January 23, 2008By LAO MONG HAY
UPI Asia Online
Column: Rule by Fear
HONG KONG, China, Last December, in a speech at a rally in Phnom Penh to mark International Human Rights Day, Prof. Yash Ghai, the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy for human rights in Cambodia, said, among other things, that "fear -- fear of the state, fear of political and economic saboteurs, fear of greedy individuals and corporations, fear of the police and the courts -- describes the plight of numerous communities and families in Cambodia as they do in many other parts of the world."
Fear on the part of ordinary people in relation to their rulers at all levels of public administration, from village chiefs to the head of state, is a norm in Cambodia, where these rulers behave as masters, not servants, of their people. The concept of "public administration as service and citizens as clients" is absent in the political and administrative culture of the country, where these rulers still consider public services not the rights of their people, but favors they are doing them.
People invariably need to oil the palms of administrators to get things done, be they the registration of births, marriages or deaths; medical treatment at public hospitals; applications for licenses; adjudication of conflicts; or even the payment of taxes to the government. When they are in trouble with the law and get caught, they have an ingrained fear of being tortured by the police. They or their relatives need to offer bribes to them for better treatment.
Nor can people expect the courts to do their constitutional duty to protect the rights of citizens. Accused persons or litigants in civil cases cannot expect a fair trial or the enforcement of their rights when they engage in a legal conflict with the powerful or the rich.
The same special envoy also remarked in his speech about the attitude of the Parliament toward the plight of victims of land-grabbing, comments that are typical of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled across the country: "People threatened with eviction … reminded me that the National Assembly sits only a few meters away from them and yet has long turned a blind eye to their suffering."
Although they have exercised their right to vote and regularly elect their rulers, people do not have confidence and trust in the system and institutions of the country. Aggrieved Cambodians invariably have recourse first to nongovernmental organizations, especially human rights and legal aid NGOs, to seek assistance in getting the public authorities to adjudicate and enforce their rights. They also have recourse to the media to help publicize their cases and convey their requests to their rulers to enforce their rights and find justice for them.
In a report published last October, Ath Bonny, field editor of Radio Free Asia, said: "Nowadays the people don't complain to the government or police: they complain to RFA. Many people see us as a direct channel to communicate with their national leaders, and I think that makes the government nervous."
Such assistance and publicity have made the public authorities angry with NGOs and the media. For instance, in his Jan. 14 report to higher authorities, a commune chief in Siem Reap Province blamed human rights NGOs and RFA for "instigating" a protest by a group of 50 villages to get fair compensation for the damage to their properties due to the construction of a road.
With advice from NGOs or on their own, aggrieved people band together and stage protests against evictions from their homes and lands, the arrests of their fellow villagers or representatives or other violations of their rights, all of which are serious issues affecting many people in the country. They stage such protests locally or in the capital in front of the residence of the prime minister and the Parliament, bracing themselves against the consequences of bans on all public demonstrations and protests.
On Jan. 15, for instance, 40 villagers from two provinces went to stage a protest in front of the Parliament against the grabbing of their lands. Earlier, in November 2007, a group of 30 peasants with sickles in their hands went to the court in Battambang to support their representative who had been summoned to appear and to put pressure on the court not to arrest her in a land dispute case, for they knew that arrest is a common practice used to break the spirit of the weaker party that has a stronger case.
There is an urgent need to allay the fear that is so prevalent in Cambodia and to win public confidence and trust in the government and all public institutions of the country that are now so lacking. This aim could be achieved by the realization of the concept of "public administration as service, citizens as clients" through observance of, and respect for, the rights of the people and the diligent enforcement of these rights.
--
(Lao Mong Hay is currently a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)
Fear on the part of ordinary people in relation to their rulers at all levels of public administration, from village chiefs to the head of state, is a norm in Cambodia, where these rulers behave as masters, not servants, of their people. The concept of "public administration as service and citizens as clients" is absent in the political and administrative culture of the country, where these rulers still consider public services not the rights of their people, but favors they are doing them.
People invariably need to oil the palms of administrators to get things done, be they the registration of births, marriages or deaths; medical treatment at public hospitals; applications for licenses; adjudication of conflicts; or even the payment of taxes to the government. When they are in trouble with the law and get caught, they have an ingrained fear of being tortured by the police. They or their relatives need to offer bribes to them for better treatment.
Nor can people expect the courts to do their constitutional duty to protect the rights of citizens. Accused persons or litigants in civil cases cannot expect a fair trial or the enforcement of their rights when they engage in a legal conflict with the powerful or the rich.
The same special envoy also remarked in his speech about the attitude of the Parliament toward the plight of victims of land-grabbing, comments that are typical of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled across the country: "People threatened with eviction … reminded me that the National Assembly sits only a few meters away from them and yet has long turned a blind eye to their suffering."
Although they have exercised their right to vote and regularly elect their rulers, people do not have confidence and trust in the system and institutions of the country. Aggrieved Cambodians invariably have recourse first to nongovernmental organizations, especially human rights and legal aid NGOs, to seek assistance in getting the public authorities to adjudicate and enforce their rights. They also have recourse to the media to help publicize their cases and convey their requests to their rulers to enforce their rights and find justice for them.
In a report published last October, Ath Bonny, field editor of Radio Free Asia, said: "Nowadays the people don't complain to the government or police: they complain to RFA. Many people see us as a direct channel to communicate with their national leaders, and I think that makes the government nervous."
Such assistance and publicity have made the public authorities angry with NGOs and the media. For instance, in his Jan. 14 report to higher authorities, a commune chief in Siem Reap Province blamed human rights NGOs and RFA for "instigating" a protest by a group of 50 villages to get fair compensation for the damage to their properties due to the construction of a road.
With advice from NGOs or on their own, aggrieved people band together and stage protests against evictions from their homes and lands, the arrests of their fellow villagers or representatives or other violations of their rights, all of which are serious issues affecting many people in the country. They stage such protests locally or in the capital in front of the residence of the prime minister and the Parliament, bracing themselves against the consequences of bans on all public demonstrations and protests.
On Jan. 15, for instance, 40 villagers from two provinces went to stage a protest in front of the Parliament against the grabbing of their lands. Earlier, in November 2007, a group of 30 peasants with sickles in their hands went to the court in Battambang to support their representative who had been summoned to appear and to put pressure on the court not to arrest her in a land dispute case, for they knew that arrest is a common practice used to break the spirit of the weaker party that has a stronger case.
There is an urgent need to allay the fear that is so prevalent in Cambodia and to win public confidence and trust in the government and all public institutions of the country that are now so lacking. This aim could be achieved by the realization of the concept of "public administration as service, citizens as clients" through observance of, and respect for, the rights of the people and the diligent enforcement of these rights.
--
(Lao Mong Hay is currently a senior researcher at the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. He was previously director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 2003. In 1997, he received an award from Human Rights Watch and the Nansen Medal in 2000 from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.)
6 comments:
The Vietnamese installed government do not understand the concept of "public administration" because of high ranking official who have less than elementary education ruling the country. It goes to say that nothing is greater than higher education. With advance degree, (not diploma mill degree) individual are more intellectual to understand humanity, public service, political science etc...and with that knowledge, the public is the client.
Cambodia will always be a land for the greedy, for the scammers, and for the opportunitst without regards to the outcome of the land resources or the next generation of Khmer.
How does one effect that sort of realization in people who, as the 500 reil toilet above noted, have no education but LUCKED into positions of huge power and have no intention at all of playing fair. That might result in someone actually qualified, pushing them aside in the next election. I'm sorry but how long do Khmer people have to wait? Look at Charles Taylor, he's in the dock but no one in the country he ravaged has any hands. The international community refuses to make Aid contingent on reforms despite the fact that the aid is not going to the people it is intended to. This is all very well but purely academic as you must realize. Would revolution make things "better"? Depends on whether the one who ends up in power is.....acceptable to those who give aid otherwise the country will be strangled from without. Don't know...what the solution is.
Dear Dr. Lao Mong Hay,
While I am appreciating your very valuable insight personally, I am afraid that it will just pretty much fall into Hun Sen's deaf ears (if it gets that far at all) aside from he's being already one-eyed. Furthermore, you know it - I know it, and the world knows it - the Viet controlled "melting pot" regime in P. Penh is not going to do anything that is not in accordance with the Viet agenda.
So far we have already seen and understood the meaning of the phrase "Cambodia on the silver plate over to the Viet/Yuon" by Hun Sen and Sihanouk himself.
I also know that you have been at odds over God knows what with Sihanouk just as have been so many other Khmer intellectuals and scholars including Dr. Tith for instance...That alone will not help us at all as long as Sihanouk is alive and well and in support of the Viet/Yuon Federation of Indochina...
My question would be - can we do something else Dr. Lao, if we were to even have the slimmest chance at all to rescue Cambodia from this well-envisioned, well-planned Viet/Yuon colonialism?
Will we let Khmer be Vietnamized from head to toes as one once had feared and predicted?
Very truly yours,
Crazyglue
WHEN PEOPLE HAVE NO CHOICE PEOPLE WILL GO TO BASIC!
WHEN THEIR IS NO JUNGLE TO HIDE PEOPLE HIDE IN THE STREET!
LET NOT BE TREATED AS SLAUTED ANIMAL OR SLAVED!
You have live and live in peace if you just accepted that your are alot better than Pol Pot era.
We are not England or USA we just free for 20 years we need time to catch up with Thailand.
Vietname help us so we have to thank them with evry thing we have. Like parents we will never pay back to Vietname.
Why don't you bow down on your knees to VN if you compare them with your parents?
When attacking KR, they thought and did it for the interest and it happened that coincided with our survival, you would repay them with everything you have? We are grateful but not that stupid!!
Post a Comment