What are NGO Type's in Cambodia - an oversight
Here you'll find a few comments from some popular blogs in Cambodia. I don't believe that any of the participants is a real Pedophile !!
But than, only APLE knows.
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1.
Postby keeping_it_riel » Tue Jun 01, 2010
So what happens when APLE run out of targets? Or when their workload diminishes to the extent that it becomes no longer economically viable to run such a well funded operation. In fact, they were quoted in the Daily last week as saying they had only 7 current cases in the whole of Cambodia.
Will they slap each other on the backs, say 'job well done,' pack up and go home? Or will they widen the goalposts? Or will they start to....ahem....create work for themselves to follow up?
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2.
On APLE's Policy of westerners, only, please !
by flying chicken » Thu Jun 03, 2010
Mate, whatever APLE is, if they are genuine in thier mission...why not start off by busting the locals. If memory served, there's a 3 or 4 story Karaoke building not too far from Rock nightclub where underaged girls working serving old farts.
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3.
These child molesters are everywhere
Postby mannacambodia » Sat Mar 19, 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12786203
I hope that any member of this board, ever wittness of barangs holdings hands and strolling with small indigenous children on riverside or whereever here, will do what needs to be done, myself have seen it on a number of occassions, but never did nothing, I always said in myself, ;maybe its just innocent; yeh, maybe it is, but just maybe in the interest of those small children who can not do it themselves it might be better to call that hotline advertised on the tuk tuks. Or do something else, but do something.
Everyday at Lucky supermarket, outside there is this small boy, maybe 5 years old, I always buy him an icecream in Lucky, is only 30 dollarcents, outside give it to him but never touch this boy or waste time with him, and do this in plain sight of everybody. He just folds his hands togher and says awkun.
Why I buy it ? Its a child who has nothing, is only a small gesture for me, but maybe big for him.
Jujst want to say, not all who are seen with kids mean it bad, but if you are walking hand in hand as a 50/60 + year old with a small boy or girl...???
mannacambodia
Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2011
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby aliali » Sat Mar 19, 2011
mannacambodia wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12786203
Answer to:
I hope that any member of this board, ever wittness of barangs holdings hands and strolling with small indigenous children on riverside or whereever here, will do what needs to be done, myself have seen it on a number of occassions, but never did nothing, I always said in myself, ;maybe its just innocent; yeh, maybe it is, but just maybe in the ineterest of those small children who can not do it themselves it might be better to call that hotline advertised on the tuk tuks. Or do something else, but do something.
Everyday at Lucky supermarket, outside there is this small boy, maybe 5 years old, I always buy him an icecream in Lucky, is only 30 dollarcents, outside give it to him but never touch this boy or waste time with him, and do this in plain sight of everybody. He just folds his hands togher and says awkun.
Why I buy it ? Its a child who has nothing, is only a small gesture for me, but maybe big for him.
Answer:
Jujst want to say, not all who are seen with kids mean it bad, but if you are walking hand in hand as a 50/60 + year old with a small boy or girl...???
Might be good to check that the guy is not the Father i have know of more than 1 guy being accused of nasty things when he was the Father.
aliali
Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2009
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby BillyB » Sat Mar 19, 2011 5:04 am
Unfortunately these days western society is brainwashed into thinking this.
You would be a lot safer having nothing to do with little boys, especially not buying them ice creams.
As an alternative to buying ice creams for kiddies, why not walk into your local bar and buy a drink for all the other customers, I am certain that your generosity would be much appreciated.
BillyB
Joined: Sun Jan 09, 2011
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby LaudJohn » Sat Mar 19, 2011
aliali wrote:
Might be good to check that the guy is not the Father i have know of more than 1 guy being accused of nasty things when he was the Father.[/quote]
Ditto,
I was just going to post that.
Just be careful mannacambodia.. buying ice creams regularly for a young child that is no relation of yours could be considered "grooming" a potential victim.
I am sure since you felt the need to mention it publicaly and then deny any predatorial involvement that you are not like that, after all denial of an intent or an event is proof positive.
LaudJohn
A Moment of Clarity
Joined: Sat Jul 12, 2003
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby Devo » Sat Mar 19, 2011 8:18 am
mannacambodia wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12786203
I hope that any member of this board, ever wittness of barangs holdings hands and strolling with small indigenous children on riverside or whereever here, will do what needs to be done, myself have seen it on a number of occassions, but never did nothing, I always said in myself, ;maybe its just innocent; yeh, maybe it is, but just maybe in the ineterest of those small children who can not do it themselves it might be better to call that hotline advertised on the tuk tuks. Or do something else, but do something.
Manna: Quick call the posse. I just saw an old barang holding hands with his 5 year old brown skinned daughter - the filthy f'ing swine.
Get the lyunch mob ready and we'll fix him!
Devo
Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2011
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby BirdBrain » Sat Mar 19, 2011 8:48 am
I always hold my son's hand when walking near roads. I will also do the same for my daughter when she is old enough to walk outside. I challenge you to challenge me on that one manna. .
BirdBrain
Joined: Mon Mar 28, 2005
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby Captain Bonez » Sat Mar 19, 2011
mannacambodia wrote:I hope that any member of this board, ever wittness of barangs holdings hands and strolling with small indigenous children on riverside or whereever here, will do what needs to be done
mannacambodia wrote:Everyday at Lucky supermarket, outside there is this small boy, maybe 5 years old, I always buy him an icecream
Image
̿ ̿'̿'̿\̵͇̿̿\з=(•̪●)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿
Captain Bonez
Joined: Tue Jan 12, 2010
Location: Where the unstoppable force meets the immovable object
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby Phuket2006 » Sat Mar 19, 2011
It's a fucked world that we have made when someone that buys ice cream for a child or holds hands with a child is looked upon as a pedophile or "grooming" their next victim.
If anyone had come up to me when i was walking with my daughter when she was younger, i would have given them so much shit they would never every think that again.
Funny that the looks seem to happen more in Cambodia than Thailand, ( or its just talked abut more) and wonder where that comes from. All those fucking NGO's spreading shit around.
"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile—and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely." HST
View My Pics, http://phuket.zenfolio.com/
Phuket2006
Joined: Sun Nov 26, 2006
Location: Phuket, Thailand
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby Captain Bonez » Sat Mar 19, 2011
better to be safe than sorry
Location: Where the unstoppable force meets the immovable object
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby krisduncs » Sat Mar 19, 2011
maybe all us westerners who have children with local women,could put a request in at aple,for them to produce a special t-shirt,which lets everyone know that we are with our own children,and that we arent nonces. then people like mann could just go up and punch out any white guy he sees walking with any brown kid,while not wearing the safe t-shirt? easy.
krisduncs
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby hanky » Sat Mar 19, 2011
I hope that any member of this board, ever wittness of barangs holdings hands and strolling with small indigenous children on riverside or whereever here, will do what needs to be done, myself have seen it on a number of occassions, but never did nothing
I often walk around with my kid and sometimes his friends. If you or anyone else approached me and said something stupid, I'd fuck you up really badly, and don't for a second think I'm not capable of that.
hanky
I have attained enlightenment
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby vladimir » Sat Mar 19, 2011
Yes, any twat comes up to me while I'm holding my kid's hand to cross the road, and says
"Excuse me sir, but manna told us that we are to stop all foreign men holding darker children's hands and ask them if they're paedophiles'.
My reply:
'smack'.
Last edited by vladimir on Mon May 30, 2011
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby Phuket2006 » Sat Mar 19, 2011
One old couple came up to me when i was in PP in 2006 stared mouthing off to me about taking a young child from her mother,. I fucking let her have a string of obsenities i am sure she has never experiecned before. My daughter had to pull me away. ( she was 12)
It's the press that has sensationalized all this and its shame that thats the way people think nowadays.
"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile—and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely." HST
View My Pics, http://phuket.zenfolio.com/
Location: Phuket, Thailand
Re: These child molesters are everywhere
Postby scoffer » Sat Mar 19, 2011
To the OP,
How fucking ignorant are you, are you just trying to open up a shit fight because you need to be entertained ?
This subject has been presented on the board many times. Look it up, search previous topics
Stop trying to sensationalise it and make your self look like a Big Man when talking to your friends back home.
I live in Oz, when I hold my kids hand and cross the street should I be worried ?
If not, why should I have to worry if my daughter / son is darker skinned than I am and I'm in Asia.
I know several fathers that have had to suffer the scorn and looks of fuckwits and NGO's and have not responded.
They are much better that I in holding back their anger as I'd of kicked your teeth in.
As to the sentiment behind your post - that is also something I understand, But FFS - express it better.
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4.
One subject are NGO's in General. Here a few comments.
Re: NGO 's ??
May 03, 2011
The main problem is that all ngo's need to score if they want to keep their grants from the government and the public donations.
There is no way more competition and less money because of the economic crisis. But even with that less money available thereis still a nice amount to divide so it is a real business and depending on their results in their field and the interest of their governement their funding for sometimes 5 year are decided.
And it can happen fast, it's not so long ago that the WWF and Greenpeace were always in the news and were very hot in the press. But the world and the priorities in the press have changed. Greenpeace for example has shifted for a big part it's efforts to the Asian countries to find donations. I encountered them for example numerous times in Java (and not only in Jakarta) with a stall and volunteers.
Sadly enough some NGO's have gone in overdrive for funding, you can find the darkest corners and the sharpest knives in the offices of NGO's. Some NGO's are really great and have lots of very dedicated employees that have hardly any perks. I know quite some were even the directors don't have a company car and stuff, the only perks is a mobile phone with a 50 euro balance for a month and internet at home. But in some the fancy cars and big paychecks are way to normal.
Also lots of outsourcing, NGO's that have another daughter company that is solely a normal company but the profits are being used for the mother company.
And on the field you can find a very special kind of people, some are solely in for the experience and the money and others are the kind that thinks they can change the world, their vision, truth,... are the only correct one (without having actually a lot of experience in the real world that is not the university)
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Sat Apr 28, 2007
NGO ?
"Third world rapist" and "Poverty Pimp" was a term i heard someone use about world vision's country director in a bar recently. Fits the bill. $20k a month + $3k "living expenses", no tax even for vehicles, so he can go around giving out rice in exchange for religious conversion. It's funny, yesterday i read something in the pppost by an Oxfam guy (i don't usually rate oxfam as the bad guys), openly saying that if governments don't get their money from taxes, then they will natually become corrupt no matter what. He was of course saying it in the context of governments with oil to sell, shame he has no sense of irony.
No matter what an NGO is doing, good or bad, none of them pay tax, and therefore, according to the oxfam dude i mentioned, they are deliberatly minimising their contribution to the economy while maximising their contribution to corruption. Perhaps that's what his $20k a month salary is to compensate for, if they can't get him to pay tax, pay him so much the money will fall out of his pockets. That's why so many people get pissed off with the "moral highground" that so many NGO workers take.
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and another comment on this subject:
Sun Apr 29, 2007 3
Not every NGO is bad . . . OK, OK. . .
How about "useless"?
Guilt by association? Huh? So you're saying NOT ALL members of the KKK are idiots? Like the KKK, NGO is a CHOICE. It's a choice made by fat, useless, former backpackers who in fear of waitress jobs back home gain a superiority complex and love making those sickening "I care about you faces" while handing out .05 cent pencils to homeless kids in the name of _______(depends on which NGO)
Can you recommend a non-useless NGO tour? Where may I find this rare species? NGO's are a sad statement on the current affairs of human kindnesses towards each other. That people seem to think that they hold such a high degree of importance whilst overlooking the fact that they replace institutions that should be providing yet are are irresponsible and negligent in their duties. Add to that the fact that these organizations are about as Governmental and Religiously involved and influenced as it can get. They should be called GO's, or RGO's. I am simply down on them because I think there could be a better solution by separating the chafe from the wheat and re-organizing into humanitarian institutions with members who solve issues from the bottom up instead of the other way around. Again, as the book "The Lords of Poverty" points out, NGO's are corporations who only care about the almighty dollar and the myriad ways of spending it on anything other than a cure, of which most cures are simple, yet lost under the greed and corruption and the delays that these charlatans cause through their lack of a sense of urgency towards a cure.
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On the NGO Aera comming to an end issue: 2008
PHNOM PENH - With an overwhelming electoral mandate, robust economy and a potential bounty of oil and gas revenues, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen feels in a strong enough position to move against the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which have been a perennial thorn in the strongman's side since he took power more than two decades ago.
In late September he called for the revival of a controversial law which would require the country's more than 2,000 associations and NGOs to complete a complex registration process and submit to stringent financial reporting requirements. The draft law is expected to be passed by Hun Sen’s Cambodia People's Party (CPP)-dominated National Assembly in the coming months.
"Cambodia has been heaven for NGOs for too long," he said in a
speech broadcast on national radio on September 26, adding that he had given up hope of reading any positive reports written by international or local NGOs. "The NGOs are out of control ... they insult the government just to ensure their financial survival."
By enacting the law, Hun Sen could recalibrate the government's terms of engagement with the Western-led aid community, on which his government has heavily relied for decades to finance its budget. The move comes as private-led foreign investment has fueled the country's economic rise, led in the main by China and South Korea.
"Many of the services provided by NGOs today will one day either be privatized or the revenues of the government will grow to such an extent that the functions currently being done by NGOs will be taken over by the government," said Brett Sciaroni, chairman of Cambodia's International Business Association.
The NGO law's enactment would be a symbolic power shift between Hun Sen's CPP-led government, further emboldened by its landslide victory in this year's general election, and the Western-backed NGOs which have long chastised it over human-rights abuses and corruption allegations.
International aid agencies have for decades held the purse strings on the aid which has sustained the national economy since it emerged from the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-Maoist regime which systematically attempted to transform Cambodia into an agricultural utopia between 1975 and 1979, and a subsequent decade-plus of civil war.
Some contend it was the Khmer Rouge's economic failures, including a devastating countrywide famine that killed many and stalked the regime's traumatized survivors, which set the stage for Cambodia's now decades-long dependence on foreign aid.
The British aid agency Oxfam began programs soon after the Khmer Rouge's 1979 ouster, despite incurring the wrath of the United States and the United Kingdom governments for helping the Hanoi-sponsored regime put in place by the invading Vietnamese.
Jacques Beaumont from the United Nations Children's Fund, and Francois Bugnion from the International Red Cross (IRC), who both arrived in Phnom Penh in 1979, were pivotal players in that humanitarian effort. They finally persuaded the IRC, which was fearful of being seen as compromising its political neutrality, into launching what turned into its most significant relief operation since World War II.
But the comprehensive aid experiment did not begin in earnest until after the signing of the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, which by and large ended the country's debilitating civil war. Since then myriad NGOs have come to Cambodia to work on everything from demining to microfinance, orphanages to agri-business, public health issues to snaring globe-trotting pedophiles.
The demining NGOs in particular made great progress, clearing an estimated 25,000 hectares of mined territory between 1992-2003. Cambodia has also been hailed as a global success story in fighting HIV/AIDs transmission, led by NGO-organized education programs and health aid. Prevalence rates have fallen by nearly half, from 3% in 1997 to 1.6% in 2006.
Fractious relations
But Hun Sen's government's relationship with NGOs and international aid agencies has often been fractious, epitomized by its tumultuous interactions with the environmental watchdog Global Witness over its consistent accusations of high-level government links to illegal logging, and with the UK-based rights lobby Amnesty International for its criticism of state-sponsored forced evictions across the country.
The World Bank also suspended US$11.9 million in funds in 2006 for seven sanitation projects when it found evidence of rampant extortion, bribe-taking, bid-rigging and procurement manipulation, leading Hun Sen to claim the multilateral lender was trying to tarnish his government's credibility. The bank only agreed to unfreeze the projects' funding in 2007 after the government promised to strengthen anti-corruption measures.
Despite Cambodia's recent economic boom, including a skyrocketing average 11% gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past three years, a sizable portion of the nation's real income still derives directly from donor nations in amounts wrangled out each year at annual Consultative Group meetings.
The meetings were for years characterized by vague promises from the Cambodian government in response to weak demands by donors for reform, including the long-delayed adoption of an anti-corruption law. But in the past two years these demands have become less relevant with the surge in aid from China, which typically has less good governance or transparency conditions attached.
While Chinese aid is generally funneled through vast infrastructure projects - including hydropower and road projects - usually contracted to Chinese companies, Western nations' share of the average US$600 million in annual aid arrives through international aid agencies and NGOs. The process has been widely cast as a corrupt, inefficient gravy train, giving some traction to Hun Sen's complaints.
"In the 1980s, there was a popular T-shirt satirizing US Army recruitment commercials with the slogan, 'Join the army. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting, unusual people. And kill them'," Brad Adams, executive director for Human Rights Watch's Asia Program, was quoted saying to Action Aid in 2005. "In the new millennium, it could be rephrased, 'Join the aid community. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting, unusual people. And make a killing'."
This is still the case in Cambodia, Adams told Asia Times Online. "You can start with all the foreign consultants making more than $10,000 per month, almost always tax free. This is a huge drain on the aid budget for Cambodia and in many cases the consultants produce nothing of value for the country."
Many analysts and expatriates agree that NGOs and their workers suffer from an image crisis among the Cambodian public, partly due to their comparatively high salaries and lifestyles, which are far adrift from the 35% of the population which lives on less than $0.50 a day.
Country directors for prominent international aid agencies typically receive a $250,000 annual package, which includes a spacious villa in the capital's upmarket "NGO-ville" area, a four-wheel-drive vehicle - usually emblazoned with the logo of their donor agency or charity - and fees paid for the capital's better international schools.
The aid watchdog Action Aid estimated in 2005 that the 700 or so international consultants working for NGOs in the country earned more than Cambodia's 160,000 civil servants put together. "In 1993, yes, 99% of foreign consultants were justified; now, 5% are justifiable. The others are embedding and enabling the mentality of dependency," Center of Social Development director Theary Seng said in June.
Arne Sahlen, a founding member of the Cambodia Support Group, a 25-year-old volunteer organization, echoes Hun Sen's comments that fundraising has overtaken the focus on the actual progress of several NGO projects. According to Sahlen, "vast" resources are being swallowed up on pursuing donors that could be invested on direct project needs. "The need to please donors has warped the focus to not necessarily what is best for the project but what may look best on an application," said Sahlen.
Others contend that several NGOs are actually impeding the development of a self-sustaining private sector, mainly through the alleged abuse of their not-for-profit status to pursue business opportunities. That status helps them avoid taxes and other unofficial costs that private businesses pay, giving non-profit an unfair competitive advantage in the market, they say.
Cambodians now understand the word NGO, especially in the local context, to be a for-profit enterprise, said Sophal Ear, the author of The Political Economy of Cambodia, Aid and Governance. "It's all a business and this is just another way to avoid taxes," he said. "When not covered by donors, capital costs for NGOs have largely been privatized, through an extensive network of 'donations' to the ruling party by Oknhas [politically connected tycoons] politicians, and civil servants."
Discretionary powers
The NGO law, known formally as the Law on Organizations, was first written over a decade ago and aims to address such complaints. It would require NGOs to submit for government approval documents detailing their structure, goals, funding resources, properties and even logos. It also entails fines and imprisonment for any NGO which fails to submit annual reports to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Many fear the discretionary powers the law will give the government in monitoring and sanctioning NGOs - rather than vice versa. Hun Sen no doubt had his one good eye on the anticipated bounty of future oil and gas revenues when calling for the controversial law's revival. Chevron, the US energy giant, discovered oil off Cambodia southwestern coast in 2005 and analysts have predicted the find could generate anywhere between $200 million and $2 billion in annual revenues for the government when full-scale production begins in 2010.
The government is still awaiting a key assessment from Chevron of the supposed find, and both sides have more recently played down expectations. Nonetheless, NGOS are already warning of a possible "resource curse" similar to places like Nigeria, where corrupt governments pilfered and wasted earnings derived from energy exports.
"NGOs are trying to tell us how to use the oil money, but this is of no interest to us. What is important is how to make our resources profitable," Hun Sen said in a recent radio broadcast speech.
Despite his criticisms, there are reasons for concern. A new NGO coalition has begun work to oversee the transparency of the management of future oil funds. Led by the NGO Forum, it has given little information on its structure, but has said it plans to ensure the potential financial benefits from the windfall are managed in a socially responsible manner, and that benefits filter down to the impoverished grassroots.
The World Bank, which also aims to monitor the government's oil revenue management, noted in May that international aid is often poorly managed in key sectors, with the problem of "fragmented" assistance especially acute in health and education.
In the health sector, 22 donors are currently working with over 100 NGOs to deliver $110 million in Official Development Assistance (ODA) per year through 109 projects - yet use of the national system remains at just between 13% to 18%, said the bank. The vast majority of rural Cambodians are forced to use an expensive yet rudimentary private healthcare system which is more reminiscent of poorer African than neighboring Asian nations.
The education system is also beset by severe underfunding, with thousands of graduates churned out from poorly regulated "international" universities with degrees that often leave them ill-prepared to enter the job market. Until now, the only paying option for many graduates was to work in donor agencies and international NGOs. But if Chinese and South Korean private investment flows hold up and the country's hoped-for energy bonanza is realized, that may all soon change if Hun Sen has his NGO-curbing way.
and more:
PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 3:10 pm
As Western powers square off against the rising global power of Russia and China, I suspect more unassuming and seemingly innocuous organizations such as NGO's will be singled out and given the boot out the door.
It is not a mystery that most NGO's are of the Western, Neo-Con, Zionist inclination, with most of them being funded and supported by the likes of Neo-Con and CFR member and Zionist George Soros and his (avoided by the "Israel-First" media) powerfully political and counter-intelligence ridden group Human Rights Watch (HRW).
As the Israeli-Occupied territories of the USA continue in their agenda to alienate Russia and China, this recent spate of events in Cambodia should come as no surprise, as China continues to flex its financial and political influence in Cambodia in the worldwide battle for energy resources.
Ridding itself of the NGO's is the best practical solution to removing counter-intelligence and anti-agenda informers and activists who represent anti-Chinese and anti-Russian policies and efforts. The Leader of Cambodia's ruling political Party is undoubtedly reaching (has already reached) a realization point that China and Russia and their allies will be the ones who will be (have already been) buttering his bread when the chips are down and global recession (perhaps even depression) strikes upon the dollar currency going completely bust.
That is a matter of time, as I am sure that the Plunge Protection Team (headed by Mr. Paulson) will soon run out of funds, or further reduce the dollar's currency value as the printing presses continue to belch out billions of fiat notes.
China is Cambodia's savior, just as it is keeping the USA afloat a bit longer with its loans and retaining trillions in treasury bonds.
NGO's are nothing more than the eyes and ears of Western powers that are increasingly becoming an annoyance to the new powers to be. Whatever worth to easing human misery they may contribute, that small percentage of worth can be far better implemented through other means, rather than to use the good intentions of so few good hearts as a means to give a shiny sparkle to a steaming pile of excrement such as an NGO.
China (and even Korea) may not be the best answer for Cambodia, but creating a better job market and providing a means to be gainfully employed is a far better solution than an NGO treating the symptoms only to the point to perpetuate its existence.
I believe that China is aware of what the NGO's really stand for, and has applied pressure in its slow, methodical, and successful manner in order to bring this about.
Comment from your Webmaster:
The views listed by individuals as shown above do not necessaryly represent the view of your webmaster. (that does'nt mean i don't agree with most of it)
The Slideshow - Anyone looks familiar ?
NGO Acitivists and their impact on daily life
For those Foreigners that are not living off the Back of Aid but through hard legitimate work, NGO's have a special Quality from their point of view. see:
For do-gooder NGOs in Cambodia, accommodation with the regime is very profitable.
On a typically warm, muggy evening in Phnom Penh earlier this year, I asked a twentysomething British woman for directions to Titanic, a restaurant overlooking the Tonle Sap River.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because I heard the food was good," I said, somewhat confused.
"Oh, because there's a massive party there tonight for the Westerners!" she breathlessly replied.
Yes, it's always a fine time to be an expatriate aid worker in Cambodia, where several thousand NGOs and aid organizations operate. By day, swarms of foreign do-gooders clog the streets of Phnom Penh in their company-provided SUVs, and by night they fill bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. Collectively, NGO workers represent a privileged caste, isolated and detached from the people who serve as the objects of their benevolence. It's all reminiscent of those clueless young GOP zealots sent to staff the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, except the NGO workers in Cambodia aren't peddling Republican philosophy and the American way, but rather the ideology of altruism.
Scan the world's hot spots and disaster areas, and you'll invariably find NGOs and advocacy groups living high off the hog from donor money and hyping their causes with artfully presented information designed to prompt people to reach for their checkbooks. Nonprofits rushed in after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, but one survey of 60 U.S. relief organizations found that they had spent less than 40 percent of the $1.4 billion they raised during the first year. Many major projects are still stalled, and around 1 million Haitians live in squalid tent settlements.
Many of the billions of dollars allocated to USAID to rebuild Afghanistan never made it to the country, because about half of all funds were handed out to U.S. companies. Meanwhile, USA Today reported that four chief executives of nonprofit corporations delivering U.S. foreign assistance to Afghanistan earned more than $500,000 in 2007.
A few years back, a charity called Christian Solidarity International raised huge sums of money (from American schoolchildren, among others) by allegedly freeing Christians in Sudan who were "trafficked" by Arab slavers. The story was largely a fiction. A former CSI staffer told 60 Minutes that a rebel group working closely with the charity rounded up ordinary village children ("instant slaves," he dubbed them) who CSI then bought at mass "redemptions." The Save Darfur movement exaggerated the already egregious crimes of the Sudanese government in the hopes of prompting an international military intervention that would have made the current Libyan quagmire look like a picnic.
The point here is not that every seemingly good cause is a fraud and that all international aid groups are poverty pimps (though some certainly are). It's that people should bring the same degree of scrutiny to NGOs as they do to corporations and governments (and the media for that matter). And nowhere is a jaundiced eye more warranted than in examining the do-gooder community of Cambodia.
Many billions of dollars of international aid have flowed into Cambodia since the U.N.-organized elections held in 1993, after a long civil war that followed the fall of the Khmer Rouge. The large sums provided by the United States and other Western donors is delivered through and controlled by international aid agencies and NGOs.
Over the years, NGOs in Cambodia have cleared landmines and implemented programs to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS. There are many excellent international and local NGOs working in Cambodia, among them LICADHO, a civil and political rights group, the Worker Rights Consortium, and Human Rights Watch. London-based Global Witness got kicked out of Cambodia for issuing a series of reports exposing governmental corruption. (Disclosure: I've written investigative reports for two of these groups, on topics unrelated to Cambodia, and am friends with people at all four.)
Prime Minister HE's regime has put forth a draft law that would require NGOs working in Cambodia to complete a complex registration process and "gives authorities unbounded discretion to approve or deny registration applications," according to Jeff Vize of LICADHO. Human rights groups and Western governments are up in arms about the law, as they should be. HE has said it is needed to keep terrorists from setting up shop in Cambodia "under the guise of NGOs," but his government clearly wants to use it against the relatively small number of groups that criticize his government.
But a terrible draft law doesn't turn charity workers into saints. Many Cambodian NGOs have followed a path familiar to observers in other parts of the world. After arriving to provide immediate relief, they gradually transform themselves into survival-focused grant-proposal-writing shops chasing dollars and holding PowerPoint-heavy workshops on "empowerment," "governance," "capacity-building," and other empty buzz phrases.
Meanwhile, a 2006 story in the Australian charged that a great deal of Australia's aid to Cambodia was wasted, because as much as 80 percent of it "goes straight out again in the form of high expatriate salary packages and running costs." The story said that country directors of prominent international charities in Cambodia received compensation packages worth as much as $250,000, which included large villas in Phnom Penh's upscale "NGO-ville" area, four-wheel-drive vehicles, and an assortment of other perks. A 2005 report by Action Aid said that in a single year, 700 top international consultants in Cambodia were paid an average of around $100,000. Their combined haul was roughly as much as the entire annual wage bill for 160,000 Cambodian civil servants. "Instead of transferring skills to Cambodian staff, their time is spent writing reports or doing jobs which they should be training local staff to carry out," the report said.
Lower-level NGO staffers, who often rotate through on short postings and spend a good chunk of their time partying, also do reasonably well. "Aid work is often much less about noble self-sacrifice and much more about getting hooked up with a dank salary and some pretty sweet perks," says a post at a website called Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like. "By 'dank salary,' we are talking by Western standards. By local standards, we might just call that a 'small fortune.'
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Among the more prominent (and best-paying) NGOs in Cambodia are the mainstream green organizations. They are also among the most powerful because government ministries dealing with environmental issues are typically underbudgeted and understaffed, so NGOs effectively fund and manage key agencies.
During recent years, the Cambodian government has sold off vast swaths of land, some publicly owned, including protected areas, and some seized from the urban and rural poor. In the process, hundreds of thousands of people have been forcibly evicted from their homes. These deals have been a goldmine for Cambodian oligarchs and foreign investors, who have bought up some of the country's most beautiful areas and prime urban real estate.
You'd expect that international green groups might have a lot to say about this tragedy. You'd be wrong. "The major environmental organizations have kept a near absolute silence over the ongoing land crisis, both in terms of human impact and impact on the protected areas they are working in," says a longtime consultant in Cambodia.
Conservation International lauds the Cambodian government on its website for "invest[ing] in research and monitoring of protected areas." The site also highlights a 2007 mission during which CI helicoptered a team of scientists into Virachey National Park, where they spent 15 days merrily traipsing about while cataloging species of ants and katydids. This was about the same time that HE's regime was awarding an Australian mining company exploratory rights to more than half of the park, one of Cambodia's two ASEAN Heritage Parks. Earlier this year, the government awarded another chunk of the park to a private company for a rubber plantation.
In February, the government awarded a big concession in an environmentally sensitive area of Koh Kong province to a private company exploring for titanium. "Realistically, if it's economically really valuable, we should support it and make it happen in the best way possible," David Emmett, CI's regional director, told the local press about the deal.
Wildlife Alliance also works closely with the government. In 2004, HE bestowed a gold medal on its CEO, Suwanna Gauntlett, for her devotion to endangered species and biodiversity.
WA says on its website that it works with villagers who "once were forced to roam the forest as hunters and loggers, diminishing Cambodia's environmental heritage, [and who] now have legal jobs as guides and operators of sustainable trekking, mountain-biking, and river boat tours."
In other words, people who once lived in the forest now hold low-paid jobs serving at the beck and call of foreign tourists who float down waterways and hike in woods that the villagers have long called home. "The wholesale destruction of Cambodia's environment is an important issue, but hunting and poaching by people eking out an existence in the forest isn't the problem," says a Western expatriate with extensive experience in land issues. "The primary causes are the government issuing massive land concessions to developers and wide-scale logging." (According to Global Witness, the country's most powerful logging syndicate is led by relatives of HE and other senior officials.)
Another WA mission involves protecting the rain forest of the Southern Cardamom Mountain Range. As part of that effort, the group's staffers have swooped in by helicopter with Forestry Administration officials who kick out destitute peasants living in the woods and in some cases dismantle and burn their homes, according to the Phnom Penh Post. "They are not people-friendly," the longtime consultant says of WA, "but the trees and animals are all safe."
WA has herded peasants into community agriculture projects linked to its ecotourism ventures. Peasants at one community called Sovanna Baitong benefited with access to education and health care, but some told the Post they felt "trapped in a state of indentured servitude" and had been threatened with expulsion if they refused to work on plots they had been allocated. "I experienced three years and eight months of the Khmer Rouge regime, and this is similar because they ordered us to work like we are in a totalitarian state," said one. "It is really miserable to live there."
"There is a percentage of families that are not very keen on agriculture," Gauntlett acknowledged to the Post. "You can bring the cow to water, but you can't drink for it."
WA has protested development projects that have had a direct impact on its programs in Cambodia, including the above-mentioned titanium project in Koh Kong, which HE canceled two months ago. Gauntlett issued a statement hailing the prime minister for having "looked so deeply into this proposed titanium mine and taken the effort to weigh the consequences that this project would have on the rainforest and the local people."
Gauntlett declined to comment for this story, but WA provided a general response: "The blame game doesn't work for groups like us inside Cambodia. We have to be careful and build alliances that are sometimes uncomfortable. It's delicate because the government can shut down an NGO whenever it wants. But we work on the inside, quietly, and get things done. We've been able to get things done and reverse concessions by working quietly inside the government and reminding it of its own legal obligations."
I spent two days in Sihanoukville, a seedy but gorgeous coastal town whose beaches and islands have been sold off by the government to developers allegedly planning eco-friendly luxury hotel and condominium projects. "Those who lived or worked there were turfed out—some jailed, others beaten, virtually all denied meaningful compensation," said a 2008 story in the Guardian. The newspaper quoted a British property developer, Marty Kaye, who said, "Nowhere else in the world could you create your own kingdom from scratch. … It's fantastically exciting, the opportunity to zone [a] whole island, to see where the luxury exclusive villa plots will be, for the Brad Pitts, etc."
The developers need green consultants to navigate the local scene and to write environmental-impact assessments that are supposed to ensure that their projects are eco-friendly. International NGOs have been happy to oblige, among them Fauna and Flora International, which has "built strong relationships" with the Cambodian government. FFI's website says that its activities have served to protect the environment "whilst building good governance and alleviating poverty."
In 2008, a Hong Kong-based investment company called Lime Tree Capital was awarded a 99-year lease on an island near Sihanoukville called Koh Rung Sangleum, which it plans to fully develop with resorts and hotels. The only problem was that the island was home to a fishing village with 92 families, which was a nuisance for Lime Tree.
Lime Tree hired FFI as its eco-consultant, and the NGO dispatched several staffers to the island (where they spent a large part of their time snorkeling with a local diving company, sources told me). FFI apparently provided Lime Tree with a development-friendly report, because the company subsequently filed a master plan saying there was little biodiversity on the island and hence not much to conserve. According to a story in the Phnom Penh Post, FFI staffers made a later trip to the island and told villagers they would be restricted to a tiny 12.3-hectare piece of land and ordered them to immediately stop cutting down trees and constructing any new buildings.
Villagers complained to the local government about Lime Tree's plans, leading the company to rethink its initial proposal and offer a better deal to local people. Eighty villagers signed a document (with their thumbprints) demanding the removal of FFI's lead staffer on the project, saying he had lied to them about how much forest and village land would be conserved under Lime Tree's proposal.
Ally Catterick of FFI said in an email that her group takes "a practical approach to engagement and work with a diverse range of organisations, including some sectors and companies that have traditionally had a significant impact on biodiversity but have committed to improving." She said FFI's objective in the island project was "to conserve the biodiversity" and "assist local communities to use the natural resources of the ecosystems sustainably." Catterick declined to disclose how much FFI was paid by Lime Tree, saying it "cannot disclose contractual remuneration for our services without the agreement of the contractor."
The complicity of the greens is matched by NGOs operating in other areas, including anti-poverty outfits. "The NGOs desperately want access and the basic equation is that the government grants it to them in exchange for their silence about corruption or anything else remotely controversial," says the Western expatriate who has worked on land issues. "At a certain point you have to ask yourself, 'Where is this going, and what are we accomplishing?' "