By Joel Brinkley
Opinions
The Washington PostRepresentatives of more than 3,000 governments and donor organizations are meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Wednesday. If past experience is indicative, they will pledge to provide hundreds of millions in aid.
Year after year, smiling Cambodian government leaders attend these pledge conferences, holding out their hands. But first they have to listen as ambassadors and aid officers stand at the podium, look them in the eye, and lambast them for corruption and jaw-dropping human rights abuses.
Each year Prime Minister Hun Sen promises to reform. The donors nod and make their pledges — $1.1 billion last year. Then everyone goes home and nothing changes. In the following months, officials dip into the foreign aid accounts and build themselves mansions the size of small hotels, while 40 percent of Cambodia’s children grow up stunted for lack of nutrition during infancy.
This year should be different. Over the past two decades, the Cambodian government has grown ever more repressive. Now it is actually planning to bite the hand that feeds it: The legislature is enacting a law that would require nongovernmental organizations to register with the government, giving venal bureaucrats the ability to shut them down unless they become toadies of the state.
Eight major international human rights organizations are calling on Cambodia to back down, saying the bill is “the most significant threat to the country’s civil society in many years.” Donors, they say, should hold back their pledges. But they say that every year, and each year the donors ignore them. Meanwhile, the status of the Cambodian people the aid is supposed to help improves little if at all. Nearly 80 percent of Cambodians live in the countryside with no electricity, clean water, toilets, telephone service or other evidence of the modern world.
All of this might surprise most Americans. It has been decades since many people here have given Cambodia even a thought. Forty years ago, Cambodia was on the front pages almost every day as the United States bombed and briefly invaded the state during the Vietnam War. Then came the genocidal Khmer Rouge era, when 2 million people died.
How many know what has happened there since? Last month, the Nexis news-research service carried 6,335 stories with Thailand in the headline. Vietnam had 5,196. For Cambodia, 578.
Most people don’t know that Cambodians are ruled by a government that sells off the nation’s rice harvest each year and pockets the money, leaving its people without enough to eat. That it evicts thousands of people from their homes, burns down the houses, then dumps the victims into empty fields and sells their property to developers.
That it amasses vast personal fortunes while the nation’s average annual per capita income stands at $650. Or that it allows school teachers to demand daily bribes from 6-year-olds and doctors to extort money from dirt-poor patients, letting them die if they do not pay.
This is a government that stands by and watches as 75 percent of its citizens contract dysentery each year, and 10,000 die — largely because only 16 percent of Cambodians have access to a toilet. As Beat Richner, who runs children’s hospitals there, puts it, “the passive genocide continues.”
You wouldn’t know any of that from the donors’ behavior. You see, for foreigners Phnom Penh is a relatively pleasant place to live. Rents are cheap and household help is even cheaper. Espresso bars and stylish restaurants dot the river front — primarily for diplomats and aid workers.
Donors have largely been able to pursue whatever project they wanted without interference. They knew that the government would steal some of their money. But so what?
“Some money goes this way or that way,” said In Samrithy, an officer with a donor umbrella group. “But it’s useful if some of it reaches the poor. Not all of it does but some does. That’s better than nothing.”
Even with that, many donors feel the way Teruo Jinnai does. He’s the longtime head of the UNESCO office in Phnom Penh. “Here I have found my own passion,” he told me. “Here, I can set my own target. So that gives you more power, more energy, more passion.”
Well, Mr. Jinnai, the noose is tightening. If, as expected, the NGO bill becomes law, government repression will reach out for you, too. Isn’t it time, then, for all those donors to make a statement? On Wednesday stand up and tell the government: I am withholding my aid.
Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is the author of “Cambodia’s Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land.”
22 comments:
Brilliant! I love Joel Brinkley!
Wonder why many poor people of Cambodia have been having lack of food, clean water, medical treatment, proper places, etc.
The money from the International Donors has been stolen by the Cambodian government (CPP Yuon Officials and Hun Sen along with his Yuon wife) along with Communist Hanoi masters.
Those are real crooks and very corrupted.
2:23 PM,
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cheer
rongkhmer ..all blog
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Hey Bitch, bring your stinky virgina over here and Yuon dogs are ready to give you a ride from the rear. Yuon/Vietcong guys enjoy watching x-rate and give you a lot of dirty dongs.
2:23 PM
and
3:00 PM
is the same poster.
This individual thinks he can fool other people. What a dirty trick he play on himself and those around him as to neutralize readers from attacking him.
Ki-Media admin, please delete it as soon as you see it. It's hot healthy for your blog. Plus it's even impersonating your site with http://ki-media3.blogspot.com/.
That Vietgook bitch (2:23 PM) still keeps posting the annoyed websites that related to sex prostitutes and sex business.
Hey Bitch, bring your stinky virgina over here and Yuon dogs are ready to give you a ride from the rear. Yuon/Vietcong guys enjoy watching x-rate and give you a lot of dirty dongs.
Does anybody know when Hun thug will die of lung cancer?
This will be victory for Khmer people.
Short live for cpp thugs.
Short live for cpp cronies.
Short live for samdach Hun Thug.
Long live Samrainsy.
Why dont we Khmer know about this shit. I told everyone about this bullshit corruption 10 yrs ago how khmer government is stealing from the Khmer people. Hun Sen and his CCP got so much money now he dont care who;s say what or will help the country. He kick out the UN, NGO, and world aid. You bring money you can become the government.
Tax office is the most corrupted place that I know. example, Tax paid from Khmer people area the city recieved $5 Millions and High official will reported $3.5. Keep the rest in his Pockets. Hun Sen government will not do anything about it. That how they make money together
Khmer people is being robbed by unpatriot government official inCambodia. I will not sent my son or daughter to died for them.
It will be too late when the foreign donors learn their lessons. All blind charities and donations are nothing but encourage more and more corruptions in Cambodia.
This year give them zero dollar, that's how much they are worth.
Mr Joel Bringley,you did the wonderful job.thanks for posting this article to let the Khmer people and the world know all about these thing.please keep helping our people and our country. God bless you.
9:17PM! they (the CPPs) do not care they make Khmer verry poor and despared so you do what they want to survive and suck from others weakers!!!!
That call systemmatic corruption and oppression! a new slavery!
May motherfucker who suck our livelyhood strike soon by lightning!
9:17PM! they (the CPPs) do not care, they make Khmer verry poor and despared so you do what they want to survive and suck from others who weakers!!!!
That call systemmatic corruption and oppression! a new slavery!
May motherfuckers who suck our livelyhood strike soon by lightning!
Until the international donors take tough stance against this regime in real punitive terms and sanctions, all this verbal gesturing may not amount to anything more than rhetoric for international media consumption.
Hun Sen could not have survived this long without tacit signals of support for or despite, his atrocious self-styled rule, from some western powers, especially, Washington.
Human rights violation is something of a domestic issue for the Khmer people, and despite their public condemnations, these powers seem quite content to let the wounds fester, as they had shown in the sixties, seventies and eighties, whilst their main focus is fixed on incorporating former Soviet client states like Vietnam and her satellites in an effort to balance off Chinese political and regional expansion.
In fact, in decades to come Vietnam, (perhaps, still ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam) will function very much like the other of the US's policeman in the Middle East: Israel.
But, why does the World Policeman need regional policemen?
Or for that matter, why does Hanoi need Phnom Penh and Vientiane to stay under its shadow?
I'll leave this thought to others to ponder on.
1:00 AM
You are right.
Why don't they give directly to foundations that actually help the people instead of through Cambodian government? Who are the block heads?
School of Vice, the truthful words sound really bad, so how do you overcome this problem?
Om Yentieng (Chairman of Anti Corruption Unit) has an discussion with Hun Sen, the ruler of Cambodia today
Om Yentieng: There is in fact about Cambodia government today, they are on top of the list on corruption, authorities abuse of power.
Hun Sen: The riches countries were an idiots, they kept pourring monies into my government.
I don't think these aids donors can get anything from this CPP rulers because they have ten of thousands advisors with PhD graduated in robbery degree and in stealing degree from Tuol Krasag. One of their advisors in a hungry PhD graduated khmer in Sydney CBD. These Phd graduated are very obsessed with their faked degree and they wanted to use their degree for making as much moneys as they can by stealing everything they can put their hand on.
Areak Prey
Hun SEN is moreless like Pol Pot, but a crook, arrogant dictator, slave of Vietnamese. The Western Democratic Nations might wait untill it is too late,to condenm HUN SEN as they did for pol pot.
I praise and congratulate the comment made by Mr Brinkley, a courageous and perfect internationaljournalist. As Cambodian native, I feel so much ashamed to have the most corrupted and arrogant HUN SEN as Prime Minister. HUN SEN and his CCP party are selling Cambodian resources to foreigners, in particular to Vietnam, for their own pockets.They are not just try to kill the Cambodian poor people by peaceful way, but real traitors to CAMBODIA as well by making territorial concessions to VIETNAM.
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