Alex Oliver deserves congratulations for her continuing focus on the problems that confront DFAT, both as a result of the excessive demands made for consular assistance and the continuing reduction of its financing.

As she is very much aware, consular demands are a long-standing issue and I readily remember the Jehovah's Witness who roundly abused me in Phnom Penh over fifty years ago when, as a junior foreign service officer, I told him the Australian embassy could not intervene to prevent the Cambodian authorities expelling him for proselytising while in the country on a tourist visa.

More generally, and as raised by Hugh White in March, it is important to ask what it is we expect from DFAT. In relation to both Alex's and Hugh's contributions, I wonder if we are not dealing, at least in part, with a systemic problem of DFAT's place within the Australian Public Service. In making the following comments I recognise that my own public service experience, initially with DFAT and later with ONA, ended a long time ago.

At the risk of offending a great many people, I wonder if it is not in fact the case that DFAT is a relatively poor player in the Canberra milieu and regarded as such by the real movers and shakers within the public service — the heavyweight departments such as PM&C, Treasury, Defence and other assorted domestic departments.

Remarkably little international attention has been given to the beginning of work on the Lower Se San 2 dam in Cambodia, a major hydroelectric dam on one of the Mekong's main tributaries which plays a key part in the annual breeding cycle of the river's fish, which are a major contributor to the Cambodian population's protein intake. One of the rare exceptions is this new report from Deutsche Welle.

The dam, which is being built by a consortium of the Cambodian Royal Group and Hydrolancang International Energy of China, is projected to cost US$781 million and to produce 370 MW of electricity.

While the Cambodian Government has claimed that the dam will not have an effect on the Mekong's fish stocks, as I previous reported in The Interpreter, a major study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US and reported in Nature disputes this view, with the estimate the new dam will result in a diminishing of the annual fish catch in the Mekong of more than 9%. More immediately, it is estimated that the dam will result in the displacement of villagers and their access to traditional fishing grounds.

Separately, but again involving Chinese dam-building efforts, there are once again indications that Beijing is giving serious consideration to the construction of dams on the upper reaches of the Salween River (or the Nu Jiang, 'Angry River') in Yunnan province, and that some preliminary construction is taking place.

This issue of dams on the upper Salween was examined in depth in my Lowy 'Perspectives' paper, The Water Politics of China and Southeast Asia II: Rivers, Dams, Cargo Boats and the Environment, in May 2007. At that time it seemed possible that domestic opposition to the proposed dams, which would be located in a particularly rich biodiversity region, including from the Chinese Academy of the Sciences, would prevent construction.

More generally, there is concern among neighbours that China's control of Tibet, where rivers such as the Mekong and the Salween rise, means that Beijing will ultimately be in a position to determine how much water reaches its downstream neighbours. For the moment this may be an alarmist view, but it is notable that China has not signed the UN water sharing treaty that would be applicable to all the transnational rivers that flow out of its territory.

Photo by Flickr user Akuppa.

Hard on the heels of fresh evidence of disputes about the judicial reach of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia), has come the news of the death of Ieng Sary (pictured), the former foreign minister of the Democratic Kampuchean regime, or Pol Pol's government. He was 87.

Like Pol Pot, Ieng Sary adopted his lifelong commitment to his vision of communism while a student in France in the 1950s, where he was a founder of the Cercle Marxiste that drew together many of the later prominent figures in the Khmer Rouge regime. He was also a member of the French Communist Party while living in Paris.

An alternate member of the Communist Party of Kampuchea's Standing Committee from 1960, he was the public international face of the Khmer Rouge regime while it held power. He later defected to Hun Sen in 1996, but the amnesty granted to him at this stage was overridden for him to be brought before the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

There is increasing concern among commentators charting the Mekong's future that the Lao Government's decision to proceed with the construction of a dam on the mainstream of the Mekong at Xayaburi could lead to other dams being constructed on the river.

While some of the evidence about plans for new dams in Laos and Cambodia is anecdotal, it appears possible that the Cambodian Government is giving serious consideration to building a major dam at Sambor, a site on the Mekong a little to the north of the provincial town of Kratie, while the Lao Government may be contemplating constructing additional Mekong mainstream dams at Pak Beng and Don Sahong.

A more immediate cause for concern by dam opponents is the Cambodian decision, announced in November last year, to approve construction of a dam on the Se San River (the Lower Se San Dam 2), a major tributary of the Mekong and a recognised spawning ground for the fish that provide so much of Cambodia's annual animal protein intake.

A major research project published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US and reported in Nature in early 2012 estimated that the dam, if built, would result in a loss of more than 9% of the annual fish catch taken out of the Mekong because of the key role the Se San plays in the annual cycle of fish spawning in the Mekong.

With more than 50 years spent studying, writing about and living in Asia for extended periods, I am at the forefront of those convinced of the need for greater engagement with Asia. So I welcome the release of the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper as a wish list of some of the things our country ought to be doing to achieve greater integration with Asia.

Various commentators have already rightly drawn attention to the problems associated with finding enough teachers in Australia, at all levels of the educational spectrum, to meet the accepted need for greater teaching of Asian languages, history, politics and culture, with the latter broadly but rather uncertainly defined. My concern is to raise a different question: what will be the content of courses, particularly those dealing with politics and history?

Let me illustrate this using the area most familiar to me: Southeast Asia. If schools are going to teach about 20th century Indonesian or Cambodian history, at what stage will it be appropriate to refer, in detail, to the massacres that took place following the overthrow of Sukarno in the mid-1960s and the terrible cost in lives of the Pol Pot years in Cambodia in the 1970s? Is this material suitable for primary schools, or will a future curriculum defer the 'nasties' to secondary level and focus on warm and fuzzy aspects of Asian history and culture such as wyang kulit puppets for Indonesia and the wonders of Angkor in the junior years?

The answer surely will be along the lines of 'gearing' the degree of detail offered to the age of the students studying particular courses. But I can't see how unpleasant subjects can be avoided. And here's rub. If we are going to teach about Asia widely we will have to do so honestly. That means revealing there are plenty of unpleasant issues.

Finally, after months of equivocation, the Lao Minister for Energy and Mining, Viraphon Viravong, announced on 5 November that the Vientiane government will proceed with its plans to build the controversial dam at Xayaburi (pictured), roughly midway between Luang Prabang and Vientiane. A ceremony to mark this decision will take place tomorrow.

It's hard not to read something into the date chosen for this announcement: to give a public airing to a controversial issue when attention in Vientiane is focused on the Asia Europe Meeting summit. More importantly, this decision finally breaks the decades-old consensus that building dams on the mainstream of the Mekong after it flows out of China poses such dangers to the environment that no action should be taken until a thorough environmental assessment has been made.

The death of Norodom Sihanouk, the 'King Father' of Cambodia, in Beijing at the age of almost 90, brings to an end one of the most remarkable lives among the Asian leaders who emerged after the Second World War.

Placed on the throne by the French in 1941 at the age of 19, Sihanouk initially served the colonial power's purpose as a symbolic rallying point in the difficult wartime years. But following the end of the war he slowly and steadily matured politically to become the spearhead of Cambodia's determination to gain independence from France. When this was achieved in 1953 he had every reason to claim this was due to his leadership.

In the years that followed independence, Sihanouk continued to demonstrate remarkable political skills, at least until the mid-1960s. He abdicated in 1955 to better place himself at the centre of political life; formed the Sangkum Reastr Niyum (People's Socialist Community) as a political movement that largely banished overt party squabbling from the country; and charted a course in international affairs that, for a period, enabled Cambodia to receive aid from all sides of the international ideological divide. He was tireless in his efforts to modernise Cambodia, though the results often fell far short of what he claimed had been achieved.

The news of the death of Cambodia's Norodom Sihanouk, the country's 'King Father', brings to an end one of the most remarkable lives among the Asian political leaders who emerged into prominence following the Second World War. Born in 1922, he would have turned 90 at the end of this month. Throughout his life he was a figure of interest far beyond Cambodia for his political skills and his sometimes flamboyant personal life.

The spearhead of Cambodia's successful campaign to gain independence from France in 1953, he dominated Cambodian political life in the following decade, before changing circumstances undermined his position. When he was thrown out of office by his closest associates in March 1970 he chose to align himself with the Cambodian communists, the Khmer Rouge, whom he had previously regarded as his bitter enemies.

While he may have hoped that the victory of the Khmer Rouge in April 1975 would offer him a real role in the government of Cambodia, it quickly became clear that his communist allies had no intention of permitting this, and for most of the Pol Pot period (1975-79) Sihanouk was effectively a prisoner under house arrest.

The complex story of murder and mayhem on the Mekong River in October last year was outlined in my 9 November 2011 post. In a brutal attack on two Chinese commercial vessels close to the tri-border region of Burma, Laos and Thailand, thirteen Chinese nationals were killed.

Although suspicion immediately focused on notorious Burmese drug runner Naw Kham and his associates, there were also claims that Thai military personnel were involved in the attack. In a firm assertion of its right to protect its citizens, Chinese authorities instituted armed patrols along the Mekong, including beyond its own territory after persuading its immediate Mekong neighbours to participate in this effort. To all intents and purposes, however, the patrols were essentially Chinese with nominal Burmese, Lao and Thai participation.

Now, nearly a year later, Naw Kham and five associates have been brought to trial in Kunming having been extradited either from Burma or Laos (there are conflicting reports on this issue). Naw Kham has pleaded guilty and appealed for clemency. Sentencing has not yet occurred.

While the court proceedings in Kunming bring one aspect of this case to a close, other issues remain unresolved, not least in relation to the Thai soldiers accused of involvement in the attack, who remain in custody.

Probably more interesting is the extent to which the actions of the Chinese authorities following the attack have provided a clear indication of its readiness to seize the opportunity to project its influence beyond its borders, including through judicial action. Commercial trade between southern Yunnan and northern Thailand is dominated by Chinese cargo boats and Chinese actions make clear that it will protect its citizens and their vessels.

Photo by Flickr user Chrissam42.

While there are continuing uncertainties as to whether a dam is going to be built on the mainstream of the Mekong at Xayaburi in Laos, Chinese authorities have just announced that the major dam at Nuozhadu on the upper reaches of the Mekong in Yunnan province has started generating electricity. 

Nuozhadu is the fifth Chinese dam to be commissioned in Yunnan and it will ultimately have a generating capacity of 5500MW. For the moment only one of its nine generators is functioning, but all will be in operation in 2014. Like the already completed dam at Xiaowan (pictured), Nuozhadu has been built on an huge scale, with a dam wall rising 261m and a reservoir that will eventually cover 320sq km.

The official announcement in the China Daily is of more than passing interest, for two reasons. First, because it speaks of the newly operating dam as being one of seven Chinese dams on the upper section of the river lying within Chinese territory (it has previously been widely accepted that there would eventually be eight dams) and because it again repeats the claim that the Chinese cascade of dams will not effect downstream countries because only 13.5% of the water in the Mekong as a whole flows through China.

This claim has been discredited many times over, as I noted in my Lowy Paper, River at Risk.

In my post of 17 July I suggested that it was no surprise Cambodia acted as China wished in relation to the South China Sea issue at the time of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting held in Cambodia.

Given Chinese aid, it was always likely that Cambodia would balk at agreeing to a joint communique that, in effect, was critical of China. While critics of Cambodia's actions referred to it as China's 'puppet' or 'pawn', far too little attention was given to just how large China's aid to Cambodia, particularly relative to other sources.

For many years it has been difficult to quantify the exact size of China's aid, but a new assessment from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies draws attention both to the size and the relative importance of the aid by comparison with that received from other donors:

China offers Cambodia $2.5 billion in investments and soft loans.

Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao pledged to give Cambodia $500 million in loans for infrastructure projects following a September 1­2 visit to China by Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen. China also approved a $2 billion industrial park project that would produce 3 million tons of steel per year and employ up to 10,000 Cambodians. Chinese investment in Cambodia totaled $1.9 billion in 2011, more than double the investment by all ASEAN countries combined and 10 times that by the United States. Cambodian officials rejected speculation that the aid was a Chinese thank-you for Cambodia's support for China on the South China Sea, parts of which are disputed between China and four of Cambodia's Southeast Asian neighbors.

Photo by Flickr user judithbluepool.

In an earlier update regarding the possibility that the Lao Government might go ahead with plans to build a dam on the mainstream of the Mekong I drew attention to the manner in which the Vientiane authorities continued to equivocate on their intentions.

The Lao equivocation continues but has taken on a tone more in favour of going ahead with the dam. This is despite sharp criticism from Cambodia and and Vietnam, fellow members of the Mekong River Commission, and requests by the MRC for more detailed study of the likely environmental impact of the dam, particularly on fisheries. Outside Laos there is broad agreement that a dam at Xayaburi would have a damaging effect on fish migration up and down the river between the Loei River in northern Thailand and an area above Chiang Saen close to where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Burma come together.

In an interview with the Bangkok Post on 22 July, Lao Deputy Minister for Energy and Mines Viraphonh Viravong rejected suggestions that work now taking place at the dam site meant that a final decision to construct the dam had been made: 'We have not started working on any construction on the Mekong River that is permanent.' Rather, he insisted that what was taking place was preliminary while engineers carried out surveys, including in the river bed.

Most disturbing for those concerned about the environmental impact of the dam, the deputy minister also said that his department is 'now considering measures proposed by the engineers to reduce the impact (on fisheries) — for instance by fish ladders.' The idea that fish ladders  are an answer to the blocking of fish movement in the Mekong has been widely discredited (pictured, an example of a fish ladder at the Rocky Reach Dam in Washington, US), not least because there are no salmon species in the river (the issue is discussed in detail here). The fish ladders constructed on Thailand's Pak Mun Dam on the Mun River, a major tributary of the Mekong, proved to be a dismal failure in the 1990s.

Until now the balance of probabilities seemed to be that Laos was still not ready to take a final decision to go ahead and build a dam at Xayaburi. That judgment now seems in need of adjustment. The odds in favour of the first-ever dam on the mainstream of the Mekong have shortened.

Photo by Flickr user SarekofVulcan.

Hugh White says it is difficult to imagine Indonesia putting its relations with China at risk by supporting Vietnam over its claims in the South China Sea. This focuses attention firmly on an issue that used to be debated frequently but now seems to have been forgotten (or is it just that to do so is thought to risk causing offence?): how united is ASEAN and does it risk being little more than a talking shop?

To ask the question is not to suggest ASEAN in its collective identity is unimportant, nor to suggest that the problem that emerged at the recent Ministers' Meeting in Phnom Penh, when the members of ASEAN could not agree to issue a communiqué, is without significance. But what happened in Phnom Penh underlines the fact that ASEAN in its present form does not prevent substantial disagreements between its members.

Indeed, particularly with the membership of the three 'Indochinese' states, it seems more likely than not that there will be important issues where agreement will not be achieved. As I suggested in my post last week, Cambodia's readiness to hew to China's wishes in relation to the South China Sea was entirely predictable. And I see no reason to expect that Cambodia, while Hun Sen remains in power, will do other than act with concern to take the fullest account of Chinese interests.

A shortlist of some of ASEAN's problems includes:

• The failure of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to find a solution to the haze problem that has caused difficulties for several years (see photo of Jakarta by Flickr user the juniorpartner.)
• The continuing difficulties between Cambodia and Thailand in relation to the Preah Vihear temple. 
• The prospect that Laos may build a dam on the mainstream of the Mekong River in direct disregard of the strongly voiced objections of Cambodia and Vietnam.

ASEAN membership has done nothing to eliminate these examples of conflicting interests.

The fact that Prime Minister Hun Sen led the Cambodian participants in the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting held in Phnom Penh last week in resisting the release of a post-meeting communiqué dealing with tensions in the South China Sea, and the fact that no agreed position was achieved, should scarcely be a surprise.

For at least a decade now, Hun Sen has routinely referred to China as Cambodia's most trusted friend. China is by far Cambodia's most important aid donor, and the Cambodian Government did everything it could to keep the South China Sea off the agenda of the ASEAN Summit held in April of this year. 

So Cambodia paid its dues, or, in the words of a diplomat quoted in a New York Times report, 'China bought the chair, simple as that.'

Despite the sharp reaction of the Philippines, with Indonesia taking a more measured approach, commentaries that stress the extent to which Cambodia's behaviour at this meeting might undermine ASEAN unity will surely have to be judged in the longer term. After all, it is worth noting that there is already an underlying lack of unity among those members of ASEAN which have conflicting claims in the South China Sea.

In any event, it is interesting to see that the Bangkok Post has been ready to carry an editorial suggesting that keeping the South China Sea off the agenda was probably the right thing to do since it would not be desirable for ASEAN to take a position in a dispute that now has clear major power overtones involving both China and the US. To the extent the editorial represents Thai official thinking, it of course reflects the fact that Thailand is not involved in any of the South China Sea's claims and counter claims, making it easy to adopt a detached position.

Photo by Flickr user Un rosarino en Vietnam.

With a sense that the story is becoming something like 'The Perils of Pauline', the Xayaburi dam story rolls on. The fact that the issue has become tortuously prolonged should not detract from the very serious issues involved: environmental threats to the Mekong leading to the major loss of fish supplies and diminishing of sediment flow, and a falling out between the countries of the Lower Mekong Basin.

Separately, a new research report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests dams built on Mekong tributaries could post a greater threat to the river's current role as a bounteous source of fish than dams on the mainstream.

Although Lao Government ministers insist they are, for the moment, abiding by their commitment not to proceed with construction of a controversial dam at Xayaburi on the mainstream of the Mekong River between Luang Prabang and Vientiane, as agreed with their Mekong River Commission partners (Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam), they are concurrently speaking as if the project will ultimately go ahead.

Indeed, this latest statement from Lao Deputy Minister for Energy Viraphonh Viravong on 1 July seems to take matters further towards a determination to build the dam than was evident when this issue was last reviewed on The Interpreter.

Over the past several weeks there have been conflicting reports about the Lao Government's controversial plans to build a dam on the Mekong River's mainstream at Xayaburi, with The Economist's 'Banyan' column of 5 May noting that the Thai construction firm, CH Karnchong, had notified the  Bangkok stock exchange that work on the dam had begun in March.

Similar reports have led to vigorous protests from Cambodia, with Sin Niny, Vice-Chairman of Cambodia's National Mekong Committee, threatening action against the dam in the international court and the country's minister for water-resources protesting to his Lao counterpart. Objections to the dam's construction have also come from Vietnam's National Mekong Committee though not, so far as I can tell, from government ministers. The protests from Cambodia and Vietnam have been matched by those coming from a range of NGOs and environmental groups.

But amid the sound and fury and the claims by CH Karnchong that it is going ahead with the dam, the Lao Government is stating that its critics are wrong and that it has no plans to build the Xayaburi dam, at least for the moment. What CH Karnchong has been doing is only preliminary work around the dam site, Lao spokesmen have said. But what happens in the future may be another matter, since, in the words of Lao Vice Minister of Energy and Mines Viraphonh Viravong:

There are indeed good reasons for asking, as James did yesterday in reply to my piece, how the Angkor Archaeological Park (above) spends the entrance fees it charges foreign visitors. Eric Campbell's investigation of this issue for ABC TV raised many still-unanswered questions.

That said, there is a pressing need for additional funds to be allocated to cope with what has now become a mass tourist destination, and an Australian gift of the order of $1 million is no bad thing, even if issue of corruption attends the administration of the Park, as with so much else in Cambodia. Constant maintenance is required to maintain the temples, as is the presence of guards to prevent further theft of cultural artifacts.

Understanding all does not necessarily mean forgiving all, but it's worth remembering that, whatever was the case forty or so years ago, Cambodian pride in the Angkor temples is now widely held. In these circumstances, the gift seems both appropriate and likely to have been well received. If it goes some small way towards ameliorating the problems caused by mass tourism, so much the better.

If there are grounds for concern about Australian gifts to Cambodia in light of the country's reputation for endemic corruption, the announcement that the Government is contributing a further $1.61 million to support the work of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (ECCC) certainly is a basis for it.

It's unusual enough to have a single item about Cambodia in the Australian media, and yesterday there were two.

First, an allegation that one of Prime Minister Hun's nephews is linked to drug trafficking and money laundering (the man in question has issued a denial). And, secondly, the announcement that our newly appointed Foreign Minister, Senator Carr, has been touring the Angkor temples, where he announced that Australia would make a welcome donation of $1 million to assist Cambodian authorities in dealing with what is now a massive tourist influx of upwards of 20,000 daily visitors to the archaeological complex.

Whatever his considerable political skills, Hun Sen does not seem to be blessed by his relatives, particularly his nephews, who have been regularly in the news for behaviour ranging from assault to involuntary manslaughter. At a gathering of the Hun Sen clan in 2009 he warned his nephews and other relatives about their behaviour.

And then there is Senator Carr's visit to the Angkor temple complex, which DFAT tells readers in a press release is a '700 year old temple complex.' Now, it may be a case of shooting in fish in a barrel to draw attention to the error here, but at a time when there is concern to be 'Asia literate' (I much prefer the Asialink terminology of 'Asia capable'), DFAT can't even get its dates right.

Conventional dating for the Angkor complex begins in 802 of the Common era and ends some time after 1431. The temple Senator Carr visited, Ta Prohm (pictured), dates from 1186. The most famous of all the temples, Angkor Wat, dates from the first half of the eleventh century. By the time DFAT chooses to date the complex, Angkor was in decline and almost all of the temples we see today had been built. Someone in the RG Casey Building needs to do their maths.

Photo by Flickr user Peter Nijenhuis.

At a time when there is much debate about the respective roles and strengths of China and the US in Asia, a new book discussing China's control over Asia's freshwater resources refocuses attention on the quip attributed to Mark Twain that 'Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over.'

You don't have to take the quip to its logical conclusion to accept the importance that freshwater plays in international relations, though there is probably too much emphasis placed on the disputes arising from the existence of many trans-boundary rivers throughout the world. Among the many readily available articles on this issue, few are better than one published in the Economist nearly four years ago; it gave as much attention to the successful management of some international rivers as to those cases where this has not occurred.

But South and Southeast Asia have not been blessed by many successes relating to trans-boundary rivers. Readers of The Interpreter will know that my principal concern is with the management, or rather lack of it, of the Mekong as an international river that passes through or by no fewer than six countries (China, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam), and to a lesser extent with developments on the Salween, which flows out of China into Burma.

Now, very recently, I have had an opportunity to read Brahma Chellaney's Water: Asia's New Battleground, which undertakes the ambitious task of looking at international rivers on a pan-Asian basis.

Written with a fine sense for acerbic commentary on the political misjudgments of his own country's politicians, including in relation to the Indus Treaty between India and Pakistan ('Nehru's long seventeen years in office stood out for not learning from mistakes and continuing to operate on ingenuous premises') the key fact that pervades his book is the extent to which China's administration of Tibet means that it has the capability to control all of the major rivers of flowing into South and Southeast Asia.

Even a short visit to Cambodia earlier this month is sufficient to underline why Prime Minister Hun Sen has been so ready over many years to describe China as his country's best friend. Discussion of China's aid to the country is a constant in almost every conversation.

In December 2011 Hun Sen inaugurated a major 103 MW dam at Kamchay in Kampot province built by Sinohydro, one of the largest Chinese construction groups, the latest major infrastructure project built with Chinese assistance at a cost of US$208 million.

In preceding years (and as Hun Sen always insists, 'without strings') Chinese aid to Cambodia has ranged from the construction of a bridge over the Se San River in Stung Treng province, through road construction, to the provision of military vehicles and uniforms for the Cambodia army. In May 2010 alone China committed itself to total aid of US$1.2 billion in grants and loans at a time when a US shipment of military vehicles had been frozen.

With the Kamchay dam completed, there are plans for two more Chinese-built dams in the Cardamom Mountains of Pursat province. Like Kamchay, their construction will be for the generation of hydroelectricity, but unlike Kamchay, the proposed dams will be sited on rivers that eventually flow into the Mekong River system. This raises familiar concerns about the degradation of fish stocks, an issue that has been at the heart of the opposition to the construction of the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong's mainstream.

At a meeting of the Council of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) in Siem Reap, Cambodia, yesterday the issue of whether or not Laos should be able to go ahead with its plan to build a major dam on the Mekong at Xayaburi was fudged, with the council members concluding that 'there is a need for further study on the sustainable development and management of the Mekong River including impact from mainstream hydropower development projects'.

In effect, this means construction of the Xayaburi dam has been postponed for the moment.

The anodyne official statement glosses over the sharp divisions that have emerged and continue among the four member states of the MRC (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) on the proposed Xayaburi dam.

It is the first of many dams proposed for the Mekong after it flows out of China. With much preliminary work already completed, it is poised for construction work to begin across the river.

As planned, Xayaburi is no minor, 'run-of-the-river' dam. If built it would stretch 830m across the Mekong and rise to a height of 40m. Its reservoir would stretch back 60km (see my earlier post on the dam and the more detailed Lowy Paper, The Mekong: River Under Threat).

According to environmentalists, civil society groups and, most importantly, the governments of Cambodia and Vietnam, the Xayaburi dam is a 'game changer'. Thailand has taken a hands-off position, not opposing the dam but saying it would hold Laos responsible if the dam caused problems in the future.

Judging by the release of important books on the subject, it's not been a year to bolster confidence in the future of Afghanistan, whatever position one takes on Australia's involvement in that country. Two books specifically dealing with British involvement are certainly worth reading, Toby Harnden's 'Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Real Story of Britain's War in Afghanistan', and Sherard Cowper-Coles, 'Cables from Kabul: The inside Story of the West's Afghanistan Campaign'.

Harnden's book, which was a cause celebre even before it was published, is a searing account of the Welsh Guards deployment in Helmand province in 2009. Embedded for a period with the Guards, Harnden recounts the near-impossible task set a highly professional unit with inadequate equipment. The Ministry of Defence, advised by its most senior generals, initially tried to prevent the book's publication, then sought many changes to its content, and finally paid over £100,000 to the publisher for the first edition's pulping. In its final form, it is grim but compelling read.

If Harnden's book tells the story from the soldiers' point of view — and it does so for rankers as much as for officers — Cowper-Coles is the view of a senior Foreign Office official, first sent to Afghanistan as British ambassador and then acting as Britain's Special Representative to Afghanistan.

As one would expect from his mandarin's background, Cowper-Coles writes with wit, scatters classic tags along the way, and makes very clear his deep frustration with the failure of many of his Foreign Office colleagues to understand the nature of Afghanistan or the interaction between political and military objectives. In a phrase that ought to be pondered in the RG Casey Building in Canberra, he observes that when it comes to inter-ministerial discussions about Afghanistan, the Foreign Office tends to occupy the place of 'last among equals.'

I don't expect readers of The Interpreter to rush out to find my next offering, though it is an important publication. For years scholars have been waiting for a full-scale history of Southeast Asia to replace the pioneering work of DGE Hall's monumental 'A History of South-East Asia', first published in 1955, and then republished three times, with a final edition in 1981. Now, this year, there is a replacement, a multi-authored volume edited by MC Ricklefs, 'A New History of Southeast Asia'. As with any book like this, it is not the last word, but for the moment it is the best comprehensive and substantial work available.

Throughout the long, drawn-out course of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC) detailed in various Interpreter posts, observers have repeatedly expressed concern that the age of the four defendants before the court in Case 002 could mean that death could intervene before a verdict is reached in their trial. Nuon Chea, chief ideologue in the Pol Pot regime, is 84; Ieng Sary, the regime's foreign minister, is 85; Khieu Samphan, the regime's head of state, is 79; and Ieng Thirith, Ieng Sary's wife and minister for social affairs, is 79.

Now, not death but mental illness has intervened in the case of Ieng Thirith (pictured) On 17 November the ECCC announced it would not proceed further in its case against her as she is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Shortly after, both the Cambodian and international co-prosecutors filed an appeal against this decision, arguing that it involved errors in law and calling for further consideration to be given to the possibility that Ieng Thirith's condition could improve.

Whatever happens now in relation to Ieng Thirith, this may not be the last occasion mental illness becomes an issue in the trials, since Nuon Chea has for some time been claiming difficulty in following the court's procedures.

None of this will concern the Cambodian Government, which only reluctantly agreed to the establishment of the tribunal. But the prospect of further delays in proceedings will be regretted by those observers who have hoped that some measure of justice would flow from the trials that have finally occurred.

Photo courtesy of the ECCC.

On 6 and 7 October the bodies of 13 Chinese were found floating in the Mekong where it flows past Chiang Rai province in Thailand's north.

The bodies, blindfolded with hands bound and showing bullet wounds, were identified as the crews from two Chinese cargo boats making the journey down the river from southern Yunnan to northern Thailand. Subsequently, the two vessels were reported captured after a gunfight involving the military and, it is now claimed, those who had hijacked the vessels.

Commentary in both Thailand and China immediately linked these events with long-established drug smuggling in the Golden Triangle region, and in particular with the activities of an ethnic Shan warlord, Nor Kham. When the two boats were recovered, they were said to be carrying up to a million amphetamine 'speed' pills. For a period China suspended all cargo traffic traveling down the Mekong and then allowed its resumption with the provision of escorts.

The events are shocking but far from surprising, as smuggling is endemic to the region. When, in 2003, I traveled from Guan Lei in southern Yunnan to Chiang Saen in northern Thailand on a Chinese cargo boat as the only non-Chinese passenger, all passengers were ordered below shortly after leaving Chinese territory while the boat made an unscheduled stop to load and unload cargo, undoubtedly part of a smuggling operation.

There surely is no greater survivor among international political figures of the past and present centuries than Norodom Sihanouk, now titled the King Father of Cambodia, who turns 89 today, or 90 by Cambodian reckoning. He returned to Phnom Penh last week after three months of medical treatment in Beijing and vowed never to leave Cambodia again.

Over more than half a century Sihanouk has been king (he has abdicated twice), prime minister and chief of state of his country. Ousted in a coup in 1970, he became the nominal head of the Khmer Rouge-dominated National United Front of Kampuchea fighting against the Khmer Republic. He was then briefly chief of state of Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea.

Severing his ties with the Khmer Rouge after that regime's overthrow in 1979, he finally returned to mount the Cambodian throne again in 1993 after playing a predictably complex role in the negotiations that led to the settlement of the Cambodian problem. He abdicated for the second time in 2004.

Born into the Cambodian royal family in 1922, Sihanouk never expected to become king. He was plucked from relative obscurity as a student at a colonial lycee in Saigon by the French and placed on the throne in 1941 at a time of deep crisis in their colonial possessions in Indochina. 

The French felt sure they could manipulate the shy 19 year-old and until almost the end of the Second World War the French were largely correct in their estimation. But from 1946 they found they were dealing with a different man. He proved to be, as a French general observed and Sihanouk has never ceased to quote, 'a madman of genius.'

I offered my own judgments on Sihanouk's career up to 1994 in an unauthorised biography published in 1994 (Sihanouk: Prince of Light Prince of Darkness), but on this notable occasion Sihanouk's unusually introspective judgment of himself in his memoir, Souvenirs Doux et Amers, published in 1981, is worth quoting:

It is true that I have been an authoritarian head of state, or more exactly a blend of Sukarno of Indonesia and Nasser of Egypt. But I have never been in the same class as Amin Dada of Uganda or Macias N'Guema of Equitorial Guinea, even less their undisputed master of cruelty, Pol Pot of Democratic Kampuchea. Neither have I been this insignificant and feckless 'little king' depicted by some right-wing French newspapers, which see me as a kind of 'negro king'...with yellow skin...Quite simply, I am a man. With his good points and his bad. I am neither more or less virtuous than my brother men, created in the words of 'Genesis', in the image of God, but having to assume the inheritance of original sin.

Photo by Flickr user patrickmloeff.

Cambodia is that kind of place. Just when you think you are doing the right thing it turns out that the tentacles of the past are waiting to grab you.

Not only is The Guardian running bitter little stories about the fact that Angelina Jolie has been photographed lolling on a boat in a Cambodian swamp with a £7000 Louis Vuitton bag, she is now being portrayed as entering into a land deal with a notorious Khmer Rouge commander in Cambodia's Battambang province.

It's a complicated story but linked to an issue noted on several occasions in The Interpreter, the fact that international prosecutors at the Khmer Rouge tribunal have been blocked by government interference in their attempts to bring additional high-ranking Khmer Rouge figures before it.

The detailed story about the land deal has appeared in Global Post-International News, with the claim that the Maddox Jolie Pitt Foundation purchased land from a former Khmer Rouge commander, Yim Tith. Whether this deal was carried out knowingly, as a former and supposedly disgruntled Cambodian associate claims, or was the result of ignorance is not clear. 

Three points are worth noting. First, there seems little doubt that Yim Tith was indeed a Khmer Rouge figure of importance and that his ownership of the land resulted from a policy pursued by the Phnom Penh government of providing former KR leaders with land as a means of preserving their non-involvement in current politics.

Secondly, although I have not seen his name listed before, it may well be that Yim Tith is one of the additional potential defendants that international prosecutors want to see brought before the Khmer Rouge tribunal but have been blocked from doing so.

Finally, of course, the whole affair of Angelina Jolie's involvement in Cambodia relates to the now vexed issue, as the article pointedly notes, of celebrity philanthropy. There is no question about Jolie's commitment to helping Cambodia and its inhabitants, but if this story is correct it is a classic case of unintended consequences resulting from the charitable acts of an outsider with little appreciation of internal issues in an underdeveloped country.

Photo by Flickr user World Economic Forum.

In keeping with the less than glacial pace at which the Khmer Rouge Tribunal has functioned (officially the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC) since its formal establishment in 2006, it now seems probable that no verdict will be reached in relation to the four defendants in Case 2, currently before the court, before 2012 at the earliest (details of the defendants in this case may be found in my post, 'Khmer Rouge tribunal problems, again').

To date, the only conviction recorded by the tribunal has been that of Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, the director of the infamous S-21 extermination centre at Tuol Sleng.

Controversy has again emerged because of the international prosecutor's attempt to have additional cases heard by the ECCC. Two key elements have been involved in the latest undermining of the tribunal's standing. First has been the resignation, earlier this month, of the German international judge, Siegfried Blunk, who has alleged interference from the Cambodian Government in the tribunal's procedures.

This allegation has been accompanied by renewed criticism of the role played by the UN, with suggestions that body has failed to act when allegations have been made about the tribunal. These points are summarised in an article by James Goldston of the Open Society Initiative, which has long been critical of the tribunal and its processes.

In response, the UN has issued a statement stating that Goldston's article 'mischaracterises' the UN's position and that its representative will travel to Phnom Penh to look into the allegations of government interference.

Given the restrained fashion in which the UN has acted in relation to previous allegations of government interference and the payment of kickbacks within the tribunal, it would be optimistic to expect much to come from this visit. Moreover, Prime Minister has Hun Sen has made clear that he does not want the tribunal to undertake any more cases, let alone sanction any investigations about issues of interference or kickbacks.

These continuing disappointments take place against massive floods that have devastated Cambodia at the same time as the much better reported floods in Thailand. Losses of life in Cambodia have been much higher proportionately in Cambodia than in Thailand. What is more, and in a dramatic and unprecedented move in peacetime, Hun Sen has cancelled the most popular festival of the Cambodian year, Bon Um Tuk, the Water Festival, which was due to take place in mid-November.

Photo by Flickr user chrissam42.

I have been hesitant to use my long-ago experience in Vietnam as a basis to enter the debate about Australia's role in Afghanistan, not least because of the great differences between the two countries. But General Peter Leahy's suggestion that Australia is pursuing the wrong Afghan strategy and should place more emphasis on civilian aid prompts me to do so.

Between 1966 and 1971 I was a regular visitor to Vietnam, spending time with both the Task Force in Phuoc Thuy province, with members of the Australian Training Team, and twice as the house guest of a member of the South Vietnamese Senate's Defence Committee, traveling with that committee to all four corps areas to observe developments in the field. I talked to a range of observers of counter-insurgency, including specialists from RAND and individuals such as a the late Gerald Hickey, one of the best informed commentators on Vietnamese village life.

In all cases, I was particularly interested in civic action programs. This was because I had published a monograph on the inapplicability of the Malayan Emergency New Villages program as a basis for the Strategic Hamlets program in South Vietnam. Some of the issues involved in that monograph are outlined in my Lowy Perspectives Paper, Getting the Job Done: Iraq and the Malayan Emergency, published in February 2005.

Whether Australian interests are served by our commitment in Afghanistan is one issue, and I have grave doubts on this score. But the purpose of this post is to question the suggestion that Australia is in a position to contemplate the sort of strategy General Leahy proposes.

For not only in Vietnam but in every counter-insurgency campaign of which I am aware, the goal of overcoming insurgents through programs that emphasise civic as well as military action can only be contemplated when both the non-military personnel who are carrying out that action and their clients can be protected.

It seems evident to me that such a situation does not exist in Afghanistan, and is not likely to be achieved in any foreseeable future, whatever brave statements are made to the contrary.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In the analysis that has followed the election victory of Pheu Thai, led by Yingluck Shinawatra, commentators have repeatedly identified the support that she and the party received as coming from 'the rural and urban poor' (see The Australian and various articles in The Economist as examples). But like William Boot's famous reply to his master at The Beast in Evelyn Waugh's 'Scoop' —  'Up to a point, Lord Copper' — this characterisation needs, at very least, either qualification or a rather particular definition of 'poor'.

Certainly 'the poor' have supported Pheu and its new leader, just as they supported Thaksin, but the catch-all term fails to take note of the extent to which the anti-Democrat Party support comes from voters in both the rural and urban regions who do not fit in with any usual definition of people living In poverty.

I can't place the person who first said it, but much of the Red Shirt support, and so Pheu Thai's, comes from people who have been described as 'having some high school education and driving a pickup truck'.

Having been in Thailand at the time of the Red Shirt protests and immediately after (as recounted at the Institute in June of last year at a Lowy Lunch) among the many images that have stayed with me, in addition to the Red Shirt 'camps', the razor wire outside my hotel, and the arson-wrecked buildings afterwards, was encountering a Red Shirt convoy coming into Bangkok as I drove north out of the city. There they were in half a dozen pickups, red banners streaming behind them and loudly chanting slogans and singing songs — a different kind of poverty.

Only dedicated followers of events associated with the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (officially the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, ECCC) will have kept track of the maneuverings of the past six months in relation to the possibility of bringing additional defendants before the court.

As matters stand, there has been the one conviction, of Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, in Case 1, while four defendants are due to face court later this month in Case 2: Khieu Samphan, the former Khmer Rouge head of state, aged 79; Nuon Chea, the KR chief ideologue, aged 85 (pictured); Ieng Sary, the KR foreign minister, aged 85; and Ieng Tirith, Sary's wife and former minister for social affairs, aged  79. (The court has been in existence since July 2006, and Case 2 is expected to run for many months, if not years.)

As long ago as 2009, Prime Minister Hun Sen made it abundantly clear that he would not permit the tribunal to operate beyond Case 2. But the international co-prosecutor, Andrew Cayley, is pressing for additional defendants to be examined, while his opposite Cambodian number, Chea Leang, has opposed this suggestion — she is a niece of the Cambodian deputy prime minister, Sok An.