Promises, promises

Logged off (Photo: Global Witness)

Jun 21st 2007
BANGKOK AND PHNOM PENH
The Economist

Hun Sen runs rings round his donors

THIS week saw an annual ritual acted out between Cambodia's government and its ravening hordes of foreign donors. The donors tut-tut at the government's breaking of last year's promises to curb corruption and human-rights abuses. The government trots out the same promises all over again. The donors laud its modest achievements in other areas. Then they announce another big dollop of aid. This year the foreign governments, multilateral agencies and charities pledged $690m, 15% more than last year, thanks to China's decision to join the annual aid-pledging process, thus adding its donations to the total.

The promised aid exceeds the Cambodian government's entire annual tax revenue. Fortunately, in light of how much public money is looted by corrupt officials, most will go directly to poverty-cutting projects without passing through government coffers. As ever, the prime minister, Hun Sen, promised that an anti-corruption law, stuck in parliament for years despite his big majority, would soon be passed. The donors know that the law might make little difference, given how erratically the country's existing laws are applied, especially to those in government circles. But it would at least look like progress.

Not all is bad in Mr Hun Sen's government. Its openness to trade, investment and tourism has boosted economic growth to almost 11%. Public finances are on a sounder footing, and education and health services are slowly improving. Deaths and disappearances of government opponents have almost ceased in recent years. But there is little progress on curbing graft and other abuses.

This was illustrated earlier this month when Global Witness, an environmentalist group, published a detailed dossier alleging involvement in illegal logging by people close to the government. The group spent months seeking responses from those it named. Rather than reply, they waited until the report was published and then reacted in their customary, hysterical manner. The prime minister's brother, Hun Neng, a provincial governor mentioned in it, said that if anyone from Global Witness returned to Cambodia he would “beat him on the head until it broke.”

There was a similarly aggressive reaction to a report this month by Yash Ghai, the United Nations' human-rights envoy to Cambodia, which said assassinations, land-grabbing and other abuses were going unpunished. As in previous years, Mr Hun Sen preferred not to respond to the allegations, but fired off a barrage of personal insults at the envoy.

It is only recently that Mr Hun Sen stopped treating the donor governments and agencies with similar contempt. At least he has stopped biting the hands that feed Cambodia. But, says Erik Illes of SIDA, Sweden's foreign-aid agency, there is “growing frustration” at the lack of progress on corruption and human rights. Mr Hun Sen reminds Western donors that if they get too demanding, he can always rely on China to provide soft loans without strings. The big oil revenues that Cambodia will start earning in the next few years will also reduce foreign donors' leverage, laments Mr Illes.

However, argues Mike Davis of Global Witness, the prime minister craves international respectability as well as cash, and China alone cannot give him this. So the donors, if they united to make tougher demands, could make it clearer that his behaviour is beyond civilised bounds. The trouble is that donor governments and multilateral organisations often assign inexperienced staff to Cambodia. That makes it easier for Mr Hun Sen to bully them into silence.