[Buddha-l] The excercise of sila in Cambodia

[jkirk]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8144130.stm 
 
excerpts:

"Kleptocratic state
It is not just in rural areas that people complain of losing
land. Cambodia's recent stability, following decades of violence,
has attracted a rapid boom in tourism and a race among foreign
and local entrepreneurs for prime real estate on which to build
new resorts.  Many of the country's beaches have already been
bought up. 

And rights groups estimate that 30,000 people have been forcibly
evicted from their homes in the capital Phnom Penh over the past
five years to make way for new developments. 

Beginning in the 1990s, large swathes of the country's rich
forests were bought up by logging companies. 
Now sizeable mining and gas concessions are also being granted to
private enterprises. 
Eleanor Nichol of Global Witness believes individual members of
the Cambodian government, right up to the highest levels, are
benefiting. 

"Essentially what we're dealing with here is a kleptocratic state
which is using the country and its assets as their own personal
slush fund," she said." 
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Buddhism is no more resistant it seems than any other religion to
hegemonic political forces. Somewhere else I recently read that
the Cambodian elites are busy making merit as elsewhere by
building ever more gigantic pagodas. 

Joanna