Day: December 5, 2022

Authorities in Myanmar have launched an investigation after a group of women on their way to the market in Yangon region made a gruesome discovery early on Monday morning – 13 broken and waterlogged corpses believed to be members of the Rohingya ethnic group.

The bodies were found near a trash pile in Hlegu township’s Ngwe Nant Thar village around 3:00 a.m., an eyewitness told RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns.

“They are definitely not from this village,” the witness said, adding that the victims appeared to range in age from 17 to 30 years old.

“I think they are Rohingya people. I heard that more than 70 of them were arrested in Hlegu yesterday as well.”

A second source, who also declined to be named, told RFA that the women who discovered the bodies immediately contacted local authorities, who launched an investigation into the identities of the victims and the cause of death.

“We think they are Rohingya people … so we called a Muslim volunteer group and other volunteer groups from [nearby] Pale village,” the source said.

“They went there to take the dead bodies to the hospital and have them examined to determine the cause of death and to open a case in the matter … According to the groups, the dead bodies exhibited signs of injuries.”

The source said at least one of the victims had a “gash on his forehead,” while another had one on his leg, and that all of them “appeared to have been submerged in water for a long time,” despite there being no bodies of water in the area.

“Their hands and feet were wrinkled from water,” they said.

“Some had welts on their backs. Their skin was torn from injuries, as if they had been beaten. The hospital said that they had been dead for more than 48 hours – at least a day before they were found.”

The source told RFA that residents of the area believe the victims may have been killed by local authorities or by brokers they had hired to help them flee squalid conditions in refugee camps in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state and neighboring Bangladesh.

“I heard that the brokers who brought them beat them when they didn’t get the money they wanted,” they said.

“Another possibility is that they were arrested and then killed … [But] I think that it is more likely that brokers killed them.”

Refugee exodus

A military crackdown on the Rohingya, which started five years ago, led to more than 740,000 Rohingya fleeing from Rakhine state to Bangladesh. Of the more than 600,000 Rohingya who stayed in Myanmar an estimated 125,000 have been confined to IDP camps in Rakhine State.

Hundreds of refugees have paid smugglers to transport them to Thailand and Malaysia, hoping to find work away from Myanmar or the crowded refugee camps of Bangladesh.

RFA data compiled between Dec. 2021 and Sept. 2022 found that nearly 800 Rohingya who tried to leave Rakhine state by land and water were arrested in different parts of Myanmar due to intensified fighting between the ethnic Arakan Army and troops loyal to the ruling military junta.

The military confirmed the discovery in a statement on Monday, which noted that the bodies appeared to be wet and had been sent to Yangon General Hospital for further examination. No further details were provided.

Aung Kyaw Moe, an advisor for the shadow National Unity Government on human rights and the Rohingya, told RFA that the military should not be ruled out as a potential suspect in the deaths.

“To kill this many people could not have been easy for any civilian brokers or human traffickers,” he said.

“The junta has not released any news about the arrest and the detention of [these particular] Rohingyas to date … I have advised NUG’s human rights ministry to start investigating this matter.”

Additional refugee reports

The discovery of the bodies came amid reports of two other groups of Rohingyas fleeing camp conditions.

Local media in Myanmar’s Mon state reported that 78 Rohingyas had been arrested when the motorboat they were traveling in docked at the Ka Mar Wet brook at around 7:00 a.m. on Monday morning.

The Southern Post cited an anonymous resident as saying the arrest took place after junta security forces were alerted to the boat by pro-military informants. The resident said that 56 males and 22 females were among those arrested, and that the group included young children.

RFA was unable to independently verify the arrest.

Also on Monday, RFA obtained photos and videos of a group of 160 Rohingyas, including children, who claimed to be floating adrift in the sea off the coast of Thailand.

NUG advisor Aung Kyaw Moe told RFA that he had learned through family members of the people on the boat that “they have a mobile phone onboard.”

He said that a person in contact with the passengers claimed “the boat has been adrift for more than 10 days due to engine failure.”

The reports also follow the arrest in Hlegu township last week of 71 Rohingya refugees on immigration charges, according to a Sunday announcement by the junta.

According to a list obtained by RFA, at least 1,380 Rohingyas were arrested in Myanmar between Dec.1, 2021 and Nov. 11, 2022 – 223 of whom are currently serving prison sentences of between 2 and 5 years for allegedly violating the country’s immigration laws.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

A year ago, a U.S.$6 billion high-speed railway was completed between Laos and China amid much fanfare and hopes that it would fuel exports from Laos and spur growth in the impoverished, landlocked country.

But one year later, most of the trade has been one-way: from China, which exports machinery, auto parts, electronics and consumer goods, sources in Laos tell Radio Free Asia. Laotian exports, hindered by China’s strict COVID policies at the border and other structural barriers, have made up just a small fraction by comparison.

“The Laos-China train carries a lot of goods from China to Laos but only a few [goods] from Laos to China, mainly because of the Chinese zero-COVID policy,” a Lao transport official told RFA. 

Passengers, too, say train service has been far from ideal. Laotians say they face difficulties buying passenger train tickets, which must to be done in person at rail stations. People often waited in long lines for up to six hours, forcing some to pay others to stand in line and buy tickets, though these middlemen charge high markups for their service.

The anecdotal evidence seems at odds with reports from state-run media on both sides of the border. Laos’ Vientiane Times said the railway boosted exports during its first year of operation and helped to revive tourism in Laos, meeting a need for travel between Vientiane and the northern provinces.

China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that about 2 million metric tons of goods, most of which was cross-border freight, had been shipped both ways along the Lao section of the railway to date, and nearly 1.3 million passengers had traveled along the route.

Part of ‘Belt and Road’

A centerpiece of China’s Belt and Road Initiative of state-led lending for infrastructure projects to tie countries across Asia to China, the railway began operating on Dec. 3, 2021, running between Kunming in China’s Yunnan province and Laos’ capital of Vientiane.

The Lao section of the railway handles an average of two trains each way daily, covering 254 miles and 10 passenger rail stations from Boten on the Chinese border to Vientiane. 

Structural problems have contributed to the imbalance. Many Laotian companies are not set up to ship their products by train to China. For example, many ship their goods in small quantities, not large enough to be shipped in train containers.

Rubber, cassava, minerals and potash can be transported by train, but fresh produce like bananas and watermelons still must be transported by truck across the border, the official said.

Laotian companies also encounter barriers at the Chinese border, including getting through red tape and paperwork, as well as import tariffs, the official said.

“The Chinese are very strict about our goods, especially at the border,” he said. 

An official at the Ministry of Public Works and Transport said that Lao officials are working with the railway company and their Chinese counterparts to improve the service by simplifying the process of renting containers for the transport of goods and by reducing wait times at stations.

Mobile app

To address problems with buying tickets in Laos, the railway company began selling passenger tickets online this week via a mobile app.

“It has been difficult to buy the train tickets because they were not available online. That’s why there are a lot of middlemen, scalpers and scammers. They buy tickets then sell them to others at higher prices,” said a businessman in Vientiane, who often travels on the train.

A tour guide in Luang Prabang, one of the stops along the train route, complained that his customers must arrive at the train station early and wait outside for hours in hot or rainy weather. They also have no access to a restroom because the station opens only an hour before the train arrives, he said.

One passenger told RFA on Monday that the railway company should have developed and rolled out the ticket-purchasing app before passenger services were offered for convenience and to eliminate paying middlemen who jack up rail ticket prices.

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Organizers of a Dubai weightlifting competition played a banned Hong Kong protest song instead of China’s national anthem during a medal ceremony, as the city’s organized crime squad investigates a similar incident at a sporting event in South Korea.

“Glory to Hong Kong,” the anthem of the 2019 democracy movement that ranged from mass, peaceful demonstrations for full democracy to intermittent, pitched battles between “front-line” protesters and armed riot police, was banned in 2020 as Beijing imposed a draconian national security law on the city.

The anthem, which calls for freedom and democracy rather than independence, was nonetheless deemed in breach of the law due to its “separatist” intent, officials and police officers said at the start of an ongoing citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful political activism.

Footage from a medal ceremony at the Asian Classic Powerlifting Championship 2022 in Dubai on Dec. 2 showed Hong Kong weightlifter Susanna Lin take to the podium after winning the women’s 47kg open competition.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the national anthem of Hong Kong,” a voice says over a public address system, before the first strains of “Glory to Hong Kong” are heard, including the English lyrics, “We pledge no more tears on our land; in wrath, doubts dispelled, we make our stand.”

‘It’s the wrong one?’

The officials lined up in front of the podium show scant reaction, but Lin, who could be targeted under the national security law if she had said nothing, quickly gestures to the organizers to cut off the recording, using the “time out” hand signal in the shape of the letter T.

“No? It’s the wrong one?” a voice replies.

An awkward pause ensues before the organizers play China’s actual national anthem, the “March of the Volunteers.” 

The Hong Kong government said it “deplored” the mistake, but praised Lin and Hong Kong officials for following guidelines and responding immediately.

“The [Hong Kong] government recognizes the action taken by the Hong Kong representatives on the spot which upheld national dignity,” it said in a statement dated Dec. 3.

It said the Sports Federation & Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China, had promised to launch an investigation into the incident.

“The [Hong Kong] government attaches great importance to the incident and has requested the … report as soon as possible,” the statement said.

Social media support

Some online comments appeared jubilant, however.

“Well done, team Hong Kong,” read one comment under the YouTube clip. Another user said “Glory to Hong Kong” filled them with hope, compared with the Chinese anthem, which describes people forming a “Great Wall of flesh and blood” and marching into enemy cannon fire.

One user commented “Hong Kongers, add oil!”, also a slogan of the 2019 protest movement. User @kaibotski4939 quipped, in a reference to Lin’s hand signal: “T for Truth. T for top notch. T for Tiananmen square.”

Video footage of the error was later removed from official YouTube footage of the event but was reposted by other channels.

The gaffe came after the protest anthem blared out over the sound system at an Asian Rugby Sevens match between Hong Kong and South Korea near Seoul on Nov. 13, in another departure from international sporting protocol.

The incident prompted the Hong Kong government to summon South Korean officials and repeatedly denounce the error, despite public apologies from the tournament organizers, who blamed the incident on the “innocent mistake” of an inexperienced intern.

Ongoing investigation

The government then announced that the Hong Kong organized crime and triad police would be investigating the incident for possible breaches of the national security law, which bans public speech or actions deemed likely to “incite hatred” of the government. 

A letter to the government from the president of the Asian Powerlifting Federation blamed the incident on volunteers working at the event, the English-language South China Morning Post reported. 

The incidents aren’t the first time the playing of anthems at sporting events has become a touchy subject for authorities.

Hong Kong passed a national anthem law in June 2020 banning “insults” to the Chinese national anthem after Hong Kong soccer fans repeatedly booed, yelled Cantonese obscenities or turned their backs when it was played at matches. 

The Hong Kong Free Press news website reported on Nov. 16 that government officials asked “a search engine” to pin the correct information about the national anthem at the top of their search results in the wake of the Seoul rugby match anthem gaffe. It cited local media reports as saying that the search engine in question was Google.

Francis Fong Po-kiu, honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, said the Hong Kong government’s request would have bypassed Google’s algorithm, which typically displays search results ranked according to popularity.

“Hong Kong isn’t a country, so it doesn’t have a national anthem,” Fong said. “That means that if you search for [Hong Kong National Anthem], something that doesn’t exist, the results will be ranked according to the most viewed.

“The authorities can negotiate with the search engine provider, but the other party has the right to decide whether or not to change it,” Fong said.

He said search engine providers can theoretically also hide information from users in Hong Kong based on their IP address, but that the content would still be visible to users outside the territory.

Innocent error

Isaac Cheng, a former Hong Kong pro-democracy activist now based in Taiwan, said both incidents were likely genuine mistakes with no political intent.

“The Hong Kong government’s fierce reaction has … made it so high-profile, saying they will send a national security team to investigate whether or not broadcasting the wrong national anthem violates Hong Kong’s national security law,” Cheng told RFA. 

“This kind of wolf warrior diplomacy holding countries to account for their errors looks ridiculous to the international community.”

Cheng said reports that the government had asked Google to tweak its search results rankings suggested that they wanted to hide just how popular the Hong Kong protest anthem footage was.

“The high search rankings of ‘Glory to Hong Kong’ tell us about how highly this song is regarded by Hong Kongers,” he said. “This song came out of the 2019 protest movement … about sacrificing their lives and freedom for the city they love.”

Cheng said the song is still regularly played wherever Hong Kongers hold rallies or protests overseas.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

A decision by local officials not to allow China to build a “super-embassy” on the site of a historic building in east London is a major setback for the Chinese Communist Party’s overseas influence operations, analysts told RFA.

Development officials at London’s Tower Hamlets borough council voted unanimously on Dec. 1 to reject an application for planning permission for the new Chinese embassy on the former Royal Mint site, citing security fears, as well as the potential impact on tourism, policing and heritage.

The Strategic Development Committee said the plan, which included dormitories accommodating hundreds of employees and a landmark “cultural exchange” building, had attracted dozens of objections from residents of the surrounding area, which is home to a large Muslim community.

The plan was also opposed to by groups representing Hong Kongers in the U.K., who have been attacked both by pro-China thugs and by consular officials on British soils, and Uyghurs, who face security risks from Beijing’s overseas policing and infiltration, which include unofficial renditions of government critics, often by using loved ones back home as leverage. 

The decision came as Canada became the latest country to investigate unofficial Chinese police “service stations” on its soil.

Senior Canadian foreign ministry official Weldon Epp told a parliamentary committee last week that Global Affairs had summoned the Chinese ambassador “multiple times” over the service centers, which have been reported by the Spanish-based rights group Safeguard Defenders in dozens of countries.

British Uyghur rights activist Rahima Mahmut, who heads the group Stop Uyghur Genocide, said Muslims in Tower Hamlets were angry at the plan to relocate the Chinese embassy to their backyard, while other residents were fearful of the impact of frequent demonstrations against China’s rights abuses.

“Just because you have a lot of money, doesn’t mean you can do anything,” Mahmut told RFA. “Particularly in the U.K., which is a country where human rights are respected, and where the voice of the people, their wishes and requirements are taken extremely seriously.”

The decision came after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in his first foreign policy speech that the “golden age” of U.K.-China relations was now over, and as Chinese Ambassador Zheng Zeguang was summoned following the detention and beating of a BBC journalist who was covering recent anti-lockdown protests in Shanghai.

China’s Consul General in the northern British city of Manchester admitted in October to assaulting a Hong Kong pro-democracy protester inside the grounds of the diplomatic mission following a peaceful protest on the street outside. 

Zheng Xiyuan told Sky News that he was the grey-haired man in a hat seen on social media footage pulling the hair of protester Bob Chan, adding: “I think it’s my duty.”

The British government is also planning a slew of measures aimed at curbing infiltration and influence operations by foreign governments, including probing the attacks at the Chinese consulate in Manchester and the possible closure of the Beijing-funded Confucius Institutes in universities. 

‘Elaborate plan to dominate and monitor’

Hongkongers in Britain founder Simon Cheng, who has himself been the target of doxxing threats by pro-China agitators online for highlighting the risks of pro-China violence targeting Hong Kongers in the U.K., said the Tower Hamlets decision was a victory for freedom and for security.

He said the move would likely prevent another incident like the Manchester attack.

“This planning application gave rise to serious security concerns,” Cheng told RFA. “It [would have] intruded into the daily lives of residents around the Royal Mint building, and also affected anyone passing by this super-embassy.”

“The plan to move the Chinese embassy to the Royal Mint was part of an elaborate plan to dominate and monitor Hong Kongers, Uyghurs, Tibetans and Chinese nationals in the British capital, and was a danger to British sovereignty,” said Cheng, who was detained and tortured by China’s state security police while working for the British consulate in Hong Kong during the 2019 protest movement.

Chinese buyers acquired the 200-year-old Royal Mint site in 2018. The planning application involved some restoration and some demolition of Grade II listed buildings, and an investment of £200,000 (U.S. $245,000) in site-wide surveillance systems.

The super-embassy would have been 10 times the size of the current site in Portland Place, making it China’s biggest diplomatic facility anywhere, and the largest embassy in the U.K.

Former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law welcomed the decision via his Twitter account.

“No new mega embassy for [China] in the UK. Great work fellows,” he wrote, retweeting a Royal Mint residents’ association campaign announcing the decision.

The English-language Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid with ties to Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, said the U.K.’s tougher line on China was a mistake.

“Sunak’s remarks are not that surprising since the China discourse in Britain, and more broadly the West, has been poisoned,” the paper said in a commentary published on Dec. 2. “Politicians are competing to be the toughest, rather than the wisest, on China.”

“Overstretching the concept of national security and using interdependence as an excuse to target China would be unwise,” it warned.

In a separate article in Chinese, the paper said the Western media was using the embassy plans to “hype” China as a security threat, adding that residents’ concerns were “unnecessary.”

“The current Chinese embassy in the UK is located at 49 Portland Street, London, with a history of 145 years,” the paper said. “However, multiple offices including visa, education, technology, etc. are located in other places in London, which is often inconvenient for their operations.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Karma Aftab Pureval, the Tibetan-American mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, met with Tibet’s Dalai Lama on Monday at the exiled spiritual leader’s residence in Dharamsala, India.

Pureval, 40, is the first person of Tibetan heritage to be elected to a prominent political office in the United States, and was part of an American delegation led by Greg Fischer, mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, that included the mayors of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Oakland and San Leandro, California.

Also joining the group was Lonnie Ali, a philanthropist and the widow of American boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

Speaking to RFA on Monday, Pureval called it a special privilege for himself as a member of the worldwide Tibetan diaspora to come to Dharamsala, seat of the Tibetan government in exile the Central Tibetan Administration, to meet with the exiled spiritual leader.

“I had never met him before, and this was an extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Pureval said.

Pureval said that he asked what he could do, as part of the Tibetan community in the United States, to advocate for the cause of Tibet.

“And his answer was very simple—to focus not only on the Tibetan cause but to focus on the cause of humanity, to think about all sentient beings and to pray for them, which was very touching,” Pureval said.

“We feel your pain. We understand your struggle. You are not alone and you are not forgotten.” Pureval added in remarks addressing Tibetans inside Tibet. “The preservation of our culture, history and religion is a responsibility that those outside of Tibet feel very personally and very strongly.”

Formerly an independent Himalayan nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity.

Also speaking to RFA, delegation leader Fischer said that he and other delegation members had come to learn from the Dalai Lama, who fled his homeland into exile in India in 1959 after a failed national revolt against Chinese rule.

“He has inspired us for many years as mayors to teach in our cities about secular ethics, compassion, kindness and love,” Fischer said. Fischer said that he first met the Dalai Lama in 2013 when the Tibetan spiritual leader visited Louisville.

“Since then I have kept in touch with him, and as I finish my term of 12 years as mayor, I wanted to make one final trip so that I could bring other mayors to meet His Holiness and keep the relationship going between America’s mayors and the Dalai Lama,” Fischer said.

Following Monday’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, Karma Aftab Pureval also met with Tibetan exile political leader Sikyong Penpa Tsering and with Khenpo Sonam Tenphel, speaker of Tibet’s exile parliament, and with Dolma Tsering Teykhang, parliament’s deputy speaker.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Richard Finney, Malcolm Foster.

Hunting in Cambodia’s protected areas and forests would be legal in some cases under a proposal from the country’s Ministry of Environment that conservation groups fear could lead to abuses that threaten wildlife populations, according to drafts of rule changes seen by RFA. 

The ministry is currently floating amended versions of the Law on Forestry and the Law on Protected Areas, which govern the Kingdom’s forest reserves and wildlife sanctuaries, respectively.

Proposed updates to the Law on Forestry would allow “game hunting on forest reservations owned by the State and other areas with appropriate permission,” the draft proposal states. The amendments stipulate that any hunting “must not greatly affect wildlife populations” and would only be allowed with letters of permission issued by the Ministry of Agriculture specifying quotas for how many of each species can be hunted, when and where.

If amended, the Law on Protected Areas would also allow game hunting as part of “projects that manage conservation and natural resources in protected areas,” provided it was conducted with Environment Ministry approval and in consultation with “all key relevant stakeholders.”

Potential for abuse

The existing legislation allows for some seasonal hunting within the country’s forests but prohibits all killing of animals within protected areas.

Amos Courage, director of overseas projects at British conservation charity the Aspinall Foundation, said the proposed changes are unwarranted.

“The whole point of a national park is that it excludes that sort of activity,” Courage told RFA. “I can’t think of any species in Cambodia that you would have a valid reason for hunting. The only reason that might be given would be revenue generation. 

“It never ends up with the right people, every time there’s monetization of wildlife the possibilities for corruption are so large,” Courage added.

The Environment Ministry’s proposals have surfaced at an awkward moment. Just weeks ago, the head of Cambodia’s Forestry Administration and one of his deputies were charged by U.S. prosecutors with facilitating the smuggling of endangered long-tailed macaques. 

The agency would be responsible for policing licensed hunters under the proposed amendments to Cambodia’s Forestry Law.

Path to approval

The proposed changes would have to get approval from both the country’s Council of Ministers and its National Assembly, which is controlled by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party, to become law.

Nick Marx, a conservationist who has worked in Cambodia for 20 years, said he does not support licensing hunters, for the time being at least.

“It seems unwise from a conservation perspective for the Cambodian government to implement a law legalizing hunting,” Marx said.

“All of the large charismatic megafauna are either extinct in Cambodia or IUCN-listed as endangered or vulnerable,” Marx added, referring to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. “With this in mind it would seem more sensible over the short to medium term to prohibit hunting and conserve our remaining wildlife.”

Endangered species

Tigers were declared extinct in Cambodia in 2016. Cambodia’s national animal, the kouprey, a species of wild cattle, is widely believed to be extinct. Most of the country’s endangered species, which include elephants, Indochinese leopards, wild water buffalo and Eld’s deers, have been hunted to the point of extinction.

Environment Ministry spokesman Neth Pheaktra told RFA that he could not comment on the proposed amendments until they were adopted. He said that he could not give a timeframe for when or if that adoption might take place.

For Carl Traeholt, Southeast Asia program director for Copenhagen Zoo, the situation is not black and white.

“In many countries where you have local communities that are frontliners in their own environment, they have been hunting for survival for generations,” Traeholt said. “I don’t think it’s my right to tell them they can’t do that, so long as it doesn’t undermine the survival of that particular species.”

Hunting happens

Subsistence hunting is already taking place within Cambodia’s protected areas. 

A 2020 study of Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia’s east found that, regardless of licensing, hunting is already taking place in Cambodia’s protected areas. 

Researchers carried out interviews with 705 families living within Keo Seima and found that while only 9% admitted to hunting, 85% reported consuming wild-caught meat and 70% said they preferred it. The study’s authors noted that more than half of the respondents were unaware that hunting was illegal.

Cambodia’s wealthy and powerful have been known to stalk the country’s wildlife for sport. In 2017, photos emerged online of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s son-in-law Sok Puthyvuth posing with an assault rifle and an assortment of animal carcasses. 

Strict quotas

There is potential for licensing and regulation of hunting to play a role in conservation in Cambodia, Traeholt told RFA, but several criteria would have to be in place in order to do so.

“When it comes to hunting in Cambodia, I don’t blame them for putting it on the list of things that could be allowed as a tool in the box, it’s another thing to do it,” he said. “I think they need to do a lot more homework.” 

According to Craeholt, before regulated hunting could be beneficial, Cambodian authorities would have to enforce strict quotas and monitor wildlife populations and they should direct most of the fees and meat from the hunting to local communities.

“My main concern is I don’t really know what kind of species they can hunt without having population issues. Everything is almost hunted out as it is in Cambodia, so it’s not the first thing I’d think of for conservation,” Traeholt said.

“Many of us are a little bit skeptical about the motives behind this kind of thing. Knowing Cambodia, you always get a little bit suspicious about the motives behind it,” he said. “Unfortunately Cambodia is not a place where the governance is of the right quality.”