Cambodia: PM’s Brother Wants Sex Case Dropped [-Hun Xan is as corrupt as Hun Xen]

February 25, 2012
Radio Free Asia

The brother of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has requested a court official to drop a sexual harassment suit against two of his friends, drawing condemnation from rights groups.

Hun Sen’s older brother Hun San made the request in a letter to Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court Chief Prosecutor Phann Vanrath, a copy of which was seen by RFA. The prosecutor’s office confirmed with RFA that it had received the letter on Friday.

In the letter dated Dec. 3, 2011, Hun San, who is the director of an agency under the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation, calls the harassment claim against Cambodian Mine Action Center official Oum Socheat and businessman Thang Pisith “groundless.”

“Please forgive me that I can’t meet you in person,” reads the letter by Hun San, who is the director of the Kampuchea Shipping Agency & Brokers Department.

“I would like to request that you, brother prosecutor, please help intervene and aid Oum Socheat and Thong Pisith to put an end to the Nov. 13, 2011 accusation made by a waitress in a Stung Treng restaurant.”

Hun San questioned the accusation against the two middle-aged men, who allegedly verbally harassed and groped 25-year-old Hy Theavy while she served them, saying they would not have done so with others present at the table.

“As mentioned above, I ask that the prosecutor please intervene and drop the case. I hope that the prosecutor will help in ending the suit.”

CPP marriage of convenience: Resurgence of FEUDALISM in Cambodia

"Nepotism maximus" on display

Click below to listen to the report:

Click here to download or listen to the audio program in MP3

និន្នាការ​ផ្តល់​តម្លៃ​លើ​សំបក​ខាង​ក្រៅ​នាំ​សង្គម​ខ្មែរ​ទៅ​រក​គ្រោះថ្នាក់ - Valuation on external appearance could move the Khmer society to danger

Academicians without knowledge

PhD without education

General without combat experience

Wealth without work

Fortune from theft

និន្នាការ​ផ្តល់​តម្លៃ​លើ​សំបក​ខាង​ក្រៅ​នាំ​សង្គម​ខ្មែរ​ទៅ​រក​គ្រោះថ្នាក់

ពុធ 07 កញ្ញា 2011
ដោយ ប៉ែន បូណា
Radio France Internationale

Synopsis:

In the current Cambodian society, people seem to value image rather than substance. This trend is taking shape everywhere and in every field be it in politics, economics, welfare or daily life. Sociologists believe that when people only value external image, they tend to forget about substance, therefore the society could lose its perpetuity and solidity in the future. This is a problem that one cannot afford to miss.

Currently, people seem to respect only individuals who are perceived as wealthy and powerful rather than on the human quality hidden in each person.

នៅ​ក្នុង​សង្គម​កម្ពុជា​បច្ចុប្បន្ន ​មនុស្ស​ហាក់​នាំគ្នា​ឲ្យ​តម្លៃ​ទៅ​លើ​រូបភាព​ច្រើន​ជាង​ខ្លឹមសារ។ និន្នាការ​នេះ​កើត​មាន​គ្រប់​ទី​កន្លែង ​និង​គ្រប់​វិស័យ។ ​មិនថា​ក្នុង​វិស័យ​នយោបាយ​ សេដ្ឋកិច្ច​ សង្គមកិច្ច ​ឬ​ជីវិត​រស់​នៅ​ប្រចាំ​ថ្ងៃ​ឡើយ។​ ក្រុម​អ្នក​វិភាគ​សង្គម​ខ្មែរ​បាន​មើល​ឃើញ​ថា​ នៅ​ពេល​ដែល​មនុស្ស​ទូទៅ​ហាក់​ដូចជា​នាំ​គ្នា​ផ្តល់​តម្លៃ​ទៅលើ​តែ​រូបភាពសំបកក្រៅ ​តែ​ភ្លេច​គិត​ពី​ខ្លឹមសារ​ សង្គម​អាច​នឹង​បាត់​បង់​និរន្តរភាព ​និង​ភាព​រឹងមាំ​ទៅ​ថ្ងៃ​អនាគត។ នេះ​ជា​បញ្ហា​សំខាន់​ដែល​មិន​អាច​មើល​រំលង​បាន។

សង្គម​កម្ពុជា​បច្ចុប្បន្ន​កំពុង​ស្គាល់​ការ​ផ្លាស់ប្តូរ​គួរ​ឲ្យ​កត់សម្គាល់​បន្ទាប់​ពី​បាន​ឆ្លង​ផុត​ពី​សម័យ កាល​សង្គ្រាម​មកកាន់​សម័យ​សន្តិភាព​វិញ។ ​ការ​លូតលាស់​ និង​ប្រែ​ប្រួល​របស់​សង្គម​កម្ពុជា​បាន​នាំ​មក​ទាំង​ចំណុច​វិជ្ជមាន ​និង​អវិជ្ជមាន។ ​ពី​សង្គម​មួយ​ដែលធ្លាប់​រស់​ក្នុង​របាំង​ប្រពៃណី​តឹង​រ៉ឹង​មក​ជា​សង្គម​ដែល​បើក​ទូលាយនិងទទួលឥទ្ធិពលពីខាងក្រៅ។​ ពី​សង្គម​មួយ​ដែល​អ្នក​នយោបាយ​ផ្តួល​រំលំ​គ្នា​ ដោយ​ប្រើ​អាវុធ​ មក​ជា​សង្គម​ដែល​ប្រើ​ការ​បោះឆ្នោត ​និង​ពី​សង្គម​មួយ​ហែកហួរ​ដោយ​សង្គ្រាម​ស៊ីវិល ​មក​ជា​សង្គម​សន្តិភាព។ ​ទាំង​នេះ​ គឺ​ជា​ការវិវឌ្ឍន៍​ដែល​មាន​លក្ខណៈ​ជ្រាលជ្រៅ ​និង​ហាក់​ដូច​ជា​គួរ​ឲ្យ​មាន​មោទនៈ។ ​ក៏ប៉ុន្តែ ​ការវិវឌ្ឍន៍​មួយ​ចំនួន​បាន​ឈាន​ទៅ​រក​ទិស​អវិជ្ជមាន​ដ៏គ្រោះ​ថ្នាក់។ ​ចំណុច​លេច​ធ្លោ​មួយ​ក្នុង​ចំណោម​នោះ​គឺ​ និន្នាការ​នៃ​ការ​ផ្តល់​តម្លៃ​លើ​រូបភាពសំបក​ក្រៅ ​ច្រើន​ជាង​ខ្លឹមសារ។

ជាការពិត ​បម្រែបម្រួល​សង្គម​ពី​សម័យ​កាល​មួយ​ទៅ​មួយ​ គឺ​ជា​ចលនា​ដែល​មិន​អាច​ទប់​បាន ប៉ុន្តែ ​គេពិត​ជា​អាច​តម្រង់​ទិស​វា​បាន​ប្រសិន​ណា​បើ​គេ​បាន​គិត​គូរទុក​ជា​មុន។ ​នៅ​កម្ពុជា ​និន្នាការ​នៃ​ការ​ផ្តល់​តម្លៃ​មនុស្ស​ដោយ​ផ្អែក​លើ​សំបក​ក្រៅ​ ហាក់​កំពុង​តែ​ដណ្តើម​ទីតាំង​ឈរ​ជើង​កាន់​តែ​រឹង​មាំ​ឡើង​ជា​លំដាប់​ពីមួយ​ឆ្នាំ​ទៅ​មួយ​ឆ្នាំ។ ​បច្ចុប្បន្ន ​គេ ហាក់​ដូច​ជា​គោរព​កោត​ខ្លាច​មនុស្ស​ដែល ​មាន​ទ្រព្យសម្បត្តិ ​បុណ្យ​ស័ក្តិ​ ដែល​គេ​មើល​ឃើញ​ភ្លាមៗ​ជាង​គុណធម៌​របស់​មនុស្ស​ដែល​កប់​នៅ​ក្នុង​ខ្លួន​មិន​អាច​មើល​ឃើញ​ភ្លាមៗ។ ទស្សនៈ​បែប​នេះ​ហាក់​បាន​និង​កំពុង​អូស​ទាញ​មនុស្ស​ឲ្យ​រត់​តាម​កាន់​តែ​ច្រើន​ឡើងៗ។ ​ជាក់ស្តែង​ អ្នក​រៀន​សូត្រ​មួយ​ចំនួនធំ​ចង់​បាន​សញ្ញាបត្រ​មក​បង្អួត​គេ​ ជា​ជាង​ការ​ចង់​បាន ​ចំណេះ​ដឹងនិងមុខវិជ្ជា​ពិត​ប្រាកដ។​ អ្នកមាន​លុយ​ត្រូវទទួល​បាន​ការ​គោរពកោតខ្លាច​ទោះបី​ជា​លុយ​នោះ​បាន​មក​ពី​ប្រភព​ណា​ក៏ដោយ។ ​ប្រហែល​ជា​រត់​តាម​និន្នាការ​នេះហើយបានជា មន្ត្រី​រាជការ​មួយ​ចំនួន​មាន​រថយន្ត​ទំនើប​ និង​ផ្ទះ​សម្បែង​តម្លៃ​ខ្ពស់​ហួស​ពី​ប្រាក់​ខែ​របស់​ខ្លួន។

Exiled Journalists Worry Over Press Freedom

Journalist Khim Sambo's funeral (Photo: Xinhua)

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Thursday, 29 April 2010

“First, it’s a question of political will from authorities, coming from the government, from the judicial system, from police also."

With World Press Freedom Day approaching next week, two Cambodian journalists living in exile say Cambodia needs to improve its media environment or risk becoming more dangerous, or an authoritarian state.

The vast majority of Cambodia’s TV, radio and newspapers are controlled or influenced by members of the ruling party and the government, with few outlets for alternative news or opposition voices. Cambodia's media was described as ''not free'' Thursday in Freedom House's annual international press freedom report for 2010. Last year, Freedom House ranked Cambodia’s media as “partly free,” and Reporters Without Borders ranks the country No. 117 of 174 in press freedom.

Un Sokhom was the editor in chief of the Neak Prayuth newspaper until he fled to the US in 2004 in fear of his safety. He says a more open press will bring more safety to society.

“This is important, what impacts the life of a journalist,” he told VOA Khmer from his home in Lowell, Mass., where he eventually settled. “What we have seen is that journalists dare not express their freedom [leading to] society’s covering up a lot of bad social issues.”

Cambodian media have under-covered important issues like forced evictions, corruption and sex trafficking, he said, when they should act as a “mirror of society.”

Without journalists pointing out social ills, “people live in more fear than before,” he said, adding that if Cambodian journalists do not stand on their principles, the next generation will suffer.

Reporting in Cambodia can be dangerous.

In 2008, opposition journalist Khim Sambor was killed along with his son, and just last year, opposition editor Hang Chakra was jailed for nearly a year after reporting on alleged corruption at the powerful Council of Ministers; he was only recently released.

Twelve Cambodian journalists have been killed since 1995, while others have faced imprisonment through criminal defamation laws brought in courts largely seen as biased or influenced by money. Still others have fled the country after receiving death threats to themselves or their families. These journalists were usually reporting on incendiary issues like corruption, deforestation, drug trafficking and others.

Lem Piseth is a former reporter for Radio Free Asia. He now lives under political asylum in Norway, after receiving death threats in 2008 as he reported on illegal logging in Kampong Thom province’s Prey Lang forest.

“Cambodia will be an authoritarian country,” he said. “We can’t express our opinions, we don’t have enough freedom in writing, we can only have a level of writing for one’s favor. Then the country will not have democracy.”

Press freedom is especially important during election time, he said, but Cambodia’s airwaves and newspapers are full of news on the ruling government’s activities, providing a skewed view of news.

“In Cambodia, if we look at it from the outside, we see that the freedom of expression, and the freedom of the press as well, almost fully exist,” he said. “But such freedom is on terms, that it is not affecting the power of the country’s leaders. And if the expression and writing affect their power, especially in digging into corruption, the destruction of national property, deforestation and so on, that which involves the top leaders, then those who publish the report and those who write such a report will be in trouble.”

For Vincent Brossel, the Asia Pacific director for Reporters Without Borders, press freedom means creating conditions for political alternatives. The best way for governments to stay in power, then, is to control the media, a trend across Asia, he said.

“In all countries, especially developing countries, without a free media you can’t get accountability and good governance,” he told VOA Khmer from France. “Investigations are very important to create awareness.”

“In Cambodia, we can’t expect TV channels to play this role, and independent newspapers are very rare,” he said. “But radio stations are playing a very important role. It’s an alternative to the official news.”

Brossel said the government and journalists need to work to reform press freedoms.

“First, it’s a question of political will from authorities, coming from the government, from the judicial system, from police also,” he said. “They have to create a positive environment for the free media. But it’s also the responsibility of journalists themselves, because they have to respect ethical standards, they have to keep away from corruption, they have to have balanced reports, and they have to investigate all the stories, not just take things that are easy to take.”

While Cambodian TV cover only the government’s agenda, he said, Cambodia has made some progress relative to other countries, moving in ranking from 126 to 117, at least from September 2008 to September 2009, just above some of the worst countries.

However, the jailing of Hang Chakra signaled a deterioration of the situation, he added.

Government spokesman Phay Siphan told VOA Khmer that he regrets such negative evaluations by international organizations, because press freedom and the professionalism of journalists are improving.

“Such criticism we always welcome, but we ask [journalists] to avoid disinformation and news that attacks,” he said. “We do not want to see our society fall into what is called a state receiving only untrue stories or exaggeration or rumor. What we want is the press responding to the public, not a press that just exposes the opinion of any one individual.”

Cambodia does not restrict the press, he said, pointing to the English-language Phnom Penh Post and Cambodia Daily as examples.

“In Cambodia, there is [Radio Free Asia], which broadcasts in Khmer for US interests,” he said. “We have the Voice of America, which uses Cambodian airwaves to broadcast unlimitedly and freely.”

Phay Siphan also pointed out the dangers of the media, claiming political turmoil in Thailand was helped by broadcasts that incited people to violence.

“If the press lacks a conscience and professionalism, that causes society’s destruction,” he said, “like war crimes in Africa, in which the media caused killings, and this is condemned from internationals as well.”

Cambodian Minister denies illegal payments from BHP

(Photo: Reuters)

April 29, 2010
AU.IBTimes.com

The term "tea money" is coined by government officials for unofficial payments.

The Prime Minister of Cambodia denied allegations that Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP) Billiton bribed the government with a huge amount of money for mining explorations in his country.

In a recent discovery by the US Securities and Exchange last week, BHP paid a hefty amount of $A2.7 million or $US2.5 million as payment related to a mining exploration in Cambodia.

However, Cambodian Minister Hun Sen refuted the accusations, stating that the money was used to build hydroelectric dam, schools, and hospitals. The money received was a "social fund," which was established in a contract between Australia and Cambodia.

''Let's see the contract - it was a social fund. It is written in the contract. It is not secret," Minister Hun Sen said.

Last week, BHP Billiton was probed by the US SEC concerning the "tea money" graft scandal in Cambodia.

The term "tea money" is coined by government officials for unofficial payments.

BHP denied these claims and insisted that the money was used as a development fund for local social welfare programs. It also paid $US1 million to the Cambodian government for bauxite exploration rights in September 2006.

The mining giant said it has discovered evidences of possible violations of anti-corruption laws linking local government officials in several of its abandoned projects. However, the firm did not specify a country.

A spokeswoman for BHP dismissed other claims and said that the US SEC's investigation does not relate to any activity in China nor its marketing activities or sales relating to the company's products. She said that the inquiry is related to past exploration projects some as recent as a year ago.

BHP said it paid $US2.5 million to a community in Cambodia while another $US1 million was disbursed to the government as payment for bauxite explorations rights.

According to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, BHP may be facing a $US2 million penalty while individual employees may be fined up to $US100, 000 and jail sentence up to five years.

Total pays Cambodia 28 mln dollars for oil exploration: PM [-More "social funds" revealed by Hun Xen]

27/04/2010
AFP

French oil company Total has paid 28 million dollars for the rights to explore an area in the Gulf of Thailand, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday.

The Cambodian government, during a visit by Hun Sen to Paris, announced its decision in July last year to grant Total the right to search for oil and natural gas in the country's offshore "Block 3".

Disclosing the price paid by Total for the first phase of the search for oil in the area, Hun Sen said that eight million dollars of the money would go towards a "social fund".

"Total offered the highest (bid) among the companies," he said.

Total will pay an additional 20 million dollars if it starts drilling for oil in the offshore area, Hun Sen added.

At the same time the premier denied Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton paid a large bribe for an exploration contract in Cambodia, saying that money had also gone into a social fund.

Total "also has paid this kind of money," Hun Sen said during a meeting between the government and private sectors.

Following the discovery of oil in 2005, Cambodia was quickly feted as the region's next potential petro-state, but production has stalled as the government and Chevron appear to have failed to agree over revenue sharing.

Hun Sen said earlier this month he would terminate his country's contract with Chevron if the US energy giant does not begin oil production from offshore fields by late 2012.

Concerns have also been raised over how Cambodia -- one of the world's most corrupt countries -- would use its new-found oil and gas wealth.

Sacking of Cambodia’s forest chief unconvincing as move against illegal logging: Global Witness

"Ty Sokhun's reign as Cambodia's forest chief was a disaster for Cambodia's forests" - Simon Taylor, Global Witness Director (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

Press Release – 07/04/2010

Global Witness today welcomed the removal from his post of the Director General of Cambodia's Forest Administration, Ty Sokhun, but warned that much more needed to be done to guarantee the survival of the country's remaining forests and the fair and sustainable exploitation of the country's other natural resources for the benefit of the many not the few.

Global Witness's 2007 report, Cambodia's Family Trees, documented how Ty Sokhun and the Ministry of Agriculture Director, Chan Sarun, sold off 500 or more jobs in the Forest Administration. The report also revealed that Ty Sokhun's father-in-law was a key member of Cambodia's biggest illegal logging syndicate.

"Ty Sokhun's reign as Cambodia's forest chief was a disaster for Cambodia's forests", said Simon Taylor, Global Witness Director. "On his watch we saw Cambodia's forests shrink dramatically, largely due to illegal or ill-managed logging operations. It is a good thing he is gone, but he shouldn't be let off the hook for what happened while he was in charge."

Prime Minister Hun Sen says he sacked Ty Sokhun because he had no confidence in his ability to crack down on illegal logging but Global Witness questions why it has taken so long to act. In April Cambodia's international donors will meet to discuss next year's pledges and they will be looking for assurances of reform. But the Cambodian government has a lot more to do if it wants to prove it is serious about protecting the country's remaining forests and managing its other natural resources sustainably.

"The idea that Ty Sokhun has been removed from his post because of a failure to crack down on illegal logging is laughable," said Taylor. "His status as protector of Cambodia's forests was already stretched beyond credibility. If this move was really about that then he should have gone years ago."

For the last 15 years Global Witness has documented the extensive and untrammelled exploitation of Cambodia's natural resources by a corrupt and unaccountable elite. It has called on the government to investigate allegations of illegal activities relating to forests, oil, gas and mining, but as far as it can ascertain, no such investigations have ever taken place.

Taylor: "Ty Sokhun was not the only one responsible for the destruction of Cambodia's forests. Our investigations have proven the complicity of officials and elites at the highest levels, including members of the Prime Minister's own family. If Hun Sen genuinely wants closure on the destruction of Cambodia's forests, he should commission a full independent enquiry into what has happened, publish the findings and punish the perpetrators".

Whoever succeeds Ty Sokhun will need determination and independence to tackle the patronage networks which have underpinned illegal logging in Cambodia for the past 15 years. Corruption in Cambodia is systemic and deeply entrenched. It is unlikely to be successfully eradicated without much more significant pressure from international donors who provide the equivalent of 50% of the country's budget each year but don't do enough to insist on reform.

/ Ends
Contact: Amy Barry on 0207 4925858 or 07980 664397, abarry@globalwitness.org

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: Congratulations to Cambodia for Sale, Inc.

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

Cambodia threatens to expel senior U.N. official

Mon Mar 22, 2010
By Prak Chan Thul

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The Cambodian government has threatened to expel a senior United Nations official, accusing him of interfering in Cambodian politics.

Cambodia's foreign ministry expressed concern over comments by U.N. Resident Coordinator Douglas Broderick, who urged more public debate on an anti-corruption bill to safeguard the rights of Cambodians and to meet international standards.

The comments were a "flagrant and unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of Cambodia", Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong wrote in a letter to Broderick on Saturday.

If they were repeated, Broderick would be expelled, said the letter, seen by Reuters on Monday.

U.N. spokeswoman Margaret Lamb declined to comment.

Cambodia's National Assembly, dominated by the ruling People's Party, voted in favour of the long-awaited bill on March 11 despite calls from the United Nations and civil society groups to postpone the vote so the public could be consulted.

Opposition lawmakers walked out in protest at what they said was a law that lacked transparency and would deter individuals from reporting corruption, rife in Cambodia where payment of bribes is part and parcel of doing business.

"To its knowledge, no draft law has been shared with interested stakeholders, including civil society, since 2006," Broderick, head of the U.N. Country Team in Cambodia, said in a statement to media on March 10.

Cambodia's foreign ministry said Broderick was acting without direction from the U.N. Secretary General in New York and the U.N. Country Team had exceeded the limit of its mandate.

Graft watchdog Transparency International last year ranked Cambodia 158th out of 180 countries in terms of corruption, with a low ranking denoting high instances of graft.

(Editing by Jason Szep and Jerry Norton)

Who Delay the Anti-corruption Legislation? Op-Ed by Kok Sap

Xok An

25 February 2010
By Kok Sap
http://khamerlogue.wordpress.com

When a government abused laws, the unlawful runs the country.

Constitution-Article 101 states: "The functions of members of the Royal Government shall be incompatible with professional activities in trade or industry and with holding of any position in the public service.” It seems clear that the laws forbid the public servants from involving in private businesses while in office.

The international donors and people want Cambodia National Assembly to pass the anti-corruption and graft law since 1993 Constitution went into effects. But to date such law has been held back despite the outcry from opposition and world donors. The impression is the anti-corruption law is still in the early elephant pregnancy and floating somewhere between Sok An plush office and the Mr. Yes Sir, the President of the Assembly, cabinet. The opposition legislators asked for the copy but they were advised the legislation was still with the Council of Ministers where Sok An’s reign supreme.

This proves the government does not want this law to take effect while it is handled by the most corruptive person in the kingdom. According to the Global Witness Country for Sale and Family Tree reports, that person is the Napoleonic complex aliased Sok An, the CPP blood sucking eight hand avatar.

Because of marital relations with Sen’s family this semi-dwarf avatar wields power tremendously and pulls strings on all ministers included PM Hun Sen and all generals. All dare not to mess with a barely 5 ft. 4 man.

As a second generation migrant of Sino-Yuon descent, he connives his way through from a petit clerk to the prime minister highest confidant and protégé while his hands are in big businesses all the times.

Aside from his private lucrative ventures revenue, he receives self allotted big multiple salaries from government budget. His reputation speaks volume and most feared official in post Pol Pot era. Behind the curtain in party circle, he is amiable and more popular than his talking head boss, Primo Hun Sen. From the internal sources, the eight hand avatar collects annual tribute from the officials whom he has assigned to greasy posts in government service.

Also note most of the foreign aids and assistance must go through Sok An office first. He actually runs Hun Sen’s official and personal life days in and days out. Very rare for him to present at events and escort Hun Sen entourage. He is the most apparent designated interim PM when Hun Sen is not in town or decapitate.

On a monthly basis, imagine how much money this man received from his private entreprise within government control?

Most rooky ministers, Touristic and Gambling Authority, Land Mine Authority, ECCC and the Join Border Commission senior posts must pay due to Sok An to have posts. Since its creation, the Cambodia National Petroleum Authority and revenue collection duty is already given to Sok An.

Beside Sok An, do we know how many deputies are in the Executive Branch?

How many of them in the executive branch do not have professional activities in trade or industry?

Out of the three branches, it appears the Executive and Judiciary collaborates to downplay the Legislative branch. In the essence, majority of the deputies from the ruling party are either incompetent or the accomplices to keep the chamber seats warm. This is how the buck gets stalled whether the anti-corruption and eastern border demarcation legislation. They are not there to be the people representation and defense. No one can tell the difference to what extent of power for the individuals who hold dual roles in both the legislature and government.

In the book, the Constitutional Council shall examine and interpret laws and have the final say on laws. Unfortunately, up to this point, people hadn’t heard from the Constitutional Council legal opinion or advisory on anything yet.

As it seems this body is no more than a rubberstamp for the Executive agendas. So in a nut shell, the Constitution is merely a piece of written laws without spirit and morality.

When a government abused laws, the unlawful runs the country.

Corruption competition in Hun Sen's govt: Forged document to release child sex offender Alexander Trofimov

Alexander Trofimov

Justice Official Arrested for Fraud

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
18 June 2009

A senior official at the Ministry of Justice was arrested Wednesday for allegedly falsifying documents in an attempt to secure the release of a Russian tycoon accused of child sex crimes.

Police and ministry officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Prum Piseth, head of administration at the Ministry of Justice, was arrested following the complaint of Lt. Gen. Hing Bun Heang, chief of Hun Sen’s bodyguards.

Prum Piseth allegedly forged Hun Sen’s signature on documents that ordered the release Alexander Trofimov, the high-profile defendant in the midst of a pedophile case.

The arrest comes just days after the US State Department censured Cambodia’s efforts to curb human trafficking, including for child sex exploitation and impunity of public officials involved in the practice.

Trofimov is one of the highest-profile arrests for pedophilia in recent years. He was granted a permit to develop the entire island of Koh Puos into a luxury resort, prior to his arrest for alleged sexual acts with underage girls.

Prum Piseth also faces a complaint from a woman who claims he cheated her out of $240,000, the officials said.

One justice official who could not reveal details in the case directed questions to Brig. Gen. Muong Khim, who he said led the arrest operation.

Muong Khim denied arresting Prum Piseth.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: The Corruptions

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

Chuok (Kamnap Konloas) - "Smoke (Inverted words poem)": Poem in Khmer by Sam Vichea

Click on the poem to zoom in

Poem by Sam Vichea (on the web at http://kamnapkumnou.blogspot.com)

"Cold and Callous" - The naked truth [of land eviction throughout Cambodia] according to Karl Bille

Karl Bille reunites with friends in Dey Krahorm to release his Love & Eviction CD. Cold&Callous is the first video off the album, produced by Platapus Produktion in support of the upcoming Sounds of Solidarity concerts. SOS concert tour support threatened and evicted communities across Cambodia. Support now! www.licadhocanada.com

One of the world most corrupt government launches next phase of finance plan ... one day before it starts its begging

Government Launches Next Phase of Finance Plan

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh
03 December 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

Economic officials released the government’s plans for a second stage of public finance reform Wednesday, a day ahead of an annual donor meeting.

Cambodia has long struggled with public finance, and its government operations are supported in large part by the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from other countries and lenders such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

The second stage of the Public Financial Management Reform Program will “enhance financial accountability,” Finance Minister Keat Chhhon said Wednesday.

The goal of the program is to ensure “the efficiency and effectiveness of public financial management through enhancing the responsibilities of public officials at all levels on the use and management of public resources,” he said.

Cambodia is rated one of the world’s most corrupt countries, losing up to $500 million a year in tax revenue to unofficial collection, such as bribes.

Cambodia: A country for sale [by Hun Sen and his ruling CPP]

The CPP godfathers: Chea Sim (L), Hun Sen (C) and Heng Samrin (R)
(Photo: BlogbyKhmer)

Almost half of Cambodia has been sold to foreign speculators in the past 18 months - and hundreds of thousands who fled the Khmer Rouge are homeless once more. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark report

Saturday April 26 2008
Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark
The Guardian (UK)

Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) have, in effect, put the country up for sale ... No other country in the world countenances such a deal.

Forty-five per cent of the country's entire landmass has been sold off - from the land ringing Angkor Wat to the colonial buildings of Phnom Penh to the south-western islands.

"Everyone claims Cambodia has come through the period of barbarism, but the sadism is still bubbling beneath the surface. Extreme violence, greed and disregard for the most basic human rights - of giving people a place to live - are still with us daily. The methods of the past are being used to dictate our future" - Naly Pilorge, Licadho Director

Sang Run, his hair stiff with sea salt, chugs out into the Gulf of Kompong Som in his weather-beaten turquoise boat, looking for blackling. He scours the shallow, blue water, waiting for a shoal to appear, before skimming his net across the water. He does the same every day, taking his catch to auction on Independence Beach in Cambodia's southern port city of Sihanoukville.

It looks like a scene Sang Run was born into. But 20 years ago the beach was deserted, and he was a schoolteacher in Mondulkiri, a forested province hundreds of miles away in the east of the country. Back then, he could talk all day about palm sugar and betel nuts. He was something of an amateur botanist, but had never seen the sea - nor had any of the group who today gather around his silvery haul flapping in the sand on Independence Beach. Former nurse Srey Pov, who runs a Khmer restaurant along the beach, also came from a province many miles away. She still cannot swim, she says, shrugging. Heads nod around her. Cambodia is a nation that would drown if their boat tipped over; it is also a country whose citizens mostly do not belong to the places where they have ended up.

The Khmer Rouge saw to that, eviscerating the kingdom after coming to power. It was a movement that drew inspiration from Mao's Cultural Revolution, collectivising all the land; but it grew to love terror more than ideology. The ferocity of the regime sent more than 300,000 rushing into exile. At least two million urban Cambodians were route-marched into the paddy fields to near certain death. Worst hit was the Eastern Zone, bordering Vietnam, where Sang Run came from. Its people were derided as "duck's arses with chicken's heads" as the Khmer Rouge grew to mistrust the Vietnamese and accused Mondulkiri people of being disloyal - too sympathetic to their neighbours across the border. Their names were added to those who were to be purged; the catalogue of "crimes" became so long, so general, that anyone could stand accused. The wave of random violence and retribution that scythed through the countryside for three years, eight months and 21 days killed one in five of the population.

Sang Run's family all vanished, but he survived, hiding in the forests, living off what he could pluck and hunt. When the Vietnamese invaded in 1978 - overthrowing the Khmer Rouge a year later - Sang Run found his way, like thousands of others, to Cambodia's 300-mile long shoreline. Stretching between Thailand and Vietnam, the region had been a Khmer Rouge stronghold, controlled by Pol Pot's notorious commander, Ta Mok, who was known as The Butcher. In the 80s, when the fishing shacks and noodle stores went up along the Sihanoukville coast, there was no development plan. There had never been a tradition of thriving fishing communities along the coast - few Cambodians lived there except in the old French colonial towns. The shoreline had been empty - miles of palm-fringed beach front interspersed with the few port towns, including Kep, Sihanoukville and Ream.

Survivors began to build new lives there, learning to love the sea. Some took boats to a nearby archipelago of 22 coral-fringed, uninhabited islands, building up clusters of villages on atolls with names such as Rabbit, Snake and Turtle. Within 10 years, the whole coastline had been patchily settled by newcomers, among them a former farmer, Soch Tith, a stocky man with corncob hands, who was sick every time he got in a boat, but still found his way to faraway Koh Rong, the largest of the islands - 7,800 hectares of jungle. There he cleared small patches to grow fruit.

By 2006, these communities had schools, political representation, and many householders even had papers, stamped by the Sihanoukville governor, Say Hak, which guaranteed them the permanent right to stay under the 2001 Cambodian Land Law. The central government in Phnom Penh had in the 90s designated the entire coast and its islands as State Public Land that could not be bartered or developed.

Then, during the past couple of years, a disturbing wave of rumours swept the coastal communities. Sang Run says that in September 2006 he heard that Snake Island, half a mile out to sea, had been secretly sold to Russians. He did not check. Cambodians ask little from their government; a wariness of authority is a legacy of years of blood-letting under Pol Pot. In any case, it was a familiar story. Shortly after Hun Sen, Cambodia's prime minister, came to power in 1985, frenzied landgrabbing began: influential political allies and wealthy business associates raced to claim land that the Khmer Rouge had seized, gobbling up such large chunks of the cities, forests and paddy fields that Cambodians used to say the rich were eating the country. By 2006, the World Bank estimated that 40,000 had been made homeless in Phnom Penh alone. But, until now, no one had bothered with the coast. Sang Run paid no particular attention to the Snake Island rumour. He should have - it signalled a radical new course for the Cambodian government.

Three months later, Sang Run was out in his boat at 7am when disaster struck his village. He arrived back at 11am to find bulldozers had flattened his home and those of the 229 families who lived beside him. He heard from neighbours that it had happened in an instant. Uniformed men, sent in by governor Say Hak, used electric batons to chase terrified residents from the burning ruins; three of Sang Run's neighbours were knocked unconscious. Village Number One - a mundane name that failed to capture the beauty of its uninterrupted sea views and vegetable gardens that ran to the beach - had been erased. Sang Run heard that a hotel was planned, although no information was given to the people evicted from their homes for a further 18 months.

Nurse-turned-restaurateur Srey Pov tells us that, by early 2007, rumours were buzzing around Sihanoukville's covered market that virtually every island in the region was up for sale. Over the following months, Koh Russei and Koh Ta Kiev, Koh Bong and Koh Ouen, Koh Preus, Koh Krabei and Koh Tres were all snapped up by foreigners, who then started negotiating for mainland sites, too, among them public beaches with names such as Serendipity, Occheuteal and Otres. In February, 47-year-old Srey Pov was evicted, too, her Independence Beach restaurant shut down to make way for another rumoured hotel. "All I've got left is the chairs and tables," she says - they're stacked up in the cramped living room of her Sihanoukville home. Former farmer Soch Tith, on Koh Rong, was the last to hear that last month his island had been sold, too, to a British developer.

What none of these people knew was that the troubled kingdom of Cambodia, a precarious debtor-nation underpinned by more than £500m of hand-outs from the international community, had suddenly found itself a refuge for cash and speculators fleeing paralysed western financial markets. As London and New York, overcome by the US sub-prime crisis, began grinding to a halt last year, many in the City had moved on, transferring liquid assets to the east.

Foreign fund managers had started pitching up in Phnom Penh wearing linen shirts and khaki drip-dry jungle wear, alerted by the country's unexpected boom in tourism that in 2006 had seen one-and-a-half million visitors overcome the west's collective memories of Cambodia's recent past to travel to the temples of Angkor Wat. Enticed also by indicators that suggested the feeble economy was turning a corner, super-rich, predominately British, French and Swiss speculators, fuelled by a high-risk machismo, came hunting for profits of 30% or more. Their interest was land speculation: buying up large sites in developing countries that they would then sit on in the hope that, with the influx of tourists, land values would soar.

Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) have, in effect, put the country up for sale. Crucially, they permit investors to form 100% foreign-owned companies in Cambodia that can buy land and real estate outright - or at least on 99-year plus 99-year leases. No other country in the world countenances such a deal. Even in Thailand and Vietnam, where similar land speculation and profiteering are under way, foreigners can be only minority shareholders.

There were other inducements. Many foreign funds - hedge funds, property funds, private equity funds - operating on the outer margins of the financial world thrive on complexity, risk and maximising profit. In Phnom Penh, they found an ideal partner in the prime minister, who has created a unique business environment. Since the mid-90s, Hun Sen and the CPP have declined to enforce money-laundering legislation and have concerned themselves little with the probity of investors. Foreign businessmen were offered nine-year tax holidays, and were allowed to hold their cash in US dollars in banks outside the country.

"Only recently, no one would touch us," Brett Sciaroni, a Phnom Penh-based US lawyer who acts for many new western investors, tells us. "We were dirt. And suddenly we were gold." John Brinsden, a British banker, now vice chairman of Cambodia's national Acleda Bank, agrees: "In 2001, only 200 people came to the government's investment conference. At our most recent, we ran out of chairs."

In July 2007, Hun Sen, gambling on his people's tenuous connection with the land, changed the designation of the southern islands so they could be sold. The forests, lakes, beaches and reefs - and the lives of the thousands of residents - were quietly transferred into the hands of private western developers. Arguing that Cambodia could become a tourist magnet to challenge Thailand, the prime minister began a fire sale of mainland beaches. By March this year, virtually all Cambodia's accessible and sandy coast was in private hands, either Cambodian or foreign. Those who lived or worked there were turfed out - some jailed, others beaten, virtually all denied meaningful compensation. The deals went unannounced; no tenders or plans were ever officially published. All that was known was that more than £1,000m in foreign finance found its way into the country in 2007, a 1,500% increase over the previous four years. It was as if Alistair Darling, the British chancellor, had decided to raise some extra cash by trading the Isles of Wight, Man and the Hebrides, throwing in Formby Sands, the entire Cornish coastline and Brighton seafront - before trousering the proceeds.

It was abundantly clear to observers, including the World Bank and Amnesty International, that by making these private deals, Hun Sen was denying prosperity to most of his people, causing the country's social fabric to unwind like thread from a bobbin. Today, more than 150,000 people are threatened with eviction. Forty-five per cent of the country's entire landmass has been sold off - from the land ringing Angkor Wat to the colonial buildings of Phnom Penh to the south-western islands. Professor Yash Ghai, the UN human rights emissary to Cambodia, warned, "One does not need expertise in human rights to recognise that many policies of the government have... deprived people of their economic resources and means of livelihood, and denied them their dignity." He added, "I believe that the deliberate rejection of the concept of a state governed by the rule of law has been central to the ruling party's hold on power."

It was Hun Sen who, as early as 1989, realised the power of land. Rhodri Williams, a researcher for the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, points out that, as Hun Sen privatised the land, "he simultaneously cut off the rights of 360,000 exiled Cambodians, awarding prime slices to political allies and friends." The exiles were Cambodians who had fled the Khmer Rouge into Thailand and beyond in 1975; they had titles to the land, but this counted for nothing when they returned to claim it. Hun Sen said Cambodia should start again.

Although he bathes his speeches in socialist values, even his closest aides told us that Hun Sen was more often than not a pragmatist. He joined the Communist party in the 60s and enlisted in the Khmer Rouge in the 70s, before defecting to the Vietnamese-backed government in the 80s. In the 90s, he embraced the free market. Tourism was not a promising prospect in the early days - the remnants of Khmer Rouge, violently hostile to outsiders, were too much of a risk. When western travellers did begin to explore, they were taking their lives in their hands. In 1994, Briton Mark Slater, Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet and Australian David Wilson were kidnapped while riding a train through Sihanoukville, and all of them executed. Two years later, Christopher Howes, a British de-mining expert, together with a Cambodian colleague, were murdered as they worked 10 miles north of Angkor Wat.

By 2006, the country seemed safer, and was finally becoming a tourist destination. That September, the CPP received its first foreign offer in the coastal area: a Russian investor living in Phnom Penh wanted to buy an island. This deal would become the template for every developer to come. Alexander Trofimov created a Cambodian shell company to buy Koh Puos, or Snake Island. With cash apparently no object, he proposed to stunned government officials that he would link the island to a mainland beach - known as Hawaii - with a 900-metre suspension bridge. "He also asked to buy Hawaii beach," the official who oversaw that meeting told us. "And we gave it to him." No figures were published. The official claimed he didn't know them.

Locals who used the beach and island were kept in the dark. No one quizzed Trofimov. He produced a book of cut-and-paste designs that he said would encompass a £150m resort consisting of 900 tightly packed villas, a dolphin aquarium, two hotels, a shopping centre and a marina - all crammed into an egg cup-sized island. It was enticing stuff for the CPP, although the project faltered when Trofimov was accused of having sex with underage girls, and jailed this year. However, two more Russian businessmen seamlessly emerged to take up the reins, representing a Cypriot-holding company that, it later transpired, had owned the Koh Puos project from the off.

Arnaud Darc was quick off the mark, too. A quietly spoken and likeable French businessman, Darc had arrived in Cambodia in the 90s, building a hotel and restaurant business in Phnom Penh. In 2006, after hearing from a French colleague working at Sihanoukville's provincial airport that the runway was likely to be extended, he identified two massive beach-front sites totalling more than 220 hectares that he liked the look of. He brought in Jean-Louis Charon, a Parisian real estate tycoon, whose Nexity company is the largest in France, and whose name brought in "40 French high-net worths", as Darc described them; they raised £12.5m to be held by City Star, a foreign-owned investment company. "The maths was easy, and the returns potentially fantastic," Darc said. City Star's land values quadrupled as soon as the Cambodian government confirmed the airport rumours, a spokesman for the Sihanoukville governor's office told us.

The investors could have sold up and come away rich. But this was development with a difference. City Star investors wanted more, but did not want to go to the trouble of constructing anything. They were speculating on the future value of the land, believing that by adding only modest infrastructure, perhaps attaching big-name hoteliers, they would reap vast profits in seven to 10 years. Darc's group continued buying, snapping up 333 hectares on Koh Russei and Koh Ta Kiev, two islands off Ream. Such was the appetite for easy money that City Star raised a further £30m in a matter of days from a second group of French high rollers last July, this time to buy in Phnom Penh.

Darc's model appealed to British investors behind LimeTree Capital, a Hong Kong-based private equity group that in 2007 bought up chunks of beach front near Ream; sites it planned to leave idle for many years until prices peaked. This spring, a third entrepreneur, Frenchman Alain Dupuis, through his Cambodian company LBL International, bought Koh Sramaoch. Soon after, Koh Tonsay, or Rabbit Island, was auctioned off to Chinese investors; 14 fishing families were evicted to make way for a casino and a golf course.

On the mainland, Sang Run returned to the beach to find his village in Sihanoukville destroyed to make way, supposedly, for a hotel. A few hotels have been built, but generally the sites remain empty. The Cambodian economy has grown by more than 24% over 18 months and land values have in some cases risen by more than 100%, so there are fortunes to be made from doing nothing but wait.

Australians Rory and Mel Hunter were the only investors who made an attempt to incorporate into their plans the people whose land they were buying. An advertising executive, Rory had come to Cambodia to work for an agency in Phnom Penh. During a week-long vacation in 2006, he and his wife, Mel, had set out on a diving trip around the Koh Rong archipelago and fell in love with the twin islands of Koh Bong and Koh Ouen, attached to one another by a coral reef and cupped in a shallow strait - they were known collectively as the Sweethearts. "We dreamed of a beautiful resort where people could immerse themselves in a new part of Asia," Mel said. They began negotiations with two village men to buy their houses and those owned by 60 other families. "They thought we were nuts," Rory said. "The two head guys wanted £7,500 each. We agreed and signed the contract in a boat out in the strait. We helped take down their tin shacks, and slowly relocated all the families and their homes to Koh Rong, across the strait." They worked for weeks to clear 20 years of debris, while beginning negotiations with the government to buy the islands themselves.

The Hunters drummed up backing from a handful of British speculators, including a currency broker who (preferring we didn't use his name) tells us why he leapt at the opportunity. "I loved the deal from the start. Let's be honest, who wants 6%? I wanted a deal that would wake me up in the night, sweating. We could make good money," he says over drinks in Phnom Penh, his City suit exchanged for shorts and a T-shirt. "There was a buzz about Cambodia you don't get elsewhere. It's Cambodia, the killing fields and all that stuff. Something different to show your mates back home. I show them the visa in my passport. I have something they don't."

But the Hunters' enterprise would soon be challenged by a cascade of deals involving neighbouring islands. While they worked on retraining local fishermen on neighbouring Koh Rong, British property developer Marty Kaye bought the ground from under their feet. Kaye, who had spent much of his career working on construction in Hong Kong, had spotted the island while planning an £800m luxury tourist development on a nearby Vietnamese island, Phu Quoc. He told us: "I was walking down the beach on Phu Quoc, seeing where we were going to put the golf course, and I spotted another island. No one knew what it was. We looked on Google Earth and it seemed to be Koh Rong, in adjacent Cambodia. I said, 'Let's see if we can get anywhere on Koh Rong, too.'"

Kaye, who runs Millennium property fund, began negotiating. "Here was a chance to buy an undeveloped island almost as long as Hong Kong," he said. "Nowhere else in the world could you create your own kingdom from scratch - unlike the car-crash planning of Thai islands like Koh Samui." The Cambodian government gave him 18 months to produce more details, and he worked on an outline plan whose initial development would cost £100m. When the government signed the deal, it made no mention of the census it had just carried out recording how many thousands of people (the government won't reveal the figures) live on the 7,800-hectare island.

Kaye is not worried: "Two guys and a lawyer will see everyone. But what most of them don't understand is that even if they have papers, they are not worth anything. All of them are registered only locally, not in Phnom Penh, so they will have absolutely no case. Others are just squatters with no papers at all." It helped that Kaye's Cambodian partner was tycoon Kith Meng, a multi-millionaire with interests in banking, mobile phones and real estate - and a close friend of the prime minister, Hun Sen.

"Kith Meng wants everything done yesterday," Kaye said. "We are going to move as fast as we can. It's fantastically exciting, the opportunity to zone the whole island, to see where the luxury exclusive villa plots will be, for the Brad Pitts, etc." It is an investment that gives the present residents of Koh Rong just over a year to make a solid case for keeping their homes or finding new ones.

If they are evicted, places in the area to make a new home are becoming scarce. With all the big islands sold, even smaller outcrops have gone, too, including a clump of rocks known as Nail Island, bought by Ukrainian entrepreneur Nickolai Doroshenko, who has transformed it into a James Bond-style lair, complete with a giant fibre-glass shark that soars over the fortress-like construction. He already owns Victory Beach, in Sihanoukville, a restaurant stuffed with live snakes and a bar that advertises "swimming girls".

The sale of the century continued with the mainland beaches. At the end of January, the Sokha Hotel Group, run by Sok Kong, a Cambodian oligarch and Hun Sen ally, was confirmed as the new owner of the lion's share of Occheuteal Beach, the largest and most popular public dune in the region, which was closed off to make way for a 1,000-room hotel and golf course. The deal was originally negotiated in June 2006 when, local fisherman told us, bulldozers and 10 trucks of armed men demolished 71 homes and 40 local restaurants.

Not wanting to be left out, Say Hak, Sihanoukville's governor, acquired a small island for himself, on which he built a villa and jetty; while Sbaung Sarath, the wife of his deputy, bought half of Sihanoukville's public Independence Beach in February 2008, evicting scores of families in the process. Among them was Srey Pov. She travelled to Phnom Penh with 27 other families to protest, but returned with nothing. "The developer issued a warning," she says. "They threatened to pay the city authorities to get rid of us. We knew what that meant." Independence Beach now languishes behind high fencing, as Srey Pov feared, waiting for the five-star tourists who will enjoy exclusive access to the powder-white sand.

Days later, Sbaung Sarath struck again, securing part of Sihanoukville's Otres Beach, one of the last public dunes, where Queenco, a London-listed casino company, also announced in February that it had bought 56 hectares. Queenco declined to comment on its Sihanoukville project, but it has already had consequences - 100 fishing families have been evicted. They have built a row of makeshift bamboo shacks, held together with plastic sheeting and whatever rubbish they could recycle, along a 200-yard stretch of a nearby main road. On the day we visited, they were drying out from an overnight storm that had filled their ramshackle homes with rainwater.

Aom Heat, 63, used to have a wonderful view over Otres beach and the gulf beyond. She was forced off her land last April. Now all she can see are the hubcaps and exhaust pipes of lorries that tear by. She and many of her neighbours had arrived on Otres Beach after fleeing the Khmer Rouge in the early 80s, building a fishing village they christened Spean Ches, or Burning Bridge. "When the eviction notices were served on us in September 2006, we were determined to fight," she says. She could not bear to lose everything again. "We lodged a complaint with the Senate Committee on Human Rights that ruled it was a matter for the courts." But the Sihanoukville governor's men did not wait for a court order. They turned up at the seaside village in April last year, Aom Heat says, and, "they burned down 26 houses and bulldozed 86 more, destroying all the pots and pans, clothes and food supplies. We were in a blind panic." Thirteen injured men were arrested and jailed, including one of Aom Heat's sons. Although made homeless, they were charged with "wrongful damage of property", and nine of them found guilty without witnesses or evidence produced. Despite having served their time while waiting for the case to be heard, the men were thrown back into jail pending an appeal from the prosecution, who complained they had been dealt with too leniently.

No one can agree what impact the foreign land sales will have on the Cambodian economy because so little information is made public. Although Cambodia is nominally a democracy that has held three general elections to date, and has a nominal opposition party, the CPP parliamentarians and cabinet are remote and dismissive of their people. They are not required to report on their interests or assets, making it impossible to deduce how much Hun Sen and his cabinet have personally benefited - although the World Bank reported last year that corruption, coupled with a lack of transparency, was "choking economic growth".

Since the land sell-offs, members of the government and its allies have been splashing huge sums around. A Korean developer told us that when he marketed Phnom Penh's first skyscraper, the 42-storey Gold Tower project in February, all two dozen £750,000 penthouse suites were bought within 24 hours by "an honour roll of the CPP and its friends in the military". There are other telltale signs, such as the canary yellow Hummers and hi-spec Range Rovers with blacked-out windows that rumble around Phnom Penh, in a country where the average annual income is less than £150.

Simon Taylor, the director of Global Witness, an international NGO that was forced to leave the country last year, having accused the CPP of running a logging racket, paints a depressing picture: "A shadow state has grown up, a government that misappropriates public assets, extorts from businesses and manages an extensive illicit economy. It is administered by senior ministers who are fluent in the jargon of good governance and sustainable development." One of Hun Sen's closest advisers, who requested anonymity, disagrees, telling us: "Hun Sen believes that liberal democracy is unsuited to a country whose skills have been drained and demographics wildly skewed by the Khmer Rouge."

Everything comes down to how much money you have in your pocket, according to Doug Clayton, from Leopard Asia, a fund of Swiss and British bankers that is about to invest £25m in Cambodia. "This kind of money opens any door," he says. How does Clayton pitch the Hun Sen brand back home? "Candidly? In investment circles, no one knows anything about this place. It's off the radar. In our pitch I talk up the new economic figures. I talk up stability." Clayton adds: "When the dust settles, the government here will probably end up looking something like the one in Singapore." There, Lee Kuan Yew served as prime minister from 1959 to 1990. Cambodian pollsters, looking to the general election that will run this July, predict a clear CPP victory, putting Hun Sen at the helm for many more years, too.

What will this mean for people such as Sang Run, who is now surviving in a makeshift home behind Independence Beach? Has the legacy of the Khmer Rouge been purged? Naly Pilorge, director of Licadho, a local human rights NGO, thinks not: "Everyone claims Cambodia has come through the period of barbarism, but the sadism is still bubbling beneath the surface. Extreme violence, greed and disregard for the most basic human rights - of giving people a place to live - are still with us daily. The methods of the past are being used to dictate our future."

Russei Keo blaze: Residents report fire dept. refused to put out flames because people couldn't pay them bribes

Fire Destroys Hundreds of Slum Homes

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
11 April 2008

A seven-hour fire burned down several hundred homes on the outskirts of Phnom Penh early Monday, and residents say the fire department did little to stop it.

The fire started around 5 am Monday and continued burning until around noon, destroying an entire village of makeshift homes.

Residents said the fire department refused to put out the flames because the people couldn't pay them bribes.

"I asked the firemen to extinguish my house, but the firemen said they did not have water," Chhen Saray, said as she wept. "The firemen extinguished only the houses of the rich, not the poor."

The fire comes just days before the start of Khmer New Year, a traditional time of nationwide celebration. No casualties were reported, and the cause is under investigation.

A fire department official denied claims of negligence, saying his men were hard-pressed to stop the fire in an area with streets too narrow for his trucks.

"The firemen had difficulty extinguishing the fire, because the roads leading the slum were too small," said Sok Vannra, first deputy chief of the Phnom Penh fire department. "We were fighting the fire from 5:30 am, and we almost had no water to drink, but we are still criticized by the residents."

A second resident said her house was saved by firemen only after her uncle, who knew some other firemen, convinced them to put out the flames. Her uncle later paid five men $10, she said.

Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Mab Sarin said Friday the city had no plans to develop the area.

"The Phnom Penh municipality has instructed district governors and deputy governors to consider finding a proper place for victims to stay," he said.

To anyone who has lived in Cambodia, the very idea that freedom and democracy in the Southeast Asian country are improving is laughable

Growing Democracy is a Messy Business

January 9th, 2008
Embassy (Canada's Froeign Policy Weekly)
EDITORIAL

The government wants accountability and effectiveness when it comes to its international aid spending. It also wants to increase support for democracies and good governance.

If nothing else, events over the past two weeks in Kenya should serve as a warning that these two policies aren't naturally compatible.

As Queen's University professor David Donovan, one of the country's top experts on the topic, said last week, democratic development isn't just difficult, "it's messy."

When the United States invaded Iraq, those in power believed democracy would spring from the earth once Saddam Hussein's brutal and repressive regime was removed from power. Things clearly haven't worked out that way.

Using a Canadian example, the CIDA departmental performance report tabled in the House in November said the aid agency's funding for democracy development in Cambodia had taught Cambodian parliamentarians how to draft legislation and had encouraged informed debate within the parliament, "enhancing therefore freedom and democracy."

To anyone who has lived in Cambodia, the very idea that freedom and democracy in the Southeast Asian country are improving is laughable. Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People's Party rule with an iron fist that has essentially cut out the parliamentary process. The courts are notoriously corrupt and used by the ruling party. The UN's special human rights envoy, Yash Ghai, says the situation for most Cambodians is worsening.

This apparent disconnect between CIDA's overblown, self-stated success and the reality on the ground is par for the course with the aid agency. But while the ongoing issues in Cambodia aren't surprising to many, the mass protests and killings in Kenya following the Dec. 27 national elections shocked the world because the African country was considered one of the most stable on the continent.

CIDA's website acknowledges the high-level government corruption that has "marred the government's credibility on its commitment to good governance."

"Despite political tensions, Kenya continues to progress, albeit slowly, towards an environment increasingly intolerant of corruption," it adds.

This may be true. As one social justice worker in Nairobi noted, the very fact that Kenyans rose up in response to allegations of election fraud is an indication that the desire for democracy is sinking in at the grassroots level.

What's not known is to what degree democracy suffered following the election and subsequent violence, and that's where the question of aid effectiveness and accountability arise. If a school burns down, it's lost. What is the state of democracy in a country when more than 300 people die protesting a fraudulent election?

The Canadian government will unveil a whole-of-government policy on democracy support within the next few months, which virtually guarantees even more resources will be dedicated to such activities than the $473.8 million CIDA spent last year.

Meanwhile, the government has said it wants to ensure aid effectiveness before even discussing the idea of moving towards the internationally accepted target of spending 0.7 per cent of the gross national product on aid.

The fear is the government will stick with its effectiveness and accountability mantra and yet pursue a policy that doesn't conform to the type of results-based reporting that it apparently seeks.

As a result, the worst-case scenario would see aid funding remain at current levels, or sink further away from the internationally accepted 0.7 target, as the government tinkers and toys in increasing frustration with the strategy but is unable to measure success or failure.

CIDA has already been heavily criticized over the past year from a variety of corners, and its credibility continues to erode even as its importance to Canadian foreign policy increases.

Supporting democracy and good governance is essential for successful nation-building, but if the government is serious about adopting a democracy support strategy as well as making sure the billions of dollars that Canada spends on international aid is making a difference, it had better know what it's getting itself into. A quick fix tool this is not.