All the News Without Fear or Favor The CAMBODIA DAILY Volume 67 Issue 49 Thursday, March 9, 2017 2,000 riel/50 cents Parties Pledge Commune More Power Chiefs Attack For Women CNRP Slogan By Kuch Naren By Van Roeun and Ben Sokhean and Zsombor Peter The Cambodia Daily The Cambodia Daily For the ruling CPP, the prom- The ruling CPP launched a ise was to appoint a woman as coordinated campaign against its governor for one of the country’s main rival’s “inciting” campaign 25 provinces. For the opposition slogan with a barrage of largely CNRP, its boast was having 60 identical complaints after the female commune chief candi- CNRP refused to abandon the dates—up from fewer than 10— tagline despite the threat of a to run in Cambodia’s 1,646 com- lawsuit. munes for this year’s elections. Government mouthpiece Though both parties’ propos- Fresh News on Tuesday night als remained a long way from started posting letters from achieving gender parity, they CPP commune chiefs taking nevertheless used the occasion offense to the campaign slogan of International Women’s Day the CNRP adopted last week yesterday to put forward com- for the upcoming commune peting claims of being the more elections: “Change commune woman-friendly party at cele- chiefs who serve the party and brations around Phnom Penh. replace them with commune Speaking at an event on the chiefs who serve the people.” city’s Koh Pich island, Prime By yesterday afternoon, Fresh Minister Hun Sen announced News and a pro-government that the government was pre- newspaper had posted 19 of the paring to appoint at least one complaints, all from CPP com- woman as a provincial governor mune chiefs in Phnom Penh. and increase the number of fe- They varied by only a few details. male leaders in the military. The commune chiefs say the He reminded the audience CNRP’s slogan is an insult to that the government already had Prime Minister Hun Sen and his wife Bun Rany attend an everyone who voted for them, a quota policy designed to in- International Women’s Day event in Phnom Penh yesterday, amounted to “incitement” and clude more women in politics, top, while CNRP President Kem Sokha celebrates in Meanchey threatened to spark “local Continued on page 2 district, in photographs posted to the leaders’ Facebook pages. Continued on page 7 Indian Slum Residents Get Life-Altering Addresses Reuters Roy received something he made so many things possible, had always thought impossible: like receiving our mail at home KOLKATA - It’s not easy giving an address, which has helped his and opening a bank account,” directions when you live in a family access social benefits and said Roy, a student, showing his slum. open a bank account, previously bank passbook. All his life, Dipak Roy had out of reach. About a third of India’s 1.25 identified his home as the one “I did not think I would billion people live in cities, with on the corner, down the third have an address as long as I numbers rising every year as tens by-lane, near the hospital on the lived here,” he said, gesturing of thousands of people leave vil- Travel Required to See Three- main road in the Panchanantala to the tiny homes that surround- lages to seek better prospects. Part ‘Here I Stand in Time’ slum in Kolkata. ed his own. Many end up in overcrowded Page 6 Then a year ago, that changed. “Having this address has Continued on page 23 The Daily Newspaper of Record Since 1993 cambodiadaily.com 2 National The CAMBODIA DAILY Thursday, March 9, 2017 And Also... Newsmakers Flour-Power Street Battle Rocks Town in Greece The Hottest Tickets May Be From Ponzi Scheme Greek villagers staged a street battle on Monday with Entertainment featuring Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and bags of colored flour in an annual tradition called the The Rolling Stones are now part of a U.S. regulator’s expanded Flour War.” The event attracts visitors from across the country to lawsuit accusing two men of running a Ponzi scheme centered the coastal fishing town of Galaxidi. “Clean Monday” celebrations on the resale of tickets to events such as the smash Broadway mark the end of carnival season and the beginning of the Greek musical “Hamilton.” In an amended complaint filed on Tuesday, Orthodox Lent fast. “It’s an outburst. You let off steam. What the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Joseph Meli, else to do?” participant Efi said. “If you are feeling downcast in 42, and Matthew Harriton, 52, raised more than $97 million from Athens, the villages, anywhere with this [economic] crisis, you at least 138 investors as part of their scheme. That is up from come here and let off steam.” Villagers fill hundreds of bags with $81 million raised from at least 125 investors when the alleged flour, tinted with food coloring, to be used as bombs. Participants fraud was made public in January. A lawyer for Meli did not fire flour bombs and try to douse each other with flour.(Reuters) immediately respond to requests for comment. (Reuters) and 1993. of Cambodia, which boasted that and then it went up from 8 per- Women... Within the national cab- they provide power to women, cent to 15 percent,” she said, Continued from page 1 inet, there is a smattering [they] did not provide a top lead- referring to the percentage of of high-ranking women: Ing ership position to a woman like elected commune officials who and women across the country Kantha Phavy, the minister the CNRP did,” he said. were women. After the 2012 had been appointed as deputy for women’s affairs; Phoeung At the event, under the ti- elections, she said representation provincial governors and district Sakona, the minister for culture tle “Thousands of Lights for climbed again to 18 percent. governors. and fine arts; and Men Sam Women,” party members also But pure statistical repre- “Our only problem here is An, a deputy prime minister awarded symbolic certificates sentation was not enough, she that all 25 provinces [including] and the minister of National to “outstanding women,” such said, given the lack of policies the municipality has no woman Assembly-Senate relations and as prominent land activist Tep that reflected women’s needs. governor yet,” he said. inspection. Ms. Aun, the former Vanny and senior Adhoc official More of a female focus was After discussing the issue governor, is currently a CPP Lim Mony, who are both cur- needed in areas such as health, with Interior Minister Sar senator. rently imprisoned in separate gender-based violence and sex- Kheng, the pair had agreed to Across town, at a hall in cases widely perceived as po- ual assault, education and em- appoint at least one woman as Meanchey district, opposition litically motivated. ployment, she said. provincial governor when an officials boasted of their supe- Ros Sopheap, executive di- She added that more wom- opening appeared, he said. rior progress in empowering rector of gender equality group en—“not only one or two”— “So any province where the women, and screened a short Gender and Development for should be appointed provincial governor is going to retire or film blaming City Hall for the Cambodia, said the government governors. [there is] any change, we will death of Pen Kunthea, a sex had, as promised, gradually in- “We have 25 provinces. I put a woman as the replacement worker who died trying to flee creased the number of women think at least 10 women should in at least one province, or two the notoriously violent Daun in politics. be taking positions of provincial provinces is much better,” Mr. Penh district security guards Mr. Hun Sen “said before the governor,” she said. Hun Sen said. in January. commune elections in 2007 that (Additional reporting by Han- The premier also promised Appearing in a pre-recorded he wanted to see more women, nah Hawkins) to appoint more women as army video, former CNRP President commanders and military police Sam Rainsy—who resigned commanders. last month but remains a fig- National Brief “We have appointed many urehead—said the party had women in the position as sec- registered 60 women to run as retaries and undersecretaries of commune chiefs in the June Agreement Allows S Korea to Manage Forests states, but I want to go deeper,” commune elections, up from South Korea will manage the replanting of trees on former he said. fewer than 10 in 2012. economic land concessions—with an eye toward eventually en- “In return, I appeal for wom- He said he expected at least tering Cambodia’s logging industry—under a tentative agreement en themselves to improve their 500 female CNRP candidates between the two countries, Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon own capacities,” he added. to be elected as commune said yesterday. Mr. Sakhon said the agreement’s goal was to Mr. Hun Sen said the last chiefs, deputy chiefs or coun- protect forests and combat climate change by allowing South female provincial governor—in cilors. There are 11,572 seats Korea to manage swaths of former land concessions that were the early 1990s—had proven up for grabs. returned to the state. Such concessions faced mounting criticism that women were up to the job. Kem Sokha, who was the for causing rampant deforestation and forced evictions. In 2012, “Her Excellency Lak Aun party’s deputy but replaced Mr. Prime Minister Hun Sen halted them. About 2 million hectares was the governor of Ratanakkiri Rainsy as leader at a congress have since been confiscated, and about 1 million of those have province during the period the last week, said the appointment been promised to poor, landless families.