Ambitious restaurateur

Ambitious young restaurateur Saryroth Chan has opened her first venture, Charcoal in Siem Reap’s Wat Bo Road. The stylish eatery – which specialises in upmarket French food as well as creative Cambodian dishes – is a long way from the clamour and crush of Pub Street, where she got her start. Chan, who was born into a poor family in Battambang, built up her skills and experience under the mentorship of Frenchman Serge Billot. Billot, the owner of a string of restaurants including Champey and Banana Leaf, hired Chan in 2005 while she was studying at the Paul Dubrule Tourism School. She started off as a bartender, but quickly rose to being his number two, leaving in 2012 after her mother died. By then, she was running seven different restaurants across town. “For 10 years now, every morning when I get up, I make a plan about what I’m going to do that day,” says Chan. “Every day I do it.” After buying the former Selantra Restaurant and Lounge last year, the 34-year-old ran the place as it was for a short while, but planned to create something bolder and soon closed the doors for a full renovation. Now a slatted wooden front facing the road gives the restaurant an open look, a vast improvement on the dark nook it was before. Once inside, a dining conservatory leads you into the main dining room, an elegant space with white walls and soft grey accents.

Has the money

Recently widowed and with a newborn baby, Pannha* left her home in Cambodia to work in Malaysia – where she was promised a job in a sewing factory. When she arrived, however, she was given an umbrella, a bag and a metal bowl, and brought to the market. The job she was promised, never materialised. Instead, she was told to beg for money or be sent to jail with her baby. Each day, Pannha asked strangers for a few coins. While she made a significant amount from begging, she was unable to keep the money as her broker ordered her to pay back the cost of transportation to markets, housing, electricity, food, bowl, umbrella, bag, water supply and the rest for paying debt. When she was able to escape, eventually, she returned to Cambodia. But her life did not improve. She was a victim of human trafficking, and her life is in no better condition than when she left two years earlier. Over the last 15 years, this type of story has been repeated over and over. Young people continue to be persuaded to work in richer countries. When they arrive, the jobs promised to them never materialise. Instead, they are forced into jobs they didn’t want or didn’t sign up for. In these jobs, they face violence, extremely difficult working conditions and exploitation. It’s a sad admission that the problem hasn’t ended, despite the millions of dollars that have been poured into anti-trafficking work in the Greater Mekong Sub-region for well over a decade.

The last of the portrait

For the past 27 years, Lav Sopha has worked as a portrait photographer in front of the Royal Palace. From the early morning until dusk, wearing a big smile and a wide-brimmed grey hat, Sopha approaches visitors to see if they want to have their photo taken as a memento. Once a solid source of income, he now makes little from the job. “Before, each day I could take from 40 to 100 pictures for visitors, but now I take less than 10 pictures per day,” the 60-year-old recalled, his Canon digital camera hanging from his shoulder. Since the advent of digital photography, demand for the souvenirs, printed out for 2,000 riel, has dramatically declined. On a recent afternoon, the lawn was crowded with visitors taking their own snaps as a gaggle of professional photographers – more than 10 – stood by.

sport seminar

As a historically significant year for female sporting success in Cambodia rolls over, headlined by Sorn Seavmey’s Incheon Asian Games taekwondo gold medal in October, the Kingdom begins the New Year with a bold initiative to give greater visibility to women and sport issues. The National Olympic Committee of Cambodia, in conjunction with the country’s Women and Sports Commission, will be laying out the red carpet for delegates and field experts from the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic Council of Asia attending a four-day women and sport seminar for Asia at Siem Reap’s Sokhalay Angkor Resort and Spa from January 8 to 11. The opening day’s plenary session offers presentations from Cambodia, Indonesia, South Korea, Mongolia, Bangladesh and Pakistan on their national initiatives. Over the next three days, discussions and training sessions will touch on wide-ranging issues including leadership qualities, communication and networking skills, coaching and mentoring and strategic proactive steps to ensure equitable representation of women in Southeast Asia. On the sidelines of the seminar, the participants will be entertained by a welcome dinner hosted by NOCC president and Tourism Minister Thong Khon on January 8 as well as a tour of the Angkor temple complex.

The film is part

French director Régis Wargnier described his new film, The Gate, as the concluding part of his “communist utopia trilogy,” ahead of the Cambodian premiere in Phnom Penh last night. Wargnier said the trilogy began 22 years ago with his Academy Award-winning 1992 film Indochine, a love story set against the backdrop of colonial Vietnam from the 1930s to the 1950s. The Gate, which screened at Aeon Mall’s Major Cineplex last night, is a semifictional dramatisation of the memoir of anthropologist François Bizot, who was captured by the Khmer Rouge in 1971. Bizot developed a relationship with his interrogator Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, who eventually released the Frenchman after being convinced he was not a spy. “The films are very different,” he said. “Indochine was wide and a long feature, an epic movie, quite melodramatic, and this one is more tight, straight and more focusing on the relationship between two guys, a French man and Cambodian man. “But there is also a common historical background which is the revolutionary utopia of communism. “In Indochine we could see in the background the start of the revolution based on communist dogma. Then I directed a movie called East-West which was showing how to deal with life when communism is dictating life in the former USSR. And number three is utopia turned to tragedy, which is the Khmer Rouge. “So I would say it’s a trilogy. And this one of course is number three. And I would say [that in each the focus is] closer and closer on the people. So it’s a very different feel, it’s a very special one, based on these two guys.” A co-production between France’s Gaumont Film Company and Cambodia’s Bophana Production, the film was shot in Cambodia stars up-and-coming French actor Raphael Personnaz as Bizot and first-time French actor Phoeung Kompheak as Duch. Last night’s premiere was attended by the Cambodian cast and crew as well as government officials and VIPs.

App makes typing

An innovative new iPhone app allows users to type Khmer characters much faster than was previously possible, according to the developers. The Khmer Smart Keyboard uses a “swipe” function to give users access to all of the Khmer alphabets 33 consonants, 23 vowels and 12 independent vowels. Previously users had to press a virtual “shift” key to go back-and-forth between keyboards to access all the characters Each character on the Khmer Smart Keyboard displays two characters, and to type the second character users swipe down, instead of tapping. Product manager Kruy Vanna said that during their tests they found the users were able to type 40 words per minute with the new app, compared to just 28 words per minute using a regular smartphone keyboard. The keyboard also includes shortcuts, such as swiping left across the keyboard to backspace and swiping right to bring up symbols and numbers. Since hitting the iTunes store on October 13, the free app has been downloaded more than 42,400 times. The majority of downloads have been in Cambodia, followed by the US and Canada. The app has a five-star rating from users and reviews have been full of praise. One reviewer jokingly asks where the six-star rating option was. After one week in the app store, Khmer Smart Keyboard was the most downloaded free app in Cambodia. It now sits at number nine, one place behind YouTube. The launch of the app coincided with the release in October of a report from Open Institute that found that during 2014 there had been a 65 per cent increase in the number of phone users with a phone that supports Khmer characters. It also found that the number of Cambodians who use Khmer text daily or weekly had gone up by 335 per cent, with an increase of more than 2,000 per cent for users between the ages of 35 and 45.

Protest

A protest against her dismissal from the opposition party backfired on Lak Sopheap yesterday as counter-protesters demanded she settle outstanding “debts” and some of her own supporters admitted not knowing why they were protesting. Sopheap was fired from her position as an assistant to Cambodia National Rescue Party deputy president Kem Sokha on Tuesday after alleging last week that Sokha had accused party leader Sam Rainsy of accepting $20 million to negotiate with Prime Minister Hun Sen during the political deadlock earlier this year. After vowing on Wednesday to bring up to 300 people to the CNRP’s headquarters to protest against her dismissal, Sopheap was instead confronted by an angry mob. A violent clash came close to erupting as people confronted the fired assistant over money she allegedly owes them. Among them, well-known CNRP-aligned pop singer Sophoan Lary was one who got up in Sopheap’s face. “My older sister will arrive here soon,” he said. “[Sopheap] has borrowed $300 from her and now says she has no money to pay her back.” Others in the crowd hurled allegations and insults at Sopheap. One irate owner of a nearby café accused her of failing to settle a bill. “You owe me 1,000 riel [$0.25 cents] for a coffee,” the man shouted. But Sopheap denied the accusations. “I did not borrow from anyone,” she said. “Don’t make worthless allegations like this or I will sue.” Appearing overwhelmed and realising the numbers were against her, Sopheap tried to shake off the crowd, who briefly gave chase as she climbed into a tuk-tuk and fled. Of the scores of people gathered outside the CNRP’s headquarters, only about 10 seemed to be supporting Sopheap. And some of those were confused as to why they were there. “I was told to come to protest about voting,” said a man from Kampong Speu province who declined to be named.

After Montagnards

After blocking a UN team from meeting with a group of Montagnard asylum seekers and threatening to arrest and deport those refugees last month, a Ratanakkiri official ended his year by threatening villagers. The Lumphat district security guard boasted this week that he would see two ethnic minority villagers arrested for allegedly harbouring illegal Vietnamese immigrants, according to villagers’ accounts. The security guard, Lea Leang, appeared at a Jarai villager’s home on Tuesday and demanded to take photos of Rochom Luong, 42 and Thorng Yuon, 42. The guard told the pair that the pictures would be sent to police, who wanted them arrested for previously helping a group of Montagnard asylum seekers hide in the forest, away from the local officials who vowed to forcibly repatriate them to Vietnam. “He accused me of illegally hiding Vietnamese immigrants and said he would call the police,” said Luong. Yesterday morning, the guard recanted, however. Appearing at Luong’s house once again, the guard allegedly claimed he was drunk at the time. Leang agreed to pay the villagers $125 to shut them up about the threats, according to the villager. Leang could not be reached yesterday to confirm the account. In spite of the bribe offer, the Jarai villagers reported the case to rights group Adhoc. “There have been no measures taken since that village guard already knew his mistake and apologised,” said Chhay Thy, provincial coordinator at Adhoc. But the villagers' ongoing fears about the guard may not be without merit, as Thy also pointed out the irate official had successfully barred the UN from meeting with the asylum seekers on multiple occasions.

putting good news

As the person responsible for screening the submissions for this week’s Angkor Photo Festival in Siem Reap, Francoise Callier sees a little more misery from around the globe than most. Disasters, natural and man-made, are the stock-in-trade for many photographers. But Callier curated the Impact Project, which screened on Tuesday night at the FCC Angkor, to tell positive stories through photography about individuals, groups and organisations doing something to help with social and environmental issues. “There is a story about a hummingbird whose forest went up in flames,” she said in an interview before the screening. “All of the animals stood and watched, overwhelmed, but the hummingbird flew to the river, collected a few drops of water, and then released them on the fire. “The other animals mocked him for his futility, but he replied by saying, ‘At least I did what I was able to do’. “We all can do that, and that is what I wanted to show with this exhibition.” Among the stories featured in the Impact Project was one of a priest in Kenya who has helped villages find water in their parched environment, as witnessed by Alain Buu in War Over Water. Also shown was Alex Masi’s Tale of Hope in Bhopal, site of the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster, which has garnered international acclaim. His photpgraph of a young girl, Poonam, bathing in the monsoon rains won a Photographers Giving Back Award of $5,000. Masi has directed that sum, along with other funds since raised, towards educating Poonam and her sister. Closer to home, Sophal Try tells the story of the Lake Clinic, a Siem Reap-based initiative that brings medical care to villages on the Tonle Sap Lake, some of them among the poorest communities in Cambodia.

Provinces target

Cambodia's popular tourist destinations, both old and new, have ramped up their New Year’s Eve celebrations in order to attract more foreign tourists this year. Tourist-favourite Siem Reap has expanded their celebrations from last year, according to Khem Bunsong, governor of Siem Reap province. “The celebration this year will be a bit bigger from last year, as we have expanded lighting decoration to most part of the town. The hotels, guest houses and restaurants are also preparing a handful of activities,” he said. “The private sectors this year [did] a better job to decorate their places to welcome the New Year. I expect the crowd to be bigger, because as far as I know, hotels and guest houses [are] already full booked for today and tomorrow.” The focus of Siem Reap’s celebrations will be Pub Street and the Siem Reap Night Market, Bunsong said. Fireworks will also be shot off from the old stone bridge. Siem Reap’s temples, however, will not be decorated for the holiday. Up-and-coming tourist destination Battambang will hold its first ever New Year’s Eve festivities today. Though the province is known for its colonial architecture and bamboo train, Uch Omthiny Sara, director of the Battambang Tourism Department, hopes the celebrations will attract more foreigners to the province. “This year we organised [the event] as part of global trend. I hope the crowd to the province will be big for this time’s celebration,” Sara said. Battambang collaborated with Thailand’s Tourism Association to promote their event and attract more visitors travelling to Cambodia from Koh Chang and Pattaya, and through the crossing at Poipet, according to Sara. Earlier this year, Battambang set up a Pub Street and a Night Market like the ones found in Siem Reap province. These locations will be the focus of the festivities. “The whole event will be held within the Night Market area from 6pm to 12am. This is the very first time the province has organised such an event to attract visitors. I expect the crowd to be big this year. Foreign tourists have already started hanging around the province in the last few days,” he said.

Nuon Chea team

The case against Nuon Chea was plagued by political interference, undermined by biased and incompetent judges and riddled with legal and factual errors, according to the Khmer Rouge leader’s full appeal against a life sentence for crimes against humanity in August. Released publicly yesterday, the 270-page document advances in detail 223 grounds for appeal against the verdict in Case 002/01, which held Chea and Khieu Samphan responsible for crimes committed following the Khmer Rouge’s capturing of Phnom Penh in 1975. Chea’s lawyers take aim at the government’s “blatant and overt” interference in the trial to protect “the senior military officers who implemented the [Khmer Rouge’s] policies and today remain the highest ranking members of government”. They assert the Cambodian government blocked access to witnesses and scuttled investigations as part of “an irrefutable pattern of conduct designed to diminish responsibility of former CPK officials such as [President of the National Assembly] Heng Samrin and [Prime Minister] Hun Sen at Nuon Chea’s expense”. The defence calls for Samrin, Senator Ouk Bunchhoen and a third figure, whose name is redacted, to be summoned to testify as well as journalist Thet Sambath and filmmaker Rob Lemkin, who together investigated the genocide for the film Enemies of the People. Chea’s team also accuses the judges of “deep bias”, calling their ruling “a post facto rationalisation of a long-held belief that the accused are morally repugnant and deserving of the harshest punishment”.

King takes year

King Norodom Sihamoni has granted 12-month sentence reductions to 116 prisoners – including hairdresser to the stars Chan Sreynuch and former South East Asia Radio and TV executive Sem Sovandeth – for their efforts towards rehabilitation, police said yesterday. Sem Savuth, deputy chief of the Prisons Department of the Ministry of Interior, said the reductions – issued in a decree dated November 12 – had been granted because of the inmates’ attempts at self-improvement. “They were granted a year of their sentence reduced by the King, because they have made efforts to modify themselves to be a good person after they were convicted by courts and jailed for many years in prison,” he said yesterday. “Their good character and behaviour were also commended and reported by their prison chiefs, and they sent [a request] to the ministry to reduce their sentences so that they can get out of prison to resume their work and be good citizens in the future,” he added. Sreynuch, the so-called “make-up madam”, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison in 2013 on sex-trafficking charges. The proprietor of a well-known beauty salon that catered to the rich and famous, she was accused of using her position to recruit female students and aspiring singers as prostitutes for wealthy clients. Despite being singled out for her good behaviour, Sreynuch has struggled with transitioning away from her criminal lifestyle. While serving her initial sentence, she was caught and tried early in 2014 for trafficking drugs into Prey Sar prison and slapped with an additional two-year sentence, one year of which was suspended. Sovandeth was hauled up on charges of “breach of trust” after a complaint by his superiors at SEA TV, who noticed “irregularities” in his accounting practices. He was also convicted of clearing 138 hectares of a wildlife sanctuary in Kampot province.

Land title figures released

The Ministry of Land Management has given out 3.8 million land titles to Cambodian citizens from 1989 until November this year, according to a statement released on December 22 and obtained by the Post yesterday. In the same period, the Cambodian government says it had repurposed a total of 1.2 million hectares of land – 380,000 of which came from 134 economic land concession companies, 270,000 from 17 forest concession companies and more than 530,000 hectares from state and forest lands. Despite the seemingly impressive figure, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians have been affected by land disputes, land documents have at times failed to shield residents from eviction and NGOs and the government are quick to disagree over the number of people affected. “The figure of $3.8 million was counted from the start of the cadastral commission since 1989,” said Lor Davuth, director of the Ministry of Land Management’s General Department of Cadastre and Geography. Since a May 2012 order, which began a process of land demarcation in the Kingdom, Davuth added that they have released 610,000 land titles. But while those figures seem accurate, said Chet Charya, executive director of NGO Star Kampuchea, there are still some problems in handing out land titles to citizens. “There are difficulties in the process of giving land titles . . . because the local people and the authorities themselves don’t study the land well, and sometimes that could cause land conflicts,” Charya said. According to the ministry’s Davuth, some NGOs – including Adhoc and Licadho – have overblown figures relating to land disputes in the past, creating a negatively skewed picture of land issues in Cambodia. Based on the ministry’s statement, they have encountered a total of 6,558 land conflict cases since 1989 and solved 5,716 cases, which affected 14,719 families.

Rui Feng firm under

One day after hostages were briefly detained in a Preah Vihear province land dispute with Chinese concessionaire Rui Feng International, another protest has flared up against the company in a nearby commune over the demarcation of contested property. More than 40 villagers from 80 families in Chheb district’s M’lou Prey I commune demonstrated yesterday morning against a group measuring more than 16 hectares of land claimed by residents. “The chief of the village, commune, and [representatives of] Rui Feng company demarcated into our land where we’re living, and we protested to stop them,” said resident 46-year-old Sorn Vuthy. “After the demarcation is completed, they will tell us to dismantle our homes and we’ll be forced to leave. Authorities just told us they will find a new place [for us].” The villagers, however, are refusing to leave, claiming that their presence predates that of the company’s. Vuthy also alleged that corruption was occurring side by side with development. Families that are able to pay local authorities can buy more distance between their land and what’s being measured, he said. Commune chief Heng Phuon, however, denied the corruption allegations and said authorities were not measuring the land for the company, but for widening the road. “The villagers just lived there between 2013 and 2014, not longer than that. We told them to leave, because there is a government plan to expand the road,” he said, adding that the authorities have provided another place for them. Lor Chann, provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, said yesterday that the act is a “violation of human rights”.

Yeap tackles Apsara

Senior ruling Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker Cheam Yeap has dismissed allegations of massive corruption by the government body that oversees the Angkor Archaeological Park made by opposition lawmaker Son Chhay last week. Chhay called for a full investigation into the reporting and use of funds from ticket sales at the Angkor temple complex during a fact-finding mission to Siem Reap province as deputy chairman of the National Assembly’s banking and finance commission, which Yeap leads. He alleged that the Apsara Authority, which contracts the ticket sales at the temple complex to Sok Kong’s Sokimex conglomerate, had underreported ticket sales amounting to tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue and had sold prime real estate to Sokimex at a fraction of its market value. But Yeap yesterday defended the Apsara Authority, which is headed by Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, calling Chhay a lifelong “oppositionist”. “I cannot accept [Chhay’s findings] because of the three pieces of evidence: the report of the president of Apsara to the delegation, the slideshow, and the report given to us [by the Apsara Authority],” he said. “Chhay considers himself as an oppositionist. So even though [the Apsara Authority] has done the right thing, he still opposes it; this is his behaviour,” he added. Chhay could not be reached yesterday to respond to Yeap’s comments. “He cannot say that the ruling party has done the right thing ever. He was always raised as an oppositionist. He accuses us of everything.… I cannot accept it,” Yeap said. Yeap went on to claim that Chhay had a grievance against the Apsara Authority after he lost a lawsuit against it over a land dispute. In 2008, Chhay alleged that he was forced to sell his 3-hectare plot of land in the province for 50 cents per square metre. Apsara has leased 23 hectares of land to Sokimex for 70 years to build hotels and other attractions for $9.6 million, Chhay said last week, adding that the figure was far below the market value of the lease. San Chey, a fellow at the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP), urged the government to hold a public hearing into the allegations. “I think that both the ruling party and opposition seem to have a different point of view or have different findings over the revenue from Angkor Wat, which is a sensitive issue often used for political propaganda,” he said.

open chill Mediterranean-themed

With its high, peaked roof, patterned floor tiles, curved alcoves and cut-out bricks, Che Culo – a new Australian-owned bar in BKK1 – has something of a Mediterranean theme. The food too has Greek, Spanish and Italian influences; small tapas-style dishes at night and light pastas, salads and sandwiches during the day. “It’s loosely based on that whole [Greek island] Santorini, Italian and south of Spain feel, but done really well using local materials,” said manager and co-owner Nick Hattingh, 31, a typically laconic 15-year veteran of the hospitality industry in Australia who has a tattoo of the bar’s logo on his left arm (acquired following a particularly boozy free-flow Sunday brunch at the Sofitel). “We haven’t imported anything. Everything has been locally sourced. Even all our ceramics – plates and stuff – are made in Siem Reap.” Hattingh opened the bar earlier this month with fellow Australians, Locky Paech, 34, who Hattingh had worked with back home setting up and running various award-winning drinking holes such as Sticky Bar, the Norfolk Hotel, Eu-de-Vie and The Forresters, and architect and builder Daniel Jury, 34.

charges stand in Bandith shooting

Disgraced former Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith had his 18-month sentence for the shooting of three garment workers in 2012, which was widely derided as “weak” by rights groups, upheld by the Supreme Court yesterday. Bandith, 38, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $9,500 in June last year for the Kaoway Sports factory shootings in Bavet, Svay Rieng province, on February 20, 2012, but remains in hiding. The city’s deputy police chief, Sar Chantha, 41, was given a six-month suspended sentence and fined $250. Supreme Court Judge Chan Rainsey said yesterday that the decision of the Appeal Court on November 4, 2013, was “correct and made within the laws”, leaving the victims and their families outraged and making disappointed pleas for his capture. “The Supreme Court has decided to uphold the court’s decision and orders the arrest of Chhouk Bandith and for him to be brought to face the law,” Rainsey said. Bandith’s first conviction came after Minister of Interior Sar Kheng named him as the sole suspect in the case and a number of witnesses identified him as the shooter. He was charged but not arrested before the Svay Rieng Provincial Court dropped their case against him in December 2012, sparking outrage from victims and rights groups. The Appeal Court ordered he be retried after reinvestigating the case in March last year. Bandith was convicted of “unintentional violence” under Article 236 of the Criminal Code, while Chantha was convicted of using an illegal weapon in connection with the shooting of the three striking garment workers: Buot Chenda, Keo Near and Nuth Sakhorn. Sakhorn yesterday said that the decision was unfair, but urged authorities to hunt for Bandith.

Unoriginal but cheap

In a city where $6 for a burrito is becoming common, Salsa Cabana offers a cheap fix for frugal TexMex lovers. Located on Street 288, in the heart of expat territory, the new eatery offers a similar menu to Phnom Penh’s many other burrito and taco joints, but at lower-than-average prices. It’s a no-frills sort of place – just one long room on the first floor of a shophouse with a bar at the front and two rows of tables. Decorations are minimal aside from a crayon-coloured mural of flowers at the back of the room. The owner hails from Tokyo, according to the menu, where the original Salsa Cabana was established in 1995. A single Japanese chef, who doesn’t speak English, so it’s unclear if he is actually the owner or just the manager, mans the grill behind the bar where he fires up standard TexMex options. It advertises itself as a “Latin Oriental Bar” but the Asian influence seems minimal. The “Cambodian deep-fried shrimp tacos” are no different from a shrimp taco from Baja. But did I mention it’s all cheap? We decided to sample a bit of everything: the burrito platter ($4), the tacos platter ($4), chips and salsa ($3), the shrimp taco ($4), and taquillas ($4). While unremarkable, it was all tasty. What stood out most was the sour cream hot sauce – although it lacked strong flavour, it gave Northeast Thai curry a run for its money for spiciness. Only the tiniest drip is necessary – add more and your taco may require a pepper spray permit from the Ministry of Interior.