SRP ‘acting like Pol Pot’
The Phnom Penh Post: Thursday, 29 December 2011
By Vong Sokheng
Photo by: Pha Lina
Prime Minister Hun Sen speaks yesterday in Phnom Penh.
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(Comments: the two articles posted just below are related. One article titled “SRP ‘acting like Pol Pot’,” shows that Hun Sen is using the Cambodia NGO to accuse SRP of acting like Pol Pot, resulting from SRP carelessly and child-like behaviour of confiscating cell phones from members of his party and for asking members to pledge alliance to SRP.
Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge regiment commander, sounds totally insincere and out of place to have complained about this childish and stupid behaviour of Sam Rainsy and his party.
This contradiction became more apparent when in another related article titled “No Rush in NGO law,” Hun Sen said that the new NGO law will not be considered seriously until 2014.
This contradiction shows why Cambodia is known as the country of the absurd.” Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC, 2011)
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The opposition Sam Rainsy Party was violating the human rights of Cambodia’s citizens and acting like the murderous Pol Pot regime, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday.
Hun Sen, leader of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, told more than 3,000 students at a graduation ceremony he presided over that the SRP was forcing all its members to swear they would vote for the SRP and to hand over their mobile phones the night before commune elections in June next year.
“These issues are a serious violation of universal human rights, and it looks like detaining people in the same way they did during the Pol Pot regime,” the premier said.
The SRP suspected that some of its members in commune councils across the Kingdom and members of the National Assembly would not vote in favour of the lead opposition party, Hun Sen said.
“I want to send a message to human-rights NGOs to pay attention to this issue,” the long-serving leader, who rarely requests the engagement of human-rights organisations in Cambodia’s affairs, said.
His condemnation of the SRP and request for human-rights organisations to investigate comes one day after an alliance of 149 associations, unions and NGOs issued a joint statement criticising the SRP’s mobile-phone confiscation order.
The alliance, the Cambodian People Network for Peace, issued a joint statement citing the orders of SRP leader Sam Rainsy to all party members to swear they must vote for his party and that they must all hand in their phones on January 28 as a way to express loyalty.
“The CPNP believes the use of forceful threats and warnings by SRP toward SRP commune council members does not respect democracy or human rights,” the statement reads.
“The actions of [Sam Rainsy] are in full contradiction with the democratic principle that the power belongs to the people, by the people and for the people.”
The threat by Sam Rainsy to confiscate mobile phones was an “act of treason” that compromised the will of the people, who were the “owners of their votes”, the alliance said.
Sam Rainsy is now in exile in France to escape what he views as an unjust and politically motivated prison sentence for encouraging villagers to uproot border posts on the Cambodia-Vietnam border in Svay Rieng.
SRP spokesman Yim Sovann said yesterday that the call to the party’s members to swear loyalty in the commune council elections was strictly voluntary.
“We are all willing to swear and there is no intimidation,” Yim Sovann said. “We do so to express loyalty to the president of the SRP.”
In regards to the call for handing over mobile phones the day before the election, Yim Sovann said the motivation for this extreme act was to try to reduce the impact of threats and intimidation by the CPP.
“We are experienced in recording the conversations from CPP members threatening, intimidating and offering to buy votes from SRP members on election day,” he said. “We have filed a complaint to the [National Election Commission], but it has never been fairly ruled on.
“In this circumstance, the NEC has become a tool of the CPP, and so we must find a way ourselves to stop the intimidation, threats and vote buying,” the spokesman said.
NEC Secretary General Tep Nytha said that intimidation, threats and vote buying as well as any other activities jeopardizing voters are against the law.
“Individual voters must cast their vote by their own volition,” he said. “If the NEC found there was such vote buying and intimidation by a political party’s candidate, that candidate would be removed and fined between 2 and 50 million riel.”
No rush on NGO law
Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post: Thursday, 29 December 2011
Photo by: Meng Kimlong
A housing rights monitor photographs a house that was inundated with sand in September at Boeung Kak lake in Phnom Penh.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said the government will wait until 2014 if that is what it takes to achieve consensus on the highly criticised draft law on associations and NGOs.
Speaking at a high school graduation yesterday, the premier said Cambodia had already been waiting for 33 years for the necessary law and to wait another two or three years would hardly make any difference.
“If we have not agreed by 2012, there will be no issue, we will wait until 2013; if not 2013, we will wait until 2014,” Hun Sen said. “We have been in discussions for almost 20 years, so we will not be too early.”
The draft NGO law aims to establish a framework for the registration of NGOs and associations and to safeguard the “rights and freedoms” of the organisations, according to the fourth draft of the law compiled by the Ministry of Interior.
The Council of Ministers sent the draft law back to the Ministry of Interior to re-draft earlier this year. While the fourth draft is markedly different from the third draft, civil society organisations in Cambodia and abroad are still not satisfied with the law, particularly a provision that effectively makes registration compulsory.
Despite heated public outcry over the law and a call by civil society for its abandonment, the premier said in no uncertain terms there would be a law.
“We must have this law. It is too unreasonable [to request the law be abandoned],” he said. “The government pays attention to all activities of organisations and considers this an important part of a developing country.”
Hun Sen added that the law must “be accepted by all sides” to pass and rejected criticisms that the government was dictatorial or that the National Assembly was merely a rubber stamp for the ruling party.
“Issuing this law will facilitate the humanitarian work of organisations that are willing to import materials to hand out to Cambodians, because the import tax for these organisations is exempt,” he said.
The premier’s address was welcomed by Cambodian legal experts and some civil society organisations.
“Civil society has demanded more discussion time from the government, and this is a better point to hear the delay in passing the law,” Sok Sam Oeun, executive director of the Cambodian Defenders Project said.
Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, applauded Hun Sen’s stance.
“This is a positive result opening the discussion for longer to avoid criticism after the law goes into effect,” he said.
At an open forum with civil society representatives last week, the Ministry of Interior welcomed written and verbal feedback on the fourth draft but made no firm commitments to adopt feedback into a fifth draft of the contentious law.
Did Vietnam Liberate or invade Cambodia?
Two important testimonies from a book by a staff member of the Library of the Congress, and Bui tin, a former colonel of the Vietnamese army
(Comments: here are some documents on the reasons behind Vietnam invasion of Cambodia.
These information and testimonies from the 'horse's mouth' on Pen Sovann, and the true motivations why Vietnam invaded Cambodia will allow you to see the true nature of Vietnam intentions in Cambodia which are not liberating but invading Cambodia, contrary to what Pen Sovann had strongly maintained until today.
Clearly, from these testimonies on whether Vietnam had invaded or liberated Cambodia, one can see that there are more supporters of Vietnam than defenders of Cambodia sovereignty and independence, among foreign experts and oberservers. Some of these foreign experts have gone as far as to say that it is alright for Vietnam to use Cambodia as a shield against China, in order for Vietnam to be able to to defend itself, as this sentence shows:
"There may be another factor behind the invasion: Vietnam's desire to rid Cambodia of a government that was closely aligned with Vietnam's longtime enemy, China. "The major national security concerns of Vietnam's present leadership are to successfully weather Chinese pressures and to consolidate all the nations of Indochina into an alliance structure, said Southeast Asia expert Carlyle A. Thayer.7 Stanley Karnow, a journal 1st and former Vietnam war correspondent, agreed with that assessment. The "real reason" behind the invasion, Karnow wrote in Vietnam: A History, was Vietnam's "concern that Pol Pot's forces, underwritten by China, intended to embark on a campaign to annex the Mekong Delta and other parts of Vietnam that had formally belonged to the Cambodian empire; 'When we look at Cambodia,' a Vietnamese official in Hanoi told me, 'we see China, China, China.'"8
In addition, and more aggravating for Cambodia, most Cambodian past and recent leaders (Chhey Chettha II, Sihanouk, Son Ngoc Thanh, Sam Sary, Pol Pot, Pen Sovann, Hun Sen) have always gone to Vietnam for help whenever they are fighting against each other for power, since the fall on Angkor in 1432., which made cambodia a country which is unique because it is ruled mostly by traitors. That is also why Cambodia is known among other things as the "country of the absurd."
This fact proves my repeated saying that only cambodian can save Cambodia and its people.
The first thing that most Cambodians who profess their love for their country and people, must do is to hold those, who self -declared themselves to be leader of Cambodia, accountable for what they are doing and saying. Cambodians must start to set a very high standard of morality and ability, for those who self-declared themselves to be leader of the Cambodian people. The moral, professional, and intellectual standard should be at the same level of those respectable leaders in other countries in the world such as; Nelson Mandela of South Africa, and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar or Bruma, who are both Nobel Peace Prize winners, and well-respected in the world.
A Sam Rainsy who is hiding now in Europe, or Kem Sokha to have chosen a person like Pen Sovann to be a senior member of his party, are not the kind of leaders that Cambodia desparately needs to get the Cambodian people out of the current death traps that they are now in. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC December 8, 2011)
Motives Behind the Vietnamese Occupation
Cambodia: A Nation in Turmoil; by Marc Leepson,
(Editorial Research Reports: Congressional Quarterly Inc., Washington, D.C. April 5, 1985)
Western analysts disagree about the exact reasons behind Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia and its goals in that country. But there is near unanimous agreement in the West that the reasons put forward by Vietnam are, in the words of former U.S. Representative to the United Nations Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, "a transparent deception." 3 Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, in an interview published last year in Newsweek magazine, said his government "could not stand by in good conscience and watch the Pol Pot clique butcher millions of innocent Kampucheans in cold blood."4 The evidence shows, however, that Vietnam knew of the Khmer Rouge terror for years prior to the invasion. "Hanoi showed not the slightest concern for the fate of the Cambodian people while most of the killing was actually going on," Morris said. "On the contrary, Vietnamese Communist Party and government statements were lush in their praise of Pol Pot and his regime." 5
Some believe that Vietnam invaded Cambodia because it felt threatened by an aggressive and unfriendly Khmer Rouge government, which launched raids into Vietnam late in 1978. "The first thing that drives the Vietnamese is their own security concerns," said Linda Hiebert, co-director of the Center for International Policy's Indochina Project.6 "They would like to see a very close relationship between the three countries of Indochina [Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam! because that will maintain security on many levels - military, economic, et cetera." Arnold Isaacs, author of Without Honor: Defeat in Vietnam and Cambodia (1983), agreed. "What is uppermost m the Vietnamese minds is their own security," said Isaacs, who was a war correspondent for the Baltimore Sun in Indochina in 1972-75 "They feel they should be the dominant power in the region and ... the governments of Laos and Cambodia should be friendly and not a threat...."
There may be another factor behind the invasion: Vietnam's desire to rid Cambodia of a government that was closely aligned with Vietnam's longtime enemy, China. "The major national security concerns of Vietnam's present leadership are to successfully weather Chinese pressures and to consolidate all the nations of Indochina into an alliance structure, said Southeast Asia expert Carlyle A. Thayer.7 Stanley Karnow, a journal 1st and former Vietnam war correspondent, agreed with that assessment. The "real reason" behind the invasion, Karnow wrote in Vietnam: A History, was Vietnam's "concern that Pol Pot's forces, underwritten by China, intended to embark on a campaign to annex the Mekong Delta and other parts of Vietnam that had formally belonged to the Cambodian empire; 'When we look at Cambodia,' a Vietnamese official in Hanoi told me, 'we see China, China, China.'"8
Some analysts dismiss this argument. Despite centuries of antagonism between the two countries, they note, China was a strong supporter of Vietnam in its wars against France, the United States and South Vietnam. "Without the Chinese the Vietnamese probably couldn't have 'won' the war against the United States," one expert who asked not to be identified told Editorial Research Reports. "That nullifies allegations that the Chinese represent a threat to the Vietnamese." China stopped sending military aid to the Vietnamese communists when they defeated South Vietnam in 1975, but continued to support Vietnam economically until June 1978 when Vietnam joined COMECON, the Soviet-dominated Council for Mutual economic Assistance.
Colonization Debate; Question of Thailand
There is some evidence that Vietnam's long-range goal is to colonize Cambodia ‹ to subjugate the Khmer people. Journalist Jack Wheeler, who visited Thailand and Cambodian in July 1964, said that some 700,000 Vietnamese farmers, fishermen, merchants, technicians, mechanics and others have been brought into Cambodia as settlers since the 1978 invasion. The settlers, Wheeler said, have "appropriated much of the best land" and gained control over commercial fishing operations in the Tonle Sap (the Great Lake), a large and bountiful fishing ground in the center of the country.11 A significant number of jobs in urban areas have been taken by Vietnamese settlers, many of whom do not speak the Khmer language. "At least half the people in Phnom Penh who do mechanical work and the trades ... are Vietnamese," a Cambodian analyst told Editorial Research Reports. "The Vietnamese have taught Cambodians the Vietnamese language. So colonization is real, no question about that...."
Vietnam claims that the settlers are former Vietnamese residents of Cambodia who fled that nation during the period of anti-Vietnamese sentiment in the 1960s and 1970s. But that appears to tell only part of the story. The settlers include "what they call 'Old Vietnamese' ‹people who lived there before the Pol Pot era ...," said Linda Hiebert. But there also are "New Vietnamese," who have not previously lived in Cambodia. "These people are young ‹often draft resistors from Ho Chi Minh City [formerly Saigon] ‹or people who simply find it much easier to make a living being small entrepreneurs inside Cambodia," Hiebert said. "There are apparently more restrictions on that kind of activity in Vietnam than in Cambodia." Hiebert, who visited Vietnam and Cambodia in 1984, does not believe that Vietnam is out to colonize Cambodia.
Vietnam's long-term goals also might involve Thailand, a staunch U.S. ally that basically has escaped the last four decades of war and turmoil in neighboring Indochina. Some believe that if conditions were ripe ‹ if Thailand were politically and socially unstable, for example, or if Thai communist rebels gained popular support ‹ then Vietnam might move against Thailand. "I don't think [Vietnam] has an imminent intention of invading Thailand," said Rep. Stephen J. Solarz, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs. "But I would not preclude the possibility that if [the Vietnamese] could consolidate their position in Cambodia, they would then attempt to support communist revolutionary forces in Thailand, particularly in the provinces adjacent to Laos that might, with assistance, have a better prospect of succeeding."
Morris believes that Vietnamese nationalism is traditionally expansionist and that "communist revolutionary values" shape Vietnam's foreign policy. Still, he said, it is unlikely the Vietnamese would try to take Thai territory because "the Vietnamese army, occupying Laos as well as Cambodia, and pinned down by China to the north, cannot escalate much further."12 Then, too, Thailand has a security treaty with the United States. Any large-scale Vietnamese movement into Thailand risks war with this country, as well as with China, which has said it would fight to stop Vietnamese expansion outside Indochina.
Finally, there are historic factors that buttress the argument that Vietnam has no interest in expanding its influence beyond Laos and Cambodia. Vietnam's domination of Cambodia and Laos, Allan Goodman said, "is much more consistent historically with what the Vietnamese have seen as their patrimony and their sphere of influence, and is not an 'opening wedge' in an effort to export their revolution throughout Southeast Asia. They own Indochina and they want to make sure they do."
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3. Statement before the U.N. General Assembly, Oct. 30, 1984. Kirkpatrick resigned her post effective March 31.
4. Quoted in Newsweek, May 14, 1984, p. 40.
5. Morris, op. cit., p. 76.
6. The Washington-based Center for International Policy is a non-profit education and research organization concerned with US policy in the Third World
7. Carlyle A. Thayer, “Vietnamese Perspective in International Security” (1984) p.72
8. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (1983), p. 45.
9. Morris, op. cit., p. 77.
10. China which supplied the Khmer Rouge rebels with much of their military needs, has warned that the latest Vietnamese offensive in Cambodia could bring about a second Chinese lesson," but many Western analysts are skeptical that this will take place
11. Jack Wheeler, "The Khmer in Cambodia," Reason, February 1985, p. 28.
12. Morris, op. cit., p. 82
Source: Cambodia: A Nation in Turmoil; by Marc Leepson, (Editorial Research Reports: Congressional Quarterly Inc., Washington, D.C. April 5, 1985)
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Excerpt from a book titled "Following Ho Chi Minh: Memoirs of a Vietnamese Colonel" (Bui Tin; University of Hawaii Press; Honolulu, Hawaii, Paperback edition, 1999)
(Comments: colonel Bui Tin, whom I met several times here, at the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington DC, was a colonel and the editorial board for the North Vietnamese Communist Party newspaper "Quan Doi Nhan Dan" in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
He came in with the invading Vietnamese forces in December 25, 1978 and stayed in Cambodia for three years. Then in the early 1990, he defected to the West and now resides in Paris. He was the Deputy Editor for the Vietnamese Communist party newspaper "Quan Doi Nhan Dan.” Interestingly enough, he said that one of the reasons for his defection was his opposition to Vietnam occupation of Cambodia. He said that had Vietnam turned Cambodia to the United Nations after the invasion, then it would have been politically correct for Vietnam to have invaded Cambodia.
Here is what Bui Tin had to say about Pen Sovann and other Khmer Viet Minh who were under Vietnamese control. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. December 8, 2011)
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Extracts from Nui Tin's book, pages 122-23;
"From the Khmer Rouge documents that I found, it was possible to study their genocidal policy. In reality it was much more cruel and lethal than that carried out by the Nazis during the Second World War. But it was beautifully cloaked under the form of Communism, pure Communism, the purest form of Communism, with a regime that was absolute because it was led by a Communist party that was clear-sighted, in fact so clear-sighted that it was a model for all other Communist parties throughout the world, so it was claimed.
Khmer Rouge rhetoric actually created quite an impression because it kept on repeating adjectives. But in reality it was carrying out a Cultural Revolution along Chinese lines which was even more thorough and widespread and offered no compromise. The Cambodian leadership were absolutely self-confident that they could look after 'their own house' when the rest of the world shut the door on it.
Consequently I approved of our policy of attacking and liberating Cambodia. We had a right to defend our country against Khmer Rouge atrocities. At the same time, it was an emergency operation to rescue a whole people who were being reduced to misery and gradually killed off. Senator McGovern of the United States had previously called for military action to save the Cambodian people from being massacred but nobody responded. Then when the Vietnamese moved in, maintaining strict discipline, enduring hardship, bringing with them rice, salt, meat and vegetables, stationing troops out in the jungle, sharing food, clothes and medicine with the people of a neighbouring country, we received a lot of gratitude and respect. Clearly it was a very magnanimous action.
This feeling would have lasted much longer if we had not subsequently committed many mistakes. One was that we remained in Cambodia far too long. I believe we should have withdrawn much sooner and unconditionally. After the liberation of Cambodia, the disease of subjective arrogance took over again. Within the Party, it was explained that we were carrying out our international proletarian duty in strengthening the Revolution and expanding it to other countries. But among the people it was regarded as the equivalent of inviting oneself into a house belonging to somebody else.
'After the liberation of Cambodia, the disease of subjective arrogance took over again. Within the Party, it was explained that we were carrying out our international proletarian duty in strengthening the Revolution and expanding it to other countries. But, among the people it was regarded as the equivalent of inviting oneself into a house belonging to somebody else.
The person primarily responsible for our policy towards Cambodia was Le Duc Tho. He had been assigned by the Politburo to oversee in liberation and the construction of its new Party and state apparatus. Even before our forces reached Phnom Penh, he presided over a meeting held near Snuol in what is known as the Fish Hook area of the border to set up a Cambodian government to replace that by Pol Pot. Among those he chose was Pen Sovan who became Minister of Defence and was later emerged as General Secretary of the Cambodian Communist Party. His appointment came a little surprise to many Cambodians because for several decades he had been a broadcaster with the Voice of Vietnam as head of the Khmer language service. Then there was Chan Si who was also a member of the Vietnamese Communist Party.
Le Duc Tho usually lived in a villa behind Chamcar Mon, the royal palace on the bank of the Mekong in Phnom Penh, and often convened meetings of key cadres including the Cambodian Party General Secretary, the Prime Minister and his cabinet. I once saw him talk to a group of Cambodian leaders at the palace during 1981 and again in Thau Duc at the beginning of 1982. Had I not been personally present, I would never have believed such scenes were possible. They all quivered with fear when Le Duc Tho scolded them very outspokenly as if they were naughty children. I just sat and listened to the speech, hoping that the interpreter was mistranslating and softening its meaning, otherwise it would have been appalling for the audience.
'You comrades must study assiduously. You must work seriously. You have to polish up your morals as Communist officials in order to be worthy of the faith placed in us and the Revolution. You have to understand that cadres must be carefully chosen and anybody who shows weakness will be replaced. As for alcohol, you can drink but not too much. And for any comrade to allow his wife to lead him by the nose to go trading is impermissible.'
The removal of Pen Sovan from his position as Party General Secretary and Minister of Defence in 1981, was also the work of Le Duc Tho. Tho acting togehter with General Le Ducc Anh. On their recoomendation, the Politburo in Hanoi accepted an 'appeal' from several members of the Cambodian communist Party. The Cambodian people had nothing to do with the rise and fall of Pen Sovan.
According to a Vietnamese adviser in charge of training Cambodian cadres, Pen Sovan sometimes opposed Vietnam and sometimes his own Party. He also expressed dissatisfaction with his lack of power as Party General Secretary and the way his military authority was ignored by General Le Duc Anh. Such an attitude was intolerable in the eyes of our leadership, so Pen Sovan was taken back to Vietnam to spend the next ten years under house arrest near Hanoi. He was only released and allowed to return to Cambodia after the Vietnamese forces withdrew and the United Nations took over responsibility for the country. According to a Vietnamese adviser in charge of training Cambodian cadres, Pen Sovan sometimes opposed Vietnam and sometimes his own Party. He also expressed dissatisfaction with his lack of power as Party General Secretary and the way his military authority was ignored by General Le Duc Anh. Such an attitude was intolerable in the eyes of our leadership, so Pen Sovan was taken back to Vietnam to spend the next ten years under house arrest near Hanoi. He was only released and allowed to return to Cambodia after the Vietnamese forces withdrew and the United Nations took over responsibility for the country."
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It is highly recommended that every Cambodians who care about Cambodia and its people, to read more on this very important eye-witness account by a reasonable and caring Vietnamese on how Vietnam came and invade Cambodia on december 25, 1978, and how they used Cambodian like Pen Sovann to serve their ultimate goal of conquering Cambodia, of Bui Tin's book titled "Following Ho Chi Minh; Memoirs of a Vietnamese Colonel," please, click on this link;
Following HO CHI MINH, memoirs of a North Vietnamese colonel by Bui Tin.docx
SPECIAL FEATURE: Killing fields justice: A witness to history being made
Christopher G Moore
The Phnom Penh Post: Thursday, 08 December 2011
Nuon Chea, aka ‘Brother No. 2’. Reuters
Former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan. eccc/pool
Former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary. eccc/pool
At 9.00am, Monday, 21 November 2011, the beige curtains were slowly peeled back before an audience of roughly 600 people. The moment was like something out of The Wizard of Oz: the expectation of what lies behind the levers of power inevitably results in disappointment.
Three men in their 80s sat on the right side of the chambers. Each of the trio was charged with crimes against humanity, genocide and violations of the Geneva Conventions. Along with Pol Pot, these men had been top Khmer Rouge policymakers. As the political architects of death that defined the Khmer Rouge, they were on trial before a court of law.
Seated with the accused, their lawyers, dressed in black gowns, listened to the charges against their clients. Uniformed security personnel kept the accused under a watchful eye. At 9.05am, everyone on both sides of the glass enclosure stood as seven robed judges filed in and took their places on the bench.
Four of the judges were Cambodian; the remaining three were from New Zealand, Austria and France. As the court was called to order, everyone in the court and gallery took their seats. Case 002 had commenced. History was being made. As a law professor and lawyer, I have experienced the ritual of courtrooms in Canada, the United States, England, Malaysia and Thailand, with the opposing counsel at their tables, the judges on the bench and the accused in the dock.
Courtrooms are a form of ancient theatre, where the players have defined roles and the procedures are formal and the decor somber. Objective, fair, rational decision making is the premise for the deliberation. Justice is the goal. Everyone is assigned a role to play. The Extraordinary Chambers in Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) was specifically built for the trial of the men and women who occupied leadership positions during the Khmer Rouge reign of terror.
The courtroom physically separated its participants and the audience with a large wall of glass. Inside the fishbowl were the officials, judges, lawyers and security personnel. Courts are public storytelling venues. The prosecution carries the burden of telling the story to establish guilt. On this Monday, the prosecution laid out its case.
On the Tuesday, they made opening arguments in their own defence. They denied their responsibility for the crimes for which they were accused. As the trial proceeds, they will call witnesses and enter evidence to establish a counter narrative, such as that they acted to repel foreign invaders and to safeguard Cambodia.
Over the months and years to follow, the prosecution will introduce evidence supporting the charges. Then, the accused will be given an opportunity to present his or her side of the story. They continue to refuse to accept that they did anything wrong. This should come as no surprise, as it remains consistent with the mindset that formulated the policies for the killing fields.
I hadn’t come here to witness a “normal” murder trial. Not even the trial of the worst serial killer approached the body count attributed to the policies of these three men. Their crimes were an order of magnitude beyond anyone’s experience of homicide cases.
The systematic killing saw the scaling of murder to an industrial level. Men, women and children by the truckload were murdered day after day, for years, with no break between the killings. I observed the accused over the course of the proceedings as the Cambodian co-prosecutor read her opening statement.
The audience on opening statement was filled with ordinary Cambodians. They had come to witness the Khmer Rouge leadership, whose policies had visited death upon nearly every Cambodian family.
Ordinary Cambodians, students, relatives of victims and survivors all sat side by side in the audience to gaze upon the faces of the men who had unleashed the nightmare. The proceedings were also broadcast throughout Cambodia.
People in the remote countryside and in the cities and towns could watch on television or listen on the radio. The entire population of Cambodia finally had their chance after 32 years to hear details of the charges laid against the three accused.
This was far more than a legal proceeding; it was a place where those who had caused the killing fields would be judged. Not many ever thought that day would come. Or, if it did, that they would witness the proceedings. Yet, there they were, watching, remembering, coming to terms with the past, and searching the faces of those on the other side of the glass for answers.
Speaking truth of power has always been a rare event at any time, any place in the world. Those in power like to control information, shape the narrative and eliminate rival versions of the event. They use their power to control, monitor and supervise the movement of millions of people. Most of the time, such power operates virtually undetected in the background. We hardly notice the way government policies require us to move one way as opposed to another. When power goes off the rails, and murder becomes the policy, the role of Khmer Rouge leaders becomes a powerful parable of the nightmarish hell that follows.
Those who have sought to challenge authority historically have paid a heavy price. The case of Cambodia illustrates what happens when power and authority become detached and unbounded by normal values, ethics, beliefs or customs and descends into a vast killing machine. When I first traveled to Cambodia in March, 1993, it was as a correspondent to cover the UNTAC operation.
From March 1992 to September 24 1993, about 22,000 troops from around the world were sent to police a process of monitoring a ceasefire, overseeing elections and political rehabilitation.
Civil war continued, with the Khmer Rouge holed up in the north-western part of the country near the Thai border. It had been 14 years since the Khmer Rouge had been chased out of Phnom Penh.
UNTAC forces created a platform of stability essential to rebuild a new government structure and hold elections. The absence of peace, which lasted for years after UNTAC left, worked to the advantage of the Khmer Rouge by delaying their day of reckoning.
What no one envisioned in 1993 was that those responsible for the Khmer Rouge regime would be held accountable for their crimes against humanity and genocide. More than 18 years after I first reported on the UNTAC operation in Cambodia, I returned to witness the opening day of Case 002 in a hybrid court.
The structure, operation and selection of the court personnel is an experiment. The hybrid court is the result of a joint venture, bringing together international judges and principles of laws together with those of Cambodia. The intention was to create a venue that had legitimacy based on universal principles and recognised Cambodian local laws, values and interest.
Legitimacy is the key requirement. The court has to be accepted, not just by the international community, but also by Cambodians. The ECCC is UN-supported and funded, but established by Cambodian legislation. Can such a hybrid judicial system fulfil its promise to deliver justice that will satisfy the international community without destabilizing the political realities in contemporary Cambodia? The trial is a test of whether such a court structure is workable.
The alternative would have been for the accused to be sent off to The Hague for trial. While that might be a better guarantee to enforce international legal principles, it would have deprived the victims and their families of an opportunity to witness the trial first hand, to see for themselves the faces of the accused.
Also, the existing court structure has come up with a unique blending of public and private interests. The proceedings are inclusive in a way that hasn’t been attempted before in war crime trials. In Cambodia, thousands of individual civil complainants have lodged their cases with the courts.
The civilian cases will proceed along with the public cases before the same panel of judges. For Cambodians, Case 002 signals a significant political message. High-level government officials can be made to stand trial for certain types of policies.
On opening day, that message was graphic: the Khmer Rouge policymakers were in the dock. They had been arrested and detained. They were being compelled to explain their actions and rebut evidence of their crimes.
In many parts of the world, Southeast Asia included, the highest levels of political leadership have remained above the law and untouchable. For crimes against humanity and genocide, their traditional shield of immunity had now been stripped away. That is in itself a breathtaking idea for many in Cambodia and the region.
Previously, there had been no mechanism to make the political strongmen yield to principles of fairness, justice and equality. Policies by such leaders were left unchallenged, or those who sought to challenge them were imprisoned, exiled or murdered. On Monday, November 21, history turned a page on such immunity. Those who were too powerful ever to be questioned before were now standing trial, and facing life sentences if convicted.
The history of the Khmer Rouge is often reduced to a discussion of cold numbers. Pol Pot was Brother No 1. Nuon Chea, Brother No 2, was on trial. The designation of the cases brought before the ECCC were talked about in short-hand numerical code: Case 001 resulted in a conviction. Case 002 was for the policymakers.
Cases 003 and 004 were for the operational commanders in the field. Journalists, court officials and judges resort to the number game when discussing the history of the cases.
“It is doubtful 003 and 004 will proceed,” was a frequently voiced opinion among the court officials and journalists I spoke with. “Number 002 is the essential case as it focuses on those responsible for the Khmer Rouge’s policies.”
The number of people who died during the Khmer Rouge period is estimated to be between 1.7 and 2.2 million people: starvation, disease, exhaustion and execution. Eight hundred thousand are thought to have been executed. Our top mathematicians, like Professor John Paulos of Temple University, warn newspaper readers to be on guard when journalists use big, round numbers.
We must be cautious with such numbers, knowing the potential for inaccuracy is great. Let’s be honest. We can’t ever know with certainty the real number of people buried in the thousands of killing fields inside Cambodia.
One court official told me that forced marriages (one of the charges under the category of Crimes against Humanity) numbered in the tens of thousands. Another said there were 350,000 such marriages.
There are reports of 250,000 women who were forced into marriage by the Khmer Rouge. The sad reality is no one can verify the numbers or, in the case of forced marriages, the range of numbers at issue. The overall death toll of Cambodians during this period is another example of a large number range. So many Khmers and ethnic minorities died during the Pol Pot period that the best estimate of death has nearly a 30 per cent margin of error.
Another number is that 25 per cent of the Cambodian population during this period lost their lives. Again, no one knows or will ever know the real figure. Numbers are also an abstraction.
They represent people and lives, but they don’t have faces, families, dreams, hopes, friends. The shadows of the real people are in the distance behind the numbers. It is useful to place the 25 per cent death rate into a larger, global perspective. Killing 25 per cent of the current population of the United States translates to more than 70 million Americans dead, 300 million Chinese and another 300 million Indians, 20 million Germans, 17.5 million Thais and 47.5 million Brazilians. The numbers are staggering.
The Khmer Rouge targeted the educated urban populations, lawyers, judges, doctors, businessmen, artists, writers, students, teachers, civil servants, intellectuals and monks.
There is a story of a Cambodian along the road when an official car pulled up along side. He used the French greeting bonjour to the occupants inside and was greeted back in French. Later, Khmer Rouge cadre arrived, arrested the man and he was subsequently executed.
As in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others, some entitled to speak French, and, for others, French was a death sentence. One effect of killing this class of people was to cripple the ability to create an institutional mechanism to oppose state-sponsored murder. The Khmer Rouge ruthlessly killed all opposition.
The delay in justice is in part explained by the fact that the class of qualified people needed to administer justice was systematically eliminated. It wasn’t only that the justice system collapsed, but also that the network of people who staffed the previous political, social and economic system had been exterminated.
To this day, there are very few university-trained judges in Cambodia. The damage done by the Khmer Rouge has not been fully repaired after more than a generation. One purpose of this type of international trial for war crimes is to provide psychological aid and comfort to the traumatised survivors. It isn’t simply the guilt of the parties charged, but a way for the victims to come to terms with their past. The big questions are asked during such a trial.
Who among the leaders was responsible for the policies and who should be held accountable? What is the truth behind conflicting evidence and what matter of justice is sufficient, given the enormity of the crimes?
On the morning of November 21, Cambodian co-prosecutor Chea Leang, a woman with a master’s degree in law from a German university, opened with the case against three senior Khmer Rouge leaders: Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan. Her task was to outline the case to be tried over the next couple of years against the three accused.
A fourth accused, Ieng Thirith, wasn’t in the courtroom. A couple of days earlier, her case had been severed from the other three accused. The ECCC acted on evidence that Ieng Thirith suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, which interfered with her ability to participate in the proceedings.
Ieng Thirith studied English in Paris and was a Shakespearean scholar. In the preliminary proceedings before the start of the trial, Ieng Thirith had a history of ranting and raving in a King Lear-like way. Her voice won’t be heard during the current round of trials, given her mentally unstable condition.
Whether she will ever be tried is in doubt. With the exit of Ieng Thirith, that left three elderly men (all in their 80s) sitting motionless in the courtroom, listening to the litany of charges against them.
It was a chance to look directly at the faces of the men responsible for such death and suffering. They sat passively, expressionless, throughout the opening statement, as they listened to the charges brought against them.
There were no outbursts, no signs of emotional reaction. Nuon Chea’s eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. Like professional poker players, whatever they felt wasn’t expressed on their faces.
At an ECCC press conference on the Sunday before the trial, court officials estimated the length of the trial to be approximately two years. That is, if everything went according to plan. Add another year for the appeals process, and the final verdict shouldn’t be expected before November 2014.
Given the age of the trio, it will be a race against time to see justice is done before actuarial realities come into play. Pol Pot, Brother No 1, died in 1998, a true believer and defiant to the end. It remains to be seen whether his colleagues on trial will take a similar stance on their involvement in policy formulation and implementation, or whether they will, like Duch, the head of the infamous S-21 security centre, admit their guilt. By day two, it was clear the three men, like Pol Pot, would not admit guilt and defend their actions.
Part two will run in tomorrow’s Post. Christopher G Moore is the author of 23 novels, including Zero Hour in Phnom Penh.
Vietnam blame game
The Phnom Penh Post: Bridget Di Certo and Cheang Sokha
Wednesday, 07 December 2011
Photo by: Eccc/Pool: to see this photo, clcik on the title of thsi article
"Brother Number 2" Nuon Chea stands trial.
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(Comments: Youk Chhang has characterized Nuon Chea’s accusation of Vietnam as being the real cause for the Khmer Rouge to defend Cambodia, as an act of demonizing Vietnam is to say the least, inaccurate, if not downright false, historically and ideologically speaking.
In reality, it is Youk Chhang who is doing all he can to demonize the Khmer Rouge, as much as he can to make the Vietnamese as the ones who saved Cambodia and its people, despite the evidence from the Soviet archives by a Russian scholar, Dmitry Mosyakov, who wrote an article titled “The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists,” (Please, go to this link to read the full article; Mosyakov dmitri the KR and the Veitnamese.pdf ) in which he showed that the Vietnamese were in the process of integrating Cambodia and Laos into a Federation of Indochina, under the Vietnamese control, as follows:
“The Vietnamese leadership did not even hide the fact that the Cambodian Communist Party, in association with the Vietnamese Workers Party (VWP), was given the role of the “younger brother”, obliged to follow the directions of the “elder brother”. The secretary of the VWP Central Committee, Hoang Anh, for instance, in his speech on the twentieth VWP Central Committee plenary meeting held in January, 1971, declared: “We should strengthen the revolutionary base in Cambodia and guide this country along the path of socialism. Here is the policy of our party” (RSAMH, Fund 89, list 54, document 3, p.21). Moreover, Soviet diplomats working in Hanoi noted: “Vietnamese comrades last year carefully raised one of the clauses of the former Indochina Communist Party program concerning creation of the socialist Federation of Indochina.
The sense of this federation formation was the unification of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia into one state after the victory of the Indochinese revolution under the direction of Vietnamese communists as “the elder brothers.” It is natural that all these plans of Hanoi leaders were well known in Cambodia and could not help raising certain animosity and mistrust among Khmer communists not taking into consideration their views on Cambodia’s future. Soviet representatives in Vietnam were well aware of the wary and even hostile attitude of Khmer and Lao communists to Hanoi’s plans on restriction of the independence of Laos and Cambodia and a new reorganization of the former territory of French Indochina.”
Therefore, the Khmer Rouge was reacting to this Vietnamese’s hegemonic design over Cambodia that led them to commit the crime against their own people. In this case, who is more demon than the other? The Vietnamese or the Khmer Rouge? It is clear that they are both demons, as far as the Cambodian people are concerned.
Youk Chhang is playing this very deadly game in pursue of his own narrow personal interest in demonizing the Khmer Rouge; and in the process, he is making Vietnam a lesser of the two demons, at the cost of Cambodia’s loss of its sovereignty and independence.
In commenting on this issue, I expect that I will be accused of supporting the Khmer rouge. But, my only purpose is to show that there are two demons here, the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge. They are both demons, but, the Khmer Rouge is no longer in power, they are going to be punished by the tribunal as they should; while the Vietnamese are in power and in full control of Cambodia’s destiny, to do more harm to Cambodia and its people, with the help of Hun Sen and with the full support of Sihanouk. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. December 7, 2011)
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Nuon Chea’s continued demonisation of Vietnam is incorrect, incomprehensible and downright “stupid”, victims and observers said yesterday after the former Khmer Rouge leader’s second straight day on the stand.
At day two of evidence hearings at the Khmer Rouge tribunal yesterday, “Brother Number 2” maintained his position that without the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia would have been swallowed by Vietnam, a country that intends to exterminate the Khmer race. He supports his theory with a frequently recited and detailed history of Vietnam's attempts to annex Cambodian territory – an intention that continues, according to him.
Documentation Centre of Cambodia director Youk Chhang said Nuon Chea’s continued denunciation of Vietnam was simply “stupid”. His determination to paint Vietnam as the villain in all Khmer Rouge affairs was “a self-styled suicide”, Youk Chhang said. “The ECCC is a court, not a forum for reconciliation.”
The Khmer Rouge had a complex relationship with the Communist Party of Vietnam. Nuon Chea himself received political and allegedly military training in Vietnam, where he lived from 1951 to 1953, and was later responsible for liaising with the Vietnamese, according to the indictment against him.
“It is no secret that many Khmer Rouge cadre were trained by Vietnam,” Youk Chhang said. “For diplomatic relations, they were together and yet they were fighting each other.”
Prak Sam-on, an ethnic Vietnamese civil party in Case 002, told the Post he watched his siblings frog-marched to execution by the Khmer Rouge.
“I have seen directly with my own eyes Khmer Rouge cadres escorting Cambodian Vietnamese people to be killed,” the Kampong Chhnang resident said. “The Vietnamese were treated badly by the Khmer Rouge – forced to work harder and given less to eat than Cambodians or even Chinese people. I only survived by fleeing to Vietnam.”
Another Vietnamese civil party who attended the evidence hearing yesterday, 66 year-old Lach Kry, from Prey Veng, said 28 of his ethnic Vietnamese relatives were murdered by Khmer Rouge cadre.
“I strongly disagree and find it unacceptable what Nuon Chea said about Vietnam killing Cambodian people,” Lach Kry said. “In Prey Veng, we were eye witnesses to cadre bringing Vietnamese to be killed.”
Lach Kry echoed Prak Sam-on’s recollections of discriminatory and oppressive treatment of ethnic Vietnamese in comparison to ethnic Khmer.
“I want justice for my relatives,” he said.
Civil Party lawyers fear race relations between the two countries is polluting the treatment of Vietnamese genocide victims at the tribunal.
Lyma Nguyen, international civil party lawyer representing the Vietnamese, said the tribunal’s Trial Chamber had grossly misrepresented Vietnamese reparations requests.
In a public document released last month, the Trial Chamber admonished the civil parties for requesting citizenship for all ethnic Vietnamese, a completely incorrect interpretation of reparations requests, Nguyen said.
“We requested a facilitation mechanism for those Cambodian citizens who, as a direct result of crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge – namely, forced deportation out of Cambodia – lost any means of verifying their connections with Cambodia upon their return,” she said, adding that demographic reports show 100 per cent of the Vietnamese population was eliminated in Cambodia by 1979.
The first civil party to take the stand in court for Case 002, ethnic Kachak minority Klan Fit, a former district deputy in Ratanakkiri, recounted how it was clear the “Youn” – a slanderous term for Vietnamese – were the enemy.
“We were told they were the enemy, because of all the land-grabbing,” Klan Fit told the court. “But we had to call them ‘Vietnamese’ to their faces.”
But crimes of persecution and genocide of ethnic Vietnamese may never reach the tribunal. The Trial Chamber has still not scheduled a day for hearing the charges of genocide against the elderly KR trio, since splitting Case 002 into a series of mini-trials.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Hun Sen, meeting with a senior delegation from the Communist Party of Vietnam, once again thanked Vietnam for their help in liberating Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge regime, Eang Sophalleth, Hun Sen’s personal assistant, told the Post.
Corruption unchecked
Mary Kozlovski and Chhay Channyda
The Phnom Penh Post: Friday, 02 December 2011
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(Comments: Transparency International (TI) last year has lowered the ranking of Cambodia as one of the being most corrupt regimes in the world from 154 to 164, or the score of 2.1 out 10 (1 being the most corrupt; while 10 being clean or having no corruption. Corruption in Cambodia is pervasive and systemic. Corruption is a culture in Cambodia that dated back to the Angkor time, (please, see three other related articles posted below titled “Modern Cambodian politics in the long view: internal and external forces, “When of ancient glory meets modern tragedy,” “Reflections on Cambodian History,” and “When ancient glory meets modern tragedy.” (To read all these articles please, click on this link; Modern Cambodian politics in the long view, internal and external forces.docx )
As the authors of that article have pointed out that;
“It is very easy for political analysis of Cambodia to fall into one of two polarized camps. The first blames Cambodia’s problems on external influences, emphasizing the way in which Cambodia, as a small and poor post-colonial nation, was overwhelmed by the forces of unprincipled Cold War geopolitics in the 1970s, and has since been dominated and exploited by more powerful neighbours. The second argues that, enormous as these forces were, they should not mask recognition of the fact that there are strong threads of historical continuity in the nature of state-society relationships in Cambodia, arguably spanning pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial regimes, and that most of these persistent themes – a discourse of power which is profoundly incompatible with the principles of democracy or human rights, a weakness of formal state institutions vis-à-vis informal patronage networks – are profoundly anti-poor in nature. Long-term historical analysis, in other words, tends to encourage a pessimistic, “path dependent” interpretation of Cambodian politics.
Therefore, if the Cambodian people are to have any chance to survive at all, they must first understand these two aspects of Cambodia major cultural faults. It is not easy for most Cambodians to face and come up with a cool and rational solution for this extremely deadly and destructive cultural and behavioral weakness, as they tend to hide these weaknesses by invoking the glory of Angkor as the representation the perfection of Cambodia achievement, as Pol Pot was quoted to have said that “If we can build Angkor, we can do anything.”
Evading the problem is not solving it. Only by confronting it, can Cambodians begin to find a path to a solution to this deep-rooted and devastating cultural problem.
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. December 5, 2011)
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The release of the annual Corruption Perception Index from Transparency International (TI) yesterday left the Kingdom in a familiar position – low and lacking upward momentum.
The report, which ranks 183 countries across a broad range of categories including bribery, kickbacks and the effectiveness of anti-corruption efforts in the public sector, saw Cambodia finish with a score of 2.1 out of 10, the same score attained in last year’s CPI.
Its ranking relative to the other countries on the list, meanwhile, slid 10 places – from 154 to 164 – though that was influenced to a large degree by the addition of five new countries.
Climbing up the list – the Kingdom is still looking up at Zimbabwe and neighbouring Laos among others – will require the fledgling Anticorruption Unit to take the lead role in battling public sector corruption, a representative from Transparency International said yesterday.
“The ACU is undertaking the most difficult job compared to the other institutions of the government,” said TI country representative Preap Kol, who credited the ACU for investigating high-profile corruption cases and addressing “facilitation fees” charged by officials in exchange for public services.
“It’s very new, so it needs some time to strengthen their capacity,” he said.
Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, said he was unsurprised the perception of corruption in Cambodia remained the same.
“Corruption is so widespread . . . [and] there are so many people considered to be untouchable, that I think it’s going to very difficult, even if there’s some political will, and I think the ACU hasn’t passed the test yet,” he said, conceding that the ACU’s performance has been hampered by a lack of resources.
The Anticorruption Unit was established following the passage of the Anticorruption Law in March of last year.
At a meeting in the capital last month, ACU head Om Yentieng announced that ministries must submit a set list of charges for public services to Prime Minister Hun Sen for approval to avoid allegations of bribery and corruption, after showing that all ministries were in some way overcharging for services.
Om Yentieng also said the ACU had been overwhelmed with complaints and lacked resources to adequately investigate them.
ACU spokesman Keo Remy was not available for comment yesterday. However, Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan said there was “no specific formula” for identifying corruption and the ACU and the anticorruption law had helped to reduce corruption.
“We have arrested many corrupt officials, including high-ranking officials, to put in jail,” he said. “We are not tolerant [of corruption] anymore.”
Preap Kol said TI’s Corruption Barometer released last year showed Cambodians identified the judiciary as the most corrupt institution, followed by the police and public officials.
The CPI used 17 data sources from 13 institutions, including the World Bank and the ADB, to rank peoples’ perceptions of public sector corruption.
Modern Cambodian politics in the long view: internal and external forces
Excerpt from: Understanding pro-poor political change: the policy process
Cambodia
By Caroline Hughes and Tim Convay
Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
London
Second draft – August 2003
http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/DOC11.pdf
Executive Summary
This study analyses trajectories of change in state-society relations and their implications for pro-poor policy-making in Cambodia, using the concepts of political tradition, institutions and regime type form the key levels of analysis. A brief political history and a summary of the key known facts about patterns and trends in poverty provide a context for the discussion of political processes and policy-making. It takes a medium- to long-term perspective, tracing the principal features of contemporary politics to the ways in which the state was reconstructed in the 1980s in the aftermath of civil conflict, state collapse, and occupation by Vietnam. It details the impact of this historical context on the attitudes and relationships that exist among officials, and the effect of these on the institutions of state that have emerged in the 1990s; the relationships between state and society; and the opportunities for individual reformers within this context to initiate and promote pro-poor policy change. It goes on to examine the possibilities for engagement in policy making by non-state stakeholders, and finishes with recommendations for donor intervention.
It is very easy for political analysis of Cambodia to fall into one of two polarized camps. The first blames Cambodia’s problems on external influences, emphasizing the way in which Cambodia, as a small and poor post-colonial nation, was overwhelmed by the forces of unprincipled Cold War geopolitics in the 1970s, and has since been dominated and exploited by more powerful neighbours. The second argues that, enormous as these forces were, they should not mask recognition of the fact that there are strong threads of historical continuity in the nature of state-society relationships in Cambodia, arguably spanning pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial regimes, and that most of these persistent themes – a discourse of power which is profoundly incompatible with the principles of democracy or human rights, a weakness of formal state institutions vis-à-vis informal patronage networks – are profoundly anti-poor in nature. Long-term historical analysis, in other words, tends to encourage a pessimistic, “path dependent” interpretation of Cambodian politics.
An accurate and above all policy-relevant political analysis requires recognition that both perspectives have some validity, but that neither can provide a complete explanation. There are strong forces which mitigate against the production and implementation of pro-poor policy, but these cannot adequately described in terms of path dependency due to unchanging historical structures. By looking at the period since 1979 - and by examining political change in terms of the interrelationships between the three levels of institutions, regime type and political tradition - it becomes clear that many of the phenomena which structure incentives, opportunities and constraints in contemporary politics are distinctively modern, albeit reflecting elements of a historical tradition.
Post-conflict state-building, transition and contemporary political traditions
The Cambodian state was rebuilt, almost from scratch, in the aftermath of the massive destruction of the “Khmer Rouge” regime of Democratic Kampuchea (DK), in a context of civil war, famine and international sanctions. International intervention throughout the 1980s comprised occupation by the Vietnamese Army, economic and diplomatic support by the Soviet Bloc, and sanctions and insurgency supported by China and the West. Arguably, contemporary behaviour reflects attitudes shaped during this formative period. During the 1980s the state suffered from low levels of material resources and political legitimacy. Its main rationale was to hang together and to prevent a resurrection of the DK regime. It undertook some institution building (including in the areas of health and education): but, in an atmosphere of insecurity and constrained by severely limited resources, achievements were limited. Efforts to exert discipline in the interests of policy effectiveness were secondary to efforts to promote loyalty, with the latter achieved to a great extent at the direct expense of the former. The move to the free market in 1989 opened the door to dramatic levels of corruption and a very low level of effective control over state officials by the centre.
The UN-sponsored ceasefire of 1991 was perceived and consequently both the will and the capacity to implement the policies being urged by incoming donors was limited. Today, state officials continue to emphasise loyalty over efficiency and to promote opportunities for rent-seeking which exploit the poor, as a means to ensure the loyalty of subordinates.
Loyalty within the state apparatus is organised through networks of personal allegiance, and it is these, to a great extent, which maintain the cohesion and residual effectiveness of the state apparatus. Forms of personal allegiance include political allegiances, friendships, kinship, and patron-client relations. These tie the state to the party and the civilian bureaucracy to the military. They are capable of very effective mobilisation at times – for example, during election periods they are mobilised to support the campaigning of the dominant party, the Cambodian People’s Party. However, they are also dependent to a significant extent upon informal flows of resources, including funds skimmed from international aid donations, “gifts” and bribes extracted from the population and foreign investors, and rents gained from illegal expropriation of natural resources such as timber and land.
The networks of loyalty that underpin the state apparatus consequently resemble informal networks for the extraction of resources from society- and frequently directly from the poor. Loyalty from state officials is elicited through the protection of rent-seeking activities conducted by officials at every level from the lowliest rural school to the office of the Prime Minister. The ubiquity of involvement of state officials in these networks can be attributed largely to the extremely low levels of official salaries which are far too low to support an individual, let alone a family.
To the extent that rent-seeking functions have come to dominate state activity, the state operates directly at odds with the interests of the poor. Although some resources are ploughed back into society to elicit support for example at election time, through the building of roads and schools, this is done in a manner designed for political rather than economic effect. The personalism, populism, and exploitative nature of the state apparatus mean that it not only operates in a significantly different manner from a Weberian rational bureaucracy, but that state officials will see it as being in their interests to actively resist rationalisation, since rationalisation limits freedom to use public positions to extract rents from the population.
Formal and informal institutions of governance
The 1993 Constitution envisaged liberal institutions of state, including an elected legislature with oversight over the executive, and an independent judiciary. Local administration is organised into four layers – provincial (khaet), district (srok), commune (khum) and village (phuum). In 2002, elections were held to form commune councils to govern at the commune level. Other levels of local government are appointed.
The functioning of government as envisaged by the constitution has been seriously hampered by the networks of loyalty that run through the institutions of state, even though it is also likely that without these networks of loyalty, these institutions would have difficulty cohering at all. Networks of loyalty have tended to preserve the politicisation of state institutions, and to permit the dominance of those institutions, such as the executive and the armed forces, which have recourse to violence. The National Assembly has been largely unsuccessful in exercising vigorous oversight of the executive. The judiciary is poorly trained and resourced, and subordinate to other branches of power.
Within the executive branch, power and influence are concentrated in informal networks. The key power relationship that underpins all others is, arguably, the relationship between the Office of the Prime Minister and senior figures in the Armed Forces. In a highly militarised society, where law is poorly enforced, the allegiance of the military remains essential to power-holders. The military is a highly entrepreneurial operation, engaged in logging, smuggling and other illegal economic activities. Protection of these activities is the key to power in Cambodia.
It is important to note, however, that the state does not operate as a rational bureaucracy in pursuit of these interests. Contending networks exist and vie for control of resources. Over the course of the 1990s conflicts have been noted between different branches of government, between the military and the police, and between different factions in the Cambodian People’s Party. Power and influence are fluid and move around the system as individuals rise and fall. The star of any particular ministry tends to wax and wane, largely depending upon the personal relationship between the minister and the Prime Minister, and the ability of the ministry to capture resources, either from the local population or from international donors.
Approaches to donor-led reforms
Since 1998, donors have attempted to promote a far-reaching programme of public sector reform, including promotion of good governance, judicial and legal reform, anti-corruption, natural resource management and demobilization within the military.
The government has apparently engaged with these reform processes, but progress has been slow. Military demobilisation, for example, has been hampered by disagreements over numbers, with suspicions that these have been inflated drastically to render demobilisation cosmetic. Natural resource management continues to be problematic: the recent collapse of independent monitoring arrangements for the forestry sector, and the erection of a much weaker monitoring regime to replace it, raise concerns regarding the government’s priorities in an election year. Incidents of pro-reform political activism (e.g. to remove officials denounced for corruption) have occurred but these are isolated and have not been translated into a sustained drive for rationalisation. The response to reforms seems to have been to attempt to preserve the discretion of action necessary to facilitate the rent-seeking which supports the networks of allegiance which simultaneously sustain and constrain state effectiveness.
The political discourse of poverty and development While there are obviously differences between and within each, the Khmer discourse of the causes and nature of poverty overlaps reasonably well with that of most donors and international NGOs. Where there are differences, these are largely to do with the degree to which it is seen that the poor could or should be agents of development in their own right: development is seen as something to be brought to the countryside from outside, by government, parties, NGOs and donors. Officials interviewed in the study regarded poverty as closely associated with weakness, vulnerability and ignorance, and viewed these characteristics – which they attributed widely to the Cambodian population, particularly in rural areas – as inconsistent with development. Development was seen as technologically driven and state-led, requiring the input of resources from donors. Participation of the unruly and ignorant poor in setting development priorities was viewed as dangerous, and the poor were frequently blamed by government officials for problems such as environmental degradation.
Government’s role in poverty reduction was seen by government officials as problematic primarily due to a lack of state capacity, echoing views expressed widely by donors over the last ten years. Government officials regarded increased training of their own staff, access high-tech solutions and greater funds, particularly for higher salaries, as essential to increase motivations and abilities.
To an extent this approach to poverty and reform is a rationalisation of an inactivity that is chosen, rather than enforced. Problems of poor implementation of policies in the periphery are blamed on underpaid and undereducated staff with the implication, spoken or unspoken, that these staff are underpaid and undereducated because Cambodia “is a poor country.” What is rarely addressed is how public expenditure decisions - at the very highest levels - prioritise military spending (c. 50% of public spending over most of the 1990s) and resist pressure for greater spending on social services. Individual ministers claim ignorance and a lack of influence to exculpate themselves from any blame for the situation.
Dropping the presumption that the military must be continually placated would open up wide vistas for reform. However, dropping this presumption would be politically difficult for the Cambodian People’s Party, which continues to advance the defence of the country against “Pol Potists” and “terrorists” (perhaps justifiably) as its main achievement in nearly 25 years of power. Further, this is a case in which the end has been supplanted by the means – in other words, the hijacking of resources for the military, the promotion of loyalists into key military positions where they can accumulate these resources and disburse them electively to enhance their own power, has to an extent become an end in itself.
As Myanmar Eases Controls, U.S. Sees Diplomatic Opening
By THOMAS FULLER and MARK LANDLER
The New York Times; Published: November 18, 2011
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(Comments: this article is a clear message for the Cambodian people who are seeking to free Cambodia and itself, from the current deadly internal and external oppression. The message from Burma or also kown as Myanmar, is that only when the Cambodian people know what kind of leader Cambodia needs to have like Aung San Suu Kyi, can Cambodia begin to find its way out of the current deadly traps it is now in.
To have such leader with dignity, patience, intelligence, perseverance, and courage, as shown by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Cambodian people should never compromise on these required qualities for a real and capable leader, who would be able to help cambodia out of the current double tragety, due to internal and external oppressions. (Please, see her bio posted below).
As the article has clearly shown that due to her exceptional courage, sacrifice for her people, and patience, Aung San Suu Kyi has attracted respect from all four corners of the world leaders, including president Obama, is captured by the following paragraph:
“For Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the decision to reregister her party and compete in elections in the military-backed system represents a historic shift. Known globally as a symbol of endurance in the face of dictatorship, she has spent most of her 23 years in politics battling the country’s generals, much of that time in prison or under house arrest. Now she is joining the system they created. “
Cambodia needs badly such high-quality and courageous leader, to lead Cambodia out of the current death traps. In turn, such great leader can only be found if the Cambodian people stop compromising on the qualities that are needed for such leader. Currently, Cambodian opposition leaders (Kem Sokha and Sam Rainsy) do not have the minimum of needed moral qualities to face up to traitors Hun Sen and Sihanouk, not to mention their boss, the Vietnamese conquerors. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. December 2, 2011)
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BANGKOK — The long-isolated nation of Myanmar embarked on a potentially decisive shift in direction on Friday, as its main opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, agreed to rejoin the country’s political system and Hillary Rodham Clinton prepared to become the first secretary of state and highest-ranking American to visit the country in half a century.
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Soe Than Win/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi left the headquarters of the National League for Democracy in Yangon after a meeting on Friday.
Multimedia
TimesCast | A Milestone For Myanmar
TimesCast | A Milestone For Myanmar
The confluence of events, though weeks in the making, unfolded with dramatic speed during a tour of Southeast Asia by President Obama, and underscored the central message of the president’s trip: that the United States intended to reassert itself in the Asia-Pacific region to limit the influence of a rising China.
Under decades of military rule, Myanmar, also known as Burma, counted neighboring China as its primary ally and economic partner. But a new cast of leaders there has begun to ease political controls, court the opposition and repair relations with Western and other Asian powers, an opportunity the Obama administration has eagerly embraced.
Combined with the announcements this week that the United States would station 2,500 Marines in Australia and that it intended to enhance military ties with the Philippines, Mr. Obama’s decision to send Mrs. Clinton to Myanmar next month clearly rattled Beijing, which has issued a series of warnings claiming that the United States is seeking to destabilize the political and military situation in the region.
“We are seeing a very significant new phase in U.S. policy toward China,” said Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a top China adviser in the Clinton administration, “a much more active, integrated, assertive U.S. posture in Asia than anyone expected six months ago.”
For Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the decision to reregister her party and compete in elections in the military-backed system represents a historic shift. Known globally as a symbol of endurance in the face of dictatorship, she has spent most of her 23 years in politics battling the country’s generals, much of that time in prison or under house arrest. Now she is joining the system they created.
The civilian government that took power in March is dominated by former generals, including President Thein Sein. It has sought to liberalize Myanmar’s moribund economy and pushed the country toward a more open political system, wooing Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi in a carefully choreographed rapprochement.
In announcing Mrs. Clinton’s plans to visit, Mr. Obama cited “flickers of progress” in the country. The United States, he said, remains concerned about human rights abuses, the persecution of democratic reformers and brutality toward ethnic minorities.
But he hailed policies by Mr. Thein Sein as leading the country “on the path toward reform.” He cited the government’s cooperation with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the release of political prisoners and the relaxation of media restrictions. “These are the most important steps toward reform in Burma that we’ve seen in years,” Mr. Obama said.
The subtext is that Myanmar has unexpectedly become a kind of diplomatic prize for the United States, which is eager to show its traditional allies in Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand, that it is no longer distracted by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that it is advancing democratic interests, promoting free-market economic reform and counterbalancing the power of authoritarian China.
While Mr. Obama traveled to Australia to seal an arrangement to base Marines there, Mrs. Clinton signed a declaration with the Philippines on the deck of an American destroyer that called for disputes over maritime claims in the South China Sea to be settled through a “multilateral” process — something China has flatly rejected and a term the United States avoided when it first waded into the South China Sea dispute in July 2010.
She also somewhat provocatively referred to the South China Sea as the West Philippine Sea, a term preferred in the Philippines but reviled in Beijing.
Such moves, added together, may prompt broader alarm in China. “With their mind-set, whatever you do, it may be considered part of a conspiracy,” said Cheng Li, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Some China watchers say the American moves may feed suspicions in China that the United States is seeking to encircle it because it is uneasy with having an economic and military rival.
Indeed, China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, warned the United States on Friday to steer clear of territorial disputes between China and its neighbors, saying they ought to be resolved directly “through friendly consultations.” And the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed concern about the political changes in Myanmar, saying it hoped they would not destabilize the country.
In September, China aimed its anger at Myanmar after it suspended a Chinese-led project to build a hydroelectric dam in northern Myanmar, creating a rare rift between the countries.
This tension helps explain Myanmar’s openness to dealing with the United States, which was itself eager to expand its presence in the region — as Mrs. Clinton articulated in an article published this month in Foreign Policy magazine titled “America’s Pacific Century.”
“As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point,” Mrs. Clinton wrote in the article. The United States should resist the temptation of downsizing its “foreign engagement” after the wars, she said, because engagement in Asia “is critical to America’s future.”
Administration officials say they are trying to bring China into the club of responsible great powers. Mrs. Clinton; Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser; and others have labored, with mixed results, to enlist China in problems like climate change, global economic imbalances and renegade nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.
But progress is halting, officials admit. A senior administration official described China as a “peculiar adolescent that can no longer hide behind its status as a developing nation, but does not see itself with the full responsibility of a global power.”
Closer ties to the United States would bring Myanmar full circle to its years immediately after independence from Britain in 1948. At the time Myanmar sought close ties with the West to balance relations with China, said Thant Myint-U, a historian and former United Nations official.
In recent years, China has become one of Myanmar’s largest trade partners, lured by bountiful natural resources. Myanmar has relied on China for much-needed investment, partly to mitigate the effects of Western sanctions.
Yet anti-Chinese sentiment has flared up periodically in Myanmar’s history, and observers said resentment at China’s plans to consume nearly all of the power from the halted dam was one reason the plan was so unpopular.
Aung Din, the executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, a pressure group that supports Myanmar’s democracy movement, says he saw the seeds of backlash against Chinese interests in Myanmar. “Many projects are carried out by Chinese companies; prominent businessmen are Chinese; everything belongs to China, actually,” he said. “If we don’t take any action, Burma will become a satellite state of China.”
Mrs. Clinton’s visit, he said, might encourage the Burmese government and people “to confront Chinese interests.”
Thomas Fuller reported from Bangkok, and Mark Landler from Washington.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 18, 2011
Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article gave the wrong city as Myanmar’s capital. It is Naypyidaw, not Yangon.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Bio
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http://www.biography.com/people/daw-aung-san-suu-kyi-9192617?page=2
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(Comments: Cambodia does not have such leader as Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Prize Laureate, and an Oxford University graduate, with great courage, dignity, perseverance, intellectual capability, and great patience, and endurance. Until Cambodians can come up with such qualities leader, there is not much chance that the Cambodian people can get out the current deadly mess in which they find themselves in now.
Cambodia is the only country in the world where a traitor has become leader, and strongly supported by a former god-king who also committed treason against his people whom he called his “children.”
For these very reasons, Cambodia is known as the “Country of the Absurd.” Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. December 7, 2011)
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In 1988, when Daw Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma, the mass slaughter of protesters against the brutal rule of strongman U Ne Win led her to speak out against him and to begin a nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights. In July 1989 the government placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, a state she has been in ever since. In 1991, she won the Nobel Prize for Peace for her efforts.
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(Born June 19, 1945, Rangoon, Burma [now Yangon, Myanmar]). Myanmar opposition leader, daughter of Aung San (a martyred national hero of independent Burma) and Khin Kyi (a prominent Burmese diplomat), and winner in 1991 of the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Aung San Suu Kyi was two years old when her father, then the de facto prime minister of what would shortly become independent Burma, was assassinated. She attended schools in Burma until 1960, when her mother was appointed ambassador to India. After further study in India, she attended the University of Oxford, where she met her future husband. She had two children and lived a rather quiet life until 1988, when she returned to Burma to nurse her dying mother. There the mass slaughter of protesters against the brutal and unresponsive rule of the military strongman U Ne Win led her to speak out against him and to begin a nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights. In July 1989 the military government of the newly named Union of Myanmar placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and held her incommunicado. The military offered to free her if she agreed to leave Myanmar, but she refused to do so until the country was returned to civilian government and political prisoners were freed. The newly formed group with which she became affiliated, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won more than 80 percent of the parliamentary seats that were contested in 1990, but the results of that election were ignored by the military government (in 2010 the military government formally annulled the results of the 1990 election).
Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest in July 1995. The following year she attended the NLD party congress, but the military government continued to harass both her and her party. In 1998 she announced the formation of a representative committee that she declared was the country's legitimate ruling parliament. The military junta once again placed her under house arrest from September 2000 to May 2002. Following clashes between the NLD and pro-government demonstrators in 2003, the government returned her to house arrest. Calls for her release continued throughout the international community in the face of her sentence's annual renewal, and in 2009 a United Nations body declared her detention illegal under Myanmar's own law. In 2008 the conditions of her house arrest were somewhat loosened, allowing her to receive some magazines as well as letters from her children.
In May 2009, shortly before her most recent sentence was to be completed, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested and charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest after an intruder (a U.S. citizen) entered her house compound and spent two nights there. In August she was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, though the sentence immediately was reduced to 18 months, and she was allowed to serve it while remaining under house arrest. At the time of her conviction, the belief was widespread both within and outside of Myanmar that this latest ruling was designed to prevent Aung from participating in multiparty parliamentary elections (the first since 1990) scheduled for 2010.
This suspicion became reality through a series of new election laws enacted in March 2010: one prohibited individuals from any participation in elections if they had been convicted of a crime (as she had been in 2009), and another disqualified anyone who was married to a foreign national from running for office (her husband was British). In support of Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD refused to reregister under these new laws (as was required) and was disbanded. The government parties faced little opposition in the Nov. 7, 2010, election and easily won an overwhelming majority of legislative seats amid widespread allegations of voter fraud. Aung was released from house arrest six days after the election and vowed to continue her opposition to military rule.
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An uneasy peace
Southeast Asia Global :Monday, October 17, 2011 –
by Dr. Markus Karbaum
http://www.sea-globe.com/Regional-Affairs/an-uneasy-peace.html
Twenty years ago the Paris Peace Accords promised a new dawn for Cambodia. How has the country fared?
Prince Norodom Sihanouk, French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas and Hun Sen, before the start of peace talks in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, in Paris, 1989
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(Comments: this article titled "An uneasy peace", by Dr. Markus Karbaum, provides an excellent, ballanced analysis, and assessment of the conceptualization, background, and implementation of the 1991 Paris Accords on Cambodia.
The photo shown above of Sihanouk, and Hun Sen in 1989, marked another infernal round of Sihanouk's endless serie of betrayals of Cambodia and its people, by constantly switching his alliance from his alliance with the Khmer Rouge and against the Vietnamese, - to his alliance with Hun Sen and the Vietnamese. What really motivates Sihanouk in his flip flop behabior, is his deep addiction to power, and not his love for and the defence of the national interests of Cambodia and the cambodian people.
It is highly recommended to all those who are interested in the history of the 1991 Paris Accords on Cambodia, to read this document, in order to better understnad its negative and positive impact on present-day Cambodia. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 30, 2011)
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This month marks the twentieth anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords. The agreement that supposedly marked the end of hostilities and the beginning of reconstruction in Cambodia was the conclusion of four years of talks that brought together the United Nations secretary general, four Cambodian factions and 18 representatives from other states. It was by no means an easy feat.
From 1970 until pen was put to paper on October 23, 1991, Cambodia was one of the world's bloodiest battlefields. Ravaged by a war, genocide and civil war that collectively claimed millions of lives, the country was torn apart during the darkest episode in its history. Hostilities between the different factions continued through the 1990s, all spurred by a common aim: power and legitimacy.
1991 proved the year Cambodia finally faced up to a destructive trajectory that had devastated all aspects of life in the country. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in January 1979, the new People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) emerged as a socialist country, controlled by its Vietnamese occupier. Very similar to the present day, Cambodia was deeply dependent on foreign aid – at that time from the Eastern Bloc, especially the Soviet Union. And as was common during the Cold War, Cambodia was thus cut off from Western aid, despite a grave need for it.
Cambodia quickly became a key player in the East's Iron Curtain, which ran along the Thai-Laotian and Thai-Cambodian border. Fearing the Communist domino effect could come into play in Southeast Asia, and looking to avenge its humiliating defeat in Vietnam, the United States – along with a coalition that included other Western allies, Thailand and China – stoked hostilities in the Kingdom for a further 12 years.
The anti-PRK coalition was a surprising amalgamation of groups with different ideals. Its figurehead was Prince Norodom Sihanouk, former Cambodian king and head of state.
His royalist party, Funcinpec, was much weaker militarily than his allies, the Khmer Rouge, who provided the vast majority of the resistance troops. Sihanouk and the ultra-Maoists had been allied already in the early 1970s, when General Lon Nol toppled the prince and abolished the monarchy. Some of Lon Nol's former supporters also joined the coalition as the Khmer People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF), the smallest rebel group.
However, the 'partnership' between Funcinpec, the KPNLF and the Khmer Rouge (who killed hundreds of thousands of royalists and republicans earlier) was of convenience only. Only their resistance to a new common enemy united them: Vietnam's occupation force and its puppet government in Phnom Penh, whose survival relied on Hanoi's presence in the country.
In 1989, the PRK regime – by that time renamed the State of Cambodia (SOC) – faced an economic crisis. Vietnam withdrew its forces at the same time the Soviet Union faced serious economic problems. Eastern Europe was in turmoil and the collapse of the post-World War Two, bipolar world went from an abstract scenario to a possible reality.
With financial support waning, Cambodia was on the brink of total disintegration and on the verge of becoming what would later be described as a 'failing state'. All parties (except the Khmer Rouge) were under incredible pressure to find a solution. The answer came in the form of a peace treaty, a fundamental condition for Western aid. Of course, the lure of billions of dollars made it easier for the enemies to come together and forge an agreement.
Although the Cold War was over, the international community maintained a strong presence in the Cambodian conflict. The royalists had excellent connections to France, whereas the supporters of the republican KPNLF were mainly based in the US.
China, who had backed the Khmer Rouge from the movement's inception in the 1960s, continued to support the group in order to contain the influence of Vietnam – who ousted the Khmer Rouge and maintained powerful influence in the country through the Hun Sen government.
However, the destructive rivalry between the two regional powers, China and Vietnam, opened the door to a 'Western-style' solution: general elections and a liberal constitution accompanied by a UN peacekeeping mission. Under the belief that they would each win the election, the government, Funcinpec and the KPNLF agreed to the peace agreement.
Then began what was at that time the most expensive United Nations mission in history. From March 1992 to September 1993, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (Untac) successfully assisted the repatriation and resettlement of millions of displaced Cambodians and organised elections for the constituent assembly.
The biggest failure, however, was the abortive demilitarisation of the different factions. The Khmer Rouge refused to disarm and fighting resurged. Consequently, Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and Sihanouk's Funcinpec did not put their weapons down as they were needed to defend government strongholds after Untac's withdrawal.
As Cambodia did not have a national army, every soldier was affiliated with one of the biggest political parties. After losing the 1993 elections, the CPP, which had used widespread violence during its election campaign, used its might to force a coalition with Sihanouk's son Ranariddh, who became first prime minister and Hun Sen second.
It was an uneasy relationship. The tensions among the former enemies simmered, creating an atmosphere along the lines of what historian David Chandler described as a "winner-takes-all political culture based on endemic distrust". And with time, the power gap widened: the CPP was much stronger than Funcinpec, which at this time had to deal with its first major split-off. After losing his cabinet position, his party membership and his seat in the National Assembly, Sam Rainsy founded his own party.
In March 1997, the fledgling Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) became victim to one of the cruellest outbursts of politically motivated violence after the Paris Peace Accords. Approximately 20 supporters were killed during a demonstration when unidentified assassins threw grenades into the crowd. Sam Rainsy himself barely survived the attack.
Later that year, in July, Phnom Penh was embroiled in a two-day conflict. Hun Sen initiated a coup d'etat against the Funcinpec party to smash the power resources of his partner in government. The royalists lost their troops and more than 40 officials were killed. Therewith, the power struggle that had lasted almost two decades finally concluded. Resorting to familiar forceful tactics, the CPP succeeded in the 1998 elections.
In the 13 years that have passed since then, Cambodia's strongman has consolidated his power against all of his opponents, inside and outside his party, and has become more autocratic. Twenty years after the peace accords were signed, many wonder what remains of the peace accords. How successful were they? What are Cambodia's prospects for the next 20 years?
Peace is not the absence of violence. Politically, at least, the term is far more ambiguous: it means an agreement formulated without coercion (except coercion to maintain that agreement) of individuals to co-exist in social groups. Therefore, it is a government's duty to balance the numerous interests that exist in society.
Over centuries of different political experiments, majority rule and the rule of law have become the type of government with the highest probability of ensuring non-violent forms of decision-making and peaceful societies. In this sense, peace cannot be understood as a situation, but as a never-ending process.
For Cambodia's ruling elite, its dominance is less based on the consent of the people than on succeeding decades of conflict or, as scholar Sorpong Peou has noted, in "an environment where the 'politics of survival' prevails over concern for morality and justice".
More tangible than any peace agreement, the events from 1997 continue to affect the present: The royalists lost their political competitiveness and opposition leader Sam Rainsy is in self-imposed exile overseas to avoid a politically motivated jail sentence. Political power is monopolised by a small elite and minority rights – in particular freedom of expression for the opposition and non-governmental organisations – are dramatically jeopardised.
Compared to Vietnam, an 'honest' autocratic regime, Cambodia might appear as a 'dishonest' democracy in which room for political freedom is limited.
To maintain his dominance, the prime minister has created an ultra-personalised leadership style with carefully crafted connections, obedience and loyalities. Most commanders in the police and armed forces are loyal to Hun Sen and not to the formal position of the prime minister. The judiciary is under control of the executive branch, while many see the two legislative bodies – the senate and the parliament – as rubber stamp assemblies.
Hun Sen, whose family is extremely wealthy, maintains excellent relations with Cambodia's leading entrepreneurs. Corruption is rampant and it seems that personal enrichment at the cost of the public and the plunder of national resources are more common than ever. Compared to the 1970s, violence is largely non-existent in Cambodia, but few would say the 'rule by fear' maxim that has governed the country during the last two decades constitutes a 'peaceful society'.
The process of democratisation has always been challenging. The setbacks in Cambodia have been alarming because they seem to parallel a line of politics that serve a few. Numerous cases of land grabbing throughout Cambodia illustrate how people suffer under an elite with such an extensive claim to power.
Without a change of policies, societal conflicts over income distribution will become more common. To avoid instability, Western donors have stood close to Hun Sen for years, but it seems they are losing confidence. Cambodia's attempt to secure a seat as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 2013 and 2014 is an opportunity for the international donor community to demand concessions in domestic policies.
A more responsive style of government that generates benefits for all citizens would be an important push for the spirit of the Paris Peace Accords.
Khmer Rouge Trial Is Failing Victims of Pol Pot’s Regime
Jakarta Globe: by Brad Adams | November 25, 2011
Related articles
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(Comments: the content of this article can be summarized in the following paragraph written by Brad Adams, the head of the Human Rights watch in Asia, and one of the real friends of Cambodia and the Cambodian people, as follows:
“The tone had been set back in 1998 when the Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, invited Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan to his home and announced over a Champagne toast that they would “bury the past.” A former Khmer Rouge fighter himself, Hun Sen recently said he would rather see the ECCC fail than take up more cases, leading to speculation that he is protecting some of the former Khmer Rouge members in the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. It would take a brave judge to defy the ruler of a de facto one-party state. “
Hun Sen and his boss the Vietnamese got what they planned that is to "demonize the demons," so as to make themsleves look more acceptable to the internaitonal community, while selling cambodia, lock, stock and barrels, to the Vietnamese.
Needless to say that without Sihanouk total and unconditional support for Hun Sen, the cambodian traitor and dictator could not have committed all these crimes against the Cambodian people by allowing illegal Vietnamese immigrants to pour into cambodia at will. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 29, 2011)
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French Lawyer Takes Center Stage in Cambodian Court 11:51am Nov 25, 2011
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At a conference on Cambodia in Berkeley, California, last week, an elderly Khmer man tearfully explained to me why he won’t go back to his homeland. “How can I go there and have any peace so long as the people who killed all of my family are still free?”
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, set up by the Cambodian government and the United Nations, were supposed to ease his way home. But after five years and more than $150 million, the court has tried just one defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, the warden of the infamous Tuol Sleng detention center where approximately 14,000 people were tortured and then executed. Repentant, Duch confessed and was convicted of crimes against humanity.
This week the long-awaited trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary finally began. The first case takes up the forced removal of Phnom Penh residents to the countryside, where large numbers were executed or died after being subjected to forced labor.
Some are calling this the most important trial since Nuremberg. Along with Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the three presided over a regime of unprecedented viciousness in which as many as two million Cambodians — a quarter of the population — were killed or died from disease or starvation. But from the outset the ECCC has been mired in controversy over political interference, corruption and long delays between court proceedings that have left many Cambodians wondering if the court can ever deliver justice.
The tone had been set back in 1998 when the Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, invited Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan to his home and announced over a Champagne toast that they would “bury the past.” A former Khmer Rouge fighter himself, Hun Sen recently said he would rather see the ECCC fail than take up more cases, leading to speculation that he is protecting some of the former Khmer Rouge members in the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. It would take a brave judge to defy the ruler of a de facto one-party state.
In the court’s most recent scandal, the Cambodian and UN co-investigating judges moved to close a case against additional Khmer Rouge commanders without interviewing key witnesses or conducting crime site investigations. Criticized for mishandling the case, the UN co-investigating judge resigned. The UN is now trying to replace him with a Swiss reserve judge, but the Cambodian government has thus far refused to formally appoint him.
While there is now wide agreement in UN circles that the ECCC is a mistake that should never be repeated elsewhere, a fair trial of Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary would allow the court to keep some of its promises to victims. The reputation of the UN, which has dithered in the face of repeated controversies in Cambodia, is at stake.
While it can’t control Hun Sen, it can set up an independent committee to report on the failures of the ECCC and take action to correct them. It can press Japan, France, the United States, Britain and other donors who continue to provide almost half of Cambodia’s annual budget to take action to reverse the ECCC’s descent into quagmire.
The most urgent task is to make sure the new investigating judge is appointed so he can continue investigations into additional cases.
If additional cases are not allowed to go ahead, only four people will end up going on trial for one of history’s darkest moments. This will allow many Khmer Rouge officials responsible for large-scale atrocities to continue to live freely, some in the same communities in which they carried out mass killings. It will mean the man I met in Berkeley may never feel like he can go home. “I want to die in my country,” he said. “But not of a broken heart.”
Brad Adams is the Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
US strikes out on Asia-Pacific conquest |
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Neglecting Asia's importance over the last decade may impair the US' ability to regain its former power position. Opinion Francis Wade Aljazeera; Last Modified: 17 Nov 2011 11:08 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111115155110993264.html --------------------------------------------------------- (Comments: this article had given me the tangible proof on what I have been writing in this page of my web site, that Hillary Clinton is the architect (While Obama, as usual was totally aloof and hands off from all this new and important US foreign policy development) behind the recent surge in America support for rogue and anti-democratic regimes in Asia such as Hun Sen and his CPP, Vietnam, and now Burma or Myanmar. More importantly, this Aljazeera article pointed out the main weak point of this new approach to regional diplomacy by the USA under the leadership of Hillary Clinton as follows: “There she will strike out on a path that, beset with difficulties, is crucial to the US' continued status as the world's sole superpower. The plan she lays out is ambitious and, for the skeptic, weighed down with a sense of foreboding familiarity: she speaks repeatedly of the need for the US to gain a foothold here, but said in the knowledge that her government's myopic focus on the Middle East over the past decade has cleared the way for China to stretch its tentacles across the region. This China has done adeptly: its deployment of soft power, buoyed by the ability to find common ground with the nationalistic sentiment that dictates the policy of its neighbours, has won it favour with nations wary of the historically aggressive track record of the US here. As such Hillary et al face a difficult task in convincing wavering governments to 'look West' rather than be drawn further into Beijing's strategic orbit.” I do hope that this article will help open the eyes of those Cambodians who still feel that they can count on America to “save” Cambodia from Hun Sen Sihanouk deadly regime. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 25, 2011) |
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Standing on a platform in Honolulu last week as United States military officials and heads of Pacific islands looked on, Hillary Clinton charted Washington's course for re-entry to the Asia-Pacific. The hour-long talk, the content of which was first thrashed out in a seven-page article in Foreign Policy magazine last month, set the framework for Clinton's visit to the region this week. There she will strike out on a path that, beset with difficulties, is crucial to the US' continued status as the world's sole superpower.
The plan she lays out is ambitious and, for the sceptic, weighed down with a sense of foreboding familiarity: she speaks repeatedly of the need for the US to gain a foothold here, but said in the knowledge that her government's myopic focus on the Middle East over the past decade has cleared the way for China to stretch its tentacles across the region. This China has done adeptly: its deployment of soft power, buoyed by the ability to find common ground with the nationalistic sentiment that dictates the policy of its neighbours, has won it favour with nations wary of the historically aggressive track record of the US here. As such Hillary et al face a difficult task in convincing wavering governments to 'look West' rather than be drawn further into Beijing's strategic orbit.
The rhetoric of this blueprint for the coming decade is bold, but tinged with apprehension: the US needs to find new ground as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, access to resources is secured, and all eyes turn to the cluster of countries rapidly reshaping the global economy. "In a time of scarce resources, there's no question that we need to invest them wisely where they will yield the biggest returns, which is why the Asia-Pacific represents such a real 21st-century opportunity for us."
Awkward references to human rights abound, but only one line, in which Hillary speaks of being "mindful of the bipartisan legacy" of her country's history here, acknowledges the bloody footprint it has left in the region. Although hidden deep within a forest of political speak, it may well be the most significant statement she makes, for this selectivity is likely to characterise US' reengagement with the region in the coming years.
Ominous signs already suggest that the US will saddle up to repressive regimes in order to realise its overarching priority for returning here, that of containing China and penetrating deeper the region's markets. An early indication came last year with the announcement that Washington would rekindle relations with the maligned Indonesian military outfit, Kopassus, following suggestions that Jakarta may look to China for military support should the US refuse an alliance. The West Papua Advocacy Team didn't share Robert Gates' rosy assessment of Kopassus at the time as "reformed": they met his announcement of renewed ties by labelling the outfit, whom the US had supplied with lists of communist sympathisers during the 1960s before breaking ties, "the most criminal and unreformed element of the Indonesian military".
Since then, and amid frequent exchanges of snide criticism between Beijing and Washington, the US has manoeuvred to develop a network of allies in the region, massaging hostilities in the South China Sea to draw Vietnam away from Beijing's grasp and, perhaps most worryingly, signalling that it is ready to break with years of isolationism to become a "partner" of Burma.
Its descriptions of the Burmese government over the past two months have been cloaked in an optimism not seen since Lyndon B Johnson enthusiastically backed the "policy of peace and nonalignment" of Burma's first dictator, General Ne Win, in 1966. That came at a time when the CIA was arming the Chinese nationalist Kuomintang army who waged attacks on Mao's forces from their bases in north-eastern Burma. As with now, the US was bent on restricting a hostile China from expanding south.
Today, the new US envoy, Derek Mitchell, is leading the charge, having made three trips to Burma in the space of seven weeks and rounding off the last one with a statement hailing the "rapid reform" of the nominally-civilian government, whilst opening up the possibility of military co-operation between the two countries. Further up in government, and the sentiment builds: Hillary spoke last week of the potential for the US to become a "partner" of Burma in light of the "first stirrings of change in decades", although she added the requisite preconditions the government supposedly needs to meet before this happens, including the release of political prisoners.
History tells us however that the standards the US sets for its allies are wildly inconsistent and arbitrary. Much of the talk on Burma among White House officials is of "reform", and less so that of "democracy", allowing Naypyidaw some flexibility in the benchmarks it is required to meet. Washington's relations with Cambodia, very much an autocratic state under the 13-year rule of Prime Minister Hun Sen, demonstrates the stunted length that "reform" in Burma will need to go before the US strides in. Additional evidence is given by US' warming ties with a sceptical Vietnam, whose regime has been newly made acceptable by Washington's PR hawks.
The US, China, and Asia
From its status as a pariah, Burma has risen over the past five years to that of a highly sought-after ally, hence the US interest. This evolution has largely been China's work, but fuelled by competing US priorities for the region. Of the many economic interests Beijing has in Burma, its pièce de résistance is the dual pipeline project that will take Middle Eastern and African oil cargoes offloaded on Burma's western coast up to Yunnan province, whilst giving China access to its neighbour's vast offshore gas reserves. A key thrust for this project is Beijing's anxiety about its eastern seaboard: the South China Sea dispute with Vietnam only adds to concerns that the Malacca Straits beneath Singapore, through which much of its oil shipments travel, can be closed off by patrolling US warships, exemplifying how a nervy China-US dynamic could play out over the coming decade.
China has poured billions of dollars into tapping Burma's vast natural resources, as well as those of neighbouring Laos, and is busily damming the length of the Mekong river from its passage through Yunnan down to Cambodia. A similarly aspirational India is looking hungrily on, with Burma its only land passage to Southeast Asian economies, but cannot match Beijing's huge foreign investment capital and seat on the UN Security Council. The US knows that securing Burma would, hypothetically speaking, bring an ally right to China's doorstep at a time when its power is sweeping southwards across a region that Washington needs to penetrate.
But the timing of the recent upsurge in dialogue between US officials and their Burmese counterparts coincides with an unprecedented strain in relations between Beijing and Naypyidaw, triggered by President Thein Sein's shock cancellation of a lucrative China-backed dam project in the country. The US then may be quietly attempting to exploit this fissure. Several analysts believe there to be unease in the top echelons of the Burmese government over its dependence on China, but whether this will prompt a turn towards the West anytime soon is doubtful: a leaked US diplomatic cable from 2004 quotes then Burmese Prime Minister Khin Nyunt telling the head of the rebel Karen National Union that allying with the US would allow Washington to "use Myanmar as a staging ground to penetrate China. That is the reason why America is exerting a lot of pressure on our nation. Hence, we do not have the slightest bit of trust in America".
Despite talk of change in Burma, that unwavering nationalism remains the compass bearing for government policy, as evidenced by Thein Sein's decision to risk a souring of relations with Beijing in order to stem the encroaching Chinese influence over the country. While the US may see this as an opening, what it really demonstrates is the mammoth task it faces in drawing into its arms a group of nations, including Burma, that place a premium on their own sovereignty, particularly when the other option is acceding to a rapacious West. China has curried favour here by achieving what the US and colonial Europeans did through centuries of aggression without firing a single bullet - that of attracting and eventually co-opting resource-rich, strategically well-placed nations to act both as a buffer against competing states, and a source of plunder for the soaring energy demands of its own population. Deep scars take time to heal, and the myriad countries in the region that have felt the pain of past US ventures here may justifiably continue to see China as a preferred friend.
The US then, who prefixed its arrival in Afghanistan with similar talk of "securing our interests, and advancing our values", will need to navigate these waters with prudence. With its economy flagging and global reputation tarnished by a decade of war in the Middle East, Washington is steeling itself against the likelihood that soon its position as chief international ringmaster could be usurped. New ground therefore needs to be conquered, and a reinvigoration of its image abroad carefully spun.
"Our capacity to come back stronger is unmatched in modern history," Hillary says. "It flows from our model of free democracy and free enterprise, a model that remains the most powerful source of prosperity and progress known to humankind." Bar its strong relations with the likes of Thailand, Korea and Taiwan, the audiences Hillary will address in the coming days are unlikely to swallow this crusading rhetoric. Observers would also do well to read its newly-found praise for the region's more despotic players with the knowledge that ulterior motives are at play: to pass measures that would allow the US to make a substantial return to the region, notably the dropping of various financial sanctions that block trade with the likes of Burma, Congress needs certain benchmarks to be met, many of which the White House has little time for. It may be that there is less to the progress in these "reforming" pariahs - which remain far from the norms of democratic governance the US paeans to - than has been noted by Hillary, who must sell a new conquest to the sceptics in her government with the knowledge that if she fails to do so, the US may not this time come back stronger.
Francis Wade is a journalist with the Democratic Voice of Burma, and has written this article from a personal capacity.
You can follow Francis Wade on Twitter @Francis_Wade
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Kingdom’s three-year land rush
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post: Monday 21 November, 2011
Kampong Speu villagers clash with authorities over land.
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(Comments: this article proves that one of the items that was raised in the petition, produced by the recent conference on Cambodia and the Paris Agreements anniversary, organized by a group of Cambodian-Americans here in Alexandria, Virginia, last October, was the land concession issue, was right on the dot.
Hun Sen with the support of Sihanouk is now selling or leasing the land forcibly taken from the Cambodian poor to transfer it to his supporters and bankrollers. Yet, Sihanouk who has vociferously and repeatedly proclaimed that the he loves the Cambodian people, has not said one word on it. Yet, so many Cambodians inside and outside Cambodia, still venerate this old fox and treacherous from king as a god-king. But, as one reviewer of Sihanouk books, has aptly written about Sihanouk that:
“For more than half a century, King Norodom Sihanouk has preened, postured, and pouted across the stage of Cambodian politics. He is perpetually described as "mercurial" and "unpredictable." For years he was central to Cambodia's survival. And he was just as surely central to her near-destruction.
To give him due credit: It is beyond question that Sihanouk deeply loved the Cambodian people. None of his successors has ever matched his genuine affection for his people. But Sihanouk had one critical flaw: as much as he loved the Cambodian people, he loved himself just slightly more. At a pivotal moment in Cambodian history, he chose his own interests above those of Cambodia, and millions of people paid with their lives.“ Source: Sihanouk’s books reviewed; "My War with the CIA" and "War and Hope: The Case for Cambodia." By Bruce Sharp; Web site: Cambodia: Beauty and Darkness.
Cambodia is for sale to the best bidder to enrich Hun Sen and his CPP supporters, leading Cambodia to the brink of falling apart and taken over by the Vietnamese, with the full support of Sihanouk. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 21, 2011)
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The government has granted more than 7 million hectares of land to private companies through concessions since 2008, with 222 private companies claiming more than 2 million hectares alone in economic land concessions, rights group Adhoc said yesterday.
Ouch Leng, head of Adhoc’s land program, said that data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and government sub-decrees revealed that the government had granted about 2,153,408 hectares in economic land concessions to private companies.
He added that the total figure reached 7,021,771 hectares out of a total 17,651,500 hectares in the Kingdom since 2008, if mining and forest concessions for logging purposes are included.
“If we add all the concessions, including forest concessions and mining concessions, the government granted about 7,021,771 hectares,” he said, adding that about 1,101,080 hectares awarded were classified as protected land.
Ouch Leng said that the government had granted about 3,400,000 hectares in forest concessions and 1,468,363 hectares in mining concessions.
“In 2011, the government granted more land in protected areas than in previous years, now we are left with about 386,294 hectares of land and about 664,624 hectares of forest land [in protected areas],”
he said. “Our land is nearly finished; the government should stop providing economic land concessions to private companies.”
He added that if the government did not stop awarding the land concessions, there would be no resolution to land disputes and the land protest movement would continue.
Ou Virak, director of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, said that it was surprising the government had granted so much land to private firms and that the concessions affected many people, including ethnic minorities who had lost their traditional farmland. “It does not just affect people, our forests are also destroyed,” he said.
Chut Wutty, director of NGO Natural Resource Protection Group, said that rubber plantations in particular had grown in popularity and private companies planted rubber trees without thinking about natural resources. “[Concessions] have a serious impact on our villagers of whom 80 per cent depend on rice farming,” he said.
Chan Tong Yives, secretary of state at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said yesterday that he was not sure how much land the government had granted to private companies and referred questions to the Ministry’s undersecretary of state Ith Nody.
“I think that report is not true, we don’t give that much land,” he said.
Ith Nody declined to comment.
What Is Vietnamese Nationalism?
History & Biographies Ads
http://www.essortment.com/vietnamese-nationalism-20997.html
(Comments: I am pasting, below, a very important article on Vietnamese nationalism. It is important for all Cambodians who are concerned about Cambodia’s survival, to read this article for it explains the foundation of today's strength of Vietnam as country and nation, and its success against its neighbors to the South namely Cambodia and Champa. Because their very strong yearning for survival and their ability to choose the right leaders they have been able to defend themselves against all kind of the most powerful nations in the world, starting with China a long time ago, and to destroy all other weaker nations near them, such as Cambodia and Champa.
The most important information in this article is the fact that unlike the Chinese, there no space for any minorities to survive in the Vietnamese space. This fact is well was well captured by the author of this article as followed:
“The Vietnamese pioneer took with him not only his worldly possessions, but his culture and local traditions as well. When he moved south he did so not as an individual, but as just one member of an entire village or large family group moving as a whole. Rather than blending into, or being assimilated by the local cultures which the settlers encountered, or living apart from them in a peaceful relationship, the settlers violently conquered these cultures and banished their members. Nor did the settlers find any noticeably differences in either climate or geography from what they were accustomed to in the Red River Delta. We see then, no real changes occurring in Vietnamese culture as the migration continued.“
Most Cambodians do not know much about this aspect of Vietnamese nationalism, and yet it is the most important requirement that the majority of Cambodians must be aware of, if Cambodia is to have any chance to remain free. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 19, 2011)
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Vietnam -- in nearly every regard it was the war that failed. It is not, however, the purpose of this article to recount America's failures in that Southeast Asian country, or the reasons behind them. It is instead, to discuss the question of whether or not the United States violated common tenants of international law by committing military forces to support one side in another nation's internal civil war. In short, we will discuss whether or not the war between North and South Vietnam was striclink:tly a civil war, or a war of aggression conducted by the North against the South.
I intend to demonstrate in this article that South Vietnam possessed good and sound basis for its claim to independence from Hanoi, the capitol of North Vietnam. This being established, it will follow that the United States violated no aspect of international law in aiding Saigon, South Vietnam's capitol city. Indeed, Washington but supported one country in its efforts to repulse a foreign invasion of its borders.
Doc Lap, a word used to signify the Vietnamese spirit of independence, can be traced back to approximately 500 B.C. when the Nam, a southern subgroup of the Viet tribes living south of the Yangtze River began a southward exodus in an attempt to escape the armies of an expanding Chinese empire. The attempt failed. Eventually settling in the Red River Delta, the Vietnamese were conquered by 258 B.C. and placed under the direct administration of the Chinese Court. For the next 1,000 years, the Chinese endeavored to assimilate the Vietnamese race as they had, and would, many others. In Vietnam, however, the Chinese would fail.
There were a number of factors which contributed to China's failure: Geographic distance between the Red River Delta and the Chinese Court; contact, primarily through trade, which the Vietnamese enjoyed with other non-Chinese cultures, principally the Chams, the Cambodians, and with India and Indonesia. Probably, however, the greatest reason for China's failure to subdue the Vietnamese, and the one most pertinent to our subject, is that the Vietnamese had a prehistory long enough to enable them to develop their own distinctive ethnological features. In other words, the Vietnamese racial identity was strong enough to withstand a thousand years of foreign domination, suffering, in the process, only minimal cultural damage.
Toward the middle of the 10th century and the decline of the T'ang Dynasty, Chinese rule became virtually nonexistent in the outlying provinces. In this vacuum, Vietnam experienced a period of chaos during which local warlords battled among themselves for domination. In 1010 A.D., the Li Dynasty was founded, becoming Vietnam's first imperial family and central government. Quartered in Hanoi, the dynasty would survive for some two hundred years.
Despite its newly won independence from China, there was little change in the course of Vietnamese life. The imperial government reestablished a civil service system based on the Chinese classics and continued attempts to subdue rebellious warlords who protested the payment of any taxes and who refused to recognize any authority save their own.
The peasants too, lacked any feeling of loyalty toward the dynastic government. As in most feudal and agrarian societies, the peasant knew little of the world beyond the walls of his own village, and cared even less. He paid his taxes to the local warlord because he was forced to, and occasionally engaged in insurrection when the lord pushed him beyond the point of forbearance.
Vietnam, at this point, was a nation only in the lightest sense of the word. It possessed a government but no real subjects. For the Vietnamese did not recognize the Li Dynasty's right to govern. In fact, they did not even recognize themselves as a single nation. Being Vietnamese was more a racial identity than a national one. The typical Vietnamese identified with family and village and very little else.
The early 10th century found the Red River Delta a prosperous and growing region, rich in farmland and advantageously positioned for trade carried on with the rest of Indochina. Before the century's end, however, the region reached a point of over population. Faced with China to the north, the sea to the east, and mountains to the west, the Vietnamese began moving south in an exodus not wholly unlike our own country's westward expansion in the 19th century. This expansion lasted until the late 1700's.
Immediately to the south of the Red River Delta was the Kingdom of Champa, occupying a geographic area roughly equivalent to what the French would later call Annam. It was easily conquered by the Vietnamese who systematical set about settling the area, forcing the remnants of the Cham civilization into the mountains to the west. Further to the south lay the Mekong River Delta held, during this time frame, by the Kingdom of Cambodia. This area too, fell victim to the Vietnamese expansion.
Often, in history when a people experience such a period of migration, they experience also, a compromise of their culture as it is influenced by already existing indigenous cultures, by differences between old and new methods of food gathering brought about by a different climate and geography, and as it is influenced simply by geographic distance itself, as the settlers move farther away from their original homeland. In this instance, however, none of these things occurred.
The Vietnamese pioneer took with him not only his worldly possessions, but his culture and local traditions as well. When he moved south he did so not as an individual, but as just one member of an entire village or large family group moving as a whole. Rather than blending into, or being assimilated by the local cultures which the settlers encountered, or living apart from them in a peaceful relationship, the settlers violently conquered these cultures and banished their members. Nor did the settlers find any noticeably differences in either climate or geography from what they were accustomed to in the Red River Delta. We see then, no real changes occurring in Vietnamese culture as the migration continued.
But there was one new development, the growth of a conscious regional antagonism between north and south. villages in the south were essentially self contained, economically and socially. Their inhabitants enjoyed a much greater degree of freedom than their brothers in the north. The southern territories were a long way from Hanoi. Roads for transportation and communication were practically nonexistent. Those which did exist were little more than trails in poor repair. Distance, the lack of viable communications and transportation and resupply routes coupled with the strong hostility of the local villagers, all made conditions for a prolonged military campaign from the dynastic government practically impossible. But try the emperor did.
The further south the peasant went, the more independent he felt and the more resentful he became of Hanoi's attempts to exert control over him. The peasant was, as mention earlier, freer than his compatriots in the north. Even the warlords were fewer in number in the south, though, as a rule, were no less cruel. And the warlords too, resented the power in Hanoi. Warlord revolts were numerous, hopeful as they were of gaining almost total autonomy from the imperial family.
Thus we see in the south a strong resentment towards the more populous, the more centrally organized north. As the years went by, peasants and lords alike developed a regional awareness, united in mind by their common desire to be free of the dynasty's influence. making no distinction between the northern peasant the emperor's soldiers, the southerners came to perceive all northerners as aggressive and warlike, as a people who desired to militarily force themselves where they were not wanted.
In the north, the imperial court increased taxes to compensate the government's coffers for the revenues expended in the southern campaigns. More and more young men were taken from their father's farms at the point of a sword to serve in those same wars. All blamed, of course, on the lazy and rebellious subjects in the south. The inhabitants of the north then, acquired, as a region, a perception of the southerner as worthless and disloyal, who migrated south in order to avoid work and the payment of due taxes and loyalties to the royal court.
This is the situation as it existed by the early 17th century. Even at this early date, there was much to lend itself to an argument that Vietnam was, psychologically and economically, two separate countries.
These regional identities and the antagonisms between the two regions were intensified by a war between the Trinh family sitting on the dynastic throne in Hanoi, and the Nguyen family in Hue, the strongest of the south's provincial lords. Differing from the provincial uprising of the past, this conflict constituted a full blown civil war. It lasted fifty years, ending in 1674 with an agreement between the two belligerents roughly dividing Vietnam along the 17th parallel.
Neither the war nor the subsequent division had any real effect on the peasant, north or south, or on his way of life. The southern peasant felt no real attachment to the Nguyen family. But the war did serve to aggravate the already existing regional hatreds and stereotypes. Incidental, this war marked the first occurrence of western intervention in Vietnam, with Dutch merchants sending arms shipments to the Trinh family, and Portuguese merchants supplying similar shipments to the Nguyen family.
This division, as important as it was to the building of north and south regional identities, did not last long. Vietnam was again politically united in 1786 at the culmination of a war begun ten years earlier in Saigon by three brothers calling themselves the Tay-son. Upon defeating both, the Nguyen and Trinh families, the eldest brother crowned himself the Quang-Tring Emperor. Twelve years later, Quang-Tring was overthrown by Nguyen-Anh, a member of the dethroned Nguyen family, with the aid of a few hundred French troops and a French trained native Vietnamese army.
By 1883 France had conquered and occupied all of Vietnam. In the north and central regions, Tonking and Annam respectively, France established protectorates where the emperor and warlords were allowed to maintain their positions under the condition that they maintain at the same time a proper attitude and decorum toward French rule. Southern Vietnam became a direct colony, Cochinchina, under the administration of a French Governor-General.
French influence in Cochinchina had a direct and powerful impact on the lifestyle of many Vietnamese. The region prospered, and by the 1920's there was a thriving western educated middle class. Thus, when the winds of nationalism began to sweep across all of Vietnam, they took on a distinctively western flavor in Cochinchina.
Cochinchinese were allowed, under colonial law, much greater political and organizational latitude than their ethnic brothers in Tonking and Annam. native political parties were allowed and legally formed. The French promised to grant the Cochinchinese independence, measure by measure, The promise was believed, and western ideology and a spirit of cooperation became the cornerstones of the nationalist movement in the south. Envisioned was an independent Vietnam (in the south) governed by a western styled parliamentary government.
Legally, the inhabitants of Tonking and Annam were already independent, being only protectorates. It is important to note that nationalism in the south encompassed no greater an area than Cochinchina alone. For the South Vietnamese, his emerging national identity traveled no farther than the colonial boundaries.
Things were viewed quite differently in the north where an imperial family supported by a French army decreed political parties illegal and dealt harshly with potential political adversaries. Denied a legal outlet for political expression, nationalists in the north joined the forcefully expanding philosophy of communism during the 1920's, while in the freer south, nationalists adopted the democratic views of Sun Yat-sin. The gulf separating north and south was now, for all practical purposes, complete and unbridgeable, made so by the radically different methods of nationalist expression adopted by the two regions. Legally, politically and philosophically, South Vietnam was, by the end of the Second World War, a sovereign nation, distinctly different in culture and national expression from the nation of North Vietnam.
Sihanouk and Hun Sen Deadly Alliance, at the Expense of the Whole Cambodian People
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CAMBODIA HAS A NEW KING -- NORODOM SIHAMONI
O 151255Z OCT 04 FM AMEMBASSY PHNOM PENH TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3055 INFO ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/BCLTV DEPARTMENT PLEASE PASS USAID/ANE E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/16/2014 TAGS: PGOV [Internal Governmental Affairs], PREL [External Political Relations], CB [Cambodia] SUBJECT: CAMBODIA HAS A NEW KING -- NORODOM SIHAMONI Classified By: DCM Mark C. Storella for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary:
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(Comments: this rare confidential cable originated from the American embassy in Phnom Penh, discussed how Sihanouk was only concerned about keeping the monarchy alive, and Monique happy, as to Cambodia, Sihanouk has little concerned about, because he knows that the majority of Cambodians still think that only the god-king can save Cambodia. Is it true? I don’t think so. But, I am only one person, to think so.
I leave to the rest of the Cambodian people to think and to make up their mind, for themselves, about this tragic and deadly story. My job is to inform the Cambodian people about their age-old tragic dependency on the god-king who has done more than ever, to damage any chance for the Cambodian people to be free and to have a future free of internal and external dependencies.
Please, also note that for any foreign countries, including the USA; what they all want is to see Cambodia, at least on the surface, in a stable, political, economic, and social situation, regardless of what that stability is really true or not, under Hun Sen or any other person.
Until such time when the Cambodian people can come up with a really respectable, courageous and dignified leader, such as Aung San Suu Kyi, or Nelson Mandela, no foreign governments would be willing to come and challenge Hun Sen and his CPP, on their behalf. This challenge will have to come from the Cambodian people themselves.
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. November 2, 2011)
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On October 14, the Cambodian Throne Council unanimously (9-0) elected Norodom Sihamoni as the new King of Cambodia. Sihamoni (51), a son of former King Norodom Sihanouk and Queen Monineath, has lived for years in France as a dancer and Cambodian Ambassador to UNESCO. He will be formally invested in a ceremony in Phnom Penh October ¶29. Sihanouk engineered the choice of Sihamoni to ensure the continuation of the monarchy. PM Hun Sen supported the choice, perhaps because Sihamoni is apolitical and believed to be relatively pliable. Sihamoni's half-brother, Prince Ranariddh, went along, probably grudgingly, but may still harbor desires someday to replace Sihamoni, possibly upon Sihanouk's death. Sihanouk will now likely work behind the scenes to train Sihamoni and keep his hand in politics.
The succession went forward in a remarkably orderly and peaceful fashion in apparent conformity with the constitution and will likely contribute to stability. Sihamoni has the bearing and open spirit of a King. It is striking that the Cambodian people have shown little reaction to Sihanouk's decision to step down after 63 years at the center of Cambodian political life. End Summary.
Anatomy of an Abdication ------------------------ ¶2.
(C) Former King Sihanouk has never been satisfied with his constitutional role as a monarch who "reigns but does not rule." Since reassuming the throne in 1993, Sihanouk has seen his power progressively eroded by powerful politicians, especially Hun Sen, and a more open political system. Sihanouk apparently took particular offense when his son, Prince Ranariddh, and opposition politician Sam Rainsy walked away from a new power sharing formula Sihanouk had brokered last November. He was further disappointed when political leaders refused his summons to Pyongyang this spring to settle the political deadlock.
Sihanouk has found himself uncomfortably marginalized. At the same time, Sihanouk at 81, has complained of increasing medical problems, and has no doubt focused on his legacy. ¶3.
(C) When Sihanouk announced his resignation October 7, many assumed it was another empty threat designed to provoke calls for him to assume a greater role. In fact, it now seems that a tired Sihanouk was focused on using what cards he had left to ensure his own succession and the continuation of the monarchy. In recent days, Sihanouk has spoken openly about his concerns about the strength of republic sentiment, which exists in all three top political parties, including the royalists.
Under the Cambodian constitution, a new King is to be elected from among members of the three royal blood lines by the Throne Council within seven days of the death of the former King. A sitting King has no inherent constitutional role and there is no heir apparent. And the constitution is moot on what happens of the King abdicates. It is now apparent that Sihanouk had worked behind the scenes with Hun Sen and others to permit him maximum influence in the selection of his own successor.
Why Sihamoni? ------------- ¶4.
(C) Many had long speculated that Ranariddh, Sihanouk's oldest son, would be the logical choice for King.
However, Sihanouk has had a rancorous relationship with Ranariddh for years. Sihanouk may have worried that having such an overtly political son as King would put the monarchy itself in danger. But, most important, Sihanouk is devoted to Queen Monineath, and, therefore, has long expressed support for his son by her, Norodom Sihamoni. The selection of Sihamoni no doubt took on even greater emotional urgency for the Queen with the untimely death of her other son my Sihanouk, Prince Narindrapong, earlier this year. ¶5.
(C) Sihanouk needed Hun Sen's support to control his own succession because Hun Sen controls a majority of the seats on the nine-member Throne Council.
Hun Sen has expressed his support for Sihamoni, who is likely an attractive choice for two reasons: first, Sihamoni is widely assumed to have no political experience or ambition; second, the selection of Sihamoni puts Ranariddh, a key competitor of Hun Sen, in a kind of political box, limiting Ranariddh's political options and increasing his dependence on Hun Sen. ¶6.
(C) At Sihanouk's request, the National Assembly quickly passed laws to permit election of a new King upon abdication and to permit election by a simple majority of the Throne Council, thus ensuring that Ranariddh -- a member of the Council by virtue of his position as president of the National Assembly -- could not block a vote on Sihamoni. Ranariddh has recently claimed his support for Sihamoni, to which Sihanouk publicly replied, "anyone who tells you he does not want to be King is lying."
What of Sihanouk's Future? -------------------------- ¶7.
(C) Sihanouk claims he intends to live quietly in retirement. But no one is counting Sihanouk out yet. He has indicated his intention to live in Phnom Penh probably in the palace in close proximity to King Sihamoni. Speculation is that Sihanouk will seek to mentor his son as King.
There are also rumors that Sihanouk may someday reenter the political fray openly, possibly by starting his own political party. As far fetched as that may sound now, Sihanouk abdicated the first time in 1955 precisely so that he could play an overtly political role and become prime minister.
And Ranariddh...? ----------------- ¶8.
(C) Ranariddh has professed support for his brother Sihamoni as King and voted for Sihamoni in the Throne Council. Nevertheless, there is ongoing speculation in Phnom Penh that Ranariddh still hopes one day to ascend the throne.
While the selection of Sihamoni probably portends greater stability in Cambodia, one cannot rule out a tense period upon Sihanouk's eventual passing. Sihamoni has been King for only 24 hours, and the rumor mill in Phnom Penh is already churning out speculation that Ranariddh may still hope to succeed his half-brother, possibly upon Sihamoni's eventual abdication.
Implications for the U.S. ------------------------- ¶9.
(C) For the time being, there is no indication of any negative impact of Sihamoni's ascension on the throne. The process by which Sihamoni was chosen was remarkably peaceful and orderly, which bodes well for stability in Cambodia. At the same time, we know little of Sihamoni's political views. He has a close attachment to France and is a French citizen, but we are unaware of him ever expressing strong views about the U.S. Since Sihanouk became King in 1941, U.S. relations with the palace have often been rocky or worse. With Sihamoni's ascension as King, we have an opportunity to open a new chapter with the Cambodian monarchy. Ray
Media
Sihanouk and Hun Sen Entente Cordiale
Cambodia’s ailing former King Sihanouk vows to never leave his homeland again
By Associated Press, Published: October 30
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia’s ailing former king Norodom Sihanouk, his country’s dominant figure for half-a-century, vowed Sunday at a rare public appearance never to leave his homeland again.
Sihanouk, his son King Norodom Sihamoni and Prime Minister Hun Sen shared the podium at a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the former monarch’s return to his homeland after years of civil war.
The occasion may mark a last hurrah for Sihanouk, one of the giants of postwar Asian politics and the nonaligned movement of Third World countries.
In recent years, Sihanouk, who turns 89 on Monday, has suffered from colon cancer, diabetes and hypertension, and spent most of his time in China. He returned Thursday from his latest three months of medical treatment in Beijing.
The celebration of his Nov. 14, 1991 return was held Sunday in order to also mark his birthday Monday.
Tens of thousands of people turned out to attend the ceremony held in front of the royal palace in the capital, Phnom Penh. His picture and slogans were displayed there and along the city’s main streets.
“I have the great honor to inform our lovely compatriots that from now on, despite still having health problems and needing routine checkups by my Chinese medical team, I and my wife, the queen, have decided to stay forever with our compatriots inside our country,” Sihanouk said with a smile, eliciting cheers from the crowd. He said if the need arises, he would ask his Chinese doctors to come to Cambodia to attend him.
Sihanouk has a mixed legacy. He was admired for steering his small nation clear of the war in neighboring Vietnam for many years by deftly playing one side off against the other until he was overthrown by a U.S.-backed coup in 1970.
He then fatefully allied himself with the communist Khmer Rouge, who waged a bitter struggle for power against the U.S.-supported regime until taking over the country in 1975 and plunging it into the “Killing Fields” of bloody purges and misrule that left an estimated 1.7 million people dead.
Sihanouk’s support in the early stages won many adherents to the Khmer Rouge among ordinary Cambodians as well as diplomatic support
He became a mute prisoner in his own palace until a Vietnamese invasion ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Appalled at what the Khmer Rouge did to his country, he still fell into an uneasy tacit alliance with them against the Vietnamese occupation, with a new round of civil war coming to a formal end only with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1991.
Sihanouk was still held in high regard by many Cambodians when he came back home again and seemed set to provide at least moral leadership as the country rebuilt itself.
But Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge who came to power with the backing of Vietnam and kept his position as prime minister after the peace accords, proved to be a tough and wily political rival.
He deftly sidelined Norodom Ranariddh, another son of Sihanouk who had been co-prime minister, and consolidated power in his own hands, marginalizing Sihanouk with threats to abolish the monarchy.
In 2004, Sihanouk abdicated in favor of son Sihamoni, a retiring reluctant monarch who posed no threat to Hun Sen. The prime minister maintains an iron grip over the country within a democratic framework while brooking no challengers.
Hun Sen on Sunday praised what he described as Sihanouk’s idea of national reconciliation.
“Under the former king’s leadership and along with the government, a win-win policy was implemented that has brought us full peace and national reconciliation,” Hun Sen said.
Copyright 2011; The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The Cambodian Death Traps: It Won't Be Easy to Get Out of It, and Why
By Professor Naranhkiri Tith
SAIS, The Johns Hopkins University
Washington, DC
July 2000
Introduction:
The purpose of this paper is to explore the causes and sources of the continued suffering of the majority of the Cambodian people and the continued hold of power in Cambodia by the criminal regime of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP). At the same time, the international community appears to also capitulate to Hun Sen's threats and manipulations. Cambodians are now in these death traps that are built by both the Vietnamese and our own people, and it will not be easy to get out of them.
It is hoped that by looking squarely into the causes and sources of this tragedy, future generations of Cambodians inside and outside Cambodia might be able to come up with new ideas in order to allow the Cambodian people to get out safely from these death traps.
Most Cambodians still blame the Vietnamese for all the disaster that befell on Cambodia since the 18th century. It is true that Vietnam has been trying to colonize Cambodia for almost three centuries. It is true that this colonialist policy of Vietnam continues until today. The invasion of Cambodia in 1978 was the most obvious and recent manifestation of that imperialist policy.
Despite the fact that the invasion of Cambodia was acknowledged by the international community as an act of aggression and Vietnam was overwhelmingly condemned for that action at the United Nations, Vietnam succeeded in installing a subservient government, the CPP before withdrawing.
More importantly, it has succeeded to turn the table around in its favor by judiciously playing the Khmer Rouge card, and by using and enhancing its own image as victim of foreign aggressions. Although, Cambodia has also been a victim of one of the worst holocausts in modem history, the Cambodian people are not viewed as victims of a foreign aggression but rather of their own making.
For instance, Vietnam fought against France, China and the United States and very successfully. While in Cambodia, Sihanouk gave permission to the US to carpet bombing the Eastern part of Cambodia without informing those who lived in that area, and while the CPP allowed the Vietnamese army to invade Cambodia in order to save their own skin. These events showed that Cambodians are insensitive to the well-being of their own people, and therefore, from the international community's point of view, they are not victims of any foreign aggressions. On the contrary, Vietnam has become not the invader of Cambodia, but its liberator.
At this point, it is interesting to ask the following questions
1. Why did the international community remain almost indifferent to this Vietnamese imperialist policy?
2. Why did the international community continue to bend backward to support the criminal regime of Hun Sen and the CPP, despite its continued gross violation of human rights and naked abuses of democratic principles and civil society?
3. Why are Cambodians not able to behave more like victims rather than victimizers? Are cultural isolation and intellectual disconnection the main causes of this bad image of Cambodians?
4. And if Cambodians have such a bad image, how are they going to do to changing it?
(See the appendix entitled: The Vietnamese Issues)
I. The Vietnamese/Hun Sen built Death Trap
There is little doubt that Vietnam continues to consolidate its imperialist grip on Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam has been building the death trap for Cambodians for the last three centuries.
Let us now examine the reasons why Vietnam has been successful in its colonialist policy. Contrary to the majority of Cambodians, this writer believes that the Vietnamese are not the only ones to be blamed for the demise of the Cambodian people. The blame must also be borne by the Cambodian people or at least by some of them, especially the Khmer Rouge, the Royalists, and the CPP. By sheer ignorance or callousness, these three groups of Cambodians also contributed to the building of the death trap for their own people.
Vietnam continued to maintain a closed relationship proclaimed in 1979 as irreversible" with its wartime partners and friends, the Pathet Lao and the CPP. A most recent meeting which took place last October, in Vientiane between the former three wartime partners testified to that ongoing and still strong alliance between these three countries under Vietnam leadership. This meeting took place despite the fact that members of ASEAN are not supposed to have a sub-block within it.
The recent security problem created by some Loa resistance and anti-communist movement prompted the government of Laos to request for Vietnam help. The visit to Vietnam by Hun Sen just Three days before the 1997 Hun Sen' s coup against FUNCINPEC, was also another manifestation of that irreversible policy and alliance, and of Vietnam's continued strong hold on its smaller former Indochina partners.
At this point it is important to warn those misguided group of Cambodians (the so-called Cambodian Freedom Fighters or CFF) who are advocating the use of armed resistance to fight against Hun Sen and the CPP. First of all, there will be no support for such an armed insurrection from any countries in the world including the United States, and especially the much-needed base in Thailand.
Let' s suppose that even if this group succeeds in having sufficient number of followers to be able to harass Hun Sen army; the international community would not tolerate this kind of armed insurrection against an "elected government" recognized by the UN in the 1998 elections.
On the contrary, the UN will allow Vietnam to re-enter Cambodia at the request of Hun Sen to eradicate this kind of armed resistance. This is so, because Sihanouk and Ranariddh are now fully supporting Hun Sen. Based on these premises, the international community (UN) would now be prepared to officially recognize Vietnam's right to intervene into Cambodian affairs. And this will be the end of Cambodia.
Since, there are so many other places in the troubled world that the UN is already involved in; there is not the slightest chance that it will again return to Cambodia to do the cleaning job as it did in 1991-93. Cambodia had its chance then. It lost it, it is almost certain that Cambodia won't have that opportunity again because the financial and human resources are just not there for the UN to do it again, anytime soon.
(For the background reading on this section, please refer to the appendix entitled: History and other Aspects of Cambodian problems)
II. The Khmer Rouge Built Death Trap
The Khmer Rouge not only killed two million individual Cambodians; but more tragically, they murdered the soul and the spirit of the Cambodian people, by destroying every aspect of the social, cultural, and institutional set up of Cambodia. Why did the Khmer rouge behave so differently from other totalitarian groups from the left or the right? According to Bruce Sharp (The Unique Revolution, 1997), a keen Cambodian observer of the Khmer Rouge movement, the following answer was given:
"The Cambodian revolution stands apart from other upheavals because the Khmer Rouge combined astonishing brutality with astonishing stupidity."
They were so brutal that no rationale can be brought to explain why they had to kill their own kind with such inhumane manner. For instance, they emptied the cities in 48 hours including hospitals, and did not allow any time for the evacuees to bring any medicine or food with them. There were no places that were prepared to receive these masses of people from the cities.
The purpose for such sadistic and cruel way of treating people was to break down any kind of resistance against them. They were suspicious of anybody, including their own cadre. The Khmer Rouge enjoyed torturing people before killing them. The mass killings by the Khmer rouge were done in the most barbaric way by using axes or clubs to bludgeon to death innocent children, men and women, old and young, to spare using bullets. They were most of all very xenophobic. They are the ones who provide the lowest common denominator to judge any future Cambodian political and social behavior. It is because of this singular and brutal political and ideological background, that Hun Sen appears now to the international community as the lesser of the two evils. That is why the apparent insensitivity of the international community to Hun Sen's constant abuses of democratic and civil society principles has become more understandable, although not acceptable. And that is why the Vietnamese encroachment into Cambodian affairs becomes benign when compared to the Khmer Rouge excesses.
Their stupidity resides in the fact that normally a country like Cambodia which never have a strong social and political organization to start with, particularly compared to Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge went ahead with the mass killing to weaken Cambodia further. They believed in the utopian world of scientific communism, where no money is needed, and where everybody wears the kind of same cloth and eats the same kind of food, and where big bother (Angkar) will watch over every act and gesture of each individual day and night. All individuality was erased and to be replaced by collective behavior and discipline.
There was no parallel of such demented behavior in the modem history of mankind; even during the harshest days of Leninism in Russia during the early 1920's. Is this a Khmer Rouge aberration or more dangerously a Cambodian trait of character? Some Cambodian Americans, especially those who are participants in the Soc. culture.com, web site, constantly blame the Vietnamese for all these bad things that have been taken place in Cambodia, since the 1993 elections. Similar ultra-nationalistic behavior pushed these people to talk about eliminating all Vietnamese in Cambodia (Chau Bury). The same xenophobic behavior still prevails among these same Cambodian Americans, despite the fact that they are living in this great country does not have room for such bigotry.
The behavior of these groups of Cambodian Americans points to the depth of the image problem that All Cambodians are having. I am afraid that it will not be easy to go against this trend. Because Cambodians are afraid to face this kind of people. Most Cambodians tend to withdraw rather facing such kind of persons. This is tantamount to capitulate in front of the force of evil and to prolong the bad image of all Cambodians. The Khmer Rouge death trap is the most difficult one to deal with. However, the Royal trap is perhaps the most damaging in the long run, because of the traditional place of respect and power of the royal family in the Cambodian society.
III. The Royalty built death trap
By tradition, the Cambodian identity is associated with the royal family or the cult of god-king, since the Angkor Era. Until today, the only alternative to communist ideology is the monarchy. And this is an old trap. During the last two elections (1993 and 1998), the only alternative to Hun Sen CPP was FUNCIINPEC, while SAM RAINSY Party was a poor third choice. It was clear that most Cambodians did not want to vote for Hun Sen CPP. In 1993, they clearly showed their displeasure of the CPP track records by overwhelmingly voting for FUNCINPEC. Again, in 1998, most people still continued to vote for FUNICINPEC, despite the fact that they knew full well that FUNCINPEC became as corrupt and as unlawful as the CPP.
What most people did not know, was the fact that Sihanouk, and especially his wife Monique had already formed a tacit alliance with Hun Sen since 1987. This is now clear to this writer, because soon after the meeting around Paris in 1987 between Sihanouk and Hun Sen, two of Sihanouk' s children, Chakrapong and Bopha Devi became vice premier and minister of Culture, respectively, in the then Hun Sen Government of the State of Cambodia (SOC). Knowing these royal family members, it was not possible to see two of Sihanouk children in the Hun Sen government without the tacit blessing of their royal father.
As usual, Sihanouk was able to hide his sordid and evil scheme very well by playing the patriotic card. In doing so, he was able to fool his own son, Norodom Ranariddh, and use him to advance his cooperation with Hun Sen, in the hope that Hun Sen would favor Monique to be queen after his death.
This maneuvering became even clearer after the 1997 coup, when Sihanouk immediately endorsed Hun Sen's coup, against his own son. This kind of behavior is nothing surprising among royal family members since the Angkor time. Betrayal is the order of the day in the royal circle. And this in turn has been one of the main causes for the downfall of Cambodia.
When viewed from this royal deceitful behavior, it is clear that the international community did not have any choice but to support Hun Sen. Because, Sihanouk still has a tremendous prestige among foreigners. This fact must be taken seriously if one is to understand the real dilemma of today's Cambodia.
(Please, see the Rise and Fall of the Khmer Rouge by Armando Manalo)
Conclusion:
I have been trying to analyze the different causes and source of the current social and political problems in Cambodia (see: In the Years of Dying). I have shown that the Vietnamese are not the only cause for the decay of Cambodian society see: Exploring Cambodia's Evolution of Corruption, and also: Cambodia Plagued by Torture: Report). The Cambodian people must also share the blame. That Hun Sen is subservient to the Vietnamese should be no surprise to anybody. But, the hidden alliance between Hun Sen and Sihanouk is probably more understood by the international community than by most Cambodians (see Stephen Moffis: Covering up the Killing Fields). There will be no possible Cambodian solution until Sihanouk disappears from the Cambodian political scene. But, time is not on the Cambodian side because of the influx of illegal Vietnamese immigrants, as there are practically no borders between Vietnam and Cambodia due to the existence of systemic and pervasive corruption in Cambodia.
But the main source of all the ills that the Cambodian people are enduring silently but very painfully, stems from the legacy of stupidity and brutality which was left behind by the Khmer Rouge. This legacy allows the international community to accept more easily Hun Sen as the lesser of the two evils, especially with Sihanouk's endorsement (see the interview of Ambassador Kent Wiederman on the Khmer Rouge trial). This policy was facilitated by the ineptitude of FUNCINPEC under the leadership of Norodom Ranariddh. He had the chance to pull Cambodia out of the disaster. He failed miserably because of his corrupt personality and of his well-known incompetence.
Where do we go from here? There are signs of hope inside Cambodia, because the civil society has started to take roots. Also, the world has evolved to a more open society, including China and Vietnam. The main problem for Cambodia is to find the right kind of leaders when that time will have arrived. This is where WCC can play a significant role, by sticking to our basic ethical and moral principles and respect for democracy and civil society, and to have the courage of speaking up on these vital issues concerning the Cambodian society. I do hope that this presentation will help to motivate younger Cambodian Americans toward this eventual possibility of seeing the light at the end of this long and suffocating tunnel.
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Appendix
1. The Vietnamese Issues
2. The Khmer Rouge Trial Issues
3. WCC and the Cambodian Community
4. History and other aspects of Cambodian Problems
See also
1. Views of the Clinton Administration and the U.S. Congress
2. Letter to Ambassador Abramowitz, by Naranhkiri Tith
3. Hanoi's Role in the Cambodian Coup, by Free Vietnam Alliance (FVA)
4. Sam Rainsy Condemned Cambodian Revenge Attacks on Vietnamese
5. A Cambodian View of Sam Rainsy
Cambodia Then and Now: Commemorating the 1991 Peace Agreement
Keynote Address by Professor the Hon Gareth Evans, Former Foreign Minister of Australia and President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group, to Seminar on Measuring Cambodia’s Progress Toward Equality, University of NSW Law School, 6 August 2011.
To read the full article, please, click on this link.
http://www.gevans.org/speeches/speech444.html
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(Comments: this keynote address on the 20th anniversary of the 1991 Paris Agreement on Cambodia, by the Honorable Gareth Evans, Former Foreign Minister of Australia is extremely important for understanding a detailed portrait of the complex negotiations leading to the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement on Cambodia. It is a must read for all those who participated in the recent “Cambodian National Conference 2011” organized by a group of concerned and dedicated Cambodian-Americans that took place in Alexandria, on October 22-23, 2011, (Please, see the petition on the Paris Agreement posted below in this page)
This address provides a comprehensive explanation of the background of this Paris Agreement and how the United Nations Organization was brought into to play a crucial role in Cambodia. although Mr Evans misterpreted the events in wnich Sihanuk was involved in his effort to bring Hun Sen back to power (please, this deadly story in an important and historic article in the next column titled "Australia Relationship with cambodia."
Two person deserve special thanks are Mr. Gareth Evans and my friend the late former Congressman from New York, Steve Solarz, who had a clear idea on how to bring in the UN into this conference and to define its role as Peace keeper in Cambodia. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 31, 2011)
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Cambodia first made its claim on my heart and mind in 1968, as some of you in the Cambodian community will have heard me say before, I was travelling across Asia, as so many young Australians have, to study in the UK, and spent a few fantastic days here, staying in a very downmarket hotel near the Central Market, drinking beer and eating noodles in student hangouts, and taking a wild ride in a share taxi up to Siem Riep -- scattering pigs, chickens and children in villages along the way-- to confront the majesty of Angkor Wat.
I had similar experiences in a number of other Asian countries, but there was something very distinctive about Cambodia. In later life I kept on running into a number of those young men and women I had met in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, India, Nepal or Afghanistan – or people exactly like them. But I never again met any of the young Cambodians I had spent time with, or any of their contemporaries. The sad and horrible truth is that they all died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge – executed outright as middle class enemies of the state, or worked to death through malnutrition or disease out in the fields.
As the horror of the genocide unfolded, and then the protracted misery of the civil war which followed it, I made a pledge to myself that if I could ever do anything for the wonderfully kind people of this country to relieve some of that misery then I would certainly try hard to make a difference. The opportunity to do so came after I became Australian foreign minister in 1988. And of the various things I managed to achieve in the nearly eight years I held the position, nothing has given me more pleasure and pride than the Paris peace agreement concluded in 1991, whose 20th anniversary we commemorate this year, and at this seminar, one of series being held around the world.
Nobody should forget the extent to which Cambodia was on its knees by the late 1980s. Since 1970 the country had been ravaged successively by massive US bombing, by civil war, by a genocidal reign of terror exceeded only by the Nazis, by invasion and by civil war again, resulting overall in the deaths of some 2 million Cambodians and the destruction of the lives of many more. The Vietnamese invasion in November 1978 brought to an end the worst of the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, but it triggered a new civil war. Recurring bloody military engagements, guerilla assaults and ambushes, the further displacement of large numbers of civilians, and the inability of life generally to return to any kind of pre-1970 normality, all took their further toll of an exhausted and suffering people.
Nor should anyone forget how complex and intractable the continuing conflict was, being played out as it was at three distinct levels. The first level was that of the warring internal factions – with Hun Sen's Government waged against a fragile coalition of the non-communist Sihanoukists and KPNLF (Son Sann) and communist Khmer Rouge, and each group was immensely distrustful of all the others. The second level was regional, with Vietnam supporting Hun Sen and ASEAN supporting his opponents. And the third level involved the great power patrons of the warring factions - with China supporting the Khmer Rouge and Prince Sihanouk; the Soviet Union supporting Hun Sen; and the United States supporting the two non-communist resistance groups.
To unravel all this, and produce out of it something resembling a durable peace - even if, as we’ll come back to later, we have not yet seen a durable, human-rights respecting democracy - was a formidable achievement indeed for the international community, and one in which, I am pleased to be able to say, Australia played a quite central part.
Australia's involvement in this achievement dates back to 1983, when the Hawke Government came to office in 1983 with a commitment to play a more active role in a Cambodian settlement, and from the outset the Government's Indo-China policy focused on exploring the various options for a Cambodian settlement. Bill Hayden’s achievement as foreign minister from 1983-88 was to have Australia accepted by the international community, including eventually ASEAN, as a responsible and knowledgeable voice on the issue of the Cambodian settlement. Our views at this time were not necessarily welcomed by all parties, but they were given weight and taken into account, and Australia's activities did impart a sense of urgency, previously absent, to the effort to find a solution.
In the late 1980s other regional countries, and in particular Indonesia, gradually sought to play a more active diplomatic role in pursuit of a solution to the Cambodian problem. The resulting Jakarta Informal Meetings (JIMs) in July 1988 and February 1989 were inconclusive: although they did result in some clearer definitions of the issues involved, there was no significant lessening of the differences among the four Cambodian factions. But hopes for a major move forward had arisen with the announcement by Vietnam in January 1989 that it was prepared to withdraw all its troops from Cambodia by September that year.
Courting the Khmer: Cambodia struggles to play China off against its other neighbours
The Economist: Jun 9th 2011 | PHNOM PENH | from the print edition
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(Comments: instead of writing my own comment on this article from the Economist magazine, I use the comment from one of the commentators on this article to make the case for what this article is all above. I want only to add that this article is not only historically off based, but, also currently inaccurate and biased, for instance he wrote that;
“China is everywhere, of course. What makes Cambodia unusual is that China has a rival there. Neighbouring Vietnam has had a prickly relationship with Cambodia. Few Cambodians forget that Vietnam invaded their country in 1979, overthrowing the murderous regime of Pol Pot, and then occupied it for ten years. Yet Vietnam is now devoting a lot of time and money to investing in its neighbour.”
The economist reporter is totally uninformed and biased against China, and above all totally understated Vietnam’s threat to Cambodia in the form of its sending into Cambodia millions of illegal immigrants, as they have been doing since the 17th century. Want to publish the results of the recent census of the population because it would reveal the number of illegal Vietnamese immigrants who would automatically be given identity cards to vote for Hun Sen and his CPP in the national elections. Here is that comment:
“dumazz Jun 9th 2011 7:26 GMT
The article is shallow to suggest that Cambodia plays a balancing game on China and Vietnam. The Cambodian relations with Thailand and Vietnam are a showcase of various conflicts on history, border and even culture. But China and Cambodia have enjoyed a wonderful and peaceful relation, thanks to the fact that both countries don't share any borders and historical conflicts.
"China’s vast presence risks turning the country into a vassal of the Middle Kingdom." You can abuse the word "vassal" in any ally relations when one party is bigger than another and when you have enough imaginations. Name the USA vs. the UK.”
Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 29, 2011)
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TWENTY kilometres (12½ miles) down the Mekong river from the capital, Phnom Penh, a new container terminal is taking shape on a 30-hectare site. Upstream, two new ports are planned. Whereas other countries that share the mighty waterway favour dams and power plants, the Cambodians are turning the Mekong into a commercial highway. As Sam Olan, the deputy director of the container terminal argues, the project is tailored to the war-ravaged country’s needs: transport by water is cheaper than by road and requires less maintenance—and there are not many good roads anyway.
Like much else in Cambodia today, the new port is being built by the Chinese; 50 or so Chinese engineers and technicians live on site. The Cambodians are confident they will get their new port quickly and on time (it is due to open next year)—one of many reasons why the Chinese are welcome there, as in other poor countries.
As one of the poorest countries in South-East Asia struggles to end its dependence on foreign aid, the Chinese presence has become pervasive. Just down river from the new container terminal is the huge Chinese-built Prek Tamak bridge, which opened last year. The Cambodian prime minister, Hun Sen, recently broke ground on a $46m Chinese-built road linking the capital to the coastal province of Kampot. There, a new Chinese-built hydroelectric power station is about to begin operation—supplying, by one official estimate, half of Cambodia’s demand for power. The Chinese plan to build three more. Overall, China accounts for almost half the foreign investment in the country.
China is everywhere, of course. What makes Cambodia unusual is that China has a rival there. Neighbouring Vietnam has had a prickly relationship with Cambodia. Few Cambodians forget that Vietnam invaded their country in 1979, overthrowing the murderous regime of Pol Pot, and then occupied it for ten years. Yet Vietnam is now devoting a lot of time and money to investing in its neighbour.
Trade between the two countries expanded from $950m in 2006 to $1.8 billion last year. In the first two months of this year two-way trade reached $382m, up 65% compared with the same period in 2010. Vietnamese investment is now worth around $2 billion, spread over a bewildering variety of industries, including retailing, agriculture and telecoms. A subsidiary of Viettel, the Vietnamese state telecoms operator, started operations in Cambodia in 2009 yet already has 42% of the mobile market. The company, Metfone, has built many of Cambodia’s mobile masts and laid 16,000km of fibre-optic cable, 80% of the network. It also provides handsets to the army.
Other Asian countries are also coming in. Until Vietnam elbowed its way up the league table, South Korea was the second-biggest investor, mainly in construction and banking. It has a vast new trade hall on one of Phnom Penh’s smarter boulevards. Thai investors have been buying hotels, and Taiwan has a toehold.
More commercial investment must be good news for Cambodia. But in a country that has for centuries been squeezed by bigger neighbours, the scramble raises concerns about sovereignty—and these are exploited to the full by the small but vocal opposition. It uses Vietnam’s projects to attack Hun Sen, the prime minister who (it claims) owes his career to Vietnamese political meddling. And it argues that China’s vast presence risks turning the country into a vassal of the Middle Kingdom.
The evidence so far is that Cambodia is using the largesse without being swamped by it. Unlike many other countries that China invests in, tiny Cambodia, with a population of just 14m, has no oil or minerals to trade in return, so China’s interest seems to be to gain an ally in ASEAN, the regional block. China claims that its help comes with no strings attached, and so far there has been only one recorded instance of China exploiting its economic presence for political ends (it persuaded Cambodia to return 20 Uighur asylum-seekers in 2009). The Vietnamese foray might be partly strategic too. Vietnam wants to counter the expansion of China which is seen as having hostile ambitions in the disputed South China Sea (see Banyan). If so, Cambodia is enjoying being fought over, and plays one off against the other.
It helps that some of the new influences in Cambodia are not exclusively Asian. The new Cambodian elite looks westward more than it has done for a long while, especially to America. English is more widely spoken than in any other country in the region, and the hundreds of English-language schools that have opened up are packed. Two deputy prime ministers sent their sons to college in America, and Hun Sen’s eldest son (and probable successor) went to the West Point military academy.
For the moment Cambodia seems unlikely to fall into any particular sphere of influence. Given its neighbours’ size and clout, that is a remarkable—and remarkably difficult—balancing act.
Opposition lawmakers fear non-Cambodians are registering to vote
The Phnom Penh Post: Thursday, 27 October 2011 12:02
Bridget Di Certo and Kim Yuthana
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(Comments: the two articles posted below, titled “Opposition lawmakers fear non-Cambodian are registering to vote,” and “Vietnamese Migrants in Cambodia” prove that the recent Cambodia National Conference 2011 (see the petition posted just below) that recently took place in Alexandria (October 21-22, 2011) pointed to the problems of intractable and dangerous voters registration in camvbodia. Fortunately, this problem, was one of the issues raised in the petition, as contained in item # 3 and stated as follows:
"3. To demand that the Cambodian government ensures that all future elections be free and fair. This will include (a) A national census of all citizens and including foreigners legal and illegal, to be collected from each province and to include data on national identity, (b) Allowing any Cambodians to register to vote freely and timely, including Cambodians living abroad, (c) Providing equal access to the media for opposition parties, including public debates with party in power, and (d) Making it illegal to use state property to serve any one political party."
To me, this issue of voter registration is of paramount importance for the survival of Cambodia and for any chance to beat Hun Sen at the ballot. As long as Hun Sen is in power, there is no way that Cambodia’s borders will be respected by the Vietnamese, as the Vietnamese has a concept of "movable borders" with its neighbors, namely; Cambodia and Laos
However, having said this, the other important requirement to beat Hun Sen with the support of Sihanouk is to come up with real, courageous, and respectable leaders in the opposition in Cambodia, in the calibre of Aung San Suu Kyi (Nobel Prize winner-Myanmar), Nelson Mandela (Nobel Prize winner-Republic of South Africa), Mahatma Gandhi (India), or Vaslav Havel (Nobel Prize winner-Czech Republic). At the moment, Cambodia does not have such high calibre leaders. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 27, 2011)
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Three SRP politicians yesterday stonewalled a conference on voter registration results organised by the Committee for Free and Fair Elections (Comfrel), complaining that Vietnamese citizens had been allowed to register to vote.
The alleged enrolment of Vietnamese citizens showed there was “no effectiveness in the working [of the NEC]” the SRP’s Kuoy Bunroeun said.
Announced voter registration numbers were more than 192 per cent above the prediction of the National Election Committee for the 2012 commune-district elections.
“The NEC’s estimate is completely wrong,” Kuoy Bunroeun said.
“This shows 100 per cent that there is no true mechanism to ensure the effectiveness of the process of free and fair elections.”
The SRP’s concern was that non-Cambodian citizens were being allowed to register to vote, Comfrel president Koul Panha clarified.
“But Comfrel has found that the ethnic Vietnamese who registered to vote have all the necessary citizenship papers,” Koul Panha told the Post.
“It is always a big controversy whenever there is an election, but you cannot do anything about it because they [the ethnic Vietnamese] have documents signed by the authorities saying that they are Cambodian citizens.
Koul Panha echoed concerns that the registered number of voters was so far off the NEC’s prediction.
The number is surprisingly high if you consider all the flooding and natural disaster that has swept the country,” he said.
“We think it may be the case that some voters have registered at two places because people have migrated and there is no current system . . . to delete the duplicate names.”
NEC secretary-general Tep Nitha conceded the registration number was high and there was probably a fair degree of doubling-up by voters.
“The number of registrations is on the rise, but when we total the lists of overlapping names, we still expect the numbers to be increased maybe 103 to 105 per cent on the prediction. We cannot avoid small problems happening.”
Vietnamese migrants in Cambodia
UNESCAP:
http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/workingpapers/LabourMigration/index2.asp#2
As a part of its studies on migration, CDRI conducted small sample interviews with Vietnamese Associations and individual workers of Vietnamese origin in selected villages of Kompong Chhnang and Phnom Penh in order to determine the status of Vietnamese workers in Cambodia.
The Vietnamese, who had lived in Cambodia for generations, were deported during the Lon Nol regime (1970-1975) and later during the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979). During the 1980s, they gradually returned to Cambodia, along with friends, relatives and neighbours. In the 1990s, a new wave of immigrants from Viet Nam was attracted by the opportunities offered by a sudden opening up of a market economy in Cambodia.
The scale of such immigration is very difficult to estimate. Demographers calculate that, if Cambodia’s population in 1985 (which is again an estimated figure drawn from the internal records of the Ministry of Economy and Finance) was 7.5 million, an average natural growth rate of 2.4 per cent might be expected to have brought the total population to around 9.9 million by 1998. If 360,000 repatriated refugees and their offspring are added to that, the total would add to around 10.3 million. The actual total enumerated in the 1998 census was 11.4 million, implying a contribution of a little more than 1 million by immigrants and their subsequent offspring (mainly composed of Vietnamese). Another estimate, provided by the governments of eight provinces (Kandal, Battambang, Phnom Penh, Takeo, Kompong Chhnang, Pursat, Prey Veng and Siem Reap) representing 53 per cent of Cambodia’s population, indicates that the total Vietnamese population was 227,000 in these provinces in 1995. The Kompong Chhnang Immigration Office, interviewed in April 2000, estimated that there had been a big increase in the number of Vietnamese in the province since the 1980s – from 1,269 households containing 7,064 people in 1985 to 2,708 households with 13,445 people in 1997 (So, 2001).
The occupation of Vietnamese workers varies with their location. Those interviewed in Kompong Chhnang were almost all involved in fishing year round. These small- and medium-scale fishermen earned on average around 10,000 riels (US$ 1 = 3,852 riels) per day, in addition to earnings obtained from cage cultures. The Vietnamese have been found to be especially dextrous in fishing activities; this is the reason why they have been successful in retaining their hold on this activity in Cambodia.
In Phnom Penh, most of those interviewed worked as construction workers, traders and skilled workers in machinery and electronic repair workshops, wood processing enterprises etc. Around 80 per cent of the small-scale contractors and supervisors in the construction industry are believed to be of Vietnamese origin. Employers of skilled workers said that they preferred to employ workers of Vietnamese origin because they found them to be skilled, hard working and patient. In contrast, local Cambodian workers tended to be confined to less skilled work; for instance, in construction, as labourers carrying sand, gravel and cement.
Most representatives of local authorities also admitted that in the villages surveyed the sex trade is to some extent run and staffed by the Vietnamese. In the survey villages, Vietnamese women work in brothels, karaoke bars, massage parlours, dance halls and “coin-rubbing” places. Those who work in dance halls operate independently but others are obliged to receive customers under the strict control of brothel-owners. The owners charge each customer between 5,000 and 70,000 riels: the workers are paid only a subsistence amount.
In short, Vietnamese migrants are low/medium to unskilled category workers; they work hard and they engage in any activity to earn a living. The intentions of Vietnamese migrants, particularly those who migrate to neighbouring countries, are at times to return, and at other times, to stay out permanently. Those who invest in a business outside of Viet Nam (for example, fishing, or personal care business in Cambodia) are typically expected to find roots in the host location.
REASONS FOR MOVING, EARNINGS, WORKING CONDITIONS AND ILLEGALITY
Internal migrants in Cambodia who had left their villages less than one year before the census stated that their principal reason for moving was the need to search for employment (29 per cent of the total), while the second reason given was the need to follow their families (25 per cent). Family reasons in many cases are also related to employment, since spouses move with migrants in search of work. There were few differences in the reasons given by male and female migrants, with females slightly more likely to move for family reasons and males slightly more likely to move for education and marriage. Increasing numbers are leaving villages because of rising population as well as unequal land distribution.
The wage difference between agricultural work and unskilled work in Phnom Penh can be significant: workers in paddy fields earn about 4,000 riels per day – around $1 – while the prevailing wage rate for unskilled/semi-skilled workers in the city can be 6,000- 10,000 riels (Pon and Acharya, 2001). Garment factories, in which about 3 per cent of the Cambodian labour force are employed, pay a minimum of $45 a month; with overtime work, most such workers are able to net $60-75 monthly. Most garment workers are migrants and they remit earnings home (Sok and others, 2001). Additionally, in rural areas work is not available for more than a few months, while in the city, work availability has no apparent seasonality. A larger number of days of work translates into higher incomes. Even in the case of rural-to-rural migration, while the wage rate may not vary much, the number of days of work does. People move from single-crop regions to double-crop ones to fish, engage in logging or even work on road-building and other construction work. Of late, it has not been uncommon for people to take up work under “food-for-work” programmes, even if they have to travel short distances.
For Cambodian workers in Thailand, the differential wage rate is the main attraction: wages are much higher than what they are at home for similar work. Table 3 shows the average earnings available locally compared with the average received by migrants in Thailand (converted in both cases to United States dollars for comparability). This holds true for workers of both sexes.
Cambodian National Conference 2011
(Comments: last weekend, October 21-22, 2011, a Conference on the 20th anniversary of the 1991 Paris Agreements took place in Alexandria, Virginia. This conference was organized by a group of well-meaning Cambodian-Americans who had the skill and the commitment to successfully organize , manage, and conduct this conference, whose main purpose is to allow Cambodia and its people to have a better chance to survive the corrupt regime of Hun Sen supported by Sihanouk, under the shadow of the Vietnam hegemonistic design and plan.
I was invited to deliver a presentation on how, the Vietnamese "Nam Tien" or "Southward March," the most deadly of all systems of colonialism, according to American historian, Bernard Fall, is taking hold of Cambodia's destiny.
It was one of the most meaningful, well-organized, well-conducted, and successful conferences by any groups of Cambodians that I had the privilege to attend. The end result of this conference is the resolution calling for major changes in the political, economic and social system in Cambodia under the corrupt regime of Hun Sen and his CPP with the total support of Sihanouk, posted below.
Please, take a look at my presentation on "Nam Tien" or "Southward March" and some selected related background documents, through the links pasted below. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 25, 2011)
Revised Understanding Nam tien is a necessary condition 2.pptx
Link to the supporting documents for my presentation on "Nam Tien"
The War in Cambodia 1945 Khmer Issarak.docx
Please, read some feedbacks on the CNC 2011 , by clicking on this link pasted below
http://www.khmerunity.org/?p=624
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Cambodian National Conference 2011
“Cambodia 20 Years after the Paris Peace Agreement”
(October 21-22, 2011)
Holiday Inn, 2460 Eisenhower Ave, Alexandria, VA 22314;
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Cambodian National Conference 2011
Organized by Cambodian Americans for Human Rights and Democracy (CAHRAD) and Khmer Unity for Cambodia (KUC)
Resolutions
Whereas, the Cambodian people, 140 persons in total, representing civic organizations, political parties, and communities from the United States of America, Canada, Europe and Cambodia, have gathered at a national conference on the 21st and 22nd day of October 2011 in the greater Washington DC area, as part of the Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Paris Peace Agreement signed on October 23, 1991;
Whereas, the discussions and debates were conducted by knowledgeable people and experts in the field who have closely monitored the situation in Cambodia since then;
Whereas, the Cambodian government did not take all necessary actions in conformity with the Paris Peace Agreement in regard to the maintenance of Cambodia sovereignty, the application of real democracy, an independent and non-corrupt judicial system, the full respect of human rights and freedoms of expression of the Cambodian people;
Whereas, the Cambodian government did not terminate treaties with foreign countries that were not compatible with Cambodia sovereignty and independence;
Whereas, the Cambodian government did not publicize the national legal map of Cambodia, thereby create confusion among the national and international public;
Whereas, the Cambodian government has allowed massive illegal aliens to resettle in the country, thereby posing a threat to the national security;
Whereas, the separation of power between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial in the Cambodian democracy is highly questionable;
Whereas, the elections in Cambodia have been far from being free and fair due the
dominance of the ruling party; and
Whereas, the Cambodian people continue to have their rights abused -- especially in regard to the illegal eviction from their own land;
Be It Resolved:
1. To demand that the Cambodian government to (a) Maintain its sovereignty as outlined in the “Agreement Concerning the Sovereignty, Independence, Territorial Integrity and Inviolability, Neutrality and National Unity of Cambodia” portion of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement (Articles 1 and 2), and (b) Implement and effectively enforce existing immigration and nationality laws;
2. To demand that the Cambodian government and the signatory countries to
disseminate the map/s of Cambodia currently in use. A conference shall be convened to check the compatibility of past treaties with the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Cambodia in accordance with Article 5 of the same Agreement.
3. To demand that the Cambodian government ensures that all future elections be free and fair. This will include (a) A national census of all citizens and including
foreigners legal and illegal, to be collected from each province and to include data on
national identity, (b) Allowing any Cambodians to register to vote freely and timely,
including Cambodians living abroad, (c) Providing equal access to the media for
opposition parties, including public debates with party in power, and (d) Making it
illegal to use state property to serve any one political party.
4. To request that the United Nations, the United States, all signatory countries to the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement, the Human Rights Watch, the Carter Center, evaluate the Cambodian National Election Committee, which must be independent of any political party affiliation and interference.
5. To demand that the Cambodian government implement and ensure an independent judicial system whose judges are free of interference from political party.
6. To demand that the Cambodian government to put an end to illegal land grabbing
and abolish land concessions beyond renewable 30-year contracts, which have
displaced many families and results in human rights violations.
Adopted in the City of Alexandria, Virginia, USA
This 22nd Day of October, 2011.
Tung Yap
Co-Chair of Cambodian National Conference 2011
Obama set for first visit, official says
Tuesday, 18 October 2011 12:01
Mom Kunthear and Kristin Lynch
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(Comments: the announcement of President first visit to Cambodia is a very important news for the Cambodian people, provided that Cambodian-Americans know how to use this rare diplomatic event to our best advantage.
The upcoming conference on the 20 Years Anniversary of the Paris Agreements organized by a group of Cambodian-Americans, and to be taking place in Alexandria, VA., during October 21-23 2011., is a good forum and timing for this discussion.
I do hope that the organizers of this forum can bring this subject into the discussion by the conference attendees. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. October 18, 2011)
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United States President Barack Obama plans to visit Cambodia late next year for a regional summit, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Koy Kuong said yesterday.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting between Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and David Carden, the US Ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Koy Kuong said that Cambodia expects to welcome Obama at the ASEAN-US summit next November in Phnom Penh.
“The President of the United States, Barack Obama, will visit Cambodia for next year’s ASEAN-US summit,” he said. The US Embassy in Phnom Penh, however, said it had not been informed of the visit.
“We have not heard anything from the White House about a commitment [by Obama] to come to Cambodia,” embassy spokesman Sean McIntosh said. “There has not been a public announcement.”
Obama’s visit would mark the first time a sitting US president has traveled to the Kingdom. The most prominent member of the US government to visit Cambodia during Obama’s administration has been Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who included a stop in Cambodia during a seven-country Asian tour last November.
Koy Kuong said that Obama’s visit would come after next year’s US presidential election, scheduled for November 4. Even if Obama loses, he would still hold the office until January 2013 when the president-elect would be sworn in. Despite a lack of confirmation from the embassy, Ambassador Carden suggested the visit would occur.
“The meetings have been set next year for after the presidential election in order to give my president, our president, the opportunity to attend the EAS summit and the leaders’ meeting here next year,” he told reporters after his meeting with Hor Namhong.
It was unclear whether Carden was referring to the ASEAN-US Summit or the East Asia Summit. This year the two summits are being held in Bali, Indonesia: the former on November 18 and the latter on November 19. Obama is scheduled to attend both.
The first ASEAN-US Summit was held in November 2009, when President Obama met all 10 ASEAN leaders in Singapore.
Letters to the International Herald Tribune
The U.N. and the Khmer Rouge Trials
Published: October 18, 2011
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(Comments: This article shows that the United Nations has not yet surendered to Hun Sen's threat and manipulations of the KRT. It remains to be seen whether the UN can continue to play game with Hun Sen and Sihanouk, and expect to get real justice for the Cambodian people. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 18, 2011)
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The op-ed “Justice delayed and denied” (Views, Oct. 14) by James A. Goldston mischaracterizes the position of the United Nations in relation to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
Mr. Goldston states that in response to a judge’s resignation from the E.C.C.C. on grounds of perceived political interference, the secretary general “... simply thanked the judge for his service, announced that he was working to secure a replacement, and restated his strong support for the work of the E.C.C.C. In other words, business as usual.” This is not correct. In a statement made on Oct. 10, the United Nations noted the reasons given by the judge for his resignation, reiterated that the E.C.C.C. must be permitted to proceed with its work without interference from any entity, including the royal government of Cambodia, and indicated that the United Nations would continue to monitor the situation at the E.C.C.C. closely.
In line with that statement, I will travel to Phnom Penh next week to discuss the issue of political interference as a matter of urgency and to gain the best possible understanding of the facts regarding concerns about other aspects of the work of the E.C.C.C. The United Nations is naturally concerned by these matters and will strive to ensure that any action it may take would not undermine its longstanding support for the independence of the judiciary in Cambodia and elsewhere.
Patricia O’Brien, New York
Under Secretary general for legal affairs, United Nations
Madam Lim Chivv Ho: Cambodia’s best-looking entrepreneur
The Phnom Penh Post: Tuesday, 11 October 2011 12:01
Stuart Alan Becker
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(Comments: this article and the next one titled “Cambodia’s best looking entrepreneur,” and the next one titled “Economy's double-digit growth begins to attract international attention,” show how successful Cambodia is now under Hun Sen and Sihanouk’ regime. I am aware of The American named Brett Sciaroni who has been Hun Sen’s supporter and defender since he came to Cambodia in 1993. He would not have been named chairman of the International Business Council of Cambodia and Chairman of the American Cambodian Business Council, if he is not a firm supporter of Hun Sen.
The other person named Madam Lim Chiv Ho called “Cambodia best-looking entrepreneur” is also questionable as to her story of success. One wonders whether she can be so successful in Hun Sen Cambodia without belonging to his regime.
I just wonder whether the stories in these two articles really reflect the reality of the true situation in Cambodia under Hun Sen-Sihanouk corrupt and treacherous regime.
More importantly, it is fair to ask the following question; Would this phenomenal increase in wealth in Cambodia as indicated by these two articles, trickle down to the majority of the Cambodian people the majority of which is still marred in abject poverty? It is too good to be true. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 13, 2011)
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FOR businesswomen in Cambodia, it would be difficult to find someone with a more well-established network, or who is more respected and successful than Madam Lim Chivv Ho, a member of the global Lim clan and one of Cambodia’s true success stories.
She survived the Khmer Rouge regime digging in a rural rice field, knowing she’d be shot if she stopped working, lost half her family – but today she’s a leading force in Cambodia’s transformation, restoration and development.
She started out running boats back and forth to ships at sea when Cambodia was still under armed military control, bringing in supplies of whiskey and cigarettes and making friends of the soldiers, and over the years has developed a reputation for a unique combination of strength and kindness.
Madam Lim Chivv Ho serves as chairman of LCH Investment group and managing director of Attwood Import Export, which has exclusive rights in Cambodia for Hennessy, Johnnie Walker and Heineken.
She’s chairman of Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone Co. Ltd, an increasingly successful place just outside Phnom Penh where foreign-owned factories can quickly and easily set up operations with steady electricity and water supplies and a large, fenced-in, protected compound where they can focus on the work and not worry about theft.
She’s developing the Stung Hav International Port and Special Economic Zone near Sihanoukville. She’s the Chairman of a property development company called LCH Developments Co. Ltd. which developed her headquarters building at Attwood Centre, located on Russian Boulevard toward the airport – a building that contains three bank branches, two restaurants, a KFC and a music lounge.
Attwood Investment Group owns LCH CE Mobiles Ltd. which is the licensed distributor of Samsung Mobile and her sister, Lim Chivv Y, is the exclusive distributor of Phillips Consumer Electronics in Cambodia.
Madam Lim took time with The Phnom Penh Post last week to express her feelings about Cambodia’s future.
“Cambodia is a very good investment because the market is very open. Right now is an excellent time to invest in agriculture, manufacturing, tourism or infrastructure,” she said.
Having survived the horrors of the past and having grown as Cambodia has developed, Madam Lim wants people to know Cambodia is now safe, comfortable and open for business.
“Cambodia is very safe. There are no guns here. The big investors can come to Cambodia which is now the number one in place in the world to invest,” she said.
The same morning of the same day of this interview, Madam Lim received a Thai investor from one of Thailand’s largest food companies, looking to set up a big food processing plant here.
He expressed surprise about how safe and stable Cambodia seemed to be.
“He told me he believes that the future of Cambodia is very good,” she said.
“I believe the same. We welcome him and his factory here,.”
Lim says the Cambodian government has also changed for the better.
Among Lim’s concerns are lower electricity costs in the future, more hospitals and schools.
As a successful businesswoman herself, she is committed to the development of a highly successful educational institute for training Cambodians and an excellent hospital as part of her legacy.
“I also want to see cheaper power for the country,”
Towards that end, Madam Lim has a concession to build a 90-megawatt, coal-fired power plant.
“Cambodia is very open and will be very good in the future. Don’t worry.
I want to tell to all the investors from overseas, come to invest in Cambodia.
“It is really safe and very good in Cambodia from now on.”
The secret of Madam Lim’s success, she says, is to have control of what you are doing.
“To be successful you must be in control of how to help your people and how to help your company.”
Another essential factor is trust.
“If my staff doesn’t believe me, how can they help me? I have to be a true person in order for people to be true to me,” she says.
“For training all my staff, it is the same as I treat my friends and family: thinking together, working together and eating together. This is my life.”
As for serious investors who are visiting Cambodia, Madam Lim makes them welcome to consider taking part in her many projects.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Economy's double-digit growth begins to attract international attention
The Phnom Penh Post: Tuesday, 11 October 2011 12:01
Stuart Alan Becker
Brett Sciaroni.
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AN American lawyer who enjoys special status among Cambodia’s leaders says businesses worldwide are starting to take serious notice of Cambodia because of positive signs in the country’s development.
Brett Sciaroni, who serves as chairman of the International Business Council of Cambodia and Chairman of the American Cambodian Business Council, first came to Cambodia in 1993 on a two-month contract.
“I found Cambodia to be an exciting place with a lot of opportunity. I thought it was more interesting than practising law in Washington, DC.
“What has attracted people’s attention to Cambodia is, first and foremost, double-digit GDP for most of the past decade. That got us on people’s radar screens.
"When they took a closer look, they saw we had a positive track record of legal reform and political stability. All of these things combine to make Cambodia an attractive place for foreign investors.
“One of the reasons why businesses are attracted to Cambodia is that over the years, you can see the Cambodian government has engaged on a course of legal and regulatory reform with the WTO and with technical assistance with bilateral and multi-lateral donors.
“If you take a look at the laws being adopted now, these are international standard laws.
"Even though we don’t have all the laws we need as the foundation of a modern commercial country yet, what investors see is the commitment of the Royal Government to get everything in place.
And that's what attracts international attention."
Sciaroni helped negotiate the first investment under the 1994 investment law, which was the Asia Pacific Brewery which makes Tiger beer.
Since his early days in Cambodia, he has enjoyed close relationships with senior officials, even serving as Prime Minister Hun Sen’s lawyer from time to time.
“It was my good fortune to meet the senior leadership of the government when I arrived in 1993 and establish good relationships with them which have carried on to this day. The government is open to outside business.
"The creation of the Government-Private Sector Forum has created dialogue between government and private sector to improve the economy and make this a more attractive place for investment.”
Today, his company, Sciaroni & Associates, is an investment and legal advisory services firm that helps introduce Cambodia to the international community.
“What I’m here for is to help guide investors through not only the established procedures of government and business but also the unwritten rules and the way the local culture affects how business is done.”
Sciaroni says potential investors in Cambodia have to spend time here, meet people, go slowly and understand more.
“You really do have to spend time, not just studying the laws, but if you are going to have a joint venture partner you have to know the parties to have a common understanding.
"A lot of time they don’t spend the time and they don’t have a common understanding _ and that leads to problems.
“What I tell people is that there is no substitute for coming to visit Cambodia. You can do all the research on Google, but the only way you can know is come and see for yourself.
"If you do that, usually you come away impressed, not only with the opportunities that are here, but with the resilience of the Cambodian people, who suffered greatly but are bouncing back.
“We’re trying to promote Cambodia. What we try to do is help international business understand is there is a world of opportunity in Cambodia, 20 years after Cambodia opened up to the world, it remains a largely unknown quantity to international business. There are a lot of people who are just discovering Cambodia and we want people to understand the wide array of opportunities available."
Sciaroni says there are all kinds of opportunities across all the sectors of the economy in Cambodia.
“People ask what sectors we recommend. My answer is there are very few sectors that I don’t recommend. Most sectors are either under-represented or not at all in terms of business opportunity.
" Whatever your area is, you look at it and you see in almost every area is things that can be done that are not being done _ or things that are being done, but not being done very well which means there is room for competition.”
Sciaroni says the financial crisis had a silver lining because increased commodity prices kick-started the agricultural sector.
“We are starting to attract food processing, seafood processing, and sugar cane processing and rice mill operations. These will all help grow the agricultural sector and keep value in Cambodia,” he said.
“We’ll do the value added here rather than having it done abroad. We’re starting to get more light manufacturing. This fall we’ll have a Ford assembly plant opening up in Sihanoukville."
Sciaroni says it’s significant Cambodia will be the chair of the ASEAN association next year.
“Cambodia is assuming its rightful position on the world stage.”
Another positive factor is the friendly and welcoming nature of the Cambodian people.
“Cambodians are genuine and they are welcoming of any foreigners that come here. I’ve never been made to feel more welcome.
" The people help sell the country. They’ve had a tragic history, but they all are optimistic about their future and they have high hopes for their children’s future.
"They all want to go to school. They all want a good education.”
As for the future, Sciaroni says people can expect expansion and growth. “The government is committed to it. They are very focused on all the young people, and that’s why they are keen to have foreign investment, to improve the business climate to do business.”
America's Pacific Century
The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action.
Foreign Policy Magazine: October 11, 2011
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century?page=full
BY HILLARY CLINTON | NOVEMBER 2011
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(Comments: this article shows the coming of age of the Pacific area and era. Secreatry of Stat Hillary Clinton has put it this way:
"The Asia-Pacific has become a key driver of global politics. Stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas, the region spans two oceans -- the Pacific and the Indian -- that are increasingly linked by shipping and strategy. It boasts almost half the world's population. It includes many of the key engines of the global economy, as well as the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. It is home to several of our key allies and important emerging powers like China, India, and Indonesia."
The Important question for Cambodia, where does it fit in this broad picture? Will it disappear under the Vietnamese deluge or will it be able to sruvive it? The answer to this question will depends on whehter the Cambodian people stop asking other nations, especially Vietnam to help them. Nobody can help Cambodia survive but the cambodia themselves. In ordeer tho achieve this aim, good leaders of the caliber of Aung San Suu Kyi or Nelson Mandela must be found, and fast. Time is not on the Cambodian side. Naranhkiri tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 11, 2011)
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As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment -- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise -- in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Asia-Pacific has become a key driver of global politics. Stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas, the region spans two oceans -- the Pacific and the Indian -- that are increasingly linked by shipping and strategy. It boasts almost half the world's population. It includes many of the key engines of the global economy, as well as the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. It is home to several of our key allies and important emerging powers like China, India, and Indonesia.
At a time when the region is building a more mature security and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity, U.S. commitment there is essential. It will help build that architecture and pay dividends for continued American leadership well into this century, just as our post-World War II commitment to building a comprehensive and lasting transatlantic network of institutions and relationships has paid off many times over -- and continues to do so. The time has come for the United States to make similar investments as a Pacific power, a strategic course set by President Barack Obama from the outset of his administration and one
With Iraq and Afghanistan still in transition and serious economic challenges in our own country, there are those on the American political scene who are calling for us not to reposition, but to come home. They seek a downsizing of our foreign engagement in favor of our pressing domestic priorities. These impulses are understandable, but they are misguided. Those who say that we can no longer afford to engage with the world have it exactly backward -- we cannot afford not to. From opening new markets for American businesses to curbing nuclear proliferation to keeping the sea lanes free for commerce and navigation, our work abroad holds the key to our prosperity and security at home. For more than six decades, the United States has resisted the gravitational pull of these "come home" debates and the implicit zero-sum logic of these arguments. We must do so again.
Beyond our borders, people are also wondering about America's intentions -- our willingness to remain engaged and to lead. In Asia, they ask whether we are really there to stay, whether we are likely to be distracted again by events elsewhere, whether we can make -- and keep -- credible economic and strategic commitments, and whether we can back those commitments with action. The answer is: We can, and we will.
Harnessing Asia's growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests and a key priority for President Obama. Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology. Our economic recovery at home will depend on exports and the ability of American firms to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia. Strategically, maintaining peace and security across the Asia-Pacific is increasingly crucial to global progress, whether through defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, countering the proliferation efforts of North Korea, or ensuring transparency in the military activities of the region's key players.
Just as Asia is critical to America's future, an engaged America is vital to Asia's future. The region is eager for our leadership and our business -- perhaps more so than at any time in modern history. We are the only power with a network of strong alliances in the region, no territorial ambitions, and a long record of providing for the common good. Along with our allies, we have underwritten regional security for decades -- patrolling Asia's sea lanes and preserving stability -- and that in turn has helped create the conditions for growth. We have helped integrate billions of people across the region into the global economy by spurring economic productivity, social empowerment, and greater people-to-people links. We are a major trade and investment partner, a source of innovation that benefits workers and businesses on both sides of the Pacific, a host to 350,000 Asian students every year, a champion of open markets, and an advocate for universal human rights.
President Obama has led a multifaceted and persistent effort to embrace fully our irreplaceable role in the Pacific, spanning the entire U.S. government. It has often been a quiet effort. A lot of our work has not been on the front pages, both because of its nature -- long-term investment is less exciting than immediate crises -- and because of competing headlines in other parts of the world.
As secretary of state, I broke with tradition and embarked on my first official overseas trip to Asia. In my seven trips since, I have had the privilege to see firsthand the rapid transformations taking place in the region, underscoring how much the future of the United States is intimately intertwined with the future of the Asia-Pacific. A strategic turn to the region fits logically into our overall global effort to secure and sustain America's global leadership. The success of this turn requires maintaining and advancing a bipartisan consensus on the importance of the Asia-Pacific to our national interests; we seek to build upon a strong tradition of engagement by presidents and secretaries of state of both parties across many decades. It also requires smart execution of a coherent regional strategy that accounts for the global implications of our choices.
WHAT DOES THAT regional strategy look like? For starters, it calls for a sustained commitment to what I have called "forward-deployed" diplomacy. That means continuing to dispatch the full range of our diplomatic assets -- including our highest-ranking officials, our development experts, our interagency teams, and our permanent assets -- to every country and corner of the Asia-Pacific region. Our strategy will have to keep accounting for and adapting to the rapid and dramatic shifts playing out across Asia. With this in mind, our work will proceed along six key lines of action: strengthening bilateral security alliances; deepening our working relationships with emerging powers, including with China; engaging with regional multilateral institutions; expanding trade and investment; forging a broad-based military presence; and advancing democracy and human rights.
By virtue of our unique geography, the United States is both an Atlantic and a Pacific power. We are proud of our European partnerships and all that they deliver. Our challenge now is to build a web of partnerships and institutions across the Pacific that is as durable and as consistent with American interests and values as the web we have built across the Atlantic. That is the touchstone of our efforts in all these areas.
Our treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand are the fulcrum for our strategic turn to the Asia-Pacific. They have underwritten regional peace and security for more than half a century, shaping the environment for the region's remarkable economic ascent. They leverage our regional presence and enhance our regional leadership at a time of evolving security challenges.
As successful as these alliances have been, we can't afford simply to sustain them -- we need to update them for a changing world. In this effort, the Obama administration is guided by three core principles. First, we have to maintain political consensus on the core objectives of our alliances. Second, we have to ensure that our alliances are nimble and adaptive so that they can successfully address new challenges and seize new opportunities. Third, we have to guarantee that the defense capabilities and communications infrastructure of our alliances are operationally and materially capable of deterring provocation from the full spectrum of state and nonstate actors.
The alliance with Japan, the cornerstone of peace and stability in the region, demonstrates how the Obama administration is giving these principles life. We share a common vision of a stable regional order with clear rules of the road -- from freedom of navigation to open markets and fair competition. We have agreed to a new arrangement, including a contribution from the Japanese government of more than $5 billion, to ensure the continued enduring presence of American forces in Japan, while expanding joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities to deter and react quickly to regional security challenges, as well as information sharing to address cyberthreats. We have concluded an Open Skies agreement that will enhance access for businesses and people-to-people ties, launched a strategic dialogue on the Asia-Pacific, and been working hand in hand as the two largest donor countries in Afghanistan.
Similarly, our alliance with South Korea has become stronger and more operationally integrated, and we continue to develop our combined capabilities to deter and respond to North Korean provocations. We have agreed on a plan to ensure successful transition of operational control during wartime and anticipate successful passage of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. And our alliance has gone global, through our work together in the G-20 and the Nuclear Security Summit and through our common efforts in Haiti and Afghanistan.
We are also expanding our alliance with Australia from a Pacific partnership to an Indo-Pacific one, and indeed a global partnership. From cybersecurity to Afghanistan to the Arab Awakening to strengthening regional architecture in the Asia-Pacific, Australia's counsel and commitment have been indispensable. And in Southeast Asia, we are renewing and strengthening our alliances with the Philippines and Thailand, increasing, for example, the number of ship visits to the Philippines and working to ensure the successful training of Filipino counterterrorism forces through our Joint Special Operations Task Force in Mindanao. In Thailand -- our oldest treaty partner in Asia -- we are working to establish a hub of regional humanitarian and disaster relief efforts in the region.
AS WE UPDATE our alliances for new demands, we are also building new partnerships to help solve shared problems. Our outreach to China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, Mongolia, Vietnam, Brunei, and the Pacific Island countries is all part of a broader effort to ensure a more comprehensive approach to American strategy and engagement in the region. We are asking these emerging partners to join us in shaping and participating in a rules-based regional and global order.
One of the most prominent of these emerging partners is, of course, China. Like so many other countries before it, China has prospered as part of the open and rules-based system that the United States helped to build and works to sustain. And today, China represents one of the most challenging and consequential bilateral relationships the United States has ever had to manage. This calls for careful, steady, dynamic stewardship, an approach to China on our part that is grounded in reality, focused on results, and true to our principles and interests.
We all know that fears and misperceptions linger on both sides of the Pacific. Some in our country see China's progress as a threat to the United States; some in China worry that America seeks to constrain China's growth. We reject both those views. The fact is that a thriving America is good for China and a thriving China is good for America. We both have much more to gain from cooperation than from conflict. But you cannot build a relationship on aspirations alone. It is up to both of us to more consistently translate positive words into effective cooperation -- and, crucially, to meet our respective global responsibilities and obligations. These are the things that will determine whether our relationship delivers on its potential in the years to come. We also have to be honest about our differences. We will address them firmly and decisively as we pursue the urgent work we have to do together. And we have to avoid unrealistic expectations.
Over the last two-and-a-half years, one of my top priorities has been to identify and expand areas of common interest, to work with China to build mutual trust, and to encourage China's active efforts in global problem-solving. This is why Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and I launched the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the most intensive and expansive talks ever between our governments, bringing together dozens of agencies from both sides to discuss our most pressing bilateral issues, from security to energy to human rights.
We are also working to increase transparency and reduce the risk of miscalculation or miscues between our militaries. The United States and the international community have watched China's efforts to modernize and expand its military, and we have sought clarity as to its intentions. Both sides would benefit from sustained and substantive military-to-military engagement that increases transparency. So we look to Beijing to overcome its reluctance at times and join us in forging a durable military-to-military dialogue. And we need to work together to strengthen the Strategic Security Dialogue, which brings together military and civilian leaders to discuss sensitive issues like maritime security and cybersecurity.
As we build trust together, we are committed to working with China to address critical regional and global security issues. This is why I have met so frequently -- often in informal settings -- with my Chinese counterparts, State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, for candid discussions about important challenges like North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and developments in the South China Sea.
On the economic front, the United States and China need to work together to ensure strong, sustained, and balanced future global growth. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the United States and China worked effectively through the G-20 to help pull the global economy back from the brink. We have to build on that cooperation. U.S. firms want fair opportunities to export to China's growing markets, which can be important sources of jobs here in the United States, as well as assurances that the $50 billion of American capital invested in China will create a strong foundation for new market and investment opportunities that will support global competitiveness. At the same time, Chinese firms want to be able to buy more high-tech products from the United States, make more investments here, and be accorded the same terms of access that market economies enjoy. We can work together on these objectives, but China still needs to take important steps toward reform. In particular, we are working with China to end unfair discrimination against U.S. and other foreign companies or against their innovative technologies, remove preferences for domestic firms, and end measures that disadvantage or appropriate foreign intellectual property. And we look to China to take steps to allow its currency to appreciate more rapidly, both against the dollar and against the currencies of its other major trading partners. Such reforms, we believe, would not only benefit both our countries (indeed, they would support the goals of China's own five-year plan, which calls for more domestic-led growth), but also contribute to global economic balance, predictability, and broader prosperity.
Of course, we have made very clear, publicly and privately, our serious concerns about human rights. And when we see reports of public-interest lawyers, writers, artists, and others who are detained or disappeared, the United States speaks up, both publicly and privately, with our concerns about human rights. We make the case to our Chinese colleagues that a deep respect for international law and a more open political system would provide China with a foundation for far greater stability and growth -- and increase the confidence of China's partners. Without them, China is placing unnecessary limitations on its own development.
At the end of the day, there is no handbook for the evolving U.S.-China relationship. But the stakes are much too high for us to fail. As we proceed, we will continue to embed our relationship with China in a broader regional framework of security alliances, economic networks, and social connections.
Among key emerging powers with which we will work closely are India and Indonesia, two of the most dynamic and significant democratic powers of Asia, and both countries with which the Obama administration has pursued broader, deeper, and more purposeful relationships. The stretch of sea from the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Malacca to the Pacific contains the world's most vibrant trade and energy routes. Together, India and Indonesia already account for almost a quarter of the world's population. They are key drivers of the global economy, important partners for the United States, and increasingly central contributors to peace and security in the region. And their importance is likely to grow in the years ahead.
President Obama told the Indian parliament last year that the relationship between India and America will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century, rooted in common values and interests. There are still obstacles to overcome and questions to answer on both sides, but the United States is making a strategic bet on India's future -- that India's greater role on the world stage will enhance peace and security, that opening India's markets to the world will pave the way to greater regional and global prosperity, that Indian advances in science and technology will improve lives and advance human knowledge everywhere, and that India's vibrant, pluralistic democracy will produce measurable results and improvements for its citizens and inspire others to follow a similar path of openness and tolerance. So the Obama administration has expanded our bilateral partnership; actively supported India's Look East efforts, including through a new trilateral dialogue with India and Japan; and outlined a new vision for a more economically integrated and politically stable South and Central Asia, with India as a linchpin.
We are also forging a new partnership with Indonesia, the world's third-largest democracy, the world's most populous Muslim nation, and a member of the G-20. We have resumed joint training of Indonesian special forces units and signed a number of agreements on health, educational exchanges, science and technology, and defense. And this year, at the invitation of the Indonesian government, President Obama will inaugurate American participation in the East Asia Summit. But there is still some distance to travel -- we have to work together to overcome bureaucratic impediments, lingering historical suspicions, and some gaps in understanding each other's perspectives and interests.
EVEN AS WE strengthen these bilateral relationships, we have emphasized the importance of multilateral cooperation, for we believe that addressing complex transnational challenges of the sort now faced by Asia requires a set of institutions capable of mustering collective action. And a more robust and coherent regional architecture in Asia would reinforce the system of rules and responsibilities, from protecting intellectual property to ensuring freedom of navigation, that form the basis of an effective international order. In multilateral settings, responsible behavior is rewarded with legitimacy and respect, and we can work together to hold accountable those who undermine peace, stability, and prosperity.
So the United States has moved to fully engage the region's multilateral institutions, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, mindful that our work with regional institutions supplements and does not supplant our bilateral ties. There is a demand from the region that America play an active role in the agenda-setting of these institutions -- and it is in our interests as well that they be effective and responsive.
That is why President Obama will participate in the East Asia Summit for the first time in November. To pave the way, the United States has opened a new U.S. Mission to ASEAN in Jakarta and signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation with ASEAN. Our focus on developing a more results-oriented agenda has been instrumental in efforts to address disputes in the South China Sea. In 2010, at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi, the United States helped shape a regionwide effort to protect unfettered access to and passage through the South China Sea, and to uphold the key international rules for defining territorial claims in the South China Sea's waters. Given that half the world's merchant tonnage flows through this body of water, this was a consequential undertaking. And over the past year, we have made strides in protecting our vital interests in stability and freedom of navigation and have paved the way for sustained multilateral diplomacy among the many parties with claims in the South China Sea, seeking to ensure disputes are settled peacefully and in accordance with established principles of international law.
We have also worked to strengthen APEC as a serious leaders-level institution focused on advancing economic integration and trade linkages across the Pacific. After last year's bold call by the group for a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific, President Obama will host the 2011 APEC Leaders' Meeting in Hawaii this November. We are committed to cementing APEC as the Asia-Pacific's premier regional economic institution, setting the economic agenda in a way that brings together advanced and emerging economies to promote open trade and investment, as well as to build capacity and enhance regulatory regimes. APEC and its work help expand U.S. exports and create and support high-quality jobs in the United States, while fostering growth throughout the region. APEC also provides a key vehicle to drive a broad agenda to unlock the economic growth potential that women represent. In this regard, the United States is committed to working with our partners on ambitious steps to accelerate the arrival of the Participation Age, where every individual, regardless of gender or other characteristics, is a contributing and valued member of the global marketplace.
In addition to our commitment to these broader multilateral institutions, we have worked hard to create and launch a number of "minilateral" meetings, small groupings of interested states to tackle specific challenges, such as the Lower Mekong Initiative we launched to support education, health, and environmental programs in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, and the Pacific Islands Forum, where we are working to support its members as they confront challenges from climate change to overfishing to freedom of navigation. We are also starting to pursue new trilateral opportunities with countries as diverse as Mongolia, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, and South Korea. And we are setting our sights as well on enhancing coordination and engagement among the three giants of the Asia-Pacific: China, India, and the United States.
In all these different ways, we are seeking to shape and participate in a responsive, flexible, and effective regional architecture -- and ensure it connects to a broader global architecture that not only protects international stability and commerce but also advances our values.
OUR EMPHASIS ON the economic work of APEC is in keeping with our broader commitment to elevate economic statecraft as a pillar of American foreign policy. Increasingly, economic progress depends on strong diplomatic ties, and diplomatic progress depends on strong economic ties. And naturally, a focus on promoting American prosperity means a greater focus on trade and economic openness in the Asia-Pacific. The region already generates more than half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama's goal of doubling exports by 2015, we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia. Last year, American exports to the Pacific Rim totaled $320 billion, supporting 850,000 American jobs. So there is much that favors us as we think through this repositioning.
When I talk to my Asian counterparts, one theme consistently stands out: They still want America to be an engaged and creative partner in the region's flourishing trade and financial interactions. And as I talk with business leaders across our own nation, I hear how important it is for the United States to expand our exports and our investment opportunities in Asia's dynamic markets.
Last March in APEC meetings in Washington, and again in Hong Kong in July, I laid out four attributes that I believe characterize healthy economic competition: open, free, transparent, and fair. Through our engagement in the Asia-Pacific, we are helping to give shape to these principles and showing the world their value.
We are pursuing new cutting-edge trade deals that raise the standards for fair competition even as they open new markets. For instance, the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement will eliminate tariffs on 95 percent of U.S. consumer and industrial exports within five years and support an estimated 70,000 American jobs. Its tariff reductions alone could increase exports of American goods by more than $10 billion and help South Korea's economy grow by 6 percent. It will level the playing field for U.S. auto companies and workers. So, whether you are an American manufacturer of machinery or a South Korean chemicals exporter, this deal lowers the barriers that keep you from reaching new customers.
We are also making progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which will bring together economies from across the Pacific -- developed and developing alike -- into a single trading community. Our goal is to create not just more growth, but better growth. We believe trade agreements need to include strong protections for workers, the environment, intellectual property, and innovation. They should also promote the free flow of information technology and the spread of green technology, as well as the coherence of our regulatory system and the efficiency of supply chains. Ultimately, our progress will be measured by the quality of people's lives -- whether men and women can work in dignity, earn a decent wage, raise healthy families, educate their children, and take hold of the opportunities to improve their own and the next generation's fortunes. Our hope is that a TPP agreement with high standards can serve as a benchmark for future agreements -- and grow to serve as a platform for broader regional interaction and eventually a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific.
Achieving balance in our trade relationships requires a two-way commitment. That's the nature of balance -- it can't be unilaterally imposed. So we are working through APEC, the G-20, and our bilateral relationships to advocate for more open markets, fewer restrictions on exports, more transparency, and an overall commitment to fairness. American businesses and workers need to have confidence that they are operating on a level playing field, with predictable rules on everything from intellectual property to indigenous innovation.
ASIA'S REMARKABLE ECONOMIC growth over the past decade and its potential for continued growth in the future depend on the security and stability that has long been guaranteed by the U.S. military, including more than 50,000 American servicemen and servicewomen serving in Japan and South Korea. The challenges of today's rapidly changing region -- from territorial and maritime disputes to new threats to freedom of navigation to the heightened impact of natural disasters -- require that the United States pursue a more geographically distributed, operationally resilient, and politically sustainable force posture.
We are modernizing our basing arrangements with traditional allies in Northeast Asia -- and our commitment on this is rock solid -- while enhancing our presence in Southeast Asia and into the Indian Ocean. For example, the United States will be deploying littoral combat ships to Singapore, and we are examining other ways to increase opportunities for our two militaries to train and operate together. And the United States and Australia agreed this year to explore a greater American military presence in Australia to enhance opportunities for more joint training and exercises. We are also looking at how we can increase our operational access in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region and deepen our contacts with allies and partners.
How we translate the growing connection between the Indian and Pacific oceans into an operational concept is a question that we need to answer if we are to adapt to new challenges in the region. Against this backdrop, a more broadly distributed military presence across the region will provide vital advantages. The United States will be better positioned to support humanitarian missions; equally important, working with more allies and partners will provide a more robust bulwark against threats or efforts to undermine regional peace and stability.
But even more than our military might or the size of our economy, our most potent asset as a nation is the power of our values -- in particular, our steadfast support for democracy and human rights. This speaks to our deepest national character and is at the heart of our foreign policy, including our strategic turn to the Asia-Pacific region.
As we deepen our engagement with partners with whom we disagree on these issues, we will continue to urge them to embrace reforms that would improve governance, protect human rights, and advance political freedoms. We have made it clear, for example, to Vietnam that our ambition to develop a strategic partnership requires that it take steps to further protect human rights and advance political freedoms. Or consider Burma, where we are determined to seek accountability for human rights violations. We are closely following developments in Nay Pyi Taw and the increasing interactions between Aung San Suu Kyi and the government leadership. We have underscored to the government that it must release political prisoners, advance political freedoms and human rights, and break from the policies of the past. As for North Korea, the regime in Pyongyang has shown persistent disregard for the rights of its people, and we continue to speak out forcefully against the threats it poses to the region and beyond.
We cannot and do not aspire to impose our system on other countries, but we do believe that certain values are universal -- that people in every nation in the world, including in Asia, cherish them -- and that they are intrinsic to stable, peaceful, and prosperous countries. Ultimately, it is up to the people of Asia to pursue their own rights and aspirations, just as we have seen people do all over the world.
IN THE LAST decade, our foreign policy has transitioned from dealing with the post-Cold War peace dividend to demanding commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. As those wars wind down, we will need to accelerate efforts to pivot to new global realities.
We know that these new realities require us to innovate, to compete, and to lead in new ways. Rather than pull back from the world, we need to press forward and renew our leadership. In a time of scarce resources, there's no question that we need to invest them wisely where they will yield the biggest returns, which is why the Asia-Pacific represents such a real 21st-century opportunity for us.
Other regions remain vitally important, of course. Europe, home to most of our traditional allies, is still a partner of first resort, working alongside the United States on nearly every urgent global challenge, and we are investing in updating the structures of our alliance. The people of the Middle East and North Africa are charting a new path that is already having profound global consequences, and the United States is committed to active and sustained partnerships as the region transforms. Africa holds enormous untapped potential for economic and political development in the years ahead. And our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere are not just our biggest export partners; they are also playing a growing role in global political and economic affairs. Each of these regions demands American engagement and leadership.
And we are prepared to lead. Now, I'm well aware that there are those who question our staying power around the world. We've heard this talk before. At the end of the Vietnam War, there was a thriving industry of global commentators promoting the idea that America was in retreat, and it is a theme that repeats itself every few decades. But whenever the United States has experienced setbacks, we've overcome them through reinvention and innovation. Our capacity to come back stronger is unmatched in modern history. It flows from our model of free democracy and free enterprise, a model that remains the most powerful source of prosperity and progress known to humankind. I hear everywhere I go that the world still looks to the United States for leadership. Our military is by far the strongest, and our economy is by far the largest in the world. Our workers are the most productive. Our universities are renowned the world over. So there should be no doubt that America has the capacity to secure and sustain our global leadership in this century as we did in the last.
As we move forward to set the stage for engagement in the Asia-Pacific over the next 60 years, we are mindful of the bipartisan legacy that has shaped our engagement for the past 60. And we are focused on the steps we have to take at home -- increasing our savings, reforming our financial systems, relying less on borrowing, overcoming partisan division -- to secure and sustain our leadership abroad.
This kind of pivot is not easy, but we have paved the way for it over the past two-and-a-half years, and we are committed to seeing it through as among the most important diplomatic efforts of our time.
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SUBJECTS: U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, STATE DEPARTMENT, SOUTH ASIA, EAST ASIA, SOUTHEAST ASIA
Obama the loner
The Washington Post: 10/10/2011
by Chris Cillizza
The Post’s Scott Wilson penned a provocative piece over the weekend that cast President Obama’s current political problems through the lens of his loner tendencies.
(Comments: this article says it all about Obama that he is no leader of the American people, and he is cold like the North Pole. This proves my point when I characterized his behavior as “False Pretense.” I have been fooled by him along with my many Asian-American friends. But, we will never allow him to fool us again.
The sad part of this story is the fact that this country and the r3est of the world is in such a predicament, politically and economically that the damage done by him will take a long time to recover.
It is not too late to do something about it. Senator Bernie Sanders has the good idea of starting to challenge Obama at the forthcoming primary later this year. The sooner we start the better it will be for all of us and the rest of the world. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 11, 2011)
Is President Obama a loner? REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Wrote Wilson:
This president endures with little joy the small talk and back-slapping of retail politics, rarely spends more than a few minutes on a rope line, refuses to coddle even his biggest donors. His relationship with Democrats on Capitol Hill is frosty, to be generous. Personal lobbying on behalf of legislation? He prefers to leave that to Vice President Biden, an old-school political charmer.
Time and again in our reporting over the last few months, this strain of thinking has come up — and the deeper President Obama’s political troubles grow, the more often we hear it. In the wake of President Obama’s press conference last Thursday, there was considerable skepticism — bordering on contempt — for his assertion that now was the time for the Senate to pass his jobs bill.
And, this morning the New York Times’ John Harwood wrote that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) views White House chief of staff Bill Daley as “ham handed” and that leading Democrats believe that “Team Obama’s zeal for secrets creates more problems than it solves.” Message. Sent.
One veteran Democratic campaign operative put it more bluntly when asked to assess Obama’s approach: “He just hates politics and politicians.”
At the heart of that ill will is a belief that Obama has been a fair-weather friend to congressional Democrats (and most of the party’s elected officials), using them when necessary (like now) and ignoring them the rest of the time.
Of course, testy relationships between a President and congressional leaders within his own party isn’t terribly new. Remember that then President Bill Clinton built his 1996 re-election strategy on triangulation — the idea of running against his own party to cast himself as a centrist problem solver.
(Not surprisingly, some Democrats are now worried that the same is happening to them heading into 2012; Obama’s “attempts to triangulate aren’t working and senators resent it,” said one senior party strategist with close ties to the Senate.)
But, unlike Clinton who spent much of the ‘80s in the political minor leagues, doing favors for and building relationships with the major establishment figures within his party, Obama has, from the start, been a lone wolf — and proud of it.
When he ran for the Senate in 2004, he was not the party’s pick — well-connected state Comptroller Dan Hynes and wealthy businessman Blair Hull split that distinction — but managed to win when Hull imploded.
In 2008, Obama, again, found himself running against the establishment — in the form of then New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. (Yes, Obama did have some support from the party establishment but it was nowhere near the backing Clinton enjoyed and largely silent until it became clear he was going to be the nominee.)
The lesson Obama and his campaign team learned? That courting the establishment was of marginal value since they were the sort of bend-like-a-reed-in-wind sorts that would be with him if he won big policy fights anyway.
The Obama go-it-alone approach to politics paid huge dividends during the 2008 campaign as it allowed him to paint himself as the consummate outsider in an election where people were craving just that.
But, Obama’s loner tendencies have served him far less well as president and now, as he turns to his bid for a second term, threaten to leave him isolated with little political cover from his own side.
Obama is doing what he can to remedy that problem with a base-intensive strategy of late designed to remind Democratic voters — and elected officials — why they like him.
The question for Obama is whether the problem is fixable. The level of distrust is significant and long-held. And the timing couldn’t be worse.
Obama needs the Senate to pass some semblance of the American Jobs Act in order to put pressure on House Republicans to act. But, the combination of the distrust directed at him and the reality — in the words of one senior Democrat — that Senators are “turning to their own races” makes it a tough sell.
Obama’s “ a man apart” image played a major role in his 2008 victory. It may well play an equally large role — in a bad way — in his 2012 re-election campaign.
Why Some Khmer Rouge Suspects May Never Face Trial
By Brendan Brady / Phnom Srok
Time Magazine: Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2094353,00.html#ixzz1ZFMEMVBw
Im Chaem, right, a 67-year-old former Khmer Rouge provincial secretary, at a school event in Anlong Veng, Cambodia, on June 21, 2010
At first blush, it seems like a nourishing gift. The Phnom Srok reservoir in northwest Cambodia spreads nearly as far as the eye can see, providing water year-round for agriculture, fishing and swimming. But the human bones that, according to locals, still lie on the floor of the reservoir tell a different story. The reservoir's primitive, earthen dam was constructed in 1977 at a cost of an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 lives. Some collapsed and died from endless days of work; others were executed because they had become too weak to work effectively.
As part of their vision to transform Cambodia into an agrarian utopia, Khmer Rouge leaders ordered starving villagers to build dams like this by hand. Len Chovvy remembers digging for 14 hours a day as a young girl, surviving only on rice porridge. "When my father was old and sick, they took him to the base of the dam and smashed his head from behind with a wooden bat until he died," says Len, who now runs a food stall along the reservoir. "His blood was stuck there for days." She recalls the names of the two cadres who oversaw the dam's construction. One of them, "Comrade Im," was feared in those days for her uncompromising rule, she says. (See pictures of the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge.)
These days, the elderly Im Chaem cuts a far less imposing figure: she speaks softly and her smile is as wide as a jack-o'-lantern. Her tone hardens, though, when asked about the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal confronting the atrocities of the Pol Pot-led Khmer Rouge, whose reign of terror from 1975 to 1979 left an estimated 1.7 million dead from execution, starvation and overwork. The court began proceedings in 2006 to try the "senior leaders" and "those most responsible" for the deaths, but, thus far, neither category has been well defined.
"The Khmer Rouge involved many people, not just me. If I had known the Khmer Rouge were going to be bad, I would not have joined them. I just followed the orders of the high level. If I did not fulfill them, I would have been killed myself," Im Chaem tells TIME, intoning an argument commonly used by former cadres to justify their roles. "I try to forget my background but some people won't let me, they want to keep digging it up." Oddly, though, the tribunal judges in charge of investigating Im Chaem and other Khmer Rouge suspects living freely in Cambodia have done little prying themselves.
Last year, the tribunal sentenced Kaing Guek Eav (best known by his revolutionary name Duch), the former commandant of a Khmer Rouge torture facility, to 35 years in jail. It has recently started on its second case against the regime's four highest-ranking surviving leaders for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The international co-prosecutor, Andrew Cayley, has also pushed for a third and fourth case (officially named Case 003 and Case 004) that, according to leaked court documents, target Im Chaem and four other suspects accused of implementing some of the regime's most catastrophic policies. But he's limited by the structure of the tribunal. In most war crimes courts, prosecutors may gather their own evidence, but in Cambodia's tribunal, they are limited to using evidence gathered by an investigating office headed by two judges who local and international court monitors say have made little effort to build a case file for a third and fourth trial. (Read about the opening of the war crimes trial in Cambodia.)
Prime Minister Hun Sen, who served as a mid-ranking Khmer Rouge officer himself until he fled the regime's capricious purges in 1978, has said he would rather have the tribunal fail than see further prosecutions. His public explanation is that if judicial scrutiny goes any further, areas still populated by former cadres could rebel, thereby destabilizing the country — an effective argument for a country wary of war.
However, some court observers say Hun Sen may also be worried that further investigations could dig up unflattering information about the Khmer Rouge positions held by members of the current ruling elite, causing him public embarrassment. Hun Sen himself has never been accused of involvement in any Khmer Rouge crimes. And though it's a fact often reduced to a footnote in debates about the U.N.'s role in Cambodia's war crimes court, Hun Sen has not forgotten the U.N. once supported the Khmer Rouge leaders in exile as a means of opposing the regime installed by Vietnam in 1979, which has evolved into his current ruling party.
Critics contend that the prime minister's direction for the court is prevailing, with top-level Cambodian political directives steering the court's work while the U.N. stands idly by. The judges in charge of investigations — a Cambodian and a German — have mostly sat on their hands in response to submissions by Cayley for judicial inquiries into the Case 003 and Case 004 suspects, conducting only cursory interviews and visits to crime sites and not even informing the suspects that they were under investigation, according to a report published this year by the Open Justice Society Initiative (OSJI), a legal advocacy group monitoring the tribunal's work, which called for an investigation into potential judicial misconduct. The report came after 32 Cambodian NGOs released a statement expressing concern that the "impartiality, integrity and the independence of [the tribunal's] judges are being tainted."
After the judges closed their investigation into Case 003 in April, a handful of legal staffers in the court's investigative branch quit to protest their superiors' lackluster effort. One of those who walked out, Stephen Heder, a Khmer Rouge historian, wrote in his resignation letter that the judges closed the third case "effectively without investigating it." OSJI and other observers say the judges are doing little more for Case 004. The judges' own statements appear to corroborate this assessment: last month they expressed "serious doubts" over whether the suspects in Case 004 are "most responsible" and thus fall within the court's jurisdiction.
"Even if the judges want to argue [the Case 004 suspects] aren't 'those most responsible,' they would have to investigate the crimes to determine that, which they haven't," says Anne Heindel, a legal advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which collects and analyzes information on the Khmer Rouge's rule and legacy. "If the court doesn't follow through on its own rules, it will undermine the court's legitimacy."
The tribunal was meant to be a model of independent and transparent legal procedures for the local judiciary, which is dogged by corruption. It was also supposed to clarify the historical record in a country where the high school curriculum abstained from discussing the Khmer Rouge era until just two years ago and even now carefully apportions blame, leaving students to believe that only a handful of villains hijacked the country. The impact of this silence and selective history can be seen everywhere, including around Phnom Srok reservoir. "I don't know much about the dam but if it never got built, we wouldn't have as many crops today," said Sdeng Leak, a young woman who was grilling snake for a group of high school boys on the reservoir's banks. "So, in some ways I am thankful to Im Chaem."
See pictures of Pol Pot's legacy.
Read about Pol Pot's regime going on trial at last.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2094353,00.html#ixzz1ZFLHsWkJ
VN Hailed as Liberator, Decried as Occupier on Jan 7, Anniversary:
An Uneasy Holiday
The Cambodia Daily, WEEKEND Saturday, January 3-4 2004
By Luke Reynolds and Lor Chandara
The Cambodia Daily
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/selected_features/un_easy.htm
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(Comments: posted below are a set of articles on Vietnam and address the question whether Vietnam is an invader or a liberator of Cambodia.
The answer to this question lies in another question, whether a communist country is a free country. vietnam is one of the remaining five communist countries in the world, which are China, Cuba, Loas, North Korea, and Vietnam. The answer is commnunism is not a doctrine that is based on freedom of expression, it is a repressive regime. Other douments shows how Vietnam is still a repressive country and rtotalitatian regime. Yet, the USA with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of state, still support Vietnam as an ally to fight China. My advise to those Cambodians who expect to get the support from the USA to revive the 1991 Paris Agreements, should think again. There si o way that the USA or France would agree to reviving the 1991 Paris agreements. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. October 5, 2011)
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Neak Loeung, Prey Veng province - Standing in the center of town, the statue of Cambodian and Vietnamese soldiers embracing and marching ahead seems too simplistic.
After all, Neak Loeung’s violent history has seen thousands of slain Vietnamese wash up on the banks of the Mekong River.
It has seen war-battered Vietnamese tanks and helicopters pass through on their way to the capital.
It has seen a Vietnamese-backed government order thousands of its young Cambodian men to the northwest to die by malaria, bullets and land mines.
And today the bustling hub that intercepts National Route 1 from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City is sometimes called “New Saigon” because of its dominant Vietnamese business class, as the countryside remains saddled with chronically low rice yields.
But men like Kon Yoeun, 61, say their feelings of gratitude toward the Vietnamese are as solid as the friendship statue that stands outside his restaurant.
“The Vietnamese troops took the fright from my life,” he said. “Before [Jan 7, 1979], we did not have freedom to move, after we had freedom.”
“We are still grateful to them,” he said.
Twenty-five years ago, Voice of the Kampuchean People radio in Ho Chi Minh City said a liberation day was coming.
Today, the debate over what those broadcasts portended marks the country’s most significant political dividing line.
Jan 7 is a national holiday, but it runs a far second in importance to Independence Day on Nov 9. Many say it shouldn’t be a holiday at all.
“It is confusing for the Cambodian people,” said Thun Saray, president of the human rights NGO Adhoc and a leading scholar on Cambodian culture. “On one part, we can consider it a day of liberation. But then there’s this other part, about how Cambodian society became under the foreign troops.”
In Phnom Penh, students and anti-CPP groups rally against government ties to Vietnam. They say Vietnam dictates the political and economic policies of Prime Minister Hun Sen, its “puppet.”
They cry out against controversial border treaties and say Vietnamese interests run roughshod over poor Cambodians. They say Jan 7, 1979, was the beginning of Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia.
“Only the people who support the CPP support the celebration. For me, it is not a national celebration,” said Kem Sokha, a former Funcinpec parliamentarian and director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.
“We were liberated from the Khmer Rouge, but then Vietnam occupied. Cambodia was not free yet,” he said.
The CPP is also cautious of celebrating Jan 7. In the last few years, the government officially renamed it, from Liberation Day to Victory Day over Genocide.
This year, television stations—widely believed to be under the control and influence of the government—will broadcast a few public concerts. There will be a celebration at CPP headquarters.
It is far from the fanfare of Jan 7 celebrations in the 1980s.
Minister of Information Lu Laysreng, who opposed the forces of then-president Heng Samrin in the 1980s, says he will not celebrate.
“Never,” the Funcinpec member said. “I am going to the beach.”
Backed by a Vietnamese army outfitted with modern weaponry and years of training, a group of Cambodians in exile and Khmer Rouge defectors were to throw off the yoke of Khmer Rouge rule.
General Chu Huy Man of the Vietnam People’s Army officially kicked off the campaign Dec 24, 1978, across the border from Kratie province. By Jan 4, 1979, the Vietnamese forces held the seven provinces east of the Mekong.
Three days later they entered and took Phnom Penh, pushing the Khmer Rouge into the northwest.
Fighting was particularly fierce in Neak Loeung. Khmer Rouge told the people to flee the Vietnamese advance, destroying bridges and roads on their escape westward.
The Khmer Rouge “told us they would saw our heads off with palm leaves,” remembered Chum Horn, 63, who lives a few kilometers outside Neak Loeung. Another villager said he was told he would be disemboweled and stuffed with hay.
Spurred by fear, Chum Horn walked as far as Kompong Speu province, she said. Her brother disappeared in the fighting and never returned, she added.
As troops moved in, they told the people left behind that the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation would care for them. They said Heng Samrin and Chea Sim were their new leaders.
They gave out packages of noodles and Vietnamese cigarettes, villagers recalled, and told them to return home to tend to their emaciated cows and spent rice fields.
Today, Chum Horn still looks after cows and rice fields, and her luck has changed little, she says. Irrigation projects have largely failed to bring good harvests to Prey Veng, one of the country’s poorest provinces.
Near her village, a rock quarry pounds a percussion that reminds her of bombs.
“Even now when I hear that noise, I feel scared,” Chum Horn said.
Whether Vietnam invaded or liberated Cambodia, it is certain that the hardships did not end in 1979.
War continued, and the Vietnamese-backed government set to building fortifications against rebellious factions along the Thai border. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were conscripted through the 1980s for perilous labor at the so-called K5 project.
Carrying out tasks such as clearing land, mining and de-mining, digging trenches and transporting equipment and ammunition, tens of thousands of forced laborers succumbed to malaria or were maimed or killed by land mines.
Prey Veng was a major source of conscripts. Kong Yoeun chopped trees and brush in territories littered with mines. He said he saw many men die.
“I was lucky,” he said.
Prey Veng villager Nhanh Nary, 46, remembers how she struggled to harvest enough rice as her husband worked at K5.
He returned with unkempt, shoulder-length hair, and a fatiguing illness that persists today, she said. “The sun makes him weak,” she said.
At the end of a riverside street, lined with hairdressers, hostels and groceries, sits Nguyen Van Ninh’s bamboo hut.
He runs a cockfighting ring in Neak Loeung. A white board with the house rules—“We are not responsible if the rooster dies”—is written in both Khmer and his native Vietnamese.
Nguyen Van Ninh, 52, arrived in Cambodia for the second time 10 years ago. The first time was as a Viet Cong soldier, battling the soldiers of Lon Nol’s army. He has a 15-centimeter scar where he was shot through the abdomen.
Even then, before the Khmer Rouge set about killing the Vietnamese, the waters of the Mekong carried their blood. In 1970, Lon Nol urged the mass killings of thousands of innocent Vietnamese, their corpses dumped in the river.
Like Nguyen Van Ninh’s scar, those wounds have healed, at least superficially. “We have no problems here,” he said.
“Without the Vietnamese troops to stop Pol Pot’s regime, all the Cambodian people would have died,” he said. “There may have been only 1 million Cambodians left.”
But down the road, an 11th-grade student says he doesn’t believe the liberation stories. Loek Samnang, 21, says he only knows the reality of the present in Prey Veng, where Cambodians work in the countryside and the Vietnamese trade in Neak Loeung.
“They steal our jobs,” he said. “They liberate us, but then they occupy us for a long time.”
For the CPP, Jan 7 has become a double-edged sword, implying the end of atrocities and the beginning of unpopular connections to Hanoi.
The party has tried to downplay those relations. When opposition newspapers report that high-ranking CPP officials are in Vietnam, their advisers say they don’t know. The political relationship between the two countries is cloaked in secrecy.
Critics of the government suggest that Hanoi is still pulling the strings in Phnom Penh.
“We know that when there is a problem here, [Vietnam] invites out leaders to Hanoi. And when our leaders come back, they do something,” Kem Sokha said.
Sam Rainsy Party and Funcinpec politicians harp on CPP ties to Hanoi, warning that the country is ignoring widespread Vietnamese immigration. In the run-up to this year’s parliamentary elections, opposition party officials said illegal Vietnamese in Cambodia could number as many as 2 million.
“I have learned from books that Vietnamese came to liberate Cambodia, but how can we know?” scoffed Khat Ran, a 21-year-old in Prey Veng.
Yet the 1979 campaign and freedom from the Khmer Rouge is rooted in the memories of many of the country’s older generation. The CPP receives their gratitude. In Prey Veng, for instance, the party won seven of 11 parliamentary seats this year.
The government’s critics today “were not in Cambodia during that time. We understand the importance of this day,” said CPP spokesman Khieu Kanharith. “We’re trying to keep the memory alive.”
But for some, that memory is not about civil freedoms or the birth of democracy. Living under the horrors of the Khmer Rouge set a standard against which the small liberties, such as enjoying music, are enough.
In that respect, the Jan 7 holiday is not a celebration of liberation, but a commemoration of survival.
“Maybe if Cambodia did not have the killing fields, we would not need Vietnamese troops,” said Khieu Kola, who lived through the Khmer Rouge regime and worked as a journalist through the 1980s. “But for me, if Vietnam did not intervene, I would have died.”
Did Vietnam invade or liberate Cambodia?
Feb 21 2004, 09:16 PM Post #1
AF Addict
Posts: 630
Joined: 14-February 04
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4242
I browse through different Asian Culture Forums on this discussion board and learn that some of the forums such as those of the Chinese and the Vietnamese ones are full of posters. Overall, most of those posters in those forums are using a debating technique called “You say, I say” where they try to disprove each other’s contention by bringing in the so-called pieces of evidence. It is quite entertaining to follow the drama if you have time to waste.
Anyway, today I’d like to present the topic “Did Vietnam invade or liberate Cambodia?” to the general readers. I will present my side of the coin, and with your willingness, you must also speak your side of the coin. I predict that it will be quite entertaining to debate on the different contentions.
January 7th, 2004 marked the 25th commemoration of the Vietnamese victory in Cambodia. On the occasion, the head of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) thanked the Vietnamese government for ending the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
However, while the ruling Cambodian People’s Party went on with its Vietnamese-thanking ceremony, dozens of democratic Cambodian activists disputed that January 7 was a day of shame as it marked the beginning of Vietnamese takeover and the loss of Cambodia’s independence and large parts of land.
Yimsut (2003) wrote that some Khmer view the Vietnamese as “invaders” based on two realities: Vietnam’s occupation policy and historical perceptions.
After successfully ousting the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia, Vietnam controlled Cambodia for 10 years. Under its control, Vietnam set up and subjugated a puppet regime to run Cambodia. In addition, Vietnam appropriated large portions of Cambodia’s land and caused destruction of the Khmer people. This action of Vietnam clearly showed its true purpose and guiding principle. Only after the Soviet Unions collapsed that Vietnam ended its game and withdrew its forces from Cambodia in 1989.
According to the Khmer historical perceptions of Vietnam, that country has always been identified as the culprit that took over Khmer land and practiced “genocidal policy against the Khmer people”. The valid evidence to support this Vietnamese annexation and expansionism includes Kampuchea Krom and former Kingdom of Champa. Furthermore, as a unified country, Vietnam’s plan for the countries of Laos and Cambodia is still one of territorial spreading out or takeover. Proof of this policy is better seen through Vietnam’s actions in stationing its troop in Laos and occupying the Cambodian islands and land near the Vietnam-Cambodia border.
Some authors supported the Khmer view that the Vietnamese should be considered the invaders of Cambodia. For example, Grandolini, Cooper, & Troung (2004) wrote, “The Vietnamese regime were actually not concerned by the genocidal policy of the Khmer Rouge, but rather with fulfilling their historical ambition of regional domination, as well as stopping the spread of the Chinese influence in Cambodia. Nguyen Co Thach, the then Vietnamese Foreign Minister, later said that, “Human rights were not a question; That was THEIR problem – we were concerned only with security.”
Also it seems that the general Vietnamese view on this discussion board supports the Khmer view that the Vietnamese were the invaders of Cambodia. For example, in the Vietnamese Forum, a poster by the nick of Dai Viet arrogantly wrote that, “…We (Vietnam) [can] invade Cambodia in less than 1 week and capture their capital. We will turn Cambodia into our provinces and impose our culture upon you and you will learn to speak our language, dress our clothes, and obey our laws. Do it, and the Cambodian culture will survive; do it not, and you will see yourself like the Chams, you do remember the lessons of the Chams right? We erased their entire history, and you don't want to be like the Chams, right? If you do not obey the laws from your superior Vietnamese, we will have to destroy your entire civilization and the world will not even recognize your stones at all. Understand this, and you shall live. Understand this not, you shall suffer. WHEN COME TO VIETNAM, DO LIKE THE VIETNAMESE DO."
Another Vietnamese poster named Byron wrote, “The Khmer empire was very huge in land. Until the Vietnamese waged war on it and took lands from the Khmer Empire. Basically the only land left for the Cambodians is Cambodia. And even that land is controlled by the Vietnamese based government.” Byron continued his understanding of Vietnam’s ability to expand as follows, “… After Vietnam took over Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge ran into Thailand, and Vietnamese troops decided to chase them and started shooting artillery over the Cambodian border into Thailand. Thailand was scared and the U.N pressured Vietnam not to attack Thailand because Thailand would probably be defeated since they have never had a lot of combat experience since they've never been in any real wars. If it wasn't for the U.N I think Thailand would be occupied by Vietnam as well.”
So what do you readers think? Were the Vietnamese the “invaders” who capitalized on the Cambodian disability?
FKR
Reference:
“Cambodia commemorates end of Pol Pot” retrieved February 21, 2004 from http://www.khaleejtimes.co.ae/ktarchive/070103/theworld.htm
Yimsut, R. (2003) Vietnam: Was It Liberation or Invasion?
Grandolini, A., Cooper, T, & Troung. (2004) Indochina Database: Cambodia, 1954-1999; Part 3 from ACIG.org.
Communist Countries
The Five Remaining Communist Countries in the World
By Matt Rosenberg, About.com Guide
Source: CIA World Factbook, 2007
See More About:
During the reign of the Soviet Union, there were communist countries throughout Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Communist countries in the twentieth century included Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Congo, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Ethiopia, Hungary, Mongolia, Mozambique, Poland, Romania, Somalia, South Yemen, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. Today, there are only five communist countries in the world.
1. China
Source: CIA World Factbook, 2007
Mao Zedong took control over China in 1949 and proclaimed China as the People's Republic of China, a communist country. China has remained
consistently communist since 1949 although economic reforms have been in place for several years. China has been called "Red China" due to the communist party's control over the country.
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2. Cuba
Source: CIA World Factbook, 2007
A revolution in 1959 led to the taking over of the Cuban government by Fidel Castro. By 1961, Cuba became a fully communist country and developed close ties to the Soviet Union.
3. Laos
Source: CIA World Factbook, 2007
Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, became a communist country in 1975 following a revolution that was supported by Vietnam and the Soviet Union.
4. North Korea
Source: CIA World Factbook, 2007
Korea, which was captured by Japan in World War II, was divided following the war into a Soviet north and American south. Despite being led by the USSR beginning in 1945, North Korea did not become a communist country until 1948.
5. Vietnam
Source: CIA World Factbook, 2007
Vietnam was partitioned at a 1954 conference that followed the First Indochina War. While the partition was supposed to be temporary, North Vietnam became communist and supported by the Soviet Union while South Vietnam was democratic and supported by the United States. Following two decades of war, the two parts of Vietnam were unified and in 1976, Vietnam as a unified country became a communist country.
Political Geography Resources
·Soviet Union
·Number of Countries
·Countries That No Longer Exist
30 Years After the Vietnam War: China Remains a Threat
Looking back at the fall of Saigon, a former general in the South Vietnamese Army says that the possibility of a free Vietnam is now threatened by China's imperial ambitions. That's bringing Vietnam and the United States closer together.
Commentary, Thi Q. Lam, Pacific News Service
Thi Q. Lam was a general in the Vietnamese Army, during the war
MILPITAS, Calif.-- April 14, 2005 - On the evening of April 29, 1975, I boarded one of the last navy ships leaving Saigon, while enemy missiles were landing on the northern outskirts of the city with deafening explosions. The next morning, as our ship was leaving Vietnam territorial waters, I looked back at the receding Vietnamese coastline and felt tears in my eyes.
My heart went out to my comrades-in-arms and fellow countrymen left behind. I also felt very pessimistic about the fate of our pro-Western neighbors, countries that, I thought, might fall like dominoes in face of seemingly unstoppable North Vietnamese Army divisions equipped with the latest Russian and Chinese weaponry.
Thirty years later, no dominoes have fallen. Instead, the Soviet Empire has collapsed and the very existence of Vietnam as a free country is being threatened by its former allied and historical enemy to the north. Although it doesn't publicly proclaim it, China -- as in the case of Taiwan -- historically has considered Vietnam a renegade southern province. They named it An Nam, or "the Pacified South."
China's killing of Vietnamese fishermen in the Vinh Bac Bo (Gulf of Tonkin) in January, in fact, has added to a consistent pattern of Chinese southern expansionism: conquest of the Paracel Islands in 1974; invasion of the northern provinces of Vietnam in 1979 and subsequent annexation of 8,000 square kilometers of borderland; occupation of the Spratley archipelagoes the same year and acquisition of 12,000 square kilometers of territorial waters in the Vinh Bac Bo conceded by Hanoi under the 2000 Vinh Bac Bo Pact.
Not content with forcing territorial concessions from Hanoi, China is also building up its naval force and setting up a string of naval bases along the sea lanes in the Eastern Sea to protect oil shipments from the Middle East. The Washington Times recently revealed that a previously undisclosed internal report prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld noted that "many Pentagon analysts believe China's military buildup is taking place faster than earlier estimates, and that China will use its power to project force and undermine U.S. and regional security."
It is not surprising that the United States and Japan have joined forces in the face of an emerging Chinese threat. In a demonstration of its willingness to confront China's rapidly growing might, Japan, in a joint agreement with the United States, declared last February that Taiwan is a mutual security concern. "It would be wrong for us to send a signal to China that the United States and Japan will watch and tolerate China's military invasion of Taiwan," says Shinzo Abe, the acting secretary general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and a likely successor to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Recent mass protests at the Japanese embassy in Beijing triggered by Japan's inability to admit in newly approved school textbooks its past war crimes further heightened tensions between the two emerging Asian rivals.
Concerns about Beijing's new aggressiveness have sparked new military re-alignments in the strategic Asia-Pacific region. Despite the Free World's professed commitment to "constructive engagement" with China, the post-World War II policy of "containment" remains a popular ploy in today's global, political chess game. Vietnam has thus regained its strategic value in U.S. eyes as a missing link in the containment scheme and a counterbalance to the even graver threat of Chinese expansionism.
Vietnam appears only too willing to accommodate. The recent port of calls of U.S. Navy vessels in Saigon and Danang, the Vietnamese Defense Minister's visit to the Pentagon in 2003 and the planned Washington trip by Prime Minister Phan Van Khai this summer signal a warm-up of military relations between the former foes.
But an effective and lasting strategic cooperation, such as NATO or the U.S.-Japan Alliance, requires that the partners share the same moral values and political ideology. In other words, only a free and democratic Vietnam, enjoying popular support and the support of the community of free nations can stand up to China's aggression and effectively contribute to regional security. In this regard, President Bush's commitment to spreading democracy to the "darkest corners of the world" should include Vietnam. That would benefit U.S. strategic interests and at the same time liberate 80 million Vietnamese from Communist oppression.
Thirty years almost to the day after I left Saigon, a young Vietnamese American came home on another boat, cruising upstream on the muddy and tortuous Saigon River. He was U.S. Lt-Cmdr. Quoc Bao Tran, and his ship was the U.S.S. Gary. The U.S. naval vessel was making a port call in the former capital city of South Vietnam.
Tran may feel he was a stranger in the country where he was born and which he fled when he was only a child, but, by a strange twist of fate, the future of Vietnam no doubt hinges on young Vietnamese-Americans like him. They are bringing a message of hope to a people longing for freedom.
Other Readings of Interest from the Archives
Political Dissidents Still Held By Communist Vietnam
American Daily Herald: Wednesday, 14 September 2011 06:00
Dennis Behreandt
Amidst the ongoing mainstream rehabilitation of Communist and supposedly former Communist nations (i.e., the media studiously avoids mention of the c-word), Communist countries continue to persecute political dissidents.
The most obvious case was the extrajudicial detention of artist and architect Ai Weiwei by Communist China. Arguably China’s most famous and accomplished artist, AI Weiwei has long been a critic of China’s government. Earlier this year, he was detained and held without trial by China’s Communist government proving to many that while China may have allowed liberalization of some parts of the economy, the country still operates a substantial police state apparatus.
Vietnam, another Communist nation now largely rehabilitated in the eyes of western media organs, also continues to detain dissidents and, according to one human rights organization, engages in torture of detainees.
In one egregious recent case, Truong Van Suong, a dissident held as a political prisoner for 30 years, died in prison on September 12. Speaking to London’s Guardian newspaper, Phil Robertson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch for Asia pointed out that Suong was very ill.
“By locking him up again in such terrible health, the government of Vietnam essentially condemned him to die alone, separated from family and friends,” Robertson said.
It is no surprise that Suong was imprisoned by the Communist country. As an opponent of Communist tyranny, Suong reportedly has a resume of long-time principled opposition. According to the Guardian, he “had been a soldier in the former South Vietnam” and after the war he was sent to a so-called “re-education” camp for several years. Fleeing tyranny, he escaped to Thailand “and joined an anti-communist group.” Upon returning to Vietnam, in 1983, he “was immediately arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment....”
Suong was not the only political dissident to perish in a Vietnamese prison this summer. The Guardian reported that dissident Nguyen Van Trai died in prison in July. Other critics of the Communist regime remain victims of its police state apparatus.
One of the most high-profile dissidents held by the Communist regime is Catholic priest Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly who has been imprisoned for 15 years.
Father Ly began criticizing the Communist regime in the 1970s and was first jailed as a result in 1977. He remained in jail, off and on, for several years. Recently, in 2006, Father Ly collaborated on what is called the Bloc 8406 manifesto that calls for multiparty elections and for respect for the inalienable rights of the Vietnamese people.
The Manifesto also points out that the Communists took power in the country through deception. According to the document [PDF]:
In the August 1945 Revolution, the entire Vietnamese nation made a choice for national independence and not socialism. Vietnam’s Declaration of Independence on September 2, 1945 did not contain a single word about socialism or communism. The two mainsprings behind the success of that Revolution were the Vietnamese people’s aspiration for national independence and also the desire to fill the power vacuum that existed after the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945, following their overthrow of the French colonial administration on March 9, 1945.
It is thus clear that the Vietnamese communists had abandoned the main objective of the August Revolution. As a result, the Vietnamese peoples’ aspiration for self-determination was disregarded. There have been two occasions, one in 1954 in North Vietnam and the other in 1975 in all of Vietnam, when there were good opportunities for the Vietnamese nation to set a new course towards a true democracy. Sadly, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), failed to take advantage of those opportunities. This failure is due to the well-known fact, as propounded by Lenin, that once a dictatorship of the proletariat has been installed, its very first function is to foster violence and repressive terror! [emphasis in original]
Those undersigned to the manifesto went on to call for fundamental change to the Vietnamese political system:
The highest objective in the struggle to fight for freedom and democracy for the Vietnamese nation today is to make sure that the present political regime in Vietnam is changed in a fundamental way, not through incremental “renovation” steps or, even worse, through insignificant touch-ups here and there. Concretely speaking, it must be a change from the monolithic, one-party, non-competitive regime that we have at the present time to a pluralistic and multiparty system; one in which there is healthy competition, in accordance with the legitimate requirements of the nation, including at least a clear separation of powers among the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of government. This would be in tune with international criteria and the experiences and lessons Mankind has learned from highly respected and successful democracies.
This is, if anything, a call for establishment of a republic fashioned on neo-Madisonian principles. Consequently, those supporting the manifesto would face increased scrutiny from the Communist internal security apparatus and, in the case of Father Ly, whose very religious affiliation is an affront to Communism everywhere, imprisonment as a political dissident.
As a result of his principled opposition to tyranny, in 2007 Father Thaddeus was sentenced to eight more years in prison for “very serious crimes that harmed national security.” According to the Catholic News Service, Father Ly bravely “refused to stand before the court and at one point yelled ‘Down with the Vietnamese Communist Party.’”
Today, Father Ly, now 65, has had three strokes and walks with a walker. He was released on medical parole in 2010 but was incarcerated once again in July, according to Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch condemned the imprisonment. “Father Ly was convicted solely for expressing peaceful political beliefs and he should never have been imprisoned in the first place,” Phil Robertson said. “We are concerned that his return to prison when he is so ill is putting his life at grave risk.”
If other findings from Human Rights Watch are correct, and there is no reason to doubt them, then the concern is well founded.
In a new report, “The Rehab Archipelago: Forced Labor and Other Abuses in Drug Detention Centers in Southern Vietnam,” torture and abuse is rampant in Vietnamese prisons.
According to the report, “Drug detention centers form part of a broad system of detention centers for administrative violations in Vietnam.” Describing the findings of the report, Human Rights Watch noted: “People detained by the police in Vietnam for using drugs are held without due process for years, forced to work for little or no pay, and suffer torture and physical violence....”
Given the conditions and abuse victims held in drug detention centers in the country experience, it is reasonable to wonder how much worse political prisoners like Father Ly and others are treated.
Morally, this raises severe questions for Americans as the country has done increasing amounts of business with Vietnam (and China, of course) over the last 15 years. Currently, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States imports more than $1 billion in goods from Vietnam each month.
While each individual American citizen and each American company should be free to trade with any other party as they may wish, morally, that trade supports a corrupt police state that imprisons dissidents like Father Ly should, it seems, be reconsidered.
Monk evicted from pagoda
The Phnom Penh Post: Monday, 12 September 2011 15:02
May Titthara
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Photo by: Heng Chivoanto (see his picture please click on the titleof this article)
Venerable Luon Sovath speaks to reporters at Ounalom pagoda in Phnom Penh before removing his personal belongings from his room. The activist monk has been banned from pagodas.
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(Comments: the Lotus Revolution advocates under Ou Chal’s command, should read this article very carefully and start to ask themselves a few question as to their project and realities of the situation in Cambodia.
This article has the great merit and distinction to show that there is already a kind of Lotus Revolution, which is already taking place in Cambodia, under the leadership of the Reverend Loun Sovath, and is going the right way and using the right strategy and approach based on NON-VIOLENCE philosophy, which is to directly challenge the Hun Sen’s corrupt and oppressive regime, not from Paris, but in Cambodia.
The Reverend Loun Sovath has the courage and the leadership quality, to come out openly to cr3eate this popular movement to protect the Cambodian poor from Hun Sen’s oppression and its efforts to evict those poor people from land and habitation from the Boeung Kak area.
Please, notice that the Reverend Loun Savath did not raise the Vietnamese issue as Ou Chal ‘s group had done. The Reverend Loun Savath is addressing the right issue and going in the right direction. He has defined his role and his duty, as follows:
“He summed up the motivation for his advocacy on behalf of impoverished communities involved in land disputes with well-connected companies and individuals as the returning of a favour. “I am a monk. I receive food from villagers to eat. So if they have a problem, I have to help them by blessing them and thanking them.”
The Reverend Loun Savath deserves all our support and respect. And the Lotus revolution should be humble and acknowledge that their Lotus Revolution is not conceived the right way nor moving in the right direction. They should be addressing the internal problem of how to challenge Hun Sen/Sihanouk dictatorial regime first, and not the Vietnamese colonialism first, in order to provide a better chance for the Cambodian people to successfully tackle the Cambodia’s deadly and complex problems. Naranhkiri Tith Ph.D. Washington DC. September 12, 2011)
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A group of residents facing eviction from the Boeung Kak area yesterday turned out to support the monk who has shaken Cambodia’s Buddhist hierarchy by his peaceful advocacy on their behalf.
About 20 residents of the area helped Venerable Loun Sovath remove his personal belongings from Ounalom pagoda yesterday morning, following an order from Supreme Patriarch Non Nget that he do so.
The latest order followed one in April that banned the 32-year-old rural monk from all pagodas in the capital.
Boeung Kak representative Kong Chantha, 44, said it was an injustice that Loun Savath had been banned.
“Only in Pol Pot’s regime did they force monks from pagodas. Now it seems the Pol Pot regime has come back,” Kong Chantha said.
“Not only are villagers forcibly evicted, they forcibly evicting a monk from the pagoda. Where is the justice in Cambodia?”
Venerable Sinton Lee, a monk from Long Beach, California, said Loun Sovath had not broken any Buddhist laws. “I will file a complaint to all embassies in Phnom Penh to find justice for him,” he said.
Loun Sovath said the order from Supreme Patriarch Non Nget violated his rights as a monk because all monks were allowed to stay in the pagoda, which belongs to the Cambodian people.
“I have to leave the pagoda, otherwise some monks and students will be evicted.”
Photo by: Heng Chivoan
Venerable Luon Sovath speaks to reporters while cleaning out his room at Phnom Penh’s Wat Ounalom pagoda yesterday.
He summed up the motivation for his advocacy on behalf of impoverished communities involved in land disputes with well-connected companies and individuals as the returning of a favour. “I am a monk. I receive food from villagers to eat. So if they have a problem, I have to help them by blessing them and thanking them.”
Am Sam Ath, an investigator with rights group Licadho, said all people had the right to freedom of speech, regardless of their religion.
“What the authorities did is send a message to other monks not to follow Loun Sovath’s steps. Otherwise, they will be forcibly evicted from the pagoda as well,” he said.
Loun Sovath had been told that if he did not remove his personal belongings from a room inside the pagoda, the nine university students from villages who lived in the house for free would be forced to leave.
Venerable Non Nget could not be reached for comment by the Post yesterday.