Year Zero

April 17, 2010 By Peter Wilson
Source: American Thinker

The Khmer Rouge declared revolutionary Year Zero thirty-five years ago today, on April 17, 1975, the day Communist guerrillas in black pajamas and truck-tire sandals marched victoriously through the streets of Phnom Penh. An indication of the regime's brutality came within 24 hours, when the Khmer Rouge ordered the two million residents of Phnom Penh, including hospital patients, to evacuate the city.

Their reign of three years and eight months left Cambodia devastated, with the better part of an entire generation -- approximately 1.7 million Cambodians out of a population of 7.9 million -- annihilated by bullet, axe, shovel blow to the back of the head, plastic bag suffocation, unspeakable torture, or by starvation caused by ruinous economic policies.

The Pol Pot clique set out to create history's most pure form of Communism in a single bound, striving to surpass even Mao's disastrous Great Leap Forward. Their success was Cambodia's failure. Despite the legacy of another horror-filled Marxist experiment, the lessons of the Khmer Rouge remain shrouded in equivocation and myth.

Myth #1: Despite the example of the Khmer Rouge, Marxism remains a valid political philosophy.

Marxist sympathizers like columnist James Carroll still argue in polite society that "Marxism has yet to be really tried." It's just that by strange happenstance, Communist governments have always been subverted by corrupt, brutal men.

Corruption and brutality, however, are not incidental to Communism; they are part of its essence.

In order to redistribute wealth, the State must assign power to fallible humans. Our democracy has checks and balances that constrain (we hope) those who hold power. The Khmer Rouge leaders wielded absolute power, which corrupted absolutely, with predictable tragic consequences.

Every time it has been tried, Marxism leads to the charnel house, turning subject countries into giant concentration camps, each a "vast Belsen," as Robert Conquest described Stalin's Soviet Union. Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Che Guevara, Abimael Guzman, Mengistu, and Kim Jong-il are among history's most accomplished butchers. To argue that the Communist ideology that motivated them is incidental to their crimes devalues the deaths of the hundred million murdered by Communism in the 20^th century.

Myth #2: The Khmer Rouge were not really Communists.

Like the Viet Cong, they were "rice paddy nationalists." Or freedom-fighters gone wrong battling French and American imperialism. Or Asian Nazis. Or some perverted Buddhist agrarian sect.

Evidence to the contrary is not difficult to find. As students in Paris, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary (Brothers Number One and Number Two) joined the Cercle Marxiste, where they imbibed Marx and Rousseau. To point out the obvious, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary named their army the "Red Khmer," red being the color of Communism. They were funded by Beijing, Moscow, and Hanoi. Theirs was closer to a Maoist interpretation of Marxism than to Stalin's urban Communism with its Five-Year Plans, fetishizing steel mills and cement factories. Khmer Rouge terror techniques were drawn from Stalin and Mao: the brutality, the destruction of the family, the abolition of religion, the terror famines, and the internal purging that George Orwell described so accurately three decades earlier in the terrifying scenes of Napoleon forcing confessions in Animal Farm.

Myth #3: Nixon's secret bombing of Cambodia was responsible for the Khmer Rouge victory.

Blaming America for the Khmer Rouge began early on in William Shawcross's Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia (1979). Roland Joffe's 1984 movie The Killing Fields disseminated the narrative of American guilt to an entire generation, one that is repeated in many American history textbooks.

According to data released by the Clinton administration and reported by Ben Kiernan and Taylor Owen, from 1969 to 1973, American B-52s dropped "2,756,941 tons' worth [of explosives] in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites," more than was dropped by all parties in World War II. Innocent Cambodian villagers were surely killed, although estimates vary wildly, from 5,000 to 600,000.

Nevertheless, despite the rage of the antiwar movement, the tin soldiers, Nixon's coming, and four dead in Ohio, the bombing was not entirely unjustified.

The bombing proceeded in two distinct phases, each with different objectives. President Nixon's Operation Menu began in March 1969, striking at North Vietnamese sanctuaries where the NVA delivered food and arms to supply depots less than one hundred miles from Saigon, protected by Cambodia's neutrality under the Geneva Convention. Although Prince Sihanouk agreed to the passage of NVA supplies coming down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and through the Port of Sihanoukville, evidence shows that he grew fed up with North Vietnamese intrusions into his country and gave Nixon a green light to bomb NVA military targets.

In the second phase, as the Vietnam War was winding down, American bombing continued at the request of the Lon Nol government to slow the advance of the Khmer Rouge.

History may judge Nixon and Kissinger harshly for the humanitarian costs of the bombing. It appears that the bombing assisted Khmer Rouge recruitment efforts, but overall, it delayed the Khmer Rouge takeover. Keep in mind the simple facts that Communist countries backed the Khmer Rouge with arms, materiel, money, and ideology, while the U.S. supported the pro-western Lon Nol government in an attempt to defeat the Khmer Rouge and stop the spread of Communism. As Peter Rodman writes in a 1981 American Spectator article on Sideshow: "By no stretch of moral logic can the crimes of mass murder be ascribed to those who struggled to prevent their coming into power."

Myth #4: "American ruthlessness turned Communists into totalitarian fanatics." [Via historian Philip Windsor, quoted by Noam Chomsky and Bernard Herman in Manufacturing Consent (1988).]

In addition to bearing responsibility for bringing Pol Pot to power, the American bombing is also guilty of pushing the Khmer Rouge over the edge into insanity. Nixon and Kissinger are therefore guilty of war crimes, with the blood of 1.7 million Cambodians on their hands.

This myth is an international relations version of the "society made me do it" defense for the brutal criminal, akin to blaming mass murder on police brutality. It transforms the Khmer Rouge from aggressors to helpless victims reacting to aggression.

The theory that violence generates violent retaliation may make sense on a psychological level, but it is implausible that the Khmer Rouge's "auto-genocide" -- the systematic campaign of destruction of their own people -- was motivated by desire for revenge against Americans. During the Khmer Rouge reign from 1975-79, Cambodia was isolated from the outside world; the last American bomb fell in August 1973.

Historical examples also contradict this theory: The ruthless Nazi blitzkrieg did not transform Londoners into totalitarian fanatics.

This myth did, however, alleviate the antiwar Left of any responsibility it might have felt for pressuring Congress to withdraw the financial support for South Vietnam promised in the Paris Peace Talks, which certainly played a role in southeast Asian dominoes falling in 1975: Cambodia on April 17, South Vietnam on April 30, and Laos on November 28.

*

Today, the Khmer Rouge has few enthusiastic defenders. In Jean-François Revel's wry phrase, "One of the most richly enrolled clubs on the planet is the Enemies of Past Genocides." But it is not enough to condemn the Khmer Rouge; we must condemn the Marxist ideology that motivated them.

Peter Wilson has a large extended family of Khmer Rouge survivors and has worked on children's television in Cambodia. His blog is walkingdogcapitalist.

ANALYSIS: Asian suppliers thrown textile lifelines

19 April 2010 | Source: John Zarocostas

Asian nations are assisting struggling textile and apparel sectors as their wider economies rebound, says a recent report.

Asia's economic growth is expected to rebound 7.5% in 2010, up from last year's 5.2%.

However, in light of lagging global demand some Asian textiles and apparel exporting nations are assisting their industries to cope, according to the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) Outlook 2010 report.

In India, the region's second largest emerging economy, where export growth turned positive in November after 13 months of year-on-year declines, the government, says the report: "Will continue with the 2% interest subsidy on bank loans to certain sectors that are labour intensive such as textiles, leather, handicrafts, cotton yarn, .which are particularly hard hit by the fall in global demand."

In neighbouring Pakistan, the report says that while manufacturing has picked up in other industrial segments, textiles production "has continued to contract on account of lower cotton availability, electricity and gas shortages, and poorer relative product competitiveness in international markets."

The ADB says electricity subsidies, which remained high in fiscal year 2009, and a burden on Pakistan's budget, will continue in FY 2010.

Similarly, it says Cambodia has ushered in support measures to shore up its apparel sector, which in 2009 witnessed the value of its exports to the US contract by 20.9% because of lower demand and an erosion in market share to competitors such as Bangladesh .

The ADB says preliminary data show a 17% fall in Cambodia's merchandise exports in 2009, mostly stemming from the fall in apparel exports to the US.

Measures introduced to boost industrial output, which fell 13% last year, have included temporary tax relief for apparel industries, and $10m for re-training laid-off Cambodian apparel workers.

Overall, the ADB forecasts the value of exports from the region to expand on average by 14.4%, up on after last year's 16.2% decline, with Indian shipments edging upwards by 16%, China's by 13.3%, and those of heavily apparel dependent exporters Bangladesh by 5%, a deceleration from last year's 10.1% expansion, and Cambodia by 5%.

New study highlights extent of garment worker struggles

Source: The Phnom Penh Post
Friday, 26 March 2010 15:01 Bejan Siavoshy

One in 10 workers was replaced or fired at least twice in 2009, says ILO survey

GARMENT workers continue to feel the brunt of the global economic crisis that threw the sector into turmoil, a study from the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia initiative has revealed.

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"Unemployed workers are interested in job training, but can't afford to not generate income."
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A preliminary survey, released Thursday, examined the conditions and hardships faced by 1,200 employed and 800 unemployed Phnom Penh-based garment workers.

One in 10 workers surveyed had been replaced or fired from a garment-factory job two or more times during 2009, the study detailed.

Of those terminated, 63 percent remained unemployed, 16.5 percent had found new garment factory jobs, while 6 percent had found employment in other sectors. According to the ILO report, more than three-quarters of unemployed workers did not receive advance notice of termination.

The garment sector – Cambodia’s largest exporter – was severely affected by the global downturn, as demand for its products went overseas.

Last year, more than 68,190 jobs were terminated and 153 garment and shoe factories shut down or suspended work, Ministry of Labour’s figures show.

In 2009, exports of garment and apparel slumped by 15.83 percent, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

The report shows that employed workers saw their monthly wages reduced by an average of $17 in 2009, compared to 2008. Around 53 percent of workers cited reductions in overtime as a reason for their reduced income.

Wage levels within the garment industry have been the focus of negotiations between unions and the private sector in recent months.

In February, the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) commenced talks with the Ministry of Labour, the Free Trade Union Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia, and various other organizations to increase the minimum monthly garment-worker wage from $50 to $93.

That figure was based on a report released by the Cambodian Labour Union Federation and the National Institute of Statistics, which showed that around $90 is the minimum monthly income adequate for basic living in Phnom Penh.

“I feel that all parties involved are working toward a resolution as soon as we can, it is just very early in the process,” said Ken Loo, General Secretary for GMAC, adding that no more formal negotiations had begun since the initial meeting.

Loo went on to refute allegations made in the report that employers have been neglecting safety measures in order to cut costs, an observation reported by 39 percent of workers.

“I don’t think that it is a fair accusation. How would garment factories profit from cutting corners on safety or providing a healthy work environment?” he said.

The report lists preliminary goals to improve the sector. Anne Ziebarth, legal specialist for Better Factories Cambodia, told the Post: “We observed that many unemployed workers are interested in job training, but can’t afford to not generate income during training sessions.

“Also, many workers are interested in starting their own business.”

The ILO hopes that members of all sectors of society can come together to alleviate the plight of the garment workers who are facing economic hardships in Cambodia.

Approaching Reciprocity: The border issue as a symptom

Source:nazet.com
By Amanuel Tesfaselassie Muhzun


Worldwide, there are approximately 100 boundary disputes between countries. Vast areas of land, sea and maritime coasts push countries into quarrel for territorial claims or possessions. Some areas are even claimed by more than two countries. There can be wide divergence between de facto boundaries, whether by right or not, and de jure, rightfully, boundaries. Most countries reinforce sovereignty claims for different reasons: Colonial inherited conflicts, the exploitation of minerals, agricultural usage, geopolitical attractions such as access to waters, and other significant benefits.

Few countries exercised arm conflicts, but soon sought legal resolution. Countries solve their territorial claims bilaterally, or at the international hearings, or through other means of mediations. For example: Germany and Denmark successfully resolved an age-old boarder dispute (1815 – 2001) of 68 kilometres. Russia and the United States of America agreed on fishing claims in the central Bering Sea, and Botswana was rewarded the disputed islands with Namibia.

For clarity, here are some of the on-going disputes which may impress us with their experiences: Russia and Japan have had their modern border dispute since 1945 over the Kurile Islands. They are four small islands along 1200 km. of coast line under Russian administration that have been without a conclusive peace treaty between Japan and Russia. Norway and Russia negotiate on the delimitation of maritime boundaries. China and Japan dispute concerning the Senkaku Islands. India and Pakistan still dispute over Kashmir. Afghanistan - Pakistan on their boarder. The Spanish and Moroccan claims over Ceuta and Melilla. Bolivia – Chile – Peru dispute in the Atacama Desert. Mexico and USA dispute in their boarder lands. Canada disputes with USA and Denmark over maritime boundaries. Cambodia – Laos, Cambodia – Vietnam claim in Ratanakiri Province in Cambodia. Iraq and Turkey dispute in the Northern of Kurdistan region. Bahrain and Qatar dispute over maritime delimitation. Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan dispute in the Caspian. Spanish with Britain dispute in Gibraltar for territorial waters. Ireland and Britain dispute over their border. Bulgaria and Greece dispute over their boarder lands. It is possible that some of these disputes may have been currently resolved.

More importantly, almost all of the disputing countries have warm or modest diplomatic relations between one another, because they examine that the benefit of diplomacy out-weigh the dispute. Skilled politicians might consider war, only when it seems that self defence is universally accepted and morally right.

Since May 1998 the so called border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea has been difficult to mediate because of the controversial nature of the conflicts between the two governments.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, had an interview with African-confidential.com, a London based news letter, on May 03, 2009, in Addis Abeba. He said that “the EPRDF has been in power for this long both a reflection of its strength and the weakness of the opposition”. Meles stressed the need for more leadership reforms than policy. At the same time, with regard to the questions on the border issue and further relations with Eritrea, Mr. Meles emphasized that “the boundary was a symptom of an underlying sickness and you do not cure a sickness by treating its symptoms only. Therefore, Ethiopia is in need of dialogue, but Eritrea is not engaging us in dialogue. That is the same approach that they are following in Djibouti and elsewhere. So I think that that needs to change and it can only change from inside. But as soon as it does change, then I am sure that the window will be opened. But, if we must have what we have now, we can live with it, more or less indefinitely”, Meles added.

One of the main concerns in Ethiopia is the politics of ethnicity which can be a divisive policy. The fear is that would marginalize some ethnicities and discourage national unity. It could be difficult to maintain the unity during government transition, or socio-economic crises. Those may require corrections and phase out gradually.

In principle, I wish to see Ethiopia in peace and unity. I respect the courage of those patriots who are dreaming of accommodating Ethiopian unity. A growing confidence among all nationalities is valuable for a solid unity in Ethiopia. In this regard, handling Tigray has to be one of the main requirements. Although the upcoming election may carry some thing of its own fashion, learning from the elections of 2005 can be a good ground to attain popular goals. Elections should not focus on a grabbing of power, but on broad-minded national unity and popular interests.
When we are observing that some positive achievements in economy and democratic practices have been made by the EPRDF government or it is dealing with common national agendas, let us applaud to its contributions and build confidence among each other. Although there are several reasons to criticize the EPRDF government, we may not have to think that anything would help by doing provocative propagandas against our political rivals. Working together on various national issues can develop common responsibility.

More importantly, the opportunity scheduled for May 2010 national elections in Ethiopia would have to open the doors for a proper Ethiopian integration and prospective Ethio-Eritrean reciprocity.

President Isaias Afeworki of Eritrea gave an extensive interview to the Ethiopianreview.com in May 2009, in Asmara. He said that “the border conflict which was insanity to me was never ever an issue”.
“There was no border threat at all” Isaias added.

Despite the fact that Isaias Afeworki has been known as a manipulative leader in the Eritrean politics, he meaningfully told the Ethiopian Review Reporters that “Eritrea without cooperation with Ethiopia is a vacuum”, and “the sky is the limit for Ethiopia and Eritrea integration,” Mr. Isaias said.

Such bold statements are good lessons to those who live in a fairy tale about Eritrea. Of course, under favourable administrative conditions, Eritrea within the limit of her own resources could have done better than she has to date. There have also been sensitive cultural and regional polarities in Eritrea. Undesirable sentiments can hinder progress in different aspects of life. However, Eritreans need to develop genuine understanding in sharing our common concerns. The Eritrean people need the rule of law, development in economy and education.

Although what Isaias said, and the style of his behaviour matters, the truth is that a close cooperation between Ethiopia and Eritrea is a bottom line for peace and progress in the region. There is a growing trend towards this effect.

Since the last two years, both Isaias Afeworki and Meles Zenawi had confessed on several occasions that the border issue was a pretext for their disagreements on other policies. More reliably, the sense of those interviews of Mr. Meles and Mr. Isaias tell that the boundary issue is a symptom and not the main problem between the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments. As such, it is not a matter of whether you win or lose at Badme; it is a matter of what you are going to do when you win? Thereof, promoting the border issue by any force as the main obstacle for stability is a wasting of time and political gimmick.

The two leaders have been reluctant to deal with the issues between themselves. Each one of the two governments has adopted emotional, reckless policies against the interest of both peoples. Those have caused the loss of inalienable ties between the peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea. As such, the border issue is a bankrupt pretext which has been blocking bilateral cooperation and further possibilities for socio-economic integration. The governments have been accusing each other for their failure to bring cooperation between these two sisterly nations. Such circumstances are particularly contributing to Eritrea being in limbo and whispering. As people, understanding popular interests without being intimidated is essential.

Actually, the political games between the two leaderships currently seem in tremendous crises. All those frustrations could yet push into a further war. However, the peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea would have to courageously do their best to mitigate possible casualties and facilitate such situations for their common progress and stability.

The primary needs are to revise and reconcile our common values no matter who has been at fault. Of course it has to be done carefully. The differences between our peoples are reconcilable in their nature as far as we are capable of applying the opportunities in a wise manner.

The first step needs to be an exit strategy from the apparent hostilities between these two governments. A general negotiation for a diplomatic relationship has to be inspired in any way. Subsequently, it will be required that an examination of the fundamental points of social and economic reciprocity between Ethiopia and Eritrea be undertaken. It is essential to start with mutual respect and realities.

Reasons for reciprocity:

Eritrea may use the opportunity of her most focal point of interest with Ethiopia in regard to the Red Sea. Cooperation with Ethiopia can motivate Eritrean socio-economic development. Sudan, Djibouti and Yemen do not need Eritrean port services, because all of them have their own access to the sea. In that regard, Eritrea has few options to use her maritime resources, unless she closely cooperates with Ethiopia.

Ethiopia, after her withdrawal from Massawa and Assab, has established major routes through Djibouti. Although Ethiopia may pay high operational costs, she has been maintaining her commercial routes better than imagined. In this regard, Eritrea and Djibouti are likely to be transformed into rivals over the same Ethiopian interests. Therefore, competition between these two outlets is going to be in favour of the Ethiopian choice for commercial access. Thus the geo-strategic influence that Eritrea could have benefitted over the Ethiopian interest along the Red Sea has turned against her by showing that Ethiopia is more economically influential over Eritrea.

However, the Eritrean Red Sea is not only for commercial access, but has a massive attraction for naval capacity in the region. It is obvious that Ethiopia needs guaranteed access to the Red Sea for ports and related services. Many Ethiopians say that the port of Assab has to be acquired by Ethiopia, which cannot be a bilateral solution. In general, that cannot yield an overall strategic shield over Ethiopian sovereignty in respect to the surrounding geopolitics. Hence, Eritrea and Ethiopia can develop together in several ways.

In my speculation, Ethiopia will seek to negotiate on various services to build a solid confidence with Eritrea. Therefore, Eritrea may need to revise the outcome of her geographical location on domestic and international economies (geo-economics) notably with respect to the Red Sea. Those initiatives and other interests can bring basic reciprocal obligations and may grow into harmonious relations. First, let Ethiopia and Eritrea simply trade each other.

This is not only about the point of economic reciprocity between Ethiopia and Eritrea; more importantly, it should be an example of reconciliation of our values for national and regional security. Such interrelations may also avoid proxy conflicts from within and from other directions. Those can bring a form of stabilized progress in the Horn of Africa. As such, it is good for Eritrea and good for Ethiopia!

Mishandling of these vital issues, I think, would cause threats of conflicts in different directions at any time. As such, parts of the Afar regions, both in Eritrea and Ethiopia have the possibility of becoming areas of major conflicts concerning the Ethiopian needs of access to the Red Sea. There would also be growing pressure from Ethiopia over its Tigray region in regard to the unfavourable circumstances between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Consequently, Eritrea, on top of her deteriorated social and economic situation could badly suffer for various loads that may be exerted from Ethiopia. On the other hand, Ethiopia may retard her economic growth and face social instability. Other forces mainly from abroad may take advantage of our inconvenient situations and engage us in proxy conflicts. We cannot ignore unfortunate possibilities. We do not have to take improper advantage of each other, nor do we need to get our peoples into such instabilities. Let us consider historical ties, border attachments, as well as other sentiments are psychological influences. Let us wisely plan for a win-win solution.

As far as common negotiations are imperative for progress and stability, any Eritrean government has to look at what can benefit the Eritrean people and approach Ethiopia with better policies. Any government in Ethiopia may be required to address the strategic interest with Eritrea and sincerely approach any government in Eritrea. Both may draft proposals of prerequisites that will verify common interests and respect public opinions. Establishment of agreements may be needed before it is too late for economic and geopolitical reasons.

The Ethio-Eritrean public roles are demanding:

The involvement of the Ethiopian and Eritrean public into discussions will enable us to review our common interests and push any governments in office for their implementation. Collectively, we have to raise our minds to build full confidence between the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia. I am an Eritrean by birth, and my writing is intended to contribute a glimmer of hope towards a bilateral understanding on our reciprocal values.

As far as good wishes are concerned, educating our peoples is definitely important for a common knowledge. Although policy makers may have to do deep analysis on various issues, public discussions ought to be carried out at any opportunity for mutual understanding over important concepts. Thus, people may dialogue on common points such as: What are the diverse attitudes of many Ethiopians and Eritreans concerning mutual interests? Where do the opportunities and threats lie? What policies need to be revised in order to approach major concerns? What are the certain valuable points of reciprocity that may be imperative to bind both parties? Many issues will need to be addressed by both parties in amicable ways. Hence, we may need to control our emotions to deal with realities.

If we are to be in a peaceful place, then both peoples must be courageous to agree and devise a road map for strategic principles. Peace is not about the present situation, it is more about the future generations. Let us open the doors!

Bibliography:

The Settlement of Boundary Disputes in International Law, by Dr. A.O. Cukwurah, 1967
International Dispute Settlement 3rd edition, by J.G. Merrills, 1998
www.boundaries.com for more publications

ASEAN ministers sign dispute-resolution protocol - Summary

Source:Earth Times
Thu, 08 Apr 2010
By: dpa
Hanoi - Foreign ministers of the 10 members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Thursday signed a protocol on dispute resolution that could be used in several ongoing regional conflicts.

The ASEAN ministers are attending the organization's annual summit meeting in Hanoi amidst disagreements over handling human rights issues in Myanmar and several territorial disputes.

While the procedures of the protocol have not been finalized, some experts said it could mark a major step forward.

"ASEAN used to operate on the basis of consensus, and a single member could block progress," said South-East Asia expert Carl Thayer of the Australian Defence Academy.

Thayer said that while the body would still operate consensually, the protocol provided a mechanism for deciding what to do when member states disagreed. The protocol provides for arbitration in case of dispute, followed by a binding decision by the ASEAN Summit.

Thayer said the protocol did not specify what sanctions might follow if a member state refused to comply with an ASEAN decision.

The mechanism is, however, likely to be limited to disputes between ASEAN member states, not internal issues.

The dispute mechanism could be invoked in Thailand's border dispute with Cambodia over an area near the temple at Preah Vihear, which led to armed clashes in 2008 and 2009.

Nazery Khalid of the Maritime Institute of Malaysia said the protocol could help ASEAN member states reach agreement on disputes over maritime territory in the South China Sea.

Host country Vietnam is seeking to convince ASEAN members to settle their internal disagreements over maritime territory in the South China Sea so that the group can negotiate as a bloc with China, which claims most of the sea for itself.

China has resisted that approach and insists on bilateral negotiations with each country. Khalid said Beijing's success in the bilateral approach was a reflection of "ASEAN's weakness."

"ASEAN needs to work towards addressing that, and come up with a more united front," Khalid said.

ASEAN consists of Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Laos and Indonesia.

ASEAN gets commission for children and women

Source: The Jakarta Post
Thu, 04/08/2010

ASEAN officials inaugurated Wednesday the Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC), to augment the human rights body established last year.

The ACWC has a mandate to, among others, develop policies, programs and innovative strategies vis-à-vis the rights of women and children in the region.

“As commissioners we have the task of improving the standard of implementation of the rights of children,” Indonesian ACWC commissioner Ahmad Taufan Damanik said after the inauguration, held a day prior to the bloc’s summit, which kicks off Thursday in Hanoi.

Under the terms of reference of the establishment of the commission, the ACWC comprises representatives from the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Each state is represented by two commissioners, one for women’s rights and the other for children’s rights, who serve three-year terms and may be consecutively reappointed for an additional term.

Child rights activist Damanik, based in North Sumatra, has been appointed the Indonesian commissioner for child rights, while activist Rita Serena Kalibonso, from the Mitra Perempuan women’s crisis center, has been named the country’s commissioner for women’s rights.

“In the next three years, we are mandated to establish a children’s and women’s rights monitoring system in Southeast Asia and will deal with sensitive issues relating to children and women,” Damanik said.

Among the issues are child trafficking, abuse and labor, which he said was experienced almost universally in the 10 ASEAN member states.

Some states also face the problem of child combatants.

Damanik said tackling child trafficking could begin by focusing in the Mekong Delta countries of Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, and between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

Indonesian human rights activist Yuyun Wahyuningrum, who works with ASEAN, lauded the inauguration of the ACWC and said the new body had an even bigger mandate than the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).

“The ACWC has a protection mandate, which the AICHR doesn’t,” she said in Hanoi.

She added the ACWC had the mandate to support the participation of women and children in the dialogue and consultation processes in ASEAN as related to the promotion and protection of their rights.

“This opens up the opportunity for public participation in the processes,” Yuyun said.

Indonesia’s representative to the AICHR, Rafendi Djamin, was upbeat about the rights commission and the ACWC working together and cooperating closely to prevent an of overlap of responsibility or scope of work.

Djauhari Oratmangun, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry’s director general of ASEAN affairs, said the establishment of the new commission boded well for the region.

“Some five years ago it was difficult to imagine that ASEAN would have special bodies dealing with human rights issues,” he said.

“Now, a year since the ASEAN Charter took effect, we have inaugurated the AICHR and the ACWC.”

Escaping a Cambodian Brothel: One Woman's Story

Source: New America Media,
Interview, Andrew Lam,
Apr 06, 2010

Editor’s Note: Human trafficking has become a scourge in Vietnam. It is estimated that each year several thousands of women and children are trafficked from Vietnam to other countries, mainly through Cambodia and China, for commercial sexual exploitation. Some 50 percent of them come from An Giang province in the Mekong Delta. Bong Nguyen managed to escape the brothel where she was captive and return to Vietnam. She is now under the care of Pacific Links, which provides shelter and education to at risks young women in Vietnam. She told her story to NAM editor Andrew Lam.


AN GIANG PROVINCE, Vietnam - My name is Bong Nguyen. I am 21 years old. My parents work in the rice fields. We have enough to eat and enough to wear. I have two brothers, one older, one younger.

In 2008, I went to Cambodia and ended being stuck there for over one year.

I was in school, and after I finished exams, I was browsing on the Internet, and this guy kept trying to chat with me. I didn’t know him, but he kept asking to chat, and so we talked. There’s a coffee shop in Cambodia, he said. I could make money over there.

At that time, I kept fighting with my mother, and she kicked me out of the house. I was very sad. In the neighborhood, there’s a person who wanted to marry me, but I didn’t want to get married. My mother said, “You better marry him,” and I was so sad. So another girl and I, we decided to go to Ha Tien province just for a few days but we planned to come back. But the guy that I met on the Internet called again and said that we should go to Cambodia to work and make money. There was another friend I knew from school, and he just failed his school exams so the three of us we said, “Why don’t we go?”

We went by motorcycle taxi, and we went to this man’s house and two men and a woman showed up and they ended up taking us via country roads through rice fields [to avoid the police] and soon we were in Cambodia – without papers.

When we got to this house where this man was supposed to be, he wasn’t there. He was in Malaysia. But his sister was there, running the place, and she kept me and my friends there. They were also Vietnamese. They asked where we were from and we told them. The woman said she‘d buy me new clothes, and we were there for a month. I didn’t know anything about getting paid. I wasn’t thinking about money at that point.

I soon realized the place was a way station for trafficking. It was a place that sold girls overseas. It was also selling lots of drugs. The white powder kind and the kind that you inject. I saw several girls who came and went. The woman was providing them drugs as well. She was waiting for more girls to show up to ship us to Malaysia.

She collected money from the girls who were working, and she sold white drugs to them to smoke. She called me her “girl.” She told me she also owned brothels in Thailand and Malaysia. The boy I came to Cambodia with ended up smoking the white powder. I don’t know what happened to him. The drugs were to keep the girls in line.

It was a big operation, and there were quite a few people running the operation, but I met only four to five of them. At first I wanted to escape but couldn’t. I didn’t want to know what happened if I were caught, so I didn’t really try. But I begged: “Let us go home. We still have to go to school.” And the woman there said, “You won’t do well in school. And you have no money.” She said she was preparing a fake passport for me to go to Malaysia.

But I was really lucky. One of the drug buyers was a boyfriend of the woman’s adopted daughter- she was selling herself at 13 but somehow was adopted by this woman – and that guy was kicked out of the place for smoking drugs on the balcony. There was a big argument, and he said, “After I leave, in three days this place will be raided.”

The next day the police came and they took everybody. I ended up in a shelter in Phnom Penh for over a year. They wouldn’t let me go home because I didn’t have any papers. Someone who knew about my situation back in Vietnam contacted my family, and eventually I was sent home. I was told that the woman who ran the brothel paid $100,000 to get out of jail.

When I was in the shelter in Cambodia I met a lot of girls who suffered really horribly. I met 33 girls there, and many were Vietnamese, but the majority was born in Cambodia.

This one girl, she was pretty, she sold herself into prostitution to help save her grandmother when she was 13. She told me how she had to serve dozens of men a day and then how she was taken out to be gang raped by 20 men. She begged them to stop, but they kept raping her. She was saved when her brothel was raided

This other girl, she was a big girl, but she suffers seizures because of the beatings she’s gotten. She said she resisted her customers and was beaten so badly. Now, she can’t do anything without shaking horribly. She was raped and beaten so regularly that she became half crazed.

There were a few women suffering mental illness. There were several girls in the shelter dying of AIDS.

Who were their customers? All kind of foreigners. Americans. Thai. Vietnamese. Cambodian.

I listened to their stories, and that’s when I realized I needed to find a profession and education in order to survive. Now, I look back and I realize how stupid I was to listen to my friends when I went to Cambodia. I am extremely lucky. I feel so sorry for those who suffered in those terrible conditions.

Most of my friends in Vietnam don’t know what’s going on. They don’t experience it so they don’t believe the news about human trafficking. Sometimes they said, “Well, who told them to do that?” But they don’t understand how that could happen to them.

I would like to tell them not listen to strangers, and to not just decide to do whatever you want on your own. To be careful. But I know my friends. They want freedom. I don’t think I can convince them.

In the future, I want to become a lawyer. I want to be able to help those who suffered in those situations or if they want to go trial to demand justice, I would volunteer and help them.

Going back to school will be difficult, but I know with discipline and will power and faith I can do it. I will let everyone see how determined I am. I have high grades right now, but I am two years behind in school.


Andrew Lam is the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora. His next book is "East Eats West: Writing in two Hemispheres" due out in September, 2010.


Those who want to help can send donation to http://pacificlinks.org/. The organization is dedicated to fighting trafficking in Vietnam, with focus on the Mekong Delta.