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The Institute for Ethics and Economic
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UN ENVOY CRITICISES TOP-LEVEL CORRUPTION. The UN human
rights envoy for Cambodia, Peter Leuprecht, criticised the country’s
top-level corruption and the increasingly autocratic rule of Prime Minister
Hun Sen. He said the country’s leaders were failing to abide by the rule of
law, resulting in impunity, endemic corruption, and unsolved cases of murder
and human rights abuses. Leuprecht also highlighted concerns over forestry
and land concessions handed out to mainly foreign parties, involving what he
termed “a lot of payments under the table.” Land registries were mostly
destroyed in the 1970’s by the Khmer Rouge, and Leuprecht said that it is
rural Cambodians who are now suffering most from land disputes, eviction,
growing poverty, and violence. He is more hopeful about a UN-backed trial for
Cambodian firefighters accused of corruption. A human rights group has condemned fire-fighters in Cambodia for allegedly demanding cash from people before agreeing to extinguish their burning homes. The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee says that thousands of dollars have been demanded recently from families caught by fires that left two children dead. A spokesman for the committee, Thun Saray, said that Cambodians have a fundamental right to services such as fire and police protection without paying bribes. He has also urged local government authorities to investigate and file criminal charges against corrupt fire-fighters. (Go Asia Pacific, August 15, 2003, summary by Sherldine Tomlinson). THE SKIN TRADE. Although Cambodia has agreed to a UN declaration prohibiting human trafficking and pedophilia, many Vietnamese children are kidnapped or sold by their parents and brought into Cambodia to work as prostitutes. Due to administrative apathy and corruption, the child sex trade is virtually immune to legal intervention as the most lucrative areas of the trade are controlled by senior police, judges, and military officers. Although it is believed that a quarter of all foreign tourists to Cambodia are “sex tourists”, there have only been three convictions of foreigners for pedophilia offences, while police could arrest an estimated 50 pedophiles per day. No one will pursue the cases because the brothels are run by powerful people who enforce protection of their interests with death threats. (The Independent, January 22, 2003, summary by Tom Stutsman).
Corruption, incompetent courts hinder economic growth in Cambodia . According to a UN envoy, an incompetent and corrupt judiciary is preventing Cambodia from coming out of chronic poverty. Peter Leuprecht, who is U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan special representative on human rights to Cambodia, said in a report debated by a U.N. human rights committee that Cambodia’s courts have little respect for the standards of fair trial and judges often make arbitrary decisions. Leuprecht said the courts do not take evidence into account, treat poor people unfairly and easily succumb to interference by influential officials. He also said corruption and growing poverty "are gaining ground" along with landlessness and political and mob violence. Cambodian government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Leuprecht’s report is not comprehensive and ignores Cambodia’s efforts to address the problems.(Yahoo News (AP), November 7, 2002, summary Sherldine Tomlinson).
ANGRY CAMBODIAN PRIME MINISTER THREATENS TO FIRE OFFICIALS OVER LAWLESSNESS Hun Sen, Prime Minister, will fire police officers and top local officials as rampant lawlessness including violent juvenile gangs and illegal roadblocks where armed men extort money from travelers, is rising like a cancer. However, Lao Mong Hay, non profit Khmer Institute of Democracy director, was skeptical of the Prime Minister’s rhetoric and believes the whole system should be overhauled by hitting hard at the diseases permeating the society in order to ensure social equality. (AP Worldstream, Jan. 5, 2002, summary by Marg Reynolds).
CORRUPTION IN POLICE AND JUDICIARY SHELTERING A BUSTLING
HUMAN TRAFFICKING PROBLEM. At a workshop on trafficking and sexual
exploitation of women and children in Cambodia, women’s rights groups, police
and government officials agreed that corruption amongst high- ranking
officials, judiciary, military officers and the police was responsible for
the bustling human trafficking problem in Cambodia, which is reeling under an
ever- worsening economic situation. The groups observed that in the absence
of checking this malaise, Cambodia had become a major center for both sending
and receiving teenage girls and women, who are sent to work abroad in the sex
industry. Of these, 52% take to it on false promises of a good job, and
another 12% are sold by their parents to traffickers. According to the
Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center (CWCC), Thai authorities had repatriated
1,650 people trafficked to Thailand to work as beggars, construction workers
and sex workers, which was double the number of the past year. Across three
centers of CWCC, 600 girls between 9-16 years of age were received, whose
trafficking was attributed to the widespread poverty and low level of
education. CWCC stated that traffickers from
OPPOSITION HEAD URGES DONORS NOT ‘ENCOURAGE CORRUPTION’ BY GIVING FINANCIAL AID Sam Rainsy, head of the leading opposition Sam Rainsy Party. Stated financial aid and ‘satisfactory’ ratings from the IMF, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and bilateral donors such as japan, have reduced the government of Hun Sen, Prime Minister, to a ‘beggar mentality’. He believes aid should be channelled to credible non governmental organizations as direct aid to the government encourages corruption and stunts growth. Much of the $3 billion received by his country since 1993 has lined the pockets of the elite, little has found its way to the grass roots level. The stated goals of good governance, poverty reduction, transparency, and accountability has not been consistently met by either donor institutions or donor countries. Donors should look into the social and environmental costs of ‘satisfactory’ ratings, such as growth engines of drug trafficking, deforestation, cheap labor, prostitution, and human trafficking. (AOL News (Kyodo), June 11, 2001, summary by Marg Reynolds).
Rainsy To Start Hunger Strike. In order to end corruption, Sam Rainsy Cambodia’s sole opposition leader is going on a hunger strike. His hunger strike will continue until he feels the aid for the flood victims is distributed equally. This strike follows last weeks march on the offices of the UN and Red Cross. (ABC News, October 25, 2000, summary by Amanda Glatzel). Cambodian PM Hun Sen Blasts Corrupt
Officials ( Asian Travel, Undaunted Business Travelers Show Tolerance for Hassles in Cambodia By SOFIA MCFARLAND some visitors report being asked to pay more than the requisite visa fee of $20 for tourists and $25 for those on business. (W S JOURNAL, May 3, 2000). WASHINGTON, The World Bank, which has invited donors to meet in Paris this week, expects the group to discuss a Phnom Penh action plan to dig out corruption and improve the quality of public service. The plan takes its cues from a World Bank-financed survey, which identified some of the "worst areas of corruption" in the country, according to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the World Bank's country director for Southeast Asia and Mongolia. (W S Journal, May 24, 2000).
CAMBODIA:
EX-AMBASSADOR TO JAPAN REJECTS EMBEZZLEMENT CHARGES Former Cambodian
Ambassador to Japan Truong Mealy rejected Saturday charges revealed by
Foreign Minister Hor Nam Hong early this week that he embezzled about
$700,000 during his posting in Tokyo. In a letter to Kyodo News, Truong Mealy
said, ´´I am in some ways a poor person, financially speaking, but I know my
heart is rich. ´´Unfortunately, our modern world does not have a good device
to measure our human honesty yet. How I wish I could obtain such a huge
amount of money,´´ he said. Hor Nam Hong told reporters Tuesday that the
government has filed a lawsuit against Truong Mealy over the alleged
embezzlement. The minister said the loss was discovered sometime after Truong
Mealy finished his four-year posting in March 1999. The money allegedly embezzled was from the rental of a building
owned by the Cambodian Embassy in Tokyo to a Japanese firm and from fees
collected from visa processing. The former ambassador said he is in France
working on a book on the Japan-Cambodia relationship. NewsEdge, Cambodia:
Flawed strategies, corruption slow effort to rebuild Cambodia (CNN.com,
21.8.00,http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/southeast/08/20/cambodia.divide.ap/) Headline,
25-AUGUST-2000, Link may not work after a few days. The Index of Economic Freedom (by Driscoll-Holmes-Kirkpatrick) for 2001 places Cambodia in the “Mostly Free” category with a rank of 59 (Ranks range from 1 for Hong Kong to 155 for North Korea, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 1, 2000). H. D. Vinod’s trimmed correlation analysis indicates that countries free from economic regulation are less corrupt. After allowing for some exceptions by 20% trimming, the correlation is near 0.9.
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Design:
Theo den Brinker |
Copyright:
Hrishikesh D. Vinod 2000 |
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