Experts say poaching up ahead of New Year

<img alt="People inspect a sambar, a vulnerable deer species, in Preah Vihear’s Chey Sen district in 2014 after they shot it with homemade rifles. Photo supplied" src="http://www.phnompenhpost.com/sites/default/files/styles/two-col/public/field/image/riendeer.jpg?itok=sQEvEdJB" /><br /> <br /> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> As Khmer New Year approaches, poachers begin to swarm the Kingdom’s forests, looking for quick cash or more meat for their holiday feasts or simply taking advantage of the lax law enforcement, conservationists say.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Conservation officials and NGOs from across Cambodia said illegal hunting spiked in the few weeks before every Khmer New Year, and villagers in Preah Vihear province yesterday confirmed that many of their neighbors had homemade rifles and were making more for pre-holiday hunting.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “It happens every year, about a month before Khmer New Year,” said Ross Sinclair, the country director of the Wildlife Conservation Society.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Though the magnitude of the increase is hard to estimate, experts and locals both say that pre-holiday poaching affects many different mammal species.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> A resident of Thmea commune in Preah Vihear’s Chey Sen district, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said his neighbors hunted monkeys, deer, sambar, wild pigs, muntjacs and other animals. Half of the locals own homemade guns but authorities rarely notice.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “The villagers are making and preparing homemade rifles, and they will use them to shoot wild animals for food to eat when gathering on Khmer New Year,” he said.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Long Samphat, the Thmea commune chief, acknowledged that some villagers still possess such weapons, although the authorities have confiscated them many times.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Though Sinclair said that he was aware of heightened poaching both for food and for cash, Wildlife Alliance CEO Suwanna Gauntlett said that the vast majority of game is sold. “It’s mostly for sale,” she said. “It happens before all of the major holidays.”</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Kim Spreang, director of terrestrial protected areas at the Ministry of Environment, agreed that most poached animals are sold either locally or internationally. Large animals killed before Khmer New Year often find a market in Cambodia.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “Some of the wealthy families like to buy them to make decorations from antlers and horns,” he said, as well as consuming the meat.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Besides homemade rifles, the use of advanced snares has increased in the past year, according to Gauntlett. These indiscriminately capture a broad cross-section of animals.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Spreang said that a big factor in the heightened pre-holiday poaching is relaxed law enforcement. Many officers are on holiday, while others are taking it easy on the j</div>

Experts say poaching up ahead of New Year

As Khmer New Year approaches, poachers begin to swarm the Kingdom’s forests, looking for quick cash or more meat for their holiday feasts...

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Lonely gate offers supplicants access to the world of spirits

<img alt="The Damnak Loung gate is revered as a sacred site where supplicants seeking good luck or spiritual assistance make offerings. " src="http://www.phnompenhpost.com/sites/default/files/styles/two-col/public/field/image/fence.jpg?itok=vAAy8iDC" /><br /> <br /> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> About 15 kilometres outside Battambang town on National Road 57 stands a metal gate without a fence that once supposedly provided access to a palace that has long since disappeared. Despite this, visitors often still come calling.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> From the portal’s bars hang strings of colourful beads and ornaments, and nearby, several large pots prickle with used sticks of incense. Bunches of bananas are piled on altars next to two spirit houses. A few metres away under an umbrella, a small stall sells incense, candles and fruit.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> According to Som Touch, who opened the shop in September, people seeking good luck or help winning money in illegal local lotteries come from far and wide to pray to the spirits at the gate.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Sometimes after making an offering, the supplicant will rub powder on the gate, and a number will appear to them.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “It is true that a lot of people have won the lottery,” she said. “I am one of them, too.”</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> The gate has been a sacred site drawing people to pray as long as locals could remember, said Toul Ta Ek commune chief Kea Thavy, though no one was sure exactly what building stood there before.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “It’s not only this gate that we believe is sacred; there are many other places in Cambodia as well. For example, there is an old gate at Bakan commune in Pursat province where people do the same thing,” she said.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> <br /></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> <img alt="The gate is believed to be the last remnant of a royal home used by King Norodom. Photo supplied" src="http://www.phnompenhpost.com/sites/default/files/styles/content_full_width/public/king.jpg?itok=_48-wYgX" /></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> <br /></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Matthew Trew, an anthropologist who has been working in Battambang for the past seven years, confirmed that the metal and concrete portal had been revered for many years. It was known as the Damnak Loung gate or “royal gate”, because people believed it was once the location of a royal residence for kings when they visited Battambang.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “The most likely scenario is that King Norodom [who reigned from 1860 to 1904] lived in that residence during his exile from Phnom Penh, but as Sisowath was also born in Battambang, it is possible that [Sisowath’s father] Ang Duong also lived in the residence or nearby,” said Trew.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> During the Khmer Rouge regime, cadres impaled the heads of traitors and enemies on the gate’s spikes, he said.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “Many parts of the gate that the Khmer Rouge utilised for that purpose have since been removed, but the main section is revered, because ghosts, particularly of dead ancestors closely related to people alive today, are greatly feared and respected,” he said. </div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “Many old sites of death, such as the killing caves of Phnom Sampeau, become important shrine sites because the ghosts of dead ancestors can still influence the lives of people today. </div>

Lonely gate offers supplicants access to the world of spirits

About 15 kilometres outside Battambang town on National Road 57 stands a metal gate without a fence that once supposedly provided access ...

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Analysis: Hun Sen's reshuffle weighed, found wanting

<img alt="Prime Minister Hun Sen and other senior officials attend a parliamentary session on a ministerial reshuffle at the National Assembly on Monday." src="http://www.phnompenhpost.com/sites/default/files/styles/two-col/public/field/image/hun_1_0.jpg?itok=yPjUa0uv" /><br /> <br /> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> A host of diplomats and insiders, given a cloak of anonymity in order to speak frankly, were quick to counter government’s claims that the recent shuffling of officials would boost “quality and efficiency”.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “Playing musical chairs,” they told the <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Post</em>, would do nothing to address the pressing issues crippling the Kingdom’s government: the bloated administration and the often overlapping, redundant ministries and authorities.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Despite government exhortations that the reshuffle, <a href="http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/assembly-approves-pms-ministerial-reshuffle" style="border: 0px; color: #01599d; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">approved by the National Assembly</a> on Monday, would boost efficiency and performance, it’s largely been labelled a cosmetic change.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “So many ministries overlap in terms of competencies . . . For us, that was a bit disappointing, knowing it is a bit like musical chairs,” added one diplomat. “It was a missed opportunity also if one of the goals of the reshuffle was to send a reform message to the electorate.”</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> At its upper levels, Cambodia’s civil service, which em-ploys some 190,000 people, is indisputably swollen.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> Following the reshuffle, which included several new secretaries of state, Cambodia’s executive branch now has almost 240 members: eight deputy prime ministers, 15 senior ministers, 14 ministers and 199 secretaries of state, according to Comfrel. This isn’t counting more than 200 undersecretaries of state, who are appointed by the premier and sit in the middle ground between the bureaucracy and executive.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “It’s a little big,” says Youk Bunna, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Public Function who is pushing public sector reform efforts. “There are some discussions that we should change the system to exclude secretaries of state as not being members of the government, but . . . if we want to do that, we have to amend the constitution.”</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> To a large extent, the top-heavy royal government is a legacy of the power-sharing years between the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and royalist Funcinpec, said Koul Panha, executive director of government watchdog Comfrel.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> “They all wanted their senior politicians to have a role in government and were afraid of the coalition splitting, so they just broadened the government,” Panha said. “When the CPP formed a government [on their own] in 2008, people expected there might be some reform . . . but they did not, they just brought in more CPP people and anyone who defected from the opposition.”</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> After narrowly scraping through the 2013 elections, Prime Minister Hun Sen vowed change, telling officials to “scrub themselves clean” during a six-hour speech on planned reforms.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> The government transferred several agencies run under the aegis of the Council of Ministers to their relevant ministries and combined the state secretariat of civil service, the royal school of administration and the general secretariat of public administrative reform into the Public Function Ministry.</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> The ministry now works to improve the bureaucracy’s human resource, but cleaning up Cambodia’s bureaucratic body remains a tall order. Twenty-eight ministries form its main limbs, and several authorities, established by various laws and decrees, have grown between</div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> <br /></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Ubuntu, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; margin-bottom: 9px; padding: 0px;"> <br /></div>

Analysis: Hun Sen's reshuffle weighed, found wanting

A host of diplomats and insiders, given a cloak of anonymity in order to speak frankly, were quick to counter government’s claims that th...

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