Youth Standing Tall

Originally posted at:  http://sochua.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/youth-standing-tall/

Sophorn was heard by the prosecutor recently. The case has yet to go to trial. In the meantime, 6 women from the same community have been detained, charged and ordered by the court to report their movement outside of the community. The kangaroo courts can only be changed when there is a complete regime change.

International donors pour over US$1 billion er year for assistance. The government has yet to set a date for the next donor meeting. Yet, donors have no courage to demand accountability.

Land is life and what is the meaning of aid if poverty is sustained by bad governance.

Dictatorship in Egypt was sustained by USA for 30 years because of self-interest. The cry for democracy was ignored till Tahrir Square exploded.

Democracy is about justice, accountability and courage.

A lesson well learned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBt5E6CkaAY

An uneasy peace

Prince Norodom Sihanouk, French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas and Hun Sen, before the start of peace talks in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, in Paris 1989

Monday, October 17, 2011
By Dr. Markus Karbaum
Southeast Asia Globe

Hun Sen, whose family is extremely wealthy, maintains excellent relations with Cambodia's leading entrepreneurs. Corruption is rampant and it seems that personal enrichment at the cost of the public and the plunder of national resources are more common than ever. Compared to the 1970s, violence is largely non-existent in Cambodia, but few would say the 'rule by fear' maxim that has governed the country during the last two decades constitutes a 'peaceful society'.

The process of democratisation has always been challenging. The setbacks in Cambodia have been alarming because they seem to parallel a line of politics that serve a few. Numerous cases of land grabbing throughout Cambodia illustrate how people suffer under an elite with such an extensive claim to power.

Without a change of policies, societal conflicts over income distribution will become more common. To avoid instability, Western donors have stood close to Hun Sen for years, but it seems they are losing confidence. Cambodia's attempt to secure a seat as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 2013 and 2014 is an opportunity for the international donor community to demand concessions in domestic policies.

A more responsive style of government that generates benefits for all citizens would be an important push for the spirit of the Paris Peace Accords.

Twenty years ago the Paris Peace Accords promised a new dawn for Cambodia. How has the country fared?

This month marks the twentieth anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords. The agreement that supposedly marked the end of hostilities and the beginning of reconstruction in Cambodia was the conclusion of four years of talks that brought together the United Nations secretary general, four Cambodian factions and 18 representatives from other states. It was by no means an easy feat.

From 1970 until pen was put to paper on October 23, 1991, Cambodia was one of the world's bloodiest battlefields. Ravaged by a war, genocide and civil war that collectively claimed millions of lives, the country was torn apart during the darkest episode in its history. Hostilities between the different factions continued through the 1990s, all spurred by a common aim: power and legitimacy.

"Donor countries should stop believing in Hun Xen's regime....!" - Op-Ed by Chhaya Khemarak

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

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: The Aid Donors

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

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

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: Piggy - Anti-Corruption Law

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

Opinion: 'Progress' means trash the poor in Cambodia

In Cambodia, even the smallest children are put to work, scavenging for 14 hours a day for plastic, glass, metal. These children are at incredible health and safety risk and earn barely a penny an hour. These children are exploited and abused in the extreme - the victims of overpopulation. (A Decent Life Charity)

By Paul Wallis
Digital Journal

The world needs to start setting standards for international aid. Things have to be achieved, not just said to be achieved. It’s not enough to simply allow another pack of vultures to set up shop in disaster areas. The message has to be, “Do the job right, run the place according to law, or we pull the plug on you.”

It’s called progress, anyway. Most crimes have at least some euphemisms. Teams of workmen arrive at a residential location near Phnom Penh. They’re carrying axes. At 6AM they move in and start demolishing the houses. With the people still in them.

The idea? High rises. You know, those obvious essentials to people whose annual income would perhaps buy a week’s rent in the average Western home.

Bulldozers move in, and hit people trying to find their possessions. At least one woman is hospitalized. The residents react, and throw things at the bulldozer. Fire extinguishers are turned on them. A cat is killed in the process, and people wander around what looks like Stalingrad.

The land, as you will have guessed, is prime land. The residents were offered compensation of about $20,000. They said it wouldn’t buy them another place to live, and they knew their land was worth more.

Australia’s SBS current affairs show Dateline got a first hand view of this blatant violation of human rights and property laws.

*** Please note, this is a pretty infuriating, upsetting video.

A moment of farce was achieved by an interview with the Australian ambassador, who was asked if she was embarrassed that was happening practically on the doorstep of the new Australian Embassy. She was diplomatically not embarrassed.

As an Aussie, I, however, was embarrassed. We led a peacekeeping mission in the 90s to try and get Cambodia back into the current part of human history. We, like many other countries including the US, donate a lot of money to support Cambodia.

It turns out that as usual with international aid, we’re supporting the rich, not the majority of the population. Obviously, Cambodia’s poor have no rights, and less future. We’re clearly not supporting human rights, international law, or anything resembling sanity.

Cambodia is a mirror of the truth of all the international aid. That’s progress, folks. If you happen to remember all the visions of global development, pulling the Third World out of poverty, building a better world, this is what happened to it, just about everywhere on Earth.

This is where 50 years of talkfests has got the human race. Four billion people living in the Middle Ages with cell phones. Wars, revolutions, genocides, political and business babble, followed by what is basically oppression in another form. It’s infallible. One collection of corrupt vermin is replaced by another. Aid becomes a matter of protecting people from the following sets of disasters.

All the good intentions seem to be paving others’ roads to hell.

The world needs to start setting standards for international aid. Things have to be achieved, not just said to be achieved. It’s not enough to simply allow another pack of vultures to set up shop in disaster areas. The message has to be, “Do the job right, run the place according to law, or we pull the plug on you.”

My guess would be that we don’t need saints running aid programs. We need cynical bastards who wouldn’t trust their own grandmothers with a baby.

I don’t think you can be simultaneously determined to save the world and equally determined to look under every rock to find out who’s causing what’s wrong with it.

Then maybe we'll see some real progress.

This opinion article was written by an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily intended to reflect those of DigitalJournal.com

Ten-million riels riddle for inept donor countries (such as Japan!): How to get a corrupt government to pass the anti-corruption law?

Donors Still Push for Corruption Law

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
27 February 2009

A donor community that has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to the Cambodian government is now showing a strong demand for the passage of anti-corruption legislation, which initially was drafted more than seven years ago.

Central to a counter-corruption law is the country’s penal code, which must be revised first, officials have said. Last month, a government task force review of the country’s penal code was concluded.

The World Bank’s Cambodia office says the bank and other donors recognize the importance of the anti-corruption law and have been pushing for its adoption.

“At the last Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum...I urged the government to submit the anti-corruption law as soon as possible and emphasized that passing the law will be an important signal, providing investors and development partners with confidence to make more long-term commitments in Cambodia,” the World Bank’s country manager for Cambodia, Qimiao Fan, wrote Tuesday in an email to VOA Khmer.

Japan, which pledged US$ 112 million to Cambodia at the last donor meeting, expressed a strong wish to see the passage of the law, despite a mechanism put in place to closely monitor every spending step in its development aid.

“The Japanese Government believes that the anti-corruption law would enhance the rule of law in Cambodia, and continues to support the early passage of the law,” the first secretary of the Japanese Embassy, Yasuhiko Kamada, said in an email response to VOA Khmer.

In a similar tone, the US Embassy emphasized that the law should be a priority for Cambodia.

“The embassy certainly does support and has supported in the past the passing of any corruption bill, and we expect and would hope that it will meet international standards,” John Johnson, US Embassy spokesperson, told VOA Khmer.

The long-awaited anti-corruption bill was sent to the National Assembly once in 2003, but was sent back, and since then the law remains with the executive branch. Officials say the penal code must be revised first, to ensure the two laws are concurrent.

Analysts say the lack of the law means corruption charges go unpunished and are difficult to investigate, such as kickback allegations at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, government officials implicated by a Global Witness report on illegal logging, and a corruption case allegedly committed by a prosecutor in Kampong Speu province.

The delay in passage of the law has caused some cancellation of development projects.

“In July 2006, UNDP prepared a multi-donor project designed to support the implementation of the anti-corruption law in Cambodia. Due to the delays in passing the law, the project did not reach approval stage,” UNDP said in an e-mail response to VOA Khmer.

“Addressing the issue of corruption in Cambodia is a high priority for UNDP, as it undermines sustainable development,” UNDP said.

However, some observers do not agree with the approaches adopted by the international community, saying donors have not been effective in pushing for the passage of the law.

Cambodia secured almost $1 billion in pledged aid at the last donor meeting, a boost of more than one-third the $689 million it received the year before.

“At every government-donor meeting, the donors should speak out louder,” Thun Saray, president of the rights group Adhoc and an activist against corruption, told VOA Khmer. “Some of them have tended to get tired after failing to get what they wanted in the first place. They tried to push some laws, such as the anti-corruption law, but later withdrew and stopped completely. This is wrong.”

Cambodia ranks 166 on the 2008 index of Transparency International, the most corrupt country in Asia after Burma.