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Web-only Exclusives
November 30, 2000

From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War
A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix

From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead
Bad news for the Philippines - and some others

From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies
Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights?

Asiaweek Time Asia Now Asiaweek story

FIGHTING PHANTOMS

Hun Sen's real test is slashing surplus troops

By Dominic Faulder


more stories
Cambodia Hun Sen oversees a period of relative stability - but much more needs to be done

MAINTAINING A LEAN, EFFICIENT military is a challenge for a host of developing nations. Cambodia almost surely heads the list. A third or more of the estimated 140,000 personnel in its armed forces are "phantom soldiers" - men who are actually dead or those who drifted back to their villages over the years and were never reported AWOL. Many simply don't exist. Officers pocket the meager salaries of fictitious troops in a notoriously widespread form of corruption dating from the Lon Nol period in the early 1970s when the U.S. subsidized the military.

Early this year, Prime Minister Hun Sen renewed efforts to streamline the military. (The 60,000-strong police could also do with a 40% crop.) In a related move, the government has been confiscating weapons, which have a long history of finding their way from military armories into the open market. Some 60,000 illegal arms have been destroyed in public ceremonies so far. That still leaves an estimated 450,000 guns in the nation. A little less than half of them are with the police and military but that's a small consolation for lawmakers. Reason: Security personnel are often as deeply involved as criminals in armed robberies and kidnappings.

Curbing the military's abuse of power is a major concern among Cambodia's international donors, who allocated $100 million toward the military's demobilization in February. The donors have been particularly alarmed by the role of the armed forces in plundering the nation's forest wealth. Besides damaging the environment, illegal logging accounts for up to $100 million in lost revenue to the government annually. Why, argue the donors, should they help Cambodia foot its bills when it does little or nothing to generate income from a sustainable timber trade? Eager to be in the donors' good books, Hun Sen ordered an intensified crackdown on illegal logging last January. But progress has been hampered by "too many warlords" who "don't really respect orders from Phnom Penh," according to Kao Kim Hourn, executive director of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace.

A leaner and better trained military is the government's only hope of asserting control over the entire country. Foreign analysts say no more than 50,000 well-trained troops are required to meet all of Cambodia's security requirements - a goal they hope to meet by 2005. But laying off thousands of troops, who include many Khmer Rouge defectors, without demobilizing them as farmers or urban workers is asking for trouble: they will likely swell the ranks of criminals.

Authorities have mooted giving surplus troops $1,200 each as a one-time payout. "There is a rethink of all that going on," says a Western diplomat. "But there will still be a funding problem." A military census is due for completion by year's end to determine just how many unnecessary - and phantom - soldiers there are. Even with that achieved, slashing the military will prove to be one of the toughest tests of Hun Sen's credibility and political will.


This edition's table of contents | Asiaweek home

AsiaNow



WASHINGTON
U.S. secretary of state says China should be 'tolerant'

MANILA
Philippine government denies Estrada's claim to presidency

ALLAHABAD
Faith, madness, magic mix at sacred Hindu festival

COLOMBO
Land mine explosion kills 11 Sri Lankan soldiers

TOKYO
Japan claims StarLink found in U.S. corn sample

BANGKOK
Thai party announces first coalition partner



TIME:

COVER: President Joseph Estrada gives in to the chanting crowds on the streets of Manila and agrees to make room for his Vice President

THAILAND: Twin teenage warriors turn themselves in to Bangkok officials

CHINA: Despite official vilification, hip Chinese dig Lamaist culture

PHOTO ESSAY: Estrada Calls Snap Election

WEB-ONLY INTERVIEW: Jimmy Lai on feeling lucky -- and why he's committed to the island state



ASIAWEEK:

COVER: The DoCoMo generation - Japan's leading mobile phone company goes global

Bandwidth Boom: Racing to wire - how underseas cable systems may yet fall short

TAIWAN: Party intrigues add to Chen Shui-bian's woes

JAPAN: Japan's ruling party crushes a rebel ì at a cost

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans need to have more babies. But success breeds selfishness


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