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).