12.24.08

Third Time’s a Charm…

Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 3:05 am by Kaihaku

So, on Christmas Eve I was driving up north on Monivong in Phnom Penh on my way to purchase some things for the grand escape on Christmas Day. As I neared the O’Russei Market I was, once again, pulled over by a detachment of Cambodian police. This time I had done nothing wrong, though the officer in question was hopeful checking to see if my lights were on (not sorry to disappoint) and if my tags were in order before moving on to the driver’s license… I’m proud to report that I did not shake this time around and was overall more annoyed than unnerved. He then explained to me that my driver’s license was a type-B which means that I can legally drive cars in Cambodia, which is true,  but that I cannot legally drive motorbikes of 110cc or lower in Cambodia, which is not true. I was then fined 5,000 riel, the maximum legal amount, which I paid and then was on my way after chatting a bit with the Police.

There’s no question that the Cambodian Police are corrupt but going on a rant to them about their corruption isn’t going to counter their corruption and probably would only aggravate the situation. Many foreigners, even some MCCers, have ranted at the Cambodian Police when confronted with corruption and, perhaps, it has been an emotional vent for them but it hasn’t changed the situation. Until the Police are paid a living wage and held to accountability there will be rampant corruption among them. So, after several discussions with Khmer and other expatires about my first incident, I’ve decided not to take the firebrand approach I admire so much and instead take my normal humanizing approach. Though, I have decided that I’ll never again pay more than the legal amount for a fine. Hon Dara, our translator, and Sam Ang, my language teacher, also both suggested an alternative option but I’ll get to that later…

Cambodian Police were stationed all over northern Phnom Penh and seemed to be targeting Westerners in particular. There was no hostility in that act and it made rational sense to target people with money from outside the culture but I still found it enlightening to be the target of racial profiling by the Police. It was strange and frightening really, even in Cambodia, to see the “guardians of order” as a threat, even if not a dangerous one. I ended up darting down side streets to avoid corners with Police and taking out of the way routes, once making an impromptu U-turn to avoid them.

After I finished my business at my destination, Thai Hout, I then headed West along Russian Boulevard and made a stop at the Family Bookstore, the only Christian Bookstore I know of in Cambodia.

Finishing up at the bookstore, I was late for lunch at MCC, and so quickly headed south towards the office, passing by the Olympic Market. That was when I had my third encounter with the Phnom Penh Police. This time I put the advice of Sam Ang and Hon Dara to use and just ignored the officer trying to wave me over…and the whistle sounding behind me after I had passed. Then it was over, that was it just a few whistle blows, by far the best resolution of my three encounters.

12.13.08

Wrong Way

Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 11:22 pm by Kaihaku

I was just pulled over the police for the first time in my life. I was driving the wrong way on a one-way street and passed a police check-point. They had already collected a large number of impounded motos, I’ve been told never to let them take a moto because often it because the police are known to force owners to pay half it’s market value in order to get it back.

Well…

So, I was waved to the side of the road along with a couple of Khmer on moto who I had been in front of me. I think I managed to handle the situation well enough save that I couldn’t stop shaking. I talked with the police, I kept a calm mind, but my hands just wouldn’t stop shaking. The highest ranking officer present approached me first and explained to me that I had been going the wrong way on a one way street, then told me that since I didn’t have a license the fine was $25 dollars. Fortunately, I do have a Cambodian license which I withdrew with unsteady hands. Shaking. I think my voice was level though as I showed him my license, careful not to let him take it…which I’ve heard sometimes results in another bribe to get it back. He seemed indifferent to license, saying that the fine for going the wrong one on a one way street was still ten dollars. Then I was waved to get off my moto but I waited, nervous about physically leaving the moto unattended.

The two Cambodians went ahead. While they talked with the big officer, I tried to get my hands to calm down and sent a text to Carol. Then two lower rank police officers approached me. I was waiting for a invitation for a bribe but instead one of them asked me my age. After I replied, then he asked me how much I would pay to be let go. I played the ignorant foreigner card because I didn’t want to pay their bribe and replied that the higher ranking officer had told me $10 dollars. The guy who asked my birthday smiled and said five for him and five for his buddy. Then I said again that it was the higher ranking officer who gave that amount.

Meanwhile, the two Cambodians finished negotiating with the higher ranking officer and gave him a handful of one dollar bills before leaving. Thinking it was safe to get off the moto following their example, I did so and approached the man in charge. He told me that the fine was the same as what the two Cambodians had just paid, five dollars. I paid it and left. I shouldn’t have, in Cambodia the maximum traffic fine is 5000 Riel. I paid quadruple that.

I knew what to do, I should have refused to pay anything without a receipt, writing out my own if necessary. Instead…I went the wrong way. I could have made a stand, I certainly have the vocabulary to rail against corruption, but instead I took the path of less, though not least, resistance. I had broken the law but I shouldn’t have let them break the law in turn. The fact that traffic laws are almost never enforced in Cambodia and that the Police are notoriously corrupt do nothing to negate that. In a country were activists are willing to die for what they believe in I barely managed a resistance when confronted with a simple case of graft.

12.02.08

Nicholas Kristof gives thanks for some of his heroes.

Posted in Current Events, Spero Cras at 5:19 pm by Kaihaku

I found this to be both a disturbing and inspiring article. These women certainly are heroes who deserve more support and attention then they have been receiving. I was also encouraged to see another article by Kristof on acid attacks against women in Asia. During my time in Cambodia attacks against women, including vicious acid attacks, have been a common occurrence with little being done to prosecute those responsible.

Giving Thanks to Heroes

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

This is a column to give thanks to you, the reader. You don’t know it, but some of you are keeping women like Sajida Bibi alive here in this remote Pakistani village. And that is a far grander reason to celebrate Thanksgiving than even the plumpest turkey.

Sajida is a 29-year-old college-educated woman from a Christian family here (and a reminder that oppressive values in Pakistan are not rooted just in Islam). She scandalized her family by marrying a man she chose herself — and then becoming pregnant.

The next step was brutal: Several women held Sajida down as a midwife conducted an abortion, while she struggled and wept.

Then her brothers weighed what to do next. Sajida’s eldest brother wanted to sell her to a trafficker who offered $1,200, presumably intending to imprison her inside a brothel. Two other brothers just wanted to kill her.

The brothers fought for days over this question. So Sajida ground up sleeping tablets and baked the powder into chapati bread that she fed her brothers for dinner — and then sneaked out as they slept.

Sajida made her way to Mukhtar Mai, one of my heroes, and that is why this is a Thanksgiving column. For years, I’ve written about Mukhtar, an illiterate woman who used compensation money after being gang-raped to build a small school in which she herself enrolled.

Readers responded to the columns by flooding Mukhtar, who then used a variant of her name, Mukhtaran Bibi, with more than $290,000 in donations, funneled through Mercy Corps, an international aid group based in the U.S.

With that financial support, Mukhtar now runs four schools with 900 students. She also operates an ambulance service, a school bus, a women’s shelter, a legal clinic, and a telephone hot line and women’s crisis center — all in this remote village in the southern Punjab. (For information about how to help, go to my blog.

Sajida is now safe in Mukhtar’s shelter, while hoping to rescue her 14-year-old sister, Shafaq. Her brothers have forced Shafaq to drop out of school and may now be trying to sell her to a trafficker. When Sajida and I managed to contact Shafaq, she balked at fleeing — fearing that if her brothers caught her, they would kill her.

These women in Mukhtar’s shelter are extraordinary, partly because in a culture where women are supposed to be weak, they are indomitable. These aren’t victims. These are superheroes.

Another of those whom Mukhtar is helping is Shahnaz Bibi (Bibi is a second name used by many young Pakistani women; none of these women are related). Shahnaz is short, frail and wears a traditional full veil on the street — and is as courageous a person as I’ve ever met.

Shahnaz was kidnapped when she was taking her 10th-grade examinations, then gang-raped for two months by her kidnappers (including a policeman and a cousin) and, eventually, sold for $2,500 to be the third wife of a 65-year-old businessman. After being locked up for two years in a windowless room, Shahnaz was finally rescued by her family.

Her father begged her to drop the matter, for otherwise word would spread that she was not a virgin — utterly dishonoring her entire family. Yet Shahnaz insisted on prosecuting her kidnappers.

The police refused to act, so Shahnaz sought out Mukhtar, who paid for a good lawyer. The case is now proceeding. As a result, the kidnapping ring is using its police connections to try to force Shahnaz to withdraw charges, according to Mukhtar and Shahnaz.

The mayor himself has threatened Shahnaz and ordered her to drop the case, she says. The police chief called in Shahnaz and her family, slapped her and threatened to throw the entire family in prison for life unless she signed a paper withdrawing the charges. Then the police tortured Shahnaz’s father and brother in front of her until they gushed blood, demanding that she sign the document, according to her account and her brother’s.

The brother pleaded with her to sign. She refused.

“After what I endured for two years, I refuse to give up,” she said. Shahnaz keeps getting death threats, but she keeps pushing ahead. “I strongly believe in God and the power of truth,” she said.

(Note to President Asif Ali Zardari: The mayor is from your political party, so expel him before he discredits you. And, to the mayor and police chief, a Thanksgiving pledge: If anything happens to Shahnaz, I’m coming after you, armed with my notebook.)

So how about a Thanksgiving toast: Let’s give thanks for the courage of these magnificent women, and to those readers who had the faith to send checks to an illiterate rape victim in a remote Pakistani village.

Thai Prime Minister ousted? Charles gets mail?

Posted in Current Events, Life and the happenings there of at 4:30 pm by Kaihaku

For the few, if any, who read my update yesterday the Thai protesters occupying the Bangkok airports have won. The Constitutional Court, don’t ask me how it works, has ordered the government to disband and new elections to be held. The Prime Minister, who is apparently hiding in northern Thailand, has been removed from leadership. While all of this makes me very curious about Thai politics the immediate effect on me is that, for the first time in about a week, cargo flights should be leaving the Bangkok airport.

Is Siam going to steal my Christmas?

Posted in Current Events, Life and the happenings there of at 1:07 am by Kaihaku

After two years here, Cambodian culture and politics seem relatively straightforward compared to those of their neighbors in Thailand. I’m not going to try to explain the situation but basically in the climax of months of tension thousands of anti-government protesters have taken control of both of Bangkok’s airports. What does this mean for me in Cambodia? Well, approximately twenty-five percent of all air traffic in and out of Cambodia passes through Bangkok and, most importantly for me personally, most international mail for Cambodia passes through Bangkok. So, if you sent me a card, note, package, letter, or postcard chances are that I won’t be getting it until the situation in Thailand is resolved.

12.01.08

Bright Point for the Economy!

Posted in Current Events, Ramblings at 1:11 am by Kaihaku

Well, it would seem that Obama is stimulating one part of the economy already! It’s also quite encouraging to hear that a large portion of the population is taking on the burden of defending democracy by purchasing machine guns so we don’t end up living in a police state like those poor oppressed souls in England.
Coming from America that’s something which has always struck me as odd, watching British television and seeing police who don’t bear firearms. Criminals who don’t have firearms for that matter. Of course that would be nigh impossible in the United States which, with ninety privately owned guns for every one hundred people, has the most heavily armed populace of any country on the planet. In light of that, I have a hard time understanding why people are so afraid of some legal controls of firearms. No one is talking about banning firearms, that would be not only politically but logistically impossible. Personally, if someone wants to own a firearm, fair enough, but there should be some restrictions on it. If a parent wants a gun in their house for protection is it too much to ask that the firearm has a child safety lock? How does that compromise the freedom to bear arms?
Brace yourselves. I am about to reveal a fact that you probably haven’t heard on the news, one that defies popular knowledge and the rampant fearmongering of our age. Crime rates across the United States have drastically decreased since 1991 and, as of 2004, the homicide rate was at its lowest level since 1965. I first stumbled across some gamers countering the claim that video games are causing teenagers to commit violent crimes. I’m going to stir clear of that debate for now but isn’t it interesting how something so positive has gone relatively untriumphed?
I guess I’ve crossed that threshold into rambling. I guess I’ll close with…

“Americans also have a right to defend their homes, and we need not challenge that. Nor does anyone seriously question that the Constitution protects the right of hunters to own and keep sporting guns for hunting game any more than anyone would challenge the right to own and keep fishing rods and other equipment for fishing – or to own automobiles. To “keep and bear arms” for hunting today is essentially a recreational activity and not an imperative of survival, as it was 200 years ago. “Saturday night specials” and machine guns are not recreational weapons and surely are as much in need of regulation as motor vehicles.”

~Ex-Chief Justice Warren Burger, 1990.