by Luke Corbin

[WATER SECURITY IN CAMBODIA]

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Although progressing in some areas, the Kingdom of Cambodia remains one of the

most disadvantaged nations in contemporary Southeast Asia. The country depends heavily

on international aid for survival, receiving over $500 million in assistance each year.

Cambodian citizens continue to suffer egregiously and in deprivation of their most

fundamental security needs. By using the human security paradigm to analyse primarily

water, but also energy and food security in Cambodia, an understanding can be gained of

the progress and measures being taken by the Cambodian government and other actors in

securing these assets. This will lead to an informed assessment on the efficacy of this

securitisation and shine light on the future prospects for the living standards of the average

Cambodian citizen.

The theory and practice of security has changed significantly in recent decades,

thanks in large part to the widespread adoption of the human security framework by

analysts and practitioners. Human security encompasses not only freedom from war and

violence, but also an individual’s basic needs for other forms of security, such as community

security, health security, economic security, and food security - in other words a person’s

fundamental freedoms. Human security has evolved security studies to a different level,

relegating the traditional methodology to the sub-field strategic studies and opening the

floodgates for new referent objects to be securitised. This evolution of security studies has

incited considerable debate which can be generalised as whether the UNDP focus is simply

too broad to have any useful analytical application and whether it risks making everything

and anything a potential security issue. Accordingly, some human security referents receive

more controversy than others.

Water, food, and energy have an established literature in Security Studies and form a

nexus of security referents within the broader human security framework. In particular,

water constitutes the bridge linking together food, energy, climate, economic growth, and

human security challenges that the world economy faces over the next two decades. As

tangible referent objects water, food and energy face direct commodification and

contestation, giving rise to a substantially different security discourse than more immaterial

security referents such as that of the “community” or “personal”.

Driving this discourse is the certainty of the principle of supply and demand and the

uncertainty of the future – some studies claim that within two decades the collective

demand for water will exceed foreseen supply by about forty per cent. If water becomes

less accessible, food becomes more expensive and/or energy resources deplete, then a

nation’s previous and ongoing management of these necessities will profoundly affect its

prosperity. In Cambodia water, food and energy are intertwined even further, as

hydropower developments (potentially positive achievements in water/energy security)

often threaten fisheries (negative impact on food security).

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Cambodia is still climbing back from the defining devastation of the late

1970s, when a communist utopian regime known as “Angkar Padevat” or “the Organisation”

governed. Over three years, eight months, and twenty days the rulers of the new

Democratic Kampuchea abolished money, markets, formal education, Buddhism, books,

private property and freedom of movement. This unprecedented attempt at social

engineering is now identified as an example of genocide, with approximately 2.12 million

people estimated to have lost their lives during what is now commonly called the Khmer

Rouge era. Although potential justice is finally within grasp thanks to a United Nations

hybrid tribunal, the tumultuous experience of the Khmer Rouge continues to mar the

country. It directly shaped the enduring political order of Prime Minister Hun Sen, and while

some believe Hun Sen’s power is finally reaching its limits, this does not imply an

improvement in governance or that said power will weaken in the near future.

In addition to the country’s troubled internal circumstances, Cambodia’s

regional history and geographic position also permeate the nation’s ability to respond to

security threats. Although powerful for a time, the empire, protectorate and republic

antecedents of present-day Cambodia were usually subordinate to either the Thais in the

west, or the Vietnamese in the east. Since the eighteenth century in particular Cambodia

has been an important buffer state between Thailand and Vietnam, competing to manage

its own interests against those of its more powerful neighbours. These power patterns

remain, but Cambodia’s immediate neighbours are not the only regional actors affecting the

nation’s current decision-making.

Just as France and the United States rerouted Cambodian history in the

twentieth century, the People’s Republic of China is staking enormous claims in the

Cambodia of today, encouraging at least a limited alignment. China is investing copiously in

Cambodia, rapidly increasing foreign aid, forgiving debt on loans and cementing itself as

Cambodia’s predominant foreign influence with a right to interfere in the nation’s affairs.

Cambodia has welcomed the attention, perhaps because China aims to prevent the

emergence of an Indochina dominated by Vietnam, a mission conducive to Cambodia’s own

core interests. It isn’t all free money and collusion, however, with the close partnership

profoundly affecting Cambodia’s autonomy, and causing friction within ASEAN, especially on

the South China Sea issue. But even so, China is believed to be the primary guarantor of

Cambodia’s national security and clearly influences Cambodia’s stance on human security

issues more than any other nation.

Ever since a United Nations committee reinterpreted articles eleven and

twelve of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2002, water

has gradually gained credence as a basic human right by people around the world. This boils

down to the fact that everybody needs water to survive, and to some degree, water stress is

as old as time. Additionally, water’s role as a necessary condition for food security and as a

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sufficient condition for energy security (through hydropower) means that water security

logically encompasses, or at least profoundly influences, food and energy security. Looking

at Cambodia in particular, where the majority of livelihoods are water-dependent and will

remain so for the foreseeable future, water can be seen as absolutely crucial to the national

economy and at the heart of Cambodia’s economy and culture. This is not to mention the

fact that as Cambodia develops economically there will be a higher demand for water and

energy and an increased generation of solid waste and wastewater to be dealt with –

evidently, securing access to water is of prime importance for all.

The biggest and most contested group of water resources in the country, and the

entire Southeast Asia region, is the mammoth Mekong River. This epic stream cascades

from the frosty heights of Tibet in the People’s Republic of China southwards, either

bordering or running directly through the countries of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia

and Vietnam, where it discharges millions of litres of water and sediment into the Mekong

Delta and out to the tropical South China Sea. The river drops a total of 5000 metres in

altitude throughout the journey and is the twelfth longest in the world. The vast majority of

Cambodia’s land area is in the Mekong river basin, contributing to a severe reliance on the

waterway for water resources. This reliance is jeopardised by the shared nature of the river.

There has been a lot of talk, but crucially no binding transgovernmental

agreements, on sharing the Mekong’s water resources between the countries of mainland

Southeast Asia. Such talks were enabled by the relative peace and subsequent economic

development drive that hit in the region in the 1990s, resulting in a range of national,

bilateral and multilateral plans for building dams on the mainstream and major tributaries

of the Mekong. These dams, useful for energy production as well as irrigation, are highly

desirable to the low-income countries of mainland Southeast Asia. However, the flow-on

effects of building a dam is often cause for concern by downstream nations, who believe

their own water resources could be adversely affected.

Vietnam, the nation furthest south and home to the mouth of the Mekong, appears

to be the most vocal country opposing Mekong dam construction, particularly since 2010,

going so far as to call for a ten-year moratorium on all Mekong dam construction. This

proves assertions that hydropower development upstream threatening the livelihoods of

downstream states cause said states to engage in securitisation activity. At present it may

be true that water is abundant in most parts of the Mekong basin and there is no sense at

the political level of a crisis, but the potential of such a crisis is enough to cause Vietnam to

willingly conflate water security with national security.

Cambodia takes upstream dams just as seriously, as exemplified recently by its

objection to the Xayaburi Mekong dam nominated by Thailand and, a project scorned by

regional experts for its potential impact on Cambodia’s food security. Cambodia falls short

of criticising the ongoing hydropower developments on the Mekong river in China, however,

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even though it claims concern about their impact. Part of this impact is a potential

disturbance to the annual floods that provide water to eighty per cent of the rice paddy

grown in Cambodia, something that should be of high concern given the country reported

that food imports had shot up 42 per cent year-on-year through February 2012, and current

production has been decried as inadequate.

As it stands today, China is the only country to have successfully dammed the

mainstream Mekong, with four dams in Yunnan province and more to come. These and

other dams on the Tibetan plateau have a direct bearing on the quantity and quality of river

water flows countries in southeast Asia. These dams are not one-off disturbances, but tools

for control. With its dams China is able to exercise ongoing command over the quantity of

water released to downstream countries, with any such flows disproportionately affecting

those furthest downstream, i.e. Vietnam and Cambodia.

Record seasonal river flooding hit Cambodia in 2008 (and again more recently) and

was blamed on water released from China’s dams during a time when the Mekong was

already high due to monsoon storms. China was later exonerated from causing the floods,

but the event still strengthened criticism of China’s dams. Vietnam sees the elemental

power wielded by China as a threat; Cambodia sees it as a cold reality, and a motivation for

closer ties. Cambodia’s lack of any strident criticism against China’s Mekong dams, when

taken in conjunction with its passionate advocacy against similar dam proposals in the Laos

P.D.R., smacks of realpolitik, but makes sense for Cambodia as long as the China alliance

continues, and is hardly the biggest hypocrisy committed by Hun Sen’s government.

This honour may fall on the fact that Cambodia itself has plans for two major

dams along the Mekong. The Sambor dam in Kratie province has been in various stages of

planning and development since the 1960s, but has recently inched closer to reality thanks

to the interest of Chinese investors. The second proposal is the Stung Treng gravity dam, to

be constructed on a Ramsar wetland site in northern Cambodia. It has been the subject of

two feasibility studies, but little has been written since the studies, and the reality of its

current status is opaque. Opposition from advocacy groups such as International Rivers

against both dams is strong and usually focused on the risks posed to fisheries and food

security, with flooding and population relocation also being warned of.

Concerns about fisheries are well founded as the freshwater fish catch of the

Mekong Basin is the largest in the world and makes up sixteen per cent of the country’s

entire GDP. Fish and other aquatic animals constitute the most important source of animal

protein for the average Cambodian citizen, who eats 30-70kgs of fish each year. Given that

there is no existing fishway technology able to overcome the obstacle created by a dam on

the Mekong mainstream, NGOs warn of an ultimatum: “fish or dams”. Taking this into

account, one wonders if the Cambodian government is making the right choice. Building a

dam on the Mekong may enhance Cambodia’s energy security, increase government

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revenues (through sale of electricity) and bolster the flexibility of its water resources, but if

it also destroys the nation’s fisheries then these benefits would be coming at a potentially

crippling price.

Furthermore, any benefits gained by a dam on the Cambodian Mekong would be

diluted by any and all dams further upstream, making their own overall effectiveness

contingent on China, and on any other constructions to come. Realistically, Cambodia’s

development of a dam on the Mekong would only slightly increase the state’s water and

energy security, and substantially weaken its food security. Perhaps Cambodia has already

identified this risk factor and is no longer planning on going ahead with the construction of

the dams – but as the progress of the proposals is opaque, only time will tell.

As has been shown above, any and all developments on the Mekong have

water, food and energy security consequences across the entire region of the river. To

facilitate dialogue surrounding these concerns, the Mekong River Commission (“MRC”) was

founded in 1995 by Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand with a mandate for sustainable

development and management of the river and its resources. There was excitement in the

international community at this landmark event, but in years subsequent the MRC has let

down many observers by allegedly deviating from its original premise, exhibiting a

reluctance to take further action towards a more regulatory water governance role.

Such criticisms allude to the fact that the MRC is not directly accountable to the

public, that it has no authority over its member states, and that it may be shirking its

responsibilities by not obstructing mainstream dam proposals further. Cambodia’s lack of

interest in bolstering the MRC on the issue of mainstream dams reflects a belief that the

best way to achieve water security in Cambodia is by keeping management of the Mekong

within its borders independent of its close neighbours. This may yet backfire, for there is

little doubt that if the lower Mekong calls home to multiple dams in the future and the river

system is affected detrimentally then major complications will arise for regional security of

all kinds.

Another risk threatening Cambodia’s ability to provide all of its citizens with access

to food, water and energy, one that is also tied to industrial development, is climate change.

The reality of man-made climate change is sinking in around the world, creating a new

lexicon of buzz-words that permeate politics, academia, and the media. The industrial

revolution has left the planet in a lurch, and the poorer the country, the deeper the ditch.

Climate change models for Cambodia predict serious impacts such as higher than average

flood season flows, a problem which requires “climate proofing”. Floods and rising sea

levels will threaten existing freshwater resources such as the Tonle Sap lake, Cambodia’s

lifeline, and severely disturb the nation’s fisheries and agriculture. The Cambodian

Government itself recently stated that “addressing climate change makes sense, politically,

economically, environmentally and technologically … we can turn the climate change crisis

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into a new opportunity for more sustainable development”, indisputably encouraging words,

but no substitute for deeds.

In 2006 Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment published the National Adaptation

Programme of Action to Climate Change (“NAPA”), which has the central goal “to provide a

framework to guide the coordination and implementation of adaptation initiatives through

a participatory approach”. In evaluating the NAPA and subsequent activity scholars have

concluded that most of the identified measures focus on water and health issues but that

serious governance problems obstruct progress. In the five years since the NAPA was

established very few of the proposed projects have been implemented, a record probably

due to insufficient funding. According to Sum Thy, Director of the Climate Change

Department at the Cambodian Ministry of Environment, the Ministry is presently writing an

updated national plan on the country’s responses to climate change, and Environment

Minister Mok Mareth hopes it will be funded through the global fund discussed last year in

the 17th Conference of the Parties in South Africa. This would be a fortuitous outcome for

addressing climate change threats to water security in Cambodia, but the writing of more

plans doesn’t address governance issues, nor preclude a repeat of damning inaction.

It should also be stressed how intrinsic the economic development of a nation is to

enhancing its people’s human security. Cambodia can instigate any number of policies and

build any number of dams, irrigate any number of paddocks, or install any number of flood

dikes - but if these measures are not complemented by development initiatives, or not

undertaken with development in mind, then they will have only marginal impact on the day-

to-day life of the average Cambodian citizen. This is especially so for the third of the

population that still lives in poverty.

Cambodia is a troubled country still trying to break free from its bruising past. If this

is to happen, Cambodia must get its water management right, as this basic element has

flow-on effects on the nation’s food and energy security. Water directly impacts the

wellbeing, even survival, of the most vulnerable of Cambodia’s population. Shared threats

that Cambodia’s water security faces, such as extreme weather events and climate change,

are being compounded by a lack of regional cooperation on the management of the Mekong,

the river and catchment Cambodia is unavoidably dependent on. China’s mainstream

Mekong dams directly threaten Cambodia’s (and its neighbours’) water security, as do any

other upstream dams constructed in the future. Cambodia’s attempts to build its own dams

on the Mekong are of questionable benefit to its water security, and may even do more

harm than good. A crucial factor that permeates all of the above is the country’s alignment

to Beijing and its extreme governance issues.

The prospects are bleak for water security in Cambodia, and they will

probably remain so, or even worsen, unless steps are taken. Water is getting scarcer

worldwide, and Cambodia cannot go it alone – nor can it rely solely on China. The fact that

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there are so many groups pledged to saving the Mekong and increasing regional

cooperation in mainland Southeast Asia is not a conspiracy or coincidence. The survival of

the river may not be in the best economic interests of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen

or the Cambodian elite, but it is definitely in the best interests of Cambodia in the long-term.

The Cambodian People’s Party has succeeded on delivering economic growth, if little else.

Now it needs to deliver on securing the basic needs of its citizens. Otherwise, Cambodia will

be forced to add yet another government to its already substantial list of exploitative, self-

destructive regimes.