The Cambodian challenges

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The Bokor Old Casino

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Ten years ago the country retained traces of the devastation of war. Today Cambodia seems another place. The Khmer Rouge regime, the Vietnamese invasion, the civil wars, all seem chapters of a book of history. The country that was portrayed as infected with mine lands until the end of the 20th century, has another face before the world. 

It is not, of course, just that wonderful image of the tourist promotions as The Kingdom of Wonders. In fact, the wonders of archaeological millenarian sites like Angkor Wat or Sambor Preikuk temples are without discussion. The Khmer culture is itself an attraction, with one of the oldest living language, with ancient traditions and Hindu-Buddhist philosophies, the always-smiling Cambodians and the richness of its nature from hills to plains, rivers, lakes, sea, beaches and islands in a territory of 69,898 sq. miles. 

Traces of the wars and conflicts of the last 150 years still around anyway: Old French structures here and there to give evidence of the Protectorat du Cambodge (1863 - 1953,) national monuments to remember the troublesome fights for the independence, as the Indochina wars; museums to the Khmer Rouge regime (1975 - 1979) and its bloody rule that disappeared about 1.7 million persons; a current UN-Cambodian tribunal of justice for the surviver leaders of that regime and many other things that hold in the middle of the rapidly changing modern Cambodia.

The financial boom

Although Cambodia still in the list of one of the poorest nations of Asia, its growing has been constant since 1999 and it was slowed down only by the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. However, the country continues its opening of markets and the promotion of foreign investment. 

We cannot forget that Cambodia is a poor living in a rich quarter. China, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, India and Malaysia are in its region. Its join to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, in 1999 coincides with the begin of its recovery after its long depression by wars and political instability for more than 30 years. 

However, the development has created a new situation: the growing gap between rich and poor. The concentration of investment in the main urban centers (Phnom Penh, Battambang, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville) and the detriment of rural areas. 

Here, therefore, the most important challenge of modern Cambodia: making development in a way to reduce poverty and unemployment. Still provinces of the country completely out of the stream of that financial boom that seems to create a general optimism. While the capital dreams itself with skyscrapers, some provinces lack completely a school coverage for its child and youth population.

The new social evils

Then we do not have more that Cambodia that was portrayed before as a great camp infected of land mines and handicap children and youth. The problem still, but it has been surpasses by other so damaging as an expected explosion on your walk path. 

The human trafficking is one of those modern land mines to victimize vulnerable Cambodians. If tourism became one of the most important industries in Cambodia to support its present growing, it attracts the odious sexual tourism that puts at risk so many children especially in a country where poverty is too high. Child labor, child prostitution and violence against women become a routine in the daily news in Cambodia. 

At the same time, evictions either in rural areas or urban centers for the so call urban developments and investments, are a current problem without end that seems an evident dismissal of human rights and an open irregularity in due legal processes.

How to keep the balance between an economical growing of a country and the improvement of the standard of life of its people is already a challenge. Development cannot be settled in just one region or directed to a particular group of people. Real development means the total integration of a nation, with its history, its geography, its culture, tradition, ethnics and dreams. Only in such sense, peace, justice and progress are guaranteed.