Sou Sdei and welcome to Campuccino, your fortnightly dispatch of key headlines in Cambodia with a dash of opinion.
A warm welcome to new subscribers, thank you for allowing me into your inbox. It’s nice to have you here.
I apologise for the delay in sending out this week newsletter. Health issue and life got in the way. I will also cut down a few sections this time as I am grieving for a close relative member who recently passed away due to Covid-19 in Cambodia. The format will return to its normalcy in the next issue.
Wherever you are, please take good care, be extra careful and get vaccinated if you’re eligible. Also, for those who are celebrating, Happy Easter.
- Darathtey
In this issue: Covid-19 updates, the development of Bokor City, migrant workers precarious border-crossing journey, and more.
When it comes to coronavirus, I’m speechless for once. I’ve exhausted all comments that I can possible give on the subject and it’s getting way too personal with my recent loss. Therefore, I will list a few significant headlines below so you can digest them your way. In a nutshell, the pandemic situation in Cambodia is getting very worrying.
The summary graphic below gives you a good summary of the continuous spread of the virus courtesy to @DaveBenaim for always pulling together the latest data.
As of 1 April, there have been 20 Covid-19 related deaths although only 16 of the deaths have been attributed to the virus, reports VOD. It is worth noting that higher transmission and mortality rates are linked to the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the U.K. In response to the rising coronavirus death toll, a two-week curfew was declared in Phnom Penh on 1 April. Travel and gathering are banned from 8 PM to 5 AM. Food delivery services are exempt as well as cargo drivers, firefighters, some workers. For details on the curfew, you can read news reports from CamboJA and VOD.
As I’m slowly planning my return to Cambodia, anxiety hits. There’s no way I can put myself through a free make-shift high school quarantine facility. Then, I came across a very interesting article on border crossing for migrants. It makes me question if my concerns are actually worth concerning at all (checking my own privilege). For many Cambodian migrant workers, traveling back to their home country from Thailand has become a very precarious matter. With major border towns such as Poipet closing, they are forced to take a more obscure crossing entry point in Banteay Meanchey via brokers. Check out an in-depth reporting on their journey written by Allegra Mendelson for Southeast Asia Globe here.
I can’t imagine and don’t want to imagine what my country will be like in the next 10 or 20 years because we seem to exchange national resources with factories and economic zones, coastline and lakes with hotels and casino, rivers for dams and high rises. All in the name of development, but for who exactly?
The government recently announced a master plan of turning three communes in Kampot province into “Bokor city”, reports Ouch Sony and Khut Sokun for VOD. Part of this city extends into Bokor National Park area around 9,000 hectares. The plans seem to coincide with a tycoon’s plan to develop Bokor Mountain. I will let you put 2 and 2 together at your own accord. I’m speechless and disappointed and wishfully hope that this is not coming into fruition because Bokor Mountain and National Park is so beautiful and priceless, and now they want to take that away too.
Bokor National Park is not the only place to receive a development treatment. Ream National Park is also facing tourism developments. A comprehensive report by Danielle Keeton-Olsen and Roun Ry for China Dialogue unearths a large-scale private tourism development that threatening Ream National Park’s richly diverse ecosystem and the livelihood of people living around them. Once home to mangrove forests, wetlands and rocky coastline, the park is now being stripped of its natural inhabitants to make way for tourism resorts.
In a similar vein, Cambodia’s largest untouched forest, Prey Lang, is facing serious damage from illegal logging. In its newly published report titled “Forest crimes in Cambodia”, the Global Initiative, an international advocacy group tracking organized crime, made a claim that Cambodian government officials are “at the very least providing an accommodating environment for illegal logging operations” in Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. See a summary and follow-up news report on the issue by CamboJA here.
Some of you might start scratching your head and question “why don’t people protest or do anything about it if we not happy?” Well, I wish it was that simple. In my country, activism can be accused as incitement by the court. According to a report by VOD, three environmentalists are facing an “incitement” charge due to their video campaign against the filling of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Tamok lake. Three Mother Nature Cambodia activists were arrested in September, and have been in jail for almost seven months.
Campuccino is a fortnightly dispatch of key headlines in Cambodia, written by @DarathteyDin from Word & Visual.
I’d love to hear from you. If you have feedback or content ideas, please reach out via tey@wordandvisualmedia.com
My heart aches to return to Cambodia. Covid hysteria has the world going mad. I have learned so much about myself from the Cambodians and your culture.