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| People from the Boeung Kak and Borei Keila communities demonstrate near Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Tuesday, Sept 25, 2012 for the release of two jailed villagers. Photograph: Heng Chivoan/Phnom Penh Post |
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Claire Knox
The Phnom Penh Post
More than 100 NGOs and human rights groups yesterday urged foreign donors to flag issues regarding land policies, democratic processes and human rights during today’s Government-Development Partner Coordinating Committee (GDCC) meeting.
While the high-level aid conference was once held every six months, today’s meeting marks the first GDCC since April last year after the government indefinitely suspended it in August 2011.
Intended as a preparatory meeting for Cambodia’s main government and donor summit, the GDCC is generally used by the government to provide an indication of where its five-year plan is headed. That, in turn, is meant to inform donor policy in the lead-up to the Cambodian Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF), in which donors typically reveal where aid funding will be channelled and identify reforms they expect the government to tackle.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has said the next CDCF will be held in 2014. Although the meetings are supposed to be held every 18 months, last year they too were indefinitely postponed, and one has not convened since 2010.
Although the Ministry of Finance and the Council for the Development of Cambodia earlier denied knowledge of the meeting, an official within the former department who declined to be named confirmed the GDCC meeting would begin today behind closed doors.
Even though reforms, or Joint Monitoring Indicators (JMIs), are ordinarily approved only at the CDCF, speculation has been rife many will be validated today, prompting a slew of urgent recommendations from the NGO and human rights community.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a representative of a donor country told the Post yesterday that donors had been given “plenty of notice” that the meeting would go ahead and that JMIs had been tabled on the agenda “to review and validate”.
When asked what may have spurred the government to announce the meeting, the source said “it had been a very big year with ASEAN”.
“It’s really important that the dialogue continues; we’ve really welcomed this.”
In the list of recommendations released by NGOs yesterday following a workshop, the groups called for amplified transparency and accountability, land and election reform as well as greater support for agriculture and fisheries.
Chief among the reforms called for was that relating to land, including the “transparent and comprehensive demarcation of state land” and “the adoption of a national resettlement policy … consistent with international standards.”
Dr Sin Somuny, executive director at MEDiCAM – a health sector NGO and one of the workshop’s co-ordinators – said he believed reforms would be approved today.
“It’s also a positive signal that the CDCF may be held earlier than expected. Tomorrow, we will put forward critical governance and accountability issues. That’s our theme, but there is a set agenda, and we are technically observers tomorrow, so we hope to get the chance to raise our concerns,” Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of the NGO Forum in Cambodia, which also co-ordinated the recommendations, said.
5 comments:
I am so and so sad :(( that this NATION once was an EMPIRE and powerful now is going to be disappeared from the face of the earth.
What have they (Khmers) done to be severely punished and their nation be taken away from them?
-They threw God (see Brahmanism & Hinduism) away who built them a great Kingdom then they chose a man called Buddha who gave up all belongings to nirvana as their God. Buddha sees nothing and hears nothing of their sufferings, and never will.
Their ancestor people (Indians) who built the empire for them are the leading men in UN whose troops are mostly Indians now secretly tie to their historic enemy (Yuon) and the failure to disarm Hun Sen/Yuon was not in accident.
The UN cares nothing when Khmer Krom were persecuted by Yuon and took a refuge in Thailand, the UN closed its eyes, because its buddy Yuon desired so.
Khmer sufferings will never be over, even the nation is being taken away from them. They still do not recognize nor they want to see or admit the fact that their fate is not in their idolatry Buddha's hands but in God's hands.
The Lord God gave them a great Kingdom, then they turned their back away from Him, and they mocking Him while they are suffering.
They mock God "Where is God? How does He look? Give me His phone numbers...We are suffering and why God does not see our sufferings...?
Why should the Lord God see and save them when if they never redeem their sins against Him, or they ever pray to God for his deliverance?
They follow their brother Tibetan whose Kingdom was wiped out from the planet.
Mock all as they wish, Yuon took Cambodia already. Without God on their side, they are doomed.
Neil Armstrong went to the moon;
after passing away,they buried him
In the bottom of the ocean.
Khmer empire was not different
from any empires in that time.
Mongolia empire was gone,and etc...
How about Soviet empire was gone
too?Some of them wiped out of the
world map.
Learn history of the world,you relax from your sadness.
3:55 AM
Neil Armstrong was an object for a test sent by the brain (Smart-wise men) on earth. Yes of course he was a first man that walked on the moon in 20th century, but he certainly not the miracle man like Padre Pio.
Even those Indian/Nepalese men who transformed themselves to Buddhas were not gods either. If they were, why none of them resurrected from their deaths and why did not they save Tibet, save Cambodia, and help Srilanaka... from poverty?
Mongolian empire was gone but the original land of Mongolia remains.
Soviet empire was gone, but Russia is still the biggest land on earth.
Yes relax from the sadness and learn from the past, the past said those Hindu/Brahman Kings were so wealthy built the Khmer empire, until the azzhole Jayavaraman 7 switched to Buddhism then hell fallen upon Khmers.
That azzhole Jayavaraman 7 destroyed the sacred place (Angkor Wat), putting his idolatry Buddha in it. Why cannot he leave the sacred Temple alone?
Now ah Yuon thief Sok Kong controls Angkor Wat. For about almost 800 years, only calamities happens in Cambodia, nothing else.
Not that Khmer Buddhists refused to see or acknowledge that Buddhism destroyed the Khmer empire, they keep bowing to the same Indian man called Buddha, while the Indian troops in UN side with Yuon to eliminate Cambodia from the map, so all Khmer land would become Yuon land.
They made that azzhole Jayavaraman 7 as a hero? Oh yeahh, he was Khmers' sin that sent to destroy Khmer Empire. I think he is in hell right now along with all Buddhist Khmer kings/queens.
Glory to God that Hindu Kings who worshiped Him.
When the Khmer Empire was built, the nation was rich and powerful, so those Hindu Khmer Kings bowed down and pray "Glory to God the Highest for helping this empire to rise".
When the Buddhists invaded, they pray "Glory to Buddha the highest" then suddenly the empire collapsed.
It is a good move that these protesters did not carry the traitor photos (Hun Xen and his wife).
These people are victims, they are fed up so who else they can rely on beside carrying Buddha, although Buddha is dead and cannot do anything to help but it is better than carrying the traitor photos.
But if they are educated and understand that Buddha was a richest man in His country who gave up all He had to reach nirvana, He engaged nothing with politics nor desired for wealth, then carrying Buddha against the evil traitors is only against Buddha's will and His teachings. Because Buddha was a man wanted to reach nirvana only. His teachings are one purpose "End the sufferings" to reach nirvana.
Why cannot the organizer of this demonstration have photos of the destruction and suffering of the people in Beung Kok instead, So the world can see what went wrong with the traitors in Cambodia?
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