The Cambodia Daily reports that labour rights activists and a government official have accused the International Labour Organisation’s Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) programme of culpability in the collapse.

Penh Pal isn’t sure if this was because the BFC inspectors were all standing at the time on the mezzanine section above the factory floor when it collapsed under their weight?

The labour programme head of the Community Legal Education Centre, Moeun Tola, blamed the BFC for ineffectiveness by failing to disclose the names of factories that have flouted the nation’s laws on health and safety in factories. The director of the Ministry of Labour’s occupational safety and health department echoed these sentiments.

However Jill Tucker, technical advisor for the BFC countered that the factory in question was not part of the monitoring programme as it had only recently started to cover shoe factories. So far, it has only managed to bring nine of the 45 footwear factories currently exporting from Cambodia on board.

David Welsh, country director of The Solidarity Centre, also noted that if the BFC was too aggressive in it approach, many factories would simply opt out of the programme, which is voluntary.

This is not the first time of late that the BFC has been attacked. A report released in the middle of February, “Monitoring in the Dark,” by researchers from Stanford Law School, accused the BFC of failing to improve the lives of Cambodian garment workers. In fact, it claims, wages and basic job security have actually declined over the past dec­ade during the time the BFC has been in operation.

Multinational clothing retailers have been considering Cambodia as one of several countries that could be alternatives to Bangladesh for manufacturing after the disaster three weeks ago at the Rana Plaza factory complex there that killed at least 1,127 people but yesterday’s accident at the factory in Tream Tbal, about an hour’s drive southwest of Phnom Penh, is a reminder that workplace accidents and shoddy construction are not confined to Bangladesh.

Dangerous building practices appear to behind this accident as well, rather than the more usual problems of industrial fumes or inadequate sustenance – something that is not part of BFC’s remit.

A report just last month by BFC highlighted concerns about workplace safety, including “a worrying increase in fire safety violations.”

While the cause of the ceiling collapse was not immediately known, the secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), Ken Loo said that steel beams holding up a concrete-floored storage area at mezzanine height between two buildings had given way. One of the workers injured in the collapse said the mezzanine was “overloaded” with materials.

The factory, Wing Star Shoes, which opened about 18 months ago, employs about 8,000 people, was making shoes for Asics, an athletic shoe company based in Kobe, Japan, which are popular with runners, particularly in the United States.

16^th May 2013

Kindly prepared by Samatha Hill

This week marks the beginning of Coeliac awareness week.  Currently affecting 1 in 100 people, Coeliac disease is widely undiagnosed. Indeed, only 10-15% of people with the disease actually get diagnosed.

So what is Coeliac disease?

Despite common misconceptions, it is not a food allergy. It is an immune reaction that is triggered by the consumption of gluten, malt, barley, rye and sometimes oats. This immune reaction damages the lining of the small intestine.

Undiagnosed or untreated Coeliac disease could lead to complications such as osteoporosis, infertility and some rare cancers. This highlights the importance of detecting whether or not you have it. There is no specific age when Coeliac disease starts but the average age of diagnosis is between 40-60 years old.

Delayed diagnosis is common, and according to Coeliac UK research, the average time it takes to be diagnosed is 13 years. And not everyone displays symptoms.

For example, I was only diagnosed after nine months of recurring mouth ulcers, which led to my own research into possible causes. Some common symptoms are bloating and abdominal pain, anaemia, nausea or vomiting, fatigue, chronic or occasional diarrhoea, and/or headaches.

Once diagnosed, a life long strict gluten-free diet must be taken up. This poses a few problems when travelling. However, after a few days in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, I realised that it wasn’t going to be too hard to find gluten-free food, as there is an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables sold everywhere, from street markets to restaurants.

Just down the road to where I am staying, for instance, is the Russian market, selling plain fish, vegetables, rice and eggs – all of which you can cook up back at your apartment.  Local supermarkets sell canned baked beans and soups, some of which are gluten-free.

Eating out gluten-free is slightly trickier, but I have managed to find some excellent places that understand the concept of strict gluten free dining.

K’nyay, St 268

Hidden down an alley next to the Independence Monument, K’nyay is a wonderful restaurant that caters for vegetarians, vegans and Coeliacs. Their food is locally sourced and freshly prepared. All of their dishes are gluten free unless it states otherwise on the menu. This was the first time for me to try the national dish, Amok, which is a coconut-based fish curry steamed in a banana leaf. They also offer sweet potato & taro fries, curries, soups, meat dishes, and desserts, all of which are gluten free. This is a lovely place to eat, with a great atmosphere and very reasonable prices.

The Vegetarian, St. 200

This place also caters for gluten free, vegan and vegetarian diets. Their food is fresh, healthy and ethically sourced. They have a selection of Asian and Western dishes from rice noodle soups to coconut milk banana dessert. Perfect for a light lunch or an evening meal.

Cafe Yejj, St 450

This is my favourite place to sit, eat and write. They serve fresh fruit bowls with honey and yogurt. They also serve fish dishes and salads that are naturally gluten-free, just opt for no dressings.

Bloom Café #40 St 222 

This is fun and creative cafe to sit and get your sugar fix. They offer delicious gluten free cup cakes and this month they have Blueberry and Lemon Cake and the Orange and Almond Cake. Beautifully decorated and at a very good price. Bloom are also opening up a sister company in Siem Reap this September called Blossom.

ARTillery Café, St 240½  

Offering homemade, organic food, this café caters for vegans, Coeliacs and those with lactose intolerance. They offer fresh salads, tapas, smoothies and yogurts – great for a light lunch.

Jars of Clay, St 155

A quaint cafe just by the Russian market, they offer baked potatoes with a selection of gluten free toppings. They also serve fresh coconut for dessert.

Vego Salad Bar, St 51 & 21B St 294

Offering fresh salads throughout the day, this place is reasonably priced and offers free home delivery. You can create your own salad from a choice of healthy greens, fruit and cheeses.

Luna D’Autuno, St 29

This Italian restaurant offers a variety of gluten free tapas and risottos. They also offer salads and fruit dessert. They have an outside and inside dining area, with live music once a month.

Overall, Phnom Penh has a lot to offer in terms of gluten free produce. Hopefully this is the shape of things to come. Happy dining!

At last it can be revealed who is really behind the land grab here in Cambodia “causing widespread evictions, illegal logging and food insecurity.”

It is the two Western financial institutions, Deutsche Bank and the International Finance Corporation – the World Bank’s private lending arm – that have bankrolled the two Vietnamese firms responsible, according to a year-long investigation by Global Witness.

The report names two of Vietnam’s biggest companies, the privately owned Huang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) and state-owned Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG), working with the explicit support of the authorities here that authorised the “economic land concessions.”

Current figures show that Cambodia has leased nearly three-quarters of its arable land – 2.6m hectares – in economic land concessions (ELCs), 80% of which were turned into rubber plantations, and 14% of which went to Vietnam.

Vietnam accounts for one-third of the world’s rubber market, while Cambodia is an increasingly dominant player with rubber exports bringing some $US200m a year, making it the ninth-largest natural rubber producer.

Global Witness, which has previously exposed the invidious nature of resource management in Cambodia, discovered that HAGL and VRG between them had been handed more than 200,000 hectares (nearly 500,000 acres) of land, including protected forest, to grow rubber trees.

It is the usual tawdry story of local residents without title being forced off land they have occupied, sometimes for decades, without their consent or being compensated. Instead they are expected to work on the rubber plantation for wages.

Actually, this is unlikely. Usually workers are brought in to do the work, often from across the border. Meanwhile, displaced villagers often face destitution and are usually forced to move elsewhere.

The Global Witness report alleges the IFC invested $US14.95m in a Vietnamese fund that holds 5% equity in HAGL, while Deutsche Bank owns some $US4.5m-worth of HAGL shares. Deutsche Bank is also said to have 1.2m shares in a subsidiary company of VRG amounting to more than $US3m.

However, in a statement sent to Global Witness and reported by The Guardian, VRG said it was licensed to operate in both Cambodia and Laos, while HAGL released a statement confirming that the company’s subsidiaries invested in rubber plantations in both country but the firm “denies seizing land, illegally exploiting wood and other corruption [sic] behaviours in Laos and Cambodia.”

Deutsche Bank rebutted Global Witness’s claims that it was “financing Vietnamese rubber companies” and said, in a statement: “Deutsche Bank is not providing financing to Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (HAGL) … or Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG), according to the report by The Guardian. “The DWS fund shares referred to are held on behalf of investors. Deutsche Bank provides only clerical trustee services to HAGL, as it does to thousands of listed companies globally.”

In a written response to Global Witness seen by The Guardian, the IFC confirmed its shares in HAGL and said: “IFC works with financial intermediaries, such as funds, because they can contribute to sound, inclusive, and sustainable financial markets that are essential to eradicating poverty and job creation.”

While not disputing the accuracy of the Global Witness report, many analysts here are wondering what exactly the point of this exercise is?

In countries where the Rule of Law is weak and the locals regard forests are resources to be ruthlessly exploited (and where 40% of the country’s forests have disappeared in the last four decades), this behaviour is almost to be expected.

The controversial Wildlife Alliance (WA) discovered this a week ago when locals in Koh Kong province’s Mondol Seima district submitted a complaint saying they have been prevented from farming in the area after WA arrived and implemented a forestry conservation project in 2004.

Apparently WA riled the villagers when it intervened to stop one of them clearing a spot in the forest in order to claim it as part of the land-titling programme taking place a the time.

What is interesting about VGR and DWS is that they appear to be actually developing rubber plantations and not simply using this as a cover to remove all the valuable timber from the vicinity.

While acknowledging that there are undoubtedly injustices around land clearances here in Cambodia, one wonders if there isn’t something of a “noble savage” attitude towards development here on the part of Global Witness?

‘One man’s meat is another man’s poison’, goes the popular saying but now the UN is telling us it is time to get over our cultural aversion to one of Nature’s primary sources of high-protein, low-fat nutrition: insects.

A new report, “Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security” from the UNs’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is recommending that we learn to overcome our squeamishness of an abundant food source. Some of the reasons are:

1. They are good for you

The FAO estimates that there are between 1,000 – 1,900 edible insect species. These are a “highly nutritious and healthy food source” chock-full of protein, vitamins, and fibre. Looking to score some omega-3s? Eating mealworms will give you the same amount of the healthy fatty acids as eating fish.

Biologists agree, claiming that certain types of beetles, ants, crickets, and grasshoppers offer nearly as much protein per gram as lean red meat or broiled fish. Insects can also be rich in copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium and zinc. They are also a source of fibre.

 2. They are more sustainable for the environment

Crickets need twelve times less feed than cattle to produce the same amount of protein, while chicken and pigs require double the feed, according to the FAO. Less feed means fewer resources are needed to produce your meal.

We have long known that raising beef is a huge waste of resources, as the animals trample as much grass as they eat, and later, in food lots, only convert a small proportion of the food they consume into protein that humans can eat. And in China, which consumes 60% of the world’s pork, pigs compete directly with humans in terms of what they are fattened on.

Insects also don’t emit as much methane and ammonia as traditional livestock, plus they can be reared on “organic side-streams,” things our digestive tracts are unable to process, into forms that we can (them!).

3. You eat lobster, don’t you?

So you are probably already eating them. Think about it, lobster, prawns and shrimp, like tarantulas and centipedes, are arthropods (think about that exoskeleton next time you crunch through it – no different from other arthropods). They are effectively the insects of the water, and scavengers at that, eating all the detritus that accumulates on the bottom, helping keep our sea and waterways clean. They were once considered “poor-man’s food,” unfit for refined palates.

If you can’t bring yourself to pop a bug into your gob, an alternative would be to raise them as animal feed, the report says, but if you are uncomfortable with eating meat of animals reared on a diet of common houseflies that have been fed on human faeces and abattoir blood, recall that cows in the US have commonly been fattened in food lots on a combination of grain mixed with chicken manure. Yum!

4. Insects are usually not vectors of diseases that threaten our survival

Unlike Chickens and pigs, insects are generally not repositories of infections, such as avian influenza and the recently discovered Sars-like coronavirus that poises a constant risk to us humans. Often we come into contact with these viruses through birds and pass them on to pigs where they can mutate into more dangerous forms of the disease. Given the mortality rates (above 50%) of these viruses, raising these animals could well be a threat to our very survival.

5. They are good for economic development

Starting a cattle farm, especially in the developing world, can be costly and uses a lot of space that could be better used to grow crops. According to the FAO, raising insects is a great option for poor rural farmers as insects take up little space, are easy to raise, and reproduce quickly for a fast return on an initial investment.

This has already turned into an increasingly profitable small-scale industry in rural Thailand, where increasing numbers of people are learning to tuck into deep-fried insect snacks. Raised in captivity, they could also be kept in sterile conditions and, importantly, avoid the risk that they were collected after being poisoned with insecticides in the wild.

6. Plenty of people already eat them

The FAO estimates that two billion people already eat insects regularly worldwide, especially in tropical countries like here in Cambodia, where insects are big and plentiful. With temperature rises predicted that could make raising livestock increasingly problematic here, eating insects could become a matter of survival.

Better to get used to the idea, as meat from animals is likely to price itself out of the market within your lifetime!

Malaria spreads in human populations because female Anopheles mosquitoes carrying malaria-inducing Plasmodium parasites bite people and pass it into their bloodstream. Now a new study has demonstrated that it may be possible to use a bacterium that stops the parasite developing in the mosquito and create a stable population where female mosquitoes pass this parasite immunity onto their daughters.

It has been described as a bit like probiotics for mosquitoes.

In a paper reported in the journal Science on 10^th May, lead investigator Zhiyong Xi from Michigan State University (MSU), explains how it works.

In the study, Xi and colleagues infected the mosquitoes with a bacterium called Wolbachia, which commonly occurs in insects and is already known to stop malaria-inducing Plasmodium parasites from developing in Anopheles mosquitoes.

There are five types of malaria parasites that affect humans: Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium knowlesi, and Plasmodium ovale. Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax are the most common, while Plasmodium falciparum is the most serious – accounting for most malarial deaths.

Here in Cambodia, the two main mosquito carriers are Anopheles Minimus and Anopheles Dairus, two of four species of mosquitoes that carry malaria, but in this study the scientists focused on Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes, the primary carrier in the Middle East and South Asia.

“Wolbachia-based malaria control strategy has been discussed for the last two decades. Our work is the first to demonstrate Wolbachia can be stably established in a key malaria vector, the mosquito species Anopheles stephensi, which opens the door to use Wolbachia for malaria control,” Xi explained. “You could just release large number of infected females and establish Wolbachia in a mosquito population”

The challenge now is that Wolbachia appears to inhibit the mosquitoes chances of reproducing – reducing by half the number of eggs that hatch – a big disadvantage for the malaria-resistant mosquitoes out in the wild as they wouldn’t be able to compete with their bacteria-free cousins.

If a successful strain could be developed, however, this could have significant implications for Cambodia, where clinical trials in 2007-2008 orchestrated by the WHO confirmed the emergence of artemisinin resistance by falciparum malaria parasites along the Thai-Cambodian border.

This is extremely serious because resistance to a number of formerly-effective malaria drugs originated from the Thai-Cambodian border and then spread west to South Asia, then Africa – where most malaria deaths occur. If this were to occur with artemisinins, millions of lives could be at risk. It would also be a huge setback to intense international efforts over recent years to combat the threat of malaria globally.

Australian scientists have already started such testing for dengue fever, another disease transmitted by mosquitoes. A few years ago, a team at Monash University in Melbourne figured out that Wolbachia infection makes the Aedes aegypti mosquito resistant to the dengue virus.

This approach has a number of important advantages over spraying pesticides for dengue and malaria control as it would be permanent because the system is self-propagating.

Now, if only they could figure out how to turn off the sound the mosquitoes make when they are hovering around your head in the middle of the night!

As the death toll in Bangladesh’s worst industrial disaster soared to 1006, as more bodies were evacuated from the rubble of a collapsed nine-storey building outside the capital Dhaka, according to the AFP, the impact could have important implications for the industry here in Cambodia.

Already international pressure is growing on western clothing brands that outsource to contract manufacturers in Bangladesh in the wake of the deadly building collapse. The usual suspects, such as Oxfam have seized the opportunity to demand all companies involved in Bangladesh manufacturing take responsibility by being more transparent about their practices in the country.

“International brands must take responsibility for what has happened there,” said Laila Blanch from War on Want (WoW), which has launched an online petition against high street brands Primark, Matalan and Mango. “They outsourced the production to countries such as Bangladesh and China because of the lowest wages in the world,” she said, accusing them of ignoring “very poor health and safety standards.”

Retailers such as Britain’s low-cost chain Primark and Canada’s Loblaw have offered compensation to victims and their families, but a further twenty-eight unnamed brands risk having their names (and reputations) associated in the disaster.

This comes as a fire at another manufacturer killed another eight people overnight.

WoW has demanded the brands sign the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement. Oxfam Australia is demanding local brands that use Bangladeshi factories also sign this agreement, which requires retailers to publicly name the locations of its factories in Bangladesh so NGOs and other organisations can independently check working conditions and building safety.

Target, Kmart and Cotton On, who all source materials from Bangladesh, have agreed to meet with Oxfam but are yet to decide whether they will sign the agreement. Other Australian brands, Pacific Brands and Big W, who also source from Bangladesh, have not yet said whether they will meet with Oxfam or sign the agreement, according to the AFP.

Meanwhile, most brand owners are trying their best to distance themselves from any connection to Bangladesh.

Few consumers seem to understand that brand owners do not actually manufacture the garments that bear their labels. Instead they have contract manufacturers compete (usually on price) to fulfil their orders. These contract manufacturers are usually under pressure to meet strict guidelines to meet their contracts, and health and safety are generally seen as costs that contribute little to the bottom line. Instead it is all about volume and speed.

At the end of the day, it is the brand owners that make most of the profit. A $US30 tee shirt may only cost the brand owner only 30 cents to purchase from the manufacturer. The most valuable piece of the garment is often the label.

Bangladesh is close to some of the world’s largest cotton-growing areas – an important competitive advantage. Many of the contract manufacturers are also very well connected members of the country’s leading political party, the Awami League of Sheikh Hasina. This points up a key issue: the rule of law is weak and building codes and working conditions are largely unregulated.

However, the main reason the garment industry is so large is because labour in this pitifully poor country is cheap. Workers there earn on average around half of what they earn here in Cambodia.

In the fall-out from the litany of bad news coming out of Bangladesh, it is quite possible that some of these brands will move to Cambodia. While the conditions here are vastly better than in Bangladesh, they are still far from ideal.

A recurring problem here is mass faintings, likely related to poor nutrition, forced overtime and poor occupational health and safety. Poor nutrition would appear to be the key factor, as many female workers are under intense pressure to remit as much money home to their families in the countryside as possible.

According to Dave Welsh, local representative of the American Labor Solidarity Center, this could be easily solved by the brand owners subsidising canteens on site that offer more nutritional fare than the multitude of cheap eateries that crowd the factory gate at most manufacturing plants.

Rather than banging on about how audits of factories can be gamed, it is time activist organisations like Oxfam started pressuring the brand owners to come to the party to offer such a simple but effective solution, and stopped passing the buck by applying pressure to the contract manufacturers.

Meanwhile, the latest news from the site of the Rana Plaza disaster in Dhaka is that people have been turning up to claim bodies for the rubble, demanding immediate compensation, then taking the bodies around the corner and dumping them in the canal.

Almost makes the situation here in Cambodia seem quite benign.

To mark Red Cross Day, the nation’s political and business elite in Phnom Penh have generously donated more than $US14 million to the Cambodian Red Cross (CRC), the largest humanitarian organisation in the Kingdom, according to a report in The Cambodia Daily.

Apparently, so dedicated to demonstrate their commitment to what the organisation represents, dozens lined up for up to two hours to personally hand over their contributions to the president of the organisation, Bun Rany, the wife of our dear leader, and to pose for photos with the Kingdom’s power couple.

This was on the same day as Royal Palace Minister, Sam Ol, presented Bun Rany with the highest honorific that a public figure can be awarded here, ‘Samdech’. Currently this is held by only a select group of officials in the CPP, including the triumvirate of the PM, Senate president Chea Sim, and National Assembly President Heng Samrin.

The Korean firm responsible for the latest satellite city project in the capital, the Boonyoung Group, was the biggest donor to the CRC, proffering $US3, while PP casino operator, NagaCorp, and the Vietnamese military-owned telecom firm Metfone tied for second place with half a million each. Chinese Huawei Technology came in next with $US200000.

As the CRC is dedicated to poverty reduction, one assumes these generous donations will go a long way to achieving this end.

For a start, it is time the fleet of Lexus were replaced with Range Rovers.

It will be interesting to see if the CRC evolves into something reminiscent of Thailand’s Royal Projects, a series of independent (and unaccountable) development projects under the control of the Palace that enjoy generous financial and political support from the government.

Joel Brinkley, Pulitzer-prize-winning author of Cambodia’s Curse has written an interesting survey of the controversy involving Britain’s largest sugar marketer Tate & Lyle and a land deal here in Cambodia.

After plotting the propensity of Chinese local governments to land grab, Brinkley claims the problem in Cambodia is even on a bigger scale as a proportion of the country, citing a recent report in The Cambodia Daily that the government was responsible for seizing around 10% of the country’s total land area for economic land concessions distributed to private commercial interests.

He noted that Cambodia had enacted a Land Law intended to limit the social costs of these seizures back in 2001 in response to diplomatic pressure from NGOs and various human rights groups “to mollify the Western donors who keep the government afloat” but has since, he says, roundly ignored its own legislation.

This has resulted in a large dispossessed “underclass of landless villagers with no means for self-sustenance.” Frequently, if land-seizure victims don’t immediately vacate their property, he says, they are arrested for trespassing and thrown in jail.

Brinkley then describes the work of a US lawyer who stumbled onto a way to punish those businesses that have indirectly gained benefit from the land grabs in order to bring pressure on the government to act.

Rather than try and work through the local courts, which are seen as venal and disinclined to challenge the rich and powerful, Mark Moorstein, a land-use lawyer in Northern Virginia, used a partner law firm in Britain, Jones Day, to sue the British sugar giant Tate & Lyle in a British court on behalf of the 200 villagers affected by the initial cultivation of the sugar cane.

In response to the suit, Tate and Lyle has tried to quit itself of this political hot potato by selling the unit covered by the suit to American Sugar Refining, better known in the US under the brand Domino Sugar, which is now the defendant.

No doubt this will now be tried under US law.

Back in 1996, lawyers for a group of Burmese villagers used the  Alien Tort Claims Act (ATS) to sue UNOCAL for using forced labour as well as other abuses while constructing a pipeline in Myanmar. Shortly afterwards, a group of Nigerians, including relatives of the playwright, Ken Saro-Wiwa, accused Shell of complicity in human-rights abuses. Vietnamese villagers also sued Dow Chemical and others for injuries caused by the Agent Orange.

Since then, roughly 150 lawsuits have been filed against American and foreign corporations for actions committed around the world. Since the UNOCAL case, a human rights organisation used it to sue Yahoo! on behalf of two Chinese democracy activists for actions committed in China by a subsidiary. ATS suits against DaimlerChrysler and Rio Tinto, among others, are pending.

Adopted in 1789 (possibly to target pirates), the ATS allows for civil actions by aliens for wrongful acts “committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” However, while plenty of publicity has been gained, no outright victories have been won (Shell settled out of court, as did UNOCAL), but the costs of settlements can be high and the negative publicity damaging, according to The Economist magazine.

However, in a unanimous decision released on April 17^th, the US Supreme Court dramatically limits the ability of plaintiffs to file suit against corporations in American courts for actions committed abroad.

In the Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell) Kiobel ruling, the court holds that the ATS does not apply to actions committed by foreign companies, and noted a strong presumption against applying American law outside the United States.

While businesses might welcome this, The Economist warns the respite could be short-lived as courts in other countries, such as the Netherlands and Britain, have recently become more active in punishing firms for misdeeds abroad and human rights campaigners have taken note.

The Cambodian government, meanwhile, argues that the action of granting economic land concessions is necessary for the country’s future prosperity.

Small subsidence farmers working small inefficient land holdings rarely contribute to the national economy or pay any taxes. Yet, as citizens, they usually feel entitled to services. While this demand remains largely dormant now, it could easily grow, especially if there was a move towards more democratic politics (which is what human rights groups are demanding).

Of course, the British dealt with similar problems with the Inclosures and Scottish Clearances and the American by genocide against their indigenous population, but it would be uncharitable to mention this.

Or, for that matter, the ethnic cleansing happening in the Palestinian territories right now, which never gets mentioned in the US press.

A cynic might think that the NGO community has little real interest in the country’s economic development (development may lead to people here taking control of their own destiny and no longer having a need for the services provided by the NGOs).

Here at Penh Pal we would never jump to such a conclusion, but do wonder what development model the human rights groups, etc, have in mind?

With possibly watershed elections due tomorrow in Malaysia, and stirrings in many of the peninsula’s neighbours, we at Penh Pal are curious to know if we might not see an outbreak of genuine democracy finally arriving in the region.

By democracy, we mean a system where two or more fairly equally sized parties contest for the popular vote, and there are fairly regular changes in government, so that elites become less well entrenched and are forced to be accountable to the electorate at large.

Up until now, despotic and paternalistic governments remain the general rule throughout the region.

The pundits are predicting a very tight race tomorrow but few are anticipating that the opposition will actually win power.

Like its neighbour to the south, Singapore, Malaysia has essentially been a one-party state, for 56 years since independence, despite the opposition winning an increasing number of state elections. The country has struggled with reconciling its Malay heritage with the overlay of inherited British constitutional system of government, as well as with complex ethnic and religious tensions.

Adbul Razak, the second prime minister in Malaysia’s history, responded to anti-Chinese pogroms in 1969 by setting up a system of populist race-based quotas favouring the country’s “sons of the soil”, the ethnic Malays. These have largely defined its politics ever since.

Now, the current PM Najib Razak, the Tun’s son, is tentatively trying to dismantle this system, steering a perilous path between appeasing UMNO Malay chauvinists while also meeting the growing demand for greater social fairness from the wider society.

For instance, in 2009 Najib overturned a long-standing requirement for certain companies to sell at least 30% of their shares to Malays, but has stopped short of addressing the bulk of preferential racial policies that infuriate ethnic Chinese and Indian Malaysians, particularly those involving education and the tender of government contracts.

Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition, Anwar Ibrahim, is facing his last chance to complete an extraordinary escape from near-death, politically speaking, and is now closer to power now than at any time since his meteoric career came crashing down in 1998 when he fell out with his mentor, Mahathir Mohamad, whose despotic 22 -year reign continues to leave a pall over the country (and who continues to meddle behind the scenes).

Calls for “Reformasi” continue to resonate, especially with urban youth for whom the entrenched system of corrupt relationships between well-connected businessmen and politicians, and a plethora of scandals, has left a bitter taste.

However, according to Liam Hanlon, a political analyst at Cascade Asia Advisors, published in The Interpreter, the blog of Australia’s Lowy Institute for International Policy, behind the rhetoric between the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition and opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR), neither camp has formulated a viable, long-term solution to one of the country’s most deep-seated problems: fiscal imprudence.

Hanlon notes that Malaysia has long maintained a fiscal deficit especially when the debts of non-financial state enterprises were taken into account, along with contingent liabilities, such as government guarantees on debt and off balance sheet borrowings and a government proclivity towards subsidies and cash handouts, particularly when a national election is on the line.

In his election manifesto, Anwar also outlined “an agenda replete with a number of election sweeteners, including free secondary education, lower car prices, a higher minimum wage and a greater share of oil revenues for potential swing states Sabah and Sarawak.”

Unfortunately, Hanlon says, the political reality is that prudent fiscal management doesn’t win votes among an electorate increasingly worried by the rising cost of living. As a result of this political calculus, neither BN nor PR instils much confidence in the country’s medium-term fiscal future.

When voters head to the polls on Sunday, the race could very well be decided in the potential swing states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo. While the BN coalition has traditionally carried the areas, there are indications that the PR could this time make significant electoral gains due to discontent with pervasive corruption amongst entrenched elites and local ethnic tensions.

If by some miracle, the PR wins (and if BN actually concedes power), one of the positive outcomes should be greater accountability. This could be true even if PR loses but the election is close. The fiscal deficit could be a poisoned chalice, however, that come back to haunt either party.

Myanmar

In Myanmar, democracy slouches towards Naypyidaw to be born, despite the efforts of Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch and various journalists to stymie its evolution by insisting it is all just a fraud to keep the military in power. They also seem to think that Rakine state in the country’s west should be allowed to be annexed by next-door Bangladesh as a home for its surplus population, who they insist of calling Rohingya. (O.K. this last statement is an exaggeration, but you get my point.)

Western critics seem equally determined to prove that the opposition leader Aug San Su Kyi – as she moves from icon to engaging in real politics – has feet of clay, although what the point of this is, is impossible to fathom. You would think they would have realised that politics is a grubby business.

Nevertheless, so far things seem to be going as well as can be expected in a country when ethnic tensions have long been keep firmly under the thumb of the army and are only now being given (often bloody) vent.

Thailand

Thailand remains a surprising laggard in the region, with the threat of a coup against the red-shirt aligned Puea Thai government a continuing possibility.

The country has a long history of despotic and paternalistic regimes dating back to the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932, with the likes of Field Marshals Pibun and Sarit, and more recently King Bhumibol (who, while never ruling directly, did so through various proxies, most recently, the Democrat Party) running the country largely at their personal discretion.

One of histories great ironies is that the Thai elite sent their ‘best and brightest’ to public schools in Britain where they (surprise, surprise) absorbed the colonial attitudes of their hosts, which they then brought home with them and applied to their own people.

Now, however, the people of the northeast (Isaan) and the north are tired of being treated as third-class citizens. Unfortunately, they appear equally susceptible to the siren son of populism of the paternalistic and despotic Thaksin Shinawhatra, who remains the power behind the current government.

Thai PM Yingluck has tried her best to tiptoe through the minefield, disarming everyone with her feminine wiles, but recently revealed her true feelings at an international conference on democracy in Mongolia when she acknowledged that deep-state elements continue to exercise tremendous authority in Thai politics. She cited quangos established by the military-backed 2007 constitution with the power to overrule the decisions of the majority-elected government, but didn’t mention the military, which sees itself as a separate arm of government and sole guarantor of the corrosive national ideology of King, Nation and Religion.

This has apparently alarmed those in the old elite looking for any excuse to keep Thaksin, who they loath, out of the country. Thaksin, a fish out of water, is equally determined to risk everything – including Puea Thai’s grip on power – to return home.

The state ideology, based on complete fantasy, remains the central component of the national educational curriculum, and is a key reason why the country cannot seem to move ahead, because it makes any intelligent discussion of the country’s future impossible amongst Thai themselves. Instead we have an uneasy stand-off between two largely equal camps.

Vietnam

The prospect of a new constitution, to be debated in the National Assembly in May with the goal of adoption at the end of the year, has generated intense discussion, especially online, according to an insightful article by Prof. Yoshiharu Tsuboi of Japan’s Waseda University.

When 72 politicians, intellectuals and other publicly respected figures, 80% of them Communist Party members led by former Minister of Justice Nguyen Dinh Loc, announced “Petition 72″ on the Internet in January, however, the party panicked.

It proposed the end of one-party rule and the introduction of a multi-party system, plus the introduction of checks and balances among judicial, legislative and executive branches of government. It recommended changes to the current constitutional clause on human rights that restricts these rights for political reasons, and suggested the abolition of public land ownership and the revival of private ownership so that farmers will own their land. Finally, it wants change is the role of the military away from guaranteeing the leadership of the party, as well as similar democratic reforms.

Tsuboi reports that the petitioners were floating a balloon to try and open up debate on the country’s future rather that ignite a resurrection but even this proved too much for the authorities who clearly are terrified of such a debate taking on a life of its own. Thy fear losing their prerogatives or worst, the pervasive corruption that underpins the system being exposed to scrutiny.

First, Communist Party Secretary-General Nguyen Phu Trong sharply criticised the petition at the end of February, and then universities were apparently ordered to expel students who signed the petition.

The country remains in lockdown, metaphorically speaking. Just how sustainable this is, is difficult to judge but the economic challenges facing the country could yet force the pace. Without escape valves, it has the potential to get very messy.

Cambodia

Here in Cambodia, the political system created by the Cambodian Peoples Party is looking increasingly durable.

Julia Wallace, managing editor of The Cambodia Daily, describes how half a dozen or more sons of high-ranking members of the CPP are being advanced by their fathers as parliamentary candidates in the national elections in July, including a gaggle of our dear leader’s children. Others are being groomed for senior positions in the nomenclature.

The country appears to becoming a patronage-based political system – just like most of its neighbours.

Wallace concedes that the CPP claims that the children of the ruling elite are merely the most qualified candidates has a ring of truth as these children of privilege attend the best international schools in Phnom Penh, and are often sent abroad for expensive degrees. The bar, however, is not very high.

As an example of the level of the discourse, on May 2^nd Hun Sen told an audience that his eldest son Hun Manet had been born in very auspicious circumstances, according to a report in The Cambodia Daily. He regaled a crowd of around 5000 people in Kompong Cham province of how a flashing light shot out of a Banyan tree and passed over the house a the very moment his son entered the world in 1978, making him the likely progeny of the Neak Ta Anchanh Thmar, a local deity.

The kids got my vote.

The PM has also been warning voters recently of what may happen if the unlikely event that the ruling party is thrown out: all new infrastructure projects will cease immediately, while the numerous schools and pagodas bearing the name of our dear leader will be torn down. He even raises the spectre of civil war, a threat that resonates with people who still have vivid memories of the last time this happened.

The lack of a credible opposition is the biggest challenge to the emergence of a two (or more) party system in the next decade or so.

However, this is a young country demographically, and most voters seem to have remarkably little knowledge of the country’s cruel past. They are more likely to be persuaded by bread and butter issues of the type that so appeal to the farmers next door in Thailand. Whether the country can afford such populist largess, however, is moot.

Ironically, the biggest threat to the country’s development might well be if our dear leader should “pop his clogs” prematurely. Without a successful transfer of the political batons, thing could get ugly very quickly.

It will be interesting to see what role social media plays in Cambodian politics in the future, especially if it moves on to the types of simple devices ordinary people here can afford. This has certainly played an important role in Malaysia by allowing young people access to news and opinions from sources outside government control.

The elephant in the room in all this of course is China. The outcome of the battle for control of the Middle Kingdom’s future may well ultimately determine what happens throughout the rest of the region.

You write that in your latest piece on the jailing of Canadian citizen Deo Kumar, charged with sexually abusing a 14 year-old Cambodian girl, that Siem Reap is “increasingly known as a destination for so-called sex tourists,” and that “Cambodia has long been a favoured destination for Canadian sex tourists.”

Would you mind substantiating these bald claims, which are highly damaging to this impoverished country’s reputation as a tourist destination?

You seem to be referring to how things were in Cambodia prior to 2002 when the government here cracked down hard at the insistence of the UN.

You also mention that 2 million foreigners visited Cambodia in the first 10 months of 2012 (an increase of 23.7% over the previous year) but there were 103 reports of tourists “suspected of sexually exploiting children during that period” and that since 2007, of 798 people arrested, less than half (322) have been prosecuted, which you suggest is due to corruption in the judiciary and amongst politicians in Cambodia.

Of course, this corruption can swing both ways as corrupt officials here come to see such accusations as a profitable way to extort money from tourists innocently caught in compromising situations? Anecdotal evidence suggests this is also happening but tourists so entrapped are too embarrassed to do anything other that pay up and try to leave as soon as possible before their reputations are irretrievably besmirched.

Despite your disclaimer, anyone so accused is usually found guilty in the court of public opinion no matter what else transpires.

Isn’t it just as likely that articles like yours are responsible for suggesting to men with predilections towards sex with children that Cambodia is a country where they stand a good chance of indulging their proclivity and getting away with it?

It seems that as the traditional media finds it increasingly difficult to make money in the face of the onslaught of online media, a convergence of interests in forming with charities and NGOs in the developing world that are also hungry for money to keep their operations going.

There appears to us to be evidence that journalists from the West are coming to Cambodia for brief visits where they meet up with NGOs and then write up articles that are little more that puff pieces for those NGOs.

We would like to know if you are directly connected to the Christian organisations you promote (in your previous articles) or are receiving commissions for the money you are helping them to raise?