Illegal Guns Catch Heat, Labor Showdown Looms, Phnom Penh Prices Soar
Good morning, Cambodia. It's Friday, June 28, and this is your Weekly Dispatch.
TRIGGER POINT: AK-47s, AR-15s, Glocks, Berettas — they’re all available for purchase, often from the very officials entrusted with their safe keeping. Will Cambodia ever tame its black market weapons trade?
HIGH GRAFT: Cambodia failed for a third straight year to stay off the U.S. Trafficking in Persons blacklist. The Kingdom’s notorious scam mills, experts say, have "all the markers of a top-to-bottom state-protected industry."
PRICE TAG: Singapore is the only city in Southeast Asia more expensive than Phnom Penh, a report claims, and gig workers are struggling. Nearly one-third of the capital’s 15,000 ride-hailing app drivers sleep in their tuk-tuks — and the numbers are growing.
THE LEDE
Union Suit
CENTRAL, the workers' rights watchdog, clearly hit a nerve.
Its report on the garment industry found threats, bribes, sexual harassment, anti-unionism and more. The fallout has been another twist in the Kingdom’s fraught relationship with organized labor.
CPP-proxy unions hit back: denouncing CENTRAL and demanding it "correct" the report, protesting at the U.S. Embassy to slash funding, and accusing the advocacy group of using foreign cash to “destroy peace and stability.”
Next, the Interior Ministry said it would investigate CENTRAL and a pro-government union group sued its popular leader for defamation. Stay tuned as CENTRAL gathers allies of its own.
The CPP has co-opted and crushed labor unions for decades — it's always the Kingdom’s workers who lose.
Barrel Down
"If they are AKs, then they are from Cambodia.”
That's from a report that traces Southeast Asia's rampant, cross-border gun trade to the Kingdom, where corruption and crime still carry the day.
The shadowy network starts in Poipet, moves to Sihanoukville, then stretches through Thailand to guerrilla groups in Myanmar and beyond. Along the way, the report links the region’s small arms black market to Cambodia's top military family.
Battlefield weapons on Cambodian streets are nothing new. But calls for gun control have kicked off since last week's oknha double murder. It’s a standoff between public outcry and state policy: Who will blink first?
Fact Check
The Strongman is touting a new social messaging app — and everyone’s afraid it’s spyware.
CoolApp Messenger, says Hun Sen, is Cambodia’s answer to WhatsApp and Telegram. He urged his 14 million followers to install it, while civil servants and government employees were ordered to do so.
CoolApp comes from the makers of Fresh News, the government mouthpiece known for publishing secretly obtained recordings of opposition leaders’ phone calls. App makers assert the software is safe, and user communications are protected with industry-leading encryption.
Privacy experts warn that without an independent audit, such claims are meaningless. Caveat emptor.
TALKING POINTS
Sin City
An unexplained construction boom near the Cambodia-Vietnam border has residents worried that a once-sleepy stretch of Kandal province will soon become the Kingdom’s next scam-mill outpost. At least five multi-building compounds are under construction, including the Golden Fortune Resorts World Casino, reportedly controlled by the Prince Group. Officials are tight-lipped, but construction workers confirm it’s a Prince gambling empire in the making.
Crime Drama
A blistering U.S. report accuses high-ranking government authorities of “official complicity" in human trafficking and online scams. The annual Trafficking in Persons report keeps Cambodia at Tier 3, the lowest rating, for a third consecutive year, as calls grow for Western sanctions.
Results Driven
The Phnom Penh Court will on Tuesday issue a verdict in the trial of 10 Mother Nature activists charged with plotting to overthrow the government. International observers have highlighted substantial flaws in the case, while rights activists called the charges the latest move in a campaign of harassment designed to scare advocates into silence.
Long Nights
Phnom Penh ranks behind only Singapore as Southeast Asia’s most expensive city. Ride-hailing app employees have been among the hardest hit, say experts, with an estimated 4,500 tuk-tuk drivers regularly sleeping in their vehicles.
Heavy Strokes
A new “Code of Conduct” issued by the Ministry of Culture is raising concerns about government control over the arts. The rules direct artists to protect the “honor and dignity” of the Kingdom, and fears are growing that soon only state-approved expression will be allowed.
Wrong Turn
Traffic fatalities are up 7% over the first five months of the year, erasing gains made in 2023 when fatalities dropped by 7%. Police recorded 670 deaths and nearly 1,800 injuries through May. More than half of the accidents occurred at night, and police vowed to continue a campaign against drunk driving.
Gecko Tales
Scientists in Kampot province discovered a new reptile: the Royal Cave Bent-Toed Gecko, which lives only in the limestone caves around Phnom Preah Kuhear Luong. The find highlights the Kingdom’s diverse and understudied natural environments, officials said, and suggests that more species await discovery.
BACKPAGES: From The Cambodia Daily Vault
Licadho Assails, Police Defend Use of Torture
June 28, 2004
Local human rights group Licadho called for stronger action against torture in a statement marking the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on Saturday, while a top police official on Sunday defended the use of strong-armed interrogation methods.
US Convicts Cambodian Baby Broker
June 25, 2004
Adoption agent Lauryn Galindo, who brokered hundreds of overseas adoptions from Cambodia, pleaded guilty Wednesday in a US federal court to charges of visa fraud, money laundering and currency structuring, The Associated Press reported.
Union Leader Found Gagged, Unconscious
June 25, 2004
A Free Trade Union leader at a Phnom Penh garment factory was found bound, gagged and unconscious in her Meanchey district home, a day after union officials alleged she had a dispute with factory officials.
Oldest Angkor Site May Have Been Found
June 24, 2004
During the last two weeks of May, the archeological team worked as fast as it could. The Cambodian and French experts knew the opportunity to investigate this unusual site at Angkor in Siem Reap province may not arise again for years.
WEEKEND READING
History repeats as logging linked to Cambodian hydropower dam in Cardamoms
Loggers are targeting protected forests in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains using the cover of a new hydropower dam. The dam is being built by Ly Yong Phat, a wealthy Cambodian tycoon with ties to the top tiers of government and a long history of environmental vandalism in the Cardamoms.
Photos: Protests, CENTRAL. Mother Nature, Cambodia Daily.
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