Re: Silencing Cambodia's Honest Brokers

Dear C,

As a Cambodian American I would like to thank Elizabeth Becker for reporting this problem to the world to hear. This is another method for the Cambodian government to silence the voice of the people. It is so unfortunate that this new law on civil society is proposed during this time, when the world is in an economic crisis. It is probably not by coincidence that the Cambodian government chooses this moment in time to try to pass this law because they know the world is now too busy with their own problems than to worry about Cambodia, a small country of no significance to them.

As an observer from afar I feel that Cambodia has missed many opportunities to right the ship after the election of 1993. I was fortunate to be in Cambodia in February 1992 to witness the arrival of UNTAC in Cambodia. That was the moment I felt Cambodia had a chance to rebuild the country the right way by adopting the model of the Western world such as the respect for human rights, social and equal justice for all, and the concept of democracy. My younger brother, Hann So, took his personal time off from his work to build the Khmer Institute for Democracy (KID) with Julio Jeldres in Cambodia. I was a constant contributor to the bilingual journal Khmer Conscience that my brother created. We introduced the concept of democracy and tried to teach the Cambodian people who had been oppressed all their lives under the communist rules that it was alright to speak up, to participate in rebuilding the country, and not be afraid to vote for whomever they wanted. This may seem banal for people who live in a free country, but for Cambodians who had been oppressed and taught to follow the communist party line, this freedom was all new to them. We were very enthusiastic for the future of Cambodia.

I thought that after Ranariddh won the election he would bring in the right people to help him rebuild Cambodia. I was so disappointed when many of the people he brought in to work in his government started to behave like hungry animals. They sold everything in sight and put the level of corruptions in the Hun Sen government prior to the election to shame. The corruptions were widespread and became the norm. Now it's a culture that is almost impossible to get rid off. It's becoming a cancer in the Cambodian society.

The population of the Cambodian generation that lived under the Khmer Rouge genocide era is now approaching old age. Cambodia is now entering a new phase. Most of today's younger generation has never experienced the atrocity of the Khmer Rouge or even war. For Cambodia to prosper and progress in the twenty first century, the country must reform some of its laws to attract business investments. Cambodia is a small country and does not reach a critical mass yet (in term of consumptions and productions) for the other countries to justify their big capital investments without getting the stigma of condoning and acquiescing to the culture of corruption. It is the duty of the government to clean up the image of the country and set up the rules of accountabilities. Corruptions must be eradicated as much as possible and the standard of the Cambodia education must be constantly elevated so that it can attract high tech industry investments. The culture of cronyism must be replaced with merits based on qualification.

Thank You,

Kenneth