Stephen Kurczy has an interesting piece in Asia Times Online about Ratanakiri Province, the challenges and decreasing chances of protecting the natural environment there. Unfortunately, the author fails to elaborate on the significance of Ratanakiri being the home province of the majority of Cambodia’s indigenous peoples who rely on natural resources not only for their livelihoods but also for their cultural survival.
Ethnic minority community says a giant rubber conglomerate is destroying its traditional culture, as plantation officials insist that the company is bringing much-needed work to the area.
A well-researched article about decentralization reform and indigenous peoples appeared in todays Phnom Penh Post:
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The following letter to the editor of the Phnom Penh Post about the World Bank and decentralization in Cambodia was published in today’s paper. Unfortunately a few of the better points were cut.
Dear Editor,
I read with interest in your recent interview with World Bank representative Qimiao Fan that “the most encouraging thing” for him to see in Cambodia is the improvement in local governance, specifically that “all parties are sitting there … working together as the local elected body to make decisions as to whether to build an access road or an irrigation canal or a school building. That participatory approach is the most encouraging thing for me to see”. This is not an inaccurate description of how commune councils take this particular decisions but it is misleading to suggest, as Mr. Qimiao Fan does, that this is about “democracy at the grassroots level”.
According to World Bank information, commune councils spent their modest funds almost exclusively on these three items, rural roads, irrigation and a small fraction on school buildings. This is due in good part not to democracy at the grassroots level but to modalities of the Bank-supported Rural Investment and Local Governance Project, under which these items but not others are eligible for reimbursement. Whatever the need of the constituency, commune councils respond with “decisions as to whether to build an access road or an irrigation canal or a school building”.
It is also true that this particular decision is taken by local councils with reasonable measures of participation by citizens and non-CPP parties (where there are any) and this is indeed encouraging but much less once one realizes that this, too, is not due to democracy blossoming at the grassroots level. Rather, it is because the process for this decision, and this decision only, is meticulously choreographed by donors, especially the Bank. Local councilors are conditioned to rigidly comply with this process prescribed by the central level and donors in manuals with hundreds of pages. In many communes, determining which of the three items to prioritize may be the only decision the council ever takes with meaningful participation of citizens and non-CPP parties.
The idea of local governance is to give local councils some measure of autonomy in relevant decision making to enable them to respond to the needs of their constituents. Centrally prescribing overly rigid procedures is the opposite of local autonomy. Local councils lack decision-making power in many matters that often are the most urgent concerns of their constituencies, such as regarding management of land and natural resources. At the same time, it would be helpful if local councils were as effectively compelled to comply with the law in their standard operations as they are compelled to comply with administrative procedures when prioritizing local infrastructure projects.
Describing the current situation as “democracy at the grassroots level” mischaracterizes the nature of governance in Cambodia but it is characteristic of the impoverished vision of “local governance” supported by the Bank. The problem is not that the Bank supports local infrastructure project but that it trivializes and reduces “local governance” to “decisions as to whether to build an access road or an irrigation canal or a school building”, suggesting that this decision and local participation in it are the essence of “democracy at the grassroots level” while being seemingly unconcerned about participation of citizens and non-CPP parties in any other political decision or about the role those councils and Bank-support play in the consolidation of an increasingly authoritarian and often predatory state. It should also be noted that the grassroots level is the village, not the commune and that village-level governance is distinctly undemocratic, with citizens unable to elect their village chiefs or deputies.
Stefan Ehrentraut
Bernama reports that Malaysia is assisting in setting up an Islamic College in Cambodia by the end of the year, as well as supporting other initiatives aimed at enhancing the educational and economic development of Cambodia’s Cham community.
A paper about the World Bank, indigenous peoples and decentralization in Cambodia has just been finalized and is available here. The paper expands on the earlier blog post Money Now, Compliance Later: Worldbank-Support to Decentralization in Cambodia and Indigenous Peoples. The paper was accepted for presentation at a PhD Workshops on the World Bank which is organized by RAD and co-funded by the Bank, GARNET, ESRC and AusAid.
A news piece usefully summarizing the state of Decentralization & Deconcentration reforms in Cambodia was published in Friday’s PP Post. It is a good read, as the author does a great job condensing the complexity of the issues into a readable article.
An interesting article in today’s Phnom Penh Post reports that climate change, along with forest exploitation and land loss, is pushing indigenous communities in northeastern Cambodia over the brink.
The article also reports that Mondulkiri province ranks as the most susceptible area to climate change in Southeast Asia, after the Indonesian capital Jakarta, according to a report by a Singapore-based research group.
The report identifies Mondulkiri as the 4th-most vulnerable of 530 administrative zones assessed throughout Southeast Asia. Ratanakkiri ranked 6th.
Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri received the lowest and second-lowest scores, respectively, in the ability of people there to adjust to environmental changes and were ranked 3rd- and 4th-poorest areas in the region, respectively.
A new book on minorities in Cambodia and Southeast Asia has just been published by the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS). It can be downloaded here or on the CKS homepage.
The articles in this book are edited versions of selected papers delivered during the International Conference Mainland Southeast Asia at its Margins: Minority Groups and Borders, March 14-15, 2008, at CKS, Siem Reap. The editor of the volume is Peter J. Hammer.
A controversial plan to establish a hunting reserve in Cambodia’s northeast has been under discussion for years but it now appears that it has received government approval, as the Phnom Penh Post reports.
Given the predatory nature of governance in Cambodia, the talk of that plan being all about community development and sustainable management of natural resource is rather ridiculous. There is no need to shoot animals in order to develop communities or to conserve and protect natural resources and biodiversity.
Given that the area in question has for centuries been home to indigenous peoples, what appears to be missing is their consultation on this plan and ways for them to benefit from its implementation. Because they are the one who will be most affected by this plan becoming reality.
It was under the watch of the forest administration that much of the forest has been destroyed and subsequently, local people who are most affected by it find their access to the remaining resources limited in the name of conservation, called for by the same people who are responsible for the destruction in the first place.
The PP Post reports that a new book on Cambodia’s ethnic minorities has just been published by the Center for Advanced Study, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. The volume of a considerable 664 pages combines articles resulting from a UN-supported research effort in 1996 with new articles written by Cambodian scholars as follow up on the initial research.
While the 1996 papers were never properly published, they circulated widely at least in Cambodia and due to their high quality, informed much subsequent research. Thus the new book is welcome for making the original articles written by expat researchers more widely available. But it is also promising great added value by updating those accounts, which is important in light of how quickly the situation on the ground has changed but also for providing the perspective of Cambodian scholars on Cambodian minorities.
I can’t wait to get my hands on this book and I just hope it can be ordered from abroad.
This article in the PP Post reports about the upcoming administrative elections for district and provincial level councils. It highlights accurately that having members of those councils elected by members of commune councils, virtually all of which are dominated by the ruling party, is not going to enhance democracy.
Neither is it going to enhance representation or voice for indigenous peoples. Those groups tend to be under-represented on commune council and the representation gap is much greater at higher sub-central levels of the state, not least due to requirements for Khmer language literacy and formal education. Thus it is highly likely that those elections do not contribute to bridging this representation gap or to enhancing indigenous peoples’ participation.
This is particularly disappointing in light of the strong provisions about enhancing indigenous peoples’ participation made in the government’s Strategic Framework for Decentralization and Deconcentration Reforms.
Among other things, it states that “ the reform will introduce systems and procedures as ensure that people, especially women, vulnerable groups and indigenous minorities can participate in decision-making at provincial/municipal, district/khan and commune/sangkat levels.”
It is sad to see that the government appears to have backtracked on those commitments.
This article on VOA reports that the Cambodian parliament haspassed draft legislation to provide for financing for two Chinese hydro dams in the Cardamon Mountains, costing more than $1.3 billion.
The article mentions environmental impacts but not those on indigenous peoples whose homelands will be flooded.
More details on the range of impacts of those dams can be found in this Reuters piece in IHT and this one in the Asia Times .
Details and findings from the ELGC team’s visit to the area can be found here, here and here.
This article in the Vietnamese news informs that a delegation from Vietnam’s National Assembly’s Council of Ethnic Minorities is visiting Cambodia, to exchange information regarding ethnic minority policy.
It is of course a good thing that ethnic minority policy receives attention from high ranking Cambodian officials in Cambodia, including Heng Samrin and Sar Kheng. Not least because Cambodia does not at this stage have any active minority policy.
Guessing from the selection of provinces mentioned in the article (Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, Pursat and Battambang), the visit focuses on what are widely considered indigenous peoples in Cambodia. Vietnam is not known to treat these minorities very well, which helps explain why substantial numbers of their members flee from Vietnam to Cambodia but never the other way around. Arguably, when it comes to the treatment of minorities, Vietnam has more to learn from Cambodia than the other way around. One specific concern here is that, while both countries have voted in favor of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Vietnam explicitly rejects the notion that there are any indigenous peoples in that country. On this view, the declaration does not apply to any group inside Vietnam.
Cambodia, in contrast, has so far at least implicitly accepted that Cambodia’s Highland Peoples are indigenous peoples and that the rights contained in the declaration apply to them. In many ways it would be unfortunate if Cambodia were to move towards to Vietnamese position on minority rights.
A slightly revised version of below post has now been published as a letter to the editor in the Phnom Penh Post: Why do minority tongues really face a grim future?
