Culture – Page 113 – Cambodia Leadership Skills

CAMBODIA: Khmer Buddhist New Year 2056 is time for Cambodians to spark effective change

Posted on April 17, 2012 by

Posted in Culture, Economics, Education, Politics, Social

FOR PUBLICATION
AHRC-ETC-012-2012
April 15, 2012

An article by Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth published by the Asian Human Rights Commission

Talking about the need for political change in Cambodia gets “old.” I write aplenty in this space and elsewhere on the topic, yet Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People’s Party persists and keeps piling on more reasons why change must occur.

It’s obvious a lot has changed in Cambodia, especially the mirage of development and progress seen in images of bustling metropolitan cities with high rises, latest model cars, crowded markets and restaurants, camera-toting tourists. Cambodia is a paradise for foreign investors who compete for her markets and resources. This influx of capital accelerates change, but these are the sort of changes that should be taken only after deliberation and consideration of their potential impact. This broad-based review does not occur in Cambodia today.

The more things change
An oft-quoted proverb of French origin by novelist Alphonse Karr (1808-90), later quoted by George Bernard Shaw and others, says, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” or “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Is this paradoxical?

I admit to being chagrined at reading a commentary by an editor of the Bangkok Post who in “Poor Cambodia not looking so ‘poor’ anymore,” (April 6) noted ironically that “billions of dollars in aid money” help make Phnom Penh visibly “clean” and “spotless” a la Singapore, “at least in those areas where (foreign) delegates (to the ASEAN conference) were either visiting or staying,” with “perhaps … the highest number of Lexus vehicles per capita” and “only three beggars” observed. “I personally don’t believe that the funding (from aid donors) ever reaches those Cambodians in real need in any case,” the editor writes, among other things.

Widespread concern among observers about the worrisome widening gap between those is confirmed by a longtime friend, a non-Cambodian professional with decades-long experience working with peoples in developing countries, who shared World Bank data that show the dramatic rise in economic inequality.

Continue reading →

An ASEAN Peacekeeping Force in Myanmar?

Posted on April 3, 2012 by

Posted in Culture, Economics, Education, Politics, Researches, Social

An ASEAN Peacekeeping Force would have been invaluable last year, at the height of the Thai-Cambodian spat, to patrol the contested border area as part of a conflict resolution mechanism. While tensions are currently deflated, the problem endures and can re-erupt at any time. ASEAN should be prepared to react the next time. A credible multinational standby force could also demonstrate ASEAN’s determination to stand together in the face of outside threats in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

PacNet #23 Monday, April 2, 2012

An ASEAN Peacekeeping Force in Myanmar?

By Fuadi Pitsuwan

Fuadi Pitsuwan (pitsuwan2@gmail.com) is a graduate student at Harvard’s Kennedy School and a WSD-Handa Fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS in Hawaii. The views expressed in this article are the author’s, not those of his affiliations.

Does the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) want to sustain itself and hold credible weight in international politics? Does it want to develop and possess the ability to respond to potential challenges faced individually or collectively by its members? If so, then ASEAN should consider the establishment of a regional multinational standby force with a dual purpose of peacekeeping and collective defense against extra-regional threats.

Continue reading →

The Tortuous Path to Justice in Cambodia

Posted on March 27, 2012 by

Posted in Culture, Economics, Education, Internet, KR Trial, Politics, Researches

By MARK MCDONALD

| March 27, 2012, 2:10 AM

HONG KONG — To watch the court proceedings, to hear the lawyers’ objections, to sit through the delays and the quibbles and the endless parsing of words, it’s enough to make a good number of Cambodians want to simply unshackle the prisoners and set them free. Game over.

But these prisoners — they’re just three arrogant old men now — had once been the most senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge, the ruthless Communist regime that killed 1.7 million Cambodians. The court’s raison d’etre now seems to spin less and less around the horrors the men perpetrated and how much prison time they should serve; more to the point is how they are being judged by the United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh.

Mark Peters/Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, via Associated PressNuon Chea, left, Ieng Sary, center, and Khieu Samphan.

There has been an explosion of frustration over the tribunal in recent days, ever since another international investigating judge tendered his resignation. Laurent Kaspar-Ansermet of Switzerland said the court is now “dysfunctional,” riven with petty intrigues and a carrying a political taint that keeps it from investigating well-documented crimes of well-known Khmer Rouge alumni who are living openly and freely in Cambodia.

Mr. Kaspar-Ansemet complained, for example, that a Cambodian fellow judge, You Bunleng, had questioned his authority and had blocked his access to cars and drivers. He said he would not let him use the court’s official seal to stamp legal documents. His resignation statement is here,although he was still at work on Tuesday.

Despite tens of millions of dollars in international funding — Australia kicked in an additional $1.7 million on Monday — the tribunal has convicted only one person so far, the former prison warden known as Duch. His prison sentence was recently extended to a life term, even as he testifies in alarming detail against his three former superiors — Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan. Video of his courtroom testimony, with good English translations, can be watched here.

Nate Thayer, a journalist and author with deep knowledge of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, also has a deep disdain for the tribunal, which he told me Tuesday was “an insidious, dangerous mockery of the rule of law that sets an unacceptable new model for legitimizing a 21st-century version of a Stalinist show trial.’’

Continue reading →