The Future of NGO's in Cambodia

Frederick Z. Brown to the Asia Society Washington Center

September 23, 1997

I spent nineteen days in Cambodia this past summer carrying out an evaluation of the Law and Democracy projects administered by The Asia Foundation under a multi-year grant form USAID. I arrived in Phnom Penh several days before the July 5 coup, and I had the opportunity to witness its impact before my evacuation two weeks later. My talk today draws on that experience but by no means does it reflect fully the report that I had my team colleague submitted to The Asia Foundation and USAID. I offer uniquely my opinions and not those of The Asia Foundation.

The July 5 coup and the consequent upheaval posed a particular problem for American policy regarding our extensive programs of assistance to the Cambodian non-governmental organizations. On one hand, the administration considered withdrawing all forms of assistance to Cambodia including the NGOs in order to demonstrate its disapproval of the Hun Sen regime. Certainly in the Congress there was a strong sentiment at the outset to do just that. On the other hand, the administration recognized that to cut off financial assistance to NGOs engaged in democracy and human rights activities would be tantamount to destroying the very organizations in which the United States had placed its hopes for social and political change in Cambodia. Moreover, a total cut-off would surely threaten the livelihoods, if not the lives, of the brave men and women who carry out this difficult work.

The July coup raised a broader question that deserves attention from those of us who care about healing "failed" societies, namely: the degree to which our concepts of a civil society, and two of its key components, democracy and human rights, can be introduced successfully into conflicted societies such as Cambodia. In raising this issue, I am not necessarily challenging the "universality" of certain Western values -- and I do not wish to get into the "Asia values" debate. I am simply underscoring the importance of culturally sensitive strategies when trying to introduce radical ideas into the countries we Westerners like to describe as "failed states". Second, I am cautioning against exaggerated expectations of the results of these programs and the speed with which they can be realistically expected to have a major impact on a societies that have experienced grave traumas, such as Cambodia. If there was ever a country where Western political idealism was asked to collide frontally against a thousand years of authoritarianism, it is Cambodia.

I want to address several aspects of the predicament of the NGOs in Cambodia today:

1. Where does the Cambodian NGO movement come from?

In the 1980s foreign humanitarian non-governmental organizations were virtually the only link to Western expertise and resources available to Cambodia's communist regime. During the UNTAC period, with more than 140 foreign NGOs operating on the ground, indigenous Cambodian NGOs began to spring up. As the transition from UNTAC to a sovereign Cambodian state began, foreign donor agencies sought out accountable executing organizations with the technical and administrative talent through which assistance could be channeled. The Asia Foundation and other foreign NGOs began to engage embryonic Cambodian groups in the effort to create the rudiments of a civil society. There are now about two hundred voluntary associations with established institutional structures present in the country.

Many of these NGOs are working in agriculture, forestry, environmental protection, community development, and other aspects of country's physical infrastructure, usually in cooperation with a foreign NGO or sponsor and almost always as part of an official Cambodian government ministry. Their work addresses the infrastructure underpinning essential for the reconstruction of Cambodian society. In the post-July 1997 environment they will be monitored carefully but probably not seriously hampered by the current government in Phnom Penh.

But I am speaking today about the other NGOs, those that are deemed by the U.S. government as "humanitarian" in nature: the 40 or so indigenous Cambodian NGOs involved in "democracy and governance", the creation of a "civil society", or the promotion of the "rule of law" and "human rights", however you wish to define these activities. In other words, the NGOs that are involved in shaping people's minds on politically sensitive matters, and hence the organizations which are likely to be subject to pressure from the current regime.

Just why do these indigenous NGOs exist in Cambodia? They are certainly not found in neighboring Vietnam, nor in Laos which share a similar absolutist background. The Cambodian human rights and democratic governance NGO movement is rooted in two documents. The first is the 1991 Paris Agreements on a Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodian Conflict. The Agreements declared that "Cambodia will follow a system of liberal democracy, on the basis of pluralism". There were also provisions for periodic elections and universal suffrage. The Agreements created the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia, or UNTAC, which fielded 21,000 peacekeepers at a cost of two plus billion dollars over a period of two years, and conducted national elections in 1993. The second document is the Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia, drawn up after the May 1993 UNTAC election, which stated explicitly that Cambodian society would be based on "...a multi-party liberal democratic regime guaranteeing human rights [and] abiding by law..."

The principles of democratic governance and human rights are thus not some frivolous after-thought foisted casually upon the Cambodians. With the spiritual underpinning of these two documents, the Cambodian NGOs began to operate in 1993. Promotion of the genuinely revolutionary ideas embodied in these documents was not easy even before July 5th, 1997. Please understand: The protection of human rights and the installation of democratic practices and the rule of law have not been a matter of rebuilding something damaged but, rather, of putting into place what was not there before.

Traditionally, politics in Cambodia has been largely a matter of client-patron relationships based on money and the assurance of personal security. I suppose you can trace Cambodia's zero-sum political syndrome -- winner take all -- back to the Angkorean period. Under UNTAC, Cambodia's political actors competed for power under rules that were new to Cambodian culture: a secret ballot, relatively open discussion of issues, choices between parties, and so forth. The concept of participatory governance by entities other than the traditional authoritarian elites was startling new to the Cambodian electorate, as was the idea that there could really be the role of a "royal opposition" for the losers in the election.

In June 1993, after FUNCINPEC's victory in the UN-organized elections, there was some hope for a fresh political environment, even when the Hun Sen and the Cambodian People's Party refused to become a "loyal opposition" and demanded, successfully, that they be included in the ruling coalition government. Many analysts have argued that any hope for permanent peace in Cambodia was mortally wounded when Hun Sen was permitted to regain effective control of the new government -- no analyst to my knowledge has explained adequately how this nasty compromise could have been avoided.

With the events of July 1997, the questions now are, can the precepts of "liberal democracy" and pluralism set forth in the Paris Agreements and stipulated in the 1993 Constitution be resurrected? Will the NGOs that were born several years ago have a chance, first, to survive, and then to play a constructive, even vibrant role in the new political environment? It is almost impossible to de-link respect for certain basic human rights from the exercise of political rights normally associated with democratic practices. Right now, to be a member of the "wrong" (that is exiled) faction of FUNCINPEC or the Khmer Nation Party risks being imprisoned or worse.

My second question:

2. Who are the Cambodian NGOs taking on this difficult work?

Let me mention some of the leading human rights and democratization NGOs, and also several in women's affairs with closely related goals. These organizations have financial support through the Asia Foundation and have been classified as "humanitarian" by the United States rather than as developmental.

The Cambodian Institute for Human Rights (CIHR) conducts specialized training of schoolteachers on the fundamentals of human rights; the goal is to train 35,000 primary and secondary teachers over a three-year period. CIHR runs seminars for a wide range of people in the provinces: provincial governors and their staffs, Interior Ministry officials, members of the armed forces, Buddhist monks, and even Khmer Rouge defectors. CIHR's mass media projects funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, have given it a significant multiplier effect nationwide. These have included weekly radio and TV panel discussions, a daily radio quiz, a weekly newspaper series, all covering human rights and democracy issues in terms of public policy. CIHR teaches and advocates but does not formally investigate abuses.

CIHR has been able to attract half its funding from European sources (like the Konrad Adenauer Foundation) and NED. In cooperation with the Khmer Institute of Democracy, which I am going to discuss in a few minutes, CIHR have been probably the most resourceful coordinator-catalysts in the political awareness effort in Cambodia. CIHR's founder and director, Kassie Neou, is well known in the United States for his organizational and fund-raising skill.

The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (or LICHARDO) reportedly has more than one hundred thousand members. LICHARDO has a dual mission: education and training, and human rights monitoring, that is, the investigation of reported human rights abuses. It has 70 district-level offices in 13 of Cambodia's 20 provinces. Its provincial offices have professional, paid investigators, and it is this activity that has made LICHADO controversial as far as the government is concerned. A delicate touch is required, and in the aftermath of the July coup there was considerable concern that its local staffs were in some jeopardy. LICHADO's founder and director is Mme. Kek Kalabru.

The mission of the Khmer Institute of Democracy (KID), in the words of its founder and director Dr. Lao Mong Hay, is to inculcate democratic values, the rule of law, and market rice-roots official who deal with the daily problems of the rural population. KID believes in prudent cooperation with the ministries of Interior, Education, and National Defense in order to accomplish this mission. It has deposited its detailed course plans and study materials with them in Phnom Penh and in the provinces where it operates. KID's standard course is six days and includes topics taught by trainers from cooperating NGOs on civic education. Human rights, humanitarian law, rule of law, market economics, and democratic practices, Buddhism, moral and ethical values. Specialized training is directed toward Khmer rouge defectors. KID also produces a variety of media programming such as 'the Future Visions', the "Problems and Solutions" TV series.

The Project Against Domestic Violence (PADV) is an extraordinary example of successful "bottom-up" NGO growth based on popular demand. In 1994, PADV consisted of one expatriate with an American advisor; in 1997, it had a staff of 20 with programs that reached into the countryside through traveling team. Its director, Sar Samen, is an articulate, dynamic woman who lived through the Pol Pot period and then spent the 1980s in the Thailand refugee camps. PADV provides research data on domestic violence and offers resources to abused women through referrals and follow-up services (but not defender activity). Its teams train other NGOs and government officials concerning domestic abuse (a widespread phenomenon in Cambodia) and its awareness teams organize media campaigns to make domestic abuse a public concern rather than a private family matter.

Another highly effective NGO is Women for Prosperity, the leading organization engaged in training women for political campaigning and eventual office-holding. Females comprise more than 55% of Cambodia's population. The vision of its founder and director, Nanda Than, is to build a women's leadership capacity, to involve more woman in politics, and to give woman the "image of power" now lacking. WFP's instruction manual is a superb professional tool that would be a model for the league of Woman Voters in the United States.

I would mention two other very active woman's organizations -- the Khmer Women's Voice Center, the Woman's Media Center -- which promote awareness of gender issues through training and lobbying, using television, radio, and workshops.

Under its "transparency and Accountability program", the Center for Social Development (CSD) has conducted a high-visibility media campaign against corruption. CSD's monthly newsletter is found on the desk of many high level government officials, and Pok Than, a contributed importantly to an embryonic public debate which can only be uncomfortable to the government. CSD's "National Issues Forum" has been presented on radio and TV before live audiences. Before the July events, CSD had begun to return its attention to the nuts and bolts of the 1998 elections: domestic and international monitoring, guidelines for election workers, codes of conduct for candidates, and the democratic practices generally.

I regret that time does not permit me to describe NGO projects to improve the professionalism of Cambodian journalism and projects to help build the National Assembly's competence. And then there are another dozen or so human rights and democratization NGOs who have had the capacity for valuable work -- if conditions permit -- such as the International Human Rights Lawyers Defenders Project.

3. So, what's the bottom line? Can the Cambodian NGOs promoting human rights and democracy survive?

I think we should admit that these NGOs have some significant internal handicaps:

• NGO growth has been financed by foreign donors, either official bilateral or UN-related donor assistance. They remain largely dependent on this foreign support. They have not yet taken on the self-generating characteristics of NGO grass-roots movements in many other countries.
• Their indigenous funding base is narrow. There is little scope for private fund-raising to support them. Their human resource base is also thin, and under present conditions it is difficult to imagine that base can be enlarged over the short and medium term. Maintenance of their present membership would be a big accomplishment.
• The NGOs are first generation organizations. Most of their leaders are expatriates who left in 1975 or 1979 and returned to Cambodia after 1991. Many hold two passports. Some worked with the noncommunist resistance forces and this makes them additionally suspect in the eyes of the regime. In some respects, it can create a psychological barrier between them and average Cambodians who lived through Pol Pot, the Vietnamese occupation, and UNTAC.

But regardless of these generic weaknesses, it is Cambodia's current climate of political uncertainty of the next months and the possibility of repression that is the NGOs' main problem. The Hun Sen regime seeks, ultimately, to concentrate all political power into its own hands. The provision of external assistance to the NGOs is probably perceived by some in the regime as a form of political activity designed to limit that power. Relations between government ministries, particularly those with security responsibilities, and the Cambodian NGOs with whom they work have already changed. NGO programs must be conducted with even greater probity than before. NGOs such as LICHADO have virtually suspended their investigative functions, and it seems doubtful that these functions can be resumed in the near future.

I am not, however, totally pessimistic about their chances for survival and, over the long term, continuing their programs. I think it is a mistake to believe that the Cambodian NGOs in human rights and democratic governance are destined to die. Their leaders are highly motivated, dedicated, often charismatic, and above all politically sophisticated. Some, like Lao Mong Hay of KID are outspoken and no doubt run greater risks than others who have reduced the volume level of their advocacy and concentrate on risk-avoidance. But the major NGOs like CIHR and LICHADO have gone to great lengths to establish a non-threatening presence, particularly in the provinces, and to get along relatively well with the local military and civil authorities. Fragmentary reports in recent weeks indicate that they are keeping their heads down.

Survival is step one.

Step two is to regain the actual cooperation of the local authorities and support for training programs. This takes time and is always subject to reversal, but the NGOs have operated to date on the theory that it can be done.

Step three is the hardest. It involves implementation of the practices of participatory governance (or "democracy") and genuine respect for human rights, including eventually monitoring and investigation. This takes longer still and can never be perfect, since it challenges the authority of local power elites.

Much depends on the struggle now in progress for setting the ground rules for the national elections which are supposed to take place in 1998. Whether the opposition politicians now in exile will be permitted to return safely to Cambodia and participate in the election is doubtful at this point.

The "reformed" FUNCINPEC, Khmer Nation, and Buddhist Liberal Democratic Parties remaining in Cambodia are subject to strong guidance from, if not control by, the Hun Sen regime. As long as these conditions persist, any semblance of a "free, fair, and open" would seem impossible.

Two umbrella NGOs, COMFREL and COFFEL, were set up earlier this year to coordinate the educational and monitoring activities of the NGO community. At this point, they are inactive. Whether or not they will be able to carry out their work under acceptable conditions will be one litmus test of the Hun Sen regime's intentions.

My conclusion: The next six months will give us a sense of the long term survivability of the Cambodian NGO movement. Although the Cambodian People's Party obviously wishes to confirm its power, the coup of July has yet to be accepted unequivocally by either ASEAN or the world community. Within the Party it appears that there are forces not entirely in favor of the way Hun Sen has acted and who actually believe that NGOs can be helpful to Cambodia over the long haul. In my view, the political game in Phnom Penh has not been fully played out.

In the meantime, the continued financial support of organizations such as I have been talking about is imperative. Indeed, were it feasible politically in terms of the U.S. Congress, I would advocate support as well for the NGOs engaged in economic and community development in cooperation with goverment ministries. And I would favor the reinstitution of the assistance program to the National Assembly staff that was cut off in July. In my view, we must keep faith with the Cambodians who are willing to remain in the country in spite of the obvious risks and work quietly in anticipation of a better day. That includes those NGOs and others involved in promoting the rule of law who work with the government for the simple reason that they have no other choice.



Frederick Brown is Associate Director of Southeast Asian Studies, Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies. Professor Brown spent the month of July, 1997 in Cambodia as part of a term evaluating the U.S. Agency for International Development's programs on democracy and governance. For more information on Professor Brown and the SAIS visit its website.