Hey
The Name of the Game
Much of the time, I feel as if Cambodia is defined by what happened in the 'Pol Pot years'. The take-away from a guidebook is more about what happened than what the country has to offer to tourists. The trials of the KR leaders has still not taken place and an impending date for one is still in the news, after all this time.
Hun Sen, the prime minister (and former KR, but no-one talks about that we are told), was just quoted in the local newspaper. He said the trials won't take place if the foreign 'donors' don't make good on providing money to cover the Cambodian government's expenses. Imagine!
Apparently some deal was made with a number of foreign countries to provide some funds if the Cambodian government kicked in its share, but now the government is claiming that it has no money for the trials. Still, they want foreign countries to pay their promise, PLUS the amount Cambodia is responsible for. No donors, no trial. It's a standstill. Hun Sen accuses the foreigners of broken promises, even though those promises were based on Cambodia's own promise, now broken. More than likely, it is a ruse to keep the trials from happening. A trial would only be good for the people of Cambodia and it seems that the government does nothing for the public's interest.
The KR years are a stain on the earth. A scar. The state of society today is, in some part, a result of the wreckage the KR created of the country. Of course, people have moved on, things have changed, the KR is no longer in rule. But how could those years not affect things in this time? The KR built a society of uneducated peasants and today, many are still poor, still without skills. They built a society who fear each other, fear speaking their minds. They built a society that is, today, living with corruption; they are powerless to do anything about it.
Many Cambodians talk about corruption in their country. The police take bribes -- they get paid a small salary, so they make it up by their own means. Even teachers take bribes! Yes, even teachers. The public school system doesn't pay much, so teachers require students to pay for a lesson, or for the results of a test. Ex-pats have told me that if a person were to be run down in the street, he would not be taken to a hospital without a 'bribe' to pay the ambulance: no money, no go. The same applies to treatment once arriving. A woman, a volunteer English teacher in Phnom Penh, rallied her friends and family at home to donate much needed text books for her students. While shipment was paid for in the States, the postal sevice asked for an additional couple of hundred dollars just to deliver the package to her -- and these books were to help the people of their society.
Even the Angkor temples are mired with corruption. They Angkor complex is 'rented' by a foreigner. All the profit goes into his pocket, not towards the temples and not towards the Khmer society. It's hard to find a comparison, but that would be like 'renting' the Grand Canyon out to a European nation. Maybe Mexico... or why not Canada? It costs a Cambodian with good English skills $1000.00 to purchase a license to be a tour guide at the temples. Consider that the Hotel Sofitel pays tour bus drivers $80.00 per month and imagine how long it might take a person to save 1K while feeding his/her family and paying the rent.
It's not readily apparent to the traveler. I haven't experienced any sort of corruption outright -- perhaps one could consider the purchase of an Angkor ticket as such in a roundabout way. I have not been asked for a bribe. I have experienced nothing insulting or frightening or even mildly threatening. But the corruption is there, just a shallow scratch below the surface. It affects the people. People I have met and gotten to know: people like the orphans who used to pick through garbage at the dump. People who have an education but no opportunities to use their skills. People without the chance to get an education. I heard about several factories in Battambang that have been closed without reason, eliminating jobs. The same products the factories would produce must now come from neighboring countries, costing Khmers both jobs and money on the elevated purchase price. It just doesn't make sense.
Even with all the corruption, I still love Cambodia, but I am just a transient visitor. Would I love it if I lived here? Some ex-pats say the Cambodians are selfish. They've been programmed to be distrustful of their countrymen -- in the KR years, it was tattle or be killed. How can a society endure that and come out unscathed? For this, some ex-pats say the Cambodians are dysfunctional, one generation passing it onto the next. But I have not seen bad behavior, malicious intent. In Cambodians, I have seen nothing but a genuine kindness. But I'm am just a transient visitor, just barely scratching the surface...
Hun Sen, the prime minister (and former KR, but no-one talks about that we are told), was just quoted in the local newspaper. He said the trials won't take place if the foreign 'donors' don't make good on providing money to cover the Cambodian government's expenses. Imagine!
Apparently some deal was made with a number of foreign countries to provide some funds if the Cambodian government kicked in its share, but now the government is claiming that it has no money for the trials. Still, they want foreign countries to pay their promise, PLUS the amount Cambodia is responsible for. No donors, no trial. It's a standstill. Hun Sen accuses the foreigners of broken promises, even though those promises were based on Cambodia's own promise, now broken. More than likely, it is a ruse to keep the trials from happening. A trial would only be good for the people of Cambodia and it seems that the government does nothing for the public's interest.
The KR years are a stain on the earth. A scar. The state of society today is, in some part, a result of the wreckage the KR created of the country. Of course, people have moved on, things have changed, the KR is no longer in rule. But how could those years not affect things in this time? The KR built a society of uneducated peasants and today, many are still poor, still without skills. They built a society who fear each other, fear speaking their minds. They built a society that is, today, living with corruption; they are powerless to do anything about it.
Many Cambodians talk about corruption in their country. The police take bribes -- they get paid a small salary, so they make it up by their own means. Even teachers take bribes! Yes, even teachers. The public school system doesn't pay much, so teachers require students to pay for a lesson, or for the results of a test. Ex-pats have told me that if a person were to be run down in the street, he would not be taken to a hospital without a 'bribe' to pay the ambulance: no money, no go. The same applies to treatment once arriving. A woman, a volunteer English teacher in Phnom Penh, rallied her friends and family at home to donate much needed text books for her students. While shipment was paid for in the States, the postal sevice asked for an additional couple of hundred dollars just to deliver the package to her -- and these books were to help the people of their society.
Even the Angkor temples are mired with corruption. They Angkor complex is 'rented' by a foreigner. All the profit goes into his pocket, not towards the temples and not towards the Khmer society. It's hard to find a comparison, but that would be like 'renting' the Grand Canyon out to a European nation. Maybe Mexico... or why not Canada? It costs a Cambodian with good English skills $1000.00 to purchase a license to be a tour guide at the temples. Consider that the Hotel Sofitel pays tour bus drivers $80.00 per month and imagine how long it might take a person to save 1K while feeding his/her family and paying the rent.
It's not readily apparent to the traveler. I haven't experienced any sort of corruption outright -- perhaps one could consider the purchase of an Angkor ticket as such in a roundabout way. I have not been asked for a bribe. I have experienced nothing insulting or frightening or even mildly threatening. But the corruption is there, just a shallow scratch below the surface. It affects the people. People I have met and gotten to know: people like the orphans who used to pick through garbage at the dump. People who have an education but no opportunities to use their skills. People without the chance to get an education. I heard about several factories in Battambang that have been closed without reason, eliminating jobs. The same products the factories would produce must now come from neighboring countries, costing Khmers both jobs and money on the elevated purchase price. It just doesn't make sense.
Even with all the corruption, I still love Cambodia, but I am just a transient visitor. Would I love it if I lived here? Some ex-pats say the Cambodians are selfish. They've been programmed to be distrustful of their countrymen -- in the KR years, it was tattle or be killed. How can a society endure that and come out unscathed? For this, some ex-pats say the Cambodians are dysfunctional, one generation passing it onto the next. But I have not seen bad behavior, malicious intent. In Cambodians, I have seen nothing but a genuine kindness. But I'm am just a transient visitor, just barely scratching the surface...
posted by Cheryn at 6:19 PM
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