IBJ is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of a substantial grant from the European Union. The European Union is financing the Cambodia, Burundi and Zimbabwe Criminal Defender Programs for a three-year period starting from December 2008. With that crucial support, IBJ will significantly contribute to the eradication of the practice of torture and other cruel and inhumane treatment against accused persons through the effective access to competent and timely legal representation for these countries’ most vulnerable groups. With the support of the European Union, IBJ will foster an enduring respect for human rights culture in crisis-torn Zimbabwe and post-genocide Cambodia and Burundi where early signs of progress and recovery are challenged by the weak rule of law prevailing on a daily basis.

Under its criminal defenders programs funded by the European Union, IBJ seeks to build the in-country leadership of the national criminal justice movements, strengthen the capacity of criminal defenders, judges, police and prison officials. Furthermore, sparking dialogue and collaboration among them has potential to effectively implement the criminal legislation, improve ordinary people’s awareness of their legal rights and provide effective direct case support to the most vulnerable.

“The European Union is made up of 25 Member States who have decided to gradually link together their know-how, resources and destinies. Together, during a period of enlargement of 50 years, they have built a zone of stability, democracy and sustainable development whilst maintaining cultural diversity, tolerance and individual freedoms. The European Union is committed to sharing its achievements and its values with countries and peoples beyond its borders.”

The European Commission is the EU’s executive body.

The IBJ Fellow in Cambodia, Ouk Vandeth, recently conducted a training session for criminal defenders. The training was originally planned to accommodate for 15 participants. However, owing to an overwhelming amount of interest in the subject a total of 26 participants were allowed to attend.The subject of the training was the role of the investigating judge and the role of the defender during pre-trial detention. The materials presented focused on the procedures of pre-trial detention, the process for inquiry into the alleged crimes of the accused, the requirement to obtain an arrest warrant, the methods criminal defenders may adopt to request bail on the behalf of their clients and the rights of the accused to appeal the grounds of their detention when the crime they are accused of is not part of the law. All these issues were covered to provide the participants with an important understanding of how to better protect and represent their clients while awaiting trial.

The participants responded very enthusiastically to the training. All the participants found the training very helpful and recognised their need for such training to further carry out their duties. Many indicated at the end of the training that they we would to participate in further IBJ training session because they believed that there was still a lot they could learn about how to represent persons accused of crimes.

Ouk Vandeth has been an IBJ Fellow in Cambodia since 2006. He has many years experience working as a criminal defender in Cambodia and most recently served as the Director of Legal Aid Cambodia. Vandeth was a graduate of one of the earliest law classes in Cambodia aimed at legal defence. Prior to obtaining his law degree, Vandeth served as a police officer in Cambodia working closely with prosecutors and other department officials.

Thought I’d post one more slideshow of photos to give you an overall taste of life in Cambodia. If you’ve seen the “Welcome to Phnom Penh” slideshow, you’ve seen a few of these photos, but this slideshow includes photos from my travels into rural Cambodia and the Angkor Temples (the soul of the Cambodian people) as well.

If you’re interested, you can see more photos on my website: jeffkennel.com
Click the lower right icon for a full screen display for full appreciation! Might take a few seconds to load depending on your connection.

The last 8 weeks in Cambodia spent documenting the work of International Bridges to Justice and IBJ-Cambodia Fellow Ouk Vandeth have been an encouraging and rewarding experience. I’ve been able to observe and learn a great deal about IBJ’s work here in Cambodia and I hope that I’ve fulfilled my main goal of giving you a realistic and objective peek into the “what, where, when, why and how” of IBJ’s work here.

I leave Cambodia with the hope and confidence that with the continued hard work and growth of IBJ in Cambodia, and, with the continued support of the international community, IBJ’s goal of ’supporting justice for the lives of the many’ can be fully realized.

With that I sign off and present my final post, a series of photos with captions documenting the overall work of IBJ Cambodia over these past 8 weeks. If you have any questions or comments please leave them in the comment section and I’ll be happy to respond to them.

Best,

Jeff
http://www.jeffkennel.com

*for a full screen presentation click the icon on the right-hand side (please allow a few seconds for it to load).

International Bridges to Justice Intern and Law Student Sarah Brundage interviews a judge from Kampong Province about the challenges facing the judicial system and why many defendants don’t have a lawyer and why the accused can sit in prison for months and even years without a trial.

IBJ Cambodia intern and law student Sarah Brundage talks about her chat with a female Cambodian judge that was one of 3 judges in a felony case in Kampong.

IBJ Fellow Ouk Vandeth visits two clients held in detention for over 6 months without a lawyer or a trial. One defendant will finally get a trial with Mr. Vandeth defending him.

Wanting to learn more about the inspiration for JusticeMakers and the man behind IBJ Cambodia, I met with Vandeth one Sunday in his home to ask him some questions about his life and how, coming from a poor family of rice farmers and surviving the Khmer Rouge as a young man, he eventually came to be a lawyer and now an IBJ Fellow. The following is my interview with him split into 3 parts.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

With the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia now starting the process of prosecuting the top planners and directors of the Khmer Rouge atrocities, I thought it of utmost importance to visit Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, or Security Prison 21 (S-21), as it was known, in hopes of coming to a better understanding of the present day Cambodia in which IBJ does its work.

The shock and horror that the people of Cambodia were put through for those three years, eight months and twenty days that the Khmer Rouge were in power and the following near 20 year civil war are beyond my powers of comprehension. All I can do is bear witness, listen, observe, contemplate and attempt to share this experience for those of you who are unable to come to Cambodia to experience this emotionally draining museum yourself.

No Cambodian living today has been unaffected by this tragedy. Children have lost parents, parents have lost children, a brother, a sister, a wife, a husband…whole families. Those that survived live with the horrors of the past. Even those born after 1979 are not immune to the endless personal tragedy that their elders still suffer from. A whole nation suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not something easily comprehended.

This is the reality in which IBJ does its work. A people once again learning to trust authority, law, justice and government.

I hope this small and insignificant photo essay of just one part of the Khmer Rouge horror story provides some context to what Cambodian have gone through and live with on a daily basis. More importantly, I hope it encourages you, as it has done me, to dig deeper into the complicated challenges facing modern day, post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia.

text source: wikipedia
music: John Williams, Schindler’s List-Theme

Greetings! I’m happy to be reporting from the Kingdom of Cambodia for IBJ. I’ll be here for the next few weeks and I look forward to giving you an “eyes on the ground” look into IBJ’s important work here and of life in Cambodia in general.

I’ll be based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capitol city (pop. 1 million) where IBJ’s office is located and traveling with IBJ Fellow Mr. Ouk Vandeth to document the work he does here in the many provinces throughout the country and here in the capital as well.

Let me pause here and give you a little explanation of his name because just reading it I got the pronunciation totally wrong. In Cambodia the Family name comes first and his is pronounced, in American English, like “You” without the “Y” and with a “K” on the end. His first name is pronounced “Wondet,” like “Wonder” but with a short “T” on the end instead of the “R.” Also of note is that in Cambodia you refer to people by their first name, so you’d say “Mr. Vandeth,” not “Mr. Ouk”. Things here are very casual in most situations it seems, so we just call him “Vandeth.”

I’ve had the first week to get myself acquainted with the city as Vandeth and Sarah Brundage (an American law student and IBJ intern here for 10 weeks) were out of town. So without further ado here are a few of the things I’ve seen in this bustling capital city.