A Change of Guard

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Sunday 27 May 2012

Cambodia's crackdown on land grab protests

At least 400,000 people are affected by increasingly common land disputes in Cambodia.

Now the government has decided to crack down on protests against land grabs by arresting anyone who is caught organising a protest.

Already more than a dozen people have been charged.


Al Jazeera's Stephanie Scawen reports from the capital, Phnom Penh.





Note by School of Vice

Yes, it is a well oiled, rehearsed response given by CPP hierarchy to foreign reporters and media, be it to do with the plight of the thousands who live along the polluted river Sesan, the impact of gigantic hydraulic dams, the clearing of vast swathes of forested lands to make way for so-called development projects such as rubber and oil-palm plantations etc. The implication is that any material losses befallen upon such “minority” groups as a result of implementing these projects would be tolerable, necessary price to pay for the greater overall benefits to be gained by the vast majority of people. So it's quite all right if a few innocent people get shot, killed, imprisoned, beaten and so on whilst the country is being developed!

Furthermore, as this report mentions the government tries “to develop the country” by granting land concessions to private companies but it faces corruption, making it sound almost as if "the government" itself is somehow helpless bystander in all of this whereas all the indications and evidence point to direct correlations in agreements affected at the highest echelons of government and so-called investment companies who invariably set about implementing their approved projects with scant regard being paid to the possibility of local livelihoods being destroyed or to environmental concerns.

Certainly some lower level officials may be benefitting from the chain of institutional corruption, and whilst the government sees short-term merit in allowing corruption to flourish because it can hardly afford to pay  the wages of its employees in all sectors and because of its manifestly bankrupt economic policies [the hundreds of "advisors" attached to the government and its ministers are often drawn from the same cesspool of self-serving sycophants and psychopaths or scoundrels who are just as adept at playing along the game that has after all served themselves and the people they are there to advise well enough so far!] the dispossession of thousands of ordinary Khmers off their arable lands can go on indefinitely. But, along with this massive land-grab, dispossession and the wholesale destruction of the environment the country now seriously faces the loss of national sovereignty on an unprecedented scale through this economic land concession madness. Most of the lands or estates once held in public ownership or in state possession are now being or have been effectively transferred into private foreign hands or controls. It's as if the leadership is being drugged into a zombie-like state and induced to sign whatever "development proposal" being presented before them, or that they are actually conscious of what is happening but knowing that it is too late to save a sinking ship instead choosing to help hasten the crisis further by breaking open the national safe, take the cash and assets for themselves and make a run for the life-boats!     

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the Pigs wants to put all khmers that are victimized by land grabbing in jail let all of us go to jail togethers.We all khmers must stick togethers to prove that we loved one others,don't lets these pigs wins.If we scare they win,if we work together they will scare us...We must stick together in the peaceful ways of non-violent ways protest.

Anonymous said...

The impact is minority not the majority, Phay siphan said.
The minority! so what? They are not human being? Even the minority impact, the Government is incapable to deal with without violence if the majority impact occurs, you’re (CPP) all dead

Anonymous said...

MY ASSASSIN FRIENDS
By Rob Cameron

People in the Czech Republic are marking the seventieth anniversary of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most senior figures in Germany's Third Reich.

Heydrich - the overall head of security in Nazi Germany and a leading architect of the Final Solution - was killed by British-trained Czechoslovak parachutists in what was codenamed Operation Anthropoid, prompting terrible reprisals by Hitler.

Alois Denemarek was one of the last people to see Heydrich's assassin alive.

It was early June, 1942, and Mr Denemarek had travelled from his home village in Moravia to Prague. There, in a small park by the National Museum, he met his boyhood friend Jan Kubis.

Continue reading the main story
“Of course it was worth it, killing Heydrich. Even though it cost the lives of my family, my brother, my mother, my father...”
said Alois Denemarek.

Several days previously, Kubis and fellow parachutists Jozef Gabcik and Josef Valcik had carried out one of the most audacious attacks of World War Two.

In broad daylight, they had mortally wounded SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, the acting Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, as he was heading to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler.

Heydrich was known for his extraordinary brutality - even by Nazi standards. Hitler was beside himself with rage. The Nazis launched a massive manhunt.

"I remember what Jan said to me when I met him," Mr Denemarek, now 94, told the BBC from his home in South Moravia.

They had met to discuss how to help a wounded parachutist who the Denemarek family were sheltering in their hayloft. Kubis advised his friend not to risk bringing him to Prague.

"He said - look, things are a bit tense here at the moment."

That was something of an understatement.

Gun jammed

The story of Operation Anthropoid, devised by Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE), has been told in countless articles, books and films.

Heydrich was a leading architect of the Final Solution
On 27 May 1942, as Heydrich's open-top Mercedes limousine slowed to round a hairpin bend in Prague, Gabcik - armed with a Sten sub-machine gun - leapt in front of the car and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed.

Heydrich ordered his driver to halt and drew his pistol. Kubis threw a bomb, which exploded near the car, and fled. Heydrich, wounded and in shock, pursued his attackers for several metres before returning to the car and collapsing.

It initially seemed the attempt to kill Heydrich had failed. But he died in Prague's Bulovka hospital eight days later, reportedly from septicaemia from the shrapnel, or possibly fragments of upholstery.

"I'm incredibly proud of what my friend did," Mr Denemarek told the BBC.

"If it wasn't for Jan, I wouldn't be here today. Half the Czech nation wouldn't be here today. Heydrich had terrible plans for us Czechs," he went on.

In January of that year, Heydrich had chaired the infamous Wannsee Conference, which set out plans for the enslavement and murder of 11 million European Jews. The Slavs, according to Heydrich's plans, would be next.

Source: bbc.co.uk

Where are my Cambodian assassin friends?

Anonymous said...

MY ASSASSIN FRIENDS
By Rob Cameron

People in the Czech Republic are marking the seventieth anniversary of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most senior figures in Germany's Third Reich.

Heydrich - the overall head of security in Nazi Germany and a leading architect of the Final Solution - was killed by British-trained Czechoslovak parachutists in what was codenamed Operation Anthropoid, prompting terrible reprisals by Hitler.

Alois Denemarek was one of the last people to see Heydrich's assassin alive.

It was early June, 1942, and Mr Denemarek had travelled from his home village in Moravia to Prague. There, in a small park by the National Museum, he met his boyhood friend Jan Kubis.

Continue reading the main story
“Of course it was worth it, killing Heydrich. Even though it cost the lives of my family, my brother, my mother, my father...”
said Alois Denemarek.

Several days previously, Kubis and fellow parachutists Jozef Gabcik and Josef Valcik had carried out one of the most audacious attacks of World War Two.

In broad daylight, they had mortally wounded SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, the acting Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, as he was heading to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler.

Heydrich was known for his extraordinary brutality - even by Nazi standards. Hitler was beside himself with rage. The Nazis launched a massive manhunt.

"I remember what Jan said to me when I met him," Mr Denemarek, now 94, told the BBC from his home in South Moravia.

They had met to discuss how to help a wounded parachutist who the Denemarek family were sheltering in their hayloft. Kubis advised his friend not to risk bringing him to Prague.

"He said - look, things are a bit tense here at the moment."

That was something of an understatement.

Gun jammed

The story of Operation Anthropoid, devised by Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE), has been told in countless articles, books and films.

Heydrich was a leading architect of the Final Solution
On 27 May 1942, as Heydrich's open-top Mercedes limousine slowed to round a hairpin bend in Prague, Gabcik - armed with a Sten sub-machine gun - leapt in front of the car and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed.

Heydrich ordered his driver to halt and drew his pistol. Kubis threw a bomb, which exploded near the car, and fled. Heydrich, wounded and in shock, pursued his attackers for several metres before returning to the car and collapsing.

It initially seemed the attempt to kill Heydrich had failed. But he died in Prague's Bulovka hospital eight days later, reportedly from septicaemia from the shrapnel, or possibly fragments of upholstery.

"I'm incredibly proud of what my friend did," Mr Denemarek told the BBC.

"If it wasn't for Jan, I wouldn't be here today. Half the Czech nation wouldn't be here today. Heydrich had terrible plans for us Czechs," he went on.

In January of that year, Heydrich had chaired the infamous Wannsee Conference, which set out plans for the enslavement and murder of 11 million European Jews. The Slavs, according to Heydrich's plans, would be next.

Source: bbc.co.uk

Where are my Cambodian assassin friends?

Anonymous said...

This is a sweet historical story of two ordinary human beings with great hearts. There are many Cambodians with great hearts that are capable of creating new history.