Return to home Traditional Cambodians
gave each day its own color and each month its own gender.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, zone 1 p.2)
April is the hottest month in Cambodia.
(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.T10) Chronology of Cambodian History: http://www.geocities.com/khmerchronology
Odyssey of the Khmer People: http://members.aol.com/cambodia/
Cambodia Information Center: http://www.cambodia.org/ 200-700AD
Era of the kingdom of Funan at Angkor Borei (Cambodia). In 1997
excavations were proceeding on what might have been the capital.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.A,D)
400 About this time sage-prince
Kambu of the Cambodian legends, who belonged to the Kamboja lineage,
appears to have sailed from Indian subcontinent, probably from
Saurashtra/Gujarat on the west coast of India and established a
small Kamboja kingdom in Bassac around Vat-Ph'u hill in Mekong
Basin. The first Khmer or king, know as Kambu, founded Kambujadesa,
which means the Sons of Kambu or Kambuja for short.
(SFEC, 10/20/96,
T5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kambu_Svayambhuva)
611 At Angkor Borei (Cambodia)
the earliest known Khmer inscriptions date to this time.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.D)
802 Jayavarman II proclaimed
himself a "universal monarch" in a ritual that united religion and
politics (Cambodia) and gave rise to the cult of the Devaraja
(deified king). He declared the region’s independence from Java.
(WSJ, 7/3/97, p.A9)(SFC, 8/14/07, p.A18)
889-1324 The Khmer Empire‘s dominions roughly
correspond to present-day Laos and Cambodia and reached its height
during the Angkor period (889-1434 AD). The kingdom flourished from
the 6th to 15th centuries AD and then declined with invasions from
neighboring Thailand.
(HNQ, 8/7/00)
c1000-1400 Angkor Thom, capital of the Khmer
empire, reached its apogee during this period. It included the
religious monument of Angkor Wat. In 2007 new technology indicated
that the city covered an area over 115 square miles at its peak and
used sophisticated technology for managing and harvesting water.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.A)(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)(SFC,
8/14/07, p.A18)
1100-1200 The Khmer empire reached its peak under
King Jajavarman II in the 12th century.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T7)
1150 Suryavarman II, Khmer
ruler (Cambodia), died about this time. He commissioned the building
of Angkor Wat, possibly the largest religious monument in the world.
He traded elephant tusks, rhinoceros horns and kingfisher feathers
for gold. The feathers were prized in China for bridal attire.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4,6)
1186 The temple monastery of Ta
Prohm at Angkor (Cambodia) was consecrated. Inscriptions say that
79,365 servants were required to for its upkeep. It was paid by
funds from over 3,000 villages.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T7)
1191 Preah Khan (Cambodia) was
dedicated on what is thought to be the site where the Khmer defeated
their eastern neighbors the Cham. The central temple was dedicated
by Jayavarman VII to his father, King Dharanindravavarman II, in the
name of Lokesvara, a god who embodies the compassionate qualities of
the Buddha. The temple covers 140 acres.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.E)(Arch, 5/04, p.64)
1350-1500 There was cold and drought during this
period in Central Asia as temperatures came down with low rainfall
and low productivity. The climatic effect on Sindh was that Jam
Banbhniyo Samma, tried to capture some areas of Delhi Sultanate in
the Multan Sarkar and also south in Gujarat.
(http://panhwar.com/Article129.htm)
1415-1439 The city of Angkor Wat (Cambodia) went
into rapid decline as a period of severe drought extended over South
East Asia.
(Econ, 3/14/09, p.82)(http://tinyurl.com/d84z56)
1431 Thai armies invaded and
plundered the Khmer civilization at Angkor Thom (Cambodia). The
court moved south of the great lake Tonle Sap and later to Phnom
Penh.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1596 The first documented
official contact between the Cambogee and the West took place. The
king of Angkor, Barom Reachea, in fear of attack sent to the Spanish
governor general at Manila a request for the assistance of his
musket-armed soldiers. The Spanish governor complied and sent a
small expedition to the king of Angkor (Cambodia).
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)
1598 The Spanish governor of
Manila sent a 2nd small expedition to the king of Angkor in what is
now Cambodia.
(SFEC, 10/20/96, T5)
c1598 A party of Iberian
conquistadors overthrew the Cambodian king and set themselves up as
governors in the Mekong delta.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1614 Portuguese writer Diego do
Couto wrote of a king in Cambodia who discovered an abandoned city
during an elephant hunt in the middle of the 16th century. The
report did not get published until 1958.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1641 Gerritt van Wuysthoff, a
Dutchman, struggled up the Mekong River through Cambodia and reached
Vientiane, Laos.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1863 Jul, The European public
first learned of Angkor (Cambodia) from the posthumously published
journal of French naturalist Henri Mouhot.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)
1866 French colonial officials
sent an expedition to explore the Mekong River (Cambodia) and check
its commercial potential.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1872 Frank Vincent Jr., an
American adventurer, journeyed from Bangkok to Angkor Wat
(Cambodia). The 175 mile trip took 17 days to traverse.
(SFEM, 4/30/00, p.6)
1893 French colonialists seized
control of Laos and tried to turn the Mekong River into a
thoroughfare linking their Indochina colonies.
(Econ, 1/3/04, p.29)
1907 Explorations under Louis
Deleporte and the French School of the Far East began at the ancient
city of Angkor. Found artifacts were shared between France and
Cambodia.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)(SFC, 2/4/04, p.D10)
1908 In Cambodia the seaside
town of Kep (Kep-sure-Mer) was founded during the French colonial
era. It was all but destroyed during the civil strife of the 1970s.
(SSFC, 8/31/08, p.E4)
1925 May 19, Pol Pot (d.1998),
Cambodian dictator and mass murderer, was born in Prek Sbauv,
Cambodia.
(www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/pol_pot1.html)
1918 The French established the
National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh to house the findings from
their explorations.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)(WSJ, 7/3/97, p.A9)
1922 Oct 31, Norodom Sihanouk
(d.2012), 2-time king (1941-1955 and 1993-2004), president and
premier of Cambodia, was born.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norodom_Sihanouk)
1923 Andre Malraux was
arrested, while doing archeological research in Cambodia, for
dislodging 7 heads from a temple with a handsaw, a chisel and
crowbar.
(WSJ, 7/3/97, p.A9)
1941 The French colonialists
chose Norodom Sihanouk (19) from the ranks of royalty to serve as
king of Cambodia.
(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A8)
1945 At the end of World War II
Thailand was compelled to return territory it had seized from Laos,
Cambodia and Malaya. The exiled King Ananda returned.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1243059.stm)
1949-52 Saloth Sar (aka Pol Pot of Cambodia) went
to Paris on a government scholarship and became absorbed in
Communist ideology.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1950 May 21, French sources
reported that Viet Minh guerrillas had infiltrated Cambodia and
opened an arms-smuggling corridor to Thailand.
(www.geocities.com/khmerchronology/1950.htm)
1950 Dec 30, Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia became independent states in a French Union.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1952 Hun Sen, later Cambodia
prime minister, was born in a village northeast of Phnom Penh.
(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.A12)
1953 King Norodom Sihanouk
gained independence for Cambodia from France. Pol Pot helped set up
the Communist Party.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A17)
1954 Sep 8, SEATO (Southeast
Asia Treaty Organization), a sister organization to NATO, was
created under the Manila Pact by the Southeast Asia Collective
Defense Treaty, to stop communist spread in Southeast Asia (Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos). The United States, Australia, France, Great
Britain, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Thailand signed
the mutual defense treaty. SEATO dissolved in 1977.
(HNQ, 4/2/01)(http://tinyurl.com/hpawj)
1955 Mar 2, King Norodom
Sihanouk of Cambodia put his father on the throne and assumed the
position of prime minister. Sihanouk had renounced the throne to run
in Cambodia’s first elections.
(SC, 3/2/02)(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A8)(Econ, 10/20/12,
p.86)
1960 Dec 9, The Laos government
fled to Cambodia as the capital city of Vientiane was engulfed in
war.
(HN, 12/9/98)
1960-63 Prince Norodom Sihanouk repressed the
Communist party and Pol Pot, general secretary of the CP, and other
leaders fled to the jungle.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1962 The Int’l. Court of
Justice awarded the Preah Vihear temple, located on the
Cambodia-Thai border, to Cambodia, but did not specify where the
border should be drawn.
(Econ, 7/26/08, p.47)
1963 Aug 27, Cambodia severed
ties with South Vietnam.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1964 Mar 15, Cambodia was
receiving military aid from Communist China.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1966 Jan 3, Cambodia warned
the UN of retaliation unless the U.S. and South Vietnam end
intrusions.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1967 Feb 23, American troops
began the largest offensive of the war, near the Cambodian border.
In order to deny the Vietcong cover, and allow men to see through
the dense vegetation, herbicides were dumped on the forests near the
South Vietnamese borders as well as Cambodia and Laos.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1967 May 10, The Stockholm
Vietnam Tribunal condemned US aggression in Vietnam and Cambodia.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1967 Nov 24, Cambodian triple
agent Inchin Lam was murdered. Special Forces Captain John J.
McCarthy was accused and later tried for the murder in a court in
Vietnam. Murder charges were later dropped.
(HN,11/24/98)(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(www.geocities.com/larryjodaniel/17.html)
1967-68 The Khmer Rouge took up arms in support of
a peasant uprising in northwest Cambodia against a government rice
tax. The army ruthlessly suppressed the insurrection.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1968 Jan 19, Cambodia charged
that the United States and South Vietnam had crossed the border and
killed three Cambodians.
(HN, 1/19/99)
1968 Jan 29, A court convened
in Vietnam for the murder of Cambodian, triple agent Inchin Lam, by
Special Forces Captain John J. McCarthy Jr. Murder charges were
later dropped due to exculpatory evidence and proven prosecutorial
fraud on the court. A civil action for $1.3 billion in US Federal
District Court, Washington D.C. against the CIA and associated
agencies was dismissed in 2003.
(www.copvcia.com/Mac.htm)(http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id299.html)
1968 Oct 4, Cambodia admitted
that the Viet Cong used their country for sanctuary.
(www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200408180835.asp)
1968 Asia’s first int’l. film
festival was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.97)
1969 Feb 23, Pres. Nixon
ordered plans for the secret bombing of Cambodia.
(www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a04242670parrotsbeak)(SFEC,
4/23/00, p.A19)
1969 Mar 18, President Richard
M. Nixon authorized Operation Menu, the 'secret' bombing of Cambodia
[see Feb 23].
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu)
1969-1973 The US Air Force dropped 539,129 tons of
bombs on Cambodia and killed some 700,000 people. The bombing drove
rural people into the cities and caused a collapse of the
agricultural system that contributed to the rise of the Khmer Rouge
and a famine that was later blamed on the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A25)
1970 Mar 13, Cambodia ordered
Hanoi and Viet Cong troops to get out.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1970 Mar 18, Prince Sihanouk
was overthrown by Gen’l. Lon Nol in a right-wing coup backed by the
US. He joined the Khmer Rouge in a resistance war. The US and
Vietnamese forces invaded and drove the Viet Cong from border
sanctuaries deep into Cambodia where they joined with the weak and
isolated Khmer Rouge. A full scale civil war began. The next 8 years
are covered in the 1988 book "Goodnight Cambodia, Forbidden History"
by Vibol Ouk, who lived through the horrors of Pol Pot.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.3)(WSJ,
7/9/99, p.A127)
1970 Apr 24, President Nixon
ordered US and South Vietnamese troops to secretly invade the
“Parrot’s Beak" region of Cambodia, thought to be a Viet Cong
stronghold. Operation Patio was a covert aerial interdiction effort
conducted by the United States Seventh Air Force in Cambodia from
24-29 April 1970 during the Vietnam Conflict. It served as a
tactical adjunct to the heavier B-52 bombing missions being carried
out in Operation Menu.
(http://tinyurl.com/69ndsz8)(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Operation-Patio)
1970 Apr 28, The US invasion of
Cambodia took place. Congress and the press learned of the invasion
on April 30.
(www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a04242670parrotsbeak)
1970 Apr 29, 50,000 US and
South Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia [see Apr 30].
(SFEC, 4/23/00,
p.A19)(www.democraticcentral.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1972)
1970 Apr 30, President Nixon
announced the United States was sending troops into Cambodia, an
action that sparked widespread protest. Nixon widened the war to
Cambodia and protests increased. U.S. troops invaded Cambodia to
disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas. U.S. President Richard
Nixon announced to a national TV audience American troop movements
into Cambodia to attack Communist border sanctuaries. Calling the
joint U.S.-South Vietnamese operation "indispensable," some 32,000
American and 48,000 South Vietnamese troops captured large caches of
supplies, but most Communist forces had already been withdrawn. A
storm of protest against expansion of the war swept the United
States and four days later four student protesters at Ohio's Kent
State University were shot dead by National Guardsmen.
(AP, 4/30/97)(TMC, 1994, p.1970)(HN,
4/30/98)(HNQ, 5/3/98)
1970 May 4, A dispatch filed
from Saigon described looting by US soldiers at the Cambodian town
of Snuol. The mention of looting was removed by an editor in New
York before the story was transmitted to newspapers in the United
States. An AP story was killed by Wes Gallagher (d.1997 at 86),
general manager of the new service.
(AP, 7/11/07)(SFC, 10/12/97, p.B5)
1970 May 10, In Cambodia Spec.
Leslie H. Sabo Jr. (b.1948), of Elwood City, Pa., saved his comrades
and lost his own life as his unit was nearly overrun by North
Vietnamese forces. Documentation of his heroism was lost until 1999.
On May 16, 2012, Pres. Obama presented the US Medal of Honor to his
widow.
(SFC, 5/17/12,
p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_H._Sabo,_Jr.)
1970 May 20, Some 100,000
people demonstrated in New York's Wall Street district in support of
U.S. policy in Vietnam and Cambodia.
(AP, 5/20/97)(HN, 5/20/98)
1970 May 31, In Cambodia 9
journalists (American, Cambodian, Indian, Japanese, and French) were
ambushed by Khmer Rouge and Viet Cong guerrillas near Kandoul
village south of Phnom Penh. 4 of the CBS employees were killed
instantly. 5 others were believed to have been taken to Kandoul in
the days after and executed. Their bodies were dumped in a shallow
grave amid the untilled earth of rice paddies.
(AP, 4/23/10)
1970 Jun 17, North Vietnamese
troops cut the last operating rail line in Cambodia.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1970 Jun 29, The United States
ended a two-month military offensive into Cambodia.
(HN, 6/29/98)(AP, 6/29/99)
1970 Oct 9, Khmer Republic
(Cambodia) declared independence.
(http://flagspot.net/flags/kh_hstry.html)
1970 Cambodia's Prince Norodom
Sihanouk fled to China and began compiling his Bulletin Mensuel de
Documentation (Monthly Documentation Bulletin). The bulletin
continued on an off thru 2003.
(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.A1)
1970 In Cambodia Sean Flynn
(28), son of Hollywood star Errol Flynn, and a close friend, Dana
Stone, disappeared in the province of Kampong Cham. In 2010
searchers believed they had found Flynn’s remains and awaited
forensic confirmation.
(AP, 3/29/10)
1970-1975 Lon Nol was officially backed by the US
as leader of Cambodia. He officially invited the US to extend the
war in Vietnam into Cambodia to wreck the Ho Chi Minh supply trail.
(SFC, 8/14/97, p.A25)
1970-1998 The history of Cambodia over this period
was covered by Henry Kamm of the NY Times: "Cambodia: Report from a
Stricken Land."
(SFEC, 10/18/98, BR p.2)
1971 Jan 22, Communist forces
shelled Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the first time.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1971 Aug 20, The Cambodian
military launched a series of operations against the Khmer Rouge.
(HN, 8/20/98)
1971 Oct, Francois Bizot,
French ethnologist, was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge
in Cambodia. He was released after 3 months by camp commander Kaing
Guek Eav (aka Duch). In 2003 Bizot authored "The Gate," an account
of his captivity and the Khmer Rouge takeover. In 2012 Bizot
authored “Facing the Torturer," an account of his appearance as a
witness at Duch’s 2009 trial.
(WSJ, 3/12/03, p.D10)(SSFC, 11/25/12, p.F6)
1973 Mar 17, Twenty were killed
in Cambodia when a bomb went off that was meant for the Cambodian
President Lon Nol.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1973 Jun 27, Nixon vetoed a
Senate ban on Cambodia bombing.
(HN, 6/27/98)
1973 Aug 7, A US plane
accidentally bombed a Cambodian village, killing 400 civilians.
(HN,
8/7/98)(www.massviolence.org/+-Cambodia-+?id_rubrique=6&artpage=11-18)
1973 Aug 14, The U.S. "secret"
bombing of Cambodia came to a halt, marking the official end to 12
years of American combat in Indochina.
(AP, 8/14/97)(HN, 8/14/98)
1974 Jan 9, Cambodian
Government troops opened a drive to avert insurgent attack on Phnom
Penh.
(HN, 1/9/98)
1974 Ta Mok (1926-2006), a
Khmer Rouge senior advisor, cleansed Cambodia’s old royal city of
Oudong of its 30,000 residents and burned it to the ground.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.77)
1975 Jan 1, On New Year's Day
Communist troops launched an offensive which, in 117 days of the
hardest fighting of the war, collapsed the Khmer Republic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cambodia)
1975 Feb 6, President Gerald
Ford asked Congress for $497 million in aid to Cambodia.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1975 Apr 12, The US removed its
embassy personnel from Phnom Penh. Some of Cambodia's most senior
government ministers, including the Acting President, Saukham Khoy,
were among the evacuees.
(http://tinyurl.com/rsqt5)
1975 April 17, The US-backed
Lon Nol government of Cambodia surrendered to the Khmer Rouge. The
nominal leader of the Khmer Rouge was Khieu Samphan. Pol Pot, leader
of the Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodia), occupied the capital Phnom Penh
ending Cambodia's five-year war. This began the brutal regime that
resulted in the death of one to three million people. The Khmer
Rouge began to immediately clear Phnom Penh. Agrarian communism was
forced on the people and purges extended from the leadership down to
the masses. The country was renamed Democratic Kampuchea. After the
Khmer Rouge took power they employed a system of forced marriages to
help engineer a classless society.
(NG, 5/85, p.574)(WSJ,4/17/95, p.A-12)(AP,
4/17/97)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ, 6/16/97, p.8)(SFC, 4/17/98,
p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/qot7t)(SFC, 1/23/96, p.A10)
1975 May 11, The Cambodian
government seized an American merchant ship, the Mayaguez.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.T10)
1975 May 12, The White House
announced the new Cambodian government had seized an American
merchant ship, the Mayaguez, with 39 crew members in international
waters. Pres. Gerald Ford sent a company of Marines to rescue the
ship. The ship was freed but there were 41 Americans killed or
missing and more than 50 wounded.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.T10)(AP, 5/12/97)
1975 May 15, US forces raided
the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and recaptured the American
merchant ship Mayaguez. All 40 crew members were released safely by
Cambodia, but some 40 US servicemen were killed in the military
operation. Some 200 Marines stormed the island of Koh Tang to rescue
the crew of the Mayaguez, but the crew had been moved. The Marines
fought all day against the Khmer Rouge and escaped by helicopter in
the evening. Three comrades were left behind and later died under
the Khmer Rouge. The crew was freed about the same time that the
Marine assault began.
(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.A14)(AP, 5/15/08)
1975-1979 Pol Pot (1925-1998), whose real name is
Saloth Sar, led the Khmer Rouge and ruled Cambodia. He regarded
artists as superfluous saying “to keep you is no gain, to kill you
is no loss." In 1987 Joan D. Criddle and Teeda Butt Mam authored "To
Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family." The work
was recorded on cassette in 1992 and told the extraordinary story of
a Cambodian family caught up in the genocide under Pol Pot's Khmer
Rouge. An estimated 1.7 million people were killed under the
Khmer Rouge. In 2000 Loung Ung authored "First They Killed My
Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers."
(WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A11)(AR, 9/4/99)(SFC, 9/8/99,
p.A15)(SFEC, 6/11/00, BR p.6)(Econ, 4/6/13, p.96)
1975-1979 During this period the Khmer Rouge of
Cambodia executed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and condemned
more than a million to death by starvation and disease. Some 14,000
men, women and children entered Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng prison, but
only a dozen survived. In 1997 two of the administrators of the
prison, known as Duch and Chan, were living openly in territory
controlled by the government.
(WSJ, 4/17/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A9)(Econ,
6/27/09, p.52)
1975-1979 During this period the Khmer Rouge of
Cambodia about 90,000 of some 250,000 Cham people died as the
government tried to exterminate both the tribe and Islam. Only 21 of
113 imams survived.
(Econ, 10/2/10, p.46)
1976 Apr 11, In Cambodia Khmer
Rouge leader Khieu Samphan (b.1931) succeeded Prince Sihanouk as
premier. In 1979 he was succeeded by Heng Samrin.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khieu_Samphan)(Econ, 1/12/08, p.52)
1976 Nov 23, The Thai
government returned 26 refugees to Cambodia saying that they are a
threat to the national security. The government said some 70,000
refugees in Thailand who escaped Communist rule in other Indochina
states, including 10,000 Cambodians, would also not be permitted to
stay.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1976 Nhem Ein, photographer,
was assigned by the Khmer Rouge to Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng
interrogation center called S-21. He proceeded to methodically
photograph all the prisoners who arrived before they were tortured
and executed.
(WSJ, 9/16/97, p.A20)
1977 Mar 9, Pres. Carter
proposed an end to travel restrictions to Cuba, Vietnam, N. Korea
and Cambodia effective as of March 18.
(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=7139)
1977 Dec 31, Cambodia broke
relations with Vietnam.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1977 Hun Sen, a Khmer Rouge
battalion commander in Cambodia, defected to Vietnam. He became
prime minister of Cambodia in 1979.
(Econ, 11/2/13, p.43)
1977-1978 Pol Pot of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge,
fearing traitors, purged his own Khmer Rouge, especially in the
eastern zone. Many of his former cadre flee to Vietnam.
(WSJ, 4/17/95, p.A-12)
1978 Jan 3, Vietnamese troops
were reported to be occupying 400 square miles in Cambodia. North
Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops were using Laos and Cambodia as staging
areas for attacks against allied forces.
(HN, 1/3/02)
1978 Dec 25, Vietnam invaded
Cambodia and drove the Khmer Rouge into sanctuaries along the Thai
border, finally ending the mass genocide depicted in the 1984 film
"The Killing Fields." It was the first full-scale war between the
two countries since 1917. 400 people were killed in initial clashes.
(NG, 5/85, p.574-5)(WSJ, 2/27/96, p.A-1)(SFC,
6/14/97, p.A15)(SFC, 4/30/98, p.A11)
1978 An estimated 15,000
Chinese advisors were present in Cambodia during Pol Pot's rule.
(SFC, 5/10/99, p.A10)
1979 Jan 7, The Vietnamese army
captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh overthrowing the Khmer
Rouge government. The People’s Party, a Hanoi installed Khmer Rouge
faction, took power with Hun Sen as prime minister and Heng Samrin
as president. This finally ended the mass genocide depicted in the
1984 film "The Killing Fields." The Khmer Rouge retreated into
sanctuaries along the Thai border, set up bases and picked up
support from Thailand and China.
(WSJ, 2/27/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ,
5/3/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A8)(AP,
1/7/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heng_Samrin)
1979 Jan 15, The Soviet Union
vetoed a United Nations resolution and called for the withdrawal of
all Vietnamese troops from Cambodia.
(HN, 1/15/99)
1979 Apr 11, Chinese diplomats
of Cambodia crossed into Thailand after a 15-day, 125-mile escape
from the Vietnamese Army. In 1992 "Chinese Diplomats in
International Crisis Situations" was authored by Yun Shui. An
English translation came out in 2003.
(AP, 1/13/03)
1979 Aug 19, In Cambodia a
Phnom Penh court tried, convicted and sentenced Pol Pot and his
deputy, Leng Sary, to death in absentia for genocide during the
Khmer Rouge regime. A "Hate Day" was created to recall Khmer Rouge
crimes. Denise Affonco’s testimony during the trial was later
published as “To the End of Hell: One Woman’s Struggle to Survive
Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge."
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A16)(WSJ, 7/19/00,
p.A14)(http://tinyurl.com/2onrxp)(Econ, 12/15/07, p.93)
1979 The National Museum
re-opened in Cambodia. It had been closed under the Khmer Rouge
rule.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)
1979 Documents from Phnom Penh,
Cambodia, that detailed the genocide by the Khmer Rouge, were
discovered and copied for storage in American libraries.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A16)
1979 The Khmer Rouge took
refuge in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains and fought on for another 19
years. Their presence in the area acted as a preservative for the
natural wildlife.
(SFC, 4/8/00, p.A14)
1979 Cambodian farmer Neang Say
stumbled onto the Killing Fields, the main execution and disposal
site for the condemned inmates of Tuol Sleng, Pol Pot’s most
notorious prison.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.45)
1982 The Khmer Rouge and 2
non-Communist groups formed a resistance coalition with Sihanouk as
a figurehead leader. The UN recognized it as the government of
Cambodia.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1985 Jan 7, Vietnam seized the
Khmer National Liberation Front headquarters near the Thai-Cambodia
border.
(HN, 1/7/99)
1985 Feb 14, Hanoi troops
surrounded the main Khmer Rouge base at Phnom Malai, Cambodia.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1989 Aug 30, The Cambodian
peace talks in Paris collapsed.
(Hem, 4/96, p.15)(http://tinyurl.com/nz3x5)
1989 Sep 26, The last
Vietnamese soldiers left Cambodia. Vietnam withdrew the last of
26,000 troops.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(PC, 1992 ed, p.1113)
1989 Oct 22, Khmer Rouge
occupied Pailin in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge used the gem mining
town of Pailin near the Thai border to finance its operations with
gem and timber profits.
(http://tinyurl.com/p6u5f)
1990 Nov 26, Five permanent
members of U.N. Security Council agreed on peace plan for Cambodia.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1990 "Homrong" was recorded by
the musicians of Cambodia’s National Dance Company.
(NH, 9/97, p.75)
1990 Bernard Krisher founded
the nonprofit group ‘American Assistance for Cambodia following a
request from Prince Sihanouk.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.B7)
1991 Oct 23, Cambodia's warring
factions and representatives of 18 other nations signed a peace
treaty in Paris. All the factions signed The Paris Peace Agreements
with the UN to provide peacekeeping and elections. Khmer Rouge Pres.
Khieu Samphan and commander Son Sen soon returned to Phnom Penh for
the first time since 1979, then fled the same day as mobs tried to
lynch Khieu Samphan.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T6)(AP,
10/23/01)
1991 Nov 11, The United States
stationed its first diplomat in Cambodia in 16 years to help the
war-shocked nation arrange democratic elections.
(AP, 11/11/01)
1991 Nov 14, Cambodian Prince
Norodom Sihanouk returned to his homeland after 13 years of exile.
(AP, 11/14/01)
1991 HIV was first detected in
Cambodia. By 1999 some 100 people were being infected with the AIDS
virus per day.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C2)
1992 Mar 15, The United Nations
officially embarked on its largest peacekeeping operation with the
arrival of a diplomat in Cambodia. The UN peacekeeping mission in
Cambodia soon began running a radio station to disseminate reliable
information before elections.
(AP, 3/15/97)(Economist, 9/1/12, p.51)
1992 The Asian Development Bank
began building and improving transport and telecom links between
China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
(Econ, 11/8/03, p.42)
1992 The Association of
Cambodian Local Economic Development Agencies (ACLEDA) was set up by
the UN and the Int’l. Labor Organization as a microfinance
non-governmental organization. By 2010 it was Cambodia’s largest
bank by assets.
(Economist, 9/22/12, p.85)
1992 The Greater Mekong
Subregion was created grouping 5 South-East Asian countries
(Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam) and 2 Chinese
provinces.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Mekong_Subregion)(Econ,
2/6/10, p.48)
1992 UNESCO named the Angkor
temples of Cambodia a World Heritage Site.
(SFC, 2/4/04, p.D10)
1993 Sep 24, Sihanouk was
reinstalled as king of Cambodia.
(HN, 9/24/98)
1993 "The Music of Cambodia"
was recorded by David and Kay Parsons as a 3-CD box that included
Royal Court music and a nine-gong ensemble.
(NH, 9/97, p.75)
1993 Cambodia held free
elections under UN supervision. The communist Cambodian People’s
Party (CPP) under Hun Sen lost the elections and formed a coalition
government with the elected Funcinpec under Prince Ranariddh, son of
King Sihanouk. The Khmer Rouge boycotted the elections. The
communists maintained control over the defense and interior
ministries. Ranariddh and Hun Sen ran the country as co-premiers.
(WSJ, 5/3/96, p.A-10)(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A13)(WSJ,
7/9/99, p.A12)
1993 Cambodian law prohibited
the removal of cultural artifacts without government permission.
(AP, 6/11/13)
1993 The Int'l. Coordination
Committee was created to channel aid to Cambodia's Angkor Wat zone.
(SFC, 2/4/04, p.D10)
1993 In Cambodia an armed group
robbed the Angkor storage depot at Siem Reap and took 22 pieces
including several important stone sculptures.
(AM, May/Jun 97 p.60)
1993 Somaly Mam (b.~1970-71)
escaped Cambodia following years of forced prostitution. She moved
to Paris and later returned to Cambodia to help women caught in
similar situations. In 2006 she was honored as one of Glamour
magazine's women of the year. In 2007 she published her
autobiography: "The Road of Lost Innocence." In 2008 she was the
co-winner of the $150,000 World's Children's Prize for the Rights of
the Child, awarded by the Swedish Children's World Association to
recognize those who defend the rights of children. In 2014 she
resigned from the New York-based foundation she helped found after
reports alleged that she had distorted aspects of her personal
history.
(AP,
5/29/14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaly_Mam)
1993-96 In Cambodia the Khmer Rouge remained
active in the countryside. They killed 100 Vietnamese settlers,
abducted villagers for forces labor and kidnapped westerners.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)
1994 Mar 19, Cambodian
government seizes control of Pailin, the Khmer Rouge main
stronghold.
(AP, 3/19/02)
1994 Jul 26, In Cambodia 3
Western backpackers were kidnapped from a train by the Khmer Rouge.
The surprise train attack left 13 dead. Frenchman Michel Braquet,
Briton Mark Slater, and Australian David Wilson were held at the
base of Nuon Paet, who later ordered them killed. Paet was convicted
for the killings in 1999 and sentenced to life in prison. Sam Bith
and Chhouk Rin, former Khmer Rouge guerrillas, were charged in
connection with the abduction and slayings in 1999. Col. Rin was
arrested in 2000. Chhouk Rin was acquitted in 2000 due to an amnesty
for rebel defectors. In 2002 Bith was convicted and jailed for life.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A12)(SFC, 6/22/99, p.A12)(SFC,
6/22/99, p.A12)(SFC, 1/19/00, p.A16)(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A1)(MC,
7/26/02)(AP, 12/23/02)
1994 The book "Cambodian
Culture Since 1975: Homeland and Exile" by Sam-Ang Sam was
published. It included information on Cambodian music.
(NH, 9/97, p.75)
1994 Bernard Krisher founded
and became the publisher of The Cambodian Daily, a small
English-language newspaper in Phnom Penh.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.B7)
1994 The Australian foreign
minister, Gareth Evans, accused "freelance military personnel and
business spivs" (shady dealers) in Thailand of providing refuge for
Khmer Rouge leaders and helping them get gems and timber out of
Cambodia. The statement was made after 2 Australians were murdered
by the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A12)
1994 Cambodia’s 7 million mines
amount to two for every single Cambodian child, and between 200 and
250 people become victims every month.
(UNICEFF Mailer,11/94)
1995 Apr 5, The Mekong
Agreement created the Mekong River Commission with Cambodia, Laos,
Thailand and Vietnam as members.
(Econ, 1/7/12,
p.34)(www.kellnielsen.dk/mekong/agreem.htm)
1995 Nov, In Cambodia Hun Sen
arrested the sec. general of Funcinpec, Prince Norodom Sirivudh, and
tried him for terrorism and coup plotting. The trial was a
transparent mockery of justice.
(WSJ, 5/3/96, p.A-10)
1995 The Future Light Orphanage
in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, was founded to teach children skills to
avoid poverty.
(SFC, 5/3/00, p.A12)
1995 The Khmer Rouge was ousted
in Cambodia after a 3 year reign of terror in which hundreds of
thousands died.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Mar 26, In Cambodia the
Khmer Rouge kidnapped Christopher Howes (37), a mine-clearing expert
from Bristol, England, and Huon Huot, his interpreter. In November
Howes’ employer paid $120,000 for his release. The two men were
killed shortly after their abduction. Their remains were found in
1998. In 2008 a Cambodian court sentenced four former Khmer Rouge
rebels each to up to 20 years in prison for their involvement in the
murders.
(SFC, 11/23/96, p.A11)(SFC, 4/13/98,
p.A14)(http://tinyurl.com/7s7x4)(AP, 10/14/08)
1996 Apr 16, Khmer Rouge
guerillas attacked a group of tourists near Kompot, 85 miles
southwest of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Reports have it that they killed
and wounded a number of people and kidnapped about 20.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-10)
1996 Jun 7, In Cambodia it was
reported that Pol Pot was gravely ill or possibly dead. Pol Pot died
1998.
(WSJ, 6/7/96, p.A11)(SFC, 4/16/98, p.A1)
1996 Jun 21, In Cambodia Khmer
Rouge guerrillas held dozens of sawmill workers for ransom and
killed 14 of them with axes.
(SFC, 6/27/96, p.A12)
1996 Jul 10, The Khmer Rouge
attacked a government base in southwestern Cambodia. They were also
accused of killing 60 forestry workers kidnapped previously. 25,500
people have died since 1995 in fighting with the Khmer Rouge.
(WSJ, 7/11/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 8, In Cambodia the
government announced an internal power struggle and split in the
Khmer Rouge. Leng Sary, a Pol Pot chum and the Khmer Rouge foreign
minister, opposed Son Sen, the minister of defense and led
defections that grew to 10,000.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A13)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A15)(WSJ,
4/17/98, p.A13)
1996 Sep 5, Cambodia rushed
troops to aid the 1,000 or so Khmer Rouge dissidents near the
village of Chup Koki. About 5,500 Khmer Rouge rebels remain loyal to
Pol Pot.
(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A14)
1996 Sep 14, In Cambodia King
Norodom Sihanouk granted amnesty to Leng Sary, the Khmer Rouge rebel
leader.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Oct 18, Cambodia’s
king granted amnesty to all prison inmates except those convicted of
serious crimes and judged to be too dangerous. He also proposed
tearing down the country’s dilapidated prisons which house about
2,000 people, many held without trial. Leng Sary was granted amnesty
and formed a political party. His followers maintained rule over
Pailin under nominal government control.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A11)
1996 Oct 27, Cambodia’s king
reversed his decision for amnesty after students issued a warning of
increased national insecurity.
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct, Mr. Robert Prins,
president of Iowa Wesleyan College, bestowed an honorary law degree
to Hun Sen and his Cambodia chief of cabinet Sok An at the behest of
Mr. Ted Sioeng, Indonesian businessman.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A22)
1996 Nov, The IMF canceled a
$20 million loan because of Cambodia’s failure to halt illegal
logging and channel timber revenue into its budget.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A10)
1996 In Cambodia Ta Mok ousted
Pol Pot from power and kept him under house arrest until his death
in 1998.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A17)(SFC, 7/21/06, p.A20)
1997 Feb 14, Khmer Rouge
guerrillas killed all but three Cambodian government officials sent
to make peace.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Mar 30, In Cambodia a
grenade attack at a political rally killed at least 16 and wounded
over 100 as opposition leader Sam Rainsy led some 200 members of his
Khmer Nation Party in front of the National Assembly.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A10)(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A10)
1997 May 31, The 7-member ASEAN
alliance, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, met in Kuala
Lumpur and agreed to allow Burma to become a member in July. Laos
and Cambodia were also to be admitted. The members were Thailand,
Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D3)
1997 Jun 11, In Cambodia Pol
Pot ordered the killing of the former Khmer Rouge defense minister
Son Sen (67) and his powerful wife, Yun Yat (63), and 9 relatives.
(SFC, 6/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 17, Fighting broke out
in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, between the 2 competing prime ministers.
Security troops of Prince Ranariddh faced troops of the national
police under Hok Lundy, a supporter of Hun Sen.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 18, In Cambodia it was
reported that Pol Pot had surrendered with 15 followers.
(SFC, 6/19/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 19, In Cambodia the
report of Pol Pot’s surrender was rescinded.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Jun 21, Cambodia
government sources announced that former Khmer Rouge troops had
captured Pol Pot.
(SFC, 6/21/97, p.A10)
1997 Jun, Cambodia’s Hun Sen
wrote to the UN and asked for help in bringing remaining Khmer Rouge
to trial.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
1997 Jul 4, In Cambodia troops
of prince Ranariddh laid down their arms and some 140 were taken
prisoner by troops of 2nd Prime Minister Hun Sen. Ranariddh was on a
trip to France and Hun Sen claimed that illegal negotiations were
taking place with Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 5, Cambodia's 2nd PM
Hun Sen launched a bloody coup that toppled 1st PM Norodom
Ranariddh. Heavy fighting in Phnom Penh indicated the collapse of
the fragile coalition.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.A3)(AP, 7/5/98)
1997 Jul 6, In Cambodia Hun Sen
declared victory while Prince Ranariddh planned from France to carry
out a resistance effort.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 8, Cambodia Interior
Minister Ho Sok was seized and executed by forces loyal to Hun Sen.
Some 30 soldiers loyal to Ranariddh were captured and tortured by
Regiment 911 at Kambol
(SFC, 7/9/97, p.A6)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 9, In Cambodia some 30
opposition officials were arrested in Pray Veng Province, 13 in
Battambang, and 20 in Kompong Speu. Prince Ranariddh was in
consultation with the United Nations for support.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.E3)
1997 Jul 10, ASEAN foreign
ministers voted to suspend Cambodia’s pending membership. The US
announced a 3/4 reduction of staff and some aid. More than 50 people
were dead after 2 days of fighting.
(SFC, 7/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Jul 16, In Cambodia Hun
Sen named a new co-premier, Ung Huot, the foreign minister and a
member of Ranariddh’s Funcinpec Party. Exiled legislators said was
the appointment was illegal.
(SFC, 7/17/97, p.A8)(WSJ, 7/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 18, In Cambodia Prince
Ranariddh called off armed resistance and proposed a caretaker
government and new elections.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul 19, In Cambodia Hun
Sen rejected a peace plan proposed by the 7-nation ASEAN group.
(SFEC, 7/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Jul 26, Communist
guerrillas in Cambodia announced that Pol Pot was sentenced to
life imprisonment. Nate Thayer, a US reporter for the Far Eastern
Economic Review, claimed to have seen Pol Pot and prepared a report
for the Review.
(WSJ, 7/28/97, p.A12)
1997 Aug 8, US Sec. of State
Madeleine Albright announced that the bulk of US aid to Cambodia
would be suspended.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 19, In Cambodia 35,000
people fled across the border to Thailand to escape fighting between
forces loyal to Prince Ranariddh and troops of coup leader Hun Sen.
(WSJ, 8/20/97, p.A1)
1997 Aug 24, In Cambodia troops
of Hun Sen overran O’Smach, the last frontier town held by forces
loyal to Prince Ranariddh.
(SFC, 8/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Sep 3, In Cambodia a
Vietnam Airlines, Tupelov 134, Soviet jet crashed on approach
to Phnom Penh airport and killed 65 people. One child, 1-year-old
Chanayuth Nim-Anong, survived. A 2nd child about 4 also survived.
(WSJ, 9/3/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)(SFC,
9/5/97, p.A12)
1997 Dec 20, Theng Bunma,
Cambodian business tycoon and accused drug trafficker, was awarded
an honorary doctorate from Iowa Wesleyan College via the
manipulations of Ted Sioeng, an Indonesia-born businessman. Sioeng
was at the heart of the "donorgate" scandal over China’s attempt to
influence the 1996 US elections.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A22)
1998 Mar 29, In Cambodia
civilians fled fighting between factions of the Khmer Rouge
(WSJ, 3/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 30, Prince Norodom
Ranariddh returned to Cambodia and planned to oppose Hun Sen in the
Jul 26 elections.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B4)
1998 Mar 31, In Cambodia
government soldiers made a major offensive to destroy the remnants
of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, whose numbers were disintegrating due
to defections and internal fighting.
(SFC, 4/1/98, p.A8)
1998 Apr 15, Pol Pot (73) died
of a heart attack in Anlong Veng, northern Cambodia. His body was
cremated. It was later reported that he killed himself with malaria
pills and tranquilizers after learning that an aide planned to hand
him over to the US. In 1999 it was reported that Ta Mok had Pol Pot
executed. In 2001 the place of his death was designated as a
historic site and plans were made to make it a tourist attraction.
In 2004 Philip Short and John Murray authored “Pol Pot: The History
of a Nightmare."
(SFC, 4/16/98, p.A1)(SFC, 4/18/98, p.A8)(WSJ,
1/21/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/27/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/21/01, p.H5)(Econ,
11/6/04, p.89)
1998 Apr 17, A Thai military
team collected evidence from the body of Pol Pot, former chief of
Cambodia's Khmer Rouge guerrillas, to confirm that one of the
century's worst tyrants was truly dead.
(AP,, 4/17/99)
1998 Apr 18, In Cambodia the
Khmer Rouge killed 22 ethnic Vietnamese at Chhanok Tru, a fishing
village on Tonle Sap Lake.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A15)
1998 Apr 21, Khmer Rouge rebels
drove a large government force back in 2 days of fighting along the
Thai-Cambodian border.
(SFC, 4/22/98, p.A9)
1998 May 2, Cambodian refugees
entered Thailand as government troops declared that they had all but
destroyed the Khmer Rouge.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.16A)
1998 May 20, In Cambodia Prince
Ranariddh quit as head of an opposition alliance against Hun Sen and
chose to support Son Soubert.
(WSJ, 5/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Jun 5, Over 1,000 former
Khmer Rouge soldiers were inducted into the Cambodian army at Anlong
Veng. Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok and some loyalists were still in the
jungles along the Thai border.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.A11)
1998 Jun 28, In Cambodia an
opposition activist was found beaten to death near Phnom Penh.
(WSJ, 6/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 17, In Cambodia Khmer
Rouge guerrillas under Ta Mok attacked a convoy of election workers
and killed 2 people.
(SFEC, 7/19/98, p.A24)
1998 Jul 23, It was reported
that 3 ethnic Vietnamese were killed last week in a racist attack
prior to Cambodian elections. Ethnic slurs against the Vietnamese
were turning up in the election campaign.
(SFC, 7/23/98, p.A10)
1998 Jul 26, In Cambodia a
Khmer Rouge attack left 10 people dead as the nation voted for a new
government. 40-50 guerrillas struck at an army outpost at O’Kong
Bich. No party was expected to win a majority of the 122 seat
National Assembly.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A8)
1998 Jul 28, The Cambodian
People's Party (CPP) of Hun Sen claimed victory and preliminary
results showed him with 67 seats, Ranariddh with 42 and Rainsy with
13.
(WSJ, 7/29/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/9/99, p.A12)
1998 Aug 5, In Cambodia
election officials declared Hun Sen the winner and int’l. monitors
backed the results.
(WSJ, 8/6/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 20, A grenade attack
in Phnom Penh, apparently aimed at Sam Rainsy, killed one man but
left Rainsy unhurt.
(WSJ, 8/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 7, In Phnom Penh Hun
Sen ordered the arrests of his opponents and at least one person was
killed as police fired into a crowd of protestors.
(SFC, 9/8/98, p.A8)
1998 Sep 8, In Phnom Penh
police scattered demonstrators and ended a 2-week protest against
alleged fraud in the national elections. Protestors called their
tent city Democracy Square and thousands participated with hopes of
launching a people-power revolution.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Sep 23, In Cambodia a
rocket attack intended for Huns Sen killed 4 people including 2
children.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A14)
1998 Nov 13, In Cambodia the
warring political parties agreed to form a coalition government led
by Hun Sen. Opposition leader Prince Norodom Ranariddh will become
president of the National Assembly.
(SFC, 11/14/98, p.A10)
1998 Nov 25, Cambodia’s new
National Assembly began office with Prince Ranariddh as speaker of
the 120-seat group.
(SFC, 11/26/98, p.B8)
1998 Dec 4, In Cambodia the
last Khmer Rouge fighting force surrendered, but 3 leaders refused
to give up.
(WSJ, 12/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 7, The UN agreed to
give Cambodia’s UN seat to the new government.
(SFC, 12/8/98, p.A15)
1998 Dec 9, In Cambodia Khmer
Rouge guerrillas kidnapped 48 people, including 3 aid workers, and
demanded ransom.
(WSJ, 12/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 20, In Cambodia there
were riots in Sihanoukville to protests suspected toxic waste
imports from Taiwan. Hundreds of Cambodians fled the city after
reports of deaths from 3,000 tons of toxic waste dumped 2 weeks ago.
The waste was loaded with mercury and a plan was made to move it
away from Sihanoukville. Taiwan ordered Formosa Plastics to take
back the 3,000 tons of waste but the firm said the government used
tests by an environmental group.
(WSJ, 12/21/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A1)(WSJ,
12/28/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/29/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 26, In Cambodia 2
aides of the late Pol Pot, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, emerged from
the jungle and expressed in writing their desire to become ordinary
citizens and allegiance to the government. Prime Minister Hun Sen
welcomed them and spoke against a trial and reopening old wounds.
(SFEC, 12/27/98, p.A22)(SFC, 12/29/98, p.A8)
1998 Dec 31, In Cambodia Hun
Sen said he would not oppose a trial of the 2 recently emerged Khmer
Rouge defectors. The National Assembly passed a $393.4 million
budget that included $133 million for defense and security.
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.A8)(SFC, 1/2/99, p.C12)
1998 Over 8,000 Cambodians died
from AIDS in this year.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Feb 9, Some 1,700
guerrillas of the Khmer Rouge were inducted into the Cambodian
military.
(SFC, 2/10/99, p.A10)
1999 Feb 26, In Japan int'l.
donors at a 2 day conference pledged to provide $470 million in aid
to Cambodia, if the country takes steps to reduce its army and
promote democracy.
(SFC, 2/27/99, p.A16)
1999 Feb, A UN panel
recommended that an int'l. tribunal be established to prosecute
those persons most responsible for the crimes of Cambodia’s Khmer
Rouge.
(SFC, 5/10/99, p.A10)
1999 Mar 6, In Cambodia Ta Mok
(72), aka "the butcher," the one-legged last senior leader of the
Khmer Rouge, was arrested.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.A17)(SFC, 3/8/99, p.A12)
1999 Mar, In Cambodia Hun Sen
rejected a UN proposal to hold an int’l. tribunal.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
1999 Apr, Kaing Guek Eav (aka
Comrade Duch), the chief executioner of Pol Pot's regime, was
uncovered by Nick Dunlop, a foreign journalist. The Cambodia
government reportedly knew of his whereabouts for 2 years. In May
Duch was put under protective custody after agreeing to testify
against his former comrades. In 2006 Dunlop authored “The Lost
Executioner: A Journey to the heart of the Killing Fields."
(SFC, 5/10/99, p.A8,10)(SSFC, 3/5/06, p.M3)(Econ,
6/27/09, p.52)
1999 Apr 30, Cambodia was
admitted as the 10th member of the Association of Asian Nations
(ASEAN).
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.B1)
1999 Apr, Hun Sen accepted a
compromise offer for an int’l. tribunal with both foreign and
Cambodian judges. Talks soon collapsed.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
1999 Jun 26, Samdach Vira
Bhante, a Cambodian monk, died in Stockton, Ca. at age 110.
(SFC, 7/1/99, p.C4)
1999 Jul 6, Srei Chea (29),
Cambodian film star, was shot 3 times by 2 gunmen. She died a week
later. Her films included "Shadow of Darkness," which was about life
under the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 7/19/99, p.A12)
1999 Jul 6, Piseth Peaklica
(34), Cambodian actress, was shot by 2 gunmen in a Phnom Penh market
and died on July 13. It was rumored that she was involved with a
high official (Hun Sen) and ordered killed by a jealous wife (Bun
Rany).
(SFC, 11/4/99, p.A15)(http://tinyurl.com/5n83tu)
1999 Aug 11, It was reported
that an estimated half of Cambodia's 10-20 thousand sex workers were
infected with the AIDS virus, HIV.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Sep 7, In Cambodia the
military court charged Ta Mok, a former Khmer Rouge guerrilla chief,
with genocide.
(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A15)
1999 Sep 9, In Cambodia Kaing
Khek, aka "Duch" and former head of Tuol Sleng, a converted school
that served as a Khmer Rouge torture center, was charged with
genocide.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.D4)(SSFC, 3/5/06, p.M3)
1999 Oct 19, In Cambodia Prime
Minister Hun Sen reportedly gave his approval for a tribunal to hear
genocide charges against the Khmer Rouge.
(SFC, 10/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Cambodia agreed to allow
environmentalists to begin an experiment in wildlife and forest
protection with enforcers paid by outside nations.
(WSJ, 6/19/01, p.A1)
1999 Bernard Krisher, American
philanthropist (retired magazine journalist), began to link rural
schools with solar power and Internet linked computers. His Japan
Relief for Cambodia was responsible for the Cambodia Daily, the
country's first English language daily newspaper and an orphanage in
Phnom Penh.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.AA7)
2000 Jan 2, It was reported
that Cambodia’s Hun Sen, in an effort to boost tourism, had approved
direct flights to Angkor Wat, with a required one night stay in the
adjacent town of Siem Riap.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.T3)
2000 Jan, In Cambodia Hun Sen
moved ahead with plans to hold national trials without int’l.
assistance.
(WSJ, 7/19/00, p.A14)
2000 May, At least 6
anti-government royalists were killed by government soldiers in
Cambodia’s Kratie province according to charges made by a human
rights group in August. 25 people were missing and presumed dead.
(SFC, 8/18/00, p.D6)
2000 Sep 14, In Cambodia and
Vietnam the Mekong River flooded. At least 89 people had died in
Cambodia and 8 in Vietnam since the floods began in July.
(SFC, 9/15/00, p.A18)
2000 Sep 21, In Southeast Asia
the death toll from floods reached 235. The Red Cross issued an
appeal for emergency aid to Cambodia.
(SFC, 9/22/00, p.D2)
2000 Nov 24, Several dozen
gunmen attacked government offices in Phnom Penh. At least 7 people
were killed and 12 wounded. Police fought a US-based anti-communist
group known as the Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF). 8 were killed
and 60 rounded up. 38 people, including 4 American citizens, were
later charged with terrorism. In 2002 a court sentenced 20 people to
prison terms of 5 years to life for the plotting to overthrow the
government.
(SFC, 11/25/00, p.A18)(WSJ, 11/27/00, p.A1)(SFC,
11/30/00, p.C3)(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A17)
2001 Aug 7, Cambodia’s
Constitutional Council approved legislation to establish a special
court to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity.
(SFC, 8/8/01, p.A9)
2001 Aug 10, Cambodia’s King
Sihanouk signed war-crimes legislation to try senior Khmer Rouge
leaders.
(WSJ, 8/15/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 23, Cambodia’s PM Hun
Sen shut down the country’s bars, nightclubs, discos and karaoke
parlors. He said they were spawning crime and eroding traditional
values. The action followed a series of shootings at nightspots.
(SSFC, 12/2/01, p.C13)
2001 Kay Kimsong, along with
two Americans working for the Cambodian Daily, were sued over two
articles published in early 2001 that said Foreign Minister Hor
Namhong had played an active part in running a Phnom Penh prison
camp during the Khmer Rouge's brutal 1975-79 reign. An appeal by
Kimson in 2005 was rejected and he was fined $7,500.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2001 Arn Chorn-Pond started the
Silipak Khmer Amatak (Cambodian Living Arts) organization. It aimed
to locate and support Cambodian master artists.
(SFCM, 8/8/04, p.12)
2001 The UN said 170,000 people
in Cambodia had HIV. About 2.7% of the adult population was infected
with AIDS.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.41)
2002 Feb 3, In Cambodia’s 1st
local elections Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party won control of up
to 1600 of the 1,621 local councils. A US monitoring group said the
polls were competently run but neither free nor fair.
(SFC, 2/5/02, p.A7)
2002 Aug 30, Floodwaters along
the lower stretches of the Mekong have wreaked havoc in Laos,
Cambodia (18), Thailand (12) and Vietnam (25), claiming at least 55
lives and leaving thousands homeless across the region.
(AP, 8/30/02)
2002 Sep 29, In Cambodia 2 nuns
and a monk burned to death in bathtubs of gasoline and three
suffered multiple stab wounds in Wat Thmar Sar. Police later
detained Dem Mam the leader of an extremist Buddhist cult.
(Reuters, 10/2/02)
2002 Nov 5, The ASEAN group
(Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos,
Vietnam, Brunei, Thailand and Myanmar) ended a 2-day conference in
Cambodia that was also attended by representatives from China,
Japan, and India and South Africa.
(AP, 11/5/02)
2002 Dec 19, In Cambodia some 1
million people participated in the transfer of some remains of
Buddha from Phnom Penh to a new shrine in Oudong.
(SFC, 12/20/02, p.A18)
2003 Jan 29, In Cambodia
protesters looted and set fire to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh.
The protest was against a Thai TV star who was quoted in the media
as saying Cambodia had stolen the famous Angkor Wat temple from
Thailand.
(AP, 1/29/03)
2003 Jan 30, Thailand sealed
its border with Cambodia, recalled its ambassador and sent military
planes to evacuate hundreds of terrified Thais after rioters looted
and torched its embassy in the Cambodian capital.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 Mar 5, Cambodia
sealed its border with Thailand, due to sluggish progress "to
normalize relations in border areas" since January’s anti-Thai
riots.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Apr 11, Cambodia and
Thailand agreed to resume full diplomatic relations, which were
suspended after anti-Thai riots shook Cambodia's capital in January.
(AP, 4/11/03)
2003 Jul 27, Cambodia held
elections for seats in the123-member national Assembly in the third
democratic election in a decade.
(AP, 7/27/03)(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.A9)
2003 Jul 28, In Cambodia PM Hun
Sen's party claimed victory in general elections, saying it expects
to win around 73 of the 123 seats in the National Assembly. Hun
Sen's party swept to victory, but apparently fell short of the
two-thirds majority needed to govern outright.
(AP, 7/28/03)(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Jul 30, In Cambodia
opposition parties said they would only form a coalition government
if PM Hun Sen stepped down.
(SFC, 8/1/03, p.A3)
2003 Oct 26, It was reported
that Cambodian prostitutes were being subjected to gang rapes, and
that the practice, called "bauk," has been common for years.
(SSFC, 10/26/03, p.A11)
2003 Nov 5, Cambodia's three
main parties agreed to form a tripartite coalition government with
Prime Minister Hun Sen at the helm, ending a deadlock from
inconclusive elections.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 25, In Cambodia PM Hun
Sen's nephew was arrested on murder charges for allegedly shooting
to death two people after a car crash.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Dec 15, Cambodia's prime
minister ordered the destruction of the country's surface-to-air
missiles to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists.
Hun Sen issued the order after a meeting in Phnom Penh with U.S.
Ambassador Charles Ray.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 30, In Cambodia former
Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan (72) acknowledged for the
first time that his regime committed genocide.
(AP, 12/30/03)
2003 Evan Gottlesman authored
"Cambodia: After the Khmer Rouge."
(WSJ, 4/25/03, W6)
2004 Jan 22, In Cambodia gunmen
assassinated Chea Vichea, a prominent labor leader linked to the
main opposition party, as he read a newspaper on a capital street.
(AP, 1/22/04)
2004 Apr, SF based non-profit
Room to Read (R2R), founded by former Microsoft executive John Wood,
opened its 1000th library in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
(SFCM, 9/26/04, p.7)
2004 May 11, The Int’l. Justice
Mission, a US-based evangelical Christian organization, was reported
to be active in battling the child-sex trade in Cambodia. The group,
founded in 1997 by Gary Haugen, was operating with $1.7 million in
federal funds.
(SFC, 5/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Jul 6, Actress Angelina
Jolie (29) arrived in Cambodia. PM Hun Sen had offered her
citizenship in recognition of her nature conservation work in the
country’s northwest.
(SFC, 7/7/04, p.E3)
2004 cJul 8, In Cambodia Hun
Sen and Prince Ranariddh signed an agreement to share power with Hun
Sen as PM and Ranariddh as speaker of the National Assembly.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.36)
2004 Jul 13, Police forces
loyal to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen forced the acting head of
state Chea Sim out of the country in a purge of the ruling party.
(AP, 7/13/04)
2004 Jul 14, King Sihanouk
reappointed Hun Sen as Cambodia’s premier.
(WSJ, 7/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Oct 4, Cambodia's
legislature approved a long-delayed agreement to put surviving Khmer
Rouge leaders on trial for atrocities that claimed nearly two
million lives during their murderous rule in the late 1970s.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 7, Cambodia’s King
Norodom Sihanouk (81) abdicated due to poor health.
(SFC, 10/7/04, p.A9)
2004 Oct 14, In Cambodia Prince
Norodom Sihamoni, retiring King Norodom Sihanouk's son, a former
ballet dancer and U.N. cultural ambassador, was officially confirmed
to succeed his father on the throne.
(AP, 10/14/04)
2004 Oct 28, Cambodia's King
Norodom Sihamoni, the 51-year-old son of former king Norodom
Sihanouk, was formally sworn in as monarch.
(AP, 10/29/04)
2005 Jan 1, The 1974
Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA), which had restricted Chinese textile
exports, ended. This forced Cambodia to face fierce competition from
rival exporters. This led to the loss of some 30,000 jobs in
Mauritius.
(www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/February06/Features/feature2.htm)(Econ,
2/19/05, p.42)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.58)
2005 Feb 3, The US embassy in
Phnom Penh condemned the Cambodian parliament's vote to strip
opposition leader Sam Rainsy and two of his deputies of immunity.
(AP, 2/3/05)
2005 Feb, Sam Rainsy fled
Cambodia after his parliamentary immunity was removed.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.47)
2005 Mar 18, A
Cambodian-Japanese joint venture, JC Royal, was awarded a 30-year
management lease to oversee and upgrade the Choeung Ek memorial,
site of the killing fields (1975-1979). Profits were marked for the
unregistered Sun Fund charity.
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.45)(http://tinyurl.com/dlpm7)
2005 Mar 25, Cambodia and
Vietnam each confirmed an additional death from bird flu, raising
Southeast Asia's death toll to 48.
(AP, 3/25/05)
2005 May 18, Cambodia's
legislature ratified a pact with the US exempting each country's
citizens from extradition for prosecution by the International
Criminal Court, an agreement sought by Washington to avoid political
trials of its citizens.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 Jun 16, In northwestern
Cambodia a man driven by a grudge against his former employer
spearheaded an assault on an international school, taking dozens of
children hostage and silencing a crying a 2-year-old Canadian boy by
shooting him in the head.
(AP, 6/17/05)(SFC, 6/17/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 30, A Cambodia doctor
reported that 2 infants have died in Cambodia from influenza, part
of an outbreak that has hospitalized more than 1,000 children. He
said the illness appears to be a form of human flu, not the avian
influenza.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jul 20, Cambodia handed
over some 107 Montagnards, a largely Christian hilltribe people, to
Vietnamese authorities. More than 1,000 Montagnards fled to Cambodia
after security forces put down demonstrations in Vietnam's Central
Highlands in 2001 against land confiscation and religious
persecution of ethnic minorities. In January, Vietnam, Cambodia and
the UNHCR signed a memorandum of understanding to resettle or
repatriate about 700 ethnic minority Vietnamese who were estimated
at the time to be in Cambodia.
(AFP, 7/20/05)
2005 Aug 1, In Cambodia 2 men
who said their confessions were coerced by police were convicted of
murder in the death of a prominent labor union leader. Chea Vichea,
the former head of Cambodia's Free Trade Union of Workers, was
gunned down in January 2004 at a roadside newsstand in the capital,
Phnom Penh. The union leader was an outspoken critic of government
corruption and human rights abuses.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Sep 2, The US Embassy in
Cambodia said the US has established a $2 million endowment (DC-Cam)
to assist a Cambodian group researching crimes committed by the
Khmer Rouge government in the late 1970s.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 6, Australia staged a
high seas arrest of a Cambodian-flagged ship with an international
crew suspected of fishing illegally in sub-Antarctic waters.
(AFP, 9/10/05)
2005 Oct 25, Chhouk Rin, former
Khmer Rouge field commander, was caught in northwestern Cambodia. In
1994 he was convicted in absentia for the murder of 3 Western
backpackers.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Dec 31, In Cambodia police
arrested two leading human rights activists on defamation charges as
the UN human rights body expressed "extreme concern" over the move.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2005 Dec, The IMF decided to
write off Cambodia’s $82 million debt.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.52)(http://tinyurl.com/yvqvuh)
2005 Some 80% of Cambodians
lived in the countryside.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.42)
2006 Jan 17, Cambodia, under US
pressure, released four prominent government critics from a Phnom
Penh prison but said they will still face defamation charges.
(AP, 1/17/06)
2006 Jan 22, Cambodia held its
first Senate election. PM Hun Sen's ruling party secured a landslide
victory. Only 123 parliamentarians and 11,261 members of commune
councilors, local administrative bodies, were able to vote.
(AFP, 1/29/06)
2006 Feb 5, Cambodia's king
pardoned exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy who was sentenced to
jail for defamation, in a move officials said was at the request of
PM Hun Sen.
(AP, 2/5/06)
2006 Feb 10, Sam Rainsy, an
exiled Cambodian opposition leader, returned home to cheering crowds
of supporters after a royal pardon ended his long feud with PM Hun
Sen.
(AP, 2/10/06)
2006 Mar 1, Cambodia’s National
Assembly convened to amend 8 legislations to the constitution
especially the new article 90 to diminish the votes of support for
lawmakers from 2/3 to 50% plus one votes in order to form a
government, according to the lawmakers' proposals from the 3 main
parties.
(http://tinyurl.com/jg63b)
2006 Mar 4, Cambodia deported
an American for running websites that promoted the impoverished
kingdom as a destination for people who wanted to end their lives.
Californian Roger Graham, 57, who owned the Blue Mountain Coffee and
Internet Cafe in the quiet coastal backwater of Kampot, had
advertised his avid support of euthanasia, or mercy killing, on his
websites www.euthanasiaincambodia.com and www.asian-hearts.com.
(AFP, 3/4/06)
2006 Mar 29, Cambodia's PM Hun
Sen said that Yash Ghai, a UN human rights representative, was no
longer welcome in the Southeast Asian nation after the envoy
criticized the government's crackdown on dissent.
(AP, 3/29/06)
2006 Apr 15, Cambodian soldiers
departed to Sudan for a UN-backed landmine clearing operation,
saying they hoped they could use their experience recovering from
civil war to help the war-torn Sudanese.
(AFP, 4/15/06)
2006 Apr 21, The Cambodian PM
Hun Sen ruled out sending troops to Iraq, rejecting a request by the
US for non-combat forces to assist with humanitarian work.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr, China’s PM Wen Jiabao
visited Cambodia and announced aid for roads, dams and other
projects for up to $600 million.
(Econ, 3/31/07, SR p.14)
2006 May 4, Cambodia's highest
judicial body approved 30 Cambodian and UN judges to preside over a
long-awaited genocide tribunal for surviving Khmer Rouge leaders.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 9, A land mine killed
five Cambodian soldiers and maimed another as they tried to remove
it from an area being developed to build a casino.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 Jun 6, In Cambodia more
than 1,000 police, many armed and in riot gear, evicted hundreds of
families who had refused to leave a Phnom Penh shantytown, as
authorities moved to end a standoff that has stalled millions of
dollars in commercial development.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jul 3, Judges and
prosecutors from Cambodia and abroad were sworn in to begin the
UN-backed judicial process to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for
genocide and crimes against humanity.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 21, In Cambodia Ta Mok
(80), known as "The Butcher" for his brutality as military chief of
the communist Khmer Rouge, died.
(AP, 7/21/06)(Econ, 8/5/06, p.77)
2006 Aug 6, Cambodian customs
over the weekend seized 12 luxury vehicles stolen in Canada,
including a Hummer and a Cadillac popular with hip-hop music stars,
giving an intriguing insight into the world of international car
smuggling.
(Reuters, 8/7/06)
2006 Aug 30, Cambodian
lawmakers curtailed parliamentarians’ right to speak without fear of
prosecution in a bill that granted them pensions and other perks.
(Econ, 9/9/06, p.46)
2006 Aug 31, Heng Pov, former
Phnom Penh police chief, was arrested at a hotel in Singapore when a
clerk brought food for him. A Cambodian court warrant had been
recently issued against him accusing him of involvement in a number
of crimes such as the killing of Phnom Penh judge Sok Sethamony,
assassination attempts on general Sao Sokha and judge Uk Savuth, as
well as a number of other criminal cases. Pov claimed that he was
being framed for refusing orders to kill Hok Lundy, the internal
security chief.
(http://tinyurl.com/gtumm)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.46)
2006 Sep 1, Cambodia’s PM Hun
Sen pushed a bill through the lower house of parliament banning
extra-marital affairs. The legislation could get adulterers up to a
year in jail.
(Econ, 9/9/06, p.46)
2006 Sep 19, Cambodia's King
Norodom Sihamoni started the official part of a week-long visit to
the Czech Republic, a country where he spent 13 years from 1962-1975
and considers as his "second home."
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Oct 3, In California
Cambodian and US representatives signed a sister park accord between
Samlaut Park and Sequoia National Park.
(SFC, 10/4/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 9, Cambodian PM Hun
Sen began a six-day official visit to Australia that will focus on
security and trade.
(AFP, 10/9/06)
2006 Oct 18, Cambodia's
royalist party voted to remove Prince Norodom Ranariddh as its
leader, saying his long absences from the country left him unable to
lead the fractious party.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 31, Cambodian police
said an American police officer, killed himself while in custody in
the capital. Donald Rene Ramirez of SF was accused of sexually
abusing a 14-year-old girl. Ramirez had been going on vacation to
Asia for at least 2 decades.
(AP, 10/31/06)(SSFC, 11/5/06, p.B1)
2006 Nov 10, Asian nations
reached their first international agreement to implement what has
been dubbed the "Iron Silk Road." Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia,
China, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Russia, South Korea,
Turkey and seven other nations agreed to meet at least every two
years to identify vital rail routes, coordinate standards and
financing and plan upgrades and expansions, among other measures.
The UN first conceived the Trans-Asian Railway Network in 1960.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 21, Cambodian PM Hun
Sen, other senior officials and South Korea’s President Roh Moo-Hyun
arrived in Siem Reap, the gateway to the famed Angkor temple
complex, to kick off the Angkor-Gyeongju Culture Expo, a joint
cultural festival that runs through January 2007.
(AFP, 11/21/06)
2006 Nov 30, Cambodia's PM Hun
Sen condemned attempts by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels to push for
a separate state, after talks in Phnom Penh with the island's
premier.
(AFP, 11/30/06)
2006 Cambodia’s PM Hun Sen
financed and provided a foreword to a book by Ros Chantrabot about
Sdach Korn, an alleged Cambodian historical figure. 5,000 copies
were distributed out. Hun Sen wanted to rehabilitate this ordinary
man who supposedly toppled his king and ruled during the 16th
century.
(http://ki-media.blogspot.com/search/label/Hun%20Sen)(Econ, 4/7/07,
p.38)
2007 Jan, In Cambodia villagers
reported seeing a naked woman stealing food. Sal Lou (43) a retired
police officer, identified her as his oldest child, Rochom P’ngieng,
by a scar on her arm. P’ngieng (29) had vanished in 1989 while
tending buffalo near the jungle in remote northern Rattanakiri
province. In 2010 Rochom P’ngieng reportedly fled back to the
forest.
(www.salem-news.com/articles/july092008/jungle_girl_7-9-08.php)(AP,
5/28/10)
2007 Feb 2, US Peace Corps
volunteers flew to Cambodia to teach English at rural schools,
marking the 45-year-old organization's first mission
there.
(AP, 2/2/07)
2007 Feb 9, In Cambodia the
American navy's USS Gary docked at Sihanoukville, becoming the first
US military craft to visit the former communist country in more than
30 years.
(AFP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 15, It was reported
that shooting ranges continued to operate in Cambodia despite
government cancellation of licenses in 1997. Tourists were
able to fire 30 rounds with an AK-47 for $30. Other offers included
tossing grenades at chickens for $200 and killing a cow with a
rocket-propelled grenade for $555.
(SFC, 2/15/07, p.14)
2007 Feb 27, In Cambodia the US
ambassador said direct US aid to support Cambodian government
projects will resume following the lifting of a decade-old ban by
Washington.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Mar 5, In Cambodia PM Hun
Sen publicly rebuked members in the upper ranks of his Cambodian
People’s Party for dodgy land deals as small farmers and
slum-dwellers fell victim to land-grabbing.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.38)
2007 Mar 12, Preah Maha
Ghosananda (78), Buddhist spiritual leader of Cambodia, died.
(Econ, 3/24/07, p.98)
2007 Mar 16, Cambodian and
foreign judges reached a key agreement on procedures governing
Cambodia's long-stalled Khmer Rouge tribunal.
(AP, 3/16/07)
2007 Mar 19, A Cambodian court
official said that Prince Norodom Ranariddh has been charged with
adultery for having a mistress while still being legally married to
his wife.
(AP, 3/19/07)
2007 Mar 24, Thieves in
Cambodia poisoned a 62-year-old domesticated elephant and sawed off
its tusks to sell on the black market. In 2008 2 men were arrested
for the killing and faced up to 3 years in prison for the
intentional destruction of private property.
(AP, 3/27/07)(AP, 3/26/08)
2007 Apr 1, Cambodia held local
commune elections. The Cambodian People’s Party won control in 1,592
of 1,621 communes amid opposition claims of fraud.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.38)
2007 Apr 6, Health officials
said teenage girls in Cambodia and Indonesia have died of bird flu
as the virus continues to stalk across Asia.
(AP, 4/6/07)
2007 May 22, Cambodian PM Hun
Sen met with junta head Senior General Than Shwe in military-ruled
Myanmar, as the two nations moved to improve tourism links.
(AP, 5/22/07)
2007 Jun 4, Cambodian and
foreign judges began a weeklong meeting to confirm rules for the
much-delayed genocide trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders, blamed
for the deaths of 1.7 million people.
(AP, 6/4/07)
2007 Jun 13, Cambodian and
foreign judges announced rules clearing the way for a UN-assisted
genocide tribunal to begin investigating Khmer Rouge leaders in the
deaths of 1.7 million people during their 1975-79 communist regime.
(AP, 6/13/07)
2007 Jun 14, Cambodian PM Hun
Sen, visiting Japan, pledged to fight corruption to lure more
investors from top donor Japan as he tries to wean his government
away from foreign aid.
(AP, 6/14/07)
2007 Jun 25, A charter plane
carrying 22 people between two popular Cambodian tourist
destinations crashed in a mountainous region in the south of the
country. All aboard were killed.
(AP, 6/25/07)(AP, 6/27/07)
2007 Jun, Cambodia
received pledges from foreign governments, agencies and charities of
$690 million in aid, 15% more than last year as China joined the
pledge process.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.49)
2007 Jul 17, Cambodia's
government issued a directive preventing Christians from promoting
their religion in public places, or using money or other means to
persuade people to convert.
(AP, 7/17/07)
2007 Jul 31, In Cambodia Kang
Kek Ieu (alias Duch), a former Khmer Rouge prison chief, was charged
with crimes against humanity and detained by Cambodia's UN-backed
tribunal in the first legal action taken by the court against regime
leaders.
(AFP, 7/31/07)
2007 Sep 19, In Cambodia Nuon
Chea, the top surviving leader of the notorious Khmer Rouge, whose
radical policies were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7
million people, was charged with crimes against humanity and war
crimes.
(AP, 9/19/07)
2007 Oct 17, In Cambodia
Alexander Trofimov (41), the Russian chairman of Koh Puos Investment
Group Ltd., was charged with debauchery, a Cambodian legal offense
covering sexual abuse of children. He was detained in the southern
resort town of Sihanoukville and accused of raping at least six
girls. In September last year, the Cambodian government gave
Trofimov's company permission to develop an island near
Sihanoukville into a tourist resort.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 12, In Cambodia Ieng
Sary and Ieng Thirith, the ex-foreign minister of the Khmer Rouge
regime and his wife, were arrested on charges of crimes against
humanity. Ieng Sary was sentenced to death in absentia in August
1979, eight months after a Vietnam-led resistance movement overthrew
the Khmer Rouge regime. In 1996 the king rewarded Ieng Sary with an
amnesty for breaking away from his comrades-in-arms.
(AP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 19, In Cambodia a
UN-backed tribunal arrested Khieu Samphan (76), the former Khmer
Rouge head of state. He was the fifth senior official of the brutal
regime to be rounded up ahead of a long-delayed genocide trial. In
his book "Reflection on Cambodian History Up to the Era of
Democratic Kampuchea," which was released last week, Khieu Samphan
says the Khmer Rouge only wanted what was best for Cambodia.
(AP, 11/19/07)
2007 Nov 20, In Cambodia Kaing
Guek Eav (66), also known as Duch, the head of the Khmer Rouge's
largest and most notorious torture center appeared in court in the
first public session of the long-delayed UN-backed tribunal probing
the regime's reign of terror in the 1970s.
(AP, 11/20/07)
2007 Dec 25, Some 600
protesters marched in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh to call
for speedier trials for the former leaders of Khmer Rouge regime.
(AP, 12/25/07)
2007 Khamboly Dy authored "A
History of Democratic Kampuchea," the first history book written by
a Cambodian about the Khmer Rouge.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2008 Jan 19, Activists said
actress Mia Farrow has arrived in Cambodia and plans to defy a ban
on holding a ceremony at a former Khmer Rouge prison, as part of her
campaign on Darfur.
(AFP, 1/19/08)
2008 Jan 20, In Cambodia
American actress Mia Farrow was forced to cancel a ceremony in Phnom
Penh highlighting human rights abuses in Sudan after authorities
barred her access to the city's genocide museum.
(AFP, 1/20/08)
2008 Jan, In Massachusetts Ly
Van Aggadipo (b.1917), a Cambodia-born Buddhist monk, died. He had
fled Cambodia in 1979 and later settled in the US. In 2010 friends
and followers released a book of his poetry titled “Oh! Maha Mount
Dangrek," which contained an autobiographical poem on the horrors of
the Khmer Rouge and a friend’s story of love in the time of
genocide.
(SFC, 3/23/10, p.E3)
2008 Mar 3, Cambodia passed
legislation on the “Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual
Exploitation" to comply with the United States policy on human
trafficking.
(http://healthdev.net/site/post.php?s=3840)
2008 Mar 30, Dith Pran (65),
whose experiences during the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s were
adapted into the award-winning movie "The Killing Fields," died in
New Jersey.
(AFP, 3/30/08)
2008 Apr 16, In Cambodia an
attacker hurled a hand grenade into a crowd of people dancing at a
Buddhist temple to celebrate the traditional New Year, killing one
villager and wounding 25.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Jun 2, The US gave 31 used
trucks to Cambodia in its first direct supply of military hardware
in more than a decade, saying ties between the two countries were
improving.
(AFP, 6/2/08)
2008 Jun 20, Cambodian
officials said authorities working with Australian police had
destroyed an enormous stockpile of 33 tons of safrole-rich oil, a
key ingredient used in producing the synthetic drug Ecstasy.
Cambodian authorities have been working since 2002 to stem the
distillation of the oil and since then have succeeded in detecting
and dismantling more than 50 clandestine laboratories capable of
producing up to 15 gallons of oil a day. Cambodian officials are
trying to preserve the sassafras tree, which is classified as a rare
species that grows mainly in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains.
(AP, 6/20/08)
2008 Jul 1, Thailand’s deputy
prime minister said the Thai government has suspended its decision
to support Cambodia's bid to have an 11th century temple near the
Thai border declared a world landmark. In 1962, the International
Court of Justice awarded the Preah Vihear temple and the land it
occupies to Cambodia.
(AP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 7, A UNESCO official
said that an 11th century temple that sits on Cambodia's disputed
border zone with Thailand has been designated as a world heritage
site. Hindu-themed Preah Vihear reflects the beliefs of the kings
who ruled what was then the Angkorean empire.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 11, In Cambodia
journalist Khim Sam Bo (47) was shot twice and his 19-year-old son
was seriously wounded in the chest and died at the hospital. A
gunman on a motorcycle shot five times at the victims as they were
leaving a sports stadium on a motorcycle.
(AP, 7/12/08)
2008 Jul 16, Cambodia assembled
its troops near the Thai border in the second day of alleged
incursions by Thai soldiers amid tensions over disputed border land
near a historic temple.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 18, Thailand sent more
military reinforcements to a disputed part of the Cambodian border,
after the tense four-day standoff nearly erupted into gunfire during
the night.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 21, Talks between
Cambodia and Thailand to resolve a military stand-off on their joint
border ended without a solution.
(AFP, 7/21/08)
2008 Jul 22, Cambodia asked the
UN Security Council and its Southeast Asian neighbors to intervene
in resolving a military standoff over disputed border territory
around an ancient temple, stepping up its rhetoric against Thailand.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 27, Cambodian PM Hun
Sen's party claimed it won a sweeping victory in polls overshadowed
by a military standoff with Thailand. Tens of thousands of
opposition supporters were excluded from the elctoral register.
(AFP, 7/27/08)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.45)
2008 Aug 3, Cambodia said that
Thai soldiers are occupying a second temple site on their border in
an escalation of an ongoing armed standoff that nearly led to
clashes between the neighbors last month.
(AP, 8/3/08)
2008 Aug 6, Officials said
Cambodia's genocide tribunal has been hit by new corruption
allegations, compelling foreign donors to withhold more than
$300,000 from the proceedings pending a review of the claims.
(AP, 8/6/08)
2008 Aug 12, Cambodia's
genocide tribunal formally indicted Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch), a
former prison chief of the country's notorious Khmer Rouge, paving
the way for a historic trial.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 16, A monthlong
standoff between Cambodia and Thailand appeared to be ending as both
sides pulled back their troops from disputed territory around a
temple near their shared border.
(AP, 8/16/08)
2008 Aug, Cambodia leased
agricultural land to Kuwaiti investors following mutual prime
ministerial visits.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.62)
2008 Sep 16, The United States
pledged 1.8 million dollars to Cambodia's cash-strapped Khmer Rouge
court, making its first donation to the UN-backed genocide tribunal
aimed at trying regime leaders.
(AFP, 9/16/08)
2008 Oct 3, Soldiers from both
Cambodia and Thailand were wounded in a brief clash along their
volatile border.
(AP, 10/3/08)
2008 Oct 7, The UN food agency
(WFP) said it is resuming free breakfasts for hundreds of thousands
of poor Cambodian schoolchildren after securing new funds for a
program suspended due to high food prices.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 8, The Asian
Development Bank announced $35 million in emergency food aid to ease
the burden of soaring food prices among some of Cambodia's poorest
people.
(AP, 10/8/08)
2008 Oct 13, Cambodian PM Hun
Sen gave Thailand an ultimatum to withdraw troops from a disputed
stretch of jungle-clad border within 24 hours or his forces would
turn the area into a "death zone." Thai troops retreated the next
day.
(Reuters, 10/13/08)(AP, 10/14/08)
2008 Oct 15, Cambodia and
Thailand exchanged fire on the border in a clash over disputed land
which left two soldiers dead and several wounded.
(AFP, 10/15/08)
2008 Oct 16, Cambodia and
Thailand agreed to joint patrols of disputed border areas after
deadly clashes, but made little progress toward resolving their
long-standing territorial spat.
(AFP, 10/16/08)
2008 Nov 18, A Cambodian monk
(17) was arrested for raping a British woman (39) while taking her
on a tour of a cave in the northwestern Sampov mountains near his
Buddhist temple. The monk also allegedly stole $55 and a cell phone
from the woman.
(AP, 11/20/08)
2008 Dec 10, The government of
Cambodia and the UN agreed in principle to strengthen measures to
prevent corruption among staff at the country's genocide tribunal.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2009 Jan 9, Cambodian judges
denied that they paid kickbacks to government officials to secure
jobs on a genocide tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders.
(AP, 1/9/09)
2009 Feb 2, In Cambodia police
in Siem Reap arrested Jack Louis Sporich (75), an American from
Chicago. He was charged with sexually abusing four Cambodian boys.
(AP, 2/4/09)
2009 Feb 5, A nongovernment
organization said the corrupt elite of Cambodia, one of the world's
most impoverished nations, has laid the groundwork for siphoning off
vast profits from a coming boom in mining and oil exploitation.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Mar 31, In Cambodia Kaing
Guek Eav (aka Duch), the chief Khmer Rouge torturer, formally
apologized for the deaths of more than 14,000 people at S-21 prison,
the first Pol Pot cadre to accept blame for crimes committed by the
regime 30 years ago.
(Reuters, 3/31/09)
2009 Apr 3, Cambodian and Thai
soldiers traded fire with machine guns and rocket launchers along a
disputed border, killing as many as four people in an escalation of
tensions in a long-standing feud over an 11th century temple.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 May 1, In Cambodia a court
official said Japan has donated $4.17 million to the UN-backed
genocide tribunal trying former Khmer Rouge leaders on war crimes
charges, just as the troubled court was running out of funding.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Jun 18, A study by an
environmental group said pollution in the Mekong River is putting
the rare Irrawaddy dolphin in danger of disappearing from Cambodia
and Laos.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Aug 26, In Cambodia a
Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge found Michael James Dodd of
Washington, DC, guilty of soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl. He
was arrested in October 2008 at his rented house in Phnom Penh, in
the girl's company. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and
ordered to pay 20 million riel ($4,878) in compensation to the
girl's family.
(AP, 8/26/09)
2009 Oct 10, In Cambodia an
overloaded river ferry capsized on its way to a Buddhist ceremony in
Kratie province, killing 17 passengers in a tributary of the Mekong
River.
(AP, 10/11/09)
2009 Nov 2, Tropical Storm
Mirinae slammed into Vietnam's central coast, unleashing heavy rains
and winds and forcing more than 80,000 people to evacuate before
losing steam as it moved inland. The storm killed at least 98
people. Mirinae also killed two people in Cambodia and left 19
people dead and three missing in the Philippines.
(AP, 11/2/09)(AP, 11/3/09)(AFP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 4, Cambodia said it
has appointed former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as
economic adviser to premier Hun Sen and his administration.
(AFP, 11/4/09)
2009 Nov 5, Cambodia and
Thailand recalled their ambassadors from each others' countries,
deepening a diplomatic row after Cambodia made fugitive former Thai
PM Thaksin Shinawatra an economic adviser.
(Reuters, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 6, Japan pledged $5.5
billion in aid over 3 years for Southeast Asia's 5 Mekong River
nations (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam), seeking to
deepen ties with the region amid growing influence from China.
(AFP, 11/6/09)
2009 Nov 10, Thailand's ousted
PM Thaksin Shinawatra, whose political battle against his successors
has left his country bitterly divided, received a warm welcome in
neighboring Cambodia, which shares his disdain for the current
government in Bangkok.
(AP, 11/10/09)
2009 Dec 2, Cambodian police
confiscated two tons of live snakes and tortoises and arrested two
men trying to smuggle the slithering cargo up a river from Cambodia
to Vietnam. Police arrested two Cambodians, aged 17 and 20, who said
they were hired to transport the cargo but did not know the
identities of their employers.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 8, In Cambodia
Siwaraks Chothipong (31), a Thai employee of the Cambodia Air
Traffic Service, was ordered to serve seven years in prison for
spying on Thailand's former prime minister while he was in Cambodia
as a guest of the government. Chothipong was accused of stealing
Thaksin's flight schedule before his Nov. 10 arrival and sending it
to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh. The case threatened to
worsen a diplomatic feud between the two neighbors. On Dec 11
Cambodia's king pardoned Chothipong.
(AP, 12/8/09)(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 18, In Cambodia a
tribunal charged Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge's 78-year-old former
head of state, with genocide, adding new momentum to long-delayed
trials against the brutal regime that ruled Cambodia 30 years ago
(1975-1979).
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 19, Cambodia sent back
to China 20 Uighur Muslims who had fled China after deadly ethnic
rioting and sought asylum in Cambodia, even though rights groups
feared they faced persecution and possibly execution there. 2 other
Uighurs who had been with the group were missing.
(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 21, In Cambodia Ieng
Thirith, the last of the former Khmer Rouge leaders standing trial
for alleged crimes committed three decades ago, was charged with
genocide. The ultracommunist regime's social affairs minister and
the wife of another defendant, Ieng Sary, had earlier been charged
with crimes against humanity.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Dec 21, Cambodia signed 14
deals worth an estimated $850 million with China, two days after
defying international pressure by deporting 20 ethnic Chinese
asylum-seekers, underlining growing trade and diplomatic links.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Cambodia banned int’l.
adoptions amid concerns that some children were being trafficked.
The ban was lifted in 2013 and int’l. adoptions were expected to
resume in 2014.
(SFC, 12/5/13, p.A2)
2010 Jan 1, A free-trade
agreement between China and the 10 members of the Association of
Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) came into effect. The 6 richest
members scrapped tariffs on 90% of goods. The 4 poorest (Vietnam,
Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar) will not need to cut tariffs to the same
level until 2015.
(SSFC, 1/3/10, p.A4)(Econ, 1/9/10, p.44)
2010 Jan 24, Cambodian and Thai
troops exchanged fire near a disputed border temple, the latest in a
string of gun battles between the countries since last year.
(AFP, 1/24/10)
2010 Jan 25, New York-based
Human Rights Watch called on the Cambodian government to shut down
its drug detention centers alleging abuses such as torture and rape,
as well as the lockup of children and the mentally ill.
(AP, 1/25/10)
2010 Jan 27, A Cambodian court
convicted and sentenced in absentia Sam Rainsy, the nation's main
opposition leader, to two years in jail on charges of uprooting
border markings. Rainsy, who is in France, said by telephone that
the court had made a "most unjust" ruling, saying the border markers
he had uprooted in protest were illegally placed.
(AFP, 1/27/10)
2010 Mar 3, In Laos senior
officials from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam met in Luang
Prabang to discuss the Mekong River. The Mekong River Commission in
a draft report said severe drought has dropped the river to its
lowest level in nearly 20 years, halting some cargo traffic and boat
tours on the waterway, the lifeblood for 65 million people in six
countries.
(AP, 3/3/10)
2010 Mar 10, Cambodia said it
will preserve 14 sites at the last bastion of the murderous Khmer
Rouge, including the home of their leader Pol Pot, as tourist
attractions.
(AP, 3/10/10)
2010 Mar 19, Cambodia’s foreign
ministry said Cambodia has temporarily suspended marriages between
South Koreans and its citizens to curb human trafficking. The latest
ban came after the March 3 conviction of a Cambodian matchmaker who
arranged marriages between Korean men and 25 Cambodian brides.
(AFP, 3/19/10)
2010 Mar 25, China agreed to
share water level data at 2 dams to ease pressure from nations
downstream, including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
(SFC, 4/6/10, p.A3)
2010 Mar 31, US envoy Stephen
Rapp said the US has pledged $5 million to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge
tribunal amid the troubled court's attempts to address corruption
allegations.
(AFP, 3/31/10)
2010 Apr 2, Cambodia bristled
at a US decision to cut a small military aid program to protest the
December deportation of Muslim asylum seekers to China, saying if
they deserved protection the United States could have offered it.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 19, Winners of the
2010 Goldman Environmental Prizes, known as the "green Nobels," were
honored in San Francisco. Sereivathana Tuy of Cambodia won for his
efforts in stopping farmers from killing elephants. Randall Arauz of
Costa Rica won for his campaign to halt the maiming and killing of
sharks for their fins. Humberto Rios Labrada (47) of Cuba won for
his campaign to shift farming practices toward increasing diversity
and reducing chemical use. Malgorzata Gorska of Poland won for her
fight to stop a highway through the Rospuda Valley, one of Poland’s
last vestiges of untouched wilderness. Thuli Makama of Swaziland won
for her efforts in getting citizen participation on the Swaziland
board in charge of the environment. She helped prompt investigations
into allegations of private park rangers killing suspected poachers
in sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy. Lynn Henning of the
USA won for exposing polluting practices of livestock ranches in
Michigan.
(AP, 4/19/10)(SFC, 4/19/10, p.A1)
2010 Jun 23, China stepped in
to provide Cambodia with more than 250 military vehicles after the
United States earlier suspended a similar shipment when the
Cambodian government deported 20 asylum seekers.
(AP, 6/23/10)
2010 Jul 21, Thet Sambat,
Cambodian journalist, and Rob Lemkin, British director, premiered
their documentary “Enemies of the People." It features his
conversations with Nuon Ceha, Pol Pot’s right hand man. In January
it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize at the
prestigious Sundance Film Festival.
(Econ, 7/31/10,
p.31)(http://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/)
2010 Jul 26, In Cambodia a
UN-backed court sentenced Kaing Guek Eav (67), a Khmer Rouge prison
chief better known as Duch, to 30 years in jail for crimes against
humanity over mass executions during Cambodia's "Killing Fields"
era.
(AFP, 7/26/10)
2010 Sep 16, Cambodia's
UN-backed court said 4 top Khmer Rouge leaders will stand trial for
crimes including genocide during the "Killing Fields" era.
(AFP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 23, Cambodia's main
opposition party leader, Sam Rainsy, was convicted in absentia and
sentenced to 10 years in prison for a politically sensitive comment
about a border dispute, in what critics said was another example of
the government's intimidation of its opponents.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 24, Cambodia's
opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, said he has filed a criminal lawsuit
in the United States against PM Hun Sen, accusing him of being
behind a deadly 1997 attack on a political rally.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Sep 27, Cambodia laid out
plans to tackle graft in one of the world's most corrupt nations, in
an attempt to reassure foreign investors.
(AFP, 9/27/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Cambodia 20
people remained hospitalized after 14 people died over the weekend
from drinking wine tainted with weed killer at a ceremony where
villagers were appealing to spirits to protect children.
(AP, 10/18/10)
2010 Nov 21, A global tiger
summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, approved a wide-ranging
program with the goal of doubling the world's tiger population in
the wild by 2022 backed by governments of the 13 countries that
still have tiger populations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China,
India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam
and Russia. Experts wild tigers could become extinct in 12 years if
countries where they still roam fail to take quick action to protect
their habitats and step up the fight against poaching.
(AP, 11/21/10)
2010 Nov 22, In Cambodia a
stampede by thousands of festival-goers left at least 351 people
dead and hundreds injured. A panic-stricken crowd, celebrating the
end of the rainy season on an island in a river, tried to flee over
a narrow bridge in the capital of Phnom Penh. Reports from
provincial officials put the death toll at 456.
(AP, 11/23/10)(AP, 11/24/10)(AP, 11/25/10)(AP,
11/29/10)
2010 Dec 30, Cambodia charged
seven Thais, including a ruling party politician, with illegal entry
and put them in jail awaiting possible trial, despite strong
protests from Thailand. The detainees were inspecting contested
territory from Thailand's eastern Sa Kaeo province when they were
captured a day earlier by Cambodian soldiers.
(AFP, 12/30/10)
2010 The population of Cambodia
was about 14 million.
(Econ, 7/31/10, p.32)
2011 Jan 28, In Cambodia a
tribunal statement said Japan has agreed to make a contribution of
$11.7 million to the UN-assisted genocide tribunal that is trying
former leaders of Cambodia's communist Khmer Rouge. Japan has
provided a total of about $67 million to the tribunal, about 49
percent of all contributions.
(AP, 1/28/11)
2011 Feb 1, A Cambodian court
sentenced two Thais to lengthy prison terms for illegally crossing
the border and spying. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court found Veera
Somkwamkid, who heads a political pressure group, the Thailand
Patriot Network, and his assistant Ratree Pipatanapaiboon, guilty of
espionage, illegal entry and trespassing in a military zone. Veera
was sentenced to eight years in prison and Ratree to six years.
(AP, 2/1/11)
2011 Feb 4, Cambodian and Thai
soldiers exchanged heavy fire on the two countries' shared border
near the 11th century Preah Vihear temple killing one soldier and a
civilian, as tensions between the neighbors boiled over.
(AFP, 2/4/11)(Econ, 2/12/11, p.50)
2011 Feb 5, Renewed fighting
between Cambodian and Thai troops along the countries' disputed
border killed a Thai soldier and sent thousands of people fleeing
before military commanders agreed on the second cease-fire in two
days.
(AP, 2/5/11)
2011 Feb 6, The Cambodian
government said part of an 11th century temple was damaged by the
Thai army as the two sides exchanged artillery and mortar fire
across their disputed border, shattering a shaky cease-fire and
escalating tensions.
(AP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 7, Cambodian and Thai
troops clashed for a 4th straight day as the UN chief called for
"maximum restraint" in a border dispute that has claimed 7 lives and
displaced thousands. On April 6 the London-based Cluster Munition
Coalition said Thailand's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva
confirmed the army had fired 155mm cluster shells into Cambodia.
(AFP, 2/7/11)(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Feb 12, A Cambodian mother
died from bird flu after preparing and eating meat contaminated by
the deadly H5N1 virus. Her 11-month-old son died on Feb 17. A
5-year-old girl died earlier this month in Phnom Penh, a case also
linked to contact with sick poultry.
(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Mar 4, In Cambodia a
speeding truck crashed into a tour bus in the southwest, leaving at
least 20 dead and eight seriously injured.
(AP, 3/4/11)
2011 Apr 1, Cambodian PM Hun
Sen declared his personal assets to the country's new
anti-corruption unit and urged officials to follow his lead in a bid
to tackle rampant graft.
(AFP, 4/1/11)
2011 Apr 8, Cambodia’s
government said PM Hun Sen has cancelled a controversial titanium
mine project in the country's southwest because of environmental
concerns.
(AFP, 4/8/11)
2011 Apr 22, Cambodia and
Thailand exchanged artillery and gunfire for several hours in a
flare-up of a long-running border dispute that left six soldiers
killed.
(AP, 4/22/11)
2011 Apr 23, A 2nd day of
fighting between Cambodian and Thai troops killed at least four
soldiers, bringing the two-day death toll to 11, the worst bloodshed
since the United Nations called for a ceasefire in February.
(AP, 4/23/11)
2011 Apr 24, Cambodian and Thai
troops exchanged artillery fire in a third day of fighting that has
killed 10 soldiers and uprooted thousands of villagers from their
homes.
(AP, 4/24/11)
2011 Apr 25, Cambodian and Thai
troops clashed with guns and artillery after almost a full-day break
in fighting that has killed at least 12 people in four days and sent
nearly 50,000 into evacuation centers.
(Reuters, 4/25/11)
2011 Apr 26, Cambodian and Thai
troops fought with short-range rockets and guns near 900-year-old
Preah Vihear temple, opening a second front in a five-day
confrontation that has killed 13 people.
(Reuters, 4/26/11)
2011 Apr 27, Thailand pulled
out of talks with Cambodia and deadly border clashes continued for a
sixth day.
(AP, 4/27/11)
2011 Apr 28, Cambodia and
Thailand called a ceasefire halting their bloodiest clashes in
decades, after seven days of fighting left 15 dead and around 75,000
civilians displaced.
(AFP, 4/28/11)
2011 Apr 29, Cambodian and Thai
troops broke a brief cease-fire and clashed for an eighth day,
shattering hopes of a quick end to a long-running border conflict
that has forced nearly 100,000 villagers to flee. The death toll
rose to 16.
(AP, 4/29/11)
2011 Apr 30, Troops from
Cambodia and Thailand exchanged fire at the countries' contested
border, marking the ninth straight day of clashes that have left at
least 16 people dead and displaced nearly 100,000.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 May 1, A Cambodian soldier
was killed in fighting with Thailand, bringing the total number of
dead to 17 as the Southeast Asian nations' festering border conflict
dragged on.
(AP, 5/1/11)
2011 May 7, Cambodia accused
Thailand of invading its territory on the opening day of a summit of
Southeast Asian leaders that was supposed to focus on plans to
create a regional economic zone.
(AFP, 5/7/11)
2011 Jun 27, In Cambodia the
top four surviving members of the brutal Khmer Rouge (Khieu Samphan,
former head of state; Nuon Chea, “Brother Number Two;" Ieng Thirith,
social affairs minister; and Ieng Sary, deputy prime minister) went
on trial before a tribunal aimed at finding justice for the
estimated 1.7 million people who died in Cambodia's "killing fields"
of the 1970s.
(AP, 6/27/11)(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A3)
2011 Jun 27, In Geneva more
than 80 states began meeting for the first four-day intercessional
meeting on the Convention on Cluster Munitions to advance their
commitments to a world free of cluster bombs. During the meeting
Thailand and Cambodia indicated their intention to join in the near
future.
(AFP,
7/1/11)(www.stopclustermunitions.org/news/?id=3086)
2011 Jul 11, The Cambodia
Securities Exchange (CSX) was officially launched after the
government delayed it several years. Finance Minister Keat Chhon
said that trading was expected to begin by the end of the year and
that three state-owned firms, including the Phnom Penh Water Supply
Authority, Telecom Cambodia and the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port
have announced plans for listing.
(Econ, 7/16/11,
p.76)(http://www.cambodiastockexchange.org/)
2011 Jul 18, The UN's highest
court ordered troops from both Thailand and Cambodia to immediately
withdraw military forces from disputed areas around a World Heritage
temple straddling their border.
(AP, 7/18/11)
2011 Aug 14, In Cambodia a
6-year-old girl died from bird flu. She was the eighth person to die
from the H5N1 flu virus this year in Cambodia.
(AP, 8/24/11)
2011 Sep 5, Cambodian painter
Van Nath (65) died. He had been forced to paint portraits of Pol Pot
while interned at S-21 from 1978-1979. From 1980-1981 he painted
from memory somber oils of what had happened at S-21 under the Khmer
Rouge.
(Econ, 9/17/11, p.93)
2011 Sep 6, The UN's labor
agency said more than two dozen global clothing brands pledged to
investigate a spate of mass faintings among Cambodian garment
workers.
(AFP, 9/6/11)
2011 Sep 15, New Thai premier
Yingluck Shinawatra held her first official talks with her Cambodian
counterpart seeking to patch up relations after deadly border
clashes.
(AFP, 9/15/11)
2011 Sep 26, Cambodian
officials said nearly 100 people have died in recent flooding with
100,000 families affected and some 100,000 acres of rice fields
inundated.
(SFC, 9/27/11, p.A2)
2011 Oct 2, Cambodia’s
government disaster agency said that flood waters along the Mekong
River and other places have killed at least 150 people since August
and damaged 670,000 acres of rice fields, as well as 904 schools and
361 Buddhist temples.
(AP, 10/2/11)
2011 Oct 5, A Cambodia disaster
official said the worst floods in over a decade have killed 167
people, as efforts intensified to provide aid to tens of thousands
of families.
(AFP, 10/5/11)
2011 Oct 15, Flooding in
Cambodia was reported to have killed at least 247 people as China
began delivering the first of some $7.8 million in flood relief aid.
(AP, 10/15/11)
2011 Nov 4, A Cambodian court
sentenced American James D'Agostino (56), a volunteer doctor at a
children's hospital in the Cambodian capital, to four years in
prison on charges of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy.
(AP, 11/4/11)
2011 Nov 28, Burundi told
delegates at a global anti-landmine summit in Phnom Penh that it had
cleared its territory of landmines, becoming the 18th state party to
do so. Myanmar was the only country recorded as laying new landmines
last year, but the Intl. Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said it
has since been joined by Israel, Syria and Libya, bringing the
current global use of landmines to its highest level since 2004.
(AP, 11/29/11)
2011 Nov 8, In Cambodia Hun
Hean, the former police chief of Banteay Meanchey, confessed to
accepting over $100,000 in bribes during the final day of a
corruption trial against him and four of his subordinates. On Nov
15, he was convicted and sentenced to 4 years in prison.
(SFC, 1/6/12, p.A3)(http://tinyurl.com/7lwyk7x)
2011 Dec 7, Cambodia opened the
Kamchay dam, the country's largest hydropower dam to date. The $280
million dollar Chinese-funded project has destroyed hundreds of
hectares of forest and farmland and attracted criticism from
environmental groups.
(AFP, 12/7/11)
2011 Joel Brinkley (d.2014 at
61), former NY Times reporter, authored “Cambodia’s Curse: The
Modern History of a Troubled Land."
(SSFC, 4/17/11, p.G5)(SFC, 3/14/14, p.D4)
2012 Jan 5, In Cambodia Lt.
Gen. Mok Dara, the former sec-gen. of the National Authority for
Combating Drugs, was sentenced to life in prison for masterminding a
drug ring from his office. Associate officer Chea Leang also
received a life sentence. Morn Doeun, a 3rd defendant still at
large, was sentenced to 25 years.
(SFC, 1/6/12, p.A3)
2012 Jan 19, Vietnam confirmed
its first case death from bird flu in nearly 2 years, a day after
Cambodia also logged its first fatality this year from the H5N1
virus.
(SFC, 1/20/12, p.A2)
2012 Jan 14, In Cambodia the
badly decomposed bodies of Frenchman widower Laurent Vallier (42)
and his four young children were discovered inside Vallier's white
4x4 vehicle after it was retrieved from a large pond behind his
house in southern Kampong Speu province. The family had been missing
since September. Vallier's Cambodian wife died in childbirth in
2009.
(AFP, 4/5/12)
2012 Feb 3, In Cambodia a
UN-backed tribunal's Supreme Court lengthened the sentence for the
Khmer Rouge's chief jailer, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, to life
imprisonment because of his "shocking and heinous" crimes against
the Cambodian people.
(AP, 2/3/12)
2012 Mar 19, Cambodia's
UN-backed war crimes court was rocked by the second resignation of
an international judge in recent months. Laurent Kasper-Ansermet of
Switzerland said in a statement his authority to investigate
possible third and fourth cases at the tribunal had been constantly
blocked by his Cambodian counterpart.
(AFP, 3/19/12)
2012 Mar 15, CH. Karchang, a
Thailand construction giant, officially began work on the $3.5
billion dam at Xayaburi in northern Laos. A December agreement by
the Mekong River Commission had called for further study on the
environmental impacts of the dam.
(Econ, 5/5/12, p.43)(Econ, 9/7/13, p.40)
2012 Apr 4, ASEAN leaders in
Cambodia issued a statement showing a veneer of unity and promising
to "intensify efforts" toward the full implementation of an
agreement, signed 10 years earlier, to "promote peace." The
association paralyzed by differences over how to deal with regional
superpower China's claims to strategic islands in the South China
Sea.
(AFP, 4/4/12)
2012 Apr 4, ASEAN leaders
called for Western countries, including the European Union, to
immediately lift punitive sanctions imposed on Myanmar now that the
once-pariah nation has embraced democratic reforms.
(AP, 4/4/12)
2012 Apr 26, In Cambodia Chhut
Vuthy, the director of Natural Resource Protection Group, was killed
after military police apprehended him at Veal Bei in Mondul Seima
district on behalf of a company that asked them to stop him from
shooting photos of their development. The site was near the
construction of a 338-megawatt hydropower dam being built by China
Huadian. Investigators later said that In Rattana, the officer who
killed Vuthy, was shot with his own gun during a scuffle with
security guard Ran Boroth (26), who had tried to disarm him.
(AP, 4/27/12)(http://tinyurl.com/7hjmxkh)(AFP,
5/5/12)(Econ, 5/5/12, p.43)
2012 May 24, In Cambodia prison
sentences were imposed on 13 women who protested evictions from
their land without adequate compensation. Their old houses were
demolished by developers in 2010.
(AP, 5/25/12)
2012 May 27, A 10-year-old
Cambodian girl died from H5N1 bird flu, the country's third fatality
from the virulent disease this year.
(AFP, 5/28/12)
2012 May, Cambodia’s government
suspended the allocation of all new land concessions following a
string of protests.
(Economist, 9/29/12, p.44)
2012 Jun 3, In Cambodia PM Hun
Sen's ruling party won local elections in a vote that monitors said
was tainted by vote buying and other irregularities.
(AP, 6/3/12)
2012 Jun 4, In Cambodia
Alexander Trofimov, who built a $300 million tourist resort in the
country, was arrested at the house of an under-aged girl (11-12)
outside of the capital Phnom Penh. Authorities planned to deport him
shortly. Russian businessman Trofimov was arrested in 2007 facing 17
complaints of sexually abusing minors, the youngest just six years
old. He was sentenced to 17 years, reduced on appeal to eight years.
He was controversially freed early in December last year after
receiving a royal pardon.
(AFP, 6/5/12)
2012 Jun 13, Cambodia arrested
French architect Patrick Devillers, with ties to disgraced Chinese
politician Bo Xilai, in a new twist to China's biggest political
scandal in decades. Devillers was released on July 17 and flew to
China voluntarily to help its investigation.
(AFP, 6/19/12)(AFP, 7/18/12)
2012 Jun 27, A Cambodia appeals
court ordered the release of 13 women who were jailed for protesting
being evicted from their homes without adequate compensation, in a
case that had critics had highlighted as an example of injustice. On
May 24 prison sentences were imposed on the 13 women.
(AP, 6/27/12)
2012 Jul 4, Cambodian officials
reported that 61 of 62 children, admitted to hospitals with a
mysterious respiratory disease, have died. Lab tests soon confirmed
that a virulent strain of hand, hoof and mouth disease, known as
EV-71, was to blame for some of the cases.
(SFC, 7/5/12, p.A5)(SFC, 7/10/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 13, In Cambodia the
10-member ASEAN group ended its latest meeting for the first time
without a communique reflecting a rift between countries loyal to
China and those contesting territory with China.
(Econ, 7/21/12, p.35)
2012 Jul 18, Cambodia and
Thailand pulled hundreds of soldiers out of a disputed strip of
border land adjacent to the Preah Vihear temple, a year after a
ruling by the UN's highest court, replacing them with police and
security guards.
(AFP, 7/18/12)
2012 Aug 9, Cambodian PM Hun
Sen said allowing the construction of a spate of border casinos was
part of a "secret strategy" to protect the country's territory from
its neighbors.
(AFP, 8/9/12)
2012 Aug 30, Cambodia police
arrested Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, a co-founder of The Pirate Bay
file-sharing website following a request by Sweden. He faced a
one-year prison term in Sweden for violating copyright laws.
(SFC, 9/4/12, p.A2)
2012 Sep 13, Cambodia's
UN-backed tribunal issued a statement saying that Ieng Thirith (80)
suffers from a progressive, degenerative illness that is likely
Alzheimer's disease and which diminishes her mental capacity. The
court ruled that she was medically unfit to stand trial for genocide
during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule, a decision survivors called
shocking and unjust. Ieng Thirith was freed on Sep 16.
(AFP, 9/13/12)(AP, 9/16/12)
2012 Sep 30, In Cambodia 6
farmers were killed in northwestern Battambang province when their
tractor ran over an anti-tank mine left over from the 1980s civil
war.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Sep, Cambodia’s government
ordered employers to pay out an extra $10 a month in allowances to
every worker.
(Economist, 9/29/12, p.44)
2012 Oct 1, A Cambodian court
sentenced Mam Sonando (71), a dissident radio station owner, to 20
years in prison on insurrection charges that critics claim are part
of a political vendetta by the government. His Beehive Radio was one
of the country's few radio stations broadcasting criticism of PM Hun
Sen's government.
(AP, 10/1/12)
2012 Oct 15, Cambodia's former
King Norodom Sihanouk (b.1922) died of a heart attack in Beijing,
where he had been receiving medical treatment. The cunning political
survivor had reinvented himself repeatedly throughout his often
flamboyant life.
(AP, 10/15/12)(Econ, 10/20/12, p.86)
2012 Nov 15, Cambodia
authorities arrested eight villagers for plastering the US
president's picture on their rooftops beside spray-painted messages
of "SOS." Villagers say they were ordered in July to vacate their
land so the airport could enlarge its runway and build a security
buffer zone.
(AP, 11/15/12)
2012 Nov 17, Cambodia hosted
the 10-mmber ASEAN summit of Southeast Asian countries.
(AP, 11/17/12)
2012 Nov 18, In Cambodia Asean
leaders decided to ask China to start formal talks "as soon as
possible" on crafting a legally binding accord aimed at preventing
an outbreak of violence in disputed South China Sea territories.
ASEAN leaders also adopted a human rights declaration despite
last-minute calls for a postponement by critics.
(AP, 11/18/12)
2012 Nov 19, President Barack
Obama made a 6-hour stop in Myanmar. In a notable detour from US
policy, the president referred to Burma as Myanmar in his talks with
President Thein Sein. Obama then became the first US president to
set foot in Cambodia, a country once known for its Khmer Rouge
"killing fields."
(AP, 11/19/12)
2012 Nov 20, In Cambodia
President Barack Obama closed his Asian tour in diplomatic talks
with leaders of Japan and China, their economic message overshadowed
by security tensions over disputed waters and territories.
(AP, 11/20/12)
2012 Dec 1, In western Cambodia
four workers were missing and presumed to have drowned after the
partial collapse of a dam being constructed on the Atay river. Work
on the 120-megawatt Atay hydroelectric project began in 2008.
(AP, 12/2/12)
2013 Mar 4, Cambodian
translators angry that they have gone without pay for three months
stopped working at the UN-backed genocide trial of former Khmer
Rogue leaders, a new setback for an international justice effort
that has been hobbled by conflicts with the Cambodian government.
(AP, 3/4/13)
2013 Mar 14, In Cambodia
Ieng Sary (87), brother-in-law of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot,
died. He co-founded the communist Khmer Rouge regime responsible for
the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s, and
decades later became one of its few leaders to be put on trial, but
died before his case could be finished.
(AP, 3/14/13)(Econ, 4/6/13, p.106)
2013 May 12, Global Witness
presented a report “Rubber Barons" on illegal logging and land
grabbing in Cambodia by local and foreign companies, including the
Vietnam Rubber Group.
(Econ, 5/18/13,
p.46)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=3epqpR9OBhY)
2013 May 16, In Cambodia the
ceiling of a factory, a Taiwanese-owned operation called Wing Star,
collapsed on workers, killing 2 people and injuring 7. The firm made
sneakers for Asics, a Japanese sportswear label.
(AP, 5/16/13)
2013 Jun 11, Two 10th century
Cambodian stone statues displayed for nearly two decades at New
York's Metropolitan Museum of Art were returned to their homeland in
a high-profile case of allegedly looted artifacts. Widespread
looting of Cambodia's ancient temples took place in the 1970s
through the 1990s, with many items smuggled through Thailand.
(AP, 6/11/13)
2013 Jun 17, Scientists
reported that the use of airborne laser technology has allowed them
to uncover a network of roadways and canals linking together
Cambodia’s 1,200-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex.
(SFC, 6/19/13, p.A5)
2013 Jun 26, Scientists from
the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups
announced that a previously unknown bird species has been discovered
in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The wren-sized Cambodian tailorbird,
Orthotomus chaktomuk, is one of two species unique to Cambodia.
(AP, 6/26/13)
2013 Jun 28, Cambodia’s
Ministry of Information said all radio stations must be neutral in
their coverage before the election and not carry reports on
foreigners playing any role in the election. Stations must also
suspend broadcasting Khmer-language programs by foreign media.
(Reuters, 6/28/13)
2013 Jul 12, Cambodian PM Hun
Sen engineered a pardon for his most prominent rival, Sam Rainsy,
clearing the way for the self-exiled politician to return home and
campaign in this month's general election.
(AP, 7/12/13)
2013 Jul 19, Cambodian
opposition leader Sam Rainsy returned from self-imposed exile to
spearhead his party's election campaign against well-entrenched PM
Hun Sen.
(AP, 7/19/13)
2013 Jul 28, Cambodia held
general elections. The opposition appeared to make significant gains
in parliament. The ruling party of PM Hun Sen claimed a victory with
68 of the national Assembly’s 123 seats.
(AP, 7/28/13)(SFC, 7/29/13, p.A2)
2013 Jul 29, Cambodia's
long-ruling PM Hun Sen faced his biggest political setback in two
decades as the country's opposition rejected an election result as
tainted by widespread fraud, despite heavy losses for the ruling
party.
(Reuters, 7/29/13)
2013 Jul 31, Cambodia's
long-serving leader, Hun Sen, said his party was ready to talk to
the opposition after both sides claimed victory in the July 28
general election.
(Reuters, 7/31/13)
2013 Aug 3, In Cambodia the two
rival parties claiming victory in the July 28 general election
reached an agreement with the state National Election Committee to
investigate polling irregularities, a move that could pave the way
to ending the country's political deadlock.
(AP, 8/3/13)
2013 Aug 6, In Cambodia
thousands of supporters of the main opposition party rallied to
demand an international inquiry into the recent general election,
rejecting the victory claimed by long-serving PM Hun Sen, who showed
no sign of stepping aside.
(Reuters, 8/6/13)
2013 Aug 12, In Cambodia final
but unratified election results were released reaffirming the
victory by the ruling Cambodian People's Party. The angered
opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) said they should
have been delayed until there was an impartial probe of alleged
electoral irregularities. Provisional results said the CPP won 68
seats while the CNRP gained 55.
(AP, 8/12/13)(Econ, 8/3/13, p.32)
2013 Sep 2, Cambodian staff at
a Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal went on strike, as a funding
crisis deepened at a court already bogged down by resignations,
political interference and the frail health of its elderly
defendants.
(Reuters, 9/2/13)
2013 Sep 7, Thousands of
Cambodians, many holding lotus flowers symbolizing peace, joined a
mass protest in the capital Phnom Penh in a last-ditch bid to
challenge PM Hun Sen's disputed election win. The CPP took 68 seats
to 55 for the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP),
according to the country's National Election Committee.
(AFP, 9/7/13)(AFP, 9/8/13)
2013 Sep 8, Cambodia's election
committee handed victory in hotly disputed polls to the ruling party
of PM Hun Sen, prompting the opposition to say it will boycott
parliament and stage further protests over allegations of widespread
fraud.
(AFP, 9/8/13)
2013 Sep 15, Cambodia police
used teargas, smoke grenades and water cannon to disperse hundreds
of demonstrators after a rally in Phnom Penh to push for an
independent investigation into the July election they say was fixed
to favor the ruling party. One man was shot dead.
(Reuters, 9/15/13)(Reuters, 9/16/13)
2013 Sep 16, In Cambodia
thousands of opposition supporters gathered for a 2nd day in Phnom
Penh to push for an independent investigation into the July
election.
(Reuters, 9/16/13)
2013 Sep 23, In Cambodia the
long-ruling party of PM Hun Sen pushed ahead with forming a
government, ignoring an opposition boycott of parliament and mass
protests over its disputed election win.
(AFP, 9/23/13)
2013 Sep 24, Cambodia's
parliament reappointed premier Hun Sen for another five-year term,
extending his nearly three-decade rule as the opposition threatened
to mount fresh protests over the disputed elections.
(AFP, 9/24/13)
2013 Sep 25, A Cambodian court
acquitted, and ordered the release of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun,
said by rights groups to have been wrongfully convicted and jailed
for the 2004 murder of a prominent opposition activist.
(Reuters, 9/25/13)
2013 Oct 23, Thousands of
Cambodia opposition supporters staged a demonstration over disputed
elections that extended strongman PM Hun Sen's near three-decade
rule, under a heavy security presence after bloody clashes last
month.
(AFP, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 25, Some 20,000
Cambodian opposition supporters wrapped up a three-day demonstration
to petition foreign embassies and the UN for intervention in what
they claim was a rigged election.
(AP, 10/25/13)
2013 Nov 11, Cambodian police
arrested Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky (40) for the
second time this year and said they planned to extradite him at
Moscow's request to face embezzlement charges there.
(Reuters, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 11, The International
Court of Justice said a 1962 ruling by its judges gave Cambodia
sovereignty over the Preah Vihear promontory and Thailand is now
obligated to withdraw any military or police forces stationed there.
Cambodia thus held sovereignty over a 1,000-year-old Khmer temple on
the disputed promontory.
(AP, 11/11/13)
2013 Nov 12, In Cambodia a
woman was shot dead and several people injured as riot police used
live rounds, rubber bullets and teargas in clashes with protesting
garment workers.
(AFP, 11/12/13)
2013 Dec 29, In Cambodia tens
of thousands of opposition supporters, backed by striking
garment-factory workers, rallied to demand long-serving PM Hun Sen
step down and call an election.
(Reuters, 12/29/13)
2014 Jan 2, Cambodian soldiers
forcefully quelled a demonstration by garment workers striking for
better pay. Workers at more than 500 garment factories were on
strike demanding an increase in the minimum wage to $160 per month,
double the current rate.
(SFC, 1/3/14, p.A2)
2014 Jan 3, In Cambodia At
least 4 people were killed when police outside Cambodia's capital
opened fire to break up a protest by striking garment workers
demanding a doubling of the minimum wage.
(AP, 1/3/14)
2014 Jan 4, Cambodia's
government launched a broad crackdown on the political opposition,
clearing its main protest site, banning its street demonstrations
and having a court call in opposition party leaders for questioning
on charges of inciting social unrest.
(AP, 1/4/14)
2014 Jan 7, In Cambodia tens of
thousands of garment workers returned to work, ending a two-week pay
dispute after authorities used deadly force to quell a strike and
thwart a protest by their political allies seeking a re-run of a
July election. An estimated 65-70% returned to work.
(Reuters, 1/7/14)
2014 Jan 13, A Cambodian court
freed Russian real estate tycoon Sergei Polonsky and he will not be
extradited to Russia to face embezzlement charges there.
(Reuters, 1/13/14)
2014 Jan 27, Cambodian riot
police used smoke grenades and electric batons to disperse
demonstrators in the capital demanding a government license for an
independent television station.
(AFP, 1/27/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Cambodia a boy
(8) died of H5N1 bird flu, the country’s first case this year. His
sister (2) also died the same day.
(AP, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 14, In Cambodia Dave
Walker (58), a Canadian filmmaker, went missing. His body was found
April 30 in the woods near the famous Angkor temple complex.
(AP, 5/1/14)
2014 Feb 17, Cambodian police
arrested two Vietnamese men who were trying to smuggle almost 80 kg
(176 pounds) of illegal ivory from Angola.
(AP, 2/17/14)
2014 Feb 26, The Cambodian
Anti-Drug Authority said it has banned the import, sale and
promotion of e-cigarettes and shisha tobacco, a favorite of
hookah-using smokers.
(AP, 2/26/14)
2014 Mar 24, The EU approved
sanctions and said it will no longer import any fish caught by
vessels from Cambodia, Belize and Guinea, accusing their governments
of failing to cooperate in fighting illegal fishing.
(AP, 3/24/14)
2014 Mar 27, Cambodia's
opposition party said it will defy a government ban on meeting in
one of the capital's public parks, setting up a possible clash with
authorities.
(AP, 3/27/14)
2014 Apr 3, In Cambodia 118
employees passed out at work at the Shen Zhou and Daqian Textile
factories in Phnom Penh.
(Reuters, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 11, A Cambodian court
sentenced 13 men to prison terms ranging from five to nine years for
plotting to overthrow the government in a case that was criticized
by a human rights group as a political setup. The men were members
of a self-styled Khmer National Liberation Front calling for PM Hun
Sen's removal, primarily through Internet postings.
(AP, 4/11/14)
2014 Apr 25, Cambodia's highest
court ruled that a prominent Russian property developer wanted in
his homeland for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars cannot be
extradited. Sergei Polonsky expressed satisfaction with the ruling
and said he will spend up to $100 million developing an island he
purchased off Cambodia's southern coast. Polonsky was charged in
Russia in June last year with embezzling more than 5.7 billion
rubles ($175 million) from 80 property investors.
(AP, 4/25/14)
2014 May 1, In Cambodia May Day
demonstrators denounced low wages and called for better treatment of
workers during rallies that turned violent.
(AP, 5/1/14)
2014 May 2, Cambodian security
forces clashed with demonstrators in Phnom Penh for a 2nd
straight day as the opposition canceled plans for a rally amid a ban
on demonstrations and a large-scale police presence.
(AP, 5/2/14)
2014 May 9, Cambodian
authorities intercepted 3 tons of illegal ivory that was stashed in
shipping containers, its largest such seizure.
(AP, 5/9/14)
2014 May 14, In Vietnam a
1,000-strong mob stormed a Taiwanese steel mill in Ha Tinh province
and hunted down Chinese workers, killing one, attacking scores more
and then setting the complex alight in response to Beijing's
deployment of an oil rig in the long-disputed South China Sea. Some
600 Chinese crossed into Cambodia over the land border in southern
Vietnam.
(AP, 5/15/14)
2014 May 31, In Cambodia 7
people died from a lack of oxygen after climbing down a well in
Cambodia to retrieve about 75 cents.
(AP, 6/1/14)
2014 Jun 11, In Cambodia the
Phnom Penh Municipal court sentenced Daniel Johnson (35) to one year
in prison for abusing five boys, aged 11 to 15, at the Hope
Transitions orphanage, where he served as director. Johnson was
sought in the US on child sex allegations.
(AP, 6/11/14)
2014 Jun 14, A Cambodian
official said Cambodian workers were leaving Thailand in growing
numbers, with the total who have returned to their homeland this
month topping 160,000. Rights groups say Thai authorities are
coercing the Cambodians to go home and abusing them.
(SSFC, 6/15/14, p.A6)(AP, 6/16/14)
2014 Jun 26, Cambodia's PM Hun
Sen said at least 250,000 of his countrymen who were migrant workers
in Thailand returned home this month under circumstances that
initially violated their human rights. Both countries are now
seeking the migrants' return to Thailand, which has a shortage of
low-wage workers.
(AP, 6/26/14)
2014 Jul 1, Cambodia agreed to
free Thai nationalist Veera Somkwamkid. He was imprisoned for more
than three years for illegally crossing its border to claim
territory for Thailand.
(AP, 7/1/14)
2014 Jul 8, In Cambodia William
Glenn (43), an American teacher from Mississippi, left his
guesthouse in Phnom Penh on a motorcycle taxi and never returned.
His body was discovered the next day at a garbage dump.
(AP, 7/11/14)
2014 Jul 10, Cambodia said it
will build a memorial at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum to remember
at least 12,000 people tortured and killed there during the radical
Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979).
(AP, 7/10/14)
2014 Jul 14, In Cambodia 2
generals who led the helicopter unit of the air force were killed in
a crash, along with two pilots. Defense Minister Tea Banh, who
rushed to the crash site in a muddy pond south of the capital, said
a fifth person on the chopper was seriously injured.
(AP, 7/14/14)
2014 Jul 15, In Cambodia about
200 protesters marched to a park in Phnom Penh and attached an
orange banner that read "Free the Freedom Park" to the surrounding
razor wire barricade. As armed police watched from inside the public
park, several dozen security guards attempted to disperse the rally.
Three leaders of the opposition CNRP were arrested and denied bail.
(AP, 7/16/14)(Econ, 7/19/14, p.37)
2014 Jul 16, Six Cambodian
opposition politicians were charged with leading an insurrection
movement after a clash with security forces who prevented their
followers from rallying in a public park a day earlier.
(AP, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 17, Cambodian police
arrested two more opposition members of parliament on charges of
leading an insurrection.
(Reuters, 7/17/14)
2014 Jul 22, Cambodia's main
opposition party struck a deal with strongman premier Hun Sen to end
its year-long boycott of parliament triggered by a disputed
election.
(AFP, 7/22/14)
2014 Aug 7, In Cambodia a
UN-backed war crimes tribunal sentenced Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu
Samphan (83) and Nuon Chea (88) to life in prison on war crime
charges from 1975-1979, when the Khmer Rouge held power under top
leader Pol Pot (d.1998).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khieu_Samphan)(SFC,
8/7/14, p.A4)
2014 Aug 8, Cambodian
opposition lawmakers ended a 10-month boycott of Parliament, joining
the assembly for the first time after reaching a breakthrough
political deal with the country's ruling party.
(AP, 8/8/14)
2014 Aug 21, Cambodian
officials said at least 45 people have been killed due to flooding
in the last month. Some 11,500 families have been forced to flee
their homes due to the flash floods along the Mekong River.
(SFC, 8/21/14, p.A2)
