Cops, CNRP clash at service

The deputy governor of Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district was slightly injured yesterday in a clash that broke out during a remembrance ceremony to mark the day 39 years ago the Khmer Rouge seized the capital in 1975.

Prach Seyha, Dangkor’s deputy governor, was injured in the neck and ear after he led a group of plain-clothed police to seize DVDs that opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party supporters were distributing in Choeung Ek village, home to the most well-known of Cambodia’s Killing Fields.
At the ceremony, which was held to commemorate those killed under Khmer Rouge rule, the CNRP supporters distributed DVDs promoting opposition policies, including films denouncing violence in January against garment workers and opposition supporters.

The films depicted scenes of the deadly clashes on Phnom Penh’s Veng Sreng Boulevard on January 3, when military police shot dead at least four workers, injuring many more.
Other DVDs called for Vietnam’s Phu Quoc island – which is known in Khmer as Koh Tral and which the opposition maintains is Cambodian territory – to be “returned” to Cambodia.
Shortly after the clash, Dangkor Governor Nuth Puth Dara visited the site accompanied by police to arrest those responsible for injuring Seyha.Puth Dara also ordered Phath Phalla, CNRP deputy executive committee president for Phnom Penh, to be questioned at the Dangkor district office.“We will file a complaint [to the court]. We cannot allow people who commit crimes to get away,” Puth Dara said.

Phalla declined to go to the district office, requesting the pair meet at the site of the incident to talk; however, Puth Dara rejected the proposal.“There is no problem. District Hall is the place where the state’s work is served. We just want to talk to find the suspects,” Puth Dara said.“If [Puth Dara] wanted those discs, he should have told me, I would take them for him. He seized them by himself like this and it caused the public to get angry,” Phalla said.

Seyha declined to comment on what led to the clash, adding that the CNRP supporters had breached an agreement between the district and the party for the commemoration.
Man Phalla, executive president of the CNRP for Phnom Penh, blamed authorities for seizing the discs without first warning them, which he said had provoked the crowd’s rage.
“Sometimes the authorities need to show their identity, too. Sometimes [CNRP supporters] don’t know, they think [the authorities] are provocateurs. So we would like all authorities to wear uniforms,” he said.

City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche declined to comment.The CNRP and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party were close to reaching a deal prior to Khmer New Year, following top-level talks.Prime Minister Hun Sen said they had reached a deal, which included calling an election five months early, in February 2018. But Rainsy later said he had not agreed to the proposal, adding that the negotiations were only “80 per cent” complete.

Land activists ‘under threat’

Cambodian land advocates face some of the most threatening and deadly working conditions in the world, according to a new report by UK-based environmental watchdog Global Witness.

Since 2002, 908 reported killings linked to land activism have occurred across 35 countries – with 13 taking place in Cambodia – and that number has been climbing in the last four years, the report, Deadly Environment, reveals.Land disputes, shrinking natural resources and a culture of impunity are tied to the reported intimidation and killings of land activists recorded in the Kingdom, said Alice Harrison, a communications adviser for Global Witness.

“Of the reported killings that our research uncovered, the highest concentration in Southeast Asia was in the Philippines, with 67. But with 13 killings, Cambodia’s death toll is certainly significant, behind Thailand with 16,” Harrison said, adding that Cambodia ranked ninth of 35 countries.

Violence stemming from land disputes in Cambodia is highlighted in the report with the inclusion of 14-year-old Heng Chantha’s death in Kratie province in 2012. The girl was shot by security forces during an eviction mere weeks after the slaying of prominent anti-logging activist Chut Wutty.

But the cycle of violence will continue unabated as long as senior politicians keep being linked to logging cartels, warned Preap Kol, executive director of Transparency International Cambodia.

“Corrupt land dealings can be traced back to our politicians and our military officials
. . . This will keep happening until a real commitment is made to end this cycle of impunity by our leaders,” Kol said.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Land Management, Beng Hong Socheat Khemro, and military police spokesman Kheng Tito could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Ministry of Interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak downplayed the report’s findings and allegations.

“I think that environmentalists and land defenders are not under threat in Cambodia, and the report’s link to land grabbing and land disputes [and] companies [being related] to the killing and intimidation of environmentalists is not true,” Sopheak said.

However, it was the fatal shooting of Wutty – one of the most high-profile killings of an activist in Cambodia since unionist Chea Vichea was slain in 2004 – that inspired Global Witness to investigate the realities land activists face on the ground in Cambodia.

Chut Wutty, one of Cambodia’s most outspoken activists against illegal logging, was shot dead on April 26, 2012, after military police stopped his vehicle in Koh Kong province. While the details leading up to Wutty’s death remain unclear, it is known that he was shot by a military police officer while investigating a company’s involvement in illegal logging.

Wutty’s son, Chheuy Oddom Rasmey, said he is not scared of the threats and harassment and will continue his father’s efforts “to protect the environment and natural resources of Cambodia for the future”.

Cambodia Must Make Union Draft Law Public: Rights Group

Cambodia’s government should make public a proposed law aimed at regulating the country’s labor movement, a rights group said Thursday, amid concerns that it includes provisions for the suspension of unions and for severely restricting their right to freedom of association.

Requests from civil society to review the Law on Trade Unions, which Prime Minister Hun Sen’s administration has pledged to adopt by the end of the year, have so far been denied, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) said in a briefing note.

Additionally, the group said, recent reports of new unions being refused registration by the authorities or having their registrations delayed constituted “a direct attack on the right to freedom of association.”

Since December last year, CCHR said it had documented six cases in which the authorities have denied or delayed new union registration, or threatened license revocation.

“It is evident that the right to freedom of association is heavily stifled in Cambodia, exacerbated further by what CCHR has documented as the increasing suppression of union registration since December 2013 to date–either through denying or delaying new registration, or through threats of license revocation,” it said.

“The dire situation of freedom of association, particularly for unions, has the potential to be made worse when compounded by the adoption of the impending Law on Trade Unions, with its probable provisions for the suspension of trade unions, which have been publically referred to by [government] officials.”

Cambodian laws at present have provisions protecting the right to freedom of association and allowing workers the right to strike and engage in non-violent demonstrations.

But only about one percent of the total workforce is unionized with the vast majority of organized workers found in the garment industry, the country’s top revenue earner.

A first draft of the Law on Trade Unions was introduced by Hun Sen’s administration in 2011, but was shelved after concerns that it would make unions vulnerable to de-registration, presented barriers to prospective union leaders, and allotted too much power to the government, among other factors.

But CCHR said that the law was apparently submitted for review by the Council of Ministers in late 2013 and the government intends to pass it by the end of 2014.

In addition to wanting the draft law to be made public and incorporate feedback from relevant stakeholders, CCHR called on the government to “ensure union registrations are resumed immediately and that registration requests are not further delayed.”

It said that in particular, Cambodia’s garment sector “is plagued by widespread disregard for and violations of the right to freedom of association.”

Myriad problems

CCHR said that in the past several years, Cambodia had increasingly been seen as a dangerous place for trade unionists, who are frequently met with violence and arrest for their activities, while strikes and protests led by unions are often dispersed violently by authorities, including through the use of gunfire.

Union workers and representatives are regularly sacked or targeted with legal action by factories as a result of their activities, the group said, while the government has threatened unions that they will have their licenses suspended or cancelled if they participate in further strikes.

Additionally, CCHR expressed concern over incidents of union leaders receiving death threats or even being killed as a result of their union activities.

CCHR said that businesses in Cambodia have made attempts to end the right to unionize, while some factories have even refused to receive notifications for union formation, producing lengthy delays.

The situation for the country’s civil servants—many of whom earn “unlivable wages”—is even worse than it is for general workers, as they lack the freedom to form unions to protect their rights and increase their wages, it said.

Reactions to briefing note

Responding to CCHR’s briefing note Thursday, Ath Thon, head of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (CCAWDU) said that independent garment unions endure difficulties operating, and even registering with the Ministry of Labor.

“The CCHR report reflects the truth,” he told RFA’s Khmer Service.

“In general, we are facing huge problems in doing our jobs … Employers use their money and power to routinely pressure the unions,” he said.Ath Thon also expressed concerns over the draft Law on Trade Unions, which he said would whittle away at union rights.“The government must ensure that the draft law complies with international standards … [and] should hold more discussions, including with the ILO.”

Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, claimed Thursday that international nongovernmental organizations had been consulted on the draft law.“Cambodian laws do not only follow Cambodia standards—we always take international law into account,” he said.“International NGOs have participated in the draft law.”

Garment strike

Meanwhile, a group of eight garment unions was set to launch a nationwide stay-at-home strike Thursday following the end of Khmer New Year celebrations a day earlier, to demand a higher minimum wage in the sector as well as the release of 21 protesters imprisoned following a January strike.A violent police crackdown on the strike by garment and footwear workers n the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh left five people dead and wounded nearly 40 others.

According to a report Thursday by the Cambodia Daily, the unions have been spreading the word for the past several weeks about the stay-at-home strike and expressed optimism that as many as half the country’s roughly 600,000 garment workers would stay home in protest. “We expect more than 50 percent of the workers not to come to work until April 22 to demand that the government and Ministry of Labor release the 21 prisoners and give them a U.S. $160 [monthly minimum] wage,” Far Saly, president of the National Trade Union Coalition, told the daily.

“We have informed our workers, handed out 100,000 leaflets and spread the information through social media and word-of-mouth,” he said. “We will wait and see how many factories will be open or closed.”

The garment sector generated more than U.S. $5 billion in revenue last year and the last round of strikes cost the industry U.S. $42.2 million in lost production, the Cambodia Daily reported, citing data from the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), which represents factory owners.The unions have asked for the stay-at-home strike to avoid another violent confrontation and to take advantage of the Khmer New Year holiday.GMAC officials, however, have said that the strike was unlikely to have much of an effect on the industry as most factory owners already gave their workers time off for the New Year until April 21.

Car crash on Trung Luong highway kills seven, including one French

At around 9.30am, a 30-seat bus of private transportation firm Thao Chau, carrying 13 people from Ben Tre to Ho Chi Minh City, suddenly crashed into a tank truck which was watering trees on the road. The crash completely demolished the coach, killing five passengers on the spot, including a French man and a boy of about 10 years. All remaining passengers were injured. Later, two more passengers died at the hospital.

Hearing the horrible sound from the crash, which took place in the Chau Thanh District of Tien Giang, local people rushed to the scene. They used hoes and crowbars to break the coach doors and debris to rescue the victims. "The scene was horrible, blood was everywhere," said one local man.
It took 30 minutes to extract all of victims from the wreck.
Authorities are investigating the accident.
The last images of the passengers on the coach before the crash:

A camera on the coach captured the last photos of 13 passengers before the tragic accident this morning. The baby boy sleeping on the woman's thigh and the foreign passenger sitting two rows behind are two of the three people who died on the spot. Two foreigners on the bus were determined to be French. The 64 -year-old man died and the 50-year-old woman was seriously injured. Just prior to the accident, the woman was sitting on the right of the man, looking out of the window. The coach driver, Tran Thanh Phong, died in the accident. He was 25 and a native of Ben Tre Province. The driver of the tank truck is Bui Trung Duong, 25, from Dong Thap Province. All the dead and seriously injured victims were seated on the driver’s side of the bus. Baggage of passengers. The journey disk on the coach was seized by the police for investigation.

Messages from a sinking ship

As the ferry sank, some of the students reached out to their parents via text messages

As a South Korean ferry came to a shuddering halt and rapidly began to sink, some of those on board sent harrowing text messages to their loved ones.With almost 300 people still unaccounted for one day after the accident, reports of desperate text messages from some of those trapped on board have surfaced in local media. 

 

"This might be the last chance to say I love you," one student named as Shin Young-Jin is reported to have texted his mother."Why's that," his mother texted back, clearly unaware of the crisis engulfing the vessel. "I love you anyway."According to the Korea Herald, he was among the 179 people rescued from the ship so far. 'Ship is too tilted'But other parents who received such messages have not been reunited with their children. Another exchange between one student and her father was recounted by the AFP news agency and local media:

Student: "Dad, don't worry. I'm wearing a life vest and am with other girls. We're inside the ship, still in the hallway."
Father: "I know that the rescue is under way, but shouldn't you be waiting outside the rail? Try to get out if you can."
Student: "The ship is too tilted. The hallway is crowded with so many people."
The student who sent these messages remains unaccounted for.

Anguished family members have been gathering at the port in Jindo

In another text exchange widely published on South Korean media a student texted his older brother as the ship ran into trouble.
Student: "The ship ran into something and it's not moving. They say the coast guard just arrived."
Brother: "Don't panic. Just do what you are told to do and then you will be fine".
But there was no further communication after that.

Survivor: "There was an announcement telling us to sit still, but the ferry was already sinking"

Some parents were able to stay in touch with their children on the phone until lines were cut off. Park Yu-Shin, whose daughter is among the missing, told the AFP news agency that she talked to her daughter as she was coping with the emergency.

"She was telling me: 'We're putting on our life vests. They're telling us to wait and stay put, so we're waiting...I can see a helicopter", Ms Park said. Her daughter is still among the missing.
Reports that messages have been received from students still trapped inside the ferry have not been verified.'I wanted to live'It is not yet clear what caused the ferry, carrying mainly school students, to sink, but survivors gave similar accounts of a catastrophic event at around 09:00 (00:00 GMT). A picture of the fear and chaos on board has also been vividly drawn.

There were many young people on board the vessel

Escape was hindered by the severe listing of the ship

Anxious relatives of those on board gathered to await news

"There was a really loud noise and then the boat immediately began to shift to one side," said rescued passenger, Kim Song-Muk."People were scrambling to get to the upper decks, but it was difficult with the deck slanted over."

Student, Lim Hyung-min, told how he he jumped into the ocean wearing a life jacket with other youngsters and then swam to a nearby rescue boat.

"As the ferry was shaking and tilting, we all tripped and bumped into each another,'' Lim said, adding that some people were bleeding.
Once he jumped, the ocean "was so cold... I was hurrying, thinking that I wanted to live".
Pictures from the scene showed rescue teams balanced on the sinking hull pulling teenagers from cabin windows as other jumped into the sea as the ship went down.
Tales of heroism Other survivors have criticised the evacuation procedures.
Passenger Koo Bon-hee, 36, told the Associated Press news agency that many people were trapped inside by windows that were too hard to break. He wanted to escape earlier but an announcement said passengers should stay put.
"The rescue wasn't done well. We were wearing life jackets. We had time,'' Koo, who was on a business trip to Jeju with a co-worker, said from a hospital bed in Mokpo where he was treated for minor injuries.
"If people had jumped into the water ... they could have been rescued. But we were told not to go out."
Another survivor told local television: "The announcement told us that we should stay still, but the ship was already sinking and there were a lot of students who did not get out of the ship."

Rescue efforts are still under way at the site of the accident

Kim Seong-mok told YTN that he was "certain" many people were trapped inside the ship as water quickly filled up inside and the severe tilt of the ferry kept them from reaching the exits.
But tales of heroism on board as the vessel began to sink have also emerged.
One crew member, named as 22-year-old Park Ji-young, is said to have lost her life while struggling to make sure passengers on the upper floors of the ferry wore life jackets and found their way out.
"I repeatedly asked her why she did not first wear a life jacket. Park just said she would get out of the ship after making sure that all passengers were out," a survivor told local media.
"Park pushed shocked passengers toward the exit even when the water was up to her chest."
The Korea Herald reports that she joined the ferry company in 2012 to earn money to support her family. When her body arrived at hospital, the paper reports, her mother cried: "I can't believe you left us".

Growing desperation, anger as search for South Korean ferry survivors continues

Like the fog that continued Friday to envelop the perilous search-and-rescue zone, rising anger and desperation shrouded those waiting for word on their loved ones still trapped on a capsized South Korean ferry.Those massing on the dock in the Jindo, South Korea, harbor -- about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from where the five-story ship sank -- were not giving up, especially after authorities granted the possibility some if not all the 271 missing people could have survived thanks to air pockets two days after the vessel's sinking.

Yet Thursday's search, and the still dreary conditions on Friday, didn't give them much hope.

No survivors were rescued over a 24-hour period, during which time U.S. Navy Capt. Heidi Agle said two Navy helicopters equipped with special radars could only fly a few hours due to the poor weather. Divers in the water battled against strong currents, frigid water temperatures in the 50s (10 to 15 Celsius) and general murkiness that made seeing, much less rescuing anyone, challenging.

"It's extremely difficult," Agle, who said the Navy helicopters were from a U.S. carrier nearby, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "There are heavy currents in the area, so the vessel itself is not stable in the water. So you are, by default, putting divers at risk... There are many, many things that are working against them."It's a different kind of struggle for those in Jindo, many of them the parents of more than 300 Seoul high school students who'd been heading to a four-day island holiday.

Wearing ponchos to fend off rain, some of them could be heard crying in the face of the grim situation. Others expressed anger at information such as the fact few of the ferry's lifeboats were deployed, and reports that its captain -- shortly after loudspeaker announcements had urged passengers to go to their cabins deep inside the ship -- was among the first off the ship.

From the dock, the relatives made loud and clear they wanted him to give them answers

They chanted, "Captain, come out."

He didn't talk directly to them, but ferry Capt. Lee Joon Suk did emerge Thursday at a South Korean Coast Guard office. His head and face covered, he broke down in tears when reporters asked him if he had anything to say.Lee managed only, "I am sorry, I am at a loss for words."

25 confirmed dead; hundreds still missing As of Friday morning, the east Asian island nation's coast guard reported 25 confirmed dead. There are fears that toll could spike as time passes, with the prospect of hypothermia and lack of oxygen doing in those that might have made it past when the ship initially turned over. 

At least 179 people were able to make it off in time.Authorities continued to operate under the assumption there are more survivors, hoping that trapped passengers found pockets of air. Images show parts of the hull visible above water and presumably not flooded.

"Absolutely, there could be areas in there where there is breathable air, but the trouble right now is the temperature and getting people to them," Mike Dean, the U.S. Navy deputy director for salvage and diving, told "CNN Tonight."More than 170 ships and more than 500 divers have swarmed the ferry site, though they are hampered by relentless rain, whipping winds and thick fog in addition to strong currents and murky waters. 

Three divers who joined the search went missing in high tide but were later found, CNN affiliate YTN reported. And efforts to pump air into the ship failed because of the bad weather.

More such attempts to pump in air are expected Friday. Authorities are "leaning toward" using a crane to raise the vessel, according to Kim Soo Hyeon, the chief of South Korea's Yellow Sea Maritime Police Agency.

Two cranes had arrived at the scene early Friday, with a third scheduled to be there later in the day.

Can they survive in air pockets?

Still, there was no guarantee any of those efforts would lead to rescues.

Despite government assurances that rescuers would work around the clock to save lives, some relatives were angry about the pace of the operation."If the government cares for the people, our family, our children, please rescue our families and our children," said Chang Min, whose second-grade son is among the missing.

Passengers told 'don't move'

One factor seemingly working against a miracle is that most passenger bedrooms are on the fourth level of the five-floor boat, which is now upside down. Divers tried at least six times to enter the submerged cabins but were unable to get in, Kim said.

Surviving passengers told YTN that --as the ship began to list sharply about the same time as loud banging sounds were heard -- they were urged to stay put.

"Don't move," a voice warned, according to a recording obtained by YTN. "If you move, it's dangerous. Don't move."

Student Lim Hyung Min, who was rescued, told YTN he heard a bang before the ship began to list.

"The students were falling over and crashing into things and bleeding," Lim said.

Rescue helicopters plucked some passengers from the ship as the vessel lay on its side before capsizing. Crews of fishing boats and military ships that raced to the scene in a heavily used sea lane pulled others from the water.

Few passengers made it to lifeboats.Social media video acquired by CNN affiliate JTBC showed at least 12 of the white survival capsules still attached to the ferry even as it was keeled over in the water.It was unclear, however, exactly how many lifeboats had deployed. Initial reports from YTN said it was one, but the JTBC video shows what appears to be two lifeboats next to the ship.

CNN has not been able to independently confirm the reports.

Apology, but no answer as to what happened

Why did it happen? South Korean media has reported investigators are probing the possibility the ship may have taken a sharp turn, causing vehicles and cargo aboard to shift and forcing the ship off balance.