Land Grab in Africa Threatens Food Security: The International aid agency Oxfam warns that more than 60 percent of investments in agricultural land by foreign investors between 2000 and 2010 were in countries where food security was a major challenge.
The report, Our land, Our lives, also says that Africa’s land is the most targeted with known deals equaling nearly five per cent of the continent’s total agricultural area.
Oxfam reports that while foreign investment is normally thought of as good for a country, ...
Oct 5, 2012
Google Deal Gives Publishers a Choice: Digitize or Not
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Unemployment rate falls to 7.8%
Unemployment rate falls to 7.8%:
The job market is finally showing some juice.
The unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent in September, the Labor Department said Friday, from 8.1 percent in July, its lowest since January 2009. It is a surprising show of improvement in a job market that had seemed listless in recent months. Unlike in August, the number improved for the right reason: not because people gave up looking for jobs, but because far more people reported having one.
Read full article >>
The job market is finally showing some juice.
The unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent in September, the Labor Department said Friday, from 8.1 percent in July, its lowest since January 2009. It is a surprising show of improvement in a job market that had seemed listless in recent months. Unlike in August, the number improved for the right reason: not because people gave up looking for jobs, but because far more people reported having one.
Read full article >>
Oct 4, 2012
Oct 3, 2012
National Journal - Wednesday, October 3, 2012 | Last Updated: 01:00 PM
Wednesday, October 3, 2012 | Last Updated: 01:00 PM:
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Wednesday, October 3, 2012 | Last Updated: 01:00 PM
11:37 a.m.
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Water Wars Feared Over Mekong
Water Wars Feared Over Mekong:
Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang obviously had China in mind when he warned recently that tensions over water resources are not only threatening economic growth but presenting a source of conflict.
A day before he issued the warning to business leaders on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Russia, China had announced that its largest dam on the upper reaches of the Mekong River, Southeast Asia's key artery, has started generating electricity.
The Nuozhadu dam joins four other Chinese dams that have been commissioned on the Mekong river's upper portion, causing rapid changes in water levels and other adverse effects downstream, especially in the four countries of the Lower Mekong Basin—Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos—where tens of millions of people depend on the river for food, water, and transportation.
The launching of the first power generating unit of the Nuozhadu dam, which at 261.5 meters (858 feet) is the highest in Asia, was reported exclusively by China's state news agency Xinhua with little coverage by the world media.
Interestingly, Xinhua said in passing that the dam is one of seven—instead of eight as widely reported previously—hydropower projects planned on the Mekong River inside China.
"China's Mekong dams are so remote they receive little coverage in the Western media," notes Milton Osborne, a Southeast Asian expert at the Lowy Institute, an international policy think tank in Sydney, Australia.
"Yet, like the more readily viewed sites for proposed dams in Laos and Cambodia, what is happening in China will eventually alter the productive capabilities of mainland Southeast Asia's longest and most important river, a river vital to the sustenance of the 60 million people of the Lower Mekong Basin," he said.
The announcement of the Nuozhadu dam's operations is significant because it repeats Beijing's claim that the Chinese cascade of dams will not affect downstream countries, saying only 13.5 percent of the water in the Mekong as a whole flows through China, according to Osborne.
But this claim, he said, has been discredited many times over.
He believes water from China is of great importance in sustaining dry-season flow for the downstream countries, perhaps to a total of 40 percent of the river's volume overall.
"So with each dam China builds there is the prospect of a greater diminishing of the flow, particularly as both Xiaowan (another of the five Chinese dams in operation) and Nuozhadu will act as storage dams rather than having a 'run of the river' character," he said.
"There is no doubt," he said, that the commissioning of the five dams "will have other long-term effects downstream," including impacting the amount of nutrient-rich sediment flowing down the river.
'Source of conflict'
Energy-starved China is using electricity generated by the dams to fuel its rapid economic growth without regard to the adverse impact on its neighbors, the Vietnamese leader Sang suggested, without pointing the finger at Beijing.
"We cannot deny the fact that tensions over water resources are threatening economic growth in many countries and representing a source of conflict, especially at a time when countries are accelerating their economic development," Sang said.
"Dam construction and stream adjustments by some countries in upstream rivers constitute a growing concern for many countries and implicitly impinge on relations between relevant countries."
Sang said the management and utilization of water resources in the Mekong River are developing into a "pressing issue with direct and unfavorable bearing" on Vietnam, especially on rice production.
Water resources in the country, including river and underground water, "are seriously declining, while floods, sea level rises, high tides, coastal erosion… have been exacerbated," he lamented.
Vietnam, the world's second-largest rice exporter, is situated in the lowest part of the Mekong basin.
China's dams, combined with the construction by Laos of the Xayaburi dam, the first of 11 proposed dams on the main stream of the Lower Mekong River, will have a major impact on the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, experts say.
Some 18 million people live in the delta, where nearly half of Vietnam's rice crop comes from and which is already vulnerable to sea level rise.
In addition, for the first time in several thousands years, the delta is shrinking, studies indicate.
The global conservation group World Wildlife Fund is on the verge of finding out the causes of this radical shift.
"We're just completing a study that looks at the root causes of why, after five thousand years of the Delta expanding in size, we now see it retreating," Carter Roberts, President and CEO at World Wildlife Fund, told a meeting on the Mekong in July.
"The key is to understand the implications of basin management and to make smart choices based on a thorough understanding of the region," he said.
South China Sea
Aside from the Mekong concerns, Vietnam is also facing a threat from China over their overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea, which experts say is Asia's biggest potential military flashpoint.
China has in the past detained Vietnamese fishermen in disputed waters. The state Chinese oil company has also opened nine oil and gas lots for international bidders in areas that overlap existing Vietnamese exploration blocks.
"Only Vietnam sees itself as facing a two front-threat from China's fast growing ability to regulate the flow of the Mekong River through the construction of massive upstream dams and increasing pressure in the South China Sea," said Richard Cronin, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Washington-based Stimson Center.
Still, no aspect of China's fast-growing role and influence in the Mekong region is more evident and more problematic than its drive to harness the huge hydroelectric potential of the Upper Mekong, he said.
The past four completed Chinese dams "already have caused rapid changes in water levels hundreds of kilometers downstream and notably reduced the flow of vital nutrient-rich sediment that gives the river its immense aquatic and agricultural productivity and sustains the Mekong Delta," Cronin said.
Cambodia
Cambodia, Southeast Asia's key China ally, is also not spared by China's dam-building spree on the Mekong.
Cambodia's Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake which has a close connection with the Mekong River, could also shrink in size, experts say.
"There is also the likelihood that Cambodia's Great Lake will be reduced in area during the wet season, to the detriment of its current vital role as a source of much of Cambodia's protein consumption through its vast bounty of fish," Osborne of the Lowy Institute said.
The Cambodian Fishery Coalition, a community-based organization set up by fishery folk in the country, said in a recent report that the Chinese dams on the Mekong "have impacted the lake’s fish sanctuary."
"When the hydropower dams were established, the community people living around the Tonle Sap Lake were severely affected, as they have transformed fish resources, and lead to progressive loss."
Aside from fishery resources, the Tonle Sap Lake provides land fertile for the cultivation of rice and other agricultural plants.
Regional stability
Cronin said increased competition for access to the rich resources of the once war-torn Mekong region has not only created serious environmental degradation but also affected regional stability.
But while the adverse effects of Chinese dams have "created friction" with its downstream neighbors, their governments "have been loath to complain," Cronin said.
China is a huge market for the natural resources and agricultural exports. Laos and Cambodia particularly are major recipients of Chinese infrastructure development aid.
An almost complete lack of transparency makes it difficult to establish with certainty how China operates its dams.
But Cronin said that several times during the past several years, Beijing has been accused of withholding water—except for short releases timed to allow its boats to operate—during periods of severe drought in Yunnan province where the dams are located.
"China’s disregard for its neighbors’ interests has generated a growing store of ill will in downstream countries, which will make it difficult for Beijing to achieve its longer-term goals of securing the Mekong and its own influence over it," he said.
Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang obviously had China in mind when he warned recently that tensions over water resources are not only threatening economic growth but presenting a source of conflict.
A day before he issued the warning to business leaders on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Russia, China had announced that its largest dam on the upper reaches of the Mekong River, Southeast Asia's key artery, has started generating electricity.
The Nuozhadu dam joins four other Chinese dams that have been commissioned on the Mekong river's upper portion, causing rapid changes in water levels and other adverse effects downstream, especially in the four countries of the Lower Mekong Basin—Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos—where tens of millions of people depend on the river for food, water, and transportation.
The launching of the first power generating unit of the Nuozhadu dam, which at 261.5 meters (858 feet) is the highest in Asia, was reported exclusively by China's state news agency Xinhua with little coverage by the world media.
Interestingly, Xinhua said in passing that the dam is one of seven—instead of eight as widely reported previously—hydropower projects planned on the Mekong River inside China.
"China's Mekong dams are so remote they receive little coverage in the Western media," notes Milton Osborne, a Southeast Asian expert at the Lowy Institute, an international policy think tank in Sydney, Australia.
"Yet, like the more readily viewed sites for proposed dams in Laos and Cambodia, what is happening in China will eventually alter the productive capabilities of mainland Southeast Asia's longest and most important river, a river vital to the sustenance of the 60 million people of the Lower Mekong Basin," he said.
The announcement of the Nuozhadu dam's operations is significant because it repeats Beijing's claim that the Chinese cascade of dams will not affect downstream countries, saying only 13.5 percent of the water in the Mekong as a whole flows through China, according to Osborne.
But this claim, he said, has been discredited many times over.
He believes water from China is of great importance in sustaining dry-season flow for the downstream countries, perhaps to a total of 40 percent of the river's volume overall.
"So with each dam China builds there is the prospect of a greater diminishing of the flow, particularly as both Xiaowan (another of the five Chinese dams in operation) and Nuozhadu will act as storage dams rather than having a 'run of the river' character," he said.
"There is no doubt," he said, that the commissioning of the five dams "will have other long-term effects downstream," including impacting the amount of nutrient-rich sediment flowing down the river.
'Source of conflict'
Energy-starved China is using electricity generated by the dams to fuel its rapid economic growth without regard to the adverse impact on its neighbors, the Vietnamese leader Sang suggested, without pointing the finger at Beijing.
"We cannot deny the fact that tensions over water resources are threatening economic growth in many countries and representing a source of conflict, especially at a time when countries are accelerating their economic development," Sang said.
"Dam construction and stream adjustments by some countries in upstream rivers constitute a growing concern for many countries and implicitly impinge on relations between relevant countries."
Sang said the management and utilization of water resources in the Mekong River are developing into a "pressing issue with direct and unfavorable bearing" on Vietnam, especially on rice production.
Water resources in the country, including river and underground water, "are seriously declining, while floods, sea level rises, high tides, coastal erosion… have been exacerbated," he lamented.
Vietnam, the world's second-largest rice exporter, is situated in the lowest part of the Mekong basin.
China's dams, combined with the construction by Laos of the Xayaburi dam, the first of 11 proposed dams on the main stream of the Lower Mekong River, will have a major impact on the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, experts say.
Some 18 million people live in the delta, where nearly half of Vietnam's rice crop comes from and which is already vulnerable to sea level rise.
In addition, for the first time in several thousands years, the delta is shrinking, studies indicate.
The global conservation group World Wildlife Fund is on the verge of finding out the causes of this radical shift.
"We're just completing a study that looks at the root causes of why, after five thousand years of the Delta expanding in size, we now see it retreating," Carter Roberts, President and CEO at World Wildlife Fund, told a meeting on the Mekong in July.
"The key is to understand the implications of basin management and to make smart choices based on a thorough understanding of the region," he said.
China's territorial claim to the South China Sea includes two disputed island chains.
South China Sea
Aside from the Mekong concerns, Vietnam is also facing a threat from China over their overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea, which experts say is Asia's biggest potential military flashpoint.
China has in the past detained Vietnamese fishermen in disputed waters. The state Chinese oil company has also opened nine oil and gas lots for international bidders in areas that overlap existing Vietnamese exploration blocks.
"Only Vietnam sees itself as facing a two front-threat from China's fast growing ability to regulate the flow of the Mekong River through the construction of massive upstream dams and increasing pressure in the South China Sea," said Richard Cronin, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Washington-based Stimson Center.
Still, no aspect of China's fast-growing role and influence in the Mekong region is more evident and more problematic than its drive to harness the huge hydroelectric potential of the Upper Mekong, he said.
The past four completed Chinese dams "already have caused rapid changes in water levels hundreds of kilometers downstream and notably reduced the flow of vital nutrient-rich sediment that gives the river its immense aquatic and agricultural productivity and sustains the Mekong Delta," Cronin said.
Cambodia
Cambodia, Southeast Asia's key China ally, is also not spared by China's dam-building spree on the Mekong.
Cambodia's Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake which has a close connection with the Mekong River, could also shrink in size, experts say.
"There is also the likelihood that Cambodia's Great Lake will be reduced in area during the wet season, to the detriment of its current vital role as a source of much of Cambodia's protein consumption through its vast bounty of fish," Osborne of the Lowy Institute said.
The Cambodian Fishery Coalition, a community-based organization set up by fishery folk in the country, said in a recent report that the Chinese dams on the Mekong "have impacted the lake’s fish sanctuary."
"When the hydropower dams were established, the community people living around the Tonle Sap Lake were severely affected, as they have transformed fish resources, and lead to progressive loss."
Aside from fishery resources, the Tonle Sap Lake provides land fertile for the cultivation of rice and other agricultural plants.
Regional stability
Cronin said increased competition for access to the rich resources of the once war-torn Mekong region has not only created serious environmental degradation but also affected regional stability.
But while the adverse effects of Chinese dams have "created friction" with its downstream neighbors, their governments "have been loath to complain," Cronin said.
China is a huge market for the natural resources and agricultural exports. Laos and Cambodia particularly are major recipients of Chinese infrastructure development aid.
An almost complete lack of transparency makes it difficult to establish with certainty how China operates its dams.
But Cronin said that several times during the past several years, Beijing has been accused of withholding water—except for short releases timed to allow its boats to operate—during periods of severe drought in Yunnan province where the dams are located.
"China’s disregard for its neighbors’ interests has generated a growing store of ill will in downstream countries, which will make it difficult for Beijing to achieve its longer-term goals of securing the Mekong and its own influence over it," he said.
20 Years for Radio Station Chief
20 Years for Radio Station Chief:
Updated at 8:30 p.m. EST on 2012-10-1
Dissident Cambodian radio station chief Mam Sonando was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday for allegedly masterminding a secessionist plot, in a conviction condemned as politically motivated by rights groups.
Human Rights Watch said the ruling was the worst decision by a Cambodian court in two decades and that the charges against the 71-year-old Mam Sonando were intended as political retaliation by Prime Minister Hun Sen for allowing critical views of the government on his independent radio station.
The United States said it was "deeply concerned" by the conviction and "harsh" sentence, pointing out that observers in Cambodia have noted that the charges against the activist appear to have been "politically-motivated, based on his frequent criticism of the government," according to the State Department.
It called on Hun Sen's government to release Mam Sonando immediately, to ensure that its court system is free from political influence, and to reaffirm its commitment to guaranteeing its citizens’ basic human rights.
Mam Sonando, who has rejected the charges as baseless, will appeal against the conviction meted out by the Phnom Penh municipal court, according to his wife.
The activist, who operates the 105 FM Beehive radio station, was found guilty of insurrection and inciting villagers to take up arms against the state.
The court also found 13 others guilty of inciting an alleged anti-state rebellion in clashes over land rights in Kratie province.
While getting in a car to be escorted back to Prey Sar Prison, Mam Sonando, who was also given a 10 million riel (U.S. $2,500) fine, said he would continue to fight for justice in Cambodia.
“I am happy and proud to continue helping the Khmer people,” he said.
Several hundred supporters protested outside the courthouse carrying placards and shouting slogans calling for his release.
His wife Din Sophanara said Mam Sonando would appeal the verdict and that he was not involved in the Kratie dispute, which broke out in May after thousands of villagers refused a government order to vacate farmland that was awarded to a developer in a land concession.
“All the others who were involved received lenient sentences. He was not involved but received a grave sentence,” she said outside the courthouse.
Codefendant Bun Ratha, a land rights advocate who went into hiding after authorities accused him of helping to organize the villagers’ revolt, was sentenced in absentia to 30 years in prison.
The others were sentenced to between 10 months and 15 years in prison each.
'Worst miscarriage of justice'
Cambodian and international rights groups have called the accusations against Mam Sonando baseless, saying the government was seeking to justify its harsh crackdown on the alleged Kratie rebellion.
A 15-year-old girl, Heng Chentha, was shot dead when she was struck by a bullet authorities say ricocheted after it was fired as a warning shot during the clashes in Kratie’s Chhlong district triggered by a refusal by some 1,000 village families to vacate state land they had used for farming.
Some of the villagers were armed with axes and crossbows.
In condemning the court decision, Human Rights Watch said this is “the worst miscarriage of justice we have seen” since U.N. forces withdrew about 20 years ago after helping to rebuild war-shattered Cambodia.
“[The case] shows that Hun Sen and the CPP (the ruling Cambodian People’s Party) are absolutely incapable of tolerating dissent,” HRW’s Asia director Brad Adams told RFA’s Khmer service.
“Mam Sonando was a critic of theirs, they didn’t like him, so they made up this case and they’ve thrown him in jail and thrown away the key,” he said.
Hun Sen had insinuated in a nationally broadcast speech before his arrest that the activist should be taken into custody for having led a "secession" plot and attempting to establish "a state within a state."
Adams said there was no evidence Mam Sonando, who was arrested in July at his home in Phnom Penh, had been involved in the Kratie dispute, adding that the claim that the villagers were attempting to secede from the country was “ridiculous.”
He added that 20 years in prison would essentially be a “death sentence” for Mam Sonando, who has been in poor health since his arrest.
Impartiality
Hun Sen’s government rejected accusations that the charges were politically motivated, saying the court’s ruling should be respected.
“We should let the court do their job independently without any interference. If he thinks it is not fair, Mr. Sonando’s defense lawyer can discuss with Sonando himself whether they will file a complaint in accordance with legal procedures,” Council of Ministers spokesman Tith Sothea told RFA’s Khmer service.
“It is not the case that only if the court decided in Mam Sonando’s favor would the sentencing be just.”
In August, Hun Sen rejected charges that Mam Sonando's case was aimed at closing down the Beehive radio station.
Mam Sonando’s lawyer, rights advocate Sok Sam Oeun who is the executive director of the Cambodian Defenders Project, said it was not his place to comment whether or not the court’s ruling was just.
“Fair or unfair, I will not say. [That is a question for] the suspects themselves because they know the truth, which I don’t,” he told reporters.
But rights groups said the case raises concerns about the impartiality of Cambodia’s justice system.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton issued a statement expressing “serious concern” over the conviction, saying it “raises severe doubts about the impartiality and independence of the court.”
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said Mam Sonando’s case demonstrates how the Cambodian government uses the courts as a “tool for repression.”
“Throughout the course of the trial, the court has not provided any credible evidence to substantiate the outlandish claim that there is a 'secessionist' movement in Kratie, let alone connecting Sonando to any such movement,” FIDH Southeast Asia representative Shiwei Ye said.
Mam Sonando, who is also the director of the Association of Democrats, has been arrested twice before for his political activities and for "defaming" the government.
In 2003, he was arrested and charged with giving "false" information and inciting people to "discriminate" and "commit crimes."
In 2005, he was held and charged with defamation over a radio interview that elicited criticism of Hun Sen's Cambodian border control issues with Vietnam.
Reported by Tep Nimol, Ses Vansak, Morm Moniroth, and Mom Sophon for RFA's Khmer service. Translated by Yanny Hin. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.
Updated at 8:30 p.m. EST on 2012-10-1
Dissident Cambodian radio station chief Mam Sonando was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday for allegedly masterminding a secessionist plot, in a conviction condemned as politically motivated by rights groups.
Human Rights Watch said the ruling was the worst decision by a Cambodian court in two decades and that the charges against the 71-year-old Mam Sonando were intended as political retaliation by Prime Minister Hun Sen for allowing critical views of the government on his independent radio station.
The United States said it was "deeply concerned" by the conviction and "harsh" sentence, pointing out that observers in Cambodia have noted that the charges against the activist appear to have been "politically-motivated, based on his frequent criticism of the government," according to the State Department.
It called on Hun Sen's government to release Mam Sonando immediately, to ensure that its court system is free from political influence, and to reaffirm its commitment to guaranteeing its citizens’ basic human rights.
Mam Sonando, who has rejected the charges as baseless, will appeal against the conviction meted out by the Phnom Penh municipal court, according to his wife.
The activist, who operates the 105 FM Beehive radio station, was found guilty of insurrection and inciting villagers to take up arms against the state.
The court also found 13 others guilty of inciting an alleged anti-state rebellion in clashes over land rights in Kratie province.
While getting in a car to be escorted back to Prey Sar Prison, Mam Sonando, who was also given a 10 million riel (U.S. $2,500) fine, said he would continue to fight for justice in Cambodia.
“I am happy and proud to continue helping the Khmer people,” he said.
Several hundred supporters protested outside the courthouse carrying placards and shouting slogans calling for his release.
His wife Din Sophanara said Mam Sonando would appeal the verdict and that he was not involved in the Kratie dispute, which broke out in May after thousands of villagers refused a government order to vacate farmland that was awarded to a developer in a land concession.
“All the others who were involved received lenient sentences. He was not involved but received a grave sentence,” she said outside the courthouse.
Codefendant Bun Ratha, a land rights advocate who went into hiding after authorities accused him of helping to organize the villagers’ revolt, was sentenced in absentia to 30 years in prison.
The others were sentenced to between 10 months and 15 years in prison each.
Hundreds of demonstrators calling for Mam Sonando's release gather outside the Phnom Penh municipal court on Oct. 1, 2012. Credit: RFA.
'Worst miscarriage of justice'
Cambodian and international rights groups have called the accusations against Mam Sonando baseless, saying the government was seeking to justify its harsh crackdown on the alleged Kratie rebellion.
A 15-year-old girl, Heng Chentha, was shot dead when she was struck by a bullet authorities say ricocheted after it was fired as a warning shot during the clashes in Kratie’s Chhlong district triggered by a refusal by some 1,000 village families to vacate state land they had used for farming.
Some of the villagers were armed with axes and crossbows.
In condemning the court decision, Human Rights Watch said this is “the worst miscarriage of justice we have seen” since U.N. forces withdrew about 20 years ago after helping to rebuild war-shattered Cambodia.
“[The case] shows that Hun Sen and the CPP (the ruling Cambodian People’s Party) are absolutely incapable of tolerating dissent,” HRW’s Asia director Brad Adams told RFA’s Khmer service.
“Mam Sonando was a critic of theirs, they didn’t like him, so they made up this case and they’ve thrown him in jail and thrown away the key,” he said.
Hun Sen had insinuated in a nationally broadcast speech before his arrest that the activist should be taken into custody for having led a "secession" plot and attempting to establish "a state within a state."
Adams said there was no evidence Mam Sonando, who was arrested in July at his home in Phnom Penh, had been involved in the Kratie dispute, adding that the claim that the villagers were attempting to secede from the country was “ridiculous.”
He added that 20 years in prison would essentially be a “death sentence” for Mam Sonando, who has been in poor health since his arrest.
Impartiality
Hun Sen’s government rejected accusations that the charges were politically motivated, saying the court’s ruling should be respected.
“We should let the court do their job independently without any interference. If he thinks it is not fair, Mr. Sonando’s defense lawyer can discuss with Sonando himself whether they will file a complaint in accordance with legal procedures,” Council of Ministers spokesman Tith Sothea told RFA’s Khmer service.
“It is not the case that only if the court decided in Mam Sonando’s favor would the sentencing be just.”
In August, Hun Sen rejected charges that Mam Sonando's case was aimed at closing down the Beehive radio station.
Mam Sonando’s lawyer, rights advocate Sok Sam Oeun who is the executive director of the Cambodian Defenders Project, said it was not his place to comment whether or not the court’s ruling was just.
“Fair or unfair, I will not say. [That is a question for] the suspects themselves because they know the truth, which I don’t,” he told reporters.
But rights groups said the case raises concerns about the impartiality of Cambodia’s justice system.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton issued a statement expressing “serious concern” over the conviction, saying it “raises severe doubts about the impartiality and independence of the court.”
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said Mam Sonando’s case demonstrates how the Cambodian government uses the courts as a “tool for repression.”
“Throughout the course of the trial, the court has not provided any credible evidence to substantiate the outlandish claim that there is a 'secessionist' movement in Kratie, let alone connecting Sonando to any such movement,” FIDH Southeast Asia representative Shiwei Ye said.
Mam Sonando, who is also the director of the Association of Democrats, has been arrested twice before for his political activities and for "defaming" the government.
In 2003, he was arrested and charged with giving "false" information and inciting people to "discriminate" and "commit crimes."
In 2005, he was held and charged with defamation over a radio interview that elicited criticism of Hun Sen's Cambodian border control issues with Vietnam.
Reported by Tep Nimol, Ses Vansak, Morm Moniroth, and Mom Sophon for RFA's Khmer service. Translated by Yanny Hin. Written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.
Easy like Sunday morning
Easy like Sunday morning:
“Do you have a trash bin Mister?”
The beverage vendor sweeps his eyes around his cart then looks to the ground on the left.
“Just throw it there,” he says, nodding with his head toward the road.
I ball the water bottle wrapper in my hand and thank him. Then I’m back on my run. Soon a teenagers rides by on a bicycle with a helmet that looks like a durian, the beloved stinky fruit found here in Asia with a spiked shell so sharp that handlers must wear gloves.
This is car-free day, the one day of the week when the municipal government closes a main thoroughfare in this chaotic, traffic-choked city and allows bikers, runners, walkers and skateboarders to rule the road.
It’s a carnival of sorts, a time to socialize. Each week there is something new and eye catching – a boy on stilts, old men riding vintage bicycles from Dutch colonial days (some of them dress in old army digs the way former dictator Suharto did).
Today, BRI Bank, one of Indonesia’s biggest lenders, is signing up new credit card clients. White food tents stand in rows selling sweets and rice porridge. Signs highlight amazing promotions like deals on concert tickets or, for the big spenders, family sedans. A band plays Lionel Richies’s anthem “Easy Like Sunday Morning” on a nearby stage.
After my run I stand on a bridge crossing the road and watch the hordes of cyclists go by. An angry foreign woman who is running smacks a teenager with a towel for getting in her way. He laughs, and so do I.
On the way home I pass a single severed chicken foot, abandoned and looking lonely. Two boys read a paper on a bench beside the claw, paying no attention. It seems cruel. Then a little girl with ragged hair jumps up and down as I approach shouting, “foreigner, foreigner.” When I say “good morning, darling,” her mother breaks into riotous laughter.
Further along a tiny kitten lays in a box on a trash pile, while another snacks on orange peels and other refuse. Then there is the fish market, where Mariyo, a fisherman, asks me to take a picture of his catch. He works as an office boy but on his days off he comes here to make some extra money. He’d been out all night in the north of the city fishing for what he had arranged on a blue tarp this morning.
And so another day gets underway in Jakarta. People come out to laugh and play. They find their communities. They eat and gossip and some fall victim to the credit card trap. They come from all classes and dozens of ethnicities. They are Javanese, Sumatran, Chinese-Indonesian.
It is a window on this city, where trash piles high and clean water runs scarce. But it is one of the most social, friendly places despite all the problems. And when people claim the roads on Sunday morning, it does indeed seem like the day will be easy.
The beverage vendor sweeps his eyes around his cart then looks to the ground on the left.
“Just throw it there,” he says, nodding with his head toward the road.
I ball the water bottle wrapper in my hand and thank him. Then I’m back on my run. Soon a teenagers rides by on a bicycle with a helmet that looks like a durian, the beloved stinky fruit found here in Asia with a spiked shell so sharp that handlers must wear gloves.
It’s a carnival of sorts, a time to socialize. Each week there is something new and eye catching – a boy on stilts, old men riding vintage bicycles from Dutch colonial days (some of them dress in old army digs the way former dictator Suharto did).
Today, BRI Bank, one of Indonesia’s biggest lenders, is signing up new credit card clients. White food tents stand in rows selling sweets and rice porridge. Signs highlight amazing promotions like deals on concert tickets or, for the big spenders, family sedans. A band plays Lionel Richies’s anthem “Easy Like Sunday Morning” on a nearby stage.
After my run I stand on a bridge crossing the road and watch the hordes of cyclists go by. An angry foreign woman who is running smacks a teenager with a towel for getting in her way. He laughs, and so do I.
Further along a tiny kitten lays in a box on a trash pile, while another snacks on orange peels and other refuse. Then there is the fish market, where Mariyo, a fisherman, asks me to take a picture of his catch. He works as an office boy but on his days off he comes here to make some extra money. He’d been out all night in the north of the city fishing for what he had arranged on a blue tarp this morning.
And so another day gets underway in Jakarta. People come out to laugh and play. They find their communities. They eat and gossip and some fall victim to the credit card trap. They come from all classes and dozens of ethnicities. They are Javanese, Sumatran, Chinese-Indonesian.
It is a window on this city, where trash piles high and clean water runs scarce. But it is one of the most social, friendly places despite all the problems. And when people claim the roads on Sunday morning, it does indeed seem like the day will be easy.
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