International Aid in Context

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Friday, June 11, 2010
Op-Ed by MP

IT should be apparent to all concerned by now that there can be no scope for meaningful reforms leading to the growth of civil society unless political institutions themselves are overhauled. One could say Cambodia had a brief flirt with democracy in 1990s which was violently snuffed out by the coup in 1997 as the Hanoi backed CPP could not see its survival being secured under genuine political pluralism.

It was not so much because Cambodia herself was not ripe or ready for democracy, but subsequent developments (such as the current secrecy surrounding border delineation between Cambodia and Vietnam) indicate that her socialist neighbour to the east was not in the mood to see a vibrant democratic state flourishing next door either. That would be destabilising to a regime which was just content to inaugurate economic reforms without loosening its political grip on their 90 million subjects.

So one could see here domino theory being applied in reverse - a factor in US foreign policy in the 1960s and 1970s in this part of the world.

The donors know the Cambodian regime has holes in its pocket, yet they see nothing wrong in putting their cash into that pocket. If their long term aim is to engage the social rebuilding of a fractured post-war country, irrespective of, or in denial of political liberty and human rights, then they could perhaps succeed to an extent. The state then as repressive as it has been could only be made to feel more invincible and impudent in its flagrant excesses. With every road paved and bridge constructed through loans and donors' money, it is another concrete evidence of a 'win win' strategy and a platform for the ruling party to engineer electoral outcomes at the expense of the politically disenfranchised opposition.

How can judges and policing personnel be trained to be professional in the exercising of their respective duties where their appointments were decided and offices formed solely on the basis of their political affiliations and party memberships?

What are the donors playing at exactly beside fuelling authoritarian rule and giving sustenance to a regime that refuses to accept that it has long outlived its usefulness? If, on the other hand, the donors are pouring in their aid with a view to counteracting growing Chinese influence in the country without insisting on concrete betterment in its governance or even poverty alleviation, they are possibly doing what the Chinese themselves have been decried for doing: aiding rogue regimes.

One is not surprised to learn that Western governments and donors (which include Japan and Australia) do not always make an effort to replicate their domestic conditions or norms through their actions overseas, and this fact can be excused with or tempered by reference to extenuating circumstances, yet the extent to which their own electorate have effectively been kept in the dark over their missions in places like Cambodia is quite alarming. For most people around the world living in aid dependent countries the whole culture of international aid and provision has proved more often than not to be a mixed blessing. The immediate effect of this culture has been to distort the economic realities of the local people by creating a sudden boom in expatriate driven economy that puts some locals in their blessed shade, but many out of their means.

It is perhaps no accident that Cambodia - not unlike most developing countries that have the good fortune of being the chosen ones among recipients of international finance and assistance – is a land of extremes – i.e. that between wealth and object poverty, luxury and destitution, power and powerlessness, security and despair...