Hun Sen – Tom Vater

A forest saved? – Cambodia’s Phnom Tamao Protected Forest escapes logging but faces an uncertain future, in Eco-Business

August 31, 2022August 31, 2022tom

A protected nature reserve was spared complete destruction when Cambodia’s prime minister stepped in after a public outcry. Replanting has begun to restore the forest – but with saplings that could be for a timber plantation. On 1 August, 2022, excavators began tearing down parts of the Phnom Tamao Protected Forest, an area of 2,300 hectares […]

Bauk – Gang rape, favorite past time of Cambodia’s young and affluent

January 21, 2013January 21, 2013tom1 Comment

In the light of several recent horrific rapes in Cambodia and the deplorable human rights situation in the country in general, I am republishing a 2003 story on gang rape in Phnom Penh. Cambodian sex workers In the shadow of the Independence Monument in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, young women sell themselves for 6$ a […]

Book Review: Cambodia´s Curse by Joel Brinkley – An American Writer’s Quagmire

July 25, 2011February 11, 2013tom2 Comments

Joel Brinkley’s book Cambodia’s Curse – The Modern History of a Troubled Land is the first book to examine the venality of Cambodia’s current government. Ever since Vietnamese withdrawal (Vietnam liberated the country from the genocidal yoke of the Khmer Rouge in 1979) in 1989, Prime Minister Hun Sen and an assortment of allied and […]

From the Archives: Pol Pot’s Sheet Metal Roof

May 1, 2010May 15, 2011tomLeave a Comment

The following text is an account of a journey to the grave of Pol Pot near Anlong Veng, Cambodia in 2002. It is part of my non fiction book Beyond the Pancake Trench – Road Tales from the Wild East, published by Orchid Books in 2005, which made Book of the Week in the South […]