Durante el proceso, cuando la autoridad judicial no decrete el decomiso o levante el aseguramiento, de conformidad con las disposiciones aplicables.

The French protectors, like the Vietnamese before then, initially sought to rule through the king and existing institutions but soon concluded that more direct methods would be needed to meet their colonial objectives. French Résidents were put in place to supervise the Cambodian governors, in large part to oversee the collection of revenue and its transfer to the central budget from which allocations were made for the colonial administration and the implementation of provincial public works. The purpose was both to assert control as well as to divert allegiance and revenue from the king and the existing patrimonial system. The French moved to reduce the number of Cambodian officials and to introduce colonial administrators, using Vietnamese and French personnel.48

More direct rule by the French initiated a new phase of state building through the introduction of Western governance institutions.49 These new institutions of state building include departments and bureaucratic methods with their rules and regulations, salaried positions and concept of civil service. The French presence in the province expanded to include Résident schools, medical and veterinary services, police, post and telegraph, public works, and customs, all with a need to engage local people. Eventually, the training of local administrators was initiated in Phnom Penh.50

48 _{The French were particularly concerned to abolish the “apanage” officials and the Oknya}

(titled officials) who they considered to be grossly incompetent.

49 _{The Cambodian kings had sought French protection at the same time that King Rama V in}

Thailand was introducing modern reforms to prevent colonisation by the British or French.

50 _{Forest, Le Cambodge et la Colonisation, 89-116. Although rules requiring examinations for}

those being nominated to public functions were proclaimed from 1901, little was done in this regard until 1914 when the first administration school was set up to train kromokau (a middle level functionary between the governor and village chief). In 1917 further schools for

Initially, the French tried to formalize the role of the village heads which, under the new rules, were: to receive royal envoys charged with census and collection of taxes, to publicise royal ordinances, recruit men for war, and judge disputes; and act as local policeman in return for which they received a proportion of fines levied, and tax relief.51 Dissatisfied with the regular involvement of village heads with bandits, pirates, and various schemes to defraud the tax collectors, the French moved to establish elected village councils in Cambodia in 1901 and again in 1908. An underlying assumption seems to have been that the democratically elected council would provide some transparency and eliminate fraud.

This meant that the French, who were of the view that the idea of village “community” as a social and political entity simply did not exist in Cambodian society, considered it possible nevertheless to create administrative communities.52 To break with the past, they introduced a new entity called khum (or commune) and a commune head (mekhum). Trying to accommodate the dispersed and irregular nature of habitation, the new law recognized the less structured group of residents in hamlets or villages (phum) which became the basic entities forming a commune. Councillors were to be elected, representing each hamlet or village. Those elected appointed a commune head from either within or outside their ranks (the list of candidates had to be approved by the Résident). The commune head then chose assistants and appointed a leader for each hamlet or village. The commune councils were to meet every three months and an independent budget was to be provided for each. While elections were held, it seems that councils rarely, if ever, met.53 Increasingly, however, the commune head became the agent of the French whose rule was highly centralised. Commune heads were kept busy maintaining records of villagers for tax purposes, as well as overseeing justice and implementing colonial directives.54

justice, teachers and administration were established with a view to putting the administration on Western lines.

51 _{Ibid. However, as Forest says, “In brief, he lives above all on his role as policeman”}

52 _{The general consensus among historians, anthropologists and commentators is that}

Cambodia was typified by “weak” or “loose” social structures and that the household was the basic unit. Vickery, Kampuchea, 52; Conway, "Poverty, Participation and Programmes", 249; and Delvert, Le Paysan Cambodgien, 201-4.

53 _{The reforms in 1911 also changed the role of the Résident Superieure and the structure of the}

Council of the Protectorate (replaced in 1913 by an Indigenous Consultative Assembly). Tully, France on the Mekong, 142-3.

The final step in this phase of state building was to come with the formation of the independent state of Cambodia when the French granted Independence in 1953. However, despite its democratic parliamentary system, political parties and general elections, Cambodia lacked the democratic political traditions and a bureaucracy capable of meeting the demands of Independence.55 Sihanouk’s abdication and move into political leadership symbolising, in a way, an attempted transfer from a patrimonial to a democratic role. Nevertheless, the patrimonial tradition was preserved as Sihanouk introduced “Buddhist socialism” and created what was, in effect, a one party state centred on himself as ruler.

Sihanouk’s system failed to control factionalism and corruption, and state building in Cambodia received a harsh setback with the Pol Pot interlude which attempted to abolish all previous institutions and to replace them with a new extreme form of state organised on a military structure. At its centre was the secretive Angkar—“the organization.” The 1979 occupation by Vietnam heralded a return to state building which basically revived the institutions of the previous Sihanouk and Lon Nol regimes, but under a socialist state formation. The new state was established as a triumvirate of the Front, the Party and state institutions – government and bureaucracy (See Figure 3-2). The ministries and departments of state were re- activated as were the provincial, district and commune level institutions. The communes were further divided into village and group level (krom samaki) organizations to take into account the socialist agenda of communal production. The local government structure, initiated by the French and retained at Independence, was effectively in place again as the State of Cambodia prepared for the signing of the peace agreement and UNTAC supervised elections. It was maintained then by the new democratically elected state which restored the institutions of parliamentary democracy and the king. As outlined in chapter 3, the Seila programme also brought the ongoing state building process directly to the people with its democratic and administrative reforms of the existing commune institutions. While the specified functions of the commune councils vary little from the previous arrangements, they replaced the socialising agenda with training in democratic principles and open and accountable local government. This reflects the importance placed on local governance by powers wishing to transform societies.