Cambodia is hard at work photographing, fingerprinting and otherwise officially identifying its population. And what people think about the process has everything to do with who they are.
For 20-year-old Te Chanthy, the trip to Phnom Penh’s Bureau of Statistics and Identification Cards was a pleasure.
She presented her family book and her residence papers, duly signed by authorities in her Tuol Kok neighborhood. She was promptly processed, recorded, and told she would be notified when to pick up her new ID card.
“This is a good idea,” Te Chanthy said. “It will make it easier to travel.”
Sok Heng, 42, also lives in Tuol Kok district. But although she was born in Phnom Penh to a Cambodian father, her mother was Vietnamese.
Under Cambodia’s new nationality law, Sok Heng should be considered a Cambodian citizen just like Te Chanthy—but she doesn’t have the paperwork to prove her father was Cambodian.
So she worries that she will eventually be deported to Vietnam, where she has no relatives, no property and no citizenship papers.
“I would pay a lot of money for the proper papers,” she muttered morosely. “I am afraid this new law will force me to Vietnam.”
After years of delay and debate, the government is moving ahead with its controversial national identification program. Every person aged 18 or older is being asked to apply for an official ID card, issued by the Ministry of the Interior.
Khieu Sopheak, ministry spokesman, said the government wants an accurate and consistent record of its legal citizens. During the war years, he said, a variety of different ID cards were issued by various factions.
The new cards will make all previous forms of ID obsolete. Those who present family books showing that they are ethnic Cambodians can get the cards.
Critics say the program is aimed at Cambodia’s population of illegal immigrants. Khieu Sopheak says that is certainly part of the reason the ministry is issuing the new cards.
“We are taking a census of the illegal population, and illegal immigrants must declare themselves. This is the case in all countries,” he said.
Although numbers are hard to come by, some observers think the number of non-Cambodians living here illegally ranges from 100,000 to more than a million. Khieu Sopheak would not comment on those estimates, saying it is impossible to know until the count is complete.
Meng Say, chief of the Phnom Penh statistics bureau, said nobody will be forced to apply for the new cards, which are issued without cost.
“People have the right not to get ID cards. No law requires it,” he said. But they will run into problems if they try to apply for passports or transact major business —such as buying land — without the cards, he said.
Khieu Sopheak said illegal immigrants can apply for citizenship under Cambodia’s nationality and immigration laws. While the laws set various conditions, one way to become a Cambodian citizen is to have lived here for seven years, be of good moral character and be able to speak and read Khmer.
Foreigners who invest at least $320,000 in Cambodia, or who give the government $256,000, or who have some skill particularly useful to the country, can obtain citizenship more quickly.
The new ID system stores each person’s digital photo and thumbprint in a central database, in addition to generating a plastic ID card. Good for 10 years, the cards will be difficult to forge without hacking into the database.
Khlaing Huot, governor of Tuol Kok, said people should not panic. “Don’t worry about those who cannot get the cards,” he said. “They will not be thrown out.”
Some immigrants and human rights workers aren’t so sure, noting that some regimes—most notably the Nazis—issued minority groups IDs, which were later used to target them for persecution.
At the same time, said one rights worker, national IDs are required in many countries. “North Americans aren’t very receptive to the idea, but it’s pretty common elsewhere in the world,” the worker said.
Critics say other ethnic groups are in Cambodia for a series of complicated reasons, that many settled here legally, and that the government is unfairly changing the rules, leaving them no place to go.
The Vietnamese in particular, said one rights worker, have crossed back and forth between the countries for generations.
The situation was exacerbated during the war years, when Vietnamese were first massacred by the Lon Nol and Khmer Rouge regimes, and then welcomed during the Vietnamese occupation.
In recent years, the Vietnamese presence has become increasingly politicized, as leaders like the late Son Sann and opposition leader Sam Rainsy have denounced what they see as Vietnamese plans to take over Cambodia.
Right-wing insurgent groups like the Cambodian Freedom Fighters claim Prime Minister Hun Sen is a Vietnamese puppet, while student groups demand illegal Vietnamese be ousted.
But many immigrants don’t have Vietnamese papers either, and say Vietnam won’t take them in. “The basic issue is poverty,” said the human rights worker. “If these people had money, it might be a different story.”
And while the rhetoric rages, Wun Thi Nam, 56, wonders what will happen to her.
She was born in Chroy Chungvar, as were her parents before her. Her family has lived there for more than 100 years, she said.
She speaks and reads Khmer as well as Vietnamese and some French, and was forced out of Cambodia and into Vietnam in 1970, when more than 800 Vietnamese in Chroy Chungvar were massacred by Lon Nol troops.
She lived in Saigon where, she said, she was persecuted by the victorious North Vietnamese after reunification. In 1984, she jumped at the chance to return to Cambodia during the Vietnamese occupation; today she owns a house and runs a small but thriving restaurant.
But she has no Cambodian family book, and she waits to see what that will mean. “If they force me to go to Vietnam, that is up to them,” she said. “But I would rather stay here.”
