SOUNDING on Cambodia, July 2, 2010

So many things have been going on since I took an extended vacation from blogging, but here are some of the Cambodian stories I’ve been following and wondering about:

• Rape on the Rise: The incidence of sexual violence appears to continue its meteoric rise in reporting; it seems that it is not only reporting on the rise, however – an entire culture of rape among urban elite males appears to increasingly be copied by immiserated peasants and connected thugs alike, nation-wide.
• Remember the Mekong, whose name, “Mother Ganges,” identifies it with another world-historic river-system also under attack?  Yeah, so do a lot of other people, who saw it dry up this last dry season.  Unfortunately the people who care are not the people making the decisions. If you’re curious about one of the upstream dams likely related to this current, ongoing catastrophe, read the discussion over at New Mandala on the Xiaowan Dam, where most of the real science is being discussed in an informal way.
  
• I’m thoroughly unsurprised that Cambodian officials prohibited a screening of the new film, Who Killed Chea Vichea? While I have yet to see this film, the title alone is enough to make the Cambodian judiciary and elites pissed off, for it points out that no credible suspects have yet been found.  Meanwhile, on May Day, approximately 7,000 workers took to the streets of Phnom Penh.
  
• But I am surprised at some of the news out of the union movement in Cambodia lately.  Rong Chhun appears to have been slowly sucked into the role of political opponent rather than labor dissident, and has been making a fuss over border posts lately, instead of issues of workers’ rights.  That’s unfortunate, because Chhun has the capacity to be a leader of genuine change.  The appeal of political diversions is greatest when workers’ advocacy and organization is weakest, or when individuals begin to burn out, but I hope he returns to the issues at the core of the Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association soon.
• Meanwhile, I was grieved to hear that FTUWKC leader Chea Mony was to resign his position as president of the union due to health (pulmonary) problems.  The stress of that job must be killing him.  But then, news suddenly that he’s been re-elected as president, followed immediately by a call to collect money to pay Mu Sochua’s recent fines.  I’m very confused as to what is happening here, but I find the renewal of political party ties unfortunate, because I would hate to see the independent union movement co-opted by the political ambitions of individuals within any party.
• Meanwhile, although Rice exporters are increasing the scope of their ambition (Europe’s markets), the current drought is causing worry about the harvest.
• Go read about the catastrophe that was Bangkok a few months back somewhere; it’s important stuff, though I don’t have time to discuss it here.  On the other hand, even though 80% of migrant workers in Thailand are from Burma, post-catastrophe raids have been primarily rounding up Cambodians (10% of the migrant worker population in Thailand).
• Slavery. flipping hell, can’t we end this now?  Apparently not; there are more people enslaved today than at any previous point in history.

Sounding on Cambodia for March 10, 2010

• The Cambodian government has started paying some (minor) attention to bloggers!  Whoo-hoo!  Of course, the form that attention has come in is the banning and blocking of specific blogging services. DAS has the sketchy details.
• You may remember a little group called Amnesty International.  They’ve recently been pissed off at the government of Cambodia for kicking out a bunch of Uighur asylum seekers, including a guy who had a legitimate visa, in exchange for a pantsload of aid from the People’s Republic of China.
• Today, Amnesty International is pissed off that, while the government keeps trumpeting their ‘win-win’ strategies and economic development, rape against (primarily poor) women in the kingdom has become so widespread that gang rape is a common, collective form of social bonding among middle-class urban boys.  See also story reported in The Mirror. How do we get this point to receive the attention it deserves?  Allow me to point again to Siliva Federici’s excellent work, Caliban and the Witch.
• Anne Elizabeth Moore, formerly of the Harpswell Dormitory in Cambodia, has an excellent article over at TruthOut on the garment factories of Cambodia. Go. Read. Now.
• Over at her personal Cambodia blog, Moore points out Guy DeLauney’s BBC video piece on cyclos in Phnom Penh.
• Khmer Krom need defense from the UNHCR to have the right to speak their language, and practice their culture, in Vietnam.  The lack of international attention to this issue is deeply distressing, as is the way in which those few groups who do pay attention to the issue attempt to use it.
• Meanwhile, the US government has promised to return a load of looted Khmer art.  About time.

Sounding on Cambodia for February 19, 2010

Busy as a Beaver on Methamphetamines (Yama, Yaba) these days, but here are some of the Cambodian things I’m watching:

• A US citizen who moved to Kompong Thom to open a “grassroots health clinic,” and was raped, beaten, wrapped in barbed wire and left for dead, has had her account confirmed by the Embassy, in the face of the K. Thom police, who claim the entire thing is made up by the woman, who they characterize as insane.  DAS has an excellent take on the entire thing:

The State Department’s confirmation should spark a new wave of questioning, which will certainly prompt more ridiculous answers from corrupted local officials who are trying to cover up the truth. As any police chief knows, the strong routinely prey upon the weak. Spousal abuse is epidemic. And rape is not only commonplace, it’s considered sport among a significant part of the male population. Sadly, Cara Garcia’s attack was anything but “impossible.” Utterly predictable is more like it.

Give the circumstances, you would think that people would protest in the streets. That women would demand justice. Demand accountability. Demand safety. If not for Cara Garcia, for themselves. For the Cambodian woman who will be raped and likely murdered today. And the Cambodian woman who will be raped and likely murdered tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Ad infinitum.

The Enclosure of Women’s Reproduction in Cambodia

I mentioned recently that I’d read the horrifying, amazing work of Silvia Federici recently, specifically her book Caliban and the witch: women, the body, and primitive accumulation. The argument, summarized briefly, is that

Caliban and the Witch shows that the body has been for women in capitalist society what the factory has been for male waged workers: the primary ground of their exploitation and resistance, as the female body has been appropriated by the state and men and forced to function as a means for the reproduction and accumulation of labor. (16)

In another section, Federici argues that Marxist ‘primitive accumulation’ involves the ‘enclosure’ not only of communal lands but also of social relations that stretches back to the origin of capitalism in 16th-century Europe and America.” (9)

In investigating the history of the enclosure (or ‘capture’) of women’s labor and bodies, especially their reproductive capacities, Federici looks to the 16th century of Europe, immediately after the Black Death killed off 1/3 of the European population.  The state response was frankly sexually domineering. The following is a lengthy quotation, but I dare you to stop reading it once you’ve begun (bold emphases are mine):

“As Jacques Rossiaud has shown in Medieval Prostitution (1988) in France, the municipal authorities practically decriminalized rape, provided the victims were women of the lower class. In 14th-century Venice, the rape of an unmarried proletarian woman rarely called for more than a slap on the wrist, even in the frequent case in which it involved a group assault (Ruggiero 1989:91-108). The same was true in most French cities. Here, the gang-rape of proletarian women became a common practice which the perpetrators would carry out openly and loudly at night, in groups of two to fifteen, breaking into their victims’ homes, or dragging their victims through the streets, without any attempt to hide or disguise themselves. Those who engaged in these ‘sports’ were young journeymen or domestic servants, and the penniless sons of well-to-do families, while the women targeted were poor girls, working as maids or washerwomen, of whom it was rumored that they were ‘kept’ by their masters (Rossiaud 1982: 22). On average, half of the town male youth, at some point, engaged in these assaults, which Rossiaud describes as a form of class protest, a means for proletarian men – who were forced to postpone marriage for many years because of their economic conditions – to get back ‘their own,’ and take revenge against the rich. But the results were destructive for all workers, as the state-backed raping of poor women undermined the class solidarity that had been achieved in the anti-feudal struggle.” (47-48)

Now, let’s read the most recent figures published by End Child Prostitution, Abuse, and Trafficking in Cambodia (ECPAT):

End Child Prostitution, Abuse, and Trafficking in Cambodia (ECPAT) published figures of rape, of sex trafficking, and of debauchery based on reports in five local newspapers: Koh Santepheap, Rasmei Kampuchea, Kampuchea Thmey, the Cambodia Daily, and the Phnom Penh Post-vp, where there were 322 cases of rape reported. The number increased by 16.77% compared to 2008, where there had been only 268 cases, and by 6.52% compared to 2007, where there had been 301 cases. The 332 cases victimized 337 persons, among whom 202 were underage girls and 2 were boys. Most of the victims were Khmers, but there were also Vietnamese, Cambodian Muslims, and Australians. It should be noted that gang rapes [when two or more men rape one girl] increased to 29 cases – in each case there were 2 to 7 perpetrators involved, and 5 victims were killed after they had been raped.
(translation via The Mirror)

Add in the notoriety of ‘bauk,’ the practice of gang rape that has become nauseatingly common in Cambodia, and some similarities become clear.  On the other hand, there are important differences: rape is illegal in Cambodia, and has harsh penalties, though enforcement is almost non-existent, especially for the poor; women currently compose approximately 85-90% of the garment industry’s working class (a polar reversal of the 16th century French examples), though the gendered resentment might have similar wellsprings.

yuch.

No more prison rape jokes, please

I like this new public service campaign about rape in prison. Powerful. Correct.

via: Rape Victims Vs. Prison Rape Victims – The Sexist – Washington City Paper.