A festival of death [-Sok Hach: Economic growth in Cambodia has done far less to reduce poverty in his country than in neighboring VN]

October 21, 2007
DANTE RAMOS
The Boston Globe (Boston, Mass., USA)

"Officially, the cost of doing business is very low ... But we feel - foreign investors feel - the unofficial cost is very high" - Sok Hach, Director of the Economic Institute of Cambodia

PHNOM PENH - Cambodia's capital is bustling these days, and people who live here say the streets are ever more choked with motorbikes and cars. But that wasn't the case earlier this month as Cambodians observed Pchum Ben, the Festival of the Dead. Phnom Penh looked like a ghost town, because many residents had returned to their home provinces. People across the country gathered at Buddhist temples to honor their ancestors and other relatives.

Acknowledging the dead is a more pressing duty here than in most countries, after decades of war that ended only in the late 1990s. The worst occurred from 1975 to 1979, when the Khmer Rouge were responsible for the deaths of about 1.7 million Cambodians, though estimates vary. But with a new tribunal investigating the remaining leaders of that regime, the country has a chance to get out from under the weight of its history.

Then again, it's hardly clear that the trauma of that four-year period is what's holding Cambodia back now.

A generation gap

Led by the shadowy Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge sought to build a peasant state where everyone was equal. In practice, this meant banning education, cities, and money; resetting the calendar to the Year Zero; and neglecting, starving, torturing, bludgeoning, and shooting people indiscriminately. The Khmer Rouge were driven out of power by a Vietnamese invasion but fought on as insurgents for years afterward. Although the regime's so-called Brother No. 2, Nuon Chea, is in detention on the tribunal's grounds near the Phnom Penh airport, Pol Pot and most other Khmer Rouge's leaders are already dead.

I am in Southeast Asia with a group of journalists organized by the East-West Center in Honolulu. Everyone here who is old enough to remember the Khmer Rouge years seems to have a grisly story to tell. Heng Ran, 45, was attending a Pchum Ben ceremony at a temple not far from Choeung Ek - a notorious Khmer Rouge killing field that lies a half-hour drive from downtown Phnom Penh. Heng Ran was forced into a women's work brigade, and she lost her older brother and older sister to the regime in 1978. Through an interpreter, she says she wants to see Khmer Rouge leaders on trial. "I want it to open quickly," she adds.

Still, there are limits to what the tribunal can accomplish. The "extraordinary chamber" is an odd hybrid: a Cambodian court with some international judges, staffers, and legal standards. It grew out of years of tense negotiations between authorities here and United Nations officials, who were wary of Cambodia's undeveloped legal system and the prospect of political interference. The chamber is expected to try no more than a half-dozen or so Khmer Rouge leaders. Early proceedings occur behind closed doors, so formal indictments may not come down for months.

Meanwhile, Cambodia is changing rapidly. About 70 percent of Cambodians are below the age of 30. They learned little about the Khmer Rouge in school, and their shell-shocked parents aren't necessarily eager to talk about the blood bath. An organization called the Documentary Center of Cambodia has produced an exhaustive textbook on the period, but the current government is in no hurry to adopt it.

The British Embassy, in conjunction with a Cambodian civic group, produced educational videos about the Khmer Rouge period and about the workings of the tribunal. The filmmakers also recorded the reactions of a group of villagers to one of the videos. Two things are striking: First, some young audience members evidently knew little about the Khmer Rouge, and treated what little they had heard as dark fairy stories. Second, some older villagers laid the blame for all the country's current ills upon the Khmer Rouge.

Other problems fester

Yet the relative lack of healthcare, education, and infrastructure in Cambodia has far more complex causes. Beyond the years of war and foreign interference, the country also suffers from a history of political corruption and uneven development - problems that began long before the Khmer Rouge emerged and continue today.

Even so, the country is booming. Its economy grew by a torrid 10.4 percent last year, according to the Economic Institute of Cambodia, because of gains in garment exports, construction, and tourism. But Sok Hach, director of the research group, says economic growth in Cambodia has done far less to reduce poverty in his country than in neighboring Vietnam.

Cambodia's legal structures aren't sufficient to keep money from flowing to the well-connected. A proposed anticorruption law has remained in draft form for more than a decade. Prime Minister Hun Sen's government makes noises about quick permitting for businesses and low taxes, but would-be investors worry more about shakedowns. "Officially, the cost of doing business is very low," Sok Hach says. "But we feel - foreign investors feel - the unofficial cost is very high."

Indeed, allegations of impropriety reach even into the Khmer Rouge tribunal. Jobs there pay well above the local average. Newspapers here have reported that Cambodian employees, including judges, have been forced to pay kickbacks to government officials who got them their positions. A recent UN audit found that opportunities for political patronage within the court have been rampant.

Nevertheless, the upcoming trials may bring some comfort to people who have suffered beyond imagination, and shed new light on the violence three decades ago. Meanwhile, a new generation of Cambodians has to contend with a different threat to the country's future.