By Stephen Long
Australia's ABC Radio
Thursday, July 14, 2011
STEPHEN LONG: Cambodia is one of the world's poorest nations. At least 30 per cent of the population live on less than a dollar a day.
The Australian Government gives over $64 million in aid to Cambodia every year - the world, more than a billion. But how much of that actually gets to the Cambodian people?
Joel Brinkley (pictured) is the author of a new book called Cambodia's Curse. He says Cambodia's leaders are murderous kleptocrats who pocket most foreign aid, while selling the nation's rice crop for the own gain, and leaving their people to starve, as the world turns a blind eye.
Joel Brinkley spoke to me from his home in California.
JOEL BRINKLEY: Cambodia is an oddity in that 80 per cent of people who live in the country live in the countryside with no electricity, no clean water, no radio, not television. They live more or less as they did 1,000 years ago.
Occasionally somebody might have a cell phone or a motorbike and some people have televisions powered by car batteries but they live in very primitive conditions and that's 80 per cent of the population.
STEPHEN LONG: One of the things that moved me in your articles was the description of the plight of the children.
JOEL BRINKLEY: Well, 40 per cent of the nation's children grow up stunted. And I met some of these children as I travelled round the country; it almost brought tears to my eyes. I've been a journalist all my life and seen some horrible things but that was among the more horrible things I've seen. Children who are destined to grow up weak, short and not very smart because their parents are unable to take care of them when they're little.
STEPHEN LONG: What happens then to the more than $1 billion a year in aid that the international community gives to Cambodia?
JOEL BRINKLEY: Every year the government stages a donor conference at which donors pronounce how much they're going to give each year. But first ambassadors from your country and mine stand up and declare that they want the government to clean up corruption, to end land seizures and a variety of other things. The government every year promises to take care of all of it.
The conference ends, the donors give them, last year $1.1 billion and then the government dips gallon buckets into the money and builds themselves mansions and expensive cars and everything goes on as it was before. Nothing changes and then the donors come back and do it all again next year.
STEPHEN LONG: You describe Hun Sen, the Cambodian prime minister as a murderous kleptocrat, extending his personal wealth at the expense of the people. Why then is there so little attention to the plight of Cambodia today?
JOEL BRINKLEY: You know, you ask anybody in western nations about Cambodia and all they know is the Khmer Rouge. That's a curse for the country today because if the world's standard for Cambodia is the horrors of the Khmer Rouge then starving a few hundred people to death every year, failing to provide health care, that's nothing compared to killing a quarter of the nation's population in three-and-a-half years.
You know we in the west focus our attentions on North Korea and Iran and in Asia and China and a little bit on Vietnam. Cambodia's a little place and the kleptocrats who run Cambodia like that they are forgotten because then they can get away with the thievery and murder and nobody notices. And the ambassadors who represent western countries in Cambodia, they plainly told me, and I spoke to several, Washington, London, the other capitals don't listen to us. They don't really care.
STEPHEN LONG: What do you think that the governments and the NGOs, providing more than a billion dollars in aid a year to Cambodia, should do?
JOEL BRINKLEY: Well I have a couple of prescriptions. One, Cambodia generates about half a billion dollars a year as its budget, the donors give them more than double that, which gives them plenty of money to steal. If the donors and the western governments that support them want to see change in Cambodia then they need to stand up at the next donor conference and tell Hun Sen and his minions we are not going to give you anything but humanitarian aid direct to the people until you stop abusing your people and stealing their land.
STEPHEN LONG: Some NGOs and government officials would respond that there's a trickle down and at least some of that money gets to the people in need, despite the corruption.
JOEL BRINKLEY: Well that's true but at the same time that some of the money gets to the people, they are the facilitators for the corruption that is endemic across the country because they provide the money. So as long as they're continuing to give money that they know will be stolen, there's no incentive for the government to do anything.
STEPHEN LONG: Why the reluctance to change? Why the reluctance to withhold donor money?
JOEL BRINKLEY: Well you have to remember that in every country donors have all these employees who live there and work there and living in Cambodia's pretty nice - you can rent a big house and have servants for almost no money. If they suddenly stood and said we're not going to give you money this year then they'd have to move away.
STEPHEN LONG: It's a very pessimistic portrait; is there any hope of change that will benefit the lives of the Cambodian people that you can see?
JOEL BRINKLEY: for the first time in the last few years Cambodia has young people who have graduated from college and realise that things are not right, that their country needs to change.
The problem for now is if they stand up and try to become an opposition leader, Hun Sen will arrange to have them killed. Change will come but I think it's going to be a while. I think we're not going to see much change until Hun Sen retires or dies.
STEPHEN LONG: Joel Brinkley, the author of Cambodia's Curse.
STEPHEN LONG: Cambodia is one of the world's poorest nations. At least 30 per cent of the population live on less than a dollar a day.
The Australian Government gives over $64 million in aid to Cambodia every year - the world, more than a billion. But how much of that actually gets to the Cambodian people?
Joel Brinkley (pictured) is the author of a new book called Cambodia's Curse. He says Cambodia's leaders are murderous kleptocrats who pocket most foreign aid, while selling the nation's rice crop for the own gain, and leaving their people to starve, as the world turns a blind eye.
Joel Brinkley spoke to me from his home in California.
JOEL BRINKLEY: Cambodia is an oddity in that 80 per cent of people who live in the country live in the countryside with no electricity, no clean water, no radio, not television. They live more or less as they did 1,000 years ago.
Occasionally somebody might have a cell phone or a motorbike and some people have televisions powered by car batteries but they live in very primitive conditions and that's 80 per cent of the population.
STEPHEN LONG: One of the things that moved me in your articles was the description of the plight of the children.
JOEL BRINKLEY: Well, 40 per cent of the nation's children grow up stunted. And I met some of these children as I travelled round the country; it almost brought tears to my eyes. I've been a journalist all my life and seen some horrible things but that was among the more horrible things I've seen. Children who are destined to grow up weak, short and not very smart because their parents are unable to take care of them when they're little.
STEPHEN LONG: What happens then to the more than $1 billion a year in aid that the international community gives to Cambodia?
JOEL BRINKLEY: Every year the government stages a donor conference at which donors pronounce how much they're going to give each year. But first ambassadors from your country and mine stand up and declare that they want the government to clean up corruption, to end land seizures and a variety of other things. The government every year promises to take care of all of it.
The conference ends, the donors give them, last year $1.1 billion and then the government dips gallon buckets into the money and builds themselves mansions and expensive cars and everything goes on as it was before. Nothing changes and then the donors come back and do it all again next year.
STEPHEN LONG: You describe Hun Sen, the Cambodian prime minister as a murderous kleptocrat, extending his personal wealth at the expense of the people. Why then is there so little attention to the plight of Cambodia today?
JOEL BRINKLEY: You know, you ask anybody in western nations about Cambodia and all they know is the Khmer Rouge. That's a curse for the country today because if the world's standard for Cambodia is the horrors of the Khmer Rouge then starving a few hundred people to death every year, failing to provide health care, that's nothing compared to killing a quarter of the nation's population in three-and-a-half years.
You know we in the west focus our attentions on North Korea and Iran and in Asia and China and a little bit on Vietnam. Cambodia's a little place and the kleptocrats who run Cambodia like that they are forgotten because then they can get away with the thievery and murder and nobody notices. And the ambassadors who represent western countries in Cambodia, they plainly told me, and I spoke to several, Washington, London, the other capitals don't listen to us. They don't really care.
STEPHEN LONG: What do you think that the governments and the NGOs, providing more than a billion dollars in aid a year to Cambodia, should do?
JOEL BRINKLEY: Well I have a couple of prescriptions. One, Cambodia generates about half a billion dollars a year as its budget, the donors give them more than double that, which gives them plenty of money to steal. If the donors and the western governments that support them want to see change in Cambodia then they need to stand up at the next donor conference and tell Hun Sen and his minions we are not going to give you anything but humanitarian aid direct to the people until you stop abusing your people and stealing their land.
STEPHEN LONG: Some NGOs and government officials would respond that there's a trickle down and at least some of that money gets to the people in need, despite the corruption.
JOEL BRINKLEY: Well that's true but at the same time that some of the money gets to the people, they are the facilitators for the corruption that is endemic across the country because they provide the money. So as long as they're continuing to give money that they know will be stolen, there's no incentive for the government to do anything.
STEPHEN LONG: Why the reluctance to change? Why the reluctance to withhold donor money?
JOEL BRINKLEY: Well you have to remember that in every country donors have all these employees who live there and work there and living in Cambodia's pretty nice - you can rent a big house and have servants for almost no money. If they suddenly stood and said we're not going to give you money this year then they'd have to move away.
STEPHEN LONG: It's a very pessimistic portrait; is there any hope of change that will benefit the lives of the Cambodian people that you can see?
JOEL BRINKLEY: for the first time in the last few years Cambodia has young people who have graduated from college and realise that things are not right, that their country needs to change.
The problem for now is if they stand up and try to become an opposition leader, Hun Sen will arrange to have them killed. Change will come but I think it's going to be a while. I think we're not going to see much change until Hun Sen retires or dies.
STEPHEN LONG: Joel Brinkley, the author of Cambodia's Curse.
5 comments:
STEPHEN LONG: Why the reluctance to change? Why the reluctance to withhold donor money?
JOEL BRINKLEY: Well you have to remember that in every country donors have all these employees who live there and work there and living in Cambodia's pretty nice - you can rent a big house and have servants for almost no money. If they suddenly stood and said we're not going to give you money this year then they'd have to move away.
STEPHEN LONG: It's a very pessimistic portrait; is there any hope of change that will benefit the lives of the Cambodian people that you can see?
JOEL BRINKLEY: for the first time in the last few years Cambodia has young people who have graduated from college and realise that things are not right, that their country needs to change.
The problem for now is if they stand up and try to become an opposition leader, Hun Sen will arrange to have them killed. Change will come but I think it's going to be a while. I think we're not going to see much change until Hun Sen retires or dies.
STEPHEN LONG: Joel Brinkley, the author of Cambodia's Curse.
[OK now before some of you jump at Joel Brinkley, he is not a SRP member or supporter or mindless extremist! I think it's plain he speaks the truth, but you are allowed to have your opinion . . .]
14 July 2011 11:31 PM
Can we have all foreign ambassadors who were appointed to deal with the country be truthful like Joel. I don't think these ambassadors care, as long no one tries to install another Khmer Rouge to create another killing fields. Otherwise, these ambassadors will kick back and relax.
The foreign Ambassadors are part of the aid/donor community Joel is referring to in this interview.
Unlike most aid personnel in the country, however, these Ambassadors are career diplomats who are conscious of the remit of their duties or functions. At least, the Americans (Ambassadors) are or have been frank with their observations of Cambodian politics as revealed in these secret cables (WikiLeaks). One remembers that Australian Ambassador in the early 1990s (the one who was also suspected of being a pedophile and who threatened to sue the Phnom Penh Post for having his picture on top of an article about foreign sex-offenders in Cambodia?) describing Hun Sen as "a patriot" and the 1997 coup as a fair fight between two Cambodian factions!
Despite noting that Thailand's claim over the so-called 4.6 square km is morally and legally irrelevant, the previous US Ambassador had not (like the incumbent one, Carol Rodley) done anything more than stating all the obvious facts and cautioning his government against the possibility of being perceived as giving tacit support to Bangkok by remaining silent over the issue. So we now know why the US (as one of the Five Permanent Members of the UN SC) did not obstruct Cambodia's call for an urgent meeting in New York to discuss Thailand's aggression against Cambodia.
Washington - we know - has tremendous influence over Bangkok, and could have done, and is in a position even now, to do something to reign in on Thailand - its ally - and put an end to this episode. Instead, even whilst knowing Bangkok is in the wrong, it merely calls for "restraint" and "peaceful means" to solving the dispute from both countries!
Kouprey
The signs of change are many and convincing (Barun Roy)
One of them should be wrong. Jo Brinkley spent much of his time in Bangkok and while Barun Roy is still in Cambodia. Here what he witnessed:
A 60-storey skyscraper soaring above the low, monotonous spread of red-tiled roofs of Phnom Penh? Don’t be surprised. After several years of slow growth, Cambodia is stirring again, and when an economy turns, real estate is usually where an emerging nation stamps its first ambitious footprints. Cambodia is no exception...
It’s an “uprising,” literally, now spreading to other parts of the country as well, especially Seam Ream [Siem Reap?] to the north, the once-sleepy outpost that’s now the country’s second-largest city. Fuelling the boom is a new law, passed in May last year, which allows foreigners to own up to 70 per cent of any property above the ground-floor level that’s not within 30 km of a border.
Cambodia is still an LDC (least developed country), with its 15 million mainly agriculturist population surviving notionally on $1 a day. But the LDC status allows the country to have quota- and duty-free access to most world markets, which an increasingly pro-private-sector government now sees as an advantage. Export policies have been liberalised and tax reforms have been implemented to let investors exploit this benefit to the full. The government also wants to leverage Cambodia’s membership of the economically resurgent Greater Mekong sub-region, which offers investors the prospects of a wider regional market...
All this has spurred a fresh investor interest in Cambodia and triggered an explosion of demand for commercial and living spaces. New apartment blocks are proliferating all over the place... The popular impression of Cambodia is still that of an Asian “Wild West,” where ganja, guns and sex can be had in plenty, corruption runs through all levels, roads are dusty and easily flooded, and all kinds of backpackers, outcasts, drifters, paedophiles and alcoholics feel at home. In parts, that may still be true, but the signs of change are many and convincing.
There’s a rush of new hotels, restaurants and Western-style shopping malls, and Phnom Penh’s first multiplex, licensed to show Hollywood movies, has just made its debut. Fund transfers through domestic banks are on the rise. Car sales are strong, helped by easy bank loans. The telecom network has already spread to three international gateways and more than 20,000 km of fibre-optic cables. The country’s first communication satellite could be launched in early 2013. Roads are being upgraded with help from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Trains are running again on the country’s once-defunct railway under an Australian concessionaire.
The economy remains strong. Garment exports, Cambodia’s second major business after tourism, are on course for a 30 per cent rise this year over last year’s $2.99 billion earning. As for tourism, 42 large-scale projects worth $2.6 billion were approved in the first five months of this year, more than double from a year ago. Club Med is considering making an entry. ADB has just announced a three-year, $500-million programme for projects in agriculture, education, finance, water supply and transport. And Cambodia’s long-awaited securities exchange is ready to start trading by the end of this year.
Neither of them are wrong; they both report on different subject-fields: Joel Brinkley focuses on socio-political realities facing the country, whilst Barun Roy reports on fast-paced urban-commercial growth ("uprise") in the cities.
Cambodia is not alone among Asian nations to be experiencing this kind of 'development' - the kind of boom-town artificial commercial expansion that is mainly being fueled by injections of foreign capital induced by lax investment laws and sleazy officialdom. Some locals might be recruited as cleaners, maids, shop assistants, bank clerks etc. as a consequence of these commercial "uprisings". But these instances are being imposed on the country regardless, and often at cruel expense of basic rights of the citizenry who are losing out through forced evictions (the law on expropriation could see to that as long as it's not a mango tree planted by ethnic Vietnamese!) and a host of violations we all should be familiar with by now.
Garment workers have been reported to have fainted en masse due to ill-enforced health and safety standards in the factories. It's fine to have foreign projects and investments that create jobs for local people, but the need for economic opportunities should be in balance with social-political reforms so that local population (minus the political-economic elites or "murderous plutocrats") take an equitable share out of the national economic pie, and the country doesn't attract those capitalist sharks whose seedy activities in their own countries and the legal pressure they face back home have driven them to come and try their luck in 'anything goes Cambodia' in the first place.
Even without the prospect of oil revenues, a relatively small country like Cambodia, sparsely populated and endowed with naturally fertile landmass as well as being one of Asia's (if not one of the world's) most attractive tourist destinations has every potential to become affluent economically if it is managed under a sound, clean and transparent political-administrative system.
So, no this kind of development is not of, by and for the people. It is first and foremost for the foreign investors and the native plutocrats only.
In future, even overseas Khmers coming to visit their country once every four years or so will struggle to afford overnight accommodation available on Techo-Morakat Island (Koh Pous) judging by some of the price quotes on rented accommodation there. If the island turns out to be another Phuket, then ordinary Khmers can forget about it!
Which leads one to Sok An's quip about subject matters like Ankor Wat and the border being off-limit to the public lest it causes anarchy! (see WikiLeaks).
Kouprey
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