Human Rights Day Cambodia 2007
Dec 12th, 2007 by Jinja
Monday: Up early. A quick bowl of noodle soup and I’m off to the Tonle Bassac area. It’s the first of many events for Human Rights Day. Nanajapana has slept there overnight and is running around trying to get footage.
Today many residents and supporters donned ‘Stop Evictions’ *t-shirts and held hands to form a giant line around the communities being relocated. Legal permission had not been sought for this demonstration, but there is a constitutional right to free assembly. And especially on Human Rights Day, it would be hard to justify breaking this up.
Moments from the demo:
*little girls carefully adding ‘Barbie‘ and ‘Kim Possible‘ stickers on their ‘Stop Evictions’ t-shirts.
*solemn looking guys (plainclothes police?) walking up to the t-shirt distribution area, eying it over, quietly walking away.
*quick appearance by Yash Ghai**, UN rep.
*A kid playing with a rather realistic looking toy gun. Woah, don’t shoot!
*laughter as we formed the line. (Holy cow, I’m holding hands with a foreigner!) Not the sort of thing that happens every day for most residents.
After that, travel down winding roads to a quick assemblage at Rik Riyay community. It’s starting to get hot. Lines form at the sugarcane juice stand. I tote batteries and eventually a camera for Nana.
Onward to the main event at Wat Phnom, that’s been going on since early AM.
There’s been a mass distribution of t-shirts and caps. I try to shoot some video of the crowd. More moments:
*Is that the US Ambassador? Hmm… yep, looks like him.
*Nana is running around trying to get the best shot.
*It’s closed by the son of Kung Nei, who has some pretty good chops. He’s been trained by the best.
*And the crowd of human rights NGO staff and activists heads into the crowd, and suddenly join the tourist crowd at Wat Phnom.
Was it a successful Human Rights day? That warrants some chewing over. I like the idea that a day of demonstrations and discussion could be considered… normal, in Cambodia. Even if just for one day. But over the coming weeks, months and years, there are some serious challenges to face. http://www.licadho.org/reports.php#r-113
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7135827.stm
http://www.philstar.com/index.php?Global%20News&p=54&type=2&sec=3&aid=2007121023
http://www.youtube.com/user/nanajapana
http://detailsaresketchy.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/human-rights-day/
*I actually think that there are cases where an eviction may be warranted. But the wide-ranging overall scope and character of evictions in Cambodia does need a simple tagline.
**The usual establishment response to this external criticism is basically that it is indeed, well, external and international, not local and Khmer.
Tags: cambodia,khmer,human rights,evictions
