Phnom Penh: scrapheap of the poor

10 years on from historic coup, success story is blighted by corruption

From Nick Meo in Phnom Penh
Sunday Herald (Scotland, UK)

THE MUNICIPAL dump on the outskirts of Phnom Penh is where Cambodia's luckless poor go when they become truly desperate.

As the monsoon rains pour down scavengers hunt through piles of stinking refuse for bits of saleable scrap or even edible food. At this time of year, with the rain and mud at their worst, they have been known to disappear into water-filled holes or slip under the tracks of the dump's bulldozers.

This is the Cambodia that the tourists don't see. On the surface the nation appears to have become a success story, with its years of mass murder and war behind it; now there is political stability, more than 10% annual economic growth and a thriving textile sector.

But the scavengers at the dump are evidence of the downside - the victims of the corruption and greed which has thrived since the current prime minister, Hun Sen, grabbed power in a coup 10 years ago this week. Since then, behind a veneer of democracy, the corrupt elite around him has become richer and a gaping chasm has opened between rich and poor.

The corruption problem is one of the worst in Asia. Last year, Transparency International rated Cambodia at 151 out of 163 nations in its government corruption index. Yet fears are growing that a dysfunctional political system will soon become much worse.

In three years' time, massive offshore oil wealth will start to be pumped - perhaps as much as 500 million barrels.

It should produce a bonanza which could fund the schools, roads and hospitals that Cambodia desperately needs, but instead it will almost certainly flow into the pockets of the corrupt. The poor could then become even worse off because prices will be forced up as the economy grows.

Aid workers speak of the example of Nigeria, where years of oil revenues have been stolen by the corrupt and life has hardly changed for the poor. The resulting anger there has caused crime and instability - spectres which are beginning to concern diplomats in Phnom Penh.

So far, the poor have had to accept their fate, but with so many dispossessed existing alongside a class of wealthy who enjoy flaunting it there are concerns that political unrest could grow.

The ugliest form of exploitation has been an epidemic of land-grabbing in which businessmen pay thugs or corrupt police to drive the poor from their homes so they can build on sites which are rocketing up in value.

Many of those victims end up struggling to survive in the dump. Some were evicted from urban shanty towns which are bulldozed for development; others were tribal people tricked out of their forest lands or peasants with a few paddy fields which a sharp-eyed developer realised could turn a quick profit.

In the dump most of them live on the edge of the sprawling refuse heaps in a shanty town which they have built from scrap, afflicted by disease and preyed on by toughs. Other victims of land-grabbing live in refugee camps, waiting for help promised by the authorities which never seems to arrive.

The problem is so serious that the UN's Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Cambodia last month issued a report on land-grabbing, accusing the corrupt rich of having a devastating effect on the poor and driving tens of thousands from their homes into destitution.

It is easy to drive the poor off because few Cambodians have land titles. After the chaos of Khmer Rouge rule between 1975 to 1979, when more than a quarter of the population was murdered and property was abolished, the survivors often settled where they could without documents to prove ownership. Following the fall of the regime the most ruthless thrived. Now they are rich.

Illegal logging of the once-beautiful and extensive forests has been another way for the rich to turn a fast buck. Last month watchdog group Global Witness castigated a clique around Hun Sen for making tens of millions of dollars out of logging. The prime minister was furious - with Global Witness.

He also attacked international aid donors when they ticked him off for corruption last month at an annual meeting to fork out millions of dollars in taxpayers' money, much of which will be stolen. Hun Sen pledged to clean up the corruption, as he does every year, and the donors pretended to believe him, as they do every year. The donors don't press too hard. Most are worried that Cambodia is getting too close to China, which is eyeing the offshore oil and making aid pledges without complaining about human rights abuses.

Meanwhile, as the rich build mansions and work out how to make money out of the forthcoming oil boom, the poor are left to survive as best they can.