Showing posts with label COUNTRIES - CAMBODIA. Show all posts

13 January 2014

CAMBODIA - Damming the Mekong

A new dam proposed by Laos threatens further damage to the troubled Mekong and its inhabitants.

By Michelle Tolson

November 28, 2013

Fishing in the Mekong

Image Credit: REUTERS/Samrang Pring

The 4,000 Island region in southern Laos, named after the large number of islands situated in the waters of the murky Mekong, boasts idyllic, undeveloped villages surrounded by small rice fields and expansive forests. The lack of hustle and bustle is precisely what draws foreign tourists. An estimated 113,684 visited Champasak Province in 2006, according to one report.

The southernmost tip of the islands offer a refuge for the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, numbered at just ten in Laos, as well as some famous waterfalls. Yet this area, just two kilometers from Cambodia, is also home to the Hoo Sahong channel, where the controversial Don Sahong Dam will be built starting November, according to the Laos government. Plans for the 260 megawatt structure have been seen as a way for this developing country to capitalize on its hydrological energy for export. However, environmental experts warn the region could lose not only its dolphins and tourists, but also the massive fish migrations that feed its people.

The Hoo Sahong has been said to be the only viable transit point for large numbers of fish during the lowest part of the dry season, impacting not just Laos but countries downstream, like Cambodia.

Boun Sayavong, a tourism operator on Don Det, a popular tourist island just west of the site, told The Diplomathe is not concerned about losing dolphins or fish. He said the government is preparing for construction by banning the use of wooden fish traps, known as “Ly,” which are placed along the numerous channels between the islands to catch fish as they migrate.

When asked how fishermen will survive without their traps, he said they have other ways to catch fish. “Only those people without jobs are unhappy about the dam.”

“The government asked people by survey and 60 percent said [the dam] is a good idea. Only 40 percent said they didn’t like the idea. It is not like Cambodia where the government decides without asking the people. If Hun Sen says ‘you have to go, we need this land’ then the people have to leave within 24 hours. Not here,” said Boun.

Ian Baird, a leading Mekong fisheries expert who lived in Laos for several years and is fluent in the language, told The Diplomat from the U.S. he was not aware of a government survey. “Nobody would dare say they don’t support the project. I know the villages there well. Of course they can’t say anything as they have been warned – they know their performance well. What he’s doing is telling you what the government wants him to say. He’d doing a perfect PR job. If they say anything else, they will go to jail.”

Ame Trandem of International Rivers NGO agrees. “Most people are careful to say only positive things about the dam in public but once we spend time with them, away from other villagers and once they trust us, they pass their concerns when we tell them won’t use their names.”

Villagers told Trandem preliminary work along the channel began this past summer. A nearby channel has been blasted and villagers’ fish traps have been confiscated to create an alternative migration route for fish.

Mega First Corporation, the Malaysian company slated to build the dam, alleges the fish passes it plans to install with the dam will be sufficient.

Baird, who reviewed the previous Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) said “In the EIA, they only ask fishermen the kilos they caught, not which species. They are comparing fish in this region, which has 200 species, to migrating salmon in North America. I worked in this region for 15 years and published several academic articles. I can tell they don’t have a clue. They are consultants, guessing.”

The Diplomat reached out to Mega First for comment without reply.

Fish migrate up the Mekong from the Tonle Sap Lake in response to hydrological triggers once the dry season begins in November, which also heralds the beginning of fishing season. Both Baird and Trandem warn the insufficient passes would not allow for large-scale migrations and will threaten food security for Laos and Cambodia, which rely on fish for their protein.

Baird said the sharp reduction of wildlife in the region represents a loss of protein and fats that used to be available for consumption and helps explain why both countries have rates as high as 40 percent for child malnutrition.

While people in Laos may hold their tongues, in Cambodia they are speaking out. Around the Sesan, Srepok and Sesong tributaries of the Mekong in remote northeast Cambodia, a civil society group was organized for grassroots push-back in 2001 in response to Vietnam’s dams. When Vietnam dammed the Yali Falls in 1996 upstream of the Sesan River, initially they released excess water from the dam without warning the communities downstream causing numerous deaths. The region suffered greatly and without compensation from violent and irregular floods that wiped out crops and livestock. Residents along the Sesan River told The Diplomat that there are hardly any fish anymore. Meach Mean of the 3SRivers Protection Network, said rivers are the livelihoods of the Khmer, Laotian, Chinese and indigenous tribes living in the watershed. “We need the rivers for farming too,” explained Meach, who is Laos-Tampuan, (an indigenous group). Rivers expand during the wet season, bringing agricultural land to life through irrigation to grow rice, another staple of both Cambodia and Laos.

Trandem, who used to live in Cambodia’s Ratanakiri region herself, said because people didn’t even know about the dam upstream, they thought the spirits of the river were angry with them and sacrificed animals to appease them. Vietnam is now required to notify Cambodia prior to releases but she said sometimes the process takes 14 days, reaching remote villages after they have been flooded.

About 1,000 people in the three rivers region have died, also from problems with water quality. “Toxicity can result from the blue-green algae growing in reservoirs, which is released downstream. It harms fish, animals and people.” Trandom has no doubt that livestock has died from drinking poisoned water. “People rely on the river for everything – fishing, bathing, and farming and to water livestock.”

According to Trandem, Vietnam has now cancelled 400 hydropower projects, which she hopes will be a lesson for Laos and Cambodia. While the impacts from the upper Sesan Dams are striking, the Mekong is even more vital to the region. But the benefits of hydrological dams are tempting.

Ironically, Cambodia buys electricity from the very country that will impact its food security as it does not have an electricity grid, as Baird points out, while Laos has a basic grid. Residents in Stung Treng and northeast Cambodia told The Diplomat their electricity was imported from Laos and sold by private companies ranging from 2000-3500 riel ($0.50-0.75) per kilowatt per hour. Residents in Banlung, Ratanakiri said Cambodia also buys electricity from Vietnam, as the small Ouchum hydrological dam nearby can’t provide enough to meet the city’s needs. According to the World Bank, only 26 percent of Cambodians have access to government-supplied electricity, the rest use private operators, generators or none at all. Electricity does not even reach Ratanakiri’s remote indigenous villages, which get no benefit from the dams, Meach added. “’Rich’ villagers in district centers use generators [starting at $ 700] or solar panels [starting at $400], but most people have no electricity, especially indigenous people.”

Meach said Mega First Corporation also has a connection to Cambodia’s popular Angkor Beer, brewed by Cambrew. Cambrew is jointly owned by the Carlsberg Group. He urges local and foreign consumers to support the Mekong River by boycotting Carlsberg and Angkor beer.

While choosing a different beer might take money away from Mega First, in the meantime electricity-starved northern Cambodia will still need to buy from its upstream neighbors. But it seems the Laotian government’s efforts to get its neighbors onboard the project has backfired. Trandem said a site visit by Cambodian and Vietnamese government officials this past week to Laos left the impression that the environmental impact assessment was not comprehensive. “Since the site visit, Cambodia has sent out a statement demanding dam construction halt and an impact assessment be done.”

Michelle Tolson is a freelance journalist based in Asia.

Source: http://thediplomat.com

26 December 2013

CAMBODIA - Cambodia's Most Dangerous Job?

Cambodia's Most Dangerous Job?

Working in the fields isn’t typically considered a dangerous job. But with plantations still littered with unexploded ordnance, some Cambodians are looking for companies to step up.

By Gemima Harvey

May 30, 2012

Frustration grips Von Tha’s face as she fumbles with a hand that no longer works. Ron Run says that seeing his wife’s physical and mental struggle has, for him, been one of the hardest parts of the family’s ordeal. Two months since the explosion at a cassava plantation in Kratie, and the group of five are still feeling its effects. It’s a case that underscores the danger for workers at contaminated sites.

In Cambodia, companies and landowners can choose whether or not to clear areas used for commercial purposes such as agriculture, mining or ecotourism. With improved access to previously difficult to reach areas comes increased economic interest in utilising the land. Accidents on land used for enterprise illustrate the importance of ensuring known-risk areas are cleared of explosive remnants of war (ERW) before workers can enter the site and start tilling the soil.

Run explains that he, his wife Von Tha, brother-in-law Kith Ol and two nephews Ann Yong and Et En, arrived to work at the farm in Kratie’s Snoul District a few days before the March 17 accident. The family stood around a fire, cooking dinner after a long day in the fields, when flames suddenly engulfed the group. The explosion was caused when the heat detonated an explosive remnant. All five people needed medical treatment. Tha and her brother Ol were standing the closest and were critically injured. Run and his two nephews, Yong and En, were standing further back, but were still badly burnt and their skin was shredded by shrapnel.

Jan Erik Støa, Norwegian People’s Aid Program Manager Mine Action Cambodia, says that regulations should be implemented to protect people from working on hazardous sites.

“There’s no legal obligation for the landowners to do anything,” he says. “What happens is that people start working and if there is an accident, there is no one to take responsibility. This is best addressed if you havea national law, like a law to use a helmet or to have registration on your vehicle.”

Placing regulations on clearance activities in known contaminated areas was recommended by Støa, who says that when land is being used for commercial purposes, it should be mandatory to conduct clearance using an approved operator. Then, if there is an accident, the land owner or developer responsible for the clearance would have to compensate victims of ERW in the work place. At the moment, there’s no protection for workers or a policy for ensuring that they are paid damages.

In addition to coping with serious personal loss and physical trauma, accident victims are put in debt at precisely the time they have no income. This is especially problematic for people who are living at subsistence level, like Run and his family. Run commented that the couple would make a combined total of $7.50 each day at the plantation. The cost of one hospital bed per night was almost as much as their daily combined income. Tha’s medical bill was around $500. Gratefully, he says that two charities stepped in to cover these expenses. Run borrowed an additional $375 from a friend, for food and living costs while they were unable to work and said he will do his best to repay this debt.

“It’s hard for me. I worry about my wife. Before the accident Tha could move normally. Now she cries a lot about things she can no longer do. She still cannot move her hand and this is very upsetting for her,” Run reflects. “Making life harder is the fact we owe money. Everything is difficult at the moment.”

By Run’s estimations, the farm where the accident took place in Snoul covers around 30 hectares,with 20 people working there. Bombing data of Snoul shows a saturation of ordnance and cluster bomb strikes. WhenRun and his family members arrived, they were unaware the site was contaminated. Since their accident, another worker has reported finding a cluster bomb at the site. “They still work because they are far from home and need the money. They can’t be choosy. These workers have no connection to an organization so when they find one [an ERW] they just leave it there and tell their friends,” Run says.

The survivor agreed that companies should be required to professionally clear any explosive remnants from land being used for commercial purposes. He added that if he wasn’t approached with a job offer after the accident, he would have returned to work at the plantation where he was injured.While the survivor was under the impression the plantation had been cleared since the accident, a call to demining operators working in the region showed this wasn’t the case. Whether it has been cleared or not, driven by the desperation that is linked with lack of options, workers are willing to risk their lives by knowingly working on contaminated land.

So when it comes to workplace safety, where should the responsibility lie?

H.E. Heng Ratana, director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, says that companies may try to demine themselves but will not thoroughly demine, only dealing with explosive remnants at surface level, or contract a third party to undertake clearance work.

“Owing to the economic cost, companies less worried about being professional are more likely to use cheap ways of demining or use their own excavators until one day there is an accident,” he says. “There’s no enforcement due to limited resources and inadequate legal grounds to hold landowners to account.” He stresses that safety regulations should be required for companies and that strong enforcement needs to be effectively and actively pursued by all relevant sectors before the land can be extensively used.

One example of the way land is cleared to create farming areas is hiring someone with an excavator. Mung Long does this kind of work. Most of his contracts have been along the road from Kampong Cham to Kratie where he regularly unearths cluster bombs and other explosive remnants. “When I find them, I put them in a pile and put more earth on them. In the 10 years that I’ve been doing this, I’ve found a lot of things and I always report the findings to the village chief.”

Land pressure for enterprise in Cambodia is causing people to push into areas that have never been surveyed or cleared.East of the Mekong the explosive legacy is largely left over from the Vietnam War. From 1965 to 1973, the United States dropped 2,756,941 tons of bombs over central and eastern regions in an attempt to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail, more than was unleashed by the Allies in all of World War II. Another significant element of Cambodia’s explosive legacy is landmines. These are mainly concentrated in Western Cambodia, but landmines also litter other regions; a result of decades of civil wars that presents a hazardous situation for today’s workers.

In Vietnam, laws exist that require land to be declared safe before being utilized. These regulations mean that anyone who wants to build or use land for agricultural purposes must get a certificate from the provincial authority to say that the land is free from ERW. Støa said that Cambodia could have a similar system. “This should be initiated by the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority which is the national authority and it should be supervised and followed up by police.”

CAMBODIA - Learning Chinese on the Rise in Cambodia

Learning Chinese on the Rise in Cambodia

For ambitious young Cambodians, Chinese is becoming the obvious second language to master.

By Irwin Loy

May 22, 2013

When 20-year-old Suon Chiva was choosing a language to complement his native Khmer, it didn’t take him long to decide. He saw where the products in his local markets were made and where the new investments in his country were coming from. Learning to speak Chinese, he decided, made the most sense.

“Cambodia now has a lot of business people coming here from China,” Chiva says. “They’re investing a lot of money. So it’s very important to speak their language.”

It’s a view shared by most here in a stuffy classroom in Phnom Penh. Chiva and a dozen other students sit on wooden benches, whirling fans pushing warm air around the room, as their young teacher runs through a lesson on Mandarin tones.

The school is one of several that have popped up on the same busy road in the Cambodian capital in recent years. Brightly coloured signs splayed with Chinese script tower above the traffic. Inside, the aging building is a warren of interconnected classrooms. Out front, employees in matching shirts hand out brochures for part-time classes, or sell textbooks to the students who dart in and out.

They’re catering to young Cambodians looking for a step up in an emerging economy. For years, learning English has been a prerequisite for many Cambodians wanting to get ahead. But with China’s increasing clout and its conspicuous investment in the region, speaking Chinese has also become a valuable skill.

The results of China’s soft power efforts are up for debate. But here in Phnom Penh, many young people are just as eager to learn about Chinese culture and language as China is to export it. A local association of Chinese-Cambodians claims there are some 30,000 full or part-time students now learning the language—many of them in places like Jing Fa Chinese School, which offers basic Chinese lessons at modest prices.

In a ground-level classroom open to the street, students step around parked motorbikes and find their seats. At the whiteboard in front, director Long Sochea speaks slowly to the beginners’ class, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the passing traffic.

When Sochea started teaching Chinese in the 1990s, he only had a handful of students—mainly Cambodians with Chinese roots trying to brush up on a distant ancestral tongue. Now, he says, almost all his students are Khmer with no Chinese heritage. Learning Mandarin, they hope, will give them an advantage in the business world.

“Cambodian families are encouraging their children to study Chinese,” he says, “because they want their children to get jobs.” The school also offers basic lessons in other languages, including English, Korean and Vietnamese. But when new students ask him for advice, Sochea says he steers them in one direction.

“I tell them to look at the investments other countries are making,” he says. “The real money in Cambodia is coming mostly from China.”

China has become a dominant investor here. Since 2005, approved investments from Chinese companies in Cambodia have exceeded $8 billion USD, according to the Cambodian Investment Board—far above the sums expended by the next closest, Korea. But these figures offer just a partial picture of Chinese ventures in Cambodia; they represent only projects approved for tax exemptions and other incentives. They also don’t include investors in the country’s special economic zones, or smaller projects approved by provincial authorities.

These often murky investments have little public transparency and, conveniently for the Cambodian government, lack the demand for accountability and oversight associated with Western investments and aid projects. Many of the rural Chinese investments are situated on controversial government land concessions, which rights groups blame for fueling a simmering land crisis that sees ordinary Cambodians losing land and homes to powerful business interests.

In the city, Chinese funding is earmarked for expansive urban developments and infrastructure projects. In the countryside, Chinese firms are active in large-scale hydropower, logging, steel, rubber and industrial-scale agro-business. Chinese money is literally changing the shape of Cambodia’s landscape.

For Chea Munyrith, China’s prominence in today’s Cambodia stands in marked contrast with his childhood growing up in the post-Khmer Rouge era of the 1980s. He remembers his ethnic Chinese grandmother being too afraid to speak her Teochew dialect; she didn’t bother to teach it to him.

“She told me that we are Khmer, so we must speak Khmer now,” he says. “She didn’t want to talk about being Chinese.”

As an adult, however, Munyrith now finds Chinese integral to his career. He’s the co-director of the country’s first Confucius Institute, the academies that have been at the forefront of China’s global cultural push. Munyrith learned Mandarin so he could communicate with his Chinese counterparts.

Since 2010, the Confucius Institute here has been offering language lessons to Cambodian public servants. The adult students include government bureaucrats, officers and cabinet level officials.

“Today, Chinese is not just the language of business,’ Munyrith says. ‘It’s the language of politics.”

And when it comes to politics, recent events have shown China and Cambodia are often speaking the same language. China’s ongoing territorial disputes in the South China Sea have caused friction within the region. As last year’s chair of the regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Cambodia was accused of siding with China ahead of its own neighbours when it came to discussions on the maritime dispute.

Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an associate professor at Kyoto University, says the trend among ordinary Cambodians to learn Chinese is an acknowledgement of China’s increasing prominence.

“This is about accepting the Chinese leadership in the region,” says Pavin, who has researched Chinese soft power. “When you study another country’s language, you understand and you accept the leadership of that country.”

But as the ASEAN controversy showed, the Chinese largesse in Cambodia does come with implied obligations. For many starting to learn Chinese, however, it represents an opportunity for a promising future. Back at Jing Fa Chinese School, afternoon classes have wrapped up. Twenty-six-year-old Kaing Mengty is packing up his books and getting ready to head back to his job selling Chinese-made goods at a nearby market.

“I don’t know much about China,” he says. “I just know my country. Cambodian people can make money by trading with China.”

Irwin Loy (@illied) is a freelance journalist based in Phnom Penh

CAMBODIA - The Cambodia National Rescue Party: What’s Next?

The Cambodia National Rescue Party: What’s Next?

Cambodia’s opposition surprised supporters with its recent election results. Now it needs to show leadership.

By Phoak Kung

December 13, 2013

Prior to the 2013 election, Cambodia’s opposition parties were often characterized as divided, weak and poor. For the ruling party, the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), they were simply a subject of ridicule. In the aftermath of the CPP’s landslide victory in the 2008 election, opposition supporters had cause to wonder whether it was the beginning of the end for the opposition in Cambodia, let alone expect them to achieve a surge in popular support.

Thus, the stunning performance by the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in the July 28 election came as a huge shock to most people. For the first time, the opposition had emerged as a real alternative to the dominant party. After capturing 55 out of 123 seats, the CNRP insisted that in fact they had won the election given themassive irregularities that had been involved. Talks have been on and off between the CPP and the CNRP in an attempt to end the political impasse, but to date there has been no progress. Each party has blamed the other for failing to make the necessary compromise.

The opposition has demanded an independent investigation into election irregularities, while the ruling elites have insisted that the National Election Committee (NEC) is the only legitimate institution to resolve electoral disputes. With no resolution in sight, the CNRP has issued an ultimatum: reach a deal by late December, or it will hold larger and longer demonstrations nationwide until the CPP caves. The opposition has also been using mass protests as leverage to force the ruling elites to relinquish more power, although this has yet to be successful. The most pressing question for the CNRP’s leaders probably relates to the nature of their strategies to end the current deadlock and to win the next election.

After many rounds of painful talks, the Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) finally merged with the Human Rights Party (HRP) to establish the CNRP in July 2012. The merger excited many opposition supporters, and ended years of bickering and infighting among Cambodia’s opposition groups. Although the merger significantly boosted popular support for the opposition, it would be an overstatement to suggest that it was the only factor responsible for the CNRP’s substantial gains in the July 28 election. Over the past few years, Cambodia’s political landscape has undergone rapid transformation, and its implications are both deep and dramatic.

The opposition has benefited greatly from demographic changes. In 2012 it is estimated that around 70 per cent of Cambodians were under the age of 35. Many of these young voters didn’t just vote for the CNRP; they were also fiercely mobilizing public support for the opposition. Yet among these younger cohorts, some are hardliners who have been insisting that the opposition accept nothing less than a victory or the removal of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his close associates.

In an added complication, the CNRP depends heavily on this group to mobilize people to join their mass demonstrations nationwide. It is no coincidence that opposition leaders often consult their strongest supporters at Freedom Park before negotiating a deal to end the current political impasse, because these younger voters have been risking all to help them challenge the CPP’s domination. Further, they are very vocal about government affairs, both in public and on social media such as Facebook and YouTube. During the election campaigns, given CNRP’s severe resource constraints, many of them financially supported themselves, with little help from their leaders.

Although these hardliners play an extremely important role in the CNRP’s current election gains, opposition leaders must strike a delicate balance here. They need to know that many of their supporters are moderate or at least less extreme than their counterparts. Of course, they also want to see the CNRP being elected to power, so that some of its policies can be implemented for the benefit of Cambodia’s ordinary people, especially the poor. Yet they also want the process of change to happen without endangering peace and stability in the country and without seriously affecting everyday Cambodian life.

It is also reasonable to say that the moderate opposition supporters might tolerate the ongoing political deadlock given the difficult situations that the CNRP leaders are facing, and that it will take time before a good deal can be reached by both political parties. But the opposition leaders cannot take their supporters’ patience for granted. If the current situation drags on for too long without any solution in sight and if subsequently begins to hurt the economy, voters will blame not only the CPP but also the opposition for putting ego before the national interest. Thus, the CNRP’s leaders need to be very realistic about what they can do to end the current political impasse, rather than simply responding to the demands of the hardliners.

Another problem facing the CNRP’s leaders is whether they have the capacity and resources to lead the new government if elected. The current election gains don’t necessarily mean that voters fully trust the CNRP’s leaders to run the country. In fact, voters are right to be concerned given the opposition’s past track record. Prior to the merger, the SRP and the HRP were locked in a war of words, accusing each other of selling out to the ruling elites or having hidden agendas. They dug up any damaging stories they could find to destroy the legitimacy and credibility of their rivals.

KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL : The Devil’s Advocates

Khmer Rouge Tribunal: The Devil’s Advocates

Defending Pol Pot’s right-hand man at the troubled tribunal is a lonely job.

By Daniel Otis

December 20, 2013

Nuon Chea

Image Credit: Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia via Flickr

Son Arun sits in his team’s office on the dusty outskirts of Phnom Penh. The room’s walls are cluttered with photographs and posters: self-satisfied Khmer Rouge cadre aboard a train, a hefty and smiling Pol Pot surrounded by his grandchildren, a colorful map of Democratic Kampuchea, an image of a young Henry Kissinger pasted above the words “Brother No. ?”

“The Cambodian people hate the Khmer Rouge,” Arun says, “and because I’m a lawyer for the accused, they hate me too.”

Arun and Dutch attorney Victor Koppe are representing Nuon Chea at the beleaguered Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the tribunal was established in 2006 to try senior members of the Khmer Rouge with war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity committed during the regime’s 1975 to 1979 rule – a period in which an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians lost their lives as a group of radical intellectuals and revolutionaries sought to transform their war torn country into an agrarian utopia. Nuon Chea is often cited as being the regime’s chief ideologue and Pol Pot’s right-hand man. Having officially served as deputy secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, the terse and unrepentant 87-year-old is the highest ranking member of the Khmer Rouge to be indicted by the ECCC.

The ECCC delivered its first and only conviction in 2010, eventually sentencing Kaing Guek Eav to life imprisonment for authorizing the torture and deaths of more than 12,273 inmates at the Khmer Rouge’s notorious S-21 prison. Hearings in the case against Nuon Chea and three other top Khmer Rouge cadre began in June 2011.

Because of the scope and complexity of the case (and perhaps in order to get a conviction while all of the elderly defendants were still alive), the ECCC’s second case was severed into a series of “mini-trials” in September 2011. Since then, a dementia-suffering defendant has been declared unfit to stand trial and another – her husband – has died, leaving only Nuon Chea and Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan, 82, in the dock.

Known as Case 002/01, the first mini-trial, which dealt with mass population transfers and the execution of enemy soldiers, concluded on October 31. A judgment is expected in the second quarter of 2014. In the interim, the ECCC is discussing what future mini-trials might look like. The Supreme Court Chamber wants a final trial that encompasses “S-21, a worksite, a cooperative, and genocide” to “commence as soon as possible.” At meetings last week, late February 2014 was floated as a possible start date. A new panel of judges may also be hired to expedite the process. Without citing specific details, the ECCC’s Director of Administration, moreover, is assuring the Trial Chamber that that the chronically cash-strapped court will have sufficient funds to operate until the end of 2015.

As the details surrounding Case 002/02 coalesce, Arun and Koppe are preparing for what will likely be the ECCC’s final chapter. With international and public opinion set firmly against their aging client, I ask Arun why he chose to take on a case he has little chance of winning.

“I became Nuon Chea’s lawyer because I want to know the truth,” Arun says. “I want to know why so many people died in the 1970s, and I want to know who killed them.”

When I ask Arun why he didn’t join the prosecution, he laughs. “They had no money.”

In the early 1970s, Arun served as a major in Cambodia’s U.S.-backed army, commanding a battalion of more than five hundred men in a losing war against Pol Pot’s communists.

“Once, we fought for six days and six nights without food or water,” Arun recalls. “Can you believe that? Six days without water and you can die – but I’m still alive.”

Soon after the Khmer Rouge seized the capital in April 1975, Arun fled to Thailand. Had he stayed in Cambodia, he says, he would have surely been executed.

Arun eventually settled in the United States where he worked in doughnut shops while studying at the University of Houston. In 1979, the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by an invading Vietnamese army, and in 1981, Arun was back in Southeast Asia, training anti-communist guerillas in the jungles along the Thai-Cambodian border. For the next decade, Arun would divide his time between Southeast Asia and the U.S. In the late 1980s, he even canvassed for George H. W. Bush while serving as chairman of the Cambodian Republican Federation.

Arun returned to Cambodia permanently following the UN-brokered elections of 1993. He received a certificate from Cambodia’s first lawyer training school in 1996 and has been practicing law in the country ever since.

When Arun first heard about the ECCC in 2006, he immediately tracked down his old high school teacher, Khieu Samphan. Like many other Khmer Rouge cadre, Samphan had been living free in western Cambodia since signing a ceasefire with the government in the late 1990s. Through Samphan, Arun got to know several prominent members of the long-toppled regime. One of them was Nuon Chea’s nephew.

“The day they arrested Nuon Chea in 2007, his nephew called to ask if I’d be his uncle’s lawyer,” Arun says. While other cadre lived in relative comfort, Nuon Chea – perhaps the most steadfast of his comrades – was living a simple rural existence. Arun immediately contacted Samphan, who said, “Help him. He doesn’t know anyone; he doesn’t know anything – he’s never even eaten noodles in a restaurant.” Samphan would be arrested exactly two months later.

As a hybrid tribunal, each office at the ECCC is run by both national and international staff. Tasked with hiring an international counterpart, Arun settled on Amsterdam-based Böhler Advocaten. Partners Michiel Pestman and Victor Koppe have divided the case work since being hired in 2007, with Koppe fully taking the reins from Pestman in January 2013.

“I’m interested in cases that pit the individual against the state, the international community, or public opinion,” Koppe tells me from the terrace of a Phnom Penh café. Koppe, a veteran criminal defense attorney, has represented terrorism suspects in the Netherlands, as well as defendants at the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. “My job is to be an advocate for my clients, to make sure that their perspectives are getting across.”