The lucky country?

I’m thinking of retraining, giving up my gilded life as a journalist, and becoming an Australian politician. Mainly because the barriers seem so inexpressibly low. Apparently you can be dumber than a box of rocks, and still get paid by the Australian taxpayer to make horrendous decisions on their behalf. I mean, I’m stupid, have awful table manners and irritate almost everyone I meet. But I’m still a better human being than most Australian politicians today.

If you want proof, just look at the much-vaunted A$55-million refugee deal between Australia and Cambodia, which saw a grand total of five  people sent to live in Cambodia, from the Pacific hellhole of Nauru, where they had been detained on their way to a better life. For A$55 million to the Cambodian government.

A few months ago, a Rohingya, from the most oppressed class in Burma, a country not famous for its even-handed treatment of minorities, decided to go back, as he was ’homesick.’ I have a great deal of difficulty in getting my head wrapped around how unhappy you’d have to be in the Kingdom of Wonder to voluntarily choose to relocate to the most prejudiced place on the planet. But he did.

And now, two Iranian refugees who were transferred to Cambodia have returned to Iran voluntarily. A spokesman for idiot Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton confirmed last week that the husband and wife had left Cambodia.

Australian Senator Sarah Hansen Young has called for the country’s auditor-general to investigate millions spent “to grease the wheels of a corrupt regime, so that the government can dump a handful of people in an impoverished country”.

Of the two refugees left in the country, one says he feels abandoned and fears he will die in Cambodia. “I feel unwell, lonely and sad,” Mohammed Rashid, a 26-year-old Rohingya Muslim, told Fairfax Media while lying on the floor of a decrepit house in a Phnom Penh suburb. “I fear that I will die here.”

Rashid said promises made by Australian officials remain unfulfilled, including offers of help setting up a restaurant, accommodation and an $8,000 cash payment. He sleeps alone in an International Organisation for Migration office, despite Australia paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent a luxury villa in a Phnom Penh suburb for three years.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said: “It was a classic Phnom Penh sting job on a donor: get the money upfront but don’t concede the operational control over the project – and then stall or obfuscate until you get the outcome you want, which in this case was only a handful of refugees.”

Peter Dutton’s spokesperson said in a statement: “The Government remains committed to supporting the Government of Cambodia to implement settlement arrangements in Cambodia and encourages refugees temporarily in Nauru to explore this settlement option.”

The Mighty Penh’s spokesperson says: “Peter Dutton is one of the stupidest men on the planet. How is it that Australians are satisfied by being represented by these losers? The mind boggles.”

 

 

 

 

Surely you jest?

Sometimes this blog could just write itself. Honestly.

The International Organization for Migration said it is expecting the first refugees to arrive in Phnom Penh within days from the Pacific island of Nauru, as part of a controversial resettlement deal cooked up between Australia and Cambodia last year.

News of the first arrivals follows the leaking of a letter that the refugees are being given that makes … interesting … claims about the state of Cambodia’s democracy, health care system and respect for free speech.

Under the agreement, Cambodia has agreed to take an unlimited number of the hundreds of refugees that Australia is currently holding on Nauru, in return for $35 million in aid.

Rights groups and lawmakers in both countries have attacked the deal, “accusing Australia of shirking its international obligations for the refugees by shunting them off to one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the region,” according to the Cambodia Daily.

Two separate delegations from Cambodia that visited Nauru have so far failed to convince a single refugee to take up the offer. Cambodia said the visiting officials gave the refugees “an honest take” on what they could expect life to be like in their country.

A leaked letter, however, shows that the refugees are being lied to. The five-page letter, which is being handed out by Australian immigration officials on Nauru, is titled “Settlement in Cambodia” and offers guidance to what help refugees can expect upon arriving here.

“Moving to Cambodia provides an opportunity for you and your family to start a new life in a safe country, free from persecution and violence, and build your future,” it says.

Cambodians “enjoy all the freedoms of a democratic society, including freedom of religion and freedom of speech.”

On the subject of safety, the letter tells the refugees that they have nothing to worry about. “Cambodia is a safe country, where police maintain law and order,” it says. “It does not have problems with violent crime or stray dogs.”

“Cambodia has a high standard of health care,” the letter goes on to say, “with multiple hospitals and general practitioners.”

Where to start?

Last year, researchers at Harvard and the University of Sydney ranked Cambodia’s 2013 national election the fifth most “flawed or failed” out of the 73 national polls held around the world in the previous 18 months. It beat Belarus, the Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, and Equatorial Guinea, though. Which is, I suppose, something.

In 2013, the US-based Freedom House ranked Cambodia “not free” for the 40th year running, placing it among the countries “where basic political rights are absent, and basic civil liberties are widely and systematically denied.”

Just last month, the World Justice Project ranked Cambodia 98th out of 102 countries in its index of government openness. Cambodia also consistently ranks near the bottom of global measures of corruption and press freedom.

The government regularly deploys police and soldiers to break up peaceful protests by force. The UN’s last human rights envoy to Cambodia said the judiciary was “riddled” with corruption.

The US Bureau of Diplomatic Security last year released a report for embassy staff that gave Cambodia a “critical” crime rating. “The frequency of armed robberies involving weapons continues at high levels.”

The Australian Foreign Affairs Department says visitors to Cambodia should take out medical evacuation insurance.

“Health and medical services in Cambodia are generally of a very poor quality and very limited in the services they can provide,” the department says. “Outside Phnom Penh, there are almost no medical facilities equipped to deal with medical emergencies.”

The Guardian’s take on the subject…

But on the bright side, Cambodia has just won a Guinness World Record, for making the biggest rice cake in the world. Weighing in at four tons, the cake was paraded through the streets of Siem Reap, to general joy and delight.

Hun Many, a CPP lawmaker and son of Prime Minister Hun Sen, said the accomplishment would earn Cambodia international respect. “I am proud to be a child of Cambodia, and today we have achieved a giant sticky rice cake, and the world will acknowledge that from now on.” Hun told an audience in Siem Reap.

“Our hard work comes from having a singular spirit and a single target to make a giant sticky rice cake to make the people and the international stage know what Cambodia is today and what can come from our unity,” he added.

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Well, they’ve gone ahead and done it: Australia and Cambodia have signed a deal to see Cambodia take a number of Australia-bound refugees from Nauru and settle them in the countryside here somewhere.

At a ceremony on Friday, Australia’s Immigration Minister Scott Morrison signed the deal with Cambodia’s Interior Minister Sar Kheng, which also includes $40m extra cash for Cambodia. The ceremony was farcical, with waiters upending trays of Champagne and neither Morrison nor Sar Kheng saying a word to anyone, even each other, for the five minutes they stood drinking on stage. Journalists were baffled.

Afterwards, Cambodia said that Australia had asked them to call off a planned press conference; Australia later denied this, saying that media arrangements were down to Cambodia. So much for international cooperation.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop defended the deal, saying that Cambodia asked Australia if it could help resettle asylum seekers, because it has aspirations to be a developed country.

“Cambodia is very keen to get people into their country who can help them grow their economy,” Bishop said.

Ah, yes, that entrepreneurial spirit. Just what Cambodia needs; a thousand or so more dirt-poor people here to rely on the country’s education and health care systems. However Cambodian officials have said they might begin by resettling just five refugees.

Most people here in Cambodia are against the deal; street protests have been held outside the Australian embassy. The UNHCR and Amnesty International have both condemned the deal.

President of Cambodia’s Centre for Human Rights, Ou Virak, said it was both “shameful” and “illegal”.

“The Australian Government has an obligation to protect refugees and sending them Cambodia’s way is not how a responsible country protects refugees,” he said.

Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy warned that “very little” of the money exchanged under the deal will filter down to the refugees.

“It will be pocketed by corrupt government officials,” he said. “Refugees are not like any ordinary goods that can be exported from one country and imported by another country. They are human beings.”

But a local English-language newspaper had a different point of view: “Mr. and Ms. Refugee, given the realities of human smuggling, you and your family gambled big – and lost … In return for an investment of several thousands dollars, you thought you had a winning lottery ticket by entering Australia by the back door … 
Cambodia’s economy is growing by seven percent – last year, this year, and probably next year… So, pull up your socks (you won’t need them here), and adjust to your new reality.”

 

Many happy returns

So, I’m back in PP. And it’s great.

Different from the UK, but great.

So, in the UK, I had a wonderful time, some of which involved lying snuggled underneath a duvet, watching raindrops chase each other down the windowpane, before I got up and ate bacon and eggs and fried bread, courtesy of my saintly mother.

But back in Phnom Penh on my first morning back, the awful dog, Harley, had other ideas. At 0500hrs I was woken up by the little shit trying to debride my arm. So 0515hrs saw me tottering up our favourite walking street, little plastic bag firmly in hand.

But it wasn’t half bad. The thick golden sunlight was slanting through the trees, casting long shadows from the monks on their way to the temple; woodpeckers and pink-necked pigeons cooed in the trees. Street-sleepers were waking up slowly, rolling up their hammocks in preparation for another day of not very much. The ochre walls of the Royal Palace glowed softly in the early morning light. It wasn’t as hot as it would get later in the day, the unrelenting heat which seems to be going on rather too long this year. It was beautiful, and exotic, and home. All in all, it’s great to be back.

And at least it was my choice to come. The papers when I got back were full of the news that Cambodia is close to a deal with Australia to accept some of that country’s asylum seekers. I wrote about this a couple of months ago, hoping it was some kind of a joke. It now looks as if it is, in fact, true: “A statement posted on what is purported to be Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Facebook page suggested that Cambodia may be close to signing off on the deal to resettle more than 1,000 refugees from Australia’s Nauru island detention centre.”

Cambodia has since admitted that it will take refugees from Nauru, but only if those seeking refuge “volunteer” to be resettled here.

Australia’s Nauru detention centre currently holds more than 1,100 asylum seekers, predominantly from Muslim-majority countries such as Iran and Pakistan. It’ll be interesting to see how many of them “volunteer” to come to Cambodia. Watch this space.

Aussie rules?

A recent proposal from Australia to the Cambodia government has people here in Phnom Penh agog, as well as most Australians of even the slightest liberal viewpoint.

A proposal from the Australian Foreign Minister that Cambodia resettle refugees seeking asylum in Australia has been greeted with hilarity here.

Speaking to the press on Saturday, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong revealed that his Australian counterpart, Julie Bishop, had made the request in talks with Prime Minister Hun Sen in Phnom Penh, a proposal that the government was taking “very seriously”, he said.

Now, it’s easy to mock the proposal: most economic migrants would find Cambodia’s nonexistent welfare system, health care and education a bit of a black mark. An average daily wage of $1 is probably not what they were looking for when they got on the boats to go to Oz.

But genuine political refugees are unlikely to be particularly safe here. In 2009, Cambodia sent 20 Uighur refugees back to China after they were smuggled into the country by a Christian group. The 20 Uighurs said they were fleeing persecution after a crackdown that followed riots in western China.

The deportation, in the face of protests by the United States, the United Nations and human rights groups, came two days before China signed 14 trade deals with Cambodia, worth approximately $1.2 billion.

Before being deported, several of the asylum seekers told the office of the UNHCR that they feared long jail terms or even the death penalty. At least two of them have since been sentenced to life in China’s lovely prison system. Information on the others is unavailable.

Sarah Hanson-Young, an Australian Greens party senator and immigration spokeswoman says “Sending refugees to Cambodia is neither a sustainable or reasonable response to the fact that people seek safety from war and terror by coming to Australia.”

Cambodian Center for Human Rights president Ou Virak told a local paper that Cambodia had a “horrible” refugee rights record. “We don’t have the financial capacity but we also don’t have the political will [for] refugees who need protection, especially when most refugees are of a political nature,” he said.

Meanwhile, people have been asking me about the progress of Harley the puppy. Well, firstly, we’ve decided he has oppositional defiant disorder, which is described as “an ongoing pattern of anger-guided disobedience, hostility, and defiant behaviour toward authority figures that goes beyond the bounds of normal puppy behaviour.” Yep, that’s Harley.

He’s also become enormous. Here is a picture of him considering whether to eat an entire, real, horse.  Honestly.

Harley contemplating his horse d’oevres.

And here is a picture of him trying to stop me taking his picture.

So Harley is fine, but an enormous pain in the arse.

But we love him immoderately.