These horses are not Chinese!
But this Chinese New Year is the year of the horse.
I wish you a happy New Year.
AND DON’T SPARE THE HORSES…
Revellers flock at the chinese pagoda on top of Wat Phnom on this second day of the Lunar New Year.
More HERE…
The Chinese New Year celebrations have started. For the 14th consecutive year I missed the dragon and lion dances in front of the Royal Palace. I never seem to get the timing right… But journalists were warmly welcome to attend the celebrations at the Chinese Embassy…
More HERE.
A group of citizens, representing nearly 200 NGO’s and associations, continued a tour of several embassies initiated on January 23rd, to deliver a petition requesting the release of 23 people arrested during the violent crackdown by armed forces on striking workers this last January 2nd and 3rd (see HERE). After having given the petition to the Singapore embassy, the group was briefly stopped in its progress by riot police and the unfamous helmeted Municipal Guards. A deal was finally reached to let the group proceed to the remaining embassies or agencies by tuk-tuk. Petitions were delivered to the embassies of Brunei, UNDP, Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam (no one there due to the Tet festivities), Philippines and finally China.
According to an article from the Phnom Penh Post of January 28th, more than 100 labour union representatives were fired in the wake of the strikes for wages which were violently cracked down upon by the armed forces earlier this month.
About 1000 workers from the industrial area of Vattanac II walked out because 11 union leaders were fired recently. The huge sound system installed in front of the entrance gates brought some of the striking workers to spend the time dancing to the beat while waiting for their representatives to negotiate with the management. The others took shelter from the sun…
Mam Sonando, Beehive Radio owner, gathered supporters to march to the Ministry of Information to request a frequency for a TV station. The protest was dispersed by Gendarmerie and Riot Police using cattle prods and smoke bombs when the crowd of some 500 stayed a while in front of the Minsitry, blocking traffic on Monivong Boulevard. Mam Sonando was whisked away unharmed but several people ended up in the hospital after having been beaten up.
After the crowd dispersed an undercover policeman (or thug?) carrying a slingshot and metal pellets was caught and had to be protected from an angry crowd.
At 4:00AM on the morning of January 24th 2009, bulldozers and many dozens of breakers armed with crowbars had a passage opened by riot police firing tear gas through a flimsy barricade set up by the remaining inhabitants of the Dey Krohom community. It was to be one of the more violent evictions in the city of Phnom Penh.
Today the community commemorated the eviction by gathering a couple of hundred former inhabitants and sympathisers behind a 100 meter long banner stretched out in front of the place where once the Dey Krohom community stood.
A report on this eviction can be found in the application ‘Quest for Land’ available on iTunes at THIS LINK. The app gives an extensive overview about land issues in Cambodia, with over 700 photographs and an in-depth text by Robert Carmichael.
After the march and gathering of more than 9 people ban proclaimed by the Phnom Penh Municipality, it is hard to assess when the authorities will let their Communal ‘Security’ Officers loose on peaceful gatherings. When 11 people were arrested for a few hours day before yesterday, no one from the 50-something people from the Civil Society Organisation, representing some 180 NGO’s, was prevented from marching to 6 different embassies or agencies (German embassy, South Korean Cooperation Agency, South Korean, Australian, Russian and Thai embassies) to deliver a petition requesting the liberation of the 23 people jailed on January 2nd and 3d during the violent crackdown by the army on striking workers.
Correction: 11 people were arrested (and later released) last tuesday not day before yesterday.
Correction 2: the march delivered the petition to 7 places, not 6. The one I did not mention being the Malaysian embassy.
