This week has been pretty hectic. The new Dean started work on Monday, so we were all hanging about curiously trying to suss him out. So far everyone seems to be pretty impressed. One of my PhD students came back from maternity leave and of course there was a whole stack of work piled up from last week when I was away.
I have been meaning to mention the case of the security guard at Tim's place in Phnom Penh. I noticed that, unlike everybody else, he had no indelible ink on his right index finger last week, so while I was hanging out with one of the English-speaking office workers I just casually mentioned that the security guy obviously hadn't voted. She told me that he had been on the roll, but the electoral officer at the polling booth didn't know him and refused to allow him to vote. He called his boss at the security firm and his boss came down to the polling booth to vouch for him, but by then it was 15 minutes before closing time and the electoral officer used this as a further excuse not to give him the ballot paper ("It's too late now, we're closing"!). It was the security guy's first time attempting to vote in Phnom Penh because he used to live in the countryside.
So it looks as if the stories about voting irregularities are not just cooked up by the opposition parties. It isn't obvious, however, that the result would have been any different if the vote had been completely clean. This makes you wonder why they do it, but my guess is that it's a case of overenthusiastic party workers without much idea of strategy or tactics. Without their efforts, the seats might have gone at most 2:1 instead of 3:1. Instead of which they created a propaganda point for their opponents. Everyone I spoke to and all the monitoring agencies said, at least, that it was better than last time.
On the other hand, I was looking out for the ink and I was pleasantly surprised by how many people had inked fingers. Given that voting is voluntary, it's a good sign that people care enough to go out and vote. In Australia voting is compulsory and if you don't vote you get a 'please explain' letter and possibly a fine. I like this system since it stresses the obligations of citizenship as well as the freedoms. Whereas in many voluntary voting countries, like the UK and the US, a lot of people don't vote, in Cambodia people still think it's worthwhile going out to vote (urban Cambodia at least).
I was fascinated by the indelible ink, as I've never seen it before. It's a sort of browny-purplish colour and takes more than a week to remove. At the airport, where the nicely presented front desk types had obviously been scrubbing madly, people still had ink on their cuticles. Normal people had clean fingertip pads after a week, but fingernails and the upper sides of fingers were still well inked. I asked my consultant how long it takes to get the stuff off. He hadn't considered the issue and was surprised to learn that in Australia we are more or less trusted not to vote more than once, so we have no ink! Since 'vote early, vote often' is a well-known slogan of certain political factions on both sides of politics (but especially the Labor Party), I really don't know how this trust is justified. I think the ink is a great idea. It would be like having a mark of citizenship - a sort of status symbol. (Yes, I'm aware that voting is not, by itself, sufficient to create a democracy.)
On my last day in Phnom Penh I met a guy from the Garment Manufacturers' Association. Inter alia, I learned that this industry works in 2 languages, neither of which is the language of the country they're operating in. It would be as if the main economic sector in Australia operated in Japanese and Swiss German instead of English. In Cambodia the languages are Chinese and English. This means I'm going to have to chew up more of my budget on a Chinese-speaking research assistant.
I have been meaning to mention the case of the security guard at Tim's place in Phnom Penh. I noticed that, unlike everybody else, he had no indelible ink on his right index finger last week, so while I was hanging out with one of the English-speaking office workers I just casually mentioned that the security guy obviously hadn't voted. She told me that he had been on the roll, but the electoral officer at the polling booth didn't know him and refused to allow him to vote. He called his boss at the security firm and his boss came down to the polling booth to vouch for him, but by then it was 15 minutes before closing time and the electoral officer used this as a further excuse not to give him the ballot paper ("It's too late now, we're closing"!). It was the security guy's first time attempting to vote in Phnom Penh because he used to live in the countryside.
So it looks as if the stories about voting irregularities are not just cooked up by the opposition parties. It isn't obvious, however, that the result would have been any different if the vote had been completely clean. This makes you wonder why they do it, but my guess is that it's a case of overenthusiastic party workers without much idea of strategy or tactics. Without their efforts, the seats might have gone at most 2:1 instead of 3:1. Instead of which they created a propaganda point for their opponents. Everyone I spoke to and all the monitoring agencies said, at least, that it was better than last time.
On the other hand, I was looking out for the ink and I was pleasantly surprised by how many people had inked fingers. Given that voting is voluntary, it's a good sign that people care enough to go out and vote. In Australia voting is compulsory and if you don't vote you get a 'please explain' letter and possibly a fine. I like this system since it stresses the obligations of citizenship as well as the freedoms. Whereas in many voluntary voting countries, like the UK and the US, a lot of people don't vote, in Cambodia people still think it's worthwhile going out to vote (urban Cambodia at least).
I was fascinated by the indelible ink, as I've never seen it before. It's a sort of browny-purplish colour and takes more than a week to remove. At the airport, where the nicely presented front desk types had obviously been scrubbing madly, people still had ink on their cuticles. Normal people had clean fingertip pads after a week, but fingernails and the upper sides of fingers were still well inked. I asked my consultant how long it takes to get the stuff off. He hadn't considered the issue and was surprised to learn that in Australia we are more or less trusted not to vote more than once, so we have no ink! Since 'vote early, vote often' is a well-known slogan of certain political factions on both sides of politics (but especially the Labor Party), I really don't know how this trust is justified. I think the ink is a great idea. It would be like having a mark of citizenship - a sort of status symbol. (Yes, I'm aware that voting is not, by itself, sufficient to create a democracy.)
On my last day in Phnom Penh I met a guy from the Garment Manufacturers' Association. Inter alia, I learned that this industry works in 2 languages, neither of which is the language of the country they're operating in. It would be as if the main economic sector in Australia operated in Japanese and Swiss German instead of English. In Cambodia the languages are Chinese and English. This means I'm going to have to chew up more of my budget on a Chinese-speaking research assistant.
At the airport in Phnom Penh they have a set of shelves just full of awful histories* of Cambodia in the bad times. I've read quite a few of them and have no desire to explore the theme further. There was one, however, that looked more promising and so it turned out. Milton Osborne was a junior diplomat in the Australian embassy in Phnom Penh during 1959-61 and he returned as a Cornell PhD student in 1966. The book, Before Kampuchea, is basically a memoir, drawing on his journal of that year, which also dips back and forth to what the place was like during his earlier stay and how it was on a subsequent visit in 1971, during the Lon Nol years. He argues that 1966 was a turning point that led inexorably to the catastrophes of 1970-79, though I would say it's more a case that he could see, in 1966, that things were not going to turn out as he'd earlier expected. (I don't really believe in turning points).
I found it fascinating reading. There is so much about the city that has changed and also not changed. The elite back then was no less venal than it is now, the corruption was no less rampant, the gambling no less prominent, the culture of impunity no less deeply entrenched. There were some interesting details on the dealings of Sihanouk's second wife, Monique, and her family that I didn't know about. There were also four interesting portraits of Cambodians he knew - an army officer, a Catholic priest, a Communist and a prince (from the Sisowath family) - all dead or disappeared by 1979 (the book was last updated in 1984, so there is little chance that the disappeared would not have reappeared by then if still alive). His conversations with all of them throw interesting light on the deep problems facing the country. Of course, the one segment of society to which Osborne had no access was the peasantry and, as he admits, he can throw no light on what made so many of them follow the French-educated intellectual Communists in the end. The sheer incompetence of successive elite regimes (Sihanouk, Lon Nol) and the genocidal US bombing of 1973 must have something to do with it.
My main disagreement with Osborne's line of thought is that he persists in seeing Sihanouk as a nationalist rather than a dynast. I think that Sihanouk's consistent goal was to preserve the Cambodian state in the form of the monarchy and he just took it for granted that his subjects would see things the same way. He assumed, rather than worked to gain, loyalty from the masses. It isn't that he was unpopular, he just had no idea and didn't much care what was going on down at the grass roots. He played statehood in the same way his ancestors had - as a series of deals with more powerful states that, while forcing him to pay tribute, also allowed him a degree of autonomy. He also clung to the French who, in the 19th century had preserved the state (ruled by his grandfather Norodom) from being gobbled up by Thailand and Vietnam. Sihanouk had a good grasp of the past, but he just had no real concept of the nation-state.
* I meant that the history was awful, not that the books were awful.
I found it fascinating reading. There is so much about the city that has changed and also not changed. The elite back then was no less venal than it is now, the corruption was no less rampant, the gambling no less prominent, the culture of impunity no less deeply entrenched. There were some interesting details on the dealings of Sihanouk's second wife, Monique, and her family that I didn't know about. There were also four interesting portraits of Cambodians he knew - an army officer, a Catholic priest, a Communist and a prince (from the Sisowath family) - all dead or disappeared by 1979 (the book was last updated in 1984, so there is little chance that the disappeared would not have reappeared by then if still alive). His conversations with all of them throw interesting light on the deep problems facing the country. Of course, the one segment of society to which Osborne had no access was the peasantry and, as he admits, he can throw no light on what made so many of them follow the French-educated intellectual Communists in the end. The sheer incompetence of successive elite regimes (Sihanouk, Lon Nol) and the genocidal US bombing of 1973 must have something to do with it.
My main disagreement with Osborne's line of thought is that he persists in seeing Sihanouk as a nationalist rather than a dynast. I think that Sihanouk's consistent goal was to preserve the Cambodian state in the form of the monarchy and he just took it for granted that his subjects would see things the same way. He assumed, rather than worked to gain, loyalty from the masses. It isn't that he was unpopular, he just had no idea and didn't much care what was going on down at the grass roots. He played statehood in the same way his ancestors had - as a series of deals with more powerful states that, while forcing him to pay tribute, also allowed him a degree of autonomy. He also clung to the French who, in the 19th century had preserved the state (ruled by his grandfather Norodom) from being gobbled up by Thailand and Vietnam. Sihanouk had a good grasp of the past, but he just had no real concept of the nation-state.
* I meant that the history was awful, not that the books were awful.
It has taken basically all week to set up some meetings. Today I met the head of the ILO Better Factories program here and realised just how difficult this project is going to be! He suggested some other people I should see, but I'm leaving tomorrow night and it won't be possible. I might be able to squeeze somebody in tomorrow afternoon IF they're free (big if). Basically the problem is that, precisely because of the Better Factories program, the Cambodian garment factories are heavily studied and the managers are heartily sick of it. Also he said a lot of them are old style managers, possibly very low level within their organisation (which is most likely based in Hong Kong or Taiwan) and regional issues or the development of the industry as a whole in Cambodia are not topics they're interested in. Also many of them only speak Chinese! Even the HR manager often doesn't speak Khmer which is pretty interesting considering that all the people they employ are Khmer speakers.
I'm meeting with the Garment Manufacturers' Association in the morning, but the ILO guy wasn't encouraging. He said that all exporting firms are required to belong (otherwise no export licence), so they join but they don't relate to the organisation at all - or rather only about 30% of them do. So if they help us get in touch with factories our sample is going to have a radical bias. We will need to give the managers some incentive to talk to us, but what can we afford? The answer is SFA.
I walked home because it was only 3 blocks away. We are on the intersection of streets 51 and 302 and the BF office is in street 322. I took Tim's driver on the way there because I figured it was 10 blocks and I didn't want to arrive hot and sweaty, but the numbering goes 302, 308, 310, 322, 334 (I know this because we went one block too far - then we drove back up Norodom Boulevard on the wrong side of the road!). The city is not exactly a grid pattern, but the numbers are on a grid, so all the in-between numbers obviously don't come this far. It's confusing. The next street across from 51 is 57.
I was walking home opposite the apartment block that has the garden on the footpath (Day 4). I hadn't looked up before, but couldn't resist photographing this piece of modern Khmer architecture. It's a sort of temple to money. (It's also the one with all the fancy thingummies on top from Day 1)
So far, I've been moving in quite a small area (apart from the trip to Metro last Friday). Even the Russian restaurant we went to on Monday night was in this area. This is so absolutely the expat zone - I walked a different way around to the Khmer Kitchen at lunchtime and passed the offices of MSF, among others - next door to Cambodge Soir (a newspaper), so a little French enclave. Tomorrow I go slightly further afield to see GMAC.If I have time before leaving, I'll get Borin to take me out past the airport to look at the factories (should've done it earlier in the week, but I was hanging by the phone).
The Khmer Kitchen today was really quite full of Khmers. It's an indicator that PP is developing a middle class, though outside the city it's another story altogether. At the next table from me was a white-haired European/American with 3 Khmer women. He was advising one of them on how to deal with another man in the office: said she was trying to get on with this guy, but she was letting him get the better of her and he was putting the blame for his mistakes on to her. Given that this is generally a really sexist country, I am quite impressed by the number of professional women working in the aid/NGO sector. I've seen women driving cars too - which is still quite rare in Hanoi. But the ratio of cars to motorbikes is also much higher here because it's relatively easy to buy a used car from Thailand. I noticed that Tola has an old white bomb with the steering wheel on the wrong side. The Vietnamese, on the other hand, are incredibly strict about car imports. You can't even drive a right-hand-drive car through as a tourist. A few years ago one of my colleagues drove his 1968 Mini back to England and, while he wanted to go through Vietnam, he couldn't. But he had no problem in China or Russia.
I'm meeting with the Garment Manufacturers' Association in the morning, but the ILO guy wasn't encouraging. He said that all exporting firms are required to belong (otherwise no export licence), so they join but they don't relate to the organisation at all - or rather only about 30% of them do. So if they help us get in touch with factories our sample is going to have a radical bias. We will need to give the managers some incentive to talk to us, but what can we afford? The answer is SFA.
I walked home because it was only 3 blocks away. We are on the intersection of streets 51 and 302 and the BF office is in street 322. I took Tim's driver on the way there because I figured it was 10 blocks and I didn't want to arrive hot and sweaty, but the numbering goes 302, 308, 310, 322, 334 (I know this because we went one block too far - then we drove back up Norodom Boulevard on the wrong side of the road!). The city is not exactly a grid pattern, but the numbers are on a grid, so all the in-between numbers obviously don't come this far. It's confusing. The next street across from 51 is 57.
I was walking home opposite the apartment block that has the garden on the footpath (Day 4). I hadn't looked up before, but couldn't resist photographing this piece of modern Khmer architecture. It's a sort of temple to money. (It's also the one with all the fancy thingummies on top from Day 1)
So far, I've been moving in quite a small area (apart from the trip to Metro last Friday). Even the Russian restaurant we went to on Monday night was in this area. This is so absolutely the expat zone - I walked a different way around to the Khmer Kitchen at lunchtime and passed the offices of MSF, among others - next door to Cambodge Soir (a newspaper), so a little French enclave. Tomorrow I go slightly further afield to see GMAC.If I have time before leaving, I'll get Borin to take me out past the airport to look at the factories (should've done it earlier in the week, but I was hanging by the phone).
The Khmer Kitchen today was really quite full of Khmers. It's an indicator that PP is developing a middle class, though outside the city it's another story altogether. At the next table from me was a white-haired European/American with 3 Khmer women. He was advising one of them on how to deal with another man in the office: said she was trying to get on with this guy, but she was letting him get the better of her and he was putting the blame for his mistakes on to her. Given that this is generally a really sexist country, I am quite impressed by the number of professional women working in the aid/NGO sector. I've seen women driving cars too - which is still quite rare in Hanoi. But the ratio of cars to motorbikes is also much higher here because it's relatively easy to buy a used car from Thailand. I noticed that Tola has an old white bomb with the steering wheel on the wrong side. The Vietnamese, on the other hand, are incredibly strict about car imports. You can't even drive a right-hand-drive car through as a tourist. A few years ago one of my colleagues drove his 1968 Mini back to England and, while he wanted to go through Vietnam, he couldn't. But he had no problem in China or Russia.
The Cambodia Daily published projections from the NEC today. The CPP is projected to win 90 seats, Sam Rainsy 26, the Human Rights Party 3, FUNCINPEC 2 and Norodom Ranariddh party 2 - giving the opposition a total of 33. They are collectively complaining about electoral irregularities - mainly eligible voters deleted from the rolls, but even their own figures show that these would not make a difference (although they've escalated their claim from 200,000 to 1 million). The EU and Japanese observer missions are saying it was free and fairer than usual, with much less violence and intimidation. The governing party says that Sam Rainsy should have checked the voter lists before the election and complained at that time. It seems only one incident of major concern was reported and that was the murder earlier this month of a journalist who worked for an opposition newspaper.
There's also a story called 'The lessons of corruption begin in childhood'. Primary school children have to pay a small fee to their teachers - the article doesn't say exactly how much, but together with breakfast it amounts to 10-15 US cents a day. If they don't pay, the parents claim that they will get low grades or even sent back to an earlier class. I have to say that my impression is of a level of petty corruption considerably greater than in Vietnam.
There's also a story called 'The lessons of corruption begin in childhood'. Primary school children have to pay a small fee to their teachers - the article doesn't say exactly how much, but together with breakfast it amounts to 10-15 US cents a day. If they don't pay, the parents claim that they will get low grades or even sent back to an earlier class. I have to say that my impression is of a level of petty corruption considerably greater than in Vietnam.
The area I'm in is pretty posh by Cambodian standards and full of mansions like this one.
There are several new apartment blocks as well - mostly looking pretty tasteless to my eye. But they're also hot since they're all closed in by glass, so the aircon bills must be expensive.
They're crowding out the older housing. Indeed Tim has to move out at the end of the year to make way for one of these high rises.
At the Khmer Kitchen, where I have lunch pretty much every day. It's just around the corner from Tim's office, the food is very good and I normally spend $7.50 for a main course and two glasses of lime soda. Today I had lok lak (in Vietnamese luc lac) - stir fried marinaded beef with onions, green tomatoes and a very hot (black) pepper, salt and lime juice dipping sauce. I've also tried their fried rice basil (with chicken) which is served with a hot chilli sauce and lime juice (yum!) and the skewered pork with pickled cucumber. I've noticed that in contrast to my previous visits, there are now a few Khmer eating in the restaurants.
I'm not getting out of this area much. There's a lot to eat and drink in the vicinity and I'm basically in the office all day. I will have a few meetings tomorrow and/or Friday. Then I'm off home again!
There are several new apartment blocks as well - mostly looking pretty tasteless to my eye. But they're also hot since they're all closed in by glass, so the aircon bills must be expensive.
They're crowding out the older housing. Indeed Tim has to move out at the end of the year to make way for one of these high rises.
At the Khmer Kitchen, where I have lunch pretty much every day. It's just around the corner from Tim's office, the food is very good and I normally spend $7.50 for a main course and two glasses of lime soda. Today I had lok lak (in Vietnamese luc lac) - stir fried marinaded beef with onions, green tomatoes and a very hot (black) pepper, salt and lime juice dipping sauce. I've also tried their fried rice basil (with chicken) which is served with a hot chilli sauce and lime juice (yum!) and the skewered pork with pickled cucumber. I've noticed that in contrast to my previous visits, there are now a few Khmer eating in the restaurants.
I'm not getting out of this area much. There's a lot to eat and drink in the vicinity and I'm basically in the office all day. I will have a few meetings tomorrow and/or Friday. Then I'm off home again!
Political propaganda. The poster on the left is for the Sam Rainsy Party (one of the Me parties). It will form the main opposition and claims to have won 40 seats. But the CPP is currently claiming 89-91 seats. So between them they have more seats than are in parliament. We'll have to wait for the actual result. If I were betting, I'd bet on the CPP estimate.
More political propaganda - this time within view of the independence monument. I met this guy when he was a skinny 28 year-old (he was then Foreign Minister). Now he's a well-fed 56 year-old who has just won a further 5 years to add to the 23 years he has already been Prime Minister. Big Russian and Chinese investments fuelling 10% p.a. growth rates!
Another footpath in the neighbourhood.
Modern.
Same street, not so modern.
More political propaganda - this time within view of the independence monument. I met this guy when he was a skinny 28 year-old (he was then Foreign Minister). Now he's a well-fed 56 year-old who has just won a further 5 years to add to the 23 years he has already been Prime Minister. Big Russian and Chinese investments fuelling 10% p.a. growth rates!
Another footpath in the neighbourhood.
Modern.
Same street, not so modern.
Continuation of the footpath theme. I'm quite amazed that people aren't afraid of losing their pots, but Tim thought maybe the owners are too important to worry about theft! Note that the paving stone used here: it looks like lava or something (full of holes) and is quite uneven to walk on.
These people have left the narrowest of strips for the actual pedestrians. This strip is brick, but the driveway is in the same lava-like stone.
I found in the keyboard table under my desk a copy of a book called Modern Corn Production. It's publication date is 1965 and it was written by 2 professors from the University of Illinois. The authors keep mentioning something called 'drouth', by which I have deduced they meant 'drought'. Is that an American word, or is it a typo? If the latter, it seems to be the only typo in the book, which I read fairly extensively yesterday (Really, I just felt the need to know a whole lot of stuff about antique corn). Another fascinating piece of literature found here in the office is called The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: a guide to field identification. It is a book of photographs with an elaborate system of classification according the the degree of separation from the source, appropriation as personal property, damage by various means and to various degrees and the level of vandalism (simple or complex). I began to get the feeling that Eastern North America (certainly the Niagara, Erie Canal, Buffalo area) is just covered with stray shopping carts.
Last night, as a result of the election, most restaurants were either closed or dry, so we ended up in a rather crowded one that had decided to ignore the prohibition on alcohol (which he figured was aimed only at Khmers) with the same bunch of people from Friday night. One of them has spent some time in Zimbabwe several years ago, which was interesting. But it was yet another late night and I'm tired again.
Needless to say, the CPP won the election. I've heard so far that they have 88 seats (an increase on last time) and the royalist FUNCINPEC has 1. The latter was the party, then headed by Prince Ranariddh which shared power with Hun Sen after the first post UNTAC election. Ranariddh has since formed his own Me Party (unsurprisingly called the Norodom Ranariddh Party). There are several other parties - the Sam Rainsy party (another Me party) and the Human Rights Party, but apart from the FUNCINPEC result I haven't heard anything so far.
These people have left the narrowest of strips for the actual pedestrians. This strip is brick, but the driveway is in the same lava-like stone.
I found in the keyboard table under my desk a copy of a book called Modern Corn Production. It's publication date is 1965 and it was written by 2 professors from the University of Illinois. The authors keep mentioning something called 'drouth', by which I have deduced they meant 'drought'. Is that an American word, or is it a typo? If the latter, it seems to be the only typo in the book, which I read fairly extensively yesterday (Really, I just felt the need to know a whole lot of stuff about antique corn). Another fascinating piece of literature found here in the office is called The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: a guide to field identification. It is a book of photographs with an elaborate system of classification according the the degree of separation from the source, appropriation as personal property, damage by various means and to various degrees and the level of vandalism (simple or complex). I began to get the feeling that Eastern North America (certainly the Niagara, Erie Canal, Buffalo area) is just covered with stray shopping carts.
Last night, as a result of the election, most restaurants were either closed or dry, so we ended up in a rather crowded one that had decided to ignore the prohibition on alcohol (which he figured was aimed only at Khmers) with the same bunch of people from Friday night. One of them has spent some time in Zimbabwe several years ago, which was interesting. But it was yet another late night and I'm tired again.
Needless to say, the CPP won the election. I've heard so far that they have 88 seats (an increase on last time) and the royalist FUNCINPEC has 1. The latter was the party, then headed by Prince Ranariddh which shared power with Hun Sen after the first post UNTAC election. Ranariddh has since formed his own Me Party (unsurprisingly called the Norodom Ranariddh Party). There are several other parties - the Sam Rainsy party (another Me party) and the Human Rights Party, but apart from the FUNCINPEC result I haven't heard anything so far.
I have a sort of inverted jet lag. Instead of wanting to sleep 3 hours earlier than usual, I'm getting tired 3 hours later than usual. So last night I went to bed at 3 am (or 6 am Sydney time). But I slept pretty well and felt better today than yesterday. I had a productive, but rather tedious afternoon editing the questionnaire and adapting it for Cambodia. The whole team needs to use basically the same questionnaire, so that we'll be able to get some comparable results. But the person who designed it is not an economist and she taped her interviews in Malaysia with lots of open-ended questions. I can't do that here because I'm having to use a local consultant and I don't want any misunderstandings about the answers.
This fantastic piece is part of Tim's collection. He has lots of art and artifacts from the various countries he has worked in. This piece is a copy of one of the bas reliefs from Angkor Wat. It is a piece of stone that Tim says weighs 120 kg (I am not to touch it in case it falls off the wall!). The originals no longer have any colour and this one is probably an attempt to imagine the colour that was once on the walls of the temple. Angkor Wat (which is just one temple in a vast complex) is rather warlike and the bas reliefs are all of military stories from the Hindu mythologies. (The other major site in the complex, Angkor Thom or Bayon, has much more human scenes from everyday life.)
How wealthy westerners live in PP is behind razor wire. If you add to the razor wire a thicket of Bougainvillea, a very thorny plant, you are surely impregnable. We also have 24 hour security guards. They have a TV set under a beach umbrella in front yard. Tim doesn't want them to fall asleep on the job.
We went out to dinner at a Pakistani restaurant and wine bar. I kid you not. The Pakistani who runs it is a 3rd generation Christian who fled Pakistan and went to live in Echuca in Victoria. His partner is Australian, working for a health NGO here, and she's the one who selects the wine. The food was excellent - we had a fish curry and a chicken and lentil one with sauvignon blanc from New Zealand. Half way through we were joined by an Indian woman, a colleague of Tim's who works for an American organisation that Tim has described as "the Halliburton of development assistance". After dinner we moved down the road a bit to a bar called Liquid where we were joined by the Dutch partner of the Indian and his German friend (a gynaecologist who lives in Papua New Guinea). I rather liked the t-shirt of this guy who was playing pool near our table.
We were all very relieved that we could actually buy alcohol today. The government has put a 48 hour ban on the sale of alcohol on account of tomorrow's election and the fear that something might happen - like burning down the Thai embassy. But the rule apparently does not apply to the multitude of tourists and expatriates.
This fantastic piece is part of Tim's collection. He has lots of art and artifacts from the various countries he has worked in. This piece is a copy of one of the bas reliefs from Angkor Wat. It is a piece of stone that Tim says weighs 120 kg (I am not to touch it in case it falls off the wall!). The originals no longer have any colour and this one is probably an attempt to imagine the colour that was once on the walls of the temple. Angkor Wat (which is just one temple in a vast complex) is rather warlike and the bas reliefs are all of military stories from the Hindu mythologies. (The other major site in the complex, Angkor Thom or Bayon, has much more human scenes from everyday life.)
How wealthy westerners live in PP is behind razor wire. If you add to the razor wire a thicket of Bougainvillea, a very thorny plant, you are surely impregnable. We also have 24 hour security guards. They have a TV set under a beach umbrella in front yard. Tim doesn't want them to fall asleep on the job.
We went out to dinner at a Pakistani restaurant and wine bar. I kid you not. The Pakistani who runs it is a 3rd generation Christian who fled Pakistan and went to live in Echuca in Victoria. His partner is Australian, working for a health NGO here, and she's the one who selects the wine. The food was excellent - we had a fish curry and a chicken and lentil one with sauvignon blanc from New Zealand. Half way through we were joined by an Indian woman, a colleague of Tim's who works for an American organisation that Tim has described as "the Halliburton of development assistance". After dinner we moved down the road a bit to a bar called Liquid where we were joined by the Dutch partner of the Indian and his German friend (a gynaecologist who lives in Papua New Guinea). I rather liked the t-shirt of this guy who was playing pool near our table.
We were all very relieved that we could actually buy alcohol today. The government has put a 48 hour ban on the sale of alcohol on account of tomorrow's election and the fear that something might happen - like burning down the Thai embassy. But the rule apparently does not apply to the multitude of tourists and expatriates.
The rather aged Thai aircraft from Bangkok made dreadful screeching and grinding noises during takeoff and landing. I'm a bit nervous about the trip back next week!
Today I began work with a hangover from sharing a lot of duty free Bowmore (Islay) single malt with my host, Tim, last night. Afraid I also couldn't resist a few of the local Alain Delon cigarettes. I always wonder if Delon knows about the way his name is used here (not even sure if he's still around - last time I saw him in a movie was nearly 20 years ago when he played an ageing Casanova). His namesake cigarettes cost less than a dollar a pack and carry no health warnings.
I watched BO's speech in Berlin on cable TV. That guy is such a hot air merchant.
Tim's office/apartment building is going to be demolished to build high rise apartments - the latest construction craze here. There are lots in the area. Last time I stayed here there were none. Today I saw a foreigner standing on one of the balconies - I don't imagine that very many Cambodians can afford to live in them.
Tim's housekeeper is called Pip or Peep according to Tim. Today I met her and found out that she is Piep. She pronounced both vowels.
I am employing a consultant to help me with the research project. He comes highly recommended and seems very smart and keen to tackle new things. Looks as if he's in his 40s, but I'm told he's just recovering from a bout of malaria that he caught on a project in the highlands. Could be that's why he's keen to work on garment factories!
A food cart stopped at the corner. Half a dozen people immediately appeared to buy stuff. Three of them sat down on the piles of bricks by the roadside to eat whatever they'd bought and the food cart moved on. Just after he moved a young woman with very white skin and red hair walked past and the diners all turned to stare at her. I wouldn't like to be a young female with red hair in this country - she did look pretty self-conscious.
Petrol costs about the same as it does in Sydney, i.e. USD1.30 per litre. Electricity costs are horrendous. Tim is paying three times what he'd pay at home and the documents I'm reading about the clothing industry say that electricity is about 3 times the regional average too. Probably a major reason why 80% of Cambodians don't use it at all.
It is supposed to be the wet season, but there was short downpour this afternoon at about 3.30 and that's it. A bit of thunder, but no more rain.
Tonight we went to a farewell dinner for Anna Maria who is leaving the country. Also present were Beth from New Orleans (she works in the aid industry here, but doesn't seem to be much aware of the aid needs of her hometown), Rowena from Darwin (a triathlete working for an agriculture NGO), Julie from Brisbane (a tourist, but one who has lived here before), me and Tim. We first had drinks at the happy hour at Van's, a restaurant in a beautiful colonial-era house belonging to Prince Ranariddh's daughter, and then dinner at the Metro on the river front. The view of the river is blocked by 'temporary' hoardings due to construction of 'flood mitigation' works which the government denies are needed due to filling in the city lake for real estate development. All the ads are in English, though there were quite a few Khmer eating there. The food was just wonderful.
Today I began work with a hangover from sharing a lot of duty free Bowmore (Islay) single malt with my host, Tim, last night. Afraid I also couldn't resist a few of the local Alain Delon cigarettes. I always wonder if Delon knows about the way his name is used here (not even sure if he's still around - last time I saw him in a movie was nearly 20 years ago when he played an ageing Casanova). His namesake cigarettes cost less than a dollar a pack and carry no health warnings.
I watched BO's speech in Berlin on cable TV. That guy is such a hot air merchant.
Tim's office/apartment building is going to be demolished to build high rise apartments - the latest construction craze here. There are lots in the area. Last time I stayed here there were none. Today I saw a foreigner standing on one of the balconies - I don't imagine that very many Cambodians can afford to live in them.
Tim's housekeeper is called Pip or Peep according to Tim. Today I met her and found out that she is Piep. She pronounced both vowels.
I am employing a consultant to help me with the research project. He comes highly recommended and seems very smart and keen to tackle new things. Looks as if he's in his 40s, but I'm told he's just recovering from a bout of malaria that he caught on a project in the highlands. Could be that's why he's keen to work on garment factories!
A food cart stopped at the corner. Half a dozen people immediately appeared to buy stuff. Three of them sat down on the piles of bricks by the roadside to eat whatever they'd bought and the food cart moved on. Just after he moved a young woman with very white skin and red hair walked past and the diners all turned to stare at her. I wouldn't like to be a young female with red hair in this country - she did look pretty self-conscious.
Petrol costs about the same as it does in Sydney, i.e. USD1.30 per litre. Electricity costs are horrendous. Tim is paying three times what he'd pay at home and the documents I'm reading about the clothing industry say that electricity is about 3 times the regional average too. Probably a major reason why 80% of Cambodians don't use it at all.
It is supposed to be the wet season, but there was short downpour this afternoon at about 3.30 and that's it. A bit of thunder, but no more rain.
Tonight we went to a farewell dinner for Anna Maria who is leaving the country. Also present were Beth from New Orleans (she works in the aid industry here, but doesn't seem to be much aware of the aid needs of her hometown), Rowena from Darwin (a triathlete working for an agriculture NGO), Julie from Brisbane (a tourist, but one who has lived here before), me and Tim. We first had drinks at the happy hour at Van's, a restaurant in a beautiful colonial-era house belonging to Prince Ranariddh's daughter, and then dinner at the Metro on the river front. The view of the river is blocked by 'temporary' hoardings due to construction of 'flood mitigation' works which the government denies are needed due to filling in the city lake for real estate development. All the ads are in English, though there were quite a few Khmer eating there. The food was just wonderful.
I enjoyed this story about Ieng Sary, aged 82, and his wife, Khieu Thirith, 75, asking for conjugal visits during their separate detentions while awaiting some kind of conclusion of the Phnom Penh war crimes tribunal.
As Minister for Social Affairs in the Pol Pot regime, Thirith was responsible for the policy of separation of families and also the policy of forced marriage for reproductive purposes (once the reproductive duty was done, the couples were separated again). Husbands and wives, parents and children were not allowed to see each other for years on end and, since so many died of disease and starvation, this often meant never again.
Sary was given a pardon by retired-king Sihanouk (follow the link, it's the world's only handwritten blog), when the latter returned to power some years after an international tribunal, held under Vietnamese auspices, had sentenced the former to death. So naturally, there has been some lengthy legal wrangling over the status of his current trial. The pardon enabled him to live in a posh villa in the capital, while his son is now governor of one of the provinces. The current tribunal, if it reaches a conclusion before he dies of natural causes, will not sentence him to death, since this time it is being held under UN auspices.
The article concludes by saying that he has been treated for heart trouble. If he gets his conjugal visits he could die, as they say, horizontal. I doubt that many Cambodians would feel that justice had been done.
As Minister for Social Affairs in the Pol Pot regime, Thirith was responsible for the policy of separation of families and also the policy of forced marriage for reproductive purposes (once the reproductive duty was done, the couples were separated again). Husbands and wives, parents and children were not allowed to see each other for years on end and, since so many died of disease and starvation, this often meant never again.
Sary was given a pardon by retired-king Sihanouk (follow the link, it's the world's only handwritten blog), when the latter returned to power some years after an international tribunal, held under Vietnamese auspices, had sentenced the former to death. So naturally, there has been some lengthy legal wrangling over the status of his current trial. The pardon enabled him to live in a posh villa in the capital, while his son is now governor of one of the provinces. The current tribunal, if it reaches a conclusion before he dies of natural causes, will not sentence him to death, since this time it is being held under UN auspices.
The article concludes by saying that he has been treated for heart trouble. If he gets his conjugal visits he could die, as they say, horizontal. I doubt that many Cambodians would feel that justice had been done.
Most Americans understandably view Wal-Mart as "a union-bashing behemoth". Apparently there is video-taped evidence that Hillary, while she was on the board, didn't stand up for unions at all.
She basically got the job, while Bill was governor of Arkansas, because she worked for the law firm that handled the Wal-mart business.
Now that they've moved most of their sourcing overseas, they've been forced to make some adjustments. The Chinese, for example, have forced them to unionize. So if unionization is your thing, then it might be OK to buy Chinese-made goods from Wal-Mart. They are also one of the handful of large buyers from Cambodia (which would be mainly cotton trousers and cotton knitted goods like T-shirts).
The Clinton administration did an interesting thing in Cambodia - they basically forced the government to accept a bilateral trade agreement, in order to gain a quota in the US market, which included international labour standards. The incentive for implementation of these labour standards was an increase in the quota each year of up to 18%. The implementation process was independently monitored by the International Labour Office (it still is). The result is that even today, when the quota system has been abolished, wages in Cambodian clothing factories are well above the national average, workers receive 1.5 times their basic wage for overtime, they are generally not penalized if, for family reasons for example, they are unable to do the overtime, they have paid maternity leave, 18 days' annual vacation, they either have a child care facility in the factory or have a child care place paid for elsewhere, they work under adequate lighting and have hygienic washrooms. As of 2006, 43% of them belonged to a union and in most factories there is no harassment of unions or discrimination against them (although some unions are corrupt - which may well explain the other 57%). Unions complain that they have more trouble with the police than from the bosses.
In 2007, Cambodia had the 8th largest share of US clothing imports at 5%, almost the same as 7th placed Indonesia (where labour standards really don't apply). The top 8 had a total 56% of the market and, apart from the above two, comprised Honduras, Mexico, China, Vietnam, El Salvador and Guatemala in that order. So if you were to venture into a Wal-Mart store, you would very likely be able to find something made under non-sweatshop conditions in Cambodia.
Clinton's critics have a different view of course. Liza Featherstone, author of Selling Women Short says that despite her apparent prodding: "There's no evidence she did anything to improve the status of women or make it a very different place in ways Mrs. Clinton's Democratic base would care about."
That seems a bit like blaming the sole woman on the board for the crimes of all the men.
What all this does say is more about Clinton's approach to politics (or most things perhaps) than anything else. I didn't read past the first page of this New Yorker piece, but it basically makes the point that, for her, politics is about the "art of the possible."
The videotapes do show that Clinton used her role to push for more environmentally friendly policies and better treatment of women.
She basically got the job, while Bill was governor of Arkansas, because she worked for the law firm that handled the Wal-mart business.
In 1986, when Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, tapped Clinton to be the company's first female board member, Wal-Mart was a fraction of its current size, with $11.9 billion in net sales.
Today, Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer and largest private employer, with over $312 billion in sales last year and 1.3 million employees in the US alone. But recently, the company has drawn intense scrutiny for its labor practices -- from its wages to the lack of affordable health coverage for employees, to its stiff resistance to unionization.
Throughout the 1980s, both Bill and Hillary Clinton nurtured relationships with Walton, a conservative Republican and by far Arkansas' most influential businessman. Among other things, Hillary Clinton sought Walton's help in 1983 for Bill Clinton's so-called Blue Ribbon Commission on Education, a major effort to improve Arkansas' troubled public schools. The overhaul became a centerpiece of Clinton's governorship.
And Wal-Mart's Made in America campaign, which for years touted the company's sales of American products in its stores, was launched after Bill Clinton persuaded Walton to help save 200 jobs at an Arkansas shirt manufacturing plant. The Made in America campaign has virtually vanished in recent years, as the company's manufacturing has gradually moved overseas -- another point of criticism by many Wal-Mart critics.
Now that they've moved most of their sourcing overseas, they've been forced to make some adjustments. The Chinese, for example, have forced them to unionize. So if unionization is your thing, then it might be OK to buy Chinese-made goods from Wal-Mart. They are also one of the handful of large buyers from Cambodia (which would be mainly cotton trousers and cotton knitted goods like T-shirts).
The Clinton administration did an interesting thing in Cambodia - they basically forced the government to accept a bilateral trade agreement, in order to gain a quota in the US market, which included international labour standards. The incentive for implementation of these labour standards was an increase in the quota each year of up to 18%. The implementation process was independently monitored by the International Labour Office (it still is). The result is that even today, when the quota system has been abolished, wages in Cambodian clothing factories are well above the national average, workers receive 1.5 times their basic wage for overtime, they are generally not penalized if, for family reasons for example, they are unable to do the overtime, they have paid maternity leave, 18 days' annual vacation, they either have a child care facility in the factory or have a child care place paid for elsewhere, they work under adequate lighting and have hygienic washrooms. As of 2006, 43% of them belonged to a union and in most factories there is no harassment of unions or discrimination against them (although some unions are corrupt - which may well explain the other 57%). Unions complain that they have more trouble with the police than from the bosses.
In 2007, Cambodia had the 8th largest share of US clothing imports at 5%, almost the same as 7th placed Indonesia (where labour standards really don't apply). The top 8 had a total 56% of the market and, apart from the above two, comprised Honduras, Mexico, China, Vietnam, El Salvador and Guatemala in that order. So if you were to venture into a Wal-Mart store, you would very likely be able to find something made under non-sweatshop conditions in Cambodia.
Clinton's critics have a different view of course. Liza Featherstone, author of Selling Women Short says that despite her apparent prodding: "There's no evidence she did anything to improve the status of women or make it a very different place in ways Mrs. Clinton's Democratic base would care about."
That seems a bit like blaming the sole woman on the board for the crimes of all the men.
What all this does say is more about Clinton's approach to politics (or most things perhaps) than anything else. I didn't read past the first page of this New Yorker piece, but it basically makes the point that, for her, politics is about the "art of the possible."
It's really hot here in Sydney. Very humid. Spent the afternoon getting various things fixed on the computer, after last week's crash.
Here's a link to a bunch of pictures I took from the car during the trip to the airport.
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wo
Here's a link to a bunch of pictures I took from the car during the trip to the airport.
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wo
I'm a sucker for pussy cats. This one lives at the Khmer Kitchen where I ate lunch the other day. I'd have given her some of my food for sure, but they hadn't brought it yet and she got tired of waiting.
This critter was somewhat more camera shy. Ran all over the lampshade while I attempted to get it in focus. That was last night at Cafe Amok. Fish amok is a Cambodian specialty - a mild fish curry in coconut milk served in the shell of a green coconut (they have the most delicious soft flesh). Sometimes it comes in a banana leaf bucket.
In other news, I had the wrap up meeting at 8 this morning. My employers (UNDP) didn't seem too happy with the report and there seems to be some conflict between the terms of reference they gave me and what they are now demanding. The Minister, on the other hand, was supportive. She gave some constructive comments and left at 10 to go to a Party meeting. Negotiations over formation of the government are coming to a head and nobody knows whether she will keep the job or not. She has been very good at publicising the work of the Ministry, putting gender on the political agenda, etc, but management is not her strong point. Personally, I think she'd be good sniping from the back benches. The political parties are more antagonistic towards each other than usual and many people have said to me that she acts more like an NGO than a government minister. I find her very likeable.
Had salade de chevre chaud for lunch at Le Bistrot. Very nice. Under the trees in the garden. Followed by creme caramel. Yum.
So now I have to sit down and do a lot of revisions. I've agreed that the final report will be in the email by 9 am Monday. But I need to do most of it before I leave tomorrow evening. I keep imagining the pile of stuff that'll be waiting when I get home!
This critter was somewhat more camera shy. Ran all over the lampshade while I attempted to get it in focus. That was last night at Cafe Amok. Fish amok is a Cambodian specialty - a mild fish curry in coconut milk served in the shell of a green coconut (they have the most delicious soft flesh). Sometimes it comes in a banana leaf bucket.
In other news, I had the wrap up meeting at 8 this morning. My employers (UNDP) didn't seem too happy with the report and there seems to be some conflict between the terms of reference they gave me and what they are now demanding. The Minister, on the other hand, was supportive. She gave some constructive comments and left at 10 to go to a Party meeting. Negotiations over formation of the government are coming to a head and nobody knows whether she will keep the job or not. She has been very good at publicising the work of the Ministry, putting gender on the political agenda, etc, but management is not her strong point. Personally, I think she'd be good sniping from the back benches. The political parties are more antagonistic towards each other than usual and many people have said to me that she acts more like an NGO than a government minister. I find her very likeable.
Had salade de chevre chaud for lunch at Le Bistrot. Very nice. Under the trees in the garden. Followed by creme caramel. Yum.
So now I have to sit down and do a lot of revisions. I've agreed that the final report will be in the email by 9 am Monday. But I need to do most of it before I leave tomorrow evening. I keep imagining the pile of stuff that'll be waiting when I get home!
Took this one the other day at lunchtime. The streets here all have numbers, except for the major boulevards. They form a grid with north-south streets having odd numbers and mostly paved, while cross streets have even numbers and many are unpaved.
I took this one just outside my hotel this evening at dusk. The guy in the deck chair never moves, so his kids have to do the cooking while mother is absent. Behind them is the Independence monument. The house behind that is reputedly owned by the Prime Minister, though it's not clear whether he lives there (there are usually plenty of gendarmes hanging about it).
This one is part of the row of news stands and other stalls along Street 51, near the corner of Sihanouk Boulevard. One of them was the scene of the assassination a couple of weeks ago. I suspect the one that is closed. If I was an eye witness, I would not want to be around at the moment. The newspapers tell us that the police produced a sketch of the shooter's likeness without interviewing any eye witnesses. Then they arrested somebody who doesn't look anything like the drawing! On the other hand, there are some stains on the road in front of the shop next door. I wondered about those.
I took this one just outside my hotel this evening at dusk. The guy in the deck chair never moves, so his kids have to do the cooking while mother is absent. Behind them is the Independence monument. The house behind that is reputedly owned by the Prime Minister, though it's not clear whether he lives there (there are usually plenty of gendarmes hanging about it).
This one is part of the row of news stands and other stalls along Street 51, near the corner of Sihanouk Boulevard. One of them was the scene of the assassination a couple of weeks ago. I suspect the one that is closed. If I was an eye witness, I would not want to be around at the moment. The newspapers tell us that the police produced a sketch of the shooter's likeness without interviewing any eye witnesses. Then they arrested somebody who doesn't look anything like the drawing! On the other hand, there are some stains on the road in front of the shop next door. I wondered about those.
Last weekend I went to Sihanoukville (Kompong Som) with the project adviser and a friend of hers. We took a bus for the 3-4 hour trip (price $3) and this is the Phnom Penh bus station before our departure. Note the security guard with the long bamboo stick to keep the moto drivers and other touts at bay!
( pictures of the beaches here )
We didn't get to see the port which is around the other side of the headland. Sihanoukville itself is a bit of a dump and certainly not what you'd describe as busy. The road down there goes first across the plain around Phnom Penh scattered with the sugar palms that are so characteristic of Cambodian landscape. About two thirds of the way you go through a gap between two mountain ranges and then the landscape gets much more lush. Some of it is filled with oil palm plantations, started by a local businessman who had a partnership with a Malaysian who was supposed to build a processing plant, but who left him in the lurch before it was built. So now they just have to export the oil to Malaysia for processing. That way the Malaysian economy gets most of the value added.
( pictures of the beaches here )
We didn't get to see the port which is around the other side of the headland. Sihanoukville itself is a bit of a dump and certainly not what you'd describe as busy. The road down there goes first across the plain around Phnom Penh scattered with the sugar palms that are so characteristic of Cambodian landscape. About two thirds of the way you go through a gap between two mountain ranges and then the landscape gets much more lush. Some of it is filled with oil palm plantations, started by a local businessman who had a partnership with a Malaysian who was supposed to build a processing plant, but who left him in the lurch before it was built. So now they just have to export the oil to Malaysia for processing. That way the Malaysian economy gets most of the value added.
Sihanouk issues a daily message on subjects ranging from the succession to things he finds amusing. To read a sample (it's in French):
http://www.norodomsihanouk.info/mes%200
http://www.norodomsihanouk.info/mes%200
Prince Ranariddh, president of Funcinpec (the royalist party) and also heir apparent to the throne, is half expected to return to Cambodia on Friday after an absence of 2-3 months. His return has already been delayed by a week and nobody seems to have any precise information. The party spokesperson said his absence was "part of a strategy to avoid forming a two-party coalition government between Funcinpec and the CPP [Cambodian People's Party led by Prime Minister Hun Sen]". His father, King Sihanouk recently described him as "the Invisible Man". Sihanouk is currently based in Beijing. Chinese medicine must be pretty crash hot, because he has been going there for extended periods for decades - allegedly because he's on death's door. Meanwhile, if Cambodia's political leaders want to discuss something with the king, they have to travel to China.
The rest of the country has had to put up with a caretaker government and a huge amount of uncertainty since July 2003.
The rest of the country has had to put up with a caretaker government and a huge amount of uncertainty since July 2003.
Here's the front page of today's paper. It went off peacefully and the cops blocked the side streets for the procession. I can't imagine the Vietnamese allowing anything like this (but neither do they have political assassinations).
( For anyone who's interested in seeing some of my vast living space )
( For anyone who's interested in seeing some of my vast living space )
Here I am at work. This meeting with Men Sam An at the National Assembly building was somewhat special. I had met her in December 1979 when she was one of the young Khmer leaders of the resistance against the Khmer Rouge. She pretended to remember me, though I doubt that she really could - someone must have told her. Anyway, I didn't recognise her because she looks very different - especially the clothing and hairstyle. She was also quite tanned then. Nowadays, her skin is fair, but with telltale freckles from her previous outdoor life. She is chair of the parliamentary committee on a raft of things related to social affairs (women, veterans, youth, employment, etc) as well as being head (as she was then) of the Cambodian Women's Association.
Note that the two Cambodians are wearing long sleeves - it's winter here, even though the temperature never goes below about 25 in the night, and they find it cool. It was pretty cool in this meeting room and my colleague muttered to me about the waste of electricity. The aircon was going full blast even when the room was empty. Otherwise, the furnishing was quite sparse. Apart from the expensive tropical wood table and chairs, only a few plastic chairs around the walls (for the non-VIPs) and some fairly tacky curtains. No plush carpet on the floor, just marble tiles. (In fact I thought the foyer looked rather like a 5-star public toilet - all tiles and stainless steel. A new building is being put up near the casino and I bet that won't be as sparse!)
The flowers in the middle of the table were put there by the guy who took the photo before Ms Sam An arrived. They are for protocol and made us think that this would be a typical diplomatic sort of meeting. Sometimes the flower arrangements are so large that you can't see each other on opposite sides of the table! But she turned out to be very open and warm. Not too much speechifying.
My colleague told me there were 40,000 at the funeral yesterday. He got the number from the local media. I guess you can take your pick. Sihanouk sent him a posthumous medal of honour and he was cremated at Wat Botum which is normally reserved for VIP funerals. I would say, therefore that this assassination was a politically important event.
Note that the two Cambodians are wearing long sleeves - it's winter here, even though the temperature never goes below about 25 in the night, and they find it cool. It was pretty cool in this meeting room and my colleague muttered to me about the waste of electricity. The aircon was going full blast even when the room was empty. Otherwise, the furnishing was quite sparse. Apart from the expensive tropical wood table and chairs, only a few plastic chairs around the walls (for the non-VIPs) and some fairly tacky curtains. No plush carpet on the floor, just marble tiles. (In fact I thought the foyer looked rather like a 5-star public toilet - all tiles and stainless steel. A new building is being put up near the casino and I bet that won't be as sparse!)
The flowers in the middle of the table were put there by the guy who took the photo before Ms Sam An arrived. They are for protocol and made us think that this would be a typical diplomatic sort of meeting. Sometimes the flower arrangements are so large that you can't see each other on opposite sides of the table! But she turned out to be very open and warm. Not too much speechifying.
My colleague told me there were 40,000 at the funeral yesterday. He got the number from the local media. I guess you can take your pick. Sihanouk sent him a posthumous medal of honour and he was cremated at Wat Botum which is normally reserved for VIP funerals. I would say, therefore that this assassination was a politically important event.
The newspaper reported that 15,000 attended the funeral procession of Chea Vichea, the assassinated union leader, yesterday. The front page photo shows Sihanouk boulevard jammed with people as far as the eye can see.
The UN says that 10,000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed by Israel since October 2000. I wonder how many Israeli homes have been built in the occupied territories.
The UN says that 10,000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed by Israel since October 2000. I wonder how many Israeli homes have been built in the occupied territories.
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