KH KOMPONG CHAM

Sunday, January 09, 2011
Thai soldiers shooting on 11 Cambodians, 1 died
08 January 2011
By Sok Sophalmony
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Soy
Click here to read the article in Khmer
Thai soldiers shot on 11 Cambodians, causing 1 death and 1 injured, while these Cambodians were crossing the border from Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province to work as wood loggers in Tapraya district, Sakaeo province, Thailand.

Vat Han, the Banteay Chhmar commune chief, located in Thmor Puok district, Banteay Meanchey province, reported that Cambodian border defense troops have indicated that Thai soldiers shot on Cambodians in the morning of 07 January.

Vat Han added: “The information indicated that there was a fatal injury: one dead among the 11 villagers, 7 of whom come from my village. They left q from our village, Dangrek village, and they went to border post 27, then they cross the border post to enter Thai territories. The information indicated that they went to log wood in Thailand and the Thai troops surrounded them and shot them.”


The Thmor Puok local authority indicated that there were 11 Cambodians who sustained the shooting of Thai troops, they live in Banteay Chhmar and Kok Romiet communes, Thmor Puok district, Banteay Meanchey province: “Border [officials] reported that [the incident took place] near Thmor Sor, close to border post 28. What we know is that there was one dead and one injured. The Thais shoot them inside Thailand’s Tapraya district. I don’t know the victim’s last name, but his first name is Sambath. He is between 33 and 35. The other victim is Seut, he was injured but I don’t know if it serious or not.”

Chan Kosal, the Bantey Meanchey provincial police commissioner, said that the body of the Cambodian man assassinated by the Thai soldiers is still inside Thai territories, and the Cambodian authority is asking Thailand to return his body back home for funeral.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Trespassing case 'has no bearing' on Cambodia border dispute
January 8, 2011
By Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation
Convicting the seven Thai nationals for trespassing in Cambodia would not overrule Thailand's right to claim sovereignty over the disputed border area near Sa Kaew's Ban Nong Chan, where the men were caught, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and legal experts said yesterday.

The Cambodian court's ruling on the case would only be binding for individuals who were involved in the case, but would never be a reference point for boundary demarcation, he said.
Seven Thai nationals, including an MP from the ruling Democrat Party, Panich Vikitsreth, and yellow-shirt activist Veera Somkwamkid were arrested by Cambodian officials last week while inspecting the disputed area.

In his testimony, Panich told the Cambodian court that he had crossed the border by accident. Information from the Royal Thai Survey Department and the Foreign Ministry indicates that the group had only gone 55 metres into Cambodian territory.

Veera and other activists insist that this area belongs to Thailand because Thai authorities issued land titles for local residents a long time ago. Veera and his group were arrested at the same site last August.

The area in question has been occupied by Cambodians who fled from civil war at home in the late 1970s and refused to return after the war.

This border location had been demarcated more than a century ago, when Cambodia was a French colony, but the boundary pillars in the area were destroyed or removed. The two countries have not yet reached common ground as to exactly where the boundary pillars were.

Worry is growing in Thailand that Cambodia will take advantage of the case to claim sovereignty over the area.

Legal expert Panas Tassaneeyanond, meanwhile, said the Cambodian court had the authority to rule on each individual's guilt in accordance with Cambodian law but such a ruling had no binding on the boundary line with Thailand.

"Legally speaking, the ruling is specifically bound to each individual in the case," Panas said on a television programme.

Meanwhile, secretary to the foreign minister Chavanond Intarakomalyasut said the case should be kept separate from the boundary issue because the two countries had a joint boundary committee to handle the dispute. The Cambodian court's ruling should have no legal implication on the matter, he said.

The main argument in the case of the seven Thais jailed in Phnom Penh is whether they entered Cambodian territory unintentionally, he said.

Separately, Army chief Prayut Chan-ocha responded to allegations that the military was too weak to deal with Cambodia over the border dispute by saying that the issue should be settled through negotiations and that it would take time.

"With both sides claiming the same location, we cannot say who has lost it to whom, but we do have to say that we need to live together peacefully and with mutual respect," he said.

"The military does not fear anyone. We have the duty to protect our motherland. If it is clear that it is our land, we will not allow any invasion, but while it is still unclear, we will have to talk with our neighbours," he said.

A group of yellow-shirt activists met with officials at the Foreign Ministry yesterday asking the ministry to help them pay a visit to their colleagues in prison.

The court finished the first round of testimony on Thursday and their lawyer will submit a bail request on Monday. The court will then take five days to consider the request.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Cambodian port foresees positive 2011


Phnom Penh Autonomous Port
7th January 2011
PortWorld
The total amount of goods shipped through the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port in Cambodia increased 44% in 2010, according to a local media source.

Port authorities stated that it plans to improve upon this by a further 20% in 2011.

According to port statistics, 62,256 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) were shipped through the port last year.

Port director Hei Bavy told local media that the port plans to ship approximately 75,000 TEUs of freight in 2011.

The 2010 increase was partly due to eased shipping requirements between Cambodia and Vietnam, he said.


“We received more shipments last year because both governments worked to facilitate access for ships,” stated Bavy.

He added that the ports location near to production and construction sites had worked in its favour.

Cambodia and Vietnam agreed to collaborate more extensively on shipping goods via water in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by representatives of both countries in late 2009.

Under the terms of the MoU, ships from Cambodia have direct access to Vietnam’s Cai Mep deep water port, while Vietnamese ships can access Phnom Penh Autonomous Port.

Currently, the port receives shipments such as raw materials for the garment sector, construction materials, and fuels.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Letter from Birmingham Jail - honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. month
I am pleased to participate with the KI-Media family in honoring the prophetic reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this month of January by introducing (or re-introducing) his works to the Cambodian audience, with my emphasis and highlights.

- Theary C. Seng, Phnom Penh



Theary C. Seng, Phnom Penh, Dec. 2009
. . . . .


Martin Luther King's Letter from the Birmingham Jail

April 16, 1963

MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here.

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.


Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants --- for example, to remove the stores humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained.

As in so many past experiences, our hopes bad been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves : "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoralty election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run-off we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run-off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct-action program could be delayed no longer.

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to ace the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fan in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with an its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "An Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely rational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this 'hard work’, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self-respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best-known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."

I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do-nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle.

If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble-rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides-and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist.

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that an men are created equal ..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime---the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some-such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle---have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as "dirty nigger lovers." Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action" antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a non segregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.

But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who 'has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of Rio shall lengthen.

When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leader era; alltoo many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, on Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Walleye gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? l am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great-grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom, They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham, ham and all over the nation, because the goal of America k freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation-and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if .you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handing the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in pubic. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face Jeering, and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My fleets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Funeral Announcement for Ven. Kong Chhean, Abbot of Wat Willow in Long Beach


Ven. Kong Chhean in a 1979 photo



Wat Khemara Buddhikaram in Long Beach is commonly called ‘Wat Willow” (Photo: Stephane Janin)


Dear Cambodian Friends and Friends of Cambodian Community,
We would like to inform that Venerable Chhean Kong, the chief abbott the the Cambodian Temple (The Khemara Buddhikaram) at Willow Long Beach, California passed away yesterday January 7, 2011 at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, Long Beach.

Following is schedule of the funeral services.

Religious Services:

Every day from January 7, 2011 through January 15, 2011 at The Khemara Buddhikaram Temple Long Beach 2100 W. Willow St. Long Beach, CA 90810, Tel. (562) 595-0566

(Morning Praying before noon and afternon praying at 5PM).

Funeral Service:

Viewing: tentatively at The Khemara Buddhikaram, time and date to be updated (If arrangement is possible- If not the viewing to be at All Souls Mortuary Long Beach)

Funeral Service: Sunday January 16, 2011 at 1 PM at The Khmemara Buddhikaram Temple at Willow Street, Long Beach (if arrangement is possible - If Not the service will be at All Souls Mortuary, Long Beach).

Cremation service to be at Stricklin/Snivel Mortuary Long Beach.

We will keep all friends updated.

Your help and input to organize these services will be greatly appreciated.

For additional information, please come to the temple or call (562) 595- 0566 or (562) 577-5481.

Borann Duong
Organizing committee
(562) 577-5481
Saturday, January 08, 2011
WikiLeaks demands Google and Facebook unseal US subpoenas


'Free Julian Assange' protestors demonstrate in central London before the WikiLeaks founder's court hearing in December. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
Call comes after revelation that US has tried to force Twitter to release WikiLeaks members' private details

Saturday 8 January 2011
Peter Beaumont
guardian.co.uk

WikiLeaks has demanded that Google and Facebook reveal the contents of any US subpoenas they may have received after it emerged that a court in Virginia had ordered Twitter to secretly hand over details of accounts on the micro-blogging site by five figures associated with the group, including Julian Assange.

Amid strong evidence that a US grand jury has begun a wideranging trawl for details of what networks and accounts WikiLeaks used to communicate with Bradley Manning, the US serviceman accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of sensitive government cables, some of those named in the subpoena said they would fight disclosure.

"Today, the existence of a secret US government grand jury espionage investigation into WikiLeaks was confirmed for the first time as a subpoena was brought into the public domain," WikiLeaks said in a statement.


The writ, approved by a court in Virginia in December, demands that the San Franscisco based micro-blogging site hand over all details of five individuals' accounts and private messaging on Twitter – including the computers and networks used.

They include WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Manning, Icelandic MP Brigitta Jonsdottir and Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp. Three of them – Gonggrijp, Assange and Jonsdottir – were named as "producers" of the first significant leak from the US cables cache: a video of an Apache helicopter attack that killed civilians and journalists in Baghdad.

The broad-reaching legal document also targets an account held by Jacob Appelbaum, a US computer programmer whose computer and phones were examined by US officials in July after he was stopped returning from Holland to America.

The court issuing the subpoena said it had "reasonable grounds" to believe Twitter held information "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation".

It ordered Twitter not to notify the targets of the subpoena – an order the company successfully challenged.

The court order crucially demands that Twitter hand over details of source and destination internet protocol addresses used to access the accounts, which would help investigators identify how the named individuals communicated with each other, as well as email addresses used.

The emergence of the subpoena appears to confirm for the first time the existence of a secret grand jury empanelled to investigate whether individuals associated with WikiLeaks, and Assange in particular, can be prosecuted for alleged conspiracy with Manning to steal the classified documents.

The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has already said publicly that he believes Assange could be prosecuted under US espionage laws. The court that issued the subpoena is in the same jurisdiction where press reports have located a grand jury investigating Assange.

It has been reported that Manning has been offered a plea bargain if he co-operates with the investigation.

The emergence of the Twitter subpoena – which was unsealed after a legal challenge by the company – was revealed after WikiLeaks announced it believed other US Internet companies had also been ordered to hand over information about its members' activities.

WikiLeaks condemned the court order, saying it amounted to harassment.

"If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out," Assange said in a statement.

Jonsdottir said in a Twitter message: "I think I am being given a message, almost like someone breathing in a phone."

Twitter has declined to comment, saying only that its policy is to notify its users where possible of government requests for information.

The specific clause of the Patriot act used to acquire the subpoena is one that the FBI has described as necessary for "obtaining such records [that] will make the process of identifying computer criminals and tracing their internet communications faster and easier".

The subpoena itself is an unusual one known as a 2703(d). Recently a federal appeals court ruled this kind of order was insufficient to order the disclosure of the contents of communication. Significantly, however, that ruling is binding in neither Virginia – where the Twitter subpoena was issued – nor San Francisco where Twitter is based.

Assange has promised to fight the order, as has Jonsdottir, who said in a Twitter message that she had "no intention to hand my information over willingly".

Appelbaum, whose Twitter feed suggested he was travelling in Iceland, said he was apprehensive about returning to the US. "Time to try to enjoy the last of my vacation, I suppose," he tweeted.

Gonggrijp praised Twitter for notifying him and others that the US had subpoenaed his details. "It appears that Twitter, as a matter of policy, does the right thing in wanting to inform their users when one of these comes in," Gonggrijp said. "Heaven knows how many places have received similar subpoenas and just quietly submitted all they had on me."
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Red Shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan to speak on the ongoing Thai-Cambodia difficulties


Jatuporn Prompan
Top Red Shirt Jatuporn defies court ban, will join anti-government protest Sunday
BANGKOK, Jan 8 (MCOT online news) -- Despite a court order forbidding his participation in political events involving five or more persons, top Red Shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan said he would speak on the ongoing Thai-Cambodia difficulties to as many as 60,000 anti-government of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) at Ratchaprasong Sunday evening.

Metropolitan authorities advise the public to avoid the area from the Democracy Monument to the Ratchaprasong intersection as the UDD Red Shirts will rally from 3pm until at least 8pm demanding the government to release the movement leaders held in prison on terrorism charges.


Police Bureau Division 1 commander Pol Maj Gen Wichai Sangprapai on Saturday afternoon met with key UDD leaders including acting UDD chairperson Thida Thavornseth and MP Jatuporn of the opposition Puea Thai Party, agreeing that the UDD can gather at the Democracy Monument on Rajadamnoen Avenue at 3pm Sunday and march to Ratchaprasong for activities in memory of protesters killed during April and May last year.

The UDD event will end at 8pm, according to Mrs Thida, who said 60,000 UDD supporters will participate.

Gen Wichai told journalists that the UDD agreed to not release airborne 'floating lanterns' and to not attack the monarchy by vandalising public property with abusive graffiti.

About 200 police will be deployed at the Democracy Monument and seven companies of police will be stationed near Ratchaprasong intersection, Gen Wichai said.

Mr Jatuporn said he would join the rally and speak about the ongoing Thai-Cambodia issue.

The UDD announced earlier they would rally monthly on the 10th and 19th to remember their protesters killed during clashes with government security forces last year on April 10 on Ratchadamnoen Avenue and May 19 at Ratchaprasong.

Eighty-nine persons, both security personnel and protesters, were killed and more than 1,900 were injured in several clashes between the troops and UDD members during last year's 10 week protest.

The Red Shirt protest in Bangkok was dispersed on May 19, 2010 with the movement's leaders announcing the end of their protest and surrender to police as army units sealed off their protest area. Most top protest leaders remain jailed under terrorism charges and their bids for release on bail has been rejected as the court cited their possible flight to avoid prosecution
Saturday, January 08, 2011
No reinforcement of Thai troops along Thai-Cambodian border
NAKHON RATCHASIMA, Jan 8 (MCOT online news) -- Despite ongoing tension between Thailand and its neighbour Cambodia following the recent arrest of seven Thai nationals, Thai forces on the Surin provincial border have not been reinforced, said Second Army Region commander Lt-Gen Thawatchai Samutsakorn on Saturday.

Gen Thawatchai, responsible for security affairs in Thailand's Northeast, said no violence had been reported at Prasart Ta Muen Thom, and the peoples of both countries still visit the historic ruins.

Ta Muen Thom ruin sits on another of many disputed areas along the border, and lies in Surin province and Cambodia’s northern Uddor Meanchey province.

His remarks were made after seven Thais, including MP for Bangkok Panich Vikitsreth from the ruling Democrat party and Thai Patriots Network leader Veera Somkwamkid, were arrested by Cambodian soldiers as they inspected the border area in Sakeo province on Dec 29.


The court in Phnom Penh finished the first hearings for all seven Thai detainees on Thursday. The seven faced two charges -- one of illegal entry into the Cambodian kingdom, with assigned punishment of three to six months of imprisonment and deportation, while the other involved trespass into a Cambodian military area without permission, punishable by a three to six months jail term and Bt7,500-15,000 in fines.

No date has been set for the court ruling.

Gen Thawatchai said Thailand's present number of troops along the Surin border is sufficient and they are prepared to perform their duty so it is unnecessary to boost their number.

In response to concern that more serious violence might follow the border arrests, Gen Thawatchai said he did not believe there will be more violence. In any case, the final ruling will be made by the Cambodian court and the Thai authorities could not intervene.

Saturday, January 08, 2011
Puea Thai MP: Thaksin willing to help 7 Thais [detained in Cambodia]
8/01/2011
Bangkok Post
Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ready to help seek the release of seven Thais being detained on charges of illegal entry into Cambodia and encroaching on a restricted military area, Puea Thai MP Suchart Lainamngern said on Saturday.

Mr Suchart, an MP for Lopburi, had just returned from visiting the ousted prime minister in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

He said Thaksin was willing to help free the detained Thais because he did not want them to be jailed in the neighbouring country.

“But he does not want to interfere with the government’s effort to seek the release of the seven Thais at this time. He believes the prime minister and the Foreign Ministry is capable of doing the job”, Mr Suchart said.

Thaksin also suggested the government to play in cool on this case, he added.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Lawmaker protests 'reprehensible' Vietnam attack on U.S. diplomat


Human rights campaigner: Christian Marchant, a political officer at the US embassy in Hanoi, who was allegedly attacked by Vietnamese police


Nguyen Van Ly muzzled in court by Viet cops
01/08/11
By Bridget Johnson
The Hill (Washington DC, USA)
A member of the congressional caucuses on Vietnam and human rights lashed out at Hanoi for roughing up a U.S. diplomat who was attempting to visit a well-known dissident.

Christian Marchant, a political officer with the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, was attempting to meet with Father Nguyen Van Ly, a democracy advocate being held under house arrest. Ly told Radio Free Asia that the diplomat was "wrestled down to the ground right in the middle of the road" in front of hundreds of witnesses.

"We are aware of and deeply concerned by the incident and have officially registered a strong protest with the Vietnamese government in Hanoi," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday.

Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement Friday that Marchant's legs were repeatedly slammed in a car door in violation of international laws protecting diplomats.

"This attack on a U.S. diplomat is beyond reprehensible," Royce said. "My staff has met with this political officer and can confirm that he is no threat to Vietnam. That, however, didn’t prevent his legs from being crushed by Vietnamese officials.

"In the past, the Vietnamese government has reserved the use of its thuggish tactics for peaceful dissidents and those deemed as threats to the government’s stranglehold on power. It’s now become clear that no one is immune from abuse," Royce added.

On the same day of the attack, Royce introduced H.R.156, the Vietnam Human Rights Sanctions Act, a bill that imposes sanctions on Vietnamese government officials who are complicit in human rights abuses committed against the people of Vietnam.

The bill resurrects an effort by former Rep. Joseph "Anh" Cao (R-La.), who introduced the sanctions bill, co-sponsored by Royce and others, in November.

Royce also introduced a bill Wednesday that calls on the State Department to list Vietnam as a "country of particular concern" in regards to religious freedom.

That bill has five co-sponsors: Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), Chris Smith (R-N.J.), and Frank Wolf (R-Va.).

"It is widely understood that Vietnam has backslid on every human rights front," said Royce. "This attack on a U.S. diplomat is further proof of why we need to make human rights discussions a top priority, and shows why we need to relist Vietnam as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ for violations of religious freedom. Maybe this assault will convince the State Department to make that listing."
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Impossible to Forget: Phnom Penh, Cambodia


Central Market, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Austin Bush/Lonely Planet Images)
Five New York Times foreign correspondents (past and present) recall the places that they would go back to if they got the chance.

January 7, 2011
By STEVEN ERLANGER
The New York Times

IT was just a single day in Phnom Penh, one of many, but even now I can’t get it out of my head. The genocide was over — Vietnam, the traditional enemy, had ended it by driving out the Khmer Rouge and setting up a collaborationist government. But in 1988, Cambodia was still mourning. So many people had died, and thousands of refugees, including those who had suffered from the Khmer Rouge and those loyal to it, lived in politicized border camps inside Thailand, waiting for a diplomatic settlement that never quite seemed to arrive.

“All the intelligent Cambodians either fled the Khmer Rouge or were killed by them,” my Cambodian friend and fixer, Phin Chanda, once said to me, lightly, as if joking. “We’re the residue.”


I was the bureau chief for Southeast Asia at the time, and I tried to go to Vietnam and Cambodia whenever I could from my base in Bangkok. That winter day 23 years ago was a warm one, and long, because you could not enter Cambodia except through Vietnam. Getting a visa into Vietnam was hard enough, and then you had to get permission to enter Cambodia, which was still a place full of ghosts. There were few residents from capitalist countries, except a handful of Australian aid workers. There was no air service, so I hired a taxi in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, to drive me to Phnom Penh, through a landscape of rice fields and palms and scrawny villages to the stunning expanse of the Mekong, where it joins the Bassac and Tonle Sap Rivers.

The Vietnamese were trying to justify their occupation by memorializing the horrors of the Khmer Rouge. They had established a museum at Tuol Sleng, the Phnom Penh high school where the Khmer Rouge had interrogated and executed so many, first taking their haunting portraits, which hung on the walls. In a classroom, I stared at a now famous metal bed, with electrodes attached, where victims were tortured. The museum remains there, grandly titled the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

The Vietnamese were also building an ossuary, a memorial to the murdered. Cambodia was full of bones and shallow graves; I remember the empty gasoline storage tanks of a looted Shell station, used for the massed bodies of the dead. Finger bones were scattered in the grass.

Near the construction site of the new memorial, at Choeung Ek, south of the city, were heaps of bones, and a skinny Cambodian worker, with a kramar, the traditional plaid cotton scarf, around his waist, sitting at a picnic table under a thatched roof. He smoked a cigarette with one hand, while the other rested on a pile of skulls.

I then went to the Central Market, a massive and beautiful Art Deco structure left by the French. The people were scraping by; the vegetables were fresh and cheap; there was a bit of expensive buffalo meat hanging in strips, coated with flies. There were small shops to have Cambodian café au lait — with cloying condensed milk, the way my grandfather liked it; and a tiny massage clinic where young men and women exercised the old medical magic of cupping.

A young woman, carefully supervised by an older woman — her mother? — heated small drinking glasses and applied them to my back; my skin was sucked up into the glasses as they cooled. I must have looked like a sort of insect, an arthropod with glass scales. It hurt, but the pain helped me, in a way, suffer a little myself.

The day finally turned cool, with a stunning sunset and dinner at a little restaurant over the Boeng Kak lake in the city. I dined on stuffed crab and amok, a curried fish steamed in a banana leaf. Mostly I remember the short cyclo ride back to my tattered hotel in central Phnom Penh, staring up at the apartments faintly illuminated by stolen electricity and weak bulbs, thinking of how the Khmer Rouge had emptied the city entirely and murdered so many of its inhabitants, and how the people living here now, however meagerly, had won an extraordinary victory over ideology and evil.

I know the city is tarted up now, with too much Thai, Chinese and Singaporean money. But I want to see it again, to feel that quiet sense of relief that madness has an end.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Cambodia [air] traffic steady [with Thailand]
8/01/2011
Bangkok Post
Cambodia traffic not affected by political spat. Air traffic between Thailand and Cambodia remains robust with no effect from the growing political tension arising from the arrest of seven Thais for allegedly trespassing onto Cambodian soil.

Executives of Thai Airways International and Bangkok Airways said yesterday that they have not seen any impact from the incident.

Demand for travel between Bangkok and the two major Cambodian cities, the capital Phnom Penh and the tourist destination Siem Reap, remained strong, with little concern among tourists or business travellers about potential risks, they said.


A group including Panich Vikitsreth, a Democrat MP for Bangkok, and Veera Somkwamkid, a leading member of the People's Alliance for Democracy, were detained by Cambodian authorities on Dec 29 after they crossed the border at Khok Sung district in Sa Kaeo and entered Cambodia's Banteay Meanchey province.

``I think [the border incident] is not an issue for travellers. They don't feel threatened as they see the issue is being worked out by the governments,'' said a senior executive of Thai Airways.

Both airlines reported high load factors on their flights spurred by high holiday season demand and a new visa exemption that took effect on Dec 16.

Citizens of both countries can now visit for up to 14 days without having to apply for a visa, either at the embassy, or on arrival at a border checkpoint.