Cambodia Calls for Regime Change at Global Witness

Picture: Hor Nambora, son of Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and Ambassador to London.

Cambodian Hammer fails to crack nut - Cambodian Embassy in London calls for regime change at Global Witness Following Global Witness’ recommendation that new World Bank President Robert Zoellick take advantage of his recent trip to Cambodia by calling for a credible investigation into evidence of an illegal logging network surrounding the Cambodian Prime Minister and other senior officials (exposed in Global Witness’ June 2007 report ‘Cambodia’s Family Trees’), the Cambodian government, increasingly desperate to defend their already tarnished public image, has issued a press release demanding a change in Global Witness’ leadership and a call to the organisation’s donors to cut funding. The August 5 press release describes Global Witness’ request to Mr Zoellick as both “amusing and disturbing” and urges funders to “review the credibility and ill-intention of Global Witness Director,” adding “his discriminatory nature may be ill suited to lead Global Witness in the current situation and the future.” “Cambodia’s Family Trees is based on several years of rigorous investigations into Cambodia’s forest sector and offers an in-depth exposé of illegal logging, kidnapping and attempted murder by relatives of the prime minister and other senior officials. I fail to see why calling for a credible investigation into these findings is either amusing or disturbing,” said Global Witness Director, Simon Taylor. “This latest announcement from the Cambodian Embassy is symptomatic of the government’s reluctance to deal with the facts presented in our report. Attempts to suppress our activities will not make these very real issues of governance and natural resource mismanagement disappear,” he said, adding “Either respond to our calls for an investigation to prove impunity in Cambodia does not exist, or stop complaining.” “It’s also worth noting that the Cambodian government are happy to benefit from the freedom of the press here in the UK, whilst our report is banned in Cambodia and the prime minister’s brother is reported to have threatened Global Witness staff with violence,” said Taylor. The press release highlighted economic growth over the past decade in Cambodia and improvements in the investment climate. Yet last month a World Bank survey of corruption in 207 countries ranked Cambodia in the bottom ten percent, as did the 2006 Transparency International "corruption perceptions index". The Cambodian government is still repaying millions of dollars siphoned off in a graft scandal that forced the Bank to temporarily suspend three key aid projects last year. Meanwhile, an estimated 35% of the Cambodian population continues to live in poverty. “Quoting economic growth rates is meaningless if the vast proportion of state assets are under the control of an unaccountable elite,” said Taylor. “Changing the status quo will necessitate addressing the rampant corruption which allows a small group of individuals to profit from the exploitation of Cambodia’s natural resources at the expense of the country’s poor. There must be an effective judicial investigation into our report’s findings and the international donor community must insist that this happens.”

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Notes:

(1) Global Witness exposes the corrupt exploitation of natural resources and international trade systems, to drive campaigns that end impunity, resource-linked conflict, and human rights and environmental abuses. Global Witness was co-nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for its leading work on ‘conflict diamonds' and awarded the Gleitsman Foundation prize for international activism in 2005. For more information see http://www.globalwitness.org/

(2) For more information on World Bank governance indicators, see http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi2007/home.htm

(3) The report ‘Cambodia's Family Trees' can be downloaded from http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/546/en/cambodias_family_trees

(4) For further information on Transparency International’s “corruption perceptions index” visit http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2006

(5) For more information on poverty in Cambodia visit http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTCAMBODIA/Resources/293755-1181597206916/E&D_execsummary.pdf (5) References to the threat from the prime minister’s brother are drawn from an article by Douglas Gillison and Yun Samean, published in the Cambodia Daily on June 5 2007. In it, the prime minister's brother and Kompong Cham provincial governor Hun Neng is quoted as saying: "If they (Global Witness staff) come to Cambodia, I will hit them until their heads are broken."

(6) The press release issued by the Cambodian Embassy can be found at http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/566/en/global_witness_must_stop_activities_and_defamation_to_discredit_the_image_of_the_royal_government_of_cambodia_from_now_and_for_good