Back, .... and some 'Pretty Good Economic News'

After a hiatus of more than 2 months I am back. I took a trip to Germany and Italy for 6 weeks and since my return have been extremely busy with my (consulting) job, so that between that, checking on things at the rubber plantations, and my search for a fishing boat, I haven't had much time to dedicate to writing about Cambodia -as it is.

I have to say one thing. The Italian waiters, especially in Venice, could really learn something from the normal waitstaff at Cambodian restaurants. I do understand that Venice gets run over by about 20 million tourists a year - the city itself is only about 300,000 - so the waiters might sometimes get a little harried, but one would think the basic courtesies could still be extended to the people who in effect pay their wages and their tips.

There are different mentalities in that country, as in any other larger country too; that was made strikingly clear in the city of Verona where service was outstanding and the waiters' politeness was impeccable.

Nevertheless, what a contrast to Cambodia where in the many years I have been here I really haven't met with a rude or impolite waiter/waitress; never mind their oftentimes incompetence; at least, they do it with a smile on their face.

On another note, I am a regular reader and previous poster on Khmer440.com. Their website got a makeover and it looks much different and the front page is now really good. I can only recommend one of the recent contributions by one of their regulars, '7 reasons why I should probably marry a Cambodia woman'. This is really a funny, somewhat self-deprecating piece, but it does hit the nail on its head. You can read it here http://khmer440.com/k/2011/08/7-reasons-why-i-should-marry-a-cambodian/.

Again here is a quarterly newsletter put out by Leopard Capital by email. All in all, they paint a pretty good picture of the Cambodian economy. For those of you who don't receive it I am attaching it below:

Economic Update

  

In 1H 2011, Cambodia is beginning to see signs of a return to the robust pre-crisis economic activity after a retraction in 2009 and modest recovery in 2010. Economic growth forecasts for the year have been revised upwards to 8.7% by the Economic Institute of Cambodia, while the IMF and the World Bank currently predict a more conservative 6.5%. The elevated forecast is being driven by three of the Kingdom's four economic pillars-garments, tourism and agriculture-while recovery in real estate still remains nascent.

Garments benefit from relaxed regulations. The garment industry contributes more than 70% of Cambodia's exports. In H1 2011, garment exports surged 32% YoY to US$ 1.9 billion as a result of loosened European Union regulations governing rule of origin and increasing demand from Asian countries. As of January 1, 2011, under the Everything But Arms (EBA) trade initiative, least developed countries such as Cambodia could export to the EU duty- and quota-free if the country manufactures 40% of the product's value, whereas the previous threshold was 70%.

Tourism increases with more direct flights. Cambodia's second largest source of income is the tourism industry. In H1 2011, tourism arrivals rose 13% YoY to 1.4 million with Vietnam, Korea and China as the largest sources of tourists, respectively. Ticket sales at Cambodia's main tourist attraction, Angkor Wat, rose 33% YoY to US$ 20 million during this period, and total revenue from the sector is expected to reach US$ 1.9 billion in 2011. An increase in direct flights to Cambodia is one of the principal drivers behind the overall increase in arrivals-Air France has even relaunched direct flights from Paris to Cambodia in July after a 37-year hiatus.

Agriculture also benefits from relaxed regulations. Accounting for a third of the Kingdom's GDP, the agriculture industry also benefited from the relaxed EU export regulations, among other factors. In H1 2011, rubber exports increased 84% YoY to 21,511 tons (US$ 102 million); milled rice exports increased 369% to 80,442 tons ($46 million); and cassava exports increased 88% to 212,018 tons (US$ 8.7 million). Prime Minister Hun Sen has set a target of exporting 1 million tons of milled rice by 2015-a feat considered attainable if the Kingdom builds another 25 to 30 rice mills (a US$ 350 million investment) to expand production from currently just five major mills.

Real estate starts to recover. Cambodia's fourth economic pillar, real estate, has started to show signs of recovery in 2011. The value of approved construction projects (i.e., housing developments, apartments, factories and tourist facilities) increased 94% YoY to US$ 638 million in H1 2011. While land prices for commercial and residential properties in Phnom Penh have still remained flat since the end of 2009, demand and prices are expected to rise over the next two years.

Banks are also rebounding. With 35 banks, Cambodia's congested banking sector showed signs of a rebound in H1 2011. Aggregate loans among the Kingdom's three largest banks increased 9.5% YoY to US$ 2 billion-loan books for ACLEDA, Canadia and Campu grew 11.9%, 10.6% and 5% YTD, respectively. Banks are expecting a surge in agricultural investment to continue driving the increasing demand for loans. The growing agricultural sector has also led to more loans and deposits at the Kingdom's 27 microfinance institutions (excluding ACLEDA)-loans among these MFIs increased 6.7% YoY to US$ 505 million in Q2 2011, while deposits increased 33% to US$ 69 million.

CSX opens with no trading. The long awaited Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) officially launched in July, making Cambodia one of the last Southeast Asian nations to open a stock market. However, no companies have been listed yet for trading. Three state-owned enterprises-Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority, Sihanoukville Autonomous Port and Telecom Cambodia-are expected to list by year's end.

Inflation is a rising concern. Driven by rising food and petroleum prices, the Kingdom's inflation rate rose to a 14-month high of 6.5% in May 2011, exceeding the inflation rate of neighboring Laos and Thailand but still well below Vietnam's rate of 20%. The Cambodian government had recently raised its 2011 inflation target by 50 basis points to 5.5%, while the World Bank and the IMF predict 5% and 6.5%, respectively, for the year. To mitigate inflationary concerns, the National Bank of Cambodia is considering raising the reserve requirements of commercial banks from 12% to 16%.

End

Being in the natural rubber business, I am a benefactor of the upsurge in prices, and despite those irrational up and down swings in the stock markets, rubber has been holding pretty steady over the year. There was some drastic drop from around $4,900/mt for crepe rubber to around $4,700 right now, but the expected drop to $4,000 is not in sight despite some predictions that there has been an oversupply since July. I will continue reporting on that particular market situation.

Cambodia’s Perennial Power Woes

A new hydro-power plant is being built in Stung Treng province. The Phom Penh Post reported about this a week or so back. For that purpose a new road to Rattanakiri is also being built, which is terrific, as all people who have ever traveled the old road. Although the old road had gotten better over time but the rainy season was still the pits.


The government claimed that the power generated there will first of all benefit the local population, whereas a consultant countered quickly that the owners will sell their power to Vietnam and a mere 1% or so will be available for the local population. The reason: lack of a power grid.

Traveling that route quite frequently I know there are power lines in place but probably not enough to carry 4 MW cross-country. I am wondering, however, how the power will be delivered to Vietnam since this follows exactly the same route (Ban Long and then on to Vietnam). This really got me scratching my head.

And the irony of it all would be, if the consultant is correct, that Cambodia buys a substantial part of its power from Vietnam, not only in the South-eastern region but in the Northeast as well. So on the one hand we buy from Vietnam, but on the other, we sell some back instead of meeting our own needs first? Profit-mamimizing should definitely have a limit there and the government should use its otherwise formidable authority to ensure a sufficient power supply to its own population.

One thing is clear though, Cambodia to a large part is still not electrified and in dire need of more and a better power supply. During the hot season in March, April, and May, and it is still going on, parts Phnom Penh are periodically shut off; sometimes starting right after 8 am until 11 am, and then again from around 1 or 2 pm to 4 or 5 pm. Besides being a nuisance to all residents, businesses suffer the most, at least the smaller ones that don’t have their own generator. And what about those business people that run their business from home – like me, for instance?

The cause for all these power outages is the explosion of power consumption in and around Phnom Penh. Just look at Phnom Penh Thmey, my place of residence in PP. What was barren land is now dotted with new houses, small factories, and some larger new gated communities. So it comes as no surprise that with all those a/c units, TVs, fridges, and computers, power consumption is up exponentially. Sadly, as always, the bureaucracy has not foreseen this; obviously forgetting that power is one of the main components of a functioning infrastructure. Issuing building permits is only a tiny step in a community’s development, right?

Even Sihanoukville fares better. My house there is around 20 km away from the city but our power supply is pretty consistent. My backup generator is sitting idle in its little shed most of the time. I can’t research all the reasons behind this disparity between PP and SHV, I simply don’t have the time these days, but even the most ignorant planner knows that without electrification development will stall. I am sure Vietnam and Thailand can sell a lot more than what they are supplying now. A couple of years ago the situation was not a bad as it is now; or is it that my memory doesn’t serve me right?

The Delicate Social Fabric of Cambodia

On the one hand, Cambodians are very traditional and at least on the surface very religious. Marriages are commonly still arranged between the respective parents. At minimum parents reserve the right to veto a marriage with what they consider an unsuitable partner. Tradition among Khmer people calls for the husband to move in with the wife’s parents; with Khmer of Chinese extraction the wife moves in with the husband’s parents. It is, therefore, not surprising so see all those huge villas (of the rich) than can house several families. Even in the countryside, grandparents generally live with their children and married grandchildren.

On the other hand, we know that it is quite customary for rich men to keep a (younger) girl friend on the side. What amazes me, though, is the high incidence with which especially poor people also disregard those traditional values. Generally, it is especially poor people who maintain their beliefs in order to ease the burden of poverty spiritually. Only that way can they keep up a mental balance when observing the differences between their own lives and the lives of more fortunate contemporaries.

I have come to know many examples of poor people that demonstrate an unconscionable and depressing disregard for not only the values of traditional Khmer life but in particular show a despicable disrespect for the lives of wives and children.

A couple of examples: A man married four women and produced twelve children with them. He left or divorced all of them without paying one riel for alimony or child support. After the fourth wive he took up with yet another girl friend who eventually left him when she learned there was nothing to be gained by staying with him. He is a high-ranking officer but belongs to the category whose ‘wives weren’t very good at business’. In other words, he wasn’t able to use his position to generate some degree of wealth. He is now sick and poor. Thanks to his high rank the army takes care of him.

Then there is the case of a policman in his early thirties. He got married and had two children. His wife had become pregnant with their third child. During that pregnancy he met another girl and started having an affair with her. People in Cambodia are still pretty ignorant about birth control so it doesn’t surprise that he got his girlfriend pregnant. This made him leave his family from one day to the next. The wife did not have a job, the children needed to go to school. She couldn’t support herself or pay the daily fees for school. She became dependent on her parents. After the girlfriend had had her baby the husband all of a sudden turned back up at home, promptly impregnating his wife again, only to leave again after a short while. Her husband obviously thought 3 children, one baby, and one on the way was too much for him. In the end, however, he did return to his family but carried on in the usual Cambodian fashion. Husbands simply don’t tell their wives where they are going when they go out at night. He is said to spend a few evenings, sometimes nights at his girlfriend’s house.

In another case, a former soldier, penniless as they usually are, left his wife and four children to live with another, younger woman to produce another four children with her. Needless to say, he didn’t pay child support, let alone alimony to the first wife and her children. The good thing is they are all adults now and can take of themselves. The current wife is on the verge of leaving him for greener pastures, or so she thinks, although no other man is in play here.

Cambodian husbands are notoriously feckle, and although polygamy is outlawed and there is even a law against adultery on the books, it is still a wide-spread practice that Cambodian men keep mistresses on the side. This is not restricted to just the wealthier class; it pervades all levels of society.

The legal system does not help either. Although people can divorce easily, courts usually do not decide on alimony or child support. They restrict their decisions to the distribution of property. Usually, they split any property the couple might have down the middle, sometimes making some allowance for the children in that the wife gets a slightly higher share. Of course, that doesn’t help her in supporting her children. Children are still considered a family’s wealth and the providers for their parents in old age. Consequently, being divorced or just plain deserted, the women have to struggle to bring up their usually multiple children.

A note on divorce decrees: it usually contains an order that the wife cannot remarry or even have relations with a man for 9 months to ensure that she cannot claim a child born in the interim is the former husband’s.

Women are usually a strong partner in a typical Khmer marriage. They usually manage the office in a small family business. They manage the household and the finances, and most property is held in both names. Therefore, it is all the more surprising that they nevertheless end up holding the short end of the stick when the marriage fails or that they have no legal recourse for reining in their wayward husbands, prominent examples to the contrary notwithstanding.

Although Cambodia’s motto is “Nation, Religion, King” and the constitution makes Buddhism the state religion, that doesn’t hinder people from violating the tenets of their religion. Generally, Khmer people are very religious and observe all Buddhist holidays with great enthusiasm. Each home is adorned with a place of worship, but those seem be there more for the wives than the husbands.

Like any religion, Buddhism has several basic tenets or core beliefs. As we see they are broken on a regular basis by common people, that is, people who are not monks or nuns. And even monks are not immune to outside distractions. Those core tenets call for good conduct, virtue, and morality, meditation and mental development, wisdom and enlightenment; as well as the four noble truths, and the five precepts. To go into these would exceed this post.

While there is a big difference between the teachings and the application of those tenets, and many of those differences are manifest in civil laws, the general Western perception of Buddhists is their greater fervor in living their religion. Morality and virtue occupy a prominent position in Buddhism.

However, looking at everyday life now in Cambodia, one cannot but wonder why Khmer society has in reality distanced itself so much from those core beliefs. By nature, we humans are weak and succumb to all kinds of seductions too easily. Cambodia, though not alone with its recent abysmal history (Uganda, Ruanda, Bosnia come to mind) may possibly claim special circumstances for its recent societal evolution. After all, the relatively peaceful development after indedepence in 1953 was disrupted by the unwise policies of the 1960ies of then King Sihanouk, the coup d’etat by the inept Lon Nol, and the ensuing holocaust-like regime of Pol Pot. The Cambodian people went through a mind-shattering experience.

Although people tend to turn to religion in hard times, and most likely this also happened in Cambodia, the following years after Pol Pot saw the rule by atheistic Communists who did not place great, if any at all, emphasis on traditional Buddhist beliefs or values. I was not here – no Westerner was allowed into the country during that period – but judging from reports from the former Soviet bloc, Cambodia probably was no exception in that respect. The period from 1975 to 1993 must have shaped the national character, which may now at least seminally still be felt. Additionally, new-found freedom and better material circumstances may contribute to this ‘live and let live’, or ‘enjoy today as if were your last’ sentiment in Cambodia men.

Cambodia and Its Cars

Cars are the scourge of mankind; at least that is what some people want to make us believe. Of course, in a sense it is true. People do a lot to own one and once they have that prized possession it becomes the outer symbol of their personality. It is no different in Cambodia, especially after its people had to endure hardship and deprivation for such a long time.


Americans think ‘bigger is better’. They came up with SUVs, gas guzzlers all, never mind past oil crises. ‘What’s the big deal?’, seemed to be the motto. Car makers made their profits on SUVs for the longest time and in the end that trend nearly bankrupted the big three in the U. S. when oil prices hit almost $150/gallon. People just no longer wanted gas guzzlers getting 12 – 14 mpg (15 or 16 ltrs./100km). Even those sporty European cars get around 8 – 10 ltrs/100 kmh.

Cambodians seem to be caught up in that same frame of mind and oblivious to all these market fluctuations and trends when it comes to their status symbol. Looking at the streets of Phnom Penh, prices at the gas pump don’t seem to faze those upper-crust Cambodians who insist on driving 8-cylinder cars at the a. m. abominable gas mileage, judging by the number of those huge SUVs clogging up the streets.

There are two underlying reasons for this. First, there is the concept that a big car gives a man great status (this applies not only to Cambodia, though), which leads some people to drive a Lexus 470 LX but to still live in a wooden shack without proper santitation or even furniture. But then, you will also find someone who struck it rich, even owning a few of those large SUVs. One trend seems to have been reversed, however. The most idiotic of SUVs – the Hummers – has largely disappeared. They seem to have been replaced by those boxy Landrovers, which now seem to be the ultimate status symbol.

Second, Cambodian people seem to have that genetic urge that if someone has or does something they all must have or do the same. In the same vein, if someone starts importing something, e. g. cement back in the early 90ies or batteries, for instance, everybody else jumps on the bandwagon, thinking this is good business, forgetting the basic law of economics that oversupply will depress prices. I could cite numerous examples where that happened, not the least with importing cars, in the end benefitting customers as dealers had to lower their margins and often had to sell below cost. (This urge also seems to extend to overseas Khmer in the U.S., where a large number of whom operate a dougnut shop.)

I know this from first hand experience as I was the first car importer in Cambodia after the opening of the country to the Western world in 1989/90. Government officials wanted to drive a Mercedes car. At that time, they couldn’t afford the bigger models so they opted for the MB 190. I had suggested to get other makes as well as they would be a lot cheaper. Mercedes cars are notoriously expensive on the used-car market. Additionally, the U. S. embargo was still in place at that time so there was only one way to get those cars – from Germany, a country with definitely higher used-car prices than the U. S. No one wanted to hear of it – it had to be the MB 190 in black or dark-blue, possibly silver; definitely no red, no white or light blue. Power windows, power locks, stick shift, no sunroof – those were the criteria. Stick shift because they felt nobody would be able to repair an automatic transmission at the time; no sunroof because if the car rolled over they couldn’t even begin to imagine what would happen.

So one official got a car like this, everybody else wanted the same car. Finally, I convinced some people to raise their status by trying the E-series, the most successful Mercedes series ever. Well, lo and behold, it caught on. And there I was importing MB E200/260/300 cars. Those were good times – import duty was only $2,500 per car. It didn’t last long, though.

But then came UNTAC with their Toyota Landcruisers. Guess what? Exactly; that was now the truck to have, never mind the cost or the gas mileage. Quite a few got stolen, repainted and sold on the black market. The business had become so cut-throat that I decided to just let it go. I didn’t want to go to all the hassle for just a $100-profit. Later, once the U. S. embargo was lifted, they started importing the first Camrys. Well, the same thing happened. Once the first one had gotten a Camry so everybody else wanted one too. The good thing about the dominance of Toyotas, of course, is the ready availability of spare-parts – new and ‘remanufactured’, and every Jim and Jack knows how to repair it.

Since the government ministers and higher-ups all got a Landcruiser as part of their position it became the ultimate status symbol in Cambodia, and still is today along with its brother, the Lexus 470. However, not everybody can afford the large SUV. For those people Lexus has the RS300. How much of a status symbol can it be, though, when every Tom, Dick and Harry drives one?

Nevertheless, the trend goes on unabated with even the latest even bigger models appearing that may be just a year or so old. These vehicles set you back more than $100K. Environmental or financial concerns? Not an issue for some people.

Anyway, I was in the market for another car myself and I had to weigh those exact issues – price, gas mileage, environment. I had been a long-time Mercedes driver, more than 20 years, so I originally wanted to get another Mercedes besides the Toyota 4-runner I use as my workhorse. But the price tag for the Mercedes I wanted seemed kind of high. A decent 2006 E320 from the US would run to about $55,000, pretty steep for a 5-6 year-old car (on account of the approximate 110% you have to add to the purchase price in the U. S. for freight, import duty, luxury tax, and dealer profit, the latter being the smalles item on the bill – about $500). Then I thought maybe an S-series would do just fine as well, although I think it’s a little too big for my purposes. On the plus side, though, there a quite few around in Cambodia. So I checked around. A 2000-model would run to $20,000. Still a nice car, but come to think of it, for me this is still a bit over the top, but compared to the $30,000 for a 2000 Lexus this would be an outright bargain, now wouldn’t it? Being a Barang in Cambodia, however, I don’t need that status symbol that sets me apart from the rest.

In the end I decided on the most reasonable car available in Cambodia these days – a Toyota Prius; great gas mileage, good for the environment, actually quite comfortable, nice quiet ride, and handles well due to front-wheel drive; the price tag was acceptable too. In fact, it was in the same range that same car would cost in the U. S. Well, there are always tricks to beat the customs people, I guess. While looking for my, or rather my wife’s, car I noticed that all of a sudden there were many Priuses for sale at the dealerships. Also, we now noted many driving around in Phnom Penh already. Is this the coming big trend for cars in Cambodia? I just hope it is. Makes sense, too, doesn’t it – with gas prices at $1.20/ltr. Hopefully, Cambodians will eventually see that a car after all is only a means of transportation. By the way, prices range from $13,000 for a 2004 model to around $17,000 - $19,000 for a 2006 model - 2007 and later to arrive soon.

We tried it out the next weekend on a trip to our house in Sihanoukville – we filled up the tank, made the round trip, and still had more than a quarter left in the tank of 45 liters. Although the gas mileage shown was only 37 mpg on average for that whole tank whereas normally it should be around 45 – 48, this is due to the fact that Phnom Penh stop-and-go traffic will lower the mileage. For those of you used to the metric system, 37 mpg is about 6.1 ltr./100 km, 45 is about 5.8 ltr./100 km. Not too shabby, right? Just think of the 20 ltrs. a Lexus 470 uses to crawl along at 5 mph in Phnom Penh.

A note on the salesmanship of those car dealers: don’t expect any of them to come out of their house and jump on you trying to sell you a car; they won’t. Some wouldn’t even come out after you beckon them. I guess they are not really in the business of selling, rather like we need to politely ask them whether they are willing to let us buy a car, perhaps?

And finally here is a list of some of the cars I owned in my lifetime. As you can see I didn’t always follow reason in my car purchases either.




My very first car - 1953 Beetle - Bought in the late 60ies - great sunroof almost made it into a convertible.

 


My second beetle - 1954 - after I had wrecked the first one (photo courtesy of 'Classic Cars')



I drove several of those - mostly the E260 - roomy, comfortable, top speed 220 kmh.

The smoothest ride and lines of a car ever - at that time - my 1985 Jag XJS12 - even took it to Cambodia - nobody wanted it as they didn't know it.

The start of the SUV craze - 1992 Chevy Blazer

Jeep Grand Cherokee - great SUV

2001 MB ML320

I currently drive this Toyota 4runner (stock photo) - super reliable but a gas guzzler.

Prius - the Hollywood celebrities' car, made famous by Larry David in 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' (stock photo)

Promotion of Democracy

The International Republican Institute in Cambodia

I came across this article in the New York Times. On the surface, it may not pertain to Cambodia but it led me to take a closer look.

Excerpts:

NYT
By Ron Nixon, April 14, 2011

WASHINGTON — Even as the United States poured billions of dollars into foreign military programs and anti-terrorism campaigns, a small core of American government-financed organizations were promoting democracy in authoritarian Arab states.

The money spent on these programs was minute compared with efforts led by the Pentagon. ……….They are seeing that the United States’ democracy-building campaigns played a bigger role in fomenting protests than was previously known, with key leaders of the movements having been trained by the Americans in campaigning, organizing through new media tools and monitoring elections.
A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, ……….received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.
The work of these groups often provoked tensions between the United States and many Middle Eastern leaders.
The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department.
“We learned how to organize and build coalitions,” said Bashem Fathy. Mr. Fathy attended training with Freedom House. He said, “This certainly helped during the revolution.”
But some members of the activist groups complained in interviews that the United States was hypocritical for helping them at the same time that it was supporting the governments they sought to change.
Diplomatic cables report how American officials frequently assured skeptical governments that the training was aimed at reform, not promoting revolutions.
Hosni Mubarak, then Egypt’s president, was “deeply skeptical of the U.S. role in democracy promotion,” said a diplomatic cable from the United States Embassy in Cairo dated Oct. 9, 2007.
For the full article visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?_r=1&ref=internationalrepublicaninstitute&pagewanted=all#

The IRI website’s mission statement for Cambodia is just normal PR-speak for such an organization. I would assume intelligence services sometimes hide behind similar statements. I do not want to intimate that the IRI is involved in any clandestine activities but the article above points to some highly interpretable agendas for those organizations.

The IRI finances at least in part the CCHR and as recently as October 2010 supported Kem Sokha. As a matter of record, Kem Sokha resigned from his post in 2007 after employees of the CCHR accused him of corruption and embezzlement of funds. He is now president of the Human Rights Party and has lately been in the headlines for his mental acrobatics in pushing for a merger with the SRP and soliciting their party members to join the HRP at the same time.

The IRI is widely known among informed circles in Cambodia as the organization that publishes annual surveys of public opinion, which at least for the past few years have always shown a favorable rating of the CPP-led government. As a reminder, as this was reported in the press before, the one for 2010, published in January 2011, for instance, found among other things:

1. 76% believe the country is headed in the right direction
2. 72% and more of all age groups believed that it is headed in the right direction
3. Between 65% and 77% witnessed corruption
4. Only 0.4% reported that they had no rice to eat several times a week
5. 36% think border demarcation impacts the country the most

For item no. 5 it is not clear whether the Eastern or Western border is meant. I would venture to think that people were thinking of the Thai border with its periodic outbursts of fighting over the Preah Vihear issue rather than the SRP-alleged border encroachments by Vietnam.

The IRI regularly draws the ire for those surveys from especially the SR Party, which claimed the respondents were too afraid to voice their true concerns and no great credence should be attributed to the survey. The general state of the country, all the pressing problems notwithstanding, belies that claim, which has not deterred the SRP from reiterating it and similar claims at every twist and turn.

The question arose in my mind what exactly the IRI’s agenda might be in light of that article above. They have been active in Cambodia since 1992 and one of their aims was to strengthen political parties. It appears that they have failed miserably in that department. Both the SRP and HRP are in a dismal state, and by all appearances in no position to challenge the dominating role of the CPP. The latter, however, is stronger than ever. This might raise the question in some people’s minds whether the IRI rather helped that party entrench and solidify that party’s power to such an extent that it seems all but impossible to unseat them in any of the next elections, barring any unforeseen events. Seeing the reality on the ground, however, I don’t think that party needed any outside help. Its leaders know how to play the instruments of politics.

Sam Rainsy is hoping that events similar to the one in Tunisia and Egypt, and now in Syria and Yemen, may one day happen in Cambodia as well. By deductive reasoning from the NYT article, the IRI’s role might substantially be the same in Cambodia as in those Arab countries. In that case, Sam Rainy’s hope appears to have some substance. Does he know more than appears to the naked eye?

On the other hand, the article points out one very essential fact of the U. S.’s policies towards autocratic regimes. Strategically, they assist and support the regimes, whether it is for economic or military reasons. At the same time, as the purported ‘greatest’ democracy, they profess to foment and support democratic movements and reforms through other means, e. g. through NGOs like the IRI, which are funded by the U. S. Congress. In Cambodia, you have the IRI on the one hand, and joint military maneuvers of Cambodia’s RCAF and the U. S. forces on the other. Hun Sen’s son even attended West Point, from which he also graduated. Additionally, the U. S. Navy makes repeated friendly calls to Cambodia. All this indicates a rather close official relationship.

Hosni Mubarak, the deposed Egyptian president, was ‘deeply skeptical of democracy promotion’. According to their website the IRI provides country-wide civic education, which indicates they are indeed involved in ‘democracy promotion’. In other words, the U. S. and the IRI believe this country needs democracy-building, despite the fact that, after all, Cambodia is a democracy, although the absolute majority of the CPP makes it a virtual one-party state. Civic lessons are a subject for middle and high schools. From my experience they are part of the curriculum in Cambodia. The question is whether these lessons do help the young generation really understand the principles and characteristics of a true democracy and whether they do need the help from organizations such as the IRI. Currently, it appears as though the people as a whole do not pay particular attention to these things. They are happy the way things are and value stability and economic progress more than truly democratic components and values.

Given the positive surveys and the virtually non-public profile of the IRI in Cambodia it appears that their work in the democracy-building process is directed not at helping to bring about (regime) change but to really enhance public awareness of the true characteristics of a democracy. That involves first and foremost a multi-party system. And this is exactly where Cambodia is lacking. Officially it does have a multi-party system but with the current opposition parties in such a disarray and without any true party leadership and mired in their internal power struggles, the IRI’s work looks to be a long and arduous task. Are they playing a similar role as in the Arab states, though? I don’t think so. First, Cambodia is not at the center of a volatile region such as the Middle East, in which the U. S. has vital interests. Second, I don’t think Cambodia would stomach any unsettling activities given that China and Vietnam have much greater influence on the government than the U. S.