July 16, 2008
The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 10: Maybe it is a dangerous place after all...
John Vink
I'm sorry if I missed out on last month's rendez-vous but first of all I was not in Cambodia and second, one of the paradoxes of Digital Divide made access to the Internet more difficult in Belgium than in Cambodia... In Cambodia connections are (very) expensive and slow but there are Internet cafés on many streetcorners. In Belgium connections are fast (and expensive also) but there are few Internet cafés.
Now that I'm back in Phnom Penh I'll catch up on events here. But as a follow-up on the previous issue of the Khmer Chronicles I'd rather have had something else to talk about than this...
Cambodia. Phnom Penh. 13/07/2008. The cremation ceremony of Khem Sambo took place at the Toul Tompoung pagoda. © John Vink/Magnum Photos
Khem Sambo, 47 yrs, a journalist at the pro-opposition daily Moneaksekar Khmer (Khmer Conscience), was killed, together with his 21 yr old son, by five bullets fired in the middle of a busy street by a lone gunner on a motorbike near the Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh on July 11th.
The reasons for this killing are not clear yet, and considering the previous murders of journalists (12 since 1993), they will probably remain obscure. It is too early and one can only speculate. Has it to do with the elections (we are two weeks away from the polling date)? Did Sambo know things he shouldn't have known about government involvement in casino gambling? But for sure Sambo's director, Dam Seth, who happens to be on the Sam Rainsy Party list (opposition) for the coming elections, is involved in a legal struggle with Foreign Minister Hor Namhong on issues about the Minister's alleged participation as a cadre in the Boeung Trabek reeducation camp during the Khmer Rouge regime. So was it to intimidate his boss that a good journalist and his innocent son were killed in cold blood on a busy street?
Whatever the reason, a journalist's assassination is always a serious matter. Especially so in a country where separations of the powers are not yet fully perceived by all as being essential to a workable democracy. Once the watchdogs will have stopped barking there will be few limits for abuse...
I bear with the suffering of Khem Sambo's family.
I bear with my Cambodian colleagues and hope they will not give in to fear.
There is a multimedia slideshow of the funeral on the Ka-set website.
Links:
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 1: UNICEF in Cambodia
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 2: Can Cultural Identity go private?
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 3: Arrest of Ieng Sary
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 4: Gathering Pace
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 5: Development is on the doorstep...
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 6: You've got 5 minutes
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 7: Justice and Photography don't mix?
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 8: About rats, squashed dogs and getting published
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 9: About ethics and corruption rankings
» John Vink's website
» John Vink's Magnum portfolio
» John Vink's Magnum In Motion story "Terre Rouge"
» John Vink's feature: Cambodia Khmer Rouge Trial
Published on the Magnum Blog on July 16, 2008
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