1^st May 2012

The Cambodia Daily reports that police on both sides of the Thai border are acting in unison to stop nearly thirty trucks carrying 2,000 unmilled rice headed to Thailand through border crossings in Banteay Meanchey. Instead, commercial traffic is being restricted to just two entry points, the Poipet and Boeng Trakon checkpoints.

Meanwhile The Bangkok Post reports that the Thai government’s high benchmark prices under its populist rice mortgage scheme is resulting in widespread corruption by the mills participating in the programme. Colluding rice mills are reportedly taking cheaper varieties and mixing them with more expensive Jasmine (called “Hom Mali” in Thai) rice stored on behalf of the government, then passing off the rice as 100% Hom Mali.

This is because, under the rice mortgage scheme, Hom Mali fetches 20,000 baht (approximately $US700) per tonne of paddy rice, which is intentionally structured to pay above-market rates under a government policy aimed at boosting farm income. A rice mill holding Hom Mali rice for the government may also sell the rice off and later purchase lower-grade rice to return to storage, thus pocketing the difference.

“The mortgage programme has resulted in massive corruption,” one rice industry executive told the Post privately.

Monitoring government rice stocks and catching fraud is a difficult task, as rice mills can always present quality rice during inspection times but manipulate inventories as soon as official inspectors leave.

Under the rice mortgage system, The Post explains, farmers may borrow funds from the Thai Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives by pledging their rice harvest as collateral at the benchmark price. Repayments are then made in cash, or more commonly by essentially allowing the government to claim the rice to clear the debt.

Economists have criticized the scheme for distorting market prices. The government regularly sells off rice stocks to private exporters and packagers, a process that experts say lacks transparency and is open to abuse.

Another perverse effect appears to be the smuggling of Cambodian rice into Thailand to also participate in the Thai mortgage scheme.

Thailand is projected to export 6.5 million tonnes of rice this year, according to the latest US Department of Agriculture estimates, with Vietnam and India set to pass the country as the world’s top rice exporters at about 7 million tonnes each. Rice exports by Vietnam in the first quarter totalled 4.2 million tonnes, up 24% from a year earlier.

One of the problems Cambodia faces in developing its agriculture is that so much unprocessed harvest is spirited across the borders into either Thailand or Vietnam and then gets counted as part of these countries’ annual output.

30th April 2012

Bun Sokha, 38, deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Hun Sen and deputy of his bodyguard unit, was detained Sunday alongside Som Veansna, 37, and Meng Chheang, 21, after an altercation at the Koh Kong City Hotel. They were charged under the new penal code and will face an investigation. A fourth man, driver Sum Chhaiya, 25, was also detained.

The assault allegedly took place when the victim, Sieng Thairath, 32, and a hotel guard tried to retrieve a necklace from a room he had vacated at the hotel. However, the room was occupied by Bun Sokha’s wife, who denied them entry and eventually called her husband, who appeared with the other bodyguards and allegedly handcuffed the two men, beat them, then detained two more men when they tried to help.

A couple of days later, this video of the altercation appeared on youtube. អំពើហិង្សានៅកោះកុង ភាគ១

Fight in Koh Kong hotel

28^th April 2012

Confusion reigns following the death on Thursday of local activist Chhut Vuthy, president of the Natural Resource Conservation Group. Vuthy was apparently documenting illegal logging in Ko Kong province with two female journalists from The Cambodia Daily when military police at the scene tried to confiscate his camera’s memory card.

Chut Wutty had been taking photographs in a forest where a Chinese company is building a hydro dam, and he refused to stop when officer In Ratana asked him to, military police spokesman Kheng Tito claimed. He continued that the two men then started arguing and cursing each other, until Ratana shot Wutty with his AK-47 assault rifle.

“The military police officer fatally shot Chhut Vuthy and when he realised he had made a mistake and could not flee from the law, he decided to kill himself,” according to Kheng Tito.

Apparently Ratana shot himself twice in the chest. Twice.

A spokesperson from LICADO, Chheng Sopheak, told the paper that the struggle between Vuthy and the armed man took place about thirty minutes before the shots were fired at around 8.20 a.m. – information that “contradicts statements made by officials.” He called for a “thorough and impartial investigation”.

Military police said they were unlikely to pursue any further investigation as it was a clean cut case because the officer who shot Vuthy had then killed himself, according to The Rasmei Kampuchea Daily.

The two reporters from The Daily, a Khmer, Phorn Bopha, and Canadian Olesia Plokhii, returned to Phnom Penh safely, where they recounted their version of events in today’s Daily.

The picture that emerges from their account is that after arriving at the place where they suspected illegal logging activity was taking place, they were confronted by a couple of armed guards who called for backup and tried to prevent the trio from leaving.

Vuthy, who may have believed the presence of the two journalists, especially when one was a foreigner, might confer some protection, made several attempts to leave and a shouting match ensued. This went on for some time without being resolved.

However, the guards did manage to relieve the journalists and later Vuthy, of their cameras, action that appeared to mollify them.

Eventually, however, after the guards pleaded with Vuthy not to leave because they would end up in trouble, Vuthy made a determined attempt by getting in the car with the two women but the car then stalled. He asked the two girls to get out and push, and the motor finally turned over, but one of the guards kept reaching into the vehicle and turning off the ignition.

The two journalists were then in the backseat when suddenly and unexpectedly, shots rang out. They were unable to see who was responsible but when they emerged from the car, both Vuthy and Ratana were clearly badly wounded, while Vuthy was slumped over the steering wheel.

The suggestion is that the guards had become increasingly exasperated that Vuthy was ignoring their pleas to stay put – especially as they had the guns. This would have been a big loss of face.

However, what actually transpired is difficult to guess. How, for example, did Ratana end up with two bullets in his chest? A later autopsy revealed that the bullets in both men came from the same gun.

Eventually other members of the constabulary turned up and for a while in all looked pretty grim for the journalists, with talk that they should also be dispatched. Fortunately, saner voices prevailed and after being questioned by the police, the two journalists were allowed to leave.

As is often the case here in Cambodia, we will probably never know the full truth of what actually happened.

26^th April 2012

Data just released by the Ministry of Commerce show that the Kingdom’s terms of trade are out of balance, with imports comprising 56% or $1.831 billion, of the total, which reached $US3.2 billion in the first quarter of 2012, up from $US2.7 billion a year ago, a 19% increase on last year.

Of course this in not yet a serious matter, although Cambodia is particularly dependent on imports of petrol, having no reserves of its own so far, which is adding to domestic inflation, putting pressure on ordinary people. The other major components of these imports are raw materials for the garment sector and for construction, materials that can’t be sourced locally (with one or two minor exceptions).

Exports also illustrate the Kingdom’s continuing over-reliance on finished garments, with rubber and rice bringing up the rear. The reported data showed that garment exports were worth $US1.147bn, while processed rubber was worth just $US41.2m, and rice earned only $US27.1m (although this was almost double last year’s figure).

Meanwhile the Garment Factory Association (GMAC) is claiming it is increasingly difficult to find staff, despite strenuous efforts by both factories and the National Agency of Occupations, the Rasmei Kampuchea Daily reports.

Ly Tek Heng, the Operations Manager of the GMAC, told reporters at the Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday that there were 355 garment factories at present, plus 38 making shoes that provided jobs for more than 450,000 Cambodian workers. However, fifty factories had been seeking at least 20,000 new employees, yet this demand for labour had still not to been met despite months of advertising job vacancies.

Increasingly rural folks are no longer seeing working in the garment industry as the answer to their financial problems, while those already working in the industry are increasingly desperate because inflation is undermining their living standards.

Two things stand out: the increasing occurrence of workers fainting on the job because, it seems, they are inadequately nourished and, secondly, the increasing militancy of workers demanding better conditions, which most contract manufacturers are ill-prepared to provide.

GMAC President Van So Ieng, claimed that twelve handbag manufacturers, as well as a number of zipper makers, had recently been interested in coming to Cambodia, but claimed “constant, brutal protests and demonstrations, which the authorities seemed powerless to stop” were deterring them from coming here.

In just the latest sign of militancy on the shop floor, eight hundred workers from the SH Garment Factory walked off this week after accusing their employer of duplicity for not fulfilling promises he had already made, according to the Koh Santepheap Daily. Workers said that after management ignored the demands they made just before the Khmer New Year holiday, they began to strike last Thursday. They said they had lost faith in their employer and threatened not to resume work until all their demands had been met.

On Tuesday, GMAC’s Ieng expressed frustration that garment sector unions conducted more and more aggressive protests, which he styled as “mafia-like.”

If these extreme forms of protest were not reined in, he said, they would spread throughout the country, with the result that future investment in the industry would disappear. He claimed “some unions have effectively taken factories hostage and employers were a their mercy, with demonstrations and strikes making claims that were unrealistic.

Moreover, those demonstrations frequently involved damage to factories, the burning of tyres at the factory gate and the prevention of other workers from doing their jobs. Yet no-one dared to intervene or arrest those responsible. Instead, the government merely convened committees repeatedly but these proved useless as they achieved nothing.”

A number of unions had announced that they are planning protests to coincide International Labour Day on May 1^st to demand respect for human rights and a raise in salaries, according to a report in the opposition-aligned Moneaksekar Khmer.

There has been a lot of talk of a “living wage” but this could risk a rush to the exits by most manufacturers who are only here because of the privileged access Cambodia enjoys into the EU and US markets. Without a significant rise in productivity here, manufacturers will be hard pressed to meet raising wage demands, especially in uncertain times for global markets.

We could be in for a long hot summer.

25^th April 2012

The opposition-aligned Moneaksekar Khmer reports that representative from villages around Beoung Kak yesterday warned that approximately three hundred villagers were planning to march around the city starting tomorrow and lasting until next Monday to pressure the government resolve the chronic conflict between them and Shukaku Inc over the land surrounding the former lake.

A representative of the villagers, Tep Vanny, told reporters that “Beoung Kak villagers have sent a letter to the Phnom Penh Governor informing him of their intention to march around the city until a solution is reached.”

He explained this action was designed to pressure the authorities over the endless issuing through the courts of warrants against the villagers and to draw attention to their claim that they are constantly being spied on.

The protesters are demanding that 12.44 hectares be set aside for the ninety families that have so far not been included in the recent concession by the government. Vanny added that, armed with banners, the villagers intended to march around the city while submitting letters of protest to various embassies asking for their intervention in the conflict.

This new action could lead to a dramatic confrontation with the authorities here in Phnom Penh – especially now that the ASEAN Summit is safely out of the way.