Quote:
Originally posted by Radical Edward
sword: catch teh funneh again, please
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Maybe I'm getting too old for this
Here is the original news article upon which my thread is based, maybe people will find it funnier :eek:
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian police have opened fire to disperse more than 1,000 protesting garment workers in a riot in which one person was killed and several injured, days before a regional security summit in the capital.
A Red Cross ambulance worker on Friday said he had heard at least 16 police had been injured, while a human rights worker said he had seen two wounded civilians.
Security has been tightened in the run-up to the arrival of foreign ministers of more than 20 countries, including the United States, at an Asia-Pacific security meeting on June 18.
Political tensions are also high in the troubled Southeast Asian nation, which holds a general election on July 27. Historically, Cambodian polls have been preceded by civil unrest.
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has built up a strong political following among the deeply impoverished country`s 200,000 mostly female garment workers who regularly stage protests over pay and working conditions.
Police fired volleys of shots in the air to disperse protesters.
A body lay sprawled in the street with a bullet wound in his chest. His work card, lying on his chest, identified him as Yoeum Ry of the Terratex Knitting and Garment Factory.
One by-stander said protesters had attacked the steel doors of the Terratex clothing factory, which had been dented and daubed with large red letters saying "No Gap" -- a reference to the U.S. clothing brand -- before police moved in.
Not far away, a burning motorbike sent thick black smoke into the sky. Bricks, stones and AK-47 bullet casings littered the road.
"We just wanted to complain against the manager because he refused to negotiate with us," one woman worker said.
STANDOFF
She did not give the name of her factory but there are about 10 garment factories in the area in the south of the city, most of them foreign-owned and employing about 1,000 workers.
"The manager always tries to get rid of anybody who tries to challenge them," said another, adding that the protest over pay had been urged by union representatives.
Cambodia`s 220 garment factories produced some $1.1 billion in exports in 2001, about 77 percent of the country`s total. Most of the clothes go to the United States, to be sold by big name brands such as Nike, Adidas and Gap.
After the shooting stopped, young workers gathered in sidestreets in an uneasy standoff with hundreds of green-helmeted riot police. Around 20 screaming women surged forward to remonstrate with officers as an ambulance took the body away.
Police fired a warning shot to keep them back.
Human rights groups have accused some factories of exploitation of workers but the International Labour Organisation last year reported "encouraging signs of improvement" in conditions.
The violence is an embarrassment for Prime Minister Hun Sen as he prepares to roll out the red carpet at next week`s summit to show his country is finally putting its violent past behind it.
In a statement issued on Friday before the trouble, Human Rights Watch criticised the government, saying it was using nationalist anti-Thai riots in January as an excuse to clamp down on any form of protest in the run-up to elections.
Nobody from the Interior Ministry was immediately available for comment.