"My mother wanted us to get a foreign education so we could come back and
control the country". Meas Victor Sophearith (above) is one of Cambodian's
privileged elite.
Victor and his generation are Cambodia's future. Will they use their
education and wealth to lift their less fortunate compatriots out of
poverty? Or will they simply continue their parents' fevered pursuit of
money and power? Britain's Department for International Development
(DFID), which gave almost $US30 million of its taxpayers' money to the
country in the last fiscal year, offered one answer in June, when it
announced the closure of its Cambodia office by 2011. The official reason?
"It was felt UK aid could have a larger impact . where there are greater
numbers of poor people and fewer international donors," said a DFID
statement. But the development agency might also have tired of throwing
money at a nation where so much poverty can be blamed on a grasping
political elite-and their luxury-loving children. (Australia clearly has
not: it has allocated $61.4 million in development assistance to Cambodia
for 2009-10.)
Depressingly, the Khmer Riche Kids sometimes seem indistinguishable from
the old colonial ruling class. They were educated overseas-partly because
their families' wealth made them targets for kidnapping gangs-and often
speak better English than Khmer. They carry US dollars - only poor people
pay with Cambodian riel - and live in newly built neoclassical mansions so
large that the city's old French architecture looks like Lego by
comparison. And their connection to the Cambodian masses is almost
non-existent.
The "Paris Hilton of Cambodia", Sophy, daughter of a Deputy PM. Sophy's
extravagantly decorated car. (Good Weekend Magazine)
Sophy, 22, is the daughter of a Deputy Prime Minister. Rich, doll-like and
self-obsessed, she could be the Paris Hilton of Cambodia. She imports
party shoes from Singapore, brands them "Sophy & Sina" (Sina is her
sister-in-law), hen displays them in her own multistory boutique. It has
six staff, no customers and a slogan: "It's all aboutme." Sophy's name is
spelled out in sparkling stones on the back of her car, a Merc so pimped
up that I have to ask her what make it is. "It's a Sophy!" she replies.
We meet at her hair salon, where she is prepping a model for a fashion
shoot for a magazine she is starting up with her brother Sopheary, 28, and
their cousin Noh Sar, 26,. All three were educated abroad and prefer to
speak English together. Sopheary, who studied in New York state, seems
both amused and slightly embarrassed by his wealth and privilege. "What
can you do?" he asks. "Your parents give you all these things. You can't
say no. If someone gives you cake, you eat it."
Talk to Sopheary and his friends, and Cambodia's tragic history seems very
far away. The genocidal Khmer Rouge blew up banks and outlawed money
before being driven from power in 1979. Later came the 1991 Paris Accords,
and the plunder of Cambodia's rich natural resources-forests, fisheries,
land -began in earnest. Cambodia's official economy largely depend on
garment, exports, but there is a much larger shadow economy in which only
the ruthless and the well-connected survived and prosper. "If you're doing
business, you have to know someone high up, so he has your back," says
Victor.
The closer you get to Hun Sen, Cambodia's autocratic Prime Minister, the
better connected you are. Hun Sen staged a bloody coup d'etat in 1997 and
has kept an iron grip on power ever since. Opponents have been silenced
while loyalists have grown rich. This includes ministers, a handful of
tycoons and generals. Cambodians are often driven from their land by
soldiers or military police. Formerly a French possession, Cambodia has
been colonized all over again, this time by its own greedy elite.
But the Khmer Riche have a problem. "None of them can answer a simple
question: where does all your money come from?" says a Western journalist
in Phnom Penh. Ask Cambodian ministers how they got so rich on a meager
government salary, and they will reply, "My wife is good at business."
When I ask Noh Sar, whose father is a senior customs official, why he is
so wealthy, he gives me a slight variation: "My mother works a lot."
Victor's mother is also good at business, according to "Country for Sale,"
an investigation into the elite published by the London-based corruption
watchdog Global Witness in February 2009. "She is a key player in RCAF
[Royal Cambodian Armed Forces] patronage politics, holding a fearsome
reputation among her husband's subordinates on account of her frequent
demands for money," says the report. "RCAF sources have told Global
Witness that military officers sometimes bribe [her] in order to increase
the chances of her "close connections" to a major timber smuggler.
It is only in the past few years that the children of Cambodian's elite
have grown confident enough to show off their family's wealth. "If you
want people to respect you in Cambodia, you must have a good car, good
diamonds, a good cell phone," explains Ouch Vichet, 28, better known as
Richard. "It's an I'm-richer-than-you competition." Richard is quite a
competitor: he drives a $US150,000 Cadillac Escalade and wears a $US2,500
Hermes watch and a $US13,000 2.5-carat diamond ring. He doesn't have a
bodyguard, although some friends keep them as status symbols.
"Crazy money": (above) Ouch "Richard" Vichet is surprisingly candid about
his wealth. (Good Weekend Magazine)
Richard was sent to New Zealand to be educated after a gang tired to
abduct his brother. He is a short, affable man with an impish grin. In a
city where the elite have a tribal suspicion of outsiders, he is
refreshingly candid about his wealth. "My money is from my parents," he
says, and then breaks it down. They gave him a villa, half a million US
dollars, and a 400-hectar rubber plantation that will generate income for
the rest of Richard's life. His parents-in-law gave him $US100,000 in cash
and another villa, worth $200,000, which he sold and invested in real
estate. Richard also runs a busy Phnom Penh nightclub called Emerald - his
parents made their first fortune in gems - which provides him with "pocket
money". A party of rich kids can spend $US2,000 on drinks in a single
night, more than an average Cambodian earns in 3 years.
His parents' second, much larger, fortune comes from real estate. A few
years ago they bought about five hectares of land just outside Phnom Penh
for $US14 a square metre, then sold it for $US120 a square metre two years
later, making more than $US5 million in profit. "Where else can you make
profits like that?" grins Richard. "It's crazy money." He has a daughter
called Emerald and a son called Benz. (His other Benz is a GL450.) They
all live with his parents in a newly built mansion.
Yet Richard's house is modest by the operatic standards of Phnom Penh's
Tuol Kuok precinct, part of which was once a notorious red-light district.
A taxi driver shows me the neighborhood - it's like a "homes of the stars"
tour in Beverly Hills, except that Tuol Kuok's backstreets are piled with
rubbish. My driver points out giant mansion after mansion, and tells me
who lives there. Hun Sen's son, Hun Sen's daughter, Secretary of State at
the Ministry of Labour. A Deputy PM-Sophy and Sopheary's dad. A
four-mansion compound with lots of razor wire, and a gate guarded by
special forces soldiers - Victor's family.
Tuol Kuok's houses are well-guarded for a reason: until there was real
estate to invest in, many wealthy Cambodians kept their money at home in
bricks of cash. "We don't trust banks," says Richard. "The old generation
kept their money under the bed. The new generation keep it in safes in
their houses." Victor says his family also stays away from banks, but for
a slightly different reason. "If you put your money in a bank, everyone
will know how much you have," he explains.
I had also heard that rich Cambodians had repatriated hundreds of millions
of dirty dollars from Singapore banks after a post-September 11 shake up
of global banking, and that his money had helped fuel the land
speculation.
For the children, the wealth comes with one big condition: they must do
what Mum and Dad tell them. "I wanted to go to art school but my parents
wouldn't let me," says Sopheary. Most kids dutifully join the family
business-Richard translated for his father during overseas gem-buying
trips. For some, that business is politics. Concept like nepotism and
conflict of interest don't count for much in Cambodia. Commerce Minister
Cham Prasidh-whose giant house resembles an airport departure hall, one
with its own jet-ski lake - gave a ministry position to his wife and made
his daughter his chief of cabinet. Cambodia's ambassadors to Britain and
Japan are brothers, and their boss is also their father: Foreign Minister
Hor Namhong. He says he hired his sons on merit. "It's not nepotism," he
insists.
Their parents also expect them to marry young-men in their 20's, women in
their teens-and strategically, meaning to someone from a rich and
influential family. These marriages are often arranged. "It's like
medieval times in France," complains Victor, still a bachelor. This means
that many high-society Cambodians soon find themselves trapped in loveless
unions; affairs are common. Sophy was married off at 17 to the son of the
rich and powerful Interior Minister.
The web of marriages binds together Cambodia's political and business
elite and ensures the ruling Cambodian People's Party's stranglehold on
power. At the centre of the web sits Prime Minister Hun Sen. His three
sons and two daughters are all married to the children of senior ruling
party politicians or, in the case of his son Hun Manit, to the daughter of
the late national police chief. Now in his 30's, Hun Manit is being
groomed to succeed his father. He graduated from West Point, the US
military academy, in 1999, amid protests by members of the US Congress
over his father's human rights record. In July, Global Witness urged the
British Government to revoke the visa of the Cambodian Prime Minister, who
visited Bristol University to watch Hun Manit receive a doctorate in
economics.
Senior Khmer Rouge figures such as Comrade Duch, the mass-murdering
commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, are currently on trial at a United
Nations-based tribunal in Phnom Penh. The Khmer Riche, on the other hand,
remain above the law. Victor displays a military VIP sticker on the front
dash of his Mercedes. "It means the police cannot touch me," he says.
Richard is an advisor to a military police commander, which also
effectively grants him legal immunity.
Many of his generations abuse such privileges. Last August Hun Chea, a
nephew of the Prime Minister, hit a motorcyclist with his Cadillac,
ripping off the man's leg and arm. Hun Chea tried to drive off but
couldn't because the accident had shredded a tyre. Military police
arrived, removed the car's license plates and, according to "The Phnom
Penh Post", told Hun Chea: "Don't worry. It wasn't your mistake." Hun Chea
walked away. The motorcyclist bled to death on the road.
Hun Sen has yet another bad-boy nephew, the widely feared and mega-wealthy
Hun To ("Little Hun"). In 2006 a newspaper editor filed a lawsuit against
Hun To for alleged death threats, then fled overseas to seek asylum with
the United Nations' help. Hun To was also once spotted sitting in his
luxury speedboat, its sound system cranked up high, being towed around
Phnom Penh by a Humvee. A few weeks before, Victor had been in Los
Angeles, where he test-drove Hun To's latest acquisition before it was put
in a Cambodia-bound shipping container: a $US500,000 Mercedes McLaren SLR
supercar." He has already built a special garage for it," says Victor.
Victor will not - dare not-criticize Hun To. But he is critical of
Cambodian society. "From top to bottom, everyone is corrupt," he says. He
hopes to one day set up a foundation to help poor Cambodians send their
children to study overseas. "We want to change things, but we'll have to
wait until our parents retire," he says.
But older generation shows no sign of retiring - not when there's so much
cake left to eat. In January, foreign donors pledged $US1 billion to
Cambodia, its biggest aid package yet. The Government relies on foreign
aid for almost half its budget. It could break this reliance by exploiting
its reserves of oil, gas and minerals: the International Monetary Fund
estimates Cambodia's annual oil revenues alone could reach $US1.7 billion
by 2021. Could, but probably won't. Why? Because the same elite who cut
down the trees and sold off the land are now poised to extract the oil and
minerals, with the help of their children.
Some Hun Sen loyalists have already been allocated exploratory mining
licences. One of them is General Meas Sophea, the army chief. He recently
hired a temp to act as his foreign liaison officer. The temp is his son.
His son's name is Victor
