Billion-Dollar Military Reboot, Massive Mekong Stingray, and Super Gonorrhea Scare
Good morning, Cambodia. It's Friday, June 24, and this is your Weekly Dispatch.
PUMPED UP: Cambodia’s economy is expected to rebound to 5% growth this year, defying global trends of inflation, interest hikes and recession fears — not to mention painful fuel prices in Phnom Penh.
OVER FLEX: Two of the four winning Candlelight Party officials were arrested — one on a decades-old theft charge, the other for filming CPP officials. The unsubtle show of force further cements one-party rule.
CLAP BACK: A middle-aged tourist from Austria had unprotected sex in Cambodia. Back home, doctors said he had picked up an antibiotic-resistant strain of super gonorrhea — and warned of a global health crisis.
THE LEDE
Trigger Time
Cambodia has billion-dollar plans to upscale its military and build a domestic arms industry.
The Kingdom has earmarked nearly $800 million for defense this year and will increase annual spending to $1 billion by 2027. The five-year program dramatically ramps up capacity in five areas: terrorism, digital security, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and peace-keeping operations.
Also on the table are plans to build a domestic weapons industry to equip its new military and end dependence on usurious global arms suppliers. Critics worry the new weapons could be used to monitor critics and crush dissent.
Record Rays
A 4-meter, 300kg stingray caught in the Mekong River near Stung Treng made quite a splash on global media after scientists announced it was the largest freshwater fish ever discovered.
Locals named the giant female ray Boremey, or Full Moon, and scientists tagged her with a radio transmitter, a first for the species. Data collected will give scientists some understanding of the mysterious stingray’s movements, mating patterns and migration.
Boremey was the fourth massive stingray found in the same area this year, all of them female. The Mekong is under enormous environmental threats, and the stingray and other super-sized fish face extinction without equally enormous conservation efforts.
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Help Wanted
Sihanoukville authorities continue to stonewall investigations into Chinese citizens allegedly trapped as slaves in debt bondage, often reportedly tipping off companies about workers trying to escape.
Many of the captive Chinese phone-scam workers face beatings or worse for communicating with outsiders. Rumors of official complicity now have the trapped workers too scared to contact the local authorities who should be there to protect them.
One hope remains: a Chinese restaurant owner who helps workers escape. Even so, no one from the Chinese Embassy to the village police appears interested, with critics calling Cambodia a silent partner in the modern-day slave trade.
TALKING POINTS
Business Boom
Cambodia’s economy will grow at around 5% this year, up from last year’s 3% gain. Trade with Vietnam is expected to hit $10 billion and the Kingdom should benefit from a new trade deal with China and surging exports to the West. That’s good news against a global backdrop of inflation, pandemic aftermath, interest rate hikes and soaring fuel prices.
Bad Trip
A Cambodian sex worker may have sparked a global wave of antibiotic-resistant super gonorrhea. That’s the news from Austria, where doctors diagnosed a man in his 50s with the drug-resistant strain after he had unprotected sex while on holiday in the Kingdom. Scientists warn the new strain could be a serious global health threat.
KR Requiem
Him Sophy, the acclaimed Cambodian composer, released “Bangsokal: A Requiem for Cambodia,” a symphony about life under the Khmer Rouge. In Khmer, bangsokal is the act of removing the burial shroud during Buddhist funeral ceremonies. It symbolizes the migration to the next life and rebirth.
Final Chapter
The judge in Kem Sokha’s treason trial announced an end was near. The statement came just days after courtroom testimony of Kem Sokha denouncing Sam Rainy was leaked on social media. Observers said the recording marked an abrupt end to the CNRP, and could mean Kem Sokha’s return to the campaign trail.
Banged Up
Prison officials transferred Theary Seng, the outspoken Cambodian-American democracy advocate, to jail in the country’s far north, saying she would incite protests in Phnom Penh. Supporters said the move was intended to “break her spirit” and would isolate her from family and legal counsel. The 51-year-old lawyer was sentenced last week to six years for conspiracy to commit treason.
Labor Pleas
Authorities allowed NagaWorld unionists to march to the National Assembly and deliver a petition seeking Hun Sen’s help in their labor dispute. Negotiations between the casino and the union have gone nowhere since the billion-dollar gaming company laid off more than 1,300 workers last year. Appeals to the Strongman often serve as last-gasp attempts by those frustrated with official channels.
Spoiled Victors
The National Election Committee sued Son Chhay, vice president of the Candlelight Party, for criminal defamation for questioning the results of recent commune elections in comments to the Khmer-language version of The Cambodia Daily. The CPP had days earlier demanded $1 million in a lawsuit over the same comments.
Pressure Party
In more election aftermath, police arrested two of the four winning Candlelight Party candidates — one on a 20-year-old robbery charge, the other for filming CPP officials registering voters on election day. Rights activists called it a “show of force” intended to cement Hun Sen’s one-man rule as he prepares to hand over power to his eldest son.
BACKPAGES: From The Cambodia Daily Vault
Nuon Chea: Sam Bith Has Alibi in Attack
June 24, 2002
Fourteen former Khmer Rouge leaders, including “Brother No 2” Nuon Chea, have agreed to vouch for detained former commander Sam Bith, thumbprinting a statement that claims he was in the hospital when 16 people were killed in a train ambush in Kampot province in 1994.
First Six Deported Convicts Arrive From US Cambodia
June 24, 2002
Six Cambodian ex-convicts deported from the US arrived in Cambodia Saturday afternoon and are being held by the police until their families are found, officials said Sunday.
VN Brothel Girls Remain Incarcerated
June 22, 2002
Human rights workers say they have not been able to see any of the 14 girls seized Thursday by police from an NGO that works with victims of sexual trafficking.
Do Adoption Facilitators Save Babies or Sell Them? A Profile of the Field’s Biggest Player
June 22, 2002
Once upon a time, international adoption facilitators were angels who braved the harsh climate of impoverished foreign lands to give poor abandoned orphans the chance at a better life with wealthy, loving new parents. But the angels have fallen in recent years, with credible allegations of baby-buying and even baby-stealing emerging though human-rights groups, embassies and the media.
Photos: Stingray, Chhut Chheana/Wonders of the Mekong. Phnom Penh, public domain.
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