Some Don’t Want Wares of Indian Salesmen

Battambang province – Ramesh left his wife and children behind in India five years ago to set up business in an impoverished former Khmer Rouge town on the Thai border, selling plastic Chinese watches and mosquito nets. Business may not always be good, but the former rebels are “good men, very honest,” and 25 other Indian nationals also live in the town, Ramesh said earlier this month.

“I heard Cambodia is easier to do business, but when I arrived it wasn’t. [So] I had no choice, I just did business,” said the 30-year-old, standing in the town’s dirt road with a collection of watches in each hand.

Indians like Ramesh can be seen in the farthest flung reaches of Cambodia, selling mosquito nets, kramas, watches and plastic household goods-but not everyone appreciates their presence.

In June, the Cambodian authorities stopped renewing the visas of itinerant Indian salesmen, saying they do not practice a real profession.

About 70 Indians have had their applications to renew their business visas rejected and have been advised to leave Cambodia since June, said Kirth Chantharith, director of the Department for Foreigners, which includes the Immigration Police.

“Of course they don’t want to leave,” he said. “They say they want to stay here…. But when we ask about their job, they don’t have [a] proper business-just selling mosquito nets.”

The Indians need to meet the right criteria to stay in the country, like a more serious profession, and documents detailing their employment, he said.

“It doesn’t mean we hate Indians. We just tell them we can’t extend their stay anymore,” he said, adding that the government is still keen to attract foreigners who can help strengthen Cambodia’s economy.

The program is not linked to fears of terrorism, Kirth Chantharith said. However, Khieu Sopheak, Interior Ministry spokesman, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur on July 2: “We are afraid there is something else behind [the Indian salesmen], and now terrorism is happening [in the world].”

Khieu Sopheak was unavailable for comment.

“We are all afraid,” of being told to leave, said Phool, 44, one of a community of about 250 itinerant Indian salesmen living in a small area of Phnom Penh.

Around 1,200 Indians are working in the same profession across Cambodia. They come here because work opportunities in India are scarce, Phool said.

Between July and early August, 43 Indians left Cambodia at the government’s request, said VK Sharma, first secretary at the Indian Embassy in a telephone interview.

The embassy has appealed to Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to allow the remaining salesmen to stay, and is optimistic that its lobbying will prove successful, given the close ties between Cambodia and India.

The salesmen “are doing business here, making things available in far flung areas,” he said. “The Cambodian authorities haven’t told us clearly why they’re doing this.”

Hem Heng, Foreign Affairs Ministry press officer, declined to comment on the government’s program.

Khieu Kanharith, government spokesman, also declined comment, referring questions to Khieu Sopheak and Sok Phal, chief of the Central Security Department at the Interior Ministry.

Sok Phal said the government was discussing the issue, but declined further comment.

Agents may be tricking Indians into coming here with false promises of better work, said Kiran Desai, president of the Indian Association of Cambodia.

The Indian Association of Cambodia has written to newspapers in India discouraging people from coming here to join a similar line of work, Desai said.

“There is no green grass over here,” he said. “We just want to stop more people coming.”

Indian police also broke an illegal immigration operation in the Punjab town of Sirhind on Aug 17, which had helped Indians enter the US and Canada, taking them first via Cambodia, Asian News International reported at the time.

Cambodia needs a stronger immigration law, and closer control over the number of illegal aliens living here, said Chea Vannath, Center for Social Development president.

However, she said: “You need to have sound concerns [about the Indians]. Just to say [selling mosquito nets] is not a proper job, it’s not the job of the government to decide for them what’s a proper job.”

Returning to his Battambang province home, Ramesh said he did not know why the government was asking his fellow nationals to leave.

“It’s good for the government to arrest people doing illegal business,” he said. “I sell watches and mosquito nets-it’s not illegal.”

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