New numbers on China's Cambodia aid

By Milton Osborne - 19 September 2012
The Interpreter

In my post of 17 July I suggested that it was no surprise Cambodia acted as China wished in relation to the South China Sea issue at the time of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting held in Cambodia.

Given Chinese aid, it was always likely that Cambodia would balk at agreeing to a joint communique that, in effect, was critical of China. While critics of Cambodia's actions referred to it as China's 'puppet' or 'pawn', far too little attention was given to just how large China's aid to Cambodia, particularly relative to other sources.

For many years it has been difficult to quantify the exact size of China's aid, but a new assessment from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies draws attention both to the size and the relative importance of the aid by comparison with that received from other donors:

China offers Cambodia $2.5 billion in investments and soft loans.

Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao pledged to give Cambodia $500 million in loans for infrastructure projects following a September 1­2 visit to China by Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen. China also approved a $2 billion industrial park project that would produce 3 million tons of steel per year and employ up to 10,000 Cambodians. Chinese investment in Cambodia totaled $1.9 billion in 2011, more than double the investment by all ASEAN countries combined and 10 times that by the United States. Cambodian officials rejected speculation that the aid was a Chinese thank-you for Cambodia's support for China on the South China Sea, parts of which are disputed between China and four of Cambodia's Southeast Asian neighbors.

Mekong threats growing?

10 July 2012
By Milton Osborne
The Interpreter

In particular, it condemns the plans for the Lower Se San dam in northeastern Cambodia, which on its own could lead to a fall of over 9% of current fish production. Strikingly, this a dam that has the vocal support of Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, who had denied that building the dam would affect fish stocks.

With a sense that the story is becoming something like 'The Perils of Pauline', the Xayaburi dam story rolls on. The fact that the issue has become tortuously prolonged should not detract from the very serious issues involved: environmental threats to the Mekong leading to the major loss of fish supplies and diminishing of sediment flow, and a falling out between the countries of the Lower Mekong Basin.

Separately, a new research report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests dams built on Mekong tributaries could post a greater threat to the river's current role as a bounteous source of fish than dams on the mainstream.

Although Lao Government ministers insist they are, for the moment, abiding by their commitment not to proceed with construction of a controversial dam at Xayaburi on the mainstream of the Mekong River between Luang Prabang and Vientiane, as agreed with their Mekong River Commission partners (Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam), they are concurrently speaking as if the project will ultimately go ahead.

Cambodia: And then there were three

21 November 2011
By Milton Osborne
Lowry Interpreter

Throughout the long, drawn-out course of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC) detailed in various Interpreter posts, observers have repeatedly expressed concern that the age of the four defendants before the court in Case 002 could mean that death could intervene before a verdict is reached in their trial. Nuon Chea, chief ideologue in the Pol Pot regime, is 84; Ieng Sary, the regime's foreign minister, is 85; Khieu Samphan, the regime's head of state, is 79; and Ieng Thirith, Ieng Sary's wife and minister for social affairs, is 79.

Now, not death but mental illness has intervened in the case of Ieng Thirith. On 17 November the ECCC announced it would not proceed further in its case against her as she is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Shortly after, both the Cambodian and international co-prosecutors filed an appeal against this decision, arguing that it involved errors in law and calling for further consideration to be given to the possibility that Ieng Thirith's condition could improve.

Sihanouk: The great survivor turns 89

 

31 October 2011
By Milton Osborne
The Interpreter

"It is true that I have been an authoritarian head of state ..." - Norodom Sihanouk

There surely is no greater survivor among international political figures of the past and present centuries than Norodom Sihanouk, now titled the King Father of Cambodia, who turns 89 today, or 90 by Cambodian reckoning. He returned to Phnom Penh last week after three months of medical treatment in Beijing and vowed never to leave Cambodia again.

Over more than half a century Sihanouk has been king (he has abdicated twice), prime minister and chief of state of his country. Ousted in a coup in 1970, he became the nominal head of the Khmer Rouge-dominated National United Front of Kampuchea fighting against the Khmer Republic. He was then briefly chief of state of Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea.

Angelina Jolie and Cambodia's perils

26 October 2011
By Milton Osborne
The Interpreter

Cambodia is that kind of place. Just when you think you are doing the right thing it turns out that the tentacles of the past are waiting to grab you.

Not only is The Guardian running bitter little stories about the fact that Angelina Jolie has been photographed lolling on a boat in a Cambodian swamp with a £7000 Louis Vuitton bag, she is now being portrayed as entering into a land deal with a notorious Khmer Rouge commander in Cambodia's Battambang province.

It's a complicated story but linked to an issue noted on several occasions in The Interpreter, the fact that international prosecutors at the Khmer Rouge tribunal have been blocked by government interference in their attempts to bring additional high-ranking Khmer Rouge figures before it.

The detailed story about the land deal has appeared in Global Post-International News, with the claim that the Maddox Jolie Pitt Foundation purchased land from a former Khmer Rouge commander, Yim Tith. Whether this deal was carried out knowingly, as a former and supposedly disgruntled Cambodian associate claims, or was the result of ignorance is not clear.

Khmer Rouge tribunal problems, again

Chea Lean (Xok An's niece), Bandit You Bunleng and Herr Doktor Siegfried Blunk

21 June 2011
By Milton Osborne
The Interpreter

Only dedicated followers of events associated with the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (officially the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, ECCC) will have kept track of the maneuverings of the past six months in relation to the possibility of bringing additional defendants before the court.

As matters stand, there has been the one conviction, of Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, in Case 1, while four defendants are due to face court later this month in Case 2: Khieu Samphan, the former Khmer Rouge head of state, aged 79; Nuon Chea, the KR chief ideologue, aged 85 (pictured); Ieng Sary, the KR foreign minister, aged 85; and Ieng Tirith, Sary's wife and former minister for social affairs, aged 79. (The court has been in existence since July 2006, and Case 2 is expected to run for many months, if not years.)

As long ago as 2009, Prime Minister Hun Sen made it abundantly clear that he would not permit the tribunal to operate beyond Case 2. But the international co-prosecutor, Andrew Cayley, is pressing for additional defendants to be examined, while his opposite Cambodian number, Chea Leang, has opposed this suggestion — she is a niece of the Cambodian deputy prime minister, Sok An.

Crunch time on the Mekong

25 October 2010
By Milton Osborne
The Interpreter (Lowry Institute for International Policy)

A thorough environmental assessment has called into question plans for the construction of dams on the Mekong River, plans which are backed by the Lao and Cambodian governments.

On 15 October the Mekong River Commission (MRC) released the Final Report on the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of planned hydropower dams on the Mekong mainstream. The report, prepared by ICEM Australia (International Centre for Environmental Management), recommends that plans to build dams on the Mekong mainstream after the river flows out of China should be deferred. This is in direct opposition to the commercial interests that wish to build the dams and to the announced support for such dams from the governments of Laos and Cambodia.

It also calls into question the reported remarks over the last several months of the MRC's chief executive officer, who on several occasions has spoken as if the construction of some dams on the river was certain.

The SEA is a substantial document which examines the likely impact of the eleven dams and one water diversion project, all designed to generate hydroelectricity. Until now, no dams have existed on the Mekong's mainstream after the river flows out of China. (The background to this issue is discussed in detail in my Lowy Paper published in November 2009, 'The Mekong: River Under Threat').

With widespread opposition to the dams from environmental NGOs, read more

the report comes at a time when the Lao Government has recently notified the MRC, in accordance with the Mekong River Agreement of 1995, of its intention to approve construction of a dam at Xayaburi and when advocates for the dams have placed great emphasis on the claimed economic benefits from the proposed dams. These claimed benefits form an important part of a draft Basin Development Plan, released in July 2010, which suggested that, as a first step, approval should be given for the construction of six mainstream dams on the Mekong above the Lao capital of Vientiane.

The SEA's main recommendation, which is sure to result in opposition from advocates for the dams, is that '(d)ecisions on mainstream dams should be deferred for a period of ten years with reviews every three years to ensure that essential deferment-period activities are being conducted effectively.' And as a concluding point, the SEA states, 'The Mekong mainstream should never be used as a test case for proving and improving full dam hydropower technologies.'

The SEA provides a wealth of evidence against going ahead with the dams. It acknowledges that there is potential for electricity production, but it makes clear that the social impact of the dams would be very great indeed. To take fisheries alone, the SEA concludes that '(l)oss of inland fish production would have major implications for food security given the dependency of the LMB [Lower Mekong Basin] region on fish as a source of protein'. And it states that 'replacing capture fish production by aquaculture production is not realistic'. The SEA states unequivocally that '(f)ish passes are not a realistic mitigation option for Mekong mainstream dams.'

The importance of this conclusion is underlined by the fact, as I have found in interviews in the region both this year and last, that even officials who have had a long association with the Mekong and its governance have continued to suggest that mitigation measures could work if dams were built. This is despite a mass of evidence to the contrary.

While the estimate made by the SEA of the number of people who would be directly affected by the construction of all the projected dams, as the result of necessary relocation, are of the order of 107,000, once account is taken of indirect effects of those living within a 15km corridor of the river, the numbers jump to no fewer than 29.6 million for Laos, Thailand and Cambodia, and 14 million in Vietnam. These figures should be read against the total population of the Lower Mekong Basin being approximately 60 million.

What happens now? The SEA does not represent an MRC point of view, and it remains to be seen what the final version of the Basin Development Plan will say. Under the terms of the Mekong River Agreement, the MRC cannot tell Vientiane or Phnom Penh what to do, and what happens in relation to the Mekong ultimately rests with the governments of the countries through which the river flows. Will the Lao and Cambodian governments ignore the SEA? The fear must be that one or both will do so, and in doing so cause irreparable harm.

Photo by Flickr user Creativity+Timothy K Hamilton, used under a Creative Commons license.

Dams or Drought: An Interview with Milton Osborne

Milton Osborne

2010-08-24
Radio Free Asia

An expert discusses China's influence on its southern neighbors along the Mekong River.

Chinese dams on the upper reaches of the Mekong River are sometimes thought to be responsible for lowered water levels in countries downstream. Here, Australian historian, author, and Southeast Asian affairs consultant Milton Osborne addresses this question in an interview.

April 2010 marked a new low for water levels in the Mekong River. Communities in Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong in northern Thailand who spoke with RFA attributed receding waters to the filling of the Xiaowan dam in Yunnan province, China. We asked Milton Osborne whether there could be a direct correlation between the new Chinese mega-dam and the Mekong downstream in northern Thailand.

“I’ve not been to see the dam. And indeed that’s one of the problems about any discussion at the moment—the fact that neither the Southeast Asian governments—the Mekong Basin governments—nor nongovernmental organization representatives have been able to go and see the dams in person. So my view has to depend on what various people tell me.

"Chief executive officer of the Mekong River Commission Jeremy Bird’s judgment is that the dam, the Xiaowan dam, is not to blame for the low water levels. Since July of last year, we’ve had a really horrendous drought. And that’s really the issue.

“People who have been closely associated with the Mekong over many years, both on the Mekong River Commission and as independent scientists, generally endorse Jeremy Bird’s view. But we simply don’t have the data one way or another to be sure. So it is still an open question. But the best opinion is that the dam probably is not to blame, and that what we’re seeing is a natural event."

Many working on Mekong issues in the region say that downstream countries don’t know what’s happening upstream. And as China and Burma have yet to join the Mekong River Commission, there is no formal structure in place for sharing river information. Is there a lack of information sharing in the region?

“Of course, the sharing of information is terribly important, and the Chinese have not done themselves any favors by being hesitant about sharing information in the past. Some two or three years ago, they agreed for the first time to share information during the flooding period of the year. Previously, they’d give information on flood levels within their own area where the Mekong flows. And they have now agreed to give information, at least for the moment, in the dry season too.

"But there’s another way in which the Chinese have not done themselves any favors, and that is that they have insisted on saying—at least until very recently—‘We can’t be blamed for what’s happening, (a) because there’s been a drought, and (b) because only 12.5 or 13 or 14 percent of the water that flows into the Mekong comes from China.’

“I saw an interesting example of how this particular statistic is used, shortly before I set off overseas in April. At the Lowy Institute we had a visit from a number of very senior Chinese advisers to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. And this figure of only 12 or only 14 percent of the water flowing into the Mekong was trotted out by the very senior members of the delegation. But of course it’s a nonsense. And I was bold enough to point that out to them, although I don’t think I used that word.

“The point is that during the dry season, upwards of 40 percent of the water in the Mekong at Vientiane is water that’s come from China. And even as far down as the Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia, somewhere around about 10 percent of the water in the lake is water that has come from China. So it is not clear whether or not the Chinese fully appreciate just how misleading their statements have been, or whether the people who make these statements in relation to the dams in China are not really attuned to ecological and environmental issues, because they’re all hydrologists, water engineers. Issues of ecology downstream are things that they really don’t understand.”

Your association with the region goes back 51 years. Please tell us about this.

“I was posted to Cambodia as a young Australian diplomat in 1959. I knew very little about Cambodia or the Mekong River at that time, and I came to know the nature of the region in the two and a half years I first spent living in Phnom Penh. I sailed on the river, I swam in it, I water-skiied on it. I didn’t know very much about its character in terms of the environment and ecology. But I knew it was essential to the people of the countries through which it flowed. I was very much aware of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and the enormous production of agriculture that came from that region.

“When I decided after my posting in Phnom Penh that I was probably not cut out to be a diplomat, I went off to do a Ph.D. at Cornell University to look at the impact of French colonialism in Cambodia and southern Vietnam. In the course of the study I did in archives in Paris and Phnom Penh and Saigon, I came across the story of the exploration of the Mekong by the French Mekong expedition in the middle 1860s. And this led me to writing River Road to China, published in 1975. I came to study the Mekong as much as a political analyst and historian in subsequent years. I decided in the 1990s that the river deserved to have its own biography written.

“In the 1990s, I became aware of what was going on in China, really for the first time: that from the 1980s onwards China was building dams on its section of the river. Most people don’t realize that the Mekong, although it’s referred to as Southeast Asia’s largest river, flows through China for 44 percent of its length. The more I read about what the Chinese were doing with dams, the more I became aware that dams were a fundamental issue for the future of the Mekong.

"The Chinese dams—three completed, the fourth one at Xiaowan close to being completed, and others on the drawing board or under construction—these are going to have a long-term effect on the Mekong. It may not be for five or ten years before that effect becomes significant, but it will have a significant effect—not least because it’s going to alter the flow pattern of the river. There will be fewer really big floods, and there’ll be more water in the river during the dry season.

“Now, at first glance or first hearing, that sounds like a good idea. Floods, many people would think, are a bad thing. In fact they’re not. Provided they’re not horrendous floods, they’re very good things. They bring nutrients down the stream, they flush out pests from paddy fields, they play a very important role. The flood pulse, as it currently exists, plays a very important part in the spawning of fish in the river. So in the long term, the Chinese dams are going to have some very significant negative effects.

“There’s the added and significant worry that the governments in Vientiane and Phnom Penh are talking about building their own dams on the main stream of the river, where none currently exist below China. The really big concern there is that these will interrupt the migratory fish patterns which play such an important part in feeding the populations of both countries in the lower Mekong Basin. Just to take one example, nearly 80 percent, or some would say over 80 percent, of the animal protein intake of the Cambodian population comes from fish taken out of the Mekong and its associated river systems, including the Cambodian great lake.”

The Mekong River Under Threat

Milton Osborne
The Asian Pacific Journal, 2-2-10, January 11, 2010

Until the 1980s the Mekong River flowed freely for 4,900 kilometres from its 5,100-metre high source in Tibet to the coast of Vietnam, where it finally poured into the South China Sea. The Mekong is the world’s twelfth longest river, and the eighth or tenth largest, in terms of the 475 billion cubic metres of water it discharges annually. Then and now it passes through or by China, Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is Southeast Asia’s longest river, but 44% of its course is in China, a fact of capital importance for its ecology and the problems associated with its governance.

The Mekong is Southeast Asia's largest river, seen here at sunset in Luang Prabang, Laos. (Photograph by Milton Osborne)

In 1980 not only were there no dams on its course, but much of the river could not be used for sizeable, long-distance navigation because of the great barrier of the Khone Falls, located just above the border between Cambodia and Laos, and the repeated rapids and obstacles that marked its course in Laos and China. Indeed, no exaggeration is involved in noting that the Mekong’s overall physical configuration in 1980 was remarkably little changed from that existing when it was explored by the French Mekong Expedition that travelled painfully up the river from Vietnam’s Mekong Delta to Jinghong in southern Yunnan in 1866 and 1867. This was the first European expedition to explore the Mekong from southern Vietnam into China and to produce an accurate map of its course to that point.

Since 2003, the most substantial changes to the Mekong’s character below China have related to navigation. Following a major program to clear obstacles from the Mekong begun early in the present decade, a regular navigation service now exists between southern Yunnan and the northern Thai river port of Chiang Saen. It is not clear whether the Chinese, who promoted the concept of these clearances and carried out the work involved, still wish to develop navigation further down the river, as was previously their plan. To date, the environmental effects of the navigation clearances have been of a limited character.

The Mekong and its Lower Basin

The Mekong plays a vital role in the countries of the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB): Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. (Burma is not within the basin). In all four LMB countries the Mekong is a source of irrigation. In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta the annual pattern of flood and retreat insure that this region contributes over 50% of agriculture’s contribution to the country’s GDP. For all four LMB countries the Mekong and its associated systems, particularly Cambodia’s Great Lake (Tonle Sap), are a bountiful source of fish, with the annual value of the catch conservatively valued at US$2 billion. More than 70% of the Cambodian population’s annual animal protein consumption comes from the river’s fish. Eighty per cent of the Mekong’s fish species are migratory, some travelling many hundreds of kilometres between spawning and reaching adulthood. Overall, eight out of 10 persons living in the LMB depend on the river for sustenance, either in terms of wild fish captured in the river or through both large and small-scale agriculture and horticulture.

Construction of dams in the Lower Mekong Basin will have devastating effects on the fish stocks that feed the populations of the region, such as these fishermen at Luang Prabang. (Photograph by Milton Osborne)

Changing character

Since the 1980s, the character of the river has been steadily transformed by China’s dam-building program in Yunnan province. The important changes that had taken place on the course of the river since 1980 and up to 2004 were outlined in the Lowy Institute Paper, River at Risk: The Mekong and the Water Politics of Southeast Asia. In 2010 three hydroelectric dams are already in operation and two more very large dams are under construction and due for completion in 2012 and 2017. Plans exist for at least two further dams, and by 2030 there could be a ‘cascade’ of seven dams in Yunnan. Even before that date and with five dams commissioned China will be able to regulate the flow of the river, reducing the floods of the wet season and raising the level of the river during the dry. In building its dams, China has acted without consulting its downstream neighbours. Although until now the effects of the dams so far built have been limited, this is set to change within a decade, as discussed below.

Map of the Mekong

For despite the limited environmental costs of the dams China has so far completed, and of the river clearances to aid navigation, this state of affairs will change once China has five dams in operation. And the costs exacted by the Chinese dams will be magnified if the proposed mainstream dams below China are built.

China’s Xiaowan Dam, upper reaches of the Mekong in Yunnan province, is the world’s tallest at 958 feet (Photograph by International Rivers).

Chinese dams

Even if no dams are built on the mainstream below China, the cascade to which it is committed will ultimately have serious effects on the functioning of the Mekong once the dams are used to control the river’s flow. This will be the case because the cascade will:

• alter the hydrology of the river and so the current ‘flood pulse’, the regular rise and fall of the river on an annual basis which plays an essential part in the timing of spawning and the migration pattern. This will be particularly important in relation to the Tonle Sap in Cambodia, but will have an effect throughout the river’s course;
• block the flow of sediment down the river which plays a vital part both in depositing nutrients on the agricultural regions flooded by the river and also as a trigger for fish migration — at present well over 50% of the river’s sediment comes from China;
• at least initially cause problems by restricting the amount of flooding that takes place most importantly in Cambodia and Vietnam; and
• lead to the erosion of river banks.

Proposed dams below China

So China’s dam-building plans are worrying enough, but the proposed new mainstream dams would pose even more serious concerns. In contrast to what has occurred in China, and until very recently, there have been no firm plans for the construction of dams on the mainstream of the Mekong below China. This situation has changed over the past three years. Memoranda of Understanding have been signed for 11 proposed dams: seven in Laos; two between Laos and Thailand; and two in Cambodia. The proposed dams are being backed by foreign private capital or Chinese state-backed firms. Government secrecy in both Cambodia and Laos means that it is difficult to judge which, if any, of these proposed dams will actually come into being. Attention and concern have focused on two sites: Don Sahong at the Khone Falls in southern Laos and Sambor in northeastern Cambodia. The reason for this attention is that if built these dams would block the fish migrations that are essential to insure the food supplies of Laos and Cambodia.

Throughout much its course in Laos the Mekong narrows to flow through sharply rising hills and so providing ideal sites for dam construction, as is the case with this section of the river above the old royal capital of Luang Prabang. (Photograph by Milton Osborne)

Those built at sites higher upstream would cause the least damage to fish stocks, but if, as currently seems possible, the most likely dams to be built would be at Don Sahong and Sambor, the costs to fish stocks could be very serious. This is because unanimous expert opinion judges that there are no ways to mitigate the blocking of fish migration that would occur if these dams are constructed. None of the suggested possible forms of mitigation — fish ladders, fish lifts, and alternative fish-passages — are feasible for the species of fish in the Mekong and the very large biomass that is involved in their migratory pattern. Fish ladders were tried and failed at the Pak Mun dam on one of the Mekong’s tributaries in Thailand in the 1990s.

Why are the governments of Laos and Cambodia contemplating the construction of dams that seem certain to have a devastating effect on their populations’ food security? The answers are complex and include some of the following (a) a lack of knowledge at some levels of government (b) a readiness to disregard available information on the basis that it may be inaccurate (c) a belief or conviction that fishing is ‘old-fashioned’ whereas the production of hydroelectricity is ‘modern’. In Cambodia’s case, and in particular in relation to the proposed dam at Sambor, the fact that a Chinese firm is seeking to construct the dam raises the possibility that Prime Minister Hun Sen is unready to offend the country that has become Cambodia’s largest aid donor and Cambodia’s ‘most trusted friend’. In Laos, the proposal for a dam at Don Sahong is very much linked to the interests of the Siphandone family for whom southern Laos is a virtual fief. Of all the proposed dam sites Don Sahong is the most studied in terms of knowledge of fisheries so that it can be safely said that the planned dam would wreak havoc on a migratory system that involves fish moving through the Hou Sahong channel throughout the year, movement that takes place in both directions, upstream and downstream.

Governance and the Mekong

In the face of the threats posed by both the Chinese dams and those proposed for the downstream stretches of the river, there is no existing body able to mandate or control what individual countries choose to do on their sections of the Mekong. The agreement establishing the Mekong River Commission (MRC) in 1995 does not include China or Burma, and though the latter’s absence is not important, the fact that China is not an MRC member underlines the body’s weakness. In any event, the MRC members’ commitment to maintaining the Mekong’s sustainability has not overcome their basic commitment to national self-interest. A prime example of this is the manner in which the Lao Government has proceeded in relation to the proposed Don Sahong dam. For at least two years while the dam was under consideration there was no consultation with Cambodia. Similarly, so far as can be judged, Cambodia’s consideration of a possible dam at Sambor has taken place without consultation with the governments of either Laos or Vietnam.

At the moment the best hope is that both the Cambodian and Lao Governments will abandon their plans for Sambor and Don Sahong. If they do not, the future of the Mekong as a great source of food, both through fish and agriculture, is in serious jeopardy. At the time of writing the intentions of the Lao and Cambodian governments remain uncertain.

Climate change

Concern about dams in China and the LMB is given added importance in the light of worries associated with the likely effects of climate change in the region through which the river flows. Research suggests there will be a series of challenges to the Mekong’s future ecological health. Until recently concerns about the likelyimpact of climate change tended to focus on the ongoing reduction in the size of the glaciers from which its springs in the Himalayas and which feed it as the result of snow melt. But while there is no doubt that a diminishment in size of the glaciers feeding the Mekong is taking place, recent research has suggested that a more immediate serious threat to the river’s health will come from sea-level changes, particularly as rising levels could begin to inundate large sections of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. To what extent the threat posed by rising sea levels will be affected by another predicted development linked to climate change — greatly increased precipitation leading to more flooding during the wet season — is not yet clearly established. But research is pointing to a greatly increased precipitation that is likely to cause major increases in flooding in the future, possibly as early as 2030.

A bleak future

Against the pessimistic views outlined in this article perhaps the best that can be hoped for is that once serious consequences begin to become apparent advice can be offered to mitigate the worst effects ofthe developments taking place. Where once it was appropriate to write ofrisks, when assessing the Mekong’s future it is now time to write of fundamental threats to the river’s current and vital role in all of the countriesof the Lower Mekong Basin.

Milton Osborne has been associated with the Southeast Asian region since being posted to the Australian Embassy in Phnom Penh in 1959. A graduate of Sydney and Cornell Universities, his career has been divided almost equally between government service and academia and he has served as a consultant to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He is the author of ten books on the history and politics of Southeast Asia, Including The Mekong: turbulent past, uncertain future (2006) and Southeast Asia: an introductory history, which is about to be published in its tenth edition. Milton Osborne is a Visiting Fellow at the Lowy Institute and has been an Adjunct Professor and Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National University.

This article draws on the author’s Lowy Institute Paper 27, 2009. See the complete paper here. To read the complete paper, it is necessary to type in the current year after entering the site.

Thai politics at heart of temple dispute

Friday, July 18, 2008
ABC Radio Australia

Click here to listen to the audio program

Cambodia has urged Thailand to withdraw its troops from the border near the Preah Vihear temple, warning a that a territorial quarrel was damaging relations between the two neighbouring countries.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has written to his Thai counterpart Samak Sundaravej, asking him to "ease the tensions and to order Thai troops to withdraw from the area. More than 400 Thai troops and more than 800 Cambodian soldiers remain assembled around a small hilly Buddhist pagoda, near the ruins of an ancient temple at the centre of the dispute.

Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Dr Milton Osborne, author, and former diplomat to Cambodia

OSBORNE: To some extent I think that is correct, but at the present moment, I think much more important is the fact that it's become an issue in domestic Thai politics.

LAM: Yes, indeed. Is domestic political consideration part of the problem here, the fact that the Thai Government is deeply unpopular at the moment and also there are general elections in a weeks time in Cambodia?

OSBORNE: Yes, I think the elections in Cambodia, which of course are very important are not the real issue in terms of what's happening at the moment. It's much more the case that the People's Alliance for Democracy is looking for every possible opportunity to attack the Samak Government and this was particularly so in the demonstrations mounted against Prime Minister Noppadon Pattama who last week ruled that the joint communique was satisfactory and that he backed the Thai court in accepting that communique for the listing of Preah Vihear on the World Heritage List and the fact that he has to resign, is a reflection of the extent which this whole issue has become central to the attack upon the Samak Government.

LAM: But if the Samak Government wants to diffuse the situation, they can just quite easily withdraw the troops from the border?

OSBORNE: They can, but of course to the extent that it has become an issue in domestic politics. All of the past resentments that have been present underlying the fact of the Preah Vihear temple being listed as Cambodian boiled to the surface.

LAM: Well both prime ministers are scheduled to hold talks next week, assuming that they go ahead with the talks, do you think they might be able to sort something out?

OSBORNE: I would think there's a real possibility that they can. It's in neither countries interest for the issue to escalate to the point where there might actually be actual conflict between the two armies.

LAM: Have there been Thai-Cambodian skirmishes within recent years?

OSBORNE: Nothing significant no. You have to go back really to the 60s to find any significant skirmishes. But the fundamental fact is there have been difficult relations between the two countries ever since they both claimed independence, or Cambodia attained independence in the 1950s.

LAM: Well both sides as we've heard have troops assembled in the region. One young Cambodian soldier was quoted as saying that he was willing to die for the temple. Is such strong feelings about Preah Vihear common among Cambodians do you think?

OSBORNE: I think that particular statement has to be read with a degree of reservation. There are strong feelings on both sides about this particular temple. It is in what might be described outside of legal terms as in an anomalous position. But legally, I don't believe there is any question about it being definitely under Cambodian sovereignty.

LAM: Indeed I understand that some villages on the Thai side of the border were quite angry with Thai protesters for disrupting business?

OSBORNE: Well, I think that's entirely possible and at least for the last 25-30 years, it's been an issue that has been left undisturbed and as a tourist site, it's been an area that's approached from the Thai side, rather than from the Cambodian side of the border.

The End of the Beginning for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal?

September 2007

By Milton Osborne
Asian Analysis is brought to you by Asean Focus Group in cooperation with the Faculty of Asian Studies at The Australian National University

More than twenty-eight years after the Pol Pot regime was defeated in early 1979, there is now the real prospect that a small number of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders will be brought to trial before the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). When this happens it will be the first occasion that any Khmer Rouge leader appears before a properly constituted court. In August 1979, shortly after the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam that ousted the Pol Pot regime, the newly installed People's Republic of Kampuchea put Pol Pot and Ieng Sary on trial before a 'Popular Revolutionary Tribunal' which sentenced them to death in absentia. Conducted with minimal regard for legal niceties, this event is widely regarded as having been a show trial in character. Since that time two of the most senior Khmer Rouge leaders, Pol Pot and Ta Mok have died, in 1998 and 2006 respectively.

After much delay the ECCC was finally established in July 2006 with the backing of both the Cambodian government and the United Nations. That it was delayed for so many years is judged by many observers to have reflected a reluctance on the part of the Cambodian government to see a tribunal in action given the large number of current politicians and officials who had links with the Khmer Rouge regime. There is also little doubt that the Chinese government, which exercises great influence in Phnom Penh, would have preferred that the tribunal did not come into being because of its well-documented role as a major supporter of the Pol Pot regime.

Once established, the ECCC was further delayed from functioning by a series of technical disputes over the right of foreign lawyers to appear before the tribunal - opposed for months by the Cambodian bar association - and disagreements between the Cambodian and international judges sitting on the tribunal - over a range of procedural issues. These issues were only finally resolved in May of this year.

With these issues resolved, the ECCC's prosecutors announced on 18 July that they have submitted the names of five individuals to the tribunal for consideration in relation to twenty-five 'distinct factual situations of murder, torture, forcible transfer, unlawful detention, forced labour and religious, political and ethnic persecution'. While the names of the five individuals have not been released, there is little doubt that they include Nuon Chea, known as Brother Number Two and the Pol Pot regime's principal ideolgoue, Khieu Samphan who served as the regime's head of state, Ieng Sary, who was foreign minister, and Kaing Khek Iev, better known as Duch, who directed the Tuol Sleng extermination centre, or S-21. Observers in Phnom Penh are speculating that the fifth individual is Khieu Thirith, Ieng Sary's wife, who was minister for social affairs in the Pol Pot regime.

Of the five names just listed only Duch is currently in custody, though his detention relates to charges brought by the government separately from the ECCC's jurisdiction. The other four are living unrestricted lives either in Phnom Penh or in Pailin in western Cambodia.

It is not entirely clear what will happen next. Ieng Sary, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea all severed their links with the rump of the Khmer Rouge in the 1990s. Ieng Sary received a pardon for his past from the then King Sihanouk and Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were granted amnesties by Hun Sen in 1998. While there is a presumption by many observers that past pardons and amnesties will be overridden by the ECCC's procedures, there seems little doubt that this will be a contentious issue likely to be addressed by defence counsel once trials begin. Whatever is the case, there is also the fact that age may yet defeat the effort to try the likely defendants. Nuon Chea is in his eighties, while both Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary are in their mid-seventies, with Ieng Sary in poor health. And there is some concern that, while having moved very slowly to reach its present position, the ECCC may exhaust its budget of nearly US$60 before the planned trials are completed.

All this said, the announcement that prosecutors have submitted the names of individuals to be considered for prosecution is the most important development in the long-running saga of efforts to bring the top Khmer leadership to justice. Not all agree that prosecution before the ECCC is the most desirable course of action to bring some form of end to the nightmare memory of the Pol Pot period. The respected biographer of Pol Pot, Philip Short has expressed his doubts, observing that a trial procedure that focuses on a limited number of very senior figures will allow the government to disregard the large number of less prominent Khmer Rouge officials who continue to occupy positions within the administration. On the other hand, many observers share the view expressed by Craig Etcheson, one of the most active foreign scholars to have documented the Khmer Rouge's crimes, that trials before the tribunal will play an important part in challenging the culture of impunity that continues to exist in Cambodia. Whatever might be the case, and echoing Winston Churchill's famous words after the Second Battle of El Alamein, what has now happened is not the end, 'but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning'.

WATCHPOINT: Will the judges of the ECCC now proceed to issue indictments against the individuals named by the tribunal's prosecutors and, if so, will the resulting trials lead to convictions?

Milton Osborne
Adjunct Professor
Faculty of Asian Studies
Australian National University

Transcript of Milton Osborne's interview on King-Father's refusal to testity at the KRT

Former king refuses to testify at Khmer Rouge trials

12/09/2007
Radio Australia
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Click here to listen to the interview

Cambodia's former king says he'll refuse to testify at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal and has requested a meeting with officials on his conduct under the rule of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.

Presenter - Sen Lam Speaker - Milton Osborne, visiting fellow, Lowy Institute, Sydney

OSBORNE: I don't think it will have any significant impact. He's still an important figure because of his historical importance, but he has very little political impact in the present day.

LAM: And of course King Sihanouk, the former king, there were reports implicating him I suppose during the rule of Khmer Rouge that he collaborated. What do we know about Norodom Sihanouk's role during the years of the Killing Fields because I understand that he stayed in Cambodia during all that time?

OSBORNE: Well, not quite all that time. In fact, after the victory of the Khmer Rouge in April 1975, it wasn't until the latter part of the year, around September, that he actually returned to live in Phnom Penh. And although initially he was given the honorific title of chief of state, that was taken away from him fairly early on in 1976. And I think it's correct to say, and fair to say, that during the entire time he was living in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh, during the Khmer Rouge rule, he was effectively under house arrest.

LAM: He did, however, led a relatively comfortable life.

OSBORNE: Oh, yes, yes he did. He lived in air conditioned circumstances. He was allowed interestingly enough to listen to international radio, to shortwave radio, and he was given priority treatment in terms of the sort of food he was allowed to eat.

LAM: Indeed, and yet there were times when he feared for his life, but in the end, the Khmer Rouge left him alone. Why do you think that was so?

OSBORNE: No one is absolutely sure. One possibility is that against all of their other brutal actions during that period they did think that it was important to keep him as some sort of bargaining chip for the future if things went wrong. Probably, and we can't be certain of this because there's no documentation, but probably he was also allowed to remain in the position he held there as a prisoner under house arrest because the Chinese government, which had very considerable influence over the Khmer Rouge rulership, they didn't want him to be harmed.

LAM: And Milton Osborne, there were allegations questioning Sihanouk's allegiances at the time of the Khmer Rouge regime. Did he play an active role? I mean, surely he wasn't totally oblivious to what was happening around him. So do you think he was really more guilty of inaction, of not speaking out?

OSBORNE: I don't think he was in a position after 1975 and while he was under house arrest effectively in Phnom Penh to speak out. I think he had good reasons to be fearful about his life. Some of his close associates were taken away and presumably killed. We don't have all of the details of that. But I don't think he really was in a position to make his concerns public.

LAM: Well, Norodom Sihanouk himself lost five children I understand during that time.

OSBORNE: Well, he lost 14 relatives in addition to children directly of his own.

LAM: Right, at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. And yet he has criticised the UN backed tribunal in the past. What do you think are his misgivings about these trials?

OSBORNE: I think the misgivings so far, as his own personal position is concerned, is that he sees no reason why he should have to be brought before the tribunal. He has said in various earlier communications that he relies on the immunity he was granted under the 1993 Cambodian constitution, and he sees no reason why he should shed that immunity. And I believe his own Armour propre is engaged that he feels that as a former king, he should not be called before a tribunal established by the United Nations.

Milton Osborne on King-Father: "...he has very little political impact in the present day"

No Khmer Rouge tribunal appearance for former king

12/09/2007
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Cambodia's former king says he will refuse to testify at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal.

Norodom Sihanouk had requested a meeting with officials on his conduct under the rule of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.

The 84-year-old former king said his request was denied by the tribunal officials, who said they were not authorised to meet with him.

Dr Milton Osborne, an Australian analyst who wrote a biography on the former king, has told Radio Australia's Connect Asia program Norodom Sihanouk's refusal will have little impact on the tribunal's authority.

"I don't think it will have any significant impact. He's still an important figure because of his historical importance, but he has very little political impact in the present day."

The "Killing Fields"

As many as two-million people died of starvation or were killed during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, commonly known as "the killing fields."

Dr Osborne says the former King had a complicated relationship with the Khmer Rouge, initially appointing him honorary chief of state before taking the title away in 1976.

"I think it's fair to say during the entire time he was living in Cambodia...during the Khmer Rouge rule, he was effectively under house arrest."

Personal impact

Norodom Sihanouk lost 14 relatives, as well as five of his own children, to the regime.

However, he has remained critical of the UN-backed tribunal which will try some of those who led the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979.

Dr Osborne says the former king sees no reason for him to be brought the tribunal, and he relies on the immunity he was granted under the 1993 Cambodian constitution.

"He feels that as a former king, he should not be called before a tribunal established by the United Nations."

King-Father's History: The like of Milton Osborne allowed the diabolic Polpotism to practice Genocide of Khmer People

Translated from French by Luc Sâr

History
“In wanting the fall and the descent to hell of N. Sihanouk, the famous Prof. MILTON OSBORNE would see the advent of the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge in Cambodia of his dreams”
By N. Sihanouk

Beijing, March 9, 2007

1- I did not do anything to Professor MILTON OSBORNE. I did not even know him! Right now, in 2007, I only “know” him “through” his writings, his Sihanoukophobe “literature.”

2- Prof. M. Osborne dreamt to see Lon Nol, as well as, Son Ngoc Thanh rule over Cambodia. His dream was realized: Lon Nol ruled over Uncle Sam’s Cambodia for 5-year long (1970-1975) and his Son Ngoc Thanh could become Lon Nol’s Prime Minister, for a brief moment, within the famous and “notorious” “Khmer Republic.”

3- But, as the Khmer Rouge of Mr. Ieng Sary said with delight in Beijing, the day after the Lon Nol-Sirik Matak-Sim Var Putsch, thanks to this Putsch, they (K. Rouge) gain 20-year in their “long march” toward absolute power in Cambodia.

Thus, the like of Milton Osborne, by supporting Lon Nol, Son Ngoc Thanh, and other lackeys of the US Imperialism against Sihanouk, only did a favor to the diabolic PolPotism, and allowed it to practice the Genocide of the innocent Khmer People.

No “Bravo” for the like of Milton Osborne (the unconscious lackeys of Pol Pot)!

(Signed) Norodom Sihanouk