A lot of people have been surprised by the release of the criticizing Prime Minister Hun Sen and his relatives for their control of more than 100 companies, and their alleged "hostile takeover" of the Cambodian economy. How serious are the allegations in this report? And is it possible that the government or the individuals — including the prime minister’s immediate family, who have reacted in the past few days — would file a lawsuit against Global Witness over these allegations?
I read this latest report, and I did read the previous [Global Witness] report from 2007 called “Family Trees,” which consists of 94 pages and 440 references. These references include case studies, contracts and images that are realistic. And there is also another [Global Witness] report about logging companies, which was released in February 2009. I remember it has 60 pages along with 429 references, and talks about a “Country for Sale.” This means that [Cambodia’s ruling elites] created companies for real estate bidding, including for buildings, state lands, economic land concessions, mining concessions and other public real estate interests. And for this report, “Hostile Takeover,” we are very certain of its reliability, since it is related to the previous two reports. This latest report is a case study. They extracted accurate data with evidence. However, the findings are still considered “understated.” This means that this report only shows what is already there on the table, and if we compare it to the pond, we only see just a few fish that are jumping above the water surface. But it is possible that there are still plenty of other fish underneath.
So does that mean there are still more companies that we don’t know about?
Yes, there are more than this, because even without Global Witness, everyone can see it. For instance, drinking water companies, electricity companies, television stations and other businesses, such as Spark restaurant, that everyone, including me, visits. It is only about four in every 10 fish that are jumping above the water’s surface. In fact, what is important is: to what extent do [the prime minister's family members] dare to accept these findings, and whether they are in fact doing legitimate businesses or not. If these businesses are legal, and standardized, and you are fully paying tax, then I think that filing a lawsuit is not necessary, but explaining with evidence would be a better choice to gain the public’s trust.
Do you mean making the businesses legal, paying tax and explaining this are the main issues? Until now, there has been no explanation, but only strong reactions stating that they are false allegations aiming to destroy the Hun family. Are these reactions enough, or could there be more studies over this case?
For now, the water is transparent, and people can see big and small fish clearly. Those explanations were just a denial, since they haven’t studied the report thoroughly in order to bring up arguments one by one, which would be more beneficial. This immediate denial is part of a culture of not taking responsibility. I don’t think it is appropriate because it is the prime minister and his ministers who have to take full responsibility over all these three reports, from 2007, 2009 and this latest one, in July 2016. This is very crucial for them to do so. And one more thing is that they need to show integrity. Filing a lawsuit is difficult because those who wrote the report are not in Cambodia, and if they were, they would probably have been in jail for the past 24 hours already.
Showing with clarity or transparency the registration of companies or tax filings, for example, would require an independent audit. But in a country controlled by the prime minister, who would dare to do independent auditing? Also, does the report mean that the prime minister’s family is doing illegal stuff, or is it just trying to show that everything is under one family’s control? What’s your opinion?