Poorest Man in the World

One of the biggest understandings I gained during my life as a recluse in the Canadian wilderness was the understanding of poverty. It offered me an interesting insight into what poverty really feels like and how one can deal with it because during the course of my stay in the wilderness, I was the poorest man in the world.

The Poorest Man In The World

I had nothing. I had no roof over my head, no food to put into my mouth, no access to healthcare of community support, no outlook to have anything ever come my way and zero chance of anyone turning up to support me with a donation or a handout. If there is any such thing as being absolutely poor, this was it.

I was as on my own as they get. It was as if the whole world turned its back on me – as if I was discarded, banished by the mankind. No longer relevant, an obsolete, surplus human being… I ignored them and they ignored me, I abandoned them and the abandoned me. I was all alone, the poorest man in the world, the world that didn’t even notice I went missing.

Yet despite the realization that I have just become the poorest man in the world, I didn’t feel vulnerable. If anything, I felt empowered. Poverty, as I found out, can be the most debilitating as well as the most liberating experience ever. I started to understand the statement by Henry David Thoreau who said that “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone“.

I left absolutely everything alone. Everything. I was left with nothing, I was the poorest man in the world, yet I’ve never felt so rich in my life. No longer teased by what other people owned, I was able to focus on providing for my immediate needs. There was no temptation to obtain designer clothes, wave shiny cell phone in everyone’s face or eat in a poshy restaurant. Because there was nobody to judge me, I didn’t have to do or own anything to conform to society’s expectations. I was able to be me.

I owned absolutely nothing, except from absolutely everything I needed to feel alive – I owned the air I needed to breath, I owned earth below my feet I needed to walk on, I owned the sound of silence that overwhelmed my senses with deafening intensity, I owned the view of the billion stars that shone so brightly I might as well have floated through the universe with them. I was so poor, I felt like the richest person in the world.

The Definition of Poverty

While there are several ways to define poverty, let’s take a look at the most common ones:

On a social level, poverty is often understood as a lack of items essential for proper living – these typically include food, safe drinking water and shelter. UN’s Copenhagen Declaration further clarified this stance by defining poverty as a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, and aside from the above mentioned items, also listed sanitation facilities, health, education and information as items the lack of which defines poverty.

Photo: Begging Child - Not Really Poor, Just Used
Photo: Begging Child - Not Really Poor, Just Used

In absolute numbers, poverty threshold is typically set to $2 per day or less, however this doesn’t take into an account the ranking of each individual country as a whole and its income vs consumption ratio. While generally disputable, the $2 poverty threshold is still used as a reasonably accurate measurement of absolute poverty.

With these widely recognized definitions of poverty in mind, I found that severe deprivation of basic human needs I was faced with when I lived as a recluse in the wilderness fit the definition of poverty as tightly as a behind fits on a toilet seat – I was the poorest man in the world:

I lived without access to food, shelter, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health care, education, information and many other basic human needs. Heck, I even lived without access to human touch and companionship – two human needs deemed essential for maintenance and development of sound mental health.

Poverty vs Greed

Whether the whole world abandons you and leaves you all alone and vulnerable to face what may come with your bare two hands, or whether you leave the whole world to stand all alone and vulnerable to face what may come with your bare two hands, the outcome is the same – there is no one in the whole world who would help you out.

And that was where I found myself – the poorest man in the world. I could have been a man born into absolute poverty. I could have been a man who wasn’t born poor, but lost everything. I could have been a man who had someone with more money run him to the ground and force him into bankruptcy. I could have been a man who was taken advantage of, or a man who despite genuine hard work was simply dealt crap hand and ended up hitting the rockiest of all bottoms.

So I withdrew into the wilderness to realize that an option to live a simple life exists for everyone. Anyone could be as poor as I was and live as fulfilling life in the wilderness as I did. The trouble is that most people who deem themselves poor are so attracted by the vision of owning things they could do without if they lived in the wilderness, they don’t entertain this option and instead choose a life of greed.

The Real Poor

It’s fascinating how we tend to determine poverty by people’s status within the society. Uncontacted tribes, or people from self sustaining communities living in isolated areas are not perceived as poor. Their account balance is at solid $0, their lifetime savings are at solid $0, their credit rating is nonexistent, their net worth is next to none, they receive no unemployment benefits, no insurance, heck they don’t even have any chance at income, yet they’re not poor. At least they don’t see themselves as such and we the outsiders don’t perceive them this way either. We simply accept that this is their way of life which they are happy and content with.

So who are the people we do consider poor? Are people who live on $2 or less – as defined by the World Bank the real poor? Cause if they are, then they have a whooping $2 a day more to live on than I had when I lived in the wilderness, or what uncontacted tribes people live on yet neither me nor primitive tribesmen are considered poor. Isn’t that somewhat ironic and illogical?

I had nothing, I went into the wilderness and started from zero to survive naked in the wild. Because I lived on $0 a day, and you can’t divide by 0, I would not fit the profile of a man living below the poverty line. But if I stayed within the civilized world and whined that I couldn’t buy the latest Iphone because I was only earning $2 per day, I would be considered poor.

Poverty in the Third World Countries

21st century life makes living in the wilderness very challenging, but not impossible. I kept asking myself why all those people who scream bloody murder because they are poor wouldn’t instead pull away from civilization and do exactly the same thing I did. Most countries considered poor are within tropical climates which makes both withdrawal into the wilderness and survival within it much easier.

In countries like Canada there are many loopholes and roadblocks limiting what a person can engage in in the wilderness – most third world countries don’t have any such legislations in place allowing for far less restricted hunting and fishing in the wild. Furthermore, in countries like Canada, in order for one to survive in the wild, he/she would have to spend considerable amount of energy building super tight, weather proof shelter. Whereas in most third world countries, which tend to be located in tropical regions, weather proofing a shelter can take as little as building a simple roof from bamboo sticks covered with banana leaves.

If it’s this uncomplicated to survive with nothing in the third world countries, then why so many people choose to stay in the industrialized areas and live in subhuman conditions when abundant life away from civilization is so accessible and unrestricted to them? There really is no better way to answer it than by calling out “greed”. They covet what they see and want it. They covet the house rich people have, they covet the car rich people have, they covet the cell phone rich people have, they covet the vacations rich people take… they covet things they don’t necessarily need to experience plentiful and abundant life. Just ask people from uncontacted tribes.

Greed truly is a bad master. I lived without any of it, so I know. I lived without fancy house, without a car, without a cell phone, without poshy dinners, without designer clothes, without jewelry – I lived with nothing and my life was fulfilling. My vacation consisted of a walk across the marshland to reach the distant lake, the roof over my head was a pile of dried leaves I collected from the forest floor. If you desire more than that, if you’re willing to doom yourself to subhuman life in order to chase the dream of one day owning that big house, shiny car, latest Iphone or Nike shoes, then poverty is your own fault. Then it means that you are poor because of your own greed to desire more than you need and that puts you in a disempowered position which allows others to take advantage of you and keep you the way you are – poor.

Enhancing Lives to Alleviate Poverty by Forward Thinking

I am an advancing personality and as such I understand that the surest way to advance in life is by enhancing the lives of others. The trick is in the fact that there are two types of enhancements:

  • Forward Enhancements
  • Backward Enhancements

I take honest pride in enhancing people’s lives by advancing them with forward enhancements. A forward enhancement doesn’t care whether you make the receiver feel good or feel bad. Feelings enticed by such actions are always temporary and should come secondary to the higher purpose – the ultimate goal. Did your actions in the end get your target group to the desired destination or did you end up stuck with perceived added value? Do your actions offer temporary feel good experience which, like drugs delivers temporary illusion of positive feelings only to put the life in serious danger when the effects wear out?

Photo: Would You Give Them a Fish or Teach Them How to Fish?
Photo: Would You Give Them a Fish or Teach Them How to Fish?

Being the most truthful travel blogger in the world, I take a lot of heat from the self righteous protectors of the impoverished people for calling a spade a spade. Take Cambodia for example. Pointing out that Cambodians are lazy and dangerous resulted in a lot of hatemail sent to me by people suffering from fear of reality. These delusional people mean good, but their actions result in naught more than False Enhancements in the lives of Cambodians. The self righteous defenders of Cambodian reputation are like that drug I spoke about earlier. They wanted to help alleviate Cambodian poverty so they gave Cambodians a fish (to use the Bible reference). In their eyes, providing hungry people with fish enhanced their lives. In reality, this presumed step forward was a two steps backwards.

Example of False Enhancements

The result of providing impoverished people with false enhancements is the dependence. Dependence is inability to provide for themselves and that is a perfect set up for a disaster. Let me give you an example – when I was visiting the tropical island of Langkawi in Malaysia, I was tempted to take a boat tour through the mangrove but ended up never taking it because all tour operators and all boatmen combined the tours with “eagle feeding”. Basically, tourists would be loaded into a boat which would head towards the ravine where wild eagles nest. Then in order to provide the tourists with an unforgettable experience, the boatman would throw the eagle soaring around a fish so the eagle comes within the reach of tourists in the boat.

Needless to say, all tourists would end up in awe, which is what the boatman wants because it fills up his pocket with cash. It’s a business I was not willing to support even if I were the only person in the world who would not participate in this activity. What this eagle feeding does, is that it causes dependency and dependency, as mentioned above is a very solid step towards losing the ability to provide for themselves. If this eagle feeding continues, the eagles will get used to the fact that each time a boat shows up, all they’d need to do is come to it and they’d get food. Day after day, their feeding ritual would change from catching their own fish into flying towards boats and if it doesn’t stop, eventually they would lose the ability to catch fish. Then if something happens (and that can easily happen) and boatmen can no longer come, the eagles will be left without food and with lost ability to feed themselves, they’ll die.

And this is what False Enhancements are all about. To a reality fearing mind, feeding eagles may seem like a noble cause. “Poor wild animals have tough time catching fish, so we helped them to survive, right?” I truly understand how some could come to such conclusions and seeing the reactions of the self righteous protectors of the Cambodian people to me instating the True Enhancements in Cambodia only confirmed how gullible much of the population is.

Two Types of People

There are two types of action takers, both sharing the same, honest desire to enhance the lives of impoverished people, but each taking a different approach to it. The types of people are:

  1. Backward Thinkers – The Self Righteous Protectors who Help People By Providing Them with Fish Instead of Teaching Them How to Fish and by Attacking the Forward Thinkers for Taking Seemingly Unpopular Actions
  2. Forward Thinkers – People Who See Past the Point of Their Noses And Address the Issue by Actions That Lead to Resolution, Even If They Cause Temporary Discomfort. Forward Thinkers Focus on Bigger Picture and Achievements of Ultimate Goals, Not Temporary Feel Good Experiences

Let’s take a closer look at how much each of the two types of action takers enhances the lives of impoverished people:

Backwards Thinkers

There is no doubt that the backwards thinkers mean well. In their divine delusion, they are the ones who step up and speak on behalf of the impoverished. They are in the front line when it comes to attacking people like me who dare to speak badly about the impoverished. They are also in the frontline when it comes to helping the impoverished the way the impoverished want. But where does this type of help lead?

Well, let’s take a look at Cambodia again for it’s a good example. Where did the impoverished people get after 30 years of assistance by the backwards thinkers? Yeah… 30 years after the end of the Khmer Rouge rule, and after 30 years of being given handouts on daily basis, the lives of average Cambodians have not approved one bit. I can guarantee you that if backward thinkers continue enhancing the lives of Cambodians backwards, like they have for the past 30 years by encouraging the culture of handouts and attacking forward thinkers for addressing the real issue and encouraging the real change even if it requires slaps on someone’s wrists, we’ll look at what has changed in the next 30 years and we’ll see nothing. Backwards enhancements, the ones practiced by backward thinkers set the impoverished two steps backwards.

30 years is more than enough to achieve a real change – for as long as the backward thinkers are kept at bay so forward thinkers can enhance the society forward without hindrance by the backwards thinkers. Look at Japan, for example. The country was destroyed after World War II and found itself in far more desperate state than Cambodia was after the Khmer Rouge rule, but backward thinkers were restricted from slowing progress down, forward thinkers were put in charge and 30 years later, Japan was an economical superpower. If what backward thinkers do had the potential to change Cambodia around, it would have already happened now that they’d been providing their assistance so relentlessly for 30+ years.

I cannot however deny the good intentions of the backwards thinkers. Sadly, stupidity, even if performed with the best of intentions is the core of hindered progress. A wise man once said that a hyperactive idiot is worse than the enemy of the state. And it’s true. In their bid to do good, backward thinkers rush into “helping” the poor while throwing roadblocks before the feet of the forward thinkers, ultimately hindering the process of enhancement. There is no bigger obstacle to progress than a dedicated moron who can’t see the forest for the trees and relentlessly enforces his/her own backwards agenda.

Forward Thinkers

There is only one shortest distance between two points. And that’s the path the forward thinkers take. Not only does it lead to the finish, it gets you there faster than any other way. As a wise man once said, sometimes you need to lose the battle to win the war. That’s why backward thinkers can never be good generals. They do not have the ultimate goal in mind and focus merely on temporary feel good experiences. They’d focus entirely on winning that battle even if in the end they’d lose the war. Unpopular steps must sometimes be taken so the greater good can be achieved. Forward thinkers take these steps, even though it makes them unpopular in the eyes of the backward thinkers who would not hesitate to assault them.

Despite the looming threat of the attacks by the backward thinkers, forward thinkers won’t give in to their backward thinking and will do all in their power to move the society forward. Roadblocks set by the backward thinkers will ultimately slow the progress down (or completely halt it, in some cases), but without forward thinkers, we would have never gotten anywhere as humans. They are the ones who achieve real results because they are not afraid to think outside the box (Eppur si muove!) and take steps that lead to ultimate goals, even if it creates temporary hardships along the way.

While backward thinkers fight to alleviate poverty by encouraging and deepening the culture of handouts and attacking the forward thinkers for speaking up against it, the forward thinkers understand that the real problem lies somewhere else and must be addressed, even if it requires a slap on the wrist. Take inherent laziness of Cambodians for example. A forward thinker would tell the Cambodians that many of their problems are a result of laziness and would tell them to stop being lazy slacks and start taking responsibility for their lives. A backward thinker, on the other hand would instantly attack the forward thinker for saying things like that and would back Cambodians up saying that they have a difficult life and have gone through a lot, are still recovering from the past and need all support they can get.

Fact be told, the Cambodians don’t need any more support. They got more than too much of it for the past 3 decades and it got them nowhere. They need someone to kick them in the backside and tell them that in today’s information age everyone has equal opportunity to make decent living. Internet gurus earn upwards of 6 figures and can be found in India, Ukraine, Romania, Egypt, and many other countries. Internet creates a level field for everyone so the excuse of living in a poor country simply will not stand. The trouble is that because the internet provides the level field for absolutely everyone, the competition is rough as whole world, down to the last country you didn’t even know existed is your competition. As a result, in order to make it, one needs to work on it daily and constantly grow and improve. And that won’t work if you’re a lazy bum.

Difference Reiterated

I have said it before but it must be said again: backward thinkers feel sorry for Cambodians, give them handouts and attack everyone who speaks badly about them. Forward thinkers tell Cambodians that they are responsible for their own lives and that if they are poor, it’s their own doing because anyone who doesn’t suffer a mental illness has everything they need to make it and have an abundant and fulfilling life.

The problem, as I have personally experienced, is in a fact that backward thinkers are such a loudmouthed congregation of delusional individuals, the presence and actions of forward thinkers are overshadowed and often suppressed by cocky backward thinkers who believe their poop doesn’t stink. As a result, forward thinkers often choose to keep to themselves so they don’t have to put up with the abuse by holier than thou backward thinkers which gives the backward thinkers an impression that everyone does it their way hence it must be the right way.

You don’t have to go too far to see what it does to their ego to have someone go against their religion, address the real issue and call a spade a spade. And imagine how much effort it’s going to take to undo all their actions to start enhancing people’s lives forward, not backwards. I tried in Cambodia, but the damage done by the backward thinkers is so deep rooted, it’s gonna be a major challenge to revert.

I knew that the way out of their misery is for Cambodians to obtain computer skills and market themselves to worldwide audiences on the internet. Regardless of how poor and deprived of opportunities they may feel living in their homeland, it all matters not once they get on the information superhighway. But there was a problem which goes back to the damage done by the years of backward enhancements.

Instead of listening to me and trying to learn a thing or two to actually achieve a change in their lives, the Cambodians I was able to argue into going to the internet cafe with me spent the entire time in chatrooms. Switching between half a dozen chat windows to waste time talking useless crap with random internet acquaintances was more appealing to them than the ability to learn something that could generate them an income comparable to that the people from the western countries earn.

Like eagles on Langkawi, Cambodians know that all they need to do is flock around foreigners when they come to sight and they’ll get stuff for free. Why would they bother studying to gain qualifications which could land them with above average income if all they need to do is a bit of whining and free stuff falls into their laps?

30 years of pampering by the backward thinkers left Cambodians completely uninterested in taking charge of their lives. As I had said many times before, backward thinkers enhance the lives of the impoverished people backwards. They think they move them one step forward, but in reality they set them two steps backwards. They usually do that with good intentions but intentions are useless if the end result is backward movement. Had people listened to harsh, but forward enhancing words of forward thinkers, instead of attacking them, Cambodians would not be this used to getting handouts and unwilling to take charge of their lives on their own.

Things need to be called for what they are, without beating around the bush. There is no polite way to address a lazy person but by calling them lazy. Unless the laziness is acknowledged as such, no attempt will be made to overcome it and set sail for a change. Forward thinkers tell lazy people that they are lazy. Backward thinkers attack forward thinkers by calling them racist bigots for having the audacity to call lazy people lazy.

Conclusions

Cambodians are poor because even though they feel that there is a way out, they are unwilling to put forth the effort necessary to find that way and travel it. And the reason they don’t have that will is because over the decades, they’ve been pampered by the backward thinkers who enforced the notion that accumulating their own wealth was unnecessary. Forward thinkers knew that in order to set them off on that way, they’d need to be kicked down that road. Gently pushing them did not work. They were embedded in their lazy seats so tightly, it delivered no result. A mighty kick was necessary if the ultimate goal of following the road to self made riches was to be accomplished but backward thinkers would immediately step in and attack the forward thinker for kicking a Cambodian. How racist of a forward thinker, isn’t it?

What backward thinkers don’t realize is that the poor don’t need charity. They need inspiration. Unfortunately, actions of backward thinkers, if allowed to perform for a long enough time can kill people’s inherent desire to follow up after they’ve been motivated. When it gets to that stage, simply inspiring people will land little change. Harsh action is then required, oftentimes no lesser than a mighty kick in the backside or a pretty loud slap on the wrist.

Charity only provides the poor with a fish to keep them alive in their raggedness, or to make them forget that they are poor for an hour or two, but wrist slapping action can cause them to rise out of their misery and set on the path to a better life. Anyone wishing to really help the poor is hereby encouraged to enhance their lives forward, not backwards. It is not hard-hearted or unfeeling, as it is not racist or bigoted to bitch-slap an impoverished person if in the end it breaks their poverty cycle. Backward thinkers pity poverty, forward thinkers kick it in the arse. Which one are you?

Government Corruption in Cambodia

The roots of the political and government corruption in Cambodia go deep. In its purest form, the world’s most corrupt governments exploit country’s natural and historical resources for their private benefits. Resources of each country should be used to benefit all of the country’s citizens but instead they are used to fund exclusive lifestyles and power-grips of the select few while ordinary people are abandoned to living in poverty. The government of Cambodia took the idea of corruption a whole step further and aside from feeding their own bank accounts at the expense of the people, it also uses the poverty instituted and maintained by their own corruption as a store front that attracts donations from developed countries.

Corrupt Cambodian Leader

Dictator Hun Sen, the prime minister of Cambodia and one of the most dangerous criminals on this planet responsible for torture and deaths of thousands of people surrounded himself with personal allies who stuff money that should go to the treasury to provide for the people, into their own, deep pockets. Hun Sen has been murdering people since his young age and has no problem living with blood on his hands. Everyone daring to oppose him is removed, while his closest compatriots reap the benefit of billions of dollars Cambodia generates every year. The economy is purposefully kept stagnant so the people remain poor, while select few enjoy lifestyles beyond imagining, staying completely and entirely untouchable by law.

Millions of Victims

Dictator Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party have more blood on their hands than just blood of those killed directly upon Hun Sen’s command. There are millions of lives lost to Hun Sen’s greed by the extent to which Cambodian corrupt government diverts revenues away from the people. Cambodian public is deprived of health clinics and educational resources keeping them in the dark about the diseases and their possible prevention. As a result, millions of Cambodians who are not part of the elite die way before their time. According to the demographic statistics from the CIA World Factbook, marginal age in Cambodia is 22.1 years (21.4 years for males and 22.8 years for females) based on the data from 2009. CIA World Factbook also ranks the degree of risk of major infectious diseases in Cambodia as “very high”. It is because Cambodian government is the most corrupt in the world and only cares about their own pockets, not public health so people die way too young.

Estimated 12 million Cambodians live below the line of poverty. One by one they will die, indirectly by the hand of their corrupt government that deprives them of basic health care and availability of safe food and water. During the course of my stay in Cambodia I had made valuable friends, but our friendships didn’t even last until my departure. They died before I could move on.

Western Sponsorship of Cambodian Corruption

In 2009, Cambodian government received $1 Billion in donations from western governments. This money which comes from taxes paid by people like you and me was given to the Cambodian government as funds for reconstruction of the country and alleviation of poverty. After decades of such yearly donations, the efforts to alleviate poverty and accelerate the development of Cambodia have failed. Corrupt Cambodian government receives the money, but it is laundered (usually via dubious property purchases) to make it impossible to trace and once safely untraceable, it ends up in the bank accounts of corrupt senior officials close to Hun Sen. All efforts to alleviate poverty in Cambodia are thus hindered, completely wasting tax-payers money.

Exploitation of Resources

Through its cultural and historical heritage at Angkor Archaeological Park Cambodia attracts millions of dollars in easy revenue. Through the use of country’s natural resources, billions more are earned. If there were no corruption in Cambodian government, and if the government utilized the monies it collects through tax programs, customs and its historical and natural resources, reforms could be implemented that would vastly improve country’s economy and alleviate much poverty even without foreign monetary assistance. For now, deforestation continues at a rate not seen anywhere else in the world while all of the proceeds are kept by the corrupt Cambodian elite.

Unfortunately, at present time, funds from international donors are not used to help the people in Cambodia, but are instead diverted to the pockets of the Cambodian elite close to the prime minister Hun Sen. Cambodian leaders are plain and simple stealing from the people of Cambodia and even though most ordinary people are well aware of it, the riches accumulated by the senior officials as well as their firm grip of Cambodian military forces makes any real chance of change nonexistent. All opposition, people who dared to point fingers at Hun Sen or any of his close men were silenced, imprisoned, assassinated or simply disappeared without a trace. Uprisings are suppressed with military force to send a clear message that the power is firmly in the hands of Hun Sen and anyone looking to take it away from him will face the barrel of a gun.

Corrupt Cambodian Judges

The corrupt government of Cambodia likes how untouchable they are and enjoys their unlimited and undisputed power their positions provide. Judiciary system of Cambodia is not independent. It is owned and controlled by the government. Judges are appointed based on their political affiliations. Corruption can be found in all walks of life in Cambodia, but with the justice being part of the corrupt government, nobody has any real chance at freedom or justice and no signed contracts or land titles have any value as it’s always and only he who has better connections that wins the case.

Corruption Office

To add insult to injury, there is an anti corruption office on Monivong Boulevard in Phnom Penh, nation’s capital city. I can only imagine what the purpose of an anti corruption office would be – to decide who is going to be fined and who will not be touched, based again on connections of the person who is complained against. Fighting corruption with corruption must be the biggest joke and the biggest insult ever. People running the anti-corruption office are appointed by the government based on their political affiliations. They are owned and controlled by the corrupt Cambodian government and are clearly there only to ensure that there appears to be an institution that fights corruption, but their decisions are the decisions of the government. Would you dare to report corrupt senior elite member to such anti-corruption office?

Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index

According to the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, Cambodia remains one of the world’s most corrupt countries yet over the last few years, the ratings of the country rose a little bit. People behind the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index must have missed something or got bewildered by skewed statistics or sweet talking of the Cambodian government. Nothing has changed about Cambodia. The government here is as corrupt as ever – actually no! It’s more corrupt. It’s stronghold gets mightier every day as does its grip of the military and its accumulated riches. This government is so corrupt, thinking that after all the murders and abuse they would magically turn around and become nice officials willing to give the power to the people is laughable.

Corruption Law

One more thing about the government corruption in Cambodia. Due to international pressure, the government has approved what they call the “corruption law”. This came 15 years after it was first proposed, but if you ask any Cambodian who’s not a member of the ruling elite, they will tell you that there is a reason why it is called the “corruption law” – it is because it’s not meant to be an “anti-corruption law”. As something that could be expected from the world’s most corrupt government, the Cambodian corruption law is intended to iron net and protect corruption, not fight or eliminate it. Just as is the case with already existing anti corruption office in Phnom Penh, since it’s not an independent institution, but rather a government controlled body, the effectiveness of their actions is bound to be a joke. And so is the “corruption law”. After 15 years of building up the world’s most corrupt government but facing international pressure for it, Hun Sen came with an idea of introducing a law that will buy him extra time, while changing nothing about the way he manipulates the country. The corruption law will not address corruption in Cambodia, it will only make it more difficult to pinpoint and fight.