The formerly self-exiled president of the Khmer Power Party (KPP) yesterday filed a promised defamation lawsuit against Foreign Minister Hor Namhong.

Standing outside of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Sourn Serey Ratha told reporters that he had filed a lawsuit and supporting evidence with the prosecutor calling for 500 million riel (about $125,000) in compensation, which the party plans to donate to the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospitals.

The suit stems from remarks made by Namhong to reporters following a meeting at the Foreign Ministry on December 7 when he described the KPP as “a party, which has as its leader a terrorist mastermind”.

Serey Ratha said he had the “lowest per cent of hope that action will be taken” by the court, but had gone ahead with the lawsuit in the hope that it would prevent future slurs and bring public attention to the allegedly defamatory remarks.

“Painting us as terrorists is one thing we can’t accept,” he said.

The KPP leader, who led the dissident Khmer People Power Movement before establishing the party, has long been labelled a terrorist by the government and lived for years in self-imposed exile in the US.

He returned to Cambodia in October after being pardoned of widely decried convictions related to his political activities.

Namhong and his lawyer could not be reached yesterday.

Last week, Namhong defended his comments, which he said were made in relation to Serey Ratha’s past run-in with the law. He said he recognised the KPP leader’s right to return to politics.

The border town of Bavet in Svay Rieng province was again roiled by unrest and alleged violence yesterday after police used fire hoses to disperse a crowd of striking garment workers, arresting 58 of them in the morning only to release them in the afternoon.

About 8,000 workers protested in front of the Tai Seng Special Economic Zone yesterday, throwing water bottles and chunks of ice at police, who responded with concentrated jets from four fire hoses, said Chea Oddom, provincial representative of the Cambodian Union for the Movement of Workers.

“The police tried to push them and they got angry with the police, so the workers threw water bottles and ice at them, and police used fire hoses to disperse them,” he said.

Nouth Bopinnaroath, provincial coordinator for rights group Licadho, said 58 workers – 36 women and 22 men – were subsequently arrested and then released.

“We heard there would be a huge protest at the provincial police [station] if the police did not release the workers,” Bopinnaroath said, explaining the seeming leniency of the authorities.

But Ros Tharith, provincial director of administration, said the police merely “educated” the workers to never use force again.

“The police educated the workers and made an agreement that next time when they are unhappy or demand better conditions, they should talk and not use violence, and we will release them and they can go to work as normal,” he said.
Allegations of violence marred both sides of the protest yesterday.

Police claimed that the workers were carrying rocks to hurl at factories in the Manhattan Special Economic Zone. Protestors denied the charge, with one accusing the police of beating him.

“The police used their hands and sticks against me . . . They beat me in my neck and used sticks to hit me in the legs five times,” said worker Mom Phanna, 19.

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The relative of one worker arrested during a separate incident on Friday also claimed his brother was beaten by police.

Tharith said that the authorities “did not crack down [on the workers]” and action was only taken to prevent further strife.

Unions have denied any involvement in the unruly strikes, which began after thousands of workers in special economic zones across Bavet walked out on the job last Wednesday.

The protesters were angered by what they considered an insufficient increase to the garment sector’s minimum wage, demanding a $20 raise to the current rate of $128, $8 more than the $140 figure mandated for 2016 by the government in early October.

Violence was soon reported after workers reportedly pelted factories with stones and broke doors down. On Friday, more than 600 provincial and military police flooded the zones in a bid to quell the unrest.

Nevertheless, Tharith said the volatile situation was calming down, with only two factories reporting strikes, down from the 39 last Thursday.

“We have almost reached a compromise between workers and employers,” he added.

In its second statement about the protests since last week, the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) yesterday condemned the protesters for the unrest.

“GMAC thanks the Cambodian government for introducing suitable and timely action to prevent losses of a huge scale,” the statement reads.

“And GMAC completely denies opinions and accusations from some unions and human rights groups that the [events are part of] a crackdown and pressures human rights.”

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday released a suspect being held over the shooting deaths of three people– one of them a village chief – during a fight in the capital’s Tuol Svay Prey I commune last week, a court official said yesterday.

Chamkarmon district police chief Yin San said yesterday that Keo Sovannara – the brother of police officer Keo Sovannarith, who is suspected of shooting village chief Chuk Lay, his son and his nephew – had been called to court for questioning yesterday while his brother is still in hospital. However, he said, he was unaware whether the court would move to charge him.

Prosecutor Meas Chanpiseth could not be reached yesterday, but a court official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that after the interrogation, Sovannara was freed by the court, which had determined that “he was not a suspect in the shooting on the day of the incident”.

According to Pov Pidor, police chief of Tuol Svay Prey I, Sovannarith and Lay, the village chief, had argued over a contribution for a public street lamp, at which point Lay called his son and nephew – Lay Bunthoeun and Bun Rithy, respectively – for help.

The pair arrived carrying swords and attacked Sovannarith, slashing him in the head, shoulder, hand and back, while Sovannara fled inside.

Sovannarith then drew his gun and shot all three men, Pidor said, with two dying at the scene and another dying later at Calmette Hospital.

According to Pidor, Lay’s family has yet to file an official complaint, and it is unknown whether Sovannarith will be charged over the shooting.

The governor of Banteay Meanchey yesterday warned of potentially dire water shortages in the province and said that authorities will begin constructing a small dam on the Serei Sophon River to keep the water from escaping.

Pumping from other rivers, lakes and reservoirs will also be required to meet the province’s need towards the end of the dry season, Governor Kor Sum Sarith said in a telephone interview. He added that residents must do everything they can to conserve water.

“Right now, the province has some water for people to use. But if we don’t take action now, it will be a problem [later on] in the dry season,” he said.

The cost of the dam and other water conservation measures wasn’t immediately available yesterday.

Bun Hean, secretary of state at the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, acknowledged that while rainfall has given some provinces enough water, others, especially low-lying provinces, continue to struggle with low reservoirs. The Mekong River is 2 metres lower than it should be at this time of year, he said.

The most at-risk provinces include Prey Veng, Takeo, Svay Rieng, Kampong Cham, Kampong Thom, Battambang and Banteay Meanchey, he added.

In November, Chan Yutha, a spokesman for the Ministry of Water Resources said the government was using 600,000 litres of fuel set in reserve to run 300 pumps to distribute water in hard-hit areas.

Hean said yesterday that most of the pumped water will come from the Tonle Sap lake. He waved off shortage concerns, saying that the government had plenty of resources.

However, Chan Sophal, an independent agriculture economist, said that while money may not be a problem due to low oil prices, lack of rain will limit the government’s options.

“The government can pump water to rescue the crops, but if there is no water source to pump, then nothing much can be done,” he said. “The shortage usually happens in March or April.”

In recent years, rural residents have been increasingly relying on reservoirs for irrigation, making them more vulnerable to extreme weather, according to Sophal.

Climate change along with a severe El Niño pattern that will last into 2016, have been blamed for water shortages throughout the Kingdom, according to Ian Thomas, an adviser with the Mekong River Commission.

Sophal said that farmers in the at-risk areas might want to hold off on trying to grow dry season rice because they stand a good chance of losing their investment.

The government has no means to compensate farmers who have lost their crops.

New research conducted in Malaysia has drawn a link between deforestation and a rise in a specific strain of malaria often carried by macaques, a link the study’s lead author says could hold true for Cambodia as well.

The results of the study, published in Emerging Infectious Diseases last week, found that deforestation in two districts of Malaysia was linked to “a steep rise of [plasmodium] knowlesi malaria”. The strain went from accounting for just 2 per cent of malaria cases in the districts studied to accounting for 62 per cent over nine years.

The P knowlesi strain, first identified only a few decades ago, is usually carried by macaque monkeys, which appear to increasingly transfer the disease to humans as settlements push deeper into previously undisturbed forests, the study found. Two human cases were reported in 2011 in Cambodia’s Pailin province, which has high deforestation rates.

Dr Kimberly Fornace, the study’s lead author and a fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that “in Cambodia, deforestation is strongly associated with human malaria . . . It has to do with the fact that mosquitoes are forest-breeding”.

As for P knowlesi specifically, Fornace said, “the conclusion [in Malaysia] is applicable to Cambodia”, given that parasite-carrying macaques and deforestation both exist in the Kingdom’s forests.

Explaining the findings, Fornace said there is a “strong statistical link with macaques seeing people” and the increase in infections. Deforestation, she continued, creates gaps in forest cover that lead to a “high spatial overlap” between human and macaque populations, and cause P knowlesi infections to become increasingly common.

Very little research exists on P knowlesi in Cambodia, and data on the macaque population is also lacking. The authors who reported the P knowlesi cases in Pailin concluded that “further wide-scale studies are required to assess the prevalence and distribution of P knowlesi malaria cases”.

Dr Rabindra Romauld Abeyasinghe, the World Health Organization’s regional coordinator for its malaria, vectorborne and parasitic diseases unit, said the disease remains relatively uncommon in humans, but acknowledged that “when people enter forests, the disease may be transmitted to humans”, and that studies have found serious and even fatal human cases.

The WHO in Cambodia and a spokesman for the Ministry of Health referred questions to Dr Huy Rekol of the National Malaria Centre, but multiple attempts to contact him were unsuccessful.

The capital is currently examining two possible new dumpsites in Chroy Changvar and Chbar Ampov districts in the hopes of taking strain off of Phnom Penh’s current landfill, which receives some 2,000 tonnes of waste each day.

Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong said in a Facebook post yesterday that the locations would also keep the city’s trash from being hauled long distances, “which causes slowness and congestion in the traffic, or traffic accidents”.

City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche confirmed that the city was in talks with the Ministry of Environment regarding the new locations and maintained that, for now, contractor Cintri would remain the city’s trash transporter, despite past criticisms.

“Previously, there were some discussions on some contracts in order to avoid a monopoly and to let other companies to work with us, but the result is not known yet. However, in the contract, it is stated that Cintri is the stakeholder of the service.”

Cintri representative Nguon Sipheng welcomed the plan for new landfills, saying it would speed up waste collection and reduce costs.

Nine NGOs yesterday demanded that Phnom Penh authorities publicly apologise for painting over a huge mural of a seamstress on the capital’s White Building last week.

The organisations, including women’s rights, LGBT and pro-transparency groups, said that the mural’s removal hurt the portrait subject’s feelings and, in a broader sense, affected the government’s push towards stronger gender equality.

“The painting shows the job of a woman who puts effort in sewing to support her family,” said Thyda Khus, the director of gender equality watchdog Silaka. “It is very meaningful to the [subject] . . . We need the authorities to say sorry in public.”

City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche said that the authorities have no reason to apologise. “We are the people who obeyed and implemented the rule of law; they painted without permission,” he said yesterday. “We cannot say sorry.”

The former 10-metre-high green and black aerosol painting – done by Miles “El Mac” MacGregor as part of a broader project sponsored by US artist David Choe – depicted seamstress Moeun Thary, a resident of the building.

Thary yesterday said she was sorry to see the painting go and that the mural showed a woman’s strength in supporting her family.

Fellow White Building resident Chan Sanch said that the removal was surprising because it doesn’t negatively affect anyone. “The authorities should know the value of the painting and give encouragement to the painter,” he said.

A senior environment official yesterday alleged that the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party and human rights groups should shoulder much of the blame for the destruction of the country’s protected areas.

Speaking at a seminar in Phnom Penh, Srun Sarith, a deputy director in the Ministry of Environment, said the government faced serious difficulties in solving land disputes because the CNRP and rights groups had encouraged people living near national parks and wildlife sanctuaries to go into the logging business by supporting their claims to the land.

“To put it simply, a group enters and occupies land illegally and they start to protest for the land. They [the CNRP and rights groups] prepare documents for their protests,” he said. “This causes serious problems for us to deal with these cases.”

In September, a leading resource monitoring group, Global Forest Watch, estimated that the rate of deforestation in Cambodia had accelerated faster than any other country in the world since 2001.

Numerous economic land concessions, leases mostly granted for agro-industrial projects, were handed out in or near protected areas to private companies, which analysts blame for driving the forest loss.

Yem Ponharith, a spokesman for the CNRP, yesterday denied the charge made by Sarith.

“The rights to land should be clearly demarcated between state land and people’s land,” he said. “When land grabs happen, people lose out, then more people come along and they end up losing all of their land. I really hope the authorities will thoroughly study this issue.”

Latt Ky, the head of local rights group Adhoc’s land and natural resources section, said that the large-scale forest clearance Cambodia has witnessed in recent years was driven almost exclusively by powerful officials.

Officials and local communities “should cooperate to take stringent measures to eradicate impunity so that protected areas can be maintained”, he said.

Ministry of Environment official Kim Nong, speaking at the seminar yesterday, said the ministry expects that by 2020 at least half of Cambodia’s protected areas will have their outer boundaries demarcated and many will have “conservation zones” that are protected from future developments.

A new management plan for the areas due to come into effect next year will require an additional $9.4 million until 2020, which could come from international donors, but also from redirecting tax revenue and fines, he added.

Interior Minister Sar Kheng yesterday urged high-ranking officials to swear off their showy insignia lest regular cops be too intimidated to stop them for traffic violations.

During a speech he gave at the Siem Reap airport, Kheng said the civil service’s upper crust must dress “like regular citizens” when they travel.

“When travelling normally, if you’re a deputy prime minister, senior minister, or regular minister . . . you need to take off your ranks and consider yourself a citizen,” he said.

“Some provincial police chiefs are brigadier generals, some are captains, but the regular traffic police are [only] first lieutenants or second lieutenants . . . Asking them whether they dare to fine a brigadier general when he breaks the Traffic Law or whether they dare to stop the car of a deputy or senior minister, or anyone else with a high rank who breaks the law – the [traffic police] do not dare,” he said. “But for these incidents, we need to fine.”

Last week, Kheng called for boldness on the part of rank-and-file cops, saying they would be promoted if they were to pull over and fine a government minister.

Eight Chinese nationals are facing prison terms of 15 to 30 years each, after they were charged at Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday with kidnapping and illegally imprisoning three Chinese men and extorting money from their families.

“They were charged by the court’s prosecutor with illegal detention with aggravating circumstances,” Seng Vanak, a courthouse clerk, said yesterday. “They now have been sent to Prey Sar prison.”

Six of the eight suspects, who are all male and aged between 35 and 59, were arrested in the capital’s Meanchey and Chamkarmon districts on December 14 and 15, but two others have yet to be apprehended, according to Major Leng Song, of Phnom Penh military police.

“Police raided their rental houses in different places in Phnom Penh last week,” he said. “After the arrests, the military police rescued three Chinese victims.”

The kidnapped trio has since been reunited with their families, Song added.

The wives of three of the suspects were originally picked up with their husbands but released when it was determined they were not party to the crime.

More than 100 family representatives yesterday filed complaints at Ratanakkiri Provincial Hall and the Interior Ministry, claiming that requests to be issued with identity cards so they could vote in upcoming elections were denied by local police officials.

The villagers who signed the letter, representing 112 families in Keh Chung commune, Bakeo district, thumbprinted and delivered the letter yesterday with the aid of local rights group Adhoc. The letter requests that authorities issue identity and voter cards, which would strengthen their claims to disputed land in the area.

The families also asked the authorities to officially recognise their family histories, which state that they have lived on the land for almost 10 years.

Nguon Mil, 65, one of the signatories, said that the community had asked officials to create the documents for them on several occasions, but their requests had been routinely declined because the police consider them to be illegal squatters.

“We, the villagers, have lived here since 2006, but until now we’ve not received any documentation. We do not have identity cards, voter cards or family records,” he said.

The families are at the centre of a land dispute over a 100-hectare area in the district rich in gems, with Interior Ministry immigration official Heng Socheat claiming he bought the land fair and square.

Socheat claimed in an October interview that the villagers had squatted on his land to steal his gems, while the villagers claim the official does not possess valid land titles and had posed as a military commander to purchase the property.

Earlier this month, three of the village representatives were detained in provincial prison for allegedly illegally occupying the land.

Mil said he suspected the authorities were withholding the community’s identity cards because they could help them seek land titles.

Mao Sun, Bakeo district police chief, said it was impossible for the authorities to create identity cards for them because they had no permanent address, birth records or family records.

“To make an identity card, you need birth and family records. If they don’t have them, they must request them from the authorities in the place where they were born,” he said.

“They live on other people’s land and have no fixed address. They just explore for gems from one place to another.”

Six opposition lawmakers have been assigned to a committee to repair the so-called culture of dialogue with the ruling party, which has yet to announce candidates for its own working group to tackle the issue.

Yem Ponharith said opposition lawmaker Pol Ham was put forward as president while members would include Yim Sovann, Ou Chanrith, Eng Chhay Eang, Mao Monyvann and Ho Vann.

Ponharith said the groups from each side would work together, before their party respective leaders met, to identify problems to address.

Cambodian People’s Party spokesman Sok Eysan said members of the ruling party’s group would be chosen soon.

The initiative emerged from December 10 peace talks between Interior Minister Sar Kheng and Cambodia National Rescue Party acting president Kem Sokha.

With CNRP president Sam Rainsy abroad in self-imposed exile to avoid jail on seemingly politically motivated charges, the pair agreed on several points to defuse the tense political climate.

They pledged to form a group to analyse how to improve the “culture of dialogue”, a largely ignored agreement born from the July 2014 political deal, which stipulates that parties should cease the combative rhetoric that has long characterised Cambodian politics.

“The previous [culture of dialogue] was good, [but we] hope to promote it more, so it is better than before,” Eysan said.

Thirteen ethnic Tumpuon villagers have been summonsed to appear at Ratanakkiri Provincial Court on Wednesday over a long-running land dispute with a rubber firm in Bakeo district.

The group has been accused of making threats and land-grabbing by company Khov Kimleng, which has claimed ownership of more than 100 hectares of farmland in Keh Chung commune that community members say is their ancestral home.

The accusations stem from an incident in March 2013, when the villagers, of Pa’or village, blocked the firm’s attempt to bring construction materials to the site.

The summons, issued on December 11 but obtained yesterday, states the villagers are accused under Article 231 of the Criminal Code – which concerns making a threat, and carries a maximum two-year sentence – and Article 259 of the Land Law, which carries a potential five-year term.

The dispute started in 2008 when villagers from the nearby village of Leu Horn sold the community’s land to the company, which was unreachable yesterday, said commune clerk Rocham Pheun, 48, adding the villagers would go to court, where about 100 supporters plan to protest.

“We did not threaten or use violence or grab any land, but the company cleared and destroyed our forest and plantation,” Pheun said.

“We protested to try and stop them, but were accused and charged.”

Protests by striking garment workers in the Svay Rieng province town of Bavet spiralled into “anarchy” this morning after protesters pelted police with stones and injured at least two officers, according to officials.

“The protests continued this morning and became stronger; they did not listen to authorities or anybody, and they threw rocks at authorities, fire fighter trucks, and a factory,” said Ros Tharith, provincial administration director.

“It became anarchy,” he said.

Tharith said the police “almost lost control” of the situation and were unable to fight back, with one fire truck “completely destroyed”. No arrests were made or workers injured, and workers are now returning to their homes, he added.

Chea Oddom, provincial representative of the Cambodian Union for the Movement of Workers, said the violence occurred after police tried to block the striking workers from coming out of the Manhattan Special Economic Zone.

“The workers tried to push their way through and the police used water to disperse them, therefore workers got angry and they threw rocks at them, damaging two fire trucks,” he said.

Oddom contradicted officials, however, saying police arrested an unknown amount of workers.

Fifty-eight striking workers were arrested and later released yesterday for their alleged involvement in protests.

Provincial penal police chief Koy Sopheap said “two or three” police were injured and that the situation had become quiet again after factories allowed workers to return home.

“There were no arrests … We did not block them and we urged them to go work.”

Protests by thousands of garment workers across several special economic zones in Bavet began last Wednesday. The workers are unsatisfied with next year’s raise in the minimum wage, demanding a $20 raise from the current rate of $128, $8 more than the $140 rate for 2016 set in October.

Unions have denied any involvement in the protests.

A steel bridge in Mondulkiri province’s Pech Chreada district snapped in half on Monday under the weight of a truck police said was carrying more than twice the weight the structure was rated for.

According to Chreum Bren, Pech Chreada’s deputy police chief, the Hyundai truck was carrying a load of bricks and cement from Sen Monorom town to a construction material depot in Pech Chreada when the bridge, located in Sre Ampoum commune, collapsed underneath it.

“In fact, [the bridge] does not allow a load of more than 20 or 25 tonnes, but the truck was loaded with about 50 tonnes,” Bren said, adding that the truck was finally removed yesterday evening.

“They did not obey the regulation, so the problem occurred,” he continued, saying the vehicle was owned by a local small business that had come forward to accept responsibility for the cost of repairs, which remained unknown yesterday.

According to Bren, the driver of the truck only sustained a slight head injury, and although the truck was seemingly in violation of the Traffic Law, the owners wouldn’t face additional punishment as long as they covered the cost of the damage.

After the incident, Mondulkiri Provincial Hall issued a statement warning that the bridge was out, and referring to the passage as “an important route to the Bousraa [waterfall] tourist attraction site”.

Provincial Governor Eng Bunheang could not be reached for comment, but Heak Sophan, director of the provincial administration, said that the public transportation department was examining the case.

Nuon Sarorn, Pech Chreada district governor, said that the bridge was built in 2006 or 2007, and said that plans were in the works for a detour where people could ford the river, which is low this time of year, as well as for a temporary bridge to allow tourist buses to cross.

Sok Rotha, provincial coordinator for the rights group Adhoc, insisted that those responsible be held accountable.

“They violated the law. The owner is guilty if they do not take responsibility for the damage,” Rotha said.

A 43-year-old construction worker yesterday went on trial at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court over allegations that he forcibly raped his 17-year-old disabled niece – a charge that both he and the alleged victim disputed.

According to deputy prosecutor Seu Vandy, the victim had gone to the house of her uncle, Hem Sakhorn, on May 13, to ask for $2 when he allegedly put a pillow over her mouth and raped her.

However, Sakhorn denied the charges against him yesterday, as did his niece. “I stayed with him in his room, but he did not rape me,” the alleged victim said.

Her elder sister, Nguyen Dalin, who originally sued Sakhorn for the alleged assault, testified that the victim could not remember the day of the alleged rape due to a disability that has affected her since childhood.

Dalin has since dropped her lawsuit, but the criminal case against Sakhorn is still pending. A verdict is due on December 30.

Two brothers were charged with fishing with illegal electrical devices by Kampong Chhnang Provincial Court yesterday morning.

Yun Chea, 24, and Yun Kon, 23, had been caught red-handed fishing with the banned battery-powered fishing equipment at Prek Koh Krobey in Boribor district, according to local Fishery Administration official Soam Phirun.

“We arrested them while they were committing the crime,” Phirun said, adding that the men, who live in Kampong Thom province’s Kampong Svay district, had undergone two days of interrogation.

Following the pair’s arrest, police seized 10 kilos of fish, two batteries, an electrical current inverter, a fish-collecting net and a motorboat and boat engine.

An investigation into alleged corruption and malpractice by the director of Ratanakkiri Provincial Prison following a complaint filed by dozens of prison officers has concluded with mixed results.

Tin Sovanny was accused on December 6 of using inmates as a private labour force, profiting from prison businesses and having sex with an inmate – allegations he has denied.

Sorn Keo, a spokesman for the general department of prisons at the Ministry of Interior, said yesterday that the investigation had discovered that some of the complaints were accurate, but there was not enough evidence to support others, including the claim he pressured an inmate into having sex with him.

“The female prisoner denied in front of the committee that she had sex with the accused. She said he moved her [to Sovanny’s house] to help with the chores after Sovanny’s children moved out,” he said.

Keo added that he had not received the final written report from the committee, so he could not elaborate on the finer points of the investigation.

Chhom Sreypich, deputy director of the prison and one of the officials who filed the complaint, said she hoped the complainants “would get some solutions from the committee”.

However, Sovanny was confident he would be cleared, saying he had not committed any of the alleged infractions.

“On the other hand, I am concerned about the conclusions they will draw, because I have no doubt that these complaints were motivated by someone wanting to take my position as the prison director.

I think that person incited others to file the suit against me.”

Sovanny has retained his position as prison director throughout the course of the probe.

The Ministry of Justice and other authorities yesterday acknowledged their shortcomings and vowed to improve cooperation, following a second special meeting at the ministry sparked by a recent rash of armed robberies.

“In response to the challenge faced by law enforcement officers, the Ministry of Justice is setting up a working group to boost understanding between the different ministries and officials involved and help crack down on crime,” ministry spokesman Kim Sontepheap said.

Minister of Justice Ang Vong Vathana, he continued, plans to meet with the prison pardon committees in provincial capitals, which were recently criticised by the prime minister for releasing prisoners who have in turn been blamed for recent serious crimes.

Police were following up clues related to suspects involved in the recent robberies, according to National Police deputy commissioner Mok Chito, who added that crime so far this year had, in fact, fallen overall. “In 2015, offences fell by 14 per cent compared to 2014,” he said.

According to San Chey, a fellow with the accountability group ANSA-EAP, current prison policy regarding jail terms was adding to the crime problem.

“The early release of prisoners stops the system from working effectively and leads to more crime,” he said.

Chey added that recent armed robberies, including thefts from jewellery vendors and the money transfer company Wing, along with street crime, had created widespread alarm.

Even comparatively small patches of human intrusion into contiguous forestland disproportionately saps forests’ ability to trap harmful carbon, a recent study has shown, a finding that suggests Cambodia’s government may be underestimating the environmental damage caused by logging and development.

So-called “forest degradation” – unlike typical deforestation – occurs when forest cover is thinned or pockmarked by human development, but not entirely clear-felled.

However, even this selective cutting down of forest trees not only releases carbon but dries out the remaining plants, lowering their ability to capture carbon, according to the new study, published in science journal Nature Communications on December 18.

Human development increases the number of holes and edges a forest has, dramatically reducing its effectiveness as a carbon sink.

Marcus Hardtke, the Southeast Asia coordinator for German conservation group ARA, said that the problem of woodland degradation is large in Cambodia, where a patchwork quilt of logging and economic land concessions eat away at forests.

“Most of the forest death [comes from] degradation, not deforestation,” said Hardtke. “It’s death by 1,000 cuts.”

According to the new study, biomass volume within a kilometre of a forest’s edge can be 10-25 per cent lower than in the interior and, as a result, traps far less carbon. As roads, selective logging and even seemingly small or unobtrusive settlements push into previously unspoiled forests, the amount of forest edge multiplies.

These “edge effects”, the study’s authors found, account for up to 24 per cent of global carbon losses from forest damage, especially in the tropics.

“Considering that 70 per cent of the world’s forest area is within 1 km of the edge, the extent to which this response is found across the tropics is of critical importance to carbon trading schemes and climate change mitigation more broadly,” the study says.

The authors added that not accounting for edge effects can cause policymakers to overestimate the amount of carbon they can retain with available forest land, especially when setting targets for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programs.

Forest loss in Cambodia has accelerated faster than any other country in the world since 2001, peaking in 2010, according to a Global Forest Watch report in September, and development in Cambodia seems almost tailor-made to exacerbate edge effects.

“Problem is, the government gave out all these plantation permits,” said Hardtke. “These guys start logging, put a big farm in the middle, then log outside the boundaries. No one is watching or controlling this. Once local people see this, they start logging, too.”

The lack of accountability makes a mockery of attempts to implement REDD in Cambodia, he said.

Environment Ministry spokesman Sao Sopheap yesterday said that the Cambodian government currently looks only at total forest cover, rather than measuring biomass and degradation, and acknowledged that it may be missing important details, but said that the government plans to get more granular in the future.

The Forestry Administration wasn’t immediately available for comment yesterday.