Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In February 1999, foreign donor governments convened a summit in Tokyo and
pledged another $471 million toward Cambodia's development. This time, however, they
imposed conditions. With the war over, the Cambodian government was now expected to
get serious about reform. Hun Sen thanked the donors for their generosity and reeled off
an impressive list of planned reforms, pledging to fight corruption and illegal logging, de-
mobilize the bloated armed forces, and drag Cambodia's financial management systems
out of the dark ages. 12 Nothing much happened. The coming years would see the creation
of a dizzying mirage of strategies, action plans, councils, coordination bodies, monitor-
ing mechanisms, and reform benchmarks—and very little real progress. Corruption still
infected every sphere of Cambodian society.
In mid-1999 Western governments that had poured millions into ridding Cambodia of
deadly landmines were shocked to learn of significant corruption in the Cambodian Mine
Action Centre (CMAC). Established in 1993, the government's demining office had been
hailed as a poster-child of international partnership, and had succeeded, with Canadian
assistance, in training up skilled teams of Cambodian deminers. This pleasant image was
clouded when it emerged that around $90,000 in demining funds had been channeled in-
to a slush-fund controlled by CMAC's director, Sam Sotha. Donors soon learned of a
scheme in which demining teams were selectively sent to clear land owned by military
brass and government officials in exchange for kickbacks. Around $500,000 in mostly
donor funds had been used to clear a plantation owned by Chhouk Rin, the former Khmer
Rouge commander who had ordered the execution of the three Western tourists seized
from a train in 1994. Tens of thousands had been misappropriated in other ways. 13 An
outcry followed; Sotha was removed from his post. Six weeks later, it turned out that he
had in fact been promoted, becoming Hun Sen's “Advisor on CMAC Affairs and Land
Mine Victim Assistance.” 14
Similar allegations of corruption and fraud were later leveled within a $42 million
World Bank military demobilization initiative. Under the plan 30,000 RCAF soldiers
would be discharged and given $240 and various other goods as a starter-kit for life out-
side the army. It turned out that the army had inflated its manpower with tens of thousands
of “ghost soldiers,” whose military supplies, in time-honored fashion, flowed into the
pockets of high-ranking officers. The Bank later discovered that troops were bribing their
officers to get them back into the service and make them eligible for more handouts. 15 In
June 2003 the World Bank halted the demobilization project after detecting misprocure-
ment on a $6.9 million contract to provide motorbikes. The Bank then threatened to cut
off funds unless the government repaid some $2.7 million that had been creamed off the
contract. 16
Each corruption scandal followed a similar pattern: more finger-wagging from donors,
more government promises, and more fruitless monitoring schemes. The World Bank and
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