Officials Defend Cambodian Leadership, Progress [-If Hun Xen is doing so good, why does Nguon Nhel needs to defend him?]

The vice president of Cambodia’s National Assembly, Nguon Nhel, meets in Phnom Penh with visiting French Senate Vice President Catherine Tasca. (Photo: Courtesy of Nguon Nhel)

Thursday, 01 December 2011
Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC

"Cambodia has continued to make progress despite the world economic downturn." (Bull sic!)

The vice president of Cambodia’s National Assembly, Nguon Nhel, says the leadership of the country is still trusted by the international community, despite some criticism and recent comparisons to Middle Eastern dictatorships.

Prime Minister Hun Sen in recent weeks has railed against critics who compared him to the fallen leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, and in an interview this week, Nguon Nhel, a senior member of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, said international donors have continued their support.

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy resigned from the National Assembly, along with his deputy, last month, in a move he said would delegitimize the lawmaking body by bringing its number too low to hold session. He has called on foreign donors to stop giving aid and loans to Cambodia.

Failure to hold foreign governments to account means that our aid is wasted[: Global Witness' Simon Taylor]

Fonors who are handing over millions of our pounds have the right to ask for minimum standards of transparency.

01 Nov 2010

Letter to The Telegraph (UK)

SIR,

The creed that foreign aid is automatically virtuous is indeed curious (Peter Oborne, Comment, October 29). Aid can, given well, be a life-saver. But, in our experience, this blanket approach to aid-giving has been counterproductive and, in the worst cases, harmful.

We're talking not only about human rights abuses, as reported by Human Rights Watch from Ethiopia, but also the facilitation of large-scale corruption. Corruption is not just about the aid money getting stolen.

In highly corrupt, resource-rich countries such as Cambodia, aid can end up providing basic state services while allowing the incumbent government to use the country's natural resources to fund their own luxurious lifestyles. For many of the poorest countries, natural resources offer the biggest potential for wealth generation. But these resources are finite: once gone, so are those countries' economic futures.

The donor-recipient relationship needs to be more reciprocal, and donors who are handing over millions of our pounds have the right – indeed the responsibility – to ask for minimum standards of transparency over natural resource revenues that will ensure our aid money is not undermined.

Simon Taylor

Director, Global Witness

London EC1

Cambodians can remain pawns, or can hang together against Sen's autocracy

While the world's democracies ponder how to use their power and will to shape the world, Cambodian democrats and rights activists can choose to remain pawns while the democracies and the autocracies deal, or Cambodians can "hang together" in their opposition to Sen's autocracy. If they do not, they risk being hung separately by the dictator.

We live in an interdependent, interconnected, globalized world. Cambodians can act, or not.

FOR PUBLICATION
AHRC-ETC-007-2010
August 17, 2010

An article by Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth published by the Asian Human Rights Commission

CAMBODIA: "Cambodians can remain pawns, or can hang together against Sen's autocracy"

August 15, 2010

Two weeks ago, I presented in this space a contrast of reporter Benoit Bringer's "Cambodge: Les enfants de la decharge" (Cambodia: The Children of the Garbage Dump), a five minute video, and his gallery of photos, showing how Cambodians scavenge Phnom Penh's public garbage dump just to survive; and Andrew Marshall's "Khmer Riche," published in the Jan 12 Sydney Morning Herald, showing the life at the opposite end of Cambodians' economic spectrum – Cambodia's "rich kids" who can spend "$2,000 on drinks in a single night" and whose parents' "newly built neoclassical mansions (are) so large that (Phnom Penh's) old French architecture looks like Lego by comparison."

The contrast serves to forecast Cambodia's unpleasant future, a future the international community sought to avoid when it established the 1991 Paris Peace Accords and invested $3 billion to set Cambodia on a productive course. The current situation in Cambodia and the future it foretells represent an international failure.

Economic Inequality, Conflict, Revolt

Theories abound about economic inequality and its linkage with dissent, unrest, and rebellion by the disadvantaged.

Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) had linked the well-being of a political community with the well-being of the citizens who make it up, and economic inequality with the revolt of the disadvantaged. His analysis on the causes of revolution—"The passion for equality is at the root of revolution," Aristotle said--has inspired students of politics and theorists until today.

One of Aristotle's often-quoted statements reads: "It is in the interest of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so preoccupied with their daily tasks (subsistence) that they have no time for rebellion."

Inequality in Cambodia

Much has been written about inequality in contemporary Cambodia. A few examples: the London-based Global Witness, an anti-graft international nongovernmental organization, detailed in its 2007 "Cambodia's Family Trees" report, Premier Hun Sen's family members, business associates and senior officials, dubbed the "kleptocratic elite," as allegedly engaged in illegal logging and stripping of Cambodia's public assets for personal profit. In 2009, Global Witness's "Country for Sale" report charged, "Over the past 15 years, 45 percent of the country's land has been purchased by private interests." The March-April 2009 Foreign Affairs Magazine's "Cambodia's Curse," by Stanford's Joel Brinkley, exposed United States Embassy-funded studies in Phnom Penh that "showed in stunning detail that Cambodian government officials steal between $300 million and $500 million a year (most years, the state's annual budget is about $1 billion). "

Foreign donors of aid are not blind to what has been happening in Cambodia. But, in the contemporary world in which big and small states still compete for power, influence, wealth; and as all governments are susceptible to their respective interest groups that may clamor for unrestricted economic investment opportunities in Cambodia; there should be no surprise that foreign governments that abhor the current situation of the average Cambodian citizen will not risk upsetting the ruling autocracy and denying the economic pursuits of their domestic constituents by advocating for the civil rights of a foreign people.

The global civil society organization, Transparency International, that leads the fight against corruption, reported Cambodia ranked 158thof 180 countries surveyed on a TI corruption perception index for 2009. In the Aug. 2 Jakarta Globe's "Cambodia's Struggle With Globalization," Australian National University Professor Hal Hill, Asian Development Bank economist Jayant Menon, and Cambodia Economic Association chairman Chan Sophal, reported Cambodia ranks 166th on the TI corruption perception index, and 135th in the World Bank's Doing Business Indicators, out of 181 countries surveyed. They warned: "Achievements over the past decade in particular could be undone by economic crises, or rising civil unrest driven by outrage at the political and bureaucratic excesses."

Politics does strange things

Today's Cambodia of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Decho Hun Sen, (an aristocratic title bestowed by King Father Nororom Sihanouk, himself a former president of a loose coalition of three Khmer factions -- noncommunist nationalist KPNLF, royalist FUNCINPEC, and Khmer Rouge DK -- which fought Vietnamese occupation troops and the Vietnamese-installed Heng Samrin-Hun Sen regime), is far better than the Cambodia of Pol Pot, the master of the 1975-1979 killing fields that took some two million lives.

Without the King Father, China-backed Pol Pot could not have brought down the U.S.-backed Khmer Republic in 1975, a prelude to the occupation of Cambodia by Vietnamese troops in 1979-1989; and without the King Father, Sen's autocracy and his Cambodian People's Party cannot survive in today's Cambodia.

Making Cambodia's current crisis more complex, Hun Sen, who was installed in power by the Vietnamese but is a former Khmer Rouge commander, is now the King Father's adopted son; and the King Father's biological son is now king of Cambodia. The King Father and Premier Sen need one another. Sen needs the King Father to legitimize his rule; the King Father needs Sen to shield him from criticisms of his policies in the Vietnam War era. And the Khmer traditions that inculcates blind obedience and unquestioned loyalty to authority, ensures the Cambodian autocracy's survival.

The Love for Material Gain

Many Cambodians simply love Sen's transformation of Pol Pot's ghost capital of Phnom Penh into a bustling city of 1.5 million residents, with huge villas, modern supermarkets, a 92-floor Gold Tower skyscraper, in a Cambodia that attracts over two million tourists annually.

Recall a survey by a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization, the International Republican Institute, that showed 79 percent of those Cambodians polled say Premier Sen's Cambodia is moving in "the right direction," and cited Sen's new roads, modern bridges, new schools, modern complexes.

Indeed, many Cambodians are now clothed better, housed better, and eat better, too.

Except the more than 30 percent of the population of 14 million live below poverty line--many on less than 50 cents a day.

The discovery of oil off Cambodia’s coastline may be a boon or a curse.

Stability vs. Rights Conflict

Oppression occurs when those who favor stability and security do so at the expense of individual rights. On the other hand, when individual rights and free expression are exercised without restraint, a state of "licentiousness" is reached which breeds instability, insecurity, and chaos. This is no less "oppressive."

In 2006, the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (French acronym Licadho), issued "The Facade of Stability" report that accused the world community of failing to "speak out" against Sen's regular human rights breaches, and warned, "Cambodia's current period of relative calm is no guarantor of meaningful long-term stability, and ongoing, systematic human rights violations will, to the contrary, promote instability."

Fast-forward. On June 2, as Sen's Supreme Court issued a guilty verdict against Cambodian lawmaker Mu Sochua, for demanding justice following Sen's televised abusive public speech against her, foreign donors who met in Phnom Penh awarded $1.1 billion in development aid to Sen.

A day earlier, 15 nongovernmental organizations in Cambodia released a briefing paper, "Cambodia Silenced: The End Days of Democracy?" charging, "Since 2009 freedom of expression has continued to be seriously undermined, with the Royal Government of Cambodia crackdown targeting the pillars of democracy in Cambodia: parliamentarians; the media; lawyers; human rights activists; and ordinary citizens."

"Dogs continue to bark, Oxcart continues its trip forward"

The quotation above from an e-mail to me from one of Sen's officers in Phnom Penh, served to remind that national and international critics and rights groups can say what they will, but the ruling Cambodian People's Party moves forward with the aid and recognition of foreign governments – a circumstance that legitimizes Sen's autocracy. Criticisms that break no bones are a tolerable irritant. The regime banned books, makes threats, violates rights and freedom and the rule of law, makes opponents disappear, intimidates opponents, because it can.

The international community should, and could have, nearly 20 years ago, pressured Sen (and other Cambodian parties) to abide by the stipulations of the 1991 Paris Peace Accord. That, the international community didn't do.

To the contrary, it allowed the Khmer Rouge to contest the Accord; it allowed former Khmer Rouge commander Hun Sen, who lost the first United Nations-organized elections (1993) to seize the co-premiership with the winner to rule the country – an impractical and unworkable formula of a two-headed bird, devised by the King Father to appease Sen and the losing CPP at the expense of his son, Norodom Ranariddh. In 1997, Sen's coup d'etat ran Ranariddh out of town for safety abroad and killed his top officers and cadres. It was the international community that pressured Ranariddh to return to participate in the 1998 elections, thereby, legitimizing Sen's autocracy.

Today, Sen profits from China's unconditional aid as an alternative to the aid from Western nations that preach at him as they write their checks. With Beijing tapping its feet waiting for Sen to run into its arms, the Western nations have lost leverage on Sen.

The Future

Man's hope for the future of a world order in which human rights and free expression can flourish must rest, in the final analysis, on how the world's democracies choose to deal with the world's autocracies.

Former British diplomat, Robert Cooper, of the Council of the European Union, was quoted as saying, today's "struggle for power and prestige goes on as it always has," and "Power is at the service of ideas, but the key ideas are also ideas about power: democracy and autocracy."

While the world's democracies ponder how to use their power and will to shape the world, Cambodian democrats and rights activists can choose to remain pawns while the democracies and the autocracies deal, or Cambodians can "hang together" in their opposition to Sen's autocracy. If they do not, they risk being hung separately by the dictator.

We live in an interdependent, interconnected, globalized world. Cambodians can act, or not.
...............
About the Author:

Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. He currently lives in the United States. He can be contacted at peangmeth@gmail.com.

The views shared in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the AHRC, and the AHRC takes no responsibility for them.
# # #
About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

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...

Groups Want Donor Money Well Spent

Ros Sothea, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Wednesday, 09 June 2010

“The development made by the government has yet to satisfy people."

With $1.1 billion in funding pledged by donors last week, the leader of Cambodia’s minority opposition party and the head of a leading non-government agency say the money should be watched closely to ensure it helps the country’s poor.

Ahead of a two-day meeting last week, members of the development community put forward their own proposals for spending the money, including increased reform of the judiciary, the proper implementation of current laws and protection of the indigenous.

Sin Somuny, executive director of Medicam, which provides healthcare assistance to the country, told “Hello VOA” on Monday that in order to meet such goals, “the right to access to information for local communities is needed.”

Asked whether the aid money will help reduce poverty—a key goal of the government—Sin Somuny said it would depend on the effective use of the money for development.

Last week’s cumulative aid pledge represented yet another increase in money, but Kem Sokha, president of the Human Rights Party, told “Hello VOA” there has been little change in the country’s development.

Human resources, health and agriculture are all major sectors that need attention, he said, so that the impoverished can benefit from the aid money.

“The development made by the government has yet to satisfy people,” Kem Sokha said. “Compared with a few years ago, it is a bit better, but many problems remain.”

Hanoi's puppet Hoon Xhen profits from suppression and aid

Premier Hun Sen Profits from Suppression and Aid

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

"The donors are willing to stamp on their own benchmarks for reform in order to be in the game in Cambodia." - Shalmali Guttal, senior researcher for Focus on the Global South

BANGKOK, June 9, 2010 (IPS) - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is savouring another victory. His latest triumph: a string of verdicts against an opposition lawmaker that has guaranteed him the liberty to insult women and get away with it.

His target, however, refuses to be silenced even after her latest showdown with Hun Sen, who celebrated 25 years as the South-east Asian country’s leader this year. Nor has she changed her views about the Supreme Court, which upheld a lower court’s decision against the outspoken parliamentarian in a bizarre case that also put the country’s judiciary on trial.

The superior court’s verdict on Jun. 3, including a fine of 16.5 million riels (4,000 U.S. dollars), was the third judicial ruling against the 54-year-old Mu Sochua. In August last year, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court found the former minister of women’s affairs guilty of having insulted Hun Sen. In October 2009, she lost again following an attempt with the Court of Appeal.

"I will not pay the fine. They can confiscate my property. They can even take me to jail," a defiant Mu Sochua told IPS during a telephone interview from the Cambodian capital. "I think it is a serious mistake for the ruling party to push this case at a time when the country needs reform of the judiciary."

"The judges were under trial from the beginning," she observed of the case that began early last year, when she first filed a defamation case against Hun Sen. It followed a speech he had delivered in Khmer, where he referred to her as "cheung klang" (meaning "strong legs"), a demeaning term for women in the country.

But the powerful leader of the Cambodian People’s Party turned the tables on the parliamentarian from the Sam Rainsy Party. The ruling party stripped Mu Sochua of her parliamentary immunity to help Hun Sen file a counter defamation charge against her. Adding insult to injury, a court dismissed the defamation case Mu Sochua had first filed against the premier.

Hun Sen’s latest judicial triumph has broader implications in a country struggling to get back on its feet after a 1991 peace deal brought to an end decades of bloody conflict. The timing of the superior court’s verdict, in fact, has triggered questions about the role Western donors have in aiding Cambodia’s reconstruction.

On Jun. 3, while Hun Sen was celebrating the silencing of one of the country’s foremost champions of democracy, free speech and human rights, international donors pledged 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in aid for this year, up from last year’s 950 million dollars.

The largest aid package in Cambodia’s history came at the end of a two-day donor conference in Phnom Penh, lifting the pressure on the Hun Sen administration to push ahead with five areas of reform. Three areas spelled out in 2004 by donors included changes to fight corruption and increase accountability, legal and judicial reform and protection of human rights and public administration reform.

That little had changed over the years was highlighted by a coalition of non- governmental organisation (NGOs) on the eve of this month’s donor meeting. "Serious actions, such as court convictions of corruption cases, remain selective or are limited within certain political considerations," stated the NGO Forum on Cambodia.

The financial windfall for the Cambodian regime – despite a record of defamation lawsuits against opposition parliamentarians, intimidation of the media, a growing list of corruption scandals in the natural resources sector and stripping the environment for private profit – has disheartened civil society groups.

"All the talk by donors about strengthening democracy and human rights in Cambodia is just words; it is not meaningful," said Hang Chhaya, executive director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy, which seeks to champion democratic values in the South-east Asian state. "The Mu Sochua verdict was a slap on the face of freedom of speech."

There is a growing belief that Hun Sen’s ability to get away with bullying his opponents while being propped up by the donor community has more to do with China’s spreading influence in Cambodia.

Beijing’s 1.2 billion dollar package in aid and soft loans to Cambodia in December last year confirmed the battle for influence being waged in a country where one-third lives in absolute poverty.

China gave Cambodia the funds shortly after Phnom Penh deported 20 Uighur refugees from Xingjian, a province in north-west China. Both the United Nations and the United States criticised the expulsion, saying it violated international refugee law.

The Uighurs belong to a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority in China.

"The donors have taken into account China’s economic role in Cambodia," said Ou Virak, head of the Phnom-Penh based Cambodia Centre for Human Rights. "There is a lot of self interest at play."

Some analysts admit that Cambodia’s international donors, who include Japan, Australia, the United States and the World Bank, fear that if they walk away, China will consolidate its control, leaving Western donors "little influence."

Such an act would be deeply embarrassing for the donors for another reason. "Cambodia has become the poster child of post-conflict reconstruction since the 1991 Paris Peace Accords," said Shalmali Guttal, senior researcher for Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based regional think tank. "Donors couldn’t abandon it now for that would mean admitting failure."

"The Mu Sochua case reveals the lengths they are prepared to go," noted Guttal. "The donors are willing to stamp on their own benchmarks for reform in order to be in the game in Cambodia."

Hundreds of Millions Pledged, Many Reforms Sought [... and none of the reforms will see the daylight?]

The meeting between donors and Cambodia government officials at government place, Phnom Penh. (Photo: Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer)

Ros Sothea, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Tuesday, 08 June 2010

“We expect that the Cambodian government will make the best use of our assistance to Cambodia in an effective and transparent way in order to achieve economic growth,” Masafumi Kuroki, Japan’s ambassador, said. “If there is no economic growth, it is very difficult to reduce poverty. So we will strengthen mechanisms to monitor aid.”

Donor countries and international development agencies offered Cambodia up to $1.1 billion in aid this year, which came amid calls for reform. But those reforms can sometimes seem as varied as the streams of aid that accompany them. Local governance, macro-economics, education, the judiciary—each has proponents for reform.

“The money is going down, but there is no local accountability over how that money is spent,” Richard Bridle, a representative of Unicef, told VOA Khmer during an annual donor meeting last week. Once there is local accountability, he said, “they you get the level of scrutiny that allows citizens to be able to hold public servants accountable for the services that are supposed to be there.”

Bridle, whose Unicef pledged $16 million for the government, urged decision-makers to approve local financial laws that could be implemented as early as this year.

His suggestion represents a core reform inside public administration, but it wasn’t the only one. Many conditions were put forward by donors during last week’s two-day meeting.

Donors also pushed for reforms to battle corruption, which costs the country as estimated $500 million a year, or nearly half what donors pledged. The government passed an anti-graft law this year that was 15 years in the making, but it remains to be seen how well it will work. German Ambassador Frank Marcus Mann, in statements during last week’s meeting, asked the government how it will implement the law effectively.

Donors also urged the government to maintain economic stability and to reduce poverty, something they said will require efficient use of the money.

“We expect that the Cambodian government will make the best use of our assistance to Cambodia in an effective and transparent way in order to achieve economic growth,” Masafumi Kuroki, Japan’s ambassador, said. “If there is no economic growth, it is very difficult to reduce poverty. So we will strengthen mechanisms to monitor aid.”

Annette Dixon, the World Bank’s country director, told VOA Khmer at the end of the meeting that she wanted to see more economic diversity, improved competitiveness and investment climate, and land concessions that provide benefits to the poor. The World Bank is also looking for more transparency in managing the revenue of natural resources, she said.

Cambodia’s budget deficit, too, remains a concern.

IMF representative John Nelmes said the government should try to keep the deficit below 5 percent of GDP, which it could do by eliminating tax exemptions and tax holidays for investors that are not in fact the main attraction to them.

The EU, meanwhile, would like to see stronger education and higher enrollment.

“The number of people dropping out of school is still quite high,” said Rafael Dochao Moreno, Charge d’Affaires of the European Commission in Cambodia. “So it is one of the things that you should try to make sure of, that boys and girls have the same rights to go to school. So we can increase the number of girls going to school, and the second is that the rate of students abandoning school should be reduced.”

For all the concerns, donors offered about $110 million more this year than they did in 2009.

International finance institutions, including the Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Global Fund, provided the majority of funding, around $352 million.

Japan offered $131 million, followed by China with $100 million, and the US and Australia with $61 million each. Nine countries from the European Union pledged $255 million, including $65 million from Germany. The UN’s 13 agencies pledged $86 million in total.

Cambodia has around 4 million people living below the poverty line, and donor support has remained a major contributor to national development. Aid has steadily increased, from $700 million in 2006 to $1 billion last year. According to funding data, that could change, with donor funding expected to fall to $958 million in 2011 and $750 million the year after

Meanwhile, Cambodia is carrying around $4 billion in debt.

Rights and development organizations said during last week’s meetings they wanted to see more reform of the judicial system and greater transparency in the management of natural resources, but donor representatives said development can take a long time.

In the end, in a joint statement from the government and donors, each side said they were committed to pushing reforms in public administration, the judiciary, revenue management, and the implementation of the anti-graft law, among others.

Foreign donors pledge record sum for Cambodia

June 4, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

Cambodia's annual donor conference has ended with donors pledging a record 1.1 billion US dollars for the country's development programs. The government is pleased, but there are plenty of warnings that the country needs to step up the fight against social ills including corruption and increasing landlessness.

Presenter:Robert Carmichael
Speaker: Masafumi Kuroki, Japan's ambassador to Cambodia

Click to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

CARMICHAEL: These may be tight times internationally, but here in Phnom Penh the Cambodian government is celebrating another year of record funding courtesy of the country's donors.

Last year foreign donors gave Cambodia 950 million dollars, a record at the time. This year they gave even more -- 1.1 billion dollars -- around half the country's annual budget.

The money is to be used to fund development in areas as diverse as health, education, infrastructure, judicial reform, good governance and more. The list of needs is long.

The announcement came at the end of the two-day long donor conference in Phnom Penh, a gathering of senior government officials, ambassadors, UN agencies and other worthies.

Cambodia's Finance Minister Keat Chhon made the announcement at a press conference, where he confirmed that Japan was again the largest contributor.

But the week has heard warnings that the government needs to improve its handling of public finances. Recent media reports have noted that millions of dollars in revenues have not been properly accounted for.

And other critics say Phnom Penh must be more open about how it spends aid.

Japan's ambassador Masafumi Kuroki agreed that aid effectiveness needs to improve. But he feels that mechanisms now in place will ensure that happens.

KUROKI: There is very increased monitoring of aid between the government and development partners, so I think we have to further promote this process of monitoring of aid.

CARMICHAEL: The week of the conference heard plenty of calls for donors to push the government to combat scourges such as graft and a lack of transparency.

On Tuesday, UK-based non-governmental organisation Global Witness said donors must stop turning a blind eye to corruption and the government's shoddy and opaque handling of natural resources.

On Thursday, the World Bank said improving transparency and accountability in the management of public finances and natural resources was a critical issue.

All of which tells you that the subject of graft is hard to avoid. Cambodia is, after all, regarded as one of the most corrupt countries on earth.

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen told donors that the fight against graft is central to equitable development. And he cited the recent passage of an anti-corruption law and moves to combat illegal logging as evidence of the government's good faith.

Ambassador Kuroki addressed the issue obliquely when he said that Japan was looking at providing 130 million dollars.

KUROKI :That's only an indication, that's not a commitment, but an indication. We want the money will be utilised in an efficient and effective and transparent way, with concrete results on the ground.

CARMICHAEL: He said that while combating graft is important, economic growth counts too.

In the past decade, Cambodia's economy has grown by nine percent a year. But those benefits have not been shared. Around four million Cambodians live under the poverty line, and many others are close to it.

Another key issue is landlessness, which some believe has the potential to spark social unrest.

But Thursday was about the money, and despite tough times globally, Cambodia's donors have shown they are prepared to keep the financial taps turned on.

But that largesse will not last forever.

At some point Cambodia will need to stand on its own two feet. Donor funding is meant to ensure that at some point it can.

Donors pledge $1 billion but criticise corruption

PHNOM PENH, 3 June 2010 (IRIN) - Donors pledged the largest aid package in Cambodian history this week while at the same time scolding the country for failing to implement various reforms.

Donors pledged US$1.1 billion in aid for this year - up from last year’s $950 million - during a two-day conference ending on 3 June. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen insisted his government would use the funds effectively, calling reform a “life-or-death issue for Cambodia”.

But rights groups say donors should take a tougher stance to weed out corruption; the country was last year ranked the world’s 22nd most corrupt by Transparency International.

Activists say much of last year’s money has been diverted from the projects they were intended for, such as schools, roads and hospitals.

“The onus for protecting donor aid falls squarely at the door of the donors themselves,” said Ou Virak, head of the Phnom Penh-based Cambodian Centre for Human Rights.

Donors needed to do more to make sure their aid was put to good use, he added.

The World Bank is also unconvinced there has been adequate progress. "It is important for the government to take the lead in aligning resources to development priorities," Annette Dixon, country director for the World Bank, said at the conference.

The Bank said the Cambodian government had to be more transparent with its public finances and handling of natural resources after allegations that foreign oil companies paid bribes for oil exploration deals in the Gulf of Thailand, off Cambodia’s southwest coast.

Last summer, Carol Rodley, US ambassador to Cambodia, said Cambodia lost about $500 million to corruption each year, a remark the government condemned as "politically motivated”.

"It's normal that these donor countries raise this issue of corruption,” Phay Siphan, a government spokesman, told IRIN. "The new anti-corruption law will reduce those improper activities."

Some lawmakers have praised the anti-corruption law, passed in March, which requires government and military officers to disclose their wealth to an anti-corruption body.

But critics say the law was passed hastily and that it contains disturbing amendments, including prison time for whistleblowers.

Various drafts of the law lingered in the National Assembly, the lower house, for 15 years before the bill suddenly went to the floor in March.

Friction

Despite the prime minister’s assurances, Cambodian officials have in recent months issued increasingly bold warnings to donor governments and the UN, complaining of interference in internal matters when they urge officials to clean up corruption, halt arbitrary land evictions and curtail defamation lawsuits against opposition lawmakers.

In March, Cambodian foreign minister Hor Namhong threatened to have UN country head Douglas Broderick expelled after Broderick had requested the government spend more time drafting the anti-corruption law. The foreign minister called this an “unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of Cambodia” in a letter to Broderick. The UN has stayed silent on the issue.

Cambodian officials claim the country has been transformed from a war-torn pariah state to a politically stable destination for tourists and investors.

But activists say that is not enough. “The aid situation has done pretty well in infrastructure,” Donald Jameson, a former US embassy official in Phnom Penh, told IRIN by telephone from Washington DC. “But there is very little being done about the quality of education, healthcare or corruption in the judiciary.”

About one-third of Cambodians still live on $1 a day or less, according to government statistics.

Playing the China card

Some analysts contend that China, Cambodia’s largest donor, is shaking things up by increasing the size of its aid packages each year, with few conditions. Cambodia now makes more decisions in the interests of China, observers say.

In December, Cambodia deported 20 Uighur refugees from Xingjian, a province in northwest China. The UN and US condemned the decision, claiming it was against international refugee law.

After the expulsion, China awarded $1.2 billion in aid and soft loans to Cambodia.

Aid donors' record COMPLACENCY?

Cambodia's donors pledge record 1.1 billion dollars for development

Jun 3, 2010
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodia's donors on Thursday pledged a record 1.1 billion dollars in financial assistance for 2010 amid warnings that the country needs to improve accountability and transparency.

Japan was again the largest donor, said Finance Minister Keat Chhon, who outlined the government's main focus areas.

'We have our priorities: roads, water, human resources, electricity,' Keat Chhon said. 'These are the top four priorities. We also need funding for legal reform.'

The two-day donor conference, which concluded Thursday, saw Cambodian officials, foreign donors and non-governmental groups gather to discuss the country's most pressing issues.

Last year, donors provided 951 million dollars, around half the government's budget, and, at the time, the largest sum given.

In recent weeks, media reports have revealed that millions of dollars of revenues from resource industries were not properly accounted for.

The World Bank on Thursday singled out as 'critical issues' the need to improve transparency and accountability in Cambodia's handling of public finances and natural resources.

Other complaints have revolved around the use of aid. Japanese Ambassador Masafumi Kuroki indicated his country would provide 130 million dollars, before adding that aid effectiveness could be improved.

'There is increased monitoring of aid between the government and partners, and I think we have to further promote this process of monitoring of aid,' he said. 'There is already a mechanism to do that, and we have to strengthen that mechanism.'

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen told the conference that good governance was 'the most important prerequisite for a sustainable and equitable economic development and social justice.'

'In the context of this vision, the royal government considers the fight against corruption as a top priority,' he said, citing a new anti-corruption law and an ongoing crackdown on illegal logging and fisheries as evidence of the government's commitment.

And he said agriculture was the top development priority for the country's mainly rural population because it could both bolster economic growth and ensure food security.

He also pledged to pay more attention to granting land concessions to the poor. Land concessions are a highly contentious subject with large investors in possession of more than 1 million hectares.

The conference was reminded by World Bank country head Annette Dixon that 4 million Cambodians - around one-third of the population - live in poverty while many more are on the margins.

'Life continues to be extremely challenging for the majority of Cambodian rural families, who remain vulnerable to shocks,' she said.

More of Hun Xen's broken promises at the donor meeting?

In Donor Meeting, Hun Sen Vows Deeper Reforms

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Wednesday, 02 June 2010

“The Royal Government considers the fight against corruption as a top priority during its fourth mandate. We have a strong will for implementing these reforms.” (sic!)

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday moved to assure international representatives and aid agencies he was committed to deepening government reforms and fighting corruption, as an annual donor meeting got underway.

Speaking at the opening of the Cambodian Development Cooperation Forum, where donors are expected to pledge more than $1 billion in aid to Cambodia, Hun Sen said the government had made the “utmost efforts to firmly and deeply implement various reform programs and consider them as life or death issues.”

The government will present a $6.2 billion development plan to donors this week, part of an updated five-year strategy for continued reform and poverty alleviation. More than 100 participants from donor countries and international aid groups such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund joined senior government ministers for two days of talks.

“The Royal Government considers the fight against corruption as a top priority during its fourth mandate,” Hun Sen said in a speech that lasted more than an hour. “We have a strong will for implementing these reforms.”

Speaking on behalf of the donors, Annette Dixon, the World Bank’s country director, said meetings would center around “key reforms, which the government is undertaking, particularly in decentralization, public financial management and reforms of the civil service.”

“Further strengthening transparency and accountability in the management of Cambodia’s public finances and natural resources will be fundamental for ensuring more sustainable and inclusive growth,” Dixon said, adding that the government had made important achievements in passing an anti-corruption law and updated penal code.

Critics of the anti-corruption law have said it lacks the teeth to root out the country’s endemic corruption.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: The Aid Donors

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

NGOs Call on Donors To Strengthen Conditions

Cambodian Non Governmental Organizations workers shout slogans during a demonstration in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Photo: AP)

Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Tuesday, 01 June 2010

“The donors should have influence or power over the Cambodian government to respect human rights and democracy.”

Leaders of Cambodia’s leading development organizations said Tuesday they want the international community to put conditions on development aid pledges, which are expected to be more than $ 1 billion when they meet with senior government officials this week.

A donor meeting Wednesday and Thursday will focus on the government’s national development plan, which is expected $6.2 billion over the next five years.

The meeting, officially known as the Cambodian Development Cooperation Forum, gathers Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cabinet with representatives from the US, the European Union, China, Japan, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, UN and others.

Local and international non-governmental organizations will also be represented by NGO Forum and the Committee for Free and Fair Elections.

“We request international donors to present the list of recommendations on what to demand from the Cambodian government before agreeing to provide future development aid,” Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of NGO Forum, a consortium of development organizations, said. “We have concerns over the management of land and natural resources, which the government and the donors should think about deeply.”

Much of Cambodia’s annual budget is supported by aid from other countries and larger development banks and agencies. In recent years, that has included large aid packages from China, who Cambodian officials say grant money without the conditions typically imposed by the West.

“The stance of the NGOs is of reflection and discussion,” Chhith Sam Ath said. “We don’t want to prevent development aid. We welcome the aid, but we want the aid provided to Cambodia to be used directly and effectively.”

Aid conditions have nettled Cambodia’s leaders in the past, although some critics say the donors do not use enough leverage to push the government to do more to fight corruption, poverty and human rights abuses.

Ahead of this week’s meetings the outspoken critic of Cambodian policies, Global Witness, called on donors to do more.

“The Cambodian government has been promising to reform for years, but nothing had changed,” Global Witness Campaigns Director Gavin Hayman said in a statement Tuesday. “Our latest report shows that the political elite has no intention of loosening its stranglehold over the country’s natural resource wealth. Donors simply cannot continue to turn a blind eye.”

Hang Chhaya, executive director of the Khmer Institute for Democracy, said the donors should “put condition pressure on the government for providing aid to end human rights violations and evictions, as well as recommend to the government legal and judicial reform and anti-corruption [where] reform is slow.”

“The donors should have influence or power over the Cambodian government to respect human rights and democracy,” Hang Chhaya said.

Ros Sopheap, executive director of Gender and Development organization, said the government’s policy to promote gender equity has not been effectively implemented.

“So we would like the government and the donors to take care of solving the challenges to women, like poverty, low education, domestic violence and trafficking,” she said.

Global Witness slams donor complacency over Cambodian corruption

5 May 2009
Source: Global Witness

Aid donors to Cambodia, including the EU, US, Japan, China, and the World Bank are failing to act in the face of overwhelming evidence of government corruption and state looting, said international campaign group, Global Witness today.

Three months on from the launch of a hard-hitting report detailing corruption and nepotism in the nascent extractives industry in Cambodia, Global Witness said that none of the major donors to Cambodia had indicated more than rhetorical willingness to address the issue.

“We approached all the major international donors to present the findings of our report, Country for Sale. Some refused to meet with us, others said they shared our concerns, but none made concrete promises to act,” said Eleanor Nichol, campaigner at Global Witness. “There is now a large body of evidence which shows that corruption undermines efforts to promote development - and our recent report shows that corruption in Cambodia is rife. Donors must do more to use their influence to help improve governance.”

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world and receives significant international aid. Last year donors pledged nearly $1bn – the equivalent of more than half the national budget. But Global Witness has revealed how government officials at the highest level are allocating the rights to natural resources to themselves and their cronies, with little or no benefit to the majority of the population. In 2006 and 2007 millions of dollars were paid by extractive companies for the right to explore and exploit oil, gas and mineral reserves, yet Global Witness’s investigations suggest the money may be missing from the national accounts.

“Managed well, the profits of extractive industries could help lift people out of poverty, but decades of illegal or unsustainable exploitation of natural resources in Cambodia has deprived citizens of their rightful benefits,” said Nichol. “Aid is vital and can make a vast difference to poor people’s lives - but in Cambodia, international donors are using taxpayers’ money to plug a hole made by corrupt politicians. With the country on the brink of yet another exploitation bonanza, turning a blind eye must no longer be an option.”

The scale of donor complacency and refusal to engage with the issues raised in Country for Sale is best demonstrated by donors that declined to meet with Global Witness. These included France, China and Japan. Others who did agree meet were unhelpful and in some cases obstructive. Even donors who engaged did not agree to push for reforms.

“Some donors are reluctant to demand conditionality, which is understandable, given widespread criticism of inappropriate and damaging loan conditions in the past. However, there is a difference between imposing a set of inflexible rules that are not in a country’s interest, and demanding a basic level of transparency and accountability which would help to prevent corruption,” said Nichol.

Global Witness is calling for a stop to allocation of concessions until the basic regulatory frameworks are in place and a review of existing concessions to ensure that the companies are fit for purpose.

Global Witness wants donors to:

• Recognise that there is a direct link between governance and development outcomes, and use aid as leverage to improve governance;
• Take immediate steps to integrate and coordinate the donor aid agenda with the urgent need to reform and strengthen the governance of Cambodia’s emerging extractive sectors;
• Ensure that anti-corruption efforts are integrated within the core activities of all petroleum and mineral related aid programmes to Cambodia
• Support Cambodian civil society in its efforts to increase transparency and accountability in the management of Cambodia’s public assets

/ Ends

For more information contact Amy Barry on +44 7980 664 397, +44 207 5616358. www.globalwitness.org.
Eleanor Nichol is available for interviews and briefings on +44 7872 600870

Cambodia’s donors are: Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, the United Nations, the European Commission, the Asian Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank Group