Cambodia slowly rising again from Khmer Rouge killing fields
Country on steady but uncertain path to future success
Sunday, December 9, 2007
I recently returned from a 10-day trip to Vietnam and Cambodia,
courtesy of a journalism fellowship sponsored by the German Marshall Fund.
Before embarking on the trip, I sought questions from the Chronicle's "Two
Cents" pool of contributors. What did they want to know about the two
countries with whom the United States had such a tortured experience in the
not-so-distant past? Interestingly, it was the impact of that past, and
America's contribution to it - almost as much as what the two countries look
like today - that concerned readers who responded.
Below are some impressions I gained from my all-too-brief visit,
beginning with Cambodia, along with answers, to readers' questions, to the
best of my ability. Next week: Vietnam.
- Andrew Ross, Chronicle
interactive editor
Up from Year Zero
Cambodia, whose path to a proletarian paradise was paved by a hell on
earth (Year Zero, the Khmer Rouge called it), is trying - oh, how it is
trying - to rise up from the funeral pyre to which it was reduced a mere
generation ago.
In 2007, Cambodians say, they are only in their "ninth year of peace,"
emerging from decades of carpet bombing, invasions, civil war and, finally,
a coup in 1997, into a period of unaccustomed tranquility.
That it has come as far as it has, compared to other "post-conflict
countries" - an economic annual growth rate of 10 percent, sometimes more,
over the past decade - is quite remarkable in the opinion of experts. The
World Bank, one of the chief financiers of Cambodia's rebuilding, thinks the
nation is on a path to become a "middle-income country" in just eight years.
Many of these same experts, however, including World Bank officials,
say it is far from a sure bet. "It will take another generation to get
things right here," said one official. "But the future is tomorrow."
Fueled in large part by postwar reconstruction, international aid and
the presence of about 1,000 well-meaning if not always helpful Western
nongovernmental organizations, there was more of the future than the ghost
town I initially expected to see. Lots of Toyota Camrys and night life in
Phnom Penh. Many hotels and houses going up there and along the highway
north to the temples of Angkor Wat, which are expected to attract 3 million
tourists next year. Optimistic statements from government officials - to be
expected, of course - but also, if somewhat more guarded, from Western
nongovernmental organizations, which naturally tend to see the grimmer sides
of economic life.
If one were to "review" Cambodia like Cnet reviews high-tech products,
or The Chronicle reviews restaurants, mine might go something like this:
The good:
-- Strong presence in the international garment business, thanks in
good measure to investments made early on by San Francisco-based Levi
Strauss and the Gap, and a binding agreement to observe international labor
standards.
-- Explosive growth in tourism, powered by foreign investment in
resort developments around Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and the sandy beaches of
Sihanoukville, in the south.
-- The distinct possibility of significant future wealth generated by
bauxite and gold (the Australians are already drilling); oil and gas off its
own coast (where San Ramon-based Chevron has major exploration rights) and,
even more significantly, in offshore fields straddling the Thai-Cambodian
border.
-- An increasingly powerful Asian economy that is pulling Cambodia
along in its wake. As one government minister put it hopefully, "Cambodia is
at the center of gravity" of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN), which is taking steps to greater political and economic
integration.
-- A strong, commonly shared desire to "get things right."
The bad:
-- 3.5 million Cambodians, one-third of the population, in dire
poverty. Even more do not have regular access to electricity, clean water or
roads. Such inadequacies of infrastructure aren't the most attractive lures
for outside investors.
-- An enormous dropout rate in schools that mars a reasonably high
literacy rate (74 percent) and solid primary school enrollment. A low level
of skills (increasingly critical to participate in a rapidly modernizing
global economy), and some cracks in labor practices that include the
far-too-frequent bumping off of union leaders. According to a recent survey
by the International Trade Union Confederation, attacks on workers by
"police and thugs" have been occurring on a monthly basis.
-- Overdependence on the garment business - estimated to support 3
million Cambodians, through direct employment and family remittances - which
this year started to show indications of decline amid growing competition
from elsewhere in Asia. "The only people with real U.S. influence here,"
said U.S. Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli, "are Levi Strauss and the Gap. If
they pulled out, it would be a disaster for the country."
-- Endemic corruption, ranging from government officials - who control
access to construction contracts and to what Cambodia may have underground
and under the sea - to low-level teachers who demand payments (bribes,
actually) from their students.
-- Patronage and greed, a specialty of Cambodia's plutocratic,
so-called "50 families."
-- Thuggery. Blatant land grabs involving the expulsion and dumping of
poor communities, often into makeshift camps surrounded by barbed wire. The
next time you're lying on the beach at Sihanoukville, it may have come at
the expense of what one Asian magazine last month called the brutality of
evictions of local residents that have reached "alarming levels."
Bottom line:
The downsides, and the challenges they pose, are no secret. Prime
Minister Hun Sen, at an investor conference last month, said as much. It's
the implementation of needed reforms that is more problematic. Apart from
vested interests, traditions and the universal instinct to take short cuts,
illegal and otherwise, Cambodian society has the added burden that its most
fundamental structures - governance, law, administration, education - were
utterly destroyed in Year Zero, along with trust. All of which have to be
painfully rebuilt. So long as the Asian economic tide continues to rise,
Cambodia will probably be lifted along with it. But what if the tide ebbs,
and integration gives way to more fierce competition?
As I look at my notes from the trip, peruse various economic and other
reports, and pace around thinking about what I saw, heard and read, I can
only come up with the vague, unsatisfactory cliche - that the country's
future hangs in the balance.
But if there's any justice at all, Cambodia deserves to make it.
Online Resources
Economic and Social
World Bank Reports, web.worldbank.org/kh
Country on steady but uncertain path to future success
Sunday, December 9, 2007
I recently returned from a 10-day trip to Vietnam and Cambodia,
courtesy of a journalism fellowship sponsored by the German Marshall Fund.
Before embarking on the trip, I sought questions from the Chronicle's "Two
Cents" pool of contributors. What did they want to know about the two
countries with whom the United States had such a tortured experience in the
not-so-distant past? Interestingly, it was the impact of that past, and
America's contribution to it - almost as much as what the two countries look
like today - that concerned readers who responded.
Below are some impressions I gained from my all-too-brief visit,
beginning with Cambodia, along with answers, to readers' questions, to the
best of my ability. Next week: Vietnam.
- Andrew Ross, Chronicle
interactive editor
Up from Year Zero
Cambodia, whose path to a proletarian paradise was paved by a hell on
earth (Year Zero, the Khmer Rouge called it), is trying - oh, how it is
trying - to rise up from the funeral pyre to which it was reduced a mere
generation ago.
In 2007, Cambodians say, they are only in their "ninth year of peace,"
emerging from decades of carpet bombing, invasions, civil war and, finally,
a coup in 1997, into a period of unaccustomed tranquility.
That it has come as far as it has, compared to other "post-conflict
countries" - an economic annual growth rate of 10 percent, sometimes more,
over the past decade - is quite remarkable in the opinion of experts. The
World Bank, one of the chief financiers of Cambodia's rebuilding, thinks the
nation is on a path to become a "middle-income country" in just eight years.
Many of these same experts, however, including World Bank officials,
say it is far from a sure bet. "It will take another generation to get
things right here," said one official. "But the future is tomorrow."
Fueled in large part by postwar reconstruction, international aid and
the presence of about 1,000 well-meaning if not always helpful Western
nongovernmental organizations, there was more of the future than the ghost
town I initially expected to see. Lots of Toyota Camrys and night life in
Phnom Penh. Many hotels and houses going up there and along the highway
north to the temples of Angkor Wat, which are expected to attract 3 million
tourists next year. Optimistic statements from government officials - to be
expected, of course - but also, if somewhat more guarded, from Western
nongovernmental organizations, which naturally tend to see the grimmer sides
of economic life.
If one were to "review" Cambodia like Cnet reviews high-tech products,
or The Chronicle reviews restaurants, mine might go something like this:
The good:
-- Strong presence in the international garment business, thanks in
good measure to investments made early on by San Francisco-based Levi
Strauss and the Gap, and a binding agreement to observe international labor
standards.
-- Explosive growth in tourism, powered by foreign investment in
resort developments around Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and the sandy beaches of
Sihanoukville, in the south.
-- The distinct possibility of significant future wealth generated by
bauxite and gold (the Australians are already drilling); oil and gas off its
own coast (where San Ramon-based Chevron has major exploration rights) and,
even more significantly, in offshore fields straddling the Thai-Cambodian
border.
-- An increasingly powerful Asian economy that is pulling Cambodia
along in its wake. As one government minister put it hopefully, "Cambodia is
at the center of gravity" of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN), which is taking steps to greater political and economic
integration.
-- A strong, commonly shared desire to "get things right."
The bad:
-- 3.5 million Cambodians, one-third of the population, in dire
poverty. Even more do not have regular access to electricity, clean water or
roads. Such inadequacies of infrastructure aren't the most attractive lures
for outside investors.
-- An enormous dropout rate in schools that mars a reasonably high
literacy rate (74 percent) and solid primary school enrollment. A low level
of skills (increasingly critical to participate in a rapidly modernizing
global economy), and some cracks in labor practices that include the
far-too-frequent bumping off of union leaders. According to a recent survey
by the International Trade Union Confederation, attacks on workers by
"police and thugs" have been occurring on a monthly basis.
-- Overdependence on the garment business - estimated to support 3
million Cambodians, through direct employment and family remittances - which
this year started to show indications of decline amid growing competition
from elsewhere in Asia. "The only people with real U.S. influence here,"
said U.S. Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli, "are Levi Strauss and the Gap. If
they pulled out, it would be a disaster for the country."
-- Endemic corruption, ranging from government officials - who control
access to construction contracts and to what Cambodia may have underground
and under the sea - to low-level teachers who demand payments (bribes,
actually) from their students.
-- Patronage and greed, a specialty of Cambodia's plutocratic,
so-called "50 families."
-- Thuggery. Blatant land grabs involving the expulsion and dumping of
poor communities, often into makeshift camps surrounded by barbed wire. The
next time you're lying on the beach at Sihanoukville, it may have come at
the expense of what one Asian magazine last month called the brutality of
evictions of local residents that have reached "alarming levels."
Bottom line:
The downsides, and the challenges they pose, are no secret. Prime
Minister Hun Sen, at an investor conference last month, said as much. It's
the implementation of needed reforms that is more problematic. Apart from
vested interests, traditions and the universal instinct to take short cuts,
illegal and otherwise, Cambodian society has the added burden that its most
fundamental structures - governance, law, administration, education - were
utterly destroyed in Year Zero, along with trust. All of which have to be
painfully rebuilt. So long as the Asian economic tide continues to rise,
Cambodia will probably be lifted along with it. But what if the tide ebbs,
and integration gives way to more fierce competition?
As I look at my notes from the trip, peruse various economic and other
reports, and pace around thinking about what I saw, heard and read, I can
only come up with the vague, unsatisfactory cliche - that the country's
future hangs in the balance.
But if there's any justice at all, Cambodia deserves to make it.
Online Resources
Economic and Social
World Bank Reports, web.worldbank.org/kh
Private-sector reports: International Finance Corporation,
links.sfgate.com/ZBSL
Labor conditions: International Trade Union Confederation report,
September 2007, links.sfgate.com/ZBSM
Agriculture: Oxfam reports and programs, links.sfgate.com/ZBSO
Center for Social Development (Phnom Penh): www.csdcambodia.org
Womyn's Agenda for Change (Phnom Penh): www.womynsagenda.org
Phnom Penh Post: www.phnompenhpost.com
U.S. relations
Congressional Research Service report, July 2007 (pdf):
links.sfgate.com/ZBSP
Khmer Rouge/War Crimes Trials/Khmer Rouge
War Crimes Tribunal ("Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia"): www.eccc.gov.kh
Cambodia Tribunal Monitor: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Documentation Center of Cambodia: www.dccam.org
Cambodian Genocide Program, Yale University: www.yale.edu/cgp
This article appeared on page C - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle
links.sfgate.com/ZBSL
Labor conditions: International Trade Union Confederation report,
September 2007, links.sfgate.com/ZBSM
Agriculture: Oxfam reports and programs, links.sfgate.com/ZBSO
Center for Social Development (Phnom Penh): www.csdcambodia.org
Womyn's Agenda for Change (Phnom Penh): www.womynsagenda.org
Phnom Penh Post: www.phnompenhpost.com
U.S. relations
Congressional Research Service report, July 2007 (pdf):
links.sfgate.com/ZBSP
Khmer Rouge/War Crimes Trials/Khmer Rouge
War Crimes Tribunal ("Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia"): www.eccc.gov.kh
Cambodia Tribunal Monitor: www.cambodiatribunal.org
Documentation Center of Cambodia: www.dccam.org
Cambodian Genocide Program, Yale University: www.yale.edu/cgp
This article appeared on page C - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle
© 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.
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