April 18, 2009
Bye VietNamNet/VNA
VietNamNet Bridge - The first students of US-based Loyola University will arrive in Vietnam next month to participate in Loyola's study-abroad pilot programme in Vietnam.
The study-abroad programme which is one of three pilot programmes Loyola will launch this year in Vietnam will offer the students a month studying anthropology before going to work for two weeks in local orphanages and elementary schools.
Loyola is the first American university to establish a representative office in Vietnam as part of a partnership with the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training.
Loyola Associate Provost Patrick Boyle said the university wants to help foster cooperation between the two countries. "Developing positive relations between the US and Vietnam is a theme that runs through our activities", he said.
The university will offer English as a second language courses for Vietnamese students at Hanoi Medical University.
According to the Associate Provost, although students at Hanoi Medical University have studied English for many years, they are usually not fluent, and Loyola will provide advanced instruction. "The goal is to help them to participate in medical research by giving them access to English-language journals and conferences," he said.
Boyle added ultimately, Loyola university hopes the programme will lead to collaboration between Hanoi Medical University and its own medical school.
Loyola's Associate Provost said that the university's leadership training programme, which will be designed for Vietnamese university officials, is in the planning phase. The programme is scheduled to start late this year or in early 2010.
The Ho Chi Minh City office is Loyola's third international outpost. The university has centers in Rome and Beijing, in addition to study-abroad programmes in 70 other locations.
VietNamNet/VNA
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Party leader Manh to visit Japan
April 18, 2009
VietNamNet/VOV
VietNamNet Bridge - Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh will leave Hanoi on April 19 for an official three-day visit to Japan at the invitation of Prime Minister Taro Aso.
Vietnam is one of Japan's biggest ODA recipientsThe visit takes place at a time when the global financial crisis is taking its toll on major economic powers such as the US, Japan, the EU and many other developed nations.
As an economic power, Japan is pursuing the goal of becoming a “normal nation,” whose role and position matches its economic potential, including a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. It continues to consider the US a strategic ally in competition with other big countries, while using economics as a lever to exert its influence on Southeast Asia.
Japan has signed an agreement on the establishment of a free trade area (FTA) with ASEAN and agreed to observe 2009 as Mekong-Japan Exchange Year.
Japan is one of Vietnam’s leading economic partners, ranking first in providing official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam, second in importing Vietnamese commodities and third in pouring direct investment into the Southeast Asian nation.
Japan highly values Vietnam’s role and position and voices its support for strengthening relations with the country. Relations between the two countries have developed well in recent times. During Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh’s visit to Japan in 2002, the two countries agreed to boost their relations of friendship and cooperation in the spirit of “long-term stability and mutual trust”.
During Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to Japan in 2006, the two countries agreed to set a new course for building Vietnam-Japan relations “Toward a Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia”.
In 2007, State President Nguyen Minh Triet visited Japan, where the two countries’ leaders agreed on a “cooperation programme toward a strategic partnership between Vietnam and Japan”.
In 2008, the two countries signed a Vietnam-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (VJEPA). In February 2009, Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito visited Vietnam. Most recently, Japan decided to resume providing ODA to Vietnam after both nations brought to light a graft scandal at the Pacific Consultants International (PCI) and showed determination to combat corruption.
Party leader Manh’s visit aims to enhance high-level dialogue between Vietnam and Japan, promote mutual understanding and friendship between their people and bring bilateral ties to new heights “Toward a Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia”. It will help boost bilateral cooperation in al fields, especially economics, trade, investment and ODA provision and speed up the implementation of the agreements signed between the two countries, including three key projects to build the North-South Express Railway Line, the North-South Highway and the Hoa Lac hi-tech park.
The visit is expected to strengthen relations between the Communist Party of Vietnam and Japan’s ruling party as well as other Japanese political parties. It will affirm the Communist Party of Vietnam’s leadership role in elevating Vietnam’s position in the Asia-Pacific region and other parts of the world.
VietNamNet/VOV
VietNamNet/VOV
VietNamNet Bridge - Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh will leave Hanoi on April 19 for an official three-day visit to Japan at the invitation of Prime Minister Taro Aso.
Vietnam is one of Japan's biggest ODA recipientsThe visit takes place at a time when the global financial crisis is taking its toll on major economic powers such as the US, Japan, the EU and many other developed nations.
As an economic power, Japan is pursuing the goal of becoming a “normal nation,” whose role and position matches its economic potential, including a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. It continues to consider the US a strategic ally in competition with other big countries, while using economics as a lever to exert its influence on Southeast Asia.
Japan has signed an agreement on the establishment of a free trade area (FTA) with ASEAN and agreed to observe 2009 as Mekong-Japan Exchange Year.
Japan is one of Vietnam’s leading economic partners, ranking first in providing official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam, second in importing Vietnamese commodities and third in pouring direct investment into the Southeast Asian nation.
Japan highly values Vietnam’s role and position and voices its support for strengthening relations with the country. Relations between the two countries have developed well in recent times. During Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh’s visit to Japan in 2002, the two countries agreed to boost their relations of friendship and cooperation in the spirit of “long-term stability and mutual trust”.
During Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit to Japan in 2006, the two countries agreed to set a new course for building Vietnam-Japan relations “Toward a Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia”.
In 2007, State President Nguyen Minh Triet visited Japan, where the two countries’ leaders agreed on a “cooperation programme toward a strategic partnership between Vietnam and Japan”.
In 2008, the two countries signed a Vietnam-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (VJEPA). In February 2009, Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito visited Vietnam. Most recently, Japan decided to resume providing ODA to Vietnam after both nations brought to light a graft scandal at the Pacific Consultants International (PCI) and showed determination to combat corruption.
Party leader Manh’s visit aims to enhance high-level dialogue between Vietnam and Japan, promote mutual understanding and friendship between their people and bring bilateral ties to new heights “Toward a Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity in Asia”. It will help boost bilateral cooperation in al fields, especially economics, trade, investment and ODA provision and speed up the implementation of the agreements signed between the two countries, including three key projects to build the North-South Express Railway Line, the North-South Highway and the Hoa Lac hi-tech park.
The visit is expected to strengthen relations between the Communist Party of Vietnam and Japan’s ruling party as well as other Japanese political parties. It will affirm the Communist Party of Vietnam’s leadership role in elevating Vietnam’s position in the Asia-Pacific region and other parts of the world.
VietNamNet/VOV
Cambodia's New War
Apr 17, 2009
By Katrin Redfern
The Daily Beast
The Nobel-nominated opposition leader of Southeast Asia’s saddest, bloodiest country has brought a message for Hillary Clinton: Our democracy needs your help.
Cambodia is at war again. This time, the battles surround who will control resources—land, timber, fisheries, oil—with a corrupt elite taking over the nation’s emerging export economy, while international donors turn a blind eye and 14 million Cambodians suffer.
“Cambodia is a democracy on paper but in reality a dictatorship. Our party activists are murdered because they fight for justice—life is still cheap in Cambodia.”
A new American president, many Cambodians hope, might change all that. Sochua Mu, an opposition leader and founder of the women's movement in Cambodia, recently returned to the U.S., lobbying Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take a firmer line on democracy and human rights in her long-suffering country. “I needed to see the people in the new administration to urge them to re-assess U.S. foreign policy,” says Sochua in an interview with The Daily Beast. “Cambodia is a democracy on paper but in reality a dictatorship. Our party activists are murdered because they fight for justice—life is still cheap in Cambodia. Human trafficking, drug trafficking, land grabbing, and forced evictions are all carried out under the nose of the government.”
Sochua Mu’s story is uniquely Cambodian. Forced to flee for her life at 18 in the early 1970s as the Vietnam War spilled over the border, she left behind her parents, who vanished, as did one-quarter of the country’s population during the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror. Sochua wound up in America, won a scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley, and worked as a counselor and translator for the Cambodian refugees who began to trickle over. She eventually became a U.S. citizen.
During the 1980s, she returned to Southeast Asia, organizing schooling for children and social services for women in the refugee camps set up by the U.N. on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. In 1989, she was finally allowed to re-enter her homeland, “a country in ruins.” “I would take my young children on walks in streets where I learned to bike, where I wandered with my childhood friends, where I went to school, all the years of joy, of happiness, of deep feelings of comfort came back to me,” she says. “I came back to help rebuild a nation. The war and genocide also changed my people. They have lost their sense of trust for each other, they have become hard inside and desperate for just daily survival.”
Sochua started the first women’s organization in Cambodia, Khemera, designed to help poor urban women earn a better living. She campaigned to include women’s rights and concerns into the country’s new constitution, drafted in 1993, and became involved in efforts to rescue girls caught in Cambodia’s thriving sex trade. In 1998, Sochua ran for election and won a seat in parliament, taking over the women’s affairs ministry, which had previously been run by men. In a country that considers women inferior, Sochua mobilized 25,000 female candidates to run for commune elections in 2002. It was a first for Cambodia, and 900 of them were elected.
She negotiated an agreement with Thailand that allowed Cambodian women trafficked as sex workers to return to their home country instead of being jailed. She pioneered the use of TV commercials to spread the word about trafficking to vulnerable populations. Her work in Cambodia also supports campaigns to end domestic violence and the spread of HIV/AIDS, as well as women’s workplace conditions. In 2005, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her work against sex trafficking of women.
Her position in high government put her in direct conflict with Cambodia’s long-ruling prime minister, Hun Sen. Rather than participate in the corruption she saw around her, Sochua Mu renounced the leadership and joined the primary opposition party in parliament. Last week, Sochua announced that she is considering legal action against the prime minister for allegedly using derogatory and threatening language against her in a speech he made last month during a visit to her parliamentary district. The speech, widely reported on Cambodian TV and other media, warned villagers not to seek help from members of the opposition party, but to approach the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, and allegedly referred to Sochua using a Khmer term cheung kland—a gangster or unruly person, which has an especially insulting connation for women.
Her most frequent public disagreement with Hun Sen surrounds what she sees as a failure to prevent people in her district from suffering loss of property and livelihoods at the hands of powerful investors, often with the backing of local authorities and the military. Most Cambodians still depend on small-scale agriculture, forest exploitation, and fishing for their livelihoods but, because of the country’s turbulent recent history, land ownership is generally undocumented and often contested. As a result, it is easy for the powerful to acquire land to develop. More than 150,000 Cambodians, according to Sochua, were victims of forced evictions and land-grabbing in 2007 alone. Studies have estimated that such concessions cover as much as one-third of the entire area of Cambodia.
“It is now common practice for powerful corporations and government officials to utilize armed forces to push citizens off their rightfully and legally held land,” says Sochua. “These evictions are often violent, with soldiers wielding guns, tear gas and Tasers and burning houses to the ground, while citizens are beaten, maimed and arrested.”
Cambodia's economy relies on three principal sources of income: tourism, agriculture, and textiles. The United States is the largest overseas market for the latter. As former U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli put it, "Levi Strauss or the Gap could destroy this country on a whim."
George W. Bush's policy, as Sochua saw it, focused on military and security-centered aid. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. provided Cambodia $54 million last year and $700 million total since the agency opened an office in the country in 1992. Other international donors, meanwhile, have done little better in holding the Cambodian government accountable on human rights, preferring “closed-door diplomacy,” as she calls it, to public criticism. “This practice has yielded next to no reforms,” she says, “and donors continue to be satisfied with token actions taken by the government to give a façade to democracy and social justice.”
Even that oversight is at risk. Chevron discovered oil offshore several years ago, and the Cambodian government says it hopes to begin pumping oil in 2011. The IMF estimated last year that the country could earn as much as $1.7 billion from oil within 10 years of the date that pumping begins—a big deal for this poor country, which relies on donors for half of its annual budget, but also more money that won’t carry any accountability.
Some aid agencies have called for a moratorium on aid until basic governance and transparency frameworks are in place. Sochua says that won’t happen until there’s a new regime. “That can only happen when we have a real election that is free and fair,” she says. “The West should insist on that, otherwise all the aid they have poured into Cambodia will not work”.
Katrin Redfern is a writer and editor at The Indypendent in New York City.
By Katrin Redfern
The Daily Beast
The Nobel-nominated opposition leader of Southeast Asia’s saddest, bloodiest country has brought a message for Hillary Clinton: Our democracy needs your help.
Cambodia is at war again. This time, the battles surround who will control resources—land, timber, fisheries, oil—with a corrupt elite taking over the nation’s emerging export economy, while international donors turn a blind eye and 14 million Cambodians suffer.
“Cambodia is a democracy on paper but in reality a dictatorship. Our party activists are murdered because they fight for justice—life is still cheap in Cambodia.”
A new American president, many Cambodians hope, might change all that. Sochua Mu, an opposition leader and founder of the women's movement in Cambodia, recently returned to the U.S., lobbying Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take a firmer line on democracy and human rights in her long-suffering country. “I needed to see the people in the new administration to urge them to re-assess U.S. foreign policy,” says Sochua in an interview with The Daily Beast. “Cambodia is a democracy on paper but in reality a dictatorship. Our party activists are murdered because they fight for justice—life is still cheap in Cambodia. Human trafficking, drug trafficking, land grabbing, and forced evictions are all carried out under the nose of the government.”
Sochua Mu’s story is uniquely Cambodian. Forced to flee for her life at 18 in the early 1970s as the Vietnam War spilled over the border, she left behind her parents, who vanished, as did one-quarter of the country’s population during the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror. Sochua wound up in America, won a scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley, and worked as a counselor and translator for the Cambodian refugees who began to trickle over. She eventually became a U.S. citizen.
During the 1980s, she returned to Southeast Asia, organizing schooling for children and social services for women in the refugee camps set up by the U.N. on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. In 1989, she was finally allowed to re-enter her homeland, “a country in ruins.” “I would take my young children on walks in streets where I learned to bike, where I wandered with my childhood friends, where I went to school, all the years of joy, of happiness, of deep feelings of comfort came back to me,” she says. “I came back to help rebuild a nation. The war and genocide also changed my people. They have lost their sense of trust for each other, they have become hard inside and desperate for just daily survival.”
Sochua started the first women’s organization in Cambodia, Khemera, designed to help poor urban women earn a better living. She campaigned to include women’s rights and concerns into the country’s new constitution, drafted in 1993, and became involved in efforts to rescue girls caught in Cambodia’s thriving sex trade. In 1998, Sochua ran for election and won a seat in parliament, taking over the women’s affairs ministry, which had previously been run by men. In a country that considers women inferior, Sochua mobilized 25,000 female candidates to run for commune elections in 2002. It was a first for Cambodia, and 900 of them were elected.
She negotiated an agreement with Thailand that allowed Cambodian women trafficked as sex workers to return to their home country instead of being jailed. She pioneered the use of TV commercials to spread the word about trafficking to vulnerable populations. Her work in Cambodia also supports campaigns to end domestic violence and the spread of HIV/AIDS, as well as women’s workplace conditions. In 2005, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her work against sex trafficking of women.
Her position in high government put her in direct conflict with Cambodia’s long-ruling prime minister, Hun Sen. Rather than participate in the corruption she saw around her, Sochua Mu renounced the leadership and joined the primary opposition party in parliament. Last week, Sochua announced that she is considering legal action against the prime minister for allegedly using derogatory and threatening language against her in a speech he made last month during a visit to her parliamentary district. The speech, widely reported on Cambodian TV and other media, warned villagers not to seek help from members of the opposition party, but to approach the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, and allegedly referred to Sochua using a Khmer term cheung kland—a gangster or unruly person, which has an especially insulting connation for women.
Her most frequent public disagreement with Hun Sen surrounds what she sees as a failure to prevent people in her district from suffering loss of property and livelihoods at the hands of powerful investors, often with the backing of local authorities and the military. Most Cambodians still depend on small-scale agriculture, forest exploitation, and fishing for their livelihoods but, because of the country’s turbulent recent history, land ownership is generally undocumented and often contested. As a result, it is easy for the powerful to acquire land to develop. More than 150,000 Cambodians, according to Sochua, were victims of forced evictions and land-grabbing in 2007 alone. Studies have estimated that such concessions cover as much as one-third of the entire area of Cambodia.
“It is now common practice for powerful corporations and government officials to utilize armed forces to push citizens off their rightfully and legally held land,” says Sochua. “These evictions are often violent, with soldiers wielding guns, tear gas and Tasers and burning houses to the ground, while citizens are beaten, maimed and arrested.”
Cambodia's economy relies on three principal sources of income: tourism, agriculture, and textiles. The United States is the largest overseas market for the latter. As former U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli put it, "Levi Strauss or the Gap could destroy this country on a whim."
George W. Bush's policy, as Sochua saw it, focused on military and security-centered aid. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. provided Cambodia $54 million last year and $700 million total since the agency opened an office in the country in 1992. Other international donors, meanwhile, have done little better in holding the Cambodian government accountable on human rights, preferring “closed-door diplomacy,” as she calls it, to public criticism. “This practice has yielded next to no reforms,” she says, “and donors continue to be satisfied with token actions taken by the government to give a façade to democracy and social justice.”
Even that oversight is at risk. Chevron discovered oil offshore several years ago, and the Cambodian government says it hopes to begin pumping oil in 2011. The IMF estimated last year that the country could earn as much as $1.7 billion from oil within 10 years of the date that pumping begins—a big deal for this poor country, which relies on donors for half of its annual budget, but also more money that won’t carry any accountability.
Some aid agencies have called for a moratorium on aid until basic governance and transparency frameworks are in place. Sochua says that won’t happen until there’s a new regime. “That can only happen when we have a real election that is free and fair,” she says. “The West should insist on that, otherwise all the aid they have poured into Cambodia will not work”.
Katrin Redfern is a writer and editor at The Indypendent in New York City.
UN To Blame for Breakdown: Official [-Hun Sen's govt assessment in stark contradiction with the UN]
By Sok Khemara,
VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
17 April 2009
A government spokesman put the failure of tribunal discussions talks earlier this month squarely on the United Nations, saying the Cambodian side had reached an agreement to address corruption allegations before talks broke down.
UN Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs Peter Taksoe-Jensen failed to reach an agreement with his tribunal negotiation counterpart, Council Minister Sok An, in three days of talks, the third visit in four months.
A spokesman for the Council of Ministers, Phay Siphan, said that the two sides had reached an agreement in February that would have pleased international donors and addressed allegations of kickbacks and mismanagement that have left the Cambodian side of the court wanting for funding.
“It’s a draft that we agreed on in every angle in order to make administrative work at the Khmer Rouge tribunal succeed,” he said, adding that a dual mechanism agreed to on both sides, where complaints would be handled by respective sides of the hybrid courts, was also agreeable to donors.
However, observers in the US were critical of the so-called “parallel” system, saying it would not satisfy donors who have been reluctant to fund a tribunal that is not up to international standards.
That has put the UN-backed court in a position where the national side could “whither” if donors do not come forward with more money, David Tolbert, a former special adviser to the tribunal, said in Washington recently. “I am not sure what will happen. I think you have to watch how this plays out.”
No matter what happens next, he said, the UN was unlikely to pull out of the tribunal, which has begun its first trial, for prison chief Duch, and has four other former Khmer Rouge leaders in the dock.The US, a major supporter of tribunal negotiations, has so far pledged $1.8 million, to the UN side of the court only.
VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
17 April 2009
A government spokesman put the failure of tribunal discussions talks earlier this month squarely on the United Nations, saying the Cambodian side had reached an agreement to address corruption allegations before talks broke down.
UN Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs Peter Taksoe-Jensen failed to reach an agreement with his tribunal negotiation counterpart, Council Minister Sok An, in three days of talks, the third visit in four months.
A spokesman for the Council of Ministers, Phay Siphan, said that the two sides had reached an agreement in February that would have pleased international donors and addressed allegations of kickbacks and mismanagement that have left the Cambodian side of the court wanting for funding.
“It’s a draft that we agreed on in every angle in order to make administrative work at the Khmer Rouge tribunal succeed,” he said, adding that a dual mechanism agreed to on both sides, where complaints would be handled by respective sides of the hybrid courts, was also agreeable to donors.
However, observers in the US were critical of the so-called “parallel” system, saying it would not satisfy donors who have been reluctant to fund a tribunal that is not up to international standards.
That has put the UN-backed court in a position where the national side could “whither” if donors do not come forward with more money, David Tolbert, a former special adviser to the tribunal, said in Washington recently. “I am not sure what will happen. I think you have to watch how this plays out.”
No matter what happens next, he said, the UN was unlikely to pull out of the tribunal, which has begun its first trial, for prison chief Duch, and has four other former Khmer Rouge leaders in the dock.The US, a major supporter of tribunal negotiations, has so far pledged $1.8 million, to the UN side of the court only.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tim Sakhorn re-ordained in Phnom Penh, then fled to Thailand
16 April 2009
By Moeung Tum
Radio Free AsiaTranslated from Khmer by Heng Soy @ KI-Media
Novice monk Tim Sakhorn is currently in hiding in Thailand and he is seeking a refugee status to avoid being deported back to Vietnam.
Novice monk Tim Sakhorn informed RFA, slightly ahead of this broadcast, that his decision to flee Cambodia was because of the various signs he saw there that indicated to him that there would be no tolerance for him to live in peace with his relatives and his old father, this in spite of the guarantee provided from the upper level of the Cambodian authority allowing him to live legally in Cambodia.
Novice monk Tim Sakhorn said: “The reason was that there is no safety. I went to ask for an ID at the village level, at the commune and district level, all the way to the abbot of the Kirivong district and the provincial police commission. They said, one after another that the Ministry of Interior confirmed in writing about the issuance of an ID for me. But one level of the authority said that it should be done by another level instead, so I was scared and I cannot endure living in Cambodia. So I traveled to Thailand to look for a safe refuge for myself.”
Novice monk Tim Sakhorn was the former abbot of the Wat Phnom Den pagoda, located in Kirivong district, Takeo province. He was defrocked by force by monks sent by the supreme patriarch (Tep Vong and Non Nget) on 30 June 2007. He was deported by force and put in jail for one year in Vietnam. He was accused of undermining the solidarity between Cambodia and Vietnam.
At the end of last week, Tim Sakhorn was re-ordained again as a novice monk in a pagoda in Phnom Penh. Following this ceremony, on that same day, he fled to Vietnam through the Boeung Trakuon pass in Cambodia: “I was re-ordained on 11 April in Phnom Penh. I cannot tell you the name of the monk who officiated my re-ordainment, nor the names of the witnesses and pagoda. After being re-ordained, I traveled by moto-doup (taxi motorcycle) to Thailand.”
By Moeung Tum
Radio Free AsiaTranslated from Khmer by Heng Soy @ KI-Media
Novice monk Tim Sakhorn is currently in hiding in Thailand and he is seeking a refugee status to avoid being deported back to Vietnam.
Novice monk Tim Sakhorn informed RFA, slightly ahead of this broadcast, that his decision to flee Cambodia was because of the various signs he saw there that indicated to him that there would be no tolerance for him to live in peace with his relatives and his old father, this in spite of the guarantee provided from the upper level of the Cambodian authority allowing him to live legally in Cambodia.
Novice monk Tim Sakhorn said: “The reason was that there is no safety. I went to ask for an ID at the village level, at the commune and district level, all the way to the abbot of the Kirivong district and the provincial police commission. They said, one after another that the Ministry of Interior confirmed in writing about the issuance of an ID for me. But one level of the authority said that it should be done by another level instead, so I was scared and I cannot endure living in Cambodia. So I traveled to Thailand to look for a safe refuge for myself.”
Novice monk Tim Sakhorn was the former abbot of the Wat Phnom Den pagoda, located in Kirivong district, Takeo province. He was defrocked by force by monks sent by the supreme patriarch (Tep Vong and Non Nget) on 30 June 2007. He was deported by force and put in jail for one year in Vietnam. He was accused of undermining the solidarity between Cambodia and Vietnam.
At the end of last week, Tim Sakhorn was re-ordained again as a novice monk in a pagoda in Phnom Penh. Following this ceremony, on that same day, he fled to Vietnam through the Boeung Trakuon pass in Cambodia: “I was re-ordained on 11 April in Phnom Penh. I cannot tell you the name of the monk who officiated my re-ordainment, nor the names of the witnesses and pagoda. After being re-ordained, I traveled by moto-doup (taxi motorcycle) to Thailand.”
Canada to close Embassy in Phnom Penh
April 16, 2009
Xinhua news
PHNOM PENH, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The Canadian Embassy in Phnom Penh will close its doors in May after 17 years' operation, said an embassy statement received here on Thursday.
The Canadian government "has decided to change the nature of its diplomatic representation in Cambodia.... Our intention is that a Canadian Ambassador in a nearby country will be accredited to Cambodia," according to the statement.
The decision to close the embassy came after "serious re-examination of Canada's current diplomatic representation throughout the world," it said.
Although the Phnom Penh embassy is closing, new Canadian government offices will be opened, "mainly to take advantage of emerging markets," it said, adding that three of these have already been opened, with two in India and one in Mongolia.
Until now, the Canadian Embassy has occupied a small corner of the Australian Embassy on Street 254 of the capital city.
The Australian diplomats will move into new quarters later this year, and no space there has been allocated for their Canadian counterparts.
Xinhua news
PHNOM PENH, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The Canadian Embassy in Phnom Penh will close its doors in May after 17 years' operation, said an embassy statement received here on Thursday.
The Canadian government "has decided to change the nature of its diplomatic representation in Cambodia.... Our intention is that a Canadian Ambassador in a nearby country will be accredited to Cambodia," according to the statement.
The decision to close the embassy came after "serious re-examination of Canada's current diplomatic representation throughout the world," it said.
Although the Phnom Penh embassy is closing, new Canadian government offices will be opened, "mainly to take advantage of emerging markets," it said, adding that three of these have already been opened, with two in India and one in Mongolia.
Until now, the Canadian Embassy has occupied a small corner of the Australian Embassy on Street 254 of the capital city.
The Australian diplomats will move into new quarters later this year, and no space there has been allocated for their Canadian counterparts.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Reordained, monk Tim Sakhorn flees: NGO
15 April 2009
Written by Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post
KHMER Krom activist Tim Sakhorn was ordained again as a monk at a pagoda in Battambang on Friday and has now fled to Thailand where he is seeking refugee status, according to Sann Sang, the deputy director of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Community.
"Now, it is up to the UNHCR [the UN High Commissioner for Refugees] to determine if he has the right to stay in Thailand," he said.
He added that Tim Sakhorn would be willing to leave for another country if necessary.
The 41-year-old monk was arrested in June 2007 by Cambodian police and defrocked before being extradited to Vietnam.
But after imprisoning Tim Sakhorn for a year and then keeping him under house arrest, Vietnam allowed him to visit Cambodia, which issued him a visa until April 17.
Even though Tim Sakhorn has said he just wants to live with his family and tend his farm in Cambodia, he did not feel the Cambodian authorities were protecting him, according to Ang Chanrith, the executive director of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Human Rights Organisation.
"When he was arrested, the [Cambodian] government did not take action to protect him, so he has lost confidence in the government," Ang Chanrith said last week.
Christophe Peschoux, the country representative of the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, could not confirm that the monk had fled to Thailand.
"If he went to Thailand, it's because he feels unsafe in his own country," Peschoux said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHRISTOPHER SHAY
Written by Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post
KHMER Krom activist Tim Sakhorn was ordained again as a monk at a pagoda in Battambang on Friday and has now fled to Thailand where he is seeking refugee status, according to Sann Sang, the deputy director of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Community.
"Now, it is up to the UNHCR [the UN High Commissioner for Refugees] to determine if he has the right to stay in Thailand," he said.
He added that Tim Sakhorn would be willing to leave for another country if necessary.
The 41-year-old monk was arrested in June 2007 by Cambodian police and defrocked before being extradited to Vietnam.
But after imprisoning Tim Sakhorn for a year and then keeping him under house arrest, Vietnam allowed him to visit Cambodia, which issued him a visa until April 17.
Even though Tim Sakhorn has said he just wants to live with his family and tend his farm in Cambodia, he did not feel the Cambodian authorities were protecting him, according to Ang Chanrith, the executive director of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Human Rights Organisation.
"When he was arrested, the [Cambodian] government did not take action to protect him, so he has lost confidence in the government," Ang Chanrith said last week.
Christophe Peschoux, the country representative of the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, could not confirm that the monk had fled to Thailand.
"If he went to Thailand, it's because he feels unsafe in his own country," Peschoux said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHRISTOPHER SHAY
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