The Asian Human Rights Commission wishes to bring to the notice of the international donors that no progress of any sort can be made in any area of life in Cambodia until the country’s government gives up its deliberate rejection of the concept of a state governed by rule of law, which has been central to the ruling party’s hold on power.
As Prof. Yash Ghai, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Human Rights in Cambodia said in his report on 26th September 2006, the violations of human rights in Cambodia remain on a systematic scale. Prof. Yash Ghai pointed out that “this systematic abuse was not because of carelessness, or lack of awareness of rights or institutional and procedural rules to safeguard them or that Cambodia suffered massively during the regime of Democratic Cambodia or because of poverty”.
In the past the donors have accepted one or more of these excuses and have failed to take up the issue of the rule of law as the means for the development of a modern Cambodian society based on democratic and human rights values. The acceptance of such excuses has done no good for the people of Cambodia but on the other hand have only benefited the more powerful sections of the country.
The most glaring demonstration of the donor’s failure is the huge scale of land grabbing that has deprived the poor of their lands to an extent that has few parallels in the world. Fifteen years after the peace process the ordinary people of Cambodia are now less secure and more vulnerable.
Prof. Yash Ghai further points out that many policies of the Government have subverted the essential principles of democracy and due process, deprived people of their economic resources and means of livelihood, and denied them their dignity. He has come to believe that these policies are integral to the political and economic systems through which the Government rules, has manipulated democratic processes, undermined legitimate political opposition, and used the state for the accumulation of private wealth.
It is this aspect of a government that is devoted only to the making of private wealth for a small group of powerful people that is most disturbing. The concept of public goods appears to be completely missing in the aims pursued by the government. The allocation of funds for public purposes such as the maintenance of a competent and credible policing service, professionally qualified prosecution service devoted to the rule of law and a competent judicial service which has the power to act impartially is completely absent. Under such circumstances no credible auditing service or proper accounting set up can function at all. The creation of these aspects of public life has been deliberately rejected. Under these circumstances there can be no defense for the people as against the extreme exploitative practices regarding their lands and their jobs. Anyone who might protest the absence of security faces severe intimidation and the possibility of death or physical harm.
Mere talk of corruption is meaningless when the concept of common good and public accountability have no foundation on which to rest. It is this situation that places a serious responsibility on the part of the donors. The unavoidable question now is as to whether donors wish Cambodia to continue to exist as a place where the cruelest forms of exploitation without the basic forms of defense for the people such as the rule of law or any other societal defence is available; or will the donors once again avoid facing this issue. The only option left to the donors is either to be a party to Cambodia’s ongoing tragedy or make a bold step towards measures to develop the rule of law in the country.
