Politics Keeps Cambodian Opposition Party Prisoners in Jail

More than a dozen members of Cambodia’s main opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party will have to wait for the political winds to shift before they can be freed from the notorious Prey Sar Prison, officials from both the CNRP and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and the told RFA’s Khmer Service.

“Whether or not the activists get out of detention, will depend on the political environment,” CPP spokesman Sok Eysan told RFA. “Their release depends on the political climate and their way out is according to the ruling party.”

CNRP spokesman Yim Sovann told RFA that the ruling party is holding 15 party activists as “political” prisoners on charges rights groups say are dubious.

After Yim Sovann and a group of parliamentarians visited the prisoners on March 23, he told RFA that keeping them in jail makes it more difficult for the parties to reach some degree of rapprochement in a bitter feud that has been running since last year.

“It just makes the situation even worse,” he said. “We cannot talk about justice and solidarity and reconciliation when you persecute the opposition party.”

While the CNRP is wary of the CPP, he added: “The CNRP always shows a willingness to negotiate to end the political conflicts.”

The detentions have caught the attention of human rights groups and the international community, Am Sam Ath, Technical Coordinator for the Cambodian human rights organization LICADHO views their release with a sense of fatalism.

“When there are no political negotiations that could lead to the reconciliation, I think the 15 detainees will not get out of jail,” he told RFA.

Sam Rainsy, who heads the CNRP, went into self-imposed exile last year after a warrant was issued for his arrest in a on a seven-year-old defamation charge and the CPP called for his removal from parliament.

Hun Sen and his CPP have ruled the country for 31 years, but corruption, deforestation, land grabs and other social issues have become issues the opposition has seized on ahead of elections in 2017 and 2018.

The CNRP is also pushing Hun Sen and the CPP over their relationship with neighboring Vietnam, which invaded the country in 1978 and set up a government after defeating the Khmer Rouge. While a settlement was agreed to in 1991, Cambodians still harbor suspicions about Vietnam’s intentions.

Senator held

Among the 15 CNRP members imprisoned in Prey Sar is Hong Sok Huor, a member of the senate from the Sam Rainsy Party whose case is pending at the Phnom Penh Municipal court.

Police arrested Hong Sok Huor in 2015 after he posted comments on social media that claimed an article of the 1979 Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Treaty was meant to dismantle, rather than define, the border between the two countries.

He also posted online two copies of the three-decades-old border agreement containing the article's disputed wording.

During a graduation speech in the capital Phnom Penh soon after the posts were published, Hun Sen accused Hong Sok Hour of posting a “fake” copy of the treaty and called for his arrest, ordering the city’s international airport to block him from leaving the country. Hong Sok Huor holds both Cambodian and French citizenship

Hong Sok Huor is just one of the notable prisoners among the 15 that also includes CNRP media director Meach Sovannara and 10 other activists who are serving prison terms for convictions on insurrection charges for participating in a 2014 protest that turned violent in Phnom Penh’s Democracy Plaza.

The indictment alleged that the CNRP plotted to violently storm Democracy Plaza, which is known locally as Freedom Park. The plaza is a legally designated site for demonstrations that had been used by the CNRP to protest election fraud and other irregularities since the July 2013 national elections.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry mentioned the issue of political prisoners when he visited Cambodia in January.

“Democratic governments have a responsibility to ensure that all elected representatives are free to perform their responsibilities without fear of attack or arrest,” he said. “That is a fundamental responsibility of a democratic government, so as Cambodians prepare for elections next year and again in 2018 it is very important to allow for vigorous but peaceful debate.”

Reported by Moniroth Morm for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Pagnawath Khun. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

______________

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/politics-keeps-03242016170233.html

Read More

Myanmar's Parliament Elects Aung San Suu Kyi's Proxy as President

Myanmar's parliament has confirmed Htin Kyaw, a trusted aide of Aung San Suu Kyi, as the country's next president in a landmark vote.

The lower and upper houses of parliament dominated by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy voted him as the first leader without a military background to take power in more than five decades.

Htin Kyaw, 69, garnered 360 of the 652 votes cast to beat his closest rival Myint Swe, an ex-military general, who gained 213 votes. Another contestant Chin MP Henry Van Thio collected 79 votes. 

After the vote, Mann Win Khine Than, head of parliament, announced that Htin Kyaw would be president, taking over from incumbent Thein Sein beginning April 1. 

Myint Swe, an army-backed candidate who remains on the U.S.sanctions list, will be first vice-president and Henry Van Thio the second vice-president, Mann Win Khine Than said.

"This is sister Aung San Suu Kyi's victory. Thank you," Htin Kyaw, the son of a national poet, told reporters after the vote.

Suu Kyi's NLD scored a landslide victory in general elections in November last year but the constitution drafted by the former military junta bars her from the top office because of a constitutional clause that excludes anyone with a foreign spouse or children. 

Suu Kyi's two sons are British, as was her late husband. 

She has defiantly declared that she would run the country anyway through a proxy president.

Suu Kyi applauds vote

Aung San Suu Kyi, who sat in the front row of parliament, was seen smiling and clapping after Htin Kyaw's election but did not make any immediate comments.

A week ago, the NLD nominated Htin Kyaw, who runs a charity founded by the Nobel laureate and has been a trusted member of her inner circle since the mid-1990s, for the top role and Henry Van Thio as his running mate.

The military, which holds a quarter of the seats in parliament, picked Myint Swe, seen as a hardliner and close ally of former junta leader Than Shwe.

The military's choice of Myint Swe, a former military intelligence chief still on a U.S. blacklist, is seen as having gone against the spirit of reconciliation, which Aung San Suu Kyi has been striving to foster since her election victory, NLD sources said.

The NLD has said that more than half of the cabinet members in the new government to be formed next month will be non-party intellectuals.

The military junta, that had ruled Myanmar since a 1962 coup, in 2011 handed power to a quasi-civilian government led by outgoing president Thein Sein and other ex-generals.

The junta, however, drafted a constitution that in addition to preventing Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president, also gives the military three powerful ministries and 25 percent of the seats in parliament — granting a veto over constitutional change.

Reported by Win Naing for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Win Naing. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

______________________
Source : http://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/president-03152016050310.html

Read More

Myanmar’s Military Nominates Hard-liner as Vice Presidential Candidate

Myanmar’s military on Friday nominated the chief minister of Yangon region as its candidate in the upcoming parliamentary vote to determine the country’s top leaders, which could pose a threat to Aung San Suu Kyi’s reform plans for the developing democracy. 

Military deputies nominated retired Lieutenant General Myint Swe, the 64-year-old chief minister of Yangon region, who ordered a crackdown on anti-government protests led by monks in 2007, when a military junta ruled the country. 

He is currently on the U.S. government’s list of sanctioned individuals for his actions under the military government, which was in power for a half-century until 2011. 

“I think they nominated Myint Swe because he has administrative experience as the chief minister of Yangon region for the last five years,” political commentator Yan Myo Thein told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “Also, they might think he can work competitively with the president and other vice president over the coming five years.” 

The nomination of Myint Swe is a big challenge for the National League for Democracy (NLD), which swept general elections last November, because he will advocate for and protect the interests of the armed forces, he said. 

“The NLD government needs to think about this and prepare,” he said. 

NLD chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi has made reform and national reconciliation between Myanmar’s armed ethnic groups and the national military priorities under the new government led by her party.

Zagana, a popular comedian and former political prisoner, said the military nominated Myint Swe because it believes he will form a good relationship between the armed forces and the civilian sector, particularly with businesspeople.

“Because Myint Swe controls the 30,000-acre Yangon New City Project, he can protect the interests of businessmen involved in the project better than any other military leader can,” he said. 

The controversial expansion project to build seven satellite towns on the outskirts of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon has undergone several delays and met with opposition after officials cancelled an initial multibillion-dollar contract awarded to Chinese investors in 2014 to develop tens of thousands of acres south of the city.

The incoming NLD-led government will likely decide whether or not to push ahead with the project.

“He knows many top military leaders’ business interests, including those of former Senior General Than Shwe and others, and has a huge connection to businessmen,” Zagana said, referring to the military strongman who was chairman of Myanmar’s State Peace and Development Council from 1992 to 2011. 

The military has interests in several businesses throughout the country ranging from property to mining sites through two large holding companies it controls.

Not reform-minded

But not everyone believes Myint Swe will be good for business in the commercial capital Yangon or for the country as a vice president.

“According to my experience in Yangon’s regional parliament, we could see that Myint Swe, who was nominated as vice president by the military, has little intention to [work towards] reform,” said former independent member of parliament (MP) Nyo Nyo Thin. 

“We can see his attitude if we examine city projects in Yangon within last five years,” she said, pointing out that few businesspeople could get permission for projects from the regional government, and that Myint Swe was not close to the media. 

“It is a good question as to why Myint Swe was nominated as vice president even though our country needs reforms,” she said.

Nyo Nyo Thin also noted that Myint Swe was responsible for a crackdown on protesters in Yangon, who supported a student movement last year against a controversial national education law. 

“The current government believes that the crackdown by men wearing red armbands was done according to the law, but everybody knew it was not,” she said. “I am worried that we would see such things around the country [if Myint Swe became vice president].”

Myint Swe is one of three candidates who have been put forward by the lower and upper houses, and military deputies, who control a quarter of the seats in parliament, for an upcoming vote that will determine who will become president and the two vice presidents. 

The NLD, which holds the majority of seats in both houses, on Thursday nominated Htin Kyaw, a long-time aide to Aung San Suu Kyi as its presidential candidate and Henry Van Thio, an ethnic Chin NLD deputy in parliament’s upper house, as a vice presidential candidate. 

NLD candidates confirmed

Also on Friday, the lower house of parliament voted to confirm Htin Kyaw, a close adviser of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Under Myanmar’s indirect political system, whoever gets the most votes becomes president, while the two runners-up are appointed vice presidents.

It is believed that Htin Kyaw will be elected president when the combined, NLD-dominated houses cast votes for the three nominees next week. 

NLD party leaders will issue directions tonight or tomorrow night to their lawmakers about how to vote, said NLD deputy Aung Kyi Nyunt.

But some deputies from other parties say the process may not go according to the NLD’s plans. 

“Htin Kyaw will definitely become president, but the first vice president could be from the military if the [ruling] union Solidarity and Development party [USDP] and military MPs vote for it,” said Khin Saw Wai, a lawmaker from the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party. 

Ye Tun, a former MP from the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party, said deputies from the armed forces-backed USDP and military lawmakers could derail the NLD’s plan for Htin Kyaw to become president and Van Thoi to become vice president.

“The USDP’s lawmakers and military MPs can destroy the NLD’s plan,” he said, by voting so that Henry Van Thoi would become president and Htin Kyaw would become vice president. 

“It’s not because they like Henry Van Thio, but because they want to disrupt the NLD’s plan,” he said. 

After the voting, the president will appoint a new cabinet, which will take over from current President Thein Sein’s administration on April 1. 

Aung San Suu Kyi, who is barred from becoming president under the constitution which forbids anyone with foreign relatives from holding the nation’s highest office, has said she will occupy a position above the president.

Reported by Thinn Thiri and Wai Mar Tun for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

___________

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/myanmars-military-nominates-hard-liner-as-vice-presidential-candidate-03112016152539.html

Read More

North Korean Leader's Purges Point to a Harder Line

Anyone outside North Korea trying to determine what’s happening in that country might rightly feel confused.

Alongside North Korea’s missile launch last month, other less publicized moves by the country’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un may bode ill for peace and security on the Korean peninsula. Kim has continued to purge top military officers, and it appears now that a number of their replacements are “hard-liners.”

Much of this information comes from South Korean media reports, some of them based on sources in South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

Readers should be warned at this point that South Korea’s intelligence agency has a mixed record regarding purges of leading figures in North Korea.

But a pattern seems to be shaping up, judging partly by the recent public appearances of certain top officials and military officers at Kim Jung Un’s side and the absence of others who used to be seen accompanying the North Korean leader.

South Korean analysts seem to agree that Kim Jong Un has purged dozens of high-ranking officials and military officers, with many believed to have been executed.

More Tension Expected

The growing prominence of hard-line party cadres and military officers to replace those who have been removed or purged could add more tension to an already high level of tension over the next few weeks, according to Michael Madden, who writes for the respected U.S.-based North Korea Leadership Watch Blog.

Madden says North Korea’s hard-liners, or hawks, support a “more belligerent policy” toward South Korea, the United States, and Japan and “generally do not favor North-South engagement.”

Only briefly noted in many Western media reports, Kim Jong Un has apparently appointed Kim Yong Chol, a senior army general, to head the country’s United Front Department.

General Kim is reputed by a number of sources to be a hard-liner and is said to have overseen, in the spring and fall of 2010, the sinking of a South Korean Navy ship as well as an artillery attack on a South Korean island.

In his United Front role, Kim would replace Kim Yang Gun, who died in late December from what North Korea’s official news agency described as an automobile accident.

Kim Yang Gun was part of a delegation from North Korea that helped to reduce rising tensions with the South in August 2015.

The United Front Department position is important not only because it  collects intelligence on the South but also because it handles North Korean talks with the South Koreans as well as the running of exchanges with them.

Those exchanges are now frozen.

Also lost in the flurry of media reports on the February missile launch were South Korean reports of the arrest of Ri Yong Gil, North Korea’s army chief of staff, for abusing power and “forming a clique.”

The Yonhap news agency in South Korea, apparently drawing on South Korean intelligence, reported that the four-star general was executed last month following his arrest. But this could not be immediately confirmed.

Gen. Ri is the fourth chief of the army general staff to be removed by Kim Jong Un since he came to power in 2011.

Purging his father’s team

A number of others purged since Kim Jong Un came to power have included officials and military officers close to his father and much older than the new leader, who is believed to be 33 years old.

“Kim Jong Un has been significantly more brutal than his father,” says Andrei Lankov, a Russian historian and expert on North Korea, referring to Kim’s late father Kim Jong Il.

“And he’s been particularly hard on the military.”

Most prominent among those purged was Kim Jung Un’s uncle, Jang Song Taek, a key adviser to Kim Jong Il and then to Kim Jong Un himself. Jang held the title of Vice Chairman of the National Defense Commission, which placed him second only to the supreme leader.

Jang was also North Korea’s key interlocutor with China.

In December 2013, Jang was executed after being charged with trying to create a “counterrevolutionary faction.”

Such purges and executions as well as continuing reports of senior officials fleeing North Korea—reports that are not all confirmed—have led to renewed speculation among North Korea watchers as to the stability of Kim Jung Un’s rule.

Some specialists argue that North Korea’s policies are hard to predict because the country’s young leader is erratic,

But others, such as Robert Carlin, a former CIA expert now a visiting scholar at Stanford University, argue that Kim is far more rational and calculating than erratic.

Things to watch

To understand what’s happening in North Korea at the moment, it would help to focus on the upcoming congress of the ruling North Korean Workers’ Party scheduled for May of this year, the first such ruling party congress to be held in 36 years.

According to Michael Madden, North Korea’s nuclear test in January and missile launch in February can both be seen at least in part as an attempt by Kim  to strengthen his hand ahead of the congress.

The purges and executions can also be regarded as part of Kim’s continuing effort to consolidate his power.

But analysts say that in preparing for the congress, Kim must also show that he can make progress in improving the North Korean economy. Supplying his generals with modern weapons may not be enough to retain their loyalty.

In contrast with his father’s Songgun, or “military first,” policy, Kim Jong Un has pledged to pursue a Byungjin line, a policy of simultaneous nuclear and economic development.

But the country’s economic development could now be slowed by the new and tougher United Nations-mandated sanctions that the U.S. and other countries are imposing on North Korea.

Some experts suggest that if the sanctions cut deeply into the regime’s cash flow and the so-called Royal Economy, which provides extra income and luxury items to leading officials and military officers, it could undermine Kim Jong Un’s grip on power.

But as The Wall Street Journal noted recently, U.N. sanctions contain several loopholes: For example, a ban on North Korean exports such as coal would apply only to sales that fund illicit activities. Coal purchases excused on “livelihood or humanitarian grounds” would still make money for regime.

The sanctions also don’t stop the income taken by Pyongyang from the earnings of tens of thousands of North Koreans working overseas in factories, logging camps, and construction sites in China and Russia as well as a number of other countries.

Bought loyalty

The secretive Royal Economy that helps Kim Jong Un to “buy the loyalty” of leading officers and officials and sustain their privileged lifestyle is vital to the stability of the regime, according to some analysts. But it requires reliable streams of cash, much of it coming from overseas.

Another way of rewarding military officers who stay loyal is to continue giving them lucrative construction contracts as Kim Jong Un has done as part of his efforts to embellish the capital city of Pyongyang and build more apartments for the elite.

“The Royal Economy has steadily grown to become the regime’s primary source of revenue,” says Ken E. Gause, author of a new book titled North Korean House of Cards and published by the non-profit Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

“The very stability of the regime, to say nothing of the survival of the Supreme Leader, is based on this highly secretive part of the economy,” says Gause.

Gause says that the despite the evident failure of sanctions against North Korea in the past and the insufficient implementation of sanctions on the part of China and others, the international community has succeeded in recent  years in severely curtailing much of the Royal Economy's funding derived from illegal weapons sales, drugs, and counterfeiting.

“This has forced North Korea to look elsewhere, such as building statues for other dictators” says Gause, “and trading gold and other precious metals, where transactions are exclusively cash-based, leaving no paper trails.”

Gause concludes that Kim Jong Un “faces an uphill battle to consolidate his power, which will take at least two years to complete.”

That might explain purges aimed at reasserting Workers’ Party control over the military as well as recent threats made against South Korea and the United States aimed at least partly at bolstering nationalistic fervor.

Dan Southerland is RFA's Executive Editor.

___________________

Source : http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/purges-03112016133116.html

Read More

Illegal Gambling Dens Busted in Northern Laos

Local police seized more than 100 slot machines in a raid this month as authorities cracked down on illegal gambling operations in the northern Luang Namtha province, local residents and law enforcement officials told RFA.

On March 4, police and other government officials inspected restaurants and hotels located in the Long and Sing districts as well as the city of Luang Namtha after local people complained that some of the businesses were also illegal gambling dens.

“The raid was conducted to keep security and order in the province according to a provincial committee resolution issued in January,” police Major Somphone Souvannakasy told RFA’s Lao Service. “Now, we shut down the restaurants and hotels with slot-machines, and we will re-check the permits.”

While Major Somphone Souvannakasy told RFA that government officials are investigating the operators for prosecution, residents in the area say the gambling dens have ties with local officials.

“Some Chinese operators open restaurants and hotels, and then with the cooperation and permission of some of the local officials they install slot machines for gambling later on,” said a local resident, who talked on condition of anonymity.

Many Southeast Asian countries have seen a surge in casinos as both legal and illicit as gambling is generally illegal in China.

Laos has seen a casino building boom as mostly Chinese investors have built several veritable gambling palaces in the country. While the gambling concessions bring in cash for the government, most casino employees and customers are Chinese with a sprinkling of local people.

That also seemed to be the case for the illegal gambling operations in Luang Namtha.

“The gambling ran from 7 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., and the majority of players are Chinese with some Lao young people, some of whom are younger than 18 years old,” said the local resident who lives near the gambling district.

While there are doubts over how long it will last, the government-imposed shutdown appears to be working.

“It is good that the officials shut it down and now I do not see people come to play,” the resident told RFA

Reported by RFA's Lao Service. Translated by Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

__________________

Source : http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/illegal-gambling-operations-busted-in-northern-laos-03102016123658.html

Read More

Two Detained Booksellers Return to China After Brief Hong Kong Visits

Two of the five Hong Kong booksellers who disappeared from their shop that sold racy titles about China’s political elite returned to mainland China this month after briefly visiting the former British colony while they were on bail, local media reported.

Cheung Chi Ping, business manager of Causeway Bay Books, entered Hong Kong on March 6, two days after his colleague Lui Bo, the bookstore’s general manager, but they apparently stayed only a few hours in the city before going back to China.

Both were granted bail by Chinese authorities, allowing them to travel to Hong Kong, according to a statement from Hong Kong police.

Causeway Bay Books store manager Lee Bo, 65, went missing from his workplace in Hong Kong on Dec. 30, while four of his associates, publisher Gui Minhai, general manager Lui Bo (also spelled Lui Por), and colleagues Cheung Chi-ping and Lam Wing-kei  have all been detained under opaque circumstances since.

Hong Kong politicians and rights activists say they are highly skeptical that any of the men are acting from their own free will, however.

"Of course this tale has been concocted by the [ruling] Chinese Communist Party," League of Social Democrats deputy chairman Raphael Wong told RFA's Chinese Service. "They are still spinning yarns ... and they are twisting words to fill in the holes in their story."

The five managers and staff of the now-closed store have all appeared in television interviews filmed in China in recent weeks, with four confessing to running an 'illegal' bookselling business, and a fifth, a British passport holder, saying he is willing to sever all ties with the UK.

Chinese authorities are thought to have targeted Causeway Bay Books because it sold gossipy political books about Chinese leaders. A U.S.-based Chinese writer who uses the pen name Xi Nuo told the BBC that one of his books “Xi Jinping and His Lovers” might have triggered the booksellers’ disappearance.

Don't forget

While their reappearance is comforting, it doesn’t mean their case should be forgotten, Wong said.

"They are safe, and we are not supposed to worry about them, nor to put them under any pressure," Wong said. "Something of the sort has happened to business people in the past."

"The whole point is to make it clear to the people of Hong Kong that mainland police are entirely capable of carrying out illegal law enforcement activities in Hong Kong," he added. "This is unacceptable."

Bei Ling, chairman of the writers' group Independent Chinese PEN Center, told Hong Kong's Apple Daily that Cheung and Lui's only purpose in returning to Hong Kong was to get their missing persons cases dropped.

Bei said both men's families are currently in Shenzhen.

On Feb. 29, Hong Kong police working through Interpol met with Lee Bo after the British foreign secretary Philip Hammond said U.K. intelligence showed he had been "involuntarily removed" from Hong Kong, which is a separate jurisdiction under the terms of its 1997 handover to China.

Lee, whose departure from the city didn't show up in official records, told Hong Kong officers he was “assisting mainland police with an investigation,” and that he hadn't been abducted.

He also requested that police drop the missing person case filed by his relatives.

Relatives concerned

Lee's U.K.-based daughter Angela said she had had no fresh news of her father, but that she is "extremely worried" after seeing his televised "confession."

She told RFA she didn't believe the account given by her father, saying that he is likely under duress, because he previously sent her regular e-mails and often gave media interviews before his detention.

Gui, Lee and Lam have remained in China since the missing person’s cases were filed.

Reported by Xin Lin for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

_________________

Source : http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/two-detainted-booksellers-return-to-china-after-brief-hong-kong-visits-03112016113224.html

Read More

Cambodian Authorities Paint Over Mural Celebrating Local Seamstress

Authorities in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh have whitewashed a mural painted by an internationally-known artist on the side of one of the city’s most iconic buildings because the project had not received official approval, according to the municipal government.

The mural—designed by California-based artist Miles “El Mac” MacGregor and displayed on the side of the White Building apartment complex known for its community of low-income tenants and artists—was painted over on Wednesday night.

It had portrayed local artisan Moeun Thary, who hand-embroiders traditional Khmer ceremonial garments and is a resident of the White Building. A ring of designs that had framed her portrait came from one of her dresses.

A post on the Phnom Penh Municipality website said the mural had been removed because authorities had never approved an application for permission to paint it.

Long Diamanche, a spokesman for the Phnom Penh municipal government, told RFA’s Khmer Service that the nearly 12-story mural depicting Moeun Thary holding a sewing needle, had also negatively affected the aesthetics of the neighborhood.

“Although [the image was drawn] on a private building, it was facing the public view,” he said.

“So, more or less, it was affecting the public. The public could see it.”

The Phnom Penh Post also quoted Long Diamanche as saying “local authorities [mistakenly] thought the team had permission” to paint the portrait and had allowed it to proceed, but that no one is allowed to put up large murals anywhere in the city.

He said the municipality would take action against other large public paintings as well, without specifying how.

Anger over removal

The decision to paint over the mural drew condemnation from the public on social media, with some posts questioning why the government had allowed ugly advertising campaigns to blight the city while dismissing public art.

Others, including Moeun Thary, expressed frustration, saying the image did not affect social security or carry a political message and should not have been removed.

“When the municipality did that, it was unbelievable—it was just a drawn image,” she told RFA.

“And I am in the arts. When we are promoting the arts, why would they remove it? This really angers me.”

Suon Bun Sak of the local nongovernmental organization Association of Human Rights Protection called the decision to remove the mural “very strange.” 

“I don’t think there was a good reason to erase it … it was a way [for the artist] to voice an opinion, even though it was through a picture,” he said.

Honoring artists

MacGregor was not immediately available for comment about whether he had received permission for the mural, which he spent about a week painting, or about the removal of his work.

The Phnom Penh Post cited a source who said a “fixer” was dealing with another intermediary who was supposed to have secured the permits and that they had paid about U.S. $2,000 in “fees” to the authorities. The source admitted that they had only received verbal permission to proceed.

In a blog entry posted before the mural was painted over, MacGregor had said the work was meant to honor Cambodia’s artists—both contemporary and those lost during the bloody Khmer Rouge regime of the late 1970s, which systematically murdered nearly all of the country’s creative population.

“I hope this mural can serve as a respectful tribute to the importance and perseverance of Cambodia's creative legacy, and possibly, in some small way, offer inspiration for younger Cambodian artists to sustain this legacy,” the post said.

The mural was part of a project called “Igloo Hong,” in which a number of international artists spent several weeks in Cambodia painting artwork on walls around Phnom Penh and the nearby coastal province of Kep.

Reported by Vuthy Tha for RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Pagnawath Khun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

__________________

Source : http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/mural-12182015163348.html

Read More