It is a tragedy while the government and their leaders have been bragging on economic growth, national development, peace and prosperity after the dark cloud of civil war and brutality ended, many bottom-line people like the residents of Borei Keila have continuously been humiliated by such “development rhetoric”. Listen to the video clip below, a woman said “is this the development in the age of Decho?”. It is shameful for Decho to be heard like this. Hence, this plague has happened every where around the world, not only Cambodia, if the top leader is not having proper conduct and moral attitude in the Dhamma. Dhamma means rule of laws, not rule of personality. As our observation remarked, our Decho has always proliferated his personality to judge and decide all issues happening in Cambodian society.

Buddha has been known as an Enlightened personality, but Buddha has never claimed himself as the central personality in deciding and determining any controversial issues. Dhamma and Vinaya which have been well promulgated for public use is the guideline, the tool for proper decision making and substantial rule for every one regardless of their status, entity or tendencies etc. However, Cambodian Buddhists are sadden and sad when their top leader has been using personality to judge and make a decision with all things. Recent public talk of Decho about ordering his Ohna colleague to arrest the violators inside his company who shot innocent protesters in Kratie because of their curiosity on the land grab, is not right on the proper practice of the Dhamma or the rule of law. Decho must follow the rule of law, he couldn’t use his prowess to overlapped or undermine the existing law.

Cambodian law has solemnly condemned and punished those who committed violence and perpetrated illegal activities. Cambodian authority and Decho must use the prowess of the Dhamma/law, not the prowess of personality, in order to stop humiliating our own race and innocent Cambodian citizens.

First group of photos are illustrating Mr.Chanroeun Pa and his teams are distributing note-books, scarfs, shampoo, soap, detergent, dry Mii Yeuong noodles, study tools and cash to many kids who have been survived by the rubbish dump. Their living condition has been affected by rubbish environment which is located in remote area: no school, hospital and other amenities. Many kids and families have been moving here in hope for the career of SCAVENGING. Many generous, journalists and NGOs have stepped in to help them release suffering. Some donations offered, wells dug, and we hope that many other plans are on the row. If you wish to spare your heart and love, please do that…the location is following: Phum Tropaeng Thom, Tropaeng Thom Commune, Prasat Bakong District, Siem Reap Province.

Another group was led by Mrs. Chann to distribute note-book, pencil, pen and 500 riel cash to 500 students of primary and secondary school in Phum Dong-het, Khum Kok-thlok Krom, Jikrieng District, Siem Reap province. The school has located in the middle of four villages: Phum Dong-het, Phum Konsaeng, Phum Robieng and Phum Anlong Tro-orn at about 7 km north of national road number 6 at the Domrey Chlong point. During the civil war, this location was ravaged by the factional fighting between the Khmer Rouge armies and Vietnamese armies. The typical career of people here are farmers.

Thank you very much for your kind sharing and hospitality. We expect to receive your extending heart and love for those kids more in the future!!

Tear seems drop down unconsciously while I was reading this article. My life has come through what those individuals in the interview are breaking-through. The belief in higher education and persistent struggle for it is really honorable. Each time, when I looked at the great ruins and sandstone structures, it reminds me of education and ingenuity of Khmer ancestors to master on those architectures. Somdech Song Pang-Khat preached that if you look at the stones of Angkor Wat and other temples, you must communicate with the stones!

By THOMAS FULLER

Published: January 24, 2012

Learning Amid the Ruins

But the explosion of the tourism industry here has also done something less predictable. Siem Reap, which had no universities a decade ago, is now Cambodia’s second-largest hub for higher education, after the capital, Phnom Penh.

The sons and daughters of impoverished rice farmers flock here to work as tour guides, receptionists, bartenders and waitresses. When their shifts are over, they study finance, English and accounting.

“I never imagined that I could go to university,” said Hem Sophoan, a 31-year-old tour guide who is now studying for his second master’s degree. “There’s been so much change and opportunities for young people.”

The establishment of five private universities here is helping to transform the work force in this part of Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest countries and a society still living in the shadow of the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge. Employers say that English proficiency is rising and that workers who attend universities stand out for their ability to express themselves and make decisions. A generation of students who would otherwise have had little hope to study beyond high school are enduring grueling schedules to get a degree and pursue their dreams.

Khim Borin, a 26-year-old tour guide by day and law student by night, says he wants to become a lawyer. But he sometimes has trouble staying awake in class during the high tourist season, when he spends hours scaling vertiginous temple steps and baking in the tropical sun.

“I tell my friends, ‘Hit me if you see me falling asleep,”’ he said.

The son of a broken and impoverished household, Mr. Khim Borin worked as a bartender and a masseur and installed air-conditioners at hotels before becoming a tour guide. He summarizes his life as “hard but happy.”

The five universities in Siem Reap currently enroll more than 10,000 students. Most of the campuses, which are scattered around the town, are quiet during the day but come to life with the buzz of students’ motorcycles as soon as the sun sets.

The United Nations and foreign aid organizations have had an oversize role in helping steer the country since the Khmer Rouge were driven from power more than three decades ago. But the symbiosis of work and study here came together without any master plan.

It was driven largely by supply and demand: universities opened to cater to the dreams of Cambodia’s youth — and offered flexible hours in sync with the rhythms of the tourist industry. University administrators say 80 to 90 percent of the students hold full-time jobs.

“They come here, find a job first, and then they start their bachelor degree,” said Rous Bunthy, vice president for administrative affairs at the University of South-East Asia, which opened here in 2006 and has an enrollment of 2,300.

Most students pay the annual tuition of $400 themselves, Mr. Rous Bunthy said. “Some of their parents can help a little — maybe $10 a month,” he said.

Although the fees are a small fraction of what private universities in more developed countries charge, students often struggle to pay, administrators say.

“The main problem is financial support,” said That Bunsay, vice president of administrative affairs at the Siem Reap branch of Build Bright University, the largest in Siem Reap with about 5,000 enrolled.

“They need to find money first and then go to school — money is the first priority,” Mr. That Bunsay said.

Luckier students get sponsorship from foreigners. On a recent evening, an Argentine insurance saleswoman on vacation here, Maria Theresa Landoni, waited outside Mr. That Bunsay’s office. She had come to the university to pay the tuition of a young woman who wanted to study tourism.

Ms. Landoni recounted how she struck up a friendship with the driver of her tuk-tuk, the open-air motorized rickshaws popular here, and met his daughter during a visit to the family’s house. “They were very, very, very poor,” Ms. Landoni said. “This is a country that has suffered a lot.”

Learning Amid the Ruins

Ms. Landoni said she agreed to pay one semester’s worth of fees for the daughter: $180. “I don’t have a lot of money,” Ms. Landoni said. “But I have enough for that.”

All five of the universities in Siem Reap are privately owned, and some are for-profit institutions. But administrators say it will be years before the owners of the universities make money. The wealthy Cambodians who back the schools seem to see them largely as philanthropic ventures.

“The shareholders say they are wasting their money compared with other investments,” said Mr. Rous Bunthy of the University of South-East Asia. “But they are happy because they are helping people.” Among his university’s shareholders are the owner of a clothing wholesale business, a beer magnate, the owner of a supermarket chain and the founder of a successful English-teaching school.

The quality of the universities in Siem Reap is uneven, says Mr. Hem Sophoan, the tour guide, who is studying for a master’s in public administration.

“They are thinking about quantity first — to support their business. They are happy if they have many students. They want market share,” he said of the universities.

Many graduates seem to have stayed with their employers and moved up, their degrees having made them better prospects for managerial roles. But it is too early to draw conclusions about whether the degrees are leading to better jobs. The six-year-old University of South-East Asia, for example, has had only two graduating classes, and they were small.

Still, Mr. Hem Sophoan and other students say that despite any shortcomings at the universities, the experience of attending classes and obtaining a degree is transformative.

Chan Sreyroth, a 29-year-old manager at a company that owns restaurants in Siem Reap, says she sees a big difference in her employees who attend universities.

“The difference is that they have a dream,” said Ms. Chan Sreyroth, who oversees around 250 employees, many of them students. “After they study, they are not scared anymore. They want to be something.”

After graduation, students who work and study at the same time often have an edge over fresh graduates who have never worked before, for whom starting a career can be difficult, Ms. Chan Sreyroth and others say. University students are “more communicative,” she said. “If they don’t like something, they speak out.”

Ms. Chan Sreyroth and others say they are lucky that Angkor’s temples have proved so popular with tourists. If it were not for the sandstone structures nestled in the jungles, Siem Reap would probably have remained a backwater. Last year, 3.3 million tourists visited Siem Reap, half of them foreigners, according to the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism.

Kong Soeun, the deputy director of the local tourism office, is trying to convince others in the tourism industry that Siem Reap should declare an annual day of remembrance for the people who built the temples.

He says the tourist industry helped resurrect his life. His early years were shattered by the Khmer Rouge. Of 11 brothers and sisters, 6 disappeared. But he put himself through university with income earned as a tour guide, earned a law degree and dreams of becoming a crusading lawyer.

“We should remember their souls,” Mr. Kong Soeun said of his forebears who built Angkor Wat. “These temples are a very great thing.”

Thank you very much Dr. Peang-Met for raising up this very important controversial debate. In Cambodia as people have been embedded by non-independent mass media including the unalienable traumatic past of war and genocide, the group of stability and stomach need, has been conveyed by majority. However, Buddhists who have learned and experienced deep understanding of the teachings see that the highest goal of Buddhism is “liberty”, not “the four necessities”. In practice, Nama (liberty) and Rupa (four necessities) must be equal and in balance.

In Vipassana meditation, practitioners cannot get into the Dhamma stream if one cannot balance Nama and Rupa. Socially and politically observing, Cambodia is not in the stage of any thing identical to these three stages.  Scandals of non-independent judicial system, economic development through poor evictions, non-independent mass media, rampant corruption from tops to bottoms, political autocracy, favoritism and cronyism etc. have been lingering on the murky stage…do we see Cambodia is in the pathway of engineering in development and stability, engineering in creating liberty, or engineering in balancing of both social commodities?

PACIFIC DAILY NEWS
Jan. 25, 2012Cambodia needs to see real change

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth

Many readers emailed me following my series of articles on replacing Cambodia’s dictatorship with a democratic form of government. As many emails contained similar concerns, I have grouped those with similar themes and will use this column to deal with two.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

http://www.guampdn.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201201250400/OPINION02/201250318

Join Amnesty International to Sign Petition to the Governor of Phnom Penh to release those 30 peaceful protestors for the rights of housing.

Dear Governor;

Objective: Free forced evictions protesters

I am very concerned at the arrest of 30 peaceful protesters on 11 January, including 24 women and six children, who are now detained at Prey Speu Social Affairs Centre, and call for their immediate release.

I acknowledge the government’s statement that these protesters are not detained; however, protesters report that they are unable to leave, have not been given access to local civil society organisations and are being requested to agree to resettlement documents before release. In my view this constitutes detention and I reiterate the need for their immediate release.

I urge you to conduct a full and independent investigation into the forced eviction of some 300 families living at Borei Keila, Phnom Penh on 3 January, including into why the eviction took place, and the apparent excessive use of force by security forces.

The eight villagers detained on 3 January must be released pending further investigations. The members of the security forces found to be responsible for excessive use of force on this day to be suspended and prosecuted.

Those forcibly evicted must be provided with adequate compensation and suitable alternative accommodation that meets international standards for adequate housing. You are obliged to prevent forced evictions and respect and protect the right to adequate housing, in accordance with international treaties to which Cambodia is a state party.

The game of the Khmer Rouge is a zero-sum game for Cambodians and their nation. 33 years have already passed; the Khmer Rouge regime will never come back again as the world is fast moving forwards.

It is a priceless lesson to learn in order to move forward and not dwell in the tragedy of the past, only to learn from it, as it was arranged to be the two crickets fighting against each other.

Click here to read the whole Lift Issue of 104 dated January 11, 2012

Seven January arrived and split
again the political parties
of Cambodia. While the Cambodian
People’s Party (CPP) wouldn’t
hesitate to call January 7 the day of
liberation from the brutal Khmer
Rouge, the opposition Sam Rainsy
Party (SRP) claimed it as the day
Vietnam invaded the Kingdom.
The CPP has never been reluctant
to emphasise the brutality of the
Khmer Rouge regime, painting the
Vietnamese troops as the life-savers
of the Cambodian people. For the
SRP, however, the arrival of the Vietnamese
troops in Cambodia marked
an invasion, as Vietnam violated
both international and domestic
law by crossing the border into the
country.

The debate lingers on, years after
Pol Pot’s collapse. While the CPP justifies
its historical view by pointing
to the present situation of political
peace and stability, the SRP dredges
up evidence of Vietnamese occupation
inside Cambodia.

But which side is correct in
their judgments? One must think
critically to come to am informed
decision.

Statistics show that nearly two
million Cambodian people were
executed, starved, over-laboured
to death, or had died from sickness
during the Pol Pot regime. On January
7, 1979, Vietnamese troops, in
alliance with Khmer Rouge defectors,
entered Cambodia and stopped
the Khmer Rouge’s operation.

But historians and political scientists
have demonstrated through
evidence that the power of the
Khmer Rouge came from Vietnam’s
support. In his article “Motives
Behind the Vietnamese Occupation”,
Marc Leepson quoted Vietnamese
Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, in
an interview published in Newsweek,
in which he said his government
“could not stand by in good
conscience and watch the Pol Pot
regime butcher millions of innocent
Kampucheans in cold blood”. However,
evidence shows that Vietnam
knew of the Khmer Rouge’s terror for
years prior to the invasion. Professor
Stephen Morris said, “Hanoi showed
not the slightest concern for the
fate of the Cambodian people while
most of the killing was actually going
on; on the contrary, Vietnamese
Communist Party and government
statements were lush in their praise
of Pol Pot and his regime.”

So are both sides right? Who can
we side with, and what can we do?
We must look to ourselves, instead.
We as Cambodians must write our
own history: that of national pride,
heroes, heroines, national unity,
self-struggles, self-determination
and preserving our cultural identity.
We Khmer should be proud of
our own endeavours and intelligence.

The game of the Khmer
Rouge is a zero-sum game for
Cambodians and their nation. 33
years have already passed; the
Khmer Rouge regime will never
come back again as the world is
fast moving forwards.

It is a priceless lesson to learn in
order to move forward and not dwell
in the tragedy of the past, only to
learn from it, as it was arranged to
be the two crickets fighting against
each other.

All Koun Khmers must watch this video clip. It is a struggle of non-violence by prominent leaders such as Ghandi and Luther King. Non-violence is a struggle against the Leviathans whose political culture is using power and violence. Non-violence means to counter-strike but counter-strike by using the mean of non-violence.

Clarification on the film “Bringing Down A Dictator”: The film was not the work of Popovic’s Center for Applied Action and Strategies (CANVAS), but the work of a small, independent company in Washington, D.C., with funding from the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. The film, translated into about a dozen languages, has a broad impact on nonviolent movements in the past decade. On the work of the company producing the film, log on to www.aForceMorePowerful.org. Two segments of “A Force More Powerful” have been translated into Khmer and the company has downloaded them to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV_rdWsl9To&feature=plcp&context=C3674762UDOEgsToPDskIkoecUwF0ukf5qw-6qu_ve

Readers are urged to see the film in Khmer.

Gaffar Peang-Meth