[Thai] Protest to be lodged over flag

January 31, 2011
The Nation

Preah Vihear tense after influx of Cambodian troops

The government will flex its muscles for the protesting yellow shirts from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) to show it will protect land in disputed border areas. It plans to issue a statement of protest against Cambodia.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has instructed the Foreign Ministry to issue a protest, because Phnom Penh has refused to remove its national flag from the disputed area adjacent to the Hindu temple at Preah Vihear, the ministry spokesman Thani Thongpakdi said.

"Concerned officials are working on it and we could issue the statement soon," he said. Abhisit said last week that Cambodia had no right to fly its national flag at Wat Keo Sikkha Kiri Svara temple as Thailand also claimed territorial rights to the area.

Thailand managed to convince Cambodia to remove two stone tablets saying the area where Thai troops invaded in 2008 belonged to Cambodia.

However Phnom Penh refused to follow any further demand from Bangkok to remove its national flag there. It says the temple built by Cambodian people in 1998 is clearly situated in Cambodian territory.

"Therefore the national flag of Cambodia is legitimately able to fly over the pagoda," a statement by Cambodia's Foreign Ministry said last week.

The border area adjacent to Preah Vihear has been argued over ever since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in 1962 that the temple was situated in Cambodian territory.

Abhisit has argued that the ICJ ruled only the stone ruins belong to Cambodia while surrounding areas belong to Thailand.

The areas have not been demarcated yet but the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in 2000 to set up a joint mechanism to try to settle the dispute.

The PAD, which has staged a rally near the Prime Minister Office, wants Abhisit to use force to remove Cambodians from the disputed area and scrap the 2000 MOU on land boundary demarcation. They have pressured the government by vowing to stay until their demands are met.

Cambodia, meanwhile, is reported to have boosted troops in the area, notably near Preah Vihear. Thai news teams have said the border areas are tense while outlets in Phnom Penh have reported that the Cambodian military is ready for war with Thailand.

Abhisit insisted he would settle the border dispute with Cambodia by peaceful means. The 2000 MOU was an effective instrument for settling the border dispute, he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, who oversees security matters, said the Thai military was strong enough to protect the country but would not boost forces in the area near the historic temple.

The government would continue to negotiate with Cambodia over the border issue, he said.

"Please do not provoke any news to create tension with our neighbouring country. We have to live with them peacefully," Suthep said when asked about Cambodian troops along the border.

"We don't have any problem with Cambodia and our two governments have no problem," he said.

Asked if the government in Phnom Penh criticised Thailand every day, Suthep said, "don't look only at one side. If you are in Cambodia, you would see a group of Thai people scolding Cambodia every day."

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PRAYER for our children

So let me just end with a prayer that I say a lot this year, to reaffirm what each of you knows, that we can remake this world, we must remake this world for our children. And I’m so grateful for all of your presence, because so many people are waiting for Gandhi to come back, or Dr. King to come back. They’re not. We’re it! And we have the capacity and the power to build a different world in a new era. Your presence here is a very important witness of that fact.

But I feel inadequate most hours and days, and say:

Lord, I can’t preach like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Jesse Jackson or turn a poetic phrase like Maya Angelou, but I care, and I’m willing to serve, and to use what talents I have to build a world of peace. I don’t have Fred Shuttlesworth’s and Harriet Tubman’s courage or Andy Young’s political skills, but I care, and I’m willing to serve. I can’t sing like Fannie Lou Hamer or organize like Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, or John Dear, but I care, and I’m willing to serve. I’m not holy like Archbishop Tutu, forgiving like Mandela, or disciplined like Gandhi, but I care and I’m willing to serve and to fight in a nonviolent manner. I’m not brilliant like Dr. Du Bois or Elizabeth Cady Stanton or as eloquent as Sojourner Truth and Booker T. Washington, but I care, and I’m willing to serve. I don’t have Mother Teresa’s saintliness, Dorothy Day’s love or Cesar Chavez’s gentle, taught spirit, but I care and I’m willing to serve. God it’s not as easy as the Sixties to frame an issue and forge a solution, but I care, and I’m willing to serve. My mind and body are not as swift as in youth, and my energy comes in spurts but I care, and I’m willing to serve. I’m so young nobody will listen, I’m not sure what to say or do, but I care and am willing to serve. I can’t see or hear well, speak good English, stutter sometimes, and get real scared, and I really hate risking criticism, but I care, and I’m willing to serve. Use me as Thou wilt to save Thy children today and tomorrow, and to build a nation and a world where no child is left behind, and every child is loved, and every child is safe.

- Marian Wright Edelman (founder of Children’s Defense Fund), “Caring Enough to Build a World of Peace,” Fellowship. Jan-Feb. 2001: 4-5.

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A story of one Chinese girl

Qian Hongyan got her legs amputated after an auto accident when she was only 3 years old.
But she didn’t give up. And now she has a dream to participate and win as a swimmer in the 2012 Paralympics in London.
What is interesting the thing she had before she could be provided with her prosthetic legs…
The answer is after the jump.

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Sexy Chinese Girls Clothes

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Yellows' return to Thai street politics

The nationalistic Thai Yellow Shirt movement have helped to claim the scalps of three governments in under five years

The largely working class, rural 'Red Shirts' political movement remains a key force in Thailand

Thai street protest groups, with an eye on elections looming before February 2012, are set to become more prominent

via CAAI

By Amelie Bottollier-Depois (AFP)

BANGKOK — With neatly spaced tents, massages, free vegetarian meals and a heavy dose of nationalist rhetoric, Thailand's powerful royalist "Yellow Shirts" are back on the streets of Bangkok.

More than a thousand people have camped out around the government's compound since Tuesday, demonstrating against its handling of a border dispute with neighbouring Cambodia.

Despite relatively small numbers compared to their arch enemies -- the anti-government "Red Shirts" whose most recent rally attracted nearly 30,000 people -- the group has managed to choke off streets around Government House.

Yellow Shirts are a force to be reckoned with in Thailand's colour-coded politics and have helped to claim the scalps of three governments in under five years, including that of fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

The group, officially the People's Alliance for Democracy, want the government to take a tougher stance on the thorny issue of the Thai-Cambodian border.

Tensions centre on 4.6 square kilometres (1.8 square miles) of land around the ancient Preah Vihear temple, which the World Court ruled in 1962 belonged to Cambodia, although the main entrance lies in Thailand.

"I came here to help my country. We have to fight to protect our land," said protester Chutikarn Rattanasupa, 42, a grocery shop owner from Nakhon si Thammarat in southern Thailand.

The Yellows, who boast support from Bangkok elites and elements in the military, used to be linked to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, but the relationship has soured.

Abhisit came to power in 2008 after Yellow rallies which helped to eject two pro-Thaksin governments. The protests culminated in the seizure of two Bangkok airports, stranding over 300,000 travellers.

Two years earlier the Yellows had flexed their muscles with demonstrations that destabilised Thaksin's own government, paving the way for the military coup that unseated him.

Paul Chambers of Heidelberg University in Germany said Abhisit may be able to keep his "Teflon prime minister" reputation if he does not bend to the Yellows' demands.

But at the same time, "if he does not give in, I think the protests will continue building," he added.

The border issue heated up when seven Thais were arrested in Cambodia in December for illegal entry and trespassing in the disputed zone, including a Yellow activist who remains in jail facing spying charges.

But Pavin Chachavalpongpun, of the Institute of Southeast Asia Studies in Singapore, said the territory dispute with Phnom Penh is just an excuse for the Yellows to "return into the limelight".

"They just want to regain political credibility and the only thing they can do is to attack the current government, whatever the government is," he said.

Thailand's street groups, with an eye on elections looming before February 2012, are likely to become ever more prominent, said Chambers.

And the stakes are high. Last year's April and May protest by the mainly rural and working class Red Shirts left more than 90 people dead in clashes between troops and civilians.

"The shirts -- of all colours -- are getting out and about to make themselves heard loud and clear," he said.

At the Yellows' rally site, there is almost a festival atmosphere.

Facilities provided for the comfort of protesters include toilets, showers and recycling bins, while stalls sell everything from watches to amulets and a caricaturist is on hand to sketch souvenirs.

A sign proclaiming "Free vegetarian food", next to an assortment of dishes and a mountain of cabbage, signals the work of a group of blue-clad radical Buddhists who are busily providing nourishment at the gathering.

But coils of barbed wire between the camp and the locked gates of the government compound are a reminder that the Yellows have been here before.

"I stayed 193 days in 2008 and this time I'm prepared to stay too," said Nittaya Kurakan, 40, the owner of an accountancy firm.

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The US agents tracking down sex tourists in Cambodia

US agents rely on locals to provide information about suspect Americans

As part of an initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas, special US agents operating in South East Asia have brought more than 80 alleged child sex tourists back to America to face justice.

Sihanoukville looks like paradise, or at least a decent, low-rent version. Golden beaches, swaying palm trees, cheap alcohol and shimmering sea.

Retired American pharmacist Ronald Adams had come here for the good life - setting up a beachside cafe. But one morning last February Adams' personal vision of paradise was shattered, when officers from the Cambodian National Police raided his apartment.

They found a collection of sex aids, child pornography on DVDs and a variety of illegal drugs. Adams was accused of drugging and raping a 12-year-old girl.

Under the radar

For Westerners arrested on child sex charges in South East Asia, things do not always turn out too badly. Gary Glitter got a two-and-a-half-year sentence in Vietnam for obscene acts with girls aged 10 and 12.

These are poor countries, where $100 can buy your freedom. But Ronald Adams had more to reckon with than the local police. An agent from America's Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) was part of the group carrying out the raid.

Continue reading the main story

“

Start Quote

If Americans are coming here to do this against the Cambodians... it's our responsibility to bring that person to justice”

End Quote

Special agent Chris Materelli

If a US citizen is caught abusing children abroad, American agents are now on hand with the specific aim of getting the suspect on a plane to stand trial back in the US.

ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security, based in Washington, with a severe, Brooks Brothers-suited lawyer, John Morton, as its director.

"Don't think that simply by buying a plane ticket to leave the United States and going to a country with less robust investigative and prosecutorial capacities that you are going to be able to get away with it again," Morton said.

"Perfect example - the three gentlemen we brought back from Cambodia."

The "three gentlemen" were given the moniker Twisted Travellers by ICE in a heavily publicised and deliberately humiliating extradition from Cambodia 18 months ago.

All three had previous convictions for abusing small children in the US. The oldest, 75-year-old former marine Jack Sporich, now faces a sentence of 15 years for sexually abusing a number of young boys.

Cambodia's jails are full of foreign paedophiles, but for most of them a short sentence is all they have to worry about. But even that can be avoided if you have the money to pay off the police and the judge.

Agent Vansak Suos was once a conscripted boy soldier in Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army

America was the first country to be positively pro-active about arresting and returning their child abusers to face justice. It has been joined in the past 12 months by Australia and Canada.

For US special agent Chris Materelli, it is as much about moral responsibility as law enforcement.

"If Americans are coming here to do this against the Cambodians, it's our job to try to help the Cambodians clean it up," he says. "They're our citizens, it's our responsibility to bring that person to justice."

In the seven years since the Protect Act was passed, America has brought back 85 child sex tourists to face justice in the US.

But none of this would work without a ground-breaking change in the way US agents work - not just with local police, but NGOs run by ordinary citizens.

In the tourist hot-spots of Cambodia, Action Pour Les Enfants (Action For Children, APLE) acts as the eyes and the ears of ICE in keeping surveillance on suspect Americans.

Continue reading the main story

“

Start Quote

That's a common defence - that these kids are older than what they appear to be because they're Asian”

End Quote

Gary Philips

ICE agent

Young men on motorbikes patrol the streets with video cameras supplied by the Americans. It was an APLE undercover team that came across Ronald Adams openly asking for sex with underage girls, "the younger the better".

This kind of co-operation with ordinary locals represents a massive change of attitude, almost unthinkable 30 years ago in the wake of America's bombing of Cambodia.

Cambodians are welcome within the ranks of ICE agents. Vansak Suos, once a conscripted boy soldier in Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army, now occupies an office in the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, with a photo of himself and Bill Clinton on his desk.

Vansak's story is bleak, his brother, two sisters, and grandfather were all killed in the time of Pol Pot. He, himself, barely survived, but having done so was determined to use his life to protect other children.

Big catch

Forty-five-year-old millionaire from Florida, Kent Frank, is probably ICE's biggest catch so far. He is a serial global child sex tourist, who was caught abusing four underage girls in his hotel room in Phnom Penh.

Vansak describes how Frank tried to bribe the local police chief.

"Kent Frank just stood up and put his hand in his pocket. Then, shaking the hand with the boss. And the boss just found $100 in his hand," he says.

Frank admitted to having sex and taking photos of the girls he had been with, saying that he believed they were all over 18.

"That's a common defence, that these kids are older than what they appear to be because they're Asian," says ICE agent Gary Philips. "And if I had a nickel for every time I've heard that, I'd probably be a millionaire."

Frank tried to delete the incriminating photos on his digital camera, but at ICE's state-of-the-art cyber forensics lab back in the US, 1,600 deleted pictures were recovered. Frank is currently serving a 40-year sentence in a federal jail.

But it doesn't always end that way. After seven months on remand in a Cambodian prison, Ronald Adams was released without charge. The court decided that because his alleged victim says she was drugged, her evidence could not be relied on. He has since disappeared.

Vansak shrugs and moves on. He is, he says, proud of what he has done. Every sex offender convicted means that many more children are now safe.

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Cambodia 'tears up freedom to muffle dissent'

Cambodia remains haunted by its past, after decades of civil war and the brutal 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime

via CAAI

Posted: 30 January 2011
By Michelle Fitzpatrick (AFP)

PHNOM PENH — The Cambodian government is choking freedoms and locking up detractors in an increasingly bold effort to silence critics as elections loom, observers say.

Prime Minister Hun Sen, 59, who has vowed to remain in power until he is 90, recently said on national radio that his aim was "not just to weaken the opposition, but to make it die".

The comment was the latest in a string of outbursts against critics, prompting fears that freedoms are under threat as the government looks ahead to local polls next year and a general election in 2013.

"The space for dissent has shrunk to the point where people are gasping for air," said Mathieu Pellerin of local rights group Licadho.

"Vast areas of political debate have been effectively declared off-limits. The most minor venture into these fenced-off topics can bring the authorities' wrath, whether you are a prominent politician or an anonymous village farmer."

Outspoken opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who lives in self-imposed exile, has been sentenced in absentia to 12 years in jail over two cases related to border issues with Vietnam.

If the sentences are upheld, he will be unable to challenge Hun Sen's ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) in the 2013 poll.

"The CPP is preparing for the next election, that much is clear," said a Cambodia-based Western expert, on the condition of anonymity.

"To do that, they want to reduce as much as possible any public criticism that would cost them ballots."

Dismissing concerns about a crackdown on freedoms, government spokesman Tith Sothea said the government was "working to protect human rights and carry out reforms in order to ensure political stability".

Mark Turner, a Cambodia expert at the University of Canberra, said the legacy of the country's recent bloody history has allowed the ruling party to tighten its grip on power.

"One of the leading themes of post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia has been the search for stability," he said. "If incomes are rising, education improving, health facilities more accessible, then people may accept a certain curtailment of freedoms."

Cambodia remains haunted by its past, after decades of civil war and the brutal 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime that left up to two million dead in its bid to forge a communist utopia.

Cambodian independent analyst Chea Vannath said it was important to recognise how far the nation had come considering its "terrible past".

Hun Sen, who has ruled since 1985, has been credited with the country's long spell of peace and stability, while also improving infrastructure and opening up the country's markets.

But he also has a history of riding roughshod over his rivals, and analysts say the CPP -- bolstered by a 2008 election landslide -- has exerted executive power without limits.

It is now a crime to criticise judges or public officials under a new penal code that activists say could be used as a government tool to muzzle freedom of expression.

"Impunity is deepening for government power-holders and their cronies to abuse rights," said Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson.

"At the core of all of this is the continued lack of independence of the Cambodian judiciary, which suffers endemic political interference from the CPP and other governing elites."

One of the first to be arrested under the new code was a World Food Programme worker, sentenced to six months in prison for incitement after he printed an article from an anti-government website.

The government has mounted what Robertson terms a "campaign of intimidation" against the UN in Cambodia, threatening to expel the organisation's resident coordinator Douglas Broderick after he called for more transparency in the debate about a new anti-corruption law.

The government also used a high-profile visit by UN chief Ban Ki-moon to demand the removal of local human rights director Christophe Peschoux.

Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said Peschoux had acted as "the spokesman for the opposition", after the Frenchman spoke out on issues such as land-grabbing and crackdowns on government critics.

Despite steady economic growth Cambodia remains one of the region's poorest nations, presenting foreign donors with an opportunity to defend those that have come under attack, activists said.

Outside aid contributed around one billion dollars, or about nine percent of Cambodia's economic output in 2010.

"Donors need to wake up and recognise the human rights situation in Cambodia is rapidly deteriorating," said Robertson

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