Mr Rong Chhun

I received a very disturbing e.mail this morning from a friend who is still in Cambodia.

Mr Rong Chhun – fearless advocate of education, opponent of the corrupt practices that have spread through Cambodia’s public service and champion of the teaching profession in his role as President of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Assocation – has been arrested.

I have copied the e.mail below. Please contact Ms. Ouk Chhayavy at the e.mail address below to let CITA know of your solidarity with them.  If you have any leverage, through the press, through a professional association or by writing to your MP or directly to the Cambodian Government, please use it to demand the release of Mr Rong Chhun.

“Dear Colleagues,

 This morning Tuesday 21^st of January Mr. Rong Chhun President of CITA and the Cambodian Confederation of Unions (CCU) was arrested by the police while attending a meeting with workers in Phnom Penh city.

 We are now gravely concerned for Mr. Rong Chhun’s safety and security has we have not been able to contact him since he was arrested and we are unable to identify where he is been detained.

 We are also worried that the arrest of Mr. Rong Chhun is  a strong signal from the government towards our CITA members who have already been intimated and threatened at provincial level  when exercising their rights’ to freedom of assembly and expression.

 This continued harassment of CITA and of Mr. Rong Chhun in particular demonstrates the government lack of respect for teachers’ rights as guaranteed under the ILO Conventions 87 and 98 or for the due process and best practice as recommended in the ILO-UNESCO Recommendations on the Status of Teachers.

 We call on EI, teachers’ union and other Labour Unions to urgently raise the arrest of Mr. Rong Chhun with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport and Ministry of Interior in Cambodia and to bring international trade union pressure and media attention to this continued abuse of workers’ rights in Cambodia. 

 For further information please call me directly at:

 +855 12681791

 Or  email me at:

 ccupro.assist@gmail.com 

  Yours in Solidarity,

  __________________

Ms. Ouk Chhayavy

vice-President 

CITA”

Healing Cambodia’s past wrongs

Watch this short video –  little vignettes of contemporary Cambodia – the trials, the healing, the hurt.

Healing the hurt

You can catch other posts on these themes through the category ‘Cambodia’ at the side of this blog.

The Trial of the Khmer Rouge leaders – each new delay reduces the credibility of this process of international justice

Only five of the Khmer Rouge, responsible for one of the worst genocidal regimes of the 20th Century, have ever stood trial.  One, Comrade Duch, in charge of Toul Sleng, has been convicted.  The continuing shambles of the Extraordinary Chambers, set up in political comprise with Hun Sen, Cambodia’s astute political leader, brings no justice for these, some of the thousands of victims from the Toul Sleng torture and interrogation camp, themselves only a small number in the genocidal scale of the Khmer Rouge killings:

faces of victims Toul Sleng

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The four accused, of whom only three are now fit to stand trial, as Ieng Thirith has developed dementia (a long life denied to her victims), are pictured below

Khie Sampan and Ieng Sary

Nuon Chea and Ieng Thinrith

Today brings new evidence of the chaotic conditions of the Khmer Rouge trials have descended as translators, unpaid since December, go on strike.

Playing a clever long game, Hun Sen has ensured that the ‘Extraordinary Chambers’, a joint court run in Cambodia with participation and support from the international community, has effectively run into the sand.  The costs have been horrendous, the ground rules a fudged political compromise, the conclusion a long way in the future.

The losers are the Cambodian people denied an opportunity to come to terms with the horrendous crimes committed in the 1970s.   Click on the link below for Guardian coverage:

Staff on Strike

Previous blogs on this long running saga can be found at:

Cambodia’s war crimes tribunal: where next?

Thet Sambath fears for his life

Judge quits trial

Enemies of the People

Enemies of the People: a film you should see

 

 

Vacancies for skilled educators in Cambodia ..!!

VSO is recruiting now for volunteers to provide advice and support to Provincial Education Offices in 10 of Cambodia’s Provinces.  This is part of a wider UNICEF funded programme to strengthen the capacity of Cambodia’s Ministry or Education, Youth and Sports (MoEYS) to support schools and teachers and thus to develop Cambodia’s education system. It’s a great volunteering opportunity – this can be a life-changing experience, with some wonderful opportunities to learn more  than you knew was possible, to live in a fascinating part of the world, to form some relationships that will last a lifetime and to make a contribution to developing a country whose hardworking people want a better future.  You would be working in the Provincial Office and also out in schools.  Here are some of the details from the job spec:

VSO Cambodia is seeking ten volunteers to work in ten provinces in Cambodia for a project which is has matched funding from EU, SIDA and UNICEF. This project is part of the Capacity Development Partnership Fund (CDPF), managed by UNICEF, to support implementation of MoEYS’ Capacity Development Plan.. Education management advisers in each province will work as a team at national level with other education volunteers in their province to build the management and leadership capacity of the target Provincial Education Offices.

Essential qualifications:

• Qualified teacher with recognised third level degree in education
• Professional qualifications or experience in education management, leadership or administration

 Essential work experience/skills:

• At least 4 years of experience in the field of education management, leadership and planning, including working with Ministries and local authorities Experience with analysing data and building budgets
• Excellent interpersonal, mentoring, facilitation and communication skills
• Able to present information in a clear and concise manner
• Verbal and written fluency in English
• Computer literacy
• Resilience, flexibility, adaptability, culturally sensitive and as sense of humour when faced with problems, obstacles and frustrating circumstances

 Desirable:

• Experience of working in central or local government in a education context
• Pervious volunteer experience and commitment to capacity development
• Proficiency in IT – use of Word and Excel and Power Point
• Good report writing skills and an ability to collate and use data in reports

 Strong in all selection dimensions, especially:

• Positive and realistic commitment
• Flexibility and adaptability
• Sensitivity to the needs of others
• Working with others

Essential personal qualities

The ability to build good working relations with staff at the provincial and district offices of education is essential to be able to work effectively in Cambodia (just as important as having the right qualifications and experience). The volunteer professional must be patient and remain calm and friendly in the face of the numerous frustrations he/she will experience. Sensitivity to the needs of others is therefore paramount. The volunteer must be capable of understanding and working within Cambodian societal and working culture.

The volunteer professional must be a good communicator in order to build others’ capacity. The volunteer professional must be pro-active, friendly and open with colleagues in order to build good relationships.

The volunteer professional must be prepared to work in a team with other volunteer professionals and the full-time volunteer assistant (who act as translators as well as providing logistical support).  The programme is delivered through small teams or individuals in each province in order to implement activities effectively and to achieve maximum impact. Volunteer professionals and volunteer assistants are expected to develop a strong professional relationship with each other in order to maximize and complement each other’s strengths.

Working in a volunteer team is different to working in a normal professional team – there is more overlap between professional and social life than many volunteers have experienced before.  The volunteers themselves form a multi-cultural community with widely varying backgrounds, each with their own expectations and understanding of their work within the programme. It is essential that the professional can cope in this context.  The volunteer will need to be able to overcome personality clashes, if they occur, for the benefit of the programme and project.

The volunteer must be willing to be based in the main provincial town. He/she will need to have a sense of adventure, however, as sometimes their work will involve travelling, sometimes to remote locations, with their Khmer colleagues; this might involve overnight stays in district town. Travel would usually be by a moped motorcycle (100/125cc motorbike) with automatic clutch.

The Initiative to take ideas forward and sometimes to work independently will also be needed, while bearing in mind that local staff should be involved in the work as much as possible.

Adaptability is a key to living and working in Cambodia. At the personal level, the volunteer will have to make major adjustments simply to live and work in a different culture and environment.

Volunteers need to demonstrate and practice cultural sensitivity. This involves being non-judgmental and accepting of various religious and cultural traditions.

Language requirements:

 Excellent spoken and written English

Commitment to learn Khmer language. The volunteer will have a full-time assistant to help with translation for work purposes. However, it is essential that the volunteer learns Khmer in order to build relationships, be able to live comfortably and to use it for some working purposes whether with or without part-time assistant. VSO will provide basic Khmer language training in country for 2-3 weeks. VSO will also provide funding for continued language training during the placement

The volunteer will need to commit to studying the pre-departure language resources available on Volzone prior to arriving in Cambodia which will equip him/her with basic vocabulary ready for intensive language training in country.

 

Please see a link to the Khmer learning resources below:

http://volzone.vsoint.org/course/view.php?id=204

The ability to build good working relations with staff at the provincial and district offices of education is essential to be able to work effectively in Cambodia (just as important as having the right qualifications and experience). The volunteer professional must be patient and remain calm and friendly in the face of the numerous frustrations he/she will experience. Sensitivity to the needs of others is therefore paramount. The volunteer must be capable of understanding and working within Cambodian societal and working culture.

The volunteer professional must be a good communicator in order to build others’ capacity. The volunteer professional must be pro-active, friendly and open with colleagues in order to build good relationships.

The volunteer professional must be prepared to work in a team with other volunteer professionals and the full-time volunteer assistant (who act as translators as well as providing logistical support).  The programme is delivered through small teams or individuals in each province in order to implement activities effectively and to achieve maximum impact. Volunteer professionals and volunteer assistants are expected to develop a strong professional relationship with each other in order to maximize and complement each other’s strengths.

Working in a volunteer team is different to working in a normal professional team – there is more overlap between professional and social life than many volunteers have experienced before.  The volunteers themselves form a multi-cultural community with widely varying backgrounds, each with their own expectations and understanding of their work within the programme. It is essential that the professional can cope in this context.  The volunteer will need to be able to overcome personality clashes, if they occur, for the benefit of the programme and project.

The volunteer must be willing to be based in the main provincial town. He/she will need to have a sense of adventure, however, as sometimes their work will involve travelling, sometimes to remote locations, with their Khmer colleagues; this might involve overnight stays in district town. Travel would usually be by a moped motorcycle (100/125cc motorbike) with automatic clutch.

The Initiative to take ideas forward and sometimes to work independently will also be needed, while bearing in mind that local staff should be involved in the work as much as possible.

Adaptability is a key to living and working in Cambodia. At the personal level, the volunteer will have to make major adjustments simply to live and work in a different culture and environment.

Volunteers need to demonstrate and practice cultural sensitivity. This involves being non-judgmental and accepting of various religious and cultural traditions.

Language requirements:

 Excellent spoken and written English

Commitment to learn Khmer language. The volunteer will have a full-time assistant to help with translation for work purposes. However, it is essential that the volunteer learns Khmer in order to build relationships, be able to live comfortably and to use it for some working purposes whether with or without part-time assistant. VSO will provide basic Khmer language training in country for 2-3 weeks. VSO will also provide funding for continued language training during the placement

• The volunteer will need to commit to studying the pre-departure language resources available on Volzone prior to arriving in Cambodia which will equip him/her with basic vocabulary ready for intensive language training in country.

Please see a link to the Khmer learning resources below:

http://volzone.vsoint.org/course/view.php?id=204

Cambodia’s war crimes trial – where is it going next?

Further depressing news from Cambodia demonstrates how cleverly the government have wrapped up the ‘Extraordinary Courts’, set up to deliver justice by bringing to trial the key figures in the Khmer Rouge, responsible for some of the worst crimes against humanity of the last century and whose legacy still taints Cambodia’s present and some of its future.   First Ieng Thirith has been released, as unable to stand trial – thus being accorded a level of humane medical consideration she denied to millions.  Now it looks as though the Courts may run out of money (click here ).

The main argument in favour of moving these courts from the Hague to Cambodia was to avoid their portrayal within Cambodia as being ‘anti-Cambodian’, in the way that the Hague trials of Serbian leaders have been portrayed in Serbia, fuelling some of the extremist Serbian nationalists.  However, the Cambodia government have all along been determined not to turn over too many stones.  After all many of them were themselves, along with many prominent people in contemporary Cambodia, part of the Khmer Rouge at some time.   First they secured UN agreement that the trials would be held in Cambodia, then that the majority of the judges would be Cambodian appointees, then that the number of potential accused would be limited to five (Duch, already tried, and the four currently being prosecuted).   Obstacles and problems have multiplied (leading to some of the UN appointed lawyers losing patience click here), while the public face has still been that ‘justice will be done’.

It is possible to argue in favour of this ‘compromise process’ – see my earlier blog on this, ‘International Justice for Cambodia‘.   However any form of justice looks increasingly unlikely.   Those currently on trial all lived peaceful lives into their 80s and have been able to see their grandchildren.  Many of those who beat, starved and hacked their countrymen to death go about their business, sometimes known and feared in their communities, sometimes hiding in other places.  The North West of the country is still full of former Khmer Rouge cadres, now working in public service as hospital nurses, or teachers, or local government officials.  Had their been a Truth and Reconciliation process, or some other such public civic acknowledgement of wrong, with a chance for victims and their families to express their grief and for those guilty to express their regret, perhaps the country could have moved to a better place.  Deceit still underpins public and private life.  The secret political manoeuvring to protect those in positions of power, to pretend the past did not exist, the darkness behind the eyes of many of those, now in their 50s and 60s, who lived through the Killing Fields – this is the legacy of a failure to find a respectful path to the future.  Meantime those in Cambodia who try to lift the veil are themselves under threat, as exemplified in the brave story of Thet Sambath, whose memorable film, ‘Enemies of the People’, now available on DVD, featured in many of my previous blogs  (see here, here and here ).

Many younger Cambodians just want to move on.  They want a future, not a permanent past.  Everywhere around them, they can see that Cambodia is no North Korea.  While Cambodia’s unaccountable political elite are not too much different to the ‘strong’ governments of many post-conflict states, their continuity in power has brought stability, even a degree of dependability, into economic life.  On the back of this, open borders and free commerce have sustained hope and optimism among the hardworking Cambodian people, while economic growth has pushed along at or around 10% p.a., with a blip in 2008-9.  The many Cambodians who are working hard to create a better future for their country deserve as much support as the international community can give. They have a vision that we can all sign up to – of a future where every individual receives the basic human rights to which they are entitled, rights to education, health care, freedom of expression, rights which are still not fully realised.

In time, the trials will be written into the history books.  The jury is still out on whether or not the malign legacy of the Khmer Rouge, still evident in the Cambodia’s contemporary politics, will end up there as well or whether the generation that lived through the Killing Fields will pass that legacy on to the future.  It could be argued that this is a very familiar historical pattern.  After all, most of the landed, titled aristocracy who continue to enjoy significant privileges in the UK today gained their land and titles through choosing the right side of the previous civil conflicts, fought long ago.  I was reminded of this again on our recent visit to the grounds of Inveraray Castle, historic home of the Dukes of Argyll.

 

 

 

For a short summary of Cambodia’s recent story, see here.

Aminatta Forman, Sierra Leone and ‘The Memory of Love’

I have just finished listening to ‘The Memory of Love’, on an audiobook read by  Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.  This powerful story won the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book of 2011.   It was recommended by my daughter Beth, who has a great eye for a good book.

As ever, my experience of listening was coloured by the ‘reader’ – his or her interpretation of pace, voice and emotion inevitably influence the listener’s perceptions. At first, this was a chore.  The book begins slowly and is read slowly.   If reading, I might have been tempted to start to ‘speed read’ – listening while gardening, my attention slipped in and out of the story.  We are in the company of an English psychologist, Adrian, who is on some kind of placement in a Sierra Leonean (we only find out which country we are in much later) hospital, listening to an old man, Juilius, well-educated and perceptive, talking about a woman he loved, or rather, coveted – the wife of a colleague and friend.  This slow pace is maintained as the author skillfully weaves the other important characters into the story.  Her descriptive writing gives a really close sense of place.  Her words words paint a fine picture.  Adrift in his own life, Adrian becomes more and more caught up in the lives of the much more real people with whom he now shares his life – the aid workers, expat medical staff, war victims and above all Julius, Kai and Mama K.  I found myself constantly impressed  by the quality of the writing.   It is a cleverly constructed story, woven together with intelligence, based on deep knowledge of the country, its people and the work of the main protagonists (doctor, history academic, psychologist).  Yet as the story progressed, and the events more urgent, more violent, more tragic, I only felt outside.  I was aware of myself, looking at the author as puppeteer, her hands too visible in the actions of her people, her eyes to readily seen in her descriptions of what they could see and hear.   I felt a little manipulated.

Then my feelings began to change.  I saw the book through different eyes.  I saw author and book together.  Looking back it is easy to see the turning point.  I looked up Aminatta Forna on the internet and as a result I knew that this was a very personal book.  Her father, a doctor, politician and an Amnesty prisoner of conscience, was executed on trumped-up charges in 1975;  she, born in Scotland, has been actively involved with Sierra Leone as it emerged from its decade of darkness, when bloody civil war was waged by child soldiers.  Now I understood her deep insight into the issues raised by the lives of Julius and Mama K, Adrian and Kai, her understanding of them and the place where they lived.  I saw author and book together.  Her own story gave her the right to be taken seriously in this story.  I no longer felt manipulated, emotions moved around by some clever writer, dropping from the sky to observe and report.  I felt invited to share.  I cannot now wait to read her earlier non-fictional memoir, in which she writes of her father and his country, The Devil that Danced on Water.

Although I ended up powerfully moved by the book, and the dilemmas and challenges which life threw at her characters, I also saw it in a comparative perspective.  My own volunteer experience offered some insight.  I recognised that perspective of the recent ‘visitor’, dropping into the lives of others.  But much more powerful was the comparison I was constantly making of post-trauma Sierra Leone with post-trauma Cambodia – so many similarities in these two small countries, countries the Foreign Office calls ‘fragile, post-conflict States’.  And beyond these countries, so many other people in the former Yugoslavia, Palestine and Israel, Afghanistan, South Africa.  The contrast between the privileged freedom to chose, the freedom of those of us born into post-World War 2 Europe, and the fated hand dealt to so many in the second half of the 20th Century.  Yet underneath and through and above it all, hope.  Hope expressed best in community.  Hope in reaching out and believing in a future worth building.  Hope in recognising the complexity that has brought us to where we are, and the need to turn and face the future together.

I recommend this book highly.  It has depth and rich quality in the writing.  It has depth and insight in the story.  It touches the emotions and brings hope.

Prosecuting the Khmer Rouge – the story rumbles on …

Nice update on the tension between international standards of justice and the manipulations of the Royal Govt of Cambodia in relaiton to the proceedings of the Extraordinary Chambers against various former Khmer Rouge officials on the Open Society blog.  Every month this drags on it becomes clear that it’s all about political manoeuvring and not at all about justice!

Cambodia … how can people trust their government?

Do you live in a country where you can trust your government to play by the rules?  If you do, count your blessings.   People in Cambodia often cannot trust those in power, there have been so many ‘land grabs’ (see Country for Sale ).

So sad to read of the death of a young girl in a protest against land seizure (15 year old girl shot by security forces).   So many good people in Cambodia trying to build a better society, still trapped a little by their history.

The most important internal issue in any democracy is not the economy – it is to make sure people can trust the police and the judicial system (see the work of Bo Rothstein if you want a bit more research-based foundation for that statement).

 

Thet Sambath fears for his life…

Thanks to Sam for a link to the article below (click on the link).

Guardian Article

Sambath’s work is a great piece of contemporary history. He deserves international accolades for what he has done and is doing.  See earlier blogs on Cambodia for more detail of the importance of his work.

 

 

Interesting article on biting back against corrupt practice

It would be nice to see a site like this starting in Cambodia… or maybe one for the UK as well, after the news that the Chair of the Conservative Party in the UK was offering special access to the Prime Minister for those willing to donate £250K to party coffers.

Unesco’s report on education in Cambodia

This report ( click here ) provides an outstanding analysis of the importance of education in moving Cambodia  forward.   The other ‘case studies’ in the series (Bosnia/Herzegovina, Liberia, Afghanistan) illustrate the vital role of education for the people ‘fragile states’.

If you don’t have time to download/access the 100+ pages, here’s a summary of the executive summary.  It was great for me to be able to play some small part in trying to improve the education system in Cambodia.  This short report makes clear why that is such important work and why it may yet take a long time to move the system up to the next level and give Cambodia children the education they deserve.

Today, the most salient concern surrounds issues of a political nature.  A number of grievances stem from the tight governance characteristic of a single-party system, which is both enabled and augmented by the patron-client tradition. This is currently characterized by political disempowerment due, among other things, to media control and censorship, constraints on public dissent, and a culture of intimidation and fear, as well as patterns of patronage and corruption. Economic and social marginalization of the poor and rural population, as well as of many youth, further exacerbates political disenfranchisement, leaving all but the most privileged Cambodians frustrated and cynical. This pervasive distrust has usurped social cohesion and is further entrenched by reluctance to speak openly of the nation’s recent traumatic history, with the result that wounds from the past cannot heal or be learned from.

This report argues that education has a signifi cant role to play in addressing Cambodia’s current instability concerns, especially taking into account the part it has played, both historically and in the present, in exacerbating and mitigating fragility. The contextual analysis is thus followed by an analysis of the evolution and current state of education, detailing the complex, bidirectional interplay between education and fragility, on the basis that this may provide important insights relevant to planning for future reforms.

The review of Cambodia’s education system shows that, while the state of education has greatly improved over the past two decades, reaching more children than ever before and ensuring increased equal access to students of all ethnic, socio-economic, and geographical backgrounds, major shortcomings related to fragility continue to limit progress. In this report, the review of the sector is grouped under fi ve broad areas: relevance of education; disparities in access; (dis-)engagement with the education system; teachers; and structures and governance.  First, as far as relevance is concerned, the report shows how Cambodia’s current education system has failed to lead to employment and social mobility. Moreover, the skills it provides appear to be of limited political and civic relevance due to a lack of promotion of critical thinking and participatory learning, as well as to a long-standing neglect of national history, in particular relating to the genocide. This has resulted in a general lack of understanding of the factors that led to the worst political abuses in modern Cambodian history – an element crucial to ensuring their non-repetition, as well as to social healing and reconciliation.

Second, the report demonstrates how disparities in access to education – a salient symbol of inequality – persist in Cambodia, despite a purported policy of inclusive education. These disparities follow lines of deeply entrenched socio-economic divisions within the country, in particular between poor and rich, and urban and rural. The importance of gender and ethnicity as factors in determining educational access is also highlighted. While levels of female school enrolment have gradually increased, Cambodian women are still far less educated than men.  Also, many indigenous minorities and forest-dwelling communities are disadvantaged in terms of access to schooling as a result of forced land migrations and geographic and language barriers. In addition, equal access to quality education is hampered by primarily urban/rural disparities in distribution of qualified teachers.

Third, the report shows how a number of factors have led to the disengagement of various groups within the education system. Private education, to which the elites have tended to turn, as led to their disengagement from the government system, thereby reinforcing inequalities and deep divisions between rich and poor. Furthermore, entrenched systems of corruption, which favour patronage over merit, have tended to disadvantage and disengage the poor, who are often unable to pay the frequent unofficial fees. In addition, inadequate language education, resulting in widespread poor English skills and the inability to access less-censored English materials, serves to increase longer-term, broader disengagement with political and social institutions.

Fourth, as far as teachers are concerned, the number of qualified school personnel has gradually increased. However, the report shows that capacity still remains a major challenge:  teachers are largely under-qualified and in short supply. In particular, challenges persist in relation to insufficient in-service training and professional development opportunities – vital for unqualified teachers, especially in remote and rural areas where there is an especially acute shortage of qualif ed teachers – and a lack of qualified teacher trainers.  Existing challenges also include inadequate teaching pay and conditions, which have led, among other things, to the demotivation and low societal status of teachers.

Fifth, regarding issues of structures and governance, the analysis shows that current structures continue to promote centralized control, reflecting the centralizing and authoritarian tendencies of the government in place, in spite of efforts at reform aimed at promoting decentralization and collaborative governance of the education sector. At the local level, community involvement and accountability remain inadequate despite several reforms and initiatives. As far as external assistance is concerned, Cambodia is heavily dependent on aid, but has taken a positive step towards ownership of its educational future and breaking the cycle of entrenched aid recipient status. However, the Cambodian government has difficulty in leading donor eff orts given its institutional corruption and weak public financial management system, which have led to reluctance among donors to provide direct budget support through the national budget.

In its conclusion, this report demonstrates the interplay between education and fragility in modern Cambodia by highlighting the following thematic areas: politics and the politicization of education, history education and the failure to teach the genocide, socio-economic disparities and unequal access to education, social fragmentation, utilization of rote learning and other forms of traditional pedagogy, educational relevance, teacher capacity, incomplete decentralization, and the involvement of the international community.

 

.. and still we get our clothes so cheap at the expense of workers in far away lands ..

The Guardian recently carried a story about Cambodian garment workers:

Garment Workers go back to work in Cambodian factory

There are regular stories in the Phnom Penh Post about the campaigns by and on behalf of garment factory workers in Cambodia.  Here’s one from today.. in fact there’s one every day!

Workers Protest in Kampong Cham

Kampong Cham garment workers get media attention!

It’s a great case of how complex today’s world.  Of course, it’s definitely better that these women have the work than that they don’t, and so much of Cambodia’s foreign earnings now comes from the cheap labour and nimble fingers of the women who work in them, but on the other hand it’s just not fair that they who work the hardest, in the poorest conditions, profit least from the trade, with factory owners / govt middle men / shipping companies / retailers all getting their much larger share of the money which avid European consumers spend in the shops.   If we’re interested in fair trade at all, we should be interested in improving their working conditions and pay.  It seems that putting pressure on the retailers at this end, who call the shots on this, is the best way of doing that.

Here’s H&M’s social conscience site and contact details:   H&M

Gap’s ‘social responsibility’ webpages are unavailable but here is their contact information:   Gap UK

Why don’t you drop them a line and let them know you care?

… the hidden struggles of those who make our clothes …

Thanks to John for this everyday story from Cambodia..

Garment Workers go back to work in Cambodian factory

Happy Days…

BBC News seems to think there might be Buses in Phnom Penh? (click to read the full story).

I can’t see it working any time soon!

Judge quits Cambodia genocide trial

With reference to the post a couple of days ago ( International Justice for Cambodia  ), I just picked this story up from Leandra.  It tells its own story…..

Judge quits trial

Judge Siegfried Blunk

International Justice for Cambodia?

It’s not an easy thing to establish a just process, especially if it is to be recognised as just by different people, in different places, from different viewpoints.  It is a central element of social stability that members of a society accept that the processes of justice are fair and impartial, even if they disagree with the outcomes.  The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia were set up to prosecute those responsible for the Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s.  From the beginning they resulted from a political compromise between the desire of the international community to find and punish those responsible for some of the worst crimes of the 20th Century and the political manoeuvrings of Hun Sen, keen to stitch up the right kinds of deals with the powerbrokers of Cambodia that would allow him to remain in power through deals and patronage.

Hun Sen

The international Human Rights view was represented forcefully by the UN, so necessary to Cambodia after the aid tap from the Soviet Union was turned off in 1990-1.  A condition of the agreement by which Cambodia was readmitted to the family of nations was that it must go ahead with free and fair elections and bring to justice those who had committed the genocide.  However the world looked very different from the desk of Hun Sen, the leader of Soviet Communist Cambodia in the 1980s.  For him, building a coalition of supporters from among the new powerbrokers of post-Communist Cambodia was the way to power, but he is/was a brilliant political tactician, and realised that, much as he did not want to, he would have to work on the surface with the new international powerbrokers – the UN, political rights lobbies, the aid agencies, without whom Cambodia would have collapsed into an Asian Somalia.

Hun Sen has never believed a word of the human rights/democracy agenda.  He has scraped along for 20 years doing as little as was necessary to keep the aid rolling in, to appease the international lobbies, while basically resenting their interference.  His real political aim has been to build coalitions of the powerful, through alliances and patronage, smearing as little of ‘Western democracy’ as he can get away with over this process.    In his favour, it has to be said that he has managed to secure many years of peace, after 30 years of civil war – no mean achievement, and one of the reasons he is popular (increasingly so, as evidenced in recent elections) with even those Cambodians who do not profit from his patronage and who may be at risk from the way in which those in power can operate with impunity to further their own ambitions (see Country for Sale ).   Karzai in Afghanistan seems to be playing a similar role.  There, the ‘forces of democracy’ now seem to have accepted that, in the real world, where power is unevenly distributed, the superficial democracy of Karzai, based on deals with warlords (and soon, we hear, with the Taliban), is the best that can be hoped for.  Karzai seems to know how to run Afghanistan better than we do .. and whatever the various aid agencies and Human Rights organisations say, Hun Sen certainly knows how to run Cambodia.

Last year, after the conviction of Comrade Duch for the torture and murder of many in the S21 prison in Phnom Penh (Australian News report on Duch ), Hun Sen announced that only four more KR officials would be tried, so that Cambodia could move on.   Today I found out that the cases against them are further compromised – Phnom Penh Post, 4.10.11.

It’s so easy to understand why.  The cases are complex.  In addition, the Extraordinary Chambers are a unique judicial setup:  a joint court, with a majority of Cambodian judges, supported by a minority of international judges appointed by the UN, who also support the prosecution and defence processes.  This extraordinary structure avoided the real danger that a process based in the Hague would be seen by many Cambodians as unjust (in the same way as many Serbians saw the trial of Milosevic as anti-Serbian rather than pro-Human Rights) and that those tried might become national heroes in Cambodia.  On the other hand, the international community did not believe that Cambodian courts could be trusted, or that Cambodian lawyers or judges were up to the task.  So we got this compromise, which owes more to politics than to the law.  How long has it been at work?  Too long.  How much has it cost?  Too much.  And what has been achieved?  Something… but not much after all.  Did we not already know that these leaders of the Khmer Rouge were responsible for the deaths of millions?

The international community is still trying, however expensive and time-consuming the process, to bring those responsible (and surely there are many more) to justice.  That had to be done, but we also have to acknowledge that the compromised system that was established will only deliver very limited results.  We know that democracy cannot be imposed, and yet we cannot stand by and allow such horrifying human rights abuses as were committed by the Khmer Rouge to go unpunished. But that is only part of the story.

Maybe it is we, the citizens, who should use our power more, as our governments come to terms with the limits to their power.  We can and should take action for a better future – through our friendships, through our support for Amnesty and similar organisations, through our use of our economic power as consumers, through our thirst for justice.   The people of Cambodia want our friendship and want to be part of the international community.  The country is relatively open.  Cambodia is not Myanmar or North Korea.   The young people of Cambodia are interested in looking forward, not back.  Perhaps the success of failure of this difficult trial process is not as important as the support we give to them in helping them to build a better future.

Court Scene

One of the VSO team whom I went out with (Sam of the ‘Gilly and Sam’ blog you can link to on the right – they’re doing some great work too) sent me the link to a Peace Corps blog  (Judy’s Blog ) where Judy (who has taken over working with Or Siem on one of the projects I passed on when I left in April) describes what is happening now.  It’s grown arms and legs.  It will improve the education of Cambodian children in a whole range of ways.   It happened because VSO and Peace Corps got into partnership with the Ministry of Education.  That’s a process that’s delivering human rights for the future.

China and Malaysia Today, Cambodia tomorrow?

It seems that the ‘rule of law’ is making ground in Asia:

Chinese general’s son jailed for road rage incident:

Li Tianyi,the son of one of China\’s best-known army generals, Li Shuangjiang, jailed

Malaysia abandons detention without trial:

Prime Minister Najib Razak commits to repeal of the Internal Security Act

I’m not holding my breath on this, but wouldn’t it be good to imagine that the same types of things might happen in Cambodia, home of the privileged ‘Khmer Riche’, who act with impunity, and their spoiled children?

Letter from Cambodia

I wrote it and sent it in in February.. the Guardian Weekly published it this week….  better late than never.

Letter from Cambodia

Enemies of the People .. wider reflections on the Khmer Rouge .. and Vantha’s story

I saw this film again (Enemies of the People – DVD available from October 2011), this time in the company of about 25 friends who were variously persuaded that they could learn something from it and attended the showing which Joan had organised with the local MacRobert Arts Centre at the University of Stirling.  I found it even more moving and striking second time round, although there were even more questions than first time, but this time no Sambath to answer them.   Although there are many positive stories about the Cambodia of today, there is also something compelling about the story of what Cambodia has come through.  We can all learn from that and, more particularly, from the patient researches of Thet Sambath into the minds and motivations of some of the killers.

It is very hard to understand how a generous and respectful people such as the Khmers brought forth the monstrous cruelties of the Khmer Rouge regime.  This was a particularly striking question for those who watched the film with only a limited knowledge of the political context.  They were struck by the polite mannerly way in which the killers whom Sambath interviewed talked about themselves and explained how they had come to do what they did between 1975 and 1979.  In part explanation, I wrote for some of them a potted account of the complex reasons which boiled together in the melting pot events of the late 60s/early70s to produce the Khmer Rouge:

Several factors contributed to the KR’s unique brutality:
*  a naive rationalist faith that ‘ends justify means’ and that human beings can remake society from the bottom up, based on a boiled-down (dumbed down?) Maoist philosophy;
*   a brutalised population, with many child soldiers used to seeing and performing savage acts in the civil war ( which intensified following the American bombing and then withdrawal from Vietnam);
*  the initial popularity of the KR, with their Communist rhetoric of equality and pure dedication to the cause, who replaced the unpopular and highly corrupt Lon Nol military regime installed by the US in 1970 – King Sihanouk (in exile in China) also publicly backed them in the war against Lon Nol;
*   the paranoia of the leading clique within the KR who feared from the beginning that their internal ‘enemies’ (the KR who had been based in Vietnam) were plotting to replace them – this set up a revolutionary paranoia through every level of the KR right down to the grassroots, a constant awareness that there was an ‘enemy within’ and that if you didn’t watch out, you might be the next one so accused;
*   there was a racial element to some of the suspicions and persecutions – the KR identified people with fair skin as more likely to be Vietnamese, or have Vietnamese family connections and therefore more liable to be traitors.  Their language talked of the ‘base people’ (Cambodian peasants) and the ‘new people’ (educated city dwellers, Vietnamese);
*  the KR’s incompetence – they had very poor administrative and communication skills in ‘making things happen’ while in Govt and had, in any event, executed many of the educated Cambodians who might have been able to assist.  So much went wrong during their time in charge, with massive famines in parts of the country / failed engineering projects etc., that this seemed to provide evidence that there were enemies at work, stopping the progress of the revolution;
*  at local level, child soldiers became young men i/c of villages and production teams and used/abused their power, with many excuses available to them if they wanted to kill people who got in their way;
*  ‘groupthink’ – “the KR wants to do something good (create a more equal society) and the people in charge think it is necessary to eliminate our enemies and it is happening everywhere, so it must be morally permissible”;

*   ‘false necessity’ – ‘we had to do what we did or it would have been us next’

*  in any wartime situation, psychopaths with a penchant for brutal violence can more readily become leaders (at local and national levels), as they are prepared to do the kinds of things which can make the difference between winning and losing:  they enjoy conflict and may enjoy killing.

Each of these ingredients contributed to the explosive cocktail that engulfed Cambodia in 1975.

The historic culture of Cambodian people is one of a gentle and respectful courtesy, with enormous respect for elders and those in positions of power and authority.   If it is possible for the Khmer people to do these things to each other, it is possible for any people in any society to do them to each other.  This is one of the great lessons of this period.  Cambodia is still recovering from the destruction of the social infrastructure in those years and not all those in power have had the interests of the people of Cambodia as a first priority, but I suppose that’s politics everywhere.

Since I came back I have also had the great privilege of tidying up my simplified account of the experiences of Chea Vantha, VSO’s senior education manager in Cambodia.  Vantha is a hardworking and committed member of VSO’s permanent staff in Cambodia.  He has strong guiding principles which inform his vision of what is desirable but he also understands that often you have to settle for what is possible.   He has placed, guided and supported many volunteers since he began with VSO in 1994, as Cambodia opened up to the West.  On my last day in Phnom Penh, he and I shared lunch and he told me about his life under the Khmer Rouge.  I copy it below for those who want to read and learn about his character and courage, – a little insight into how so many ordinary Cambodians have picked up the pieces and are making their country a better place for their children to live in.   Vantha has approved this version of his story and told me he is happy for me to share it.

Me with Vantha on my last day in Phonm Penh

Vantha was 13 in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge arrived in Phnom Penh. Of the 9 children in his family, he was the 4^th.  His father was a relatively rich man, since he owned the 3 rice mills in his village.  His parents were very happy when the KR arrived.  The family had moved to Phonm Penh in 1974 to avoid the bombing, although their home village is in Kandal Province, less than 15km from PP.  Vantha attended primary school in his home village and studied in Tuol Tom Puong secondary school in PP during his temporary stay, near the Russian Market.   After the KR took over PP, Vantha and his family were told to return to their village.

In the first few weeks, the KR cadres in the village were happy with the family, as Vantha’s father was helping them to use the rice mills.  However once the KR had that skill, they labelled the family as capitalists and they were shifted upcountry, to Mong Russei district, a rural area on the Pursat/Battambang border.  They were marched to PP and taken on a train to Pursat.  Along with several thousand other families from Kandal, they were forced to set up home in the middle of a rice field area, with no shelter other than what they could improvise.  Plastic was used to provide some sort of shelter and they had very little food – typically there was one measure (the size of a condensed milk tin) of uncooked rice rationed out for the whole family per day.  At that time, in the early days, there were many killings.  Work duties were assigned by the KR.

After a time, Vantha’s parents became more and more concerned about the children becoming malnourished and the deterioration in general health.  They asked the four oldest children to go the ‘teenager camp’, which was in the same general area.  Food rations in the teenager camp were better, as teenagers received a specific re-education regime but had to work hard.    After a short while in the teenager camp, the older three wanted to return to their parents.   Vantha was apprehensive about this there had been many killings and he was scared that they might be killed by the KR.  He therefore stayed in the teenager camp by himself even although his older siblings went back. 

A short while later he was shifted to another camp, too far away for a visit to his parents.  He received little news but then heard they were ill. When he heard this, he asked for permission to go back to see his parents but was told that there was no point in him going as he was ‘not a doctor’ so his visit would be of no use at all.  During this time he was always hungry.   He would eat anything that he could, including any insects, leaves.. even leeches…  He felt that he was just ‘skin and bone’.   Around this time he was moved to a camp in the Cardamon Mountains where he was put onto a workparty that was digging a canal.    This was all happening in 1976.

While there, together with many other teenagers, he was given permission to return back to his home village to collect rice from the rice fields because there were not people to collect the rice..  When he arrived the sight that greeted his eyes was awful;  as bad or worse than anything that might be seen at Choen Ek.  Bodies lay all around, bones and limbs sticking out of pools and pits filled with water.  In the village, he found one older woman who was still alive.  She was almost dead of starvation but after Vantha had fed her bit by bit for a week she was at last able to speak.  It was his older sister.  She told him that his parents and 7 brothers and sisters had died, of starvation or disease.  She had seen some terrible things, including starving people who had been reduced to cannibalism, keeping dead bodies in order to feed the living.  After seeing her restored to health, he returned to his workcamp.   Many people from the area around the camp were executed.   There were thousands of bodies lying about.  His very difficult life got no better.   He found ways to survive, despite the starvation rations and the demanding physical regime.

When the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and kicked the Khmer Rouge into the Western border area, they wanted Vantha and the others in the workcamp to go with them to the Thai border camps, but Vantha, in the company of 20 others escaped, travelling carefully over the next 10 days before he was able to rejoin the main road, near Pursat.  Once on the main road, he found himself in a human stream, carrying their possessions as they trudged towards Phnom Penh.  From there, he headed straight for his home village.   The village was deserted but there was rice growing, which anyone could harvest to eat.  His older and younger sister, together with his grandmother (mother’s mother), came to live there.  

Vantha took the opportunity to go back to school, near the Russian market, and cycled back and forward to his home village twice each day (13 Km each way), selling items from the village in order to raise funds for the family. 

In 1975, one of Vantha’s uncles had been studying in France.  He had escaped all the terrible years under the Khmer Rouge and so was now keen, having set up home in Ho Chi Minh city in neighbouring Vietnam, to be reunited with his mother.  Vantha was asked to help her travel to HCM to see her son, but he was not keen to do this, as there were very strict immigration controls at the border.  Nonetheless he felt it was his duty.  However, despite trying to sneak over undetected, the two of them were arrested and imprisoned by the Vietnamese border police, under accusation of being CIA spies.   Having been held in labour camp conditions for two weeks, they were released back into Cambodia at the border, with no food, money or any idea where they were.  They had to try to make their way back to PP on foot, begging food and shelter as they went.  When they reached Prey Veng town, they were arrested again, this time by the Cambodian authorities.  Once again, they were suspected of being CIA agents and were placed in shackles and subjected to difficult interrogation over a period of weeks.   By the time they had returned to their home village, they had decided never to attempt to leave again, despite Vantha’s uncle (who now lives in Manchester City, UK) continuing with his insistent pleas.  

Vantha resumed school again and now was promoted into Grade 10 (at that time the top grade as there were no teachers left, so many had been killed by the KR, to teach higher classes).  He won a scholarship, as he was a very bright orphan from a poor family, and was sent to Russia for 5 years, one year language and four years engineering.  There he met his wife who was also on scholarship.

When Vantha returned he first of all taught at the Phnom Penh Technology Institute, then had a job in the Ministry of Industry, then, after the UN took over (to broker peace and free and fair elections) in 1992, he got a job with UNTAC helping with their computer systems and teaching UN and local staff on computer.  Eventually he was employed by VSO in January 1994 and has remained a stalwart at the heart of the success of VSO Cambodia ever since, rising to be a very effective and knowledgeable Senior Education Manager.

Occasionally Vantha and his wife will remember those Khmer Rouge days and the terrible things which happened and which they witnessed.  They even sometimes sing the songs of the KR revolution which they were taught in the camps and laugh a little and cry a little.  His younger sister has prospered and still lives in the village in a grand house.  His older sister is poorer but well. Her granddaughter now lives in Gravesend, in Kent.     

Vantha experienced some terrible challenges in his life but has come through it, studied hard to get a good foundation and built a good career.  He is proud of his story, how he came through it all and now has a fine family, with children who make him proud.    So many people now do not understand what it was like.

… not missed at all …

Thanks to Sam for reminding me about one aspect of Cambodian life that I don’t miss at all!  His experiences are charted in the link below:

The War with the Mosquito

I avoided the technological solution.. it was always so much more satisfying to kill one by speed of hand and eye!  Each mosquito killed is one small step for a man, but one great step for mankind…. and yet they would always return, launching guerrilla strikes on my ankles, or that part of my back which I cannot reach.  Only one thing is worse than the itch and irritation of a mosquito bite and that is the itch and irritation of a Malaysian sandfly – I am still afflicted by the bites received on Pulau Besar about four weeks ago now, though I think I am through the worst of it.

the sandfly.. cute isn't she?

At their most irritating, it seemed that I would have to wear a strait jacket to prevent me from scratching… thanks goodness the ones on Pulau Besar didn’t carry Leishmaniasis.  If I go back to South East Asia, I’m definitely slapping on more DEET in sandy areas!