© Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal. 2016.
All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected]
doi:10.1093/cdj/bsw052
Community rights in Cambodia:
contradictions in discourse
and practice
Udeet Methala*
Introduction
This paper makes a strong case for viewing local communities as a foundation for political life and organizing people for the promotion of local democracy (Chaskin and Garg, 1997). Communities form a basis for collective
deliberation, mobilization, and action. An emphasis on local rights is
grounded in the basic assumption within democratic societies that individuals have a fundamental entitlement to a meaningful voice regarding
issues that affect their lives.
The paper explores strategies of deepening democracy in countries like
Cambodia, which have a democratic constitution whose potential can only
be realized when communities are empowered and experience that their
rights are upheld. Rural Cambodia is currently in a transformative phase,
moving from an oppressive communist regime to a democracy. The country witnessed a series of brutal wars and conflicts and it is only about a
decade since peace has been restored. Previous rulers, the military, and the
communist regimes, have all successively squashed the idea of civil and
political rights of the people. The present constitutional framework recognizes the king as the nominal head of state and has an executive committee, which exercises absolute control. Although the country is signatory to
a range of UN declarations and conventions, it is yet to begin implementing these commitments. This study revealed that human rights abuses in
Cambodia are widespread and accountability mechanisms within the government are weak.
The near absence of democratic procedures – especially at the community
level – implies that people have few local institutions to turn to. Land grabbing
is a tragic and widespread human rights issue in Cambodia with an estimated
300,000 people affected by forced evictions since 2003 (LICADHO, 2009).
*Address for correspondence: Udeet Methala; email: [email protected]
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Community rights in Cambodia
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Freedom of speech and assembly are regularly curtailed on spurious grounds,
while killings of political opponents, grassroots activists, and members of the
press persist.
Recovering from the decades of trauma they were subjected to the rural
population is now slowly understanding their rights as human beings and
learning about democracy. During fieldwork for the research study, it was
duly noted that education is viewed as an opportunity and all villages consider it as a pre-requisite for a better life for their children in the future.
The gradual influx of international NGOs and foreign aid in Cambodia has
brought about greater awareness, leading to a small but steady effort to
mobilize communities and put pressure on the government by following
the model for ‘human rights from below’ (Ife 2007); a long-standing commitment to end exploitation and inequality while avoiding imposition of
hegemonic western standards, and building diverse coalitions of people
and groups who are socially excluded is the endeavour of some of the civil
society organizations.
NGOs are training villagers to use locally adapted tools like peaceful
demonstrations, media publicity, and meetings with leaders to create a
platform for the government to generate redressal pathways for the people
through official government systems. Several studies have demonstrated
that active mobilization efforts definitely help in stimulating individual
political behaviour. Civic and political education has a substantively meaningful effect on local level political participation. This is particularly relevant in emerging democracies.
The paper presents a perspective on how communities can learn democratic values, skills, and participatory orientations through civic education
within self-help groups that are promoted by NGOs. This would enable a
broad spectrum of individuals, groups, and communities to understand
and express their personal concerns in terms of human rights. Although
contradictions are stark, the paper argues that inspiring people to negotiate these contradictions and to integrate human rights principles into their
own lives and their social institutions is the challenge of community
development work in Cambodia. It also points out that there is a struggle
to operationalize human rights in ways that do not reinforce and reproduce the dominant order while recognizing people’s complementary
needs for economic assistance as well as non-tangible support (such as
access to information). Is there a limit to such local organizing, or do democracies mature through the cycle of assertion, repression, struggle, and
gradual recognition of rights? The paper will examine these tensions, fundamental to community organizing. In the current global context of many
countries emerging from conflict, the experience of Cambodia can be
illuminating.
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Methodology
The paper is based on a study, the fieldwork for which was done in Cambodia
in 2014. It was a four-country study on Democratic Rural Organizations in
Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, and Uganda, For Cambodia, data were gathered through three national NGOs supported by international donor agencies
working in various provinces. Their names are kept confidential and the
names of villages mentioned in the paper have been altered. Fear of backlash
and repression is real even today in Cambodia. Each of the organizations
followed a distinct approach for organizing the villagers and one of the
NGOs is a movement-based coalition of community-based organizations
(CBOs), which work across several provinces. It is a nationwide, issuebased association that focuses on struggle-oriented, mobilization strategies.
It uses democratic and peaceful methods to ensure that the poor are heard
when their rights are violated.
For the study, the three NGOs identified specific CBOs, including selfhelp groups in rural areas. Detailed group discussions were held in eight
villages in two provinces, Svay Reing and Prey Veng, following certain criteria such as ensuring maximum diversity and geographic spread. Field
data were collected with the help of interview guides and cue sheets that
were prepared judiciously after a review of relevant literature. An independent translator, not associated with the NGOs, assisted in fieldwork.
Sources of data also included, interviews with key informants and interviews with leaders and members of grassroots organizations or CBOs.
Interview schedules were used for CBOs and semi-structured interview
guides for key informants. In addition to meeting community groups,
interviews were carried out with project leaders, and discussions were held
with staff members of the three NGOs. An extensive review of literature
was undertaken and secondary sources of data included project reports
shared liberally by the NGOs.
Cambodia’s history of conflict
The history of the people of Cambodia dates back to approximately fifth century BC. The ancient Kingdom of Funan occupied a wider area, and it was
during that period that the culture became heavily influenced by Hinduism.
The Khmer Empire had its golden age from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, when the now famous temple complexes were built, most notably
Angkor Wat. Spanish and Portuguese missionaries visited from the sixteenth
century, and Cambodia became a protectorate of France in the nineteenth
century, being ruled as part of French Indo-China. During the eighteenth and
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first half of the nineteenth centuries, the once powerful Khmer Empire had
been reduced to being a (divided) vassal state subject to the influences of
new regional powers: Siam (Thailand) and Dai Viet (Vietnam). Cambodia
became an independent kingdom in 1953 under Prince Norodom Sihanouk
(Brinkley, 2013). After gaining independence from France in 1953,
Cambodia enjoyed a short-lived period of peace and stability. The Vietnam
War of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the Third Indochina War (1979–
1989) both had major impacts on Cambodia.
The Vietnam War extended into Cambodia, giving rise to the Communist
Party of Kampuchea (CPK), and its followers, generally known as Khmer
Rouge (Red Khmers), the communist ruling party (from 1975 to 1979).
Within the CPK, the Paris-educated leadership – Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Nuon
Chea, and Son Sen – was in control. A new constitution in January 1976
established the state known as Democratic Kampuchea as a communist
people’s republic. Prince Sihanouk resigned as head of the state and was
put under virtual house arrest. A 15-member cabinet headed by Pol Pot as
prime minister was announced.
Immediately after its victory, the CPK ordered the evacuation of all cities
and a town, sending the entire urban population into the countryside to
work as farmers, as the CPK was trying to reshape society into a model that
Pol Pot had conceived. Remnants of the old society were abolished and religion was suppressed. Agriculture was collectivized, and the surviving part of
the industrial base was abandoned or placed under state control. Cambodia
had neither a currency nor a banking system (Brinkley, 2013).
People were forced to evacuate all cities and were resettled in newly created villages, lacking food, agricultural implements and medical care.
Hunger and malnutrition – bordering on starvation – were constant during
those years. Thousands died of disease and malnourishment during the
evacuation and its aftermath. Most military and civilian leaders of the former
regime who failed to disguise their pasts were executed. Buddhist monks
were persecuted and killed. Some particular ethnicities in Cambodia, such as
the Cham, suffered specific or targeted and violent persecutions. Life was
strict and brutal. In many areas of the country, people were rounded up and
executed for speaking a foreign language, wearing glasses, scavenging for
food, and even crying for dead loved ones. Former businessmen and bureaucrats were hunted down and killed along with their entire families. Various
studies have estimated the death toll at between 740,000 and 3,000,000
(most commonly between 1.4 and 2.2 million), with perhaps half of those
deaths being due to executions, and the rest from starvation and disease
(Chandler, 1993).
Democratic Kampuchea’s relations with its neighbours Vietnam and
Thailand worsened rapidly as a result of border clashes and ideological
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differences. The country established close ties with the People’s Republic of
China, and the Cambodian-Vietnamese conflict became part of the SinoSoviet rivalry, with Moscow backing Vietnam. Border clashes worsened
when the Democratic Kampuchea military attacked villages in Vietnam.
The regime broke off relations with Hanoi in December 1977, protesting
Vietnam’s alleged attempt to create an Indochina Federation. In late
December 1978, Vietnamese forces launched a full invasion of Cambodia,
capturing Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979 and driving the remnants of
Democratic Kampuchea’s army westward towards Thailand (Brinkley, 2013).
The Khmer Rouge was deposed, and the People’s Republic of Kampuchea
was established in 1979 by leftists who were dissatisfied by the Pol Pot
regime, and by the intervention of Vietnamese military forces after the period
of mass killing. The party was officially dissolved in 1981. However, the
People’s Republic of Kampuchea began a costly struggle that played into the
hands of the larger powers China, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
A civil war was imposed on impoverished Cambodia that displaced 600,000
Cambodians to refugee camps along the border between Thailand and
Cambodia. Peace efforts began in Paris in 1989 culminating two years later in
a comprehensive peace settlement. The United Nations was given a mandate
to enforce a ceasefire, and deal with refugees and disarmament. A mechanism was constructed called the United Nations Transitional Authority in
Cambodia (Mitchell, 2012).
On 23 October 1991, the Paris Conference reconvened to sign a comprehensive settlement giving the UN full authority to supervise a ceasefire,
repatriate the displaced Khmer along the border with Thailand, disarm
and demobilize the factional armies, and prepare the country for free and
fair elections. Prince Sihanouk, President of the Supreme National Council
of Cambodia, and other members of the Supreme National Council of
Cambodia returned to Phnom Penh in November 1991, to begin the resettlement process in Cambodia. The UN Advance Mission for Cambodia was
deployed at the same time to maintain liaison among the factions and begin
demining operations to expedite the repatriation of approximately 370,000
Cambodians from Thailand (Brinkley, 2013).
In May 1993, the first democratic elections were held. Over four million
Cambodians, about ninety percent of the eligible voters participated, in
spite of shelling of polling booths and police stations in Kampong Thom,
Kambong Chhnang, Siem Reap, and elsewhere by the Khmer Rouge’s Party
of Democratic Kampuchea, whose forces were never actually disarmed or
demobilized. Prince Ranariddh’s royalist FUNCINPEC party was the top vote
recipient with 45.5 percent of the vote, followed by Hun Sen’s Cambodian
People’s Party and the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party. A 120-member
assembly comprising a coalition of these parties proceeded to draft and
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approve a new constitution, which was promulgated on 24 September 1993. It
established a multi-party liberal democracy within the framework of a constitutional monarchy, whereby the Prime Minister would be the head of government and a Monarch, the head of state. Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen were
appointed First and Second Prime Ministers of the Royal Cambodian
Government, by the President and Vice President.
After a bloody coup by Hun Sen’s CPP in 1997, he became the second
Prime Minister in 1998 and remains in power till present day, controlling
Cambodia through the Executive power and the Legislative power at the
Parliament Chambers.
Present day Cambodia: the developmental context
According to Kerbo (2011), Cambodia has become a metaphor for tragic
‘nation’. Since the end of the Cold War, Cambodia has been reintegrated into
different regional and global economic and political communities, ASEAN in
1999 and the WTO in 2004. These processes of regionalization and globalization have contributed to the changing of geopolitical landscapes of Cambodia
in the last two decades (Chandler, 2010; Ear, 2013). The result of the July
2013 national election was allegedly rigged. The opposition party Cambodia
National Rescue Party, boycotted the National Assembly for a year, undermining the legitimacy of the government. Protests, demonstrations, and
strikes were quelled through a government crackdown in early 2014. Months
of government suppression of freedom of speech, rights to assembly, etc. followed, peaking in July 2015 with the arrest of several activists.
It is in this violent and authoritarian context that issues of poverty, livelihoods, education, adequate healthcare services, and governance persist.
People’s immediate priority after conflict is to get on with their lives and
livelihoods, reinvigorating their economic activities to ensure a future for
their families and communities (Narayan, Nikitin, and Petesch, 2010).
Many institutions of governance and social welfare exist on paper but
those holding power within the institutions do not feel a sense of responsibility or accountability to the people they are expected to serve or reach
out to. Grievance redressal mechanisms are non-existent or at best weak
and tardy. The numerous demonstrations and protests are an indicator of
the level of frustration the people of Cambodia are facing, and their struggle in wanting to be heard.
Poverty
Although Cambodia is regarded among the fast growing economies, the
growth is leaving many behind due to lack of public investment in
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agriculture and is not generating employment. The Agrarian population is
chronically poor and government needs to restore the social fabric and
aspirations within these communities. This takes time, leadership, and
investment. Communities dependent on a single economic driver face difficulty in diversifying their livelihood. In rural Cambodia, the men and older
boys migrate for work to building construction sites in the city, Phnom
Penh, returning every month or two, in order to supplement their Agrarian
incomes.
Qualitative observations and discussions in the poorer households in villages suggest that the condition of the poor is worse than official statistics
suggest. There was no electricity in villages or was only limited to some
areas. Modified car batteries are used to operate gadgets. About 90 percent
of Cambodia’s population lives in rural areas, and most have some land
where they barely manage to grow enough rice to feed their families.
Nutrition levels in such a scenario are bound to be low.
The next section reviews the key human development indicators of
Cambodia, which reveal the extent of poverty and social deprivation.
Human development indicators
Cambodia is largely an Agrarian country and its primary produce is rice.
The rates at which farmers sell their produce are dismally low and so keeps
them steeped in poverty. Despite considerable economic growth during the
last decade, poverty remains widespread, although the official figure of
Cambodia’s Average poverty rate is 25.8 percent (UNDP, 2011). Further,
poverty in Cambodia is directly linked to the decades of institutionalized
corruption. Various sources during fieldwork revealed that the government
takes the lion’s share of all monetary aid that enters the country. This aid is
then partially distributed down to the officials at the province and commune levels. Consequently, very limited official aid reaches the grass-root
level.
NGOs are addressing issues of poverty by using foreign aid to build capacity and diversify livelihoods. Villagers are learning improved farming
techniques to increase the productivity of the land. NGOs are also playing
an advocacy role by involving responsible officials about the initiatives
and their impact. This is based on a belief that building a lasting peace
depends on efforts to construct a legitimate, inclusive, accountable, participatory, and decentralized state from the bottom up that is functional in the
far-flung peripheral areas (Narayan et al., 2010).
According to the 2012 Global Hunger Index, Cambodia has a hunger
level of 19.6 percent falling under the category termed ‘serious’. Using the
three basic dimensions of human development – a long and healthy life,
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knowledge and a decent standard of living, Cambodia ranks 139 out of 187
(UNDP, 2011).
Education
The mean years of schooling among adults are a mere 5.8 years (UNDP,
2011). Most men are uneducated and work as wage labourers at construction sites in Phnom Penh city and return home two to three times a year.
Young boys drop out of school by the age of ten to twelve years and leave
home to assist their families and supplement income. Women and girls
typically do not go to school, and instead manage the fields, maintain the
house, ponds, cook, clean, and rear animals. Schools are sparse and often
far away from the village. The Pagoda often doubles up as the school. Older
children drop out of school to take care of their younger siblings and help
their parents. Consequently, younger siblings tend to stay in the school
longer. Fieldwork in villages revealed that teachers are often absent during
harvest months as they cannot survive on their income and therefore work
in farms to supplement it.
Health indicators
On the health front, life expectancy at birth is 63.1 years, and infant mortality is 98 deaths per thousand births, the consequence of parents not having
enough money for adequate medical care. There are just 16 physicians per
100,000 people indicating a serious lack of institutionalized healthcare facilities (Kerbo, 2011).
Only seventeen percent of the population has ‘improved sanitation’,
which means indoor plumbing, and only forty-one percent have access to
improved water sources (Kerbo, 2011). It is reported that nearly sixty percent of healthcare funding is lost in mismanagement and corruption.
Contradictions in democratic governance
Various contradictions in democratic governance are evident in narratives
of villagers who reported land grabbing by government institutions, torture, infringement of freedom of expression and speech, freedom of assembly, violation of women’s rights, equal access to transport, social exclusion
and inequality, and denial of minimum wage.
Land grabbing by government and police brutality
People in many villages reported that the government systematically
avoids registering land ownership in areas where government projects
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have been proposed. Villagers are extremely poor and do not know how to
even claim compensation and are only slowly learning to fight back. Over
the decades of brutality and oppression, fear and mistrust are deeply
embedded between villagers and so individual villagers often feel helpless
and alone when livelihood is lost.
Police enforce the Executive Committee’s instructions with a hard hand.
Opposition to the government is quashed with violence and brutality.
Activists or opposition members seen as a threat in any way are either
imprisoned indefinitely or ‘disappeared’.
Clearly, the poorly functioning government institutions – both political
and bureaucratic – make for a poorly functioning democracy. Corruption
at the apex erodes capacity for effective democratic governance (Kenny,
2011).
Restrictions on freedom of speech and expression
There is substantial resistance felt when sensitive issues are brought up
with the government officials of a given locality. Most government officials
do not accept inquiries about government funds, new infrastructure that
was promised etc.
Protest marches conducted in the city can easily result in being rounded
up and detained, or worse, imprisoned (Serrano and Nuon, 2010). Radio is
the most widely used medium of news and expression and the imprisonment of radio jockeys over unpopular comments is not unusual. Activists’
emails and websites are policed regularly and they have to be sensitive
about anonymity while still drawing attention to problems.
A democracy needs people’s participation so that they can represent
their interests and contribute to shaping the economic, social, and political
development of the society they are a part of. Principles of equality and
social justice are to be upheld in political and economic decision-making
processes at the national and local levels. Such participation is a fundamental democratic right of citizens. However, with a history of authoritarianism, it is not natural for people to collectivize and participate in affairs of
the government or local decision-making.
The community organizing discourse has a normatively Left and human
rights orientation (Kenny, 2011). Community organizing is people coming
together to fight shared problems. When individualistic methods to address a
problem yield unsatisfactory results, a need to think beyond one’s individual
capacity to control is felt. Often these needs are closely linked to economic
problems. Resolving problems collectively is probably as old as the institution of government and civil societies (Ohmer and Brooks, 2012). According
to Andharia (2007), community organizing encompasses all efforts that seek
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to redefine power relations which contribute to the experience of discrimination and marginalization. She argues that community organization, therefore, entails efforts not just at the level of communities but with social
structures and with democratic institutions of governance.
Emerging democracies like Cambodia present a context where working
in a participatory manner is a new approach – for those within the government as well as for citizens – and could well entail risking one’s safety
and security.
NGOs are ardently working on many of these issues and rights violations to empower communities and thus contributing to the transformation of Cambodia to a functioning democracy (Ghate, 1992). CBOs
formed by NGOs are a new trend in Cambodia. Interestingly, more often
than not, almost all community groups relate to their NGO in a patron–
client relationship. This is not conducive for transformatory processes
and giving poor people voice. NGOs normally have to pay members
food and transport costs to enable them to participate in meetings, otherwise their family goes hungry without the family wage for that day. The
cost of local organizing in this manner is unsustainable without continued external support.
Community workers must be receptive to the communities’ own definitions of themselves, as a collective so that change can be engendered
through primary constituencies of identity.
Building mutual support and trust
With little or no support from vertical structures, horizontal giving through
friends and family of a community and among people who know and trust
each other is an important resource. As the Cambodian people are still
recuperating from the decades of trauma they have borne, trust is slow to
develop. In dealing with problems collectively, a need for reciprocity,
mutuality, cooperation, and interdependence surfaces for services like child
and eldercare, work on houses, health care, transportation and also, emotional support, faith, and spiritual encouragement (Castelloe et al., 2009).
Support from an agency is looked for when the natural support systems
of horizontal giving have failed. This could be for a variety of reasons and
community workers need to be aware of such systems before playing their
role. Communities need to be inspired to realize that only through broad,
imaginative and inclusive community efforts can they reinvent themselves
to develop collective economic and political recognition. Participatory practices today help people recognize their own power, work together, and
transform their communities.
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Strategies of organizing and deepening democracy
in Cambodia
The research study examined the work of three fairly large NGOs working
in the south west region of Cambodia. Most of them either established or
worked with CBOs.
Enhance income generation
In rural Cambodia, most NGOs work on helping groups diversify their
occupations and enhance productivity in order to generate better incomes.
Examples of this support include local processing and packaging of rice, introducing savings and credit activities, and providing technical support such as
synchronized hatching techniques in poultry. Coming together enables rural
people to empower themselves and to increase benefits from market transactions. It also allows individuals to better cope with risk, particularly when neither the private sector nor the government provides any safety nets. When a
CBO fails it has a profound negative socio-economic effect on the members
and leads to loss of trust and political influence. Government Departments
and NGOs collaborate either to conduct training workshops on various social
issues and also economic activities for improved productivity.
For example, members of Tamraong focus on garnering strength internally and in their area of operation. At the lowest level, members discuss
primary issues that inform the problem at hand, as these are what can be
addressed in the immediate future. The ability to act successfully and more
effectively as a group emboldens them to address the larger issue affecting
their farming.
The core group began by building capacity and stabilizing themselves
financially through diversification of farm-related activities. In finding solutions and exploring alternate livelihood for the interim, they also won the
confidence and support of other affected people in the village. As the group’s
membership increases, the availability of time and energy also increases. The
involvement of the NGO provides a ‘safe’ platform for discussion about
issues that cause suspicion or helplessness, and over time becomes an integral
part of the group’s meetings. These meetings generate a loose list of challenges that the members agree upon and address on a priority basis.
Farmers discussed flooding as one of their main issues, but while they
talked of the ways in which they had approached the government to take
action; they also spoke of other problems that they are equally upset about.
In so organizing, they expressed having found trust and support. Issues of
alcoholism, domestic violence, robbery, etc. were all issues that they had
given serious attention to, along with the overarching problem of flooding
due to government irrigation projects.
Community rights in Cambodia
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Successful mobilization was possible only when they were able to make linkages between day-to-day solutions and solutions to the larger problems at
hand. One woman said, ‘Everyone is poor’, implying that benefit at every level
is competed for. Often, the poorest members of society are unable to participate in the group’s activities, even though they are most in need of such support systems and are conveniently misinterpreted by the group as unwilling.
Organizing into bigger groups and capacity building
Villagers identify the poorest and create groups, to access benefits that
NGOs provide by way of training, learning, advice, and advocacy. Adults
participate in training exercises, group discussions, and meetings where
new ideas are shared and understood. The village chief calls a village meeting and groups are formed for capacity building in paddy cultivation, animal husbandry, and fishing, or through savings. Income generation is the
focus through improved methods and techniques of cultivation. Creating a
membership base and formalizing the participation through a few simple
rules and regulations, the NGO begins to provide technical know-how and
also brings in government experts to provide training to the villagers in
agriculture, animal husbandry, and fishing.
In Kampong, the group had more women than men, even though the
men in the CBO did not migrate to the city for work. The women spoke as
loudly as the men and were confident about their opinions. This indicated
a sense of equality between men and women. The leader in the group said,
‘At first we thought the women would try to take up the difficult tasks of
labour and give up after a point. To our surprise they found a way around
their hurdles and contributed greatly to the work force. This made us also
realize that they need to be greatly respected for their courage and determination in completing tasks taken up by the group’ .
This has translated in the form of mutual respect and ownership over
the group’s policies, activities, decisions, and choices. Equal participation
earned equal respect and had resulted in a change in the prevailing social
order. Issues of domestic violence were also reported to have decreased
after the group’s leaders spoke to the families that had such problems. The
project now functioned as a local governing body for such kinds of sensitive issues. Moreover, both men and women made decisions for all issues
raised and the male–female power dynamic was overcome.
Creating trust, dealing with helplessness
When several villagers are faced by a difficult issue or a problem where
they feel helpless and cannot deal with it alone, they talk about it at the
religious institution – the pagoda. As the issue gains popularity, those facing
this common problem come together as a group and collectively think of
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approaches. Most problems are taken to an issue-specific NGO which first
analyses the root cause, facilitates organizing, and creates pathways for the
community to tackle the problem. Problems or challenges faced by the
community may be concrete and specific or they may be abstract and/or
to deal with process.
For example: A government check dam on a river/tributary dries up
fields in one area impacting the owners’ livelihood severely. In one village
during a community meeting, members said, ‘We felt insecure, scared, and
helpless in the face of the problem, which seemed very large to us at first.
When we joined the group we felt stronger and fearless. We felt powerful
enough to face and ask questions to the government officials, which we
never dared to do earlier.’
Initiating a dialogue with their commune leaders and other government officials
All three NGOs mentioned that their approach is to devise solutions mutually between the community and the government officials. Bringing transparency into government processes and generating effective redressal
mechanisms are generally not easy.
In Thed village, the women were very poor and all their males were living in the city. The responsibility of managing the fields rested with the
women, and they had to run the house, maintain the structure, feed their
children and older members, and take care of the livestock and poultry.
When the stream irrigating their farms suddenly stopped supplying water,
they were in panic. A few women overcame their general suspicions of
each other and came together to investigate the problem and found it was
caused by a government irrigation project. The government regime being
one that induces fear and oppression made this problem an impossible one
to address. However with the involvement of an NGO, TFC (name changed),
the women heard about the success stories of other villages. They then realized that the strategies they need to employ require greater investments of
time and effort. To this end, they began to first participate in capacitybuilding programmes where leaders would disseminate information and
techniques taught by the NGO. In one of the group meetings, members said,
‘Only one woman knows how to read and write in our group. She goes to
the trainings and comes back and tells us what she learnt and also about stories she heard from leaders of other village groups.’
As their capacities increased, the women came together and travelled as
a group to the city, a rare experience. Here they demonstrated through
peace marches and procession. As they travelled away from their homes
for the entire day to make this possible, they had to carry their babies and
children with them. While the NGOs were enablers for knowledge and
structure, the members of the group created methods and solutions for
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each problem that stood in the way of addressing their CBO’s goal of
bringing attention to the water scarcity in their fields.
A consensus philosophy to organizing and a government respecting
approach is used by some NGOs. After around four to five years, the community and government leaders develop mutual self interests and begin
to see power as to be grown and shared. Consensus strategies of parallel
organizing allow the NGOs to act as facilitators between citizens and the
system. After helping citizens analyse and strategize the situation from
their own perspective, NGOs help connect them to the government and
demand action.
In rural Cambodia, most NGOs work on helping groups diversify their
occupations and enhance productivity in order to generate better incomes.
Government Departments and NGOs collaborate to conduct training workshops on various social issues and also economic activities for improved
productivity.
Social awareness of health and sanitation and social infrastructure
Work in this field is undertaken by some service-oriented NGOs. Education
and awareness through training organized by the NGO work have begun to
bring individuals onto the public platform which in some ways provides
them a space for democratic thinking and action. However, social infrastructure – such as schools, healthcare centres, drainage, waste disposal systems,
roads, and public transport – are extremely poor in most rural areas,
Cambodia being a nation emerging from conflict. During meetings with all
CBO members expressed their frustration at not being able to succeed in
obtaining these infrastructural facilities from the government.
Mobilizing international support
Sustained international assistance could enable a legitimate state to create
law and order, work across social divides to help poor people build permanent economic assets, and foster citizenship by creating legitimate governance
structures and a vibrant associational life (Narayan et al., 2010). In such cases,
poor people do gain. Bottom-up approaches can change the culture of
accountability in communities. The international community in the last two
decades has, in parallel, often increasingly focused on state accountability.
A recent success story of mobilization needs mentioning. When rallying
to increase wages in the textile industry, young leaders were arrested and
imprisoned indefinitely. After a long battle and appeal to international
agencies, which also included garnering support of multinational companies that invested in Cambodia, the leaders were released. Humiliated and
tortured in prison, when they were released they were physically and psychologically disturbed, and were able to recover only after months of
158
Udeet Methala
rehabilitation in Thailand. However, a meeting with one such leader indicated that they were not to be cowed down by such brutality and the
young dynamic leader was soon back on his feet, organizing people to
assert their rights.
Conclusion
Community development and organizing involves critical, proactive, and
visionary citizens. Andharia (2009) rightly argues that there is no reason to
believe that, in a democratic nation, all institutions function democratically,
upholding values of equity with reference to citizens and their collectives.
Rights have to be asserted and structures are to be negotiated. As a result,
the understanding of democracy, citizenship, and collective action is never
static. A community gets mobilized when citizens organize to take a stand
and work towards specific demands. Such assertions are fundamental to
the empowerment of citizens and such shifts in power balance between
people and institutions are fundamental to community organizing.
Changing dysfunctional polities into functioning democracies requires
more than elections; it requires investment in strong local civic associations
and support for them over time through access to information and functioning systems of justice. It requires local leaders in these communities to
support and nurture community prosperity, rather than capturing
resources for themselves (Narayan et al., 2010). It requires changing norms
and values. Large-scale programmes in the Philippines, Indonesia, and
Afghanistan demonstrate that this is possible even in the most difficult conflict contexts. The development of citizen rights involves the empowerment
of individuals to shape their rights and obligations through participation in
society as active, rather than passive, citizens
Acknowledgements
A version of this paper was presented at ‘Why Community Development?
Continuity and Innovation’, the 50th Anniversary Conference of the
Community Development Journal held at The University of Edinburgh,
from 1 to 3 July 2015. The author gratefully acknowledges Dr Esbern Friis
Hansen and Prof. Janki Andharia under whose guidance this study was
conducted as also for encouraging him to write this paper.
Udeet Methala is an Architect based in Pune, India and currently working as a Project
Manager, on the Indo-Swiss Fairconditioning Programme addressing climate change in India.
Community rights in Cambodia
159
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