30 December--What? Me Worry? On 1 January 2001, a new law will go into effect in Cambodia making right-hand drive automobiles and trucks illegal.  Currently both right-hand drive and left-hand drive vehicles share the roads.  The chief of staff for the Ministry of the Interior says the new law will be strictly enforced.  Most drivers apparently don't believe that because, although the government has warned of the ban, only a few of the 20,000 right-hand drive vehicles here have been modified, a process which costs $500 for a standard car.  Their reluctance to spend the money for the changeover and their lack of fear of any consequences is probably because of the generally poor attitude toward the law here, where enforcement is irregular at best.  And where it happens, the offenders simply pay the police to let them go.  Any possible urgency about the upcoming deadline is also tempered by the fact that exact penalties for non-compliance haven't even been determined yet. Return to Top of Page 29 December 2000--Khmer Rouge Trial Bill The Cambodian parliament started debate today on the draft of a bill to bring former Khmer Rouge leaders to trial for their roles in the genocide that took place in the 1970s.  With amazing speed and unanimity, the first chapter--the overall outline of the bill--was approved; but even if this rapid pace continues, it does not mean that a trial will occur any time soon.  In addition to the time-consuming task of preparing a prosecution and collecting evidence, there is an additional problem of finding enough qualified Khmer legal personnel, especially judges, to proceed with the case.  The Cambodian legal system has been so riddled with corruption and political interference in recent decades that it wil be difficult to put together an acceptable and credible panel of judges who can satisfy international standards. Return to Top of Page 21 December--Money for Schools Today at a meeting about providing accessible schools for children with disabilities, we were told that 20% of Cambodia's schools were damaged by this year's extraordinary flooding.  Guidelines for making schools accessible are extra important at this juncture and must be distributed immediately so that when schools are rebuilt, they will be rebuilt with accessibility in mind.  It is important to get the accessibility guidelines to all the organizations working in education because they, not the government--which has no money--will be rebuilding schools. Return to Top of Page 14 December--Not Only the Khmer Rouge... Many Western nations are pushing hard now for the trial of the Khmer Rouge because of their campaign of genocide against their own people in the 1970s.  The present government is dragging its feet on the trial issue because many officials of this government had ties to the Khmer Rouge.  Average people would like to get past the physical and mental scars of that period, but many feel that getting to the truth would involve more than just the Khmer Rouge.  One man noted his surprise at the fine funeral ceremony accorded ex-President Nixon whom this man said is a war criminal who had bombed Cambodia illegally and is guilty of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Khmers. Return to Top of Page 10 December 2000--Human Rights Day At a ceremony on Friday marking the observance of today's Human Rights Day, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen criticized human rights groups in Cambodia. He said that they are antagonistic to the government here and that they are hypocritical in their stance on human rights because to the Cambodian government they say little progress has been made but when making application for more funds from their donors, they say progress is being made and so the funding should be continued. A spokesman for one of the human rights groups rejected Hun Sen's ideas and said that what the government calls criticism is basically a simple statement of the lack of human rights in Cambodia. Return to Top of Page 8 December 2000--NGO Culture in Developing Countries A critique (from a Los Angeles Times editorial) of the role NGOs play in developing countries. Return to Top of Page 4 December--Too Many "Days" Yesterday we in Phnom Penh celebrated the International Day for Disabled Persons. It was also the kick-off day for the International Year of Volunteers. A few days before that was International AIDS Awareness Day and beginning of the Cambodian Men against Violence against Women campaign. And this coming weekend we have the UN Human Rights Day. And I think I may have missed another "day" in the past week and a half that I can't recall right now. There are so many special events that a "sensitivity fatigue" could be understandable. Sometimes it's hard to make all the celebrations and events in just one day. Return to Top of Page 30 November 2000-- ASEAN Railway Plans At their meeting in Singapore last week, the leaders of ASEAN proposed a series of railroads extending from Singapore in the south to a northern terminus in the Chinese province of Kumming. The line would be about 5,500 kms long and would cost about $2.5 billion. A good portion of that money would have to be spent in Cambodia where the rail lines have not been rebuilt after the several decades of war here.  Don't buy your ticket yet! Return to Top of Page 28 November 2000--Instability Returns (Part 2) One of the theories going around about the attacks by armed rebels in Phnom Penh last Friday is that they were staged by the government against itself--in order to show to the world that the political situation in Cambodia is still too volatile to risk having a trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders. Present government officials are keen to avoid a trial taking place because many of them were involved with the Khmer Rouge. Considering, though, that the attackers attacked a truckload of government police, that theory may be even too brutal for the present government and maybe should be discounted. Let's hope they wouldn't be so callous. Return to Top of Page 27 November 2000--Instability Returns Early Friday morning, 24 November, dozens of armed men launched assaults around Phnom Penh. Starting from a rendevouz point at the train station, the men attacked a gas station, then wounded six policemen in a truck with a grenade, and then attacked the Council of Ministries Building and the Ministry of Defense before withdrawing to shell an air force base outside the city. At least seven attackers were killed and now officials are trying to figure out what was their motivation. The Cambodian Freedom Fighters, a US-based anti-communist group, has claimed they were behind the assault. Local observers, though, noted that the attackers were poorly armed and equipped and so discount the notion of a real coup attempt. Possibly the attacks were meant to discredit Sar Kheng, the acting prime minister while Hun Sen was at an ASEAN meeting in Singapore. Rumors of a split in Hun Sen's CPP party may have prompted the attacks by opponents within the party to show that Sar Kheng is not able to govern. The shooting could be heard at the Maryknoll center house but no one feels the situation is threatening at present although the US Embassy sent out a warning to stay off the streets on Friday. Local people are a bit on edge because they well remember Hun Sen's coup in 1997 which started out with armed groups fighting in various parts of the city. Return to Top of Page 20 October 2000--No Reporting, No Worry The umbrella NGO organization here puts out a security report every two weeks listing all the crimes committed, the roads that are open and safe, the routes that are closed because of landmines, bridges missing, etc.  The latest report lists robbery, rape, motorcycle theft, murder, and a grenade attack that killed four.  The report also mentions that the United Nations Security Committee here expects the numbers of reported crimes to start dropping because it has been requested that the police and government solve the crimes reported. Return to Top of Page 7 October 2000--Ghost Countries In a recent discussion, a Maryknoll colleague, Fran Kemmerer, brought up an interesting concept she calls "ghost countries," countries that once really existed but are now just a shell, basically remaining only on paper. They have no real government, no viable social structure, no education system, no infrastructure, and are collapsing in on themselves. And as they collapse, they destroy all remnants of civility and dehumanize everyone as either a perpetrator or victim. The primary cause of ghost countries is usually predatory governments characterized by policies of divisiveness. Warlords, tribal or ethnic leaders, or corrupt politicians--strong enough to maintain enough order to keep themselves in control--foment bloody factionalism based on any factor such as race, religion, ethnicity, or tribal origin, and create a system of haves and have-nots. Examples of ghost countries might be Haiti, Liberia, Somalia, Rwanda, some of the former Soviet republics, and Sierra Leone. Our discussion focused on the small "window of survival" that Cambodia might have for avoiding becoming another ghost country. Right now there is a possibility that it can get its act together and proceed along the path to becoming a "real" country again. But if the opportunity is squandered--a real risk--it could become another ghost with a seat at the United Nations, bilateral agreements and treaties, and no reality underlying all the appearances of statehood. What will get Cambodia to a "real" status? Maybe first of all it has to get a generation of young people through school--an extremely critical need. It must provide good, strong leadership to re-assemble the national puzzle and replace the missing pieces. And it must work toward providing for Cambodians what is for the rest of the world a normal existence: jobs, houses, a working economy--and hope. Working against that reality are the post-war situation, the corruption of government officials, a non-functioning school system, and a collapsed legal and judicial framework. And possibly most threatening could be the collective despair of people in ghost countries, a despair which can be the most violent of emotions because nothing matters anymore. Return to Top of Page 21 August 2000--Banking on a Different Scale Cambodia has 33 banks, and 28 of them are now undergoing evaluation by the National Bank of Cambodia (the Cambodian central bank) to see if they meet the minimum capitalization of $13 million dollars. 3 banks have already closed because they could not raise that much money to qualify for a bank charter. The $13 million figure was set last year in a law passed by the National Assembly to try and provide some stability to the banking system here. $13 million seems an incredibly small amount for a bank in the 21st century but already one of the banks here is trying to get its customers to take land the bank owns because it cannot repay the deposits the customers have made. Return to Top of Page 18 August 2000--Phnom Penh's Sex Trade: One Partly Happy Ending Seven Eastern European women were on their way home this week after being rescued from a Best Western Hotel in Phnom Penh.  Recruited as hotel-industry workers by a Romanian woman, they were instead forced into prostitution and kept locked in two rooms at the hotel, their passports confiscated by the establishment's owner.  Acting on a tip, police raided the hotel and freed six women who were being offered especially to government officials and other VIPs.  The seventh woman was not at the hotel at the time of the raid but was out of town with the Minister of Tourism--who had just recently published a letter blasting the sex trade!  Human rights workers have criticized the court's decision not to prosecute the hotel owner because of lack of evidence and instead to focus on the Romanian woman.  However, although she was identified last four days ago, she was not charged until now which has allowed her to leave the country.  The rights groups suspect that the courts are trying to divert attention away from high-ranking officials who are involved in the human trafficking. Return to Top of Page 15 August 2000 "We have tried to punish and reward the Cambodian officials according to their merits and demerits. We have asked the king to help us, but he has hesitated to do so. After studying the situation, we have decided that Cambodian officials only know how to bribe and be bribed. Offices are sold; nobody carries out orders; everyone works for his own account." From an 1834 report of Troung Minh Giang, a Vietnamese official sent to govern in occupied Cambodia Return to Top of Page 13 August 2000--Vigilante Violence Cambodia has a big problem with mob violence. At least once a week, criminals caught red-handed in crimes such as motorcycle theft are kicked and beaten to death by angry mobs who charge that the police do little to pursue and prosecute offenders. Instead the police are accused of taking bribes to let captured criminals go free. One of the Maryknoll priests once stood over a man being beaten in the street to protect him until the police arrived to take him into custody. But sometimes criminals are no safer when they ARE in the hands of the police. Last week a motorcycle thief was shot to death by the police supposedly in the process of an investigation. But dozens of witnesses say they saw the police take the handcuffed man along a railway track and shoot him. Some members of parliament and human rights groups are calling for the suspension of the offices while an investigation takes place. Return to Top of Page