Civil servant who handed out JCP paper cleared

Kyodo News
Tuesday, March 30, 2010

A former government agency employee was acquitted Monday of civil service law violations for passing out copies of the Japanese Communist Party newspaper in 2003.

Akio Horikoshi, 56, who worked at the Social Insurance Agency, received a rare suspended fine by the Tokyo District Court in 2006, but Monday's ruling by the Tokyo High Court reversed that decision, saying his actions did not undermine the administrative neutrality of a public servant.

"The defendant's actions were sporadic and unrelated to his work, and it is difficult to recognize that there were risks of hurting the neutrality of administrative management and public trust," said presiding Judge Takao Nakayama, adding it would be an "excessive restriction" of freedom to punish Horikoshi.

Nakayama also made a rare note that the freedom of public servants to engage in political activities has grown and "it is time to re-examine" what actions should be subject to punishment.

Horikoshi was arrested and indicted in March 2004 for distributing extra editions of the Akahata Shimbun in neighbors' mailboxes in October and November 2003, shortly before a Lower House election.

It was the first time a government official was accused of violating Article 102 of the civil service law since the Supreme Court found a postal worker guilty in 1974 of involvement in an election campaign for a Japan Socialist Party candidate.

Article 102 of the law bans civil servants from engaging in political activities.

Horikoshi argued in court that passing out the newspaper was a private action because it was done on a weekend and away from his workplace.

The district court sentenced Horikoshi in June 2006 to a ¥100,000 fine, suspended for two years, after ruling his actions violated the National Civil Service Law but did not immediately undermine the neutrality of a public servant.

"It is my greatest joy that the judge recognized my actions did not constitute a crime at all," Horikoshi said after the high court ruling.

Saying he was relieved to hear the decision, he added, "Although Japan has been left behind in the field of democracy, I think Japanese history changed" with the ruling.

The ruling was welcomed by Horikoshi's supporters and others related to the JCP.

"Looking at it from the standpoint of freedom of expression ensured under the Constitution, it is a righteous ruling," said Tadayoshi Ichida, secretary general of the JCP, adding the prosecutors should not appeal.

Horikoshi lost his public servant status after he was employed at the Japan Pension Service, which in January succeeded the Social Insurance Agency.

Cambodia temple ruins spur wider question: Are there time limits to the greatness of a nation?

Nature is winning its battle with Cambodia's Ta Prohm temple.


SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA — "Welcome to the Angelina Jolie temple," our guide said as we climbed stone steps toward Ta Prohm, one of the most beautifully eerie sites in Cambodia's ancient Angkor ruins.

I felt a stab of sadness. Not because the jungle was winning its battle with the 800-year-old temple. Yes, the massive roots of strangler-fig and silk-cotton trees were spectacularly crushing the temple's intricately carved corridors and pillars.

What saddened me was his eagerness to define this amazing icon of his once-great country by deferring to American pop culture. To be sure, he could have done worse than to associate Ta Prohm with the actress-humanitarian who visited here to shoot the 2001 adventure film "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider."

But this ancient wreck of a temple was the work of the mighty Khmer empire that once controlled vast reaches of Southeast Asia. It deserved respect in its own right.

Here and everywhere else in Cambodia, I couldn't stop thinking about how and why great civilizations have failed. The questions had puzzled me before I left Minnesota in February. And they've hounded me since my return.

Was Jared Diamond correct when he said in his book "Collapse" that societies fail because they inadvertently choose to do so?

Losing its mojo?

One reason the question nags is that so many Americans have lost confidence in their own prominence and prosperity. We're surrounded these days by headlines like the one in Newsweek a few months ago: "Is America losing its mojo?"

We still pile up the Nobel prizes (won mostly by American scientists in their 70s, Newsweek noted).

Look deeper, though, and it's clear that America "is like a star that still looks bright in the farthest reaches of the universe but has burned out at the core," Newsweek said.

One of many points it offered in support of that statement came from a study [PDF] last year by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington. It analyzed 40 countries on various measures of what they were doing to make themselves more innovative in the future. The United States came in dead last.

Of course, doomsday predictions are nothing new in this country. Give me any national crisis, and I think I could find a related political cartoon featuring a variation on the theme "The end is near."

But polls find an epidemic of pessimism in the country today. "The 'American Century' was sooo last century, as many Americans see it," ABC news said about a poll it conducted with the Washington Post last month. About half of those polled expect the United States to play a diminished role in world affairs and the global economy.

Those findings are consistent with other recent polls in which as many as two-thirds of Americans have said they do not believe our future will be as good as our past.

Lifespan of a great state

At Ta Prohm, I was torn. Much as I hated to see the destruction, I couldn't help admire those tenacious trees that were snaking their roots around the hand-carved walls and columns of the Buddhist temple.

Maybe there are natural limits to the greatness of a state — sort of like the limits on a human lifespan. Live right, and you can live a bit longer. But just as death is inevitable, so has been the history of great nations eventually slipping from the pinnacle of power.

There are different ways to fall from power, though. As Diamond put it in his best-selling book, a few empires have collapsed catastrophically, and the monumental ruins they left behind "hold a romantic fascination for all of us."

In the evening vendors sell food for riverside picnics in Phnom Penh.


Others have managed to decline with minimal damage, even with grace. Former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously marked the end of his country's dominance over Africa with his eloquent "Wind of Change" speech before the South African parliament in 1960.

"The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it," he said.

Britain may have fallen from world dominance, but life in what's left of the U.K squares with my standards for quality.

Cambodia, though, kept falling, falling, falling — right through the 20th century. And it fell so hard, so far.

Some historians blame an excess of self-indulgence. (Ring any alarms for modern-day America?) This temple and its magnificent neighbors — especially the granddaddy of them all, Angkor Wat — demanded an unbelievable investment of labor and resources. Impressive as they are as public works, some of that human power could have gone into farming and defending the land.

The ravages of war

Another cause was the ravages of war. After repeated battles with the Siamese, the Cham (now a fallen people in their own right) and the Vietnamese, almost all of the great temple communities in this part of Cambodia were abandoned by the 15th century.

By the 19th century, the country was on the verge of dissolution, and it fell under French control.

The 20th century brought independence, but neither peace nor prosperity. In the 1960s, supposedly neutral Cambodia allowed the North Vietnamese to use parts of the country for the resupply and training it needed to support its operations in the war next door. And the United States bombed Cambodia, killing thousands of people.

Finally, the unstable country fell under the control of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime headed by Pol Pot. One in every five Cambodians — some 1.7 million people — died during the 1970s. The educated were murdered, the cities were emptied and the people were forced into a living a tragic delusion of idealized peasantry. Starvation and disease reigned.

Cambodia has made remarkable strides toward recovery in the past decade.

It takes time, though, and immense effort to rebuild a shattered society. Someone born in Cambodia can expect to live about 60 years, compared with nearly 80 years in the United States. One in four Cambodians is illiterate. And a baby born here is nearly as likely to die before its first birthday as one born in Haiti.

The sun setting on Cambodia's Tonle Sap lake.



You still see too many gaunt people sleeping on sidewalks in Phnom Penh, the capital. Too many toddlers are begging — some under the direction of adults who drape the tots in snakes to attract the attention and dollars of tourists. Too many treasures in this temple and others nearby have been plundered for sums that couldn't be anything but paltry considering their priceless historic and architectural value.

Such is the state of a country which once was so advanced that the French naturalist Henry Mouhot declared [PDF] its buildings to be "grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome."

I still was haunted when I got home from Cambodia by the contrast between the great Khmer empire and the sorry state of the country today.

Thinking about the broader implications, I pulled from my shelf a slender book by David Boren. A Democrat, he was a U.S. senator, governor of Oklahoma and president of the University of Oklahoma.

"The country we love is in trouble," Boren begins his 2008 book, "A Letter to America."

"In truth, we are in grave danger of declining as a nation," he said.

Boren doesn't pull his punches. Among other points, he said:

• Our political system is broken. Bipartisanship, with the parties working together to solve urgent problems, is viewed with nostalgic romanticism.

• Grassroots democracy is being destroyed by a flood of special interest money being poured into politics.

• Shockingly, we as citizens are becoming incapable of protecting our rights and democratic institutions, because we do not even know our own history.

• The greatest risk to our economy is posed by continued budget deficits.

• The middle class in our country is shrinking, with many falling into the category of poor or nearly poor. ... Continuing to pursue an economic policy driven by greed will destroy us socially.

Scary stuff.

Did any wise man ever give such pointed warnings to the people of ancient Angkor? Did they, maybe, ignore the wisdom to their great peril? Did they laugh when some bearded sage said, "The end is near?"

A strategy for the future

Still, Boren reassured me somehow — partly because he offers a bold strategy for pulling the nation back on a sound footing. Here's a sampling of his suggestions:

• Amend the Constitution to restrict campaign contributions to those who are eligible to vote in a given candidate's election. Congress never will do it. Either will the courts (And Boren wrote this before the U.S. Supreme Court recently cut restraints from corporate contributions.)

• Get a grip on entitlement spending by raising the retirement age for full Social Security benefits and also raising the taxes well-off recipients pay on their benefits. Use means testing to end Medicare for millionaires and raise premiums for other high-income earners so that they aren't subsidized by struggling young workers.

• Launch a nationwide American history crusade and require all college and university students to study government and our nation's history before they graduate.

Because of tough-minded Americans like Boren — people with the guts to say everyone has to contribute and sacrifice for our collective future — you won't see me wearing an "End is near" T-shirt anytime soon.

Maybe giant trees will take back Capitol Hill one day. But I don't believe we are even close to being finished at this point.

By Ancient Ruins, a Gay Haven in Cambodia

In Siem Reap, Bon Theorne serves a drink at old-Shanghai-themed Miss Wong. (Arantxa Cedillo for The New York Times

March 21, 2010
By NAOMI LINDT
The New York Times

IT was 10 p.m. in Siem Reap, and while most tourists were tucked in after a long, hot day exploring the temples of Angkor, things were just getting going at a bar called Linga. Pairs of European men in their 30s and 40s wearing unbuttoned collared shirts and checkered krama scarves sipped fruity cocktails and jostled for space with the young Khmer crowd, who huddled around small tables in anticipation of the main event: the Saturday night drag show.

A statuesque Khmer performer who went by the name Beyoncé took to the stage draped in a black, body-skimming floor-length gown and wearing a blond Afro wig. Soon, everyone was on his feet, belting out a song from “Dreamgirls.” The traffic outside literally stopped. Curious travelers, Khmer families and little girls peddling red roses craned their necks to get a better view as the song’s syrupy melody wafted into the jasmine-scented evening air.

Homosexual acts are not outlawed in Cambodia, as they are in a few Southeast Asian countries, but outward displays of affection and untraditional lifestyles are rare. Yet in Siem Reap, a small town that gets about a million tourists a year, gay visitors and locals are carving out a little haven. In the last few years, a small flurry of gay-friendly bars, restaurants and hotels has opened up in the city’s center and beyond, with wink-wink names like the Golden Banana and Cockatoo.

The scene is bolstered partly by Web sites like Cambodia Out (cambodiaout.com), which started in early 2009 and is believed to be the first commercial site in the country devoted to the gay community. Other sites like Utopia (utopia-asia.com) and Sticky Rice (stickyrice.ws), which appeal to gay people throughout Southeast Asia, have also raised the city’s profile.

But the new spots also reflect a growing acceptance, in a country that still hews to age-old Khmer values and where the concept of homosexuality seemed nonexistent until recently. In fact, there is no word for “gay” in Khmer. The most commonly used term is kteuy or ladyboys, based on the misperception by many Cambodians that homosexuals and transvestites are one and the same.

The stereotypes are slowly fading. In 2004, after watching thousands of same-sex couples in San Francisco rush to the altar, Cambodia’s much-loved King Norodom Sihanouk wrote on his Web site that gays should be allowed to marry because God loved a “wide range of tastes.”

His successor and son, King Norodom Sihamoni, holds similar views. “The Cambodian Royal Family, as a whole, share the same point of view as the King-Father,” Sisowath Thomico, a spokesman for the royal family, wrote in an e-mail message. “We’ve always been very tolerant about sexual preferences as some Khmer Royals are/were openly gays/lesbians.”

And last year, a lesbian-themed film by the Khmer novelist and director Phoan Phuong Bopha, “Who Am I?” was a sleeper hit. “Love between people of the same sex is a very new topic in Cambodia,” the director was quoted as saying in The Phnom Penh Post, in an article headlined “Who Am I? Brings Same Sex Issues Out Into the Open.”

The new open-mindedness is attributed to Theravada Buddhism, the predominant religion in Cambodia. “When you’re looking at Buddhist countries, you’re going to encounter an openness and tolerance,” said Caroline Francis, a spokeswoman for the Cambodia field office of Family Health International, a public health organization involved with gay-related health issues. “The religious teachings aren’t being used to arrest or persecute people because they’re gay or lesbian.”

One of the first gay bars to open was Linga, an airy cocktail lounge with artwork on the walls and large windows that face the Passage, a bustling and prominent street. Linga draws a mostly male crowd that’s both Khmer and Western and seems to signal a newfound openness for gay Cambodians. And like many nightclubs throughout Cambodia, prostitution and sex tourism are not hidden from view.

“I grew up in a small town, so I know what it’s like to think, ‘I’m the only one,’ ” said Martin Dishman, 48, a former hotel manager from Greenfield, Ind., who opened Linga in 2004. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of Siem Reap’s most visibly gay bars and hotels are owned by Westerners.

A more refined newcomer is Miss Wong, an old-Shanghai-themed boîte with cherry-red walls and gold silk lanterns. While its owner is gay, it caters to a broader clientele. On a typical night, a mix of men and women, expatriates and tourists, artists and entrepreneurs, and straight and gay people all mingled over lemon-grass-infused vodka concoctions and mocha martinis topped with dollops of chocolate.

But Siem Reap isn’t really a party town. Town life revolves around Angkor Wat, and by sunrise the streets hum with tuk-tuks whisking tourists to the temples. “This will never be the place to swallow four tablets of ecstasy and stay up until 4 a.m., dancing under a full moon in sequin hot pants,” said Dean Williams, an expatriate from New Zealand who owns Miss Wong.

That might explain why there are more gay-owned hotels than bars. The newest and arguably most flamboyant is a male-only resort called Men’s, which features 10 sleek rooms decorated with male nude paintings, a large outdoor swimming pool and a sprawling, black-and-gold tiled sauna and a Jacuzzi.

Upscale travelers prefer Viroth’s Hotel, a graceful seven-room haven in a renovated 1960s modernist house. While Viroth’s does not promote itself as a gay hotel per se, the owners Fabien Martial and Kol Viroth do nothing to hide their 10-year relationship.

And the word seems to be out. On a recent Friday night, the hotel’s nearby restaurant, also called Viroth’s, was filled with a sprinkling of male couples sharing bottles of French wine and dishes like chicken curry and minced pork grilled in kaplou leaves.

But for gay Khmers seeking a home, the place to be is the Golden Banana. It started as a humble B & B that opened in 2004 and has since expanded to three properties, including a stylish boutique resort with 16 rooms that feature platform beds constructed of flecked sugar palm wood and soaking tubs on the terrace.

Guests might include backpackers in T-shirts or silver-haired male couples in matching polo shirts, who mingle freely at the palm- and bamboo-fringed swimming pools, sipping lime and mint iced tea. But under the direction of Dirk de Graaff, an expatriate from the Netherlands, the resort has taken on a second role: as a sanctuary for young Cambodian men exploring their sexual identity.

IN a poor country where traditional family remains strong, young Cambodians are encouraged to marry and have children early. Many same-sex couples in Siem Reap still keep their relationship a secret; some have wives for appearance’s sake. Khmer men who visit gay saunas often conceal their faces behind motorcycle helmets until they’re safely inside. And lesbians remain largely invisible.

Still, things are looking up for the city’s younger gay generation. On a recent evening, young staff members from the Golden Banana — which include both straight and gay men in their early 20s — were laughing it up at the newly opened Heart Rock Bar, an unpretentious dance club across the street from Miss Wong that’s become a popular spot for gay men.

Beyond the glow-in-the-dark hearts on the walls and the stainless-steel cocktail tables, the dark and spacious club offered little décor or ambience, but the crowd of mostly younger Cambodian men didn’t seem to mind. They drank cans of Angkor beer, grooving to Top 40 hits by the Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga, smiling broadly late into the night and dancing freely with whomever they liked.

IF YOU GO

HOW TO GET THERE

Flights to Siem Reap from New York require a stopover. A recent online search found a Korean Air flight from Kennedy Airport to Siem Reap, via Seoul, starting at about $1,500.

WHERE TO STAY

* Hotels in Siem Reap commonly give prices in U.S. dollars.
* The Cockatoo Resort (104 Wat Damnak Village; 855-89-986-872; thecockatooangkor.com). Doubles from $80.
* Golden Banana Boutique Resort (Wat Damnak Village; 855-12-654-638; goldenbanana.info). Doubles from $60.
* The One Hotel and Hotel Be Angkor (the Passage; 855-63-965-321; theonehotelangkor.com and hotelbeangkor.com) are separate hotels with one owner in a single building. Doubles from $95.
* Men’s Resort & Spa (near Wat Po Lanka; 855-63-963-503; mens-resort.com). Doubles from $55.
* Viroth’s Hotel (Street 23; 855-63-761-720; viroth-hotel.com). Doubles from $80.

WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK

* Linga Bar (the Passage; 855-12-246-912; lingabar.com).
* Miss Wong (the Lane; 855-92-428-332).
* Viroth’s Restaurant (246 Wat Bo Street; 855-12-826-346; viroth-hotel.com).

Cambodia's Mobile Market Had Passed the 4 Million Subscriber Milestone Earlier In 2009

Research and Markets: With 29% Mobile Penetration in Cambodia by March 2009, Cambodia's Mobile Market Had Passed the 4 Million Subscriber Milestone Earlier In 2009

March 18, 2010
By Business Wire

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b821be/cambodia_telecom) has announced the addition of the "Cambodia - Telecoms, Mobile, Internet & Forecasts" report to their offering.

Executive summary

Despite its status as a least developed country and remaining one of the poorer countries in Southeast Asia, Cambodia’s efforts to expand and upgrade its telecom infrastructure are bearing fruit. There was very little infrastructure remaining from before the tumultuous Khmer Rouge days. As a result, Cambodia bypassed rebuilding the fixed-line market and quickly launched into alternative technologies, jump-starting its telecommunications infrastructure with digital technology. Not surprisingly, mobile services have completely overwhelmed the market. By early 2009, there were nine mobile operators vigorously competing with each other in a market segment that was growing at an annual rate of more than 50%. There were 4.3 million mobile subscribers (penetration 29%) in the country by March 2009. The market was still in a very strong growth phase, as evidenced by the keenness shown by foreign operators seeking to be part of it.

Some limited fixed-line growth had earlier come about through investment under foreign assistance, but this has mainly benefited Phnom Penh and geographical coverage has not increased significantly since that effort in the 1990s. The number of fixed-line services was relatively static at around 40,000 by 2008. In the absence of any real fixed-line growth, mobile telephone services continue to completely dominate the overall telecom market in Cambodia, with mobiles representing more than 99% of the total number of telephone services in the country. This disparity has been growing more significant each year.

The expansion of Internet services has also been overshadowed by the mobile phenomenon. In fact Internet take-up remains disturbingly low, one of the lowest penetrations in the region. Of course, the limited fixed line infrastructure has been a major inhibiting factor in the roll-out of both dial-up and ADSL Internet services. One encouraging feature has been the general availability of Internet access in provincial towns.

It is worthwhile noting that wireless technology has been especially advantageous for Cambodia in achieving rapid network rollout and replacement of a fixed network badly damaged by 20 years of war. In addition to the thriving mobile networks, Wireless Local Loop has been useful for rapid provision of a limited number of fixed-line services. However, while Cambodia has exemplified the fact that WLL offers a viable option for rapidly expanding telecom access in developing countries with low levels of fixed infrastructure, the potential of this technology has yet to be fully exploited in the country.

Key highlights:

The year 2008 saw Cambodia's mobile market continue on its positive expansion path, with annual growth of 56% for the year and continuing at 50%+ into 2009;

With 29% mobile penetration by March 2009, the mobile market had passed the 4 million subscriber milestone earlier in 2009;

With 3 new mobile operators coming to the market in 2008/09, Cambodia has a total of 9 operators in what has become a crowded and highly competitive market;

The development of fixed-line and Internet services continue to languish; the latter is particularly disconcerting as online access is crucial to national growth;

On the broader political front, National Assembly elections were held in 2008, with Hun Sen being returned to power; while the elections were generally regarded as credible, deficiencies remain.

Bloody desperation for Thailand's reds

Asia Times Online
By Shawn W Crispin
Mar 17, 2010

BANGKOK - Despite a made-for-television mass rally, rousing speeches, a phone-in from their exiled leader and a bizarre bloodletting ritual, Thailand's United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) ultimately lacks the means and legitimacy to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's 15-month-old coalition government from power.

Intense media coverage of the red shirt-wearing protest currently assembled in Bangkok's old town has often portrayed the rally as indication of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's enduring political clout. But as the rally loses steam in its third day and stokes new tensions among prominent members of his political camp, it now more accurately appears a reflection of Thaksin's growing political and personal desperation than an organic pro-democracy movement.

While the red shirt-wearing protest group has failed to mobilize anywhere near the one million protesters its organizers had vowed to truck from the provinces to the national capital to pressure the government to dissolve parliament and hold new elections, it has succeeded in rallying Thaksin's popular support base, which hails mainly from the poor northern and northeastern provinces.

A series of strategic missteps, including Thaksin's antagonistic alliance with Cambodian Premier Hun Sen and his open association with rogue military elements who have threatened to launch bombing and assassination campaigns across Bangkok, has sown deep divisions in his disparate political camp, consisting of the UDD, the opposition Peua Thai party and networks among active police and retired military officials. Some in his camp have questioned the coherence and relevance of the UDD's current drive to draw blood from weather weary protesters to splatter in protest at Government House.

That said, the rally has at least temporarily remobilized Thaksin's populist symbolism and served as a potent reminder to the sincere pro-democracy faction in his camp that has angled to disassociate the movement from his personality that they remain reliant on his popular, if not financial, pulling power. It's unclear to analysts how many of the 100,000-plus protesters on Sunday came of their own accord and how many were paid to participate, as certain news reports and Thaksin critics have suggested. But Thaksin's likeness clearly featured more prominently than pro-democracy or universal justice themes on protesters' red shirts and signboards.

Based on the memory of last April's UDD-led riots in Bangkok and Pattaya, many feared the current mass rally might tilt towards violence and that the military would be called in to suppress it. Last year's riots were sparked partially by Thaksin's call to his red-shirt supporters to launch a "social revolution" against the government. Many analysts wonder if the exiled fugitive from justice will resort to brinksmanship to push his agenda and restore his wealth after a Thai court ruled on February 26 for the seizure of US$1.4 billion of his assets on charges of abuse of power.

The government has strategically played up the threat, citing intelligence it apparently received from the United States that the protests could turn violent, as justification for pre-emptively invoking the Internal Security Act (ISA). Abhisit has repeatedly invoked the draconian measure that gives the military special powers to maintain law and order, since last April's riots. That's raised UDD criticism that he is presiding over a slow but steady militarization of Thai society.

Since the current UDD rally commenced, security forces have raided two factories allegedly involved in the production of parts used in M-79 grenade launchers. The weapon has been used in various unexplained but clearly politicized attacks, including a blast last month that damaged a military headquarters near army commander General Anupong Paochinda's offices and a remote assault on Tuesday against Bangkok's 1st Infantry Division in which two soldiers were injured.

A UDD core member, Weng Tojirakarn, told Asia Times Online that the government has manufactured the attacks and weapons seizures to justify the suppression of red-shirt demonstrators. Yet another UDD organizer confirmed in November - when the protest group first threatened but later retreated from organizing a self-styled "million man" march - that a Peua Thai parliamentarian from Bangkok had organized and paid motorcycle taxi drivers to stir violence during the rally.

Simple symbols

Against the backdrop of real or imagined threats, UDD leaders have proclaimed throughout to be fighting non-violently for democracy and universal justice - made clear to foreign reporters through the English language signboards posted and strategically held by demonstrators at the front of the protest's main stage. They have portrayed Abhisit as a puppet of the military and bureaucratic elite, which they claim played a behind-the-scenes role in cobbling together his coalition government.

Thaksin touched on those same themes during a phone-in address on Sunday night in which he criticized the Supreme Court verdict that ruled to seize his assets as an indication of the entrenched double standards in Thai society that favor the rich and powerful over the poor. (Although he has publicly criticized the verdict, Thaksin has yet to refute in detail why the verdict lacked legal merit). He implied that a "bureaucratic elite" that opposes democracy and conspired in toppling his democratically elected government in 2006 was behind the verdict.

What strikes many long-time observers of the country's politics is the UDD's apparent collective amnesia of Thaksin's own anti-democratic record, marked by his efforts to bypass parliamentary processes, undermine checking and balancing institutions and pressure the free press, and the benefits he reaped through close relations with the bureaucratic elite, including the privileged state-granted telecom concessions he leveraged into a multi-billion dollar personal fortune.

While the UDD clamors for Abhisit to dissolve parliament and hold new elections it has failed to give voice to the fact that a controversial Peua Thai politician, Chalerm Yoobamrung, would most likely run as the party's prime ministerial candidate. His son, Duangchalerm, was accused of murdering an off-duty police officer in 2001 and many say Chalerm epitomizes the double standards that favor the powerful over the poor. Duangchalerm was acquitted due to insufficient evidence in 2004 and is now a father-propelled, rising political star.

Those glaring oversights to the UDD's self-styled pro-democracy agenda have led many royalists to the conclusion that group leaders have a hidden anti-royal agenda - a charge UDD stalwarts deny. They believe the pressure group's sustained criticism of previously untouchable royal advisory privy councillors is the front edge of a campaign to diminish the royal institution's role after the eventual succession from the highly revered Bhumibol Adulyadej to his heir-apparent son, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn.

As the UDD ratcheted up tensions in the run-up to Thaksin's asset case verdict, including a never-realized threat to march on a local hospital where the ailing 82-year-old monarch is recuperating from a long spell of ill-health, Bhumibol resumed several of his ceremonial roles, including a symbolic meeting with local judges whom he encouraged to rule with "righteousness" in the cases in which they adjudicated.

Ahead of the current UDD rally, local newspapers ran on their front pages a portrait of Abhisit sitting with Bhumibol and the monarch's adopted stray dog. One palace insider claimed that Bhumibol called the meeting to assure the prime minister that under no circumstances would Thaksin be given a royal amnesty - similar to the one granted to restore stability after the military's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in 1992.

The lines of democratic division are less clear now and Thailand's grinding political conflict is best understood as a power struggle between competing elite camps with divergent visions for the country's post-Bhumibol future. Thaksin's and the UDD's calls for democracy and social justice mask a game of non-ideological power politics that his side is clearly losing to the conservative forces that have coalesced against him. It's thus perhaps symbolic that the blood the UDD plans to pour in protest at Government House will spring from self-inflicted wounds.

Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia Editor.

U.S. to help train Cambodia's peacekeeping forces

For the last several years, Cambodia has sent hundreds of its peacekeeping force to Sudan, Chad and Central Africa (blogger's)

March 15, 2010
Xinhua

Visiting U.S. high-ranking military officer Gen. William Crowe has accepted a request by Cambodia's National Center for Peacekeeping Forces and ERW Clearance (NPMEC) to train Cambodian forces on peacekeeping mission, official news agency AKP reported on Monday.

The request was made by Gen. Sem Sovanny, general director of the NPMEC, during a visit to the Oudong military training school on Mar. 11 by Gen. William Crowe who is in charge of South Asia and ASEAN affairs office under the U.S. Department of Defense, AKP said.

The visit to Cambodia is made according to the advice by leaders of the U.S. Department of Defense after a meeting in Washington between a Cambodian military delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense Gen. Tea Banh and the U.S. Secretary of Defense Gen. Robert Gate, said Gen. William Crowe.

He said that the U.S. Secretary of Defense fully supported the activities of mine-clearance by the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces ( RCAF).

Visiting to several activities of mine-marking in the artificial minefields along with the slide show of the past mine- clearance activities made by the RCAF in Sudan and the RCAF joining the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) held in many countries such as in Mongolia, Bangladesh, Indonesia .., Gen. William Crowe highly valued the RCAF's potentiality and remarkable achievements.

He said that he will attend the GPOI-2010, which is due to be held in Cambodia in July this year, as a member of the U.N. high- ranking delegation.

Asia's Tourists Hit the Beaches, Warming Region's Economy

The Wall Street Journal
By ALEX FRANGOS

SIEM REAP, Cambodia—Resurgent tourism within Asia is helping to drive economic recoveries, and demonstrating the growing power of regional consumers.

Just ask Kwong Meng Geip, a purveyor of a medicinal mushroom spirit a few miles from the ancient temples of Angkor Wat. South Koreans who arrive on tour buses are the biggest buyers of the unique brew he makes in clay barrels. And the Koreans are flowing back after a slow 2009.

"My business is better than before," says Mr. Kwong, as he presides over displays of the yellow-tinged liquor at the Angkor Rice Wine Workshop, a distillery and souvenir shop he owns. "It releases the hurt," he says of the liquor.

Mr. Kwong attributes the medicinal benefits to the special 150 pound soo krom mushrooms used to make the mild-tasting liquor, which sells for $25 a bottle.

What's happening at Mr. Kwong's shop is playing out across the region. Unlike the U.S. and Europe, where unemployment remains high and consumers are cautious, Asia's unemployment rates are falling. That has given Asians the confidence to travel, some for the first time.

Tourism generally accounts for a relatively small share of economic output. But it signals an important willingness among consumers to spend.

Consumption spending more broadly has been driving growth across Asia. Government stimulus spending and subsidies for consumers to buy big-ticket items such as cars and appliances have helped economies expand at healthy rates. Chinese consumers bought more cars than Americans last year, for instance.

But the shift into travel spending, seen as a big-ticket discretionary item, is a sign perhaps of the next stage of the recovery.

Unlike government-encouraged car purchases, "personal travel is a real indicator of consumer spending, in the sense that there are no subsidies involved," says Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, chief economist for MasterCard Worldwide, based in Singapore.

He says Asian consumers, not burdened by debt as were many in the West, socked away money during the downturn and are now spending some of those savings on travel.

Like auto purchases, tourism is a spending multiplier that puts money in the hands of a diverse set of actors in the economy, from airline pilots to taxi drivers and chambermaids. "It's a very good industry as a growth stimulus for the destination countries," says Mr. Hedrick-Wong.

The rise in intra-Asia tourism may help achieve a long-term goal sought by many policy makers around the world: a rebalancing of the global economy in which consumer spending becomes a bigger driver of Asia's growth.

To be sure, Asia's export-dependent economies still need American and European demand for their goods. And that goes for tourism. High-spending Americans and Germans are a critical source of demand in places such as Thailand and Indonesia. But more intra-Asian travel helps to ameliorate the sluggish travel recovery among Western consumers as they pay off home loans and credit-card bills.

An important source of tourism revenue for the rest of the region is China. During the Lunar New Year holiday in February, a popular time for travel in the Chinese world, the number of mainland Chinese who went abroad increased nearly 21% from the year before to 2.4 million, according to government statistics.

Zu Hui, 28 years old, a worker at an oil-trading company in Beijing, recently took her honeymoon trip to the beach island of Phuket, Thailand. It was her first exploration outside China, and she called it "a great trip" filled with romance and water sports.

She says going abroad can be cheaper than traveling within China, and it allows her to avoid the crowds in China during peak holiday periods. She's now planning a trip to Dubai.

In Malaysia, tourist arrivals have "not been disrupted because most of them come from Asia and the Middle East and from the emerging world," says central bank governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz.

Malaysia bucked the global downtrend in travel and managed to attract 22 million tourists in 2009, a 7% increase from the year before. Tourism spending helped boost fourth-quarter growth to 4.5%. More than a million tourists came from China for the first time. India sent nearly 590,000 tourists to Malaysia.

Overall, Southeast Asia saw a 2% increase in international visitors in 2009, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association. Global international travel fell 4%, says the World Travel Organization, led by Europe and North America, both down 6%.

The return of tourism activity is especially important to parts of Asia where the leisure travel industry is a key component of growth.

Tourism expenditures made up 13.6% of GDP in Cambodia in 2008, 9.5% in Malaysia, and 8.4% in Thailand, according to the United Nations World Travel Organization. Taiwan credited its stronger-than-expected growth to a surge in tourism after rules were relaxed on visitors from mainland China.

In the dusty colonial town of Siem Reap, visitors from South Korea, China and Taiwan have begun to stream in again after a sharp downturn in 2009. The number of Korean tourists venturing to Cambodia dropped 26% in 2009, as Korea's currency lost almost a third of its value during the financial crisis.

By December, however, Korean arrivals to Cambodia bounced back 21% compared to 2008 lows. Visitors from China and Taiwan also rebounded sharply in December, up 14% and 34% respectively, according to Cambodia's Ministry of Tourism. Tour guides, motor-taxi drivers and folks like Mr. Kwong, the winemaker, are starting to get busy again.

"More and more people are coming," says Lee KyungMi, owner of Damnak Spa, a small hotel and spa in Siem Reap that caters to Korean visitors. The native of Seoul cautions business is still not where it was two years ago, when a quarter-million Koreans visited Cambodia, many to see the Buddhist temples around Angkor Wat.

The main drag in Siem Reap is lined with Korean-owned hotels and Korean barbecue restaurants. And three new golf courses are also a magnet.

"Korean golfers are our major market," says Adam Robertson, manager of the Angkor Golf resort. They make up 70% of his customers. "When the Korean won devalued, that was hard to take." January and the first half of February was "very good."

High-end hotel operators in the area say they have seen a pickup in travelers from the U.S. and Europe, but they are aiming their biggest growth at Asian travelers.

"The last two months a lot more Koreans are coming," says Emmett McHenry, general manager at the Sokha Angkor Resort in Siem Reap. He has offered special deals to Chinese and Korean travel agencies and figures one-quarter of his visitors are from the two countries.

The rebound in travel spending points to a possible sweet spot in Asian growth. A modest demand recovery in the U.S. and Europe, combined with a confident Asian consumer, could be enough to keep Asia's economies humming for awhile.
—Juliet Ye contributed to this article.

Write to Alex Frangos at alex.frangos@wsj.com

Asia's Most Corrupt Countries

03.10.10
Hana R. Alberts
Forbes Asia

A new report shows business executives look down on Indonesia in favor of Singapore and Australia.

HONG KONG--Investors seem to have a love-hate relationship with Indonesia. Many are confident, boosting the country's benchmark stock index 115% in 2009. At the same time, Asian business executives just voted it the most corrupt country in the region.

The world's largest archipelagic nation ranks worst on the list of 16 Asia-Pacific regions, according to a report released Wednesday by the Hong Kong-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC).

PERC asked 2,174 middle and senior executives--both expatriates and those who hail from Asia--to rank the behavior of their political, civil and economic agencies, including leaders, police, courts, stock markets, taxation systems and militaries.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, commonly known as SBY, was overwhelmingly re-elected for a second term last July by a populace that craved not only economic stability but growth. And he delivered: Global demand for the nation's natural resources fueled the uptick in many fortunes on Forbes' ranking of Indonesia's richest people. (See the complete list.)

But not six months later Yudhoyono and officials he appointed came under fire when the government's bailout of a small bank was criticized as a means of funneling money into other politicians' pockets. Further dinging public confidence was the ruling Wednesday by Indonesia's House of Representatives that Century Bank's 2008 rescue was unjustified.

Ranked barely less corrupt than Indonesia in PERC's ranking were Cambodia and Vietnam, followed by the Philippines, Thailand, India and China. The cleanest places were Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and the U.S. (America was included as a benchmark.)

The economic downturn increased respondents' perceptions and criticisms of corruption in their midst, according to the study.

"It is so much easier to link cause and effect when people can relate rising unemployment and falling incomes to acts by greedy businessmen, civil servants and politicians that go unchallenged when economies are booming and everyone is making money," PERC's report says.

Indeed, in a separate survey by Transparency International that measures corruption in 180 countries, the latest corruption index shows that 75 of the nations surveyed scored below 3 on a scale of governmental honesty where 10 is the top mark--an increase from 72 countries in 2008. (See Transparency International's ranking of the world's most corrupt countries.)

Perceptions of corruption have increased over the last year, PERC's report says, in part due to political elections in which contenders lay bare opponents' misdeeds and in part due to the increasing publicity of civilian-generated complaints aired through the Internet or text messaging.

The problem is not limited to Asia. Corruption is a fixture in countries like Egypt, India, Indonesia, Morocco and Pakistan, where 60% of executives surveyed reported having been solicited for a bribe, according to Transparency International. That organization figures bribes consume an estimated $20 billion to $40 billion a year worldwide.

While PERC cautions that its study captures merely the beliefs of a slice of the Asian business community, it believes the results are useful to investors.

"They help to determine where individuals and companies select their investment sites and the magnitude of risk premiums they attach to investments in certain locations. They influence the choice of partners, suppliers and joint-venture partners," the report says. "Politicians that ignore the perceptions of their populations and foreign investors do so at their own risk."

Smarting from PERC's report, the Jakarta Globe published a story joking that Indonesia "has made it onto a list of superlatives. Unfortunately, not for something the nation should be proud of." It seems, though, that residents of the world's fourth-most population nation hold out hope for Yudhoyono and his cronies. In response to a solicitation for reader comment, Julius Phang wrote the paper: "Why would anyone be surprised? Come on Indonesia, it's time we show the world that we, too, can be clean."

JETRO opens office in Cambodia to promote trade, business ties

PHNOM PENH, March 10 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The Japan External Trade Organization officially opened its office in the Cambodian capital Wednesday to promote trade and business ties between Japan and Cambodia.

Cambodian Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said at the opening ceremony in Phnom Penh that JETRO will play an important role in "bridging business ties" between Cambodian and Japanese businesspeople, and expressed his strong hope that two-way trade as well as and Japanese investment in Cambodia will rise in the near future.

JETRO Chairman Yasuo Hayashi said at the ceremony that the new office in Cambodia will focus not only on promoting Japanese investment in Cambodia and bilateral trade, but also on developing Cambodia's export industries.

The Japanese government-backed organization, which was set up in 1958 to promote Japanese exports, changed its charter after Japan became a major exporting country and now helps Japan's trading partners to tackle the Japanese market.

Hayashi said two-way trade between Japan and Cambodia has more than doubled over the past decade, from $104 million in 2000 to $255 million in 2009.

Japanese exports to Cambodia declined by 39.4 percent in 2009 year on year to $112 million, mainly because of the financial crisis, but imports from Cambodia grew by 18.3 percent to $143 million, he said.

Japan's main exports to Cambodia are vessels, machines and transportation equipment, and its main imports are footwear and sewn products.

Hayashi said the number of Japanese companies investing in Cambodia has increased from 36 in 2008 to 57 as of the end of January this year, a growth of over 20 in less than two years.

Cham Prasidh noted that Japan ranks 14th among foreign countries investing in the country, far behind China and South Korea which rank first and second respectively in terms of size of capital investment.

He said Cambodia can offer Japanese investors a central location in Southeast Asia, a good seaport and cheap labor.

Including the newly launched office in Phnom Penh, JETRO now has offices in eight of the 10 ASEAN countries -- all except for Brunei and Laos.

Surin Pitsuwan to Hun Sen and Hor Namhong

US ponders China's Southeast Asian rise

Mar 10, 2010
By Peter J Brown
Asia Times (Hong Kong)

The United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) last month held a lengthy hearing on China's activities in Southeast Asia and the implications for US interests in the strategic region. The USCC was addressed by five members of the US Congress, a pair of senior US government officials and 10 experts and came at a time the US has promised to re-focus its diplomacy towards Southeast Asia.

USCC commissioner Larry Wortzel emphasized China's rising economic influence in the region, noting that numerous China-funded resource extraction projects were underway "with the goal of fueling China's continued economic development". He noted that Beijing also provides low-interest loans to fund infrastructure projects, especially in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

While China's economic overtures in the region are well documented, Wortzel noted that China has recently expanded its security interactions with Southeast Asia, including through arms sales and joint military exercises. "High-level military visits between China and Southeast Asia have been on the rise, as have port calls from Chinese naval vessels," said Wortzel.

The hearing followed a trip in December by USCC members to Taiwan and Vietnam, where discussions were held regarding China's growing presence in the region. While security ties are expanding, the USCC was frequently reminded in Vietnam that there was increasing anxiety in Hanoi about China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea, where several regional countries have overlapping claims.

"As the Chinese navy improves its strength to include a possible aircraft carrier fleet in the near future, the balance of power in the region will swing strongly in China's favor,” said Wortzel. "Already some nations are beginning to react, as demonstrated with Vietnam's recently announced plans to purchase from Russia six advanced submarines and 12 fighter aircraft. The confirmed presence of oil and natural gas in the region only exacerbates this trend," said Wortzel.

US congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a ranking member of the House's Foreign Affairs Committee, was more outspoken in his criticism of Beijing's rising regional influence, referring to China as "a totalitarian country seeking to become a totalitarian empire [and] spreading its influence and domination throughout the region, particularly in Southeast Asia".

Of all the countries in Asia, "perhaps the most friendly relationship [China] has is with the gangster regime that now controls Burma [Myanmar]. China has armed the Burmese junta to the teeth and in exchange it has ripped off the Burmese people, taking their great natural resources," said Rohrabacher.

Ellen Frost, visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said Southeast Asian governments are keeping a watchful eye on China's growing military might. While they have been greatly reassured by China's recent behavior, some are still unsure of China's ultimate goals, she said.

"Older leaders remember the time when China was actively supporting insurgencies in their countries. Rather than seeking to build a coalition against China, Southeast Asian statesmen have opted to 'embed' China in organizations whose location and agenda are in their control," said Frost.

"They calculate that enmeshing China in a plethora of agreements and committees encourages peaceful and cooperative behavior and bolsters regional stability. But just to be safe, many ASEAN governments are reaffirming or strengthening their military ties with the United States." The Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) countries are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Frost emphasized that ASEAN leaders are seeking to maximize their collective voice in the region and in the wider world. "They calculate that giving China a leading role in regional organizations makes it more likely that other powers will pay more attention to the region and engage with ASEAN countries on even more attractive terms," said Frost.

Double-edged economics

According to David Shear, US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, "It is clear that both [China] and the ASEAN countries see mutual benefits to be had from expanded trade," and, "China's economic ties to the region will likely grow further under the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement [CAFTA] that became effective [on] the first of this year."

Shear also contended that in the process "China has produced local economic dislocation and tensions for some Southeast Asian economies" and there is growing concern "that competition from low-cost goods from China could adversely affect their domestic industries". Shear noted that Indonesia has already called for a revision to the agreement due to those concerns.

While Southeast Asians "recognize big opportunities in China, they continue to see economic ties with the US and others as vital", said Shear.

China's total trade with the region reached US$193 billion in 2008, up from $45.5 billion in 2001. While Beijing's direct investment in the region still pales compared with the US and Japan, its direct aid has been considerably larger.

Beijing has put forward a $10 billion infrastructure investment fund to improve roads, railways, airlines and information-telecommunication links between China and ASEAN countries, according to ASEAN secretary general Surin Pitsuwan. Beijing has also provided a $15 billion credit facility to promote regional integration and connectivity, he said.

Chinese diplomacy, often referred to as "soft power”, has also emphasized cultural connections. For example, more Thai students - some 10,000 - now study in China than in the US. Shear noted that China opened its first Confucius Institute in Asia in 2004 and that today there are 70 across Asia and 282 globally. "There are 12 institutes in Thailand alone, and China recently opened the first institute in Cambodia," said Shear.

The competition for hearts and minds has also taken to the airwaves. While the US has long promoted Radio Free Asia and Voice of America radio programs in the region, China launched China-Cambodia Friendship Radio in December 2008. "The actual effects of China's efforts on local views of and sensitivities to Chinese interests remain an area of US interest," said Shear.

"It has been said that in order to pursue successful diplomacy in Southeast Asia, all you have to do is show up. This is too low a standard and this administration will do more," said Shear. He acknowledged that previous US presidents had missed Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summits, secretaries of state had bypassed ASEAN Regional Forum meetings and senior US officials had not spent enough time tending to regional bilateral relationships.

"The [Barack] Obama administration's message to resolve this problem has been simple: we're back and ready to be actively involved," said Shear, noting that Washington intends soon to name a Jakarta-based ambassador to ASEAN and begin consultations on how the US can play a role in the East Asia Summit, a grouping of 16 countries in the East Asian region that meets annually.

Ernest Bower, senior adviser and director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies emphasized that "Southeast Asia wants and needs the US [to] step up its game and articulate a strategy to advance its interests in the region. Only then will Southeast Asia's atavistic hunger for balance be fed."

Bower said China is not perceived in Southeast Asia as "a very large, awkwardly ideological, self-focused, security concern to the north", but rather "an engaged and interested neighbor providing significant benefits in trade, aid, tourism and the promise of increased investment and prosperity".

"China has made it easier for Southeast Asian students to travel and study in China and is providing scholarships at several levels, including master's and doctorate degrees. Chinese policies toward Southeast Asia over the last 15 years have transformed from ideological to opportunistic and pragmatic," said Bower.

He said on occasion China has overplayed its hand to its disadvantage, including in the South China Sea or when it pressured the government in Cambodia to send Uyghur refugees back to China late last year.

"The region's leaders recognize these examples as the iron fist that flexes under the velvet glove of China's new diplomacy," said Bower. "Southeast Asia's primary concern, as it was 15 years ago, remains maintaining balance among the major powers ... Perhaps the most significant difference between China and the US in Southeast Asia is that China has a clear strategy for the region, and the US does not," he said.

Divergent diplomacies

Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, noted key differences in how the US and China conduct diplomacy towards the region.

"You simply cannot understand ASEAN's decision-making process the way we learned it in school, with countries strategically seeking to maximize advantages without consideration for the domestic, sometimes personal, demands on leaders. The Chinese approach to economic diplomacy accounts for this dynamic in a way that ours does not," said Lohman.

"The US cannot replicate the Chinese effort in Southeast Asia. Obviously, American officials are accountable to the American people in a way that the Chinese are not to their own. We cannot structure trade agreements in ways that choose winners and losers by diplomatic or industrial policy imperative.

"The Chinese are also closer and have more diplomats to throw at ASEAN. We can do better than we are in covering ASEAN, but we cannot match the Chinese diplomat for diplomat, forum for forum," Lohman added, saying that the US should not "buck the current economic order", but instead "leverage" into it.

"If the Chinese want to invest in ASEAN's infrastructure, fine. The US should have relationships in the region that help ASEAN determine its priorities and voice its concerns. If Chinese multinationals want to invest in ASEAN, great. Work to bring them into compliance with US-friendly standards and integrate them into American supply chains," said Lohman.

"If there is to be more ASEAN-China trade, American companies ought to be invested in it on both sides of the border and integrated into markets back home. Fighting current economic trends undermines the credibility of our leadership."

Catharin Dalpino, visiting associate professor at Georgetown University, addressed Beijing's sub-regional strategies and how China's role in mainland Southeast Asia "is increasingly distinct from its relationship to maritime Southeast Asia".

"This is primarily a matter of degree rather than dramatic differences in Chinese policy toward the two sub-regions; however, China's greater focus on and penetration of the mainland has created a de facto separation," said Dalpino. "This growing edge in mainland Southeast Asia has not developed in a vacuum; it was facilitated by the unevenness of US policy toward these two sub-regions for several years and Washington's relative neglect of mainland Southeast Asia."

She noted, for instance, that "the alliance with Thailand has been on auto-pilot for several years".

"On a more fundamental level, younger-generation Thais do not grasp a rationale for the alliance relationship and point to the reluctance of the United States to offer bilateral aid to Thailand in the 1997 financial crisis and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are remote to many Thais, as examples of the dissonance between the two countries," said Dalpino.

Bronson Percival, senior advisor at CNA's Center for Strategic Studies in Virginia, contended that "the US is well-balanced in Southeast Asia" and that it had consistently insisted that the "theme is not the US versus China in Southeast Asia".

"Moreover, the Obama administration has now reversed popular anti-Americanism during the [George W] Bush administration and the widespread perception of US neglect through several symbolic gestures, including signing ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. The US Pacific Command has built a dense network of military-to-military ties, particularly in maritime Southeast Asia," said Percival, who called for the US to "shift its focus in Southeast Asia from humanitarian issues such as Burma to critical security issues such as the South China Sea.

"We don't know if Beijing is launched on a process of 'nibbling imperialism' in the South China Sea, but preventing Chinese domination of this sea and maintaining free passage for US armed forces and for energy supplies is critical for US alliances in Northeast Asia and, indeed, for the maintenance of the entire US position in East Asia." he said.

Peter J Brown is a freelance writer from Maine USA.

Cambodian Formal Reaction towards ASEAN Secretary General

Detainees allege abuse at Kansai holding center

Welcome to Japan: Ugandan visa overstayer Moses Ssentamu says he was beaten up by a group of guards at the West Japan Immigration Center in Ibaraki City, Osaka Pref., in January. DAVID McNEILL PHOTO
THE ZEIT GIST

Guards meting out harsh treatment behind the walls of Ibaraki immigration facility, say inmates

By DAVID McNEILL
Special to The Japan Times
Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The only way to see or speak to Moses Ssentamu is through a Plexiglas window at the West Japan Immigration Center in Ibaraki City, so there is no independent way to verify his claims of physical and psychological abuse. But if true, they raise serious concerns about Japan's treatment of visa overstayers and asylum seekers.

Did a group of security guards at the center punch and kick Ssentamu in a coordinated assault in January? Are the authorities at the complex in Osaka Prefecture refusing medical treatment to another inmate, Mujahid Aziz Iqbal, a wheelchair-bound Pakistani? And, most serious of all, do detention centers here deliberately dole out harsh treatment in the hope that detainees will leave the country?

Ssentamu, 35, has been locked up here for over a year since being arrested for overstaying in 2008. Back in his homeland, he says he was active with the opposition Forum for Democratic Change Uganda, and claims to have been arrested and tortured by the authorities. Facing a trial for sedition he knew he couldn't win, he decided to flee the country, leaving behind his wife and four kids.

"It was not my decision to come here," he explains. "I didn't know anything about this country, but a sympathizer got me a visa — he said it was the easiest place to get one at that time."

Arriving on a three-month visa in May 2006, Ssentamu says that he found his way via a local Ugandan contact to Nagoya, where he slept rough and sold imported jeans around the city for a living. Friends told him the only way to stay in Japan "was to marry a Japanese woman," he recalls, and then apply for political refugee status. But on Nov. 29, 2008, before he could do either, he was picked up by the police.

Fifteen months later, he has no idea when he will get out, or if the Ministry of Justice will buy his argument that going back to Uganda could be dangerous, even fatal.

"I'm not a criminal. I want to be released and given a chance to produce evidence of my political treatment and persecution."

While the authorities process that claim, however, they have another one to ponder. On Jan. 15, Ssentamu says that he was assaulted after he mildly protested during his transportation to a hospital outside the center.

"I was being taken for a doctor's appointment and I was handcuffed by two guards," he recalls. "When I complained that my handcuffs were too tight and (asked) that the guards loosen them a little, one insisted that he could do nothing about them. Given that the entire journey to the hospital takes an hour or so, I said I couldn't endure the discomfort, so I told them I was not willing to go."

Ssentamu's guards responded angrily to the challenge, he says, shoving and pushing him back into his room, where he admits he "tried to protest" — verbally, he insists. After the guards had subdued him, they returned sometime later, he says, with "20 or more" officers, all clad in black gloves, who told him they were there to help him change rooms. As he began to prepare, the guards grabbed him and "manhandled" him out of the room.

"In no second or minute, I was in the air with showers of kicking under my back, blows on my stomach," Ssentamu later wrote in a letter sent to The Japan Times, Amnesty International and several other organizations that deal with refugee and asylum issues. "(As) all this was happening, one of the first two officers was blocking my face with the palm of his hand to prevent me from recognizing the faces of the officers who were assaulting me."

Ssentamu says he was then dumped in a "punishment room" where the officers pushed his head down a toilet bowl as they struggled to handcuff and subdue him. A guard later told him, as he lay on the floor with his "pants around his ankles," that he was being punished for refusing to go to hospital. He would spend five days in solitary confinement.

The detention center denies any such assault took place.

"That's a lie," says spokesman Norifumi Kishida. "Guards may handcuff or subdue an inmate if he is doing harm to himself or others, but there is no way that so many guards would deliberately harm an inmate."

Nearly two months after this alleged assault, Ssentamu is unable to show any visible scars, except for marks on his wrists he says were left by the tight handcuffs.

"I was not badly hurt; I was humiliated," he says.

Without proof, there remains the possibility that it is a fabrication, albeit an elaborate, detailed one that risks further worsening his relationship with the authorities or even prejudicing his asylum application.

In 2005, Japan deported two members of a seven-member Kurdish family who had been "recognized as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees under its own rules," according to a recent report by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA). Many believe the family's decision to publicly protest and speak to the media about their treatment was a factor in the deportation decision (Zeit Gist, April 29, 2003; March 29, 2005; July 3, 2007).

The JFBA says Japan gave refugee status to just 6.5 percent of 3,292 asylum applicants from 1985 to 2005. The federation notes that while hundreds of applications from Kurds, Chinese and Africans were rejected, applicants from Myanmar were given preferred status, concluding: "It is inferred that the government have paid diplomatic consideration in the background." In other words, Japan's refugee selection process is nakedly political.

Ssentamu's lawyer, Shiro Sadakane, refused to back his client's claims of abuse, except to say that he has heard of "similar cases." Amnesty International and the Japan Association for Refugees acknowledge that they have received the Ugandan's letter. Makoto Teranaka, Amnesty Japan's secretary general, declined to comment on its specific claims, but said the secrecy surrounding Japan's detention system is a problem.

"It means we can't see what's going on inside. The detention system is much less organized than the prisons, and we've noted quite arbitrary treatment of people inside."

He says his office receives a steady stream of letters and calls from refugees alleging mistreatment in detention centers.

"The number of complaints has been growing since about 2000. It's quite common now."

Another inmate at the west Japan center, 37-year-old Mujahid Aziz Iqbal, says he has lost over 14 kg in weight and the use of his legs since last October, probably because of a psychosomatic disorder. He was convicted of selling stolen cars and faces deportation back to Pakistan. In addition to specific claims of mistreatment by some of the guards, he says the center has refused his demand for treatment and responded to his condition by offering "useless" painkillers.

"They keep saying that I have to wait my turn to go to hospital, but I need help now."

Both men admit that their ordeal would end if they simply told the Ministry of Justice that they want to return home. But for the Pakistani, who has been in Japan for 15 years and has two children to his ex-wife, leaving is not an option.

"I want to see my children. Relations with my wife are bad, but my kids love me."

Ssentamu, meanwhile, believes that the conditions inside the center, including rooms with single toilets shared by eight to 10 inmates, serve a purpose: deterrence.

"These are deliberate acts aimed at breaking down the will to seek refuge in this country." He says some inmates have been inside the center for over two years.

According to the Japan Association for Refugees, detention center inmates can apply for provisional release, but the bar is set very high. They need a Japanese guarantor and bail of ¥500,000 to ¥1 million.

"Most do not have that kind of money and they cannot find a guarantor," explains Soojin Hyung, the association's program officer. On average, therefore, Hyung says, it takes about a year to be released.

"Many people suspect that because the Japanese government is afraid to deport people in case of international criticism, they would rather detain them. It's a means of deterrence — foreigners know that if they come here without a visa, they're going to suffer. It's sending out a message: Don't come here."

Ssentamu is still in a cell by himself — punishment, he claims, for protesting and urging others to speak out. Confinement is worsened by a myriad of petty official humiliations including cold food and a lack of water to flush toilets. Is he just making life hard for himself by breaking the rules and refusing to accept his punishment?

"Civil activists the world over who fight for their rights are called troublemakers," he says from behind his Plexiglas wall. "I'm fighting for my rights."

Send comments on this issue and story ideas to community@japantimes.co.jp

Good manners for Japanese students

Universities give pointers on how to behave, separate garbage, obey law

Features Desk
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Publication Date : 05-03-2010

ILLUSTRATION FROM THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN

A growing number of universities and colleges in Japan have started providing information on good manners to their students, especially freshmen, including how to behave as they travel to and from university, how to separate garbage for disposal and recycling, and why they should not break the law.

Most of the advice might seem like common sense, but many university officials say they have had to train their students in good manners because many do not seem to have much awareness of what behaviour is considered socially acceptable.

Students at Tokyo Women's College and Junior College of Physical Education in Kunitachi, western Tokyo, are to be posted at 10 spots along the 800m-long route from JR Nishi-Kunitachi Station to their campus for a week in April to watch whether fellow students, especially freshmen, behave appropriately.

According to officials of the university, some students have been seen behaving badly in the past, such as cycling while using a cell phone or eating cup noodles while walking.

About a year ago, after receiving a number of complaints from people who live between the station and campus, the school decided to place student representatives along the route to monitor the behavior of the other students at the beginning of the academic year and other occasions.

"It's effective because the message sinks in when you receive advice from your peers," sophomore Saki Mikawa, 20, said.

Kyoto University, where in recent years some students have been arrested for cannabis possession and other crimes, holds a special lecture in April to inform students of the importance of complying with laws.

The lecture, which includes a video on the hazards of taking illegal drugs, is going to be counted for credit from the next school year.

At Kanazawa University, professor Toru Furuhata teaches freshmen such things as how to take notes and how to separate garbage in a course that addresses social and university life.

"Some students asked me why I teach such basic things," Furuhata said. "But we have received complaints about the way some students put out their trash. I want them learn such commonsense skills before going out into the real world."

A lack of good manners among university students is behind such moves.

At International Christian University in Mitaka, western Tokyo, many students do not return library books before the end of lending periods. The university decided to charge 10 yen per day as a late fee and does not allow students to graduate if they have outstanding late fees. One student owed 70,000 yen in late fees as of Tuesday (March 2), officials of the university said.

In 2008, three Kyoto Sangyo University students were found to have written their names and other messages on a column of a World Heritage-listed cathedral in Florence. The university's guidebook now tells freshmen not to litter, grafitti or use drugs.

At North Asia University in Akita, some staffers regularly walk around the campus to check if students have dyed hair or are wearing piercings, both of which the university forbids in principle.

Snowboarder Kazuhiro Kokubo, who participated in last month's Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, is a student of Tokai University. Unfortunately for the university, Kokubo became famous for wearing the Japanese Olympic uniform in a manner deemed inappropriate and for his subsequent nonchalant apology for doing so at a press conference.

The university released a statement apologising for Kokubo's actions. Though it does not have a dress code, it said it would take steps to improve the behaviour and clothing of its students via instruction from teachers or varsity sports club coaches.

Professor Motohisa Kaneko of Tokyo University, an expert in higher education and a member of the Central Council for Education, said: "Many universities are seeking ways to help students act in a more mature way. One of the reasons they have begun focusing on good manners and morality is the tight employment situation in recent years. Students who lack common sense likely will fail to find a job."

Q+A: What's the Good Practice Project?

05 Mar 2010
Written by: Thin Lei Win

PHNOM PENH (AlertNet) - Advocacy and aid groups in Cambodia have expressed concerns about a proposed law regulating non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the Southeast Asian country.

The issue has raised a wider question about governance in the sector crowded with hundreds if not thousands of players.

Here are some questions and answers about a home-grown system aimed at self-regulation.

What is the Good Practice Project (GPP)?

Launched two years ago, the Good Practice Project (GPP) is an attempt by Cambodia's NGO community to clean its own house before the NGO and Associations Law comes into force. Under the GPP, NGOs undergo a voluntary certification system and agree to comply with a set of ethical principles (the Code of Ethical Principles and Minimum Standards for NGOs in Cambodia).

The NGOs must first be registered with relevant ministries and have been operating for three years at least.

Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC), a two-decade old umbrella group for over 100 local and international NGOs helped developed GPP.

Why is it needed?

Twelve years after the end of a brutal civil war, Cambodia now boasts thousands of NGOs and associations. Figures vary -- the government says there are over 3,000 while an NGO umbrella group says around 1,000 exist. There has been criticism over the conduct of some NGOs and the NGO community concedes there is a need for accountability.

What is the Code of Ethical Principles and Minimum Standards for NGOs in Cambodia?

This is a set of principles and minimum guidelines for NGOs on a host of issues ranging from mission and values and governance to accountability and transparency and human resources.

GPP team members say the idea is to guide NGOs to become more professional in their everyday practice as well as to inform public and interested parties about the principles they can expect NGOs to uphold.

The NGOs who wants to be certified by the GPP has to ensure they comply with the code. The first version of the code was drafted in 1995.

How does it work?

The NGOs who have decided to get the certification need to go through a series of steps including submitting a written application and documentation such as annual audit statements, annual reports and organizational statues.

Before they receive certification as Good Practice NGOs, GPP staff will review the documents and the NGOs' programmes through field visits. Once all the criteria have been fulfilled, they will receive a certification lasting three years.

What does it mean for organizations to be certified?

In theory, the certification will act as a stamp of approval of the NGO and an assurance to the general public as well as the government over the integrity of the individuals and organizations involved and the effectiveness of its programmes.

Increasingly, it will also become an asset with the donors. Already, the Australian government's aid agency Aus AID lists the certification as a requirement when calling for NGOs to send in proposals for aid projects.

How many have been certified under the GPP?

So far only 17 have been certified out of 51 applications. These include a wide range of NGOs such as the Non-Timber Forest Products Organisation, street children charity Mith Samlanh and Salvation Center Cambodia where Buddhist monks provide spiritual and practical support to HIV/AIDS patients.

Although the number may seem miniscule given the size of the NGO community in Cambodia, GPP said it had seen an increase in applications, possibly due to concerns over the impending NGO law.

Woman starved son, 5, to death because he looked like husband?

Friday, March 5, 2010

NARA (Kyodo) A 26-year-old Nara Prefecture woman who was arrested together with her husband Wednesday for allegedly starving their 5-year-old son to death has told investigators she could not feel any affection for him because of his resemblance to his father, police sources said Thursday.

Mami Yoshida, a part-time worker, also told investigators her relationship with her husband, Hiroshi, 35, a corporate employee, had soured. The investigators reckon the couple's worsening relations led to the abuse of their son, Tomoki.

Yoshida said she felt affection for the couple's other child, a daughter, 3, who shows no signs of having been abused.

Her husband was quoted as saying he was aware their son had been getting weak, but did nothing to protect him.

They are suspected of having failed to give sufficient food or provide necessary medical care for their son since early January.

On Wednesday, the boy was found unconscious by a municipal official who visited the family home after Yoshida called a child counseling center. The boy was lying on a futon wearing a diaper and looking emaciated, the city said.

The official called an ambulance to take the boy to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Although the average height of a 5-year-old is 110 cm, their son was only 85 cm tall and weighed just 6.2 kg, a third of the average weight.

On Thursday, the police conducted an autopsy and also raided the couple's home in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, in search of evidence.

According to the police, while the couple took their daughter to a day care center while they worked, they left their son alone at home and did not take him to a kindergarten or a day care center.

The Sakurai Municipal Government said the boy underwent a regular health check for 10-month-old babies in 2005. But the parents failed to ensure their son had regular checkups in 2006, when he became 18 months old, and in 2008, when he turned 3 1/2 years old.

In response to the municipal inquiries on those occasions, Mami told officials she needed rest as she was pregnant and could not take her son to the health checkups because she was busy caring for a relative.

Fatal abuse arrest

SAITAMA (Kyodo) Police arrested a couple Thursday in Warabi, Saitama Prefecture, on suspicion of failing to provide sufficient food for their son, who became weak and died in February 2008.

The 4-year-old son of Masami Shindo, 47, and his wife, Sanae, 37, weighed only 10 kg and was 94 cm tall at the time of his death, the police said.

The couple are suspected of failing to bathe and feed the boy, making it difficult for him to walk. They did not take him to see a doctor despite his poor health, the investigation found.

An autopsy showed that the boy, who was hospitalized on Feb. 11, 2008, following an emergency call, suffered from malnutrition and died of acute encephalopathy.

The boy and his brother, 10, lived with their parents at the time. The older son now lives in a child nursing facility.

ANZ CEO predicts healthy recovery (for Cambodia)

The Phnom Penh Post
Ellie Dyer
Friday, 05 March 2010 15:03

ANZ Banking Group’s global chief painted a positive picture of Cambodia’s economic future during a key-note speech Thursday in Phnom Penh.

Speaking to the Australian Business Association at the capital’s Intercontinental Hotel, ANZ’s Chief Executive Officer Mike Smith predicted Cambodia would see 5 percent economic growth in 2010 after “a difficult” 2009.

The forecast is higher than the 4.25 percent GDP growth predicted for the Kingdom in December by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which warned that “risks are clearly tilted to the downside”.

The World Bank has estimated that Cambodia’s GDP was US$9.4 billion in 2008.

When quizzed about his estimate by a member of the 170-strong audience, who described it as “the most bullish we have heard”, Smith said: “I think we can be more optimistic.”

The financial heavyweight, who was once president and CEO of HSBC, said the Kingdom was experiencing infrastructure development and rising productivity in the agricultural sector.

He said he believes that an awareness of the need for nations within the Greater Mekong area – consisting of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam – to work together, coupled with “more significant” inter-country trade, will provide a boost for the economy.

“What made 2009 so difficult was the export dependency Cambodia had with the US and Europe. There is an opportunity now to focus on trade within the region,” he said, before pointing to statistics released last week which indicated that Cambodia and Indonesian bilateral trade rose 24 percent in the first 10 months of 2009 from the same period in 2008, increasing to $165 million from $133 million.

Smith’s confidence comes as Cambodia has entered into free-trade agreements with its fellow ASEAN member nations and China.

Both pacts came into effect on January 1 this year and ensure that the Kingdom will gradually decrease trade levies on many goods to zero by 2015.

Cambodia railway to be fully open by 2013

PHNOM PENH, March 5 (AFP) – Cambodia's rail network should be restored by 2013 with the help of millions of dollars in international aid, the country's finance minister said.

Trains have only run sporadically in Cambodia since the country's civil war ended in the 1990s, but finance minister Keat Chhon said workers will complete an overhaul of the rail system in the next few years.

''The project implementation started in 2007 and expects to be complete in 2013,'' Keat Chhon said during a ceremony in which the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Australian government gave more funds to complete the rail network.

Officials hope patching up Cambodia's railways will boost the country's economic growth and facilitate trade with other countries in Southeast Asia.

The total cost to reconstruct the 600 kilometers (373 miles) of rails, connecting them to highways and ports, is expected to be 141.6 million dollars, Keat Chhon said.

The minister made his remarks after receiving an additional loan of $42 million from the ADB and a grant of $21.5 million from Australia for the project.

The ADB has provided $84 million in total loans to restore Cambodia's railway, he said.

Another $13 million come from the OPEC Fund for international development, while Malaysia had contributed 106 kilometers of track worth $2.8 million, Keat Chhon added.

It has long been a regional dream to connect Asia by rail, and many of the gaps in the railway are in Southeast Asia, with only Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand operating cross-border links.

UN Set to Boost ICT Capacity of Cambodia

UN ESCAP

Launch of the Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders in Cambodia Opening Session at the Intercontinental Hotel, Phnom Penh, Tuesday 9 March, 8:30 am

Cambodian human resource capacity in the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for socio-economic development is set to make a great stride with the launch of a United Nations ICT capacity building programme. High-level officials are to attend the inaugural National Workshop of the “Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders” (Academy), a core ICT for development curriculum developed by the United Nations Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (UN-APCICT/ESCAP), at the Intercontinental Hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia from 9 to 12 March. The event is co-organized by APCICT and the National Information Communications Technology Development Authority (NiDA) of Cambodia.

H.E. Leewood Phu, Secretary General of NiDA, and Dr. Hyeun-Suk Rhee, Director of APCICT will preside over the signing ceremony. Over fifty participants are expected to attend, including senior government officials responsible for ICT and or e-Government projects, officials from over twenty government ministries, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry of Rural Development, and the Ministry of Women, as well as academics from numerous universities, and representatives from international development agencies based in Phnom Penh.

In identifying ICT for development as a national objective, Cambodian officials have targeted ICT human resource capacity building as a key priority. Equipping policymakers and project managers with the necessary ICT skills and knowledge to develop and deliver effective public services is the primary objective of the Academy. The Academy includes a comprehensive curriculum on ICT for development, currently with eight standalone but interlinked modules. The Academy has been adopted and institutionalized into national ICT human capacity building frameworks in a dozen countries in Asia and the Pacific since its official launch at the OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy in June, 2008. More partners are working with APCICT to roll out the Academy at the national level throughout Asia and the Pacific.

The launch event in Phnom Penh will be immediately followed by a four-day Academy training workshop. Three Academy modules will be delivered throughout the workshop: Module 1 – The Linkage between ICT Applications and Meaningful Development; Module 2 – ICT for Development Policy, Process and Governance; and Module 3 – e-Government Applications.

The workshop comes at a time when Cambodia’s recently established e-government system, the Provincial Administration Information System (PAIS) has grown to serve 10 out of the country’s 24 provinces. In coordination with ACPICT, NiDA will continue to implement and disseminate the comprehensive Academy training curriculum in order to increase ICT human resource capacity at various levels of the Cambodian government, secure sustainable funding for future training and ICT related projects and programmes and enhance e-governance capabilities.