Frail War Crimes Suspect "Not Afraid" to Face Tribunal

The Phnom Penh Post, 22 Aug. 2011

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Khmer Phnom Penh Post, in KI-Media

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Thousands of Homes Flooded in Cambodia, August 2011

Satellite image of Cambodia, 13 Aug. 2011

Satellite image of Cambodia, 16 Aug. 2010

Wed Aug 17, 2011
By Mark Dunphy
Irish Weather Online

Heavy rains pushed the Mekong River in Cambodia over its banks during the weekend, flooding 37 villages and damaging over 5,000 homes. Schools also were closed, and rice and cassava crops have been badly affected.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured the top image on August 13, 2011. For comparison, the bottom image shows the same region a year earlier, on August 16, 2010. Both images use a combination of visible and infrared light to increase contrast between water and land. Water ranges in color from electric blue to navy. Vegetation is green. Clouds are pale blue-green.

Despite cloud cover, significant changes are apparent along the Mekong River between 2010 and 2011. In 2010, the river is a thin blue line extending southward toward Phnum Penh (Phnom Penh). In 2011, flood water spans kilometers north of the city. Higher water is also apparent south of Phnum Penh, and around Tônlé Sab (Tonle Sap).

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I love the beauty of this earth!  I love the beauty of this country, especially during the monsoonal season, particularly in the countryside, where everything is  seas of green mixed in seas of silvery shallow lush rice fields, gently embraced by the pristine open blue sky with whimsical clouds dancing in it.  Then, the scene changes dramatically with thunderous claps and flashes of lightning and looming shades of gray rain clouds overwhelming the serenity with their own majesty.

I love listening to the rain from my Khmer dwelling situated in the middle of Boeung Keng Kang neighborhood, with its thunderous, deafening downpour drowning out all other sounds for hours at a time.  Or the more subdued, softer rhythmic raindrops pitter-pattering on the corrugated tin roof below my room.

But my reverie of this exquisite beauty is often interrupted by darker, disturbing thoughts of the countless faces and frames--in the thousands, in the tens of thousands--in the city, in the countryside who are without shelter, who have to fight against what is beauty to me and enemy to them--the snarling of the thunder and the threatening zig-zagging flashes of lightning, the harshness of the sheets of rain against their bony, clothe-less frames, shivering against the beatings, sorrowing in the dark wide world, contending with the forces of nature for hours at a time, for days a time, for weeks at a time.  In the city, my heart goes out to the street children and homeless families, or those cowering in flimsy shacks gingerly balancing on sewage canals and ponds, not knowing whether their shelter will hold, not knowing whether they will hold...

In my helplessness, I pray for these unknown faces... And I am reminded of my bountiful blessings, and I give thanks...

- Theary, Phnom Penh, 17 Aug. 2011

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Again, a beautiful, thunderous symphony of rain, rain and more sheets of rain... a beautiful maelstrom that is a hell for tens of thousands of Cambodians in the city slums and in the countryside open fields.

- Theary, Thursday, 18 Aug. 2011

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Faces of whimpering children and weary-worn mothers soaked in the rain once again intruded my serenity and comfort, as I am lulled away to sleep by the soothing rhythm of the soft raindrops outside my window.

No, it was not the blistering sheets of rain nor the menacing thunder that pierced my comfort; it was the guilt of being so peacefully sheltered, with health, with love, with so much, so much!  Knowing that I am cocooned in an oasis of peace, a drop in a sea of suffering and of want.

Again, in my helplessness, I pray for these unknown faces... And again, I am reminded of my bountiful blessings, and I give thanks...

- Theary, Saturday morning, 20 Aug. 2011

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Exquisite!  Ethereally stunning! Breathtaking!

"Preah Thoang - Neang Neak"

A Royal Ballet performance in Paris, France (2010)

"jeb hand composition"

I wish I had kept up my dancing...

More videos on KI-Media

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Watch the full episode. See more RFK in the Land of Apartheid.

RFK in the Land of Apartheid: a Ripple of Hope

premieres Monday, 22 August 2011 on PBS in the US, and

one week later, on Friday, 2 Sept. 2011, 7 p.m. at Meta House

as part of the CIVICUS Cambodia and RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights partnership on the Speak Truth To Power (translated in Khmer as Courage Without Borders) project.

Immediately after screening, Q&A with CIVICUS Cambodia Theary Seng and RFK Center John Heffernan visiting from Washington, D.C.

For more information, please visit: www.civicus-cam.org.

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Monks at Wat Damnak (Siem Reap) chanting/praying before their one meal per day at 11 a.m., a welcome interruption to our consultation workshop.

CIVICUS Cambodia holding a consultation workshop on the Khmer draft curriculum Courage Without Borders (RFK Center's Speak Truth To Power) at Wat Damnak in Siem Reap, 9 Aug. 2011

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Wikileaks: UN Discussed Dropping #003

United Nations officials discussed shutting down Cambodia’s war crimes tribunal without hearing a politically sensitive case involving two former Khmer Rouge leaders, according to a classified US diplomatic cable disclosed by Wikileaks.

By Jared Ferrie, Bangkok

International Justice Desk (RNW)

3 August 2011

“We expected, to a degree, the Cambodian personnel to align unquestioningly with the dictates of Cambodian politics,” said Theary Seng, a Khmer Rouge victim and activist who wrote Daughter of the Killing Fields. “But what is totally unacceptable and sickening is the UN succumbing to the same domestic politics.”

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'Worrisome' NGO Law Moves To Council for Approval

VOA, 2 August 2011

CSD executive director Theary Seng, Ambassador David Scheffer, OSJI Heather Ryan and Tracey Gurd at CSD public forum in Kampot, 2006 (Photo: VOA)

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Note to Current-Day Dictators

If the LONG ARM OF LEGAL JUSTICE, and the LONGER ARM OF POETIC JUSTICE can reach back to crimes of 35 years ago, what makes you think, given the powerful ICT tools with exponential capability to capture and publish in perpetuity your violations and abuses, that you can escape these long (and getting longer and longer) arms of justice?

The growing number of international films (Enemies of the People, Facing Genocide, Brother No. One, Who Killed Chea Vichea? are but some examples... The growing number of books written, being written... The number of blogs and Facebook posts... The YouTube commentaries...

Food for thought...

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KRT Judge Welcomes Debate

(Phnom Penh Post, 2 August 2011)

South Koren Chung Chang-ho sworn in as new Pre-Trial Chamber judge (Photo: Heng Chivoan)

“The fact that the world watches all facets of these trials and will judge us individually and collectively, by the outcome, is a matter for each one of us also to consider,” [Judge Silvia Cartwright] said.