Siem Reap in the News

I gather Cambodia's been making the front pages of the world. I arrived at work this morning to find a pile of e-mails about the hostage-taking in Siem Reap yesterday. I only learned of the incident yesterday at 5:30pm when a friend e-mailed me about it as I was leaving work.

Despite being far closer to the event, there’s not much extra news that I can provide. Today’s front page article in the Cambodia Daily contains a lot of speculation and lists several of the children involved but provides very little additional information. From the different links I've received, I’ve started to piece together a bit of what happened. The most detailed article that I've yet found, both within Cambodia and from foreign services, is this one from the CBC, http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/06/16/cambodia-school050616.html.

As near as I can tell, between four and six impoverished and none-too-bright young men from Kandal province just outside Phnom Penh drove to Siem Reap with a single gun and through unmitigated callousness and stupidity briefly made international news. They took control of a school, demanded $1 000USD, assault rifles, and enough grenade launchers to explode a small city. Control of the situation was sporadic. At least one child escaped simply by running from the building towards his waiting uncle while the hostage-takers were distracted by police negotiations. A two year old Slovak-Canadian boy was killed.

The hostage-takers demands were partially met with $30 000USD and a van that they hoped to drive across the Poipet border to Thailand. Police stormed the van. Two of the perpetrators may or may not have been killed. The others were arrested. None escaped. Selena, my predecessor EWB volunteer with IDE in Cambodia, just posted her thoughts on the subject. I think they're pretty apt.

Earlier in the crisis, the Information Minister tried to link the incident to the Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF), acting in retaliation for their leader’s recent arrest in California. That being said, the CFF have no history of harassing foreigners or hostage taking and their goals are strictly against what they perceive to be Vietnamese elements controlling the government. They also haven’t launched an armed attack since 2000. The Minister’s comments weren’t entirely surprising though as the CFF has provided a useful excuse for suppressing opposition and/or explaining inconvenient problems before. The Prime Minister, to his credit, stated this morning that the perpetrators were bandits, not terrorists, and offered his condolences:

"On behalf of the government and the Cambodian people, I would like to express regret and share condolences for the death of a young Czech-Canadian... who was shot to death."