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The end of an NGO era in Cambodia

By Craig Guthrie

PHNOM PENH - With an overwhelming electoral mandate, robust economy and a potential bounty of oil and gas revenues, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen feels in a strong enough position to move against the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which have been a perennial thorn in the strongman's side since he took power more than two decades ago.

In late September he called for the revival of a controversial law which would require the country's more than 2,000 associations and NGOs to complete a complex registration process and submit to stringent financial reporting requirements. The draft law is expected to be passed by Hun Sen’s Cambodia People's Party (CPP)-dominated National Assembly in the coming months.

"Cambodia has been heaven for NGOs for too long," he said in a

speech broadcast on national radio on September 26, adding that he had given up hope of reading any positive reports written by international or local NGOs. "The NGOs are out of control ... they insult the government just to ensure their financial survival."

By enacting the law, Hun Sen could recalibrate the government's terms of engagement with the Western-led aid community, on which his government has heavily relied for decades to finance its budget. The move comes as private-led foreign investment has fueled the country's economic rise, led in the main by China and South Korea.

"Many of the services provided by NGOs today will one day either be privatized or the revenues of the government will grow to such an extent that the functions currently being done by NGOs will be taken over by the government," said Brett Sciaroni, chairman of Cambodia's International Business Association.

The NGO law's enactment would be a symbolic power shift between Hun Sen's CPP-led government, further emboldened by its landslide victory in this year's general election, and the Western-backed NGOs which have long chastised it over human-rights abuses and corruption allegations.

International aid agencies have for decades held the purse strings on the aid which has sustained the national economy since it emerged from the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, the ultra-Maoist regime which systematically attempted to transform Cambodia into an agricultural utopia between 1975 and 1979, and a subsequent decade-plus of civil war.

Some contend it was the Khmer Rouge's economic failures, including a devastating countrywide famine that killed many and stalked the regime's traumatized survivors, which set the stage for Cambodia's now decades-long dependence on foreign aid.

The British aid agency Oxfam began programs soon after the Khmer Rouge's 1979 ouster, despite incurring the wrath of the United States and the United Kingdom governments for helping the Hanoi-sponsored regime put in place by the invading Vietnamese.

Jacques Beaumont from the United Nations Children's Fund, and Francois Bugnion from the International Red Cross (IRC), who both arrived in Phnom Penh in 1979, were pivotal players in that humanitarian effort. They finally persuaded the IRC, which was fearful of being seen as compromising its political neutrality, into launching what turned into its most significant relief operation since World War II.

But the comprehensive aid experiment did not begin in earnest until after the signing of the 1991 Paris Peace Accords, which by and large ended the country's debilitating civil war. Since then myriad NGOs have come to Cambodia to work on everything from demising to micro finance, orphanages to agree-business, public health issues to snaring globe-trotting pedophiles.

The demising NGOs in particular made great progress, clearing an estimated 25,000 hectares of mined territory between 1992-2003. Cambodia has also been hailed as a global success story in fighting HIV/AIDs transmission, led by NGO-organized education programs and health aid. Prevalence rates have fallen by nearly half, from 3% in 1997 to 1.6% in 2006.

Fractious relations
But Hun Sen's government's relationship with NGOs and international aid agencies has often been fractious, epitomized by its tumultuous interactions with the environmental watchdog Global Witness over its consistent accusations of high-level government links to illegal logging, and with the UK-based rights lobby Amnesty International for its criticism of state-sponsored forced evictions across the country.

The World Bank also suspended US$11.9 million in funds in 2006 for seven sanitation projects when it found evidence of rampant extortion, bribe-taking, bid-rigging and procurement manipulation, leading Hun Sen to claim the multilateral lender was trying to tarnish his government's credibility. The bank only agreed to unfreeze the projects' funding in 2007 after the government promised to strengthen anti-corruption measures.

Despite Cambodia's recent economic boom, including a skyrocketing average 11% gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past three years, a sizable portion of the nation's real income still derives directly from donor nations in amounts wrangled out each year at annual Consultative Group meetings.

The meetings were for years characterized by vague promises from the Cambodian government in response to weak demands by donors for reform, including the long-delayed adoption of an anti-corruption law. But in the past two years these demands have become less relevant with the surge in aid from China, which typically has less good governance or transparency conditions attached.

While Chinese aid is generally funneled through vast infrastructure projects - including hydropower and road projects - usually contracted to Chinese companies, Western nations' share of the average US$600 million in annual aid arrives through international aid agencies and NGOs. The process has been widely cast as a corrupt, inefficient gravy train, giving some traction to Hun Sen's complaints.

"In the 1980s, there was a popular T-shirt satirizing US Army recruitment commercials with the slogan, 'Join the army. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting, unusual people. And kill them'," Brad Adams, executive director for Human Rights Watch's Asia Program, was quoted saying to Action Aid in 2005. "In the new millennium, it could be rephrased, 'Join the aid community. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting, unusual people. And make a killing'."

This is still the case in Cambodia, Adams told Asia Times Online. "You can start with all the foreign consultants making more than $10,000 per month, almost always tax free. This is a huge drain on the aid budget for Cambodia and in many cases the consultants produce nothing of value for the country."

Many analysts and expatriates agree that NGOs and their workers suffer from an image crisis among the Cambodian public, partly due to their comparatively high salaries and lifestyles, which are far adrift from the 35% of the population which lives on less than $0.50 a day.

Country directors for prominent international aid agencies typically receive a $250,000 annual package, which includes a spacious villa in the capital's upmarket "NGO-ville" area, a four-wheel-drive vehicle - usually emblazoned with the logo of their donor agency or charity - and fees paid for the capital's better international schools.

The aid watchdog Action Aid estimated in 2005 that the 700 or so international consultants working for NGOs in the country earned more than Cambodia's 160,000 civil servants put together. "In 1993, yes, 99% of foreign consultants were justified; now, 5% are justifiable. The others are embedding and enabling the mentality of dependency," Center of Social Development director Theary Seng said in June.

Arne Sahlen, a founding member of the Cambodia Support Group, a 25-year-old volunteer organization, echoes Hun Sen's comments that fundraising has overtaken the focus on the actual progress of several NGO projects. According to Sahlen, "vast" resources are being swallowed up on pursuing donors that could be invested on direct project needs. "The need to please donors has warped the focus to not necessarily what is best for the project but what may look best on an application," said Sahlen.

Others contend that several NGOs are actually impeding the development of a self-sustaining private sector, mainly through the alleged abuse of their not-for-profit status to pursue business opportunities. That status helps them avoid taxes and other unofficial costs that private businesses pay, giving non-profit an unfair competitive advantage in the market, they say.

Cambodians now understand the word NGO, especially in the local context, to be a for-profit enterprise, said Sophal Ear, the author of The Political Economy of Cambodia, Aid and Governance. "It's all a business and this is just another way to avoid taxes," he said. "When not covered by donors, capital costs for NGOs have largely been privatized, through an extensive network of 'donations' to the ruling party by Oknhas [politically connected tycoons] politicians, and civil servants."

Discretionary powers
The NGO law, known formally as the Law on Organizations, was first written over a decade ago and aims to address such complaints. It would require NGOs to submit for government approval documents detailing their structure, goals, funding resources, properties and even logos. It also entails fines and imprisonment for any NGO which fails to submit annual reports to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Many fear the discretionary powers the law will give the government in monitoring and sanctioning NGOs - rather than vice versa. Hun Sen no doubt had his one good eye on the anticipated bounty of future oil and gas revenues when calling for the controversial law's revival. Chevron, the US energy giant, discovered oil off Cambodia southwestern coast in 2005 and analysts have predicted the find could generate anywhere between $200 million and $2 billion in annual revenues for the government when full-scale production begins in 2010.

The government is still awaiting a key assessment from Chevron of the supposed find, and both sides have more recently played down expectations. Nonetheless, NGOS are already warning of a possible "resource curse" similar to places like Nigeria, where corrupt governments pilfered and wasted earnings derived from energy exports.

"NGOs are trying to tell us how to use the oil money, but this is of no interest to us. What is important is how to make our resources profitable," Hun Sen said in a recent radio broadcast speech.

Despite his criticisms, there are reasons for concern. A new NGO coalition has begun work to oversee the transparency of the management of future oil funds. Led by the NGO Forum, it has given little information on its structure, but has said it plans to ensure the potential financial benefits from the windfall are managed in a socially responsible manner, and that benefits filter down to the impoverished grassroots.

The World Bank, which also aims to monitor the government's oil revenue management, noted in May that international aid is often poorly managed in key sectors, with the problem of "fragmented" assistance especially acute in health and education.

In the health sector, 22 donors are currently working with over 100 NGOs to deliver $110 million in Official Development Assistance (ODA) per year through 109 projects - yet use of the national system remains at just between 13% to 18%, said the bank. The vast majority of rural Cambodians are forced to use an expensive yet rudimentary private healthcare system which is more reminiscent of poorer African than neighboring Asian nations.

The education system is also beset by severe underfunding, with thousands of graduates churned out from poorly regulated "international" universities with degrees that often leave them ill-prepared to enter the job market. Until now, the only paying option for many graduates was to work in donor agencies and international NGOs. But if Chinese and South Korean private investment flows hold up and the country's hoped-for energy bonanza is realized, that may all soon change if Hun Sen has his NGO-curbing way.

National Center for Khmer Ceramics Revival (NCKCR)

National Center for Khmer Ceramics Revival (NCKCR)
The National Center for Khmer Ceramics Revival (NCKCR) is aimed at the revival of Cambodian ceramics.

The NCKCR is a non-profit and non-governmental organization aiming to rediscover and reintroduce Khmer ancestral pottery techniques and support the development of contemporary Khmer ceramic art. In the process, NCKCR creates economic opportunities, helping to decrease poverty in Cambodia.

Serge Rega established NCKCR in Siem Reap-Angkor, renowned for the Angkor temples. Tourists abound, creating substantial incomes, but paradoxically Siem Reap remains one of the poorer provinces of Cambodia. Siem Reap is emerging as a developed city, but geographically, poverty is displaced by about only 2 kilometers.

NCKCR is involved in Vocational training, which helps the poor rural population and will decrease poverty. Training is provided free of charge. Students are given an allowance to compensate for 'lost' time, which would otherwise be spent earning a living. Vocational training includes working with clay, but also technical skills, such as building a potter’s wheel, a kiln, tools etc. A student finishing a vocational training session with NCKCR must be able to establish his/her own studio. After training, students may be hired by NCKCR, or NCKCR may provide help to the young potter to install a studio.


Vocational training	All crafts are hand made	Vocational training

Vocational training	Throwing on the potter's wheel	Cleaning & sieving clay

Serge Rega says “rural workshops will help the poor and will allow women to express themselves, play a role in society and become participants in an economic activity”. The first rural workshop will be installed in August 2007 in Koh Ker (80 km north-east of Siem Reap) in collaboration with Heritage Watch NGO. A second rural workshop will be installed in May 2008 in Pouk Area, 30 km west of Siem Reap. Rural studios will provide economic assistance for poor peoples but will also play a role in the prevention of looting of Khmer Archaeological sites.

Research on Khmer Antique glazing and techniques - Antique Khmer ceramics are renowned, but the technology was lost during the recent terrible upheavals in Cambodia. NCKCR has sought to rediscover this technology, researching antique Khmer glazing, bisque, kilns, potters language etc. NCKCR wants to soon start the construction of an antique Khmer kiln (Dragon kiln). A first firing is scheduled for December 2007-January 2008. It will be the first time in 500 years such a kiln will be fired in Cambodia - a 10 day and night event. We will make this an international event, in order to facilitate exchange with potters from all around the world. For many years international potters have had exchanges with each other. Khmer potters rarely have the opportunity to travel outside of Cambodia to meet their peers, so this meeting will be held in Cambodia at the NCKCR. The kiln will allow us to fire our reconstituted antique Khmer glaze under the same conditions that it was made in Angkor. Such a kiln is a major tool in the research of antique Khmer techniques.


Construction Bourry box Kiln	Before firing (1500 litre kiln)	Refractory bricks for antique kiln

Unloading		Unloading

Revival of contemporary Khmer Ceramic Arts - NCKCR has rediscovered ancestral techniques, which it now teaches. When this knowledge is established, students are encouraged to develop contemporary Khmer ceramic art, with the support of a French volunteer designer. Contemporary Khmer ceramic art consists of stoneware, salt-glazed wares and raku. Different technologies will be used in the future.

Fight against illicit trade of Khmer Antiques - Looting of archaeological evidence is catastrophic for the understanding of our past, our roots. Looting of antiques include two actors: the looter of the archaeological site trying to support his family, and the buyer. If NCKCR can offer the buyer high quality Khmer antique replicas, it can help to avoid the purchase of originals. Looting of archeological sites destroys potential income from tourism in rural areas, while it’s a unsustainable source of income for poorer peoples. Serge says “Installation of rural workshops will offer a chance to get sustainable money incomes for populations”.


Ash-glazed ware	Iron blue ware	Khmer antique

contemporary Khmer ware	Big size ceramics	contemporary Khmer ware

The goal of self-financing will ensure the sustainability and independence of NCKCR - NCKCR is not a cursory project - it’s aim is the long-term promotion of Khmer ceramics. This includes establishing a Khmer potter’s library with books translated into Khmer language, workshops, raw material furniture, research etc. In order to reach this goal, NCKCR’s target is to be self-supporting within two years,

Khmer Ceramics

Khmer Ceramics Around the 7th-8th centuries Khmer art began to spread to northeastern Thailand. This had a great influence on the art in that area. Later on, around the 10th-13th centuries, from the reigns of King Rajendravarman II to King Jayavarman VII, Khmer political power spread to central Thailand and caused the art of that area also to be influenced by Khmer art. In addition, many Khmer people came to reside in central Thailand. This situation led to the building of numerous architectural monuments reflecting Khmer art and the construction of kilns producing ceramic ware for use by Khmer communities in those areas. The earliest Khmer ceramic production center is the Phnom Kulen kilns in Cambodia. Surveys by the Fine Arts Department in northeastern Thailand have led to the discovery of more Khmer kilns scattered in different areas of Buri Ram province. They are especially plentiful in Laharn Sai and Ban Kruat districts. These kilns seem to have produced ceramic ware mostly about the early 11th century, when the Khmer kingdom become extremely powerful in this region, but discontinued production in the middle of the 13th century during which period the Khmer kingdom rapidly declined, although there is no convincing evidence yet for their beginning and end dates of production.

Four main types of Khmer ceramics were produced in Buri Ram province: unglazed, green-glazed, white-glazed and brown-glazed ware. Common shapes include large jars, covered jars, bowls, bottles, jarlets and architectural fixtures such as roof tiles, antefix tiles and ridge-end finials, etc. Some lime pots were made in the shape of zoomorphic figurines. The decoration includes geometric, wavy, and pepper-corn shape designs. Bands of spots, either incised or added as appliqué buttons, are common around the shoulder. The typical base of these ware is plain, flat and slightly concave. Some bases have fingerprint-like traces indicating that the body was cut from a potter's wheel, but some have a short footrim. A fine-grained yellowish-white clay body was often used to make miniature products like jarlets and covered boxes, while a coarse brown clay was employed in the large products, such as oval-shaped jars. From a comparison of the forms and techniques of production of Khmer and Chinese ceramics, it is obvious that these two groups are closely related, especially with respect to the form of the green-glazed ware from the Yüyao, Ningbo and Wenzhou kilns in Zhejiang province, the white-glazed ware from the Xicun, Qishi and Chaozhou kilns in Guangdong province, the Jingdezhen kilns in Jiangxi province, the Nan'an kilns in Fujian province and the Dingzhou kilns in Hebei province and the brown-glazed ware from the Cizao and Jianyang kilns in Fujian province. Click here to read more Click here to see Khmer Ceramics Gallery

Understanding About Our Culture and Traditional

Our Culture& Festival

Cambodian New Year

The Cambodian New Year takes place from April 13th -15th, during the dry season when farmers do not work in the fields. Astrologers determine the exact time and date by calculating the exact moment the new animal protector (tiger, dragon, or snake) arrives. Cambodians spend the entire month of April in preparation for the celebration, cleaning and decorating their house with candles, lights, star shaped lanterns and flowers. During the first three days, everyone travels to the pagodas to offer food to the monks.

Pchum Ben

Pchum Ben is a religious ceremony in September when everyone remembers the spirit of dead relatives. For fifteen days, people in Cambodian villages take turns bringing food to the temples or pagodas. On the fifteenth and final day, everyone dresses in their finest clothing to travel together to the pagodas. Families bring overflowing baskets of flowers, and children offer food and presents to the monks. Everyone says prayers to help their ancestors pass on to a better life. According to Khmer belief, those who do not follow the practices of Pchum Ben are cursed by their angry ancestors.

Water Festival

Another very colorful festival is the Water Festival or the Festival of the Reversing Current. It takes place in late October or early November and marks the reversal of the Tonle Sap River so that it once again flows south from the Tonle Sap Lake into the Mekong River. The highlight of the three-day festival is the boat races that are held in Phnom Penh. Individual villages build their own boats by hollowing out a log to make a dugout canoe that is rowed by as many as forty people! The prow and the stern of the canoe turn upward and the prow is painted with an eye, just like the war vessels on the wall of the temples at Angkor Thom. On the first two days of the festival, pairs of boats race each other. At sunset on the third day, there is a big race and everyone believes that the river is happy, the fish will be plentiful and the rice crop will flourish.

Day of Hatred

Cambodia must be one of the only countries in the world which has a holiday called the "Day of Hatred!" This was a holiday in May which was created by the People's Republic of Kampuchea and the State of Cambodia as a national holiday to remember the crimes of Pol Pot and his regime. Therefore, the government tried to change this fear and resentment into an annual "Day of Hatred" in which the crimes of Pol Pot were remembered in ceremonies at village cemeteries and Tuol Sleng (the Khmer Rouge torture center). However, although this is still a public holiday, most people do not think of it as a holiday to think about hatred!

Weddings

Weddings are the most important social events in the lives of young people. Men usually get married between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four and women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two. Most families want their children to be married by the age of twenty-five, otherwise other people might wonder why the family is unable to find people willing to marry their children!! There are traditional ways in which a family should decide if a partner is suitable or not. Each family appoints a representative to investigate the other family who makes sure that the other family is honest and, hopefully, wealthy. Once the two families agree to the wedding, they exchange gifts of plants and food and then they consult an astrologer who chooses a lucky date for the ceremony. The wedding ceremony takes place at the bride's house. The bride and groom exchange gifts and rings. Their wrists are tied together with red thread that has been soaked in holy water. A Buddhist priest delivers a sermon, and married guests pass around a candle to bless the new couple. After the ceremony, there is a grand feast. People eat fruit, meat, and small round cakes filled with rice or coconut. Musicians play traditional instruments like the ones seen in this unit's figurine collection.

Funerals

Most Cambodians are Buddhists. Accordingly, they do not look on death as the end of life. Rather, they consider it the beginning of a new life that they hope will be better than the one which ended. Therefore, just as performing the wedding rituals correctly is very important, it is also very important to perform the ceremonies for death in the correct Buddhist tradition. Otherwise the relative will not be able to pass on to their new life. When a person dies, their body is washed, dressed and put into a coffin. Flowers and a photograph of the deceased are usually put on top of the coffin, which is then carried to a special Buddhist pagoda to be cremated. All the family members walk with the coffin to the pagoda. If the dead person was important, everyone in the village also joins the procession. Family members sometimes show their sorrow by wearing white clothing and shaving their heads. White is the traditional color of death instead of the Western idea of black. Because the rituals connected to death affect the ability of the dead person to have a happy next life, many Cambodians were distraught that they were not able to perform the correct rituals for loved ones who died under the Khmer Rouge regime.

Birthdays

Cambodian children do not celebrate their birthdays and it is not a special day for them. Often their parents just remember what season they were born in, but not the exact day so they don't know for sure. During the Khmer Rouge years, many people were separated from their families and they lost their birth certificates. However, all Cambodians know which year they were born, and what it means in the Chinese animal calendar: Do you know which year were you born in and which characteristics you should have?

Khmer Language and Literature

Language

Cambodia's national language is Khmer. It is the only language taught in the country's schools and is used in government documents. The Khmer writing system comes from an Indian alphabet that was brought into Cambodia over a thousand years ago. In Khmer, everyone refers to each other as older brother and older sister, or Aunt and Uncle. Many ancient words are borrowed from Pali or Sanskrit and many more recent words are from French, words such as "chocolate" and "gateaux." Khmer grammar is very simple. For example, there are no tenses. If you want to change "I go to the market" into the past tense, you just add the word already. But Khmer is precise in ways that English isn't. Like many languages, it has many words for articles which are useful for Cambodian people, for example there are over one hundred words for rice!! Also, there are different words for "you," depending on whether you are speaking to a child, a parent, a Buddhist monk, or a member of the royal family. Under the Khmer Rouge regime, they tried to forbid some of these pronouns so that everyone was placed on the same level. Among educated Cambodians over forty years of age, French is still a second language. In the mid 1980s, however, French was overtaken informally by English as the European language that urban Cambodians wanted to learn. In rural areas, not many people speak a foreign language.

Literature

The greatest piece of literature in Khmer is called The Reamker. It is the Cambodian adaptation of the Indian epic of the Ramayana. It dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The story of Hanuman and Sovann Macha (which is described separately) is derived from this story and made into a dance. Many Cambodian dances, and shadow plays are also taken from the Cambodian version of The Ramayana. The Ramayana is found in many cultures throughout Southeast Asia. Cambodians also like to tell their children "chbap"s or moral proverbs which school children memorize, as well as stories from the Reamker of folk tales. The chbap teaches the values of Cambodian society, such as being obedient to your elders and protecting those who are less fortunate than yourself

Khmer Arts

The famous khmer dance the legend attribute the original of choreography khmer of king Jayavarman II, who teaches to Java. In 12th century, the god Indra descending on the earth, offered to Jayavarman II the kingdom of Cambodia, the attributer of royalty and the mythical Apsara, who delivered to khmer the secrets of choreography Apsara…. Most of Cambodia's traditional music was lost during the Khmer Rouge era. During this time many Khmers settled in the USA and Europe, where a lively Khmer pop industry developed. Influenced by US music and later exported back to Cambodia, it has been enormously popular.

Cambodian is famous for its sculpture. Even in the pre-Angkor era, the Khmers were producing masterfully sensuous sculpture that was no simple copy of the Indian forms it was modeled on. The earliest surviving Cambodian sculptures dates from the 6th century. In Phnom Penh at National Museum displayed all kind of statue in different period. Khmer architecture reached its period of greatest magnificence during the Angkorian era (the 9th to 14th centuries). Some of the finest examples of architecture from this period are Angkor Wat, the of Angkor Thom and Preah Vihear temple.

Cambodians are always celebrating a festival of some sort, and do so with relish geading out to a popular pagoda with family and friends or taking off for the provinces unsurprisingly, festivals are the busiest times for shopping and traveling. The major celebration of the year is Bonn Chol Chhnam Thmey (Khmer New Year mid- April). Another important religious festival is Bonn Pchum Ben (this religious festival for dedicating to the diets people).

People

Cambodia is primarily an agricultural country with 85% of the people living in rural area .The majority of the population ( about 95% ) is ethnic Khmer, with minorities made up of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Malay Muslims, along with some highlander from various tribal origins. The population was 13.04 million (in 2002). According to official statistics, around 95% of the people who live in Cambodia are ethnic Khmers ( ethnic Cambodians), making country the most homogeneous in South-East Asia. Over the centuries, the Khmers have mixed with other groups residing in Cambodia, including the Javanese(8th century), Thai ( 10th to 15th century) and Vietnamese (from the early 17th century) and Chinese (since the 18th century). Cambodia's diverse crunchiest (ethno linguistic minorities, or hill tribes), who live in the country's mountainous regions. Collectively, they are known as Khmer Loeu, literally the "Upper Khmer". The majority of the hill tribes are in the northeast of Cambodia, in the provinces of Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, Stung Treng and Kratie.

Many people in Cambodia speak English, French and Chinese.

Clothing, Traditional—Cambodia

The intricately patterned ikat silks (silks that whose threads are tie-dyed before being woven) created by the Khmer and Cham ethnic groups may come to mind when thinking of Cambodian textiles, but the peoples of Cambodia have produced many other cotton and silk textiles. Cambodians traditionally considered both domestic and imported textiles to be markers of identity, prestige, and wealth, and quantity and quality of textiles possessed by an individual or family contributed to their status within society.

Traditional dress in Cambodia is similar to traditional dress in neighboring Laos and Thailand. Sampot is the lower garment worn by either sex. The sampot for urban lower class and peasant women is a tube-skirt (sarong) approximately one and a half meters in length with both ends sewn together and is worn wrapped around the waist and secured with a cloth belt. Women of the middle and upper classes preferred to wear the sampot chang kben on a daily basis until the beginning of the twentieth century. This rectangular piece of cloth is approximately three meters long and one meter wide and is worn by first wrapping the cloth around the waist and stretching the ends away from the body. The outstretched ends are then twisted together and pulled between the legs and toward the back. The ends are tucked into the waist at the back, and the sampot chang kben is lastly fastened with a cloth or metal belt. Women of all social strata wear the sampot chang kben on special occasions such as religious ceremonies and weddings. Men also wear the sampot chang kben, but the traditional textile patterns worn by males differ from those worn by females. Traditionally, neither women nor men wore an upper garment. However, when the French colonial presence grew in Cambodia in the late nineteenth century, both men and women began to wear upper garments.

Even after the French presence in Cambodia from the 1860s onwards, Cambodians continued to wear traditional clothing. The Cambodian royalty and government officials combined the shot silk sampot chang kben (in the appropriate color for the day of the week) with a formal jacket. In the beginning of the twentieth century, Cambodians adopted forms of western style clothing such as a blouse or shirt. Men more readily adopted trousers as the lower garment for daily use, and both sexes continue to wear the sampot chang kben for formal occasions. Lower class and particularly rural women still wear a tube-skirt, but the material may be printed batik-patterned cloth bought at the market rather than hand-woven silk or cotton.

Silk Textiles

The most important silk textiles of Cambodia are the ikat silks (hol), twill-patterned, weft ikat textiles. The pattern is made by tying vegetable or synthetic fibers on sections of the weft threads before the threads are dyed. This process is repeated for different colored dye baths until the patterns are formed and the cloth is woven. The two types of hol textiles have five traditional colors: red, yellow, green, blue, and black. The sampot hol is the lower garment mentioned earlier, made from hol cloth (hol cloth can also be used for sampot chang kben). The pidan hol is a ceremonial hanging reserved for religious or sacred purposes.

The pidan hol is an example of excellent craftsmanship. It may be presented to a Buddhist temple or hung it in homes to create sacred space around the family's personal shrine. In a temple this textile is hung behind, above, or around the base of, a Buddha image. The narrative motifs of a pidan hol often depict tales of the previous lives of the Buddha.

Cotton Textiles

The various ethnic groups of Cambodia also produce cotton material for religious clothing and other purposes, such as for bedding and for various household textiles. The royal courts also imported Indian chintz with patterns especially for the Southeast Asian market.

The kroma is the all-purpose utility cotton cloth used by either men or women throughout the country as a head or neck scarf, belt, or towel. It is also used as a bag to carry things. This rectangular textile has a checkered pattern, usually blue and white or red and white, with striped ends. Political groups such as the Khmer Rouge have used the kroma to symbolize membership.

The Cham, an Austronesian group, are highly skilled silk weavers who produce cotton tube-skirts or sarongs for both men and women. Three or four hundred years ago, the Cham reportedly used to produce batiks (wax resist-dyed fabrics) in cotton similar to that of their kin in insular Southeast Asia. Cham women weave a checked or plaid cotton sarong for men. Natural or white cotton is important in Cham religious activities; it is worn by Cham priests and used as a sacred object during religious ceremonies.

Other Mon-Khmer and Austronesian minorities living in the northeastern region of Cambodia weave cotton cloth on back strap looms for clothing and domestic use. The groups of both of these linguistic families weave similar textiles by attaching the warp beam of the back strap loom to a tree or part of a house in order the achieve the lengths of woven material needed for their loincloths.

Cambodian Flag History

This presentation is mainly based on an article in Flag Bulletin [tfb] (No. 133, p. 3-15; title: "New flags - State of Cambodia"; author: presumably Whitney Smith [smi90]). Further sources: Flaggenbuch [neu39], Die Zeichen der Menschen und Völker: Unsere Welt in Fahnen und Flaggen and Lexikon Flaggen und Wappen [smi75d]. Especially difficult are, of course, the political circumstances leading to the fact, that at certain times (at least) three flags of different governments and counter-governments had been used to represent Cambodia.

**Flag during French Protecdtorate, 1863-1948**
image by P. Mattew adapted by Marcus Schmöger	ca. 1863-1948 (Kingdom of Cambodia under French protection): The first Cambodian flag probably came into existence around 1863 and was used, with only variations, until 1948. It was a red field with a blue border and a white representation of Angkor Wat in the center. The image is based on the image in Flaggenbuch; a different variant is shown in the Flag Bulletin article: the Angkor Wat is drawn like in the current flag.

**Kingdom of Cambodia, 1948-1970**
image by P. Mattew and Eugene Ipavec, 8 October 1996	On 20 October 1948 a new flag was adopted, namely a horizontal triband (1+2+1) of red, blue and red with the Angkor Wat in white in the centre. The Angkor Wat is usually shown outlined in red (Flags Through the Ages and Across the World). This is basically the flag in use again now This flag was used until Norodom Sihanouk was overthrown in 1970. However, it was used after that in exile and in parts of the country under the control of Sihanouk troops. According to the Flag Bulletin article it also appeared for a short time again at the UN headquarters from about April 1975 to January 1976. It was reestablished in Cambodia itself 30 June 1993.

1958 Chief of Naval Staff

image by Antonio Martins

**Khmer Republic, 1970-1975**

image by P. Mathew adapted by Marcus Schmöger	Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk in 1970 and on 9 October 1970 a new flag was introduced. It showed a blue field with a red canton; in the canton a white representation of Angkor Wat (three towers), in the upper fly corner three white stars. This flag was used until April 1975. Obviously this had not been used afterwards in exile or by anti-government forces. In April 1975 the Khmer Rouge forces had established control of most of Cambodia, including the capital Phnom Penh. For a while Norodom Sihanouk acted as a puppet head-of-state of the "Democratic Kampuchea". At least at the UN the 1948-1970 flag was reestablished until January 1976. Inside the country plain red flags seem to have been used (according to Flag Bulletin article).

**Democratic Kampuchea, 1975-1979**
image by Željko Heimer	In January 1976 the new constitution of "Democratic Kampuchea" established a new flag. It was a red field with a three-towered yellow representation of Angkor Wat; however, this was much stylized and only called "monument", not "Angkor Wat" in the constitution. This flag was used until January 1979, when the Khmer Rouge government was deposed. However, it continued to be in use in the parts of the country, where Khmer Rouge forces waved a guerilla war against the government. Furthermore, as the "Democratic Kampuchea" government was the internationally recognized government, it was also used abroad, e.g. at UN headquarters, until 1991. It is unclear to me, however, when this flag had been used for the first time. It was definitely not a new invention in 1976, but had been used previously by the Khmer Rouge. It was used in Germany during demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and Cambodia (17 March 1973 and 29 April 1973). The demonstrators were members of the Maoist KPD, that also displayed Pathet Lao and Vietcong flags (Rote Fahne Vol. 4, iss. 12, p. 1 and vol. 4, iss. 18, p. 3).

**People's Republic of Kampuchea, 1979-1989**
image by Marcus Schmöger	In December 1978 a Khmer Rouge dissident faction (under Heng Samrin and Hun Sen) invaded Cambodia together with Vietnamese troops, and deposed the Khmer Rouge government in Phnom Penh in January 1979. The new People's Republic of Kampuchea introduced a flag based on the 1976-1979 flag, but having five towers instead of three. This flag was used until 1989 in the country, but was not recognized internationally (e.g. at the UN).

**State of Cambodia, 1989-1991**
image by Marcus Schmöger	On 1 May 1989 a new flag was introduced, together with an alteration of the name to "State of Cambodia" and a new constitution. The new flag was a bicolour of red over blue, showing a yellow representation of Angkor Wat (five towers) in the centre; the flag Bulletin article and [heh90] show the Angkor Wat very detailed (similar to the 1948-1970 flag) and not stylized as in the 1979-1989 flag. The stylized version might have been in existence, though.

**1991-1993 (UN administration)**
image by Mario Fabretto	Under the UN administration (UNTAC = United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia) Cambodia used a UN blue flag with a white map of the country in the centre (and the blue inscription of the country's name). However, I'm not sure when this flag was introduced. The claim that it was from 24 June 1991 seems a bit early to me. The most important steps to peace in Cambodia happened only in October 1991 (peace treaty in Paris; decision of UN security council to send UN peace forces).

**Kingdom of Cambodia, 1993-**
image by P. Mattew and Eugene Ipavec, 8 October 1996	On 30 June 1993 the old 1948-1970 flag has been reestablished as the flag of Cambodia. However, obviously the Angkor Wat is now usually outlined black, not red. Marcus Schmöger, 9 November, 2001