Another Step Backwards on the Human Rights Front

Cambodia arrests rights activist

By Guy De Launey BBC, Pnomh Penh

One of Cambodia's most prominent human rights activists has been arrested and charged with criminal defamation.

Kem Sokha, as leader of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, has been a prominent critic of the government.

A number of opposition figures have been charged with defamation - which can be a criminal offence under Cambodian law - in recent weeks.

Foreign diplomats have expressed concern that charges are being used to silence and intimidate the opposition.

The government has defended its right to prosecute people who it says have broken the law.

Police surrounded the headquarters of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights in the middle of the morning.

They held warrants to search the building and to arrest the organisation's leader.

Foreign diplomats and the United Nations' Human Rights representative tried to intervene but police barred them from entering.

Eventually, Kem Sokha emerged and police took him to court.

The defamation charge stems from a banner displayed at a rally to mark International Human Rights Day earlier this month.

One of the organisers of the rally also faces charges.

It means that four critics of the government are now in jail awaiting trial.

Five more have left the country rather than face imprisonment.

Last week, the opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, was sentenced in absentia to 18 months in prison for defaming the leaders of the governing coalition.

Grandparents come for a Christmas visit

Nathan's parents, Dick and Beth, have been in Cambodia for nearly a week. We had a few days together, then they went up to Angkor Wat, and returned yesterday. They'll stay until Jan. 4.
Apparently Ben decided he wanted to impress them. He took his first steps (not on his own yet, but holding on to Grandpa's fingers) yesterday and Daddy discovered his first tooth barely poking through the gums today!

Here are some photos of the fun we've been having together:

Grandma and Ellie reading a story

Grandpa helps to feed Ben

Ben likes to grab on to the Christmas ornaments

All dressed up for Christmas Eve church

Ellie has Christmas cookies and carrots all ready for Santa and his reindeer. There's no chimney in our tropical house, so we just left the plate under the tree. Word on the street is that Santa liked the cookies, and left some nice presents in exchange.

Justice Past Due in Cambodia

The Washington Post editorial below describes one of the aspects of US foreign policy towards Cambodia that I find most surprising: the amazing influence that one hill staffer--not even an elected member of Congress--has on US policy. I guess when it's a small country that not many people are looking at, it's easy for a less prominent person with great connections and firmly held ideas to have lots of influence.

Justice Past Due in Cambodia

By Nathaniel Myers
Saturday, December 24, 2005; A17

PHNOM PENH -- Speaking to a Senate subcommittee two years ago, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that, given the level of "lawlessness and impunity" in the country under discussion, it made "no sense" to even consider convening a human rights tribunal to conduct trials on the heinous crimes of the ousted regime. The country he was referring to was not Iraq -- though it certainly could have been -- but Cambodia, where the United Nations had just finished negotiations with the government to establish a joint tribunal to prosecute surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge.

That tribunal is expected to open its doors soon, staffed by a mix of international and Cambodian jurists and funded by a group of states led by Japan. The United States, however, is not expected to be among the donors. The contrast is startling: The United States will spend some $75 million over two years to support the tribunal in Iraq, despite widespread concerns about its competence, security and independence, and yet it has budgeted not a dollar for the Cambodian counterpart, which will confront the worst genocide since World War II.

America's refusal to support the Cambodian tribunal has a personal history. It begins in 1997, when grenades were thrown into an opposition rally in Phnom Penh organized by the Sam Rainsy Party. Sixteen people were killed and many more injured, one of them a staffer from the International Republican Institute (IRI). Paul Grove, who had headed the IRI office in Cambodia a few years earlier, was among many who blamed the attack on Prime Minister Hun Sen, Cambodia's long-serving strongman. Today, Grove is the influential chief of staff for the Senate foreign operations appropriations subcommittee, and his distrust of Hun Sen is shared by his boss, Sen. McConnell, the subcommittee's chairman.

As a result of their efforts, the Foreign Operations Appropriations Acts of the past two years have prohibited American funding for -- as the 2004 version bluntly put it -- "any tribunal established by the Government of Cambodia." The senator and his staffer worried that because the tribunal would include Cambodian judges, Hun Sen would hijack the process.

Their concern is well founded, given the politicized and corrupt nature of the Cambodian judiciary, but it misses the point: It is precisely this threat of political interference that should spur the United States to participate in the process. Consider the example of Cambodian civil society organizations. They share America's concerns about Hun Sen's intentions, but rather than boycotting the tribunal, they have resolved to do all they can to increase its effectiveness. U.S. engagement is desperately needed, in coordination with the other donors, to monitor the court, to pressure the government, to assist investigations, to support nongovernmental organizations and to otherwise regulate and support the process to ensure that those fears are not realized. The United States is right to be skeptical of Hun Sen's intentions, but America's absence at the tribunal does nothing to weaken Hun Sen's grip on power and much to lessen the likelihood that the tribunal will realize its potential to help Cambodians -- all the while undercutting America's already battered global credibility on international justice.

Without strong international engagement, including an active American role, the tribunal is unlikely to succeed. And the stakes are high: Cambodia is still traumatized by the Khmer Rouge rule, which resulted in the deaths of 2 million people -- nearly a quarter of the entire population -- between 1975 and 1979. For a people still only beginning to recover, an effective tribunal process would represent a significant step toward achieving closure, marking a break with the past and the beginning of a new Cambodia that respects law and order. It would finally hold accountable many suspects who continue to live freely and openly in Cambodia.

Fortunately, it is not too late. The 2006 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, signed by President Bush last month, omits any mention of the tribunal, thereby finally opening the door to American support. This tribunal, imperfect though it may be, is the last real chance to hold accountable the elderly Khmer Rouge leadership. It is time for the United States to get involved in ensuring the Khmer Rouge tribunal is everything Cambodians deserve. It is a gamble -- but a gamble worth taking.

The writer is former adviser to a coalition of Cambodian nongovernmental organizations on issues concerning the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

Merry Christmas from Phnom Penh

Sending warm holiday wishes to all our friends and family.

Love, Ben, Jennifer, Ellie and Nathan (the willing photographer)

Playdate du jour

One of our favorite new ways of socializing is to host playdates. (How completely pathetic does that sound to you childless folks out there?) We get to talk to other adults while also spending time with our kids, Ben and Ellie love having new kids to play with, and their friends enjoy playing with some new toys and new kids for a while. The hosting demands are pretty low, too: coffee and juice, pumpkin bread and fruit, and you're set.

Here are a few pics from the playdate du jour:

Ellie and Erik take turns on the slide.



Ben and the other kids really loved being in the playhouse this morning. Note the protective Mommy arm steadying Ben, who isn't yet standing on his own. (I promise I'm making silly faces at Lucca, not preparing to bite his fingers off.)

Buddhist Blessing of the New US Embassy

Last weekend we moved in to the new embassy, a lovely, modern building that is quite chilly due to AC problems but otherwise a great place to work. Our previous embassy was the fifth temporary location during the 55-year diplomatic relationship. It was just a collection of old houses jerry-rigged together. (Getting to my office required walking up the exterior staircase on one building, crossing a makeshift bridge from one balcony to another, and walking up another metal exterior staircase.) One of my Cambodian staff members told me that when she enters the embassy, she feels like she's left Cambodia and entered the US. (She assured me this was a good thing.) Another said that he finally feels like a professional. It's been a good change for all of us.

In fact, the new embassy is so lovely, it's become a popular spot for Cambodians to pose for wedding pictures.



This Friday, we had a Buddhist blessing for the new embassy. In Cambodia, Buddhist monks are often asked to bless new organizations, corporate ventures, and buildings. We think that we are the first embassy to have a Buddhist blessing, and we see it as an important sign of respect to Cambodia and to our Cambodian colleagues.

The VIPs on the move: Sharon Mussomeli, Protocol Assistant Naroat Hoy, Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli, the Governor of Phnom Penh, DCM Mark Storella



Making sure everything is ready for the monks.

Monks are highly honored in Cambodian society. Everyone has to remove their shoes and kneel when they approach (note to Mr. Blue Shirt: next time choose less ventilated socks), and you even have to use a special vocabulary when speaking to them. The embassy leadership offered them gifts before the blessing.

The senior monk.

Although some Buddhists do commit their lives to the monastery, being a Buddhist monk or nun is not typically a lifelong calling. Many Cambodian men spend several months or years as a monk as young people--a coming of age time similar to college or compulsory military service in other countries. Monks take a vow of poverty and give up their possessions and shave their heads as signs of humility. Every morning, they go begging for food to feed themselves. (In Phnom Penh there's recently been a scandal involving fake monks who beg for food to feed their families.) Monks also take a vow of chastity, and women are not permitted to touch them.



Ambassador Mussomeli makes a few remarks.

The actual blessing at the embassy Seal.

Friends in my Christmas Stocking

The other day, I figured that it was time I sit Ellie down and tell her about Santa Claus.

Think for a minute about how bizarre that is. Every other American 2 year old has surely been pointing to signs of the jolly red and white guy and asking who that is, and clearly understands that Santa is the one who brings the presents. And for sure, if Ellie were in the US, that is exactly what she would be doing. She is obsessed with knowing everyone's name--people standing in the checkout lane at the grocery store, people in ads in magazines, all of the minor fish characters in Finding Nemo. But here in Cambodia, there is no Santa, there are no Christmas decorations, and there are definitely no holiday sales. Christmas exists to the extent that we and our friends create it.

So, anyway, it was time to explain to Ellie, from scratch, who Santa was. I don't think she got much of it. "Presents" is a concept that she understood, but "chimney" and "reindeer" were way beyond her. She understands that specific actions are good or bad, but classifying her behavior as a whole as either positive or negative is way to abstract for her. I kept going with this explanation, knowing that Ellie really wasn't getting most of this, when I got to the consequences of being bad. What preschooler has any idea what coal is? Heck, I think I can honestly say that I've never seen a lump of coal in my life and I'm--as Ellie says--"firty".

So I explain about coal, expecting a look of total bewilderment, when Ellie pipes up "And Sam and Nina, too!" because to Ellie, "coal" = her 8 year old friend Cole Buford. And as long as Santa is putting Cole in her stocking, wouldn't he put Cole's siblings in there, too?

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We have a camera!

OK, I know most of you don't visit this site for our insightful commentary or our witty stories. Thanks for sticking by us during the photo drought of 2005.

Our replacement camera just arrived and, in celebration, here are some photos from tonight:

Ed and Ellie toast their G&T's to celebrate the conclusion of another hard day of play

"Good construction technique, little bro"

"I love climbing on things so much I don't care if I bonk my head when I try to stand up!"

Elderly on the loose!

Do you recognize these folks?


Me neither. This was one of the photos on our new, used camera which Dick--the man with the bargain connections--got us used for a good price. For just $100 plus a new $70 memory card, we bought back the model we used to have!

Anyhow, our thanks to these good folks (who Ed tells me are from Ascension Lutheran Church in Albert Lea, MN) for passing on their camera to the camera-less. Don't they just look delighted at having done such a great deed?