Subject: [cwj 86] Japan, EU to study joint Cambodian aid project
From: Corporate Watch in Japanese <cwj@corpwatch.org>
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 17:32:54 -0700
Seq: 86
Japan, EU to study joint Cambodian aid project By HISANE MASAKI Staff writer The Japan Times: Aug. 24, 2000 Japan and the 15-nation European Union will start talks as early as next month on drafting a unique guns-for-butter joint assistance project for Cambodia by the end of this year, government sources said Wednesday. The project would try to ensure the war-torn Southeast Asian country's internal security and promote economic development, especially of poorer rural areas, the sources said. Since Cambodia's deadly civil war ended in the early 1990s, Japan has led the country's international assistance efforts. Japan is by far Cambodia's largest single aid donor, extending nearly 10 billion yen in official development assistance annually. But the poor security conditions due largely to the existence of armed groups has hampered efforts to develop the Southeast Asian country's rural areas. Huge numbers of firearms are believed to be in circulation in Cambodia. Although the Phnom Penh government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has tried to collect small firearms from armed groups in the rural areas, it apparently has not made much progress. Cambodia still lacks even a legal framework for regulating the possession of firearms. Japan dispatched a fact-finding government mission to Cambodia in early July to explore Japan's possible assistance to help the Phnom Penh government collect small firearms from citizens in rural areas by providing them with job training or other aid in return. Former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi met with Hun Sen in Phnom Penh in January, when he pledged to send the mission. The EU, meanwhile, has stationed its own officials in Phnom Penh since last October to study the possibility of launching similar assistance for Cambodia. At their regular summit in Tokyo in late July, top Japanese and EU leaders agreed to cooperate in assisting the Phnom Penh government's small-firearms collection efforts for the development of rural areas. The Japan-EU summit was attended by Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, French President Jacques Chirac and European Commission President Romano Prodi. The EU is now conducting a feasibility study on a guns-for-butter Cambodian assistance project on its own. The feasibility study is expected to be completed at the end of this month. The sources said that Japan and the EU will begin talks at the expert-level as early as next month on drafting a joint assistance project for Cambodia based on the results of the EU's feasibility study. In the initial stage of the project, the EU wants to designate three unspecified Cambodian villages as model communities for the project, the sources said. The sources said that the draft assistance project will be submitted to nongovernmental organizations engaged in development assistance activities in Cambodia, as well as to the Phnom Penh government, for endorsement by the end of this year. If everything goes smoothly, the Japan-EU joint project will be launched early next year, they said. Japan hopes the joint Japan-EU project for Cambodia will serve as a model for preventing regional conflicts and promoting economic development in other countries, especially in Africa. "We hope the joint project will be implemented and show specific results before a key United Nations-sponsored conference next year on the control of small firearms," one senior government official said, requesting that he not be named. Japan will finance its portion of the joint project, using either ODA or a special Japanese-financed fund within the U.N. for control of small firearms in developing countries, or both, the sources said. At their annual meeting in Miyazaki Prefecture in late July, foreign ministers from the Group of Eight countries adopted an action program for preventing regional conflicts through tighter controls of small firearms and other means. At the Miyazaki meeting, Japan pledged to boost the size of the U.N. fund by $700,000. G-8 comprises the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Russia. In 1998, the World Bank launched a similar project for Cambodia called the Cambodia Veteran Assistance Program. But the World Bank program fell through, primarily because many Cambodians only handed in unusable firearms for money while keeping usable ones. FAIR USE NOTICE. This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Corporate Watch in Japanese is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability, human rights, economic democracy and social justice issues. 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