Cambodia’ Opposition Cancels Northwest Tour After ‘Intimidation’

 
Cambodia’s opposition leaders said Monday they cancelled a tour of former Khmer Rouge strongholds in the country’s northwest out of safety concerns after police and ruling party supporters came out in force to line roads leading to the area in a show of intimidation. Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) leaders Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha had planned on a two-day northwest tour starting with Anlong Veng district in Oddar Meanchey province, where the last of the notorious Khmer Rouge military hid out until the 1990s and where Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) has a loyal following.

But they were forced to put it off after finding the roads to Anlong Veng blocked by groups of CPP supporters armed with sticks and batons hiding in the bushes nearby, according to the CNRP. One convoy carrying a group of five CNRP representatives was forced to turn back after it was stopped by a group of CPP supporters who threatened them and went through their belongings, they said.

The bands of supporters had been organized by CPP-aligned authorities, and police and military police had also been deployed along the roads, CNRP leaders said at a press conference in Phnom Penh on Monday.CNRP deputy chief Kem Sokha accused the CPP of making a systematic show of force intended to threaten the opposition leaders, saying the trip had been cancelled out of fear of violence. "This is intimidation and is regarded as … a threat,” he told reporters. 

“The CPP can't say those officials are regular villagers. They are men and they can be brutal," he said.

CNRP leaders and representatives speak to reporters in Phnom Penh, June 9, 2014. Photo credit: RFA.

Security concerns

Pol Ham, one of the representatives who was stopped on Sunday, said the military was behind the group of CPP supporters who prevented his group from continuing on."Those blocking the road were not regular villagers. They had walkie talkies and weapons," he said. At least five iPads and smartphones had been taken from the CNRP representatives’ group in the incident, he said.

Choy Sovann, the CNRP’s Oddor Meanchey provincial director, said party leaders had decided to scrap the tour out of security concerns.  "We feared there would be a confrontation," he told RFA on Sunday, saying the CPP supporters had been armed and hiding by the road.The CNRP has also reported that party signs were taken down in Anlong Veng over the weekend.

Remote northwest

Ministry of Interior Spokesman Khieu Sopheak refused to comment on Sunday about reports of people stopping the CNRP representatives from traveling to Anlong Veng. “I don't have any formal information yet so I can't comment," he told RFA.

Provincial and military officials in Oddor Meanchey could not be reached for comment. Oddor Meanchey is the only province Sam Rainsy has yet to visit since his return from exile abroad ahead of general elections last year.

The CNRP and CPP have been locked in a bitter standoff since the July 2013 polls, which the main opposition party claims were rigged, boycotting parliament in protest. Aside from Anlong Veng, the CNRP leaders were set to visit Malai district in nearby Battambang province and Pailin province.

All three remote areas once had strong links to the Khmer Rouge, whose last troops were reintegrated into the national army in February 1999 after Anlong Veng fell to the government in December the year before. After the election, the CNRP led numerous mass protests in the capital drawing thousands of supporters, until a violent crackdown in January.

It has held more protests since then, but cancelled several political rallies out of fear of violence and confrontations with CPP supporters. Hun Sen came to power following the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia which brought about the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime blamed for the deaths of up to 2 million people during its brutal rule between 1975-1979.Opposition parties have regularly accused the long-ruling prime minister of being a puppet installed by the Vietnamese government.

Back on timber patrol

 
When Cambodia’s most prominent forest activist, Chut Wutty, was gunned down in April 2012, the community network he created to sabotage the rampant deforestation of this vast forest fragmented. The forest patrols that he organised nearly ground to a halt.
Without money to fund large-scale expeditions, and with a now well-established network of informants whom activists say have infiltrated their group, the task at hand has never been more difficult.

But a number of Wutty’s protégés are slowly making a comeback.
Over the weekend, what was proclaimed to be the largest patrol since the environmentalist was killed set out into sprawling Prey Lang forest, which encompasses parts of Kampong Thom, Kratie, Stung Treng and Preah Vihear provinces.The operation, which included more than 80 people, embarked from a fork in the road in Kampong Thom’s Sandan district before Sunday’s first light. In the hope of giving the authorities the slip, they sent a decoy patrol to the nearby Vietnamese state-owned CRCK Company plantation, which has reportedly been used as a base to launder timber from Prey Lang.
As the group slowly wound through the forest, Hoeun Sopheap, one of its leaders, expressed frustration with the seemingly insurmountable obstacles confronting the tiny band.
“What we are doing is always failing, because we are being watched all the time,” he said, alluding to a large network of informants eager to give away their movements.

After navigating over waterlogged paddy fields and several kilometres of pitted dirt track, the group started down a rabbit warren of logging trails that snake out from the main route into the interior.
Down each trail, Post reporters accompanying the patrol found at least one newly felled and planked rosewood tree. Each large log can fetch up to $10,000 when sold on to traders and carpenters abroad. Within one short stretch of jungle, the patrol found upwards of $200,000 worth of timber.
The loggers, however, were nowhere to be seen. Chheang Vuthy, who coordinates the activists through the Natural Resource Protection Group (NRPG), believed they had been tipped off.
“As you see, we just arrived in the jungle and all of the loggers are not inside but they have been cutting down the trees,” he said. “They heard the news about our plans already. Some of our activists are working for loggers and the authorities.”

Oung Moly, Sandan district chief of police, denied the activists’ claims that local police were cooperating with the illegal loggers, but said he was aware that such alliances had existed previously.
“Recently, our police have not cut down trees or worked as loggers, but I know that has happened in the past,” he said.On the way to meet the activists, Post reporters were quizzed by a plainclothes but official-looking man. When asked who he worked for, the man, who would not give his name, replied only that he was “helping out a little bit”.
Locals alleged he was paid to send information to the district and provincial authorities.

“I accept we have [illegal] logging, but following our expert officers, [they] said that the wood is not from my province. It is from somewhere else, because my province has no luxury wood like that. It is imported from other places, because it is easier to transport to other places from my province,” he said.When the activists found illegally logged timber, they burned it using gasoline carried in containers strapped to the front of their rickety Honda Dream motorbikes. Further into the forest, one of the riders spotted recently cut resin trees and doused the wood before lighting it up.
As the group neared the end of the first leg of its three-day patrol, it had moved into Kratie’s Krang village, where members saw two trucks pass by carrying about 30 rosewood logs confiscated on the orders of Kampong Thom’s deputy prosecutor.

The men atop the trucks stopped by a stream to cool off and wash their clothes on the way to deposit the logs at the Tumring district Forestry Administration office.
When reporters finally reached the office at Tumring yesterday, the second day of the patrol, they found stacks of rosewood logs, some reaching as high as 12 metres.
Despite previously agreeing to be interviewed, the Tumring district Forestry Administration director did not show up to the meeting.The logs will be stored at the office until trucks from Try Pheap’s MDS Export Import Company arrive to transport them to Vietnam. The tycoon’s company was granted a $3.4 million licence to transport all timber impounded across the country in November of last year.

Mao Chantheourn, one of the most prominent activists now in the vanguard against the deforestation of Prey Lang, is a tough-looking woman in her 40s who clutched a radio to communicate with other activists on patrol.Part of the community’s approach to reinvigorating a regular network of patrols of western Prey Lang, she said, is to try to educate the villagers who have accepted payoffs from the loggers about the value of sustainable forestry.“They can get some money from loggers, but it’s only a short-term gain. If we can protect Prey Lang, we can make use of the resources from Prey Lang forever to support our standard of living,” she said.
“We try to lobby them to come back to work against the loggers. We tell them that if we lose Prey Lang, we lose everything.”

Migrants flee Thai instability

 

Thousands of Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand are rushing back across the border, voluntarily repatriating themselves in the face of increasingly hostile rhetoric towards undocumented labourers.

In the wake of Thailand’s coup d’état last month, army chief General Prayuth Chan-o-Cha urged better regulation of the workforce and warned illegal workers of their tenuous and unwelcome status, last week outlining ways “to prevent [an] illegal work force from entering into the country and give more work opportunities to Thai nationals”.In response, many undocumented and unregistered Cambodian workers are deciding to show themselves the door. Border officials said groups of workers are cramming into military trucks, opting to be sent home rather than incur potential punishment.“They are scared and decided themselves to come back. One day, around 100 or more came with Thai military transporting them to the border,” said Colonel Chin Piseth, deputy director of the Cambodian-Thai border relations office in Poipet.

Piseth estimated that thousands of Cambodians have returned since last week when the Thai military announced it would not take responsibility for any incident involving undocumented migrants.

While forcible expulsions from Thailand are not uncommon – a UN study found more than 89,000 Cambodians were deported from Thailand in 2009 for illegal migration – en masse voluntary returns or large round-ups of employed workers is extremely unusual, according to Moeun Tola, head of the labour program at the Community Legal Education Center.

“The military government has made it clear they want to control the situation with illegal workers. I’m not sure if they are worried Cambodians will join the ‘red shirt’ uprising or what,” he said.

“Before, a worker could be arrested and fined or deported, but now they can also be shot and killed. It’s gotten even more dangerous for migrant workers, and there’s no priority to improve the situation for them.”

Border officials said many of the daily returns include dozens of minors, summoned home by worried relatives.Adding to the fears, Thai media have reported a rising number of arrests and crackdowns on migrant workers following the coup, with numbers particularly high over the past few days, according to Andy Hall, a migration expert based in Thailand and Myanmar.

“However, generally in my experience, police and law enforcement arrest, extort money from workers and their employers, and then simply release them unless they need to prove a deportation quota,” he said, adding that it is economically unviable for Thailand to send home all of its hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers.Cambodian border police, meanwhile, claim the number of workers crossing has dwindled to almost none, and they intend to keep it that way.

“If we find them, we will not let them go, because we fear the danger,” said So Channary, commander of Border Police Infantry Unit 911.

China intentionally conceals wrongful acts in East Sea

A Chinese ship changed its direction and intentionally rammed a Vietnamese boat

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted the article on its website to defend China’s sovereign claim over the Hoang Sa (Paracel) and illegal operation of its floating drilling rig Haiyang Shiyou-981 in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf.The story covers up the truth that China used force to illegally occupy Vietnam’s Paracel archipelago in 1974. It also avoids mentioning the so-called ‘nine-dash line’ which has been described as groundless by the international community in recent times.

Together with incorrect and unconvincing arguments, the article attempts to defend its illegal placement of the oil rig in Vietnam’s continental shelf and even alleges that Vietnamese ships have disrupted the operation of the rig and rammed into Chinese vessels over 1,416 times.

However, it did not dwell on the barbaric act that China committed when it intentionally sank a Vietnamese fishing boat on May 26, leaving behind fishermen in distress.

At a regular press briefing in Beijing on June 5, reporters questioned China’s actions after Vietnamese media published a video footage showing Chinese ships chased and purposely rammed into Vietnamese boats, causing one of them to sink Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei could not provide an explicit explanation, saying it was an act of self-defence.

In its article, China for the first time pledges to work with Vietnam to properly address the issue.

Fishermen, coast guard to benefit from 16 trillion VND

The amount will be sourced from the 2013 State and central budget expenditure, according to a resolution adopted in the afternoon session.
Earlier, NA deputies approved a resolution on State budget balance for 2012, with 1,038 trillion VND (47.78 billion USD) as total collection and 1,170 trillion VND (around 55 billion USD) as total spending.

On the day, the deputies discussed a proposal on the 2015 NA supervision programme, focusing on major supervision contents and measures to ensure the progress and efficiency of the programme.
On June 10, they are scheduled to have group discussions in the morning and start a question and answer session in the afternoon.

Pakistan airport terrorist attack: 7 bodies found in cold storage facility after attack

 

Seven bodies have been recovered from a cold storage facility at a Karachi airport Tuesday morning, more than a day after a deadly militant attack there left 29 people dead.

The seven cargo workers were found in a facility next to the hall where a fire broke out during the attack, Sindh province Health Minister Dr. Saghir Ahmad said. Heavy machinery was used to break into the area to retrieve them.Rescuers had been trying to reach the cargo workers who were trapped inside the cold storage facility at Jinnah International Airport, the largest and busiest airport in Pakistan. 

 

Families of the workers blocked a busy road leading to the airport, demanding that authorities help find their relatives, CNN affiliate Geo TV reported."We will work to investigate any negligence in rescue efforts by the authorities and those found guilty of negligence will be punished accordingly," Sindh province Gov. Ishrat Ul Ebad Khan said.The rescue operation unfolded nearly a day after terrorists entered the airport from two places with a plan to destroy a group of parked airplanes and "bring down our aviation industry," according to the Pakistani government.

It was late Sunday night, and the militants were armed with guns, grenades and suicide vests. They went into the cargo area, about a kilometer (0.62 miles) from where commercial planes take off.

In a "heroic" effort, security forces "laid down their lives" to block the terminal and stop the attackers, surrounding them and killing all of them, the prime minister's office said.

There were 10 terrorists, military spokesman Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa said, and two of them detonated suicide vests.

 

By the time the attack was over, officials said 29 people were dead, including 10 militants. Another 24 people were injured, the military said.The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault on the country's largest and busiest airport.Speaking from an undisclosed location, Pakistani Taliban commander Abdullah Bahar said the attack was retaliation for the death of former chief Hakimullah Mehsud, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in November in North Waziristan.Bahar warned more attacks will follow."As long as we are breathing, our attacks will be continuing 'til the end of our lives," he vowed.

Fire followed attack

 

A building caught fire in the attack, but no planes were damaged, Bajwa said. The airport reopened Monday.Some Pakistani media reported a renewed gunbattle at the airport later Monday morning. But officials told CNN the noise was from fire-heated chemical containers exploding.

Still, as a precaution, security forces opened fire, said Ahmad Chinoy of the Citizen's Police Liaison Committee. He said he was 100% sure there were no militants left in the airport.

Several days ago, Pakistan's government had warned provincial officials of a possible "high-profile attack on a sensitive or key installation," said Qaim Ali Shah, chief minister of Sindh province. But the warning, he said, did not mention the airport.

'We felt like sitting ducks'

Farooq Sattar, a member of parliament, was on a plane at the airport when the attack took place.

"My aircraft was on the tarmac ready to take off when suddenly, from what I understand, a message came to the pilot saying to get off the runway and return to the gate," Sattar said. "I heard shots and saw smoke.""Before the pilot could announce anything, I had text messages blowing up my phone saying 'Karachi airport under attack.' We were in the aircraft for three hours, full of fuel. They locked the doors. 

"The airport was poorly guarded. It was only due to some airport security personnel that the attack got thwarted and the militants didn't make it to our part of the airport. Passengers were extremely nervous. They started looking at me for answers."

"We felt like sitting ducks on the tarmac," he added.

Two crew members who were on their first ever flight "freaked out," Sattar said.

History of terror

The Pakistani Taliban, which is formally known as Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, has long conducted an insurgency against the Pakistani government."Their primary target is the Pakistani state and its military," said Raza Rumi of the Jinnah Institute, a Pakistani think tank."It resents the fact that (Pakistan) has an alliance with the West, and it wants Sharia to be imposed in Pakistan."

The group claimed responsibility for a December 2009 suicide bombing at the United States' Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan.

The attack killed seven U.S. citizens, including five CIA officers and a member of Jordanian intelligence.The U.S. Justice Department charged Mehsud in 2010 for his alleged involvement in the attack.Mehsud took over from Baitullah Mehsud, a fellow clan member, in 2009 after the latter was killed in a U.S. drone strike. Four years later, Hakimullah Mehsud suffered the same fate.

More claims and threats

Another TTP member claimed the Pakistani government has been "abducting and killing innocent people," and explained why the airport was targeted.

"We chose a location where there would be less civilian and more official casualties," TTP representative Shahidullah Shahid said.

Shahid warned the group will engage "in a full-out war with the Pakistani state, starting on June 10."

But "if even now the Pakistani government backs down," Shahid said, "we are ready to engage in meaningful dialogue."

The airport wasn't the only site of violence in Pakistan on Sunday.

Twin suicide attacks near the border with Iran left 24 people dead, including four terrorists, authorities said. Qambar Dashti, commissioner of the Quetta Division, said two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a hotel where dozens of Shia pilgrims from Iran were staying.

Dashti said 14 out of 18 wounded pilgrims were in critical condition.

Extremist Sunni militant group Jaish el-Islam, a splinter group of Lashkar e Jhangvi, claimed responsibility.On Monday, while Karachi operated as usual, there was violence in other parts of the country.Three soldiers were killed and many others were wounded in a suspected suicide attack at a checkpoint in North Waziristan, military officials said.