krom hero rises from the delta

By Craig Guthrie of Asian Times Online

BANGKOK - As he secretly slipped away from his mother's funeral, donned his familiar saffron robes and fled by motorbike along a potholed road from southeast Cambodia into neighboring Thailand, Tim Sakhorn's status as a Khmer Krom hero was assured. On Thursday, as his ethnic group marked the 60th anniversary of the loss of its lands, the little-known movement for self-determination and improved human rights was desperately in need of one.

The ongoing saga of Sakhorn, a 41-year-old Buddhist monk who in 2007 was defrocked, deported and detained by Vietnamese authorities for alleged separatist activities, has brought the cause of the Khmer Krom - a million-strong community of ethnic Khmer who live in parts of Vietnam's Mekong Delta that was once part of an ancient Cambodian empire - some much-needed global attention.

Khmer Krom leaders say the Vietnamese government has suppressed their religious and cultural identity for decades. They say the government of Cambodia, their motherland, has disowned them for political reasons. Sakhorn's story, they believe, is indicative of both.

Soft spoken and diminutive, Sakhorn is an unlikely successor to Son Kuy, the swashbuckling Khmer Krom soldier who led guerilla warfare against imperial Vietnam in the early 19th century before being beheaded at the royal court at Hue. Sakhorn says he is no hero. He told Asia Times Online at a hidden location in Bangkok on May 25 that he is merely happy his story can show the world that "the oppression is real".

The pictures of both men adorned banners as Khmer Krom marched in the streets of Phnom Penh on Thursday to commemorate colonial France's June 4, 1949, ceding of what was then known as western Cochinchina to Vietnam. The demonstration was kept low key - an earlier incarnation of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) was put in place by Hanoi in 1979, and its party leaders remain sensitive to any events critical of its important ally.

"Venerable Tim Sakhorn, is, by definition and through the examples of other great heroes in history, a true Cambodian hero," Washington-based economist and historian Naranhkiri Tith said by e-mail. He said Sakhorn deserves appreciation for "trying to defend Cambodia and her people against an unrelenting 'Vietnamization' of Cambodia".

Alien in your homeland
Khmer Krom leaders say the Vietnamese government targets their ethnic group in three ways: education, culture and economy. "Specifically, the Vietnamese government limits the teaching of the Khmer language, restricts the practice of Theravada Buddhism, and deprives the Khmer Krom of their lands," said Thach N Thach, the president of the Khmer Krom Federation.

The majority of Vietnam's Buddhists practice Mahayana Buddhism as opposed to the Khmer Krom's Theravada Buddhism. Hanoi's Minister of Culture and Information said in 2007 that Theravada enforces "backward" customs and habits that limit the group's development. The communist nation has restrictions on religious practices and all Theravada wats (temples) are overseen by the government-controlled Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha.

Perpetuating their life on the margins of Vietnamese society, large number of ethnic-Khmer students drop out of school at an early age. Many Khmer families are too poor to take their children out of wage labor. If they can, their children are only taught in Vietnamese. Khmer classes remain only available in small wats that girls, by custom, cannot attend.

"When I started first grade in public school I had to learn everything in Vietnamese, but I couldn't speak Vietnamese at all. The Vietnamese students, even teachers, made fun of us [Khmer Krom] and made us feel that we were not welcome," said Serey Chau, president of the Khmer Krom Federation's Youth Council.

In March 2008, the state-run VietnamNet news site reported that Khmer students were "dropping like flies" out of school. "Most of the students with bad learning capacity are of Khmer minority; they cannot speak Vietnamese well and cannot follow the study curriculum," a local teacher told them. The report said 56% of drop-outs are from the Khmer minority, with 30% of this figure leaving due to their "inability to learn".

Vietnam insists it has introduced wide-reaching housing, poverty reduction and education programs in an attempt to bring the Khmer Krom into mainstream society and join in the nation's economic progress. It claims some 358,000 new jobs were created for Khmer Krom in 2007, and that the average gross domestic product per capita in the region is 14.8 million dong (US$890).

'Eliminate without bleeding'
Khmer Krom leaders insist that poverty is rife in the area despite the delta being Vietnam's most fertile rice-growing region - Vietnam is the world's second-largest rice exporter. They claim the farmlands of ethnic-Khmer families have been confiscated by the authorities.

The World Bank found in a 2006-2010 socio-economic study that less than half of the Khmer households it surveyed (46%) had enough food to eat all year round, while poverty rates in Khmer Krom villages in 2005 reached between 50-70%. Of the main causes of poverty, 100% of village households surveyed said it was partly due to landlessness.

Thach says that after 1975, when the Khmer Rouge came into power in Phnom Penh, all Khmer Krom lands in the Delta were placed under state ownership. The government implemented collective land reform policies "with their eyes on the farmlands of Khmer Krom people", said Thach. "So far, this land-grabbing has succeeded and the majority of Khmer Krom are landless." He calls the aim of the program "to eliminate without bleeding".

An Oxfam Australia study in late 2008 found that the loss of culture is a primary cause of the poverty of the Khmer Krom in the Mekong Delta, "as cultural upheaval creates a sense of deep hopelessness and despondency".

This despondency has led to Khmer Krom activism. The case of Sakhorn suggests that the Vietnamese and Cambodian authorities are willing to collude to silence it.

A report by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) in February listed memos from Vietnamese government officials outlining their strategies to monitor and infiltrate ethnic-Khmer activist groups. In one, dated July 2007, General Luu Phuoc Luong, deputy commander of Vietnam's southwest region, accused "reactionary groups of the [Khmer] Krom" of "destabilizing us [Vietnam] politically ... Close cooperation with the Cambodian government is needed in order to nip these anti-government activities in the bud."

Hanoi dismissed the HRW report and Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dzung described it as a "total fabrication" in the state-controlled Viet Nam News Agency. "There is completely no repression or restrictions of freedom to religion and speech for Khmer ethnic people in the Mekong Delta region," Dung said.

Spirited away
When reports of Sakhorn's defrocking first made headlines in July 2007, the first statement from local authorities said he had been found guilty of "improper behavior" with a woman. Later, a witness from local human-rights group Adhoc said he had been bundled into a Toyota by unidentified men from Prime Minister Hun Sen's elite Brigade 70 bodyguard unit. Local newspapers then reported that he had been charged with "entering Vietnam illegally".

His whereabouts were unknown for weeks. Only in August 2007 was it confirmed he had been quietly shuttled to Vietnam by car to face charges of "undermining relations" between Vietnam and Cambodia by organizing Khmer Krom demonstrations and distributing propaganda leaflets while abbot of Phnom Den pagoda in Cambodia's southwestern Takeo province.

The defrocking order was signed by Great Supreme Patriach Tep Vong, Cambodia's highest religious figure. Vong has strong links to the ruling government and once served as deputy president of Cambodia's National Assembly when it was controlled by an earlier version of the CPP.

Human-rights groups said this was proof the structure of Buddhism in Cambodia was aligned so that religion was "politically entwined" with the government. "It is clear that the Ministry of Cults and Religions has an unhealthy degree of control over the Great Supreme Patriarch, and the structure of the Buddhism in Cambodia in general," said the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.

The outcry over his disappearance led Hun Sen to write to King Norodom Sihamoni justifying his defrocking - Cambodia's royal family has traditionally displayed more sympathy for the Khmer Krom than the government. Princess Norodom Arunrasmy presided over Thursday's ceremony. "Monk Tim Sakhorn was stubborn," he wrote in the leaked letter, adding that while the government knew Vietnam had detained him, "the exact cause of the imprisonment, we do not know yet".

Underweight and shackled, Tim Sakhorn finally surfaced at a People's Tribunal in Vietnam's southeastern An Giang province in November, 2007. He was initially sentenced to 15 years, but after a signing a confession - which he says was already written and translated into Khmer - this was reduced to just one.

After his detention ended, he says he was still kept under surveillance by Vietnamese agents, but he was allowed a brief visit to Takeo in April to visit 100-day funeral rights for his mother. Grasping the opportunity, he fled to Thailand on a motodop (motorbike taxi). He donned his saffron robes and was secretly re-ordained en route - enabling him to escape the attention of border police.

Sakhorn is staying in a safe house in Bangkok where he met with Asia Times Online. He said he is currently awaiting a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees decision on his status and hopes to go to the United States. "But even in a third country I will be afraid, Vietnamese agents have shadowed me and threatened me since I was released. It doesn't matter where I go, they can find you," said Sakhorn.

The Cambodian government has said it is safe for him to return and live there, but he does not believe them. "I had lived in Cambodia for years, from 1978 [until 2007], and Vietnamese authorities were still able to come and take me to their prison where I was mistreated, forced to confess and earth and grass mixed in with my daily rice. [Prime Minister] Hun Sen says he wants to help the Khmer Krom, but I have not seen anything happen."

For historian Tith, the Cambodian premier has no option but to support any demands from the Vietnam. "If the Vietnamese tell Hun Sen to turn right, he will turn right. If the Vietnamese tell him to turn left, he will turn left. Hun Sen is very scared of Vietnam because he was propped up by Vietnam."

Written out of history
Sakhorn's arrest and deportation sparked a wave of Khmer Krom demonstrations in Cambodia, with clashes in Phnom Penh between Khmer Krom monks and monks loyal to Tep Vong. Hun Sen warned after the street fights in a speech broadcast on national television in February 2008 that he would provide "free coffins" to anyone who attempted to reclaim Khmer Krom lands and "help bury their corpses".

The Khmer Krom maintain their cause is about human rights, not independence or the return of their lands to Cambodia. They claim to only want some say in their future, and for Vietnam to stop falsifying their history. In 2007, the Vietnamese Communist Party disseminated a freshly written history of southern Vietnam that asserted that the Khmer were not its indigenous inhabitants.

Shawn McHale, an Asia studies professor at George Washington University, says the fundamental problem in the historical dispute over the Khmer Krom's lands is using modern notions of sovereignty for pre-colonial situations that were ambiguous. He said a Khmer prince ceded Khmer Krom to Vietnam in 1757, but that not all branches of the royal families agreed.

In 1864, France made Cochinchina a colony, but Cambodia was merely a protectorate. When Hanoi and Phnom Penh both claimed the area in 1945, the French ultimately sided with the Vietnamese in 1949.

"So the Khmer Krom today are an ethnic minority greatly outnumbered in their land, they insist that their territory was seized by an enemy, and that this enemy does not have a legitimate claim to the area, but most of the world simply can't believe that such an account is true," McHale told Asia Times Online by e-mail. "Over time, the world has come to recognize the claims of the party that came later and used brute force to establish its claim."

Craig Guthrie is a correspondent for Asia Times Online based in Thailand. He has covered Cambodian affairs since 2004.

Khmer-Krom Buddhist Monks Forced to Attend a Training about National Security and Defense Policies

Preah Trapeang, Kampuchea-Krom - From October 20 – 23, 2009, One hundred Seventy One Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks in Preah Trapeang (Tra Vinh) were forced to attend three days training about the National Security and Defense Policies at Kampong Temple in Tra Vinh provincial town. If the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks refused to attend the training, they would be accused and faced the imprisonment.

This is not just a normal training because the Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks were intimidated and threatened if they violate the Vietnamese government’s oppression policies. This training also shows that the Vietnamese government totally controls the way Khmer-Krom practice their religion.

The Vietnamese government should stop using this type of training to threaten Khmer-Krom Buddhist monks because they are the most peaceful people on earth.

Attachment	Size

Attachment	Size
DSC07364.JPG	99.9 KB
DSC07367.JPG	80.76 KB
DSC07368.JPG	72.04 KB

Cambodian AIDS orphans have good plans for future

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- They are a hidden population, living with HIV/AIDS at a very young age. What we do know is that they are very vulnerable. It is this state of being hidden that puts AIDS orphans at special risk during their lifetime.

But those living with HIV in Cambodia are lucky. They live in the National Borey for Infants and Children, a state-run orphanage located in the suburb of the capital city Phnom Penh, which is supported by the government and humanitarian agencies.

"The center accommodates more than 100 orphans, among them 27 are living with HIV, and Sei La is one of them," Sani, a teacher at the center, told Xinhua while pointing at the boy who was orphaned at an early age when his parents died of AIDS.

Sei La is a typical Khmer boy with brown skin. He looks happy and healthy. He said he had just returned from school.

"How old are you, Sei La? Do you know China?" we asked.

"I am 15 years old now. I know China, it's a big country with a lot of people," Sei La answered with a shy smile.

"I am happy here. I have friends here and the teachers treat us like mothers. I study in the Khmer language school in the morning, and in the afternoon I go to English school," he continued.

"I have been working here for nearly 25 years. I love these poor children, they are just like my own sons and daughters," said Sani. Her warmth for these children is reciprocated, as Sani's proteges respectfully call her "Mama."

Sani told us that Sei La was a clever boy, and that he worked part-time in a small restaurant in the city every Sunday.

"Just clean dirty dishes, set tables, and serve as an assistant," he said.

"The payment is little, just 3,000 riel (about 0.73 U.S. dollars)," he admitted. "I only want to earn some pocket money, so I can buy some snacks and sometimes repair my bicycle, but first of all, I want to gain some experience for seeking a good job in the future."

When talking about the HIV/AIDS disease, Sei La looked calm while replying that he knew he was infected with HIV.

"I was very scared at first and hated my parents, but after I learned about HIV/AIDS, I know if I keep taking pills and do some exercise, the disease can be controlled," he explained.

We have reason to believe that Sei La has already overcome his fear and public prejudice, and learned how to stand on his own two feet.

On the playground, we saw a group of children playing frisbee and some girls playing on the swirls.

"I like here very much," Nani, a five-year-old girl, said while riding a bike in the yard.

Enjoying the sight of little boys and girls giggling and running around, one can hardly imagine that this is an orphanage and that these lovely children are AIDS orphans. At that moment, we gratefully realized that poverty and illness would never prevail over the purity of a child's mind, and that these children's aspirations for living and learning would rise above these impediments.

Mak Phanna, director of the National Borey for Infants and Children of the Department of Child Welfare in the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation, told us that the Royal Government of Cambodia always paid great attention to children, especially the disabled and orphans infected with HIV. In effect, the government has adopted a law on HIV and AIDS, which went into effect in 2002.

Cambodia diagnosed the first case of HIV in 1993, and HIV prevalence in the country peaked at 3.7 percent in 1997. Chhim Sareth, director of the AIDS Health Foundation, Cambodia Care Organization, said Cambodia had one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the region, but the good news was that the rate was decreasing every year.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that 75,000 Cambodians live with HIV, but the prevalence of the virus among the population halved to 0.9 percent between 1998 and 2006. The measures taken by the government include publicity campaigns and education to raise understanding of HIV/AIDS. Also, a condom campaign, offering free HIV tests, has made some progress.

"It is unfortunate for these children to suffer this illness. However, it is very fortunate for them to have received various assistance. Through much support, these children have attended elementary school without paying any tuition, and have received treatment and medicines free of charge," Phanna said.

We also have high hopes for these children and wish them a happy and healthy life.

Times coverage: Funeral held for Melody Ross, 16

Chantha Ross, right, puts a rose on the casket of her daughter, Melody. As the three-hour funeral service ended, other mourners also placed roses there. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times (California, USA)

The Times' Ruben Vives reports from Saturday's funeral for Melody Ross, a 16-year-old Cambodian American teen who was shot and killed Friday, Oct. 30, in the 4400 block of East 10th Street in Long Beach while leaving her high school's homecoming football game. Tom Love Vinson and Daivion Davis, both 16-year-old black males, have been charged as adults in her slaying, which authorities say was gang-related. From the report:

Melody Ross, the Wilson High School honors student whose shooting death after a Long Beach football game touched off an outpouring of sympathy from around the country, was buried Saturday in Whittier.

A hushed throng of family members, friends and dignitaries gathered at SkyRose Chapel at Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary, where her first name was spelled out in a collage of photographs taken over the 16 years of her life.

A slide show was screened above her open wooden casket, set amid wreaths of flowers. Nearby, a Wilson football helmet, a Gatorade bottle and a football sat on marble stands, each bearing signatures of those who knew her.

Looking over the crowd, Melody's uncle, Sam Che, 36, said he was touched by the expressions of love for his niece. He pointed to a photograph of Melody and gently said, "Look at her smile."
Read the complete story: Funeral held for Melody Ross, teenager shot after high school football game

No double-dip US recession

The pace of the recovery in the US economy remains sluggish but Mr Strauss-Kahn does not believe there will be a double-dip recession. -- PHOTO: AFP

THE International Monetary Fund's managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said on Friday the pace of the recovery in the US economy remains sluggish but he does not believe there will be a double-dip recession.

He also said China's economic stimulus is helping to rebalance its economy towards relying more on domestic demand but it still needs to let its currency rise over time.

In October, the IMF raised its US growth outlook to 1.5 per cent in 2010 but Mr Strauss-Kahn said that forecast could be on the pessimistic side.

'Our forecast has that, not only in the United States but also for the rest of the world, 2010 will be a year of recovery,' Mr Strauss-Kahn told a news conference in Singapore where he was attending an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting.

'I must say, in some respects, we had been a little pessimistic because growth has resumed a little earlier than expected, by one quarter or so.'

He said the dollar had remained resilient throughout the global crisis but most Asian currencies were undervalued and reiterated calls for the Chinese yuan to be revalued. 'China's economy in the coming years will be focused on domestic growth and the value of renminbi will have to be increased,' he said. -- THOMSON REUTERS

North Korea’s Underground Bunkers

Hundreds of bunkers are decoys, a defector says, while hundreds more contain materiel for a possible invasion.

AFP

North Korean border guards at Panmunjom, November 2007.

SEOUL—North Korea built hundreds of bunkers at the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating it from South Korea even as the previous Seoul government pursued its policy of opening to the North, according to a well-informed defector.

Pyongyang built at least 800 bunkers, including an unknown number of decoys, to prepare for a possible invasion of South Korea while the late South Korean president Roh Moo Hyun was in office, he said.

“Each bunker contains military equipment that can fully arm 1,500 to 2,000 soldiers,” the defector told RFA’s Korean service, adding that construction began in 2004—the second year of the Roh government.

“If a soldier carried all his military equipment, which weighs 32 kilos, and came to the DMZ in full gear, he would already be exhausted before infiltrating into the South. So they built bunkers at the DMZ and put all their operations equipment there,” he said.

The defector, who once worked as an informant for South Korea’s Defense Intelligence Command (DIC), uses the alias Kim Ju Song.

He declined to give any personal details and asked to have his voice disguised for broadcast to protect relatives still in North Korea.

He is scheduled to arrive in the United States on Monday and attend a closed-door session with U.S. legislators in Washington Wednesday.

More than 1,000 bunkers planned

“In the bunkers, there are South Korean military uniforms and name tags, so that they can disguise themselves as South Korean troops. Also reserved are...60-mm mortar shells, condensed high explosives, and all sorts of bullets.”

The bunkers are not linked to a series of underground passages built in the past to attack South Korea, he said. About 70 percent of the roughly 800 bunkers are fakes, he said, decoys “to confuse the South.”

“The North was trying to finish constructing bunkers by early 2008 with the target number of 1,000 to 1,200,” Kim said.

Nuclear-armed North Korea possesses one of the world’s largest standing armies, employing some 1.2 million of its 22.7 million citizens in the military.

The bulk of the forces are deployed along the DMZ and make use of a vast and complex tunneling network to hide their movement from the South Korean military in South Korea’s capital Seoul—a mere 40 kms (25 miles) away.

Kim resettled in Seoul in the early 2000s and worked with the DIC from 2004-2007. As director of a trade center run by the military, he was given the military title sangja, somewhere between lieutenant colonel and colonel.

Through his work for the DIC, Kim said, he wanted to let people in South Korea know the North is not giving up “its principal target of unifying the Korean Peninsula by using armed force.”

“Regardless of Seoul’s appeasement policy, or whatever the South does toward the North, Pyongyang hasn’t given up its aim of unifying the Korean Peninsula by military force. They are sticking to this principle and teaching North Koreans about it,” Kim said.

Trade center with military ties

South Korean intelligence authorities asked Kim to explain the bunkers in August 2005, he said.

Two months later, he said, “I delivered to the DIC my investigation results, including the fact that the North began to build the bunkers in 2004 and that their purpose is to reserve military equipment for attacking the South.”

“In August 2006, I enticed a North Korean platoon leader, who was involved in building the bunkers, into Yanji, China, where three DIC agents interrogated him for two days. So we got all the information about the bunkers, such as the bunkers’ blueprints and how thick their walls and covers are.”

South Korean intelligence officials declined to comment on Kim’s account.

Kim also described his work in North Korea as director of a military-affiliated trade center at a city in the North.

“I worked as a trader for a long time, but I worked as director for six years,” he said. “In each province, there are around two trade centers that are run by the North Korean military.”

Trade centers and their employees are given military status “to intensify the power of control, and to separate the military affiliates from the society, so that we are not bothered by local leaders. The purpose is to give special status to the military affiliates and help us earn more hard currency.”

Although he declined to explain why he chose to defect, Kim said he eventually bribed his way into China, where he spent two months before his connections there arranged passage to South Korea.

“I have a human network in China that I built while I was in North Korea. I got some help from them,” he said.

“I used to visit China for business. And my Chinese counterparts also came to North Korea. Those business exchanges helped me build the human network.”

Radio critical

North Korea allowed ships to carry shortwave radios as a safety measure after a seismic wave struck North Korea’s East coast and killed thousands of fishermen in 2005, Kim said.

Radio channels were fixed to government frequencies, but North Koreans took advantage of this relative relaxation to begin smuggling in radios from China and are now selling them on the black market.

Pyongyang remains deeply wary of international broadcasts, he said.

“The North Korean government’s biggest concern is international radio broadcasts like those of Radio Free Asia. Content promoting democracy and disclosing leaders’ corruption as well as North Korea’s human rights situation—the Kim Jong Il regime considers this its biggest threat.”

“When people learn these things, they don’t believe in the regime anymore. In this context, I think those broadcasts are fulfilling their mission fully and serving as a pillar for the spirit of the North Korean people.”

China, Obama and Cyber Freedom

Netizens split over the visiting U.S. president's calls for China to open up online.

AFP

Customers surf the Web at an Internet bar in Beijing, Jan. 15, 2009.

SHANGHAI—Chinese Internet users gave mixed reactions to calls from visiting U.S. President Barack Obama for freedom of information online during a town-hall meeting with some of China's top university students.

"I'm a big supporter of not restricting Internet use, Internet access, other information technologies like Twitter," Obama told the meeting, in response to a question about the routine blocking of the microblogging service and other social media sites by the Chinese government.

"The more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," Obama said.

"They can begin to think for themselves."

He was responding to two questions:

"In a country with 350 million Internet users and 60 million bloggers, do you know of the firewall?" and "Should we be able to use Twitter freely?"

Ironically, Obama's comments were censored from the live Internet translation by China’s official Xinhua News Agency and were later deleted from more than 30 Web sites, Web users reported.

Great firewall

Guangzhou-based cyber activist Beifeng welcomed Obama's comments, saying that U.S. diplomats had apparently listened to the opinions of citizen journalists and bloggers about the "Great Firewall," known online simply as GFW, a complex system of blocks, filters, and censorship procedures that limits content viewable in China to what the government wants people to see.

"So many people brought up the Great Firewall issue, including the banning of wall-scaling [circumvention] software and Twitter," said Beifeng, who attended one meeting with U.S. diplomats.

"This must be one of the reasons why President Obama directly answered the question at the meeting," he said.

Beijing-based cyber commentator Lian Yue said the online reaction to Obama's comments was positive.

"We should not expect a foreign head of state to do many things for China," he said.

"But President Obama’s comments on cyber freedom really pleased Chinese netizens."

But some said Obama's influence in China was too limited to make an real impact on the human rights situation.

Petitioners held

A report detailing the detention of 90 petitioners who lost their homes because of urban redevelopment ahead of the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai was circulated widely on Twitter with the keyword ObamaCN, as the detainees had gathered in the capital in the hope of meeting Obama.

"At around 10 a.m., police officers from the Ganjiakou police station took 42 of them to the police station, while the rest escaped," the civil rights group China Rights Defenders said on its Web site.

"The police issued those detained with a 'warning letter,' which told them that their actions were 'illegal.' They were made to sign. The petitioners denied holding a mass petition. They said they had the right to welcome President Obama, that they hadn't broken the law, and refused to sign."

The 42 were taken to a holding center near the southern railway station at around 1 a.m. and deprived of their freedom of movement. They were watched by around 20 unidentified persons, it said.

"We don't know the identities of the people who are guarding us," said detainee Wang Zhihua.

"We think it's criminal elements from Beijing and the Shanghai secret police. But their accents don't sound Shanghainese."

More comments

Online social commentator and activist Ai Weiwei said the detentions showed just how little the U.S. president could do in China.

"These people were detained because of Obama's visit," Ai said on Twitter.

"He shouldn't come here and hold talks with a dictatorial regime and pretend that the human rights situation of the Chinese people has anything to do with him."

Another Twitter user, sailholder, compared Chinese who expected political support from Obama to those who gave land concessions to foreign colonial powers more than a century ago.

"A lot of people want to ask Obama about the GFW. These people believe that the basis of political power lies with foreigners," sailholder wrote.

"This is on a par with Sun Wen, who wanted to hand over three of China's eastern provinces to the Japanese in return for financial support ... Obama's visit is about giving face to China's leaders."

And Twitter user houseash added: "How is Obama going to help Chinese people with their human rights issues when he has a whole heap of human rights problems on his own doorstep? He will be lucky not to add to the mess."

Just before Chinese censors erased Obama’s criticism of their own activities, Shanghai netizens were surprised on Sunday by a brief taste of browsing freedom.

Overseas Web sites like Boxun and Radio Free Asia were unblocked as the president flew in to the city, netizens said.

But they said the gesture was short-lived, and merely intended as a courtesy to the visiting U.S. leader.

Quipped Twitter user xiahua: "Obama to China: Stop censoring the Internet. China to Obama: I think we're going to censor you on the Internet."

Obama 'Impresses' Students

Students handpicked from Chinese universities discuss U.S. President Barack Obama's town hall meeting.

AFP

A student asks a question of U.S. President Barack Obama during a town hall meeting in Shanghai, Nov. 16, 2009.

SHANGHAI—Top Chinese students selected to attend a meeting with visiting U.S. President Barack Obama said they were impressed with his frank and friendly style, and hoped his trip would herald a new era in Sino-U.S. ties.

Drawn from some of Shanghai's most prestigious universities, including Fudan University and the Shanghai Communications University, they filed into the state-of-the-art Science and Technology Museum to fire a series of carefully vetted questions at the U.S. leader on the first full day of his Nov. 15-18 state visit.

"His speech was excellent," Jiaotong University student Zhang Xiaoju said.

"I was most impressed by his narration about how he had built up his high quality which we can see now while he was in college. This is particularly useful to us.”

Obama answered a total of eight questions from the 500 audience members, in an event that was hosted by Fudan University president Yang Yuliang and broadcast live on local and national television.

Internet issues

The key politically sensitive topic came in answer to a question on Internet censorship.

His comments opposing it were promptly censored from the live Internet feed and translation of his speech for Chinese netizens.

Zhang said she agreed with his call for free use of the Internet to build stronger democracies.

"From his point of view, I think what he said was quite correct," she said.

But she declined to comment on how his views might apply to China.

"Each country has its own national situation, and therefore this question should be dealt with in different ways," she said.

"The United States is a highly developed country and China is just a developing country. We still have a long way to go," she added.

Universal values

Another student, Wang Zhengyu from Fudan University, said he had learned a lot from the encounter.

"I have personally experienced the sincerity President Obama brought with him on his China visit. He earnestly wishes to strengthen the mutual understanding between our two peoples, especially the youth of the two nations," Wang said.

"Based on this understanding, he hopes to further the development of China-U.S. bilateral relations," Wang said.

"I felt the most appealing part was his call for all nations to respect the universal value that includes efforts to promote the happiness of common people," said Wang, who was among a hand-picked group of around 100 students from Fudan.

Another student who attended, carrying a publicity poster for the event, said:

"I wanted to ask a question but I wasn't able to... I am interested in his personal experience, and also his views on cultural exchange."

Others said they appreciated Obama's easy style in fielding questions.

"It seems to me after hearing him talk on a number of topics that Sino-U.S. relations will continue to develop, and that there will also be more exchange programs for students in the future," another student said.

"I wanted to ask him his views on the success of China's reform and opening up," she said.

Jailed Priest Suffers Stroke

One of Vietnam’s leading dissidents is partially paralyzed.

AFP

A security officer covers the mouth of Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly after he shouts in protest during his trial at a court in Hue, March 30, 2007.

BANGKOK—A Catholic priest jailed for urging authorities to allow religious freedom in Vietnam has suffered a stroke in prison and is now partially paralyzed, according to relatives.

Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, 63, suffered a stroke early Sunday and was transferred to Police Hospital 198 in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, for medical treatment.

An officer who identified himself as Maj. Nam, who was supervising Ly in prison, called the priest’s relatives to inform them about his health, family members said.

A relative surnamed Hieu said the right half of Ly’s body had been paralyzed following the stroke, but that the priest was conscious and recuperating at the hospital.

Hoang, Ly’s nephew, was permitted to visit the hospital and described his current condition.

“He’s conscious and able to talk,” Hoang said, adding that while Ly had no paralysis in his mouth, he had extremely limited motion in his right extremities.

“He can raise his leg 20 cm off the bed, and a similar amount with his arm, so there’s been improvement,” he said.

Treated well

Hoang said his uncle was receiving daily IV drips, shots, and medication and that the head physician at the hospital’s coronary department had personally been checking on his progress.

“He has been well treated. He stays in a room under the supervision of five policemen,” Hoang said.

He added that his uncle was in a positive mood and wanted to thank his caretakers.

Ly’s work as a pro-democracy activist and advocate for religious freedom in Vietnam has seen the priest jailed for a total of nearly 20 years since 1970.

Years in jail

He spent a year in prison from 1977-78, and an additional nine years from 1983-92, for what Vietnamese authorities deemed “opposing the revolution and destroying the people's unity.”

In 2001, Ly was arrested at his church and accused of abusing conditions of his probation, leading to a 15-year prison sentence that was later commuted.

He was released in 2004 but placed under house arrest at the Archdiocese of Hue city in central Vietnam.

In April 2006, Ly joined a group of writers known as Bloc 8406 in signing the “Manifesto on Freedom and Democracy in Vietnam” and later began publishing an online magazine called Free Speech.

In September that year he helped establish the Vietnam Progressive Party.

Raided

But in February 2007, police raided the offices of the Hue Archdiocese and arrested Father Ly.

As a member of Bloc 8406, he was sentenced to eight years in prison for trying to organize a boycott of upcoming elections.

During his trial, which was attended by foreign press, Ly began to shout “down with communism” but—in a televised image that became an icon for advocates of free expression—was silenced by a security officer who covered Ly’s mouth with his hand.

The image became widely circulated and endures as a reminder of Hanoi’s continued intolerance of free speech in Vietnam.

In July, 37 U.S. senators signed a letter addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding the priest’s release and urging the State Department to re-designate Vietnam a Country of Particular Concern, citing violations of human rights and religious freedom.

n Brief: Jackie Chan to talk peace in Cambodia

Hong Kong-based actor, action choreographer, filmmaker, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur and singer Jackie Chan will visit Phnom Penh tomorrow to deliver a keynote address in the Peace Foundation’s “Bridges” event series. Chan’s talk, titled “Arts and culture as a pathway towards peace”, is scheduled to be held at 2pm Wednesday, at the University of Cambodia. For information and free seat reservations phone 023 993 275 or email info@uc.edu.kh This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

An open letter to King Norodom Sihamoni

Your Majesty,

Photo by: Tracey Shelton

King Norodom Sihanmoni at his birthday concert in May.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a conference in Washington, DC, arranged by Oxfam. The conference was titled “Managing Cambodia’s Oil and Mineral Resources: Opportunities and Challenges for Development”.

While listening to the excellent presentations made by your ambassador and by one of the spokesmen of the host organisation, I felt tears coming to my eyes when I heard of exactly the same dreams and illusions that I heard in my own country, Venezuela, 35 years ago, when oil prices increased dramatically. Those dreams have now been horrendously shattered by the awful realities of what is known as the oil curse.

Both speakers duly addressed the challenges and explained what “had to be done” in order to avoid this oil curse, but the arguments, such as the need for transparency, good long-term investments and setting aside funds for the future, and the determination with which they were made were also identical to those we made three-and-a-half decades ago. All of it proved far from sufficient, did not serve us well and, in fact, only provided us an excuse for going down the wrong path.

The real problem is that not a single one of the precautions suggested has a real chance to stand up against the darkest forces of the oil curse.

No matter what you do, the fact is that oil revenues, when they are both generous and centralised in the hands of the state, provide for an independently wealthy government that does not need the citizens, and therefore becomes arrogant and cruelly turns citizens with high expectations into beggars for favours.

May I, therefore, respectfully beg of your Majesty to support the possibility that Cambodia’s net oil revenues be paid directly to the Cambodian citizens, in full and from the very first day.

That Article 58 of your Constitution states that mineral resources are the property of the state is no impediment for the results of the exploitation of those resources being paid out directly to the citizens. On the contrary, if the oil revenues were to remain in the hands of the state, that would effectively impede complying with Article 56, which states “the Kingdom of Cambodia shall adopt a market-economy system” and, more importantly, with Article 51, which states that “the Cambodian people are the masters of their country”.

I am not the one to remind a King of his duties, nor do I wish to presume to have royal wisdom, but having read in your Constitution that the King shall be the protector of rights and freedom for all citizens, and shall assume the august role of arbitrator to ensure the faithful execution of public powers, let me in all humility say that, if I were the King of Cambodia, there would be no better legacy I could dream of leaving to my people and country than freeing it forever from the dark side of an oil curse.

If there is an absolutely urgent need to initiate government projects, then allow the citizens to have the right to pay for these projects by giving back as income taxes a certain percentage of any oil revenues received, but please help your subjects to be and feel relevant to the future of their nation.

Your Majesty, I would deeply appreciate any attention you give this letter and, if it is considered an undue intrusion into the affairs of Cambodia, please know that it has been written with utmost sincerity, thinking of a country that has gone through much suffering and destruction, and
therefore truly deserves the help that oil could bring, in the words of its Constitution, to turn “Cambodia into an Island of Peace … moving toward perpetual progress, development, prosperity and glory”, instead of forcing it to face new nation-destroying hardships.

Sincerely, I remain, your Majesty’s humble friend,

Cambodia's Judiciary on Trial

Cambodians don't trust their own legal system, and corruption allegations in a high-profile Khmer Rouge trial don't help.

AFP

Prosecutors take their seats at the opening of the Khmer Rouge trial in Phnom Penh, Feb. 17, 2009.

PHNOM PENH—As talks aimed at clamping down on alleged corruption at the Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal failed to reach agreement, rights groups warned that a clean and independent judicial system remains a long way off for Cambodia.

More than one-quarter of Cambodian court defendants surveyed reported being tortured or coerced into confession and ordinary people lack faith in the justice system, according to an annual judicial review released last month by a Cambodian anti-corruption organization.

The Center for Social Development (CSD) reported that more than 25 percent of defendants appearing in court claimed to have been tortured or coerced into giving confessions.

The CSD, which receives funding from a number of donors including Germany and the United States, interviewed a wide range of judicial officials, witnesses, lawyers, and defendants between October 2006 and September 2007.

Judicial reform of the notoriously corrupt Cambodian system has been earmarked by donors to the aid-dependent country as a key factor in the country's development.

Poor training of the judiciary, bribery, torture, underfunding, a lack of independence, and frequent pre-trial detention of prisoners for terms exceeding the legal limit of six months are among problems cited by rights organizations.

"Not all the news is bad," U.S. ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli said of the report.

But he added: "On balance ... there remains a good deal to be done before the people of the judicial system will earn the trust of the people of Cambodia."

Khmer Rouge trials

Talks between the United Nations and senior Cambodian officials over allegations of political interference and bribery surrounding the long-awaited trials of key former Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity meanwhile have failed to reach an accord.

This could jeopardize the future of the trials, which are aimed at bringing to book those who ordered the slaughter of up to 2 million people during the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime.

So far, the first Khmer Rouge trial has heard the regime's notorious prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, acknowledge responsibility for overseeing the torture and execution of more than 15,000 people at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison camp in Phnom Penh.

The corruption allegations sparked a confidential U.N. probe into claims Cambodian workers had been forced to pay for their jobs.

But court officials have rejected the allegations as"unspecific, unsourced, and unsubstantiated."

The U.S. branch of Amnesty International said in a statement:

"The hearing marks a first historic step towards holding to public account a few out of the thousands of persons responsible for crimes against humanity and other serious crimes under international law committed under Khmer Rouge rule and affecting millions of people, the legacy of which still lives on today."

But it warned that the Extraordinary Chambers set up to convene the trials still had to address challenges if it were to meet international standards of justice and satisfy the needs of victims and their families.

"Cambodia's national justice system falls far short of international standards of competence, independence, and impartiality," Amnesty said.

"This situation has contributed significantly to impunity in Cambodia, where the lack of rule of law perpetuates serious human rights violations in a number of areas, including the rights to adequate housing, freedom of expression, and [freedom of ] assembly."

Vulnerable to corruption

Allegations of trumped-up charges and judicial corruption are commonplace throughout Cambodia, where low pay and barely trained legal staff are vulnerable to coercion or bribery from local officials, or to violence from the military.

Rights workers in the southern Cambodian province of Kampot lashed out recently at the detention of mother-of-three Tan You for several months after she was initially accused of human trafficking by a wealthy local woman to whom she had refused to sell her land.

Tan Hong, older sister of Tan You of Kampong Bay village, said local courts had issued an arrest warrant without calling her sister for questioning in advance, with scant evidence against her.

"Rich and powerful people and high-ranking officials harm the poor as they wish," Tan Hong said.

"They can do whatever they want. The government should punish [the plaintiff] who has unreasonably accused a person and jailed her."

Plaintiff Aing Sophy accused Tan You of persuading her 15-year-old foster daughter to go to Phnom Penh for work, although the girl's employer said she found the job by herself.

Kampot Anti-Human Trafficking bureau director Chin Ov declined to comment on the arrest of Tan You.

His deputy, Uy Vong, who investigated the case, said he found no evidence beside what the girl and her mother said.

"After the investigation was conducted, we summoned [the accused]. When someone is summoned but they do not appear to explain, it is necessary that I have to file a primary report to prosecutor. My side has to wait for an order for further investigation," he said.

Violation of Cambodian law

Two civil rights groups operating in the province, LICADHO and ADHOC, said Tan You's detention violated Cambodian law and her basic human rights, however.

LICADHO investigator Yun Phally said that investigations showed no evidence other than that given by the plaintiff and the information given by the alleged victim’s mother, Aing Sophy.

She added that the alleged victim's story was inconsistent.

"When the [alleged] victim does not speak right to the point, the mother either interrupts or speaks on her behalf," Yun Phally said.

Tan You was arrested Dec. 6, 2008 by Kampot province’s anti-trafficking police acting on the Kampot provincial court’s Warrant No. 282 dated Dec. 2, 2008.

She was charged with and convicted of "purposely guiding a minor," and sentenced to two years in prison. Her eldest daughter was handed a suspended one-year jail term.

Tan You has been in jail for four months, leaving behind three daughters.

The eldest, 17, has now gone into hiding for fear of arrest, and the other two, 7 and 10, are living in a deteriorating hut.

An Rasmey, second daughter of Tan You, said the family had been dependent on the eldest daughter.

After her mother was arrested and put into jail, she and her sister stopped attending school regularly as they sometimes had to do laundry to earn money to buy basic foodstuffs.

Sometimes, she added, neighbors gave them rice to eat in their thatch-walled hut.

"Any day I have money, I go to school," An Rasmey said.

"When I haven’t, I don’t go to school. I request that the government help free my mother from jail. She hasn’t committed any crime," she said.

Officials at the Kampot provincial court, including court president Huon Many, court clerk Mann Moreth, and prosecutor Chum Samban, declined to comment.

Police Swoop on Beijing University

Comments by a Beijing professor enrage petitioners, who descend on his office and prompt a police crackdown.

Courtesy of a petitioner.

Police in Beijing move in on petitioners in the capital in several locations during a sensitive anniversary year.

HONG KONG—Authorities in Beijing have begun moving to clear large numbers of people from the capital who have a grievance against the government as security tightens, with local residents and petitioners reporting detentions in several sensitive locations.

Hundreds of protesters have traveled from all over China to the capital's prestigious Beijing University following recently reported remarks about petitioners by a professor there.

A number of these were rounded up in recent days, and their details recorded by police after they staged a sit-in in protest at recent comments by professor Sun Dong Dong, head of the university's forensics department, who was reported as saying that 99 percent of long-term petitioners—people who try to lodge complaints about alleged official wrongdoing through official channels—are mentally ill.

Sun has since said his comments, which have drawn widespread public anger and protests from China's thousands of long-term petitioners, were reported out of context by the media, while a health ministry official has said he was exercising his right to freedom of expression.

On Saturday and Sunday the police were detaining a lot of petitioners..."

Shenzhen petitioner

A Beijing-based petitioner surnamed Li said she saw 83 petitioners who had traveled from Shanghai to protest against Sun's reported comments.

"According to the records of the Haidian branch police station, five of them had come back a second time after being removed," Li said.

Detained outside university

Li said both she and petitioners Wang Shenfang and Zhu Jianping were detained for a total of seven days for causing a public disturbance."

"We were then taken out of Majialou [detention center] by our hometown representatives in Beijing, who wanted to know the exact circumstances of our coming to Beijing University, and particularly whether anyone had got in touch to organize the protest," she said.

"They didn't send us back to Shanghai until the evening on the second day."

Sun's comments are particularly sensitive for petitioners, who have been incarcerated in mental institutions and force-fed medication because they refuse to give up after decades of trying to win redress for official wrongdoing, which can include deaths in police custody, forced evictions, and alleged corruption.

Comments 'out of context'

In a telephone interview, Sun acknowledged his remarks but said media reports published his comments out of context.

"The original meaning of my comment was that, of the 'long-time' petitioners who came to me, the result [99 percent of them suffer from mental problems] was based on several tests. But when the comments came out, the media omitted the first part and only published the other part," Sun said.

"Of course I take responsibility for what I said. But the media deleted part of it and triggered this” response, he said.

"The petitioners’ emotions are running so high right now that it will only trigger more contradictions if I talk to them. I will explain [the situation] to them in due course," Sun said.

"I have dealt with great pressure from this incident. But from an objective point of view, it has caused us to learn and to care more about mental problems. This shows progress in society,” he said.

Government officials have indicated publicly that they accept that the majority of petitioners have legitimate complaints.

In practice, however, petitioners are routinely detained, beaten, and sent back to their hometowns if they try to present them in Beijing, especially during times of tightened security.

Elsewhere in the capital, three petitioners, including two pregnant women and a cancer patient, were detained after they handed out leaflets in and around the Beijing official residence of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday, witnesses said.

Fliers at Premier's house

Li Chunxia and Zhao Chunhong, both pregnant, and cancer patient Li Shuzhen went to the Premier's house on Monday afternoon, and threw leaflets detailing their complaints against the government into the house, and into the alleyway outside it, according to a Beijing resident surnamed Chen, who saw them detained.

"This afternoon at about 3 p.m. three people were taken away in a police car," Chen said.

"They were throwing fliers at No. 17, Dongjiao Alley. Some of the fliers went into the courtyard, while others landed outside the walls."

"They were taken to the police station by police, national security police, and plainclothes officers. I didn't dare to shoot any video," Chen said.

Police have stepped up their presence in the southern part of the city in recent days, especially targeting areas in the south of the city near the railway station and bus station, petitioners said.

"There are a lot of police vehicles," a petitioner from Shenzhen surnamed Zhao said from the southern Beijing district of Fengtai, temporary home to a large number of people seeking to make complaints against officials in their hometown.

"On Saturday and Sunday the police were detaining a lot of petitioners and taking them straight to Majialou," she said, referring to a holding center where petitioners are detained to await escort back to their respective hometowns.

Raid on railway, bus stations

"I was asking around the southern railway station today, and they told me they probably detained a couple of hundred people," she added.

"There were about 20 people detained in the morning," a petitioner from eastern Anhui province surnamed Wang said, referring to petitioners sleeping in the corridors of the long-distance bus station, not far from the southern railway station.

"Down by the railway station, while I was watching they took away a whole busload of people. That's probably 50 or 60 people," he said.

A petitioner surnamed Li said the authorities were deliberately targeting petitioners who might try to travel to central Beijing to protest outside government buildings.

"I was detained at the police station for a day and night. They don't give you anything to eat," she said.

"If it's after 12 p.m. they take you to Majialou, but they deliberately delay things so that you get there after lunchtime and there is nothing to eat."

Authorities in Beijing are beginning to tighten security through the capital ahead of the 20th anniversary of massive pro-democracy protests, which ended in an armed crackdown on student-led protesters in and around Tiananmen Square.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, are believed to have died, but the government has ignored repeatedly calls for a reappraisal and public discussion of the incident.

Original reporting in Mandarin by Qiao Long and Ding Xiao, and in Cantonese by Grace Kei Lai-see. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.