Sou Sdei and welcome to Campuccino, your fortnightly dispatch of key headlines in Cambodia with a dash of opinion.
To new subscribers, welcome! I’m Darathtey, a communication consultant, writer, and researcher. Learn more about my work here.
I spent last week in Chiang Mai at Splice Beta meeting old and new friends. It was rejuvenating to be among many wonderful, resourceful, and kind souls. Having said that, I returned to Phnom Penh to a busy week with a head cold hitting me with full force. As I’m trying to stay on top of things (or more like floating alongside them), I’ll keep this issue brief.
- Darathtey
In this issue: debt issue, eviction at Angkor Wat site, new strategy on environment, and more.
Debt seems to be one of the most discussed issues in Cambodia currently. In #65, I talked about a YouTuber’s beef with the Cambodia Microfinance Association over her microloan content. In this week’s issue, I came across David Hutt’s article questioning whether Cambodia’s private debt eventually became the nation’s debt. The article looks at private debt from various angles: the housing bubble and speculation among Cambodia’s middle class, disrupted Chinese investment due to COVID-19, and struggling proper developers.
This next one is an article by Fiona Kelliher about UNESCO being scrutinised by Amnesty International (rightfully so, in my opinion) over evictions at the site of the Angkor archaeological site. Let’s be honest, many people know that there were some dodgy and poorly constructed rationales behind the eviction. They were all masked under an excuse of protecting the site. I spoke about this before. I understand that UNESCO does not have the authority or jurisdiction to stop the national government from carrying out the eviction; however, UNESCO should have said something especially when their site’s zoning scheme was used to justify such an act. Why does this matter? Some of you may ask. Because, according to Licadho, evictions are still going on.
Earlier this month, Cambodia hosted the Cambodia Climate Change Summit 2023 (CCCS). The summit was used as an opportunity for the government to announce the launch of a new environmental strategy to address climate change-related challenges. Do I care about climate change? Yes. Do I have faith in such a conference which consists mostly of men in suits in fancy hotel conference rooms? No. But you can read about it in Kiripost’s article. For access to Cambodia’s Circular Strategy on Environment 2023-2028, go here.
Speaking of the environment, it seemed that there might be at least two hydropower projects planned for Virachey National Park, Cambodia’s dense and somewhat untouched forest in the northeastern part of the country bordering Laos and Vietnam. According to the article by Anton L. Delgado, this information was gathered from leaked confidential documents from meetings between government officials and developers this year. The counterargument to this development is the forest’s potential to earn money through the carbon credit project. So, it comes down to a question of whether Virachey is worth more kept standing or chopped down to make way for something else. Maybe you can find a hint to that answer in the new circular strategy on the environment. (Please don’t quiz me on it, I haven’t read it yet.)
Visually Pleasing
Arts & Culture
🥘 Battambang city has become the first city in Cambodia to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) as a destination for gastronomy. It is well deserved because food in Battambang is next level! Just thinking about it makes me drool. The combination of flavours just hit differently, in an awesome way.
🖼️ Angkor Photo Festival issued an open call for visual documentary work about Cambodia from photographers, videographers and journalists residing in Cambodia. Selected works will be shown in the official programme of the 19th Angkor Photo Festival & Workshops, to be held in Siem Reap from the 19 to 28 January 2024. I must confess, I have not been to one of their festivals yet, and apparently, there were already 18 of them prior! Maybe I need to change that. It came highly recommended by a fellow participant I met at Beta last week as a great way to learn about the region.
Campuccino is a fortnightly dispatch of key headlines in Cambodia, written by @DarathteyDin.
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