Don't thwart good work of NGOs

Sep. 7, 2011
Written by A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
The Guam Pacific Daily News

On June 21, Slate Magazine's Ken Silverstein's article, "NGOs in Cambodia: Accommodation with the regime can be very profitable," examined non-governmental organizations in general, and in Cambodia in particular. The findings were not flattering to NGOs. But I took away more than one lesson.

When I was with the Khmer People's National Liberation Front, a Khmer nationalist resistance, at the Khmer-Thai border, I became familiar with some of what Silverstein and others have described as NGOs' general "path." Silverstein wrote: "After arriving to provide immediate relief, (NGOs) gradually transform themselves into survival-focused, grant-proposal-writing shops, chasing dollars and holding PowerPoint-heavy workshops on 'empowerment,' 'governance,' 'capacity-building,' and other empty buzz phrases."

His assertion mirrors my own experience in the 1980s. Here was what Silverstein wrote: When the earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, nonprofits rushed in -- but a survey revealed that the 60 U.S. relief organizations on site "had spent less than 40 percent of the $1.4 billion they raised" for the first year. Many projects are still stalled and 1 million Haitians continue to shelter in squalid tent settlements.

Silverstein says many of the billions of dollars spent by USAID to rebuild Afghanistan "never made it to the country, because about half of all funds were handed out to U.S. companies."

On Cambodia, Silverstein wrote, "billions of dollars of international aid" following the UN-organized elections in 1993 -- largely provided by the U.S. and Western donors -- were "delivered through and controlled by international aid agencies and NGOs."

Silverstein cautioned: "The point here is not that every seemingly good cause is a fraud and that all international aid groups are poverty pimps (though some certainly are)," and suggested, "people should bring the same scrutiny to NGOs as they do to corporations and governments (and the media, for that matter)."

Further, he wrote: "Over the years, NGOs in Cambodia have cleared landmines and implemented programs to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS. There are many excellent international and local NGOs working in Cambodia, among them LICADHO, a civil and political rights group, the Worker Rights Consortium, and Human Rights Watch." He mentioned the London-based Global Witness that "got kicked out of Cambodia" for reports exposing governmental corruption.

Yet the negative view of NGOs is pervasive in the article. Even "a terrible draft law" -- requiring NGOs in Cambodia to complete "a complex registration process," giving the government authority to approve or deny registration applications --"doesn't turn charity workers into saints," he wrote.

About the 3,000-plus NGOs and aid organizations in Cambodia, Silverstein wrote, "By day, swarms of foreign do-gooders clog the streets of Phnom Penh in their company-provided SUVs, and by night they fill bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. Collectively, NGO workers represent a privileged caste, isolated and detached from the people who serve as the objects of their benevolence."

He referenced a 2006 story in the Australian that denounced Australia's aid to Cambodia as wasted, asserting that 80 percent of it "goes straight out in the form of high expatriate salary packages and running costs." A 2005 Action Aid report of 700 top consultants in Cambodia found they average $100,000 in salary in a year, roughly equivalent to "the entire annual wage bill for 160,000 Cambodian civil servants."

The "terrible draft law" -- "Hun Sen has said it is needed to keep terrorists from setting up shop in Cambodia 'under the guise of NGOs,' but his government clearly wants to use it against the relatively small number of groups that criticizes his government," said Silverstein -- catalyzed Cambodia's major rights groups and NGOs to issue a joint statement: "The draft law we now see before us is unacceptable" as it "grants far-reaching power to government authorities to control the rights of citizens to organize and express themselves."

On Aug. 23, 10 international organizations -- including Freedom House, Global Witness, Human Rights Watch, International Federation for Human Rights -- sent a letter to 36 foreign governments: "As written, it will allow the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) to intimidate and potentially shut down local, national and foreign NGOs, associations, and informal groups that criticize the government or government officials."

The letter urges aid donors to "Make it clear to the RGC that if the law is adopted in its current form, your government will reassess your bilateral assistance and will also urge all agencies providing multilateral assistance, including the United Nations and international financial institutions, to reassess their assistance."

By the end of August, the draft law was before the Council of Ministers, and would be forwarded to the National Assembly for approval. The council's spokesman said, "We just want to have a proper law to regulate their operations."

But "new laws must not infringe upon the fundamental rights of the people, including their rights to freedom of association and freedom of expression," said the joint statement.

The law favored by the Hun Sen government is consistent with its customary disregard for fundamental rights and freedoms.

Despite criticism of how NGOs operate, it would be unfortunate if the good work of NGOs and associations, many of which provide essential services to Cambodians about whom the Hun Sen government seems unconcerned, is thwarted.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.