What khmer people do during Khmer new year?

April 13,14,15th 2009

Cambodian New Year or Chaul Chnam Thmey in the Khmer language is the name of the Cambodian holiday that celebrates the New Year. The holiday lasts for three days, most commonly, from April 13th to 15th, although Khmer living in other countries may change the dates so as to celebrate on the weekend. Sometimes the holiday falls between the 14th to 16th of April.

This time of the year represents the end of the harvesting season. The farmers enjoy the fruits of their harvest and relax before the rainy season begins.People in the world always say New Year celebrate their happy festival. They usually schedule and prepare it differently, depend on their belief and tradition. For Cambodian have hold it since past till the present.

The reason that cause to finish the old year for the are that: There have been some people believe that there is a story as following one time there were a person "KABEL MORHAPROHM" who asked three questions to "THORM BAL KOMA, the millionaire's on, who had known the three percepts of "TRAI VITH" and ail kinds of the animal's languages.

They all had promised to cut the head of the person who failed the exam "THORM BAL" have no way to find the solution, he felled very hopeless, fortunately, there were two eagles which had spoken about these questions to make "THORM BAL" could find the way to settle the problems. The time of gambling arrived "THORM BAL " had spoken that:

1. In the morning, the happiness is on the face that is why all people have to wash their face.

2. In the afternoon, the happiness is on the breath to make the people take water to wash the breath.

3. In the evening, the happiness is on the foot to make the people wash their food in the evening.

The result had broken out "KABEL MORHAPROHM" had to cut his head to give to the oldest had take it go around PRAS SOMERU mountain about 60 minutes after they all bring it to put in the center of KUHA KUNTH MALAY of KAILA mountain.

In the end of the year the 7 females angles had changed their turn to take the head and go around the mountain every year till the present. This is the reason to cause "SANG KRAN" or changing the old year into the New Year. Some people have believed that for a period of one year the people always face the problems like diseases or serious obstacles to make them unhappy.

When the one of the year they all had celebrated a great festival called "HAPPY NEW YEAR" and the people always prepare them-self, clean the house, and take food to offer the monks. Cambodian people are playing the Chaul Choung game in New Year Day. They wear new clothes and play popular games. The festival usually is in 3 days period.

The first day is Moha Sangkran

Moha Songkran is the name of the first day of the New Year celebration. It is the ending of the year and the beginning of a new one. People dress up and light candles and burn incense sticks at shrines.

The members of each family pay homage to offer thanks for the Buddha's teachings by bowing, kneeling and prostrating themselves three times before his image. For good luck people wash their face with holy water in the morning, their chests at noon, and their feet in the evening before they go to bed.

The second day is Vanabat

Vanabat is the name of the second day of the New Year celebration. People contribute charity to the less fortunate, help the poor, servants, homeless people, and low-income families. Families attend a dedication ceremony to their ancestors at the monastery.

And the third day is THNGAI LAEUNG SAKA

Tngai Laeung saka is the name of the third day of the New Year celebration. Buddhist cleanse the Buddha statues and elders with perfumed water. Bathing the Buddha images is the symbol that water will be needed for all kinds of plants and lives.

It is also thought to be a kind deed that will bring longevity, good luck, happiness and prosperity in life. By bathing their grandparents and parents, children can obtain from them best wishes and good advice for the future.

New Year Traditions

In temples, people erect a sand hillock on temple grounds. They mound up a big pointed hill of sand or dome in the center which represents Culamuni Cetiya, the stupa at Tavatimsa, where the Buddha's hair and diadem are buried.

The big stupa is surrounded by four small ones, which represent the stupas of the Buddha's favorite disciples which are Sariputta, Moggallana, Ananda, and Maha Kassapa. There is another tradition, that is pouring water or plaster on someone.

For that time they start to change the old year when the angle comes to get the duties from the former angle were schedule clearly. WHEN IS THE KHMER NEW YEAR'S DAY CELEBRATED?

Since the period of Norkor Thom, the Khmer people used the Lunar calendar (The revolution of the moon), that why they dated Mekseh (name of the first lunar month, from mid-November to mid-December) as the Khmer New Year's month, and is the first month of the year. And Kadek (name of the last Lunar month) is the second one.

After that, they turned to use the Solar calendar (The revolution of the sun) as the most, and they dated the Chetr (5th Lunar month) is the New Year's month, when the sun gets to the Mes Reasey. The Khmer New Year's day is often celebrated on the 13th April (Chetr), but sometime it is celebrated on the 14th April, because of the Solar calendar.

The almanac which is base on the Solar calendar is called "Simple arrival or Sangkran Thormada. And the almanac which is based on the Lunar calendar, because the Lunar calendar is relevant to the Buddha's speeches. Beside, the Khmer New Year's day that is base on the Lunar calendar isn't regular, because we sometimes celebrate it in the night of the waxing moon (Khneut), or in the night of the waning moon. However, we usually celebrate it around one month.

Buddhist devotees pour water over the statue of a revered Buddhist monk during the New Year Celebrations. It means that we don't do it before 4th Keut of Khe Pisak (name of the Solar day) of Khe Chetr and not after 4th Keut of Khe Pisak (name of the 6th Lunar month), so that some of the Khmer people celebrate their New Year's day in Khe Chetr, such as the documents written by Mr. Chio-Takran, Khmer people celebrate this celebration with playing the hand-scarf-throwing game and they gather the statues of Buddha from everywhere to bath. In the other hand, the inscription in stone at Preah Khan is also stated this. Talking about there celebrations in this New Year's Day. The Khmer people celebrate them traditionally as below. A few days before the Khmer New Year's day, they prepared some food, clean their house, bought some news and so on.

When the New Year's Day comes, they prepare something such as 5 candles, 5 incenses, a pair of 5 Baysey, a pair of Baysey Baklam, a pair of Slathor (a ceremonial ornament made with a banana tree trunk bake), a tray of cigarettes, some flowers and some fruits to sacrifice to the new heaven. When every is ready, they sit together near that place and light the candles to pray for happiness from the new heaven and start to pray before breaking each other. On the other hand, we have different celebrations during these 3 days of New Year's Day.

On the first day, they take some food to offer the monks at the monastery in the evening, they gather the sand to build up a sandal mountain around the pagoda or around the bany tree in the early evening, and they some drink to the monks and invite them to bany.

On the second day, children give some new clothes and money to their parents and grandparents. They also give some gift to their maids and poor people. In the evening, they go to build up the sandal mountain and start to bany that they consider it a Cholamony Chedey and ask the monks to bony and offer them the food to dedicate this sin to the spirit of the ancestor.

In the morning of the third day, they also invite the monks to bany for the sandal mountain. And in the evening, they bath the monks and statue of Buddha.During this third day, the people also play some traditional games such as the hand-scarf-throwing game, they kick the nuts game, the tug of war game, trot dancing (Battambang, Siem Reap). They also dance some traditional dancing such as Rorm Vong, Rorm Khbach?. etc...

Khmer games

Cambodia is home to a variety of games played to transform the dullest days into a memorable occasion. Through-out the Khmer New Year, street corners often are crowded with friends and families enjoying a break from routine, filling their free time dancing and play. Typically Khmer games help maintain one's mental and physical dexterity. The body's blood pressure, muscle system and brain all are challenged and strengthened in the name of fun.



1. "Tres"

A game played by throwing and catching a ball with one hand while trying to catch an increasing number of sticks with the other hand. Usually, pens or chopsticks are used as the sticks to be caught.



2. "Chol Chhoung"

A game played especially on the first nightfall of the Khmer New Year by two groups of boys and girls. Ten or 20 people comprise each group, standing in two rows opposite each other. One group throws the "chhoung" to the other group. When it is caught, it will be rapidly thrown back to the first group. If someone is hit by the "chhoung," the whole group must dance to get the "chhoung" back while the other group sings.



3. "Chab Kon Kleng"

A game played by imitating a hen as she protects her chicks from a crow. Adults typically play this game on the night of the first New Year's day. Participants usually appoint a person with a strong build to play the hen leading many chicks. Another person is picked to be the crow. While both sides sing a song of bargaining, the crow tries to catch as many chicks as possible as they hide behind the hen.



4. "Bos Angkunh"

A game played by two groups of boys and girls. Each group throws their own "angkunh" to hit the master "angkunhs," which belong to the other group and are placed on the ground. The winners must knock the knee of the losers with the "angkunh." "Angkunh" is the name of an inedible fruit seed, which looks like the knee bone.



5. "Leak Kanseng"

A game played by a group of children sitting in circle. Someone holding a "Kanseng" (Cambodian towel) twisted into a round shape walks around the circle while singing a song. The person walking secretly tries to place the "Kanseng" behind one of the children. If that chosen child realizes what is happening, he or she must pick up the "kanseng" and beat the person sitting next to him or her.



6. "Bay Khom"
A game played by two children in rural or urban areas during their free time. Ten holes are dug in the shape of an oval into a board in the ground. The game is played with 42 small beads, stones or fruit seeds. Before starting the game, five beads are put into each of the two holes located at the tip of the board. Four beads are placed in each of the remaining eight holes.

The first player takes all the beads from any hole and drops them one by one in the other holes. He or she must repeat this process until they have dropped the last bead into a hole lying beside an empty one. Then they must take all the beads in the hole that follows the empty one. At this point, the second player begins to play. The game ends when all the holes are empty. The player with the greatest number of beads wins the game.



"Klah Klok"
A game played by Cambodians of all ages. It is a gambling game that is fun for all ages. There is a mat & dice. You put money on the object that you believe the person rolling the dice (which is usually shaken in a bowl type) and you wait. If the objects face up on the dice are the same as the objects you put money on. You double it. If there are two of yours you triple, and so on. This game is the most fun of Khmer new years.

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China plans to offer $39.7 million in special aid to 3 SE Asian dictatorships: Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar

Chinese FM: China shows sincerity, responsibility, confidence in East Asian cooperation

BEIJING, April 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's attendance at the ASEAN-related summits has shown the Chinese government's sincerity, responsibility and confidence in facilitating the East Asian cooperation, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said on Saturday.
The summits related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are an important cooperative mechanism in the region. All the participants hope the summits can reach consensus and yield a substantial outcome, he said.

Leaders from East Asian countries have shown their confidence in and strong desire for cooperation in jointly tiding over the global financial crisis, despite the fact that the summits were postponed due to Thailand's political situation, Yang said.

East Asian countries are facing severe impact of the international financial crisis that is still spreading and deepening, but these countries have a common desire to strengthen cooperation and tide over the difficulties, Yang said.

China has always actively advocated and pushed forward the cooperation in East Asia, he emphasized.

The ASEAN members had hoped China could play an important role at the summits in pushing forward the cooperation in East Asia, so that the countries could tide over the current difficulties, he said.

Premier Wen had planned to make a three-point proposal at the summit for joint efforts to tackle the financial crisis and promote cooperation among East Asian nations, Yang said.

Firstly, it's an urgent task to cooperate in addressing the global financial crisis, focus the efforts on resolving the most serious and pressing issues, and try to minimize the negative impact of the crisis as much as possible.

Secondly, opportunities should be seized in face of the crisis to make the cooperation in various fields more substantial and vigorous, so as to push forward all-round regional integration.

Thirdly, with an eye on the common long-term interests, firm support should be given to the integration process in East Asia so as to promote regional peace and prosperity.

Premier Wen had also planned to announce a series of relevant measures at the summits, Yang said.

China plans to establish a China-ASEAN investment cooperation fund totaling 10 billion U.S. dollars designed to promote infrastructure construction that will better connect China and the ASEAN nations, Yang said.

Over the next three to five years, China plans to offer a credit of 15 billion dollars to ASEAN countries, including loans with preferential terms of 1.7 billion dollars in aid to cooperation projects between the two sides.

China also plans to offer 270 million yuan (39.7 million dollars) in special aid to Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar to help those countries overcome difficulties amid crisis, and to inject 50 million dollars into the China-ASEAN Cooperation Fund.

China plans to provide 300,000 tons of rice for the emergency East Asia rice reserve to strengthen food security in the region.

China will also provide training for 1,000 agricultural technicians for the ASEAN nations in the upcoming three years, offer an extra 2,000 Chinese government scholarships and 200 Master's scholarships for public administration students from the developing member countries of the East Asia Summit over the next five years, and donate 900,000 dollars to the ASEAN Plus Three Cooperation Fund, Yang said.

The premier had also intended to exchange views with other leaders on the multilateralization of the Chiang Mai Initiative, the construction of the Asian bond markets, expansion of foreign currency reserve pools, widening bilateral currency swap agreements, and efforts to promote the construction of the ASEAN Plus Three free trade zone.

According to previous plans, after the summits, China would sign with ASEAN an investment agreement, which would mark the end of the negotiations on the free trade zone.

The China-ASEAN free trade zone, if established in 2010 as planned, would further strengthen relations between China and ASEAN and exert a significant and far-reaching impact on promoting cooperation among East Asian nations, Yang said.

He said that it is regrettable that delegates participating in the summits could not enter the venue after thousands of Thai anti-government protesters besieged the venue and blocked roads in Pattaya.

Under such a circumstance, the Chinese delegation had shown no fears, waiting in patience and calm, with a hope for the situation to change for the better. Taking a responsible attitude, China has kept contact with Thailand, ASEAN, Japan and South Korea, Yang said.

Premier Wen himself communicated and conducted coordination with leaders of relevant countries, making his best efforts even at the last minute, he said.

When Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told Wen over the phone the Thai government's decision to postpone the summits, Wen said that as a friendly neighbor of Thailand and the rotating chairman of the three countries that also include Japan and South Korea, China understands the decision and hoped Thailand will maintain political stability, social harmony and economic growth.

According to Yang, the Chinese premier also pledged China's unremitting efforts to push forward the China-Thailand friendly cooperation and China-ASEAN cooperation, as well as the cooperation between China-Japan-South Korea and ASEAN.

Wen said that China's policies and measures on furthering bilateral exchanges and cooperation with ASEAN in various fields will not be affected by the postponement of the summits.

The Chinese premier reiterated the above stance when meeting some ASEAN leaders at the airport before flying home, saying that as long as conditions are mature for the holding of the summits, China will actively participate in them, Yang said.

Wen's sincerity and confidence moved the leaders and were highly appreciated, the Chinese foreign minister noted.

Yang said China has genuine willingness, firm determination and concrete actions to boost the East Asian cooperation.

Although the ASEAN summit and other related meetings were not held as scheduled, China will keep close contact and consultation with ASEAN and other related countries, and honestly implement the cooperation plans and measures that had been decided, Yang said.

China is ready to stand together with East Asian countries in the face of difficulties and help each other to jointly confront the challenges, he said.

China believes that after ups and downs, the East Asian cooperation will surely embrace a more prosperous future, Yang concluded.

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Khmer Rouge survivors give voice to their 'silent suffering'

Born Pach, 40, survived a Khmer Rouge work camp in Cambodia and made it to Long Beach in 1989. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)
Um Sath, left, at a Cambodian New Year celebration, lost her sons and husband. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)
Um Sath, 89, at home in Long Beach, shares her story. She and her husband were farmers and merchants along the Mekong River. In the middle class, they were targets when the Khmer Rouge swept into power in 1975. (Ann Johansson / Los Angeles Times)
Veasna Cragn, 58, recalls the executions, the dead bodies, the screaming — and how soldiers killed children with clubs to save bullets. (Ann Johansson / Los Angeles Times)

Cambodian Americans who survived the brutal regime have long buried their nightmares. Some spoke out recently in Long Beach.

April 12, 2009
By Joe Mozingo
Los Angeles Times

At night, the old woman hears the voices of her children crying out for her. She knows they will never stop.
Um Sath is 89, and it has been three decades since the Khmer Rouge laid waste to Cambodia. But she shuts her eyes and furiously taps her temples to show exactly where the genocidal regime still rules with impunity. "We miss you, Mama," the voices cry.

Sath spends much of her day sitting in silence and fighting her mind. For years she rarely left her old clapboard house in central Long Beach. Though she now finds slivers of peace chatting with the other haunted figures at her senior center, she has mostly kept the caroming echoes of the "killing fields" sealed tightly inside her head.

One bright spring morning last month, she let them out -- joining dozens of survivors at a recreation center in Long Beach to face their memories head-on. They wanted to see just a bit of reckoning for the perpetrators of one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.

Since February, a United Nations-backed tribunal in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh has been trying the first of five Khmer Rouge leaders charged with crimes against humanity, for the brutal experiment in communism that took at least 1.7 million lives between 1975 and 1979.

Activists in the United States are trying to get refugees outside Cambodia to submit their testimonies to the tribunal, in an effort to spur a judicial process beset by delays, limited funds and allegations of corruption. They hope, along the way, that they can relieve the emotional torture of survivors who rarely speak about what happened.

"I'm hoping it will allow them to tell the world what happened 34 years ago," said Leakhena Nou, an assistant professor of sociology at Cal State Long Beach, who is leading the outreach effort in Southern California, home of the largest Cambodian refugee community in the world. "The Khmer Rouge leaders are getting old, the victims are getting old. This is their chance to have their voices be heard before it's too late."

Nou has found that survivors of the Khmer Rouge era living in Cambodia and the U.S. have endured what she calls a prolonged "silent suffering."

"What we're seeing with Cambodians is anomie -- a state of hopelessness and helplessness and this feeling of being disconnected from society."

In a children's day-care room at the rec center in McBride Park, Nou explains to Sath and other victims the importance of submitting their written testimony to the tribunal.

Nou understands this tribunal has huge problems. She knows it won't touch even a small fraction of the era's killers. She knows political forces in Cambodia are trying to limit the tribunal's reach. She knows survivors' memories are fragmented and muddled by trauma and time. And she knows that asking them to condense incomprehensible horrors of that time -- the irrevocable turning point in all of their lives -- into a few quotidian lines in tiny boxes on a government form borders on cruel farce.

Description of crime. Date. Who do you believe is responsible for these crimes and why do you believe this?

And Nou hasn't even been assured that prosecutors will read the forms.

But she still hopes this could be a starting point for Cambodians around the world to rally for justice.

She asks the survivors whether, before filling out the forms, they want to get their stories out into the open and tell them to the group.

A slight, pale figure in a checkered coat stands up. Sath's eyes crinkle before she speaks.

She and her husband were farmers and merchants in the rich land along the Mekong River, south of Phnom Penh. In the middle class, with enough money to own a modest brick house, they were targets when the Khmer Rouge swept into power in 1975, brutally turning the country into a collective society of farm peasants. Intellectuals, teachers, doctors, businessmen, government bureaucrats and army soldiers were executed en masse.

Khmer Rouge soldiers showed up at Sath's home with rifles, took her husband away and told her to start walking with her eight children. "Just walk," she recalls. Mother and children had nothing but their clothes.

The countryside was crowded with people treading the rutted roads. Sath held her 6-year-old boy's hand. Everyone was silent.

For days they wandered, following orders. Anyone who complained or asked questions was dismissed by a bullet to the back of the head.

The soldiers barked questions about her husband at Sath: Why did he travel to Phnom Penh so often? Did he work for the national police?

She told them they were just poor people, doing nothing.

They let her and her children return to where she had lived. The family reunited with her husband and stayed for a month. Their house had been burned to the ground -- just a pile of bricks and the skeleton of a stairway. They slept on the ground. There was no food, and they nearly starved, eating only watery rice soup.

The soldiers forced them back on the road, this time to a work camp near Pursat, where they lived on the dirt floor of a straw hut. The family was emaciated, working to exhaustion in the rice fields day after day.

There were no clocks or calendars, just a malignant silence. Time was elastic and unmoored, like in a nightmare.

The smell of death

One day, soldiers came and locked Sath in chains and took her husband away. She said nothing. Days later she overheard soldiers casually mention his execution. She reeled, but kept it inside for her children.

They came again, in the rice paddy. They asked the children all sorts of questions about their parents. They were kids; they didn't know what they needed to lie about. They said their dad traveled back and forth. They said they had had servants.

The soldiers took her three sons -- two in their late teens, and the 6-year-old.

Some time later, Sath heard that other villagers had seen the boys' clothes in the plowed-up dirt where bodies were routinely buried.

They came for her next. They took her to the same field and beat her unconscious. She woke up naked, amid decaying bodies and the smell that, decades later, could bring every fine grain of this horror back to life. She made it back to her hut, surviving several more near-death moments before Vietnamese soldiers ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

So now she stands in this children's playroom, with its drawings of Cookie Monster and Nemo the clown fish, and the words pour out too fast for the translator to keep up. Sath's eyes are fixed on the middle distance.

"I lost my sons, my grandson. They took my husband away right in front of me. They killed my husband. They took my brothers and sisters away. They were all killed by the Khmer Rouge."

The anguish in her face tells of the unspeakable loss in her heart. A man in a gray suit pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his eyes. Another takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose. Women choke back sobs.

Sath thanks everyone profusely for listening.

A stout little woman in a red floral dress and white sandals takes the microphone next. Her face is swollen with emotion before she can speak.

Born Pach, now 40, was a child when the black-clad soldiers came for her parents. They told her they needed to be "re-educated."

They sent Pach to a camp in the province of Battambang to cut rice. She begged to see her parents. But they shouted at her, no, she would not see them again.

One day, the guards accused her of stealing a rooster and beat her. Another time, when she was ill, they accused her of being lazy and sliced the top and side of her head with a knife, and then stuck a burning piece of metal in her rectum.

She saw them slit other children's throats, or club them to death.

Dreams, nightmares

Pach survived the Khmer Rouge and made it to Long Beach in 1989. She lives alone in a tiny Section 8 apartment, watching Cambodian karaoke shows behind a steel security screen door, venturing out mostly just to collect cans. She had a boyfriend for several years. They had a wedding ceremony in Las Vegas, but they never made it official and he left her for someone else years ago. The photos of his family hang on her wall. They're all she ever had.

On her mini-fridge, she has a small shrine for her parents, with Buddhist statuettes, incense she keeps burning and cans of soda for them to drink. She dreams that her mother is talking to her, telling her to take care of herself. She can still see her face.

Pach has sought counseling for depression, but never kept up with it. She has nightmares that she is being burned alive. She thinks Khmer Rouge spies live in her building and record her every word.

But she says she is not afraid of them. She wants her torturers to go to prison.

"The Khmer Rouge killed my parents when I was 5 or 6 years old," she cries at the rec center. "I wanted to see my parents so much, but the Khmer Rouge wouldn't let me. They tied me up. They said, 'No, you can't see your parents.' "

She recounts her injuries, in between shallow breaths, and sits down.

Viasnah Cragn, 58, steps up and tells how the Khmer Rouge shot her sister-in-law in the head as she begged for her husband's life. Her story follows no chronology, just the messy onslaught of images in her head.

She recalls someone executed for complaining about mosquitoes. She tells of giving birth twice, being forced into the rice paddies immediately and coming home to find the newborns unfed -- and dead. She remembers dead bodies left unburied for the dogs to eat, and the carnivores' otherworldly howling at night. She remembers the ghostly silence of daylight.

She describes her husband, starving, falling off a footbridge into the water while carrying a bag of rice.

"I asked for him to be rescued," she says. "They said, 'Why are you so possessive? Your husband is no longer your husband! Your children are no longer your children! You just need to focus on your work.' "

She describes how they killed children with clubs to save bullets. The adults quickly learned to be silent. The children couldn't help themselves. Cragn constantly hears their screaming -- Mommy, Daddy, help me! -- to this day.

Cragn looks at everyone, desperate, beseeching, alone.

"I live here," she says. "I walk around. But I feel like I'm a person living without a soul."

Digging deep

The levee is broken and the stories are pouring out. One woman gets a roll of paper towels to hand around to wipe the tears.

When they get to the forms, 21 people fill them out. No one remembers dates. Places are vague. Only one victim names an alleged perpetrator. The rest do not remember their tormentors' names, never knew them, or are still scared.

A week later, Cragn says she feels that a great pain -- a physical pressure she carried in her chest -- has been lifted by telling her story that day.

"Ever since I did what I did Friday, I feel like there's nothing left of it," she says. "I don't know where it all goes."

But pain has its own strata, and some layers are too deep to unearth. She didn't tell everything that day. She told of other people getting tortured. When asked about her own torture, tears stream down to her jaw before her face is wrung in agony.

"I can't talk about that," she cries.

joe.mozingo@latimes.com

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Thailand has 'deep problems'

'This is disappointing for all heads of government,' Mr Rudd told reporters after returning to Australia. -- PHOTO: AFP

April 12, 2009
AFP
Chaos in Pattaya

MELBOURNE - AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Sunday he was disappointed protesters in Thailand had forced the cancellation of a major Asian summit, saying there were 'deep problems' in the host nation.
Mr Rudd was en route to the summit in the beach resort of Pattaya Saturday when his plane was forced to divert mid-flight after anti-government protesters smashed their way into the event venue.

The meeting, at which Mr Rudd would have held important talks on the global financial crisis, was cancelled amid extraordinary scenes of foreign leaders being plucked by helicopter from the roof of their luxury hotel.

'This is disappointing for all heads of government,' Mr Rudd told reporters after returning to Australia.

'There's important business to discuss on the future of the regional economy given the impact of the global economic recession. And we'll have to, of course, reconvene this meeting at a later time.' Mr Rudd said he hoped Thailand would return to political normality soon.

'Obviously there are deep problems in Thai domestic politics at present,' he said.

'I think all friends of Thailand want to see a return to political normality in the kingdom of Thailand.

'It's going to be important for the future for that to occur and we all urge all parties to adhere to peaceful, democratic means to return Thai politics to normal.' Rudd also urged Australians in Thailand to heed warnings in a government travel advisory issued after the latest unrest.

The advisory warns visitors to stay away from political demonstrations and rallies.

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