Trick or Treat?

Cheam Yeap: a long suffering democrat finally coming out of his shell?

Re: Cheam Yeap calls for 'clear and concise' oil and gas policies

by School of Vice

This would be a positive move if - and only if - Cheam Yeap and his CPP colleagues are prepared to add flesh to his public statements. Otherwise, it's just an old trick of a publicity stunt aimed at assuaging national and international pressure to have better and greater transparency and accountability in public asset management through legal regulations governing all aspects of public financing and economic activities.

Cheam Yeap is not the first senior CPP official to come up with this kind of reformist pledges. Sok An had made similar noises previously about the need for reigning in on official corruption, and so had government spokesmen at every annual donors meeting in the capital, and yes, sure enough, it has been business as usual afterwards as far as the old steam train of governmental corruption is concerned. 

Cheam Yeap himself has not been occupying the office he is in now without the absolute faith and reliance that his corrupt bosses have placed in him unless he is confident that either those bosses have experienced a u-turn or an epiphany whilst ‘on the road to Damascus’ - equivalent to being struck by lightning! - or he himself is confident enough of his means of defending his stance afterwards against their impending reprisals. 

Personally, I seriously doubt that the kind of reforms and utterances coming from Mr Yeap - which echo resolutions reached at many a civil society seminar on how best to manage prospective oil revenue or any other public revenue - will ever be given serious thought by the ruling administration and its archaic old guard Politburo members, of whom Yeap himself is one. When the oil starts flowing expect the revenue it generates to be siphoned off into mysterious corporate and personal bank accounts; at any rate substantial chunks of that revenue will be. The sort of structural reform adjustments required here and as ostensibly identified by Yeap, if carried out, would likely be confronted with obstacle on two formidable fronts. First, the initiative will have to involve or be retroactively applied to the unaccounted for state assets that had gone into the black hole of corruption and misappropriation at the hands of high-ranking officials in the course of their three decades plus  in power. This will require reformers to look into past business deals, "economic concessions" and any other state undertakings previously rubber stamped by the government or its organs without having been put through exhaustive parliamentary processes or subjected to due diligence; in other words, to transparency laws and standards. It is known, for example, that vast swathes of state lands had been signed off as “Economic Land Concessions” to foreign interests well in excess of the quota allowed under the Constitution. 

The ELCs – notwithstanding their allusions to economic development and investment - constitute in reality a blank cheque for foreign powers to come in and establish their long term [99 years!] demographic and political roots well inside the interior of the country. Most of these ELC zones are sealed off to local population or inhabitants who traditionally relied upon having access to their local forests for food supplements, timber for shelter, and dead tree branches for fuel as well as all other subsistence needs. The ELCs, sometimes dubbed “countries within a country”, are well defended by armed militias under the pay roll and direction of those foreign owners who lease or own the areas under the terms of the concession agreement. They could be more accurately translated as “Exclusive Land Colonies” with the poise and character to permanently put down roots like a bamboo grove and keep on expanding and branching organically until it will be impossible to dislodge. It is a well worn tactic applied in the past to entangle, isolate and strangulate the Cham and the Khmer Krom populations and to condemn them to oblivion as a viable, distinct racial group and state entity. 

Secondly, the reform would call into question policies and practices of the reformers themselves. Transparency regulations must and need to be applied across the board – there is no sense in restricting reform of this nature to oil production alone. But then nothing makes any sense in this arbitrary government without representation! Just look at the amount of state budget that is being spent by the PM on his Body Guards [between three and four thousands strong plus expensive military hardware like tanks, armoured vehicles and small missile equipments etc.]. But, wait a minute, what budget? Precisely! And who approves of such a large standing private style mercenary army who exist for the protection of one man and his clans to the detriment of national defence and public social needs in the first place? That’s correct; your guess is as good as mine!

One strongly suspects that this gesture of Mr Cheam Yeap may have been made in light of the expected visit of the US President to the country before the close of the year. It is always a good sign for both the leader of the free world visiting a country with known poor human rights record and the host country itself if the national and international media have something wholesome or favourable to chew on even if it is just a window dressing exercise with nothing in store beyond the window! It is almost conceivable that someone behind the scene could have whispered in the Phnom Penh regime’s ear or in the ear of one of the PM’s well-placed advisors: “Look, old chap, you have to come up with something if you want the US President to attend the ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, what with your recent failed bid for that non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council and that well publicised open letter to Obama by the Leader of the Opposition. At least the President can tell Congress and the American public he is coming to a country that is on the mend!” You bet . . .