Money Problems

Logic would suggest that a country relying on the international donor community for half its national budget would be a model of good governance and efficient administration, not to mention clean, transparent politics.

After all, many people's thinking might run, the donors' leverage is surely so great that it can call many of the shots and prevent excessive abuse.

So why is Cambodia, which gets around £350m a year from international agencies such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, as well as developed nations, in such a mess?

Most statistics about the country make gloomy reading. Illiteracy rates are hovering at just below 70%, rising to more than 80% in women.

Infant mortality is 135 per 1,000 births. Over the last decade, the rate has risen - onne of the few countries in which this has happened - from 115. The average annual income is £155, or less than the price of buying the Guardian newspaper each day.

Cambodia's legal system is considered to be one of the most corrupt in Asia, mainly because the judiciary is so closely controlled by the executive.

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, could not have been blunter when, in March, he said: "I cannot but recall the reports of my special representative for human rights in Cambodia, who has consistently found there to be little respect, on the part of Cambodian courts, for the most elementary features of the right to a fair trial."

Endemic corruption is not confined to lawyers and the police. The World Bank recently financed a scheme to help demobilise around half Cambodia's vastly overstaffed armed forces.

After some months, it became clear that millions of pounds had disappeared from the scheme, run by Sok An, one of the prime minister's closest aides, and also Cambodia's point man on the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

The tribunal should have been an area in which the international community could have imposed its will. However, it singularly failed to do so, meaning that the prime minister, Hun Sen, has retained effective control over a process that could, were it free and fair, well result in him and many of his cohorts being implicated. That is now highly unlikely.

Forestry provides another snapshot of the effects of donor inertia. A British non-governmental organisation, Global Witness, was appointed as an independent monitor to the forestry sector as part of a $30m (£18m) World Bank credit to Cambodia.

However, in April, the government decided to fire Global Witness for no clear reason. Considering the available evidence, it is hard not to agree with Global Witness's Jon Buckrell who, at the time, said of the organisation's critics: "These individuals at the heart of government and the public administration no doubt see the termination of Global Witness' official role as the surest way to maintain their illicit revenue streams and thereby their power."

International donors did lobby to have spurious charges against Global Witness's co-ordinator dropped but, considering the magnitude of the alleged illegal logging, they have, as with the deficiencies in virtually every other sector, remained conspicuously silent.

The most likely reason for this is that the major players - the US, China, former colonial power France, the EU, Vietnam, Japan and Australia - have different agendas, and cannot agree on much. Mr Hun Sen, despite only having had one year of secondary school education, manages to exploit these differences, and so perpetuates his power.

History plays a crucial role in the emergence and development of the differences. After gaining independence from France in 1953, Cambodia enjoyed relative peace until the late 60s.

In 1970, in what was probably a covert US-backed coup, King Sihanouk was overthrown and fled to China, where he set up the Khmer Rouge from exile.

These forces, backed by Vietnamese communists, took on the new government which was supported by the US, who carpet-bombed much of the country until 1975. Then, the Khmer Rouge, who had outgrown the king, proved victorious.

The genocide of the Khmer Rouge, in which an estimated 1.7m people were executed or died from disease and starvation, ended with a Vietnamese invasion in 1978. This installed a puppet regime but, for much of the 80s, civil war continued until the UN intervened in 1990.

In 1993, elections were held, but the Cambodian People's party, although losing, refused to cede power. Its leader, Mr Hun Sen, was only the second prime minister in a coalition, but wielded considerable power. In July 1997, he staged a coup and ousted his co-premier, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

Thus, influenced by Cold War ideologies and more recent global geopolitical developments, consensus among donor nations and institutions regarding events in Cambodia has been rare.

Activists allege that diplomats prefer the quiet life and do not want to kick up much of a fuss, either domestically or globally, as long as the nation is relatively calm and democratic - which, compared with the nearby states of Laos, Vietnam and Burma, it undoubtedly is.

Mr Hun Sen clearly realises this, and so rules by division. Last Sunday's election shows that his position is secure for the immediate future, because he can get away with holding an election that is far from fair and free.

So, for the 85% of Cambodians who live in rural areas, life's daily struggle is likely to continue. Aid will result in few more potholes on the country's atrocious roads getting filled in, and a few more villages getting water pumps and possibly electricity.

However, it is unlikely to bring the sustainable prosperity that it could any time soon.