11.28.08
Posted in Current Events, Rants at 8:48 pm by Kaihaku
I was reading an opinion piece by Clive Crook of the Atlantic and the first, then only, comment caught my eye. It’s an intelligent bit of commentary that strikes right at the heart of “why?” Though, it does miss that this mess will have a profound impact on “jobs” since those who greatly benefited from the economic boon are going to project this downturn onto their workers sparing themselves as much as possible.
I don’t see how a jobs package that is going to “stimulate” the economy with new construction jobs rebuilding the infrastructure is going to have much of a long term impact on the fact that the U.S. financial system has collapsed.
Wall Street and Wall Street’s penchant for quarterly earnings and short term profit are what truly has caused this collapse. It has nothing to do with jobs, and little to do with deadbeat home owners.
Over the course of the last 4 decades the capital markets have taken on a role that they were never meant to be. Back in the olden days when America actually produced goods and companies that sold those goods at a profit succeeded. When the company wanted to raise money they went to a bank and got a loan. Then, somewhere along the way they started selling shares to raise money instead. The public company was born…this was going to be great. Great. Everything would be transparent, it would foster better management and decisions. And it worked for a while until going public became an end in itself. Companies didn’t go public to raise cash for improvements or expansion, they went public to raise cash, period. And this is how Wall Street and share price came to destroy American manifacturing and now, finally, ultimately the American financial system itself.
Of course no one will admit this and we won’t see the company going back to the days when companies were privately held and debt was arranged between the company and the bank. We’re going to try and put a failed system on some kind of life support for a while longer. But, without significant changes to the way valuation works, nothing will change, we will only be waiting for the next big financial boondoggle.
The only question really is when and if the world will wake up to the fact that the U.S. Treasury is so in debt that its now working in monopoly money. But, since admitting this truth would create a global catastrophe, my bet is, we keep the dead body of Wall Street alive a bit longer.
I don’t think that retreating back to a regulated market is enough, this might be our best and last chance for a fundamental change to how we do business and how we measure progress.
From the BBC’s Robert Peston’s blog.
Only hours ago, we saw the US Federal Reserve providing $800bn of credit – in effect from taxpayers – to breathe life into the markets for residential mortgages, credit card finance, small-business loans, car loans and student finance.
That brings to more than $8000bn the aggregate amount of loans, guarantees and investments committed by US taxpayers in the past few months – whether they like it or not – to bailing out failing banks and insurers and also unfreezing credit markets.
It’s a mindboggling sum, equivalent to around half of the annual economic output of the US.
For the last decade credit companies have enjoyed record profits and the elite who run them have gone from being merely the “rich” to being the “mega-rich”. Now that their shady business schemes have begun to collapse, bringing down the entire house of cards, how is that the taxpayers are covering for them? Is that the free market? Big business is allowed to manipulate and exploit the “small man” to turn over almost incomprehensible profits but then moment it stumbles over its own poisonous practices the “small man” bails it out? What? I think it might be time to abandon market wisdom and try more conventional wisdom.
After decades of psychological marketing promoting rampant consumerism people are trying to limit their spending and perhaps even save some money. In response, their government is telling them instead to pay no mind to the economic situation and instead spend, spend, spend. What? Our economy system wasn’t prescribed from on high by divine forces, surely there are other variations on this model and even other models that we could try at what seems to be a critical juncture. I’ve seen some people online suggesting “bottom-up” bailouts as opposed to the old, worn, and utterly failed “trickle down” methodology and I can’t help but wish we’d see at least one country trying that.
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11.24.08
Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 2:11 am by Kaihaku
It is a custom in MCC Cambodia that all program staff write up a check-in to share during the monthly team meeting. Once compiled, the check-ins are circulated with each of the staff reading one of the check-ins but never their own. I’ve decided to share my monthly check-ins here from now on.
Also, this is the 100th update!
Charles
Since the last team meeting I crossed the threshold that marked the end of my second year in Cambodia. This has left me a bit scattered and far too pensive, thinking ahead to the distant future when I’ll return home and to what I’ll do then. I fear that after two years of working in rural Prey Veng has left me feeling a bit less than employable as a Computer Scientist but I’m trying to get that part of my brain running again.
There has been a lot of progress with the Angkearhdei School during this period. There were a series of meetings ironing out details and support has begun to be dispersed. A kitchen has been built on site and it turns out that bawl bawl or bor bor is more popular with the kids than noodles. It’s also significantly cheaper; I’m a bit awed that we’re feeding children on less than seven cents a meal. A candidate has been accepted for the scholarship and funding will begin, through the school support committee, next week. I’m also hoping next week to hand out the first disbursement of books and material for the library. The bathroom renovations are on hold because of the weather but overall I’m quite pleased that things are, at last, clipping along at a pleasant pace.
I had some trouble focusing on work election day as I kept on being drawn to the BBC news site and sending off updates to poor Scott stuck in a meeting. I had even more trouble later in the day, feeling like I should be celebrating but sitting in the office alone. In retrospect, I should have danced with my cats or something.
All of that repressed celebrating must have caused me some injury as I had a terrible headache the next day when Amara called me to ask if I could come into Phnom Penh to help with some computer problems. I came in that afternoon and managed to get the problems sorted out. Fortunately I was working on reports so I was distracted from any important work and could carry on in Phnom Penh.
Ah, Water Festival. After two years of trudging through thick crowds I was quite decided to remain in Prey Veng and relax over the truly long six day weekend while all of the cool cats were off gallivanting across Malaysia. Then the Yordys asked me to come in and help with the orientation of Daniel and Amanda. I’m quite glad that I did because this Water Festival was, without a doubt, the best that I’ve had in Cambodia and well worth missing out on a few days of slothfulness. Though, I’m afraid that I subjected the Talstras to over 12 hours of my company on Wednesday. Hopefully they’ve recovered by now.
Danni the housekeeper and I were the only Prey Veng staffmembers to work that week. I defragmented and otherwise cleaned up the office computers while paying staff salaries, a task I now know not to envy Carol, while Danni moped the floor and made strange comments.
During this period I also had a disappointing meeting with a potential partner, a Basic Skills Center, which due to government indifference/interference has not so positive prospects.
Oh and congrats to Typhoid Karin for already trying to one up Carol’s Dengue.
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11.21.08
Posted in Current Events, Rants at 8:48 am by Kaihaku
“The donors are like the relatives and closest friends of the Cambodian Government.” Hun Sen, 2003
In the fashion that has dominated his rule, Hun Sen, the self-described Cambodian strongman, has decided to launch an attack on an old affiliate the moment he perceives their influence to be weakening. FUNCINPEC and Norodom Ranarith certainly know of what I speak, as do so many other former allies, associates, and neutral parties with some measure of influence. With the grandiose outrage that has characterized him since he was foreign minister in the early 1980s, captured in works such as The Great AntiKampchean Conspiracy, he now feels confident enough in the support of international business to launch an assualt aganist the NGOs that have kept the country from complete stagnation and a very real threat of collapse for nearly twenty years. Indoctrinated by the Communists of the Khmer Rogue and later the Vietnamese government, Hun Sen has embraced a style of diplomacy, both international and domestically, resembling that of Kim Jong Il; a rotation of fevered attacks interspersed with paranoid claims of undeserved wrongs heaped aganist him. If Cambodia had been left solely in the hands of the CPP it is my belief that, as in North Korea, nothing would have changed. It is a gross understatement to say that this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. My first emotional reaction is one of hurt and anger, how dare he say that after all the damage he personally has done. The most frustrating realization that I’ve had here in Cambodia is that under the current regime there is a limit of change, on development, on hope. You can only progress so far with those in power taking so much, giving so little, and strangling other more proactive forces through corruption. The double blow of government indifference and interference cripples all social movements. It’s a struggle not to transfer these emotions onto the Cambodian people themselves but, I try to remember, who can blame them for, after three elections in which intimidation and murder derided democratic choice, opting in the last election to vote for the status quo? It was a choice between accepting the status quo now without violence or accepting the status quo later after widespread violence. Where was the world community during the last three elections? When, in 1997, a grenade was thrown into a Sam Rainsy Party rally resulting in the deaths of 16 people and wounding a host of others where was the world community? An American was wounded in that attack triggering an FBI investigation, how is it that the results of that completed investigation were never revealed? Of course they voted for Hun Sen, what other rational choice is left to them?
I agree with many of the critiques leveled against the NGO community, many of them are criticisms that I myself have made. There are many NGOs here that operate with lavish disregard and arrogance. Many NGO workers live a lifestyle of opulence that in country is surpassed only by the upper branches of the ruling party. But, while it is true that some consultants here make $10,000 dollars a month, it is personally appointed special advisers to Hun Sen who receive a portion of the national budget equal to two million dollars a month. Last year there were 70 special advisers, that’s nearly $29,000 dollars a month per person for a position whose only requirements are to win the Prime Minister’s favor and whose only duty is to advise Hun Sen on the rare occasion that he calls them up for advise. It should be noted that Hun Sen publicly promised a few months before the election to appoint any defectors from the opposition parties as special advisers and has kept his word, no doubt he regularly calls on their expert advise on selling out. I am disgusted that anyone, even someone who has passed through the highest loops in academia, receives a monthly salary of $10,000 dollars in a country where most people earn only $300 dollars a year but I am more disgusted that unqualified individuals are granted even higher paying positions simply for betraying their political allies.
I apologize but this attack has struck a nerve.
With an overwhelming electoral mandate, robust economy and a potential bounty of oil and gas revenues, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen feels in a strong enough position to move against the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which have been a perennial thorn in the strongman’s side since he took power more than two decades ago.
In late September he called for the revival of a controversial law which would require the country’s more than 2,000 associations and NGOs to complete a complex registration process and submit to stringent financial reporting requirements. The draft law is expected to be passed by Hun Sen’s Cambodia People’s Party (CPP)-dominated National Assembly in the coming months.
“Cambodia has been heaven for NGOs for too long,” he said in a speech broadcast on national radio on September 26, adding that he had given up hope of reading any positive reports written by international or local NGOs. “The NGOs are out of control … they insult the government just to ensure their financial survival.”
By enacting the law, Hun Sen could recalibrate the government’s terms of engagement with the Western-led aid community, on which his government has heavily relied for decades to finance its budget. The move comes as private-led foreign investment has fueled the country’s economic rise, led in the main by China and South Korea.
Because of his new allies in business Hun Sen believes that he is not longer as reliant on the international community and NGOs for support. In this he overlooks a few key factors.
The spreading global recession will affect Cambodia.
- There has been much talk of Cambodia becoming another Nigeria with a government empowered absolutely by oil funds. As Russia and certain states in the Middle East are discovering, the global recession has limited the power of crude. While the influx oil money will strengthen the position of the government it will not grant it complete impunity.
- International Aid will decreased because of the recession. Hun Sen may believe that this is no longer a necessary part of the national economy but the amount given annually is only marginally smaller than investments garnered by the international business community.
- Despite certain assurances, foreign investment in Cambodia will take a hit if the recession continues.
- The global food crisis did not vanish and will only be exasperated by the threatening recession.
- China is, as becoming obvious now, not as great or immune to the troubles of the West as the hype proclaimed only a year ago. Cambodia’s growing friendship with that State will not render them immune to international critique.
International aid is still important to Cambodia, much more so than Hun Sen acknowledges.
- As stated above, international aid to Cambodia is approximately equal to foreign business investment in the country.
- There are many local NGOs which are geared towards providing careers for their staff first and developing the country second. These NGOs will shut down and the private sector already has it’s fill of qualified employees. In fact, even with local NGOs there is an overabundance of educated labor in Cambodia. Hun Sen, like Norodom Sihanouk long before him, seems to be ignoring this critical educated portion of the population all of whom will not be satisfied returning to the family rice farm after obtaining their bachelors.
- Above the local commune level, the government does very little to support the largest and poorest segment of its population. It is NGOs which have provided health care, education, and a slew of other services to these people. Because the government seems indifferent to the state of its poorest citizens, the poorest in Cambodia will suffer without international support.
- A majority most educated individuals in Cambodia have worked with and often had their educations supported by international NGOs. Foreign business investments will not replace this relationship and, as has occurred across the world, stand to take more than they give. NGOs have proven the opposite, even when opulent, giving a ‘free’ boost to the system.
The level of graft and corruption stand to destroy foreign investment without some measure of accountability. NGO pressure, those insults against the government, have provided a small measure of transparency and accountability. Even if not sufficient, without some public limit business will soon find Cambodia a very unfavorable place to invest in.
In 2006 international donors gave 600 million dollars in aid to Cambodia, accounting for approximately half of the country’s annual budget. In that same year, the Economic Institute of Cambodia estimated that Cambodian businesses lost over 330 million dollars to graft. Current estimates place the amount businesses lose to graft annually at over 500 million.
“Many of the services provided by NGOs today will one day either be privatized or the revenues of the government will grow to such an extent that the functions currently being done by NGOs will be taken over by the government,” said Brett Sciaroni, chairman of Cambodia’s International Business Association.
Brett Sciaroni of Cambodia’s International Business Association is ignoring the reality of Cambodia. The revenues of the national budget has absolutely nothing to do with the dismal lack of government services. When Pen Sovan was quietly removed from his position as Prime Minister in 1981 by the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rogue defectors, with Hun Sen and Heng Samrin at their head, were given the reigns of the Cambodian People’s Party the Cambodian government completely dissolved into a “thugocracy.” The former Khmer Rogue leaders will promote their own welfare, not that of the state or free market, and they will abuse foreign investment just as they have international aid and their own people. They made such willing allies of Hanoi because they have everything to lose if they fall from power, not just their wealth and prestige but quite possibly their lives. Cambodians are a quiet people who smile on the outside but they haven’t forgotten the Khmer Rogue years. NGOs are not covering services that the government cannot provide, they are covering services that the government will not provide. Furthermore, what will the private sector do for the poor? Really, where is the investment from the private sector in development in Pea Reaing or Me Sang? What about in Phnom Penh, where entire neighborhoods are being leveled to make way for new shopping malls? The private sector has no interest in providing the same services as NGOs, it is interested solely in profit and there is little profit to be found for the majority of Cambodians who live as sustenance rice farmers.
The NGO law’s enactment would be a symbolic power shift between Hun Sen’s CPP-led government, further emboldened by its landslide victory in this year’s general election, and the Western-backed NGOs which have long chastised it over human-rights abuses and corruption allegations.
International aid agencies have for decades held the purse strings on the aid which has sustained the national economy since it emerged from the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-Maoist regime which systematically attempted to transform Cambodia into an agricultural utopia between 1975 and 1979, and a subsequent decade-plus of civil war.
Some contend it was the Khmer Rouge’s economic failures, including a devastating countrywide famine that killed many and stalked the regime’s traumatized survivors, which set the stage for Cambodia’s now decades-long dependence on foreign aid.
To call the economic policies of the Khmer Rouge failures is an understatement of epic proportions. The Khmer Rogue were not a regime which made a mistake in their economic policy, they consciously engineered each step of the destruction of their nation in the pursuit of a mad vision of a perfect society. It wasn’t a mistake, it was intentional. The CPP was whistling a different tune in the early eighties, I have seen the evidence firsthand in booklets published by Ministry of Foreign Affairs which MCC Cambodia, as one of the few NGOs active in Cambodia in that era, still has in its library. Hun Sen claimed then that the restoration of the country had been completed, miraculously, in just a few years and that, despite the efforts of an international anti-kampuchean conspiracy, the country was reaching heights greater than even in the golden era of the 1960s. Those claims have vanished in the years that have followed and now Hun Sen blames the lack of progress on the devastation inflicted by Khmer Rogue and, of course, on devious foes conspiring against the state. The Cambodian government deserves to be insulted.
“Our present Cambodia beats the other poorest countries in the world with regard to general corruption, government inefficiency and social/economic injustices.
~King Norodom Sihanouk, June 2004
Cambodia is ranked by the World Bank, Amnesty International, and other established International organizations are one of the most corrupt governments on the planet. The restoration of Cambodia in all sectors has been hindered by its ruling Government. The economy has been crippled by graft. In the social spheres impunity, abuse, and violence have kept the populace in fear. The Toul Sleng Genocide Museum and countless Killing Fields across the country are left to slowly decay as if it is hoped that the memory of the crimes of the Khmer Rogue will fade with them; perhaps something that former Khmer Rogue hope is the case. The Khmer Rouge Tribunals have been delayed for years, grossly mismanaged, and hindered by quiet but what I consider intentional neglect bordering on criminal.
But Hun Sen’s government’s relationship with NGOs and international aid agencies has often been fractious, epitomized by its tumultuous interactions with the environmental watchdog Global Witness over its consistent accusations of high-level government links to illegal logging, and with the UK-based rights lobby Amnesty International for its criticism of state-sponsored forced evictions across the country.
Once asked by the government to act as a forestry monitoring agency and assist in the struggle against illegal logging, Global Witness was banned from entering Cambodia and it’s materials were outlawed after it began to produce reports indicating that members of Hun Sen’s family were transforming criminal deforestation into an industry. Cambodia has used its official diplomatic channels to call for Sweden, the United States, Great Britain, and other donors to stop funding Global Witness. The 2007 Global Witness Cambodia’s Family Trees report is illegal in Cambodia. On hearing of the 2007 report, Hun Neng, one of Hun Sen’s brothers and a provincial governor, is reported to have said that, “If they (Global Family) come to Cambodia, I will hit them until their heads are broken.” In 2006, Transparency International defining corruption as ‘the abuse of public office for private gain’ ranked Cambodia as the second most corrupt country in Asia surpassing only Myanmar. In another survey, Transparency International found that 72% of Cambodians claimed to have paid a bribe in order to receive a public service in 2007, the highest percentage in Asia and second only to Cameroon in the world.
The World Bank also suspended US$11.9 million in funds in 2006 for seven sanitation projects when it found evidence of rampant extortion, bribe-taking, bid-rigging and procurement manipulation, leading Hun Sen to claim the multilateral lender was trying to tarnish his government’s credibility. The bank only agreed to unfreeze the projects’ funding in 2007 after the government promised to strengthen anti-corruption measures.
Since 1991, the Cambodian government has promised again and again to put into place anti-corruption laws but at each juncture it has failed to do so. When pressured the answer is always an excuse and a request for patience given the “special circumstances” of Cambodia. The Cambodian People’s Party has been in power for twenty-nine years, that strikes me as enough time to have installed at least a simple anti-corruption law special circumstances or otherwise.
Despite Cambodia’s recent economic boom, including a skyrocketing average 11% gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past three years, a sizable portion of the nation’s real income still derives directly from donor nations in amounts wrangled out each year at annual Consultative Group meetings.
The meetings were for years characterized by vague promises from the Cambodian government in response to weak demands by donors for reform, including the long-delayed adoption of an anti-corruption law. But in the past two years these demands have become less relevant with the surge in aid from China, which typically has less good governance or transparency conditions attached.
Excuses have given way to brazen indifference over the last few years with China’s growing support of Cambodia. However, with global recession looming, Cambodia’s new found patron protector from the demands of its “relatives and closest friends” may become a bit distracted and a bit less fearsome.
While Chinese aid is generally funneled through vast infrastructure projects – including hydropower and road projects – usually contracted to Chinese companies, Western nations’ share of the average US$600 million in annual aid arrives through international aid agencies and NGOs. The process has been widely cast as a corrupt, inefficient gravy train, giving some traction to Hun Sen’s complaints.
“In the 1980s, there was a popular T-shirt satirizing US Army recruitment commercials with the slogan, ‘Join the army. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting, unusual people. And kill them’,” Brad Adams, executive director for Human Rights Watch’s Asia Program, was quoted saying to Action Aid in 2005. “In the new millennium, it could be rephrased, ‘Join the aid community. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting, unusual people. And make a killing’.”
This is still the case in Cambodia, Adams told Asia Times Online. “You can start with all the foreign consultants making more than $10,000 per month, almost always tax free. This is a huge drain on the aid budget for Cambodia and in many cases the consultants produce nothing of value for the country.”
Many analysts and expatriates agree that NGOs and their workers suffer from an image crisis among the Cambodian public, partly due to their comparatively high salaries and lifestyles, which are far adrift from the 35% of the population which lives on less than $0.50 a day.
Country directors for prominent international aid agencies typically receive a $250,000 annual package, which includes a spacious villa in the capital’s upmarket “NGO-ville” area, a four-wheel-drive vehicle – usually emblazoned with the logo of their donor agency or charity – and fees paid for the capital’s better international schools.
As I said previously, I don’t deny the accusations leveled against many of Cambodia’s NGOs. Inequity, elitism, and narcissism certainly pervades the community. Being here with a organization that has been involved in Cambodia since 1979, one that prides itself on staff that live with people, and netting a whooping $60 dollars a month certainly makes me feel justified to level such critiques. Scathingly even. What gets to me is that the Cambodian Government dares to take on these accusations as their own in that tone of outrage. What utter gall. If the government was doing their job there would be no need for NGOs in Cambodia. Absolutely none. The restoration of this country should have moved beyond the need for massive international aid by now, it should have moved beyond that point years ago. Nothing will change permanently until the government takes steps to accomplish it’s charter.
The aid watchdog Action Aid estimated in 2005 that the 700 or so international consultants working for NGOs in the country earned more than Cambodia’s 160,000 civil servants put together. “In 1993, yes, 99% of foreign consultants were justified; now, 5% are justifiable. The others are embedding and enabling the mentality of dependency,” Center of Social Development director Theary Seng said in June.
While that is a disgusting discrepancy that should be address, something that should be mentioned is the part of a government which pays a non-living wage to it’s civil servants from school teachers to department directors. When a police chief officially earning only $40 dollars a month manages to own a mansion, two Landcruisers, and a Lexus something from the story is most certainly not being told.
Arne Sahlen, a founding member of the Cambodia Support Group, a 25-year-old volunteer organization, echoes Hun Sen’s comments that fundraising has overtaken the focus on the actual progress of several NGO projects. According to Sahlen, “vast” resources are being swallowed up on pursuing donors that could be invested on direct project needs. “The need to please donors has warped the focus to not necessarily what is best for the project but what may look best on an application,” said Sahlen.
This is certainly true, even well established organizations such as CEDAC have begun to prospect to the donor whims rather than actual needs. A pressing example are NGOs that once strove to provide basic healthcare in rural areas and which have since followed donor interest to address HIV/AIDs in a country where, largely thanks to NGO efforts in the last decade, the spread of the disease has been brought to a halt.
Others contend that several NGOs are actually impeding the development of a self-sustaining private sector, mainly through the alleged abuse of their not-for-profit status to pursue business opportunities. That status helps them avoid taxes and other unofficial costs that private businesses pay, giving non-profit an unfair competitive advantage in the market, they say.
Cambodians now understand the word NGO, especially in the local context, to be a for-profit enterprise, said Sophal Ear, the author of The Political Economy of Cambodia, Aid and Governance. “It’s all a business and this is just another way to avoid taxes,” he said. “When not covered by donors, capital costs for NGOs have largely been privatized, through an extensive network of ‘donations’ to the ruling party by Oknhas [politically connected tycoons] politicians, and civil servants.”
What? Several NGOs are somehow impeding the development of a self-sustaining private sector? I fail to see evidence of this, at the most there is some minor competition from a few handicraft programs for disabled people and restaurants staffed by street children. In fact, there are several private sector businesses that I know of which began as NGOs and successfully made the switch. A few examples are the Aquip seed company, the PRASAC Credit Union, and ACLEDA which is now Cambodia’s foremost Khmer Bank in the provinces and has extended services to Laos. Other NGOs, such as the Takeo Forestry Association, promote the private sector by providing small business loans and trainings. Many others organize trade fairs. If there are NGOs hindering the private sector they are few, far between, and of little influence. There are, on the other hand, a large number of NGOs which are covering ground that is generally the realm of the government; such as providing healthcare, security and education. If anything is hindering the development of a Cambodian private sector it is the corruption of government itself.
Many fear the discretionary powers the law will give the government in monitoring and sanctioning NGOs – rather than vice versa.
The NGO community should be regulated but certainly not by one of the most corrupt governments on earth. If Hun Sen believes he can use this to control NGOs then he might find that Cambodia is suddenly bereft of a significant amount of its international funding.
Hun Sen no doubt had his one good eye on the anticipated bounty of future oil and gas revenues when calling for the controversial law’s revival. Chevron, the US energy giant, discovered oil off Cambodia southwestern coast in 2005 and analysts have predicted the find could generate anywhere between $200 million and $2 billion in annual revenues for the government when full-scale production begins in 2010.
The government is still awaiting a key assessment from Chevron of the supposed find, and both sides have more recently played down expectations. Nonetheless, NGOS are already warning of a possible “resource curse” similar to places like Nigeria, where corrupt governments pilfered and wasted earnings derived from energy exports.
“NGOs are trying to tell us how to use the oil money, but this is of no interest to us. What is important is how to make our resources profitable,” Hun Sen said in a recent radio broadcast speech.
I fear that the need to ask profitable to whom is unnecessary. Even with the, in this lone case, hope of global recession there is still the danger of the current Cambodia government being cemented in place by oil funds. Even without oil Cambodia is a rich country with a relatively low population and abundant nature resources, given how the profits of the last twenty-nine years have been distributed it provides a disturbing glimpse at what Cambodia funded by oil could become.
In the health sector, 22 donors are currently working with over 100 NGOs to deliver $110 million in Official Development Assistance (ODA) per year through 109 projects – yet use of the national system remains at just between 13% to 18%, said the bank. The vast majority of rural Cambodians are forced to use an expensive yet rudimentary private healthcare system which is more reminiscent of poorer African than neighboring Asian nations.
International assistance, some notably through MCC in Prey Veng in the mid-80s and early 90s, has built health centers in every commune in the country, stocked many of them with medical supplies, and trained their staff. But international assistance cannot, or perhaps simply will not, augment the national salaries of those staff to a living wage to curb their need to demand additional fees for services and it cannot stop individuals with legal impunity from stealing medical supplies and selling them. Now, many health-oriented NGOs have been shifting their focus to donor-driven HIV/AIDs programs instead of keeping centered on the broader healthcare issue.
The education system is also beset by severe underfunding, with thousands of graduates churned out from poorly regulated “international” universities with degrees that often leave them ill-prepared to enter the job market. Until now, the only paying option for many graduates was to work in donor agencies and international NGOs.
The salary scales adopted by most NGOs have created a new class of citizen. So many young people here aspire to work in an NGO because they, on the whole, provide the best paying jobs in the country that don’t require corruption. I hate how this system is warping the social structure but I can’t blame young educated Cambodians for wanting to work in NGOs. There are many more who received free education but who cannot find work, either with NGOs or in the private sector.
But if Chinese and South Korean private investment flows hold up and the country’s hoped-for energy bonanza is realized, that may all soon change if Hun Sen has his NGO-curbing way.
I’m angry. A part of me hopes that Hun Sen drives away the NGO community and a part of me is sickened at what I believe that would cause. I am so weary of seeing, in so many ways, corruption force a nation ready to take the next steps forward to stagnate. For decades NGOs have been propping up the government by doing it’s job, not for the rulers of the country, but for it’s people. Without NGOs the best and brightest of Cambodia’s educated would be bereft of a livelihood, in the midst of a recession and potentially a famine… It’s a dangerous slippery slope Cambodia stands at the top of and I wish that I knew what was at the bottom of it. I’ve said that Hun Sen is not a smart man but he is a very cunning one. Striking at International Donors will be akin to biting the hand that has fed his people for years but now is the wrong time for such a move as this is one time where the International Community which has been so soft on Hun Sen might simply shrug their shoulders, pack up, and focus their efforts on problems at home. I can’t decide if I should hope for him to risk the mistake or continue on the cautious path. Either future seems one I wish Cambodia could somehow avoid.
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11.13.08
Posted in Current Events, Rants at 7:54 pm by Kaihaku
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus, 1883
For the first time in years I feel pride in my country, it feels that perhaps the American dream, those American ideals, are more than just pleasant covers obscuring darker motives. I do not for a moment deny that those darker motives exist but I feel a tremor in my heart, a hope, that perhaps those oft voiced and rarely practiced ideals also exist. I am conflicted on the topic of race in the last election, have we talked of it too much or too little? I had thought that we should focus on other traits of the President-Elect than the color of his skin but then I read a little article pointing out how, in regards to minority leadership, Europe trails behind the United States. Being versed in history, it feels to me that for the first time in decades America is not treading water to maintain the status quo or slipping backwards into corruption but moving forward. The old worn ideals and often voiced creeds have a hint of potency behind them once more. Dare I believe? That is the mood, a bubbling optimism that seeps through the walls of caution and distrust inspiring belief once more. Not blind belief, not naive belief, not absolute belief but belief all the same.
I value this mood a great deal, even if it is disappointed later at the moment it provides a rare respite from years of cynicism, betrayal, and bitter disillusionment. It is a moment to celebrate, to feel joy. So here in lays my frustration. I have, for years, supported social justice and sought the improvement of our society. I have educated myself on my country and learned of injustices that chilled me. I have felt fear, disgust, angry… A endless slew of negative emotions so now why can we not, just for a few days, celebrate? I know that the passing of Proposition 8 in California restricted the rights of many people and I will stand with them when the time comes. But, as I read the african american adminstrator of a public domain music site I visit expressing on his blog, why did protesting, even more so violent protesting, have to begin the day after the election when many people were feeling good about their country for the first time in years? Nothing can be done about proposition 8 at the moment regardless. I know it was a hurtful and repressive setback but gaining civil rights takes time. That seems like only the beginning, for years I have been a member of an organization called care2 and I received regular emails from them about legislation and issues facing the country. I have received more emails from them in the last week than I did in the month prior to the election, many of them have been petitions demanding that Obama keep his campaign promises and implement certain other policies. I’m sorry, what? He isn’t even in office yet. Give him a chance.
Sign this petition letter and let President-elect Obama know that children’s health matters in good financial times and bad.
Please take a moment to tell President-elect Obama to put science at the heart of his administration’s policy.
Sign the petition to encourage Obama to protect the health of all women.
Tell President Elect Barack Obama not to associate with the LTTE Tamils Black Tiger terrorists.
Make Health Care Reform a Top Obama Priority!
Senator Obama: Add a Shelter Cat to Your Family!
I am probably overreacting a bit but this is not second term Dubya. Until Obama has had a chance to fail to live up to his campaign promises I’m not going to petition him about anything. Please, is it too much to ask to give the President Elect a chance to prove himself and to give us a chance to enjoy “feeling good”? And, really, isn’t a presidential shelter dog good enough? No one person can address every issue, Obama is a step in the right direction but that doesn’t mean that he should be bombarded with demands. He can’t possibly be everything to every progressive. If you voted for him, now trust him to prioritize and put the pressure on him if he seems posed to really mess up.
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11.06.08
Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 6:26 pm by Kaihaku
Last month, with the end of my second year in Cambodia nearly in sight, I decided to send out a mass letter to friends and family. I have not done well at keeping in touch with others back home, especially during my first year, and I wanted to provide a clear summary of my time here to date. I decided to send the letter by mail because it is classy and more difficult to put off than by email. There were bits of Cambodian money and photographs included for most. Sadly, a few people were excluded simply because I could not locate their addresses, apologizes.
Knowing myself, I was determined to send out the letters while I was still in Phnom Penh for the P’chume Benh holiday. So, I was a bit rushed and there were major mistakes, most notable that several of the letters were cut off in the end because I failed to ‘Print Preview’. I’ve attempted to correct the version presented here.
Below is my second year letter, slightly different from the version that was sent out.
Hello Friends and Family,
Well this is it, I have been in Cambodia for two years and I have entered into my final year here. It has been quite the struggle but one I think well worth the effort. When I stepped onto that plane two years ago I thought I knew what I was getting into and I thought I was prepared for the struggles to come. I was wrong. The struggles I foresaw have barely been issue while the struggles I never suspected have on more than one occasion brought me near my breaking point. This experience has stretched and changed me in ways that I’m still trying to understand. I have been told that coming into a new culture challenges a person not only externally but also internally as traits that one had resolved long ago bubble back to the surface. That has certainly been my experience and because of that I have discovered more about myself.
So, for the last two years I have been working in the countryside of Cambodia. My official position is Rural Agriculture Advisor. I describe myself at times as a Computer Scientist working with Agriculture who is interested in Social Justice. I spent the first eight months struggling with my limited Khmer to conduct a survey of all of the development and relief organizations working in the province. I was fortunate enough to be able to hire a local english student to act as translator for most of those visits. The survey was only part of a greater effort to start up the Prey Veng MCC office, there were also more mundane but still difficult tasks like purchasing desks and there were embarrassing tasks like striding into government offices and introducing myself in broken Khmer to the officials who run the Province. I made a lot of mistakes during this period but in retrospect they don’t seem as crushing as they did at the time. As the MCC office became more established, my work shifted towards an existing partner, the Prey Veng Irrigation Office. Since then I have worked with them on two irrigation projects, the Krachap Prek irrigation dam and the Kompong Th’nol irrigation canal, as well as visited several older irrigation projects on follow-up visits. I was glad for the crash course in Khmer language that the survey process had provided as I began to travel through the countryside questioning villagers about the state of old irrigation projects and how their lives had been changed by the project. I also help the irrigation office with proposal writing, reporting, and budgeting. Later, I was given the task of locating a poor rural Primary School that MCC could transfer support to from a project in Kandal province which was nearing completion. The process of finding the school was one of the most rewarding of my time here and involved meeting with every level of the education system in the province. After visiting dozens of Primary Schools across Sithor Kandal and Pea Reaing districts, I decided in conjunction with two Khmer staff members that the Angkearhdei School had the right combination of a bad situation and a good director. Since then I have made regular trips to visit the Angkearhdei School and worked with them in a variety of ways. During my first year I struggled to promote networking with other organizations though little seemed to come of those efforts. I am now working on developing a partnership with a Basic Skills center which teaches people from rural areas a trade such as haircutting, motorbike repair, sewing, basic electronics, or english language. It gives people a chance to learn a trade that will allow them to contribute to their home communities and make a living. I am also working on developing a scholarship program to help students from poor rural areas to attend the two-year teacher’s training course so they can return to their villages and teach there. I have been blessed during my time here to attend many workshops, seminars, and meetings on various topics. Perhaps the most interesting has been the Applied Conflict Transformation program which trains students from conflict-ridden countries like Burma, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia in peacemaking. The students present their thesis research once a year and it is very interesting to sit in on.
Someday I may put together a full list of the people I have met and know here but for now I’ll stick to highlights.
Carol is a volunteer who started her term at the same time as me and with whom I attended orientation. She’s a graduate of EMU and is from Virginia. She has a mind for details and is a strong individual who has gone through a lot of hard times and proven herself equal to the challenges at hand.
Scott is a volunteer who started his term four months after Carol and I arrived. He has a masters in International Development and is a Canadian, don’t hold it against him too much.
Larry and Sherry Groff were the Country Directors for most of my term here. They are originally from Lancaster Pennsylvania and have returned there with their two children. They have served in Haiti and a previous term in Takeo province. Both are among the most amazing people I know.
Barbara Soung is an incredible British woman who has lived in Southeast Asia most of her life. Her parents were dollar a day missionaries in Thailand and she has lived in Prey Veng for thirteen years. She married a Khmer man who later died and has since raised his two daughters from a previous marriage as her own. She is inspiringly blunt and honest, cutting straight to the chase. She also speaks like a native.
Sam Ang is my language teacher in Prey Veng who I meet with everyday for about an hour. He is probably my closest Khmer friend and I have learned a lot about the culture, history, and people of Cambodia from him. The Wiederkehr family and I visited his homeland of Ba Phnom during the Khmer New Year this year. He has an amazing life story that I hope to share with his permission one day.
Miles and Ruth Wiederkehr are volunteers who came to Prey Veng a year after Carol and I. They were meant to be our team leaders but the dynamic has been a bit odd with them coming so long after we arrived. They have two boys, Theo and Andre.
Seiha is a national staff partner advisor who works with various Christian groups and a forestry program in Takeo province. She is based out of the capital office. She spent a year in the States as part of an exchange program and is married to Pisith who is the youth pastor for a large Khmer church.
The Yordys are the new Country Directors for Cambodia. They are a great old couple who spent most of their life managing a store together then once they retired decided to devote their remaining years to service. Since retiring, they have served in Cambodia and in Appalachia Kentucky and now are back in Cambodia once more.
Personally, I hit the ground running in Cambodia and ended up stubbing my own toes and stepping on the toes of some others. I spent my first two months living with a Khmer family which had some interesting religious divisions; my educated host father was an atheist, his mother-in-law was a Buddhist, his sons and daughters were Christians, and his wife took part in everything. I eventually learned that in the sixties my host father had been trained by the United States in Combat Intelligence in order to overthrow Norodom Sihanouk and was an officer for the Lol Nol Republican government which ruled during the seventies. He never told me how he survived the Khmer Rogue which targeted former soldiers and the educated. After the liberation in 1979, he became the Director of the Provincial Department of Culture and Information and then Director of the Provincial Department of Education. My birthday that year was a terrible event marked by my first bout of food poisoning, my computer breaking, and by my student loan company overdrawing my bank account due to an error. Carol was at that time the only expatriate who I met regularly and we began to suffer from a bit of ‘cabin fever’. On the occasions where we were in Phnom Penh we tried to avoid each other knowing that weeks of seeing no one but each other was to follow. That year just before Christmas a group of MCC singles including myself visited Kep which has become my favorite beach in the world. There is a guesthouse there that looks like it came out of Swiss Family Robinson and the view from the mountain, especially at sunset, is stunning. Soon after that, Carol and I finished our two month period of language study and began our ‘real’ work by setting up home stays for Scott who was soon coming and two Goshen College SST students. It was a relief to have someone on the team qualified for International Development as Carol and I had been expecting a less daunting task than setting up a new provincial office alone. It was a stressful time where my expectations of “doing good things” was repeatedly frustrated by a lack of clear goals and limited language. With some guidance from Scott and Larry, Carol and I began the survey process which I look back on as one of the most difficult and fruitless things I’ve done here. We visited government offices, development agencies, orphanages… If someone was in the province working to improve the situation we visited them and subjected them to a lengthy questionnaire. Our language was woefully inadequate and it didn’t help that Carol and I didn’t have clear criteria on what we were looking for. During this time I acted rashly and made some mistakes without consulting Scott and Carol. Without going into it, this resulted in a conflict which hurt me a great deal. I went through a long period of depression afterwards, having no one to process what had happened with who understood the situation and with the tension between us not quite resolved my English-speaking social circle was basically cut down to me. For me, who has always been more reserved and cautious in decision making, it was rough trying to figure out how to be proactive without causing such to happen again. In the Spring I attended the MCC East Asia Retreat in Halong Bay Viet Nam which I am not alone in thinking is one of the most beautiful places on earth. After the social isolation and tension of Prey Veng, it was very relieving to meet other MCC volunteers and see an old friend from University, Eric Burdette. I returned to Cambodia rested and with some perspective gained. While the survey continued I began working with the Irrigation Office as their official Partner Advisor. Because of the survey process I had found two part-time translators but then it was decided to hire a man named Sophal as a full-time translator. Sophal had just returned from serving a year in the United States with MCC’s International Volunteer Exchange Program. This decision erupted into another social mess with another of the limited expatriate community and the part-time translators up in arms that they had never been given a chance to apply for the full time position. Being myself I took this personally as I had hired the part-time translators and I had barely advocated on their behalf during hiring process. This was the most difficult period of time I had in Cambodia and I came close to asking to prematurely terminate. Fortunately, during the P’chume Benh holiday that year I went to visit Eric Burdette in Southern Viet Nam which gave me some much needed space. While I was in Viet Nam the Wiederkehr family arrived from Canada and though I was quite despondent for a long time afterwards things began to improve. At this time I was living at the MCC Office as was Sophal who I came to work closely with during the primary school search. From our first meeting, there had been talk on the team of Sophal eventually being promoted from translator to an equal partner advisor. I value and regularly ask for the perspective of Cambodians whom I work with but I went further with Sophal in order to help prepare him for one day assuming the responsibility of a partner advisor. Sophal, Seiha, and myself eventually decided that the Angkearhdei Primary School in Pea Reaing district was the right choice. Crystal came to visit me near the end of the Rainy Season and it was a good time for us to sort things out and to play the tourist visiting the sights in Cambodia. I was glad to show her around Prey Veng but I wish that I had been able to show her more of the countryside. I had become friends with an older woman and decided to rent an apartment above her shop around this time. She was at first gracious but unfortunately things began to sour as she attempted to control and manipulate me as she did her family. I had made a decision after the issue with the part-time translators that I needed more emotional space and so I decided to move back into the office after three months of living with her. My second birthday in Cambodia lacked the ‘tragedy’ of the first but it was a very melancholy and lonely day. Though, Carol did craft for me an amazing book about my cats. My cats, I should have mentioned them sooner but soon after I arrived I was given two kittens that have provided me with safety by killing scorpions and snakes, mental stability by giving me something to hug, and entertainment through dozens of means. I named them after their personalities, Stoopid and Ch’koout (Khmer for crazy). Shortly after I moved back into the office, Sophal announced to the surprise of all that he had decided to resign. He gave little explanation and left at terrible time for the Angkearhdei Primary School project and for the Wiederkehr family. Finding a new translator proved difficult after we had alienated most of the local prospects by choosing Sophal. It took three rounds of advertisements and several months to find someone with the necessary skill. In the Spring I traveled through Thailand to Laos for my second MCC East Asia retreat. I had been planning on taking vacation time to travel up through Laos into Southern China and then fly back to Cambodia from Hong Kong. If I had taken that trip I would have been caught in the earthquake which devastated that region of China. Fortunately, I was unexpectedly able to return home to see my brother Ben graduate from High School which used up all of my vacation days for the year. I really appreciated being able to see most of my family and some of my friends again. It was a good and very timely visit for me as I had lost perspective and was feeling lost and depressed again. I was able to return here with renewed energy and focus. Since then there has been a whirlwind of work with the transition from one Country Director to another and keeping programs running. Around this time I moved from the office into another house and it seems to be working out well.
In order to live and work here, I have had to learn Khmer which was much easier than I expected coming in. In the States, I had tried to learn Spanish, Latin and Vietnamese but never got very far. For me it has made a great difference to study a language in a country where it is spoken. I am now nearing fluency which is something I never expected and I am very thankful for. Learning how to drive in Cambodia has also been an experience. As one of my Scottish friends put it, “A lane is a space between two vehicles which may be traveling in any direction.” There are no universal rules that govern traffic here; it is an intuitive and chaotic exercise that can be frustrating to learn but also very emotional relaxed compared to the strained tension of driving in the States. Someone pounding a horn here simply means “Here I am! Here I am!” and carries no further emotional weight. Learning to ride moto, a vehicle somewhere between a motorbike and a motorcycle, has been fun but at times dangerous. I had two accidents of note which both took a few weeks to recover from and I often fall off the moto when driving over slick clay, mud, and sand in the countryside. I don’t feel too bad about that though as I have seen many Cambodians falling off their motos under the same conditions. I travel in the countryside more than anyone else currently in Cambodia with MCC and I’m quite proud of being able to travel as the people do and interact with them in areas where other expatriates never do. Avoiding animals, small children, and other vehicles can be a challenge…I’ve hit a chicken on more than one occasion and there was a dog I ran over in Svay Antor.
There’s a passage from Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell that captures something of life here despite the fact that he was writing about Spain and not Cambodia, “In Spain nothing, from a meal to a battle, ever happens at the appointed time. As a general rule things happen too late, but just occasionally–just so that you shan’t even be able to depend on their happening late–they happen too early. A train which is due to leave at eight will normally leave at any time between nine and ten, but perhaps once a week, thanks to some private whim of the engine-driver, it leaves at half past seven. Such things can be a little trying. In theory I rather admire the Spaniards for not sharing our Northern time-neurosis; but unfortunately I share it myself.” The cramped beaten old buses we use to transport ourselves from Prey Veng to the capital and back again rarely leave on time and it is a great frustration to sit cramped in an unmoving vehicle. Being squished into a corner on a moving bus isn’t nearly as vexing somehow. Frustrating too are appointments where people do not show up on time or meetings that start an hour late and end two hours late.
Cambodia is almost entirely peopled by Khmer with a few small minority groups of Chinese, Cham, and Vietnamese. Hidden beneath a veil of joviality, I have found the Cambodian people to have a great depth of emotion carved from the pain and suffering of the Khmer Rogue period. Every single person has been affected by it; everyone from the seller in the market to the english teacher to the government official has a story to tell. It was a universal experience unlike anything that has happened in the United States. There are wounds here, deep ones that politics have not allowed to heal. There is also a powerful tension, an undercurrent of violence that sometimes boils to the surface. For a long time I struggled to understand the contradiction of the Khmer; sworn to peace yet worshippers of war, friendly to all yet alien to their closest friends, bitter and cruel yet gentle and kind… I’m beginning to see how their traits mingled together to form them.
In Laos, I met Max Edgier; a fascinating man who had remained in Viet Nam for a year after it fell to the communists and then spent many years serving in Thailand before returning to Viet Nam recently. There were several MCC volunteers who along with Max refused to evacuate Viet Nam and leave their southern vietnamese friends to an unknown fate at the end of the war. It’s an interesting story but an aside; in Laos Max mentioned that contrary to popular wisdom he felt that his faith in Christ grew stronger the more he learned of other religions and my experience agrees with his. I respect certain Buddhist teachings and Buddhists a great deal but I have found that in the contrast I have become more committed and gained more respect for Christianity. Some measure of this may just be seeing that Buddhism is not mystically immune to the troubles of organized religion but that is not all of it, I have come to see Christianity as special and unique among the major religions in that it is built around the concept of love and forgiveness. Buddhism is built around personal merit not divine forgiveness. I think we as Christians need to forsake angry hateful condemnation, self-centered isolation, and living in fear of other religions in favor of respectful dialogue with peoples of all faiths and beliefs. I believe that is the way of the Christ who ate with sinners, healed pagans, and drank from the wells of Samaritans.
“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly.”
~Peter
My time here has been one of strong and contrary emotions, extremes positives and extreme negatives have mingled together without blurring. It has been an intense time of personal growth and a challenging time of service. I would certainly do so again…but preferably not until after a good rest. I’m looking forward to returning home and seeing all of you again. I know that I have not always been the best at keeping in contact but I want to assure you that you have been in my heart.
God Bless,
Charles
“We must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to the Buddha, Christ or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos and the battlefields will then become our temples.”
~Preah Samdech Maha Ghosananda
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