Elephant Guide to Cambodia
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Cambodia loses an independent voice |
A tiny but influential French-language newspaper closes in Phnom
Penh amid allegations of political conflict of interest
A staple of Cambodia's post-Khmer Rouge press may well have died
this month after it carried a story on corruption and environmental
destruction that veered too close to the country’s leaders,
cutting seriously into the remaining independent journalistic
voices in the country.
The already-ailing 12-year-old French and Khmer-language Cambodge
Soir, which claimed to be the only independent daily paper for
political and general news published in French in all of Asia,
failed to appear on newsstands on Tuesday, June 12 and has not
reappeared.
The day after the paper’s failure to appear, the 14-member
Cambodian and French editorial staff said a political squabble with
management had led to the summary dismissal of reporter Soren
Seelow for publishing the article on an environmental report
damning the government for corruption. After Seelow’s firing,
the staff walked out in protest.
In a statement, the staff said that publisher Philippe Monnin had
told them that their holding company, which technically employed
the paper's 30-member staff, was bankrupt and would be shuttered
for good. Internet access was discontinued and the paper's
fledgling Web site www.cambodgesoir.info was taken offline.
The offending article, written by Seelow on June 1, described a
report by the London-based forestry NGO Global Witness. "It started
with the article on the Global Witness report with a theme judged
too critical toward the government," said Stéphanie
Gée, Soir’s editor-in-chief. Gee says, however, that
the staff do not believe Cambodian authorities placed any pressure
on management to fire the reporter. Two Cambodian officials have
also denied attempting to bring any pressure.
The Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders
alleged that Monnin was employed by France's overseas development
agency as an advisor to Cambodia's Agriculture Ministry. In a
statement, Reporters Without Borders said Monnin had told Seelow
his article "would upset the authorities."
The journalistic watchdog protested the closure, calling on
Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, a multilateral
development organization created to promote the French language and
one of Soir's principal financial backers, to intervene. OIF
provides slightly less than half of Soir's operating budget and
was committed to fund the paper until 2009, making bankruptcy seem
improbable.
"Although your organization had just released new funds to support
this newspaper, its management has decided to terminate this
12-year-old venture on the grounds of financial difficulties,"
Reporters Without Borders said. "We ask you to help prevent the
disappearance of this exemplary French-language daily."
On Thursday, the International Federation of Journalists also
issued a statement in Brussels saying that “the IFJ gives our
full support to the staff of Cambodge Soir and urges management to
halt liquidation to ensure Cambodia does not lose a vital voice in
the French Language media,” said Asia-Pacific Director
Jacqueline Park.
A request for comment from OIF Secretary-General Abdou Diouf has
not been answered.
Monnin, who has declined all comment, was asked when the strike
began why the staff was angry. "They don't have the same way of
perceiving the development of the country."
The Global Witness report, Cambodia’s Family Trees, was
scathing its indictment of how “a syndicate comprising
relatives of Prime Minister Hun Sen and other senior officials has
looted the country’s forests.” The report accused a
"kleptocratic elite" within Cambodia of wholesale environmental
plunder and venality. Cambodian authorities responded by banning
the report and confiscating copies. Following the banning,
information minister Khieu Kanharith ordered a probe into the
report’s findings, because, he said, the report had destroyed
Cambodia's international reputation.
The announced confiscation of the edition appears to have been
symbolic since it is on the Internet as well. The Information
Ministry has ordered newspaper not to reprint or serialize the
report, with Sralanh Khmer, a pro-Sam Rainsy paper, did for a week
straight.
Prime Minister Hun Sen's elder brother, Kompong Cham Province
Governor Hun Neng, whose son and wife are both accused of various
crimes by Global Witness, issued a warning: "If [Global Witness]
come to Cambodia, I will hit them until their heads are broken," he
said.
A Cambodian journalist following up allegations in the report for
Radio Free Asia received death threats and has fled Cambodia for
Thailand, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists. Lim Pisith received the threats on his mobile phone,
and late last week crossed into Thailand seeking refuge.
An anonymous caller told Lem "to beware," and warned that he "could
be killed" for his radio reports on alleged illegal logging
activities, Lim Pisith CPJ. "I didn't want to leave my country and
stop my reporting, but my life was in danger."
Gée said Soir decided to give the government more column
inches by devoting subsequent articles to official responses. On
June 4 the paper printed lengthy denials from Agriculture Minister
Chan Sarun, whom the report accuses of auctioning off posts in his
ministry posts to the tune of $2.5 million in bribes.
Six days later, Monnin nevertheless told Seelow, who had planned to
leave Cambodia in September, that he was fired, according to the
paper's staff. Contacted by telephone, Seelow declined to comment.
Meanwhile many of the 3,500 French residents in Cambodia appear to
have lost hope that Soir will ever live again and have resigned
themselves to struggling bleary-eyed through the English print
media every morning.
"The decision to shut the newspaper Cambodge Soir is infused with a
certain brutality and was definitely a mistake," a Franco-Cambodian
reader wrote in a group email protesting the closure. "And as
always the decision was taken without the least consideration for
the Cambodian journalists and readers."
Despite France’s former prominence in Cambodia, Laos and
Vietnam as the colonial occupier, Asia has the smallest share of
French speakers of any continent. In part due to the murderous ways
of the Khmer Rouge, who outlawed the language, French is even less
prevalent in Cambodia than in Vietnam, where the prestigious Paris
daily Le Monde lamented last year that the language "is
collapsing."
But Soir's language is not the immediate concern. In a country
where nearly all Khmer-language media are aligned with either Prime
Minister Hun Sen or other powerful individuals, a newspaper willing
to face facts is particularly conspicuous for its absence. The two
English-language papers in Phnom Penh, the Cambodia Daily and the
bi-weekly Phnom Penh Post, are now virtually the only independent
print media in the country.
Soir’s staff have continued to gather every day in the
newsroom, according to Gee, who said in her statement that a
“climate of trust” needs to be rebuilt if Soir is to
have any hope of gaining the support of its former staff. She and
the staff have called for a dialogue with management and the
reinstatement of their fired colleague plus written rules on
employment and termination.
"We're left waiting again," she said. "The ball is in their
court."
By: Douglas Gillison
Source: Asia Sentinel
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