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Critical Asian Studies

ISSN: 1467-2715 (Print) 1472-6033 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcra20

Non-government Organizations, Villagers,Political Culture and the Lower Sesan 2 Dam inNortheastern Cambodia

Ian G. Baird

To cite this article: Ian G. Baird (2016): Non-government Organizations, Villagers, PoliticalCulture and the Lower Sesan 2 Dam in Northeastern Cambodia, Critical Asian Studies, DOI:10.1080/14672715.2016.1157958

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2016.1157958

Published online: 23 Mar 2016.

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Non-government Organizations, Villagers, Political Culture and the LowerSesan 2 Dam in Northeastern Cambodia

Ian G. Baird*

Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

ABSTRACT: The Lower Sesan 2 (LS2) Hydropower Project in northeastern Cambodia ispresently under construction. As the largest dam to ever be built in Cambodia, it is expectedto cause serious and widespread environmental and social impacts. This article analyzes, onthe one hand, the relationships between Cambodian non-government organizations (NGOs)and villagers who will be negatively impacted by LS2, and on the other, NGO relationswith the Cambodian state. While development actors frequently attempt to constructparticular narratives in order to control development trajectories, this research demonstratesthat such attempts can meet with serious resistance from local people, even when facingpowerful opponents, including in this case NGOs that prefer to advocate for betterresettlement and compensation conditions rather than for the cancellation of projects.Focusing on interactions, positioning, local agency, and the particular political culture ofCambodia, this article highlights the importance of particular types of patronage relations inCambodia between NGOs and villagers, NGOs and the state, and associated territorialization.

Keywords: hydropower; dam; non-government organization; northeastern Cambodia;representation

Introduction

It was not even ten o’clock on a November morning in 2008 but it was already hot in Sre KorVillage, situated along the Sesan River in Stung Treng Province, northeastern Cambodia. Themeeting room of the village’s Theravada Buddhist temple was crowded with men and womenfor a discussion of the Lower Sesan 2 (LS2) Hydropower Dam. This meeting was linked to a con-sultancy I was doing for a coalition of Cambodian non-government organizations (NGOs)included within the Rivers Coalition of Cambodia (RCC). Once the meeting began, villagersstarted strongly criticizing the dam and requesting that it be cancelled. As in the other nine com-munities I had visited, villagers were quite united in their opposition to the project. Even the localgovernment officials I met would not admit to favoring it. After explaining the project andshowing them maps, I asked those in attendance to raise their hands if they wanted the dam tobe constructed. Not a single person did so. Then I asked them to raise their hands if they

© 2016 BCAS, Inc.

Correspondence Address: Ian G. Baird, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 550North Park St., Madison, WI 53706, USA. Email: ibaird@wisc.edu

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wanted plans to build LS2 discontinued. Everyone enthusiastically put up their hands (Figure 1).Of course, group dynamics must have been a factor, and maybe there were some in the audiencewho secretly hoped that the dam would proceed, but the overall mood was undeniable. Clearly,the vast majority fervently opposed the project.

Three-and-a-half years later I met the newly elected commune (sub-district) chief of Sre KorCommune at a meeting of villagers opposed to LS2, a project estimated to cost between US$700million and $816 million. He said that while a small number of people in the commune supportedthe dam, most did not. He explained, however, that a group of outsiders had told them that theywould receive large compensation houses like those being built for villagers relocated due to theXayaburi dam in northern Laos.1 This group also informed them that the dam company had care-fully studied the project, and that villagers should not resist it. Moreover, they made it clear that itwould be useless to oppose the dam. Outsiders frequently make false promises to villagers inrelation to the development of large hydropower dams, or otherwise try to convince them thatthere is more to gain than lose from projects even when that is not the case.2 What was particularlyunusual about this case, however, was that those trying to convince the villagers that the damwould benefit them had not been hired by the project developers, and were not politicallyaligned with the government. They were employees of a Cambodian NGO, the Culture andEnvironment Preservation Association (CEPA), a medium-sized national level environmentalgroup based in Phnom Penh but with an office in Stung Treng Province. Established in themid-1990s at a time of the development of local NGOs funded by foreign donors, CEPA is an

Figure 1. Villagers raising hands to indicate their opposition to the LS2 Dam, 2009. Credit: IanG. Baird.

1Interview with village headman in community in Sesan District, Stung Treng Province, June 26, 2012.2Baird, Shoemaker, and Manorom 2015; Guttal and Shoemaker 2004; WCD 2000; McCully 2001; Gold-smith and Hilyard 1984.

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important member of RCC, known for critiquing large-scale hydropower development. CEPA hasalso promoted the Khmerization of ethnic Lao parts of northeastern Cambodia.3 CEPA receivesfunding from international organizations such as Oxfam Australia, which specifically aims tosupport villagers threatened by projects such as LS2. One village leader in the dam’s proposedreservoir area told me:

I did not like what they were saying, so I just stood up and walked away from the meeting in protest. Idon’t have any time for CEPA. They are afraid to speak out. They just want to talk about compen-sation for impacts caused by the dam.4

At the time, this man was just a regular villager, but soon after was elected commune chief, thehighest local elected position in Cambodia. Moreover, he campaigned on an anti-dam position asa member of the main opposition party, one that had never won an election in this commune.

So, how did a Cambodian national NGO with a long-term interest in critiquing hydropowerprojects and supporting communities threatened by environmental problems end up being criti-cized so strongly by villagers it claims to support? I address this question by examining thecomplex relationships between civil society organizations and villagers in northeastern Cambo-dia, within the particular social, political, and development context of LS2, and relationsbetween NGOs and the state. Specifically, I argue that power relations, representations, and hier-archal patronage arrangements between NGOs and villagers, and NGOs and the state, are crucialfor understanding how the political culture of Cambodia frequently operates, and why the circum-stances associated with LS2 have unfolded in the way they have. This research is a result of fifteenyears of consulting work and ethnographic research, including informal and semi-structured inter-views, participant observation, and a detailed examination of the literature about Sesan dams.Thus, it is appropriate to refer to this research as an “extended case study.”5

In the next section, I briefly review critiques of NGOs in relation to conservation and naturalresource management issues, and more specifically NGO representations of local people. I thenprovide background information on the LS2 project as well as how institutional arrangementsrelated to the project have shifted. Following this, I discuss the responses of villagers, includingresistance, and the problematic nature of NGO engagement with local people in relation to LS2.

NGOs, Environmental Governance, Representation, and Territoriality

Critiques of NGO involvement in environmental governance began to emerge in the 1980s.Ramachanda Guha,6 for example, criticized radical American environmentalism, and WilliamCronon7 critiqued romanticized constructions of “pristine wilderness” by some US environmen-talists. In the 1990s many crucial studies related to the involvement of NGOs in supporting con-servation activities emerged, especially in relation to protected area establishment andmanagement.8

More recently, scholars have focused on links between NGOs, nature-society relations, andnew financial mechanisms that ultimately support the expansion and movement of capital, includ-ing NGO involvement in promoting market-based solutions to such issues as biodiversity loss and

3Baird 2010.4Interview with Commune Chief in Sesan District, Stung Treng Province, May 2012.5Burawoy 1998.6Guha 1989.7Cronon 1996.8See, for example, Brockington, Duffy, and Igoe 2008; Neumann 1998; Sundberg 1998.

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human-induced climate change. This includes critiquing the provision of ecosystem services,such as the US system for wetlands banking, and the United Nations and World Bank-supportedReduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation framework.9 This significantlyoverlaps with the “neoliberal natures” literature, which assesses ways that nature-society relation-ships are shifting through the introduction and integration of market policies and practices.10 Mostrecently, the “green grabbing” literature, which focuses on the expropriation of land and resourcesfrom local people in the name of environmental conservation, has expanded this critique.11

Indeed, a wide range of scholars, particularly those using frameworks associated with politicalecology, have critiqued the roles of NGOs, particularly international groups, with regard tovarious forms of environmental governance and conservation activities.

There have also been more general critiques of the ways that international NGOs haveattempted to represent (or have failed to appropriately represent) people they claim to support.Anthropologist Peter Brosius has been at the forefront of studying environmentalist represen-tations of indigenous knowledge, particularly with regard to transnational environmental cam-paigning associated with logging activities and the Penan people in Sarawak, Malaysia.12

Brosius and his colleagues have also addressed representations of community-based naturalresource management programs and policies.13 Crucially for this study, Brosius critically exam-ined the anti-political consequences of NGO-led bureaucratization of environmental movements,showing how NGOs inscribe particular narratives, thus naturalizing discourses that exclude pol-itical and moral imperatives in favor of bureaucratic and technoscientific forms of intervention.14

Timmer has also demonstrated how NGOs use particular discursive strategies to produce certainkinds of subjects.15 Bryant and Goodman have also done so in particular relation to narratives andthe politics of environmental NGOs.16 Similarly, and particularly in relation to large hydropowerdevelopment in Laos, Michael Goldman has shown how the World Bank, through complex inter-actions with international NGOs such as the Wildlife Conservation Society and the IUCN–theWorld Conservation Union, portrays itself as the holder of environmental expertise,17 despitethe Bank’s extremely poor record regarding environmental governance related to hydropowerdams.18 As Schuller has pointed out, “NGOs are excellent places to study global/local connec-tions,”19 as they often work closely with both local and global actors.

Brosius and Goldman have focused on how international development and conservationorganizations have suppressed politics, and through these processes have prevented possibilitiesfor certain types of criticisms and alternative points of view to emerge. Yet as important as thiswork has been for understanding the ways that these groups operate, my approach differs.Rather than assessing the role of international or transnational NGOs, which has been thefocus of much of the literature in this vein,20 although certainly not all of it,21 I examine howCambodia’s particular political and development culture has affected Cambodian NGOs in

9Robertson 2004; Brockington et al. 2008; Brockington and Duffy 2010; Lohmann 2011.10Bakker 2005, 2009; Heynen and Robbins 2005; Castree 2008a, 2008b.11Fairhead, Leach, and Scoones 2012, 2013; Benjaminsen and Bryceson 2012.12Brosius 1997.13Brosius, Tsing, and Zerner 1998, 2005.14Brosius 1999; Ferguson 1994.15Timmer 2010.16Bryant and Goodman 2004.17Goldman 2005.18See Goldsmith and Hilyard 1984; McCully 2001; Baird, Shoemaker, and Manorom 2015.19Schuller 2009, 85.20Tsing 1999; Chernela 2005; Medina 2010.21See Muehlmann 2009; Richard 2009; Novellino and Dressler 2010.

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relation to LS2. In particular, I consider how NGO positioning has developed, and particularlyhow some domestic NGOs have emphasized resettlement and compensation issues rather thanadvocated for canceling the dam, as most villagers who they have claimed to represent wouldhave liked them to have done. I also emphasize the agency of local people who have been sub-jected to attempts to repress politics.22 Most of the literature related to NGO support for villagerstruggles has not adequately considered how villagers have disrupted and sometimes altered thepolitics of development through various forms of negotiation, compromise, and resistance. AsWelker has pointed out, local people are sometimes quite capable of subverting NGO attemptsto manipulate them.23

Finally, I show how thinking about interactions between Cambodian NGOs and villagers, andNGOs and the Cambodian state can benefit from paying attention to territoriality, which “worksby proscribing or prescribing specific activities within spatial boundaries.”24 I am also interestedin how NGOs in Cambodia, not the state per se, have evoked territorial strategies, such as claim-ing that they have the right to work in particular areas while other NGOs do not. Peluso has pro-vided useful non-state examples of territoriality from Indonesia, but not ones that specificallyconsider NGO territoriality and particular representations of people in relation to environmentalgovernance.25 Brosius and Russell have looked at how conservation NGOs have gained spatialcontrol in particular circumstances. Indeed, geographically explicit imaginaries, positioning,and practices associated with NGOs are important.26

The LS2 Dam

The remote northeastern provinces of Stung Treng and Ratanakiri are amongst the least popu-lated and developed in Cambodia. Most residents are classified as ethnic minorities, includinga majority of ethnic Lao people in Stung Treng27 and a majority of a number of upland min-orities, including the Brao, Kavet, Kreung, Tampuan, and Jarai people in Ratanakiri Pro-vince.28 These provinces, considered strongholds of the ruling Cambodia People’s Party(CPP), are also rich in natural resources, including forests and rivers. Outside of urbancenters, the vast majority of the population of Stung Treng and Ratanakiri are semi-subsistencefarmers who rely heavily on wild-capture fishing and non-timber forest product collection fortheir livelihoods.

LS2 is scheduled to be built on the Sesan River in Sesan District, Stung Treng Province,twenty-five kilometers upstream from the provincial capital, Stung Treng Town. Stung Treng,located at the confluence of the Sekong and Mekong Rivers, is also just downstream fromwhere the Sesan River flows into the Sekong River.29 At an expected height of over thirtymeters30, the dam’s reservoir will not only flood significant parts of the Sesan River, but also along stretch of the Srepok River, which flows into the Sesan River just above where the damis expected to be built (Figure 2). With a capacity of 400 megawatts of electricity, LS2 is the

22See, however, Li 2007; Singh 2009.23Welker 2012.24Vandergeest and Peluso 1995; 388.25Peluso 2005.26Brosius and Russell 2003.27Baird 2010.28Bourdier 2006.29Baird 2009.30Not 75 meters as erroneously reported by some, including Baird 2009.

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largest hydropower project ever initiated in Cambodia, a country which has one of the least devel-oped electricity systems in mainland Southeast Asia, and the highest electricity prices.31

Figure 2. The Sesan River Basin, including the LS2 Dam in northeastern Cambodia.Credit: Katie Hardwick.

31Thin 2013; However, LS2 is not the first dam to face resistance by people in Cambodia. In the Areng Valleyin Koh Kong Province, southwestern Cambodia, there has been considerable high-profile resistance by localsand a supporting Cambodian NGO to plans to build the Stung Cheay Areng dam by the well-known Chinesecompany Sinohydro (Phak and Pye 2014), with different NGOs supporting different approaches. There hasalso been considerable resistance, including protests and petitions, to plans to build large dams on the main-stream Mekong River in Laos (Phak 2015).

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LS2 was first envisioned in a 1999 study of hydropower dam potential in the Nam Theun,Sekong, and Sesan River basins in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia funded by the Asian Develop-ment Bank.32 However, Halcrow and Partners found the dam to be unattractive due to its marginalfinancial viability. Moreover, they were particularly concerned about the extremely heavyenvironmental and social impacts the dam would have, especially on migratory fish stocks andassociated fishing livelihoods.33

LS2 reemerged on 15 June 2007 when the Cambodian government, represented by the Min-istry of Industry, Mines, and Energy, granted permission for Electricité du Viet Nam (EVN) toconduct a detailed feasibility study.34 This is the same company responsible for building the720 megawatt Yali Falls dam in the Sesan River Basin in Vietnam in the 1990s and early2000s, a project that resulted in severe and well-documented downstream impacts in adjoiningparts of Ratanakiri and Stung Treng Provinces in Cambodia.35 Indeed, local negative experienceswith the Yali Falls dam was one of the main reasons people in both Ratanakiri and Stung Treng areso concerned with LS2.

In 2008 EVN hired Vietnamese and Cambodian consulting companies to conduct feasibilitystudies,36 including social and environmental impact assessments.37 In response, RCC, whichincludes the Sesan, Srepok, Sekong (3S) Protection Network (3SPN), CEPA and the NGOForum on Cambodia, along with other organizations, commissioned a “best practices study”related to “resettlement and compensation” in relation to the project in 2009.38 Based on discus-sions I had with RCC members at the time, some – including CEPA and NGO Forum – werealready seemingly intent on improving resettlement and compensation conditions related to theproject, rather than opposing it. This was despite estimates that LS2 would cause a number ofserious environmental and social impacts, including the displacement of an uncertain numberof residents and heavy fishing loses for over 80,000 people living in 170 villages located upstreamfrom the dam’s reservoir in the Sesan and Srepok river basins.39

Tens of thousands of others living downstream from the project adjacent to the Sesan, Sekong,and Mekong Rivers in Stung Treng Province will experience dramatic changes in water qualityand hydrology, leading to a variety of negative impacts including a drop in fish supplies, theloss of riverbank vegetable gardens, and the deterioration of drinking water. Baird estimatedthat over 22,000 people living in 19 villages would be affected in Stung Treng Province alone.40

Finally, hundreds of thousands or even millions of people living farther downstream in Cam-bodia, including those dependent on the abundant fisheries of the Great Tonlesap Lake, as well asfishers in Vietnam, and also those living along the Mekong River upstream of the confluence ofthe Sekong River with the Mekong River in Laos and Thailand, will be negatively impacted bythe loss of migratory fish that would no longer be able to migrate between these locations and theupper Sesan and Srepok Rivers.41

32Halcrow and Partners 1999.33Halcrow and Partners 1999.34Meach 2008.35Fisheries Office and NTFP 2000; Baird et al. 2002; Hirsch and Wyatt 2004; NGO Forum on Cambodia2005; Baird and Meach 2005; SWECO Grøner 2006; Wyatt and Baird 2007; 3SPN 2007.36PECCI 2008a.37PECCI 2008b; KCC 2008, 2009.38Baird 2009.39Baird 2009; Previous research has indicated that up to 85 percent of all the fish caught in these communitiesseasonally migrate from below where the LS2 is expected to be built (Baird and Meach 2005; KCC 2009).40Baird 2009.41Baird 2009.

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Ziv et al. estimate that LS2 will be the single most destructive Mekong River tributary dam,leading to a 9.3 percent loss of fish stocks throughout the Lower Mekong River Basin, and poten-tially greater losses than even some of the heavily criticized mainstream Mekong River damsbeing considered in Laos, such as the Xayaburi dam in northern Laos.42

After this study was completed, and in response to growing criticism of the project fromvarious parties, the Cambodian Ministry of Environment delayed approving the project’s environ-mental assessment, instead asking for more studies. In response, in November 2010 the PrimeMinister of Vietnam, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, publically requested Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cam-bodia speed up the project’s approval process.43 Approval came shortly after.44

It soon became clear that government approval was not the only obstacle to the developmentof LS2. Raising capital funds was a much more crucial challenge, with reports that EVN washeavily in debt.45 Rumors amongst Cambodian NGOs also began surfacing about EVNlooking for a wealthy Cambodian partner to help make up some of the financial gap. Then, inJanuary 2011, it was announced by EVN that the Cambodian Royal Group, run by one of Cam-bodia’s richest men, an Australia-educated Cambodian telecommunications tycoon named KithMeng,46 had agreed to assume a forty-nine percent share in the project.47 A senior employeeof ANZ Bank, a close partner with Royal Group, reported that Hun Sen personally asked KithMeng to become involved,48 even though Royal Group has no previous experience in developingenergy projects.

Not long after, however, it was rumored that EVN was trying to withdraw from the projectentirely, and that it wanted to sell its shares in the project.49 Just a few months later, on November2, 2012, the cabinet of the government of Cambodia approved the project. However, during thesame month media reports indicated that EVN had withdrawn from the project about two monthsearlier.50 The investor that replaced EVN was China’s Huaneng Group, whose subsidiary Hydro-lancang International Energy is actually building the dam.51 It was also reported in the media thatthe entry of the Chinese into the project meant that Chinese banks would provide the capitalneeded to proceed with the project.52 Then, in February 2013, the Cambodian parliamentvoted to develop the project,53 but not before Son Chay, a member of the opposition SamRainsy Party, voted against the project, stating, “There is no transparency in almost all of the gov-ernment’s hydropower dam projects and coal plant construction projects because public bidding isnever done.”54 The legislation has also been criticized by the opposition in Parliament because itguarantees that the Cambodian government is responsible for repaying any funding provided byforeign investors in relation to the project. In addition, the plan for the dam has been changed.

42Ziv et al. 2012.43Phorn 2010.44Business Monitor Online 2011. It is notable that Hun Sen, a founding member of the CPP, has been PrimeMinister for over 30 years, since 1985, making him one of the longest standing national political leaders inAsia.45VietNamNet Bridge 2011.46The Royal Group has a separate partnership in Cambodia with ANZ Bank.47Soeun 2011.48Notes of meeting with Stephen Higgins, ANZ Bank, Phnom Penh, August 22, 2011.49Tep Bunnarith, CEPA, pers. comm., July 2012.50Although since it was not able to sell its shares, the company had initially received a 10 percent share in theproject instead (Chen and Naren 2012).51Hul 2014.52Naren and Chen 2013.53Naren 2013b.54Naren 2013b.

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Initially, the vast majority of the power was to be sold to Vietnam, but now it is expected to be soldto Electricité du Cambodge for domestic use,55 although a transmission line suitable for transport-ing such large amounts of power to markets still does not exist. Nor have any plans for one beenpublically discussed.

It was reported in the Cambodian media that dam construction would begin in February 2014and the project would be completed by 2017.56 Indeed, site visits in July 2014 and July 2015 con-firmed that the project is presently under construction.

NGO Engagements with the LS2 Dam and Potentially Affected Villagers

NGOs have taken considerable interest in LS2, especially CEPA and 3SPN, a small NGO with anextensive local network in Ratanakiri Province, and a base in Ban Lung, the capital of the pro-vince. Both organizations are members of RCC, an umbrella NGO group concerned with hydro-power dam development. None of these NGOs have paying members and all are fundedexclusively by foreign donors.

RCC has opposed various large hydropower projects in the Mekong River Basin outside ofCambodia, including the Xayaburi and Don Sahong dams on the mainstream Mekong River inLaos.57 They have also been active in the “Save the Mekong” coalition, a regional networkopposed to mainstream Mekong River dam development, including those in the upper Mekong(Lancang) River in China.58 However, the particular political culture in Cambodia and sensesof what spaces are under the control of whom, have influenced how RCC has positioned itselfin relation to particular dams. For example, members of RCC have generally been much moreambiguous regarding dams being proposed in Cambodia, a country that has so far only developeda few dams, and has built no major dams in the Mekong River Basin. It is true that RCC membershave frequently expressed serious concerns regarding the potential environmental and socialimpacts of developing various hydropower dams in Cambodia, including LS2. However, theyhave been unwilling, as a group, to explicitly oppose any dams being developed in thecountry, including LS2. This is not surprising considering that RCC adopted a formal policy in2010 to not directly oppose any large dams planned in Cambodia,59 which indicates the unwill-ingness of Cambodian NGOs to strongly challenge the government of Cambodia. This alsoexplains why, on 30 March 2012, some prominent Cambodian organizations in RCC, includingCEPA and NGO Forum, while participants at the ASEAN People’s Forum in Phnom Penh,released a statement calling for the cancelation of the Xayaburi dam in Laos, but only for delayingLS2 for further study.60 Indeed, RCC has restricted its position to just expressing concerns aboutthe project, and has focused on compensation and resettlement issues. According to Tep Bunnar-ith, the director of CEPA until 2013, CEPA believed that by not directly opposing LS2, it wouldbe in a better position to work with the government to help ensure that local people received thebest deal possible in relation to resettlement and compensation.61 This might seem like a reason-able position for a relatively small local NGO like CEPA to take, but most villagers in the

55Naren and Chen 2013.56Naren 2013a.57RCC 2009, 2013b.58http://www.savethemekong.org/link.php?langss=en, accessed June 14, 2014.59Interview with Ame Trandem, formerly of NGO Forum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, 2010. This was con-firmed when I interviewed Im Phallay, a senior NGO Forum staff, in Phnom Penh at the NGO Forum officeon June 21, 2012.60Participants of ASEAN People’s Forum, 2012.61Interview with Tep Bunnarith, CEPA, Phnom Penh, July 2012.

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resettlement area and various other NGOs, including 3SPN, CEPA, and NGO Forum, haveclaimed that the compensation and development process has been handled very poorly by thedevelopers and the government. Moreover, villagers still have many fundamental concernsabout resettlement and compensation provisions related to the type of compensation to bereceived and where they will be relocated. Indeed, there is no evidence that focusing on improv-ing resettlement and compensation has led to any improvements in dialogue with government orthe project developers or to conditions for villagers. Finally, there is no evidence that villagers inthe project area wanted CEPA to focus on resettlement and compensation issues at the expense ofnot explicitly opposing the project.

Of particular concern is the decision-making process that led to the adoption of this position.For example, the 2010 decision to not oppose any dams in Cambodia was done without consult-ing with villagers who would be most affected by these projects. What is particularly problematicis that some of these NGOs have also encouraged villagers to accept resettlement and compen-sation rather than resist the project. This is unethical, for reasons explained below.

Some NGOs have actively attempted to control the public concerns of villagers by preventingthem from conveying their direct opposition to LS2. This became particularly clear when Iattended the RCC-organized “National Consultation on the Lower Sesan 2 Dam” in PhnomPenh on May 31, 2011. The consultation was organized, according to written materials handedout at the consultation, “To promote awareness raising on the government policy on the EIA[Environmental Impact Assessment] and compensation guideline to relevant stakeholders”[sic]; and “to provide opportunity by affected communities to dialogue with relevant stakeholdersin order to find a win-win solution for this development project.” Upon arriving at the workshop,however, I was told by a Cambodian NGO worker employed by 3SPN that staff from CEPA hadinstructed the dozens of villagers they had transported from Stung Treng Province to not opposethe dam. CEPA appeared to have been effective in suppressing such sentiments, at least tempor-arily, as during discussion time nobody from Stung Treng openly opposed the project, eventhough I had heard many of the same people do so when I had met them in their villages inStung Treng. The villagers were also undoubtedly affected by being far from their homes andfeeling intimidated in the large hotel where the workshop was taking place. In addition, CEPAwas paying for all their expenses. Moreover, the Phnom Penh-based NGOs seemed muchmore concerned about winning favor with central government officials who attended the eventthan ensuring that the true concerns of the villagers were presented. Indicative of this, onesenior staff of 3SPN told me later, “I am certain that CEPA has been closing the mouths of villa-gers.”62 Only two ethnic minority women from Ratanakiri Province, who came to the consultationwith 3SPN support, and were willing to speak their minds, strongly criticized plans to build thedam. But in contrast, the presentations made by representatives of CEPA and NGO Forum did notcall for the dam to be cancelled.

Rather than supporting villagers opposed to LS2, CEPA has focused on resettlement and com-pensation for people living in the project’s reservoir area. As such, they have promoted a particu-lar position, one heavily influenced by the hierarchical political culture of Cambodia, by focusingthe debate on technical matters associated with levels of compensation in a particular narrowimpact area, rather than the more politically contentious issues of its wider impacts, andwhether the dam should be built at all.

For example, in 2012 NGO Forum published a report “Lower Sesan 2 Hydropower Dam:Current Livelihoods of Local Communities (A Baseline Study).”63 This study only considered

62Interview with employee of 3SPN, Ban Lung, June 27, 2012.63NGO Forum on Cambodia 2012.

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resettlement issues related to the reservoir area of the project, thus fitting well with the geographi-cal imaginary of the project held by the developers and the government of Cambodia. Moreover,the report failed to mention that both villagers in the reservoir area and outside of it largelyopposed the dam. When I asked an official of CEPA whether the researchers for the studyasked villagers if they wanted the project to continue, he confirmed that the researchers hadnot even been requested to ask villagers such a question.64 He also confirmed that this wasdone to avoid the possibility of the narrative of the study becoming one of opposition to LS2.

In February 2012 CEPA organized a meeting in one of the communities scheduled to be inun-dated by the LS2 reservoir. The ostensible purpose was to provide villagers a chance to voice theirconcerns to government officials. Provincial officials from the Departments of Environment andWater Resources attended the meeting. When, according to an NGO worker who attended, villa-gers opposed to the dam started to express their concerns, CEPA’s director, who was facilitatingthe meeting, stood up and answered on behalf of the government officials, making such state-ments as, “If the lower Sesan 2 dam is built, the people who are moved will receive the best com-pensation.” A woman from another NGO told me that she was shocked, and she also said thatanother Cambodian working for CEPA was equally surprised and disappointed at the way thatCEPA’s director had ended up defending the dam and protecting the officials from having todirectly answer difficult questions posed by the villagers. Villagers were also dissatisfied withthe way the meeting had been facilitated. The woman observer from the NGO stated that shewas under the impression that the leadership of CEPA wanted LS2 to be built. She also toldme some months later that she had observed CEPA staff frequently telling villagers that theycould not oppose LS2, and that they could only ask for fair compensation. She also blamedCEPA for making it difficult for RCC to oppose LS2, by obstructing any attempts to proposestrong actions against the dam.65 These circumstances indicate the way that some NGOs haveinteracted with villagers in relation to LS2, but also the interrelated relationships that have some-times developed between NGOs and state officials.

A male villager who lives near the dam site told me in 2013 that CEPA showed villagers avideo about the Theun-Hinboun Dam in Laos to educate them about dams.66 This video,funded by the international agricultural organization CGIAR’s “Challenge Program on Waterand Food” (CPWF),67 documents a study trip to Laos by Stung Treng villagers working withCEPA.68 During the second phase of the program in the Mekong River Basin, which ran from2009 to 2013, CPWF “narrowed in the scope of its research to focus primarily on how to optimizethe use of reservoirs and foster sustainable hydropower in support of poverty reduction and sus-tainable development.”69 It does appear that the CPWF’s objectives and those of CEPA’s arelargely aligned, a point I will return to in the conclusion when I touch on debates related to “sus-tainable hydropower.”

64Interview with Tep Bunnarith, CEPA, Phnom Penh, July 2012.65Interview with Mea Vann Navy, EWMI, Phnom Penh, June 20, 2012.66Interview with Villager 1 from Sesan District village, June 21, 2013.67The villager could not remember the name of the video, but I later learned that it was titled “Helping thePeople of Stung Treng Imagine Hydropower Relocation,” a title that in itself speaks to the inevitability of theproject proceeding, even though it had not yet been fully approved at the time.68It should be noted that the acronym for CGIAR has become the name of the consortium, with the originallyno longer being mentioned anywhere on their website. The website claims, however, that “CGIAR is theonly worldwide partnership addressing agricultural research for development, whose work contributes tothe global effort to tackle poverty, hunger and major nutrition imbalances, and environmental degradation”(www.cgiar.org).69See https://waterandfood.org/river-basins/mekong/, accessed June 14, 2014.

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One important result of the different positions of 3SPN and CEPA has been divisions betweencommunity organizers representing both organizations in the same villages. Moreover, these div-isions have their own particular territorial implications. For example, certain households that areidentified by villagers as “CEPA households” have received resettlement and compensation docu-ments from government officials while others recognized as being linked with 3SPN have not.Thus information has been unevenly distributed based on NGO affiliation, thus following thepattern of household affiliation with NGOs. Even in early 2014, before actual construction ofthe dam had begun, NGO Forum staff argued that LS2 could not be stopped and that thereforethe focus should be on mitigation.70 This might seem like a reasonable position to take, butthe problem is the process. A particular position was taken without asking the villagers whowould be most affected by the project whether they agreed with such a position or not. Thisrelates to the wider issue of how NGOs fit into the political culture of Cambodia.

In 2013 and 2014 I also discussed the differences between the approaches of 3SPN and CEPAwith villagers from Stung Treng Province who have cooperated with 3SPN. One man stated,“CEPA only wants to talk about compensation.” Another said, “It seems like CEPA agreeswith the dam.” One person stated, in a frustrated tone, “Villagers don’t like the dam. Villagersdon’t like CEPA’s methods. CEPA makes people weak.” Still another commented, “CEPAdoesn’t support protests against the dam (LS2). CEPA is not brave.” A woman explained thatsomeone from CEPA once asked villagers during a meeting, “Do villagers want to be in thelight or in the dark [referring to getting electricity from the dam]?” A male villager respondedthat “they [the villagers] could use car batteries to make electricity” [implying that they did notneed the dam]. Another male villager said, “CEPA makes villagers afraid because they say [vil-lagers] can’t fight against the dam. They say that the government has already decided on the dam.They say that if people speak a lot they will be put in jail.” Another villager reported that CEPAstaff frequently stated that 3SPN had a program in Ratanakiri but not in Stung Treng, thus evokingterritoriality as a way of maintaining legitimacy and authority. One might suspect, based on theabove, that those working with CEPA have close ties to the government, but this does not seem tobe the case. Instead, this reflects a popular concern with upsetting the government, the CPP, andPrime Minister Hun Sen.

Another villager pointed out that eighty to eight-five percent of the residents of the largestvillage scheduled for relocation from the reservoir area were firmly against the dam. One ofthe few villagers who collaborated with both 3SPN and CEPA stated that CEPA only “doesfifty percent of what 3SPN does,” and that he wanted CEPA to work more like 3SPN. Still, hethought that some people working for CEPA were trying to do the right thing, at least some ofthe time. For example, when they went to visit the Theun-Hinboun dam in Laos mentionedabove, villagers were encouraged by the CEPA Director to try to find out information from villa-gers about the resettlement situation by themselves, since they could speak Lao directly withresettled people. In this way they were able to learn more about the problems resettled peopleare facing than during official meetings.71

Efforts by CEPA, and to a lesser extent by NGO Forum, have not, however, been as successfulin diminishing concerns on the part of villagers and some civil society organizations, such as3SPN, regarding the potential impacts of LS2, indicating that many affected people haveremained opposed to the dam, even when faced with NGO attempts to control the narrativethrough a particular position with important territorial elements. One example is particularlyindicative of the sentiment of most villagers facing impacts linked to LS2. In late February

70William Nathan Green, pers. comm., June 18, 2014.71Villagers from Stung Treng, Ban Lung, pers. comm., June 25, 2013.

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2012, more than 500 villagers living near the Sesan River, mostly ethnic minorities from Ratana-kiri and Stung Treng, organized a peaceful protest against the project near the construction site, atthe Thada Rapids, a sacred place for local people at the confluence of the Sesan and Srepok rivers.With many wearing red clothes around their foreheads and waists, they prayed to local spirits tohelp protect the river ecology. Protesters carried banners reading, “We must preserve the river,which is the livelihood of the people” (Figure 3). They also made it clear that they were not inter-ested in receiving compensation for the impacts caused by the project, in direct opposition to theposition of CEPA and NGO Forum. Instead, they demanded that the project simply be cancelled.As one protest leader told a reporter from Radio Free Asia, “We don’t want any compensation [torelocate] even though the authorities have promised to compensate us.”72 Not surprisingly, CEPAdeclined to participate or support the protest, claiming they were too busy to attend.73 Moreover,CEPA staff asked those with 3SPN whether the protest was illegal or not, which 3SPN staff tookas an attempt to intimidate them into not supporting the protest. Furthermore, one of CEPA’s com-munity organizers phoned the Sesan District police to report the gathering.74 In response, the dis-trict police told community leaders not to organize the protest, since they did not have a permit.But after some discussion, the villagers decided to move ahead anyway, and the police did notattempt to stop them, probably because many were themselves sympathetic.75 3SPN provided

Figure 3. Villagers protest the construction of the LS2 Dam, Sesan River, February 2012. Credit:3SPN.

72Radio Free Asia 2012.73Interview with senior staff, 3SPN, Ban Lung, June 27, 2012.74Meach Mean, 3SPN, Ban Lung, pers. comm., June 27, 2012.75Paul Humphrey, 3SPN advisor, Ban Lung, pers. comm., June 27, 2012.

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limited financial and organizational assistance. Later, a senior staff member of CEPA sarcasticallycommented to a villager, “If 3SPN has a lot of money they should increase the capacity of villagersin eighteen villages in CEPA’s area Stung Treng.”76 This indicates the type of boundary makingand territorial divisions that frequently emerges between NGOs in Cambodia and other parts ofSoutheast Asia.77 For example, CEPA considers Stung Treng its territory while 3SPN is basedin Ratanakiri. Moreover, most of the staff of CEPA are ethnic Khmer. This may explain whytheir organizational culture is very much oriented toward supporting the Khmer nation state.78

3SPN, on the other hand, is mainly staffed by ethnic minorities, including ethnic Lao,Tampuan, Kreung, and so on from northeastern Cambodia, people with strong local ties, butmany fewer links to Phnom Penh, the Khmer nation state, or the central government of Cambodia.

However, despite CEPA’s efforts to assert control over Stung Treng, many of its villagers havebecome increasingly frustrated with CEPA’s support for LS2 and have turned to 3SPN. A senior3SPN staff member explained that 3SPN tried to coordinate its activities in Stung Treng withCEPA, but after they agreed to jointly plan activities, CEPA failed to follow through, thus forcing3SPN to move ahead on its own.79 However, even though 3SPN does not always agree withCEPA’s positions or many of its actions in relation to LS2, Meach Mean, the former director of3SPN, has claimed on numerous occasions that he does not want to have a conflict with CEPA, asboth organizations aremembers of RCC. Thus, an odd tension has emerged. This seems to at least par-tially reflect the spatial hierarchy that comes fromCEPAbeing based in the capital city of PhnomPenh,and the patronage relationships between NGOs based in the provinces and in Phnom Penh.

In a February 2013 joint statement on the dam project, RCC, NGO Forum and the Land andHousing Rights Network criticized legislation authorizing construction but only recommendedthat the government “delay adoption of this law” until more studies could be conducted. Althoughthey called for more transparency and consultation with villagers in the reservoir area, they did notmention people living below the dam or upriver of the reservoir area, thus supporting the project’sfocus on compensating only residents of the proposed reservoir area (RCC 2013a). According to aCambodian woman involved with RCC at the time, the CEPA representative at RCC lobbiedagainst opposing LS2, and instead advocated for slowing it down.80 The pattern should bynow be quite clear.

Despite the above circumstances, 3SPN has, at least until quite recently, continued to supportcalls by villagers to cancel LS2, including scaling up opposition by soliciting support from civilsociety organizations in Vietnam and Thailand. In particular, in May 2014, fifteen environmentalNGOs from the region submitted a petition to Huaneng Group, the Chinese state-owned enter-prise whose subsidiary holds a large share of LS2. China’s Ministries of Commerce, Environ-mental Protection, and Foreign Affairs were also sent copies.81 However, as construction ofthe dam continues, hope for success is dwindling rapidly.

Rethinking the Ways Cambodian NGOs Engage with Villagers in Relation to LargeHydropower Dam Development

Fear of central government reprisal has undoubtedly been a major factor. This has territorial impli-cations, since it appears to have affected groups based in Phnom Penh more than organizations

76A villager in Stung Treng, pers. comm., June 15, 2012.77See, for example, Lamb 2014.78See, for example, Baird 2010.79Senior staff, 3SPN, Ban Lung, pers. comm., June 26, 2012.80Interview with Mea Vann Navy, EWMI, Phnom Penh, June 20, 2012.81Liu 2014.

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located in the northeast. This may be because of the former’s proximity to the political center andassociated national level narratives. When the opposition politician Son Chhay raised serious con-cerns about the LS2’s impacts on migratory fish from other parts of the country in Parliament,Prime Minister Hun Sen responded with a 6-page letter vigorously defending the project. Inthis letter he wrote:

Concerning fish and fish migration, according to the study and examination and agreement from tech-nical agencies, it is seen that the Sesan and Srepok rivers are not sources of fish spawning or fishresources for the entire Kingdom of Cambodia, i.e., there are impacts only on the species of fishthat live in the Sesan and Srepok rivers.82

The fact that Hun Sen provided this technical response rather than someone from a line Ministrysuggests that pressure has been applied, especially on NGOs based in Phnom Penh. This is not tosay that political pressure does not extend to northeastern Cambodia as well, but the national argu-ment that Cambodia needs more and cheaper energy to develop is much more widespread inPhnom Penh than in areas near LS2. Even though scientists, both Cambodian and foreign,agree that there is absolutely no basis to believe that fish do not migrate in and out of theSesan River system, nobody in Phnom Penh dared to directly repute Hun Sen’s clearly erroneouscomments.

It was, however, other Hun Sen comments in this letter that are especially worrying. He wrote,“Recently, a number of NGOs, politicians and media, who have the idea to oppose development,always focus on one aspect, which is the impact.” He also wrote, “Then they exaggerate theimpact beyond the actual facts.” Hun Sen has portrayed opponents of LS2 as opponents of devel-opment who have overstated the potential impacts of the project.

Villagers opposed to LS2 have, however, also have had to endure pressure. For example, in2013 one villager who lives in a community that will be inundated by the dam’s reservoir told ajournalist, Thin Wei Win, “We were told we have the right to demand compensation but cannotreject the dam. The man who planned the meeting said those who reject or oppose the dam willface court and go to prison.”83

One issue that has undoubtedly affected Cambodian NGOs, and their willingness to takestronger stands on important community issues, has been the tension associated with the draftingof a controversial “NGO law” by the Cambodia government. This draft legislation, which hasbeen in the works for years, would regulate and restrict NGOs in Cambodia. Many NGOs fearthat the law might be used to target groups that are perceived as being overly critical of theruling CPP,84 and projects that they support, such as LS2. This has particularly been the casein Phnom Penh, so it is understandable that some NGO employees feel intimidated and thushave become inclined to speak more favorably about potentially destructive projects than theywould have in other circumstances.

But apart from simply keeping quiet themselves, some groups, such as CEPA, have explicitlytried to keep villagers quiet, even when they have not been inclined to stay quiet, since they have alot more to lose if the dam goes ahead compared to those working for NGOs, most of whom donot live in the impact area. This situation can be linked to NGO territoriality and the tendency inCambodia for patronage relationships to develop between NGOs and villagers, such as the onesthat divided CEPA and 3SPN in Stung Treng, to the extent that some NGO workers feel respon-sible for the positions that villagers take, and villagers feel that they need to be loyal to their NGO

82Hun 2011, 5.83Thin 2013.84Phorn and Crothers 2014.

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patrons by saying and doing as they recommend. Indeed, these patronage relationships developthrough NGO activities in villages, and the material benefits channeled to certain individualswho gain the trust and confidence of an NGO. This includes gaining opportunities for trainingand the sometimes significant per diems participation carries. In addition to material benefits,client-patron links with NGOs bring influence and power. While territoriality is often associatedwith state power,85 in this case NGOs have created their own territorial divisions. Moreover, vil-lagers associated with specific NGOs micro-territorialize village spaces at the household level. Inthis case, particular households are characterized by villagers as being aligned with 3SPN orCEPA.

Notably, government officials sometimes blame NGOs for statements made by villagers whothey believe are closely associated with NGOs, making NGO workers feel like they are respon-sible for things that villagers say, a serious problem when it comes to representation. This has ledsome NGOs to pressure villagers to not make statements that might upset government officials,fearful these statements could lead to government pressure on the patron NGOs. Indeed, thisseems to have been at least partially the case with regard to LS2.

There is no evidence that these NGOs have intentionally or directly facilitated this project.However, through promoting particular narratives and responses that have encouraged villagersto not resist, they have benefited project proponents in ways that may have only been partiallyintentional.

Conclusions

This study of LS2 and Cambodian NGO engagement with villagers and the state has examined thelinkage between large-scale hydropower development and various players in society. Indeed, theinternational, national, and local politics associated with LS2 has created spatial relations that linkup and separate different actors in important ways, which has led to a particular politics of rep-resentation. It has also led local residents to contest the views of some NGOs but not others,thus pointing to the importance of both the influence of NGOs on local struggles and localagency, including resistance to NGOs. When faced with powerful foes that have managed to atleast partially recruit certain NGOs to support them (even if this support has not always beenintentional) villages have nevertheless demonstrated considerable agency. Also, this articledemonstrates, much like Postero (2007) has done in quite a different context, how NGOs canplay varied political roles that shift over time. In addition, while international NGOs have beencritiqued for they ways that they have represented local environmental disputes, the case ofLS2 indicates that national level NGOs can also become embedded in problematic representationsof local struggles.

The circumstances associated with LS2 illustrate broader debates between supporters ofvillage-led opposition to large hydropower dam development in the Mekong River Basin andadvocates of “sustainable hydropower.” Opponents of such projects accuse supporters of sustain-able hydropower of engaging in the “green washing” of a very destructive industry, thus creatingconfusion and generally weakening opposition against large dams.86 However, those who supportsustainable hydropower claim they promote a multi-stakeholder dialogue that has “contributed tocreating conditions under which sustainable hydropower in the Mekong region is a possibility.”87

85Vandergeest and Peluso 1995.86Interview with Witoon Permpongsacharoen, MEE Net, Bangkok, May 23, 2014; Interview with Premru-dee Daoroung, TERRA, Bangkok, May 26, 2014.87https://waterandfood.org/river-basins/mekong/, accessed June 14, 2014.

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Indicative of this, Timothy Killeen has strongly argued for sustainable hydropower developmentin the Cardamom Mountains in southwest Cambodia, including in the Areng Valley where recentNGO and local protests have emerged.88 The question of course, is, “Sustainable for whom?”

The main critique of sustainable hydropower is that it tends to downplay the negative conse-quences of these projects. It can take variously positioned people to achieve particular goals.However, those who work on the inside need to take particular care not to diminish the abilitiesof those who are most negatively impacted by dams, especially if those people desire to oppose orotherwise contest these projects. In the case of LS2, it would appear that this has indeed occurred,although I am hesitant to make accusations that would imply much intentionality to the particularcircumstances described here. Also, I do not want to give the impression that any of the peopleinvolved in the NGOs I have mentioned are intentionally trying to undermine local interests,although they appear to be doing so inadvertently. As other researchers who have studiedissues related to the environment and NGOs have demonstrated, certain discourses can gain con-siderable momentum and influence, to the extent that they are taken as simple truths.89 In thiscase, the inevitability and necessity of dams is a dominant narrative, especially among govern-ment officials and business people in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Still, it appears that RCCmay now be moving away from their previous policy of never opposing a dam in Cambodia,to a more nuanced policy that would more carefully consider the particular circumstances andespecially the views of local people in relation to particular projects. This change is likely toshift the complex nexus of power that links environmental NGOs to villagers, the state and capi-talists, including how non-state territoriality on the ground works, particularly now that LS2 isunder construction.

AcknowledgmentsThanks to the local people who have assisted me over the years in understanding the circumstances of theSesan and Srepok River Basins. I also thank W. Nathan Green for comments on an earlier version of thisarticle and Noah Theriault, who introduced me to some useful literature. Two anonymous reviewers andRobert Shepherd from Critical Asian Studies also provided valuable comments. Katie Hardwick from theCartography Lab of the Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin–Madison prepared the map,and 3SPN provided the photo designated as Figure 3.

Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

FundingThis research was supported by a grant from the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Notes on contributorIan G. Baird is an assistant professor of Geography at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has conductedresearch in northeastern Cambodia since 1995. He organized the first community-based studies of theimpacts of the Yali Falls dam in Vietnam on downstream areas in Cambodia in Ratanakari Province(2000) and Stung Treng Province (2001) and supported the establishment of the Sesan ProtectionNetwork (SPN), later renamed the Sesan, Srepok and Sekong (3S) Protection Network (3SPN). He has

88Killeen 2012.89Forsyth and Walker 2008.

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never, however, been officially involved with the governance of either SPN or 3SPN. He conducted hisMaster’s and Ph.D. research in Ratanakiri Province between 2000 and 2008. In 2009, he was hired bythe Rivers Coalition of Cambodia (RCC) to study the Lower Sesan 2 dam. He worked closely with 3SPNin Ratanakiri and CEPA in Stung Treng during this research.

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