Land mine victims face bleak prospects: survey

Source: Phnom Penh Post

DISCRIMINATION and poor education are among the factors preventing land mine victims from finding jobs, depriving many of access to basic necessities such as food, water and housing, according to a new survey of land mine survivors.

Nearly three-quarters of survey respondents said they believed land mine survivors were the last to be chosen for jobs, according to a report on the findings from Handicap International titled "Voices from the Ground: Landmine and Explosive Remnants of War Survivors Speak Out on Victim Assistance".

The report, released Wednesday, was tied to the launch of a campaign calling on an upcoming mine action conference to increase assistance to amputees and other land mine survivors. At that conference, to be held in Cartagena, Colombia, Cambodia will present its national strategy for clearing all antipersonnel mines, a requirement under the 1997 Ottawa Treaty.

Whereas Cambodia has made marked improvements in the medical care and physical rehabilitation of land mine survivors, economic integration and employment opportunities are still lagging, according to the report, which drew on the responses of 78 survivors.

Chhay Sorn, a 47-year-old land mine survivor, said in an interview Thursday that the bleak job outlook prompted him to move from his native Kandal province to Phnom Penh five years ago. He now earns between US$1 and $2 each day begging money from tourists on Sisowath Quay.

He said he was injured in a land mine explosion in Pailin while fighting the Khmer Rouge in 1981. After he recovered, an NGO trained him to make artificial legs and wheelchairs, he said, but the money he was able to earn with that training was insufficient, even though he was unmarried and had no children.

"It was very difficult for me to find a job because there is discrimination against crippled men in this society," he said.

More than two-thirds of respondents said they believed economic reintegration opportunities had not improved since 2005, according to the report.

Only 17 percent said they had seen some improvement. But the report noted some progress on the discrimination front: 73 percent said they believed educational and professional discrimination had decreased.

Thong Vinol, executive director of the Disability Action Council, said Thursday that he had also seen a decrease in discrimination, adding that disability legislation adopted and approved earlier this year would be "a key instrument" in reducing it further.

That said, the survey found that discriminatory hiring policies remained in place in government schools, and that the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation continued to insist that job applicants be "able-bodied".

Officials from the ministries could not be reached for comment Thursday. The report noted that the Education Ministry was "revising its policies".

The survey yielded a particularly dismal assessment of the government pension system, with delayed payments and bribery among the issues reported.

The report warned several times that Cambodia's dependence on external support for disability services might not be sustainable: "Donor fatigue and prospects of reduced aid were considered as challenges to continuing the current level of service provision.

"Heng Ratana, director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, said he had not seen the report, but that Cambodia had "limited resources" and would need to rely on external support for the foreseeable future.

This view was echoed by Chum Bunrong, secretary general of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victims Assistance Authority. "Cambodia is poor.

That's why it needs NGOs to help," he said. The Phnom Penh office of Handicap International Belgium declined to comment in advance of a forthcoming press conference to announce the report's findings.

Three Advocates To Address US Rights Commission

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
04 September 2009

Three prominent Cambodians are scheduled as key participants in a US congressional hearing on human rights this month, as concerns persist over the government’s ongoing treatment of dissenters.

Mu Sochua, a Kampot National Assembly representative for the Sam Rainsy Party who recently lost a defamation suit to Prime Minister Hun Sen, is set to join Kek Galabru, founder of the rights group Licadho, and Moeun Tola, head of the Community Legal Education Center’s labor program, in Washington Sept. 10.

“It’s high time that we all talk about the reality there, and we have enough evidence,” said Mu Sochua, who last month was ordered to pay more than $4,000 in fines and compensation after she brought a suit against Hun Sen for allegedly degrading remarks in a speech in April.

The three are scheduled to give testimony to the House of Representative’s Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, co-chaired by Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia, and James McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, examining “a concerning trend in the Cambodian government’s overall human rights record,” according to the commission.

The commission cited as one reason for the hearing a July 29 Washington Post report of “a heightened crackdown on journalists and opposition activists” that “has provoked new concern that the government [of Cambodia] is engaging in widespread abuse of the nation’s legal system to muzzle its detractors.”

It also referred to Mu Sochua’s defamation case, diminished rights for workers and labor, and the eviction of people from their land without compensation.

Mu Sochua said in an interview in Washington Tuesday she would discuss these issues and the suspension of her own parliamentary immunity, along with another SRP colleague, which paved the way for two lawsuits.

“I would like to make it clear that the Sam Rainsy Party will not make an appeal to cut aid to Cambodia, so the Cambodian people should not worry about this,” Mu Sochua said. “We are here at the US Congress to provide truth about a grave situation that might affect democracy and human rights in Cambodia.”

Kek Galabru said she will ask the US to assist Cambodia in ensuring its courts are made independent and in finding ways to tackle land issues.

“The land issue is very important because it is the life and bread of some 80 percent of Cambodians living in rural areas,” she said by phone Wednesday.

“The US should help find a way to distribute land in a fair manner to ensure good, successful and positive developments where the majority of people benefit, not just a small group, leaving the majority in tears,” she said.

Meanwhile, shorter work contracts for workers after a US quota program ended and suits filed against labor leaders are a concern, said Moeun Tola, adding “past killings of [union leaders] have never been solved…which is a threat to the freedom of unions.”

The rights commission hearing was announced Aug. 25, and its examination of the situation in Cambodia is a rare instance. Along with the Cambodians invited are representatives from the US State Department.

“I am sorry that the commission only invited an opposition team, without inviting another side…to give a balanced report and find out the truth for a solution,” said Koy Kuong, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

That the administration was not invited was “not fair, not neutral, and biased,” he said. “It won’t help promote human rights.”

Cambodia’s own human rights committee, headed by senior Hun Sen adviser Om Yienteng, was not aware of the hearing.

Om Yentieng, contacted Monday, said the government had not broken any laws in pursuing lawsuits against Mu Sochua and others.

“When they sue us, they push us to the court, but once we countersue, they tell us not to and ask us to leave them to exercise their freedom of expression,” he said. “I think that we should have a clear grammar for democracy. We should not use democracy wrongly and out of grammar, causing people to copy a bad example.”

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Blast Targets German Troops in Afghanistan

By VOA News
05 September 2009

A roadside bomb exploded Saturday near a convoy of German troops in northern Afghanistan, a day after German military commanders ordered a NATO airstrike in the region, killing up to 90 people, many of them civilians.

Authorities say the blast damaged vehicles, but there are no report of any serious injuries from Saturday's explosion.

NATO is calling for an investigation of Friday's air strike that blew up two fuel trucks in a massive explosion.

The pre-dawn strike was ordered by German military commanders after fuel trucks that had been hijacked earlier by Taliban militants were spotted on a river bank in the Northern Kunduz province, surrounded by what appeared to be insurgents, in the process of unloading the tankers.

German officials say the order to attack was given because the trucks could be used as weapons in a suicide attack against nearby German troops.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the NATO command in Afghanistan are promising full investigations into the civilian deaths.

Mr. Karzai issued a statement saying "targeting civilians is unacceptable."

Provincial officials say the strike killed 56 Taliban militants and a large number of civilians, including children who had been called to the area by the Taliban members to remove fuel from the tankers.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Zemarai Bashary, said the government is working to confirm civilian casualties.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs expressed concern about the reports of civilian deaths. Afghan civilian deaths during foreign military operations have caused resentment among the public.U.S.

Army General Stanley McChrystal ordered U.S. and NATO troops in July to limit the use of air strikes to try to reduce such casualties.

U.S. military commanders say protecting Afghan civilians and providing security is a focal point of the Obama administration's revamped strategy in Afghanistan.