Eight foreign protesters were arrested in Phnom Penh at the opening of the annual Cambodian Development Co-operation Forum (CDCF). International donors and the government discussed the development of the impoverished South East Asian Kingdom at the forum, set performance benchmarks, and pledged aid for the coming year.
Protesting against what many rights groups consider the wrongful conviction of two men for the 2004 murder of union leader Chea Vichea, the demonstration and subsequent detention spotlighted two major issues on the forum’s agenda: the notoriously corrupt political judiciary and an institutionalised practice of intimidation and at times lethal force.
Cambodia still ranks as one of the world’s poorest nations. Despite three years of double-digit economic growth, poverty reduction remains sluggish and the gulf between a wealthy urban elite and a destitute rural population is rising rapidly.
Since 1993 half the Cambodian government’s budget has been underwritten by foreign aid — now amounting to billions of dollars — and the CDCF is meant to be the arena where the government is held accountable and donor leverage is used to expedite reform.
In previous meetings the government has regularly failed to meet its agreed benchmarks and this year was no exception. Last year, donors pledged US$601 million — with Australia the third largest donor — and identified three essential areas for improvement: the passing of an anti-corruption law, the enactment of comprehensive judicial reform, and a commitment to natural resource management.
A year on and the anti-corruption law — which donors have demanded since 2002 — is languishing in the corridors of power; reform of the judiciary is proceeding at glacial pace, while the government’s management of natural resources has been lambasted from all sides.
As the protestors were detained by military police, Prime Minister Hun Sen boasted of his government’s achievements and furrowed his brow at the challenges the country still faced: rapidly rising inequality and the abject failure of development in the rural sector. These were obstacles that could be ameliorated, he said, by more donor money.
Hun Sen has been the autocratic ruler of Cambodia for more than 20 years. And despite a decade-long string of broken promises, donors have continued to front up for his regime.
Although corruption is deeply institutionalised in Cambodia and widely regarded as accepted practice, the Prime Minister played down the failure to pass the anti-corruption law.
Illegal land evictions and increasing land concentration were