The Cambodia “Solution”: Can it work?

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• Saturday, 04 October 2014
• Written by  Dubbo Weekender (Australia)

Photo: Dubbo Weekender/File

• Published in Local News
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Dubbo Weekender

Elections have been fought, won and lost on the issue of asylum seekers and the deeply human element is often forgotten in the political quagmire that surrounds the debate. The recent announcement of an arrangement between the Australian and Cambodian governments in relation to the resettlement of refugees in the developing South East Asian nation is among the most controversial in recent times. So is the proposal a small but genuine step towards a solution to the refugee crisis, or simple opportunism on the part of both countries? Weekender sought the comments of two people deeply invested in the issue.

Mark Coulton:

Federal Member for Parkes who was part of a parliamentary delegation sent to observe Cambodia’s 2008 elections.

In July 2008 I was one of four members of the Australian Parliamentary delegation who travelled to Cambodia to observe the National Assembly Elections. I travelled to Battambang in the north-west of Cambodia, a rural area known for rice production. I saw the elections take place, a process far removed from what we know as Election Day in Australia.

Cambodia is an incredible country that is managing to rebuild after the horrors experienced under Pol Pot. The brutality the Cambodian people experienced under the communist regime in the 1970s is still having an impact on Cambodians today. If you travel to Cambodia you see a nation which is developing but you also see a young nation (average age in early 20s) with a growing middle class. I do still hold some concern about corruption in Cambodia, having witnessed the election process in 2008, however it is clear that conditions in Cambodia are improving.

Cambodia is a country which is growing, expanding, developing at an incredibly rapid rate. Cambodia has shown itself to be a world best performer in poverty reduction. The poverty rate more than halved from 53 per cent in 2004 to 20.5 per cent in 2011 according to a World Bank poverty assessment. Gains of this magnitude are a credit to the Cambodian people. However these improvements could not have been made without the help of foreign aid including from the Australian Government.

The reduction in poverty is not the only indicator of the way in which Cambodia is developing. Recent protests by workers in the Cambodian textile industry over the minimum wage have led to commitments from major clothing manufacturers, such as H&M, for an increased “fair living” wage. This is an industry sector that accounts for more than a third of Cambodia’s GDP. Infrastructure, such as major road networks and economic development, including irrigation schemes in rural areas, show Cambodia’s aspiration to be on a level footing with other dominant Asian countries in our region.

Australia has a vested interest in assisting Cambodia and other nations in our part of the world. Stability in the Asia-Pacific is very important for the future safety and prosperity of the Australian nation. This stability was jeopardised by the open doors immigration policy of the previous government. Labor’s policies encouraged asylum seekers to take the risk of a journey by boat to Australia in the hope that they would be able to resettle in the community.

An orderly refugee intake process is not only important for Australia (for health and security reasons) but is also in the best interests of the millions of refugees worldwide. A person waiting to go through the lengthy application process in Africa or the Middle East should not miss out on coming to Australia because they have not made the risky journey by boat.

The Australian and Cambodian governments recently signed a memorandum of understanding relating to the settlement of refugees in Cambodia.

Currently Cambodia has a very small number of refugees, an estimated 60 in total. The arrangement between the Australian government and the Kingdom of Cambodia will give the option for refugees who have been processed on Nauru to voluntarily elect to be resettled in Cambodia. The voluntary element of this arrangement is important to note, as is the slow and steady approach being taken by both governments. It is anticipated that only a handful of refugees will initially be transferred under this scheme and this will enable officials to manage any difficulties.

Officials will provide information on Cambodian living conditions, customs, traditions, culture and religion to eligible refugees in Nauru. In Cambodia, participants in this program will be granted permanent residency status with all the pursuant rights and obligations. The Australian government will continue to provide support tailored to the needs of the refugee and this will include health insurance, language and job training and business start-up loans. I believe there are opportunities for people who choose to take up this resettlement program to build a new life for themselves in an emerging country.

It is essential that the message is sent loud and clear to those in the people smuggling trade. Anyone who arrives in Australia in an unauthorised boat will not be able to resettle in Australia.

The Coalition came to government with a clear mandate to stop the boats. Operation Sovereign Borders has been highly successful. The agreement with Cambodia is another small step in repairing the damage done through Labor’s ill-thought out and hasty open border policy.

The UNHCR has a clear preference for refugees and displaced persons to be able to return to their home country in the event that it becomes safe to do so. With conflicts in many parts of the world it is likely that we will have more refugees worldwide for many years to come. Australia will continue to make a contribution through our very successful annual refugee resettlement program. I think it is likely that Cambodia, and other developing nations, will choose to take part in the solution to this global problem.

Mark Horton: 

A Dubbo Rotarian who has been the co-ordinator of a volunteer humanitarian community development and education project in rural Cambodia for the past eight years.

Here’s a question: What’s the difference between people trafficking and the decision to resettle refugees in Cambodia?

What are our morals worth? What price is a child or its future? What price do we put on a country’s culture?

As a job lot, would $40m close the deal? That’s the figure the Australian and Cambodian governments have discussed regarding the resettlement of refugees who once sought safe haven here on our shores.

Like all geo-social political decisions, this has a long back story. The intricate context of this proposal has a deeper origin and wider ramifications than media commentary has yet grasped, but the whole thing screams dispassionate opportunism on the part of both governments.

An initial trial will be followed by “further resettlement in accordance with Cambodia’s capacity”, according to a recent government statement. But exactly who will determine this “capacity” benchmark? And how much more cash will need to change hands for the arrangement to continue?

Imagine the poorest of the poor in the world. Then imagine Cambodia – a little country of mostly young and middle-aged adults and children – older generations having been decimated by the Khmer Rouge – trying to eke out survival from a mostly low lying river deltas. Impoverished sandy soils that flood each wet season and blow away in the dry have replaced thick rainforest areas logged close to extinction by a succession of colonial masters, then sprayed and bombed by US B52s in the 60s – all to satisfy the need and greed of western ideals and economies.

Today average Khmer people, who all suffer the residual grief of the Khmer Rouge and war years, stoically look to their ancient Angkor history and their mostly Buddhist faith, as a distant reference to Cambodian national identity. Meanwhile, world players sit around Phnom Penh signing guilty cheques to support the personal ambitions of corrupt administrators, convincing themselves that western moral standards remain a beacon of hope.

Cambodia has no social or economic or educational safety net; not even the family structure remains intact. Those not slaughtered during the Khmer Rouge period, (those over about 40 years of age), were mostly Khmer Rouge members and many remain in control of government today.

The endemically corrupt practices of the Cambodian government and bureaucracy are well known. They ensure almost no foreign aid money reaches or addresses the needs of the general population, but bureaucrats make sure to extract “remittance” from the most needy at a domestic level. Meanwhile, well-intended western university graduates drive at high speed in fully funded NGO black Lexus 4WDs across the country, seeking to treat the symptoms of abject disadvantage caused by years of western intervention.

To paraphrase screenwriter and former US-government staffer, Aaron Sorkin, who said of international geo-social politics: “That ball, it just keeps bouncing” and “we always f**k up the endgame”.

When a person or an economy is displaced and or replaced, something has to give. In this scenario, will it be what remains of the Cambodian culture as an influx of yet another religion (Islam) tries to wrestle into the gap between all the new sects and faiths trying to fill the void left by historic displacement.

Perhaps it will also be our high western morals, as our decision makers trade their egos and a need to save face for fundamental humanity by further displacing two groups of people where once there was one.

This “deal” will further reduce the right of Cambodians to autonomy of decision making, and will see the erosion of what little ability the government ever had to make decisions based on compassion and understanding of its people’s needs. Worse still, it will further reinforce the idea that, in the eyes of both governments – ours and theirs – people will always be a commodity to be bought and sold.

In Cambodia, the daily wage is around $AU1.40 a day. For a government teacher or police officer it’s around $AU4, supplemented by necessity with “gratuities” or a second or third job that’s needed to ensure the family eats. The offer of an additional $40m in discretionary funds to top up an existing $79m provided annually by Australia in the form of “aid”, leaves very little wriggle room for an opportunist administration to say no. We know and they know, and we know they know... it’s a bribe and we get to save face. They don’t care; they get a little richer, while their nation literally goes hungry.

Reports have the Cambodian government indicating that, while they’ll take the full $40m, the initial number of asylum seekers they’re willing to take may be “as few as four or five people”. That’s an initial cost of $8m per person, and it seems unlikely at best and irresponsible in any case that this would remain the Australian Government’s expectation over time.

It’s unlikely the Australian public will be given the entire background story as to why our government has chosen Cambodia as a depository for some of the refugees seeking to call Australia home.

But if the devil in is the detail, he’s sitting right at the negotiation table for this one.