Tackling Cambodia's landmine legacy

On a wooded hillside above a village in north-west Cambodia, a man speaks into a radio.
Figures in body armour and visors head downhill to shelter from the sun under some trees.
A whistle sounds and then a siren. A few minutes later a loud crack echoes around the countryside. Grey smoke floats into the air.
The first landmine of the morning has been destroyed.
It was a Chinese-made type 72A - a small, green object that blows off the leg that treads on it or the arm that picks it up.
The team head back up the hill. There are many more mines to go.
This is a scene that is repeated day after day across Cambodia, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
Between four and six million landmines are thought to have been laid during the country's three decades of civil war.

Several million landmines planted over 30 years of civil conflict
Highest concentration of landmines in north-western areas along the Thai border
Many eastern areas contaminated by unexploded ordnance
Khmer Rouge fighters, Vietnamese troops and government forces all planted devices, but did not record where or how many. Huge areas of land were contaminated, particularly in western border regions where the fighting was fiercest.
Across the country, victims of landmine blasts are a strikingly visible presence. More than 40,000 people are thought to have lost limbs.
Work to remove the mines has been going on ever since the conflict ended, and a great deal of progress has been made. But there is a lot still to do.
"Cambodia still has a significant landmine problem," says Rupert Leighton, Cambodia country director of the Mines Advisory Group. "They are not starting to dry up yet."
Casualties have fallen significantly in recent years, from more than 2,000 annually in the early 1990s to less than a quarter of that in 2006.
This is because the movement of displaced people has subsided, people know more about landmines and more clearance has been carried out. There are also fewer people facing acute hunger, meaning fewer people foraging in the forests.
The key issue now, says Mr Leighton, is the fact that so much land still cannot be used - at a time when competition for it has become fierce.
Ten families
Boeung Prolite lies 6 km ( 4 miles) from the Thai border, not far from the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin.
For more than two decades a guerrilla conflict raged in this area - and both sides laid mines extensively.

A red triangle marks a landmine which must be blown up
People began settling in Boeung Prolite in the 1990s, when the fighting wound down.
About 30% of villagers are former Khmer Rouge fighters, the rest are new arrivals from other provinces. They live in simple wooden houses and grow crops for subsistence and sale.
On high ground above the village lies a mine field about the size of 19 football pitches.
This one was laid mainly by the Khmer Rouge and, as well as 72As, contains type 69s - small grey mines which spring upwards to explode at waist height.
Nine casualties have been recorded on this minefield over the years. The last was in 2002, a farmer who wanted to plant more crops.
Roeu Sokhom heads the team that is clearing the site. He, a deputy supervisor, a medic, a driver and 12 deminers began work there in early March after the initial site survey was complete.
Using metal detectors to examine every inch of ground, working in high heat and humidity, they have already destroyed dozens of mines. They expect to complete the job by the end of June.
When it is done, 10 local families, comprising a total of 59 people, will be able to farm there, Roeu Sokhom says.
Some have already moved in to plant up earth cleared only days before, such is their hunger for land.
'Finish line'
One of the mine clearers is 26 year-old Khoeun Sokhorn. She lives with her family in a village near Pailin and has been a deminer for two years.

Khoeun Sokhorn demonstrates how she checks the earth for landmines
In 2002, she went into the forest to gather firewood. The area had been classified as "suspect", but people had been going there for years and everyone thought it was safe. A landmine blew off her right leg.
She wants to clear mines so that no-one else gets hurt the way she did, she says. She is proud that the number of casualties is continuing to fall.
But when she finds a mine, there is no flash of triumph - she just reports it to her supervisor and moves on to the next one.
She says she will clear mines as long as there is work for her. She does not need to look for another job yet.
"We will never clear all the mines out of Cambodia, but in 10 years we have a reasonable chance of saying that the worst areas have been cleared," says Mr Leighton.
"It depends on funding and also on how we define the finish line - are we talking about impact-free or casualty-free?"
"We could go on working in Cambodia forever, but the law of diminishing returns would mean that we become more and more expensive."
In Khoeun Sokhorn's village there are several mine fields that need to be cleared.
She is married and she has a three-year-old daughter.
The little girl does not know what a landmine is yet. But, Khoeun Sokhorn says, she is old enough to know that she must not go into certain parts of the forest.

By Philippa Fogarty
BBC News, Pailin

Cambodian aircraft left at Vietnamese airport for over 1 year

VietNamNet Bridge – The abandoned plane named “Air Dream” broke down in May 2007 and it has been lying at Noi Bai International Airport since then, said an official of the Vietnam Civil Aviation Administration.

Vo Huy Cuong, Head of the Transportation Department under the Vietnam Civil Aviation Administration, said his agency revoked the flying licence of this plane a long time ago. In the future, if this aircraft is mended and meets flying conditions and wants to fly back to Cambodia, it must get an export flying certificate.

The plane belongs to Royal Khmer Airlines of Cambodia. The Cambodian Aviation Agency had scratched its name from its aircraft registration book. The Northern Airport Management Agency said Royal Khmer Airlines paid part of the parking fees.

“This is a great waste,” Cuong said.

In the world, broken-down aircrafts are often left at airports for one month but it is strange that the Cambodian plane has been at Noi Bai Airport for over one year. This is the first such case at Noi Bai.
by TP
http://english.vietnamnet.vn

First Int’l Central Highland Gong Culture Festival scheduled for next year

VietNamNet Bridge - The Institute of Art and Culture, under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, has held a meeting with leaders from the five Central Highland provinces to organize the First International Central Highland Gong Culture Festival in Gia Lai province in March 2009. Apart from 11 ensembles from the five Central Highlands provinces and a number of ethnic minorities from around the country such as the Muong, Thai, Cham and Khmer, the organizing board will invite international artists from Laos, Cambodia, China, Thailand and Japan to join the festival. The event will focus on three main subjects, including performances showing unique features of Central Highland Gong space, a photographic exhibition taken by French artists before 1954 and an international seminar on preserving Gong culture.

by VOV
http://english.vietnamnet.vn

Phnom Penh serves authentic Cambodian food

Like all Cambodians of a certain age, Saroeun Trou has stories to tell of the horror the Khmer Rouge inflicted on his country.
But Trou and his mother, Tuoch Keo, were among the lucky few who survived the slaughter that was later chronicled in “The Killing Fields.”
They escaped Cambodia and lived in refugee camps along the Thai border from 1979 to 1981. While in the camp, Trou worked for the American Embassy. In 1982 the two of them made their way to Kansas City. He has not been back since, although his mother has made a few trips home. Instead, he’s paying homage to his country through food.
In March Trou opened Phnom Penh Restaurant. He’d owned a Chinese restaurant years ago but had never included food from his homeland on the menu.
And I’d never had Cambodian food. It reminded me a little bit of Thai and Vietnamese food, although it was lighter than Thai and not as spicy as Vietnamese.
An exception was the Phnom Penh beefsticks, chewy, bite-size nuggets of beef threaded on a stick and served as an appetizer. Lacquered with a sweet, earthy sauce, the beefsticks were served with a shredded green papaya salad dressed in a bitingly spicy dressing.
Two of us shared three entrees, not knowing just how generous the portions were. The cha kreung was a mess of beef slices, green peppers and yellow onion slices spooned over white rice. The mee ka-thaing reminded me of pad Thai, without the fish sauce aroma and lime juice bite of the Thai dishes. The wide rice noodles were tossed with chopped Chinese broccoli, eggs and beef.
The favorite was the Phnom Penh machu, a tamarind-based brothy soup seasoned with crispy garlic pieces and loaded with pan-fried catfish hunks, lotus root slices, tomatoes, pineapple, Thai basil and chunks of some sort of Asian gourd. The tamarind gave the broth a snappy citrus taste. The lotus root, threaded with tiny holes, looked like pasta and had a vegetal crunch. The gourd pieces, which looked like cucumber, were slithery but al dente, while the pineapple gave the soup a tropical sweetness. It was fabulous.
Trou has two Cambodian desserts: sarai, a Cambodian-style gelatin made with coconut milk and loaded with jackfruit and longan, and loat, a dessert soup made with cooked tapioca flour bits stirred into a sweet cane sugar and coconut milk syrup.
A couple of things to keep in mind: Trou was waiting on the credit card machine to arrive, so take cash. And service can be slow; dishes are prepared to order. Although he does much of the cooking, two of his children, Julie and Jimmy, help out.
Phnom Penh Restaurant: 3537 Independence Ave. 816-231-1700. Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday through Saturday

By LAUREN CHAPIN
The Kansas City Star

Anniversary of Preah Vihear ruling to be held at in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The Khmer Civilization Support Association (KCSA) has announced its celebration of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)'s 1962 ruling that Preah Vihear belongs to Cambodia rather than Thailand, will be held Sunday at Wat Phnom in Phnom Penh, local newspaper the Mekong Times reported Thursday.
"The ceremony is being held in gratitude to our Cambodian ancestors who built Preah Vihear," said the KCSA statement, adding that it was also dedicated to former King Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodian head of state when the ICJ ruling was made.
The ceremony is also being held to thank the Cambodian government for maintaining sovereignty and integrity until the temple is registered as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site list, said the KSCA.
The UN body will discuss the temple's listing at talks to be held early next month in Quebec.
The KSCA announcement comes as the Thai government studies in detail a new drawing of the temple grounds that Cambodia submitted last week.
Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungwat told The Bangkok Post Wednesday that further talks between Thai and Cambodian officials are needed because the Cambodian map of the area slightly differs from the border map used by Thailand, the Mekong Times said.
Pai Siphan, spokesman for the Cambodian Council of Ministers, said Wednesday that the term "map" as opposed to "drawing" was causing confusion.
"We use the word drawing, as it was a drawing submitted to UNESCO and Thailand. We have sent the drawing to the Thai side and they approved it," he said.
He added that, according to Cambodian law, the legal premises of each temple are adjudged to be 30 meters starting from the base of its outer buildings.
"Currently Preah Vihear temple fences are too near the gate of the temple, which indicates that Thailand has moved its border markers into Cambodian territory," said the spokesman.

by: Jiang Yuxia
http://news.xinhuanet.com

Rice from Thailand due to the ban from other countries

KUALA LUMPUR, Mon:
The government had to buy rice from Thailand to beef up the country’s stockpile due to the difficulty in getting supply from other countries.
Secretary-General of the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Datuk Dr Zulkifli Idris said the difficulty was due to the ban on rice exports by India, Vietnam and Cambodia. However, he said, these countries had now lifted their ban and Malaysia would have more options to import rice apart from Thailand. "We bought rice from Thailand as these countries (India, Vietnam and Cambodia) stopped their exports due to production shortage but now they have lifted their ban on the export of rice,” he told reporters after opening the International Master Class in Plant Biosecurity: Isues and Responses here, today. Malaysia had requested 500,000 tonnes of rice from Thailand, the world’s biggest rice exporter which sold 9.5 million tonnes overseas last year.
The order came in the wake of a record price for rice, which breached the US$1,000 per tonne (US$1=RM3.24) mark last month and Malaysia paid US$950 per tonne. The Thai Government had offered to sell 500,000 tonnes of rice to Malaysia from its existing 2.1 million-tonne stock under a government-to-government arrangement. — BERNAMA

resource: http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Monday/NewsBreak/20080602145244/Article/index_html

Active Duty

Army Sgt. Jodi F. Stone recently was awarded a certificate of achievement and the Commander's Coin for serving with the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division at Camp Taji, Iraq. She and her explosive detector dog, appropriately named "Staff Sgt. Bango," completed more than 10 missions with the unit in Iraq. Stone is a patrol explosive detector dog handler regularly assigned to the 51st Military Police Detachment, 42nd Military Police Brigade at Fort Lewis in Tacoma. The sergeant has served in the military for nine years. She is the daughter of Francis and Barbara Stone of Stanwood and a 1998 graduate of Stanwood High School. The Commander's Coin was given to Sgt. Stone in recognition of her outstanding performance.Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Frank Coffey Jr. is at home on leave, visiting his parents Frank and Salley Coffey of Camano Island. A 1987 graduate of Mountlake Terrace High School, Coffey has served in the Navy for 20 years. His tours of duty include in Panama, Guam, Japan, Okinawa, the Persian Gulf and Iraq, where he was awarded a Purple Heart after being wounded a year ago. At the end of June, Coffey has been assigned to a tour in Afghanistan.Air Force Reserve Col. Paul Abson recently participated in a humanitarian mission in Cambodia. Dr. Abson, an ear, nose and throat specialist at The Everett Clinic in Everett, is a reservist with the 446th Airlift Wing based at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma. He worked at a clinic in Cambodia were he conducted medical examinations and distributed fluoride treatment kits to more than 500 children. The humanitarian assistance program is aimed to improve the cooperation between the armed forces of Thailand, Cambodia and the United States.Air Force Airman Jason D. Lurf has graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. He is the son of Kenneth Lurf of Lakewood, Calif., and grandson of Donald Lurf of Marysville.Air Force Airman Della M. Sciascia has graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. She is the daughter of Della Crookes of Granite Falls and granddaughter of Connie Smith of Edmonds. Sciascia is a 2007 graduate of Granite Falls High School.Air Force Airman Joshua D. Nicholson has graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, and technology school at Sheppard Air Force Base, Wichita Falls, Texas. Airman Nicholson will be stationed in Germany. He is the son of Nic Nicholson of Granite Falls and Patricia Nicholson of Everett. He is a 2007 graduate of Weston High School in Arlington.

resource: http://heraldnet.com/article/20080602/NEWS01/574743983