The Kraken Unleashes Health Fears, Battambang Eyes Foodie Prize, and the Rhymes of Queen Honey C
Good morning, Cambodia. It's Friday, June 2, and this is your Weekly Dispatch.
CELL MATES: The prison-industrial complex is booming in Koh Kong, where Chinese workers are chopping down old-growth trees and Cambodian convicts are milling them into a forest of scandal-plagued profits for the state and an array of unwitting NGOs.
APEX PREDATOR: Poachers have hunted Cambodia’s population of Indochinese leopards into “functional” extinction, meaning a few big cats remain but the group is too small to thrive. Experts fear it’s only a matter of time before the majestic feline vanishes forever.
VIRUS VIGILANT: Health officials warned of an emerging Covid-19 wave fueled by an ultra-transmissible Omicron subvariant called the “Kraken.” The Minister of Health cautioned against complacency, and reiterated calls for timely booster shots and preventive health measures.
THE LEDE
Trigger Warning
Death by truck-mounted rocket launcher — that’s what the Strongman has in store for Sam Rainsy should he appear in Cambodia ahead of the July 23 elections.
The former CRNP president had implied that Thailand’s new government would grant him safe passage, sparking Hun Sen’s colorful clapback. The prime minister then claimed authorities had expelled the former opposition leader from Malaysia, an assertion the CNRP brass called “fake news.”
The Strongman has gone to great lengths to keep Rainsy away. The exiled politician faces 150 years in prison should he return. He’s back in France — at least for now.
Jail Birds
The largest logging mill in southwest Cambodia operates from a secretive state prison, using inmate labor to process old-growth timber logged by a Chinese construction company, according to an investigation by Mongabay.
The real scandal is that it’s all mostly legal — approved by the Ministry of Environment and supported by high-profile NGOs, including Conservation International and Wildlife Alliance. Trees are felled by Chinese workers as they build the Stung Tatai Leu hydropower dam, then trucked at night to a Koh Kong provincial prison, where inmates turn the wood into furniture.
Critics say it's a case study in how the government covertly facilitates the illicit timber trade, and yet another negative byproduct of the Kingdom’s numerous hydropower projects.
Mettle Test
The Kingdom’s sports craze rolls on. Nearly 1,500 athletes from 11 nations are set to compete in the 2023 Asean Para Games, which kicks off tomorrow at the 60,000-seat Morodok Techo National Stadium.
Officials have promised an opening ceremony as grandiose as the SEA Games’ curtain raiser, which drew widespread praise.
Disabled athletes will compete in 14 sports, including sitting volleyball, blind and wheelchair basketball, judo, football and track. Cambodia will field 252 contestants, including 76 women, and has predicted a record 56 medals — double its take at the last para games in Indonesia.
Tickets to all events are free.
TALKING POINTS
Down Vote
Cambodia slammed the U.N. Human Rights Council’s criticism of July’s election as misleading and politicized. The government accused the Special Rapporteurs of supporting convicted traitors and meddling in the affairs of a sovereign state. The U.N. had said it was “alarmed” by restrictions in the political arena.
Write Stuff
Three farmers charged with plotting a Khmer Rouge-style “peasant revolution” are free on bail, a remarkable turnaround for such serious charges. The men wrote apologies from jail and the group’s leader filmed a groveling confession praising Hun Sen and denouncing foreigners and extremists. Authorities are still searching for a fourth suspect.
Flight Check
The Kingdom’s red-carpet welcome for Chinese tourists has fallen flat. Industry officials had predicted 1 million arrivals from China this year, but the first quarter total was 130,000. On the upside, international visitors hit 1.3 million, and the lofty goal of 4 million arrivals in 2023 appears on track.
Nine Lives
Cambodia’s population of Indochinese leopards — not long ago considered one of the animal’s last viable breeding groups — is now functionally extinct, according to researchers. Conservationists blame rampant poaching for the big cat’s demise, saying decades of support for law enforcement came to nothing.
Next Wave
Health officials urged vigilance against Covid-19 as a surge of cases driven by “The Kraken” variant overwhelmed hospitals in Bangkok. The Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible version of the virus to date, although evidence suggests it’s no more severe than previous variants.
Cuisine Scene
Battambang is preparing to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the gastronomy category. A UCCN designation would put the Kingdom’s second city on the region’s culinary map and boost its appeal as a tourism destination. Local businesses are salivating.
Sweet Menace
Sochitta Sal, the Toronto-born Khmer rapper known as Honey Cocaine is back in the news. The scholarly journal JSTOR revisited her 2013 underground hit “Bad Gal,” which amplifies the Cambodian refugee experience with hard-hitting, four-letter street poetry. Queen Honey C, as she is also known, was on the cusp of blowing up before going quiet in 2018.
BACKPAGES: From The Cambodia Daily Vault
Minister Wants Long-Stalled Cases Revisited
May 29, 2003
Minister of Women’s Affairs Mu Sochua appealed Wednesday for further investigation into the 1999 killing of Cambodian starlet Piseth Pilika and the acid attack later that year on karaoke video actress Tat Marina.
3 Muslims Arrested on Terror Charges
May 29, 2003
Two Thai nationals and an Egyptian were charged Wednesday with involvement in international terrorism and accused of having links to Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which was blamed for last year’s terrorist bombings in Bali, Indonesia.
Rare Artifacts Showing Up in Internet Auctions
May 27, 2003
The 12th-century Khmer statue taken from Angkor Wat stands 71 centimeters tall. An arm is missing, but otherwise it’s an excellent example of the sculptured female divinities seen inside the galleries of the ancient walled temple.
WEEKEND READING
Microloans in Cambodia Are Harming the Poor
Small loans in Cambodia drown the poor and buoy the rich.
Hun Sen’s Eldest Son Emerges as Likely Successor in Cambodia
Cambodia’s succession won’t be rushed. When speculation swirled almost two years ago that the prime minister’s eldest son would take over in this summer’s election, his father, Hun Sen, the premier for some 40 years, quashed it.
Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
A Mongabay investigation has uncovered a logging operation being run out of Koh Kong provincial prison that gets its timber from the site of a new hydropower dam being built in Thma Bang.
Photos: Basketball, CWBF. Indochinese leopard, Wikimedia.
Send comments to editor@cambodiadaily.com