Archive for March 2009

Thailand expels Khmer Krom asylum seekers: rights groups

By ekkii | Published Friday, 20 March 2009

Friday, 20 March 2009
Written by Brendan Brady and Cheang Sokha
The Phnom Penh Post

Rights workers say group was trucked out of Thailand after UN officials previously intervened to secure release of others

FOLLOWING the release Monday of 19 Khmer Krom refugees from a Bangkok prison, the seven remaining in detention were abruptly expelled from the country under suspicious circumstances, according to local rights activists.
Ang Chanrith, head of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Human Rights Organization, said seven Khmer Krom political refugees were shuttled to the Poipet border crossing in Banteay Meanchey province in the middle of the night Thursday.

The original group of 19 Khmer Krom, who hold refugee documents from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), were released after the UN office petitioned Thai officials to recognise them as legitimate asylum seekers, he said. Ang Chanrith has been working on the case with UN officials in Bangkok and Phnom Penh.

Members of the group released Monday had contacted him early Thursday morning to warn of the departure of the seven left in detention, who were recent arrivals to Bangkok and therefore had not yet been registered with the UNHCR, he said.

"We are concerned they could be taken back to Vietnam," he said.

Escaping the past

Ang Chanrith said all 26 people had fled Vietnam after they feared imprisonment at the hands of authorities there following public demonstrations against limits on their freedom of culture, religion and speech.

Rights groups and Khmer Krom activists have accused the Vietnamese and Cambodian governments of engaging in a persistent and often violent campaign to stifle the rights and distinct identity of the Khmer ethnic group originating from what is now Vietnam's southern Delta.

Hun Hean, provincial police chief of Banteay Meanchey, said he had not heard about the incident, adding that between 100 and 200 illegal Khmer immigrants were turned over by Thai authorities at the border each day.

Suong Sopheap, a program officer with the Cambodian Women's Crisis Centre in Banteay Meanchey, said his staff had attempted to track the whereabouts of the group without success.

"We have staff remaining in Poipet who are continuing to monitor the situation," he said.

Christophe Peschoux, head of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights in Phnom Penh, said his office was following the case but had not been in contact with the group.

"It's a very tricky situation for Khmer Krom in Cambodia," he said. "Even if the government gives them citizenship, if they agitate from Cambodia it could create tension between the Cambodian and Vietnamese governments; and Cambodia could be pressured to prevent it or hand them over to Vietnamese authorities."

The government has said all Khmer Krom are entitled to Cambodian citizenship, but Khmer Krom activists and rights groups say their status as Cambodians is ambiguous and can be stricken at the whim of the state.

Written by Robbie Corey-Boulet
Friday, 27 February 2009
Though the Kingdom has made progress since the health-related development goals were adopted, officials must now combat emergent trends as well as problems that persist Photo by: AFP An HIV-positive woman lies in her wooden house in central Phnom Penh. Despite impressive progress in reducing HIV rates in Cambodia, the Kingdom may still not meet its Millennium Development Goals for health. WHEN Mony Pen discovered five years ago that she was HIV-positive, the list of things she did not know about the disease included how she got it, how she could treat it and how long she could live with it. "People told me I was probably going to die very soon," said the 28-year-old Phnom Penh native, who learned of her status only when her husband, a policeman, died of full-blown Aids two years after they married. These days, Mony Pen, now an adviser to the Cambodian Community of Women Living with HIV/Aids (CCW), knows all about transmission and treatment, and can discuss in detail everything from antiretroviral drugs to the threats posed by opportunistic infection. She also knows this expertise sets her apart from the majority of Cambodian women, particularly those outside Phnom Penh. The 2005 Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey (CDHS) found, for example, that 67 percent of women in Mondulkiri and Ratanakkiri provinces believed HIV/Aids could be transmitted by a mosquito bite and 56 percent believed it could be spread "by supernatural means". Mony Pen said she believes this lack of knowledge could fuel a resurgence of the disease that might erase the much-touted gains made against it in recent years. This concern is not hers alone. UNAIDS Country Director Tony Lisle told the Post this week that several trends - in particular, the rise in so-called indirect sex work performed in beer halls and karaoke bars - could trigger an increase in new infections that might even "set the scene for a second-wave epidemic". In this regard, Cambodia's fight against HIV/Aids resembles its broader effort to meet targets under the three health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With some exceptions, notably in the area of maternal health, available data shows that Cambodia met or exceeded targets for 2005 and is likely to do the same in 2010 and 2015. But certain recent trends have muddied the picture, reinforcing the fact that progress is not inevitable. Speaking in reference to HIV/Aids, Lisle captured a widely held view of the general health picture in the Kingdom, one articulated in recent interviews by doctors, NGO workers and government officials: "Yes, Cambodia, you've done a fabulous job," he said. "But it's not over." Child mortality Photo by: SOVANN PHILONG An HIV-positive three-year-old child plays at home in Phnom Penh after receiving treatment at a Phnom Penh hospital. A FOUR-PART LOOK AT CAMBODIA'S MDGS Last year marked the midway point for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, benchmarks for developing countries established in 2000 that cover everything from poverty to environmental sustainability. Last year also marked the five-year anniversary of the adoption of Cambodia's Millennium Development Goals, the localised versions of the global goals. In a four-part series, the Post looks at the progress made and the challenges that remain in achieving targets set for 2010 and 2015, drawing on government data as well as interviews with officials, NGO workers and Cambodians who stand to benefit from the effort. Part Two looks at the goals for child mortality, maternal health and diseases such as HIV/Aids. A recent survey assessing the impact of rising food prices on child health underscored the tenuous nature of progress made in pursuit of MDG No 4: to reduce child mortality. The Cambodian Anthropometric Survey, findings of which were made public last week, found that the percentage of children classified as acutely malnourished - the number of which had fallen by half between 2000 and 2005 - increased from 8.4 percent in 2005 to 8.9 percent in 2008. The strong link between child malnutrition and child mortality - noted, among other places, in the 2005 assessment of MDG targets published by the Ministry of Planning - suggests that, in light of the survey results, Cambodia might have trouble meeting its 2015 target mortality rate for children younger than five: 65 deaths per 1,000 live births. The survey results run counter to Cambodia's recent performance in the area of child health. Between 1998 and 2005, the under-five child mortality rate fell from 124 per 1,000 live births to 82, far surpassing the target of 105. Viorica Berdaga, chief of child survival at Unicef, said via email that this decline could be attributed to factors including better access to safe water and the promotion of breastfeeding, which provides children with disease-fighting antibodies. But Berdaga also noted that the mortality decline was in part due to a lowered fertility rate, which calls into question Cambodia's ability to reduce child mortality even further. In its 2005 assessment, the Ministry of Planning noted that fertility declines have had a similar effect on child mortality in other developing countries but that, in most cases, "the initial positive impact" was "not enough to sustain continued improvement in child mortality due to underlying causal factors". Berdaga said this assessment could be applied to Cambodia as well. Asked to predict whether Cambodia would meet the 2015 child mortality target, Berdaga could say only that the Kingdom "has a chance". Maternal health If current trends continue, several experts said, Cambodia has little, if any, chance of achieving targets set under the fifth MDG: to improve maternal health. The most recent reliable data shows that the maternal health situation has worsened as of late. The Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey (CDHS) found that the maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births had increased from 437 in 1997 to 472 in 2005. The interim target for that year was 343. In a recent email interview, however, Pen Sophanara, a communications associate for the United Nations Population Fund, emphasised the "promising signs" she said could potentially reverse the trend, including higher rates of deliberate birth- spacing. She echoed the conclusion presented in the 2005 Ministry of Planning assessment that officials could significantly lower the maternal mortality rate by providing more family planning resources, which allow women to allot sufficient time between pregnancies. Longer gaps between pregnancies tend to result in smoother pregnancies and healthier infants. On top of limited family planning, Pen Sophanara said efforts to improve maternal health continued to be hindered by a shortage of midwives and skilled birth attendants. She said the Ministry of Health was aiming to have one midwife stationed at each of the Kingdom's health centres by the end of the year. In addition to bolstering recruitment, she said, officials will need to distribute resources to rural health centres to ensure midwives can be effective. Kek Galabru, president of the rights group Licadho, said midwives should be able to take blood samples, conduct ultrasounds and screen for potential delivery complications. She also stressed that midwives should be adequately paid so they do not collect informal fees, a practice that prevents very poor women from accessing health services. Pen Sophanara said midwife recruitment and other efforts in place could potentially yield a drop in the maternal mortality rate, pushing it closer to the goal of 140 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015. "Nobody wants to see women die giving lives," she said. "If these figures continue to be positive, maternal death will be lowered." The HIV/Aids fight Photo by: ROBBIE COREY-BOULET Mony Pen, whose late husband gave her HIV, works to give women access to HIV/Aids information.

Written by Cat Barton
Friday, 27 February 2009
German delegation exposes results of secret UN probe; staff concur Photo by: HENG CHIVOAN Monks file into the Extraordinary Chambers on the opening day of Duch's trial on February 17. IT became a monthly ritual: Employees on the Cambodian side of the Khmer Rouge tribunal would get paid, and then they would - somewhat grudgingly - hand over some of their salaries to their supervisors. "You get paid in full, but when you [collect] it, you put it in an envelope and give it to the collector," a former employee at the UN-backed court told the Post in an interview late last year, describing how many of those working at the court were forced to hand over a percentage of their paychecks to higher-placed officials.

Archive for March 2009

King Father's bequeathal of documents to France shows lack of trust

King Father's bequeathal of documents to France shows lack of trust

DECISION NOT TO INDICT SIX OFFICERS FOR KRUE SE MOSQUE ATTACK ANGERS JUSTICE GROUP

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