pledging £774 million ($1.02 billion) to help stop the spread of the virus around the world,

jaynewcastle wrote: ↑Fri Sep 11, 2020 12:25 pm Doesn't seem to matter what they do or say, there are always some people who will happily criticise everything they do

xandreu wrote: ↑Fri Sep 11, 2020 1:03 pm

jaynewcastle wrote: ↑Fri Sep 11, 2020 12:25 pm Doesn't seem to matter what they do or say, there are always some people who will happily criticise everything they do

I like to think I'm pretty laid back, perhaps too laid back. I often give organisations the benefit of the doubt when they appear to be doing a terrible job. I made a point of standing up for the UK government when the virus first hit, as I believed too much criticism wouldn't help anybody. They needed space to work out the best course of action and that people need to accept the inevitability of mistakes being made along the way.

But I struggle to find any empathy for the British Embassy in Cambodia based on the, I'm tempted to say 'lack of' but even that's not right, the truth is there was a complete and total absence of any sympathy, empathy, practical help, advice, concern and god-damn straight up curtesy. To close down the embassy and post guards outside to push away people, British citizens, in their desperate hour of need during a worldwide pandemic is shameful beyond belief.

Until the pandemic, we all had the belief that the primary role of an embassy was to protect and offer assistance to it's own citizens abroad. Of course they do other diplomatic work as well, but fundamentally, they are representatives of the domestic government, and in much the same way as a governments first job is to protect it's own citizens, we assumed, naturally, that embassies worked on the same principles for citizens living or travelling abroad.

While this may be the case for embassies of other countries, what the pandemic frighteningly highlighted, was that this simply isn't the case for the British Embassy in Cambodia. Not only are British Citizens not their priority at a time of global crisis, but they seemed not to register on the list of concerns at all.

We had British citizens, who, through no fault of their own, became trapped here with a limited budget having only intended to stay for a week or two, with no way of leaving. Stuck in a country many of them had little knowledge of with dwindling resources, wondering how they would ever get back to their loved ones. While all around them they saw governments of other countries bending over backwards to help their citizens get home, either laying on repatriation flights or offering real, practical assistance in other ways. Even the Khmer government, aware of the terrible situation many tourists were in, did what they could by allowing tourists to remain in the kingdom until such a time they could leave, without fear of overstaying their visa.

And all the while, the British Embassy in Cambodia did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Whatsoever. Nada. Could. Not. Care. Less. Not a priority. Who cares? You shouldn't have come here in the first place. Not my job. Just sort yourselves out. Stop bothering us. Bye.

Utterly, utterly shameful. The rage I feel as I type this is making it more and more difficult to write. How they have the utter balls to post all these things on Facebook saying how much they're helping international development and helping citizens of this country and that country and expect us to applaud their gestures when we all know full well what their attitude towards their own citizens is,... there are simply no words.

I have to stop typing now before my laptop ends up on the other side of the closed window right next to me.

**and........breathe...**

jaynewcastle wrote: ↑Fri Sep 11, 2020 12:25 pm Doesn't seem to matter what they do or say, there are always some people who will happily criticise everything they do