After 30 years of CPP rule, Cambodia lost many state assets: SRP

Thief-in-Chief

លោក យឹម សុវណ្ណ អ្នក​នាំ​ពាក្យ​គណបក្ស សម រង្ស៊ី ថ្លែង​ក្នុង​សមាជ​លើក​ទី​២ របស់​គណបក្ស សិទ្ធិ​មនុស្ស ក្នុង​រាជ​ធានី​ភ្នំពេញ ថ្ងៃ​ទី​២២ កក្កដា ឆ្នាំ ២០១២។ (RFA/Vann Vichar)

បក្ស​សម​រង្សី៖ បក្ស​ប្រជា​ជន​គ្រប់​គ្រង​អំណាច​៣០​ឆ្នាំ កម្ពុជា​បាត់បង់​ទ្រព្យ​រដ្ឋ

2012-07-22
ដោយ ម៉ម មុនីរតន៍
Radio Free Asia

Synopsis: Yim Sovann, the SRP spokesman, criticized the CPP leadership for the loss of natural resources, such as lakes and rivers, land, mines, gas and public buildings. Global Witness considered Cambodia as a “country for sale”. Government officials could not be reached to clarify this accusation, but in the past, Hun Xen reacted angrily in public, calling Global Witness thieves.

លោក យឹម សុវណ្ណ អ្នក​នាំ​ពាក្យ​គណបក្ស សម រង្ស៊ី បាន​រិះគន់​ការ​ដឹក​នាំ​ប្រ​ទេស​ដោយ​គណបក្ស​ប្រជា​ជន​កម្ពុជា​ថា កំពុង​ធ្វើ​ឲ្យ​សម្បត្តិ​ធនធាន​ធម្មជាតិ មាន​បឹង​បួរ ដី រ៉ែ ឧស្ម័ន ប្រេង​កាត និង​អាគារ​សាធារណ​របស់​រដ្ឋ​រង​ការ​បាត់​បង់។

អង្គការ​ឃ្លាំមើល​បរិស្ថាន​ពិភពលោក ក្លូបល វីតណេស (Global Witness បាន​ចាត់​ទុក​ប្រទេស​កម្ពុជា ថា​ជា​ប្រទេស​សម្រាប់​លក់។

មន្ត្រី​រដ្ឋាភិបាល​ពុំ​អាច​ស្នើ​សុំ​ការ​បំភ្លឺ​បាន​ទេ​ចំ​ពោះ​ការ​ចោទ​ប្រកាន់​នេះ។ តែ​ទោះ​ជា​បែប​ណា​ក្ដី លោក ហ៊ុន សែន ក្នុង​ពេល​កន្លង​ទៅ​នេះ បាន​ចេញ​ប្រតិកម្ម​ជា​សាធារណ ដោយ​លោក​ហៅ​ការ​រក​ឃើញ​នោះ​ថា អង្គការ​ឃ្លាំ​មើល​បរិស្ថាន​នេះ​ថា ជា​ចោរ។

The CPP gang

https://www.box.com/s/c1283eda383bc124a8bc

Hun Sen's network of marriages for power consolidation

A family reunion of Mr. Hun Sen's family with his father, Hun Neang (in orange in the middle), as the head of the family. (Photo: Koh Santepheap)

By Taing Sarada
Reported in English by Khmerization
Source: RFA
To listen to audio, click here.

Critics of the Cambodian government said that a network of political structure through a web of marriages of children of top government leaders are done to ensure the security of their positions, powers and their businesses.

Systematic corruption is entrenched, deeply rooted and complex in the Cambodian society through nepotism, cronyism and these factors have become a concern that there could be a possibility for an abuse of powers by political leaders.

Mr. Chett Cholasa, a Cambodian political analyst, said nepotism among the powerful elites has brought unstoppable corruption because law-enforcement institutions are afraid of implementing the laws, afraid of carrying out the arrests or afraid to make a (judicial) judgment. "That system is very complex which enable a large scale corruption to occur and the perpetrators using political leaders to back them up or to intervene on their behalf. And a culture of intervention in Cambodia occurred through relatives, siblings, from small until the big fish. This kind of culture is rampant and widespread which allows the powerful to oppress the poor and the powerless, which allows the rich to do whatever they wanted which has led the country to destruction", he said.

An online newspaper, Asia Time Online, which quoted the Phnom Penh Post, in 2007 reported that a web of marriages of the children of Cambodian political leaders were done for political purpose and financial interests.

Blessed by ill-earned prosperity versus Condemned by undeserved poverty in the Kingdom of Extraordinary Wonder

Lifestyle of the Thieves of the Nation

Hun Xen holding his granddaughter's hand to greet Bun Rany's arrival from New York on16 June 2011 (Photo: Kampuchea Thmei)

Lifestyle of ordinary Khmer People

An typical Khmer child seen playing in a pond near Don Ma village, Preah Vihear province (Photo: RFA)

Typical young Khmer girls coming out of a stream in Don Ma village, Preah Vihear province (Photo: RFA)

Lifestyle of the Thieves of the Nation

Hun Clan reunion

Lifestyle of ordinary Khmer People

Koh Pich survivor family reunion

Global land grabs creating security and political problems [-Shhtttt! Don't tell that Hun Xen, let him learn the hard way!]

Villagers in Kampong Speu fight back against the cops who came to evict them from their lands (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

It's become known as the global land grab. More and more wealthy countries are buying up agricultural land in the developing world in at attempt to hedge against high food prices. Ben Shepherd from Sydney University's Centre for Security Studies says these land deals are driven by countries sourcing food security by directly purchasing agricultural land, but it's creating both political and security issues in host countries.

September 13, 2011 13:37:00

Bronwyn Herbert

ABC News (Australia)

ELEANOR HALL: It's become known as the "global land grab".

More and more wealthy countries are buying up agricultural land in the developing world in an attempt to hedge against high food prices.

According to the World Bank, food prices jumped by almost 30 per cent last year and contributed to riots and protests across the Middle East, South America and Asia.

Ben Shepherd from Sydney University's Centre for Security Studies is researching the phenomenon and told Bronwyn Herbert that these land deals are creating a new kind of security and political problem.

BEN SHEPHERD: The deals themselves are usually made by corporations and investment funds but the investing countries like China and the Arabian Gulf states are providing support and policy frameworks that are encouraging these commercial enterprises activities.

So if there are bad outcomes in the way that these corporations are behaving, if those policy frameworks can be adjusted to encourage better behaviour by those corporations, there's a hope for better outcomes on the ground.

BRONWYN HERBERT: Are there examples of bad behaviour on the ground?

BEN SHEPHERD: I've just spent two and a half months in field work in Cambodia which is a really interesting situation. As well as the policy frameworks on the investor side, the Cambodian government has its own policy frameworks which are encouraging foreign investment in agricultural land.

And one of the unfortunate side effects of the way that those policies are working is that corporations are getting granted land in Cambodia and the net result is forcible evictions of the people that have been living on and relying on that land.

Don't make Doctors out of the thief's sons - Poem in Khmer by Spean Tep

Cambodia Villagers Stage "Avatar" Themed Protest about Land Loss

Cambodian villagers affected by the loss of land in Prey Lang forest in the north of the country pray at a Buddhist shrine in central Phnom Penh, August 18, 2011. Later, most were briefly detained after they distributed leaflets in the capital, but they were all later released. (Photo: VOA - R. Carmichael)

Thursday, 18 August 2011Robert ​Carmichael | Phnom Penh

Ou Virak, who heads the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, says the real reason for the detentions was that such the protests threaten the ability of the elite to exploit Cambodia's natural resources.

More than 100 villagers from rural Cambodia were detained briefly by the authorities in Phnom Penh after handing out leaflets detailing how government land concessions are affecting their lives.

Early Thursday, about 120 villagers gathered to pray at a Buddhist shrine on the riverfront in Phnom Penh.

Many were dressed in outfits designed to evoke a Cambodian version of the hit film "Avatar" - which depicts the struggle of an alien race battling to save their forest from commercial exploitation. Protesters had green painted faces, green shirts and wore a green leaf as a hat.

They said they had come to the capital to let the public know of the troubles they face in rural areas where huge tracts of forest have been leased to domestic and foreign businesses.

The call of Cambodia: Where nature's beauty and mankind's cruelty combine

From glory to ruin: Angkor Wat reminds you of the feats humans can attain, and how quickly the jungle can claim it all back

Dark history: Cambodia's stunning architecture is contrasted by its black history

Fascinated foreign correspondent: Michael Buerk and his wife Christine

Recovering: Traditional dancers are once again becoming common after they were massacred by the Khmer Rouge

6th May 2011
By Michael Buerk
Daily Mail Online (UK)

[Hun Xen] heads what is widely acknowledged as one of the most corrupt governments in the world, a kleptocratic elite that has made itself fabulously wealthy through seizing public assets and illegal logging, leading to repeated complaints of corruption from the World Bank.

The U.S. ambassador publicly accused government officials of stealing $500 million a year. All this when one in three Cambodians live on less than $1 a day.

Nature's been kind to Cambodia, but man hasn't. That's the fascination of the place - it's what makes it more than just another edgy tropical paradise on the backpacker trail.

In fact, this is the most compelling tourist destination in South-East Asia. You can go just to unwind.

The scenery is rich, the food - with its French colonial overtones - exotic. Park by the pool, order the beers and soak up the old Indochina, free of Thailand's rampant commercialism or Vietnam's frenetic crowds.

But this would be missing the point. The history of Cambodia adds up to a short course in human futility.

Successive rulers have tried to impose their own ideas of earthly heaven, which have all ended in varying kinds of ruin. And it is all there; awful, in every sense.

How to be a rich dictator- A DIY (Do It Yourself) guide by HE. Samdach Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Hun Sen

18 Feb 2011
James Thomson
BusinessSpectator (Australia)

Let’s just get this clear from the start. It is extremely unlikely that deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is worth anywhere near $70 billion and he isn’t close to being the richest person in the world.

The basis for his valuation, which has been carried across the world in various media reports, appears to emanate from an article in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, which referenced “middle east experts” as having made the snap evaluation.

On closer inspection, Amaney Jamal, a political science professor at Princeton said an estimate of $40-70 billion for the Mubarak family fortune was “comparable with the vast wealth of leaders in other Gulf countries”.

But as Forbes pointed out in a blog last week, the worth of the richest ruler in the region, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia, has been put at $15 billion, which is a long way from $70 billion.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Mubarak did very well out his time in charge.

Despite receiving a salary of just $808 a year, Mubarak and his family – specifically his sons Gamal and Alaa – amassed billions of dollars by establishing a system of endemic corruption.

Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and his family's 'Mafia rule' [-Does that sound like the Hun's "family of the thieves of the Khmer nation"?]

Ben Ali (L) and Bun Rany (R) (Photo: AP)

As Tunisia's President Ben Ali is granted leave to remain in Saudi Arabia, the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by the president and his family is coming into the spotlight.

16 Jan 2011

By Colin Freeman

The Telegraph (UK)

"Ben Ali's wife, Leila Ben Ali, and her extended family - the Trabelsis - provoke the greatest ire from Tunisians. Along with the numerous allegations of Trabelsi corruption are often barbs about their lack of education, low social status, and conspicuous consumption." [KI-Media: Does that ring a bell with Cambodia's first family?]

Their preferred title was "Tunisia's First Family". To the people they ruled over, though, president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and his clan were known as "The Mafia" - a ruling clique whose greed and nepotism ultimately caused their downfall.

Following in the footsteps of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and numerous other deposed dictators, Mr Ben Ali was granted refuge in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, starting what will likely be a comfortable, if less than dignified, political retirement.

But as millions of Tunisians celebrated the end of his 23-year-long authoritarian rule, it was not just the 74-year-old president they were glad to see the back of.

Far more reviled, it seems, was his second wife Laila, a feisty brunette more than 20 years his junior, who was dubbed "The Regent of Carthage" for her power behind the throne.

A former hairdresser from a humble background, she stands accused of using her marriage to Mr Ben Ali to turn her family, the Trabelsis, into the desert nation's most powerful business clique.

How many times can you spot the word "Moha" in this video? How many members of the thieves of the nation can you spot?

Angry messages to the Family of the Thieves of the Nation

Report and Video by Uon Chhin, Radio Free Asia

Hun Xen and Global Witness: Who’s the real thief ringleader?

Who's the thief ringleader: Global Witness or Hun Xen?

27 May 2010
By Pech Bandol
Free Press Magazine Online
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
Click here to read the article in Khmer

The shameful thug (Neak Leng) language echoed from PM Hun Xen’s mouth yesterday morning when he harshly attacked a London-based environmental protection group, calling it the “thief ringleader.”

Hun Xen declared, during a 2-day mining meeting which started Wednesday, in front of more than 300 national and international officials: “They are thieves and thief ringleaders, they know how to be thieves, that’s why they gave us advises.” The prime minister also demanded that the international community stop lecturing him on the use of funding for various programs.

Hun Xen said: “It turns out that I am a thief, they look at me like a thief, it’s time to stop the accusation and the finger pointing, because with one finger pointing at me, you are pointing the other 4 at yourself.”

Hun Xen’s reaction takes place after Global Witness issued a report indicating that all the funding that the Cambodian government collected from mining companies, which is alleged to be preserved for social funds, is simply not true. Global Witness said that based on its review of bank ledgers, no such fund exists.

In Cambodia, Global Witness is not the only organization that criticized national corruption, deforestation and destruction of the environment, even the various donor countries themselves directly criticized the abject corruption in the country.

Last year, US Ambassador Carol Rodley publicly criticized the Cambodian government for losing $350 to $500 million in revenue to corruption each year. Following this criticism, the Cambodian ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a diplomatic note last month, forbidding foreign ambassadors stationed in Cambodia from interfering in Cambodian internal affairs.

Regarding this issue, the Cambodian people, the civil society and the opposition parties are all wondering who, between Hun Xen and Global Witness, is really the thief ringleader?

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: The Thieves

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

Don't lecture Dr. Hoon Xhen about transparency, he learnt everything from Pol Pot's and Uncle Ho's Universities already!

Cambodia tells donors to quit lecturing on fiscal transparency

May 26, 2010
DPA

'Global Witness is a group of thieves, they cooperate with foreign agencies' - Hun Xen, leader of Cambodia's family of the thieves of the nation

Phnom Penh - Prime Minister Hun Sen told a conference on good mining practices Wednesday that foreign organisations must stop giving advice on how to manage expected revenues.

'This is not the hour to talk about spending the money,' Hun Sen told several hundred business executives, diplomats and civil society members in a speech opening the two-day meeting.

'And don't talk too much looking on Cambodia as a child; the (government) is not a child,' he said. 'So do not advise too much.'

In recent years, foreign companies have signed dozens of exploration deals in industries from oil and gas to bauxite and gold.

Critics charge that the deals are opaque, with revenues failing to reach the national budget.

Hun Sen also lashed out at Britain-based Global Witness, which has published highly critical reports on the government's handling of state assets, including forestry and mining.

'Global Witness is a group of thieves, they cooperate with foreign agencies,' he charged. 'We have no money (from extractive industries) but they teach us about how to spend the money, and even blame us for stealing it.'

Global Witness spokesman George Boden last month urged donors to pressure Phnom Penh to account for millions of dollars in contract bonuses from French oil firm Total SA and Australian mining company BHP Billiton Ltd.

Boden said there was no sign that the bulk of the money had reached the budget.

'Donors must use the upcoming round of donor-government meetings to ask some tough questions and get some answers,' Boden said.

The government has said the money from Total and BHP Billiton went into a social fund, although details of that fund remain unclear.

BHP Billiton is currently under investigation by US and British regulatory authorities for possible violations of anti-graft legislation reportedly committed in Cambodia.

Hun Sen's speech came ahead of next week's donor conference at which pledges are made. In 2009, Cambodia received about 950 million dollars from foreign governments, roughly half its annual budget.

Cambodia is ranked as one of the world's most corrupt countries. It was listed last year in 158th place by graft watchdog Transparency International, with 1st place going to the least-corrupt country. Only 19 nations were ranked worse.

Ambassador Withdraws Global Witness Debate Challenge

Im Sothearith, VOA Khmer
Washington, D.C Monday, 24 May 2010

“If we look at the website of the Ministry of Economics and Finance, in the natural resource revenues section, there is no revenue from the sand trade, while sand is being traded to Singapore. Therefore, if there is such a trade, the ministry should include the revenue from sand trade in Koh Kong in its Web page.”

Cambodian officials in London have baulked at their challenge to openly debate environmental watchdog Global Witness, which recently warned of damaging coastal sand dredging.

Cambodian Ambassador to the UK Hor Nambora issued an open challenge for a debate in April, saying, it was “time Global Witness was stopped in its tracks and forced to explain and justify its campaign of smear and hatred against the Cambodian government and the Cambodian people.”

UK-based Global Witness, which is an internationally recognized environmental monitoring group, accepted the offer last week.

However, in a May 21 letter to Global Witness Director Simon Taylor, Hor Nambora now says he will not enter a debate, claiming the group has a “hidden agenda” to discredit the Cambodian government.

Global Witness has continually rankled leaders in Phnom Penh with heavily researched reports on timber, oil and mining, and the senior officials and businessmen who run the industries. Its reports are banned in Cambodia, which the group says is being hurt by a kleptocratic elite close to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

In a May report, Global Witness criticized the alleged sale of dredged sand from Cambodia’s coastal zones for sale to Singapore, despite a ban by Hun Sen. That report sparked the latest round of challenges from the Cambodian government. The Cambodian Embassy in London called that report “cheap and rubbish.”

In his letter, the ambassador said Global Witness suffers from “epilepsy and other mental disabilities.”

Mam Sambath, chairman of the group Cambodians for Resource Revenue Transparency, who was on his way to attend oil giant Chevron’s annual meeting in Texas, said he supported public debate on Cambodia’s natural resources.

“If we look at the website of the Ministry of Economics and Finance, in the natural resource revenues section, there is no revenue from the sand trade, while sand is being traded to Singapore,” he said. “Therefore, if there is such a trade, the ministry should include the revenue from sand trade in Koh Kong in its Web page.”

Baby Hor's school of undiplomatic diplomacy

Cambodian Embassy withdraws offer of public debate

Press Release – 24/05/2010

Global Witness is disappointed, but not entirely surprised, to hear that the Cambodian Embassy has withdrawn its offer for a public debate with us. We had responded to their proposal in good faith and saw this as an opportunity for sensible and necessary discussion about issues of public interest. However, it seems they are continuing their policy of opacity in natural resource management, which they appear to be unable to defend or to justify in public. We therefore hope that Cambodia's international donors will be bringing up issues of accountability, transparency and corruption at the forthcoming government-donor meeting in early June.

Click on the letter to zoom in

Not a grain of courage to debate Global Witness as he boasted: Hor 5 Bora

Hor 5 Bora will not debate Global Witness

22 May 2010
Pin Sisovann, VOA
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

On 19 May 2010, Global Witness issued a reply letter to the invitation made by the Cambodian embassy in the UK to hold a public debate on the destruction of natural resources in Cambodia.

The Cambodian embassy in the UK issued a communiqué in English on 30 April 2010 in which it quoted Hor 5 Bora as stating: “Global Witness is in danger of losing all credibility as it continues to pursue a ferocious politically-motivated campaign against the Cambodian government.”

In the same communiqué, Hor 5 Bora stressed: “It’s time Global Witness was stopped in its tracks and forced to explain and justify its campaign of smear and hatred against the Cambodian Government and the Cambodian People.” In that communiqué, he invited Global Witness to debate in London or anywhere else. Following the positive reply from Global Witness to the debate challenge, which Global Witness set the date to 17 June 2010, the Cambodian embassy in London issued a letter dated 21 May 2010, rejecting the public debate, stating that Global Witness is politically motivated and that it has a hidden agenda to destroy the legal government of PM Hun Xen. He also indicated that Global Witness is losing its honor and that it serves as a political tool to the opposition party in Cambodia. The letters indicated that, because Global Witness’ leaders and attackers are affected by “chhkuot chrouk” (crazy like a pig) and mental problems, thus, it is a good thing that Cambodian officials and representatives do not participate in this debate.

Global Witness is an organization that protects the environment all over the world and it focused its works in numerous countries. International researchers consider Global Witness as an organization that widely understands about the environment and what it is undertaking. Global Witness does not just criticize Hun Xen’s government alone, any government or companies in the world that affects the environment come under its criticisms also. For example, on 20 May, Global Witness issued a report exposing Goldman Sachs bank backing oil deals in Angola by the US company Cobalt International Ebergy, in spite of the fact that Goldman Sachs knows that its partner’s action could face corruption charge in the US.

Mam Sambath, President of the Revenue Transparency Alliance who is currently traveling to the US to participate in Chevron’s yearly meeting, said that he strongly supports the idea of holding a public debate on the destruction of natural resources in Cambodia, because such debate could help bring transparency in the administration of the country’s natural resources. He indicated that he regrets to see the debate being cancelled. He added: “I believe that if this debate can be held, it would be very good because it will show the information that we have not received yet, and it will be wide open to the public. If we look at information posted on the Internet about revenues from oil and gas, from mining to the ministry of Economy and Finance, there is no indication on revenues from sand dredging even though the sand trade already took place in Koh Kong that led to the export to Singapore. Therefore, if such mining operation takes place, the government should receive income from sand dredging in Koh Kong province, and the ministry of Economy and Finance should post this information on its website.”

At the beginning of May, Global Witness issued a report on the export of several millions of tons of sand from Koh Kong to sell in Singapore that will seriously damage the environment. Global Witness reported that while the government issued a ban on sand export, cronies of the regime received license to export sand to Singapore. Global Witness estimates that the sale of sand from Koh Kong province alone brings in US$248 million per year based on the sand price in Singapore. However, the Cambodian embassy in the UK rejected the Global Witness report, calling it cheap and rubbish, devoid of truth, and that it was aimed at dishonoring Hun Xen’s regime.

Sacrava's Political Cartoon: A Little Termite

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

The Khmer riche: making a killing in Cambodia

Kith Meng is an entrepreneur whose parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge (All Photos: Agnes Dherbeys)
A mansion being built in Phnom Penh for prime minter Hun Sen
Victor in his parents' luxurious home in Phnom Penh
Sophy(far right), the 'Paris Hilton of Cambodia' at a shoot

February 14, 2010
Andrew Marshall
The Sunday Times (UK)

Cambodia has been colonised all over again, this time by its own greedy and ruthless ruling class.

Meet the spoilt, young elite who, unlike most Cambodians, enjoy the privileges of wealth - and aren’t ashamed to flaunt it

I am going to drive a little fast now. Is that okay?” There is one place in Cambodia where you can hold a cold beer in one hand and a warm Kalashnikov in the other, and 21-year-old Victor is driving me there. We’re powering along Phnom Penh’s airport road with Oasis on his Merc’s sound system and enough guns in the trunk to sink a Somali pirate boat. Victor is rich and life is sweet. His father is commander of the Cambodian infantry. He has a place reserved for him at L’Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr. And, in his front passenger seat, there is a thin, silent man with a Chinese handgun: his bodyguard.

“His name is Klar,” says Victor. “It means tiger.”

Devastated by decades of civil war, Cambodia remains one of the world’s poorest nations. A third of its 13m people live on less than a dollar a day, and about 8 out of every 100 children die before the age of five, but Victor — real name Meas Sophearith — was raised in a very different Cambodia, where power and billions of dollars in wealth are concentrated in the hands of a tiny ruling elite. They prefer to conceal the size and sources of their money — illegal logging and smuggling, land-grabbing and corruption — but their children like to spend it.

I first met Victor at a fancy Phnom Penh restaurant called Cafe Metro. Outside, Porsches, Bentleys, Cadillacs, Mercedes and Humvees fight for parking spaces. The Khmer Rouge are dead; the Khmer Riche rule. The son of a powerful general, Victor has his future mapped out for him. He went to school in Versailles, speaks French and English, and now studies politics at the University of Oklahoma. “My mother wanted us to get a foreign education so we could come back and control the country,” he says. The shooting range is where Victor and his friends go to relax. “I’ve grown up with guns and soldiers all around me,” he says. Victor and his generation are Cambodia’s future. Will they use their education and wealth to lift their compatriots out of poverty, or continue their parents’ fevered pursuit of money and power?

Britain’s Department for International Development gave £16.5m of taxpayers’ money to the country in the last fiscal year, but has announced the closure of its Cambodia office by 2011. Perhaps the development agency tired of throwing money at a nation where so much poverty can be blamed on a grasping political clique and their luxury-loving children. The Khmer Riche kids sometimes seem indistinguishable from the old colonial ruling class. They carry US dollars — only poor people pay with Cambodian riel — and live in newly built, neoclassical mansions.

Sophy, 22, is the daughter of a deputy prime minister. Rich, doll-like, and self-obsessed, she could be the Paris Hilton of Cambodia. She imports party shoes from Singapore, selling them in her own multistorey boutique. It has six staff, no customers and a slogan: “It’s all about me.” Sophy’s name is spelt out in sparkling stones on the back of her pimped-up Merc. She is launching a magazine with her brother Sopheary, 28, and their cousin Noh Sar, 26. All three were educated abroad and prefer to speak English together. Sopheary, who studied in New York State, seems both amused and slightly embarrassed by his wealth and privilege.

“What can you do?” he asks. “Your parents give you all these things. You can’t say no. If someone gives you cake, you eat it.”

Cambodia’s official economy largely depends on garment exports, but there is a much larger shadow economy in which only the rich, the ruthless and the well connected survive and prosper. The closer you get to Hun Sen, Cambodia’s autocratic and long-serving prime minister, the better. Hun Sen staged a bloody coup d’état in 1997 and has kept an iron grip ever since. Opponents have been silenced, while loyalists have grown rich. The armed forces are a major player in the black economy. Cambodians are often driven from their land at gunpoint by soldiers or military police. Cambodia has been colonised all over again, this time by its own greedy and ruthless ruling class.

Ask Cambodian ministers how they got so rich on a meagre government salary, and they will reply: “My wife is good at business.” When I ask Noh Sar, whose father is a senior customs official, why his family is so wealthy, he smiles and says: “My mother works a lot.”

Victor’s mother, too, is good at business, according to Country for Sale, an investigation into the Cambodian elite’s wealth published by the London-based corruption watchdog Global Witness in February 2009. “She is a key player in Royal Cambodian Armed Forces patronage politics, holding a fearsome reputation among her husband’s subordinates,” says the report.

It is only in the past few years that the children of Cambodia’s elite have grown confident enough to show off their family’s wealth. “If you want people to respect you in Cambodia, you must have a good car, good diamonds, a good cellphone,” explains Ouch Vichet, 28, better known as Richard. “It’s an I’m-richer-than-you competition.” Richard drives a black Cadillac Escalade ($150,000) and wears a Hèrmes watch ($2,500) and a 2.5-carat diamond ring ($13,000). “My money is from my parents,” he says with refreshing candour, and then breaks it down. They gave him a villa ($500,000), and a rubber plantation that will generate income for the rest of Richard’s natural life. His parents-in-law gave him $100,000 in cash and another villa, worth $200,000, which he sold and invested in real estate. He also runs a nightclub called Emerald — his parents made their first fortune in gems — which provides him with “pocket money”. A party of rich kids can spend $2,000 on drinks and mixers in a single night — more than an average Cambodian earns in three years. His parents’ second, much larger fortune comes from real estate. A few years ago they bought about five hectares of land just outside Phnom Penh for $14 per square metre, then sold it for $120 per square metre two years later. They made more than $5m. “Where else can you make profits like that?” grins Richard. “It’s crazy money.” He has a daughter called Emerald and a son called Benz. His living room features giant chairs ornately carved from tropical hardwood, and a flatscreen television the size of a pool table.

Yet Richard’s house is modest by the operatic standards of Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kuok district.

A taxi driver shows me the neighbourhood — it’s like a “homes of the stars” tour in Beverly Hills, except that Tuol Kuok’s backstreets are piled with uncollected rubbish. My driver points out giant mansion after mansion, and tells me who lives there. Defence minister. Prime minster Hun Sen’s son. Hun Sen’s daughter. Secretary of state at the Ministry of Labour. A deputy prime minister — Sophy and Sopheary’s dad. A four-mansion compound with high walls, razor wire and a gate guarded by special-forces soldiers — Victor’s family. Tuol Kuok’s houses are well guarded for a reason: until there was real estate to invest in, many wealthy Cambodians kept their money at home in bricks of cash, sometimes for so long that the elastic bands around them rotted. “We don’t trust banks,” says Richard. “The old generation kept their money under the bed. The new generation keep it in safes in their houses.”

Victor’s family, too, stay away from banks, but for a slightly different reason. “If you put your money in a bank, everyone will know how much you have,” he explains. I had also heard that rich Cambodians had repatriated hundreds of millions of dirty dollars from Singapore banks after a post-September 11 shake-up of global banking, and that this money had helped fuel the land speculation in Phnom Penh. Richard had heard this too. The bank accounts had belonged to “government people”, he said. Buying land and selling land had not only enriched them further, but had also allowed them to obscure the source of their wealth. Laundering any dirty money was vital, since foreign donors were pressing the Cambodian government to pass anti-corruption legislation that would force the rich to declare their assets.

For the children, the wealth comes with one big condition: they must do exactly what Mum and Dad tell them.

“I wanted to go to art school, but my parents wouldn’t let me,” says Sopheary.

Most kids dutifully join the family business. For some, that business is politics. The commerce minister, Cham Prasidh, whose house is the size of an airport-departure hall — one with a jet-ski lake — gave a ministry position to his wife and made his daughter his chief of cabinet. Cambodia’s ambassadors to Britain and Japan are brothers, and their boss is also their father, the foreign minister Hor Namhong. “It’s not nepotism,” he insists.

Their parents also expect them to marry young and strategically, to someone from a rich and influential family. These marriages are often arranged. Many high-society Cambodians soon find themselves trapped in loveless unions; extramarital affairs are common. Sophy, that deputy prime minister’s daughter, was married off at 17 to the son of the rich and powerful interior minister. A web of marriages binds together the elite and ensures the ruling

People’s Party’s stranglehold on power. At the centre of the web sits prime minister Hun Sen. His three sons and three daughters are all married to the children of senior ruling-party politicians or, in the case of his son Hun Manet, to the daughter of the late national police chief. Hun Manet is being groomed to succeed his father. He graduated from West Point in 1999, amid protests by members of the US Congress over his father’s human-rights record. Senior Khmer Rouge figures such as Comrade Duch, the mass-murdering commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, are currently on trial at a United Nations-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh.

The Khmer Riche, on the other hand, remain above the law. Victor displays a military VIP sticker on the dashboard of his Merc. “It means that the police cannot touch me,” he says. Many of his generation abuse such privileges. Last August Hun Chea, a nephew of the prime minister, hit a motorcyclist with his Cadillac Escalade, ripping off the man’s leg and arm. Hun Chea tried to drive off but couldn’t, because the accident had shredded one of his tyres. Military police arrived, removed the Escalade’s licence plates and, according to the Phnom Penh Post, told Hun Chea: “Don’t worry. It wasn’t your mistake.” Hun Chea walked away. The motorcyclist bled to death in the road.

Hun Sen has yet another bad-boy nephew, the widely feared, mega-wealthy Hun To (“Little Hun”). In 2006 a newspaper editor filed a lawsuit against Hun To for alleged death threats, then fled overseas to seek asylum, with the help of the UN. Hun To owns, among other cars, a Lamborghini, a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a Bentley. Victor test-drove Hun To’s latest acquisition before it was put on a Cambodia-bound shipping container: a $500,000 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren supercar. “He’s built a special garage for it,” says Victor. He dares not criticise Hun To. But he is critical of Cambodian society. “From top to bottom, everyone is corrupt,” he says. He hopes one day to set up a foundation to help poor Cambodians send their children to study overseas.

“We want to change things, but we’ll have to wait until our parents retire,” he says.

But the older generation shows no sign of retiring — not when there’s so much cake to eat. In January 2009 foreign donors pledged $US1 billion to Cambodia, its biggest aid package yet, mostly donated by western tax-payers. The government relies on foreign aid for almost half of its budget. It could break this reliance by exploiting its reserves of oil, gas and minerals: the International Monetary Fund estimates that Cambodia’s annual oil revenues alone will reach $US1.7 billion by 2021. Could, but probably won’t. Why? Because the same elite who cut down the trees and sold off the land are now poised to extract the oil and minerals. And they will expect their children to help them.

Some Hun Sen loyalists have already been allocated exploratory mining licences, including General Meas Sophea. He recently hired a temp to act as his foreign liaison officer. The temp is his son. His son’s name is Victor.