By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)
I wrote in this space last week, on the 18th anniversary of the signing of the Paris Accords on Cambodia, about how the stipulations in the Accords and the articles in Cambodia's Constitution it established promised the country and its people high hopes for the future. After 18 years, both the Accords and the constitution have failed to deliver a "liberal democracy" and "respect for and observance of" human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the idea of an "independent judiciary" has become only a dream.The international non-governmental organization Global Witness calls Cambodia's ruling elite a "kleptocratic elite" that robs public assets and natural resources to enrich themselves.
Some forty percent of the people in Cambodia live below the poverty line and many have been forcibly evicted from their homes and their land.
American Physicist Albert Einstein said, "Don't listen to their words; fix your attention on their deeds," and America's 34th President Dwight David Eisenhower said: "Remember that it is not by a tyrant's words, but only by his deeds that we can know him."
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