Daily News

'Jungle woman' hospitalised

2009-10-30T00:28:00.001-07:00

Rochom P'ngieng

October 30, 2009
From correspondents in Cambodia
Agence France-Presse

CAMBODIA'S "jungle woman", whose case gripped the country after she apparently spent 18 years living in a forest, has been hospitalised after refusing food, her father and a doctor said today.

Rochom P'ngieng, now 28, went missing as a little girl in 1989 while herding water buffalo in Ratanakkiri province around 600km northeast of the capital Phnom Penh.

The woman was brought from the jungle, naked and dirty, in early 2007 after being caught trying to steal food from a farmer.

She was hunched over like a monkey, scavenging the ground for pieces of dried rice in the forest.

She could not utter a word of any intelligible language, instead making what Sal Lou, the man who says he is her father, calls "animal noises".

Cambodians described her as "jungle woman" and "half-animal girl".

Sal Lou said Rochom P'ngieng was admitted to the provincial hospital on Monday and had not adjusted to village life.

"She has refused to eat rice for about one month. She is skinny now.... She still cannot speak. She acts totally like a monkey. Last night, she took off her clothes, and went to hide in the bathroom," Sal Lou said.

"Her condition looks worse than the time we brought her from the jungle. She always wants to take off her clothes and crawl back to the jungle," he added.

Doctor Hing Phan Sokunthea, director of Ratanakkiri provincial hospital, said the woman was "in a state of nerves".

"Doctors have injected her with medicine twice a day to treat nervous illness but she still cannot control herself," he said.

Sal Lou said his family found it difficult to house the woman and he would appeal to charities to take over her care.

The jungles of Ratanakkiri - some of the most isolated and wild in Cambodia - are known to have held hidden groups of hill tribes in the recent past.

In November 2004, 34 people from four hill tribe families emerged from the dense forest where they had fled in 1979 after the fall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which they supported.

Decoration row makes no sense

2009-10-30T00:26:00.000-07:00

(Click on picture to zoom in)

By Tulsathit Taptim

The Nation

Published on October 30, 2009

(Posted by CAAI News Media)

If you don't know what all this fuss about the royal decoration thing is about, you're in good company. What will the government accomplish from stripping Thaksin Shinawatra of his honours? Why now? And what's the point of Thaksin's hardcore sympathisers trying to oppose the move?

I absolutely have no idea.

Yes, the "Sweet Home Phnom Penh" episode may have embarrassed the Thai government, but if revoking Thaksin's royal decorations is supposed to be some kind of revenge, then it's a short-sighted one. Not only will the idea weaken Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's "reconciliation" agenda, it also just doesn't make any sense.

If he is making this move out of sheer legal conviction, then why did he wait for so long? If it was meant to assuage the embarrassment caused by Cambodia's asylum offer to Thaksin, then shouldn't Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, too, be targeted? After all, he was the messenger in this whole saga and should perhaps be shot first.

After hitting Thaksin with a coup, freezing his assets, dissolving his parties and getting the Criminal Court to declare him guilty, why is it necessary to "deepen" the national divide by removing his honours?

I put "deepen" in quotation marks because I don't get that side of things either. Of course, taking away the royal decorations is not the smartest thing, but why is it making Thaksin supporters so angry that one of them was heard saying that the possibility of a civil war is more real than ever before?

Again, after being ousted in a coup, hit by the freezing of his assets, the dissolution of his parties and a guilty verdict, how would the revocation of royal decorations hurt Thaksin or his followers? Though this question is not as mind-boggling as this one: why do his followers care so much about his royal decorations?

The pro-Thaksin movement - strongly represented by the Pheu Thai Party, which is making a lot of noise about the government's plan to strip Thaksin of his honours - has been campaigning against the elite, the ammart (high-ranking royal servants) and everything associated with political inequality those elements have allegedly generated.

Now aren't royal decorations a strong symbol of the elite or the ammart, the very things that the red-shirt hardliners have been fighting against?

Why would stripping Thaksin of such a symbol embarrass him? Shouldn't the red shirts instead be glad that their hero would now be "pure" and "equal"?

Some may argue that the proposed action signifies great contempt for his past services to the nation.

However, that argument, too, attaches too much importance to a symbol the red-shirt extremists have tried to belittle in the first place.

Tourists look for luck at Pol Pot’s grave

2009-10-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

pol pot

A group of unidentified Cambodian officials tour the cremation site of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot near Anlong Veng, Cambodia. A $1 million tourism master plan is being finalized to preserve and protect 15 Khmer Rouge sites, and charge admission.

ANLONG VENG, Cambodia - He was one of the greatest mass killers of the 20th century, but that doesn't stop the hopeful from praying at Pol Pot's hillside grave for lucky lottery numbers, job promotions and beautiful brides.

Nor does it stop tourists from picking clean the bones and ashes from the Khmer Rouge leader's burial ground in this remote town in northwestern Cambodia.

The grave is among a slew of Khmer Rouge landmarks in Anlong Veng, where the movement's guerrillas made their last stand in 1998 just as Pol Pot lay dying. A $1 million tourism master plan is being finalized to preserve and protect 15 of the sites, and charge admission.

Included on the tour will be the houses and hideouts of the Khmer Rouge leaders, an execution site and places associated with Ta Mok, a brutal commander and Anlong Veng's last boss.

"People want to see the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge and places where they committed atrocities," says Seang Sokheng, who heads the district tourism office and himself an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier.

Anlong Veng, he says, now receives about 2,000 Cambodian and 60 foreign tourists each month — a number that should jump when a casino is built by tycoons from nearby Thailand. A museum is also in the works, spearheaded by Nhem En, the chief photographer of the Khmer Rouge's S-21 torture center in Phnom Penh, a major tourist attraction for years.

"There are museums about World War II in Europe and people are still interested in Hitler. Why not about one of the world's most infamous leaders?" says Nhem En, now the deputy chief of Anlong Veng district. The museum will include his extensive photo collection and even a rice field to show visitors how people slaved under Khmer Rouge guns during their mid-1970s reign of terror.

Like virtually everyone here, he says he took no part in the atrocities but blames the top leaders.

"Pol Pot was cremated here. Please help to preserve this historical site," reads a sign next to a mound demarcated by bottles stuck into the ground and protected by a rusting, corrugated iron roof. A few wilting flowers sprout around the unguarded grave site, which officials complain has been virtually stripped of Pol Pot's cremated remains by foreign tourists.

"People come here, especially on holy days, because they believe Pol Pot's spirit is powerful," says Tith Ponlok, who served as the leader's bodyguard and lives near the burial ground.

Cambodians in the area, he says, have won an unusual number of lotteries, prompting Thais to come across the border and beseech Pol Pot to reveal winning numbers in their dreams. Government officials from Phnom Penh and others also make the pilgrimage, asking his spirit to make assorted wishes come true.

khmer comedy

2009-10-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

khmer karaoke - miam miam...

2009-10-29T20:28:00.001-07:00

Thais To Explain Thaksin Charges to Hun Sen

2009-10-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

A demonstrator holds a banner with pictures of exiled former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen during a rally outside the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok on October 27. (Photo: Reuters)

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
29 October 2009

The Thai government said this week it will send an official document to Prime Minister Hun Sen regarding ousted Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra, following a war of words between Phnom Penh and Bangkok over Cambodia’s right to refuse extradition.

Thaksin, who lives in exile, but not in Cambodia, faces a prison term on corruption charges if he returns to Thailand.

Hun Sen angered the current Thai government earlier this month by hosting a Thaksin supporter of the opposition party, then declaring Thaksin welcome in Cambodia, despite an extradition treaty with Thailand.

Thailand’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said Tuesday it will outline the facts of Thaksin’s case for Hun Sen, who it said may have obtained incorrect information.

“We will receive the documents relating to Thaksin to read if the Bangkok government sends the documents to us,” government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said. “It is no problem. We will have our legal experts examine the documents.”

Thaksin was ousted from power in a bloodless coup in 2006, but he still enjoys wide support among Thais, and Hun Sen has called Thaksin a political victim and thereby outside extradition requirements.

Koy Kong, a spokesman for Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the ministry had not yet received documentation from Bangkok, but relations otherwise continued as normal.

Kathen Worshippers Barred from Remote Pagoda [... due to land concession for a rubber company]

2009-10-29T19:41:00.001-07:00

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
29 October 2009

Police in Kampong Thom province have blocked villagers from participating in a Buddhist ceremony at a remote pagoda on disputed land for the past two days, officials said Thursday.

Celebrants of the Kathen ceremony, in which the faithful bring offerings to sequestered monks, were stopped 15 kilometers outside the pagoda, in Santhouk district, which the provincial governor called “illegitimate.”

“We blocked them, but it does not mean we’re preventing people from holding the ceremony,” the governor, Chhun Choan, said. “That place is part of a land concession given to a company for the investment of rubber.”

Villagers from the provinces of Kandal and Kampong Cham had meant to travel to the Meakea Prachea Hema Voan pagoda, with gifts for monks who must remain on the premises for three months. The Katen ceremony ends Nov. 2.

“Yesterday, they blocked one convoy, and today another,” said Leng Chea, a monk’s assistant. “If they claim that the pagoda is illegal, they must wait until the ceremony is finished.”

The pagoda, located 100 kilometers from Kampong Thom town, was built by an association assisting debilitated soldiers. It is little more than a small house where two monks live.

Khun Sok Kea, head of the association, said he had acquired the land legally in 2004.

Vietnam, Cambodia discuss security, extradition pacts

2009-10-29T19:39:00.001-07:00

Thursday, October 29, 2009
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Vietnam and Cambodia on Thursday discussed an agreement to strengthen public security ties as well as an extradition treaty to deal with crimes along their border areas.

Police said border crimes have become more complex and serious than previous years. Since the beginning of last year, more than 1,890 smuggling cases were detected involving goods worth US$6.2 million.

Other crimes, including drugs, arms and human trafficking, have also thrived along the Vietnam-Cambodia border, which stretches for nearly 1,200 kilometers.

Vietnam has 10 provinces bordering Cambodia with a total population of 12.65 million.