Muzamil JALEEL

In Cambodia’s police force, untrained and unprofessional policemen dominate both the civilian and military police.

The distinction into civil and military police is deliberate to show the mess within the force. The civil police are in no way normal come under the control of the Ministry of Interior while the military police are under the direct control of the defence ministry. The number of the civil police personnel in the country is about 67,000 while that of the military police and gendarmerie is about 10,000. It is said that the number of the total police personnel was half of that before 1993. The basic reason for the high number of recruitment is the politicisation of the police force, a phenomenon that also happens in the Cambodian armed forces and the civilian administration. The division of the police force is very much on a political basis; officers and lower rank personnel all have more loyalties to the political parties they are affiliated to than to the government or the country. This has a reason. The political parties that had their own armed forces before the 1993 elections merged the forces into a national force; similar merges were carried out to establish the civil administration as well as the police force. But such merger is only theoretical as the political division is very much evident at all stages.

Politicisation of Police Force

As the police force was mostly dominated by the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), the FUNCINPEC tried to balance the force and introduced the military police, a force that got most of its recruits from the armed force. The CPP responded by nominating the chief of the police force from its ranks and thus sealed its control.

The politicisation of various government departments including the police and armed forces is the outcome of the recent Cambodian history. The devastating rule of three years by the Pol Pot regime destroyed most of the State and society institutions and replaced them with party structures in order to enforce order and obedience. The Vietnamese-sponsored communist regime from 1979 onwards continued the model of all-controlling State apparatus, with no separation between the State and the party.

Things changed a bit after the United Nations Transitional Authority for Cambodia (UNTAC) arrived, but still most of the laws and the structures of government departments are basically communist. For more than 20 years party functionaries had a dual function - not only work for the party but also work directly for the government machinery. The outcome is thus politicisation. In the State of Cambodia (SOC) regime, the officers and other employees of the civil administration, the commanders and the men in the police and armed forces were drawn from the single party cadre. The control by the party of the government functioning could be well understood by the fact that the police chief or even the governor of a province would come under the direct control of the party chief of the province. This was also applicable at the district or even commune levels.

This practice was carried on by the CPP after the SOC regime. During the power struggle, the CPP’s arch-rival and the chief of the FUNCINPEC party, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, organised a force - the military police - to counter the CPP power. This was later followed by other political parties, as power was deemed the most important factor to get a share in governance, especially after the 1993 elections. This changed the whole phenomenon of recruitment in all the civil, police and armed forces, but not towards any betterment. Several parties carried out recruitment from their own ranks instead of from a single party as was the mode during the previous communist regimes.

It is really amazing when you get to know a CPP police officer or a FUNCINPEC army commander. These people introduce themselves even more by their party affiliations than by their own names. This phenomenon is ironical only to foreigners. The Cambodian Constitution has an article that makes it legal to be a government official as well as a member of a political party. Article 15 of the Law on Political Parties says that members of the judiciary police, armed forces and members of the civil administration can be simultaneously members of a political party, though cannot be active members.

Ironically, the National Election Commission has issued a circular regarding the same matter. According to this circular, government officials can get special leave to campaign for the political parties they are affiliated to. If a top government official, like a general of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, wants to contest an election, he can do so without having to resign from his position. And if he is elected to the National Assembly, he can proceed with a special type of leave called "suspended leave." Suspended leave means that the official will be deemed on leave by his parent department or ministry until he completes his tenure as a member of the National Assembly. As soon as the term is finished, he can resume his previous office.

Process of Recruitment

The political parties have also tried to create a mass base in the country by recruiting people to the armed forces and the police.

The process of recruitment is the most interesting part of the whole exercise of the creation of the police force by the Cambodian government machinery, especially after the 1993 U.N.-sponsored elections when a coalition government of the CPP and FUNCINPEC took office.

I made the mistake of asking a Cambodian the minimum requirements eligible for getting recruited as a police constable. What I meant were the minimum educational qualifications, age and physical fitness required. This 42-year-old Cambodian, who works as the executive director of the Human Rights Task Force, laughed at me and made fun of my questions: "What educational qualifications? What do you mean by physical fitness?" He said: "The only procedure to recruit a police personnel is money. If you have money, you can get any position in the police or in anywhere."

Policemen on Paper

The fact that most of the posts in the police force are being sold has become gospel truth in this country. Even admitting this fact seems nothing unusual or embarrassing. The other recruitment procedure that is more in practice is the "selling of names of the police personnel." This is the most complicated practice to be understood. The commanders of the force at various levels join the force with the whole strength of their men. They have to provide a list of the men working with them at the time they join so that their men are automatically recruited into the force. The commanders generally present a list of a bigger number of personnel than they actually have. That means they provide fake names. For example, a commander who actually has 200 men with him may claim that he has 400 men and then will produce 200 fake names to fill up the number. After the 400 names are put on the payroll of the ministry concerned (if military police it will be the defence ministry, otherwise the Ministry of Interior), the commander sells those fake names to apprentices and takes good amount of money as "fees" (bribes) from them. A person has to work under a different name if he wants to be a regular. There is also another way out. A person can buy a name in the force and get a monthly salary without being a regular police personnel or soldier. The only drawback is that he will not get a full salary despite signing on the receipt of full salary at the commander’s residence. The commander keeps part of the pay. This malpractice in the recruitment process started with the merger of various police and armed forces loyal to different political groups after the Paris peace accords of 1991.

This corruption is evident from the large residential villas owned by the police and armed forces’ commanders in Phnom Penh despite that very low monthly salaries of hardly more than US to are for the highest ranking officers. At first, it may be amazing to find that most of these elegant villas are belonged to the police and army officers, but as one gets to know the story behind, it hardly remains surprising.

The soldiers or the police personnel, who are only on the payrolls and perform no duty other than to collect their monthly salaries from the commanders’ residences, are generally doing some other work. Samnang (not real name) is working as a guard and night-watchman at the residence of a foreigner who is an employee of a multi-national company in Phnom Penh. The foreigner pays him US per month. But Samnang has also registered his name at the armed forces as a soldier after spending some dollars and is getting 10,000 riels (US) as his monthly salary. His actual salary as a soldier, however, is about 30,000 riels (US); the commander keeps the other 20,000 riels (US) for letting him be a paper soldier.

At times the names of genuine policemen and soldiers are also being sold by their high-ups. It is learnt that a FUNCINPEC commander even sold the name of one of his generals.

This practice of selling names is also rampant in other government departments.

In Vuthy told me that he was a teacher in the education ministry. One day, he found his name missing as another In Vuthy was working in his place. As he knew the cost of asking back for his job, he left and came to Phnom Penh to work for a non-governmental human rights organisation. Similar thing also happened to one of his colleagues, Ung Sophea, whose name was sold by his high-ups to someone else. Ung Sophea was also a teacher. "I can do nothing to get back my job," he said.

This type of corruption in the recruitment procedure is a major reason for most of the problems that the police force and the armed forces have in the country. The forces on the payrolls are far more than the actual number of the people working. And of the people working in the force, only a small fraction is genuine.

Nepotism of Ruling Elite

Another surprise was that the recruitment to the police force can be done at any level and there are no hard and fast rules. A high-up in the force can put you anywhere he likes, and this power to recruit people is usually directly proportional to his influence and clout in the government. If he is powerful enough, he can recruit you from anywhere.

The other phenomenon is the tremendous nepotism prevalent here. Ministers, provincial governors and top functionaries of the ruling party nominate their favourites, who are generally relatives and friends, to the top posts in the police and armed forces as well as in the civil administration.

Hun Sen, the second prime minister and the CPP’s vice-president, has appointed his nephew as the commander of the economic police, a separate department in the Ministry of Interior.

The government has not even hesitated to install complete illiterates at the highest ranks in the police force. A most senior policeman of the border police in Banteay Menchay is said to be illiterate. He is also believed to be a senior party functionary of the CPP and a close confidant of a top leader.

Non-governmental organisation activists who were involved in training the police force believe that the high-ups need more training than their subordinates. "These high officials who have generally been nominated to these posts need more training as they are completely ignorant of the functioning of the police, but they are shy to join the training classes," says a Cambodian Defenders Project official. "They generally send their subordinates to attend the training classes and feel it humiliating [to have training] for themselves."