Cambodian journalist Thet Sambath, whose work reporting on the Khmer Rouge over a decade was made into an award-winning documentary, was presented the Knight International Journalism award in Washington Tuesday. But he said more work needs to be done before the secrets of the Khmer Rouge perish with the aging members of the regime.
“Enemies of the People,” an award-winning documentary that follows one journalist’s search for answers about the Khmer Rouge, screened at a pagoda in Maryland this weekend, prompting many questions from the audience, some of them yet unanswered.
Migrant workers, largely from Burma, Cambodia and Laos, are still struggling to escape inundated areas of Thailand. There are no reliable estimates of how many people are stranded in the scores of flooded communities in Bangkok and areas north. Aid workers say that among the millions affected in Thailand, as many as 600,000 migrant workers, largely from Burma, are stranded in worsening conditions. Plight of migrants Trapped in apartments without electricity, food or drinking water, many are forced to pay exorbitant fees to be transported to dry areas.
With the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal prepared to open a major trial for four jailed regime leaders later this month, observers are divided as to whether its completion will be enough to count the court a success.
Around 100 Phnom Penh residents facing expulsion from their homes gathered in front of City Hall on Wednesday, delivering a petition to make the city “eviction free.” The demonstrators came from eight communities inside the city, warning in their petition that 10 percent of Phnom Penh’s residents have been evicted over the last 20 years, thanks to the rising value of urban real estate. Some 150,000 people have been displaced in that time, they said, including forced evictions where their homes were bulldozed
Massive flooding in Thailand and elsewhere have destroyed large parcels of rice farmland, pushing rice prices up and leaving Southeast Asia at greater risk of a food price shock.
The international prosecutor for the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal says all the cases before the court need to be properly considered to lift the “cloud” currently hanging over it. The court is preparing for its biggest trial to date, for four jailed regime leaders, but it has faced a rash of criticism in recent months over the investigating judges’ handling of two more cases at the court.